Steve Davis, David Olney, and political commentator Robert Godden wrestle with the machinery of South Australian democracy (the discipline of the system, the death of shame as a political force, and the rise of rage-bait), before Steve reveals the Spin Detector, a new tool built to hand you back your agency.
If last episode cracked open the lid on South Australian politics, this one peers inside the engine. Steve Davis reunites with international relations analyst David Olney, and is joined by long-time Adelaide Show political commentator Robert Godden for a compact but chewy conversation about why our democratic system reliably produces a certain kind of politician, and what, if anything, citizens can actually do about it.
NOTE: The image for this episode was taken as part of the SA Electoral Commission’s campaign to urge people to vote in the 2026 State Election.
The SA Drink of the Week does not feature in this episode.
The Musical Pilgrimage closes the episode with something deeply personal: Steve’s original song, Goodnight Don, a Brechtian cabaret-styled tribute to Don Dunstan that names Steele Hall as an unlikely hero of South Australian progress; a fitting coda to an episode about leaders who felt compelled, rather than merely ambitious, to change the world.
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Running Sheet: The Adelaide Show Spin Detector
00:00:00 Intro
Introduction
00:00:00 SA Drink Of The Week
There is no SA Drink Of The Week this week.
00:02:00 David Olney and Steve Davis
David Olney’s opening thesis sets the frame: stop blaming the individual politician and look at the system that produced them. Political parties absorb people at eighteen. By their mid-thirties, the successful ones know the rules, know who to listen to, and know how to sell the message. Whatever they were before they entered that pipeline is largely beside the point. Party discipline does the rest.
Robert Godden comes at it from economics, or more precisely from the widespread misunderstanding of it. Almost every political party fails to grasp that incentivisation and punishment change behaviour, which is why the same voters who accept cigarette taxes as behaviour-modification tools will simultaneously insist that everything else they disapprove of should be dealt with outside the law. Godden’s observation that he would personally outlaw religion and instant coffee, while conceding not everyone shares his distress about either, is the episode’s warmest moment in a conversation that doesn’t have many warm ones.
The thread tying both arguments together is shame. For hundreds of years, Godden argues, the one reliable corrective available to citizens was the ability to shame politicians into doing the right thing. That rulebook got torn up in 2016. Steve says “because of Trump.” Godden confirms it. Two words and the subject is closed.
After Godden departs, the conversation turns to what collective action actually looks like when the system is this good at absorbing or deflecting pressure. Steve raises Possum Park as an example of the government’s capacity to flood the zone, announcing Gather Round to push the other issue off the front page. Olney draws on Ted Robert Gurr’s theory of relative deprivation: collective action only rebuilds when enough people believe both that things should be better and that they are in fact getting worse. We are only just entering that zone. The grassroots energy Steve is seeing is not wishful thinking; it is the early stage of the only mechanism that has ever produced real political change.
Barbara Pocock closes the argument. She is Olney’s model of the kind of leader collective action eventually produces: not someone who wanted to rule the world, but someone who looked at the state of things and felt she could no longer sit and do nothing. The contrast with the party-machine pathway, Malinauskas entering politics through the party room before he ever held a seat, Ashton Hurn as Marshall’s comms manager before pre-selection, is left to speak for itself.
The Spin Detector
Steve has built a tool, The Spin Detector, available on The Adelaide Show website, inspired by Ed Coper’s Angertainment and a good deal of additional thinking. You paste in a social media post and its comments. You choose whether you want a draft reply or simply an analysis of what rhetorical move is being played. The tool’s one job is to identify the mechanism, name it, and give you the option to respond or simply move on better informed.
The worked example is a meme circulating from a One Nation-adjacent account: Gina Rinehart above, Albanese below, the implicit message being that her money is hers to spend and his is yours to waste. Pasted into the Spin Detector, the tool surfaces what the meme papers over. Rinehart’s wealth comes from royalties on sovereign natural resources. As Olney notes immediately, that makes her money our money, and we have a system that allows her to keep taking it. The same voters this meme targets often also support taxing international gas companies on the same principle. The meme cannot survive both positions, but that inconvenience is the point of the meme.
Olney’s observation about pace is the practical underpinning: every second between seeing something and reacting is a second in which the emotional charge dissipates and clearer thinking becomes possible. The Spin Detector is a structured pause. Steve calls it a mini David in a bottle. Olney asks only that nobody shake it.
Steve is open about the fact that hosting logistics are still being worked out, and that if the tool proves useful, a conversation with Ed Coper about something larger may follow.
The following resources were mentioned during the episode.
Books
Angertainment by Ed Koper
The Spin Detector
Episode 434 for the conversation this episode builds on
00:31:38 Musical Pilgrimage
In the Musical Pilgrimage this week we listen to Goodnight Don by Steve Davis & The Virutalosos.
