The why and the how we do things

Tanya Plibersek, Shadow Minister for Education: Shadow Minister for Women and Member for Sydney, gave the 38th Archbishop Daniel Mannix Lecture at Newman College, Melbourne on March 23, 2022. This is an extract. The full text can be seen here: https://tinyurl.com/rx3wasb4. Thanks to Fr Frank Brennan SJ for sending this text to The Swag. [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]

There is no doubt in my mind that growing up Catholic has influenced my politics, as it has for so many in the Labor Party and the labour movement. And not just in the obvious ways that history has recorded…

I want to speak tonight about the essential role that values play in political leadership.

Good political leadership requires making your values clear, as much it requires laying out your plans for practical action. It’s about answering the ‘why’ as well as the ‘how’ of what you’re fighting for.

Too often progressive political parties jump straight to how we want to make the world better. We assume that people understand our reasons for pursuing these changes, and sometimes we miss the opportunity to find common ground and persuade.

In the modern world, our values come from many different places. There’s no longer a single pulpit or a universal source of truth. Secular philosophy and religious faith live side by side, largely in peace.

But it’s clear to me that, even in our fractured world, the timeless lessons of Christ continue to inform progressive politics today. Love thy neighbour. Turn the other cheek. The first will be last and the last will be first. The meek shall inherit the earth.

These are simple statements. But that shouldn’t hide just how radical they are. If we take it seriously, Jesus’ message was incredibly demanding. Have you ever tried to love your neighbours? All of your neighbours

The call to universal love will always be profoundly difficult, whoever we are. But it’s especially challenging in ur polarised world. 

A world where disinformation is weaponised; where culture wars are stoked; where cynical actors try to divide us for political gain.

Where empathy and love are equated, by some, with weakness. It’s harder to love thy neighbour when the internet spreads lies about them – they’re out to take your job, crowd your cities, even threaten your safety…

There’s a reason why about a quarter of Australians voted for minor parties and independents at the last election. In part, it’s because they don’t feel like major parties are listening to them. Or that we share their values. They feel we don’t understand or see them…

Leaders must address the underlying economic insecurity and other frustrations that drive people into the arms of minor parties and independents – and we need to offer them something more hopeful instead.

The role of leaders in Australia should be to strengthen what binds us together as a nation. Not to ignore division and difference, but to remind us of the values we share – like our belief in democracy, our faith in the rule of law, and our commitment to essential rights and liberties.

And it’s the role of leaders to show that, where the differences do exist, they can be managed civilly. This is only possible when we strive, in good faith, to empathise with each other; to see each other as the full, complex human beings we are. 

And despite some who try to tell us all otherwise, empathy isn’t soft. It’s not weakness. It’s a superpower.

This is where the lessons of Christianity can teach us so much. Because the call for universal love was a truly earth-shaking idea.

I still find inspiration in the ordinary people of faith, the nuns and brothers and lay people, who live out their love every day. Who love fiercely, practically, and without judgement. When my husband was struggling to get clean from his heroin addiction, it was the Salvation Army that took him in and gave him the support he needed.

When the NSW drug summit proposed a medically supervised injecting centre, so drug users could reduce their risk of overdose and access rehab services, it was the nuns at St Vincent’s Hospital in my electorate who were the first to volunteer to set it up.

People in aged care facilities, homelessness services and hospitals; advocates for refugees, prisoners, exploited workers and trafficked women. These Australians are on the front line of justice: are taking in the sick and the hurt and the lonely. And they are not just engaged in individual acts of charity, either. They are the advocates fighting for a fairer world.

Not all of them are driven by religious faith – but each of them, to a person, is driven by a powerful set of values. And they’re living those values in the world.

Now, politics is not always a saintly profession. But I’ve always been drawn to people who live their values openly; and I’ve tried to learn from them too. Because it’s clear to me that belief and practical action are not in opposition; they are the why and the how of our lives and of leadership.[/s2If]