ArticleLast week, I sat in Parliament House and watched my former boss, Bill Shorten, give his valedictory speech. It was expectedly gracious. However, more impressive was the palpable sense of respect – even affection – in the chamber. The Prime Minister and Peter Dutton spoke after Shorten. Both, in different ways, had been his political opponents. Both commended him and his family and generously praised his contribution to public life. Dutton went so far as to say that Shorten ‘would have made a fine Prime Minister.’
Moments like this are rare and rarely reported on. Instead our focus tends to be on the negative – claims that the Prime Minister is ‘completely out of his depth’ or that the Leader of the Opposition is ‘the most divisive leader of a major political party in Australia’s modern history’.
Many people long for the professed stability of the Hawke, Keating and Howard years. Back then, much of the politicking and backstabbing was kept backstage, while a veneer of respect and protocol was presented publicly. Now our 24-7 media cycle elevates the dramatic and hostile while relegating the sterility of cooperation to the cutting room floor.
As a result, what we see of our democracy in action rarely transcends divisive debates, vitriolic politics and intractable wars (both literal and cultural). ‘Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’ wrote the poet WB Yeats. It can feel like he was writing to us.
But our democracy may be healthier than we realise.
50 years ago, an ageing Muhammad Ali faced the younger stronger George Foreman for the world heavyweight boxing championship. The ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ drew 1 billion viewers and was labelled ‘arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century.’ Early in the fight, Ali leant back on the ropes, covered his face and allowed Foreman to repeatedly punch him. The sports-writer George Plimpton said Ali looked like ‘a man leaning out his window trying to see something on his roof.’ This went on for seven rounds, by which time Foreman was exhausted. He’d punched himself out. Ali came off the ropes in the eighth round and knocked Foreman out. There was a hidden strength there that became evident just when things were looking grim for Ali.
This week, our national parliament will adjourn for 2024. If politics is about working constructively to get things done, there’s much fuel for discouragement. The tone of our politics seems intractably grumpy. The democratic ideals of civility and cooperation are taking punches left, right and centre. However – like Ali on the ropes – there may be more going on than meets the eye.
This year, the parliament passed bi-partisan legislation to crack down on deepfake pornography, fix the National Disability Insurance Scheme and change the Stage 3 tax cuts. This week, parliament will likely also pass significant reforms on aged care reforms, political donations and age restrictions on social media. Notably, these glimpses of cooperation aren’t new. The Coalition supported Labor’s pension reforms (2010), paid parental leave scheme (2011) and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (2013). Labor supported the Coalition’s tax cuts (2018), JobKeeper scheme during Covid (2020) and AUKUS (2021). Not to mention historical bipartisan support for deregulating the economy, floating the dollar, funding for mental health services and gun ownership.
A recent study on public trust found that most Australians are satisfied that our democracy is working, ranking Australia 5th in the world for public satisfaction in our system of government. In world where some nations are falling apart, this is no small thing.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s still plenty being fought about. On housing, energy, immigration and education, political parties continue to shout each other into stalemate. But discouragement need not lead to despair. As that award-winning cartoon heeler Bluey put it: ‘When you can’t figure something out, don’t give up! Try looking at it a different way.’
Rare though they are, glimpses of bipartisanship point to the ancient idea of a ‘common good.’ Conceived of by Plato and Aristotle and expanded by Christian thinkers like Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas – the idea that there are fundamentals to human flourishing that can (and should) be implicitly agreed by those who may disagree on other things. Perhaps the best harvests of our democracy grow in these spaces – where civility and respect for commonly held ideals bring political opponents together to build health, education and care systems, ensure strong economic fundamentals and invest in national security.
Political civility and cooperation needs to be more common and more commonly reported on, but our democracy may be healthier than we think. No matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to shake the idea of a common good. Maybe the centre can hold. Maybe we’re just on the ropes.
Max Jeganathan is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity. He served as an adviser in the Rudd-Gillard governments and to Bill Shorten, then Leader of the Opposition. He is undertaking a PhD on the ethical foundations of liberalism.
Photo credit: “Negro voting in Cardoza [i.e., Cardozo] High School in [Washington,] D.C. / [MST].” Original black and white negative by Marion S. Trikosko. Taken November 3rd, 1964, Washington D.C, United States (@libraryofcongress). Colorized by Jordan J. Lloyd. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003688167/