The first book I wrote was called Rooting Democracy, which is why having a sense of humour is a bit risky if you want to sell a political book, because that's at least one reason my heartfelt outpouring of political and democratic hopes of the 1990s didn't get onto school readings lists. Of course I meant 'growing the society we want', but of course the title was a tease.
Published over ten years ago (and now sadly out of print) the book, co-authored with Jenny Lee, focused (with prescience) on why Australians were even then profoundly disillusioned with politics and politicians, why Parliament wasn't working to keep executives in check and sensitive to the real needs and wishes of the people, and what we could do to repair these grievous lacks.
We even talked up the bounty offered by independent MPs, never dreaming that one day the nation would tell party Tweedledum-and-Tweedledee strategists where to shove their patronising and platitudinous campaigns. And I say this with the righteous anger of one who has been a true believer, a battler and an idealist, betrayed by the pusillanimous promises and prevarications if not betrayals over things that matter, like eradicating the misery of our Indigenous people, acting with compassion and humanity to asylum-seekers, and getting out of wars.
But a sense of humour is entirely desirable when Greens sprout and they, and once-scoffed-at 'rubes', have to be taken seriously by two-party preferring reporters, or pollsters in bureaus where they crat; and they can take their own sweet time to choose how best to make their mark in political life after years of being scorned and ignored; and when Messrs Wilkie, Katter, Oakeshott and Windsor get to change the rules that would have them consigned to irrelevance. 'We will decide who comes to this government, and the circumstances in which they come,' is more or less the message.
Which did not sit well with those who, like Melbourne radio station 774's Jon Faine, are irritated at the messiness of democratic negotiations: he wondered on-air why they don't they have a system in place to sort out their differences, like a party whip. That's precisely how we got to this dire strait. Someone equally scoffed-at said something of the kind before John Howard adopted it as his own inhumane refugee policy. Which both sides adopted, disgracefully, during this campaign.
Three Independents, belittled as 'The Three Amigos' but riding