A working vision for Australia

May 4, 2025

Gareth Evans has joined with other P&I contributors in lamenting a lack of vision for Australia. He concludes with an ambition for Australia to be seen as a good international citizen – as a decent country. I think this is too vague to be effective.

I recommend “Australia: a trusted, respected and independent middle power in a healthy and peaceful world”.

This is a vision statement that Australia can be proud of. It’s an open statement allowing a wide spectrum of political contest and community behaviour. It is a simple statement that provides a guide for evaluating political proposals, legislation and government regulation.

Some Australians may think this is a fine description of current Australia. However, they deceive themselves. We fail miserably when we test our current nation against this vision statement.

We are not independent, we are seen as a vassal nation to the US and have an unelected head of state from a foreign country. We can’t expect to be trusted and respected without being genuinely independent. We can’t be the middle power that we aspire to be without being trusted, respected and independent.

Let’s do the work to become the Australia we would like to be.