Australian Family Party

Family Matters

Australian Family Party

Dog Day Afternoon

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dog-dayA number of years ago I was building a house at Magill in Adelaide’s east when one of our bricklayers arrived on site with his bull terrier dog. Bricklayers always preferred bull terriers as pets because if a brick accidently fell on the dog’s head, the dog didn’t feel it and in fact thought it was a game and waited for more bricks to be dropped.

At the Magill site, the galvanised iron fence between the building site we were working on and the property next door had about a 75mm (3 inch) hole in it through which the neighbour’s spaniel would regularly insert its nose to investigate the new building activity.

When the bull terrier arrived on the scene, however, the spaniel was far from impressed and began barking violently at the impertinent interloper. The bull terrier nonchalantly responded with a swift head-butt to the fence which so startled the spaniel that it jumped backwards and cut off the end of its nose on the rough edge of the fence.

The spaniel was taken to a vet and 12 stitches were needed to repair the damage.

Being responsible for the site at the time, I found myself on the receiving end of an account for the vet’s fees from the spaniel’s owner plus an invoice for $100 for repairs to the fence caused by the bull terrier. I agreed to pay the vet’s fee but balked at paying for the fence.

dog-day-afternoonThis incident came back to me last Saturday afternoon when I was asked to look after a voter’s bull terrier dog while its owner went in to vote at the Munno Para early voting centre in Adelaide’s north. Long-standing Family Party member and volunteer Roger Potger snapped the accompanying photo and dubbed it ‘Dog Day Afternoon’.

Tightly holding on to the dog, I was nervously on the lookout for any local spaniels. Fortunately, none appeared and I successfully handed the dog back to its owner – who I trust voted for me! You never can tell. I remember after my first election – which needless to say I didn’t win – I bumped into a voter who proclaimed excitedly, “I voted for you!” “Ah, you’re the one,” I replied, “I’ve been looking for you”. The amused voter chuckled and walked off unsure if I was joking or not.

I’m hoping this time will be different.

Still on the subject of dogs, in ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’, one of the Sherlock Holmes short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes is sent to investigate the disappearance – on the eve of an important race – of a champion racehorse called Silver Blaze and the murder of its trainer John Straker. In what has become a famous exchange known as ‘the curious incident of the dog in the night-time’ between Scotland Yard’s Inspector Gregory and Sherlock Holmes, Gregory asks Holmes, “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” “Yes”, Holmes replied, “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time”. “But the dog did nothing in the night-time”, said Gregory. “That was the curious incident”, Holmes replied.

That the dog didn’t bark told Holmes the person who took the racehorse was known to the dog. The thief was not a stranger. It was an inside job.

This exchange has become symbolic of the need to speak up or ‘bark’ when something is amiss. Rest assured, here at the Australian Family Party we will not hesitate to bark.

For this election we have done the hard yards, put in the work, listed all our policies in great detail here, traversed the state with our campaign posters, negotiated good preference arrangements and handed out how-to-vote cards at early voting centres. These are our ‘five loaves and two fishes’. Whether God chooses to perform a miracle or not is up to Him. We have peace about it.

Across the globe, however, there is little in the way of peace. In fact, there is havoc. Shakespeare’s ‘dogs of war’ are growling and Australia will not escape at least some of this havoc.

Tomorrow – Saturday 21st May – is election day. Without wanting to labour the point, we can’t let our country go to the dogs. Click here to see how to vote to help prevent that from happening.

Authorised by Bob Day, 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

Black Hawk Down!

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black-hawk-downThere’s a scene in the movie ‘Black Hawk Down’ where the sergeant yells to one of his soldiers, ‘Get in the truck and drive!’ ‘But I’ve been shot’, the soldier replies. ‘We’ve all been shot, now get in and drive’.

I couldn’t sit by and watch both Labor and Liberal Governments introduce their anti-family, anti-Christian, anti-business policies and not try to do something about it. I couldn’t say, sorry, can’t help you, I’ve been shot. I had to get back in the truck and drive.

Bad things happen to everyone. Some have been shot by cancer, others by the loss of a child, or by a relationship breakdown, or by an addiction, or a moral failure, or being accused – or even worse convicted – of a crime they didn’t commit. I’m no different, except for me it was very public.

