Sworn off the art of the insult
A POIGNANT political insult can be a terrible and beautiful weaving of silken-breath poetry that annihilates a grown man or woman with the flick of a feather.
Other times, pure blunt-force vulgarity gets the job done.
Furious indignation was in the air this week after the national broadcaster left a conservative political candidate in a mushroom cloud of cbombs, all in the name of comedy and petty pointscoring.
ABC program Tonightly With Tom Ballard must have come close to breaking records for expletive carpet bombing when comedian Greg Larsen suggested the Victorian electorate of Batman should be renamed Batman-was-a-c***.
It was a reference to the seat’s namesake John Batman’s involvement in the slaughter of Aborigines in the early 1800s, and the characterisation was not without merit.
The Melbourne pioneer established a roving party of convicts and free men to round up and ultimately murder Aborigines so colonists could expand their landholdings.
Batman himself described one occasion when the party found an encampment of 60 or 70 indigenous men, women and children who began to run away into the thick scrub when they noticed this armed militia. He ordered his men to open fire. Batman estimated about 15 Aborigines had been killed or mortally wounded, although they did manage to take four prisoners – two men, a woman and a child.
Unfortunately, it became apparent the men could not walk.
“After trying them by every means in my power, for some time, found I could not get them on,” Batman wrote in a report to Governor Arthur.
“I was obliged therefore to shoot them.”
Upon receiving the document, the Governor scrawled a note saying “shoots wounded Natives because they could not keep up ... has much slaughter to account for”, but never actually brought him to account.
So yes, John Batman was a lowdown grub, albeit a wealthy one.
The ABC comedian’s web of profanity did not end there, with the sketch culminating in unsuccessful Australian Conservatives candidate for Batman Kevin Bailey’s campaign corflute digitally altered to say he, too, was a you-know-what.
A senior ABC exec has apologised personally to Mr Bailey but says the repeated dropping of c-bombs – I counted seven verbal and three written – met ABC standards and already had approval before going to air.
Beautifully crafted political sledges have become hen’s teeth in recent years, with former PM and zinger king Paul Keating’s “shiver waiting for a spine to run up”, “perfume, painted gigolo” and “debating with him is like being flogged by a warm lettuce” just distant memories.
Even Malcolm Turnbull had a sidesplitting mean streak in 2006, back when he was just a parliamentary secretary full of piss and vinegar.
In response to a letter from an angry voter, he wrote: “Gosh, Pam, you are in a bad mood this morning. Now, you are correct that the budget did not target childless, 58-year-old lesbian poets and science teachers; but you are better off nonetheless.”
As for the vulgarities, Christopher Pyne famously called Bill Shorten the c-word loud-and-clear through the parliamentary microphones in 2014 then swore it never happened.
He also reckoned he was not talking in code when he said “see you next Tuesday” to Anthony Albanese on the Today Show.
Kevin Rudd was recorded cussing like a drunken sailor while vainly trying to deliver a prerecorded speech in Mandarin without tongue-slips.
“Tell these d***heads at the embassy to just give me simple sentences,” he seethed.
“I haven’t got the f***ing patience to do it ... Just f***ing hopeless.”
A couple of years ago a Sydney court overturned criminal charges against two protesters railing against the leader of the Christian Democrats by chanting “f*** Fred Nile” and bigots f*** off”.
Swearing like a sunburnt fishwife with a stubbed toe is becoming more acceptable by the day, even if I still have to use asterisks in print.
But it would be nice to have another silver-tongued Keating-type to brighten up the political discourse.
SWEARING LIKE A SUNBURNT FISHWIFE WITH A STUBBED TOE IS BECOMING MORE ACCEPTABLE BY THE DAY, EVEN IF I STILL HAVE TO USE ASTERISKS IN PRINT.