Opinion: Nothing as frightening as politicians on the campaign trail

Parents of children aged 12 months or less have been warned to stay clear of shopping malls following a spate of baby snatching, writes Mike O’Connor.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with a hapless newborn in Western Australia last week. Picture: Jason Edwards/NCA NewsWire

Parents of children aged 12 months or less have been warned by police to stay clear of shopping malls following a spate of baby snatching.

All of the children have been safely returned to their parents, but psychologists warn it is likely they have been traumatised.

I made up the bit about the police, but the risk of your child been grabbed by a politician and hugged, cuddled and held aloft like a stuffed toy is real.

The Prime Minister is a serial offender in the grab-a-bub stakes, beaming at the cameras that are so handily present as the bewildered child thinks, “Who is this clown and will he please put me back in my pram before I vomit all over his dark blue suit?”

Question: Does the sight of a politician awkwardly holding somebody else’s baby while their minders offer a silent prayer that he or she won’t drop the poor wee thing make you suddenly realise how well suited they are to guide the great ship of state through troubled waters?

The problems with grab-a-bub is that apart from the odd “goo-goo gaa-gaa” they are not particularly articulate when it comes to sprouting party political propaganda.

Realising this Climate 200, the political plaything of billionaire inheritance beneficiary Simon Holmes a Court, has opted for rent-a-kid.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre in Sydney’s Marrickville

The company, which gives money to “Independents” who only vote with the Labor Party, has hired child actors for a political television advertisement that shows them quoting Peter Dutton and his MPs on climate and energy policy.

The ad shows the children attacking Peter Dutton, saying he’ll be the “best friend the mining and resource sector has ever had” as well as Nationals Queensland senator Matt Canavan saying “it’s time we dumped net zero” and Liberal senator Alex Antic saying “we should be drilling baby, drilling”.

So here we have these Independents, so high minded when it comes to climate policies, using the projected innocence of children to flog their agenda.

The suggestion is that they have digested the complexities of net zero and decided with their pre-pubescent purity of mind that Coalition politicians are bad people, a revelation they wish to share with grown-ups.

It’s shameful and manipulative and should be seen as such by the electorate.

It must surely be but a matter of time before we have advertisements featuring politicians holding computer generated babies sprouting political slogans.

In a saner world all political advertising would be banned.

At least we have been spared the sight of Albanese going for a run a la Bill Shorten whose morning jogs, the ones in which he looked like man in perpetual and desperate need of a toilet, became addictive viewing in the same way as people are drawn to watching train wrecks.

Having watched Albanese attempting to play cricket, it is safe to say that sporting prowess is not one of his strengths unless it be a hit of tennis within the genteel confines of a country club.

Dutton, meanwhile, displayed his football skills with an own goal when he took out a cameraman with a clumsily executed kick.

Then there is beer drinking.

The last leader of a political party to look comfortable holding a beer was Bob Hawke, but still they persist in the staged pub appearances.

You could give Albo a mullet, tatts, mud splattered work boots and pants and a CFMEU T-shirt and he’s still look like someone who’s been handed a schooner of weed killer.

Anyone got a nice glass of pino gris?

Dutton does it better but as an ex-copper, he’s probably had a bit more practice.

Greens leader Adam Bandt – when not saying it is Israel’s fault that Hamas is currently throwing people who disagree with it off the top of buildings – has been seen walking around with a giant toothbrush, this to attract attention to his free dental scheme costed at $46bn.

How to pay for it? You’ve probably guessed the answer, but if you’ve just come back from the bathroom let me reveal that it will be by taxing “big corporations and billionaires.”

So simple. Why hasn’t anyone thought of it before?

Giant toothbrushes, babies, child actors, beers, footballs.

God save us all from fools and imbeciles and please make it end soon.

My wife’s hidden all the cushions in our apartment and with nothing else to throw at the TV at news time there’s a real danger I’ll start throwing stubbies – empty ones, that is.

Originally published as Opinion: Nothing as frightening as politicians on the campaign trail