Our country is facing so many challenges it’s hard to know where to start.
One good thing is that they are all linked in some way or another: housing, immigration, power generation, climate change resilience, protecting our borders – the list just goes on and on.
It’s also true that we are all affected by these conundrums, although the level of impact does depend on the size of your bank account.
Speaking of money, I didn’t include cost of living and inflation because they are a bit like a summer thunderstorm and will eventually pass.
But let’s take housing, because that has the potential to impact our lives in a much more immediate way.
That’s because it means sharing our roads and public transport, and other infrastructure and amenities, with a lot more people if our area is forced to accept more housing.
And that’s before mentioning the loss of productive land close to the centre of Sydney.
It is a little amusing to watch the current state government grapple with this challenge and some of their suggestions, including from Premier Minns.
A lot of it is back to the future ideas on housing, and essentially are code for higher densities.
It says something about the minds of politicians, and those who advise them, that they never seem to be able to think out of the square.
It’s always the same old “solutions’’, and my suspicion is that they come from the bureaucrats on fat salaries and who would never ever be impacted if these ideas become public policy.
You may have noticed that there’s no suggestion of higher housing densities in all the places these fat cats call home, Vaucluse, Mosman, St Ives – you get the picture.
Very rarely do I go off the reservation in terms of agreeing with the approach of the Campbelltown mayor.
But on this issue, I must: Campbelltown, too, needs to tell the state government to go back to the drawing board and don’t come back to us until they have some seriously smart ideas about housing.
I’ll give them a tip: Sydney is full to overflowing and stuffing even more people in is a terrible idea.
The more I think about this the more I come to realise Donald Horne was right: The Lucky Country is mostly run by mediocre people.
And by this I don’t mean the politicians; most of them go into parliament as idealistic young men and women determined to make a difference, to help make our country great.
Then they come across the bureaucrats, who are the one pulling the strings when it comes to policy.
It may be time that the politicians summoned the courage to take them on.
But I won’t be holding my breath, sorry.
You are too kind to politicians. Far too many are egotistical and narcissistic liars.
Who else could weather the storms of media attack (which is of itself driven by the insatiable need for constant click bait) and somehow come out the other end owning multiple mansions and a fat cat lifetime pension.
Bureaucrats are definitely a force to be reckoned with, never answerable to we the people, and the system allows them to manipulate “their” politicians to do their bidding (a la Yes Minister).
Our “town” here which was once the outer edge of Sydney is being destroyed by a giant snowball of wanton lust for money and entrenched power which has been rolling faster and faster in recent years. People power has not stopped it, local newspapers other than this one are all but dead.
The import of this crazy huge number of immigrants into every western nation will destroy culture and the social fabric. The loss of natural environment and the Sydney food bowl in our region is not just stupid, it is dangerous.
And I have no answers for what to do.
Absolutely agree. Politicians fight what the public want because they believe that they and their bureaucrats know best,and in some situations they do. Why wasn’t the digital ID bill legislation brought to the public for comment, and the submission period so short and is closed now?