Clash of Legends
The right hand two-thirds of the Herald Sun’s front page today is dedicated to a story about the union rally that’s happening at the MCG on November 30 (full text under a different headline here). The headline is “MCG RALLY RIFT”. The rift, it turns out, is between the union organisers and - who, exactly? “The Melbourne Cricket Club can expect stiff opposition from among its 95,000 members”, apparently. Might well be true, but the paper’s research only extended to asking six old cricket and football stars what they thought about it, two of whom had an objection to the rally. Neil Harvey suggested that “They should find somewhere else to do it”, and Max Walker came up with the interesting statement “I love the MCG. It should be for the good of the people, not for the bad of the people.” Ron Barassi, Sam Newman, Dean Jones and Keith Stackpole, meanwhile, pointed out that the ground has been used for all sorts of things in the past including religious meetings, and as long as the surface is looked after there shouldn’t be any objections.
So as far as we can tell, the “rift” is between Max Walker and Neil Harvey on the one hand, and everyone else on the other. In fact, there’s probably not a rift at all, just some people who happen to object.
It’s notable, because the Herald Sun is usually too busy being trashy to bother being partisan. Political barrow-pushing generally has to make way for football, celebrity gossip and their various forays into Today Tonight style tabloidism. Apart from the Andrew Bolt freak show (read mostly by lefties getting their weekly adrenaline fix, I suspect), the paper is more or less the embodiment of a modern, profit-driven rag. Political grandstanding would only put a downer on things and scare away the advertisers, so much better to add a few more fawning reviews and lifestyle articles, a good murder here and there, some foot-in-door consumer protection stuff, plenty of entertainment news, and above all plenty of sport. When things get as blatantly partisan as today’s headline, the Hun must have a good reason.
It’s easy to see why the Right would be upset by the MCG rally. The union movement, by co-opting the “hallowed turf” into its struggle, is treading on the iconography that the right wing presumes to own. The ACTU could hardly link its cause more potently to the Australian Legend if they dug up Don Bradman and wrapped his unorthodox grip around a union placard. Sport is one of the most important vectors of political communication in this country. (If you think that says something about the quality of political communication, you’re right, but that’s another story).
As for the Hun, maybe they also regard this as an intrusion onto their turf - as their paper shows, the last thing they want is for sport, their most enduring connection with their readership, to be sullied by politics. The paper’s share in the Australian Legend, like that of the conservatives, is under threat, so they rang around some Legend insiders for support. They must have been disappointed to only score two out of six.