However, at the age of 41 I’m passionate about child protection. It bothers me that society turns a blind eye to child abuse.

Abuse is not just sexual, which is evil. Abuse is also emotional, physical, material, financial. It’s about love, care, attention and opportunity.

I suggested previously that parents should be licensed after 18-month-old twins died from apparent neglect in Brisbane.

Since then, reports surfaced that a Victorian “family” relocated to Adelaide and left 18 children in a squalid environment without proper health, education, care and attention. The dogs were removed, but the children were allowed to stay.

It reminded me of a report I covered at the Kalgoorlie Miner when a father went on the run to protect his son from abuse because authorities favored the mother for guardianship. Those authorities obviously hadn’t read the medical/case reports I had, nor had they spoken to the same specialist I did.

And then today I read about the apparent suicide of a father who took his three children with him. How horribly tragic and what a discredit to that man’s memory.

I’m a grizzled newspaper hack, but all these stories distress me.

They reinforce my view that parenting is a responsibility, not a privilege and definitely not a right.

That’s the logo of the Federal Government’s Area Consultative Committees (ACC). Not very impressive, is it? And you couldn’t blame anyone for wanting to change it. However, at what cost should it be changed?

Regional Development Minister Anthony Albanese announced just before Easter that ACCs would be replaced by a similar organisation called Regional Development Australia (RDA).

I would link to the media release, but it’s not available on the Minister’s web site. I just know he gave a copy to the ACCs because a member told me. I work at a newspaper, but I never saw one. I only picked up the story thanks to Australian Associated Press (AAP).

Frankly I’ve never understood what ACCs actually do. The official blurb says:

“To guide its local-level activities, each ACC brings community stakeholders together to identify opportunities, priorities and growth strategies for the region. This community consultation enables each ACC to develop a three-year Strategic Regional Plan for its region.”

They were established by the previous Labor Government and continued under Howard, who made them responsible for giving advice on the Regional Partnerships program.

We all know the Coalition Government manipulated that advice for its own political gain and that Labor will most certainly do the same now it’s won office.

The ACC, or RDA as it will now be known, gives a layer of respectability to the process of pork barrelling.

Albanese has said: “The committees will be absorbed into a new organisation to be called Regional Development Australia, which will administer a new program of regional development grants under guidelines still being developed. RDA will also take on broader responsibilities to provide regional feedback to the Government.”

The detail is still missing, but in all likelihood the ACCs will simply be rebadged and have new members appointed who will be more sympathetic to Labor policy.

Labor has a mandate to do this. They don’t have a mandate though to waste taxpayers money.

It might give the impression of vigor to “create” a new advisory organisation, but in realty it’s the same as the old group, except it has a new name and a new master.

I have to question the wisdom of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in printing, signage and web development simply to satisfy a political whim.

The Nationals were indistinguishable from the Liberals under his leadership. It’s difficult to pinpoint any National Party legacy from the former Coalition Government.

The National Party (formerly the Country Party) has existed for 90 years as a collective of state-based organisations. Each state party has a unique history.

In Victoria, the Country Party became strong through the support of soldier settlers and small-scale dairyfarmers. The party governed with Labor support for many years.

In New South Wales (and I assume Western Australia) the party represented graziers and broadacre farmers.

In Queensland it has always represented everyone outside Brisbane, hence its strength.

It’s not rocket science to observe the National Party has lost seats because of changing demographics, the end to country electoral weightings and subservience to the Liberals.

The only state where this trend has been reversed, albeit slightly, is in Victoria, and surely that’s the role model for federal navel gazers.

In Victoria, leader Peter Ryan quit the Coalition in Opposition and set about restoring the National Party brand. He defied doomsday predictions to win two lower house seats at the last election, including my former home area of Morwell for the first time.

Under Coalition agreements, the parties never stand against each other unless a sitting member retires or boundaries change. It inevitably happens that when a National Party MP retires the seat goes to the Liberal Party for reasons mentioned above.

The certain outcome of a potential merger between the Liberal and National Parties, or the creation of a new party, is that a country rump will splinter and challenge.

Some might say good riddance to the current Federal Nationals and welcome to a new country party. The danger though is that no single country voice will form out of the split.

Another danger is that right-wing nutters will become the country voice or win seats as independents.

I think Australia and the states are better off having a strong independent National Party to represent country people in the various parliaments. That party should lean to the left on economic issues and to the right on social issues.

The party should form coalitions on their merits and never while in opposition. The party should be prepared to deal with Labor if the outcome is positive for country people.

In Australia’s case, white settlement and the so-called “stolen generation” are not reasons in my view to formally apologise to Aborigines today. What happened in the past happened in a certain context which was acceptable at the time.

