An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
This open letter assumes the reader has also read the Australian Financial Review column by Alexander Downer dated 4 Dec 2022 found here . Start there and follow with this Open Letter.
As a former State and Federal Executive member of the Liberal Party, as a former Young Liberal of the Year and participant in 72 pre-selections, I agree with much of what you wrote.
The fact that the Liberal Party has lost its philosophical mooring and is now drifting wherever the political currents take it was the very reason I left and joined the Liberal Democrats in South Australia.
They stand for fiscal restraint, individual freedom, rule of law, freedom of speech, entrepreneurialism, freedom of worship, free trade, equality before the law, innovation and science, the very things the Liberal Party have abandoned and seem unable to clearly articulate.
As an example of just how unable even Liberal Party senators have become to hold true and firm to these beliefs, see here Senator Andrew Bragg from NSW on ABC’s Q&A:
It’s not only the Liberal Democrats who provide fresh competition. There are good people in other parties who share these values but do not see the Liberal Party as their natural home any longer.
Nowhere was the Liberal Party’s drift more evident than during covid overreach. And it’s with that in mind that I turn to your column.
You wrote, “In South Australia, the public was on the whole supportive of the state government’s termination of traditional civil liberties.”
As you know, public opinion can be manufactured. When you say leadership was required rather than managerialism, nowhere was that needed more than during covid.
You wrote further, “The values of selfless individualism and individual freedom and responsibility are timeless. The Liberal Party shouldn’t allow them to be cast as anachronistic.”
You can see my emphasis in both these quotes.
I’d therefore like to ask you a simple question in an effort to reconcile those two quotes from your column:
Do you agree it was a mistake for the recent SA Liberal Government to have terminated traditional civil liberties at the expense of our timeless value of individual freedom?
This open letter is published on Liberty Itch, which boasts current and past MPs as well as current party leaders and activists as subscribers.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
The term Lunar New Year is more accurate than Chinese New Year. The spring festival is not exclusively Chinese but celebrated throughout China, Hong Kong, Tibet, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and, yes, here in Australia among communities sharing this heritage.
Liberty Itch strives for accuracy, an appreciation of all cultures which observe Lunar New Year festivities and, as you are well aware, we are not in the habit of bending to the Chinese Communist Party.
Let freedom ring!
So, terminology aside, it’s unfortunate then that the Chinese Communist Party infiltration operations within Australia are in full swing.
Today, our focus is on Perth, Western Australia, and how the CCP is wooing major party politicians there.
Soft-power, you understand.
The Perth Chinese Consulate invited key Western Australian legislators and Commonwealth bureaucrats to their Lunar New Year function. Attendees included the Hon. Sue Ellery MLC, Minister for Finance, Commerce and Women’s Interests from the Australian Labor Party, and the Western Australian Liberal Leader Dr David Honey MLA.
Pro-Beijing, United Front Work Department affiliated organisations – reminder, the UFWD is the Chinese Communist Party’s official propaganda arm – were also present at the function, including the executives and founders from the Chung Wah Association Inc, the CCP Media Perth Post andAustralian Chinese Times, the WA Beijing Association, and the Australian Peaceful Unification Association.
Unsurprisingly, given the Chinese regime’s constant civil liberty infractions and growing interference here in Australia, there was a human rights protest self-described as “End CCP” out the front of the consulate.
Political Itch has spoken to a key figure of that protest, Richard Lue. His account is that, at the end of the function, Minister Ellery and Dr Honey sought to avoid the peaceful protesters at the front by taking the back exit. Then, surprised the protesters were documenting the comings and goings from the consulate, Dr Honey ‘ran away quickly’ when he spotted their camera.
WA Leader of the Opposition, Liberal’s Dr Honey takes the back exit
This is not the behaviour of MPs confident of their actions.
Why scurry through the back exit? Why run to avoid the camera?
Would it not have been better for a Minister and a Liberal Leader to boldly walk out the front door and talk with the protesters about their grievances?
Both the Minister and the Liberal Leader were given a red bag by the consulate on departing. Given the CCP has embroiled other politicians in career-ending activities, we thought this at the very least worth questioning.
