I was thirteen years old when Gough Whitlam was elected Prime Minister in 1972.

The first Whitlam ministry comprised two men, Whitlam and his deputy Lance Barnard.

For 14 days, these two men made roughly 40 decisions on how the country would be governed and dragged it kicking and screaming into the 20th century after a little too long in grey flannel suit and felt hat land …

The withdrawal of troops from Vietnam.
An inquiry into indigenous land rights.
Recognition of China.

Some progressive thinking took place, some innovation, some ideas, some big ideas, and you didn’t need to be an “adult” or particularly politically aware to sense something very, very different was going on. Of course, it all ended in tears a few short years later, but … c’est la guerre …

Most 13 year olds aren’t much interested in politics, and I was no exception. My major concerns and interests at that time were dealing with school, skipping school whenever I could (which was often until the day I got nabbed farting about in the storm water drains near the train tracks by the cops and escorted back to school), reading science fiction and pulling myself silly. That’s what 13 year old boys do, and anyone who says different is …

Well, I would doubt them.

I’d never paid any attention to politicians before, they were all old, gray, wizened little men who gibbered about things beyond my understanding or interest.

Then Gough Whitlam came along.

And I started paying attention.

Because there was something about this man, something that made we wonder, “What’s all this about, what’s going on?”

Regardless of how one may feel about him, I doubt there can be much argument that Whitlam possessed a commanding presence. This 13 year old was riveted, if not quite sure what exactly it was he was being riveted by.

But despite this, whatever gene it is that makes political tragics tick, I definitely don’t have it. Most of what passes for political debate, commentary and discussion seems to me to revolve around trivialities, irrelevancies that appear to be of note only to and for the benefit of those charged with reporting such things. In the recent “election” campaign, this obsession with sheer bullshit reached dizzying new heights. If one of the candidates had so much as farted in an elevator with a “reporter” present, you could guarantee it would’ve become a talking point for days …

… Breakfast television shows would invite their viewers to relate similar embarrassing public gaffes, and a dietician would be called in for some expert advice on fartless foodstuffs …

When I first heard Julia Gillard say “moving forward”, I immediately thought, “There it is. That’s the one they’re going to hammer us with every time they open their fucking mouth on anything at all”, and not long after, I simply stopped paying attention.

She said it so many times over the course of the next few days, I wanted to shove a dagger up her clitoris every time I heard it.

I am not a violent man.

But for fuck’s sake.

I expect a Labor government to have a few big ideas. Whitlam had them, Hawke had them, Keating had them.

I expect a little colour, a little movement, a little oomph, a bit of Keating’s “crash or crash through” balls, a bit of Hawke’s “silly old bugger” straightforwardness, a bit of fucking something for Christ’s sake, but this limp and colourless, straitjacketed imposter currently known as the Labor Party appears to be about as full of “oomph” as Monty Python’s dead parrot.

I do not vote for a political “party” simply because of its name or the history of it, what it may have previously achieved in office, or just because some anonymous, sunken-chested, Gollum-faced dickhead has devised a shitty, facile slogan that’s supposed to get me all tingly and tumescent with excitement. I vote for whatever group’s policies and ideas best reflect my own views and thoughts at the time.

And that is no longer the Labor Party.

Because I haven’t the foggiest fucking idea what the Labor Party is anymore, but in its current state, it’s not for me.