30 Things I Would Do as Supreme Leader of Australia

Shôn Ellerton, April 9, 2025
If I was given the chance to be El Supremo Leader of Australia for a day, what 30 things would I do?

One of my good friends from Scotland once said to me that no way could the Chinese have got where they are without a dictatorship. He claimed that nothing would get done because of the wishy-washy nature of democratic states.

I’ll hand it to him. He does have a point.

Much as I dislike authoritarian societies in principle, if, and I mean if the supreme leader did all the right things, no doubt things would get done without unnecessary obstructions.

I’m sure many of us, from time to time, have thought about that hypothetical situation in which we would be given total power to make decisions that would affect the country. We fantasize that surely we could make far better decisions than our inept politicians who seem to do nothing than to flip flop on their intended actions and dilly and dally about on nonsensical initiatives which do nothing to better society but rather, to waste taxpayers’ money.

So, let’s play a little game, shall we?

What if I could be the El Supremo Leader of Australia for a day and enact into play, instant decisions which come into my mind?

What would I do?

What would others do?

Some may read this and think aloud, ‘Hmmm! The author is a very very bad person’ and just make troll-like criticisms in the comments section. We always get those, but then we have comments that challenge what we say without resorting to insults. Or even better, take the time to write what they would do.

Now.

What would I do if I was given supreme leader powers for Australia?

Here’s my list of thirty things that come to mind.

Some are major items and some are quite trivial and minor.

1. Free speech rights

It is astonishing to think that Australia does not have the right to free speech. Therefore, as Supreme Leader of Australia, I would put in place a referendum for the people to decide if they want free speech enshrined in the constitution. But knowing that most referendums tend to fail, I’d just go the whole hog and demand that free speech rights are enforced.

2. Eliminate negative gearing and capital gains tax

Basically for those not familiar with negative gearing, it is a way to offset tax from losses generated by income-producing properties. It’s great for those with loss-making properties and high income but it has been one of the main factors in raising housing prices in Australia. Eliminating negative gearing would not be fair for those who have already committed with a property in negative gear. Therefore, it would have to be re-introduced over a period of time. As for capital gains tax, this is a government greed grab that when it’s time to sell your house, any improvements that you made, usually through hard graft, making the property worth more than it was initially, the government will take a massive slice out of your pocket.

3. Free childcare for all

Sure, not everyone has children, but the generational success of a country lies, in part, of having children to replace the previous generation to stem the percentage increase of an aged society that needs to be catered for. Childcare in Australia is prohibitively high for some and is often one of the reasons why raising children in Australia is seen as a liability, especially when coupled with the housing crisis.

4. The Prime Minister is to live in Canberra

One party leader calls for the right to work at home while the other wants to get bums on seats at the office Monday to Friday. Just so happens that the one who’s pushing for working at the office wants to live in Sydney if elected as Prime Minister. As Supreme Leader of Australia, all prime ministers will live in Canberra during their terms. I’m not saying that they can’t have a second residence elsewhere, but most of their time should be in the nation’s capital.

5. Everybody has the right to the same pension

Should someone who has worked hard all their life to accumulate assets be punished by having less pension than someone who has less? Let’s put it another way. If someone has had a high paying job and thus, had made enough savings to be comfortable later in life, would it be fair to say that that person had contributed far more to the government’s tax coffers than someone who didn’t? Of course! The UK’s state pension, for example, is simple in this regard. Everyone gets the same state pension depending on how long they worked in terms of years. Means-tested state pensions are complicated and, not only that, those who are asset-rich are astute enough to ‘play the system’ to ensure that their assets are not connected thus bypassing this ridiculously complex system. I would ensure that the state pension is the same for all, thus massively simplifying the whole process.

6. Seriously cut excise tax for cigarettes

I don’t smoke, so I am not doing this out of self-interest. The average price for one cigarette is $1.40! This is utterly ridiculous and merely fuels the black market. Recently, it has been reported that the total excise coming into the government’s coffers has actually reduced since the increase of tobacco excise tax because of the black market. And yet, those who are vehemently defending the current level of excise tax are calling for an increase in police to hunt out those who are peddling in the black market. This is madness. As of writing, it costs more than three times the amount to buy a pack of cigarettes in Australia than it is in Germany, Sweden, or the United States.

