Its pretty easy to stereotype a group & demonise them. For many years politicians, real estate agents, used car salesmen, insurance brokers, government bureaucrats...there's groups we sling off about. But why are we so down on these groups as a whole when there are in those groups quite a few people who are thoroughly decent & honest human beings?
I think they could just possibly reflect society as a whole and every day people in Australia who have a little anti-Authoritarian streak in them see those people having more power & control than they have. One possibility.
Other is, they have something in common with every other Australian citizen. They're humans.
As a result they can have some leanings & beliefs, aims & goals that might differ from others. Some are in politics are genuine, in there to make a difference and improve things. Some however are there because they view it as their job & career and therefore smell the wind regularly to see which way to face will lessen their chances of a re-election loss.
Politics has great, good and bad people amongst its ranks.
In recent decades we've seen not only a record amount of PM turnovers from leadership spills but more leaders change since the day John Howard retired than any other era of the same length of time in Australian Political History.
Yes, there's "Kingmaker Syndrome" that's swept into all parties like a contagion where some back benchers believe they can call some shots, they can rule from the shadows and indeed there's been quite a few times where the cut n thrust triumphed over greater party goals and greater national interest.
No party is immune, all have had it, I think all still do,
Why?
We probably have a less than helpful media. They need blood and disgust to sell a headline. Currently there's front page interest in a long retired West Coast Eagle champion being found drunk & asleep on the street in Kalgoorlie.
It's tragic & horrific for his friends & family and I'm not suggesting it needs a cover up, but I think it's in no one's interest, neither his nor the general public's to report it. It was front page & would help sell some copy & therefore some advertising in an age when paper is reducing and online newspaper with required sensationalised click bait...well you see that is going to sell better than a purely factual report on stock market movements.
Aside from that, the politicians and their supporting party framework have to take some blame too. Sadly whilst many parties still have a "Party Whip" they mainly attend to helping arrange party business in parliament. In the old days it was different. Whilst its a dark comedy/drama piece the old TV mini series out of the UK "House of Cards" showed lots of cloak & dagger but lots of scandal or trouble prevent or kept in check by a ruthless, fearless party whip. Cross the Whip and the Whip very much crossed you, sometimes crossed you out.
It can reduce factional wars to an extent but humans are humans and they will still go to war.
But the PM revolving doors, the Leadership Spill Pandemic through all parties & the odd avoidable scandal & spill could have been avoided with the old fashioned ruthless Whip.
But they're a soft version these days, discipline is sporadic at best, at worst accidental when it does happen. Then there's the slightly variating party machine which MPs should be answering to. When I say Party Machine I mean the part of a respective party that is the lay members conduit to the elected members. When that becomes distant & token, that further adds to the rise in scandals and unhelpful promotions, demotions, scandals, spills, public fights or threats to cross the floor.
Until all the parties get their act together, their structure of accountability right the problems will continue.
This might be amplified by those media outlets that want Churnalists not Journalists, that want controversy to sell because it does sell. Churnalists become influencers not reporters. They try to become protagonists & players instead of observers & commentators.
This means those who're struck with King Maker Syndrome use the media and the media use them to help create angst and controversy to their own gain.
I don't expect the media to change anytime soon & strange as it seems I think it's the political set that has to raise the bar & stop leaking which adds fuel to avoidable fires that are really of no beneficial public interest. All the parties have a organisational structure with flaws, less accountability and shared vision. That's not a team, its at best several competing teams within a party.
So yes "journalism" is very much at fault, but so too are the MPs and their parties. Once the lay members are disconnected and the MPs not as answerable...well its give an inch and take a mile without any resistance.
Solution is more peeved off people should decide which party is more to their liking & join up so as to have a say. If you're firing a shot off on Twitter or in the local paper its not influencing against the problem. As I was told "No point pissing on the tent pegs when you'd be better off inside the tent throwing sh*t everywhere"
Quite a picture painted there, but a gloriously high amount of truth in it.
If the country is to do better, lay members need to be in control of their parties and their MPs need to be answer to their party.
Simple answer, but trouble is there exists the same common denominator that ruins everything.
Humans doing what humans do...
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