The life cycle of a politician is a simple one. You start off wanting to make a difference. Everyone has their own personal motivation, but one way or another, you see a difference to be made, and believe you’re the person to make it.
Then you enter the political machine, and discover that nobody can make a difference without power. And nobody gets power without compromising. So you compromise a little. Then you compromise a little more. Eventually it pays off, and you have power, but you’ve traded away the last vestige of that difference you wanted to make, and your every move is directed toward holding onto power. Then you lose power, and you spend the rest of your life bemoaning the absence of principles in politics.
This process isn’t unique to one side of politics. It cuts across parties, ideologies and factions. To be seduced by power is easy, particularly when you’ve convinced yourself that one day, when the time is ripe, you will make a difference. You just have to make sure your power is secure first: after all, without power, nobody can do anything. But one day…
There’s no way to stop this, unless the people with power, and the people seeking it, stop to ask themselves, “Why am I here?”
And so, Labor flails away mightily at Malcolm Turnbull for his plutocratic tax arrangements, because bringing Turnbull down is necessary to get the chance to do all those great things that Labor plans to do, that they’ve forgotten the detail of for the moment but which will be great when they happen. And in government, the Liberals bash Bill Shorten for his union past, because only by destroying Shorten can they retain the power that will allow them to do…well, whatever it is it’ll be great for the country, once they get around to it. Just as in opposition they hammered Julia Gillard for any reason they could think of, because they needed power to make a difference, and that difference will be made one of these days. And so it goes on, both sides attacking endlessly, because power, once you’ve compromised your way out of the purposes you wanted it for in the first place, becomes the end game itself.
And there’s no way to stop this, unless the people with power, and the people seeking it, stop to ask themselves, “Why am I here?” To build a great career? For the glory of the party? Or to make a better country? And if it’s the latter, will they prove it? Will they congratulate their enemies when they have a good idea, rather than find pretexts to oppose? Will they use their time in parliament to advance the causes they believe in, rather than to give the other side a kicking? And will they attack only because they are convinced there is a bad idea that needs attacking, and that they have a better one?
Or will the difference they once sought to make remain neglected in favour of the need to smite the enemy? I would like to think it’s possible, even at this late degraded stage of history, for some to remember that winning and losing is the business of football teams, not government. I would like to think someone, in the corridors of power, will summon the self-awareness to ask, “What am I for?”
