This problem is one of neglect

My view is that the problem with our Federation of States is one of neglect. For 30 plus years our state political representatives have neglected the key and important investments and services that are needed to hold our society together.

Think of any really important issue - public security, health care, education, food quality, water security and quality, transport corridors and networks, climate change or anything else of substance - and ask yourself if our State Governments have delivered good outcomes for their constituents?

The answer is clearly no - and the follow up question is why not?

And the follow up answer is because we have accepted their abrogation of responsibility and even welcomed it as we have all personally adopted their creed of greed.

Greed is apparently good - as we have become inward focused and worship the "real estate" god - somehow hoping that we will be immune from any adverse effects.

We do whatever we can to maximise the value of the "real estate" that we acquire and try to extract the most value when we sell it on to the next poor unsuspecting soul.

When I look at the quality and performance of my State Government, I wonder if they aren't working a similar scheme on a far grander scale? I wonder if we are actually on the same planet?

Why aren’t they concerned about climate change? Why don’t they have a comprehensive plan in place to address the effects? Why aren't they investing in infrastructure and services to reduce our carbon footprint? Why aren’t they marshalling the population and educating them? Why don’t we all have an action plan pinned to our fridge? Why aren’t concerned people roaming around and challenging bad practice? Why do mums drop their kids off in fuel hungry 4WD’s? And why do our various Ministers continue to ignore the extent of the problem?

It’s simply because they can. There is no mechanism in place to hold our various State Government’s accountable and so they do what they like - knowing that their tenure is finite and they won’t be held to account when it all goes pear shaped.

And they do it because we let them - it really is 1984.