Vision for the country

The independents have all had their call for measures to improve the country.  I agree with most of them.  However they've missed a couple of very important measures which I think is a wasted opportunity.

These measures would be extremely popular amongst the community, yet constantly are put in the too-hard basket every time they come up.

I've already blogged about making voting not compulsory (see below).  This is one I reckon MOST people in the electorate would be in favour of, yet we hear nothing about it from the pollies, even the independents.  Let's put that to one side, however.

The other one is something everyone seems to agree upon and yet nothing is done.  It's something Bob Hawke and John Howard share a consensus with, and that is, if we were putting the country together again now, then we'd probably do it without having state governments.  Bob wants us to keep the state boundaries for the purposes of Sheffield Shield cricket and State of Origin football, but otherwise let's get rid of them.  It was Don Chipp who said they were "useless appendages that hang on to body politics - they should be cut off" (ref) (mind you, in that same interview he reckoned Mark Latham was a shoe-in to be Prime Minister).

So yeah, how about it Rob & Tony?  We're already going to have a referendum on recognising native Australians in the constitution next election thanks to the Greens.  How about we add in a "let's abolish State Government" clause as well?

And Steve:  yes I still maintain Labor lost the election.  Julia is going to remain as Prime Minister, but no longer with a majority in parliament, which is what she did lose.  Note my prophecies from August 24, however.  IE a Labor/Green/Independent coalition with Bob Katter being the loose canon.  Got that one right, I wonder now about the next bit how we're going to be back at the polls within a year thanks to an external event.  Nostradamus eat your heart out.