Government and Politics is a fact of life. But here in Australia are they a saint to us or a Demon? Well, I think they are a bit of both.
Politics in this context is all parties, elected or not, federal, state or local. The political party in office I am referring to as Government in this document.
In short I see both good and bad – and it relates to our actual set up.
To begin with, let’s start on the demon side and end with the saint side.
The biggest demon is that unlike a parent or business making decisions for the best long term outcome, Government and politics are based on an election period – e.g. 4 years. So often either the wrong or not the best decision is made, to fit this situation. Coupled with this, is that one government may start an initiative only to have the next government kit it out – and all the cost, setup etc. is lost.
To put this simply, I have international host sons. They come to me – each and every one with a reason for coming to Australia. Some clearly have been sent here because they need alternative teaching, parenting or even experiences to bring them back to a good level in their home country and family life. However, I have to state – that right now, I am faced with a home problem, if I was to fix this problem long term – I would take a specific course of action, but to fix the problem short term – so that I have a quality of life, I am taking another course of action. This is in fact is the core issue facing our government.
My son, who studies Politics at ANU was last night (almost middle of the night – of course, he is a uni student) discussing the carbon exchange option that Liberals have dumped. He was weighing up the good and bad of this. In short – the scheme is good. The reason for not proceeding, is that this needs to be adopted internationally (basically by all countries), and it needs clear guidelines for judging the credits and debits in respect to carbon, plus insurance of etc. In the ideal world, Australia would agree to this, and every company including the government would need to buy and sell carbon credits. However being an overly nurturing government, our government wants to do all the buying and selling for us – or this is how it is currently set up. But not all the rules are clearly established. So instead – it is dropped in total, until all the minor issues have been sorted out.
If our government wants to do this correctly – it should set up the infrastructure that every business has to buy and sell the carbon credits. Then as a country it would legislate that this should happen. But our overly mothering government wants to do it all for us, and just give us a bill to pay. This of course increases the cost to manage this, plus liabilities. But most importantly it increases our dependence on our government and our complacency. In a time when we should not be complacent e.g. with Carbon, why do this – well that’s the demon – it is easier.
If they drop it until it is a signed matter of fact with all the rules etc. in place, then great for business and business and those employed see the government as a hero. If they collect the tax and pay it those in credit e.g. the Amazon forests etc. then who is going to elect them next time? So the bottom line – is that Liberals in this decision have elected to go with the demon.
Now what about the saint? Well in many ways our government is saintly. It supports disabled, homeless, health, education, infrastructure the list goes on. We might complain, but really our government is supporting so much. However the demon part of this is complacency by individuals. Our wonderful saintly government won’t let us starve or go without. So we don’t have to do things, like insure, work etc.
In simple terms, our government are tight rope walkers. The rope is that of make the best decision for our country within their limited election criteria. So whatever your political lean, realise in the end, your party will be limited when they get in power, if they wish to stay in power. You just have to hope that they will make the best possible decision for you and your country.
Cate Schafing is a successful Australian business woman in the IT field serving as CEO of Accede Holdings Pty. Ltd. makers of Ezymeetz, ICE and Virtual Gym. She develops innovative new technological products as a programmer and entrepreneur. In gratitude for her success her company supports NFP’s by donating $5000 per month in programming time for NFP’s requesting work.