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1 What they said. 2 The issue at a glance. 3 Background. 4 Internet information links. 5 and 6 Arguments for / against. 7 Further implications on this issue. 8 Newspaper items used in the compilation of the outline.
Related issue outlines
1996: Are there sufficient controls on Australian journalists?



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Outline 2002 / 14: Privacy and the media: should the sexual conduct of politicians be made public?


What they said ...
'I have a growing sense that ... the opinion leaders in the media are losing some of the authority they once had ... I have a sense that people are getting increasingly sick of politics as theatre ... they have a hunger for a general political environment in which there is less butchery and more moderation and balance'
From a speech given by Gareth Evans, then Deputy Leader of the Opposition, to the Australian Institute of Political Science on February 20, 1998, titled, 'Politics and the Media Circus'

'Cheryl Kernot chose to write a book purporting to be political history, which was based on a falsehood. Blame was cast for what happened to her when obviously this underlying thing, this steamy affair, was crucial to what happened to her'
Laurie Oakes, Channel Nine's chief political commentator, justifying his decision to expose the affair between Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot

The issue at a glance
In his July 3, 2002, column in The Bulletin, political commentator Laurie Oakes referred critically to an autobiography just released by Cheryl Kernot, former Labor member for Dixon and prior to that leader of the Democrats.
Mr Oakes suggested that the book was dishonest in that it omitted the 'biggest secret of [Ms Kernot's] life' and one that had had a major bearing on key features of her political career and her public demeanour.
Immediately the story was released long-standing rumours about an affair between Cheryl Kernot and Gareth Evans were given new currency.
Steven Mayne's social and political commentary website Crikey.com.au emailed its 3,600 subscribers about the issue and broke the news that Mr Oakes was referring to the long-term affair between Ms Kernot and Mr Evans.
On the evening of July 3 Mr Oakes reported what he knew in an interview on A Current Affair conducted by Helen Dalley. Mr Oakes confirmed that 'the big secret of Cheryl Kernot's career was a five-year affair with former Labor deputy leader and foreign affairs minister, Gareth Evans'. Mr Oakes also suggested that this affair had played a major part in Ms Kernot's decision to leave the Democrats and join the Labor Party.
Once the full revelation had been made the media furore began. A key element of this media agitation was whether, in revealing the affair, Laurie Oakes had unjustifiably violated the privacy of the individuals concerned or whether his revelation had been justified as being in the public interest.

