IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR POLITICAL PARTIES
Dated - 12th December, 2023.
IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR POLITICAL PARTIES
In Australia today the ALP is too far left and the Liberals too far right and the other parties far too narrow in their vision and policy.
Historically the ALP has been and continues to be influenced and structured around trade unions.
The Liberal Party influenced and structured around big business.
Over the last twenty (20) years both major parties have moved with the “money and power” left and right.
Problem Houston – a big problem but nobody is interested in fixing it now because sadly leaders today are not political by nature and do not know how to fix it.
So the status quo is retained and life goes on and an opportunity is lost to provide the political change necessary to reflect different society attitudes and provide leaders who lead and give their people the right attitudes to live honestly and with respect to all persons in our society.
THE FIX IS SIMPLE
Create a vision statement for a twenty (20) year period which all interested voters can follow in respect to each policy as it is rolled out each year.
Make policy every time for the Plato public good - for the majority of persons.
Make it simple.
Put in a sentence – a vision statement with planned policy enacted always in the best interests of the majority which is simple to understand and adopt.
Politics today is not within the grasp of the ordinary voter – it is too complex. Hence the voter loses interest in the very basics of the political system.
Sadly, it is manmade – made more complex by our own politicians and those with an interest and money who are outside the political system over the last 20/30/40 years.
It has to change. The sooner the better.
What follows is my vision statement for Australia – so this my second paper is an early forerunner to being an independent candidate for Kooyong at the next national election.
We have adapted our work practices in the western world to better produce goods and services and become more knowledgeable by specialising in a particular field – law, medicine, accounting, architecture, science, teaching, carpentry, pharmacy, hospitality and so on.
But sadly we have not changed our all important political system: - We maintain it in the same form – a parliament with its members elected by citizens across the country, political parties, a prime minister and cabinet.
We need a new constitution and a parliamentary vision statement made by individual politicians who act for its people in the name of the Plato public good.
MY VISION STATEMENT FOR AUSTRALIA
Redraw the Constitution to reflect everything we wish to incorporate into the way we should live today.
In doing so abolish state governments.
Retain the states by name and geographical area for ease of reference and efficiency in the roll out and administration of policy.
We do not have the political leaders to fill nine parliaments in this country today or in the future.
Moreover, a federal system under our current constitution creates a more complex and inefficient and expensive political system.
The abolition of state and territory governments would come with an annual saving to national accounts of at least 200 billion dollars each year.
The current political system is replaced by a smaller national parliament comprised of members from each of the states and territories.
The national cabinet would have representatives from each state and territory in a configuration to be agreed.
The municipalities would be geographically reconfigured and would work under the national parliament and so report to it.
Power is effectively centralised to maximise efficiency and provide a simple cost-effective system of government.
Tax Policy
Simplify our tax system.
Expand the “user pay” concept for tax revenue.
Provide real reform to our individual income tax policy.
I recommend no income tax be paid by a tax payer for the first fifty thousand ($50,000) income earned or howsoever received. Ten percent tax is then levied on the next fifty thousand and twenty percent tax is levied on the next one hundred thousand and thirty percent tax levied on income above $200,000.00 per annum. It is indexed annually. The long-term objective is to have the poorer citizens on tax free income and the better off citizens on a flat rate of income say 20%.
At the same time a wealth tax at a rate to be agreed is introduced in respect to net assets of an individual of more than say $3,000,000 Australian dollars or as agreed. Such figure would be adjusted annually.
A death tax would also be introduced at a rate to be agreed in respect to net assets of an individual of say $3,000,000 Australian dollars or as agreed. Where such individual is married or in a legal relationship with another person and the will of the deceased person passes his or her assets to the surviving partner then no tax will be paid at such time. Instead, there would be a “deemed interest rate” which would be set in the annual budget each year and be effective for a full year. It would be adjusted in each subsequent budget. When the “surviving partner” either dies or enters into another marriage or legal relationship then the total assets of the estate of the surviving partner is then taxed before such assets are transferred to the next of kin. Primary producers would be treated differently and more leniently and outside this framework.
Corporate tax should be imposed on turnover at a fixed rate of say 5% (a much lower tax rate).
Capital gains tax should be abolished. It will be effectively collected via a wealth tax and death tax.
A progressive tax policy should form part of a vision statement agreed by our national parliament.
