Outrage is a tried and tested political strategy. For some politicians it's an almost permanent setting. But it can often be more telling what pollies don't get outraged about than what they do.
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It's been an extraordinary few weeks in Australian politics. It was revealed that the biggest company in the country got caught breaching money-laundering and anti-terror laws; the man who would be Victorian Premier had 'lobster with a mobster'; there was an unprecedented attack on the free speech of public servants; and we're headed for a nationwide opt-in opinion poll on equal marriage.
There's a lot to be outraged about, not matter what your political ideology. So what have we heard from those outraged about terrorism, free speech and corruption?
Which bank?
The watchdog Austrac alleges that the Commonwealth Bank failed or was too slow to disclose more than 53,000 deposits of more than $10,000 - the threshold at which banks must report cash transactions to authorities within 10 business days. Most of the late reports relate to transactions connected to suspected money laundering syndicates, but six of these late reports related to customers that CommBank assessed could be related to financing terrorism.
Let that sink in for a moment. Forget about the 50,000 other infringements. One of Australia's major banks, with $9.9 billion in profit, was lax about reporting six potential terrorism-related transactions to the watchdog. That should be a major red flag for a government so concerned with national security it just created a super-ministry to deal with it. But has Immigration Minister Peter Dutton commented on this threat to national security? No.
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann was asked about it directly on Radio National and while he was adamant that wrongdoing should be met with the full force of the law, he didn't have an opinion on CBA's behaviour, or lack thereof.
When Fran Kelly asked Cormann: "As the Finance Minister, how concerned are you that Australia's largest bank – indeed largest company – appears to have had such lax compliance measures in place?"
Cormann replied: "I'm not going to provide commentary on law enforcement processes currently under way."
Contrast this to Human Services Minister Alan Tudge who was only too happy to comment that: "We'll find you, we'll track you down and you will have to repay those debts and you may end up in prison."
Except Tudge wasn't commenting on CommBank's dodgy practices, that's what Tudge said about hunting down potential cases of Centrelink fraud during the disastrous robo-debt scandal.
When CommBank breaks anti-terror laws and money-laundering laws 53,000 times, it's no big deal. But report your income to Centrelink incorrectly – the Minister will hunt you down.
The lack of outrage over CommBank's behaviour shows voters the government's values doesn't match its rhetoric.
Free speech
Public servants in Canberra were shocked to learn of new social media guidelines this week. The new guidelines issued warn that even private emails, the kind you send to a friend, could breach the rules, that sharing content implied endorsement and that even
"…if you're sharing something because you disagree with it and want to draw it someone else's attention, make sure that you make that clear at the time in a way that doesn't breach the Code itself. It may not be enough to select the 'angry face' icon, especially if you're one of thousands that have done so."
Tony Abbott is worried about your freedom of speech. In fact he is outraged by political correctness. Abbott has even equated a vote against marriage equality as a vote for free speech and against political correctness. Though as far as I'm aware Australian Marriage Equality just wants equal marriage and has yet to call for Tony Abbott's mandatory use of rainbow emoticons on Facebook.
But Abbott's fine with dictating what public servants can say in private emails and which emoticons they can use on social media. The vocal campaign by Abbott and the IPA to remove the words "offend" and "insult" from section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act Attorney-General George Brandis was because people have 'a right to be bigots'.
So bigotry is a right, but a Facebook like is forbidden. Got it?
The problem isn't caring about the right of bigots to free speech. But if you don't care about the free speech of public servants or young Muslim women like Yassmin Abdel-Magied and you don't care about how the free speech of the "no" campaign against marriage equality will actually impact on gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer people across Australia, or their families and loved ones -- well, then the public is entitled to conclude you don't actually care about free speech, you care about bigots.
Lobster with a mobster
Malcolm Turnbull attacked Bill Shorten when revealing new laws that would make secret payments between employers and unions a criminal offence. "Bill Shorten has been defending, tooth and nail, corruption and secrecy, defending big unions and union officials doing dodgy deals with employers…If you take benefits from an employer of that kind ... undisclosed in the course of ... enterprise agreement negotiations, that is made unlawful."
If the Prime Minister is so outraged by dodgy deals between union officials and employers, can you imagine his reaction if the head of a union had a lobster dinner with a (alleged) mob boss to solicit donations? Or if Bill Shorten had?
This week Four Corners and Fairfax Media revealed that Victorian Liberal Opposition Leader Matthew Guy had lobster and several bottles of Grange with the alleged head of the Melbourne mafia. Bet he now wishes he ordered the steak.
Separately, Liberal party fundraiser Barrie McMillan, who has since resigned, was recorded discussing how to facilitate donations from the alleged mobster so as to avoid the minimum disclosure threshold.
There is no allegation that Matthew Guy was aware of this plan to solicit and obscure these donations, but there was no press conference repudiating Barrie McMillan's conduct. Nor did the Prime Minister call a press conference when Fairfax revealed 7-Eleven was systematically underpaying wages and doctoring payroll records. Where I come from we call that stealing, but we've seen no equivalent campaign or high-profile changes to laws to help workers who are getting ripped off multinational companies and franchises like 7-Eleven. That lack of outrage tells voters Turnbull care more about attacking unions than preventing workers from being ripped off by the dodgy deals of their employers.
Punters vote for political parties based on their values.
The Turnbull government has been host to politicians who have been more outraged about halal certified vegemite funding terrorism, than about 53,000 unreported breaches of anti-terror and money laundering laws by CommBank; politicians who think our democracy is under threat due to political correctness, yet stay silent when the government wants to stop people being able to like a Facebook post criticising the government; politicians who care more about bashing unions than assisting workers being screwed by their employers.
We can learn just as much about the values of our government from its silence as we can from its selective outrage.
Ebony Bennett is the Deputy Director of The Australia Institute. Follow her on Twitter at @ebony_bennett
