The two leaders, Prime Minister Julia Gillard (Labor) and challenger Tony Abbott (Liberal), both of whom recently toppled their predecessors in party-room coups, are now frantically searching for their own identity. And that’s what the election itself is increasingly about. Even though both have substantial track records as ministers, they are untried as national leaders. The real conundrum of the campaign – for them, if not for voters – is: Who the heck are these people?

left: the real Kevin Rudd (former PM) -- minus gall bladder -- on the comeback trail; right: the "real Gillard" has been unleashed. So who has been running the campaign up to now? (graphic: Liam Phillips)

Is their identity authentic (“real”) or produced by campaign strategists (“fake”)? Can voters trust what they see? The phrase of the week has been: “Will the real [insert name of opponent] stand up?” There has been persistent doubt about whether Tony Abbott is real. Now Julia Gillard has personally unleashed her own real self, in an attempt to halt a catastrophic slide in the polls. But was the “real Julia” a campaign ploy?

If the prospective Prime Ministers don’t know who they are, there are plenty of old ones around to teach them. Ousted PM Kevin Rudd popped up (after his understandably bilious gall bladder was removed at the weekend), as did former PMs John Howard, Paul Keating, Bob Hawke and Malcolm Fraser, topped by former Labor leader (never PM) Mark Latham, posing as a 60 Minutes “reporter.” All of them seemed to do most damage to their own side of politics, some willfully.

Former Labor leader Mark Latham confronts Gillard during a street walk (source: AAP)

Tony Abbott likened the Labor Party to a soap opera. One paper likened the entire spectacle to Days of Our Lives.  The Liberals tried to cash in, calling for “grown-up government,” as if they weren’t part of what one of them dubbed the “Vain and Ruthless” script. Said Gillard: “I’m the Prime Minister of this country, I’m not a human interest story.” Since when were these different things? Maybe it’s a generational divide, but if so the usual polarities are inverted. Middle-aged politicians are having adolescent agonies, trying out different personae and fixating on gender issues (watch ‘The Sunday papers’ here).

Meanwhile the kids are becoming more alert to the risks involved in appearing in public with more than one identity: “You have one identity. The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.” He adds: “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg caused blogosphere consternation for saying this – but wannabe PMs might want to think it through.

So is there anyone left in Australia who harbours political ambitions, personal integrity, a strong stance on environmental issues, and a unified and universal identity?

Crikey, yes! There’s Bindi Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter heiress, wildlife crusader and media celebrity, who’s got her own TV show (Bindi the Jungle Girl), fitness video, Bindi Wear clothing and a Hollywood movie (Free Willy #4 with Beau Bridges), which was reviewed on IMDb thus: “Australia should consider Bindi Irwin to be a national treasure.”

What Americans think Australians look like (photo: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images AsiaPac)

Although she’s the star of a magazine called Crikey, Bindi doesn’t – yet – own the eponymous website Crikey.com, whose mission for its brand of independent journalism is: “to bring its readers the inside word on what’s really going on in politics, government, media, business, the arts, sport and other aspects of public life in Australia. Crikey reveals how the powerful operate behind the scenes, and it tackles the stories insiders are talking about but other media can’t or won’t cover.”

Bindi’s Crikey! sticks close to the Irwin family business and wildlife appreciation, but this doesn’t mean she is uninterested in politics. She’s given us all fair warning. Months ago, aged 11, she made her announcement where it matters, in the 2m-circulation Australian Women’s Weekly: “I really am about making the world a better place. And, who knows, you may one day see me as prime minister or president.” American readers may wish to note that she leaves open the question of whether to rule Dad’s Australia (Prime Minister), or Mum’s USA (President) – making what could be called ‘Obama’s choice’ about nationality.

Either way, she repeated her ambition at her 12th birthday bash at Australia Zoo (of which she is heiress) on July 24: “As kids we are the next voters, the next decision makers and the next generation making a difference on our planet.” The pollies (that’s politicians, not parrots) have nothing to fear until at least 2016, when Bindi is old enough to vote and to take office. By that time we might look forward to “grown-up government” at last.

right: looking forward to grown-up government: the hopeful candidate celebrates her 12th birthday

Down under, well beneath the consciousness of the wider world, the 2010 Australian Federal election has an unreal, dreamlike air. We’re not talking Aboriginal Dreamtime here; we’re witnessing a new creation myth.

In your dreams: This is how we do politics in Australia. Prime Minister Julia Gillard (Photography by James Cant. Styling by Stav Hortis).

