MrGareth’s Missives

As the American mid-terms approach in a few days, and the Democratic party receive what is increasingly looking like a brutal kicking, I can't help but be more than a little despondent.

As with most democracies, elections turn on a segment of the electorate known as swinging voters.  They swing left and right according to the current national mood.  This year, apparently, as in 1994, this group will swing violently to the right after only 20 months of a new regime that promised a great deal but hasn't had a chance to deliver on much.

In 2008 we all remember that elation at the election not only of the first black president, but also the prospect of real and lasting change not only in the character of American politics but also perhaps in world realpolitik.  In the months that have elapsed, President Obama has withdrawn troops from Iraq and delivered an apparent political miracle never before achieved - healthcare reform.  It's already a lot more positive change than George bush achieved in eight years.   

It needs to be remembered the state George W left the US in on his departure.  Two wars, a derelict economy (with or without the GFC) and a completely alienated world.  His trillions of dollars of tax breaks for the rich, and his trillions of dollars of military idiocy are what has brought the US economy to where it is.  It would be almost bankrupt anyway, but is compounded of course by a meltdown in the availability of financial credit - that struck on Bush's watch - that has hurt the US far deeper than most even really appreciate.

Obama arrived with expectations of miracles, somewhat generated by his own campaign, but also somewhat the result of the culmination of a nation's dreams projected onto him.  He arrived amid the worst recession the world has seen since 1929 - requiring two  drastic bail out bills and a major financial reform bill.   Pretty soon too he was hit by the BP oil crisis.  He's worked the halls of The Pentagon to extract his nation from one miserable war, and has worked to execute hopefully the solution to another.  With healthcare reform, a mammoth task in negotiation, I can't begin to imagine how much time and energy just these problems have taken.  I also can't imagine how he is supposed to have solved every other problem the US faces in just 20-odd months.

But yet Americans seem to feel he has failed.  I think the true extent of the disapointment Americans feel struck home for me when Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins lamented on stage here in Sydney how much of a failure he felt Obama had been.

It's depressing.  How is the world ever going to change if we are so unwilling to give someone the room and the patience and the belief they need to even begin to attempt to enact it?

The US is facing a far bigger problem than I think most of it's citizens even appreciate.   I was listening to a fascinating interview last night with Jim Wolfensohn, former World Bank Chief, where he remarked that in 40 years the US/European/Japanese monopoly of the world GDP will move from 80% to just 35%.  In particular he said:

"I think at the moment the US is, I regret to say, in a sad situation at the moment. And it's very tough for the President. You'll see the reaction of the people in the next election as they try to throw people out. And I think what is needed is an understanding in the US jointly between the Republicans and the Democrats that they've gotta come together to get the country moving."

The hitherto most powerful nation in the world is undergoing a painful transition from superpower to has-been just as Britain did from 1914 to 1947. Many of their economic problems are well beyond the immediate grapple range of one man in 20 months.  But given some time and room to move, this transition could be managed a lot more effectively by someone with real vision like Obama than by someone pandering only to short term party political imperatives as Obama's predecessor did.   But, as he said, "I'd rather be a really good one term president than a mediocre two term president".

In view of how difficult the last 20 months have been, I do hope Americans find some patience and some trust to refrain from what seems a strong temptation to take away Obama's control of Congress and make it even harder to get anything done at all.  Clinton recovered from the Newt Gingrich "revolution" in 1994, but I can't help thinking just how much more effective he'd have been in his presidency if he hadn't have lost Congress to the Republicans.

The only optimism I can find in all this is that with the rise of the tea party movement, at least the Republicans are bitterly divided down the middle in a way that may mean they cannot agree on a good candidate for 2012. I'm also finding some comic relief in the Colbert/Stewart rally fun this weekend.  If nothing else, at least liberals are better at laughing.

I'm not going to read this book.  I'm not even going to flick through the pages in a bookshop.  But I must say I'm enjoying the apparent open season on John Howard the publishing of his memoirs has prompted.  So much so that as a passionate Howard-hater, I thought I'd add my own voice to the chorus of derision and criticism deservedly heading his way.

Among a bag of other enjoyable barbs, Jeff Kennett concluded that John Howard had no legacy. I disagree slightly - the only legacy he has in my opinion is his longevity - the second longest serving Prime Minister in Australian History in fact.  This is no doubt because that is all John Howard put his mind to: his longevity.  The John Howard Prime Ministership was focussed on one outcome alone - the preservation and survival of the John Howard Prime Ministership.  I feel that this book is very similar, designed to contribute nothing to the national record but for the preservation of his legacy.  (Somewhat in vain given the lack there-of.)

How can I say all this without reading it?  Well, John Brown's words on "Party Liners" on @702Sydney this morning helped me to that conclusion.  He does not, apparently, address in the book any of the following:

- His refusal to say sorry to the aboriginal population when political consensus was agreed that it was time

- His complicity in the invasion of Iraq based on a fallacy that there were WMD when there weren't - despite the warnings of the now Independent Senator and then ASIO analyst Andrew Wilkie, whom he derided and victimised

- His complicity in the unforgiveable Children Over Board scandal

These three crimes are his legacy if there's anything, and to gloss over them is frankly irresponsible for one attempting historical documentation. This goes somewhat to Kennet's further - and amusing - accusation that he has a Christlike image of his own infallability.  Naturally, his view of history sees himself only as a virtuous and unmalignable national hero; those events that conflict with that are seen through/over/passed.  This smacks of outrageous hubris.

Moving to the great Costello debate, I tire of this ordinarily as I dislike Costello as much as Howard and in fact find his self-serving, arrogant whines even more grating than Howard's.  However, in this case even Costello has joined the fray to set the record straight.  Howard maintains that he welched on the leadership deal between them based on Costello's behaviour around its publication in July 2006.  Doesn't this smack of childish petulence?

As to leadership he always stuck to the convenient line that he would stay as long as his party wanted him to.  Yet summary of his decision to fight the 2007 election, and the failure of those around him to persuade him to resign, is that his wife and children persuaded him to fight so he didn't look as if he was running from a fight with Rudd.  His own family overuled his party?  Doesn't this inconsistency smack of a woeful lack of integrity?

In fact, given my premise above, that his only interest was his own political survival and that of the party was irrelevant, it is actually no surprise that he welched on both commitments to a. pass the leadership batton to Costello and b. resign when his party clearly no longer wanted him.  How his party fared in the 2007 election was unimportant to him if he was not there to lead it.

(Its worth reading both Leo Shanahan's article on Punch about this, as well as Phillip Coorey's in the Herald.)

Further thoughts from Kennett about how he squandered an historical economic boom by indulging only in debt-management, middle-class welfare expansion and international aggrandisement are valid also I feel.  A complete lack of investment in infrastructure was pure irresponsibilty; and his shameless sychophancy towards George Bush position Australia as Infidel-puppy in the minds of much of the muslim world when it needn't be. 

All I'd say is that from what I understand, his battle over firearms early on in his tenure is about the only thing that doesn't look like self-serving machinations and is instead genuine national leadership.  But his disgraceful and calculated behaviour over the Tampa alone is enough to completely invalidate this as a virtue.  I think Mr Kennett sums up Mr Howard's psychological short-comings rather well so I feel I should leave the last word with him:

"John must believe that he had all the answers, and that he was almost infallible.  He joins only one other individual on earth's surface over history that can claim that credit, the rest of us are mere mortals and we do our best."

So I went to see the Smashing Pumpkins play The Big Top at Sydney's Luna Park.  It was very important that I went to see them. I had had another opportunity to see them a few years ago...at one of those V festivals.  Its amusing but sad.  I went with a number of friends who all said they too wanted to see the Smashing Pumpkins.  But we went to see Duran Duran while we waited, supposedly in an ironic nostalgia thing.  Turns out everyone I was with were closet Duran Duran fans and when the time came to swap stage - for the two gigs overlapped considerably - no one wanted to leave. So by the time we got across to the see them, the Pumkins had almost wrapped.  I caught only a few tracks.  I recognized only one.  I had unfinished business with the Pumkins.

I say "Pumkins," there was actually only one: Billy Corgan and three fantastically talented musicians half his age. The drummer was only twenty, and quite excellent.  The rest of the band left the stage for his drum solo, and you know it's an old school rock and roll drum solo when the rest of the band clear off for it.  It was a sensational solo, nicely rounded off with a very large gong!

It was a great gig. I was a bit concerned at one point early on when Billy made a bit of a whinge when the crowd completely fail to react to the first couple of apparently obscure tracks but utterly go off with the first recognisable Pumkins Smash. "it's rude to cheer one song more than the previous," said Billy, stopping his intro grumpily. I worried that we were in for another petulant prima donna performance like Ian Astbury's I had seen in a the ams venue only a few months before.

