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Politicians complain about cynicism, but they drive it

David Penberthy

by David Penberthy

21 Aug 12:54pm

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Filed under: Cynicism, Election 2010, Julia Gillard, Nsw Labor, Politics, Tony Abbott

24 comments

Many words have been used to describe this election campaign and none of them are particularly flattering. From doyens of journalism such as Paul Kelly down to giggly and uninformed disc-jockeys on commercial FM, the consensus has been that it’s been superficial, unambitious, contrived, with both leaders often pretending to be something which they are not in order to win votes.

Stabbing and slogans ... artwork by The Daily Telegraph's Warren Brown

Without wishing to drift into the kind of mindless nihilism which Mark Latham displayed on 60 Minutes, it has been hard to get too excited about the policy debates, to the extent that there have really been any detailed or meaningful policy debates. Both sides have run relentlessly negative campaigns against their opponents. The end result of this can only be an erosion in our collective faith in politics and a further diminishment, if that indeed is possible, of the standing of politicians in the eyes of the community.

This election campaign is one which we should remind our politicians of in future when they start complaining about the rougher than usual treatment they receive for making the selfless decision to go into public life, and endure the slings and arrows it entails, on salaries which are easily eclipsed by what is on offer in the private sector.

It’s not a cynical media or public which has run down politicians during this campaign. It’s the cynicism of the political parties themselves and their strategists which has done so.

Until this election, the 1999 republic referendum stood as the most damaging recent event in Australian public life for the reputation and standing of our politicians. In order to defend the status quo – which of itself is a fair enough position - the No campaign used the most unfair and intellectually dishonest methods to frighten people about the impact of constitutional change. It did so through the specious argument that a republic would somehow cost millions of dollars, and that it would hand more power to politicians by affording them the right (as our elected representatives) to appoint a president on the basis of a majority vote.

It also rewarded and encouraged stupidity with its mindless but effective line that if you didn’t understand constitutional change you shouldn’t vote for it, because if you did understand it, you wouldn’t vote for it.

It has always puzzled me how clever people who have a passion for public life can use this kind of ploy to urge voters not to think at all.

Tony Abbott, of course, was front and centre in the No campaign with Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. It says something about Abbott’s often dichotomous approach to public life. Abbott is the kind of guy who would, and often has, talked about the breakdown in respect for institutions, and sought more recognition for the nobility and selflessness of a career in public servitude. Yet in that campaign he played a lead role in suggesting that politicians cannot be trusted, are power hungry, purely in order to win his way at the referendum.

The most disappointing aspect of this election for Tony Abbott was that he launched himself from day one of the campaign by fraudulently distancing himself from convictions which have been at the very core of his being. It is bizarre that a guy can be part of a tremendously successful government for 11 years, and then deliberately tie his hands with a gimmicky pledge to make no changes whatsoever to our industrial laws, even if such changes may be in the national interest, or necessitated by changing economic circumstances. To have been the most passionate advocate of continued reform, to have devoted much of a very thoughtful book to the question, and then sign it all away with a stunt in a radio station studio was an early signal that ambition will play no part in this election campaign.

On the Labor side, you can accuse the ALP of doing nothing more than trashing the standing of the office of prime minister. Julia Gillard has done an absolutely woeful job in explaining the rationale behind the execution of Kevin Rudd. She struggled again at the Broncos Leagues Club forum on Wednesday when one punter quite bluntly asked her if she was a hypocrite, in that she’d declared the government had lost its way under Kevin Rudd, and was now rehabilitating him to hold seats in Queensland.

More important, and for Gillard, more excruciating, was the questioner’s assertion that she had been an integral part of the Rudd Government anyway, and had failed to explain the key changes to the policies and performance of the Government since the brutal leadership changeover.  Save for a softening of the mining tax, there had still been no resolution of the people smuggling and asylum seeker processing question, and the future management of the ETS was now up to some unelected ginger group, crafted to save the Government from having to make the hard decisions .

