Right now, we are crying out for true leadership

NSW Premier Dom Perrottet at Westconnex at its completion this week. Picture: Jeremy Piper

I can’t recall the first time I heard the phrase: true leadership is about putting purpose over preference. I think it was actually said from the pulpit of my old church in Perth about 20-odd years ago now, and at the risk of appropriating someone else’s wisdom, I’m keen to state publicly that it’s a phrase I wish I’d coined, but sadly did not.

It stuck with me though, I’ve given it a fair old run over the years, and I refer to it often both in my own sphere of responsibility (my company, my team our clients) and let’s call it, say, my sphere of influence. Writing in these pages, speaking at private and public events and on air, about the events that shape our communities and our country.

Purpose over preference. Let that marinate for a few minutes while I dive into the remarkable events of the past week that saw NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet apologise for something stupid he did 20 years ago.

Wearing a Nazi costume to his 21st was ignorant, immature, foolish, in poor taste, whatever you want to call it. He was 21. I’d be surprised if his frontal cortex was fully developed at the time, but there we all were this past week, watching many in the media and the political opposition react as if he’d been an actual Nazi. As if he’d been secretly painting swastikas around the lower north shore after dark.

The Premier apologised. NSW’s Jewish community and its leaders accepted that apology and urged ongoing education on the Holocaust. An appropriate response all around, I’d say. Maturity means not judging someone for the mistakes of their youth, when there is zero evidence to suggest they are still that person.

But still, I find myself quietly seething over the whole thing. Not for the apology. Not over his decades-old stupidity. Who among us would like to throw open the book of their own youth and be judged on our actions by today’s standards? Anyone? Didn’t think so.

No, I was angry and still am, I suppose, that we spent a week or so pretending this story is more important than myriad issues facing homes, business, families and communities across Australia in the here and now. Today’s pressing problems. Today’s looming crises.

Angry because whoever it was behind this episode, they gave us a blazing example of the confected outrage of political convenience. A would-be gotcha yarn. An attempt to change or at the very least influence the political landscape not for reasons this should happen, such as poor policy and ideas, but because of other reasons. Interest, and no doubt not of the public kind.

My question in response continues to be, when will people realise that we, voters, deserve better than this?

We talk constantly about attracting quality people into parliament; convincing people to choose a life of service. But why would you when this is how it works?

Additionally, I’d be willing to bet that most of us are so busy working out how to balance our budgets, (literally) keep the lights on with the astronomical jump in power prices and get on with our lives that we look at this kind thing and want none of it.

I have empathy for the Premier, and for anyone else who is constantly tagged and dragged back to the sins of their past for which they’ve atoned.

I know what my 20s were like. My 30s, to be frank, had their moments too. Most of us thank God daily that the worst of our mistakes, our lowest moments, don’t play out in the public arena. How many of you are c

Liberal senator Jim Molan’s colleagues across the deepest of political divides honoured his dedication, his fearless carriage of difficult and pointy issues.

urrently going through your old photos in a mad attempt at proactive crisis management?

Back to the rich pickings of today. Energy and inflation crisis. Aged care and education. A skills shortage that is impacting every state in the nation. Housing affordability and availability. Inventing distractions are way easier than addressing this stuff.

There’s a very real risk the federal government will go down in history as the one that destroyed the Australian energy industry, that after promising to cut our power bills, pushed them into the stratosphere. All because of an ideological preference.

Perhaps voters are to blame, at least in part, for the state of things. We get what we tolerate in life, business, relationships and, yes, elected officials. How many of us just bought the line on power, for example, without demanding to know how before we voted?

I come back again to the idea of putting purpose over preference.

This week Senator Jim Molan lost his battle with cancer. On a human level, a colleague and a mate lost her dad but moreover, the rest of us lost someone who embodied this idea of elevating purpose over self. Nobody goes into the military for a life of largesse. His colleagues across the deepest of political divides honoured his dedication, his fearless carriage of difficult and pointy issues.

There is too much at stake not to demand more. More of the Jim Molans. More of the kind of folk who elevate the greater good, greater purpose over ambition and personal or party preference. Power and control. Whether or not we receive it? Ultimately, that’s up to us.