In my case it was a business failure. I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was. I’d bitten off more than I could chew and paid the price.

But you can’t let your past mistakes define you. You have to get back in the truck and drive.

I’ve called my election campaign, ‘Unfinished Business’.

Australia has economic and social problems that it wants to solve – inflation, rising interest rates, high mortgages (forcing both parents out to work), high cost of living (educating and raising children, power prices, water prices) – and social ills caused by the rupturing of family relationships, addiction to alcohol, gambling, drugs and pornography, and suicide.

And it has social and economic goals it wants to achieve – full employment, affordable housing, low crime rates. Looking to politicians, bureaucrats and regulators to solve these problems and achieve these goals is, however, a lost cause. The world is changing so profoundly – in social attitudes, world economics, and especially technology – that politicians and bureaucrats are hopelessly ill-equipped to manage it. They are simply outdated and outgunned.

The major parties and their apparatchiks live in a world that is foreign to ordinary people.  Simply put, they do not know enough to make the correct decisions. Those at the ‘top’ know less than those at the ‘bottom’.

Over the past decade – before Covid-19 hit – the economy was quite healthy and yet government debt still increased every year under both Labor and the Liberals.

Over the next few years, Commonwealth debt is forecast to exceed a trillion dollars – that’s 1,000 billion dollars. It is not going to end well. The old adage, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”, hasn’t been around for 100 years for nothing.

We are heading for very tough times thanks to irresponsible fiscal (spending) and monetary (interest rates) policies. You simply can’t spend hundreds of billions of dollars like we have and expect no repercussions.

Someone is going to have to pay for it. And that someone is the next generation. The English rock band The Who – Pete Townshend on guitar, Roger Daltrey on vocals, John Entwistle on bass, & Keith Moon on drugs – got it right when they said of the older generation, “…things they do look awful cold …. (hope I die before I get old!)”

Someone has to go into bat for them and the family.

The Australian Family Party is based on six key principles: Family Resilience, Family Economics, Family Technology, Free to Speak, Free to Believe and Free to Work.

Basically, the family has been dudded. It’s time to push back in the form of:

  1. Recognition – shifting the centre of gravity from the political class to the family.
  2. Encouraging family formation – getting married and starting a family.
  3. Home ownership – addressing land supply for new housing.
  4. Cost of living – introducing income-sharing and stopping price-gouging – power prices in particular.
  5. Free to work – your rights at work need to become your rights to work.
  6. Free to speak and free to believe.
  7. Technology – addressing the indisputable links between social media and mental health.

Society relies on three levels of protection against harm. Level one is a person’s own conscience; level two is the family to keep its members in check; and level three is the police. Nurturing the conscience starts in infancy. Here, childhood connection is vital. There needs to be more incentive for parents to look after their own children and less emphasis on government-subsidized childcare.

For a free society to prosper, people have to be able to control themselves. Teaching self-control starts with the family. The family cultivates within a child the right way to view life and the world around us.

A renaissance is needed, one that puts the family at the centre of society. Every decision by government should be measured against how it affects the family.

The State has a duty to the family. Society has a duty to the family. And what the State and society owe the family is not food or housing or education or health care, what the family is owed first and foremost is ‘recognition’.

We can serve Australia best by putting the family first. Click here to see our how-to-vote card.

Authorised by Bob Day, 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

Sitting Ducks: News from the Campaign Trail

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campaign-siiting-ducksA political candidate was asked where he stood on the issue of duck shooting.

“I have friends who are duck shooters”, the aspiring politician answered, “and I have friends who oppose duck shooting. And I always stand by my friends”.

They say if you can’t ride two horses at the same time, you don’t belong in the circus.

The campaign trail can be a hazardous place for candidates. Sometimes all it takes is one slip-up and your election prospects are finished. The circus tent collapses on top of you.

Fortunately, no such calamity has befallen us yet. But then again, there’s still a fortnight to go! As a wise sage once observed, “Politics is like swimming in a dirty river. Just don’t swallow any of the muck”.

