Sunday Roast - Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Magazine June 13 2004
THE POLL STORY
Forget Big Brother or Popstars. The prospect of Channel Seven following our pollies around in the lead-up to the 2004 election is a whole lot more frightening, says Wil Anderson
Move over Big Brother, it's time for Big Voter. Forget Popstars, we're taking poll-stars. Yes, that's right, Channel Seven has announced plans to stage a reality TV show to pick a candidate for the next federal election.
Well, I guess it had to happen eventually. Let's face it, most reality TV mainly consists of back-fuelled embarrassment, so it's pretty much your average party meeting for the Australian Democrats.
Many of our current politicians would be perfect for reality TV. In fact, some of them have been auditioning for years. Long before Reggie hit our screens on Big Brother there was another fish and chip shop owner called Pauline who starred in My Redneck Rules. Sadly, for Pauline, the rest of her life resembled less a reality show and more an episode of Law and Order and later, Prisoner.
Then there was Cheryl Kernot who, after the Democrats discovered she was the Mole, starred in Changing Parties and co-starred with Gareth Evans in A Current Affair. Not to mention Trish Draper, Natasha Stott-Despoja and Eddie Obeid who seem to have spent the last few weeks doing a pilot for a tax-payer funded version of Getaway.
Meanwhile, the Government's tax policy is Who Wants To Give A Rebate To A Millionaire? - most of their refugee ideas seem to be ripped off from Survivor; and the rest of the budget goes to making the electorate feel Healthy, Wealthy and Wise. (That is, if you're wealthy enough to pay for private health insurance and private education.)
But why stop there? If you really want to boost the ratings for parliament, how about Mark Latham's Taxi Cab Confessions, My Big Fat Obnoxious Immigration Minister or, with his penchant for fishnet stockings well known (thanks to that 1996 charity appearance), the Foreign Minister in the controversial new series There's Something About Alexander?
And imagine the must-see TV when, on a very special Surprise Wedding, Little Johnny and George W make their love legal, or the controversy when during a celebrity Extreme Makeover a beautician plucking the PM's eyebrows finds Salman Rushdie, the Blair Witch, Wally and all Saddam's WMDs.
Of course, not all the reality TV shows can be winners. Political Idol was deemed a failure (despite highlights like Bob Brown's stirring rendition of "It's Not Easy Being Green" and Amanda Vanstone and Phil Ruddock's duet "Six Months in a Leaky Boat") when John Howard's performance of "Honesty" kept being interrupted by Peter Costello singing "What About Me?"
But all the joking aside, maybe Channel Seven is right. Most of the electorate think pollies could do with a dose of reality, maybe they can get it from reality TV. Imagine if, rather than the usual wrangling over state funding at the annual Premier's conference, the government just ran the whole country like My Restaurant Rules.
In My State Rules, at the start of the year, they would simply give each of the Premiers a budget, and then through a series of secret reviews of public transport, schools and hospitals, each week the state that is doing the worst gets voted out until only one is left, and they get to run the whole country. Imagine that, Queensland beautiful one day, Victorian the next.
Getting rid of ballot boxes in favour of phone voting would not only fund the system, but by also incorporating SMS voting would get more teenagers interested in the political process. Also I'm pretty sure most Aussies would be in favour of a system that let them vote from the comfort of their couch. (Although it would spell doom for the lucrative primary school "sausage sizzle" industry.)
And while the ideas factory is working overtime, I think we can also use television to solve Australia's unemployment problem. Let's take the lead from those World Vision ads and introduce a Sponsor-A-Dole-Bludger program.
That way, when you pay your tax, you get a little picture of your individual dole recipient standing in line don at Centrelink and, in return, they write to you once a month and tell you what's been happening on The Bold and the Beautiful.
If these ideas catch on, eventually reality TV may become a way of solving problems right around the world. For example, what better way to help our Greek Friends who are struggling to complete their Olympic preparations, than by sending over our best reality team: "G'day I'm Jamie Durie, and welcome to Athens Blitz. We've sent the Greek Olympic Committee to Fiji for the weekend, and while they're away Scott's going to finish the stadium. Nigel's going to put a roof on the pool, and Jody is going to whip up a lovely Equestrian Centre. Meanwhile, I figured while we are here I might as well finish the Acropolis."
Until next time, keep it real.
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