Background
Politicians, sex, standards of parliamentary debate and the media
There appears to have been a long history of sexual misconduct among Australian politicians.
Formerly most of these affairs remained at most rumours and were not revealed until after the death of the individuals concerned. For example, it is generally regarded as fact that both of Australia's revered wartime Prime Ministers, John Curtin and Ben Chifley, had long-standing affairs. It has also been revealed that Australia's longest serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, had an affair with Lady Elizabeth Fairfax.
Shortly before his death, former Prime Minister, Sir John Gorton, revealed that he had had a number of extramarital affairs during his time as Prime Minister. Gorton's unconventional conduct was remarked on during his period in the Lodge, however, if details of his affairs were known at the time they were revealed neither within the Parliament nor by the media.
Something of a turning point in Australian political life appeared to have been reached in 1975 with the media treatment of Deputy Prime Minister Jim Cairns and the 'kind of love' he confessed for his private secretary, Juni Morosi.
In Parliament, Cairns was forced to defend his appointment of Ms Morosi after claims by Liberal backbencher Billy Wentworth that she was unfit for her position and a newspaper report suggesting a romantic link between Morosi and Cairns. Cairns was dismissed in July 1975 for having misled Parliament in relation to the matter.
However, these were very fraught political times. Under Prime Minister Whitlam, an inexperienced and radically reformist Labor Government was exercising power for the first time in a generation and the challenges to that government's legitimacy came thick and fast, both from within Parliament and within the media.
Following the controversial dismissal of the Whitlam Government in November 1975 and the election of a Coalition Government under Malcolm Fraser, there was a clear attempt on the part of both the new government and the media to establish an air of normalcy. The same feeling appeared to prevail in 1983 when a Labor Government was re-elected under Bob Hawke.
In 1986 former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, enjoyed a brief period of notoriety following the mysterious loss of his trousers during an overnight stay in a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Despite the many jokes and cartoons at Fraser's expense, the accepted view appeared to be that he had been drugged, then mugged and destrided.Similarly, though Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke's, sexual exploits were well known within the Canberra press gallery, his extramarital affairs were not publicly acknowledged until, like John Gorton, he made a public admission of his infidelity.
The same degree of restraint was not exercised in relation to Hawke's successor, Paul Keating.
In February 1986, West Australian Liberal, Wilson Tuckey, clashed with the (then) treasurer Paul Keating. During a heated debate, Tuckey accused Keating of breaking a promise. This was a reference to a breach of promise case brought against Keating by his jilted fianc‚e, a woman called Christine. Insults from both sides of the House culminated in the following exchange. Tuckey interjected, 'Christine had a little girl called Paul' and Keating responded that Tuckey was a 'stupid foul-mouthed grub' and a 'piece of criminal garbage'.
'Christine' incidents recurred throughout the time Keating was in parliament. In 1990, Tuckey again provoked Keating simply by yelling out the name 'Christine'. This led Keating to accuse Tuckey of being 'a dog returning to his vomit', and to claim that (then) Opposition leader John Howard and the Liberals were 'sleazebags' and 'scumbags'.
Keating later defended his language by claiming that all he sought was robust debate and that Wilson Tuckey, who, in Keating's view, was aided and abetted by Howard, had hit below the belt and deserved all he received.
Keating was extremely belligerent on the floor of the House and it is generally regarded that during his period of influence the level of invective in parliamentary debate increased. He also appears to have been well hated by the Opposition. There were numerous attempts, both during his prime ministership and after he lost office, to associate him with political scandal, most notably in relation to a supposed conflict of interest in his ownership of a piggery.
John Howard's Coalition Government was elected in 1996. The new Prime Minister immediately promised to elevate the standard of parliamentary debate. Regrettably, this does not seem to have occurred.
Accusations of sexual misconduct do not appear to have been common, however, the brutality of political debate has become almost breathe-taking. In 1997, Labor Senator Nick Sherry was viciously ridiculed by Liberal Treasurer, Peter Costello, as a 'rorter', a 'mummy's boy' and the 'Bedouin from Opossum Bay' and taunted with calls of 'Oh possum, oh possum'. Sherry was accused by the Howard Government of rorting the parliamentary travel allowance system by lodging claims while living at his mother's house in Opossum Bay, near Hobart. Sherry unsuccessfully attempted suicide, apparently in response to these accusations. (In 1994 it was Peter Costello who had famously referred to Ros Kelly, the federal Minister for Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, as a 'carcass hanging in the breeze.' This attack occurred during the scandal sparked by Ms Kelly's ill-fated allocation of government grants to municipalities, with the allocation process recorded only on a whiteboard.)
In October 1997 the then leader of the Democrats, Cheryl Kernot, quit Parliament and her party and announced her intention to join the Labor Party and stand as a Labor candidate at the next election. The defection was met with elation within Labor ranks, with a sense of betrayal among Democrats and with a marked degree of hostility by the Coalition.
In December 1997 it was revealed that years before, Ms Kernot had had a five-year relationship with a former student.
In March 1998, Liberal Party MP, Don Randall, declared in parliament, 'It seems to be OK for a female to have an affair with a younger person but for a male it is taboo. Does this affection extend to the member for Holt (Mr Evans)? We often wonder is she honest? She is about as honest as Christopher Skase and Nick Bolkus; she is about as loyal as Benedict Arnold and she has the morals of an alley cat on heat.'
Gareth Evans responded with a lying denial of the affair and claimed of Mr Randall's remarks, 'I have experienced or heard nothing like it in my 20 years in this parliament.'
Despite Evans' apparent surprise and distress, standards of parliamentary debate have been at a low level for many years, with notions of appropriate comment having become increasingly hazy. The media, however, can generally be relied upon to draw a line between political comment and character assassination.
What is remarkable about the current controversy is the vigour of the media's pursuit of Ms Kernot and by association Mr Evans. Mr Oakes' comments about Ms Kernot's 'falsehood' in her autobiography and his revelations about her affair with Gareth Evans seem to mark a significant departure from accepted practice in political reporting in Australia.
It is interesting to speculate whether the string of intimate revelations about the sex lives of the British monarchy and the President Clinton/Monica Lewinsky impeachment scandal have affected journalistic practice in Australia.

