A study in political corruption

Wednesday, October 2, 1996 - 10:00

The Incorruptible
By Louis Nowra
Directed by Aubrey Mellor
Sydney Theatre Company in association with Playbox
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House until October 19
Reviewed by Helen Jarvis

An unknown country politician and sugar cane farmer is plucked out of obscurity to become the premier of an unnamed northern Australian state. Ion Stafford's (John Howard) righteous and god-fearing ways sit uneasily alongside the ministerial good life revelled in by minister Ed Gabelich (Denis Moore), known to all as Gabo. "He may be a zealot, but he's our fucking zealot", declares Gabo, but this is not how it turns out.

Stafford has a very firm mind of his own, sacking ministers and police commissioners as well as electricity workers, banning street demonstrations and public assembly of more than three people, removing condom machines from public places and calling for harsher prison sentences.

The plot turns on the switch in allegiance to Stafford of hard-drinking and hard-talking press secretary Louise Porter (Rachel Szalay), formerly engaged to one of Gabo's mates. As Porter turns from whisky to water, her hemline drops down to her knees and she reproaches herself for an abortion she had some years before.

She turns her back not only on her political friends but also on her father, a liberal "old money" judge, but he too falls under Stafford's sway, not by conviction but by seduction to the post of chief justice.

Stafford is not content with premiership of this state that seems so much like Queensland, and he decides to run for prime minister — just as Joh Bjelke-Petersen did — though unlike him Stafford succeeds, with the help of a few dirty tricks engineered by Porter.

Stafford has many of the mannerisms of Bjelke-Petersen, as well as his bible-bashing views, but he seems to have more conviction and uprightness than the man who presided over the Queensland revealed in the Fitzgerald Commission. Yet Stafford too does have a dark secret that comes to haunt him.

Gabo makes the point that for all Stafford's purity and high moral ground, he is the one who makes it possible for corruption to flourish.

Louis Nowra's script is thoughtful, but the actors (with the exception of John Howard) don't give it the chance to breathe freely, resorting to shouting and rushing their lines, with the characters at times bordering on caricature.