A dark month of black swan events threatens to push the national political debate on to a platform of fear as the drumbeat of trauma asks new questions of governments around the nation.
In Peter Dutton, the former Queensland cop who has never quite shed the vibe, the opposition has someone who will enter the public debate swinging the rhetorical truncheon with relish. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundupA separate question in this week’s report shows the danger inherent in this positioning, with a strong majority of respondents looking for the strict hand of the Daddy State to restore a sense of order and safety.Of course, the Mummy/Daddy binary has always been a false one. Like all parents, the two need to operate in partnership and in the context of the broader community.
A political circuit breaker for Labor would be to lean into the systemic reforms that are desperately required to make the online world safer: not so much tapping the platform of fear, but confronting justifiable and growing concerns about the platforms. To what extent would you support or oppose the following measures that have been proposed to address family violence?
For example, one of the calls with strong support is age verification for people to access pornography sites, despite real concerns about the integrity of data collected in the information and who will hold it.