Spring Bay bar post-mortem

“How many?”

“At least 30.”

“That many. I was told about a thousand bucks apiece?”

“What did you think of the result?” PF is quite chuffed. He tips up a ten and it drains into the fundamental orifice of the hippo. Two gulps. Gone. He’s famous for it actually. Doesn’t swallow. Flash flood. Gone.

“A polarization of the State electorate into their rightful corners. Greens to be a spent electro-motive force unless they can become more sophisticated with economics and social issues.”

“It was my idea, you know,” puffs PF.

“Was it? I heard that Mike Kent and KP got it up and running. Then CD and the rest of Nouveau Orford chipped in. Minority Government fever.”

“Yes,” JS the local squatter, intervened after potting a black and turning his full attention to the bar-talk, “but why couldn’t the major parties simply form a coalition. They do in Europe.”

“It was my idea, you know,” PF insists.

“Well, it seemed to work,” I nod into my froth. “The polls swang back to the Labor Party after the ads started.”

“Indeed they did,” he replied proudly as another 10 flowed into the big end of down, burping that Hidding did a damn good job.

“Not good enough. No charismatic leadership appeal to the hoi polloi. Marble mouth. I reckon young Hodgman will be up front sooner than later.”

“Old Hodgman.”

“Who, Mike?” This man, the architect of the well executed fear-factor campaign … how much does he know?

“Yeah, Mike. He polled amazingly.”

“Yeah, but in a state of less than half a million, a bag of pink-eye spuds with a nice suit would have intellectual appeal.”

“Well, I’d put my money on Mike Hodgman pinching the leadership.”

“Tell you what,” interjected a mill worker, “that bloody Flanagan brought Putt down a peg or two.” Bloody clever, quip I thought, for a bloke who’d just lost his dog.

“Do you reckon,” I asked of the jovial PF, “that the Electoral Commission would want to know who the contributors were?”

“Nah, not for a thousand.”

“Suppose not, “ I mused, fingering the dew on my fresh ten and wondering why Edmund never went that way instead of straight to Gaol.

Oh well, I again mused inaudibly, the Wilderness Society will be in for a name change after the next four years. There’ll be no wilderness. I mean in here, you simply would never admit to voting Green, even if it were to reduce the vote of the majors.

On the way home, I saw the crowd at the popular pizza café on the Prosser. Familiar cars, the big end of town in my little town. A celebration continuum of the great idea that would loose a cane toad into the Tasmanian bush.

Perhaps we’ll get a cane toad task force. Now that’s a good idea for a new Party. Could it win the next election?