As the intensity of the federal election fades into memory so too does our engagement with an outcome that currently exhibits all the charm of an instalment in The Hangover film franchise.

A government that surprised even itself with its victory meanders on like a surly drunk looking for mischief after closing time.

The lack of anything remotely resembling a mission has long since passed after it rolled through its massive cuts to government revenue in the first week of the 47th parliament.

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Now it’s a case of filling in the hours until the bar reopens with systemic cruelty to asylum seekers and Newstart recipients, opportunistic culture wars and a irrational compulsion to build more coalmines.

Across the street, the Labor opposition is still licking its wounds, unsteady on its legs and not quite ready to trust itself behind the wheel of anything resembling a principle.

Meanwhile, the public rightly recoils from the scene, not so much case of Advance Australia Fair, more like Advance Australia? Meh …

As this week’s Essential Report shows, the majority of the public has simply turned off politics. A bare majority say they are taking notice of federal politics, with just 15% professing to follow events closely. That leaves half the population either wholly or partly disengaged.

And a personal confession: despite my day job, I am one of them. For the past three months it has been a punish to engage in the news without contemplating the parallel universe where a Labor government was rolling out an ambitious, progressive agenda.

I think it’s no surprise that the lack of interest in politics is particularly strong among younger voters who had the most at stake from the outcome.

This disengagement is matched with low expectations for the next term of government, with just 12% believing the Morrison government will make a large positive difference to Australia.

On the converse, similarly low numbers think they will do any real damage; the vast majority feel we will simply tread water somewhere off Meh-roubra.

The politics of meh is not confined to the federal arena – respondents have similar low interest levels about international affairs, state politics, local issues.

While there is some, albeit limited, passion around the footy finals, we profess to even lower levels of engagement with the staples of reality TV (which will come as a surprise to those who pour millions into advertising on them). Right now the sense of meh is everywhere.

I think this disengagement might actually be about more than one election; it actually helps explain why progressives keep losing.

It seems we have lost interest in the things that once filled our public square – not just the political debates but the sporting spectacles that gave us a common story and even the dross that collectively diverted us.

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In its place we stare into our phones with content tailored for us, consumed in feeds calculated to make our world more insular and self-reinforcing, driven by feels rather than facts.

None of this is good news if you are from the quaint old school that posits the next three years are as important as the election that will follow.

If you believe that action on climate change is urgent, or that Australia risks being caught in a battle between two superpowers, or that government should be more than game, then disengagement is not your friend.

If Australia says “meh”, then progress stalls and those with a vested interest in the status quo keep on winning.

And it’s not enough to wait for the next election and out-trick them this time around because the clock is already ticking down.

While our natural inclination at times like these is to recoil from the public square and retreat to the safety of our platforms, the only moral thing to do right now is to reengage with the centre.

• Peter Lewis is an executive director of Essential