Senator Joyce writes for the Canberra Times (my emphasis added):
One of the useful parts of the obligatory election trudge around the countryside is that meetings, functions and party events become a great barometer of what is worrying people.
Don’t go on the road if you are looking for self-affirmation; voters do not turn up to tell you what they like about government and politicians.
If a summary was given of what is making people talk at the mandatory Q and A session at the local hall/bowling club/RSL you would not be surprised that it is a thousand miles from what seems to be the concern on the ABC’s Q&A. There are four issues that are becoming constants: excessive market power in our retail industry; foreign ownership of strategic Australian assets; the carbon tax; and coal seam gas.
The businesses that go to functions ask, when will anyone seriously deal with excessive market concentration and the resultant exploitation of smaller market players? This was once seen disparagingly as a ”poor bugger farmer” issue by the more enlightened in the corridors of Canberra. Now senior corporates are also starting to ask the same question. The chief executive of Coca-Cola Amatil, Terry Davis, has highlighted his difficulty in finding a margin for Coca-Cola on a shelf controlled by two very dominant retailers and a second-tier wholesaler.
Foreign ownership of key agricultural assets and our ever increasing reliance on foreign borrowings by our government is a two-for-one package. People do not believe that Swan has the debt under control, and he hasn’t, he has borrowed an extra $11 billion over the past four weeks.
They believe that there is a naivety pervading the carte blanche approach to any investment to any area for any reason. They ask when does the government ever say no and the answer is that our Foreign Investment Review Board is like the Venus de Milo acting as wicket keeper for Australia: looks good but stops nothing.
People are surprised to learn that if a foreigner wants to buy any residential land then approval must be sought. However, you can buy any farm in the country without seeking approval if it is worth less than $244 million. There is probably only one farm in Australia over that threshold.
People have a pathological dislike of a policy called a carbon tax. Sections of the left hate it because it is seen as a mechanism to create commissions for major sections of the banking sector. The right hates it because it is a totem for the fallacy that government is better at spending money than you are and has wiser and more noble motives than you have. Everybody in between hates it because it is just so patently absurd. Government policies that make people poorer don’t cool the planet, they just make people very angry.
Rather than help the proponents of the global warming debate the carbon tax has been completely counter-productive for them. The reality is that there is now a strong majority who have a strong scepticism of the global warming narrative and a large number who just don’t believe at all. Many of those who do believe in it, don’t want to pay for it.
Finally, and it is the issue du jour: coal seam gas. This issue is politically remarkable as it has linked the far left and the far right. It is the powerless landholder against the miner and the expectation that the government should act for the powerless. It is the usurping of an individual’s property right, the under pinner of an individual’s security, the seedbed of the individual’s liberty. It is the green issue that links to the shopping trolley.
Unfortunately for the government, it is in so much debt that its political future, based on the delivery of services, cannot be met without the income stream from the royalties and the tax.
What then really angers people is that the topics they see discussed on their TVs, and from their government, do not match these concerns.
People want a more positive future where government talks about the delivery of substantial new infrastructure and a vision of a new horizon of economic opportunity in the north and other undeveloped parts of our nation.
Instead we have a Labor government obsessed with its own machinations and a Treasurer who seems to think his main job is to pick fights with Andrew Forrest, Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer.
Damn!
He sure has his finger on the pulse.
Imagine such a man leading the nation.
The words of the great Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu spring readily to this blogger’s mind in picturing such a future:
“To lead the people, walk behind them.”
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”
Barnaby Is Right 
The most positive, in fact, really the only positive thing would be for the government to relieve itself of its monopoly on ‘money’. When the one thing you cannot have enough of, for which demand is infinite, is rigidly controlled by the government for the benefit of itself & its acolytes – mostly financial institutions but also law firms, large corporations… it is impossible to compete.
What people want is money… that’s what they want…
I’ve heard nothing from the coalition so far on this issue, somehow I don’t expect to.
+1
People want an honest government… one which is not run by the international bankers.
As per my comment above anon, you have it backwards.
It is the government that enables the bankers, international or otherwise. It is of course for the benefit of the government, since government debt is monetised by the financial system. As if by magic the debt of the government is made ‘money good’.
People may want an honest government but they won’t get it whilst the government has a monopoly on ‘money’. The power of money is the power of the Gods (& that’s no hyperbole). That’s why I don’t expect the coalition would dis-enable themselves.
Ron Paul in the US seems to be the only political pundit expressing similar views.
JMD
“People may want an honest government but they won’t get it whilst the government has a monopoly on ‘money’.”
I know in Thailand you can effectively use gold for savings as it will not have capital gains on it unlike here and this I think is not such a bad idea if individuals lose faith in the countries currency they can save in gold. It may not seem much of an issue at the moment for Australia but if the ALP gets into power again there is significant risk of massively rising government debt which can lead to money printing high inflation and interest rates below inflation for savers (as is the case in the US) and gold being the standard currency for thousands of years will on average to maintain its value.
There is significant risk of massively rising government debt if the ALP gets into power ‘again’?
We’re already there Kelly, & some. Government debt issuance has exploded in the last couple of years. What needs to be understood too is that is won’t lead to money printing & high inflation – it IS money printing & high inflation. The inflation is in the bond & ‘money’ markets & the problem is when the bond & ‘money’ markets deflate.
TBI published one of my articles some months back regarding delation & the gold ‘sales’ of the RBA in 1997.
And yes, gold is a good idea.
And I would say that you have it backwards.
It’s the international bankers / central bankers who have the government over a barrel. They know what happens when they try to manage their own money – as apposed to central bank management which is how it works (central banks loan money to the government at interest) – just as JFK who tried to do just that.
Ron Paul wants to end the Federal Reserve – which is the central bank and central banks – and bring the monetary policy back to government control.
The banks run the government and to say otherwise makes me suspicious of you and who you’re working for. That, or you have limited knowledge on how the system works.
“They know what happens when they try to manage their own money – as apposed to central bank management”
Yes, it’s called hyperinflation but alas we will get there eventually even with central bank management since it is largely worthless government debt that central banks monetise.
And no, Ron Paul does not want to ‘bring the monetary policy back to government control’, he advocates competing currencies, certainly gold & silver & perhaps even free banking, the antithesis of government control.
You need to take off your tin foil hat.
http://www.apfn.net/Doc-100_bankruptcy.htm
I agree with you Anon. Except for Iran and a couple of other countries, all Central/Reserve Banks are Rothschild controlled – including the RBA.
“To lead the people, walk behind them”
“And the greater of you shall be a servant of you,and whoever will exalt himself shall be humbled, and whoever will humble himself shall be exalted.” Matthew 23:11-12
“Let every soul be subject to higher authorities, for there is no authority if not from God” Romans 13:1 The ultimate authority is God.
What would Christ have to say about the mountain of legislation and treaties that our politicians currently have in force? I’m sure He would reduce them all to a sentence or two. I doubt that any politician would have a clue as to the content and meaning of the hundreds of treaties that Australia is party to.
I do not know if I am being outrageous but I am very concerned about the governments attacking some of the mining people.
Barak Obama is attacking some investment banks
Hitler attacked the Jews and what did we get a Holocaust He said it was all their fault what went wrong in Germany Why because he borrowed money from them and found a way not to have paid it back. Is this a world wide trend
Please bring it to the head of the coalition for consideration
This site has a different understanding of history which you may find to be of interest.
http://www.ihr.org/