Could 2022 see the end of the Tory virus?

Any mirth stemming from the notion of the Beetrorter being ordered to spread his cheeks and lift his sack upon sign-in at the Glen Innes Correctional Centre balances the dry-retching resulting from the mental imagery that that idea may raise.

Then there’s Miss Appropriation 2020, Bridget McKenzie, whose perpetually waxy visage may be symptomatic of her dread that Sports Rorts could be re-visited. Bridge’s only strategy for avoiding come-uppance is likely to be to play dead. Our Bridge is short a pylon or two.

And did I see Minister for Monetising Carbon Pollution Fidel d’Figueres developing a facial tic at the prospect of a few rounds with counsel assisting? All pure conjecture of course. But pleasing nevertheless as Fidel will be high on the persons-of-interest listing of a future federal integrity body.

These are random wishes on my note to Santa; these dodgy operators are just the crust on the entire fetid spittoon that considers itself to be free from consequences, answerable to no-one bar an eagle painting and a cabal of billionaire oligarchs.

In contrast Josh the work experience guy seems nice. Ha! That crafted image of a rosy-cheeked cherub with a rapidly disappearing Friar Tuck tonsorial has slipped. Whether shrilly undermining Victoria’s Covid efforts or calling up critics’ employers to have them silenced or fired he’s revealed himself to be the standard Tory nasty that many suspected he always was. Our chubby exchequer is well out of his depth as Treasurer so he can always plead stupidity if facing the beak to explain the repurposing of billions of our dollars to favoured Tory sponsors and electorates, letting the criminals in the banks off the hook or secretly deleting ASIC corruption findings. Josh’s discomfort is obvious from his red-faced histrionics so it’s been an enjoyable past-time to measure his panic on the Shouty-O-Meter whenever he’s not applying oily schmooze to his increasingly sceptical constituents.

While on the subject of those who see themselves as Prime Minister in waiting the best news of 2021 is that Xtian Porter will never be an occupant of The Lodge. In underlining his law suit victory and vindication by ignominiously resigning before a Labor government can initiate some formal enquiries into his behaviour, Blue Balls the born-to-rule, big swinging dick has shown himself as nothing more than a whiney little bitch. This output from a turd distillery can at least be reassured that should he ever be up before the courts they will be open to the public in contrast to his secret persecutions of Bernard Collaery and Witness K.

More good news was announced this year by party balloons Tweedledumb and Tweedledumberer. Groomed at a carwash and nourished by Krispy Kreme, Gorgeous George Christensen has pulled out while Cray Cray Kelly has signed up to fellow zeppelin Clive Creosote Palmer’s UAP. Cray Cray is marketing himself as the by-product of a threesome between Nigel Farage, Chef Pete Evans and a channel marker (UAP party slogan: Craig’s our buoy). Cray Cray’s brilliant career is about to go down in flames. Oh the humanity! Guffaw!

Glad tidings also arrived in March from the western end of our wide, brown land from whence news of a massacre was despatched to a joyful public in the east. The Tories were all but obliterated in the state election courtesy of the actions of those two cleverest of political minds Clive and the Dud (i.e. Scooter Morrison) who jointly thought it a brilliant move to threaten WA with a law suit mid-pandemic and just prior to the voting. Scooter hides his marketing genius behind the facade of a smart-arsed maitre d at the smug and over-sold Bros, Lecce (Bros., Lecce: We Eat at The Worst Michelin Starred Restaurant, Ever – The Everywhereist).

The other good news at the end of 2021 is that Rupert Murdoch is one year nearer his funeral.

References:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer.

Australians are generally despondent about the state of politics in this country. Daily scandals, both personal and political, fill the airwaves causing many people to tar politicians and parties with the same brush.

“They’re all the same” is an understandable response when confronted with evidence of dodgy donations, branch-stacking, pork-barrelling, factional in-fighting and rewards, expense rorting, prevarication, backstabbing, poor personal judgement, rampant sexual harassment and workplace bullying.

Disillusionment with the two major parties, or perhaps the inadequacy of some of their individual members, is causing people to look elsewhere to minor parties or independents.

