The shallow men

It was the sanctimony that I couldn’t stand. It was well over a year ago. Tony Windsor was on ABC radio spouting the most awful homespun tripe about global warming and the carbon tax. I almost cracked when he was immediately followed by some ABC type saying how good it was to hear such common sense.

Since then I have practised Windsor and Oakeshott avoidance. Every time one or other of them was on the radio or television I quickly switched stations or turned the offending medium off. But they came flooding back into my mind when recent speculation arose (unfounded as it turned out) that Liberal MP Patrick Secker might follow Peter Slipper’s unprincipled lead, desert his party, and run for the position of Speaker.

It would appear that Mr Secker is principled and, therefore, despite the loss of his preselection, intends to continue to faithfully represent his constituents. Faithfully representing constituents; what exactly does that mean? Is it ambiguous enough to allow the unprincipled and unscrupulous to find refuge?

Edmund Burke throws light on this matter in his celebrated speech to Bristol electors in 1774.

Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention…But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living…Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

At question is whether Burke’s speech provides any refuge for Windsor and Oakeshott. Can they find succour in Burke? The answer seems to be a resounding no. Burke was about the need of representatives to have the freedom to take account of circumstances and arguments in forming a view on particular issues; not in changing from being a Whig to a Tory immediately on election.

War provides an analogy. Generals dispatched by parliaments and governments to fight battles need to have discretion to take account of evolving circumstances on the ground. That discretion would not extend to providing comfort to the enemy. That would be called treason.

Burke also explained that a member of parliament’s duty was to the whole country not peculiarly to his own electorate.

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole…

We can safely conclude that Burke would have been appalled to think that his reasoned exposition of his role as a member of parliament could ever be used to excuse people representing themselves as fish and turning immediately into fowl, or bartering their allegiance to gain preference for their own electorates or regions.

There is no justification to be found for Windsor and Oakeshott. Aligning themselves with a political party completely out of kilter with the weight of view of their electorates is unprincipled.

Unprincipled behaviour seldom produces good results. It is by the way that it has turned the ostensible independents into nothing more than Gillard’s lickspittles for fear of becoming feather dusters when electors next have a say. Much more importantly, it has sheltered the most incompetent and dishonest federal government in Australia’s history.  And more damage is waiting in the wings.

 “Good government”, what a joke, is about to inject debilitating mining and carbon taxes into a fragile economy. The carbon tax represents the first time that any Australian government has deliberately set out to hamstring Australian industries. Leaving Zimbabwe aside, perhaps it is a world’s first for any government. What a legacy Windsor and Oakeshott are leaving us. Gillard might own Slipper. Windsor and Oakeshott own Gillard.

Peter Smith’s book, Bad Economics, will be published soon by Connor Court. You can pre-order (post free) here…