Finally, as I presented in my first paper there needs to be a “social wage” paid to adult persons at $45,000.00 per annum for all adult Australian citizens who are unemployed and receive a full pension or a disability pension or other social welfare payment such as workcover etc.
They should all receive the same amount of money regardless of age, sex, disability or anything else and regardless of where in Australia such person lives.
The hard part is making the first change – the redrawing of a new constitution.
But it could simply fall into place this year or shortly thereafter with the voice vote.
Indigenous persons policy
I certainly am in favour of giving full recognition to indigenous persons in the constitution.
I also certainly believe a long list of previous Australian state, federal and territory governments have failed to advance the cause of indigenous persons in Australia since Federation.
I am not against the voice nor however am I for it.
My policy is to review what we have done in the past to determine where we have failed indigenous persons and to commit to a micro analysis one on one interview with every indigenous person in this country ten years and older to provide an assessment of age, sex, location, interest, level of literacy, objectives in life, employment etc. In simple language a dossier on each indigenous person. Today we have the technology that was not available 125 years ago or even 10 years ago to effectively collate such information into a “blue print analysis” from which various experts in the fields of education, indigenous persons affairs, teachers, social welfare, various fields of employment can review and analyse the information and provide recommendations to a “steering committee” appointed by the national parliament. There are approximately 825,000 indigenous persons in Australia today. Just under 100,000 are full blooded indigenous persons and the balance part indigenous.
I recommend that a “pilot micro analysis” be undertaken by 500 researchers appointed by the government to each interview 200 full blooded indigenous persons and provide a report to the “steering committee”.
This report would provide a much better overview than the current government recommendations provide via “the voice”.
It would then allow us to better educate and better service the needs of all indigenous persons by adopting the recommendations of the steering committee. It is a 20-year project along with much of my policy in this paper – but in my view this is the preferred way forward.
Employment and wages
The simplicity of this policy is that wage payments can today be placed into just a few categories:-
Unskilled, Semi-skilled, Skilled and Very Skilled Work or such other agreed categories.
The existing awards could continue to carry all sorts of other benefits and arrangements and acknowledgements but a simple classification of work and the payment of a minimum amount of money each week for such work and experience must surely be the way to go at this time.
The work done in each of the categories would be reviewed every year. Likewise, the payment made would be reviewed annually.
1. Foreign Affairs and Defence
At the outset, I acknowledge that I have travelled to over 100 countries and enjoyed meeting the people in every one of those countries visited.
On such travel, I have never met a person anywhere in the world who does not want to live in peace with persons from other countries regardless of their colour, country of origin, race, age, sex, or religion.
Secondly, I review history and note the involvement of America (as late entrants) in both the first and second world wars and thereafter in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and indirectly most recently in Ukraine.
By contrast, China has not been involved in any war but currently has a “very tenuous” relationship with Taiwan and “uneasy” relationship with its citizens in Hong Kong and has since 1950 had an “uneasy” relationship with the 3.5 million Tibetans in landlocked Tibet and the 10 million or so Muslim Uyghurs living in the northwest Chinese province of Xinjiang. In essence though, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, and the Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang are internal matters for China to resolve.
Thirdly, I note that the biggest benefits of world wars have been the knowledge gained from building war equipment quicker and better than your opponent. It resulted in Australia and its allies winning both world wars in the twentieth century. An intellectually wealthy and extremely influential small group of people in the world benefit from war. They are the manufacturers and financiers of war equipment and the financiers engaged by governments during war.
That said, I can justify the Chinese build-up of weaponry on the basis that it gives them increased knowledge of technology used to better develop war equipment.
I find no ground why such knowledge should be the sole domain of the American government and its allies.
Fourthly, I am of the firm view that China has been and continues to this day to want China to live in peace in this world. But China (initially with total approval from America and western countries) has moved from a poor communist country to a much richer communist-governed country. When China did not politically move to have a capitalist Western-style government like the West – then the West felt threatened.
Trump commenced trade sanctions against China in 2019, and China countered, and the economic war of the 21st century had begun.
But in this economic war, a “shot from a gun” will never be fired. This war is all about money – which country has the world’s number 1 currency in 2023 and beyond?
Taiwan has been economically weakened by its loss of its “electronic chip” world trade business.
China has been economically weakened by the loss of part of its long-held “export of goods” world trade.
