Facing up to political disillusionment
“Like the Kraken awakening, I have noticed how science denialism festers, fake news spreads, and media shapes the court of public opinion.”
Is your vote purely about your hip pocket – or about the greater good of Australia, Australians, and humanity?
Since I began advocating for Norfolk Island’s reef five years ago, we have had two parliaments – one Coalition, one Labor – and are about to elect a third. What colour it will be, and whether it will be any better than the ones that have gone before, is anyone’s guess.
Like many moderate, reasonable people, I would vote for one of the major parties, believing they were the best custodians of our economy, healthcare, education, defence, and environment. As I’ve aged, I’ve become more cynical. The same rhetoric is trotted out election after election: promises made, promises broken; truths stretched and untruths perpetuated – all for political expediency. I guess I am old enough to remember, but not so old I forget! And more recently, I’ve witnessed harsh lessons in environmental apathy, where governance on the island I call home – the place I love most on this Earth – has fallen between the cracks of two worlds and two governments, leaving the environment the inevitable loser.
The quiet drift: what this election says about our national direction
As I review the political scene, I grow concerned about where our country is headed. I claim no special insights other than those gleaned from a decade in political journalism: seven years as a commissioning editor for an online publication specialising in social and political debate, and a short-lived stint as chief of staff to a federal MP – a role I resigned after just four weeks, enlightened but profoundly disillusioned by the view from inside the political machine.
Clearly, I am a slow learner on all things politics. But gradually, like the Kraken awakening, I have noticed how science denialism festers, how fake news spreads, and how media shapes the court of public opinion. This upcoming election campaign is no different.
Wyndham’s warning: the slow deaths we ignore
“The monsters threatening us are not alien invaders – they are our own denial, inertia, and arrogance.”
This reference to the awakening Kraken is, of course, drawn from The Kraken Wakes, John Wyndham’s 1953 classic of speculative fiction. In Wyndham’s story, Earth is invaded not through spectacular battles, but via a slow, almost imperceptible ecological catastrophe. The true focus of the novel is not alien monsters, but human failings: denial, political ineptitude, media distortion, and societal inertia.
The parallels to today’s environmental crises – climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean degradation – are chillingly clear. Early warnings are ignored because they are inconvenient. Scientific complexity is misrepresented or trivialised to appease audiences and protect interests. Public inertia reigns until disaster is irreversible.
Wyndham captured the psychology of slow-moving catastrophe: our preference for short-term comfort over long-term survival; the weaponisation of doubt; the politicisation of truth. His story is a warning, not about aliens, but about ourselves – about the monsters within.
This 2025 election campaign has been no exception. I have been underwhelmed by the near-total absence of serious environmental discussion. To say there is a policy vacuum is an understatement. Recent studies show many Australians just like me are concerned about the environment, yet few candidates address it meaningfully. For example, the Biodiversity Council’s 2024 survey found that while 33% of Australians thought the federal government was doing a good job on the environment in 2023, only 24% felt that way in 2024 – a sharp decline under a Labor government that pitched itself as a friend to nature.
Economics and the environment: a relationship in crisis
“GDP measures economic growth – not the cost of ecological collapse.”
It seems almost ridiculous to have to state the obvious: the Earth is not a magic pudding. Yet contrary to what economists and politicians often imply, its resources are finite. We cannot keep consuming endlessly because we have the capacity to do so. We must give back more than we take, and we must take only thoughtfully in the first place.
Our country’s GDP (gross domestic product) is seen by economists as a measure of its success on the world stage, but it is deeply flawed. It does not account for environmental destruction caused in the process of making all those domestic products – the toxic tailings of a mine, the plastic detritus choking coastlines, the tiny frog pushed to extinction. Environmental damage is passed off as an externality, the cost borne by the public, while profits accrue privately.
We need a different paradigm: not one where economics internalises nature for exploitation, but one where economics is internalised within nature’s limits. Friends of mine do it simply – picking up plastic on beaches, weeding parks and reserves. It’s a start. And so too is the power of our vote.
Norfolk Island: a case study in neglect
I am one of the many Australians concerned about their local environment. My focus is tiny Norfolk Island, a speck in the South Pacific that shows, in microcosm, the broader failures of our political system.
The following is a simplistic take on the political confusion that has followed Norfolk Island for decades:
From 1979 to 2015, Norfolk Island operated under a regime of self-government established by the Norfolk Island Act 1979 (Cth). Its Legislative Assembly was responsible for managing environmental matters such as land use, waste, and conservation. Although the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (EPBC Act) applied to Norfolk Island, Commonwealth enforcement was minimal. Environmental governance during self-government was arguably weak, underfunded, fragmented, and rarely challenged by Canberra unless national interests were directly threatened.
