"EVERYBODY is well and truly sick of politicians," said Barnaby Joyce as he left Canberra yesterday.
"And I think that politicians are well and truly sick of themselves."
The LNP senator's self-deprecation and bush wisdom showed not the decrepitude but the strength of our democracy. After a week of intimidation and interrogation, debate and debilitation, it is fashionable to lament our politics and our politicians. To be sure, a hung parliament, torrid controversies and a looming election have elevated the temperature and lowered the tone. Yet, to varying degrees, it has ever been thus. The parliament performs as a pressure valve for the confrontations of the nation.
Julia Gillard is a formidable leader who has been placed under enormous and justifiable pressure over the AWU affair. The Australian maintains she would have been best served to open up with a detailed account long ago, and we support opposition calls for a judicial inquiry. The Prime Minister owes voters a better explanation for a series of troubling revelations. Yet her strategy of stonewalling, obfuscation and counter-attack has been executed expertly. She has many in the press gallery cowed, not to mention some on the opposition benches and in her own ranks. In a minority government, facing a rampaging Opposition Leader, and with a former leader breathing down her neck, survival is her top priority. Her skill and grit is a prime asset for her ambitions and those of her party.
Ms Gillard has weathered disastrous polling and a leadership challenge to adhere to a long-term recovery plan based on a diminishing carbon tax backlash. So far -- however scrappy and tenuous -- her plan is providing hope for Labor. Her performances on the world stage have shown how Ms Gillard has grown into the job, and while her National Disability Insurance Scheme, Gonski and Murray-Darling Basin plans face massive gaps between promise and delivery, they form a worthy agenda. This newspaper has always accepted her government's legitimacy, so long as it commands a majority in the house. We have never called for an early election, and now it can only happen in the scheduled year.
When Ms Gillard challenged Tony Abbott to detail his AWU case in parliament, the Opposition Leader calmly put a compelling case. He eschewed invective in favour of facts and specific accusations. It was a better effort than Ms Gillard's shrill response. His argument will haunt the government to the election. Mr Abbott seized his leadership three years ago today, turning around a moribund outfit. He triggered a crisis of self-confidence in the government and a prime ministerial coup before Labor lost its majority at the 2010 election. Mr Abbott pushed the Prime Minister to the brink this week, and found time to publish a book of positive policies. His position is secure, he has his party well ahead in the polls, and if an election were held tomorrow he would almost certainly win. We saw a fierce struggle between worthy adversaries this week -- a battered government holding off an impatient opposition. Despite occasional overreach, each showed plausible strategies. We have seen testy parliaments before -- Keating versus Hewson, Howard versus Latham -- but the theatre and toxic debates test ideas, policy and character.
Our democracy works.
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