I am fairly sure that when, at the beginning of WWII, Britain established a War Cabinet to decide strategies and policies to enable the country to prevent invasion, and supply and provision troops to fight in Europe, while at the same time ensuring that there was enough food to go round at home and the factories could be contributing to the war effort, the first question asked was not “How much will it cost?”

Had it actually been asked, the answer that would have come back, very swiftly, would have been “Whatever it takes!”

The climate has declared war on us, and we are ignoring the need to respond suitably, wasting time asking stupid questions like “How long is a piece of string?” instead of the not so stupid ones like “What price do you put on keeping a child alive and healthy?”

What is more, our governments are trying to silence those calling for action!

In the NT we are about to vote in a bye-election. A community group has surveyed the candidate’s views on whether fracking in the NT should be allowed. They intended to publicise the findings, to ensure voters knew in advance what the candidates’ views are when deciding how to vote.

Restrictions are being put in place to prevent this!

Why?

It is quite normal for there to be public forums* where candidates are questioned, the media attend and the public is kept informed.

So why insist that a community group has to be registered and subjected to surveillance of its financial resources, and its political affiliations if any, before it can conduct a campaign as described above?

Even more so when the issue is not really political.

After all – people on all sides of politics are divided between being convinced that manmade climate change is reality and being still undecided or unaccepting over the issue.

In fact – where exactly does politics come into it?

If you are a rusted-on supporter of either Labor or one of the Coalition partners, you just follow the party line. Why bother to think for yourself when all the decisions have been made for you, for generations, by people whose views your forefathers have always followed?

However, there is a groundswell of opinion in Australia, as well as in other countries, that the cosy relationship between governments and global corporations with their generous-to-a-fault donations is damaging the people’s trust in government.

We have had enough recent examples of blatant corruption in government and total refusal to acknowledge that working for your party’s benefit is not exactly why you were elected.

Decisions are made which are clearly for the benefit of donors and blatant pork-barrelling is a regular feature of pre-election behaviour.

Australians should expect better than that – particularly if we want the best future possible for our children.

Did any of the Liberal Party examine in detail ScoMo’s work history in New Zealand and NSW before he entered politics? (If you have yet to do so, you will find it quite instructive!) Judging by that history, he will cease to be PM before his term is up! After all – he has quit pretty well every position he has ever been employed in before his contract was up and his entry into politics was not really on merit – unless skulduggery is a desirable characteristic!

And if he was Malcolm Turnbull’s friend, I will eat my hat!

But all that is a side-track from the serious issue, which is that most of us have children, many with their own children and the future for the generations following us is looking more and more grim.

We are living on borrowed time – their time – because our lack of action is guaranteeing that their future living conditions will be much less tolerable than ours have been.

I am certain that we must exert ever-increasing pressure to force the government to initiate genuine action to transit away from fossil fuels as fast as possible.

How?

Through people power, civil disobedience, non-violent resistance to accepting bad laws.

We do not need to go to the bloody lengths of the French Revolution to achieve our aim. However, we have just as much justification as they had to throw out our current ruling party and insist on employing expert advisers to put together an action agenda which minimises forcing people into unemployment.

Goodness knows, the useless mob who are supposed to be helping the unemployed to find work at present should be the first to find themselves out of a job, along with those who are involved with Robodebt and the cashless welfare card!

Coalition governments have been rabid supporters of privatisation, and the minute you replace public servants with private employees, whose first duty is to make a profit for shareholders, then the service offered is immediately downgraded.

Capitalism and wealth creation have benefitted a very small group of now very wealthy people by forcing more and more into poverty and worse.

And all the while those in charge have failed to keep their eyes on the ball of climate change.

Now it is crunch time, and it is up to you and me to ensure that we at least try to pass on to our children a half-decent world.

Are you up for it?

Talking time is over.

Once more – this is my 2020 New Year Resolution:

“I will do everything in my power to enable Australia to be restored to responsible government.”

*’fora’ for the pedantic!