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Too often Australian political debates and tussles are scripted as a battle between the left and right of politics – when indeed there is no left and right dichotomy. The validity of any political dialogue should be substantiated by the lived experience. I am a left winger in the true sense – egalitarianism – working and living on a needs basis – I do the lived experience. Those who claim to be ‘left’ in politics or who are attributed as the left well the lived experience has to  be their way for their voice for the left to be true.

I have not met a single left wing politician and I have met the majority of Australia’s incumbent politicians. I am not aware of a single bona fide left wing Australian politician.

Australian politics is harangued by a profligate narrow discourse, in fact a corralled discourse. There is a social order that must be kept and never breached. A good example of this is found in the Australian Broadcasting Corporations (ABC) high ratings weekly program – Q&A. It is a strictly conservative discussion between two very similar political opponents – the Australian Labor Party and the Australian Liberal Party. They only appear substantively opposed because no other competition is allowed into the discourse. The rest of the panel usually sides with one or the other.

Those perceived as the left in Australian politics are merely tinkerers of social justice issues but within that corral, within the social order – there is no place for radical propositions, for radicalised calls for a coalescing of humanity based on egalitarianism, based on the suite of genuine equalities. The only battle that we have on the Australian political landscape is the manipulative battle between the haves and the have nots. The have nots and their supporters have been associated with the left but indeed their struggle is to be a have, not for egalitarianism. Their goals are neoliberal aspirations, whether this pursuit is overt or as an undercurrent – in the end it is the one address; to have, to attain, it is not about equality.

Along the way some of those once sold as the voices of the ‘left’, especially those who could once lay claim to being have nots, do become haves and in a big way and some of them are then turned on by the perceived left, particularly by the have nots. They are seen as sell-outs.

There are genuine left wingers, genuinely credible proponents for egalitarianism but they are in the minority – a very small minority. However none of them are in our parliaments.

We have to stop pretending there is a significant left movement in Australian politics – yes, there are some social justice tinkerers – but neoliberalism rules. As long as we succumb to ludicrous beliefs or the hoodwink that there is a credible left movement then we will not engage with the Australian political landscape in the ways we should. The charade of a left in Australian politics has to end. But will it?

Plato once said that if we do not engage with our politicians we risk being governed by the dumb. In my view, as long as we do not call political discourse for what it is then we will continue to be railroaded.

Sadly, the battle between the have nots and haves cannot be resolved through neoliberalism. Therefore it is ruthlessly ironic that any genuine left thinking individual aligns with reductionist neoliberal politicians and political parties and consequently sell them either as the left or friendly to the left. Neoliberalism is the enemy of egalitarianism. Unchecked meritocracy profligates pernicious greed, dysfunctions humanity, induces poverty. Unchecked meritocracy means the fewest will have, because the more the few can achieve the less there is for the rest. The right to have should never have meant the right to become corrupt, exploitative, ruthless.

Humanity is propagandised with skewed data and ludicrous premises that world poverty is being dramatically reduced when in fact it is not. There are crises on the horizon for humanity the likes never-before-seen.

But let us look first at our little garden of Eden, Australia – the world’s 12^th largest economy, 2^nd wealthiest nation per capita, world’s highest median wages – the poor are getting poorer, homelessness and extreme poverty are induced and increasing. Yet, we mask the truth with deceitful premises to underwrite statistical narratives and skew the data and lie about the untold human narrative of misery and poverty laying within this wealthiest of nations.

Mouthpieces of the State – the institutions of the State and media chums – churn out what Governments want us to believe, including that extreme poverty does not exist. The reported data of all that is bad, which gets very little say in the media, is only the tip of the iceberg – it is the unreported and masked data that is of concern. Reported data includes that 20,000 children under the age of 12 are homeless in this nation, in the world’s 2^nd wealthiest nation per capita. The Australia that I relentlessly travel has increasing poverty, with 600,000 of its children reported to be living under the Henderson Poverty line. Homelessness is at record levels. In the Kimberley, nearly 7 per cent of the whole population is trapped in one form of homelessness or another – outside of civil strife and natural disasters this is one of the world’s worst homelessness rates. Yet, I am actually the only person in the nation writing about this – and persistently. But hey, who cares?

I ask this because our politicians seem to be awfully quiet on all this. I am sick and tired of calendar events – homelessness week, suicide prevention week, etc., – that are the only time that the media and several politicians refer to what should be chased daily with through-care journalism and political life. We are sold what good work is being done for the homeless and in preventing suicide, in improving the lot of those struggling, during these calendars events but all the while everything is getting worse. There is no honest discourse, because the discourse is not radical.

I was once told in Canberra by a ‘future prime minister’ – “Gerry, you keep on coming to Canberra with your issues (homelessness, suicide prevention, disadvantage, etc.,) – you keep on coming to the citadel with your issues. This is not what Canberra is about. Canberra is about power. It is about determining who will manage the nation.”

The only hope for egalitarianism and for humanity is in the first instance for us who are on the left to stop deluding ourselves that there is a bona fide left in Australian politics. When we stop deluding ourselves and undermining our own good work then the left will begin to have a voice.

Until then we have to live in a deluge of lies, a sea of apathy, and with narratives of child poverty in this nation never discussed, with suicides as a leading cause of death for Australians, with one in every 20 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander death by suicide though my own research argues it is as high as one in 10, with inequalities and the associated torturous distresses and a sense of hopelessness worse than ever before.