Power Trip
The pandemic-induced triumph of power over democratic process will further erode our trust in the political establishment. By David Kemp.
The pandemic has highlighted some simple, and sometimes harsh, truths about ourselves, our leaders, and our democracy. These truths are long known but often forgotten amid the pressures of daily life.
The most important truth is that as individuals, we suffer and some of us die, not from the virus, but from the lack of freedom to express and achieve our values and pursue our dreams. The second most important is that when our democratic process is shelved, even temporarily, and its checks on government power and authority are weakened, too many of our politicians (and public servants) will abuse the sudden surge of power they acquire.
The pandemic has shown this in stark terms. Victoria is the standout case. Empathy for individual people is replaced by coerced conformity, as in the curfew. Rational persuasion becomes deliberate fostering of fear and threat. Legitimate, professional and public debate on policy is shut down.
Policy turns neighbour against neighbour. Arbitrary and pointless rules humiliate citizens. People are used as a means to demonstrate power, not as ends in themselves. Respect for the voter becomes contempt for the demand for freedom, and the dignity of the individual is subordinated to demands for conformity.
That is not all. New and unaccountable centres of power suddenly appear — national cabinet and state crisis committees — undermining the responsibility of ministers and governments. Power is centralised, rule of law is replaced by arbitrary discretion, and due process is overridden.
We should not be surprised what happens when power becomes close to absolute. These disturbing occurrences underline how vital our civil liberties, democratic processes and constitutional constraints are to our wellbeing as a people and a nation.
Australians have always been sceptical of their politicians, but democratic elections and civil liberties give our governments wide legitimacy to act. While wars and pandemics expand the scope of the authority the people will concede to governments, politicians are still on probation.
Before the pandemic, the Australian Election Study found the belief that “people in government can be trusted” fell from 48 per cent in 1996 to a distrustful 25 per cent in 2019. In that year, 75 per cent believed their politicians looked after themselves rather than their constituents.
One of the main lessons of the pandemic crisis will be that the historic Australian scepticism of politicians is well justified. Only a select minority of the political class respects the spirit of democracy and dignity of the individual when constitutional constraints are relaxed and the opportunities for untrammelled power arise.
Why is this happening? It has to do with the way self-interest – the main driver of behaviour – plays out. The interests of individuals, communities, organisations and governments are always, and everywhere, to gain maximum autonomy for themselves. They want to be able to take decisions that express their values and priorities. They seek control over their environment to secure their freedom and influence.
It is principally the moral rules, institutions and laws — within which individuals, communities, organisations and governments operate — that determine the incentives that shape self-interest. Democracy, just laws and civil liberties empower individuals and check governments. When these cease to operate effectively, abuses of power rapidly appear.
Arbitrary power is never short of justification. It claims its rule is needed to defend the people and defeat the threat. The constant emphasis by our leaders, aided by many journalists, on COVID-19 case numbers, rather than death or organ-damage rates, is the pandemic’s parallel scare to the dictator’s foreign aggression.
Our elected politicians need to remember that one day soon we will know for sure how serious this threat was. Common sense already tells us that, whatever the initial fears, it is not the black plague or even the Spanish flu. We already know the extreme exercises of power — unconstitutional border closures, schooling suspension, curfews, internal travel restrictions, economic destruction — have not been part of the most effective responses in Australia or other countries.
We have also learnt health “experts” are not policy experts, but merely disciplinary specialists. They have little awareness of the social and economic consequences of their logic of preventing human interaction, on which they place so much weight. It is the politician whose task has always been to bring wider human, social and economic understanding to policy. That has not stopped our leaders relying on the simplistic logic of specialists to justify exercises of power for which they alone will ultimately be held accountable.
Finally, we have learnt that political philosophies matter when crisis amplifies the human weaknesses of our leaders as democratic restraints weaken. The most horrific excesses have come straight from Victoria’s socialist left and its Premier Daniel Andrews, with paler shadows from Labor premiers Mark McGowan in WA and Annastacia Palaszczuk in Queensland. The authoritarianism of those whose philosophies are based on centralised power and imposed conformity — pandemic or not — has been unmistakeable.
In this age of bloated and interfering government, when politicians have become accustomed to the use of power, Liberal leaders have also been tempted by its corruptions. Outside NSW, few, with the notable exception of Josh Frydenberg and a select minority, have called out the excesses and been heard as voices on behalf of the dignity of individual people. It is time for the Prime Minister to recognise — as he identified early — that giving priority to his relations with those who abuse their power and disrespect their citizens is not consistent with the strong lead the nation needs.
David Kemp is a former Howard cabinet minister. The 4th volume of his book on the history of Australian liberalism is forthcoming. This article first appeared in The Australian.
The third in David Kemp’s landmark five-volume history of liberalism in Australia focuses on the political battle after Federation (1901-1925) to achieve unprecedented levels of social and economic equality, while preserving both national independence and individual freedom.