As we stand amidst the black, smoking ruins of the 2025 election, there are two or three small green shoots. Australia is not yet the Mordor of Tolkien…
The first possible green shoot is that the re-elected Albanese government is talking about ‘productivity’ albeit with ‘Labor values’. Productivity improvements are the only way we can maintain or increase living standards.
The Productivity Commission report on ‘economic dynamism’ and ‘building a skilled and adaptable workforce’ (due later this year) should provide material for a real productivity agenda. It is focused, as it should be, on the free market.
The preferred alternative should not involve simply printing money or misidentifying things like equal pay as ‘productivity’.
Reform of tax, mining approvals, and cutting the Budget deficit along with a tripartite review of the complex Fair Work Act to simplify it are things to which we should aspire. Reforms can pass the Senate with the support of the Coalition.
The second green shoot is that the Liberal and National parties are in the process of renewing themselves. The concept of ‘family’ was key to Robert Menzies’ ‘forgotten people’ speech of 1942 which led to the modern Liberal Party. Could I perhaps also suggest a modern ‘family’ policy to help working mothers, or parents, who have great difficulty combining work and family. Do not define ‘family’ as ‘any ongoing collection of diversities’.
The third green shoot is that the Prime Minister is talking about a ‘progressive patriotism’, with our achievements ‘a symbol for the globe in how humanity can move forward’.
‘Patriotism’ is something that the United States obviously does, often and well. The more modest United Kingdom has patriotic celebrations of important anniversaries, involving the Union Jack, and sometimes Land of Hope and Glory (Edward Elgar’s stirring masterpiece).
We too have a lot to be patriotic about, or should we be the only country in the world not to celebrate? Any glance at the often catastrophic world history of Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas, or anywhere at all, suggests this is an absurdity wrapped in wilful ignorance.
If you look at our democracy, achieved at a very early time without violent revolution; our first world economy that gives ordinary people the hope of the good life; and our education, health, and other services, Australia is vastly successful. Of course there are still obvious problems, such as housing, which are now being addressed.
Ordinary people built Australia. Even the squatters often had a perilous existence. Bob Macpherson at Dagworth station, the likely squatter in our nationally recognised song, Waltzing Matilda, died down on his luck. Who else has a national song about a sheep thief in a billabong? This is something to be proud of, along with kookaburras, emus, and the platypus.
Those who want to defame instead of celebrate are not obligated to use our roads, housing, clean water, and other local government infrastructure, the array of entitlements provided by the state governments, and then further entitlements provided by the federal government. These are what our early settlers built while working on the land.
And a hard, tough life it was, with 100 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1900 compared to 3.2 today. Life expectancy was below 50 in 1890 compared to in the 80s today.
When we celebrate our Aboriginal, British, and modern multicultural heritage and achievements we should do so in a positive spirit even though there are controversies we must negotiate.
A novel approach should be taken! We have had 40 years of constitutional amendments consistently rejected despite much national hectoring. Morally improving lectures are proved not to work. Why not take a cautious approach instead? It is better than aggressively demanding a response from the Australian public and telling them what they must do.
With all respect, there is no demonstrated consensus in favour of multiple flags and other ceremonies.
Noisier activist groups will not be patriotic and probably continue to vandalise statues.
A new ‘progressive patriotism’ may also be a final rejection of what can be called a campaigner’s tactical attitude of defamation directed at our country unless and until it passes various constitutional proposals.
The story of how we built our nation should be properly told in our education system and also to migrants. At present, the story told is halting and with a great focus on concealing achievements. Sometimes it is unnecessarily critical and hostile.
William Wentworth, our earliest and perhaps greatest founding leader, saw Australia as ‘a new Britannia in another world’. Dorothea Mackellar replied that ‘the love of ordered woods and gardens is running in your veins’ but:
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains.
Those who worked the land developed the country and our standard of living. They should be particularly recognised. They would be comfortable with Wentworth and Mackellar and Waltzing Matilda.
Finally, we are obsessed with American politics, perhaps because of the influence it has on us and the world. It is world politics.
There is, however, a genuinely odd failure to understand the problems their elections focused on. From the open border Democrats to the universities actively hostile to US civilisation and achievements, to the prosecutors who are politicians and political enemies, to the remarkable Budget deficit, to the cynical exploitation of the US economy by sometimes hostile and threatening nations. There can also be a benefit in unconventional approaches.
Perhaps some should put their less informed judgments on hold for a while.
Reg Hamilton, Adjunct Professor, School of Business and Law, Central Queensland University