The Coalition will go into the next election on the back of what is expected to be a strong budget. There will be figures and announcements that back up their mantra of jobs and growth, lower taxes, and a surplus budget.
So if we are doing so well, why are 13.2% of the population (17.3% of children) living in poverty?
Why are 110,000 people homeless?
Why is the life expectancy of Indigenous people 10 years less than non-Indigenous people?
Why do our children rack up a large debt to gain the qualifications to provide the skilled labour we need?
Why are hospital waiting lists growing?
Why is home ownership falling?
Why are we subjecting our elderly to abuse from untrained staff?
Why do so many of our young people commit suicide?
Why are our disabled still excluded from contributing to society?
Why are we continually told about old people freezing/boiling to death because they cannot afford to turn on their appliances?
After 28 years of continuous growth, unemployment supposedly at 4.9%, years of lowering the tax rates, and a budget surplus (albeit largely based on a temporary windfall of higher than expected commodity prices), why are an increasing number of Australians being left behind?
We hear a lot about the importance of a strong economy but little emphasis is placed on the benefits of a happy society.
Whilst governments recognise the value of investing in infrastructure, they seem to ignore the value of investing in people.
I was going to say they throw money around like it’s water – except under the stewardship of the Coalition, water has become more precious than money.
We spend hundreds of billions buying war machinery but we can’t increase Newstart and Youth Allowance and the aged pension.
We give billions out in contracts with no tender process and no follow-up assessment while we cut the unemployed off from any payment if they don’t jump through all the hoops imposed on them weekly.
Companies who make billions in profit pay no tax but welfare recipients are pursued mercilessly for decades’ old potential debt.
Despite record company profits and low unemployment, wages remain stagnant.
We import workers to fill skills shortages but we can’t provide free tertiary education to skill our own workforce to meet the needs of the future.
We let developers denude the landscape but we cannot build affordable public housing.
We spend hundreds of millions on advertising and awareness campaigns on domestic violence but we close down refuges and defund legal advisory and support groups.
We spend billions of dollars locking people up for addiction-related ‘crimes’ but we cannot fund rehabilitation centres in the regions.
We have the money to fund religious school chaplains in state schools but not to fund a full-time youth counsellor trained to recognise and refer mental health issues.
We can afford to pay billions to consultants but we cannot afford to employ public servants with experience and expertise to provide independent advice to government.
We talk a lot about innovation and fund all sorts of ‘hubs’ and committees as we build an inferior national broadband network.
We can spend money on subsidies for fossil fuels but blame subsidies for renewables for rising power prices.
Instead of charging polluters for the pollution they produce, we spend billions on emissions reduction as we watch them rise every year.
Over 250 years ago, Edmund Burke, who is widely regarded as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism, gave a speech when he was elected to Parliament as a member for Bristol.
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests, which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole—where not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member, indeed; but when you have chosen him he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament.
The winner-take-all result where the party or Coalition with the majority of seats has all the power just does not work. Politicians are focused on beating their opponents rather than working collaboratively to do what is in the best interests of the nation. And increasingly, it is attracting those who are in it for themselves.
We must break the influence of vested interests and lobbyists who, by donating to a political party, can buy a whole bloc of votes.
We must invest in a public service capable of giving frank and fearless advice based on real evidence and who have the resources to oversee and assess the results from the expenditure of public money.
But first and foremost, we must elect people whose focus is on facilitating all Australians to make the best contribution they can to our society and supporting them to lead happy fulfilling lives in a healthy environment.
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