Twelve reasons I hate 'Twilight'
I have a grave responsibility to understand important developments in popular culture, for the purpose of mocking them. This is why it has been my painful duty, for instance, to pay attention to Justin Bieber. But for years, I've resisted Twilight. Even as the phenomenon grew, I just couldn't quite bring myself to endure Mills and Boone with a cast of sexually-frustrated vampires.
And then, a number of people I respect got addicted to the books, and I decided that it was time to see what the latest publishing phenomenon was all about. This weekend, I was staying at a country house which had a copy of the book and not a huge amount else to do, so I finally ploughed through Stephenie Meyer's bestseller.
Just in case you missed the subtle title of my post, I didn't like it. Here's why.
1) There was no romance whatsoever
No romance? But isn't Twilight all about romance? Isn't that the entire point of the series? Well, the book's certainly full of cheesy passages where Bella and Edward bang on about their intense feelings for one another. But romance as I understand it – and certainly, the things I enjoy about romantic literature – are curiously absent because of Meyer's plotting. If you haven't read the books, I won't spoil them for you. Not because I'm not going to avoid revealing key details – I'm not – but because it's impossible to spoil a book with such a paper-thin plot.
There's no romance in the book because by definition, Bella and Edward are in love from the first moment. Well, except for this brief period when they're pretending to be angry. But Edward is immediately drawn to Bella because of how she smells. So, instead of bothering to write any chemistry between them, Meyer has used actual chemistry. Instead of having to justify why Edward bothers with such a vapid, annoying girl (see point 7 below) through the conventional devices or plot and character, Meyer simply defines her as irresistible to him.
Most romances allow love to develop between the pair. Take Jane Austen, where there is often genuine antagonism between the romantic pair, but circumstances change and draw them together. But Meyer, it seems, is incapable of this kind of emotional complexity. Bella and Edward are in love BECAUSE THEY ARE, darn it, and that's all there is to it.
And why does Bella love Edward? Well, that's even simpler a case of plot-by-definition, because...
2) Edward is perfect
He's immortal, impossibly good looking, has superhero-like speed and strength, and has an entirely noble character. He is supernaturally flawless. The novel tries to present as his one flaw the fact that he's prepared to risk everything for Bella – but as a million sighing teenage girls will tell you, that's no flaw.
In fact, Edward's perfection is surely the main reason for Twilight's popularity with teenage girls. What insecure adolescent wouldn't like to imagine that they went to a new school only to discover that a paragon of impossible male perfection was immediately and irrevocably in love with them, and would give anything to be with them until the end of time? Oh, and even composes totally amazing piano sonatas for them? Even though he's supposedly a vampire killing machine, there's no light and shade with Edward.
To me, this makes Edward's character boring. The only interesting thing about him is that he drives irresponsibly fast, although unfortunately he does it so well that he never even crashes.And yet despite his dull perfection, when you think more about it...
3) Bella should take out an AVO against Edward
Not only does he constantly battle with his desire to murder Bella and drink her blood – not usually a sign of affection, even though both Bella apparently think it is – but he regularly breaks into her bedroom and watches her sleep. Yes, devotion can be kind of romantic, but there's a line beyond which it's disturbing and even criminal, and Edward is well over this line. It may be news to Meyer, but most people who are stalked tend not to find it flattering and endearing.
I could give quotes to illustrate how disturbing Edward's behaviour is, but there's no need when the Reasoning With Vampires blog (hat tip – @msmaddiep) has brilliantly – and a little obsessively, which is somewhat ironic – charted dozens of places in the book where Edward's behaviour inexplicably makes Bella swoon instead of getting a court order.
But swoon she does, and that's largely because...
4) Being a vampire is awesome
Bella wants to become a vampire so she can stay with Edward forever, and yet thoughtful Edward loves her so much that he wants her to have a normal life. But in fact, it should be an easy decision, because in the book, being a vampire is all upside, with immortality and super powers. Sure, there's the whole bloodlust/killing thing, but the Cullens just dine on animals – and what's more, they do it in an ecologically sustainable way, not overhunting any particular species. Could they get any lovelier?! Unlike every other vampire story in history – all of which, by contrast, involve some degree of moral complexity – there is absolutely no downside to joining the legions of the undead as defined in Twilight. And still, there's more...
5) The extra vampire powers
If their superpowers weren't enough, a few of Meyer's characters have extra abilities which allow her plots to be even more lazily constructed. Edward can read minds, meaning that he can just save Bella whenever anyone's trying to do her in, and Alice can foretell the future – what an excellent way to avoid having an intricate plot, or any suspense? Why construct a clever narrative that leads us from logical point A to B, then C, and so on, when Edward and Alice can flip straight to Z?
Meyer's plotting is lazy even when she's not relying on the vampires' super powers. For instance, Bella spends a lot of time wondering what Edward is. How does she work it out? She happens to meet this Jacob dude, who just tells her, even though the existence of vampires is meant to be a huge, carefully-protected secret. How entirely uningenious. So it comes as no surprise that...
6) The climax is lame
Two-thirds of the way through the book, Meyer suddenly remembers that she has to have some sort of plot to make the novel suspenseful, so she just bolts one on. It goes like this: a bunch of other vampires turn up, which Alice saw coming. One of them, James, arbitrarily decides that of all the billions of other potential humans to feed on, he must kill Bella, and will pursue her to the ends of the earth to do so. Why? Because he's a hunter. But all the vampires are hunters, aren't they? No, but this guy really, really likes hunting. In other words, he's determined to kill Bella because... well, just because.
Fortunately, even when he lures Bella away from her superhuman vampire guards by pretending he's abducted her mother, Alice can easily work out where they are. After which the Cullens easily kill him, because Emmett is super strong. Too easy.
Even though it was obvious that she'd survive, I was a little disappointed Bella was saved by the end of the book, because her self-sacrifice to save her mother was the one moment when I didn't feel that...
7) Bella is annoying
We're supposed to simply accept that Edward, who has been alive for over a hundred years, finds a self-absorbed seventeen-year-old interesting, but it's impossible to see why. In class, she's an insufferable know-it-all. She claims that no-one ever found her attractive back in her home town, but when she moves to rural Forks, there's a conga line of hicks queueing up to ask her out. And yet she turns them all down, often quite patronisingly, because she thinks she's too good for them. Only literally the greatest guy ever can cut the mustard. Fortunately, he's totally into her - but unfortunately, I couldn't see why.
Oh, Bella suffers from depression, apparently, and loneliness, the poor thing. But like so much in Meyer's book, we're merely told this – we never see it. In fact, Bella is a remarkably self-satisfied young woman, with remarkably little cause to be so.
8} There is no humour
At least, not intentionally. It's a book about vampires and werewolves – couldn't Meyer have had a little fun with it? No, she couldn't. There's none of the delightful humour that made Harry Potter so enjoyable, at the same time as JK Rowling's broader plot of the war against Voldemort was terribly serious. There are no laughs in Twilight, even though the sexy cool hero vampire drives – wait for it – a Volvo.
9) The writing is dreadful
Now despite appearances, I'm not a total literature snob. I found The Da Vinci Code unputdownable, and the way he worked existing works of art and architecture into the plot fairly ingenious, even though Dan Brown's writing is such dreadful doggerel. But in Meyer, there are few redeeming features to take one's mind off the clunky writing.
Again, Reasoning with Vampires has done an excellent job of charting the depths of Meyer's writing – I won't pull apart her sentences because he's already done it so comprehensively. But let's just say that I found myself regularly stopping reading for a moment, staring at a sentence and asking myself whether I was reading an unedited first draft.
10) Too many extraneous, undeveloped characters
Meyer has a habit of introducing three or four indistinguishable characters where one would have done. There are about a zillion Cullens, all deeply similar. I assume that in later books, we come to appreciate the differences, but after finishing the first, I found myself struggling to tell them apart. All the boys who have the hots for Bella are pretty much identical, except for the one who's obviously a werewolf, and so are all of her female friends. We barely see her parents.
11) 'Stephenie' isn't a name, it's a typo
Okay, so it's a pedantic point. But really, has she not heard of deed polls?
12) Her books have sold roughly a million times more copies than mine
Yes, there's a bit of sour grapes here. But at least my characters get to have sex lives. So there, Stephenie.
An Old Etonian in China
Friends, remember what you were doing yesterday, for it will go down in history as the day of the second, greater, Chinese Revolution. For yesterday was the day that David Cameron, British Prime Minister and all-round good guy, told China a few home truths about democracy and the rule of law. And yesterday was the day that China's leaders, who for so long have been presiding over an unprecedentedly successful economic modernisation programme and yet have seen fit not to introduce even the slightest element of popular representation, finally saw the error of their ways.
