Burning Down the House: Reconstructing Modern Politics

Description

The Morrison government's moral decline happened first slowly and then all at once. We suffered through 'Sports rorts' and '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. But at a time when the country is crying out for leadership, 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 tells the story of how our political system went awry and how we have arrived at a place where a group of the most unlikely politicians contemplated the sort of Australia they wanted-responsible, humane, moral-and concluded that was not the Australia reflected in our current toxic politics. Into the breach has stepped a range of independents beholden to no-one but themselves and their electorates, ordinary Australians determined to burn it all down and build something new.

Jo Dyer is a writer, literary curator and producer of theatre and film. Most recently Director of Adelaide Writers' Week, Jo has held leadership roles at national cultural institutions such as Sydney Writers' Festival, Sydney Theatre Company and Bangarra Dance Theatre. Her freelance productions have been staged at venues that include the Sydney Opera House, Brooklyn Academy of Music, the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, and the legendary Tropicana hotel in Las Vegas, and her films have won awards and screened worldwide, notably at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2021, Jo was unexpectedly thrust into the national spotlight when she became an advocate for her deceased friend Kate, after Kate's accusations of rape against then attorney-general Christian Porter were posthumously made public. She is a Community Independent candidate for the seat of Boothby in the 2022 Federal election.