Dismal GG fails to met the historic moment

By CRISPIN HULL

Not since 1975 – 40 years ago – has a Governor-General performed so poorly at the Melbourne Cup.

In 1975 Sir John Kerr got a bit plastered and was out of control.

Not so in 2015. Sir Peter Cosgrove was in total control. So much in control that he was utterly controlled by what seemed to be a pre-prepared speech.

Just fill in the blanks with the name of the jockey, trainer and owner.

He completely missed the point of history.

Why didn’t he just chuck away his prop — his prepared speech — and seize the moment of history. For the first time in the 154 years of its running, a female jockey won the Melbourne Cup

Yay.

You wouldn’t know if you listened to the Governor-General. Or worse, the speech from the corporate sponsor’s lackey. The Emirates man – backed by hosties with a symbolic acknowledgement of Islam with a slight silk scarf – was worse. His speech seemed like an obvious “fill in the blanks” script.

Even the trainer, who should have had more empathy, thanked the owners, the staff and even the strapper before even mentioning the real historic heroine of the moment – Michelle Payne, the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup.

Payne was magnificent. Panting and bouncing in the saddle while returning from the win she told of her fight against a misogynous industry and a battle to fight off moves to take her off Prince of Penzance a couple of weeks before the moment of glory.

Typical. Woman does hard yards. Bloke takes over at the winning moment. But not so on this occasion. She fought to keep her ride and won on it.

Riding back to the pavilion she said this about males who thought a female could not win the Melbourne Cup, “You can all get stuffed.”

Meanwhile, back at the pavilion, the miserable, frightened, beholden, set-piece speakers spoke their set–piece speeches. Ironically, they imagined that this would be safe. Their PR speech-writers propping them up from any possible faux pas.

Well, the safe, bum-covering, PR, offend-no-one approach back-fired this time.

The glossy, smoozy, set-piece failure of the Governor-General and the Emirates representative to seize the moment of history illustrates the desperate poverty of a large part public life in Australia today: safety, bum-overing, offend no-one, no spontaneity.

The obverse is, of course, inspire no-one. And if ever there was a moment to capture imaginations and inspire Australians it was the day the first woman jockey won the Melbourne Cup.