Risible remedies for Australia’s ‘decline’

Among the messages that land in my inbox every day is a newsletter titled The Conservative which describes itself as a “weekly round-up of news and opinion on the leadership crisis in Australia”.

According to the publication, this crisis extends not just to politics, but to business, education, the Public Service, universities, churches and civil society.

“There is no leadership in our country. Nothing is being fixed. We have reform-free Governments, paralysis in public debate and widespread frustration amongst ordinary people. The country is drifting steadily towards national decline on every front.”

Phew, did I miss something? Yes there was a power outage in my suburb on Sunday. Is that the steady national decline they are talking about?

Apart from maintaining this massive crisis exists, The Conservative has some suggestions on how to fix it – plenty of them. Here are just a few.

No person to be eligible to stand for Parliament unless they have worked for 10 years in a ‘real job’. The Conservative does not outline what ‘a real job’ entails, but definitely excluded are union officials, and workers for a political party.

Then, when MPs jump through these hoops and find themselves settled into a seat at Parliament, they are to be limited to three terms in the Lower House and two in the Senate, signalling that “political representation is not a career” rather “a temporary period of service”.

Public Servants are not exempt from The Conservative’s term limits. They can serve only 10 years in the job, although excluded are teachers, nurses, police officers, cleaners and power generation engineers — “none of these people call themselves Public Servants” (actually most do and are proud to do so).

For the chop would be those who “devise policy and execute, communicate, monitor, evaluate and report it” after 10 years they would be instructed, rather unhelpfully, to “move on” (are you listening APS?)

One wonders how Ministers with no more than a few years of experience in Parliament, supported by Public Servants who are on their way out almost before they have learnt what they are doing, are going the fare on the national and international stage.

Imagine how this collection of tyros will handle complex Budget negotiations or hold their own at the United Nations against the likes of Putin and Xi?

There’s a lot more about banning Royal Commissions and capping public sector pay, but I am sure you have heard enough. I certainly had. 

I suppose the advent of Donald Trump and his particular brand of politics and political discourse has brought these people out of the woodwork, but they shouldn’t be laughed off.

Those behind this publication will presumably be working away to promote their crackpot ideas at the next Federal election.

As we should know by now, crackpots sometimes get up, especially in the Australian system where, as The Conservative gleefully points out, it is possible to gain Senate selection with as little as two per cent of the vote.

That could leave a future Coalition Government seeking the support of these two percenters to form a Government. One only needs to look at the developing situation across the Tasman to realise what might result.

So it’s not enough for the vast majority of us to dismiss The Conservative’s crazy ideas. Those behind this publication are deadly serious about wanting to get their hands on the levers of power, and we should be just as serious in ensuring it never happens.