In an Australian election dominated by trivia, a Labor Party candidate has a strong Irish link writes PÁDRAIG COLLINSin Sydney
AUSTRALIA COULD be about to get its first Rose of Tralee MP.
Deborah O’Neill, a university lecturer and former Sydney representative in the Rose of Tralee, is running for the governing Labor Party in the election on August 21st.
Her parents, Mary and the late Jim, met in Manchester but were originally from counties Kilkenny and Cork respectively.
O’Neill says taking part in the Rose of Tralee contributed to her political awareness. “It was Al Grassby, who was minister for immigration in the Whitlam Labor government, who encouraged me to enter the Sydney Rose competition after I came second in the Queen of the Parade at the 1979 Sydney St Patrick’s Day Parade. I became increasingly interested in politics after that,” she said.
O’Neill has visited Ireland five times. Her most recent visit, in 1995, was as part of a group of Australians, including author Thomas Keneally, giving guest lectures in UCD. “We were bringing a fresh range of academic perspectives from Australia to Ireland, from a place where a lot of Irish people had gone to. It was strange being in Ireland after my Dad had passed away though, not hearing his Irish voice.”
It was former prime minister and fellow Irish Australian Paul Keating who finally inspired O’Neill to join the Labor Party, when she heard a speech he gave in 1996. “It inspired me to think, if you want things to change, you have to be part of something, you have to act ...
“My Irish history and being the daughter of Irish immigrants made me aware of how lucky we are in Australia. Active participation in democracy is a responsibility for all citizens. I do not subscribe to the Liberal Party philosophy that to those who have most, more will be given,” she said.
One thing Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott does share with O’Neill though is religion. Abbott is a devout Catholic.
Adrian Schonfelder, a Labor candidate in Victoria, withdrew from the election after saying Abbott’s promotion of conservative and religious views was driving people to suicide. Schonfelder said the opposition leader’s “very strong religious views and views on abortion [and] sex before marriage” were “influencing people to take their own lives”.
Abbott has said he will not tolerate religion being used negatively in the election. But Liberal MP Don Randall disparaged prime minister Julia Gillard’s atheism. He said voters were “very concerned with the stance of the prime minister basically being anti-God ... They don’t like the fact that we have a godless prime minister.”
Gillard’s hair colour (she is Australia’s first redhead prime minister) has also been getting a lot of attention since she became prime minister a month ago after challenging Kevin Rudd for leadership of the Labor Party.
Barry O’Farrell, leader of the Liberals in the New South Wales parliament, referred to Gillard as “the ranga” in an online message he thought he was sending privately to a journalist, but inadvertently sent to everyone following his Twitter feed. “Ranga”, short for orang-utan, is an Australian nickname for people with red hair.
Ranga-gate notwithstanding, the Liberals initially accused Labor of trivialising the election. But Abbott last week turned down an offer to appear on Australia's most respected current affairs programme, The 7.30 Reporton ABC television. He chose instead to go on variety show Hey, Hey, It's Saturday – a programme so painfully unfunny it thinks being broadcast on Wednesday is hilarious. He was booed.
An election widely dubbed "the Seinfeldelection" (in that it's supposedly about nothing), was not helped when the one and only leaders' debate was brought forward an hour and shortened by a half-hour last Sunday so as not to clash with the final of cookery show MasterChef.
But the election is not quite a show about nothing. Both sides say they will cut immigration. Labor refuses to name a figure, but the Liberals will slash immigration by 100,000 a year if elected. Considering the number of migrants has already dropped by 90,000 in the last year (from 340,520 to 250,650) a Liberal government could potentially affect thousands of Irish people looking to move to Australia.
While immigration and boat people (both sides want to process refugees arriving in Australian waters in other countries; they just differ on which country) is proving a race to the bottom, economically there is a race to the bottom line, with Labor and the Liberals seeing who can promise less in straitened economic times.
This led the Liberals’ Joe Hockey to make a puerile joke about treasurer Wayne Swan, saying Swan “is to surpluses what Paris Hilton is to celibacy. They remember it once existed but they’ll never see it again”.
Labor responded that its swift action meant Australia was the only developed nation not to go into recession during the global financial crisis.
The polls are saying the Liberals are unlikely to win the election. But Labor is very capable of losing it. It’s all still to play for.