Pity the poor students who died in Tiananmen Square in 1989, for their efforts were wasted. The only thing standing between China and democracy, it turns out, was a good old fashioned hectoring from a pompous public school prat.
And, in the one-party state of China, he talked up the incomparable benefits of Britain's current two-party government. Apparently it isn't the result of all three parties being so underwhelming that voters didn't really warm to any of them, but a wonderful guarantor of good government, as Reuters reported:
Cameron said Britain had "two different political parties -- the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats - with different histories and political philosophies, working together for the good of our country."
He noted that he had to account for his actions on a weekly basis in prime minister's questions in parliament, and that the government was always subject to the rule of law.
"These are constraints on the government, and at times they can be frustrating when the courts take a view with which the government differs," the prime minister said.
"But ultimately we believe that they make our government better and our country stronger." He said free media was important despite the criticism and discomfort it sometimes brought the government.
No doubt the scales fell from the Chinese Communist Party's eyes, and its officials rushed to sign a power-sharing agreement with a much smaller and more insipid party, which would contradict and embarrass it. And no doubt Xinhua was immediately instructed to set up intrusive, gossip-filled tabloids exactly like Britain's.
And what a fantastic model for China, and indeed all of us, Britain's Coalition is proving to be. What a wonderful investment in a bright future was its decision to treble university fees, which caused massive riots in central London this week. And what a foresighted and generous move to slash 500,000 – that's right, half a million – public sector jobs in a bid to improve Britain's economy by dramatically increasing its unemployment. No wonder, as the leader of such a wonderfully successful country, he has time to travel elsewhere to teach Freedom And Democracy 101.
Well okay – he was actually in Beijing with cap in hand, trying to cut a trade deal to bail out his basket case of an economy. And it's always best to criticise someone when you need their help, which is why I plan to subject my bank manager to a lengthy critique of his dress sense when I next apply for a mortgage. Sure, I'll be desperate for his help, but that shouldn't stop me dropping a few truth bombs about his tie, should it? After all, I come from a country where we have free speech.
There's democracy, of course – why, the British invented it! Which is why their system retains a monarch who still owns vast swathes of the countryside and has a lavish lifestyle funded by the public purse, and whose heir regularly tries to interfere with the workings of government. Having short-sightedly disposed of its own emperor, China unfortunately can't transform itself into a constitutional monarchy like Britain's, but its class of rich communist cadres who've relentlessly exploited those below them to further their wealth and privilege could very well form the basis of a House of Lords.
And let's not forget that Britain was so kind as to set up a democratic state right there in China, in the shape of Hong Kong, and then give the whole place back to China by way of example. Of course, its Legislative Council was only made popularly elected in 1995, and the Governor retained unfettered executive power right up until the end in 1997. But nevertheless, democracy is a right everyone should enjoy, unless they're Chinese and lucky enough to be governed by a Briton.
In fact, here's an idea. Given China's great wealth and Britain's economic malaise, why doesn't Cameron serve as a kind of permanent tutor to the Chinese Government, charging billions of dollars for the wonderful advice he currently gives them for free?
His next lesson should be on how China should liberalise its state-owned financial institutions so that, unfettered by regulation, they can ruin China's economy's just like the UK's banks ruined Britain's, to the point where the government had to nationalise several of them. Then, China could end up adopting the West's free-market ideology just as successfully as Russia has. Oh, the things David Cameron could teach the Chinese!
Of course, I agree with much of what David Cameron said. Of course, it would be wonderful if China had democratic government, a free press and the rule of law. Of course, China's human rights record bothers me, and it's a disgrace that its dissenters are routinely locked up, and of course I dearly hope that things will change as the country continues to develop.
But if there's one thing that's guaranteed to make the current Chinese government dig in its heels and refuse to consider even the slightest hint of liberalisation, it's lectures from Western leaders. Especially ones whose own countries are in such disarray that they've shown up to beg for a trade deal. What David Cameron did yesterday was grandstanding for the folks back home. And in the unlikely event that his remarks are reported anywhere in the Chinese media, the readers will probably resent his interference rather than embracing the substance of what he had to say.
Many nations in the Asia-Pacific have successfully transitioned from authoritarianism to Western-style democracy in the past century. Several of them, like India, had to throw off British rule to do so. But not one of them made that difficult but beneficial transition because a British Prime Minister told them it was a jolly good idea.
The faceless man who might just have a soul
Well, Mark Arbib's support for gay marriage is a shock. I wasn't aware that he had a conscience, an opinion independent of ALP polling, or even a face. His most significant recent contribution to public debate was ducking out of that episode of Q&A, when he was represented, entirely adequately, by an empty chair. And yet he was the first frontbencher to break from the party's wussy, wedge-avoiding stance on the issue. I couldn't be more surprised if I discovered that Genghis Khan enjoyed flower-arranging.
Arbib ran rather an eloquent line in the Weekend Oz, saying "If I was the parent of a gay son or daughter I don't know how I could tell them they didn't have the same rights as I do." Now, I know this might be an absurd thing to say of a renowned ALP head-kicker, but could it be that these words smack of... a little something called empathy?
Gay marriage remains a controversial topic – my previous post about it for The Drum attracted an astonishing 588 comments. As ever, not one of the hundreds of commenters, provided a sensible, non-religious reason for maintaining the ban on gay marriage that went beyond Pauline Hanson's "I don't like it". Most pollies, Julia Gillard and Hillary Clinton included, stick doggedly to the banal formula that things should stay the same without ever specifying why. But surely discrimination should never be the default setting for a law without an extremely good reason?
Presumably Gillard's reason is "polling in a few marginals we don't want to lose". So much, then, for the supposedly progressive side of politics.
But I don't want to get bogged down in the question of whether gay marriage should be legal again. It just should. If you disagree, read the judgment by US Federal judge Vaughn Walker who says that the ban has "no rational basis". And if you still disagree, by all means stop reading this blog and go back to torturing kittens, bullying the disabled, or whatever is your preferred means of denying others happiness that doesn't inconvenience you in the slightest.
The interesting development this week, though, is that a Cabinet minister has come out in favour of gay marriage, on the basis of personal conscience. Usually the Labor way, especially for those in Cabinet, is to resolve their position behind the closed Caucus doors and then stick to it in public. That's why poor, loyal Penny Wong had to back a policy that there's surely no chance she actually agrees with, and Peter Garrett had to look like such a hypocrite over uranium mining.
This principle of collective action also explains why many supporters of gay marriage have opposed a conscience vote. And I can see their point. While it sounds delightfully idealistic to let every MP follow their own private view, to do so unjustifiably distinguishes this from any other public policy. If those who dissent on uranium mining have to suck it up, why shouldn't the opponents of gay marriage be forced do the same thing in the unlikely event that the majority support it?
If there is genuinely a new paradigm in our politics, I would argue that it's this – voters have had a gutful of the current approach to campaigning. We're a nation with finely-tuned bullshit detectors, and Labor's hapless campaign should have placed it on notice that the strategy of cautious triangulation that got Rudd elected isn't going to cut it anymore. Being the slightly less heartless, slightly more enviro-friendly version of John Howard's Liberals worked in 2007, but the wheels fell off with his centrist approach with the ETS, and so badly that they had to dump him.
If Labor goes on as it is, it'll continue to leak votes to the genuine articles – the Coalition and the Greens. Everyone knows what they stand for, except perhaps Joe Hockey when floating a bizarrely socialist bubble about regulating interest rates.
So I can only assume that, ironically, Labor's polling is telling them to be less poll-driven. And that's why we're seeing ministers displaying signs of a conscience, and kids being let out of detention because, in contravention of years of Labor strategy, it happens to be right rather than popular.
It's presumably also why the Prime Minister's talking about this referendum recognising indigenous Australians. In keeping with her former role as Rudd's deputy, it's a bit wishy-washy, addressing symbolism rather than substance. And she's hardly going out on a limb – seriously, what manner of heartless scumbag would oppose symbolic recognition of Australia's origins in our Constitution? (Wilson Tuckey, and who else?) But her move still ever so slightly makes it look like she cares about something beyond her own survival. Which, she presumably now recognises, may well be the only way she can guarantee it.
Labor has been so eager to adopt the dark arts of modern campaigning that it's polled and strategised itself into a hole. And it's to the credit of voters that we rewarded its recent campaign with a hung parliament. Now, from the unlikely source of Mark Arbib, we may be seeing the hesitant first buds of regrowth.
