WHILE ROME BURNS
From the archives written in April 2025, during the Federal Election campaign, before election day.
Nero at play: Sweet music while Rome burns
The world is in turmoil. Everywhere there’s upheaval, war or the threat of war, racial friction or economic unrest. We live in interesting times, too interesting for most of us to handle. It’s hard to adapt to change when it rolls in from everywhere all at once. As our anchor lines (the things we take for granted) snap we – understandably – become more and more stressed and anxious, more jumpy about all the uncertainties that confront us. It doesn’t help allay that anxiety where our politicians so patently pretend that all will automatically right itself and we’ll soon return to normal.
Our biggest ally is turning rogue, Europe is preoccupied with the Russian-Ukraine war, the Middle East with the Israel-Palestinian debacle, the Sudan continues its bloody way, Africa struggles to conquer poverty and disease…….and on it goes virtually everywhere you look, mayhem.
While the winds of change rage around us there’s a quiet hope here at home that we’ll somehow, miraculously, find ourselves in the eye of the storm. Safe, or at least largely protected from, the worst of it all. After all, we live in The Lucky Country, don’t we? It’s a comforting but dangerous thought.
So far we’re approaching the upcoming Federal election pretty much as usual with that calming thought in mind. Our political class certainly is. So too are the political Parties – and the media. In 2025 we’ve already started going down the very familiar and well-trodden path of a stock-standard Australian election.
Yet again, Australians are being asked to choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee to form the core of any new government (be it a majority or minority one). The approach of the contenders (both big and small) is to use the conventional marketing methods of the vote-broker, namely to emphasise and spruik the goodies and sweeteners in their showbag of ‘promises’ while underplaying any nasties or impositions, anything that would be bitter or unpleasant for voters to swallow. You don’t win election by scaring the horses.
Our political leaders will be hellbent on winning as many votes and seats as possible, after all, unless they’re in power (or hold the balance of power) they’ll be powerless to serve Australia to their full potential. First things first (they say) you have to win power (or hold it ) to be able to do anything beyond talk, even if you wanted to. The means (they believe) justifies the ends, their ends.
In reality, it won’t make much difference which of the big parties forms government in 2025. The differences between them are less than their commonalities. Both are too timid to deviate from a safe middle-course. Neither wants to risk scaring voters. Both put their electoral prospects (ie. their own electoral ‘safety’) before the strong pursuit of the Nation’s long-term interests.
The truth is our political class has run out of puff over the past couple of decades, It’s produced few politicians of ability on either side …and a paucity of strong leaders who are prepared to act proactive in tackling the major issues that will determine both our future living standards – and National security.
In short, we are in for more of the same over the next three years, with a government focused on adjusting things at the margin in an attempt to keep different groups ‘quiet’ if not happy, one that’s becalmed in terms of initiating domestic policies of substance, one wholly reactive to international events.
This is the posture of a weak nation. A nation afraid to, and incapable of, shaping its own destiny, a nation in decline. We’ve been locked into this pattern for far too long.
Both domestic and external forces interact to partly explain this proclivity for ‘treading water’ as opposed to Advance (advancing) Australia Fair .
There are impediments to turning around this parlous situation. They include,
THE PROFESSIONALISATION OF POLITICS
In times past people came to politics after careers in the real world. They’d experienced what it was like to work and live in their communities, how to do things. It’s different now.
The largest group in Federal parliamentarians consists of those who joined a party after university/unions as juniors who then, over time, worked their way up the party ladder to become advisors, administrators, press secretaries and candidates. Some became parliamentarians, a smaller number ministers, fewer yet cabinet ministers – and one or two become party leaders.
It took the current PM over forty years to move from party membership to the top job. He’s spent over a quarter century representing Labor in the House of Representatives.
