As I look across the Australian landscape, a landscape I love and have appreciated since my youth, this Old Bushy does so now with feelings of trepidation and concern. The land that makes us what we are is not being managed in the interests of the Australian people.

The Australia we robustly and successfully developed from settlement in 1788 was done in a spirit of egalitarian mateship where every man was his neighbour’s keeper. It was this spirit of mateship and shared vision that made us great and proud of who we are and what we have achieved.

But now my fellow Australians are not being encouraged to be united by the land beneath our feet, but lauded to showcase diversity.

Division has replaced unity and we are poorer and weaker for it.

Our resourceful and adaptive people are being denied access to the great resources and opportunities of our unpredictable and at times heartbreaking (but wonderful) country. The abundant resources of our nation are managed solely as government income. The people we are electing to government seem ‘hellbent’ on destroying our children’s future by running up the national debt and killing off enterprise with regulation.

We, the people need to be part of a government that recognises that it is our land that unites us as one people and that our land and its resources are our future prosperity and must always be managed by Australians to the benefit of Australians.

We need to tell the United Nations, and its agencies that like to subjugate citizens, to get to hell out of our country and our lives. The UN needs to know that we are a mature, responsible, tolerant, and compassionate people who can successfully run our own country for the benefit of our people.

Our wonderful, beautiful, immense, bountiful, land has fashioned us into what we are and it is that land that unites us as one people and we are proud of what we have achieved.

But multi-levels of government bureaucracy and over-regulation are denying our adaptive, productive, and entrepreneurial people the chance to be successful in our own land.

Both Labor and Liberals have sold our tools of trade to overseas entities now operating as monopolies and not acting in our interest.

Good government and patriotism should be as one and not about passing more and more laws all requiring another bureaucratic institution to administer.

Good government is about fostering national vigour and growth by giving every man and women the opportunity and stimulation to improve themselves by their own free and independent action. To do so they must have access to the resources that are our heritage and our future.

Mankind mines from the earth 77 minerals and compounds that are the building blocks of everything we produce. Here in Australia, we have 75 of those building blocks in abundance.

Australia has more fertile land, more water, more forest, more fish habitat, more resources, more open space, and more National Parks per head of population than any other country on Earth.

So, why are we importing so much expensive finished products and mostly exporting raw materials.

Why do we have over a million people underemployed?

Why are we one of the most urbanised countries on earth?

Why do we import labour when we have unemployment?

The answers are simple. No matter the beauty of the vista. No matter the abundance of the landscape. Without care and a plan for management, even the most appealing landscape can become arid. Every environment must have a plan for continuance. Management with vision for the future. Australia presently does not have that. Decisions on our development are left to those who fund political parties and government bureaucracies.

Any cohesive plan for our future must begin by recognising that every person born in this country regardless of background, heritage, or skin colour, is an equal indigenous citizen and has equal rights to share in this nation’s opportunities and assets, subject to law. We generously give the same rights to those who legally migrate here and swear an oath of allegiance.

But that privilege of Australian citizenship comes at a cost. It has a price.

The price is that every citizen, subject only to their mental and physical capacity to do so, has an obligation to hold a job or run a lawful business that provides for them and their family.

Therefore the absolute first priority and most demanding responsibility of government is to run an economy that affords every citizen the opportunity to meet that personal responsibility to this wonderful country.

All recent governments have failed this basic responsibility.

While Turnbull, Morrison, and now Albanese have been voluble in talking up Australia’s prospects, they have all presided over runaway borrowing and no plan on where and why that money should be spent.

Every Australian should be appalled that this government has to borrow nearly $2 billion every week just to pay the wages, while the men and women who work and toil and bear the cost of government have to stump up $380 million every week just to pay the interest on those borrowings.

What I find most galling is that there seems to be no leader in any political party that has the intellect or political will to call for a stop to this penury-producing mindless spending.

This has to change because until the vast majority of our people can meet the cost of their citizenship with the dignity of a job, we will never be able to pay off the national debt and be a prosperous nation.

With the dignity of a job comes self-esteem. With the dignity of a job comes the support of workmates and a reason for being.

The life of every one of our citizens has a value that can only be purchased with the currency called achievement. The achievement of productive work. The achievement of procreation and the nurturing of worthy citizens. The achievement of creative expression. The achievement of supportive relationships.

When our citizens are achieving, we will have more cohesive communities with less crime, less mental illness, less drug dependence, less domestic violence, and lower taxation because we will have less people living off the public purse.

Our people are resourceful. They are competitively productive. They are proud; providing the government gives them the freedom to be their best.

So how do we manage our natural assets to achieve better results for all?

We prepare and implement a plan for the future. We do so by combining our two greatest assets: our people and their know-how on one hand and our land and its resources on the other. By combining these assets we could half our imports and grow the value of our exports, restoring prosperity for all via the dignity of jobs for all.

To achieve this we have to restore to the people the tools of trade that governments have either removed, made too expensive, or licensed away. The most obvious examples are power, gas, water, and fuel which are the basics of all productivity.

This government should establish the Australian Infrastructure Fund with Snowy Hydro as the base asset. This fund will be financed by interest-bearing deposits from superannuation funds and these will be repaid from AFI profits. The AIF will build and manage the basic infrastructure to provide the inputs needed by developing businesses across our land.

The unworkable and counter-productive MDB Plan must be abolished and replaced with water conservation policies that will: correct forever the salinity and environmental problems in the Coorong and Lower Lakes. By building a lock and weir at Wellington and return the Lower Lakes to an estuarine environment while maintaining lake water levels.

As a result we can guarantee all water users in South Australia more fresh water every year at prices comparable to water prices upstream. Build extra storage on the Darling catchment and guarantee all of Darling River flow in all seasons and maintenance of Menindee Lakes as the source of water for Broken Hill and surrounds and renew the pipeline from the Lakes to Broken Hill.

An ongoing program of dam building and hydropower production that will provide all of our power and water needs for the next century in all states. Using this water and power to expand our food and fibre production along with processing, transport, and other ancillary industries.

A north-south railway and road corridor to connect these centres of production and passing through an international freight hub north of Griffith. This transport corridor will allow the efficient production of fertiliser, fuel, and ancillary products by combining the raw materials from the north and south.

All of this will be designed and funded by the: Australian infrastructure fund. The facilities will be built by Australian companies. Managed and run by Australian entities. Manned by Australian workers.

When the people of our great country, sensibly and productively use the resources of our great country, we all prosper.

This will not happen unless the people demand it. Every citizen must now face the reality that without change our national debt will drive down living standards and consign our children to menial jobs. We, the people, must demand of our leaders that they understand that it is the land beneath our feet that makes us what we are.

With a visionary plan we can be the most productive people on earth and as a direct result, the most prosperous.

Without a plan, Australia is like a ship without a sail.