It was praised to the heavens as a work of negotiated and practical genius when it was struck. The then Australian treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, had finally gotten those titans of Big Tech into line on how revenue would be shared with media outlets for using such platforms as supplied by Facebook and Google.

Both companies initially baulked at the News Media Bargaining Code, which led to a very publicised spat between Facebook and the Morrison government. For a week in February 2021, users of Facebook in Australia were barred from sharing news. A number of government agencies, trade unions, media groups and charities found the restrictions oppressive.

Amendments were eventually made to the Code to make matters more palatable to the tech behemoths, notably on the arbitration mechanism and their algorithmic use of ranking news. Revenue sharing agreements with various media outlets were struck, most notably with members of the standard stable, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and News Corp. With a degree of perversity, traditional news publications could now receive revenue for using free sharing platforms, having failed to address their own stuttering revenue models. (The fall in advertising revenue has been particularly punishing.)

With a jackal’s glee, Rupert Murdoch could claim to have made a fiendish pact with Facebook to prop up parts of his ailing News Corp empire, leaving Facebook’s approach to surveillance capitalism unchecked and uncritiqued.

Such agreements on sharing news were always conditional on continued approval by Facebook, which is now operating under the rebrand of Meta. Various countries have similarly tried to compel digital platforms to pay for news content that they permit, freely, to be shared. It is also clear that Meta is particularly keen to deprecate them and eventually let them lapse.

In February, a statement from Meta made it clear that these arrangements would not be renewed. “The number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the US has dropped by over 80% last year. We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content – they come to connect with people and discover new opportunities, passions and interests.”

Such jaw dropping observations would have surprised users who have foolishly made Facebook a central pitstop in their news journey – and what counts as “news” in the narrow, arid world of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But according to Meta, news made up less than 3% of what people saw on their Facebook feed in 2023.

Meta’s public declaration of intent threatens various media companies with significant loss. In Australia, Nine Entertainment, Seven West Media and News Corp risk losing between 5 and 9% of net profit.

The entire field of revenue sharing between the digital platforms and media groups has been opaque. The Australian Financial Review managed to obtain two summaries of agreements signed by the Australian Network Ten, owned by Paramount, and Facebook, shedding some light on negotiation strategies. For the social media giant, videos are all the rage, and one of the summaries notes the insistence by Facebook that Network Ten share 18,000 videos on its platform while threatening termination of its contract in the event it was taken to arbitration.

The Albanese government, through Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones, described Meta’s decision to halt paying news outlets “a dereliction of its commitment to the sustainability of Australian news media.” But to have assumed it ever had such a commitment was surely naïve to begin with.

Michael Miller, Executive chairman of News Corp Australia, could not resist his own flourish of disingenuous exaggeration. “If content providers were farmers Meta would steal their crops and demand their victims thank them for the privilege.” Meta’s refusal to pay for news would create “shockwaves for Australia, our democracy, economy and way of life.” The vital question here is what, exactly, are these agreements doing?

For one thing, the Bargaining Code, which never stipulated how the money would be used, has done nothing to enliven a media scape that remains imperially confined to a handful of providers. A conspiracy of convenience arose between one set of giants furnishing the digital platforms, with another of giants claiming to provide the news. Smaller outlets have had little say in these arrangements. Facebook, for instance, showed no interest in reaching revenue sharing arrangements with the SBS broadcaster or The Conversation. And to consider such representatives as News Corp sterling examples of democratic protection is a view not only misplaced but deserving of ridicule.

The ABC’s Managing Director, David Anderson, has at least admitted that funding obtained through its arrangements with Meta has been useful in supporting 60 journalists. News Corp, Nine Entertainment and Seven News Media have been less than forthcoming, ever keen using the shield of commercial confidentiality. In terms of employees, Nine Entertainment reported a fall in the number of employees from 5254 at the end of the 2022 financial year to 4753 at the end of 2023. “It is likely,” suggests Kim Wingerie in Michael West Media, “that the A$50 million or more they receive annually from Meta and Google is used predominantly to prop up their net profit.”

Meta’s promise to abandon agreements reached with the media hacks is no reason to be gloomy. The company’s loathing of privacy, its delight in commodifying the data of its users, and its insistence on tinkering with human behaviour, make it a continuing societal menace. Governments and news outlets would do far better in critiquing and challenging those aspects, rather than taking revenue that seems to silence the critical instinct.

From whinging, whining and blowing snot bubbles to playing to the Klueless Klutz Klan

From objet d’ridicule to vile scrubber

“The real competition now is to see who is a bigger drag on the Liberal vote, Dutton or Ley. Either way it’s a race to the bottom.” (Dee Madigan).

The Tory capacity for feculence knows no boundaries. There are no dogs unwhistleable, no sewers untrawlable, there are no hypocrisies too breathtaking nor any lie too blatant in their campaign to re-establish their ‘rightful’ access to the national treasure to then divert to their mates – as is their entire raison d’etre.

There is no outrage that they won’t countenance. Do not doubt, say, that they carefully watch Benedict Orange and wonder admiringly how much of his behaviour they could get away with here.

“Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.” (Tangerine man and career criminal Rapey McScumbag).

Time to up the ante on John Howard’s Tampa and children overboard subterfuges. Step forward Sussan Lley:

“If you live in Frankston and you’ve got a problem with Victorian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor.

“If you do not want to see Australian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor. Send Labor a message.” (Suss’s tweet on the Dunkley byelection).

But let’s start on a positive note. Suss has some worthwhile attributes. As a qualified accountant she can do sums – adding up and taking away; a skill set that could prove handy in any future party room test of fealty, eh Spud <cough>Scott Morrison</cough>? Some say she can also read joined-up running writing and that, as a pilot, she has the unique talent in the Tory sunshine bus of well-developed hand/eye coordination. That’s it, that’s all I’ve got on the + side.

Suss’s feigned outrage is one of the Tories’ go-to-market strategies. If only she was a better actor. Her aesthetic of prolapsed whoopee cushion with duck-lipped pout is a manifestation of the realisation of disappointed expectations that would otherwise be shown by someone who hands out the towels at a Fyshwick rub ‘n’ tug. Suss comes fully armed with a lengthy whine list that seeds a suspicion that she pickles her own vag, denying the reality of her active membership of the most delinquent, corrupt and incompetent government in our history.

The Tories obviously believe that their constant whining handfeeds the lazy and vacuous hordes of flacks who dominate our complicit media, the Lib’s humbug and hypocrisy usually going unremarked upon. “Flooding the zone with shit” as Steve Bannon, one of their admired models of democratic integrity, has championed.

This humbug and hypocrisy is an area where Suss has demonstrated some particular talent, joining the pile-on of Anthony Albanese for his (shock, horror) travel as Prime Minister of a whole, actual country when she has taken 27 flights in and out of the Gold Coast over recent years where her partner owned a bin-cleaning business (some sort of metaphysical connection surely). Two minor details – the Gold Cost is about 270° and 1,400 kms off course from the travel between her electorate and Canberra. All done within the rules of course.

Her boss’s view of folks who don’t match the colours on his chart of acceptable tinges is hardly hidden. The Thug walked out on the apology to the Stolen Generation, he orchestrated a duplicitous campaign against The Voice, he figuratively poked refugee kiddies with pointed sticks, warned of African gangs and deployed black-uniformed goons to patrol Melbourne streets to quiz the dusky-toned. And our consonant abuser Suss is a proven Spuddist – during the 2018 Liberal leadership spills she voted for Dutton against Trumble in the first vote and again voted for Herr Shickltuber against Diddley Scott in the second spill days later. Add ‘fascist adjacent race baiter’ to her CV.

