Lots of Monkeys Running Around in Cirles as Fast as They Can

Paddy Manning

"Turnbull wants to run Australia Inc, with all the risk and opportunity that entails, just as another former NSW Premier, Nick Greiner (with whom he has much in common), ran "NSW Inc" - privatising assets, corporatising agencies and outsourcing government services wherever possible."

"Turnbull is the richest Prime Minister we have ever seen, with the closest connections to the business community. If anyone has the credentials, he does. Hopefully he will avoid the pitfalls of WA Inc in the eighties, where state politicians did questionable deals with entrepreneurs like Alan Bond and Laurie Connell, blowing up hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars and triggering a Royal Commission. Turnbull knows the dangers well, having advised WA's State Government Insurance Commission in the aftermath, as a young merchant banker."

Thus does history repeat itself. The lessons taught by the first attempt have generated tinkering around the edges, so the devil is in the detail, and the details mask this policy direction for what it is (with reference to this post's title). It will be better this time, they say. Behold the ICAC-ACCC Leviathan we have created in order to ensure such an outcome. As if the 'better angels of our character' can be inspired by the machinations of such a behemoth.

So the lesson learned was not the lesson taught. The problem was not with our concept of what will work, but with the way it was implemented.

The mere fact that a monstrous new bureaucracy needed to be created in order to control the side effects of what we were doing didn't ring a few bells to say that maybe our whole concept was misguided rather than only the details.

The sagas of WA Inc and NSW Inc, along with the hardships of Britain have totally discredited this way of governing a country. Yet The LNP still believes in the neoliberal ideology.

Let's just all go and get thatchered and be done with it. 

Innovation? - What do you mean?

Ben Oquist

"Malcolm Turnbull's innovation agenda has never been a comfortable fit with a dependence on coal. An old industry reliant on digging up black rocks and burning them under cauldrons for power is surely an industry ready to be 'disrupted' by photovoltaic, smart-grid and battery revolutions."

" we have a Prime Minister pursuing a big innovation agenda. However, a Prime Minister on the side of innovation will of course have to be on the side of renewable energy."

This is the first thing that jumped into my head when I heard an LNP leader talk about innovation and I would like to thank Ben Oquist for stating it so eloquently. Innovation in a retrograde direction is not innovation. The future world economy will be sustainable, protecting finite resources and using renewable energy sources. Innovation into technology which uses fossil fuels is a dead end.

We seek a 2C world or 1.5C if you are a low-lying land holder. This can only be achieved if fossil fuel deposits stay in the ground. This government has re-approved the Galilee Basin coal project and continues to allow CSG fracking on prime agricultural land. You can't have it both ways.

Innovation in one direction while deliberately undermining that innovation is oxymoronic and counterproductive.