Political Amnesia

In reply to Laura Tingle's Quarterly Essay, Political Amnesia: How We Forgot How To Govern.

POLITICAL AMNESIA

Response to Correspondence


Laura Tingle

Laments for the decline of our political discourse, of our institutions, have been a regular feature of the Australian political landscape in recent decades. But the germ of the idea at the heart of Political Amnesia came from elsewhere. Amid the appalling state of politics in the first half of 2015, many people were bemoaning the loss of a connection with “adult government.” Labor in office had no idea what it was doing, the argument went, but then the Coalition won the 2013 election and rapidly appeared intent on proving to us that it had not a clue either.

In this vein, a feature of the often bizarre politics of the Abbott era which struck me – and others – was that the Coalition was repeating, almost move for move, all of Labor’s political and policy mistakes.

I started to consider the issue of memory and why it seemed to have become so faulty in our politics. In turn, that made me think about the institutions which constitute our political world: the political parties and organs of executive government and the parliament, the public service and the media. I wondered whether, maybe, the bad politics came from a lack of memory and, in turn, what might have brought this about.

The themes of institutional memory loss and the decline of institutions are interwoven, of course. Writing the essay, I found it all too easy to stray occasionally into straightforward examination of institutions rather than what they can bring to our discourse because of their collective experience. And this is apparent in many of the responses to the essay – both some of those included here and those appearing in other forums.

The essay has struck a particularly powerful chord in the public service, often with more of a focus on the decline of the APS than on the decline of institutional memory per se.

Others have argued that we don’t need to remember things because the world has changed so much that past lessons aren’t relevant. I fear that some of those advocating this position may have cause later in life to blush at such bold assertions because they utterly miss the point of my argument.

My argument has never been that things were done well in the “olden days” and we ought to replicate what happened then. That would obviously be a ludicrous position. In the economic world, for example, the structures have been utterly transformed from those of a few decades ago.

Instead, the argument is about some very simple ideas: that knowing there are, or have been, alternative ways of approaching anything will make your deliberations better; that having different perspectives brings a creative tension to deliberation – for example, the tension between the public good and the political imperative.

Knowledge of alternatives and the existence of a vibrant creative tension both require strong institutions which are confident of their power base and place in the world. And the whole point of my essay is that what lies at the core of this confidence and vibrancy is knowledge and tradition. Their value does not lie in sentiment, but in the perspective they give on new ideas, and the way they enrich the capacities of the people who run our country and must deliver on those ideas.

Political Amnesia has sought to remind people of this value, and I believe it has helped to start a much-needed debate about how the balance of power, influence and ideas in our institutions has shifted in the past few decades. Most importantly, it has begun a debate about whether we need to change this balance for the better – not to go back to the past, but to secure a more vibrant future.

Laura Tingle

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This is a reply to Laura Tingle’s Quarterly Essay, Political Amnesia: How We Forgot How To Govern. To read the full essay, login, subscribe, or buy the book.

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