But he turned out to be an excellent front man and really took the time to get chat with and share some of his kooky but well meaning personality. One highlight in particular was at the half way point when he was introducing a song about a woman who had broken his heart.  "how many men here have had their hearts broken by women?" he asked.  Most of the male members in the crowd, myself included, raised their hands.  Billy pointed to one area of the crowd where there were no raised arms and said to Josh, his lead guitarist, "hey Josh, we need to hang out with these guys!". One woman in the crowd was overcome by the injustice,"I won't break your heart Billy," she screamed enthusiastically, over and over.  The smile that crept across his face was flattered amusement.

Talking of broken hearts, the female bassist was mesmerisingly enigmatic, almost siren-esque (bizarrely, born in 1979).  Her face was an emotionless mask all night until she farewelled the crowd at the end, blowing kisses with an arresting smile.  I think more bands should have foxy female bass guitarists.  As big a Rock n' Roll deal as Billy Corgan is, I was absolytely absorbed by the bass line for some reason, the deep resonating chords she sent thorugh the venue all night were captivating.  (If you happen to read this Nicole Fiorentini: will you marry me?).

Don't get me wrong though, it was a spectacular gig all round though, with Billy breaking into several entrancing guitar solos, one even using his teeth at one point, Hendrix-like.  His scream has not aged and is as heart-soaring as it always was, and the old classics he churned out were elating. Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Siva, Cherub Rock and Today were all everything I hoped they would be, and more.  All slightly re-worked without diluting any of the magic.  Perfect.

But the gig did reach a strange dénouement.  Billy did announce before the last number, "I warn you, this track is 30 minutes long and ends in a feedback whiteout...do you think you can handle it?". On a second time of asking, the crowd made him feel we were committed and he began one of the most bizarre psychedelic feedback onslaughts rock has produced.  With no water, it was some of the most suffering I've done for my art.  So sadly quite a different end to the "1979" finale I had fantasized about. 

This weekend marks ten years since I first set foot down under, shortly after the Sydney Olympics and shortly before George Bush was elected President.

(Most of my initial "Ozervations" are documented here so I won't bore you with them now.)

But the landmark did lead me to consider what a different world it suddenly is.  We have the first black President in the US, the first female Prime Minister in Australia and a coalition between Tory and Lid-Dem in Britain - all situations frankly unthinkable ten years ago. England won the Rugby World Cup and the Ashes, twice, and Wales won a Grandslam, also twice.  All of those were fairly unthinkable ten years ago as well!  (England is still rubbish at football but somethings really never change.)

Speaking of unthinkable, today I can map myself to the square yard using my phone to talk to satellites who can find me in seconds.  I can go to a gig and publish video of it to thousands of people while I'm there - at the click of a few buttons.  I can pause live sport while I'm watching it, and if I can't watch it I can program my TV to record it from anywhere in the world.  You can even point your phone at a house and find out how many bedrooms it has and how much it is worth.   CIA agents in Langley, Virginia, can use remote control planes to shoot people in Yemen or Pakistan without getting up from their desks.

Six months before I came to Australia, I stood in the lobby of the World Trade Centre in New York, wondering if I could be bothered to queue up to visit the rooftop restaurant or leave it for my next visit.  It was quite unthinkable then that those two enormous towers wouldn't even be there anymore.

Ten years ago it was certainly unthinkable I'd still be here ten years later - afteral I only "popped in" for a couple of months to see some people I had met travelling, before flying on to tour South East Asia. I never made it.  By tthe end of the first week here I was researching visa options.  Sydney really is the most amazing city and I'm glad I'm still living in it.  The climate is so perfect you need install neither heating or air conditioning in your house.  The landscape is so beautiful and accessible - with stunning National parks to the North, West and South - there's never an excuse for being bored and with more than thirty first rate beaches to chose from - all within an hour's drive of where I live - it often seems a shame to go anywhere else for a holiday! 

After 9/11 and as one ill-advised war after another kicked off in the early half of the decade, terrorist threats seemed almost incessant: Jakarta, Bali, Madrid, London.  Sydney seemed a great place to come and hide from the world, seek sanctuary from a planet seemingly gone mad - like the book "On the Beach" predicts.  Then as the GFC hit in, and Australia miraculously dodged a bullet, it repised its epithet of Safe Harbour. There is always a sense that you're at the bottom of the world down here - but for most of the last ten years, thats been a good thing!

