{"id":2161,"date":"2013-03-06T23:26:03","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T12:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/australiansforhonestpolitics.wordpress.com\/?p=2161"},"modified":"2019-04-13T23:24:20","modified_gmt":"2019-04-13T13:24:20","slug":"to-perform-our-democratic-function-we-need-and-are-entitled-to-the-truth-tony-fitzgerald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/to-perform-our-democratic-function-we-need-and-are-entitled-to-the-truth-tony-fitzgerald\/","title":{"rendered":"To perform our democratic function we need and are entitled to the truth: Tony Fitzgerald"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tony-Fitzgerald\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By Margo Kingston
\n<\/a>March 6, 2013<\/span><\/p>\n

News of the accidental publication of secret\u00a0documents from the Fitzgerald Royal Commission<\/a>\u00a0got me thinking about my hero in the context of recent examples of our corrupt and dishonest politics. Tony Fitzgerald exposed the\u00a0corruption\u00a0at the heart of the Bjelke-Petersen government and laid out a\u00a0blueprint\u00a0for ethical government.<\/p>\n

\"Tony

Tony Fitzgerald and Mike Ahern<\/p><\/div>\n

Southerners were smug, but it’s\u00a0since been shown that their governments were much more corrupt than ours.<\/p>\n

In 2004\u00a0Tony launched my book Not Happy, John! Defending out\u00a0democracy\u00a0<\/em>and made some harsh\u00a0judgments about the state our\u00a0democracy. It’s got worse, and\u00a0last year he noted with dismay the\u00a0cronyism in the Queensland LNP\u00a0government<\/a><\/p>\n

After awful news out of the NSW corruption inquiry, this\u00a0week the\u00a0Victorian Liberal National government was revealed to have\u00a0sold access to\u00a0ministers and the Premier to developers, an unethical practice\u00a0now commonplace in Australian politics.<\/p>\n

So, on the night the Victorian Premier resigned amid evidence of cover-up, ministerial\u00a0perjury and the payment of hush money, I publish Tony’s\u00a02004 speech and urge both big parties to develop and announce serious\u00a0policies to return honesty\u00a0and ethics to\u00a0public\u00a0life.<\/p>\n

\n

June 29, 2004
\nSource: Webdiary<\/a><\/p>\n

Webdiary<\/p>\n

Justice Tony Fitzgerald’s speech launching my Not happy John!\u00a0Defending our democracy<\/em> at Gleebooks in Sydney on June 22. Michelle Grattan reported on the\u00a0speech at Fitzgerald berates both sides of politics<\/a><\/p>\n

In a speech last year, the author Norman Mailer described democracy as ‘a state of grace that is\u00a0attained only by those countries which have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it’. Not Happy John! is Margo Kingston’s admirable\u00a0contribution to the ‘heavy labor’ of maintaining democracy in Australia.<\/p>\n

As the title hints, Margo has focused her analysis on the behaviour of the current Commonwealth\u00a0government, especially the Prime Minister. In the words of the publisher: ‘Not Happy, John! is a\u00a0gutsy, anecdotal book with a deadly serious purpose: to lay bare the insidious ways in which John\u00a0Howard’s government has profoundly undermined our freedoms and our rights. She doesn’t care\u00a0whether you vote Liberal or Labor, Greens or One Nation. She isn’t interested in the old, outworn left\u00a0– right rhetoric. What she’s passionate about is the urgent need for us to reassert the core civic\u00a0values of a humane, egalitarian, liberal democracy.’<\/p>\n

You will observe the force of Margo’s argument when you read her book, as obviously you should.\u00a0My brief remarks will be directed to the damage that mainstream politicians generally are doing to our\u00a0democracy.<\/p>\n

Australians generally accept that democracy is the best system of government, the market is the\u00a0most efficient mechanism for economic activity and fair laws are the most powerful instrument for\u00a0creating and maintaining a society that is free, rational and just. However, we are also collectively\u00a0conscious that democracy is fragile, the market is amoral and law is an inadequate measure of\u00a0responsibility.<\/p>\n

As former Chief Justice Warren of the United States Supreme Court explained: ‘Law… presupposes the existence of a broad area of human conduct controlled only by ethical norms.’<\/p>\n

