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What do you think of when you hear the term ‘fair go’?
As a twenty-something, my first thought is always John Howard. I would have been in primary school when I first heard the long-serving Liberal prime minister talk about Australia as a golden land of opportunity where everyone gets a fair go. It sounded almost magical to my childish imagination.
Howard wasn’t the first to use the phrase, and he wasn’t the last. Two memorable iterations spring to mind since: Kevin Rudd’s condiment-themed spin-off, “fair shake of the sauce bottle” (I’m still not convinced I understand what that means), and more recently, Scott Morrison’s strings-attached version of “a fair go for those who have a go”.
As entrenched as the phrase now is in our political rhetoric, it wasn’t always used in such a way. Cosmo Howard and Pandanus Petter analysed newspaper articles from colonial times to find myriad, decidedly non-political uses of the term.
“We found the most common uses of the fair go expression did not refer to equality, benevolence and social justice. Instead, the phrase was mainly used to describe spirited efforts in competitive sports such as horse racing, boxing and sprinting,” they write.
They found instances of the fair go applying to everything from compelling sporting contests to fights between councillors.
So while it’s now entered the phrasebooks of politicians of all stripes, you don’t have to leave it to the elected officials. Try bringing it up at your next dinner party. Go on, give it a fair go.
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Erin Cooper-Douglas
Deputy Politics + Society Editor
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Cosmo Howard, Griffith University; Pandanus Petter, Griffith University
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