Feeling broody

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.

I’m living the dream. At 33, I have practically no responsibilities, and a fun job that supports my need for overseas holidays and shiny gadgets. Working as a writer, I can stay up late and generally have no reason to emerge from bed before mid-morning. It's a pretty nice life, except for the minor point that the dream I happen to be living bears a striking resemblance to the one I had as a twelve-year-old boy.

And yet, as pleasantly uncomplicated as my life is, I can't quite shake the sense that there should be something more. Something like a baby, perhaps. I haven't made much progress with finding a prospective mother or anything concrete like that, but I'm fairly confident that it's time for fatherhood. So, while my lifestyle is certainly enjoyable, I’m increasingly certain that I’d happily trade it for a kicking, screaming bundle of joy. Well, I don't know that I'd trade my iPad – but everything else, certainly.

Even the thought of having to get up at the crack of dawn and change a filthy nappy doesn’t put me off the whole thing, the way it used to. Not when I picture myself dandling my son indulgently on my knee, or fondly wiping the drool off my daughter’s face. I imagine myself dispensing helpful advice that they’ll ignore, or making somewhat erroneous claims about how the world works, or kicking a ball around in a backyard I’ve yet to acquire.

I remember how much my parents meant to me as a child. When I was a boy, I was so excited about seeing my dad when he arrived home from an extended work trip that I used to make Welcome Home signs, and hang them up around the house. But now, I rather like the idea of somebody making a cutely misspelt Welcome Home sign for me. Because as I've found, making them for yourself isn't quite the same.

I used to be comfortable with the idea that all this would happen in the distant future, because childrearing seemed to involve so much compromise. Our society views bachelorhood as a desirable, glamorous state, like Mr Big’s life in those blissful moments when he doesn’t have to put up with Carrie Bradshaw. I didn’t want to give up my capacity to drop everything and head to Vegas for a night on the tiles, like a character from Swingers. But now I’ve come to realise not only that I never did much partying, but that having a family would probably be a significant trade-up on my current social life.

But here's the thing – as Sathnam Sanghera wrote in The Times when articulating his own desire for fatherhood, “single, straight, 33-year-old men aren’t allowed to confess to broodiness.” The stereotype is that women are the clucky ones who entrap us free-spirited men into settling down, and that we spend the whole time staring wistfully out the window, wishing we were at the pub with our mates.

The thirty-something childless woman who is racing against her biological clock has become a cliché in popular culture thanks to movies like The Back-Up Plan, in which Jennifer Lopez gives up and undergoes artificial insemination, but meets the man of her dreams the same day. (Oh, the irony!) The male norm, by contrast, is Seth Rogen’s character in Knocked Up, who has to be dragged kicking and screaming into responsibility. A male character who shared the same worry would seem absurd, especially in Hollywood, where every second pram is being pushed by a septuagenarian.

Sanghera notes that single men expressing an interest in young children is something of a taboo in our society, because of our heightened consciousness of paedophilia. As a result, we single men have to tread extremely carefully around children, lest we be suspected of having problems that run rather deeper than bad luck in finding a partner.

While the image of the irresponsible man who's not ready for fatherhood is pervasive, a study by the women’s NGO Catalyst (quoted in USA Today) found that the men of Generation X are less willing to compromise having families for career goals than their forefathers. According the researcher Paulette Gerkovitch, 79% of men born between 1964 and 1975 rated having a family as very important, while only 25% rated workplace success as highly. USA Today also noted several famous examples of men in this demographic who decided to leave women who weren’t ready for childbearing, such as Brad Pitt and Benjamin Bratt. After leaving Jennifer Aniston and Julia Roberts, both men quickly became fathers.

This sense of broodiness is particularly difficult given the absolute avalanche of babies that have recently arrived in my life. Somewhat counterintuitively, my peer group has chosen to greet the financial uncertainty of last year’s global economic crisis by taking on the vast additional cost of parenting. Since August last year, there have been more than twenty arrivals in my broader group of friends, to the point where the new mothers having been gathering weekly in a park to enjoy hanging out during their maternity leave. The new parents of this tiny army include my old school friends, close colleagues and my brother – my younger brother.

The parents are in the majority now. Every time I open Facebook, I’m inundated by a flood of some friend’s baby pics, and where I used to think they resembled alien autopsy photos, now I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I find every single one adorable. And while of course I’m delighted to greet each new arrival individually, and will happily bowl up to the hospital clutching the requisite stuffed toy, taken together they’ve produced a level of peer pressure I haven’t experienced since the heyday of the Hypercolour t-shirt.

I did try to fight it, this baby urge. Shortly after turning 30, I acquired a group of friends in their mid-20s, but now they've all settled down. I even joined 751,873 other people in a Facebook group called "Everyone I know is getting married or pregnant, I'm just getting drunk". But I left almost immediately because – who’d have thought – it was all a bit shallow.

So now I’m on the verge of middle-age, at that scary point where if I don’t take a Contiki 18-35 tour soon, I’ll never be allowed to. And I’m already convinced that I can’t beat the parents, it’s just that I can’t quite see a way to join them yet. And it’s not like they let single fathers adopt.

It's not just my mates who’ve been undergoing a baby boom, though. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures from November last year show that in 2008, the country hit a 38-year high in its birth rate, with 296,000 registered. The stats for 2009 aren't available yet, but anecdotally, it's shot up even higher. I just hope the Government has gotten its modelling right, and the Australian economy won't be bankrupted by the baby bonus.

The ABS stats were somewhat reassuring – they gave the median age of the fathers at 33.1, with mothers at 30.7. So if I get a wriggle on (if that phrase isn't too graphic), I won’t even be that much of a statistical outrider. I'm more motivated than ever, since I discovered one study which found that childless men had lower life expectancies and higher rates of addiction.

As I’ve spent time with some of the newborns I now know, I’ve come to realise that we’re programmed to find babies fascinating, even though by any objective measure (such as those I used to apply before my cluckiness set in), they do little besides feeding, making loud noises and interrupting your sleep. To look at them rationally, they’re milk-powered vuvuzelas with an overactive bowel.

But now, when I hold a baby, and especially one who belongs to parents who mean a lot to me, I find myself taking an interest in the kid's happiness, even given my complete inability to influence it. I'm ashamed to say that I even caught myself lecturing one new father about not letting his child sleep when he was clearly exhausted – which was totally ridiculous of me, since my current level of baby expertise revolves around hoping I won't drop them.

While wrestling with a particularly acute case of parenthood pangs recently, I rather naively posted on Facebook that I wished there was some kind of timeshare scheme for being a dad, where you could spend quality time with babies without completely nuking your lifestyle. One single dad I know rather tartly observed that such schemes existed, in many cases by court order. And I was inundated with messages from parents saying that they'd be grateful of any way of getting rid of their offspring, for any period between a couple of hours and permanently. All of which quelled my enthusiasm somewhat.

But the pangs never entirely go away, particularly when I spend time with a baby. I'm sure it'll happen for me eventually, and I'm certainly fortunate that my fertility has a slower rate of decline than it does for women in their thirties. But until guys like me get our acts together, we'd appreciate it if society acknowledged that not all single blokes view the prospect of parenthood as an unwelcome incursion into their precious footy-watching time.

Why the Socceroos are not Soccerooted

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?

No. Not in football, or at least association football. While we have a tally of Rugby League World Cups that seems impressive until you remember that NSW and Queensland are the only places in the world where it's the dominant code, our FIFA World Cup record is worth recalling. 6 losses (all three games in 1974, then Brazil and Italy last time and Germany this time), 1 draw (Croatia, last time, to reach the second round), and 1 win (Japan, 3-1 – and even that took a remarkable comeback).

Now, let's compare that to Germany's record. Three World Cups. Runners-up in 2002 and third place in 2006 – not to mention losing the Euro 2008 final to Spain as well. Not only did they last lose an opening Cup match in 1982, their most successful player, Miroslav Klose, has now scored eleven goals in two-and-a-bit tournaments –more than our entire team has over the same period. To expect anything less than defeat was, with all due respect to the Socceroos, absurdly optimistic.

To put it in terms that will be clearer to most Aussies, it's like expecting the Netherlands to beat Australia at the Cricket World Cup. Not impossible, by any means, but certainly very unlikely. And yet we've been reacting as though this result was a national disaster along the lines of last year's Ashes loss. Are we really so attached to our self-image as battlers who punch above our weight, as a nation of plucky Lleyton-alikes, that it has made us downright irrational?

It wasn't the defeat, Craig Foster said – it was the manner of the defeat. Well, admittedly, there are questions to be asked. I was baffled by Pim Verbeek's decision to take on a powerhouse team with, as our lone striker, Richard Garcia. If you hadn't heard of him before, you could be forgiven – he's a fringe player at recently-relegated Hull City who is, ahem, a winger.

But after picking an extremely similar lineup in all of our qualifiers and friendlies, Pim Verbeek wasn't necessarily unwise to try and surprise Germany. And we had a great first 10 minutes – we could well have scored the opening goal. Then we could have thrown all those midfielders and defenders behind the ball, and tried to keep Germany out. It mightn't have worked, and it certainly didn't comply with the Socceroos' treasured self-perception as a team that never says die. But it might well have earned a draw, had Germany not been in quite such sparkling form.

In particular, not bringing on Harry Kewell while losing 2-0 with ten men seems to me rather wise. After all, his groin's more suspect than Warwick Capper's was.

Furthermore, prioritising defence and trying to score on the counterattack is a valid strategy in football – it won Inter Milan the Champions League recently. And playing defensively against formidable opponents has already won North Korea respect in South Africa – they held the world's top-ranked team in the world, Brazil, to 2-1, and without resorting to a single torpedo.

It's good to mention Brazil, actually. As a nation, we seem to have forgotten that in Germany, they beat us 2-0. Sure, that's not 4-0, but it had the same impact on our tournament: it cost us three points. The Socceroos have drawn two of the strongest teams in World Cup history in its 2006 and 2010 groups. And that counts as unlucky even compared to Tim Cahill's red card.

And that's why I don't quite get the doom and gloom. We still have two matches, and a solid chance to make the second round. We're ranked higher than Ghana (20th v 32nd) so on paper at least, we should beat them – especially since they're missing their best player, Michael Essien. And Serbia are a tough challenge, certainly, but not an insurmountable one.
But on Monday morning, with its unrealistically high hopes dashed, it was as though Australia was angrily telling the football community – hey, nobody told us there'd be days like this.

Well, get used to it – all football fans have had to. In April, I woke at an unfeasibly early time in the morning to watch my team, Arsenal, take on Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-final. We were lucky enough to get the first goal away from home, and I was on tenterhooks. But then a player called Lionel Messi, who is broadly agreed to be the best in the world and has certainly been behaving like it in Argentina's group games, put four goals past us. It's worth watching – an absolute masterclass:

For us, of course, it was heartbreaking. But you get up, dust yourself off, and get on with the next game. Because that's football – a game where it can be incredibly hard to score or ridiculously easy, and where the paucity of goals means that any given one can mean everything. More than any other sport, the inherent drama of the scoring system provides more moments of agony and ecstasy than the career of Andrew Johns, and I reckon that's why it's the most popular game in the world

If we Aussies are going to follow football, then, we'd do well to develop some perspective. There will be far more heartbreaking losses ahead of us than getting beaten by the form team of the tournament. There will be days, like the one against Iran back in 1997, where glory somehow inexplicably eludes us. But, especially since we now have quite a strong team, there will also be days of triumph. Let's hope we have them against Ghana and Serbia. But please, let's stop beating ourselves up because we didn't have one against as good a team as Germany.

For more attempts to sound like I know something about football, check out the World Cup Safari podcast I'm doing with triple j's Vijay Khurana

World Cup 2010: the team guide

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.

GROUP A

France

Their experience makes them very good at handling pressure. Also, the ball. Last time around, Les Bleus had a slow start but made the final despite wacky coach Raymond Domenech, who's inexplicably still there. Many of the same players have returned, so they can't be ruled out - even though they would be, were there any justice, after the way they beat Ireland.

