If we want to move away from the politics of the lowest common denominator, let us start from the right place.
Since we do not yet know who will form a government, I am not going to comment on the politics of the election, not yet, anyway. Here I am going to focus on the interactions between the media, the electorate and politicians. Much has been said and written about the inadequacy of political and policy debate during the election. Journalists, commentators and members of the public – in blogs and letters to the editor – have complained loud, long and often that neither side put forward a vision of the future, that both sides were negative and locked into the media cycle, that both leaders were stage managed and controlled in their performances in public. It is hard to disagree with such assessments – and I will not disagree. However, I will put the blame for this situation where it belongs – and it belongs with us, the electorate.
Why do I say that? We the voters nowadays expect that politicians will be able to answer concisely and appropriately any question put to them, anytime and anywhere. We also expect that politicians will always be able to give simple answers to complex problems, in language comprehensible by all and in a few sentences. We expect that politicians should have instant and preferably painless solutions for any problem. Even if the problem – like global warming, for example – is not amenable to instant solutions and cannot be solved without change that some at least will find painful or uncomfortable. We demand that politicians be always coherent in their approach to policy, across an endless, shifting front of issues and regardless of changing circumstances over time. Oh, we also demand that politicians behave as leaders, when in fact our behaviour makes it plain that we want them to follow us, the electorate.
What we are saying by our behaviour, amplified in the three ring circus we call the media, is that we want politicians to echo our fears and soothe our concerns. If we are irrationally afraid of a few thousand refugees arriving in boats, we don’t want to be led, we don’t want to be told to grow up, to understand that what is going on is no threat to us or to our future; that it is more likely that we will benefit from the human cargo every boat brings to our shores; that we should be grateful to people smugglers for bringing here hard working, intelligent, determined people who will become good citizens and raise new generations of good citizens, as the history of the last sixty years tells us.
We, the electorate, are hypocrites. We are hypocrites twice over, because we also demand that our leaders pander to our hypocrisy and our collective intellectual sloth. We Australians, like the Romans of old, like our bread and circuses to be served up to us without much effort on our part – we even complain that once in a while we have to vote! In other places, where democracy has been hard won, people queue up for hours to vote and risk death at the hands of terrorists. We, who have had freedom handed to us on a plate, want the right to decide not to vote; we want the right to abdicate every and any shred of responsibility for what goes on in our own country; of course, not having voted, we would still claim the right to complain, to whinge, to demand, to criticise others for having the fortitude to make a stand.
And the media, well the media do what the media have always done. They package and sell to us a product that we are likely to buy, pre-prepared, bland snacks of thirty second grabs and two minute commentaries, the journalistic equivalent of junk food, which we eagerly gobble up and demand to have in endless forms in a growing range of media. Again, we, the electorate, are getting what we are asking for, so let us not blame the journos and their controllers (and owners). Again, it is hypocritical to ask of others what we are not asking of ourselves. We are not going to get high quality commentary and incisive, balanced analysis when we opt in our millions to watch Masterchef, rather than the Prime Minister and the would-be Prime Minister in debate.
So, if we want to move away from the politics of the lowest common denominator, if we want our news programmes to be more than bland snack food, let us start from the right place. Let us start by understanding that politicians are people just like us and not super-beings who understand everything, can communicate with everyone, always behave appropriately, never lose their temper or their way through the policy maze. Let us accept that complex problems require complex solutions and that facts should get in the way of a good story, because good policy requires a factual base, a foundation of truth. Let us accept that leadership means challenging our intellects and our spirits, shaking us out of our complacency and inspiring us to see the world as it is and not as we wish it to be, so that we can go on to create the world we wish for, rather than inheriting the world created by wishful thinking and by rear vision mirror politics.
When we, the electorate, can say that we have done that, then we can expect others to do the same. Until then, my fellow voters, we will continue to get the mediocre government and governance that have plagued this country for decades – and it will be our fault.
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Patrick Callioni is a former senior public servant, with the Queensland and Australian Governments, and is now the Managing Director of consulting company, Enterprise Intelligence Pty Ltd, which specialises in helping business to do business with government and vice-versa. www.enterpriseintelligence.net.au His books Compliance Regulation and Financial Services & Waves of Change: Managing Global Trends in the Financial Services Industry are available at Amazon
