the byron voter - dawn cohen

Dawn Cohen is a freelance journalist, living in Byron Bay. She takes a look at politics from a different angle. We love her quirky style.

The Youth Vote
Election Night Party Advice
"Sorry, but.."
Post Modern Election Blues
My Inner John Howard

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the youth vote

How Australia’s youth will vote.

I asked a 22-year-old acquaintance whether she had put much thought into how she’d be voting next weekend,

She looked shocked. "Of course,” she said. “Haven’t you?”

Well, not really, I admitted. I knew who I’d be voting for from the beginning.

“You are lucky yours wasn’t knocked off early,” she said, enviously

“I really wanted Tarasai to win."

Tarasai? I run through candidates across Australia.

Then realize I am on the wrong channel.

Young Australians have declared the Kevin versus John fight for Parliament House dead in the water. The tunes are better, the judges less boring and the candidates far prettier in the Natalie versus Matt battle for the Opera House.

Thousands of people actually pay to vote each week in Australian Idol.

The cost of each individual phone call isn’t much, but calculates the total Telstra makes through phone call voting, and you’ll find the Australian economy could do better if John and Kevin had to sing for their supper instead of pontificate in 60 second bytes.

Unlike Idol’s script writers, election campaigners want you to see their candidates as stable, alpha- male father figures. Americans like a cowboy when selecting what they quaintly call the ‘leader of the free world’. England loves an earnest school boy. Post- Keating Australia seems to be looking for a father. Which can’t be anything but dull because nobody wants a fascinatingly unpredictable, sexually –ambiguous father figure.

But the Next Generation won’t tolerate boredom, even if the country’s survival depended on it. So either democracy will die from low ratings or Australia must grow out of its need for a daddy to lead it.

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election night party advice

Planning an election night party in Byron Shire is fraught with problems.

It starts with the invitation list. Arrive in a new town, all spiritually open and bushy tailed (and desperate) and you make friends with everyone.

And given they aren’t all going to vote the same way, a good host can provide at best a very ambivalent champagne pop when either side wins.

So do you leave mates barracking for the enemy off the invitation list so they don’t feel alienated at the shrieks of excitement? Or is that being co-dependent?

I resolve this dilemma in the local way.

I go for a past life regression muscle- testing session.

I lay on the table, close my eyes, while the practitioner rests her fingers lightly on my pulse.

“Say your name,” she says . So far so good.

“Say ‘my name is someone else’.”

And there it is. A queasy feeling. What other name could I have? What other name should I give myself? What if I become someone else, and forget who I am by saying I am them. I’d be lying anyway. Isn’t it weird to tell fibs in a healing session. Isn’t there a rule against that? A few minutes pass as I wrestled with the alternatives.

Now I worry about keeping the practitioner waiting. It was a simple request after all. She must think I am a very undeveloped soul.

“How do you feel,” she asks.

“ Torn,” I say.

And whoops I am back into a past life. It’s the early 1950’s and surprisingly I am not a priestess or the wily King of a Celtic tribe. Turns out I am the bread in a sandwich.

Or rather a shaft of wheat, about to be harvested, bleached beyond recognition, and sliced up nice, white and neat.

. ‘Better than being the meat,’ is the dim thought traveling up and down my very svelte spine before the scythe cuts me down.

And blow me down if I hadn’t hit the jackpot of vegetative thinking. I had counted a blessing without any Buddhist training whatsoever. I got to skip the insect world, a few life times as a reptile and - I am little disappointed at missing out on this one, because it’s the only one with any Byron cred -a n orangutan. I hopped straight into human existence.

But my wheaty self had counted the blessing with little compassion for the suffering of others. And so it was my destiny to learn that lesson.

Which, is why I often feel torn, the meat in the sandwich.

All of which is good to know.

But it turns out the euphoria of past life regression lasts a very short time. So what is the meat in the sandwich supposed to do?

Especially at an election night party in a small town.

Be very, very careful if you have recently migrated to Byron Bay from Sydney or Melbourne. There is this sticky problem that whatever the opposition adverts say, the candidate for the other side is probably an ordinary human being who doesn’t look like an evil gangster. And his brother and campaign manager is probably the guy building your house right now. The only builder in town not booked up for two years in advance. And you have been living in a shack out the back for six months. Without electricity. And the builder’s surfing mate is your new neighbour who you have just invited to the party.

