Dear Steel,

We haven't done so badly with our choices in the past. As I wrote in a another post -just take a short look back - at some of our PM's and their achievements.

Gough Whitlam in his short term in office started Medibank, the precursor to Medicare, which is the basis of our health care system by providing free or easily affordable health care for all citizens. He also opened up dialogue with communist China, resulting in our current strong trade relationship with the Asian powerhouse. And he ended our involvement in the Vietnam war.

Malcolm Fraser built on Medibank which evolved into Medicare - the health system we still use more than 30 years later. He was also the first PM to seriously address the issues of Indigenous Australians, and after leaving office has become very much an elder statesman, focusing much on human rights and poverty.

Bob Hawke & his successor, Paul Keating made a huge amount of reform, changing Australia from a country "riding on the sheep's back" (an agricultural nation) and relying much on mining, to a country exporting goods and services all around the world. They floated the Aussie dollar, which had been indexed against the US dollar, which freed up the trade market and brought major investors to the country.
They brought the unions under control, whilst still retaining a fair wages system across the nation. One of Keating's last acts as PM was to sign a defence agreement with our biggest neiughbour, Indonesia, and improve our country's relationship with that nation of more than 100 million people.

We now have a PM who is fluent in Mandarin, and has been a foreign ambassador both in Beijing and Stockholm. He has represented us overseas in the past. In his short term in office much has already been achieved. And I'm sure that we need have no fears regarding our
future.

In the words of our National Anthem, "... With courage let us all combine to Advance Australia Fair."