Cheer up, Aussies, we live in the best and luckiest country on Earth
Yes, with all the bad news from overseas it’s no wonder we sometimes feels like the barbarians are at the gates. But look around and you can see Australia is still the land of plenty.
At the end of one year and at the beginning of a new one we are expected to look back with a critical eye but forward with optimism.
However, today we generally don’t hear much optimistic talk or feel much optimism. We seem to hear of nothing except wars, disaster and mayhem in world affairs.
We can add to that our own domestic worries about the cost of living, the electricity failing and even the gas being cut off.
This pessimism is the case all over the world. Recently on a trip to Norway, a beautiful, rich country, I was struck by a doleful remark from a man running a shop in the fish market: “All these wars and terrible things happening.”
It seems that people living in the rich and insulated West have forgotten how precarious is the peace and security we thought would never end.
NATO countries are told to prepare for war, the Middle East is in flames and the great Pax Americana appears to be crumbling into isolationism. Terrorism is everywhere and little kids are being blown up. No wonder many people feel as if the barbarians are at the gates.
However, it is a great shame if Australians succumb to the pessimism that seems to permeate older cultures because we Australians are living in probably the most blessed, resource-rich country on Earth.
We are not a continent suffering war or the threat of war, and despite having some internal divisions we should have every reason to be optimistic – yet we are not.
The reason is a natural preoccupation with domestic policy. For instance, despite divisions blamed on multicultural policy, we are fortunate that we have not yet developed the level of domestic terrorism we have seen in Germany and elsewhere.
Live and let live multiculturalism in itself is not a recipe for division; rather, it is vehement religious and cultural intolerance that is the root of division, when people are threatened for just being Jewish or for just being Muslim.
Neither should it be an offence to tell someone they should go back to where they come from – even if it is a stupid, crude sentiment abhorred by many people.
Not all speech we might find seriously lacking in thought or kindness should be labelled hate speech or be an offence as long as it does not include incitement to violence.
On the domestic political front, the pessimists have a point.
The cost of living is too high and the No.1 culprit is the cost of energy, as it affects everything. The federal government’s renewable energy schemes, aside from unreliability, could make the cost of living worse. Changing the electricity network is very expensive and requires a huge number of electricians to install the infrastructure – electricians we don’t have. Nevertheless, the government ploughs on trying to convert all our electricity generation to renewables – although we have enough gas under the ground to supply half the world.
Meanwhile, the opposition says it is going to bring in nuclear, which also may take about 100 years to work with safety, although we have all the uranium under the ground that we can export to other countries so we don’t have to risk being contaminated by stored nuclear waste or blown up. So, energy policy is confusing and controversial, and energy supply is looking grim into the future.
On top of that, pessimism is warranted about the multitude of social problems and useless social policy fixes.
Top of the list is mass ignorance caused by bad education. Those of us who were stuck teaching the Visigoths of 9E remedial English in the 1980s and ’90s could see that coming a mile off. Bad curriculum, bad methods, kids’ terrible behaviour and even worse expectations, and you have a recipe for social decline.
Then there are the sometimes well intentioned but failing schemes meant to plug a serious deficiency, the most notable of which is the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The NDIS, which was meant to help the truly disabled, is like almost everything the government has poured money into: out of control. As well as encouraging a broadening of the notion of disability, especially autism, the scheme leads to welfare churn, is riddled with corruption and encourages a mentality of government dependence.
Another one that is going to send us broke is the overly generous childcare subsidy for people with combined incomes of up to a gobsmacking $500,000. That strikes me almost dumb, but I will write more about this in the coming year.
Last, there is the even more appalling waste and human cost of “closing the gap” between our world and that of the Indigenous Australians, the national shame. Some of this, like the energy situation and the NDIS blowout, is fixable; some of it, like closing the gap, is not.
There are many reading this who will nod and think that optimism about Australia, whether it be government energy policy, multiculturalism or the international situation is succumbing to Pollyanna-like naivety.
But stop and think about our history. The great challenge for Australia is to do what our ancestors did. To be resilient and look into the future, to see Australia as what it should be and could be.
We have always been a young culture that looked to the future. I am descended from a 14-year-old boy who narrowly avoided the noose and a young Italian peasant in search of adventure and his own life.
Consequently, we are the youngest, most successful and one of the richest democracies on Earth. Aside from all our natural advantages, our geography, our wonderful climate and abundant resources, we have in ourselves, our own people, a unique breadth of culture and diversity of experience.
Unlike my miserable Norwegian friend, we should be optimistic. So, cheer up, Australia, and have a happy new year.
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