Peter Bills: Political disenchantment wins

No woman has ever been elected as Prime Minister in Australia's history.

The present holder of that office, Australian Labor Party leader Julia Gillard seized the role after a coup that toppled previously elected leader Kevin Rudd. Whether polling today will make history in that sense or merely confirm suspicions that Australia is still too macho a country to elect a woman as its leader, remains to be seen.

The latest polls suggest a close-run race with growing support for the Liberals and their Coalition partners, led by Tony Abbott. Now, Abbott is a fair dinkum Aussie, the proverbial good bloke. A former lifesaver, he played rugby to a decent club level, dons his bicycling gear and heads off on the saddle to try and garner a more few votes.

In Australia, this image matters. It's harder for a woman to play that particular game so, earlier in the campaign, Gillard and her partner flew to Perth to watch her favourite footie team, the Western Bulldogs play a game (nice way to get to a match - private plane to the city followed by luxury limousine to sweep you off the tarmac into the stadium). But I digress.

All this is well and good and what Australian politicians believe is required for the task at hand. They think positive, happy or dynamic shots of them mixing with sports stars, or kissing babies or looking serious alongside captains of industry are what will ultimately win them elections. Intrinsically, they continue to believe that image is all.

Gillard recently took this to absurd proportions, undergoing a series of photo shoots for popular (mostly female-aimed) glossy national magazines. There was Gillard with a trowel full of make-up under the lights in some photographer's studio, hair swept back by an unseen dryer. There she was, joking and grinning off shoot, but still in the studio. And then there was yet another, different outfit this time, a little more risque, perhaps?

This was one big advantage Gillard seemed to have over her rival and she was milking it for all it was worth. But within days, her poll ratings began to tumble. And I suspect there was a good reason for that.

Most women, especially those with husbands and children, generally get about five minutes to put on their make-up in the mornings. They're rushing to make the tea or coffee and the toast, sort out the kids' lunch boxes and find a clean shirt for hubby. I bet a hell of a lot of Australian women who saw those glossy, perfect pictures took one look and said "yuk".

This brings me to the kernel of the issue. The magnitude of Gillard's task in trying to win the Australian general election is not because of the fact that she is a woman. Rather, it is that a huge number of Australians are clearly disenchanted with their politicians.

Of course, politicians being who they are and limited in terms of common sense and intuition, are among the last to grasp such facts. But observing this Australian election in recent weeks, as I did the one in Britain in May, it is clear to me that a disillusionment exists among the electorate for politicians per se.

It was an identical scenario in Britain. Pompous politicians such as the former British Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown thought he could trot out all kinds of disingenuous figures to justify his bogus arguments and the dumb public would accept them.

Once he had gone, the true extent of the chaos he and his party had left emerged quickly. Britain is likely to be in penury for at least the next 10 years and perhaps longer.

You wonder how anyone in Britain could trust Brown's party again. But will David Cameron's Conservatives or his Liberal Coalition partners be any different? Most people in Britain don't think so and a similar feeling of unease and distrust has pervaded this Australian election.

Yet politicians don't get it. They continue to believe that image is all and uncomfortable realities can be buried. But they can't in ordinary people's everyday lives, which extends the growing chasm between the voters and those who govern.