My best mate Geoffrey said to me during a visit to his aged care home last week that he’s sick of the federal election. Be glad when it’s over, he said.
Sick of the advertising, sick of the news stand-ups, sick of the promises and sick of all that money that seems to have become available around election time.
That’s coming from a bloke who’s life is sadly a constant re-run of a football game he played in 1964. Normally, he speaks of nothing else.
His dementia won’t allow him clarity to pass commentary on very much at all, except maybe some lurid details of a date he had with a girl called Lucy around the same time as the 1964 grand final in which he starred.
Yet, the election rhetoric has embedded itself into his brain, coddled its way past the medical cobwebs to somehow defeat the disease which has wiped his short-term memory for years.
Such is the power of the repetitive messaging that comes with democracy.
Sure, all this electioneering is agitating for Geoffrey who seems more keen to get back to the fondest memories of life’s past than he is to examine a scientific breakthrough to dementia.
But while I won’t miss the extended advertising breaks during prime time television, I will miss the characters.
I’ll miss Albo and Scomo finding faults in each other like a sour marriage.
Australia doesn’t like the barbs fired by Scomo which will likely see Albo become our new fearless, albeit barbless, prime minister.
Anyone who’s seen them head to head during question time will understand that this fierce leopard will indeed need to change some spots.
It’ll be the new, calm Albo in his new spectacles and chinos. A man of the people.
Instead of parliamentary debate, we’ll tune in to the ABC of an afternoon to see civil discussion, with a floor of recently elected new-age representatives agreeing to find outcomes to the nation’s biggest problems.
They’ll probably invite experts to present slide shows. In fact, Albo might be so calm and confident in his new leadership style and presence that he’ll allow anyone a conscience vote in the name of nobility.
It’ll be like Oprah. Everyone gets a stylist. And we, as a nation, will trust this new casual, suitless approach to politics.
Apologies, I digress with thoughts of delusion.
In reality, I’ll miss the barbs. I’ll miss the manufactured tours of factories in our most marginal electorates. I’ll miss the carefully contrived commentary designed to sway loyalties.
I’ll miss it not because it’s monotonous, tiresome, relentless and unforgiving. I’ll miss it because it’s clever, how for six weeks the sharpest human behaviour scientists in the country can mess with people’s heads.
Just like Geoffrey who, in a remarkable twist of fate, has been able to break from a life like that of a broken record. Truly, if they can mess with Geoffrey’s head, they can mess with anyone’s.
And that’s as scary as it is fascinating.
I confess I’ll also miss the outrageous promises from the United Australia Party.
I’m sure Clive and his mates were in a bar sharing gags and stories of “what if” moments that could have made them so many more billion dollars. From that, they’ve found logic that’s evolved into party policy.
To hell with reality, it’s an election. And it’s votes we’re after, not a Nobel Prize.
I’ll miss the “independent” characters who’ve emerged with their broad claims that they’ll “fix” Australia. How? Who cares? With a spanner, I guess.
I know a couple of weeks ago I threatened to run for parliament on a platform of some hair-brained ideas scratched onto the back of a coaster during a rare session of Sunday afternoon Lites with Wanda.
Deep down however, I admire those who carry on with the dream and promise that with strong values they’ll calm the brutality of political debate by turning Canberra into a wellness retreat.
They are people determined to make a difference. They’ll poll 2-3% and walk away disillusioned with the political process, but they’ll have had a red hot go while the rest of us watched on with an overly-critical eye. And that’s admirable.
Hey Wanda, any more political pamphlets in the mail today?
