The time has come where we must speak bluntly.

Australia is beset with a series of systemic and chronic public policy problems that continue to worsen by the day.

The Prime Minister has had two and a half years to lead and address these problems and yet the Australian people have been forced to twiddle their thumbs while waiting for action.

Malcolm Turnbull is leading a do-nothing Government, something which I publicly predicted on national TV back in June 2016, weeks before the last federal election.

As a result, the Australian people are suffering under the weight of a range of economic, social, and cultural ills.

They are dissatisfied and frustrated with the most over-compensated, the most self-indulgent, the most self-obsessed political class who have produced very little to justify the generosity of the Australian taxpayer.

Nothing will change with the upcoming federal budget as the political and fiscal strategy has been in train for months.

On May 8, the Prime Minister and Treasurer will deliver personal income tax cuts in the belief that they can effectively bribe the electorate into voting the Coalition back into office.

This budget will perhaps be the most cynical political exercise in recent Australian political history and will end up in failure.

Australians will see right through this attempt and will come to realise that the budget will do nothing to address Australia’s current pressing public policy problems nor resolve our mounting and significant medium to long-term challenges.

With the loss of the thirtieth consecutive Newspoll, leadership speculation is swirling with artificial deadlines being set for December, although there is no guarantee that anyone will summon the courage to offer Australia new leadership and mount a challenge.

I lack no such courage and I am therefore ready to launch a leadership challenge (albeit fictional) against the Prime Minister.

Never has there been a time in the past 35 years where challenging a sitting Prime Minister on public policy grounds has been more justified.

The record speaks for itself and no matter what justifications are offered to excuse the current state of policy paralysis; nothing will relinquish the responsibility of the Prime Minister for the policy failures which he has inflicted on the nation.

Let us remember:

• Who has given us the highest level of household debt in our history (both absolute and relative to disposable income)? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has given us the highest level of foreign debt in our history? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has given us the lowest level of household savings since the GFC? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has given us the biggest financial bubble in our lifetime? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has given us the highest real estate prices in our history? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has given us the highest electricity prices in our history? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has given us the highest level of Commonwealth debt? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has given us the highest level of drug crime and drug abuse in our history? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has given us the highest levels of net overseas migration and has therefore directly contributed to the worst traffic congestion in our capital cities? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has wasted the most public money on consultants? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has given us the lowest international education attainment rates in over 20 years? Malcolm Turnbull.
• Who has given us the most obese and unhealthiest Australian population ever? Malcolm Turnbull

To compound this atrocious record is the fact that the Australian economy is suffering from the most chronic macroeconomic structural imbalances in our nation’s history.

For two years, I have been warning that Australia is currently trapped in the biggest debt bubble in our national history at the same time when the world is trapped in the biggest globally integrated debt bubble in human history.

When the debt bubble explodes, an Economic Armageddon, that has the potential to rival either German Weimar Republic 1923 hyperinflation or the 1929 Great Depression, will be unleashed on millions of Australians.

Despite the rhetoric of the Government, several members of the Government’s own backbench are aware of the severity of Australia’s structural economic problems and privately acknowledge that Australia, their Government and the Australian people are completely unprepared for the crisis which is to come.

To his credit, Tim Wilson MP, the Member for Goldstein, is the sole parliamentarian to go on the public record in parliament and break ranks with the Prime Minister to warn Australians of the emerging economic crisis.

To add insult to injury is the chilling news, as recently reported by Fairfax Media, that China is seeking to establish a full military base on Vanuatu.

This act of strategic provocation coincides with China’s long-term ambition of replacing the United States as the world’s most powerful hegemon (see Michael Pillsbury’s book – the Hundred Year Marathon).

As I warned last October through a Daily Telegraph column, China is seeking to achieve its global economic and military dominance via breaking the back of the petrodollar system through the launch of its recent petro-yuan oil futures contract which took place on the March 26 of this year.

This action, coupled with other acts of financial system development undertaken by Beijing, seeks to end the global dominance of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency by eliminating the requirement to acquire US dollars in order to purchase crude oil on the world market.

If these efforts are proven successful, America will lack the monetary strength required to meet its astronomical debt obligations which have exploded under the Trump Administration and the 115^th US Congress.

Much like previous empires, an over-extended America will ultimately be economically forced to reduce its global military footprint and be limited in its ability to project military power.

This has direct implications as to the strength of our alliance with the Americans, our ability to rely on American military protection and therefore the risks to our national security.

Under a nightmare scenario, Australia could face a similar existential threat as experienced in 1942 when, after the fall of Singapore, the myth of British invincibility was shattered and Japan subsequently attacked Darwin.

Australians must be mentally, physically and materially prepared for all possible future geopolitical situations, something which this Prime Minister has utterly failed to do.

In summary, Australia is stuck in neutral, beset with pressing problems, unprepared for medium-term strategic challenges, and by all objective measures is in decline.

We are on the verge of potentially suffering our greatest economic crisis in 90 years and in the medium term, if urgent action is not taken, our greatest national security crisis since 1942.

I am not prepared to allow Australians to go down with the ship.

I am ready to challenge. I am ready to lead.

John Adams is a former Coalition Advisor

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