The Quiet Drift From Decency
A society rarely loses its decency in dramatic moments. More often, it happens quietly, in decisions that harden the spirit and narrow the imagination. Sometimes this is reflected in a yearning for the ‘good old days’ that can never be considered good for everyone.
Recently I have written about the art of the relationship and the importance of starting from a place of dignity – of embracing our shared humanity, nurturing hope rather than entrenching despair, and doing things with people not to them. These are not abstract ideals. They are the foundation of what I have described as high expectations relationships.
The recent decision to allow Queensland’s Murri Watch service to lapse deserves deeper reflection. Not simply because of what it changes administratively, but because of what it reveals about us.
Murri Watch has provided culturally grounded support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in watch houses – some of the most vulnerable moments in their lives. It has offered connection, advocacy and dignity in environments that can otherwise feel isolating and dehumanising. It has helped maintain links to family, community and culture when those connections are most fragile.
To withdraw such support at such a crucial time is not a neutral act. It signals something more troubling: a sense of inhumanity – and a shrinking policy imagination.
Over the past fortnight, we have seen other signs of this narrowing thinking. In the Northern Territory, the announcement of armed security guards on public buses. In Queensland we also saw the decision to abandon plans for a First Nations cultural centre was destined to be a jewel in Brisbane’s crown during the 2032 Olympics.
At first glance these decisions seem unrelated. They are not!
Together they suggest a growing habit in public life: when confronted with complexity, governments are increasingly retreating from relationship and reaching instead for colonising defaults of control, withdrawal and standardisation. The result is a meanness of imagination – a failure to respond in ways that protect safety without diminishing human dignity. It is worth remembering that such dehumanising of others, actually diminishes our own humanity, and indeed the humanity of all of us who watch on.
I do not deny the reality of harmful behaviour. Violence on buses is real. Fear in communities is real. Poor and destructive behaviour causes genuine harm, and communities have every right to expect safety.
For all of us, the question is not whether these problems exist.
The question is what kind of society we become when our only imagination for responding to hurt is punishment stripped of understanding and humanity.
Hurt people do, indeed, hurt people.
That is not an excuse for wrongdoing. It is a reminder that if policy begins and ends with force, exclusion and symbolic retreat, then we should not be surprised when the cycle deepens. Over time we end up engineering ourselves deeper into the very complexity we are seeking to transcend.
This is where the Murri Watch decision becomes morally confronting for every politician and every public servant.
At the very moment when connection matters most, it is withdrawn.
We know that strong connection to family, culture and community is one of the most powerful protective forces we have – particularly for young people experiencing distress, dislocation and custody. Murri Watch has been part of that protective presence, offering care, cultural grounding and human connection in environments where isolation can quickly turn to despair.
You will know that on this topic I am choosing my words here extremely sensitively.
Let me invite you to pause for a moment and hear precisely what I am not saying so explicitly.
To step away from vulnerable people at that moment is not simply a funding decision. It is a failure to care in places where care matters most.
A society does not lose its decency all at once. It loses it in the quiet normalisation of decisions that diminish dignity and call it policy.
With certainty I know that there are many decent people in public life who know this.
There are policy makers, public servants and politicians who understand that good government is not measured by firmness, but by whether it can respond to complexity without surrendering humanity.
This is a moment for all of us to notice what is happening – and refuse to normalise it.
Meanness in policy is not strength; it is in fact weakness masquerading as resolve. It invokes a diminished version of who we are, and who we could be.
We can, and we must, be better than what we risk becoming.
Dr Chris Sarra
CEO, Stronger Smarter Institute
