Matthew Abraham: Australians have a long history of love affairs with political sinners

Even if three former Liberal MPs are convicted by the state’s courts, don’t be surprised if their popularity doesn’t take a hit, writes Matthew Abraham.

Love the sinner, not the sin, so they say. But for some reason they never say love the virtuous, not the virtue. Perhaps it’s simply because sinners have more fun. Australians have a long history of love affairs with political sinners, particularly those who have had love affairs with other people, money or the demon drink – or all three.

Take the cases of the three former Liberal, now independent MPs, charged with different and seperate alleged offences - Fraser Ellis, Sam Duluk and Troy Bell. They’re defending the charges and the courts will decide their fates. Should they be found guilty, it’d likely only make a shopping trolley dent in their popularity with local voters.

Those of you who’ve been paying attention will know that last month I dealt with the Seven Deadly Sins of the Marshall Government, a twist on the Seven Big Ones of pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, or drunkenness, anger and sloth. In a rare weak moment, I promised to compile Team Marshall’s Seven Heavenly Virtues. This proved much harder than expected. In politics, virtue is rare and rarely rewarded.

South Australian Premier Steven Marshall. Picture: David Mariuz

Traditionally, the Seven Heavenly Virtues combine the four classical Cardinal Virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and courage (or fortitude) with the three Theological Virtues of faith, hope, and charity. These mustn’t be confused with the Seven Capital Virtues, which are a whole different ball game.

It’s a high bar, but here goes:

GARDENING: Unkindly, Education Minister John Gardner reminds me of the Peter Sellers’ character Chauncey Gardiner in Being There, a simple gardener who is mistakenly adopted as a genius in the big bad outside world.

But our Gardner is quietly presiding over one of SA’s most dramatic structural reforms – the switch of year 7 from primary to secondary school. Stubbornly binned as too hard and too expensive by Labor, Minister Gardener is just getting the job done with no histrionics and little controversy, amazing given the thousands of kiddies who’ll make the leap of faith.

Will it work? As Chauncey says: “As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden”.

Education Minister John Gardner at the School Sports Awards in February. Picture: Brenton Edwards

LOT FOURTEEN:This almost made the grade as a Deadly Sin, because what’s going on inside the old RAH space on North Terrace remains a mystery to everyone on the outside, and that’s most of us. Without millions in taxpayer subsidies and incentives it’d be Tumbleweed Central. But you could say the same of South Australia’s entire defence industry. Maybe it really will blossom into the bright, shining future promised by its benefactor-in-chief Premier Steven Marshall. All those excited Lot Fourteen CEOs must know something we don’t.

UNITY: This is a cardinal virtue for any government. As Liberal leader, Steven Marshall has managed to make his MPs look united, even if they’re fighting like cats and dogs behind the curtains. Labor’s been pulling off this trick for years but it’s a new taste sensation for SA’s Libs. For much of the past 30 years, they’ve preferred backstabbing and white-anting each other or, worse still, actually leaking directly to the ALP (I’m not making this up) to help Labor beat them at the polls, which it mostly did.

FISHING:Yes, this was a deadly sin. But in his last budget as Treasurer, Rob Lucas achieved absolution. He resisted the urging of the strangely influential professional fishing lobby and didn’t introduce a cruel recreational fishing licence on the state’s 277,000 rec fishos. Often, not doing something is a virtue.

PREDICTABLE:Unlike former Labor premier Jay Weatherill’s 2015 Year of Living Dangerously, the Marshall government’s trajectory is predictable and, let’s face it, pretty dull. Given the Covid-19 madness, this isn’t such a bad thing.

Premier Steven Marshall has done a good job managing Covid-19. Just ask him. Picture: Brenton Edwards

COVID-19:Don’t expect praise for the Premier’s handling of the pandemic and the vaccine “strollout”, he does that himself. But Police Minister Vincent Tarzia last week tweeted a photo of himself getting vaccinated.

So what, you say?

Unlike many top pollies, and despite qualifying on age criteria, Tarzia didn’t wangle the trendy Pfizer vaccine, but instead chose the good old AstraZeneca juice.

“Vaccines are crucial to our recovery from Covid-19,” he tweeted.

“I’m 34. However, after discussing my circumstances and medical history with my GP, I made the decision to have the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine dose.”

In other words, he made an informed choice about his own health, like a grown-up. How refreshing. Sorry, but that’s as far as I got with the Seven Heavenly Virtues. I only managed six. Well, it’s not a mortal sin, is it?