Victorian Premier 'Big' Ted Baillieu announced this week that the 'Acknowledgement of Ownership' ceremony, acknowledging an area's traditional indigenous owners, would no longer be a compulsory part of Victorian Government functions.
The acknowledgment, first introduced by Labor Premier Steve Bracks and then made compulsory by Big Ted's predecessor, John Brumby, had been part of all Victorian Government functions since 2005.
At the time of making it compulsory, Brumby described the ceremony as a 'very positive' thing to do. A handful of local elders also gave the move their approval, indicating it was an 'inclusive' policy that showed 'respect' and 'courtesy.'
So you can see why we'd want to do away with something like that.
Positive? Bah! Inclusive? Courteous? What a load of shit! The State Liberal Government doesn't want to bother with any of that sort of nonsense, as it may distract them from their real business in this state; cutting services to working class suburbs and locking up as many people as possible.
After the announcement, Big Ted attempted to spell out exactly why he had made the change, by being as vague and elusive as possible. He cited only the fact that he felt that making the acknowledgment compulsory was 'too politically correct' and that his ministers had enough 'maturity' to decide for themselves when it was appropriate.
And he wasn't completely alone in this view.
Baillieu's political mentor and long term spruiker Jeff Kennett - another Liberal Premier with a scant regard for political correctness and a liking for hacking into services - immediately sprang to his protege's defence. Kennett said he agreed with the decision, on the grounds that forcing people to make the acknowledgment was 'disrespectful' to the local Indigenous population, as they would be doing it 'without any feeling.'
Which is an interesting way of looking at it, as it's basically Mr Kennett indicating he knows more about how Indigenous people feel about the situation then they do themselves:
INTERVIEWER: Indigenous leaders are angry about this change.
KENNETT: Nah, what they really think is...
And, as such, puts Kennett firmly in a well established local political tradition.
If the State Liberal Party had bothered to consult local Indigenous leadership, they would have found that they were, pretty strongly, in favour of keeping the acknowledgement. Joy Murphy, senior elder of Melbourne area Wurrundjeri tribe, said:
'They really wiped us off the map, so to speak, by not acknowledging traditional owners.'
So she obviously feels pretty strongly about it. It should also be noted that Murphy's 'Welcome to Country' video appears on the 'Visit Victoria' tourism website, indicating that the Government has not yet decided to forgo these ceremonies and acknowledgements when they can help them make some money.
Interviewed before the 'Dreamtime at the 'G' game on Saturday night, Michael Long, former champion Essendon footballer and instigator of 'The Long March' reconciliation walk that is a highlight evening, also expressed his unhappiness with the decision, saying he was 'bitterly disappointed':
'I'd like to ask the Premier what his values are,' Long said. 'Has he truly embraced Indigenous culture?'
To which we can supply the answers in advance. They being:
a) Duuuuhhhhhhh....
and
b) No.
The timing of Big Ted's announcement, on the eve of the AFL's Indigenous Round in a football obsessed city, and a week before National Reconciliation Week, could scarcely have been worse and only added an additional note of total disrespect.
As Michael Long noted at the end of his comments:
'We still have a long way to go when we talk about some of these issues that effect this country.'
There was a full moon in Melbourne this week - a 'super moon' - and there was a definite feeling of something different in the air. The spirit of change.
Footy was back, or nearly back. The days were getting shorter and darker. People moved furtively about in the gloom, discussing their teams chances over the worlds best coffee. And over on Spring Street, somewhere in the depths of the State Parliament building, something ominous was stirring...
Big Ted Baillieu, our premier of six months, was waking from his fitful slumber:
But before we get to that, a brief history lesson.
We don't change Governments very often in this country, conservative bunch that we are, normally giving the incumbent mob around ten years or so to do their worst and earn our ire. In the last twenty five years there have only been 2 changes of Federal Government, and three changes at Victorian State level.
One consequence of this is that it gives the Opposition a good chunk of time to come up with a wish list of things they'd change when they finally do get their turn. And after ten years or so of waiting, they're normally itching to get a chance to enact their program.
Think the Hawke Government in 1983 and its rapid program of economic reform; floating the dollar and deregulating the banks. Or the Howard Government in 1996 and its swift moves to deregulate the Labor market and begin work on the GST. Or even, at a local level, the Kennett Government in 1992 and it's rush to declare war on the population of the state, burn down all the villages and cancel Christmas.