In 2001 Suss lost Tory preselection for the Victorian seat of Indi to the truly horrendous Sophie Mirabella. On a scale from ‘mildly disgusting’ to Peter Dutton, Sussan Lley is now a Pauline Hanson; the Tories’ very own version of the red dipstick. Is that how she rose from Indi reject to her current status as number 2? Because she’s worse than Mirabella?

Spud and Suss. Bubba and Squeak. The crème de la crims of the Tory Party. FMD!

*****

A random sampling of Suss’s greatest hits

What have the koalas ever done for us?

Ley successfully appealed a Federal Court ruling that she had a “duty of care to children to consider climate change harm when approving coal mines”.

She approved a Coalition decision to scrap 176 out of 185 recovery plans designed to prevent the extinction of threatened species and habitats, including the Tasmanian devil.

With 1600 threatened species she claims… we will destroy their habitat for jobs so “we just have to pick winners”

Hiding a document that was handed to the coalition government in December 2021, ahead of the 2022 Australian federal election. The document outlined the poor and declining health of the Australian ecosystem.

She voted consistently against:

• Ending illegal logging,
• Federal government action on animal & plant extinctions,
• Increasing marine conservation,
• Increasing protection of Australia’s fresh water,
• The Paris Climate Agreement.

She approved the clearing of 52hectares of koala habitat for a quarry.

She identifies as a feminist

“While men speak on a variety of topics, they also speak for women so I’m very comfortable with the leadership of our party.”

She has also promised to travel widely throughout Australia to listen to women. Noting her pile-on of PM Albo’s travel.

Moron says what now?

“We know we’re not going to have electric vehicles tomorrow,” Ms Ley said. “And no one in the world is making an electric ute, by the way, and even if they were it would be unaffordable.”

Sussan Ley, Question Time 6 Feb 24

“Will the PM rule out any changes to the current tax treatment of neg gearing?”

Sussan Ley, Sky News 7 Feb 24

“I’m not going to play the yes, this is good, no this is bad, the rule in, rule out. I’m not going to do that.”

*****

‘A bit rich’: Laura Jayes questions Sussan Ley over Anthony Albanese travel criticism as Liberals head to conference. Sky News

Multimillionaire Sarina Russo hosted Sussan Ley at New Year’s Eve parties. The Guardian

Ley twice travelled at taxpayer expense to the Gold Coast to attend events with Sarina Russo, one of Australia’s richest women, whose companies won multimillion dollar contracts under the Abbott government.

The Lib’s number two

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer

Department of the House of Representatives Media Release

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Hon Milton Dick MP, has issued the writ for the election of a Member of the House of Representatives, for the electoral division of Cook in New South Wales.

The dates in connection with the by-election will be as follows:

Issue of writ: Monday, 11 March 2024

Close of rolls: Monday, 18 March 2024

Close of nominations: Thursday, 21 March 2024

Declaration of nominations: Friday, 22 March 2024

Date of polling: Saturday, 13 April 2024

Return of writ: On or before Wednesday, 19 June 2024

By James Moore

“The government of the United States doesn’t want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war. It wants peace, but what’s happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? Palestine? What’s happening? What’s happened over the last hundred years in Latin America and in the world?” – Hugo Chavez

I am trying to be optimistic. The nature of Americans is to buy into the notion that anything is possible in our country. We are convinced the only two kinds of people in this nation are millionaires and those who will very soon be millionaires. There is little accommodation for failure. If you live in the United States you are expected to buy into the calculus that X amount of effort will always produce Y amount of results, which is, obviously, utter nonsense. Failure, however, is always your fault, not a flaw in the land of the free and the articulations of capitalism. You are expected to pull yourself up by your bootstraps even if you were born into a family that cannot afford boots.

This delusion that anybody and everybody can make it here is often central to the conflicts at the heart of our body politic. The successful, hurrying down that smooth, shining road toward a great horizon of affluence, do not wish to look into the ditch and see the losers struggling to climb back up onto the roadbed. They are there of their own accord. Why should we afford them a hand up when they might become reliant on assistance? America’s unresolved moral dilemma revolves around how much to help, and that unanswered question has almost always informed our politics and created the great divide between our two major political parties. How much government is too much government?

There is one Republican consultant who is famously quoted as saying his party will not be happy until government is “shrunk to the size that can be drowned in a bathtub.” The anti-Washington infection that has spread across the land began in earnest with Ronald Reagan, who once said, “The scariest words in the English language were, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” He quickly set out to make his hoary aphorism into a reality by blowing up the Air Traffic Controllers’ union to intimidate American labor and pretending that AIDS would go away if the feds would just ignore its increasing rate of fatality.

Trump made a similar assertion as the pandemic was spreading throughout the population when he said, “It’s going to disappear. It’s disappearing.” His proclamation, a barely subtle attempt to remove government from responsibility of managing the spread of the coronavirus, was made the day after he was released from being hospitalized for the disease. Spring weather, though, made him hopeful he would be shed of any responsibility for Washington’s involvement. “You know,” he said, “A lot of people think that (coronavirus) goes away in April with the heat, as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April.” Instead, millions subsequently died. What went away were family members, loved ones, children and grand parents, while Trump talked of horse tranquilizer cures.

Rank conservatism has, historically, offered nothing but suffering to Americans. There is, in fact, no such brand of politics functioning in this country. It might be considered conservative to cut corporate taxes and believe the falsehood that freed capital will then be invested back into jobs and economic expansion, but that never happens. Nobody gets trickled down on. Investors are paid fat dividend checks and corporate boards buy back stocks at premiums to regain control of their companies from small shareholders. Hoarding capital and cutting taxes to giant businesses does little more than generate huge national debts for the government, and nobody does that better than “conservatives.” Trump and his massive tax cuts for business created a $7.2 trillion dollar increase in the federal deficit in the four years he was in office, a figure that presently accounts for 30 percent of the total national public indebtedness. Conservative George W. Bush cut corporate taxes just as he launched a war that would eventually cost a few trillion and left President Obama an historically high deficit, which the Democratic President cut in half before leaving office.

Conservatives do not act conservatively in this country. What they really want is a form of anarchy, an expression of the attitude that government’s only role is to pave roads, protect the border, and then get the hell out of the way. We are supposed to rely on our own “rugged independence” to succeed, a concept whose notional value is utterly worthless. Nobody really makes it on their own. Wealthy business magnates like to claim they built their companies without government assistance but that obfuscates the investment of tax dollars in the infrastructure and common carrier laws that made delivery possible for their products, whether digital or physical. Governments built the roads and harbors and airports, keeps them safe and operational, and provides regulations to offer some assurance consumers will not be buying unsafe drugs or food or fly in airplanes that have not met safety standards. When those rules fail, and an aircraft falls from the sky or masses become addicted to opioids, the causes tend to be corporations cutting corners to increase profits and serve the capitalism that has made America an economic engine for much of the world.

Argumentation over how much government, and its optimal role, is central to the division of the American electorate. We have split into camps that can no longer seem to compromise or find a middle ground that is best for our country. Progressive thinkers believe in government as the organizing principle of any society and that it gives life to a culture and an economy by creating an environment of opportunity. The conservative belief is that the larger the government the less freedom is offered the individual. Their primary assertion is proved false by their own politics, which have taken away reproductive and even voting rights while banning certain books their standards claim ought not be available, and forcing their Christian religion into public institutions like schools and government. Conservatism explicitly is a resistance to change and the implications of that are we would have no equal rights for minorities or women or regulations to protect our air and water or even minimum wage laws.