Political Itch reached out to Labor’s Sue Ellery to ask what was in the red bag and to find out why she took the back exit rather than just hear the protesters’ complaints. Sue Ellery’s office did not respond.
Dr Honey’s office did respond, as follows:
Please give me a call just so I can clarify a few things.
But basically, Dr Honey left via the front door, not via a back or side door and walked directly to his car which was parked on Royal Street.
The red bag he was holding was a party gift bag that was given to all attendees – it contained some low value trinkets etc… (it was a cap, a fan and a poetry book).
The function was held by the Chinese Embassy to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year.
Political Itch has subsequently received photos from an eyewitness that the Liberal Leader exited the Chinese Communist Party’s Perth Consulate from the back door on Royal Street. The front gate of the Consulate is on Brown Street, not Royal Street, according to the Consulate’s official address.
Whether these politicians exit from the front or back, or whether they receive minor trinkets in a gift bag is not the point, of course.
What is relevant is that our politicians prefer to immerse themselves in the hospitality of an abhorrent regime which regularly abuses human rights, rather than listen to the victims of that regime.
There were so many questions we wanted to ask. One which came to mind was the persecution of Christians in China.
Political Itch took up Dr Honey’s invitation to call multiple times over a two day period. In the absence of a call back, we then wrote the following email to his office:
Dear Sir,
We are unable to get hold of you on the phone.
The answer as to which exit Dr Honey used is in dispute by eyewitnesses.
A follow up question for Dr Honey –
According to ChinaAid’s 2021 Annual Persecution Report, more than 50,000 Christians were arrested in China in the Shanxi Province alone. Will Dr Honey be willing to speak up on behalf of Christians within and outside the Liberal Party and talk to the Perth CCP Consulate about the persecution of Christians in China?
On this more serious question, Dr Honey’s office did not respond.
It would be generous for you, the reader, to conclude that they are all too busy to respond. These are serious issues.
It is more than disappointing that Labor and Liberal politicians in Western Australia hob-nob with the communist elite, operatives who are actively undermining our democracy, but not able to advocate for victims of human rights abuses and persecuted Christians.
Take note. Chinese Communist Party infiltration is deep. Worryingly, WA Labor and Liberal are lulled into forgetting who they represent and are not acting like the principled democratic leaders they should.
Fiona is a higher education professional based in South Australia. Following the collapse of Hong Kong freedom, Fiona became deeply concerned about the threats imposed by China within Australia. Her research covers a range of topics, including China’s soft power, influence, infiltration, interference and human rights abuses.
First, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced her resignation effective, at the latest, early in February 2023. (Yes, New Zealanders need to endure her for a few weeks more!)
Second, I put out this short tweet yesterday together with a video of the Prime Minister, and it went viral. In a mere 180 minutes, it was seen by 67,400 people and was still swishing around the globe as I wrote this. After 8 hours, 165,000+!
Jacinda Ardern set a couple of records. She was the youngest female prime minister ever in 2017. Further, she gave birth whilst in office.
Of course, neither of these have anything to do with political achievement.
To be fair, we can probably agree that Jacinda Ardern is expressive.
Some went so far as to say she showed great empathy.
I think it more accurate to say any apparent empathy was self-consciously dispensed and exclusively to beneficiaries of her bias.
Any praise for expressiveness and empathy needs much closer scrutiny. It’s what she expresses that so confounds civil libertarians like you and me. And, if you don’t mind me expressing myself here dear reader, she showed a distinct lack of empathy for many during covid lockdowns, victims of which are generations not yet born as you’ll see. So read on.
Instead, what we observed was a smiling socialist, a Daughter of Davos, instinct over intellect, all feeling and no financial finesse. In short, she was a classical liberal’s nightmare.
