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.
