Our newly minted Prime Minister and Treasurer present themselves as willing to engage and listen to the people of Australia and govern on their behalf.   Other than a series of platitudes, high-level interactions, and talk of summits with the great and good, no serious effort is being made for effective engagement with the electorate.   There are many issues our government needs to make the big moves on, e.g. determining optimal government service levels, sustainable and equitable revenue-raising, affordable housing, indigenous recognition and engagement, productivity and gain sharing.   Effective engagement means transparent deliberative processes with broad community involvement!

As frustrating as it may be, our politics is seeing a better-quality contest of ideas:   “The most reliable cure for confirmation bias is interaction with people who don’t share your beliefs. They confront you with counterevidence and counterargument. John Stuart Mill said, “He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that,” and he urged us to seek out conflicting views “from persons who actually believe them.” People who think differently and are willing to speak up if they disagree with you make you smarter, almost as if they are extensions of your own brain.”

As Jim Chalmers sets about his job as Treasurer, he is rightly pointing to the challenges of meeting community expectations in the face of the current levels of public debt.   For decades our politicians have known that demographic trends and growing community expectations for services and support have seen cost projections outpacing those for government revenues but have obfuscated the problem for political expediency.We need to come together as a community and face economic reality and agree on reasonable expectations for the services we require from the government and how we will pay for these.

Yesterday the NSW Legislative Council passed an Amendment to standing orders to include a statement of public interest with “ev

The 2022 Federal election campaigns have been an insult to the Westminster traditions on which our liberal democracy was founded and to the electorate.   The lack of a serious and fulsome policy agenda by any party or candidate is contemptuous. It puts our economy, sustainability, well-being, and national safety in danger.   For too long, our politicians have sidelined the complex and vital decisions that need to be taken to have a sustainable physical and economic environment and a healthy and thriving community and democracy.   There is a better way, and we need to demand that our politicians change:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCG6H8yELhE  

Our liberal democracy requires us to look beyond ourselves as individuals or as members of small tribes to be successful.   As the two-party system based on old ideologies has lost its appeal, we need to discover new ways of reaching an agreement on what constitutes the common good on a range of issues, e.g., inflation, productivity, debt, national security, social equality and climate change.   In Australia’s 2022 election campaigns, our two foremost party leaders avoid policy leadership. Instead, they respond to the fracturing of public opinion, the tribalisation of our society, and the power of grievance subcultures.