How long will Australians tolerate politicians abusing their powers, while under-performing in so many areas under their responsibility, such as education?

We live under a constitution based on the eternal rule that power tends to corrupt. An increasing number of Australians suspect the Wuhan virus is being used to create fear and thus an acceptance of draconian solutions used to win elections and even to maintain opinion polling ratings.

There is an increasing suspicion that media briefings are being held to panic the population, with shock reports about a small number contracting the virus. While most are likely to recover, a draconian solution is then imposed on the population, even across the whole state.

What is obvious is that while the vulnerable should be protected, there never was any justification in seriously damaging those in a specific range of businesses and employments.

When the virus first struck in Australia the declared policy was to ‘flatten the curve’, that is to slow down its impact so that the hospitals could cope. That has never been changed. But the conclusion from the actions of too many politicians is their aim is to achieve an obvious impossibility: eradicating the virus without the population becoming immune. Do politicians really assume Australians haven’t noticed this pretence?

The original modelling the National Cabinet chose exaggerated the impact of the virus and may well have justified the choice of the communist solution of drastic lockdowns rather than the solution proposed by the country that designed what was obviously world’s best practice, Taiwan. As recounted here, the transcription of the modelling for the National Cabinet also contained an error significantly magnifying the need for serious medical attention. Had it not been inexplicably kept under wraps, the error would no doubt have been noticed much earlier by experts at James Cook University and the solution rectified.

It seems that imposing damaging solutions is not in the past. Over the recent Anzac Day weekend, vast numbers of Australians were seriously disadvantaged and confidence weakened again because of a minor outbreak in, of all places, a quarantine hotel in Perth. .

Rather than accepting responsibility, Premier Mark McGowan decreed yet another damaging lockdown and blamed the federal government.

And as with so many politicians, the first and easiest target in the lockdown was to be the Anzac Day dawn services while major sporting matches were allowed to go ahead.

Some observers have concluded that these events confirm that the states have become significantly more powerful because of the Wuhan virus. This is not so. The states remain shameful mendicants, dependent for an unacceptably large part of their income from the federal government, indeed to a degree which would outrage the American creators of the concept of modern federation, the founders of our own and politicians worthy of the mandate given by the people .

That Australia bears the shame of having the most dependent states in any comparable federation in the world is demonstrated by the fact that about 80 per cent of taxes are collected by the Commonwealth and about half of these are given back to the states, subject to federal control. This results in the appallingly expensive and inefficient situation where two sets of politicians, bureaucrats, advisers and consultants are trying to control the same service. This makes delivery more uniform than intended throughout the Commonwealth thus removing any prospect of that great advantage of a real federation, competition demonstrating to the nation which approach is better.

On one expert calculation this mess flushes down the drain 10 or 11 per cent of our GDP. That is about A$160 billion. This is not a one-off, it’s every year.

And not only is this a gigantic waste of your money. It is grossly efficient.

Just ask yourself why does Australia have one of the most expensive education systems in the world, one which compared with an increasing number of  OECD countries, delivers lower standards in reading, maths and science every year? This is because the fight between armies of federal and state politicians, bureaucrats, advisers and consultants has only made it easier for the neo-Marxists to take control.

And not only in delivering lower standards in reading, maths and science. The neo-Marxists have dispensed with teaching history and values. This was illustrated by a call by a woman to 2GB and the Nine Radio Network’s Luke Grant on Anzac Day, to recount the fact that when in school in the Nineties, the only history she learned was indigenous and that her granddaughter knows nothing about the Anzacs, not even being able to pronounce Gallipoli correctly.

The Wuhan virus has not resulted in the states resuming the place intended for them by the constitution, not at all. They remain sad mendicants, beggars on Canberra.

The truth is Canberra has failed dismally to take the role clearly and specifically intended by the founders in matters such as the Wuhan virus. The constitution empowers Canberra to make laws for the peace order and good government of the Commonwealth in respect of quarantines, with the power to prevail over the states in this regard.

This should be done in a system which discourages lockdowns unless really justified, which frankly, has not yet occurred. Such a system should be determined in public with politicians and their subordinates discouraged from resorting to authoritarian solutions unless they themselves suffer the consequences. This they have totally escaped thus far during this crisis.

For example, with the exception of the frontline, their income over, say, $1,000 per week could be gradually reduced with a, say, $3,000 cap per week for three months or the length of the lockdown, whichever is shorter.

In addition, the law with respect to misfeasance in public office should result in not only damages payable by the taxpayers. It should extend to requiring some reasonable contribution by the decision- makers and their advisers.

In other words, sharing the pain.