An American in Rome...

Every summer since 1976, when unseeded Mark Edmondson upset defending champion John Newcombe,  Australians have wondered whether an Australian male can once again win their national tennis title.

After the election of Pope Leo XIV last week, Italians may be forgiven for wondering when they will have their next hometown Pope. In 1978, the year of three Popes, the first Polish Pope, John Paul II was selected to succeed Italians Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul 1, whose papal reign only lasted a 'Trussian' thirty-three days.

After Poland it was Germany’s turn with the election of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Following Benedict’s unprecedented retirement in 2013, it was Argentina’s turn to have its first Pope. Now following the death of Pope Francis, Robert Prevost, born in Chicago and a citizen of Peru takes the papal reigns and ring.  The first Jesuit Pope has been succeeded by the first from the Augustinian order.

The conclave was over remarkably quickly. Its outcome was not as quickly divined as the results of the Australian Federal election; however, historically it was brief. Apparently, the longest conclave lasted a mere three years.

The speedy resolution of the Papal election will give the citizens of Rome more time to visit the Italian Open, being played in balmy  springtime sunshine.  This year’s champions will be crowned shortly after the new Pope’s inaugural Mass. There are still some Italian players in the mix, notably Paolini in the Women’s and Sinner, Musetti and Berrettini in the Men’s.

Another sporting playoff of geo-political note are the Stanley Cup Ice-Hockey finals in northern America.

This year, there is added spice in the contest. Canada, too, has been starved of a homegrown champion since Montreal’s Canadiens won in 1993. This year there are three Canadian teams through to the second round of the playoffs; the Toronto Maple Leafs, starved of a title since 1967, the Edmonton Oilers of Wayne Gretzky fame and the Winnipeg Jets.

Given the political friction between the neighbouring States this year , the fates may see an America v Canada showdown for one of the world’s tallest sporting trophies.

If it occurs, it could rival the political drama of the 1980 Olympic Ice Hockey final between the United States and the Soviet Union which took place in the aftermath of the USSR seeking to add Afghanistan to its statehood through its invasion in late 1979.

In Australia, the political playoffs that follow a resounding party victory are being played out. To the victors go the spoils! A Prime Minister’s problem is that there are limited spoils to offer. Ministerial positions are usually no more than 30 in number. Factional deals, balancing State representation and gender equity pressures make selection of a Ministry a vexed issue. Less than a week after the government’s remarkably clear victory, dissent has broken out amongst its factions with two of its most senior Ministers being dumped by factional deals. The fact that the dumped two senior Ministers, Ed Husic and Mark Dreyfus, were the only Islamic and Jewish members of the Cabinet has bewildered and disappointed many.

If prospective Ministers have to rake over factional deals, the citizenry can now look at the raw voting figures. There are some seats in doubt; however, we can be sure about some things:

-The election has seen the defeat of the leaders of the government’s opposing parties- the Liberal Party and the Greens;

-The preferential voting system has delivered the government close to 62% of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives on a primary vote of 34%;

-The decades old allegiance of 80% of the Australian electorate to one of the two major parties has been permanently fractured- one in three Australians have chosen not to vote for either of the two major parties at the last two Federal elections;

-The existential crisis for the Liberal Party is that those who did not vote for either major party overwhelmingly directed their preferences to the left side of Australian politics. As ambivalent as many voters may have been about the performance of the Albanese government, most voters were even more certain that the Liberal Party did not offer an alternative platform worthy of support;

-The existential crisis for the Greens is not dissimilar than that for the Liberal Party: if you stray from your core principles and advocate alienating policies, you will be judged accordingly. The Greens’ ideological drift from an activist environmental party  to a movement advocating virulent antisemitism and promoting policies agitating rank class warfare has cost them dearly; and

-If preferential voting, introduced into Australia in 1919, has fulfilled its purpose of delivering clear majority governments, proportional representation voting, introduced in 1949, has guaranteed that the government does not have a majority in the Senate. However, the government will be able to secure the passage of legislation with the support of the Greens Party without having to secure the votes of those on the crossbench of a Centrist/Right leaning. How the Greens exercise this critical role will be a fascinating aspect of the next parliament.

So, once again all is ahead of us.

For the incoming Pope, his initial messages of the need to strive for peace and reassert the power of the human spirit against the invasions of AI and social media are pertinent. Tragically, Leo XIV faces a Grand Slam of world conflicts: Gaza, Ukraine, African upheaval in Yemen and Sudan and now the renaissance of the India/Pakistan rivalry.

Like most of us I am sure the Pope could not have missed the perverse irony of Vladimir Putin celebrating the 80th anniversary of his country’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War 2 with a Cold War style military parade in Moscow, complete with a commitment to his country’s invasion of Ukraine. Peace through armed conquest! Orwell would revel in the perversity.

Let us hope that the passionate, reasoned voices of a new Pope and democratic world leaders can ensure that the Western commitment to the rule of the law and the will of the people is not in vain. We need the sun to continue to rise on the side of the angels.