Spice Girls

What is the role of our Federal Government? Is it to deliver some quality governance or is it to be another player in a grubby game of politics with the agenda set by others? Serious question Virginia.

Some of us think that our team of ministers and officials and advisers and the various bureaucracies overseen by the Prime Minister ought to be engaged in a process of understanding big issues and making important decisions for and on behalf of the people of the nation.

Paul Keating did it - and many Australian's expect our Labor governments to at least aspire to his standard.

They ought to be in the business of understanding the risks to the nation and taking action to minimise them - of identifying future opportunities and working out how to maximise them - while protecting our quality of life and keeping us safe and employed.

But they seem to have given up on that. Apparently now it’s everyone for themselves.

There is nothing in the official script of government or even the constitution about playing silly games with unprincipled opposition leaders.

Or attempting to implement stupid policy like the "Malaysian Solution". Or even berating the high court judges who decided that it was illegal.

An illegal policy to deal with illegal boat arrivals - is that clever or dumb?

There used to be an important rule of government - "think" before "acting". But like much Labor history that rule seems to have been forgotten in the populist rush. Or in this case unpopular.

Just because no-one in the opposition is capable of doing any thinking doesn't mean that the actual government can get away with it too.

The real problem for the Prime Minister is that she obviously doesn’t have the nous to deal with these issues - and seems to have surrounded herself with a bunch of sycophants. They should form a band - it could rival the "Spice Girls".

That's the other important rule of being in government - if you don't "know" then find some "people" who do - and listen to them.

But why would anyone offer advice - when no-one in this government seems to listen.

Instead this PM and her crew continue to follow the opposition down every nasty little rat hole they can find.

Good luck with that then.