Club Troppo

Kens touching memorial to David Beeton made me think of the new Bob Dylan album, serendipitously titled, Together Through Life.

Those who know the album well will also know that it makes its way to its climax with the great artist at near full, awesome stretch in I Feel a Change Comin On, before he winds up the whole outing with the great belly laugh Its All Good.

I Feel a Change Comin On, which is a further sequel to the transcendent The Times They Are A-Changing, follows an earthy ditty called Shake Shake Mama, which is little more than a pallet cleanser after Dylans wondrous spiritual tilt This Dream of You. This Dream is the only song on the album written by Dylan alone, and is surely his most moving hymn since his hat tip to William Blake in Every Grain of Sand. It is superior, in my view, to Blowin in The Wind (as perfect a piece of work as that song most assuredly was and is).

To return to the point, This Dream sets the stage, after a quick shake up mama, for the climax that is I Feel a Change Comin On. This extraordinary song is itself resolved in two lines that I, like many others, originally heard as:

Some people they tell me

Ive got the blood of the lamb in my voice.

The line could not be delivered more perfectly, more powerfully, and yet, as Christians will know better than me, does Bob really say that the lord Jesus speaks through him? Whoa Bob! Steady on old chap. That is a line humans dare not cross in their own name. I instinctively shrank at the same time as I thrilled to the sound of the delivery.

(Continued)

Yep, it’s official. The man of steel has been flogged by a girl from the ABC. The ex-prime minister’s personal defeat so teems with symbolism that it belongs in a novel, or no doubt several instant history books, and one day a movie. Fancy Bennelong being created in 1949, the year of the great conservative victory by Bob Menzies! The seat hasn’t been out of Liberal hands since, until now. The forgotten people have finally forgotten, or something, which feels like squaring for Ben Chifley and Jack Curtin, and the end of the Liberal Party of Australia. Maxine McKew has plunged the stake through the dark heart, as Paul Keating would say. And dig this fact, according to Max, “the primary vote at the 2004 election was around 28 per cent, our primary vote this time was around 44 to 45 per cent.” That’s a primary swing of 60 per cent, an almighty rush to help this courageous woman remove John Howard’s head from the lists. This week, she will join the first Labor ministry to accept commissions since Keating’s government in 1993. Maxine, you’re a bloody legend. Ask. It’s yours.

Hard to choose, really. Perhaps:

1. Kevin Rudd, like John Howard, wears glasses and describes himself as a fiscal conservative, so this is really a victory for John Howard, and the luvvies have lost again, if only they’d realise that we are all creepy conservatives now, really.

2. Stanley Melbourne Bruce’s first name started with “S” and he wore spats whereas John Winston Howard’s starts with “J” and he wears tracksuits, so 2007 is completely different to 1929, as proved by the scientific fact that these are two completely different years, really.

3. Someone, probably John Pilger or Julia Gillard, called the former Howard government “fascist” recently, forgetting that fascism occurred in Italy a long time ago and this is Australia today, so s/he is clearly wrong, really.

Go Gerry, make my day, really.

Update: Gerry goes for the crocodile tears (consolation prize for 2. above, although we failed to mention that Stanley lived on the outskirts of Melbourne, not in Bennelong, and the more recent of the two old PMs faced a celebrity candidate, so that’s why it’s completely different, this week, really).

Three high-profile frontbenchers from NSW Mr Turnbull, Brendan Nelson and Tony Abbott are already set to fight for the poisoned chalice of leader of the Opposition.

How good is this?

‘No reason to get excited’, the thief, he kindly spoke,
‘There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let’s not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.’

Bob Ellis is one of Australia’s great writers. No, I don’t mean he always has his facts right. In fact, I wish he would get more of his facts right, just to annoy Tim Blair. Regardless, Bob Ellis can dig deep. At his best, Bob Ellis can capture a whole sensibility better than any other contemporary writer in the political vernacular. I miss Bob Ellis at the moment, but that’s not the point.

