We told you so – and Greens: you blew it!

Now that the farce otherwise known as the NT election has panned out exactly as predicted by the Network Against Prohibition, a few home truths linger, like gargoyles staring us in the face.

Each beady eye points at one and the same thing, both connected: the future of the Northern Territory - and the future of the NT Greens.

Last first. The greens, those perennial also-rans, preferenced me and co-Napatista Gary Meyerhoff behind the ALP in two important seats.

They gave them both to the incumbents, Matthew “the invisible man” Bonson in Millner, and Dr Chris Burns (Johnston). I believe the Greens did it for personal reasons. They will say it was some sort of “strategy”. Either way, and just for the record, what follows are signposts of green which despite the alleged party’s professed intention, do not, in my opinion, point to Nirvana.

I mainly read or heard them beginning Wednesday, June 15, the day preferences were issued. They showed Gary and I third behind Bonson and Burns.

From then on, it was a succession of quotes which cry out for analysis and which to me were the pits.

Taken in context of the “personal calibre” of the contestants, which the Greens boasted was the reasoning behind their decision, they reek of stinking hypocrisy.

As everybody knows by now, NAP does not issue preferences. But reality checks?

We’ve got bulk.

Especially for the Greens.

With the hooplah over and Territorians settling once more into the kind of lifestyle they have known and loved for 30 years, it is apt that we deliver.

The first “quote of concern” came on the Wednesday. It was:

“We weighed up that we preferred the ALP's candidate to the independent candidate or the CLP in Millner."(1)

That’s innocuous enough. But in the same press statement was this:

“The way that our preferences were decided was a combination of how our members felt in the electorates and how our candidates felt about the personal calibre of the other candidates" (my emphasis).(2)

If ever there were an award for Quote of the Campaign, that would surely be it. What were the Greens trying to say about the other candidates? That they didn’t like them for some reason? That they thought they were preferencing the better man?

It didn’t end there. The flier wedged in my letter box, on Aralia Street, Nightcliff, was replete with its own astounding revelations. It arrived the next day and contained one short, three-word sentence that has to be read to be believed. I’ll get to that. I will say, though, that this one small line is probably the Everest of junk-mail moments in political campaigning. For the moment, I shall deal with a sentence on the bottom of page two of that pale-green (what else?) flier, which was this:

“Parliaments, with a mix of small parties and independents (my emphasis) are more likely to achieve accountability and openness.”(3)

In any man’s language, that is a noble sentiment. But it is right about here that things begin to turn in on themselves. It appears that either the Greens forgot that they’d made all the preceding statements, which they summarily contradicted with their preferencing, or their own publicity machine contradicted them in lieu.

One reality check we can freely dispense, is this: Gary and I cared nix about who the Greens preferenced. We knew it would make absolutely no difference in the big scheme of things. It has reflected badly upon the Greens, not us. Certainly, NAP was surprised the way they turned on us. But hey, we’ve been turned on by better people than the Greens.

That the Greens preferenced the ALP – NAP’s jailers – before us is one thing. That one of their choices went to somebody who is happy to throw the term “poofter” across the NT Legislative Assembly, is another.

And if the word poofter, used by one man to insult another – in parliament – is not enough to register on the Greens’ “personal calibre” meter, then let’s take a flashback to last October, when Dr Burns was at it again, this time challenging the opposition’s John Elferink, again in parliament, to “move outside”.

“You watch yourself . . . I’ll have you . . . move outside,” he said to Elferink.(4)

There we had it: a sitting member of parliament using homophobic terms and threats of violence against another politician, in the so-called sacred chamber.

Nevertheless, despite this appalling and embarrassing backdrop of yard-dog politics, the Greens put their thinking caps on and disgorged their preferences. Contenting themselves with the suicidal premise that people’s memories are short, they then explained their decision with typical duckspeak.

That act demonstrated the Greens’ self-destructive streak. Not content with the golden gong for self-delusion, they played their hand of personal bias. Not even Alice in Wonderland believes in the system, much less that she could win a seat in the supposed democratic process that creates and feeds it. And that’s what the Greens are all guilty of. Their repeated attempts to “win a seat” serves only to bolster and support the whole corrupt, disgusting system.

And yet they had the gall to talk about the calibre of other candidates . . . of NAP’s calibre!

Had they let their preferences speak for themselves, without smashing them to pieces with accompanying press statements, nobody would have been the wiser. But it was those disgraceful attempts at justification - and then the claptrap in their campaign flier – that went beyond the pale.

