Vignettes

By Peter Wallace

A trip to Oz is truly a delight, New Zealand must be next. But I fear Oz is becoming a overly repressive Big Brother state. There’s almost nothing you can do that isn’t somehow government controlled. The worst for me as an ex-racing driver (10 years behind the wheel) are the absurd speed limits – or should I say slow limits. I’m convinced they’re a cause of accidents, not the relief from them. I wish I could find a way to compare road deaths with those here but what parameter would you use? Deaths per head per population of driving age? Deaths per road miles travelled (where do you get the stat from)? Deaths per number of cars per kilometer of road available?

 

Who knows. But my impression is it’s not significantly better in Oz in spite of all the controls. The innate skills of even the least talented driver exceed what controls can provide. In fact the driving tests are so draconian that the lesser skilled never make it. You have to be always fully, intensely aware to survive here, one lapse of attention and you’re finished.

 

The other sad imposition is government’s hatred of dogs, the controls are almost as bad as the restrictions on smoking. I have 12 free roaming dogs and they cause no problem to anyone, except being occasionally licked if they sense you’re a dog lover.

 

The problem is it’s insidious. Controls get added little by little – and none ever get rescinded. And that’s not just Oz but worldwide.

 

Here Congress in all its blessed foolishness and short-sighted ignorance has introduced laws/amendments to existing laws (e.g. expanded exemptions in individual income tax, exemption from income tax of minimum wage workers, VAT exemption of senior citizens and the lowering of the corporate income tax rate to 30%) projected to deprive the government of some P 57.2 billion of essential revenues if a fiscal crisis is to be averted. Cancelling those laws is a near impossibility, can you imagine the public scream if the exclusion from VAT of senior citizens is cancelled – as it should be. It completely disrupts one of the best types of tax systems devised. It highlights a major weakness of the democratic system, the need to be popular every 3 or 4 years. That means not only an excessive number of populist decisions, but also ones that give short term gain (for the pols), not long term benefit for the community.

 

A simple (simplistic?) solution might be one 6-year term and then 18 years where neither you nor anyone related to you, to the third degree of consanguinity, can run for public office, then there’s less need to be popular. And perhaps some incentive to think of what’s best longer term. Not a perfect solution I quickly admit, but maybe it gives a slightly better law making result. Winston Churchill once said: “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.”Just look at the confusion all over the world today in even the best established democracies. But at least that confusion doesn’t rival the chaos in non-democratic states. So the quote holds. Nonetheless change is needed for democracies that are more truly people oriented.

 

But back to Australia (and back we will go if for no other reason but that Creedence plays in Syd in October. We’ll be there to reminisce). If I were to do a travelogue I’d not know what to highlight, it was just a wonderful experience throughout, Australia is truly a wonderful country (and I’m keeping all nationalistic bias out of this and viewing it strictly as an independent, professional analyst). Nonetheless the Ghan stands out, a trip from Adelaide to Alice in cabin-private luxury (albeit fairly mediocre food) where the staff when they learnt we were travelling Oz to celebrate our 31^st wedding anniversary chipped in for a bottle of Piper Heidsick. We’ve rarely been so touched, there was absolutely no reason they needed to do that. But that is Australia.

 

Darwin, with a side trip to Kakadu, was astonishing. I had an image of a hick town of the 50’s. It was instead a delightful city on the water with restaurants that would match anywhere. And that was of a beauty that sticks in the mind. But it can’t – quite – match our favourite town: Manly. The walks on the beach, even to Dee Why once (more than enough for someone who still praises Karl Benz for inventing the modern motor car) to our favourite breakfast nook, Sea Change for a full Ozzie brekkie.

 

Even our inevitable overweight luggage was cheerfully passed through on check-in on the way home.

 

A secondary (anniversaries do still come first) reason for our trip was to sponsor the head vet of the Manila Zoo to visit Taronga and the three zoos in Singapore, which we did. He was able to establish relationships, technical interchanges and cross-donation of animals between the zoos.

 

For the success of it we would like to thank Rod Smith and the Singaporean Ambassador A.Selverajah for so kindly arranging for the visits. Manila Zoo needs our help. If you love animals the way we do, give me a call as to how you too can help to introduce our partners on the planet to our children. So they too may want to protect them. My cellphone number is 09209292929. Manila zoo needs our support.

 

I’ve rather run out of space in this column but let me just say Australians can be justly proud to be Australians. Our anniversary couldn’t have been more enjoyable – thanks to some great Okkers. And above it all, Estee.