The Prime Minister’s call for a ceasefire on industrial relations and two respected former Premiers’ acknowledgement of the benefits of State cooperation could be harbingers of a new, and better, way of making Australia’s future.
But that is far from certain.
Addressing Indigenous disadvantage enjoys widespread community and business support. It has largely avoided the knee-jerk ideological split among political parties and media outlets that bedevils many other major societal issues in Australia today. Commonwealth-State bickering is also largely absent. And significant government, business, and community resources have been allocated to it.
This series of Q&As with our Parliamentary Leaders Program alumni are designed firstly, to give alumni the opportunity to get to know other parliamentarians in their community better and secondly, to provide the public with new insight into the experience of being a politician and the work our alumni are putting in to their on-going professional development.
The future Australia wants depends on the environment, society, and the economy. They are tightly connected and it’s not helpful to elevate one completely or deny another altogether. Frustratingly, some loud voices do just that, and it’s a favourite high-school debating tactic of those involved in the culture wars. It’s prevalent on the left and the right.
Despite the rebranding of COAG as National Cabinet and an almost-universal exhaustion with hyper-partisanship and the culture wars, the unusual period of cooperative politics and federalism in response to COVID-19 has been short-lived. Its brief moment of glory has been bookended by revelations of subverting the democratic system, first by the Coalition and now by the ALP.
The Prime Minister’s call for a ceasefire on industrial relations and two respected former Premiers’ acknowledgement of the benefits of State cooperation could be harbingers of a new, and better, way of making Australia’s future.
But that is far from certain.
In challenging times, our values can be tested. What is really important to us? Are we focussing on the right things? If we don’t know the answers to those questions, it’s a great time to pause and reflect, so we can let our values guide what is most important to us. Every upset we face is an opportunity for growth. In our values-based leadership work with parliamentarians we talk about pausing to ask ourselves what we call "transformative questions" for those times when we are being challenged.
The 2019 Australian Election Study found that only 25% of Australians believe that people in government can be trusted — a record low. The recently released 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer found that government leaders are close to being the least trusted, globally, to address countries’ challenges. But this isn’t really news, or a surprise, to most Australians. Whatever your analysis of the trust crisis globally, I’m sure we can all agree that there is something unprecedented going on when it comes to trust and confidence in democracy and its institutions.
