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Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Coleman / Still crazy after all these years

I MISSED out on the Pokémon craze the first time around – my kids didn’t – they had the trading cards, the hand-held game, and watched the cartoons.

Chris Coleman
Chris Coleman.

At times it was a struggle to get them away from their imaginary monsters to go outside and engage in the real world, but more often than not the lure of playing football or cricket would win in the end.

So to the Pokémon Go craze that has been sweeping the world for the past two weeks. I know I’m not the first person to point out the irony of it actually getting players outside to semi-engage with the world – albeit a world with cartoon characters superimposed on a smartphone view of it – thus overcoming one of the major criticisms levelled at the games of 20 years ago, so I won’t dwell on that. Instead, I ask you to think about the devotion thousands of Australians are showing to their chase for these virtual creatures.

There are apparently somewhere north of 700 Pokémon. And if you talk to some of the Poképlayers they can name dozens, even hundreds, of them. They can probably also tell you whether they evolve from eggs or other Pokémon creatures and what special powers the creatures may possess.

Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but ask many of these same gamers about our Federal parliament (you know, that mob we’ve just elected) or closer to home our Legislative Assembly. How many of the 226 Upper and Lower House Federal members do you reckon they could name? Or of the 17 ACT MLAs?

If you really want to have some fun, drill down a little further and see if they can name some of the cabinet ministers and their responsibilities. Or indeed ask them what falls into local government and what is a responsibility of the Feds.

It’s not a new phenomenon. Across the country over the past few years, we’ve lost the knack of engaging a lot of young people in the political process. You would have heard during the election campaign estimates that up to half a million people, aged between 18 and 24, weren’t even enrolled to vote and another figure of up to one million eligible people in total not being on the roll at all.

And then there’s the disengagement between those who are on the roll and the political process. Again, not a new thing. In past elections “The Chaser” team did a series of “This Person Votes” sessions where they asked political questions of people off the street.

I don’t profess to have the solution, but perhaps there is a glimmer of hope. You see, one of the things Pokémon Go relies on to plonk its imaginary creatures on displays is that it goes to popular locations. The places people take lots of pictures of with their smart phones.

We can be subversive here. Take your phone to Parliament House and snap pictures while you’re there. Lots of pictures. Share them on social media. Sure, it might be a long shot, but there’s just the chance that catching a Gyarados underneath a portrait of Robert Menzies could engage an otherwise-dormant political curiosity.

Now pardon me, there’s a Venomoth somewhere outside my office. Apparently, they’re worth a fortune.

Chris Coleman is the drive presenter on 2CC.

 

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