It’s a rare, and exhilarating thing when a leader actually leads. When our PM finally spoke out about Barnaby Joyce’s infidelity with real moral condemnation, the country almost collectively exhaled. Up until then it had been a dance of the seven veils from what is supposedly the family values side of politics.
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Until Thursday’s angry denouncement by the PM, you’d have had to ask - did anyone in Canberra even have a moral compass, or were they just too afraid where it might point if they did? Now it’s only the Nationals who have to face these fairly basic questions, and they aren’t looking good. So here are some guidelines for the morally confused among our friends from the bush. First of all - issues of honesty and self-control are vital to political leadership. What do we vote for in our leaders if not character - integrity, consistency, openness? And what truer test of character is there than the way a person treats their spouse?
Secondly, marriage, as we’ve been endlessly told by conservatives including Joyce himself, is a pillar of society. At heart it’s a promise to be faithful. That means two things - not having sexual relationships with others - unless that’s what both partners agree to do - and to tell each other the truth. Fidelity covers both.
Definitions of marriage do change. As a society we acknowledged forty years ago that marriages can end, and that’s okay. So nobody judges anyone these days if things don’t work out. Though of course, the reason for things ending carries a moral dimension. In almost every marriage breakup there is a party who feels they would have liked to have been given another chance.
So what would be an honest way to proceed, if one becomes disenchanted with a long term partner, and at the same time romantically or sexually drawn to a newer model? How about this for a guideline - don’t tell lies. Ask the new potential partner if she can wait. That’s the thing with ethical behaviour, sooner or later it’s going to be difficult. Then let your partner know that you want with kindness and care to dismantle what you both had. And wear it if they are furious or discarded.
Many older style males, have a line in self-deception around sexual misdemeanours that we have excused for millennia. Australian masculinity, of which there is no more archaic form than in the National Party, stretches larrikinism into what really should be called by its true name - terminal immaturity. And lest this be seen as male-bashing, the ethic applies equally to female choices. At the heart of feminism is sisterhood. So, don’t sleep with someone else's husband.
Infidelity is a massive chain of lies. Pretending nothing has changed, having sex with someone you no longer love and plan to abandon or acting as if things will be just fine with one’s children, when you know the time bomb is ticking on their world.
The capacity to deceive has to be enormous. Being that disloyal and that dishonest is not what you want in anyone remotely close to the wheels of power. It’s not just Barnaby Joyce on the chopping block here. We are seeing the coalition parties tested as to whether their so called conservatism is really just a flag of convenience, a lie to voters about what they truly believe. Issues of right and wrong still matter to the Australian people, because they matter in the real world a very great deal. There are few things more important in life than who you can trust.
Steve Biddulph is the author of The New Manhood, and Ten Things Girls Need Most.