Is there anything that screams western democratic values and
ideals more than an election polling station in a Westfield shopping centre.
Yep,
there's been a polling booth in Westfield Woden in Canberra. The boffins
who are the boss of all things elections have obviously decided that the best
way to bring liberty, equality and justice to the populace (and make them vote
RIGHT NOW for the local election and circumvent COVID-19 germs) was to take the
voting to the people - deep in the heart of Big W territory.
And mere
steps away from the symbolic centre, the heart of Westfield, the holy
grail, the iconic statue representing humanity’s march forward towards greater
understanding and compassion towards overheads and rectangular plastic cards
used by financial institutions – the pay parking station.
Read the
commemorative plaque if you don't believe me; it's next to the 'Insert
ticket here' slot.
The polling booth stands in the shopfront that was previously
tenanted by Ishka, a chichi Australian company that claims to have a "deep
respect for village communities” and sells “ethically sourced furniture”.
No wood
was harmed in the manufacturing process of the furniture, except for the trees
from a village community that were chopped down and therefore died at the hands
of a chainsaw or some other type of tree-killing machinery just so you could
have a coffee table.
Indeed,
nothing says respect for mother earth more than a shopfront in a Westfield, whose
global assets are in the range of AUD$63 billion.
At the
polling booth store, you have to hand sanitise - a la all COVID-era, COVIDSafe entry
points - and then state that you’re not a robot to an official who has had
quite a long shift already thankyou voters and ironically resembles a robot,
but then it’s all electronic smooth sailing baby and it takes about three
seconds and you can do it while you’re going about your other life business so
I approve. Next they’ll have a sausage sizzle in the food court. Someone please
make that happen.
Another
thing happening at Westfield this year is Santa Claus. I mean, he happens every
year, but SANTA-20 will be a little different.
I’ve
always wondered how happy Santa really is at Christmas at Westfield, with
children crawling all over his jolly rotund belly and screaming into his ear
drums. There’s got to be an easier way to earn a gingerbread man crust, he
probably thinks every damn year. I get the feeling he’d rather be sitting
on a tree stump in a Lapland forest surrounded by reindeer shit.
Well,
this year, Santa doesn’t have to handle the children. No children allowed near
Santa spreading their screaming, shouting or pathogens. No sitting on laps.
There will be no lapland this year. It’s a socially distanced Santa Claus.
Families
or individuals have to sit away from Santa, separated by props of elves and
oversized candy canes and presumably other Christmas related things like snow
covered hills, a ski resort, a forest of trees, and a vast subarctic wilderness
if Santa has any say in it. Westfield say it’s ‘making Christmas merrier’.
Yeah, just the way Santa likes it.
Every
kid gets a free reindeer headband, presumably after they just take a quick
COVID-19 PCR test. Just kidding, Westfield, don't sue me. Why would Westfield
hand out free headbands. Just kidding, there is nothing on Westfield's website
to indicate they are testing kids for COVID, but this is now and that is
December and two months is a very long time in 2020.
It is my
understanding that Santa has been granted a travel exemption to bring his herde
of marauding wildebeest into Australia, which is more than anyone except Tom
Hanks and Shane Warne and Tony Abbott and Lord Sugar and Nicole Kidman has
received this year. I wonder what it’ll be like stuck in a hotel room in the
Stamford Plaza with a bunch of reindeer for 14 days.
