The best path to public policy change

Were you despairing at the state of your electoral politics on Sunday night? Well, stop feeling sorry for yourselves and spare a thought for us poor Brits who were subjected to a full four months of campaign tedium last year…

The much-lambasted debate did however typify the shallowness to which professional politics sadly tends to default. Conversely, while Messrs Turnbull and Shorten were having their make-up immaculately applied and their aides were polishing the bland soundbites, 30 students from across Australia and New Zealand were at CIS’s Liberty & Society conference — spending the weekend being exposed to, provoked by, and debating some of the fundamentals of classical liberal philosophy.

The contrast between the two occasions left me wondering if those of my generation with keen eyes for internships in politicians’ offices and aspirations for careers in the Rota Fortunae of party politics will find it is not the best path to influencing public policy.

Indeed, potent ideas and sound policies have a longevity that the majority of the ephemeral political firmament can only dream of. This can’t be illustrated better than by how the seeds of the two great shifts in the liberal political landscape of the past century — the planned economy statism of the 1930s and 40s and the market revolution of the 1980s — were sown far from the bright lights of the TV studio and cultivated in, often long-fought, intellectual battles preceding the events themselves.

In Europe today, we can see an example of this emerging in miniature with policy proposals such as Universal Basic Income (or variations thereon) gathering momentum long after its original proponents have passed away.

This ‘lag’ is hardly glamorous — and no doubt most ideas don’t take hold. But in an era grasping for answers to the challenges of globalisation, sustainable welfare and the massive disillusionment with increasingly reviled political classes, I would suggest this is where people’s focus should be. Politics can be all too short, shallow and transient.

Those who wish to influence may discover that the most powerful place to be in a minister’s office isn’t necessarily behind the desk, but in a folder labelled ‘ideas’, safely tucked away in the bottom drawer.

James Plaut is an Intern at the Centre for Independent Studies.