Ideas@TheCentre
Just say no!
Jessica Brown |
19 March 2010
But, of course, only one story really mattered: the latest news about Michael Clarke and Lara Bingle? It’s always intriguing – like a car crash – when young love goes bad. All the more so when the main characters are a model and her hunky sports star beau.
So it’s not surprising that the media went into a frenzy, with every second opinion columnist in the land putting in their two cents. This is the stuff that dreams are made of for women’s magazines, tabloid newspapers, and morning television.
But did we really need to hear that Clarke had won ‘influential support’ from federal Minister for Sports, Kate Ellis?
The Fairfax press published a lengthy online video interview with the Minister. After the obligatory plea to leave the couple alone, Ellis launched into a three-minute analysis of Clarke’s decision to fly home to Australia.
We’ve had government as ‘nanny,’ but it looks like the new guise de jure is government as Agony Aunt.
Tony Abbott thinks women should remain virgins until marriage and Kevin Rudd thinks we shouldn’t adorn our walls with the ‘revolting’ work of photographer Bill Henson. I guess inviting politicians to help us out with relationship problems is the natural next step.
Maybe Barnaby Joyce could pen a sex advice page in Cosmo. Or Nicola Roxon could host a support group for the desperate and dateless to share a tub of ice cream and a good cry.
Aggrieved lovers could ask Senator Heffernan to decide who gets the CD collection and who gets the pet dog.
We know the media is a hungry beast that politicians, being the giving types that they are, just love to feed. But surely there are some issues – such as celebrity gossip – where a simple ‘no comment’ is the most appropriate answer for a Minister to give.
Does Ellis’ role as sports minister legitimatise her comments about a couple’s public ordeal simply because one of them plays cricket for a living? Politicians everywhere: the next time a reporter asks you to comment on Madonna or Shane Warne or Home and Away, please – just say ‘no!’
Jessica Brown is a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.
