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(If you don’t think Australia is in dire straits, you’re dreaming)

This past year has been a pivotal and negative one. Internationally we’ve seen western democracies in retreat and autocracies on the rise. Domestically, our political class has continued to demonstrate its many weaknesses and few of its ever-shrinking strengths.

Cynics and sophisticates say we’re blessed to live in such “interesting times”. The ordinary people of the world are less blasé. They feel we’re at the beginning of a downward spiral.

Only those who habitually bury their head in the sand can be sanguine about the collective future of mankind. Ignorance is, maybe, bliss – but only for a while. Ignorance doesn’t protect its followers from reality when reality knocks on their door. The events of the past decade or two have led ordinary people to fear a future of ever more chaos and authoritarianism, especially so as it begins to dawn that its ordinary people will be the ones who bear the cost of the follies of elites that are unfolding across the planet.

And by ‘costs’ I’m not only referring to higher taxes, declining living standards and an inability (or political unwillingness) of democratic governments to accommodate electoral demands for ever more welfare and support services – the economic side of life.

The trends that are unfolding will also likely have major, negative impacts on social harmony and the quality of our lives by promoting divisions of many kinds – both within nations and between them.

THE EARLY TWO THOUSANDS

At the turn of this century global debate focused on three trends,

(A) Population growth (a perennial favourite since Malthus (1803), The Club of Rome (1950s).

The concern? In essence, human population expands faster than nature’s/technology’s ability to produce food.

The predicted result? Poverty, famine and food wars. The impact of this line of thinking was instrumental in China adopting its ‘one child per couple’ policy, a policy that only came to an end in 2016. It has resurfaced this century because climate change is expected to shrink food production and increase supply volitility.

(B) Consumerism, in particular the expectation of ever-increasing living standards, particularly in ‘advanced economies.

In essence, more and more people (billions) want more and more material things and services. If governments want to stay in power they must deliver or risk removal …or (alternatively) resort to the use of force to suppress the ‘demands’ of their citizenry.

The result? A focus on economic (GDP) growth – and the turning of a blind-eye to ‘external-costs’ (the deleterious impacts on nature, the environment and climate).

Neoliberalism, freer (or free) international trade, became the dominant economic mantra. Here it was posited that trade based on each country’s comparative advantage (be it capital in some, technology in others, or natural resources or labour – usually cheap and Asian) would lead to the production of more goods, more jobs and more and bigger profits for all – a bigger pie for all to share.

The ‘greed’ is good ‘years’ (a phrase mouthed by Micheal Douglas playing Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street) were back in vogue. A negative side effect of this race to corporate riches was the rise of income and wealth inequalities that retriggered a debate about fairness as to the distribution of all that new wealth.

(C) Inequality. In 2013 Thomas Piketty published his widely influential book ‘Capital in the 21st century’. He reported that after more than half a century of the income and wealth gaps narrowing in the US (UK, Russia and China) they have grown again to record levels. Even before Trump 2 the top 10% of US income earners (2022) took home about 30% of all US wages/salaries. When it came to wealth, the gap was even wider; the top 10% held 67% of America’s wealth. The bottom 50% held 2.5%.

Since then things are getting worse, much worse under Trump Mk2.

Piketty’s advice as to how to reduce the inequality gap was to have a progressive wealth tax. Fat chance under the Trump Administration. Trump’s policies are intended to accelerate the widening of the gaps between the super-rich and the rest.

THINGS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE, MUCH WORSE SINCE THEN

Neoliberalism did produce economic growth. But not all were happy with the way the game was being played – nor the unexpected consequences it produced.

American companies (amongst others) rushed into China hoping to benefit from access to the Country’s vast and rapidly growing middle-class market. Cheap Chinese labour also enabled them to produce their brands more cheaply before exporting them back to the US (and other overseas markets) to earn fatter profits.

In spite of Trump’s pleas for Americans to Buy American, he bought MAGA caps for around a dollar in China and merchandised them for upwards of $14 to $25 in America.

This is but a minor example of how neoliberalism has served corporations better than the consumers or workers.

Many of the world’s leading brands (from cars to fashion) adopted similar modus operandi.

