It is a humbling experience to be a leader in a democracy. It requires the recent Coalition concession that they were ‘smashed’ at the last election.

Yet our leaders have failed our democracy and have not apologised for it.

No one has apologised for our large ongoing budget deficits, or income tax (which is half of federal government revenues), the drop in living standards, or our sluggish productivity growth.

No one has apologised for a weak commitment to economic development, especially when compared to the fanaticism and ideology we bring to stopping mining exploration and development of fossil fuels.

What about apologising for a lack of defence spending in a dangerous world? Or the levels of immigration which created impossible housing prices?

Does anyone think these are good things? What happened?

Our political culture is an improvement on some political traditions. ‘Give me your money or I will kill you!’ is not our usual approach to civil negotiation. Nor do we elect terrorist organisations to ‘government’ with predictable results. And we do not nationalise industry so government cronies can steal it.

The Star Chamber used to imprison anyone it wished with barely a semblance of a fair trial. The Star Chamber was abolished over three hundred years ago. It does not now function in the centre of a capital city.

Yet something is not working. Is there any reason why good government is not possible? ‘Everything is possible, even the impossible,’ as Mary Poppins said.

First, the box girder bridge test must be applied to budgets. A bridge will fall down if you do not follow the laws of engineering, even if you share your feelings with it and speak your truth. Confessional politics may help adjust welfare entitlements but will not help build a more productive economy.

Second, we need to understand consequences. The pastoralists burst out of Sydney and built Australia from Queensland down to South Australia, helped by European and Aboriginal labourers. They caused the economic boom of the 1860s that continued with interruptions until the 1950s. Jobs and good wages and the welfare state resulted. Who says that today? Almost no one, and if you do say it, you may offend someone.

Third, we should use an ordinary people ‘lens’ and make the productivity reforms necessary to improve the wages received by all those hard workers getting out of bed each morning, doing a job as best they can, not always an enjoyable job, and trying to support a family, or buy a house.

As one of the great reforming Whigs of the 19th Century, Lord Palmerston (Britain’s Prime Minister in the 1850s) said:

‘What every man and woman too have a right to, is to be well governed and under just laws…’

Our Australian Constitution tells us, after all, that government is about the ‘peace, order, and good government’ of the people not just the diverse ones you like the best.

Fourth, as John Stuart Mill said, if a proposition is not ‘is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth’. Free speech must be just about unlimited.

Finally, Lord Palmerston was known as ‘Lord Pumice Stone’ because of his abrasive discussions. He would not tolerate for a moment the ‘fixated person’ shouty politics which we sometimes endure today, although he did not horsewhip anyone in the street or resort to duelling pistols as some did. He rejected and abhorred ‘revolutionists’:

‘…blind-minded men [and women] who, animated by antiquated prejudices, and daunted by ignorant apprehensions, dam up the current of human improvement…’

Those who campaign against all economic development today are often ‘blind-minded’ and ‘animated by antique prejudices and daunted by ignorant apprehensions’. They drag us away from practical measures, make last-minute legal challenges to anything useful, rename cities without telling anyone (because they have given up on people like you), and vandalise statues. Their reasoning is odd, and they live in a different world to the real one.

Whiggish thinkers like Palmerston, on the other hand, built modern Australia as much as advanced liberals and later social democrats did.

The August Productivity Roundtable announced by the government may begin with rough common ground between the government and trade unions which others will be invited to join, with amendments arguably possible.

Creative destruction of industry is part of economic development, both terrifying and in the past leading to better living standards. So, we must not strangle AI.

We should reduce income tax; reduce expenditure on the NDIS by 10 per cent cuts and other problematic programs; take advantage of our manufacturing, services and minerals potential by streamlining red and green tape and removing duplicate approval processes; and reduce vexatious litigation to a minimum with the broadest discretions (‘I think’) leaving little to be challenged. The same with housing. And a defence policy that defends.

There are ideological obstacles impossible to overcome relating to heritage and fossil fuels, and ideological state governments. Alice in Wonderland says that ‘one can’t believe impossible things’ but the White Queen tells her that ‘sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!’

The Red Queen favours setting up 18 consultative committees on the ‘interaction of growth expectations with social concerns’ which will tour the country consulting ‘stakeholder’ committees for ‘feedback’ to report after the next election. A peak of peaks.

The world is a dangerous place with everything we have relied on less stable, whether defence or economics. We need to modify an Alice in Wonderland approach to government.

Reg Hamilton, Adjunct Professor, School of Business and Law, Central Queensland University