Dare to hope for progress

• Provide capital works funding to unblock supply bottlenecks in our economy by increasing Australia’s rail freight and port capacity.
• Increase the capacity of the CSIRO, TAFE and Research University institutions, with priority funding of sustainable industrial technologies.
• Reduce social dislocation and isolation in rural Australia by maintaining a safe and efficient national road network, and pervasive high-speed internet access.
• Implement policies that encourage sustainable use of Australia’s resources so that we are prosperous today, but not at the expense of future Australians.
• Harmonise laws to remove systemic biases that disadvantage people on the basis of ethnicity, sexuality or religion.
• Reduce the number of pages of taxation and business law to pre-1996 levels.
• Introduce legislation to increase the transparency of government decision-making, reduce ministerial executive powers and strengthen individual rights and freedoms.
• Abolish the tax-and-spend policies of past governments that have seen tax dollars ride a wasteful merry-go-round out of and back into the pockets of families that don’t need to pay so much tax, and who don’t need a handout.
• If there are no feasible public infrastructure projects to which taxes can rationally be allocated, the tax take of the government will be cut accordingly.

At the State and Local Level;

• Improve urban amenity and reduce air pollution by increasing public transport capacity, frequency and reach to the fringes of our large cities.
• Provide health and education services on the basis of local need, so that public services are matched to local requirements.
• Pursue more vigourous and targeted enforcement action against:
  - drug-dealers, not drug-users.
  - firearms offenders, not firearms hobbyists.
  - Promote volunteer-based programs that engage residents to participate together in projects that enhance the social, aesthetic and cultural richness of their local community.

The effect of Australian Progress policies will be to:

• Reduce the total size of federal government as a share of GDP to below 20 per cent, at a rate of 0.25 per cent of GDP per annum, along with a proportional decrease in the absolute size of state governments.
• Increase our prosperity by tapping the enterprising vigour of Australians that is currently strangled by our over-regulated yet under-serviced economy.
• Build a vigourous, prosperous and harmonious Australia that values what each individual can contribute and supports their wellbeing.

Apart from the fictional members of Australian Progress, I wonder who else among us dares to hope that future governments will once again exist to serve the people?