Last week, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern delivered a graduation speech – a speech to graduate students – at Harvard University entitled Democracy, Misinformation and Kindness.
Wearing a kakahu, a feathered Maori cloak, and Harvard University’s red and black academic attire, he compared democracy to marriage:
For years it seems as if we have assumed that the fragility of democracy was determined by its duration. That somehow the strength of your democracy was like a marriage: the longer you were there, the more likely you were to stay.
But that takes a lot for granted.
It ignores the fact that the foundation of a strong democracy includes trust in institutions, experts, and government, and that this can be built over decades but can be destroyed in a few years.
He ignores that a strong democracy is based on debate and dialogue.
On the other hand, the Australian electorate had voted for a different kind of democracy than we are used to. To continue the analogy of marriage, it is as if we have been married to the two main political parties in this country for so long, which meant that we were just “hooked.”
Instead, from Perth to Palm Beach, voters have sent to Canberra the most diverse group of parliamentarians ever gathered: more women, more Asian and indigenous MPs. At the same time, they have rewarded – often through their second or third preferential vote – a working-class politician from Anthony Albanese who has silently repeated for the past three years that he wanted to “make politics better” and end the “fatigue of the conflict”. “. .
This effort must begin in the Chamber of Deputies.
After new MPs give their last addresses, they will be forced to endure one of the last jobs in Australia where school bullying, abuse, especially gender and cultural background, rudeness and rudeness are routinely tolerated. of garden varieties, drunkenness and the worst?
Speaking to ABC’s The Drum this week, former Labor MP Craig Emerson made the outspoken statement: they got there because of ALP quotas.People like it [foreign minister] Penny Wong i [finance minister] Katy Gallagher; very strong, affectionate and effective women. This kind of denigration that they could only get there with quotas ”.
Frankly, it’s hard to imagine that this kind of abuse is being thrown at the group of mature, independent-minded women, mostly women on the cross-bench in the House of Representatives.
Obviously, the election result means that parliament is less likely to be a forum for testosterone-fueled bipartisan clashes in the Chamber of Deputies; a lot of partisanship has been wiped out of the system.
But whether the parliament itself is transformed depends, as the godmother of the independent community movement, former Indian MP Cathy McGowan, said, “the referee and the rules.”
The referee, of course, is the Speaker of the House of Representatives “a highly skilled job and not for the faint of heart,” McGowan says.
The personal characteristics needed for the job, he says, are a sense of humor, fairness and honesty, and “good hearing.” According to McGowan, Bronwyn Bishop, a former spokeswoman not notable for her impartiality, had a “very selective hearing.”
But in the 47th parliament, the election of the president is also a symbol of whether or not the new policy has really reached the old institutions of Canberra.
There is much speculation that even if the ALP gets the majority of seats in the lower house, the new prime minister could elect a truly independent president. The name of veteran Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie is regularly mentioned. His office reported that he was “in his hut” in Tassie and did not want to comment on these issues.
McGowan agrees that Wilkie could be the independent election for president, as the new “green-minded” MPs have no parliamentary experience to take on the job, and after promising action on a federal Icac, the change climate change and women’s issues, they would. he will probably not be willing to give up the opportunity to participate in legislative debates in the parliament chamber in exchange for the presidency award.
More importantly, McGowan says, is a change to standing orders that means it is still being debated, a process in which Greens MP Adam Bandt, a lawyer by training, is said to be heavily involved. The regulations are the rules of the Chamber of Deputies that dictate who can speak and when, who can present legislation and whether they can debate it.
“It will be built in 2010, when the government of Julia Gillard changed the standing orders to reflect a minority government. What we talked about then was more questions for cross-banks during question time and more time for them to talk.
“They might be discussing getting rid of Dorothy Dixers,” he says, referring to those eye-popping questions put to a minister by a government adviser, designed not to examine government policy but to highlight government achievements.
Then there is the crucial question of whether cross-party MPs can expect to introduce, debate and make laws in the new parliament.
“At the moment, Monday mornings are reserved for private businesses. That’s when cruise legislation introduced legislation, but it’s not necessarily ever debated. They could be left out on Thursday morning to discuss cross-bank legislation. “
As we discovered on ABC’s current affairs program The Drum, it takes time to develop an enthusiasm and appreciation for collaborative dialogue between Australians of different ages, genders, sexuality, ethnicity and political persuasion, and move away. of the performative aggression of the “crossfire” style of clamorous debate posing as democratic rigor.
The growing public interest in The Drum over the past six weeks suggests that Australians are also voting with their remote controls.
Speaking about the corrupting impact of social media on democracy, the Prime Minister of Aotearoa, New Zealand, Ardern, made a note that applies equally to behavior in any political environment.
“What we do as individuals in these spaces is also important.
“Don’t overlook the impact of the simple steps ahead.
“Making the decision to treat differences with empathy and kindness. Those values that exist in the space between difference and division. The same things we teach our children, but then we see them as a weakness in our leaders. We are the richest for our differences and the poorest for our division. “