I’ve been thinking a lot about the current disaster situation north and south of our home in flood devastated areas and how “the government” isn’t doing anything. I don’t think I want a government to do things. Governments have historically not achieved anything close to what regular people have.

I’d like you and I to do things, instead of putting our faith in a bureaucracy structured around a democratic election. The incentives are out of whack, and our want for “them” to do something doesn’t help the political process. It gives them easy wins by promising money but not delivering, and easy opportunities for a photo and a handshake whilst helping no-one.

I think it would be much more powerful for our communities to find their common unities, for those communities to band together with finances, services, love, care, hugs, cooking, whatever is needed. Not to wait for a old white guy in the capital city to help us, for us to help ourselves. Outsourcing care to those people gets us nowhere except for more taxes and less care with less help.

We’ve been outsourcing caring to government for too long. They don’t do it well.

We asked the government to look after our poor and we got Centrelink’s robodebt. We asked the government to look after our health and we got the last two years of whatever 2020-2021-2022 was. We asked the government to look after our financials and we got the GFC, current house prices, and ZIRP (zero interest rate policy). We asked the government to regulate the media and we got nightly news bulletins that somehow are the same length every night, and newspapers that hold power in government, not holding government to account. We asked the government to come and help in the floods and we got a PR and social media marketing campaign. We asked the government to lead and we got Scotty from marketing.

Let’s stop asking the government to do things, and ask ourselves to do things, ask each other to do things. It might be scary, but let’s be vulnerable, let’s ask for help. Let’s be real.

The government is good at building roads and collecting rubbish. The government isn’t good at care, love, or help.