The ALP's strategists have to ask itself whether any principle is so sacred that it can't be compromised in a bid to win government. And after they answer "of course not", they need to remember that as Tony Abbott proved, there are votes in looking like you believe in something. If Mark Arbib can manufacture the appearance of a conscience, then the Labor Party might just be able to do the same. And pushing through gay marriage, leading public opinion rather than merely following it, would be an excellent place to start.
Grog's great anonymity gamble
f you only learn one useful thing from this article – which would be well above average for my posts – then learn this: there is no such thing as a high-profile, anonymous blogger. That's the lesson that @GrogsGamut, the blogger, tweeter and sometime Drum contributor has learned after the Australian's James Massola outed him late last night as arts bureaucrat Greg Jericho. Which is a name so secret-agent cool that I might well use it as my own pseudonym someday.
For those who haven't visited the pit of seething fury that the web's premier microblogging service has become today, let's just say that the Twittersphere isn't happy. Massola has received a deluge of abuse, and his detractors have replaced their own pictures with Grog's avatar – which might explain why many people in your feed have confusingly transformed into Ralph Fiennes.
The question of whether bloggers and tweeters should be able to remain anonymous is somewhat moot in the internet age, when it takes five seconds to sign up. But maintaining anonymity when your work becomes popular can be far more difficult – just ask another Drum writer, Marieke Hardy, who had the extraordinary honour of being outed by Andrew Bolt. Anonymity invites a guessing game, and there are always clues because a blog with no personal details will generally be very dull.
And so they get caught out, nearly every time. This won't be the greatest day of Greg Jericho's life. He'll no doubt be hauled into an awkward meeting with his bosses, and have to make some hard decisions on whether to continue his online activities – if he's even allowed to. (I'll leave the precise interpretation of the Public Service rules to other, more thorough bloggers, like Jericho himself.) It won't even comfort him to think that he's in a dual-identity dilemma routinely faced by Superman.
His exposure is only newsworthy – to the limited extent that it is – because of a post he wrote criticising the travelling press pack during the recent campaign. His accusion that they were focussing on trivialities to the exclusion of policy was picked up on by Mark Scott, the Managing Director of the ABC, and passed through to the national broadcaster's news team. As far as anonymous bloggers go, that made him pretty darn influential – I'd be astonished if the boss had ever bothered to read my internet drivel, for instance.
But that gives Massola's exposé something of the stench of sour grapes. Jericho's article was critical of both the Oz and, in particular, its News Ltd stablemate Sky News – a point that the journalist should have noted in his report. It was also regrettable that the article was posted without a link to Jericho's post to enable readers to judge for themselves. Grog also notes that Massola has known his real identity since November, which makes his decision to publish now a matter of further interest.
Whether in anticipation of or response to the Twitter outrage, the Oz posted an editorial shortly after Massola's story broke, justifying their story on the basis that Jericho was "influencing the public debate" because of Scott's actions. But Jericho couldn't have known who'd read his article. In fact, as a hitherto largely unknown blogger, it would have been verging on megalomaniacal for him to think his argument would prove so influential.
The Australian asserted the "public's right to know", a worthy principle which in practice so often reflects its invoker's own agenda. But someone whose occasional thoughts are read with interest by a small number of Canberra insiders is hardly a prime candidate for public tarring and feathering. It feels rather like the Oz opted to play the anonymous man instead of the ball.
Nevertheless, here's where I become slightly uncomfortable. I've just accused the Australian of having an agenda beyond the explicit text of what was in its article – a greater purpose that has affected what they've chosen to write, and which they've chosen to leave out. This view has a dramatic effect on how I choose to read their article. But when it comes to Grog's blog, we've had no access to the same information because of his anonymity, and that makes it far harder for us assess what he has to say.
Now, I'm not saying that every anonymous scribe should immediately be unmasked by James Massola – for one thing, it would make his column dreadfully dull. But it means that we have to read anonymous writers' work with considerably more skepticism than we would if they identified themselves. I mean, sure – Grog said he was a public servant – but who hasn't claimed to be a public servant now and then? Even I once, did to try and impress a girl at bar in Canberra. And here's the second useful piece of information contained in this article: it didn't work.
But I disagree that on this occasion, any "public's right to know" justifies the disruption being caused to Jericho's life. Mark Scott's directions to his news team are ultimately his call as ABC editor-in-chief, and it's unreasonable to hold the authors of articles whose critiques he may choose to adopt responsible for them.
There's also an argument that Jericho is somewhat responsible for his outing himself, which gives us Useful Lesson #3 from this story. If you're worried about having the sensitive identity behind your Twitter account exposed, it's probably best not to attend a conference full of high-profile tweeters, hiding behind the fig-leaf of a nametag without a surname.
And yet Jericho voluntarily entered a room full of journalists. Which is why it's a bit peculiar that people are so furious with Massola, who's paid to report interesting tidbits from Canberra – surely a struggle at the best of times. It would have been difficult for him to resist a story that sat down at the same conference table. And his moral obligation to respect Grog's chosen limits on his hidden identity is, in such circumstances, a question of politeness rather than duty.
So where does this leave us? First, we've learnt that some guy in the nation's film bureaucracy is a pretty darn smart analyst, except when it comes to decisions about attending conferences. I think Jericho should keep his job, and be given the vital task of preventing triviality in the Australian film industry. With Grog on deck, there'll be no more Danny Deckchairs.
Secondly, we've learned that the nation's tweeters don't like James Massola very much at the moment. And do like Jericho rather a lot. Then again, they don't know him personally.
Thirdly, it's difficult to preserve your anonymity once your work enters the public sphere, and that it's probably best not to try. If even the mighty Top Gear can't keep the Stig's identity under wraps, what hope has anyone else got?
And finally, we've learned that the Australian's difficulty identifying whether an issue is too trivial to receive column space hasn't entirely been corrected.
The luxury of independence
When I was a kid, my local State MP was Ted Mack, who was so independent that he even lived in Neutral St, North Sydney. He was Mayor of North Sydney too, and during his time, spearheaded major building projects in places I regularly visited, like Stanton Library and North Sydney Oval, where I used to watch rugby league before the Super League war destroyed the Bears. I looked on with schoolboy awe as our whole suburb was transformed under the watch of this architect-turned-politician. He was a white-haired, groovy-vintage-car-driving political superhero, able to renovate municipal buildings in a single bound.
I admired his unimpeachable morality when he resigned from both State and Federal Parliament days before qualifying for a huge super payout. And because he wasn't a member of any party, I felt he represented us better than anyone who was beholden to a party machine. The proof was all around me, in a beautiful, well-resourced suburb, freshly daubed in pretty Federation colours by our trained architect-turned-politician. Even our bus stops were given cute, wholly unnecessary terracotta roofs.
I used to wonder why everyone couldn't have an independent local member. If they could only see how great things were in North Sydney, surely they'd want a Ted Mack of their own?
Rob Oakeshott has reminded me of my youthful belief in independents in recent weeks. His 17-minute soliloquy was dripping with contempt for all those who had pledged their loyalty to some form of political organisation, and his idealistic, impractical call for a government of national unity featuring the strongest players from both sides reflected his dislike for the paradigm of the "red team or the blue team" – although we now know that back when he was a State MP, he wasn't averse to joining the ministry of the red team.
But as fervently as Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott advocate a world where all politicians are as worthily community-oriented as they are, that simply wouldn't work. The reality is that an independent MP is a luxury that very few electorates can afford to indulge, and that unless they find themselves in a rare balance of power situation, their role in parliament is marginal at best. They have minimal leverage to get things done for their local area, and they aren't even making up the numbers the way a party-aligned backbencher does.
For one thing, I now understand that most of what Ted Mack achieved in North Sydney was due to him being a mayor, not an MP. What's more, he was lucky enough to run a council which contained a sizeable CBD – I remember it was the third largest in Australia at the time. That gave him a massive rates budget to spend on renovations. And while I'm sure he cut various deals in Macquarie St, and he was able to cut down on planning red-tape because of his MP role, I doubt he would have been as effective without controlling the council too.
Being able to merely focus on the needs of your own community the way Mack did is a luxury that few MPs have, especially in the federal arena, where much of the business doesn't relate to any specific local area. Its current MP, Joe Hockey, spends most of his time as Shadow Treasurer, which necessarily means spending less time on the affairs of North Sydney – but is still vital work.
As Prime Minister, obviously Julia Gillard will spend relatively little time thinking about how best to represent her electors in Lalor. But she'll be acting in the national interest, at least most of the time, and representing all of us. Somebody's got to do it. And it won't be an independent. Which is why they'll have plenty of time to have feelgood meetings in their electorates, and probably increase their majority as a result.
It's entirely fitting, then, that Oakeshott's salary would have gone up by $100,000 if he'd taken on that regional development ministry, because he would have had to make a far larger contribution to public life.