Except you won’t know any of this until your neighbour’s face turns to stone as a guest ridicules the candidate’s nose, rubbishes his ethics and pontificates on the stupidity of his campaign.

How excited should you be getting at a Byron election party anyway?

Once Rudd’s in, none of us are going to be that happy with a guy to scare to say “Left”. But there is the Mandarin thing.

Byron people are very impressed with multilingualism. We are all learning French, or Spanish or Tibetan for our next trip to good food/Argentinean adventure and eco-enlightenment. Which we found on the Internet in a package for next to nothing.

Which we will pay for from the proceeds of our little investment in Ocean Shores. Which we sold before the prices went up. About which we have been meditating ever since to stop our agonized lament. And went for past life regression to discover we need a trip of good food/ Argentinean adventure and eco-enlightenment.

And we will take photographs, sell the story to National Geographic and live happily and spiritually ever after. And non-violently also.

These are the dreams of Our People. So when our new Prime Minister is announced we will feel momentary pleasure. We will be very pleased his name isn’t John but very scared he won’t be able to remember that.

Which is why I think I’ll join the crowds heading for the Missy Higgins concert in Mullum, and skipping the election party thing all together.

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"sorry, but.."

Now, he is sorry. Genocide and stolen children are playground punches Aboriginals should take on the chin. But a kick in the hip pocket? Now that’s a serious assault. Not that I am happy about interest rate rises. But it’s amazing how easily the “s” word came to John Howard’s lips, when his re-election is at stake.

And I am sure he really is sorry. Sorry that he couldn’t bully the Reserve Bank into holding back for one more month. Sorry that interest rates are made public.

And mostly, very very sorry that he may actually lose.

The Australian electorate will be reluctant to shake hands and make up on this one

Not because we are a selfish mob driven only by financial gain. But because we hate being taken for a sucker, particularly by a shameless con. And, at last, Howard has exposed himself unquestionably as that.

He won the last election by holding Labor responsible for its interest rates.

His party promised record-low interest rates. He has delivered six consecutive rises. And yet, in the same breath as he utters his apology, he still blames others.

The classic “sorry, but …” line.

Everybody who has ever lived within 100 metres of another human being knows what an apology like that is worth.

About as much as a Telstra shareholder’s vote when it comes to Sol’s salary.

Which didn’t stop The Australian lead with a story that could be mistaken for a repair job.

.“Business supports Interest Rate Rises” was the thrust of its headline.

Instead of leading with the fact of Howard’s apology and the implications of the interest rate rise on Australians, it gave its story lead over to Howard’s spin.

The pictures accompanying the article may seem even-handed. Photos of both Labor and Liberal adverts on interest rates are reprinted, with images of Howard and Rudd.

But the Liberal images are on the left hand side of the page, the best position for drawing the eye. The picture of Howard is a more impressive image, and a cartoon critiquing the Prime Minster is postage-stamp sized.

A decent newspaper article reports the facts and the implications for the community. It may take a position while reporting both sides but it maintains an autonomous voice.

Journalists are trained to know that the first line of an article is the most precious. Statistics show most readers don’t get much further than the first paragraph. And the first line of the paper’s headlining story, is as precious to a reporter as a baby’s first smile to it’s doting parents.

So why has a talented journalist blessed with the lead story on a dramatic controversy in a tight election in a national newspaper sacrificed his treasured first line to a Prime Minister’s spin?

The Daily Telegraph did better. An image of a couple forced to leave Sydney for Lennox Head because of interest rate rises. And a succinct headline noting Howard may be sorry, “but not as sorry as us.”

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post modern election blues

The problem with elections in post- modern Byron Bay is we are too sophisticated to believe in a heroic Labor Party vanquishing an evil John Howard. We have few illusions about Howard, but our voters are more likely to believe in fairies than in the Labor Party.

We would sell a few of our past lives to get Howard out, and we don’t mind Kevin Rudd, but it’s a tired romance we have going with the opposition. If only we could read a good book rather than pretend passion for the soft-faced fellow.

But some believe polls indicating a possibility of an end to the Coalition government place a responsibility on us to look at least slightly excited.

I refuse.

