Decency? What a plain, alluring quality that seems these days

Locked in battle: Albanese and Morrison. Picture: Jason Edwards/Pool/Getty Images

I loathe election campaigns. Switch off. The slippery spin and obfuscation, the weaselly word salads and gotcha moments. It all seems to be about shouty exercises devoid of that good old-fashioned concept called decency – and what a plain, alluring quality that seems these days. Meanwhile here we are, with wall-to-wall Australian politicians being full-on politicians. So uplifting, so galvanising. Alongside a media pouncing triumphantly upon gaffes and trivia at the expense of the bigger picture; a media that seems to swim like a shoal of fish, as one, following the leader and not thinking audaciously, in a wider context, beyond their little pack.

One issue has stood out for me this election: consequences. Because the world seems to have shifted on its axis when it comes to sin and the punishment of the powerful. A glaring example of how we now deal with repercussions came with the Will Smith slap at the Oscars. Before a global audience was a stark demonstration of a rage-filled man, with his child brain running rampant, triumphing over reason and restraint. Consequences? We waited, stunned, for a reckoning; a removal or a punishment. And in that moment it felt like we were in some kind of strange parallel moral universe to the power in that LA auditorium.

Smith was embraced by Bradley Cooper. Spoken to compassionately by Denzel Washington. Presented with a golden statuette. Given a lengthy amount of time for a rambly, indulgent speech that resulted in a standing ovation from a lot of his peers. Afterwards he partied the night away in triumph. It all felt rotten to the core; an act devoid of decency towards the victim. A demonstration of how far power and privilege have removed themselves from the rules of engagement the rest of us are meant to abide by. Consequences? None at the time. Not until weeks later, when Smith was finally given a 10-year Oscars ban.

A lot of us have a desire for justice, no matter who you are. For fairness. Integrity. Honesty. Which is why the Novak Djokovic Australian Open saga had such a satisfying conclusion for so many – it demonstrated the powerful don’t always get away with it. If they do, it feels like a tear in the fabric of society in terms of what’s fair and right. And where does that end?

Consequences are something I deeply care about this election. I want to see public accountability. Fairness. An integrity commission with teeth, one that will examine dubious political behaviour on all sides of politics. Retrospectively. In terms of a terrier-like national ICAC, what is the Coalition afraid of? Who is being protected? It sometimes feels like our politicians exist in a brazen, parallel moral universe to us, yet we’re all somehow complicit because we’re allowing it. An acceptance of deceit – a normalisation of lying, rorting, corruption – has vined itself around our politics.

Consequences are important, because if there are none the wrongdoing continues. Escalates. Putin was never punished with proportionate consequences for the downing of MH17 and the invasion of Crimea and look where we are now. Boris Johnson with his lockdown parties. Trump in the ascendant for 2024.

I crave a return to an uplifting politics of vision, courage, integrity. There was one standout moment for me in the early days of this election campaign – former Liberal treasurer Joe Hockey on the radio, talking about his new memoir. He suddenly stated, simply, that Labor leader Anthony Albanese was a decent man. Listening in, it felt like we’d come up for air amid all the weaselly grubbiness and spin of an Australian election campaign. The statement was clean, matter-of-fact, shorn of politicking. It gave me a new respect for Hockey, and made me crave the quality of decency in Australia’s public life.