The closing conversation touches on what Don Dunstan would make of a Labor government in 2025, and on the historical context Steve uncovered while writing the song: that neoliberalism had not yet fully gripped the Labor party during Dunstan’s era, that shift arriving more in John Bannon’s time, and that Steele Hall, Dunstan’s political opponent, played a genuine role in making the reform era possible by supporting electoral changes that cost him politically but were simply the right thing to do.
Goodnight Don is Steve’s original composition, performed by Steve Davis and The Virtualosos, written for a cabaret performer to take on and bring to life. It gives Steele Hall his own verse, which feels right in the context of an episode about the rarity of politicians who act from obligation rather than calculation. Steve writes all lyrics by hand. The Virtualosos bring them to life.
Here’s this week’s preview video
There is no video this week.
SFX: Throughout the podcast we use free SFX from freesfx.co.uk for the harp, the visa stamp, the silent movie music, the stylus, the radio signal SFX, the wine pouring and cork pulling SFX, and the swooshes around Siri.
An AI generated transcript – there will be errors. Check quotes against the actual audio (if you would like to volunteer as an editor, let Steve know)
435-The Adelaide Show
===
Steve Davis: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone. Steve Davis here. Welcome to episode 435 of The Adelaide Show podcast. It’s a little short episode to reflect on a couple of bits of nuance, uh, building on last episode’s conversation about our state of politics here in South Australia. David Olney, thankfully, has returned, uh, and our political commentator, Robert Gordon, joins us.
He was on a very tight timeline, but he chipped in to get his top two bob’s worth into the conversation because he’s been with The Adelaide Show almost since its inception, so it only seemed fair, and I wanted to hear what he had to say. And at the end, we’re going to finish with my song for Don Dunstan.
Wave on wave, she’s got a bad rep[00:01:00]
Theme: Yadel-adi-adi-lady-oo brings it down to his knees. Yadel-adi-adi-oo. Oh, oh, li-la-lei
Caitlin Davis: In the spirit of reconciliation, the Adelaide Show podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout South Australia and their connections to land, sea, and community. We pay our respects to their elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
Theme: Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide.[00:02:00]
Steve Davis: Following on our last episode, there are a few extra, uh, there will be quite a number of extra bits and bobs to consider over coming weeks and months. But I figured, seeing I dipped my toe in the water of political reflection out loud, it’s not only useful to have David Olney here to see through what he started.
David, welcome back.
David Olney: Thank you.
Steve Davis: Uh, but our political commentator of the Adelaide Show, Robert Gordon. Hello, Robert.
Robert Godden: Uh, hello Steve, hello David.
Steve Davis: Now, we’re trying to make sense of getting bearings to understand what the heck is happening in the world. And I mean, Peter Malinauskas’ name has been mentioned a few times, and one thing that David Olney said to me, I’ll get him to expand on this thesis and get you to reply, Robert.
Uh, in fact, I’ll set you both up first, and then I’ll let you fight each other to the death. Um, David Olney said, “No, no, this is not Maley. [00:03:00] These are people who are the products of the representative political or democratic political system. So don’t go the person, think systemically.” You can expand on more of that later, David.
And Robert and I reflected on how when we did our two pre-election, uh, profiles of Labor and Liberal, Labor, I think you said, Robert, that basically Malinauskas can book himself at the um, our equivalent of the Lodge until the twenty thirties until it’s time to leave. He’s a dictator, but yeah, when he’s doing the stuff you like, that’s lovely.
It’s, when he’s not, it’s not so much. Um, so I want these two theses to combine. Perhaps David Olney, can you finish off a brief version of what you were saying? And then Robert, you have time to gather your thoughts and bring your beautiful elocution, uh, to the ear.
David Olney: Absolutely. So really my point about see the system, not the man or the woman, is [00:04:00] that we have a political system that’s been two parties for a very long time.
Political parties absorb people at eighteen. By twenty-five to thirty, they’re a senior advisor. By their mid-thirties, they’re pro- possibly going to get a state level seat. And by that point, they know the rules, they know who to listen to, they know who they have power over, and they know how to sell the message.
And it really doesn’t matter who they were at the beginning. By the end, they’re a product of the system, whether their party is disciplined or not becomes the key difference. And Robert’s comment about he can do what he’s doing until the mid-twenty thirties is just proof of the discipline of the system, and the fact that at the moment in South Australia, the Liberal Party’s discipline of their system has collapsed.
Steve Davis: Robert, what’s your reflection as we head down this pathway?
Robert Godden: Well, I don’t think it’s either or. I think both contentions can be true.
Steve Davis: Mm-hmm.
Robert Godden: I, I mean, my, my comment is really on- are on, on who we’ve [00:05:00] got now and what he’s doing, and David’s comment is, I, I guess about the underlying system that, that gets us into that position.
And I think both, both things are, are completely valid. I mean, um, l- let’s start with the, the dismal science, economics. Now, a lot of people think economics is about money, but it’s, it’s not really. It’s about in- incentivization, and almost every political party at almost every opportunity to do so fails to understand that incentivization and punishment change behavior.
