Do-nothing leader leaves: Now there is Innovation
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OPINION, Melbourne, Australia — The ‘do-nothing’ leader of Victoria Steve Bracks has resigned from State Parliament, in a surprise announcement.
The Premier of Australia’s second most populous state, and home to Melbourne and Australia’s leading agricultural regions, today resigned. Good riddance.
Remember it’s not personal, it’s outcomes. We don’t vote our best mates, we vote in the best leader. That’s the theory, more observed in the breach ….
True innovation vs. Do-nothing
Since his surprise win over the true innovator Jeff Kennett, Bracks has single-handedly done nothing for the future of the state.
In the end, he was simply one of those politicians like Bob Carr, who get re-elected based on Spin Doctoring and announcements, not on results. If you don’t offend too many people in Australia, you’ll probably get re-elected.
Chances are no-one’s paying attention anyway. If you get your news from Channel 10, it’s entertainment not news. Paris, Lindsey, the Simpsons anyone?
On the other hand, Innovator Jeff Kennett achieved knock-out results and bailed the State out from bankruptcy, something history will thank him for, but the People of Victoria have not.
A BIG THANK YOU, Jeff. From myself & my family.
Jeff just didn’t spin it so well.
Not like Bracks: XYZ initiative. Enquiry into ABC. Committee for MNOP. That was Bracks and NSW mentor Carr, before him.
What’s wrong, are they all the same?
I’m old fashioned, I believe we hold our leaders to account for:
Healthcare, transport, public transport, public safety, policing, residential development, and schools.
In most of these area people in Victoria are worse-off than when Bracks was elected.
Trains don’t run. Trams are dirty. Taxis are no longer safe. The ticketing fiasco is about to hit - hundreds of millions wasted on a system you have to check twice in and out. There’s failed community planning. There’s no infrastructure in outlying new suburbs. And high-price over-built shoddy apartment blocks are an eyesore. Worst of all water policy is an afterthought, in this time of drought.
Was Bracks out of revenue? NO. Just out of ideas.
People who buy the ‘they’re all the same anyhow’ line, don’t really use logic.
It’s not a reasoned argument, it’s an emotional state masquerading as logic.
Finally few projects were a Bracks’ government projects, almost all were started under Kennett.
In Australia, everyone lines up to kiss you on the way out the door. No one blamed Carr for the mess in NSW.
No States - an innovation?
Some people say do away with the States, this is their suggested idea. This has been put to me by a large number of people from all walks of life, in political debate.
There is a simple argument for the States however:
If a bad leader messes up one State, at least the experiment is not repeated nation-wide. And if one leader is great, his ideas can be applied nation wide.
States limit the damage bad leaders can do, and minimise demagoguery. And they also mean the whole country is not run out of an office tower in Sydney.
So that’s a positive. But democracy depends on informed citizenry.
If you are intelligent and watch Channel 10 news, please don’t. Go drink a bottle of scotch instead. You will still be numb but scotch will leave you with more functioning brain cells.
The answer
States should provide basic services. They should be responsible for trains, transport, policing, security, nurses, hospitals, education and a whole lot more.
Consulting is a cop-out if you do nothing. We need to be rational and informed, and not hire the guy with the best sound-byte or stage manager.
Read Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason. I just did. Be an informed citizen. Then maybe you already are, you are reading this….
Bye bye Steve Bracks. Maybe this is the end of spin. Probably just an intermittent juncture prior to an enquiry into Spin. So, no…
Politicians don’t relinquish power so easily. I wonder what the reason you resigned was?
Take care,
Christopher will be back next post.
PS. This is not a Left or Right issue, it’s a innovation (do-something) vs. spin (do-nothing) issue.
In the USA, Gore (Left) is now an innovator, as is Giuliani (Right) in the US. Federally in Australia, Rudd(Left) is looking like an innovator.
Before you lambast me for partisanship, I wanted to make clear we are talking about public interest, not which (increasingly irrelevant distinction) party is governing.
Speaker. Author. Editor-In-Chief. Executive Director of Innovation, 2thinknow.
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