Australia, Don't Follow The US or UK

Australia is fucked if we keep following the idiocy taking hold in the United States and the United Kingdom. Every level of politics seems increasingly corrupted by outside influence, and Australia becomes harder to recognise by the day.

I’m not a radical. I’m not sitting in a tin shed wearing a foil hat, stockpiling baked beans and broadcasting conspiracy theories over a stolen UHF radio. I’m simply an older bloke who has been around long enough to notice that far too much bad behaviour is being accepted as normal.

Apparently, pointing out that the wheels are falling off now makes you an extremist. Righto! That’s like calling someone a mechanic because they noticed the engine was on fire.

There are countries around the world where two things manage to exist at the same time: Strict rule of law and a safe, functioning society. Imagine that! It’s almost as though laws are supposed to be enforced rather than printed on expensive government letterhead and stored in a filing cabinet beside the unused common sense.

Ask some American politicians about China and they’ll describe it as though stepping outside your hotel guarantees you’ll be kidnapped, interrogated and turned into a fridge magnet. In reality, China is one of the safer countries in the world and considerably safer than many parts of America.

The same can be said for Singapore, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. These countries have strict laws. When you do something seriously wrong, you are seriously punished. The consequences are significant enough to outweigh the possible reward of committing the crime.

Strangely enough, when criminals are genuinely worried about consequences, fewer people decide to spend Friday night stealing a car and driving it through the front window of a bottle shop. Who could possibly have predicted that? Certainly not an Australian parliamentary inquiry. They’d need eighteen months, twelve consultants and a $6 million budget before reaching a preliminary finding that consequences may be associated with behaviour.

The result is that law-abiding citizens can go about their lives with a much greater level of safety. Children can walk to school. People can be out on the street at any hour without needing body armour, a personal security detail and a black belt in something ending in “jitsu”.

Yes, crimes still occur. No country is completely crime-free. But crime is not so widespread that ordinary citizens have to rearrange their lives around it. Leave your phone on a table in Japan or the UAE and come back an hour later. It will probably still be there, or it will have been handed to the shop owner. Try that in some places here and your phone will be halfway across town, listed on Marketplace as “near new, no lowballers, need gone today”.

Immigration Must Be Reduced and Properly Managed

We cannot keep doing what we are doing. Immigration needs to decline sharply. Immigration itself is not the problem. Immigration in manageable numbers, involving people of good character who want to contribute to Australia, is perfectly reasonable.

The problem is the quantity, the quality controls and the lack of meaningful consequences when people abuse the privilege of living here. If an immigrant commits a serious crime while living in Australia, there should be one response: immediate deportation. That should also include dependent children. If children commit serious or repeated crimes, the immigration status of the whole family should be cancelled and the family deported.

Coming to Australia is not an automatic right. It is a privilege. It’s not a lifetime Costco membership where, once you’re through the door, nobody can ask you to leave no matter how badly you behave near the free samples. If someone accepts the privilege of living here and repays the country by committing serious crime, Australia should not be required to keep them.

We have a major problem that needs to be corrected, not discussed endlessly by another committee, review panel or highly paid consultant producing a 400-page report. The report will be released on a Friday afternoon, naturally, and conclude that the matter requires further consultation. Then everyone will knock off early and head to the pub.

Immigration is acceptable when the numbers are manageable and the people entering the country meet appropriate standards. At the moment, we appear to be running the country like a nightclub where nobody is checking the capacity limit, the guest list or whether the front door is still attached.

The bouncer has gone home, the toilets are overflowing and Canberra is at the bar telling everyone the venue is operating within expectations. Meanwhile, Australians are trying to find a rental property with the same odds as winning Powerball while being struck by lightning in a Bunnings car park.

Lobbying Should Be Illegal

The second issue is lobby groups. Lobbying should become an illegal activity. No group should be created, funded or supported by unknown third parties for the purpose of persuading, manipulating or interfering with Australian politics.

We are supposed to have elected representatives, not politicians surrounded by professional whisperers carrying expense accounts, leather folders and mysterious invitations to lunch.

Australians deserve open and honest political decisions made solely in the best interests of Australia. Not corporations. Not foreign countries. Not billionaires, industry bodies, political donors or suspiciously well-funded “independent policy institutes”. Nothing says “independent” quite like refusing to tell anyone who pays the bills.

