US voters have shown there’s nothing inevitable about populism and big money politics. Australian leaders take note
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Donald Trump had an uncanny ability to sense grievance, channel it and promise his angry mobs: “I am your retribution.”
A new generation of American Democrats showed this week that listening and responding to real grievance is more powerful than retribution. They provided voters with the opportunity to reject chaos, division and big money politics.
In the process they showed – like other politicians in Brazil, Serbia and Hungary – that there is nothing inevitable about populist authoritarianism.
As Australia ponders how to deal with a castrated Trump administration, one lesson is clear: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ | Zoe DanielRead moreGrievance is alive in Australia as well. Cynicism about politics is growing, trust is whittling away, disappointment is widespread. Few public figures seem to have mastered the ability to actually hear what is being said, distil it, turn it around and provide a path forward.
Instead they are stuck with talking points, carefully manufactured lines that show little insight into the real pain, anxiety, social depression and hopelessness many are feeling.
To say, as MPs regularly do, “we know people out there are hurting”, does not help. Those of us “out there” are not on another planet. We are here, your constituents with real concerns, disappointments and ambitions. But we are talked to like figures on a white board, and told to be patient, respectful and appreciative even as the support we need fails to live up to the promises.
Pauline Hanson is not alone in encouraging anger and promising retribution; Angus Taylor is working on it with a private school twang. This might connect for a short time, but it is empty, manipulative rhetoric.
Just as Trump’s meandering talk made his supporters think he was like them, Hanson’s lack of sophistication helps her. They say she sounds authentic because she speaks like people they know. That she is incapable of delivering, of managing the complexity of public administration, trips up the insiders. But people “out there” sense that she hears them and might respond to the inequities they experience.
Anthony Albanese could be right. The times might suit the prime minister. By the election in 2028 the world may change. But it might not, and the warning signs are growing.
Last week the McKinnon Foundation’s Democracy Index and the Scanlon report revealed more warning signs.
It is time for the reset that was promised after the Bondi shooting and the alleged attack on the independent MP Helen Haines.
The public grief, compassion and heroism after the Bondi attack lasted a while but was then overwhelmed: by angry invective, political point-scoring, increased security, a hands-off, process-driven solution (royal commission) and hollow calls for social cohesion.
The alleged attack on Haines prompted a discussion about parliamentary processes, gender violence and mental health.
As she recovers, and her community grieves and tries to figure what to do next, the rest of us have been swamped.
View image in fullscreenIndependent MPs Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps and Allegra Spender during tributes for Haines on 26 October. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPAs the one-time news cycle supremo Alastair Campbell observed: “We live in such a high intensity political environment it’s very rare that an individual action or incident lasts more than half a news cycle, and so we just move on.”
Moving on may not be the right tactic this time. The road is full of potholes and the public is exasperated.
The Democracy Index shows that the urgency of a reset is increasing, trust is plummeting, cynicism increasing. Australia has a representative democracy but, according to the survey, almost half the population think politicians don’t understand “people like me”.
Instead, they talk about politicians who are out of touch with the grassroots, lack transparency, don’t listen or involve community, favour vested interests, may be corrupt and feel an allegiance to their party above all, for whom being reelected is more important than doing the hard things.
The immediate response to the alleged assault on Haines was to emphasise the threats facing elected representatives and increase security. This, as many MPs noted, was at odds with the nature of the job: to be available to those they represent.
But people living inside this bubble are, in many ways, already inaccessible. To get into a function where one of them is speaking requires pre-booking, identification processes, scans, explanations of who you are and why you are there. They move rapidly from one encounter to the next, brief exchanges with little content, staff poised ready to move their boss to the next most important person.
This is the antithesis of real communication and ensures that little that might challenge the prevailing worldview gets through.
One of the most painful paradoxes of the alleged attack on Haines is that she was at the forefront of doing politics different. The locally embedded model of political engagement developed by the former independent MP Cathy McGowan in Indi was and still is a profound challenge to the top-down, internally focused model of party politics.
The community independents are not alone in paying attention to their local constituents. The best MPs and their staff do that every day.
It gets harder the closer you get to the centre of power. Power strips people to their core. The demands are greater, the threats more acute, the opportunities to listen and distil fewer – but the need to do so greater.
At its heart representative democracy means representing – not just the loudest voices or those with the most to gain.
If the Albanese government wants to cheat the populist death spiral, it needs to go to the barricades with the rest of us | Peter LewisRead moreNearly three decades ago when Peter Beattie was elected Queensland premier he depended on one independent. Beattie realised he had to listen harder, be ready to apologise and adjust. He had to tell people what he was doing and why, explain the costs as well as the benefits.
To do this he introduced two transformative innovations: cabinet meetings across the state accompanied by open forums. And monthly mandatory meetings where the heads of the government departments sat in town halls and people lined up to ask questions, make complaints and suggestions.
“The department heads hated it,” he recalled recently. But it meant they stepped out of the bubble and heard things that reshaped decisions.
Trust in government is falling. But trust goes two ways – those in power need to learn to trust those they represent. That will be essential to any reset that goes beyond retribution.