At the time this goes to print, last drinks will have been called on a year of excremental mediocrity in Australia’s political history. The ugly lights will be on, revealing a handful of interns and junior staffers sweeping the debris around drunken, semi-conscious pundits too clapped out to talk coherently, but too addicted to call it a day. The politicians will have long departed, returning to their families, prostitutes or shoplifting – as befits their needs. The general public will bemoan summer programming and the lack of reality cooking shows with nappy wearing contestants. And so will end 2011, neither with a bang nor a whimper, but with a wet fart and clench-cheeked waddle to the taxi rank. Strange, yet uninteresting times, swingers. As I reflect now, to the sound of rain on the roof and Chinese soap opera from the neighbouring flat, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that we are a nation not with amnesia, but with full blown dementia. Amnesiacs just lose their memory, whereas we have lost memory and reason both. Maybe this is our collective fate. While Europe collapses, the US eats itself and the Middle East systematically overturns brutal secular dictators in favour of democratically elected brutal theocratic dictators, we’ll just sit here, admiring the garden, pressing the ‘nurse’ button and wondering when the kids will come to visit.

It’s not like the year was without incident. In March Japan suffered an 8.9 level earthquake and devastating tsunami that killed tens of thousands and led to the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power facility – the worst domestic nuclear incident since Chernobyl, if not ever. Australia was quick to respond with rhetoric and some small amount of aid, but that was about it. Our real appreciation of the extent of the tragedy can be best demonstrated by the government’s commitment in November to lift the ban on Uranium sales to India. Let’s just pause on this for a moment. Japan is arguably the most technologically developed country on Earth – it would certainly rank in the top three – yet it was unable to foresee and engineer for such a disaster. Now we are going to supply Uranium to India, which has a lower level of quality control than any other nuclear capable country and a government populated by officials with a pathological hatred of neighbouring Pakistan, who are already asking why we won’t sell Uranium to them too. Nope, nothing could go wrong there.

We are of course still fighting the War on Reason in two countries, both of which have seen a massive displacement of citizens with perfectly legitimate claims to refugee status. Some have even had the audacity to seek the safety of our shores by boat. Rather than acknowledge that, we have been a contributing factor in their desperation. The Gillard government has done everything in its power to undermine our international obligation to grant refuge – to the point of exceeding the hitherto unheard of soullessness of the Howard years. The High Court ruled the proposed Malaysian solution illegal and for a heartbeat it looked like we might be forced to do what every other civilised country on Earth does, and process application quickly, on-shore, without the imposition of mandatory detention. The ALP national convention has just voted in favour of continuing pursuit of offshore processing and human rights abuse. Xenophobia has won the day again folks. Stand by for a new wave of fridge magnets

There was a mildly interesting diversion when it was revealed that the British arm of the Murdoch empire has been engaged in systemic illegal phone tapping, leading to criminal charges and the shut-down of an entire publication. The flow-on effect here was remarkable in its tepidity. An inquiry into News Ltd practices in Australia was carried out by *cough* News Ltd, who surprisingly found no evidence of wrongdoing. A subsequent federal inquiry came to the conclusion that News Ltd publications, in particular its flagship broadsheet, tended to lie a bit, but all issues should be continued to be dealt with by the industry’s own regulatory body, which just happens to be funded largely by *cough* News Ltd. At the time their most read columnist had just been found guilty of racial vilification and, surprisingly, shoddy journalism by the federal court. This was the result of an action brought about by victims who had unavailingly attempted recourse through that same regulatory body regarded as a fit and proper overseer of the industry. The resultant cries of ‘gummint is killing ur free speech’ rang long and tunelessly, most notably from the unpunished perpetrator and the editorial section of the aforementioned national broadsheet, which doesn’t allow for comment or rebuttal. The hypocrisy was breathtaking, especially considering the Australian’s litigious efforts regarding a journalist who dared to report via twitter, what was said by a News Ltd journalist at a media conference. These are the twisted times we live in, and while MPs cower in fear of a beating from the print equivalent of a motorcycle club, you’d be a damned fool to expect change. Ironically, motorcycle clubs have been used weakly as justification to strip us all of the rights the press odiously claims are denied to them.

Change is not something you’d want to go double or nothing on in 2012 either. Whack-job religious PR groups like the ACL still hold inordinate amounts of sway with our elected officials on both sides of the floor, hence the concession of a ‘conscience vote’ on the issue of marriage equality by the ALP. Here’s a tip for free. A ‘conscience vote’ is code for allowing dissent by the handful of members who actually possess one. It enables powerbrokers to get about the job of maintaining the status quo while granting themselves the get out of jail free card of appearing progressive on the off chance the numbers go against them.

Sure, an emissions trading scheme and mining tax got through, but both are weaker than the versions the Greens voted against last time around. Think on that next time you’re tempted to quaff fermented tofu juice and break out the John Butler. No real change has taken place, and none is likely in the year to follow. There may be leadership changes, scandals, by-elections, or any of a number of distractions – all they will serve to do is make life easier for the media to report spectacle over substance. As much as it’s easy to loathe them for doing so, their gruel is thin and has lacked meat for some time. By the time it filters through to us, it is practically homeopathic.

And so the band plays on. The dancers dance, the pipers pipe and while we all hate the tune, nobody is suggesting a new song. For mine, I think I’ll buy a motorbike. The thought of the coming year makes me yearn for the oblivion of a ribbon of tar through the hills, the wind in my face and all chatter drowned out by the roar of an open throttle. Happy New Year, swingers.

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Heath hails from Sydney, by day he brings raw sexuality to the world of calculators. By night he scours the streets in search of underpriced cheese. Heath blogs regularly and splendidly at www.gibbot.wordpress.com and tweets a lot @Gibbot5000

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