If ruination comes to America, therefore, it will be driving a tank loaded with ballistic missiles of explosive partisan grievance. The symptoms of our potential collapse are already clear and manifest. The most recent former president just spent a day at his resort consorting with Viktor Orban, the dictator and authoritarian leader of Hungary. While his formal title is prime minister, Orban has made himself the source of all policy and government actions, discriminatory and unfair to millions who disagree. Undoubtedly, Trump sidled up close seeking pointers on how to run the U.S. into an even more diminished democracy. “He’s the boss, and that’s it,” Trump said.

Little Men Seeking Bigness

Trump has no formal authority as a former president but has managed to put his country into a precarious situation with his egotistical obstinance. After years of complaining by conservatives about a crisis at the border, Democrats and Republicans collaborated to create the strongest reforms in a half century. The Senate easily achieved passage of the measure and there is a wide majority for the same result in the House. Trump, however, realizes that if the problem is solved in a bipartisan agreement, he will be robbed of his lead issue. Consequently, he has told House Speaker Mike Johnson, a man who claims god told him he was to play the role of Moses in America, to not bring the legislation to a vote on the house floor, and Johnson has complied. Partisanship by the sycophantic constituency of Trump’s GOP has ground America to a halt.

We are also failing to keep our geopolitical promises. Speaker Moses, also at the behest of the non-president Trump, has blocked a funding measure that would re-arm Ukraine in its defense of the Russian invasion. The congressional stasis has NATO countries wondering about the reliability of the American commitment to the protection of Europe. While the house speaker seeks flattery from the putative dictator Trump, Ukraine is dying under assault with a constantly diminishing ability to respond militarily because of a lack of U.S. armaments. We continue, meanwhile, to become victims of our own military adventurism. The same funding legislation to help Ukraine would also continue the flow of weapons to Israel as it fights Hamas and razes Gaza. The IDF has averaged 100 deaths of children each day of the war, with a total dead of well over 30,000, and President Biden has yet to demand a cease fire from the Israelis. Instead, he has ordered the U.S. military to build a peer to deliver food and medicine to Palestinians suffering under the Israeli assault and he has set the plan in motion even as he continues to supply Israel with bombs, artillery, tanks, and jet fighters. The absurdity of the contradiction appears to escape most voters, and, apparently, the president.

Biden, however, does not lie like the sociopath Trump, and his party. After the president had defied critics and dark expectations of failure with his State of the Union Speech, the GOP’s response to his list of accomplishments came from an Alabama U.S. Senator. Even in 2024, Republicans thought it was a good idea to put an accomplished woman in her kitchen, wearing a diamond-encrusted cross, referring to getting dinner on the table, and whispering about the horrors of a Biden presidency. One of the stories she told, however, was a complete fabrication about drug cartels that had sex trafficked a woman in the “Del Rio Sector,” Border Patrol parlance for a stretch of the Rio Grande that is identified by that city’s name. Britt described the woman being raped and tortured and declared that this was not even acceptable in a Third World Country. “Enough is enough, Mr. President,” she said into the camera, addressing Biden. What she did not say is that the woman was not assaulted in the U.S. but was in Mexico and the crimes committed against her were back during the administration of George W. Bush. Lying used to put an end to a politician’s career but to lie and deny has become a widely accepted tactic in the age of Trump.

@katzonearth

This isn’t going to make her like TikTok more. #katiebritt #sotu #stateoftheunion #lies #politicians #biden2024 #trump2024 #immigration #traffickingawarenes #mexico #bordersecurity #fyp

♬ original sound – Jonathan M. Katz

Lies work, of course, and their abundance has proliferated after the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, which gave corporations the right to invest almost without restraint in politics. Most candidates are doomed when they are opposed by big business donors and the victims are usually progressive thinkers who expect a functioning government. What the electorate wants tends to have very little to do with what is desired by the corporatists and the political action committees they front. AIPAC, the American-Israeli Political Action Committee, as a single example, has committed to spending $100 million dollars to defeat congressional candidates who do not unilaterally support Israel and the genocide it is committing in Gaza. Israel’s disproportionate response to the October 7th Hamas attack is costing Mr. Biden support on the left, particularly in the swing states of Michigan and Minnesota, which may help lead to the restoration of Trump.

It has become rationalization to suggest Americans have confronted greater challenges and triumphed in glory but that ignores our long history of adventurism with meddlesome wars and overseas political manipulations and assassinations. The scions of the Bush family are largely responsible for the tensions and the fire and warfare burning across the Mideast today even though public memory is short and understanding of the lies that launched their invasions is minimal. We also ignore the inescapable fact that our involvement in Central America’s politics and economies has much to do with the sea of immigrants now presenting themselves at our gates, and that the problem with drug cartels is a consequence of our national appetite for their narcotics. Accepting responsibility is not a part of who we have become in this country. Our disfunction will lead to our end, if not corrected. The party out of power refuses to cooperate with the party in power and fires accusations of blame for every crisis. When the public finally listens, there is a new party in the majority and the displaced officeholders have no reason to cooperate with those who lied them out of office. Little in the way of governance is achieved.

We are a broken land.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

Continued from Significant changes to a worn-out Australian democracy require some positivity from Peter Dutton

Let’s envision a future where everyone has equal opportunities for growth and success. The key to achieving this noble goal is to let go of outdated social objectives and invest in a broader social and philosophical common good that benefits everyone. By embracing ideas, imagination and positivity, “we can reduce inequality and create a brighter future for all“. Together, let’s significantly impact society and work towards a better tomorrow.

The major parties have become fragmented, with Labor losing a large segment of its supporters to the Greens or independents.

Both parties have pre-selection processes rooted in factional power struggles that often see the best candidates miss out. Both need to select people with broader life experience. Not just people who have come out of the union movement or, in the case of the LNP, staffers who have come up through the party.

Our Parliament, its institutions and conventions have been trashed by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison, and if he gets the chance, Peter Dutton will do the same.

Ministerial responsibility has at least been restored.

Political donations are out of control and should be recorded in real-time.

Question Time is just an excuse for mediocre minds who cannot win an argument with factual intellect, charm or debating skills to act deplorably toward each other. The public might be forgiven for thinking that the chamber has descended into a chamber of hate where respect for the other’s view is seen as a weakness. Where light frivolity and wit have been replaced with smut and sarcasm. And in doing so, they debase the Parliament and themselves as moronic imbecilic individuals.

Recent times have demonstrated just how corrupt our democracy has become. We have witnessed a plethora of inquiries and Royal Commissions, all focusing on illegal sickening behaviour.

We now have a National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), but after almost a decade of Conservative government, when corruption flourished, no one has been punished. The NACC has to date:

• received 2561 referrals
• excluded 1984 referrals at the triage stage because they did not involve a Commonwealth public official or did not raise a corruption issue
• 159 referrals awaiting triage
• 212 triaged referrals under assessment including 13 under preliminary investigation
• assessed 232 referrals

I cannot remember when my country was so devoid of political leadership. In recent times, we have had potential, but it was lost in power struggles, undignified self-interest and narcissistic personality. Under Albanese, it has stabilised.

The pursuit of power for power’s sake by an Opposition devoid of any ideas has so engulfed the political thinking on the right that the common good is forgotten and takes away the capacity for bi-partisan public policy that achieves social equity.

Then there is a ludicrous Senate situation where people are elected on virtually no primary votes, just preferences. It is also a system that allows the election of people with vested business interests without public disclosure.

