So by now we have a newly elected Government. Is it Rudd or Abbott? I am happy to say that I am disconnected from the internet and deliberately disinterested in the telly.
It's by choice, a silent boycott
The sacrifice somewhat lessened by the absence of Leigh Sales on ABC last night. I do usually love election night coverage.
But something I'm not in love with right now is Australian politics.
Remember the buoyancy of Kevin '07?
I do. November 24, 2007, a month before Christmas and we'd just told my parents we were going to have a baby. Never before have I seen my father's jaw drop so far. Shocked, oh yes they were.
But it wasn't just our own excitement. There was excitement in the air. Australia itself was pregnant with possibilities. It really was a time.
For those of us for whom the Howard Government had been a long and punishing walk in the wilderness there was an optimism abounding that finally we had someone that might be able to overthrow the regime.
And the fact that an essentially conservative, vocally Christian, Gay marriage denier was the cause for that optimism proves just how despondent and desperate we had become.
There is none of that optimism in Election 2013. None.
Make no mistake I don't want Abbott to win. I find his religious bias frightening, his views on women repugnant and his policy on Asylum Seekers abhorrent.
But Rudd is tarnished in a way that cannot be ignored. The undeniable truth that he has spent the last three years undermining the party that he now leads is evidence of a man who has had a single minded determination to get personal revenge.
It's impossible to believe that the national interest is more important to him than his own ego. Let us not forget that his ego was the thing that got him toppled in the first place.
No. The man who inspired us in '07 with his dedication and intelligence and compassion is but a caricatured shell of his former self.
I cried listening to his Apology speech to the Stolen Generation. Pulled over the car and cried.
And as much as I want to see marriage equality (and I bloody-well do). If it happens under a Rudd government it will never be able to escape it's politically motivated roots.
It will still be good and historic and right. But it won't be as pure, as moving or as meaningful a gesture.
Nope. I'm glad I'm on a media ban. Perhaps the space and the silence can numb the pain of the newly elected government.
Because whoever it may be? It's no cause for celebration.
Will you be watching the election?
