In my recent article titled In the National Interest: Australian Citizenship in Disarray, published on the Pentagram Advisory website, I concluded by saying that Australia is fragile. I observed that Australia as a nation-state, as a society, and as an economy is very vulnerable to geopolitical and domestic threats. I believe that Australia is more vulnerable in 2026 than during World War II, more vulnerable than during the 18th century when British colonisation of Australia was in its infancy.
It was the Roman statesman Cicero who warned more than 2,000 years ago that a state that abandons its duty to its own people, to its citizens, invites disorder and eventual collapse from within. It is the elites that fail the citizens. This was to be the fate of Rome and of the Roman Empire centuries later.
The signs are clear that Australia, along with other Western democracies, is well along the path to creating downfall from within. This is because political leaders and institutional elites long ago started to break faith with the majority of citizens. Also, there are external forces who want Australia to fail, to be enfeebled, so Australia is unable or unwilling to defend its land, economy and people from the harm others would do us.
In the citizenship article I asked: What are we Australian citizens willing to do to defend Australia and build Australia up? How much latitude are you going to allow your fellow citizens, and non-citizens, to embitter and weaken Australia, rendering it ever more vulnerable and unrecognisable? What actions will you take to arrest the trend of an ever-diminishing Australia?
Reflecting on that article has led me to ask: What do I want Australia to be, today and into the future?
I’ve made a list. I want to share that list of attributes with you.
What do I want for the nation?
I want Australia to be a sovereign and unified nation state.
I want Australia to understand its history, but not be constrained by it or overly nostalgic for history.
I want Australia to be able to defend itself against hostile states.
I want Australia to be a hostile environment for local crime and transnational crime.
I want Australia to be a nation that is a desirable example that others want to emulate.
I want Australia to embrace its Western civilisation legacy and to welcome newcomers to share in the bounty that legacy bestows.
I want Australia to, again, be the ‘place to be’.
What about Australia’s polity?
I want Australia to be a robust democracy, true to its Westminster democratic foundations.
I want Australian governments and politicians to act for the common good, for the long-term security of the nation, and not govern for sectional or ideological fragments of the society whose interests and actions are antithetical to the common good.
I want political leaders who are committed to building Australia, to leading, to collaborating, to enabling fiscally responsible economic and social benefits for all and not pander to rent-seeking sectional interests.
I want Australian governments to play a minimal role, beyond providing essential services, in the way people conduct their lives.
What about Australia’s people?
I want Australians who want to be Australians, to commit to the idea of Australia.
I want citizens who are as focused on abiding by their duties as citizens as they are about exercising their rights.
I want Australians to imagine the future they want – living in Australia as Australian citizens – and work daily towards that future individually and as a contributor to the common good.
I want an Australian society that is concerned only with the quality of a person’s character and their behaviour as a citizen.
I want Australians to behave in ways that demonstrate they are not divided by religion, race, or culture.
What about the economy?
I want an Australian economy that is capable, vibrant, entrepreneurial, low tax, offering reward for risk and hard work, furnishing support for those who need help.
An economy that will retain and attract global talent.
I want Australia to be able to feed itself and its neighbours.
I want Australian industry to produce and manufacture at least the basic goods and services that our society needs.
I want Australia to have reliable and low-cost energy, with a high degree of Australian sovereign ownership and control.
That’s what I want.
These attributes buttress what I think should be the central idea of Australia: Australia is my home.
The unifying idea that ‘Australia is my home’ sounds simple, even banal, but it is powerful.
For most people, the idea of ‘home’ is fundamental to their life. It’s your private space, your refuge, your leisure, the bastion protecting family, your larder, your nest for your creativity, a place of pride, your long-term security. You keep it clean, you maintain it, you protect it, you improve it.
Who would not want to subscribe to that idea of Australia?
Who would not want these attributes, these strengths, that enable the nurturing of a common good, personal prosperity, equality before the law, and national resilience?
Who would not want to support the idea of Australia?
Based on what is reported in the mainstream media, what is splattered across social media, what I know from experience, and what people tell me it is obvious that not every person living in Australia, citizen or non-citizen, wants this ideal, perhaps utopian, Australia. You might call it Oztopia.
I want it. Others do, perhaps many others do.
If you do, what do you need to do to get it?
First, you decide that you want it. To be clear: you have to decide you really want it.
Decide that the Australia you live in today is not good enough, does not meet your needs and aspirations, needs to be redirected and refreshed. Decide it is possible to achieve Oztopia and that you can be part of that movement.
If you can’t make that decision then you know what fate awaits Australia – Cicero told you, and history has proven him right.
If you don’t choose to decide then none of your actions can make it happen. You will be mired in what we have today, welded to a declining future, being told how to live your life.
In choosing to want Oztopia, to actively contribute to building and maintaining that idea, then you need to find others who share your belief and your goals to team with.
Making Oztopia is a team pursuit. This, of course, is the stuff of politics. Politics is a very recent creation, established in Britain in the 1670s (part of that Western civilisation bounty I mentioned earlier) to join likeminded people to shape a nation to their ideas. However, much deeper in history before ‘politics’ we saw the power of ideas, and Oztopia is an idea which means it can be very powerful. That idea can change the world, or at least Australia, and lawful politics is the manner in which change is to be achieved in line with Australia’s history and customs.
To enable the change, you need to identify and collaborate with people who share the same goal, the same purpose, the same idea of Australia. Connecting online has limits; you really need to connect in person. Meeting and sharing ideas in person is real, allows you to respectfully debate and test ideas, build a sense of common purpose. Meeting enables the transition from idea to action. Action is what is needed.
You will encounter many who will oppose the idea of Oztopia. They are, unlike you, wittingly or unwittingly plotting a course for Australia to have a dystopian future – I guess that would be Ozdystopia. The opposers believe they are right; many are driven by ideology that puts feelings before facts, asserts control by the few over enabling the freedom of all, promotes dependence over independence. These Ozdystopians are organised which is why, if the idea of Oztopia is to have any chance of changing Australia, those who believe in the idea of Australia need to get organised now.
If you do want Oztopia, what do you do to get it?
Decide you want it.
Promote the idea of Australia in all the ways you can. Meet with likeminded people. Tell your local, state, and federal politicians what you want in terms of Australia’s nationhood, polity, people, society, economy and national security. Write letters to the mainstream media, get up petitions to parliamentarians, post articles and videos.
But do all this respectfully.
Your opponents, those who do not subscribe to the idea of Australia, will betray themselves through their behaviours, in action and in word trying to silence or discredit you.
No matter what is thrown at you, if you have decided to strive for Oztopia, then such opposing behaviour is to be endured, but not surrendered to. You are part of a powerful idea and you will stay the course to helping create and sustain a better Australia. Start today.