But the reality is that after the next election, either Labor or the Liberal/National coalition will form government and that will determine our direction for the immediate future with consequences for the long term.

Whilst we may well have reason to complain about individual policies and politicians, the evidence shows a stark difference between the two contenders for government.

It has, almost invariably, been Labor governments that have introduced policies that have made real societal change.

The Australian Labor Commonwealth government led by Andrew Fisher introduced a national aged pension in 1908, a national invalid disability pension in 1910, and a national maternity allowance in 1912.

During the Second World War, Australia under a Labor government enacted national schemes for child endowment in 1941, a widows’ pension in 1942, a wife’s allowance in 1943, additional allowances for the children of pensioners in 1943, and unemployment, sickness, and special benefits in 1945.

The only mention the Coalition get on the Wikipedia page Social Security in Australia History is the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017 which introduced a demerit-point system for not meeting welfare obligations and the infamous and apparently illegal Robodebt. “As of June 2018, former social security recipients who owe a debt to Centrelink will not be allowed to travel outside Australia until they have repaid their debt, with interest.”

Whitlam gave funding to non-government schools and abolished fees for university.

Bob Hawke introduced Medicare.

Paul Keating gave us the Superannuation Guarantee.

Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generation, ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and got us through the GFC with early stimulus.

Julia Gillard gave us paid parental leave, the NBN, the NDIS and a carbon-pricing mechanism that everyone concedes would have been the cheapest and most effective way to reduce emissions.

Most of these things were fiercely opposed by the Coalition.

Repeated smear campaigns and draconian legislation have undermined the effectiveness of unions – the only groups where workers can unite to protect and promote their rights. This has led to wage stagnation, an avalanche of exploitation, insecure work and an erosion of workplace safety and entitlements.

Rather than eschewing their union affiliation, Labor should proudly point to its historical commitment to the workers of the country and their families.

Liberal/Nationals governments talk a lot about “the economy” and very little about society.

“The economy” is about allowing rich people to get richer so they will then employ people who work to make them even more money. The lower the labour cost, the higher the profit.

“The economy” is about the GDP – a number that is easily manipulated by including a big government program when it needs a boost.

“The economy” is about the budget, an obscure set of figures which are ripe for cherry-picking – a guess based on convenient assumptions, which can decide to leave stuff out at will, which never ends up being accurate, where debt and deficit can be a disaster one year and a wise investment the next.

The LNP would have us believe that they are very concerned for our mental health and well-being as a result of the pandemic. Prior to that, not so much.

When, in February last year, Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers suggested Australia should consider adopting a wellbeing budget, Josh Frydenberg absolutely ridiculed him.

This is a warning to every Australian.

Labor and @JEChalmers want to replace responsible economic management with a yoga mat, beads and a “wellbeing budget”.

Just another Labor excuse for higher taxes and bigger deficits👇 pic.twitter.com/8bBHvnS7GI

— Josh Frydenberg (@JoshFrydenberg) February 26, 2020

Josh’s shouty attempt at humour didn’t go over so well with the Hindu community who found it “derisive and offensive” not to mention “brazen, racist and Hindu-phobic.”

Fifty years ago, Gough Whitlam, as leader of the Opposition, made a historic trip to China where he more than held his own with Premier Zhou Enlai, devising the blueprint for Australia’s “one China policy”.

Today, they won’t even answer the phone.

There will never be another Gough who made us feel like an independent nation for the first time but Scott Morrison’s idea of sovereignty looks a lot more like servitude to the US/UK military machine and the fossil fuel industry.

I could go on and on but this is already long enough to make the point – any suggestion that Labor and the LNP are the same ignores the evidence.

Well-being for all or wealth for a few?

By Denis Bright

Without access to the vast resources of the federal LNP in Government, Labor has raised sobering realities to deflate the political excesses of the last Mid-Year Economic and Financial Outlook (MYEFO) before the 2022 election.

