by Brendan Foster

What do you call a white, rugby-loving, Christian in his 50s on election night? Australian Prime Minister. I have no idea if that’s an original punchline, but it made me laugh, pretty damn, hard.

Puerile political gags aside, there is something undoubtedly unpleasant, about the glaring lack of political diversity. But at some point on Saturday night, it’s either going to be Albo or ScoMo. If you missed the opening joke, it might not be worth reading on.

But when did Australian politics become so hideously beige?

I mean, heck, all of Australian political history is teeming with white, privileged guys in their autumn years, running or ruining this beloved country of ours. So, ScoMo and Albo shouldn’t really come as a shock to us all.

What is mildly disturbing, is the two real contenders to become PM, are modelled on 1950s, church-going, door to door vacuum cleaner salesmen.

Australia might not be as diverse and progressive as we like to think we are.

But surely we deserve something a little more charismatic then a couple of daggy dads to choose from? But every election over the last 10 years, political parties always dust off daggy dad 2.0 and put on new coat and hat.

But we, the public are given the political parties the information to construct these clumsy caricatures of Mike Brady from the The Brady Bunch.  Aren’t the parties just “building” what we told them to do? I mean, dear god, I think we need to be a bit worried by the “us’ out there.

So the political heavyweights, bunkered down in their party rooms, drooling over the latest marketing campaigns aimed at men, always come up with the same answer.

Maybe Labor and the Libs have a supercomputer like Deep Thought from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and feed it thousands of surveys and polls and ask the 7 million-year-old computer what would make the perfect leader in Australia?

Not surprisingly, both parties got the same answer.

Political parties have become so paralysed by their own internal polling they truly believe we would find an unappealing, uncharismatic, white guy, engaging.

The everyday, relatable bloke. Harmless. Innocuous. Slightly charming.

If you worked or knew of an Albo or ScoMo there is no way you are inviting them over for a beer. If you came home from work and your partner casually mentioned either one of them was coming over for dinner, it would induce such a feeling of terror that would end up moving out.

Albo and ScoMo are nice enough folk and all; they’re just so excruciatingly boring.

Everyone knows one. The guy that will write something personal in a card when you leave work. He’s the secretary of the local cricket club that married the first girl he kissed at 15. He’s had the same haircut since he was 21. Never took drugs. Loyal. Has the morals of Mother Teresa and probably studied economics at university.

He is so admirably affable that you have to stop yourself from wanting to punch him in the nose.

So now you have this ungraspable, indescribable urge to quarrel with every 50-year-old man you bump into at the local shops.

So we end up with two, military-drilled, neurotic dads on the campaign trial for six-weeks begging for our attention, while we do everything to avoid them.

The campaigns of Albanese and Morrison have been so sterile, transparent and formulaic that voters aren’t even bothering to tune in. (I have no doubt voters would’ve tuned into the three leaders’ debates, if they could’ve found them.) Even the odd gag, seems orchestrated.

It’s been like watching two slightly-tipsy, insecure men, slap each other at a BBQ for 40-odd days. I never envisaged a gladiatorial-style campaign but given “I’m paying for admission” I expect to see a contest.

There are a number of dynamic and brilliant journalists’ in this country telling captivating, political stories. Even for the best, it’s been a hard sell.

Others have become blinded by the quick hit of a “gotcha question” and the thirst to become part of the story.

So you can forgive voters for being absent-minded when it comes to politics, if journalists are firing uninspiring questions that will never unearth inspiring answers.   

In Milan Kundera’s wonderfully, poignant book Immorality, he said “the journalist is not merely the one who asks questions but the one who has a sacred right to ask, to ask anyone about anything. I will therefore make my statement more precise: the power of the journalist is not based on his right to ask but on his right to demand an answer.”

Clearly, something has been lost along the way.

Look voters, I know you are disengaged, disconnected and well, basically exhausted after dealing with a relentless pandemic, but this is not your fault. Everyone can go back to knitting and baking sourdough.

You have earnt the right to quaff as many democracy sausages as you like. Turn up to the polling booths in your ugg boots, with a stinker of a hangover for all I care. Gracefully sidestep, caffeine-jacked, volunteers trying to shove how to vote cards into your stomach.

You are fulfilling your part in the democracy dance. But no matter how hammered you are, it’s hard to dance to the crap music being played by the two majors.

Political parties haven’t updated their record collection for 10 years.

Now, hang tight, while I serve up some unbearable nostalgia or “arc of nostalgia” as Albanese would say, but there was a time when talking politics involved a certain depth of anger and passion. “Nup, he’s a wanker, can’t stand him” then some eloquent reason why. People are still calling our leaders’ wankers but it’s not backed up with a reason. They simply don’t care.

More than 17 million Australians are now enrolled to vote. How many of those actually decided to tick above or below the line, will be left for the statisticians.

The increasing disconnection with Australian politics is alarming and depressing.

To be fair to politics, it has been hard to focus and feel optimistic these last two years because of the virus. We’re all a bit hungry and fatigued. So when we do glance up at the political stage, we kind of shrug our shoulders and go, ‘meh’.

Buy hey, the next election is only three years away and by then we shall all feel invigorated and refreshed. The only problem will be, you will only able to really vote for two daggy dads.