So much depends upon a teal wheelbarrow

Book update

One of the reasons you write a book is find out what it’s about, and I thought I’d take a minute away from my deadline to catch you up on how things are going.

The thing that keeps occurring to me as I think through—and write down—what happened on 21 May 2022, is how lucky we were, not to just get rid of the Morrison Government, but to do it in the way that we did. I am way to the left of the ‘teal’ independents in most respects, but I am nothing but a fan of their KTC—kitchen-table conversation—methodology, their community engagement and bottom-up democracy, and that approach is the key to the whole damn thing.

I said lucky, but luck had nothing to do it, and that is one of themes that has emerged over the past few weeks, and I’m afraid I tip a bit of a bucket on Donald Horne and his “lucky country” thesis. Yes, I know he meant it ironically, but whatever way you look at it, “luck” is a bad frame through which to examine recent politics. Fuck luck. We did this to ourselves on purpose a…