Not A Pretty Sight: Everyone likes a good sausage, but if we knew exactly what went into the making of that sausage would it still taste so good? Democratic politics, too, is not always improved by too close an examination. It would, however, be a tragedy if Nicky Hager's book, Dirty Politics, caused people to abandon the political process altogether as irredeemably corrupt and to call down a plague upon the houses of both Left and Right.
IT WAS THE GERMAN CHANCELLOR, Otto von Bismarck, who warned
his countrymen that “laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being
made.” The same could be said for democratic politics generally. That democracy,
like a good sausage, is a wonderful thing, but you really do not want to know
what goes into it.
With this in mind, it is tempting to take Nicky Hager to
task for grabbing us all by the scruff of our necks and dragging us into the
sausage factory. This is especially so when we consider the observations of
right-wing political fixer, Simon Lusk, who Hager quotes in the first chapter
of in his book Dirty Politics: How Attack
Politics is Poisoning New Zealand’s Political Environment.
In an e-mail to Hager about negative campaigning Lusk writes:
“The are a few basic propositions with negative campaigning that are worth
knowing about. It lowers turnout, favours right more than left as the right
continue to turn out, and drives away the independents. Voting then becomes
more partisan.”
If Lusk is correct then the publication of Dirty Politics could have the perverse
outcome of suppressing the vote of those disgusted and demoralised by Hager’s
revelations while ensuring the maximum turnout possible by voters sympathetic
to John Key and the National Party.
It is certainly possible to infer from the response-lines
agreed upon by Key and his allies that this is precisely the outcome they are
seeking. It is presumably the reason for their constant reiteration of the idea
that Hager’s revelations are nothing new, or even very remarkable, given that
it has always been thus in the deeply compromised world of politics and
politicians. This idea of the ubiquity of political evil is reinforced by
TeamKey’s insistence that Hager’s behaviour is morally indistinguishable from
that of the dark anti-hero of Dirty
Politics, the blogger Cameron Slater. The sub-text here is simple: No one
in politics has clean hands – even Hager. After all, his book could not have
been written had the very same sort of hacking and privacy breaches which he so
roundly condemns when practiced by the Right not supplied him with an
information treasure-trove that was simply too compelling not to use.
Key, himself, has no choice except to point-blank refuse to
engage with Hager’s allegations in any way. Were he to do so, Hager would be
able to claim victory. This is because, in the most brutal terms: an allegation
responded to is an allegation taken seriously; and an allegation taken
seriously is an allegation which could, quite possibly, be true.
The moment Key allows the Chief Prosecutor, Nicky Hager, to
have the Prime Minister called as a witness before the Court of Public Opinion,
then, regardless of the nature of the evidence provided, the impression of
there being a case to answer will be indelibly stamped on the voter’s mind. And
that is “Game Over” for Key and the National Party.
No matter how shrill and false he may sound in the ears of
Hager’s supporters, the Prime Minister will continue to refuse to acknowledge
the possibility that Hager might be onto something. From now until Election
Day, the author of Dirty Politics can
only be “a screaming left-wing conspiracy theorist” who is “making it up”.
And there is method to this seeming madness. Key understands
that his followers have been rattled by the appearance of yet another
pre-election book by Nicky Hager. Their hero must, therefore, stand strong in
the face of his persecutor.
The Prime Minister will make the same claims over and over
again: Dirty Politics is without
foundation; part of a vast left-wing conspiracy to bring him and his government
crashing down; just one more vicious assault to set alongside
obscenity-shouting students, anti-Semitic boguns, and a feral underclass of
John Key effigy-burners. The slightest concession to even the most trivial of
his persecutor’s accusations will be interpreted by his followers as weakness –
tantamount to a full confession of guilt.
This is why the prime Minister is standing rock-solid behind
his former staffer, Jason Ede. Why he will take no action whatsoever against
his Minister of Justice, Judith Collins. Why he accepts the denials of Cameron
Slater without demur. And why he will not deign to read even so much as a
single word of Dirty Politics – not while
he is so clearly the victim of dirty
politics.
The Prime Minister can adopt this strategy because he knows
that TeamKey is sufficiently powerful to block any serious attempt by the
mainstream news media to take up the cudgels on behalf of Hager’s allegations.
The public broadcasters will not dare to do it and the commercial networks and
newspapers will not want to do it.
This failure will only intensify the feelings of disgust
among those who feel there is something very rotten at the heart of New
Zealand’s political system. In a grotesquely ironic abdication of the very civil
responsibilities Hager’s book is intended to strengthen and mobilise, thousands
of New Zealanders may yet abandon the political field altogether, calling down
a plague on the houses of both the Right and the Left as they depart.
If that happens then the cynical political analyses of Otto
von Bismarck and Simon Lusk will be vindicated. Hager will have demonstrated
that although he is able to lead voters into the interior of the sausage
factory, he cannot make them open their eyes.
What is it that John Lennon sings in his marvellous A Day In The Life?
A crowd of people turned away
But I just had to look
Having read the book.
This essay was
originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Friday, 15 August 2014.