Parties are fiercely competitive. They reference each other all the time, sometimes almost to the point of being blind to little else but their rivalry, blaming each other for anything and everything that goes wrong – and taking full credit for any good news. They’re always looking over their shoulder at each other, preoccupied with the slightest ‘moves’ and ‘countermoves’ of their opponents.
Those within ‘the party’ work together, mentor each other, socialise and party together, marry, have kids and affairs together. They fight and compete with each other as their careers develop. The party becomes the pivot around which their lives revolve.
In spite of posturing their party exists to serve ‘the people of the Nation’, ensuring the success of the party becomes the prime goal of these professionals. Their careers depend upon their party’s success.
The longer they remain in the game, the more the professional politician gets used to living in a ‘bubble’ that (many say) distorts their understanding of the hopes, aspirations and worries of ‘ordinary’ people living ‘ordinary’, real, lives. The lives of those they purport to serve.
In an attempt to develop vote winning strategies party seniors use focus groups, surveys and polls to plug into the outside world to understand what voters are thinking – formulate and test the appeal of their policy packaging, messaging and war cries/sloganeering. Finding ways to beat the competition is always their immediate, short-term goal. That motivation takes precedence over everything else, including the need to address those big awkward problems whose resolution is critical to the long-term success of a country, resolutions that are likely to upset voters because they’ll probably involve an unpopular change of priorities and/or the imposition of some form of hardship on ordinary Australians.
A consequence of this modus operandi is too many big and hard issues are repeatedly kicked down the road, unresolved, until they become major crises or near emergencies
This tendency toward short-termism is reinforced by the fact elections are held every thirty-six months (at the latest). The resultant pressure of an always impending election ensures our political class constantly keeps any eye on everything that might impact on its electoral prospects next time round. The time left for policy development and its sound implementation is short.
In earlier times when the scope of Federal government was far narrower (and simpler) than today, such a time limitation wasn’t a major problem. Now it is. Look at how Australia has fluffed around with the environment, climate change, defence and economic development (beyond mining). We can’t even build houses anymore.
The complex issues Government is now charged to wrestle with don’t lend themselves to quick, simple or cheap solutions. They take time expertise and commitment to solve in anywhere near an efficient manner. The high-turnover way we do government in Australia is a major problem.
Liz Cheney (the most senior Republican woman in the US House of Representatives ‘til 2023, daughter of Dick Cheney, long time congressman and Vice President for eight years under George W Bush) was asked to comment on the poor legislative performance of Congress in 2023.
She proffered three reasons for Congress’ lamentable performance.
First, she expressed bewilderment that people voted for such ‘idiots’ (her word) in the first place. Second, she was amazed at how quickly Republican Congressmen forgot their job was to represent voters and were so easily converted to the idea that their real job was to fight with both their own colleagues (not just their Democratic opponents) to secure the Party’s (the Republican Party’s) subservience to an outsider – and (thirdly) because that outsider had become an anathema to her and her democratic ideals. The outsider was Trump, a President she’d voted to impeach.
The situation is not as dire in Australia as in the US. Our democracy isn’t under threat from a would-be autocrat – a strong-arm merchant with Mafia-like tendencies. We suffer from a different, almost opposite, type of political malaise. A rather timid political class with a preference for not upsetting their electoral prospects by repeatedly pretending to voters that all will be OK in the end. This too is a very dangerous way for a political class to run a democracy in troubled times. Walking backwards into the future with your fingers crossed is to ape the emu, not the statesman.
BECAUSE VOTERS ACT LIKE CONSUMERS, NOT CITIZENS
Our political class has become vote-brokers for a pretty simple reason -those selling methods work to promote their ‘brand’.
Well before election day each party agrees on its ‘sales strategy’,(this year it will be the cost of living). Its spokespeople put on a light brushing of ruddy (or flattering) make-up, rehearse their lines, grab a high vis vest and hit the road posing as everyone’s friend and potential benefactor. All they ask is that you vote for them, your buddies. Hands are shaken, babies kissed and pensioners taken seriously as if what they were saying was both newly insightful and important. Promises are made and ‘we’ll try’ reassurances given.
