It is early summer, 2019, a steamy evening in the public gallery of the Shoalhaven Council building in the New South Wales town of Huskisson. Elected councillors are discussing applications for commercial developments and requests for houseowners to cut down trees that hinder views. They also deliberate a motion to disqualify a community newspaper from receiving Council revenue because councillors have been offended by their critics in the newspaper.

The chair of the meeting is the town Mayor, who represents the Greens party. She conducts the meeting with dignity and professionalism but is the target of repeated abuse from half a dozen councillors, mostly male, who ridicule her rulings.

This example of democracy at work may seem only local and the implications parochial, but the chemistry of that meeting has lessons that apply internationally. Councillors’ opposition to a woman and to her mostly female-elected supporters displayed intolerance, abuse, an unwillingness to listen, let alone take notice of others’ views. Appearing convinced of their wisdom, the abusers drew from an apparent expectation that no one should challenge their boorish, bullying, misogynistic, self-important behaviour.

They argued that commercial developments be allowed even against the interests of local Indigenous people on whose land the new developments were to occur. They were enthusiastic about the right to remove trees and they passed the motion that, in effect, the newspaper editor should be punished for daring to allow criticism of councillors. In that debate, the councillor who moved the motion made false claims as though any concern with the truth was irrelevant.

Arrogance, bullying, a lack of commitment to democratic principles and not the slightest touch of humility captured that meeting. Even in local government in a country which is not a police state, authoritarianism flourished. The same conduct has appeared in other liberal democracies, hence a need for language which expresses liberating, non-destructive visions of the future.

A language for humanity includes questions of identity, ideals of humane governance and determination not to be cruel to future generations. The crescendo comes with a redefinition of human rights and with passion for crafting a different politics. Poets will have the last words.