Putting up campaign posters all over the state was always going to be a big challenge. That was until our party faithfuls stepped forward – Nicole Hussey (Yorke Peninsula, Mid North and Eyre Peninsula), Lionel Zschech and Peter Ieraci (Murray Bridge to Mt Gambier), Tim Vivian (Riverland), Tony Kew (Barossa), Dieter Fischer (Elizabeth & Gawler), Alex Banks and Joe Tripodi (Golden Grove & Salisbury), Adrian Redman, Matt Barnes, Peter Heidenreich and Pat Amadio (suburban Adelaide) and I covered the Adelaide Hills. Mission Accomplished.

Our next challenge is early voting. Record numbers of voters are expected to turn up at early voting centres at this election. We desperately need volunteers to attend these early voting centres. There are usually between 1 – 3 early voting centres per electorate, so if you are available to hand out that all-important how-to-vote card at a centre near you, please contact us here as soon as possible. Thank you.

Then there are the candidate forums, radio interviews and endless questions about preferencing. Preference arrangements are another hazardous business.

Preference recommendations are often not, as a lot of people might think, a descending order of like-mindedness. Rather, they are a calculated trade-off between reciprocity – you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours – and the likelihood that your preferences might assist someone else to be elected – compared to the alternatives. If a candidate has no chance at all of being elected – for example, a minor party candidate in a safe (major party) Lower House seat – there is no point preferencing that candidate just because their policies are similar to yours. Preference arrangements are not the place to signal virtue. They are the place to help you get elected. It goes without saying that you can help your constituency a lot more if you are elected than if you’re not!

To be clear, how-to-vote cards are recommendations only. Once in the polling booth, voters can preference candidates in any order they wish, however we recommend voters number the candidates in a certain way to help us get elected.

Candidate forums can also be tricky – especially during Q & A. You’re up on the stage like the proverbial sitting duck. For audience members who have been crusading on a particular issue for 20 years, this is their opportunity. They want a ‘Yes or No’ answer from you as to whether you will support a Royal Commission into their cause. Often the cause does have merit, but ‘Yes or No’ answers can be a trap for young players. Forums are also time-consuming. Questioners who forget for a moment (or ten minutes) that they have the microphone in their hand to ask a question, sometimes give political speeches. This is where a good forum MC is the candidates’ best friend.

All in all, the campaign is going very well. We’re right where we need to be at this point. We have also introduced a new digital marketing arm to the campaign and included a new video series. If you could please follow us on Facebook and share our posts with your family and friends that would be really helpful. Thank you.

One final matter, we have a $5,000 bill to pay for our how-to-vote cards. Can you help? If so, please go to our Support page here.

Authorised by Bob Day, 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

E is for …

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heh-senate-electionAt the recent State election we drew box J, the 10th letter of the alphabet. Readers may recall the reference to the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet ‘Yud’ in a recent State election post. The Yud was an important letter in Hebrew, we said, because first and foremost, it was the first letter of the name of God, YHWH: Yud – Heh – Vav – Heh.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, for the Federal election we’ve drawn the letter E, the 5th letter of the alphabet, which in Hebrew is Heh. Heh is the second letter of the name of God.

Seems we’re spelling out God’s name here – just two more elections to go …

Not only does the letter Heh appear twice in God’s name, in Hebrew writings ‘H is used as an abbreviation for YHWH, and when God declares, ‘I am here!’, He uses the phrase ‘Heh-neh!’

Heh is also called the ‘timeless letter’, as the Hebrew words for past, present and future are all connected to the letter Heh.

Like the number 10 in our State election post, the number 5 is also very significant in Scripture. Again, from the first chapter of Genesis in which God creates light, He mentions the word ‘light’ five times. This is believed to be connected to the light revealed in the five books of Moses – the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), the five characteristics of mankind (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, consciousness) and our hands containing five fingers which represent our physical connection to work and the world. We note also that the Hebrew word for work and worship are the same – Avodah. It’s why we say denying a person the right to work is like denying them to right to worship. ‘He who builds a factory, builds a temple’, Calvin Coolidge famously declared, ‘He who works there, worships there’.

This all accords perfectly with our Family, Faith and Freedom policies of ‘Family Resilience, Family Economics and Family Technology’ and ‘Free to Speak, Free to Believe and Free to Work’.

