Politics: Flies And Happy Ignorance: The Canberra Experience.

I flew down to Canberra this week. On a muggy Monday morning, I boarded the same Qantas flight as Greens senator Kerry Nettle, Liberal minister – and genuine enemy of education - Brendan Nelson and leftie nerd Labor MP Tanya Plibersek.

Of course, their collective presence was just a happy coincidence. It was far too ugly an early morning to really get into any political contemplation, so they were soon forgotten. Plus, I was reading a Rolling Stone article on Jenna Jameson, and gosh, she does have big boobs doesn’t she?

I digress. Canberra is a notoriously mediocre city, and with good reason. In the summers, hordes of angry, sticky flies come over the border with the sole intention – it seems – of sticking in your eyeballs and relaxing in your mouth. The sun beats down mercilessly, and respite can only be found in the malls that occasionally infiltrate the largely natural landscape.

I wasn’t there for pleasure, and I wasn’t there for politics. But the place is inextricably bound to the dirty game, and with good reason – there’s not much else to do but ruminate on political machinations.

And ruminate I did. In the backs of chauffeured cars and lying in my hotel, I had all the time in the world to think about the political landscape in Australia. And the more I thought about it, the more morose I become. How very predictable.

Things aren’t getting any better, and it pains me having to wait so impatiently for the time when people realise they’re getting screwed by their leaders. Why, I thought to myself while lying on my bed in the Country Comfort, can’t everyone in Australia have the same idealistic, quasi-naïve hopes, dreams and values that all my favourite people have? Why can’t we all just vote Labor? And why can’t Labor give us a reason to all vote Labor?

Canberra is a bad place to think, because once you start it’s tough to stop. That’s the curse of a boring town. That’s why many country folk are – often surprisingly – deeply introspective. They can spend days where it’s just them and this wide, brown country, thinking about where they’ve been and where they’re going.

I didn’t come up with any searing political insights while lying under the air conditioner in my boxers. No surprises there. I was, however, briefly overcome by an urge to storm parliament house, screaming my liberal politics – and strings of degrading obscenities - into a megaphone. Or maybe I could dye my hair grey, sport some fat sideburns and roll around the leafy grounds surrounding parliament chanting ‘crash through or crash’ like some idiot savant drunk on political rhetoric.

No. Instead I flicked over to the news and saw Afghanistan and Iraq now free – or some ludicrously propagandistic palaver - and everyone happy and good times rolling all night long. It was a happy news day; there was no one jumping from buildings or monks self-immolating or mothers drowning their babies or students being viciously beaten by police. At least, none of that was being reported, so things seemed okie dokie.

And in Canberra, things often do seem okie dokie. Despite being the practical centre of the Australian political world, the high mountains make you feel like you’re cut off from all the terrible ills of the world. Which is nice. So I switched the channel over and watched Buffy. Good.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).