"But we are starting to go wrong"
No, Australian has already gone wrong, and is well down the path. It will take a strong leader to pull it out of the knee-deep muck it's currently in.
Mem Fox said that PC was just another name for politeness. What on earth has politeness to do with the stifling of free speech and the constant efforts to engineer and sanitise our behavour. The truly dishonest attempts to rewrite the history of this country, humankind, climate and the world in general is the worst of the lot.
- Free speech starts to become lost, and governmental institutions are used to moderate (control) free expression for various reasons (execuses, such as to moderate hate speech);
- Electricty supplies become unreliable;
- Infrastructure decision-making becomes erratic and reactive to emergencies as longer term planning becomes dysfunctional;
- Budgets go out of control, and expenses cannot be controlled;
- Bureacrats become ascendent through delegated institutional power to governmental agencies which then consolidate their power and autonomy from democratic influence
- Special interests gather up their power and compliance with democratic laws become optional for them;
A great summary of a nation in decline, Greg.
And, like you, many of us are very sad to observe it.
And terrorists are allowed into the country by the compassionate Left and then paid to live here!
Poor fellow my country: A book that was for a long time boycotted/forbidden in Australia and still very difficult to obtain via the libraries.
A book that should be on the top of the "Must read" list for our high school students.
@Ken Gee thanks Ken, who would have known.?
Ken, let me guess, you are either a govt employee or you are unemployed.
Three things constantly baffle me:
The high number of mad people in Australia - they must be mad to vote green/left
How these mad people justify their delusional sense of superiority
The attraction of the hair shirt and ashes lifestyle - you're as likely to see a smiling green as a smiling jogger
@Brian Australia now has a world record for time passed since last recession, all due to the resources mega-boom, our world class low cost deposits and our proximity to China. Unbelievably instead of banking this one off benefit for investment in future generations like Norway and others we have pissed it away in middleclass welfare. It will take an economic crisis to knock some sense into the electorate broadly. Too much of the electorate spend their time worrying about identity politics by sheer virtue of the fact they can afford to. We have become weak and boy do overseas interests buying our ports, infrastructure and farmland know it. Question is when it happens and how far we progress down this mad path before we our short sightedness comes back to bite us.
Too true James. As much as people love to laud John Howard, the huge boost to middle class welfare began (unnecessarily) in his final term. Howard should have (as promised) handed over to Costello who was a far better manager of finances and wanted to set up a fund such as Norway has. With refreshed leadership the LNP may have even won the 2007 election and saved us from the RGR fiasco and the major mismanagement of our economy (particularly during the GFC) & borders that followed.
Government in Australia has been dysfunctional for the past decade. It is impossible to clean up the mess with an obstructionist Senate and the Opposition constantly trying to cause chaos so that the focus is always on minor matters & nothing substantial or necessary gets done.
Turnbull is partly to blame because of his half hearted leadership. The Media is adding greatly to this toxic affair.
And...amazingly, far too many average citizens are completely unaware of just how precarious the national situation is & just how quickly it could spiral out of control. They are disinterested in politics (who could blame them in many ways) and immersed in their consumerism and everyday trivia.
I cannot see this ending in any other way but badly. Donald Horne commented wisely 'Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck.' What happens when these second-rate people are still running the country but the luck runs out?
We are down to mostly third-rate politicians now unfortunately.
"the Human Rights Commission is the enemy of free speech and the enemy of a free media". And complicit with this is the national broadcasters, ABC and SBS.
Increasing public and private debts show that our government budget is out of control, and so are our private budgets.
Debt is the first step to handing soveriegnty and control to creditors.
You can stick a fork in Australia. It is done.
A timely warning Greg . I lean to the right of politics and my son to the left . We had a similar conversation to this on the weekend . Both of us have great fears for the future freedom of his primary school age children and their ability to find work in the Australia we appear to be creating .
There are signs middle Australia share these concerns but I fear the left have now gained so much control of our decision making processes by quiet infiltration that the horse may now be out of the stable and is happily grazing down the back paddock while the stable door remains swinging in the breeze.
At least we have control of our borders.