One cannot begin to discuss the decline of Australian democracy without aligning it to the collapse of journalistic standards and its conversion from reporting to opinion. Murdoch and his majority-owned newspapers, with blatant support for right-wing politics, have done nothing to advance Australia as a modern, enlightened, democratic society. On the contrary, it has damaged it, perhaps irreparably.

The advent of social media has pushed mainstream media into free fall. Declining newspaper sales have resulted in lost revenue and profits. It is losing its authority, real or imagined. Bloggers reflect on the feelings of grassroots society. Social media writers with whom they can agree or differ but at least have the luxury of doing so. As a result, newspapers, in particular, have degenerated into gutter political trash, hoping they might survive. Shock jocks shout the most outrageous lies and vilify people’s character with impunity and, in the process, do nothing to promote decent democratic illumination. They even promote free speech as if they are the sole custodian of it.

A number of people/ideologies have contributed to the decline in our democracy.

For starters, the Abbott factor and the death of truth as a principle of democratic necessity. I am convinced Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton believe that the effect of lying diminishes over time and, therefore, is a legitimate political tool.

Mr Abbott has long set a high standard for not keeping promises. On August 22, 2011, he said:

“It is an absolute principle of Democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards. Nothing could be more calculated to bring our Democracy into disrepute and alienate the citizenry of Australia from their government than if governments were to establish by precedent that they could say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.”

On the eve of that election, after crucifying Prime Minister Julia Gillard daily for three years, Abbott made this solemn promise:

“There will be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.”

This was an unambiguous statement that cannot be interpreted differently than what the words mean. To do so is to tell one lie in defence of another.

When you throw mud in politics, some of it inevitably sticks, but there is a residue that adheres to the chucker. That was Abbott’s and, in turn, a conservative dilemma, but the real loser was our democracy. In Australian political history, Abbott’s and Morrison’s legacy will be that they empowered a period emblematic of a nasty and ugly period in our politics.

Our democracy is nothing more or less than what the people make of it. The power is with the people, and it is incumbent on the people to voice with unmistakable anger the decline in our democracy.

People need to wake up to the fact that the government affects every part of their lives (other than what they do in bed) and should be more concerned. But there is a deep-seated political malaise.

Good democracies can only deliver good governments and outcomes if the electorate demands it.

“You get what you vote for” rings true.

An enlightened democracy, through its Constitution, must give its citizens a clear sense of purposeful participation. It must remain perpetually open to improvement in both its methodology and implementation. Importantly, its constitutional framework must be subject to regular revision, renewal, and compromise whenever everyday life demands it. There can be no room for complacency or stagnation in a genuinely effective democracy. Only through constant evolution and adaptation can a democracy truly serve the needs and aspirations of its people.

Unfortunately, without Peter Dutton’s cooperation, we can expect more of the same. Without it, constitutional changes and an Australian Head of State are just fantasies.

Continued from Is Australian democracy at risk from an authoritarian leader?

One day on a tranquil Sunday, I found myself lost in thought as the rain gently tapped on the rooftop, prompting me with profound questions. The word ‘democracy’ keeps coming back to me, and though I have written about it before, my inner political self urges me to revisit the topic. Our democracy is in dire straits, but I hope it can be saved from its current state of decay. May my passion for this cause not falter.

Before presenting any ideas for rehabilitating a democracy on its knees, one must first acknowledge the difficulty. When Anthony Albanese was elected Prime Minister on May 21 2022, he was expected to clean up the current state of our democracy and the political culture that goes with it.

He discovered that there is only so much one can do about meaningful and significant change without a like-minded opposition leader’s sincere, earnest cooperation. Dutton must find some positivity. It may be foreign to him, but find it he must.

However, Albanese learned it would never be forthcoming from a man like Peter Dutton, whose sole interest is obtaining power. This was decisively confirmed with the recent “Voice” referendum: The moment Opposition leader Peter Dutton (unexpectantly for Albanese) uttered “No.”

That would be the end of it. And so it was for The Voice, but any proposal that warranted change carried the same threat.

If we want to become a nation, independent, holding its place in a world of hard-earned international goodwill, we must become a republic, one with an Australian as our head of state; it can only happen with the help of Peter Dutton.

But Dutton will have differing views rather than agree to any proposal to upgrade our Constitution via a standing committee putting forward recommendations for the public to consider.

It is just ridiculous that a document that doesn’t even mention women is still with little change since January 1, 1901.

In this period of our political history, the only way for vital issues to be updated is to have all political party leaders agree on the substance of any proposal. For any opposition leader to oppose, such a proposal would render it dead in the water.

Unsurprisingly, our two-party political system was born from this very dreary document written by men for men. Our current combatant political two-party system could serve us better but needs more positivity to change it. Members sit on opposite sides in an auditorium where pit bulls are let off the leash for a bit of snarling and hatred.

Nobody wants to improve the system because it suits them not to. Once they are the winner, they have the power.

Democracy should be a “Work in progress”: Never ending

A clear indication of an Australian democracy in decline is the fact that people are giving up this voting gift, literally saying: “A pox on both your houses”.

Tens upon tens of thousands did so at the last election by not voting.

Our political system is in crisis because our solicitations need to speak with clarity on issues that concern people.

To truly serve the needs and aspirations of its people, a genuinely effective democracy must constantly evolve and adapt. We must be bold and persistent in building a more inclusive and just society. We must remain compassionate and sympathetic towards each other and work together towards creating a better future for all. A functional democracy should give its citizens a definite sense of meaningful involvement. It should always be open to improving its methods and implementation. Crucially, its constitutional framework must be regularly revised, renewed, and subject to political compromise whenever the greater reasonable demands it.

But above all, its function should be that:

“… regardless of ideology the common good should be served first and foremost. A common good healthy democracy serves the collective from the ground up rather than a top down democracy that exists to serve secular interests. One that is enforced by an elite of business leaders, politicians and media interests who have the power to enforce their version. That is fundamentally anti-democratic.

Every facet of society, including the democratic process, needs constant and thoughtful renewal and change. Otherwise, we become so trapped in the longevity of sameness that we never see better ways of doing things.”

Unfortunately, Australia’s democratic process, as defined by its Constitution, is struggling to keep up with the changing times. It seems stuck in the past, and moving forward requires significant changes. Labor’s desire for a republic and a modernised constitution is understandable, but it may need help from others. It’s a difficult situation, and understandably, many people feel frustrated.

With his opposition to the Voice, Dutton has shown that nothing can be changed without his agreement.

In my previous article I wrote – and wish to repeat – that:

“I am not a political scientist, historian or a trained journalist. I write this as a disgruntled and concerned citizen who wants change to the Australian Constitution I grew up with. The demise of Australian democracy originates in a monumental shift by both major parties in how they now interpret their individual philosophies.

They are now tainted with sameness.”

The Liberal Party has been replaced by a neo-conservative one, actively supporting rich individual identities against a collective one, and old-style Liberalism no longer has a voice.

Labor, as is usual, has come to power during a crisis and is managing its wimpy grip on power, unable to make the hard decisions it knows it promised less Dutton denies his support yet again. There is little or no difference between the Liberals and the National Party, who seem irrelevant as a political force in doing anything that benefits our democracy.

Conservatives are going down the path of a defined inequality with a born-to-rule mentality that favours the rich.

Continued tomorrow …

It can take much bruising, much ridicule, and much castigation to eventually reach the plateau of wisdom. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who took office in November 2022, is one such character. Like a hero anointed by the gods for grand deeds and fine achievements, he was duly attacked and maligned, accused of virtually every heinous crime in the criminal code. Sodomy and corruption featured. Two prison spells were endured.