At this election, every voter will be asked to cast two ballots – one on a small green ballot paper for the House of Representatives – your local MP – and the other on a very large white ballot paper for the Senate – representing the State.

The House of Representatives ballot paper is quite straightforward – simply number the candidates (usually between five and ten of them) in your order of preference.

The Senate ballot paper, however, is not so straightforward.

For a start, it is a metre long and contains 22 registered political parties or groups above the black line and over 50 individual candidates below the line.

You can choose whether to vote above or below the line, but not both. Voters must number a minimum of six boxes if they choose to vote above the line, or a minimum of twelve boxes if they choose to vote below the line.

As discussed above, we have drawn box E on the Senate ballot paper. E for Employment, E for the Economy, E for Education, E for Excellence, E for Endurance, E for Eternity, E for Elvis, E for Elijah and of course, E for Esther for such a time as this.

We are recommending to voters that they vote above the line and follow our how-to-vote card by placing a 1 in box E, then a 2 in box J for Australian Federation Party, and then a 3 in box S for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, 4 in box A for Liberal Democrats, 5 in box G for National Party and 6 in box U for United Australia Party.

Click here to view or download our how-to-vote card.

All we need now are a few more V for volunteers to do some letterboxing and hand out the how-to-vote cards and, of course, a few D for dollars to help pay for them.

Authorised by Bob Day, 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

Stamp of Approval – Election Special!

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stamp-of-approvalConsider for a moment the humble postage stamp. Its usefulness lies in its ability to stick to one thing until it gets to where it has to go.

As we all navigate our way through the postal system of life, we experience highs, lows, stumbles, slip-ups, breaks and bruises along the way. Mine are all listed here: Bob Day.  But as chronicled in Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’, our aim is to be ‘strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield’. And as the Bible teaches, ‘in all these things, we can be more than conquerors’.

At the recent SA State election, the Australian Family Party – in its first election, no less – polled over 9,000 votes, giving the Party a credible voting base on which to build. We have a solid membership list, a strong policy platform and a database of Newsletter recipients which runs into the thousands.

Since the election, a number of members have contacted me saying, “That was a good practice run Bob – when can we go again?”

Well, the answer is now!

Bob-Day-SenateAs most members would know, last year the major parties increased the minimum number of members a party needs in order to gain federal registration from 500 to 1,500 – a threefold increase (what did Adam Smith say about ‘industry incumbents banding together to keep out new entrants’?) This ruled out the Australian Family Party running in the forthcoming Federal election.

But hope is not lost. This week I lodged with the Australian Electoral Commission my nomination to run as an independent Senate candidate in the election. We will again campaign under the FAMILY banner and ‘Putting the family first’ slogan which I launched in 2020. However, to secure a box ‘above the line’, I have teamed up with highly regarded and experienced DLP stalwart Pat Amadio who will run as the No 2 candidate on the ticket. This approach has worked successfully in the past and there’s no reason it can’t again.

It’s worth noting that when I was elected to the Senate in 2013, the non-major party vote in SA was 50%. In 2016 it was 40% and in 2019, 32%. At the recent State election it was also around 30%. Coincidentally, at this election a number of those same candidates from 2013 – Penny Wong and Don Farrell (Labor), Simon Birmingham (Liberal), Nick Xenophon and I (and of course the Greens and numerous other minor parties) will once again be vying for the same six Senate seats. In 2013, I was elected in the No 5 position ahead of Simon Birmingham at No 6. To be elected today, a candidate would need a primary vote of around 7%. With at least 30% of people unlikely to vote for a major party, that is eminently achievable. Can history repeat itself?

What will definitely happen at this election, however, will be the final effect of the 2016 deal between the Liberal Party and the Greens which abolished Senate Group Voting Tickets. Group Voting Tickets allowed voters to simply put a 1 above-the-line and delegate to their party of choice the distribution of preferences. Using Group Voting Tickets, minor parties came to arrangements with each other to combine their votes to get ahead of the Greens. The Liberal–Greens deal ended that. Former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard warned the Liberals at the time that their deal with the Greens could backfire on them. “The principal beneficiary of these changes will be the Australian Greens,” he said.

