By Kyran O’Dwyer
There is an old adage, “Lie to me once, shame on you. Lie to me twice, shame on me”. Day after day, I, like every other Australian, am assured, or reassured (depending on my disposition), by our ‘leaders’ that everything’s alright. No matter the problem.
Day after day, politicians parade themselves in front of an ever-compliant media, with ‘photo-ops’ supported by nothing other than a slogan, to assure me, or reassure me, that everything’s alright. No matter the problem.
Those in government assure me nothing is wrong and those in opposition say they can fix anything that is wrong. Everything’s alright.
I’m losing my mind.
These ‘people’ are not just self-confessed liars, they wear their dishonesty, their duplicity, as some sort of badge of honour. It’s hard to believe that it was once requisite of a politician to resign for failing to disclose a teddy bear. That was 1984, and came off the back of the Fraser government losing two ministers over a colour TV.
As with all matters relating to erosion, there is no defined ‘start date’ to this dishonesty.
Whether the erosion started in 1975 with Fraser’s duplicity is hard to say. It remained incumbent on ministers to accept responsibility for their actions after that event. It was, however, the first time in Australia’s history that political ambition was blatantly promoted over the good of the nation. That the good of the nation was unashamedly discarded, even as a pretence, so easily is troubling.
Then along came John Howard. On his second try at leadership, in 1996, he went into the election offering all sorts of things. After the election, he wasted no time in reneging on many undertakings.
In his defence, he explained that he gave ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ promises. In his defence, he stated he didn’t know how bad things were until he got in. In his defence, he stated he had not lied, he just hadn’t told the whole truth.
Whilst the erosion may have started before then, he ‘normalised’ it. It has never been acceptable for politicians to lie. When caught, the process required they at least acknowledge their dishonesty. But that was prior to John Howard. To this day, I have not heard or read a report of John Howard saying he lied. He was misled. He didn’t understand the question.
More often than not, apparently, I didn’t understand the answer.
Often clothing the lies in nothing other than a veil, ‘the national interest’, he made questioning of any deceit un-Australian.
And it worked. It wasn’t until 2005 that Don Watson produced a dictionary to explain this phenomenon, with very specific regard to John Howard:
Weasel words: “A weasel word, or anonymous authority, is an informal term for words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that a specific or meaningful statement has been made, when instead only a vague or ambiguous claim has actually been communicated. This can enable the speaker to later deny the specific meaning if the statement is challenged. Where this is the intention, use of weasel words is a form of tergiversation. Weasel words can be used in advertising and in political statements, where it can be advantageous to cause the audience to develop a misleading impression.”
He and his ministers wasted no time in implementing programs that they had not disclosed prior to the election. Whether it be the Industrial Relations ‘reforms’ emanating from the waterfront dispute in 1996, the introduction of a GST in 2000, the ‘Tampa’ incident in 2001, the ‘Iraq War’ in 2003. The NT Intervention in 2007. To name but a few. The pattern was set. It became a matter of daily occurrence that politicians would lie and deceive. Any occurrence became subject to manipulation to satisfy an increasingly ideological agenda. Policies were often made to suit the opportunity, rather than the need.
Their constant assurance, or reassurance, was that everything’s alright. They didn’t lie, it was just that the answer was beyond me.
That I, like most Australians, was deprived of any opportunity to clarify any aspect of his answer was of no consequence.
It was, after all, the job of the media to make such enquiry. To question and to clarify the answer. The Fourth Pillar of Democracy.
Whether it was coincidence or conspiracy, there had been a shift in our media over the previous decades. The Fourth Pillar had started to see themselves as a part of the political landscape, rather than an independent pillar supporting democracy. The transition from objective reporting to subjective reporting was every bit as stealthy as the political transition. Over a period of time, reporters went from genuinely teasing out a proposition to merely reporting a proposition. It was no longer requisite that a reporter test the validity of what they were told, they would simply report what was said. Then it shifted, ever so subtly, again. Their language would offer endorsement, both overt and covert. They became compliant. That media morphing is still underway. They now not only offer endorsement, but wilfully engage in the ridicule and belittlement of any detractors. Our media has now become complicit in perpetuating institutions and practices that no longer have any pretence of serving the public good. Their sycophancy is now on full display, without even the pretence of concealment.
And then along came Tony Abbott. A ‘man’ whose dishonesty was so blatant, he didn’t even pretend to conceal it. Whilst Howard may have been dishonest, he at least had the mental capacity to conceal his dishonesty in a deluge of words. Lacking any such capacity, Abbott only had one approach when his blatant dishonesty proved too much even for the ‘media’ to ignore.
“So what? I lied.”
Shame on me. It’s now 2017. Our politicians have been lying and deceiving for decades now. Our media haven’t been independent for decades now. That does not excuse my shame at being lied to so often. It is nothing more than an explanation of how that shame was created.
That much of this change occurred in ‘affluent’ times is of little consequence. Whilst it may be true that people tend to question less when times are good, it is absolutely no excuse for acquiescence. So many of the protections, fought for and won, over the preceding decades have now been frittered away.
