I will be honest, I hate labels. I can't define myself politically
because easy to apply labels obfuscate a true understanding of my core
beliefs, if I am X then surely I believe in Y but no it doesn't fit.
Let me explain: I have voted for the Liberal party, I voted for Mark
Latham (audible gasp coming from another room); I am coming up to my
7th federal election where I have been eligible to cast my vote and I
have chosen carefully every time. Come this next election I am going
to vote for the ALP again. Why the change? After all, once one
hits their mid 30's and is a business owner, surely they become the
stereotypical conservative party supporter; yet all I feel is
disillusionment with a tired and arrogant government. No let me go
one step further, a tired, arrogant and entirely contemptuous
government that looks to yesterday for examples on how to lead for
tomorrow.
Howard will lose this election. Sure, the polls are bad so this doesn't
seem like that outrageous a suggestion; but we all know that Howard
has an awesome array of dirty tricks and he will stop at nothing to
undo the Rudd campaign regardless of how low he must stoop. We all
know and expect him to go for the jugular but unlike in previous
elections, it seems like a larger proportion of the population is looking
towards the future and not listening any more to the lies. Howard is
a great liar; Australia knows this already, there is a fairly general
perception that Howard will say anything to keep his position. Maybe
I am generalizing but Tampa, AWB, weapons of mass destruction, or even
guarantees of no GST all continue to resonate every time I hear Howard
open his mouth. The strangest part however is not that he lies but
that he is so focused on yesterdays problems that he doesn't seem to
be aware of what challenges face our country.
See, the John Howard's of this world cannot deal with adaptive
challenges, i.e. those challenges that require a response outside the
current repertoire of solutions. Existing paradigms and solutions
cannot solve such confounding issues and so answers cannot be reached
by referencing his notes from his days in the treasury or those from
the past 11 years. Technical problems aren't so bad, they are
definable and whilst sometimes difficult, they can be managed.
Critical challenges such as floods, earthquakes, wars, 'dangerous
African migrants', 'boat loads of queue jumpers' may make people like
Howard appear as true leaders but I see them more as managers,
managing (creating?) a situation but not addressing future challenges.
That is how I sum up the past 11 years, Howard has managed the
Australian economy, he has taken previous reforms and continued them,
he has taken yesterdays paradigms and used them to prepare Australia
for tomorrow and by so doing, he has undermined our position as a
great country.
This is sounding all too negative and I feel the need to explain a
little further so I will use a current example to properly illustrate
this. Having taken a decade too long, John Howard, somewhat
begrudgingly, comes to the table and says that global warming presents
a problem for future generations. With the problem on the table,
Howard then dips into his manual of solutions and comes up with a
renewed push towards nuclear power. I am not necessarily saying that
this is a poor solution given the ability of nuclear power to address
Australia's medium to longer term power requirements however it
perfectly encapsulates Howard's inability to contextualize adaptive
challenges.
Nuclear power is an existing industry that gives the planet a poison
to contend with for tens of thousands of years and given the amount of
uranium available, it isn't even the longest term solution. It simply
makes sense for today without regard for tomorrow. So in essence the
Howard government will suggest that we spend billions of dollars on
developing a domestic nuclear industry whilst future thinking
Australian inventors and businesses will have to fish off shore for
funds to develop viable alternate energy sources. European companies
will help fund our best and brightest whilst we buy problems for
future generations having to deal with nuclear waste. This is classic
Howard; how about we help develop our clean coal industry whilst
pumping the equivalent amounts that we will dedicate towards the
nuclear industry towards renewables; it isn't impossible if a leader
has vision. A true leader will gather the country around their vision
rather than split it with a more controversial short term remedy.
With adaptive leadership in focus, there is an extensive list of other
generational challenges that face our current and future governments
that all interconnect and all require truly visionary leadership;
namely environmental change, education, industrial relations and
technological advancement. These all interconnected given the nature
of modernity's challenges however to address them we need to reshape
our political paradigm and design a new vision.
Environment change is occurring despite protestations to the contrary
from environmental skeptics who would rather wait to see the absolute
and catastrophic proof before believing that action is required. As
the worlds smallest and driest continent it would be reasonable to
assume that the government would be focused on water management
however successive governments have simply shifted their
responsibility and played politics rather than come up with longer
term water management programs. With shifting climate patterns and
raising temperatures it is time to rethink and analyze problems with
the climate as seismic shifts in global weather patterns rather than a
long drought.
In the context of Australian politics you have both sides playing the
caution game with the ALP careful not to fall into the trap set by
Howard in 2004. The tag line is 'focus on the environment versus
focus on jobs'. The solution however doesn't need to be so stark,
though the government does need to take a longer term focus on
structural change and juxtapose solutions for the shorter term
problems for affected industries with the longer term ramifications of
avoiding such change. There is an entire industry waiting to be
created in renewable energies; school children today may be the key
holders of great leaps in technology but unless we are prepared to
invest in them, in the future and in the possibility of a different
future we cannot face today's problems. Instead of investing billions
then in developing alternate fuel sources which can then drive our
economy, we instead focus on building a nuclear industry because as a
technical cum crises driven manager (not leader) we can only focus on
problems through a skewed and extremely limited world view. Even
looking to California is beyond us; their forward thinking policies
are generating investment but no we look backwards and contextualize
tomorrow's issues with yesterday's solutions.
Quoting a former Clinton man, Thomas Friedman writes in 'The World is
Flat' that preparing your children for tomorrow is like preparing an
athlete for the Olympics without knowing the event they will compete
in. This really highlights the challenges of an evolving world
economy; namely the exponential explosion of information which renders
our traditional concepts and ideals of education obsolete. Coupled
then with the shrinking of the world and the emergence of the India
and China juggernauts, the importance of education cannot be
overstated though Howard 'The Manager' has simply reduced funding
whilst claiming a supposed surplus.
Over ten years the Howard government has continually reduced
educational funding and then given it back under the auspices of a
future fund paying dividends. This is not future proofing our
country, it is selling out for short term gains. It is seeing
education merely as a short term business; by increasing student fees
plus the intake of more international students and full fee paying
positions, the government feels that they doing enough; they are not!
They are robbing this country of opportunity and as our universities
remain starved of funds; our neighbors pour billions into education.
At this stage it makes sense for our Northern neighbors to send their
children to Australia, though when the region starts to host more
international places of learning, impetus towards our universities
won't be as strong. When genuinely reviewing it, the only major
reform the Howard government has made towards Universities short of
starving the funding has been to remove student services through a
philosophical objection to student unions.
I am not attacking the government because I am a fan of student unions
or radical activism; I am simply seeing that the Australian people are
being short changed by short term thinking. The major issues are out
there that require a newer more adaptive level of leadership but our
current government doesn't seem to be up to the task. With an
election imminent we have a government campaigning on yesterday's
results with all guns aimed at an opposition scared of its own shadow
hoping for an election before anything truly sticks. In the meantime,
education, genuine infrastructural development, IR rights and the
environment are avoided – no one wants to discuss them for fear of
becoming unelectable.
How about coming out and being up front and honest with society, how
about actually addressing some of today's and tomorrow's more pressing
issues by initiating genuine dialogue and advocating change that is
adaptive to these issues. I may be dreaming because in our society it
seems that each political party needs to hire packs of attack hounds
to dig up the tiniest bit of dirt on opponents and spin masters to
then counter when their opponents do the same. All the time, both
sides are exposed to a media that demands perfection and summarily
executes any public figure who comes close to saying anything of
substance. It is only after one exits public life that they would
dare utter their version of the truth. I am only hoping that Rudd
wins by a small margin and actually engages in genuine reform.
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