WE ARE STILL REAPING WHAT WE SOW

The usual chorus is back again, complaining about a fractured parliament, an obstructive Senate, endless compromises, and governments that supposedly “can’t get anything done.” The targets change, the outrage doesn’t.

The familiar defence quickly follows:

“You can’t blame voters. People are desperate for better government.”

True. We are desperate for better government.

But yes, I do blame voters for some of the mess. And I think we’ve been letting ourselves off the hook for far too long.

The phrase “you reap what you sow” has never been more apt.

You may not agree with what follows, but it’s a view formed through years of watching politics up close, not just yelling at it from the outside.

Outsourcing Democracy Has Consequences

We will not change how major parties operate unless people engage where it matters. Yet political party membership is now perilously low and still falling. Participation hasn’t just declined—it has been replaced.

In its place, we have outrage, petitions, protest votes, social media pile-ons, and the expectation that the ballot box alone will somehow fix everything.

It won’t.

Using elections purely to punish parties, without engaging in how candidates are selected or policies are shaped, has delivered exactly what you would expect: instability, fragmentation and a permanent cross-bench culture skilled at vetoing but not governing.

That is not accountability. It is abdication.

Broad Churches Are Meant to Be Uncomfortable

I believe in the values of the Liberal–National Coalition. I also accept its flaws. It is a genuine broad church, liberals, conservatives, pragmatists and idealists under one roof. That tension is real and sometimes ugly.

But pluralism is not a defect of democracy; it is its price.

The problem is that too many people now expect ideological purity and instant gratification. Anything short of complete victory is branded a sell-out. That mindset makes governing in a complex parliament almost impossible.

Governments should be criticised for poor decisions. But the lazy claim that they “do nothing” is usually wrong. What is really happening is that governing in a splintered parliament requires compromise, sequencing, and trade-offs, things that don’t translate well into slogans or social media posts.

Too many people now confuse volume with evidence and virality with truth.

Democracy Is Not a Spoon-Feeding Exercise

Another uncomfortable reality is the growing expectation that voters should have policy and information spoon-fed to them, simplified, personalised and delivered in a format requiring minimal effort.

Politics has adapted accordingly. Complex reforms are reduced to three-word slogans. Policy details are replaced with talking points. Substantive documents are ignored because they require time, concentration, and reading beyond a headline.

Yet when voters complain policies are unclear or under-explained, much of what they claim doesn’t exist is publicly available in budget papers, policy platforms, committee reports, costings, and parliamentary debates are all there for anyone prepared to look.

Expecting politicians, journalists, or social media influencers to do all the thinking is not civic engagement. It is outsourcing responsibility.

Democracy was never meant to function like a drive-through. If we demand politics that is easy to consume and effortless to understand, we should not be surprised when what we get is shallow and transactional.

Comment Sections Aren’t Civic Participation

I know I shouldn’t read comment sections. Yet I do. And every time, I leave more pessimistic about our civic culture.

Criticising politicians’ performance is one thing, but ripping into politicians online achieves very little. If it worked, things would be improving. They aren’t.

Nor will endless complaining on social media fix anything.

Democracy doesn’t improve through heckling alone. It improves when people show up before election day—when candidates are being selected, policies debated, and priorities set.

Voting Alone Is Not Enough

We live in a democracy, imperfect, frustrating and often inefficient—but still better than any alternative I’ve seen.

Democracy means rule by the people. That implies responsibility, not just entitlement.

Politics touches almost every aspect of our lives: jobs, wages, cost of living, health care, education, security, infrastructure, and the environment. Yet for many people, voting—often done with minimal research, is the sole act of participation.

There are many ways to influence outcomes:

• campaigning

• joining parties

• internal advocacy

• pressure and community groups

• informed voting

Voting matters. But voting alone, especially when driven by gut feeling or protest, cannot carry the entire democratic load.

We Put These People There

Politicians do not just “turn up.” They are selected, endorsed, preferenced and elected.

I am continually struck by how many people vote for candidates they know almost nothing about, then act shocked when those candidates behave exactly as their history suggested they would.

We can rage about senators grandstanding, independents holding legislation hostage, or minor parties chasing pet causes, but we empowered them.

