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Krusty the Clown and the rise of Mr Xenophon

By Malcolm King - posted Tuesday, 20 November 2007


Apart from the No Pokies campaign, there is very little substance to his policies and that’s his greatest asset. He's a highly visible 'small target'.  Is this self styled buccaneer good for democracy?

People have become disenchanted with political parties of any hue (the Greens possibly being the exception) and they are turning to independents.  Says Jennifer Curtin in her excellent paper, Independents and Federal Parliament: a new challenge or a passing phase?:

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"The social theorist Ronald Inglehart argues that the decline in support for established political parties reflects a broader decline in respect for authority, which is an attitudinal change amongst much of the voting public."

According to the Morgan Opinion Polls back in 1999, less than a third of respondents felt that the Government was doing a "good job". Almost half said they did not trust the current government. The ground is fertile for the rise of Independents.

The disenchanted or disaffected yell at the TV or radio when they hear Howard and Rudd's 'polly waffle'. Mr Xenophon has tapped into this anger and he uses the media to side with those disaffected voters and say "yeah, it's rubbish, I'm with you".

He has given popularism a new definition. He is the anti-politician, who, like the character of Howard Beale in the film Network, says, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more". 

He's not going to do anything about it either. He's just going to articulate back to an angry public what they feel - not unlike a therapist.  "There's a difference between taking an issue seriously or yourself too seriously. I enjoy doing them (the stunts). It makes my day, makes the public's by doing them when they work, and they usually do," Mr Xenophon told the 7:30 Report.

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He is poised to swoop on the Democrat vote now that Senator Natasha Stott Despoja is retiring. That would almost assure him of a Senate seat. If he does win, it will also assure him of constant comparison with Stott Despoja's impressive legislative record.

However, Mr Xenophon has a number of problems. There is the perception that he is cutting and running from his responsibilities to the SA parliament and the 190,000 people who voted for him at the last election. Also, Mr Xenophon has overnight turned conservationist by saying he’ll fix SA’s Murray River problem - it’s more of a creek than a river. Yet he has only mentioned the River Murray and water conservation three times in Parliament in the past 10 years. On the environment, unlike the Greens and Democrats, he is a lightweight.

Mr X is smart and he looks good on TV. He is an entertainer and that might be enough to get him a Senate seat - that’s if South Australians want Krusty the Clown representing them.

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About the Author

Malcolm King is a journalist and professional writer. He was an associate director at DEEWR Labour Market Strategy in Canberra and the senior communications strategist at Carnegie Mellon University in Adelaide. He runs a writing business called Republic.

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