Parliament is also about more than merely representing local interests – there are inevitable questions of political philosophy.
When Bob Katter tried to argue that his paradigm was simply one of North Queensland, he was being disingenuous. There is no way that an independent MP can avoid participating in that contest unless they constantly abstain from votes (or simply don't show up). You can't answer questions like whether a parental leave scheme should be means-tested or not, or whether student unionism should be voluntary, by looking to the interests of the people of your electorate. And even if you do, your own beliefs about what's best for all of society will determine your answer.
Furthermore, effective governing needs a Cabinet that can work together to make decisions, and trust one another at least up to a certain point, and that's where political parties work well. Any organisation requires teamwork to be effective, and it's not a bad thing that politicians are generally required to be loyal to their colleagues.
So while neither's in great shape at present, and Labor badly needs the pending inquiry to figure out what it believes in, we do need our red and blue teams. And those who have the luxury of an independent member who can afford to spend a day reading a story about a dog called Smudge to kids in his electorate are essentially sponging off the hard work done by those of us whose MPs spend most of their time on national issues.
I'll be delighted if Rob Oakeshott becomes speaker, because it will allow him to make a contribution to the entire nation, and help to actually deliver the parliamentary reform he likes to talk about. It'll require him to ask his voters to understand that he's got bigger fish to fry than merely the interests of Port Macquarie. And that's what Federal politics should ultimately be about.
Comrades giveaway
I'm going to post a signed copy of Comrades to the person who leaves the most amusing excuse for why they haven't read it yet. Please leave yours below and don't forget to include your email address! (Update: it's now closed.)
Thanks - many of them were very funny! Here are some of the Twitter entries.
For real reform, let's make Parliament more like cricket
Australia voted, and now the independents should too
Let's get this election over with. It's already gone on for about a week too long, and instead of being obliged to exhaustively rebut the myth that Labor's losing the two-party preferred vote, Antony Green needs a holiday. The only counting the ABC's election analyst should be doing is of the olives in his poolside martini.
Whoever is the next Prime Minister is likely to be almost completely ineffective, and as a result will probably lose the next election in a landslide. After three years of chaos – which both parties will be obliged to guarantee if they win, since the Independents are demanding a full-term commitment – the electorate will be fed up with everyone associated with the Government.
Saying no to negativity
As we wait for somebody, anybody, to form a government, Australia is riven by uncertainty. Canberra is on tenterhooks, stock markets are jittery, and I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be making fun of anymore.
Well, that's not entirely true - there's Bob Katter, the scourge of Filipino banana producers, and Wyatt Roy, who has just been elected the Member for Milky Bars. But otherwise, I feel stuck limbo, like in that bizarre bottom dream-level of Inception, except without the French babe who wants me to stay there with her forevermore.
How to vote in Election 2010
After Yes We Canberra! concluded on its pre-election episode on Wednesday with a song which suggested that every single candidate in this election was f**ked, some have accused The Chaser of negativity. While this is, of course, outrageous, I thought I'd attempt to redress the balance by provide a few good reasons to vote for each of our major parties.
Labor
- You think a good government lost its way, but is now absolutely nailing it.
- You're the one person who was convinced by the endless repetition of "Moving Forward".You find yourself constantly visiting kiddie porn sites, and would like the Government to block them for you.
- You are a faceless machine man, and feel your kind is underrepresented in our nation's parliament.
- You think Peter Garrett's already suffered enough disappointment in his political career
- You are a people smuggler (reason submitted by T. Abbott).
- You could think of nothing better to do with a year of your life than being a member of the Citizen's Assembly.
- You're a happy NSW resident.
Liberal
- The arrival of 5000 desperate asylum seekers per year terrifies you.
- You support going backwards as an admirer of retro chic.
- You're an "undecided" voter at a Rooty Hill RSL Club People's Forum.
- You demand immigration be reduced to what it was going to be anyway.
- You're a married parent, and have noticed the Liberal campaign's subtle indicators that Tony Abbott is one too.
- You feel really sorry for Kevin Rudd, but now want him not even to be Foreign Minister.
- You want WorkChoices to come back, even though Tony Abbott's endlessly ruled it out. (Reason submitted by J. Gillard.)
- You want to get pregnant and are rich.
- You're a Wayne Swan devotee who wants Gillard to fail so that your hero can step up to the plate.
Nationals
- You're from the bush, and will settle for being the far more junior party in a Coalition with a bunch of rich city slickers.
- You look back fondly to the old days in Queensland when your votes were worth much more than anyone else's.
- You don't want the Government to bother spending billions connecting your town to a lightning-fast broadband network.
- You enjoy the standup comedy of Warren Truss.
Greens
- You believe in an emissions trading scheme, and are so dogmatic that you'd rather global warming continued unchecked than see any lesser emissions trading scheme passed.
- You care about the environment, and want other people who care about the environment to implement all their policies, whatever they may be.
- You like Bob Brown, presume every other member of his team must be equally impressive, and haven't seen any other members of his team doing a media appearance.
- You want the Government to "provide free information on substance use, especially for young people". And yes, that is how the Greens have actually worded their policy.
- You enjoyed ABC-TV's Gruen Nation and can't spell.
- You are a drug dealer. (Reason submitted by S. Fielding.)
Democrats
- You remember the Democrats' time holding the balance of power in the Senate fondly.
- You remember the Democrats at all.
- You haven't heard about this story yet.
Family First
- You want to put the Holy Family first.
- You fear the loss of Steve Fielding's values in Parliament.
- You fear the loss of Steve Fielding's entertainment value in Parliament.
- You work in the giant bottle costume industry, and fear the loss of your job.
Australians Against Further Immigration
- You found Pauline Hanson's race-baiting a little too subtle.
Australian Sex Party
- You're a comedy writer who wants an easy butt for your jokes over the next three years. Butt, get it?
Leave the ballot paper blank
- You are Mark Latham
- You found Mark Latham's 60 Minutes report convincing (NB - this is not in fact possible)
Now, that was a bit more positive, wasn't it?
Our major parties' gay abandon
Why, pray tell, is there a bipartisan consensus against same-sex marriage? A Galaxy poll last year found that 60% were in favour of it – more than enough to legalise something socially progressive, since when it finally happens, and gay marriages are proven to have absolutely no impact on anyone else's except making functions venues slightly harder to book, even more people will come on board.
But for days now I've been watching the endless televised question-and-answer sessions with Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, and every time they're asked they simply stonewall, if that's not too confusing a term to use in an article about homosexuality.
Julia Gillard had to defend her position last week both on Q&A and at the public meeting of the Rooty Hill branch of the Liberal Party, and both times she used the same formula. "What I say now is going to disappoint you," she said, briefly allowing a moment of Realness to permeate the discussion before returning to her carefully scripted line:
The position, my position, the position of the Labor Party, which we worked out at our national conference, is we believe that the Marriage Act should stay in the same way that it is now.
"How it is now", you may remember, is that celebrants are required to state that in Australia, marriage is between a man and a woman. That little gem was introduced by the Howard Government and adds an unpleasant moment of homophobic priggishness to every ceremony, the ceremonial equivalent of hocking a ball of phlegm into the punch.
After that, Gillard quickly moved onto a long list of reforms her government had made to guarantee legal equality for homosexual relationships, just in case anybody was mistakenly thinking that the ALP hated gays. And of course, Labor doesn't – why, some of its best Senators are gay. It's just that it likes winning marginal seats a whole lot more.
Gillard's defence of the ban to both audiences went no further than explaining that Labor didn't want it to change. Which the questioner already knew, of course, having asked the question. Ultimately, she could offer no more sophisticated an argument than Pauline Hanson's famous "I don't like it".
I'm sure she has no issue with it personally – as we know, the PM is not exactly a traditionalist when it comes to marriage. And yet, she doggedly defends the party line, albeit unconvincingly.
So, why is a notionally progressive party so intrangient on gay marriage? Labor's timidity partly dates back to Howard successfully using the issue as a wedge ahead of the 2004 election. However, according to the Adelaide Advertiser's Mark Kenny, the policy was confirmed at the ALP's National Conference last year because the powerful Labor Right – and in particular the - shop assistants' union – have links to the Catholic Church, and chose to reflect its view that marriage should be straights-only.
But what business has the Catholic Church to demand that their religious belief should determine public policy for "sinners"? The theology of Christianity is all about believers following a set of rules that's distinct from the rest of society, so why expect non-believers to conform? Churches are at liberty to refuse to allow gays to marry in their buildings, just as the likes of George Pell are free to demonise homosexuality despite the church's own internal struggles with the issue. But that's where it should end – at the church doors, not in Parliament.
