Conviction Politicians Shine Through in the Age of AI
Politicians are often feeding their internal models with polls and focus groups, but sometimes a genuine conviction politician can cut through the noise. Andrew Hastie has launched a blistering public assault on Pauline Hanson, showing that he is willing to defend his values.
In the age of artificial intelligence, it's becoming increasingly difficult to discern genuine conviction from politically optimised rhetoric. Politicians, like large language models, can often sound reasonable but lack substance.
This column has no real understanding of how AI works, but the way politicians are fed on data through polls and focus groups is reminiscent of how some industries manipulate information to achieve their goals. It's a circular self-fertilising system that can lead to politicians making stuff up or hallucinating.
Barnaby Joyce recently said on a current affairs program that he "was not Jesus Christ" when questioned about One Nation's latest superannuation policy. This statement has been interpreted as an attempt to bluff his way around the fact that he didn't know the details. Some Liberals privately agree with this interpretation.
On the other hand, Andrew Hastie has launched a blistering public assault on Pauline Hanson for calling him a "traitor" in a social media cartoon. The former SAS veteran slammed Hanson as a "lying coward" for failing to take responsibility and deleting the film, which called him a traitor eight times. He said her accusation was an attack on all veterans.
"The question I have for Senator Hanson is: are you calling them traitors as well? Because if you are, just own it. You don't get to redefine ANZAC. You don't get to redefine the profession of arms."
The row between Hastie and One Nation continues to rumble, but it's generated plenty of online heat. Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie, another veteran, was equally scathing of Hanson, who by Friday was telling everyone to take a "chill pill".
Hastie's fightback, which has been buttressed by a string of Coalition voices, is both targeted and deliberate. The MP for Canning knows he has a difficult fight on his hands keeping his southern Perth-based seat in the face of a resurgent One Nation.
Meanwhile, the Greens are dealing with their own internal meltdown over an issue of core business: supporting a new method for generating carbon credits from turning land that was earmarked for logging into national parkland. The partyroom voted six to five to support the government's policy, but three Greens dissented on the Senate floor.