Love Australia/Love South Africa

We returned to Johannesburg from a stay in Auckland, New Zealand and a sea cruise all along South Island, around to the breathtaking Fiordland of Milford Sound, across to Tasmania and then all the way up the Australian coast to Brisbane.

My forty-five minute talks to the passengers were kindly received and I was struck again by the interest foreigners – mainly Americans and Britons -- on our ship took in South Africa.  There is a mighty well of goodwill towards us and our country, but an increasing sense among many that we are going off the rails and not living up to our potential. 

Few, if any, had a good word to say about the ANC and its government although all expressed admiration for the late Nelson Mandela.  The positive reaction to my talk on Mandela and de Klerk, “Unlikely partners who changed history” was overwhelming and almost embarrassing.

 The abiding impression at the end of the cruise was the same as that at the end of the stay in Auckland: these countries work.

Ordinary Aussies are a cheerful lot and it struck us that even those doing menial work seemed genuinely happy to do the jobs they were meant to do.  Everything is clean and properly maintained; people are service oriented, helpful and obliging everywhere one goes; public transport by road, rail, tram and water is amazingly efficient and convenient and the cities are among the most liveable in the world.  In short, there is capable government at local, state and national levels.

Secondly, while some South Africans have a love/hate relationship with New Zealand and Australia, based mainly on our rugby and cricket rivalries, we struggled to find “ what’s not to love” about them and their people.  “Nanny states” perhaps, but I saw them as places where the law is applied and obeyed by citizens and by government. 

Visiting eleven towns and cities in three weeks, I never saw a car travel through a red traffic light;   speed limits were routinely obeyed; people did not litter and indeed, we saw many examples of people walking out of their way to throw refuse into rubbish bins.  Streets,pavements and public parks and gardens were generally immaculate, even in the busiest parts of great cities.

Thirdly, both these countries have a democratic system that works.  If a government gets too big for its boots, or a politician does the same, the voters or their own party members throw them out.  This means those placed in government at whatever level need to bear in mind that it is the voters and not the politicians who count.  Politicians are accountable. 

Australia, for example, has its fifth prime minister in just a few years.  Kevin Rudd of the Labor Party was elected prime minister in 2007, succeeding John Howard. Rudd fell afoul of his party and was replaced as prime minister by his deputy, Julia Gillard.

Ms Gillard was not a great success and when it looked as though she would lose the next election, she was in turn knifed by Mr Rudd who became prime minister again for a few months until he lost the general election to the Liberals, led by Tony Abbott. Mr Abbott lost the confidence of the public after a year being replaced by Malcolm Turnbull, the current prime minister.

Despite the merry-go-round at the top, Australia continues to flourish, although as a resource exporting economy, it does have economic challenges.  The country is commendably stable and is living proof to the “Big men” who are the curse of Africa and some other parts of the world that no one is indispensible; no one needs endless terms in power; no one, however entrenched, should feel obliged to stay on for decades and parties should rusticate leaders whose shelf life has ended.

We always love coming home to South Africa, with all its negativity and its depressing problems. 

The most cheerful thing I encountered was the brilliant speech by Premier Helen Zille who said that she has rarely been as optimistic about South Africa’s future as she is now and the last time she felt so good was in 1996 when we adopted the Constitution.  Her reason?  The Constitution is equal to the challenges of the time and is holding, as demonstrated in the Constitutional Court when the president’s legal adviser conceded that the Public Protector’s directives were binding on the president who had erred in law by requesting the Minister of Police to second-guess the Public Protector.

Then Parliament’s advocate conceded that Parliament had also erred in law in defending the executive instead of holding it to account.

Helen Zille said this showed the accountability at the heart of our constitutional democracy extends to all and is one of the most important checks and balances on power.

Drawing on the work of writer Francis Fukuyama, she said that the rule of law, accountability and capable government are at the root of every successful state in the world. South Africa at the end of the week was a different and better place from where it was at the beginning in that we had made 300 years of progress with these admissions in the Constitutional Court and the political consequences that flowed from them.

All this made me think about the successful countries like New Zealand and Australia and raise my hopes for our country.  They do have the Rule of Law, accountability and capable government. 

We have some of those elements, strengthened as Zille says, but we need to go much further.  She foreshadows a political realignment in South Africa with a new government dedicated to upholding the Constitution and the Rule of law,  recognising always its democratic accountability and providing capable government at all levels.

This is all possible and makes me as optimistic about the future as Helen Zille.

Douglas Gibson is a former Opposition chief Whip and a former ambassador to Thailand.

This article first appeared in The Star.