For the past three weeks, I’ve travelled the country meeting readers. Having spoken to 8000 people over that time, I was struck by the sense of pent-up fury in those I met.

In every state and territory, packed town halls and auditoriums bubbled with anguish and boiled with a frustration that was palpable from the stage.

Illustration: Simon Letch

People made it clear they’re fed up with the cosy paralysis of our national parliament.

In every time zone, and across divides of class and educational background, Australians sense the gravity of the climate emergency, and they want action. But all they hear is excuses. They’re crying for change but see only political gridlock and pig-headed time-wasting.

The force of their mood was sobering. Without such direct and sustained exposure to my fellow citizens in our moment of shared anguish, I suspect I may not have fully registered the temper of the time.

It set me to thinking about the liberating power of stories. But also, how social narratives can become forms of entrapment. Because we all live within a story that shapes our aspirations, values and opportunities.

But our chief storytellers are not novelists. They’re PR hacks and lobbyists. As evangelists of hardline, anti-social economic theory, they spin yarns of self-interest for oligarchs.

The think tanks funded by these billionaires, and the lobby-mills they employ, are how vested interests enthral our policymakers and achieve........

© The Age