The popularity of the ABC program The Gruen Transfer is a telling indicator of the intense public cynicism for the political class. Normally a program of this kind would attract a niche university-educated audience. The fact that it has been winning the ratings shows there is a national appetite for a program which examines issues of spin and message-management, and cuts through much of the confected garbage we are being subjected to in this desperately negative campaign.

In an excellent column in The Daily Telegraph last week, political journalist Simon Benson, whose book Betrayal recounts the conduct of the NSW factions in destroying the premiership of Morris Iemma, provided some killer analysis from former Prime Minister Paul Keating whom he interviewed for the book.

In the interview Keating warned of the looming threat to public faith in politics stemming from NSW.

“When the motivation of the machinery of the Party is unfurnished as to policy purpose, it has nothing more to offer than to focus on marketing and polls,” Keating told Benson. “After a while the public becomes aware of this.”

As Benson went on to write: “The public has now cottoned on. The once revered mighty Labor Party campaign machine has turned into a sitcom.”

After this election, any politician who complains about getting a raw deal rom a cynical public will face the handy rejoinder that when it comes to cynicism, they were the ones who started it. 

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24 comments

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    • Andy says:

      01:30pm | 21/08/10

      Abbott never said he would never change anything regarding IR. He said he would work within the existing laws, the same as the current Government would. He also said he understands WorkChoices went too far, and he has learned that lesson when the Australian people voted his Government out of office largely becuase of WorkChoices. What would you expect him to do after the last massive scare campaign launched and won by Paul Howes and his Union mates.

      Reply

    • Ben81 says:

      03:14pm | 21/08/10

      but…but… Julia Gillard says he will reintroduce Workchoices on the first Monday after the election if he wins!
      Not sure how since he clearly said he won’t and it’s impossible anyway, but surely she wouldn’t tell a blatant lie like that to win a few votes, would she?

      /sarcasm off

    • Nicole says:

      03:45pm | 21/08/10

      Yep. In the past few days, every question that has been put to her, has been answered with Workchoices, even though the questions didn’t even relate to Workchoices. Me thinks she’s getting nervous.

    • Robert Smissen, rural SA, God's own country says:

      06:54pm | 21/08/10

      Ben 81, unfortunately, if a lie is told often enough, people will believe it, like her lie that Labor saved us from the GFC, when Oz wasn’t even in recession

    • George says:

      02:31pm | 21/08/10

      Pembo wrote “After this election, any politician who complains about getting a raw deal rom a cynical public will face the handy rejoinder that when it comes to cynicism, they were the ones who started it. “

      Well, I beg to differ. The Daily Telegraph has had a big hand in dragging the debates that have taken place in this federal election down a few notches. If the editors and journalists are honest about the need to focus on policy and solutions that matter to people on the street, they would. Instead your paper has had an obvious (and destructive) obsession with the horserace, gaffes and with poking fun at serious issues and people with serious jobs. It’s easy to poke fun at politics and politicians and I suppose it makes sense when you want to entertain people rather than inform them. Information doesn’t really sell newspapers or advertising space, especially when it’s available for free over the Internet.

      The mainstream media cannot sit back and pretend it doesn’t feed the cynicism that is growing in the community towards politics and politicians. Of course it does and of course it has been doing it for years. The term “spin doctor” was originally coined to describe the political advisers whose job it was to cure “the spin” from Britain’s tabloid media. Not much has changed over the past few years.

      Reply

    • Iron Jay says:

      04:20pm | 21/08/10

      George (Brandis?). What bunkum as Krudd would say. The journos are only doing WWF smackdown because of the fodder.

      When Kevie got rolled the leaks from Labor was so prolific. So if the parties play the media, why can’t the media play them?

    • iansand says:

      08:20pm | 21/08/10

      The journos could report shenanigans as just that, instead of treating it seriously.

