On the NSW bicycle laws and much more.

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself.

George Orwell, 1984

I’m really loathe to dive into this helmet debate, but the law changes in my state (NSW) in Australia are impossible to ignore and represent a gnawing problem with politics and legislation in general.

All self-aware people know that politics has become a popularity contest for the lowest common denominator voter, rather than a battle of ideas. It is event driven, reactionary, often atavistic, rather than ambitious and forward thinking. It should come as no surprise, then, when legislation suffers at the hand of populist narratives. In the name of national security, public order, and “keeping us safe”, lawmakers have legislated according to the false assumption that plural of anecdotes is data. Even worse, legislation has the uncanny ability of arising out of tabloid newspaper tantrums.

In NSW, cycling fines are about to be wildly increased, and demerit-points attached to certain violations, too, for those who drive. The sole concession to cyclists is a law requiring motorists to allow 1 metre when passing riders, a thing almost impossible to police and enforce. The “negotiations” on behalf of cyclists were spear-headed by the lobbyist, Mark Textor, who is the chairman of the Amy Gillet foundation. It represents a victory for their “a metre matters” campaign — but a pyrrhic one at best, in my opinion. For the other concession in this dreadful bargain is that cyclists over 18 will be required by law to carry state-endorsed identification such as a drivers license. Cyclists have been forced to accept an infringement of their civil liberties all for a law that shouldn’t require concessions.

It is my sincere belief that it is an implicit aim of this NSW government to discourage cycling as a means of transport because they are road building maniacs, and increased cycling uptake puts them in the unenviable position of having to build more bikes lanes. Having already removed one successful bike line in Sydney, and reneging on a promise to build a replacement, the government embarked on an amazing process of victim-blaming: ramping up fines on laughable mandatory helmet and bicycle bell (!) laws. The increase in fines cements the tabloid notion that cyclists are pests who needs to be more enthusiastically punished. And the trojan horse, the one meter passing law, looks like it can only possibly be enforced when a car makes contact with a bicycle.

There used to be a time when no-platform policies were the preserve of leftist student politics. Yet, Australia’s current political parties remain so intractable on their narrow policy objectives, that there is no room to debate, even within the confines of the party room. The Abbott and Rudd prime ministerships were infamous for their tyrannical approach to party unity and their unwavering — ultimately self-defeating — support for certain outcomes. The governments of the recent past have become more doctrinaire and less inclusive. Like Orwell’s Ingsoc in 1984, they increasingly require our mental, moral and physical submission. If you think I’m being dramatic, let me present you with metadata laws, lockout laws, anti-association laws, national security legislation granting immunity to government agencies etc.

A de facto no-platform policy does a great job of clobbering the idea that there might be a better line of action on an issue. Ready-made responses of the “this is for your own safety” variety are in endless supply. However, in the case of cycling, being anti-bike doesn’t cost the Liberal party many votes, they’ve given up on the inner-cities anyway, and the government can heedlessly harass people off the road.

“If you talk about particulate matter, there is more particulate matter goes into the air over the city of Sydney from the chattering class sitting around their log fire and a glass of chardonnay [talking about] that horrible Duncan Gay — they put more particulate matter into the air of Sydney by a factor of four or five than heavy vehicles ever did.” Duncan Gay, NSW Roads Minister

On a recent Sunday, after riding from Sydney to Bowral, in the NSW Southern Highlands, a car pulled up to us at a stop sign. The window went down and the driver said something that most bike riders have heard hundreds of times before, “get off the fucking road!”. That guy is emblematic of how the right have lost the culture wars. There’s a reason why so many cling to their southern cross, to Khe Sanh, and jump into things like Reclaim Australia — they fundamentally don’t recognise that modern Australia is urban, urbane, and certainly not lily-white. Sadly, the Liberal Party are pandering to clowns like him, and we’re probably only two election cycles away from having a group of nutters running for parliament like the current Republican presidential race. The unholy alliance with the Nationals is a clear indication that the Liberal Party are very worried about metropolitan seats. How do you think a country member like Gay got a ministerial role in the first place?

For every well-meaning politician like Tony Windsor or Alex Greenwich, I’ll show you ten narcissistic blowhards like George Christensen elected on a platform of atavistic values held by an increasingly small cohort of the population. Campaigning on an “everything is terrible” narrative is nothing new (the imminent moral collapse of of societies is real!) but the blunt-force bullshit of the subnormal-IQ brigade that dominate parliamentary coverage is drowning out thoughtful debate and genuine progressive efforts. This is how we get stuck on issues like marriage equality, which is supported by an overwhelming proportion of the population.

We are, like Bret Stephens wrote in the WSJ this week, staring at the conservative gutter:

Bill Buckley and the other great shapers of modern conservatism — Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, Robert Bartley and Irving Kristol — articulated a conservatism that married economic dynamism to a prudent respect for tradition, patriotism and openness to the wider world.

Australia has started electing vulgar charlatans who hold an ill-defined, outmoded idea of what it means to be Australian. They cling to the flag, they communicate at a level that assumes their listeners stopped going to school at ten, and they are pathologically addicted to the fulsome praise of certain parts of the media. They reject individualism for a national identity that is neither representative nor compassionate. The bigotry and xenophobia flows from the impossible corner they have backed themselves into whilst defending a nasty set convictions which they incorrectly conflate with probity.

Orwell posited that progress is slow and most often disappointing, but it is real. I’m not so sure anymore.