Three things leaders should resolve to do in 2019
It’s hard to keep new year’s resolutions, especially for politicians who’ve made an art of breaking promises, so here’s some advice for those paid to tell the rest of us what to do, writes Caroline Marcus.
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Lose weight.
Drink less. Quit smoking. Stop writing cliches.
It’s hard enough for us mere plebeians to keep our new year’s resolutions, but spare a thought for our politicians, who make a positive art form out of breaking promises.
Still, if 2018 taught us anything, it’s that our country’s leaders need more help than anyone when it comes to conducting their own lives.
So, while they’re almost certain not to be kept, I’ve helpfully put together a list of intentions for those paid to tell the rest of us what to do.
SPEND MORE QUALITY TIME WITH FAMILY
And by that, I mean don’t spend quality time with those of the opposite gender (or the same gender, depending on which way you are so inclined) who are decidedly not your family.
This past year’s crop of political sex scandals have been something else.
Andrew Broad is the latest example, the former Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister proving what he lacks in decent family values, he does not make up for in game.
Seriously, what’s up with those text messages allegedly boasting about being an Aussie lad who knows how to “ride a horse, fly a plane and f*** my woman” and breathing “G’day mate” down his love interest’s neck? Mortifying.
RELATED: The hard truth about the Andrew Broad scandal
A married man who trawls the internet for a little something on the side, perusing “sugar baby” sites for glorified escorts, leaves himself open to the risk not only of public exposure but blackmail, which is exactly what Broad claims happened.
But Broad is hardly the only MP who needed to heed this advice in the past couple of years.
Certainly, it may have saved a lot of heartache for the family of Broad’s Nationals colleague and former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, who this newspaper revealed in 2018 had been having an affair with his then media advisor and was expecting a baby.
Former NSW Opposition Leader Luke Foley may have kept his job, too, had he not allegedly put his hand down the back of an ABC journalist’s dress and into her underpants at a Christmas party.
He’s denied the claims, but after making some noises about taking court action, sensationally quit his post and has since withdrawn his legal threats.
LEAVE THE PAST IN THE PAST
Are you listening, Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd?
The urge to preserve one’s legacy is understandable, but there is a marked difference between doing so and haunting the joint like the miserable ghost you swore you’d never become.
As Home Affairs Minister and unsuccessful leadership challenger Peter Dutton decried in an extraordinary but not inaccurate attack over the weekend, Turnbull’s shenanigans since losing the top gig have been “worse than any behaviour we saw even under Rudd.”
RELATED: Peter Dutton unleashes on Malcolm Turnbull
Let us count the ways: he quit his seat of Wentworth forcing an unnecessary by-election then refused to help Liberal candidate Dave Sharma with his campaign, he followed a social media campaign to have his old rival Tony Abbott booted from office and tried his darnedest to get MP Craig Kelly kicked from his Hughes seat, and he publicly called on the government to go to an early election, something akin to committing harakiri.
This is no mere miserable ghost; it’s something out of The Exorcist.
Kevin Rudd has also been back making headlines, after Labor’s national conference bestowed on him a lifetime membership alongside fellow former leaders Julia Gillard and Paul Keating, although only Rudd bothered to show up.
In his acceptance speech, he ranted about one of his favourite topics, Rupert Murdoch, whingeing about how the “Murdoch Mafia”(which presumably includes this moll) had “hook[ed] into me” and its preferential treatment of “St John of Howard”.
He was at it again on the weekend, tweeting: “Wonderful to see the Murdoch boys at work in all Sunday papers in a nationwide puff piece on their poster boy Dutton.”
Fact check: most News Corp publications endorsed Rudd over Howard in 2007.
TREAT OTHERS HOW YOU WANT TO BE TREATED
If there’s one thing we learned from the Emma Husar debacle it’s that Basic Instinct is a fictional movie, not a how-to guide.
In all seriousness, though, an internal Labor investigation cleared its MP of some of the more salacious claims made against her by staff members and Husar has denied allegations she re-enacted the most famous scene from the film. She called the allegation “utter garbage” and has since issued defamation proceedings against Buzzfeed over what she says is a “slut-shaming” smear.
All of which leaves the bigger lesson to be learned here that treating your staff like the canine poop you make them pick up is going to do zip to help your chances of re-election.
It’s her own parliamentary privileges that have now gone to the dogs after Labor picked NSW politician Diane Beamer as its candidate in her western Sydney seat of Lindsay.
One thing’s for certain: with both state and federal elections in the first half of the year, 2019 is bound to be anything but boring.
Wishing all my readers a safe and happy new year.
Caroline Marcus is the host of Saturday Edition and Sunday Edition on Sky News.
Originally published as Three things leaders should resolve to do in 2019