It’s not easy being seen when you’re green

Bob Brown turned a near catatonic voice quality into a cult status, but Christine Milne is having a hard time getting the electorate to get a handle on who she is. Whereas Bob Brown had strangely cool, old-school aura, Christine Milne seems a bit frazzled, a bit harried and constantly on the verge of a cranky rant.

In other words, like the rest of us.

I get there’s a lot to be frazzled, harried, cranky and downright murderous about if you are a greenie leftie pollie from Tassie.

But, turning up for work looking like a dead ringer for a put-upon secondary school principal, who keeps her papers in a supermarket shopping bag that’s flapping in the wind is not going to win votes, hearts or donors. Or media time.

So, what can Christine of the Greens do?

– A complete makeover, starting with a funky haircut, highlights and new set. Of glasses.

– Befriend Clive. Why not? Clive and Al Gore are besties, after all.

– Befriend Jackie. They must have something in common. Fleuro scarves perhaps?

– Maybe some policies that have a chance.

Sure, it’s not easy being green, it shouldn’t be this hard either. Methinks the Greens should go positive and lighten up a bit, more like a minty green, not deep khaki. It is a nice spring-like colour, and their anger, however justified, is not working in voterland and lord knows, we are all in need of a dose of positive politik.

 

 

 

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A political life is full of woe

Who would be a politician? At least in Australia. (It’s probably pretty good in Italy where you can bonk underage Middle Eastern prostitutes and then lie about it, be convicted and still be a hero).

As for Australia, all you have to do is keep the economy strong, introduce a disability scheme and educational reforms and put a price on carbon to help the environment and they’ll hate you.

I know what happened to Julia was partly of her own making. I know she should never have hung out with the faceless men, donned the pearls or slowed down her speech to pre-kinder level. It was all, well, not the real Julia. But then what is? The sad thing is we never got to find out.

So now, as a relatively young woman (I don’t know about you but 51 is looking younger and younger all the time), she’s lost her career, along with so many others in the Labor party. These are people who devoted their life to the joint and probably started out with some grand ideas and are now unceremoniously cast out. I guess they get to keep their parliamentary pension, a bit of super, and some can land a book deal or hop on the speakers’ circuit if they are interesting enough. But it is a shame that our political system and the 24 hour news cycle doesn’t allow politicians a little breathing space and we are all the poorer for it.