What a sorry lot

One has to feel very SORRY for the opposition in the Australian Parliament. At a time when the rest of the country was agog with enthusiasm about the 2020 Summit – or expectation, at the very least – these poor things had to adopt the role of critics. Alas they are so bereft that that couldn’t find anything coherent or even pertinent to say.

Starting weeks ago Brendan the Brief discredited himself as a political operator by asserting that the Rudd government has no ideas of its own and had to call on the public to help it out. Actually, Brendan, the Summit was evidence of the government’s ability to harness a really good idea that has the ongoing potential to re-engage the nation with its own future – a process that was viciously attacked by the Howard government every time anybody with something significant to say spoke out.

Another who covered himself in dis-grace was Christopher Pine who knowingly misrepresented the way in which the Summit would work by saying that each idea would get 39.6 seconds of attention. This is so absurd that you’d have to wonder why he’d run the risk of looking like such a goose. Not that anyone, not even people with no idea how a thousand ideas would be processed in one and a half days, would imagine that he could be serious. But they would be entitled to ask, if he can’t say anything substantial about the process, why say anything at all? Why not, in fact, offer his best wishes for the success of the enterprise?

And then there’s Julie Bishop who also couldn’t help making herself look like a substance free zone. Those attending, she solemnly declared, will have every reason to feel cheated if Kevin Rudd pays no attention to their recommendations. This is soooooooooo self evident that it is ridiculous to say it at all. So why say it? Not just because she has nothing of substance to say, but because if she could just play the spoiler, some people who might otherwise have remained open to the possibility of a positive outcome will be encouraged to be gloomy about its prospects, and therefore be less likely to participate at a later stage when momentum gathers for significant social and political change.

Brendan Nelson’s comment after the event was that he met a representative of sex workers and a union official, but found it hard to find anyone from small business and the Australian Medical Association. How could he confine himself to such a trivialising comment. He’d just been involved in a pivotal moment in Australia’s history. A thousand people had earlier given the Prime Minister a standing ovation. Um… or was that nine hundred and ninety nine? His parsimonious account of his experience can be explained by one of two possible dynamics. The first is that he went determined not to be captured by the enthusiasm of the other 999, and succeeded; or he felt that as opposition leader he had to find fault with what the other 999 very clearly found exhilarating. See what I mean when I say we have to feel SORRY for him and his sorry lot.

Oh, and what about Dilly Downer? Responding to the tsunami of support for a republic from the Summit, he predicted that those who opposed the republic would be ridiculed. And that would be a bad thing? Anyone remember the sneering contempt of just about every Howard government minister, not just for their predecessors, but for people who persisted in holding views labelled elitist and politically correct; not just in the immediate aftermath of the 1996 election, but at every election campaign since? It was in this vein that he Downer wrote off the whole Summit as a revival of Keatingesque political correctness – the word Keating intended as a term of abuse. In less than a minute he the spat the word Keating out of his mouth as though it were a vomit lolly from the Harry Potter zone that kept forming in his mouth. Well, a vindication of Keating the Summit was indeed, and it’s so good that you noticed, you flouncing punce. Keating will be honoured in history, while the best thing anyone will ever say about you is that you were the son of a Federal Cabinet Minister, and grandson of a Premier. But the prize goes to his saying that a few conservatives were “roped in to give it a vernier of respectability.” What a pompous fart. Only someone who thinks respectability has something to do with “breeding” could come up with that one. But hey, you globular cluster of sequins and fish net stockings, keep it up. Oh please!! Keep it up.

Malcolm Turnbull’s response to Summit’s enthusiasm for a republic shows that “conservatives” really would rather that the plebs were not involved in running the country. Let’s recall that it was Malcolm who single handedly sunk the Constitutional Convention. As head of the Australian Republican Movement (ARM) he went to the convention with an elitist model – the President to be appointed by the Parliament. Other’s took other models, most of which involved the popular election of the President. It was a rare moment for courageous engagement with the future when it became clear that there was am impasse and the logical thing to do was to sit down and do some actual negotiation. But no, the ARM simply refused to accept any compromise or alternative model. It was to be Malcolm’s way or Howard’s (which, of course, was no republic.) Malcolm Turnbull had the gall to accuse John Howard of breaking the country’s heart when he put up a referendum question that everyone knew would fail. The point to revisit here is that it was Turnbull who refused to budge from the elitist model that was not acceptable to the majority of other republican delegates. Never mind what the people think. I know what will work best. It was hardly surprising, therefore that when the Summiteers championed the republic, he sneered at its prospects, saying that the issue should not come up again until QEII is no longer the monarch.

Of more far reaching consequence is the deliberate misrepresentation of the role of GetUp in the Summit by [National Party politician] who complained that no one from his electorate was going to Canberra, in contrast to over 100 GetUp members which he falsely described as an ALP instrumentality. This is a disgraceful misrepresentation of GetUp and the way the Summiteers were selected. (See separate post on GetUp) People were not picked because they were in GetUp. They were picked because they could make a worthwhile contribution. A significant minority of them happen to be members of GetUp. Oh, and by the way, a significant minority of the Summiteers were Catholics; another significant minority were people who went to public schools in NSW. How ludicrous would it be to single out either of the latter two minorities for scrutiny?

“Conservative” politicians and commentators who misrepresent the government’s intentions and the way the Summit would operate, and who attempt to undermine its outcomes, and attack the success of community based activism, do so KNOWINGLY. Every politician in Australia, and every commentator who has bothered to look into GetUp, for example, knows that it is not politically aligned, and that it does respond to people’s concerns as distinct from parties’ concerns. You would therefore have to ask why certain politicians misrepresent GetUp the way they do. And if they really do think GetUp is partial, why not sponsor another organisation that promotes a “conservative” agenda? Here’s my suggestion: if they lie about GetUp people who might otherwise be curious about the way it works might be persuaded not to investigate – not to get involved. It’s people getting critically involved that they don’t want, even if it were with an alternative to GetUp that promoted a partisan agenda of their liking, because involved people are difficult to manage. Look how they treated Pauline Hanson and One Nation after the latter ceased to be useful to them.

The very people who accused “the left” of elitism, shut down participation of diverse opinion even within their own party. Is it any wonder they are terrified of the Summit and what it will trigger in this country? Is it any wonder they speak such embarrassing drivel? For to speak truthfully would be politically self incriminating.