Raise our ambition

We’re not seeing a vision.

Amplify knows that Australians are frustrated with the state of politics today, which is dominated by vote winning over vision, and short-term thinking over long-term solutions.

Australia has the potential to be the best country on the planet, but it often seems like our leaders are selling out a bright future for us, for another term for them.

Three-quarters of Australians think vision for the next 10 to 20 years is given too little emphasis in the political debate.

As a nation, we’re rich, we’re smart and we’re bloody good at sport. But there’s no clear picture of where we’re headed or how we deal with some of the biggest challenges humanity has ever faced. 

We’re now in the AI era. We’re shifting our energy use to net zero emissions and dealing with more and more extreme weather. Our population is ageing and demand on our support services is higher than ever. The gaps in life expectancy, education outcomes and incarceration rates for indigenous Australians remain vast with little signs of improvement. And beyond our borders there’s increasing instability and conflict.

These forces are shaping the future structure of our economy and changing the way Australians live, work, connect and engage with the world. We desperately need a plan. 

Unfortunately, salient issues that wedge opponents or give some sort of electoral advantage have taken preference over more visionary policy. Politicians have been more focussed on getting elected or staying elected, rather than shoring up our future. And it works.  We all turn out every 3-4 years and elect our government’s on these promises.  

Short election cycles, the outsized influence of vested interests, the bite-sized, fast-paced nature of news and big old echo chambers all contribute to making big ambition hard in our political system.

It might not be as bad as it sounds

Australians punch well above our weight in so many things. We absolutely owned the Paris Olympics - just wait until we host them again at Brisbane 2032. We have five cities in the top 20 most liveable cities in the world. We invented pacemakers, wifi, plastic money and ultrasound. 

When it comes to democracy, we’re also real innovators. South Australia was the first jurisdiction to allow women to stand for election. We are one of few countries who have compulsory voting, and our introduction of the secret ballot influenced electoral reform in the UK and the US in the 1800s.

Australians want to see this innovation continue. We want leaders who are able to lead. We want new ways to participate, and we want to see ambition in addressing the serious challenges we face

Uncommon ground

There is a huge opportunity for our community to work together to seek, share and spark systemic change to enable leaders who actually lead and build a better future together.

To make a difference, and bring about the change we so clearly need, we must act now, and we must act together. Because, exclusion, division, disengagement and indifference have all proven themselves not to work.

The Australian community has identified this lack of vision as one of four key problems - along with a lack of trust in our politicians, the intergenerational divide, and polarisation - confronting our democracy today, and into the future. 

We encourage you to read about all four to get a deeper understanding of these problems and join the Amplify Community now.