Amazing isn't it. We are a week in to a new Prime Minister. We are perhaps only days away from a Federal Election being announced. The probability is that there will be a deal done with the miners over the super profits tax before an election is announced... Why else would you announce an election, unless you had that one in the bag?

And as this stuff plays out, things remain totally superficial in most respects, because the predominant force in political visibility are lawyers. Not to say that lawyers are superficial by any means. But the reality is that lawyers think that all things can be solved through negotiation and adherence to regulation.

That may be true when you are dealing with human matters. Matters of property, matters of agreed rights, matters of human law. But human law does not include the laws of nature. The laws of nature are absolute. Light will only travel at the speed of light. You can't put up a speed limit and regulate it. In nature there are no speeding fines.

Similarly you can't undo what BP has wrought in the Gulf by fines or by legislating that there is a clean up. After the event doesn't fix the problem.

Governments full of lawyers ultimately don't work in today's economic, social and technological environment.

We need to have a system whereby people who get elected must have qualifications that give them real understanding of the way things work.

We need for government to have a quota of lawyers where once you hit the ceiling, you just can't get elected until someone else who is a lawyer stands down. Then we need for scientists, engineers, anthropologists, sociologists, linguists and so on to be able to get elected.

How for instance can you have the legislation and the budgetary allocation that relates to the NBN being controlled by a lawyer? I'm sure that Stephen Conroy is a gifted politician with a lot to give the country. But the intricacies of telecommunications capability now means that we actually need not just some technical advisors to be on a minister's staff but for the minister himself or herself to be seriously well read in terms of the speciality that they are involved in. The same goes for science and engineering.

I mean, think about it: If you were in a war, would you rather have the army, navy and airforce run by lawyers or by people who had studied military history and tactics and strategy?

The world is getting more and more complicated by the day. The bureaucrats become smarter and smarter at managing the perception of the public. But unless we have some real understanding and insight inside the walls of political power there is no way that we are going to be able to survive the challenges of our times.

And here is a quirky video that you may find inspirational in its own way...