It has been a week in politics when cynicism has been on full public display.
We’ve had the spectacle of politicians telling the public not to trust politicians, because, you know ... politicians. Take Matt Canavan, last weekend, at the launch of the no campaign for the postal survey.
“Put your faith in a politician – that is what they are asking us to do. I find it kind of ironic because we are often accused of basing our conclusions and views on this issue on faith, having a faith-based platform,” Canavan said, warming to his theme.
He went on to remind his audience that he was a politician, “at least for now”, and as a politician, he felt that putting your faith in politicians was a “much, much bigger leap into the dark than believing in the father, the son and the holy spirit!
“Ladies and gentlemen, if they [being politicians] can’t tell you what they want, you must vote no. If they don’t know, you should vote no.”
There’s something about this sort of loose talk that slowly drains my life force. I know readers feel a similar sense of enervation when they encounter the unbearable lightness of political expediency.
Let’s just take Canavan at his word for five whole seconds. If he survives his looming high court proceedings and returns to the Turnbull ministry, can we assume this professional whistleblowing will be a new habit?
After making an important ministerial decision, will Canavan in future break the fourth wall, Frank Underwood-style, wink at the audience and say: by the way folks, you can’t trust me, or that guy over there?
Seems a bit unlikely, doesn’t it? Seems a teensy bit situational, this professional whistleblowing.
As well as the nail-down-chalkboard spectacle of don’t trust politicians from (wait for it) politicians – we’ve had Tony Abbott’s various insights into energy policy, which suggest he is more interested in orchestrating an argument with Labor than solving a practical problem.
More zero-sum partisan shouting is just what Australia needs, right? It’s what gets us all out of bed in the morning – the prospect of more biff.
The thing about cynicism is it tends to be infectious. It is not a victimless crime.
Politicians modelling cynicism to voters tends to make everyone else cynical too, and when mass cynicism descends, it becomes that much harder to make progress. People get surly, or they switch off, and they begin to discount everything you do.
Yet some politicians and non-political actors hoping to influence politics keep weaponising cynicism, hoping they can somehow channel voter disaffection to further their own causes.
We’ve seen a strange spectacle during the postal survey debate where various no-vote advocates have argued until they are hoarse that people cannot possibly vote yes for marriage equality because that would erode religious freedom.
Those same people then refuse to provide any specifics about what they mean, or what might be required to fix the problem.
I don’t doubt the underlying convictions of various protagonists in the no camp, particularly people of religious faith. But, when, in a campaign context, naysayers raise a problem, day in and day out, but show either limited or no interest in fixing it – and in fact declare their opponents must fix it – the positioning does tend to look tactical.
If this was a courtroom drama, you’d characterise it as an effort to create reasonable doubt.
Given the reasonable doubt strategy is clearly having some impact, with support for same-sex marriage down four points in a fortnight in our Guardian Essential poll, it might be useful to pause a moment to consider the facts, considering it can be hard, sometimes, to discern facts through a fog of misinformation.
The bill authored by the Liberal senator Dean Smith – which is the most likely starting point of legalising marriage equality in the event Australians return a yes vote – has explicit protections for religious freedom.
The general outline of the bill says ministers of religion will be able to “refuse to solemnise a marriage in conformity with their religion’s doctrine, their religious beliefs or in order to avoid injury to the susceptibilities of their religious community (e.g. marriages of same-sex, previously divorced or inter-faith couples)”.
It says marriage celebrants will be able to refuse to solemnise a marriage “where their religious beliefs do not allow them to do so”.
It also says “bodies established for religious purposes will be able to refuse to provide facilities, goods or services consistently with their religion’s doctrine or if this refusal conforms with religious doctrine, tenets or beliefs or is necessary to avoid injury to the feelings of their religious communities”.
So contrary to fragmentary bits of contention you might have picked up in the debate, there is a template bill already, it contains explicit protections for religious freedom, and in any ensuing parliamentary process, those protections can be strengthened in the event the numbers are there to strengthen them.
Malcolm Turnbull also has every incentive to be attentive to religious protections, given the conservatives who currently guard his leadership, Mathias Cormann and Peter Dutton, will be very active on this front in the event the parliament moves in the direction of legalising same-sex marriage.
The postal vote campaign is a very strange one in a lot of ways. The two camps aren’t really engaging or communicating, or appealing to undecided voters, because both sides are intent on activating their own supporters.
It’s a bit like watching preschool children in a playground, who play around one another rather than playing together.
The parallel play dynamic of the campaign, and the lack of focal points, makes direct rebuttal hard, even when overstatement or misinformation is egregious. The yes campaign has also made a tactical decision not to be drawn into the framing of the no case, believing no good can come from it.