Leaders wear an Akubra in the bush, a helmet on construction sites, a shady Panama at the cricket and a kippah if visiting a synagogue. Women wear complimentary wardrobes of skirts, blouses, suits and (usually sensible) shoes to suit the occasion – often with appropriate touches of ‘tasteful’ jewellery. Appearing as if you belong is important.
All the tricks of the marketing and advertising trades are brought to bear. Letterbox drops highlight the candidate’s deep connections to the community and their ‘happy family’ lifestyles. Smiling corflutes appear everywhere. Punchy ads flood TV. The news is peppered with short clips of the day’s announcements and bust-ups. In-depth interviews are conducted by the commentariat – and social media filled to overflowing with a wide range of everything from conspiracy theories, hot goss to the downright weird. Some authentic, a lot not.
Although our political class has basically been treading water for decades, parties in 2025 will again puff up the importance of their, minor policy initiatives, making out their tokenistic adjustments (a few more dollars here, a few more dollars there ) are brave moves forward…..while at the same time emphasising their opponents’ have nothing of comparable weight (or relevance) to offer.
Hype, emotionally loaded rhetoric, blame gaming and personal attacks will soon displace rational and informed debate in attempts to sway voters.
This form of propaganda – entertainment politicking – worked very, very well for Trump. It’s a type of populism we now see spreading throughout most western democracies.
The audience for all this storytelling is, of course, the near 20 million eligible voters of Australia.
Voters adopt pretty much the same consumer-like approach to deciding who we’ll vote for as we do when shopping .Many, it not most, scan the showbags (the party policies on offer) and choose the one they feel offers best value, the one that will best meet their needs in the immediate future .
The hip pocket nerve is particularly sensitive to matters monetary and financial. It twitches in fear when confronted with the possibility of higher fees and taxes or the cutting back of concessions. It feels warm and fuzzy when an ointment of tax cuts and fiscal exemptions is applied. Liberal applications of this latter nostrum are spruiked by Governments who feel at risk of losing an election. Most try it anyway, just to be sure. It’s cheap insurance given that the interest premiums will be paid by future generations of taxpayers.
This will be the shape of the battleground on which the 2025 election will be fought.
Not all voters, of course, are driven by their pecuniary interests. Many other factors (social and/or moral, ideological, religious loyalties) carry weight in their decision making. And that’s the way it should be.
Modern voters, nonetheless, exhibit a marked propensity to view government as an endless cornucopia of goodies. The high living standards enjoyed by Australians over the past forty years have bred a culture of high expectations, assumed entitlements and personal rights: matched with an impatience that demands all these diverse wants be immediately me.
We live in a ‘me’ focused society, a society where the ‘individual’ sees him/herself as the centre of everything. When such individuals feel their wants are not being met they cry ‘they (government ) oughta fix it’. This is the mindset of a consumer society.
The word ‘citizen’ by contrast sounds so strange to many a modern ear .
That’s so because while the concept of voter/consumer rights is familiar, the concept of citizen responsibilities isn’t. Both are integral to democracy. Democracy isn’t a one-way street. Citizens have responsibilities as well as rights.
When talking about responsibilities I’m not only talking about the ‘formal’ ones (such as having to vote (17% don’t), obeying the law etc.) I’m talking about the common sense, if not moral, responsibility to be engaged in things political in some way; the responsibility of being politically literate.
An uninformed and disengaged citizenry is a weak foundation on which to build any democracy, yet alone a strong one. That should be self-evident. It should also be evident that if voters are ignorant of the issues/policies they’re obliged to vote on (by way of selecting candidates at elections ) they’re more than likely to make poor decisions.
The ill-informed and uninterested are likely to be very susceptible, indeed gullible and easily led in the sense they’ll be attracted to the story or the storyteller who they can most easily relate to, the one that requires the least thinking effort, the one triggering the strongest emotional and or empathetic connection.