His whole fall from grace as deputy-prime minister was all the more revealing for being instigated by his politically insatiable mentor, Mahathir bin Mohammed, Southeast Asia’s wiliest, and most ruthless politician. Eventually, that old, vengeful fox had to relent: his former protégé would have his day.

Anwar is in no mood to take sides on spats between the grumbly titans who seek their place in posterity’s sun. And why should a country like Malaysia do so? During last year’s visit to Beijing and the Boao Forum in Hainan, he secured a commitment from Chinese President Xi Jinping on foreign investment amounting to RM170.1 billion ($US35.6 billion) spanning 19 memoranda of understanding (MOU). Greater participation in Malaysia’s 5G network plan by Chinese telecommunications behemoth Huawei was assured some weeks later.

In the Financial Times, the Malaysian PM levelled the charge against the United States that Sinophobia had become a problem, a fogging fixation. Why should Malaysia, he asked, “pick a quarrel” with China, a country that had become its foremost trading partner? “Why must I be tied to one interest? I don’t buy into this strong prejudice against China, this China-phobia.”

Much of this middle-of-the-road daring was prompted by comments made by US Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been saddled with the task of padding out ties between Washington and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Rather than being diplomatic, the Veep has been irritatingly teacherly.

Last September, during her visit to the US-ASEAN summit in Jakarta, Harris beat the drum on the issue of promoting “a region that is open, interconnected, prosperous, secure, and resilient.” Such openness was always going to be subordinate to Washington’s own interests. “We have a shared commitment to international rules and norms and our partnership on pressing national and regional issues.” An international campaign against “irresponsible behaviour in the disputed waters” would be commenced.

During her trip to the Philippines last November, Harris made the focus of concern clear to countries in the region. “We must stand up for principles such as respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, unimpeded lawful commerce, the peaceful resolution of disputes, and the freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea, and throughout the Indo-Pacific.”

The subtext for those listening was so obvious as to be scripted in bold font: Our values first; China’s a necessarily distant second. This coarse directness did not fall on deaf ears, and Anwar was particularly attentive. He had already found the views voiced by Harris at Jakarta about Malaysia’s leanings towards Beijing as “not right and grossly unfair.”

In remarks made during a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese held at the current ASEAN summit, being hosted in Melbourne, Anwar expressed much irritation in being badgered by the United States and its allies on the subject of taking sides. The virus of Sinophobia had been doing the rounds, causing sniffles and rumbles. “[M]y reference to China-phobia is because the criticism levied against us for giving additional focus on China; my response is, trade investments is open and right now, China seems to be the leading investor and trade into Malaysia,” Anwar observed. Malaysians, for the most part, “do not have a problem with China.”

Labouring, even flogging the “fiercely independent” standing of Malaysia, Anwar went on to state that his country remained “an important friend of the United States and Europe and here in Australia, they should not preclude us from being friendly to one of our important neighbours, precisely China.”

Nothing typifies this better than Malaysia’s policy towards the supply and manufacturing of semiconductors. The emergence of a China Plus One Strategy, notably in the electronic supply chain, has seen companies diversify their risk through investing in alternative markets to mitigate risks. Keep China on side but do so securely. Anwar has established a task force dedicated to the subject, while also courting such entities as US chipmaker Micron Technology. Last October, the company promised an investment of US$1 billion to expand its Penang operations, in addition to the previous allocation of $US1 billion to construct and fully equip its new facility. In business, such promiscuity should be lauded.

Anwar’s concerns were solid statements of calculated principle, and inconceivable coming out of the mouth of an Australian politician. Albanese, for his part, has tried to walk the middle road when it comes to security in the Indo-Pacific, even as China remains Australia’s largest trading partner. He does so in wolf’s clothing supplied by Washington, with various garish labels such as “AUKUS” and “nuclear-powered submarines.” For decades, Australia’s association with ASEAN has been ventriloquised, the voice emanating from the White House, Pentagon or US State Department.

Canberra’s middle road remains cluttered by one big power, replete with US road signs and tolls, accompanied by hearty welcomes from the US military industrial complex and its determination to turn Australia into a forward defensive position, a garrison playing war’s waiting game. To his credit, Anwar has avoided the trap, exposing the inauthentic position of his Australian hosts with skill and undeniable charm.

Despite the headlines on Sunday morning, it seems that the vast majority of the attendees at Mardi Gras last weekend were in fact ‘feeling the love’

police said the overall behaviour of 120,000 spectators and 12,500 participants on Saturday night was “pleasing”.

There were no major incidents other than the arrest of the seven men and two women.

Rev Fred Nile, who made a political career out of praying for rain on the night of the Mardi Gras must be singularly unimpressed. Those arrested were protesting a lack of ‘queer solidarity with Palestine’ and not the parade.

It’s actually wonderful that a group of over 130,000 people can gather together in a major city with so little in the way of disruption. While the Mardi Gras started off as a protest rally, it’s now a celebration and certainly a boost to the Sydney and New South Wales economy. It also demonstrates that there is a lot of good in humanity – arguably something that is completely missed by political operatives.

There have been many reports of the campaigning that occurred in the lead up to the Dunkley by-election. While both sides claim to have won, the reality is the swing to the opposition was within the usual expectations for a by election and governments vote didn’t do what it usually does in a by-election and go backwards. The new Member of Parliament will also be sitting on the government benches, so it’s not that easy to find any validity in the opposition’s claim of a famous victory.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton had been visiting the electorate and in his usual practice making statements before the facts were checked,

It was question time on Thursday, two days out from the Dunkley byelection. Victoria Police had just confirmed the arrest of a man released from immigration detention who was issued with four assault and stalking charges.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, made the alleged incidents in Richmond the centrepiece of the Coalition’s question time attack; soon after his deputy, Sussan Ley, tweeted an inflammatory claim about “foreign criminals”.

But just hours later, Victoria Police conceded they had got the wrong man. After reviewing footage, they no longer believed the person involved was someone released from immigration detention.

The was also a concerted campaign by a conservative activist group Advance, who according to Crikey, introduced a ‘new, nastier brand of politics’ in an attempt to win the Dunkley by-election for the opposition.

According to Crikey, Advance’s advertising claimed that the ALP ‘engineered’ the High Court decision to release the refugees and asylum seekers that had been placed in ‘permanent detention’. Not only that, but the implication was that every one of them was going to reoffend, despite not all of them offending in the first place. In the same article, it’s claimed that Advance spent $350,000 in Dunkley in the lead up to the by election and as we know now it didn’t affect the outcome at all.

Advance’s ultra-negativity is reasonably new to Australian politics and is a reflection of the conservative right in the USA. The difference in the USA is that elections are not compulsory, so if there is an increase in voters, organisations similar to Advance (as well as organisations such as ‘Occupy Democrats’ and ‘The Lincoln Project’ from the progressive side) can arguably claim that they increased the number of people voting, which is seen to be good for democracy.

Advance’s problem is it can’t point to any evidence that it increased the number of people voting or changed the vote outside what would be expected at a federal by-election. While super aggressive advertising may appeal to a small sector of the community, to most it is just another reason to turn away from any interest in politics whatsoever. We need people to be involved so that a representative group of people are sitting in our Parliaments making the laws for us all.