To celebrate the landmark I bought myself a Kayak!  I christened it this morning and realised that what it has done is open up the other half of Sydney to me to explore. The half that is water.  So much of Sydney is little bays, expansive waterways and pretty little harbour beaches not really accessible by road, or certainly not easily noticeable from the road.  So it seemed an appropriate present to buy myself to mark the decade.  Who knows if I'll be in here in another ten years, but the formula is still just as good as it was ten years ago!

I must confess that for the last four years i've been conducting a not-so-secret love affair with the city of San Francisco.  During annual visits for a conference, each year I've been lucky enough to take some time to explore a little.  Alcatraz one year, Sausalito another, Berkeley this year.  And every year I find an excuse to pop over to Haight Ashbury quickly (which seems to have become a spiritual home).  

It's a town that excites me tremendously, and with it now feeling really quite familiar, I can feel quite at home there.  In Muslim countries it is traditional to make guests feel more comfortable by telling them it's their "second home".  Well I don't need anyone to tell me that San Fran is mine.  But a good deal of the affection for the place has been a sense of it's almost twinning with my first home, Sydney town.  However, this year's visit revealed a more identical twin than that even: San Diego.

"It's apparently the most perfect harbour in the world" my friend told me, an epithet I'd also heard about Sydney.  It's assembled around a beautiful body of water just like Sydney (and San Francisco) and is "held together" by a beautiful bridge (again like Sydney). It's a working port with a large student population and a thriving CBD (San Francisco too). But from there on in, the similarities with SF diminish but with SD they continue in uncanny fashion.

The climate is remarkably similar.  I was blessed by a beautifully sunny weekend in the late Twenties/early thirties.  The summer peaks in the region of 40 degrees while the winter rarely dips below 10 degrees during the day and the sky is always blue. 

There are countless beaches, although i think Sydney has San Diego quite beaten in both quantity and quality (but then Sydney does have an embarrassment of riches in that department).  Sydney's Bondi is mirrored by Ocean Beach: a grungy, vibrant and groovy area with a terrific cluster of bars and apparently one of the best burgers in the US.  

On the northern side across the massive Coronado Bridge is Coronado which while not physically similar to Manly, fulfils a similar role as a laid-back get-away spot.  It's the home of the Hotel Del Coronado, famous for hosting Billie Wilder, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemon and Marilyn Monroe while they shot "Some Like It Hot" in it's grounds.

San Diego also shares with Sydney a passion for the art of fireworks, as this video - of the KGB sky show to celebrate 100 of radio I was lucky enough to attend at the Qualcomm stadium - demonstrates rather well.  (The sense of parallel made all the more profound by driving on the wrong side of the road and entering “fall” in one and spring in the other.)

It certainly felt like a parallel universe in so many ways, and I urge those of both cities to consider the other an attractive destination option for a glamorous holiday that while at first glance might appear merely "more of the same"; in actual fact delivers at once so many new experiences as well as a validation of the everyday ones.    After all, travel is as much about what you learn about your home as your destination.

[BTW: Many, many thanks to my gracious hosts - Simon, Launa, Matthew and Ryan - who ensured a delightfully relaxing and enjoyable excursion!]

(I've been meaning to write about this for a while - its quite interesting I think.)

Sometimes the justice system doesn’t work.  It completely fails to deliver the result it should do, and breaks down entirely in terms of providing the formality of a fair trial.  Sometimes that’s a terrible thing, ruins lives and in some cases has even meant the death of innocent people.  There are far rarer occasions when this is a tremendous  thing, to be celebrated.  It occurred to me that this particular case was one such case.

At first look, this is a trial that should have seen the acquittal of the accused in a flash – case dismissed even.  Ex-policeman Des Campbell stood accused of murder.  His wife fell off a cliff during a camping trip while allegedly stepping out for a wee in the middle of the night.  She fell to her death tragically, only a short while after they had been wed.

No one saw him push her off the cliff, so there were no witnesses.  There was absolutely no scientific evidence at all that he did it, and he did not confess.  So in theory, with only very weak and tenuous circumstantial evidence to go on, he should be a free man.  And could have been.

