White Australia as people appear both hedonistic and politically disengaged and strangely proud of the fact. Being apolitical as a point of pride is not allowed by our oversea’s brethren. People from without who have had to struggle, face discrimination and encounter death and torture in the political process are less willing to be so complacent. Australian by in large have no real experience and little sympathy with that struggle as evidenced by their unsympathetic reaction to refugees. While I have lived overseas in the midst of a political revolution, I am a multigenerational Australian and a bit of a rarity I suspect. My wife and I were both educated at Private schools, brought up by Conservative families. My wife has an MBA to add to her other four degrees, (I’m less educated with only three). We are self-employed although both have significant histories of working for the private sector and public sector employers (in Transport, Banking {-me only}, Insurance {- her only}, Finance, Mining, Education, Health), own our own homes and are not impoverished. In many respects a middle-class nuclear church going Anglo family and yet despite being a potential LNP voting demography, we find ourselves at odds with the political climate in Australia.
Australians are often found following the example of conforming with the un-thought-out voting position of one’s family. They are more often intransigent in their voting position, regardless of the situation or the facts available so readily in this contemporary age of internet access to information. The “writing was very obviously on the wall” for what sort of a leader Abbott would be well before the election, so there is no excuse for this level of intellectual laziness other than to protest that for some inexplicable reason, one believed his lies. Or that of Murdock’s papers which we swallowed uncritically and without considered thought. So how do you engage this intellectually lazy population? Unfortunately, it would have to be suffering the leadership of an inherent sociopath/fascist like Abbott and experiencing the consequences. A harsh lesson which our society will undoubtedly suffer from now and well into the future, as Abbott and his colleagues continue dismantling the infrastructure of our once egalitarian society. Sadly, it is probably only in experiencing this pain, which we will generate engagement in politics. Providing any of them a second term will most surely be irretrievably damaging as everything that provides a buffer against poverty and hardship is dismantled.