Unsurprisingly, Tony Abbott's in lockstep with the Catholic Church on this issue, leading to a touching question on this week's Q&A from audience member Geoff Thomas:
I have a gay son. When I was confronted with that situation in a very short amount of time and with due consideration I accepted his position and I overcame my ignorance and my fear of gays and the idea of gay marriage. When will you, Mr Abbott, take up the same - when will you, sir, overcome your fear and ignorance of gay people and give them the dignity and respect that you'd happily give to all other Australians?
Abbott's response felt more sincere than Gillard's, unsurprisingly. "I think that there are lots of terrific gay relationships, lots of terrific commitments between gay partners, but I just don't think that marriage is the right term to put on it," he said.
And then he stroked Tony Jones' arm (at 14:40 here), just to show how cool he was with the whole gay thing. Unfortunately, an awkward moment of television doesn't prove that he's down with the gay community the way, say, riding on a Mardi Gras tribute float featuring Speedo-clad lifesavers with giant prosthetic ears would.
When asked by kids last week to explain what the Liberal Party was about, Abbott's answer was full of the rhetorical of liberalism. "The Liberal Party is the freedom party," he said. For straights, that is. A true liberal would support genuine freedom for people who choose a different lifestyle from them – but Abbott only believes in the freedom of those who agree with him.
In truly free countries, governments shouldn't restrict the actions of individuals without good reasons. If the Marriage Act's defenders can't mount a more convincing defence of the status quo, then Tony Abbott should be allowed to take Tony Jones' hand in marriage, not just in a creepy little gesture on the set of Q&A.
The joy of cross-promotion
It was very considerate, I thought, of Julia Gillard to time her election to coincide with the launch of my book about a student election. And given its theme of political ruthlessness, it was even more considerate of her to depose the elected Prime Minister in a palace coup a mere month before its release date. There’s nothing like a bit of cross-promotion to really give your product a boost. Sales of Comrades should receive a substantial boost, I reckon, and also of knives.
Since both Gillard and Tony Abbott are both former student politicians, with Abbott a former President of the Students’ Representative Council at Sydney University, which is the prize on offer at the end of the fictional election I’ve written about, it seemed like a dream marketing opportunity, especially since my colleagues at The Chaser are back on the ABC with an election show , for which I’m writing. But it seems I have a lot to learn when it comes to electoral cross-promotion.
I've done my best, but the poll-themed book that's been making headlines is Campaign Ruby, by a certain Jessica Rudd. Its plot are remarkably close to the events of late June – a popular male Prime Minister is deposed by his ambitious female deputy. When you realise that she must have started work on it last year, it’s either spooky, or proof that this scenario has long been a topic for conversation around the Rudd family dinner table.
In fact, it makes me wonder whether Rudd and Gillard cooked up this whole backstabbing thing as a particularly sophisticated form of cross-promotion for Jessica's book, and that Kevin will soon return to the fold, all having being forgiven. The launch is even being held on the day of the ALP Campaign Launch, and in the same town – Brisbane.
There are still two and a half weeks left of the election campaign, though, so all may not be lost. Clearly, I need a publicity stunt of my own. I could try to engineer a dramatic spill on the campus of Sydney University, but I'm not sure even the majority of students would care much about that. Perhaps I could get Tony Abbott to agree to another debate with Julia Gillard, about the merits of my book on a very special edition of First Tuesday Book Club?
But these are forlorn hopes. The best way to make headlines, of course, would be to usurp Jessica Rudd's position. I'm not quite sure how to achieve that, but I'm sure Bill Shorten could give me a few ideas.
If I could somehow be acclaimed as the author of Campaign Ruby as well as Comrades, I would be unquestionably the nation's premier author of election-related fiction released in August 2010. And I have to admit, I thought that title would be mine automatically.
When I was an undergraduate, the Left managed to topple the right-wing SRC President because he'd handed out beer during his campaign, or something allegedly improper along those lines. And I bet Jessica Rudd will be handing out beer at her launch in Brisbane, just before election day. Stay tuned.
Last night, my competitor's father attempted to heal the wounds others had inflicted on him in the course of a classy interview with Phillip Adams. He self-effacingly stated that there were more important things at stake in this election than the future of K Rudd. He's right. And in my opinion, my book is one of them.
Stopping the boats, but not the migrants
Although John Howard strode off the Australian political stage in November 2007, we are still reaping the benefits of his legacy today. Thanks to John Howard, Peter Costello will never be Prime Minister. Thanks to John Howard, One Nation was destroyed as a political force, because the Coalition assimilated its major policies. And thanks to John Howard, I still can't look at a Wallabies tracksuit without sniggering.
But perhaps John Howard's greatest legacy is the Labor Party's terror of the political wedge, which they fear more than Tony Abbott fears getting trapped in a lift with George Michael. Now, by 'wedge', I'm not referring to pulling someone's underpants up sharply, a disciplinary measure popular amongst Kevin Rudd's twentysomething staff, but the technique of using a specific issue to divide a party from its traditional base.
The most famous wedge was the Tampa, of course. Kim Beazley was damned if he didn't support the Government, because the public were willing to vote to keep the asylum-seekers out, and damned if he did, because not only did he disgust the rest of his left-wing base, but he seemed like an insipid mimic of John Howard. While Beazley had a particular talent for insipidness in any event, the wedge destroyed him in 2001.
And where are we, nine years later? Neither side of politics is willing to state the obvious about boat people: it's just not that big a deal. 5000 arrivals a year is a drop in the Pacific Ocean of a migration programme of hundreds of thousands. There's never been any credible evidence of a particular threat to national security. And really, if the biggest problem facing Australia is that some people will do anything to come and live here, then we shouldn't feel concerned, we should feel flattered.
But Julia Gillard won't give this issue the short shrift it deserves, because she fears losing an election over the dastardly boat people. And while it's extraordinary that one of Tony Abbott's four major campaign priorities is to stop the boats, he wouldn't be repeating the promise every five seconds if it wasn't effective.
So, why all this fuss over 5000 measly arrivals a year, when visa overstaying by a far greater immigration problem? Because it's socially permissible to object to queue-jumpers, but not to migrants. And not wanting boat people here is a proxy for not wanting migrants.
That said, some people, Dick Smith among them, are starting to argue that Australia can't sustain high levels of immigration, and the argument sounds reasonable, except of course when Mark Latham makes it. Broadly, it seems that regional areas desperately need them, while our outer suburbs simply don't have the infrastructure. It does seem reasonable to say that we need to either invest properly in public transport and sustainable development or stop funnelling in the new arrivals – although I'd rather we did the former than reduce multiculturalism, which is one of the best things about this country.
But boat people haven't been demonized for the past decade because they threaten our environmental sustainability. It's because of the rapid expansion of multiculturalism in our suburbs, which makes some people feel uneasy. And so, both parties pay lip service to Fortress Australia, and command our heroic navy to "put evil people-smugglers out of business" while neither is seriously committed to halting our rapid ethnic diversification. Over the years of the Howard Government, more than a million people migrated here, swelling the outer suburbs of our major cities, right where the boat people politicking is most effective.
And while I'm disgusted by the lack of compassion we show towards desperate people escaping vile regimes – and it's not mentioned enough that refugees only get asylum when they're in physical danger if they return home – perhaps the boat people politicking gives us a useful pressure valve? Maybe it's best to distract the rednecks by giving them a soft target to focus on while we continue to shovel large quantities of migrants – including, of course, most of the boat people when they're found to be legitimate refugees – into the 'burbs.
Sure, the resentment bubbles away, occasionally flaring up when someone like Pauline Hanson stirs the pot, but it never entirely bubbles over. – and in the meantime, we get the massive economic and social benefits of an aggressive migration programme. It's like a pantomime game you play with children. Look, over there, see the scary boats! And while they're looking, we quietly let in a massive number of new arrivals.
Tony Abbott's promise to cut down immigration was a similar trick – his target was merely what was projected to happen anyway. Furthermore, business lobbyists immediately objected, since immigration fuels growth and fills job vacancies, which is why he won't actually do anything about it. So, the posture let him look tough without really doing anything nasty, and while it's ugly politics, I'd rather he put on a show to placate the rednecks than actually addressed their concerns.
We can be certain that even if Tony Abbott's elected, people will continue to be desperate to migrate here, and we'll continue allowing hundreds of thousands to do so every year. The only real price, it seems, is enduring this unpleasant farce every election. Let's just hope the anti-immigration mob don't catch on, and demand that their political representatives actually do something about it.
The resulting problem, of course, is how to plan sensibly for the infrastructure needs of a swelling population – and the failure by successive governments to address this was emphasised yesterday, when most people heading to Rooty Hill for the town hall meeting ran late. But solving these long-term planning challenges is far more difficult than beating your chest about people-smuggling, and that's why politicians settle for the latter at election time.