But luckily, there was just so much circumstantial evidence and it was just so convincing that he will now spend most of his remaining years alive – the next 33 in fact - in prison;  and as an ex-policeman he’s unlikely to have an easy time of it.  (As the victim's brother warned, "don't drop the soap mate".)

So essentially - the justice system - the jury and the judge, supposedly entirely impartial and dispassionate, has sentenced a man to a lengthy sentence on the basis of nothing more than a hunch.

There’s a whole weight of evidence to the poor character of this man that leaves you believing him capable of just about anything:

-          He apparently sexually assaulted the victim of a domestic violence case he was investigating as a policeman in England.

-          He apparently dumped a woman with whom he’d been having a relationship – by text!  But wait, there’s more – this was just after she leant him $64,000!

-          He left the force in 1994 with a string of violent and corruption charges hanging over his head.

But its not illegal to be an awful person, and while this string of indictments is not pretty, it’s still not enough to judge him guilty of murder.  His defence counsel said as much. But as the Illawarra Mercury explained: “If only he had shown a little affection for his wife, Des Campbell might have got away with her murder”.  

But he didn’t, quite the reverse in fact, and even when all he needed to do fein decency for only a few weeks in order to get away with her murder (and scoop more than $300,000 in booty!), he just couldn’t help himself but pursue the ways of  a dreadful man, which in summary ammount to:

-          He married his new wife in secret but meanwhile continued to conduct three other affairs.

-          The day after her death – knowing as a policeman that his relationship would come under close scrutiny in the event of a suspicious death – he visited her solicitor to count up the value of her estate and then booked a holiday with one of his other girlfriends!

-          He would have missed his wife’s death on account of being on holiday with a girlfriend and her family, were it not for the fact that the couple had a row and he returned home.

-          He still didn’t attend the funeral, but instead the day before joined a dating site! 

-          Described his wife as “pig ugly” and “a fat ugly slut” and wondered aloud to friends if he could even bring himself to "shag her".

It was this litany of stunning arrogance and heartlessness that saw him convicted, nothing else.  No carefully constructed conspiracy or assembly of DNA or other forensic evidence.  Des Campbell went down for 33 years because he was a very bad person and deserved to go down – even if he didn’t do it.

It remains a very real possibility that his wife did step out in the night and did fall off a cliff.  It is therefore a very reasonable possibility that this man did not push her, she merely fell, and is an innocent man and does not deserve to be in prison.  There’s a very real possibility that this is an immense travesty of justice.

But I think everyone agrees - for this is not a controversial decision -  looking at his track record that he does deserve it; and while legally this decision is shaky to see the least, morally it is gut-instinct justice in the vacuum of anything else more surgical.

I think everyone is willing to take the risk that the system has broken down but in its place some other kind of system has stepping in. Left to the strict letter of the law, this man should be walking free; thankfully there’s the spirit of the law too.  Good decision referee!

Dear Bob, Rob and Tony too...

As you chaps enter your final days of consideration as to which government you'd like to give your blessing to, I thought I'd do you the favour of trying to sum up your dilemma because I'm sure its been a very confusing fortnight for you all.

1.  You've put at the top of your list "stable and competent government".  Well, consider the following: 

• with the Greens locked-in in a formal "a-green-ment", not only does that give the  ALP a 73rd seat in the House of Reps, but from July it also gives them complete   control of the Senate.

•   with Wilkie locked in also, that gives them a 74th seat meaning that with all three of your votes included, that would give the ALP a spare seat at 77.

• (at first I thought this was a week point but now...) The ALP have a three line whip and can be depended on to keep party voting discipline much better than the Coalition, who don't.

• with Tony Crook, the Coalition have a loose canon.  A National who unseated a Liberal in the seat of O'Connor, he has said he won't necessarily vote with the Coalition and while he does agree on some topics, he can't be fully counted on to vote along party lines.  He's a renegade.

2. You said that you want to work with a party you can trust.  Well consider the very first request you made: that election promises be submitted to Treasury for costing.  What was the Coalition's first reaction? "No." Then when they did finally submit them, hey presto: a $7-11 billion black hole!  When quizzed about it, both Rob and Hockey put it down merely to a "difference of opinion".  So: non-cooperative, incompetent, lacking integrity and arrogant too - is this who you want to be working with? (Lara Tingle in the AFR said this alone made them unfit to govern.)

