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The leadership qualities of a long-dead parrot

By Stuart Ballantyne - posted Wednesday, 24 August 2022


The second world war started just as quickly, with an emboldened and well-armed Germany invading Poland, and later the Japanese joined in by attacking Pearl Harbor – both occasions without any polite notice of intent.

America and the UK were well prepared militarily for the second world war, but how well is Australia prepared for a possible third global encounter?

In the event of a surprise attack on Australia by the Norfolk Island fishing club during a long weekend, I think the odds will be with the fishing club.

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Our political leaders over the last 30 years have been lacklustre at best, and have allowed our nation and its people to become weak. Paul Keating declared us a banana republic, and then his words became fact. At 22 per cent overdraft interest rates, Keating established the nation's highest percentages of company liquidations and receiverships, including my company and its 300 staff who went to the wall.

Even John Howard – purported to be the best – in my view as a small business owner was fairly ordinary. He introduced the grossly unfair retrospective taxation and ignored the pleas of small business to incentivise their lives by removing obstructions like payroll tax. The wheelbarrowing of Turnbull into the inner sanctum of the Liberal Party, serves as an abysmal failure in judgment and counts as strike three from my perspective. Now, Howard sits in the cheap seats flicking criticism of Trump's 'style'. Poor form indeed.

How could we forget the nation's two worst Prime Ministers, Rudd and Gillard, with the latter uttering, 'Oi'll never bring in a carbon tax under moi leadership!' to ensure voter confidence for a few hours? Gillard then sliced the defence budget to the lowest percentage of GDP ever.

Abbott should have sold 51 per cent of the ABC before they had the chance to bring him down. Today, the ABC still lingers at the epicentre of the Woke-Left and everything anti-Australian.

Morrison betrayed both the Liberal and the Christian brands and should've handed the mantle to Dutton for toppling Turnbull.

The difference between a leader and a shallow politician is the fact that the leader will do what is good for the majority. Leadership is convincing people what they don't want to do, but need to do. Check for yourself and watch Braveheart again!

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Alas, sooner or later the price for national ineptness and compromise has to be paid and for sure we are an easy target for a regional bully. We are a massive land with huge mineral and agricultural wealth and a small population left to defend it. But wait! There's more! Australia now has an incredibly stupid and weak leadership focused on socialist trivia, the enlargement of highly paid unionised bureaucracies, and the appeasement of the UN policies of Net Zero. These Lilliputians, with the leadership qualities of a long-dead parrot, have no idea the size and power of the approaching Gulliver.

On key basics such as port infrastructures for regional development and defence, the likely frontlines of Western Australia and Queensland have a total of 20,000 kilometres of coastline averaging one port every 700 kilometres. To bring some perspective, India's most successful state of Gujarat has a port every 53 kilometres. The UK has a port every 65 kilometres, all of which were an essential ingredient in the successful defence of UK in two world wars.

To establish a new port in Australia, not only have the national parks and marine parks been enshrined, the incredibly slow and expensive permit process keeps hundreds of EPA and APBC bureaucrats busy with ever-increasing regulations and fees. This ensures pesky but motivated middle and small businesses are kept away from 'pristine coastlines', while only the large wealthy companies can afford to engage in such an ordeal.

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This article was first published in The Spectator.



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About the Author

Stuart Ballantyne is just a sailor who runs Seat Transport Solutions who are naval architects, consultants, surveyors and project managers.

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