Knowledge, Narrative and Responsibility

One of the most significant problems in this country isn’t just political disagreement, it’s a widespread lack of understanding about how government and the public service actually function.

Most people don’t have even a basic grasp of roles and responsibilities: how authority is divided, how decisions are made, and who is accountable for what. The distinction between the ceremonial powers of the Governor-General of Australia, the executive authority of the Prime Minister of Australia, and the operational role of ministers and their departments is routinely blurred or misunderstood. Add to that a lack of awareness about how the public service operates — its continuity across governments, its advisory role, and the fact that departmental leadership is often administrative rather than political — and you end up with a public conversation built on shaky foundations.

There’s also very little appreciation of the history and structure of bureaucratic leadership. Senior public servants aren’t elected officials; they’re appointed for their expertise in governance, economics, law, and administration. Yet they’re frequently judged as if they were politicians, or dismissed outright because they don’t fit some imagined mould of what leadership “should” look like.

Layered over that is political tribalism, which makes the problem worse. People aren’t just uninformed about how the system works, they’re often selectively informed. The same action is condemned or defended depending entirely on who is in power. A decision that would be labelled incompetent, corrupt, or dangerous if made by one side is suddenly justified, excused, or ignored when made by the other. Principles become flexible, standards shift, and consistency disappears.

That double standard erodes any meaningful accountability. It rewards loyalty over scrutiny and encourages people to defend “their side” rather than assess decisions on their merits. And it makes some people afraid to speak up and the challenge for fear of being attacked, vilified and shunned. It fosters manipulative behaviour by skilled politicians who care more about winning than winning the right way. Once that mindset takes hold, facts become secondary to affiliation, and debate turns into a contest of narratives rather than an exchange of ideas.

The consequence is predictable. When people don’t understand how the system works , and filter everything through a partisan lens they misattribute responsibility. Decisions get blamed on the wrong individuals or institutions. Complex policy issues are reduced to slogans. And into that vacuum, misinformation thrives.

Social media accelerates the problem. Claims that align with someone’s political leaning are accepted and shared without scrutiny, while anything that challenges those views is dismissed out of hand. It stops being about facts or governance and becomes about tribe, reinforcing beliefs rather than testing them.

At that point, accountability breaks down. If voters don’t understand who is responsible for what, they can’t properly judge performance. And when standards are applied inconsistently, even clear failures can be waved away while minor issues are amplified into outrage. It becomes less about competence and more about perception.

You don’t need everyone to be a constitutional expert. But a functioning democracy does rely on a baseline level of civic literacy, and a willingness to apply the same standards regardless of who holds power. Without that, the loudest voices, not the most informed, end up shaping the narrative, and that’s a poor foundation for any country trying to govern itself effectively. 

The Conundrum Between Fight or Calm

There’s a popular line doing the rounds at the moment, most recently put by Kos Samaras from RedBridge Group, in a column published in The New Daily that voters across Western democracies are turning away from “managers” and towards “fighters.”

It’s a compelling argument. And to be fair, it captures something real.

When people feel ignored, under pressure, or let down by institutions, they do become more receptive to leaders who are willing to draw lines, name opponents, and prosecute a cause. You can see that energy on both sides of politics. It’s sharper, louder, and far more visible than the quieter business of consensus-building.

But I think that framing misses something important.

What’s actually changed is the environment. Social media rewards outrage. News cycles amplify conflict. Political incentives increasingly favour those who can cut through with force rather than those who can quietly deliver. In that kind of ecosystem, “fighters” don’t just exist, they dominate attention. And attention can easily be mistaken for preference.

You can see this play out in real time on social media every day.

Post something measured, fact-based, and grounded in evidence, even on issues people claim to care deeply about, and the response is often muted. Engagement drops off. The conversation is thinner, slower, and far less visible. It doesn’t travel.

Now post something provocative, emotionally charged, or outright misleading, and the opposite happens. It spreads quickly. It draws reactions, arguments, pile-ons. It creates momentum. Outrage, whether justified or not, has a velocity that facts alone rarely match.