Then consider the Coalition's negotiation with Wilkie.  He mentioned that a priority of his was a new hospital for Hobart.  Bang! $1 billion suddenly appears on the table - from where?  With their election promises already out by $7-11 billion, does this extra billion taken that to 8-12? Furthermore, when asked by Tony Jones on Lateline if that billion remained on the table for Hobart if the Coalition did make government, Andrew Rob said it would.  The following day his colleague Joe Hockey said it would not and that Wilkie had "cost Hobart a hospital" by going with Labor.  That is either deliberately duplicitous, or Rob and Hockey can't communicate.  Competant? Trustworthy?

3. On policy, you've said that you want to bring the bush to the national agenda.  Let me list the key acronyms we need to think about in the bush: NBN, RSPT, ETS.  Who can deliver those and who can't?  Broadband for the bush, environmental protection and infrastructure spending.   Even another acronym: BER.  While poorly delivered admittedly, this was a government investing in schools.  With super clinics, they are investing in health too.  What are the Coalition planning? Cuts.  Afteral what is government money for? Sitting on?  Or spending?

4. We should also think about what the people wanted.  Preferred Prime Minister? Gillard.  If the Liberal/National Coalition is actually right, and the Labor/Green alliance is a new "coalition", then in both primary AND two-party preferred, the Labor/Green Coalition is by far and away the people's choice for government and Julia Gillard their choice for PM.  So it could be construed as your duty to put them into government.

Also - remember all three of you actually left the National Party for a reason!  Are you sure you want to join up again, because that's in effect what you'd be doing by backing an Abbott Government - resuming your metaphical seats on the National Party backbenches.

This second election, with an electorate of just the three of you, has been fascinating.  It's been far more interesting than the phony five week farce we sat through prior to the poll.  It's focussed on what the issues actually are, rather than idiocy like stopping the boats.  It's focussing on health, it's focussed on pokies, it's focussed on the economy.  I think we are all agreed that Gillard fully lost the phony election, but Abbott has easily lost the real election.

Finally, perhaps this advice I saw on a church notice board I passed in Rozelle: "vote for the one with the smallest gap between what they say and what they do."  I think that should help you frame your decision. 

 I eagerly await your verdict, best of luck! 

P.S. Try and stick together too! Mr Katter, if you back Abbott and the other two put Gillard into Government, then Kennedy will get nada from a Gillard Government!

The other night I watched an old film I hadn't seen since I was a kid.  Then it seemed a bizarre, far fetched, even nightmarish sci-fi flick.  The other night it seemed a far more frightening picture of a world more than possible in the coming years.  Likely even.

Soylent Green came out in 1973, set in 2022. The opening credits (watch it here) chart mankind's decent into oblivion from the late 19th century to the modern distopia they predict.  It seemed so poignant and relevant, I wondered if anyone had considered a remake.  Not surprisingly, apparently IMDB do have a remake scheduled for 2012 and I'm really not surprised because it's incredibly prophetic and pertinent to today's crisis.  The film stars Charlton Heston, not five years after Planet of the Apes which (for the time) evokes a much more common apocalyptic future: a nuclear one.  The concept of global warming and over population were less the clear and present dangers they are today, with the focus much more on the nuclear threat.  However, the reality of scarcity did hit home only a few months after the film was released in May 1973: the oil crisis. So the bubble of limitless and copious luxury dreamed up in the 1950s and 60s had only just begun to look vulnerable for most people.  That the planet would become over-crowded, over-exploited and over-heated was only a worry for a few scientists until then.

So its 2022.  The climate is out of control and new York is home to 40 million people, 20 million of them are unemployed.  Heston - a policeman - has to climb over untold sleeping hoards in his stairwell to get to his tiny 1 room flat.  Amid a global food shortage, people are rationed synthetic food supposedly manufactured from oceanic plankton by a company called Soylent.  The latest miracle food is Soylent Green.  (I'll leave the plot there so not to spoil it for anyone who's not seen it.  The 2012 version will pick up where this leaves off.)

There is a scene (you can watch it here) where Sol (played by Edward G Robinson in his last movie - he dies 12 days after shooting ends) and Thorn (Charlton Heston) take enormous delight in eating a feast of beef and salad with bourbon to wash it down.  The much older Sol says he hasn't eaten like that in years; Thorn says he's never eaten like that.  (We still do eat like that but for how much longer?) In another scene (you can watch it here) in a  voluntary euthanasia clinic plays beautiful images to Beethoven’s 6^th of a natural world we recognize and Sol can remember fondly but Thorn says he cannot even imagine.  At one point, the female lead (who's requirement to prostitute herself to tenants of a luxury flat earns her the nickname "furniture") fantasises about going to the country, which is of course forbidden so the precious farming land can be protected.   

