Headless fish and babies take centre stage during election season – but don’t let the theatre of politics distract you

As Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young waved a decapitated salmon dripping with blood in parliament last week, you could feel the election coming.

Hanson-Young was protesting the watering down of Australia’s environmental laws aimed at preserving salmon farming in Tasmania.

Using props and orchestrated performances to provoke a response has been common throughout the history Australian politics. In 2017, then treasurer Scott Morrison held out a lump of coal to ridicule the opposition’s renewable energy policies. He mockingly declared:

This is coal. Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared.

Later that same year, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson wore a burqa into the Senate to argue for a ban on full-face coverings – dramatically embodying her anti-Islam rhetoric.

More recently, independent members of parliament Andrew Wilkie and Bob Katter donned inflatable pig costumes to criticise the major supermarkets as pigs with their snouts in the trough, given their excessive profit margins.

It’s clear Australian politicians are drawn to drama. With the election campaign in full swing, it’s worth being wary of such beguiling performances.

Visceral is memorable

The history of theatre is peppered with shocking moments, often enhanced by props. Props help to provoke a visceral emotional response from the audience, while blurring the boundary between reality and fiction.

In Sophocles’ ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, Oedipus exits the stage with sharp gold brooches to gorge out his eyes after discovering of his wife Jocasta’s suicide. Upon his return, his bleeding eye sockets also allude to his metaphorical blindness, having killed his own father and married his mother.

Similarly, at the end of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the tyrant king’s severed head is brought onstage – fulfilling a deceptive prophecy foretold by the fiendish witches at the beginning of the play.

In a more contemporary example, Australian playwright Patrick White’s surrealist play Ham Funeral features a ham representing gluttony, death, lust and decay, served at the wake of Mrs Lusty’s husband. We’re also shocked by a fetus from a back-alley trash can.

These are all attention-grabbing examples of how props can be much more than just the thing they represent.

In politics, as on stage, theatrical objects are an easy way to heighten emotions, and convey meaning and context. They can make abstract concepts feel more concrete. And even when they’re highly theatrical, they can communicate authenticity and passion – ready to go viral online.

Flags, high-vis vests, pints of beer and babies are all common props on the election campaign trail. Over time, they can lead voters to associate certain politicians with certain values and worldviews.