EVERYBODY IS DOING A LOT OF SHOUTING – IT’S TIME AUSTRALIA TALKS
Ever since social media was invented, public debate has been a shouty affair in Australia. It’s as though every backyard barbecue guest in the nation has been handed a loudhailer – three beers in – and invited to get it all off the old chest.
Social media is awesome for shouting. And if you feel you’re not being heard, why then shout a little louder.
What it’s not great for, however, is listening. And the compelling, exciting, intriguing lesson from the mammoth experiment that is the Australia Talks project (australiatalks.abc.net. au) – asking more than 54,000 Australians an ambitious series of nearly 500 questions – is that listening is really, really useful.
Listening on this scale gives you all sorts of insights that you wouldn’t normally get from the tribalised punch-fest of daily debate. Or the narratives that preoccupy our parliament.
Did you know, for example, that more people on the left than on the right of the political spectrum think that religious discrimination is a problem in Australia?
Or did you know that we’re more worried about household debt than we are about either terrorism or immigration?
That young adult Australians drink considerably less than their parents’ generation? And that old people are as excited about technology as young people?
When you sit down with 54,000 people and ask them all the same questions, and stick around for more detail about what else is going on in their lives, something amazing happens: context.
Suddenly, you begin to understand why someone who lives in a different part of Australia, or maybe has a different background or daily life experience from you might feel differently about a particular issue.
You can also see that an issue you thought was genuinely divisive because of all that shouting isn’t really all that divisive – it’s only a handful of extremes shouting at each other, and the vast mob in the centre, the genuine ‘quiet Australians’, are actually in a state of relative peace and agreement. Meanwhile, it’s another issue that might genuinely cause strong conflicting views.
Rather selfishly, we’ve been holding back some of the most profound insights from the Australia Talks project until our live TV event (airs Mon., Nov. 18 at 8.30pm; ABC), when we’ll identify the issues that most divide and unite us, along with some genuinely hilarious, baffling and surprising ancillary insights.
Australia Talks is like a big early Christmas present of insight to the nation. It makes sense to unwrap it together. •