Michael McGuire: In times of crisis people demand leadership, MPs need to step up
It’s never been more important to trust our leaders but politicians keep giving the public such good reasons not to, writes Michael McGuire.
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There is a strange political dichotomy going on at the moment. People, voters, all of us, are looking to be led, looking for strong and careful leadership in a crisis. Right now we are looking for governments – state and federal – to tell us what to do, how to behave, to warn of us risks. To keep us safe.
Yet, the level of trust in governments and politicians has never been lower.
Premier Steven Marshall may illustrate the problem better than most.
His handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has been seen by most as pretty good. SA is certainly, at the moment, in better shape than many other places. The situation in Victoria is a daily reminder of what is possible here.
The increased restrictions and border closures in the last week have been generally regarded as necessary. People are prepared to put up with these impingements on freedom of movement, at least in the short term, for the greater good.
My very first #COVID19 test! I’m on the border at Mount Gambier thanking all our amazing health workers, police and ADF personnel. They’re working around the clock to keep #SouthAustralia safe and strong 🙠pic.twitter.com/RlsbjrIf7r
— Steven Marshall, MP (@marshall_steven) August 4, 2020
And even if further restrictions are required to combat new cases, or clusters, they will be accepted by most as just another necessary evil.
Marshall’s standing in the community should be elevated by all that.
But the Sisyphean nature of politics has rolled over him.
Losing three cabinet ministers, a party whip and the Liberal president of the Legislative Council because of an expenses scandal now being investigated by the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption can only be regarded as astonishing.
Then this week, as Marshall is trying to convince South Australians of the need for more, tougher restrictions that put limits on family gatherings and mean you have to sit down while drinking in the pub, it emerges the Liberal Party is having a shindig at Adelaide Oval for 700 people.
It’s not difficult to understand why people believe there is one rule for politicians and another for the rest of the world. And you can see why any trust Marshall built up in the electorate just fritters away a little bit.
A survey this week of South Australians by the Australia Institute found only 31 per cent believed MPs “act in an honest and transparent way when it comes to claiming their salary and benefits’’. More than 70 per cent said all salary and benefits should be listed publicly.
The poll was conducted between July 23 and July 27. Stephan Knoll, Tim Whetstone and David Ridgway resigned on July 26. It’s difficult to read too much into one poll because there are no comparisons to previous numbers.
However, it’s not difficult to conclude that trust in politicians is at an all-time low – just at the time we need them the most.
Perhaps part of the lack of trust is related to the dismantling of much of what used to be regarded as the state. Both Labor and Liberal have been selling the family silver for decades. Electricity, gas, water, transport. It’s a long list.
The mantra of smaller and smaller government has taken hold, leaving people to question what government is really all about, if not to look after citizens.
Then you have senior politicians such as Treasurer Josh Frydenberg invoking the ghost of British PM Margaret Thatcher as some sort of antidote to the economic pain inflicted by COVID. Thatcher, who once opined that “there’s no such thing as society’’.
Times of crisis like this prove Thatcher wrong. The more cohesive the society, the better we will be able to defeat the virus.
The US is suffering more than anywhere else because it is so divided and led by a bloke with no capacity or interest in either society or leadership.
To see Donald Trump flop around this week like a goldfish dumped from its bowl when being interviewed by journalist Jonathan Swan was to despair for the American people.
These are testing, almost unprecedented, times for our political leaders. But it’s also an opportunity – if they handle it well – to restore confidence in the system, to repair the damage done.
To change people’s minds that politics and politicians have more in mind than just themselves.