Good summation of the situation. The weak Federal Government and political point scoring has been the biggest disappointments. What needs to happen is some action on planning for the post-Pandemic era, when there will be many opportunities to build Australia as a more independent country, with new industries and revenue from these home made products and services.

What we do not need is a Federal Government which does nothing, as the current one does; rather we desperately need leadership that can think and act in the national interest, rather than in favour of political friends and benefactors. The days of self-interest and greed should be put behind us and we should be thinking of how we can help our fellow Australians and the rest of the world to become a better planet to live on, rather than focusing on self interest.

Shutting the borders did not kill the economy or jobs growth but the opposite!

The lessons Covid has imposed are, we never needed foreign investment, foreign control, foreign tourists or foreign students!

Covid has taught us that we need more self-reliance and locally sourced manufacturing capacity! And to that end, we need to start by decarbing the economy.

And that my friends has to include the embrace and rollout of nuclear energy, i.e., MSR thorium! And as many multiples of SMRs all owned and operated by competing for business, regional and rural co-ops!

Even where the Government needs to both facilitate and fund those co-ops and the mass reactor manufacturing facility!

Energy then could be contained to less than 3 cents PKWH. And come with huge medical tourism spinoffs and annual additional millions in tourist dollars where they are essential for rural and regional survival!

Our national economy would be further boosted if sanity prevails and we just ignore the vociferous minority, to become the world's premier repository for nuclear waste!

Waste that could then be used in some of those MSR SMRs as free fuel we are paid annual millions to bury/thoughtfully dispose of.

And we would! But only after it had provided something more than a thousand years of virtually free, CARBON FREE, SAFE, CLEAN, WORLD"S CHEAPEST industrial power!

What prevents it? Only idiotic, blithering, dithering, political numbskulls? THAT"S ALL! TBC.
Alan B.