Bob, crazy lovely brilliant bastard that he is, always says the Liberals would blow up their own head office to win office. On the third last day of the 2007 campaign, the Navy plucked 10 children and six adults from their leaking wooden boat in the Timor Sea. Ten children. The Ellis theory, in reverse! Not to be outdone this time, perhaps, the ALP has forced the Liberals to expel two members busted impersonating Osama bin Laden on behalf of the opposition. It’s wild, in the last hours.

Kevin Rudd has revealed his first five priorities as prime minister if Labor wins government at Saturday’s election. They are:

1. Ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
2. Negotiate with states to reform the hospital system.
3. Begin roll-out of high-speed broadband network and connections to schools.
4. Upgrade trade training centres in secondary schools.
5. Begin negotiations with US and Iraq for staged withdrawal of Australian combat troops by mid-next year.

Mr Rudd said that Christmas Day and Boxing Day would be the only holidays for a Labor cabinet this year as they began putting policies into action, and that he would use the Lodge in Canberra as the prime ministerial home. He said he wanted to be known as “an education prime minister”, someone who fundamentally transformed education. Mr Rudd, the hot favourite to be elected prime minister on Saturday, told the Sunday Age that the last week of the campaign would be “very tight and tough”, but said he had plenty of petrol left in the tank. “Fighting and raring to go, mate,” Mr Rudd said. “I’m moving from fourth to fifth gear, and certainly in my own personal engine there is capacity to move into sixth gear as well.”

Sounds good to me, except I guess repealing WorkChoices has to wait to the next parliament? Can’t something be done immediately? How about some real experts going through the pile up? What about an independent inquiry? What about an open-ended standing royal commission into the Howard’s government’s 12 years of crimes against humanity? Can’t we at least have Kevin Andrews in the stocks for tomato practice at Martin Place for just one day? How about Tone Abbott in an all-comers boxing tent? Joe Hockey on a stick? OK, the first five will do. *Sigh.*

Update: Classic Bill Leak.

Ever so gently, Kevin Rudd is looming into full view. The ALP launch was high politics. Not only did we see Bob Hawke and Paul Keating holding hands, in one swoop, the alternative leader deeply wedged the government forces with a bold fiscal policy and shored up his own side with anti-WorkChoices pledges. Anything can still happen, especially when we’re talking John Howard. As we head into the home straight, however, it’s looking like the Ruddster plus everyone from the Reserve Bank through to the ACTU and beyond versus the profligate retiree who, as far as anyone can really tell at this stage, has only sown up the orangutan vote. Fingers crossed.

Far be it for me to jinx the race, but it’s hard not to think that that’s that. The government had one shot: drive economic management to the front of the nation’s mind via the rate rise, and then break opinion on the only ground still tilted its way.

You just have to read Missing Link to appreciate that the Prime Minister comprehensively stuffed up, with his sorry but no I don’t mean I apologise for I will only take credit so I’m not to blame routine. The trajectory was always a high-wire act, carrying sufficient risk to leverage the difference. As it happened, the PM crashed into himself coming the other way in mid-air and fell into the net. The game’s up. The stride’s been broken. The water has been muddied. The government’s difficult message has become garbled. The LNP’s re-election strategy is a smoking ruin.

We’ll have to wait to see how sentiment swings, of course. There’s no telling the mythical Australian punter’s mind. But it’s now hard to see any way for the PM to turn. Hope the cricket gets interesting. To think, it all looked so clever on PowerPoint.

The PM appears to be sitting nicely a couple of weeks out. Newspoll has him coming home at a comfortable clip. Gotta love the Melbourne Cup. The sick, mad and giddy apart, gambling makes the punters think about taking risks. Follow up with a rate rise. Between the laws of probability and the definition of commerce, most punters will have lost money. As they lose confidence in taking risks, blap them with a rate rise. Hang the last election. Force the risk-averse suckers to bet on the next race.

Mr Howard defines ground zero. Will you back me in the next rate race? You don’t like WorkChoices, but it’s an anti-inflation, anti-rate plan to save your house, plus an unemployment rate of 3 per cent. The ALP has inflation-fueling unions which will let the rate monster out of the cupboard. Back me to save your house against your job and income under WorkChoices, with the lowest unemployment since the early 1970s. What is it? Make up your mind. Risk a perilous rate rise or a cosy rat race?

