A short (yet long) week

It's Thursday night and I'm exhausted. Was at work from 8.00am to 7.00pm, which is not my normal day by any means, and I'm not someone who is impressed by long hours. But we are working on a once in a decade (I hope) strategy with the promise of significant funding at the end, so I'm keen to keep moving with the promise of rest soon. It's school holidays so I'm not working tomorrow, or at least not working in the office.

I gave a presentation today to 150 or so people from the organisation I work for; a presentation that I think I've now given almost a dozen times to various audiences. A handful of regional and metropolitan round table events with Ministers; some local forums led by backbench government MPs; and now twice to my colleagues. Why do we need a transport plan? What's the context? What will it do? How do we as a society allocate funds to transport needs against other competing needs? I've been really pleased at not only the willingness for people to engage, but the breadth of vision, tempered with realism, that most have shown.

I got home late, ate a scratch dinner and in the background there's a documentary about Kim Peek on the teev. What I found most interesting about it is the suggestion of trade-offs in mental abilities that we (as a species) have had made for us. While Kim has an almost photographic memory as a result of his condition, he does not have a well developed theory of the mind, and the implicit suggestion is that there is only so much brain we have available to devote to the tasks we perform to survive and prosper - an economic argument of scarcity applied to our mental resources. But, unlike economic decisions about the allocation of scarce resources, we have no choice. We get given an ability to understand other people and what they might be thinking, or we get a photographic memory. No opportunity for trade in; no choice. You get what you are given and you deal with it.

During the transport plan consultation exercises, occasionally the suggestion of an "independent commission" to determine our land use and transport planning decisions is raised. The idea is that these decisions are somehow too important to be left to politicians and must be made by independent wise heads. But although I'm a public/civil servant/potential wise head (ok, stretch there...), the notion that people like me should be making these decisions is staggering. I can think of nothing more political than decisions about whether we invest in trains or beds in a cancer ward. There is no formula to answers these questions - this is a judgment call pure and simple.

Sure, benefit-cost ratios are an attempt to answer these kind of questions, but the assumptions that support them are ultimately political in that they put a financial value on things that either cannot be valued or are valued wildly differently by different people, or differently by the same people at different times. Cancer ward beds are incredibly valuable to those whose loved ones are dying, but less so to the young and invulnerable. Trains are really important to those of us who work in the city, but not much value to plumbers with a 20-a-day habit.

So this, to my mind, is the value of a politician. Someone has to make the impossible trade-offs; someone has to make the most appalling decisions and live with them. How much prosperity now? How much later? How much healthcare? How much education? Who is going to divide the cake when everybody wants a big slice with extra icing right this instant? Only an idiot would stand up and say "I want to make that decision."

And that's why we have democracy. So we can get rid of those idiots. And replace them with other idiots.

But don't worry - we'll get around to getting rid of those new idiots the next time.