A strange thing is happening in Australian politics.
Two weeks ago, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor delivered a major speech. He cited two polls in which respondents said they wanted immigration cut – before going on to say he would cut immigration. Then, on Wednesday last week, Labor minister Mark Butler did a similar thing. He cited a poll finding most Australians liked the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) but thought it needed fixing – before going on to outline how he’d fix it to make sure it lasted.
Consider how often in recent decades politicians have been attacked for slavishly following polls – for doing only what focus groups tell them to do. As Paul Keating’s speechwriter Don Watson wrote three decades back of the Labor opposition: “They seem to think only what they think the people think.”
Now, two of the most senior politicians in the land are not only admitting to this, but parading it as political virtue. “There go my people, I must follow them, for I am their leader” used to be a joke. Now it is a boast.
One danger in following polls lies in a simple mistake often made by the political class (I’ve made it). The genius of the polling industry, author Samuel Earle has written, was convincing us that “public opinion” was an objective, scientific fact just waiting to be discovered. In fact, it is no such thing.
That is the case for several reasons. First, because polling results are so often the result of simple yes/no answers to complex questions. As Earle points out, this means they often skip over other crucial questions: how strongly do people hold these views? Had they thought about them before, say, a moment ago?
Which leads to another crucial question: could a persuasive politician change their mind? The respondents couldn’t tell you that. It is the type of thing that can only be found out in practice, by a politician choosing to take on that task. Which is the most depressing thing about the justifications given by Taylor and Butler: they point to a bleak defeatism about the role of persuasion in contemporary politics.
Here is a second odd fact. A point often made about Labor’s broad array of policies is that it lacks boldness. Interestingly, last week’s NDIS cuts were seen as a departure from this: a rare brave decision. But then how do we square this with the minister’s assertion that 70 per cent of Australians want something like this to happen?
What is the definition of “bold” operating here? Is it that any policy taking things away from people is now considered “bold”? This seems to point again to the diminished nature of our politics: the general pessimism about doing much at all. That said, the more important issue is whether on this particular topic – taking support away from people facing disability – “bravery” and “boldness” are useful ways to frame the discussion.
How fixed are poll results? Many of us may believe the NDIS is too expensive. But what happens when we are faced with specific stories about individuals and what they will lose? Provided the media stick with the story, the discussion may then move away from the broad point about ballooning costs to the actual moral dimensions around who should be supported and what support they should get. That is a nuanced discussion – and exactly the type of discussion needed. We will see how capable we are of having it.
Still, this is how we should work such things out as a country – in fact, it is the only real way we can. Governments act, consequences are felt, a discussion follows. This is the difficulty in relying on public opinion as a reason to do things: the fact of doing them tends to shift public opinion. And this is the problem with governments relying on polls: they underestimate their own ability to ask new questions of the public, provoking new answers.
Governments also have the chance to change the context in which opinion is formed. How they act in one area can affect the way a different policy is received. In fact, it is possible these NDIS cuts will do that. In the budget, the government will likely raise taxes on housing. It is unsurprising that it wants to demonstrate a willingness to cut spending before raising taxes. You could, with some justification, say it is a bit awful demonstrating that willingness via disability services – but then the NDIS was always going to be cut back.
Still, this does offer us one way of thinking about what the government does next. Given the government plans to save $35 billion on the NDIS over the next four years, how much will it make from reducing tax breaks for those who own investment properties? Where will it decide the balance should lie? Some economists will argue for spending cuts over tax rises. But for the rest of us, we might frame this a little differently: how much is being taken from people dealing with disability and how much is being taken from those doing quite well?
None of this means the decisions taken last week were bad. The precise rights and wrongs of Labor’s cuts will hopefully be deciphered over time, as we discover the ways individuals will be affected. And how the cuts sit more broadly in Labor’s project will only become clear in coming months, as we see where Labor chooses to spend the money it has saved and from whom it raises revenue and how much.
As it lets us in on those decisions, Labor will in effect ask us a series of questions that no polling company can. Only governments can pose such questions with any truth – and only the vast mass of Australians can answer them in any meaningful way. There are many of those questions, but they come down to one question, really: what sort of people do we wish to be?
Sean Kelly is an author, a regular columnist and a former adviser to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.
