Be more civil, you racist: Why insults should not be banned in parliament

Having delivered the trifecta of latter-day insults, a quartet of teals would like the jibes they launched last week to be the last uttered by parliamentarians.

The first in the trifecta was the word “racist”, hurled across the chamber at Opposition Leader Peter Dutton by Zali Steggall in the tremulous lisp of a six-year-old accusing her brother of being a bum-head. Steggall could well have a reasoned argument against a blanket ban on Gazans coming to Australia, initially hinted at by Dutton on Sky, but she reached into a shallow bag of Scrabble tiles to make it, so we’ll never know.

Teal independents (from left) Sophie Scamps, Zali Steggall and Kylea Tink.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The second word was “bully”. This is what Steggall called Dutton when it was reported he was seeking legal advice in response to her invective. Responding to being called a racist was “part of his playbook”, she said on morning radio, “of bullying and intimidating people from calling out his policy and behaviour”.

The third word was “misogynist”. This came from soon-to-be-abolished North Sydney teal Kylea Tink, who rounded off the week of strong words with a scattergun accusation against the “condescending, unprofessional and often misogynistic behaviour from a number of male MPs from the Liberal and National parties”.

To emphasise how bad bullying is, teal non-party party members Tink, Steggall and Sophie Scamps ganged up to hold a press conference on Wednesday, during which Tink delivered her barb.

So to recap, having thrown some of the worst possible accusations at their political opponents – that they are prejudiced against others on account of their ethnicity, that they systematically intimidate and undermine others, and that they hate women – these proponents of a kinder, gentler politics would now like politics to become more civil, pretty please.

Despite sabotaging their own messaging in the process of delivery, the teals do have a point. The caterwauling during question time has become such low-grade and illiterate playground sludge that it’s evident our sliding NAPLAN scores have been decades in the making. Hours, probably days, of potentially productive time a year are wasted as the Speaker of the House is forced to halt proceedings and send these grown men and women, supposedly leaders of our nation, for “reflection time”, like naughty children.

But taming the toddler tantrums shouldn’t mean abandoning the verbal sparring. Even insults shouldn’t be banned. A good argument is not one in which competing sides try to bore one another into submission. It is a mix of strong logic, disarming authenticity, emotional flavour and badinage, as ideas are volleyed back and forth. Ridicule exposes dimwitted proposals and knocks the foolish edges off imperfect plans. Only weak ideas and the intellectually ill-equipped seek protection from this process.

Former prime minister Paul Keating showed how marrying substance with style could land an argument. Keating garnished his parliamentary serves with well-crafted slander. Remembered fondly for his wittier insults, Keating said of John Hewson’s attack on him: “It was like being flogged with a warm lettuce.” Peter Costello, Keating suggested, was “all tip and no iceberg” for failing to challenge Howard as party leader.

And his ripostes weren’t empty words. Hewson, as opposition leader, asked Keating why – if he was so confident that Hewson’s FightBack plan wouldn’t pass muster – he wouldn’t call an early election? “The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly,” Keating replied. In the end, he did Hewson just slowly enough; the opposition leader who looked so close to winning the 1993 election had enough time to suffocate on a mouthful of birthday cake tax, an outcome that left a generation of Liberals with PTSD.

Possibly one of the saddest markers of Keating’s decline is that his insults have become repetitive and dull. By now he’s accused more people of having “the morals of an alley cat” than alley cats have had opportunity to be immoral.

It’s hard to say when exactly inventive delivery was replaced by invective in parliament, but the use of “racist” in place of an argument marks a low point. Sophie Scamps has suggested that not only do we need a “Stop it at the Start” strategy, referring to the anti-domestic violence campaign which finds the beginnings of violence in disrespect against women, but a “stop it at the top” approach. “It’s the leaders that need to be role-modelling the correct behaviour, and it starts with respect,” according to her thinking.

It’d be a rare Australian who considers politicians role models these days, but for those misguided souls who’ve placed their regard where self-regard is highest, parliamentarians can indeed take up the baton of responsibility. In the building in which argument is most consequential, it should be conducted to the highest standard. That doesn’t mean copying the cautious blandese of the HR-riddled corporate world. The point of that type of gentility is to close down avenues of thought until everyone herds in the same direction, not find new solutions to the big problems facing humanity. At least notionally, those big problems are parliament’s main job.

Instead, accusations which aren’t accompanied by a robust argument should be proscribed. Teal compatriot Allegra Spender weighed in to say that Parliament House is “unlike any workplace I’ve ever been in”. It’s true in the sense that if you went around any other workplace telling colleagues their ideas were crap without providing constructive input, you’d be considered worse than useless and shown the door.

Politics doesn’t need to become more gentle; it needs to be smarter. Parliament doesn’t need to be kinder; it needs to be more ruthlessly devoted to exposing policy folly.

The teals are right to demand better behaviour in Parliament House. Let’s hope they start with themselves.

Parnell Palme McGuinness is managing director at campaigns firm Agenda C. She has done work for the Liberal Party and the German Greens.