The Politics of Decency

1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px} p.p2 {margin: 5.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; line-height: 12.1px; font: 9.0px Helvetica; color: #ffffff} p.p3 {margin: 5.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; line-height: 9.1px; font: 9.0px Helvetica; color: #ffffff} span.s1 {font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000} Surveying eighty years of his country's political and constitutional journey, Peter Hennessy is left with one abiding thought: that the essential quality of decency needs to be placed - once again - at the heart of public discourse. In a series of conversations with old friends and those he has long admired - along with younger voices from politics and public life - Hennessy asks what decency means to them. His interest in this question springs from a concern about constitutional proprieties, but these conversations range further afield: from community projects to service delivery, from schooling to social media. What he hears is both worrying and uplifting: an acknowledgement of the problem, a commitment to tackling it, ideas for how that might be done; and a sense that we all have a role to play in re-centring decency in public life.