Australians must speak up, or the key issues will be overlooked

A former colleague memorably called that pressured time in the early evening, when homework has to be supervised, the family fed, and children bathed and put to bed, the “alligator hour” – snappy, dangerous and demanding absolute focus.

So, it was during the alligator hour this week I was robopolled on NSW politics by a “name” polling company, despite the fact I’m enrolled to vote in Canberra and live a few kilometres from Parliament House.

Election season is upon us again with Victoria going to the polls in November and NSW in March.Credit:ANDREW MEARES

Election season is clearly back just five months after the federal one in May. The Victorian election is on November 26 and the NSW election is on March 25 next year.

I knew handing over my opinions and demographics, which would be linked to my mobile phone number by the pollster forever, was a bad idea and that I shouldn’t respond. But I just couldn’t resist finding out what the questions were.

The pollster wanted to know my views on NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, former minister Stuart Ayres and Opposition Leader Chris Minns, my attitude to the Penrith Stadium redevelopment, and which issue, stated in the broadest generality, was most likely to influence my vote.

Thousands of time-poor, financially pressured Victorian and NSW residents will receive similar calls in coming weeks, often during the alligator hour.They’ll be working through their alligator-hour list with half an ear on the television news in the background.

Thousands of time-poor people will be cold-called by polling companies over the coming weeks.

Those news bulletins are, in the words of the old Skyhooks song, horror movies right there on the TV. Here’s a brief selection from this week alone.

Energy prices in Australia are tipped to rise 35 per cent next year.

Flooding in rural and regional Victoria and NSW is imminent.

The world is closer to a nuclear conflagration than at any time since the end of the Cold War because the invasion of Ukraine is going badly for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Albanese government is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t proceed with the Morrison government’s legislated stage three tax cuts.

All of these issues are rather more serious than those raised in the robopoll.

A world away, how the rich handle alligator hour was showcased exquisitely this week by Financial Times editor Roula Khalaf in her “Dinner with the FT” Elon Musk interview in Austin, Texas.

Khalaf began her story reporting that the Space X and Tesla boss had his son, named X, aloft on his shoulders as he showed her around the Austin gigafactory knocking out Teslas at a clip.

Rising energy prices are among the top issues of concern to voters.Credit:Jessica Shapiro

When X got cranky, Musk’s security officer chief-cum-chauffeur produced a milk bottle that soothed the toddler to sleep on their way to Musk’s favourite Mexican restaurant. As well as creating great cars, Musk demonstrated one powerful way to eliminate alligator hour tensions: be rich enough to afford staff to take care of life’s snappy stresses for you.

Khalaf knew what she was doing when she led the story with that anecdote. Many parents – especially women, who still disproportionately bear the major share of domestic labour despite a half century of feminist activism on the issue – would have reacted viscerally.

Mike Cannon-Brookes, a mini-Elon Musk for now.Credit:Oscar Colman

Where was their security chief/chauffeur with a bottle to soothe the grumbling toddler at alligator hour when they needed exactly that kind of help?

While an understandable question, there are others which, as with the robopoll call I received this week, arise but which aren’t asked.

How did a driven but otherwise fairly unremarkable chancer like Musk transform from the bullied son of a dysfunctional South African family to become the richest person in the world (net worth $US232 billion)?

How did he pull off that feat developing cars in the United States, which long ago surrendered any claim to competitive advantage in car making?

And finally, why doesn’t Australia have any Elon Musks? Where are our equivalent, intrinsically unremarkable but determinedly ambitious entrepreneurs, achieving global success in sectors where we have no special competitive advantage?

Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes perhaps comes closest but, with a net worth of $US14.3 billion, he’s just a mini-Musk for now.

The impoverished nature of public debate here is one reason these questions don’t get asked.

Stage three tax cuts for the rich have overwhelmed political discussion and reportage here for weeks. In contrast, Industry Minister Ed Husic’s National Quantum Strategy discussion paper, despite its enormous economic and strategic importance to Australia, has little profile.

The defence spending debacle inherited by the Albanese government has had some coverage this week. Not so former defence minister Kim Beazley’s Australia Security Policy Institute piece highlighting how the “scientific, technological and industrial base” we built up between the two world wars was crucial to national survival in World War II.

“We are nowhere near that now,” Beazley warned. With global tensions at extreme levels, and our national preparedness as thin as under the Lyons and Menzies governments in the run-up to World War II, this ought to be a matter for intense attention and debate.

Journalists have to do their bit, widening the media lens beyond sports-style reporting of the latest political wedge to report substantively on what are considered unsexy issues like industry, innovation and science policy. These areas are not just the source of megabucks for maverick entrepreneurs, but partly the basis for forming the fabric of a society that can survive and thrive.

The golden goose should and would be our brilliant university sector, if only it was properly resourced and the conditions created to unlock the mighty knowledge, ingenuity and entrepreneurship within.

But would any of these issues have filtered through to the politicians who are the ultimate recipients of the data elicited in the robopoll I foolishly engaged with? No. If the correct questions don’t get asked, the appropriate issues don’t glow on the political radar.

Australians right now, embarking on our own national alligator hour, need to ask better questions and get better answers as a guide to smarter action. Otherwise, it’s going to be tears before bedtime all round.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.

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