So they don’t understand it when they’re putting tax up on beer and cigarettes. Then they understand it. “We’re doing this for your own good. You know, if we charge you a whack of tax, then you’ll definitely give up beer and cigarettes.” But [00:06:00] in most cases, uh, politics is framed around the idea that you can do whatever you damn well like and it won’t affect behavior, which is, it is, A, clearly wrong, and, and, B, not as wrong as I’d really like it to be.
So there’s been very little pushback on, on Malinauskas, the benevolent dictator, and I’d say the only difference in benevolent and non-benevolent is he’s doing things that you broadly agree with. Um, and, um, you know, I, uh, a- a- a- and as… And if you look at the idea that there’s a disconnect between what the system gives us and what we want, so, you know, I, as a citizen, don’t have much say because all I can do is, uh, is, is vote for, you know, my, my local election o- on, on one, for one politician, and then the, uh, you know, the system will give me the, the party that’s more interested in, in the party platforms and things like that.
But at the end of the [00:07:00] day, um, y- you talk to the average voter and, and-
You know, they’re, they’re remarkably inconsistent. You know? Um, uh, y- you get, uh, for example, a favorite whipping boy, uh, One Nation voters, and they say, “People shouldn’t come here if they’re not gonna respect our laws.” And then they say things like, “I should thr- we should throw that person out of the country.”
And you go, “But hang on, the law says that you can’t throw that person out of the country.” Well, they’re not interested in the law anymore, you know? So, so, and, and most of us are like that to a certain extent, you know? Personally, I would, um, outlaw, uh, religion and instant coffee. But I understand that not everyone is as upset as I am about religion.
Um, so I, I, I think that we are, we, firstly, we’re a terribly inconsistent electorate. Secondly, we’re voting in [00:08:00] real people who are terribly inconsistent, like the new One Nation, um, MP federally who accidentally voted with Greens. Um, and then on top of that, the people we put in with unrealistic expectations in a flawed system often turn out to just do what they want anyway.
So that, that’s the hand we’re dealt. And, and the one thing that we’ve been able to count on, the one thing we’ve been able to count on for hundreds of years is shame. We can shame these people into doing the right thing, and unfortunately, that role book has been ripped up since 2016.
Steve Davis: Because of Trump.
Robert Godden: Because of Trump.
Steve Davis: Mm-hmm. Oh, there’s so much to unpack there. But you mentioned the dismal sci- science, and I think this is where David Olney was also making his point, that, and I think we had this, covered this a lot in our previous conversation, it’s neoliberalism is really the, the poison that everyone is- Everyone
drinking.
David Olney: And that gives us an economic model that is a [00:09:00] wonderful political model for saying, “We don’t have any other choice.” And y- you’ll think of changing behavior through tax. Okay, they’ve put the price of cigarettes up so much that we’ve now got an illicit tobacco industry. True. That means we burn buildings down across Australia.
Yeah. Because at the end of the day, humans would rather be addicts than stop smoking.
Robert Godden: Yeah.
David Olney: So our inconsistency is, is spectacular as individuals, but this is the problem with democracy. Democracy says, “Pick a representative to represent this many thousand of you. Now, this person’s gonna represent this many thousand of you, even though this many of you didn’t vote for them.”
So by the very nature of the system, we’re asking a massive inconsistency to be represented inadequately.
And we wonder why it goes wrong.
Steve Davis: Is there a perfect system?
David Olney: Well, there’s different systems. If we look, the Athenians got 500 people together and said, “You lot are listening to this court case. Off you go. You lot, go and [00:10:00] make up a policy for how we do this. Off you go. And because you’re citizens, what you come back with at the end of the day as a majority decision amongst the 500 of you will be what we do.”
So at least you trust citizens to be part of the solution. Representative democracy as we have it says, “We will trust you every three, four, or five years to make a single boat- vote, at which we will ignore half of you That’s not a very good system. It’s just a- Yeah … convenient, easy-to-manage system.
Robert Godden: Yeah.
And, and, and look, I don’t doubt on that. And the Athenian, uh, this idea of these large citizens assembly, I think it, it’s a truism that if you put hundreds of people together, um, you’re gonna get a better result- Yeah … than that than you are with what we’ve got. However, that’s if you get a result. ‘Cause you put 100 people in a, in a room, 200 people in a room, you, you may also…
You, you definitely have to have a structure and a system around it, otherwise- Yeah … it’s just gonna turn into chairs being thrown. Um- That’s it.
David Olney: It was an
Robert Godden: incredibly
David Olney: simple system. It was a water [00:11:00] clock.
Robert Godden: Mm.
David Olney: You have until the water clock runs out to make a decision. Otherwise, you lot are known as the citizens who were incompetent.
Yes.
Robert Godden: Again, it relies on shame.
David Olney: Yeah. But shame works. But
Steve Davis: they, they were also given to populism. I mean, the whole reason Socrates ended up having to take the poison is the s- the crowd were against him.
