Australia’s 30th Prime Minister - Scott Morrison Can we expect a new era or more of the same?

     Changing political leaders has become quite a frequent exercise during the last decade or so.  Whether it is changing the Prime Minister or Opposition Leader; it has been occurring since the Howard/Peacock swaps right through the Rudd/Gillard scenario.  More recently of course we have witnessed the Turnbull/Abbott/Turnbull case which was followed by the events this week which saw Mr Turnbull replaced by Mr Morrison. During the build up to these occasions, the media has a field day reporting the events including those behind closed doors. Not only do the media attempt to discover which candidate might make the best leader, but friends often ask politically minded people for their opinion.  They ask “What do think about candidate Smith getting the top job?”  Or perhaps, “Do you think candidate Brown would be much better than the present incumbent?”

     Answers include such characteristics as charisma; previous attitude to issues like same-sex marriage; monarchy; immigration taxes and power prices etc. Looking at the record book, we discover that in general there is very little change following a new face at the helm.  Sometimes there is no change at all. Prime Minister Morrison displays a ‘decent bloke’ image but what might we expect under his leadership? Mr Morrison has been a key figure in all the recent Turnbull policies which in many cases have not pleased the community.  Note too, that his Deputy Leader and new Treasurer, Mr Freydenburg has been involved in those outcomes. For Australia to advance to a genuine democracy it must regain its sovereignty.  The first responsibility of a Member of Parliament must be to his electors.  If he is not serving them, we must ask, who is he obeying?

     In Mr Morrison’s acceptance speech, he stated that his government would be “working for you” as he pointed to the camera indicating it was us  -  the community, who he would support.   He deserves credit for this point, providing he means he will respond to the community wishes rather than simply decide for himself, what he thinks will be best for us. Returning to the point about Australia’s sovereignty; there is a web of control around Australia which often prevents government from delivering policies acceptable to the voters.  This alone is what breeds resentment toward MP’s. Australia has foolishly committed to Treaties and Agreements across the globe containing clauses not in our interest.

The Lima Agreement. 
     The Declaration from Lima, Peru, among other things, agreed for the developed world to transfer its manufacturing to the developing world.  Australia signed the Agreement (both a Labor PM and subsequently by Liberal, Julie Bishop).  There is the answer to people who wonder why most of our manufacturing has left our shores.  However, no MP ever mentioned the detail of the Agreement.

The Paris Agreement. 
     As a result of various campaigns supported by media, the leaders were persuaded that global warming was caused by man-made emissions.  This led to the Paris Agreement, again signed by our leaders which offered some commitment to cut our emission.  Despite the fact that nations like China and India ignore their emissions which are much higher than ours, Australia remained committed and we bulldozed our coal generation plants to honour an Agreement which Australians did not want.  The price of our electricity has risen to the highest in the world and the Government can only offer band-aid help in the form of a National Energy Guarantee or removing the GST from power bills.  All of this occurred in the face of Professor Plimer’s report that Australian grassland and forest areas sequester almost five times more carbon than we emit, meaning the problem did not exist within Australia.
Free Trade Agreements.

     FTA’s have become very popular among various governments around the world and each time we sign our willingness to participate, the announcements are all favourable.  One cannot deny there is a benefit but in the fine print among the literally hundreds of pages involved, there are the undesirable features.  Some of these include the difficulty in preventing imports from other participants in the Deal, which are likely to threaten our bio-security.  Another clause exposes Australia to huge damage costs awarded to any foreign company which can demonstrate a loss of income as a result of a new law affecting their profit. The law to enforce plain packaged cigarettes is one example.  Another clause permits other participants to purchase Australian property worth varying amounts.  Presently our pork producers are facing difficult trading and many are considering closing their business.  However, they cannot be offered any protection from imported pork, purely because our Trade Deal permits the pork to freely enter Australia.

United Nations.
     There are a number of United Nation Conventions to which Australia is committed.  Some date back to the Whitlam era.  Prior to the Governor-General withdrawing his commission, Mr Whitlam had a raft of UN Conventions in the pipeline which the community were not happy about but as soon as Prime Minister Fraser gained office, his Government agreed to them all! These examples demonstrate the loss of control over our own affairs.  The loss of sovereignty is the root of our problems.  So it matters not whether any Member of Parliament or Prime Minister, has charisma, or is a decent bloke or has any other virtuous characteristic; unless he is prepared to withdraw from unfavourable commitments and  deliver us a nation which determines its own rules according to the wishes of its people, we can only expect more of the same. Politicians prepared to act in such a way will earn tremendous respect and support.

 I wish them well.

  Ken Grundy, Naracoorte,
August   2018