I suspect this will be the crucial test of Kevin Rudd, at least this time. No doubt there’s a political theory on how he should manage the moment for everyone able to have a political theory, and I’d hate to make the calls. I could more comfortably run a political campaign for an enemy. There’s a crazy freedom in being a mercenary, when it’s just a job, a paycheck, key performance indicators and a pile of bullshit.

Alas, my disapproval of the Prime Minister is in perfectly inverse proportion to my approval of the alternative. Such high stakes are excruciating. I can barely watch, let alone wish to be responsible. For two bob, I say Mr Rudd must meet this moment head on. No resting on opinion polls, slick advertising, small targets or whatever. The response must be full frontal: an all-guns blazing, scorched earth, take no prisoners, empty the purse, spectrum-dominating rebuttal, in a gentle Ruddster kinda way.

I’m not following the election, but I had an hour or two off today (from my 17-hour week, if you remember). I rang friends to see how they reckon the thing’s going down. Folks report an “it’s all over but we can’t think that” feeling, combined with stuff like “the most boring election ever” and torrents of laughter at the PM’s expense. Many think Governor Clint Eastwood Stevens will stake him with a rate rise.

Cold showers all round colleagues and comrades. Perhaps I’ve got one of those war-zone afflictions, and I don’t want to sound all Dennis Shanahan, but I reckon some timely reminders are in order. John Howard has a Hawke-Menzies election record and anyone who thinks this guy hasn’t got a plan to win back office is off their scone. If you believe for a half-second that Mr Howard hasn’t figured his trajectory on the possibility of the Reserve putting up rates, you haven’t seen him shovelling demand into the place by the truckload. Mr Howard will leap all over an interest rate rise like a Tampa he hasn’t seen since 2001, or the truth we haven’t since he ran on trust.

A rate rise will define economic management front and centre. The PM will leverage WorkChoices into the bridge, killing his biggest negative with his biggest negative, whichever you think his biggest negative. In Howard’s position, the risk has to be proportionate to the distance he must make up. It’s all worked out on PowerPoint.

I haven’t paid any attention to the election campaign so far, apart from noticing the headline polls, checking out Bill Leak’s cartoons and laughing at the Liberal Party’s advertisements on television. But, as the World Cup is over, I watched the debate, sort of, tonight, when Kevin Rudd wiped the floor with John Howard. Of course I would say that wouldn’t I, given that I’m unable to comprehend how anyone could possibly believe a single word that ever came out of Mr Howard’s mouth? Regardless, having since done a scientific survey, I can also advise that the worm, the press, the internet, my family, my friends, my neighbours, Uncle Tom Cobbly and the dog down the road have also all scored a big victory to Mr Rudd.

‘So what?’, I hear Liberal die-hards snorting. ‘The opposition leader always wins the debate, and Mr Howard always wins the election.’ Perhaps, but I tend to think it works like the advertising theory which says that, no matter how clever your pitch, it’ll only carry if it confirms an existing preference. Opposition leaders may have won the debates before to no avail, but that was in contexts where folks were, at the least, undecided on their preference. You can’t dress up a turd with lipstick, as they say, nor a poor leader with smart words. But in the current context, with Labor ahead, winning the debate may help win the vote. The entire show struck me as a free advertisment confirming the nation’s pre-existing preference. Mr Howard didn’t even try lipstick.

Update: Newspoll has stuck its head out in calling 58-42 to the ALP after the government’s triumphant first week. I gather this would have been gathered by Sunday night, pre-the debate. It’s crucial to maintain discipline, but imagine that you are a Howardophile this morning, wondering what comes after the triumphant first week. Another tax plan, for a triumphant second week? Should little children be allowed to watch public humiliation of this degree?

Sadly, the most unpredictable of World Cup tournaments has come down to a damp final between the world’s two most widely disliked teams. Apart from all its cultural baggage, England is disliked because it specialises in the grimmest of rugby spectacles, the 10-man game of territory and goal kicks. South Africa is disliked for its rough-house approach to the game, for a take-no-prisoners attitude to the rules and the violent boundaries of the contest.

