Politicians observe our fears and concerns and project them back at us
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Version 0 of 1. If you are in any way tuned in to federal politics right now, you will have heard about our manifestly uncertain world. Over and over. These are troubling, troubling … did I mention troubling, times. As a rule of thumb, politics would prefer to deliver voters steadiness and certainty, but increasingly this is a commodity in short supply. So if you can’t deliver certainty, then uncertainty will have to do. And uncertainty has its own potent rhetorical currency. The current uncertainty frame in national affairs isn’t actually a construction, or a complete invention delivered to us by a manifestly cynical political class. Feelings of contingency and risk are real, multidimensional and pervasive; and it’s odd that basic facts don’t seem to provide much reassurance or durable comfort. Reasons to feel bloody terrified are many. In no particular order, there’s Russian aggression, there’s Chinese regional ambition, there’s the consequences of the decline of American exceptionalism and the perceived vacuum of leadership in the White House, and there’s that sectarian violence in the Middle East and its deeply unpleasant consequences for all western liberal democracies. Australians are people with their eyes firmly on the world. If the established global order wobbles, we tend to notice. Then there are the persistent domestic dramas. There’s concern about the direction of the economy, about job security and cost of living pressures. It doesn’t matter, apparently, if the data tells us we are travelling well enough and certainly a great deal better than elsewhere – the concern persists and wafts. Tony Abbott made a really big promise before the last election – he promised to end the chaotic cycle of the 43rd parliament and put the adults back in charge. He held out a chimera of certainty. Then he manifestly failed to deliver it. This parliament has opened much like the last one, only it’s actually more lacking in a basic organising principle. Surprises emerge from back pockets. The Coalition has been unable to communicate clearly what it stands for. The Senate is a total crap shoot. From the vantage point of the average voter, very little has changed in politics in Canberra. As a consequence, alienation is rife. Politics right now looks to be a considerable distance from us and our daily concerns. But nothing could actually be further from the truth. Politics is right inside our heads. Professional politicians know with a considerable degree of precision what we are thinking. They mine our perceptions and reflexes and prejudices and fears and ambitions, and they loop this valuable material back into the way they present arguments and key messages. It’s a strange conundrum of modern politics: politics and the polity have never been more connected, yet never further apart. Mark Textor, the Liberal party pollster, wrote engagingly recently about the current mood of the Australian electorate and the prevailing vibe he termed “new uncertainty”. Textor noted soft perceptions about the economy. After years of economic growth in Australia “there is now a distinct possibility that easy prosperity may not continue”. “This new uncertainty is reminding an expectant community how vulnerable we are to externally generated events beyond our control. Planes shot from the sky, a caliphate from Iraq to Syria, the possibility of domestic terrorists in our midst and less demand for the core of our vulnerable and seemingly one-pillar economy: resources and energy sector. When reminded of this vulnerability there is a stronger tendency to “nest” – to actively seek some measure of greater control closer to home. We all seek a more cohesive and secure environment at home, within our own communities and within our own country.” Given his well-honed skills as a national mood miner, I’d rate Textor’s assessment of our collective state of being bang on the money. So where does this prevailing backdrop – the “new uncertainty” – leave the daily political contest? Well, the evidence over the past month or so suggests the major parties are facing up to the conditions in different ways. Both the Coalition and Labor are doing their best to define the current uncertainty, and project both empathy and “solutions” in different ways. Tony Abbott has moved into a discussion about national security and the steps the government is taking to keep us all safe. In so doing, the prime minister has defined an enemy which is both abstract and “other” and ephemeral – and very real. Having defined the threat he’s now projecting various solutions. To put the current public posture at its simplest, Abbott is countering an abstract uncertainty with the imperative of moral crusade. Prime ministers do what is right and what is necessary. Listen to him. He’s saying that every time he’s in front of a microphone. He wants to assure us that the adults, or in his case, the adult, has finally turned up. Abbott is most comfortable when politics is counterpoint, when there are people who do the right thing and people who do the wrong thing. Every goodie needs a baddie. The basic, reductionist, construction suits. So this is a key transition for him. If he can achieve the balance, Abbott has a good prospect of not only facing and dealing with a bunch of practical threats and problems but of stabilising his government and rebooting its political fortunes. Labor can’t match the government in the national security frame. It’s fraught territory. So Shorten has to project his own defence of the homeland. The current Shorten projection has a couple of main themes: economic nationalism and environmental protection. Environmental protection safeguards the future for our children and it safeguards the industries of the future. Shorten is also working himself up into a nationalistic lather about the intrinsic sacredness of Australian jobs and about defending “our industries” from another batch of furtive foreign fighters – the fighters (in this case high tech Japanese submarine manufacturers, apparently creeping covertly around the Adelaide shipyards) who would make products more cheaply overseas and send them back here. The nationalistic fervour hits its peak in front of a blue-collar audience, where it tends to go down a treat. But it’s in the Labor messaging more generally. This is not a simple question of economics, this is about the pride of our workers, our towns, our regions – it is about knowing what you want to defend and defending it. If you’ve got to punch a key regional ally in the nose, then so be it. The retro swagger might also absolutely contradict some of Labor’s other core economic messages, but the only people who’d sweat that sort of small stuff are professional nitpickers. So we’ve travelled a distance in this Dispatch, but the simple point is this. Next time you bemoan the distance between us and those dreadful people in Canberra – understand that we are now locked in a process where we essentially hold mirrors up to each other. We reflect our uncertainty and contingency to the political class and they reflect our uncertainty and contingency back to us, overlayed with their preferred constructions. Our nightmares hover at the top of the arc before crossing over in the ether. It’s only a theory. In fact, this is pure speculation on my part. But perhaps it’s this abundance of reflective surfaces that exacerbates the disconcerting feeling that nothing in national affairs is ever quite real – and nothing ever quite penetrates. |