Internet information
A copy of Laurie Oakes' article titled 'Secrets and Lies' and published in The Bulletin on July 3, 2002, can be found at http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/bulletin/EdDesk.nsf/printing/6ABBDDA02BF125F6CA256BE80081A3C6
In the article Oakes alleges that Kernot's autobiography was dishonest as it omitted 'the biggest secret in her life'. The article does not stipulate what that secret is, but suggests it had a determining influence on her decision to join the Labor Party and affected much of her subsequent behaviour.

A transcript of Laurie Oakes' interview with Helen Dalley given on Channel Nine's a Current Affair on the evening of July 3, 2002, can be found at http://news.ninemsn.com.au/ninenews/story_34813.asp
In the interview Mr Oakes reveals that Cheryl Kernot and Gareth Evans had conducted a five-year affair.

On July 4, 2002, Radio National's The Media Report presented an interview with Cheryl Kernot, former Labor frontbencher, former leader of the Australian Democrats and author of 'Speaking for Myself Again', published by Harper Collins. Also interviewed were Joan Kirner, former Premier of Victoria; Shona Martyn director of publishing, Harper Collins; Stephen Mayne, publisher of Crikey.com and Laurie Oakes political editor, Channel Nine.
A full transcript of the interviews can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/mediarpt/stories/s596309.htm

On July 4, 2002, The Sydney Morning Herald published a piece by Max Blenkin titled, 'Australian political sex scandals'. The piece gives an overview of political sex scandals and potential scandals in Australia in the period from World War II to today.
It can be found at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/04/1025667032768.html

On July 5, 2002, The Sydney Morning Herald published a piece by James Grubel titled, 'Politics and private lives'. This is an analysis of the Australian media's treatment of the private lives of politicians, focusing particularly on Cheryl Kernot and Gareth Evans but making comparisons with other political sex scandals or potential scandals in this country.
A full text of this article can be found at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/04/1025667030266.html

In February 1998, the Australian Press Council News republished two articles on the media's treatment of Cheryl Kernot.
One was written by Kaz Cook and deals with the media's response to Kernot's move to the Labor Party. Pamela Bone wrote the other article, which looks at the media's harassment of Kernot after a truck demolished her house. Bone's article also considers the media's revelations about Kernot's affair with a former student. Both articles conclude that the media has treated Kernot in a prejudiced manner.
They can be found at http://www.presscouncil.org.au/pcsite/public/feb98/cheryl.html>

On February 20, 1998, Gareth Evans, then Deputy Leader of the Opposition, gave a speech to the Australian Institute of Political Science titled, 'Politics and the Media Circus'.
In the speech Evans regrets the progressively more sensational manner in which he argues the media is treating the political scene in Australia. He claims that the media is developing an 'obsessive interest in personality: politics as gossip, politicians as celebrities, old constraints and inhibitions abandoned'.
The full text of this speech can be found at http://www.australianpolitics.com/media/98-02-20evans-speech.shtml

Pluto Press Australia is an independent Australian publishing house specialising in politics and social change issues. In February 2001, Pluto Press Australia published an article titled, 'Mediating democracy: politics and the media in the post-modern public sphere'.
This is largely an examination of the media's treatment of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. It includes the observation, 'gossip now [has] an increasing impact on which stories make it into the mainstream media, because once a story is in the public sphere in some form, the increased competition between news outlets makes it almost inevitable that a respectable organisation will pick it up.'
The full text of the article can be found at http://www.plutoaustralia.com/mediating_democracy/index-Televisi.html

In February 1999, the American Christian Science Monitor published an article titled 'The sex-media-politics nexus'. The article is a brief examination of the American media's obsession with the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.
The text of this article can be found at http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/02/05/fp11s1-csm.shtml

On July 15, 2001, the British on-line magazine Guardian Unlimited published an article titled, 'Sex, lies and media freedom'. It is an examination of the media's treatment of recent political sex scandals in the United States and Germany. The article argues that media scrutiny of politicians' sex lives can be justified.
The article can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/levy/story/0,10764,522036,00.html

Guardian Unlimited has also published a piece titled, '1963: The Profumo Scandal'. This is a detailed overview of the famous British sex and politics scandal involving a cabinet minister, a showgirl and a Soviet naval attach‚.
The article can be found at http://politics.guardian.co.uk/politicspast/story/0,9061,471383,00.html>

Arguments in favour of the sexual conduct of politicians being made public
1. The sexual conduct of politicians is a significant indicator of their integrity and reliability
Bill Muelenberg, the national vice-president of the Australian Family Association, has made this point at length. In an article published in The Herald Sun on July 5, 2002, Mr Muelenberg wrote, 'A politician, like any public leader, should have certain standards. We expect that politicians bring many qualities to the job: among them, honesty, loyalty, commitment and faithfulness.
'Character is all of one piece: something that affects the whole person, private and public. What a person does in private tells us a lot about what that person will be like in public.
'If a person is willing to cheat on his wife, for example, is it not possible that he will also cheat on the electorate?'
The Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party, John Anderson, made a similar point two years ago. Mr Anderson asked, 'If a man's family can't trust him, why should the nation?'

