Why else would we have ordinary voters wanting to elect such strange, far-right people to run their countries as they did in the US? People who might have some exciting slogans, but very few answers to the big problems that need serious attention.

The problems are obvious and could be summed up in two phrases: ‘Today’s politicians seem to be little more than lobbyists pushing policies dictated by their financial masters’ and ‘They seem to be shackled to political agendas that offer only short term solutions’.

None seems concerned about tackling the serious, long-term problems that will make life tough for future generations. This is a relatively new trend. Politicians, until a few decades ago, worked much harder for future generations rather than quick but temporary solutions. Today’s politicians seem more interested in selling off work by previous far-thinking governments to private investors and show little interest in looming big problems, such as population growth.

A recent report indicated there would be 19,000 new residents in Sydney within 10 years, with 10,000 new dwellings and lots of new office buildings. It is all because our governments expect high rates of migration.

How will big migration targets help bring down the cost of owning or renting a home? How will Australia be able to compete in any trade or manufacture if an ordinary worker needs a big pay packet just so they can afford somewhere to live? And there is no talk about trying to settle new migrants in the provincial cities in the rest of NSW.

There are some nasty problems facing our grandchildren, apart from population growth, if we don’t start taking action soon. There is the concentration of wealth (ie. decision-making power) in fewer hands, plus the problems throughout the world with uncontrolled migration and the continued niggling between the hegemony countries of the US, China and Russia, all wanting to rule the world their way.

Sure, Australia is a middleweight in international affairs, but someone has to take a stand and organise the other middleweight and even lightweight countries to start bringing some sense into an increasingly unbalanced world. Why shouldn’t Australia take the lead? But our politicians can’t seem to get their limited minds around things as straight-forward as climate change or over-population in our own country, let alone start looking beyond our borders.

‘What did you do to protect us from climate change, Grandad?’

How would you reply to such a question some years’ hence from a grandchild? Would you reply you couldn’t understand the problem? Or refused to believe the scientists? Or blame the pollies who were interested only in making money?

That brilliant brain Stephen Hawkings has warned of serious consequences if we don’t start acting soon, so why aren’t we doing something about those greenhouse gases we are pumping into the atmosphere?

The politicians and the economists worry about Australia’s – and the world’s – economy. Some newspapers have pages devoted to deep and serious tomes about finance. The nightly news on TV always has a section devoted to domestic and international finance. Maybe there is reason for concern about our finances, but there was one statistic that seems to have been glossed over by the main media recently and obviously our politicians didn’t consider it important.

The report stated, simply, that the average concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere had now reached 400 parts per million, a threshold scientists believed the world would not reach until mid-century.

Our Federal Parliament will debate our economy for hours, but it is unlikely there will be one word in Hansard about the future of our planet because of climate change. Is it asking too much of our Federal Parliament to acknowledge that climate change is a huge potential problem?

It is certainly an insult to thinking Australians that we are given no leadership from either side about the problems we are creating for our grandchildren and their grandchildren.

They would be able to survive with changes to the world’s economy, but what will happen if the planet itself is seriously damaged?

Take, for instance, recent reports about the damage being caused to the Great Barrier Reef by changes to the water temperature brought about by too much carbon in the atmosphere. Anyone who experienced the delight of swimming among the coral reefs just a few decades ago would be shocked at the situation today, not only on the Great Barrier Reef but on coral reefs around the world. Yet no one in our state or federal parliaments seems to be taking up the battle for any of the big problems likely to face our grandchildren.

Our grandparents and our politicians of last century put a lot of thought and effort into creating a better world for following generations. What, then, are the targets being set by today’s politicians, apart from privatisation and finding ways to help the rich and powerful get richer and even more powerful?

And that is my whinge for today!

Ray Williams has been a Post columnist since retiring from the newsroom in 1993.