Will someone just show some leadership?!

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Apparently, here in WA we’re
to be confronted with yet another vote on daylight savings in May. This is ridiculous!

When are we going to have a government in WA that will simply exercise leadership and do the thing that needs to be done? On purely economic grounds, and especially in the current situation, can we afford to head back to the old scenario where you can’t do business with anyone over East (in our own country!!!) for half the day?! I remember some days when the window for eastern state contact was as little as 3 hours, depending on lunch breaks, etc. That’s crazy!

I like daylight savings for a range of reasons, but even if I didn’t, it just doesn’t make sense for us not to have it in place. And yet this is where modern democratic, poll driven “leadership” lets us down… politicians who are afraid to make the hard decisions because it might make them unpopular and hence remove them from “leadership”. So they exercise this “check-the-wind” style of following not leading. This daylight savings issue is a classic example of it in this state.

I can hear some saying, “But, it’s what the people want…” Baloney! The people might also want massive tax cuts and free trips to Hawaii too, but that doesn’t make it possible or right. Leadership is about doing the hard thing, about making decisions that are for the overall good. This daylight savings thing has been a stupid issue for 3 decades now (in my memory) – just do it for the benefit of our state. Be leaders.

Having said this, I must confess to having little hope that our current state government has the capacity for this sort of leadership, so off to the polls we go… again…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 7:01 am and is filed under leadership, life, politics. You can feed this entry. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

11 Responses

  1. Western Australia has long suffered from this problem. Doesn’t seem to matter which party is in power, bold decisions rarely get made – there is far too much attention given to public opinion. Daylight savings, shopping hours, the continual Perth/foreshore/Northbridge redevelopment plans – I wish they’d show some guts and just make the changes. And now is the time to do it – when there’s 2 or 3 more years before an election is due. By the time the next vote comes around people will have gotten used to the changes and it will not be a political issue at all.

    And I’ll be very surprised if the May vote comes out in favour of daylight savings – it will condemn us to years more debate and indecision, just like that stupid shopping hours referendum.

    Baggas - January 28th, 2009 at 8:18 am

  2. It seems the majority of WA is not in favour (and hasn’t been for the last 3 referendums!) so my tip would be that ‘good leadership’ is that which fairly represents the opinions of the people – not simply business interests. Otherwise it is leadership that is self interested.

    hamo - January 28th, 2009 at 5:59 pm

  3. my view is that good leadership should involve way more than the opinions of the people… it should be about what is best, which isn’t always what people want. the majority of people will vote based on wiifm and personal comfort and convenience. not simply going along with the opinions of the self-interested majority does not have to logically imply that the leadership is self-interested.

    ob1 - January 29th, 2009 at 5:03 pm

  4. isn’t representative democracy by definition, representing the opinions of the majority of people?

    what you’re talking about Mark is more like leadership by expertise – knowing what is best for people regardless of whether they know it or want it. This is patriarchal to the core, but as you say, not necessarily self-interested.

    But this country’s recent history (since 1788) is built on the “wisdom” of patriarchal, christian, well-meaning, experts, and what a balls-up of eternal proportion that has proven to be.

    As far as i can tell, our politicians, no matter how gutless and short-sighted they may be, are doing exactly what we vote them in to do – represent what 51% or greater of the population wants them to do.

    otherendup - January 29th, 2009 at 7:59 pm

  5. and, so it’s ok if the majority of the population choose to ostracize jews or people of other races, etc.? if the majority chooses laws which disadvantage minorities (because, after all, why should the majority care?!), that’s fine because it’s the will of the people?!

    democracy is a system which is wonderful because we all like having a say, but if it is theologically true that we are sinners whose general inclination is towards ourselves and what works for us in our self-centredness and selfishness, then democracy actually becomes an interesting endeavour in terms of the right thing being done.

    i would suggest that some of the greatest political actions historically (eg. terminating slavery and ending racism, apartheid, and a number of other evils in our world) have come about IN SPITE of democratic processes which enshrined those things. it took enormous leadership by people who stood against the view of the majority to persuade, cajole, resist, and stand for what was right. think about it. i lived in south africa during a time when the majority within the governance system were quite ok with the status quo. it took leadership to shift that. and those people had to work against the majority. in fact, i would suggest that a similar situation is again needed in south africa, where there are many now standing against the new majority to bring about fresh change in a system that has become corrupted in a whole new way.

    i don’t like the label “patriarchal” because i think it perjorative and misreads my argument here. i know we disagree on the notion of leadership, so i guess that’s just that. frankly, i also think that your assessment of australian history is a tad negative too… but that’s a whole nuther can of worms.

    my gran used to say that there’s no better thing than a great king, and no worse thing than a bad one. i sometimes think that little aphorism has some merit to it, in spite of my own republican tendencies. i like democracy too, believe me, but i guess i look at some situations, whether they be relatively trivial things like daylight savings, or bigger issues of racism or whatever, and i don’t think democracy always serves us well if there are not strong leaders to resist the majority view when it is wrong.

    anyhoo… i’m happy i get to vote. i’m just annoyed that i’m voting on something so silly…

    ob1 - January 29th, 2009 at 8:40 pm

  6. i love daylight saving and that’s just cause you get to swim at the beach till nearly 9pm.

    I too think that democracy has it’s problems and tend to lean towards consensus (talk about another can of worms! ;-) )

    And if you think my one sentence statement about Australia’s European colonial history is a “little negative”, then mate, you need to do some more research into our history – I was being kind ;-)

    hope you have a good leadership retreat.

    ciao

    otherendup - January 30th, 2009 at 7:43 am

  7. mate, we are SOOOOO different… i hate consensus… :-)

    re: our history as a nation… it’s all relative… take a look at the history of africa, the americas and europe, and i think you realize that our story is not so remarkable or even exceptional. we may have had some very dark patches, but broadly speaking we have a present day reality that is not so bad given our history, which is more than can be said for many other places.

    i grew up in africa, so i guess i have seen first hand that things can and have been a lot worse…

    leadership retreat was really good. i think we might have even accidently attained consensus… dammit! :-)

    ob1 - January 30th, 2009 at 7:57 am

  8. our history as a nation under european rule sucks no matter which way you cut it – the attrocities committed against the indigenous people of each of the countries you cited all came as a result of the same patriarchal, racist, superior, “we know best”, we must “save the world” European world view. You are right – our story is not exceptional.

    Unfortunately, the problem is that not being exceptional doesn’t mean it wasn’t shit or barbaric or downright SATANIC, it just means that practices of indigenous genocide was the NORM in all these places.

    Our history does not have a few “dark patches” mate – our country, as with all these other colonised countries, is built on the annihilation of the original caretakers.

    You are right – our current day reality is pretty peachy (although you might want to talk to minority groups like the homeless, Aboriginals, homosexuals, and illegal asylum seekers to get their take on it). But this is inspite of our past and should never be used to justify or minimise how we got here (not saying you did ;-) )

    otherendup - January 30th, 2009 at 8:39 am

  9. can you actually name a part of the world that has absolutely no history of conquest, colonisation or impact on the original caretakers, even if we could identify a specific group as the “original” inhabitants?

    this is a serious question, and i think the knotty problem of history and culture.

    ob1 - January 30th, 2009 at 10:14 am

  10. next thing you’ll be saying the crusades needed to happen – please don’t respond to that! ;-)

    otherendup - January 30th, 2009 at 10:27 pm

  11. ok.

    although, i think i have addressed my view of the crusades somewhere… :-)

    ob1 - February 2nd, 2009 at 7:47 am