The Money Shot

It had to happen.

It started with the campaign to “stop the boats” and the deliberately deceptive and inflammatory labelling of asylum seekers as “illegal arrivals”.

They’ve always been known for perniciousness toward the vulnerable and a willingness to put polls ahead of people.

It continued with a mind-bogglingly stupid NBN policy, aggressively articulated and resolutely defended in the face of reason.

They’ve always been known for irrational short-termist policy that masquerades as the “economically sensible” way forward.

Bit-by-bit, in some kind of revolting striptease, the prospective Abbott Liberal Government have revealed themselves through these examples and more.  Beneath the tassles, the sequins and the plastic boots, we find the withered remains of a traditional conservative ideology – hateful and demented.  Then, over the weekend, the Coalition dropped its final modesty to the floor to show the world a stunning arrogance and born-to-rule mentality.

Attacks on democracy in Australia generally come small – little compromises on principle and practice.  This a land of skirmishes not revolution.  But often those attacks are packaged in a form that sees them embraced, where they should be reviled.  This is a land of practicalities and comforts, not aesthetics.

In this context, the announcement by Liberal justice spokesperson, Michael Keenan, that, if elected, an Abbott Government would direct the Australian Crime Commission (ACC) to cease its investigations into crime and drugs in sport is one of those significant insignificant statements.  On the surface, it may seem a small and isolated issue – indeed, many Australians might agree that the ACC should be focussing on what Keenan calls “serious crime” rather than endangering their precious weekend entertainment and its phoney veil of fairness.  At its core, however, there is a vulgar truth: here we have a political party attempting to halt a criminal investigation.  For let’s be clear here, the ACC report was not just about half-witted athletes injecting themselves with half-baked substances, it was about the involvement of organised crime in sport – from doping to match fixing.  Seemingly the Liberal Party does not consider drug trafficking and fraud “serious crime”.  We always knew that the Liberals were the party for business and unrestrained capitalism, but this might be taking things a little too far!

The reality, of course, is that the Coalition is not really endorsing such behaviours – not explicitly, at least.  This is just another case of callous poll-driven conservative policy: Australians want to believe in the myth that our sportspeople are “clean” and gracious.  Conservative politics is all about preserving myths, so it is perhaps unsurprising that the Abbott-led Opposition would pursue this track and, in doing so, endear the Coalition to the “Aussie battlers” who just want to watch their teams run around on the weekend, with their wilful suspension of disbelief intact.  Or, at least, that no doubt is the theory.

What is surprising and disturbing is that the Coalition would sell out its integrity over such a peripheral issue.  It’s hard to imagine that “drugs in sport” would be an election issue.  Yet, we see a political party greatly over-stepping the mark and compromising the principle that criminal investigations must proceed without political interference, all the for the sake of scoring points in a bogus class war.

Indeed, not only is the Coalition’s position the ACC “Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport” investigation dangerously unprincipled, it may run counter to the ACC Act (2002) which vests the power to “determine national criminal intelligence priorities, provide strategic direction to the ACC and to determine the priorities of the ACC” in the Board of the ACC.  One can imagine that this was a deliberate and appropriate separation of powers put in place by the government of the time (the Howard Liberal Government) to avoid the carcinogenic touch of politics in the activities of our premier national crime-fighting body.

That the Coalition would even think that it could or should influence the actions of the ACC just speaks to an arrogance that knows no moral bounds.  The striptease is complete and the Abbott “alternative” government is laid bare: it cares not for people, it cares not for the future and it cares not for the rules.  Barring a miraculous turn around in the polls, Australia is headed for a government without conscience. A government that, even in opposition, has boldly, and without blushing, announced its intention to chip away at fundamental democratic principles. A government that through the example it sets will surely draw out the worst in its citizens ... [fades to static]