Australia has its first Prime Minister - and guess what! "Its a girl". Before we get as excited about as we were about the Obama victory, let's take a closer look at her history. Based on my research I think we can expect the following:
1. Labor conservatism - she is by no means a radical. She is boringly old school labor. So don't expect an emissions trading scheme. This has endeared her to the unions.
2. A plodder - She believes in hard work, and reading books. But its not that you read, its more important that you read, and how you absorb the information. She might be knowledgeable, but do not expect a great thinker. This is no doubt where her conservatism comes from - a fear to think efficaciously. Just like her father. The good news is that she is not ambitious, so there are not going to be any leaps in social policy. She is a reluctant leader.
3. Social policy - She is no doubt going to be advancing various old-fashion social policies, but they will be concrete bound and make very little material difference.
Sorry to say Australia, you have a very boring choice to make at the next election. Let's identify 2010-2020 as the "lost decade of moral ambivalence" for Australia. Perhaps we will see political slogans in the election like 'Consolidation' and 'Public trust'...the question is which side will be saying them. Hard to pick. I guess the good news is that the thrust towards fascism has been arrested. Rudd is gone.
So in conclusion, we have a choice between lame duck Abbot and lame duck Gillard. Take your pick! I think it will not matter much, though hard to say what will happen at the next election because I can't see who will replace Abbot. I suspect that Gillard will win the next election. It will be hard for women to resist the nostalgia of having a woman PM. Anyway, this 'reluctant PM' will be judged a 'lame duck' and dumped for the sake of Wayne Swan. So its musical chairs all around.
Really Australia, I suggest dumping this system of government. You will not get credible public policy this way. Centralised government and representative democracy does not work. Its empty promises equate to voter slavery and extortion. We need a meritocracy based on electronic submission of policies to committees where reason is the standard of value. If you can imagine a succession of 'vested interest groups' lodging submissions, some back office analysts picking over those ideas to establish policy, having a lawyer crafting them into coherent policy, you have my lower cost and more distributed form of government. Policy based on principles that integrate with other principles...just like human knowledge. Principles of nature, not 'numbers' counting which politicians selling out principles.
PS: In fairness to Abbot...I have not closely examined his psychology.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