Great story so far, but how does it end?
By this point in most election campaigns, a dominant narrative has generally emerged, and it's become reasonably clear who's going to win. In 2007, it wasn't hard to see that the electorate was in the process of falling out of love with John Howard after WorkChoices, and deciding to take a chance on the younger, dorkier Queenslander.
The story in 2001 was equally unambiguous – with the World Trade Center in ruins and the spectre of the Tampa on the horizon, it seemed too risky to change governments. And so John Howard stormed to victory with perhaps the least catchy slogan in political history – "We decide who comes into our country and the circumstances in which they come." It resonated with the electorate nevertheless – after all, what if the hapless, bedraggled souls that the Tampa rescued from drowning had been highly-trained al-Qaeda operatives?
Some campaigns are a contest between two strong narratives, one of which falls away at the end. For most of 2004, Mark Latham, the loopy larrikin from the mortgage belt, looked on track to upset John Howard, as extraordinary as that now seems. But in the end, the Coalition's brilliant "L-plate Latham" characterisation proved more compelling, and today the one-time leader has been reduced to stalking his successor.
The overarching narratives in this election, though, have been far harder to pin down. Instead, we've been surviving on distractions – the flies buzzing around have become more interesting than the piece of meat. And the two parties have only themselves to blame for serving up such measly cuts in the first place.
The Opposition began with the perfect slogan for a campaign against Rudd: "Stand up for real action". While the jingle's so annoying that it inspires fond memories of those old Meadow Lea commercials, "stand up" worked well against a man who seemed determined never to stand for anything, and of course "real action" rings true when you're a triathlete-entering exercise freak, and your opponent flick-passes every tough decision to a subcommittee.
Let's get something done, Tony Abbott planned to say. But the attack was so potent that Labor took real action – they dumped Rudd. And against Gillard, who seems like a cleanskin despite having been Deputy PM and has achieved a reasonable amount in education despite the BER SNAFUs, it's proven a less effective line.
What's more, the strident objections to the Rudd Government were defused when Labor itself admitted there were problems. By partly buying into the Coalition's attempts to frame this contest as a referendum on Rudd, they've allowed the "he were okay, but stuffed up a bit" option which seems closer to the majority view than Abbott's dramatic claim that Rudd's was the worst Government in Australian's history.
Labor tried the standard incumbent approach, designed to allow a gentle coast to the Lodge with an early election. The only problem was, they'd brutally knifed the actual incumbent, and he was refusing to go quietly. Julia Gillard tried to put out a few fires and rise Prime Ministerially above the grubbiness of Abbott's standard attack-mode with a superficially positive "Moving forward" slogan, but she went backwards in the polls and had to change tack to what now seems, if anything, to be an approach based around improvising.
In recent days, both parties have struggled to portray the other as too risky on economics, which seems a fairly futile area of attack. For all that Howard and Costello cut away at the nation's social fabric, they undertook economic reforms that gave us a sound basis to resist the global financial crisis. And few economists seem to agree with the Coalition's line that Rudd made a total hash of the stimulus – while it may have gone too far and been haphazard in its implementation, there's no denying that the emergency measures helped us glide smoothly through the crisis.
If the lack of clear narratives has made this campaign difficult enough to follow, we've also had several deus ex machina – unexpected interventions from out of left field that have fundamentally, and ultimately unsatisfyingly, changed the story.
The strangest intervention has been Latham's – who would have thought we'd spend so much time talking about a one-campaign failed leader in 2010, or that a media organisation would decide to give him journalistic accreditation? And who would have thought that another former failure, Andrew Peacock, would sashay boldly into the campaign, make one deeply insensitive comment about disability and then quietly slink back into obscurity?
Most bizarrely, who would have thought that the abandoned Rudd would not only be a major element in the campaign, but Labor's potential saviour? Well, Rudd, obviously, but not even he could have predicted that he'd star in a medical drama. "Lazarus with a triple bypass" was only ever supposed to be a metaphor.
Things are still in a state of flux. Last week, Tony Abbott seemed to be the frontrunner, but now the PM is mounting a comeback – there was a huge run of betting on Labor today. Perhaps we all rubbished the "real Julia Gillard" concept too soon, and she is belatedly establishing herself as competent and likeable? If she pulls it off, it will be thanks to a narrative that wasn't planned by head office or sold with clever advertising, but proven through sheer performance – backed up, finally, by significant policy detail.
But it's far too early to predict how this increasingly fascinating campaign will end. More twists will surely happen in the third Act. There aren't too many bitter ex-leaders left who are yet to enter the campaign, but who knows what tricks Gough Whitlam might have up his sleeve? And we're still due an old-fashioned Bernie Banton-style Abbott gaffe, surely.
The strategies have been insipid and cynical, and the broad policy drought disturbing – the Opposition simply isn't willing to play in its traditional areas like industrial relations and tax reform, and the Citizens' Assembly remains a bigger dog than the Hound of the Baskervilles. But despite itself, this unpredictable election is proving compelling viewing.
When dinosaurs walked the earth
A couple of real weathervanes
Julia Gillard has some news, and it will do your head in. The woman we've seen reciting talking points, using the phrase "moving forward" approximately twice per breath and advocating that absurd Citizen's Assembly that promises to be even less useful than the 2020 Summit is not the real Julia Gillard.
It seems there's been some kind of sneaky Prime Ministerial switcheroo. Another one, I mean, besides us not getting to keep the one we voted for in 2007. How could this have happened? Was hypnotism involved, or perhaps some Face Off-style mask shenanigans? Did Karl Bitar somehow get his hands on polyjuice potion?
I hope the AFP is investigating, or, to save time, the truth is leaked to Laurie Oakes. But one thing needs clarifying, though: is the current iteration of our PM the real Julia Gillard? Or, OR – was the other Julia Gillard the real Julia Gillard, and is this new Julia Gillard actually the fake?
The whole thing gives me that disorienting feeling I had in my first-year philosophy class when the lecturer dramatically asked how we could be certain we weren't all just brains in a bucket, with an evil scientist feeding synthesised images into our neurons. We couldn't. But fortunately, our sense of having woken up within the Matrix was quickly alleviated by heading to the uni bar.
While we're puzzling our way through this epistemological maze, though, it should be noticed that there are a few welcome differences. I heard her speaking to Richard Glover for 20 minutes yesterday, and she didn't use the term "moving forward" once that I can recall. Sure, she still trotted out the same stock phrases in response to tricky questions, but it was at least less hideously artificial. Dubbing her new persona 'real', as she has, seems generous. But at the very least, she's had a substantial programming upgrade.
Later, when appearing on Today Tonight, she made a clear departure from Gillard 1.0, and agreed to a second debate. Which initially filled me with terror, since the one last week was about as exciting as a Family First function that's run out of red cordial. But if the leaders can genuinely get stuck into one another this time, I'd risk watching it.
There's been a lot to dislike about her campaign, so I'm not surprised Julia Gillard's reaching for the 'reset' button. While Abbott's surged, I doubt that's because the electorate's suddenly discovered an abiding affection for him. I suspect that voters have reached the point where we're fed up with insincerity, sound bites, and meaningless phrases. The tricks have worked previously, but we're onto them now, and we're sick of them. And our aversion is so great that we'll reward anyone who seems in any way sincere, even if they're as wacky as the Greens or as conservative as Tony Abbott.
The thing I admired most about John Howard was his willingness to be disliked. He'd form a view, which was generally driven by his ideology instead of opinion polls, and as long as he had 51% of the public onside – and even sometimes when he didn't – he'd stick to it. Contrast this with Kevin Rudd, whose instinct for retreat was on a hair-trigger by the end. Even though the polls consistently showed that the public backed him on climate change, he didn't have the guts to fight for it, not when deferral seemed like the chance to have his cake and eat it.
Julia Gillard tried the same trick, attempting to placate the public by putting off anything difficult, as I pointed out last week. It backfired hugely, because the net result was that she appeared to stand for nothing.
And that's the risk with following the mountain of voter feedback that comes in from head office. If you base your platform on it, you risk an outcome worse than adopting any one unpopular policy: the appearance of not really believing anything, and just telling people what they want to hear. It might be smart to be poll-driven, but it's not a good idea to seem poll-driven.
When Julia Gillard talks about getting tough on asylum speakers, or Tony Abbott praises the status quo on industrial relations, it simply doesn't ring true. We know them better than that. And it makes us doubt their credibility.