2. The sexual conduct of politicians can influence their behaviour in the political sphere
This claim has been made by Laurie Oakes as a justification for his having revealed the affair between Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot. Mr Oakes claims, 'This steamy affair, was crucial to what happened to her, crucial to her behaviour, crucial to her lapses of judgement. Look, it even decided when Gareth Evans left politics; this was an important political influence.'
In the Bulletin article, which provoked the current media preoccupation with Cheryl Kernot and Gareth Evans' one-time affair, Laurie Oakes wrote, 'For a long time now, some members of the Fourth Estate have been aware of the biggest secret in Kernot's life. If made public, it would cause a lot of people to view her defection from the Australian Democrats to the Labor Party in a different light. It helps to explain some of her erratic behaviour. It was a key factor in the erosion of her emotional and physical health that contributed to her political disintegration. It even caused a lie to be told to the parliament - not by Kernot, but by a colleague.'
Mr Oakes has implied that Ms Kernot's relationship with Gareth Evans was a major influence on her decision to leave the Democrats and join the Labor Party. Mr Oakes has also suggested that the impending end of the affair placed Cheryl Kernot under significant stress and contributed to some of the 'dummy-spitting' behaviour for which she has been criticised. Mr Oakes has implied that Gareth Evans lied to Parliament in an attempt to deny the affair and finally Mr Oakes has suggested that the affair, or more probably the decision to end it, influenced the timing of Gareth Evans' departure from politics.
The editor of The Australian has defended his paper's decision to give front-page coverage to the affair between Evans and Kernot in similar terms, 'I don't think you can divide off, in the hothouse that is here in Canberra, public and private lives, that clearly.' The Australian newspaper's editor, Michael Stutchbury, seems to be suggesting that, especially within Canberra, sexual conduct can influence politicians' performance of their public roles and where this occurs then this sexual behaviour should be public knowledge.
The Herald Sun's chief political reporter, Michael Harvey, has suggested the full range of significant political decisions that may have been influenced by the affair between Evans and Kernot. Mr Harvey states, 'Questions that remain unanswered include the effect on the Cabinet deliberations between 1994 - when the affair started - and the end of the Keating government in 1996.'

3. Politicians may misrepresent their motives by being secretive about their sexual conduct
The claim has been made repeatedly that by ignoring her relationship with Gareth Evans, Cheryl Kernot may have misrepresented the reasons for her public actions.
This point has been made by Laurie Oakes as a justification for his decision to reveal the affair between Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot.
Mr Oakes stated, 'Cheryl chose to write a book, and she chose to write a book purporting to be political history which was based on a falsehood ... when obviously this underlying thing, this steamy affair, was crucial to what happened to her, crucial to her behaviour, crucial to her lapses of judgement.'
Many other commentators, including Tracey Linguey, the founding editor of the Sunday Herald Sun's Sunday Magazine, have made a similar point. Ms Linguey has stated, 'How can we be sure [Kernot's] decision to switch paries was not based on emotional considerations or that she was [not] influenced by her lover?'
A former Queensland Democrat senator, John Woodley, has made the same point. Mr Woodley has stated, 'Very clearly, Cheryl said she went to Labor in order to stop the Howard Government getting another term. That was the reason given.
But in fact there were other reasons that were just as powerful, it seems.'
It has also been suggested that Ms Kernot's physical and emotional breakdown has been falsely attributed to pressure from the media and the unsupportive culture within the Labor Party, when the reality was that Ms Kernot became ill as an aftermath of the breakdown of her affair.
This point was made in a Herald Sun editorial published on July 7, 2002. The editorial states, 'Cheryl, you loudly blamed media pressures for your ill health when it is now reasonable to assume that your breakdown was due to the collapse of the affair.'