It's a dark movie (and not all that good to be honest) but it’s so much darker today when the bleak picture it paints seems almost inevitable than nearly 40 years ago when it was merely another imaginative science fiction romp. The shape of things to come, maybe.

Or is it?

Interestingly, the only real reference to technology is right at the beginning when the aforementioned "furniture" is bought a computer game as a present.  It's a very large Asteroids video game.  This suddenly reminded me of the incredible advances that have been achieved in only the last 12 years and I very quickly became quite hopeful about what can done in the next 12, (although it must be said the last 12 years have also seen absolutely no movement in combatting climate change).

Another sci-fi flick I watch recently was Moon, and although it mainly focusses on a very dark message about cloning, the plot does include a unique solution to Earth's energy shortage - Helium 3 which is farmed on the Moon.  So maybe it won't all be so bad and humanity can save itself as it always has done before.  After all, the Mutually Assured Destruction the Planet of the Apes foretold seems a thing of the past now, doesn't it? 

Well it gave me hope anyway!

So, there's still three seats in play and we won't have a final result until sometime next week, so the principle upshot is that like a score draw in a cup final, we now go into political penalties: furious horse trading just like in the UK in May. 

Annabel Crab summed it up best: "national puzzlement...a collective 'huh?'"  It seems that bereft of any real inpsiration or enthusiasm with either side, the nation abstained as if as one voice.  A deafening silence.  And now a motley crew of five, possibly six, "cross" bench-ers hold the fate of the naiton in their hands. 

As a self-confessed champagne socialist I still managed to find some things to celebrate on Saturday night (I over-optimistically bought a lot of champagne!), and here's how I Tweeted these highlights:

• "To be honest happy to see the back of McKew. Great Lateline host, rubbish pollie!"
• "Nice to see the Greens in the house of reps, although I'd rather have Tanner"
• "Sen. Fielding's gone? Oh champion, that's cheered me up no end!"
• "At least Wilson tuckey got sacked, there's some justice"

Also, of course, the election of the first indigenous and muslim members of the House of Reps, and the first child, should be noted; as well as as many as Nine Greens now holding the balance of power in the senate from July next year, which means the environment will again become an urgent priority for whomever is in government, instead of the elephant in the room.  

Of the three seats up for grabs (I think they are Brisbane, Dennison and Hasluck) and I think Labor will win Brisbane, Andrew Wilkie will have Dennison and Tony Crook will win Hasluck.  Of the "cross bench-ers" one is a green who has already declared for labor, one is an ex-green and three are former nationals who hate the national party but are naturally conservatives.  Certainly the fate of two policies - the NBN and the ETS - are now probably secure because between the independents and the Greens both these acronyms will be key show-stoppers on any negotiation if they are ruled out.  (There is a possible sixth element in Tony Crook who can't seem to decide if he wants to be a National inside or outside the party room, or inside or outside the Coalition.)  In short - there's one seat it and of the three yet to call, one could go to Labor or the Coalition and the other two are weird.

What concerns me the most is exactly what Mr Rabbit said - this was a govt that couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery WITH a 17 seat majority, I dread to think what we won't get done when they don't even have a majority at all.  But of course, the thought of a return to a Howard Government (albeit with son-of-Howard) frightens me even more.  So far, the gentlemen on the cross benches seem fairly sane, rational and logical people to me which is reassuring; and whats important is they are not handicapped by party-political rubbish.

What happened to Labor in the last three years is staggering.  A year ago they faced the opportunity of pulling the trigger on a double-dissolution election and doubling their majority to more than 30.  Now, I feel they fully deserve to lose their majority.  They were hopeless.  I follow politics fairly closely and I have no idea how they threw away all that goodwill we gave them in 2007 (which was very much akin to the wave of euphoria experienced by Blair  in 1997 or Obama in 2008.)  But despite all of that confidence and hope, they collapsed amid in-fighting, factional mendacity and incompetance.  Speaking for myself, while I said I'd still vote Labor (and I did) I did so with no enthusiasm after the betrayal of the ETS-surrender.  What we have before us now is a government who's only real achievement - economic stability and an apology aside - is attempted political suicide.  A classic cry for help. 

