As a journalist, I have watched 21 federal elections and several more with a keen personal interest given that they closely affected my status, future or present, as a draft dodger.

I have written about individual contests, the overview and the issues at stake and why or how they mattered. I do not think I have ever seen an election campaign of so little moment or weight as the one that concluded this weekend. We were treated like dummies. The supposed goodies on offer were but diversions from what is happening in the world. The world which includes our world. Only superficial looks at personality and substance, or why either deserved trust. Even less on fundamental philosophical differences between the major parties.

The campaign was unworthy of each of the parties and an insult to the electorate. Neither party could be said to have a comprehensive plan for Australia. The platform offerings and the new offerings did not address any of the major problems of the economy, of our society or the world. There were handouts — perhaps continuations of ones from before — but they were not well-focused on those in the electorate who are doing it tough. If anything sacrificial was being asked of the Australian people, it was not well explained; voters could be excused for seeing the election as an auction for being best dressed.

Party leaders have not accorded voters the respect of being honest with them. It was not that voters were unaware of the elephant in the room. That was the behaviour of Trump, and the impact of both his economic policies and his tearing up of the security and mutual defence agreements on which the Western alliance is based. Australian politicians seem to have some confidence that the US does not mean the things it has been saying and doing to its neighbours and partners, or that Australia can negotiate for itself a special exemption so that life can carry on as before.

This hope — because it is nothing more than that — is not founded on assurances coming from Donald Trump, or from the ideological crowd of billionaires, cronies and flatterers who make up his court and are presently doing all of the decision-making. They are coming instead from what might once have been called the professional Republican establishment. Many of these are friends of Australia and understand our alliance relationship perfectly. But they have no more entrée into, or access than, Australian politicians or officials to the thinking and decision-making councils of the Trump inner circle. We are not alone in this. Britain, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea are also frozen out. They do not seem as relaxed about it as Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles. Or Peter Dutton and Andrew Hastie. There has been a mutual protection society of senior Labor and Liberal politicians to say as little about the matter as possible. They follow the same script, devised for them by specialist advisers who were once in Scott Morrison’s pocket and are now thought to be as devoted to Albanese’s interests.

Are Albo and Dutton deluding themselves about a special relationship with the US?

Trump and his team do not have Australia’s interests at heart. They have already demonstrated, not least with Ukraine, that their defence, foreign policy and trading policies are focused on “what’s in it for us”, and “if you want anything from us, including protection, you must pay for it”. If friends, such as Canada, have become enemies, and Britain, Germany, France and Japan have been treated with disdain and contempt, with what confidence can we hope to expect special favours or the status quo?

Around the rest of the world, these are matters which are being openly discussed. And not only in foreign cabinets or secret conclaves. They are being discussed by people in the business community who must make investment decisions. They are, likewise, of deep concern to aid workers, refugees, and those working in the international environment on matters such as the spread of disease, famine and climate change. The world is now different and we need to know how.

Such an information exchange in Australia is muted, because our leaders have no confidence or trust in their voters. Even serious long-term challenges with immigration numbers, the international education industry or the creation of a workforce to address chronic shortages in housing construction, and a workforce for aged care, childcare and disability services, are intimately affected by the what is happening in the US. Demand for Australian products cannot be assessed by pure guesswork by the uninitiated. Nor can it be dealt with by slogans, winks and nudges, or by resorting to racism and anti-immigration sentiment. These are matters best addressed in the open, because Australians are entitled to think that secretive and closed debates are incapable of informing the best decisions.

Canada has just had an election on the effects of Trump. Politicians in all parties openly discussed different ways of dealing with him. Australians are generally well-informed about the basic issues, thanks to the media, even if some of the commentators are terribly partisan. There were all the ingredients for a proper public debate, one informed by the advice and experience of officials, diplomats and academics who have made their careers in our diplomatic and security relationships. But Albanese and Dutton have shut down the proper public debate which is necessary. They have, by mutual consent, tried to silence most of those in the best position to contribute. In some cases, this has meant that the highly ideological, alarmist and deeply compromised views of some players have not been subjected to the close examination they deserve.

