King’s representative calls for an end to constant battle royal in parliament

The Senate is officially the house of review.

Delivering her first speech as governor-general, Sam Mostyn gave the assembled senators and their popularly elected upstarts from the House of Representatives plenty to review and contemplate.

New Governor-General Sam Mostyn is casting an eye over the standard of public debate.Credit: James Brickwood

Across issues from domestic violence to cost-of-living pressures, from locations as varied as the boundary lines of footy fields to the Venice Biennale, and from people including her dad, Bill, to budding Australian astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg, the new governor-general painted a picture of modern Australia.

And, according to Mostyn, the residents of that modern Australia have already told her they are increasingly worried about the public debate that often starts in the halls of the Senate or the House of Representatives.

“Many people expressed their concern that we might lose our capacity to conduct robust and passionate arguments and debate with civility and respect, without resorting to rancour or violence,” she said.

As she uttered those words, it was hard not to look to her left. There sat Peter Dutton, and just behind him was former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who earlier this year labelled the current opposition leader a thug.

Fatima Payman and Tanya Plibersek after the swearing-in of Governor-General Sam Mostyn.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

To her right, still sitting – for now – with the government’s MPs was Senator Fatima Payman, who enjoyed an encouraging hug from Tanya Plibersek before heading back to front the special rancour the Labor Party reserves for those who break its caucus solidarity rules.

Of course, the role of the governor-general was at the heart of perhaps the nation’s most rancorous event: the 1975 sacking of Gough Whitlam and his government.

In her address to the Senate, Mostyn quoted or obliquely referenced seven former governors-general. One she did not allude to was Sir John Kerr, the governor-general most Australians with a passing interest in the nation’s political history can name without resorting to Wikipedia.

While name-checking past governors-general and parts of the country, her speech – in effect, her introduction to the public – rested on three attitudes often missing from the federal parliament and the nation’s political discourse.

“If I can capture in a few words my aspirations for our country, I believe these testing times call for an unstinting focus on kindness, on care and on respect,” she said.

In what may have been a surprise to the many elected representatives in the chamber, Mostyn said kindness, care and respect were not just personal values. These extended broadly from the environment to the country’s political institutions to our public debates.

This was an open call from her to the elected class to engage in some introspection.

Across those assembled on the Senate floor, some shuffled their feet. Others crossed their arms in a display of indifference. Plenty, however, leaned in to hear the words of the nation’s new representative of the British monarchy.

Whether they will act or change their ways is another story.

But they cannot say that Mostyn had not put them on notice that their actions and words were being watched.

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