Politicians glued to screens ignore public clamour

Today’s by-election results will lead to further navel-gazing while voters’ concerns go unheard.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (right) and Braddon candidate Brett Whiteley campaign in Burnie. Photo: Chris Kidd

It is the age of disengagement. When you slam on the car brakes to spare the life of that pedestrian who has stepped on the road, blissfully and dangerously unaware, with their eyes fixed on a smartphone and their hearing blocked by headphones, you are witnessing a metaphor for a global malaise.

Caught up in introspection, fashion and superficiality, our business, political, academic and media leaders have taken their minds off what really matters and are sleepwalking into strife. We see it in education outcomes, business performance, economic trends and public debate — and we will see it in today’s by-election results.

The debate over the next few weeks will focus on the micro-political consequences of the by-elections: who won, who lost, what it means for the leadership prospects of Bill Shorten and Malcolm Turnbull, and the timing and result of the general election. But the real story is that so many voters are disenchanted by both major parties. This disdain is reflected in the fact that the Liberals are not even bothering to run in the Fremantle or Perth by-elections, that Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie is expected to win in Mayo and that minor party preferences will decide who wins in the swing seats of Longman and Braddon.

Mainstream voters are restless and frustrated. The reason is obvious: we are not being listened to; we are being taken for mugs.

It turns out the banks and financial institutions on which we rely for mortgages, business loans and services have spent millions of dollars on virtue-signalling campaigns and programs for gender equality, gay marriage, indigenous recognition and climate change while ripping off their loyal customers with fees and charges — sometimes for no service. Schools and universities teach our children to be environmental activists, climate alarmists, economic anarchists and gender fluidity campaigners but don’t do so well teaching them the basics of language, mathematics and history.

Despite concerns about congestion, house prices and infrastructure shortages growing for at least five years, both major parties have shied away from a discussion about immigration levels. Labor seems to think proposals to weaken the nation’s border protection regime are a matter for legitimate political consideration. The major parties seem inured to the escalating pain of electricity prices. Labor promises to double the climate gestures that created the affordability and reliability crisis. The Coalition remains committed to emissions targets despite confirmation from the Chief Scientist that they will achieve nothing for the global environment.

According to Newspoll, 48 per cent of voters favour Australia withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement if it will reduce power costs while 38 per cent are opposed. Yet both major parties view Paris as an article of faith. That is the very definition of ignoring voters.

Federal primary vote polling over recent decades tells the story. These days the major parties oscillate between the mid to high 30s, leaving 25 per cent or so of the vote for minor parties. As recently as the 1980s and 90s, they ranged more often between the mid to high 40s.

At the 1983 election, Labor received 49.5 per cent of primary votes and the Coalition was thumped with 43.5 per cent; so the majors snared 93 per cent. In the 2016 election, Labor’s vote was 35 per cent and the Coalition limped to a narrow victory with 42 per cent; so the majors had just 77 per cent while more than 22 per cent of first preferences went to minor parties and independents. Cold hard facts show the major parties have lost about one in every five voters.

The question is, can they win them back? Not unless they lift their eyes from the smartphones and reacquaint themselves with issues that matter.

Politicians, like the rest of us, are caught up in their own little worlds. The information age has the potential to help us engage with each other more easily but it is turning us inward, as we consume information in digital silos rather than share it via curated programs, publications and courses. We stick to our own people and sources. Social media is anti-social.

We were given an insight into this through an article by the editor of the Murray Pioneer (incidentally, my first paper) in South Australia’s Riverland. Paul Mitchell went public with his dismay at the performance of journalism applicants in his general knowledge quiz, and the story attracted national attention.

These young people looking to get a start on a country newspaper are often some of the brightest kids around — they need excellent Year 12 grades to get into their university courses — and Mitchell was astounded that only one of his six interviewees could name the federal Treasurer and only one named the Opposition Leader. They were applying for jobs reporting news in the Riverland, yet not one could identify the federal electorate covering the region. They did better on who represented Australia at the Eurovision song contest and how to spell Meghan Markle’s name. Sure, youth and naivety go hand in hand, but Mitchell notes the general knowledge trendline is heading south.

Our politicians get caught up in machinations over leadership deals or quotas for female candidates, horsetrading over the national energy guarantee and diplomacy around a UN migration agreement but fail to act decisively on recruiting plausible grassroots candidates, fostering cheap energy generation or locking in strong border protection.

Mainstream voters are caught up in their little worlds too, of course. But these worlds involve things that matter — mortgage rates, housing affordability, electricity bills, education standards, wage growth and job security. These are the basics that politicians seem uninterested in.

It is difficult for politicians because the noisiest voters are the least representative. Whereas the lunatic fringe was once truly on the fringe, it now can dominate debate on social media, influence mainstream media and exercise direct lobbying power through online campaigns. Politicians listen to this noise at their peril because the activists often know little and believe less, and their numbers are much lower than their online amplification suggests.

At the anti-Trump demonstrations in London this month, many protesters asked by journalists to explain their grievances could offer only incoherent rambling. It was the vibe of the thing. The same for Australian protesters against Lauren Southern. Former NSW premier Mike Baird’s supporters still cite social media responses to argue he was right to ban greyhound racing, even though in the real world it was obviously seen as extreme and unfair.

One of the reasons the Turnbull government is in so much strife with the My Health Record scheme is that it failed to comprehend such a move required an open and honest national discussion. You can’t just slip something like this into action and expect social media acceptance to carry the day.

So my advice is to steel yourself. The by-elections results can’t be neutral — either seats change hands and Shorten is in strife or nothing happens and Turnbull takes the heat. We are likely to see a fever of introspection about leadership alternatives, campaign strategies and federal election timing.

But the real lessons about listening to our concerns, lowering our electricity costs, boosting our standard of living and protecting our national strengths are likely to go unheard as we walk into heavy political traffic. The major parties ought to look up and listen.