AUSTRALIA is another country, and far away. Australian politics is a closed book to a British journalist like me. The stories in Australia are different, the battles new. The characters are strange, the rules mysterious. And why should a British journalist wish to learn them? Why should he want to immerse himself in any of this? Besides, I was not here in Australia for the politics. I went walking along the coast in the Royal National Park. I climbed a small peak first named by Captain Cook when he spotted it from the sea. I faced down a marauding wallaby intent on my sandwiches on Pebbly Beach. I watched the jets rehearsing their acrobatics above Canberra, in preparation for the Victory in the Pacific Day celebrations.
But all the while, something odd kept happening. My eye kept straying to the papers. On a suburban train I caught sight of the headlines in The Sydney Morning Herald. Idly I started flicking through the pages of a copy of The Australian. Sitting in the winter sunshine outside a bar in a little roadside settlement called Collector, I overheard the midday ABC news.
And I couldn’t help listening. Who was this fellow, Barnaby Joyce? What sort of an object or outfit was “Telstra”, and why was the Government wanting to sell it? Why did a commentator find it amusing that Barnaby Joyce (whoever he was) came from a place called Tamworth (wherever that was)?
It was in northern New South Wales apparently and the Mr Joyce a Senator from Queensland. But why was the Herald making snide references to Queensland and its politics? Who was this Queensland character “Joh”, of whom Barnaby Joyce was said to be a reincarnation? Why was that a rude thing to say?
And then there was the question of a “deadlock in the Senate”. I know nothing of the Australian Constitution. I am unfamiliar with the balance of powers between the Houses. I am unsure of the powers of the states. I’m even a little hazy about the names of the parties, having but the vague impression that a party which used to be called the Country Party is now called the National Party and that it is in some kind of coalition with the governing Liberal Party . . .
And yet . . . it was teasing. That’s quite a name for an MP, “Barnaby Joyce”. I could see that Australian political journalists, sketchwriters and leader writers were falling on the Joyce phenomenon with the kind of glee I recognised from observing the delight that we, their British equivalents, take in John Prescott’s antics or Lembit Opik’s name. Mr Joyce was evidently a new star in the firmament and a big find for political editors.
And I was hooked. The game was essentially the same but I needed to readjust my political settings. I still don’t know Queensland; I still didn’t know what Telstra was; I don’t know what’s so funny about Tamworth; and until yesterday I hadn’t known that the Senate was balanced between the Government and the Opposition, that the novice Senator Joyce had appointed himself tie-breaker in the troubled affair of the sale of Telstra and that this was bold, impertinent — and deeply embarrassing to John Howard, over a flagship policy of his Government. I didn’t, in other words, know much about the constituent parts and players in this drama. But I could see that it was politics, that it was a human story, that it was blessedly colourful and that it mattered to them.
And all the rest I knew. The accusations flew and I recognised them. The abuse, for instance. Senator Joyce was “a dopey so-and-so”, said one parliamentary colleague. “I could forgive him his principles if he’d start using his brains,” said another, rather wittily. Other commentators opined that insulting him was no way to win him back to the party whip. John Howard unexpectedly started saying nice, conciliatory things about Barnaby Joyce. Everyone chuckled. How many times have British government chief whips, faced with a first-time renegade of uncharted character, alternated similarly between the carrot and the stick.
The debates began and I recognised them. Was Barnaby Joyce’s duty to his principles and his Queensland constituents, or to his party, the National Party? Should Mr Howard stand firm and teach the young greenhorn a lesson or should he bow to the parliamentary arithmetic and accept some of Barnaby’s demands? The demands — some sort of “fund” for “broadband services for the Australian Bush ”, plus the expenditure of large sums of money on purposes equally mysterious — were beyond my comprehension or reckoning; but for the purposes of this drama it was enough that they were big things that Mr Howard hadn’t wanted to do.
A demand that the PM stand trouserless, on his head, in the middle of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, would have served this plot equally well. How many times has a similar story been played out in our British Parliament as ministers haggle over compromises to buy off rebels against their bills? One is hazy about what the compromises mean, but who cares? You might as well pointlessly scrutinise your little plastic counters in a board-game. They’re your counters: it ’s all you need to know.
I started buying newspapers for myself. I heard an interview with Barnaby, about his life story, trailed on ABC. He sounded sleek with a hint of folksiness, and I spotted a canny determination to slip into his narrative some keynote coo-ees to the audience he was angling for. Tamworth turned out to be big on country music. The Sydney Morning Herald used of him the word “hick”. I remained uninterested in what Telstra was, but of Barnaby I was hungry to know more.
And the story got better. Howard buckled. Barnaby grew more expansive. He invited journalists to interview him while he was writing his maiden speech. He gave the maiden speech. Sketchwriters were in a frenzy. He quoted the whole of Rudyard Kipling’s If. He delivered the opinion that Australia should aim to be more than “a nation of kitchen renovators”.
As I write, the brave young senator from Queensland (or hick from Tamworth: take your choice) is still puffing air into his reputation. There is a severe danger that he will burst. He has now intimated that he may not accept the Prime Minister’s compromises after all. Possibly it is all going to Joyce’s head. Possibly he represents the beginnings of a country-roots renaissance for the wheezing old National Party. Possibly he represents a last gasp for a dying political force. And I still don’t know what Telstra is; and I still don’t care.
For this isn’t about Telstra. It isn’t really about Australia. It’s about the Game. It’s about jousting. It’s about personality, performance, plots, ploys and counter-ploys. With sinking heart I realise that I and my ilk are really no more than sports commentators of a rarefied sport. Adjust your settings and you can play it anywhere.
You could do a complete swap of the Westminster and Fleet Street crew with the Australian media crew, and within a fortnight both teams would be happily settled in. Our Phil Webster would be reporting an insider-conversation with someone close to John Howard. Our Peter Riddell would offer a masterly background to the history of the National Party and the powers of the Senate. Our Libby Purves would be sympathetic and wise about the joys and tribulations of life in the Bush. Our Anatole Kaletsky would explain Telstra.
And I would be offering the kind of column this random encounter with Australian domestic politics now permits. Reading about Gulliver’s travels as a boy I became totally absorbed in the debate about which end of the egg to start on, and missed the satire. Someone should have seen the danger signs and steered me away. Ah me — off to the newsagent’s — it’s too late now.