Mexico

Middle-of-the-pack Mexico are good on their day, but their day seems not to come around very often - and beating the USA twice in qualifying probably used up their luck. A good chance to make the second round and then go no further.

South Africa

If South Korea could get to the semi-finals when they hosted the Cup, then South Africa... still probably won't. Might win a game if the fans blow their vuvuzuelas particularly deafeningly, but unlikely to make it out of the group. Their chances won't have been helped by losing experienced striker Benni McCarthy for being fat/entertaining ladies in the team hotel, depending on which report you believe.

Uruguay

Yes, they've won two World Cups, but as Barnesy once sang, baby that was years ago. There's a reason they kept having to play Australia to qualify - they're not a great team. Diego Forlan's striking prowess could get them to the second round, though.

GROUP B

Argentina

They have Messi, who's a genius, but are coached by Maradona, who's a maniac. So they'll fare somewhere between failing to get out of the group, having only narrowly qualified in the first place, and winning the whole thing thanks to the sublime skills of the best player in the world.

Greece

This very defensive unit will probably make the second round, but probably won't get much further - after all, this is only their second appearance at a World Cup. Still, if they win a game it'll boost the whole nation, and goodness knows they need it.

South Korea

Let's just say they won't make the semi-finals like they did in 2002, but they have a few decent players, chief among them Man United's Park Ji-Sung. Let's just hope they get through the tournament without being targeted by the North Korean military.

Nigeria

Yet another team to lose their most prominent player - Mikel John-Obi - to an unfortunate pre-tournament injury, and having only appointed their coach in February, they're unlikely to make a huge impression. Apparently Osaze Odemwingie's pretty good - at least his name certainly is.

GROUP C

Algeria

Oh look, Algeria made the World Cup! Aren't they the team that once had Albert Camus in goal? As a tribute to him, they'll be rank Outsiders at this tournament.

England

Likely winners - if you believe the English press. If not, a one-man team, but what a man - Wayne Rooney's been in hot form, and could excite until he's inevitably red-carded for swearing.

Slovenia

See Slovakia.

USA

Annoyingly, as the Socceroos found out in their final pre-tournament friendly, the Americans are better than they've any right to be. Not that anyone at home will care.

GROUP D

Australia

The Socceroos are dead certs. Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi! No? Um, look - we've still got most of the team from 2006, and they were unlucky to lose to eventual winners Italy in the second round. Tough group, but if our best players stay fit, we have a good chance of making the round of 16.

Germany

Solid and dependable as a Mercedes-branded racial stereotype, Germany's always a chance of taking out a World Cup, despite having a younger and more inconsistent team than usual. Their strikers have been a bit rubbish in the domestic season, although Klose is the second-highest World Cup goalscorer of all time. They'll be lucky to improve on coming third in 2006.

Ghana

Unlucky to have lost Michael Essien, but the Black Stars won't give anyone an easy game. Australia's best chance of a victory, though - they're ranked 32nd, and we're ranked 20th. Yes, 20th. Pretty good, huh?

Serbia

Serbia - or as they're of course known in their homeland Фудбалска репрезентација Србије, won't give anyone an easy game either. In fact, you'd have to say that they're a little stronger than Australia on paper, actually. And they're ranked 15th. Whatever - we've got Harry Kewell.

GROUP E

Cameroon

Striker Samuel Eto'o - or as he's known in Ireland, Samuel O'Eto'o - is a superstar, but the Indomitable Lions are likely to prove fairly domitable in the end. All the teams in this group have the potential to make the second round, but even if Cameroon did, they're unlikely to become the breakthrough African team everyone's hoping for.

Japan

Probably won't make it out of the so-called Group of Death, but Japan may slay another team or two - although only for research purposes. The Blue Samurai have not only the coolest nickname in world football, but enough quality to give a few teams a scare.

Denmark

A typical Scandinavian team - lots of decent players, few genuine stars. Quarter-finals feels about right - if they make it out of the so-called 'Group Of Death'

Netherlands

The "Oranje" are known for their lurid orange jerseys, luscious passing game and tendency to let their fans down once they get to the knockout stages.

GROUP F

Italy

Cheats. Cheats, cheats, cheats, cheats, cheats, cheats, cheats. And no, I'm still not over that dodgy penalty in the dying seconds against us in Kaiserslautern. The Italians are always a force, though, and might win this time as well. By cheating.

New Zealand

They say they're happy just to be there, but I disagree. I reckon they're hippy just to be there.

Paraguay

A troublesome team who tend to qualify for the second round and then go missing. Highly likely to do at least the former this time around too. Also what Uruguay are known as when they've had too much to drink.

Slovakia

See Slovenia.

GROUP G

Brazil

Forget all the samba-soccer, beautiful-game Nike marketing bollocks. They've won 5 World Cups because of solid teamwork and robust defence as well as individual genius. I'm willing to bet this'll be #6, especially if Kaka isn't lying about having found form recently. And that's why they play with a smile on their face - because they're bloody good at it.

Ivory Coast

With the core of their team in the top European leagues, they're probably Africa's best hope. Having watched Didier Drogba regularly destroy my team, Arsenal, makes me not want to rule out his team, at least if he recovers in time.

North Korea

They're hungry in front of goal... and everywhere else. Virtually no chance of qualifying from such a tough group, but at least the players have been given the chance to leave North Korea. Likely to lose all three games, and at least three players due to defection.

Portugal

Cristiano Ronaldo - that's all you need to know. At least according to Cristiano Ronaldo, anyway. Losing Nani won't have helped their slight lack of depth, and while they're likely to finish runners-up in the group, they're unlikely to make it beyond the quarters unless one of the world's finest players does something special.

GROUP H

Chile

The young line-up do not act like a country that has been missing from the finals for 12 years. Okay, look, I just nicked that bit out of The Guardian's preview. They've been hailed by some experts (including, um those of The Guardian) as a surprise package, but my relatively uninformed view is that they'll be lucky to get out of the group ahead of Switzerland.

Honduras

Nup. I'm sorry, I know that's disrespectful, but there are 32 teams and I can't be expected to research them all, can I? So - nup. Oh, all right. Beat Mexico 3-1 in qualifiers so are actually half-decent. But only half.

Spain

Favorites - but the Spaniards generally underperform at World Cups. But they're European champions. But, I dunno, they're still Spain. Incredible quality - Torres, Villa, Xavi, Iniesta, and a bunch of other exotic-sounding names - means they'll be great to watch, and they've definitely got the quality to go all the way. And yet...

Switzerland

Very accurately timed passes. Sorry, that was a terrible clock-based gag. These guys punch above their weight for such a small country, but they don't have the quality to make the quarters.

Stop the boats, I wanna get off

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.

And so, with the exception of the bizarrely progressive stance on parental leave which has so divided his party room, all of Tony Abbott’s policies are all just a little bit of history repeating. And I mean ‘repeating’ in the sense of a meal that makes an unpleasant, involuntary return to your throat.

Abbott isn't John Howard, though, he ventures to stress. And this is true, although only because that's impossible under the physical laws of the universe as they’re presently understood.

The electorate could be forgiven for thinking the Opposition Leader represented the resurrection of the Grey Giant of Wollstonecraft, because whenever he comes out to tell us about his exciting new policy directions, he ends up sounding like this period in Opposition is just a long nightmare from which we're all desperate to awaken to find that Janette Howard is still holding tea-parties in Kirribilli House.

Take his position on industrial relations, for example. We can’t go back to WorkChoices, he says. Well, no; but only because the brand is tainted. But his reformist zeal to smash unfair dismissal remains, notwithstanding that the laws aren't ever used except in circumstances that are, well, "unfair". To Abbott, the workforce remains a rabble crying out for the Liberal lash, and even though the global financial crisis made the vast majority of the electorate put a premium on job security, he’s determined to keep proposing reforms that virtually nobody appears to want.

Last week, the man who would be Prime Minister strode forth to reclaim the ground that won the 2001 election so convincingly. The boats are back, in his view because the dastardly people-smugglers of Indonesia view Kevin Rudd as a soft touch. But Tough Tony will turn the boats around, and I won’t be the least bit surprised if, during the campaign, he dons the Speedos and swims out into the Pacific to grab the tiller of a leaky asylum boat.

Ironically, Kevin Rudd ran this exact line before the last election. Way back before we realised that his promises meant approximately nothing, he promised to turn the boats back. But it turns out asylum seeker policy’s just a little more complicated than slogans. As the Minister responsible, Chris Evans, pointed out, dealing with the problem is a little more complicated than sloganeering and posturing. Boats get blown up, endangering military personnel, not to mention the asylum-seekers. Would Abbott, for instance, really be so heartless as to turn a sinking boat back?

And really, how can you possibly keep out people so desperate that they’ll clamber aboard leaky boats and pay their life savings to charlatans? The US Government hasn’t managed to get rid of the Cuban rafters, or the Mexican border crossers, so how can we staunch the flow of equally desperate people? They're not exactly boarding Fairstar The Funship, and it's naive to think they pay any attention to the vicissitudes of Canberra politics before they make their last-ditch bid for a better life.

For someone who’s always happy to bang on about family values, Abbott is very light on the notion that even the darkies on the boats are part of God’s great big family of creation. And what’s constantly forgotten in this debate is why people go to all this effort to come to Australia. It’s not because they desperately want our jobs, really dig beaches or the chance of appearing on MasterChef. It’s because they’re worried about being killed, or physically harmed if they stay in their own countries – which is, funnily enough, the UN’s definition of a refugee.

You might remember the irony that resulted from the biggest refugee crisis of the Rudd Government – the Oceanic Viking incident. How many of the 78 Tamils we spent all those weeks fussing about were ultimately determined by the UNHCR to be genuine refugees? All. That’s right, all.

Sure, they jumped the queue. Sure, we don’t want to encourage the practice to the point where we’re inundated by a constant flotilla of boats – not least because it’s dangerous for the asylum-seekers. But please, please, can’t the electorate – because after all, it’s our collective fault that this grotesque dog-whistle politics works – find a little empathy for people who are escaping war zones? Surely a nation of ex-convicts might believe in the possibility of redemption?

Well, we know the answer to that. There are no votes in appealing to Australia's kind-heartedness, even though nearly all of us or our ancestors came here, by boat or plane, in the hope of a better life. Perhaps if we asked potential refugees to showcase their cooking skills on television in front of a panel of three eccentric judges, we might take an interest. The best could be deemed MasterRefos, and given not only permanent residency, but a chance to release their own cookbook.

But unless we do something like that which lets us actually meet these people are and discover why they want to escape their countries to live here, the majority of Australians can be expected to simply hope that they go away. And our leaders will keep promising to make that happen.

Have we gone overboard for Jessica Watson?

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.

Watson returned in triumph on Saturday after sailing 23,000 nautical miles. But of course you already know that, unless you're lucky enough to have just returned from a protracted sea voyage yourself. Her arrival was covered live on all three commercial channels, and dominated the weekend's newspapers, both in print and online. Thousands of people came out to welcome her, along with the Premier and Prime Minister – and even after 210 days at sea, she could have been forgiven if she'd chosen to turn the boat around rather than endure a welcome speech from Kevin Rudd.

The presence of the PM and Kristina Keneally at the Watson Welcome did seem somewhat tacky, as though they were hoping that some of her immense popularity would sprinkle some fairy-dust on their election chances. And it's not just the politicians – right now, in boardrooms around Australia, marketing executives are surely talking up the value of an association between their product and Brand Jessica, the fresh-faced blonde who could have walked right out of Summer Bay. And it's lucky for Kevin Rudd she has such peachy white skin, of course, because he wouldn't have wanted the electorate to make the mistake of thinking he was welcoming an asylum-seeker.

