Great Historical Examples Of Australian “Absent-Mindedness” Tony Abbott Absent-Mindedly Forgot About Yesterday

A lot of people have been scoffing at Tony Abbott’s description, during his address yesterday to the National Press Club, of “when people, in a fit of absent-mindedness, elect a Labor government”. But he actually raised a pretty important issue: Australia has a long history of absent-minded behaviour that has seriously changed the course of the nation. The following timeline might really open your eyes about the impact that Australians’ inherently scatterbrained nature has had on all our destinies.

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1788: English settlers, drifting in a distracted manner about the South Pacific, arrive in Australia with a plan to not dispossess the indigenous people and begin a centuries-long process of genocide and cultural destruction, but it completely slips their mind.

1808: In a typically absent-minded move, the New South Wales Corps forgets to not depose the Governor.

1851: Several Australians, wandering the countryside trying to remember why they left the house, trip over some gold. When they get home they’re sure there was something they meant to tell everyone, but they’ve forgotten what it was. This process repeats itself thousands of times over the next few years.

1877: A group of Australians, upon being pelted by Englishmen with hard balls, forget to get out of the way and instead hit the balls with sticks, thus inventing test cricket.

1901: The Australian states forget that they’re separate colonies, and accidentally become a unified country, a concentration lapse that afterwards leads to much forehead-slapping.

1915: The absent-minded Australian military, having clean forgot what a bad idea the Gallipoli campaign is, conduct the Gallipoli campaign.

1916: Following a typically muddle-headed episode where the duffers of Australia forgot to introduce conscription, Prime Minister Billy Hughes forgets that he’s in the Labor Party and stumbles, confused and disoriented, into the Nationalist Party of Australia, which several years later forgets to keep existing.

1939: Unable to recall off the top of his head whether his country is Australia or England, Robert Menzies declares war on Germany just to be safe. On their way to Germany, the army gets lost and ends up in Papua New Guinea. Classic Australia!

1956: Television begins broadcasting in Australia, but in what the rest of the world now terms “pulling an Aussie,” the entire country forgets to make any good shows for thirty years.

1966: Australia forgets what its currency is. Finding some American dollars behind the couch, the country decides that’ll do until it can remember what it’s supposed to be using.

1967: A referendum is held to amend the constitution to count Aboriginal people as people. Voters everywhere forget to be racist momentarily. “We’d forget our heads if they weren’t screwed on!” they later chuckle.

Later in 1967, Prime Minister Harold Holt forgets how to swim at a particularly awkward moment. The country mourns his death, but does find his embrace of the traditional national trait of absent-mindedness incredibly endearing.

1972: After 23 years of relatively focused behaviour at election time, the electorate becomes extremely absent-minded and votes in Gough Whitlam’s Labor government. Whitlam, realising he has a mandate to be a bit all over the place, persistently forgets how much money the country has got. In 1975 he makes a real blooper when he completely forgets to kick the governor-general in the balls.

1981: Australian cricket captain Greg Chappell forgets how bowling works.

1983: The country draws a collective mental blank and forgets that sailing is a terrible sport for a few days. Prime Minister Bob Hawke epitomises the giddiness of the nation when he forgets that you’re not allowed to stay home from work if you’re not sick.

1986: Malcolm Fraser gets very absent-minded in a Memphis hotel, the social convention of putting on pants momentarily escaping him. He repeats this vagueness years later when forgetting that he is a Liberal.

1993: Opposition Leader John Hewson forgets to win the Federal election.

1996: As Paul Keating faces off against John Howard for the Prime Ministership, Australia has a bit of a senior moment and forgets the normal procedure of not voting for John Howard.

2001: The Tampa crisis causes PM Howard to forget how to behave like a decent human being. Everyone follows his lead.

2003: Australia, along with several other dizzy-witted old sillyhead countries, forgets pretty much everything it’s ever known and decides to go to war in Iraq. In subsequent years numerous members of the government go on to forget why.

2007: Everyone forgets everything John Howard did for them and elects Kevin Rudd in another one of those electing-Labor space-outs, a man who is himself extremely absent-minded, having long ago misplaced his sense of humility, and whose Prime Ministership is marked by frequent memory lapses regarding how to not hurl vicious abuse at everyone in the room.

2008: Rudd apologises to the Stolen Generations, apparently forgetting that Andrew Bolt has already proven they don’t exist.

2010: Australia forgets who the Prime Minister is, but after thinking for a bit, is reasonably sure it’s Julia Gillard. In the subsequent election, Gillard forgets who she is, but promises she’ll remember in future. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is confident of winning, but at the last minute forgets to. After an extremely close election, government lies in the hands of three Independents. One of them, Rob Oakeshott, makes a speech to tell the country who he’s chosen, but forgets to end it.

2011: Questioned about his comments in Afghanistan, Tony Abbott forgets how to talk for a surprising length of time.

2012: Julia Gillard gets extremely scatty during a parliamentary session, finding herself utterly unable to locate her temper. “I will not be lectured on misogyny by this man,” she says absent-mindedly, failing to remember that she already has been.

2013: Australia suddenly remembers: RUDD was Prime Minister. Oops. No harm done. Later that year Australia elects Tony Abbott, having forgotten who Tony Abbott is. Abbott therefore becomes Prime Minister, although over the next year or so he frequently forgets this fact.

2014: Abbott forgets that Aborigines exist.

2015: Abbott tries his best to forget pretty much everything.

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Ben Pobjie is a writer and comedian with a keen interest in television, politics and gratuitous nudity. His work is seen in The Age, New Matilda, the Guardian, the Roar, and myriad other corners. He has written three books and read almost twice that many.