Thinking about the last election results and then considering previous election results, I have formed the opinion that Australia is a most unusual country because it seems to resist any progress and would like to keep its colonial status.
There is, of course the obvious matter of having a foreign Queen as our head of state but this is only one of a number of things that seem to back up my theory that we have not yet reached the stage where we are really ready for self government of a world class standard!
Looking back at previous governments starting with Chifley, we had a man that successfully took that country through the second world war and then started the first really big scheme for the development of this country, i.e. the Snowy Mountain Hydro Scheme. Unfortunately, whilst successfully handling the war he managed to upset the “mother country” which is not good for a colony so he was tossed out at the first opportunity and replaced by Menzies. This suited the electorate because we were then in a situation where we had suffered little structural damage to the infrastructure of the nation so we could live a very comfortable life style. Or so it appeared. However, the Menzies government was ham strung by its marriage to the Country Party so it couldn’t do anything to improve our status and Menzies was more interested in becoming the Admiral of the seven ports in England which by this time were not near the sea. So we marked time till things began to get not so good, to stand still, especially for 20 years means that we were actually going backwards.
Typical Conservative solution, have a war, so we joined the USA in their illegal war in Vietnam. Naturally, there was no exit strategy so this war eventually became a catalyst for a change of government!
The change in government brought in the Whitlam government and this government passed more legislation in its two truncated terms than Menzies did in his 20 years. The changes; however, again were too fast for the electorate so the representative of the foreign head of state was not only allowed to throw our elected government out of office but the electorate actually endorsed the move, not withstanding the move was based on betrayal of the government by a Premier of Queensland that was ready to break the recognised convention when replacing a Senate seat vacated mid term.
With the replacement of Whitlam we then went into another period when nothing got done. The treasurer of the new government even seemed to have an idea as to what was required but once again the ruling of the coalition partner wouldn’t let the changes take place. Howard talked of these changes but never had the ability to make them so we drifted along till once again things got so bad that the electorate again realized that a change of government was essential.
The next government was the Hawke/ Keating government which had to set about over coming all the lost time for progress. This government once again introduced all the changes that Howard had talked about as a treasurer but hadn’t done. Towards the end of the Hawke/ Keating government Keating had got the controls right for a boom time economy and was expecting to be in charge of a government that would have a surplus to enable him to institute his visions for the future, such things as better cities, better education, better hospital etc. However, Keating didn’t bargain on the wishes of the electorate to just drift along and they voted him out and put in a Coalition Government led by Howard, the man who knew the answers but didn’t know how to do the job.
We now have the Howard government which reaped the advantages of the controls, or lifting of controls, by Keating and we had the desired surplus, the problem was now, we had a government like previous coalition governments which didn’t want to create any changes which would make us look ready for true self government. So again we marked time and the surplus actually was eventually like a medal, it did nothing and we had no benefit from it. Finally, the same thing started to occur, standing still was tantamount to going backwards and things weren’t quite as they should be, so back to the old ploy, have a war. Again we joined an illegal USA war but this wasn’t quite so popular so we tried another ploy, we created the illusion that we were in danger of being overrun by a few hundred boat people. As a consequence of this we now had the surplus being spent on locating the boat people off shore in expensive accommodation whilst they awaited confirmation of their refugee status, which most got, and therefore they ended up in Australia. Politically sound because it suited the electorate that wanted to be protected from all these hundreds of boat people. Eventually, the electorate again realized that a change of government was required and we got the Rudd/ Gillard government.
The Rudd/Gillard government was unfortunate in that it got into power just as the international wealth bubble burst. they inherited a situation which needed quick and decisive action to avoid a calamity. Fortunately they had a surplus available which the previous government had neglected to use so they could spend up big and avoid the major set backs felt by other nations. This was quite a success story and was the envy of most other countries around the world and one would have thought that the electorate would have been appreciative, but no, they very nearly tossed out the government that had once again done something that was grand and internationally admired. The electorate seemed to rather listen to the crap put out by the Coalition that they wouldn’t have spent up and got us into debt, the coalition doesn’t realize that a surplus isn’t a good thing in itself, it means that we are being over taxed or the government isn’t using the money collected to do the things required to keep the country moving forward. So again, if Abbott were to get into government we would be marking time whilst the rest of the world moves forward.
When will Australia accept that we need to move forward and we can if we start to think beyond our hip pocket and look to the long term future for our country. There is so much we could do with the resources we have. We want someone in the Lodge with a vision for the future and the will to put that vision into practice.
With regard to the boat people, it seems to me that it would be more economical and humane to give them a short course on the Australian way of life and laws and then locate them in places where there are jobs for them. Then, if they can go 5 years without transgressing any of our norms, give them permanent residence visas. However, if they fail the test, they should be deported without any recourse to our legal system.