IT’S DUMBER DOWNUNDER

A  Phil Ackman Article

Not often Australia arrives at a revolutionary offering rather than our traditional strength — photocopying ideas from other countries — and then tinkering with them until they no longer work.

The British designed Hunter frigate comes cruelly to mind. Great in a slow, straight line, but likely to tip over if driven too fast or required to make turns. It’s that silly old 2,000 tonnes of extra weight the Royal Australian Navy reportedly added to the top of the mast.

Our $50m Cape Class patrol boats another example. Engine fires and other defects including oil leak alarms, communication problems — and recent reports Border Force officials are now buying cooling fans from Bunnings. A Border Force seemingly outsmarted by Indonesian people smugglers we have discovered are really clever — at least cleverer than us — because they travel at night when it's dark  — and paint their boats black.

Churlish to mention our AUKUS submarine project whose $368B cost remains steadfastly set in stone since first announced almost three years ago. No AUKUS subs for decades, but we’re about to make a $4.7B contribution to the US to improve their own submarine manufacturing capability.

Surely refundable if no stop gap Virginia Class submarines arrive to bolster our own defences in the early 2030s. Perhaps not — given the Australian Submarine Agency’s refusal to say if a refund clause was included in the contract.

Our latest tourism model fortunately suffers from none of these defects. Until now just two global approaches. The Swiss model — 5 Star quality and 5 star pricing. Costly, but worth it. Versus the Asian model — 5 star quality, 2 star pricing. So compelling Australians increasingly prefer vacationing in Thailand, Indonesia and other Asian hotspots.

We’ve watched — and we’ve learned — which must explain our uniquely Australian model — 5 Star pricing and 2 star quality. It’s really expensive — but on the positive side — it’s rubbish. Almost everything downunder conforms to this revolutionary business advance. Supermarkets, cafes — where a couple of eggs on toast cost $15-$25 — even though the ingredients can be purchased off the shelf for around $1.

Insurance, air fares, toll roads, accommodation and, of course, petrol — determined by the RACQ to be returning up to 56 cents a litre — an average gas station profit around $30 for a tankful of premium unleaded.

The twin summits of our mountain of mediocrity? Lollypop men on Queensland road construction sites now paid up to $206,000 a year. The heavy duty thinking required to flip a double headed sign from STOP to GO while wearing a Hi Vis jacket. And the astonishing victory of the Victorian CFMEU — enabling the average major building site bloke in a hard hat to earn up to around $8,000 a week.

Unsurprisingly, nurses in Melbourne have just voted down their own 23% pay offer — some asking why construction workers holding up traffic signs were paid more than a nurse with six years of university training.

Not that our centres of learning are that great. None of Australia’s 39 universities made it into the Top 30 in the respected 2024 Times Higher Education world rankings. Perhaps in despair — or under a bucket of cold water — Queensland University of Technology recently announced it was doing away with merit as a key consideration for academic appointments. QUT sneaks into the world rankings at a breath-taking 199th. Better than our bottom 28 Australian universities who slog it out in the race to excellence with famed centres of learning — some in Turkey, Hungary and Iran.

Other recent achievements include the near completion of a ferry wharf on Sydney’s Botany Bay for a price only six times the original budget. Years late, of course, but ferries, if any, won’t be around to use the new wharf. The NSW State Government has not yet gone to market to discover who might be crazy enough to run the likely heavily loss-making journey from industrial Kurnell to lightly populated, windswept La Perouse.

More spectacularly, the Queensland Government has triumphantly finished an arch enabling Cassowaries to cross a major highway. Costs grew slightly from $10 to $40m over the five year construction timeframe — but this kind of creepage is to be expected — except of course for our AUKUS subs.

Two presumably unforeseen problems. A concern the arch is too steep for the huge birds to climb — and unkind speculation the structure is compromised — whatever that might mean. Dismissed — sort of — by a Transport and Main Roads spokesman who said there was no evidence of cracking in the “overpass components”.

Finally, Queenslanders face their own withering IQ test given the embattled Labor Government’s announcement it would reduce everyone’s power bill by $1,000 — exquisitely timed to produce a one off benefit — a few days before the October State election.

Proof — if it were required — State Premier, Steven Miles, believes we’re even more dull-witted than he is.

It’s great to be an Aussie cos it’s dumber downunder.

I’m #philackman and this #philackmanarticle first to air on #cairnsfm891