Many Australians appear to be living in a fool’s paradise believing that they can continue to shut out the world whilst running up mountains of debt and participating in a property bubble which will one day explode. For those Australians, and there are many of them, who do not subscribe to the apparently dominant mind-set, these are deeply worrying times. Far more worrying than concern about what will inevitably be a transitory virus is the probability that our way of life will have been changed forever – for the worse.

The Federal Government, State Governments and the Reserve Bank are continuing to act with dangerous irresponsibility in allowing this surreal situation to continue with no promise of there being an end in sight. In fact, the longer Australia adopts the mantle of being the hermit nation of the South Pacific, it seems the more tempting it becomes to continue. The national vehicle of Australia has entered a cul-de-sac and most Australians appear to be happy to find any reason at all to keep turning the wheel in order to remain there. Going around and around in circles. Endlessly. Covid? The vaccine roll-out? A new strain of the virus? Anything will do. Turn that wheel. Stay locked-in! Keep away! Australia, already in many ways a very isolated nation with a tendency to self-deception and introspection is now becoming a paranormal and flaccid society out of touch and out of step with the rest of the world. Hanging on to an image of itself which is no longer reflective of its true self.

Apart from the superb efforts of a diminishing, and generally ageing, number of volunteers, there is little brave and outgoing about modern Australia. Quite the reverse, most people appear to quake in their boots at the least prospect of a risk of anything and seem to be happy to conduct a national version of self-isolation. Any who question are accused of wishing to see their fellow citizens suffer, even die. Sensorious medical practitioners pontificate like modern day versions of the Delphic Oracle – speaking in riddles and confusing and frightening the population with their images of doom and destruction unless their directives are followed to the letter. Their moment of power has arrived and they are determined to enjoy it to the full, regardless of the long term consequences of their directives. Unlike many of their fellow citizens, they are in the luxurious position of knowing that they will be paid, whatever the outcome of their unrealistic aspirations. Australia is not the giant test tube which they appear to think it is. We cannot be hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world forever.

So weak have many Australians become, that, upon the advent of an invasion, it seems that the only questions many would ask would be ‘will I still get my benefit?’, ‘should we self-isolate?’ and ‘what about the mortgage?’. There is no fire left in this beast’s body. Its soul has departed, remembered only in the memories of a diminishing few who recall the individuals who comprised earlier, braver, more courageous generations.

Politicians of all persuasions, entirely for their own purposes, have encouraged this weak and timid form of half-life. Sad and worried little people running from one panic to another, becoming ever more dependent upon big brother government, is manna from heaven for politicians. Unsurprisingly, given their own lack of experience of being long-serving voluntary members of the Liberal Party, with no understanding at all of why people ever join the Liberal Party let alone as to why the Liberal Party was formed in the first place, and having seen the Liberal Party merely as a vehicle for their own self-advancement, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, neither having any particular allegiance to the philosophy of the Liberal Party, have wantonly thrown away the core principals of the Liberal Party purely for the purpose of political self-aggrandisement.

The opportunism of the Federal Government’s handling of the C-19 crisis, supported by equally opportunistic and parochial State Governments, and the flagrant irresponsibility of the 2021 Federal Budget must rate as the greatest betrayal ever of what have been understood since its inception as being the core beliefs of the Liberal Party. Those core beliefs include individual resilience, self-discipline, preference for private over public enterprise, civil liberties, freedom of speech, the rule of law and fiscal and monetary responsibility.

The wads of taxpayers’ money dished out to businesses and to individuals putting government in the centre of the recipients’ existences, the lack of respect for Parliamentary procedure and conventions, a seeming failure to understand the very essence of parliamentary democracy and the proper operation of Cabinet, the silencing of media comment upon government actions, the pursuit of whistleblowers in proceedings reminiscent of Stalin’s Russia, the redaction of material from the reports of the Auditor-General, the blanket refusal to allow the release of the cost benefit analysis of the government’s handling of the C-19 crisis, the reckless encouragement to the Reserve Bank to continue its process of purchasing bonds issued by a government indifferent to the consequences of failing to honour those ever multiplying bonds, the indefinite closing of Australia’s international borders, and the uncaring disregard for the plight of Australian citizens stranded overseas are all evidence that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer believe in none of those core beliefs of the Liberal Party. The leadership of the Liberal Party is intellectually and philosophically bankrupt. Traitors to the cause for which so many have made voluntary sacrifice. A self-indulgent, inward looking, self-satisfied, arrogantly ignorant disgrace.

However, within the Coalition parties and amongst the minor parties such as One Nation and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers a momentum is building up against the direction in which Australia is headed. These disparate elements together represent a significant body of Australians who bridle at the thought of being socialized – because that is what this is – socialism on a grand scale. With socialism comes ever expanding government. With socialism comes the selection of favourites and the expansion of the interests of corporate rent seekers. With socialism comes debt.  With socialism comes control. There will be a revolt against this. It is not a question of if. It is a question of when.