David Olney: Well, no, no, the, the elite were against him. Mm. And by that point, democracy was being undermined, and it had been being undermined for basically S- Socrates’ entire adult life, which is what he was pointing out, which almost guaranteed he was going to have to drink hemlock.
Steve Davis: So I think we can rule out that model then, because it ultimately decays.
David Olney: Plus we- I,
Robert Godden: I’m not against hemlock.
David Olney: No. Hemlock, hemlock’s got great, great, great value. No, if you could just
Robert Godden: reapply, I’d rule for
Steve Davis: it. Yeah, as long as there’s a high tax
David Olney: on it.
Steve Davis: Yeah.
David Olney: So, so I suppose, a- again, a thing that Steve and I have talked about in the car before is at the end of the day, the ultimate irony is most of us don’t want to be in a parliament, don’t want to [00:12:00] spend our day doing that, and then we complain about the people who do want to be there.
Robert Godden: Mm.
David Olney: So we got a fundamental problem with representative democracy, that those who wanna turn up normally piss the rest of us off.
Robert Godden: I, I… Look, I, I have personal experience with that. I was, uh, once a small business owner in Mount Barker, and I didn’t like the way the business environment in Mount Barker, so I joined the Chamber of Commerce.
And literally from… And I became the, uh, head of the Chamber of Commerce, and every second business person I ran into had a bitch about the way business was being run in Mount Barker. And I said, “I, I don’t believe what you’re telling me, because you’re not on the committee.”
Theme: Mm. ”
Robert Godden: And if you really believed what you were saying, you’d be trying to change it- Mm
rather than bellyaching.”
Steve Davis: Yep.
Robert Godden: Um, but I mean, we can’t, politicians can’t say that. They can’t, can they? C- T- Tom Coutts and Sir Ernest can’t say, “If you don’t like my policy, come and make one yourself.”
Steve Davis: Mm. Uh, but y-
Robert Godden: More fun if we could …
Steve Davis: but you’re on a really important point there, Robert. What is the equivalent for us being upset about- [00:13:00] The lack of transparency with certain deals and things that are happening, uh, i- irreversible things that are being done to our natural heritage.
Is there an equivalent of joining the Chamber of Commerce, and what’s that actually effective?
Robert Godden: You can join a political party, and you can join that party and, and you can get involved, and you can say, “I’m gonna spend time, effort, and money wielding my considerable talents and my, my effort, my enthusiasm, and my zeal.”
And, and the most you get is a say in who your party puts up to that electorate.
David Olney: Mm. And-
Robert Godden: So yeah, for most people, unless you’ve got lots of money and, uh, wanna become a large political donor, which is becoming increasingly difficult anyway, um, I don’t think there is … A- and, and rightly so. I don’t think there’s much an individual can do.
But certainly banding together is, is Is what we can do. We can get 500, uh, uh, successors to the Athenians together in a, in a [00:14:00] room, agree on something, and then all go out and try to make it happen
Steve Davis: But on that point, uh, Possum Park is a great example. The, uh, government’s very good at spinning that away and moving the ball somewhere else.
You’re, you’re all complaining about this. Hey, we’ve got Gather Around now for another few years with no acknowledgement of the other issue. They, they’re able to flood the zone. To me, does that… And, and I wonder if, I mean, Leonard Cohen said there’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.
Where is the light here? Where is the hope? Does that mean we give up petitions or-
David Olney: No, to jump back a step here, we recognize that all parties had to bring rules in to stop branch stacking because people did start getting together, joining parties, stacking branches, and changing who got put forward as the candidate for the next election.
And the people at the center of parties hated it because it took control against them. You know, took control away from people who had run parties for 20 or 30 years and gave them to a branch who went, [00:15:00] “Mm-mm. We’re giving you a different preselected person. Deal. We’re white-anting your party from the inside.”
So collective action is the solution to everything, and the ultimate tool of our era is to think that economically we’re on our own, and that socially we’re on our own, and that politically you don’t have a voice ’cause you’re one person. History is made by collective action. All right, there are leaders to collective action, and a lot of those leaders didn’t really wanna lead.
They just no longer felt they could sit and do nothing. But the point is, crowds got up behind them. The unique thing at the moment is we rage on social media rather than being productive in the real world.
Steve Davis: Mm.
David Olney: And that’s the ultimate power of the social media system, is you think that’s the place to put energy and effort.
Steve Davis: Robert Gordon has to leave us, sadly, because I had one real pearler of a question to ask.
Robert Godden: Go for it.
Steve Davis: An e- example of this collective action, at the moment, the premier, at the time of recording, announced this beautiful 16% [00:16:00] pay rise for our nurses. Fantastic deal. The head of the Nurses Federation came out and said, “Dear members, we’ve done the best we can.
With everything being equal, we couldn’t expect more.” And yet every nurse I’ve seen on social media is saying, “That’s not me. This is a disconnect. We’ll be voting no Even that structured collective action seems to not so much been, have they been influenced or bought off? Are they trying to communicate the reality?
It’s still hard work, collectivism, Robert.
