Introduction
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- Listen to the wants of his or her constituents, but not be swayed by views that might be popular but also be mistaken or contrary to a high standard of ethics;
- Behave ethically, in particular, honestly, truthfully;
- Help the disadvantaged in their constituency obtain equality: legal, social, economic and political equality, including equality between the sexes;
- Vote in parliament with a strong consideration for the good of their constituents, for all Australians, and for our shared and fragile environment.
That is, voting for what is right, not simply to follow party dictates;
- Do what is right, according to an educated and ethical view;
- Be accountable to their constituents and to the public at large, be willing and able to provide evidence and/or references supporting the truth of their statements;
- Be constructive, positive and proactive rather than the opposite;
- Treat his or her constituents with respect;
- Politicians who are in parties have a responsibility to limit the excesses of their leaders. All politicians, of whatever party or none, should do what they can to confine the relevant state or national leader to ethical actions.
A good politician will not:
- Lie or mislead;
- Make statements without being able and willing to provide supporting references or evidence;
- Exploit the gullibility of his or her constituents;
- Try to push his constituents toward supporting his own agenda;
- Run scare campaigns for any reason, especially they should not try to frighten their constituents in order to get them to support their own personal selfish aims;
- Prioritise criticism of the opposing parties over constructive and positive activities;
- Treat his or her constituents contemptuously, that is they should not treat the voters as if they were ignorant, gullible or stupid;
- If in opposition they should not oppose what the party in power is doing for political gains.
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As detailed by the Australian Museum climate change is impacting heat, fire, drought, extreme weather events, sea level rise, coral reefs, biodiversity, communities and human health.
So a responsible politician should do what he can to reduce greenhouse emissions with urgency. This includes supporting the phasing out of fossil fuels and introduction of renewable energy generation.
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Politicians have a responsibility to work with determination to limit climate changing emissions
The burning of fossil fuels is widely recognised as the main cause of climate change, ocean acidification, sea level rise and ocean warming. In addition the air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels kills millions of people world-wide each year.
Everyone, especially politicians, should be doing all they can to reduce emissions. Politicians certainly should not be subsidising fossil fuels or giving the nation's resources away, free of charge, to fossil fuel companies, as several Australian state and federal governments have been doing.
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Politicians have a responsibility to limit the excesses of their (and our) leaders
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The members of the UK, Australian, Indian, etcetera parliaments, the US congress, the Chinese National People's Congress, the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, all have the responsibility to check any excesses that their leaders might attempt. It seems that very few individuals have had the courage and decency to live up to these responsibilities:
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- In Australia Peter Dutton has decided on the development of nuclear power. It is obvious to experts in the field that this strategy is foolish, expensive and too slow to achieve the needed emissions reductions. Many politicians, including those in the Coalition, must realise the stupidity of Mr Dutton's policy, but they are not holding him to account.
- In India Narendra Modi has very publicly pressed for changing the nation from one that is open to all religions to one that will favour one religion, Hinduism, over all others. This is an undemocratic step and one that will disadvantage Muslims, Sikhs and others, who make up large minorities. There seem to be few politicians in Mr Modi's party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who have made any attempt to stop him from taking this cruel and unethical step.
- Xi Jinping seems to have ambitions to become an Emperor of a new and bigger Chinese empire, and the National People's Congress is allowing him to get away with it. If he continues unchecked he is posing a risk of another war in the Pacific.
- Vladamir Putin seems to have much the same ambitions as Xi Jinping, his war against Ukraine seems to be a step in his intention to become a twenty-first century tzar of a new Russian Empire.
- In the USA Republican politicians have put aside their respect for truth and morality in their apparently unquestioning support for Donal Trump.
- Back in 2003 US President George W Bush, the UK's Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australia's PM John Howard started the disastrous Iraq War. The politicians in their respective countries could have stopped them, but if they tried at all they didn't try hard enough. (In Australia I recall that there were mass rallies and marches against the Iraq invasion. Many Australians tried to stop it from going ahead. Did we try hard enough?)
- Whistleblowers have had to do the work that parliamentarians should have done. And they've paid a heavy price.
- In the Australia-East Timor spying scandal a whistleblower made public the shameful spying that the Australian government carried out on a poor neighbour. Had parliamentarians done their jobs the spying would not have happened.
- At the time of writing Julian Assange was being released from many years confinement following his exposing of the wrongdoing of the US administration. Had the US politicians done their job the illegal acts of the US authorities would never have occurred.
The failure of politicians to do their duty is not a new thing
In 2003 the then Prime Minister of Australia involved his country in the invasion of Iraq against the wishes of the majority of the Australian people. The Iraq War was illegal, immoral, unjustified and disastrous in the near, middle and long-term.
Not only was Mr Howard failing in his responsibilities, but so were all the federal politicians in the Liberal/National coalition that was in government at the time. They should all have expressed their opposition to the PM, but very few, if any, did. They certainly did not come out publicly as opposing Mr Howard's criminal action.
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A politician has a responsibility to justice and truth above all.
If necessary they should break with their party's policy when that policy goes seriously against their belief of what is right.
Surely this should be plain to any right-minded person. But 'crossing the floor' (of parliament to vote with the opposition) is rare for Australian Coalition MPs and almost unheard of for Labor MPs (it can lead to expulsion from the party for a Labor MP).
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In this case, and in regard with the intent of this section of this page, the question of whether the Palestinian state should receive official recognition from Australia is not the point. The point is that Ms Payman had the courage of her conviction to place her conscience ahead of party loyalty, as she should.
By early July Ms Payman had announced that she had resigned from the Labor party and intended to serve as an independent senator. One can hope that she will adopt the ideals of the community independents already in parliament.
A specific case of a politician failing in his responsibilities
The member of federal parliament for the seat of Canning, the electorate that I live in, Andrew Hastie, is an example of a politician who has failed the responsibilities that he should be upholding. He has displayed a number of the faults of those politicians who have behaved irresponsibly.
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He has gone to the extent of getting cards making false claims about the proposed wind farms placed in people's letter boxes.
When he is not criticising the proposed offshore wind farm zone Mr Hastie spends much of his time criticising the Albanese government, rather than trying to be constructive and proactive.
Mr Hastie has shown a strong and ethically unsupportable bias in his remarks about the Israeli invasion of Gaza.
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The motivations of too many of our politicians
The world needs politicians who are motivated toward doing what is good for their constituents, what is best for their nation, for the long term, for the environment (if we don't protect our environment we all suffer in the long run) and what is morally good.Instead, in Mr Hastie and 'representatives' like him, we see people motivated toward looking after their own careers, climbing the greasy poll of advancement, ensuring that they retain their seat at the next election. They are motivated toward looking after whatever organisation might be willing to make big donations to their campaign funds, such as the fossil fuel industries. If they can frighten their constituents enough to make them donate that's good in their eyes too.
Who do politicians like Mr Hastie represent? Not their constituents, not what is good and right. They represent whoever they feel it is to their advantage to represent.
I reiterate, we need more honest, good, progressive, ethically motivated community independents.
How can we cure this flaw in our political system?
In Australia at least we can build on what was done in a number of electorates around the nation in the 2022 federal election, we can replace the flawed politicians by electing honest, responsible community independent politicians.
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"The Community Independents Project (CIP) was borne out of a commitment to putting everyday people at the centre of Australian politics. It is a collaboration to enable and support communities and Community Independents to build participatory democracy and conduct successful election campaigns."I've placed a list of the present community independent politicians, and a little about each one, on another page on this site.CIP is values driven and focused beyond the electoral cycle for the greater good of society, the environment and the economy."
While they are small in number they have already had a big impact toward improving the Australian political system.