Voters take revenge on parliamentary pillocks

Schoolyard scrapping by politicians is a sign of their contempt for us.

After every state election the cry goes up: "Are there any federal implications of this?" In Saturday's comprehensive thumping of New South Wales Labor, there is one glaring implication - not only for the Federal Parliament but for governments and oppositions around the country, including Barry O'Farrell's new Coalition government.

It's nothing to do with carbon tax (the voters of NSW were committed to dumping Labor long before there was a hint of that). It's nothing to do with infrastructure spending, budget surpluses, tax cuts or law and order. It runs deeper than any of those.

The implication is this: if you treat the voters with contempt, they will treat you with contempt. It's an example of the universal human Law of Reciprocity, and it's a law that politicians have been oh-so-slow to grasp.

Voters are human, and humans, deep in their psyches, need to know they are being taken seriously. We all want to be treated with respect; we all want our voice to be heard. In a democracy, we are highly sensitive to any sign that we are not being respected by the politicians we elect to represent us. Perhaps even more crucially, we react badly to any sign that they are trashing what should be our most treasured public institution - the Parliament itself.

In the months leading up to the state election, NSW voters were treated to a couple of breathtaking examples of abuse of Parliament that said, more eloquently than any words, that the government - and specifically the premier - was treating the voters with utter contempt.

The first was the premature proroguing of Parliament to avoid proper scrutiny of the government's apparently dodgy sale of electricity assets. The second was the stealthy over-riding of environmental regulations affecting development of the Barangaroo site at Darling Harbour - an action taken on the eve of the government moving into "untouchable" caretaker mode.