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Marius - Politics

The major debating point in Federal politics over the past week has been whether Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership will last longer than the romance of Chris Evert and Greg Norman.

To do that he has to survive - and in fact prevail - at the joint party room meeting which will decide whether to back his line in negotiating with the government on its emissions trading scheme.

The consensus is he will survive.

While the moment of decision on an ETS appears to be a decisive one - an appearance reinforced by headlines portraying Turnbull’s position as “Back me or Sack me” - in fact there is plenty of wriggle room for the opposition leader.

He can come away with the appearance of leadership if the party room can agree on amendments to be put to the government, amendments the government may well then reject.

At the weekend Malcolm Turnbull was bemoaning the way the debate on the critical issue of our time, the future of the planet, had been overtaken by fevered argument over political gossip.

That is a recurring complaint of politicians - that is when they’re not reducing the arguments of their opponents to laughable parodies, oversimplifying complexities and offering false choices between their way and ruin.

Politicians are often serious minded individuals with a deep knowledge of current events. But when they “throw the switch to vaudeville” - in the Keating phrase - in an effort to woo or scare voters to their cause, truth is often the first victim and subtlety, complexity and nuance go out the window.

Likewise if Malcolm Turnbull displaces the weighty considerations of saving the planet with eye-catching talk of “anonymous smartarses” in his own ranks and putting his leadership on the line - well he can’t complain if that generates quite a few column inches, at the expense of weightier policy considerations.
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Mark - EP

Here’s a tale of two Grand Finals….and human psychology.

I caught a plane from Melbourne to Sydney last night…..travelling pretty much as the NRL Grand Final between the Melbourne Storm and the Parramatta Eels reached a nail-biting climax.

There was no TV in the budget airline terminal at Tullamarine, so I was none the wiser about who was prevailing in the twilight game at the Olympic Stadium.

So when I arrived in Sydney — well after the game had finished — I thought I’d conduct a bit of an experiment.

As I emerged into the terminal I resisted the urge to ask who’d won.

Rather I thought I would try to see if I could divine defeat or victory by the look on people’s faces.

There were heaps of Storm fans waiting to catch planes back to Melbourne.

If anything they looked rather tired and deflated.

Further down the terminal, a man in an Eels jumper proudly waved a large Parramatta flag.

“Gee, Parra must’ve won” I thought to myself.

So you can imagine my surprise when I looked up the result on ABC Mobile as I waited for a train into the city.

In a fast-food restaurant near Circular Quay there were plenty of middle-aged men in Parramatta jumpers.

They all looked strangely contented.

A girl who knew nothing about sport asked one “Did Manly win?”

“No, that was last year”, said one of the men patiently, “Our team’s Parramatta. We came second. But that’s okay. We did good. We got beaten by the best team. Actually, one of the great teams of the modern era.”

It was a fact acknowledged by Parramatta captain Nathan Cayless in his magnanimous speech at the trophy presentation earlier in the evening.

Yup. Great end to the season after a pretty poor start. Just scraped into the finals. Gave it a shot, but the best team won. Rugby league was the winner.

I even saw a smiling Parramatta prop Nathan Hindmarsh on Fox Sports this morning.

Good grief.

I just contrast that with the absolute devastation eight days earlier of Nick Riewoldt and co. when St Kilda went down to Geelong at the MCG.

I watched the game on tv at home at my parents place near Moorabbin …deep in Saints territory.

No one said very much when the final siren blew.

Best team during the home and away season. Needed to break a 43-year premiership drought. Failed.

You could have fired a gun down the main street of Moorabbin, Bentleigh or Cheltenham any time that cold, wintry evening and you wouldn’t have hit a soul.

No quizzical contented looks or flag-waving here.

Total devastation.