In theory, the Commonwealth could intervene under the EPBC Act, and in fact was obligated to do so; in practice, however, it rarely did. The island was left to manage its environment – and its failures – largely alone and underfunded. While the environment was everyone’s responsibility, it became no one’s priority.
Since 2015, when self-government ended, Commonwealth responsibilities have become explicit with no room for any ambiguity. Yet blaming ‘legacy issues’ continues, all while failing to act decisively to rectify them. Norfolk Island’s environment – its reefs, watercourses, and ecosystems – remains in peril.
coral disease and a reef in decline
The October 2024 CSIRO report[i] provides the most authoritative assessment of Norfolk Island’s water quality crisis. It identifies nitrogen pollution – from septic system failures, cattle manure, and fertiliser runoff – as the critical driver of reef degradation in Emily and Slaughter Bays.
In April 2025, after heavy rain, Enterococci levels in Emily Bay reached 350,000 CFU per 100 mL – when the safe limit is 500 CFU per 100 mL. Emily Bay is one of Norfolk Island’s greatest treasures, voted No. 3 in the Top Beaches of Australia (February 2025). Yet this recognition – and the economic lifeline it represents – is at severe risk.
Coral health surveys by Page et al. (2023)[ii] (and other reports not listed here) showed that by 2020–2021, 60% of Montiporid coral colonies exhibited disease – comparable to the most severe coral disease outbreaks globally. Surface and groundwater discharges carry nutrients into the bay, fueling algal overgrowth that smothers corals, promotes disease, and undermines the reef’s resilience.
The Bligh Tanner Report[iii], commissioned by Marine Parks in 2022, provides a roadmap for reform – yet it gathers dust on bureaucratic shelves while the reef suffers.
We have the early warnings and we have the science. But scientific complexity is being ignored to appease audiences and protect interests. Will public inertia reign until disaster is irreversible?
The Commonwealth’s statutory obligations are a duty unfulfilled
Under the EPBC Act, the Commonwealth Government is obligated to:
protect marine and coastal environments from pollution and nutrient runoff
safeguard listed threatened species and ecological communities
maintain watercourses flowing into protected marine areas
apply the Precautionary Principle: act to prevent serious environmental harm even when full scientific certainty is lacking.
Given the overwhelming evidence linking wastewater failures on the EPBC-listed ecosystem of Emily and Slaughter Bays, there is no excuse for continued delay. The Commonwealth cannot hide behind legacy issues when it holds the statutory authority – and the moral duty – to act.
Norfolk Island’s inshore reef and lagoon of Slaughter and Emily Bays abutting the colonial World Heritage Property of Kingston. Emily Bay was voted the No.3 top beach in Australia in February 2025
Wyndham’s lessons for us and the political classes
“Early warnings are ignored because they are inconvenient. Catastrophe follows when denial becomes policy.”
John Wyndham warned us, back in 1953, about the dangers of denial, inertia, and misplaced priorities. We need our politicians to:
Take slow emergencies seriously: early intervention is cheaper and more effective than late-stage crisis management.
Depoliticise scientific warnings: protect scientific integrity from political interference (particularly pertinent as we cast our eyes across the Pacific to the United States of America).
Communicate urgency without sensationalism: avoid public fatigue without downplaying existential threats.
Acknowledge limits to control: humility, not hubris, must guide our relationship with the environment.
So how are you going to vote?
Consider this: in 1961, when concerns about Norfolk Island’s water quality were first raised, we were governed by the 24th Australian Parliament. In May 2025, we will elect the 48th. For half the life of our Federation, Norfolk Island’s water quality issues have been ignored and neglected by our politicians.
Responsible environmental leadership is not optional. It is essential. Don’t allow inertia to claim the election. Next week, when you cast your vote, think not only of yourself, but of the world you want to leave behind.
Coral disease. Photographs taken on 24 and 25 August 2024. See ‘Groundhog day in Emily Bay’
References
[i] Vanderzalm, J. L., Golding, L. A., Lamontagne, S., Currie, S., Taylor, A. R., Hodgson, G., Davies, P., Marshall, S., Ahmed, W., Metcalfe, S., Smith, W., Crane, P., Tavener, N., Taylor, N., Donaldson, D., Greenwood, D. (2024). Norfolk Island water quality assessment. A report from the CSIRO Norfolk Island Water Resource Assessment to the Australian Government. CSIRO, Australia. https://doi.org/10.25919/fh0c-1b40
[ii] Page, C.E., Leggat, W., Egan, S., Ainsworth, T.D. (2023). A coral disease outbreak highlights vulnerability of remote high-latitude lagoons to global and local stressors. iScience, 26(3), 106205–106205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.106205
[iii] Bligh Tanner (2020). Improving the Water Quality of Emily Bay, Norfolk Island. Parks Australia. https://parksaustralia.gov.au/marine/management/resources/scientific-publications/improving-the-water-quality-of-emily-bay-norfolk-island/