The Collective Amnesia Problem: Why We Keep Forgetting Just How Bad Things Were
There’s a satirical headline doing the rounds that pretty much sums up the absurdity of our current political landscape: Sussan Ley apparently can’t believe she’s less popular than a bloke who managed to combine an almost impressive litany of failures, scandals, and questionable decisions during his time as Prime Minister. The headline lists just a few of Scott Morrison’s greatest hits, and honestly, it barely scratches the surface.
The thing that struck me while reading through the discussion around this piece wasn’t the list itself – we’ve all seen variations of it before. What caught my attention was how many people admitted they’d forgotten just how terrible Morrison was as PM. One person put it perfectly: we have a collective goldfish memory when it comes to politics.
It’s genuinely concerning. We’re talking about a Prime Minister who secretly appointed himself to multiple ministries without telling parliament, who forced bushfire victims to shake his hand for photo ops, who left the country to holiday in Hawaii while those same fires ravaged communities, and who apparently needed his wife to explain why rape was a serious issue. These aren’t minor policy disagreements or political spin – these are fundamental failures of leadership and basic human decency.
The Robodebt scheme alone should have been enough to end any political career permanently. That wasn’t just bad policy; it was a cruel, illegal system that drove vulnerable people to suicide. We’re not talking ancient history here – these events happened within the last few years, and yet there’s this bizarre tendency to memory-hole the whole Morrison era.
Someone in the discussion made a point that really resonated with me: the political media in this country presented Morrison as “a clean slate” and “competent” before the 2019 election, conveniently omitting his critical flaws and painting his cruelty as resolve. Meanwhile, Labor leaders get crucified for wearing the wrong t-shirt or buying a house. The double standard is staggering.
I’ve noticed this phenomenon in my own circles. Friends and colleagues who complain about Albanese seem to develop selective amnesia when you remind them of what we had before. They go quiet, because what can you say? “Yeah, but at least Morrison… " what exactly? At least he shat his pants at Engadine Maccas? (Allegedly, though that one’s apparently been debunked as a very successful shitpost – pun intended.)
The real worry isn’t just that we forget, it’s why we forget. Part of it is psychological – our brains protect us from the trauma of remembering just how bad things were. But there’s also a more insidious element: the media cycle moves so fast, and there’s so little sustained accountability, that even the most egregious behaviour gets buried under the next scandal, the next outrage, the next distraction.
This matters because Sussan Ley isn’t just struggling in the polls because of her own actions (though her recent performance hasn’t helped). She’s carrying the baggage of an entire government that enabled Morrison’s chaos. Every member of that ministry who stayed silent, who defended the indefensible, who prioritised party loyalty over basic governance – they all own a piece of that legacy.
The discussion around this piece reminded me that we need to be better at holding onto these memories, not out of bitterness or partisanship, but because forgetting means we’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes. When someone tells you they’re unhappy with the current government, fine – that’s democracy. But let’s at least be honest about what the alternative was, and what the Coalition still represents.
The fact that Morrison was able to win what was called “the unwinnable election” in 2019 should haunt us. Not because voters are stupid, but because we collectively failed to see through the PR spin and media whitewashing. That failure has consequences that we’re still dealing with today – from AUKUS to housing policy to the erosion of trust in government institutions.
So maybe the real question isn’t why Sussan Ley is struggling in the polls compared to Morrison. Maybe it’s why Morrison wasn’t significantly less popular while he was actually in office, doing all those terrible things in real time. And maybe, just maybe, we need to take a long, hard look at ourselves and ask why we keep forgetting, and what we need to do to remember better.
Because the alternative – sleepwalking back into another iteration of that chaos because we’ve forgotten what it was actually like – is too depressing to contemplate.