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Dancing with the devil

by Simon Longstaff

When Senator Brian Harradine announced his intention to 'blink' and enter into new negotiations over the Wik legislation, he immediately attracted the criticism of those who felt that he was 'dancing with the devil'. His critics wanted to know how he could reverse the position that he had adopted, as a matter of principle, just a few months before. In short, how could something judged to be so ‘wrong’ suddenly become, quite possibly, ‘right’?

Senator Harradine suggested that, in re-opening negotiations with the Prime Minister, he was choosing the lesser of two evils. He had always known that his failure to support the Government would lead to a double-dissolution triggered by Wik. However, the electoral performance of Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party, in Queensland, seems to have altered his sense of the danger flowing from a race-based election conducted along national lines. That is, Senator Harradine appears to have judged that compromise on the legislation was better than rubbing the lamp that holds the destructive genies that One Nation would harness.

Of course, the Prime Minister has also run the risk that he will be portrayed, by some, as having sacrificed principle in favour of expedience. Those who are prepared to accept nothing short of unwavering support for the old 10 point plan will condemn Mr Howard for finally accepting one with only 8.5 or 9 points.

Thus, both men are bound to be accused of having betrayed their own beliefs, done what they should not have done and emerged from the negotiating process with ‘dirty hands’. What are we to make of this charge? The most obvious point to make is that anyone who was hoping for a different outcome will add this latest compromise to their list of offences committed by politicians. As such, a few will be driven into the open arms of the three stooges of Australian politics Curly Hanson, Larry Etteridge and Mo Oldfield. Many more people will simply shrug their shoulders, mutter “it was ever thus” and sink a little further into the mire of public cynicism. Jean-Paul Sartre put the underlying issue in especially stark terms. In his play, Dirty Hands, he has the communist leader Hoerderer say: “I have dirty hands right up to the elbows. I've plunged them in filth and blood. Do you think you can govern innocently?”

It is a question that many people have tried to answer. One of the better attempts has been offered by Michael Walzer in his famous paper The Problem of Dirty Hands. He answers by arguing that we want people to enter politics who are not merely politicians (who will do anything to achieve their ends) and not merely good men or women (who will refuse to do what must be done during difficult times).

Instead, we want people who are prepared to take up the moral burden of leadership and do things for us even though, in the end, they will feel guilty. Finally, we want to accept the benefits these people secure while reserving the right to blame and censure them for using unethical means.

The classic example of this problem can be seen in the case of a political leader who, despite being profoundly opposed to the use of torture as morally repugnant, nonetheless authorises its use on a terrorist who knows the whereabouts of a series of biological weapons secreted around the city. As Walzer says:

Now he is a guilty man. His willingness to acknowledge and bear (and perhaps to repent and do penance for) his guilt is evidence, and it is the only evidence that he can offer us, both that he is not too good for politics and that he is good enough. Here is the moral politician: it is by his dirty hands that we know him. If he were a moral man and nothing else, his hands would not be dirty; if he were a politician and nothing else, he would pretend that they were clean.

Of course, we should guard against those who dress up naked self-interest as if it were some kind of public good. We should remain sceptical (but not cynical) enough to see through the tissue of lies that the politician 'who is nothing else' will use as cover for his selfish objective. That is why some commentators have questioned the motives of the Prime Minister and Senator Harradine. Most opinion seems convinced that an early, forced election would not treat Mr Howard very kindly. Likewise, Tasmania is fertile ground for One Nation and Senator Harradine's position would be at risk in the event of a double dissolution.

But perhaps, on this occasion, we have seen something different. Perhaps Senator Harradine and Mr Howard have reluctantly 'danced with the devil'; believing that they had no choice but to do so on our behalf. We may never know – except by the demeanor of each man as he explains his part.

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