THE COUNTRY FEELS DIFFERENT
Blindsided and bewildered by the parliamentary citizenship crisis, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week pleaded for a return to the “land of common sense”.
Blindsided and bewildered by the parliamentary citizenship crisis, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week pleaded for a return to the “land of common sense”.
What a fascinating land that must be, particularly as imagined by someone so absent of the common touch as our Prime Minister. Presumably it is a land where up-themselves Point Piper millionaires run effective election campaigns, maintain or increase substantial government majorities instead of shrinking them to the narrowest possible margin and don’t lose 22 Newspolls in a row.
Possibly Turnbull’s land of common sense resembles that once described by Fairfax’s Elizabeth Farrelly, back in the days when Turnbull had just taken over as PM and everybody loved him. “Already, after only a few weeks, the country feels different. The air itself has a new edge. And that edge has a name. Intelligence,” Farrelly raved.
“His intelligence has light in it,” Farrelly then announced, pointing a powerful cerebral spectrometer at Turnbull’s gigantic brain. “Malcolm speaks to us not as a rabble of blithering chimps wanting their buttons pushed but as grownups, capable of considered argument, reasoned reflection and conscientious decision. For Australia, this is huge.”
And the kicker: “Here's my prediction. Malcolm – who like Beyonce is known universally by his first name – will be the longest-serving prime minister since Menzies. Possibly ever.”
Sadly, Elizabeth wasn’t taking any bets on Beyonce Turnbull’s prime ministerial longevity – otherwise quite a few of us might soon also be living large in Point Piper. Beyonce’s illuminated intellect subsequently infected the Coalition’s ministry, as is evident from treasurer Scott Morrison’s recent comments on the citizenship debacle.
“Australians are more interested in the economic policies of politicians, not their genealogy,” Morrison told the Australian British Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne.
“We are seeing a boon in jobs, a welcome return in business investment, and a renewed optimism within our economy. We must continue to pour our efforts into boosting economic growth.”
Yes. You keep on doing that, Scott. The treasurer’s most telling remark came as he sought to comprehend why constitutional eligibility resonated so with the electorate: “I mean it is hard enough to understand how this situation arose in the first place.”
Right there you can see the gulf between ordinary Australians who take this nation and its laws and obligations very seriously and sophisticated internationalist types who seem faintly confused by a 117-year-old document’s requirement that Australian politicians actually be provably Australian.
We’ve seen this attitude before, from various figures who care little for Australia’s sovereign security and the nation’s right and duty to keep out those who would ignore our immigration rules. If you don’t take Australia seriously, what does it matter if passport-chucking country shoppers swarm our borders? Likewise, if you don’t take Australia seriously, who cares if dual-allegiance drop-ins are running the show in Canberra?
Australians, by and large, are very proud and protective of their country. And they don’t like it at all when elected representatives, alerted to a significant legal issue, try to wish it away instead of initiating a proper investigation. After all, when you or I break a law we are given very little room to weasel out of it. See how much a “witch hunt” argument helps you the next time you challenge a speeding ticket.
Politicians, from the Prime Minister down, clearly enjoy far greater flexibility. Turnbull, attempting to stall an audit of all sitting parliamentarians, has tried to present the entire issue of constitutional eligibility as one so complicated it is beyond even the capacity of his famously luminous mind.
But, as The Sunday Telegraph’s Peta Credlin pointed out, it really isn’t that difficult: “Get your birth certificate, work out where your parents were born, check your four grandparents as well and if it involves anywhere other than Australia, tell the foreign country in writing that, for the avoidance of doubt, you renounce any entitlement to citizenship. Then, and only then, nominate for parliament.”
The process is easy in almost every case, although possibly a little time-consuming, depending on where various parents and grandparents might have originated. Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg’s circumstances, given his mother Erica arrived in Australia as a stateless citizen after her family fled the Holocaust, will, however, likely take some sorting out.
Yet it is all worth doing, if for no other reason to recognise the one time the Greens have been absolutely correct about anything. They were the first to call for an audit, and now find themselves in the curious position of actually achieving widespread mainstream support.
The Greens, of all people, have obtained legal residency in the land of common sense. The country feels different, as a certain Fairfax columnist might put it. The air itself has a new edge. And that edge has a name.
It probably isn’t “Intelligence”, but at least it isn’t Beyonce.
(This column ran in Monday's Daily Telegraph. To read all columns on their day of publication, please subscribe.)
UPDATE. A different, and very persuasive, view on all of this from Mark Steyn.