Many Australians feel profoundly dis-empowered and disillusioned by the process that led to Australia's involvement in the attack on Iraq. What prospects are there for the restoration of people's faith in democracy?

Tanya Plibersek; Donna Mulhearn; Peter Macdonald; Tina Jackson; Tony Abbott 2

Tony Abbott: Well, I accept that there are many people who didn’t support the government’s position on the invasion of Iraq, but it’s almost inevitable that any government decision on a very controversial topic will upset quite a lot of people. I mean, that’s just the nature of our contrarian and adversarial, partisan democracy, that lots of things that the government does in the end don’t meet with the immediate or even the long-term approval of citizens. But if people don’t like what the government does, they have a remedy at the ballot box, and if you don’t like what one lot of candidates say and do, or if you don’t like what another lot of candidates say or do, well you can find candidates whose views you prefer at the ballot box at election time.

I think what this question is really driving at, though, is that you had a government that was enthusiastically in support of the campaign to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein, and you had an opposition which didn’t quite know where it stood, and I think that’s probably what is frustrating many people in this room, that if you supported the war you could vote for the government and rally round the government. If you didn’t support the war, it was a bit [un]clear who you could rally round, and that’s probably an issue that is best addressed by Tanya than by me. (Applause).

Tanya Plibersek: Well. I was waiting for Tony to degenerate to the party political, and it didn’t take long. The Labor Party op posed the war from April. We said that we would not be involved in action that did not have the support of the United Nations, and there were many of us within the Labor Party who had grave reservations even about something that had United Nations approval, because we know what the set-up of the Security Council’s like. There was thousands of Labor Party members, clearly identified as Labor Party members, including most of our senior parliamentarians at the front of every anti-war march. I was there myself every single time. I have been, and my colleagues have been, absolutely consistent on this, so if Tony thinks he’s going to point-score there, I don’t think he can.

I think that the thing that really, really frustrates most of the people that I talk to is, they don’t believe that they’ve been told the truth: they believe that they’re treated as stupid, they believe that all politics is about the five-second grab on the nightly news, and any message that is more complex than that, their political representatives believe is too complex – and I don’t think that’s the case, but I do think that you need to have face-to-face democracy, if you really want to explain a complex issue and argue your reasons for or against. I don’t think the government took the Australian people into its confidence in making this decision at all, and the fact that the Joint Intelligence Committee report that Peter mentioned earlier was in the hands of the government months before we made a decision – we made a decision? – before the Australian government made a decision to go to war is an indication of that. That is a report in the hands of the Australian government that says: if we go to war with Iraq, the likelihood of terrorist attacks – it is likely that terrorist attacks will increase, not decrease. That’s something that – nobody told us that. The Australian government didn’t take the Australian people into its confidence there. And if you look at the long list of things where the Australian public were misled – I mean, the children overboard is the other classic example, there’s no surprise or secret now that the Australian government were well aware before the last election that no asylum seekers were threatening to or proposing to throw their children off the boat. Everyone knows that now: the government knew it before the election, but they didn’t want to take us into their confidence then.

What will restore Australia’s faith in democracy? Well, tell us the truth: starting to tell the truth will start to restore Australians’ faith in democracy. Trusting people with more than the five-second grab – actually laying out some arguments for or against an issue, and trusting people to use their brains enough to make a decision that’s not based on a slogan, it’s actually based on a bit of thoughtful analysis. You can’t do that in the Telegraph – there’s probably someone from the Telegraph here tonight – you can’t do that in a lot of the media that we have at the moment. So, we do need to change the nature of how politics is covered. I’m really sick of seeing politics covered like sport. It’s treated, you know, it’s like watching a tennis match, back and forward, back and forward. It is not like that. We are making decisions about the future of our nation, and it’s not about who’s more macho, it is not about who’s more aggressive. It’s actually about the issues in front of us that we are making decisions about. So, I think that we need to change the way - we need to make demands to change the way that political life is covered in this country, as well.

