Democracy is fragile.
Populists, liars, racists and fanatics are putting democracy through a stress test. It is creaking and groaning, threatening to burst.
Betrayed by the very institutions supposed to protect us, democracy itself is being questioned. Can we restore trust in those who have so widely betrayed the populace? Like any equipment: if you do not do maintenance, it will break.
We have neglected basic democratic repairs. The bearings are in need of some grease and the motor needs fresh oil. We need to look after the fundamentals:
- publicly accountable politicians
- elections that are beyond question
- an anti-corruption watchdog with real bite
- regulators who reject cosy deals with the regulated
- a media that holds power to account.
If we don’t, then we will slip and slide down the same perilous path that other democracies are going down.
Take this analogy from a petrol head who is also a political tragic: there was about a 10-year gap between the invention of the motor car in the 1890s and the introduction of road rules. The internal combustion engine found immediate commercial success, but there were no driving licences, no protocols about what happened when two horseless carriages collide, no car insurance, no drink drive laws…
We are at exactly the same point now with the explosion of digital and (anti-)social media. The technology is rampant, but the rules are being retro-fitted to the culture. It’s just like what happened when cars became popular: the early motoring entrepreneurs argued they ought not be bound by rules and regulations. The digital billionaires argue the same now!
Some paradoxes for you: we are supposedly more connected than ever, but we have unprecedented levels of loneliness. We understand more about what makes us healthy and happy, but we have epidemics of disease, obesity, anxiety and depression. We have access to all the libraries and universities in the world on our phone, but distrust in science is at levels last seen before the Enlightenment.
Technology can be a force for democracy and equality, but the people who control it are behaving like totalitarians. The tech giants argue they are not responsible for what goes online — they want to reap profits like publishers, but not be accountable like publishers.
We have innovation, but little progress.
People travel more than at any time in the history of humanity, but suspicion of strangers is soaring. Millions have found a new country in the mass migrations since World War II, but the backlash against migrants and refugees is now rampant. The epidemic of widespread distrust, disillusion and division flows from the unprecedented concentration of the spoils of progress.
Many people are working harder than ever, but feel they will never get ahead. Their share of prosperity seems beyond their grasp, and it is not surprising that they look for someone to blame. The elites have been grasping, patronising and greedy.
We may be breaking sales records for Ferraris, but we can’t increase Newstart. How can that be?
Are we at a tipping point? Too much change, too quickly, spooks those who feel they are not getting to share in the spoils. The social licence is threatened.
The gap between country and city, between tech-savvy and digitally deprived, the globally comfortable and the locally stuck… that gap is getting bigger and more dangerous.
Talkback radio is like society’s “complaints department”. Everyone gets a chance to air their outrage and grievance, and everyone is equal, whether a Nobel Prize winner or the village idiot. Everyone is entitled to be heard.
And how democratic is that? We all get to vote, and each vote is equal.
So what do we do? It is not all doom and gloom. We are told that society has “capacity constraints”. I agree. The capacity to be ethical. The capacity to be less selfish. The capacity to do the right thing.
We need to reassert civic and collective goals. We need to be more active in maintaining the machine — instead of leaving it to the mechanically savvy. We cannot outsource citizenship. We cannot leave empathy to the gig economy. We need to become activists for whatever cause it is that gets the pulse racing. We need to stop being afraid of ideas, and instead test them.
We shouldn’t say “you can’t say that”. We should instead explain why that idea or theory might be wrong; to engage in the contest of ideas instead of the suppression of ideas we disagree with. Respect.
We need to call out self-interest when we see it, and call it for what it is. We need to make sure that everyone is equal before the law — in practice not just in theory. The size of your defence fund should never affect the outcome of your trial.
We need to tell our stories better, and to explain complexity instead of shrugging our shoulders and wondering whether it matters. We need to remind those who volunteer to represent us that it is the voters they need to look after, not the lobbyists and the political donors. The banks, the clergy, the lawyers, the parliamentarians — whose side are they on? Are they there for the people or themselves?
Progress is neither inevitable, nor linear. We cannot take it for granted. We must work to make it happen.
We need to put on the overalls, and get our hands dirty.
Jon Faine delivered this speech for the 2019 Stephen-Murray Smith Memorial Lecture at the State Library of Victoria on September 17. It’s published here with his permission.
At last a realistic appraisal of why it is not enough to just say democracy and everything will be OK. The changes every generation see are amazing and unpredictable but we still use the same mechanisms for public engagement we were using one hundred years ago-just vote once every three or four years.
Well observed Jenny Beacham, may I also add the same 2 party system, that have become when in opposition a reflection of the other party presenting the lite version of it’s policies
If you want to know why there is political crisis, don’t ask the political class. They look everywhere but a mirror.
