Carry On Not Reporting

There's never been a better time to be a former politician...or better still someone who has never been involved in politics.

The current carry-on in Canberra is disgusting.

Let me be clear, there have been tales of trysts between consenting political players for ever but it has never reached these depths of depravity. Many of these stories would be true but ascertaining the 'fabricated for political purposes' against the 'what others do in their private lives is none of my business' is almost impossible.

These liaisons can also be quite tangled. They often involve spousal infidelity but are between consenting adults. While this may be considered immoral, adultery isn't illegal.

That's typically been the justification for the non-reporting of politicians private lives. But there are also other factors to consider.

Relationships between politicians and journalists are not unusual in Canberra. It's one way for a politician to ensure nice things are written about you I suppose but when it ends....look out!

I've seen some previously protected politicians' careers explode when their gallery relationship ends and all the hushed up material suddenly spews into the public domain.

The protection racket also kicks in along philosophical lines. If you are a left leaning (Liberal or otherwise) you'll get a softer media run than a conservative.

That's because the media also tend to lean left.

Whether your personal peccadilloes come to light also depends on whether you are a leaker of information.

One journalist I have no respect for is Nikki Savva but she did confess, that in her world, you are either a source or a victim.

That means you give her information about things she shouldn't know or she will target you using information provided by others.

It's a disgusting way to consider a once noble profession.

For the sources, the currency of their free media ride is their colleagues indiscretions or failings. That becomes the salacious headline that can often do enormous damage to a political career.

Believe me, the truth doesn't really matter in those cases.

It's usually a matter of forcing the victim to deny something and then the story reads 'Politician denies stealing candy from baby'.

In my experience, these journalists often also had a lot in common with their source. Sometimes it was a shared secret life or a direct personal (sometimes intimate) relationship .

I recall one current MP boasting of his favourite Canberra prostitute while another would turn up in a taxi most mornings with a 'new friend' from the parliamentary staff ranks.

It was pretty tawdry stuff but none of it was reported. I'm not sure it should have been either.

Now such actions seem tame compared to the vileness of life in parliament house today. Reports of rent-boys being brought in for MPs, vile acts of degradation, sleaze and rape all deserve to be exposed.

The homosexual double life of some publicly heterosexual MPs has never come into the public domain. In many instances it is because the 'outing' of an MP for being homosexual doesn't fit the modern media narrative.

Most of the media only have an interest in discrediting traditional social mores and norms. Undermining the rainbow mafia (in the media and in politics) doesn't suit their agenda.

It will be interesting to see if they pursue the male MP who allegedly hooked up with the rent-boy in parliament house with the same vigour they went after Christian Porter. I suspect not.

That homosexual male staffers now think its funny to defile the desks of MPs opposed to gay marriage suggests a lot about how disgusting and feral some of the new breed of political peons are.

Unfortunately, they have learned their craft from their political pin-ups who live their lives in the shadows, publicly pretending to be one thing while privately being another.

Buy hypocrisy and behaviour unbecoming is not limited to male MPs - gay or straight.

Some female politicians spent some time of their own in the prayer room , despite not having any substantive religious beliefs.

What they do up there is the subject of whispered political speculation.

There have also been female elected members involved in intimate activities with members of the press gallery and MPs in other political parties.

My point is that consenting adult relationships crossed almost every divide in the Canberra bubble and were widely known, but most went unreported.

Why? Because there has been a mutual protection racket and those entrusted to disclose bad acts have sometimes been involved.

That fear of mutually assured destruction crosses almost every line within the parliamentary precinct.

All of this is an indictment on those involved. It's not all politicians or journalists or staffers, nor is it only a few.

Parliament House does indeed need a clean up but, the current level of filth there is a product of a culture that has been building for many, many years.