Do you hate politics? This could be the reason why
Voters are increasingly distrustful of politicians and switching off from the news, while clickbait media and social media are driving polarisation.
We have a distrustful and disillusioned electorate; a professionalised political system that frequently alienates the sort of people we should be attracting into parliament; a public service that has been found wanting; an excessively secretive approach to information and accountability; media that are too often driven by clicks and ratings; and social media that debase political discourse more often than elevate it.
All this invites the questions: is our democracy failing us, and how can it do better?
The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer found that “Australia is already on a path to polarisation, driven by a series of macro forces that are weakening the country’s social fabric and creating increasing division in society.
This year’s report finds that almost half of Australians (45 per cent) say the nation is more divided today than in the past – with the rich and powerful identified as a major dividing force (72 per cent), followed by hostile foreign governments (69 per cent), journalists (51 per cent) and government leaders (49 per cent).
Today’s Labor and Liberal backbenchers are much more quiescent than a few decades ago. Labor celebrates its more diverse caucus, but that doesn’t extend to a diversity of views at caucus meetings. One might have expected a debate after the referendum result – it didn’t happen. A caucus meeting with more than two questions can be considered lively. The Coalition party room is usually also placid.
It’s too easy to romanticise the past; parliament was always a bear pit. But now, thanks to televising, we see its inglorious detail. Speaker Milton Dick daily must wage a Herculean battle in question time, which over the years has resisted efforts to make it more productive and civilised.
Visitors who watch this hour and a bit from the public gallery are often totally disillusioned by the spectacle. I recall a few years ago talking to a group of community leaders visiting Canberra who’d observed question time earlier in the day. They were outraged. “What can we do?” they asked. I could only suggest they contact their local MP.
Any improvement has been marginal. This government, like the last, has its backbenchers fire off Dorothy Dixers, which can be summarised as questions inviting ministers to say what a good job the government is doing. While the opposition has the opportunity to ask incisive questions, in practice it is often just looking for TV grabs and, anyway, ministers seldom attempt to genuinely answer questions from the other side.
The larger crossbench has probably produced a few more questions actually seeking information (and the government is very polite to the teals). But mostly, I have to say, question time is pretty useless.
However, there is an important qualification to that damning judgment. When a minister is under pressure, question time can be potent. We saw this in recent months with Transport Minister Catherine King and Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney. These encounters can be painful to watch, and not for the faint-hearted to endure. Ministers sometimes complain the attacks amount to bullying. Another interpretation is that ministers are being held publicly accountable.
Some aspects of the parliament do excel, and we should not overlook that. The committee system, notably in the Senate, has grown in importance. While some committee work amounts to little more than going through the partisan motions, in other cases the efforts can be first-rate.
This year parliamentarians in various committee hearings did remarkable digging on PwC and the other consultancies; they also put strong pressure on Qantas, as well as delving into the government’s performance in rejecting the bid for Qatar Airways to be allowed more flights.
But more generally, too often backbenchers – in their parliamentary role – find themselves foot soldiers following orders, or rather, talking points. Hear one on a topic, and you’ve heard them all. Frequently that goes for ministers too, when they are speaking outside their own area.
Governments (or perhaps it is more accurate to say, alternative governments) preach the virtues of transparency and accountability but practise the habits of information control and secrecy.
Holding secrets
The Canberra press gallery has great physical access to the executive government because it is housed in the same building – this Parliament House – and can roam the ministerial corridors. Over the years, however, governments have found extra ways to limit and control access to government information. This ranges across a number of fronts.
When I first came to Canberra in the early 1970s, even a junior reporter could contact senior public servants and, if they came to trust you, they would talk to you on a “background” basis. This was not a matter of “leaks”, though of course there were those on occasion. I am referring here to the intricacies of policy, information that was very helpful for understanding and reporting.
Governments of both sides have closed down this access, and beefed up the PR sections of departments which are, mostly, worse than useless. The overpopulated PR section of the Defence Department is a standing joke with the media.
Freedom-of-information legislation is supposed to further accountability. But the former FOI commissioner, Leo Hardiman, who earlier this year resigned only a year into his five-year term, has recited a litany of issues with how that system operates.
On other fronts, routinely governments baulk at giving information that might embarrass them. Examples this year have included continued secrecy, on “security” grounds, of passenger details and destination of VIP flights. The secrecy around the flights was imposed in the latter days of the Coalition government, driven in part by the police, but it flies in the face of what was done for five decades and seems to have little serious justification.
The government repeatedly refuses Senate demands for documents on a range of issues, and takes forever to provide answers (or non-answers) to Senate questions on notice.
