Sensible debate takes a holiday
Today’s news: a hard-working father sparks outrage by taking a week off to spend time with his young family.
In the real world, a dad spending time with his kids during the school holidays is a good thing.
In the brutal world of Australian politics, this is an opportunity to kick a politician and get a cheap line in the media.
Opposition education spokesman David Pisoni went to Adelaide Airport yesterday to make his point – that Jay Weatherill shouldn’t be on holidays, but rather should be back in Adelaide, fixing the debacle engulfing the state’s education department.
Now, Pisoni has played an extraordinarily effective and important role in the political events that led to the establishment of the Debelle Royal Commission into the inept handling of a sex abuse case by the education department.
Even Weatherill acknowledged his contribution in an interview on ABC radio last week.
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Pisoni has very few friends on the Labor side – he plays politics in an unrelentingly tough fashion.
On this occasion, his single-mindedness has been crucial in exposing the awful state of the education department and its handling of communication with parents about sexual abuse in schools.
But his focus on Weatherill’s holiday is not helping anything.
This morning Pisoni put out another media release with the heading: “Getaway Jay takes holidays instead of action”. Opposition Leader Steven Marshall also tweeted about Weatherill being on holidays while the crisis continues.
It’s a neat line, but it’s a dangerous game for Marshall.
Marshall himself has kids. If he ascends to the Premiership next year, you would hope he will plan and take holidays with his kids.
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He will very quickly learn that a Premier can’t control the political agenda at every turn and, sometimes, his planned leave will coincide with difficult political issues.
For the sake of him, his kids and every smart, committed young person who is thinking about getting into politics, I hope he takes that leave and that the media leaves him alone when he does so.
Politics is tough enough without us asking our political leaders to sacrifice their family life to the cause.
Weatherill had obviously planned this trip for some time. There is no doubt he works long, unrelenting hours.
His children see a lot less of him than they used to and it’s a very bleak body politic indeed that would insist that Weatherill sits his girls down and tells them that their holiday with dad is off.
We have an Acting Premier, the education minister is on deck, the CEO of the education department is working through the Debelle inquiry findings and is progressing action against individual staff members – a process that should be done carefully lest something like this happens.
InDaily was one of the first media outlets to call Weatherill to account over this affair – and in strong terms. We continue this today.
There are serious questions to be answered about Weatherill’s leadership of the education department and his management of his office when he was education minister. There are numerous legitimate questions about this terrible situation that need be asked and that should be answered.
But why he has taken a week off in the school holidays to spend time with his family is not one of them.
Let’s get on with the real debate.
Disclosure: David Washington worked as a media adviser to Deputy Premier John Rau under Jay Weatherilll’s Premiership in 2011 and 2012.
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