So we don't change Government very often but, when we do, we normally see fairly swift changes enacted. As Paul Keating noted, before the 1996 election,
'When you change the Government, you change the country.'
But this has not been Big Ted's style, since taking office late last year.
In fact, in the six months since that time he has appeared to be more interested in working on his camouflage techniques than enacting any sort of legislative agenda, while the State parliament has been about as busy as the Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, before the Oompa Loompa's arrive:
'No one goes in... and no one comes out!'
And this brings us back to the original point of this piece, which hopefully hasn't been lost along the way. The Liberal Party in Victoria are finally on the move. Yes, after the miserable lassitude of the last few months they're slowly getting on with the business of breaking their election promises.
This process started slowly, which seems fitting for a group determined to pace themselves.
During the last election campaign, Baillieu and co ran pretty hard on Labor's poor performance on public transport. Much was made of the shortcomings in Victoria in this area - late and cancelled services, aging infrastructure, poorly negotiated contracts with the private operators, myki - but rather less of what was to be done to rectify them. The Liberals slid along on a vaguely worded promise to 'fix' the system.
So anyone that took this promise seriously must have been surprised to see that the new Governments first moves in this area were to cut services. Trains running from the suburbs to the city loop are to be trimmed considerably at leak times as part of a new timetable. Now while Baillieu may not have promised to run more trains, you'd probably struggle to find too many regular punters who regarded fewer services as much of a public transport 'fix.' Nevertheless, Baillieu has tried to defend this by claiming that fewer services will mean a better functioning system, to the infuriation of anyone out West who'll have to wait longer to get into town.
But with the next batch of broken promises, he's struggling even to get cover from vagueness or semantics.
During the election campaign, Baillieu gave a public commitment to significantly increase the pay of Victorian school teachers. Increased such that, in his words at the time, Victorian teachers would be 'the best paid in the country' (currently they rank about mid table). It should be noted that this policy announcement still sits on the Victorian Liberal website (see link above).
Last week he announced, by way of the Government's first pay offer to teachers, that this would not be happening after all. In fact, the Governments new pay offer, an increase of 2.5%, would not only move Victorian teachers backwards, in comparison to how teachers are paid in other states but, as it is below the current inflation rate of 2.9%, would also represent an actual pay cut, in real terms.
Offering to cut pay having promised to substantially increase it? Not even John Howard had the brazen 'non-core promise' cajones to try that!
Baillieu explained away this dramatic about face by saying:
'I am very keen to get the best possible outcome for teachers through an EBA process, and we remain committed to that, and...'
... oh fuck me, I think if I write out the rest of his weasel word excuse I'll probably want to go and drown myself afterwards. So we'll leave the obfuscation to Big Ted and just state in much simpler language that's he's been caught out ditching a policy that he obviously never took seriously. And for this he deserves to get as much grief and criticism as possible.
And this isn't the only policy reversal that fits into this category either.
Having got the state's teachers offside, Big Ted then made similar moves to infuriate the states police force and community care workers in the same manner: by denying them a reasonable pay increase. Again, the Government's offer is to be a pay increase of 2.5% to both sectors, again, below the rate of inflation and so representing a cut in wages in real terms. The police union were particularly aggravated by this:
considering how much time Baillieu spent droning on during the election about the crime wave gripping the state and how he was going to hire about 400 000 new coppers. While he may not have broken this promise, to turn Victoria into something akin to a medium security prison, yet, it's obvious that he does intend for his newly expanded law enforcement battalions to be poorly paid. Which has all sorts of implications, including public safety, staff moral and recruiting.
Having said all of that though, I guess it's still hard to know exactly how to feel about what is happening at the moment down on Spring Street.
On the one hand, it's good to see that the Premier and his Senior ministers haven't succumbed to some mysterious new form of polio that renders them crippled and paralysed, unable to speak or move. On the other, though, it's a shame that they have to demonstrate this by breaking a number of their key election promises and shafting the state civil service. Since I'm feeling conflicted, perhaps it's best if I leave the summing up to 'Sharon of Melb' who posted this comment on the Herald Sun site yesterday, under an article about Big Ted:
Sharon of Melb: Baillieu has to go. All he has done is hang out with Oprah and swum in the sea.
I'll have to consult 'Sharon of Melb' more often. She's much more concise than I am.