4. In ignoring the impact of their own sexual conduct, politicians may misrepresent their political colleagues
It has been suggested that Cheryl Kernot has a tendency to ignore her own involvement in the developments that undermined her political career and to lay unfair blame on others.
In The Bulletin article of July 3, 2002, in which he first wrote of Cheryl Kernot's secret, Laurie Oakes stated, 'In a book that should have been called Making Excuses For Myself Again, everything is the fault of the media, the Labor Party, and - mostly - poor old Beazley. Anybody but Cheryl. She complains that Beazley gave her inadequate support. In fact, as the book itself reveals, the leader's staffers were frequently detailed to help her, and Beazley himself charged to her rescue whenever she got into difficulty. Other frontbenchers were left to sink or swim. But Kernot wanted more, always more. She even wanted her own liaison person in Beazley's office.'
Laurie Oakes made a similar point on ABC Radio's the World Today on July 4, 2002. Mr Oakes stated, 'If I'd done nothing, in my view I was allowing a particularly false version of what happened to be accepted and a lot of people getting the blame for things that I don't believe they should have been blamed for. I'm thinking particularly of Kim Beasley.'

5. When politicians misled the parliament or public about their sexual conduct they are violating their public trust
The Age has made this point in an editorial published on June 5, 2002. 'The Age believes that the only justification for disclosing the relationship between Ms Kernot and Mr Evans is that Mr Evans unwisely chose to lie about that relationship to parliament. Any intentional deception of the parliament is a violation of public trust, because a legislative body cannot function if its members are not constrained in what they say by respect for truth.'
The Australian has made the same point in its editorial of June 5, 2002. 'The affair became a matter of public interest at least from the moment proof emerged that it had prompted Mr Evans to lie to the Australian people. That's when personal preferences compromised the public duty to be honest, and when the public's right to know clearly exceeded the pair's right to privacy.'
The same point was also made in a Herald Sun editorial published on July 7, 2002. The editorial states, 'Gareth, you lied in the Senate. You say it was to protect your family, but the more plausible explanation is that you lied to save your political skin.'
6. The public may be funding the sexual liaisons of politicians
It has also been argued that in pursuing their sexual affairs politicians may exploit taxpayer-funded travel and accommodation allowances. The Herald Sun has claimed that the travel records of Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot indicate that they crossed paths on at least nine occasions in different locations around Australia.
The Herald Sun further claims that it costs the public purse between $140 and $350 for each night a politician claims travel allowance. On this estimate it may have cost the taxpayer some $3000 to subsidise the affair between Cheryl Kernot and Gareth Evans.
It has also been suggested that in the trip to London that Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot made a couple of weeks before Ms Kernot switched to the Labor Party the pair had identical itineraries.
Former Queensland Democrat senator, John Woodley, has claimed, 'Their itineraries and the places where they stayed were exactly the same.'
The combined cost to the taxpayer of this London trip was some $10,000.
Similar public disapproval was levelled at former Liberal frontbencher Bob Woods. Senator Woods resigned in early 1997, citing the need to spend more time with his family. But his private life was exposed on the front pages of the nation's newspapers when it was revealed his resignation had more to do with an affair with a staffer, and the fact taxpayers had helped fund trips away for the two.
Bob Woods was given an 18-months suspended jail sentence in June, 1999, after he admitted claiming $140 a night allowances for 23 nights spent at the Sydney apartment of his lover. Because Woods pleaded guilty, much of the detail did not emerge.
It is claimed that such improper use of the public purse is a legitimate reason for public scrutiny of what would otherwise be private sexual affairs.

Arguments against the sexual conduct of politicians being made public
1. The sexual conduct of politicians is not relevant to their political behaviour
The chief political correspondent for The Australian, Steve Lewis, has noted, 'Unlike their colleagues in Britain and the US, the Australian media has been reluctant to report on the private lives of public figures. Indeed, in nearly a decade reporting from the press gallery, I can recall only a handful of "relationships" that have generated headlines.'
The principle behind this apparent hesitance on the part of the Australian media to publicise the sexual conduct of politicians is that such behaviour is private and has little or no bearing on the politicians' capacity to perform their public duties.
Democrat leader Senator Natasha Stott Despoja has put this view forcefully. The Senator has claimed, 'It's none of my business, it's none of your business.'
A similar point has been made by former Victorian premier, Jeff Kennett, who has claimed, 'That's pretty grubby stuff. It's pretty tacky. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. None of us are Christ-like. This is an unnecessary breach of a person's private life.'
With regard to claims that the affair impacted on the public and professional conduct of the two people involved, critics of their public exposure have argued that that is pure speculation.
Andrew Bartlett, a former member of Cheryl Kernot's staff, who replaced her as the Democrat Senator for Queensland when she left the Democrats, has stated, 'Kernot's book states that, after their working together on the Mabo legislation, she developed a strong friendship with Gareth Evans. In as much as her relationship with Evans is at all relevant, that statement says all that needs to be said. Whether or not a component of that friendship was at some stage sexual is surely irrelevant.'
Critics of the revelations have also argued that now that Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot are no longer in federal parliament their former relationship can have even less news value.
Senior federal Labor MP Bob McMullan has made this point. 'It's essentially private business for two people who are out of public life,' he has said. 'This sort of salacious gutter pursuit does (the media) no credit...'

