THEY ARE CACTUS

Another one bites the dust as they say. I missed most of last week’s federal election campaign but then some would say so did John Howard. At least mine was not a political malaise.

But at least I could observe from a relative distance and in the past couple of days surf the Net.

The two dominant issues if you stick to You Tube were John Howard’s facial twitch under pressure over Iraq in the Great Debate and Kevin Rudd’s  dining habits.

In the PM’s case he did seem to develop a nervous twitch which his opponents have jumped on yet again as a sign of age.

In Kevin Rudd’s case I’ll never be able to use the expression ‘waxing eloquent’ in his case again with a straight face. I’ll admit I was wrong on air when a listener tried to tell me that Mr. Rudd, in Parliament, had distractedly explored his ear-hole, dug out something and ate it. I said he was merely scratching his ear and the other repugnant versions were wrong. Not so. It’s all there in grotty detail on the Internet and it has been down-loaded worldwide. Even the Washington Post had a comment about it.

The things I have noticed, and have mentioned in the past is the way Rudd adjusts his glasses in school marm fashion when he goes to expound on something and you can’t help counting the number of times his tongue darts out like a lizard.

The Internet performance which floored me though was Wayne Swan who tonight debates the Treasurer Peter Costello. On Kevin 07 there’s the man who would be treasurer passing on shopping insights  titled Wayne’s Tips.

And saying such deep and meaningful things as ‘It’s really important to shop around’. And ‘ keep an eye on the specials’.  And don’t always go to the same supermarkets.

And this Down Under version of Ralph Nader has some absolute revelations that could not have crossed mere mortals minds.  Saving on petrol costs for example. Did you know you can actually save on fuel and I quote ‘ by walking or catching public transport instead’.  I didn’t know that. He’ll be a quiz handling a trillion-dollar economy.

And on the other side. Howard and Turnbull and Costello have all come out looking like twits over Kyoto and THAT  Cabinet meeting. Nobody is putting their hand up to say they leaked a cabinet discussion on Kyoto. And that’s understandable. But nobody will admit they even talked about it. Can’t remember. Talk about the dog ate my homework. Why not say:  ‘Yes it came up… like all major issues. And it was agreed to maintain our position. That signing the Kyoto Protocol wouldn’t do an ounce of good. And we are ahead of most country’s Kyoto targets anyway.

And then a school kid brought the word ‘cactus’ into the campaign. Five-year-old Rourke Sheridan asked Peter Costello ‘Who made cactuses?’

Reminded me of the old joke about what’s the difference between a cactus and a caucus. On a cactus the pricks are on the outside.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2007