ON SATURDAY September 7 2013, Australia emerged from a self-imposed six-year exile into mediocrity where it briefly flirted with degeneration.Conventional wisdom has it that an incoming conservative government needs up to four years to suffocate the economic folly and dismantle the bureaucratic and cultural apparatus (read: red or green tape) constructed by an outgoing labour government.It’s only half fair to suggest David Cameron’s attempts have been stalled by the enforced presence of those chicken-hearted, cry-baby, scaredy-cat Liberal Democrats: he has not availed himself to a truly small-government, big-business agenda. These terms of reference will be important for Prime Minister Tony Abbott as Australia gears up to participate in its next conquest: shale gas.The theory that South Africans and Australians are in healthy competition is flawed. It’s an idea fundamentally perverted by sport: when South Africa beat the Australians at cricket, we forget that cricket is at best fift...
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