Shakespeare illustrated this phenomenon convincingly in his play Julius Caesar. After Caesar’s assassination in the Senate, Brutus faced an angry crowd. He justified Caesar’s assassination on the grounds that although he (and his fellow conspirators) loved Caesar they loved Rome more. The would be king-tyrant had to die. The once hostile crowd now roared in approval of the murder.
Antony (Caesar’s friend and ally) arrived on the Senate steps to face a Caesar hating crowd. He proceeded gently by reminding the crowd that Caesar (‘this bleeding piece of earth’) had indeed paid the ultimate price for his alleged ambition – but also that the ambitious Caesar had thrice rejected ‘the crown’. Antony went on to remind the crowd just how much Caesar loved them, finishing by revealing that Caesar’s will left all his possessions to the people. After hearing this the crowd was now shouting Caesar had been terribly wronged.
The crowd was turned around 180 degrees in under an hour.
Nothing makes a democracy more vulnerable to madmen, carpetbaggers and professional career politicians than a disengaged or ‘my-interests-always first’ citizenry.
Madmen manipulate the raw emotions and naiveté of voters to win power. Professional politicians present a more ‘rational’ (or more usually, rationalised) case to convince voters that it’s both in their best interests – and the nation’s – to give them your vote. The latter approach, although more sophisticated, is nonetheless still manipulative in intent. All are trying to buy, sorry win, your vote.
The best way for citizen/voters to inoculate ourselves against such attempts to manipulate is become better informed about – and more engaged in – thinking about what our political class is actually doing, not doing or not doing well.
That process starts by we citizens reminding ourselves that a nation is something more than the sum of its parts. We have collective needs as well as individual (‘me’) needs – collective (‘we’) needs such as the need for defence, the need for a public health care system, the need for public transport and, roads, utilities, communication networks etc. Before casting their vote the responsible citizen thinks about what’s an appropriate balance between what they’d personally like and what the nation needs, both in the short and long term.……..or, as JFK more eloquently pleaded it in his Inaugural Address “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”.
A second useful self-reminder is no government has unlimited resources, the resources to do everything at once. Choices have to be made and priorities set. Democracy requires the making of compromises, by way of mutually respectful negotiations. The sign of a fair compromise is when neither party walks away from the negotiating table feeling totally satisfied, when both sides walk away slightly unsatisfied, but feeling they can both live with the result.
Good citizens not only accept this way of doing-politics, they welcome it.
Devoting some time to understanding why others want different things to you requires listening to what they have to say, not simply screaming at them that they’re wrong. If your mind is closed from the outset, if you think you’re right because you know all you need to know you’ll end up arguing with, not cooperating with, your fellow citizens. In other words you’ll be fostering divisiveness, not harmony.
Listening doesn’t mean you have to become a political expert or obsessive. Listening and reflecting on what others have to say takes little time. Good citizens put in that not very onerous effort.
A MEDIA THAT THRIVES ON DIVISION ,SENSATIONALISM, MUCK RAKING AND HATE
If most voters continue to behave as ‘what’s-in-it-for-me’ consumers our political class will be happy. Modern, professional politicians flatter themselves in the belief that they are masters in the arts of communication and persuasion.
After all, they’re surrounded and supported by a phalanx of self-confident and highly credentialed experts who tell them just that.
Modern parties have teams of strategists, tacticians, marketing experts, ad men, media specialists, market researchers and ‘personal presentation coaches’ to assist them in putting their best foot forward. And they have backers, donors and those with a vested interest (and $$$) to spread those ‘cleverly crafted’ messages far and wide. Even the Teals have deep pockets.
The media too love this model of sports-fan (combative) politicking.
