Rudd's Number Not Up Yet Among Howard's Bingo Brigade
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday December 13, 2006
SITTING at the bingo table at Townsville's senior citizens club, Frances Petersen, who turns 87 next month, boasts that she is in fine fettle - not an ache or pain in her body. The secret, she whispers, is a capsule of cayenne pepper each day and a glass of raw potato juice.
Her father, she says, died in his bed aged 101. "Thank God he had a heart attack. He couldn't go to the toilet or feed his own mouth. What do you live for?"Minutes earlier, Mrs Petersen had asked the visiting Kevin Rudd whether he would support euthanasia. "What's the good of people lying there taking up all those beds when the doctor can't do anything more for them?" she said.Asked in the full glare of the cameras, it was one of the curlier questions Mr Rudd has faced since becoming Labor leader.He told her gently he did not support her idea. "I'm worried where we would end up with a system where older people feel themselves they've become a burden,' he said. "I don't want that pressure ever placed on our seniors. The mark of any society is how compassionate we are to our most frail, whether it's our youngest or our seniors."It was not the answer Mrs Petersen - and many of her bingo colleagues - was seeking, but they accepted it. Mr Rudd found a welcome in John Howard territory as he empathised with residents, comparing their problems with those of his mother in her final years. Simple things like losing your driver's licence because you were old, and there being no bus to get to "senior cits". Or how to get the elderly out of hospitals and into aged care beds. And the lack of public dental care.This was the pointy end of what Mr Rudd has called the blame game - the need to overhaul federal-state relations so one authority has clear responsibility for such problems.Elsie Prince took to him immediately - a "nice, ordinary man" - even though his visit interrupted her hot winning streak at bingo. Then again, she hasn't forgiven Mr Howard for the GST.Mr Rudd has struggled with being ordinary - an art mastered by Mr Howard - but he is doing his best. During a street walk later, he approached three rough-looking blokes, all wearing mirror shades and covered with tattoos. "Kevin Rudd," he said, thrusting out his hand. One of the blokes skulked off when he saw the cameras. He was pulling a sickie and didn't want to get in trouble. Afterwards he said he liked Mr Rudd because "he was having a go"."We're going to the pub. If he's still here when we get back we'll give him a go when we're full of piss," he said.This is the world in which Mr Rudd now lives.
© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald