Opinion: With leaders like these, it’s just another day in paradise

The last few days of winter proved beyond all doubt that this country descends further into madness by the day, writes Mike O’Connor.

A University of Sydney protest camp earlier this year

What with the sheep and the clerks and the universities and the Greens and the census and those dreadful uncaring bastards running BHP, the last few days of winter proved beyond all doubt that this country descends further into madness by the day.

Following legislation passed in federal parliament last week, live sheep exports will be banned from May 1, 2028, after a campaign by activists with farmers being offered a miserable total of $107m to help them and their workers find other sources of income.

Encouraged by this legislation several Independent MPs called on the government to extend the ban to the live cattle export trade which is only worth $1.5bn a year, so obviously not worth worrying about.

It takes political courage to stare down city-dwelling activists and stand up for the wellbeing of the people who work on the land, but there’s precious little of that on offer at the moment.

While sheep exporters were pondering their future, the elites who run our leading universities were descending from their ivory towers to deliver a masterclass in arrogance.

Reacting to plans to limit the number of new international students next year, university chiefs said that if this happened, they would look at cutting the number of Australian students they enrolled.

It was left to Coalition education spokesperson Sarah Henderson to threaten retribution.

University of Sydney vice-chancellor Professor Mark Scott

“If our top universities are going to reduce domestic students to protect their rivers of gold – being billions of dollars in foreign student fees – the Coalition will consider further measures to put Australians first. All university vice-chancellors need to understand their fundamental obligation is to educate Australians,’’ Senator Henderson said.

That these people needed to be reminded of this beggars belief.

Meanwhile, University of Sydney vice-chancellor Mark Scott, who allowed anti-Semitic mobs to go unchecked on his campus, was defending his $75,000 pay rise and his $1.17m annual salary, saying he had a complex and demanding job.

Clerks in complex and demanding jobs, as well as those in simple and undemanding jobs, will be able to perform them in their trakkie daks if the Fair Work Commission pushes ahead with its plans, announced last week, to look at giving clerical staff the option of working from home, regardless of whether or not their employer agrees.

You invest the capital, set up the company, take all the risks and your employees tell you where they’ll work from and don’t even think about contacting them one minute after their allotted roster time. What could be fairer than that?

When a government begins to flounder one way of deflecting attention away from its more obvious shortcomings is to attack someone and so it was that federal Resources Minister Madeleine King launched Bash a Business Week with a verbal assault on BHP, accusing it of complaining about the government’s industrial relations policies and whipping up “hysteria.”

Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt

BHP is one of the biggest taxpayers in the country and employs 30,000 people, and has a duty to them and its shareholders to act responsibly in protecting their interests. The only hysteria on display was from the minister, who apparently believes that companies which are the corporate lifeblood of the nation should not criticise government policies which they believe are deeply flawed.

Minister King, however, is an amateur at Bash a Business when compared to Greens leader Adam Bandt, who completely outshone her performance by promising to lead us all to the Promised Land, that biblical place of milk and honey.

All that is required to do this is to impose a $514bn tax on businesses. It’s so simple that it’s a wonder nobody has thought of it before. It was classic Greens – announce something that will never happen, grab a headline, acknowledge the applause from Tesla-driving latte sippers and retreat to the Canberra bubble.

With productivity stalled, the cost of living hurting the most vulnerable and energy authorities warning of potential summer blackouts, our political masters were wringing their hands over whether or not to include gender identity and sexual orientation in the next census. Nothing like getting your priorities sorted.

Meanwhile up in the Sunshine State, the death toll on the national disgrace that is the Bruce Highway continued to climb. Asked when the highway would be upgraded, the Prime Minister was unable to give a coherent answer.

Another week in paradise. If people get the government they deserve, I can but wonder what collective sin we committed to deserve this lot.

Resources Minister Madeleine King