On Anzac Day I like to post on social media a list of birthdates in the national service lotteries from 1965 t0 1972. I do it because the March 1966 ballot, which was for men born between January and June 1946, includes my dad’s birthday. He was picked and he fought in Vietnam, arriving just before the Tet Offensive in 1968.
Not only is my dad’s birth date in that March 1966 ballot; so is mine. And that chills me.
It’s part of why I revere the Australian War Memorial as a sacred place – it’s hard not to when you’ve stood beside your dad as he pointed to the names of those he knew on the Roll of Honour.
It is why I have no qualms in saying I hate the AWM’s lack of commemoration of the frontier wars, and deeply despise the $500m spent turning it into a “Disneyland of war”.
It’s also why I have deep contempt for a party using the days before Anzac Day to announce a jingoistic $21bn in defence spending and which talks about putting us on a “war footing”. But it is mostly about very expensive, redundant toys.
I also ask the question that is often linked to Anzac Day: what are we defending? What are these values we hear soldiers sacrificed their lives for? And are our politicians brave enough to propose policies that reinforce and deliver those values?
Is it a society where the unemployed live in poverty while the Reserve Bank believes there needs to be about 4.5% of the labour force without a job to keep inflation stable, and yet jobseeker is about 38% below the poverty line?
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Is that Australia’s“fair go”?
What about our native flora and fauna? Is there anything more deserving of our protection?
This month we were told that the Great Barrier Reef is near a tipping point for survival. Surely a political party proud of Australia would be making the loudest noise possible to get action on climate change. Instead, when asked last week about climate change, Coalition leader Peter Dutton meekly said, “the question is what we can do about it as a population of 27 million people?”
What about decisions that affect our own shores? Is there any bravery there? No. Instead, the government and the opposition rushed through legislation to ensure salmon farms in Macquarie Harbour can continue even though the industry is almost certainly sentencing the Maugean skate to extinction.
Neither party showed any bravery failing to stand up to foreign companies that employ few workers and which pay negligible amounts of tax.
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Dutton at least has been brave enough to be the first leader of the Liberal party to admit we don’t have a shortage of gas – something the ALP doesn’t admit.
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But there is no bravery from either party about higher taxes on these mostly foreign-owned gas companies. Over the decade from 2019, beer drinkers will sacrifice more than gas companies – paying $12bn more in excise than gas companies will pay petroleum resources rent tax.
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Nor do the two main parties show any bravery by arguing we do not need any more new gas fields. Instead, this week the government approved a massive new gas project that will be purely for export and will not be subject to any royalties.
Australia is now a country that defends giving away – for free – our natural resources, and their extraction will contribute to the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.
On housing, both the ALP and the Coalition capitulated to the wealthy – making it clear they would not touch the 50% capital gains tax deduction or negative gearing.
The Parliamentary Budget Office last week estimated the cost to the government in revenue foregone from both policies in 2025-26 would be $13.4bn. If this was listed as a program it would be the 14th most expensive – just below the cost of jobseeker.
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But in Tuesday night’s debate, Dutton suggested we shouldn’t touch it because it “would be a disaster for people who are saving for a rental property”.
It would seem the Australian dream we now defend is the dream of negatively gearing our property for the second, or third, or 26th time.
Is the Australia we love the one where we have one of the highest levels of old-age poverty among rich nations and the second-lowest age pension?
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Clearly, sacrifice does not include the taxpayer-funded retirees masquerading as “self-funded” – who reap about $22bn in superannuation tax breaks.
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I agree that Australia is great. But it could be much greater.
Google “Australian ballot” and tell me you don’t feel some pride that we led the way in ensuring everyone could lodge their vote in private. What about women’s suffrage? Does that not suggest a nation that can change the world?
It is not only conservatives who love our country and believe it is worth defending.
But what is it we love, what is it we want to defend? It’s all well and good to talk about a fair go, or our great natural resources and lifestyle. But talk is cheap and hollow words are weak.
Bravery in policymaking can ensure we are a free and equitable nation with a unique environment of which we can be rightly proud.
• Greg Jericho is a Guardian columnist and policy director at the Centre for Future Work