7. Abolish stationary and mobile speed cameras

I’m not suggesting that we abolish the penalty for speeding, however, speeding should only be enforced by actual police rather than stationary speed cameras or contractors working for the fines department taking little snappy pictures from the safety and comfort of their vehicles, which, depending on which state you’re in, are often concealed as ordinary cars or vans.

8. Abandon the initiative to ban the sale of disposable plastic cutlery, plates and straws

Simply this. The reason this does not work is that, instead of marketing plastic cutlery as disposable in the supermarket, it is simply re-labelled reusable plastic cutlery. I’ve often found out it’s the same thing. It’s a cretinous idea.

9. Prohibit the build of any more large wind turbine power generators

Other than the fact that they are utterly inefficient, expensive to build, and virtually impossible to decommission because of its vast concrete footprint, I don’t like them. So, I’ll ban them as Supreme Leader of Australia. Exemptions for smaller wind turbines to power small properties in rural areas where a powerline is not available are fine.

10. Being able to adopt an Aboriginal child like any other child

The Adoption Act 2000 of NSW is a perfect example of lunacy in which, for anyone to adopt a child of Aboriginal origin, they must satisfy additional requirements. Why? Because there are swathes of social warriors out there, most who are white progressives, who are steadfastly keeping the Aboriginals as museum pieces. Given the choice of an affluent couple with no Aboriginal connections and a far poorer couple who does, these crazies would prefer that the child be raised in the poorer family. Then they complain that the Aboriginal people are poorer and should be given preferential treatment elsewhere. It staggers me that this apartheid-like ruling is still in operation. I would decree that anyone can adopt regardless of origin, race, colour, or creed provided that they can prove they can take care and raise a child.

11. Abolish Daylight Savings Time

Queensland, Western Australia, and Northern Territory don’t have Daylight Savings Time. Considering that Perth and Brisbane are well below the tropics, they seem to have survived just fine and dandy without it. Moreover, daylight savings increases energy consumption because we have our air conditioning on for longer and is less conducive to a good night’s sleep for many. Unlike the old days before electricity, we don’t have a problem with keeping the lights on at home. I will get rid of Daylight Savings Time immediately.

12. South Australia and Northern Territory’s time zone to be moved back by 30 minutes

For those living in South Australia and the Northern Territory, we have the absurd time difference of 30 minutes from the eastern seaboard. I will keep it simple and move it to a whole hour back. Simplicity is beautiful.

13. Build a lot more railways

This is a ‘big ticket’ item, but we are desperately short of railways in Australia, both in terms of freight and for passenger use. We already have a massive trucking shortage crisis, in part, because of the lack of railways. Truck haulage should only be necessary for ‘last mile’ applications rather than long distance interstate haulage. Re-introducing train services to country towns will most definitely revitalise the regions in terms of business, affordability, and liveability.

14. How to make a manhole cover flush with the road

I think it’s high time to educate our construction industry how to make our roads smoother because, I don’t know about you, I find driving on our city roads incredibly uncomfortable with manhole covers being precisely located where most car tyres run over. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were flush with the road surface, but being often located a couple of inches below the asphalt surface, it feels like you’re running over massive potholes. A couple of inches doesn’t seem like much, but it’s quite a lot. My question is why don’t most of the roads in European cities have this problem? And why can’t we address it? As Supreme Leader of Australia, I intend to fix this problem.

15. Abolish road tolls

Greedy companies collecting unavoidable tolls from car drivers will be told that their honeymoon days are over. No civilised society should have private tolls on necessary public infrastructure to keep our traffic moving.

16. Abolish stamp duty

Why should the government profit from you buying someone else’s product or property?

17. Make voting optional

Voting is a privilege, not an obligation. As a citizen, I would prefer that those voting know what they are doing rather than force the entire citizenry to vote, many of which, have no idea or express any interest on Australian politics.

18. Bring in compulsory military service

Anyone reaching adulthood, subject to health, should be given a stint within the military much like what they do in Scandinavia, Switzerland, and many other countries around the world. It doesn’t have to be full-on hardcore or fulltime and neither should it be tied up with conscription. It doesn’t have to be for very long either. What it will do is to teach young people how to respect others, know how weapons work and more importantly, how dangerous weapons are, and lastly, to give a sense of pride and inclusiveness to the nation in which they live in. Another enticing factor is that the military might be a great place for young people to secure a stable job in an otherwise unstable economy.

