Life isn’t Snapchat – time to stop, look and learn from what’s happening around us
The never ending stream of news and big events is playing havoc with our ability to learn from them, writes Madonna King.
Some things in life have become constants. Roger Federer’s longevity on the tennis court. Ash Barty’s humility. Rising house prices. Climate change.
A young Tamil asylum seeker family refused freedom. A Covid tail that we should stop ignoring.
But the lessons in those constants are clear, whether it be saving for a home, lobbying for stronger climate action, or talking to our children about the Covid monster.
That’s because they are abiding; around-the-clock reliability. They don’t go away. And it’s hard for them to slip from our minds or our conversations.
But most other big events now seem to be on quick replay, without a fixed schedule and without any parallel political ability to learn from them.
They’re dismissed in three-second grabs or sent off for a review that has no full stop, or swept under the carpet, or just forgotten in fast-paced lives where the ability to stop and ponder is no longer valued.
Are our banks fundamentally different in how they deal with their clients, in the wake of a brutal royal commission only a couple of years ago?
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What about our treatment of those with disabilities? Or the aged, who have now been subject to more inquiries than politicians have had free breakfasts?
How are the young boys rescued in that flooded Thai cave by an Australian-led team coping? What about the rescuers?
Do we remember the name Mara Harvey who with four members of her family were brutally killed by her husband and their father in Western Australia only a couple of years ago?
Why are the number of domestic violent cases still climbing after the death of Hannah Clarke and her children Aaliyah, Laianah and Trey?
Or similarly with drunk driving cases, despite our heartache at four members of the one family, out for an ice-cream in western Sydney, being ploughed down.
What are the lessons from the Ruby Princess? From the Cardinal Pell trial? The battle over State and Commonwealth rights during Covid? The summer bushfires that now, almost annually, fan out to steal homes and livelihoods and lives.
The 2020 Halloween hailstorm that battered Springfield, in Queensland. Have all those homes now been fixed? Why not? And what about those residents of Ipswich who are still getting back on their feet, after the murderous rains of 2011?
With the number of inquiries into care for our aged, the issue should never be a resurfacing problem. And yet it is.
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With the number of reviews into our education standards, we should have the world’s best system – and yet everyone says we don’t.
Perhaps it’s hard to keep up with the bad news that seems to have enveloped the last few years. But the pace at which it comes at us, and then disappears, almost makes it hard to digest.
Part of the problem here is social media, where we allow politicians to explain their motives or announce policy in a tweet of 280 characters.
Part of the problem is our politicians themselves, who are driven by populism and an election cycle, not complex problems or a vision for the future.
And perhaps we all have to accept part of the blame too. Our interactions – whether they be with a bank, a supermarket or holiday planning – are done with a touch of a button, and a sense of instant gratification.
None of that will help us really understand the brute that is Russia or why our councils continue to allow development on floodplains.
Steve Johnston, the boss at Suncorp, explained this with diplomacy on Wednesday when he said there would be homes that had been repaired three or four times.
So what have we learnt from the previous three of four floods? And what should we be learning from this one?
Planning laws need to change. Expectations need to change. Development approvals need to change.
So does our focus. We can walk and chew gum. We can deal with this week’s heartache, and demand that when the floodwaters subside our determination to do something about it remains.
Life is not Snapchat.
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