Friday, April 2, 2010

White Noise : : Kevin'07(& '08-'09-'10) has lead us down this dark path.

Australian government policy is without doubt in a bit of dead zone. While suffering the effects of the much vaunted "Global Financial Crisis", numerous other political, economical, ecological and social problems,  are running rampant under the watchful gaze of our nations fair dinkum leader Kevin Rudd. Having promised much change in his "Kevin '07" campaign, what we have seen is a lot of jetsetting, a lot of media spin,  a lot of show piece speeches and  'peace time' electioneering. Don't be fooled by this latest effort at spin. It is clear that the Prime Minister and his advisors have seen this as a way to ingratiate himself to the public again. It's all an act and it amazes me that people seem to be falling for it.

Kevin Rudd isn't the only responsible party in this whole mess. John Howard put into motion a whole range of irresponsible policies that caused such a public outrage it cost him his job. the infamous Work Choices, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, non-existant policies in regards to the environment, renewable energy, the list goes on.

So what exactly has Kevin done? After promising much, he has failed to live up to the hype he and his merry band of PR pros created. Yes, he took on and defeated the big-bad-GFC, and in the process wasted millions, if not billions of dollars on pointless schemes that did little to stimulate Real growth in the economy.He re-spent promised money, re-branding his "Education revolution" plan as the new " Nation building" scheme, as the global picture turned towards longer term growth, and instead of buying computers, rebuilt schools in good communities, (which act as reminders come election time), neglecting schools that really need the development and funding.

He guarenteed bank deposits, usually a smart move for the circumstances, but then means-tested and over-regulated the scheme to make it more wasteful,  made a big fuss about "saying sorry" to the stolen generation, then did nothing to improve the living conditions of the many thousands of Aboriginies, nor improve their life expectancies by encouraging  the building of infrastructure, hospitals, and creating jobs and educational opportunities.

He signed the Kyoto protocol, then did not think it important enough to negotiate with the opposition to see an effective Carbon emmisions trading scheme, passed through parliament. He successfully introduced several ill-thought schemes to "green-up" Australia, but instead ended up with a large sticky mess, and the death of half a dozen insulation installers on his hands. The national public service should be able to arrange solar, insulation and rainwater schemes effectively and efficiently, to budget and on time, with a minimal of fuss and fully regulated.Instead, he continued to play political games, effectively sacking the opposition leader, and having gotten nowhere on climate change, started preaching to the nation about the state of healthcare, and the need for State government co-operation to see reform. He calls himself a diplomat, but cannot seem to negotiate with foreign leaders and their governments to serve the best interests of our nation.

He failed to intervene in the Southern Ocean whaling debacle, where other leaders might have held direct talks with the Japanese government, and more recently, failed to serve the interests of an Australian Citizen facing trial in China. This case rankles the most, for the first time in a long time, we've had a Leader fluent in another language, and instead of combining his skills, experience and knowledge of China, to seek a fair and open trial for Stern Hu, who was involved in commercial espionage and allegedly paid/accepted bribes on behalf of Rio Tinto, was strangely quite, and almost non-existant in the media.

And on a foreign policy front, our golabal position, a periphery player in the G20, not really apart of ASEAN, nor a powerhouse in the UN, leaves us in a very precarious position. As an emerging, but already established country, we should be leading the world, but Kevin has got us following the lead of Obama and the EU, and although we are a major resource supplier to China and India, we don't seem to have any actual direction as to the future of our nation