While it's understandable that Watson needed Ella Bache and the others to pay for her boat, all this hubbub about new sponsorship deals seems tacky in the extreme. To be fair, Watson herself appears to have a degree of class, judging by her apparent decision to turn down an offer of $250,000 for a magazine to attend her 17th birthday party. (I'm not sure her manager showed as much class, mind you, by announcing it.) And throughout all the hero-worship of Saturday, she kept repeating the mantra that she was a normal person. She's not, of course. But I kept wondering, as I watched her on TV, whether she'd rather have arrived to a low-key catch-up with her friends and family instead of that circus. Someone could have thrown her a barbie, far from the TV cameras and paparazzi. And then if the PM and Premier really felt like shaking her hand, they could perhaps have dropped by her party discreetly, without the need to go live-to-air?

I kept asking myself why we couldn't just be cool about Jessica's achievement, play it down for once. But no. We had to have pink carpet, and politicians, and interviews, and endorsements. And, most vomit-inducingly of all, her supposed love interest Mike Perham hit the media circuit to trumpet his "special connection" with the girl who's made headlines around the world. He calls her mum his future mother-in-law, isn't it adorable? I don't want to sneer at young love, of course, but wouldn't someone who truly cared for Jess have perhaps resisted a gushing interview with New Idea?

While it's easy to forget now amid the plaudits, Watson's voyage has always been controversial. Most recently, there has been an argument over whether her feat meets the official definition of a round-the-world voyage. But even if she'd gone that extra distance, the World Speed Sailing Record Council doesn't recognise underage records. Which makes them seem like terrible killjoys, of course. But it's a sensible policy because while this particular voyage had a happy ending, it could so easily have been different.

I'm willing to admit that I was one of those who criticised the idea before her departure, when naysaying experts were warning that she could kill herself. The fears seemed justified after her test run, when Watson somehow succeeded in hitting a 225m long Chinese freighter – she was asleep at the time. And even though she triumphed brilliantly, proving people like me and the Queensland Premier wrong, that doesn't mean it was a smart risk to take in the first place. I don't have a child, but if I did, there is no way on this earth that I'd allow them to undertake a voyage like that at 16. Fortunately, if they have half my genes they'll undoubtedly be too timid and unathletic to want to.

Watson's headline-making is far from over – for one thing, she's due the singular honour of receiving the keys to the Sunshine Coast. But all of this hoopla, and the commercial bonanza that will make her a millionaire, will surely encourage unscrupulous parents to send ever-younger children on ever-more dangerous adventures. To top her efforts, the next kid to sail around the world will have to be 15, then 14, and where will it stop? As has been proven by the habitual cruelty of tennis parents and the gaudy hideousness of junior beauty contests, the sound judgement of parents cannot be relied on when fame and fortune are at stake for their offspring. How long until, inspired by Watson's example, some unscrupulous parent straps their toddler onto a raft and sets them adrift in the general direction of New Zealand?

While I'm in awe of Watson's bravery and amazed by her achievement, it would have reflected better on the rest of us if we could have handled her arrival as sensibly as she handled her circumnavigation. The next young sailor who barrels into a Chinese freighter on account of her inexperience may not be lucky enough to escape with only the loss of their mast.

Vale CentralWorld, I hardly knew ye

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.

Literally picturing it, in fact, thanks to a video on a Thai news site a friend sent me, the rest of which also makes for fairly depressing reading. Take a look – while the redshirts may not have been able to budge the Thai government, they appear to have succeeded in destroying much of the modern – and Westernized – heart of Bangkok.

Every time someone dies nowadays, or in this case a building is totalled, some dutiful Wikipedian rushes to their computer and rewrites the entry into the past tense, in what has become something of a ritual drawing of the curtains. The mall's now reads as follows:

CentralWorld (Thai: เซ็นทรัลเวิลด์) was a shopping plaza and complex in Bangkok, Thailand. It was the second largest shopping complex in Southeast Asia.

For some reason, I find it rather sad when the present becomes the past, and things that once existed are consigned to history. Browsing through the Wikipedia entry that now serves as CentralWorld's e-mausoleum tells me that it used to be called the World Trade Center. Melbourne's one really ought to think about changing its name – it just might be bad luck.

I spent a day at CentralWorld in December 2007 which will live long in my memory. I had been holidaying in Bangkok with a few close friends when I had developed a nasty ear infection. We were due to visit a resort in Ko Samui, but on medical advice I stayed in the capital to recuperate, while the others headed off to the beach, leaving me – abandoning me – to spend a few days on my own. And "on my own" is not something I do well. Well, it being Bangkok, I received several unsolicited offers of companionship, but let's just say I opted against them.

Wandering around the mercifully air-conditioned mall, feeling lonesome and rather sorry for myself, I took comfort in the reassuring embrace of some of my favorite Asian brands – Mos Burger and MUJI – and bought a cheap pair of Nikes at the groovy Zen department store, like the pawn of capitalism that I am.

In one of its two multiplexes, I bought a ticket to the World Happiness Screen. They offered a daybed, a sofa or a beanbag, and I opted for the latter, what with having being abandoned. And so I settled in to watch a film in such incredible comfort that I didn't even mind when Nicole Kidman and her cohorts murdered one of my favorite books, Northern Lights.

But now the beanbags are no more. Poor, innocent beanbags – they never hurt anybody. Why did they have to be destroyed?

Perhaps they weren't. I'd like to think that perhaps they survived, that perhaps the redshirts liberated them so that when they weren't throwing petrol bombs at the police, they could totally chill out.

Anyway – when I was needy, in a confronting foreign city, CentralWorld offered me an opulent bubble where I could escape from the heat, and the noise, and the fear of being scammed by a tuktuk driver. I love Bangkok, with its intensity, vitality and unpredictability, but because I was feeling rotten, I needed an escape. And verily, CentralWorld was there for me.

Now, it is there no more. But while the building is in ruins, the mall will live on in the memories of those who visited it. They can smash its plentiful glass, and melt its magnificent escalators, but deep within our hearts, CentralWorld will remain, and we shall sing evermore its songs. Well, muzak.

At this point, I realised that I was in mourning for a mall. A pretty amazing mall, sure – like, even more amazing than Westfield Bondi Junction; but a mall nevertheless, and a fairly bland one, if I'm honest. And then I realised that the mall was at the heart of the problem.

Occupying the centre of Bangkok was more than just symbolism for the redshirts, many of whom hail from the north-eastern region of Isan. Its residents are ethnically Lao, with a different language and darker skin than the dominant Tai majority. I know a few people from Isan, and they've told me of their struggles with discrimination in what's notionally the land of smiles. Often, menial jobs are the only option when they come to the capital for a better life, and they're commonly nicknamed water buffalo, as though they're slow.  It's not surprising, then, that they're angry.

A Thai person from Isan I spoke to this week put it very simply. (Clearly this is hearsay, but I have no reason to disbelieve her, since she sympathised with the redshirts.) Many of the protesters, she claimed, are being paid 600 baht a day to protest – $21. In the rice fields, they earn only 100 a day for backbreaking labor – a mere $4.

So of course they have come to Bangkok, and of course they’re angered by what they see, and of course occupying, and now destroying, playgrounds of the rich like CentralWorld has a certain appeal.

But it’s gone far beyond the chance to earn a few easy baht. The poor villages were given handouts under the former Prime Minister Thaksin – cynically, perhaps, but at least it was something – and since he was thrown out, life has gotten tougher in Isan. What’s more, the King, who is usually above politics, is perceived as being sympathetic to the elites – who generally make up the yellowshirts.

There will be no easy solution to this conflict, which has exposed Thailand’s steep racial and economic divide. Calls for democracy alone will not heal these wounds – if the election is fair, the red side may well win, since there are a great many rural poor.

And if Thaksin returns, there will be more allegations of corruption, and the next protests will be led by the yellowshirts, who shut down Suvarnabhumi Airport in 2008. Or there will be another military coup conducted by the elite commanders. Something needs to break this cycle and provide enduring stability, and the influence – and perceived neutrality – of the King is not what it was.

So, while I remember the shopping centre that was my refuge, I'd be better off reflecting on the millions of Thais who could never afford to shop there, and who have never been treated as equal citizens by those who did. While their means of expressing their dissatisfaction is unfortunate, their cause has its merits. And yet, as Thaksin has shown, their grievances are easy fodder for other, opportunistic members of the elite to exploit.

Ultimately, solving the enormous economic injustices of Thailand is far more important than rebuilding a mall. Unfortunately, it's far more difficult as well.

A souvenir from this tourism website shows just how effectively the redshirts shut down the Westernized heart of the city:

Tony Abbott, pants on fire!

Well, hasn't Tony Abbott belled the cat, to use the infuriating phrase that seems only to get trotted out during election campaigns like this one? For those who haven't heard the incessant whirring of the media spin-dryer, he made what many seem to think is the mother of all gaffes yesterday night on the 7.30 Report, a show on which political leaders appear to fire rounds of live ammunition at their own feet. And the Government, whose apparently unassailable lead has been dropping faster than the euro, has been crowing about it.

First, a quick reminder of what he said:

KERRY O'BRIEN: Tony Abbott feels with conviction we will not have a new tax in any way, shape or form, we won't have a new tax; a month later, you do.

TONY ABBOTT: Well, again Kerry, I know politicians are gonna be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark, which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is those carefully prepared scripted remarks.

To summarise this extraordinary revelation, then, a man who intends to convince the electorate to make him Prime Minister admitted that the only statements we should take as being entirely credible are the written ones he's had a long time to think about, and run past a few other people first. Everything else he utters is, well, just plain unbelievable.

It's well worth watching the video of O'Brien's interview - a masterclass in twisting the knife from the ABC veteran. He simply won't let Abbott off the hook, and as is so often the case, the Opposition Leader struggles to walk the line between refreshing candour and just plain shooting his mouth off.

The Government's been on the ropes in the polls lately, but this incident is a miracle tonic that's proving nearly as effective as whatever the Prime Minister pours onto his hair. They've been quick to dub him 'Phoney Tony', and send out their chief attack dog (their Howard-era Tony Abbott, perhaps?), Anthony "Albo" Albanese, to whack together a bunch of talking points and glib lines elegantly showcased at The Punch. And clearly smelling blood, they've also rushed out a rather lame attack ad.

Sure, their effort to send him over the boundary is more reminiscent of Michael Clarke in the Twenty20 final than Mike Hussey in the semi, but it's fair to say that Abbott's taken a bruising today. Labor's strategy has been the same one that John Howard used so successfully against Mark Latham – sit back, and wait for the guy to implode. It's proven more high-stakes than Labor was expecting, sure, but it was always sound to bet on Abbott's fondness for verbal Russian roulette.

Rudd has taken Howard's ultra-defensive interview technique to a new level of soporific stonewalling, to the point where even a slight moment of petulance in his own interview last week was hailed as though it was a massive dummy-spit. But to watch Abbott being interviewed is like watching a gutsy tail-ender who's capable of whacking the ball out of the stadium, but is always in danger of knocking over his own stumps. Whereas Rudd's interviews are as lifeless as a Gerard Henderson column criticising him, Abbott's are usually fascinating highwire acts.

And he didn't disappoint last night. After giving O'Brien what he must have realised was a coup, he tried to clarify his position, and like wrestling with a tar baby, only got himself into more trouble:

TONY ABBOTT: OK. This is an argument that we could well have had in March and we did have it in March and a lot of people pointed out back then that there was a bit of inconsistency and I accept that. There is a bit of inconsistency.

TONY ABBOTT: But I'm just - I mean, people will make their judgments of me, Kerry, and I accept that and I understand that, and some of them will say, "Ah ha, he said this in a radio interview in February and then a month later in March he made a commitment on paid parental leave which is not completely consistent with that former statement."

TONY ABBOTT: And some people, Kerry, will judge me very harshly.

It was fascinating political theatre, quite the opposite of what you expect of someone who has decades of experience in the Federal Parliament, unless that someone is Bill Heffernan.

But is this the moment where Tony Abbott lost the election? Is it his Lathamesque handshake moment, where his inability to control himself turns off the electorate? I'm not so sure.

