Politics is a profession and it should be of grave concern that there is no real means by which politicians are disciplined for telling fibs in the public domain as other professionals might be.
In fact, politicians seem to think of spinning their way out of trouble as a thing to be rewarded, rather than viewing it as an egregious sin as other professionals would.
Consider various professions and what happens if they fail to keep themselves nice.
Tax agents, for example, are obliged to be truthful under law and ethical standards. A misstep that causes a cost to clients or brings discredit to a profession can see an agent disciplined.
An incident that is serious enough can have them barred from the profession for life.
Auditors that fail to perform their duties competently may find themselves the subject of enforcement action or have their registration to audit under the law removed.
Doctors and lawyers have similar kinds of rules that result in them being struck off if they breach professional ethics.
An individual that discusses confidential issues outside a corporate environment may well find themselves on the next bus to a Centrelink office because they breached an important condition of their employment contract.
Where does the disciplinary regime exist for the political class?
Public shaming through the media is not a disciplinary regime. It is essential in a democracy that the media is able to hold a government to account, but that in its own right is insufficient.
Punishment at the ballot box is the ultimate sanction, but there is no guarantee that a particular electorate will remove a popular local member even if there are questions hanging over specific issues. They might want to keep the devil they know rather than let the other mob in.
Is there any real disciplinary regime for politicians or are people forced to wait for their political parties to take matters into their own hands?
Politics is no more a profession than grave robbing, aggravated assault, carpet bagging, grand theft, real estate, used car sales, sexual assault, domestic violence etc. It is just an activity by which some people choose to earn a living or enjoy themselves.
My vague understanding had been that a profession required formal accreditation training, acceptance by an independent professional registration board, the actual adherence to defined standards of professional conduct – probity, ethics, moral behaviour, honesty, respect for others, respect for the law etc.
My experience, as collateral damage of the political class, has led me to mostly disbelieve any said or seen. Any productive outcome of value to the community at large gained through political activity or discourse is generally just an unintended side effect.
Yes. Some time ago in the UK a young man stole a car, and was killed soon after when he crashed in into a concrete wall. He was described on the news as a car thief. His father, boiling with anger, then complained loudly and publicly that this description was defamatory, because his son was really a “professional twoccer”. (TWOC = Taking Without Owner’s Consent.)
I have often wondered about the governing body for this profession, its standards and the rules it requires its members to follow. I expect they are more onerous than the standards and rules for professional politicians.
No spades here – “a rose would by any other name…”
Two good examples this weekend – a bloke claiming the half century old name Gaytime ice cream is denigrating “his community” and in the UK midlands Batley Grammar school in pre-emptive grovel over yet another religious bigotry incident.
Murdoch is the main problem.
Ban foreigners from owning Australian media.
Watch Rupert slink off back home to America.
Trump didn’t write the rule book on this but he turbo charged it and EVERY pollie saw what he could get away with and there is no putting the genie back in the bottle.It has become the new norm now.
Did he get away with it? He got one term at the end of which he was soundly defeated and some very conservative states dumped his party. Prosecutions are now under way. It’s time some prosecutions started in Australia.
You mean the slimy Democraps are any better ? You think Obummer & Killery were good people? You think Obummer deserved his Nobel Peace Prize ? -which should have been ripped off him immediately he invaded & bombed more than Bush did.
I’m no Trumpet fan BUT the Election was Rigged there & a senile old fool inserted.
In answer to your questions, no, no and no in that order. The US voters had nowhere much to go. Here in Australia we have no way of knowing the realities of the electoral process but the bombing continues anyway.
Another white Christian nationalist communication ‘technique’ is using the old Soviet ‘whataboutery’ of false equivalence to create confusion; GOP operators have learnt a lot from the Soviets or Russians on agitprop.
How can the election be rigged by the party not in power? That would be quite the feat.
Honesty in politics has suffered considerably from the meeja’s shift from reportage to ‘journalism’, that first and last bullsh*t ‘profession’ of frustrated novelists, craven would-be power players, and the pathologically prurient curtain-twitcher. The political media is now obsessed with big picture analysis, ‘colour’ pieces, strategic and tactical theorising, joining dots…(gags) ‘story telling’ (vomits). Journalists have decided it’s up to them to ‘explain’ politics to us, rather than just report what politicians do and say.
Lucky us, huh.
The Gallery takes an embarrassingly contrived ‘world weary’ pleasure in presenting themselves as cynical, sceptical ‘gatekeepers against spin’, but their undergraduate obsession with it actually makes them witless, hapless captive to the professional spinners, who run rings around them now. Because it’s a material lie, in isolation, that is the easiest to spot, and butcher. Call it out. ( Is that sentence true? Is that statement true? Is that material claim true? Questions of fact. Yes or no. How many. When. And so on.)
But the Gallery is much too posh and sophisticated for such hillbilly trifles, right? And it’s their anxious obsession with ‘insider narrative’ that gives political liars all the room they need.
Timely article. We need to reset the way we do political-press-public conversation.
Sorry Tom, you lost me at ‘Politics is a profession’
Yes it is.So is prostitution.
And it is a highly skilled one that does good all around.
So very unlike politics.