Central to Australia’s cultural and political identity is the notion of a “fair go”. But recent elections, including in the United States, have highlighted the challenge of maintaining shared norms and support for institutions when many voters don’t believe they’re getting a “fair go”.
Australia has maintained a reasonably high satisfaction with democracy. However, this satisfaction is slipping.
A recent study, published by the Australian National University in partnership with the Department of Home Affairs Strengthening Democracy Taskforce, explored this issue further. It analysed how perceptions of income inequality relate to satisfaction with democracy.
It found concerns about income inequality in Australia are strongly related to dissatisfaction with democracy. This suggests Australia’s satisfaction with democracy is at risk. It may erode further if voters think the major parties aren’t sufficiently responsive to the economic pressures they are under.
[…]
“People who believe system is failing have less faith in system”
I know it’s the headline writer, who I think isn’t usually the author of the article (I don’t know how The Conversation does it, though), and much less still is it reflective of worth of the study, but these kinds of headlines still annoy me. Maybe they’re written to annoy people, I don’t know.
The headline isn’t even accurate. The question asked in the survey isn’t about whether respondents think inequality is high, but whether they think income distribution is fair (the exact wording is: “How fair do you think income distribution is in Australia?”).
Department of Home Affairs Strengthening Democracy Taskforce
This is a slightly terrifying phrase. I still associate Home Affairs so strongly with Dutton - as the mega-portfolio that was created to placate him - that it’s hard not to read ‘Strengthening Democracy Taskforce’ in the same way as American war-mongering rhetoric of ‘SPREADING FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY’.
This impression is not helped by this bit of double-speak later in the article 😂:
The Department of Home Affairs’ 2024 Strengthening Democracy report describes Australia’s democratic resilience as “strong, but vulnerable”.
This suggests Australia’s satisfaction with democracy is at risk. It may erode further if voters think the major parties aren’t sufficiently responsive to the economic pressures they are under.
Not to defend the state of our ‘democracy’, but I feel compelled to point out that thanks to preferential voting we can vote for parties other than the major parties. Unfortunately many of the minor parties are also in favour of policies that would increase inequality, but the Greens consistently campaign on reducing inequality. I suppose a lot of people who might be roughly characterised as ‘right-wing populists’ and against status-quo neoliberalism would find the Greens unpalatable, though. Do we need a party that’s like the Greens but with One Nation’s aesthetics or something?
I suppose a lot of people who might be roughly characterised as ‘right-wing populists’ and against status-quo neoliberalism would find the Greens unpalatable, though.
The unpalatable bit for many, particularly young men, is the social progressivism of these parties. I see it time and time again: guys who would be easy Greens voters based on their economic and environmental policies don’t take them seriously because their perception is that left-wing politics is primarily focused on issues of gender and sexuality. They don’t consider these issues comparatively relevant and get attacked quite viciously online for this position which feeds into this broader alienation problem they are going through due to the shift away from traditional gender roles that would have given their lives meaning. Feeling alienated by the left, these guys drift right towards groups that validate their feelings and welcome them.
I don’t necessarily think this is a completely fair perception of The Greens, but the reality is that we live in an age where young people’s views are heavily influenced by their social media algorithms. And if those algorithms are constantly feeding them culture war shit , particularly from the US, then it is understandable that they feel this way. Currently, I don’t see an organised attempt by left to combat this problem, nor even an admission that we have agency over it. The focus still just seems to be on blaming the right for manipulating these young men.
I would also add the subtly that this question:
On the whole, are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very satisfied, or not at all satisfied with the way democracy works in Australia?
Is not “do you want more or less democracy?”. We only nominally have a democracy, we can’t for example fire a government (non violently) that broke all it’s promises. We can’t force certain bills to be presented or not, we can’t directly vote on any issue, our workplaces are almost exclusively dictatorial. Even within the system we have defects like the popular vote to seat count being completely whack because of single member seats in the lower house (very unusual among democracies).
Saying you are dissatisfied could mean you’re an authoritarian dickwad, but so could saying you’re satisfied. People who want more democracy, lots of citizen involvement, and more accurate representation of the people are not against democracy but would also say they’re very unsatisfied. I mean society is getting measureably worse while we careen into a global crisis of apocalyptic proportions, who the fuck things this is working?
I wonder why they focused on income distribution rather than wealth distribution?
I would have thought that inequality in accumulated wealth is the bigger issue. How many times the median income would one need to earn to “catch up” to some one on median income who inherited their parents property?
IMO our society is stratifying in to those who own vs those who will never own their own home.
Don’t all the studies over the last 20? 50? years show that inequality is growing?
Why would you be happy with that?
Who is happy with it?
Those at the top of the inequality are probably very happy, but I was being a bit sarcastic. The vast majority in the middle and lower end are losing out badly.
The inequality continues to widen.
And now they are saying - shock horror! - that the satisfaction with democracy (or rather democratic institutions) is slipping.
Vote in party A. Things get worse. Vote in party B. Things get worse. Let’s vote in party A again. Oops, things got worse. Well, let’s give party B a go. Nope - worse again.
People: iT mUsT bE DeMoCrAcY tHaT’S tHe PrObLEm!!Conclusion: Inequality is eroding satisfaction of democracy!
Did they allow for other factors that erode faith in politics/government? Like, idk, corrupt politicians? Kickbacks after leaving office? Blatant lying? Causing death, pain and destruction to thousands, a la Robodebt?
I haven’t bothered to look at this ‘study’ but I can smell the ‘correlation does not mean causation’ from here.
I think I’m a bit pissed off, because we’re spending money and time on ‘strengthening democracy’, when even their ‘conclusion’ says they should be spending it on closing the gap and reducing inequality.
