Following on from my post “Interesting to the Public”, I’m writing today about another topic that has arisen from Rann-gate.
My question is this: Should we hold our leaders to a higher standard of behaviour than that of the general public?
It used to be that what was OK for Uncle Jimmy (shaving a bit off taxes here and there, whistling at the ladies, or getting a bit pissed at Christmas and singing a dirty version of the Twelve Days of Christmas) wasn’t OK for our public officials. We expected those who led us to be of better stuff than uncle Jimmy. Now, though, it seems to be the other way around: things that we wouldn’t accept as OK from our family or friends (sleeping with a married woman, for example) seems to be no more than a blip in the wider world of unsavoury behaviour from our politicians. Two things have stood out from my discussions with coworkers in the last few weeks.
First, we *expect* our politicans to behave badly – what we expect is for our elected officials to be lying, cheating scoundrels. Second, there has been a compartmentalised perspective develop: “Personal Life” and “Public Life” are two different things to a lot of people, now. I shouldn’t have to point out to anyone that expecting politicians to be a bunch of whiny, self-serving deceptive bastards isn’t exactly the best way to get the smart, intelligent ones serving their country in government.
Second, we don’t seem to care about what our politicians do unless it’s going to hurt us directly. People get pissed if their local member is taking bribes for votes, but don’t care about allegations of sexual misconduct (that’s fun to type). The only exception to this that I can think of was Gareth Evans, and that’s because he was sleeping with someone from outside the party, not because it was someone other than his wife.
I would contend, however, that any action reflecting on the personality and decision-making processes of our politicans should influence how we see their fitness for office. If a politician likes taking unnecessary risks, how do they do this? If they bungee jump, that’s all well and good; it’s a socially acceptable way of getting your adreneline rush. If they bungee jump despite the fact that their kids hate it because their favourite uncle died in a bungee accident, that’s something different. If they do it by shagging the opposition, whatever. Don’t care. I think it’s an immoral act, but society doesn’t and they’re not trying to destroy our social fabric by doing it. If they’re married to someone else though? Then they’re deliberately going outside of the established moral framework, which to me raises a warning flag. If most people would go “dude, cheating on your wife? Not cool” and then they do it anyway, what else might they do that most of us would say “not cool!” to?
I think it’s important for us to know what sort of people our politicians are. I don’t think we need to know all the gory details, but if you’re going to ask us to trust you to run the country then I think we can expect a certain amount of transparency in your life and actions. If I don’t even have the smallest clue about what sort of person you are, I’m not going to vote for you. And this is why I will continue to care about what our politicans get up to when they’re not on the floor of parliament, or in their office. Because it is important.
Posted on January 23rd, 2010 by Bosun McShiny
Filed under: Uncategorized
Leave a Reply