Comment

So you want to be an independent in the next federal parliament. You’ve had enough of the two-party game-playing of the Westminster system and believe there should be a better way of doing politics, something different to the traditional headbutting and pointscoring. You’re sick of the way in which the major parties impose political staffers and time-servers on the electorate. This article gives you some idea of what you may expect during the campaign and, if successful, what to expect if elected. It is based on the experience of someone who was an independent at both state and federal level for 22 years.

In February last year, Mike Seccombe reported what at the time seemed incredible: Australia had a net-zero emissions target for 2050. This was in spite of the Morrison government. The story added up the commitments of every state and territory and found that Australia would reach the global target irrespective of Scott Morrison’s then refusal to endorse it.

Now the various independents’ movements are gaining genuine momentum in a number of key seats, having identified good, strong, community-based candidates and launching their campaigns for the next federal election, it is instructive to contemplate how different our politics and government would be if they were successful and indeed may hold the balance of power, at least in the lower house.

If the last fortnight of parliament for the year is any guide, Labor has its tail up and the government is in the doldrums. The lack of engagement from the Coalition backbench as the prime minister and his ministers slugged it out with the opposition was one thing, but the dead giveaway was the sitting schedule for next year.

Secret evidence, secret hearings and secret judgements. Each step in the prosecution of Bernard Collaery comes with another layer of opacity. If it were not so serious, the accumulation of secrecy in this case would be comedic. Secrecy heaped upon secrecy for secrecy’s sake. A secrecy onion? But this case is no laughing matter. At stake are transparency and accountability.

The first reports were about the guards themselves. They were allowing asylum seekers longer showers if they could watch them naked. Some were trading cigarettes for sexual favours. Credible reports followed of children being sexually assaulted in the detention camp on Nauru. Subsequent files would show at least seven children had been abused.

It has been a widely held perception that politicians can play fast and loose with the truth. As with those who sell used cars, they manipulate data and events to suit what they think will be to their short-term political advantage. Donald Trump elevated this to an art form, claiming those who disagreed with him or questioned him on an issue were spreading what he called ‘fake news’.

Anthony Albanese is convinced the tide is going out on the Morrison government. Scott Morrison senses it too, but, like King Canute, he is desperately trying to prove he’s still in control. The embattled prime minister is being swamped by almost unprecedented disunity and defiance of his authority within his ruling Coalition.

Already, it has been called the ‘Great Resignation’. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, people are quitting their jobs en masse. Bartenders, sales assistants, healthcare workers, teachers and tech developers are calling it quits – a record 4.3 million American workers in August alone. It is unclear whether Australia will have the same kind of worker revolt, but some predict we may see a similar trend in early 2022.

In his excellent portrait of Scott Morrison, titled The Game, Sean Kelly writes about a theory of literary characters suggested by E. M. Forster in a series of lectures delivered just before the Great Depression. Forster argued that there were two sorts of characters, either flat characters or round characters. Persuasively and in sharp detail, Kelly makes the case that Morrison is a flat character. Such a character could be “captured in a sentence or two”. They might have a catchphrase. Their advantage to the novelist is “that they never needed to be reintroduced, because they were so easily recognised”.