Given the fall out from the car crash that was the ALP last month – the aborted leadership challenge, the subsequent sackings and resignations, the show of little confidence in the sitting Prime Minister by two of her party’s most senior and experienced politicians, and sexism and misogyny crusader Julia Gillard’s dismissal as “irrelevant” questions about her Easter bunny hijinx with Kyle Sandilands who once called a female journalist a “fat slag” on air – it’s worth pondering a couple of things.
How long will Labor continue to hold Australians in open contempt?
In making his resignation speech, former Immigration minister Chris Bowen – a Ruddite who fell on his sword for supporting the man who didn’t dare challenge – told assembled reporters that every day he had been in the Labor Party, he had put the party’s interests first.
Here’s what he said.
“Twenty-five years ago, I joined the Australian Labor Party. Every day since then I’ve done what I thought is in the best interests of the Labor Party, always.”
Hang on, shouldn’t he have been putting the interests of Australia and Australians first? This is where the modern-day ALP has had a sharp disconnect with the notion of public service and duty first.
And if you think Bowen didn’t mean it, his very next words repeated how he had put the Labor party first before adding, Australia, too. Here’s Bowen again.
“Yesterday was a difficult day for the Labor Party. On that difficult day, I took the decision that the best thing for the Labor Party and for Australia would be for Kevin Rudd to return to the prime ministership.”
Bowen’s comments reminded me of a recent few hours spent with the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott.
I recently moderated a forum for the current (and third last) edition of madison magazine, one of Australia’s leading fashion monthlies, with Abbott who agreed to be grilled about a range of issues, some of which are close to women’s hearts. I was joined by three super talented, seriously smart and sassy women including one of Australia’s best read newspaper columnists, Miranda Devine, television personality Sarah Murdoch, and Macquarie University academic Kate Gleeson.
Towards the end of the conversation that was equal parts humourous, thoughtful, provocative and combative, Murdoch told Abbott that she admired his political motivation.
“I think your best asset is that you are actually in politics for the right reasons, and I am not sure that a lot of people who are in politics are there for the right reasons,” she said.
Murdoch’s observation was prescient given the political shenanigans of last month during which ALP eminence Simon (“disunity is killing us”) Crean literally challenged the former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, to challenge the woman who knifed him for the job in 2010.
Abbott’s response was interesting, and not a little pointed given the times.
“I think everyone, nearly everyone, starts off doing it for the right reasons. [But] if it starts to be ‘all about me and my position’ then I think it gets to be a problem,” he said.
“That’s when it starts to become very disheartening. If it’s just about ‘me and my side staying in power’ as opposed to ‘the good thing that me and my side are trying to do’.”
Abbott is 100 percent spot on. The events of the past few months – which have culminated in recent days in various Labor members dumping the “Labor” brand from their election campaign material, have been more than disheartening to many Australians, as the opinion polls repeatedly reveal. The sentiments are echoed by politicians across the divide but perhaps the most telling comments are those by the ALP’s own heavyweights.
Prime Minister Gillard even said last week after announcing the shifting of deck chairs in her government that the party that she loves “very dearly” had been “self indulgent” when it should have been focused on serving the nation. The events of the challenge were “appalling”.
But back to the madison forum. When Devine asked Abbott “why is it worth going in to politics”, he had this to say.
“Because you can make a difference. You can make a difference,” he said, emphasising the ‘can’.
“As a journalist I was a frustrated politician. I often say as a politician I am a frustrated journo. In my years as a journalist I often thought to myself as I was writing, ‘look, this is all very well and it’s nice to have an opinion but wouldn’t it be better if you were able to translate words into deeds?’
“If you were about to put, where appropriate, some of these judgments to practical effect. That’s the great privileges that you have as a member of parliament – you can help to pass the laws, you can help to set the policy.
“You can help to make the decisions, which more often than anything else, shape the totality of society as opposed to, perhaps, how individual people live.
“This is why it is a tremendous honour to be a member of parliament. And the further up the parliamentary ladder you get, the greater the honour is.”
Revealing use of words -“tremendous honour to be a member of parliament” – particularly given what has transpired in recent weeks. It seems to me to highlight the importance of putting the Australian people and our nation first. Both Crean and Martin Ferguson said that their party had gone off the rails and engaged in crass class warfare – among other things – and that is not serving the nation.
Crean and Ferguson have integrity. They know what they’re talking about, and engaging in class warfare, among other things, is not putting Australians first. Good for our country? Australians will cast judgment on that question come election day.
On a sad note: the Bauer Media Group today announced it would be closing Madison magazine when the June edition is published midway through next month. That means only two more editions to go. Having written for Madison for the past few years, I know what a great team its brilliant editor Lizzie Renkert assembled and how much blood, sweat and tears they put in to produce a high-class publication.