Social media as… car crashes? Distrust in science despite paywalled journals to not read, shocking, nothing else could be causing that. Everyone acts ethically all the time, where could they have gotten these ideas?
We must stop the totaltarian anarchy (???) of the internet by extending the state into our online lives.
We’re working more than ever but aren’t getting ahead, how stinking odd! Resuming patrol.
*over the sounds of the entire population of Biloela* Everyone is so mean to foreigners now.
Its an acknowledgedfact that the U.S have the best police force money can buy, the best health care and legal system that money can buy, and the best politicians that money can buy, just too bad for the bulk of the population that cant afford to buy them, now Australia is on the same path, democracy is now only a word, not a reality and the stupid dumb voters just keep voting for their own destruction, brainwashed and dumbed down and lemming like heading for the nearest cliff to jump off, its very hard to have any sympathy for these brain dead fools who are just getting what they vote for, its easy to see why Morrison has so much contempt for them, I share his contempt.
We also have to keep in mind braddybear, the system is broken, people like Jon Faine are the canary’s in the coal mine.
The problem is that those that vote for the LNP/Coalition often have very little understanding of truly how broken the system is, the amount of people that vote for the conservatives often do so out of habit more than anything else..
In the last election there were accusations of volunteers from the LNP/coalition going to aged care/nursing homes & “helping the elderly residents fill out their forms,” to me that’s not on..
With both parties of either stripe sending out “postal voting forms,” which turned out at close examination to be voting forms for either party, which I found extremely surprising also this isn’t how a democracy is run, the AEC needs to get off their fat comfortable behinds & start fixing up the rules..
This is the problem every time the Libs/Coalition get in they restrict public dialogue, they engage a certain level of Howardism, a superficial version of democracy, which is not only damaging to our politcal & social capital, but also ruins our reputation overseas…
Spot on Lesley Graham – “The problem is that those that vote for the LNP/Coalition often have very little understanding of truly how broken the system is” and unfortunately while we have no counter to the Murdoch Press, the commercial networks, Sky after dark, the 2GB buffoons in Jones and Hadley and their counterparts it will never be fixed.
Its nice to again raise awareness, but like climate change activism, it is simply not enough.
Parliament and its committees repeatedly fail to hold the Executive to account, be they ministers or public servants. Time and again, despite requests, ministers and public servants refuse to hand over documents or answer questions, nor resign when clearly they ought to like Angus Taylor. But none of our jelly fish parliamentarisns have the backbone to exercise the power they have to require them to do so.
The media is complicit. Time and again, they report as if our democracy is, and should be, a fixed term elected dictatorship of a PM, not a parliamentary system where government excess is meant to be tempered by the separation of powers between the Judiciary, the Parliament, and the Executive, and power is meant to be divided between our sovereign States and the Commonwealth. The media accept the lye that the Executive has power over Parliament when in fact the Executive must obey the laws of Parliament.
Our citizenry are also to blame. It seems most don’t understand, or cherish as they should, our preferential voting system which requires a successful candidate for election to attract over 50% support or a full quota (for a multimember electorate such as the Senate).
And we are all to blame for not pointing out the blatant inconsistent, hypocritical, immoral and non-evidence based policies and laws, be it treatment of refugees; the introduction of detention without charge, secret trials under the cloak of ‘security’; of vilifying and protecting those exposing serious wrong doing such as whistleblowers or pacifist ‘vegan terrorists’ exposing unlawful animal cruelty. Instead we accept that the catholic church, and it would now seem the Jehova Witness people, can or should be able to, incite their kind to unlawfully conceal crimes against children.
Almost concurrently we have our federal parliament passing draconian laws against well meaning people organising to expose animal cruelty, and another on ‘religious freedom’ to enable the catholic paedophile protection network to continue to conceal cruelty to children and to discriminate against women and others, ie. give them the right to be nasty. Where is the moral high ground here?
One can only hope we can rebound to make our democracy work, and not degenerate into totalitarianism as appears the case now.
What is justice? How do we protect it and restore the most abused value of all, the fair go? How do we overcome the moral panic driven by misinformed zealots and non-science which is wrecking families, careers, reputations and sending an unknown number of innocents to jail? I refer in particular to ancient allegations of child sexual abuse. Why is it politicians and political parties are so blind to the enormous damage resulting? Who is advising them? Who stands to gain? How have the helping professions been infiltrated by non-science which promotes the widespread belief in multiple personalities and dissociation? Fight back against the resultant witch hunt has been muted by fear, lack of media interest, attack on investigative journalism and whistle-blowers, plus silence from self-regulators. The ‘memory war’ has been hidden from view. How sad or bad is that?
Well said Jon !