And, I guess the final thing that I want to say, and this isn’t a party political point at all, in fact it’s the exact opposite, I think that people recognise sincerity in their political representatives, and they sure as hell recognise the opposite. So if you’re arguing something – if you’re out there in public arguing something that you feel half-hearted or ambivalent about, then you have lost the confidence of the Australian people straight away. And, there are times in politics where political parties take decisions that in their guts they don’t feel, and I think the Australian public pick that up every time. And across the board I think that we would have a better democracy if people were prepared to take the hit and say the unpopular thing, and stick to their guns: that would at least have the respect of the people who disagree with them as well as the support of the people who agree with them. (Applause)

Donna Mulhearn: The day, the first day we arrived in Iraq we had a meeting with a fellow who was hosting us and helping us with the project, Doctor Al-Hashidi, charming man, wonderful Iraqi man, and he said to us with a smile: “They dismissed the largest demonstrations the world has ever seen, and they want to teach us democracy?” I have no faith in democracy, not at the moment anyway. This question says many Australians feel profoundly dis-empowered and disillusioned by the process that led to the war and Australia's involvement, and earlier this year, as the war was brewing, I felt profoundly dis-empowered and disillusioned to the point where I wanted to scream, like the rest of you, and I just hoped and prayed there could be a way that I could express my opposition to the war, and my beliefs on non-violence. And then I heard the call to join the human shields, and it was with a sense of relief that I heard that call, with a sense of relief that I had the opportunity to defy my government. And, so as soon as I heard the call I knew straight away that I was going to go – that I had to go, and I was very grateful for that opportunity.

So, what I would say to people who are feeling dis-empowered and disillusioned: bypass politics! Like, defy it. Go above it. Rise above it. Let it go. Just do what you have to do. Be the person that you need to be. Be a compassionate and caring person who lives a life based on values of justice and mercy and compassion. Do it. Don’t wait for our politicians to lead us in doing that: let’s lead them. Let’s live this way. Let’s be people of honour, of truth, of values. And if they want to sit in Canberra and argue about and take us to wars, then we will defy them. And we won’t allow them to live a way that goes against our values. So, I just look forward to the next opportunity I get to defy my government. I was called a traitor, when I was over in Iraq. “A traitor to who?” - I said, a traitor to John Howard, who I didn’t even vote for? But, I … No, to be labelled a traitor, Tony, is a very serious accusation, which was quite hurtful to me, because I’m a proud Australian, and as an Australian, I have the values of compassion, and justice, and looking out for the underdog, and having fairness and equality. So, if I didn’t go to Iraq I feel like I would have been a traitor to those values, a traitor to myself. So, I would say to all of you who are looking for hope in this democracy is: look elsewhere, look to yourself, and just live, and be aware, and live side by side your neighbour. And when people try to tell us that our Auburn (?) Muslim brothers and sisters are different to us , and when Alan Jones and the Daily Telegraph try to divide us, just defy that and refuse to accept it. The Sydney community of Muslims is the most beautiful, wonderful, embracing community I think I’ve met, and they’ve embraced me and so many others since I’ve been back from Iraq, and I refuse to accept that they are in any way different to me, or that there is a divide, because there’s not. So, rise above politics and live, be who you are, and that is a caring person, and just bypass them. Go around, and just get on with our lives, and let’s lead them, let’s show them the way.

Peter Macdonald: I just invite you to look at the words that make up the question, and it says that many Australians feel profoundly dis-empowered and disillusioned by that process. I think also that many Australians are very frightened about what’s happened. Very frightened at how our voices have not been heard, how we as a nation seem to have been conned, how we’ve been brought to a position where in fact, Australia, and I have no doubt in my mind that Australia is now a less safe place than it was a year ago, or two years ago. So many people are not only shaking their heads wondering how it all happened, but also there’s a sense of fear in the community that this could all happen again. I don’t have a great deal of faith in the democratic process in this country, in the sense that so many people also are easily hoodwinked, and if you look at some of the surveys that have been done, for instance one talked, the finding was that in excess of 70% of the population believed that they had been misled over the events that led us in to Iraq, into the war in Iraq. But they went on to so that they didn’t regard that misleading as being intentional, and they would still vote for John Howard at the end of it. So I ask you, how can one really have faith in a lot of people who are part of our democratic process?

