Opinion: Electoral cringe out on the fringe

EVERY campaign throws up nutjobs with extreme theories and policies but sadly there are also those who convince themselves these people are worth voting for.

A DEMOCRATIC election should be the ultimate expression of a political evolution reaching back to the Ancient Greeks.

Yet in Queensland an election campaign heralds a strange journey into the Mango Madness of the Soul.

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Just as the mango tree’s pale pink leaves foretell the yellow blossoms of August and the promise of succulent fruits, campaign corflutes springing to life on front lawns are nature’s signal that an outbreak of collective psychosis is upon us.

For we know, deep in the recesses our normally breezy tropical bosoms, that nothing arouses the bats in the belfry like a ballot – “Cometh the election, cometh the crazier.’’

It’s like a latent viral infection. It can exist for years undetected but the moment a campaign begins, thousands of Queenslanders feel a stirring within – an irrepressible desire to unload the accumulated detritus of their minds, then employ the entrails to map out a path to a suitable candidate waiting patiently at a nearby polling booth.

It’s not dictated by geography, spreading across the urban landscape as well as the regional, but for those wishing to examine it first hand, head to a small Queensland town.

Wander into any pub with the old wraparound bar and the local footy pennants on the wall, order a beer, strike up a genial conversation with a local about politics … and wait.

Like ants to a tin of golden syrup with the lid left ajar they emerge, tentatively testing the atmosphere until reassured they have a sympathetic audience.

And then they map out the most absurd, most irrational, most labyrinthine conspiracy theories ever concocted by the perverted ingenuity of the human intellect, finishing their extraordinary hypothesis with a satisfied nod and the words: “And that’s why I’m gonna vote for (fill in the blank).”

There are people in the north of this state with rifles buried under backyard chook runs ready for an Indonesian/Chinese/Islamic invasion.

There are hundreds more who believe a cabal of Jewish people meet in the Prague cemetery at midnight every full moon to plot the direction of global financial markets.

And there is still an earnest nest of Queensland gun enthusiasts who believe the Port Arthur massacre was orchestrated by the Federal Government – a belief that confers upon simple-minded politicians the mantle of evil geniuses; master manipulators possessed of colossal clandestine capabilities, yet still oddly incapable of rigging a simple federal election?

This collective gift for the absurd has played a role in gifting Australia, along with the only elected Communist MP, the likes of One Nation, Clive Palmer, and a brief bout of national hysteria in 1987 when Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen headed for Canberra.

The fertile soils of Kingaroy which gave us Sir Joh also gave life to the Citizens Electoral Council which, in the 2010 federal campaign, issued a press release insisting that Prince Philip collaborated with former Nazi officer Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands to establish the World Wildlife Fund specifically to reduce global population.

More than 2000 Queenslanders voted for the CEC in the 2013 federal ballot and it was their democratic right to do so. It is also a democratic right to politely pose the question: “What on earth were they thinking?’’

Former Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

And yet ... is there method in this madness? Perhaps the behaviour of modern political parties is such that the electorate’s only rational response can be irrationality.

For it was in this election that the Greens, despite a platform to protect gay people from discrimination, blithely preferenced Fred Nile in a Sydney seat. This is the man who thinks gays are sick, forcing the party into a rethink after a torrent of outrage.

Labor and the Coalition appear to have abandoned their determination never to preference One Nation – a stand once sold as principled opposition to policies both sides believe are detrimental to the nation.

Ambition for power almost always eclipses morality but those who truly believe the Australian Liberty Alliance – which wants to ban residency visas for people from Islamic countries for 10 years – offers a credible alternative to progress Australia’s fortunes in the 21st century can’t possibly have thought the matter through.

The ALA, which will win thousands of Queensland votes today, is just another throw-back to the Know Nothing movement of mid-19th Century America, which believed banning Irish immigration would solve the nation’s ills.

The desire to rub a “mainstream” politicians’ nose in the dirt might be explicable, but it’s also becoming dangerous.

If you don’t truly believe a party which draws life and energy from anger and ignorance can lead Australia to a better place, don’t vote for it.

Email Michael Madigan

Originally published as Opinion: Electoral cringe out on the fringe