'The Age' editorial yesterday made the point that Victoria's new-ish Premier, 'Big' Ted Baillieu, was a bit of a slack arse.
Well, not in so many words, of course. Even as it sacks people and moves as much of it's content online as possible, the Melbourne broadsheet is still pretty conservative.
But it did make the point, more delicately, thet Big Ted has been Premier for a few months now and that there aren't many signs of life emanating from the Premier's office. In fact, the only tangible thing that Baillieu seems to have acheived since being elected is that he managed to make the Premier's Christmas Party an alcohol free event, so ruining the day for everyone attending (Baillieu is a tee-totaller and so marks himself out as unique in Australian political history).
In terms of what he's managed to do in relation to the big issues facing the state; public transport, health, education, crime, the economy and so on to infinity, you'd struggle to find any Governmental movement on any front. Which may surprise people. Especially the people that voted for him.
I may be wrong, but I seem to remember Big Ted going on at some length about all the problems facing Victoria during last years election campaign. I mean, he had a pretty extensive list - which, well, I've already written out in the previous paragragph, so I won't redo it here - which he talked about at mind boggling length and which his party put all over every availabe media outlet in negative campaign ads:
And this worked well for him.
People took notice, or were just sick of being told that waiting 4 hours for a train was 'Part of the Plan,' and turfed Labor out on the back of a 6% statewide swing to the conservatives. The era of Big Ted had arrived!
Aaargh! What is that thing with him? Kill it!
Anyway, at least we thought his era had begun.
Some of his supporters are now starting to look like people waiting for an overdue plane; it was meant to be here two hours ago and they've moved from mild disinterest, to annoyance, to concern, to a growing certainty in their hearts that terrorists have blown it up over the Pacific.
Did Big Ted's supporters take the wrong message from the election campaign? Was all that talk about late trains and hospital waiting lists and crazed gangs of homeowner hating youth criminals meant to be... I dunno, reportage? Just to let us know that things were bad? In case we hadn't noticed that the train we were waiting for never showed up or that our aunty was hobbling around while waiting for corrective surgery?
If it was, well, nice of them to point it out. But maybe a little disappointing.
Although anyone that did actually pay attention to the last election campaign would not have been surprised that solutions to Victoria's problems are not materialising. For none were proposed. From either side.
John Brumby stuck doggedly to the same unpopular, universally derided policies that he'd been pushing for several years, and so committed political suicide. And Baillieu and the Liberal Party mainly just nodded and smiled and made sure everyone knew that Jeff Kennett was no longer a candidate.
In terms of specifics, Baillieu offered us two new train lines, a handful of new trains, about a gazillion more police and that was about it. And even this minimal 'agenda' has been pretty much glossed over, forgotten about and obfuscated since Big Ted was elected and Liquorland had their state parliament contract terminated.
The counter agrument to all this, of course, is that the Liberals were only elected a few months ago and that time will be required for them to enact their policies. Or, for starters, for them to figure out what their policies are. And additionally, Labor ran the state for a long time and the public service is intrinsically slow in responding to change, so even when the Liberals are ready to move in key policy areas, we will need to be patient in order to see results.
But this is no reason for inertia.
Baillieu was given a clear mandate by the electorate and he enjoys a majority in both houses of Parliament. He has far fewer obstacles in his path than, say, Steve Bracks had when he took over a Premier. So there is no excuse not to get on with it. Especially since the same people that were unhappy with transport and health and so ended Brumby's career, will quickly turn on the new bunch if they sense that they're sitting on their hands.
'Well after 12 years of Labor neglect...'
Will only work for so long. Baillieu and co need only look at the Rudd/Gillard government to see how popular a timid, do nothing style of governance is with the punters. Baillieu needs to outline his agenda, properly, and nominate his policy priorities as soon as he can. And then actually move forward with some boldness to legislate for them.
The fact that the same issue of 'The Age' that featured the critical editorial contained not one story of what the Baillieu government was doing is not a good sign.
A quick word association game in relation to the flood disaster that has hit Queensland and Victoria. I say the words 'Flood disaster' and you say the first thing that pops into your head. Ready?
Flood disaster.
(Pause)
Ok, let's try that again.
Flood disaster.
Oh wait, that's right, I'm sitting here by myself. Ok! Well then let's have a 'Google' search fill in for the other person. Type 'Flood disaster' into Google and you'll get the following list of words (a brief selection from many):
Which probably sums up the situation pretty nicely, without any turgid linking material from me. I mean, it all sounds very serious, horrific and heartbreaking. A bad thing, in other words, without any obvious upside.