2. Publicising the sexual conduct of politicians has the capacity to injure their family and friends
The leader of the federal Opposition, Mr Simon Crean, has acknowledged the distress that the revelations are likely to cause the families of Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot. Mr Crean has stated, 'Cheryl's family and Gareth's family, I feel very sorry for them - they must be going through a very hard time at the moment.'
Critics of the public exposure of the affair have argued that it will only cause further pain to the partners and children of Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot. They have further argued that this is particularly inappropriate as no public good has been served by the revelations and the family members who are being injured are not public figures.
This point was made in an article by Alan Ramsey published in The Sydney Morning Herald even before Laurie Oakes had revealed the Evans/Kernot affair. Ramsey wrote, '...it is her husband, Gavin, for whom I feel sorriest. He stayed in Queensland all those years of Kernot's political career, looking after their daughter, Sian, while her four years with Labor, whatever it was doing to her, just about destroyed him.
He phoned one night, absolutely distraught, soon after his wife's election defeat last November, and poured out his bitterness and pure hatred for what politics and the press had done to her and to their life.'

3. Publicising the sexual conduct of politicians allows their opponents to score political points unfairly
It has been suggested that allowing the sexual conduct of politicians to be brought into the public arena allows their opponents to use this information to their advantage. Numerous examples can be cited.
In 1986 West Australian Liberal Wilson Tuckey made an oblique reference to an apparent breach of promise action brought against the then treasurer, Paul Keating. Keating's hostile reaction to the reference earned him criticism in the media.
In 1998 Liberal backbencher Don Randall referred to a sexual relationship Ms Kernot had had with a one-time student and accused her of having the 'morals of an alley cat on heat'. He also questioned whether the 'affection' she had felt for her former lover was similar to that she felt for Gareth Evans. Both appear to have been attempts to discredit Ms Kernot within the media and before the Parliament and the electorate.
In 2002 Labor frontbencher Mark Latham has referred to Liberal Employment Minister, Tony Abbott's, illegitimate child, apparently fathered while Abbott was a university student. This would appear to be an attempt to discredit Abbott and to have him appear hypocritical when he appeals to family values.
Critics of such actions argue that they are inappropriate as they seek to take political advantage of politicians' private lives, which have no direct bearing on their political performance.

4. The media may expose details of politicians' sex lives for self-serving or vindictive motives
It has been suggested that Laurie Oakes may have revealed the media's long-kept secret of the Evans-Kernot affair because Ms Kernot was very critical of him in her autobiography.
Rosemary Neill has made this point in an opinion piece published in The Australian on July 5, 2002. Ms Neill states, 'Oakes said he spoke out because, in omitting to mention the affair with the politician who helped engineer her defection, Kernot was offering a distorted account of how Labor treated her. What the press gallery veteran doesn't say is that Kernot singles him out for stinging criticism. Is his outing of her so soon after the book's release a case of payback?'
The same suggestion was made at greater length on Steven Mayne's political commentary site, Crikey.com.au on July 4, 2002.
'Laurie Oakes has said it because Kernot's supposed tell-all autobiography is based on "a falsehood". But is this all?
Oakes relishes his position as one of the doyens of the Gallery - and the power it brings. He wields this power blatantly, too. Laurie Oakes does not come to doorstops. He stays away from virtually all press conferences, too. You go to Laurie Oakes.
He likes to be feted. There are two unwritten rules for all his interviewees on Sunday. They should do their interview in the studio with Oakes - and bring him an exclusive, an announcement that will reassert his superiority over the pretenders on the other channels. New Ministers soon learn what the rules are.
Kernot's defection was a bombshell - and Oakes got the news the same time as everyone else. He seems to have been incensed from that moment on - hence his "Demo-rat" comments at that first press conference as Cheryl defected.
The feeling is reciprocated by Kernot. If there is a media villain in her autobiography, it's Oakes. So is this the reason Oakes decided to publish? Quite possibly - his "falsehood" objections cover everything nicely.'