America and the West have had to enter into new contracts with its fellow members to supply various goods previously outsourced to China and the East.
That is the background. Historically, there has been a peaceful transition from the outgoing world economic power to the new power – the Greeks to the Romans to the Spanish to the Dutch/French to Britain and finally to the USA after World War Two.
But sadly, America and its wealthy bankers do not wish to “handover world number one currency” to China.
The sole benefit is the monetary benefit it carries with the support of the big and wealthy bankers. With a current 30 trillion-dollar debt to the world bondholders, most countries would have seen their currency plunge – not so the US dollar.
The big and wealthy bankers are picking up the small USA regional banks that have been poorly managed for “a song” thanks to the aftermath of aggressively increasing the money supply for 14 years and then reducing interest rates to zero or a tad above zero. Commercial property at the very least is available to them at their beck and call.
Inflation was inevitable. The wealthy and influential bankers make up the membership of the FED Reserve and during 2021, the world at large was told by the FED Reserve that the 2021 inflation was “transitory” and would go away as quickly as it came.
The world equity markets believed this story and were followed in by the average punter with money, which pushed Bitcoin to $100,000.00 a coin and all stock markets to record levels.
Last year, interest rates began to rise. One year late. Now economists across the world are worried that any further rise in interest rates could topple over “many borrowers” and that property prices and equity prices could fall significantly.
Right now – game on.
There is a lot going on, but Murdoch and other press barons in the world are working closely with the wealthy and influential bankers in an effort to say as little as possible and provide daily news as usual.
I hope I have explained this simply. Sorry if a bit too long. But reread it and it will become simpler to understand.
In one last short sentence, I say we should save our money and not play “war games” with five submarines. These will not be completed until 2037, and only then will we have attained the expertise to “steer” the submarines.
But by 2037, the economic war between America and China will surely be over. Either there will be two currencies – one for the East under China and the other for the West under America.
The world as we know it will divide into two. The East under the Chinese yuan and the West under the US dollar. At worst, trade and travel will be restricted to within the block – East or West. 5.0 billion people are likely to be with the East and 3.0 billion with the West.
I hope the economic activity of both trading blocks will work to continue to benefit the poor and developing countries in the world. On planet Earth, that will be good if the “Belt and Road” replaces the old “Silk Road” by both the East and the West.
But such has to be balanced with the “penultimate” objective – to control not the sea lanes and the ports and airports on planet Earth but the space above it. That is the penultimate objective of this “just begun” trade war between China and America.
I vote to stay neutral. Friends of both. And spend the money here in Australia to improve the well-being of indigenous persons and the poor, and for the wealthy to enjoy international travel and perhaps a day trip in space. Moreover, we could be a “little China” and create a system whereby every citizen in this lucky country donates to a central charity a fixed small sum of money, which each year can be used to improve the education of residents of third-world and developing world economies.
Immigration – Home Affairs
Please, Mr. Government, just develop the infrastructure first before bringing into the country hundreds of thousands of migrants each year to live in either Melbourne or Sydney.
Please establish a 20-year plan for the infrastructure necessary.
In the interim, if a number of migrants are required to work in industry, not enough Australian citizens want to work within, then make sure they are migrants whose skills are needed in this country today – more nurses, teachers, doctors, aged care workers, municipal council workers, cleaners, hospitality workers, and so on.
Please simplify the migration and tourist visa programs and procedures. It is currently a disgrace – probably needs to be outsourced to a capable group of persons who can make fair and intelligent determinations and not arbitrary determinations which on review appear senseless and/or capricious.
Housing and Education
Both should be under the control of one and only one body – a national entity.
Public housing should be purchased around the country to provide rented properties and the opportunity for poor individuals and/or families to rent or purchase and first and most importantly to “take more poor people” off the streets and into a house with a bed to sleep.
The policy should incorporate a long-term rental agreement – if the rent is paid and the property maintained, then that tenant should be able to remain in the property long term. This policy should eventually move into the private market.
Conclusion
I have given myself 2023 to find some young persons who find both these papers interesting and challenging. So far sadly not one person has contacted me. Hopefully, this paper gets some traction and a better response than the first. If not, then I get the message. In the interim, enjoy each day and make the most you can with what you have each day. By doing so, regardless of money, you will find yourself on the yellow brick road.