Surely attacking Australia`s out of control population level and rate of increase must be a huge priority.
Growth is not a solution.
Growth is THE problem.

"the history of the world has featured many leaders who sought to gain power in the name of God, and all failed."
The papacy has had its ups and downs but has had periods of enormous power and is still doing well.
Then there is another hugely successful monotheistic desert religion of more recent origin than Christianity. On the basis of early conquests attributed to its founder, it is dominant in North Africa and the Middle East and is making inroads practically everywhere else. If this is failure, I hate to think what success would look like.

One of the emerging trends that neither side of the political divide seems intent on tackling in any meaningful way is the onrush of automation in our economy. Already we have seen thousands of jobs lost to automation - most of those were entry level and process work. Add to this the offshoring of jobs by large and mostly overseas owned and run companies, and we are left with a steadily increasing unemployment rate which is not shown by the official figures (which have been so terribly rigged by previous governments that they are now pretty meaningless). Granted that as our economy becomes more automated, more jobs will be lost and the pool of those looking for work will rise. Wouldn't it be better to accept this and strive for the introduction (over the longer term) of a universal Living Wage (paid by the government) to everyone over the age of 16. If someone becomes employed - they get paid a bonus by the company or organisation they work for) By doing this, I think we can then give people the freedom to strive for their dreams without drudging around in dead end jobs simply to make ends meat. Unfortunately such an utopian idea is beyond the pinheads we have in power now.

A smart Government would use the advances in automation and technological advancement to plan for our changed from a capitalist system to more a Utopian system when all the menial jobs are gone
or cull the population I'll leave you to decided which.

Dear DarthSeditous,

<<Wouldn't it be better to accept this and strive for the introduction (over the longer term) of a universal Living Wage (paid by the government) to everyone over the age of 16. If someone becomes employed - they get paid a bonus by the company or organisation they work for)>>

Definitely!

I was advocating this for many years, at times under the term "Negative Income Tax", but of course these are just two ways to look at the same solution.

The Living Wage should be sufficient for decent basics, but not for comforts and luxuries, for which one should still be working (or saving), thus it can be implemented already. At the utopian stage, IF we ever get there and IF we even ever want to get there, comforts should be added to the package, but not luxuries.

Necessarily, as working for living (i.e. for the extras) becomes an option, this must also be accompanied by the abolition of the minimum wage and other industrial-relation laws.

Where have you fellers been, it can't have been on this earth.

Communist Russia & China both tried this utopian "to each according to their needs" & million starved in both countries.

Both had to start importing food, where they were exporters previously.

For gods sake, get your heads out of the clouds, the real world is a few miles below you, & down here on earth, this crap doesn't work.

No Hasbeen, whatever communist Russia and china tried, it wasn't utopia. I am a keen student of history and for this idea to work, it has to come from the masses, not imposed from on top. I still believe , as technology leaps ahead, especially in the field of replicative technology (3d printers etc), we will see the onset of what some futurists have called the leisure age and that is when a living wage will have to be implemented - with the option of allowing citizens to gain extra income via part work - the current system is breaking down and unfortunately we have a generation of political leadership that doesn't see it for what it is.

And Hasbeen it could work, the fact that you, yourself, cannot see what is slowling going on with rising unemployment and a shrinking pool of jobs, only goes to demonstrate that you are just as mired in yesterday's thinking as our current crop of leaders.

Oh I can see it happening all right DarthSeditous, but I can also see it failing, & doing it fairly quickly.

We rapidly got into serious debt, during the biggest mining boom, with the best terms of trade in history, anywhere, by living as if there was no spending limit.

If we could not manage the number of deadheads sucking on the public teat in those conditions, I'd love to know what you are smoking, that gives you the idea we can do it as all that falls apart.