An ambit claim for the Ruddfest 2020

Social advertising can use positive, rather than negative, psychological messages to divert peer pressure away from antisocial behaviour and showing off, and encourage healthy activities and entertainments.

The arts and media can assist in stopping prevalent harmful and ignorant childcare practices.

Housing must include outdoor opportunities for children’s free play.

An explicit aim of education must be to learn lifelong leisure interests and hobbies.

Education

Diversity must enrich Australia, not fragment it. No school segregation must be allowed that can breed future social conflict, as is happening at present; all schools must share, join and exchange with each other.

To be fair, all government schools must be endowed to the same degree as the wealthiest private schools. (Now there is an ambit claim!) The poorest need more help than the privileged. To be fair, the inevitable inequities of classroom chances must be complemented by opportunities for self-help, including online and TV Open Primary School and Open Secondary School, and trials of innovations to make literacy easier for those who find it very difficult.

Public assets

There should be no more sales of public assets, not even Medibank Private. Its sale would trigger a rise in premiums.

Trial the possibilities of other government “public enterprises” to compete with some essential but costly private businesses, such as a national online estate agency, and a new government bank for savings deposits and loans only. This would encourage the private businesses to keep their charges down.

There are better ways of raising finance than murky Private-Public Partnerships, or by selling our national assets so that governments lose control over natural monopoly infrastructures. This has happened with banks, which legally prioritise shareholders above the public interest, and Telstra which is unruly to try to regulate. Government bonds would be a better way to raise finance.

Elections

Fourteen measures are needed for fairer and less costly elections. See here. We cannot afford the present undemocratic and expensive practices.

Parliamentary behaviour

There should be fines for politicians misbehaving in the House. Politicians should pay for by-elections when they have resigned for no serious reason after having been elected.

Open government

This is of world-wide importance. In a country governed “by the people for the people” no commercial-in-confidence deals are desirable for any government business. Freedom of information need only be restricted to sensitive defence matters. Information requested can be posted online, so others need not inquire separately. Government bills and legislation that have been passed can also be listed online for the public to see what our legislators are doing.

It is a fine and democratic thing to have a big talkfest, but afterwards, there are risks of sliding into one of the seven deadly sins, accidie, sometimes weakly translated as sloth or laziness, for fine enterprises of great pith and moment, whose “currents turn awry and lose the name of action”.

The flood of Big Ideas must be grounded for action. It is imperative for public morale that the first real specific actions out of the Ruddfest must take place within the week following.