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Rob Watts on the shadowy role of ordinary people in politics.

Article Excerpt
Judith Brett and Anthony Moran, Ordinary People's Politics, Pluto Press, 2006

There is a certain paradox about the role played by ordinary people in democratic politics. After all, democracy is said to be all about government of 'the people', by 'the people' and for 'the people'. And yet, aside from their shadowy existence as the objects of opinion polls and as voters who come out to vote once very three or four years, they may be said to hardly count. Constitutions, politicians, ideologies, parliaments, parties, the media and interest groups all seem to have preoccupied political commentators and theorists, and have done so at the expense of ordinary people. Or at least that was so until recently, when ordinary people have become important. Why this should be so says something about our current political circumstances.

From a broadly defined left-liberal vantage point occupied by political journalists and commentators like Michelle Grattan, Don Watson or Robert Manne comes the complaint that 'ordinary Australians' basically no longer care whether politicians or governments tell lies, fail to uphold the rule of law or refuse to sack ministers when they lie or stuff up.

This complaint fits into a larger story about how Australian politics has taken a decidedly bad turn since the mid-1990s. It seems that the major parties that define Australia's political culture have moved to the 'right' by embracing a hybrid mix of neo-liberal and neoconservative policy ideas and values. It is suggested that...

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