The reality of TV politics

Brett Evans assesses the Vote for Me field for APO THE national secretary of the Labor Party says it should be abandoned ‘in the interests of a proper election campaign’. The federal Minister for State says it ‘trivializes the democratic system’. Kim Beazley claims it ‘demeans the process of government’. And the Liberal Party’s federal secretary wants it stopped. So what is it that’s got Australia’s mainstream politicians in such a lather of furious agreement? A TV show - or more precisely, a segment within a TV show - which our political class would have us believe is the biggest threat to Australian democracy since the Japanese Imperial Army. Channel Seven’s early morning Sunrise programme is currently running a segment called ‘Vote for Me’ which uses a mild version of the reality TV genre to express the sort of rank populism beloved of commercial broadcasters. Noting the electorate’s growing cynicism about politicians ‘Kochie and Mel’ - David Koch and Melissa Doyle, the much-admired comperes of Sunrise - have stepped in to help the little guy (or gal) get a seat in the Senate. To this end, Channel Seven decided to run a TV pre-selection poll and the best candidates would get $10,000 a piece and priceless exposure on Sunrise. Not surprisingly there were howls of indignation from Canberra. What’s the point of being a member of an exclusive club if any old ratbag can slide past the doorman and start buying drinks at the subsidised bar? Even the leader of the Democrats, Andrew Bartlett, fulminated that the ‘Senate is not a game show’. Yet does it sound any more demeaning to our democracy than the messy Liberal Party pre-selection battle in the NSW seat of Wentworth? Or more trivialising of democracy than Mark Latham’s appearance with Kerri-Anne Kennerly and a donkey last week? And if some critics are worried about the undue influence that Channel Seven could hold over these novice politicians, then they’ve obviously never seen Mr Packer’s men at work, or Mr Murdoch’s for that matter. In the end, Channel Seven will be making a declared donation with the Australian Electoral Commission only after the candidates have officially nominated. Channel Seven closed its ears to the self-interested criticisms and got on with the project - delighted, no doubt, at all the free publicity. First up, a panel of experts chose three potential candidates from each state. (The territories don’t get a look in - maybe Sunrise isn’t broadcast in the ACT or the Top End). The panel originally included the journalist Lisa Wilkinson, former John Howard adviser Grahame Morris, and former ALP president Barry Jones. Jones quickly dropped out claiming he’d been misinformed about the nature of the show and was replaced by the one-time independent MP, Phil Cleary. This committee of ‘tribal elders’ put up eighteen names for the electorate of Sunrise to choose from and just like on ‘Big Brother’ the SMS votes started to pour in. By the beginning of last week the voters had spoken and we now have six Sunrise Senate candidates. Tasmania has Steve Martin from Devonport. Steve is a former public servant who last year ran as an independent candidate for Tasmania’s Legislative Council on the issue of health. He is currently the chair of the Mersey Community Hospital Support Group. South Australia’s potential new senator is Kane Winther, a former member of the ADF and small business owner with a string of degrees. Kane has a fierce desire to protect South Australia from the evil dominance of Canberra. The future Sunrise senator for Western Australia is Alicia Curtis, a youthful over-achiever and small businessperson. Alicia has won a number of Youth awards and is very pro-Western Australia, arguing that ‘Western Australians need a person in the Senate to represent your views, a person free from the restraints of party politics, a person of vision, new thinking and a commitment to Western Australia’. NSW might see itself soon represented by the wonderfully named James Harker-Mortlock, a successful business owner who was twice pre-selected as a candidate for the Liberal Party. James resigned from the Liberals in April this year, ‘disgusted by their treatment of loyal party members and the dominance of the need to toe the party line,’ according to the Sunrise website. The Sunrise voters of Victoria chose Richard Frankland, a director, writer, musician - and Aboriginal activist. Richard is the most radical of the candidates, telling the Sunrise website that: ‘No child in Australia should live in fear. No child should live under barbed wire. No child should want for elective surgery.’ He is also in the process of setting up a pro-indigenous political party called Your Voice. And finally, Queensland could soon be represented by Hetty Johnson. Johnson is no stranger to politics, having been once Queensland state leader of the Australian Democrats. She’s already helped bring down a state government (the Goss Labor government) and a governor general (Peter Hollingsworth) and could, according to ABC TV’s election analyst Antony Green, actually win a spot in the Senate. So who have we got here? Some community activists, a couple of small business types running on the policy of states’ rights, a reject from the Liberal Party, and a certified giant-killer in the form of Ms Johnson. And on paper, at least, not one of them sounds any worse than a great many of the current members of the federal parliament. Good luck to them, I say; take Channel Seven’s money and run for office. Though hardly earth-shattering - except for political junkies - the controversy aroused by ‘Vote for Me’ does raise a very important question: where do we find our democratic representatives? The former Labor minister Gary Johns has pointed out that once upon a time Australia’s political ‘parties provided the link between the state and the people [yet] they barely provide that link now because they are no longer situated in the community. More and more they are actually part of the state.’ Think about it: in safe seats the party preselection contest is the only vote that matters. Haven’t the major parties become little more than marketing devices anyway; a means to an end for the politically ambitious? Why shouldn’t the media help our democracy find candidates? At least when chosen in this way they have to engage the interest of ordinary community members, not self-interested party members. If ‘Vote for Me’ manages to awaken only a little extra interest in how Australia’s system of government works it will be a good thing. And let’s not forget, TV preselections are not just an Australian phenomenon. A US pay TV channel is broadcasting American Candidate, which gives twelve Americans the chance to run for president, with the winner scoring US$200,000 and an opportunity to address the nation. At next year’s British elections the commercial channel ITV will be running its own version of Vote for Me. It must only be a matter of time before some sharp producer on Iraqi TV latches onto the concept. Brett Evans is the author of The Life and Soul of the Party: A Portrait of Modern Labor (UNSW Press, 2001) Graphic: Channel Seve