You greatly underestimate how utterly devoid of morals both of our major parties are, resulting in them being in the pocket of the coal miners and other big corps. They are almost militantly opposed to non-coal, non-LNG investment.
This is a government which earlier this year brought a lump of coal in to parliament as a prop to say that they were 'not afraid of coal' and to attack the opposition for 'attacking the jobs of rural workers at the coal mines'. I'm not even joking:
https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-m...
I'm not one to defend our pollies, but these same "utterly devoid of morals" parties are the same that put in place home solar energy subsidies that have resulted in Australia being the world leader in rooftop solar uptake.
That is unfortunate. I spent a month living in Ryde and I fell absolutely in love with Australia. I agree, as Bill Bryson once said: "It may truly be the greatest place on earth." Hopefully things sort itself out soon.
I think there's a big problem with most voters remembering the Good Times under a Liberal government when we had a massive mining boom and the country was doing well. Now things are slowing down - I suspect the next few decades will be bumpy when China stops buying everything we dig up out of the ground.
Things could have been much better if we'd taxed the hell out of the miners, like Norway's Oil Fund.
We have the Future Fund but it's a joke compared to Norway's sovereign wealth fund.
There was plenty of tax money floating around back then but it was probably spent buying votes and posting budget surpluses so government could pat themselves on the back for being such good economic managers...
I hope so too. It truly is a lovely place and I'm blessed to live here, however our politicians across the board and with very few exceptions leave a lot to be desired. Australian politics is truly awful.
This is a government which earlier this year brought a lump of coal in to parliament as a prop to say that they were 'not afraid of coal' and to attack the opposition for 'attacking the jobs of rural workers at the coal mines'. I'm not even joking: https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-m...