Labor rorts: Daniel Andrews will survive Red Shirts scandal as rorting new ‘normal’
THE Premier will survive the Red Shirts scandal but only because voters now see rorting as the new normal, writes Katie Bice.
Opinion
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DANIEL Andrews will keep his job over Labor’s Red Shirts rorts.
Not because he should or because he deserves to or because the affair was a minor aberration on a fine record.
He’ll keep his job because we, the community, have given up caring.
We are so used to being cheated, spun to and ignored that these days it takes something really shocking to surprise us.
Things like Bronwyn Bishop’s helicopter antics, Sussan Ley’s convenient trip on the taxpayer to buy a house and Steve Herbert driving his dogs around in the government car frustrate us because they are rubbing it so flagrantly in our faces.
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But throw in words such as election funding, campaigning and ombudsman and suddenly it’s hard to keep people’s attention.
That’s a terrible truth because we should be cranking up the outrage every single time we are dudded — but the whole sorry saga of voters and their faith in politicians is a vicious cycle.
We lose faith in politicians because they rort and, in, time, we grow to expect it from them. So when they do cheat, we’re no longer surprised or angry — we just feel like it’s all so hopelessly predictable.
We’ve become like the wife whose husband goes out every Friday night. She knows he’s cheating on her but she’s convinced herself it’s acceptable because she knows he’ll come home in the end.
But our lack of interest is a problem not just for us, but for our political parties. With a state election due in November, how can they be expected to get their message across to an electorate with their fingers in their ears?
We should be able to have better public debate with our elected representatives on the future of our state. We need to discuss what needs doing, what is important and that we won’t stand for anything less than their best. But instead we’ll have a long election campaign where politicians talk and no one listens.
It’s a particular challenge for Matthew Guy and the state Opposition which will suffer from relevance deprivation. If it’s hard to get your message across, it’s even harder when people don’t know who you are.
When the November election finally rolls around, it’s likely that the Red Shirts will be long forgotten.
It will come down to who voters can recognise and if they think the local transport, hospital or law and order issues in their area have been fixed in the last term.
Katie Bice is the Sunday Herald Sun deputy editor
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