As an eager Young Liberal in the 1980s, I was schooled by a generation of older Australians whose values were forged during World War II.
In a nutshell, I learned my first political duty was to respect and protect the consensus core values in Australian politics.
The idea was that Australia has a strong and robust ‘political centre’, where standards of behaviour and trust were embedded in Westminster traditions.
We learned that everything depended on the survival and health of those traditions.
Genuine ‘ministerial accountability’ in those days saw two Fraser government ministers resign from their portfolios, after a health minister failed to declare to customs he was bringing in a colour TV.
The affair – which would be laughable today – plunged the federal government into crisis.
Forty years ago, allegations of breaking Westminster traditions were rare and serious – the accuser’s credibility was as much on the line as the alleged offender.
Seven hundred years of parliamentary experiences invested in those Westminster traditions are now being trashed.
Why should we care about Westminster democracy at all?
One example is the capacity it creates for bipartisan debates, like the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal citizenship.
That sailed through with consensus support.
Compare that with the Voice referendum last year – the brutal difference is modern Australia has lost its capacity for honesty and a consensus on anything.
For over a century, the integrity and consensus around the virtues of Westminster parliamentary democracy served us well. It was tough on some politicians, but that was a small price the public was happy to pay.
In 2023, however, the extent to which these central values have disappeared was stark.
Some examples include the Robodebt inquiry, where a former minister openly admitted lying to parliament; the Morrison’s multi-ministries inquiry; and the continuing shambolic Lehrmann-Higgins saga.
If telling lies is no longer a risk to your political longevity, it becomes the new norm.
The worst lies of all in politics, as in life, are of course the ‘white’ ones – those with a grain of truth twisted to the point of flipping the facts completely.
The Iraq lie
Our political centred has frayed and weakened over time – but the trend was turbo-charged in 2011 when the ‘three amigos’: Bush/Blair/Howard, declared war on Iraq. They made claims that weapons of mass destruction were being stockpiled. It was a lie.
Aside from the terrible human and political costs of that war, the trust in our democratically elected leaders was trashed, which also broke the political centre.
Politics then began to fragment, and drift apart – extremist ideas took root when nobody felt able to believe political leaders.
In 2023, I see a direct line from such events 12 years ago – the damage inflicted upon our democracy with the inquiries into Robodebt, multi-ministries and abuses in the NDIS. This is also why the Voice referendum was such a mess – everybody was telling little lies. Claims that the Voice would transform First Nations school attendance were almost as disingenuous as claims we would have to pay to go to the beach.
The situation has many wondering just how long has political leadership been lying about profoundly important issues?
The question is well answered in Paul Keating’s 1993 speech interring the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, openly reflecting on hideous leadership that led to millions of deaths.
He notes the ‘war to end all wars’ failed. Instead, it ‘sowed the seeds of a second’. Keating recalls the ‘inexcusable folly’ of that war – the ‘military and political incompetence’ and ‘the waste of human life… so terrible that some said victory was scarcely discernible from defeat’.
It seems valid to ask – did these young ANZACS die in vain? In reply, Keating eulogises, ‘a lesson about ordinary people – and the lesson was that they were not ordinary. On all sides, they are the heroes of the Great War; not the generals and the politicians, but the soldiers and sailors and nurses – those who taught us to endure hardship, to show courage, to be bold as well as resilient, to believe in ourselves, to stick together’.
2023 smacked of evidence that those Australian values eulogised by Keating are under attack, with our political leadership credibility in steep decline.
Thoughtful people need to come together to restore it.
It is no exaggeration to say the entire fate of our democracy depends upon it.
♦ Catherine Cusack is a former NSW Liberal MLC
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