Vikki Campion: You’ve got it tough? Try growing up to be a modern MP!

Federal parliament has gone full Monty Python, with MPs’ maiden speeches now just an audition reel for a remake of the Pythons’ famous Four Yorkshiremen sketch, writes Vikki Campion.

It’s an easy critique as absurd theatre, but finally, the parliament has gone full Monty Python.

The dispatch box is now just an audition reel for a remake of the Pythons’ famous Four Yorkshiremen sketch, where those sipping glasses of Chateau de Chasselas compete to outdo each other in tales of woe.

While the classic Yorkshiremen sketch started with one claiming to have spent his early life in a house with no roof, this was soberly outdone by his friend’s poverty being domiciled in a cardboard box, then absurdly “three months in a rolled-up newspaper in a septic tank”.

So our 48th Australian Parliament’s maiden speeches could be confused with auditions for a Four Yorkshiremen reboot.

In Canberra, these novice actors read a little less septic tank and more suburban sob story, beginning with public school educations and blue collar mums and dads, and long bus rides to universities, having to work in service roles, or pump breastmilk on a campaign bus.

It’s less about overcoming odds and more about shouting, “Isn’t it remarkable I’m here?”

The 48th Australian Parliament’s maiden speeches could be confused with auditions for a Monty Python reboot. Picture: AP Photo/IFC

Um, no. Not at all. A glance at most of their CVs reveals a well-trodden path. Your union pushed you forward to become a political rep, you had a stint as a lawyer, staffer, or local councillor, and now you have a seat in Canberra. Pretty standard. But look at prime ministers past.

Sir John Gorton, Australia’s 19th prime minister, survived a crash-landing in Singapore in 1942, sustaining serious facial injuries after being shot down.

Former prime minister Sir John Gorton in 1995. Now he had tough road to parliament.

His evacuation ship was torpedoed, leaving him clinging to a life raft. He returned to service, only to endure another crash. But did he dwell on himself in his maiden speech?

No, instead he warned of “the ominous shadow which is now creeping down through China, threatening Malaya and Indonesia and coming closer to the near north of this country, will reach us without warning and that we shall not have those months of preparation which last time were bought for us by the suffering and sacrifice of our kinsfolk in Britain”.

It was a prescient call for vigilance that resonates more than ever today.

You’d need to scour years of his Hansard in the senate and house to find the person who was lucky to be alive, let alone babbling about his own victimhood over the dispatch box.

Former prime minister Gough Whitlam in the RAAF during World War II.

Even Labor hero Gough Whitlam’s maiden speech was not about his own valour, but his concern and ambition for his nation.

This was an airman who fought the Japanese in the RAAF but he didn’t turn his maiden spotlight on himself.

He spoke of housing affordability, a pressing issue then and still now, noting how interest rates double the borrower’s burden.

Today’s newbie MPs, beneficiaries of a secure and safe nation with publicly-funded defence, healthcare and education, forged by the likes of Sir John and Mr Whitlam, seem to contradict their own party’s legacy by framing their lives as tales of misery.

“We used to dream of livin’ in a corridor! Would’ve been a palace to us,” they’d proclaim as if their basic upbringings warrant a memoir, with one Tasmanian MP recalling how the first thing she would see in the morning would be her breath because her house was so cold. Welcome to most of Australia that can’t afford their power bills this winter.

Sarah Witty delivers her maiden speech in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Another gave a sad trope about a child giving her a button which she sequestered with her to parliament.

If Labor’s reforms were so transformative, why the need for these “150 of us livin’ in a shoebox in the middle of the road” sob stories?

Sir John and Mr Whitlam, scarred by war and hardship, spoke of Australia’s future, not their personal past. Today’s parliamentarians would do well to follow their lead rather than engaging in mirror-deep politics, where the reflection is the sole source of inspiration.

If they only understand the landscape in the context of themselves, forget asking them to understand another side of the argument. At least two new Labor entrants, for Melbourne and Barton, started their maiden speeches claiming sovereignty was never ceded, yet didn’t explain why then they are elected in an apparently illegal parliament they don’t believe in. Will Melbourne MP Sarah Witty or Barton MP Ash Ambihaipahar hand back their salary for their genocidal gains?

Or after the sad tales were uttered, did everyone jump into an evil black Comcar belonging to the thieving colonialist and head off for dinner?

Perhaps a glass of Château de Chasselas to toast their old life, living in an old water tank on a rubbish tip, woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish.

ENDING NET ZERO SHOULD BE A MATTER OF POLICY AND COMMON SENSE

In a new parliament committed to tinkering around the edges and oozing conceit, it takes a private member’s bill to bring on debate on rectifying the policy of Net Zero.

The truth is, this shouldn’t have to be a private member’s bill.

This is NSW Nationals Party policy, as determined by the members.

For those claiming it is the wrong time or a push against the current leadership, preparing for the next fight is precisely what we must do now.

Instead, the Nationals in parliament are leaking old drafts mapped out by the clerk’s office to Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen.

Coal on a conveyor belt while underground at the Xiaobaodang coal mine in 2023. China is digging up hundreds of millions more tonnes of coal each year. Picture: Wang Zhao/AFP

Former staffers from previous Liberal and National offices, who were part of the government, now dig in and say that no one is going to vote for you if Net Zero is ditched from the Coalition policy platform, perhaps because so much of their lobbying work today revolves around it.

Perhaps they missed the last two elections, where they went all in on Net Zero, and have been belted out of the political ground for their efforts. China is digging up hundreds of millions more tonnes of coal each year, on top of the billions it already burns.

Just their extra annual coal they use is more than Australia’s total exports.

India is making a concerted effort to catch up to China, and Indonesia is striving to catch up to India.

Meanwhile, the US is re-entering the race to try to surpass them all. None is too concerned about Australia’s race on its own economic cliff.

So since we have zero chance of having any effect on the climate, what exactly are we changing?

Except our farmland is being industrialised for massive power factories or traded away as carbon offsets for those who don’t know where their food comes from.

LIFTER

New Liberal senator and economic liberalist Leah Blyth for kicking off her Senate career noting every dollar spent by the government is taken from someone else: “The state has no money but that it appropriates from its people.”

LEANER

Premier Chris Minns claiming to “lose a day in the energy transition” means higher bills in 12 months. Who is going to tell him we have record renewables and record power bills?

Originally published as Vikki Campion: You’ve got it tough? Try growing up to be a modern MP!