State and local government politics do not make as often as their powers would suggest, or as their influence in our daily lives might imply, headlines and main news items in Australia’s mainstream media. When that happens on many occasions, it is for the wrong reasons or has the wrong focus.
Given that State Governments and State Parliaments make laws on education, health, the environment, and the operation of emergency services, and taken into consideration that the states define the boundaries and the powers of local government, which handles community needs like waste collection, public recreation facilities and town planning, one might have expected a more prominent and a more in depth exposure of state and local politics issues on the mainstream media.
Yet…
Five months before an election and politics in the state of Victoria are making national headlines in the last few days because of the behaviour of maverick Frankston MP Geoff Shaw, who, along with ex-Liberal Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Ken Smith, can determine with their vote what legislation passes through Parliament or who governs Victoria until the election date of November 29.
The emphasis of the coverage of this issue during the last two weeks was on whether or not Geoff Shaw should be suspended from Parliament, as the State Government wanted and succeeded in doing so on Wednesday, or whether or not he should have been expelled from Parliament, as the Labor opposition unsuccessfully proposed.
An expulsion was going to force a by-election that the Napthine government was most probably going to lose, or could have made the Victorian Government a lame duck in the hands of Labor till November 29.
Shaw’s suspension, on the other hand, from Parliament for 11 sitting days, provided that he apologises, might give the Victorian Premier some breathing space that will enable him to fight the state election from a better position.
Even though he is consistently trailing in the polls, when Dennis Napthine tabled his budget in early May, the response was overall positive and some friendly media outlets, such as the Herald Sun, dared to call his budget, which has an emphasis on big infrastructure works, a game changer. This, of course, was before the backlash of the Abbott budget or before the latest chapter of the Geoff Shaw saga.
Labor, on the other hand, the party expected to win the state election, being in opposition, was and is still not making any substantial media inroads with its push to put health and education issues on the election agenda of the state.
During the past two weeks that the Shaw issue has been back as a main news story, Victorian Labor is also back in the news. The State Opposition, whilst pushing for the expulsion of the Frankston MP, was at the same time also saying that it was willing to prop up the Premier and to provide government stability until the election, if the State Government is prepared to negotiate key state legislation.
The way the whole Geoff Shaw saga has been handled so far, by both sides of state politics, reminds me personally of micropolitics and microtactics.
Regardless of how Geoff Shaw behaved or acted all these years, the fact remains that in relation to the specific misuse of his parliamentary car and fuel card, all the relevant institutions of the democratic state, Victoria Police, the Victorian Ombudsman and the Privileges Committee of the Victorian Parliament (even though it voted along party lines) found that his abuse was not against the law.
Despite Geoff Shaw’s many abhorrent behavioural patterns and views on a number of issues, including abortion, he is a democratically elected MP that the people of Frankston send to Parliament and only the people can and will remove him, most probably, at the next state elections.
In a democratic society and in a democratic state, institutions, independent bodies, and the decisions of the people need to rule supreme and to be respected by all if they are to safeguard and protect greater liberties and rights.
Their jurisdiction might not be able to deal with the likes of Geoff Shaw every now and then, but this is no reason to undermine their overall authority or to create negative precedents.
The defence and the protection of the guiding principles – the supremacy of the people – and the guiding structures of a liberal democratic state – independent bodies – must not be left only to former premier of Victoria Jeff Kennett, who consistently argued that Shaw must not be removed from Parliament.
The political and the democratic process in Victoria and in Australia, already under attack by vested interests and people’s indifference, must not be undermined and delegitimised even further, as a result of the handling of the Geoff Shaw issue by both the State Government and the State Opposition.
The government and parliament in Victoria can and should be able to carry on until election day, by disregarding the ‘presence’ of Shaw, and by using, if and when they have to, the casting vote of the Speaker of the Assembly.