The Cave #11
The Cave this week brings you hot takes on Australia’s next Prime Minister (Valerie the Dog), Australia’s greatest foreign adversary (Lady Gaga), and something that most Australians may have missed (the election).
All delivered with the frenetic energy of a Trumpet of Patriots text blitz.
Comms
Sausage (Dog) Sizzle, or the enduring value of the news grid
After 529 days roaming Kangaroo Island, Valerie the dachshund was caught by an ingenious plan, 18 months in the making, of…offering a dog some toys and food.
The story has nonetheless captured the world’s attention, with Valerie taking her place in a pantheon of greats alongside Moo Deng the hippo, Pesto the penguin, and Beardsley the anteater.
Commenting on the story, Kangaroo Island resident and animal lover Louise Custance welcomed the attention, pointing out “the last global headline [we] made was the [2020] fires.”
That was until a day later, when The Guardian Australia published an in-depth piece on Kangaroo Island’s attempts to “decimate” its population of cats.
Now, if you’re reading this newsletter, there’s a decent chance you already know the role dumb luck plays in placing a story. We have all had an experience where everything is perfectly executed, only for a tiny dog to completely ruin the narrative and metrics. Or something.
But it’s also reminiscent of an issue many companies - particularly large multinationals - face. With the race for market share creating increasingly diversified organisations, the news agenda from a single brand can oscillate wildly.
Which brings us to Alistair Campbell. The former UK Labour adviser and current podcast host recently interviewed Anthony Albanese, but is most famous as being the keeper of the ‘news grid’, a document tracking every forthcoming announcement by every government department.
In the era of eternal channels, content saturation, and instantaneous reaction, this may appear outdated and quaint. But there’s value to something as simple as a single source of truth. Competence and consistency build trust as much as authenticity.
Until a yappy little sausage comes along to ruin it all, of course.
Culture
Australia’s Bad Romance
Another week, another report on a cultural pillar, another cost of living conclusion.
Music Australia’s ‘Listening In’ research series kicked off with an examination of live music event attendance, particularly among young Australians.
Extraordinarily for a generation that is chronically online, more than half of respondents don’t know where to find out about local gigs.
Somewhat less extraordinarily, cost is the biggest factor as prices for both tickets and accompanying beverages move a sweaty night in the moshpit further out of reach for many.
There is, however, always money in the banana stand to buy a ticket and watch global superstars on a huge screen from an even greater distance. Seeing acts like Oasis and Lady Gaga represent potentially once in a lifetime opportunities that help justify often exorbitant costs.
While the FOMO is understandable, the cultural impact is significant. Without people spending money watching live music and drinking overpriced beer from plastic cups, pubs will turn to (even more) pokies to fill the revenue gap.
Now, this is not to imply Lady Gaga is to blame for the deterioration of an Australian rite of passage (although if the campaign to get Pitbull to Australia is successful, we’re much happier blaming him).
But something clearly needs to be done. There are myriad policy options, which lobby group Save Our Arts has been busy advocating for through the election campaign.
The simplest solution, though, is surely to embrace personal responsibility by buying a ticket that doesn’t cost the earth for a band that doesn’t tour it. And for the Zoomers struggling for the right AI prompt, start with Crowbar, The Lansdowne, Mary’s Underground, and Enmore Theatre.
(Campaign) Curiosities
TOP SMS SOS
It’s the last Campaign Curiosities before the big day!
And what a campaign it’s been. It’s had it all, it’s just a shame neither we nor anyone else can actually remember any of it.
Hopefully by now we’ve all learned to never entirely trust the polls, but if they are correct, Albo may be on the verge of doing a ScoMo (2019, not 2022).
Peter Dutton’s bus getting stuck in the middle of a rock-solid Labor seat could be a sign the zealous Mr Morrison would appreciate. We’ll leave it there on the Leader of the Opposition, however, for fear of being branded hate media.
Albo, meanwhile, has been busy explaining to Donald Trump that ‘new number, who dis?’ is of course a perfectly acceptable cultural reference in 2025 but actually it’s the Australian Prime Minister if he’d like a chat?
Regardless of the result, we’ll be up late tomorrow night, excitedly texting friends as seats get called. Hopefully with a little more discretion and punctuation than Trumpet of Patriots’ latest attempt at ‘campaigning’.
It’s less the indiscriminate spam that caught our attention, more the nonsensical content:
Solve housing fast trains 20 min CBD cheaper land. Super for deposit 3% interest, cut immigration by 80%.
That’s verbatim. It’s like ChatGPT took something at a party that it swore was paracetamol but maybe not now it’s stumbling home to hurriedly finish an assignment for Palmer and co.
Next week we’ll be back to regular curiosities unless a hung Parliament means we still don’t have a new government, in which case you’ll be able to enjoy our new section, Clusterf**k Curiosities.