Yet another phenomenon

The 'Drover's Dog' election is part of the Australian electoral lexicon. It is the unlosable election. One of these took place in 1972 to replace the clapped out liberal government with something different. Labour's campaign slogan was "It's time" and no sentient being required any elaboration. As its reward for agreeing that it was indeed time Australia got Gough Witlam, his even more extraordinary wife and Jim Cairns.

The phrase was coined, however, in 1983 when deployed in bitterness by Bill Hayden to describe the election that would take place on March 5th that year.

In the mean time the liberals led by Malcolm Fraser had recovered power after Gough Witlam was sacked by the Governor-General on November 11th 1975; circumstances still contentious today.

Fraser's governement had run its course by 1983 and looked in its turn entirely bankrupt. Bill Hayden had already begun his long trek from fairly wide left of centre to where he today stands in the political landscape as a rather antidiluvialist fiscal conservative monarchist. But he'd failed to convince the men who have always run the Labour party (at this time the NSW right-wing machine) entirely of his ability to lead the party to an election victory an impression that was compounded by failure to win a by-election.

The signs being deemed by this failure to be inpropitious the machine swung into action. It had at its disposal a political gem. As ACTU president that infamous Rhodes Scholar, serial philanderer and all-round drunk Bob Hawke had acquired a reputation as a fixer by dint of doing absolutely nothing. The trick he'd mastered was to wait in the wings while disputing parties ground themselves and each other to a state of exhaustion; at which point Hawke would glide gracefully to centre stage and magically broker precisely the sort of agreement all parties were desperate for anyway.

Hawke was no longer a political agent on the fringes; he'd been elected to parliament in the previous election and was quite nakedly and gleefully engineering Hayden's departure. The machine were perfectly amenable, considering Hawke a better bet as Labour leader for securing long term power.

And so the trigger was pulled one morning in February 1983; Hayden resigned before being butchered. But even before Hayden's obituary could be delivered Fraser had already the same morning (and oblivious to events in the Labour party) called on the Governor General as the necessary first step in calling an election.

Hayden delivered his judgement on the election in full bitter awareness that had he held off just a few hours he would have led the party into it. As a kind of revenge he continued his journey ever right-ward.

The next time I had the opportunity to witness a Drover's Dog election at close quarters was in May 1997 and here in the UK. It was the election at which the British delivered the final coup de grace on the long Tory period in office that had begun with Maggie's triumphal arrival.

They were so desperate to see the back of John Major and the whole tawdry shower surrounding him they were prepared to buy the pitch of Tony Blair without even asking to see the price tag.

Something like that atmosphere seems to surround the federal election underway in Australia. So eager to shuffle Howard off his perch they're prepared to sanction the oily little oik that is Kev. Rudd, persistent god-botherer, busy body, sleeze bag, crock and control freak.

Right now the Exclusive Bretheren (know much about them? thought not) only have the run of the PM's office. The prospect of them having grubby mitts on the levers of power - while proscribing direct participation in the electoral process by sect members - should be deeply scary. What is it about Australians that they should be able to sleep walk towards this disaster. And if Howard isn't replaced by the Great Smirk, will it be the Mad Monk instead?

'Home' is a chimera; and it slips further from reach each day, or so it seems.