Waterford on integrity

Jack Waterford, Editor-at-Large Canberra Times, wrote a scorching piece "Rudd's race to the bottom" (published  2 June but no link available), denied a wider audience for some unknown reason as neither the Times nor Fairfax National Times posted it online. Waterford lets go on the subject of integrity, without any amateur psychoanalysis of what drives the Prime Minister, although I'm reading David Marr's Quarterly Essay on that subject with interest.  As the pioneer journalist Freedom of Information expert his ranking of the recent federal FOI reforms as "minor improvements" constitutes a lower grade than my "good and welcome but a long way short..." assessment, and a sharp contrast to effusive praise from the media coalition.

On where the Rudd Government stands after promising to govern differently, Waterford says

It's been pretty much downhill since, particularly in matters readily placeable in a moral or idealistic calculus. The environment? Too hard, sorry. Refugees? Race you to the bottom. Aborigines? Just shut them up, please. Or shut them down. Democracy and debate in the party? No time. Probity and integrity with public money? Plllllease.

A longer extract follows.

When Kevin Rudd put together his first cabinet, there was fanfare about making John Faulkner Minister for Integrity...Faulkner was the man who was supposed to touch, feel, see and smell things to be sure they were right. Not legally, but morally. Or at least in a way that a jaded public might understand.. He was the man with a decency instinct and a good feel for how the public might see things. He was the man with the standing to be able to nag even the Prime Minister when someone was pulling a fast one, when a bit of expediency was bound to cause trouble, or when a piece of Labor mateship, patronage or double- dealing was bound to leave a big smell. A person whose experience in the organisation and backroom meant he could pay close attention to those factional daleks who are almost incapable of avoiding the rort.

Down the track... The Prime Minister asks Faulkner to mind (Defence), given not only his experience in the area, and his reputation for common sense, but also some feeling that the department and the services have let the minister down..Maybe the nation is safer. At least the noise level has declined... But Defence's gain was Integrity's loss..

So far as I am aware, Joe Ludwig has done nothing of questionable integrity in Faulkner's place. Nor anything for Dad. He has completed Faulkner's project of minor improvements to the Freedom of Information Act.

Last week he "approved" an application from Swan for $38million for an advertising campaign to counter "lies and distortions" about a resource rent tax on miners, being put out by the mining industry and the Opposition. This was made to sound as if this approval followed some sort of quasi-judicial process, with Joe as the ideal and independent arbiter.. Ludwig failed the government for what he did not do. For what Faulkner, perhaps, could have done. Which was to persuade Rudd and Swan that it was a dumb idea which the public would not like. Chances are that Ludwig wouldn't even see it to be dumb.

One can expect that the public will be cynical about the confected anger of the Opposition. But the notion of integrity is not just about meeting a standard that is marginally better, or less worse, than the other side. For a while perhaps it lasted six months into government there was an appearance that we could expect more from Rudd. Higher standards. Better behaviour. Taking action because it was right, rather than because one could get away with it. Politicians who were decent and believed in something.

It was an impression Rudd worked hard on in opposition and in early moments as prime minister. Being magnanimous. Seeming decent. Acknowledging differences of opinion. Admitting some policies and behaviour were matters of morality as much as good manners or pragmatism. Recognising that there were needs for better checks and balances, open minds, charitable inclinations and some suspension of cynicism for good intentions. And, sometimes, good gestures, as with the apology to Aborigines.

It's been pretty much downhill since, particularly in matters readily placeable in a moral or idealistic calculus. The environment? Too hard, sorry. Refugees? Race you to the bottom. Aborigines? Just shut them up, please. Or shut them down. Democracy and debate in the party? No time. Probity and integrity with public money? Plllllease.

These are not necessarily things that lose a government an election. But they are the sorts of things which sap a government, and slowly deprive it of any right to call upon impassioned, convinced or convicted support. Everyone now knows has known for some time that Rudd is just another politician. No better, certainly no more decent or inspired, than any of the others we have come to despise. We are into him now only for what we can get and what he can deliver.