As a rule, I find elections exciting. Yes, I know this makes me seem terribly geeky, but hey – Antony Green is a cult hero. At least I hope he is, because otherwise the shrine in the corner of my lounge room might seem a little freaky.
But this election has been like watching paint dry, if the paint had been advised by head office to defer drying until 2013 for fear of frightening Western Sydney. The debate last Sunday was so dull and formulaic that I was left hoping Tony Abbott would repeat his move from his 2007 Press Club contest with Nicola Roxon, and just start randomly swearing.
When it comes to providing detail on precisely what she would do with three years in charge of Australia, our new Prime Minister is moving forward at an absolutely glacial pace.
Kevin Rudd was accused of having a limited agenda ahead of the last election, but his campaign was positively Whitlamesque compared to Julia Gillard. She’s set to break almost no promises if she remains Prime Minister, simply because she will hardly have made any. Other than her vow to give Kevin Rudd a front-bench position, which she now claims to be “excited” about – which beggars belief, because surely nobody could be eager to spend more time with Kevin Rudd – there’s almost nothing she couldn’t deliver by the end of her first week.
There are times when, despite myself, I feel truly sorry for politicians. And I had one of those moments last night watching Tony Abbott valiantly enduring Hey Hey It’s Saturday. I loved the show as a kid, when it was, ahem, actually broadcast on Saturdays, but now it’s like watching one of those reanimated corpses in Zombieland sluggishly stumbling around. And the show could certainly use more brains.
Hell hath no fury like a Queenslander scorned. And even though Kevin Rudd no doubt thinks Wally is a frequently lost children’s book character instead of a league hero, that doesn’t mean his fellow Sunshine Staters like seeing one of their own stabbed in the back – and by those dastardly Southerners, what’s more.
Since I am, of course, wonderfully in touch with my feelings (and since they asked!) I recently wrote an article for SundayLife about male cluckiness. In particular, my increasing suspicion that parenthood might be rather a pleasant addition to my life. In the end they had to cut it down a bit, so here is the full version, complete with additional research and, most importantly, jokes.
There’s no denying that Monday morning was a bad day for the Socceroos. Not a NSW Blues, 34-6-to-seal-your-fifth-series-defeat-in-a-row kind of bad day, mind you. But getting beaten 4-0 by Germany hurt, especially for those of us watching it outdoors at Darling Harbour, where the chill coming off the water at 6am was almost as bitter as our mood.
But as the week went on, and we watched more of the World Cup, the disappointment at getting comprehensively beaten by the most successful European team in the history of the competition had somehow turned to fury. How could we have lost like this, the nation asked itself. Aren’t we the land of surprisingly high Olympic medal tallies? Of Don Bradman and of Phar Lap? Aren’t we the li’l nation that could?
Confused by the 32 teams squaring off in South Africa? My guide may not help, but hey – it has jokes. For more on the FIFA World Cup, check out World Cup Safari – my podcast for triple j with Vijay Khurana.
After its comprehensive defeat in 2007, Abbott talked about the Coalition needing a period of soul-searching in the wilderness while it redefined itself. But the Brendan Nelson era, apparently, was wilderness enough even for a man who managed to literally disappear in the desert for six hours earlier this year. So, he’s abandoned the whole “let’s reinvent ourselves” thing, and now seems to be basing his election campaign around the yearning for the glory days of the Howard Government that lingers within his own manly breast, if not anyone else’s.
If anyone reading this has been fancying their chances of being named Young Australian of the Year next Australia Day, I’d brace yourself for disappointment unless your name is J. Watson. Because after sailing around the world at the age of 16, Our Jess, or Ella Bache’s Jess, or One HD In Conjunction With News Limited’s Jess depending on your understanding of the pertinent sponsorship arrangements, is a certainty. She’s like Kay Cottee and Hayley Lewis wrapped into one teenaged bundle of all-Australian awesomeness, with a heart bigger than Phar Lap’s, at least metaphorically.
As I write this, one of Bangkok’s most exclusive shopping centres is burning. Even though CentralWorld was but a shiny building, albeit a massive shiny building with a hotel and apartment complex to boot, I’ve been somewhat misty-eyed remembering the good times I had there, and picturing its capacious atria reduced to smoking rubble.
