At a time when the country is crying out for leadership, ordinary Australians are determined to burn it all down and build something new, writes Jo Dyer.
In her new book, Burning Down the House, arts powerhouse and independent candidate, Jo Dyer, tells the story of how our political system went awry. From the Morrison government’s many embarrassing moments and rapid moral decline to Labor’s inability to act. In recent years Australians have suffered through ‘Sports rorts’, ‘Watergate’ and an MIA PM, before the dissembling response to allegations of sexual abuse at the very heart of federal politics threw into stark relief the cynicism and moral bankruptcy of a government ready to abandon any semblance of integrity to save its own skin. Yet the Labor Party seems paralysed, so terrified it may lose votes from its opponent’s perennial wedging that, on key moral questions, it has failed to make the case to win them.
Burning Down the House examines how Australia is now contemplating the type of leadership they want—responsible, humane, moral—qualities that are not reflected in our current toxic politics. In keeping with the beliefs she outlines in the book and the rise of independents beholden to no-one but themselves and their electorates, Jo Dyer has announced that she will be running for the marginal South Australian seat of Boothby as an independent, endorsed by Voices for Boothby.
Jo chatted with Per Capita’s Emma Dawson about her recent essay, Burning Down the House: Reconstructing Modern Politics.
Recorded on 6 April 2022.
