Take It Outside

There’s a certain look lawyers get in their eyes when they think they’ve got someone on the ropes – that moment when the path to victory becomes very clear to them and there’s a sense that momentum will inevitably carry them over the line.  It’s a mix of grand self-assuredness, anticipation, aggression and a deep, deep appreciation of just how clever they are.  Yesterday that look was all over the face of Deputy Opposition Leader, and former lawyer, Julie Bishop as she outlined the Opposition’s case against the Prime Minister with regard to the AWU “slush fund” matter.  At least, that’s what I think she was doing...

You see it was actually hard to clarify whether Bishop was articulating points of evidence or raising matters that needed further investigation.  Was she making claims or just asking questions?  Sometimes it seemed even Jules wasn’t sure and the media at the press conference appeared equally baffled as they tried, repeatedly, to disentangle substantiated allegation from simply pondering out loud.  Bishop was walking the very fine line that exists between defamation and conveying the right message often enough so that everyone just starts to believe it.  As the delightful Rose McGowan’s character in the movie Scream points out, “If you hear that Richard Gere gerbil story often enough, you start to believe it’s true.”

The slippery and largely in-substantive way the Opposition has handled this line of inquiry is a disappointment.  It is not a disappointment because they are playing the person rather than the ball.  It is a disappointment because personal integrity does matter in our public leaders and, therefore, inquiries like this also matter ... but the Opposition have fluffed their lines.  Rather diligently research and then prosecute a considered case, they have gone for the “throw enough shit and some might stick” approach.  What we might call, The Gerbilist Approach.

Hey, leave me out of this!

The issue of playing personal politics is always a vexed one.  It is critical that we know and understand the ethics and values of those who hold personal office.  The “AWU affair” – or perhaps we should call it “AWU-gate” – may have happened 20 years ago, but that does not mean its reach is not current.  Unethical behaviour, especially illegal behaviour, makes one beholden to others – to the co-conspirators, the silent witnesses and the suspicious.  Failures of integrity cast a long shadow. Therefore, we deserve to know if our public leaders are compromised in any way.  After all, all public offices are only held in trust.

This is not to say that an isolated error of judgment, or the indiscretions of youth, should ever disqualify someone from public life. But we should be able to make an informed judgment about a candidate and the origin of their positions on issues.  In fact, many of us appreciate a leader who has made mistakes – it renders them human.  That they admit to and learn from these mistakes may indeed make them a better leader.  Many of the role models we hold up as great leaders were on their second time around, having recovered from previous failures of judgement and integrity.

In WWI, his pride led many Australians to die on the beaches at Gallipoli.  In WWII, he fought them on the beaches to save a nation.

Even if we accept that we have a right to understand what shackles of the past our leaders are carrying, it is still possible to explore these issues in the wrong way.  The Gerbilist Approach serves no-one – it seeks not the truth, but only to entertain and distract through scandal.  It is the 21^st century equivalent of the public flogging of criminals, but with lower standards of justice.  And why would any right thinking person seek public office when this is the potential reward?  In the long run, we all suffer for it.

I’m confident that right now the majority of Australians would believe that our Prime Minister was involved in something dodgy.  I’m equally confident that most could not articulate what she is supposed to have done, but the mud of allegation has stuck and dried.  The Opposition, therefore, has achieved what they set out to do.  Whether it is true, whether it actually benefits the people of Australia is, of course, irrelevant.  They are winning the game and can sense the momentum of the kill.  We, meanwhile, are left with a system of public justice and accountability the integrity of which is as questionable as those whom it seeks to investigate.  We have a system of slander, where a system of considered inquiry is needed and owed.  And that’s the disappointment in all this ... [fades to static]