Abbott used to define himself as a conviction politician, but no longer. Malcolm Turnbull's phrase shortly after his dumping was particularly delicious – he quoted Abbott as calling himself a "weathervane" on the issue. No fixed direction, and blown endlessly by the wind – it's a perfect summary of Abbott's recent reversals, and Laurie Oakes clobbered him with the word in their interview on Sunday.
I doubt that Julia Gillard will successfully reinvent herself – and who would have predicted it would be Tony Abbott who seems to be running the more coherent, disciplined campaign? But at least the Prime Minister belatedly seems to realise that the cynical, banal slogans she's been relying on won't cut it. Her plan to sashay into the Lodge on a wave of honeymoon goodwill has now been abandoned. And long may we react with such palpable contempt when politicians sell out the beliefs we know them to hold and tell us only what they think we want to hear.
Ten ways to make the election more interesting
As a rule, I find elections exciting. Yes, I know this makes me seem terribly geeky, but hey - Antony Green is a cult hero. At least I hope he is, because otherwise the shrine in the corner of my lounge room might seem a little freaky.
But this election has been like watching paint dry, if the paint had been advised by head office to defer drying until 2013 for fear of frightening Western Sydney. The debate last Sunday was so dull and formulaic that I was left hoping Tony Abbott would repeat his move from his 2007 Press Club contest with Nicola Roxon, and just start randomly swearing.
Yesterday, something interesting finally happened, though no thanks to either party. As Annabel Crabb pointed out yesterday, the drama over the leaking made for a compelling political whodunit, and suddenly signs of life burst out everywhere. In the Australian, Julia Gillard was hailed for finally displaying her true personality. And when he grilled the Treasurer about the intrigue last night, Kerry O'Brien achieved the unprecedented feat of making viewers hang on Wayne Swan's every word.
Days like yesterday are blessed relief to those like myself who are compelled to watch the campaign like a Hawke telemovie. And so I've prepared a list of ways the campaign could be made more interesting, in the hope of inspiring another day like yesterday.
1) Higher stakes: You'd think a contest for the nation's highest office besides cricket captain would be inherently interesting, but Julia Gillard disproved that the moment she called the election and used the phrase "moving forward" 35 times. I'd like to see both candidates conduct a second debate while strapped to parallel conveyor belts, moving slowly but surely towards twin spinning buzzsaws of death, or alternatively, Stephen Fielding.
2) Another spill: Since the change of government, politics has only been interesting when there's an unexpected leadership challenge. With both Labor and the Coalition (twice) having done their bit, it's clearly the Greens' turn. Was Christine Milne's appearance on Q&A this week part of some devious plot against Bob Brown? If the Greens want to be allowed into the debate like a major party, they'd better start acting like one.
3) More Barnaby: Not only is Tony Abbott somehow resisting his natural instinct for gaffes, but Barnaby Joyce is flying under the radar too. How has he been able to resist the spotlight, the one time every three years when the nation turns its eyes to politics? It's a disaster for those of us who love our politicians long on amusing language and short on common sense. With Barnaby out of the picture, who will undermine our crucial trade relationship with China?
4) More flirting: Tony and Julia had their own rom-com going for a while there, as this video illustrates. Now we're in the difficult second act, where there's tension. We need a plot twist that brings them unexpectedly back together - perhaps they could get stuck in a lift or something?
5) A Royal Commission into the leaks: All former Cabinet members (and Rudd staffers) would be summoned, one by one, to answer uncomfortable questions posed by prosecutor Kerry O'Brien. To add further viewer interest, the presiding officers would be the nation's highest judicial authority, the MasterChef judges.
6) A dissing battle: In the climax of Eminem's 8 Mile, he faces off against another rapper in a freestyle contest to slag one another off. In many ways, it was like Sunday's debate if it had been set to a hip-hop beat, or in any way spontaneous. A dissing battle would remind Abbott of his days in the boxing ring, while Julia Gillard would find it easy to achieve lyrical flow - all she'd need would be twenty rhymes for "moving forward". Like "bored".
7) A new Joh for PM campaign: Has there ever been a more amusingly absurd notion in Australian politics than the idea that Queensland's genial dictator could make the transition to federal politics? The guy couldn't even win in Queensland without dodgy electoral laws. And his capacity to mangle the English language made Kevin Rudd look concise. I know he's long dead, but you can't tell me there's not another fruitloop lurking somewhere on a Queensland peanut farm, don't you worry about that.
7) More bitter ex-leaders: Speaking of dissing battles - every time Mark Latham opens his mouth, Labor takes another embarrassing hit. While Hawke and Keating's spat stole the limelight for a whole week. John Hewson's done his bit on Gruen Nation, but why are John Howard, Alexander Downer, Brendan Nelson and Andrew Peacock remaining silent when they could be hurling bile at their former party right when it's trying to look competent? And people say Labor's the party with internal discipline.
8) Time travel: It's just been revealed that it might be scientifically possible without creating paradoxes that destroy the space-time continuum, so why can't we go back to last Saturday and cancel the debate? While Tony Abbott could do what he's been yearning for since 2007, and go back to the days of the Howard Government. Also, Labor might want to go back on their decision to dump Kevin Rudd before much longer.
10) A decent policy: Perhaps one of the leaders could suggest something meaty, with a bit of vision, that confidently articulates a bright future for Australia and outlines the far-sighted innovations that will take us there.
That last one was a bit of a big ask, I know. So instead, how's about another leak?
Julia Gillard and the Promise to Try
When it comes to providing detail on precisely what she would do with three years in charge of Australia, our new Prime Minister is moving forward at an absolutely glacial pace.
Kevin Rudd was accused of having a limited agenda ahead of the last election, but his campaign was positively Whitlamesque compared to Julia Gillard. She's set to break almost no promises if she remains Prime Minister, simply because she will hardly have made any. Other than her vow to give Kevin Rudd a front-bench position, which she now claims to be "excited" about – which beggars belief, because surely nobody could be eager to spend more time with Kevin Rudd – there's almost nothing she couldn't deliver by the end of her first week.
And that's because her policies are gossamer construction, delightfully ornate and yet entirely flimsy. They're artfully designed to appeal to left and right alike, and delivered in speeches that feel like a cup of hot Milo before bedtime. Gillard speaks calmly and placidly, accompanied by constant hypnotic nods of her head which lull the viewer into a slumber.
Under the blazing spotlight of analysis, her plans melt like an ice sculpture – or a polar ice cap, given her approach to climate change, which was announced on the weekend with a commitment to setting a carbon price that was firm in every respect except the date.
She committed a billion dollars for renewable energy to try and safeguard those Green preferences, but the major thrust of the policy felt like an attempt to placate those, like Tony Abbott, who think it's crap. She'd toss the problem to a Citizens' Assembly, a proxy for public opinion that conveniently delays her own decision until a year after the election.
If the randoms are on board, she can go ahead, protected from any fallout by arguing that there's now a "community consensus." But if can't be convinced, she'll shelve the whole thing. Because, of course, eminent scientists telling you that the destruction of the planet is imminent can safely be ignored if a bunch of ordinary voters don't happen to think it's important.
As Madonna put it, it's a "promise to try". That's all she needs to do, because everyone intuitively believes that the public know she's more committed to it than Tony Abbott.
She's tried the same left-right pirouette on asylum-seekers. Refugees are important, she said alongside Frank Lowy, presumably implying that if we're lucky, they might turn out to be billionaires. And she believes – controversially in Australia these days – in not leaving them drown.
But to impress the right, she's still planning to be tough on them, diverting them to East Timor. Not that there's any agreement with East Timor yet, of course – these things take time! But look, she'll give it a go. That's it. And while picking up the phone and talking to the right person would constitute a fresh new foreign policy approach from the Gillard Government, it's again merely a promise to try.
Immigration policy receives this treatment, too. She won't commit to anything as crassly specific as a number. Heavens, no. Instead there are panels to look at the issue, and report back on what to do. Waleed Aly is on one of them, although he admitted on Q&A last week, he doesn't even know why. But surely it's obvious why – just so the panel exists, so Labor has a policy to look at the problem.
Slow down, Gillard says. Let's take a breath. The word "chillax" may even escape from her lips before the end of the campaign. Don't frighten the horses – and why would she, when she's ahead in the polls? Slow and steady wins the race.
Tony Abbott's doing his best to copy the same approach, but given his characteristic bluntness, he just doesn't have the capacity to seem reassuring while saying nothing. A lifelong advocate of industrial relations reform, he now claims there's nothing so urgent that he would need to address it in the next three years. People want certainty, he says. And they'll get it, too; with both parties desperate to minimise any perceptible difference between them.
