John Hewson is a professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU, and a former Liberal opposition leader.
I am disturbed at how the policy intelligentsia and the media elite are already closing ranks, as if this is just an aberration, we can, and will, handle it. Yet, they were caught short predicting that a Trump just "couldn't happen", and ever since have been attempting to rationalise their inadequacies.
Labels have never been very useful - and now perhaps less than ever.
As 2016 draws to a close, it is important to recognise the significance of the crisis of faith we are facing in our market-based capitalism and democracy.
This superficiality is genuinely alarming, ignoring the realities of the riskiness and unpredictability of the global economy, and of the structural challenges in our current and prospective domestic economy, perhaps now actually teetering on the brink of a recession.
The two major parties need to stop playing short-term, opportunistic, point-scoring, political games.
I was asked this week why the right/centre right/conservatives in the Turnbull government, as they are variously called, don't believe in climate change, and/or don't accept the need for urgent and decisive action.
I fear our political leaders still don't get it. They say they "listen". They say they "understand".
Although the Nationals did somewhat better than expected at the last election, they have been afforded a disproportionate influence in the government.
The siren call of the anti-establishment message puts at risk everything that has made Australia, in many respects, the envy of the world.
If the Turnbull government wants to deliver real "jobs and growth", it should quickly shift its focus to renewable energy.
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