Just look at the legacy she leaves after six reckless years in office:
Frequent meddling with the free market. The results: distortions in housing prices and a generation of first home buyers shut-out of their ownership aspirations;
A backlash against over-zealous covid restrictions and loss of personal freedoms, including creating a medical-apartheid defined by vaccination-status. See the video tweet above;
Conscientious objectors and the vaccine-hesitant were shunned socially, denied mobility, prevented from earning a living and targeted by government in ways the Stasi would have relished in Soviet-era East Germany;
Consequential increasing crime rates in the island nation;
Inflation sitting at 7.2%;
Food prices spiking 8.3% compared with the same time a year earlier;
Successive interest rate increases from New Zealand’s central bank;
A monstrous public debt! When she took office, the public debt was approximately $60 billion USD. Projections are that, based on all data currently available reflecting the decisions of her government, that the national debt will balloon to $151 billion USD by 2027. If the figure proves higher or lower than that, it will be the result of her successor’s policies, but you can see the economic vandalism on her watch. Put it this way, she led a government which racked-up triple the debt of all previous New Zealand governments combined. She went way over the credit card limit and left someone else to pick up the bill. Funny, right?;
For a country with a population the size of Boston, it will take three generations at least to bring that debt to heel. We are talking inter-generational theft which will crush Zoomer Kiwis’ standard of living, their children and their grandchildren. That is to say, on the day after you, I and Jacinda Ardern meet our Lord and Maker, New Zealanders will be dealing with the Ardern Economic Catastrophe for another two generations thereafter;
Many of them will flee New Zealand and hollow this beautiful jewel of the South Pacific. They have been emigrating anyway, mainly to Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States;
A strategic flirtation with the Chinese Communist Party. Her Labour Party has long shunned our liberal democratic ally, America. It was a natural progression from that to openly calling for greater integration with the communists, a weak-kneed strategy in favour of firebrand authoritarianism with a chequebook over the cleansing-balm of liberty;
Consistent with that predisposition towards authoritarianism, civil liberties in New Zealand were shattered under her Governments. Emergency powers poised to be invoked again at any time are left in place;
Chinese Communist Party infiltration of New Zealand consulates and banks;
She openly lied about the efficacy of covid vaccines. “If you take the vaccine, you’ll still get covid but you won’t get sick and you won’t die” was a claim she made during the height of an hysteria of her own making, and contradicted by the science and the manufacturer. Don’t believe me? Watch this …
More government restrictions on the access and use of water;
Crushing regulations on agricultural emissions;
Further shifting of the goal posts with hate speech laws without any safeguards as to who adjudicates what ‘hate speech’ actually is.
The adulation and applause had faded about a year ago. The shadowy World Economic Forum’s simping seemed impossibly distant now. Jacinda Ardern had to face the people of New Zealand imminently and the prospects weren’t promising.
With polling numbers in decline and the sparkle now tarnished, the Prime Minister did what all faithful authoritarians and central-planners do when their number is up. She spoke sweetly, smiled nervously, then scurried to the nearest exit hoping that the rule of law she undermined holds firm for her.
I was shocked my tweet went viral. I shouldn’t have been. Countless everyday people across the West, people like you and I, have had a gutful.
The Daughter of Davos was a symbol of all that has gone wrong over the last 3 years. So of course you cheered her departure.
I don’t think we’ll have to wait long before she re-emerges with an ostentatious job title and global brief somewhere in the world. “Poverty Ambassador-At-Large, World Economic Forum”, on $820,000 per annum, Davos chalet and chauffeur the obligatory perks on top sounds about right.
And when that happens, you and I can both smile knowingly that at least here she won’t have harmed anyone further. On her departure from the Land of the Long White Cloud, she will increase the average IQ of New Zealand, and not decrease that of the World Economic Forum.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
Chinese Communist Party supporter, Billy Kwok, influenced by the Chinese government’s propagandist apps WeChat and Weibo, was not happy with Mr. Hui’s pro-democracy advocacy. So, he decided to take matters into his own hands and used violence to handle a political difference of opinion.
The police officially charged Mr. Kwok in September 2022, but the case was delayed due to ‘mental health’ grounds.
These delays were overcome and, this week, a Sydney court found him guilty on two counts of criminal intimidation, handing-down both a community service order of 12 months and a $500 fine.
On hearing the verdict, Mr. Hui said, “This successful prosecution sends two important messages to the community. Firstly, all people in Australia have the right to express their political views freely. This must be respected.”
“Secondly, pro-Beijing people need to understand that they cannot use violence against any person, just because they have a different political persuasion. The rule of law underpins the way Australian society is governed”, he continued.