MYEFO still provides a window of political opportunities for the Morrison Government as economic indicators show a temporary rebound in the September Quarter in GDP growth, a temporary growth in capital expenditure in mining on real estate and property markets and improvements to business confidence as the holiday season approaches after a lengthy period of COVID-lockdown.

A December Quarter rebound is likely to be a feature of a March election campaign. It is due for release on 2 March 2022.

MYEFO has Machiavellian elements. The most obvious concern is the $16 billion set aside for unannounced election promises as released during the heat of the election campaign as in 2019 in electorates under siege from Labor.

There is also the obvious repeated ruse of our official unemployment figure in the Treasurer’s media statements to talk up MYEFO. The 4.6 per cent unemployment rate needs more qualifiers. Australians from all age groups on training programmes or working on a trial basis for employers do not feature in the official jobless data. Adding the underemployed to the official jobless rate, translates to 13.1 per cent of the workforce. The situation is worse in the most disadvantaged federal electorates.

Besides these obvious lapses are the wildly optimistic assumptions about the post-COVID recovery in the Australian and global economies despite the global shadow posed by the Omicron variant with its record level of cases in Britain.

The Treasury is also over-optimistic about economic relations with China and Hong Kong despite months of sabre-rattling and patrols by Australia through the disputed waters of the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits:

In China, GDP is forecast to grow by 8 per cent in 2021 before moderating to 5 per cent in 2022, reflecting the strong recovery to date. Growth has eased recently owing to a slowdown in the property sector and the impact of multiple provincial virus outbreaks on consumption. Despite a high vaccination rate, China has continued to pursue an elimination strategy, imposing aggressive local containment measures and strict international border controls to suppress and limit outbreaks

A third of Australian trade also plies these disputed maritime routes. MYEFO also notes that Australian deposits in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) which help to fund China’s Belt and Road Investment is currently running at $4 billion. Former Liberal Treasurer Peter Costello was a member of the International Advisory Council of the China Investment Corporation (CIC) between 2014 and 2018. The AFR announced on 26 August that Australia had just withdrawn substantial amounts of Australian Future Fund Investments in the CIC to support the sabre-rattling campaigns against our strongest trading partner.

All this suggests that the federal LNP is playing domestic politics in its strategic disputes with China that cuts Australia off from profitable investment partnerships within Australia and in the global economy.

Restrictions on overseas investment on security grounds have contributed to the downward trends in investment flows on the LNP’s long financial watch since 2013. Australian net capital inflows have never fully recovered from the GFC on the RBA’s latest chart series:

Current capital flow data is worse than the RBA charts disclose because the resultant investment is highly concentrated in the mining, real estate and property sectors which make little contribution to the building of a more sustainable and diversified economy. Labor shares Peter Costello’s enthusiasm as Chair of the Future Fund in his 2020-21 Annual Report:

As a result of the Board’s careful long-term positioning, the Future Fund has generated a 10-year return of 10.1% per annum against a target of 6.1% per annum. Since inception, investment returns have added $136.3 billion to the original contributions from the Government.

At 30 June 2021 the Board of Guardians invested over $245 billion across the six public asset funds for which it is responsible for the Commonwealth Government. Each fund has exceeded its target return over every time-period.

The Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) generates earnings to provide grants to support medical research and medical innovation. The MRFF delivered a return of 10.9% in 2020–21 and was valued at $22.0 billion as at 30 June 2021.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land and Sea Future Fund returned 13.9% for the year, taking its value to $2.2 billion. The Future Drought Fund and Emergency Response Fund have also performed well, delivering returns of 14.0% and 13.9% per annum respectively.

The Disability Care Australia Fund also continued to perform in line with its Mandate, delivering a return of 0.4%.

The opening up of new subsidiaries of the Future Fund and state-controlled investment funds to corporate hedge fund capital avoids fractious debates about additional taxation burdens. Labor’s National Policy mentions investment seventy times. Sceptical constituents might well ask for more details on the origin of this investment capital. More specific mention of investment options has come with the release of Labor’s affordable housing agenda:

An Albanese Labor Government will create a $10 billion off-budget Housing Australia Future Fund to build social and affordable housing and create thousands of jobs now and in the long term. Each year investment returns from the Housing Australia Future Fund will be transferred to the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) to pay for social and affordable housing projects. Over the first 5 years the investment returns will build around:

20,000 social housing properties.

