Mr Downer's Sense Of Humour
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday September 9, 1994
A POLITICIAN with a sense of humour, particularly a self-deprecating one, is a politician who should be encouraged. The public has become so used to politicians who take themselves seriously at all times - whose egos are so large that they resent the barbs of satirists and cartoonists - that it is refreshing to find one who is willing to send himself up. Many politicians are reluctant or find it difficult to display this side of their nature in public. Often the staff and close associates of a leader who is seen as wooden or pompous bemoan the fact that the public never gets to see the relaxed and humorous person they serve.
Humour in politics can, however, be a dangerous thing. Irony, in particular, has to be eliminated from a politician's repertoire because it is a much misunderstood form of humour and lines which are delivered with devastating oratorical effect have a different meaning when read later in print. Like a professional comedian, a politician also has to be a fine judge of his or her audience and material. A joke which gets a lot of laughs in the privacy of an office or party room can backfire badly when told to a wider audience, especially when it is off-colour. Mr Bob Hawke, with his Mrs Gandhi joke, and Mr Jeff Kennett, with his beauty contest joke, can testify to this.
Mr Alexander Downer, whose self-deprecating sense of humour is one of his more attractive features, learned these lessons this week. His attempt at humour in the form of a play on the words of the title of his vision statement, The Things That Matter, has forced him to issue an apology for seeming to make light of the issue of domestic violence. This followed his feeble joke that the Coalition's policy on domestic violence would be called"The Things That Batter". Mr Downer was at first bewildered that his attempt at humour had not been appreciated. His faux pas should have been obvious to him from the somewhat stunned response of the Liberal Party audience he was addressing. The next day, after harder heads in the Liberal Party (including Mrs Kerry Chikarovski) had complained about his gaffe, Mr Downer apologised for appearing to trivialise such a serious social issue.
There has never been the slightest suggestion that Mr Downer is not concerned with the effects of domestic violence in the community. The Things That Matter commits a Coalition Government to work towards eliminating violence against women and children. But this does not mean that Mr Downer's forced apology for his frivolous comment is a victory for the politicallycorrect thought police. Mr Downer has now recognised what others in his party were much quicker to do - that if he did not apologise, he would have found it difficult to get people to take seriously the party's policy on domestic violence when it is released.
Mr Downer will learn from his poor attempt at humour on this occasion. He will find it more difficult to recover from the fact that he has succeeded in making The Things That Matter an object of fun. Even without the domestic violence gaffe, his jokes about the title of his policy statement have helped undermine his own policy statement in a fashion which Mr Keating could never have hoped to achieve. Mr Keating will now find it very easy to deride its goals and aspirations; he simply has to take his cue from Mr Downer. Once again, Mr Downer's political judgment has been tested and found wanting. It is that, not his sense of humour, which must be of concern to his colleagues.
© 1994 Sydney Morning Herald