Liberty Itch praises Mr. Hui for his courage and tenacity in defending Australian free speech and fighting for democracy in Hong Kong.
Fiona is a higher education professional based in South Australia. Following the collapse of Hong Kong freedom, Fiona became deeply concerned about the threats imposed by China within Australia. Her research covers a range of topics, including China’s soft power, influence, infiltration, interference and human rights abuses.
The Chinese Communist Party’s public diplomacy programs in Australia look innocent enough.
From the delightful Wang Wang and Funi Event at the Adelaide Zoo, to the partially CCP-subsidised OzAsia Festival, from the more recent Chinese Music Performance at the Adelaide Town Hall to the ‘Chinese Singing Competition’ held at a South Australian university campus. Chinese culture is on display.
This is Adelaide alone. Such activities are rolled-out across the country and world.
These are simply ‘Chinese culture’, correct? These public diplomacy projects participated in by Chinese Government officials are permissible in a democracy such as ours, right?
Well, yes. But to a point.
It’s understandable for a foreign government to attempt to build relationships with individuals in other countries in order to cultivate a good reputation and win international backing for its ambitions.
However, multiple red lights flash when a foreign government is authoritarian, interferes with the domestic political discourse of a host country, and runs coordinated, covert operations for propagandist purposes.
The alarm bells ring.
This is especially true if the foreign government is currently engaging in aggressive expansionism, has a ‘Wolf Warrior diplomacy’ and has a notoriously shocking track-record when it comes to human rights.
Liberty Itch is gathering evidence of questionable tactics currently being used by Beijing in Australia to manipulate our political system and institutions in various sectors. Once our research is complete, we’ll share it with subscribers.
What Liberty Itch can say for certain is that much of this manipulation is managed and coordinated by an organisation called the United Front Work Department, a political body that aims to work on individuals and groups overseas to advance the CCP’s interests.
Again, instances will be revealed in future exposés on Liberty Itch. For now, we reveal themes and tactics which have emerged in their modus operandi.
In Australia, they are:
Providing financial incentives to lure Australian politicians into backing their views;
Appointing former politicians to well-paid consulting roles;
Lavishing funds on Australian university institutes that show unwavering support for the CCP’s policies;
Enticing Australian citizens and business owners with, first, useful connections and, subsequently, financial benefits;
Drawing-in influential people from Chinese diaspora groups to assist with local infiltration;
Targeting promising, younger Australian politicians whom they regard as having longer-term potential to ascend the heights of Australian political and corporate life over time;
Sending CCP-endorsed candidates to run for local councils and state parliaments;
Interfering in Australian elections by coordinating Chinese-owned Australian property investment companies and Chinese students to engage in ballot-harvesting;
Disseminating propagandist communication with the implicit threat they can muster Chinese-Australian voters to punish incumbent politicians electorally if they don’t publicly support CCP policies;
Infiltrating local Chinese community organisations or, where not possible, launching new competing groups, thereby giving the illusion of Chinese-Australian community backing; and
Intimidating Australians and their elected officials for expressing negative views on China.
Next time you attend a local Chinese community event or cultural performance (with the exception of the worthy Shen Yun), be sure to be observant, particularly if representatives from the Chinese Government are present. Your interactions, acquaintances, and relationships at the event will be studied. The United Front Work Department is interested in knowing who is connected to whom in the local community and work on relationships that can be developed and leveraged to advance the CCP infiltration agenda.
Fiona is a higher education professional based in South Australia. Following the collapse of Hong Kong freedom, Fiona became deeply concerned about the threats imposed by China within Australia. Her research covers a range of topics, including China’s soft power, influence, infiltration, interference and human rights abuses.
Here at Liberty Itch, we love practical initiatives which undermine the need for government.
Afterall, if we’re constantly fighting government bloat within the bureaucracy, we’re probably going to lose. There are too many Sir Humphrey Appleby’s around, right?
So, if the battle is about making government smaller, let’s withdraw from its services.
Let’s make government redundant.
Here’s how.
Home-schooling!
Let’s step through the basics, some of the old chestnut arguments against home-schooling, its amazing advantages, a look at how big home-schooling is in Australia, what it’s like home-schooling your children, the impact of home-schooling on your household budget and a recommendation at the end based on all this information.