The other thing that, you would understand I hold strong views on, is the ills and ailments that exist within our political system, and I talked earlier about some of the remedies that I see as important to provide the necessary checks and balances. But, this goes to the very heart of the democratic process in this country. I was a candidate in the 2001 Federal election, and after preferences, I got something like 46% of the vote, I stand corrected, Tony if that wasn’t just quite the figure, but around 46% of the vote. Those people who voted for me, under our political system are not represented. And that’s why it’s so important that we need to constantly question and examine the political system that we’ve got. We need to question whether we need the Tasmanian Hare-Clark system [The Hare-Clark electoral system is a Single Transferable Vote (STV) method of proportional representation used in multi-member electorates.] throughout the country, which would provide a much fairer way of representation in the lower house, and thankfully we do have an upper house which does, whether you like it or not, and whether John Howard wants to change it or not, does in fact represent the voting patterns of the people of this country.

The other important matter that this question raises is the question of what checks and balances could we seriously think of having introduced. I’m a strong believer in referenda. And the father of this, dare I say the father of this Council, North Sydney Council, Ted Mack, was one who talked a lot about mechanisms for opening up the democratic process and one of those was referenda. Switzerland is governed by referenda, so they do work. There are a lot of people in this hall, probably, who would have liked to have been given the opportunity to express a view on this enormous decision that this government has taken, or did take. Tony says, you can’t believe it in his heart surely, he says somewhat glibly: you’ve got a chance every two or three years at the ballot box. People want more out of the democratic process than that. But, the prospects for change are not good, because governments, and I say it, of both persuasions, are by nature totalitarian. They would rather tolerate the general public, unwillingly, every few years.

Just a final point, and that is that it raises this question of – and Tony made mention of how I think he believes in the supremacy or sovereignty of nation-states, but I think we’re going to have to give some of that away at an international level, if we’re really going to start dealing with these frightening scenarios that we’ve faced in the last six to twelve months. So, at an international level, we’ve got to strengthen the UN. We’ve got to create global institutions and global bodies that are able to provide some constraint against rogue states. I’m not now directing that at the US, but at all rogue states. This sort of question has to trigger those sorts of thoughts. Thank you. (Applause)

Tina Jackson: Thank you to all the speakers, who I think have covered many of the issues. But I would like to, if I could, come back to Tony on the operation of democracy. The government mad an executive decision to go to war, a decision in the face of the opposition of many people, the majority of people as expressed through the opinion polls of the time, and many people especially did not want to go to war without UN sanction, and many thousands took to the streets to oppose the war, and it was an opposition that wasn’t heeded. Democracy failed us then, but the decision having been made, the government now has to be judged, and ongoing debate, as tonight, is an important part of that. But, taking up Tony’s point, the next election under our current system is the major opportunity that we have to judge the government and restore faith in democracy. And to my mind, listening to everything that’s been said tonight, the scorecard doesn’t look very good. The war did depose Hussein, a laudable outcome as we all agree. But on the other side of the scoresheet, we have no weapons of mass destruction, a decimated Iraqi economy and infrastructure, and an enormous human cost, as Donna so vividly describes, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and the risk of more terrorism. So, I think the price of the regime change has been too high. So, I would like to ask Tony, that as the democratic process plays out in the next election, are there any other factors that we should take into account in judging the government?

Tony Abbott: Well, obviously the government will be judged on a whole lot of things, not just its attitude to the war in Iraq, although people are entitled if they wish to say: well I don’t care what good things they may have done in other areas, what they did in Iraq is so horrific that I just can’t vote for them under any circumstance. I mean, that is your democratic right. I mean, the interesting thing about Australia, indeed America, and indeed Britain, is that you can have meetings like this, and you can stand up and shout from every rooftop that the prime minister is a so-and-so, that the government is corrupt, that the country is hopeless, and that’s the marvellous democratic right of Australian, American and British people. But, you don’t have, or you didn’t have any of that, in Iraq, and indeed in most of the countries of the Middle East. So, while I wouldn’t for a second want to say that everything is rosy in post-war Iraq – obviously the Middle East remains a cauldron, and much that is dispiriting goes on in Iraq, obviously, obviously, it does. Obviously there is a long and difficult job of reconstruction ahead of the Iraqi people and the friends of the Iraqi people, but by the same token, I think it is good that Saddam Hussein is gone. I think the world is a much better place without him, and I think that the Australian government deserves credit for having the guts to do what was right but very very unpopular.

Genia McCaffery: Thank you, Tony, Thank you, Tina. Now our fourth question comes from Andrew McNaughtan …

© NSPD 2003. Last modified 22/10/03.