Wooley: Despite our election’s non-result it still provided plenty of laughs

As the results of the poll unfolded my mates kept asking why the premier had gone to an election when he ended up looking worse off? Fortunately I was spared from answering too many of their probing questions by an eccentric photobomber.

I watched Tasmania’s election night television coverage from what is known in Sydney as “The Shire”.

Never to be confused with my own “Happy Shire” of Sorell, Sydney’s Sutherland Shire was Captain Cook’s choice for the site of the first British Settlement/Invasion. Take your pick on that one. But Kurnell was James Cook’s ‘Captain’s pick’ in 1770.

In the event, when the First Fleet arrived in 1788, Botany Bay soon proved totally unsuitable for settlement. Port Jackson on the other hand had abundant fresh water and a magnificent harbour.

Proving as Paul Keating would arrogantly declare two centuries later, “If you don’t live in Sydney, you are just camping.”

I was editing a television story and staying in The Shire. My Sydney journo mates were happy enough to travel down to Cronulla. They love the beachside lifestyle, especially the cool bars, and the stylish but reasonably priced eateries. I can only wish my Tasmanian southern beaches in the happy shire of Sorell could be so tempting.

But I am sure, without my invitation last Saturday night those Sydney journalists would never have watched anything so remote and seemingly irrelevant as a Tasmanian election.

They were generous to indulge me, even though as the evening developed, I couldn’t answer all their questions.

The Liberal’s seasoned campaigner Eric Abetz on the panel in the tally room, at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, on the night of last week’s state election. Picture: Chris Kidd

“Why did this bloke Rockefeller bring on an election when he ends up looking worse off than before?”

“Well, he thought it was a good idea at the time.”

“And now he’s got Eric Abetz on board. Won’t Eric want the top job?” asked a Canberra scribe.

“Well, for what it’s worth Eric says he doesn’t.”

They all laughed because in Sydney, journalists are as cynical as their politicians are ruthlessly ambitious.

I tried to point out that in Tasmania it’s not like that.

Ambitious politicians are as rare as Tasmanian Tigers.

I haven’t seen one in more than a decade.

(Although I think Labor’s Dean Winter has what Shakespeare called “a lean and hungry look”.)

Former Labor leader Rebecca White exits the tally room at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, on the night of last week’s election. Picture: Chris Kidd

But I explained that usually, our political leaders slip away to spend more time with their families.

“Ah,” they asked, “Is that why the Labor leader has so quickly conceded even though no party has a majority?

“Why doesn’t she do a deal with the Greens?”

As an only mildly rational human being I couldn’t quite answer that. “Because she promised she wouldn’t, weeks before the election. And besides, the faceless men who run the party wouldn’t let her.”

“That was stupid!” The Canberra cynic wanted more. “Look at the numbers. The Liberals have so little electoral support Labor could reasonably have a change of mind ‘for the good of the state.’

“Why ever not?”

The best I could do was to explain that the worst falling-out in Tasmania is always in the family.

“You see the Greens were once the environmental progressive wing of the ALP. But back in eighties they got divorced over Labor wanting to dam the Franklin River. They tried getting back together but it didn’t work. Now they disagree about everything, from native forest logging to industrial salmon farming.”

The police presence in the Hobart tally room in the Hotel Grand Chancellor on the night of last week’s state election. Picture: Chris Kidd

“But they agree about not wanting the Hobart stadium,” someone chipped in. “Though it does look like a magnificent site. If you had a real city to go with it.”

It was a cruel point, but I had to concede a fair one. “Well to some extent we always have problems in Tassie with keeping things in proportion. I must admit I thought the Liberal government would have polled a bit better because we do have an excessive appetite for bread and circuses.”

They were then moving on to the subject of Jacqui Lambie. They loved her “telling Rockefeller where to stick his stadium”. Mainlanders always enjoy a Tasmanian stoush, and we always oblige.

Happily, I was spared when pictures from the tally room showed an eccentric figure, bespectacled and wearing a huge Andy Warhol wig. The man was carrying a placard proclaiming “I’m Eric’s son.”

The eccentric, bespectacled figure who photo-bombed the ABC TV panel's election coverage on the night. Picture Supplied

He had strategically placed himself behind the ABC’s election panel where the Greens Senator Nick McKim and the triumphantly returned Eric Abetz were slagging off at one and other.

“Charlie who’s your mate there. Is that the bloke from Mona?”

“No, he’s not Walsh but this is a mate of mine. It’s my neighbour Jeff Blake. He is a Tasmanian performance artist who specialises in photo-bombing and sabotaging the pompous and the great. He is our answer to Salvador Dali. He is our only Dadaist.”

(Some explanation kiddies; after the horrors of World War I, the Dada movement saw artists rejecting conventional social norms and critique in favour of playful nonsense and irrationality. Today we would call it ‘taking the piss’.)

“So, what’s your mate protesting about?”

“Everything”, would have been the easy answer. But since Jeff had his phone number displayed on his placard, I decided that my journo friends could ask him themselves.

“Gentlemen, what I have demonstrated is that despite tonight’s result Tasmania remains a free and egalitarian society,” he told them. “So safe, absolutely anyone can rock up to our election room count as I just did, armed only with an Andy Warhol wig, a pair of coke bottle glasses and a sign that read ‘I’m Eric’s Son’.”

For the first time that night I could see my jaded reporter mates were becoming fascinated by the Tasmanian political process.

But the security forces were closing in and it was time for Jeff to make a discreet exit. “I better get along as this will be the last time you will ever see me playing Eric’s son at the polling count.”

Jeff was right. He has already been banned all over Hobart, from earnest literary functions and artistic events, for imitating Richard Flanagan and teasing David Walsh.

No harm in any of that iconoclasm and my assembled colleagues down in the Shire loved it. Afterall we were in the home of ScoMo, the great political satirist and ukulele player.

“Mate, thank you. We never knew a night of Tassie politics could be so amusing. Even if we still don’t have the faintest clue what it’s about.”

A footnote: there is a marketing method in Jeff’s madness.

I understand those election night capers were just a curtain raiser for his latest hi-tech venture, the launch of Spaceclock1 which will reveal to the world Tasmania’s new space program.

I have no idea what our only Dadaist is up to, but I won’t miss it. And neither should you.

What: Launch of Spaceclock I.

Band: Sons of Eric.

Where: Hope and Anchor Hotel Hobart.

When: Thursday, April 4, from 5.30pm.

Charles Wooley is a Tasmanian-based journalist