It was interesting therefore to read that descendants of cannibals who killed and ate four Fijian missionaries in 1878 have apologised to Fiji for their forefathers’ actions.

Fiji’s high commissioner to Papua New Guinea accepted the apologies at a reconciliation ceremony near Rabaul in front of thousands of people.

Frankly, I don’t think the apology will mean much to the spirits of the deceased menu items or their descendants.

Where do you draw the line with these types of apologies? Should Denmark apologise for the Vikings raping and pillaging their way through Britain?

In another example of crazy political correctness, the Defence Department has been forced to scrap a clever recruitment campaign because of some feminist complaints.

The cartoon-style ads feature a buxom “Diggeress” in various occupational poses including a Dental Corps nurse fairly bursting out of her medical uniform.

In other ads, our heroine is cooking, sitting behind a desk, climbing a tree and looking seductive in tight-fitting khaki. There’s even a wench with a wrench.

Apparently trade applicant enquiries went up from 35 to 450 in the first week of the campaign.

So what’s the problem? The defence forces need to appeal to a wider range of people than just unemployed young males who like guns and sex sells.

However: Defence spokesman Brigadier Andrew Nikolic said the military received complaints about the cartoons and recognised that “sections of the community found some of the material inappropriate”. Humbug.

In 1966 Gough Whitlam delivered a speech in which he said that decentralisation was necessary to cut down “the vast social costs of the urban sprawl”.

Whitlam went on to develop a vision for the development of Albury-Wodonga as a major inland centre – a vision which has largely been achieved.

Decentralisation went out of favour under the treasury portfolios of John Howard and Paul Keating, who were economic rationalists, and the demise of the Country Party and DLP as political heavyweights.

There has never been a more important time in Australian history for decentralisation to be put back on the policy agenda.

But apart from Brendon Grylls at a State level in WA, you hear very little about it. Grylls has advocated that a cut of mining royalties raised in regional areas should be invested in the regions.

Unfortunately, there seems to be an acceptance by Coalition and Labor governments at State and Federal levels that Australia will be a nation in which 80 per cent of the population lives in 20 per cent of the land mass.

There are sound reasons why this notion is wrong. These include defence, balanced development, the environment, transport and even economic rationalism.

It actually makes economic sense to house people in towns that already have infrastructure, rather than building new hospitals, schools, railway lines, sewerage systems, etc.

Which is why it’s disappointing that no State or Federal political leader has articulated a vision to ensure that Kalgoorlie-Boulder becomes the premier inland city in Australia.

It’s a grand vision we need to escape the mindset that fly-in, fly-out and labour shortages will continue to erode the city’s significance. We can either be defeatist or aggressive in shaping our future.

More than a century ago Kalgoorlie rivalled Perth for influence and prosperity. Why shouldn’t that era be revived given the wealth of our region today?

The simple answer is that vested interests elsewhere have more clout than we do. It’s a shame in some respects that the Federation referendum was ever carried in Western Australia, for if it hadn’t been, we would now have our own State based on Kalgoorlie-Boulder and an international border somewhere near Merredin.

What can be done? It needs a visionary approach from a powerful figure in either State or Federal politics. There is no short-term fix.

But if each government invested $100 million to develop Kalgoorlie-Boulder as Australia’s showcase inland regional city, we would see increased population, higher retention of people for longer timeframes and a wealthier nation.

What’s stopping it? Nothing but apathy.

The slave trade in Britain was made illegal in 1802, backed by further legislation in 1807 and 1833. Royal Navy ships were vigilant in stopping the trade.

American history intrigues me. I often think the world could have been a much different place if events had transpired differently.

For instance, if the American colonies had remained British, how would the world look today? I think it would be a better place, although the USA itself would not exist as we know it. There would be separate English, French and Spanish speaking independent countries.

That in itself would have put the brakes on American domination, which largely occurred through the country’s abstinence from World War One until the death, so to speak. Europe and the British Dominions suffered while America profited.

Slavery had to be abolished and it’s a wonder it took the Americans so long to realise that. Whatever you think about British imperialism, in my mind they were the best colonists and the ones with the most altruistic world view.

If Australia had been settled by the Spanish, Dutch or French, for instance. we would be a much different country today, probably more like Argentina, South Africa or Mauritius.

That poses an interesting problem for the Western Australian Government. Daylight saving is largely resented here, especially in February and March when it’s too hot to enjoy the extra daylight and many people just want the sun to go down.

One of the reasons given for a three-year trial in WA was to be in line with the eastern states. The Government’s propaganda website said:

It also brings WA into line with the majority of other Australian states and territories that have daylight saving. This means WA businesses will no longer be separated from their eastern states counterparts by an additional hour during summer.

That is obviously untrue now unless WA extends daylight saving for the extra four weeks.

