It might be surprising given the scale of the problem but there is an emerging consensus about the current status of the science of misinformation and its debunking.
Arguably there was some evidence emerging in the US in November last year about the rejection of lies and misinformation but even then Trump managed to get 74 million people to vote for him. In Australia the lying, secretive and corrupt Morrison Government is still the favourite to win the next Federal election.
The apocryphal King Canute story has over the centuries morphed into a legend which shows the futility of trying to stop the tide.
In fact Canute was actually trying to demonstrate to his courtiers (and perhaps his god) his humility and recognition of limits to his power. The latter day legend, in contrast, is an example of misinformation promulgated over centuries.
A new Guardian Essential poll (3 March 2021) indicates an emerging Morrison vulnerability – he shares a female problem with Donald Trump. Not the major Trump one but the electoral one.
Just as the US November election result was heavily influenced by the voting behaviour of suburban women so the poll shows Morrison is less trusted by Australian females who also regard him as less honest than most politicians, less visionary and out touch with ordinary people.
As the Macquarie Dictionary declares fake news the word of the decade the epidemic of fake news and conspiracy theories is not showing signs of abating.
However, the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communications (4C) has made three significant contributions to combating the epidemic – a handbook addressing conspiracy theories; a project to combat misinformation; and, another handbook on debunking fake news.
Scott Morrison’s Prime Ministerial image is relentlessly upfront – making decisions, announcing things and re-assuring Australians that he has it all under control – even if he can’t hold a hose.
Yet that raises a perplexing question – how come he never knows what’s going on, or has gone on, in his government?
Back in the day when Australian society reacted to tall poppies by characterising them as too big for their boots many of them escaped overseas.
Today, as Australia has become more multicultural and cosmopolitan, it is almost okay to be a tall poppy as long as you aren’t a woman, a trade unionist, ABC journalist, environmentalist, Muslim or critic of the Morrison Government.
Scott Morrison loves saying he won’t take action on climate change without knowing what it will cost. Joel Fitzgibbon takes the same tack when defending his coal mining constituents.
Well thanks to a review commissioned by that notorious left-winger, Boris Johnson, we now have an accurate and frightening assessment of just how big the cost of not taking action is.
As the Labor Opposition jettisons policies on negative gearing, capital gains taxes, franking credits and climate change policies which don’t embrace coal you have to ask – what’s the point of Labor?
A simple answer could be that at least it’s not the Morrison Government. Given the Morrison track record it’s a compelling positioning which may appeal to many but probably not quite compelling enough to get over the line in an election.
Among the myths that seemingly never die is the belief – parroted by a supine media – that Liberal Governments are competent economic managers.
This is despite overwhelming evidence that Australia’s performance across a range of areas is in decline compared with other comparable countries.
Now Labor MHR for Bruce, Julian Hill, has belled the cat with a comprehensive report (and a social media campaign) which demonstrates that “Australia is going backwards under the Liberals, and falling behind much of the rest of the world.”
For those puzzled by Morrison’s good luck, and the apparent lack of widespread outrage about incompetence and corruption and lies and contempt for once-accepted standards, a concept derived from fishing research provides a useful framework for understanding how it happens.
Shifting baseline syndrome was a term coined in 1995 by a French-born marine biologist Daniel Pauly. He studies human impacts on global fisheries and is a professor and the project leader of the Sea Around Us Project at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia.