Act shows how ugly Australian politics has become

It might not have been the worst thing done in the federal Parliament — far from it — but it was without doubt the worst day to do it.

COMMENT: After Scott Morrison won the 2019 election and Anthony Albanese won the Labor leadership I had a text exchange with an old mate of mine in the PM’s office.

He knew that I liked Albo and obviously I knew that he liked ScoMo but we both agreed it was a blessed relief to have two pretty nice guys in charge of our two major parties.

Hopefully, we both reflected, this would be the end of the viciousness and ugliness that had so completely characterised the last decade of Australian politics.

Sadly we were both wrong. It only got uglier.

This week brought up two nasty little reminders of just how ugly it had got, in much the same way that a dry retch reminds you of a previous hurl on a drunken night out you would rather forget.

Like that wheezy heave they were both rotten addendums to a greater sickness, and thus perhaps gave greater clarity to the grotesquerie just passed. And of course they both happened at our national parliament.

The first was the interjection of a Coalition senator accused of making dog noises at Jacqui Lambie on Tuesday as she spoke in what is supposed to be the more civilised of the two chambers.

Jacqui Lambie was subjected to dog noises as she spoke in the Senate this week. Picture: aph.gov.au via NCA NewsWire

Senator David Van denied claims from Labor and the Greens that he made a dog noise or growled while Lambie spoke but nonetheless apologised unreservedly to her and the Senate and said he regretted whatever it was he did or didn’t do. Hardly a full-throated defence.

And Morrison for his part said he was “very, very disappointed about that act”, whatever “that act” may or may not have been.

But while confusion supposedly reigns about what was said or growled in the Senate, we do at least know when such oral emissions occurred, and that was on the very day that Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins handed down an unequivocally damning report about the behaviour of MPs and their staffers in the nation’s highest house.

It might not have been the worst thing done in the federal Parliament — far from it — but it was without doubt the worst day to do it.

The Jenkins Review was handed down during an unflattering week for parliament. Picture: Adam Taylor

Politics is a rough and tumble game and I am the last person to call for censoriousness but if there was any genuine contrition or concern among parliamentarians for their collective behaviour — one in three people reporting being sexually harassed, for example — you’d think that you could at least hold off on the animal noises or whatever it was for a cool 24 hours.

But it seems our esteemed representatives no longer have that level of self-control. They even admit it themselves.

How else to describe the so-called “bonk ban” that Malcolm Turnbull felt he had to impose on his ministers, because without it they would not know in which direction they were allowed to point Percy to the playpen?

And indeed how else to describe the bizarre “caucus rule” that Labor imposed on itself to stop the party from knifing its own prime ministers? “We can’t help ourselves!” it declares, and so they made a rule to prevent them from acting on their own instincts.

Christian Porter, once widely touted to be a future prime minister, has had a spectacular fall from grace. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Unsurprisingly, I wholeheartedly oppose both. If our political leaders lack the judgment to be able to decide these things for themselves then no rules should shield them. They should be subjected to the will of the people.

One man, at least, will not face that test. Christian Porter, once widely touted to be a future prime minister, has fallen not so much on his own sword but a thousand cuts of others. And this is the other sad reminder of how debased our politics has become.

To be clear, I have literally no relationship with Porter. As far as I am aware I have never met him and the last thing I wrote about him before his explosive downfall was a sharp critique of his industrial relations reforms, which I likened to an accidental zombie version of WorkChoices.

But the manner of his demise, made complete by his announced resignation this week, should be a talisman of shame for many in the political and media class.

Alan Tudge has stood aside amid allegations of abuse from his former lover, which he denies. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Whatever one’s politics — and mine are far from his — forcing a man to prove he is not a rapist without even a charge to defend himself against is a violation of every form of natural justice and a barefaced reversal of the fundamental tenet of criminal law.

Indeed it seems Porter will never be tried, let alone convicted, in a criminal court but he has been politically convicted nonetheless. And while he had a Pyrrhic victory in the civil system in which the ABC paid a fair chunk of his legal bill even this was spun by his accusers as a win for Aunty. The man in the street might say that winners don’t pay costs.

Again, I don’t have a dog in the fight. All these observations are just the lamentations of an outsider looking in.

But as we edge closer to an election is it possible that political players might try to win the day by some other measure than canine impersonations and human destruction?

Then Alan Tudge happened and I figured probably not.

That conversation with my mate seems like a long time ago. I hope maybe one day it might

come true.