Let’s go.
WHO HOME-SCHOOLS?
There are three groups who decide home-schooling is the best option for their children:
Parents with advanced students Think here of particularly gifted students for whom a classroom environment is just going to slow them down. These children need accelerating to meet their potential and the school system just can’t keep up.
Parents with belief systems You’ll instinctively understand this group. Here, we’re talking about parents with strong religious or political views, often both. They feel their values aren’t reflected in the system and they are driven to ensure their children receive an education which does.
Parents with students the government can’t helpSometimes a student has such a bad time of our industrial-era schooling system that he falls through the cracks and is left behind. In these cases, the parents have no option but to withdraw their child and turn to home-school.
By far, most home schoolers are in groups one and two.
COMMON ARGUMENTS AGAINST HOMESCHOOLING
Now let’s start with what the naysayers from the Department of Education, the Teachers Federation and public education activists will tell you:
Your child doesn’t get the value of the National CurriculumThe truth is that home-schooled students are still required to cover the material within the National Curriculum. However, you can create your own curriculum which covers this and other material.
Your child isn’t taught by trained professionals I know several people home-schooling their children, trained teachers who’ve lost their jobs from covid vaccine mandates. Further, you may not think much of the quality of the trained teachers your children are currently allocated. Perhaps you’ll be better. Further still, maybe these trained teachers are predisposed to teach your child ideas you’re not comfortable with. So maybe it’s an advantage not to have these trained teachers.
Your child won’t qualify for an ATAR Wrong. Home-schooled students do qualify for university. The vast majority are better prepared and excel at a tertiary level.
Your child loses socialisation skills There are home-school networks entrepreneurially springing up all over Australia. These are home-schooling families which meet regularly to ensure students’ continued interaction with peers all under the caring supervision of parents. Bullying? Adverse peer-group pressure behaviours? Not in this environment.
You have to quit your job to do it If both parents cooperate, this can be achieved. See template household budget below.
THE 13 BENEFITS OF HOME-SCHOOLING
In comparison, the benefits are many times greater than any perceived problems. Let’s look at thirteen I could readily identify:
Less Regimentation, More AdaptationWith home-school, you’re not regimented into 9am to 3pm. You can be creative, not to lose structure but, by seizing learning opportunities as they present themselves. Astronomy at night, excursions in good weather.
Individualised, Tailored Learning ExperiencesFinally, you can educate your children according to their specific needs. No more cookie-cutter approach from the government or government-funded schools.
Rapid Student AccelerationIf your child is highly intelligent, fantastic. Now you can feed his or her curiosity at an accelerated pace.
Political EmphasisIf you are concerned that your child is being indoctrinated with left-wing dogma, now your concerns evaporate. Teach without the slant. Teach with your own slant. The choice is yours.
Religious Reinforcement
If you feel a secular education is insufficient, home-schooling puts you in the driver’s seat. Integrate Faith subjects and experiences into the curriculum you teach.
Customised Student 1-On-1 Support
If your child is falling behind, who better to fight for his or her improvement. No-one professional teacher is going to fight as hard as you. Years later, your child will thank you.
Unleashed Creativity
Home-schooling shatters the industrial-age education system’s trait of producing conformity. TED’s most popular speech at 22 million views was titled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” by the late Sir Ken Robinson.
It reflects the importance of preserving and nourishing creativity, which home-schooling achieves in spades.
Total Focus On Your Children
The juggle facing families between making a living and educating children is a thing of the past. Each parent specialises. One earns. The other teaches. Both do that well. No more half-thwarted job and 3 minute parent-teacher reports at night. You’re in control.
Enhanced Family CohesionA fully-immersed family life can only benefit the family and society.
Stellar Scholastic ResultsWith all this extra care and diligence with the children, results are likely to improve.
Fosters Self-Direction and IndependenceYour children are encouraged to think and act with a greater degree of independence. Why? The mere fact that you’ve taken an independent path from government and government-funded education will be noticed by your children and reinforced by you in the mindset you instil in them. Share Liberty Itch
Develop and Finetune Your Own Training SkillsYou’ll learn new skills as a trainer and teacher. How could you not? These are portable skills of great utility which will make you more valuable in the market, should you wish to return.
