VISION FOR AUSTRALIA
“The Can-Do Country”

Australia is facing a crisis. This issue is the absence of a shared vision for what our country will look like 50 years from now. Without a clear vision our efforts lack focus, bold decisions are put off and we’re greatly weakened on the world stage. Choose any number of examples,

In what fields are we the undisputed world leaders?
Who is our most senior representative at the UN? (hint… it’s not the Secretary-General!)
Why hasn’t an Australian ever won a Nobel Peace Prize?
What is our most inspiring example of world-class infrastructure built since the Sydney Opera House? (finished over 40 years ago)
Australia today still sees itself as ‘the lucky country’ believing that the resources, wealth and lifestyle will last a life time. They won’t. The shine is off our apple and it falls to you and I to get it back.

The first thing I propose is the roll-out of nothing less than a New National Identity.

As of 1st August 2014;

“I move that Australia become known as The Can-Do Country”.

Have your say here: facebook.com/visionforaustralia

The Can Do Country stands for getting-in and getting the job done, no matter what. We need to come together and Take a Stand on crucial topics not receiving adequate national attention. Current stands include, The Future Population of Australia, Tax Tagging, Development of a High Speed Train Network (the HyperTran), New Energy and The Reconciliation Declaration.

Australians are invited to Take a Stand on issues they feel are of national importance. The fact is, Australia needs a new plan. It needs to be bigger, better and bolder. It needs to inspire and empower us, and our children, to create the greatest-ever Vision for Australia.

Contact: Andy McLeod, VisionforAustralia.com.au contact@visionforaustralia.org.au facebook.com/visionforaustralia #visionaust

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"Australians are invited to Take a Stand on issues they feel are of national importance."

No, they're invited to parrot the Green Left propaganda of their Pavlovian puppetmasters.

Dissenters and heretics can shut the help up.

"It needs to be bigger, better and bolder."

It needs to be America?
As if one America isn't enough.

How can we have a "shared vision" with so much "diversity"?

Australia is not America and has no desire to be so.
In regards having a shared vision with so much diversity I read an article recently by Seth Godin talking about being the best in the world at something. What he was really saying was being the best in your particular world. For example, if you're sick and we were wanting to find the best surgeon 'in the world' then what you'd most likely be saying was the best surgeon that you can actually visit, not necessarily travelling to Sweden. This is analogous to having a shared vision. Not every single Australian is going to necessarily share one specific vision but we can have many visions in many realms and ultimately these visions add up to one great uniting vision which is an Australia which aspires to greatness.

Ah, the dreamers. Where would we be without them.

The fundamental contradiction inherent in this version of a Grand Plan is the idea that it can all be achieved by keeping our population tiny.

As someone who - apparently - regularly does business with China, it is quite stunning that the author has yet to make the connection between a market with a billion customers, and a market with 23 million customers. This is particularly apparent in the comparison between the maglev transport systems in China, and the idea that we can usefully build one here in Australia. A couple of cursory doodles on the back of an envelope would show that even the most unbelievably optimistic forecasts on potential passenger traffic wouldn't pay its way.

But hey, dream away. Just so long as you don't turn it into some kind of scam to rip off gullible folk who are blinded by the light. In my experience, that is where most of these schemes end up.

The fact is many Australians have a desire to have a high speed train network. My point is this; that we don't want to build the slowest high speed rail network in the world by using dated technology of wheel on rail. We need to raise our site and think bigger in order that we get the best possible system there is. There are huge cost savings for building an elevated train system which could be a Maglev (or something even different). For instance, the gov't report calls for a 50m wide corridor for a standard high speed rail network. A Maglev system built on stanchions would need less than half this.