Monday 31 July 2006

Vision-however short term

Some discussion is transpiring about population growth in South Australia. A business lobby seems to be advocating the traditional policy of populate or perish. This seems to be largely meant to deal with the aging population that is going to cut in around 2011 (see here) though as is rightly remarked this sort of solution is only time shifting the problem. Indeed it is aggravating the problem for those who will then have to deal with it in 2021 and 2041.
The business lobby seems to have little insight into what the reality of this problem is. There is no sense of vision, there is only the process (get bigger) which itself is part of the problem. Simply allowing Adelaide to double in size does not address the problem, indeed it creates more.
Commentators this morning raised the question of whether this particular lobby represented the interests of the state, or indeed whether they represented the interests of anyone!
They are the same interest group which seems to remind us that everyhting ...yes everything... should be deregulated. In particular that we should be allowed to shop ad nauseam (Oh My goodness what if a tourist comes on a public holiday and can't get into David Jones?). It is the same problem, this same unregulated opportunism simply lacks vision, and at worst contributes to these problems rather than solves them.
The famous mistranslation....where there is no vision the people perish...could equally be mistranslated....and where the vision is shallow and opportunistic the people flounder and die.

And on top of all that Little Johnny is leading us to the next election. If he sees out his term he will be 72. Is that a good thing ( nothing against 72 year old but.....) I think not!!

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