It annoys the you-know-what out of many people eager for change that that change just does not come quickly enough. By way of illustration, read the strident (although all too often pious) contributions on just about any issue over at Tasmaniantimes.com.
I don't blame people for wanting wrongs to be righted quickly - count me in as someone who would like to see change in many things in the state and country. But one thing I do recognise is that effective policy change in a modern, pluralistic, democratic state does not come - cannot come - quickly.
Idealism is dead in modern politics. Successful governments have turned to pragmatism because the general voting population are pragmatists. Over the past generation or so Australians have dropped causes like hot bricks. The social progressives and "elites" don't like it; but the debates they have through the opinion outlets in the print, television and on-line media occur largely outside and above the majority of voters.
And it's those voters, those ordinary, disengaged, pragmatic voters, who decide elections.
The words of Annabel Crabb, Janet Albrechtsen, Dennis Shanahan, Robert Manne, Phillip Adams or any one of the dozens of opinion-makers out there actually make very little difference to policy formation or public thought.
Kevin Rudd and Labor were largely successful at the last elections, not for any great policy vision or "conviction", but rather because they tapped into the emotions - the fears, needs and perceptions - of the ordinary voter. They had messages that fixed, or at least looked like they might fix, every-day worries.
Voters are interested in what politicians can do for them. That is why, for example, Liberal soul searching for some lost "purpose" for the party is a waste of time. I have noticed several senior Liberals saying things like "people don't know what we stand for anymore". What rubbish. Voters want political parties to address the issues that effect their daily lives; I don't think they give a toss for party idealism.
Don't believe me? Try your own straw poll. Ask any 10 people - relatives, workmates, people at the footy - the following 5 questions:
What was on Lateline last night?
Who were on the couch on The Insiders last Sunday?
Which paper does George Megalogenis write for?
Who is the deputy prime minister?
Who is the Tasmanian governor? (Bit of a trick, that one. Depends which side of 2 April you ask it.)
OK, maybe these are the wrong questions. But my point is still valid: most people are disengaged from politics and political debate.
Possum Comitatus, in kicking off probably the best debate on fixing housing affordability I have seen to-date, had the sense to make this point up-front:
"When it comes to debating policy change, not enough attention gets paid by independent policy pundits (professional and amateur alike) to the political realities that surround any change in policy. It’s all good and well spruiking some grand policy proposal that could well be economic perfection on a stick over the longer term if, over the shorter term, it would kill the government that implemented it."
Political realism. Well said.
