Radio Australia Today Editorial

OzCar. When politics gets in the way of ethics.

22 June 2009

The OzCar affair started as a simple allegation of favoritism to a car dealer.

Simply put, the claim is that the prime minister, Kevin Rudd’s office asked for departmental assistance for a car dealer in his constituency. A newspaper claimed the request was made in an email.

Now, under our mixed Westminster-Washington system of representative government, a member is entitled to ask for help to be given to a constituent, but in this case, if true, the PM may have overstepped the mark by showing special favouritism to this car dealer, who had allegedly lent him a car for personal use.

The Opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, sniffed blood and made a series of demands, including the resignations of the PM and his Treasurer (who had made some statements on the matter in federal parliament.

Unfortunately for Malcolm Turnbull, he had never seen the alleged email, and it appears he was being a tad reactionary.

The prime minister has certainly come out fighting over this, calling in the federal police and the auditor-general to investigate the email allegations, and demanding that Malcolm Turnbull either produce the email (the PM knows this isn’t going to happen, because Turnbull has stated that he has seen no such email), or apologise and resign.

It is unlikely that Malcolm Turnbull is about to accept these conditions. He is most likely to say that it is inappropriate to comment further while the federal police investigation is underway, and then hope that the matter goes away. His resignation is about as likely as the Iranian government deciding to step down over the allegations of vote rigging in last week’s election.

What this OzCar story does bring out is that a serious allegation has turned into a story about simple one-two politics. Premature calls for resignations has brought return calls for resignations. The Australian people are now looking to today’s sitting of parliament to see that what started as a political drama has lost all its gravitas, and become a soap opera farce. If a head does roll over this, the genesis of the matter will be forgotten. Allegations of favoritism by the two most powerful people in the land will matter less than who will be embarrassed more and who will be under pressure the most, and who will be the most likely to resign.

All this on a day when the Senate will be debating the government’s Emissions Trading Scheme, the core of its battle against climate change. Whole countries are threatened with being swamped by rising sea levels, but this is not the most imporrtant political story in the media in Australia today.

As I said in the title, pity us all when politics gets in the way of ethics.

– Phil