Robert Godden: Well, I think, um, you and I have both been having some conversations lately about, um, the way, uh, Facebook, uh, magnifies outrage. Mm. And what we’ve seen may not be the, the, the, the real, uh, story. So I’d, I’d, I’d hesitate to do that. Um, but I would say, yeah, a- and also ’cause people are outraged are more likely to be commenting on it.
If people go, “Oh, that’s fine, I’ll go about my day. I’ve got a [00:17:00] dog to feed. I’ve got a, um, letters to drop off at the post office,” if such things even exist. You know, I’ve just got normal tasks to do. I don’t have to jump on Facebook and vent my spleen. But people who have a particularly, um, spleeny view of it, uh, definitely will.
But the other thing I’ll say in passing, ’cause I literally do have to leave, is, um, look, I think our system is fantastic, but only when compared to everything else.
David Olney: Mm.
Robert Godden: Very Churchill of you. Um, it, it, it, we, we, we don’t have to worry about being, you know, machine gunned in the, uh, voting line like they do in Kenya.
We don’t have to worry about being trampled. We don’t have to worry like they do in the United States that our boss won’t let us out to vote to make sure we don’t vote for the people they don’t want to. Um, you know, we have got a fantastic system, and we should work absolutely tirelessly to make it better ’cause it’s n- not good enough.
But, uh, but we must also, uh, understand … And, and possibly that’s a problem we’ve got. It’s not bad enough that we’re all gonna get off our backsides and, and put an effort in. But, uh, anyway, I do have to depart.
Steve Davis: Thank you for joining us. [00:18:00]
Robert Godden: No
Steve Davis: worries. See you later. We’ll hear more from you in the future. David, on that, ’cause we don’t have to leave straight away, and I want to bring
I think we were heading to an important point there. It’s imperfect. I do take some consolation from the voting structure we have, where it’s not first past the post, where it’s preferential. Look,
David Olney: preferential is by far a better system.
Steve Davis: I think it does blunt the pointy sticks of fads But it does also perhaps incline itself towards the status quo, which can be frustrating if the party in power has no real opposition.
It’s, they just know how to get enough to keep the thing going. But Robert was talking about something interesting there, and I think this is the key point, and you and I have been reading lots of books together, and I forget who the book was. It was the, the older gentleman reflecting on life and coming up with life lessons.
David Olney: Oh, John C. Maxwell’s book.
Steve Davis: Yeah.
David Olney: Yeah.
Steve Davis: He said, “You know, life is [00:19:00] hard, and we can’t actually dodge that, but the sooner we accept it, the more we’ll be able to look at life realistically.” And I think that applies to this point in time politically. Yes, it’s hard to get together collectively. I’m seeing some amazing energy-
David Olney: Mm
Steve Davis: among different groups of people. I am sure the messages are getting through. At the moment, the political system has a very well-oiled machine that’s able to supposedly deflect that, at least in the eyes of the media, because there’s this symbiotic relationship the media has with politicians. They don’t wanna be locked out.
They wanna maintain their connection, and so you can push a little bit, but not too much. They’ve gotta play to the crowd to keep getting clicks. And so even though a story might demand a number of days of going at it, if they sense the public appetite isn’t there, they’ll move on as well to get [00:20:00] the clicks.
It is about, I think, huh, we’re coming back to Man’s Search for Meaning here. It is about finding something to latch onto bigger than ourselves, outside of ourselves-
David Olney: Mm …
Steve Davis: to nourish our energy when we want to give up so that we don’t give up.
David Olney: Yeah, and- Would
Steve Davis: you agree?
David Olney: It’s also the fact, definitely yes, but we’re also really getting back to when we were talking about Ted Robert Gurr.
You first expect that it should get better. Oh, it’s not. Yeah. Then you expect, oh, it shouldn’t get worse. Yes, it is. And it’s only when both of those expectations are broken that people take action. So we’re only just getting into the period where more and more people each day believe it’s getting worse, and that’s not meant to happen.
So that’s when collective action will rebuild. And it will only rebuild from now on. It wasn’t going to be magical collective action in a time where most people, you know, weren’t [00:21:00] suffering. It’s not how humans function. Like Robert saying we’re inconsistent, that’s true, but we’re actually very consistent in as much as unless we’re suffering really badly, we just bumble along.
It’s what our species does. If it’s sort of okay, we get on with it, and we grumble, but we don’t change it because we see the enormity of change, and there’s infinitely more risk in change than there is discomfort in suffering that’s pretty similar tomorrow to than today. So we’ll, we’ll go with discomfort we know rather than take a risk for something that we don’t know, even if it is better.
Steve Davis: So that’s why we should be saying hats off to the people who are getting out, attending together, getting petitions signed.
David Olney: It’s where it starts.
Steve Davis: Signing petitions, and not to be bleak.
David Olney: Yeah, ’cause out of the, the grassroots things that are starting now, we’ll get the leaders [00:22:00] who never wanted it. They never thought this would be their life’s aim.