4,000 of the 20,000 social housing properties will be allocated for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence and older women on low incomes who are at risk of homelessness.

10,000 affordable housing properties for frontline workers.

A Social and Affordable Housing Fund (SAHF) is operated by the NSW Government. A proportion of the investment returns will fund annual service payments that will reward community housing providers over 25-years to bridge the gap between rental revenue and operating costs. These are far from being radical initiatives and stake out a broad support base that existed prior to the Labor Split of the 1950s.

In The Boom-and-Bust Traditions of Conservative leaders, MYEFO conceals the likelihood of a near trillion-dollar public debt in 2024-25 as private sector investment falters while government spending programmes move southwards after the election to reduce the economic boost from deficit spending which has contributed to favourable short-term MYEFO indicators.

I hear the confidence of Bill Hayden in the enthusiastic responses of Dr. Jim Chalmers to the current MYEFO. The adjacent seat of Oxley became a safe Labor seat for the first time after the defeat of the Liberal Health Minister in 1961. Being taken for granted, both then and now, raises Labor’s enthusiasm for the possibility of a change of government this time around despite all the media hype in MYEFO and in the future December Quarter economic indicators.

This public relations advertisement warns everyone about life delivering curved balls during the cricket season. Take good advice from leaders who are on our side is already a strong feature of Labor’s media agendas. This style of narrative advertising could be broadened with inputs from other cross-sectional characters who are committed to level-headed critical policies that are appropriate for a middle-ranking Australian economy with a still underdeveloped financial sector.

This would be a variation of the It’s Time Advertising from 1972. This campaign was challenged fiercely by the Federal LNP. Labor’s victories in twelve new seats were partially offset by losses to the LNP in Bendigo, Forrest, Stirling and Sturt. Out of this mix, Labor secured the seat of Cook which is Scott Morrison’s current seat.

State of the art advertising can attract attention and fire the appetite for change over that conventional wisdom offered by the LNP to justify more market ideology and militarism to worsen the Australian social divide. Readers might take a few minutes to evaluate this style of the public announcement by checking the You Tube Channel.

Narrative advertising should be endorsed by members of Labor’s Shadow Ministry, high profile candidates and popular Australians as in 1972.

A call to electoral enrolments is the first step in getting sceptical potential constituents onside before the rolls close in early 2022 as the voting returns in many Labor heartland electorates were unbelievably soft at the last election.

According to ‘The Daily Telegraph’s Canberra experts rate our federal politicians‘, Scott Morrison scored an A for an outstanding year leading the nation.

“It has been a rollercoaster year for the PM that saw a number of mid-year struggles (Brittany Higgins, vaccine rollout) neutralised or turned into net positives,” the article reads.

“Yet big wins – including the UK free-trade deal, world-leading vaccination rates, and a seemingly resilient economy – all go in his favour.

“Morrison ends the year on a high, but needs to re-establish his leadership after being dragged down by less able students in the national cabinet group project.”

I’m a living breathing human being who had to fight tooth and nail to make it through the past 10 months.

In the wake of the findings of the Jenkins Review and the innumerable stories of abuse in Parliament House – to call this issue ‘neutralised’ is beyond insulting. https://t.co/8QLg4LwqAw

— Brittany Higgins (@BrittHiggins_) December 17, 2021

In a moment when authoritarianism is on the rise around the world, our mainstream journalism is not up to the task of confronting the nation with the scope of the threat. Trapped in a paradigm shaped for a previous era where major parties roughly followed the same rulebooks, too many media bodies continue to normalise the shocking.

Of course the capacity of the media to change our awareness of norm-shattering behaviour, and provoke change, has collapsed since the “Moonlight State” and Watergate eras. Social media has crushed the business model based on advertising dollars and stolen much of the audience. Specialist journalists have too often been sacked in exchange for overworked and cheaper young entrants to the profession, who need to churn press releases into articles to fill space. Older heads are too often caught up in chummy friendships or the binds of “access journalism” where they can’t burn their sources.

