When the first Europeans arrived to settle in Australia, it mattered not whether they were administrators, convicts, army officers, or free settlers. None had any idea of the land to which they had been transported. Its size was unknown as was its terrain. They could not know anything about the southern land’s weather or climate. It would be years later that Dorothea Mackellar correctly wrote that this was ‘a land of droughts and flooding rains’. These brave and resourceful pioneers had to deal, as best they could, with whatever confronted them.

The difficulties of providing food, shelter, and transport in an alien environment were huge and required determination, resourcefulness, and adaptation to succeed. It was not until 1813 that the Blue Mountains were crossed by Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson. There they found a vista of grassy plains and fertile valleys stretched out as far as the eye could see. Adequate food production was now possible, but some very hard lessons were going to be learned before crops and the grazing of sheep and cattle became mostly successful. Our fledgling farmers discovered that farming practices used in England mostly failed on land that rarely had sufficient rainfall to mature a harvestable crop. Weed control by repeated cultivation soon led to widespread soil erosion and erratic heavy rainfall on fallowed land resulted in massive gully erosion making recently cleared land unable to be cropped.

Showing great resilience and objection to failure, our pioneers adapted to the conditions and succeeded. The stump-jump plough and then the bridle draft scarifier were developed, both capable of preparing recently cleared land for sowing wheat and oats. Shortly after, these nation builders developed the first ‘combine harvester’. This remarkable machine could reap, thresh, winnow, and deliver clean grain to hopper or bag. It put Australian farmers at the forefront of basic food production and Australian farmers began feeding many people across the globe. As a result, we saw the building of huge grain silos along an expanding grain belt. Testament to their robust construction is the fact that they still stand and are regularly used, often adorned with lifelike paintings.

So successful were our robust early settlers that by Federation, just over 100 years from first settlement, our population had grown to over 3.7 million and these people enjoyed the second highest per capita income in the world. We were flying high and enjoying the fruits of our successful labour. By this time, Australia was the largest market for French champagne, mostly as a result of the merino wool trade.

We were so successful because the Australian ethos of mateship grew from the need to help one another. We were egalitarian to a man. Whether it was in a shearing shed at Burke, sowing bags of wheat at Barellan, fighting in the trenches at Ypres, or the mud of the Kokoda Track – every Aussie pulled his weight and helped his mate, his neighbour, and others in need at times like bush fires and floods. All we needed from the government was access to the inputs which allowed us to be our best. Then we wanted government to ‘get the hell out of the way’. In those productive times, governments had the wisdom to do just that, or more correctly, voters did not give them the power to do otherwise.

While driven by self-interest, our pioneers were very mindful of the fact that they were reliant on others to grow the successful nation we were to become. New towns were established which became cities like Wagga Wagga, Albury, and Ballarat. These centers of commerce were connected to state capitals by both rail and road to ensure that the growing production could be sold and sent to end users, mostly in Europe.

While building a new nation we were called upon to assist the Motherland in two horrific wars and as was by now expected, Aussie Diggers were never lacking in courage and initiative. Whether crewing a Lancaster bomber or storming the beaches of Normandy; Aussies died making a difference. Our Diggers died successfully defending our freedom. We succeeded because our courage and our dogged determination was not dictated by government. Success was our talisman.

Returning from the second world war and assisted by thousands of war-weary migrants from Europe seeking a new start, we again began building a better and more productive Australia. Enthused by the vision of Prime Minister Chifley, we built and commissioned the Snowy Scheme. This wonderful engineering feat gave Australia the cheap power on which we built manufacturing industries. It also put over a million mega-litres of extra water into each of the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers. This now reliable influx of water saw a huge expansion of industries based on irrigated agriculture that resulted in the rapid growth of regional towns like Leeton, Griffith, and Mildura.