5. Media exposure of politicians' sexual misconduct shows a gender bias
It has been repeatedly claimed that though no politician should have his or her private life made public, that this form of mistreatment at the hands of the media is applied with particular vigour if the politician is female.
The chairwoman of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, Professor Marcia Neave, has made this point.
'I don't believe a private matter of this kind should be aired,' Professor Neave has noted. 'I believe there is no likelihood that a man would have been treated in the same way as Cheryl.'
Professor Neave has said she believes women in public life continue to be treated with a different standard to men. 'I don't believe that a suggestion would be made that a man had changed parties because of a personal relationship and I think the reporting of that is unethical and inappropriate.
'It's based on the old stereotype that women are influenced by their personal relationships in ways that men are not... It was moralistic, used double-standards and not consistent with any standards of decency in reporting.'
Melbourne writer Anne Manne also argues that a double standard is often at play when revelations are made in the media about the private lives of politicians. 'Doubtless she [Kernot] is not flawless, but what Canberra politician is? The real question is why with Kernot the media break the rules they keep for Canberra political blokes - that their sex and private lives are off limits.
'Kernot is seen as the quintessential female - messy, emotional, not in command of herself, a victim of her sexuality. Kernot, the argument goes, left the Democrats not because she had political ideas and objectives of her own, but because she was under the power of a man.'

6. Many able potential politicians may be dissuaded from entering politics for fear of having their sexual conduct scrutinised
This view has been put by The Australian's national affairs editor Mike Steketee, '... an open-slather approach [to the reporting of politicians' sexual behaviour] would deter well-qualified people from a political career because of the intrusion on their private lives. We have enough problems with politicians not being representative of the community without getting to the stage where only puritans ... apply.'
Senator Stott Despoja, the leader of the Democrats, has made a similar suggestion and has further noted that women, in particular, would find public exposure of their private lives distasteful.
Ms Stott Despoja has observed, 'Stories such as today's [of the affair between Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot] and the media treatment of it will possibly discourage people, particularly women, from entering public life.'
Andrew Bartlett, a former member of Cheryl Kernot's staff, who replaced her as the Democrat Senator for Queensland when she left the Democrats, has made the same point. Senator Bartlett has stated, 'If [Laurie Oakes'] action is accepted as appropriate, then a new benchmark will have been set which will ... lead to even more people, particularly women, eschewing politics for things which are not so unsavoury. Given the low regard in which politics is already viewed by most people, this is the last thing our democracy can afford.'

Further implications and author's comment
The media's belated exposure of the affair between Gareth Evans and Cheryl Kernot is an unfortunate development in the reporting of political life in Australia. It is not the first such treatment of politicians' sexual lives, but it is shaping up to be the most extensive and possibly the most salacious. However much Laurie Oakes may attempt to argue that it was in the public interest to make the relationship known, it is hard to see why it was in the public interest to refer to it as 'this steamy affair'. Such comments do no credit to those who make them, nor do they enhance political debate in this country.
Further, if the affair is seen as legitimately public property because of its possible influence on political developments in Australia, why was this revelation not made in 1996, 1997, 1998 or 1999 when the two people involved were still prominent players on the Australian political stage? It is hard to get away from the feeling that Mr Oakes' expos‚ is far too much and far too late.
It would be extremely regrettable if this breach of journalistic etiquette in Australia were to become the norm and if the personal lives of politicians were seen as just so much grist to the public relations and political point-scoring mill.
It was distressing to watch the American political process effectively paralysed while a politically inspired interrogation of the president's sexual indiscretions occupied the nation for months. It would be unfortunate indeed if such a sad and sordid pantomime were ever to be enacted in Australia.
It is not sufficient to argue that Gareth Evans made the issue one of public concern when he lied to the House about it. He should never have had to respond to Liberal frontbencher Don Randall's jibe that Ms Kernot had 'the morals of an alley cat on heat'. The remark should have been struck from the Hansard and Randall immediately required to apologise. In the event the remark stood and the apology came only after the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, specifically ordered it. It was in this context that Mr Evans made his lying defence against the Randall accusation as 'baseless'.
Monica Lewinsky has noted that to interrogate someone about their sexual conduct is to invite them to lie. Ms Lewinsky's comment seems to have significant justification. When asked intrusive questions about their intimate lives what options do public figures have other than self-implicating silence or self-protecting lies? What is really at issue here is not the lie but the impropriety of the question.
It is a regrettable feature of parliamentary debate in Australia that there is a well-established tendency to attack your opponent rather than his or her arguments. This can never be seen as legitimate. Personal abuse and sexual innuendo or outright accusations of sexual misconduct do nothing to advance the cause of democracy in this country and the media only makes the situation worse when it takes such rumours and accusations and makes them front-page news.
It is also worth noting that certain sections of the media have condemned Ms Kernot, and by association, Mr Evans, with remarkable vehemence. On July 7, 2002, The Herald Sun's editorial included the following remarks, 'This soap opera, one entirely of your own creation, is about vanity. It is about a driven and a selfish man and an ambitious woman prepared to blame anyone but herself for shortcomings that are now more apparent than ever.
Australia is relieved you did not lead the nation, Gareth, because your judgement is poor. The public will no longer swallow your bleating, Cheryl, because of your stubborn refusal to accept that you destroyed yourself.
Goodbye and good riddance.'
This is a blistering attack. Why, one asks. Is it possible that unless each of the victims of this invasion of privacy is reincarnated as a public enemy it might be necessary to offer them some sympathy?