Given this is predominantly a get-out-the-vote campaign, religious freedom and radical gender theory have been deployed as the rhetorical weapons of choice for the no campaign in an effort to galvanise their own supporters, and get those ballot papers flying back to the post box.
It’s an activation strategy for the base.
Yes is also in emotional territory, deploying empathy and aspiration, rather than fear.
Because the two campaigns are speaking across one another, rather than debating and engaging with one another, which is the normal cadence of Australian election campaigns – the reason being that normal compulsory vote election campaigns are pitched at wooing swinging voters, not motivating rusted-on supporters – the effect is cacophonous and vaguely confusing.
The whole process is messy and protracted, and the feedback I get from people involved is voters are growing tired of the bombardment – heartily sick of the issue persisting, unresolved.
The emotional signalling of the campaigns is also taking its toll out in the community. My gay friends are doing it tough during this discussion. Some are suffering a lot, and they know there are weeks of this still to go.
Because we are running a public opinion poll on how people should live their lives, the political has rarely been so personal. When people suffer, they absolutely shouldn’t, but they can, act out.
Discipline can break down, and there are not the normal campaign disciplines and strictures to keep emotions in check. This is a leaderless campaign. In normal campaigns, hierarchy imposes discipline.
Tempers flare. We saw that, sadly, in Tasmania, when Abbott was allegedly assaulted on the street on Thursday, apparently by a supporter of the yes vote.
People slugging it out on the street is a deeply serious development in this country, a completely inexcusable development, and one that absolutely dismays me as a two decades-long participant in the political system.
Fury and frustration are terrible and destructive forces, once unleashed; and anger permeates Australian politics. It makes me fearful, quite frankly.
What that all means ultimately for the vote, we’ll find out by mid-November.
But tracking back to where we started, which was with cynicism and the weaponisation of cynicism in Australia’s political discourse, do yourself this favour.
If you haven’t yet cast your vote, turn down the noise, don’t be toyed with, or manipulated by master political craftsmen presenting in the garb of faux everymen, don’t get angry, take the time to understand the facts – and vote (be it yes or no) according to the specific question you are being asked on the ballot paper, and your disposition towards that question.
The only way to defeat cynicism, to confine it to its rightful place, is to match it with stillness and clarity.
We’ve had the spectacle of politicians telling the public not to trust politicians, because, you know ... politicians. Take Matt Canavan, last weekend, at the launch of the no campaign for the postal survey.
“Put your faith in a politician – that is what they are asking us to do. I find it kind of ironic because we are often accused of basing our conclusions and views on this issue on faith, having a faith-based platform,” Canavan said, warming to his theme.
He went on to remind his audience that he was a politician, “at least for now”, and as a politician, he felt that putting your faith in politicians was a “much, much bigger leap into the dark than believing in the father, the son and the holy spirit!
“Ladies and gentlemen, if they [being politicians] can’t tell you what they want, you must vote no. If they don’t know, you should vote no.”
There’s something about this sort of loose talk that slowly drains my life force. I know readers feel a similar sense of enervation when they encounter the unbearable lightness of political expediency.
Let’s just take Canavan at his word for five whole seconds. If he survives his looming high court proceedings and returns to the Turnbull ministry, can we assume this professional whistleblowing will be a new habit?
After making an important ministerial decision, will Canavan in future break the fourth wall, Frank Underwood-style, wink at the audience and say: by the way folks, you can’t trust me, or that guy over there?
Seems a bit unlikely, doesn’t it? Seems a teensy bit situational, this professional whistleblowing.
As well as the nail-down-chalkboard spectacle of don’t trust politicians from (wait for it) politicians – we’ve had Tony Abbott’s various insights into energy policy, which suggest he is more interested in orchestrating an argument with Labor than solving a practical problem.
More zero-sum partisan shouting is just what Australia needs, right? It’s what gets us all out of bed in the morning – the prospect of more biff.
The thing about cynicism is it tends to be infectious. It is not a victimless crime.
Politicians modelling cynicism to voters tends to make everyone else cynical too, and when mass cynicism descends, it becomes that much harder to make progress. People get surly, or they switch off, and they begin to discount everything you do.
Yet some politicians and non-political actors hoping to influence politics keep weaponising cynicism, hoping they can somehow channel voter disaffection to further their own causes.
We’ve seen a strange spectacle during the postal survey debate where various no-vote advocates have argued until they are hoarse that people cannot possibly vote yes for marriage equality because that would erode religious freedom.
Those same people then refuse to provide any specifics about what they mean, or what might be required to fix the problem.
