The Prime Minister keeps a diary. He calls it his ‘legacy document’. You are not supposed to be reading this. His office describes it as “a fabrication.” But to be fair, his office describes most things as a fabrication, so make of that what you will.
Dear Diary,
Day four of The Program.
Nobody else knows it’s a Program. To everyone else it’s a bloke in a dressing gown on the lawn at 6am. But it has stages, and I’m on Stage Two, which is the Low Voice From The Chest, and Toto doesn’t care for it. He gives me full eye contact right through it - ears up, present, one of the better audiences I’ve had this year - and then somewhere around the second syllable he simply leaves. Not runs. Leaves. Goes and lies down in a spot of his own choosing, unasked, at a time that suits him.
Anyway. The escalator.
They stopped one for Trump at the United Nations. Everyone remembers that. A man of real consequence walks onto a moving staircase and the staircase makes a decision. Mine did it on its own, unprompted, with no committee involved, which if anything is the purer version. Nobody had to be got at. The building just knew.
I’ve watched it back eight times. At speed it’s a stumble. Slowed all the way down it’s a man arriving somewhere with genuine urgency. I’ve shown the slowed one to four people and three of them said “Mmm” and the fourth was the dog.
So... Adelaide. The 50th. Gough got one, Bob got one, I’ve got the 50th, and I’d like that carved somewhere it can’t be quietly moved later. Three thousand people and every single one of them clapped in exactly the right place, because the right places were on the run sheet, which had been agreed the week before by people paid to agree it. I’d taken everything worth fighting about off the table before anyone even landed, so by the time they sat down there was nothing in that room but the furniture, and I stood in the middle of it and told them we’d never been more united. And they clapped. On cue. Beautifully.
Funny how I can get three thousand people to clap on cue, but I can’t get my dog to sit. Maybe Barnaby’s been right all along.
They gave me a lanyard to get in. Red. The girl on the door went down the list twice before she found my name and I leaned over and helped her look, and I’d like it recorded that I did that out of warmth, and I’d also like it recorded that I’ve now told myself that four times and it goes down easier every time.
And SHE was in there. That fish and chip shop woman. Not physically. She’s not been physically in a room with me for a year, but she’s never out of the building. Forty minutes on the future of Australia, and the whole time there she is, standing in the back of my head with her arms folded going “Please explain.” Two seats she’s got. Two. I’ve got 94 and we’re level in the polls! What the actual f***? and when I asked the room what that meant, everyone became extremely interested in the agenda.
Now. The house. In Point Piper.
I knew whose house it was. Of course I did. Geoff told me in the car. I read both pages, then put them in the door pocket. Which is where you put things when you’ve read them. And the business in the papers is about the father anyway, not the young fella, and I’m not going to be the man who holds a father against a son. My whole life’s been about where I came from. So I went. And I’d go again. That isn’t weakness, that’s the whole of me.
On the rug was a whippet that folded up the second the young fella clicked his fingers. I thought of the Program. And Barnaby. And then HER. Go away!
Anyway, they asked me things. Actual questions, and they waited for the answers. Nobody in Canberra asks me anything anymore, they just bring me a page and stand there while I read it. So I talked. The direction of things, what’s coming, what’s stuck, what I’d like to see happen and roughly when. I’m not going to sit in a man’s house and keep my mouth shut am I?
Nobody asked me for a single thing all night. Which is respect. It has to be respect. Because the only other thing it could be is that they don’t need anything from me. Which hurt my feelings.
The strange thing is, nobody said a number, which is the craft of it I guess. Everybody knows the number, but nobody says it, so nothing is said, therefore nothing occurred. I’ve been over the whole evening forty times looking for the moment. There isn’t one. And that’s important.
I’ve spent this week on a lawn in a dressing gown trying to make one animal do one thing I’ve asked. Ugh, Barnaby - again! And at conference, three thousand people did exactly what was required of them and said nothing at all.
Toto sits for Jodie instantly. She doesn’t even use the voice. She just looks at him.
So... new approach - no voice, no hand, just the treat and enormous patience.
I ran a bath and took the cheese in on the little board - the Tasmanian one, the one I can’t pronounce. Jodie leaves it out for me, which I’ve decided is affection.
I thought about Aftab’s report in there. Fifty-four things he wanted, and I said yes to thirty-five. Thirty-five! The nineteen were only the legal ones.
And Pauline wants one culture. One. So I’ve been practising - salaam alaykum, properly, in the accent and everything, not off a card. So first Muslim bloke I see next week, hand on the shoulder. and say it. Let’s see if her monoculture can handle that!
The water went cold. And my phone ran out of juice. I ate the rest in the dark thinking about Pauline. I wish she’d get out of my head!
Salaam alaykum Pauline. Oh bugger off!
I remain, as always, on the right side of history. History has not yet confirmed this. But it will.
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