Still, as the discussion has turned toward all week, the Springboks are an all-round rugby team, embodying attacking prowess, along with forward strength and a kicking game. Thus, the Springboks enter the 2007 final finding themselves in the unaccustomed position of being the crowd favourites among fans worldwide.

The implicit challenge for both teams is to provide an exhibition of rugby that proves them worthy of the title of world champion. Oh yes, the winner will have legal rights, but will this convince anyone? Will anyone really accept that a grim, percentage England victory will entitle the Poms to anything but technical bragging rights? Can anyone seriously believe that England has a better rugby team than the All Blacks?

England has a better chance of winning the game than it does of convincing people that it warrants the crown that comes with the territory. On what we’ve seen so far, only South Africa can save the credibility of the World Cup. On form, the Springboks should win. For the good of the game, they must win.

Update: With a 15-6 victory, South Africa has lifted the William Webb Ellis Trophy to claim the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Congratulations to the Springboks. Bugger you Crazy Eddie. Thanks referees, linesmen and ballboys. Bring on the Tri-Nations!

The good news is that the election date has been set. The bad news is that the campaign proper will now begin. The only thing I’m looking forward to is actually voting and the end of all those wretched advertisements on television. Until then, I’m thinking that I’ll do my best to avoid Australian politics like the plague. In my first and probably last election post, all I want to say is: go Kevin!

In some ways, watching rugby on television is more enjoyable than the live experience. At half-time these days, for example, you discover that, without warning and not so much as a how’s your father, beg your pardon or thank you very much, the code’s money-grubbers have sold off the rights to your ears. At the ground, we have no protection from the inanities of the evil contemporary pollution that we too politely call advertising being poured into our earholes, from where it makes its way to offend whatever grey matter and aesthetic sensibility we might still possess. With television, at least you can mute the flood of this modern junk.

On the other hand, some aspects of the game itself don’t translate onto the small screen, such as the rolling maul. Nothing in rugby can attract, mesmerise and thrill a crowd like a rolling maul. Perhaps it’s the surprise of its appearance that grabs stadiums. Many plays have the potential to become rolling mauls, but usually you’re lucky to see a single good maul per match. At the ground, you can feel the crowd focusing when one of these rolling monsters begins to take shape and go forward. If the pack make a few metres, the applause will also begin to roll, and it will rise, metre by metre. If the maul rolls long enough, it cannot but provoke the whole house into a mighty roar, the like of which can never be conveyed by television.

I’ve not been alone in favouring the rolling maul as one of the weapons that the Wallabies should have developed to defeat the All Blacks. It’s obvious that France and South Africa have put enormous work into perfecting the extraordinary feat of teamwork, strength, discipline and skill that is required to get one of these things off the ground, and then keep it that way. The logic appeals, because a good maul will draw all the opposition’s forwards in, creating space for line breaks when the ball is finally let out. Thus, this weekend we’ll see two teams that are among the best exponents ever of one of rugby’s unique features, having practised it to a very high degree as an integral part of the thinking they’ve put in over the last four years to defeat a standard that’s already flown home to New Zealand.

How will the RWC semi-finals go? Everyone in the world bar their own supporters would love to see the Springboks go down to the Argies, as unlikely as that prospect seems. No doubt each and every tragically hollowed-out Wallaby fan will be barracking for France over England. Whatever the results, I expect to see more of those great rolling mauls, even though it’s a real pity that this will only be on television.

Update: Another bleak result, with the Poms winning 14-9 in a close contest that could have easily gone the other way. The tragedy of it was that the French completely forgot they were French, and tried to beat the English at their own game. With this crazy thought in their heads, they blighted their attacking skills, surrendering their superb rolling maul and clever running backs to the field-goal option, which kept returning rested Pommie forwards to the mid-field. What a sad state of affairs we’ve come to, given that we look like being reduced to supporting the Springboks to deny England an unthinkable sequence of Cups. Can the Argies save the world at the 11th hour with a miracle finish? I wouldn’t put my house on it. Woe.

Update: South Africa won 37-13. I didn’t see the game, but the reports suggest I didn’t miss much. Going into the final, I guess we’re all Springboks now.