Listening to the various media commentary about the wikileaks revelations relating to Australian politics, it occurs to me that none of the commentariat seem to appreciate the bigger issues around free speech or democracy, or are at least unwilling to discuss them. On the 7:30 Report they interviewed Hugh White and Alexander Downer. Both of them were talking about the revelations that Arbib and co were discussing delicate political and governance matters with US diplomats, and revealing to them things that the Australian public did not know. They both said that such behaviour was normal and unremarkable, but it was also embarrassing. On The Drum, Thom Woodroofe and Annabelle Crabb agreed.
I find this completely incredible. None of them seemed to see the incredibly obvious contradiction in these propositions – if it is normal and OK, then why is it embarrassing? We’re not talking about the kind of embarrassment one might experience if they realised their fly was undone, or they called someone the wrong name. It is embarrassing because a part of their conduct has been made public, that they would rather was not public. We need to ask why it is that Mark Arbib would have sworn when he saw this morning’s headline, and the answer is that there is something seriously dodgy about what he did. The same applies to Cesar Melham and Kathy Jackson. If they were comfortable with their actions and had a clean conscience about them, then why would they have neglected to mention it to their members? Why would they prefer their members didn’t know? Of course everyone is entitled to a degree of privacy, and to hold private conversations. But if you are acting in your role as an elected representative, you clearly should not be doing anything that you would not be comfortable disclosing in the future.
These commentators must be incredibly out of touch if they cannot see anything wrong with this. In the case of Arbib, he was telling the US that Rudd’s position was not secure in October 2009 – eight months before the challenge. So he was happy for a foreign government to know, but not the voters he was elected by, and who pay his wages. This attitude that this is somehow OK, is extremely arrogant. It shows how out of touch this ruling class are, and the contempt with which they hold democracy. It doesn’t even seem to occur to them that there might be a problem with keeping the public in the dark about such matters.
An interesting result of the wikileaks controversy of recent times, is that it flushes out those who do not have democratic instincts from those who do. There are many, many people who are unashamedly outraged that the public have found out all this stuff, and think it is treason. And there are those mentioned above, who just have a cynical disregard for democracy. I get the feeling that in another place and time, under a totalitarian regime, the above two groups would be the appeasers, or the enthusiastic supporters of repression. They would be the ones who would unquestioningly participate and assist the Government.
On the other hand, there are a great many people – possibly the majority, who are supporting wikileaks as an act of democracy, and are outraged by the repression of Assange, and the behaviour of our elected leaders. These people are the ones I trust.
