The vaudeville show
In the dog days of his bitter struggle to bump off Bob Hawke, Paul Keating assured sceptical journalists that the utter lack of warmth felt for him by the Australian electorate was no problem: slap on a bit of vaudeville and they'd be set right.
It has been interesting to see the show unfold. First, we had an appeal to the morality of older blokes who buy the Sunday Telegraph for the race guide: the withdrawal of funds for the sex information school diary. Then there was the flag-nationalism-role-in-Asia routine, which included the daring kiss on the ground at the Kokoda trail.
Now, the inevitable has happened: Keating's public relations machine has turned its attention to women.
Apparently, there's nothing much to be done about the PM's habit of calling women "love" in private. But a scare campaign about the effects of the Liberals' goods and services tax on household budgets is seen as a winner, for obvious reasons.
The GST's regressive effects on low-income earners (more of whom are women) has been reconfirmed in a survey by the Women's Electoral Lobby, which found that of a sample of 499 household items, 454 would cost more if the tax were introduced.
Another prong in Labor's attack on Liberal policies relates to child-care: the Liberals prefer a tax rebate, which Labor says will benefit only middle and upper income earners.
Meanwhile, some feminist credentials are being shored up by the addition of Anne Summers, former editor of the US magazine Ms and author of Damned Whores and God's Police to Keating's personal staff.
But what, concretely, is on offer from Labor this time round?
So far, there have been a few welcome (and long overdue) changes, such as the payment of child allowances to the primary carer (usually a woman). Bonus one-off payments to low-income families are clearly very cynical bribes, but no-one is going to quibble about a few extra dollars to go towards an electricity bill.
All of which is light years away from this Labor government's original pitch to women nearly a decade ago. Then, the appeal was less to women as shoppers and more to a sentiment for change in the direction of higher status and greater equality in work and education. Expectations were at an all time high, and in 1983 for the first time in history, more women voted for Labor than men.
This time, the two big planks on which Labor's strategy for women once rested — the Sex Discrimination Act and the Affirmative Action Act — don't feature in Keating's pitch. They seem to get a mention in the media these days only when a new report reveals what little effect they have had. The latest of these is Half Way to Equal, the result of the parliamentary inquiry chaired by Michael Lavarch, which noted, among much else, the increasing casualisation of women's work, and the continuing low status and pay of part-time work, which is mainly done by women.
While feminist-minded voters will probably be hit with some slick talk tailored for their preoccupations sooner or later, it is unlikely the recommendations that would really make a difference — such as Lavarch's suggestion that the status and pay of part-time work be raised, and that employers be required to offer it as an option — will be implemented soon.
In the meantime, the next target audience for the vaudeville show is about to be herded into the theatre ...
By Tracy Sorensen