When you join you learn the rules.
asserted
you → join → rules
The rules of being a leader haven’t changed much in 80 years.
asserted
rules → change → years
If you don’t, answer a different one, convincingly.
asserted
you → do → one
For me, the performance came with its own costume and choreography: pastel pantsuits, crisp collared shirts and that practised tread across the marble foyer of Parliament House.
asserted
performance → come → House
Beneath it all, a louder, less obedient tune was playing.
asserted
tune → play → it
In my rebel teenage years, I was drawn to punk’s venomous attacks on hypocrisy, on people who acted grand while living shallow, and to its refusal to shrink the self to fit the room.
asserted
who → draw → room
What punk offered me then, and still offers us all, is not a manifesto but a test: how much of yourself survives once your words have been filtered and shaped to meet the moment?
asserted
words → offer → moment
In politics, authenticity matters enormously.
asserted
authenticity → matter → politics
But reveal too much, and it can quickly become evidence against you.
asserted
it → reveal → you
I’m bemused by reactions to the post-political me, as though leaving the role made me somehow different.
asserted
me → bemuse → role
Now you seem like a person who cares.
asserted
who → seem → person
Why didn’t we ever see this side of you?
asserted
we → see → you
Followed by the faintly patronising verdict: We never liked you much, but it turns out you’re alright.
asserted
you → follow → you
When you leave politics, people judge you as a person.
asserted
people → leave → person
While you are there, they are looking for something else entirely.
asserted
they → look → something
The qualities they welcome afterwards – candour, nuance, and a reflective inner life – are not rewarded in office.
asserted
they → welcome → office
Most people encounter politicians in the media, not through the long hours and hard work it takes to solve problems.
asserted
it → encounter → problems
I stood at countless press conferences, hair and makeup done, microphones banked up in front of me.
asserted
hair → stand → me
I have confidence, I am across the detail, I have answers to every question, real or imagined.
asserted
I → have → question
The cameras are not about to find an alarming new angle.
asserted
cameras → find → angle
How did I actually feel?
asserted
I → feel → ?
Hoping the adrenaline would carry me through.
asserted
adrenaline → hop → me
Hoping, too, that I wouldn’t stumble because in every presser you are one stupid sentence away from bringing the whole thing crashing down.
asserted
you → hop → thing
It was good, but I could see its weaknesses as well as its strengths.
uncertain
I → see → weaknesses
And while I weighed every word, a thousand photographs were taken.
asserted
photographs → weigh → word
To be searched for signs of vulnerability, with the most promising filed away for future use, ready for the day I was declared politically dead.
asserted
I → search → day
What would happen if, instead of staying on message, I had answered every question with complete frankness?
asserted
I → happen → frankness
We made political judgement calls.
asserted
We → make → calls
We might have got some of them wrong.
uncertain
some → get → them
We weren’t able to foresee every consequence.
asserted
We → foresee → consequence
No, I don’t have complete confidence in every one of my colleagues.
asserted
I → have → colleagues
Too much of this and the headlines write themselves: embattled and under pressure.
asserted
headlines → write → pressure
In politics, once you understand the damage done in an unguarded moment, you do everything possible to prevent the next one.
asserted
you → understand → one
The public expects leaders to have all the answers, not to lie awake in the small hours running through every disaster.
asserted
leaders → expect → disaster
You could never admit to waking at 3am, heart racing, body braced for attack.
uncertain
body → admit → attack
No missile is coming through the sealed hotel window.
asserted
missile → come → window
It only feels that way.
asserted
It → feel → ?
We want leaders who project mastery and certainty, never a shadow of doubt.
asserted
who → want → doubt
But messy trade-offs and compromise lie just below the surface and the qualities they reveal – empathy, caution and moral seriousness – are rarely safe to display.
asserted
they → lie → surface
Psychologists talk about the false self.
asserted
Psychologists → talk → self
…and 19 more, not listed.
The Aporia
