Around the world, and also here in Australia, voters are turning away from the political process, alarmed at the capture of political parties by vested interests, and alienated by the fact that the issues which concern and affect ordinary people, are being ignored. Our social and economic system is moving both funds and influence away from people in the lower 60% of incomes and wealth, to those in the upper 10%.
The democratic influence of millions of Australians has been usurped by advocates of the story that unconstrained markets, endless economic growth, small government and “trickle down” theory will solve all our problems. The idea is that selfishness, greed, consumption and competition will reward the worthy “lifters” and stimulate the “welfare leaners” into doing their bit for society. That view is reinforced by political donations and heavy lobbying of our parliamentarians by the 10% who benefit from this increasingly outmoded narrative about progress.
Democracy has in this way, been effectively hijacked from the broader population. Australia is becoming a class-ridden society. Millions of voters in the USA, managed their frustration at this phenomenon by electing Donald Trump as their President. In the UK they voted for Brexit. It would be good to think that in Australia, we could avoid a similarly negative approach, and could use growing concerns about our political system to build a genuine 21st Century democracy.
Perhaps we could do so if we were to embark on a three-part strategy, building on things that are already happening,
British writer, George Monbiot has argued the need for a new social and economic narrative; one that will focus on sustainability, and the kind of life that will benefit all of us and not just a successful few. This, he says, should include activating our altruism, generosity, and compassion, which we have in plentiful supply and building towards community well-being, which he thinks will result among other things from a new focus on community ownership of “the commons”. He says that until the current dominant social narrative changes to a manifestly and widely recognised, better one, the current narrative will continue to dominate. It is a fair bet that a new, desirable narrative will not emerge here until ordinary Australians are actively involved in crafting it and demanding its implementation.
As it happens, a group of Australian idealists have been working with community groups and NGO’s in the past two years to understand what ordinary people in Australia want and how Australia could be “remade” by focussing on a new statement of national aspirations. I understand this group is on the verge of going public with their findings, which could be the starting point for a new Australian narrative.
This could then be supplemented by an outbreak of “Kitchen Table Conversations” and a “Mass Organising” approach to politics.
“Kitchen Table Conversations”, where small groups of 6 to 10 people spend a couple hours in respectful dialogue with friends or neighbours, on issues of importance to them, have been developed and used in Victoria as a highly effective mechanism for engaging large numbers of people in new thinking about the political system. They have changed the fortunes of politicians at both the state and federal level in that state and are now being introduced in Canberra. They could be used to test the acceptability and attractiveness of the new narrative and to engage large numbers of Australians in considering a new approach.
“Mass organising” is an approach to politics that was used successfully by Barack Obama, and also by Bernie Sanders in the USA and by Jeremy Corbyn in the UK to build momentum in their campaigns for election. This was done through face-to-face doorknock discussions between large armies of volunteers supporting the new political approach, who talked with huge numbers of ordinary voters. For Sanders and Corbyn their campaigns fell short but they lifted both men from obscurity to being taken seriously, as Monbiot points out in his book “Out of the Wreckage: A new politics for an Age of Crisis.
So perhaps all is not yet lost and perhaps there is a way we could help most Australians to regain ownership of our democracy.
Certainly we need to act because our politicians are almost completely ignoring the fact that the human species is now under serious threat from a collection of interacting “existential” threats, which demand urgent responses, if our children and theirs are to have a viable future. (www.humansforsurvival.org ). It is not just climate change and not just the threat of nuclear war that are receiving inadequate attention, but also, our profligate use of earth’s resources, the collapse of ecosystems, the poisoning of the air, water and earth on which all life depends, the insecurity of our food systems, the expansion of global populations, the threat of pandemic diseases, dangerous new technologies and self-delusion. While we sometimes talk about these as separate issues they are deeply intertwined and each affects the others. They will only be effectively dealt with if we act collaboratively with other countries and recognise that we are already in dire emergency territory.
