Australia is one of the oldest continuing democracies in the world. This is quite remarkable, given the appalling state of democracy today. It reminds us that in the 19th century, Australians were pioneers and world-beaters.
What happened? Until 1910, we didn't have a #partysystem in our parliaments. We had a loose collection of Independents and networks. A lot got done without a party system, in all the states and federally. Only from 1910 did we have what came to be called a #twopartysystem.
Then in 1915, #Gallipoli shattered everything. It #traumatised the country for three generations and banished our #idealism. We became a fearful, inward-looking country. #Careerpoliticians rose to power in the 1920s on the back of our disillusionment and passivity. They shrank the country's #mentality and limited our horizons for a hundred years.
We are only now emerging from this #torpor. But a lot of damage can be done in a hundred years. Our national #ethic as pioneers and innovators took a battering. We tried and failed at #manufacturing. We tried and failed at becoming a #clever country. We fell into a pattern of #dependence on foreign powers for our national security, and dependence on #immigration for economic growth.
The #goodnews is that the veil over the country's eyes is lifting. This is a #grassroots shift, not yet visible to the elites who administer our decline, but is is real nonetheless. A broad range of Australians, from many walks of life and across the political spectrum, now realise that we cannot continue to be an economically #lazy country that trades off its beaches and natural resources, and expects to forever be a #FirstWorld nation.
There are four parts to this grassroots #shift. They are a box set. One part can't be removed because they intertwine seamlessly.
1. Rule by #careerpoliticians for a hundred years via a self-serving #partyduopoly made us a passive, dumbed-down and dependent country.
2. Having tried and failed to #manufacture things and become a #clever country, we settled for the economically lazy path of exporting resources and importing consumers via mass immigration. This path leads to long-term economic #decline.
3. Having become highly reliant on exports of #fossilfuels for the country's revenue, we have the least capacity of any developed country to phase them out. The absence of an open competitive #energymarket that is energy source-neutral, and the lack of a practical adaptation and mitigation-of-risk strategy in dealing with a warming #climate, compound our economic decline.
4. Having been dependent on foreign powers for #nationalsecurity for all of our history, we now face global security challenges that we will have to meet #alone, as an independent nation. The habit of outsourcing responsibility for national security has made us more, not less, insecure. We now have to unlearn that habit very quickly.
#DemocracyFirst is our response to these four big shifts. Join us
https://lnkd.in/gB7mz-3d
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1moDon't forget: - Native English-speaking country where citizens welcome innovation so highly useful as a test market for other large English speaking markets - Access to highly skilled pool of labour with excellent teaching and research markets - Multicultural environment where new products can be exposed to people from a wide range of APAC backgrounds 👍