Relationships- forever changing, forever puzzling

Relationships have never been easy, whether they be personal, social, cultural, economic or international.

Factors and elements shift. New influences intervene. Suddenly, what was is altered and the eternal process of adaptation and readjustment takes place.

Look at how technology has reshaped just about every relationship of our life. Just when we thought we had mastered, well at least understood, the internet world, mobile phones, social media and the internet, along comes AI to once again refashion how we think and communicate. Very rarely do we post or receive mail.   No longer do we wait for our holiday pictures to be developed by pharmacies. What was Kodak? We can ‘air B and B’, Google, stream, download and Uber drive and eat, terms unknown 20 years ago. Who has a telephone 'landline'? Apparently, phone calls, even on a mobile, are seen by many as acts of "micro-aggression"!

On December 10 this year, which is ironically International Human Rights Day, the Australian government’s legislation to stop children under 16 using social media comes into operation. The law will only be effective as armoury for parents to convince their children that they must be aware of the potential dangers of unrestricted social media use. The government has already said that there will be no prosecutions of individuals that breach the law. Rather, only ’big-tech’ companies that fail to establish effective ‘lock-out’ mechanisms will face will be prosecuted and could face multi-million dollar fines.

Here is another relationship that has undergone a fundamental revolution. A state’s government used to be eseentially sovereign. They could effectively control what occurred within their borders. Not any longer. Globalisation and technology have combined so that governments have to request ‘big-tech’ companies to do the right thing without any guarantee that they will.

The geographical relationship of Canada and America is fixed along one of the world’s longest borders. Eighty per-cent of Canada’s population lives within 200 miles of its border with America. Although Canada as the second largest country in the world is larger than the United States it has a much smaller population: 41,000,000 as compared to America’s 340,000,000.

Both states are federal representative democracies. One is a Constitutional Monarchy. One is a Republic. Both have multicultural populations. Canada, of course, has the permanent influence of the French.

Yet, these similarities do not make for an easy relationship. Canada has long seen itself as the underdog in so many ways to its southern neighbour. Politically, the culture of Canada has for most recent decades been more social democrat compared to America’s strident individualism. Canadians, like Australians do not see its central government providing basic health services to its citizens as the beginning of Bolshevism.  Conservative Americans have probably not forgiven Canada for being  the aerial gateway to Cuba during the Cold War.

Now the relationship between the two countries has been strained again in an ongoing trade v tariffs war. The sparring between the countries has also been played out on the sporting field. This year’s finals of the Stanley Cup Ice Hockey tournament and the preposterously named World Series Baseball has seen two gripping America v Canada contests, with the underdog ‘Great North’ falling short on both occasions.  Only this weekend the Toronto Blue-Jays lost an epic World Series Final 3-4 to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Earlier this year the Edmonton Oilers lost 2-4 to the Florida Panthers.

You could forgive Canadians for thinking the economic and sporting Gods are against them.

Yet south of the border a more fundamental relationship is being rewritten in a terrible way. The most important duty of a democratic government is to provide for the economic and social security of its people. The world seems to have forgotten that America has been in a budget gridlock for over a month. Millions of Americans are going without their minimal government assistance. Federal employees have not been paid. Government services have been shut down.  

Former President Obama recently spoke of the increasing failure of democracies around the world to prove their worth and resist the rise of populism and authoritarianism.  President Trump’s view that his political and ideological opponents can be jettisoned and harangued in pursuit of his social agenda risks fracturing democratic respect through animosity and division.

As predicted King Charles relationship with his younger brother, the now entirely defenestrated Andrew, has moved from fracture to the abyss. Andrew’s relationship with the public is over. Within his family, there is little further humiliation left, with the possibility that Andrew may suffer the unprecedented ignominy of being removed from the Royal order of succession.

Relationships in the tennis world also seem to have been permanently reshaped. Alex Zverev is in the middle of a form slump that must traumatise him; however, some things don’t change; Alex de Minaur has yet to beat Jannik Sinner.

The relationship between Sinner and the world’s tennis rankings is also changing by the day. Sinner has had a wonderful European autumn. Away from the broiling humidity of Flushing Meadow he has won the recent tournament in Vienna and overnight won the last ATP Masters 1000 tournament of the year in Paris, beating, dare I say it another Canadian, Felix Auger Aliassime.  Sinner’s golden run, which matches the gold racquet he was given for his recent victory against Alcaraz in their ‘Saudi Avaricious’ exhibition match, has taken him back to the top of the world’s rankings.

One of the most difficult relationships is that between human actions and common sense. Remember, Mark Twain observed that common sense “is not that common.”

There are, sadly, myriad examples in public life and policy where reason has been abandoned.   Two from Australia’s government must rank as some of the most bizarre.

First, there was the recent announcement that a mere ten million dollars was to be spent to reduce bullying in schools. The major emphasis of the policy is to have school deal with allegations of bullying within set time limits. Money allocated to respond to bullying allegations will not have the slightest possibility of tackling causes and acts of bullying.

Secondly, there is a policy that reminds us that one of the most important features of any relationship is to have the courage to admit when a mistake has been made and change direction.

In Australia’s federal system of government, the national government has the exclusive power to levy excises. This power has been used to create golden streams of revenue from the sale of cigarettes, alcohol and petrol.

The Australian government, under the guise of promoting public health, but in truth seeking to raise extra  deficit-healing revenue, has made the price of a packet of  a standard ‘twenty-pack’ of cigarettes a staggering $50.00, the most expensive in the world. In Europe the average price is $6.00 Euro.

The consequences in Australia have been diabolical.  Everyone knows that if there is a cheaper substitute product, people will buy it.  Whatever the law says, the economic imperative rules. Aided by the Internet, a black market in cigarettes, which are far more damaging to a person’s health than the legal product, has arisen in Australia.

The value of this black market is believed to be a staggering $10 billion. Naturally, the market is controlled by illegal gangs who are only too happy to burn and destroy the tobacco shops of their rivals. The unintended consequences of the government’s policy have been far more damaging than anyone could have imagined. Yet, the government ploughs on denying any causal effect.

Relationships can survive many things, but not blind stupidity. The greatest contemporary imperfection in many democracies is the failure of our elected representatives, with whom we have a singular relationship, to recognise and acknowledge their imperfections. Our leaders need  to trust us to forgive them, just as we surely will not forgive unrestrained ineptitude and hubris.