ACT Attorney-General Tara Cheyne’s measured response to the controversy surrounding Mark Parton offers a rare example of judging private conduct by its impact on public duties rather than its value as political ammunition.
It has been more than refreshing to see the direct and non-political way in which the ACT’s first law officer, Tara Cheyne, has reacted to the self-immolation of Liberal opposition leader Mark Parton.
Parton, like so many before him, is under a character attack, with many ready it seems to join a moral crusade to bring him down.
He has admitted to sending a text from a committee hearing: “F… my job is boring, wanna swap?”
He has denied sending it to a sex worker.
The Canberra Times has pursued the story and some within Labor circles have suggested more damaging allegations may come out.
But, just hypothetically, sub in ‘Angus Taylor’ for ‘Mark Parton’.
Imagine the histrionics from a Labor Party under Anthony Albanese, who Bob Brown recently demonstrated in a revealing article in The Saturday Paper operates on an entirely defensive party-first-and-last basis, with good policy only getting a look in when it’s considered good politics.
There would have been a line-up of ministers and others (with women pushed to the fore by those who organise these attacks) to bemoan the absence of moral backbone in an opposition leader who surely no voter – especially no woman – could possibly ever consider voting for again.
Remember how federal Labor pursued Peter Slipper over matters sexual and financial? Not so many perhaps remember that the fraud allegations were overturned on appeal and the sex-harassment claims were thrown out as an abuse of process.
Sometime deputy prime minister, former senator and National, and current One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce was hammered over personal matters not so long ago but seems to have acquired the “asbestos flesh” (to borrow from Gareth Evans) long associated with one of his predecessors in New England, Ian Sinclair.
I suspect Parton, a former popular radio host and interviewer in Canberra, is a little more vulnerable in his miseries than Slipper or Joyce.
Contrast federal Labor’s dogged pursuit of Slipper and Joyce with the measured position of Attorney-General Cheyne regarding Parton, zeroing in, quite properly in my view, on any effect on the opposition leader’s official duties.
Cheyne noted that some parts of estimates hearings can indeed be boring, telling ABC radio this was the case “especially when politicians are expected to be on 24/7 doing our job”.
“So, if we’re being on 24/7, then our personal life has to be in there somewhere,” she said. “I think the question for me was, ‘What was Mark doing’? Was that in some way inhibiting or affecting or distracting from his day-to-day official duties?
“And from what I can see, I don’t believe so.”
Particularly worthy of mention was her questioning of whether the matter would have got the same attention had the text been sent to a butcher, pool cleaner or delivery driver.
“I really do think that sex work is work. It’s a legitimate profession, and if that’s who it was, so be it,” she said.
Full marks, attorney, for rising above the temptation to dive into a lurid political pile-on.
Glad also to see ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr resisting the urge to score political points and suggesting that, maybe, it’s the system itself that needs a look at.
“The hearings run for approximately 75 hours over two weeks, and hundreds of officials attend to assist the Assembly in its scrutiny of government administration and expenditure,” he told The Guardian.
“If the Leader of the Opposition considers the process boring, perhaps that is an argument for examining the format in the future.”
If only those on Capital Hill could follow the example.
Andrew Fraser began his journalistic career in 1979 and has been practising criminal law since 2008.