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The teeth of common sense need to be bared

By Greg Rudd - posted Monday, 26 August 2013


Common sense sleeps in its coffin buried deep underground. It's time for it to rise up and bite us all in the neck.

When asked 12 months ago why I wanted to become Queensland's first ever elected independent senator I said I was fearful for Australia's future.

Nothing has changed, except my fear has grown.

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I said Australia was a lucky country but it wouldn't stay lucky unless we laid down long term untouchable economic policy for the future.

I said politicians within the Federal Parliament had become addicted to the game of politics, winning no matter what the price. They'd lost sight of the purpose of politics, collectively working to secure Australia's future.

I said 12 Queensland Senators, fighting to safeguard and enhance Queensland interests (as dictated by Founding Fathers) had long ago deserted the hard yards of fighting for state and had meekly capitulated along party lines.

I said the Senate had become a House of Reward for union and party officials rather than a House of Review and State's House to advance Australia.

On my candidate cards I put Greg Rudd LCM, then waited for people to ask what LCM stood for. Logic, common sense and maturity, I would say. That's what's missing in our federal debate. That's what's missing in our national policy settings. Over the past 12 months no-one has disagreed with that.

Yet I find it bemusing there is no national outcry to improve the structure of our parliamentary democracy when we all know it's running so poorly.

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Don't get me wrong, there is an outcry. But it's an outcry of complaint and clever point-scoring rather than an outcry demanding positive structural reform that will benefit Australia.

I've suggested creating a structure protected from short term party politics, owned by the parliament, where 30% of vital long term economic policy is securely locked away from tinkering political hands.

This concept is no different from creating a protected structure for compulsory superannuation once we realised Aussies were pathetic long term savers. We bitch that we pay and can't access super, but we're still glad when retiring that we have thousands or millions more than would have otherwise been the case.

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About the Author

Greg Rudd is the brother of Kevin Rudd and an independent senate candidate in Queensland.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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