It’s only the second week back and the world of politics is as interesting as ever.
The voter disillusionment I have mentioned many times in recent years manifested itself in the election of a Greek leftist party that promised to end austerity and reclaim power from the Brussels bureaucrats.
I expect this to be the first of many such voter rejections of the major parties in Europe which will ultimately see the end of the Euro as nation states revert to their own currency management.
A number of economic pundits now expect Greece not to honour its Euro debt obligations which will have enormous implications for the European banks and other governments. Over 80 per cent of Greek sovereign debt is owned by other governments and any default could prove contagious.
The late, great Margaret Thatcher was right when she said that Europe should be an economic union and not a political one.
At home, there has also been some ‘interesting times’ with Prince Philip becoming a Knight of Australia. It became a rather unusual topic of discussion around my Australia Day BBQ. I’m guessing it was discussed at a few others as well.
People will form their own views on the appropriateness of the award to HRH but the significant point for me is the level of interest shown about this from so many people. It has been raised with me hundreds of times by different people over the past few days. To be somewhat understated, I got the hint from many of those people that the decision hasn’t met with universal approval.
Somehow, I suspect this email will encourage some more readers to share their views with me!
It also suggests that people do have deeper concerns about the direction of the nation. A sense of unease about terrorism, financial concerns or the general ‘vibe’ often plays out in the strangest ways. One of those is to jump on a seemingly minor issue as a proxy for an undefined concern.
I have said it before and I’ll keep saying it: if the mainstream parties want to keep their support, they’ll need to respond to these areas of concern before the voters start looking elsewhere.
That’s it for today. I have been interstate on work commitments for the first time this year and my plane has just landed in Adelaide. With so much to catch up on in the office, somehow I feel the day already feels a little shorter than ideal.
Cory Bernardi is the author of seven books and has been a member of the Australian rowing team, a publican, an investment portfolio manager and spent nearly 14 years as an Australian Senator.