But we are not talking about these things and are being told by our political representatives, that the real emergency is our unbalanced budget and the needs of big business for tax breaks so that they can stimulate more jobs and growth. But that is nonsense. We cannot go on growing in the way we are doing and must live within the constraints of the planet.
As one of the richest and lowest taxing countries in the OECD, we can easily afford to collect more revenue to focus on giving all Australians a Fair Go, and on giving our descendants a healthy prospect of survival. And I have absolutely no doubt that this is what most Australians would want, if they could choose. We need to find ways of giving them that choice.
Em Prof Bob Douglas is a Director of Australia21 www.australia21.org.au and a committee member of the Canberra Alliance for Participatory Democracy www.canberra-alliance.org.au . This is an overview of a paper he presented at a recent Canberra meeting of University of the Third Age (U3A).
Em Prof Bob Douglas, AO is a retired Public Health Academic and a committee member of The Council for The Human Future (CHF) and The Canberra Alliance for Participatory Democracy (CAPaD).
Comments
6 responses to “BOB DOUGLAS. What will it take to restore governance to its rightful owners?”
Great food for thought on how get people to re-engage with democracy. Unfortunately so many such ideas hinges on the consent of the political parties that have usurped control over democracy and stand in the way of positive change to how Parliament works. We need to change the adversarial nature of the political discourse that we have come to accept and we need to re-in force not only the tree pillars but the paramouncy of their separation.
Dear Bob,
Great advocacy from a person with a life-time commitment to the public’s health and welfare.
The essence for a worthwhile future, and the solution to many of today’s existential ennui, which we see in contemporary health problems, the diseases of dispair, is to build connectedness and the sense of belonging to communities. As you say, this can start and be fostered through small groups of like-minded people.
Many thanks for your analysis and advocacy.
What happened in France between 1789 and 1802 ?
May be that is the answer !
I have been thinking along these lines for some time but Bob Douglas commands the words to put it into perspective. Ocasio-Cortez’s name can be added to Sanders and Corbyn as a sign of hope that we can rid ourselves of those that would take away our democratic rights to elect a government. It is obvious that “the people” want services and are willing to pay for them. They do not want policies that widen the gap between rich and poor and create a violent society where those “comfortably off” are not comfortable anymore. I think it was called “shitting in your own nest” when I was in the navy. ..anyway, a very good article and web site.
Hurrah! Clarion call and all that.
No more private – no more privilege – no more preference – no more expense accounts or pointy ends of planes or CommCars or corporate boxes. No more personal charities to evade taxes – no more money being warehoused abroad – transparency on the day of the diaries of politicians at all levels – local, state and Federal – no lobbying via meetings or digital means except it is totally open to everyone – no more “commercial-in-confidence – no more private contracts – government business and all utilities to be in the hands of the public and/or departmental (hence fully accountable – not of profit-making for shareholder structure) control. Government funding for public education – not for sectarian/private – government funded-structured public health – nothing to private medical/aged care etc. A treaty with First Nations Australia – apologies and compensation to all in our society (including murdered/tortured/abused asylum-seekers/sufferers of institutional physical and sexual abuse – and that compensation to come from those who have profited (stolen land/resources/as shareholders) from the inequities of the past – from estates/land or financial. Cancellation of all WMD contracts with the US – all infrastructure needed by the nation to be developed and made/built within country! Profits to the national estate. So much to do to implement these things. Augean Stables clean out! But it should take no more than a single generation. And racists – re-education – starting with Peter Dutton – he could be the message sent to the nation that divisive bigotry is no longer to be tolerated – adding in the shock-jock media monsters might nit be a bad or mad idea in any event. Just thinking off the top of my head things I want for my country.
An important essay by Bob Douglas – an old friend from my ‘Crunch Time’ book days – in John Menadue’s weblog Pearls and Irritations. Your ideas here are good, Bob. You see the big picture and you are action -oriented . You are too modest to say so, but much of Canberra’s real progress in recent years towards being a sustainable society has come from your tireless, courteous environmental,activism. Thank you, Bob and John.