He was right. The Greens currently have 9 Senators. After this election they will have 12, giving them the balance of power in the parliament – enough to join forces with Labor to pass or block legislation. The Liberals could have had more liberty-minded, family-friendly, low-tax Senators like me and David Leyonhjelm and John Madigan, but instead did a deal with the Greens to get rid of us all. The Liberals and Nationals can rant and rave all they like about Adam Bandt and the Greens, but they have only themselves to blame. They have become the Greens’ enablers.

The world is changing so profoundly – in social attitudes, world economics, geo-politics and of course technology – that politicians, public sector bureaucrats and regulators are hopelessly ill-equipped to manage it. They are simply outdated and outgunned.

As for personal freedoms – free to speak, free to believe and free to work – these alone should motivate us to fight.

Please join us. If you are available to do some letterboxing in your area or hand out some how-to-vote cards on election day – or better still, at early polling stations – please contact us here.

Our first challenge, however, will be to raise some money for this campaign, so please dig deep and give this election campaign your ‘stamp of approval!’

Authorised by Bob Day, 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

After the Whirlwind

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“The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart”
– Rudyard Kipling

whirlwind-election-voteIn the aftermath of the election, it looks likely that Labor will govern with an absolute majority of at least 7 seats in the House of Assembly and will gain an extra seat in the 22-seat Legislative Council, taking its tally to 9, the Liberals 8, Greens 2, SA Best (who were not up for re-election) 2, and One Nation 1. The government should have little trouble getting its agenda through the parliament with that composition.

On that, it must be said that One Nation, led in South Australia by the mercurial Jennifer Game, will be a great asset to the SA Parliament. Although Jennifer herself will not be the Upper House member as she is to be the No 1 candidate on her party’s Senate ticket at the forthcoming Federal election, Jennifer’s daughter Sarah Game, a practicing veterinarian and mother of three will represent the party. If the SA election is anything to go by – and why wouldn’t it be – Senator Game is a distinct possibility.

As for the Australian Family Party, we are on track to pick up around 12,000 votes or 1% of the State total. To quote Winston Churchill, “This is not the end (of the party). It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Since the formation of the Party from scratch less than 18 months ago, we now have a credible voting base, a solid membership list, a strong policy platform, a database of Newsletter recipients that runs into the thousands and a general election which ran like clockwork.

Much credit for this goes to our small but dedicated squad of candidates – Lionel Zschech, Nicole Hussey, Peter Ieraci, Robert Walker, Dan Casey, Sue Jarman and the brilliant Alex Banks and his campaign team. Also, Campbell Woskett, Joe Tripodi, Tony Schirripa, Matt Barnes, Jason Keiller and Chris Goodway provided the party with incredible support during these past few months. Thank you all.

Thanks also to all our volunteers who stood on polling booths on Saturday – and at some pre-polling stations – for hours on end in the hot sun, handing out how-to-vote cards for our candidates. Thank you so much. The difference in the number of votes between booths where there are how-to-vote volunteers and where there is no-one is stark.

To our members and supporters who uphold us in so many ways: Thank you.

And finally, to the 12,000 people who voted for us. Thank you for your vote of confidence, it gives us a tremendous foundation on which to build for the future.

We went into this election with a two-pronged strategy. First, to join forces with like-minded parties to unseat those Members who voted for abortion-to-birth and, second, to win a seat in the State’s Upper House.

The Members we targeted lost their seats by bigger margins than the like-minded parties garnered, so our preferences made little difference and we did not win an Upper House seat. Not this time, anyway.

What the election did reveal however was how the Liberal Party’s one-term Premier Steven Marshall and his socially moderate wet faction leader and Deputy-Premier Vickie Chapman, in one fell swoop somehow managed to alienate all of the state’s conservatives – who, by the way, helped them win office in 2018 – with their decision to introduce a raft of radical social changes including abortion-to-birth and ‘assisted dying’ (euthanasia) legislation and a clumsy attempt to block a conservative recruitment drive by SA Liberal senator Alex Antic. To borrow from the ’70s Canadian rock outfit the Five Man Electrical Band, “And the sign said … ‘CONSERVATIVES NOT WELCOME, … HERE!’ The only response to that would surely be, “Why would you do that in your first term?”