But to Gillard, it comes naturally. She's not a doer, she's a listener, as though Australia is a character from The Wire, asking "You feel me?" And oh, how she feels us. She's even slammed the political correctness that dares to suggest that those who might feel uncomfortable with asylum seekers are rednecks. The Prime Minister's undoubtedly the better listener, even though she's the candidate with the smaller ears.
Kevin Rudd's biggest problem was that he couldn't give the impression of listening – he seemed like he thought he knew it all already. And he simply couldn't give a clear, warm performance like Gillard did in the debate. While her efforts frustrated anyone looking for substance, she smiled and seemed positive, and her opponent did neither. And that's all Labor's strategists will have been looking for.
Perhaps this is what happens in the election after a global financial crisis. Above all, Australians just want to continue their slow meandering towards recovery. Tony Abbott's tried to turn this election into a protest vote on a "bad government" – but with a new leader, Labor's successfully obfuscated its failings. One leader is only really effective in attack mode, while the other is hell-bent on reassurance, like a kindergarten teacher calming the class down after big lunch. It's no surprise which one's leading the preferred Prime Minister polling.
Hey Hey It's Agony
There are times when, despite myself, I feel truly sorry for politicians. And I had one of those moments last night watching Tony Abbott valiantly enduring Hey Hey It's Saturday. I loved the show as a kid, when it was, ahem, actually broadcast on Saturdays, but now it's like watching one of those reanimated corpses in Zombieland sluggishly stumbling around. And the show could certainly use more brains.
It's cruel to make our prospective leaders appear on light entertainment programmes. They have to tiptoe gingerly themselves through a comedy minefield, perma-grins plastered to their faces, and permanently on guard against a gaffe that will instantly light up YouTube. Most painfully of all, they have to try and think of funny lines themselves, and politicians are not exactly selected on the basis of their quick wit.
There are precious votes on offer, of course – the votes of the battlers, although admittedly only those battlers who can stand to watch Daryl mug his way through a show that should have been left in the 80s cultural dustbin alongside 'Shaddup You Face'.
Pollies appear on variety shows in the hope of displaying a human side that's notably absent during their increasingly formulaic campaign appearanceys. Kevin Rudd used them brilliantly, presenting himself as the endearing, self-deprecating dork we saw on Rove and Sunrise, and it was a shock to many when as Prime Minister he proved to be far more wooden, formal and verbose.
But there must be no more thankless ordeal than judging on Red Faces. The segment is entirely about Red Symons bullying excruciating performers, something he does rather well. The only point of the other judges is to build up the contestants' hopes before Red dashes them. So, Abbott had no chance to tell endearingly frank, folksy anecdotes about his life, the way he might have on a morning show, or Enough Rope.
Sure, Rex Lee (Lloyd from Entourage) used his cameo brilliantly, quipping about his sexuality, plugging his show and getting a few laughs. But for Tony Abbott, sitting alongside him and no doubt even more uncomfortable on the show than he usually feels around gay men, it was much tougher.
Quips were all that the Opposition Leader could try in the extremely brief time allocated him. And it didn't go especially well – his comparison of the faux redneck contestant's voice to Julia Gillard's seemed a touch sneering, especially since, let's be honest, the entire point of appearing on the show is to win the bogan vote.
He gave up after that, and shared the compelling insight that he liked animals, was superficially nice to a few cute kids and bantered about his exercist programme with the ever-befuddled Daryl. By the end, he must have been longing for the relative warmth of being interviewed by Kerry O'Brien.
Most unpleasantly of all, when Abbott walked onto the set, he was booed. Which I'm sure is horrible under most circumstances, but must be especially galling coming from people with as low standards as a Hey Hey audience.
What's more, I doubt he won a single vote for his troubles – he just didn't get the chance to shine. Julia Gillard declined her invitation to attend, no doubt realising that it wouldn't look Prime Ministerial, and it was surely a smart decision.
The irony is that Tony Abbott is one of the most natural, comfortable politicians we've got under most circumstances. If anything, he's too forthcoming and frank, lacking that iron discipline over his tongue that was the hallmark of John Howard's leadership. I would have been interested to see a proper, light-hearted interview with him, of the sort Stephen Colbert does. But of course, that wasn't an option. Not on Daryl's watch.
I demand many things in a leader, but humour – or even the ability to play along with comedians – isn't one of them. Intelligence, decent principles and the ability to communicate are hard enough for most of them to muster. And although those like Paul Keating who can raise the odd laugh are welcome, I can get my yuks from proper comedians, or just wait until Julie Bishop plagiarises their gags.
In America, prospective leaders are only required to bring the funny at the Al Smith dinner, which both Presidential candidates attend to give a comedy speech. (The 2008 instalment was particularly amusing.) Of course, they get professional help writing their gags, and that's the way it should be done. It lets them tick the "display a sense of humour" box, and nobody has to endure Dickie Knee.
I can't remember John Howard ever agreeing to appear on a variety show like Hey Hey, since he was always a man with the wisdom to know his limits. And while I understand a challenger like Tony Abbott's need for airtime, it would be far better for us all if candidates simply declined when the likes of Daryl came calling.
This post originally appeared on The Drum.
Playing political State of Origin
Hell hath no fury like a Queenslander scorned. And even though Kevin Rudd no doubt thinks Wally is a frequently lost children's book character instead of a league hero, that doesn't mean his fellow Sunshine Staters like seeing one of their own stabbed in the back - and by those dastardly Southerners, what's more.
For the information of those from the AFL states, the "Cane Toads" and "Cockroaches" face off three times a year in State of Origin rugby league matches. And being from NSW, I've always been in awe of Queensland's - what's the word - not patriotism; statriotism, perhaps? That's partly because it's a long time since my state's had any bragging rights - in recent years, our team has been dubbed the Blues for a very good reason.
But I think the main reason is that our State has such a bizarre name. Whereas those from the north are proud to call themselves Queenslanders, I've never heard anyone express pride in being a "New South Welshman".
Queenslanders' strong sense of state identity, though, is why Tony Abbott is making such hay out of Kevin Rudd's dumping, in contradiction to when he recently labelled the ex-PM a "fake Queenslander". (Check out that link - KRudd may never have looked dorkier than wearing a Maroons journeys with a shirt and tie underneath.) The state is a crucial battleground, so it was no surprise when the Opposition Leader headed to Brisbane on the day the election was called. The state's Liberal National Party will do its darnedest to keep the focus on what its presidentcalled a "slap in the face for all Queenslanders by Labor".
Not that Tony's own hands are spotless, of course. Personally, I'm still mourning the Queenslander that Tony Abbott stabbed in the back - Barnaby Joyce, whose wonderful roller-coaster ride as Finance Minister was terminated shortly after Abbott appointed him.
I'm a little surprised, though, that the Coalition is so eager to play political State of Origin up in Queensland when its own bench has long been exclusively Blue. Tony Abbott, just like John Howard, hails from Sydney. So do Malcolm Turnbull, Brendan Nelson, and even John Hewson, if we cast our minds way back into the distant haze of the pre-Howard Government era.
In fact, the Liberals have only had one leader who wasn't from Sydney since Andrew Peacock 1990, and that was a certain Alexander Downer. Who is exactly the kind of exception that proves a rule.
What's more, if Tony Abbott loses, then the presumptive next leader is Malcolm Turnbull, although only according to Malcolm Turnbull. Ask anyone else and they'll point to Joe Hockey, who is yet again from Sydney. And if you think that's a stunning lack of diversity, ponder this: all six attended Sydney University, and all except Nelson and Hewson are graduates of its law school.
Now, having attended that fine institution myself, I'm stoked by the Liberals' strong affinity with my alma mater. Having spent several years in dodgy underground lecture theatres that made Saddam's rat hole seem luxurious, it's great to know that at least it's given me the perfect resumé for the Liberal leadership.
In this era of Presidential-style politics, a leader's state of origin does matter. Though Queensland is now harder for Labor, it will benefit from Julia Gillard's association with two states - South Australia, where she grew up and attained that now-famous prefect's tie, and Victoria, where she moved for university. That's why she spent several days in Adelaide shortly after becoming leader - to remind them that she was once a local. Well, she was also visiting her parents, but no doubt that was a side benefit - an election campaign is no time for social calls.
The powerful NSW Labor Party put Paul Keating and Mark Latham in the top job, and theirfingerprints are all over the latest switcheroo.
Then again, NSW's bloodthirsty politics may yet benefit Queensland once again. If Julia Gillard is polling badly just before the election, the Sussex St machine will no doubt knife her too, and bung in Queensland's very own Wayne Swan.
As a state that's produced relatively few PMs, it's understandable that Queensland is mourning its first one in decades. But if the Cane Toads look closely at the alternative, they'll see nothing but a conga-line of Cockroaches.
This post originally appeared on The Drum.