Alex Antic (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A profound shift has happened in our Australian democracy over the last 40 years. The role and the power of our parliaments, the institutions meant to represent the will of the people, have been steadily subsumed, first by an ever-expanding bureaucracy, and, more recently, by powerful private equity interests and superannuation funds.

Despite what the people in this building want to tell you, today the elected body are merely a conduit for private equity through the bureaucracy. The COVID era provided a real-world example of how this new world order operates. When the crisis hit, the response wasn't primarily driven by parliamentary debate or broad consultation; it was shaped by expert bureaucracies in health and emergency management coordinating with global pharmaceutical giants. The rollout became a technocratic exercise—regulators approved, bureaucrats implemented and politicians just largely ratified. The core policy, mass vaccination as a primary exit strategy, was set well upstream from this building. Unelected experts and private actors with skin in the game and pharmaceutical companies backed with vast capital drove that agenda. Politicians reliant on advice and facing public pressure created by that lobby followed suit.

This is the blueprint now—the blueprint for our democracy. The result is that parliaments and parliamentarians all across the country are now at least third in line for policy setting in Australia. First in line are the powerful private equity interests, big pharma and super funds; second in line are the bureaucrats and the expert regulators who frame opinions and then execute; and third are—I'm sorry to tell people in this room—our elected representatives who engage in performative debate while real decisions are locked in well upstream. They think they're in charge, but, in reality, they're now just conduits for private equity.