The Liberals’ radical legislation marshalled (no pun intended) some Christian and other socially conservative groups and political parties into campaigning against a number of sitting Liberal MPs who just happened to be occupying marginal seats. And whilst, as discussed, the pro-life message had minimal impact on the ballot box, it did show that for the Liberals to have any chance of victory against the State’s natural party of government it needs the support of the State’s conservatives. Steven Marshall had their support in 2018 but threw it away in 2022.

We will not know the final numbers for the Legislative Council for another few weeks, however when all the numbers are finally in, I will provide another update.

In the meantime, we all need a rest …

SPECIAL ELECTION EDITION No. 2!

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The Big Salami

salamiIn his excellent book Blink! Malcolm Gladwell describes how it is possible to weigh up situations in the ‘blink’ of an eye.

In other words, how to make good decisions in an instant by doing what he calls ‘thin slicing’.

Thin slicing is a concept similar to taking a big salami, and no matter how thin you slice it, everything you want to know about the whole salami is in that one slice.

Often you don’t have time to study or research a situation or a person; you have to analyse what is going on by finding that thin slice.

The Bible uses the term shibboleth for this. Shibboleth is Hebrew for ‘stream,’ and it comes from the Old Testament book of Judges, where Jephthah and the men of Gilead fought the Ephraimites and captured the Jordan River crossing. As people crossed the river, to distinguish who was friend or foe, they had everyone say the word ‘shibboleth’. If they couldn’t pronounce it properly, they knew they were the enemy. From this, the word shibboleth was absorbed into the English language to describe a key identifier or a dead give-away. It would be like hearing someone say, “where did I put my jandals?” You’d know straight away they were a New Zealander. It’s a shibboleth.

In the New Testament, St Paul’s letter to the Colossians describes another form of thin slicing. He writes, “Let the peace of God rule in your heart.” Another translation puts it, ‘Let the peace of God be the umpire in your heart’ – Colossians 3:15.

In other words, weighing up important decisions in the blink of an eye and asking yourself, “Do I have peace in my heart about this decision?”

Or is it like in Star Wars – “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Obi Wan Kenobi”.

At this election, every voter is asked to cast two ballots – one on a small green ballot paper for the House of Assembly (the Lower House) and the other on a very large white ballot paper for the Legislative Council (the Upper House).

The House of Assembly ballot paper is quite straightforward – simply number the candidates in your order of preference.

The Legislative Council ballot paper however, is not so straightforward. It is nearly a metre long and contains 19 registered political parties or groups above the red line and over 50 individual candidates below the red line.

JVoters can choose whether to vote above or below the line – but not both. Voters can also choose whether to number just one box above the line, all 19 boxes above the line or any number in between. If voting below the line, a voter must number a minimum of 12 boxes.

The Australian Family Party has drawn box J on the white ballot paper – J for Jephthah from Judges.

When casting your vote at this election, take a deep breath, close your eyes and let the peace of God be the umpire in your heart.

Authorized by Bob Day Australian Family Party 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

Hedgehog World

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hedgehog-fox “It is dangerous to make predictions – especially about the future.”
– Danish physicist Niels Bohr

After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, global experts announced it was ‘the end of history’. Humanity had, they said, reached “not just the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end-point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the adoption of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government”. They wrote books, went on world speaking tours and people like me paid hundreds of dollars to hear them tell us where the world was headed.

They could not have been more wrong if they tried. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine being Exhibit A. China’s threat to Taiwan Exhibit B.

In a previous post I quoted James Surowiecki’s book, ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’, in which the author describes how ordinary people are collectively smarter than so-called experts when it comes to problem-solving, decision-making, innovating, and predicting. The reason why, he explains, is that individual experts are inherently biased. They are part of a club. He says the knowledge and common-sense of ordinary people, however, eliminates bias and produces a clearer and more coherent result.

There’s an old Greek proverb, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows only one thing.”

As we know, the world isn’t made up of just one thing, it is made up of a whole range of competing factors and trade-offs that are different for different people of different ages living in different places and with different priorities.