The Opposition's attempt to spin themselves out of this latest instance of foot-in-mouth disease has been to cite it as another example of his authenticity. And as ridiculous as this initially seems, you know what, to borrow Kevin Rudd's favorite verbal tic? I think they've got a point. Because despite the gaffe-o-matic tendencies that were so brilliantly highlighted on that day during the last campaign when he was late to a televised debate, swore and had to apologise for insulting a terminally ill man, no-one's really in doubt about what Abbott stands for.

If anything, his tendency to speak without thinking means that we know too much to want to elect him, because it makes it hard for him to reassure us that he's a reasonable, moderate guy. Despite the boost in the polls as Rudd has faltered, there are probably a few too many comments about the immorality of abortion and climate change being "absolute crap" in Abbott's past for us to think he's really changed his spots. And he himself alluded to this in the O'Brien interview:

TONY ABBOTT: I think the argument from the Labor Party much more often has been that I am so consistently on one side of the argument that I'm some kind of conservative ogre - I thought that was the argument that the Labor Party put more often.

If Kevin Rudd wins the election – and as the Centrebet odds demonstrate, you'd be brave to bet against it - it won't be because people think Tony Abbott's been exposed as a liar. It'll be because they think that underneath it all, he's still the same old Tony Abbott.

Labor's rush to make hay out of the implication that the Opposition Leader is a habitual liar, and the willingness with which the media have taken this up, masks several interesting things about the O'Brien conversation.

The first is that he's essentially right about the difference between conversational hyperbole (take Garrett's infamous "short, jocular conversation", for instance) and carefully considered policy statements. I would hope (although, to be honest, rather doubt) that voters pay for more attention to the detailed policy statements each party puts out than to the offhand comments their leaders make in passing, or even more superficially, on Sunrise.

Furthermore, we expect politicians - well, not to lie, but certainly to tell people what they want to hear a lot of the time. It's par for the course, and we all do it to some degree. When I'm in a cab in Queensland, I pretend to care about rugby league far more than I actually do. And while Kerry O'Brien may be right, and a different standard is expected of would-be political leaders, the revelation that sometimes pollies like to gild the lily is hardly a shocking one.

And this, incidentally, is precisely Kevin Rudd's problem at the moment - he has reformulated his message so many times that the electorate is left wondering what he stands for. Does he really care about climate change, refugees and health reform, or does he just say it because it's what his focus groups tell him that the electorate wants to hear, without intending to follow through with any concrete action for fear of frightening the horses? Are these convictions or just demagoguery? We don't know any more, and that, I would suggest, is why Labor has dropped in the polls, and why Julia Gillard is beginning to seem like an attractive alternative. Within the heart of Rudd Labor, there is now a conviction void, and that's never true of Tony Abbott, even though what he happens to believe at any one time sometimes changes rapidly.

This Lathamesque policy-on-the-run habit is Abbott's biggest problem, and it's what Labor's delight to turn Abbott's Rudd-is-a-phony meme back on himself has missed. No wonder Abbott suggested focusing on those of his policies that have been thoroughly thought through, because it's not an admission that he lies, but rather that he sometimes tends to make things up as he goes along. Take the parental leave policy, which is the contradiction on which O'Brien caught him out. To tax big business to pay for six months of leave is an extraordinarily left-wing policy, even though the tying the figures to existing wages is classic Howard. At a time when his main attack on the Rudd Government was to slam one "big fat new tax" after another, he introduced his own huge hit, to be paid for by the Liberals' traditional core constituency. And now when he's trying to criticise the mining tax for crippling business, he's left having to defend his own slug on the corporate sector.

This abandoning of his Liberal economic-conservative friend-of-business credentials to try and gain short-term headlines reminds me of John McCain, who foolishly threw away his strongest suit – experience – by selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. As much as I personally like the parental leave policy, I can only conclude that, since he said he changed his mind as a result of having three daughters of his own, Tony Abbott really, really wants to be a grandfather.

And let's not forget that he's got a very difficult job, Tony Abbott. He knows that if he's labelled as nothing more than a return to Howard, he'll lose - hence the awkwardness in that same interview of his call for industrial relations reform that isn't WorkChoices:

TONY ABBOTT: I want it to be more flexible and more workable, but we're talking about flexibility upwards here, not downwards. Labor's safety net stays.

Abbott's excellent at attacking the Government, and his authenticity and plain-speaking is like Kryptonite to Rudd's bureaucratic, buzzwordy style. But when it comes to going onto the front foot, the Opposition simply isn't providing a credible alternative. This confusion is clearest in Abbott's approach to climate change. If I can summarise it, I think it's as follows: "The climate science is sketchy, and let's not have an ETS because that's too expensive, but let's do instead something more concrete that will do more to actually solve the problem, only which doesn't cost anything." What this "something more concrete" is is, of course, remains completely unknown.

While Tony Abbott's always certain what he's against, what he's for is a movable feast. Which is why he changes policies almost as often as he enters triathlons. And yet, one can't help but suspect that beneath all the reinvention, he'd be delighted to return to almost the exact policies of the Howard era.

Unlike Kevin Rudd and John Howard, Tony Abbott answers questions instead of stonewalling with his tepid talking points, which means that unlike Kevin Rudd and John Howard, Tony Abbott gives interesting interviews, where he takes risks - and gets into trouble. And the upshot of that is, of course, that unlike Kevin Rudd and John Howard, Tony Abbott is unlikely to be elected Prime Minister. Yesterday, he exposed himself not as a habitual liar, as someone who makes policy on the run, and as a result, contradicts himself. It's the latter of these qualities which is the more likely to cause the electorate to doubt him.

The Deveny dilemma

The Age's decision to sack Catherine Deveny raises complicated moral and professional issues for people like me, who both work in the media and like to send Twitter messages without putting an much thought into them. So I couldn't resist weighing in, because the question of what jokes comedy writers can make in the public sphere is one I've spent the past decade thinking about.

Unsurprisingly, the offence-potential of jokes is often discussed at The Chaser. We've observed that ideally, a highly offensive joke ought to be really funny, because there's nothing worse than having to defend a lame gag in the heat of public criticism. This principle was well illustrated by Deveny's struggle to justify tweeting "Rove and Tasma look so cute! I hope she doesn't die too", which induced a wince rather than a chuckle from nearly everyone, myself included. What was its point, other than to remind us that Rove's previous wife died a tragic, untimely death? The offensiveness meter had been dialled up to eleven, while the funny meter was hovering somewhere below zero.

She claimed it was read "out of context", which is, of course, the ever-unconvincing Hilali defence. I think the context was entirely obvious - the telecast featured footage of Rove and his wife arriving at the Logies - what more do we need to know? Well, she claims that she's a great mate of Rove's, and "would take a bullet for him". Which is lucky, under the circumstances. But that friendship just makes it seem all the more poorly judged.

But the tweet that caused the most offence was this one - "I so do hope Bindi Irwin gets laid". She's defended this as "[using] humour to highlight the celebrity culture, the raunch culture and the sexualisation, sexual objectification of women's bodies". Well, that would be a remarkable achievement of comic compression in 140 characters, and I think it's sufficient from the response to conclude that she failed to communicate this. I don't think Bindi is inherently off-limits - that would be an unjustified level of immunity to claim for someone who has been so constantly and deliberately placed in the spotlight. But when joking about a child, and a bereaved one, I'd argue that caution should be exercised, something Deveny essentially failed to do.

Now, humour is subjective, as many have pointed out in this debate. Which is why in The Chaser, we tend to apply a majority-rules approach when trying to work out what's funny. And even then, we've gotten this wrong on occasion, as I'm sure everyone remembers. But working out which gags to keep, and which to drop, is the most difficult part of the job, and explains why standups carefully hone their material in front of live audiences. Lots of people have written on Twitter that they found Deveny's gags hilarious, but for the most part, they really didn't work for me, with the possible exception of "kdlang is dressed by The House Of Kim Jong Ill" (sic).

By contrast, I found some of Wil Anderson's jokes hilarious. I burst out laughing when I read "In front row for John Mayer.I may not take home gold logie but now have herpes...". Deveny might suggest that's because I'm a patriarchal male, but that can't be helped. As the recent winner of the People's Choice Award at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, Wil's comedy qualifications are pretty solid - and 33,000 people like his gags enough to follow him on Twitter. To argue that they (and Deveny, for that matter) should be denied the opportunity to consume material they enjoy because others don't happen to find it amusing is utterly ridiculous if we are to have any kind of free speech.

I've devoted quite a lot of this article to discussing which tweets I thought were funny, and what ones I thought weren't. And that's because whether you're at a pub with your mates or on national television, it's the audience who ultimately gets to judge what's funny and what isn't. Based on her material from Sunday night, I've not much interest in going and seeing Deveny's live comedy show (which, bravely, will take place at Trades Hall in Melbourne tonight), and I don't intend to make her tweets part of my daily diet.

But to my mind, that's really where it should end. If you don't like a comedian, avoid them. It isn't hard, except when the mainstream media shove their gags in your face to provoke a response. If someone who sets themselves up as a comedian isn't funny enough, then they'll fail, and go back to waiting tables or writing for the Logies. By contrast with Biebermania, this is one area where the logic of the marketplace makes considerable sense.

The recent tendency towards mass-media firestorms of spiralling outrage has distorted this simple principle because it has encouraged people who were never going to liked certain content to complain about it. People who hate art and would rather have root canal surgery than visit a gallery – like Kevin Rudd, I suspect – had Bill Henson's photos thrust in front of them, provoking outrage that would never have been possible otherwise. And here, a columnist whose Twitter account only had 3000-odd followers as of midday on Sunday has been dragged into the national spotlight because some people didn't like what she had to say. Those responsible for whipping up the frenzy - for creating the outrage - are the ones who are forcing people to consume the content, not the original author. They, to my mind, are the ones who should be held responsible for causing the offence. And that's why I think my colleague Julian Morrow was so right when he warned media decision-makers against overemphasising the importance of "secondary outrage".

Fine, Deveny was employed by the mainstream media, so she walked into this environment with her eyes open. And those of us who are generally the first to criticise others tend to deserve what we get in karmic terms, if not always logical ones. But I am increasingly troubled by the strange, masochistic delight that sections of the media take in getting into a lather over comedy. This anger, it seems to me, is almost always manufactured. While her fans no doubt care about Bindi Irwin's sexual purity, I very much doubt Neil Mitchell or the editors of The Age or Herald-Sun websites do. They just like getting people talking, because it means ratings and web traffic. Which is why we have the ironic situation, as Crikey pointed out this morning, of The Age sacking her and yet profiting from the web traffic generated by people discussing it.

As for the sacking, my question is – what's changed about her writing? As Amanda Meade commented today, Deveny has been producing this kind of stuff for ages. My colleague Richard Cooke took her to task only last week for her comments on the ANZACs, and I think rightly so. Perhaps the paper has been considering "boning" Deveny for a while. But at this particular moment, they should have been defending a long-serving employee against the wowsers, not giving into a mere 200 commenters on their website. Goodness, if the ABC sacked people after 200 complaints, not only would we have never had a TV career after melting down the switchboard with our first-ever episode in 2001 (perish the thought), but most of their news and current affairs department would have been axed into the bargain. Making people disagree with you can be a valuable commodity, after all - Miranda Devine's columns have inspired howls of anger for many years, and yet she continues to flourish like salmonella at a poorly-managed KFC.

It makes me worry about the future of comedy. If we continue to flagellate comedians who overstep the line, then no-one will take any risks. Is that really what the Australian public wants? If even a show as tepid and formulaic as Hey Hey It's Saturday can provoke global fury (for reasons other than its return to our screens, that is) what hope is there for any comedian?

