Supporting small income tax cuts is gilding the lily if bracket creep and investment taxes reverse those cuts. It is gilding the lily to say investment will not be affected by increased taxes on investment.

The problem remains a big taxing government focused mainly on social concerns, which does not reduce government spending.

Nor can the ‘safety net’ outrun the economic growth that supports it. Many automatically disagree.

Australian citizenship is world citizenship – if someone has a piece of paper supporters will say that it is quite enough. Others may protest by saying, what if those who migrate here do not support the country or Australia’s character and identity as a place of civil peace and democracy?

Gilding the lily is not the best means of addressing our tax, welfare, or integration problems. Or any problems society may face.

Arguably, we sometimes prefer sentimentality as a country. Or systematically prefer sentimentality. This is unlike countries that act as adversaries of the West. It is often the case that their regimes easily sacrifice any number of their population to win a war.

Many politicians and commentators have tried to reconcile ideals with the real world in a better way. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-81), the great Russian writer, thought solutions to everything are simple:

‘Love thy neighbour as thyself … that is all, nothing else is needed.’

Practical people derived the law of negligence from the same neighbourhood principle. Although with many qualifications.

And yet the reality remains that half the world is at war and not remotely interested in getting along.

What happens if we apply Dostoevsky’s ideas?

Firstly, to housing. There are endless government building works taking place, a lot of it virtually uncosted in one or two particularly wasteful states. We should abandon endless government building works. Most of it is marginal in justification (at best). Use the builders and resources to build houses instead. That would be the true neighbourhood principle.

Secondly, defence. All we need is one major country, or perhaps up to four or five ‘rogue States’, to decide to abandon militarism. It would not be difficult. Western countries are already very reluctant to spend anything on defence regardless of the threats. So, it can be done.

It is a simple solution to many difficult problems. This is an equivalent to Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian knot.

Thirdly, a foreign hotspot that so many are focused on could simply decide to trade instead of fight. The only democracy in the area would be happy to do this.

Fourthly, there are places which are currently ruled by extremely violent tyrants of various kinds. With a bit of rethinking, Western rule of law and the rest of it – prosperity, a safety net, and civil peace – would be welcomed by the people there, if the explosive refugee numbers are a guide. It would mean abandoning a few antiquated ideas. But why not abandon them? They may not be working well.

Fifthly, the good neighbour principle is obviously breached when people engage in lawfare against each other – relentlessly pursuing weak or even arguable court cases with an intent to wear down or damage the other side.

Lawfare can be abandoned to the benefit of all. It would mean freeing the courts of case loads funded by the taxpayer. The taxpayer would be relieved of a tax burden, and able to usefully spend the money on family and life.

Sixthly, it is probably worth examining why people do not just put in place this simple solution. Anger, lust, covetousness, nearly all of what Thomas Aquinas called the ‘cardinal sins’ may be reasons.

If those cardinal sins were abandoned, people would lead better lives. Many of our problems would disappear.

There would be remaining problems. There is an endless list of possible natural catastrophes which scientists warn about. Volcanoes, virus, and disease outbreaks, meteor collisions, the sun exploding, cyclones and earthquakes, and tidal waves. These would remain as dangers.

Parliament would meet less often.

Criminal prosecutions would disappear with crime disappearing. Which would mean businesses need less insurance against break-ins and property damage. There would be no crime victims.

Obvious though all these benefits are, the world simply does not comply with what is reasonable. The question is why…?

Why are we plagued with avoidable problems of our own making?

One traditional reason is supernatural. No one can rule this out.

Another traditional reason is biology inclines us to warfare. The Journal Science reports that a large-scale civil war has erupted amongst chimpanzees in Uganda:

‘… we describe a transition from cohesion to polarisation in 2015 and the emergence of two distinct groups by 2018. Over the next 7 years, members of one group made 24 attacks, killing at least seven mature males and 17 infants in the other group.’

They are not sure what led to this violent civil war amongst chimps who formerly held each other’s hands. They note the ‘absence of the cultural markers often thought necessary for human warfare’.

Or perhaps scientists just do not understand chimpanzee culture, which might differentiate them as much as tribe, or religion, or nationality does with us. I speculate, but there might be French or German or British groups, if only we noticed it.

That leads to the third possible contributor, cultural differences. Many of the world’s violent conflicts seem to be associated with tribal, religious, or national differences. Instead of trading with each other in accordance with Richard Cobden’s global free trade theory, as they should, they prefer to try and take each other’s territory or kill people.

Places like Australia are an exception to this. We face severe geopolitical threats yet are unable to focus our budget on doing enough about it. Pursuit of economic growth is not the obsession it has to be. Instead wealth sort of happens, some think, and then we can redistribute it. We gild the lily in describing our problems and budgets.

This is an attitude common in the West. Perhaps someone could write a scientific paper explaining it all. It is at least as interesting as a civil war amongst Chimpanzees. And explain why no one listens to Dostoevsky.

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