Politics, Or I Have a Cunning Plan


Australian politics is having a crisis this week. For a while there we didn't have a prime minister. Now we do, but it's a different one to the prime minister we had last week. It's hard to keep up. I have been doing what I can, which isn't much. I have written to my local politicians letting them know how they could be running the country so that I would actually vote for them. I am helpful like that.

My main points: stop stabbing each other in the back long enough to come up with some useful policies on climate change: hint - leave the carbon in the ground.

Stop torturing and locking up asylum seekers.

Let's live within our means. Let's begin this process not by cutting welfare payments, but by making sure that corporations pay their taxes, and let's create jobs, not by subsidising large corporations, but by getting out of the way and allowing people to create their own businesses. Let's cut back on globalisation and favour our own locals with our business. Were tariffs really so terrible?

And while we are in the mood for change, let's cut politicians' salaries to the point where they would only possibly be in politics because they want to serve their country, not because they want to play power games or be best buddies with rich mining magnates.

That's probably enough to go on with.

Carry on.

Comments

Anonymous said…
YES!! Absolutely.! Corporations getting tax breaks that will be passed on to their workers in higher wages (Ha!ha!) we hear constantly. Jo, don't you know climate change isn't real? (Read sarcastically, please) The governor of Florida has even removed the term from the States web site. All the while our state continues to experience flooding from rising seas... Let's not even talk about the embarrassment we have as president (insert double eye roll here). I could go on, but the sun is shining and I am going to focus on that before my blood pressure goes through the ozone depleted stratosphere. I am eternally hopeful, that at some point common sense and integrity will prevail. Please? Thank you for your post, as always.
Be well, my friend.
Patricia/ USA
Jo said…
Patricia, I had heard that - and what a masterly response to a pesky problem! I wonder if the governor, who doesn't believe in climate change, has a fully off-grid get-away cabin up on a mountain somewhere in Colorado for such time as Florida sinks beneath the waves?
Pam in Virginia said…
Hi, Jo!

You are a thoughtful lady to be helping out your local politicians. As we watch you playing musical chairs with your Prime Ministers, I quite often feel that I wish it were so here. We have just about reached the 2 years before the next presidential election point here, which is when the campaigning starts full blast, and viciously. There will be non-stop hammering on we the people for those 2-years and I am sick of it before it even starts. At least you all decide that one needs to be chucked out and then just do it and pick another one.

Do your PMs get pensions? If so, I could see why they wouldn't mind in the least serving a brief while and then going on to the next thing.

Pam
Treaders said…
Amen to what you just said Jo. I must admit I don't know much about Australian politics but I have always thought a good man (or woman) will never get far in politics because they are not cut-throat enough. Jimmy Carter being a case in point. I have just finished John O'Farrell's "18 miserable years in the life of a Labour party supporter" and it is so funny. It is a true story but John is a comedy writer too so he makes it a good read. But it really does go to show how the "little people" struggle to be heard and countries really are run by the rich for the rich! Anna
Jo said…
Pam, you have hit the nail on the head there - our ex-PMs and ministers are very well remunerated, and generally go on to very lucrative post-PM positions..
Ugh, I think that having to put up with two years of electioneering out of four would be completely unbearable. Our elections are only around two months long, and even that seems too much..

Anna, I must put that book on my library list:) When on earth are you going to find time in your post-retirement life to read without your train commute each day??:) Governments do change, eventually, according to the will of the people - civil rights, same-sex marriage etc, but it takes a huge, enormous groundswell of public opinion, and the government is generally dragged kicking and screaming along in the wake of the people. So I believe it is worth making a huge noise about we believe in.. but it is like pushing large rocks up-hill..
Meg said…
It had all the hallmarks of a second-rate soap opera ... bad script, predictable cast and some Trumped-up drama complete with someone being bumped off. Canned laughter wouldn't have been amiss but for the really important stuff they are meant to be getting on with! Meg
jj said…

Very wise words Jo & are you channelling your inner Baldrick ;)
Unknown said…
I agree with every word, and hope your MP is listening. It's not without its upside, though - I've seen some brilliant comedy online. And Lee Lin Chin has offered to be Prime Chinister! Wouldn't that be nice?
Jo said…
Meg, it makes you wonder why voting is compulsory, doesn't it? It's not like the leader and the policy the country votes in is actually the one guaranteed to govern.. now the reasonably centrist government Australia voted for has turned sharply to the right. But is that what the people want? Who will know until the next election?

jj, I have to admit it took a good 12 hours and a night's sleep before I saw what you were getting at re Baldrick! I have clearly internalised his favourite saying until I had forgotten it wasn't my own stock phrase (which it is, btw).

Hazel, oh yes, I would be looking forward to the flamboyant panache of Prime Chinister:)

Fran, the 'ayes' have it:)

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