So is it cheeky to propose that some of the nations political leadership are slowly, carefully and very privately starting to think about the advantages of the crisis? And, more specifically, how they will benefit from those advantages? Well, perhaps it would be, if this wasn't exactly what has started to take place.
This is not to suggest that the political leaders in question don't take it all very seriously. I mean, some of their best friends are flood victims. And they're obviously emotionally effected by what's happened, just as the public at large has been. To varying degrees, they have committed themselves personally to trying to help the people in those regions.
But what I am suggesting is that politics is politics and is applicable in every situation, short of apocalyptic nuclear war. And even then, if more than one person survived the mushroom clouds and the fallout, you can bet that the next day the survivors would have formed into rival groups and would be arguing about how to distribute the one remaining crate of baked beans. And just like every situation where politics is a factor, there are bound to be angles to be worked, opportunities to be taken and enemies to be vanquished.
A brief look then, at some of the major political players and how they are trying to subtly, craftily and oh so gently turn the flood crisis to their advantage.
QUEENSLAND PREMIER ANNA BLIGH (Labor)
The obvious political beneficiary of the flood crisis, Bligh has been turned from someone about as popular as her namesake, the one who captained the HMAS Bounty, to someone regularly referred to as a 'hero.' She has done this through hard work, dedication, a few tears and relentless use of the phrase 'Queenslander.' As in 'We're all Queenslanders, you and I, and we're built tough up here.' Bligh has been too busy to really reap the benefits of what has happened yet, but she can expect to be significantly boosted in the polls when it's all over. Expect her to take her chance to properly revitalise her political fortunes and sweep away some of her dud ministers, replacing them with people much like herself, preferably one's in gumboots and muddy shirts who lost their house (or, at least the family Subaru).
PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD (Labor)
That's right, that's her in the back. Anyways, the Prime Minister has not been enjoying the best of runs from the press during the flood crisis, least of all when she's standing beside the anointed hero noted above, but in her diligent, plodding way is doing her best to cash in on the situation regardless. Her prime mechanism for this is a reordering of Government budgetary priorities, AKA 'Tax and Don't Spend.' The Federal Government is committed to paying for 75% of the reconstruction bill after the waters subside and the PM has decided to pay for this in two ways. Firstly, by cutting back in Government spending in some areas , AKA cutting unpopular, poorly conceived and just plain barmy policies like her loopy 'Cash for clunkers' scheme. This allows her to get rid of policies she wanted to ditch anyway, without appearing to break her election promises. Secondly, Labor plans to raise money by introducing a short term levy on most everyone not living in a flooded area; AKA a brand new tax on workers earning more than $50 000 per annum to be maintained, essentially, at the PM's whim. This allows Labor to cover up some of the shortfall in their finances they created when they cut their mining tax back while not cancelling any of the unpopular, loopy and just plain barmy policies that they're really attached to. And it gives them some remote, unlikely hope of still getting the budget back to surplus by 2050 (or whenever it is they're proposing to do it by).
FEDERAL OPPOSITION LEADER TONY ABBOTT (Liberal)
In times of crisis, Opposition Leaders often find themselves somewhat marginalised, and Tony 'Stop the Boats' Abbott is no exception. After all, Opposition leaders can't allocate funds or call out the troops or really do anything except talk... and initially no one wanted to hear anyone speaking except Anna Bligh. But 'Stop the Boats' has his chance now that the aforementioned new levy/tax is on the table, as it gives him a fine opportunity to do what he does best; rush around the country with his shirt sleeves rolled up, yelling non stop about how he's fundamentally opposed to blah-blah-blah until his brain nearly dies from oxygen deprivation. You can almost hear his advisors grinning to each other as Abbott takes a deep breath and prepares to start his angry man routine: 'He's back!'
