Idealistic youth

[mstakenidentity]

I have no idea how this could happen, or if it could happen. But in my Australia:

-There would be gay marriage
-There would be compassion and understanding towards refugees and asylum seekers, people claiming to "stop the boats" with no regard for who is on those boats would be considered absolute scum
-There would be targeted programs in indigenous areas towards education with a focus on training for essential services (healthcare, policing, educators, social work) with incentives for local people to take on these roles within their communities
-Hospitals would be well funded, there would be schemes incouraging people to become nurses and train in specialist areas, one of these schemes would be to pay the nurses a decent wage
-Public schools would be palaces of learning, teachers well respected and well paid members of the community
-Climate change would be taken seriously, real sacrifices would be required of the Australian people in order to ensure a sustainable country for our children. This would require the de-centraliazation of some services to allow people to travel less to get to them, it would also require a real serious effort into investigating and installing alternative means of power. There would also needs to be programs put in place to retrain the workers involved in industries that would eventually become obsolete because of this.
-There would be zero tolerance of sex slavery and the trafficking of women to be used as sex slaves in our brothels. All brothels would be thoroughly investigated, a base wage would be set for the sex workers (which they can be paid more than, just not less than, similar to private GPs) their income would be recorded and taxed and the workers would be entitled to super, sick pay and leave.

That's all I can think of right now.

Comments

[vass]

All that, plus:
- serious funding for mental health treatment
- anti-discrimination laws with teeth
- serious accessibility for people with all sorts of disabilities, based on what people with disabilities say they want, not what able-bodied people think they should want.
- Newstart would be enough to live on
- much more public housing
- renationalise the public transport system and put some money into that.

[mstakenidentity.livejournal.com]

Yes, those too. Thank you.

[neo-leviathan.livejournal.com]

Newstart would be enough to live on
Can we put in "Centrelink gets a complete overhaul so it makes sense"? Those who need it being able to qualify for it would be a good start.

I think a lot of things are pretty much impossible due to the nature of our government. It keeps changing so each government tends to only be interested in bandaid fixes that work for their term.

Viva la Benevolent Dictator!

You know, I was going to make a post just like this...

[clappamungus.livejournal.com]

And tying all these together: politics would be a noble calling and people who aspired to be politicians would actually care enough to make the above changes.

[melbournian.livejournal.com]

They sound like sensible ideas. I also don't know how to make it happen.

[thecatsamuel.livejournal.com]

An excellent list. Here's to changing the world!

[dacian-catamite.livejournal.com]

To make any of that happen, the first two steps are the most difficult. Once they've been completed, legislative change would be relatively simple.

Step one is probably the more complex of the two- we need to radically change Australian culture. At the moment, and since roughly the end of the second world war, Australia has been a culture based on the triumph of mediocrity. Rule by the middle-aged, the middle-class, the middle of the road, the status quo made holy. Except for brief, exceptional moments, Australia has been mired in a conservative coma- a mediocracy, if you'll allow the term. This needs to change; but it will take a combination of progressive action and demographic change in order to do so. Unfortunately, reasonable and intelligent progressive people are so outnumbered in this country, by baby boomers and bogans, that we're easily shouted down. Add to this the discrediting of our stance by fringe groups (*cough*socialist alliance*cough) and the fact that most of our media is owned by rabid conservatives, and you see what a challenge it will be.

If we can change the culture, though, the second step is much easier- an electoral evisceration of both the coalition, and the labor right, as well their associated lunatic fringe parties will allow legislative change to be made at a much more rapid pace.

The unfortunate fact, though, is that any of that will take decades, if not generations to accomplish.