Has there ever been a more urgent time to engage with politics?
Dishonest politicians (on both sides) routinely ignore the people’s wish and favour authoritarian control over democratic government.
The judiciary is corrupted and incompetent, sometimes outright dishonest, and fails abysmally in its core duty of administering justice.
Our system of government lacks proper checks and balances: the judiciary does not hold politicians or bureaucrats to account, and no one holds the judiciary to account.
Regulators are captured by big corporations, which lobby (effectively bribe) for subsidies, grants, tariffs and protection. And many senior bureaucrats move on to cushy positions with the very corporations they have been regulating.
The main parties’ policies amount to varying degrees of socialism—an economic system that has never broadly raised living standards or lifted the poor out of poverty.
Politicians and bureaucrats are also failing to confront major risks, including the potential for AI and robotics to cause mass unemployment. They appear to be just bumbling along, soon to lead the nation over an economic cliff.
Career politicians have not shown themselves trustworthy, yet we have given them extraordinary power: the ability to take the country to war; impose draconian limits on speech, movement and association; generate high inflation that erodes savings; flood the country with unskilled migrants dependent on welfare; and much more.
Australia enjoyed an unprecedented mining boom over the past two decades thanks to iron ore, coal and natural gas, but successive governments squandered the windfall. Manufacturing capability has largely disappeared, the public sector has become heavily bloated, a culture of state dependency has taken hold, living standards are lower than in 2012 and still declining, and no sovereign wealth fund was created for harder times. When mining revenues inevitably fall, the country will be exposed to economic catastrophe. Our government has learned nothing from history!
National debt stands at roughly a trillion dollars—having been zero under Howard and Costello in the mid-2000s. While not yet critical, it continues to grow because of chronic overspending. Neither major party shows any real intent to produce surpluses or rein in expenditure. Interest costs will therefore keep rising and so the deficits and debt levels. Future governments will be tempted to print money to cover deficits, driving inflation higher and, eventually, out of control. Citizens of every country that later suffered hyperinflation once thought the same fate “couldn’t happen here.” It is far wiser to act early than to wait for crisis.
What will Australia, its economy and its way of life look like in five to ten years? The current trajectory offers little cause for optimism: living standards (GDP per capita) are already below 2012 levels and are projected to underperform for the next two decades. Is that the future you want for your family? It is not the future I want.
A radical change of government and policy is required. That is what the party I am establishing, Classic Liberals Australia, offers—policies designed to raise living standards far more effectively than those of any other party.
Written by: Mark M. J. Morris