Like the ‘crystallised intelligence’ vs ’fluid intelligence’ paradigm. Crystallised intelligence employs experience and wisdom and knows how the world works. Fluid intelligence knows how to study and pass exams. Foxes vs hedgehogs. We’ve all met them.

Being knowledgeable on one subject narrows one’s focus and increases confidence, but it also dismisses dissenting views. This can lead to self-deception. As we’ve seen in Europe, the world is a messy and complex place – and dangerous to predict. There are countless variables and factors. Foxes understand this innately, hedgehogs not so much.

The bottom line is, we have to stop letting hedgehogs run things. Advisers, yes. Leaders, no. They may be fine leading other hedgehogs in a particular field, but the world is not a hospital or a laboratory or a courtroom or a classroom or a police station. We don’t want the country run by epidemiologists and police commissioners.

Next month marks the 110th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. A number of people at the time made statements before the ship set off on its doomed voyage – all of them fatally wrong. Among them was the ship’s captain, Edward J. Smith, who said, “I cannot conceive of any disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone way beyond that.” Not to be outdone was Phillip Franklin, vice-president of the White Star Line, the ship’s owner. Prior to the voyage, Franklin said, “This boat is unsinkable.”

After the tragedy, a devastated Franklin regretted his remarks. “I thought she was unsinkable. I based that opinion on the best expert advice.”

The internet has given the world access to the latest information on every subject under the sun. Instantly. Some of it is accurate, some of it is not.

The lesson is, by all means listen to what experts have to say, but then make up your own mind. We can’t let experts dictate what the rest of us can and cannot do – for the simple reason that they are hedgehogs. They are only good at one thing. (Strange, too, that when they take off their hedgehog uniforms and go home, they act more like foxes and don’t always practice what they preached when they were wearing their hedgehog uniforms …. just saying).

Global experts are having to re-think the ‘end of history’ given recent events in Europe and Asia.

National experts are having to re-think responses to climate change – “Even the rain that falls isn’t going to fill our dams and river systems”. Tell that to the people of Queensland and NSW! Billions of dollars have been wasted building desalination plants, and millions more wasted maintaining them.

Our State experts told us we needed to build a road which has all the traffic going one way in the morning and then all the other way in the afternoon.  Needless to say, that didn’t last very long and great expense was incurred re-building the road so that traffic could go both ways all day long.

Bert Kelly made the logical point, “If these experts were as clever as they make out, they wouldn’t be here, they’d be sitting in the South of France with their feet in a bucket of champagne”.

This election, send the hedgehogs a message.

Tell them you’re exhausted from being told what to do all the time – ‘must do this; can’t do that’.

Vote ‘J’ for James (as in James Surowiecki from The Wisdom of Crowds) and get the respect you deserve.

 

Authorized by Bob Day Australian Family Party 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

SPECIAL ELECTION EDITION!

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J is for …

how-to-voteIn Hebrew it is the “hameat hamachazik et hamerube” – ‘the little that holds a lot’.

It is referring to the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet: ‘yud’, the most important of all the letters. The name of God starts with a yud – YHWH – Jehovah in English. It is also the smallest letter in the alphabet – the size of a small comma – and yet every letter in Hebrew contains a yud, because the moment the pen touches the paper, there it is.

In English, yud is the equivalent of our letter ‘J’, which is also the 10th letter of our alphabet. The number 10 is very profound in Scripture. From the first chapter of Genesis in which God creates 10 things – light, sky, land, sea, plants, sun, moon, stars, living creatures and finally humans – to the 10 plagues of Egypt; to the commandment to give a tenth of one’s income (the tithe); to Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year – the 10th day of the 10th month; to Abraham’s 10 tests; and, of course, the 10 Commandments.

At this election, every voter is asked to cast two ballots – one on a small green ballot paper for the House of Assembly (the Lower House) and the other on a very large white ballot paper for the Legislative Council (the Upper House).

The House of Assembly ballot paper is quite straightforward – simply number the candidates (usually around five or six of them) in your order of preference.

The Legislative Council ballot paper however, is not so straightforward.

For a start, it is nearly a metre long and contains 19 registered political parties or groups above the red line and over 50 individual candidates below the red line.

