Thursday, September 09, 2004
Election hots up
Political Parties in Poetry Play-Off

Leading Australian politicians have poetically responded to accusations that the Federal election campaign is being dumbed-down, by taking part in a head to head, full-on, fight-to-the-death, poetry competition.

Critics had previously slammed Federal Treasurer Peter Costello and ALP Leader Mark Latham for reducing the level of public debate in the run up to the election to facile three word, rhyming ‘catchphrases’.

Earlier this week, Latham launched the ALP’s pre-election tax and benefit manifesto in which he said he would “Ease the Squeeze” on hard-working middle income families.

Responding later that day, Costello hit back, criticising Latham for attempting to mislead the Australian public with inaccurate figures and trying to “Hoax the Folks”.

Since then, two independent think-tanks have criticised the leading political parties for attempting to ‘denigrate the quality of public debate’ and of ‘reducing a fundamental democratic freedom [that of voting] to a choice between who can come up with the catchiest prose’.

Emmanuel Hinds, from the Public Institute for Society, Synergies and Providing Objective Open Rhetoric (PISS-POOR) said:

“The main parties are both doing the Australian voting public a huge disservice by turning the most important aspects of democracy into a juvenile game of sound bite rapping.”

“If Howard and Latham are serious about engaging the voters in this election campaign, then they’re both going to have to lift their game,” he said.

“Simple three word ditties just don’t cut it. Quality public debate can only come from a more challenging poetic forms,” he concluded.

To answer their critics, the leaders of the two main parties, incumbent PM John Howard and Latham went live to broadcast yesterday in a more meaningful poetry competition, where more difficult forms of verse were tackled.

Opening up, in the “Limerick Lambast” round, John Howard foretold of a humbling end to the ALP leader’s election challenge:

Not to be outdone, Latham hit back:

Round two required the challengers to adopt the style of 19th Century American poet, Edgar Allan Poe in “The Raven”. Again, Howard led off:

To which Latham retorted:

In the rough and tumble of electioneering, the poetry play-off provided welcome relief for many voters, away from the usual humdrum of unintelligent and sycophantic, lowest-common-denominator clap-trap that is usually trotted about this time.

Next week, organisers of the poetry event are arranging a burping competition to continue the in the spirit of raising the standard of public political debate. It is hoped that incumbent Health Minister, Tony Abbott and former Labor Leader and big hitter, Simon Crean can meet the challenge.

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