Fence Sitting

Mark Latham’s behaviour, while unacceptable, is at least adding a bit of spice to an otherwise boring election campaign.

Neither party leader seems willing to get down off the fence in case they decide to stand for something that doesn’t sit well with middle Australia.

The behaviour of PM Julia Gillard and Opposition leader Tony Abbott is akin to the conundrum facing competitors in last Sunday’s City2surf: do they jostle to get ahead and risk tripping up along the way, or do they take a more cautious approach and stay with the pack, presuming that what’s important is the end, not the means?

Despite their murmurs to the contrary (particularly Julia Gillard’s recent commitment to showing the public the “real Julia” in this contest), their race strategy is clear.

The problem is; the Australian public has little on which to base their decision come 21 August.

It’s no wonder the Greens are expected to clean up come polling day. Like them or loathe them, they’re not afraid to put their stake in the ground and stand by it – a breath of fresh air in a campaign of obfuscation.

Watch advocacy group GetUp’s spoof of Gillard and the Dare ice coffee ad below:

Latham, former Labor leader-turned-journalist for the Channel 9 network, this week confronted Gillard about why her party had allegedly complained to the TV station about his role as a guest reporter on 60 Minutes.

Further fuel was added to the fire after political correspondent Laurie Oakes did not mince his words when asked his opinion about Latham during a live cross on Sunday night.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Latham has since claimed Gillard stoked the confrontation by stroking him ‘down the front’, and that Oakes’ comments were down to his sensitivity about a Labor Party nickname referred to in the Latham Diaries – Jabba the Hutt.

But Latham’s not the only one adding spice to the campaign. Or should I say, Old Spice.

And the Labor party has weighed in with a new cartoon advertisement depicting Abbott as Gomez Addams from the 1960s sitcom The Addams Family.

Gillard is telling us she’s going to move Australia forwards, and in this version of the movie’s theme song Let’s Do the Time Warp Again, Labor’s warning us that Abbott will take us backwards.

At this point, burningpants is not convinced we’ll move anywhere – no matter who is elected.

Surely it’s better to lose because you stood for something you believed in, rather than to win because you stood for nothing at all.