Like, one of the nicest podcast recordings I ever did was with Barbara Pocock, the now Green senator, who had a career first as an academic, thought she was gonna retire, looked at the state of politics and went, “Ah, crap. I can’t not do something about this,” and got involved, and that’s exactly the kind of person I want in the Senate, someone who didn’t go, “Oh, at 18 I’ll start heading down the path of being an advisor by 25, a senior advisor by 30, pre-selection at 35.”
No. She got on with a career of educating people and doing research, so she knew what she was talking about and understood what young people need, and then went, “I can’t go and retire with the world in this state.” You know, as opposed to a bunch of hacks who follow them back through university politics, through to party, to advising, to senior advising, and eventually through to pre-selection.
You know, Ashton Hirne was Marshall’s ex comms [00:23:00] manager. It’s the most conventional way to move through politics in Australia. Malinauskas was a party room machine before he ever had a seat.
Steve Davis: And now he’s negotiating with the Nurses Federation over the nurses. Hmm.
David Olney: And again, it’s what he has to do as premier.
But again, as Robert said also, let’s see the nurses vote. Let’s see how they vote. Loud, angry voices get more coverage every time. People who get on with it, get on with it, and then look at the form and go, “What am I voting for? What’s the best deal I can get?” And they’ll make their decision, and when they make their decision, then we’ll find out what happened collectively But until then, all we’ve got is the drama of Facebook, which has got nothing to do with the real negotiations in the world that real people will vote on.
Steve Davis: So what was Leonard Cohen saying? ‘Cause I think he’s saying the opposite, uh, in lieu of the Barbara Pocock story. So Leonard Cohen has a poem, let’s just say four lines in it. “They locked up a man who wanted to [00:24:00] rule the world. The fools, they locked up the wrong man.” I’ve always been puzzled by that ’cause that’s, seems on the surface to be the opposite of what you just said.
David Olney: Again, wanted to rule the world makes me highly suspicious. Felt compelled to change the world.
Steve Davis: Mm.
David Olney: That’s the person I… Again, we talked about David Pocock last time. Does David wanna rule the world or does David wanna change the world?
Steve Davis: Yeah.
David Olney: A- and this to me is a critical question. If you join that political party at 18, some wanna rule the world, some wanna change the world.
But by the time you’re 35 and you get pre-selection, what’s the system and the experience done to you?
Steve Davis: You wanna keep your job.
David Olney: Precisely. You’ve invested so much by that point in the pathway, there is no choice but forward.
Steve Davis: And then, you know, once you retire, that there’s going to be a posting, a governorship, a-
David Olney: Yep.
So- …
Steve Davis: ambassador …
David Olney: at a certain point when you’re trusted to be our representative, you’re a hack, and you can’t be anything else by that [00:25:00] point.
Steve Davis: So I will finish with this thought. Um, it might or might not be in the show notes, David. I know you said I should hold off until I’ve actually done this, but I’m gonna put myself under some pressure.
I have been playing, ’cause we, you and I have both read a book by Ed Koper called Angertainment, which is a very handy book for trying to understand the different types of angry bits of social media designed to stir us up, to either separate us from others, to bond us together, um, to muddy the waters over an issue so you can take an easy way out.
I think they’re the main things that it’s playing at. That’s the core. Yep. Mm. And I found it so helpful that I have built a little tool inspired by Angertainment, but actually involving a lot of other thought as well, so that when I [00:26:00] come across a social media post that I suspect is trying to trigger me or other people, I can copy and paste it in, copy and paste in the comments, and choose to either have something drafted that I can contribute to the conversation, or just for my own edification to understand what’s going on here.
Because This angry feed of social media we all seem connected to now has one thing that keeps it alive. It forces the instant reaction, that emotional blast. Uh, and if, if there’s any pause between seeing something and reacting, it loses the ability, the potential for our response to be magnified. I think you’d agree on
David Olney: that front.
Absolutely. Every second that you can just sit and wait for your emotional state to regulate, and then look at it with [00:27:00] calm eyes and a calm brain, is, uh, just the best thing you can do.
Steve Davis: So this particular tool, I’m, I’m going to experiment with having it available on the Adelaide Show website. I’ll put a link in the show notes.
It might be somewhere else. I’ve gotta work out where to host it and how much it’s gonna cost to host. Um, allows you to do that, and I’ll give you an example, which surprised me. There was a meme that was going around, and it was a picture at the top of Gina Rinehart, and the thing said something like, “Don’t worry about h- how she’s spending her money.”
And underneath is a picture of, um, Albo saying, “Worry about how this clown is spending your money.” So you can see what it’s trying to do. It’s a One Nation, um, party, not official, but One Nation followers account sharing this meme going, “Yeah, buddy, right. You know, who cares if Gina buys a plane for Pauline and is [00:28:00] trying to influence?
That’s her money. It’s her money.” Whereas Albo’s spending your money. That was the thing, and it didn’t sit right with me. I pasted it into this little tool I’ve made, and sure enough, it highlighted the fact that, um, when you reflect on this, Gina Rinehart’s money, where does that come from? She’s inherited a business that makes royalties from ripping stuff out of the ground.
