On Q&A on ABC last night there were economists, politicians and the president of the Young Liberals.
Boy, I hate partisan politics. The current government says the last government left them in a bad position. The old government just attacks the government and doesn’t say anything constructive. It’s constantly disappointing to me. *sigh*
It’s like question time in Parliament when the parties go at each other like school boys. It’s not good debate. It embarrasses me that these are our leaders behaving like this. Kevin Rudd, I think you’re doing a great job in a tough time, but if you got your team to act more professionally in question time, I’d respect you a lot more.
On side notes, the young liberals president looked lost and like a gen Y girl they picked up off MySpace. The two economists were interesting and constructive (mostly), though I guess they have the easier job.
Another note was the great questions from the audience on priorities, I’ll paraphrase here;
1. Is it OK to do trade with China when they abuse human rights just because it keeps people in jobs?
Great question. There is a line here. No country is perfect, certain not us. USA may well be as bad if not worse than China. Plus, working with countries is the best way to influence them, as opposed to staying away from them.
We didn’t work with South Africa and the influence was bad. We don’t work with South Korea. Interesting…
What if we were offered a million jobs to go work in labour camps or in prostitution in China if we’re paid well? OK, there is a line and it’s grey and somewhere, but tough to get right or articulate clearly.
2. Are jobs more important than dealing with climate change?
No jobs, no life.
No planet, no jobs.
Jobs are needed short term. They are important for feeding people and morale.
But we can’t go on the way we’ve been going and the inertia (i.e. the resistance to changing pace/direction) is massive, and potentially against the basic principles of life - survival of the fittest, which is a short term principle that affects the long term. (wow, that’s whole other blog post…)
Tough challenges, and the priorities are not simple choices, but that is what leadership is about. I haven’t taken the time here to even go close to exploring them enough, but I really wanted to get some things off my chest.
Thanks for listening.