Those with long memories might remember serial pest Peter Hore. Hore would make a nuisance of himself at any opportunity; at the cricket, at the tennis, at memorial services.
In 1997, he charged onto the field at a FIFA World Cup qualifier and removed a net from one of the goals, allowing Iran time to recover and equalise against the Socceroos in front of a packed MCG. The Novocastrian made such a habit of running onto the field during Newcastle Knights home games, players could have set their watches to it.
Hore hasn’t been seen charging onto playing fields or upbraiding the dead at state funerals much lately, but with his form he’s eminently qualified to join the crossbenchers in the Senate. He would, however, find himself in challenging company and a fierce rivalry would develop between his relatively juvenile stunts and the theatrical skills of Australia’s own queen of political cabaret, Lidia Thorpe.
Thorpe has probably set back the republican cause 20 years with her latest stunt, shrieking obscenities at the King of Australia so vehemently and so frequently, it would make a bikie blush or a CFMEU delegate demur.
Reactions could be tested under laboratory conditions as the senator’s former paramour, Dean Martin, was both at once. Alas, the former Rebels OMCG president and Thorpe’s kissing cuzzy-bro was given his marching orders from Australia in July.
A crazy stunt is never far from the Green-turned independent senator’s mind. A glance through her website reveals a relative avalanche of press releases (read by no one) in September, but come October there was a lull in rambling on policy matters and assorted thought bubbles. There is a pattern here. Take it from someone who has been obliged to flip through her pronouncements since she walked away from the Greens in February last year. The quieter Thorpe gets, an explosion of theatricality is not far away.
The possum skin hanging from the coat stand must have stood there silently mocking the senator for months. The war in Gaza offered opportunities to hit the footlights and do a little soft shoe but the media panned the cameras across the crossbenchers and decided pickings were plumper among the Greens. In terms of costume design, Mehreen Faruqi was a mile ahead of her former colleague, the keffiyeh prop too obvious to ignore.
One imagines Thorpe’s office calendar features detailed notes below a series of dates circled in red. “Australia Day. Buy fake blood.” “Mardi Gras. Kill and skin a possum.” We can throw in a donnybrook outside a strip club or riding around pillion on a hog. Obviously, any day when Thorpe is escorted from a scene by security or police is a red letter day.
The royal tour was formally announced on September 11. A rush of activity and planning in the senator’s office must have ensued. “Hold the press releases. Get the possum coat dry cleaned. Get hair and make-up on the line. What to wear? Does my bum look big in this? When the time comes, remember to enunciate to the back row. Overcome nerves by picturing the assembled audience naked.”
I vox-popped a small group of Australians. None of them was what I would describe as a close political observer. To a woman and man, they were appalled by the senator’s behaviour. Some were republicans who bemoaned Thorpe’s shouty performance as confirmation that the republican movement had been dealt yet another blow.
But brows furrowed when I advised that Thorpe was not elected as an independent but as a member of the Greens who fast-tracked her political career from a discharged bankrupt, first into the Victorian parliament by way of a by-election win in the seat of Northcote in 2017.
Thorpe subsequently lost the seat in the 2018 Victorian state election. Then the Greens, which seem to suffer the quasi-medical phenomenon of banging themselves on their heads with lumps of four-by-two pausing only to see if stopping makes it feel better, hurled Thorpe into the Senate to fill the casual vacancy created by the retirement of former party leader Richard Di Natale.
It turned out to be an act of political sado-masochism when mere hollow tokenism had been called for.
Amid the revelations of Thorpe’s relationship with her heavily tattooed beau and frustration from Thorpe that she was unable to hector an entire political party on how to think and feel on Indigenous affairs, Thorpe pulled the pin, only to resume politics as an independent senator.
This is the part that Australians do not understand. How a member of a party, elected to the Senate, can resign from the party and stay in the job. Senator Fatima Payman, a rookie actor showing plenty of promise treading the boards, was listed third on Labor’s WA Senate ballot, usually an unwinnable spot, but fell backwards into a Senate seat, getting over the line thanks to Labor’s higher than expected primary vote in the state in the 2022 federal election. Then Payman left in a huff, but remained in the Senate, only to announce her own political party, Australia’s Voice. Give me a break.
Thorpe will carry on. Her term ends, wait for it, on June 30, 2028. But she and others like her could so easily be punted with a bit of deft legislation. That won’t happen and Thorpe’s performative outrage is set to continue. I can almost hear public nuisance Peter Hore whistling in awe.
Join the conversation
Is Labor finally realising the folly of its energy plan?
Being a responsible global citizen and playing our part under the Paris Agreement should not be at the expense of our national interest.
Read more
Andrews’ new role an insult to the agony of parents
The backlash to Daniel Andrews’ appointment at a youth mental health service was harsh and immediate. And for me, it came with a personal insight into the trauma this announcement has inflicted on families.
Read more