The Election
..
their lack of salesmanship, because after twenty minutes of standing in the
bitterly cold wind that was whipping round the schoolyard in a numbed kind of
reverie interrupted only by the unwanted blandishments of the blotchy-faced
woman in the crocheted poncho selling wax cups of tea and $2.00 raffle tickets
(prizes of this year’s Melways), there was a fertile market for the Sex
Party’s titillating manifesto, predictably headlined with, ‘What
we stand for..’
I was amused by the stereotypes handing out the how-to-vote cards, particularly
the Green Party representative in the hand-knitted multi-hued striped jumper
who dispensed his cards with the stage whispered reassurance, ‘It’s
recyclable.’
(Incidentally, I reckon the Greens should re-brand themselves the Browns, not
just because the face of the Greens is Bob Brown, but in deference to this great
brown land we live in).
It’s funny though; I suspect that I’m the same as a lot of people
in that I don’t actually think about who I’m going to vote for until
I’m in that line in the school yard, although this year I took the Browns’
HTV card (I like it!) at the school gate and refused the others. Mind
you I had misgivings about voting for anybody called Josh, but some innate prurience
prevented me from taking the Sex Party’s HTV card, otherwise I might’ve
been persuaded to vote for them at the last moment. I still haven’t bothered
to see who won in.. Chisholm, but I suspect the come-hither incumbent prevailed
and my vote didn’t matter and I could’ve creatively free-formed.
Apart from the result, this election was no different to all the other recent
elections and simply about brand loyalty, which Aussies have in abundance. We
were voting for either Ford or Holden because we’ve always voted for Ford
or Holden and you can get the parts when they break down. There is disquiet
and alarm when somebody from a GM family marries into a Ford family, in the
same way as say a Collingwood bloke might marry a Carlton girl and spark a Capulet
v. Montague-type feud.
Irritated that there was no P76 or Charger to vote for, a growing minority were
persuaded to go for a Lexus or Toyota hybrid or even contemplate a push bike
for environmental reasons, and a disturbingly large number of the disaffected
said bugger it, I’m doing a Latham and going for a long walk in my hoodie
with a spray can in my tucker bag just to teach you all a bloody lesson. The
metaphor obviously has limitations, but perhaps you can just manage to understand
what I’m getting at.
The problem in Australia, and perhaps throughout the Western world, is that
there’s no perceptible difference between the two major parties, both
scrambling unedifyingly for the same middle-ground policies their focus groups
and polling tell them appeals to the maximum number of voters. Perhaps it’s
a good thing that the electorate cannot perceive any immediate threat to its
cosy insularity, but that’s where leadership is required and that seems
to have dropped off the radar since Kevin and his swag of ideals foundered on
the rocks and hard places of indifferent polling.
I did tire of it, but nobody asks if I’m related to Kevin any more.