Photo: Circumstances change, confronting governments with the choice between keeping promises that no longer make sense or breaking them. (News Online Brisbane)
Tony Abbott says he wants to stop the "trust deficit" in federal politics. But it is hardly surprising that even the best governments end up with a trust deficit in the eyes of voters, says Mike Steketee.
Tony Abbott's boldest promise is not stopping the boats or introducing his paid parental leave scheme. It is tackling something he says is even worse than the budget deficit: the "trust deficit".
In an interview with Fairfax Media, he said a priority as prime minister would be restoring trust in government and civility in parliament. "I would hope that, should we win the election, I would be able to conduct myself and my team would be able to so conduct themselves that, by the end of the first term, people would have once more concluded that Australian government was competent and trustworthy," he said.
He struck the same theme at his campaign launch on Sunday, drawing the contrast with Labor.
In 2004, he said, Labor had told voters to put their trust in Mark Latham, in 2007 in Kevin Rudd and in 2010 in Julia Gillard and just look what happened to them.
Abbott could have gone back further because he was channelling John Howard.
In 1996, the last time a federal Liberal leader was on the cusp of an election victory, Howard expressed identical sentiments. Even more important than honouring commitments, he said in his campaign launch speech, was rebuilding "a sense of trust and confidence in words given and commitments made by our political leaders… And one of the changes I would hope to see after three years of a Coalition government is that there has been some restoration of the trust and confidence of the Australian people in the political process".
Among other things, he added, that meant having an independent Speaker in the House of Representatives.
You may be thinking that our political leaders are either masochists or incurable optimists.
Asked in a Morgan Poll in April to rate professions for honesty and ethical standards, 14 per cent gave federal MPs a high or very high rating, compared to 90 per cent for nurses, 88 per cent for doctors and 84 per cent for pharmacists.
There were only five out of 30 professions that were ranked lower than federal politicians – in descending order, insurance brokers, state MPs, real estate agents, advertising people and car salesmen.
The good news is that they have fared worse – notably in 1997 and 1998, the first two years of the Howard government, when nine per cent and seven per cent gave them a high or very high rating in the same poll – below real estate agents.
Howard set about acting on his campaign rhetoric by introducing a new code of ministerial conduct. It had unintended consequences, with no fewer than seven ministers forced to resign over breaches such as holding shares in their areas of responsibility and making false or dubious travel allowance claims. After that, Howard called a halt, refused to demand more resignations despite at least one other clear breach and watered down the code. Restoring trust was put on hold.
Howard in his first term also invented the infamous distinction between core and non-core promises as an excuse for breaking election promises, particularly those resulting from spending cuts in the 1997 budget. And he never did appoint an independent speaker.
Despite promising "never, ever" to introduce a GST, Howard went to the 1998 election proposing one. After a landslide win in 1996, he was lucky to gain a second term when Labor under Kim Beazley outpolled the Coalition in the national vote but failed to pick up enough seats to govern.
So why would Abbott, who is well aware of the Howard record, even though many others have forgotten it, want to stick his head above the parapet on this issue? Perhaps because voters would quite like to respect and trust their political leaders, if only they would let them.
Veteran social researcher and author Hugh Mackay tells The Drum: "He has put his finger on the right issue but he doesn't seem to be the man to do it. We may all recall when it was clear [in 2010] we were going to have a hung parliament, he was the one who used that immortal phrase 'a kinder, gentler polity' and more or less from the next day put the boot in more savagely than ever. You can't separate trust and respect and when it is very clear to the voters that neither side respects the other, then the voters withdraw respect from both sides."
Abbott's appeal for trust is a euphemism for the real question voters are prepared to ask: not who do you trust but who do you distrust least. Put that way, it is a potentially potent weapon, given Labor's record of broken promises on everything from the carbon tax to the budget surplus, not to mention the party's own lack of faith in Kevin Rudd, followed by Julia Gillard.
A further heroic promise Abbott made at his campaign opening is that "we will be a no surprises, no excuses government".
It was his version of another Howard line from 1996 – that he wanted to make us feel relaxed and comfortable.
But as Howard and every prime minister before and after have discovered, surprises are the constant companion of governments. However carefully he maps out his period in office, Abbott should expect the unexpected.
As British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is said to have responded when asked what he feared most in politics, "events, dear boy, events".
Circumstances change, confronting governments with the choice between keeping promises that no longer make sense or breaking them. Oppositions in our adversarial system see it as their role in life to tear down governments by foul means or fair.
So it hardly is surprising that even the best governments end up with a trust deficit in the eyes of voters.
Abbott will deliver on his promise to scrap the price on carbon but only if the Senate lets him or a subsequent double dissolution election gives him the numbers to do so.
He will do his best to stop the boats with policies even more brutal than those implemented by Labor but many of the events influencing refugee flows are beyond his control. His success in moving the budget to surplus and reducing debt is to a substantial extent hostage to international economic events that are even less predictable than usual.
So good luck with all that.
Mike Steketee is a freelance journalist and former national affairs editor for The Australian. View his full profile here.
The elusive pursuit of political trust - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