Voters can choose whether to vote above the line or below the line, but not both. Voters can also choose whether to number any amount of boxes above the line – from just one box to all 19 of them. If voting below the line, a voter must number a minimum of 12 boxes.

The Australian Family Party has drawn box J on the white ballot paper. Box No 10. How’s that for divine providence! J for Jehovah, J for Jerusalem, J for Joshua, J for Joseph, J for Joanna, J for Judges and, of course, J for Jesus.

We are recommending voters vote above line and follow our how-to-vote card by placing a 1 in the box marked J, then a 2 in the box marked M for One Nation, and then a 3 in the box marked A for the Liberal Democrats. Both One Nation, led in South Australia by the phenomenal Jennifer Game and the Liberal Democrats’ highly respected leader Kenelm Tonkin have conducted themselves impeccably throughout this election period. Their pro-life, pro-family, pro-freedom stance has been exemplary, and I cannot speak highly enough of both of them.

Click here to view seat by seat how-to-vote cards.

All we need now are a few more V for volunteers to hand out the how-to-vote cards and we’re done.

Authorized by Bob Day Australian Family Party 17 Beulah Road, Norwood SA 5067

Till Death Us Do Part

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seesaw-politics-deathThe ancient story is told of a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to the market. After a short while the servant came back white and trembling. “Master”, he said, “just now when I was in the market, I was jostled by someone in the crowd, but when I turned, I saw it was death who jostled me. Death looked me in the face and made a threatening gesture toward me and I ran. So please, lend me your horse so I can ride away and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and hide.” The merchant lent him his horse and off he rode as fast as he could. The merchant then went to the market himself and saw death standing in the crowd. “Why did you make a threatening gesture toward my servant when you saw him this morning?” the merchant asked. “That was not a threatening gesture”, death replied, “I was just surprised to see him here in Baghdad as I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”

Politics is the ultimate near-death experience. Especially for political leaders. You can run but you can’t hide.

For major-party leaders, there is always a conga-line of would-be successors just waiting for an opportunity to pounce. Not all are qualified to take on the top job.

I once commented to a political colleague about an over-ambitious politician, “He thinks he’s going to be Prime Minister one day”, I said somewhat uncharitably. “Bob, they all do”, he replied.

So much time and effort are taken up in major parties with this sort of stop-at-nothing ambition. As a result, the welfare of the nation takes a back seat. The public recognizes this and is constantly looking for credible alternatives.

In a recent major analysis of voting trends, The Australian newspaper reported, “Support for minor parties and independents has reached its highest level in four years.”

The time is right.

People see the political seesaw in operation, with one of the major parties permanently Araldited onto one end of the political seesaw and the other major party permanently Araldited on the other. They yearn for a sensible, balance-of-power party to stand in the middle of the seesaw, leaning one way when one of the majors gets out of control and leaning the other way when the other does the same.

Matthew Abraham, who has been covering SA politics for a very long time, last year said he could see no ideological differences between Liberal and Labor. “Steven Marshall is now essentially a Labor premier”, he said. In 2017, Christopher Pyne, leader of the Liberal Party’s left-leaning, progressive faction and mentor to Steven Marshall said the Liberal progressives were winning the internal battle against the Party’s conservatives. “We’re in the winning circle”, he said. Liberal and Labor: two peas in a pod.

Fiercely independent, the aim of the Australian Family Party is to bring out the best and subdue the worst in our political system. To stand on the seesaw and watch and lean.

There is much that can be done – in both social and economic terms – to reduce the pressure on families including income splitting for taxation purposes, subsidies for grandparents who look after grandchildren, putting an end to price-gouging by state governments of water and power costs, and much more.

Power prices, house prices, water prices. Family budgets and family businesses – family farms, family shops, trade contractors, are all under siege. The unbearable cost of energy, regulation and taxation is sending family businesses to the wall.

The Australia we once knew is disappearing before our very eyes.

In 2013, David Flint and Jai Martinkovits wrote a book called, ‘Give Us Back Our Country’. In the nine years since they wrote that book, it is clear we are not getting our country back any time soon. If anything, more of our country and our freedoms have been taken from us. In a recent article Flint no longer called for our country to be ‘given’ back, but rather for us to take it back.