A Fine Bromance
It must be nearly time to resurrect that 1980s comedic vehicle for Judi Dench and her late (real life) husband. It was called A Fine Romance. In these openly gay times, perhaps the updated title should be “A Fine Bromance”. I refer, of course, to the blossoming affection that Dominic Perrottet and Daniel Andrews have for one another.
It is, on its face, little short of astounding. Until, that is, you reflect for a moment on the nature of post-ideological, venal, PR driven politics in Western democracies, and, in particular, on the east coast of Australia. The new-found across-the-Murray alliance tells us much about the politics of the early twenty-first century – how the politics are played, what the priorities of leaders are, and the strategies and tactics used to achieve their largely undemocratic objectives.
The still-fresh and extremely active NSW Premier let the cat well and truly out of the bag in the question-and-answer session that followed a speech given by Perrottet to the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) in late February 2022. This set of admissions should be regarded by all as a primer for the new order of cynical, people-ignoring political management.
He began:
I get criticised for being the open-up guy. He (Daniel Andrews) gets criticised for being the locker-down guy. If we could somehow work together …
Well, we could get the media off both our backs. We could both survive the inevitable criticism from the media, from our own bases, and from (in Perrottet’s case) the Covid/medical industrial complex which would reflexively bag him for opening up too much, too soon. So the two of them formed a “strategic plan” to “mirror” one another’s settings, even coordinating announcements. Hence, they would avoid criticism by each being able to say, “well, look at what New South Wales is doing”, or “look at what Victoria is doing”.
An afficionado of crime fiction might call this the political equivalent of giving one another an alibi. Perhaps even of committing one another’s murders.
I am not the only one onto this. The former Liberal, now Liberal Democrats NSW Senate candidate, John Ruddick, has addressed the same material and has drawn similar conclusions about the Lib-Lab unity ticket. As has the International Committee for the Fourth International (the World Socialist Web Site), not an outfit I ever expected to be quoting.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/24/auco-m24.html
But we do live in strange political times, where old ideologies, predictable allegiances and embedded modi operandi are no longer the norm. We now have a left which hates the working class, for example. And Liberal Parties for which “conservatism” is, seemingly, a legacy belief system and an embarrassment for the likes of Tim Wilson and Dave Sharma.
A benign interpretation of this unexpected alliance might be, they are simply being pragmatic, or they really want the best outcomes for their constituents – like getting the children back to school – and don’t want the media or interest groups dictating their decision-making (Perrottet’s own explanation), or they are outwitting the media and this is a good thing for all of us, or even that Perrottet has been clever at nudging Andrews towards more middle-of-the-road policy positions. Another take on the bromance, not so benign, is that in the age of the win-at-any-cost politician, this rare glimpse behind the very opaque curtain of current governments reveals what really goes on, just how cynical they are, the ends to which they will plot and scheme to achieve political longevity, the lies they are willing to tell, and the tactics they wish (normally) to conceal from us.
In the CEDA Q and A, the Premier also noted the wars between the Departments of Health and Education over returning children to school. Education, no doubt simply reflecting the bully-boy positions of the teachers’ unions – who are quite happy to see thousands of their members on the job scrap heap because of their refusal to get the jab – insisted on rapid antigen tests (RATs) for pupils and teachers, while Health was arguing they were unnecessary. Guess who won out? And how much was wasted on buying RATs during an Omicron surge where it was (and is) likely that every man and his dog in both Victoria and New South Wales will get Covid. Hence, for Dominic, the “victory” was in working with Daniel Andrews to together buy gazillions of RATs. The process becomes the objective, almost.
Yes, we get it. Government is a game in which there are competing interests, nothing is straightforward and where perception reigns. The end justifies the means. Straight from the Niccolo Machiavelli handbook. Nothing really new, you might think. But what we have lost along the way is genuine differentiation between the major parties, which gave voters a real and meaningful contest. Further, that a Liberal premier is willing to, in effect throw his interstate Liberal co-leaders under the bus, along with the voters and his own loyal Liberal Party members, especially conservatives, many of whom would not spit on Daniel Andrews if he caught fire, such have been his crimes against his own people, shows how far we have fallen in terms of honour, morals and standards of political behaviour. (One can only wonder what Matthew Guy, Liberal, Victoria, and Chris Minns, Labor, New South Wales, think of the behaviour of Perrottet and Andrews respectively).
Perrottet’s political behaviour mirrors that of the Prime Minister, who has been willing to sacrifice our federation and our international reputation as a liberal democracy since the very start of the Covid fiasco in March 2020, and who now dares to seek a fourth term of Liberal-led government. For ScoMo’s strategy, borne either of fear or cynicism or both, was, from the very start, through various acts of commission and of omission, to pass the buck, say one thing (about his abhorrence of Covid mandates) while meaning another, to praise the actions of political opponents committing relentless acts of bastardry on their own people, to pivot without apparent cause, to imprison Australian citizens, and, risibly, to claim the credit for saving lives.
To say that there is no longer a sliver of difference between the legacy parties, and to say that nowadays politics are utterly cynical and mischievous, are not new claims. It is just refreshing, even if perversely refreshing, to see a political leader actually admitting what they are all up to. Their revelations, so rare in the age of political management and PR-driven objectives, are therefore highly welcome. A little like Boris Johnson’s partygate, they reveal much about what our politicians tell us – you must mask up, socially distance, wash your hands every three minutes, and get vaccinated – as, all the while, their private actions reveal that they are venal liars and conmen. As public choice theory attests, political decision-makers are endlessly ruled by their perceptions of their own career and reputational interests. They do not, in general, give a “RATs” about the rest of us.
Meanwhile, each of the Big Three of Australian politics faces an election some time in the next twelve months. For one of them, very soon indeed.
Paul Collits
25 April 2022