Why our politicians are putting on a worse show than a panned TV drama
I dare you to tune into Question Time in the Australian parliament. It’s more egregious than anything Murphy and his massive cast of executive producers could come up with.
What’s worse is that we – the taxpayers – fund it.
The comparison of the two “shows” comes this week as the first season of the 48th parliament comes to a close.
All’s Fair is a television series that has been so widely panned and critically condemned people tuned in out of sheer curiosity. So many did that it has now been green-lit for a second season.
It’s actually wonderfully entertaining. It is dental floss for when you’re feeling brain dead.
The costumes look like Kath & Kim rejects and feature hats, gloves and designer G-string business suits.
The cast – including Glenn Close, a foul mouthed Sarah Paulson and Naomi Watts – are captivating to watch even as they deliver a script that is so over the top it brings on altitude sickness.
It’s touted as a drama but it’s unintentionally humorous, like Liberal deputy leader Ted O’Brien in the chamber.
Think Ally McBeal with all the neurosis, minus the singing and weird baby holograms.
Instead, those segues are replaced with talk of cosmetic procedures, like the benefits of vagina “vampire facials”.
It’s a show set in the chambers (and on board the private jet) of Allura Grant (Kardashian), Emerald Greene (Niecy Nash) and Liberty Ronson (Watts), a women-led, women-only firm inspired by Dina Standish (Close).
Between fighting for their clients against their filthy rich and morally poor husbands, they have frequent run-ins with Carrington Lane (Paulson), a similarly successful lawyer they didn’t hire because she routinely stole their lunches, or something.
Paulson’s performance is one of her best as she appears to be having the time of her life in this high-camp, low-IQ project.
Her character would make truckies blush. In one the first episodes she sends her rivals an anniversary gift.
“In honour of your big milestone, I present you with a fruit basket, organic and lightly brushed with salmonella and fecal matter. Eat a melon ball, then maybe you can all give the Ozempic you’re mainlining a rest, you fat, treacherous lawn chairs,” Carrington says.
It’s crass, it’s cringe, it’s a car crash, except the only injuries sustained are sore tummy muscles from laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all.
Unlike parliament. Which we’re laughing about, because if we didn’t we’d cry at the state of it all.
The (over) acting, the hyperbole, the sheer incompetence to understand the premise of basic questions makes our elected officials appear about as competent as the reality TV star trying her hand at legitimate acting in All’s Fair.
Gone are the days of entertaining erudite dialogue and debate. Compared to the cast of the 48th parliament, Paul Keating, Julia Gillard and Christopher Pyne prosecuted policy and eviscerated “those opposite” with Oscar-worthy precision and cutting wit.
This week, the final parliamentary session of the year, solidified how bad our politics have become.
Spare a thought for Milton Dick, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. For a man with a sense of humour who also takes his job presiding over the lower house seriously, if he rolled his eyes any further this year you’d worry for his corneal health.
Liberal MP and Manager of Opposition Business in the House Alex Hawke handles parliamentary procedure as well as Kardashian handles her dialogue. Both appear to be in constant delay and miss the mark in every scene.
O’Brien is so shrill he should be fitted with an emissions monitor.
Chris Bowen, the “part time energy minister, full time COP negotiations president”, avoids answering legitimate questions from the opposition and the media, like queries about the household price of electricity, the same way toddlers dodge vegetables.
Education Minister Jason Clare’s enthusiasm for his colleagues has the same amount of sincerity as drunk women in a nightclub bathroom at 2am. His jokes, especially this week inciting the “6-7” meme when talking about the “reduction” of student debt, wouldn’t make it out of the All’s Fair editing suite.
Anthony Albanese – a political animal who’s starred in this show for many seasons – is different. It’s inside the chamber where his “affable Albo” mask drops. He rarely acknowledges Sussan Ley across the dispatch box and dismisses the crossbench with sneers and sniping.
He’s about as close to a star performer, like Close, as you get when it comes to the theatre of politics.
The Prime Minister knows the only ratings that matter are not at 2pm every sitting day; short sound bites for social media are the main game for the member for Grayndler.
Barnaby Joyce, too, knows how to keep viewers (and voters) interested. For weeks he’s drawn out his political future; he finally broke off his 30-year professional marriage with a 90-second statement on Thursday.
We have to stay tuned to see what’s next for his character’s “independent” narrative arc next year.
Meanwhile in the Senate, Pauline Hanson thinks she’s the political version of Kris Jenner for her savvy cartoon series, extensive Facebook audience and massive uptick in the recent opinion polls.
Except her stunts, like her second turn dressed in a burka and having Kyle & Jackie O’s producer be her “intern”, reek of The Golden Bachelor desperation to lure in low-information voters.
As a keen fisherman she sure knows how to bait her fellow senators, especially the Greens’ Mehreen Faruqi.
When she’s not maintaining her four properties around the world, the deputy leader of the minor party loves nothing more than wrapping herself in a keffiyeh and screaming about how unfair the parliament is – despite her being a part of its state and federal machinery for 12 years.
Hanson whinges she’s denied free speech, yet took time off to complain about Australia in the US during an address at the conservative’s Coachella – CPAC – rather than spending time working on her private member’s bills.
Former Labor senator Fatima Payman thinks Hanson is more offensive than the Iranian regime. Lidia Thorpe wants to burn the place to the ground.
The only talent with the ability to rise above the hot air this year were the Nats.
Queenslander Matt Canavan always brings the debate back to legislation and legitimate research.
Bridget McKenzie raised a valid point of order this week when the upper house wasted more time screaming “racist” across the chamber than it did scrutinising bills.
Crossbencher and former Wallabies captain David Pocock looks shell-shocked most days when it dawns on him he left elite sport to join all these professional victims.
All’s Fair is trash, but parliament this year was non-recyclable waste.
All’s Fair is streaming now on Disney+
Federal parliament resumes on February 3
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