I had original planned to write a sweeping poll-driven analysis of recent Australian political history that would put Paul Kelly in the shade. Then I got caught in 2016.
August 2016 is such an arbitrary mark, but as moments in time go it has a lot to give. Australia is in the midst of its churn of leaders post-Howard, Malcolm Turnbull has just been narrowly returned to office, Bill is full of bravado, Hanson is back in Parliament and Trump is on the march.
All this is covered off in my column, including an overdue note of appreciate for Malcolm and his noble if futile efforts to end the energy wars and drive a more civil public discourse.
Amongst other things, he was the catalyst for the Guardian Australia, organising the first local funder Graham Wood and being a constant support of media diversity. The degree to which this support had no editorial strings is evidenced by the coverage of his government.
Reading back on the relentlessness of my negative commentary as he lost control of his party and then the political discourse. I think the writing wasn’t so much partisan as an expression of progressives’ collective disappointment in his failure to match his rhetoric.
Unfair? Perhaps, but Malcolm was such an easy target, his own side dubbed him ‘Mr Harbourside Mansions’, he had a knack of talking above other people, he didn’t consume popular culture, his ACDC fail was such a free kick.
Yet as I write :
On the nation’s broad direction towards energy transition, innovation-driven prosperity, social cohesion, civility in public life and, of course, the need for a counter-weight to Murdoch in the Australian media, Malcolm was mostly right.
In the constant battle between scope and space I also needed to cut the following pars, which link to other parts of the decade of Guardian columns:
In 2016 all that will follow is yet to be: that Malcolm will join the revolving door of PMs; that his Treasurer will slip through the middle and morph into ScoMo and conjure an election win from nowhere; that the climate warriors will continue to play dirty; crying arson even as the nation burns.
The pandemic will see trust in government surge through a crisis only to land back below where it had started; the march of technology will only accelerate ; the world will fragment even faster as America’s emperor waxes and wanes.
Albo will reinvent himself as Anthony and stumble into power, sponsoring a failed voice referendum that highlights the way division has conquered the algorithm before breaking records on a vote for stability in the face of conservative chaos at home and abroad.
**********
I also spent time immersing myself in a few videos to remind us of the world we were in ten years ago:
Abbott’s former chief of staff Peta Credland enters the Sky studio for the first time
Her presence sparks a Turnbull boycott of Sky. Look who the host is?
Meanwhile, Malcom was doing the hard yards on QandA and we followed along on Twitter
Mark Humphries was just starting out on The Feed and reminds us of Bill’s South Pacific dance moves.
GetUp is running community organising and TV ads
And I had totally forgotten what a cluster the 2016 was for the Liberals, election night dragged on and by the time Malcolm declared victory it sounded a lot like defeat.
As the Feed reported, all this happened because Malcom thought the Senate was crazy.
-
Speaking of crazy, in the US the Trump assent unwinds like vision of the planes smashing into the Twin Towers:
Here are the experts on why Trump would never be president
0When it happened – and the trauma is palpable
And when we said goodbye to 2016, even Jezza wa happy to let it go …
These moments feel like both an eye-blink and a lifetime ago, our stories merge and mutate, history has a rhythm if not a rhyme and it’s on all of us to bear witness not what has come, what is and what is to follow.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.