If I Could Write an Election Speech

If I Could Write an Election Speech

Wrote this several years ago. Not so sure much has changed ...

We’re facing another round of cynical politicking for the mindshare and votes of “the people.” We’re about to face another bout of TV advertising dollars and baronial editorials intended to either inspire more uncertainty or decide we are tired and install the alternative. I’m feeling decidedly “managed” and the pace has not yet hotted up.

How lucky are we to be blessed with living in a country that maintains a lifestyle based on what it digs from the ground? How equalIy fleeting and fragile is that one-off wealth? We are living on a resource funded bonanza, and the time is near when we must start paying our own way with sustainable new industry

I don’t like the thought of what that means to my lifestyle and to my Children’s future.

What I do know is that we work longer hours every year, working for companies that are increasingly foreign owned, demanding and generating ever larger profits and sending that money overseas through tax avoidance havens

Our family, social and community life has diminished significantly as the hours we put into paying the mortgage, the credit card, the school and medical fees, and the cost of living take their toll.

I have a nicer TV but I’m too tired to watch it.

We work harder than ever just to stand still, doing so at the expense of health and relationships with the people important to us. I don’t see my youngest son nearly as much as I did my older children and I’m too tired to enjoy the time we do have.

We cannot recruit the experienced people we need, because we dont invest in high value education, instead shipping jobs overseas. We have not developed high value skills in sufficient numbers to replace our ageing workforce. We are all working like madmen just to keep the shareholder returns high. The company i work for has people falling sick. Most of my colleagues have been too busy to undertake training for the past five years. We repeat mistakes we made ten years ago because our experienced staff moved on and their replacements have not gained their experience.

I feel I am letting my family down, my community, my colleagues but working harder doesn’t seem to fix the problem. I need help to understand why it seems neither I, the company I work for and my Country is not managing very well with all this money we have at the moment.

It seems we have been standing still at the crossroads as a country for too many years, too scared to move lest we upset the power balance in an older style economy. I see our best and brightest organisations and people being owned by foreign investment when we are one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. I see us squandering our future and based on short term incentive plan objectives. I don’t want my childrens’ options to be working in a low skilled consumer based society serving other’s interests.

I want visionary leadership. I want us to invest the once only billions of resources dollars into turning the tables around. Why not create future industries where the world beats a path to our door? I want our profits to create even more and sustained Australian income. I want to invest in making our children and grandchildren the smartest, happiest, most sustainable generations yet. I want Australian businesses to  invest and own global businesses that bring income here. I

 want our business leaders and managers to be the subject of success books based on their willingness to take managed risk and think longer term than a quarterly profit and loss sheet.

I understand enough about global economies to know there are many forces at work and they need to be bilateral. I don’t think we are in that position. I think we are being pillaged and asked to enjoy it as we close our eyes and become distracted by our dramas.

Why are we so scared we may upset other countries and companies in growing up and asserting ourselves? We have such an incredible opportunity if we are prepared to be smart and savvy.

I don’t want to feel I am on a treadmill, running harder just to stay in the same spot. I want to enjoy weekends with family and friends without having to work. I want to see that my children are proud to be part of an incredibly fortunate society and feel they are making a difference for their future.

I want to start creating an upward spiral where Australia is an awesomely powerful quiet achiever.

Don’t give me tax cuts so I can go and spend more money on consumables made and owned overseas; Rather, invest it in the means to own those overseas businesses. Invest it in building the next generation of industry where we can create and leverage our own market advantage. Others are doing it and they have no iron ore, nor uranium – and they are buying Australian icons. I would rather we were buying or building the next generation of Google, YouTube and IBM.