Sam Mostyn

speaker

313 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 1 Aug

Sam Mostyn’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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Full Story · Governor general Sam Mostyn on the ‘growing catastrophe’ in our democracy · 1 Aug 2026 podcast

We've got a growing catastrophe, I think, in a failure to understand and engage with and feel proud of the very civic underpinnings of our democracy.

Well, I have to believe that progress is possible in this role.

It's important for me to be optimistic and very practical and realistic.

The reason I chose care, kindness and respect right across the board when I was sworn in just over two years ago was a sense that post-COVID we had lost something in Australia that had been a great hallmark of who we are as a very strong democratic nation with great respect for each other and that that had been deteriorating

I'd read many of the reports about the lack of understanding of our democracy, of our civic institutions.

And I read a lot about former governors general.

I met former living governors generals and had discussions with former prime ministers and their interactions with former governors general.

So when I went into the parliament to effectively take office, my commitment to put care, kindness and respect was a response to where I thought the nation was, but also where we could be heading.

And that in offices like this high public office where trust must be maintained with the Australian people, I wanted to send a clear signal that this was something very important to the future of our nation.

And two years later, I think what I see quite obviously is that people, when I see them in their communities right around the country, and I spend a lot of time out in community, I see a yearning for a return to civility, to polite conversation, meeting each other and wrestling ideas.

but not showing lack of respect or violence or hatred or lack of respect for someone who has a different idea.

People are yearning to see that modelled, I think, by people in public office.

And I see that when we do that, we achieve great things.

And it's one of the great underpinnings.

of our democracy and the strength of the nation, which we are seen so strongly by people outside Australia who look at us as a shining example of a democracy that's done all the hard work and built our nation into a modern, successful nation, in part because we've been able to traverse tough issues with respect to difference.

But what I observe is that the world we live in has had enormous challenges

that there is a decline in civility, certainly in the online world.

So the social media world, particularly the anonymous social media world and worlds where people are getting information and new sets of facts and not having a shared set of facts from which we can debate things has really taken off.

And I think this is a moment where it's important for everyone, particularly people like me in these offices, to keep up the project of why it matters that we show respect for each other, we learn to understand each other, but note that there is a big risk that if we don't, this is the beginning of the unravelling of social cohesion and we should guard against that.

We should all have a great belief in guarding against that.

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