People are worried about the future and are looking for answers to serious problems.

For example, where will jobs come from, as science and IT make many of the former fields of employment redundant?

But it is not only the future of jobs that is causing concern.

There is the concentration of wealth into fewer hands, uncontrollable migration, the niggling goings-on between the three hegemons (China, the US and Russia) and, of course, the climate change that so many of our leaders deny.

Yet this is a time when we need good, intelligent and outward looking leadership. It’s certainly time our political leaders ‘grew up’ and started acting like adults and do the job they are being paid to do: to make life safe and fair for the people they are supposed to serve. But do we hear them talking about plans for the future, or even the next few decades?

Our New Zealand neighbours are acting more like adults. For example, they are leading a campaign trying to get a fairer deal for the original citizens of Palestine. Good on them.

Our ‘leaders’ are too timid to take part in international decision-making, and yet that is what they might have to do because of the tensions between Russia, China and the US.

Can we continue the lap-dog approach of the past when we followed the US into illegal and immoral wars simply because we felt Australia needed its protection? Why is our government not leading a campaign to, say, make the United Nations and the Security Council more democratic by removing the veto status that gives these niggling nations the power to negate any worthwhile effort for world peace?

But our elected politicians can’t even back a worthy program to reduce the problems of climate change. Why?

Not many Australians realise that Australia was one of the first true democracies in the world. It is something we should celebrate.

Because we were formed by a confederation of the various states, those states brought with them many changes, some decades before they were established in Europe.

For example, Victoria had votes for all men following the changes brought about by the Eureka Stockade uprising, South Australia had votes for women (the second government in the world to do so after New Zealand), Tasmania introduced the secret ballot (known throughout the world as the Australian Ballot) and NSW, better working conditions.

This, and that we have a high standard of living, should give us good reason for real celebration on Australia Day.

Even those Aboriginal groups who call it ‘Invasion Day’ (they are certainly correct: the Europeans did ‘invade’ Australia when the First Fleet arrived) should mark the day for what it means.

The swarms of Europeans who have settled in this land since then might have usurped control of this island continent, but that is the story of mankind. It is doubtful there is any part of the world that has not been similarly ‘invaded’ by other people. No one knows what the original Britons looked like because the British Isles were ‘invaded’, in turn, by the Celts, the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic tribes. Indeed, French was the official language of Britain for three centuries.

So, it is true this land was invaded, but the invaders brought with them amenities, from housing to food and clothing, even the dole for those who cannot work: all those things we now consider essential for a comfortable lifestyle.

One of the most misunderstood of all sayings is that one that ‘charity begins at home’. Many people believe this means that we should look after our own mob before we start giving to others.

That is not what the original saying really meant. It was written by Roman writer Terence about 90BC and it meant ‘the concept of charity comes from the family’.

It seems our Federal Government doesn’t realise this because Australia’s foreign aid budget is at its lowest level in eight years; and that is a pity because, properly handled, foreign aid can do more for peace than all those billions of dollars we spend on defence.

Not having enemies is surely the best form of defence, but the billions of dollars we spend every year, apart from some excellent peace time aid in emergencies, has been spent on wars that had nothing to do with Australia.

Indeed, our involvement in those continuing wars in the Middle East has given hard-line religious extremists a good excuse to consider Australia as a potential enemy.

Just who decided Australia should take sides on the religious/political/religious wars in the Middle East? Surely the Australian people should know and surely the system must be changed because, whoever it was, they have made some terrible blunders in recent years. Were these the same people who decided we should make big cuts to our foreign aid?

Someone should point out that helping others and taking part in military action only if asked to do so by the United Nations would be much more effective, and cheaper, than developing a reputation of being an aggressive nation.

Seems simple to me.

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