19. Remove most red arrow right-hand turns

Ever sat at a traffic light waiting to turn right but despite the lights being green to go forward, you are scuppered by a red arrow preventing you (legally) from turning right even if there’s no traffic in sight. Except for dangerous locations such as a brow on a hill, for example, these red arrow lights will be removed. We will, of course, keep the green arrows.

20. Allow turning left on a red light unless stated otherwise

Keeping on the road traffic theme, I will make it legal to turn left on a red light after stopping unless stated otherwise. Has worked well in the United States for decades and I see no reason why it cannot work here.

21. Anyone referring to the ‘rightful owners of the land’ will hand over their deeds

We’ve heard ‘welcome to country’ and acknowledgment speeches time and time again before an event, public speech, or some other gathering. I decree that anyone who addresses that the land belongs to the rightful custodians will hand over the deeds of the land to those rightful custodians. I assure you, these speeches will be stopped dead in their tracks because nobody is going to freely give land away.

22. Everyone has the same entitlement to the use of public land

No particular race, religion, creed, or indigenous status has any more rights than anyone else to enjoy Australia’s beautiful land. Moreover, the government shall be barred from enforcing exclusive access to important landmarks and swathing tracts of land to a certain demographic of the nation. Moreover, the government will remove existing restrictions in place except for purchased private property and defence-related areas.

23. Only citizens will be entitled to buy property

This is a no-brainer. We do not have a housing surplus nor do we have a population seriously in decline. Much like what has happened in the UK some decades ago, Australia has been bought up by rich overseas investors making it virtually impossible for Australians to buy any property.

24. Critical natural resources will be sold to Australians first

It is no secret that the Australian government has allowed industry to export gas at vastly higher prices leaving the domestic gas market in a lurch, thus making energy costs go up to stratospheric levels for the average Australian. The free market is there for a reason and it should be encouraged. However, when it comes to natural resources that every Australian needs, there are times when the government needs to clamp down on out-of-control exporting.

25. Legalise weed, hemp, and marijuana

The US states of Washington and Oregon, for example, have legalised weed, hemp and marijuana. Has it proved to be a disaster for health? Not really. Yet, we allow hard liquor to be sold and we seem not to be terribly bothered with obesity either, because if anything, Australians, like much of the western world, are getting larger contributing to significant health concerns.

26. All schools to provide a decent free and healthy hot meal for lunch

Is it too much to ask to provide our children at school a free and healthy hot meal for lunch? We do it for our military and yet, considering that our children will become the backbone of the nation in the future, we have to rely on busy or, sometimes, inept parents to provide healthy food for lunch. I’ll go further here to enforce that children at school sit down properly while having a meal at lunch as they do in countries like France, Israel, and Finland.

27. All schools to offer free extracurricular or study time until 5:30

The days are disappearing in which one parent works and the other stays at home. To counter for this, parents must arrange for expensive out-of-school hours care, otherwise known as OSHC. All schools will be funded so that students may stay on the premises until 5:30 enjoying extracurricular activities or take participation in study time with other students, thus eliminating homework.

28. Bring back cursive, otherwise known as joined-up handwriting

It’s a sad moment to reflect that I have to teach my son how to write in cursive. The schools don’t anymore because the consensus is that cursive is antiquated and no longer used. Fine! If that’s the attitude, let’s not teach the students ancient history and philosophy either because, surely, that is also outdated. Imagine going to a museum and not being able to read any cursive on historical documents in your own language. On the flipside, cursive is now a secret code between adults.

29. Withdraw from the Paris Agreement

I had written about this extensively before. If every country had the same rule applied to them, it might work, but we all know that it would never happen nor could it be enforced. All the Paris Agreement does is make our country less competitive against those countries that have carte blanche to dump vastly more toxic gases into our atmosphere than we do. Good intentions but unworkable.

30. Driverless vehicles will never be allowed on public roads

San Francisco has proved that its pilot study of driverless cars from companies like Waymo and Cruise has not been terribly successful. There have been accidents, obstructive scenes, parking chaos, and even a fatality attributed to driverless vehicles let loose on public roads. As for incapacitating them, this is not terribly difficult. Place an object in front of it to stop it moving. Looting driverless trucks wouldn’t be difficult either. After all, whoever would try to obstruct or loot it would not be in fear of an actual person coming out to confront them, or even remove the obstruction. Driverless vehicles do work successfully in closed and controlled environments like construction sites and mines, but even in these situations, they must be closely monitored to ensure that they run smoothly.

And there you have it. My manifesto revealed as El Supremo Leader of Australia!