Like a Scandal in the Wind

I know I’m not breaking any new ground here, but politics is a dirty business. It’s just ironic that you have to be squeaky clean to get anywhere in it.

We have news today of the tabling of a report into some Goss-Rudd child sex cover-up from 1990. I remember the issue well. At the time I was playing in the backyard with my Transformers when Barney rushed in with the news. I dropped Optimus and leapt to my wireless for the 4pm headlines.

Not really. I just have to say I know nothing of this particular issue, and obviously if K-Rudd was complicit in hiding sexual abuse in detention centres seventeen years ago he should be hung. What I’m interested in is how you’re never past your past in politics. We have all sides of politics manning their dirt squads in the hope of picking up something sufficiently bad to destroy their opposition.

But I ask you, what person out there who has lived a reasonable life has not done something at one time or another that, if splashed on the front page during an election, would mean a sheepish withdrawal, public apology and possible legal charges? I wager most people would fail this test. Certainly anyone who’s been to a university college, or anyone who enjoys a drink or fifteen on a Friday night, or anyone who knows what the game “Goon of Fortune” involves.

Not me of course. Nothing shadowy in my past other than a couple of Asian sex tours I organised and the occasional stint as a bookie at the dogfights, but you see where I’m going with this. Maybe that’s why there are so many Christians in the parliament. The only ones at Uni not getting drunk, naked and arrested were the teetotallers attending chapel instead of the boat races on a Friday night.

Well I propose a radical change to our parliamentary system. No nominated candidate can be accepted onto the ballot without presenting a photo of him or her doing a nudie run, testimony of a secret gay lover or evidence of extensive drug use/cultivation. Lets turn the process on its head and get the scandals out early, so we can consider all the facts before casting our vote.

“Well, I’m still not convinced that turning back the Industrial Relations laws is a good idea, but check out this youtube video of Rudd sticking a lit firecracker up his arse and pulling a bong on the steps of St John's Cathedral.”

He’d have my vote.