VICTORIAN PREMIER TED BAILLIEU
'Big Ted' Baillieu has been a little love starved as well, what with Victoria not getting quite as much rain or as badly damaged as Queensland, so consequently his political opportunities have been fewer. Nevertheless, 'Big Ted' hit the media yesterday to stake out his political territory, which you could basically think of as 'Don't Do It And Do It Faster.' Essentially, he said words to the effect that he also opposed Federal Labor's new levy/tax, that he thought it was immoral and wrong and would hurt working families in Victoria... and that Federal Labor were wholly responsible for fixing Victoria up and if they didn't give him a chunk of cash the size of the Opera House straight away then he'd have to start stalking the PM wearing nothing but a pair of Speedos. Which puts him in an almost impregnable position, politically; if Labor raise the cash and give it to him they've hurt Victorian families and if they don't they've neglected flood victims. So yes, he's done a fine job with the political maneuvering... And a less fine job in terms of what he's done, tangibly, constructively, in reality, to actually help any of his constituents. At this point it's obvious where his priorities lie.
And these are only the more obvious examples of the political benefits that are flowing from the floods. More can be expected to be heard from the players noted above, as well as from any half well known elected official that can get themselves in front of a microphone and try and work the situation to their advantage.
If you were to make comparisons, a natural disaster most closely resembles a war in it's political impact, in that it mesmerises the population, provides ample opportunity for political advancement, costs and generates staggering amounts of revenue and can prove fatal to any politician who does not handle it deftly. And while you consider this and all the political activity that will buzz around the floods in the coming weeks, it is perhaps worth considering the other trait that natural disaster share with wars: They both often have truth as a first casualty.
Really, it had everything; sex, violence, hit tunes... well, maybe it didn't have those things, but this isn't America. Even so, we had elections, changes of Government, a deposed Prime Minister, a deposed Prime Minister resurfacing as foreign minister, our first female PM, scandals, angry debate, boat people, cowboy hats and more budgie smugglers than anyone would've thought possible:
And so I wonder why, thinking back over the year that was, that I'm not filled with a sense of excitement, but mostly with a sense of disappointment... disillusionment... even self loathing. It almost reminds me of the time I went to see a Russ Meyer film at ACMI here in Melbourne; yeah it was great fun and I cackled like a goon at the camp hilarity of it all, but afterwards I felt like I needed a wash or, at least, two tickets to a Noel Coward play with some Proust to read afterward (this didn't stop me going and seeing another Russ Meyer film the following week, of course).
For rarely, if ever, have we had a year where there was so much political activity, so much political noise (to call it 'sound and fury' would be to imbue it with undeserved lofty qualities), that cost so much money (tax payers money for the most part), that lead to so little in the way of identifiable outcomes that would be of benefit to anyone.
The major political event of the year was, of course, the Federal election.
And you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't get a bit of a jolt out of that one. I mean, it was so action packed that even people with no interest in politics - i.e. most people - were forced to pay attention as the leaks, backstabbing and vitriol mounted up. And that was just members of the ALP turning on each other! To say nothing of the result, which saw the two major parties effectively shadow box each other into a coma, leaving the outcome to be decided by a handful of Parliamentary independents in the House of Representatives; the nutjob in the hat, the crusty old timer, the serial candidate trying his luck in Hobart and the boyishly enthusiastic windbag who no one seemed to like very much.
To understand the election outcome it is instructive to look at the opposite trajectories of two of the major players in it; Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott. The Ruddbot started the year miles ahead in the polls and appeared certain to stroll into a second term whenever he decided to call the election. But a strange kind of paralysis seemed to overcome his programming as the year progressed and he began to malfunction so badly that his party decided to disconnect him and destroy his CPU before he could even get back to the polls, making him the first Prime Minister to be kyboshed before facing re-election. This stands in stark contrast to the trajectory of the Opposition Leader, Tony 'Action Man' Abbott, who started the year as a Speedo wearing national joke, but came so close to becoming Prime Minister that many of my facebook friends posted status updates about leaving the country. Abbott lost the election but somehow seemed to convey the impression that he'd actually won it, or, that he'd rather be a respectable Opposition leader than Prime Minister of a coalition of misfits and weirdos.
This left the person who actually won the election, Julia 'Wavy Hands' Gillard, trailing badly behind Abbott and Rudd, in both interest and nickname stakes. To be as fair as possible to Gillard, she certainly tried hard once Labor's backroom head kickers had installed her in place of Rudd. But her efforts on the campaign trail were seriously handicapped by a hatful of factors, chief among them the fact that Labor's backroom headkickers had installed her in place of Rudd. It's quite hard to go to the electorate pledging yourself as trustworthy and safe when you've just conspired to overthrow your boss after a few bad polls.
