Australia goes to the polls Saturday in what has been an entertaining campaign for political junkies but a dismal choice for the voter. One of the two candidates for the top job is uninspiring and the other is unappealing; depending on which side of the antipodean political fence you sit. Most Australians are more concerned about this year’s “Aussie Rules” football grand final next month. This is a country where the first leadership debate was moved from its traditional Sunday evening peak viewing time so as not to clash with the MasterChef Grand Finale.
Voting is compulsory and Australia is one of the few western countries to enforce this law by fining and even imprisoning citizens who do not show up to their polling place and have their names crossed off the register. A voter is not compelled to mark the ballot, as that much is secret (the secret ballot is otherwise known as the Australian ballot). A former leader of the Australian Labor Party who has proved to be more than a thorn in the side of his own party by taking a gig as a reporter for 60 Minutes, urged Australian voters to cast an informal ballot either by leaving it blank or by using the handy pencil to “send a message.” As someone who has scrutinized votes in past Australian elections, it is safe to say that sending scribbled messages of profanity to those seeking election is not new. Americans, accustomed to touch screens and levers, don’t have this wonderfully old-fashioned method of political self-expression – though it must be said that overseeing these votes is not for the faint-hearted.
The Hon. Julia Gillard, the nation’s first female Prime minister, took the ultimate punt in calling an election a mere two months after being parachuted into the highest office sans any election to establish some element of credibility with the ever-skeptical Aussie voters. Julia (just the first name, like Hillary) was selected by her Labor Party cohorts in an unprecedented backroom bloodless coup, with cigar smoke the only thing amiss.
Julia, like Hillary, has made the mistake of trying to emulate Barack Obama’s successful 2008 campaign chant “Yes We Can” though for the ladies it is “Yes We Will.”
During the Democratic primaries, a rather hoarse Senator Clinton, out on the stump in Lyndhurst, Ohio responded to a supporter’s chant of the Obama version and turned it (almost) into her own with “Yes We Will.” She was mocking the junior senator from Illinois and his kool-aid like chant. But it wasn’t her and did not fit the campaign narrative and it was never heard of again. That is, until the campaign launch of the Australian Labor Party (equivalent of the Democrats) just a week or so ago.
Julia was front and center giving her all-important speech straight from “her heart.” To her credit, she only read verbatim from a written speech on the podium and not Obama’s favorite prop, the trusty teleprompter. Australians can only handle so much American razzmatazz and political campaign wizardry.
Political plagiarism can be a tricky, embarrassing business, but not always fatal; just ask Vice President Joe Biden. Good ol’ Joe has a bit of a history plagiarizing. In the Democratic primaries for his first run at the White House, he was caught reciting a speech, almost verbatim, originally given by failed leftist British Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock.
The British opposition leader mused in May 1987 at the Welsh Labour Party conference:
“Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university? Why is Glenys (his wife and now an MEP) the first woman in her family in a thousand generations to be able to get to college? Was it because our predecessors were thick? Does anyone really think that they didn’t get we had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? Of course not. It was because there was no platform upon which they could stand.”
A Biden speech in September 1987 went:
“I started thinking as I was coming over here, why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to university? Why is it that my wife who is sitting out there in the audience is the first in her family ever to go to college? Is it because our fathers and mothers were not bright?…Is it because they didn’t work hard? My ancestors worked in the coal mines of northeast Pennsylvania and come home after 12 hours and play football for four hours. It’s because they didn’t have a platform on which to stand.”
Biden is now the proverbial heartbeat away from the Oval Office, but what of Ms. Julia Gillard, who, come Saturday night, will make history as either Australia’s shortest-ever serving Prime Minister or as Australia’s first elected female Head of Government? Polls show it is the closest election in decades with late money coming in for the right-of-center coalition parties led by the eccentric Tony Abbott who gave up priesthood to go into politics. Still often referred to as “The Mad Monk,” Abbott is best known for his cringe worthy tight swimming costumes known as “budgie smugglers.” A used pair of sold at auction for AUS$3400 earlier this year.
Apart from the American campaign-style plagiarism in “Yes We Will” – which does not sit well with Australians who still have the proverbial chip on their shoulder when it comes to differentiating themselves from the ‘old country’ (Mother Britain) and the ‘new country’ (Uncle Sam), this cliffhanger Australian election shares the same issues as the UK and US: illegal immigration, cap and trade/climate change policies, overblown health care budgets and deficit spending and the threat of increased taxation to pay for it all.
This Saturday, as most Australians are compelled by federal law to fit in a visit to their local polling place and cast their vote, they may take comfort in the knowledge that this election has already been decided. In another form of plagiarism (or example of imitation as the sincerest form of flattery), a psychic crocodile from Darwin, named Harry, took only a couple of minutes to snap up a chicken with Gillard’s picture, snubbing the other chicken carcass with Mr. Abbot’s photo. This follows Paul, the psychic octopus who shot to fame during the soccer World Cup.
Gillard and her Labor supporters can take heart from this endorsement after the clairvoyant croc correctly picked Spain to win the final against the Netherlands.
Karyn McDermott has two decades of experience in politics and communications in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. Presently, she is the creator and director of the DailyKaz.com a libertarian/conservative website. She has been published both internationally and locally.