A small amount of homework before an election often gives a very clear picture of what to expect.

And how many of the loudest critics are prepared to stand themselves? Very few.

The Fantasy of the Perfect Outsider

Every election cycle produces the same wish list: no career politicians, no party discipline, no unions, no compromise, instant honesty, and perfect outcomes.

It sounds satisfying. It is also unserious.

Politics is not a purity contest. It is a system for making collective decisions in a complex society. Anyone promising otherwise is selling theatre, not governance.

Some reform ideas are sensible. Others are emotional venting dressed up as principles. None of them work without citizens prepared to engage beyond slogans.

Responsibility Cuts Both Ways

Yes, politicians must be competent, honest, and accountable.

But citizens also have obligations:

• to inform themselves

• to read beyond headlines

• to understand trade-offs

• to accept that compromise is unavoidable

If people disengage, refuse to do the work, and blame “them” instead, nothing improves.

We will simply continue cycling through career politicians, staffers, factional operatives and activist independents—while insisting the system is broken and refusing to touch it.

No Saviours. No Shortcuts.

I participate through membership, advocacy, discussion and writing. I could do more—and so could many others.

There is no messiah coming to fix this for us.

If we want better politics, we must invest more than cynicism and a protest vote. At the risk of cliché:

No pain. No gain.

Democracy only improves when citizens put some skin in the game. 

The Hidden Danger of One-Dimensional Thinking in Politics and Law

In an age where opinions travel faster than facts, one trap we all fall into is one-dimensional thinking: the habit of reducing people, situations, or complex issues to a single label or idea. While mental shortcuts help us navigate everyday life, in politics and law, this simplification can have serious consequences.

What is one-dimensional thinking?

One-dimensional thinking happens when we see things in black and white, ignoring nuance, context, and complexity. It’s the mental equivalent of looking at a 3D object from a single angle: you see only part of the truth. For example, labeling a politician as “corrupt” or “heroic” without examining their actions, motivations, or the context of their decisions is a classic trap.

Why It’s Dangerous in Politics

Political issues are rarely simple. They involve economics, social behavior, culture, and long-term consequences. When we rely on one-dimensional thinking, we:

• Oversimplify issues: Policies labeled as “good” or “bad” can have hidden effects. For instance, a tax reform might seem like “taking money from people,” but it could fund vital healthcare or infrastructure programs.
• Fuels polarisation: Seeing parties or politicians as entirely right or wrong fosters “us vs. them” mentalities. Compromise and reasoned debate are replaced by tribalism and hostility.
• Ignores long-term consequences: Popular but oversimplified policies like “tough on crime” measures might produce immediate results but cannot address root causes, creating more problems.

One-Dimensional Thinking and Frustration

When voters reduce complex issues to simple labels, expectations become unrealistic. Politics moves slowly; compromise is required, and trade-offs are inevitable. When reality doesn’t match their mental shortcuts, frustration builds.

• Oversimplification creates unmet expectations: Voters might label rising housing costs as “government failure” without understanding market complexity, zoning laws, or economic cycles.
• Emotional shortcuts amplify grievances: Simplified blame (“They’ve taken your jobs!” or “They’re corrupt!”) taps into emotions like fear, resentment, and frustration.
• Nuance feels unsatisfying: Acknowledging complexity takes effort and often feels less emotionally rewarding than a clear-cut villain or simple solution.
• Reinforcement loops fuel division: Once voters adopt a simplified view, media, social networks, and conversations constantly reinforce it, amplifying frustration and alienation.

Combining frustration, emotional shortcuts, and reinforcement makes voters receptive to grievance-driven politicians, who offer simple solutions, clear villains, and emotional satisfaction, even if the reality is far more complex.

The Legal Dimension

Laws are crafted to account for context, precedent, and intent. One-dimensional thinking can distort justice:

• Misinterpretation of laws: Seeing someone as simply “breaking the law” ignores circumstances, intent, or legal protections.
• Unjust judgments: Simplifying cases into “criminal vs. innocent” can lead to disproportionate punishments.
• Policy errors: Legislators may pass laws based on slogans or ideology rather than evidence, creating unintended consequences.

