Sammyboy RSS Feed
02-02-2015, 10:50 PM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-0...iction/6054586 (http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-30/bowman-we-must-overcome-our-leadership-change-addiction/6054586)
When did we become so skittish? Scott Bowman says it doesn't speak highly of our democracy that another first term premier may soon be discarded and that our PM faces an uphill battle to make it to another election.
Like an out-of-control cruise liner veering blindly between icebergs in the dark, Australia has lost all control of its political system.
Except in Australia's case, it's not so much those at the wheel of the ship that are putting us in danger. It's the obnoxious, demanding passengers who kick the captain and crew overboard each time they encounter a bit of swell.
Over the past few years, a phenomenon led by the eastern states has made discarding politicians our new national sport. Since 2010, this side of the country has dispensed with its state and federal leaders and governments at a rate triple that of the 25 years prior.
Our patience and tolerance as voters has become so skittish that we can't always wait for a general election to oust a leader we dislike anymore, we expect blood today. Following the November dumping of its only one-term government since the Korean war, Victoria is today on to its fourth premier and third government in five years. Yet the 25 years before saw just four changes of premier and two changes of government. NSW is onto its sixth premier in 10 years - more leadership changes than the preceding 25 years.
In Queensland, the state election is dominated by the spectacle that we may be about to discard a first-term Premier, which would see us with our fourth premier in seven years. Again, about as many as we entrusted to the job in the 25 years prior. And this after we endorsed his leadership through a whopping 78-7 seat majority just three years ago. Tasmania doesn't escape the vicious new order either - four different premiers since 2008, but six in the previous 25 years.
This growing fickleness of voting behaviour in the eastern states has infected the national scene as well. Our seats on the east changed back and forth far more dramatically over the past three federal elections than they did in the centre and the west. It was this impulsive, vacillating herd mentality that contributed to five prime ministers and three governments in the seven years since 2007, in contrast to just three leadership changes, and two governments, in the 25 years preceding.
And far from being satisfied with the Hunger Games we've inflicted upon our rotation of national leaders in recent years, there is today credible chatter of removing the current Prime Minister before the next election.
Granted, not every change of state or federal guard in the past decade has come from electoral lunacy. There have been some genuine retirements, and others who justifiably deserved to be shown the door.
But the numbers don't lie, and there is an undeniable creep of superficiality contaminating our voting behaviour.
Channel-surfing politics has arrived, and it is a stain on our prospects of executing a long-term vision for Australia. It manifests itself in a new breed of politicians so neutered in their capacity to effect tough decisions that their only currency left to trade is populism and band aid fixes. Such is the axe we volatile maniacs hold over our leader's heads that political debate has been rendered to infuriatingly cautious word gymnastics and over-rehearsed slogan exchange. As a result, mainstream media coverage has little left to work with other than cheap word-slip "gotcha" journalism.
As voters, we have written a new hyper-paranoid political playbook which makes it almost impossible to ever see another nation-building development like the Snowy Hydro scheme. Planning 10 years ahead is a relatively pointless exercise when the electoral body only extends your contract one month at a time.
It seems impossible that we will ever see a Melbourne to Brisbane fast train, or a second Sydney airport, or a world class national broadband system, and perhaps most depressing of all, a genuine solution to Indigenous disadvantage. But it's not through lack of appetite from our political leaders in most cases, it's through our crippling inability as voters to tolerate more than a moment's pain for tomorrow's gain.
And here's the kicker. Despite our snowballing appetite to constantly churn through leaders and Governments in our quest for "change", there really isn't that much difference between the two ruling parties. They try their hardest to convince us there is, but essentially neither can stray too far from the centre without getting wounded. Do you think this is the first government to ever make cuts to health, or the ABC, or higher education? Do you think there is a side of politics that hasn't tried to reform Medicare, or abolish old taxes and introduce new ones, or process asylum seekers offshore?
There should always be room to change your views on a government's direction, and exercise your choice at the election box every few years. But what we've been doing lately is calling our leaders outside for a fight every 10 minutes, with all the sophistication of a drunken pub thug.
Don't mistake the situation as a sign of a vibrant, lively democracy in action. No, we are sabotaging the integrity of our political system and accelerating a destructive paralysis of our national potential.
Professor Scott Bowman is the vice-chancellor and president of Central Queensland University.
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://www.singsupplies.com/showthread.php?199571-Australian-must-overcome-their-leadership-change-addiction&goto=newpost).