The vast number of people, egos and reputations involved in the process ensures the media always has plenty of controversial claims and counterclaims, insider stories, ‘gotcha’ moments and policy leaks to fill their newspapers, screens and radio waves – plenty of grist for their mills, 24/7.
The media also loves the money. Media owners love the millions spent on party advertising. They also love the fact that if their stories are hot and sensational enough they’ll attract more eyeballs to their mastheads. That, in turn, attracts more advertisers – and more money. It’s a virtuous circle which, as a side benefit, also provides journalists and commentators with the opportunity to present themselves as influencers or players.
You don’t survive in this media environment if your stories are dull, require too much heavy work or are overly rational. Short, pithy and emotional usually suffices. If your serious about making an impact ape social media. Be spikey, accusatory, emotional and, hateful. Throw fuel on the fire, just as those using social media do.
While this warfare, pitch side-against-side model makes sense from both party-political and media points of view it has a major and serious downside. It serves to divide the electorate into increasingly hostile and self-protective groups. It spreads divisiveness, suspicion and feelings of victimisation. It breeds enmity rather than empathy, a ‘them’ versus ‘us’ mindset, a movement away from (not toward) the good citizen ideal .
The current chaos in America examples how quickly even the most powerful of democracies can fall apart when it divides rather than comes together.
AN ECONOMY WITH ITS BACK AGAINST THE WALL
Another key reason why Australia finds itself in the doldrums is because our economy is structurally weak. A weak economy means that governments (and would be governments) have little room to move, because they lack the financial resources to do so.
The current election will be fought over minor adjustments to what we already have. It’s analogous to our political class running around rearranging the deck chairs around the band while the Titanic (The Lucky Country) sinks beneath us. To put it in more technical language, it looks like the Country is moving toward stagflation (a period of no growth, a stagnant economy with rising prices). It will be hard to reverse this trend. But one thing is for sure, unless our politicians try, nothing much can, or will, improve.
Time and time again over the last couple of decades our political class has demonstrated it just doesn’t have the stomach to tackle the big problems confronting the Nation. It is too timid to fix the tax system, build a viable defence force, incentivise manufacturing, take on the multinationals, attack environmental degradation …or do anything much beyond blame each other for the sad state we find ourselves in.
Our political class prefers a ‘give them bread and circuses’ approach to government.
How about a new stadium for Tasmania? That’s bound to be a winner (cost, around $1billion). We ‘ll promise Aussies the Brisbane Olympics will be the best ever (cost, between $7 and $8 billion). To make sure our Olympic Team does well in 2032, here’s another $250 million for the Australian Institute of Sport. Another $200 million for women’s (Play It Our Way) sport …and on it goes; $5 million here, ten million there for a swimming pool, oval or grandstand. It all adds up to a substantial amount of money. The NSW government (under Perrottet/Berejiklian) even promised the Australian Clay Target Association (in Wagga Wagga) $5.5 million for a new convention hall. That’s the circus/entertainment side of the vote-for-us equation (more commonly referred to as pork barrelling).
On the bread/cost of living side of the equation the sweeteners on offer at this election look very meagre. No loaves and fishes here. Labor’s proposed tax cuts are tokenistic… less than a dollar a day, perhaps a cup of coffee a week. Bracket creep will quickly gobble up those gimmicks to leave most paying more tax, not less, in no time. Labor is being disingenuous here. It’s trying to sell us a pup.
Dutton is not offering coffee to but rather discounted fuel to put in the tank of the car. If you drive big kilometres that might appeal. If you’re an average driver you might just about ‘save’ enough to buy a cup of coffee a week. Wow! The LNP is being disingenuous too.
Both parties are offering us the equivalent of a few coffee beans as ‘sweeteners’ to buy our vote. The people we vote to represent us are treating us as fools, gullible consumers not respected citizens. That’s not statesman-like leadership, it’s huckster-style politicking.
Nonetheless, even the cost of near empty gestures still adds up to a lot of money when given to millions of people. Labor’s tax cut bill would cost about $17 billion over five years. The LNP’s fuel price cut about $6 billion over twelve months.
