The rich Australian history of booing PMs

“It’s sinking in. Scott Morrison is not on your side”, the Labor Party gleefully posted to Facebook in April 2021, sharing footage of the then-PM being booed when his image was displayed on the big screen at a West Coast Eagles vs Collingwood match (the WA home crowd were obviously furious about Morrison’s stated support for West Coast’s bitter local AFL rivals, “Perth”).

Over the weekend, the ALP might have wished they didn’t use “reception at a sporting event” as a measure of a prime minister’s general approval ratings — inevitably, when Anthony Albanese was acknowledged by MC Todd Woodbridge during the Australian Open men’s final trophy ceremony, a chorus of jeers interrupted.

With equal inevitability, some are using the boos as a sign that the recently announced tax changes have backfired on Labor, with Sky News emphasising the boos come “just days after” the announcement. Even the party’s defenders appear to be accepting that logic, arguing that, well, if someone can afford a ticket to the Australian Open final, they must be a Plutus P. Moneyfellows type who is now getting a smaller tax cut than was previously promised.

Well… maybe. Or maybe booing a prime minister who dares show their face at a sporting or musical event is simply the sturdiest tradition Australia has? Hell, Albanese himself already managed to get a spray at the April 2022 Byron Bay Bluesfest, back when his main crime was wanting to be prime minister.

Most obviously, when he was prime minister Scott Morrison could barely look in a mirror without it resulting in a cacophony of boos. There was the game above, not to mention his own run-in with tennis fans at the final in early 2019 — but surely the most toe-curling moment came in March 2022, when the tens of thousands gathered at the MCG for cricketing legend Shane Warne’s state funeral were roused from their grief to boo Morrison when he was announced.

It takes the ability to elicit a special kind of cartoonish contempt to get booed at a funeral. Guess who else among our PMs earned that — Tony Abbott, of course it’s Tony Abbott. Then PM, Abbott (and to a lesser extent his predecessor John Howard) was booed as he entered the memorial for Gough Whitlam in 2014. It must have put the standard issue boos he got at the sport (what else would he expect from Rabbitohs fans?) and that time an old fella called him a dickhead at the shops in perspective.

But it could have been worse — there was something chillier, more pointed about the reception Abbott’s immediate predecessor Kevin Rudd got when turning up to farewell Whitlam. Of the former Labor PMs in attendance — Rudd was joined by Julia Gillard, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke — Rudd was reportedly the only one to not receive a standing ovation. We can’t imagine why. This must surely have been worse than when he was actually booed at a 2010 Raiders vs Broncos game.

Gillard, surprisingly, given she was subject to as much open, violent contempt as any occupant of the office during her time as PM, avoided much sports-based jeering — the Australian Council of Trade Unions, on the other hand …

Malcolm Turnbull learnt his lesson from the reception he got at the 2015 NRL grand final and opted not to call attention to himself the next year.

Bob Hawke is now universally regarded as the one politician in Australian history who never received anything but rapturous applause at sporting grounds thanks to his common touch and ability, undimmed by age, to drain beers like a plunge pool receiving a waterfall. But the bunker has a long enough memory to recall even Hawkey got quite a few boos at the SCG around the time of his fringe benefits tax changes in the mid-’80s, which were dubbed, erroneously, as it turned out, the “Farewell Bob Tax“.

We’ll leave the last word to Whitlam. At the 1974 rugby league grand final, Whitlam attended with senator (and then-president of the Queensland Rugby League) Ron McAuliffe. As the pair walked to the centre of the ground for the presentations, they were engulfed in abuse and the ground was pelted with beer cans. “McAuliffe”, Whitlam is supposed to have said on the way back to the pavilion, “don’t you ever again invite me to a place where you’re so fucking unpopular”.