Breast beating about economic credentials will become increasingly strident as this year’s federal election draws closer, but just what counts in matters fiscal is something voters should consider with care.

With the federal government now raking in $232 billion annually from all forms of taxes, an Australian public of 20 million people has a right to expect a high level of service in return.

But when you hear the federal education minister sprouting the virtues of corporate sponsorship to fund public education because it is beyond the capacity of government, as Julia Bishop did recently, you have to wonder just what is up.

And when university research departments are in the grip of vested corporate interests with their own particular barrows to push, it really is time to ask whether any over-riding national interest remains in the scheme of things.

So timid is Labor in the face of every ideologically-driven coalition push to privatise everything from our children’s early-childhood education to energy research that you also have to ask what real choice we have.

Governments both Labor and Coalition at state and federal level all boast of surpluses as though that is the benchmark of good economic planning, when in reality they represent either the non-delivery of essential services, over taxing in the first place or a combination of both.

Tax cuts showered as if gifts from above remain the ultimate insult.
Rich with GST dollars and mining-boom mana, governments really should be doing more, delivering more and achieving more to ensure we remain the lucky country.

But rather than debating the politics of opportunity and possibility, rather than hearing leaders of vision expressing a path to a more enlightened and enriched future for a greater number of our people, what do we get?
We get fear.

Fear about water. Fear about climate change. Fear of interest-rate rises. Fear of terrorism. Fear of immigrants. Fear of multiculturalism. Fear for the future.

In this supposedly “time of our lives” when we “never had it so good”, the gaps between rich and poor grow wider, our individual debt grows larger, home affordability slips forever beyond the reach of many and our education standards in trades and schooling are falling rather than improving.

Why does this happen? How in a democracy are governments allowed to get away with taking so much, promising so much and delivering so little?

Why do we allow our children’s class sizes to grow to the point where schooling is an exercise in crowd control rather than quality education, where increasing numbers of teachers are relegated to contract and part-time work and where resources diminish while our governments prattle on about surpluses and economic management?

Why do we accept it when we are told that a doubling of our population will be good for us when our governments can not properly service our existing communities? Why do we fear the threat of terrorism while our elderly die through lack of care and our sick struggle to get a hospital bed in a country supposedly awash with money?

Why can a 36-year-old federal minister blithely dismiss concerns about the $75,000 cost of his one-week study trip to the United States, yet organisations desperate for money to meet very real community needs are turned away at the door?

These are all questions voters will have an opportunity to put to political candidates as this year unfolds.

There are no messiahs among the politicians on all sides of the spectrum. There is no grand vision evident for the future.

John Howard serves the interests of the Liberal Party. Kevin Rudd serves the interests of the Labor Party. Both in truth are very small organisations in terms of membership.

The pollsters identify the issues that stimulate our attention, and the political parties nuance their message to stroke that pendulum.

But where is each party’s blueprint, timetabled and costed, for the delivery on the promises they now make?

We recently returned a state government that continues to ignore us, rides roughshod over our stated aspirations and spends our money on things we don’t want.

Will we show the same lack of care in how we use our votes at the federal poll?

Unless we, the voters, begin demanding more of those we entrust with the fruits of our labour and the power of office, they will continue to simply – one or the other – take more and deliver less for our trouble.