Leaders with vision are not people ahead of their time, just people who are ahead of others in time. There’s too much emphasis on popularity politics, and the time has come for our political leaders to quit being driven by the past and be drawn forward by promise. Vision through a car’s front windscreen is far greater than through its rearview mirror.
“There they go, and I must follow them, for I am their leader,” needs to be replaced by bold thinking and over-the-horizon leadership vision.
Some things need urgent attention. One is the ‘waste’ of monsoon (“wet season”) rains, which drain west from the Great Divide in Queensland and the western slopes of New South Wales into dry salt pans — and then evaporate. How much water could be dammed and used to help grow rice and cereals for Southeast Asian nations? More than enough would still be available to sustain the environment and to provide wetland habitations for migrating birdlife.
Climate change is taking place, but not because a nation of only 28 million people with a small industrial base has somehow polluted a vast island continent in just 237 years. Warming is more likely due to earthquakes occurring below sea floors, allowing heat to escape and warm oceans. Another thing that needs attention is Australia’s Top End, the soil of which has never been overturned by a plough. A sure supply of water would turn this vast area into a huge rice bowl for the hungry peoples of Southeast Asia.
Poll-driven political leaders and self-protective bureaucrats need to focus less on polls and more on governing and forward planning. As for the media, it should quit speaking for Australians as though we had elected it to lead us. We didn’t. Its role is to inform, not to deceive. So, spare us the false sanctity and instead report events accurately.
Comment, of course, but in side columns, not news reports. If readers wanted both mixed and misrepresented as real news by purse-lipped Marxist-Leninist commentators, we could get that on the ABC.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18). They dwell carelessly (as many Australians do in nice homes on or near endless beaches). But this is but the first half. The second half reads: “But he who keeps the law is happy.” Law directs and guides future vision; it is the riverbed through which vision flows, its waters enabling growth and productivity.
Having farmed for almost four years in my teen years, I can say that no farmer — no successful one — lacks vision and so dwells carelessly. Nor do leaders in the fields of business, commerce, industry or any other field — including that of Christian witness and productivity.