AUSTRALIA DECIDES - WHAT, EXACTLY?

“For those who’ve come across the seas we’ve boundless plains to share,

With courage let us all combine to advance Australia fair.”

So, here we are again, election time. Most of us have already made up our minds, based on what we’ve heard on talk-back radio or what we’ve seen on breakfast TV and the front page of the newspaper.

The rest don’t care, just want it to be over, and either won’t vote at all or will vote for whomever we hate the least. Politicians are all the same.

            So are elections. Lost among the Who do you trust?; the Costings! Black hole! Surplus! Surplus! Surplus!; and the Yeah, but what are you gonna give ME? is the main reason for having elections at all. We don’t just choose our government, we also decide who we are and who we’ll be as a nation – either deliberately or by default.

Psychopaths Dressed as Clowns

First, discard the idea that politicians are any worse than they’ve ever been. If you doubt me, spend ten minutes reading up on democratic Athens and the Roman, French and US Republics.

            Politics is no more than the art of dealing with us, the polity – citizens (Interesting word, “citizen”). Most politicians have always been, by nature, timid creatures, and god knows it’s not easy for them.

            Imagine spending your whole career trying to please, on the one hand, powerful economic interests with strict demands and the means to make your life difficult; and, on the other, a polity with a five-minute attention span and no idea what it wants until someone tells it – which thing it then wants fervently and immediately, for five minutes before it wants the opposite.

            Granted, every now and then you get a politician with ideals and convictions, and that can be either good, or very, very bad. The rest are condemned to glib sloganeering, and perpetual posturing to appear nicer or tougher than they really are.

            Politics is a feedback-loop – and interactive multi-media and a twenty-four hour news cycle have amplified it to a head-splitting whine. Between tweeting, dancing for us on cooking shows and panel discussions, and digesting a different, ridiculous poll every few minutes, is it any wonder the poor darlings don’t have time to think about running an economy or building a nation?

Change the Government, Change the Country

The last time we had a choice between two leaders with a clear vision for the country – and some vague notion of how to achieve it – was 1996. Before that election, Paul Keating famously said that if you change the government, you change the country. It’s something of a chicken-or-egg debate, but he was right.

            A friend once remarked that he saw no evidence of the “Keating Vision”. There’s a good reason for that. While John Howard spent eleven years burying it, the ALP back-pedalled frantically away from it – for fear of being seen to have any notions that might challenge us.

            Howard didn’t remake us in his own image. There’s a good reason for that, too: he didn’t have to. We are him and he is us. Conservative – not to say, reactionary. Insular – not to say, xenophobic. Nostalgic – not to say, hidebound. Aspiring to comfort – not to say, complacency. Wily, cautious, suspicious and greedy.

            So, after a brief experiment during the eighties and early nineties with having a modern, responsive economy; with having a mature, compassionate, outward-looking society; with trying to grow into a new division rather than occasionally punching above our weight; we walked with Honest John, hand-in-hand into his new version of Old Australia.

            (I’m not going to waste time with details. If you’re interested, turn the iPhone off and go read a book: I recommend Paul Kelly’s – not that one – The March of Patriots, and Ozonomics by Andrew Charlton. For a start.)

            Why the historical digression? Because what Howard did remake in his own image was our politics. John Hewson said of Howard, “He ran on prejudice, not policy. He would have spent his way out of any problem, and taken any opportunity to play the race card [... he] is a great hater ....” Sound familiar?

            Kevin Rudd is Howard without the political sense or discipline. Tony Abbott is Howard without the caution, restraint, or baseline sanity. Neither of them has Keating’s imagination – or balls. To paraphrase Denny Crane, We all speak Howard now.

Deciding

So, we vote.

We think we care about the economy, but few of us have the faintest clue how it works.

We think we care about the environment, as long as caring for it doesn’t cost us anything.

We think we care about a compassionate society – a “fair go” – as long as nobody else gets more than we do. Especially if they come here clinging to the shadow of a boat. Or if they’re a single mother. Or out of work.

Maybe this election we should just get to grips with what we’ve become: a frightened, immature, navel-gazing nation of delusional bourgeoisie and wannabe real estate speculators with no real idea what we have – and no intention of finding out – but who are nonetheless certain that millions of brown-skinned terrorists are on their way to take it from us. Or ...

Maybe we could stop paying attention to “news” shows that will tell us anything, so long as it fills two minutes of airtime. Maybe we could tune-out the pompous, bloviating talk-back jocks who are no better informed than their audience. Maybe we could ignore the “newspapers” dictated to by a crooked billionaire who doesn’t even live here. Or devote a bit more time to thinking about our politics than it takes to scan our newsfeeds.

Maybe we could decide to try being that great, grown-up nation Paul Keating told us we could be. It’ll take time but, trust me, our leaders will follow us.

We have the world’s most boring national anthem, but the second verse – the one we never sing – is really quite good. Maybe we could adopt and aspire to it:

“Beneath our radiant Southern Cross

we’ll toil with hearts and hands

            To make this commonwealth of ours

                        renowned of all the lands.

            For those who’ve come across the seas

                        we’ve boundless plains to share –

            With courage, let us all combine

                        to advance Australia fair”.

(Oh, and in case you’re wondering: when confronted by a choice between two mobs of clowns, I’ll go for the one that doesn’t see everything in terms of boats – if you don’t already own a good one, or can’t conjure one out of thin air, then you deserve to drown – every time.)