The Spirit of Australia needs revitalising.
It started at Gallipoli and in France in WW1 with outstanding courage and sacrifice, and the innovation by Monash and the Australians who broke through the European trench warfare stalemate and led to victory. It established respect for Australian soldiers and consolidated protection of the major power- Britain.
In WW2 Australian soldiers reinforced their reputation. They threw the enemy out of PNG, despite presence of stronger US forces. They exchanged protector to another power- America.
Both conflicts brought the Australian people closer together in support of the military foundation for protection policy and national security.
After WW2, the Snowy Mountains Scheme was a peace-time continuation of the war-time spirit of national support and innovation. Since then, the population grew by three times from 8m to 24m with huge foreign investment, historically high prosperity and the togetherness of a peaceful United Nations in one country. Australia achieved world leading wealth and liveability.
For millennia, city-states and nation-states have grown through investment, hard work and innovation. They prospered, then declined as investment diminished, hard work fell away and innovation dried up.
Today, the near ‘global-state’, and particularly Australia, face declining investment and less than full-throttle workforce effort. It is a dangerous cusp. Which way will it go: advance or retreat?
Australia needs a major new peace-time national project to bring the people together in hope, confidence and common endeavour. The Project should:
- Stimulate imagination and achieve national support
- Invest large enough funds to replace mining investment and increase growth of GDP
- Create many every-day jobs and more skills training
- Be innovative and lead to greater national innovation and productivity
- Increase competition and international competitiveness
- Cater for doubling of the population by 24m to 48m in the next 40-50 years
- Rebalance population distribution from major cities to new cities in the regions
- Build housing in new ‘20 minute cities’ for 10m more people in regions
- Create more innovation in many large regional cities of +1m
- Rebalance Transport from high cost, slow interstate road freight to low cost, fast rail
- Reduce cost of living by cutting transport costs
- Rebalance structural budget, fiscal and monetary policies as growth accelerates
- Be a private enterprise project, not government
- Carry out a private, commercial feasibility study to determine viability
- Built rapidly in the next 10 years to capture the population increase
- Be self-financing through capture of the value created
- Make the most of present historically low cost foreign investment
- Protect liveability, create prosperity and correct transport distortions
All this can be achieved successfully by timely adopting, enlighteningly explaining and effectively building High Speed Rail between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
It would raise the Spirit of Australia.
PJK©3.4.16
