Public Servants Attack Democracy, Clueless Media Help Out

I'm sure everyone's heard about the whole Lui Fitzgibbon flap and have no doubt been inundated by a breathlessly hysterical media building towards orgasm over what it sees as the first real scandal of the Rudd government. Where these 'journalists' have been living the past 12 years I don't know, but that's hardly important. The important thing is that the media, seeing a chink of light in their hereunto fruitless, 3 year attempt to tar Rudd with something, anything, are engaged in helping unelected public servants undermine the duly elected representative of the electorate.

In our political system unelected employees like moi work under the auspices of a minister, who is elected by vous, the great unwashed. This is so faceless apparatchiks can't abuse their power by dint of having been around for a while and knowing all the relevant skullduggery. Well, at least in theory, in real life power is usually abused by whoever the lowest common denominator has determined they would like to drink a beer with, but it's the principle I'm talking about. Theoretically, the minister represents you, against the implacable force of breaucracy that self-divides and propagates geometrically, seeking to absorb more of your money to keep itself alive. Currently your federal representative overseeing the defence portfolio is being dethroned by appointed bureaucrats, most of whom were appointed by a previous government. And the media is helping them.

Usually the media only damages our democracy inadvertently, like through 12 years of idleness and sloth, or by failing to accurately report critical events in history and helping us into the most disastrous voluntary conflict since Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Little things like that. This time, it appears that the media are singularly focussed on a narrow scandal angle and are almost deliberately ignoring the fact that if they legitimise an attempt by a disgruntled department to unhorse its democratically elected overseer we might as well give up on our Westminister system right now and switch to some sort of third world patronage oligarchy right now.

This is not whistle blowing, there is a clear difference between people like Andrew Wilkie giving the media privileged information in an attempt to avert a catastrophe (in which case he would have been better off hiring a sandwich board than talking to a member of the lobotomised media) and department insiders leaking the particulars of a dodgy investigation into its own minister. If you cannot appreciate this difference, there is little hope for you. The media are again patting themselves on the back for having dealt what they see as a massive blow to the Rudd govt. despite all evidence to the contrary, and seem unconcerned that they have played an active role in undermining our democracy. If this is the precedent, what happens when another band of insiders decide they want to run one of your government's departments how they want?