When leaders veer off into a strange universe

IT would be a reasonable assumption that many readers of this column would have read about and possibly bought Niki Savva’s book on the former prime minister, “Bulldozed”.

It is highly recommended reading for anyone with an interest in contemporary politics and in human behaviour.

The truth is I nearly didn’t buy it. I’d reached a point last year that I didn’t want to think about that former prime minister and how his mob trashed democratic processes and conventions. You will note that I am refusing to mention his name.

In the end I bought the book just before Christmas and read it over the next four days. Savva has done a fantastic job of bringing together the many fragments of the last decade’s national politics.

An insider with contacts within the political parties and government ranks, she is one of many committed people who have remained loyal to their party as they knew it – but that party, the Liberal Party of Australia, has left her (and people like her) as it veered off into a strange universe of its own making. This is one of the major issues that is made clear in her book.

The book brings together many of the stories we had already heard (or at least in part). The cumulative effect of all these complicated tales is that one ends up wondering – what the hell just happened (in the last decade)?

While the book tells heaps about that person and others linked to him, one is still left to ponder how did such a defective creature become prime minister. For almost 20 years so many knew what this person was like. Most of the players in the book were responsible, directly or indirectly, for this bloke becoming prime minister.

Despite Savva’s detailed accounts, it remains impossible to understand how that person thought and acted the way he did. There’s also the damning question of how so many others enable crazy things to be done by leaders who exist in their own remote reality.

All of this is a reminder of how off the rails the leadership of the ACT’s Greenslabor government is. While the Liberal opposition has been in turmoil with crazy people pushing it into dark cul-de-sacs, Greenslabor has sailed on doing whatever it likes. This government has no hesitation letting voters know how much they no longer care what residents think.

They know that voters for the last decade have had little choice. The majority are forced to vote Labor or for the Greens or their proxies stand- ing as independents. The Greenslabor leadership has now tightened its controls over most of the media, over the bureaucracy and over most of the local community and social welfare groups (not all).

The difference between the many infamous autocracies and this BarrRattenbury leadership continues to narrow daily.

There are many in this city who want to vote Labor and others who want to vote for the Greens. Like the national Liberal Party, both of these ACT political parties and their leaderships have little interest in these former loyal voters – leaving them frustrated and angry.

There was a bright note towards the end of Savva’s book as she outlines the run up to the 2022 federal election and how it unfolded with Anthony Albanese quietly entering the national stage as a welcomed prime minister.

While the former prime minister was voted out because he was someone people did not want to see or hear from ever again, Albanese’s entrance was a modest affair with such a large agenda being embraced eagerly. The contrast was so clear in Savva’s beautiful description of what happened on election night when Albanese decided it was time to leave his home and get on his bike to claim the victory.

Outside his house he was met by about 100 of his neighbours who were there to cheer and congratulate. Tells you something about the man and about the change that happened that night in May 2022.

Paul Costigan is a commentator on cultural and urban matters. There are more of his columns at citynews.com.au