If an idea is genuinely good for Australia, it should survive without someone secretly paying to push it through the back door. Political influence should not operate like a dodgy cash job where everyone knows something is happening, nobody receives a receipt and the bloke in charge suddenly has a new jet ski.

If someone wants to influence Australian policy, we should know who they are, who pays them and what they want. It shouldn’t require a royal commission, a whistleblower and an episode of Four Corners to work it out.

Australia Must Remain Australian-Owned

The third issue is international investment in Australian companies, particularly through the stock market. It needs to be significantly restricted. No international company, or combination of foreign individuals and companies, should ever be allowed to own more than 10 per cent of an Australian public or private company.

Ever.

No foreign country should be allowed to own Australian critical infrastructure. Ports, power, water, telecommunications, transport and other essential infrastructure should remain under Australian ownership and control. Selling critical infrastructure to foreign interests and then claiming we still control it is like selling someone your house, handing over the keys and announcing that you remain in charge because your old Hills Hoist is still in the backyard.

You don’t own the house, mate. You’re just standing near the washing. Australia should participate in the world economy. That does not mean Australia itself should be available for purchase. We’ve sold enough of the country already. At this rate, someone will eventually put Tasmania on Gumtree. “Island state. Scenic. Some weather damage. Must collect.”

The Major Parties Have Fucked Australia

Both Labor and Liberal, including the Nationals, have fucked Australia. They have bent the Australian public over and fucked the stupid out of us. Lie upon lie upon lie. Promises before elections. Excuses after elections. Reviews, reports, announcements and carefully rehearsed press conferences explaining why the exact opposite of what was promised is now essential for the national interest.

Every politician stands behind a lectern looking deeply concerned, says “cost-of-living pressures” twelve times and then announces something that costs us more. Labor and the Coalition are two sides of the same increasingly grubby coin. One side tells you it cares while taking your wallet. The other tells you to work harder while taking your wallet. Then both sides use your wallet to buy television advertising explaining why the other one took it.

Now we have independents banding together to form another political group. Oh, excellent! Because nothing says “independent” quite like organising yourselves into a collective political machine. It’s like a group of vegetarians forming a steakhouse and insisting the menu remains plant-based because the parsley is untouched.

Independents are supposed to help keep the major-party mongrels honest. They’re supposed to challenge the system, question the deals and refuse to join the political conga line. Instead, some appear determined to recreate the same problem with different branding, better social media and a colour scheme selected by someone with a Canva subscription.

At present, Labor and the Coalition have lost me, and most people around me. One Nation is the alternative, followed by genuine independents who can help keep them honest. Independents cannot keep Labor or the Coalition honest. The corruption and outside influence are too deeply engrained, and ordinary Australians are not receiving the benefit.

The system does not need another adjustment around the edges. It needs a bloody reset. Not a “refresh”. Not a “recalibration”. Not a national conversation at a Canberra hotel where everyone receives a lanyard and a muffin. A reset.

Australia Must Take Back Control

We need to start taking back control of our country. Fuck America and the United Kingdom. They have both gone so far to shit that it may take decades for them to recover, assuming recovery is even possible.

America appears determined to turn every social and political disagreement into national warfare, preferably televised, sponsored and interrupted by advertisements for prescription medication.

The United Kingdom appears determined to manage its decline through committees, slogans and increasingly creative ways of making everything worse while maintaining a polite queue.

Australia does not need to copy either of them.

We don’t need to import every overseas political argument like it’s a new flavour of Tim Tam. We already have enough homegrown problems without adopting theirs, giving them Australian accents and pretending they belong here.

We need to act now and stop this country from sliding into the same cesspool of greed, corruption, division and toxicity. We need strict laws, real consequences, lower immigration, proper standards, Australian ownership and political decisions made for Australians.

Not corporations.

Not foreign governments.

Not lobbyists.

Not whoever purchased the best table at the latest political fundraiser and cornered a minister between the barramundi and the sticky date pudding. Australia is still worth protecting. But we need to protect it now, before we wake up and realise we followed America and Britain all the way down the toilet, then paid a foreign-owned company to flush it.

The warning lights are flashing. Smoke is coming from under the bonnet. The steering wheel has fallen off. And Canberra is standing beside the car wearing a high-vis vest, announcing a taxpayer-funded inquiry into whether vehicles really need wheels.

Australia is not completely stuffed yet.

But we’re getting dangerously close to needing cable ties, WD-40 and someone’s uncle who “knows a bloke”.