Every voter for themselves

Chris Wallace continues this nation’s political deconstructions, omitting the elephant in the room, the electorate. The electorate is akin to a “market” while parties are at the behest of its fickle forces, integral to a growing plutocracy that further compromises our perceived egalitarianism. This is evidenced by a Murdoch-dominated media dumbing down our commentary and ensuing conversations. Add to this an electoral system vulnerable to political expediencies and lacking democratic parity, and a dynamic multicultural diaspora that has further entrenched our historical conservatism, and any counter-political voice will struggle for identity and relevance. In 2019, a Bill Shorten-led Labor Party presented an opportunity to realise a more equitable society and was brutally rejected. Time and again, substantive and far-reaching policies pale throughout the course of federal campaigns, reduced to domestic hip-pocket pork-barrel politicking. Ours is a nation of individuals. In that context, the farce that is a Morrison-led conservative Coalition has little to fear from an opposition that would attempt to transcend our myopic sentience.

– Rory Slater, Red Hill, ACT