Great Expectations: Government, Entitlement and an Angry Nation

Why are Australians so disenchanted and angry when it comes to politics? Given how well the country is going, by all rights we should be delighted with our political leadership. And yet we’re not.

In Quarterly Essay 46, Laura Tingle argues that something deep in the culture now amplifies antagonism and complaint. By turns we rail at the prime minister, whinge about minority government, and act as if the mining and carbon taxes will be the end of the world.

When we were prosperous in times past, we did things like form a federation. What has changed? What would a different politics look like? And, Tingle asks, can a leader surf the wave of anger all the way to power?

Laura Tingle is political editor of the Australian Financial Review. She won the Paul Lyneham Award for Excellence in Press Gallery Journalism in 2004, and Walkley awards in 2005 and 2011. In 2010 she was shortlisted for the John Button Prize for political writing. She appears regularly on Radio National’s Late Night Live and ABC-TV’s Insiders.