“Victoria in the dark on solar The Victorian Auditor-General has found the state government’s signature billiondollar solar rebate scheme has yet to produce evidence it benefited consumers or reduced carbon emissions. In a scathing report, Andrew Greaves said the program was launched without a business case and insufficient consultation with industry and without considering whether there was any need for government intervention in the solar market. He said the launch of the $1.3bn 10-year Solar Homes program failed to grasp and mitigate the obvious risks of excess demand, market reliance and grid capacity.” REMY VARGA - The Australian 25/6/21

A panel of political players at NSW Parliament last week discussed the difficulty of changing your mind in a world where consisten

Prof Thomas Picketty's work on voter alignment demonstrates the continued fragmentation and movement of voter support between Australian political parties. (Report by Troy Bramston, The Australian 19/6/21)   This unravelling of the bases of the 2 main parties, Labor and LNP, was all too predictable as they have both become so inward focused and have lost touch with their primary role in implementing ‘common good’ outcomes that the broad community can support.   A great opportunity exists for the party who re-connects across the electorate through broad-scale active listening, evidence-based policy formulation and communication, and then action,  focused on faultless implementation.

“Competent government is a beautiful thing to behold. So much militates against it“… in modern-day Australia. “Politics also offers a venue for the playing out of ancient tribal bonds. Large minorities will ally themselves with a political party for life – although today this attach­ment is diminishing. The bond is visceral and not compromised by poor performance, corruption and mediocre representa­tives.”  Prof John Carroll   Putting the focus back on "common good solutions" that the majority of the community support, via inclusion and evidence-based policies, rather than political party dictate or individual ego drive is what we need.

If we measure democracy by whether living standards are improving, then it has failed us in the last decade. Lots of solutions are being proposed. Some are about reform of the instruments of democracy, such as codes of conduct for politicians. Others are about increasing participation by we the people in democracy through things like citizen’s assemblies. They’re all good but they wouldn’t help reverse the decline in our quality of life. To do that, we need a well thought out long term plan. Now there is a way to build that together. See how at https://johnmenadue.com/our-democracy-is-broken-but-it-can-be-fixed/

“How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism.”   "…If we dare to dream of a more loving country – kinder, more compassionate, more cooperative, more respectful, more inclusive, more egalitarian, more harmonious, less cynical – there’s only one way to start turning the dream into reality: each of us must live as if this is already that country. If enough of us live like that  - and in turn, demand our elected representatives embrace those same values and aspirations – change will come. Revolutions never start at the top.”   Hugh Mackay