Yahoo Finance 
It’s time for politicians to get real. I’m so over this rubbish
Excuse my rudeness but another dopey politician has just worked out that he’s not eligible to sit in our Parliament. This guy has the lofty title of Senate President but Stephen Parry has just limply put up his hand (after all this time of Canberra’s inquisition into who is or who isn’t a foreigner!) and told us he could be a blow-in from overseas.
Are our politicians nincompoops?
All this rank dumbness from the people who are our leaders has to raise questions about the calibre of our politicians. They look like a prize group of nincompoops so I ask whether they could learn something from the best-in-breed from the world of business.
How come entrepreneurs succeed?
Sure, I know business leaders don’t always get it right — look at Donald Trump’s performances even before he was US President. On the flipside, however, look at the professionalism of the likes of Apple’s Steve Jobs, Virgin’s Richard Branson, Hancock Prospecting’s Gina Rinehart and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Look at their scoreboard!
You might not like what they do — a bit like being a Labor supporter and assessing Malcolm Turnbull — but you have to look at their scoreboard, which is their profits and share price, and wonder how come they’re so good and our politicians are so second-rate?
Come on wake up
By the way, I don’t think all pollies are hopeless but we have too many whose commitment to being a great politician borders on, no, is second-rate! After the likes of Barnaby Joyce was found out for being a Kiwi on the side, wouldn’t you have thought that every politician with a mum or dad who spoke with an accent or who talked about their time in the old country, would’ve have thought: “Under these stupid Aussie rules, am I a foreigner?”
Are they just dopes?
It’s either incredulous or they’re plainly dopes of the first order, who should be shown the door out of Canberra.
How leaders should be
Let me give you some standout characteristics of some great business performers and then use these to assess our current crop of so-called representatives:
Steve Jobs – a gutsy performer
Steve Jobs, who was a pretty prickly person and might never have passed the test for human of the year, really loved and was committed to Apple.
Experts who assessed him drew attention to the fact that he was “fanatically opposed to second rate-ness” and get this, “he had a relentless and passionate commitment to what customers wanted.”
Can you name many pollies who could pass the Jobs test?
Sir Richard Branson – takes risks
Over the years, I’ve interviewed Sir Richard Branson and read some of his books and here is how I’ve summed up his winning character:
He says daily, he asks: “What innovations, partnerships and networks can we establish to create a loyal customer base and return visits?”
He rates self-belief as critical to success in saying: “First you have to believe you CAN make it happen.”
And he shows how he has systems to be continuously successful, in admitting he reveals that, “I have always lived my life by making lists of people, lists of ideas, lists of companies to set up and lists of people who can make things happen.”
Committed to work for their clientele etc.
The greats of business are clearly committed to their ‘jobs’ and their critical roles, as well as their customers.
Our politicians rarely treat us as customers, instead using ‘divide and rule’ tactics when the best politicians of our time, like Bob Hawke, used words like “bringing us together in the spirit of cooperation” rather than trying to set Aussie against Aussie.
Too many pollies are second rate
If our politicians weren’t second rate, they would know us better and would be able to talk to us and get through. They would exude professionalism and be first rate, which would then work through into the national psyche, and then consumer confidence, which would be a plus for the economy.
This silly ‘foreigners in Parliament’ pickle our politicians find themselves in, hurts the economy, foreign investment and even local business decisions.
Our crappy, second-rate pollies are effectively a threat to the economy, jobs and national happiness. My only concern is that I’m not inspired by either side of Parliament or a few of the Independents.
This has gone too far
A new twist on all this came recently when Cabinet minister Josh Frydenberg had to deal with the fact that he has, wait for it, a Budapest-born mother! He could be a Hungarian! Oh, perish the thought. It is “absurd” to suggest he holds dual citizenship as his mother was stateless when she arrived in Australia in 1950 as a migrant at age seven.
Dumb journos looking for a story
Honestly I couldn’t read the story in the SMH because I didn’t want to be dragged into this satire that will make us the laughing stock of the world, as the clowns we call politicians, try to make political advantage out of something that in the old politically incorrect days would have been called a wog-, Pom-, Yank-, Jew-, Chinaman witchhunt?
My relatives are all ‘foreigners’!
In case my words have you morally outraged, let me reveal that my grandfather was from Scotland, I have an Italian aunt, a Chinese cousin and my Irish Switzer family were in retail department stores, so we could be Jews!
I don’t want to be a world joke
Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten have to sort this out fast or we will be a joke around the world. Our economy will be negatively affected and we might have a new election or a new Government just around the corner if this witch hunt isn’t sorted out sooner rather than later.
Peter Switzer is the founder of the Switzer Super Report, a newsletter and website for self-managed super funds.
