Dear reader, we’d had enough of flash Prime Ministers. Kev was just too high level bureaucrat. Julia was too high flying unionist. Tony was just too self important and athletic and iron man. Malcolm was just uber 100 percent “Mr Harbourside Mansion”.
Learnt from Barnaby. Big Hat. Big impression.
Scomo has departed from wearing a suit. Gone are the Flash Harry equipage of Keating. Keating was a flaming disaster, had big ideas, wanted to do stuff about reconcilliation, equity and made us all worry about our superannuation and get all conservative.
All the others tried to make a difference. Kev wanted to let everyone know how clever he was. Julia tred to not be like Kev. Tony just tried to be like Bob Santamaria. Malcolm didn’t stand for anything other than wanting to be Prime Minister and looking confused. For one reason or another they all failed.
That’s of course after we had enjoyed a new Edwardian age, a Golden Summer, an eternal twilight under the benign endowment of John E Howard. Australia’s, second greatest PM ever!. Johnny gave us xenephobia, insecurity, cultural cringe and reasserted our right to fight other peoples wars. John you’d think would reign for ever, and his legacy has stood us in good stead. That was his brand. “Relaxed and Comfortable”.
But how’s Scomo gonna differentiate from all his predecessors?
We have the answer. By being ordinary. And acceptable to ordinary Australians. That’s code for Lowest Common Denominator.
Scomo in a pair of footy shorts and a baseball cap is ordinary. Scomo fronting the first X1 sporting a Max Wallker toweliing hat is nationalistic ordinary. Photographed with the Opals, meaningfully mysoginistically ordinary. His message is simple. Be ordinary.
And by the end of the week in a country town somewhere looking at a grain harvester, having a look at a drought affected paddock in a Dryzabone and be back on board for the following week.
Scomo when he’s not passing coal around in Parliament. Bit worried about the slogan below his right forearm.
His roster is ordinary.
A NATURAL BORN LEADER!!
Monday; Open footy club training facility. Talk of opportunity.
Tuseday; Visit mine site, wear hard hat. Talk Jobs and Growth.
Wednesday; Visit old age home. Talk Service Industries.
Thursday; Inspect womens health centre. Talk Women’s issues
Friday; Talk about gambling promotion on the Opera House with Alan Jones. Talk Sport.
But of matters of policy and the future?
It’s a non issue. Nothing to see here (dear reader) we don’t care, so why shoud Scomo?
And besides he’s attending the launch of the latest batch of French submarines ‘le Merde’ and ‘le Toilet’.
Well not the launch, the launch of the pre launch parliamentary process paper, which will determine whether the periscope is left or right hand drive. This is very important in a submarine, for without the periscope the submariner is blind.
Collins Class Submarine demonstrating capacity to sink nobly.
And technically you’d be surprised how many submarines that come off the slipway are not properly invested with a trusted and proven persicope. Which puts us at a strategic disadvantage.
But Scomo has renamed the entire Collins class fleet, with names we all recognise. There’s HMAS Ordinary, Booney, The Don, Lillee, Thommo, Macka and Jezza. This indicates a multicultural nuance, which shows how progressive we are. And in the long run if the periscopes don’t work it doesn’t matter. Cos as Scomo points it “what you don’t really see don’t matter”.
And that’s reassuring.
Cos he knows most of us really don’t care.