Senator Andrew Bartlett
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
 
One of the best things about having a break after the election has been getting away from all that pseudo-substance and inane babble that sometimes passes for political debate, to a place where people just care about issues. It is a nice chance to inhabit the real world. But all good things must come to an end (which is quite a depressing cliché when you think about it) and so I find myself back on yet another aeroplane, flying to Canberra for the Opening of Parliament.

It's no major revelation to say that I found the Australian election result depressing (not to mention the USA result). Depressing for the Australian Democrats, but far worse for democracy. The Government's control of the Senate will mean less diversity of opinion and the perceived legitimising of some truly appalling polices. For the sake of balance, it must be said that there are clearly some worthwhile aspects to what the Howard Government does.

Suggesting that the Government is appalling in every regard is not only inaccurate, it is also unfairly demeaning of many of the people who chose to vote for the Liberals. However, the fact remains that the worst aspects of the Government have now been just as fully legitimised and strengthened as the better aspects.

If there is one thing more depressing than the overall result, it has been that the public debate and discussion post-election has been focused on the more unedifying, distorted and distracting aspects of Politics.

The sloganeering, the search for the easy label to create yet another hopelessly over-simplistic description of the new political reality and to explain why it has come about, the tedious and predictable obsession with post-election blame games and shadow cabinet jostling – all just serves to further obscure and distort the things that actually matter.

It is hard not to get infuriated at how much it distracts from and obscures the issues that really need discussion and thought. Most of the public portrayal of politics is done through a prism that ensures it is thought of and treated in a way not dissimilar to a daytime soap opera, and with about as much depth.

Anyway, the soap opera is about to enter a new season. There are a few new characters being groomed by the scriptwriters for larger parts down the track, but it will mostly be the old favourites getting most of the lines. As with Days of Our Lives, you can go away for a year and come back and pick up the story very quickly.

Like many a soap opera and movie, there is a vast amount of activity that ends up on the cutting room floor, being deemed as too uninteresting to be screened.

Unlike a soap opera, this 'uninteresting' activity affects the lives of the audience, often in far reaching ways, but TV and newspapers are about ratings first and foremost, so this fact is considered basically superfluous to the seemingly much more important task of creating an entertaining headline.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, November 16, 2004
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