    • john Williams says:

      02:47pm | 21/08/10

      “After this election, any politician who complains about getting a raw deal rom a cynical public will face the handy rejoinder that when it comes to cynicism, they were the ones who started it.” David Penberthy
      True enough.
      But it was the media who perpetuated it.
      The politicians should know…with absolute certainty…that moronic schemes like The Citizens Assembly would be mercilessly shredded in the press.
      A secret deal between the Government and the three International mining companies involving many billions of dollars…and the silence from the media is deafening.
      A “dialogue” between Australia and East Timor that was unanimously denied by both the Governing and Opposition Parties in the East Timor Government received zero scrutiny from the media.
      A $43 Billion dollar NBN without a Business Plan delivered “free” to every household, that would require maybe a $3000 home re-wiring and…who knows…perhaps $100 / $300 /$500 a month subscription.
      Who knows?.
      Nobody knows…the media didn’t bother to ask !!!
      Is not the media the great defender of our democratic freedoms ?
      Whole TV shows , newspaper front pages devoted to Abbott in his budgie smugglers and Gillard in a 5 hour makeover for Women’s weekly.
      Media is the oxygen of politicians ...a natural gagger if it is denied.
      It wasn’t and it isn’t.
      The people were always awake to politicians,lawyers,real-estate salesmen.
      The people are now waking up to the media and it is reflected in the precipitous fall in readership.
      Time for the media to get their act together.

      Reply

    • Graham says:

      02:52pm | 21/08/10

      If Abbott stood up and acted like the man he is the press would have destroyed him.If Gillard had acted like the hard line lefty she really is the press would have destroyed her.Result we get is keep your head down so they cannot chop it off because the Australian public is so naive they fall for what the press have to say.David there were people who changed their vote at the last minute at the 2007 election because you as editor of the Telegraph recomended Labor (sad).

      Reply

    • Captain Col says:

      03:02pm | 21/08/10

      Still bitter about the republic, David?  Move on , man!  Not much mention here of Gillard’s hard left socialist past which has morphed into a mainstreamer even rejecting action on climate change, gay marriage, and many other causes of the lovies.  Abbott cops it from you for deeds decades old, but Gillard’s a cleanskin?  Get real.

      But I have to agree the pollies have brought the cynicism of the public onto themselves.  Why don’t jounos like yourself demand answers from them and not accept them answering with a party political blurb you could train a parrot to spruke.  Take some of the blame yourselves.  Call them liars to their faces when they tell you lies.

      Reply

    • Freeman says:

      03:27pm | 21/08/10

      There is very little dignity in politics, penbo, but the media & columnists play their part in lowering the bar (especially when considering the superficial nature of politics in recent times)  a politicians gaffe or a ministers error with the sums would attract more media interest than a visionary policy they might propose, so why would they risk it? opposition to work choices and the mining tax from cashed up self interest groups shows us that it’s just not worth spending the money to try to bring in reform. there is no room for balanced & reasonable discussion on policy anymore,

      Reply

    • Avatarred with the Same Brush says:

      04:05pm | 21/08/10

      I dunno, I Lathamed up and voted nothing in the Reps (my choice being between a machine man-monster from one side and a twelve year old put up by the other) and Sex in the Senate.  I think there was a message in there somewhere, but it wasn’t encouraging.  I’m just waiting for beer o’clock and the coverage.  Here’s to a hung parliament, six months of paralysis and a double dissolution in the Autumn.

      Reply

    • TB says:

      04:11pm | 21/08/10

      “The end result of this can only be an erosion in our collective faith in politics and a further diminishment, if that indeed is possible, of the standing of politicians in the eyes of the community.”

      I see absolutely nothing wrong with this.

      Reply

    • Moving Country says:

      04:14pm | 21/08/10

      Spot on Pembo.  Also Jools throwing the Workchoices Boogieman. It insults the intelligence of Joe and Joanne Public.

      Both are uninspiring. The Greens show a vision but that includes extra power for unions, death duties and more mining Tax.

      Jooles and Tone can’t explain gay marriage fears. 

      Latham is wrong to tick the none of the above box.

