A political culture of caution and bipartisanship is limiting the government’s ability to act on major issues including human rights, climate and social cohesion.

Our federal Labor Government has been a picture of caution over the last term and a half. “Bipartisanship” is holding back progress.

Prime Minister Albanese has said repeatedly that any reform outside the scope of promises made in the last election campaign will need bipartisan support to succeed. This mantra to caucus and Labor MPs has become why ministers knock back good ideas and positive initiatives.

Psychologically and politically damaged personally by the rejection of The Voice referendum, “bipartisan” to the PM means the Coalition must back any initiative…or he as PM won’t put it forward.

But the fractured Liberal-National relationship means that even obviously positive solutions to federal problems are caught in the opposition’s internal washing machine of internecine party positioning and entrenched negativity.

The issue holding back the PM, and the opposition for that matter, is that governments in Australia are not trusted. The ABS reported in September 2025 that confidence in the national government went from 62.5 per cent in 2010 to 49 per cent in 2024. In other words, more than half of Australians believe that the government will not look after them when it makes decisions that are against their interests.

Some 62 per cent of Australians have a moderate or high sense of grievance, which is defined by a belief that government and business make their lives harder and serve narrow interests, and wealthy people benefit unfairly from the system.

In broad terms this means that, even if the government’s motivations are pure, it is impossible for them to generate the acceptance needed to make decisions to protect our future best interests. These decisions include the three great intergenerational issues of our time: the social wage, recognising First Nations people, and climate change.

The small target strategies of successive Australian governments, together with their performative behaviour and general approach of hoping problems go away, rather than confronting them, indicates that they have stopped trying.

For example, the Albanese government has been sitting on a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights report advocating for a national Human Rights Act since May 2024, without responding. It is difficult not to see that piece of legislation as another victim of the same strategy.

Lessons from the massacre

The Bondi massacre was a moment of profound national sorrow. It deserves careful, human‑centred attention that honours the victims and examines the social conditions that allowed such violence to occur.

The government’s response was straight out of the small targets playbook. Almost instantly, it produced the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026 (the Act) which degraded the rule of law by introducing sweeping powers with vague definitions and lower thresholds for criminal behaviour, and broad discretionary authority with reduced safeguards and no transparency.

But it is not possible for any government to threaten its way to better social cohesion, which is obviously needed post-Bondi. In its performative approach this government has risked criminalising expression, chilling dissent and enabling selective enforcement to try to make the main problem evaporate.

Its second act was to punt a solution to Australia’s unravelling social cohesion down the road by dumping it on a Royal Commission.

The terrible irony is that the very Human Rights Act proposal the government is sitting on is exactly the legislation needed to make a difference after the Bondi massacre. Albanese needs to get over his personal lack of “voice” to learn to lead the national progress chorus like he used to.

It doesn’t need a referendum; it doesn’t need bipartisanship. The Prime Minister has the numbers in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. There’s a civics education program in the Attorney-General’s Department waiting for the underpinning foundation of a Human Rights Act. Getting started is urgent.

There’s really no reason to be afraid of a Human Rights Act, or fearful of using party numbers and cross-chambers support to pass progressive legislation and adopt social programs that are sorely needed to help restore social cohesion in Australia.