A senior federal government MP says she would welcome alcohol and drug testing on elected representatives, as the behaviour of two National Party MPs sparks renewed debate on parliamentary standards.
“You can bring it in if you want to, I have no problems with it,” Senator Malarndirri McCarthy said on the ABC’s Q+A on Monday night.
Senator McCarthy, the Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians and Indigenous Health, said politicians were in “really privileged positions” and “we always have to remember as politicians Australians expect better of us”.
Nationals frontbencher Barnaby Joyce was filmed swearing into his phone while lying in the street after parliament earlier this month, blaming a “mistake” mixing alcohol and prescription medication.
His party colleague, NSW Senator Perin Davey, said she was “mortified” by reports she appeared intoxicated during a late-night Senate committee hearing last week, admitting she had two glasses of wine at a staff function but insisted she was not drunk.
“In the Northern Territory we’re dealing with alcohol all the time. It’s the one issue I’m constantly dealing with, with family and children, with youths in detention and youth on the streets,” said Senator McCarthy, a Yanyuwa woman from the NT Gulf country.
“So I would be more than happy for parliamentarians across the country to do the right thing and behave properly. If that requires that [testing], so be it.”
But she found no support for testing from Liberal MP and former shadow minister Julian Leeser, who told the Q+A audience that parliamentarians were “ultimately accountable to our constituency”.
“But we need to think of the way in which we conduct ourselves in public and I think people who are elected should exercise some degree of personal responsibility,” he said.
Mr Leeser questioned the role of long working hours when parliament sits, particularly in the upper house.
“In the Senate they sit to 2am and 3am in the morning,” he said. “I wonder whether we need shorter hours in the Senate and more Senate sitting days because a lot of these issues do turn up.”
Former tennis champion turned broadcaster Jelena Dokic, who also appeared on Q+A, said everyone in the public eye had a responsibility to set standards.
“There has to be clear rules, especially for people in this position of power,” she said.
Earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese urged politicians to use “a bit of common sense” when drinking at parliamentary events — but didn’t respond to calls for drug testing MPs.
“People are adults and they should behave responsibly like any adult should,” he said.
Trump ‘worrying for the West’
Meanwhile, Mr Leeser raised concerns about the aging future leadership of the United States — and the near certainty of Donald Trump standing as the Republican candidate against Democratic President Joe Biden.
“Even if the incumbent is returned he will be 86 at the end of the term,” Mr Leeser said.
“Ronald Reagan was regarded as old when he finished in office at 79.
“And Donald Trump, John Howard said he ruled himself out of contention because of what happened on January 6.”
Mr Trump’s role in stoking the January 6 insurrection of the Capital — and his ongoing election denial — was “worrying for the West”, Mr Leeser said.
“When someone is an elected official and fails to respect the decision of the voters, that’s a bad sign for democracy,” he told Q+A.
“When you’re the leader of the free world it’s an even worse sign, too.”
Concerns about impact on women
Senator McCarthy said the government would work with whoever was sworn in as president next January.
But she also raised concerns over Mr Trump.
“We’ve seen the impact on women and the behaviour towards women,” she said of Mr Trump.
“We’ve seen the impact on their [US] relationships with world leaders around the world — some have been questionable … I certainly am watching it very closely.”
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Geraldine Brooks, who is a resident of the United States, said the series of legal challenges facing Mr Trump would not deter his supporters.
“I think his supporters are so committed they don’t care what he does,” she said.
“They really believe that this is all a stitch-up and a witch-hunt and all the things he claims it to be.
“So it’s all about the swing voters, the suburban women voters – and that’s where turnout is going to really count,” she said.
“It’s hard to get Americans to the polls even when they’re enthusiastic about a candidate.
“I’m afraid the lack of enthusiasm about Biden is really concerning to me.”