This tendency to believe that some of the most important decisions affecting Australia’s place in the world can be made by a small coterie of insiders is all at one with the compulsive secrecy that affects Albanese’s decision-making, the lack of intellectual rigour, particularly in the thinking of Marles, and the deeply political instincts of Dutton and his closest advisers. Labor adopted, without any internal debate, Morrison’s policies for fear of being wedged, not from an assumption that Morrison was right. AUKUS was a secret scheme cooked up by politicians without significant discussion with the experts or the public. It was a bad scheme and should have been revisited once Trump arrived.

Morrison trapped Labor on a right-wing ledge, from which it is too scared to descend

The ALP now appears to be trapped on this narrow and dangerous ledge by its fears of a wide-ranging public debate on issues such as AUKUS, and the present state of the ANZUS relationship.

I have seen some pretty vacuous defence debates, starting from the 1960s with explanations of how gravity was causing the downward thrust of communism and the domino effect. The tariff debates and the hopes of building up a highly protected manufacturing base of the 1960s and 1970s were more appropriate than Albanese’s made-in-Australia rort-in-waiting. Indeed, it has yet to be demonstrated that Albanese’s understanding of the impact of tariffs and protection is more sophisticated than Trump’s.

The housing policies and handouts of both parties are cruel hoaxes on younger Australians. They focus on the demand side of the market and will only drive up prices, leaving most younger Australians frozen out. Since, moreover, it is political suicide for any politician to want or demand that housing prices fall in real terms (for fear that older, comfortably-housed Australians will revolt) and there is hardly even the political will to bring about change.

In one sense, we can blame Dutton because it was for him to make the case that Australians deserved better from the elected government. There was a time when he seemed more across the general mood of the electorate. From early in the campaign, however, he stumbled and fell and lost the initiative. By its end, he has seemed pathetic and unworthy of high office. He was ill-served by his team, but the failure to put most of them to good account came from conscious strategy and tactics. The ones sent over the trenches were quickly machine-gunned. They were undercooked, under-prepared and insufficiently versed in what passed for policy. Dutton and his team had not prepared a platform for government, and the substitution of a grab-bag of promises and give-aways could not serve as a vision, a road map or an agenda. Some policies, such as the attack on working from home and the plan to sack half the Canberra-based public servants, were embarrassments.

The Albanese Government, after one term, has already looked tired and out of ideas, achievements and ambition. It has been timid and gun-shy, afraid to take on lobbyists and special interests, afraid sometimes to put forward its own policies even when it had the numbers in both houses of Parliament.

Apologists would point to economic problems, not least with a poor economy, a legacy of debt and deficit, and a rising cost of living. One might think that Curtin and Chifley, and later Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, and Rudd and Gillard had presided over the nation when it was all plain sailing.

Much of the lack of substance of the election can be blamed on the leader of the Opposition. Dutton has been good at scathing criticism (not always without more than a germ of truth) about how hopeless and gutless the Albanese Government has been. But he did not set his team to disciplined policy formation, and his criticism owes more to slogans and ideology than detailed explanation of better ways of getting outcomes. He has become a purveyor of lazy ideas, such as the notion that the private sector can work more efficiently than the public service, and that his party has a tradition of better economic management than Labor. He and his team were experienced in government, if not especially good at it. By the end of the Morrison era, the Coalition was seriously mismanaging its remit, often corruptly. Dutton, as a Morrison minister, was no better than Morrison in government by fiat, the use of public money for partisan advantage, and managing in a way that left the whole system open to corruption.

But Albanese cannot be allowed to escape his share of the blame. He has the same mistrust of the electorate, the same distaste for consultation and open discussion, and the same penchant for cosy backroom deals. He has not, in government or opposition, ever put forward a plan for government, describing what his hero Ben Chifley once called the Light on the Hill. If he has a road map there, wherever it is, he has never shared it. He outfought Dutton in the campaign, and, rightly enough, made voters fear Dutton’s instincts, predilections and fitness for office. But he has not given a thoughtful or a memorable speech or inspired his followers. More likely he has simply persuaded more people that he is less worse than Dutton.

Perhaps an activist crossbench can supply the pressure to do more, better

An underwhelmed electorate may well decide to hedge their bets with ginger from the Greens, and some thoughtful prodding from community independents. This could give us a more active commitment to the environment, better governance and a fair dinkum integrity body, and real action, rather than half-hearted action on climate. It may even lead to a self-confident open discussion about where we want to be in the world. If they do, they will not be putting a hamper on a rejuvenated Labor. Instead they may make Labor more committed and more dedicated to a better service to their constituents.

Republished from the Canberra Times.