Still scribbling

Having lived through the high water mark of comedy with the Goons, Steptoe, Monty Python, Steve Coogan, Aunty Jack et al, I’m finding it hard to crank up a giggle at much of what’s on the airwaves these days. This probably marks me as a fogey hopelessly out of touch with fun. Fair enough. But tell me this. What’s so hilarious about a game of shoot, shag or date. Bet Albo wishes he’d never gone near it. 

On the laugh-ometer I’d rate it about a 2. Yet for reasons hard to fathom it’s become the game du jour among the parliamentary set. Before the PM wandered aimlessly into the podcast pit, we had Labor MPs Ella Haddad, Sarah Lovell and Rebecca White having a grand old time bagging male politicians. Presumably somewhere in their assessment of the MP’s shagability was a vein of comedic gold waiting to be mined. 

It wasn’t so much the fact of the girls aiming for a good laugh; it was the fact they didn’t aim high enough. It just wasn’t funny. All it lacked was amusing hats and floral-bedecked cocktails. 

But what it did highlight was the vulnerability of politicians and the fact that on a small island we are all probably one grandmother away from being in their family. This makes for familiarity and jocular interaction. Years ago it also made for a sort of comfortable connection between those who govern and those who are governed. 

Nowhere was this more evident than when Eric Reece was premier. His government was probably the last cohort of politicians who moved without self-awareness or discomfort within the general community. Eric drew the ire of those who thought he was hellbent on wrecking Tasmania through hydro development at any price. This wasn’t wide of the mark. But he attached no grandiose notions of persona to himself and was at his most authentic when he was wandering within the crowd. This he did a lot in western Tasmania. Eric’s face on the streets of Queenstown was a familiar sight.

By the standards of today’s workplace he was impoverished. His office was staffed by a handful of secretaries and general dogsbodies. He’d often write his own press releases. One of them gave rise to this column. Having a scrounge around in some papers the other day I came across a piece of writing he’d handed to me when I was a reporter in Queenstown. It was a succinct, clearly expressed response, hand-written in biro, to an issue we’d been chasing.  

After exchanging a few pleasantries, off he’d toddled with shouts to give his best to Joe and the family. When our mum died he wrote dad a kind and personal letter expressing his sadness. It was in biro and addressed to Joe by name. 

In an age dominated by smooth talk, spin, minders and moving with the right crowd, Eric Reece’s was one of courtesy and human touch. In the shoot, shag or date circle he’d have stood out like a sore thumb.