Seeing Beyond the Surface

Breaking free from one-dimensional thinking requires curiosity and effort. It means asking questions like:

• What context am I missing?
• Are there multiple perspectives here?
• What are the long-term effects of this policy or law?

By embracing the complexity of reality, we become more empathetic citizens, wiser decision-makers, and fairer interpreters of the law.

In short: One-dimensional thinking might make life feel easier in the moment, but in politics and law, it’s a shortcut that comes at a high cost. Reality is layered, people are complex, and issues are multifaceted. Recognizing nuance isn’t just an intellectual exercise it’s essential for reducing frustration, resisting grievance politics, and fostering justice that truly works. And stopping the spread of misinformation which is rife on social media.

We can NOT afford to let division continue to destroy Australia

Back in 2019, in the lead-up to the election, I wrote about Bill Shorten’s strategy of deliberately pitting younger Australians against their parents and grandparents. At the time, voters saw through it and rejected Labor’s divisive approach. That clarity did not hold in 2022 or 2025. Today, what was once troubling has become entrenched. Division is no longer incidental to politics; it has become a deliberate strategy.

Those who seek to govern a nation carry a responsibility to unite its people, not fracture them into competing tribes. Yet politics is increasingly prosecuted through a divide-and-conquer lens young against old, renter against homeowner, worker against retiree, conservative against progressive. Compounding this, social media has turned division into a public sport, amplifying outrage and rewarding tribal loyalty over reason. The result is a country increasingly sorted and ranked by ethnicity, identity, and grievance, with citizens themselves drawn into inflaming the very divisions that weaken us all.

This moment feels like a real test of Australian society. A society that once prided itself on fairness, a fair go, personal responsibility, and the dignity of effort. A society built on the idea that you advance by standing on your own two feet, not by tearing others down. That social compact has been under pressure for years, but today’s politics has taken it further actively rewarding resentment and weaponising difference.

A growing number of grievance-driven political parties thrive on this environment. They do not seek to govern or unify; they seek to inflame. Their success depends on keeping Australians angry convinced that someone else is to blame for every frustration and every failure. These movements offer identity in place of policy, outrage in place of solutions, and permanent conflict in place of progress.

This should concern all of us.

When politics teaches people to see their neighbours as enemies because of their age, their success, their background, or their beliefs; it corrodes trust. When ideology matters more than cohesion, the nation weakens. When conservatives are caricatured as immoral and progressives as un-Australian, debate dies and tribalism takes its place.

We are told these divisions are natural, even necessary. They are not. They are cultivated often deliberately by those who profit politically from grievance and division.

There is a growing push to replace a shared national identity with competing group identities, to reframe aspiration as greed, success as exploitation, and disagreement as moral failure. This is not compassion. It is a politics of envy dressed up as justice.

Younger Australians are being told that their struggles are caused not by poor policy, housing shortages, or economic mismanagement—but by their parents’ generation, by those who worked, saved, and played by the rules. That narrative may be emotionally satisfying, but it is false. Families are not the enemy. Communities are not the enemy. A political class and grievance parties that benefit from keeping Australians angry at one another are.

We are, once again, at a crossroads.

The choice before us is not simply left or right, conservative or progressive. It is between a society that values unity, effort, and mutual obligation—or one that thrives on resentment, division, and permanent conflict.

History is clear on this point: nations that turn inward on themselves, that fracture along identity lines, do not become fairer or freer. They become weaker, angrier, and more easily controlled.

We should choose carefully and act responsibly. Debate and disagreement are the lifeblood of democracy, but division that corrodes trust and cohesion destroys nations. Unity must be built, defended, and valued. Once a society is conditioned to see itself as a collection of enemies, restoring it is no easy task.

This Australia Day, let us remember what makes our country truly great: a society that values fairness, effort, and community; a nation where families, neighbours, and fellow citizens are allies, not enemies; and a people willing to defend unity over envy, and common purpose over division. That is the Australia worth preserving. 

Let us also recognise the reality that those who cannot or will not integrate into this shared society pose a serious challenge to the cohesion and stability we must protect. We must continue to argue that this has to change and to prosecute political dogma that fails to deal with it.