However, most of us, and I’m including myself in this sweeping generalisation, feel almost unfairly overburdened with a clear understanding of what’s best; our common sense, we believe, abounds.
Most of us seem to have a sense of exclusivity about common sense and frequently wonder why others cling to such bizarre ideas.
Just as is the case everywhere else, Shepparton is well equipped with armchair experts and keyboard warriors who know best and without hesitation will comment on and share their knowledge about anything from education, water, domestic violence, city design, public transport, health systems, the economy and the big daddy of them all, climate change.
I’m one of those.
Just recently common sense, or what I saw as common sense, swamped my life.
One day I was listening to inventor, entrepreneur and author Saul Griffith talk about his book The Big Switch and 24 hours later I listened to The Australia Institute’s chief economist, Richard Denniss, discuss his new book, Big: the role of the state in the modern economy.
Both burst out of the status quo bubble, the business-as-usual idea of doing things, and take us on a whole new journey whose destination is a kinder, fairer, more reasonable Australia and one that is better placed to deal with and address the climate emergency.
The latter is the province of Griffith, so much so that he is among the front-runners to visit Shepparton to help launch the city’s Climate Emergency Action Plan.
That plan has been released and public comment is being sought — the survey about the city’s ‘Our Climate Safe Future’ can be found at https://shaping.greatershepparton.com.au/
Griffith understands and acknowledges the challenges of doing so, but argues that we, Australians, need to electrify everything, and that includes heavy industry and transport.
Although he accepts that other energy sources, be they hydrogen, bio-energy, geothermal or even nuclear, can all play a role, although minor, it is solar, wind and batteries, along with hydro, that will be the major power sources.
Griffith speaks common sense when discussing energy, but in searching for the realities of the brutal economics of life here, look no further than Denniss.
He is of the school that we created the existing economic system and so we can change it, easily.
Denniss is a proponent of bigger government and can illustrate through easily accessible data that the federal Liberal-National government, which is ideologically opposed to big government and regulation, has embraced both with an enthusiasm that defies the parties’ values.
He frequently points to Nordic countries that have more aggressive tax policies and bigger governments, but easily outpoint Australia on almost every front — the people are happier, the countries are more productive and everything from education through to health is free.
The idea, the sweeping idea, that Australia is a down-to-earth, practical place burdened with common sense is something of a myth.
However, we do have some here in Shepparton, at an official level, as council has already declared a climate emergency and is well advanced with a plan to ensure the city has a safer climate.
Just last month Griffith spoke at the National Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne and a recording of what he said can be found at Climate Conversations — https://bit.ly/3MkBgPc
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