australia, please…

Yes, the institutions are a mess. Bureaucracies are slow, governments waste money, consultants feast on confusion, and the political class often seems to regard competence as an optional extra. Fine. Be angry about that. But do not mistake anger for diagnosis, or demolition for reform. A broken machine does not become a better machine because someone in a novelty hard hat drives a bulldozer through the switchboard.

Look at America. That is what happens when legitimate grievance gets fed into the populist sausage grinder and comes out as theatre, paranoia, cruelty, tax cuts for the already absurdly rich, and a public service treated like an enemy occupation. The promise is always the same: smash the elites, drain the swamp, give power back to the people. The result is also always the same: the rich get richer, the machinery gets worse, and everyone else is left standing in the smoke wondering why the hospital, school, road, pension, flood response, or tax office no longer works properly.

Australia should not be stupid enough to copy this. Yes, government needs reform. Yes, institutions need accountability. Yes, bureaucracy needs a hard kick in the filing cabinet. But you do not get better government by replacing boring complexity with slogans, racism, resentment, and cosplay revolution. You just get worse government with louder branding.

So have a good hard look at yourself, Australia. Being pissed off is not a policy. Smashing things is not courage. And if the loudest people in the room are promising to fix the country by making it meaner, dumber, and easier for the extremely wealthy to loot, maybe don’t hand them the keys.