Mike O’Connor: From a distance, I no longer recognise my Australia

There’s not much joy returning from holiday to a country whose government once promised a new way in politics but instead has delivered cynical, self-serving cronyism, writes Mike O’Connor.

When viewed from afar, it is a strange and curious land in which we live, this insular, isolated nation that in the minds of anyone living beyond its shores exists somewhere at the bottom of the world a long way from anywhere.

I spent the last weeks viewing it through the screen of my phone, reading news bulletins while sipping coffee in a waterfront cafe in Greece and wondering what sort of a country we had become.

We flew to Europe on a Middle East airline, having had our faith in our once-preferred airline Qantas destroyed on a previous trip on which it cancelled our international bookings without informing us.

If we hadn’t double-checked, we would have turned up at the airport clutching our passports in anticipation of a six-week holiday to be told we had no seats.

It took 10 days of endless, stressful call-centre phone calls and emails to rectify this.

New Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Not content with doing this on our outbound flight, the airline did the same on our return trip.

Much has been written about the contempt with which the airline treats its customers.

Former chief financial officer and now chief executive officer Vanessa Hudson says she is sorry for the illegal sackings and the tickets that were sold for flights that didn’t exist. Sorry it happened or sorry they got caught?

Such is the social conscience of corporate Australia that falls over itself to signal its wokeism to the world while treating its customers with disdain.

Qantas is not alone in this but we only read about the ones, like the banks, which get found out.

Former Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce. Picture: Getty Images

I read with head-shaking disbelief while I was away how some of the country’s highest-profile sporting and cultural organisations are now offering significant ticket discounts to people who claim an Indigenous heritage.

How can they possibly justify racially discriminating against 97 per cent of the population?

While European countries scramble to secure energy supplies, in Western Australia tens of billions of dollars of investments in an offshore gas field are in danger of being pulled following claims by an Indigenous group that it was not adequately consulted.

The company, Woodside, said it had five meetings with the group, two attempted meetings, sent 19 emails, made seven phone calls, sent 10 letters and proposed regular fortnightly meetings.

Instead the group represented legally by the federally funded Environmental Defenders Office, took action which blocked the development after it had been approved by the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Authority, claiming it had not been adequately consulted.

The national interest then is held hostage by a handful of people on the most spurious of grounds.

We came home to a nation divided by the V-word. John Cleese as Basil Fawlty in classic TV comedy Fawlty Towers famously said “don’t mention the war”.

Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) and Manuel (Andrew Sachs) in Fawlty Towers.

Since our return, it’s become obvious that for a lot of people it has become a case of “don’t mention the V-word”.

I’ve lost count of the number of friends and acquaintances who since our return have sidled up to me, glanced over their shoulder and asked in hushed tones “Do you think the Voice will get up?”

It’s a sad comment on our society when ordinary citizens are afraid to freely express a negative opinion on the issue.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine at a vote No campaign event in Brisbane. Picture: NCA Newswire/John Gass

Surveys have shown that there a number of people who are saying they are undecided.

It is difficult to believe that too many people are undecided by now.

I suspect that there are a lot of people who intend to vote against the referendum but who are frightened to say so for fear of being howled down and who as a consequence are saying that they are undecided.

I sense a growing sense of anxiety and unease in the population born of falling living standards, insults and abuse surrounding the referendum and a disenchantment with a federal government that promised a new way in politics but instead has delivered a familiar serve of cynical, self-serving cronyism.

There was a time when after travelling overseas you rejoiced in the nasal intonations of a familiar accent over the Qantas aircraft speaker saying “G’day. This is your captain speaking”, for it meant that you’d soon be back in the easygoing, how-yer-goin-mate country of the fair go and its intolerance of frauds and hypocrites that you knew and loved.

It all now seems like such a long time ago.