Gillard also handicapped herself with a largely policy free election platform. I mean, what was she pledging again? Her vision for Australia? An unfunded promise to build a rail line in Western Sydney and an unbuildable refugee processing centre in East Timor. And something about broadband internet, coming to a suburb near you in 2035. Not that she was alone in the policy-lite stakes, as the Action Man took up the do-nothing-shout-loudly style of politics with gusto. He really seemed to enjoy it too, rushing around the country like the Loony Tunes devil in rolled up shirtsleeves, only pausing to yell 'Stop the Boats!' at any country fair, primary school, CWA meeting, small business, gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse that would have him:
The Action Man was rewarded for his shrill, one note, intelligence insulting campaign with truckloads of votes from all corners of the country, proving that people in the suburbs are just as easy to convince that darkies are about to invade the country and drive up electricity prices as they were when John Howard was in charge. Sadly, you can bet we'll hear more about this issue, in the same overblown fashion, in 2011.
The Federal election was also good for at least one minor party, with the Greens obtaining their first lower house seat won at a general election, when they took Melbourne from the Labor Party (Michael Organ won the Federal seat of Cunningham at a by election in 2002, only to lose it back to Labor at the 2004 poll). There were a variety of factors behind this result, chief among them the retirement of popular Labor sitting member Lindsay Tanner and the decision of the Liberals to preference the Greens ahead of Labor. But it also shouldn't be forgotten that the Greens selected a well known local candidate - Melbourne based lawyer Adam Bandt - and had him run on a progressive program choc full of fresh ideas. Hopefully Labor and Liberal alike will take notice of these radical initiatives.
2010 also brought a State election to Victoria, with an even more surprising outcome than that of the federal poll.
Boosted by landslide victories in 2002 and 2006, the John Brumby lead Labor Government appeared to have an impossibly safe and intractable buffer to prevent them from losing at the November poll. That they managed to do so, coughing up a dozen seats and suffering a swing against of above 6% state wide, is more a tribute to some bizarrely inept campaigning and a stubborn refusal to address any of Victoria's problems than anything that Opposition leader 'Big Ted' Baillieu and the Liberal Party came up with.
Based on the Labor campaign, you'd have thought that the chief priorities of the outgoing Government were making sure everyone knew that Brumby sheared sheep occasionally in his spare time:
That, and the fact that he wanted to spend about a squillion dollars forcing every Year 9 student in the state to go to some kind of combination karate/army fantasy camp. And all while the demountable classrooms at the states public schools remained unairconditioned and slowly fell apart, and the trains running to the schools and everywhere else regularly broke down on hot days while the Transport Minister expressed amazement that it was hot in summer time. I mean, again? Geez, that seems to happen every year.
Coming to the rescue of Victorians, then, was Big Ted, with his well documented plan to fix the state's problems by... doing things exactly the same. Which is certainly a radical idea, if not very inspiring. Well, 'doing things exactly the same' may not be exactly correct. Victoria's new government will buy a massive 8 - 8!!!!!!!!! - new trains over the next four years, so there'll be a handful more to break down on hot days. And they're going to give us a new state slogan too, to replace the old one that has been the bane of everyone's life for sooo long. What was it again? The old slogan? 'Victoria: Something something.' Man, am I ever tired of that thing. It's good to see that Big Ted has got his priorities straight.
2010 was also a rare year, in that an Australian managed to make a mark on the world political stage. We're talking, of course, about 'WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, who caused such a stir worldwide and was so widely discussed that he probably should've been 'Time' magazine's 'Person of the Tear.' I mean, Mark Zuckerberg? They know that he founded facebook about 8 years ago, right? All that happened to Zuck this year was that a film got made about him.
Anyways, Assange's website published thousands of secret diplomatic cables that had been leaked to it, managing to embarrass pretty much everyone with any association to politics in the process. He also found himself threatened, broke, jailed and facing sexual assault charges and so had pretty effortlessly acquired all the trappings of a major modern celebrity. We'll know that the transformation is complete if he releases his own line of underwear this year, or starts talking about his 'brand.'
And so 2010 came to an end, with neither a bang nor a whimper, but a kind of unsettled feeling, a bit like indigestion. And for all the disappointment and disillusionment and self loathing that comes from following the political debate in this country (and I smashed things several times listening to our leaders speak), there's no doubt that I'll do it all over again this year. After all, I need something to fill the gaps in the week and year when there's no footy or cricket on.
