Opinion: Parliament’s New Epidemic – The Dunning-Kruger Outbreak

Forget COVID. Forget RSV. The real contagion sweeping through the Federal Parliament is the Dunning-Kruger effect (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FGnb2lgPBA) – the strange affliction where the least informed are the most confident, and the loudest voices belong to those who know the least.

It spreads at press conferences, mutates during Question Time, and flourishes whenever Sky News After Dark turns on the lights.

Parliament is riddled with it. Take Barnaby Joyce: chronic case. He speaks on climate and energy with the confidence of a man who read a bumper sticker about coal and half skimmed a pamphlet from the Minerals Council.

• Diagnosis: Chronic Coal Enthusiasm and Delusion.
• Symptoms: loud rants, word-salad incoherence, allergic reaction to facts, and an incurable addiction to coal metaphors.
• Side effects: Breaks out in hives within 50 metres of a wind turbine. Uncontrollable muttering of “she’ll be right” when presented with facts.
• Treatment: Forced exposure to expert briefings, 30 days installing solar panels, forced Toastmaster’s Course.

Matt Canavan presents an advanced stage. His condition manifests as a compulsive need to declare coal “the fuel of the future,” despite all evidence to the contrary. He shrugs off international markets, expert reports, and basic science with the breezy certainty of someone who once Googled “is climate change real?” and didn’t like the answer.

• Diagnosis: Advanced Climate Denial Syndrome.
• Symptoms: Compulsive incorrect claims about coal, selective hearing of scientific reports, chronic overconfidence.
• Side effects: Sweating profusely when near solar panels, hallucinations of coal-fired power plants on every horizon.
• Treatment: Mandatory reading of IPCC reports, disconnection from talkback radio, locked in a cinema with a 72-hour loop of An Inconvenient Truth.

Ted O’Brien has recently tested positive. As the Coalition’s energy spokesman and now Shadow Treasurer, he diagnoses renewables as unreliable while prescribing nuclear reactors that won’t be built in anyone’s lifetime.

• Diagnosis: Acute Baseline Optimism Disorder and Numeracy Deficit Disorder.
• Symptoms: selective memory, acute optimism about reactors that don’t exist, and the ability to say “baseload” in every second sentence.
• Side effects: Compulsive doodling of imaginary nuclear plants on napkins, inability to say “renewables” without sneering.
• Treatment: Remedial Year 9 maths, bedtime stories read from the IPCC, shock collar for “baseload” mentions.

Michaelia Cash exhibits the hyperactive form of the syndrome. Her speeches are so breathless and high-pitched they could be weaponised. She proclaims economic and foreign policy doom with total confidence, even while tripping over the simplest facts. Her case is notable for its intensity: the less she knows, the faster she shouts it.

• Diagnosis: Hyperactive Economic and Foreign Policy Alarmism.
• Symptoms: Breathless speeches, misrepresentation of data, shouting as primary communication.
• Side effects: Dog whistles now only audible to actual dogs; develops temporary helium-balloon voice if restrained from shouting.
• Treatment: Calming exercises, prolonged coffee abstinence, and speeches subtitled for public safety.

Angus Taylor shows the fiscal variant. As former Energy Minister, his most infamous symptom was brandishing a dodgy graph in Parliament. While shadow Treasurer he continued to demonstrate a remarkable ability to lecture on economics while leaving a trail of basic numerical errors behind him.

• Diagnosis: Fiscal Graphitis.
• Symptoms: Brandishing misleading charts, confident lectures on economics based on nothing, repeated numerical errors.
• Side effects: Breaks into a cold sweat when near spreadsheets, compulsively turns bar charts upside down.
• Treatment: Calculator licence test and mandatory peer review before public statements.

Bridget McKenzie carries the rural-PR strain of the condition. Famous for sports rorts and photo-ops in high-vis, she diagnoses herself as an expert on everything from agriculture to defence procurement.

• Diagnosis: Portfolio Overconfidence Disorder.
• Symptoms: Inflated certainty across unrelated policy areas, selective memory during Senate Estimates, and recurring outbreaks of pork-barrelling.
• Side effects: Relapses whenever she sees high-vis vests or grant applications; involuntary photo-op poses when near sporting ovals, involuntary grant allocation.
• Treatment: Confinement to one portfolio at a time with daily doses of fact-checking and transparency; locked in a room with the Auditor-General and a whiteboard.

Pauline Hanson – long-term super-spreader. She’s been confidently wrong about immigration, vaccines, climate change, and just about everything else since the ’90s, all the while cultivating the charm of a Facebook comments thread.

• Diagnosis: Populist Certainty Disorder (Stage IV).
• Symptoms: Exaggerated claims, wilful ignorance, and the uncanny ability to contradict herself mid-sentence.
• Side effects: Spontaneous shouting of “please explain!” when shown graphs, rash triggered by the word “consensus.”
• Treatment: Six-month immersion therapy in a multicultural neighbourhood, intensive science literacy program, compulsory debates with actual experts, and a lifetime ban on starting sentences with “I’m not racist, but…”

And of course, One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts – the poster child of the outbreak. His pathetic attempt to debate physicist Brian Cox on Q&A remains the gold standard of the condition: Roberts waving spreadsheets from conspiracy websites, Cox calmly producing NASA graphs. It was textbook Dunning-Kruger – supreme confidence crushed by actual expertise.

• Diagnosis: Spreadsheet Fetishism with Delusional Debate Syndrome.
• Symptoms: Glaring stupidity, inability to acknowledge scientific authority.
• Side effects: Involuntary chanting of conspiracy websites, uncontrollable urge to print graphs from Wikipedia.
• Treatment: Public humility exercises, temporary ban from live television and compulsory science camp with Year 6 students.

Even Peter Dutton, now a political fossil after losing his seat, was a classic case. His belief that nuclear power was the silver bullet for energy showed the hallmarks: ignorance of cost, blindness to timelines, and a bulldog certainty immune to correction.

• Diagnosis: Nuclear and Policy Tunnel Vision.
• Symptoms: Overconfidence and ignorance on just about everything.
• Side effects: Occasionally growls “nuclear baseload” when exposed to bright light.
• Treatment: Archived for historical case study; future patients may learn from his charts.

Prognosis for Parliament: Grim. The outbreak is incurable, spreads via press conferences, and shows alarming resistance to facts. The outbreak continues to mutate, now affecting social media, independents, and minor parties. Symptoms are increasingly diverse, and resistance to evidence seems to be spreading faster than ever.

The only vaccine: A heavy dose of humility, a booster of evidence, and just once — a politician brave enough to utter the three healing words: “I don’t know.”

⚠️ TGA Disclaimer:
Use of Federal Parliament may cause dizziness, nausea, chronic eye-rolling, and sudden loss of faith in humanity. Side effects can include spontaneous shouting at the TV, hallucinations of coal-fired power plants, involuntary muttering of “baseload,” compulsive pork-barrelling, spreadsheet fetishism, hyperactive yelling in a helium-balloon voice, and unexplained outbreaks of xenophobia.

May also trigger random press conferences, awkward photo-ops in high-vis vests, and an uncontrollable urge to appear on Sky News after dark. In rare cases, exposure to Question Time may lead to full-body cringe, spontaneous facepalming, or permanent resting disbelief face.

Parliament should not be mixed with alcohol — unless it’s sitting week, in which case consult your bartender for ongoing treatment. If symptoms persist, please consult an actual expert (politicians not included).

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