The cost of other sweeteners on offer (an electricity rebate of $150 from Labor, greater local gas supply from the LNP) will appear of marginal value to voters but they’ll add up to a big debit on the national accounts.
What about the serious problems Australia faces, the ones critical to the Country’s future? Things like the ADF. Most Australians acknowledge that our current forces aren’t big or well enough equipped. They’re far from fit for purpose given the current international situation. Our defence capabilities are barely adequate and (from a comparative point of view) deteriorating.
There are plenty of other examples of our governments spending money on electoral sweeteners rather than essentials. I’ll mention only one more before moving on.
By international standards Australia’s onshore fuel (petrol and diesel )reserves are low, very low , around 27 days (less than a month). We now only have only two refineries left onshore, they’re both old and small. We import ninety percent of our needs, largely from Singapore. If the sea routes between us are broken we, to put it mildly, are up the creek.
A small to medium sized modular oil refinery costs about $250 million to build, a big one about $5 billion. The latter is roughly the amount being offered by the LNP to voters by way of a fuel discount for 12 months.
One of those options is in the national interest. The other is a party trying to win office for itself.
An interested citizenry is more likely to vote in the national interest than a consumer-oriented electorate. If the latter were given the option of cheaper fuel now or the security of a big oil refinery in a couple years’ time, they’re more likely to go for the cash. They’ll take a short acting pain killer in preference to enduring even a mildly uncomfortable cure – and therein lies the rub in many a developed democracy.
When confronted with hard times like the one we’re facing at the moment, neither the electorate nor our politicians are prepared to confront reality.
They (meaning we) prefer to listen to Nero fiddle while Rome burns.
EXTERNAL PRESSURES
Things at home are tough. Unfortunately what’s happening in the outside world will only make them tougher.
Our most important ally has just gone rogue. Trump has shown no qualms in abandoning America’s closest allies (Canada, Europe et al.), in fact he seems to enjoy humiliating and punishing them (particularly Ukraine and Mexico). We can expect to be treated similarly.
Such a probability makes our defence situation even more parlous. Australia will also suffer economically.
US tariffs will not only directly damage our exports (principally our beef, sheep meat and pharmaceutical/vaccines) to the US but also our exports to the rest of the world because the turmoil triggered by Trump’s power plays and trade wars. Uncertainty and retaliatory fight backs will spread to depress economic growth around the world. Instead of our most important ally helping us they’re hurting us and making Australia even more dependent on China, Australia’s biggest export market and the hegemonic power in our part of the world, a power which demands subservience.
IN CONCLUSION
In less than a decade Australians have suffered a per capita decline of near 10% in real income terms. One of the worst performances in the developed world. The more we fritter away our limited resources on electoral titbits every thirty-six months or so the longer it will take to rebuild both our economy – and defend it.
The time is long overdue for we ordinary Australians to take our job as citizens seriously and remind our political class their job isn’t to seduce us with sweet promises but to get on with the job of tackling the obstacles that block real progress. We need to toughen up if we’re to force them to toughen up – to behave more like leaders (statesmen and stateswomen) than vote brokers.
Charles De Gaulle (when President of France) reflected “I have come to the conclusion that politics are far too serious a matter to be left to politicians”. Words to remember as we face an election this year.
It’s up to an informed citizenry to insist our political class field candidates of talent who are motivated to serve the nation’s long-term interests -and not accept career-centric, professional politicians or single-issue independents no matter how nice they are. If we don’t live up to that responsibility who will?
We get the politicians we vote for. That’s how America, in spite of all the obvious warnings, got Trump a second time around.
If we fail to live up to our responsibility as citizens, if we fail to force change, 2025 will turn out to be another “faux” election providing little change. Australia will, at best, turn out to be treading water while the world around us becomes ever more hostile.
