![\"BTPMUZ2CEAAvezk\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nofibs.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/BTPMUZ2CEAAvezk-e1378436808879.jpg?resize=600%2C454\")
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By\u00a0Sarah Capper<\/a><\/p>\n 6 September 2013<\/p>\n Savour the moment, but only fleetingly – the incumbent PM is not exactly shaking the sauce bottle. Momentarily think about sex appeal. Come properly awake with a flurry of gag reflexes.<\/p>\n Turn on the remnants of ABC Rage, but suddenly have painful\u00a0flashback<\/a>\u00a0to last week and Julie Bishop\u2019s music choices. \u00a0Realise Beyonce\u2019s Single Ladies and Madonna\u2019s Like a Virgin will now forever be associated with the deputy Liberal leader in my brain.<\/p>\n Try not think about Julian Assange\u2019s foray into\u00a0John Farnham karaoke<\/a>\u2013 you don\u2019t want to let that image or song or mullet get stuck in your head. The Voice from the Ecuadorian Embassy. The Senate via skype.<\/p>\n Try even harder to not think about Clive Palmer “twerking<\/a>“,\u00a0Curse Kyle Sandilands and Robin Thicke again.<\/p>\n Stumble down road to local cafe and try not to trip over a sea of bikes. Avoid ALL men in lycra. Wonder again about my lifelong campaign to ban all men wearing it, and how that might be all the more trickier from tomorrow.<\/p>\n Walk through a leafier part of Flemington, aka the “doctors’ wives’ patch”, and note the Adam Bandt signs adorning splendid Victorian mansions with big bastard shiny 4WDs parked outside.<\/p>\n Arrive at caf\u00e9. Wonder if it’s too early to order alcohol. It is. Remind self I left Queensland a loooooong time ago \u2013 a distant memory of a time before\u00a0Peter Beattie<\/a>\u00a0became Queensland’s premier, before he found an extraordinary knack for separating himself from his own government, promising to fix things his government had done.<\/p>\n Wonder why Kevin Rudd didn\u2019t try repeating the swimming-in-the-shark-tank campaign launch that Beattie dared many moons ago, before\u00a0tipping his hat at the seat of Forde<\/a>. Figure the Labor Party’s internal feeding frenzy of the past few years, led by Rudd and his supporters, would probably make the sharks blush and scare them away.<\/p>\n Marvel at how Brisbane used to be considered a big country town – and not the other\u00a0epicentre of federal politics<\/a>\u00a0(outside of Rooty Hill).<\/p>\n Check out menu and order coffee. Note that despite the local Muslim population, there\u2019s no “haram<\/a>”\u00a0to be found at any caf\u00e9 in the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n Flick through the papers. Wonder again\u00a0how big and influential\u00a0<\/a>an effect Rupert Murdoch and the News Limited papers will have on the campaign, with\u00a0back<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0back<\/a>\u00a0endorsements for Team Abbott.<\/p>\n Pay, but not before having an argument about final\u00a0costings<\/a>\u00a0and a possible black hole in my wallet.<\/p>\n Walk past the\u00a0gigantic billboards<\/a>\u00a0of Adam Bandt, casting shadows all across the seat of Melbourne. Realise I\u2019m standing underneath a really massive billboard of Adam Bandt “Standing up for what matters”. Wonder about the Greens’\u00a0Leadbeater possum policy<\/a>. Again.<\/p>\n Realise it\u2019s\u00a0Threatened Species Day<\/a>. Seriously, am not making this up(!).<\/p>\n Notice a disproportionate amount of fathers out with their daughters. Chuckle at\u00a0Karen Pickering<\/a>\u2019s tweet about the need to \u201cFREE\u201d Tony Abbott\u2019s daughters. Throw Jessica Rudd in for good measure.<\/p>\n Try and imagine a female candidate with her arms around her adult sons saying we should vote for her because her sons are hot. Shiver again, wondering how the term \u2018Dad moment\u2019 or \u2018Dad joke\u2019 is just an excuse for outdated sexist commentary. Or as ABC Political writer Annabel Crabb observed<\/a> during the campaign:<\/p>\n “Daughters, in this campaign, are an implicit piece of propaganda; a useful item of human armoury for the misogyny war’s remaining skirmishes. But they also provide convincing cover for the “dad moment”, which is modern man’s catch-all excuse for occasionally forgetting himself. What is the female equivalent of the “dad moment”? Surely not the “mum moment”, which would probably involve just dropping everybody to footy practice while making a work call and constructing a rabbit costume out of toilet rolls and tissue paper.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Notice a lot of traffic on the way to polling booth. Blame the boat people. And Fiona Scott. Concede that\u00a0saying dumb stuff about asylum seekers<\/a>\u00a0sure has had “sex appeal<\/a>”\u00a0this election.<\/p>\n Walk past\u00a0Arthur Calwell<\/a>\u2019s old house along the way. Think of this once safe Labor seat now overrun by giant billboards of Adam Bandt and people wearing “I’m with Adam” t-shirts. Think that in 2013, the choice comes down to Adam Everywhere from a progressive party, versus a progressive woman from a major political party.