We may elect our politicians to govern us but market forces and big corporate influence increasingly calls the shots.
An example was the Rudd government caught in a massive advertising campaign by mining interests against the introduction of a tax on high profits. At the same time the Australian public was saying that government shouldn’t spend public money on advertising. This is a very hard set of rules to have any hope of providing good government.
Other examples are where we see the electricity and coal companies negotiating very hard deals with the government over the introduction of carbon prices which makes it almost impossible for government to address the implementation of carbon emissions reduction.
For decades now government has focused on ‘economic rationalism’ although we don’t much about it now.
It is very hard for the government to make any decisions that reduce either our spending power or the number of jobs even if the need is urgent.