8 lessons from recent political events

To slightly misquote a Seinfeld episode in the context of yesterday’s Queensland Election – “the electorate was angry that day, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli”.

If we ever needed final, conclusive proof that we are in an era of almost unprecedented political instability, and a deep, underlying voter frustration, we now have it.

Labor will justifiably revel in the result but would be well advised to avoid any hubris. This was an emphatic swing, not an emphatic victory. I suspect most people voted a government out rather than voting an alternative in.

The lessons here are not about Brand Labor or Brand LNP. This is about Brand Politics and a fundamental disconnect between what the silent, increasingly well-educated and well-informed, majority want and what the party political system is delivering.

I was watching the state leaders’ debate on Friday and the efforts being made by the Opposition to position the election as a referendum on asset sales. Less than three years ago I was watching the equivalent debate where the opposition was doing the same thing on the same issue. The difference was the parties had now swapped sides on the issue. I couldn’t help but thinking that somewhere along the way we had lost the plot.

As I prepare to venture back into the media after a couple of years as a different kind of observer, I offer a few thoughts on the fractures that have developed in the political fundamentals:

1. The decline of the “true believers”

The so-called true believers would fill ever-smaller venues. The people Paul Keating once described as “rusted on” supporters are spraying the WD-40. Party allegiance and even philosophical leanings to a particular side of politics are becoming progressively extinct. When we covered elections in the past, the whole thing was decided on a relatively small number of marginal seats and swings above 5% were noteworthy. Swinging voters are now a huge, volatile group and recently their voting imperative seems set to “punishment” on the dial rather than an enthusiastic embrace of something new. This cycle of disillusionment is corroding our base national structures and distracting us from setting a new national agenda and a compelling, largely shared narrative.

2. The absurdity of political spin

While it makes sense for politicians to use key messages as a form of effective communication, the extent of political spin now inherent in day-to-day politics has become Monty Pythonesque. If you look all around the world, far and away the most successful leaders and politicians are the ones with the courage to have an opinion and the ability to look people in the eye and give an honest answer to a legitimate question. If leaders are just going to repeat the practiced lines, attack the alternative party like constipated parrots and use a whole lot of non-committal weasel words, we don’t really need them. We could just use robots or store mannequins for photo opportunities.

This issue reached its “Prince Phillip moment” last week when the Queensland Premier, in the last days of a campaign, refused to talk about anything but jobs at a media conference. For a lot of people this just symbolised and reinforced every reservation about the style of a sitting government and its willingness to listen and engage.

Curiously the whole spin rigidity of the major parties has created a huge opening for minor parties and outspoken political individuals. Whatever you think of Palmer, Katter or Xenophon and their politics, there are plenty of weeks when they seem to be the only politicians in the country giving a heartfelt, authentic opinion. People find it refreshing and this group end up boxing above their weight in public debate and having a huge influence. Somebody said to me last year: “I think it is time to emigrate, this week Bob Katter seemed to be the only person in the country making any sense.”

3. Becoming a grown-up democracy

Underlying many of these issues is the little-discussed, creeping diminution of participation in public debate in Australia. It is interesting that people will take to the streets to defend some of the most extreme manifestations of free speech, such as the work of Charlie magazine in France, but sit idly by while their voices are progressively muted in their own country.

How many jobs now include clauses that prevent you taking part in public debate as an individual? How many contracts prevent you from saying things that might bring your organisation or industry into disrepute? How many employers scan people’s social media profiles before they hire them in case they ever had an opinion, including shock/horror, a political one?

In the political sphere this includes everyone in the party having to toe the party line and recite the script. Why? Because they fear that anyone who has a real opinion that is different from the written policy will be used as an example of a divided party. The truth is the media may well do that, but only if parties accept those parameters as a means of attacking each other. Our democracy would be much stronger if we had genuine debate within parties rather than diluting everything down to vanilla and getting poorly-debated policies announced as a fait accompli before they are properly tested in the public realm.

In the 1980s there were far more internal party issues debated publicly and governments were far more stable. We knew the Left of the Labor Party would have different views from the Right. That’s why they had a Left and a Right and voters took some comfort that there was a range of views inside their government contributing to policy development. The “wets” and the “dries” in the Liberal Party served the same purpose. A few public forays didn’t fundamentally damage parties because it was a feature of both sides and the public and media generally accepted that it was healthy rather than destructive for parties.

American Presidential candidates can publicly and rigorously fight out campaigns to win their party nomination and still coherently join forces when it comes to the election. There are flaws in a democracy but, as Winston Churchill said, it is the worst system of government in the world, except for all of the others.

4. The never-ending election campaign

I fear one of the biggest problems is that we are always in a political campaign. Every week, a couple of issues play out, often very superficial ones, the government leader and the opposition leader get equal airtime to have their say, and polls come out at the end of the week to make a ruling on who won. It has become some type of bizarre sporting contest.

Not long ago, governments were actually recognised as governments and given the right to get on and run the country. Oppositions were a legitimate, alternative voice but the requirement for equal media time really only happened when an election was imminent. There was a slow-burn release of policies from opposition to encourage debate and start to position themselves as an alternative government. But the main game was mostly about government, policy development and public debate of issues that were in the frame. Prime Ministers, in particular, restricted the supply of public comment to retain a degree of statesmanship and maximise demand for their input. They weren’t out in a daily trivia street fight with the Opposition Leader on seemingly equal terms. As a result we mostly had actual, longer-term government with some sense of purpose and narrative. Policies could be developed over several years through green papers and white papers that put meat on the debate and we even occasionally talked about the longer-term future and what sort of country we wanted to be.

