If there is anything we should have learned from the slow-mo, multi-vehicle car-crash that is News Limited's credibility and the downfall of the British establishment; the Victorian Labor Party's election giveaway to a vacuous opposition; and the tumultuous downfall of 'celebrities' from Rex Hunt and Ben Cousins to Christine Nixon, it's that those who rise by media approval, will fall by it.
Public figures who survive the collapse into iniquity need a sense of self and the ridiculous. Once, talkback radio hosts and reporters drummed up Julia Gillard as tomorrow's PM and the day's bright star in the political firmament. Today she's 'JuLiar', the 'witch' and a fallen princess chased into a Paris subway, pursued by paparazzi.
Her and her party's polling is at an historic low: the budgie-smuggler's is absurdly high. The differences between them are show and tell, rather than science and economics. And the 'polls' show how well or not the other's advertising works.
What's going wrong? As one of my Facebook 'friends' asked this week: 'Why are people so unkind to Julia?'. One succinct, and only partly sexist, response from the pathetically small remnant of Labor sympathisers who subscribe to that page is worthy of thought, though not my approval:
'Because she talked Rudd out of the ETS then knifed him then said NO CARBON TAX, East Timor Solution, citizens assembly, cash for clunkers then ... Forget what I said here's another plan. Because she sent juniors to national security meetings. Because she cries when things are going askew ... Because she got her seat by gender quota affirmative action ...'
Gillard actually won preselection and election on merit, but the sly slur shallowly pulls in the undertow of public opinion. Such shallow surfacing on Facebook is a sign of the prison our irresponsibly libertarian, monopolised media have made for us, reinforced by our addiction to instant judgments; to witticisms and strong opinions rather than wisdom and experience in opinion pages; to blogs rather than essays.
Gillard lost 'it' — that is, our warm inner glow about her — when she gave her first speech after calling the 2010 election and it was a string of dumbed-down clichés arising from a series of shallow 'focus groups' slavishly adopted by asses in New South Wales.
This would not matter, had not the public become accustomed to being spon-fed opinions by our limited, shallow and self-important communication media, ten second 'grabs' on news programs, and a learned preference for reality-show performances.
Compare this to Paul Keating's appearance on Lateline last week. Lord, how I longed for the return of this kind of able, intelligent, affable and articulate public conversationalist, whom we let go at such a critical time in our development as a nation, because we thought he lacked the common touch.
Keating ran rings around host Tony Jones that night, explaining his position — that there's no bloody point in holding an enquiry into 'media ownership' in Australia because of Murdoch's criminal reporters in the UK: the real issue is whether or not we need a legally enforceable right to privacy — instead of reacting to his impatient interviewer. Knowledgeably, with a prepared written reference, and authoritatively, because Keating presented an argument, not a position.
There aren't too many of such people around, and those who try aren't appreciated (Malcolm Turnbull), or preselected (dozens of 'em), or, in Julia's case, are being silenced by being 'reported' selectively and critically.
You don't try to teach an old dog new tricks, but old ones work pretty well. Gillard is — after a year of trial and error, poor advice and silly strategising — running the case for action that will map out the first steps towards a seriously dark and threatening future.
We will create a march of folly if we don't demand public debate about the real issues, not the dog-whistling of the electorate. Watching Keating, I felt keenly our loss of the depth of political thinking and planning that he represents. We need it now, knowing that life in Australia is as stable as the earth beneath us and the tides of the sea.
Gillard may not 'sound right', but that's our fault, because we have not looked for expertise from those who give us their opinions for a fee (who cares what Janet Albrechtson, law graduate and married woman with influential friends, thinks about climate change?), or real policy discussion.
The Gillard election proposal for a thoughtful, year-long public consultation on climate change responses was a good one, but badly timed and rightly ditched. But there is time, now, to consider the arguments, and take a chance.
We, the electorate, spurned the thoughtful way in 1996 and won 11 years of mean-spirited disputation and sneers. In 2007 we voted in favour of vision, empathy and grand designs and watched it wither in a welter of micro-management and power broking.
We asked too much of a former deputy prime minister in a toxic environment of careerist changing of the guard. But as the banner read in the closing scenes of On the Beach: 'There is yet time, brother.'
Moira Rayner is a barrister and writer.