Voters of Australia – you’ve done it! Congratulations! Surely a Nobel prize must be on its way.
You’ve successfully built a time machine and sent the entire country back to the 1950’s.
We now have a Prime Minister who:
- Disregards any scientific evidence of climate change
- Is going to reduce the public service by 12,000 jobs. Where will these people go and, assuming they are doing something other that sit at a desk playing solitaire for 9 hours a day must be doing something – who will cover those functions?
- Has promised to build more roads. Lindsay Fox is the owner of Linfox, possibly Australia’s largest trucking company, and so is the person who will profit most from more roads. Even he has said we need a more effective rail system with regional hubs. Not only is this policy harking back to the major projects of the 1950’s and 60’s but flies completely in the face of all attempts to move from fossil fuels. Just what Australia and the world needs – more cars on the road.
- Has promised to stop the boats. I recently read “The Happiest Refugee” by Anh Do. In it he described his escape by boat from Communist Vietnam as a 2 year old child with his parents, younger brother and extended family. He went on to become one of Australia’s top comedians and his brother, Khoa, was awarded the Young Australian Of The Year in 2005. Let’s face it, unless you can trace your family lineage back 300 years in Australia you’re a boat person.
- Has promised to remove the emission trading scheme. While we were the one of the leading countries in this field and more countries move to put SOMETHING in place, Australia will now head in the opposite direction.
- Has promised to remove the mining tax. Yay! let’s send more money and more of our resources to overseas owned corporations.
- Has promised to cut back the NBN. Australia is not exactly at world class standards when it comes to knowledge infrastructure but was moving in the right direction. Clearly, we can’t have that sort of thing going on. So now we’ll have a cut down version – not as good but it’ll be cheaper.
- Was a prime mover to retain the monarchy when Australia made an attempt at moving towards a republic.
- Has a highly suspect attitude to women. His description of a candidate for his party was that she “has sex appeal”. Not, she’s intelligent, compassionate or even a hard worker for her community. The fact that he was originally planning to enter the priesthood raises questions here as well.
My view is that with governments we have two options:
- It doesn’t matter who’s in – they’re all pretty much the same. After all, no matter who you vote for, you get a politician.
- It does make a difference who’s in government.
In the current situation I pray the first case applies and, like all good politicians, once he takes over the reins of the country Tony Abbott will realise he can’t fulfil his promises and will back down from them.
Even Richard Glover’s TGIF was themed on Don’s Party, a play based on a Federal election from the 1960’s. So, Australia, we’ve taken a huge leap backwards.
OK! That’s it. I feel better now, having vented about the state of the nation.
That said, let’s realise that this is still a very lucky country. We’re incredibly fortunate that we live in a country where I can write the above about the “leader” and current government and not expect to be carted off to prison or to a “re-education” centre.
I recently met a lady from China. She was telling me that in China the internet is blocked by the government and it needs special (illegal) software to be able to access the information we take for granted and can Google any time. She described life under the communist government and how suppressed people are there.
We’re incredibly lucky and should wake up each morning with a deep and abiding sense of gratitude that we’re here, in a land of relative peace and ease and not being controlled or worse, being murdered by the regime currently in power as is happening in many countries throughout the world.
This is a very lucky country and one day the small group of swinging voters who decide which party is in power (that’s the nature of our electoral system) will wake up and we’ll return to being the leader in the right way to treat people and the environment and the entire world of which we are all an important part.
In the meantime, let’s pray that Tony Abbott will now stop politicing and get on with leading. Here’s an idea – let’s get him involved in solving the Syrian crisis. Perhaps he can have an epiphany/conversion on the road to Damascus just like his biblical predecessor, Paul.
So, congratulations Australia. I think you’ve made a dumb choice but it’s still a great place to live.