Memo to Julia

This leads to the next issue, refugees. Don’t compete with the Tories in dehumanising the refugee issue. Educate our community and take them with you. Turning our backs on refugees is not in our national interest.

The world turned its back on refugees after the Israeli/Palestinian partition and we have paid for that inaction with the blood of the innocent.

We are engaged in a war in Afghanistan against the Taliban, we are not winning this war. Those Afghanis who are fighting the Taliban are doing so with great courage. But there are times when courage does not lead to a material victory. We must not turn our backs on those who are fighting our enemies, we must not let tawdry domestic politics provide a propaganda victory to the Taliban.

By turning our backs on the refugees we give the Afghanis no option but to join our enemies. We cannot afford to allow refugee camps on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border to become the breeding ground for the next generation of terrorists. It is not in our national interest.

We in the west must provide a sanctuary to those escaping the Taliban. We are sending our young to die in this foreign land we must not dishonour their memory by allowing the victims of the enemy to be turned into a political football. Our diggers deserve better.

The next big item is the issue of a Big Australia or a Small Australia. Do not fall for the trap of embracing small Australia in the vain belief this will lead to a more sustainable society. A small Australia means higher taxes or longer working lives to support an ageing society.

Sustainable population policy is not about providing more physical resources for infrastructure for our capital cities. We must transform our working lives. We must recognise that the highways of the 21st century are not made of bitumen, but fibre optics. Building the National Broadband Network is critical, but ensuring it is used effectively is more so.

As our economy moves away from agricultural, mineral and manufacturing to a services base we have two options: a move to high value services such as engineering design, or low value services.

We must take positive steps to encourage telecommuting: we need to divert significant proportion of our economy and our society off the bitumen highway and onto the fibre optics highway. This would enable people to live outside the Sydney/Canberra/Melbourne triangle and would allow our regional cities to be locations of opportunity. It would give our young the option to remain in their rural communities and would return vibrancy to the soul of our Nation, the bush.

We need to provide tax incentives to encourage telecommuting for both workers and employers and also provides the infrastructure to enable this to occur. There will not be a one size fits all solution. For example, it may be that generic offices in regional and rural settings need to be built and made available for hire to companies wishing to allow their workers to work from these centres, or it may be a case of supporting workers in their homes to enable them to telecommute.

Governments both Federal and State need to take a leadership role with their own workforces.

A minority government provides an opportunity to build a new coalition within our society for the 21st century.

Julia, do not squander this once in a lifetime opportunity.