Australian politicians and Taylor Swift. Two things that you would not generally expect to hear mentioned together in the same sentence, and which probably shouldn’t be. But the pair do seem to be developing an increasingly complex, albeit one-sided relationship.
And what we mean by that is – Aussie pollies just refuse to stop quoting T-Swizzle lyrics. It’s a disturbing trend, one which our mates over at Crave Online documented in detail earlier this year.
And it just keeps happening. The latest occurrence involves Labor Senator for NSW, Sam Dastyari, who it could be argued took things to a whole new fangirl level.
Dastyari, whom Google informs us is often mistaken for Mr. Bean, addressed the Upper House this week with a rousing speech, in which he invoked Tay Tay’s 2014 smash, Blank Space to demonstrate a point about the recent #libspill.
Not only did the good Senator dub T-Swizzle a “poet”, he proclaimed Blank Space “a modern soliloquy of the Liberal party”.
He came to this conclusion, after first ruling out other classic hits just as Destiny’s Child’s Survivor, Survivor’s Eye Of The Tiger, MC Hammer’s Can’t Touch This and off course Bob Marley’s I Shot The Sheriff.
“The problem with all of these references is that they are kind of from the Seventies, Eighties and early Nineties,” he explained to the Senate. “I just do not think they are relevant to the debate we are having as a nation now.”
“But I will tell you who is relevant: Taylor Swift. And in Taylor Swift’s poetic, beautiful and – I think – touching song, Blank Space, which really is a modern soliloquy on the Liberal Party, she says…”
At this point, Dastyari was apparently interrupted by a group of sniggering senators. But he ploughed forth, reciting from the significant piece of literature with deadpan seriousness:
“I am quoting a poet here. I notice that other senators are laughing; I just do not think they are treating this with the respect it deserves.
Magic, madness, heaven sin/Saw you there and I thought oh my god/Look at that face, you look like my next mistake.
New money, suit and tie/I can read you like a magazine/Ain’t it funny, rumours fly/And I know you heard about me.
So it’s gonna be forever/Or its gonna go down in flames/You can tell me when it’s over/if the high was worth the pain.”
He continued: “What we have here is a government in crisis, a government in dysfunction, and a government that has completely fallen apart. What have they done? What is the decision they have made? They are prepared to throw anything or anyone overboard simply to protect their own political hides.
“But, frankly, they think the problem has been in the delivery of the message. The problem is in the message itself.”
God bless democracy.
But seriously, Dastayari gets brownie points for quoting Blank Space and not Shake It Off like the rest of Aussie politics.
Enjoy the video, below.
Julie Bishop is now 'loyally' serving her fourth Lib Leader. What song best caputres this? Suggestions from Twitterhttps://t.co/87sFHJ5oWP
— Sam Dastyari (@samdastyari) September 15, 2015