For most of the electoral cycle I’m not even slightly obsessed with what the Opposition thinks and I can’t for the life of me work out why government leaders and ministers start almost every television appearance with an attack on the Opposition. This just feeds the never-ending-election-campaign mentality.

5. Petty political warfare is not healthy democracy

The petty nature of some party-to-party “debate” is often written off as one of the inevitable by-products of a healthy democracy. I just don’t buy it. Do we really think we get a better result from people throwing insults across a parliament than acting as civil and responsible adults who just happen to represent different philosophical spectrums or, increasingly, just belong to a different club?

If we committed to grown-up, respectful party politics in Australia, I have no doubt that politics would attract better people and policy would be better because bipartisanship would happen on the 80% of things where this makes sense. In addition Brand Politics would be a constructive, positive thing and many normal, thinking people would not regard being associated with a political party as some sort of career toxin.

We now have the bizarre situation where there is so much public hatred between the major parties that they would rather do deals with a collection of hipsters, zealots and gun enthusiasts to pass or block legislation than just step up and cooperate for the good of the country and respect each other’s right, within reason, to implement budgets when they are in power.

6. Debating the right issues

A combination of “sound bite” politics, non-stop election campaigns and negative-by-definition debate can easily result in important issues being trivialised or debate focussing on the wrong things. Take climate change. It probably doesn’t matter whether we believe climate change is happening or not. Sending ever-increasing toxic pollutants into a sealed, limited atmosphere that supports all life on the planet simply doesn’t make a lot of sense on any long-term objective basis. The debate around the validity of global warming science can actually get in the way of the self-evident need for greater sustainability as quickly as scientifically and economically possible.

Similarly, I don’t believe for a minute that a few thousands asylum seekers arriving in boats is going to destroy or threaten any aspect of the country. The bigger question is why do people think it is a good idea to put children on a crappy old boat that will probably sink, to escape to a country that will put you in jail for trying? It feels like we are trying to fix the problem at the wrong end and then ending up in a situation where the logic of protecting our borders messes with our base moral values, emotional sensitivities and sense of humanity.

7. The perils of feeding the political beast

Anyone who has worked for government is aware of the need to constantly feed politicians with “announcables”. These are effectively programs, activities and spending initiatives that attract publicity and give the impression that they are doing lots of things for lots of people.

As a result, there is a constant need for new public funds to support all the new things that must be constantly fed into the machine. The upshot is an ever-bigger government sector and a system of organisations and initiatives addicted to the drug of government funding. If people really knew the extent of things governments spent their money on, they would be astounded and appalled. And once things are in place, they are politically difficult to dismantle – real people rely on them for their livelihood and the public service keeps growing, as does the hidden public service – hundreds of organisations totally funded by government. These organisations are generally doing important work, the people need their jobs and we probably can’t afford them – a classic wicked issue where everybody is half right.

The only way to fix this problem is to kill it at the source. Governments probably need to do less rather than more and, instead of feeling the need to constantly feed the publicity habit with spending; they should fill it with ideas and inspiring narrative.

In the first few days after Mark Latham became Opposition Leader (and before he went all eccentric uncle on us), he raised the importance of reading books to boys. The issue captured a lot of interest and drove a very healthy debate. This was simply a leader using his position to put a discussion into the public domain. Why aren’t we having more of those discussions instead of being expected to be forever grateful to governments for spending our money?

8. Just a few simple requests

So, in my capacity as an Australian citizen, I just want to say to our governments:

• I really don’t care which political club you belong to provided you have the right policies and the right team to do what needs to be done at this point in our history.
• I don’t expect you to have all the answers. But we need to trust you to have the intellect, values and quality advice around you to make sound decisions on our behalf. When we knight dukes and get the name of national sporting captains wrong, it unnerves us because it indicates a lack of precision that we can’t afford in high office with so much at stake.
• Do not lie to me. I get that things change. I get that sometimes you get it wrong. Just be upfront about it. Mark Twain wisely observed that if you tell the truth all the time you don’t need to have a good memory. If I can’t trust you, I can’t vote for you.
• We need you to be working on a long-term plan for our state and country. The market doesn’t provide that and we are at risk of squandering what could be the most prosperous years in our history because we are too busy with politics and not busy enough with government. Give us a plan we can believe in and we will help you deliver it.
• Governments sometimes need to just get out of the way. We don’t need you to do more. Sometimes we need you to do less. We need you to do the right things and get out of the way of businesses trying to thrive and create jobs. Stick to your lane and do it properly. Once we are convinced you are spending our money wisely, we won’t mind having a proper debate on the tax system and contributing more if that is what it takes to give our kids a better future and get rid of debt.
• Just answer the damn question and tell us what you think. I don’t care that I don’t agree with you all the time. I just need to know who you really are, whether you put rigour into your judgements and whether I can trust you.
• We live in the best country of the world and we want to be inspired. Don’t waste the lessons from yesterday. There were no winners.

Comments in these posts are personal. Shane Rodgers is a business executive, writer and marketer with a keen interest in social change and what makes people tick. He is the author of Tall People Don’t Jump – the curious behaviour of human beings.