I hardly know Matty Bonson. He seems a likeable bloke with whom I’ve been known to chat across a crowded check-out. But he is and has been for years, a “do-nothing, say even less” politician. His claims to fame have been outside parliament and almost made him a cult figure. He got into a punch-up with a teammate in a basketball game once, and in a footy match, took a leak behind a bush.

The Greens might know him better than I, and opted to vote him up because they regard him as a personal friend. The absurdity of that argument is self-evident, regardless of how contrived the system is. As far as antics go, Bonson’s might have raised a few eyebrows - but those of his party, combined with its morally bankrupt policies and members of highly dubious character, make the Greens’ choice for Millner suspicious to say the least.

It was the Johnston card that beggars belief. This was the chief act of unmitigated treachery committed against people whose actions speak louder than words, and who are the only force in this town seriously trying to do something to instigate real reform and change.

Chris Burns is somebody I know even less about than Matty Bonson. But as far as I’m concerned, his antics – which are on record as constituting antisocial behaviour – demonstrate the mark of the man.

To me, his media hits are sufficient indictment of his character. To put it piscatorially, Burns, Labor’s former chemist-turned-Transport Minister, is an entirely different kettle of fish – and suitably on the nose.

Yet the Greens announced that they thought he was/is the better person for whatever job he was/is supposed to do. What was it Greens? Was rating a member of NAP right behind your own candidate, Kate Neely, too shocking to contemplate?

I hope that was the only reason because you hardly know the NAP candidates. I can tell you this: Meyeheroff might not be a saint. But he is no gutless homophobe.

Burns should have been last on the card. He should be the one in jail. But that’s another story.

When I saw what you’d done, I knew all bets were immediately off and that the rot had set in big time.

The Greens – they who were so vocal on matters of principal - flattened me with that decision. In making it I wondered if they were also in agreeance that some members of NAP should go to jail? Do you believe this Greens?

You do know that Labor’s stated intention is to jail us for our non-violent political activism, do you not?

And there’s the rub. In rating Burns and Bonson up, you also rubber-stamped Labor party policy. You do know this, too, don’t you?

Tempted as I am, I shall not get personal, as I believe you did with your preferences. What I will say is that if you didn’t already know, you are definitely not up to yard-dog politics. That’s all we’ve had in Australia for 30 years, and that’s all we’ll be getting up here in the tropics for the next four years, at least.

If you’re not already there, you’re fading into irrelevancy. You’re going the way of the Democrats. And don’t think you couldn’t disappear like them, leaving not so much as a vapour trail.

You’re there just to make us look democratic. It pains me to say it, but NAP knew that your precious preferencing would make not one iota of difference in the long-suffering big picture.

We know – and so probably do you, deep down - that you don’t really want to make the world a better place. If you did, you would be shouting from the cliff-tops that the current state of government, governing and governors in this country sucks.

I confess that there is one answer that remains at large. It is the answer to the question of how somebody who was once sacked from a good job for committing a courageous act of principal 17 years ago, can cast off principals and vote for a homophobe ahead of a committed activist.

That explanation remains somewhere in the bioplasmic universe, at least for the time being.

What the Greens did to NAP in preferencing was a shame-job, and that’s what they should feel – shame.

Failed and one-time Opposition Leader Terry Mills has just the t-shirts for you. They come in two colours – pink and orange – and you can pick them up for $30 a pop from stores like Attitude, in Darwin. You might get five cents change, but if you tip the shop assistant, who is on not much more per-hour as a permanent part-time-casual-on-call-temp, you’ll feel better for the experience. As well, she’ll welcome the coin.

The hype and hooplah, and all the talk of principals and integrity has gone until the next campaign. What is not gone is the hopeless betrayal of which the Greens are guilty. They promise so much, election after election, and continue to deliver zilch.

And this time, they sunk the boot into the only truly progressive group of people in this town. Whichever way you cut the mustard, NAP’s arguments are unimpeachable.

Contrary to how the Greens feel, NAP is triumphant.

This is because we never betrayed anybody. We know and so do they, that we never let our supporters down. That, I suspect, is the prime “reasoning” behind the Greens’ precious preferencing.

The second worst thing to come out of all this is the legacy the Democrats have left to their founder, the great Don Chipp. He would have turned in his grave, had he seen the feeble showing by the poor old NT branch, which failed to register in time and had the ignominy of seeing their candidate listed simply as an independent.

The worst thing that came out of last week’s coma olympics was that the Greens have now become a hindrance to real agitators pushing for reform.

Greens, you are a joke – a softcock patsy that still believes in the system and couldn’t care less about the environment. For instance, why is it that you have never drawn attention to the devastation being caused to the forests in Latin America by defoliants being sprayed upon them plane-load after plane-load as part of the Australian-backed American War on Drugs? And guess what: it’s not just the jungles that are dying – it’s fish and marine life, too.