To balance the ledger, it should be acknowledged the Auditor-General does a good (though necessarily limited) job. The National Anti-Corruption Commission has been an overdue development, though not without some secrecy issues in its operation.
Too much info?
I never thought I would say this, but sometimes you can have too much information. Circulation was always important to newspapers, ratings to TV. But the digital age has brought the “clicks revolution”, so the popularity of individual stories can be readily and immediately measured. And that has implications for political coverage.
It means even serious media outlets will lean to the popular, while the dull and worthy (but often important) subjects struggle for readership. Even these days, a story about Scott Morrison is a no-brainer when it comes to clicks. Voters showed they’d had enough of his prime ministership, but online readers continue to lap up references to him. Reportage about trade policy? Not so much. If clicks become KPIs for judging journalists, that’s very bad.
There are some other developments in the media over recent years that affect coverage, for the worse. The traditional media have become leaner, as their business models have been compromised by the digital age, and the squeeze on journalist numbers has hit, in particular, some of the specialist reporters.
So you have fewer eyes on some crucial policy areas, especially eyes that have been on them for quite a long time. Fewer specialists adds to the trend to look at policy through a very political lens, because the stories are often written by generalist political reporters and, as well, because it’s easier to do them that way, and they get more readers.
Recent decades have also seen more extensive “opinion journalism”. This has the advantage for media companies of being relatively cheap and attracting readers, viewers and listeners. The big-name opinion journalists build “brands” and often become shouty and extreme in their bid to attract audiences.
Other manifestations of the growth of opinion journalism include shows where journalists talk to other journalists, and the intrusion of more opinion into the way the news is reported.
Today’s media are polarised which, together with the growth of social media, contributes to a wider phenomenon of many people living in “silos” in terms of where they get their information and what information they choose to consume. Even some journalists choose to inhabit silos, avoiding certain media. Social media can be the ultimate in “siloing”; for some people, it also removes all inhibitions to behaving badly.
The downsides of polarisation and silos are obvious. Some media consumers no longer operate in a limited “common square” of information. Debate becomes more fractured, angry and extreme. Tolerance is in shorter supply.
Benefits from the spectrum
Perhaps we should add there are small offsets to the negatives in this polarisation. Media stretching across the spectrum from left to right contributes to diversity, with one end picking up on issues the other end prefers to ignore. But I reiterate, there is a cost and I think the negatives outweigh the positives. And while polarisation has added to diversity, the concentrated ownership of Australia’s [metropolitan] print media, which is overwhelmingly in Murdoch hands, is a serious distortion of diversity.
Michelle Grattan in 2011, when she worked for The Age. Journalist Andrew Probyn is on her right. Andrew Meares
Women’s interest in news is at a record low. News avoidance is high, driven largely by a sense of being overwhelmed by information overload and the amount of conflict and negativity in the coverage.
Each PM brings his or her own style and skill set to mustering the media. And their own little tricks. Just one example from Anthony Albanese’s tool box. At his news conferences, he limits journalists to a single question, so an individual can’t pursue a dodgy or evasive answer. Given various other journalists have their own priorities, there is often no follow-up.
The Voice referendum this year put our democratic system through its paces, and different judgments will be made about how it performed
The referendum showed many people are unfamiliar with some basics of the political system, especially the Constitution. Sharp questions were raised about so-called misinformation and disinformation. The Yes advocates complained strongly about that. Remember, this was the first referendum campaign in which we’ve had the full play of social media.
I might say that I don’t like this terminology of misinformation and disinformation, which we have taken from abroad. I would prefer to talk about, firstly, wrong or misleading information. That falls into two categories – some of it deliberately misleading, and some inadvertently so. Beyond that, there is contested information – where one side makes a claim the other rejects, but which can’t be definitely established or disproved, or at least not at the time.
In the referendum, we saw a good deal of dispute over whether some points were contested claims or mis/dis-information. The Voice campaign has given more impetus to those pushing for truth in political advertising legislation. Special Minister of State Don Farrell is looking at this, but is aware of the difficulties it presents.
Even more contentious, however, is the legislation the government already has in the public arena to crack down on “misinformation and disinformation” on the internet. The move has attracted many critics, including eminent constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey, one of the advocates for the Voice.
In the internet age, there are good reasons to try to stop the spread of misleading information. But at some point you run up against the right to free speech. And then, as we saw in the Voice debate, there is that fine line between “misleading” information and “contested” information.
This is an edited version of speech given on October 30 at Parliament House. Michelle Grattan covers politics for The Conversation.
