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“To date, Sweden has executed the most sophisticated design of military forces for nonprovocative defense. Its coastal guns cannot be elevated to fire beyond Swedish coastal waters. It has a capable and effective air force, but with short-range aircraft that can’t get very far beyond Sweden… In every way, by technical and institutional design, they’ve sought to make Sweden a country you don’t want to attack, but one that is clearly in a defensive posture. This approach can ultimately create a stable mutual defensive superiority  – each side’s defense is stronger than the other side’s offense.”
Amory Lovins, How to Get Real Security

Now that makes sense!

While most of the policies outlined here involve increased public spending, there are 6 which raise new revenue or reduce spend:

Capping the capital gains tax exemption on primary residences to a sale price of $2 million
Foreign Ownership Sales Tax – so we get at least some tax from the likes of IKEA
Luxury Tax – on more items that just cars
State Owned Bank – for just the basics like savings and home ownership
Less full-time soldiers – by using the Swiss system (yes, they have an army)
Online Advertising Tax – to hit Google and Facebook and others
Removing tax exemptions for religious organisations – which will save many millions

And of course we would raise taxes for the rich, but we haven’t detailed that yet…

None of these would be adopted by the current Liberal party, because they would never spend less on armed forces, never tax the rich more, and are mates with banks.

Major political parties in Australia are avoiding many issues, and lack imagination and foresight. We are the only political party (fantasy or otherwise) to have these policies:

• Rewarding job-seekers for their successes, rather than punishing them for their failings
• Permanent political promises – no ifs, buts or reversals (populist)
• More of a peace-keeping, militia and specialist military model, with fewer full-time soldiers
• Non-binding, electronic referendums where suitable
• Publicly owned utilities – and a bank (populist)
• Decreasing the use of antibiotics
• Living wage for artists
• 5 year rent contracts (and no more negative gearing)
• Ending phone spam (populist)
• Free home insurance (populist)
• Capped CGT exemptions on residences (populist)
• 4 day work week
• A royal commission on the treatment and place of kangaroos, our national icon

As a futurist, I acknowledge that my ideas might be ahead of their time. I would expect that many of these will become reality one day, but it might take a while. But some are hard to argue against and would have popular appeal with many having little costs involved to implement (even a publicly-owned bank would be profitable).

Registered members only, get access to nice merchandise that actually looks great and subtle (as in clothing). Plus, members only beer, ordered online. Beer can be outsourced and rebranded.

Obviously Britain and Australia are different countries, but many political changes have occurred in parallel – for example privatisation.

So it is heartening that the following was observed from a landmark study of public opinion:

• Favour public ownership of the water (83%), electricity (77%), gas (77%), railway (76%) and bank (50%) sectors
• Favour wage caps for CEOs
• Government needs to do more to regulate how businesses behave
• Hold an unfavourable view of ‘capitalism’ as a concept, viewing it as ‘greedy’, ‘selfish’ and ‘corrupt’