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Commentary
The word “unprecedented” has been cast with little thought for the past 18 months.
But was there anything really unprecedented, from blockages and border closures to the single largest normal budget item, JobKeeper (A $ 90 billion)?
Or was everything about our COVID-19 experience, in fact, very precedent, including the start of an unquestionable rule by experts?
For over 20 years, Australia has been run by a class of management elites that are largely undisturbed by the intentions of the Australian people expressed in the elections. Instead, they dominate by technocratic missions.
For example, since the global financial crisis, Reserve Bank of Australia experts have decided to bring the discount rate as close to zero as possible in order to revive business investment and create full employment. But the flip side of this is that Australians have experienced the longest structural decline in new private sector business investment compared to the size of the economy.
Australians also signed the Paris Agreement against their will because of their expertise in climate science, despite numerous oppositions in the elections.
In 2013, Liberal leader Tony Abbott won an overwhelming victory after promising to abolish the carbon tax imposed by the former Labor government, directly contrary to previous election promises.
The 2019 Climate Election, in which current Prime Minister Scott Morrison won the government behind resource-centric voters, is for those who are still uncertain about how Australians feel about emission reductions and economic security. Provided further evidence.
Sadly, this preference is now being ignored by the Prime Minister, who has expressed a desire to implement the Net Zero Emissions target.
Australians are, in a sense, well prepared for the technocratic COVID era.
Our experience has given way to the desire of political leaders to remove “politics” from democracy and focus on their expertise. But this is nothing more than removing democracy from democracy.
Adam Band, the leader of the Greens and a federal parliamentarian in Melbourne’s seat, has revealed that this is certainly his preference.
Voters in the Higgins federal constituency want “evidence-based policy,” he told the Age newspaper. “The catastrophic failure to listen to COVID crisis experts is not to listen. Will be defeated by the influence of. ” Climate change expert. “
Aside from the fact that Australia’s federal and state response to COVID-19 was entirely based on “listening to experts,” it raises a thorny issue. “Advice?
Australian politicians are supposed to represent the views of their members.
Their job is to listen to many different stakeholders, weigh their views, and make decisions that balance these insights with the best interests of the voters.
But this is no longer the way democracy works in Australia.
This was fully revealed in August’s Congress, where Dawson’s Congressman George Christensen was accused by his colleagues in a speech in the House of Representatives.
Christensen argued that “blockade does not destroy the virus, but it does destroy people’s lives and people’s lives.” There is ample evidence to support this statement, including the recent Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). analysis Outline how the blockade is ruining small businesses.
The IPA investigated three weeks after the blockade began in Greater Sydney on June 26, and estimated that more than 540,000 jobs were destroyed in small businesses across Australia. That’s 25,000 per day.
Experiences in New South Wales, Victoria, and now New Zealand confirm what many have claimed since the outbreak of the pandemic. It is impossible to eliminate the virus.
The federal government is now taking this as an official position, and Treasury Secretary Josh Frydenberg said on August 24, “Zero COVID is forever unrealistic … it is wrong to eliminate COVID … you You need to learn to live with it. “
However, just two weeks before issuing this statement, Frydenberg and other government members voted to blame Kristensen for making a similar statement.
However, it was Kristensen’s job to broadcast the views of his members, so no criticism should have occurred in the first place. In addition, members of parliament must not be accused, accused, or revoked for expressing their views in parliament. Therefore, parliamentary privileges are granted.
Surprisingly, Commonwealth Labor Senator Murray Watt celebrated that tech giant Facebook decided to blame Kristensen by deleting the video of his speech.
This is the situation in Australia’s democracy in 2021, and elected national representatives could be accused of expressing opinions contrary to the possible “expert” advice of the day. Of Australian.
Great Southern Land has invested enormous resources in its commitment to COVID-19. Still, we need to be aware of another variant. It is a highly infectious technocrat virus that has invaded and weakened our democracy.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Cian Hussey is a Research Associate at the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, Australia. His work focuses on the impact of bureaucracy on SMEs and the wider economy.
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