Nov 28 2009
Tony Abbott and the dyke defence
Writing fantasy isn’t the sole prerogative of fantasy writers. How about long-serving members of parliament? [since this was posted, Tony Abbott has become leader of the opposition. Wall builders around Australia should start ordering bricks and cement]
Below is a single sentence from an article written by a prominent opposition politician the leader of the opposition. The sentence is complete and expresses an opinion which is consistent with the tone of the rest of the article . In other words, I am not being unfair to the writer by extracting it here. But if you’d like to read the rest, here it is.
And here’s the sentence:
Still, it’s far from certain that the best response to rising sea levels, for instance, is lifting the price of electricity, rather than the kind of measures that have been used in The Netherlands for centuries.
Is this not the most wonderful fantasy slash speculative fiction writing ever to have come from the pen of a serving politician, writing in office and about a singularly important national issue? Let’s just savour the image and consider the rest of the story that Mr Abbott has so tantalisingly hinted to us.
The seas are rising. They are rising and threatening human life in coastal areas. But, the writer points out, there is nothing new about this situation. The Dutch, who live in one of what are known as the Low Countries, have for centuries fought against the North Sea and its incursions into their agricultural land. In order to protect their crops, and in extreme cases, houses and infrastructure, the handy Hollanders built hundreds of kilometres of dykes around portions of their (relatively) small coastline.
Now I don’t know about you, but as a child I was fascinated by the tale of the little Dutch boy who stood for hours with his finger in a hole in a Dutch dyke, thus saving the village and the harvest.
So Mr Abbott sees us as a nation of Dutch boys, building seawalls along the coastline wherever human habitation or agriculture or other areas of national importance are within, say, 3 metres of the current sea level. You can imagine them now, dykes defending all of Sydney and Wollongong, Newcastle and all the coastal capitals of the country. In fact, there’s only one capital that isn’t near the coast and that’s the one Mr Abbot works in. Which means a lot of sea walls. But it doesn’t stop there. What about major towns, small towns, villages, retirement homes, canal estate developments, national parks, golf courses, anything and everything that’s close to the sea? They’ll need the same protection. Except maybe for the canal developments — we can’t defend everything.
Or is it possible that Mr Abbott is only playing with us? That he doesn’t really believe in this vision of the world? That he is actually being ironic? And then there’s the whole “higher powers” argument that implies that all of this human worrying is essentially irrelevant. Bring on the Saltie Fludde to wipe away the filth and fornication!
Whatever his intention, one thing is obvious — if he were a writer of fantasy or speculative fiction, he’d fail the basic test: that of appearing convinced and therefore convincing about the world he is portraying. Epic fail to Mr Tony.