Thank you for your support

This will be my final missive for the year and I want to say thank you.

Thank you for your encouragement and your support. Thank you for your generosity and advice. Thank you for your wisdom and enthusiasm.

The community of Australians who receive the weekly dose of common sense are overwhelmingly those who share a deep love for our country and have concerns about the direction in which it is headed. Whilst we may have different perspectives on any individual matter, we stand united in our desire to uphold tradition, faith and family as the cornerstones of Western civilisation.

When I first entered politics, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to achieve and how I wanted to achieve it. Some may call it the ‘political path less travelled’, but I was determined to speak honestly and directly address mainstream concerns. Others will judge whether I have done that over the past nine and a half years but it certainly seems that some of my colleagues and sections of the media are finally catching up on important issues.

With so many matters demanding a response from those in public life, it is only those who have a clear political framework to work within who can sort the ‘wheat from the chaff’ effectively and prioritise what is important. That framework has been lost (or was never there in the first place) from too many politicians and their advisers who prefer instead to subscribe to the whatever-it-takes maxim.

Their vision for our country is limited to their vision for themselves and the belief in their own manifest destiny. I cannot support that modus operandi and encourage others not to either because it is precisely what has led us to the sorry state of politics today.

Rather, let us all encourage those who have a true vision for our nation and her people.

Nine years ago I wrote my vision down and I have copied it for you below. Whether you agree or not, at least I know I have a template from which to work.

May I take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones a blessed Christmas and every best wish for the New Year.

Our Australia

A nation bound by virtues and sustained by faith —
where values that reflect our moral foundation are accepted as critical to our future.
A place where we recognise that what
is best for our families is best for society;
where children are encouraged to believe in their dreams,
and can work hard to make them real.
Let our country be one where government is not an obstacle,
but an advocate and ally of its people;
for when freedom resides with responsibility,
Australia will always prosper.
A land where determination will never succumb to apathy,
where those who receive will also give, because there is strength in community.
We know that sustaining freedom will not be easy;
for there will always be some who seek to oppose and restrict it.
But our nation is not for those seeking an easy path,
it is for those who dream not only of today, but of what tomorrow can be.