On December 30, in the sleepy days of the Australian summer between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the country’s Trade Union Royal Commission (TURC) released its final report.

The otherwise technocratic document opened with an odd epigraph: an excerpt from Rudyard Kipling’s “Dane-Geld,” which exhorts civilized nations to stand firm against Viking raiders demanding tribute in return for not carrying out violent raids.

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation

To call upon a neighbour and to say:-

“We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,

Unless you pay us cash to go away.”

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,

And the people who ask it explain

That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld

And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

 . . . 

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;

But we’ve proved it again and again,

That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld

You never get rid of the Dane.