And yet many of us love humour which makes fun of public figures. The intense criticism of deserving targets is what has made The Daily Show so successful, for instance. And even Barack Obama took a turn at this recently, roasting Jay Leno and several political opponents with considerable skill. But comedy is experimental by its nature, and sometimes falls flat. When it does, the valid responses are simple, and time-honoured. People should not laugh. The odd piece of fruit custard pie may even be thrown, if you really want. But recreating the Spanish Inquisition is always, always an overreaction to comedy.

As for Deveny, she'll probably be okay. She's a lot more famous today than she was on Saturday, and she's still tweeting - and as the graph below illustrates, has picked up over a thousand followers as a result of this fuss. And today, she tweeted a joke that really made me laugh: "The bad news? I've lost my job and had to cancel the family holiday. The good news is the holiday was to Australia Zoo."

It's hard to think of a better response to this situation than a genuinely funny, clever gag. If she can produce more of this, and fewer pointless swipes at Bindi, she may well have a long and successful career in comedy.

Misplaced fury in the copyright bunker

What an extraordinarily foolish decision by Constantin Films to pull its ranting Hitler clips from YouTube. When you create one of the world's most popular pieces of viral content, and then clumsily try to pull it, you become a killjoy on a massive global scale, snatching away a toy that millions of people were enjoying in our shared digital playground.

Through probably few of us have seen the movie,Downfall, we've no doubt all seen the intense scene in which the Führer is told of the inevitability of defeat dozens of times in itsvarious incarnations. Combined with subtitles addressing a considerably more frivolous topic than the end of the Third Reich, his electrifying fury is rendered highly amusing. Practically all the stories that have temporarily caught the interest of our capricious culture have been translated into a Hitler rant, from Senator Conroy's internet Maginot Line, toHey Hey's return to our Lebensraums, to Kanye's blitzkrieg of Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Awards. Taken together, the clips form as a comprehensive record of the memes that have distracted the world from its work the past year or so. They are a valuable historical record of our inexhaustible appetite for wasting time on the internet.

But now Constantin Films has decided we can view this archive of our own whimsy no more. And in one sense I can see why they've made this decision. I'm sure that at the climax of what was apparently an excellent film, projected twenty feet high in a darkened space, the performance is extremely powerful, leaving the audience as terrified as Hitler's sidekicks. And the film is, of course, part of an ongoing process of the utmost seriousness – Germany's attempt to wrestle with the demons of its horrifying recent past. Let's face it, the resubtitling is not exactly respectful of the filmmakers' craft.

But the undeniable fact is that in a tiny YouTube window, deliciously devoid of context, the scene is very funny, precisely because it's so serious to begin with. Though this performance is probably entirely accurate, viewed in isolation it's hammier than a pork-themed episode ofBaywatch. And while that obviously wasn't intended, there's no denying the judgement of the marketplace.

But in its own way, mocking the last century's premier bogeymen has a certain value. By laughing at Hitler, by making him ridiculous, we strip him of his power to frighten us. Plus, it's just plain fun to subtitle notorious villains, as The Chaser discovered when we began producing ourMessage From Osama videos. Fortunately for us, the rights holder Al Qaeda is more interested in implementing sharia copyright law via its planned global caliphate than issuing petty takedown notices to decadent Westerners who remix its content.

If even Osama bin Laden is liable to have his work reinterpreted on the internet, so are all content producers. The ubiquitous availability of video and audio editing software, and the advent of free video sharing services, has made this almost ridiculously easy. It was little wonder, then, that one of the first responses to Constantin's move was another subtitled video of Hitler getting angry about it.

As hard as film producers might like to try, this genie simply can't be put back in the bottle. Even if all the clips are taken down from YouTube, there are still countless other video-sharing services – the response clip I linked to above was on Vimeo, for instance. Furthermore, in many places, adapting other people's copyright material for parody and satire is legal. Recent changes to Australian copyright law have guaranteed this principle, to the great delight of our nation's piss-takers. So while it may be a violation of YouTube's terms of service, it would seem that there's nothing wrong about subtitling a clip like this, at least in Australia.

The more sensible response from Constantin would have been to use the clip's surprise popularity to promote their DVD. Millions more people have now heard of their film, after all. They could have released a web ad where Hitler gets angry because he can't find a copy in his local Blockbuster Video, or created a subtitle-your-own video toy to allow users to produce their own clips and share them (as we did with Osama, in fact). They could even have included a selection of the best examples as a DVD extra. Gratitude to the web for giving their 2004 movie a new life might have been a more appropriate response, even if as filmmakers they didn't realise they were making a highly popular comedy sketch.

In this online world of endless appropriation and adaptation, the greatest crime is not using another's work, it's failing to have a sense of humour about it when it happens to you. While the film's director has shown an wonderful sense of humour about this, Constantin have not. Instead, they've gone from obscurity to infamy overnight, and it won't help them sell a single extra copy ofDownfall. Which is a shame, because I hear it's quite good. Especially that scene where Hitler loses it.

This article originally appeared at The Drum. There are some great comments on it over there.

Our health care debate is more boring than America's - thank goodness

With Barack Obama finally passing his wide-reaching health care plan through the House of Representatives yesterday, and our own leaders having their televised squabble at the National Press Club today, health care hasn't been the subject of this much media attention since Dr Jayant Patel's last rampage.

I've long been baffled by how bad America's health care system is – it's a prime example of that nation's love of doublethink, which allows millions of people to believe that their health care is the best in the world even though they can't afford to see a doctor. And yet, as we heard yesterday, health care makes up around 20% of the American economy. All I can assume that somewhere, private health providers are getting seriously rich.

Extending coverage to two-thirds of the 45 million uninsured Americans – not to mention all the uninsured illegal migrants who, by political convention, simply don't exist – has proven extraordinarily divisive. The idea that health care should be made more widely available didn't win a single Republican vote yesterday. It's been simultaneously described as fascist and communist by rabid Tea Partyists, and many Americans seem to have been having nightmares of Barack Obama coming into their homes and dragging them off to a medical centre against their will.

So I thought it might be taking a step back and discussing why this whole thing matters, and why the Republican notion of health care is, to my mind, so wrong – and, dare I say, immoral. Obviously, a certain percentage of people are going to get sick. Sometimes, lifestyle choices are to blame – to be honest, I haven't an overwhelming amount of sympathy for smokers who contract lung cancer. But for the most part, getting seriously ill or injured is simply a question of bad luck. Health problems are not the least bit fair, and nobody wants to spend a day in a hospitals if they can possibly avoid it. So, how as a society, do we manage this risk, which affects all of us?

In America, this has largely been achieved through private health insurance. The better your job, the more things are covered for you and your family, inevitably tying the quality of health care to wealth. Which is why we have the unappetising spectacle of rich Republican members of Congress granting themselves excellent publicly funded health care but refusing to do so for anybody else.

But when a system is purely private, it creates enormous vulnerability. Lose your job, and you're stuffed. What's more, since private health insurers obviously need to make profits, they have incentives to pay out as rarely as possible, which is why they hike up their fees as often as they can, and try to exclude as many people as possible who have pre-existing conditions. And that is precisely where we need the state to intervene, and say – hey, we as a society won't cop that.

It comes down to what you think the role of government is. Many Republicans think that the government should operate a strong army and otherwise get out of the way so that the magic of individual action can operate unfettered. And it was odd to hear all the Republicans over there, and some Liberals here, slamming the federal health bureaucracy when they have run it for much of the past decade – if it's not doing a good job, whose fault is that, exactly?

In the Republican worldview, the winners should be able to accrue as much money as possible – and good health care along with it – while the losers have to struggle for themselves, and if that means they can't afford health care, well; they should have worked harder when they were well, or started a small business or something. It's economic Darwinism – the fittest prosper and the others simply die.

By contrast, liberals in the American sense, and nearly everyone in Australian politics, accept that the government should intervene to make societies a fairer place. After all, our bodies differ enormously in their healthiness and intellectual capacity, and that dramatically affects our ability to work and earn money in the first place. So the metaphorical playing field has never been level from a health perspective, really, and that's why insurance is important. It seems fairest, given the random nature of physical healthiness, that we all spread the risk. The Australian Medicare approach, which levies that insurance on the basis of individual wealth, then goes an additional step towards true equity. Because in a civilised society, the link between personal wealth and the quality of the health care you receive should be broken.

One of the wonderful things about Australian politics is that neither party can attack Medicare – it's sacrosanct. In America, many Republicans have made dire warnings that Obamacare will never be able to be repealed – and that's a wonderful thing, in fact. It's no surprise that most people believe that health care should be made available to most people!

Australia is a much smaller country than America, and it makes sense to me to run health care on a national basis. Rudd's scheme seems wussy because it's only funding 60% of the overall costs – why not simply cut out the states entirely? But these are relatively minor details compared with America's debate – because, fortunately, we agree about far more things. And what's more, we're right.

Today's National Press Club debate centred around responsibility for funding and management – in other words, about the efficient operation of a system that almost all of us support. There are enormous problems on the ground, and we need to spend a lot of energy getting all of our hospitals up to scratch. But nevertheless, in Australia, those who are seriously ill generally get the care they need, and for that we should all be grateful.

A passive-aggressive letter to Barack Obama

Dear Mr President,

Heard you're really tied up at home, so you couldn't make it down here this time around. So, just a quick note to let you know that we're totally fine with it. Really, it's okay. We know that health care is really important to you, and it's understandable that you want to see it passed by Congress and everything. We Aussies are pretty easygoing, as you'll no doubt find when you do get around to visiting. So, as we like to say, no worries!

I mean, you're not actually a member of Congress any more, so it's not like you have to vote on it or anything. But I'm sure you have to personally telephone all the House members to try and get them on board, and of course there's no way you could do that during the 20 hours or so you'd be flying here on Air Force One or anything. And Rahm Emanuel definitely couldn't handle it for you, even though, he's your Chief of Staff, the guy you specifically hired to take care of this stuff. No, it has to be you, and we can understand that.

You probably don't remember, but Hillary cancelled too, actually. That was a few months back, because of the earthquake in Haiti, and that was totally understandable – after all, it was a massive catastrophe that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Whereas you need, what; a few dozen votes from members of your own party to get a bill through Congress. It's just another piece of bad luck, I guess.

So anyhoo, we'll just get on with all the things we were going to do anyway. Which was lots of great stuff, actually – you would have enjoyed it. Actually, we've got a health care debate of our own at the moment, don't know if you've heard about it. Our system's quite a lot better than even the reforms you're trying to introduce, so coming over here might have been a great way to get a few new ideas or something. But that's fine – you've probably heard about how in our country, pretty much anyone can just get treated at a public hospital. Sorry to bring it up – it's just a little bit ironic, you know?

Actually, we're kind of glad you're not coming, now that we think about it – it would have been a huge disruption. We'd put the entire Federal Parliament on notice that they had to fly back to Canberra to just to hear you speak, at a cost of millions of dollars and they're all really glad they won't have to inconvenience themselves, actually. And it's not that great a capital city or anything, so you're probably lucky you missed it, even though it's where we make our big decisions. You know, like when we went along with you guys on that whole Iraq war thing out of sheer loyalty, even though we knew it was a stupid idea. And there's a War Memorial, where we commemorate all the people that died in that war and all the other ones we've fought alongside you, because we're such close allies. But don't worry, you'd probably think it was all a bit small-scale compared to DC.

Mmm, just took a quick break from typing to eat one of the delicious canapés that one of our world-renowned chefs has been preparing for that banquet we were going to throw you. Don't worry, it's no trouble or anything, it's just that we've got literally thousands of the things sitting here, just going off, so I'm going to do my bit and eat a couple of dozen. And I'm going to wipe my mouth on this lovely bit of red, white and blue bunting we ordered to drape around the Great Hall. Don't worry, all this stuff we bought is definitely still going to good use.

Hope the wife and kids are well, by the way – we were really looking forward to seeing them before you told us they couldn't make it that first time you rescheduled. It's probably good you cancelled, actually – we were just as keen to catch up with them as with you, to be honest. So, let's reschedule for when we can all get together, when you've got a bit more time. Like maybe after you leave office? We're not doing anything in 2017. Or even 2013, actually, because you might lose the next election, mightn't you, if you treat the American people the way you treat one of your closest allies! That was a joke, by the way.

