Editorial
The stick and the bristle worm

Earlier in the day, Kevin Rudd spent time in a paddock feeding sheep. Politics is rarely subtle. That afternoon, he sat opposite Rove McManus and waited to be asked who he would turn gay for.

There are some who see this as the moment campaigning changed in Australia, the point at which the trivial overtook all else and elections were emptied of meaning. It was November 18, 2007.

“Anticipation had been building for days about just who Kevin Rudd would turn gay for when he fronted the season finale of Rove Live last night,” Katharine Murphy recorded in The Age.

“The betting around possible contenders reached a crescendo of sorts in a dusty paddock outside Melbourne yesterday afternoon when Mr Rudd permitted himself to be filmed chasing terrified sheep, tempting them hither with stale pieces of bread.”

With a logic known only to him, Rudd announced he would turn gay for his wife. In his desperation to be liked he could only think of how much he liked her. “So there it is readers,” Murphy wrote. “Apparently that friendly looking Thérèse Rein is leading a strange double life.”

Murphy now works for Anthony Albanese. In the time since, with a few exceptions, politics has abandoned all gravitas. It has been cleared of ambition, except where it is personal.

Albanese has the articulacy of a stick. The words wander around, occasionally getting jagged on punctuation. The party’s best performers are hidden away, punished for factional differences.

There are positives on childcare and health but they come with enormous gaps. Not nearly enough is done on climate change or for the environment. There is no grand vision for the country, no attempt to tell a story about the future.

Neither major party wants to properly address the housing crisis because to do so would require tax reform. The property investor is the only species granted full protection in Australia. Their wealth is the source of most problems in the country and will be defended at all costs.

Peter Dutton has spent the campaign proving he is uniquely unsuited to government. Wherever possible, he has avoided policy. He has exploited racial anxieties and demonised the media. His campaign spokesman is a libertarian bristle worm called James Paterson.

The party’s costings were released in the final days and showed them to be the worse economic managers. There is no plan for a surplus, only that it would be delivered sooner than Labor’s. Dutton’s trademark nuclear plan is a $118 billion “off-budget” item.

In the ACT, the Liberal candidate says he needs to be elected to protect the territory from the Liberals. In seats across the country, Exclusive Brethren are handing out how to vote cards for them.

Long-time observers say this is the worst campaign in memory. There is a confluence of failures: the inability of parties to attract talent, the fragmentation of media and the electorate, the rise of unseriousness, the special banality of both leaders. There is no obvious answer to this, except probably minority government.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on May 3, 2025 as "The stick and the bristle worm".

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