David Olney: From our sovereign wealth.
Steve Davis: From our sovereign wealth. So in many ways, her money is our money.
David Olney: And we just have a system that lets her keep taking it.
Steve Davis: And yet, some of the people who’d be cheering her on might also be swayed by the argument at the moment that the international companies taking our gas and not being taxed should be taxed.
But you can’t have it both ways. Either Gina has to cough up considerably fair, uh, royalties All these other companies do. It can’t be one rule for one and one rule for the [00:29:00] other, but that is inconvenient when you’re trying to make people angry. This tool has one job, to identify the aha. That’s the method that’s being used in this one, and it can suggest a draft if you want to reply, or it can just edify you to understand that you haven’t been sucked in this time.
David Olney: And slow you down and get you your agency back-
Steve Davis: Hmm …
David Olney: by letting the, the red mist of, “Ooh, that’s making me angry.” Yeah. Just get past that minute.
Steve Davis: Yeah.
David Olney: And then go, “Oh, do I wanna continue with this, or do I just wanna be glad I slowed down and I now understand it in a more nuanced way?”
Steve Davis: So this is something I’m doing that I never thought last week or the week before I would, but I feel it’s something that might be helpful for people, uh, because I must say, I enjoy bouncing things off you before I talk publicly.
This is the little mini digital version of [00:30:00] that. It’s a mini David in a bottle.
David Olney: That’s an exciting concept. Just please, please, listener, don’t shake the bottle.
Steve Davis: I’ll see if your wife wants one so she can just talk to you that way sometimes.
David Olney: Yeah. That, that could be very sad.
Steve Davis: Yeah, no, we don’t want to… Well, the last thing we want is to dehumanize everything.
Yeah. Anyway, we’ve pulled this together. I’ll see if it works. I’ll see if it’s helpful, and if it is, then maybe it’s worth having a chat with Ed Copa to see if he wants to do anything bigger with it, with his bigger reach. Um, but I’m itching to s- to get people having a play with it, as I said, to see if it’s helpful, because we’re all together in this, trying to make sense of what’s going on with our politics so that we have agency, and that means not being lazy, and we do things that work with the different gifts and skills we have, and this is kinda what I feel is something I could do.
David Olney: And a very worthwhile thing it is too.
Steve Davis: Thank you [00:31:00] for listening again. I’m sorry, it’s just another little short episode. I don’t know when the next one’s going to be, what it’s going to be about. I am still doing a lot of reflecting and thinking in the meantime, but not gonna give up. This is a place that I want to see thrive.
There are too many people I’m connected to whose futures I’m invested in. I want them to have good futures. So we’re not disappearing. Just trying to be smart about the steps we take.
David Olney: Like mushrooms, we’ll pop up somewhere.
Steve Davis: Yeah. Just don’t serve us to your relatives.
David Olney: Not, not without taste testing.
Theme: And now it’s time for the musical pilgrimage
Steve Davis: In the musical pilgrimage, I want to finish with a song for Don Dunstan, because I have seen a couple of people say, David, in the, [00:32:00] uh, comments about what decisions are being made for South Australia by a Labor premier, uh, people say, “Oh, what would Don Dunstan be thinking right now?
He must be turning in his grave,” et cetera. And I think we touched briefly on this in our conversation last week, what, how Don Dunstan would have survived if and when neoliberalism took hold of his party, ’cause I, I think… Did, am I, correct me if I’m wrong, but it hadn’t quite got the grip when he was in power.
It was just starting to emerge.
David Olney: No, it was really by the time that John Bannon was premier that it was beginning to transform everything, and I’m assuming that like a lot of that generation of politicians, they were kind of feeling there wasn’t any choice but to do something new, because the model we had just wasn’t delivering.
Um, yeah, it would be fascinating, fascinating to think, you know, [00:33:00] what would Don think? What would John Bannon think? Yeah. You know, they, they had different views, but both informed by a truly progressive nature and a desire to shepherd the South Australian community into a better future.
Steve Davis: The other thing that I find fascinating in, when I was researching this song was, and I didn’t realize at the time, I mean, I was only a kid when this was happening, but, um, Steele Hall, the opposition leader and archrival, inverted commas, were it not for him seeing the bigger picture, especially with the, the gerrymandering or playmandering, uh, uh, um, which he was able to have the, uh, confidence and the guts to help pass the rules that stopped that.
Um, he did in his own way by [00:34:00] always seemingly trying to make his decisions based on what is right rather than what is politically savvy. Um, he aided and abetted Don Dunstan in his ability to bring in innovations, and I wanted… He gets a mention in this song because I think it’s only right and proper, as we remember the history of Don Dunstan, we remember that Steele Hall was a part of that.
David Olney: Absolutely, that here’s someone that didn’t have to do the right thing, but he did because he felt obliged to do the right thing on those big issues.