China has hardly been free from sin on the international trade front. Joint ventures with westerners provided the Chinese with access to technologies that enabled them to leapfrog foreigners in key markets such as electronics, solar and wind power, electric cars and robotics. China consciously used espionage to steal technologies and skirt patent protection laws when it was to their advantage. China practises controlled trade, not free trade. State intervention and the subsidising of key industries enabled China to become the production house of the world. China has the capacity to swamp the western world with quality and cheap products. In the process of doing that it has enfeebled the manufacturing base of the West. Manufacturing rustbelts are not confined to the USA. China’s ambition to MCGA (Make China Great Again) has resulted in China using trade as a political weapon, to great effect.

This is not the way Western democracies thought things would work out.

Flush with hubris after winning the Cold War with the USSR, the West (principally America) thought that economic growth would change China by building a huge and reasonably affluent middle class. A middle class that, in time, would not tolerate authoritarian rule. In short it was expected, China would move toward becoming some sort of democracy that would willingly and peacefully integrate into a world order of the sort developed after WW2, a world order dominated by the West.

And – for a while – everybody made hay while the sun shone.
But over the past couple of decades cracks started to appear in this win-win-for-everybody facade. Initially, those emerging cracks were largely ignored because everybody seemed to be making a motza from trade and its financing.

Up until 2025 Elon Musk made twice as many Teslas in China as in the US. Australians who bought these EVs were buying Teslas made in China. Supply chains around the world became both huge and ever more inextricably linked.

That quintessential America truck – the Chevy provides another example of such interconnectedness. Silverado Chevies are currently made in six plants. Those made in US plants have approx 70% local content. Those made in Canada and Mexico for sale in the US, around 50%. This is by no means an atypical situation.

Western consumers understandably have liked being able to buy cheaper, imported products.

The quid pro quo, however, has been the shrinking of well-paid manufacturing jobs in America in everything from steel making (where the mighty US now ranks fourth behind China, India and Japan while Australia ranks 29th and the UK a paltry 36th alongside Algeria) to cars, manufacturing machinery etc.

True, the US still leads in aerospace (but not commercial aircraft where Airbus has now eclipsed Boeing), pharmaceuticals, defence equipment, semi-conductors and high tech computers…and, maybe for now, AI.

But overall the scoreboard reads about 28% for China versus17% for the US in share of world manufacturing.

America now only builds a handful of ships a year, China builds over 200. This disparity has huge defence implications not only for America, but also for Australia because of our “one-roll-of-the-dice” commitment under AUKUS to buy US nuclear subs.

America has been slow to realise it has been outfoxed by China. Neoliberalism helped China to rapidly expand its manufacturing muscle while the US’ became atrophied. Other countries eventually shared such epiphanies.

No worries, the vast sums of money being made elsewhere masked such a decline in manufacturing. Eyes and cheque books had switched to chasing the huge dollars to be won by investing in the Miracles of Silicon Valley and/or the boom in financial wizardry that promised ever higher returns based (amongst other things) on sub-prime lending, AI and crypto currencies. Investors believed things were different this time, that the world had changed to the extent that ‘making things’ was old-hat. Technology and financial engineering were the new El Dorados that the smart money had the hots for.

At least it was until the Financial Crisis of 2008.

When the western financial system was on the brink of collapse it’s ironic the financial system was only, and surprisingly, saved by the intervention of that ‘leftie’ President Obama. He used taxpayers’ money to save the big banks and mortgage companies whose greed for profits and high salaries had led to near financial collapse. He did so because such a failure would lead to Armageddon. These institutions were just too big to fail. Obama chose the lesser of two evils. The programme that saved the system was called Quantitative Easing.

Translated into simple words this meant that the American government allowed banks to keep their profits and not be punished for their errant and often illegal behaviours, while taxpayers would have to pick up bank losses even though the banks had caused the financial meltdown.

In spite of all the losses and heartache born by mortgagees, the home repossessions, the wiping out of savings of ordinary people around the world stretching from Iceland to Australia no senior American bank executive was indicted for any crime. Most kept their jobs – and the bonuses they’d ‘earned’ as a reward for producing high profits. The trend toward crony capitalism accelerated and the gaps between the rich and the ordinary widened.

The first Trump Presidency further widened those gaps in rather haphazard and (thankfully) ineffective ways.

Trump desperately wants the rich and powerful of the world (ally and foe alike) to acknowledge him as their equal, if not their better. To do that he believes he has to become rich, seriously rich. And he’s well on his way to doing that in ways that may well, in time, be found illegal. He’s also prepared to further impoverish working class Americans and the poor of the world to lavish tax breaks on the rich and powerful to win their support and gratitude.

Above all, he sought (and still seeks) to punish those whom he deems have slighted, argued against or disparaged him in the past.

Here is an insecure, narcissistic man with an insatiable craving for recognition. He will stop at nothing to achieve it.

Trump has chastised and sought to punish America’s closest allies while bending the knee to the strong men he respects (most notably Putin) or succumbed to the powerful who call his bluff (most notably President Xi).

Thanks to Trump’s vacuous volatility neither America’s long-standing allies, nor its current enemies can anymore afford to take America’s word at face value.

Trump Mk2 has already nearly spent all the soft power America accumulated since WW2. The whole world now knows that in Trump’s mind MAGA will only be successful if all other countries lose.

While all this has been happening in the US other democracies have had their own troubles to deal with.

Countries like the UK, France and Germany are all living through a period of voter discontent for reasons similar to those evident in the US; mediocre to poor economic performance, inflation, resentment toward immigrants, stagnating living standards, growing wealth inequality, racial and ideological divisions – and the fear of war. All these forces are pushing electorates to the right in the search of someone to blame for their disappointments – and hopefully to find some politician with quick and easy solutions to painlessly return them to their rightful and comfortable place in the sun.

Traditional democratic parties are suffering from this movement to populism. In the UK the PM’s baton went from Cameron to Theresa May to Boris Johnson to Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak and then over to Sir Keir Starmer, all in a less than a ten-year period. The polls indicate that the UK’s next PM could well be the populist Nigel Farage and his new Reform Party.

France, Italy, Germany are on populist paths to the right. Hungary already has a right-wing populist government (Trump quickly warmed to the flattery of Orban, Hungary’s PM). Right wing populism is growing in Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Sweden.

On top of these political problems the world had to cope with Covid and climate change.

Let’s look at how all these forces have impacted on and been handled in Australia. This includes looking at how we behave internationally and what we have (and haven’t) done on the domestic front.

AUSTRALIA TRAPPED IN A DANGEROUS THREESOME RELATIONSHIP

The Lucky Country isn’t so lucky anymore when it comes to our positioning in an increasingly fractious world. Our freedom to determine our own destiny as a nation is severely constrained by the fact we are locked into a dangerous three-member relationship.

We are the junior partner in a threesome. A threesome with the two most powerful nations on earth, nations which are bitter enemies, nations that might well go to war with each other to assert (China) or maintain (USA) its hegemony. We are the little nation in the middle who desperately tries to court (and stay in the good books of) both these warring giants because we are dependent on both of them in different ways.

In the short to intermediate term we are economically dependent on China. If China doesn’t buy our exports our economy will tank and our living standards fall. On the other hand we are increasingly dependent on America to defend us both militarily and in terms of upholding and propagating ‘liberal democratic values’ in a broader world where autocracy is on the rise.

If we skip the niceties of diplomatic and academic language for a moment, it’s fair to say we are stuffed if either, or both, our big partners decide to punish or abandon us.

In the past decade China has used trade as a weapon to punish us when displeased with anything we say or do. In wartime they could easily block the essential imports needs to keep Australia running. America too has punished us in different ways in times past when we have displeased them.

Both superpowers have giant and sensitive egos. It’s no mean feat to walk the tightrope between them. One slip and we’re in trouble. Australia has to tread softly, quietly and rather subserviently to avoid triggering either’s ire.

Some might agree with the above assessment in relation to China, but think it unfair when applied to the US. A little lesson from the Dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 (50 years ago) might help change their mind.

After the massive US bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong in 1972 Whitlam sent a letter to President Richard Nixon ‘suggesting’ it might be more ‘productive’ for the US to negotiate with the North Vietnamese than apply pressure via B-52 bombers. One of the tapes released in the Watergate Affair captured a conversation between Nixon and Henry Kissinger as to how to react to Whitlam’s letter. Both were ropable that Whitlam had dared to advise them. Both agreed to put Australia in its place by cutting off all communications with the Australian Embassy and insisting that communications from the Embassy to Australia had to pass through the State Department for a three-month period. When Kissinger asked Nixon if that might unduly upset Australia, Nixon replied he didn’t think so because ‘they (Australia) need us (far) more than we need them’.

Both the US (under Trump) and China (under Xi) would heartily agree with Tricky Dicky’s assessment of Australia’s true positioning in the international power game.

Australia may congratulate itself that it is a middle-power. A power that punches well above its weight in the international forums of the world on behalf of free trade, peace and humanitarian values. And that – to some extent – is true. But in the world of realpolitik it pays not to be carried away and seduced by one’s own virtuous and self-congratulatory rhetoric.

Remember Tony Abbott’s widely circulated boast that he looked forward to “shirt fronting” Putin when next they met? (shirt fronting – the Australian Rules tactic of attacking an opponent by running directly into their chest with the goal of knocking them to the ground). His posturing made him (and Australia) look a silly and immature would-be player on the world stage.

Turnbull was similarly maladroit in his initial handling of China. He was smart enough to realise this and change direction. His so called ‘reset-with-China’ strategy sought to reverse and repair the indelicacies he and his foreign affairs minister had first displayed in their initial attempt to “put China in its place”. His government’s repair strategy was only partially successful, but it was a step in the right direction. Turnbull’s successor, Morrison, jibbed and went back to playing it tough with China by mouthing off about his disapproval of Chinese ways – and by waving AUKUS under Beijing’s nose. Xi was not amused. China responded by imposing damaging trade sanctions on Australia.

On the other side of the world Turnbull found more success in his waltzing with Trump in his first term. He secured exemptions from US tariffs on steel and aluminium. Morrison too found greater success in his dealings with China’s foe. He, Biden (and Boris Johnson) co-fathered the birth of AUKUS. Such buddying-up, naturally enough, irritated China.

The advent of a far more autocratic, confident and quixotic second Trump Administration made it even more difficult for Australia – and an Albanese’s Labor Government-to please America while, at the same time, not upsetting an ever more powerful and assertive China.

During its first term Labor appeared slow to find its feet, rather quiet and hesitant (if not timid) in foreign affair matters. Domestic complications born of the Israeli-Palestinian War further complicated an already difficult situation. One could argue it totally understandable a new government would need time to work out a new way of expressing and advancing its interpretation of the Country’s national interest without alienating ‘the big two’.

But as time passed little happened and doubts grew that maybe Labor wasn’t up to the job. The latter feeling grew as Trump2 started thrashing around like an elephant in a China shop, breaking all conventions in his attempt to stamp himself as the world’s el numero uno. Our PM couldn’t even get a meeting with Trump. Cynics said this didn’t auger well for Australia. We were (they said) being snubbed. Obviously Trump didn’t like a leftist government with woke values or an Ambassador who’d publicly called the President an idiot. Australia’s stand on the war in Gaza didn’t help. Nor did the new governments semi rapprochement with China. Things were going downhill.

Then Albanese met with Trump in October. The outcomes of their face to face meeting were surprisingly good.

Both nations (at least temporally) recommitted to AUKUS subs. More importantly, plans for committing more US military assets to our region were advanced and fears of harsher US tariffs allayed. Australia did a mutually beneficial ‘deal’ with the US to supply America with rare earths. And pleasantries of the ‘best buddies’ kind were exchanged. All in all Albanese had successfully walked the tightrope. It would be unrealistic to think he could have done better.

Whether this success can be repeated in the future is highly problematic. The art of playing the willing vassal of two feuding masters would test the undoubted skills of Machiavelli on even his best of days.

AT HOME IT’S ALL ABOUT ME! ME AND MY PRIORITIES AS AN INDIVIDUAL, MY ENTITLEMENTS.

Internationally, Australia presents itself as a liberal democracy, a democracy which believes in free trade and humanitarian rights – a fair go for all; a nation which has no designs on depriving any other nation of anything, a nation that believes cooperation between nations benefits all.

It’s a very principled and virtuous stance. Would that we had the power to make other nations listen.

In spite of how well and skilfully Albanese/Wong have served Australia in the early days of their second term (in their simultaneous handling of China and Trump + rebonding and strengthening relations with PNG, Pacific Islanders and Indonesia + taking a fair and principled stance on the Israeli-Palestinian war) we should not get carried away by such successes.

In reality we remain but a well behaved and polite mouse that scurries around under the negotiating table in the near dark while the two giants that will determine our fate sit above trying to outstare each other under the full glare of TV cameras and the international press.

We (and other mice sized nations) can but nibble at their heels hoping to get them to shuffle their feet one way or the other to our advantage. Care must be taken not to nip those heels too hard. A mouse that roars too loudly, or nips too hard, is likely to be stamped on.

You might be heartened by the thought that, at home here in Australia, our political class has more freedom to govern, more freedom to move in the Country’s long-term interests. This might be wishful thinking.

The main, and first, aim of any politician or political party who wants to achieve anything (by way of helping steer the nation in directions they support) is to win power (as a government) or to influence government (by holding the balance of power).To win power a party has to win a majority of votes. To maximise their chances of winning a majority politicians have to convince voters they have the policies that they will benefit/please them most AND that their opponents policies will hurt/be detrimental to voter interests.

We voters love tax breaks, more and better free services in health, childcare, age care – and concessions and subsidies of all kinds. We voters hate tax increases (but can understand why others should pay them), we grumble at fee for service imposts (even when they’re small eg. $5 for a GP visit) or any government telling us we can’t immediately have what we think we’re entitled to.

In a consumer society like ours the cult of ‘individuality’ is dominant’. Most of us don’t evaluate parties and their policies as citizens by asking what is in the Country’s long-term interests. We approach the task of choice as consumers do; we evaluate the various party’s show-bags of promises and sweeteners on offer and go for the one we judge best meets our immediate needs or wants. Our vote is the only price they ask of us (or so they say ).

Some call this hip pocket voting. It’s more complex than that. Habit, prejudice, personal and family histories, gullibility, fear, love, hope and ignorance all play a role in deciding who to –(and who not) – to vote for. Nonetheless here’s a lot of truth in belief that most vote on the basis of ‘what’s in it for me?’ We live in a ‘what about me?’ society. That’s why our political class has become besotted with, and avid practitioners of, modern marketing techniques.

The fact that the big show comes to town every 36 months or so means our political class is perpetually thinking about how to win the next election. Yes, of course pollies want to do good things for the nation too. But you can’t do that if you don’t hold office or have insufficient numbers to lever government. Pragmatism comes first. As a consequence competing political groups develop narratives (ie. sales pitches) that follow Johnny Mercer’s (the American wartime lyricist) advice to “AC CENTU ATE THE POSITIVE, EL IM IN ATE THE NEGATIVE”. Don’t scare the horses while you’re feeding them sugar cubes.

Sure, even the most moral of politicians may occasionally massage the truth a little to keep their story attractive. Sometimes they even have to bend it. John Howard, for example, tried to explain to us the distinction between ‘core’ promises (which politicians are ethically obliged to keep) and ‘non-core’ promises (which are …well, sort of …promises that you don’t have to keep because they weren’t really promises in the first place!). I think what he was trying to say, in a palatable way, was the ends justify the means. Advertising men use a similar logic when seeking to legitimise their profession by claiming advertising isn’t about manipulation but rather is simply “the truth well told”. (Harrison McCann 1912).

MORE AND MORE NAVEL GAZING

The core political narratives of this century have increasingly focused on matters of individual rights and entitlements (gender, same sex marriage, gender job and pay equality gay rights, domestic and sexual violence).

WOKISM

Just think of the many scandals that grabbed so many headlines over those years.

The Brittany Higgins affair occupied our minds, took oodles of time and cost buckets of money year after year to end up satisfying no one, yet alone being seen to deliver justice for all.

It started with belated accusations of a junior staffer being raped by a colleague in the Minister for Defence’s office after a night on the turps. A long rolling out of lurid details followed. Prurient claims and counterclaims were banded about. Demonstrations and marches in support of Higgins amplified criticisms of the existing legal system’s bias against women. Departmental sackings and demotions were actioned. Accusations of an attempted cover up leaked. Allegations of the political weaponisation of the affair by Labor gained momentum, an in camera settlement of $2.4 million to Brittany Higgins triggered yet more controversy. An aborted criminal trial of the alleged rapist Bruce Lehrmann raised more questions, a civil defamation case brought by Lehrmann against Channel 10, News Corp (et al) found, on the balance of probabilities, Lehrmann had raped Higgins. An appeal by a flat-broke Lehrmann against that decision failed. In addition there was a review of behaviour of the Chief Prosecutor in the criminal trial of Lehrmann, followed by a review of the behaviour of the judge who reviewed the Chief Prosecutor’s behaviour.

Next came news stories of Lehrmann’s continuing louche behaviour (including another rape charge following a one-night stand in Toowoomba). Then we heard of Higgins and her new husband moving to France. Next we learnt of the ex-Minister of Defence (Senator Reynolds) taking action against Higgins and Shiraz (Higgins’ husband) for defamation. The awarding of damages to Reynolds (around $340,000 + legal costs of about a million dollars) left Higgins a near bankrupt. Reynolds has since moved on to suing the Commonwealth for breach of duty in handling its original $2.4 million payout to Higgins …and on and on it goes. The cost? Tens of millions in court costs, legal fees and damages, lost opportunities, ruined careers, sallied reputations, mental and health damage inflicted on a host of those involved…to achieve what?

