Most of us would be horrified to have our private correspondence stolen, selectively quoted, and published. Slater and his correspondents have surely been wronged. There remains an ethical question, however. Was the wrong justified, on the whole? Should Hager have written the book?
Slater and his correspondents are not innocent or vulnerable. They are public figures, happy to throw their power around and to cause embarrassment to others. As much as their privacy has been violated, it is difficult to feel sorry for them.
Then there is the “public interest”, to which Hager constantly appeals. Several issues are at stake. There are revelations about the unedifying behaviour of politicians and their staffs. But more troubling, there is the story of the political blogger, personified by Cameron Slater.
Slater is portrayed as dishonest and vindictive, well-connected and unaccountable. It is alleged the National Party uses him to leak and frame information. He appears to delight in humiliating his declared enemies, whether politicians, journalists, academics, or outspoken citizens. The book alleges that he publishes under his own name, for a fee, material written by corporate sponsors. His power comes partly from his disdain for familiar rules of journalism. He publishes speculation and gossip, and engages in abuse and invective.
There may well be others like Slater, on both sides of politics. But a society in which such figures wield so much power is not a healthy democracy.
A democratic government requires the consent of the governed, and that consent must be informed. The role of political bloggers, as revealed in the book, is symptomatic of a larger trend toward the control and manipulation of information, not just by governments but by many organisations that use public relations and communications consultants. As a citizen trying to make informed political judgements, it is increasingly difficult to discern the information amongst the spin. We face a future in which our best insight into the workings of the political world comes from leaks, data dumps and stolen information. Democracy, sadly, may depend on books like this one.
A free citizen in a democracy is self-governing. If we view our government with suspicion and cynicism, and if we are fearful of participating in political life, then we are not fully free. Our democracy would be deeply damaged if we were to accept that “this is just politics”, or that anyone who speaks up publicly can expect personal attacks and the loss of dignity and privacy.
Whether the book should have been published, given its paradoxical ethics, depends on what happens from here. If our politicians learn that there is a political cost to personal attacks and the over-management of information, and to investing power in people like Cameron Slater, then the book will have done its job.
If, however, the book becomes one more dirty trick, pulled in one more election campaign, then private information will be regarded more and more as fair political game. Dirty Politics has the potential to make politics less dirty, but only if we choose to hold our politicians to account.