A good article in this morning’s paper:

Last year, Peter Costello gave a lecture in which he said, in contrast to totalitarian regimes such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which punish dissent, he upheld the value of a tolerant country that allows dissenting views to flourish.

He bemoaned the disengagement of people from their communities and praised voluntary groups for their role in building social capital, trust and civic engagement.

He asked: What can government best do for the non-government sector, and answered: “The first thing is the very important maxim for government, ‘Do no harm’.”

Well, preventing others from doing good is doing harm. Gagging human rights charities from attempting to strengthen protections, or closing down aid organisations that lobby governments to increase the aid budget, or browbeating welfare agencies into silence is doing harm. Threatening to revoke the charitable status of organisations that engage in advocacy is doing harm.

When Howard refused to stand aside for Peter Costello last year, good ol’ Pete vowed to speak out more and play a more visible role in politics. At the time, I called for a leadership challenge, saying:

The chosen one is probably more progressive than the man of steel in matters of social policy, and much more prone to express his politics in terms of fairness and equity. The big white elephant which the chosen one may have in his sights (at least to maim if not kill) is the federal government’s deplorable recent record on refugees.

Well, I take it back. So far Costello’s engagement in public life have represented a throw-back to 50s parochialism, with the idea that church and community should do more so that government doesn’t have to. He has shown little discernment about where he spruiks his message, and meanwhile has made no statements or indications about how government should match or reflect the demands that he puts on individuals.

Along the way, he has managed to become even less popular than the man of steel. Seriously, how would you feel to have the man of steel beat you in a popularity contest, to be so ineffectual that people would prefer one of the most fear-mongering, dishonest politicians of recent years to continue as PM in preference to you.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2004 at 11:48 am by dan and is filed under oz politics and society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.