The murder of the politician

Sir David Amess was in the news again this morning. There was also footage of his murderer admitting it was done for "terror". It was frightening to hear him.

I thought of two things in particular, the first was how hard this must be for his family, friends, constituents and colleagues. It must in fact be extraordinarily difficult for them. He struck me as one of those basically decent people who go into politics because they do want to help others.

It was the same with the equally violent murder of Jo Cox. She was another MP in the UK who should still be there doing her job, caring about other people. Her family, friends, constituents and colleagues should still be able to rely on her presence.  

Yes, there are a few such people around. They work hard, far harder than most people will ever realise. They also know that they will never have the satisfaction of solving all the problems brought to them.  

And then I thought of our election campaigns here. The federal election campaign has just kicked off. The leaders of both parties are out and about campaigning. Yes they have some security personnel there but they are still moving among people who have not been subjected to strip searches. People are free to address them, ask questions, abuse them, and much more. We have yet to have snipers along the routes they travel. It may happen one day but it has not happened yet.

We do have some political violence in this country. People protest. People get angry. There have been some disruptions to parliament. Since Federation there have been five political figures murdered - four of them almost a century ago. 

The other was in 1986. The media has portrayed this as the first actual political murder in the history of  the nation - and it stunned the nation as well. It was not how almost everyone in the country saw politics and the way we treat our politicians. 

Right now politicians from all parties are under intense scrutiny for their day to day behaviour. Everything they do and say is being analysed. There are, sometimes rightly, claims of media bias. Claims and counter claims are being made. A lot of it is nasty. I don't care for it at all.

But at the same time it is actually happening. Almost all adult citizens can vote - even many of those incarcerated. Raise just a small amount of money and the necessary number of people to nominate you and you can put your hand up to enter the political race. While the laws of libel and slander are supposed to apply you can even get away with saying some very nasty things about other candidates. That is seen as part of politics.

We need to keep it that way if people are going to be involved. Even more importantly we need to try and improve on what we now have.