We Australians will always have many reasons to be thankful to the late and great Honourable Tim Fischer, a man who loved to joke, but knew when to be serious.
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I will always have two extra reasons to be thankful to our former deputy prime minister; attending seminars and writing this opinion column.
I never liked work seminars and conferences that went for days. I've gone AWOL from them, and I don't think I'm Robinson Crusoe.
It's been said that some people love attending lengthy work conferences, but only if they're paid to attend, or, paradoxically, they either don't like their job and/or aren't that great at it.
When you did a work course in the old days, at the end, you used to get a grade of either "pass" or "fail" and "fail" meant you had to do the whole course again.
But this was deemed too confronting by some employees and so now many businesses have decided to name your grade on a course as being either "Competent" or "Not Yet Competent". The Not Yet Competent stay behind 20 minutes longer with the teacher who tells them the answers to the final exam with decreasing subtlety until these incomps guess the answers.
I shouldn't throw stones. I've been to NYC myself a few times over the years and I don't mean New York City.
But aren't conferences themselves almost an open acknowledgement by your employer of defeat?
It's almost as if your employer is saying: "Look, we know you guys don't think this is important, and you're all too lazy to study this stuff, which means you'll all fail any exam we give you, which means we'll look bad, so let's have a seminar and get someone in who can pretend they know what they're talking about."
Conferences and seminars: where the only assessment you have to pass is "attendance".
But why attend?
Unless your doctor has you on a strict diet of "salad sandwiches and sausage rolls only" it can't be the food.
The chance to meet new people? People socialise at seminars with those they socialise with anyway.
So why are so many companies still putting on lengthy expensive conferences?
Well, I've been musing it's that seemingly irrelevant questionnaire you quickly fill out at the end.
The conference is over, so everybody's in a good mood, and feel sorry for this poor person travelling around giving this boring seminar, so without reading the questions you just tick all the positive boxes including, "I would recommend this seminar/conference to others in my field".
Like thousands of fools before, you tick "strongly agree" and thus justify and pass on this plague to others.
Of course, all this changed for me a few years ago when I attended a conference Tim Fischer spoke at.
What a great man! Here was the man who played a key role in the Australian gun control of automatic and semi-automatic weapons after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 by standing strong against many of us here in rural Australia who did not want our gun use and perceived freedom restricted.
Perhaps some of us therefore owe him our very lives.
He was a prophet when it came to the dangers of rising independent political parties and he is currently perhaps Australia's most well-known railway enthusiast - a solution to many environmental and economic problems.
At this conference Tim Fischer spoke at, he encouraged us to get involved in our local community, get to know people, get among them, even write into your local newspaper so people know who you are.
He was a prophet when it came to the dangers of rising independent political parties and he is perhaps Australia's most well-known railway enthusiast - a solution to many environmental and economic problems.
I shook his hand after his seminar talk. Could Tim Fischer have converted me to seminars?
I told him I used to write weekly newspaper articles, but I just got criticised all the time.
He suggested I start again. I gave him my excuses for why I couldn't. He gave me his sage advice as to how I could.
Rest in peace Tim Fischer, for you have brought so much peace to Australia.