The Tudge-Miller affair was another high-profile example of our preoccupation with personal matters involving gender justice.

Here a minister and a staffer had a consensual extramarital affair that didn’t work out. Miller complained about an imbalance of power in the relationship that led to her being bullied by Tudge and (in her workplace) being humiliated in front of colleagues. Miller (the female staffer) also accused Tudge of physical abuse citing an incident where she and Tudge had shared a hotel bed after a heavy night of drinking. An early morning phone call woke them both. Tudge told Miller not to answer the call because he wanted to sleep in. When Miller answered the phone he allegedly kicked her in the leg until she fell out of the bed. Tudge denied this but stood down. An internal investigation found Tudge had violated ministerial standards and awarded Miller $650,000. The Tudges have since divorced. Miller remains married and (according to latest reports)is working as a consultant to the department of education.

In another case Christian Porter (then The Attorney General ) was also sucked into a ‘he said-she said’ scandal. The friend of a suicide reported her friend told her she had been raped by Porter (a fellow school team debater) after a debate at Sydney University in 1988, over 30 years ago, when she was 16 and he 17. Porter strenuously denied this happened. The alleged rape was reported to police but the accuser never made a witness statement and the matter was dropped. The coroner (in accordance with the woman’s family wishes) saw no reason to initiate a full investigation. Porter, once a serious contender for becoming a future PM, left politics.

These were the years of many battles over individual rights, highlighted and powered by stories of transgressions and the search for justice.

In no particular order there was the Fuck Murdoch t-shirt incident where Grace Tame (2021 Australian of the year for her fight to reform laws which marginalised the voice of women who suffered sexual abuse) turned up at The Lodge to celebrate the 2022 winners.

Several male executives of big-brand companies attracted headlines alleging their abuse of power to bully, seduce or sexually force themselves on female (and sometimes male) colleagues and employees. Other allegations of a similar kind involved politicians, high profile celebrities, a handful of judges, a few senior bureaucrats, schoolteachers and childcare workers.

The once wronged were Mardi Gras organisers sought to exclude police from marching in their parade (as punishment for the police’s historical hostility toward gays) but judiciously withdrew in recognition of LGBTQ members in the Force.

Battles on fields other than sexual abuse were simultaneously taking place. Same sex marriage was a battle won in 2017. The fight for gender employment and pay equality continued to advance. The struggle to end domestic violence gained ground.

This year we’ve seen one female Senator (Faruqi) suing another (Hanson) for the latter tweeting (if you don’t like things here) “why don’t you piss off and go back to Pakistan”. Senator Lydia Thorpe’s adolescent antics, the Deeming-Pesutto debacle (and many others) example how oversensitive we’ve become.

Such preoccupations with individual rights on so many fronts, legitimate as they are, swung the pendulum of public narrative ever more toward virtuous navel gazing fueled by wokism, indignant cancel culture edicts, rising temperatures and a preference for talking rather than finding and actioning pragmatic solutions.

The Voice referendum was marketed in such a poorly explained and sanctimonious way that it secured the referendum’s defeat. People became even more sensitive about ‘their’ rights vis a vis the rights of others. More blame, guilt, anger and frustration – the symptoms of divisiveness – surfaced and spread throughout the land.

The outbreak of the latest chapter in the near hundred-year-old Israel-Palestinian war further exacerbated racial tensions to trigger yet more debate as to who was being unjust to whom.

The Jewish community screamed they were suffering a latter-day pogrom. Palestinian supporters decried the genocide Israel was actioning in Gaza. A Special Envoy against Antisemitism was appointed, soon to be counterbalanced by a Special Envoy against Islamophobia. Taxpayers were now funding institutionalised bickering with no mechanism for those opposing Envoys to talk, yet alone negotiate with each other. Both Envoys submitted their recommendations to government – and pressed their causes in public online and in the media. Universities were being told what student protestors on campus could and couldn’t say or do if universities were to avoid funding penalties.

Recent high immigration numbers have further complicated an already volatile debate about how all we different peoples (indigenous, those of colonial stock, post war migrants and more recent arrivals from all around the world) can avoid the frictions that could easily produce further divisions in society.

BACK IN THE REAL WORLD

Meantime, while all this navel gazing and squabbling about rights raged the economy was sailing into dangerous waters. Inflation was on the rise, living standards falling, productivity stagnant and energy prices rising.

