One Nation woos Joyce with steak as political romance inspires toon
Love struck twice in Canberra this past week in cartoonist Mark Knight’s take, as the Prime Minister tied the knot while Barnaby Joyce enjoyed a political date with One Nation’s Pauline Hanson
READING LEVEL: GREEN
“Love is in the air, everywhere I look around”. That line from the 1977 John Paul Young Australian classic disco hit summed up the mood in Canberra this past week.
We saw the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese tie the knot with his fiancee* Jody Haydon at a garden ceremony in the grounds of the Lodge, the official residence of the Prime Minister.
Friends, family and parliamentary colleagues gathered to celebrate Albo and Jody’s marriage.
It is the first time an Aussie PM has been hitched while in office and the pictures of the loved-up couple smiling broadly and holding hands were a welcome respite* from the usual terse and adversarial* pictures we get of our pollies in the nation’s capital.
Because this prime ministerial wedding was a first, I felt compelled to draw something about it in my regular cartoon spot.
Looking at the pictures of Albo and Jody, I started doodling and eventually the sketches morphed* into a traditional scene of the groom carrying the bride over a threshold.
The other tradition at weddings is the bride tossing her bouquet* over her shoulder to female wedding guests who are single.
By catching the bouquet, it is said to bring them good luck in finding a partner. Sometimes the wedding bouquet toss looks like an AFL contested ruck, with elbows out and women sent flying. The more determined participants take it very seriously!
This is where I had to set aside my ambition to draw a nice, simple, wedding celebration cartoon.
I felt I had to add a little bit of federal politicking into the cartoon. You see, this week National Party* politician and former leader of the party Barnaby Joyce decided to leave the Nationals. He felt he didn’t fit in with who they were these days, nor did he agree with their policies.
In a further bombshell*, Barnaby said he was eyeing off joining Pauline Hanson’s* One Nation* party.
Pauline’s party appealed to Mr Joyce, and only a few nights ago we saw on the TV news vision of her cooking Barnaby a wagyu* steak on a sandwich press in her Parliament House office and the two of them eating dinner together. It looked like date night! Politically, anyway. Over a steak and a glass of red, Pauline and Barnaby were openly flirting with the prospect of his joining the One Nation Party.
So back to the PM’s wedding cartoon. It seemed obvious to me that the Prime Minister and Jody Haydon were not the only ones interested in becoming a partnership in Canberra last week. I thought I should add another couple to the cartoon: Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce, with the PM’s bride throwing her bridal bouquet in their direction.
In the cartoon, Pauline looks very determined to catch it and by tradition, snap up Mr Joyce for One Nation.
I very much look forward to drawing the cartoon of Pauline and Barnaby’s political wedding if he does hook up with One Nation!
POLL
GLOSSARY
- fiancee: the woman someone is engaged to marry
- respite: a pause or rest from something hard or unpleasant
- adversarial: involving people opposing or strongly disagreeing with each other
- morphed: to gradually change, or change someone or something
- bouquet: flowers picked and fastened together in a bunch
- National Party: Australia’s second oldest political party, the Nationals or the Nats are traditionally conservative, represent the interests of regional Australia and those who live and work in regional areas and they also are in a coalition with the Liberal Party
- bombshell: a sudden, significant and often unpleasant piece of news
- One Nation: Pauline Hanson founded the conservative One Nation Party in Ipswich in 1997; Hanson and the party really burst on to Australia’s political scene at the 1998 Queensland election
- wagyu: Japanese word for certain high quality breeds of Japanese cattle known for qualities like marbling and tenderness
EXTRA READING
Country romance over for Coalition
Romance reborn in Knight cartoon
PM’s pup Toto totes wedding rings
QUICK QUIZ
- Who married Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week?
- How many times in the nation’s history has a sitting PM married while in office?
- Where in Canberra did the happy couple marry and what was the extra significance of the venue?
- Who was Pauline Hanson attempting to woo in the same week as the PM wed?
- Which surprising appliance did Pauline Hanson use to cook up the steak in her parliamentary office?
LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. What happened next?
Turn the cartoon into a story or script for a short play or comedy skit. Your story must be about what happened after the bouquet was tossed.
Time: allow at least 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English
2. Extension
Draw the cartoon that you think Mark would create if Barnaby Joyce did join One Nation. Use ideas in the story to inspire you!
Time: allow at least 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links English, Visual Communication Design
VCOP ACTIVITY
Stretch your sentence
Find a “who” in the cartoon – a person or an animal. Write it down.
Add three adjectives to describe them better.
Now add a verb to your list. What are they doing?
Add an adverb about how they are doing the action.
Using all the words listed, create one descriptive sentence.