David Penberthy: No one stopped to consider the optics of inviting several hundred people to an event that looked less than essential

The Liberals imposed harsher restrictions on SA yet invited hundreds of people to a less-than-essential gathering at Oval’s Magarey Room this week, writes David Penberthy. What message does that send?

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For all their current popularity over their management of the coronavirus, Australia’s political leaders must still deal with the enduring public conviction that there is one set of rules for people who are in power and a different set for those who are not.

The most powerful demonstration of that fact involves the nationwide bipartisan ambivalence toward public demands for a pay cut for MPs amid the pandemic.

There are two arguments for the pay cut – that it would provide modest but never-the-less welcome relief to government coffers through a reduction in their taxpayer-funded salaries, and more compellingly, that it would be a symbolic gesture that showed they were prepared to share in the pain and make good on the cliched refrain that we’re all in this together.

Yet, at a time when so many Australians have lost their jobs or had their salaries and hours reduced, the pollies have instead opted for a pay freeze.

In the eyes of cash-strapped Australians, the idea of having your salary briefly frozen at about $250,000 a year does not really constitute taking one for the team.

One of the reasons Premier Steven Marshall moved so swiftly to act against those frontbenchers over their extravagant country travel allowance claims was that it failed the pub test.

Every other worker must seek reimbursement for costs incurred, and provide receipts documenting every last cent they spent, with the punishment for false claims being so onerous as to invite criminal charges in the worst instances.

A much more slapdash regime seemed to apply for the country MPs, and the Premier sniffed the breeze correctly in acting with such force to secure the resignation of those ministers.

This week, the South Australian Liberals found themselves on the end of criticism over their decision to hold a mass gathering at the Adelaide Oval to host the party’s women’s council.

The party says the event abided by social-distancing rules, with one person every 2sq m in the Magarey Room at the Riverbank Stand.

But, in the same week when crowd restrictions of 100 were reintroduced for weddings and funerals, and when private visits in family homes were capped at no more than 10 people, no-one stopped to consider the optics of inviting hundreds of people to an event that looked less than essential. And one that could easily have been rescheduled or postponed until SA gets through this next delicate stage of the pandemic.

All the commentary around this went to the idea of different sets of rules. And tellingly, that criticism started with people who are members of the Liberal Party who were invited to attend last night’s event.

Party members I spoke to described it as “insane”, “insulting”, “absurd”, and railed against the wisdom of its scheduling at a time when the message is to keep numbers down and pull back on unnecessary get-togethers.

We received a message on air about the event yesterday from Mary Thomson, the woman who broke SA’s heart with her interview way back in April when she pleaded with people to obey social-distancing rules because she wanted to see her husband in his aged-care home when the restrictions lifted and it was deemed to be safe.

Ms Thomson’s view, and the view of others, was that it made no sense for people in politics to be laying down strict and onerous rules about how everyone else should live their lives, while continuing to behave as they wished to.

Beyond that is a more befuddling question over the manner in which restrictions are being applied.

If, as the Liberal secretariat says, this event did not offend the social-distancing rules, it invites discussion as to whether the rules themselves make sense. On a personal note, I struggle to see how several hundred people can get together in an enclosed space for a lengthy meeting, with meals provided, but I’ve had to uninvite my parents from a scheduled get-together this Saturday as, with my sister and her family coming too, there would be 12 of us in the house.

And, even though the Premier has explained the health advice behind football crowds, it’s still hard to wrap your head around the fact that 20,000 people were allowed to go to the Adelaide Oval on Wednesday night, but 12 can’t sit around in the backyard at a barbecue.

Perhaps we should have joined the Liberal Party and met up at the Oval instead.

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There was a sense within the Liberals that the blow-up over the women’s council function was a factional story, with disenfranchised conservatives using it as a chance to get a shot over the moderates’ bows.

It probably was, in part.

And that might be the most disturbing part of it for a government that has enjoyed sustained stability under the leadership of Mr Marshall.

Having drawn a line under the factional squabbling and leadership intrigues that marred the Dean Brown/John Olsen era, and continued through the revolving door of leaders during the Liberals’ 16 long years in the wilderness, Mr Marshall has done a good job keeping a lid on things.

There are now a few signs of disquiet within what’s been a happily united outfit.

And the trigger for that may be the aforementioned removals of those four frontbenchers, three of whom were conservatives, leaving the party even more entrenched as a city-run, moderate-controlled operation.

No hard decision in politics comes without blowback, and this might be the first significant sign that there are more than a few people who won’t take things lying down.