Once upon a time, Australia was a united nation. Its people respected Australia Day, Anzac Day and Christmas Day. They died in two world wars so that their heirs and successors could enjoy the freedoms and values they held dear. They had a sense of national identity, disliked pomposity and  believed in the ‘fair go’ of equal opportunity and equality under the law. They knew that there were dark episodes in colonial times but believed that what had emerged was a decent, democratic society full of opportunities for anyone prepared to work hard.

The immediate post-war wave of ‘new Australians’ recognised those opportunities and, mostly, assimilated as Aussies. Sure there was some bruising in the melting pot, but a more mature nation emerged.

That was before multiculturalism and identity politics came into vogue. Unlike earlier pressures to ‘live as Australians’, multicultural migrants were encouraged to celebrate their heritage, subject to an overriding commitment to the national constitution, the rule of law, and basic principles of tolerance and equality, including equality of the sexes.

Some new settlers saw these changes as a licence to enjoy the freedoms and material benefits Australia offered, while remaining faithful to their tribal traditions. This encouraged living in enclaves, perpetuating ancient hatreds with little interest in integration. In other words, emotionally, many simply rented their citizenships.

Inevitably, unyielding adherence to unacceptable customs collided with Australian laws and values. This has never been more apparent than in the current outpouring of ancient Palestinian hatreds towards Australian Jews now witnessed on Australian streets following Israel’s retaliation for the unspeakable atrocities inflicted on innocent Jewish women and children.

Any migrant who continues to believe killing Jews is a religious obligation, has falsely sworn their citizenship oath. Propagating such malice defines them as aliens.

While only a minority of Muslims may subscribe to vicious anti-Semitism, few condemn it. Like too many Australians on the left and in positions of authority, they turn blind eyes to those inciting violence and seek cowardly refuge in moral equivalence.

This disdain for equality under the law was also evident during the Covid-19 pandemic, when tens of thousands of Australian Black Lives Matter protesters defied strict rules forbidding mass assembly. No one was arrested. However, when desperate Victorians took to the streets to voice opposition to the world’s longest lockdowns, they were shot at with rubber bullets. Some 200 were arrested.

This demonstrates that, regardless of the law or accepted practice, the state now arbitrarily decides what is lawful behaviour using dogma as the criterion.

So a 30-hour blockade of the Port of Newcastle by climate activists was irresponsibly approved by the NSW Police Minister, Yasmin Catley, ‘Because we all know where things are headed’. While freedom of assembly is paramount, the extent of this protest and, subsequent civil disobedience, were unacceptable and imposed unrecoverable costs on innocent third parties.

This narrow, ideological mindset was also on display when a heritage adviser to Transport for NSW, a recipient of two apprehended violence orders, threatened to ‘smash (a senior female executive’s) face in’ and, twice to ‘kill her’. He remains employed, ‘because he is Aboriginal and a cultural knowledge holder’.

Sadly, democratic principles in Australia are no longer a given.

Take Secretary of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development Communications and the Arts, Jim Betts. He recently attended a Senate Estimates hearing dressed in a golf shirt with a rainbow lanyard around his neck. By so doing, he conspicuously demonstrated contempt for the parliamentary dress code which requires standards in keeping with business and professional attire.

Mr Betts was quizzed by Queensland Senator, Gerard Rennick as to why, with 2,000 bureaucrats, he couldn’t answer 400 questions on notice after four weeks? Clearly annoyed, Mr Betts later demonstrated his disrespect for the senator, the Senate and the people by saying, ‘It seems harder for you to ask questions than for us to answer them.’

When asked his salary package, Mr Betts dissembled, saying he would have to check, because ‘it has been adjusted recently’. A staffer reminded him it is $928,340, a number easily forgotten.

Mr Betts is not alone in his disregard for the democratic process. Having pursued a scare campaign warning how a freeze on indexation of the ABC’s budget would decimate staff numbers, Chief Executive David Anderson told a Senate hearing he ‘didn’t believe the organisation’s headcount had increased over the past year’. Later it was revealed 120 more people had been employed, a detail that had escaped the chief executive.

Notwithstanding this, and with falling audiences and embarrassing legal payouts, the ABC board secretly reappointed Mr Anderson for another five years.

Even the guardian of the democratic process, the Australian Electoral Commission, while protesting neutrality, appeared to favour the Yes23 side in the referendum campaign. Tellingly, Deputy Electoral Commissioner and ‘Indigenous Champion’, Jeff Pope, said the AEC would pull out all stops to enrol indigenous voters. Surely encouraging enrolment should be blind to background and not racially biased.

According to the Grattan Institute, since 2016, of 22 large federal government projects, just six had a business case. And even when given parliamentary assent, subsequent administration has revealed appalling bureaucratic incompetence. Similar ineptitude abounds in health, education, defence, indigenous affairs and public broadcasting. The resulting waste and resource misallocations are a continuing drag on productivity and living standards.

But nothing will change while elected representatives, business leaders, academics and journalists, remain hostage to the ideological agenda being relentlessly pursued by 2.43 million unelected public ‘servants’; a 522,000 increase in just a decade.

Rather than introspection, they use reach and cultural arrogance to avoid accountability, doubling down on policy errors while simultaneously searching for fresh opportunities to exert ever greater authority over society. Their ideological bias and sheer numbers are now sufficient to influence and even swing elections.

Without a sustained U-turn, today’s Australians, the descendants of once proud defenders of democracy, will surely bequeath to future generations the certain miseries of social dictatorship.