Salt and corrosion

I voted mid-morning. I do enjoy voting, no matter what the outcome. Today's excursion revealed that the children at Our Lady Help of Christians primary school are studying Australian History. They had made a big poster to decorate the walls of the corridor, illustrating "The Things That Made Australia". These things predictably include Captain Cook, convicts and kangaroos, as well as, less predictably, thongs. This last was illustrated with a picture of Havaiana thongs... which come from Brazil, just so you know, Shelley of class 2/3.

After voting, I went to the Rose and Cut Flower Show in the church next door. Not something I'd normally go to, but it was clearly being held to catch the voting crowd, so who am I to deny them? It turned out to be well worth it, because the kids had continued their tributes to Australia in floral arrangements. Most of them were content with adding toy koalas to eucalyptus branches, but one girl had surpassed herself. Hers had a big label, "LIFE AND DEATH WITH JESUS AND GOD!!", and was one half dry sand (representing drought) and one half foliage (representing new growth). And then I went to a first birthday party (I know, I know, my mad social life).

And the election outcome? Well, it's hard to say what was the best bit. Perhaps it was when it became apparent that Labor really was going to win (for the first time in eleven years)... but I think it was actually when it became apparent that even the Prime Minister himself would lose his seat. There was much rejoicing in my house when that happened.

One more week to go until the federal election. [deep sigh] It might as well be one more year. Hurry up, week!

It doesn't help that the campaigns are micro-managed now; what little spontaneity manages to poke its head up gets stamped down very quickly.

How different things used to be! My electoral blog reading turned up this gem: the Paul Keating Insults Archive. I loved Paul Keating, self proclaimed "Placido Domingo of Australian politics". I even had a poster of him inside my desk in Year 11.

For the uninitiated, Keating was Treasurer and later Prime Minister in the last Labor Government. He looked the way you'd imagine a cartoon undertaker to look (and, indeed, that's how he was often portrayed). He was an atypical politician (in Australia, at least): where other politicians follow football and affect empathy for the man (or woman) on the street, Keating didn't like sport, collected antique clocks and wore expensive Italian suits.

There was one area, however, in which Keating didn't shake off his working-class roots: his language. On a dull day, he would coast, calling a few Opposition members "scumbags". On a good day, he was hilarious. He popped up on radio a few months ago, saying that the current (conservative) Treasurer was "all tip and no iceberg", which is an excellent insult, any way you cut it. He is even the subject of a recent musical (called "Keating: the musical").

I read a theory once that a strong political leader always has a dark clown, that one trusted colleague who can be called on to get media attention by either being funny or being brutal. It went on to suggest that Keating as leader acted as his own dark clown, which is a good call. The Labor Party made an attempt to regain the Keating magic a few years ago, by appointing Mark Latham to a short, disastrous stint at leading. Latham gave us a memorable quote about the current government's relationship with George W. Bush as being like "a conga-line of suckholes", but he never sustained Keating's level of insult brilliance.