Great Expectations

"Eloquent and insightful ... a brilliant analysis" - Canberra Times

Rather than relaxed and comfortable, Australians are disenchanted with politics and politicians. In this brilliant short book - an expanded version of her acclaimed Quarterly Essay -Laura Tingle shows that the reason for this goes to something deep in Australian culture: our great expectations of government.

Since the deregulation era of the 1980s, Tingle finds, governments can do less, but we wish they could do more. From Hawke to Gillard, each prime minister has grappled with this dilemma. Keating sought to change expectations, Howard to feed a culture of entitlement, Rudd to reconceive the federation. Through all of this, and back to our origins, runs an almost childlike sense of the government as saviour and provider.

Now we are an angry nation, and the Age of Entitlement is coming to an end. What will a different politics look like? And, Tingle asks, even if a leader surfs the wave of anger all the way to power, what answer can be given to our great expectations?

"It is wrong to see the anger of the last few years as a 'one-off, ' which might go away at the next election. The things we are angry about betray the changes that have been taking place over recent decades. Politicians no longer control interest rates, the exchange rate, or wages, prices or industries that were once protected or even owned by government. Voters are confused about what politicians can do for them in such a world." Laura Tingle, Great Expectations

Laura Tingle is political editor of the Australian Financial Review. She won Walkley awards in 2005 and 2011, and in 2010 and 2013 was shortlisted for the John Button Prize for political writing. She appears regularly on Radio National's Late Night Live and ABC-TV's Insiders.