      The biggest thing to come out of this election is the collegiate way in which the elite political journos from all camps have worked collegiately to put the blow torch on this lot.

      Reply

    • Sam says:

      05:13pm | 21/08/10

      Abbott did well, avoiding debates where harder questions are asked by professionals, and promoting the ‘Rooty Hill’ meetings where questions by individuals who simply want to know ‘whats in it for me’. are very predictable and far easier to answer. It was a matter of dumbing down, or ‘abbotting’ the debate.

      Reply

    • alex says:

      05:23pm | 21/08/10

      I wonder what the media professionals feel is their obligation to the public? You have a privileged position - do you owe us anything besides crass commercial self-interest?

      How do you see it, Penbo?

      Reply

    • Front Row says:

      05:55pm | 21/08/10

      David - In marketing terms, what’s happened to muesli has now happened to politics. 
      People that were buying liked the idea, but didn’t care about the sugar, didn’t give a stuff about the fats, and only the obsessives read the nutrition panel.
      That’s Australia.
      Time to lock in, or leave.

      Reply

    • BarbaraT says:

      06:21pm | 21/08/10

      The Republic might have had a chance if the Republicans hadn’t tried to slip in all those changes to the Constitution at the same time.  There was a real danger that some of the protections afforded us under the constitution would have been eroded by those many changes.  A previous Government have already had recognised by the United Nations a law which gives the Government the ability to seize any land with out having to compensate the land holder.  Nasty bit of work that one.  The only thing stopping those powers is our current Constitutional structure.  Not many countries have the protection we have.  Also under a Republic, the Government would be able to make changes to our Constitution without a people’s referendum.  And you think people were just tricked by a scare campaign?  The threat was real.  A perfect example of what can happen is Bob Hawke’s ‘Local Government Act’ which he produced to try and create a Third tier of Government through Local Councils.  The Constitution being there means that this Act is not legally enforceable, because it tries to circumvent the Constitution and was not taken to the people in a referendum.  In fact during the Republic referendum the question of a third level of government was rejected by voters by about 67 per cent against.  This is the power the people were not prepared to relinquish.  And I pray we never do.

      Reply

    • Hermoine says:

      12:50pm | 23/08/10

      Uhmmm, that’s not what was put to the Australian people in the Republic referendum BarbaraT.
      The first was a change to the Head of State - which was defeated;
      The second was the inclusion of a Preamble which really has no significance other than to provide a “mission statement” to a document which was written in 1899 as a power-sharing agreement between Colonies and a new Federal Government.

      There is and was nothing put in the 1999 referendum which removed the power of altering the Constitution from the people to the Parliament… except in cases where the Constitution already allowed for the Parliament to make laws on that matter (on voting age, number of ministries, seats in the houses of Parliament etc)

    • Gregg says:

