I remember Labor

I REMEMBER the night Malcolm Fraser tearfully conceded defeat and the silver haired bodgie of working man’s politics, Bob Hawke, strode onto the Australian federal stage.

It was in a backyard in Bondi, where I lived that we celebrated the end of an era. The dark bricked block of four flats loomed up behind us as we cheered and jeered the former Prime Minister around a barbeque with half-cooked pork chops scattered on the hot plate.

Multiple blocks of flats surrounded us and the neighbours joined in our celebrations.

“Good on Yoooo, Jeanette McHooooogh!” rang out repeatedly as the tally results came in. She was the Labor candidate representing Bondi and the eastern Suburbs and was storming home.

We placed a large black and white telly on a rickety table next to the solid, yet again red brick barbie under a giant old Moreton Bay fig that shadowed the back recesses of the narrow oblong of tough emerald green couch grass that was our backyard.

Such unity, such companionship, such bonding, such a routing, such a victory.

Politics of safety

It seemed like the whole world voted Labor.

And I wonder will I ever again experience such a feeling of exhilaration in Australian politics?

The politics of safety have got us by the short and curlies and we are ruled by mediocre, middle aged,menopausal, suit jacketed sycophants led by a tight-lipped pounder of early morning pavements whose dour dry-lipped countenance is illuminated only by a positive cricket result.

Jeeeesus, I feel sick, when I remember the un-digested raw pork chops spewed up on the sheets and the unravelling of the legend, Bob, as he strolled the white sands of Bondi engulfed by enthralled onlookers.

Ultimately swallowed up by the ‘big end of town’, Bob bowed out and Paul from Bankstown slipped in, the wunderkid whose plans for us were too big, too soon and who they say ‘lost touch’ with us, the people.

And then along came Johnnie.

Johnnie offered us two cars, as many TVs as we could fit in our house, and ‘safety’ from the invading hordes of the north.

Australia changed as politics underwent a fundamental shift. It was no longer politics, but money and power, and fear, and mortgages and superannuation and double incomes, child care, safety nets, baby bonuses and border security and boring, boring sameness.

Does cynicism come with age? Or is there something to look forward to?