Reading R K Crosby’s excellent column, Begin Rant: I Don’t Want Your BS War, this week got me thinking.
Her article explored why misinformation has become so pervasive and why facts often seem to lose out to outrage, slogans and social media. It also prompted me to ask another question: why are so many politicians and commentators actively encouraging Australians to distrust the very people whose job it is to gather evidence and help us understand increasingly complex problems?
One of the more troubling developments in Australian public life isn’t simply that people disagree about public policy. Healthy democracies should encourage disagreement. The real concern is that evidence itself is increasingly being treated with suspicion. Experts are dismissed before they’re heard, research is rejected because it is inconvenient, and complex problems are reduced to slogans.
Somewhere along the way, expertise became something to distrust rather than something to value. Too often, “I think” has become more persuasive than “I know”, and confidence has come to matter more than evidence.
There was a time when seeking expert advice was regarded as one of the hallmarks of good leadership. Governments consulted economists before making economic decisions, engineers before building infrastructure, doctors before reforming health policy and teachers before changing education. Listening to those with knowledge and experience wasn’t seen as elitism. It was simply good governance.
Today, however, expertise is increasingly treated as something to be mocked.
Too often we hear politicians dismiss academics as out of touch, scientists as alarmists, economists as disconnected from ordinary Australians and public servants as members of some faceless bureaucracy. Social media amplifies the message. Qualifications become something to ridicule rather than respect. The louder the opinion, the less evidence it sometimes seems to require.
This trend hasn’t emerged by accident. It has also been fuelled by a media culture that increasingly rewards outrage over expertise. Too many shock jocks and opinion commentators present themselves as authorities on everything from economics and climate science to education and public health, despite not being specialists in many of the fields on which they comment. A loud voice and a provocative opinion are not qualifications.
Figures such as Paul Murray and Andrew Bolt have built successful careers expressing strong views on almost every public policy issue imaginable. They are entitled to those opinions, just as every Australian is. But opinion should never be mistaken for evidence. The danger arises when commentary is elevated above research, slogans replace facts and confidence is treated as a substitute for competence.
Experts should never be beyond scrutiny. Nor should those who dismiss them. Indeed, robust scrutiny makes expertise stronger. But we should be equally willing to ask a simple question of those who dismiss expert advice: what evidence are you relying on?
No political party has embraced this approach more enthusiastically than One Nation.
Whether the issue is climate change, immigration, industrial relations or social policy, One Nation has built much of its political brand on encouraging Australians to distrust experts and established institutions. The implication is simple: don’t trust the experts—trust us.
Climate and energy policy provide perhaps the clearest example. Malcolm Roberts has spent years disputing the scientific evidence for human-caused climate change. Pauline Hanson has pledged to abandon net zero and withdraw Australia from the Paris Agreement, while Barnaby Joyce has made opposition to wind generation and renewable-energy developments a recurring political cause. Yet the Australian Energy Market Operator’s 2026 Integrated System Plan identifies renewables, firmed by storage and backed by gas, as the least-cost pathway to secure and reliable electricity, while CSIRO’s latest GenCost modelling places solar and onshore wind at the centre of Australia’s lowest-cost future electricity system. Australians are entitled to debate the pace, location and costs of the transition. But those debates should begin with the evidence, not by dismissing it.
The same pattern appears elsewhere.
Recently Pauline Hanson announced that Australia’s permanent migration intake should be reduced to around 130,000 people. Asked how that number had been determined, she replied, “I’m selecting a figure around about 130,000.”
Migration affects housing demand, workforce shortages, universities, regional communities, agriculture, aged care and long-term economic growth. Determining an appropriate intake requires demographic projections, labour market analysis and economic modelling. It is not a figure that can simply be chosen because it sounds politically attractive.
One Nation’s approach to social policy follows a similar pattern. Pauline Hanson has described domestic violence as “a two-way street” and characterised paid domestic violence leave as “a holiday”, despite decades of research documenting the nature and impact of family violence. She has also questioned the value of paid parental leave and suggested it should be wound back, before later, following widespread criticism, clarifying her support for the existing scheme. Whatever one’s view of these policies, the debate should begin with the evidence. Research consistently shows that well-designed paid parental leave helps parents—particularly women—remain connected to the workforce, improves staff retention, and delivers broader economic and social benefits over time.
Again and again, complex public policy questions are reduced to slogans while evidence is pushed aside.
None of this is to suggest experts are infallible. They aren’t. Economists disagree. Scientists revise their conclusions as new evidence emerges. Educational researchers debate the most effective teaching methods. That willingness to change when the evidence changes isn’t a weakness – it is the essence of evidence-based decision-making.
Nor is this an argument that ordinary Australians should somehow have less say in how our country is governed.
Quite the opposite.
Farmers understand farming. Teachers understand classrooms. Nurses understand hospitals. Small business owners understand the pressures of employing staff. Parents understand the challenges facing their children. Those lived experiences are essential because they reveal what statistics alone cannot.
Lived experience and evidence are not competitors. They are partners.
The best governments listen carefully to the people who live with the consequences of public policy every day. They then test those experiences against research, data and expert advice before making decisions.
That is how serious governments govern.
The alternative is policymaking driven by instinct, ideology or whichever slogan generates the biggest applause at the next public meeting.
Of course, this is not a problem confined to one political party. Every side of politics can be tempted to ignore inconvenient evidence or cherry-pick research that supports its own position. The difference is that good governments ultimately allow evidence to challenge their assumptions rather than bending the evidence to fit their ideology. Evidence should never be selective. If we only accept the facts we already agree with, we stop learning.
The United States offers a cautionary tale. In recent years we have watched prominent politicians question scientists, attack economists, undermine public health officials and portray career public servants as conspirators against “ordinary people”. The consequences have been profound. The result has been deeper political polarisation, declining confidence in public institutions and a public debate in which ideology too often triumphs over evidence.
Our democracy deserves better.
Questioning experts is healthy. Ignoring evidence is not. Democracies should encourage robust debate, but they should also expect those seeking public office to explain not only what they believe, but why they believe it. What evidence supports their position? What research have they considered? What unintended consequences have they weighed?
Dr Crosby was right to warn us about the corrosive effect misinformation is having on public debate. But misinformation doesn’t flourish in a vacuum. It flourishes when evidence is deliberately devalued, when expertise is mocked and when slogans are allowed to replace serious policy. Protecting our democracy means defending not only free speech, but also the place of evidence in our public life.
Democracy is built on the voices of ordinary Australians. But good government requires something more. It requires the humility to test ideas against the evidence, to change course when the facts demand it and to reject slogans that collapse under scrutiny.
A loud voice is not a qualification. A strong opinion is not evidence. Ignorance isn’t authenticity. Repeating a claim more often doesn’t make it true. Facts don’t stop being true simply because they’re unpopular.
Australia doesn’t need fewer experts.
It needs more leaders and more citizens prepared to listen to them.
Denise McHugh is an experienced educator in Tamworth. She is Chair of the NSW ALP Education and Skills Committee and Deputy President of the Independent Education Union (IEU).
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