Australia likes to think of itself as immune to the worst excesses of political polarisation. We don’t have a president, our voting system rewards moderation, and compulsory voting keeps extremists marginal — or so the story goes. That confidence is increasingly misplaced.
Political disagreement is healthy tribalism is not. Political tribalism is taking hold, and while it doesn’t look like the chaos seen overseas, its effects are corrosive, cumulative, and dangerous.
Tribalism occurs when political affiliation stops being about ideas or policies and becomes a core identity — something to be defended regardless of evidence, outcomes, or consequences. At that point, loyalty matters more than truth, and winning matters more than governing.
In Australia, this shift has been subtle but unmistakable. Increasingly, voters judge policies not on merit, but on who proposed them. A bad idea from “our side” is forgiven. A good idea from the other side is rejected on principle.
That is not democracy functioning. That is nothing more than tribal team sport.
Australia operates under a Westminster system built on cabinet responsibility, compromise, and parliamentary accountability. Yet our political culture is being dragged toward a US-style, presidential mindset strongman leaders, personality politics, and “winner takes all” thinking.
This model is fundamentally incompatible with Australia’s constitutional reality. We do not elect presidents. Prime ministers are not kings. Power here is fragmented by design. Tribal politics doesn’t just clash with that system it actively undermines it.
And the Governor-General can’t just sack the Prime Minister and the Govt. based on political tribal dislike.
One of the most damaging consequences of tribalism is moral absolutism. Opponents are no longer merely wrong; they are portrayed as evil, corrupt, un-Australian, traitors or dangerous. Once politics is framed in those terms, compromise becomes betrayal and pragmatism becomes weakness.
But Australia’s biggest challenges; housing, energy transition, defence, productivity, immigration, law and order and social cohesion cannot be solved by absolutism. They require trade-offs, at times imperfect solutions, and a willingness to accept partial wins.
Tribalism makes all of that impossible.
And tribal politics creates a fertile environment for grievance peddlers. They don’t need workable policies. They need enemies. Their success depends on keeping supporters angry, fearful, and perpetually aggrieved. Outrage becomes the product, and governance becomes irrelevant.
This style of politics thrives online, where algorithms reward anger and simplicity over nuance and accuracy. The result is a feedback loop of resentment, misinformation, and performative outrage with real-world consequences.
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of Australia’s tribal turn is the collapse in civic literacy.
Complex systems — constitutional law, federalism, budgeting, courts are reduced to memes and slogans. Half-understood constitutional excerpts are waved around as trump cards. Confidence replaces competence.
A little knowledge weaponised by tribal loyalty becomes more dangerous than ignorance. Democracy depends on an informed public. Tribalism thrives on the opposite.
Tribalism rarely destroys democracies overnight. It weakens them slowly through paralysis, cynicism, and the hollowing out of the political centre. It turns disagreement into hostility and politics into identity warfare. The damage is quiet, but it is real.
Australia doesn’t need less disagreement. It needs better disagreement. Our democratic system survives only when people accept that opponents can be wrong without being enemies.
Political tribalism isn’t just changing Australian politics.
If it continues and left unchecked, it will continue to dramatically change Australia itself for the worse.
