By Allen Myers
The things you'd never know if you didn't read the Sydney Morning Herald! For example, check your knowledge of current events by answering the following multiple choice question:
Mal Colston is: (a) the biggest rorter in the history of the Senate; (b) the biggest rorter in the present Senate, as far as we know; (c) a democrat (small d) being persecuted by malevolent totalitarians; (d) a nightmare from which John Howard and the people he serves would like to awake.
Non-Sydneysiders, don't be embarrassed; only those with access to the Sydney Morning Herald and the insights of columnist Padraic P. McGuinness know that the correct answer is (c).
No, I'm not joking. I swear it's there on page 36 of the "News Review" section of the April 19 (not April 1) issue in a big headline: "Colston crusading for democracy". That's right: crusading.
The logic of the piece is not easy to present, since it doesn't really exist, but I will do my best.
The ALP, McGuinness notes, wants Colston out of the Senate so that it can "replace him with a loyal Labor hack who can be relied upon to vote as instructed and according to party discipline".
This is accurate, if a bit unduly coloured in the language: aren't members who vote with the government because of party discipline just as little or as much hackish as those who vote with the opposition for that reason?
McGuinness doesn't pause to consider that possible objection because he has a bigger question in view: "But this [the desire to replace used up hack with new hack] raises a very fundamental question about our Constitution and our Parliament. To what extent should they both be subordinated to the demands of the party system, especially when those parties themselves have highly undemocratic structures?"
(The only parties mentioned to that point in the article are the ALP and the Democrats, so "those parties" might be read to mean that it is all right for the constitution and parliament to be subordinated to the Coalition parties and/or that the Coalition parties have highly democratic structures. Whether this is what McGuinness intended, I hesitate to guess.)
Unfortunately, the effort of raising such a "fundamental question" appears to have exhausted the columnist, for he doesn't answer it. Instead, he has two bob each way on whether voters vote for the party or the individual (perhaps meaning to suggest that Queensland voters chose Colston despite his presence on the Labor ticket, because they appreciated his seminal contributions to political economy, jurisprudence and accounting).
Then McGuinness offers the opinion that the Australian Workers Union is a "sinister influence" on the Queensland ALP. (The word "sinister" derives from the Latin word for "left", but has largely lost that meaning. Not even McGuinness would regard the AWU as left — or would he?) The relevance of this view to the theme of the article is not apparent.
But never mind: the main point is that Colston is being persecuted unjustly:
"Whatever his offences might have been, there certainly are numerous other members of the former Labor Government who did as much or more."
Really? What a stunning bit of investigative journalism must have been done here! Unfortunately, the Herald has not indicated when it will be running exposures on these numerous rorters. Probably it doesn't want to compromise the Federal Police investigation — surely McGuinness would not obtain knowledge of such misdeeds but fail to refer them to the Federal Police.
The columnist then turns his attention to the "puzzling" criticisms of Colston in the media. Cartoonists are particularly to be blamed: many of their portrayals of Colston "have far exceeded any bounds of good taste". (Chris Kelly please note: he probably didn't mean you; I don't think McGuinness reads Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly.)
But poor taste doesn't begin to cover their sins: "... the caricatures which have appeared [not merely 'some of the caricatures', but all of them, apparently] are reminiscent of Nazi vilification of Jews". Australian cartoonists in a conspiracy with international fascism (and the AWU?) against Mal Colston: takes the breath away, doesn't it?
And poor Mal is really nearly as pure as the driven snow: "It remains the case that Colston has been convicted of nothing and even if he did falsify some claims, the sums involved are not large".
(It was already known that $6800 (this time) is chicken feed for MPs, but it is here disclosed as nothing much for Herald journalists either: no wonder the burden of McGuinness' writing is on the theme that the only possible improvement of Australian capitalism is more of the same.)
Carmen Lawrence, if she is convicted of perjury, may want to try that one: "It wasn't a very big lie". In fact, I predict that defence lawyers across the country will be quick to adopt what will become known as "the McGuinness defence": "My client did rob the bank, Your Honour, but the prosecution admits that he obtained a mere $5000, considerably less than the trifle Senator Colston collected for a bookkeeping error ..."
Meanwhile, Colston himself bravely soldiers on, "... fighting a lone battle for the preservation of independence of action and thought for the elected representatives of the nation. His survival until an offence is proved is essential to the health of our democratic parliamentary government."
If the health of government is threatened, what can we say about the condition of journalism?