Spot the difference. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

The liberal heartland is on the move and putting its traditional leaders on notice, writes Sue Roffey, co-founder of the Mosman peace group on Sydney’s North Shore. See also Tony Abbott to eyeball North Shore against the War: Truth possible.

I’m a pretty ordinary sort of person. I love my kids, work hard, like to spend time with friends with a bottle of wine and good music and hate being cold. I also hate injustice, cruelty and hypocrisy. And I certainly don’t like being misled, misrepresented and manipulated.

It has become increasingly obvious to anyone that this is what has been happening over the past year, to me and to every other Australian in this wonderful sunny country. We have been implicated in one of the biggest scams of all time. Is anyone now in any doubt that the current US Administration had its own agenda about invading Iraq? It had nothing to do with Saddam’s despicable dictatorship, or with the terrorist threat. It was about control of oil and a strategic power base in the Middle East, not to mention the money that might be made from the arms and oil trade.

The prewar rhetoric intimated that if we didn’t obliterate Saddam he would (definitely? probably? perhaps?) attack us. Most Americans believed that Saddam was at least partly to blame for September 11, and no one was in a hurry to put them right. We were all supposed to be so terrified by this unspecified threat that we either gave the nod to the bombing for our “own protection” or turned a blind eye. Once the war started the rhetoric changed to it being “unpatriotic” not to “support our troops”. Manipulation, deception – disgraceful. The Australian Government was either lying to us about why it joined this illegal and dangerous invasion or was totally gullible. Either way this undermines its fitness to lead.

John Howard talks about the 88 people who were killed in Bali. Two hundred and two people died in that atrocity, but people who are not Australian don’t seem to count. Iraqi children who lost limbs, parents, clean water and homes are dismissed as “collateral”. Violence is only considered wrong if it is perpetrated by those we can label terrorists. Nuclear weapons are only wrong if they belong to regimes that are (currently) not on our side. Children who are locked up for years in detention don’t matter. Lying about desperate refugees is OK – so long as the politicians can get away with how they present the story.

Never mind that this inhumanity will come back to bite us in the future as it fuels anger against the West – only the next election matters, not the next generation. Hypocrisy rules! The continuing political rhetoric tries to make us forget our basic values of humanity, honesty, democracy and frankly just plain decency – and it is in danger of working.

But I’m not the only ordinary Australian to be both bloody angry and really worried. Up in the Liberal heartland of Sydney people are asking questions, questions that will determine the sort of society we have in the future.

North Shore Peace and Democracy has organised a forum tomorrow night with their local MP Tony Abbott, Sydney Labor Left federal MP Tanya Plibersek, former state independent Peter Macdonald, and Donna Mulhearn, who was in Iraq as a human shield.

All 220 seats are already booked. There is a glimmer of hope that people do care. They mind that they have been lied to and perhaps also care about the fate of people who share this planet with us – not just those who share our barbecue. Saddam gained power initially with US support and I’m not sorry to see the back of him. But if we are to go to war on grounds of ousting brutal dictators then let’s look around us and see how many others there are who defy human rights. Let’s have a strong international consensus with clear criteria for when it is appropriate to take action – and exhaust all non-violent means before further devastating an already oppressed people.

Let’s have an international consensus for rebuilding. Let’s be responsible for a change. I know this is idealistic – but if you don’t keep your eye on the ball then you have no direction to go in. The Penrith Panthers didn’t think winning was an impossible dream, despite the odds! I don’t have much hope at the moment for a top-down commitment to values of honesty and humanity. Even Simon Crean seems prepared to give Bush a standing ovation. How can he? What sort of leadership is that?

If the politicians won’t behave properly, the people must challenge them – again and again. They are not ethereal beings but fallible, the same as the rest of us.

Can we please be a democracy rather than just pretend we live in one? Can we please start talking together rather than behaving as if discussing politics or human values is the equivalent of parading dirty underwear? Our politicians are answerable to us. Put your head above the parapet. Write to them, demand answers, ask them how they justify their decisions, organise your own forum. Don’t let them get away with murder.