@Anthony When Shorten is elected and makes Anne Ally foreign minister how do you reckon that will play out???
Border control will be non existent.
@Anthony ..yes, but borders which unfortunately (due to Labor's irresponsible ideological behaviours) now enclose many dangerous people and many others who left a life they hated only to come here to try to convert our way of lives to that which they left.
@Shane Think that could be the subject of a Stephen King novel!
@Anthony For now. Won't in a year or so.
A Political Crime is being perpetrated against Australia and its people by a Cabal of Left forces; including the ALP/Green/ABC/Media/Academia/Lawfare guerrillas and the Public Service Bureaucracy; who are shoving down our throats their Identity and Global Warming politics and hysteria.
When these extreme politics and Cargo Cult hysterics become policies; the results are; toxic community interactions; a de-energising of our economy; and a creeping empoverishment of our Country; where our Children will struggle finding jobs and purpose within a decaying Society (see SA).
Argentina; the Phillipines...here we come.
We will pay a high and bitter price for this indulgence in Vanity Politics.
Poor Fellow my Country indeed Greg.
We are stuffed! (A)
@Alex Sadly, I have finally come to the conclusion that Australia will ultimately drop to a level akin to Argentina, a country where the infrastructure is crumbling and the wealth has disappeared. I never thought it could happen here. We're well on the way and the coming generations will feel the pain.
@Alex True but we need good, strong leaders on the Right side of politics who, day after day, convey a clear, concise message to everyday Australians. We get dithering, waffling, fence-sitting and populist grandstanding.
South Australian disease is infecting the whole country....rampant ideology, featherbedding inefficient defence industries and most of all self confected minor party politicians like Xenophon that can control balance of power senate votes. As a result little gets done except that which benefits South Aust and meets his narrow view of the world. Elections are useless now and people despair about democracy. It used to be the case that you take policies to the election and a majority of seats provides a mandate for action and we get on with it. Now parliament and govt is relentless conflict, road blocks, stunts, name calling and havoc. Yep got to be a better model than our current parliamentary democracy.
Greg doesn't say but he knows where we're heading. So do I. We are in that unique situation where our political system has not got the flexibility to move forward by democratic means in any foreseeable future. God help us save our precious democracy before the unthinkable becomes the only option.
It is ignorance of the alternatives which makes people dismissive of the system they live under and how that evolved, because it didn't just happen!
It is almost as if, too comfortable, they yearn for hardship and struggle, of the kind which includes starvation and the murder or imprisonment of dissenters, obviously, given the still active enthusiasm for communism or the romanticisation of oppressive and dictatorial governments. I am sure that there are enough people with personal experience who sought the freedom of this country, who could help them out with some cold hard facts!
Until we start teaching history with some seriousness, as it pertains to where we are and how really lucky we are, this will just continue.
We, the increasingly discontented and alarmed masses need a Leader. Dutton, Bernardi, Hanson, Roberts, Abbott all come across as blithering, gibbering idiots. Where is the articulate, passionate person who can galvanise us and lead us to a saner Australia ? Once they appear then the Australian "deplorables" will rise up and destroy this nonsense.
@Bill Most of the above make sense. With identity politics, no-one in the centre or the right is electable, as the Left will use it's MSM connections to destroy them.
When the opinions of the only science educated members of parliament are ignored because they do not agree with ideology, we have a proble.
When the opinions of the only PM ever to sleep in Aboriginal camps has his opinions on poverty and equity ignored and is booted in favour of an out of touch silver tail, we have a problem.
When most tax payers recieve Government assistance, the few effective tax payers left have a problem.
When the biggest employer in the nation is the Public Service, and it continues to grow exponentially, we have a problem. Who pays for it?
@Bill Not fair to describe Dutton as 'blithering'. In Parliament yesterday he was devastating at Question Time. But that said, we do need a leader who can articulate a coherent vision and build acceptance of that. John Howard could and, to be fair, Turnbull is now trying to with some success but is still short of what we actually need and of course, as evident in these columns, he has his irrational haters who repeatedly use Shorten tactics of making baseless allegations.
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