The sign in the window: Lessons from Davos?

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Julius Caesar Act one, Scene two.

 

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie

Which we ascribe to heaven

Alls Well that Ends Well, Act one, Scene one.

 

The speech by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on 20 January 2026 (link here)  reverberated globally. I recommend reading it in full, or even better, watching it (link here).

David French, writing in the New York Times (link here) suggested that Carney:

delivered what might be the most important address of Trump’s second term so far. To enthusiastic applause in Davos, he articulated a vision of how the “middle powers” — nations like Canada — should respond to the great powers.

For middle powers, according to French:

Carney sees this reality clearly. “Great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons,” he said. “Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.” Integration, he said, has become the source of their “subordination.”

And then

Carney’s conclusion was clear: “The powerful have their power. But we have something, too: the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.”

In a complementary opinion piece, Ezra Klein (link here) focussed on Trump’s transactionalism [transnationalism], and explored the implications of Carney’s reference to Vaclav Havel’s example of the fruit shop owner under communist rule who posts a sign in his window proclaiming ‘workers of the world unite’:

“Havel called this ‘living within a lie,’” said Carney. “The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true.

There has been a considerable reaction within Australian policy circles to the Carney speech as one of our Five Eyes partners has in effect taken down the sign in the window, and is prepared to both tell the truth about key issues that go to the security relations and has indicated that it is already moving to decrease its reliance on what Carney calls the hegemon. The Treasurer made clear (link here) that the Carney speech was being taken very seriously at the highest levels of the Australian Government, and the implications of the current US administration’s foreign and domestic policy approaches are increasingly making it clear to Australian policymakers that Australia too will have to adjust its policy settings, reduce its reliance on the US as the single source of its security guarantee, and ultimately that Australia must adopt a more self-reliant stance. The discussion of these issues in the mainstream media has been muted, but  it is clear that momentum is building (link here and link here and link here).

The issue I wish to explore however is to ask the somewhat sensitive question: what lessons for Australian policy opportunities, if any, might Indigenous interests and their allies take from Mark Carney’s analysis of the rupture in the post war international order under the Trump administration? Or to put this another way, what is the best strategy for Indigenous interests and for Governments to adopt in dealing with the outcomes of what is almost universally recognised to have been a violent and unjust process of colonial subordination of Indigenous peoples in a process that has been ongoing for two and a half centuries.

My short answer is as follows: it is time for Australian policymakers, the advocates that seek to influence them, and the critics that seek to criticise them, to focus on substantive policy reforms instead of ephemeral performative announcements raising unrealistic expectations and potentially harming community cohesion both within Indigenous Australia and beyond. Here are my reasons.

My analysis of the performance of governments in broad terms is that the election of the Whitlam Labor Government in 1972 initiated a decades long project of incremental reform policies grounded in social justice and aimed at progressively including Indigenous Australians under the carapace of the nation’s protective and facilitative institutions. One might list numerous examples of the substantive reforms put in place between 1972 and 2015.

However, over the past decade governments have reversed course, and are no longer serious about pursuing structural or systemic reforms. I would struggle to list any substantive reforms in this period, and see little prospect of any for the decade ahead. Instead, they have resorted to a broad policy framework of articulating the rhetoric of reform and social justice, while not investing the political capital required to drive substantive reform. This has become a feasible and viable strategy through the adoption of two symbiotic strategies.

The first strategy is public relations management aimed at neutralising difficult issues with the appearance of action, the allocation of ad hoc funding to silence squeaky wheels, and using the considerable heft and footprint of government to throw dust in the air and evade responsibility wherever possible. The rapid acceleration of the media news cycle and the considerable investment of government in hiring media staff to engage with journalists and media outlets including social media has the ability to overwhelm all but the largest and most sophisticated corporations and organisations.

The second strategy derives from a poorly understood dynamic in political behaviour across the political spectrum, and one which is deeply embedded within high level interest group competition and dynamics; that dynamic can be summed up in one word: transactionalism. In my experience politicians are not only transactional in their approach to politics and policy, but they also assume that virtually all their interlocutors both inside and outside the political domain, are themselves transactional. And mostly they are right, because interest group activities are heavily professionalised and interest groups have been trained (like Pavlov’s dog) to be transactional. Moreover, the reality is that no-one ever gets everything they want, so the process of giving and taking becomes the de facto default for policy engagement. Given this dynamic, the way is open for governments to engage transactionally with both bona fide advocates and potential critics in ways which in effect buy their silence. Board appointments, privileged access to government processes, denial of access, selectively overlooking administrative or other flaws, and of course the use of funding and the implicit threat of cessation or cuts to existing funding are all tactics that governments resort to almost as an everyday practice.

I understand only too well that interest groups have no choice but to engage with governments on policy matters, but if you are a less powerful interest group, you will face much greater challenges in gaining access, in being heard, in persuading governments to act, and if devising the most effective strategies to achieve your ends. If an interest group is divided or worse, incoherent due to multiple voices, the inevitable result is that none will be heard and no action will result. If an interest group is not strategic in building alliances and building networks within the policy domain in advance of seeking some action, or not strategic in focussing its human and financial capital on issues that make a difference, then it is effectively daydreaming. The problem is that daydreamers are often susceptible to self-delusion, and this risk is exacerbated when governments use their considerable armoury of tactics to persuade individuals or organisations that they are being listened to when they are not.

Of course, we elect governments to govern under the implicit contract and assumption that they will act in the public interest broadly defined. Unfortunately, government and politicians too are vulnerable to being captured by powerful interests and the result is that they do not always act in the public interest, but rather in favour of private interests. We cannot assume that government, and the bureaucracy that no longer understands how to provide policy advice without fear or favour, are altruistic. In these circumstances, there is much to be said in favour of citizens minimising their engagement with governments, and devising ways to build mechanisms to provide support within local communities and engaging with NGOs and philanthropists. This applies as much in the Indigenous policy domain as to the wider domain. Arguably Australians expect too much of governments yet invest too little to holding them to account.

If indigenous interests wish to see governments at all levels shift away from performance politics and towards driving substantive policy reform, they should in my humble opinion begin to invest much more in building their own policy and political capability. This will mean building policy and political alliances both within and beyond the Indigenous policy domain. It will take time. And most importantly, it will mean focussing on what is real and feasible rather than on ideological slogans that may have conceptual merit but have no relevance in the real politik of modern Australia.

Non-Indigenous Australians would do both Indigenous interests and the nation a service if they were prepared to look behind the rhetoric of governments, assess policy on its substantive coherence rather than the rhetorical and ideological flim flam thrown up by those engaged in performance politics, and express their views on the basis that all Australians have a stake in ensuring that all policy is truly inclusive, is effective and is making a difference.

We should all take the signs in our windows down and stop living within the lies that underpin the ongoing blot on the Australian political landscape.

 

26 January 2026