Anthony Albanese, you possibly have the worst job in Australian politics. Up against a federal government rich in marketing skills and basking in its entitlement and a public that is buying it. Please give us more of your passion and tell us your plan.
Or at least the public is staying “quiet” on the pressing issues, following the PM’s wiliest of suggestions, even as the world moves on.
This makes you even more determined that this nation needs a federal Labor government. That’s what you told Laura Tingle in your 7.30 interview. That was the moment your passion broke through. We who want to believe in liberation from this shabbiest of governments believed you. But without clarifying in the simplest of terms why we cannot afford Coalition-style “politics as usual”, your words may disappear in the wind. Or be used against you.
We’re at a crossroads. Climate denial should be catalyst enough to speak out for a viable future. But what about all the other denials in which this Government specialises? Of basic fairness, equity, gender and especially race injustices; denying transparency, accountability and common decency? You protest, but that protest needs to drive the promise of Integrity Politics, articulated, targeted and empowering. For all our sakes.
You know better than we do how deceived Australians are. We’re asked to look past massive and massively partisan rorts, privatisation scams, multibillion defence “deals”, mates getting obscenely rich through “ outsourcing” – all while millions of citizens suffer disastrous housing, job and even food insecurity, and First Nations people die on average a decade before those who are non-Indigenous.
The time has passed for promises. Plans are needed. Especially in the areas where high-wage jobs are threatened. (Apparently employment in the arts, academia or many essential social services needs no support or even recognition.)
One of the best cut-through moments of the last election campaign came when then-deputy Tanya Plibersek pointed out how many jobs could created in Far North Queensland and other areas of astonishing beauty and cultural relevance if climate change and environmental protection were prioritised across every policy area. The numbers are there. And they need to be part of your Big Story – a story, a “plan”, that can be “sold” via rhetoric that’s quote-worthy and persuasive. Something like this:
“We will restore Integrity Politics in this country that we all love. This is in our national interest, wherever we live, wherever we have come from, however, we may previously have voted. None of us can afford more divisive lies.
People need to know the truth about the crises we face – not just a climate crisis but a crisis of decency, honesty, accountability and trust. Facing that together, we can protect the interests of every Australian. No more lies. No more promises that will never be delivered. No more spin. No more multi-million dollar rorts. No more secret deals for mates. Just lots more costed investment in education and health, in viable agriculture, water, ocean and land protections to bring real jobs.
Our job creation will be done in cooperation with the best and brightest across all sectors – because that’s what’s needed. And knowing how your health and wellbeing depend on it, we will offer immediate national investment in affordable housing, creating even more jobs, plus special care for our very youngest and oldest. We deserve better. We can have better. We will be better.”
The story you and your team tell must move hearts. It must excite a demand for trustworthy and transparent politics. It must talk to and about people not as economic units but as marvellously diverse human beings whose potential will be realised only with fairness in key areas including health, education, tertiary research, community and arts development and safe housing. In education alone, far greater public investment will increase productivity and wellbeing, not least by controlling costs in universities and ending the privatisation that has destroyed TAFE. Education – articulated by Tanya Plibersek – should be your highest priority at every level, not childcare only, as vital as that is.
You are up against an army of PR toadies in Canberra and across the media. The old routines will not cut through. Talking left/right, “working people” vs the rest, placating climate deniers in your own ranks, worrying about the “suburbs” as Chris Bowen has done rather than pointing to urgent national needs shaping life in every town and region: this doesn’t achieve nearly enough.
In writing school, we talk about “owning the narrative”. The most deceptive narrative in Australia is that we have to put up with an over-entitled fifth-rate Federal Government because a far more talented, far better educated, far more diverse opposition cannot “cut through”. Why not?
Yes, the media is central to the problem and the re-circulating of a 2015 story from the Sydney Morning Herald tells a bleak story of the lies circulated by the Murdoch media to displace Michael Towke as the Liberal candidate for the seat of Cook … and put in his place the man who is now Prime Minister.
Whether Morrison “deserved” selection is almost beside the point. Grubby tricks were there from the start. Morrison was happy to rise on the back of what he must have known were gutless fabrications at best, just as he knew Bill Shorten was not threatening “retirement” or “death” taxes in the last election. (Just as Abbott knew carbon pricing was not a “tax”.)
I’ve been exploring moral intelligence for decades, and how it relates to personal integrity and collective wellbeing. Without a willingness to distinguish decency from expediency, we are diminished and endangered. This extends to the public spheres, particularly to politics. Time, then, to call this out? This is your chance, Albo. It is our chance also.
Rev Dr Stephanie Dowrick (PhD, D.Min) is a writer and long-time social justice activist. She was co-founder and first MD of The Women’s Press, London; has long been a contributor to Australian media, including “Inner Life” columnist for Good Weekend Magazine. Among Stephanie Dowrick’s many books are Seeking the Sacred: Transforming Our View of Ourselves and One Another, and – her latest – Your name is not Anxious: A very personal guide to putting anxiety in its place. Follow on Twitter @stephaniedowric. Visit www.stephaniedowrick.com
Comments
14 responses to “Promise to restore integrity, Mr Albanese, and you might be surprised”
I think that if people actually took the time to read Anthony Albanese’s Budget in reply speech from October 2020, there might well be a change of sentiment towards him. His voice has been drowned out not only by Covid, but by a concerted attack by the Coalition on the floor of parliament to literally gag the labor opposition from doing their job, opposing, as Tony Burke pointed out recently.
https://anthonyalbanese.com.au/anthony-albanese-speech-budget-in-reply-parliament-house-canberra-thursday-8-october-2020
His speech is plain speaking, it identified the areas that need attention, and lays down clear tasks that need to be completed in order to make Australia a better place. Make no mistake, this is a doable manifesto that largely restores the social contract that underlies all of labor’s policies.
Something else is happening in Labor too. For the first time in several elections, the Labor leader is not going to go it alone. An election committee is being set up for the coming election. This means that there is now room at the table for many people who will pull together as a team to win an election.
As Anthony Albanese has said, labor is on your side, no one held back and no one left behind. That is a promise this man I believe can keep.
People might think this is dreamy idealism, that “integrity” is unrelatable and irrelevant to people (cynical or otherwise) who have other, legitimate, pressing priorities which will determine their vote.
However, we cannot shrug our shoulders and accept that somewhere among the near 70 per cent of people who didn’t give Labor their first preference in 2019 there are none, at all, who would respond to an appeal to a moral high ground, a commitment to restoring trust and verity to the political process (notwithstanding Labor’s own past contributions to weakening it).
With so very few votes deciding every election, what can possibly be lost by Labor going harder than it seems to be, on integrity, trust, truth and transparency? To not do so is to reinforce the disillusionment, the impression that politicians “are all in the same boat”.
For a start:
Electoral reform – multi-party electorates, proportional representation
Strong, ICAC type, integrity commission
Stringent whistleblower protection
Vigorous investigation & prosecution of corruption
“Disproportionate assets” legislation (assets not compatible with known sources of income)
Treating ‘white collar crime’ seriously
Support for serious investigative journalism
Will Labor promise to create the badly needed #FedICAC with retrospective powers?
Risky for Labor? Do It !!!!!! Australia Needs It !!!!!
Dr Dowrick,
My wife and I used to like Anthony Albanese, Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong but no more. We rightly feel that we have been let down by the Labor Party. Like you, we saw the rorting, the dishonesty and lies, the anti-Chinese dog whistling, the destruction of our economy, the pandering to the US supremacy geopolitics to the destruction of our own trade relationship with our biggest trading partner and more. This is the worst government that we have experienced since we came to Australia 36 years ago. Throughout this period, we had been Labor voters. We have yet to find justification for voting for them again.
While many may disagree with me, I believe that the economic health of the country is the key to the well-being of its people. When there is less to be shared among people with large disparities in power relationships, social problems find a feeding trough. We have done irreparable damage to our tertiary sector that was reorganised during the Keating era to embrace a business culture. Now, the biggest cohort from China is no longer coming to our post-secondary sectors. Our research collaboration with Chinese researchers is wrecked by witch hunting and throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The tourism sector is deeply compromised by Covid19 and no promise of Chinese tourists. This is just the predicament of one sector of our economy. There are the wine producers, the meat industry, the cotton growers, barley growers, timber industry etc. They, in a closely related way make up the whole of our economy. While the government might deceive itself and the electorate by saying that China is buying more iron ore from us than ever before, this benefits only the major mining industries and their shareholders. It does not address the problem suffered by the rest of the Australian economy.
The government paints a rosy picture by telling us that business is bouncing back. Reopening for business does not mean that the customers are there for the long term and that it is business as usual. They will struggle on for a while and close when the customer base is no longer large enough to support the business. For instance, if part of their business from tourists, students and business people from overseas do not arrive because of Covid19 recovery or strained relations with China, businesses like restaurants and cafes will be compelled to close. We also have to consider that with less wealth, there will be fewer locals patronising the service sectors.
Most people like us are puzzled by the strategy, or lack thereof, of the Labor party. At a time when we most needed comforting words from them to reassure us that we have a viable alternative ready to take over when we begin hurtling down an abyss, they present themselves almost as poor imitation of the LNP. They even managed to convince me that they are as sycophantic toward the Americans as the LNP. When we needed leaders with a backbone, they presented themselves as jelly snakes that only children would be fond of. The only reason that I can find for this behaviour is that they are convinced that the LNP and the MSM have done such a sterling job of re-orientating the minds of the electorate to their parochial point of view that they have little hope of winning them over by being different. Being like their opposition might give the Labor Party a bit more appeal to a conservative electorate in order to attract a few more votes. They seem to be afraid to stand up and be different. Therefore, the maxim that it is better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all does not seem to be in their book.
Judging from the mess that they are going to inherit from the LNP, it is not going to be an easy task for them to get Australia’s economy back on its feet. If they just want to be career politicians and nothing else, they would be doing themselves a favour if they lose the next election. However, for the national interest, they must win. Like the lacklustre Joe Biden and the Democrats, doing little is better than doing a lot to destroy the fabric of the nation.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Dear TL. If you can’t stand the government and you can’t stand Labor, you surely have a dilemma. Because ultimately a vote for anyone else is wasted. I feel your pain.
Hi, Barney. Thanks for empathising with a hopelessly idealistic person. I heard that there is a Sex Party. If they promise to ban live export of animals, I will vote for them. It is better to vote for a kinder party with a sense of humour, albeit with a hedonistic complexion, than a xenophobic or jelly-back one. I could still vote for the Labor Party if they come up with a good set of policies between now and the end of the year.
Well, it’s a dilemma I largely share. I’ll probably vote for a minor party but put Labor ahead of Liberal so that the vote is ultimately not wasted. Labor is utterly incompetent, but not as malevolent. A personal view, obviously
Hi Barney, Hi TLT.
No dilemma at all: The Greens. They have many progressive policies (including a ban on live exports).
A vote for them is NOT wasted. In the Senate, your vote helps get us more Greens senators to hopefully block the worst of govt legislation. In the reps, in some electorates your vote might help get another Green elected to keep Adam Bandt company (e.g. Burnside instead of Frydenberg in Kooyong – how good would that be!) And in all electorates your first preference sends the message that you’re not happy with either major party.
The powers that be want you to believe that a vote for a minor party or independent is ‘a wasted vote’, but they say that because both Lib and Lab are their reliable “mates”.
Hi, RB. I have considered the Greens. They are comparatively genuine and sincere but seem quite unrealistic about economics and commerce. However, I do believe that they are an intelligent and idealistic group of politicians. Maybe if they get more seats in Parliament, the economics wisdom might come later. Who knows. They may yet throw up a John Maynard Keynes.
Maybe so. It won’t surprise you to know that, being a contrarian, I have considerable reservations about the Greens also. I haven’t forgiven them for ending Rudd’s carbon plan because it wasn’t pure enough, and I think they can advocate for highly ideological policies knowing that they will never be called to put them into action. But one should certainly consider them.
Barney, the accepted wisdom is that in 2009, the high-and-mighty Greens rejected Labor’s good CPRS because it was not perfect. An alternative view is that the Greens rejected the CPRS because it was actually a bad policy, which would have made things worse than the status quo; it may have even been cleverly crafted with one eye on deliberately shafting the Greens – who are, in truth, seen by Labor as their worst enemy.
But for the sake of argument let’s assume that the Greens were too principled on that one occasion a decade ago. The Coalition and Labor are appallingly unprincipled every day, yet it seems that you and most of our fellow citizens won’t find it difficult to give one or other your vote come election time.
You also need to remember that Rudd would not negotiate with the Greens, and that Treasury said that Rudd’s plan was expensive would not reduce emissions. Rudd was preoccupied with dividing the Coalition.
When the Labor Party did bother to negotiate with the Greens, they got a system that worked. It was not ideologically driven – it was entirely practical.
Labor then, more or less refused to defend their own system, and let Abbott lie about it.
My guess is that the Coalition would have ripped down anything which affected fossil fuel industries negatively, whenever it had been passed.
The Greens also have called for a Federal ICAC, so that puts them ahead there as well.
Whatever, the important thing is to put labor ahead of the Coalition in your voting…
I agree in principle, but I’m afraid the cynic in me wins out. Every Opposition talks of transparency and accountability and integrity, and in government drops these ideas as fast as possible. I see absolutely no reason to trust Albanese more than any previous Opposition leader.