It is very easy to blame the current government for whatever is wrong in our lives.
Of course, some problems we have are directly related to Albo and his gang, but don’t forget the shambles of the Opposition (I’m flattering them by calling them that). A lot of our issues have been created by both sides.
Let me take a step back in time before I go any further, to the 1500s, when Nostradamus, in his publication Les Propheties, made some bold predictions. One of those was global conflict fears in 2026 amid US-Israel-Iran tensions and possible nuclear war. The Frenchman was spot on.
My dear old mum Edna, who was convinced Harold Holt was taken by a Russian submarine (but used to say it also could have been the Chinese), was obviously well versed in international problems. She used to say that the Middle East was where the trouble would start and bring the world to its collective knees.
Then, there was the Mad Max franchise that was centred around a world without fuel, and several other Hollywood movies about the same topic which, you guessed, is where I am going with this, our current dilemma. So, if Nostradamus, my mum and Hollywood producers thought this might happen, what the hell have our political leaders been doing for the last 40 or 50 years?
What we have been doing is exporting our minerals which we have in spades, our natural gas (in fact, we are No.1 in the world in volume export of gas), coal, uranium and, wait for it, oil, plus a whole bunch of other stuff the government can get an earn on.
I remember seeing a video going around with a guy from the US saying how dumb Aussies are because we feed and power the world but leave ourselves vulnerable when the sh*t hits the fan, which it is about now.
I am the first to admit that we can’t blame politicians for not having a crystal ball. But what the hell have the leaders of our country been doing – apart from putting on more public servants, giving themselves pay rises and reaping the rewards of selling all our resources?
I like this quote from Nostradamus (the year isn’t accurate but the rest of it could be): “Come the millennium, month 12, in the home of the greatest power, the village idiot will come forth to be acclaimed the leader”.
Ashley Robinson is Metropolitan Caloundra Surf Club CEO, chairman of Thunder Netball and a lifetime Sunshine Coast resident.
