What do you hope for in 2021?
If, as they say, growth comes from adversity, then 2020 has been formative. Yet what exactly are the lessons that we should be sifting through this year’s trauma and anxiety to find? What should be the guiding lights as we pick up the pieces with the rare opportunity to put them back in a new configuration?
To begin to put these ephemeral things into words, AQ invited some recent contributors to respond to the simple question: What do you hope for in 2021?
regularly present alongside political leaders at press conferences - and they not only informed we the public, we also saw politicians listening to their advice.
Difficult positions were adopted that caused many people discomfort. We seemed to accept that we had to act responsibly, because we knew why. We accepted we were all in this together. At least for a while.
It was a radically different approach to two emergencies. The Prime Minister's standing during the pandemic went from the floor to the ceiling in short order.
But. You can change the label without changing the contents. My hope for 2021 is that our political leaders of all stripes will accept that the Australian public expects them to lead; that we will accept discomfort when the stakes are high and when we know it is based on knowledge and expert advice, and not some ideological drivel unworthy of a sophisticated community.