During what must be the world’s most boring election campaign ever, like many I’ve got to thinking about the reasons why Australian politics as reached this low, low point. Some blame the 24 hour media cycle. Some blame faceless back room hatchet men. Some blame a singular lack of imagination on all sides. I have another theory.
I think we’re simply too well off. The reality in modern Australia is that the vast majority of us want for nothing.
Sure, there is a significant group living below the poverty line. There are some people who don’t have a job and want one. There are a great many home owners who would like a smaller mortgage and home buyers who would like easier entry into the market.
But none of these seems to be enough to cause anything more than a grumble from the electorate as a whole.
Sure, there are a great many issues which need fighting for. Climate change is perhaps the biggest one—certainly the one most likely to affect the largest number of people, if not everyone, in the longer term. Then there are mental health, obesity, women’s rights, water, the extinction of native species, the poor resourcing of government education—the list is endless—all of which have groups of concerned citizens behind them.
But none of these, including climate change, seems to be enough to raise more than a furrowed brow in anyone but the most committed.
It seems we just have it too easy to be bothered really worrying about anything.
We like to think of our politicians as having real values and real vision, and I have no doubt that some of them do. But in the end even the most visionary know that they won’t be able to do anything if they’re not in power, and the safest way to keep power is to pander to the populace.
At times like this, when we’re too well off to care, the easiest way to do that is to do as little as possible to rock the boat.
(Image 
Jordan)
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