And Now For Matters Far More Interesting
Last Thursday night I sat around Station 59 in Richmond with three intelligent and politically minded gentlemen, all of whom have never been shy in coming forward on matters of national politics. Five days into an election campaign, it could reasonably be expected that the beer-ensconced discourse would be heavily skewed to campaign happenings, political personalities, Don’s Party and the likely outcome of August 21.
Well, we talked Don’s Party. We talked about it being the finest Australian movie of all time, the bar against which all election parties should be measured. We talked about Graham Kennedy on his haunches with a broom and roll of toilet paper and explaining that he started saying screw instead of fuck because “I get more fucks when I say screw.” We talked about the classic tribute by You Am I in the film clip to “What I Don’t Know About You” Click Here, a clip which, of course, featured Ben Mendelsohn, star of every Australian production of the last fifteen years and the new Bill Hunter of Australian cinema.
There was, however, no talk of the actual election. There was no talk of policy, personality or preference. No arguments. No debate. More time was spent laughing at my flatmate’s pronunciation of a well known Japanese sexual practice as “buck-ache” than on any matters of state. Significantly more time, in fact.
I emailed managers in the illustrious Fantasy Football League, all of whom take a great interest in politics, asking what had grabbed their attention during the campaign. Bommy summed up the general attitude: “It is the most boring election campaign ever, even miles ahead of the next most boring, 2007. There hasn’t even been a local candidate do something horrific, which usually pops up by this stage.”
My girlfriend Louise, a Friend-o-Julia, has shown no interest in the election. Ange at the local sandwich store is bored by the sterility of the campaign. Even a former colleague from my days in The Game described the campaign to date as “just as exciting as Kevin Rudd’s future autobiography is sure to be…this campaign does shame to the colour grey.”
There has been nothing of note happen. Gillard and Abbott are on a race to the middle. Neither has offered anything even distantly resembling inspiring. Neither stands for a goddamn thing and if they do it is camouflaged before it can be discussed and dissected. The local candidates have been well drilled to say nothing. Even the stunts have been lame and without humour. See the dick in the red speedos.
The debate was just downright dour. It was pleasant and nice and civil. Abbott didn’t go for the jugular as he could have while Gillard showed absolutely zero personality as her stage-managed hand gestures and her Kevin Rudd-like doublespeak dominated proceedings. The worm may have given the debate to Gillard but those 150 fools who operated the machinery should be stripped of any right to vote by offering such stupidity. It was a clear points win to Abbott according to the pundits and any person with any sense but the victory was akin to that of Anthony Mundine dancing around some washed up schmuck for 12 rounds rather than going for the crushing early victory. The debate lacked drama, controversy and style. It may have been the most boring hour of television since the World Cup final.
Elections used to be exciting. I love the sport of politics. Election campaigns are usually my idea of fun. Not this time around though. In 2010, two politicians who used to be at the two poles of the political spectrum, at least in terms of mainstream Australian politics, are now seemingly embarrassed about their past and are in an arms race to the highest point of political greyness. Julia has the temerity to call for a citizen’s assembly, which may be the most bland election promise ever made. Tony is trying to play the nice guy so as not to scare off women voters. It is absurd in its blandness.
The most exciting comment of the week from either Gillard or Abbott actually had nothing to do with politics but rather Jason Akermanis, a far more interesting topic. Gillard said of Akermanis’s disgraceful firing from the Bulldogs: “I’m a big Aker fan…but I understand that the Dogs need to make the best decision for the team.”
Julia likes to push her image as a Bulldogs fan. It resonates with the punters down the lower end of the socio-economic scale and it helps her bridge the divide with the common man who likes his politicians to share an interest in the national winter pastime of football.
She has previously declared Jason Akermanis her favourite player but she was pretty quick to turn on him once the Bulldogs put the ambush in action, a hit that would have impressed Meyer Lansky. Aker compared himself to Kevin Rudd in the aftermath of his heinous execution and Gillard seemingly did not miss the parallels either. She understood the Bulldogs acted as ruthlessly and with as much short-sightedness as the Labor Party did the evening Gillard put the knife to Rudd’s throat. She had little choice but to take the side of the footy club. She was with Brad Johnson and Rodney Eade and David Smorgon and Robert Murphy in style as well as spirit.
The treatment of Jason Akermanis by the Western Bulldogs has been nothing short of disgraceful. The term stitched-up does not begin to describe how abhorrently the club has whipped him. To end his career in such a brutal and mean-spirited and paranoid fashion was obscene. It is little wonder the Bulldogs have not won a premiership in 55 years. After the club’s treatment of one of the most decorated footballers of the modern era, the club doesn’t deserve to win its next for another 55 years.
The entire Akermanis drama has played out like a schoolgirl fight over the Chinese whispers of the schoolyard. The Bulldogs fired Akermanis for being disruptive to the team citing incidents such as Aker’s clumsy article on homosexuals in football and supposed leaked team information but reading between the lines it was nothing more than revenge. The powerbrokers at the Western Bulldogs came down hard on Akermanis because he wasn’t one of the lads, because he didn’t fit in. The boys club were concerned that they couldn’t control Aker’s every action so they played the card of last resort and bought the hammer down on his head. A few of the boys were paranoid about a book Akermanis has written so rather than deal with the play-out when it arrived, they sold him down the river in a manner so bitchy and childish you could swear it had happened in a Lindsay Lohan movie. There are thirteen year-old schoolgirls who think they have been called a whore by another thirteen year-old girl who act with more maturity.
The Western Bulldogs were a better team with Akermanis in it. He was in their best twenty-two at the time the guillotine went woosh and he has the finals experience required to guide the team through September. Few others at the club do. The Bulldogs, as a club, have cut off their nose to spite their face to use a run-down but apt cliché.
Julia Gillard should be embarrassed over the way her football club treated her favourite player. She should be mad as hell that they busted their premiership hopes and she should realise what a horseshit way the club had treated one of their own.
But she can’t be and she won’t be. Those feelings would shine the spotlight of hypocrisy on her and she would realise deep in her heart that she is exactly the same kind of character as those that finished off Aker. Nobody wants to look in the mirror and see that, least of all someone seeking a mandate to govern the country.