The Commonwealth Police, predecessor to the current Australian Federal Police, had an almost ridiculous raison d’être for coming into existence. It was during the First World War, and the then Prime Minister, William Morris Hughes, was speaking to a crowd in Queensland, in the presence of the premier, who was not an ally. Someone threw eggs at Hughes, who indignantly demanded that the accompanying members of the Queensland constabulary arrest the miscreant. His words carried no authority with these servants of the Queensland government and he was ignored.
Hence a police force was created under federal jurisdiction to prevent future such assaults on the dignity of the Prime Minister.
WM Hughes is probably the most polarising figure in Australian history. Originally a product of the Labor Party, he split with them during the war over the issue of conscription, one where he was vehemently in favour, but the Irish Catholics who made up much of the rank and file vehemently opposed, becoming the earliest significant ‘rat’ in Labor Party demonology (although not quite the first). Still now the fifth longest serving prime minister, Hughes, over the next three and a half decades, continued to straddle Australian politics like a bucking bronco, serving in various governments and parties, and getting thrown out of more than one cabinet.
We have had other polarising figures, although I think that the closest we have come to Hughes in his prime was the toxic mid 1970s rivalry between Whitlam and Fraser, which pushed the conventions of our parliamentary system close to breaking point.
Despite that, we are lucky in that we have not had any real political violence. The murder of NSW MP John Newman in 1992 was more a matter of personal rivalries than political malice, and not, as some journalists claimed at the time, the first political assassination. Unsuccessful Liberal candidate Donald McKay was murdered in 1977 not because of his contribution to unseating extremely corrupt Labor MP (and closet mafia stooge) Al Grassby, but because he had been vocal in calling out Grassby’s mafia paymasters and corrupt local police for the blatant cultivation of marijuana crops around Griffith.
The closest to an actual assassination was the attempt on the life of then opposition leader Arthur Caldwell in the 1960s by Peter Kocan. But Kocan was not politically motivated – he was merely a mentally disturbed person who wished to make a name for himself. Apparently he now writes poetry, after been a guest of our mental health system for many years.
Whilst I was in Italy, there was an article in The Age which claimed that civil political dialogue had degenerated in recent years. It cited the incident where the NT Chief Minister was subjected to an assault where she was pied, and the suggestion by occasional boxer Anthony Mundine that a Yes campaigner step into the boxing ring with him to sort out their disagreements:
I very much disagree with the premise in that article. The instances I have mentioned above from Australian history, going back over a century, are probably the most vicious which have occurred during the 122 years since Federation. We have for the most part gotten along fine for a very long time.
If professional boxer Mr Mundine suggests someone get into the ring with him, in a distorted form of trial by combat (a medieval, arguably Arthurian, manner of settling political or legal questions), this is still more civil than the way that the NSW Labor- Right faction machine would sort out its differences in the 1970s and 80s, where it would surreptitiously break the bones of its internal rivals from the Left faction.
Then we have the quaint and Homer Simpsonesque practice of putting a pie in the face of a political figure. It is now over 20 years since the rather eccentric Marcus Brumer (with whom I was vaguely acquainted in his pre-pieman days and whom I consider to be a good bloke) got into trouble for putting pies into the faces of various politicians. Better pies than bullets, given what we see in much of the rest of the world.
The Age article does talk a bit about how social media is partly to blame for a reduction in civility. They do have a point there. In the two months since I joined Facebook, I have noticed that there are some semi-literate trolls who choose to throw abuse instead of reasoned debate and make ad hominem (they won’t understand that term) from the comfort of their keyboards. But then, the average IQ is 100, which means that perhaps half the population have less than the average IQ, but are still close enough to be able to use a phone, read the sports pages of the Herald Sun and count up to 21 in the shower. There is nothing new there.
I believe that we are very lucky in Australia, and that political dialogue remains as civil as it ever has, regardless of the timeless tendency of those who claim moral authority to try and shut up those with whom they disagree.
Lost For Words! 