This 'letter to the editor' sums up Australian self-hatred, or suicidal tendencies, quite well.

“If you set out to destroy a successful Western democracy, you couldn’t do better than adopt the policies and ideas now prevalent in Australia: high energy costs to exhaust family budgets and make industry unviable; high company taxes to ward off new investment; schools that favour gender issues over maths and English; universities that preach from the texts of the green-left; enforcement of costly delusions about our capacity to affect global emissions; identity politics to help create division; free speech jettisoned for the mirage of equality and diversity; and a military force with fingernails painted pink”.

The writer could have included multiculturalism and mass immigration.

I'll invite the inevitable flak from those who think it is their "Right" to demand that others i.e. working ing people make life easy for them.
Such as bureaucrats who don't know the meaning of integrity, business people who see nothing wrong with deliberately making a loss & then claim tax write-off's, educated beyond their comprehension people who don't even know what their purpose is, professionals who seem to think that their worth has no bounds, the list of people getting paid by the taxpayers for nothing in return is rather long.
What is getting so-called democratic societies to their knees is the imbalance of value in public salaries in comparison to the benefits or rather the lack of them, to Nation building.
Socialism is the core of the dilemma. Socialism has been hijacked by greed & is exploited by politics. Democracy is a mere word, there is no society that runs by the rules of Democracy.
It's a mathematical impossibility.

individual,

Yes. Bureaucrats and socialism - the bane of the West. The bureaucrats seem to be running Australia because most of our politicians don't seem to have been weaned yet. No proper jobs. No experience. I listened to a truly revealing interview with that goat, Frydenberg, squirming an prevaracating when asked who's idea it was to give half a billion dollars to a barrier reef 'charity' that hadn't even applied for it. He kept saying 'the government', but it turns out that there were two bureaucrats in the room with the three main villian's (not mentioned previously) who were pulling the strings. It has been the dirty work of the minister's DEPARTMENT, not the minister himself, and certainly not the government.

The really ludicrous thing about the whole shonky affair is that the Barrier Reef Foundation has now been asked to MAKE A FORMAL APPLICATION for the $444 million that is already in their account - money which they still don't know how they are going to use, and never asked for in the first place!

ttnn: The really ludicrous thing about the whole shonky affair is that the Barrier Reef Foundation has now been asked to MAKE A FORMAL APPLICATION for the $444 million that is already in their account - money which they still don't know how they are going to use, and never asked for in the first place!

True. But would you rather see the money go to AIMS or Getup. Organizations riddled with Greens. The money would only used to support & pay Greenie demonstrators.

Jayb most of that money will go in executive salaries and perks.

I am sure they will need to helicopter out over the reef every fine day with selected passengers to see if anything is changing.

Democracy has characteristically produced societies
that have been relatively "humane, flexible, productive,
and vigorous." However democracy is also characterised by
"unsightly and factionalised squabbling by self-interested
short-sighted people and groups." Furthermore, the policy
outcomes often result from those best placed to "adroitly
pressure and manipulate the system."

It's no wonder citizens have grown more distant from
political parties, more critical of political elites and
political institutions and less positive towards government.

Of great concern for the future health of our democracy
is that these feelings of mistrust can broaden to include
the political regime and our political institutions.

It does appear to be a growing conviction that our political
system needs to change. Many Australians are disgruntled
by a system which does not appear to respond to their needs
and seems increasingly to be in the hands of elites more
interested in their own advancement than the general good.
As a result to those people our political system has less
and less legitimacy.

Fortunately there are optimists who do believe that it is
possible to re-design our institutions. But miracles don't
happen overnight - and we have to be careful what we choose
to get rid of.

We can criticise our outdated constitution, the
power-focused behaviour of our major political parties,
the disquieting alliance of our political parties with
corporations and large organisations, the control of our
political parties by privileged minorities, the seeming
irrelevance of much parliamentary debate and political
discourse in the media, the pervasive use of propaganda to
influence public opinion, the steady erosion of civil rights
and minority interests, the increasingly blatant politicisation
of the public service; the permanent state of vitriolic
antagonism between the major parties; the elevation of
executive secrecy above public discourse, the readiness of
government to mislead both the public and the parliament -
the winner takes all outcomes of elections which preclude the
input of minority opinion and the failure to enunciate and
plan for long term challenges we face as a community.

Whatever the ascribed causes of these problems it is clear
that changes to our political system are needed.