OPINION
"How can our team be engaged in cheating like this? It beggars belief,” said, Malcolm Turnbull this week. He said some other stuff, too. The Prime Minister was one of many Australians to make known their great displeasure with the national cricket team. He was, apparently, so cross, he had spoken with the chair of Cricket Australia.
Well, it’s clear that people are cross. My aunt, my dad and my neighbour Faisal are among the many who find themselves tremendously cross. However little you or some other person—okay, me—might feel for cricket, there are others with such great love for the game that there’s no point in telling them, “Stop feeling!” That’s one thing none of us can ever quit doing on command.
When the rules of a game many love are violated, many will feel keen despair. So, perhaps the PM’s outrage was the outrage of ordinary folks? No. The PM is not ordinary. He may have felt ordinary-person outrage when his game was brought apart by sticky tape. He did not, on this occasion, express it in an ordinary way.
When the rules of a game many love are violated, many will feel keen despair. So, perhaps the PM’s outrage was the outrage of ordinary folks? No. The PM is not ordinary
Faisal, Dad and Aunty can spot ball-tampering. Me? I can spot a bit of political spin. A girl pays enough attention to any game, and she’ll eventually come to know when its rules are being bent. Thus, in my view, the PM talking about cricket on Sunday was not what we might call cricket.
Turnbull was speaking about the problem with the cricket in order to not speak about another obvious problem. This is not to single the guy out. Politicians of all parties use this distracting technique all the time. I watch them playing their lawless game, and I reckon I know when they’re doing it delicately. Malcolm didn’t do it delicately on Sunday. He was as delicate as a guy with a big roll of tape down his trousers.
You’ve probably sensed such political spin before. You’ve heard some leader say, “look over there at this other person’s mistake” and you’ll sense that they are trying to conceal one of their own blunders. You’ve heard a conservative politician utter the equivalent of, “Look! Over there! Muslims! Dangerous lesbian teachers!” when asked about, say, the housing affordability crisis. You’ve heard a progressive politician utter the equivalent of, “Look! Over there! Men being crude and sexist!” when asked about, say, the housing affordability crisis.
They all do it. They all know the game of hiding one big problem from voters by inventing or inflating another.
Turnbull was once very slick with this trick. In his first few months as PM, he’d talk so grandly about classical Athens, you’d find yourself thinking that the Peloponnesian War was an urgent problem. To dazzle us with tales of military strategists—blokes dead for 2500 years—was Malcolm’s greatest act of innovation.
As of Sunday, we can say that these tricks are no longer performed unseen. I mean, Malcolm If you want me to start thinking about the cricket and not the urgent problem of climate change, could you at least talk about the cricket when you’re not standing in front of an actual fire.
This week, kids from the town of Cobden face closure of their schools. From the same region, older folks in poor health have been evacuated. A 58-hectare peat fire still burning in Victoria’s southwest makes it hard for locals to breathe. This is where the PM stood to make his comments on cricket. If he wanted us not to think about the big problem of climate change, then evidence of an extended bushfire season was not a perfect backdrop.
So many of us want our leaders to face this urgent problem. What we don’t want is a stark and visual reminder that they’ll turn their back on the problem and start to talk about the problem of the cricket.
It is likely that the older buildings around Cobden contain asbestos. The clean-up will be dangerous and tough. The fresh memory of the bushfires must be painful in Cobden. The new knowledge that bushfire seasons will now rage longer and harder must be agony for locals to face. I find it difficult to face, and I live in a big city. So many of us want our leaders to face this urgent problem. What we don’t want is a stark and visual reminder that they’ll turn their back on the problem and start to talk about the problem of the cricket.
Turnbull is not the only politician to conceal one problem by inventing another. And, to be mildly fair to politicians, they’re not the only elite class to perform this problem switcheroo. Media have been banging on about this problem relentlessly while continuing to ignore many others and, to be frank, my Dad and my Aunt and my neighbour continue to ignore many media. Ordinary people have their own passionate opinions about the problem with cricket and don’t need to be led by tricksters.
What ordinary people need, and even want, is a press and a political class led by their ordinary interests. We’re not entirely thick, us ordinary people. We can see that big roll of tape.
