Tony Abbott: not a serious man

In his first State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama called for politicians to “overcome the numbing weight of our politics.” It’s a tall order to ask politicians to rise above politics in the interests of the greater good, nevertheless the President made this request. He went on to observe that “what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is Election Day. We can't wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about the other side - a belief that if you lose, I win.”

A similar frustration is abroad among the Australian people. At the beginning of this election year, our politicians are already polishing up their egos, and, if Abbott’s performance is anything to go by, spending a lot of their time figuring out ways to undermine and hopefully terminally demolish their opponents. Now here’s a radical thought. What about doing this through policy? Through reasoned and considered debate about the challenges that face us as a nation and as a member of the global community? Without the muck-raking, without the extravagant and unsubstantiated claims and insults.

I’m not asking for any post-partisan utopia, I just want an election year with serious politicians seriously considering the serious problems they will be elected to seriously address.

A serious person does not, for example, write climate change off as “crap”. Whatever your position on this contentious topic, what is certain is that things are changing, people are suffering and that suffering will increase if the changes aren’t urgently addressed. Abbott’s dismissal of the situation as “crap” revealed much about the non-serious nature of his character. His subsequent wild allegations substantiate that revelation. Here is a man who is far from serious in his approach to difficult and demanding circumstances. Here is a man who is perhaps incapable of taking a serious look at big picture challenges, a man whose vision is essentially parochial, and who is willing to say anything, no matter how outrageous and slanderous, to gain the support he believes will get his party back into government.

Abbott is far from alone in taking such a regrettable position, but he is currently providing us with the most dramatic example of this dubious political art form.

President Obama again: “Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, no matter how malicious, is just part of the game. But it's precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people. Worse yet, it's sowing further division among our citizens, further distrust in our government.”

Right on, and emphasis mine.