And by the way, if you hear that we've invited Hu Jintao back again, don't think that it changes things between us or anything. It's just that he did actually find the time to drop by recently, even though he governs, what – a billion people, most of whom need health care more urgently than the vast majority of Americans. Actually, he seemed to really enjoy addressing Parliament, so you might want to ask him about that next to see him. And you know, we do like to entertain.

Actually, Prince William was here the other day, too – he really enjoyed the barbie we threw for him. And Britain is actually our mother country and all. I guess like they say, blood's thicker than water in the end, isn't it?

Seriously, all the best with health care and everything, and I guess we'll hear from you the next time you've got a war to fight, hey?

Regards,
Australia

Writing a novel? There's an app for that

Today, for a change of pace, I'm putting on two of my favorite hats, the ones marked 'novice novelist' and 'geek'.  I'm about a month away from finishing my second novel – which is called Comrades, and centres around a bunch of student politicians who are vying for a high distinction in Backstabbing 1001. If all goes well, it'll be published in the second half of the year.

But this isn't a plug for the book (expect those to start in a few months!) – it's a plug for the programme I used to write it, a specialist novel-writing application called Scrivener, and it made the process so pleasant that I thought I'd write a brief, nerdily evangelistic piece about why if you're serious about writing novels, you should be using it.

It works on a Mac. I can accept that some people prefer PCs, much as I can accept that some people get aroused by dripping hot wax on themselves. It's just that I wouldn't go there myself if you paid me. The reasons why are too many to go into, but here's the thing – Word for Mac kinda sucks, presumably deliberately. I've just had to shift my draft manuscript into it so my editor can track my changes, and it's been a rude awakening. Not only has it been crashing frequently – a very rare experience on a Mac – but it's hideously sluggish. Silly me – I thought it was supposed to be a professional word processing programme costing hundreds of dollars, but evidently I was wrong. I've been using the Apple product, Pages, as well, and it's better, but still nowhere near as good as Scrivener. Following are reasons why.

Structure by chapters. Word only lets you handle one huge document. But in Scrivener, your document is broken into manageable chapters. That means you can shift them around easily, and you always know where everything is – no more scrolling up and down in the hope of finding the right bit. Then, when it's time to compile a draft, it combines everything into one file, in the right order.

Index cards. You can view your chapters as cards, which you can annotate and reshuffle. This really suits me because I like to plan in advance what my chapters are going to involve, so I know where I'm going. So in Scrivener I create a new index card for each chapter and write a few notes "on the card" about what it's going to have in it. Then when it's time to begin each chapter, I double click on the card, and I'm inside a new document, and can get cracking.

Outline view. This lets you see a list of each chapter, what's in it, how many words it is and, crucially, where you're up to. You can flag each chapter as "First draft", "Needs editing", "Ready" – whatever you like. It makes it easy to organise your writing process.

Full screen view. I have a short attention span, so I need Twitter, the Internet and everything kept well away from where I'm working. That's why I like to edit in full screen mode, with nothing but big text to concentrate on. Better still, I can set the text to display as white letters on dark grey, which is far easier on the eye than black on white. (Or in fact any colour scheme you like.) This may sound silly, but try it and I reckon you'll see I'm right – a white page background for long periods equals eye strain.

Formatting flexibility. Manuscripts generally have to be submitted in double-spaced Courier, but I hate working in that - I prefer a large serif font with no spacing. Well, in Scrivener that's easy, because it's gloriously non-WYSIWYG, if you want it to be – you write in whatever font you like, and it spits it out in the correct, Courierified manuscript format as a Word document, RTF, PDF or whatever.

Constant saving. Scrivener uses a tricky system where it only saves the tiny bit of the file you've changed, not the whole document like Word. So it saves your changes all the time, and you don't have to wait while it's doing so, like Word which takes a solid 30 seconds every single time once your document gets a bit long. Scrivener has never crashed on me yet, but even if it did, I wouldn't lose a thing.

Snapshots. Before you edit a chapter, you can take a copy of it using a "snapshot". Then you go ahead and edit it, but if you want to go back to how it was before, you just revert to the previous snapshot. I find this much more useful than Track Changes, at least in the early drafting stages.

Screenplay mode. I don't entirely understand why, but as an added bonus, they also decided to throw in a really excellent scriptwriting mode. It's extremely similar to the industry standard Final Draft – and crashes less, thankfully. If you haven't done any screenwriting, the issue is that there are rigid formatting rules in the industry, and it's a massive pain to comply with them in Word, as opposed to a customised programme that figures out what you're trying to do and formats everything for you.) It can even export to Final Draft format so that you can send your work to bigshot Hollywood producers.

The company that makes it is called Literature & Latte. Which means they have a sense of humour. At least, I really, really hope they do.

Sure, it's not perfect, but it's so much better than a regular wordprocessor that you won't believe you ever struggled with Word like I did for my first novel. And if you want to give it a go, it's got a free 30-day trial, and unlike most such trials, that means 30 days of actually using it.

So, why have a I spent 800 words raving on about this programme? Well, I've just finished a creative writing Masters, and I can't believe nobody ever told me to use a novel writing application. It would have saved me hours of Microsoft agony. Now, go out and win the Booker, and when you do, you can thank me for recommending Scrivener.

Update: Even though it's only $39.95, there's a 20% discount until 15 May - details here - looks like the coupon code is SCRIPTFRENZY.

Will Senator Steve put young voters first?

Everyone intuitively suspects that politicians are cynical and self-serving, but rarely are those traits more evident than when they discuss electoral reform. Today, a long succession of self-interested decisions have resulted in a situation where Steve Fielding alone will decide whether thousands of young people will be able to vote in the next election. It's an important question of democratic principle. So, like any other politician, we can expect Senator Fielding to decide it purely on the basis of his own electoral self-interest. Rarely has there been a better example of lunatics running the asylum than a system where politicians get to set their own electoral regulations.

What's this all about? Well, cast your mind back to the last Parliament, when John Howard had control of the Senate. It was a little bit like when Gollum got control of the Ring, and not just because of their physical resemblance. Unbridled power isn't good for politicians – it tends to make them overstretch. And so it was that without the hand-wringingly moderate Democrats to stop him, John Howard pushed through a few things that turned the public off, like WorkChoices, leading to his own ultimate destruction.

But perhaps the most transparently self-interested legislation he passed while he had his "precioussss" Senate majority was a change to the Electoral Act which removed the grace period for enrolment. This means that now, when Prime Ministers call an election – which they invariably try to do by surprise, to give themselves an advantage over their opponents – the electoral rolls close that very day. Previously, there were seven days where the lazy and hopeless could twig to the fact that there was an election happening, and register to have their say. But under these changes, anyone who hasn't sensibly enrolled as soon as they became eligible is stuffed.

But voting is compulsory, you may ask, so isn't everybody on the electoral roll? Why, yes; nearly everyone is, and once you've appeared somewhere in the system, the AEC will chase you with considerable efficiency to make sure your registration is correct. So, except for people like Michael Clarke who have been in hiding, those registering are usually first-time voters – that is, new citizens and young people who've turned 18 since the last election.

Now, who do young people tend to support? Why, Labor, of course. So you can see why John Howard was keen to slam the trapdoor shut as soon as possible. Fortunately for him, young people are chronically disorganised, and generally don't bother enrolling until they're reminded to do so by an election campaign. Sure, if you could do it via Facebook, they'd be all over electoral enrolment like a rash, but it involves forms and signatures, and as everyone knows, they're really lame and boring.

But unfortunately for him, despite the roll shenanigans, enough young people had enrolled to help propel Rudd into the Lodge. Had more young people enrolled, Howard may well have haemorrhaged even more seats. And it's predicted that young voters will have an equally big impact again this time.

So it's hardly surprising that Labor's trying to undo the changes. And guess what – the Greens, who have an even bigger youth vote than Labor does, are on board too, and so's Nick Xenophon. And that leaves, yet again, a certain Senator from Victoria who received 2% of the primary vote in charge of determining the nation's future.

No politician, even one as unusual as Fielding, will determine such a vital issue according to principle – they'll twist the principle to tally with their self-interest. It's like the debate in the US about depriving convicted felons of the vote, which is backed by Republicans, or Julie Bishop's recent opposition to compulsory voting. And while again, she argues from high-minded principle concerning individual liberty, it's no coincidence that compulsory voting is generally viewed as more likely to help left-wing parties, since lower-income Labor voters are more likely to have jobs that require them to work on Saturdays.

So, what's Steve's self-interest here? He was elected last time on so few votes (1.9%) that he needed Liberal, Democrat and Labor preferences to get elected. In essence, he's the Steve Bradbury of Australian politics, only succeeding if everyone else stuffs up. His only chance beyond dumb luck is if there's a double dissolution, since that will reduce the amount of votes needed for any Senate candidate to get elected in his own right.

Since Family First is a broadly conservative party, and therefore more likely to be supported by older voters, you'd expect him to align himself with the Liberals on this one. But Senator Steve is not only a bit of a wild-card when he's in the media spotlight, but doesn't necessarily have the capacity to work out his own electoral maths – after all, he reckons the Earth was was created 10,000 years ago.

I think our democracy should be as representative as possible, and strongly support measures that make life easier for disorganised people like me, so I think the longer deadline should be restored. If you agree, by all means spam the good Senator via GetUp – sorry, "GetUp!" – or just Tweet him here. The vote's scheduled for tonight, and I really hope he does the right thing. But then, since I'm still sort of youngish myself, I would think it was the right thing, wouldn't I?

The puzzling popularity of Kevin Rudd

The latest Newspoll numbers must have caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Kevin Rudd's bunker today. His personal approval rating is the lowest since he became leader, which must be hugely frustrating to a man who probably tracks his relationship with his own wife by polling her.

No doubt the teenagers who constitute his personal staff will have had their Mountain Dew and Skittles rations docked in a fit of Prime Ministerial pique, for despite all his time in China, Kevin Rudd is not exactly a master of Zen calm. And I expect that even now, their Blackberries are beeping with an order that until the election, even the two hours' sleep they get each night is cancelled. Because for a government that's done so much to try and be popular, the sudden lack of lustre must seem like a major crisis, especially when Tony Abbott's main contribution as Opposition Leader seems to be taking the form of gaffes.

But all this searching around for reasons for the sudden drop has overlooked the most surprising thing about this situation – that Rudd was so popular for so long in the first place. He's hardly a beer-swilling champion like Bob Hawke – in fact, his demeanour is so detached that he makes Paul Keating look like a man of the people. And whereas Barack Obama was elected on a wave of lofty rhetoric that was only going to lead to disappointment given the obstinacy of even the Democrat members of Congress, surely even Kevin Rudd's friends would be hard placed to describe him as an inspiring speaker.

Tony Abbott has argued today that the poll numbers reflect nostalgia for the Howard Government, but I suspect the opposite is true – the public were so sick of the Coalition by 2007 that they were delighted to have someone else to vote for. It wasn't that everyone fell in love with Rudd, it was that they fell substantially out of love with Howard, Costello, Downer and the rest of them, and he seemed like a reasonable alternative. At the time, being moderate, unglamorous and seeming vaguely reliable was exactly what voters wanted. Kevin Rudd certainly gives the impression of being sensible, even though we now know that his love of reports, enquiries and subcommittees is so great that if anything, he's so sensible as to be paralytically cautious.

At the beginning of his term, Rudd made an apology that made almost everyone besides Wilson Tuckey proud, and then kept his record poll numbers because he was overwhelmingly giving the public what it wanted – someone who wasn't Brendan Nelson. With the bar set so low, it's no wonder that Rudd remained popular. Not only could a drover's dog have beaten Nelson, but a drover's dog's flea could have. In fact, I'll go further – a drover's dog's flea could have beaten Nelson if they were a minister in the NSW Government.

