Tory Shepherd: Australia First — It’s all about pride. And fear
PM MALCOLM Turnbull is learning that emotion is the way to get people to like him again, writes Tory Shepherd. First he invoked our pride. Then our fear.
WHEN people have switched off, how do you get them to switch back on?
It’s a perennial political problem. Once the voters have shut their mind to the Prime Minister of the day, the PM is usually toast. That’s when you hear desperate promises to reveal the “real” PM or the declaration that “good government starts now”.
Politicians reach for the reset key but the public know that trick; and they’re not falling for switch off and on again, either.
A while ago, the nation’s science communicators met in Adelaide and the conversation turned to what to do about those pesky people who don’t believe science. You know, the climate change deniers, the anti-vaxxers, and so on. The people who just will not change their minds no matter how many cold hard facts you hurl at them.
Turns out emotion is the key. Studies show appealing to someone’s feelings is more effective than appealing to their rational mind.
In an absurd twist, science has shown that non-science is the way to get people to believe science. This world, eh?
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sounds like he’s learning that emotion is the way to get people to switch.
This week was all about Team Australia. Australia First. Australian jobs. And, most of all, Australian values.
Mr Turnbull abandoned his normal highfalutin verbosity and spoke to people’s guts. He invoked their pride: “We are the most successful multicultural society in the world. We are an immigration nation. We’ve been built by millions of people who have come here from every corner of the world. We are as old as our First Australians, as young as the baby in the migrant mother’s arms... we’re a remarkable nation.”
The Government is also plucking at another emotional string — fear.
The four issues highlighted in the proposed new questions for the citizenship test are female genital mutilation, family violence, education for girls, and child marriage.
It would be disingenuous to pretend those are not Muslim-specific issues, but the Government has to pretend. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton insisted they are not “pointed at anybody in particular”, and said he doesn’t care about people’s religious or ethnic background.
His words are undone by the official introduction to the Government’s Strengthening the Test for Australian Citizenship paper. Again, it invokes pride. Then, it provokes fear.
It segues swiftly from multiculturalism to: “Recent terrorist attacks around the world have justifiably caused concern in the Australian community... in the face of these threats, there is no better time to reaffirm our steadfast commitment to democracy, opportunity, and our shared values.”
The big perk of this sentimental approach is that you can stick to some pretty vague ideas and people just “get” what you mean. It’s “common sense”. It’s what people at the pub think. It’s about a “fair go”. The idea of “Australian values” is a Rorschach test. Sure, you can list things including democracy, gender equality, commitment to the rule of law.
But people will take away whatever they have a yearning for. An end to political correctness, an Australia where a man could come home from a hard day’s work and enjoy a cold beer and dinner on the table, where Holden was churning out cars to drive on uncongested roads and there were jobs for everyone, and kids could go to the park on their own.
It’s the nostalgic wishing for an imaginary Australia.
Australia First could work. Senators Pauline Hanson, Cory Bernardi, and David Lleyonhjelm will all claim it’s their turf. The Opposition will try to out-Australia First them; yesterday, at the exact same time, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and Mr Turnbull were wearing hi-vis vests and talking Australian jobs.
Through the 457 changes, Mr Turnbull also firmly tied immigration issues to jobs.
Immigrants, terrorism and jobs. It’s a powerful triumvirate.
Australia First will tickle more people than Mr Turnbull’s previous applause for globalisation and free trade, and many of the voting “base” will accept the vague nationalist rhetoric without even a “please explain?”.
Tory Shepherd is political reporter for The Advertiser.