Stuck in a Rudd

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Queenslanders have had a good week.

Not only did their team win the second State of Origin, their man won the prime ministerial post…back. Some say that both were foregone conclusions, and they are right though few could have predicted how emphatic the wins would be.  But that is not all they had in common; both were in a sense farces: in the case of State of Origin, the sin binning of four players (two from either side to even it up) was ludicrous and, if not addressed, could dilute the great game—a game which incidentally is perhaps more important to Queensland than Kevin Rudd. And Kevin Rudd’s win also had an element of farce about it—or at least very poor theatre. The Ruddless government of Julia Gillard never quite managed to navigate its way through the cauldronian conundrum—for conundrum it is—of Australian political life, particularly Labour life. Voters fled and the backroom contrived and connived. With a massive election and limousine loss looming something—someone—had to go. Gillard had to go, and she did. Ousted. It was predictable and understandable, but replacing her with someone who had already been there done that is questionable. So is how long Kevin Rudd will be there.

But somehow there has been something lost in the subsequent media coverage. Have a look at this series of headlines:

·      Was Julia Gillard a 'real' female prime minister, or a leader who was female?

·      Gillard's tumultuous term showed difficulties women face in top job

·      Gillard right to play gender card

·      Was Gillard a 'real' female PM?

There are other headlines of course but those I have selected are representative of a fairly large group focussing on two things, that Julia Gillard was female and the part that (may) have played in her defeat. That is disquieting because of what it says of Australian misogyny. When “our” Helen Clark was ousted there was nary a word about her gender—or lack of. Nor in Britain with Margaret Thatcher. Nor even in Pakistan with Benazir Bhutto. Yet in Australia gender is the first thing they point to when their first female prime minister is thrown out of office. There are even headlines saying that (Julia Gillard) has destroyed all chances of a woman becoming prime minister for a long time to come.
Was Julia Gillard simply an unfortunate experiment then?
In Australia, it seems so.

Or will Australians confound us all again and go the other way, so to speak?

Having tried a woman, will they now give a gay a go?

Speedos, anyone?

Our Broken City

In my youth I was a fan of the occult and thriller writer Dennis Wheatley. I remember little of his books now but one line from them lives on in my memory and at times gives me succour. It is: “It is God’s gift that there is no pain beyond a body’s ability to endure.”
My belief in that dictum took a severe hammering this week as I listened to the wretched stories of those who survived the cataclysm, and those who cling fiercely and bravely to the belief they are (still) on a rescue mission.
Nature raped that city. My old city. I worked in the Press building.
But it is the human tragedy and the human stories that defy belief. It is not for me the scale of that event. As damaging as it was for the community the city and the country, we can at least share that, deal with that with compassion, with strength and with a country united.
What we cannot share, what no level of compassion could hope to overcome, are moments. Moments and memories of horror and terror which so many people ill equipped to deal with them endured and will have to endure.
People like you and me.
I cannot conceive of what was it was like to be in the midst of those moments that Tuesday—one minute pounding away at a computer, next buried under tonnes of rubble listening to the harrowing screams of the dying in the darkness. I cannot conceive because you are a secretary, a reporter, an accounts clerk—you are not an off-the-shelf victim or some extra in a bloody Hollywood disaster movie.
All you are is someone who that day expected to go home at the end of the day.
Like me.
That is the human tragedy of the Christchurch Earthquake (and, yes, let’s make it a proper noun): that you are one of us.
But unlike us, Nature, and whatever or Whomever we feel controls Nature— inflicted upon you a dreadful pain beyond capacity to endure.
As Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd so prosaically but perfectly put it…
“It’s just not fair.”

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