Numerous scribes, including this one, have recently written about Australia’s poor prospects and blamed the Albanese government for initiating most of our problems.

While I will leave apportioning blame for later, I believe the time has come to use our considerable brainpower in analysing the causes and possible solutions to Australia’s obvious problems.

These problems have been highlighted by out-of-control government spending which is nurturing an unsustainable national debt.

This has happened while our productivity has been falling dramatically and our population rising exponentially. We also have a Treasurer who is calling ‘full steam ahead’, blissfully unaware that the good ship ‘Australia’ is about to crash into the shores of reality.

What is this reality?

We have invested our money in non-productive housing and public transport, and not in income-earning infrastructure like power production, water conservation, and value-adding to our abundant resources.

If we take a serious look at our national economy with the aim of correcting the headlong rush to insolvency, we should start with demanding the federal government immediately remove itself from all areas of administration which fall under state responsibility.

The most obvious and costly examples are health and education, followed by water management and transport.

If we mandate these as state responsibilities, we could slash the number of public servants being paid by Canberra. Management of these vital services would be more efficient with one boss who is responsible to the people.

We should also legislate that every budget has an amount set aside to pay down existing debt and not raise further debt. Cosy acceptance of 2-3 per cent inflation is reckless. The steadfast aim should be to keep inflation below 1 per cent.

No one is suggesting that responsible economic management is easy, but it is essential, so buckle up now and stop spending. If it was easy, we would not see the present situation where most Western countries are running huge deficits and still promising voters more.

How do we stop Australia going further down the road to ruin without raising taxation to the point of loss of incentive?

To those like me not burdened with the task of cutting both spending and services, the answers come freely to mind.

First, we halt all immigration until we have all of our people in work. Yes, all of our people, including those who have chosen to be kept by taxpayers.

It is unacceptable that we have an Employment Minister hailing near-full employment when, in fact, we have 557,000 long-term unemployed, that is 557,000 people who have not had a job for over 12 months. These people are not meeting their citizenship obligations to provide for themselves and their family. That is a basic responsibility as a citizen of this bountiful country, and it has never been someone else’s job.

Secondly, we must stop all government support and assistance to house buyers.

Vote-buying policy is pushing up the price of housing. State governments must encourage regional communities to make serviced land available in all regional centres and halt further development in capital cities. Implementation of the policies will result in much cheaper housing.

We must also immediately withdraw from the Paris Agreement and halt all so-called climate change abatement policies. Present policy, as being implemented by Chris Bowen, is a non-solution to a non-problem that is making all Australian industries uncompetitive. Such feel-good nonsense must cease immediately.

Having done that, we should take the next step and start steering our own boat by withdrawing from the United Nations and rescinding all agreements we have with them.

Because we have not built a water storage dam of any consequence since the 1980s, we must immediately embark upon a dam-building plan in all states. These dams would guarantee our future water supplies, generate cheap hydro power, and mitigate most severe flooding. Specifically, we must harness our greatest river, the mighty Murray, by building the Chowilla Dam, which would have footprint across three states and a total capacity of five million megalitres. More importantly it would have an annual yield of three million megalitres which would generate 24,000 permanent jobs and annual farm gate production of $5 billion. As an adjunct it would also be the greatest breeding ground for Murray Cod in the world.

By planning for and playing to our strengths of food and fibre production we will get the best return for our investment. We have vast areas of fertile land all based in a Mediterranean climate zone ideal for food production. All that is needed is water and know how. The later we have and the former we can have if we wisely invest our capital.

Having done that, we must then foster our recently destroyed secondary industry. First step, cheap and reliable power. Second step, build the ‘Iron Boomerang’ rail line linking our west coast iron ore with our east coast coal and establish world-class steel industries at each end. There is no reason Australia could not be a world leader in steel production and steel manufacturing.

Remove the curse of ‘Native Title’ from all of our unique natural attractions and make them open to all Australians and tourists alike. Tourism is a low-cost ongoing income, so let’s promote it, unhindered by land claims.

There is much more we could do to make Australia blossom and productive, but this is a good start to recovery from being wrecked or rooted by incompetent politicians as I believe we now are.