Right Or Left At Oak Street

When I was younger, politics in Australia was much simpler. We have an election here this week, and it’s been dubbed the ‘me too’ election.

Yesterday, when I was young, you had a choice between left and right, Labor or the Conservatives.

I have had Roy Clarke’s songs rattling around my mind all week as I pondered the changes that have occurred over the past two decades.

Right or Left At Oak Street was a song written by Charlie Williams & Joe Nixon, and sung by Roy Clarke way back in 1969. It describes the choices faced by someone confronted by the monotony of his life.

Did he take the well trodden path, or did he venture into the unknown…?

There doesn’t appear to be an unknown this time around, as both sides fight for the middle ground. Both are trying to present themselves as conservative money managers with a social conscience.

Labor environment spokesman Peter Garret made a gaffe by making an off hand comment that policies would change once they were in government, and the conservatives have been pushing the issue of union control.

For their part, the conservatives have been embarrassed by revelations of secret industrial relations papers, and a racist smear campaign in the western Sydney electorate of Lindsey.

Back in the early 1970’s, it was a clear choice between William McMahon, and Gough Whitlam. Whitlam led labor into government, pulled Australia out of Vietnam, and into a whirlpool of change.

I don’t think there will be a whirlpool this time around, but I don’t think that everything is as rosy as both sides make out either.

A country with a population of 21 million won’t be insulated against global events. Recent downward movements of the American dollar and rising inflation in China are just two economic indicators of coming change.

Climate change and the Millennium drought, an aging population and the continuing war on terror are other issues as well.

Were things simpler when I was young, or was it just the fact that I was, indeed young?

Just for the record, Yesterday When I Was Young was written by Herbert Kretzmer – Charles Aznavour, and sung by Roy Clarke in 1969. Shirley Bassey also belted out a fantastic version!