Some great journalism remains: specialists who have the capacity to expose the crimes and scandals that betray our trust; people with integrity who challenge the whirlpool of nonsense with which our leading figures parry off the swords of enquiry; investigative heroes who adhere to the vocation of performing the role of watchdog to our democracy.

Too often these crucial individuals – and teams – are forced to operate in smaller organisations. Australia’s legacy media by contrast shames itself regularly. As a result, Australians’ news knowledge in is comparatively superficial. We have also lost the sense a shared reality, based on facts that can be interpreted differently but remain crucial to the discussion.

News Corp in Australia has increasingly taken on its American decay into propaganda for a frighteningly radicalised right. Culture-war framing shapes most stories. Victorians in particular have borne the brunt of its campaign to discredit the Labor Party. The pandemic hit the state hard for a number of reasons, but News Corp never missed an opportunity to make it worse, and redirect blame from the federal government. No wonder the “Freedom” rallies on Australia’s streets are largest in Melbourne.

One of the key strategies in a competitive authoritarian regime (where elections still happen but it is ever harder for the democracy-embracing party to win) is to cripple honest media. The ABC has borne the brunt of intimidatory attacks from our Coalition politicians with funding slashed, constant parliamentary attacks and investigations. It has also faced partisan appointments limiting its capacity to hold government to account. Discussion panels are made up of disingenuous political spin merchants or populist distractions, leaving expertise out in the cold. Acts of brave journalism still happen. These, however, are met with revenge in the form of inquiries such as Senator Bragg’s most recent effort, now delayed. Even the ABC’s co-operative chair, Ita Buttrose, was provoked to describe this one as an “act of political interference designed to intimidate.”

The audience is already primed to disregard disturbing revelations from the ABC anyway, since the News Corp outlets have joined the government in inoculating their people against trusting it. Just as Trump cast the mainstream media as “the enemy of the people,” the right has depicted the ABC as “lefty propaganda.”

Fairfax has also suffered. Its financial decline culminated in its “merging” with the Nine network headed by former Liberal Party deputy leader Peter Costello. The print mastheads are slipping towards partisan framing of their coverage.

Last week, The Sydney Morning Herald published an opinion column by the Human Rights Defence Alliance’s John Steenhof. He defended Morrison’s Religious Freedom bill as anodyne and safe. The broadsheet failed to declare that this is a body born of the Australian Christian Lobby and Steenhof a writer who has little time for the LGBTQI individual’s right to be free from discrimination. Paul Keating’s response to Peter Hartcher’s coverage of his National Press Club speech also highlights the limitations of some leading Fairfax journalists.

Older Australians still dependent on print news struggle to find honest coverage of issues and are often unaware the degree to which their preferred paper has declined.

Our commercial television news, which often takes its more important stories and their shaping from the print press, is similarly beholden to its corporate masters’ interests. Its viewership too has declined and the resultant sensationalism is partly to blame for the fact that too many Australians’ worldview is distorted.

The crisis in our federal government’s lack of integrity, with failures in facing both pandemic and climate threats, is thus not understood by too many. The decay of our democracy is not perceived by the establishment who still consume legacy news, as the crisis it is.

On Sydney’s streets last week, a former soldier in uniform spun a beguiling story to the “freedom” protest crowd that began with a prayer. He pointed out immediately that he was a prayer-and-bullets kind of guy, and lots of bullets would be needed. His QAnon speech bemoaned the infiltration of all arms of the Australian establishment with communists and pedophiles who need to be brought down. It was met with rapturous applause.

In Melbourne 10,000 of the noose-wielding mob were on the streets. People of the artsy left as well as the angry right believe in Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly to promise freedom from oppression and access to ivermectin.

This might all die down as our strong vaccination rates grant most of us the ability to go back to life as “Covid normal.” We would be foolish to trust in this, however.

In the US, the commentariat is just beginning to confront the crisis of journalism that helped take them from Obama’s 2015 to a nation on the brink of authoritarianism or fracturing into civil war, a mere six years.