The biggest loser from the Dunkley by-election seems to be Advance. The unfortunate thing for all of us is they will probably ‘double down’ and try to be angrier and more aggressive next time around. We don’t really need or want US style politics in Australia, despite the aggro and hate, it leads to the ridiculous situation where the Democrats in the USA reckon they have a chance of getting an endorsement from Taylor Swift, who has already suggested to her fans that they should enrol to vote. And the Republicans Donald Trump is courting the Christian religious broadcasters in an attempt to gain support from their listeners. At their National Convention (despite their ‘tax-exempt and non-profit’ status prohibiting political comment)

Trump promised to create a new taskforce to counter “anti-Christian bias” by investigating “discrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in America”. He vowed to appoint more conservative judges, reminded the audience of his decision to break with decades of international consensus and move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and assured them a future Trump administration would take particular aim at transgender people – for example, by endorsing policies to restrict access to gender-affirming healthcare.

While some things that are made in America are good, political marketing isn’t one of them. And before anyone suggests that the progressive side of politics in Australia wouldn’t stoop so low, some of the advertising from the ALP and Greens for the upcoming party political Brisbane City Council election (which is the Coalition’s last toehold of power on the Australian mainland) isn’t too far behind the efforts of Advance and the Coalition that we have been criticising here.

It’s time for the political parties in general to tell us what they will do better, rather than tearing the other side down. Sure, tearing down is easier – but it leaves us with a diminished understanding of the ideals and policies of the eventual victor.

By James Moore

Anyone who knows the Texas and Mexico border in any manner even approaching familiarity, would have laughed in D. Trump’s face during his news conference at Eagle Pass. Technically, there was nothing news worthy about his appearance on the banks of the Rio Grande and he did not answer questions. Instead, he did what he always does, which was to stand in front of a microphone, ramble and lie, prolifically, while what passes for media duly recorded his words and dispatched them outbound to distort America’s perceptions and ruin any hopes for true understanding of La Frontera. I cannot recall a time when I saw a reporter call out Trump’s or Abbott’s lies that serve their politics.

In a considerably inarticulate attempt to increase the phobias being pushed by his party and by the angry little man serving as the governor of Texas, Trump explained that jails and prisons in the African Congo are being emptied of killers and various types of criminals and they are flooding across the border into Texas. No, they are not, but no one called him out on this most fantastical of his lies, either, during that photo op. Instead, the head of the Texas National Guard, a man who is expected not to make political appearances in a uniform, stood in the rear and affirmatively nodded his head at every outrageous claim that slipped between the dead, dry lips of America’s most legendary liar. Suelzer continued to smile, smirk, and nod as Trump made up numbers regarding how many miles of border wall had been built during his administration. We must at least give the pathetic soul credit for not claiming Mexico paid for the construction, as he had promised. Someone, though, had probably told him the Congo was over near Arizona.

Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer, who has led the Texas Military Department for the past two years, was violating both rules and norms about a service member participating in political endeavors while in uniform. U.S. history and tradition have long made it standard that political behavior that appears to represent the military violates the apolitical stance that must be exhibited by the armed forces. Suelzer was appointed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, which makes it unsurprising that he might be used in an unconventional fashion to promote a political point of view regarding the border. His metronomic nodding in approval as Trump prevaricated, however, was an indication of his personal beliefs, and they have no business being exhibited during his service. National Guard officials are looking into Suelzer’s decision to appear with the former president but I would expect nothing to come of their likely pro forma investigation.

Abbott remains unabashed about using state resources to promote his political agenda, and nothing is more important to him than the border. His focus has little, if anything, to do with solving the immigration problem. Instead, he has created a multi-billion dollar issues platform to raise his political profile, and Texas taxpayers are funding the entire operation. Abbott brags consistently about the work being done on the border by Texas Guardsmen and women but there is nothing in evidence that proves the concertina wire and razor buoys in the river and young men with guns have done anything to stop, or even reduce, the flow of people. He bragged earlier in the week that his project was having results because migrants had started crossing in greater numbers in Arizona. This is not solving a problem, it’s relocating it, much the way border pressure in the 80s prompted drug cartels to move their product through Florida and up the East Coast of the U.S. and away from Texas and the Southwest.

Abbott spent the day smiling like a fanboy of Trump’s as they paraded through what has come to look like a cheap set for B-grade prison breakout film. When Trump later told a network TV interviewer that Abbott was on the short list for vice president, the governor insisted he wanted to remain in Texas. Why wouldn’t he? The man can waste billions in tax dollars, screw up everything from school funding to Child Protective Services, and he still wins elections. He is pleased with himself and his border battlements even though word has gotten around south of the Rio Grande that Abbott is providing free airplane and bus rides to the North, if you can just get across. Instead of stopping immigrants, his policies are only seducing them to keep coming. After stepping off a plane or bus north of the Mason-Dixon Line, an immigrant can melt away into the population and never return for any scheduled court dates or follow up processing.

Abbott does not want the immigration problem solved any more than does his hero Trump. When it goes away, so does their notoriety and the cameras. There is no more dangerous place to be in all the land than between Donald Trump and a TV camera. Instead of working with Democrats and moderate Republicans to approve a measure that experts consider the strongest set of immigration regulations ever passed, Trump has urged his party to not let the legislation get through the U.S. House. The Speaker, a man who claims his god speaks to him often and is guiding his decisions, is paying more attention to the disembodied voice of Trump, who has told Speaker Moses to kill the bill. If the border situation were to improve from the passage of bipartisan legislation, what would the crumbling GOP have to whine about? President Biden, who was in Brownsville the same day Trump was with Abbott in Eagle Pass, offered to work with the Republican to get the new law passed, which is about as likely as the two sitting down for drinks and dinner. Abbott, meanwhile, tweeted or Xed or whatever it is now, that the death of the Georgia student by an illegal immigrant meant that Biden had blood on his hands. Abbott has kept his hands clean from blood by never even mentioning the names of the Guard soldiers who died while serving in his Operation Lone Star or the 74 people who died on this side of the Rio Grande as a result of high-speed chases precipitated by his pet project, including a 7-year-old bystander.

While Abbott was strutting his wheels in Eagle Pass, an exercise that had no purpose other than stroking the pitiful ego of the former president, Texas was afire. The Smokehouse Creek Fire, the largest wildfire in the state’s history, was racing across the Panhandle and burning a million acres and Abbott was too busy to deal with it because he was tied up holding Trump’s hand. The flames, whipped by winds, tore across the famed Turkey Track Ranch, northeast of Borger. The 80,000 acre property was recently on the market for $200 million dollars and appears to have lost much of its grasslands and several buildings. The Turkey Track is also the site of a bit of Texas history as the location of the two Battles of Adobe Walls, where Kit Carson concluded the Indian wars against the Comanche.

After six days had passed and the fire was still out of control, Abbott decided to finally express an interest. He put on his newest and starchiest disaster shirt, bearing his name and title over the pocket, and flew to Borger to hold one of his lecture series, which mistakenly gets referred to as a news conference. While reporting on damage and commending the bravery of firefighters, Abbott, almost unbelievably, used a line that he first uttered during his only appearance at the mass shooting in a Uvalde school. “It could have been a lot worse,” he said. Actually, it could have been much better if the thousands of Texas National Guard soldiers stationed on the border were redeployed to fight the fires and undertake a task that helps Texans and saves people instead of wasting their own lives as political pawns of a cravenly ambitious governor.

Abbott made it clear to Trump and his sycophants that he planned to run for reelection as governor of Texas. Maybe he arrived at that decision flying back to Austin from Eagle Pass, a town literally being ruined by his policies. The flight path would have taken Abbott directly over Uvalde, a sad spot that he has not returned to since the day of the mass slaughter of children attending school. Everywhere he goes, tragedy and failure are oversized come-alongs. His ability to ignore Uvalde, though, and avoid political consequences, may have offered some inspiration to guide his reelection decision. I have a bit of political experience on my airframe and I think I can provide him a tagline for his next campaign: “Greg Abbott for Governor: It could have been a lot worse.”

