By Michael Bradley Thursday 23 July 2015
Photo: Bronwyn Bishop is the pantomime villain. Meanwhile, the spotlight catches the two leaders off-stage, looking smaller than we remember. (AAP: Daniel Munoz)
It's easy to imagine politics as a play right now: Bronwyn Bishop as pantomime villain, Mike Baird as the working man, Bill Shorten as court jester and Tony Abbott as the craven king. How does this play end? Michael Bradley writes.
"Politics," said Otto von Bismarck in 1867, "is the art of the possible, the attainable - the art of the next best."
Enshrined as the ultimate rationale for political pragmatism, this phrase was at the time an exemplar of the reaction of what we'd now call the Right to the flights of idealism the Enlightenment had produced. Such as this, from another German, Johann von Goethe: "Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is the watchword of the wise."
In the world's democracies, the contest between idealism and pragmatism is endless. Purists don't last in politics; they never could. Compromise is an essential element of majority rule and government by consensus.
However, being willing to compromise is not the same as having no ideals. The absence of principles, or the willingness to freely abandon them for political gain, is the heart of democracy's present malaise.
We are at an interesting pass in Australian politics. Imagine it as a play; two scenes are being performed simultaneously. In Canberra, a farce is playing out: Bronwyn Bishop as pantomime villain, sheathed in scarlet cape with impossible hair and accusatory teeth, strutting around the stage throwing increasingly outrageous insults at the cheap seats and eating caviar from a silver spoon.
Meanwhile, in Sydney, a Shakespearean epic: NSW Premier Mike Baird the bold leader, clad in the toga of the simple working man and speaking the down-home language of the proletariat, but saying what everyone had only been hoping to hear: words of aspiration, clarity, vision. His chin is modestly but firmly thrust forward; Bronwyn quivers like an angry snake.
So much for the antagonists; where are our leading men? Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten, the two least popular people in Australia, are scripted to perform in both scenes, and simultaneously at that. How are they performing? They are performing exactly to type.
In the panto, Abbott the craven King refuses to countenance Bronwyn's downfall, the audience instantly recognising his claimed political courage as nothing more than personal cowardice (the fact that Bronwyn keeps calling him "boy" and hitting him with a bat gives a clue). Shorten the court jester pops up repeatedly from behind a safety fence to call for Bronwyn's beheading each time her back is turned, but not too loudly in case anyone realises that his boy scout uniform was stolen from a convenient clothes line.
Cut to the epic: Baird has just delivered a bruising honest monologue, declaring his disgust with the world of politics and calling on the people to rise up and demand better from their elected leaders. Let's have a mature debate about the things that really matter, he says, and then puts forward his own imaginative but unpopular ideas. Disagree with me, he says, that's fine. But let us be brave. Come with me and together we can achieve miracles.
Suddenly, spotlights catch two frozen figures at the edges of the stage; it's Abbott and Shorten, Roman senators, seeming much smaller than we remember, looking uncertain. A beat passes; then they remember their lines. Abbott says he's sick of politics too and he's not here to bury Baird but to praise him. But, you know, Labor's debt and deficit disaster. Shorten also agrees that vision is a good thing, but the GST can't be increased because Abbott's pants are on fire.
In keeping with modernity, both scenes have alternative endings depending on public opinion. Bronwyn might be commanded into exile by a leader who has found his moral core and chooses to do what's right; or she might retain her place at the right hand of the throne, she and the king oblivious to the mob storming the palace grounds. The jester will be trampled in the rush.
For his part, Baird may well suffer the fate of Caesar: knifed for expedience. And perhaps the audience will cheer; the mob's love of candour can turn to hate as fast as the realisation of threatened self-interest dawns. Or maybe the flicker of hope will catch on. A winged chariot to fly Baird to Canberra temptingly awaits. Not a helicopter.
I don't know whether it's true that we get the leaders we deserve. In Abbott and Shorten, we certainly don't have the leaders we need. Still, nothing's forever and, as Goethe said: "The right man is the one who seizes the moment."
Michael Bradley is the managing partner of Marque Lawyers, a Sydney law firm, and writes a weekly column for The Drum.
