If you had to say what the Morrison government stands for, you’d struggle, right? Casting back over the time since 2018 when Scott Morrison became prime minister, I can come up with only two assertions of principle which his government could really claim to have planted firmly in the sand.
The first is sovereignty, reflected in the government’s continuing devotion to the notion of sovereign borders and Morrison’s peculiar romance with the idea that Australia’s destiny will be made solely in Australia. That comes out in various contexts, be it trade, foreign affairs, climate change or COVID-19.
The second is the rule of law. It is only a recent attachment for the government and has been deployed by it only in defence of the alleged sexual offences of its own members. However, it’s been shouted loudly and often enough to qualify as a mantra.
So there it is — somewhat motley, but one can cobble together something from the pieces. As a coherent statement of ideology, it would be that Australia is a self-contained sovereign nation of laws, which the Morrison government is dedicated to preserve. Burkean conservatism with a whiff of nationalism.
The key to this philosophy, in theory, is that the body politic (enshrined by the constitution federally, and the grace of Her Majesty at state level) is sovereign in its right and power to make laws which we are bound to obey by our citizenship and from the arbitrary or unequal application of which we are protected by the rule of law.
There is an assumption that needs to hold for that neat arrangement to not collapse in on itself. Because you might notice that the only thing keeping it up is our willingness to go along with it.
The assumption is that the people entrusted with the keys to the castle keep will keep some kind of vague faith with the rule of law. Parliament has immense power to make laws; judges to interpret them, resolve disputes and punish guilt; ministers to wield the power of the state in myriad ways, including by spending its money.
You might see where I’m going with this. If power is not matched by responsibility, at least the pretence of it, then it has no legitimacy whatsoever, and eventually the proletariat will notice.
Which brings us to Simon Birmingham, the member of the Morrison cabinet you’d think least likely to blow up democracy. Addressing the latest and largest of his government’s epic adventures in corrupt pork-barrelling, the $660 million car park fund that disappeared into Coalition seats just before the 2019 election, Birmo broke from the usual defensive playbook — no rules were broken — with the refreshingly honest line: “The Australian people had their chance and voted the government back in.”
It didn’t have the pithy eloquence of Ned Kelly’s “such is life”, but full marks for chutzpah. If he’d flipped the bird at the Australian electorate it would have had no different meaning.
I suspect Birmo would never have thought to say something so outrageously arrogant and dismissive if he wasn’t serving under Morrison, for whom the attitude is first and second nature. That he did tells us something profound about this government: it no longer cares what we think. It’s not even pretending any more.
Which reminds me of another ruler who had a similar conceptualisation of his role in the order of things and an equal unconcern for how it looked.
King Charles I, who ruled England (and would have ruled us except we hadn’t been invaded yet) from 1625 to 1649, was one of history’s more renowned proponents of a theory of sovereignty and the rule of law known as the divine right of kings. As his dad, King James I, had put it: “[The monarch is] the absolute master of the lives and possessions of his subjects; his acts are not open to inquiry or dispute, and no misdeeds can ever justify resistance.”
The right was divine because the king sat “on the throne of God”.
Most ancient and feudal societies felt the same about their monarchs, or at least were compelled to do so. It’s where the idea of “absolute” monarchy comes from, to take it in a more secular direction; sovereignty, the right of the state to govern itself and make laws which the people are obliged to obey, exists literally in the person of the king or queen. That person being indivisible from the power they wield, it’d be a logical impossibility for them to be also subject to the laws they make.
Anyway, that’s what Charles thought, right up to the moment when they took his head off. So did Louis XVI of France, Nicolas II of Russia, and Gaddafi of Libya.
Charles’ dad had produced another, more famous book, the King James version of the Bible. He probably wasn’t being self-consciously ironic when he translated Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
The thing is, they never see it coming.
Like most publicity seeking, modern right wingers, members of the Morrison government, are only too happy to tell everyone how much they believe in the rule of law. Except of course, when the rules are applied to their own rorting, scandals and misdemeanours. Then; not so much.
I think you are missing the logic of their position – they make the law, therefore they rule, and what they say is the rule.
True, yet despite all the advantages of being able to make all the rules to suit themselves, their incompetence and laziness is such they still occasionally manage to fall foul of their own rules, hence their enduring horror of any oversight from, for example, a federal crime and corruption commission.
Is that the ever present “Midas Rule” – He who has the gold makes the rules!
Except that everything they touch does not turn to gold. Everything they touch turns to something else entirely.
Like God, or their version of him, Alfonse Gabriel Capone, they believe themselves as Untouchable. Some even believe, as the alternative, by God’s will. This statement by Birmingham, I have heard elsewhere too from another (can’t recall just who) is a real slap in the face and full of arrogance towards the constitutional Democratic system we are supposed to hold dear and to which fellows like him are supposed to have sworn to uphold. By that as well then he has identified himself and by association, to his government, and being the Leader of the Senate, that he disagrees with the constitution and Democracy. He should be held to account for what he meant. It sounds treasonous to me.
Morrison might well have the arrogance and the belief he enjoys divine favour that justifies a comparison with the not-very-lamented late King Charles I, but certain differences are also apparent. Charles was confronted by a determined and stubborn Parliament that refused to buckle to Charles’s demands even civil war threatened. Our Parliament is made of different stuff. Charles himself, though his political judgement was dismal, showed during the civil war and his subsequent trial that he had great personal courage and a remarkable ability to argue his legal case with great power and consistency. He was finally convicted mostly because the judges for his trial had been picked to ensure he lost. I cannot imagine for a moment that Morrison is capable of constructing and presenting a solid well-reasoned legal argument for anything or risking his personal safety to defend his cause.
ScoMo and co don’t care..they can rely on the general indifference to politics in Oz and the untrammelled/unhinged support of the Murdoch empire..
Birmingham was in fact correct, many voters voted for the government or LNP, hence, do not seem to care too much themselves about ethics and morals; acting as libertarians according to ‘public choice theory’.
But that same electorate didnt know about this before they cast their votes.
Just a tiny correction… Charles was born in 1600 but did not ascend to his ill-omened throne until 1625. Actually, I think the current incumbent somewhat wishes to channel the Sun King himself – l’etat, c’est moi…
And this reflects our current state of chaos. Chaos at the top leads to chaos all the way through.
Après moi, le déluge – I’ll be off on the Rapture.
Oh Scovid Morri$in heeds the bible alright, tithing taxpayers money to the tax free religious businesses is another of his rorts.
Corrupted census data on religion ‘gifts’ billions to Churches
https://theaimn.com/corrupted-census-data-on-religion-gifts-billions-to-churches/
Gaddafi wasn’t deposed by a coalition of his own people but by a sustained aerial attack by NATO which then enabled the opposition the opportunity for armed rebellion. For a bloke who gave his people free housing, free education and free medical from Libya’s oil revenues it’s a bit rich to accuse him of over-reach. Libya is still a anarchistic state from over a decade after that attack.