THE END OF THE MULTI PARTY SYSTEM OF TIRED OLD SCRIPT READERS?
AN INDICTMENT ON OUR LEADERS FROM ALL SIDES OF THE DIVIDE?
Today we stand not just on flood-ravaged ground but on the precipice of a reckoning. The cyclone and floods that have drowned Northern New South Wales and Queensland—submerging homes, shattering lives, and exposing the fragility of our communities—were not bolts from the blue. They were not unexpected. They were, in truth, a disaster foretold, a warning ignored, a promise broken time and again.
For years, we’ve watched the same cycle play out. Before elections, we hear grand plans—widen the Bruce Highway, fortify flood-prone lands, protect our people. Yet, once the ballots are cast, the ink dries, and the cameras turn away, those promises vanish like water into cracked earth. Lismore, Gympie, Grantham—the names change, but the story stays the same: communities left to fend for themselves, abandoned by the very systems meant to serve them.
And what stings deepest is the hypocrisy laid bare. Governments find the funds—your funds, our funds—to house undocumented immigrants in five-star hotels while they await processing. Yet, when the people of Lismore cry out, when families lose everything to the muddy tide, where is that same urgency? Where are the hotels, the resources, the compassion for our own? This is not about denying anyone dignity—it’s about demanding equal care for those who’ve built this nation, who’ve paid their dues, who deserve better than to be forgotten.
But this isn’t just about floods. It’s about a criminal lack of priorities that seeps into every corner of our lives. Interest rates climb, choking families already stretched thin. Housing—once a cornerstone of the Australian dream—has become a playground for money laundering, with overpriced real estate sold to the highest bidder while our children sleep in cars. Hospitals turn away the sick, teachers vanish from classrooms, and a judiciary—stacked by identity politics, not merit—presides over a legal system that protects itself before it protects us. The self-regulated legal profession, the Bar Associations, the Law Societies—they’ve become laws unto themselves, unaccountable, untouchable, compounding a law-and-order crisis that leaves us all less safe.
WHERE ARE THE REGULATORS ?
And who oversees this mess? Regulators like ASIC, the ATO the Courts that should mean trust and fairness? They act as if they answer to no one. They’ve forgotten their purpose: to serve the people, not to shield the powerful. We’ve been sold a lie that this is just how it is, that we’re powerless to change it. But I’m here to tell you—that lie ends today.
We need change. Not the kind peddled by party lines or polished press releases. Real change—gritty, hard-won, born from the will of people who’ve had enough. It starts with us taking stock of our situation—not as Liberals or Labor, not as city or country, but as Australians who refuse to let our nation drown in neglect. We must act outside the tired scripts of politics, beyond the hollow promises that evaporate after election night.
Look around you. The floodwaters may recede, but the damage remains—and it’s not just in the ruined homes or washed-out roads. It’s in the betrayal we feel, the erosion of trust, the sense that those in power care more about their own than they do about us. We can’t wait for them to save us. We must demand accountability—not with polite requests, but with a roar that shakes the halls of Canberra. We must rebuild—not just our towns, but our systems, our priorities, our future.
So, isn’t it time to stand up, speak up and act up as one? Let’s widen the highways ourselves if they won’t. Let’s protect our lands, our homes, our kids—not because it’s easy, but because it’s right.
Let’s hold the regulators, the politicians, the courts, and profiteers to the fire until they remember who they serve. This is our country, our fight, our time. The floods have shown us what’s at stake. Now let’s show them what we’re made of as a nation.
Avoid the airheads of Jackie Lambie, the Paulie Hansons and the Clive Palmers. But don’t give the established parties a break either.
Bruce Champion