The election campaign consists of appeals to the base-selfishness of voters who don’t seem to want leaders who will rock the boat too much but will complain about them nonetheless.
Can our leaders really reduce the price of lettuce?
That and other pie in the sky expectations were canvassed in last night’s Channel Nine “Great Debate” between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese.
Both leaders took the gloves off in a shouty encounter that generated more heat than light.
Both argued they can give us cheap and free stuff and somehow keep our debt, which is skyrocketing to $1 trillion, under control.
Perhaps we are part of the problem – looking at the election in terms of what’s in it for me – because that is what Albo and ScoMo were clearly pandering to.
Perhaps we deserve the leaders we get. Perhaps we are a bigger part of the problem than we realise.
Last night’s spectacle of argy bargy will not move votes, only reinforce Australians’ low opinion of politicians.
In my view, Australia continues to drift towards another election without the real issues confronting our nation properly debated.
We have a crisis on four fronts not adequately addressed by either side of politics:
- Public policy continues to mitigate against the family, we are unable to deal with human rights for the unborn, we ignore enablers of violence such as pornography, we have legalised euthanasia and we teach toxic gender-fluid ideology in schools.
- Cancel culture. Freedom of religion and speech is under threat from woke ideology which permeates schools, universities, media, big tech and big corporations and is enforced by an archipelago of commissions and tribunals.
- Energy and economic. Both sides of politics sell us an energy policy that can’t provide affordable energy security, as Europe and California are discovering.
- The Chinese Communist Party’s planned militarisation of the Pacific is a huge threat we are only just waking up to.
Cost of living was rightly prominent last night.
But none of us want to acknowledge that our runaway inflation is less a product of the war in Ukraine than it is because of free government money being poured like petrol on the dumpster fire of pandemic over-reaction.
How can we address cost of living when both sides of politics are committed to eschewing cheap and abundant coal and gas and refuse to embrace nuclear energy?
Here the Greens and teal “independents” are driving policy in an illogical direction which suits rich people who can afford to virtue signal on climate but oppresses people in the suburbs with unaffordable electricity.
We can’t have jobs and manufacturing without affordable and reliable energy and both major parties are frittering away Australia’s competitive advantage as an energy superpower by installing wind turbines and solar panels which cannot power a modern economy.
The key to reducing cost of living is a vision for energy.
The key to ensuring young people can get into a house is land supply – something Australia has plenty of yet this is barely discussed.
If we want to tackle violence against women and children, we should have pro-family policies - policies which favour mum, dad and the kids as the basic group unit of society.
This doesn’t mean we ignore others, it just means we do our best to support the model which provides the best security for children and the least prospect of violence against women.
But loyalty and faithfulness is old-fashioned as we prefer sexual licence and keeping options open.
Political correctness means we discriminate against stay-at-home parents as money is poured into every form of childcare choice except the choice to care for one’s own kids in one’s own home.
Women’s issues are high on the agenda but there is no discussion on a major cause of violence against women – pornography.
It was good to hear both leaders give the right answer to the question “what is a woman?” but the obvious follow-up questions were not asked. Why are our children not taught this at school and why are our schools teaching harmful LGBTIQA+ gender-fluid ideology?
Why can’t the government overturn the Australian Human Rights Commission’s transgender guidelines which put sporting clubs at risk of legal action if they try and protect girls and women’s sport and private spaces?
Woke climate and social policy is stifling debate and hobbling our future, making a mockery of Albo and ScoMo’s respective slogans for a better and stronger future.
But because woke is viciously anti-free speech, politicians shy away from reality, preferring to appease our cultural and media elites.
So, the election campaign consists of appeals to the base-selfishness of voters who don’t seem to want leaders who will rock the boat too much but will complain about them nonetheless.
The price we pay is kicking the can of hard issues down the road until they come to bite us.
Sure, the leaders are uninspiring. But if Australia fails, we the people must bear a big part of the blame.
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