Next came the financial crisis. It's hard to remember now, as we seem to have survived unscathed, but in the second half of 2008, everyone was genuinely worried about their jobs and their homes. It felt like the sky was collapsing, and the stockmarket certainly did. I'm not enough of an economist to know whether Rudd's rapid stimulus action genuinely saved the day, or it was just that Australia was insulated from the worst of it through both decades of sensible financial management from both parties, and the inherently middle-class nature of our society. Plus interest rates plummeted, and that always makes Australians like their Government, even though they haven't got much to do with it. But whether or not the PM truly saved the day, he certainly seemed to know what he was doing, and that was reassuring at a time of general panic. And so he remained phenomenally popular in the polls.

Finally, we had the rollercoaster ride that was Malcolm Turnbull's leadership. Lots of people agreed with the previous Opposition Leader's politics, but they were generally Labor voters. Turnbull made the cardinal mistake of responding to the Government's policies on the basis of whether they were sensible or not, instead of just opposing everything for the hell of it, and that made him seem weak, especially on climate change. With the Opposition not really taking the fight to Rudd – chiefly because moderate Liberal and conservative Labor politicians agree on almost everything except unions nowadays – Turnbull essentially made Rudd look good, and particularly during Utegate.

I don't think that Rudd was never genuinely popular on his own merits. Instead, circumstances unfolded to make him seem vastly better than several unappealing alternatives. So what's changed? Firstly, the electorate understands more about his character now, and doesn't think all that much of what it sees. Tony Abbott's attacks on him as a waffler who can't get anything done are hitting home, and that's why the PM has responded with the health initiative – the first genuinely bold reform he's advanced since taking office. It's also why he's tried to tone down the bureaucratese lately, although he still has a lot of jargon to unlearn.

The second reason is Tony Abbott. Yes, he stuffs up regularly, and yes, his social views are extremely conservative. And I'm sure that Julia Gillard would cream him, as she has all those times when they've debated one another. But for Rudd, he's pure Kryptonite because he's a conviction politician who seems to never have heard of a focus group, and that's winning back a lot of the voters the Coalition lost.

But not enough to win. And here's the thing that isn't making headlines – Labor's two-party preferred lead remains comfortable. It's 52-48 in this Newspoll, and I'd be willing to bet that things won't get any worse for the Government unless it turns out that Stephen Conroy has been making child porn as well as trying to ban it. Australian elections are all about the uncommitted middle ground, and they're still firmly in the Rudd camp, even at a moment that may well prove to be Rudd's nadir, pollwise.

From here, I predict that the Government, having been caught napping, will figure out where Abbott's vulnerable – and health is an excellent battleground for a Labor Government to fight on. If Rudd gets his plan up, he'll look good. And if he doesn't, he'll probably look even better, because he'd probably win a referendum on it given the performance of most State Governments on health. And unless he somehow learns to run things past his advisors before opening his mouth, Tony Abbott's gaffes will come around as regularly as Rudd's appearances on Sunrise.

The Prime Minister's long, somewhat mystifying honeymoon is over. But it would be foolish to assume that simply because Australia now sees him as the language-mangling, obsessively process-driven, thoroughly unspontaneous career bureaucrat that he is, he's going to lose the next election. Rudd wouldn't have announced a parental leave policy like Abbott's without running it past not only his colleagues, but several departmental enquiries, not to mention a phalanx of pollsters. And that's why, when it comes to the task of winning over the 10% of voters that actually decide Australian elections, he'll almost certainly keep his job.

They're queer, they're here and they're feared by Tony Abbott

I wish Tony Abbott had a gay child. Then there's a chance he might have enough empathy to propose a policy that benefits them, as he's just done for women with his maternity leave proposal. But instead, he's given voice to his inner homophobic panic on national television several times in the past few days.

Of course, it's a good thing to speak one's mind without running every word through a focus group, and that's why Abbott has been so appealing to an audience that's tiring of the tepid utterances of Kevin Rudd. But it's another thing to speak without thinking, and in particular to speak without empathy.

Abbott's candour, unlike Rudd's obfuscation, allows us to see what he really thinks. The problem is, what he really thinks is often rather ugly, as is the case here. His view that homosexuality goes against the "orthodox notions of the right order of things" is particularly disturbing, because it shows him attempting to cloak what are presumably religious beliefs in the rhetoric of nature.

This happens a lot with homosexuality. In fact, if you examine humans with genuine objectivity, we should be able to agree that it has existed in every known human civilisation, regardless of its social mores. It's no less "natural" than heterosexuality, as matter of fact – it's just something that naturally occurs in a minority of people, instead of the majority.

This point appears to be hard for some people to grasp, so let me put it this way – gays are no less unnatural than albinos. They're a minority, certainly, and they look very different from the mainstream. And that's why, in Tanzania, dozens of albinos have been killed in recent years because of fears of witchcraft. Now, we see that instance of people feeling "threatened" as ignorant, because we understand that albinism is a regularly occurring phenomenon.

But there are a great many more homosexuals than albinos, and yet our society seems incapable of truly embracing the idea that it's just the way some people turn out, regardless of whether you think the causes are genetic or environmental. Even people who are deeply opposed to homosexuality, like Catholic priests and certain hypocritical Republican senators, find themselves unavoidably attracted to people of the same sex. And that's why, ultimately, Abbott's honesty reveals nothing more than his ignorance.

I was disappointed to read Abbott's comments, because when our leaders give voice to their inner fears, it sets a tone for the nation. In all her years of controversy, Pauline Hanson never really said all that much about race – she wasn't exactly Jean-Marie Le Pen. But she expressed a general sense of unease about immigration, and that was enough to serve as a lightning rod in the community for those with more extreme views. Now her former nemesis Tony Abbott has expressed similar feelings of discomfort about gays, and who knows what nastiness it may unleash?

His admission that he "probably feels a bit threatened [by homosexuality], like so many people do" is a particularly concerning one. It's long been viewed as reasonable to fear homosexuals, so much so that it has been used as a defence to murder in some jurisdictions. Only last year, an Illinois man stabbed a neighbour 61 times after he made an unwelcome sexual advance, and the court decided it was acceptable because, as Abbott might put it, "so many" people feel threatened by gays.

I know it's become a bit of a cliche, but the Opposition Leader appears in so many ways not to understand it, so I may as well repeat the words of Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird – "You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them." How can we get him to exercise a little more empathy? Should we perhaps suggest that Tony run a half-marathon in a gay man's shoes?

Having daughters taught him how tough working and parenthood can be for women – so perhaps he should adopt a gay son, so he can see what it's like for him to be discriminated against and made to feel abnormal by the ignorant views of politicians. The Opposition Leader had a road-to-Damascus experience on paid maternity leave, which he once said he'd support "over this government's dead body". Well, that government did die, and now he's reconsidered, which is a fine thing. And he's just visited remote Aboriginal communities, nearly getting lost overnight in the process, to try and understand how their lives work. He's even met with Mia Freedman in an attempt to relate to the women of Australia. How long do we have to wait until that restless brain of his devotes a moment of thought into what it must be like to be gay?

Fear is not a good quality in a leader. After 9/11, our leaders preached tolerance rather than admitting to feeling fearful when they saw a Muslim on the streets. Similarly, I'd suggest that next time someone who wants to lead this country feels scared of gays, he should save his concerns for the confessional, where some sensible priest may be able to reassure him that in fact, gays are ordinary, law-abiding people like him, who are extremely unlikely to do anything nasty to his body without his consent, no matter how much he parades it around in Speedos.

Why 'Avatar' should win Best Picture

It's the top-grossing film of all time, and, extraordinarily, it's not even that bad! Here's a list of reasons why, even though the Academy probably won't give it the Best Picture nod, Avatar deserves it.

It rewrote the rulebook. It used to be thought that you couldn't shoot a non-animated movie in 3D. Now you can. It also used to be thought that to be nominated for Best Picture, you needed a non-ridiculous plot. Well, as the absurdly over-the-top army guy might say: "Hey, preconceptions about the movie business, Pandora'll shit you out dead with zero warning."

Did I mention it's in 3D? In the old days, 3D used to be associated with cheap schlock like Creature From The Black Lagoon and Jaws 3D. Now, thanks to Avatar, it's associated with ridiculously expensive digital schlock.

It has spawned a whole new community of nerds. Trekkies and Star Wars junkies are just so, last millennium, you know? Check out avatar-forums.com for an avalanche of useless information, such as a guide to learning the Na'vi language, and of course a detailed FAQ explaining how sex works between two fictional, digitised blue creatures. There are also some hilarious and touching discussions of exactly how much the members would like to become a Na'vi in "real life". Most troubling of all, it appears that alongside "Neytiri", "depression" is the most searched-for term.

It made breakthroughs in the key area of 3D boobies. James Cameron was happy to admit to Playboy that he spent a lot of time ensuring that Neytiri had the perfect computer generated cleavage, even though "that makes no sense because her race, the Na’vi, aren’t placental mammals". See previous item about spawning a new community of nerds.

It created a new religion. Forget people putting Jedi on their census forms – from here, dorks will be bowing down before Eywa. Hippies too, I expect, given how much  those scenes where they all danced in front of the Tree of Souls looked exactly like a psytrance rave. We're all connected, man – I see you. Although it might just be the mushrooms I just ate.

Sam Worthington's an Aussie! Again, Sam Worthington's an Aussie!

It saved us from having a funny Oscars. Sasha Baron Cohen, playing Bruno, planned to come out as a Na'vi woman and tell James Cameron he was pregnant with his lovechild. But the Academy were worried about offending the maestro, so Bruno was axed. Instead we had Alec Baldwin as host, and Steve Martin, who may not be as funny as he used to be, but is now really, really good at the banjo. (To be fair, thanks to Ben Stiller, Avatar just paid us back a little.)

We all learned something. You probably thought Avatar was just an awesomely fun popcorn movie, right? Well, here's where I blow your mind. What if – what if – 'unobtainium' is like oil, and Pandora is like Iraq? Whoa, see what I just did there? The message was so subtle that you probably missed it in the cinema, right? Let me do it again. Has it occurred to you that the Sky People are like European settlers, and the Na'vi are like native Americans? Amazing, huh? Instead of destroying Hometree, the Sky People should have let them turn it into a casino.

Bring on Avatar 2, I say. Can't wait to see what awesome technological advances James Cameron has planned for Zoe Saldana's digital breasts.

The Premier, the portrait and the paedophile

Oh no, those evil artists have done it again! Have they no shame? No morality? Do they not have children of their own? I've just heard on the radio that somebody has dared to paint the convicted paedophile Dennis Ferguson (who looks creepy even in a suit) in this year's Archibald Prize. And I've just heard the ever-bizarre tones of our Premier, Kristina Keneally, condemning it. Which means that instead of reacting with common sense or leadership, she's chosen the predictable demagogue option, throwing fuel on the fire of what will presumably be yet another tabloid firestorm over a work of art.

The term "firestorm" seems particularly appropriate given that an alleged paedophile, Fred Rix, just had his house burned down. It's not yet clear whether it was arson, but surely it would be a remarkable coincidence if it wasn't.

Now, I am as supportive of long sentences for paedophiles as the next person. While it's worth remembering that they're often the victims of abuse themselves, and consequently have major psychological damage, there's no escaping the fact that paedophiles visit this damage, tragically and selfishly, upon innocent children, perpetrating a truly despicable cycle.

But here's the thing. Firstly, Rix hasn't yet been convicted. I've no idea whether he should have been or not, but that's for a court to decide, not an arsonist. And secondly, because we're a civilised society, we have neither the death penalty nor endless sentences. Sometimes, like Ferguson, paedophiles get released. And then we have to work out what to do with them. And trying to kill them, or threatening to assault them as happened with Ferguson, reduces the perpetrator to the same moral level as the paedophile. There are few clearer examples of two wrongs not making a right.

