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We don't trust the government because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and history repeats itself. That's what a constitution is for, it'

• monkeycantype 5y ago
  Someone in our prime ministers own government just described him as a man with no moral compass who uses 'his so-called faith as a marketing advantage' But the Australian population is much smaller, which means the public have a much smaller task keeping the government in line. You can't keep brazen narcissist kleptomaniacs entirely in line of course, but you can keep it to the level where they're not buying superyachts. I think this different context leads Australians to have some very different ideas about Government to Americans. We know power corrupts, but we don't see the Australian government as an arena where it is possible to attain absolute power, we don't see it as a vehicle someone can ride to outright despotism. There are people in the government in Australia would love to be despots, would love to rule the nation with an iron fist. The clown who renamed the 'Customs and Border Protection Service' to 'Border Force' and made all the uniforms black (ok really really dark blue) would love to be proclaimed eternal wise father of the nation, but we don't believe he's got a hope of getting that past us. We are more trusting of government not because we are naive, but because a nation of 330 million is a very different beast to a nation of 25 million