Disempowering Government and the Education MonopolyWhile all this is happening, you’ve weaned one family off the government education teat and undermined the Teachers Federation monopoly. You’ve improved Australia by proving their involvement in our lives is not needed.
HOW MANY HOME-SCHOOL IN AUSTRALIA?
The home-schooling rate is 3.4% in the United States.
There are approximately 4.08 million primary and secondary students in Australia. Of these, just 30,000 are home-schooled. That’s less than 1%. But the figure increased 105% last year alone.
The days of Australians not even knowing that home-schooling exists as an option are fast ending.
More and more families are deciding to take government out of the education business.
WHAT IT’S LIKE HOME-SCHOOLING?
I have first-hand experience home-schooling my children in the United States where I lived for 12 years.
There, local government runs the public school system. The process was as easy at calling the local school district, telling them we were moving from private school to home-school, complete a one-page form and them acknowledging it. We submitted one report quarterly. The reports were rudimentary. They didn’t interfere. They respected our choice to be free.
At the time, we wanted our children to have the option to attend one of the top universities in that country. This required careful selection and timing of subjects, and results. We made a mistake in subject selection and timing because we didn’t include practical, lab-based biology at one point.
We didn’t have a laboratory. How could we achieve this?
One 30 second Google search later and we found “biology lab in a box”, hit overnight delivery and next day our garage was converted into a full-scale biology lab with the whole family dissecting pig’s eyes, frogs and lamb hearts, then writing-up the lab reports.
One of our children is an extrovert and felt the impact of not having a social environment outside the family. We were a bit slow off the mark and hadn’t joined the home-school networks designed to sort this out. However, we increased social interaction and the issue was gone.
We tracked how quickly our children moved through our heavier curriculum compared with other education options. My children typically had their work done by 1pm with a heavier workload. They ploughed through the material, much faster than traditional classrooms.
Overall, I feel my children benefitted from the home-schooling experience. They are independent-thinking, problem-solvers.
Of course, all this is an American experience from an Australian’s perspective.
Here in Australia, I contacted a teacher who lost her job due to the vaccine mandate. She decided to home-school. Today the network had shrunk a little but still active.
In South Australia, there is a well-known science competition called the Oliphant Science Awards. Past winners have included students from home-school networks in the Adelaide Hills. Past home-schoolers have placed well.
YOUR HOUSEHOLD BUDGET WHEN YOU HOME-SCHOOL
Of course, every household budget is unique and canvassing them all in this article is impossible. Let’s make some assumptions so at least we can see the impact of home-schooling under those prerequisites.
We’ll assume this is a two-parent, two child family. One parent is on $120,000 per annum and the other on $80,000. In the table below, I ran numbers assuming they are currently sending their two children to a public school, a private school or a top-tier Sydney or Melbourne private school.
Then I show what the disposable income after school fees would be if they home-schooled.
Here’s the comparison:
Therefore, for the 40% of families sending their secondary student children to private schools in Australia, you are either going to take a $30,000 hit to your family budget or make a $30,000 gain by opting for home-school instead.
What is your child and country worth?
YOUR DECISION
If you want to make government redundant, you’re going to have to take matters into your own hands.
One way to do this is to try home-schooling for your children.
The benefits are enormous, not just for your child, not just for you, but for the country.
I don’t know a better way to instil the next generation with self-reliance, independence, problem-solving, adaptability, creativity and leadership than this way.
And I certainly don’t know a better way to reduce the impact of government over the long-term than this.
Try it.
I’d love to hear your experiences with home-schooling in the comments below. You are guaranteed a reply.
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
It feels like we liberals are always on the back-foot.
Here’s just a sample of what we face:
Liberty Itch is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
45% of GDP being government expenditure. Is 51% socialism?
Voice To Parliament. How will a parliamentary ethno-chamber build cohesion?
Payroll taxes. Who thought a tax on jobs was a good idea?
Indigenous Treaty. Aren’t treaties between countries?
Elimination of cash. Now every bank statement is a government audit-trail.
Republic. Who votes Marcia Langton for Elder General?
Director ID. As if an ABN, ACN, TFN, ASIC Register of Directors weren’t enough!