I don’t doubt the underlying convictions of various protagonists in the no camp, particularly people of religious faith. But, when, in a campaign context, naysayers raise a problem, day in and day out, but show either limited or no interest in fixing it – and in fact declare their opponents must fix it – the positioning does tend to look tactical.
If this was a courtroom drama, you’d characterise it as an effort to create reasonable doubt.
Given the reasonable doubt strategy is clearly having some impact, with support for same-sex marriage down four points in a fortnight in our Guardian Essential poll, it might be useful to pause a moment to consider the facts, considering it can be hard, sometimes, to discern facts through a fog of misinformation.
The bill authored by the Liberal senator Dean Smith – which is the most likely starting point of legalising marriage equality in the event Australians return a yes vote – has explicit protections for religious freedom.
The general outline of the bill says ministers of religion will be able to “refuse to solemnise a marriage in conformity with their religion’s doctrine, their religious beliefs or in order to avoid injury to the susceptibilities of their religious community (e.g. marriages of same-sex, previously divorced or inter-faith couples)”.
It says marriage celebrants will be able to refuse to solemnise a marriage “where their religious beliefs do not allow them to do so”.
It also says “bodies established for religious purposes will be able to refuse to provide facilities, goods or services consistently with their religion’s doctrine or if this refusal conforms with religious doctrine, tenets or beliefs or is necessary to avoid injury to the feelings of their religious communities”.
So contrary to fragmentary bits of contention you might have picked up in the debate, there is a template bill already, it contains explicit protections for religious freedom, and in any ensuing parliamentary process, those protections can be strengthened in the event the numbers are there to strengthen them.
Malcolm Turnbull also has every incentive to be attentive to religious protections, given the conservatives who currently guard his leadership, Mathias Cormann and Peter Dutton, will be very active on this front in the event the parliament moves in the direction of legalising same-sex marriage.
The postal vote campaign is a very strange one in a lot of ways. The two camps aren’t really engaging or communicating, or appealing to undecided voters, because both sides are intent on activating their own supporters.
It’s a bit like watching preschool children in a playground, who play around one another rather than playing together.
The parallel play dynamic of the campaign, and the lack of focal points, makes direct rebuttal hard, even when overstatement or misinformation is egregious. The yes campaign has also made a tactical decision not to be drawn into the framing of the no case, believing no good can come from it.
Given this is predominantly a get-out-the-vote campaign, religious freedom and radical gender theory have been deployed as the rhetorical weapons of choice for the no campaign in an effort to galvanise their own supporters, and get those ballot papers flying back to the post box.
It’s an activation strategy for the base.
Yes is also in emotional territory, deploying empathy and aspiration, rather than fear.
Because the two campaigns are speaking across one another, rather than debating and engaging with one another, which is the normal cadence of Australian election campaigns – the reason being that normal compulsory vote election campaigns are pitched at wooing swinging voters, not motivating rusted-on supporters – the effect is cacophonous and vaguely confusing.
The whole process is messy and protracted, and the feedback I get from people involved is voters are growing tired of the bombardment – heartily sick of the issue persisting, unresolved.
The emotional signalling of the campaigns is also taking its toll out in the community. My gay friends are doing it tough during this discussion. Some are suffering a lot, and they know there are weeks of this still to go.
Because we are running a public opinion poll on how people should live their lives, the political has rarely been so personal. When people suffer, they absolutely shouldn’t, but they can, act out.
Discipline can break down, and there are not the normal campaign disciplines and strictures to keep emotions in check. This is a leaderless campaign. In normal campaigns, hierarchy imposes discipline.
Tempers flare. We saw that, sadly, in Tasmania, when Abbott was allegedly assaulted on the street on Thursday, apparently by a supporter of the yes vote.
People slugging it out on the street is a deeply serious development in this country, a completely inexcusable development, and one that absolutely dismays me as a two decades-long participant in the political system.
Fury and frustration are terrible and destructive forces, once unleashed; and anger permeates Australian politics. It makes me fearful, quite frankly.
What that all means ultimately for the vote, we’ll find out by mid-November.
But tracking back to where we started, which was with cynicism and the weaponisation of cynicism in Australia’s political discourse, do yourself this favour.
If you haven’t yet cast your vote, turn down the noise, don’t be toyed with, or manipulated by master political craftsmen presenting in the garb of faux everymen, don’t get angry, take the time to understand the facts – and vote (be it yes or no) according to the specific question you are being asked on the ballot paper, and your disposition towards that question.
The only way to defeat cynicism, to confine it to its rightful place, is to match it with stillness and clarity.
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