EDITORIAL: Grubby, personal attacks lead voters to tune out

It’s one of society’s fundamental rules, taught to kids soon as they start talking.

So why is it so hard for our politicians to grasp the concept that if you have nothing nice to say, it’s better to keep your mouth shut entirely?

The latest example comes via a post to the Victorian Labor Party’s Facebook account.

Over an image of a five-year-old newspaper article showing Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in an embrace with wife Kirrilly, headlined “He is not a monster”, some wag at the Labor Party’s Melbourne meme factory had written the caption: “Justifying dating your new partner to your friends who don’t like him”.

It’s not clever, and it’s not funny.

In the words of NDIS Minister Bill Shorten, it’s just plain “dumb and mean”.

Labor came to power on a promise by Anthony Albanese of a kinder, more respectful brand of politics. As we enter the final few months of the term, that’s a promise the Government has failed to fulfil.

Unfortunately, grubby, nasty ad hominem attacks such as these are becoming more, not less, common in the political world.

And despite the Coalition’s outrage at Labor’s latest failed attempt at humour, they’re not above it themselves.

It was only six months ago that, speaking to Liberal politicians and members in Sydney, Mr Dutton described Mr Albanese as a “man with a mind still captured in his university years; he’s a child in a man’s body” who was “completely out of his depth as Prime Minister”.

It’s tempting to blame social media for our slide into incivility. Certainly, it’s a factor. We’ve become accustomed to saying and hearing nasty things anonymously online, and that has emboldened some to take their vitriol public.

But we can’t lay all the blame for our growing discourtesy at the feet of the Musks and Zuckerbergs.

That would ignore the fact that personal attacks and vitriol have long been a part of our political landscape. Paul Keating is Australia’s undisputed master of the political insult, but with the passage of 30-odd years, we’ve come to regard back with affection at his inventive use of invective. Australia’s first prime minister Edmund Barton had the unedifying nickname of “Toby Tosspot”, tosspot being a slang term for a devoted drinker.

Politicians resort to mudslinging and insults because they think they work. And there’s some evidence to suggest that’s true.

Our brains are wired to respond to the negative. And researchers from the University of California found that so-called “negative frames” are far stickier than positive ones. That is, voters are more likely to remember the bad things about a politician or policy than the good bits.

So it’s no wonder our leaders exploit this, negativity seeping into their rhetoric in spite of pledges to run positive campaigns.

But the short term gain for politicians willing to play the man, not the ball is far outweighed by the long term pain for everyone.

Constant negativity has a corrosive effect on our collective trust in our politicians, and democracy.