Please think before you apply the pencil today

Decision time: casting a vote. Picture: Marc McCormack.

May 21. On this day, in 1930, Malcolm Fraser was born in toffy Toorak. He would become Australia’s 22nd prime minister. These days I doubt he’d get preselection.

Other notables sharing this birthdate include Al Franken, Mr T, Julius Caesar’s mum, Fats Waller, Alexander Pope, Raymond Burr, Albrecht Durer, Philip II of Spain, Henri Rousseau, Andrei Sakharov, John Konrads, Leo Sayer and that nice Jeffrey Dahmer. It was the deathday for John Gielgud, Barbara Cartland and Rajiv Gandhi.

Great events on May 21? In 1927, Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo, non-stop flight across the Atlantic. In 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to do ditto. In 1972, Australian ratbag Laszlo Toth entered St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City and modified a Michelangelo masterpiece with a mallet. In 1502, Joao Da Nova discovered St Helena, future prison of Napoleon. In 1819, the first bicycle was introduced to NYC. 1966? Muhammad Ali beat Henry Cooper. 1981? Mitterrand became President of France. In 1998, Suharto resigned as President of Indonesia.

And those two political changes reminds us that today, May 21, 2022 is… drum roll… a federal election.

We’re told that the pen is mightier than the sword, though the continuing murder of journalists – by thugs including Putin – suggests otherwise. But today will illustrate that the pencil can be mightier than the pen. On the assumption that the tradition of marking the ballot with an HB pencil dangling on a piece of string in our voting booths continues, today we have the opportunity to mix metaphors by changing horses midstream or continuing on our merry way.

In either case our weapon, opting for ballot over bullet, is that ceremonial pencil. Let the others have their voting machines where you pull levers in a political parody of the pokies. Here, this May 21, ’tis a humble wooden pencil. Though our democracy does remain a gamble. (Joy oh joy! Queensland readers, for example, have a choice for the Senate that includes Pauline Hanson, George Christensen and Clive Palmer. What could possibly go wrong?)

I wouldn’t dream of attempting to influence anyone’s use of that all-powerful pencil. If you wish to prolong the political life of a government of unprecedented ineptitude – as demonstrated by the response to Covid and the slow-motion but accelerating catastrophe of climate change – go for it. If you’re happy with ever more extreme weather events – droughts, floods and bushfires – you have candidates galore and a few entire parties to rely upon. If you like a government that produces enough financial scandals to keep a non-existent federal ICAC flat out forever, be my guest. A party that treats women wretchedly? Follow your nose – or hold your nose – and aim your HB accordingly. If you feel differently, there are alternatives. And not just Albo’s mob.

All the strings holding all the pencils can, in a sense, be woven into a rope to hang a parliament. (I’ve become quite partial to hung parliaments. Gillard proved they can be productive. And independents add interesting ingredients to the political recipe.)

A few weeks back in this column I reminisced about coming up with a slogan that helped elect Labor politician Moss Cass in 1969. “I don’t mind how you vote as long as you think about it.” It might not have been as potent or powerful as “It’s time”, but it had merit. So please think before you apply the pencil.