Billionaires and lobbyists have seized control of our national narrative

For the past three weeks, I’ve travelled the country meeting readers. Having spoken to 8000 people over that time, I was struck by the sense of pent-up fury in those I met.

In every state and territory, packed town halls and auditoriums bubbled with anguish and boiled with a frustration that was palpable from the stage.

Illustration: Simon Letch

People made it clear they’re fed up with the cosy paralysis of our national parliament.

In every time zone, and across divides of class and educational background, Australians sense the gravity of the climate emergency, and they want action. But all they hear is excuses. They’re crying for change but see only political gridlock and pig-headed time-wasting.

The force of their mood was sobering. Without such direct and sustained exposure to my fellow citizens in our moment of shared anguish, I suspect I may not have fully registered the temper of the time.

It set me to thinking about the liberating power of stories. But also, how social narratives can become forms of entrapment. Because we all live within a story that shapes our aspirations, values and opportunities.

But our chief storytellers are not novelists. They’re PR hacks and lobbyists. As evangelists of hardline, anti-social economic theory, they spin yarns of self-interest for oligarchs.

The think tanks funded by these billionaires, and the lobby-mills they employ, are how vested interests enthral our policymakers and achieve state capture.

Their darkest success has been the obstruction of positive action on climate and environmental law.

For nearly 40 years, the fable they’ve spun, the tale that’s managed to set the agenda for all of us, has been a noxious myth fixated on the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Their story urges us to pursue lives of endless consumption and pitiless competition powered by the fuels that are killing the world.

This fable promises liberty and happiness for all. But it’s a false promise – and a cruel one.

Because at its core lies an Earth-sized hole. Their narrow gospel ignores the most fundamental aspect of our existence – our dependence on nature.

Neoliberal economics treats nature as an “externality”. It is never honestly priced into policy deliberations or decisions about our common future.

Tim Winton says Australians are furious about inaction on climate change.Credit: Violeta J. Brosig

The dominant narrative of our day is selfish and self-destructive. It’s also irrational and unscientific. Because the true bottom line is properly determined by the quality of water we drink, the air we breathe, the soil we grow our food in, and the weather we depend upon for survival.

Both the Labor and Liberal parties find themselves in terminal decline. Perhaps it’s because they mulishly repeat a failed experiment based on a theory that serves a powerful and obscenely rich minority, some of whom are not citizens, many of whom pay less tax than average wage earners.

It’s past time to break free of that trap. We need a new story to live in, a narrative that’s honest about the fragility of our biosphere and how we depend on its flourishing to live decently and justly.

Our fresh story should valorise empathy and solidarity over individualism and rent-seeking ruthlessness. It must value science over curated confusion, courage over reactionary impulses, and openness over shameless corporate and political nepotism. We need a story that promotes fairness over the injustice baked into the one that’s been forced upon us.

Only then will we have responsible climate policies, justice for our most vulnerable, and nature laws that aren’t finessed to smooth the way for exploiters.

Fewer and fewer Australians seem to believe that governments rule in their interests. And no wonder. Look how often and how easily the big polluters get their way at our expense.

We need to correct this drift because it’s corrosive and dangerous.

To do so we’ll have to reclaim our agency and insist that our common wealth and our common wellbeing are always the first considerations, not box-ticking afterthoughts. Our leaders need to fear the wrath of the people, not the pressure of billionaires and their slick-suited troubadours.

We need change, and the hard truth is that change requires breakage. Encrusted habits and networks of patronage must be shattered. Obstacles to progress, like those minstrels of Big Money, have no place in a story for the common people.

Empty promises and false consolation are what’s brought us here, to the brink of catastrophe.

Australians are in desperate need of solidarity. They yearn to be heard. And they deserve a better story to live by. What they don’t need is more lies.

Our parliamentarians are so keen to tell us about their values. But it’s their deeds that count, and by that measure they appear content to do as little as possible. This is what’s driving people nuts.

Every night these past weeks, someone has asked me if I’m hopeful about our chances of meeting the challenges of our day – the climate emergency, the extinction crisis, and the shameful growing gap between the rich and poor.

All I can tell them is that hope is something we make together as a bulwark against despair. As a crucible of fellow feeling. I’m determined to help foster hope and extend the conditions under which it can flourish.

Nobody thinks the challenge of meeting our moment will be easy. But despair is simply not an option – it’s just another form of submission to a rotten story that’s doing us no good.

Tim Winton’s latest novel, Juice, is published by Penguin Random House Australia.

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