Malcolm in the middle

You know what I’m looking forward to? Christmas! Also, that big moment -“ surely imminent -“ when Wentworth MP Malcolm Turnbull makes his brazen pitch for gay votes in the upcoming election.

Traditionally, the seat of Wentworth has been a pretty conservative place but, come November, thanks to a boundary shift, it will take in such homo hotspots as Betty Bay, Pooves Point and the Cross. Wentworth will look about as gay as a federal Australian electorate can look. It will be gayer than Grayndler; gayer, in fact, than a field full of daisies.

But Malcolm’s been a bit slow to Love The Gays, so far. There was no float in this year’s Mardi Gras, for example, and although he’s made some positive remarks about how horribly discriminated-against we are, he’s not exactly been a champion of our cause.

But for what it’s worth, I suspect Malcolm is probably a pretty modern guy, with some reasonably right-on views about The Gays, and one day, he might well be the modern, gay-friendly leader of a more modern, gay-friendly Liberal Party. That’d be nice.

But that doesn’t mean the Labor Party shouldn’t go hell for leather this November and try to get him voted the hell out.

Labor is yet to select its candidate for Wentworth but, if I was Kevin Rudd, I’d be putting a call through to Kerryn Phelps and asking her if she’d like a crack at it.

As a Jewish lesbian, Kerryn has cachet with two of the biggest voting blocs in Wentworth. And as the former head of the Australian Medical Association, she would enter the race with an extremely high profile. Of course, she’d have to do some explaining, vis-?is her role in that messy Satellite Group debacle a few years back, but I reckon The Gays would rally around her. At the very least, it would make for an interesting tussle.

Apparently, Malcolm holds Wentworth by a margin of four percent, which means, no matter who Labor puts up, he can’t afford to rest on his laurels. He’s got to get out there and suck some voter arse, and with the sudden pinking of Wentworth, sucking voter arse is set to take on an entirely new resonance. This one’s going to be fun to watch.