When the three independent MPs agreed to allow their private negotiations to become fly-on-the-wall fodder for last night’s Four Corners — the critically sensitive discussions that determined which party would govern Australia — they took a risk that no “normal” politician would take.
In a world of talking points and spin control, Messrs Oakeshott, Windsor and Katter agreed to expose themselves in all their independent glory to the scrutiny of an ever-present TV reporting team (with the doors closed only occasionally). In doing so, they took the idea of a new kind of politics to an exciting new level.
Watching this compelling warts-and-all drama unfold, which at times was breathtaking in its honesty as well as its naivety, was like taking a dip in a crystal clear lake after spending years wallowing in sludge.
That really was a new paradigm.
And wasn’t it refreshing- real people -not spin merchants- struggling with decisions and choices about who to trust. Also making decisions about which side would best support their constituency- now there is a novel idea.
I wonder if the Hawthorne Effect had any effect?
How about we have Oakeshott and Windsor as PM and deputy and let the light shine in.
And perhaps we could do something useful about our appalling media whining 100 BOATS THIS YEAR, jesus christ the year is 278 days old which means some poor sods arrive every 2.7 days and ask for help.
At an total of 4750 in 278 days that is 17 people per day. Just as many fly here and are never mentioned and what I don’t get is why the media and pollies think that minimising the number of refugees we give shelter to is a good thing.
Talk about lose the fucking plot.
Katter was wierd I thought, flitting in and out, to the amazement of the other two. Very strange. Congats to all three, gripping television, at last the ABC doing what they do well. Abbott did his reputation no favours, bloody bully. His attitude toward women is disgraceful.
But those “lighter” moments were funny and revealing too – Abbott (after Banton, “Pel”, and using those insulation deaths the way he did – with Joyce , his alternate “Finance Minister-in-waiting” drawing the crabs with his “econo-comical prognostications” – needing a distraction, after that fourth death, to get up in parliament and accuse Garrett of being guilty of industrial manslaughter) finding anyone else’s “attitude” offensive?
“Classic irony” – he does have a “sense of humour” after all!