Seize The Moment
I just finished reading Seize The Moment by Bernard Keane. Political Journo Paul Kelly calls the book, “A compelling political interrogation from Australia’s leading contrarian” and having now read it that seems accurate. Bernard Keane has written for Australia’s independent news source Crikey since 2008 on politics, media and economics and this is his fourth book.
Seize The Moment was written to give us Keane’s outline on how we can not only make do in this violently disruptive period of history that Australia is entering but actually prosper. Given Mr Keane is renowned for being quite happy to give all sides of politics a regular spray and is often pessimistic about the track Australia is on, this book is a bit of a surprise. It is reasonably positive about how we as a country can do better, be better, if of course we make the smart decisions and fast.
Keane divides the book into eight chapters focussing on areas where quick and major policy changes will, in his opinion, better set Australia up for the rest of the 21st century. These areas include taxation, immigration, education as economics, the opportunity of the Trump era. In each area he briefly describes how we got to where we are now, how some of the current orthodoxies are now lacking or worse failing and what changes we might make.
Along the way he is more than willing to blame and praise past federal governments of both sides for their decisions and I suspect he is deeply frustrated with the current government for what I think he sees as a very steady as she goes approach when more action is needed. Keane also points out that many of our problems are not global in origin but local in the sense that looking backwards, fear of change, NIMBYism, the tendency to self-mythologising and “she’ll be right mate” often restrains, postpones or defeats important change. I personally find these arguments compelling.
Keane is not a radical, I was, to be honest, expecting a little more rage, some out there ideas but he does proffer some interesting solutions. He also reinforces the growing belief that a lot of stuff could be quickly and relatively easily done if vested interests in business and mutually beneficial political expediencies in government could be sidelined. We could start right there if we were brave enough.
I should also add that a lot of the proposals he puts forward are not startling innovations but are at least some different approaches to the problems that we could try. One more radical example being what about weighting votes depending on the age of the voter? A vote from an under 30-year-old for example could be worth 1.3 times the vote of an over 60 voter.
So for most of its length Seize The Moment is an entertaining, thought provoking read, not too heavy, not too light, not too doomy and not full of “if only so and so were in power it would all be better.” Where it stumbles is at the end where Keane pulls it all together and attempts to present a cohesive action plan. He is a good commentator but he waffles a bit here and his arguments lose force not through their perceived worthiness but a lack of salesmanship. Part of me thinks that he did not go far enough in persuading the reader with his ideas.
Seize The Moment
Bernard Keene
Allen& Unwin
284PP
2026
