“Trust, it is constantly observed, is hard-earned and easily dissipated. It is valuable social capital and not to be squandered.

“If there are no guarantees to be had, we need to place trust with care. This can be hard. The little shepherd boy who shouted ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ eventually lost his sheep, but we note not before his false alarms had deceived others time and again. Deception and betrayal often work.

“Traitors and terrorists, embezzlers and con artists, forgers and plagiarists, false promisers and free riders cultivate then breach others’ trust. They often get away with it. Breach of trust has been around since the Garden of Eden – although it did not quite work out there.

“Now it is more varied and more ingenious, and often successful.”

Modern politics has created the perfect storm for a lack of trust in government and, by association, fractures in our society and the “social cohesion” our politicians hold up as reason, excuse and driver.

One of the ways they destroy trust is through secrecy and half-truths.

The Labor government has still not released the National Climate Risk Assessment analysis, which has been described by those who have seen it as “dire and “extremely confronting” as it continues to obfuscate on setting its 2035 climate target.

The report, by all accounts (which cannot be made public, as those who have seen it were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements), paints a very bleak picture for our way of life. Without responding, we are all going to have to pay a lot more to maintain some semblance of what we consider “normal”.

But we are not being talked through this very serious analysis of our future. Instead it is just being hidden.

Richard Marles travelled to the US for defence meetings on what, according to foreign affairs sources, was a “hastily arranged” trip not previously telegraphed. It’s unclear whether Marles had locked in the meetings he was seeking before he landed.

Australia has reason to want clarity from the United States – the parameters on the multibillion-dollar AUKUS deal keep changing with the winds, and Australia is being urged by “experts” to accept the US’s terms of pre-committing to a war with China in the future event America decides to go into battle with its competing super power. This is presented as being a common sense approach – sovereignty for the illusion of security – and one we should accept without question.

As Marles was in the air, Anthony Albanese called a press conference and announced the Iranian ambassador had been expelled. This had all happened in 12 hours following a report from ASIO that Iran was the instigator of antisemitic attacks in Australia. Not only that, but Australia was listing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, something that had been demanded for years.

By the time Marles arrived in the US, Australia was making international news.

Meetings, “happenstance” or not, were held. What agreements were made? We are not allowed to know. The media focus has been on whether a meeting was held or not – but not on why the hell he was there. What was the reason?

Again, we are just supposed to trust the government that it has to be kept secret, without any reason for that trust.

So we are not to be trusted on climate analysis, why our senior ministers are hastily jetting overseas or the timing of serious national security announcements, but we are meant to trust that it’s all for our own good.

We know what a lack of trust in economic perilous times creates. History is littered with examples, and Sunday’s “March for Australia”, a white nationalist push led by neo-Nazis and helped along by politicians trying to milk as much political mileage out of racist anger as they can, is another one to add to the list.

It’s not even new – in 1893, 220 white Australians set sail for Paraguay, where they intended to make their white utopia, New Australia. The reasons are almost the same as today – class struggles, notions of “racial purity”, conservative family values mixed with hard-line socialist elements based in anti-government sentiment and seizing back resources.

It failed. The colony split, defeated by its own disunity, while some returned to Australia. Those who remained were eventually integrated into Paraguayan society.

It’s billed as one of the first experiments in communism, but it was racism and white supremacy that was the movement’s foundation, with the economic struggles tacked on top.

Seem familiar? We are not trusted to reckon with any of our white supremacist history (one of the women who split for the more “racially pure” New Australian colony of Cosme, Mary Gilmore, ended up celebrated on our $10 note. For the most part her racial views are now considered “contradictory”) and so we are doomed to not only relive it, but see the same archetype politicians use it for their own gain.

Following Bob Katter’s latest meltdown, where he threatened journalist Josh Bavas for pointing out Katter’s Lebanese heritage given Katter’s support for the March for Australia, the Albanese government responded, putting out a statement late on Thursday condemning Sunday’s planned event.

Albanese, who like most in the federal parliament, largely humours Katter, added his voice to the criticism, telling the Nine network on Friday: “You’re speaking to someone called Albanese. We’ve got a Senate leader called [Penny] Wong. Migration enriches. Except for the First Australians, we’re all either migrants or descendants of them.”

But trust has to be earned. And the people Katter and his ilk are talking to aren’t listening to Albanese’s words of caution. They are listening to those who tell them they are right not to trust their neighbours, or those who disagree with them, or anyone who looks different.

It’s much easier hearing you are right, than hearing you are blaming the wrong people, and for craven political animals, there is no easier audience. All they have to do is act like a political sycophantic ChatGPT, telling white supremacists what they want to hear, making the psychosis worse.

The people who agree with Albanese on this are rapidly losing trust that this government hears them (if they have any trust left at all). All of it is creating the perfect environment for disruption. Just like we saw in the US.

O’Neill grappled with all these issues more than two decades ago and concluded there was a simple remedy: Limiting deception.

For that to work, our government would have to trust Australians and start being more open and honest about its actions, and lack of actions. And accept that the world view it’s attempting to hold on to no longer exists.