Kiernan, who lost his battle with cancer this week, would no doubt love to be represented by one of Sydney’s favourite boats sliding around on the waters where he started and ended his life. 

But a gummnt knew better. So last year, first Ferry McFerryface, then May Gibbs, were chosen by the NSW Transport Minister to adorn the vessel.

And today, fitting it was for the Prime Minister to lead the tributes after Kiernan died.

But: sadly the very same Prime Minister used it as an opportunity to minimise governments’ role in reducing environmental pollution.

“The thing that I think Ian did more than anything else was tap us all on the shoulder and say, ‘hey, we've got to take care of this – this is our responsibility to do this, it's not the government’s, it’s ours, as Australians’,” said the PM.

Using the occasion of the death of a great Australian to push a political view that reducing our enormous litter and pollution problem is not the job of companies who produce plastics, and it’s not the job of governments to legislate? And instead it’s the job of individuals to pick up someone else’s rubbish?

A bit cynical, if you ask me. And it’s a misrepresentation.

Kiernan didn’t believe it wasn’t up to governments. In fact, he wanted Clean Up Australia Day to challenge to governments to do more, using refuse collected as the irrefutable proof there’s a problem.

“We need to continue to challenge our governments to implement effective waste management and recycling programs to reduce the amount of wasted resource that ends up in our precious environment,” he said in April this year.

So, not so fast ScoMo. Learn the lesson from this great Australian and do whatever you can about environmental polution. If you’re in a gummnt, then do it from there.

Enough of that. Let’s sign Kiernan off with the words of broadcaster Philip Adams, who called him “The Greatest Garbo since Greta”.