By the 1950s Australia was in an age of growth and prosperity. Whether on grain fields, sporting fields, battlefields, or research fields, we were up there with the world’s best and this gave us the confidence to climb new mountains of achievement. Bradman’s Invincibles had put us at the top of the cricket world and Betty Cuthbert, Dawn Fraser, Jon Hendricks, and many others had won us a bag of medals at the first ever Australian run Olympic Games in Melbourne. We enthusiastically took up the challenge that ‘every life has a value and the only coin noble enough to buy it; is an achievement’. This goal could only be achieved with success at what we chose, based on the dignity of a job, and with that job came the support of workmates and a reason for being. Self-esteem and personal dignity can only be bought with the coin of personal achievement.

The achievement of productive work.

The achievement of procreation and the nurturing of worthy citizens.

The achievement of supportive relationships.

The achievement of artistic expression.

When our citizens were achieving as they were in the 1950s and 1960s, bolstered by the examples of their forebears, we had less crime, mental illness, drug dependence, domestic violence, and more cohesive communities with lower taxation because we had fewer people living off the public purse.

I know of no one who foresaw that this age of growth, harmony, and growing living standards was coming to an end. Nor can I name one person who had the wisdom to give us an example as to why.

But, come to an end it did, as our once independent and proud pioneers became dependent on government bureaucracies for their existence. State governments set up marketing boards for everything from peanuts and potatoes to eggs and, of course, wheat and barley. Farmers no longer had to adhere to the golden rule of any productive enterprise. That is first find a market and establish a price that allows you to make a profit before you commit to producing anything. These basic rules of production were now left to a government bureaucracy whose first priority was looking after itself. Sinecures of plenty were soon legislated for all government employees, including politicians and these have grown over time.

As bureaucracies grew, remuneration for those employed in the public service grew exponentially. This has resulted in us now having over 2.5 million public servants across three tiers of government; that is, we have one public servant for every ten people and this is costing each and every Australian around $26,000 per year. It is time Australians swallowed a dose of truth, no matter how painful, and stopped being cajoled by the ignorant balderdash sprouted by Albanese, Bowen, and Plibersek that growth of government is growth for Australia.

If Australia is to ever again have the unity of purpose, the positive outcomes for our enterprise and improving living standards for all of our citizens as we did in our first 150 years, we must reject all prognostications couched in sophistry by politicians and their wimpish advisers. We must recognise and support truth being the unshakeable foundation of all discourse. Truth should teach us that all productivity grows from the people up, not from the government down. Passionate ignorance as enunciated by politicians, environmentalists, teachers, and some journalists who should know better, will destroy us if these tissue paper walls to our development are not rationally destroyed. Don Quixote tilting at windmills made more sense than Bowen’s brainless claim that Australia can get most of its power from ‘renewables’.

This, followed by the absurdity that this power, will be cheaper than present sources. That teachers and others in persuasive positions repeat this to vulnerable school children is a blot on our society.

Only when the people recognise that government is the problem and not the solution, and then have the voter courage to repeatedly prune bureaucratic growth will we again have a healthy and productive society.

The fight that is going on in Canberra is not between Labor and Liberals (that is simply a charade). The only fight that matters in Canberra is the one between the people and the government. The people must win this and again become the driver of government not puppets of government. We must immediately reduce the public service by near 50 per cent and as part of this abolish numerous overlapping departments at both state and federal levels. All present sinecures of plenty must be renegotiated to be in line with work done and similar to remuneration in the private sector. We should begin an ongoing program of building hydropower stations on most of our east coast rivers. There is ample volume of water and sufficient ‘head’ to supply all of eastern Australia’s power for the foreseeable future at a fraction of present power supply costs. Recognising that diesel fuel is what drives most of our transport and all of our fuel for agriculture, fishing, forestry, and mining we should remove all tax and excise from diesel.

With just these basic and easy reforms we would set Australia on a path to growth and achievement similar to what we so successfully achieved in our first 150 years. Because our people would no longer be puppets of government and again be free to be their best and build income-producing infrastructure like those painted silos.

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