The obscenity of it is that the argument for the vast majority of these changes was security. The great big lie that was peddled was that my security, our security, was under threat from ‘others’. Religious nutters, ideological nutters, or just plain nutters. To be ‘secure’ from them, the ‘Four Pillars of Democracy’ (Justice, Equality, Freedom, Representation), had to be changed, to be amalgamated. That by foregoing access to any, or all, of the Four Pillars, it was strengthening security. It was, somehow, strengthening democracy.
The illusion that ‘politics’ is the same as ‘democracy’ had been created. Agencies charged with oversight were weakened or dismantled. Agencies charged with the protection of any of the ‘Four Pillars’ were amalgamated, the end result being that those ‘Four Pillars’ were merged into one.
Security.
There is another adage about lying. “I’m not upset that you lied to me. I’m upset that, from now on, I can’t believe you.”
It’s now 2017. For decades now we have had a global system of government’s playing a pea and thimble trick, where government money is allocated for the supply of government services through ‘private providers’. The economy, the efficiency, the efficacy of these arrangements can never be known. ‘Commercial in confidence’ has become an impenetrable cloak, impervious to enquiry, let alone scrutiny.
It is, apparently, unreasonable for me, or anyone else, to question the absence of governance. Whether it be the government or the corporate sector, the absence of governance is not a problem, because the ‘market’ will sort out any problem.
Our dystopia is their utopia. One negates the other, evidenced every few years with an appeasement for ‘the people’. An election.
There is much comment about ‘left’ and ‘right’, with their attendant extremes. There is, apparently, a ‘centre’. There is much discussion about the demise of ‘democracy’, yet little thought given to the rise of ‘politics’. Any attempt to extricate ‘politics’ from ‘democracy’ will likely degenerate into a discussion on ‘lefties’ and ‘righties’.
We have now had decades of demonstrable experience. ‘Trickle down’ is acknowledged as somewhere between fanciful and farcical. The ‘rule of the market’ is an oxymoron when the market is reliant on an absence of rules.
Yet it persists as a justification for the status quo. Very large companies have reported a 40% increase in profits, which was predominantly returned to investors. Worker’s wages have not increased in line with inflation, let alone profits. Security of work tenure largely disappeared when the ABN was used as a ‘Trojan Horse’ to introduce a casualised workforce, foregoing access to leave and superannuation entitlements and much needed PAYG tax revenue by reclassifying workers as sub-contractors.
To my knowledge, the building industry is the only industry with any ATO oversight of payments to sub-contractors. Whether the ATO uses that information to enforce the 80/20 rule is beyond me.
What does that have to do with ‘trickle down’ theorem? If companies have increased their profits by up to 40% and wages have not moved significantly, how can any government argue that giving those companies (many of whom already don’t pay tax or pay a miserable rate of tax) a 5% tax cut and further removing workers protections will create more jobs and growth?
Australia has an even more peculiar problem. A relatively small population spread over a huge expanse. With three tiers of government. This enables a constant ‘blame shift’ in both the delivery of service and the manner in which those services are funded. Why do we need education, health, law, judiciary, etc at both a state and federal level? Doesn’t that very system enshrine different standards for Australians dependent only on their geography?
Such a small population, so easily manipulated by obfuscation.
Ironically, at the moment, this is actually a good thing. As the Federal government increasingly relies on ‘regulatory’ amendment rather than parliamentary scrutiny, the states and territories are the last defence against a rampant IPA.
In addition to the conversation about ‘left’ and ‘right’, there is discussion about a ‘pendulum’ that swings in some mystical cycle between the two. This is the ‘social mood’, which is subject to the sentiment of the voters at any given point in time.
Our ‘politicians’ love this. It allows emotion and sentiment to become the arbiter of their decisions, with complete disregard for fact or reason. Science and evidence are now dirty words, politicised beyond any recognition.
How any semblance of order, with no other intent than the public good, is re-established is a discussion we desperately need to have. How do we restore the faith of people in a system that has done nothing but abuse their insecurity and remove the very freedoms that should make them feel secure.
A Federal ICAC would be a start. A ramping up in both the independence and resources of the AEC, the ABS, the CSIRO, the Auditor General, the Human Rights Commission, and numerous other agencies would be a start. The introduction of a First Peoples parliament for the purposes of establishing Treaty and overseeing the implementation and enactment of ANY legislation effecting them would be a start. The creation of a Bill of Rights would be a start.
Feel free to add your own ‘start’.
How does all of that aspiration relate to dishonest politicians and corrupt corporates?
My contention is that they have been lying for so long now that I no longer believe a single word they say. Even worse, I have not got the slightest interest in what they have to say. As to the media, or the facsimile on offer, contempt is simply too nice a word.
Their collective behaviour over many decades should deprive them of any seat at the table.
We desperately need that discussion. But the participants need to be motivated by genuine belief in government of the people, by the people, for the people. Simply put, democracy over politics.
It’s 2017. It’s Spring. Why can’t we ‘Spring Clean’?
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