The Problem with Australia

Hyper-regulated, nanny-state safetyism.

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My new book is now available for delivery

Before I get into this email, I want to quickly tell you that my new book is available for purchase in hard cover and paperback.

It is called Life in the People’s Republic of Victoria, I am very happy with how this book turned out. It is beautifully printed with high quality materials. I took extra time with the design of this one, and I’m glad I did. There are also some fun surprises inside (but I won’t ruin those).

For those who pre-ordered the book, your order has now been shipped and you should have received an email with the tracking information. Please email me if there are any issues.

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The problem with Australia

Hyper-regulated, nanny-state safetyism. A rule for every occasion. Countless government officers oversee compliance. The people love it. They peer over their council-approved fence into their neighbour’s yard, just in case they’re in breach of some by law. They cheer on the Parliament as it introduces another 12,000 pages of legislation nobody can understand. Obey the street signs. Stay on the footpath. Don’t walk on the grass. Go only where you’re permitted, the well-worn path. Exploration is an abomination. Don’t colour outside the lines. Don’t speak your mind. Don’t stand too tall, poppy.

Every time you move, there’s a tax. Buy, sell, make a profit, get a pay-rise: all of these activities are seen by the Canberra (bank account) Raiders as another opportunity to take another pound of flesh. Where’s the incentive to work harder? It’s like they’ve never heard of the Laffer Curve (which presents a win-win opportunity). Or maybe they have and they just like to see you struggle. And if I’m being honest, I’m past the point of wanting a win-win deal with those parasites who see my money as their own. Because tax is just a debt you owe the mob. They take it by force, then eat steak at 30,000 feet on the back of your labour. Our American cousins fought violent revolution after being charged a bit too much tax (just 3% on tea, by the way). But we Australians watch on with glee as the ATO gears up to bankrupt another small business owner over a debt that’s just a quarter the size of Penny Wong’s annual travel budget.

And often I wonder what it would feel like to be proud of your nation. To walk the streets, astonished by its accomplishments. I can imagine an older Singaporean businessman feeling this way. In his lifetime he watched his city-state transform from a Bamboo Slum into a wonder of the Modern World. He’s seen fortunes made many times over, world-class transit built, a skyline transform. And all this seemingly appeared out of thin air. Because Lee Kwan You had no empire, no natural resources. From a standing start he actually built something. I suspect the Emirati have similar feelings. Because they were smart and leveraged their immense oil wealth to tilt the axis of the entire world towards the Middle East. Dubai is the new New York (and New York is the new Buenos Aires. Now that I think about it, Buenos Aires might be the new Singapore – on the cusp of something great. And now that this thought train ahs come full circle I realise that our world is always in a state of flux).

But over my lifetime, all I’ve seen Australia do is squander opportunity. We have infinite natural resources, but expensive energy. We have infinite brain power, but the economic complexity of an African nation. We have infinite land mass, but unaffordable house prices. It’s one abject failure after another.

We’re not even willing to stand on our own two feet as a nation. Instead, we cling desperately to an ailing, defeated monarch. We’re the equivalent of a 40 year old virgin living at home in his parents’ basement. Only, our parents have declared bankruptcy, and now the repo guy is ripping all the furniture out the house whilst we’re still doom scrolling online, desperately trying to suck that last bit of cheap dopamine out of our computer monitor. And, if you don’t get this metaphor, what I’m saying is that our so-called King is decrepit and inept, the Empire fell long ago, and its carcass is currently being picked apart by vultures. But we’re oblivious to this fact (and the fact our world is falling down around us) because we’re addicted to the sugar high of house price increases and government handouts, which give us the illusion of a functioning economy.

I do wish we’d cut ties with the defeated British Empire. But we can’t. Because we don’t know who we are. There is no Australian identity. We’re everything to everyone: an American vassal state, a suburb of Mumbai, a place for the Chinese to launder their money. Everyone’s an Australian once they step foot off the boat, they say. Australia has 92 religions and just as many languages. We’re welcomed to a country that we’re not really welcome in, but immigrants are welcome in, and the mental gymnastics required to keep this farce alive is making my head spin. What do you mean I stole the land I paid $4 million for? It makes no sense.

Our politicians are drab ghouls. Soulless. Uninspiring. Unfit (physically speaking), and unfit to lead. We have no sovereignty. Our laws are conceptualised in Davos. Our regime can be changed at the will of the CIA (and has been in the past, perhaps). Our nation is a testing ground for all new globalist ideas, and as the ex-penal colonists we are we just lap it all up: “Thank you for the opportunity to be your guinea pig”, we say as we gobble up mRNA and implement a raft of Neo-Censorship policies (which are to be overseen by an American Emmisary, because any guise of an independent Australia has disappeared entirely).

We gladly gave up our guns, and are proud of it (which is strange). In America, the Second Amendment exists to protect the First Amendment. And the First Amendment is essential for a functioning democracy. We don’t have either amendment. We have no way to defend ourselves, and no constitutional guarantee that we can say what we think. Therefore, we do not have a democracy (at least in my view). There’s a My Dinner with Andre quote that is apt for this set of circumstances:

“I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing they’ve built. They’ve built their own prison. And so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where they are both guards and prisoners, and as a result, they no longer have, having been lobotomized, the capacity to leave the prison they’ve made or to even see it as a prison.”

The quote is about New York, sure. But I think it’s more applicable to Australia. The average Australian has a smug sense of self-satisfaction in knowing that he is completely unable to resist government tyranny. When Daniel Andrews tells him to stay inside his house for six months, he complies. His favourite news channel is the ABC, which is entirely funded by the State (and, therefore, is entirely comprised of biased propaganda). He narks on his neighbours, campaigns for tighter censorship laws and higher tax rates. The government is his paternal father, his protector, his master and overlord. He loves his life of servitude because it’s easier being a slave than a free man. To be free requires thought and responsibility, hard work, vision, hope, optimism, integrity. All of this is too difficult for the average Australian who is content to live a safe and mediocre existence.

And that’s what he does, live a mediocre existence. He has 214 followers on Instagram, and at regular intervals during the day he steals away into the toilet cubicle at his office to mindlessly scroll through pictures of women he will never be able to sleep with, and a lifestyle he will never be able to obtain. He drinks alcohol most nights a week: cheap beer or wine that gives him headaches and a pot belly. He barracks for a football or rugby team and goes into credit card debt for a holiday to Bali. He’ll rent until he’s 46. Probably won’t get married. Hasn’t read a book in about 6 years. He hits snooze on his alarm 4 times before getting out of bed. Spends $1,200 a month on Uber Eats. Is addicted to dopamine. Watches porn every other day. Got a gym membership once but stopped going ‘because his back hurt’. Wears a lanyard around his neck to work. Wears cheap fake clothes made in China. Can’t focus for more than 12 minutes at a time before needing to check his phone.

And as I sit watching America make progress, real progress, I feel frustrated at our stagnation, at our timidity and lack of courage. But I feel as though the tide has turned, the vibe has shifted. I think we’re on the come up and we need to keep the momentum going or we’ll end up right where we started. And we can’t allow that.

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My new book is now available for delivery

Again, I want to quickly tell you that my new book is available for purchase in hard cover and paperback.

It is called Life in the People’s Republic of Victoria, I am very happy with how this book turned out. It is beautifully printed with high quality materials. I took extra time with the design of this one, and I’m glad I did. There are also some fun surprises inside (but I won’t ruin those).

For those who pre-ordered the book, your order has now been shipped and you should have received an email with the tracking information. Please email me if there are any issues.