Though I cannot imagine how.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.

“If you live in Frankston, and you’ve got a problem with Victorian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor. “If you do not want to see Australian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor. Send Labor a message.”

Labor easily wins Dunkley, increasing its primary vote to forty per cent. As no-one predicted. On her way to Canberra is Jodie Belyea, who introduces herself as “a mum from Frankston with two dogs and a mortgage” and a local woman dedicated to empowering other women. The likeable, highly-respected and refreshingly unassuming, local community activist and founder of the Women’s Spirit Movement (2018) is the candidate preferred, at last count, by at least 52% of the 133,000 registered electors who cast a valid vote, in the Port Phillip Bay sand-belt electorate where On the Beach 1959, a film about the end of the world was shot.

It’s another crushing defeat for Peter Craig Dutton, who is now lying low over Anklegate a scandal in which a released detainee fingered by Dutton and deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley in Question Time for sexual assault and stalking turns out to be the wrong man – because the data from his electronic ankle bracelet wrongly put him at the scene of an alleged crime.

It’s par for the course for Dutton – a serial dud in every portfolio he’s ever held, from Health to Home Affairs. He’s now following Morrison’s delusion that Liberal Party salvation lies in the outer suburbs. The lie that Labor would tax utes and family cars when, in fact, its vehicle emissions standards will save money and help preserve what’s left of our planet’s atmosphere apes ScoMo’s abortive bid for the vote of a mythical outer suburban tradie.

But there’s more. Everybody loves trains. $900 million will treat rail travellers to an upgrade of the link to Baxter in the very Liberal seat of Flinders, should they wish to brave Stony Point mosquitoes in their eagerness to take a day trip to see how the other half lives.

For Liberal candidate Nathan Conroy, it’s all over. He did his best with a bad script about how bad crime was. Locals love that stuff. Is he a sore loser? It’s fashionable, in the heady hyper-partisan slanging match our politics is today, to maintain your hate. A developer-friendly Frankston Mayor for three years in a row, with a rate rise every year to show for it, Conroy, formerly of Cork, is a big man with a slab of a face such as you might encounter in a friendly punch-on in a rugby scrum or in a grudge-match of Gaelic football.

Thirty-one-year-old Conroy, who boasts he once ran a multi-million dollar business -as manager of a Richmond bowlo- (that’s a lot of parma)-is the Liberals’ archetypal pin-up boy. White, straight and blokey. With the business background, he could be another Bruce Billson who held Dunkley until he got a job representing small business, for which he was being paid months before he quit politics. Conroy is slow to congratulate his opponent – as are other Liberals – but he does publicly congratulate himself on his wife’s pregnancy.

He doesn’t know where he found the time … (to make a baby) … but he did, he says.

Conroy grins, sporting teeth like a barracuda. They are neat teeth in a crooked smile.

Mrs Conroy doesn’t know where to look. Does hubby think he’s at a buck’s night? Ley, who is as high as a kite, comes to the rescue; proclaims Nathan a national Liberal hero. Even better than making babies, he’s made Dunkley marginal. The truth is, the absence of One Nation and UAP from the ballot accounts for what Murdoch and our corporate media brand a four percent swing to the Coalition.

“We are coming for you,” Ley warbles, adding that a three to four percent swing across the nation would win the Coalition government. It wouldn’t. It holds fifty-five seats. Twenty-one are needed to form a majority government. The swing looks around 3.4 per cent at the AEC Tally Room, Sunday. But bunkum and bluster are the order of the day in the politics of a post-truth, Trumpian age era. Expect more “alternative facts” after Sky’s Peta Credlin stoutly declares that Dutton resonates in Dunkley.

Credlin strikes gold on the night. The heartland. It’s the Liberals’ Lassiter’s Reef. And it’s in Dunkley. Ground zero is probably half-way up Oliver’s Hill, under that cantilevered bungalow, where the late Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO, had an unimpeded view of Port Phillip Bay.

“… the base is back, the Liberal heartland is back”!

“Coming for you” means more smear ‘n fear. Look out, Albo. Albo is at least in Dunkley. Unlike Dutton, who does a bunk and is QANTAS clubbing his way back to Dickson. Classy.

The electorate is named in honour of feminist, telegraphist and union leader, the fearless, tireless, eloquent, advocate for equal pay for women in the public service, Louisa Dunkley 1886-1927. Victorian Liberal senator, Crumb-maiden Jane Hume, who is also at the Liberal campaign wake, thinks quotas are OK for corporations, but the Liberal Party is “a different beast”.

Discretion is the better part of valour, but it does mean Spud’s abandoned Ley and Hume at the bar to do the obsequies? At least former Frankston school-boy and Liberal fund-raiser, Jeffrey Gibb Kennett, is celebrating his 76th birthday there. It leaves Peter time to warm up the party bus. Tomorrow, Ley will be the scapegoat for that stunt about the released detainee being arrested by the police on charges of sexual assault and misconduct. After howling down Albo in parliament about his dereliction of duty in failing to defy the High Court and lock up all the detainees, most of whom, Team Dutton reckons, are hardened criminals and all primed to rape, pillage and “re-offend”.

Some detainees have already been locked up for a decade. Some have been offenders, but all have done their time. For most, their only “crime” is to seek refuge here by boat. We lock them up for the rest of their lives and when a High Court forces us to let them out we insist that the harmless and innocent majority wear ankle-bracelets alongside the few who have committed serious crimes? What could possibly go wrong?

But it’s not about justice, it’s about the theatre of cruelty as deterrence, and was once very popular. We’re so proud of our boat turnarounds, we’ve exported the idea to Rishi Sunak’s Littler Britain, where “illegals” will be exported at great expense to Rwanda.

Or back to certain death. Dutton once locked up “Deva”, a blind, mentally ill Sri Lankan man for ten years who sought refuge after being tortured by the Sri Lankan army, a fact established by Australian authorities. He could choose to go home, a type of death sentence. Or stay in detention. But we were flexible.

The Minister might grant him a visa. In the future. Which he wouldn’t get because the Minister had decided he had failed the character test. Concerns were raised then about Dutton’s use of the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose, god-like, arbitrary power the Home Affairs Minister has to either grant or deny visas at whim.

“In his decision, Federal Court Justice Rares called it “absurd” and “unacceptable” to put forth that Dutton might issue Deva with a visa in the future when he had just found – on grounds not disclosed – that the mentally ill refugee failed the character test. The justice found that the government’s position was unreasonable and legally invalid.”

It may be rhetoric when Team Dutton pledges to lock asylum-seekers with criminal records up again. That is, whilst the Coalition is in opposition. But cheap words cheapen lives. Demean our own. Not to be outdone on “sovereign borders” a high-sounding nonsense in the game of chicken that is our asylum-seeker debate in Question Time, Labor has already been forced into the squalid compromise of the ankle-bracelet.

Perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope. Demonising can be a vote winner. But not in Dunkley. It might have worked once for Howard and again for Abbott, who in turn fostered con-artist Morrison, who gave us his tough cop on the beat, while letting Mike Pezzullo take charge via intermediary Scott Briggs. For five years, Pezullo gave the orders. Not that Morrison has anything to atone for because his God forgives him. It’s in his valedictory speech. And Ley has still not retracted her women-assaulted-by-foreign-criminals tweet on X.

