Leadership! Doesn't the very phrase send sparks of terror shooting down your spine? It does mine. If you're anything like me, the word conjures up images of week long life improvement seminars that you've been forced to attend by your well-meaning but ultimately sociopathic employer, who themselves refuse to believe a conversation has just occurred unless it's accompanied by a MindMap (TM). David Brent has a lot to answer for. But in spite of this, if there has been one constant in the torrential outpouring of apathy and scorn that has accompanied the 2010 Australian election to date, then the absence of visible leadership has definitely been it. People (read: newspaper columnists, bloggerz, Twitter users, me) have spent the last fortnight looking on in disbelief as policy after policy has been jettisoned and neutered by both leaders like so many unwanted cats. Horrible beasts. Both Gillard and Abbott seem to be approaching this election like a game of musical statues, bounding about the country with great energy and speed, but freezing in place the instant they are pushed to, you know, actually commit to something. Boats are being stopped, spending is being cut, taxes are being rolled back, immigration is being halved but God forbid one of them should actually articulate a consistent, bold, well-reasoned policy that doesn't arrive from the mouths of half-a-dozen committees and a small army of pollsters that could probably take Helm's Deep if they were so inclined.



Sunday's Prime Ministerial Debate was a case in point, an event so utterly devoid of meaningful difference that it probably retained the name 'Debate' due to the fact that it had already been printed in the TV guides as much as anything else. Rather than being edified and informed by the spectacle of two learned, passionate people fighting for their fundamental belief in how this country might actually be "moved forward", we were treated to a Mix'n'Match assortment of talking points and rote monologues that occasionally felt like they were being drawn from a hat, so abstracted were they from the all-too-human experience of actually arguing for something you believe in. Gillard used the phrase 'moving forward' five times, but was finally trumped by Abbott who threw down the words 'fair dinkum' no less than seven times, another stirring victory for the Liberal Party's Hey Hey, It's Your Pal Tony campaign. The Debate was a political redundancy, put in place merely to assuage the expectation of the electorate that prospective leaders will subject themselves to some degree of televised scrutiny. But due to both its timing - so early in the campaign and an hour before the palpably more significant MasterChef final - and the reluctance of either Party to actually take a chance on their policy base, the debate just ended up functioning more like a remarkably amicable joint press conference.


Sorry, in times of political trauma I just retreat to The West Wing. Jimmy Smits makes the pain go away.

However, what really galls me about the whole thing - beyond the realisation that there are still four weeks of this joyless circus yet to unfold - is that Abbott and Gillard had been, up to this point, politicians renowned for both their conviction and personality. But suddenly, thrust into the spotlight, and with Abbott cast as divisive and Gillard struggling for political legitimacy, they've both abdicated those traits which made them potential leaders in the first place and skewed instead towards some loosely perceived, Howard-esque middle ground, which these days exists as a sort of political Limbo, desirable for its ability to cause the minimal amount of offence to the most amount of people. Ignoring the fact that Howard himself created this middle ground through a powerful and at times ruthless brand of leadership. As Mungo McCallum wrote in the aftermath of the debate: "Never has the prime ministership of Australia been contested by such a pair of abject, craven, weak-kneed, whey-faced, chicken-hearted, lily-livered, jelly-bellied milksops". I was really hoping he'd finish up with the phrase 'Caspar Milquetoasts' (Monkey Island fans? Anyone? Anyone?), but I guess milksop will do.



For the last couple of centuries, thought about the best way to lead those large groups of humans that we've come to call 'countries' has oscillated between 'tell them exactly what to do' (see Korea, North) and 'let them do whatever they want' (see Party, The Tea). Obviously most Governments on Earth sit somewhere between these two points, but it illustrates a paradox at the heart of democracy: to what extent should Governments be responsive to public opinion and to what extent should they shape it? That is, are they administrators or leaders? This is, of course, a question that has no absolute answer, except in the most entertainingly unhinged corners of the political spectrum, but I would suggest that perhaps in the election we see unfolding before us the administrative drive is kicking the living shit out of leadership. That is: the turn to those endless polls is winning; the risk-averse impulse of political advisers is winning; the fear of media controversy is winning; the patronisation of the Australian public is winning; the fear of change is winning. And, as a result, it feels like the entire system is starting to lose.

So, then, who will come to save us in our time of struggle? Who will come to imbue our political system with the energy and passion it deserves? Could it be? Up in the sky? It is! Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-BATPUG!



But, seriously, we need Malcolm Turnbull back.