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Sandpit politics

By Rob Moodie - posted Friday, 6 October 2006


The Federal Parliament is the most powerful symbol of our democracy. It is the most public of workplaces in Australia and one whose decisions affect our lives more than any other.

But you would expect comments such as “you’re weak”, “yer a fat so and so” and “you’re a snivelling grub” to emanate from the local primary school sandpit rather than the bastion of our political system.

You might say it’s just the rough and tumble of politics and if they can’t take the heat then they should “get out of the kitchen”. Perhaps, but I’d be asking the politicians to substantially lift their games for two reasons – one is about health – their health and our health, and the other is about productivity.

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Let me explain. When our pollies take to each other in this manner, it reinforces that this sort of behaviour is a standard part of the daily theatre of life. It gives it that little extra nudge that this is the sort of “tough” behaviour we should aspire to in workplaces across the nation.

Yet we are learning that the way we treat each other is one of the major factors determining how well or sick we are – it’s not just germs or whether we smoke, or how active we are, or where we live, our education or income levels.

Discrimination and abuse perpetrated on the basis of gender, political, cultural or religious background, sexual orientation, or level of ability are some of the most unfortunate yet enduring characteristics of humanity.

Depression and anxiety are two frequent outcomes of discrimination and persistent abuse. Up to 30 per cent of depressive symptoms in high school children is associated with harassment, and in my view you can safely extrapolate that level of depression to bullying in our workplaces.

Am I overdoing the description of our parliaments? Some like Jan Wade, the former Liberal Victorian Attorney General describe parliament as “a boy’s own culture that rewards bullies”, and the Greens senator Kerry Nettle says “personal abuse is part of political life”. But does it have to be so?

Fortunately or unfortunately, we aren’t on our own. In the UK a report referring to the behaviour of MPs described the House of Commons as “a backward institution that needed to be dragged into the next century”. In New Zealand they have “aggressive and warlike behaviour in the debating chamber”.

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Behaving badly also affects the health of our politicians and their staffers. We know from studies such as the one by the University of Melbourne’s Associate Professor Tony LaMontagne and his colleagues, Workplace Stress in Victoria: Developing a Systems Approach, that jobs with high demand, low job control and job insecurity – all factors of life for MPs - result in really high levels of anxiety and depression.

As with other jobs, long hours, heavy workloads, high pressure and constant public scrutiny together with the competing demands of family life, especially young children, can build up an awful lot of pressure.

If the pressure goes unchecked, it makes it worse. As Greg Barnes, a former federal adviser has pointed out, it “was virtually impossible for MPs and staff to find a shoulder to cry on” as vulnerability was perceived as weakness.

Throw into that mix bullying, abuse and interpersonal conflict and our MPs are literally “asking for it”. I think I can safely predict that even if they don’t realise it, belting the stuffing out of each other isn’t doing much for their mental health, or even their physical health.

When we harm each other in this way it not only results in diminished mental health but also diminished productivity. How much time and energy did Beazley and Tuckey spend last Thursday and Friday stewing over their spat and the media’s focus of the incident, instead of on the issues that we have elected them to consider?

If you think bullying and abuse is just part of life then at least think of the economic consequences. Progressive workplaces actively promote the mental and physical health of their employees. Why? Because as outlined in a recent report by Medibank Private, employees with a high health and well being score are three times as productive as those with a low score.

Recently the federal and many state governments have made very welcome and substantial increases in mental health funding. There is a certain irony that this happens, yet on the other hand our elected representatives are become role models for behaviour that in turn destroys mental health – theirs and ours.

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Article edited by Mark Bahnisch.
If you'd like to be a volunteer editor too, click here.

This article was first published in the Herald Sun on 16 August 2006.



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About the Author

Rob Moodie is Professor of Global Health at the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne. Between 1998 and 2007 he was the CEO of VicHealth. He is co-editor of three books, including Hands on Health Promotion. He is currently writing a book called Recipes for a Great Life with Gabriel Gate.

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