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-0...iction/6054586 (http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-30/bowman-we-must-overcome-our-leadership-change-addiction/6054586)
When did we become so skittish? Scott Bowman says it doesn't speak highly of our democracy that another first term premier may soon be discarded and that our PM faces an uphill battle to make it to another election.
Like an out-of-control cruise liner veering blindly between icebergs in the dark, Australia has lost all control of its political system.
Except in Australia's case, it's not so much those at the wheel of the ship that are putting us in danger. It's the obnoxious, demanding passengers who kick the captain and crew overboard each time they encounter a bit of swell.
Over the past few years, a phenomenon led by the eastern states has made discarding politicians our new national sport. Since 2010, this side of the country has dispensed with its state and federal leaders and governments at a rate triple that of the 25 years prior.
Our patience and tolerance as voters has become so skittish that we can't always wait for a general election to oust a leader we dislike anymore, we expect blood today. Following the November dumping of its only one-term government since the Korean war, Victoria is today on to its fourth premier and third government in five years. Yet the 25 years before saw just four changes of premier and two changes of government. NSW is onto its sixth premier in 10 years - more leadership changes than the preceding 25 years.
In Queensland, the state election is dominated by the spectacle that we may be about to discard a first-term Premier, which would see us with our fourth premier in seven years. Again, about as many as we entrusted to the job in the 25 years prior. And this after we endorsed his leadership through a whopping 78-7 seat majority just three years ago. Tasmania doesn't escape the vicious new order either - four different premiers since 2008, but six in the previous 25 years.
This growing fickleness of voting behaviour in the eastern states has infected the national scene as well. Our seats on the east changed back and forth far more dramatically over the past three federal elections than they did in the centre and the west. It was this impulsive, vacillating herd mentality that contributed to five prime ministers and three governments in the seven years since 2007, in contrast to just three leadership changes, and two governments, in the 25 years preceding.
And far from being satisfied with the Hunger Games we've inflicted upon our rotation of national leaders in recent years, there is today credible chatter of removing the current Prime Minister before the next election.
Granted, not every change of state or federal guard in the past decade has come from electoral lunacy. There have been some genuine retirements, and others who justifiably deserved to be shown the door.
But the numbers don't lie, and there is an undeniable creep of superficiality contaminating our voting behaviour.
Channel-surfing politics has arrived, and it is a stain on our prospects of executing a long-term vision for Australia. It manifests itself in a new breed of politicians so neutered in their capacity to effect tough decisions that their only currency left to trade is populism and band aid fixes. Such is the axe we volatile maniacs hold over our leader's heads that political debate has been rendered to infuriatingly cautious word gymnastics and over-rehearsed slogan exchange. As a result, mainstream media coverage has little left to work with other than cheap word-slip "gotcha" journalism.
As voters, we have written a new hyper-paranoid political playbook which makes it almost impossible to ever see another nation-building development like the Snowy Hydro scheme. Planning 10 years ahead is a relatively pointless exercise when the electoral body only extends your contract one month at a time.
It seems impossible that we will ever see a Melbourne to Brisbane fast train, or a second Sydney airport, or a world class national broadband system, and perhaps most depressing of all, a genuine solution to Indigenous disadvantage. But it's not through lack of appetite from our political leaders in most cases, it's through our crippling inability as voters to tolerate more than a moment's pain for tomorrow's gain.
And here's the kicker. Despite our snowballing appetite to constantly churn through leaders and Governments in our quest for "change", there really isn't that much difference between the two ruling parties. They try their hardest to convince us there is, but essentially neither can stray too far from the centre without getting wounded. Do you think this is the first government to ever make cuts to health, or the ABC, or higher education? Do you think there is a side of politics that hasn't tried to reform Medicare, or abolish old taxes and introduce new ones, or process asylum seekers offshore?
There should always be room to change your views on a government's direction, and exercise your choice at the election box every few years. But what we've been doing lately is calling our leaders outside for a fight every 10 minutes, with all the sophistication of a drunken pub thug.
Don't mistake the situation as a sign of a vibrant, lively democracy in action. No, we are sabotaging the integrity of our political system and accelerating a destructive paralysis of our national potential.
Professor Scott Bowman is the vice-chancellor and president of Central Queensland University.
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://www.singsupplies.com/showthread.php?199571-Australian-must-overcome-their-leadership-change-addiction&goto=newpost).