After a gruelling eight weeks the federal election campaign has drawn to a close – the people have voted, cake stall revenue reconciled, seats set and finally the headlines have moved onto non-political events.
Commentators have been quick to criticise Turnbull’s leadership along with the lack of cut-through of the ‘jobs and growth’ mantra, while Shorten is being touted as some kind of messiah for bringing Labor back from the brink. I’m keen to take a deeper look at what can be deciphered from the tea leaves of election 2016.
This was the election where the Australian people turned off from mainstream politics en masse. The Liberals have had their majority slimmed to a whisker, Labor received its second lowest primary vote in history, and the Greens are down a Senate seat. Only the National Party out of the major parties managed to hold ground.
Australia’s political class has lost its political narrative and it’s high time they got it back.
I fully support the rise of a strong local independent, one that has worked their community and built an electoral following. They after all represent some of richness of our democratic Westminster system. What I struggle to understand is the rise of the ‘name-maker’ independent politician. The rise of an individualistic populist identity that rapidly builds a fledgling political party around them based more on personality than policy. These one-trick ponies are disruptive to the political conversation and are jeopardising our nation through a lack of long term policy direction and vision.
Clearly the recent rise and fall of the Palmer revolution has not scratched the itch of the Australian public in backing the ‘name-maker’ politician. How long do we presume that the merry band of unknown Xenophon puppets will blindly follow their leader’s every word now that they have their own seat in the parliament? In looking at the trend towards the ‘name-maker’ politician an outsider would be mistaken for thinking that the big issues facing modern Australia were exporting Muslims in South Australian-built submarines.
Creating a political party involving part of your name must be one of the most narcissistic acts possible. It also delivers no underlying policy platform to continue after the ‘name-maker’s’ certain political demise. The public is as captivated by the bright lights of these movements as we are in the drama of who will win The Voice grand finale. There are two main reasons for the ‘name-maker’s’ success: they have the veneer of being ‘in touch’, not shielded from the masses by bureaucratic party hierarchies; and the public’s desire to cast a protest vote to illustrate their disenchantment to traditional political parties.
The clear message from all of this is that the general public has lost ownership and faith in the major political forces. The numbers illustrate a similar picture – nationally, no political party has in excess of 50,000 members. On both sides of the divide it is a case of dwindling membership, sparsely attended meetings and unless you are a careerist or connected to an oxygen tank its not really your scene. No wonder we are disenfranchised with the people and policy formation arising from these institutions -their rootstock is dead.
Compare these numbers with the left wing movement GetUp which claims in excess of 600,000 members. Hell, even the waiting list for membership to the MCG lays claim to 225,000 people. Australians clearly have not lost the desire to belong to a movement or institution. It is just the way we are engaged that needs to change.
A parliamentary democracy operates most effectively when policy concepts have first been debated by the people around the nation’s kitchen benches and billiard tables before being debated on the floor of the house. This both assists in developing sensible defendable policy but also involves and engages the common man in the political narrative – now that is a plan for the nation.
- Bryce Camm, Wonga Plains, Bowenville
