Aussie voters worn out by politicians

Elections should respond to will of the people instead of elites, analyst says

Politics used to be taken seriously in Australia. Today, even with an upcoming general election, it is a sideshow, open to ridicule and contempt by ordinary Australians.

Ng Yee-Fui, a law lecturer at Monash University in Victoria, said there is a perception among voters that democracy is failing them. Party membership is dropping in Australia as faith in politicians diminishes, she told China Daily.

"That is why you are seeing a rise in minor parties and independent politicians who are not aligned to any party," Ng said.

The two men vying for the nation's top job - Scott Morrison of the Liberal National Party and Labor leader Bill Shorten - galvanize the nation with their policies and vision. But neither speaks with conviction, let alone sincerity.

Michelle Grattan, one of the country's leading political commentators and professorial fellow at the University of Canberra, has been following politics Down Under for more than four decades.

"Australians are over their politicians," Grattan wrote recently on the nonprofit news site The Conversation.

"All the stridency, the bad behavior, the lying, the relentless campaigning, the judgment by opinion poll, and the media shrillness have taken their toll on the tolerance of the average voter."

She said it does not make a difference which side wins the federal election on May 18, as the incoming government will "inherit a bitter, skeptical, exhausted electorate".

Grattan added that the election will be fought in "this climate of unprecedented public distrust of politics and cynicism about its practitioners".

Much of the disillusionment has been "turbocharged" by the bipartisan cannibalism that has toppled multiple prime ministers in a remarkably short period.

The last six years of the Liberal National government has seen three prime ministers: Tony Abbott (2013-15); Malcolm Turnbull (2015-18) and Morrison, the current prime minister.

A survey by Griffith University last year found that Australians no longer trust their politicians or the country's political institutions. They believe politicians and officials use their positions to benefit themselves or their families, or to favor businesses and individuals in return for political donations or support.

For the average voter, the closest they will ever get to a politician, including their own elected members, is on television or via a flyer through the mailbox. There was a time when people would wander from door to door canvassing voters. Not anymore.

Politicians are reluctant to meet the masses on home turf unless their "spin doctors" think it can be controlled - which means no embarrassing questions.

Politics today is stage managed by the political elites, and the grassroots hardly get a look in. This means there is little room to deviate or think for themselves anymore.

Michael Daley, the former New South Wales Labor leader, learned this recently when a week from the state election, someone released a tape of a remark he made in a bar in which he said Asians with PhDs were taking jobs from "our kids". That was enough to cost him the election.

"The major parties are no longer holding all the cards," said Ng. "Independents and minority parties are chipping away at their electoral base."

She said there is also another question that many people are now asking: "What do the main parties stand for today?'

Professor John Uhr from the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University in Canberra was more cautious when he told China Daily: "I don't think they (voters) have given up on politics as such.

"True, there is a lot of discontent with the political class today, but I think voters are buying time ... they are giving the politicians notice to become more responsive to the will of the people rather than the political elites who seem to control things."

Uhr said: "There is something in national politics today (in Australia) which is dispiriting. People are not happy with the circulation of leaders and we have seen this with both the major parties. It weakens and cheapens politics."

He noted, however, that he does not "buy the line that people have lost interest in politics". Uhr said at the last general election the informal vote was around 5 percent, which "was quite high".

He conceded that politics has become "cheapened", and it has opened the doors to independents and groups like GetUp.

Activist organization GetUp has pulled together A$12.5 million ($9 million) to solicit clear statements from individual candidates on where they stand on issues, such as coal mining and climate change, to gain support for the group on polling day.

One member of GetUp spoke to China Daily on condition that her name not be used.

"Politics in Australia no longer speaks for the people. It speaks for the elites of this country," she said.

"Here we are - a rich country where kids go to bed at night hungry. There is no big picture for the future, just the promise of 'you vote for me'."