‘You must realise,’ my mother said sternly, so close to my face that I thought she was examining my teeth, ‘that when you’re 14, we are all going on a holiday. In the meantime, you have to get a job to help make ends meet and you start tomorrow with Mr Russell the Greengrocer.’

‘Mum, I’m only 10…’ was my feeble response. Actually, I was closer to 11 but there was no use arguing as she had clearly been possessed by the spirit of an evil shrew with a low IQ, because she couldn’t even remember my name, never mind my age. The very next day, a cold and windy Saturday, I was walking the grocer’s bike on a delivery with its huge cargo basket of groceries. Walking because it was too big for me to ride with any semblance of upright or directional stability in its loaded condition.

After a year of that, I had to do paper rounds out of school hours and soon got used to the fact that I had to contribute for the good of the family. My parents believed in keeping us busy, so I had quickly been instilled with a work ethic and the holiday turned out to be a one-way trip from Scotland to Australia.

‘Train a child in his ways, and he will not depart from it,’ or so it says in Proverbs. Friends of mine who run kindergartens tell me that you have to keep the kids busy or trouble, squabbling, and fighting will erupt.

In Australia, projects being blocked around the nation with spurious green regulations or interference from green activists, is resulting in rising unemployment. This promptly results in rising crimes… Note the very high percentage of murderers, rapists, and criminals that are unemployed. Hello, is anyone there?

Politicians are commenting that we need more police, but that’s a treating a symptom not the source. The myopic Greens cannot connect the dots between unemployment and the increase in domestic violence, murders, home invasions, and robberies. And yet they still campaign to halt mining, dredging, live exports, tree clearing … all of it destroying job opportunities!

I am told the economic storm is approaching and that the headlines are alarming.

Any prudent seafarer is always prepared for storms and when the storm comes he must temporarily halt the voyage.

He must bring his vessel about to face the storm’s largest waves, and will stay on the bridge for as many hours or days that the storm lasts to ensure that two things keep working…

One is the engine, that he will nurse to ensure that the vessel doesn’t nosedive into the steep waves or doesn’t lose steerage. The other is the steering gear itself. The loss of either the steering or the engine will result in the vessel not being able to hold her head perpendicular to the huge waves. Within 3-4 minutes, she will fall beam onto the waves and will likely be overwhelmed and founder with a loss of the vessel and many, if not all of the lives on board.

Are we serious about tackling this economic storm that is confronting us? Crew numbers that were pulling their weight in running the ship are now seriously dwindling. Many of them have become petulant passengers seeking cash entitlements with their discontent propelled by green propaganda. They believe engine noise and exhaust emissions are evil and they are assured by our leaders those annoyances will also be curbed soon. Of that there is no doubt, there will be total silence when the ship rolls over.

Are we really serious about fighting a serious war on survival or aren’t we? Are we too focused on appeasing green ideology to see our dwindling work ethic and survival skills slip away?

Was it not our collage of ill-informed conservation groups, spineless leaders, and a lazy media who brought this message repeatedly for the last 30 years, and put the green cult ahead of common sense, our GDP, and our ability to handle any economic crisis?

Our nation’s economy, defence, and ability to handle disasters are dangerously weak. Our three levels of government consider that the desirable outcome is looking busy with endless academic studies addressing the fear-generating claims from venomous green alarmists.

Our brightest youth, with good school marks and university results, are struggling to find work in trades or offices thanks to the Greens. Now thousands of them realise that they didn’t have a real job, skills, or relevant qualifications after all and they have little or no chance of surviving some hardship. Disillusionment often gives way to anger and crime.

We have over-regulated most of our industries with green tape, including most of our manufacturing, causing closures, skills, and job losses, as we are no longer competitive with a seriously hungry Asia.

Asia does not have the financial storm because they are busy working and making things.

I’ll start caring about whales and rare tree frogs when some sensible leader informs me how we are remotely going to control the rapidly increasing numbers of unemployed and the corresponding increase in levels of crime and social disorder.

I’ll care about the greenhouse gases when the misinformed Green eco-warriors, who have pervaded every level of our government and are deeply concerned about rare species of everything, become concerned about our youth. Our kids need jobs, not mental health centres. They need to learn how to work, and they need a work ethic.

I’ll care when our leaders wake up to the fact that sea transport around our great nation will in fact reduce GHG’s, road accidents, road congestion, and maintenance. It is unbelievable that all levels of government continue to enshrine most of our coastline in cotton-wool marine park legislation, unaware they are amputating the very solutions the country needs.

When I observe the weeping and wailing of the ‘deeply concerned Woke brigades’ impeding sensible projects around our country, understand this…

We need a stronger leadership that can tackle the source of our problems, not the symptoms. The Greens are propelling our crime rates and the nation’s downfall, no doubt about it.

Only work produces wealth, nothing else. Due to our gullibility to green-tinged lies and deception on a grand scale, we have become so weak, lazy, petulant, and over-regulated that our wealthy working neighbour countries are slaughtering our GDP, and buying us up.