If you’re a politician planning to don a fluoro vest and approach people in the street for money, your prospects are probably improved if you do it while your opponents are tearing themselves apart.
Bill Shorten did his best to rein in the schadenfreude as he helped sell copies of the Big Issue in Melbourne on Thursday, as part of the magazine’s vendor week.
There was, however, a tangible sense of levity from the opposition leader as he thrust magazines in the direction of commuters pouring from Parliament station, following a harrowing week of leadership speculation for the prime minister.
“G’day, I’m Bill Shorten,” was Shorten’s unembellished gambit. It worked. People smiled and parted with their money, although Shorten had to shoo away a couple of photographers who were getting in his way.
Melbourne is Shorten’s home patch, of course, and there was the sense he was among friends. A former Monash University classmate handed over the $6 for a magazine, while staffers for the state Labor party, on their way to parliament, gleefully cooed at Shorten about the “bloody mess” the federal government is in.
Such events can go horribly wrong for today’s wooden politicians, but it was refreshing to see Shorten drop the script and chat amiably, even when Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy showed up.
“Hello mate. We’re in the opposition leaders club,” Shorten zinged, as Guy, wisely for PR purposes, dug into his pocket for some Big Issue change.
After 30 minutes or so, Shorten tore off the vendor’s vest and switched to telling journalists how he was actually quite sad at the turmoil surrounding Tony Abbott.
“I take no pleasure in the fact that none of the contenders can say they voted against a GP tax,” he said. “I take no pleasure in the fact that none of the contenders for chief Liberal salesperson have said that they would vote against cutting the pension or Defence Force pay.”
Shorten called the Liberals “shambolic and chaotic” and clipped them around the ear for “not focusing on their day jobs.”
It was all very familiar language from the days of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, and Shorten must have enjoyed the boot being on the other foot.
As with Labor’s own division, the opposition is hunkering down, giving the leadership speculation as much space to breathe as possible. This means steering clear of any of that policy stuff.
Shorten may have been selling the Big Issue and talking about the need for a “good social justice safety net” in Australia, but he declined to say whether Labor would have extended the national partnership agreement on homelessness, which expires in June. Dozens of programs that represent the thread upon which thousands of vulnerable people dangle are under threat as a result.
“There is no election at this point and so what we need to do is look at what the current government would do,” Shorten offered.
This was never going to be the week in which Labor laid out some policy positions. It was a time for Shorten and his team to stand back, mutter about karma and hope the speculation didn’t fizzle out. This is how Australian politics works now, it seems.
Progress was made, however, on boosting Big Issue sales. Shorten sold 20 copies in his amateur stint as Dean, the usual Big Issue vendor for this spot, hovered in the background.
“I usually have to speak to around 300 people for 10 of them to agree to buy a copy,” said Dean, who is now in a decidedly average rooming house after three months of sleeping rough.
“I’m not really into politics, I have to say. It’s all a bit backwards, isn’t it?”