However I was hoping for some more insight into how to best improve our dysfunctional constitution.
Here we are with too many elected politicians in three levels of government, federal, state and local all with their collective snouts in our troughs.
To complicate matters so much is wasted through duplication, buck passing and to cap it all, cutting the public service and the frank and fearless advice they give and then either contract out their services at greater cost, or privatise them.
As a retired businessman I well know the value in cutting out the middleman. The states have indeed passed their used by date !
Realistically I can’t see change occurring until we either :-
(a) Carry out a root and branch reform when we finally become a republic or
(b) When we feel the consequences and are dragged kicking and screaming to change due to the willful neglect through inaction by our politicians, as shown up by an example in the following link :-
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/worldtoday/no-energy-risk-assessment-leaves-us-in-the-dark:-john-blackburn/11520198
Your observations are on point as always Ian Harvey..
The problem is that the continued attitude of those in government no matter where they are, (this includes the local councils)…
These bodies have become in many council areas in Victoria almost militant in their need to reinforce “the rules” that often are just nit picking & most of the time more about revenue raising than actually changing behaviours…
I omitted to say that, as I see it, repairs are required to both our democracy and constitution since both are linked.
You’d be in New South Wales or Victoria then, Ian? I don’t think you’d get many voters in any other state to agree that the states have passed their use by date. Nor would many Germans, Swiss, U.S. Americans, Scots etc in the many countries around the world where federations or devolved quasi-states bring localised solutions to local issues. Our federation is very imperfect but we would be better served finding ways of making state governments more responsive to our needs rather than talking about abolishing states whose populations will never vote for abolition.
Whether I am a resident, Rais, in whatever state is immaterial, what is important is that I am an Australian national living with an outdated constitution which still ties us to the umbilical cord of the UK.
I look forward to the day when we are mature enough as a nation to take that bold step to cut that cord, become a republic and formulate and embrace a relevant constitution.
Why accept imperfection Rais and not aim for perfection in learning from other countries by all means ?
Lets continue having this conversation, thanks Jon for getting the ball rolling !
Cut the cord to the UK?
Egads, if we do that we may end up with Shane Warne as president.
I am not a great fan of Betty and family, however, a constitutional monarchy has been demonstrated to have the longest run of stability.
Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway to name just a few, seem to chug along a lot more smoothly than the US and Brazil. Changes of governments usually are a much smoother affair under a constitutional monarchy, with an independent public service.
You might ask whether Northern European constitutional monarchies are stable because they’re monarchies or whether they’ve remained monarchies because they’re stable. One can pick out a list of stable or unstable republics and stable or unstable monarchies or recent ex-monarchies but there’s no evidence that their constitutional definition has affected their stability.
In comparison with small European monarchies you could quote Finland, Iceland, Switzerland, Malta and Ireland where in the last case only the part of the island that remains a monarchy remains unstable. Indeed the stability of Europe’s largest constitutional monarchy seems to be in question at the moment with an unelected leader who lacks the confidence of Parliament shutting down the Parliament in order to silence it.
Well I think you are up a tree.
The States fulfil the important function of reducing the power of a central government. …as it was envisaged in Australia’s formation which was modelled on the USA federation of states model with ‘strict separation’ of powers modified by the English system where the Executive is drawn from and accountable to the Parliament. The States help avoid ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. It is disappointing that the feds have, with the support of the High Court, massively increased centralised powers.
Differences, tensions and to some extent complexity, can be good things in protecting citizens from overzealous governments. You just have to look at NZ that had a simple, unicameral system with first past the post geographic representative parliament to see how a ‘simple’ system with reduced layers of government creates chaos with massive repetitive radical changes with small changes in voting. They now have a form of multimember proportional system that provides for a broad based consensus government. Perhaps the PRC model of a simple autocratic central government would fulfil your dreams, but that’s not mine, nor is it democratic.
I don’t think for a second that our democratic institutions couldn’t do with some radical shakeouts, but abolishing the States would ge a very regressive step. Multi-member proportional representation as in Tasmania and the ACT could be worth a try for the HoRs. The jury model might also be worth exploring, as would such models proposed by the Flux Party. But giving more power to the increasingly irrational federal parliament scares the bejesus out of me, afterall this is the Parliament that passed lad allowing for detention without charge, secret trials, prosecution of those exposing serious wrongdoing and now laws to enable religions funded by secular public money to be nasty to people they don’t like.
Unlike most people in Australia I don’t have dual citizenship and don’t have the option of bailing out to another country.
The fiscal cost of politicans is miniscule. The real fiscal holes are the hidden non-transparent tax subsidies and expenditures in our tax system, ‘industry development’ welfare, & non-means tested welfare for the rich such as franking credits, superannuation and private health insurance rebates etc.