Well help is at hand*: meet The Independents.

 * = of course its true that The Liberals can try to form a  government, but my bet is they will fail despite the Nationals.  But I got that wrong in the UK in May too!

RANT WARNING: It infuriates me that the "boat people" issue has raised it's ugly head again.  The last election was free of all this horse-pooh and instead delt with real issues like climate change and indigenous affairs.  The only reason its important this time is at whenever politics gets desperate in this country - like in 2001 - the right can go raiding the left's heartland by appealing to the racist, ignorant underclass for their votes.  You wouldn't want these people in your support base if you were comfortably ahead, and you wouldn't demean yourself by blowing this whistle if you were popular.  But as soon as the going gets tough, the tough get racist...it's like raiding the sofa cushions for spare change, like combing the ashtray for cigarette buts.  It's filthy, abhorrent and beneath us all - particularly when they use phrases like "peaceful invasion" or "armada of boats".

The statement "at the current rate of arrivals it would take 20 years to fill the MCG" may simplify the issue somewhat, but it does a great job of identifying just how meaningless and insignificant this problem is.  The only reason we are debating it is because the Tories are scraping the bottom of the vote barrel.  It's the only issue that turns the so-called Rudd "working family" into the "Howard battler".  A boat arrived yesterday - apparently the 6th since the election began.  Do you know how many "boat people" were on it? Fifty. FIFTY! Most West Sydney RSLs wouldn't notice an influx of that many people.

Of course the Liberals are making hay while the immigration sun shines.  More boats have arrived - they will repeatedly tell us - in the last 6 weeks than in the last 6 years of the last Liberal Govt. Know why? Because they re-routed them all to some island in the middle of the pacific no one has ever heard of, that most people describe as nothing more than a pile of bird pooh.  They were sent there to 'process' them to ensure they were "genuine" refugees and not "economic migrants".  Know how many turned out to be "genuine" and eventually took up their right to asylum?  All of them.

I'm sick to the teeth of listening every morning on the radio to one ignorant bigot after another wittering on about "the boats" like it was some life threatening blight.  It's not.  The only thing it threatens is someone's desire to live in some 1950s mono-chrome idyll their parents eulogized as "how it should be".  Not only is not going to be like that anywhere ever again (ever heard of the global village) but it shouldn't be like that.  We are all people: skin colour, faith and culture make no difference.

And yet its top, TOP, of The Liberal Party's "National Security" policy agenda.  Ahead of terrorism!

People who think this way will spurt all the empty slogans the Liberal party have thoughtfully furnished them with, slogans that thrive in an otherwise vacuum of  political intelligence. "They should join the queue". Join the queue? What queue? Have you ever seen anyone queue their way off a battlefield? The last people to do that were The British at Dunkirk, getting raked by Messerschmitts.  I'd like to see some of these so-called "battlers" politely wait for their papers to come through as they try to sleep in the mud of some disease-ridden refugee camp while their wives are raped and their children die of malnutrition.  I'd like to see them patiently wait for their paperwork to finalise as the murderous army they fear kill their way ever closer to their doorstep.  Why should they queue just so we can sleep easily in our beds safe in the knowledge that everyone on our street barracks for the same footy team?

I'm not saying these people don't know desperation. Most of them probably do.  Many of them no doubt have horrendous debt problems, severe health issues maybe, or drink abuse.  Its possible they are under-educated and have probably never had the opportunity to travel inter-state let alone enjoy the kind of international travel that broadens your mind and allows you to accommodate foreign cultures and traditions so much more easily.  But aren't all these far more important issues to be worrying about in this election than 10 or 12 desperate families looking for a place where they can start again in a lifestyle we take entirely for granted but they can only dream of?

Speaking of desperation, why isn't THIS an issue: "The Grog still flows in Alice Springs"?

If we want the "problem" stopped, then let's go to the disaster zones, lets identify the people that should leave and TAKE them away.  We can "process" them expeditiously on the spot.  Provide asylum there where they need it, quickly and sensibly in the same way we deliver food and water.  We have a duty to these people, its our fair share as the world's most privileged 5% (we do take more than 13,000 every year anyway!).  Let's deal with this "issue" like responsible grown ups instead of ignorant morons. 

But then that would be leading.  Today's polititians only follow whatever base instinct they can appeal to to get votes.