Similarly, democracy in our tradition assumes that a broad range of political activity is controlled only\u00a0by conventions of proper conduct. Especially because individual rights are not constitutionally\u00a0guaranteed in this country, justice, equality and other fundamental community values in Australia are\u00a0constantly vulnerable to the disregard of those conventions.<\/p>\n

Since the sacking of the Whitlam Government in 1975, the major political parties seem to have largely\u00a0abandoned the ethics of government. A spiteful, divisive contest now dominates the national\u00a0conversation, and democracy struggles incessantly with populism. Mainstream political parties\u00a0routinely shirk their duty of maintaining democracy in Australia.<\/p>\n

This is nowhere more obvious than in what passes for political debate, in which it is regarded as not\u00a0only legitimate but clever to mislead. Although effective democracy depends on the participation of\u00a0informed citizens, modern political discourse is corrupted by pervasive deception. It is a measure of\u00a0the deep cynicism in our party political system that many of the political class deride those who\u00a0support the evolution of Australia as a fair, tolerant, compassionate society and a good world citizen\u00a0as an un-Australian, ‘bleeding-heart’ elite, and that the current government inaccurately describes\u00a0itself as conservative and liberal.<\/p>\n

It is neither.\u00a0It exhibits a radical disdain for both liberal thought and fundamental institutions and conventions. No\u00a0institution is beyond stacking and no convention restrains the blatant advancement of ideology.<\/p>\n

The tit-for-tat attitude each side adopts means that the position will probably change little when the opposition\u00a0gains power at some future time. A decline in standards will continue if we permit it.<\/p>\n

Without ethical leadership, those of us who are comfortably insulated from the harsh realities of\u00a0violence, disability, poverty and discrimination seem to have experienced a collective failure of\u00a0imagination. Relentless change and perceptions of external threat make conformity and order\u00a0attractive and incremental erosions of freedom tolerable to those who benefit from the status quo and\u00a0are apprehensive of others who are different and therefore easily misunderstood.<\/p>\n

Mainstream Australians\u00a0remain unreconciled with Indigenous Australians and largely ignore their just claims.\u00a0Without any coherent justification, we are participating in a war in a distant country in which more than\u00a0half the population are children, some of whom, inevitably, are being killed.<\/p>\n

In our own country, many\u00a0live in poverty, children are hungry and homeless and other severely traumatised children are in\u00a0detention in flagrant breach of the Convention on the Rights of the Child simply because they were\u00a0brought here by their parents seeking a better life.<\/p>\n

Politicians mesmerised by power seem to be unconcerned that, when leaders fail to set and follow\u00a0ethical standards, public trust is damaged, community expectations diminish and social divisions\u00a0expand. However, these matters are important to the rest of us.<\/p>\n

We are a community, not merely a\u00a0collection of self-interested individuals. Justice, integrity and trust in fundamental institutions are\u00a0essential social assets and social capital is as important as economic prosperity.<\/p>\n

In order to perform our democratic function, we need, and are entitled to, the truth. Nothing is more\u00a0important to the functioning of democracy than informed discussion and debate.<\/p>\n

Yet a universal aim\u00a0of the power-hungry is to stifle dissent. Most of us are easily silenced, through a sense of futility if not\u00a0personal concern.<\/p>\n

Margo has the knowledge, energy and courage to stand up for her beliefs. Congratulations, Margo, for\u00a0doing much more than your share of the ‘heavy labor’ of maintaining Australia’s democracy. It is\u00a0a privilege to launch ‘Not Happy John!’, to urge all to read it and to wish you and ‘Not Happy\u00a0John!’ every success.<\/p>\n

\u2018Still Not Happy, John!\u2019 is published by Penguin. You can download it\u00a0as an ebook by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Margo Kingston March 6, 2013 News of the accidental publication of secret\u00a0documents from the Fitzgerald Royal Commission\u00a0got me thinking about my hero in the context of recent examples of our corrupt and dishonest politics. Tony Fitzgerald exposed the\u00a0corruption\u00a0at the heart of the Bjelke-Petersen government and laid out a\u00a0blueprint\u00a0for ethical government. Southerners were smug, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3434,61,62,26],"tags":[269,2565,348,2585,497],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3t0mw-yR","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}