THESE FEW LINES ARE PENNED as a result of the events in Canberra on Wednesday 26 June 2013, together with what seems the general community despair with Federal Politics. It is irrelevant where one`s Party allegiance may lie because the issue is beyond personal following or beliefs.It is therefore appropriate to quote from Jim Wallis`s book — `The Soul of Politics — A practical and Prophetic Vision for Change`, published in America 1994.`Politics isn`t moral! ` shouted the cab driver. `Wish it could be,` he added wistfully. The hustling Yellow Cab entrepreneur had asked why I was in New York. When I told him it was to see a publisher, he curiously asked me what my book was about. Like almost everyone else I talk with, he was very interested in the subject of politics and morality.Our public life reflects our moral values, one way or the other. We`ve all seen how politics can reflect our worst values of selfishness, greed, divisiveness, fear and power. Yet we long to see how politics could reflect our best values of compassion, community, diversity, hope and service. Reconnecting politics to our best values is now the most important task of political life. The old political morality has left us paralysed. Our times cry out for a new political morality, one that will provide the ground for new possibilities.But reawakening to a politics of renewed moral conscience will shake us to our very foundations. The alternative to the passive politics of the status quo is a prophetic politics of personal and social transformation. However, the movement from one to the other will change our very understanding of politics.Is it not time to stop arguing ideology and begin to speak in terms of what is right and wrong? Would not finding real and practical solutions to our undeniable problems be a better definition of politics than the endless pursuit of power? What do you think? Indeed, beyond that rather rhetorical question lies another — not only what do you think but what can be done about it?
