Paul Sheehan Sydney Morning Herald columnist
March 14, 2013
For the benefit of the democratic process, the broadcast of Parliament in Australia is mandated by law and much of the proceedings are televised. Fortunately for the reputation of Australia's Parliament, few people watch.
For months, the government's primary policy was character assassination. Then the public intervened, via the opinion polls. The industrial-strength smearing appears to have stopped. Prime Minister Julia Gillard now has a new script and a new obsession.
It was evident in the first answer to the first question on the first day of the new session of Parliament, when Opposition Leader Tony Abbott asked the Prime Minister: ''When will her government ever, ever deliver a budget surplus?''
The Prime Minister's reply lasted five minutes. It ran to 500 words and included no less than a dozen references to ''western Sydney'', even though ''western Sydney'' was not mentioned. As for the question itself, it was ignored.
Abbott tried again. The Prime Minister's second answer occupied Parliament for another four minutes and ''western Sydney'' was invoked another three times. The actual question was again ignored.
Gillard's answers were arrogant, her attitude was sneering and her tone was that ghastly drone. Her voice has become a national issue, a liability even with people who do not follow politics. It is a liability that compounds an apparent inability to deliver a straight answer to any question.
At the end of the second evasive answer, someone in the public gallery called out ''liar!'', an interjection that served as a reminder the public rarely abuses the privilege of being in the chamber. It would be abused several times on this day, upstairs and down, leading Speaker Anna Burke to bark: ''Order! The absolute contempt that individuals are showing to question time is breathtaking.''
She wasn't even aware at this point of the gutless contributions from Labor MP Steve Gibbons who was busy writing on Twitter: ''Looks like @TonyAbbottMHR has contracted out his nasty side to interjector's in the public gallery. A new low even for the Libs!''
Gibbons, a former trade union official, has been a member of the house for 15 years. He will depart at the next election having barely left a trace beyond a trail of insults via Twitter. At least he composed his own political epitaph via Twitter: ''A day in the life of the local MP: Hyperbole, Vitriol, Alcohol, Panadol.''
At the end of question time, when the Speaker was made aware of Gibbons' conduct, she replied, sagely: ''Obviously, during question time, I am not seeing what Twitter is saying. I am not on it for my own sanity and I would highly recommend everybody else getting off it for that very reason.''
That was the smartest comment of the day. The Speaker then added: ''I will investigate the matter. I have had concerns raised with me about the use of Twitter during question time and I take this matter very seriously.''
These days Burke, another former union official, wears an expression of world-weariness while in the Speaker's chair. At the end of the session, marked by the ejection of several members of the public, she observed: ''If people want to get to interject in question time, they have to get elected and get on a green seat - that would be my advice to individuals. Even then they would have to observe the standing orders, which say 'no interjections'.''
As all this had been unfolding, a circus had taken place over in the Senate, where Eric Abetz, opposition leader in the Senate, had begun question time by hurling this bomb: ''I refer to the statement by former NSW premier Morris Iemma: 'It took Eddie Obeid 20 years to build the power and influence that he had and, for 17 of those, Bob [Carr] was leader' . . . Don't Mr Iemma's statements cast serious doubts on the minister's claims . . . that he saw Eddie Obeid as a 'marginal figure, never to be taken seriously' [and] reflect on the minister's reputation and our reputation overseas?''
Senator Carr replied: ''This is a disgraceful attempt to embarrass a factional figure in the Liberal Party, who was nothing less than chair of an Obeid family company. Senator [Arthur] Sinodinos had Obeids on his payroll. He was chair of a company.''
His answer, a blatant obfuscation, set in train 23 minutes of procedural combat during which Carr did not even try to address the question, which would have required him to address the stark reality that, for about 15 years, he coddled Obeid. The moral implications of Labor's embrace of Obeid is only belatedly being understood and it is especially resonating in ''western Sydney'', the place that now obsesses the Prime Minister, because it is the place where her fate will be decided.
