What ever happened to context?

(First published in the New Daily, June 29)

(Photo by Mike Bowers)

A lot of the time, we in the media like to pretend that politics is very complicated.

But we would say that. It keeps us in jobs.

Politics isn’t simple, at least when it comes to meeting what people actually want from their leaders. But it’s also not difficult.

At the end of the day, it’s not so much about what politicians are saying, it’s what they are doing. And the space around the words.

You could see that in what Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong were not saying about Israel’s, and then the United States’, attacks on Iran.

They would not say whether they believed the strikes were legal, only that they supported the US action and that it was “unilateral”.

Most of the reporting that followed was focussed on how long it took Albanese or Wong to say anything, what the Coalition thought about how long it took Albanese or Wong to say anything, whether the US told us anything, whether Labor left was saying anything and why Albanese and Wong probably weren’t saying anything.

Whether they considered it illegal, or the question of Australia’s sovereignty being put further at risk because of the AUKUS deal – meaning Australia is in the position of not being able to criticise the US at all for fear of losing an agreement that has already cost us too much – were barely raised at all.

Wong’s thunderous expression and Albanese’s obvious discomfort suggests the AUKUS position is a fact hawkish National Security Committee attendees made very clear.

The pretend complexity there is that geopolitical realities make Australia’s position not only inevitable but so obvious anything other than wholehearted support and endorsement is to be questioned.

In reality, the actual question is the one not being asked: How do Australians want their government to respond?

And a follow-up question: Why is that always the last thought?

After all, in war it will be ordinary Australians and their children who are sent to fight. To face the consequences of decisions not made by them. To die.

We like to pretend that these things are complicated and involve many moving parts, but we very rarely give people the context they need to understand what it is we are reporting on.

We’ll talk about the ‘truism’ (true or not) that most Australians are disengaged from politics and either don’t care about it or don’t understand it.

Then we talk about factions, and organisational issues, faceless people and disagreements, dire warnings, backroom dealings.

We refer to legislation, but only in the shorthand we have agreed upon to explain it, and then tell you how many people hate it or want the government to go further.

We sit on couches and in front of cameras and microphones, and write kilometres of words but rarely do we ever actually explain the context of what is happening, or how it sits within history and the bigger picture.

We use a lot of assumed knowledge and insider talk and attempt to outdo each other on how much we know about the backrooms of the corridors of power, but we very rarely step people through the policies and decisions that will fundamentally alter or arrest their lives and society.

Questions about backrooms and the issues that dominate journalists’ conversations have their place, but they rarely tell you the whole story. Indeed, it can often obscure the story that needs to be told.

Ley’s speech was short on how she plans to resurrect the Liberal Party. Photo: AAP

Sussan Ley addressed the National Press Club this week, noteworthy because it was the first set piece speech since she took over the Liberal Party leadership and because her predecessor, Peter Dutton, never made one.

Ley spent most of her speech retreading her favoured origin story, and outlining her commitment to winning back voters.

She’s a “zealot” about lifting the number of women in the party. She believes the path back to government is through the teal seats. She supports the international rule of law that has underpinned Australia’s prosperity. She wants Australians, no matter where they are or what their background is, to believe the Liberal Party speaks for them.

How is she going to do this? Well, that’s what was missing.

Ley is “agnostic” about how the Liberal Party increases the number of women in its ranks.

She isn’t committing the party to even the bare minimum of climate action – net zero, which agitators in her own party and the junior partner (for now) want to scrap.

Her own shadow minister thinks the rule of law is “nostalgic” and “might is right”.

She has no plans for how to speak to Australians, let alone for them, but that doesn’t seem to matter. These questions were not asked.

Left out of the headlines and the sometimes breathless commentary about Ley’s “honest” and “vulnerable” speech was the lack of political capital she has within her own party room to get any change across the board, let alone change the organisational structure that rules each different jurisdiction.

That she does not have any ideas on how she is going to make any of her stated aims happen.

Ley may keep referring to herself as the Leader of the Opposition and self-declared the crossbench useless, but her party holds just 29 per cent of seats in the lower house.

Previous versions of Australia’s centre-right parties, the original Commonwealth Liberal Party (which we tend to refer to as ‘Deakin’s Liberal Party’) collapsed holding 43 per cent of the lower house seats.

Its replacement, the Nationalists Party, was ushered into the dustbin of history (along with the Country Party) with 32 per cent of the lower house seats. The UAP went the same way with 31 per cent.

The Coalition is in government only in Queensland, the Northern Territory and, for now, Tasmania.

The Victorian arm has members suing each other. The NSW division is under federal control.

The Canavan review is likely to recommend dropping support for net zero, and if the Liberals don’t agree, formally split the Coalition or hasten its end by ensuring the Liberals continue to be irrelevant in inner-city seats.

We keep hearing that’s fine because they’ll win the suburbs, but the question has to be asked – when?

Across outer-metropolitan seats, the 2013 to 2022 swing against the Coalition was 5.5 per cent, versus 5.6 per cent nationwide.

Ley herself has reversed-ferreted on positions she previously was willing to go to the wall for (Palestine, the live-sheep export, respect in Parliament) and now blames the party’s disastrous 2025 election result on not listening to what voters wanted. Ignoring, that as deputy leader she endorsed, often enthusiastically, the Dutton Liberal brand.

Context would suggest that Ley’s leadership of the Liberal Party – lacking in authority, political capital, direction, ambition and desire for reform backed by ideas – is doomed.

Reporting on Ley’s Liberal Party focused on her words.

Our world, more than ever, needs context. On what is there and what isn’t. On what it means and what it doesn’t and how it fits into what is and what has been.

Context shouldn’t be complicated. That we pretend it is, is part of the reason so many people think it is.