It's Time To Talk About Ted

THE BILLABONG and those who visit seldom represent what might be termed a balanced microcosm of our society. With the exception of the Rufous Bird’s little brother, who is in his forties and should know better, very few Greens are invited to dally by the barbecue. Labor supporters tend to be somewhat more numerous, but for those guests excuses can be made, most being old friends whose fealty to the politics of their youth has remained immune to all the evidence of incompetence and corruption which has accumulated  since the glory days, when we all tramped together up Bourke Street and venerated Dr Jim.  A couple of those faded red veterans were present last night, when a leg of lamb spiked with garlic, secret herbs and diced pancetta emerged from the smoker, the joint’s crisp, smothered-mustard crust making it look like a NASA project that re-entered the atmosphere at the wrong angle. The bone was stripped, the corkscrew given quite a workout and amity ruled the night, good fellowship reaching its apogee at about the same time dessert hit the garden table by the fish pond. We should all eat fruit and often, as doctors and dieticians advise, but a good preliminary soaking in lots of banana liqueur does much to boost the take-up rate. That was certainly the case last night.

And so the evening proceeded, guests alternating their attention between Lleyton Hewitt’s slow march to victory and talk of another ultra-fit specimen’s rather less successful efforts to take a few sets in what is proving a rather more demanding arena, that large building in Spring Street across the road from the Imperial Hotel.

“He’s not as bad as he could be,” observed one guest. “I thought we were going to get another Kennett, but Ted hasn’t been so bad, really.” The Ted of whom he spoke is our Victorian premier, the alleged conservative Baillieu, who should be a little concerned the person who finds him so tolerable has voted the straight Labor ticket at every election since 1969. For those present who helped put the Liberals into power it was a chilling moment. To the clink of coffee cups and the scrape of the big spoon’s second servings of that delightful fruit salad, a shared vision of a one-term government crystalised in just those few words. Perhaps more worrying for a premier who would like to be re-elected in 2014, there was not one word of support from guests who represent what should be his party’s natural constituency. Indeed, the criticism from the right was bitter, vehement and voluble.

One disenchanted sort mentioned Deputy Premier Peter Ryan’s pre-election pledge to take a long, hard look at this state’s ravenous revenue cameras, which extract something like $500 million every year from drivers who are, in most cases, no more than a few kilometres per hour over the limit, usually within a typical speedo’s margin of error. Well Ryan did take a look and reported back that John Brumby’s shakedown artists were correct all along: If motorists are to behave, they must be gouged at every turn (and intersection, traffic light, country road and suburban street).

His view was endorsed by another guest, who owns a small trucking outfit and had hoped his drivers would encounter fewer time- and money-wasting random inspections. As he noted, fuel and overheads have all gone up, and so has the amount of cash being stripped from his bottom line by fines, which have seen a marked increase under Victoria’s allegedly pro-business government. One of his trucks had just spent two unproductive days off the road, he claimed, after a random inspection revealed the fuel gauge was broken. He may have been exaggerating, as he also mentioned several other deficiencies that needed to be fixed, but he was not stretching the truth about this government’s apparent indifference to an entrepreneur’s need to turn a profit.

A veteran Liberal Party member voiced similar disenchantment, disgusted by what he described as the influence on our premier of a small, tight circle of backroom operatives. Big Ted, he reckons, is naturally shy, and has established about himself a cordon sanitaire of human filters and courtiers, whose primary passion is for internecine power plays and plots. He mentioned rumoured efforts by one of those operatives to secure pre-selection in a blue ribbon seat, and how the incumbent had been denied resources and staff as part of that campaign. As the purported target is on the front bench, his performance as a minister – and the entire Baillieu government by extension – has been seriously hamstrung.

That was not the late evening’s most jaw-dropping gripe, which came from a Liberal-voting lady whose immense discretion has allowed her to survive and prosper in the hostile environs of our little state’s lockstep leftoid “arts community”. Her faith in Baillieu was shattered, she said, when she learned of the guests at his table as last year’s Premier’s Literary Awards were doled out.

“You will be astonished to see who Ted hangs out with,” she said, going on to mention a few names that struck all present as so improbable the list could not possibly be true. To establish if she had taken just a bit too much of the fruit salad, Young Master Bunyip was sent to fetch the Billabong’s latest laptop, which he did with reasonable efficiency, given the large and lumpy cigarette he had just been sharing with a knot of Labor voters and self-evident libertarians (who, as the old joke goes, are conservatives with bongs). Google worked its magic and apologies to Madam Artsy were soon being offered. Ted’s taste in companions proved every bit as bad as she had claimed.

On Baillieu's table were former premier John Cain and his wife Nancye, as well as Private Media publisher and Wheeler Centre chairman Eric Beecher. Also in attendance were Gay Alcorn, editor of The Sunday Age and authors Kate Holden and Sophie Cunningham. Meanwhile a white-suited Casey Bennetto, creator of Keating! The Musical, garnered laughs for his MC work, which included a series of musical tributes to the awards.

Beecher! Alcorn! Holden! And, of all people, former Meanjin editrix and piñata whacker Cunningham! By God but how that crew must have laughed behind Ted’s back. Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt shipped all those planes and trucks and war goods to Stalin have so many resources been gifted to ideological enemies. Take a look at Ted’s literary short list, especially the winners, if you think that analogy is a stretch. Like Stalin they will have been overjoyed to find themselves on the receiving end of such largesse, all the while counting off the days until they can cheer their detested benefactor’s downfall.

 Come the next election....

There are no two ways about it. Ted Baillieu, lovely bloke that he is, does not belong behind the premier’s desk. If he is to remain there – and that would be due solely to conservatives’ lack of gumption in declining to forcefully remind him of both their restiveness and the voting public’s unfilled expectations – only one thing might be said in his favour.

Come 2014 and the return of Labor, Victoria’s stability will not be rocked in the least. Liberal or Labor, the electorate will not notice a damn bit of difference.