Published: 1 May 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
A few days later, in the Network 10 television series Madam Secretary, a very smart underling – all the underlings are very smart and very articulate in the manner established by The West Wing two decades ago – said something sharp, almost scathing, to the very liberal female Secretary of State about Australian politics.
In this smart and very liberal fantasy about American politics in which Donald Trump was never elected – indeed he does not even exist – Elizabeth McCord, the Secretary of State, has organised an international conference to deal with the millions of refugees who have been made homeless by rising sea levels as a result of climate change. America in the lead on climate change, right?
Yeah, right. Not only has Donald Trump vanished without a trace but America is organising the world to deal with the consequences of climate change.
And, in this fantasy, Australia, among other countries, is being pressured by this wonderfully caring but tough-as-steel female Secretary of State to take in some of the millions of climate change refugees.
But the Australian Prime Minister, it seems, is proving to be difficult. This, it must be said, sounds rather real. His government still has climate-change deniers in its ranks. They will move against him if he agrees to take in any number of refugees, let alone tens of thousands of them.
Then, the senior assistant to the Secretary of State says that Australian prime ministers are turned over every six months or so. So, this Prime Minister, even if he comes on board and agrees to take some refugees as part of an international agreement, most probably won’t be around to implement it.
What does all this have to do with the federal election? Let’s start with Bret Stephens and his yearning for a return to boring politics. Look no farther, Bret, than Australia. Both the Coalition and Labor are led by men, who, in different ways, want to be regarded as ordinary blokes.
They might even be a bit boring, but both want to make it clear that they understand the hopes and fears of ordinary Australians. Everything is so ordinary.
Scott Morrison has assumed the persona of an avuncular, plain-spoken suburban dad and good Christian. Since he somehow became Prime Minister – through no fault of his own – he has revealed himself to be a man who loves his footy, funny hats and fair dinkum Aussies. He presents as a man without a political past.
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Yes, he says some pretty tough things about Bill Shorten, constantly calling him a liar who, he adds from time to time, consorts with crooks in the CFMEU, but real Aussies would understand he has to be so vicious and negative because Shorten, if elected, would do all manner of terrible things to blight the lives of fair dinkum Aussies.
Well, OK, wealthy fair dinkum Aussies, anyway. And, don’t all fair dinkum Aussies aspire to be wealthy one day?
Bill Shorten, meanwhile, is differently ordinary. He remains in many ways a personification of the Labor Party factional power broker, a man who has never worked outside the trade union movement or the Labor Party and who has built his political career from when he was a young man from within the right faction of the Labor Party in Victoria.
In his language, in his manner, in his particular kind of political combativeness, Bill Shorten presents as a rather ordinary – in the sense that he is not at all charismatic – product of Labor Party politics and culture.
All of this is not meant to insult Morrison and Shorten. Well, only to a certain extent, anyway. Much of the democratic world – the US and much of Europe – is aflame with populism that has echoes of mid-20th century fascism and is ruled by anti-democratic authoritarians such as Trump.
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To have two seemingly ordinary, non-charismatic men such as Morrison and Shorten leading their parties at this election might be considered something for which we should be thankful. Perhaps it’s the sort of normalcy that Bret Stephens was writing about in The New York Times?
But then what about the view of Australian politics expressed by the (fictional) senior adviser to Elizabeth McCord, the (fictional) Secretary of State in the series Madam Secretary that Australian prime ministers come and go with monotonous regularity?
Australia is some sort of banana republic in which climate-change deniers both inside and outside the government – and not the Australian people – can decide the fate of a prime minister?
Is Australia some sort of banana republic in which climate-change deniers both inside and outside the government – and not the Australian people – can decide the fate of a prime minister?
Much of Madam Secretary is fantasy, a sort of wistful, yearning liberal fantasy about an America without Donald Trump but that little segment about Australia and Australian politics, was not fantasy.
Australian politics for nearly a decade has been all about a series of political coups against prime minsters from both sides of politics. Far from being ordinary or normal, Australian politics has been the politics of political violence.
While much of that violence has been about personal ambition, some of it, on the Coalition side, has been over climate change. The climate deniers destroyed Malcolm Turnbull. Less than a year ago.
Both Morrison and Shorten have been complicit in the political coups that have characterised Australian politics for a decade. That is why both of them are desperate to present themselves as post-coup era political leaders, normal, even ordinary blokes with no political past that Australians need to be concerned about, pasts which they hope – Morrison, in particular, for he is the most recent beneficiary of political violence – can remain unexamined during this election campaign which feels like it is being conducted in a history-less context, as if the past has no consequences and how Morrison ended up Prime Minister does not matter.
Were Scott Morrison to lead the Coalition to victory at this election, it would be a victory for those within his party who plotted against Malcolm Turnbull. Political violence will be vindicated and will likely become an entrenched feature of Australian politics.
At least Shorten has spent six years as Opposition Leader, in part atoning for his role in the coups against Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. Morrison behaved from the start as if the coup against Turnbull had nothing to do with him.
And, so it is, this seemingly boring election is actually extraordinary, conducted so far in an atmosphere of historical denialism as if the past does not matter, what was done does not matter, as if history can be ignored and therefore rewritten at a later more opportune time, by the winners.
Were Scott Morrison to lead the Coalition to victory at this election, it would be a victory for those within his party who plotted against Malcolm Turnbull. They will be rewarded with senior cabinet positions in a new Morrison government. Political violence will be vindicated and as a result, it will likely become an entrenched feature of Australian politics.
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Photo: Bill Shorten and Scott Morrison (Mick Tsikas/AAP)
