John Button was leader of the Australian Senate for 10 years, from 1983 to 1993. He was a young activist, a middle-aged activist and is now, at 72, a semi-retired activist. Two years ago, at a meeting of his local Labor Party branch, he suddenly realised that the activism that had sustained his view of civic life was fragile.

“That branch had a long history. It used to meet in the town hall and if there weren’t 40 or 50 people present it was a bad night.” These days it struggles to get eight people together regularly. At the meeting he attended, one woman said she’d felt depressed beforehand but felt worse afterwards.