It has never been easy to represent a collective view, which is the essential task of a politician; but there are factors which make it harder now.

There are many possible explanations, including rapid social, technological and demographic change, significant economic stresses and devastating international tensions. Those with long memories or an acute sense of history may suggest that this has always been the case, but in the present era it is as hard as its ever been to exercise political leadership and decision-making.

At the heart of the difficulty are two factors in combination. The first is social and political fragmentation causing shifting political loyalties, and the second is the intensity with which competing views are held.

Several different things have focused my attention on this issue.

The major take-out from the federal election, for instance, was the range of issues apparently in play. Labor's loss meant that they experienced the full force of calls to bring their party policies in line with public expectations. That is to be expected in principle, but in practice the calls on Labor have canvassed so much: climate change, religious values and taxation policy as well as leadership.

The call which has attracted most attention has been that by shadow minister Joel Fitzgibbon for Labor to retreat on climate action to a position close to, if not identical with, that of the government. His reasoning was stark. Labor needed to cut its losses and move on because the issue was causing it too much electoral damage. He speaks from an electorate with significant mining interests which swung heavily against Labor at the last election.

Fitzgibbon's call, quickly rejected by the party, stood starkly against a background of intense international and national climate action. It looked like throwing in the towel or, at best, beating a strategic retreat. That is the type of internal conflict which Anthony Albanese is faced with in uniting his party into a formidable electoral force.

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Last Sunday evening's ABC Compass program featured a Western Sydney voter of Maltese descent who described himself as a traditional Labor voter. He was appalled that his unnamed federal Labor MP had voted for same-sex marriage despite knowing the opposition of at least some of his electorate to what the voter described as "all that bullshit". The sentiment was not new, because immediately after the election Labor MPs from Western Sydney electorates had canvassed the loss of trust in the party by some people of faith. That voter is now attracted to Pauline Hanson's policies on immigration.

Just before watching the program I had heard Jesuit Fr Frank Brennan give a farewell-to-Canberra homily at a church service. Brennan mentioned Indigenous issues, LGBTQI+ issues and refugee issues as ones for which he had lobbied hard. His message was that none of these issues had a simple or easy resolution. MPs who had to choose between conscience, caucus and cause should be afforded the understanding and prayers of the community as they faced such a difficult task.

Such understanding for politicians facing difficult choices is rare in the community. Rather, politicians are portrayed as privileged, well-paid servants of the people whose difficulties are caused mainly by a lack of personal ethics or courage. Seeing the situation this way does a disservice to politicians. We should all put ourselves in their shoes.

MPs are faced with the choice of how to vote in the chamber when they are pulled in different ways by conflicting loyalties. Ninety-nine per cent of the time they vote with their party. Party leaders, and by extension the political parties they lead, have the job of collectively resolving those competing loyalties as they cobble together what is diplomatically described as a "winning 50-per-cent-plus-one coalition". Undiplomatically, what is happening is a trade-off. You can't satisfy every interest.

There have always been conflicting interests to deal with between voters of different class, ethnic, religious and regional backgrounds. These traditional conflicting interests include white collar-blue collar, Catholic-Protestant, urban-rural, inner city-suburban and north-south, among others.

Whether it is an individual MP, like Fitzgibbon, or a party leader, like Albanese, balancing conflicting loyalties can be a nearly impossible task.

It is one thing for voters to have preferences, leading occasionally to the on-balance decision to swap parties or to desert all parties for independents. It is another thing for voters to have such deeply held views that they regularly insist that it is "my way or the highway".

There is some history, going back to the 1960s, of interest groups lobbying MPs in this way. It happened on all sides of politics, including the women's and environmental movements. An extreme example came in abortion politics when the Right to Life movement described abortion as a "disqualifying issue", that is an issue so important that it disqualified a candidate from receiving the votes of their movement regardless of their other qualities, characteristics or record of achievement.

That approach was still relatively unusual then, but the combination of fragmentation and intensity now means that it is becoming more common. The consequence is that politics is fragmenting, opposing views are regarded as rubbish, and individual MPs and their leaders are struggling to be responsive while being true to themselves.

In that context, let's be clear that it is hard to be a politician and we should be more understanding of the hard choices which face them.