It’s a classic scene from a thousand movies. A teenager lolls on the wall at a school dance. A boy (or girl) approaches . The class spunk, or the quiet one with the gorgeous smile/ As the Gorgeous One walks up, teenage heart thuds.

And just as a hopeful mouth shapes up to say sure; I’ll dance with you, or wanna leave? or wanna smoke? or whatever is the generationally appropriate ritual of acceptance of a come on. The Beautiful One asks if they can borrow a pen / the time/ or a best friend and moves on.

I damn well am not going to fall for it this time. I will not be seduced by the promise of the polls. I know who owns the headlines.

Instead I will protect myself from despair in a classic post-modern way. Place a bet at three to one on Howard winning. That way I can’t lose.

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my inner john howard, dawn cohen

I found it this morning. An inner Johnny Howard voter lurking in my psyche.

Other people discover cute inner children and trendy cross-gender shadow sides when they peek within. I get cursed with a soft spot for a wind-up, walking fascist.

Please let me explain.

It was an ordinary start to the day, five to 8 in the morning, waiting for the newspaper sprint at Byron Bay’s Beach Hotel. Big decisions to make like to caffeine or not to caffeine. Glutein-free, sugar free muesli or self-nurturing croissant thick with butter.

I had already shouldered some muscle-building responsibilities by adjuciating between the flat boardwalk to the lighthouse versus the Killer-Hill route on the cliff edge. The Killer-Hill provides a virtuous cardiac work -out, if you make it, or a heart attack with stunning views, if you don’t.

I chose the caffeine, the croissant and the boardwalk. It was a day for self-love.

Eight o clock and with a swift maneuver at the newspaper rack, I commandeered the Telegraph. A respectable win. Not quite the Herald or the Australian but every body knows it beats the Courier Mail. Five minutes too late in Byron Bay, and all that’s left is the business section. In Double Bay, even that would be gone.

Showing off my local expertise, I simultaneously pour my Byron Chai in a satisfying stream of aromatic soymilk, bite on the croissant and glance at the front page. There was my nemesis.

Our Leader attempting a pudgy high- five at his early morning walk. His face, leering in artificial jocularity as he attempts to demonstrate his great affinity for Contemporary Culture, in the face of Rudd’s mastery over the youth vote. You can see his minders coaching him like sex therapists teaching a touch-phobic client.

“. Palm to palm, John, not just finger tips. I know, it’s dirty and yucky and, well, … intimate. And yes it comes from Black Culture. But that’s good now, isn’t it? There you go. Well done. Here is a nice cloth to wipe yourself with.”

The man in the photo is terrified. And my heart went out to him. But that wasn’t the biggest shock. I am always a sucker for a slipping mask exposing tough-guy vulnerability. It’s what came afterwards that surprised me. A thought leapt across my brain so fast I almost missed it.

“Maybe he can’t run the country… .”

I hauled the thought back as it tried to scramble into its hole. Held it by the nape of its neck and examined it closely.

There it was. My inner John Howard Voter. (IJHV) White, skinny, and surprisingly male. Like Fred Nile’s alleged homoerotic pornography collection, this scrawny fragment of my personality was playing for the other side without me knowing it.

All along, this runt must have thought Howard was competent.

Please understand, I vote Green and always have. So nobody could have been more horrified than me.

Exposed, My IJHV comes out punching.

“Yeah, that’s right, I know we will never vote for him. But I did think at least he can control his own party, and run the country. You know you can’t trust those Labor blokes. Corrupt they are. Howard is a crook and a liar, but up to now, he is a winner. I hate his politics, but he has demonstrated competency…”

The little fellow, begins to trail off, nervously kicking at the ground, with neatly squared off toes.

“ But not any more?” I ask him, swallowing my repulsion.

“ Well, maybe he is knocked off his perch now, isn’t he. He looks like a loser. Not top dog any more. And it is a dog-eat-dog world, no matter how much you want it to be something else,” He sneaks a rebellious look at me.

And in his disillusioned eyes, I see greed without dreams.
“No-one to protect us ...” he adds.

I let the fellow go, and he disappears in a trail of dust.

The good news is, if he is any indication of the Outer Johnny Howard Voters, the polls may have it right. John Howard may have lost his gloss.

The bad news is, I am in for a stint of rigorous Psyche-Cleansing Work.

Like a cane toad in my native back yard, I really have no desire to make friends with the blighter.