Peter Finch’s character gave a mesmerising speech in the 1976 movie Network. Urging viewers to voice their displeasure at how the country was functioning, he told them to open their windows and yell “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.”
36 years later, perhaps it’s time for the concerned citizens of Australia to do the same thing.
While conservatives normally reserve any public display of antipathy for government for the ballot box, rarely has there been such a strong case for public action. Our government is in the grip of Green zealots and incompetent buffoons who are undoing decades of policy reform and fiscal prudence at a bewildering pace.
Every conservative fear about the judgment and agenda of the radical Australian Greens and their messianic leader Bob Brown was confirmed in a recent speech to his ‘fellow Earthians’ suggesting that our intellectual equivalents on other planets have ‘extincted themselves’.
In part I agree with Bob Brown. His intellectual equals inhabiting the Australian Greens are on another planet and on the path to political extinction with their wacky policy agenda which includes one world government.
Long the domain of fringe dwellers and conspiracy theorists, Brown has become the Lyndon La Rouche of our time with his mad fantasies for handing our national sovereignty to outside institutions. He said:
“So let us resolve that there should be established for the prevalence and happiness of humankind a representative assembly, a global parliament, for the people of the Earth, based on the principle of one person, one vote, one value; and to enable this outcome that it should be a bicameral parliament with its house of review, having equal representation elected from every nation.”
Bob’s world would hand control of the global lower house to the most populous nations and leave the upper house hostage to the whim of self-absorbed national minnows. Can’t he see that is exactly what has happened in Canberra and it’s not working out all that well thus far?
But it isn’t just Brown’s fault. The level of incompetence displayed by the valueless and clueless Labor administration beggars belief.
Billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted, every demand by the vocal minorities has been indulged in the name of multiculturalism, cost of living pressures are rising rapidly and our established institutions are being diminished.
Business success is punished through new and higher taxes, employment is discouraged through a return to 1970s industrial law and the strength of the family unit is gradually being eroded.
Our education system is being corrupted by politically correct government funded propaganda. The new religion is climate change but the eternal truths of the Christian message are effectively taboo.
Am I the only one to wonder why the government will happily spend millions of dollars to assist the proselytising of Islam but insist that Bible stories have no place in our school system?
Notwithstanding the economic support provided by the mining boom, people are worried about the future. They are worried about their jobs, paying their bills and the future of our country. They are worried that we are seeing the decline of the Australian way of life – our cultural norms, our values and social mores.
They should be worried because the evidence is there for all to see. But being worried isn’t enough and we simply cannot afford to wait around another 18 months until the next election.
It’s time for conservatives to do something different. It’s time for them to let others know they are as mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore!
Cory Bernardi is the author of seven books and has been a member of the Australian rowing team, a publican, an investment portfolio manager and spent nearly 14 years as an Australian Senator.
