Returning this week on a flight from Dubai I watched an American political comedy-drama classic from 1939, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, directed by Frank Capra, and starring Jean Arthur and James Stewart.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Although controversial at the time, it was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and made Stewart a major star. When the Library of Congress preserved it on the National Film Registry it deemed it as “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant”.
It tells the story of the battle between a young, idealistic, green (in the sense of being totally inexperienced in the world of politics) senator and a corrupt, machine-driven, political system.
In doing so, it emphasises that politics should not be pursued, and issues and challenges not approached, just in the interests of a particular individual, or some special or vested interest, but in the national interest.
While such a movie can easily be “dismissed” as merely sloppy and emotive Americanism, especially by today’s machine politicians, our electorate is singing out “enough is enough”. The standing of our two major parties continues to erode, in favour of minor parties and independents.
The “win at all costs/ do whatever it takes” focus of our very short-term, opportunistic, mostly negative, machine politics is increasingly being rejected, as it produces mostly inappropriate candidates, and as key policy issues and challenges are left to drift.
My mother-in-law recently drew my attention to a now almost forgotten word, plunderbund - a group of political, business, and financial interests engaged in exploiting the public. A most apt description of what our political system has become, and certainly as increasingly seen by most voters.
Moreover, the rhetoric of our politics has become increasingly insulting, as what our political leaders say is increasingly at odds with the lived experiences of voters.
Clearly, the campaign for a May federal election is well under way, yet it seems that the government has learned little, or nothing, from the run of recent state and by-elections.
Morrison and his team continue to offer a largely risk-free assessment of our economy and its prospects, promising more jobs, growth, and tax cuts, while spending its unsustainable budget surplus, almost daily, on a host of “new initiatives” directed at specific vested interests, hoping to build a winning constituency.
In doing this, they are ignoring the real challenges of home ownership, climate, tax reform, and still rising costs of living, and a host of other longer-term issues, while wages are flat-lining, house prices and the value of super are falling, and households have run down their savings, and run up their debts to historical levels.
The Shorten opposition is also doing much the same, ensuring that the final choice in May will be between the lesser of two “evils” (from a policy point of view), meaning that, whoever wins, voters will be left having to live with the evil of two lessers.
Shorten is still way ahead in the party polls, but behind as preferred PM, and in his personal poll standing.
So, Morrison is already looking and sounding as increasingly desperate, a situation that won’t be helped, as we saw recently in the Wentworth by-election, by his tendency to “shoot from the hip” when issues and questions are raised, merely offering a slogan, rather than a policy, or an answer, or an explanation.
Journalists have been telling me that, in his recent private briefings, Morrison is claiming to be planning on “doing a Keating”, in the sense of doing Shorten and his team “slowly”, as it is said Keating did to me back in ’93.
My only comment is Morrison is no Keating, and he certainly doesn’t enjoy the almost sycophantic media support that Keating had mustered.
It will take real, and sustained, leadership to lift our politics, and therefore government, out of its short-term mire. Basically, it is necessary to “clean up” our politics, but while both sides know what needs to be done, they persist in believing that they are better able to exploit our corruptible, machine-based system than their opponents.
As a result, I see more independents being successful in challenging sitting members, perhaps holding the “balance of power” in both Houses – perhaps ironically, this might hopefully work to improve government.
John Hewson is a professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, and a former Liberal opposition leader.
It will take real, and sustained, leadership to lift our politics, and therefore government, out of its short-term mire.