A Kalgoorlie Miner reporter asked Premier Alan Carpenter about this when he visited the town recently, and he said the timeframe won’t be extended; that WA will stick with the designated dates.

He said this has been a difficult issue for the politicians. All the more reason, I would have thought, to bring forward the referendum.

There was a lot of hot air and little was achieved. With all the states being Labor and the Commonwealth being Liberal there is never going to be much effort invested in achieving positive outcomes, especially in a national election year.

It begs the question is the federation worth keeping? Is there a better model?

Certainly the nature of the federation has changed since six self-ruling colonies combined to create a new nation. This led to common policies for immigration and defence, and abolished the customs posts on borders.

The states have gradually ceded more powers to the Commonwealth over the past century, particularly since they forfeited income tax during the Second World War. The latest surrender is to give Canberra authority over water policy in the Murray Darling Basin.

In my view health should be a federal responsibility. There is already too much duplication of health bureaucracy and more money should be spent on service delivery.

If health was taken away from the states it leaves them with education and police. Arguments are mounting for a national schools curriculum, so you can see where this is all heading.

Living now in Western Australia, I have a greater appreciation of the need for government to be less centralised. There’s no doubt WA could prosper as an independent country and that idea shouldn’t be totally dismissed.

A better solution though to the federal malaise would be to abolish states and create regional governments.

Instead of eight states and territories, consider 30 or 40 provinces. Abolish the states and municipalities as we know them today and create new super regional councils.

Looking at Western Australia there might be five provinces based on the Goldfields, South West, North West, Perth and Mid West. In the south east of the country, provinces might cross existing state borders.

I envisage Canberra holding responsibility for most matters handled by the states today, but setting up a public service structure on the new provincial boundaries, with regional governments having input to local policies and administration.

I’m not going to detail here how it might or should work. I only want to float the concept and pose the question of whether states have a future.

Originally, the idea was to walk up to some random stranger and slap them, while friends recorded the event on their mobile phones. Hilarious, I don’t think! Whatever endorphins that act released obviously became very attractive, because it has now become de rigeur to commit acts of minor violence upon random strangers even when there is nobody there to record the event.

I hope this bizarre behaviour doesn’t travel past England’s shores in popularity but I won’t be surprised if it does, or if indeed it’s already happening in Australian cities.

At the age of 40 it’s tempting to moralise about the lack of values in today’s society. I won’t though. I’ll look for other explanations instead.

The “happy slapping” attack on Karyn’s 13-year-old son struck a chord with me because this week we reported a random act of violence in the Kalgoorlie Miner. A group of five white males bashed and kicked an elderly Aboriginal man who asked them for a cigarette outside a Boulder hotel.

Nobody has been arrested yet. If someone is hopefully brought to account it will be interesting to hear the defence because it appears to have been an act of senseless, random, racial violence.

Overt physical violence is a logical next step for the teenagers who engage in “happy slapping”. This type of behavior was either non-existent or highly unusual when I was that age some 20-25 years ago. So what has changed?

I’m not an academic by any means, but I’ve developed a theory that today’s generation is the most selfish, as a whole, to ever strut the planet.

People are very focused on themselves. Ironically, that encourages a pack mentality to develop which is even more selfish in its outlook. Humans are basically tribal creatures. The self-centred individual needs other self-centred individuals to rationalise and endorse his or her own selfish behavior. The pack is greater than the single and more dangerous. Something like Lord of the Flies.

This tendency has been present throughout history but flourishes today because people are better educated, healthier and wealthier.

For much of history a large number of humans have been virtual slaves with short lifespans and life was cheap. The peasant had little time or inclination to think for himself. His life was mapped out for him from the day he was born and he accepted this fate, which was indoctrinated through his faith system and culture as well.

Through most of human history there has also been a necessity for people to band together for the greater good. The pack mentality was in that sense a positive energy. It was critical for defence against enemies, to gather the harvest and to ward off hardship.

This was also the case for western society in the first eight decades of the 20th century. World wars needed people to share, care for others and work together under a benevolent authoritarian state. The legacy continued until the 1980s via the older generation and a sense of wariness surrounding the Cold War.

No such threat exists today. We have a largely prosperous society and a growing resentment among those who are poor towards those who aren’t. The affluent are often bored and without a traditional sense of values to care for others.

I hate to say it, but no immediate resolution presents itself. I won’t advocate authoritarianism, and although I have religious faith, I accept it can’t be forced on people. The likely solution is severe hardship, either through war or major natural disaster.

There is ample evidence that humans will band together in a positive sense to overcome adversity. The responses to September 11 and the tsunami show this to be true.

Sadly, I think it will take a massive disaster to realign society’s values towards a prevailing goodness.