And that's why painting Ferguson, and moreover Brett Collins, who took the unpopular but principled stance that he should be able to live free from harassment now that he has done his time, is in fact a perfect subject for art. Because Ferguson, you see, is there, in the background, and we can't just hope he'll go away. Nor can we all just get him moved elsewhere, like the residents of Ryde did. If he does his time, he gets freed, and has to live among us.

Hopefully, he's been cured. Certainly, he shouldn't be allowed near children, and definitely, he should be monitored. But he has to live somewhere – it's how the system works. And that's why if the painting itself is any good, it would be a great thing for it to be hung, because it's potentially a fantastic piece of social commentary. Far more thought-provoking than the endless paintings of AGNSW board members that seem to make the cut most years.

The Rix incident demonstrates precisely why it would have been great to hear the Keneally hosing down the usual paedophile hysteria here, not contributing to it. And to be fair, I was glad to hear her acknowledge that the gallery shouldn't be stopped from hanging the work, and that pushing the boundaries is a legitimate part of what art does. That's a pretty big concession for a point-scoring politician to make, especially one who is as badly in need of positive publicity as she is.

But the rest of her comments seemed ridiculously mawkish. She says she won't be going to see it, but would be happy to see the other paintings in the competition. Now, what does this mean in practice? I was at the Archibald opening last year, and Nathan Rees did the honours. If Keneally attends this year, and the Ferguson portrait is hung, is she going to insist on a curtain being placed over it so she doesn't have to see it, like they used to do with nudes in Victorian times? How profoundly embarrassing.

She says it "goes too far". How, exactly? Has she any more detailed analysis than the usual metaphor of crossing an arbitrary line? I very much doubt the artist, whoever they are, approves of what Ferguson did, and I've every confidence that Brett Collins doesn't. Did Andy Warhol display approval of Mao's Cultural Revolution when he painted him? Is this portrait somehow going to embolden paedophiles into thinking that if they fiddle with kids, they might get hung in the Archibald Prize someday?

It's so rare that a leader refuses to take the easy bait when they're asked to condemn controversial works of art. Malcolm Turnbull defended Bill Henson's artistic freedom when the police marched into Roslyn Oxley and seized his photographs, but from a cynical perspective, his hand was forced because he owned two of his works. If only more of our politicians would actually try to influence public morality, instead of being beholden to it. If only they would say that some issues are morally complicated, and that it's unwise to rush to judge.

They do this sometimes, of course, but usually only when they're defending themselves. Kristina Keneally has been adamant about her own team's right to innocence before being proven guilty of anything. But she was happy to rush to judge an artwork she presumably hasn't clapped eyes on, and now asserts she "simply didn't need to see".

If artists only painted subjects we all approved of, their work would be so boring that it would have very little reason to exist. Anne Geddes would win every portrait competition. If art makes us think, then it's successful. This painting issued Kristina Keneally an invitation to think about the complex issue of how we deal with paedophiles who have done their time and have to live in our community – a question which, as the person who ultimately runs our criminal justice system, she is directly responsible for answering. It's extremely disappointing that she declined it.

Update: Here is an image of the portrait, which was not available at the time of writing. The artist's name is Trevor Hotten.

My School, My University... My Pollie?

After the success of My School, Julia Gillard has decided to create My University, a website that will provide similar objective rankings on the quality of our tertiary institutions. It's another fabulous initiative from the Rudd Government, which is better at producing data-filled reports than any government ever, even though it isn't so great at acting on them when they warn that an insulation scheme will lead to electrocutions.

Nevertheless, the Government believes in delivering unbiased information to the public so that we can make informed decisions about issues that are important to all of us. So surely the Government should launch another website to provide objective information that can be used to make another vital choice – who to vote for.

Just think of the wealth of information that My Pollie could track! Statistics that have never been collated in one place before, like:

• The number of overseas trips they've made at taxpayer expense (check out this great site, although I notice it isn't authorised by the Liberal Party)

• The number of improper meetings their relatives have held in their office

• The number of strange sartorial decisions they've made while conducting publicity stunts

• The number of times they have sex during Lent (a related statistic – the number of times they've seriously overshared)

• The number of people who have dangerously fallen asleep at the wheel of a motor vehicle while listening to them deliver a budget speech

• The number of times they've been filmed wearing a frilly pink tutu

• The number of Aborigines they've been convicted of beating with a length of steel cable – while they were being held down

• The number of times they've said the words "detailed programmatic specificity" (note – more than 0 is unacceptable)

• The number of totally lame socialist youth organisations they ran during their younger days

• The extraordinarily large number of siblings they have

• The number of times they've had to defend the crackpot they foolishly appointed Finance Spokesperson

• The number of people who have experienced instant, severe nausea while viewing this image

Lara Bingle, feminist warrior

Poor Lara Bingle. First someone steals her Aston Martin, and then the guy she used to shag, reportedly behind his wife's back, turns out to be somewhat ungentlemanly. Imagine her surprise. And while you do, ask yourself when Brendan Fevola would have had the opportunity to take a photo of her in the shower, since I see from the previously-linked article that both denied having an affair at the time.

But this invasion of Bingle's privacy must not stand. How is she supposed to maintain her career as a bikini model when people keep circulating photos of her semi-naked?

Fortunately, a white knight has ridden to her rescue – the legendary manager to the not-quite-stars, Max Markson. In a story that's currently the top-ranked item on smh.com.au, presumably because readers hoped it would contain a link to the photo, he claims that Bingle's decision to sue Fevola "strikes a blow for women's rights". Presumably that's the right not to have nearly-naked photos of you taken by freeloading footballers instead of FHM and Ralph.

Bingle has, of course, previously posed topless for readers of German GQ, whose website melted down after Australian newspaper websites linked to it. Therefore, we can safely assume that anyone who desires to see any Binglean boobage has already done so. It should be an interesting defamation hearing.

The true source of Markson's outrage, I presume, is that a photo of Lara Bingle's breasts was printed in a magazine (Woman's Day) without him getting his hefty percentage. But still, if he wants to make a women's rights argument – and of course, they're always best made by rich, powerful men, aren't they? – here are a few other arguments he might care to use.

Lara smashes stereotypes: Forget being prim and ladylike – this is one feminist who's not afraid to use a bit of blue language. Let's not forget that Bingle first burst onto our screens asking "Where the bloody hell are you", like any singlet-wearing Aussie bloke. It became an iconic statement, and was used extensively by Tourism Australia's own managers when trying to figure out why Bingle's ad hadn't produced an uplift in visitors.

Lara advocates a woman's right to work: Many young blonde women who hook up with successful sportswomen simply become homemakers. But not our Lara – she's who's one sister who is standing on her own two feet and ringing her own bells. As Markson's own website says, "Lara is available for selected commercial opportunities, endorsements, ambassadorships, TV commercials, modeling & personal appearances." Which came as a surprise to me – I didn't realise the things she signed up for were "selected"

Lara has fought for equal relationships: This is one underwear model who expects nothing less than true equality from her partner. Which is presumably why Michael Clarke is also an underwear model.

Lara doesn't need to stand by her man: She'd rather go on holiday to Bali than watch him play cricket. In fact, Bingle doesn't even stand by her commitments to charity events.

Lara opposes the objectification of women: Lara won't stand for a bunch of sexist blokes handing around a topless photo of her for tawdry sexual gratification. Unless she's been paid.

Mr Markson is welcome to use these additional arguments on Bingle's behalf at no charge, as unfamiliar a concept as that may be to him. And I welcome his comments on matters of gender rights, as someone who has proven himself an equal opportunity employer. Aas his record shows, Markson doesn't discriminate between male and female flash-in-the-pan internet celebrities when he's offering them the unlikely promise of a career. Just ask Corey Worthington and Clare Werbeloff. If you can rememember who they are.

Note: I decided not to use a photo of Bingle to illustrate this article, on the basis we've already seen more than enough of her.

Things I learnt at KristinaKeneally.com.au

NSW Labor has posted a wonderful new website so we can get to know our new Premier, almost three months after she was elected imposed on us, and a full year before she faces the polls. I took a tour to discover the woman we like to call "Kristina Keneally", because we don't yet know or like her enough to have a nickname for her. And guess what? She's a woman! She's blonde! And she was born in America! As for what she's done so far, or what she's planning to do... did I mention she's blonde?

After a wander around Premier Keneally's snazzy new website, here's what I've found so far:

She doesn't belong to any political party! Unprecedented, but it must be true, right? I mean, if she was, she'd have put their logo nice and prominently on the page somewhere, surely?

Intriguingly, it does say "Authorised By Matt Thistlethwaite, General Secretary, NSW Labor, 377 Sussex St Sydney" down the bottom, but I assume she just had to get permission to put up the website from that horrible, useless mob who've run this state into the ground. Thank goodness she's not connected to them!

She's a Lawrence Leung fan! In his show Choose Your Own Adventure (which I worked on), Lawrence discovered how to use neuro-linguistic programming to make subconscious suggestions that would help him pick up. He learned that that when you say "new direction", the subconscious mind registers "nude erection", and thinks about sex.

And guess what the Premier's new slogan is? "A new direction!" Maybe the association will help her seduce voters into doing something they really don't want to, like giving Labor yet another term?

She's achieved a lot in nearly 100 days! It's traditional to compile a report card after 100 days of a new administration. It was done endlessly for Barack Obama, and in keeping with his image as a man who loves reports, Kevin Rudd released one of his own. So, what achievements has Premier Keneally to boast of after nearly the same period at the helm of NSW? The front page of the site lists them:

I’ve already introduced MyZone to make public transport fairer, easier and cheaper. There’s a lot more to come.

Okay, so she's only done one thing in 100 days, and it doesn't come into effect until April 18, so saying she's "already introduced it" is not entirely true.

So anyway, what is this marvellous MyZone? Is it, you might wonder, the integrated smart ticketing system we were promised for the Olympics, like they have in London and Hong Kong? Um, no – she's just reduced the number of zones in the system to make things a bit less absurdly complicated.

But that's not all – for the first time, she assures us, all tickets in NSW will have the same logo. Now there's a win.

She's spent a lot of time in the community! Almost all of it being filmed for [rokbox title="A new direction!" text="this video" size="640 360"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR8rLb1zNoo[/rokbox]. But she read an old person a book once, by the looks of things, and it wasn't a huge, nerdy treatise on American history, so she's already more in touch than Bob Carr.

She's trying really hard to lose her American accent! Instead of what was presumably once a charming Ohian drawl, she now has a strange, denatured accent that occasionally has an Aussie twang, and occasionally an American sound, but mainly sounds like some weird bastardization of the two. She says "introdooced" like an American, but "transp-ought" like an Aussie. The strangest part is where she says "easier and cheaper" - the first word like an American, the second like an Aussie. Madam Premier, seriously - please just talk like an American, it's got to be better than this.

She knows it's a tough job being Premier! Of course she does – after all, she's seen from Nathan Rees how easy it is to get stabbed in the back! What she probably doesn't understand, though, is that it's even tougher being an ordinary resident of NSW, who doesn't get a chauffeur and has to rely on the joke that the NSW Government calls "public transport", even though it rarely manages to actually transport anybody. Still, she's got it tough too, don't forget!

She has big plans! In her "Policy Centre", there's a whole bunch of stuff she'd really like to do with education, health, infrastructure and so on. All the stuff that Labor should have done over the nearly 15 years it's had in Government. But this time, it'll be different, because... look, we're just going to have to trust her.

She's going to win the next election! No really, she probably is. She's already astonishingly popular with voters in the polls. All she has to do is disassociate herself from the Labor stench through websites like this one, and in particular the guys like Joe Tripodi and Eddie Obeid who gave her the job in the first place, and there's a strong chance she'll win.

And why is that? Because even though he's been the alternative Premier since 2007, almost nobody knows or likes Barry O'Farrell, and that's hardly likely to change in the next 12 months. So unless they dump him for someone with a bit of support like Malcolm Turnbull, she'll win an even unlikelier victory than that other guy's... what was his name... oh yes, Morris Iemma.