Vikki Campion: Coward cabinet minister who leaked texts should quit
The cabinet minister who hid behind anonymity while making public former premier Gladys Berejiklian texts about the PM should apologise or quit, Vikki Campion writes.
Opinion
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Private communications from politicians will always be subject to gossip and intrigue, but how much must former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian endure, especially a week out from a super Saturday by-election.
The coward cabinet minister, who hid behind anonymity while further hurting a woman who has had the entrails of her private life exposed, should publicly apologise or leave the cabinet – and its leader he demeans as a “complete psycho”.
To be a backbencher and hold a particular view is one thing, but to be bound by cabinet solidarity and swear allegiance to the executive and wilfully divulge a personal belief that denigrates the Prime Minister breaches convention.
At least 13 cabinet ministers resigned under prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, guided by the conscience of their convictions.
Nationals Senator Matt Canavan left the cabinet because he could not support former Nationals leader Michael McCormack.
Even backbencher Llew O’Brien left the Nationals after he could not support a plan by the then leader’s office to use travel entitlements to enable a Nationals Party room meeting in Victoria around the Spring Carnival Race Day.
Gladys is a former public figure but should be allowed to get on with her life without private conversation from years ago dominating headlines.
Despite being forced to leave her seat, she hasn’t done a Turnbull and abandoned the new candidate.
She has campaigned by his side and supported the party that supported her to become premier.
Her reward?
Another fat slap in the face by a gutless self-serving Liberal apparatchik.
What you privately disclose in the heat of the moment is often markedly different to the cold, calculated action of leaking it for purposes of the leaker’s own advancement gained
by bringing others down.
Leaked texts messages are the soup de jour, but the critical difference between authoring such a message meant for one pair of eyes and then leaking it to the public for the purposes of clicks and disruption is intent.
In November, France accused Australia of “very inelegant methods” after a text message sent by President Emmanuel Macron to the Prime Minister over the scrapped submarine contract emerged.
If everyone in parliament emptied their phones of their innermost thoughts sent to confidants, then we wouldn’t have a single MP or staffer there and Telstra would go broke.
Venting about someone, particularly a “boss”, when under pressure, has to be the single most common activity, of every culture, of every country, of every human on the planet. It would be far stranger if Australian parliamentarians didn’t
do it. It is one thing to leak your thoughts, but another entirely to reveal someone else’s messages to the media, not to expose public rorting or corruption or crime, but to inflict reputational damage and bring down another person in the collateral.
When it comes to leaking in public life, ask, “who does it benefit?”
They are not leaked out of idle curiosity or boredom – that’s where the true nefarious duplicitous nature resides. Who hasn’t expressed their bitter thoughts in the depth of private conversation? There is a big difference between losing faith in someone and just having a rant.
A far weirder headline would be “Everyone is getting along all of the time”. Journalists ask politicians not to lie but are dumbfounded when they are caught expressing their true feelings.
The leaker never tells that it was them who leaked it. And why? Because they get a personal and tactical advantage.
You don’t expect all private conversations to be broadcast. They condemn pillow talk for the disclosure of intimate details, but in any family, business, or political party, you have strong opinions that differ.
Texts, like letters, belong to the author, not the recipient. Unless an exemption applies, to use someone’s notes or texts without their permission could be an expensive infringement.
The Mail on Sunday newspaper in the UK recently failed to overturn a High Court ruling that it breached Meghan Markle’s privacy and copyright by publishing parts of the letter she sent to her father Thomas Markle in August 2018.
In Australia, you can get around that if it is deemed “newsworthy”.
In Markle’s case, a summary judgment found that the Mail on Sunday’s printing of the letter had been for the purpose of reporting its contents, which was not a current event. So how do two-year-old text messages from a former premier disclosed by an anonymous source
fit that description?
We know who the leakers hurt. What we want to know is why.
Times change, circumstances change, relationships change, and the view a person holds can radically alter at one point in time.
The cabinet minister who leaked his texts has the same view.
If the minister in question is worthy of the Honourable in their title, they should face up and front up have the courage of their convictions conveyed in their concealed texts.
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