Prepare for a summer of discontent, as politicians launch excruciating unofficial campaigns

The timing of the next federal election is likely to condemn us to an excruciatingly long unofficial campaign, sapping all the fun to Christmas and beyond, writes Patrick Carlyon.

OPINION

The timing of the federal election, thought to be May 17 next year, appears to have condemned us to the longest of unofficial campaigns.

Over the next 30 weeks, all the fun moments, from Christmas to Easter and beyond, stand to be overrun by overdressed people who will interrupt your busy day to try to be your new best friend and lie to your face.

Prepare for a nation’s summer (and autumn) of discontent.

They will come to your door, like Mormons in hi-vis, and overrun your mailbox, with Christmas cards disguised as “Greetings”, lest this or that interest group gets offended by our Christian quirks.

They will visit your child’s school, to present an award, and scroll their Insta as the kids and their teachers make thankyou speeches.

They will come to your shopping centre, to stand too close to mothers with babies, and to train stations, where they will work in packs, volunteers in uniform, like cult members waiting for the bus to Nirvana.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attends the 19th East Asia Summit in Laos. Picture: AFP

On first contact, you will try to avert your eyes. It won’t work.

They will claim to have all the answers, from health care to Gaza. They’ll preach the dangers of the other mobs. And they’ll keep talking at you, all beatific smiles and belief, like cold callers on happy pills.

These people will ask you what concerns you most. If you say unaffordable power bills, they’ll explain how they will lower them for you, no worries. Interest rates? They’ll lower those, too, for sure. Gaza? They can fix that, one bullet point at a time.

The Opposition Leader, as well as the prime minister, will demand commentary box time for the Sydney cricket test. They might later have a debate, which will be declared a nil-all draw after everyone forgets to watch.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton in Parliament in October 2024. Picture: Supplied

Nuclear energy will be our future, we’ll hear, unless it is our Armageddon.

Renewable energy – cue windmills and butterflies – will reliably supply our homes and businesses – unless it cannot.

Negative gearing will be retained – and/or removed.

The health system will be fixed – or destroyed.

Waiting lists will rise dramatically – or fall dramatically.

Future prosperity will be reduced to choices couched in a black-and-white starkness, of forces of good and evil as unambiguous as a Star Wars movie.

Government spending, like the Coles ads, will be said to go Down, Down, though like the price of Coles products it will go Up, Up, no matter the election result.

The candidates will vow to “build” stuff, one pained metaphor at a time.

“Ordinary Australians” will get a “fair go”, especially “working families”.

Greens leader Adam Bandt at the National Press Club in August 2024. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

No candidate will promise to go backwards, but all will have “a plan” to “move forward”.

The Greens will bang on about a minority government, and promise to govern for all Australians, well, at least all Australians aged 12-25 who have never nursed a sick child or ailing elder, still live with their parents, and have yet to figure out that ideology and reality can never be friends.

They will fix our teeth for free, push for the flying of any and all flags which are not the Australian flag, and recommit to their condemnation of all butchery – except butchery which happens on October 7.

There will be lighter moments, such as the candidates cleared to run for office despite the mountain of social media evidence that they are certifiable racists or misogynists. Some political newbie will mangle the script from party HQ at their first presser.

Australians are expected to go to the polls on May 17. Picture: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg via Getty Images

It will be declared by both major parties that Israel is our friend, and that anti-Semitism is bad, though the ALP will add that it’s also opposed to Islamophobia and all forms of bullying. In marginal seats, with high Muslim populations, rumblings of anti-Semitism will be assiduously ignored by candidates who place electoral success ahead of the greater good.

Perhaps our service people will suffer most.

Their annual day, and its services, stand to be hijacked by political candidates armed only with cliches.

These candidates will seek to reduce Anzac Day services to their campaign need to be seen at an Anzac Day service. They will appropriate values such as mateship and humour (as cobbled by someone back in the office who has discovered Chat GPT).

These candidates will deliver little speeches which go too long, and all the service people, along with generations of younger Australians who wear the medals of the forebears, will go home and want a shower.