Home ownership had become a near impossible goal for young families. Education costs, insurance premium increases and higher taxes born of bracket creep all impacted to further shrink the purchasing power of wage earner incomes.

“An Alarming Rise in the Price of Soap”

A cost of living crisis had arrived seemingly out of the blue.

Economic pain triggered the realisation that while we had been arguing about our rights we, as a nation, had failed to sustain the health of the economy. About the only thing keeping the economy afloat was increased government spending – funded by borrowing to record levels.

The policy indecisiveness of successive Australian governments in matters economic has, over many years, resulted in big business postponing key investment decisions. Without certainty as to government’s long-term objectives, big business, naturally enough, focused on making short term profits while and where it could.

Governments, similarly, have long focused on developing policies that will hopefully win them the next election. Our political class talks long run but acts short term. When Bill Shorten was brave (or naive) enough to ask Australians bear some pain to put the long-term needs of the nation first he lost what was thought to be an unlosable election to an unpopular Morrison.

The ‘short term opportunism’ mindset of all players (profits now for big business, votes now for politicians and show bags now for voters) has had severe economic consequences. We, as a nation, have been walking backwards into the future – and it shows.

We rank low as an internally sustainable economy, we make few of the goods we need to sustain our lifestyle. We carry only a month’s supply of petrol, diesel and aviation fuel. We don’t manufacture much anymore. We import all our new cars, trains, computers and phones, a lot of white goods and household appliances, nearly all solar panels, solar batteries and wind turbines, machinery – even clothes and Xmas decorations.

We no longer have a capacity to make high-end defence equipment such as ships or aircraft.

Our economy is weak because we are import dependent and export insecure. We pay our way in the world by digging up and exporting iron ore, gas, coal and (in the food area) beef, other meats, grains and sugar (in that order).

And we don’t add much value to what we dig up or grow before we export it. What’s more we sell our natural assets at low, low prices.

Few Australians would know how little we get. Currently Australia, for example, is paid around 43 cents per $100 of revenue generated by natural gas companies (see Senator David Pocock’s Post or SMH Oct. 12 2025). When Turnbull was PM Japanese consumers were paying less for our gas than consumers in Victoria. Such perfectly avoidable absurdness are not uncommon. Overall, our economy looks more like that of a developing country than a developed one.

A DATED AND INEFFICIENT POLITY

Such cloistering does not always equip them with the knowledge or experience (yet alone the expertise) to contribute much to the development of sound economic policies.

FASHION: THE BROBDIGNAG BONNET

FASHION: GIVING SUCCOUR TO THE POOR

This century Australia’s been in a devolutionary spiral driven by two interlocking forces; the trend toward becoming a consumer + individual rights society of ever-increasing expectations, a society of entitlements. A society where ‘we want it all and we want it now’ – AND – a political class that has lost the will to govern in the national interest in favour of adopting the modus operandi of salesmen desperate, and willing, to tell any story to win office for their brand/party. That done our pollies are quick to hand over the implementation of their blueprints to a fumbling class of bureaucratic Mandarins who manage to screw up anything they touch or attempt to deliver (eg. Robodebt).

– “When leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”–
Edmund Burke

WHEN THE LUCKY COUNTRY RUNS OUT OF LUCK

In good economic times this model sort of works, governments can get away with soothing promises (eg. cheaper power prices soon, better aged care soon, better and cheaper housing soon, more skilled immigrants soon, a modern defence force soon) backed by giving sweeteners, a little something, to everybody to keep voters happy in the short term.

In bad economic times (times of real and sustained cost of living pressures like those we’re in at the moment) this carpetbagging strategy doesn’t work.

Voters quickly lose confidence in governments that pinch their hip-pocket nerve for too long – or keep failing to deliver what voters believe to be their ever-growing list of God given entitlements.

Out with the old, in with the new is the electorate’s response to disappointment.

After cycling through the major parties without success voters are (as they are in many other western democracies) turning to populist parties (like Farage’s Reform Party in the UK or Hanson’s One Nation here at home) or populist leaders (eg. Boris Johnson in the UK or Trump in America) hoping such new bloods are capable of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. They rarely do. In fact, it soon becomes obvious their new champion is failing to deliver their halcyon promises. When it dawns on voters their new hero won their vote by telling them just what they wanted to hear, (that is, by lying). Faith in our political system drops another notch.

