Pre-season Tips and Invective - Part I

 

 

Season 2005 is almost upon us and once again, we can expect the usual array of athletic prowess and sporting genius in the season to come, mixed up, of course with numerous examples of stuff-ups, stupidity, hubris, chokers and clangers. It is the latter to which I shall once again be turning my attention this year.

 

To kick off the season, however, I present a first-class piece of invective which graced the halls of no less a venue than the House of Representatives in Canberra two weeks ago, from the mouth of the Member for Indi.

 

Stirring stuff. Couldn't have put it better myself....

 

Ms PANOPOULOS  (Indi) (8 February, 9.06 p.m.) —It is one of the curious intellectual battles of our modern era that whenever Australia Day comes along each year there is always debate in the opinion pages of newspapers about the appropriateness or otherwise of 26 January being proclaimed as Australia's national day. Of course, this year was no exception. On Australia Day this year the Age editorialised that 26 January would `never be a day of celebration' for Aboriginals and that the date commemorated the `subjugation' of the population, whilst then going on to quote Indigenous activist Michael Mansell, who derided Australia Day as a `race-based' event—akin to `celebrating the coming to power of the Nazis at the expense of the Jews'.

 

This type of criticism is not surprising. It is upsetting, but it is more or less expected these days. But the endless seminar on Australian identity and Australia Day hit a new low when the chief executive officer of the Australian Football League came out of the harbour esplanade bunker to launch an extraordinary attack on Australia in this year's John Batman oration. Andrew Demetriou's speech has attracted both criticism and praise in the mainstream media. The speech was biased and negative from the beginning: a fusillade of rhetoric and misguided idealism. Demetriou lamented an Australia that had become a `conservative country in recent years', whose people were `more inclined to self-interest than sharing'. This banter might be more credible if it came from a welfare organisation or an aid group, but coming from the CEO of a corporate entity masked as a sporting organisation, it is a bit rich and a bit much to accept.

 

The AFL has a track record of selling the game to the highest bidder. The acrimonious TV rights stoush in 2000 still has Channel 7 reeling—so much so, the debate is set to be played out in the Federal Court, with the AFL budgeting $7.5 million to defend their case. The Herald Sun recently reported that 72 per cent of respondents to a community survey thought that the AFL bosses are not in touch with what the fans really want. This is hardly surprising. This is the bloke who heads the organisation that has raised ticket prices to home and away matches eight times in the last decade. This year's home and away ticket prices are rising by more than 6 per cent, well above the rate of CPI. Demetriou even attended an Andrea Bocelli concert at Rod Laver Arena whilst Geelong and Essendon thrashed it out at the MCG in a semifinal last year. With a salary about three times as much as the Prime Minister's and an impressive package of perks to go with it, Mr Demetriou is perhaps not in the best position to condemn an Australia that he says is `more interested in surpluses than what we do with them' and `more interested in stockmarket outcomes than the state of education, and equality of opportunity'.

 

No attack on the Howard government is complete without the mention of that hardy perennial, `the Tampa incident', to illustrate our perceived racism and evil in the eyes of the person making the attack. However, Demetriou goes further than most. He yearns for an Australia with `open borders', with the quaint notion that `embracing the people on board' will keep us safe. It is not unAustralian to want to protect our sovereignty and our borders and it is not unAustralian to decide who will come to this country, who really is a refugee under our generous legal interpretations and who we will assist. In fact, these things go very much to the core of my understanding and my interpretation of patriotic duty. But those adhering to the viewpoints held by the cultural elite—a label Demetriou can now wear as a badge of honour—just cannot understand the strength and support that this government received at the ballot box at the recent election.

 

History is riddled with unfortunate instances of the politicisation of sport. Unless Mr Demetriou sees an ALP preselection coming his way, I suggest that he steers clear from moralising and sticks to football administration. Heaven knows there is enough on his plate: the twin costly embarrassments of the AFL Hall of Fame and AFL Sensation, a new sexual misconduct tribunal, salary cap breaches, a tougher approach on recreational drugs and reversing the disconnect that many loyal, dyed-in-the-wool footy fans feel between the game they love and the official edicts from the AFL power brokers in their ivory towers. (Time expired)