from Crikey ….. 

Richard Farmer writes: 

The parliamentary theatre of the absurd

They read from scripts these days and increasingly they bring in props to illustrate their acting for those who might see a performance but not actually hear it. 

The players are applauded or heckled on the basis of how well they deliver their rehearsed lines. The transformation of politics into theatre is all but complete. And the theatre of the absurd at that. For the Australian parliamentary performer must not, under any circumstance, speak in other than riddles. 

Plain talking is not the way of today's political playwrights who prepare those folders the major actors carry with them to the dispatch box. Scripts can hint and suggest at the truth but must not reveal it less the words be stolen and have their meaning twisted by a competing author to use on some later occasion. 

Perhaps theatre is the wrong word to describe parliamentary question time. Perhaps unreality television fits better. The actors and actresses, after all, essentially are strutting their stuff for the cameras that record their every movement. 

The nightly news shows meaningless extracts and radio on the hour, every hour, duly plays bits of the soundtrack. 

In the morning papers, journalists play critics and political reputations are made and destroyed not by how well a politician does the real job of trying to run the country but by their perceived ability to look and sound as if they can run the country.