...what Have We Learned?
SUNDAY AGE
Saturday September 26, 1992
A WEEK from election day, and after watching the great debate the other night I'm not sure I trust Mr Aesop and his fables. He was clearly a man for the surprise ending.
What if the truth was that the hare, with the wind behind him and no lead in his saddle, ran out and won by a mile, sending the punters home to watch American basketball on the television vowing never again? Not much of a fable, and Aesop was the man to know it.
It is true that there hangs around Mr Kennett an aura, if there can be such, of self-destruct. But the other night he looked in peak form. He gave a practised performance without making it look practised. He spoke in plain English where Mrs Kirner, supposedly closer to the people, spoke in phrases such as ``10,000 trend employment", conjuring up the image of a crowd of bureaucrats at her elbows.
Kennett's performance, undoubtedly as much rehearsed and as well ``minded" as Mrs Kirner's, was designed to hide all the helpers and work that went into it. The idea was to make Kennett alone the one in charge, as if what you saw was all you would get when he was voted in.
Mind you, the hare likes open country. The Kennett performance was assured not because Kennett has captured the high policy ground but because he was gliding happily in a light breeze of happy generalities. Hope and excitement were constantly mentioned; there was the slogan ``Life After Labor". Above all there was Boys' Own cheerfulness, a modest smile, the politeness of looking at his opponent while she spoke _ the physical impression of a nice young man with no past and nothing to hide, and the energy to serve his state. In sum, a cleanskin and low-risk.
This was a big contrast with Mrs Kirner, who certainly got into the glass of water. She is to be admired for exposing herself to the sort of occasion that is not her forte. She is one of the world's leading ``networkers", who work best behind the scenes.
But it is not enough to say that style won the night, or flair. Viewers see and hear more than they are given credit for. This is true in ordinary conversations, in which we spend a lot of time trying not to ``see" or hear what friends and family are saying.
Looked at a little harder, the Kennett performance was more than a presentation of a lightly likeable man who will be all go come 4 October. It was the work of an old pro, and the other old pros that he, like every other political leader, needs to rely on.
Professionals, whatever the gimmick for the night, never neglect to press the traditional buttons. Liberals like to be reminded of the war, and like parents to be mentioned respectfully. Liberals think the media are biased against them and like to see them handled imperiously or at least made fun of. Liberals have always liked to hear that you can't trust Labor with financial management, and can certainly crow this time.
Above all, Liberals have their demons, ``Mrs Kirner's friends in the unions" as Kennett put it, and the devil himself Mr Halfpenny, whose name was dragged in three or four times.
Subliminally then, Kennett was making the sort of speech politicians used to make on street corners and in town halls. There was a lot of verbal elbowing, debating points, a raised-voice insistence that Kirner's political record be remembered and Kennett's forgotten, and so on. But we were given a lesson in packaging a political product for television, as befits an advertising man. The surface impression was cool, relaxed, seeming to promise that the way out of our dreadful difficulties lay not in policies but in attitude.
Attitude is what our would-be premier has in great quantity. ``My sole purpose," he said (I am paraphrasing), ``is to put in place a philosophy for jobs." A philosophy, mind you, not a policy.
Kennett made a couple of slips in the debate. One was where, referring to the superannuation gaffe, he began to say ``I will never forgive myself" for that and changed it mid-stream to ``never apologise". A serious man, especially one campaigning for Labor to apologise with its political life, would have admitted to his mistake.
A wild thought occurs: could these campaign days be the best political days Mr Kennett will know? Days of striking an attitude of promise and hope, of toying with the tortoise he can so easily beat to the line and with nothing to do that a natural advertiser has not done many times before.
The hare is a good deal more fun to watch, and perhaps it is worth listening to Aesop and staying on to the end to see just what the hare may do. In the fable and in life he comes unstuck for being too cocky, too pleased with himself. In politics these characteristics are an occupational hazard, as Kennett knowns from his past.
© 1992 SUNDAY AGE