Every four
years an event comes around that requires preparation, commitment and steely
determination. I’m speaking of course
about the Olympic Heptathlon. But for
those of us who don’t quite make that grade, who find the idea of trying to
jump over something backwards hilarious, but who still truly believe that
without Paine there is no Gain there’s
another happening that (thank god) doesn’t require you to wear a two-piece
bathing suit.
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| Instead, it requires you to wear this |
I speak of
course of that beacon of democracy commonly known as the local government election. That one day where we tell everyone that
their voice counts in their community, that what they want for their children
matters and, most important of all, that there’s a sausage sizzle set up by the
exit from the voting booth.
Mother
Painefull has been bringing her brand of maternal wisdom to the Hawkesbury for
over 20 years now as a vital and outspoken member of the local city council. So when I say I’ve been working the poll for
my mum every four years since I was in Kindergarten, you know I mean it.
No Paine, No
Gain!
Mum has been
shaking up the system, and terrifying the political conservatives for as long
as I can remember. Of course, if memory
fails, there will always be the photographic evidence – like the image of
Mother Painefull getting a mammogram on the front page of the local newspaper. And I don’t need to struggle to recall that
one, because it’s been framed and hung on a wall in the parental House of
Paine.
And for as
long as mum has been dolling out front room talks to the local community, I
have been handing out ‘How To Vote’ leaflets on voting day.
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| My original election day shirt, from back when I was cute |
If life’s
treating you too kindly, if you seem to be getting your way a bit too much, I
recommend handing out to voters. It’s
constant, unerring rejection like that that can really put your feet back on
the ground. Plus, after a while being
called a ‘%#$!’ is almost soothing.
A week ago
today I was doing just that. It’s days
like those you can see mum’s decision to have so many children really paying
off. It goes like this – I stand at a
booth for 10 hours, Elspeth stands at a booth for 10 hours, Mrs Ryan stands at
a booth for 10 hours, everyone’s spouses stand at a booth for several
hours, and Mrs Woog… makes some sandwiches.
I believe Gaddafi had a similar model of burden-sharing.
In all fairness,
Mrs Woog also sat in a car for 4 hours delivering those sandwiches to booth
workers. From everything I heard from
the people that got them, apparently they tasted great. I don’t begrudge Mrs Woog the workload, I
simply admire her ability to outsource.
But then she’s
probably jealous of us poll hander-outer-ers.
It’s a special, weird, life-affirming experience spending 10 hours
side-by-side with people, many of whom have inexplicably decided to hand out
for dickheads. It says something about
the battle-hardening experience that despite the fact that they can’t stand my
mum, I can’t stand their facial hair, and between us all a general pall of body
odour is on the rise, that somehow we end up bonding.
Except
Australia First. You don’t find yourself
bonding with Australia First, not even by accident.
Perhaps what
brings us all together is the sheer effort of being there. By showing up to hand out at a local election of all things, we must
all invariably acknowledge within each other a commitment to the sacred
importance of being allowed to vote at all.
By being there we’re saying, above all else, that we really, really give
a shit. That people make a difference
just by deciding to, that apathy, not paperwork, or parking fines, or the queue
at the check-out, is the devil’s handiwork.
And if you don’t give a shit, then I forbid you from complaining. Because you gave up the right to whinge the
minute you proudly stomped passed the sweaty, sunburnt maul of people while
declaring ‘I’m just here to mark my name off!’.
Of course,
some people were handing out because they were promised there was going to be a
party afterwards. Or because they lived
in the candidate’s womb at some point in the distant past. These are also valid reasons.
Except for
Australia First hander-outer-ers. I
still don’t know why you were there.
And so we
stood, we sweated, we yelled out things like ‘Vote for an Independent Woman!’ (while, in my case, trying not to
break into a Destiny’s Child song in the process), and we bonded. And then we were tempted to kill each other,
because if I heard ‘Group F, a vote for
Farmers, Food for Thought!*’ one more time my head would explode. And then we all got so delirious we bonded
again. And then a man came through and
asked us whether we supported Asian slums in his backyard, and we stared at him
blankly.
The
Australia First people had gone by then.
Of course there
were many memorable moments, many of them quotable.
Some of the highlights included:
“What are you going to do about gun laws?”
– um, nothing. This is local
government. Do you know what local
government does? Same goes for the guy
who asked about cannabis legislation.
“Clearly she’s just hired some attractive
girls to hand out for her.” – uttered by a fellow hander-outer-er to one of
the friends I conned into helping mum out.
Some of my other friends were enthralled by pollster gossip about wife
bartering. Cause that’s how we role in western
Sydney.
“You don’t know what love is.” – perhaps
the most phenomenal rebuttal of the day, from one of the opposition hander-outer-ers
to one of my Aunts.
“If you guys start singing again at 3am, I
am going to wake you up at 6am by playing my guitar in your face.” –
Elspeth’s husband to my friends. Clearly
he’s still traumatised by our home made karaoke from the Easter long weekend.
“Four more years!” – the chant when
Mother Painefull romped back into council with the highest individual vote in
the district. It was all a bit like my
own private West Wing.
And so
another Olympian effort by Mother Painefull & Co was brought to a close. Mum promised this would be her last
time. She promised that for the last 2
elections prior to this one, so our collective breath is not currently being held. Still, fun was had, and there are many things
worse than a Painefull Election (such as a ‘Painefull Erection’… which is what
mum called the gathering when we helped her to erect a shed in the backyard).
It was an
exhausting weekend but, like they** say, No
Paine, No Gain.
Painefull
Out
* = This is
an abridged version of the ‘Food for Thought’ spiel. The full text will be published over 28 pages
in an expanded handout. As I have it memorised, theoretically I could write it myself. Sadly.
* = 'They' being ‘all the kids’, ‘everyone’ and ‘those bitches handing out the pink How To
Vote leaflets’