Once in power populists pursue their own agendas not their electorate’s. Trump’s switch from posing as the champion of the downtrodden (before his election) to being best-buddy of the richest people in the ‘swamp’ (only a month after he took office for a second time) is a case history of how hope and gullibility are often but two sides of the same coin.

Edmund Burke, the18th century Anglo-Irish politician and philosopher) long ago warned how demagoguery can both lift and inspire a people in the pursuit of a great and progressive cause but also legitimise the infliction of such pain and barbarity on others in the process they destroy the ideal they sought and struggled for in the first place. He was talking about the French Revolution. His was a warning to not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, a warning not to destroy the ‘glues’ (the values, traditions, manners and institutions) that hold societies together.

When a government dissolves those glues to advance its own goals it is on the road to authoritarianism and suppression, dysfunctionality-or chaos. Trump is taking America down that road. We (the citizenry of Australia) have to ensure Australia doesn’t also take that road.
HOW NOT TO BECOME A LEMMING

And how do we do that?

Let’s start by acknowledging our political class is not going to lead the way in reforming itself. It’s happy to continue as is because the current vote buying way of playing politics is all they know, and because it works for them.

What the country needs to break out of decades of the treading-water cycle of mediocrity we’ve been locked into is a new breed of political leadership.

The country needs leaders who are,

• motivated to serve the nation, to put the long-term interest of the Country first.
• people of talent and vision, not just ambitious game players, opportunists, lily-guilders or dreamers.
• people who practice what they preach.
• people who are brave enough to tell voters we sometimes have to bear hardship and deprivations if we are to build and the kind of democracy we want, people who remind us that to enjoy the fruits of democracy we must tend the tree that bears them.
• people who are prepared to risk damaging their own career prospects to do the right thing, people of principle.
• people who regard their job a vocation, not just a path to personal power and wealth.
• people who try to unify the nation in pursuit of common goals rather than divide the nation in pursuit of their own.
• people who realise words and legislation are but the first steps toward building a better country. Good leadership requires leaders to follow through to make sure policies become reality.
• people who listen – and try to accommodate those with differing perspectives, not people whose sole objective is to squash those who differ so they can have everything their way.

and finally,

• people who are prepared to admit their mistakes rather than always blame someone else for what goes wrong.

How many of the politicians you know of meet these standards? How many of our Prime Ministers?

I’ll guess your answer is ‘not many’. Alfred Deakin? John Curtin? Bob Hawke? Ben Chifley? Paul Keating?…or maybe Howard or Whitlam? That’s not many off a list of 31.

Few Australians under the age of 40 would even remember the names, yet alone the achievements and failures, of all seven I’ve just mentioned?

Which of the seven PMs of this century (Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison and Albanese) do you believe met (or meets), or came close to meeting, the leadership criteria outlined above?

Where are our equivalents of Washington, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and FDR ? Our equivalents of leaders like Churchill, Lloyd George, Attlee, Thatcher or Angela Merkel? Where?
Where are our future leaders to come from? Where are they to learn what it takes to be statesmen and stateswomen? Who will be their mentors, their role models? That’s a topic that’s beyond us answering here. The important thing for us to emphasise here is that it is not solely the responsibility of others to do those jobs for us. We, as voters, have a very important, indeed a critical role, to play in fostering the rise of the type of people we need to lead the nation.

We can fulfil that responsibility by taking great care in who we vote for at election time.

If we vote out of habit, prejudice, ignorance, convenience, indifference – or solely in own short term personal interests we are supporting the very system we complain doesn’t work for us or the nation, a system which has repeatedly failed to deliver the type of leaders we say we want and need.

Voters can and should pressure parties by insisting they field quality candidates not just party or self-promoting careerists.

The electoral law makes it compulsory to vote for someone, even if you think none of the candidates are up to scratch. Often that means choosing the least bad option. That’s not the way to encourage our political class to improve its ways. It rewards complacency, both ours (as voters) and theirs (as politicians).

It’s all too easy to forget citizenship not only entitles us to rights, it also requires us to meet our duties (beyond paying taxes) – to abide by the social contract. True, it takes some time and effort to become a reasonably informed, engaged and active voter. But unless we accept that responsibility we can hardly complain if the self-interested move in to run the show to achieve their own objectives. Their interest in political matters will trump our virtual disinterest. A second quote from Edmund Burke makes the point more eloquently.

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”–
Edmund Burke

There’s no way to build a strong, progressive and equitable democracy without the active participation of an informed citizenry.

Over to you. It’s your choice to engage…or not.

MERRY CHRISTMAS