Julia Gillard is Australia’s first woman Prime Minister. She was installed barely a month before calling the election, deposing predecessor Kevin Rudd in a ruthless poll-driven coup on June 24, reducing “Kevin07” overnight from rooster to feather duster. According to the local media, the real interest in all this is that Gillard is also a “ranga” (redhead, as in orangutan), an atheist, childless and never-married, and the first Welsh-born PM anywhere.

All these weird factoids focused on Gillard’s past. She wanted to focus on the future. Not having a prime-ministerial track record to run on, apart from the back-stabbing, she used the Inception method. First, she bored us all to sleep. Then, she tried to implant a message in our subconscious. When she announced the election on July 17 she used the campaign slogan “Moving Forward” 24 times in five minutes.

A media savvy public dismissed the over-mediated message out of hand. It was mocked with the inevitable “Julia Gillard’s Moving Forward Dance Remix.” The Daily Telegraph analysed 50,000 comments from online platforms: “A massive 73 per cent of comments made across social media sites made negative comments about Ms Gillard’s Moving Forward slogan – or MoFo as the Twitterati have cynically branded it.”

Tony Abbott, leader of the Liberal-National Coalition opposition

After a week of phoney-war campaigning, the leaders of the two major parties – Labor Gillard and conservative rival Tony Abbott – met for their first and only TV debate. Did that move Australians forward? Nope; the winners of the debate were: #1, the worm or “polliegraph,” a media-invented device for recording – and influencing – viewers’ preferences on-screen; and #2, earlobes (Gillard’s proved to be pendulous). Oh, and the season finale of Masterchef, whose timeslot the debate wisely vacated.

The worm turns; the earlobes emerge.

The public took more notice of media about the election than the election itself. The ABC (our PSB “national broadcaster,” averaging about a 15% audience share, known to all as Auntie) wiped the floor with the commercial networks by not taking it seriously. Biggest winner was Gruen Nation, an election-special version of a regular comedy panel show about advertising, which topped the ratings that day (33.2 % share), followed by the return of comedy pranksters The Chaser with their own election special, Yes We Canberra! with fewer viewers but a whopping 42% share in its timeslot.

Gruen Nation advertises itself as “the national bullshit detector”: “An election campaign is about show business. But while everyone else will be busy discussing the business, at GRUEN NATION we’re only interested in the show.” Even the normally ABC-baiting Murdoch papers were impressed: “While the debate was widely panned by viewers for its lack of passion, Gruen’s dissection of political advertising and spin was a welcome relief.”

Attentive readers of another Murdoch paper would know that all this is an example of what I’ve called “silly citizenship,” in a chapter in Stuart Allen’s recent Rethinking Communication. Or, as Emma Tom put it in The Australian:

Another feverish––and fascinating––writer in this area is Queensland academic John Hartley… “In mainstream media the rise of satire TV, notably The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, has propelled comedy, send-ups and spoofs to the centre of the political process,” Hartley writes. “Comedy is becoming a more trusted source of political information than partisan commentators in mainstream news … Comedy is the go-to source for civic understanding”. (‘First the Porn, then the Culture.’ 10 July 2010)

The unruly blue-collar unions took note, running spoof election ads on YouTube, supporting the mythical “Fair Go for Billionaires” ticket.

"I wouldn’t mind going out to dinner with her!"

Something I had not foreseen was the importance of fantasy fashion as a “trusted source of political information.” But, in the otherwise “disastrous” second campaign week: “Gillard won big with a 13-page cover spread in the widely-read Women’s Weekly, a highly sympathetic piece that penetrated well to an audience well beyond the headlines that were otherwise plaguing her” (New Zealand Herald, 31 July 2010). These pictures may or may not win her the election, but they are certainly having an impact on the heart-rate of her opponents. The maverick spokesman of the National Party, Sen. Barnaby Joyce, liked what he saw – while doubting its reality:

I don’t know who she is, but I wouldn’t mind going out to dinner with her! … I’ve got no problem with people doing themselves up, but some of those photos it’s just, I don’t know, it’s not the same lady I get in the lift with.

There are still three weeks to go to polling day on August 21. Anything might happen to turn this Australian dream into the usual nightmare.  So, as Australia dozes fitfully under the spectre of anti-immigration, climate-sceptic, religious-right populism (and that’s just the Labor Party), the question remains: is there someone who will stand up for the real issues?

Meanwhile – here’s a reality check: just watch out for the spin.

Warner Bros. Pictures