An increasingly rubbery figure, Ley easily wins most mobile face on a night of such jubilation and jocund hilarity you would swear that the Liberals had won. At least she’s fronted up. Eighty percent of success is showing up, Woody Allen reckons.

Delivery? Ley puts so much into it that it’s exhausting just to watch. Has she had elocution lessons from Michaelia Cash, the lip-reader’s friend? She somehow finds extra facial muscles to come up with the whopper of the night. Tonight’s swing will win us government.

You know, she knows it’s a monstrous lie by the way she moves her jaw. Like a python swallowing an ox.

Dunkley, take a bow. The electorate is still “reeling”, as the Canberra gallery loves to say – it’s what you do after “bracing” yourself – another favourite cliché. But there is no word for how you recover from a sordid, multi-million dollar, US-style shit-storm of lies, stunts, and slurs amidst the static of Ley’s disgraceful racism, pitched so low it sounds as if it’s scripted by a tipsy One Nation intern.

The high spending low-punching campaign of fear, hate and racism is new to Dunkley, where the exotic and the aberrant are mainstream but try not to make eye contact after dark, especially in Young Street, Beach Street and around the train station subway. Even unflappable, seasoned, seen-it-all-before Frankston has never seen this before.

Ley may be a contender for a door prize, but what really steals the show is Advance. The Liberals are outspent by their bag-men and women, the billionaire, dark money propaganda unit Advance. But unlike The Voice, this time, the punters are not buying it. Cynics would say that the stage three tax cut beat Advance to it – a negative campaign doesn’t do so well against money in your pocket. But this battle for the hearts and minds of Dunkley probably is its own worst enemy. More than overkill, there is a sterling failure to communicate. And it’s hard not to see the whole, baroque excess of the assault, as something out of Monty Python; a futile exercise in lurid self-parody.

Perhaps we can take heart in the defeat of billionaire-backed Advance’s hate-bombing saturation campaign of lies, aggressing voters; “hammering letter boxes” texting, in-your-Facebooking, tweeting and other anti-social media sledging and its fleet of Truth Trucks, the mother of all defamatory mobile billboards. One features Chinese president, Xi Jinping, voting Labor insinuating that our ALP is somehow a crypto-Communist party. But the billionaires are thrifty. It’s the same image Advance deployed in the 2022 federal election.

It’s a wonder they weren’t laughed out of town. Advance’s outrageous assault on truth, democracy and decency belongs in Trump’s America. It’s an import we don’t need and won’t heed, however much a group of tone-deaf billionaires want it. But, it won’t stop trying. As Dr Jeremy Walker points out, behind Advance is the Atlas foundation, a global network of over six hundred libertarian think tanks.

Advance is a shadowy group funded by billionaires, including Gina Rinehart, also a queen pin in the IPA’s opaque funding and the man who did so well out of pro-coal Coalition energy policy, Trevor St Baker. It easily outspends the million dollar plus Liberal budget. It played a key role in sabotaging The Voice, but in Dunkley, failed to reprise its undermining of established democratic processes. As far as we know. We need, nevertheless, to demand to know who is behind it and what it is up to. Anthony Klan reports for Michael West Media, that Advance is being investigated by The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) because of its peculiarly opaque ownership structure.

Just as worrying is Advance’s calculated misrepresentation as some type of grassroots movement, a concept which Advance has already capably seeded in a corporatised and monopolistic Australian MSM where you can hear your ABC selling it as just a right-wing equivalent of Get-Up or the Unions. Every channel has the same pitch. We are being sold a pig in a poke.

In the meantime, we are vulnerable to a powerful propaganda machine, which may be crude at this stage but which will certainly be capable of refining its techniques.

We need to know just how tightly Advance has bound itself to the Coalition. The negativity of the “Noalition’s” campaign is an alarm call. Forget policy, issues, leaders’ integrity or party achievements, the Dunkley by-election is reheated leftovers and the Coalition’s happy place – rapists, paedophiles all aboard Tampa Redux; Howard’s trump card, politics as theatre of cruelty.

And Anklegate. Much as there will be a scapegoat at hand, the fiasco raises such serious questions about the role of the police and the liaison between it and the Coalition that in a healthy democratic system, Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley would already have resigned.

Sending Labor its threadbare message is less a federal opposition than the remnants of Morrison’s divide and rule legacy, not so much a Liberal parliamentary party as ten separate factions, headed by a duo of desperadoes, Peter “Paladin’s Cave” Dutton and deputy Sussan Ley who resigned from “Fizza” Turnbull’s cabinet over her 2015 “impulse buying” of a $795,000 Main Beach, Gold Coast investment property -from a Liberal vendor and party donor, whilst a gullible nation paid her travel bill to fly to Wesley Hospital in Brisbane to list new medicines on the PBS list. As you do. Team Dutton has swallowed Trump’s playbook whole in its bid to get attention; its eagerness to embrace the dark arts of media manipulation, disinformation. Lying its head off.

Flooding the zone with shit, Steve Bannon calls it. In other words, as Mike Seccombe explains in The Saturday Paper:

“Make outrageous populist pronouncements and then wait for the mainstream media to report them. Inevitably the other side will seek to debunk them. Ed Coper, Ed Coper, CEO of progressive communications outfit Populares. calls it the “weaponisation of lies”.

We should not be too startled by the right’s uptake of the tactics. Lying is a Liberal tradition. Wanton wastrel, a sterling pioneer in the politics of squander, John Winston Howard, took the proceeds of a mining boom and blew it on the middle class and the rich. Lied his eyebrows off over babies overboard to win the 2001 election. Howard is still lying about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. He “misled parliament” or lied to the house that our illegal attack of Iraq was constitutionally justified. He’d taken expert advice.

Failed priest, Tony Abbott, who crashed and burnt as PM because although he had the keys to the Lodge, he had no idea how to drive it, tipped off a startled nation in 2010 that you could only take as the “Gospel truth” stuff which he had written down.

But it’s not just the lies that paint Labor as an enemy of the people. Beneath the rabid dog-eat-dog, rancorous, hyper partisan, post-truth politics of our increasingly rattled right wing you can feel the fear and the desperation mounting. Link it with unlimited resources – and what could possibly go wrong?

Let’s put the band together. Supercharged with fear and the dark money of billionaires’ right-wing lobby mob, Advance, lead vocalist, Federal Coalition deputy-leader, Siren Sussan Ley, belts out her wog rapist in our midst shtick. Her leader and stand over tactician for Xenophobes-R-Us Benito Dutton, currently in witness protection because Victorians hate him – is on percussion. The Big Lie is that Labor (rather than the High Court) has released 149 former indefinite detainees into the community, a Goebbels-type lie central to a campaign of primal fearmongering, racist dog-whistling in conjunction with his corporate media backers.

Forget the light on the hill, we are out in the paddock in the ute, at night, roo-shooting, but with “rapists, paedophiles and murderers” in the spotlight. And not just at home. In the world theatre, “human animals” are to be exterminated by zealots.

Dunkley is won by a woman dedicated to the empowerment of women; Jodie Belyea represents some of the best values which are part of Labor’s democratic, social justice, working class heritage. Her victory gives us hope.

On the Coalition’s side of the ledger of party politics appears a yawning chasm of moral deficit and at times comically incompetent leadership, a party ripe for exploitation by Advance, a sinister organisation with its own agenda masquerading as a popular, home-spun movement. This enemy of the people is controlled by a small group of powerful billionaires with international links. Beneath the theatre of the by-election and the alarming spectacle of the Liberal Party’s decline are symptoms of its capture by a secretive, self-interested cabal which warrant urgent, extensive and through investigation.