National Curriculum. When did it become appropriate to have 14 year old boys lectured by sexologists?
I could go on and on.
You and I are always RESPONDING to nonsense.
It’s about time we got on the front-foot and wedged the foes of freedom.
Here are some ideas:
REPEAL-TO-PROPOSE Slowly reduce the legislative footprint. If an MP wants to propose legislation, he must first successfully repeal two statutes. Force the parties to negotiate on what can be rescinded. If both sides can’t agree what’s ripe for repeal, it gridlocks parliament. No new legislation. Perfect!
CORPORATE TAX DISCOUNT Incentivise business to focus on what’s important and remove the shareholder activists. 5% corporate tax discount for any listed Australian company which eliminates reporting extraneous to shareholder value. Reporting on ESG, diversity and inclusion, affirmative action, environmental concerns disqualifies a company for the discount.
PUBLIC SERVICE BOND Make it slightly harder to recruit public servants to cause the size of government to shrink. All applicants for departmental public service jobs (not operational agencies) shall pay a bond on accepting a role. The security deposit will be set at a % of the salary being offered sufficient to decrease applications overall by 10%. Make the bond scale according to the salary. Bond returned on resignation. Bond forfeited if terminated, if they run as a candidate for parliament or if they stay in the public service longer than 3 years.
GOVERNMENT-TO-ENTERPRISE INCENTIVEMake it attractive for public servants to leave the public pursue and start a business. Any public servant who resigns and launches a small business employing at least 5 staff and that business is unrelated to their public service job, the individual will gain a 50% discount on his PAYG Withholding Tax for 2 years from commencement.
SUPERANNUATIONReverse financial services domination and return more control to individuals. Superannuation can be accessed for buying a property to occupy, formal educational and vocational qualifications, the superannuant’s healthcare and for launching a business with at least 5 staff. Self-managed superannuation fund compliance requirements to be simplified.
LAISSEZ FAIRE CITY-STATESet-aside Australian desert land the size of a city like Hong-Kong or Singapore. Create it as a Special Local Government Area. Draft and pass a constitution which includes:
a bill of rights
democratic franchise
Australian citizens
Who’ve been continuously resident for 3 years
Who’ve paid their 5% tax for those 3 years
3 years reduced to 1 year if they employ 5 or more people in the SLGA
within Australia, free movement in and out of the SLGA
a democratic parliament
One MP per 10,000 residents. If there are only 10,000 residents, there’s only one MP. If 1 million residents, 100 MPs
no constitutional amendments allowed until 21 MPs reached, thereafter 90% majority required
majority form government
personal income tax enshrined at 5%, no deductions or offsets
domiciled company tax rate of 5%
capital gains tax set at 5%
gst set at 5%
no other taxes or government levies. Government agency fees for services not permitted or other revenue raising methods
government must report how much personal income tax, company tax, CGT and GST they collected in the previous year (Total Taxes Collected)
the government must not spend more than Total Taxes Collected, or they are dissolved by a Constitutional Court. So government can only ever be tiny part of the economy
SLGA has a sunset clause of 99 years
Then, announce to the world that the SLGA is open for business on this basis.
CLOSE FAIR WORK AUSTRALIA Liberalise the labor markets. Yes I know. Shades of WorkChoices.
INCENTIVISE MIGRATION FROM NDIS This is far too big. Encourage people off it.
REDUCE NON-PRODUCTIVE UNIVERSITY FUNDING Universities may be free to offer course material on critical race theory, gender studies, colonial oppression studies, sexual studies and the like. However, these subjects shall be regarded as counter-productive to helping students make their way in the world and will result in reduced funding for the university.
QUALIFIED TAX FREE THRESHOLD INCREASE Increase the tax free threshold from $18,200 to $36,200 for married couples with 4 or more children.
What ideas do you have to push the Overton Window in our favour?
An entrepreneur who has employed 1,470+ people, Kenelm was admitted to the BRW Fast 100 three times with businesses in Australia, NZ, Singapore and New York, where he lived for 12 years. Kenelm’s investment firm performs mid-market leveraged roll-ups. He was a regular columnist for the Australian Financial Review. Kenelm is the Founder of Liberty Itch.
