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Robert Skeffington

Biography:

Robert Skeffington is deputy editor of BRW magazine. In his eight years with the business publication he has also been its Canberra correspondent and a section editor. He writes about company performance and economics. Prior to becoming a journalist, he was a lobbyist for an industry organisation in Canberra, dealing with micro-economic reform.

Challenges and Opportunities for Australia

Liberty, equality, fraternity - these incendiary words took society, kicking and screaming, into the new world. Although this catch cry is now hundreds of years old, these are also concepts for modern times and the key to Australia's future prosperity and happiness.

The attractiveness of these ideals is that they can be consistent with the objectives of those on all sides of the political spectrum. They also have resonance for a wide variety of people, regardless of wealth, social standing or cultural background.

Liberty, equality and fraternity are deceptively simple goals, but are not always easy to embrace. However, it is difficult to envisage a truly prosperous and successful country without them.

Much has been written about liberty, but it is not always an easy concept for Australians to fully appreciate, given that we take many of our freedoms for granted. An important component of liberty is that we should be free to choose what direction we can take our lives, but that there are no guarantees that they will always be successful. We all like liberty when it produces good outcomes for ourselves, but are less inclined to support it when the outcomes are less than rosy. Unfortunately, one cannot be selective about freedom. Having liberty is not a guarantee of an easy life, but it encourages people to live a life where the individual has at least some degree of control over it. This prevents third parties from taking people's rights away and making decisions for them, even if these decisions are seemingly being made in good faith. The government is a classic example of this. An interventionist government, with high taxes and regulation is anathema to the pursuit of liberty.

Our pursuit of liberty must extend to all. That is true equality. People are not identical, nor would we want them to be. Equality is not about forcing people to comply to externally set standards, but rather it is based on allowing society to produce equality of opportunities. There should be no obstacles placed in the path of those who wish to succeed based on merit and hard work. Some people will need to make bigger sacrifices than others, but we have seen other countries place the dead hand on its citizens because of race, religion or class, and they are weaker societies for it.

Because Australia is a small country in an isolated pocket of the world, with a unique history of overcoming challenges and being endowed with good fortune, the notion of fraternity is embedded in our identity. We could not have survived without it in the past and we will not succeed in the future if we turn our backs on it. Fraternity is based on respect for people as individuals and also their contribution to the broader society. We have a fraternal bond because to do otherwise would impinge upon other people's rights to liberty and the assumption that everyone is equal. To do otherwise would also undermine our own liberty and equality.

The challenges that we all will face in the future will revolve around how we can keep committed to these principles. Liberty, equality and fraternity will in fact help us deal with the challenges ahead, but given their intangible nature it may be tempting to set them aside in response to change. We do so at our peril.