The Greying, the Ambitious and the Downright Weird!

So you have reached a brick wall in your life. You have little to do when you come home from work or uni (if indeed you are working or studying). The happy pills aren’t quite working. Your therapist is boring the shit out of you. You need something to fill in the time.

How about joining a political party?

You might think I am being a bit cynical. But seriously, political parties are crying out for people on the social fringe. Because mainstream Aussies and Kiwis, especially young people, are keeping well away from political parties.

Aubrey Belford made these observations in a recent op-ed piece published in the Australian Financial Review on 23 September 2005. Belford was described as a Sydney Uni student, a writer and former ALP member. He may be from the wrong side of politics (whatever that means), but his observations are certainly worth considering.

Belford’s subject is “disengagement from politics”. Actually, it is more about apathy toward political parties. Belford acknowledges that young people do have strong views about the world, politics, life and other contingencies.

Ah, life and other contingencies! The last time I heard that phrase was when I was considering transferred from law to actuarial studies at Macquarie University. Thank God my grade-point average was too low!

Yes, young people are worried about global warming, the melting of the polar ice caps, bird flu, tsunamis and unfair dismissal. The problem is that they cannot find an outlet for their frustration inside the hallowed halls of mainstream political parties.

Now I have been involved in some awesome political parties over the years. In May, I was lucky enough to be at a huge political party at the office of Joe Hockey, a young Liberal MP from North Sydney (via Armenia and Palestine). There was plenty of piss, cornchips and nice young lasses from various campuses. It was probably the best fun I ever had in a political party.

The problem is that the Liberal Party branches aren’t exactly a huge party. If you don’t believe me, go and find out.

The NSW Young Liberals are supposed to be the youth wing of the party. Yet their policies are more racist, more homophobic and more old-fashioned than Janette Howard’s tea-set purchased from the Eastwood op-shop.

The national president of the Young Liberals works for probably the most conservative Liberal MP in Australia. David Clarke is a man who makes Tony Abbott look like the Argentine dentist from that movie “The Motorcycle Diaries” (what was his name? Che Geriatric?).

These days, recruitment in the Young Liberals consists of sniffing around some fringe ethno-religious wacko group, delivering a speech in the upper house praising their hatred of Islam and then organising an inaugural meeting to get their dumb and dumbest into the new branch.

Some 8 years back, I presided over the Bankstown Young Liberals. The branch was eventually shut down for technical constitutional reasons. Then in April 2004, the then NSW Young Liberal President Alex Hawke and his gang tried to revive the branch using pro-Ustazi youth. It seems anti-Muslim rhetoric of Hawke and his boss was insufficient to get enough numbers, and his internal small “l” liberal opponents managed to out-stack him. The resulting punch-up was captured on someone’s phone camera, to the eternal embarrassment of senior liberals.

I saw Hawke the following night at a Young Liberal Council meeting at the Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club. He did not have much to report on the previous night’s proceedings.

Then again, the ALP aren’t much better. I was on the verge of joining the ALP in 1993. That was until I received a phone call from someone introducing himself as Joseph.

“Mate, we need you to come on down to the Mekong Club. I’ll send you a cab if you like. The membership is all taken care of. How quickly can you get here? You’re Lebanese, aren’t you?”

It seems that if you have a slightly wog-of-Aussie background, the only real role you can play is that of branch stacker (or as Bronwyn Bishop calls it, “bomb thrower”). And if you try and do anything more, watch out! They might just send ASIO around to detain you in your house. Or if the ALP win the federal next election, Bomber Beazley might cordon off your suburb from the rest of the planet!

Political parties are not places for mainstream political cows to graze. They are more suited to people whom Aubrey Belford describes as “the greying, the ambitious and the downright weird”.

So what should you do if you want to involve yourself in politics without falling asleep? Perhaps you can start by enrolling in one of Dr Stephen Mutch’s courses at Macquarie University. Or you can read the Fin Review when you can afford it.

Or you can do what I do. Go watch that stupid Motorcycle Diaries movie with a bunch of basket weavers at the Valhalla in Byron Bay (or was that Glebe? Dunno, was too full of gunja to tell the difference!). When they get to the bit where Che is helping to heal the lepers, scream out: “He was a f#cking dentist, you stupid morons!”.

Irfan Yusuf solicits, comments and writes from time to time. He was Liberal candidate for Reid in 2001 and has since allowed his Liberal Party membership to lapse. When not working, he likes to sleep.

© Irfan Yusuf 2005