Dolphins, even whales, are falling victim to the toxic run-off.(5)

Perhaps your interest meter that gauges issues of serious concern such as this has gone the way of your personal-calibre barometer of NT politics.

And that’s what it is all about – politics. This leads me back to those three telling words – that one prophetic sentence, the very first, that was on the election flier that one of the Greens’ loyal letter-boxers plopped in my letter-box last week.

It hit me between the eyes and when it did, I could have wept.

The very first sentence on that flier was:

“Politics is boring.”

Fortunately, I had my trusty bucket-bong on hand to deal with this incoming madness. Congratulations Greens, I thought, in one succinct declaration of rare honesty, you have showed your true colours. You couldn’t have destroyed the last shred of credibility you had with NAP if you tried.

To qualify my own reference to the “coma olympics”, I shall say that yes, politics is boring - on one level.

But it’s boring not because the ebb and flow, the parry and thrust, the thrill of the contest, is not worth observation and experience. It is boring because modern plutocracies, with their tawdry “democratic” election campaigns, have made it so disgusting and revolting that people categorise the subject with that one simple word, simply to avoid arguments at barbecues and dinner parties.

The flipside to the argument - and this is the cogent point – is that political science should be taught at primary schools so that we as adults, might have a better understanding of they who would control and legislate us, and their modus operandi. Children should be allowed to vote the moment they learn to read, write and comprehend the world around them.

Yes, people do see politics as boring – but for entirely different reasons to the ones you touted and offended me so much with in your so-called campaign flier.

And now that the streamers have come down and the chardonnay is all drunk, real social reformers like NAP will still be out there to remind you of how ashamed you should be and how much more work there is still to be done.

You’ve done yourselves more harm than you’ll ever know.

RIP Greens.

PS: Thanks to those who voted for me.

(1) Greens press statement, headed “NT Greens to give preferences to Labor”, broadcast Wednesday afternoon, June 15, 2005, by the ABC and on line.

(2) Ibid

(3) Greens election flier, authorised by C. Dubrow, 5/60 Aralia
Street, Nightcliff. Printed on 100 per cent recycled paper.

(4) Northern Territory News, October 15, 2004, page 7 – “Dishonourable members’’.

(5) “Why Our Drug Laws have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs”, Judge James P. Gray (Temple, 2001), Page 87.

Stop the static, dump the lot

I never used to vote for one good reason: none of the talking heads that were either incumbent or aspiring politicians deserved my vote.

Ever since I was a teenager, I remember wondering why it was that so much of their energies were devoted to trying to whip up interest in what to me was nothing more than static.

As I grew older, I realised that this was what populist politics was. And the old saying, “we get the politicians we deserve”, seemed not quite right for some reason.

After an election campaign too many, the penny finally dropped. What the saying should really be is: “We might deserve the people that go in one end of the sausage factory of politics, but we definitely don’t deserve what comes out the other end”.

We still don’t and never will – nobody, latent stupidity and selective ignorance notwithstanding, deserves to be treated with the contemptuous disregard that has become the hallmark of Australia’s politicians.

Politics is very much a sausage factory, and in this respect, it could be argued, by the plutocrats and their offspring, for instance, that our politicians are really nothing more than silly sausages.

But a more sobering and infinitely sadder argument is that it’s hard to muster an argument in defence of a populace that has allowed itself to be duped, deceived, lied to, ripped off, downtrodden, dumbed-down, disempowered, mocked, insulted, oppressed and appalled, time after time, the way Australians have over recent history – by populist plutocratic politicians in the name of populist plutocratic politics.

If I were a church-goer – the real name for a person who boasts that they are “Christian” - I would say our current crop of political leaders was spawned in hell.

If I were a fisherman, I would say they are nothing more than crab bait.

Like fishermen, you toss away what is of no use to you. That’s what we should be doing with this lot.

That way at least the static would stop. What happens after that, is too hard to predict. But it’s a tantalizing prospect and one we should act upon.

A few previously unseen things might even start to blip on the radar. Real debates, ones thrown into the good old public arena, could flare – imagine that?

Issues such as the War on Drugs, the lunacy of zero-tolerance policing, and the evils of our sectarian and religiously-influenced education systems might once and for all be wrested from the control of the plutocrats, and be subjected to real scrutiny.

As I told Magistrate Dick “Zealous” Wallace, before he sentenced me to a five-month stretch in the stripy hole in 2003, you may say I’m a dreamer.

But I’m not the only one :)