Sources
The Age
5/7/02 page 12 editorial, 'The lie in the house is the real issue'
5/7/02 page 13 comment by Hans Paas, 'A cautionary tale of hypocrisy and ambition'
5/7/02 page 13 comment by Louise Dodson, 'Why Kernot was shot down'
5/7/02 page 13 comment by Joseph O'Reilly, 'What a pity she didn't say it first'
5/7/02 page 13 comment by Greg Barns, 'The media can't resist a "sex and power" yarn'
5/7/02 page 13 comment by Andrew Bartlett, 'How Laurie Oakes' flawed judgement will hurt us all'
6/7/02 page 1 (Insight section) comment by Mungo MacCallum, 'Sex, power and politics'
7/7/02 page 13 comment by Ray Cassin, 'The risks in kissing and not telling'

The Australian
4/7/02 page 11 comment by Tim Blair, 'Denial means never having to say sorry'
5/7/02 page 9 analysis by Jamie Walker, 'So who needs to know?'
5/7/02 page 10 editorial, 'Evans-Kernot affair betrays public trust'
5/7/02 page 11 comment by Sandra Lee, 'Public lies nullify private rights'
5/7/02 page 11 comment by Rosemary Neill, 'Affair exposes double standard'
6/7/02 page 1 comment by David Epstein, 'Love and other bruises'
6/7/02 page 21 comment by Matt Price, 'Titillation of a nation'
6/7/02 page 28 comment by Mike Stekee, 'Strike a balance on scandal'
6/7/02 page 28 comment by Matt Price, 'Never return to the crime scene, Cheryl'

The Bulletin
9/7/02 (the edition was actually released on 3/7/02) page 16 comment by Laurie Oakes, 'Secrets and lies'

The Herald Sun
4/7/02 page 4 from Hansard, 'What Gareth Evans told parliament in 1998'
4/7/02 page 5 news item by Jason Frenkel and John Ferguson, 'Premiers lash out'
4/7/02 page 23 comment by Jill Singer, 'It was nobody else's business'
5/7/02 page 1 news item by Michael Harvey, Rick Wallace and Andrew Probyn, 'I lied: Evans admits deceit over affair with Kernot'
5/7/02 news item by Rick Wallace, Andrew Probyn and Chris Griffith, 'Pair crossed paths on the public purse'
5/7/02 comment by Michael Harvey, 'Don't leave us wondering, Cheryl'
5/7/02 page 20 editorial, 'In the public interest'
5/7/02 page 21 comment by Bill Muehlenberg, 'A test of integrity'
6/7/02 page 5 news item by Rick Wallace and Andrew Probyn, 'London tryst alleged'
6/7/02 page 19 comment by Michael Harvey, 'End of the affair'
7/7/02 page 5 comment by Tracey Linguey, 'Why all women should feel betrayed'
7/7/02 page 38 editorial, 'Thank God, they're gone'