Natasha Stott Despoja
Sex and the single pollie
One of my favourite quotes from the movie The American President is when President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) reacts to a report on the TV news about his girlfriend once burning a flag in protest against apartheid.
“Let me see if I got this. The third story on the news tonight was that someone I didn't know thirteen years ago when I wasn't president participated in a demonstration where no laws were being broken in protest of something that so many people were against, it doesn't exist anymore. Just out of curiosity, what was the fourth story?”
That’s how I felt about the story about South Australian Premier Mike Rann’s private life being made very public by the commercial media last week.
Something he may or may not have done five years ago, while Premier but not married, that had no bearing on his role or capacity became front page news. Even now, people are discussing lie detector tests and the implications of “Ranndygate” on his premiership.
The media seems confident that this new puritanism will sell papers and increase the numbers of viewers. Why else would they give such space and air time, not to mention promotion, to what could turn out to be, at worst, an affair between consenting adults?
Such scandals might bring down a marriage, but bring down a government? On the evidence of a woman alleged to have been paid $70,000 to deliver sexy details?
They are details, moreover, that are refuted convincingly by the Premier – his comments about his office being like Central Station and his laughing off of the idea of a public figure having sex in a public place like the golf course, ring true.
The public the media is supposed to serve has been shocked to its back teeth over recent years by evidence of the rape of small children by priests of the Church. That is betrayal of trust and horror almost beyond imagining. Is it expected to be seriously upset by reports of a couple maybe having sex in the parklands and on a table which, no matter where it is sited, is still a table?
My guess is that it’s worth a snigger and not much more. Especially if Mike Rann’s supporters in government remain solid – as they should. And young voters will wonder what the fuss is about.
But it could be a test of what some think as a reaction to loose sexual morality based, primarily, in fears that their children are going to go off the rails. In other words, is there a new puritanism emerging that could make politicians – and others in public life – subject to such scrutiny that they were safer to take vows of chastity at pre-selection?
Soon we'll be ineligible to be politicians if we've ever had naughty thoughts especially as sex scandals are the easiest stories for the media: no analysis of policy, real issues, just mud – which always sticks.
It prompted me to look at a list of the 'sex scandals’ in Australian politics. Of the 11 or so represented between 1951 and today, I was surprised to see the Australian Democrats featured disproportionately: former leader Janet Powell’s relationship with a member of her Senate team (the late Sid Spindler) got a mention as did, unsurprisingly, Cheryl Kernot’s affair with Gareth Evans.
Behind the (almost amusing) examples of forbidden trysts, a belated admission of sex with a secretary and a married couple bonking on a ministerial desk are the untold stories of the media’s effect on the families that these exposes bring.
What about the sufferings of families in politics? Has anyone in the media spared a thought for Mike Rann’s wife, Sasha Carruozzo? Strangely, it’s the other spouse (albeit estranged) that has received the attention. Why give such air time to a man on charges of aggravated assault and who asks for political inquiry – a political statement if ever there was one?
This has now descended into a story of ‘he said, she said’. It was an unedifying week in South Australian politics and media and, at the end of the day it shouldn’t matter, as it’s no one's business.