Sunday Roast - Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Magazine July 25 2004
RIGHT ON THE MARK
If Mark Latham was leading our country, there’d be raucous buck’s nights, fisticuffs and inappropriate behaviour all round. And thank goodness for that, says Wil Anderson.
Psst… did you hear the latest rumour about Mark Latham? Turns out not only is he Nicole Kidman’s secret new lover, but it was him who pushed Thorpey in the pool, and he knows exactly where Azaria Chamberlain is buried.
Seriously, people, what the hell is going on in Australian politics? Do we really care if there’s a video floating around of Mark Latham at his buck’s party? Unless that video stars Paris Hilton, I’m not interested.
Anyway, what exactly constitutes “behaving inappropriately” at a buck’s party? Perhaps there’s footage of him sober, with absolutely no signs of strippers, handcuffs or any of his mates trying to shave his eyebrows. How un-Australian!
While we’re on the topic, do we really give a flying faction if Latham had what the media call “an active sex life” (i.e. rooted around) before he was married? Maybe if he’s screwed a few of us when he was single, he won’t feel the need to screw all of us when he becomes leader of the country.
Instead of making excuses, he should embrace his sex appeal as a way of attracting the sort of swinging voters who really like to swing. During the election campaign, instead of kissing babies, he should kiss babes – although I will have to draw the line if he starts asking people to shake hands with the Private Member for His Pants.
More damaging are the rumours Mr Latham has violent tendencies, which weren’t helped when his advisors discovered the book he was reading to those children was actually Harry Potter and the Cabbie of Broken-arm. But are people really going to not vote for someone because he once clocked a cabbie? Hasn’t everyone at some stage wanted to show a taxi driver the most direct route between your fist and their face? That’s why they have those little plastic bubbles. Well, that and a vague attempt to keep the smell in.
If anything, this could be an electoral positive for the ALP. If Latham could also hit a bank manager, someone from Telstra and Shannon Noll, he won’t just win the election, he’ll get elected Pope.
There were also the allegations from pensioner Don Nelson who claimed during a fight over pot plants, Latham “went down like the Titanic”.
Not only did this raise questions about Latham’s temper, but it raised the issue of plagiarism again. By fighting blokes who are older and smaller than he is, he’s ripping off Anthony Mundine.
It’s obvious that Mr Latham has a temper but has been trying to hide it. Lately, when the government has thrown mud at him, it has been like a scene from The Hulk. “You’re making me angry, you’re not going to like me when I’m angry!”
But would it really be such a bad thing to have a PM with a bit of aggro? I’m sure our sugar farmers would have got a much better deal in the Free Trade Agreement if the US had been scared. If they screwed us, they would have been introduced to the Fists of Opportunity.
In fact, when Latham says he is going to bring the troops home by Christmas, maybe he means he’ll go over there and get the troops himself.
In his defence, Mr Latham has denied he is a bully and said if anyone called him one he would give them a wedgie or flush their head down the toilet. He also denied he was planning to fund the budget by stealing Joe Hockey’s lunch money.
Instead Mr Latham cried tears for smears and blamed all the allegations on a dirt unit, headed by a Mr Hanke (apparently not the Christmas Poo from South Park). In a great irony, this might be the first time that Hanke has been responsible for causing the tears, not cleaning them up.
Of course PM John “Sergeant Shultz” Howard immediately said he knew nothing about the existence of a dirt unit. Which means it either doesn’t exist or was mentioned on a briefing about Abu Ghraib or the Children Overboard.
Personally, I love the idea of a Dirt Unit. It sounds like a Channel 9 reality show hosted by Jamie Durie. “Welcome back to Dirt Unit. We have sent Mark Latham away for the weekend, and while he is away, we are going to see what we can dig up!”
But in the end, the question is do the Australian voters really care about something that happened 15 years ago? Fifteen years ago, I didn’t have any pubic hair, and I spent too much time locked in the bathroom with the Fosseys catalogue.
If we are going to go back 15 years, why stop there? I mean, I heard that 40 years ago Mark Latham used to get in fights all the time, he would throw food at people, and even hold them down and spit in their mouths. And even worse, apparently he used to wet his bed… do we really want a monster like that leading our country?
Wil Anderson is the host of The Brekkie Show on Triple J with Adam Spencer, as well as co-host of The Glass House on ABC TV
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