There is a strange political courtship going on in Australia at the moment. Will they? Won’t they? Could they? Absolutely not, says one. Well, perhaps under certain circumstances, suggests another. I am talking, of course, about the Coalition and One Nation.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has categorically ruled out a formal coalition with One Nation. Yet the conversation refuses to go away. Barnaby Joyce, now wearing One Nation colours, recently claimed he had spoken with senior Liberals about the possibility of One Nation providing confidence and supply to a future minority Coalition government. Senior Liberals, including Jane Hume on Insiders this week, promptly rejected his claim. Meanwhile, there are Liberals openly advocating a closer relationship with One Nation, and the election of Alex Antic as president of the South Australian Liberal Party has provided another reminder of the struggle occurring over the direction of conservative politics.
Will they or won’t they? Perhaps that is actually the wrong question. Whatever formal arrangements are eventually made, or not made, what concerns me is the direction in which parts of Australian politics are travelling. The danger is not simply that the Coalition and One Nation might one day sign some agreement. It is that fear of losing voters to One Nation increasingly drags mainstream conservative politics towards the politics of grievance, division and populism.
Watching all of this has reminded me why I became involved in politics in the first place. I consider myself a progressive, and I make no apology for the word. To me, being progressive is not about being “woke”, whatever that increasingly meaningless insult is supposed to mean this week. It is the fairly straightforward belief that we can leave our society a little better than we found it.
It means believing in strong public education and health systems, equality of opportunity and action on climate change rather than another decade of argument. It means respecting diversity, protecting people who are vulnerable and believing that a person’s postcode or their parents’ bank balance should not determine the opportunities available to them. Most importantly, it means believing progress is possible.
That is one of the reasons I am a member of the Labor Party. I didn’t join a political party because I wanted somebody else to tell me what to think; I joined because I wanted a say in what it thinks. There is an important distinction. Party membership should never require surrendering your critical faculties at the door.
I don’t agree with every decision Labor governments make, nor with every position taken by every Labor politician. Sometimes I think governments should move faster. Sometimes I think they get things wrong. And sometimes I find myself arguing quite vigorously with people on my own side. That is exactly what political parties should be about.
Being a member of a political party, particularly one in government, gives ordinary people an opportunity to help facilitate change. We can raise issues in our branches, move motions, participate in policy committees, contribute to conferences, contact our representatives and argue for better policy. Does everything we propose immediately become government policy? Of course not. Democracy would be rather alarming if it worked that way.
Sometimes progress is painfully slow. Sometimes you push an issue for years. Sometimes you sit through meetings, write motions, make phone calls and wonder whether anyone is listening. And sometimes, gratifyingly, you discover that they were.
That is why I worry when people who broadly share progressive values decide politics is too grubby, too frustrating or too difficult and simply walk away. Political movements do not stand still; they are shaped by the people who turn up. And right now, participation matters.
We are seeing anger and grievance increasingly presented as substitutes for policy. Complex problems are reduced to slogans, expertise is dismissed when it produces inconvenient answers, and institutions are attacked simply because they sometimes frustrate us. Immigration, climate change, education, gender and race – difficult questions requiring thoughtful policy become convenient fronts in another culture war. There is an alternative to that kind of politics, but it will not magically assert itself.
Progress doesn’t happen by accident. And neither does regression.
If those of us who believe in public education, decent public services, equality of opportunity, action on climate change, respect for diversity and that most Australian of concepts — a fair go — decide somebody else can do the political heavy lifting, we shouldn’t be surprised when other people fill the vacuum.
That doesn’t mean everyone needs to become a political tragic like me. One of the things I would particularly like people to understand is that no contribution is too small. You don’t have to attend every meeting, speak at conferences, know the Labor Party platform backwards or understand the intricacies of parliamentary procedure. You don’t even have to join the party.
You might have an idea. You might care passionately about one particular issue. You might have expertise or life experience that politicians and policymakers need to hear. You might be able to help for an hour occasionally, knock on a few doors during an election campaign, make some phone calls, hand out occasionally, come along to a meeting, make a donation, or simply add your voice when an issue matters to you. It all counts.
Political movements aren’t built only by the people whose photographs appear on corflutes. They are built by thousands of ordinary people who decide something matters enough to become involved. That is democracy. It is messy, frustrating, argumentative and sometimes painfully slow, but I will take that over the politics of grievance, division and permanent outrage every time.
And that brings me back to where I started. I don’t know where the increasingly complicated relationship between the Coalition and One Nation will ultimately end. Despite the speculation, there is currently no formal coalition between them, and Angus Taylor says there will not be one. But I do know the sort of politics in which I want to participate.
So, if there are progressives out there who are as concerned as I am about the increasingly regressive direction of parts of Australian politics, and who don’t want to see NSW politics pulled towards a more chaotic and divisive form of politics, don’t just shout at the television or shake your head at Facebook and assume somebody else will do something about it.
Now, more than ever, participate.
And please don’t think you have nothing to contribute. You do. If you would like to become involved, contribute an idea, argue for progressive policy, lend a hand occasionally or simply find out how you might make a difference, I would genuinely love to hear from you.
Because politics shouldn’t simply be something that happens to us. It should be something we participate in.
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).
All opinion and comment on New England Times Engage is the opinion of the writer and not New England Times.
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