Move fast and fix things

Turning our back on Australia's oligarchs

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from Old Regret had got away

—AB Patterson

Australian politics and the nation’s economic disposition are dominated by a handful of all-powerful industries that completely undermine any notion that we are the country of the fair go or egalitarianism. All our systems of power funnel us towards their interests and away from the sort of democratic diversity that makes life worth living and joyous. We must get much better at pushing back against this oligarchical tendency.

Caspar David Friedrich, Woman in Front of the Setting Sun, 1817

Julianne Schultz put it well in her book, The Idea of Australia, when she wrote that “The phrase ‘culture wars’ conjures an arcane dispute between ideological opponents about matters of interpretation and understanding, but at heart there is an undeniable political economy. And in Australia, that comes from the four economic foundation stones: mining, agriculture, banking and their ha…