February 2006 #2

(Right Click here to download Audio - MP3)

I’m confused. Now, some may say that’s fairly normal for me but I want to be serious for a moment. As you’re probably aware, our parliament recently voted for the power to remove ministerial control over the drug, RU486 and hand it back to doctors. No doubt the public debate will continue to rage long after the final count of hands is done. But that’s not what I’m interested in at present. What interests me is the government’s and in particular, its senior minister’s response to the debate.

Tony Abbot, the failed friar, said some very interesting things in the lead up to the vote. Here’s what he said the day before it was taken.

“Let me make this fundamental point. I am a Minister of the Crown and I act in accordance with the ordinary canons governing ministerial responsibility. And sure, I am a Catholic, but the idea that Catholicism somehow dictates my public duties is dead wrong ...” I want to place this comment in the context of the current debate over “values”. The type of values our Prime Minister, in particular, wants us to display.

Values are something that are rather hard to pin down. One psychological definition of values says that “they emerge out of the models of the world we hold in that they represent implications for action. …values motivate behaviour…” In other words, we may not be able to pin point what motivates someone to say or do something, and probably neither can they but, and this is the crux of the matter, our values and our actions cannot be disconnected from each other.

This is what our esteemed Prime Minister has been banging on about for the last ten years. He says that if we are to build a better Australia we have to accept some common values and not only accept them but act on them. In 1997 he said to one group of businesspeople that if they wanted to continue to develop international business links they had better not only remember their economic interdependency but “most importantly of all our common values and our common humanity.”

What are these values that he says are common to all people? Gleaned from various speeches over the years he defines the outcome of our values as leading us to donate to charities, to respect all races, to modulate our behaviour, to drive us to promote freedom and equality and to accept that, “each of us should have the same opportunity to reach our full potential and share in what this great country has to offer.”

In January 2004 the PM declared that the reason people were moving their children out of the public and into the private school system was because public schools were “too politically correct and too values-neutral.” After blaming everyone from unions to the reds under the bed, Howard says one of the prime reasons people send their kids to private religious schools is because “it's to do with the values-driven thing.”

In a speech in October 2005 he told his audience that “the force of values and the spiritual force in our lives, and our community is always in the end infinitely more important and powerful than anything else.” Here we have the linking of spirituality and values and the power they can exert. In his Australia Day address this year he told his Press Club audience that not only should we put these values into practice we should “cherish” them because they have “served us so well in the past.”

Now what Howard doesn’t say here is how the power of values could be used for the betterment of the whole. It also leads us back to Tony Abbott and his denial of his own value and belief systems.

Abbott is steeped in the Catholic tradition. He is also a dyed in the wool conservative both in his political and moral stance. Although I didn’t grow up in a Catholic household I grew up in a very strict Presbyterian one. Conservative to the core and always voting against their interests, my parents instilled in me the values of honesty, propriety and thrift. However, when it came to religious and moral values, everything was unspoken. They were private, personal things, like not talking about your social class or your income. Yet, somehow, I’ve managed to choose a life course that has led me to be one of the “bleeding hearts” so often derided by Abbott’s ilk.

I try and give to charities and causes. I try and respect people of all races and creeds. I try to behave appropriately at all times and I constantly encourage people to strive for what ever it is they hope for. After attending public schools, technical colleges and a publicly funded university, I think my values are in rather fine shape. For those who know me I quite often make reference to my understanding of the Christian gospel and how it affects my life and the potential it has, along with the many other faiths, to lead to a better world.

I can proudly say that my values are the result of my life experience and encounters in and with the world. I can also state quite proudly that my values are influenced by my understanding and spiritual experience. Why cant Tony Abbott? Why is it he wants to deny his very upbringing?

Now I’m sure he is very proud ex St. Ignatius boy. In fact I suggest he would agree with the 1986 assessment of the Jesuit school system by it’s former Superior General who said the aims of the system were to produce a “well-rounded person who is intellectually competent, open to growth, religious, loving and committed to doing justice in generous service to the people of God.”

I realise we are not all “people of God” but having known a few Jesuits in my time, I think they have all been open to extending their commitment to justice to non-believers as well. Looking at Barnaby Joyce’s response to his political conundrums and you see a man much more ready to open his mind and heart to do what is right rather than what is only politically expedient (generally speaking of course). What a stark contrast between those who proudly demonstrate their values and declare them openly compared to a man who thinks denying them gives him some release from moral propriety.

John Howard’s ambiguousness when it comes to defining values doesn’t help Tony or us. In fact, it gives Tony the great out he has used so well in the last couple of weeks. I ask you, how can someone say that when it comes to public duty they don’t look back to their personal history and experience and draw on all that they have to offer in order to inform them on the decision they are about to take. Brian Harradine might have been an ultra-conservative but he never hid they fact he looked to his faith to guide his decisions. Tony Abbott is so ready to deny his faith that when challenged on the questions of his faith influencing his decisions he responded to the ABC correspondent, Catherine McGrath, “Well, I think that is an example of the kind of attitude which is not helping this debate.” He then goes on to elevate himself to the heights of two great men of faith, morals and values by saying, “There is nothing in anything that I have said about abortion that could not have been said by the Dalai Lama or MK Ghandi.”

No Mr. Abbott, you are not a great man of faith, morals and values. You are a man consumed by powerlust, the most dangerous driving force we know. The Dalai Lama and Mahatma Ghandi were proud to put their faith and values on display. They, unlike Tony Abbott were not confused at all but were leaders, focused on one thing, the elevation of the poor in heart, finance and spirit. That is what separates them from the vast majority of spiritual frauds and valueless politicians we have in Canberra masquerading as our “leaders”.