The Budget – What a waste!

The great majority of us live a stunning life with a life expectancy that is second only to Japan.  We have endless beaches on which to sunbathe, mountains to ski on, millions of hectares of unspoilt bush to enjoy .   We have a climate that unables us to grow virtually any food we want and our multiculturalism, tolerance and freedom allows us to lead a life of great richness and variety.
 
But we also live in a country with an appalling gap between the haves and the have nots.  Where half of all our children live in households where either no parent works, or both parents work.  Where the founders of our country wallow in third world living conditions with a life expectancy worse than Burma or Bangladesh.
 
And we live in a world that is teetering on the brink of ecological collapse.  Natural resources plundered.  Land, sea and air polluted.  And with global warming tipping the planet towards an unknown world of fire, flood, drought and tempest.
 
Then along comes the greatest opportunity in a lifetime to change the way we live and correct our mistakes.  The Global Financial Crisis.
 
A crisis brought on by those very behaviours that have been the cause of our plundering and polluting of the planet and of the rapid increase in the gap between the haves and the have nots.  That insane drive for economic growth at any cost with the benefits going to the few.
 
And the budget presented an unbelievable opportunity to correct economic injustices, to change the economic direction of the country and to display clear leadership and vision to the rest of the world as to how we need to live in this century.
 
And what do we do?  Exactly the same as we have always done with a headlong rush to  4.5% economic growth without any care or consideration as to how that compound growth rate will impact the planet in 10, 20 or 50 years time.
 
Of all the countries in the world, our natural wealth, vast resources and small population means we are in a perfect position lead the rest of the world to an economy that is environmentally and socially sustainable.  And, after all, that is the economic vision of The Greens.