This is where the argument needs more context.

Yes, there is a visible shift towards more combative political styles. Yes, leaders who “fight” and “name enemies” are cutting through more effectively. But part of that shift is being manufactured and amplified by the environment itself.

Algorithms don’t measure considered judgment, they measure engagement. And engagement is disproportionately driven by conflict, identity, and emotion. The more divisive the content, the more it is surfaced, shared, and reinforced. Over time, that creates a feedback loop where the loudest voices appear to represent the dominant view.

Political actors respond rationally to that incentive structure. Media organisations do too. And gradually, the public conversation becomes skewed toward confrontation, not necessarily because it reflects a deep, settled voter preference, but because it performs better in the channels that now shape perception.

That distinction matters.

Because when we look at this through that lens, the idea that voters are “abandoning” consensus politics starts to look less like a clear shift in values and more like a distortion of what we’re able to see and measure.

There is still a large, quieter cohort of voters who value competence, evidence, and the ability to build consensus, but their preferences don’t generate the same immediate reaction, so they don’t get the same visibility. They are present, but underrepresented in the noise.

So while Samaras is right to point out the rise of more combative political behaviour, it’s worth asking how much of that is genuine demand, and how much of it is a system that amplifies conflict and mistakes attention for endorsement.

Because if we confuse the two, we risk overcorrecting, rewarding the loudest voices while overlooking the broader, more durable expectations voters still have when it comes to governing.

And that’s where the real tension sits, between what cuts through, and what actually works.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐌𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐃𝐄𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐌𝐄𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀𝐂𝐂𝐔𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐒𝐌 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐁𝐘 𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐑 ..

This is controversial, but it needs to be said.

The response from Labor, particularly @Tony_Burke and @jeromelaxale to @AngusTaylorMP’s immigration address was nothing short of disgraceful.

What should have been a serious, necessary debate was once again reduced to a predictable barrage of accusations, blatantly misrepresenting his position and defaulting to claims of racism and lies. That shuts down discussion instead of engaging with the substance. We must not let that happen. 

Because the substance matters.

It is a fact, backed by Treasury analysis, that some cohorts within the migration program have a negative fiscal impact over their lifetime. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make it untrue; it just makes it harder to have an honest conversation about how the system should operate.

According to The Lifetime Fiscal Impact of the Australian Permanent Migration Program (Treasury Paper No. 2, December 2021), the estimated lifetime fiscal impact includes:

- Parent visa holders: approximately –$394,000

- Humanitarian migrants: approximately –$400,000 per person 

These figures are not opinion, they come from Treasury modelling. And the report itself makes clear that fiscal outcomes are a relevant consideration when assessing migration policy.

At the same time, the report also acknowledges that fiscal impact is only one part of a much broader picture. Migration brings social, economic, and cultural benefits as well as costs. But that’s exactly the point: you can’t selectively cite the positives while refusing to acknowledge the negatives.

We are living with the broader consequences right now.

Housing is under strain. Infrastructure is struggling to keep pace. Essential services are stretched. Record levels of migration are being used to prop up headline economic figures, while the practical impacts are borne by everyday Australians.

And beyond economics, there are social expectations that cannot be ignored. A functioning migration program relies on a shared commitment to Australia’s laws, values, and way of life. It is not unreasonable to expect that those who come here respect that, nor is it unreasonable to say that those who actively undermine it, or seek to reshape it in ways that conflict with those fundamentals, should not expect indefinite acceptance.

We are even seeing this tension play out within our own parliament, where some elected representatives, entrusted to serve Australia’s interests, are advocating more strongly for overseas causes or conflicts than for the cohesion and stability of the country they were elected to represent. That erodes public confidence and fuels the very concerns many are trying to dismiss.

For a long time, I’ve held the view that family reunion visas should be limited to spouses and dependent children, not extended family such as parents. That’s a policy position open to debate, but it should be debated on facts, not dismissed with insults.

And that’s the real issue here.

Instead of engaging honestly with difficult questions, about sustainability, fairness, and national interest, we get slogans, deflection, and character attacks.

Australia deserves better than that.