Steve Davis: So here’s the opposite of this Trump era where shame has been disengaged, doesn’t work anymore. That partly would have been the other side of the coin of shame, of trying to do the thing that is right Now, both gentlemen would have made decisions that weren’t right from time to time as well.
We’ve got to be fair, there were missteps along the way, [00:35:00] but I think it’s, I- my looking back, and there might be some rose-tinted glasses here, but I think on balance, the general push, the drive, the, uh, the sensibilities were what we might call sitting in the decent realm, even if some of the decisions pushed the moral boundaries, uh, o- of some.
As Keith Connan said in our stage show that we did for History Month, it was a whirlwind of an era, and th- we, th- we were okay economically, but socially, we were a bit drab until this era.
David Olney: Hmm.
Steve Davis: And so this went along the way, and I thought it was only fitting after our conversation today to finish with this song in case you hadn’t heard it yet.
Anything else you wanna add before we listen?
David Olney: No, I, I think that’s a great introduction to the song and great context for what we’ve talked about.
Steve Davis: Here’s Good Night Don by Steve Davis and The Virtual Osos. And remember, I write all these lyrics by hand with blood, sweat, and tears and use my virtual band to bring them to life in the hope [00:36:00] that someone, in this case, a Brechtian cabaret performer, wants to take it on and give it its own life, which is only fitting during the time of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
Steve Davis & The Virtualosos: We had police spending time lurking in shadow, looking through windows. They were not fighting crime. They were the killjoys hunting the bad boys. What man does at home is his own affair. If no one else gets hurt, why should we care?
Goodnight Don, thanks for the dreams, thanks for colorin’ the gray. Thanks for breaking hidden schemes that kept us locked in yesterday. Your life was no brief candle, was a mighty torch that shone. We [00:37:00] follow in your shadow sayin’ thanks and goodnight Don
With the help of Steel Hall, you made voting fair. Brought festival flair and champagne in the mall A toast to shared history and our sweet legacy. The arts and reform are not luxury for society. It’s air that we breathe
Goodnight, Don. Thanks for the dreams, thanks for color in the gray. Thanks for breaking hidden schemes that kept us locked in yesterday. Your life was no brief candle, was a mighty torch that shone. [00:38:00] We follow in your shadow saying thanks and goodnight, Don The old guard were quite upset. Cockburn, he was cocked.
Some zealots were shocked. The pink shorts on the steps. Welcome to this place. Each sex, creed, or race. Dress for the climate, don’t dress for the Queen. May South Australians be proud and be seen
Goodnight, Dawn. Thanks for the dreams, thanks for color in the gray. Thanks for breaking hidden schemes that kept us locked in yesterday. Your life was no brief candle, was a mighty torch that shone. We [00:39:00] follow in your shadow saying thanks
Theme: and good night, Dawn
Steve Davis & The Virtualosos: You stared down God at the water’s edge.
Theme: Ardon.
Steve Davis & The Virtualosos: You told First Nations that they had your pledge. Ardon. You stopped the swill to which we raise a glass.
Theme: Ardon.
Steve Davis & The Virtualosos: When you fell ill, you never lost your class. Ardon. You made your mark, we’ll never be the same. Ardon. You showed leadership meant being brave. Ardon.
You gave the service that we needed then. We won’t see anyone like you again
Goodnight, Don. Thanks for the [00:40:00] dreams. Thanks for coloring the gray. Thanks for breaking hidden schemes that kept us locked in yesterday. Your life was no brief candle, was a mighty torch that shone. We follow in your shadow saying thanks, and goodnight, Don
Steve Davis: Steve Davis and The Virtual Oso. That is goodnight. Don, thank you David Olney.
David Olney: Thank you, Steve.
Steve Davis: Uh, what do we call you? Geopolitical analyst and complex problem solver?
David Olney: Um, or just interrela- international relations guy.
Steve Davis: Okay.
David Olney: Whatever you like.
Steve Davis: Uh, thanks for coming back.
David Olney: Always a pleasure.
Steve Davis: Can we lure you to come back again?
David Olney: Always.
Steve Davis: All right. I, you do help me make sense of the world. And thank you to everyone who wrote notes and, and [00:41:00] whatnot in the wake of last episode. That was fantastic. I think we have the makings of a community refinding itself just around this humble outcome. May there be many more blossoming like mushrooms in all ways, shapes, and forms.
And as we say at every episode, good night from me, Steve Davis. Good night, Don.
AJ Davis: The Adelaide Show podcast is produced by my dad, Steve Davis. If you want to start a podcast or get some help producing creative content, talk to him. Visit stevedavis.com.au. Thanks, AJ. I’m Caitlin Davis, and I agree with everything my sister said.
But there’s one more thing to say. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please leave a rating or a review, ’cause that will make my dad really happy. Oh, and one more thing. If you really, really liked it, please help a friend [00:42:00] put The Adelaide Show on their phone. Thanks for listening
Buzz, buzz, I wanna
Theme: be Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide