With both parties having now announced their flagship policies, it appears that Australia today is following the path of the late Roman Empire: tired, overextended, and ruled by an elite political class more interested in voter appeasement than real reform.

The ancient Roman poet Juvenal called it panem et circenses, or “bread and circuses” – a strategy of appeasing the public with necessities and entertainment to distract them from the real issues and maintain social order while selling future generations up the river.

The fall of the Roman Empire could have been avoided if they embraced real reform, a message that rings true in our current timid political climate.Credit: iStock

My home state of Victoria now resembles the Roman province of Britannia in its final years—overburdened with debt, mismanaged by its rulers. But the parallels with ancient Rome are not just rhetorical.

As Professor Frederik Vervaet of the University of........

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