      08:48pm | 21/08/10

      Compliments to Warren Penbo for one of the greatest cartoons of the campaign
      But that’s where I’ll leave you a bit for do politicians really complain about cynicism or is that a good generalism!
      With
      ” Until this election, the 1999 republic referendum stood as the most damaging recent event in Australian public life for the reputation and standing of our politicians. In order to defend the status quo – which of itself is a fair enough position - the No campaign used the most unfair and intellectually dishonest methods to frighten people about the impact of constitutional change. It did so through the specious argument that a republic would somehow cost millions of dollars, and that it would hand more power to politicians by affording them the right (as our elected representatives) to appoint a president on the basis of a majority vote. “
      I wasn’t so much into the repubfest and there’d always be the for/against arguments but to say it would not cost millions is a far stretch of the imagination.
      What’s wrong with ” If it ain’t broke why even think about fixing it ” and have we at all suffered in not moving to become a republic
      ” It also rewarded and encouraged stupidity with its mindless but effective line that if you didn’t understand constitutional change you shouldn’t vote for it, because if you did understand it, you wouldn’t vote for it. “
      Wasn’t that line from Paul Keating about GST
      ” It has always puzzled me how clever people who have a passion for public life can use this kind of ploy to urge voters not to think at all. “
      Maybe Paul was just too clever!
      But down to basics and
      ” Tony Abbott, of course, was front and centre in the No campaign with Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. It says something about Abbott’s often dichotomous approach to public life. Abbott is the kind of guy who would, and often has, talked about the breakdown in respect for institutions, and sought more recognition for the nobility and selflessness of a career in public servitude. Yet in that campaign he played a lead role in suggesting that politicians cannot be trusted, are power hungry, purely in order to win his way at the referendum. “
      Aren’t both assertions compatible?
      ” The most disappointing aspect of this election for Tony Abbott was that he launched himself from day one of the campaign by fraudulently distancing himself from convictions which have been at the very core of his being. It is bizarre that a guy can be part of a tremendously successful government for 11 years, and then deliberately tie his hands with a gimmicky pledge to make no changes whatsoever to our industrial laws, even if such changes may be in the national interest, or necessitated by changing economic circumstances. To have been the most passionate advocate of continued reform, to have devoted much of a very thoughtful book to the question, and then sign it all away with a stunt in a radio station studio was an early signal that ambition will play no part in this election campaign. “
      I’d take the opposite view Penbo in that whilst a man can have a personal view, he is able to sacrifice some of that for the national interest in having a more responsible fiscal government.

      ” On the Labor side, you can accuse the ALP of doing nothing more than trashing the standing of the office of prime minister. Julia Gillard has done an absolutely woeful job in explaining the rationale behind the execution of Kevin Rudd. ”
      Totally agreed and we are seeing the outfall right now as I finish what I started much earlier.

      Not my legs eleven but still looking good.

      Reply

    • Al says:

      05:24am | 22/08/10

      I go with some of the earlier comments here. While I agree with the public cynicism about the politicians, as a former journalist myself I have to say I am very disappointed by the coverage of this election and the previous NSW election.
      In both cases the media walked away from reporting on policy and got caught up with character assassination. NSW has worn an additional term of Labor because our media focused on Debnam looking not so good as Tony Abbott when he climbed out of the water in budgie smugglers rather than what NSW Liberals stood for.
      Policy in that election became roadkill and mindless voters followed the lead of the media and gave a government that had comprehensively failed in every area another term.
      Now we see a Liberal government likely to take power on the back of a grab bag of policies that are continuations of decade old ideas and which have no idea on the future of this country and the generation to come. I worry for my son when he leaves school that he will be paying for this generation’s incompetence. This was actually a very important election.
      I have said it before and I repeat it again, the comprehensive lack of policy reporting and analysis in this election has been breathtaking.
      We have just voted in a man - for many voters on economic grounds - whose first selection for Shadow Finance Minister was Barnaby Joyce and who slapped together an embarrassing economic announcement as policy in the last few days of this election.
      For the sake of brevity I will not go into comparing policies but it is clear many Australians don’t actually understand or even care about the policies and what they genuinely mean. Instead we will just get rusted on party members arguing blue in red in these comment sections.
      Finally, it is a sad indictment of our media - and News Ltd in particular -  that our national broadsheet, The Australian, is so obviously a partisan supporter of the Coalition.
      Australia not only deserves better from its politicians, we deserve much better from our media.

      Reply

    • Martin Luther says:

      08:34am | 23/08/10

      As an observer of the media from a centre right perspective it is clear that the media contribute massively to the cynicism about politicians. As soon as the left is in trouble they start the line of “a plague on both your houses”. It both distracts from a right leaning winning position and tars everyone as a liar and incompetent. Unfortunately they fail to understand that there is collateral damage to their own side!

    • acotrel says:

      07:47am | 22/08/10

      Abbott is going to ‘negotiate’ with the four independents to form a government - what a joke! They’re all conservative stooges anyway, pretending to be independent.

      Reply

    • BarbaraT says:

      10:19am | 22/08/10

      It’s called politics Acotel, they’ve all been guilty of it at some stage.

 
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