This morning, Australia woke to our fifth national leader in just as many years.
Not
too long ago, Italy’s prime ministerial turnover rate was the laughing
stock of the world. Within the span of just five years, its highest
office was occupied by Berlusconi, Monti, Letta and now Renzi. Australia
now inherits that mantle, even going one better.
Long gone it
seems are the eight or 11 year reigns enjoyed by Bob Hawke and John
Howard. Now, the average prime ministerial tenure is a mere 12 months.
Frank Underwood would be proud.
I love this country. So for me, Monday was a day of profound sadness. How did we ever get to this? Whatever we might think of the Abbott government, how did the highest office in the land lose all its dignity and authority?
Not only has it been totally trashed by both sides of politics. It seems that even the Australian public sees it as a trivial joke or even worse, as sport.
Just look at the way in which social media reacted to the events of the last 24 hours. As soon as Malcolm Turnbull resigned on Monday at four o’clock, twitter lit up with ‘IT’S ON #libspill’ – as if we were watching a Friday night UFC match. Sure, politics is a blood sport. But the extent of schadenfreude and even glee at the government’s implosion was shocking.
For all the amusing comparisons with Game of Thrones, the prime ministership isn’t cheap entertainment; it’s serious business. And last night’s events were not the invention of an exciting House of Cards episode, they were reality.
In times like this, it is easy for us all to forget what is at stake. There is nothing to be gained and everything to be lost by political destabilisation on this scale.
It injures Australia’s international reputation. It creates an uncertain regulatory environment for business. It acts as a major handbrake on implementing long-term social and economic reform. And it distracts the Parliament from its core task: ‘to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good’ (1 Pet 2:14).
Worst of all, it perpetuates a toxic political culture which elevates expediency and self-interest over principle and the public good. By debasing the prime ministership and treating it as the plaything of vaulting ambition, it demolishes what little national respect we once had for our leaders.
There is no cause for laughter here. There is no reason to joke, mock or sneer at what has happened or who has fallen. Today, I for one despair. The office of prime minister is literally that of the ‘first servant’. And yet, from Rudd to Gillard to Rudd to Abbott and now to Turnbull, service is what seems to be entirely absent.
Instead of the individual serving the office, the office now serves the individual and his or her ambition.
The Bible consistently recognises and affirms the importance of servant leadership. The king of Israel would ‘continue long in his kingdom’ but only if he submitted to the ‘words of the law’ (Deut 17:14-20). And King Lemuel of Proverbs 31 was taught by his mother to exercise power not for himself but for the destitute, poor and needy.
In Jesus, we find both the consummate Davidic king and the selfless suffering servant. We find the one and only leader who ‘did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men’ (Phil 2:6-7). This is the selfless leader for whom our hearts long. This is the selfless leader in whose shadow our political culture stands in shame.
The irony is that the only one without a messiah complex is the Messiah himself.
How will we respond to the coup of yet another prime minister? Glee? Disappointment? Anger? Of all people, Christians have the greatest reasons for hope. The leader whom we follow, the God whom we worship, can be trusted to work all things for his glory which is our greatest good.
‘Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God’ (Psalm 20:7).
Image: The Big Picture, the opening of the Parliament of Australia on 9 May 1901, by Tom Roberts from Wikipedia.
