By Greg Spearritt

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Jacqueline Maley makes the clear-eyed observation that voters actually expect politicians to lie. Fellow SMH columnist Barney Zwartz takes the view that God is interested in integrity but – as channelled through St Paul – doesn’t have so much interest in politics.

Yet at the end of 2021 the issue of integrity – or more correctly, a lack of it – seems to be defining federal politics like never before.

Annabel Crabb, in her inimitable way, describes our federal parliament’s “shocking disconnect from real life”: it’s

a parliament that doesn’t have a legislative response to climate change, that dodges the people’s clamour for integrity measures, that commissions a damning review of the way it treats women, hears it, then shrugs and keeps doing it anyway…

As parliament has its break-up day events, Barnaby Joyce pops on the cap of the high school headmaster and warns his party colleagues not to be seen drunk in public. Apparently that’s not a good look any more.

It’s no wonder that an ethical stance on key issues – transparency and accountability, gender and climate – is attracting much attention as Australia gears up for a 2022 election. The ‘Voices of’ movement suggests that even those in the political ‘centre’ have had enough.

Perhaps God needs to take more interest in politics.

Disclaimer: views represented in SOFiA blog posts are entirely the view of the respective authors and in no way represent an official SOFiA position. They are intended to stimulate thought, rather than present a final word on any topic.

Photo: G. Spearritt