PLNC on the Tele

The Daily telegraph has had me perplexed. I have been reading it all week trying to find an article that was even vaguely noteworthy. I kind of feel like picking up an international story is a bit of a cop out, so I was raising the bar and looking for something that was at least domestic - preferable local.

The Courier Mail is so terrible that it's occasionally quite amusing and the Herald Sun and the Adelaide Advertiser at least have the pretense of news. To a cynical southerner, it's easy to get the impression that NSW and Queensland are both lands of the vacuous. But at least Queensland is smiling. The Daily Telegraph is like a plastic-boobed peroxide-blonde girl in a bikini, but rather than feeding your parking meter she's giving you a death-stare.

To make matters worse, I don't even have football to fall back on.

In any case, I've had a bit of a strange fixation with the whole election process this time around, and it's been election coverage that's finally got the Tele over the line.

The Tele has the following to say about the upcoming election:

1. That Penny Wong has suffered discrimination
An lesbian woman with an Asian background and a public profile? Discriminated against? Really?

2. That Tony Abbott is pimping out his family
No, not literally - though at least that would be 'news'. Tony Abbott has a rather unfortunate 'soft side'.

Tony says, "paid ma- parental leave" but I hear, "pregnant and barefoot"

Tony says, "my daughters are campaigning with me" but I hear, "so they can't be off having sex"

Tony says "my wife Margie and I..." I hear, "... deliberately barren - remember?"

When Julia holds a baby, she looks friendly. When Tony hold a baby, I'm scared he's going to try to eat it. Which is odd, given he actually has kids.

3. Julie Gillard evidently doesn't have enough family
This article asks to see more of "Mrs Gillard's" boyfriend. Indeed.

Of course, the stupidity of all of this makes me feel very, very disillusioned about the Australian political landscape - but it's worse than that. It's easy to criticise 'focus group politics' but far more troubling is the fact that political parties keep using it because it actually works.

The recent exhumation of Bob Hawke's political voice places his stark "love of the Australian people" in stark relief against my ambivalence after reading the Tele. Are the nice, rational people that I encounter in my day-to-day life not really representative? Am I delusional in my perception of the 'national character'? Have I deluded myself by surrounding myself with people who are generally nice, rational and open minded, when what the country really expects from me is to quit my job so I can stay home and raise babies and develop delusional fears about immigrants and gay people?