It’s Sunday evening, Father’s Day, and I’d like you to excuse me for being a little philosophical. It has been a big week.
Last Wednesday, I welcomed my fourth child into the world. Three teenage boys and now a little girl added to the brood.
And before you ask, yes, I am too old, and yes, she was planned.
Being a dad is the greatest job in the world. But holding a newborn does make you wonder: what sort of world have I brought her into?
Will there be jobs for our children, or will AI take over? Perhaps I should have named her Sarah Connor?
Will she be able to afford a house and provide for children of her own one day? Our current political climate doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
Just when you think you’ve seen it all, up pops Annika Wells giving us a lesson in economics and housing supply using “Ooshies”.
Was she deliberately channelling Benita Collings from a 1980s episode of Play School? Does the political class think we are children or was she bringing it down to her own level?
But underneath the theatre is a serious question: are the people making decisions about our children’s future really grappling with the scale of the problems they should be confronting?
The more attention I pay to politics, the more I wonder whether the adults have quietly left the room. And what happens when we lose faith in our leaders?
Perhaps I’ve been looking for leadership in the wrong place?
On Monday, I attended the opening of the expanded Lazarus Centre. Around 380 people were there – business people, tradies, government workers, community leaders and politicians, from local candidates to sitting senators.
If you haven’t seen what has been accomplished at Lazarus, do yourself a favour and pop down. It may just restore your faith in what our community can achieve because Lazarus, in many ways, shouldn’t exist.
It receives no government support; it only exists because people in our community decided our most vulnerable shouldn’t simply be somebody else’s problem.
Somehow it has become something bigger than its own mission. It has become a symbol of what good local leadership can achieve.
And once you start looking, you see it everywhere.
At sporting clubs every Saturday and Sunday. Coaches who turn up early. Volunteers who stay late. Team managers organising a hundred things nobody notices. Parents giving up their weekends for other people’s kids as well as their own. People creating community. People creating culture. People looking after each other.
Perhaps that’s leadership in its purest form.
With all the noise around the numerous wars and conflicts, Trump, elections, AI and housing crises, we can become so focused on what’s going wrong that we forget to look at what’s going right.
We are extraordinarily fortunate to live where we do. We breathe clean air, drink clean water, and our children have access to an education.
And while life certainly isn’t easy for everyone, we still live in a country that gives people the opportunity to improve their circumstances.
For much of the world, those things cannot be taken for granted.
Yet we are increasingly quick to divide ourselves – culturally, politically and ethnically.
Maybe we should spend a little less time concentrating on what divides us and a little more on what brings us together.
Division won’t create the world I want my kids or any of our children to inherit. Community will.
So, on my first Father’s Day with a daughter, perhaps I’ve answered my own question. What sort of world have I brought our girl into? An imperfect one. But also, one filled with good people doing good things every day – usually without recognition or headlines and expecting anything in return.
Our children will inherit the world we leave them. But they’ll also inherit the values we teach them.
My challenge isn’t to protect my children from everything the world will throw at them; it is to give them the courage to face it, the character to contribute, and the belief to grab opportunity when it comes along.
A good community doesn’t just happen. We create it. Happy Father’s Day.
Gareth Kent