<\/p>\n Think about the\u00a0PNG \u201csolution\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(and abuse of the word \u201csolution\u201d in regard to any asylum seeker policy) and momentarily dream about having more progressive members in parliament. Full stop. Or just good, plain-speaking, considerate, reasonable people as members of parliament. Nod to\u00a0Tony Windsor<\/a>. Sigh.<\/p>\n Walk past the big church on the hill with the foundation stone laid by Archbishop Mannix. Think of Mannix prot\u00e9g\u00e9 B.A. Santamaria, as one of Abbott\u2019s \u2018mentors<\/a>\u2019. Recall comment from Abbott daughter many years ago about her dad being just a \u2018lame, churchy, gay loser<\/a>\u2019. Figure whoever wins we\u2019ll be left with a \u2018churchy loser<\/a>\u2019, although Rudd has recently \u2018evolved\u2019 his thinking on gay marriage (and provided one of the few inspiring moments during the campaign when\u00a0responding to the issue\u00a0<\/a>on last Monday’s ABC QandA program). Wonder whether\u00a0Tony Abbott\u2019s sister<\/a>\u00a0secretly wants a Rudd victory to speed up her own nuptials.<\/p>\n Arrive at polling booth. Notice more people than normal queuing. Blame the boatpeople. Oh, that\u2019s right, they\u2019re not allowed to vote; they\u2019re not really allowed to do anything these days \u2013 even seek asylum! And under an Abbott government they\u2019ll be\u00a0denied legal rights<\/a>. Think it\u2019s twelve years since a prime minister thundered the words “We will decide who comes here and under what circumstances<\/a>.” For both major parties it\u2019s now “We will decide no one will come here. Ever.” Weep.<\/p>\n Think about Abbott\u2019s hare-brained “Buy the Boats<\/a>”\u00a0scheme. Wonder whether rusty boats will spoil the view in Sydney Harbour \u2013 Abbott might need to adopt Rudd\u2019s equally hare-brained \u2018move the navy<\/a>\u2019 (and everything else) to Queensland to accommodate a fleet of leaky vessels. Shake head at the crazy debates and policies dished out during this campaign that will never see the light of day. Wonder if Abbott\u2019s\u00a0paid parental leave scheme<\/a>\u00a0will also be in that category. Sigh. Let out a dirty \u2018F***\u2019.<\/p>\n Stand in voting queue. Channel Kevin Rudd with some obsessive weird\u00a0hair flicks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Channel Tony Abbott when recording your name to the electoral roll with some long \u201cummmmm, ummmmmm, ahhhhhhhhhhummmmm\u2019s\u201d followed by a good awkward lick lip. Try not to get arrested \u2013 the Flemington Police station is just down the road.<\/p>\n When they ask for your address, give them your best\u00a0Julie Bishop stare<\/a>.<\/p>\n Grab forms for the two houses and hit the cardboard cupboard. Take a selfie, if not illegal. Wonder if Kevin Rudd stopped taking so many of them and\u00a0actually called<\/a>\u00a0NSW Premier Barry O\u2019Farrell about that small matter of moving the navy to Queensland.<\/p>\n Fill the Reps form in. Feel tempted to draw a box on the end and write “Julia Gillard, but that would be, ahem, an abuse of my voting power. Think of Gillard and the Joni Mitchell song Big Yellow Taxi<\/a>: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?” Sigh. Sigh, sigh, sigh.<\/p>\n Notice an extraordinary number of crazy-slash-loopy parties on the Senate form. Begin the hour-long task of voting “below the line<\/a>“, working backwards, putting the absolute nut jobs last.<\/p>\n Wonder if\u00a0Jayme Diaz<\/a>\u00a0has ever voted below the line (or whether he just put the same number in every box). Think about the voters in New South Wales and hope they are also voting below the line and that\u00a0some crazy preference deal<\/a>\u00a0doesn\u2019t return Pauline Hanson to our national stage, let alone have a hand in the balance of power.\u00a0 Or anyone from the Katter or Palmer parties. Please, no.<\/p>\n Emerge from a sweat, three hours later. Fold the gigantic Senate form \u2013 almost as big as an Adam Bandt billboard \u2013 into a tiny bundle just because it will \u2018surprise\u2019 the vote counters. Especially when they see I\u2019ve voted below the line.<\/p>\n Return home, but before date night with\u00a0Anthony Green<\/a>, stop off at the bottle shop. A state of no-return inebriation is recommended for tonight\u2019s viewing, bar a few “happier” moments of watching\u00a0Sophie Mirabella sweat<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cancel all commitments on Sunday. This one is going to hurt. By\u00a0Sarah Capper 6 September 2013 Savour the moment, but only fleetingly – the incumbent PM is not exactly shaking the sauce bottle. Momentarily think about sex appeal. Come properly awake with a flurry of gag reflexes. Turn on the remnants of ABC Rage, but suddenly have painful\u00a0flashback\u00a0to last week and Julie Bishop\u2019s music choices. \u00a0Realise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,62,3546,66,585,43],"tags":[2587,91,888,2601,1325,1332,139,2602,2655,1016,262,273,274,276,283,2625,2570,2574,551,358,1327,1232,415,419,655,470,473],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-2za","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56740,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9868\/revisions\/56740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nSarah ( sarah@vwt.org.au<\/a>) is the editor of feminist monthly Sheilas<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"