Many political ‘stories’ these days aren’t really stories at all | David Penberthy
It’s no wonder Australians are done with the major parties if these sham scandals are what pass for political “stories”, writes David Penberthy.
It’s a massive rivalry weekend in the AFL this weekend with a series of clashes pitting clubs with a longstanding hostility against one another – Carlton v Collingwood, Adelaide v Port Adelaide, Sydney v GWS, Brisbane v Gold Coast.
League fans would argue none of these rivalries come close to the passion and aggression on display every year between NSW and Queensland in State of Origin.
If it’s real rivalry you’re after – mindless rivalry – nothing can match the world of politics.
The longer I spend observing and writing about politics, the more it is leaving me cold. I would attribute this fact to its increasing stridency, amplified via social media, where politics has come to look less like an exchange of ideas than a form of partisan barracking, replete with double standards and deliberate omissions.
Many political “stories” these days aren’t really stories at all.
They have no bearing on normal people’s lives but are inflated point-scoring exercises.
You could suspect this trend helps explain the continuing erosion in the primary votes commanded by our two major political parties.
Back in the 1950s around 98 per cent of Australians voted Labor or Liberal; these days the combined primary vote stands at around 67 per cent, with one-third of voters gradually turning away from either party over the past six decades.
The reason for this is that the modern practice of politics strikes a lot of us as unreasonable and absurd.
This week’s sham scandal over Anthony Albanese’s attendance at that domestic violence rally was a case in point.
Conservative critics of the Prime Minister accused him of being bombastic and entitled in “demanding” the right to address the rally.
I am not sure if “demanding” is the right word for what Albanese did.
Amid all the confusion at that protest, it looked to me like the PM might have been offering to speak, or felt obliged to speak, as the nation’s leader to offer his support.
The reaction from some of the protest organisers was equally over the top, with claims the PM was “gaslighting” or “de-platforming” people, to use a couple of niche terms which are the preserve of the professionally offended.
My take on it all – here was a bloke trying to do the right thing, showing solidarity with women amid the scandalous surge in DV deaths, who inadvertently walked into a shit storm.
I would offer an equally charitable assessment of Albo’s predecessor, Scott Morrison, when he tried in his own clunky way to express sympathy when the Brittany Higgins story first broke. Morrison was crucified for saying that he had discussed the question of sexual assault with his wife, Jen, his critics saying this was proof that the guy was so out of touch that he even needed to check with his female partner as to whether this criminal act was wrong or not. Morrison was merely attempting to say that as the only bloke in his household he discussed these important issues with his wife and daughters.
Somehow it became proof that he was an irretrievable sexist idiot.
In these days of politics-as-sporting-rivalry, participants will rail endlessly against people they don’t like, yet stay silent to help those they support, on the exact same issues.
Which is why the same people who hounded Morrison as a hapless misogynist kept their mouths shut in support of Albanese this week, and the people who defended Morrison amid the Higgins scandal were out there denouncing Albanese as an entitled misogynist man-splainer who crashed a rally.
There is a former politician in my home town who confirmed this week that she has decided to make a return to politics.
Her name is Nicolle Flint and she surprised everyone in politics a few years ago when she announced she had had enough of Canberra’s toxic culture and the abuse she had personally sustained as a candidate, and was chucking it in.
In 2019 when Flint ran for the seat of Boothby a second time, a raft of left-wing activists from GetUp! and the unions basically set up camp outside her office.
They disliked Flint as a Liberal conservative, which they have every right to do, but the manner in which that dislike was expressed was off the charts.
Her office was daubed with hateful gender-based graffiti, with terms such as “slut” and “skank” written on the windows.
When Flint announced this week that she would be the candidate again at Boothby at the next federal poll, her many supporters were cheering her on.
She’s become a pin-up on the conservative side for resilience in the face of abuse from so-called progressives.
Fair enough, but I wonder where some of these people were when Julia Gillard was the subject of placards saying “Ditch the witch” and “Burn the witch” at rallies being attended by former PM Tony Abbott.
Or when their beloved former broadcaster Allan Jones said she should be put in a chaff bag and thrown out at sea, or that her late father had “died of shame”.
When I interviewed Flint this week she made the important point that no-one in politics, Liberal, Labor, Green, or any party, should have to put up with this kind if rubbish.
It’s just a pity that many people don’t agree with her, as evidenced by the fact that already I’ve had other people telling me she should get over herself, and that what she endured in 2019 was “no worse” than what others had experienced.
As if that excuses any of it.
It’s no wonder an increasing number of people want no part of this.
It is such irrelevant nonsense when people have real issues like mortgage payments and power bills and groceries to deal with.
Did the Prime Minister crash a rally? Who gives a rats.
Let’s save the mindless rivalry for the MCG.
Originally published as Many political ‘stories’ these days aren’t really stories at all | David Penberthy
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