The hilarious and shocking Trump clown-car candidacy was given millions of dollars’ worth of free coverage because institutions like CNN didn’t see any downside to the boost to their own business. News Corp’s Fox News and the right’s talkback shock jocks continued to spin a nightmare vision of the country detached from reality to thrash up a profit as well as a terrified Republican voter base. Eminent establishments such as The New York Times gave harsh critiques to Hillary Clinton while largely ignoring the ridiculous Trump campaign as irrelevant.

While the organisations that confronted their role in electing Trump, or failing to pick his victory, spent much time trying to hold Trump to account in the years that followed, they have returned with frightening speed to “normalcy bias.” While leading Republican political and media figures try to overthrow democracy and foment racial violence, the press returns to “both sides” coverage. In a year with a constant and overlapping series of climate crises, they continue to try to avoid sounding hysterical, but instead promote a sense that little is at stake.

The ABC has shown something of the tendency, in an echo of US media, to practise “refuge-seeking journalism” where exaggerated efforts to display “balance” have crippled important civic debates. Accusations that the media has a “liberal (left) bias” in the US are met with overcompensatory coverage of news and argument. Some resultant timidity at the ABC can give undue weight to government distortions from our non-commercial source of news.

Clever spin from well-funded and organised lobby groups helps shore up discredited arguments or give them heft far beyond their worth. Understaffed media organisations, aiming to meet frenetic deadlines and demands for immediacy, are grateful for the easy filler.

Both The Australian and The Australian Financial Review in August this year accepted the government line that coal must continue to be subsidised to shore up the energy grid. The headlines – “Grid and bear it: subsidise coal” and “Coal will be paid to firm up the grid” – could have been written by the government’s, or lobby’s, own writers.

The fact that the global trajectory would demand this taxpayer money be spent on developing renewables is framed out of the discussion. And it is this issue of “framing” that is at the core of the failure of journalism.

The right in America has shown itself adept at “playing the refs.” This ability to daunt media organisations into accepting the right’s agenda setting and framing of a topic is one key to their crisis of democracy. Rather than focusing on the crisis of democracy which the Republicans are forging, the mainstream media obsesses over the comparatively trivial “Dems in disarray” as the leadership negotiates with its two golden-handcuffed senators.

In Australia, for example, coverage of asylum seekers in the conservative, particularly tabloid, media has over the last decade been based too often on the incorrect framing that they are “illegal” and “queue jumpers.” Too rarely is the coverage based on the facts. This media failure has enabled the government to continue to persecute innocent people who came to us seeking safety.

Culture war “games” have thus turned life and death issues into something too “political” to address intelligently.

Whether many mainstream journalists are too inexperienced to place PR in context, too overworked to have time to discover the background, too immersed in the truthiness of their world’s beliefs to challenge disinformation, they are letting the nation down. The spirit of Schwartz Media, Michael West Media and our other organisations dedicated to holding the powerful to account needs to be embraced by our legacy masthead writers.

We need to consider the laws that can be crafted to balance the damage done by Malcolm Turnbull’s 2017 slashing of our media ownership laws. In a moment when the climate and democracy decay form a deadly helix, we cannot afford to have entertainment or agenda masquerade as news.

We need to debate new ways to fund the reliable news utterly critical to the functioning of democracy.

Too much is at stake to allow our news to frame this moment as “business as usual.”

This article was originally published on Pearls and Irritations and has been reproduced with permission.

Three years ago, Scott Morrison issued a press release promising to establish a new Commonwealth Integrity Commission. The stated aim of this body was to investigate criminal corruption.

Without looking any further, we already have a problem, because most of the integrity issues we have with our government are not considered corrupt let alone criminal.

I am sure that Gladys Berejiklian is certain she has done nothing wrong.

It’s not illegal to use public funds to bolster your political standing or that of whomever of your team you may be rooting at the time.

It’s not corrupt to ignore departmental advice about cost- benefit analyses in favour of captain’s picks.

It’s not criminal to hand out contracts without tender or grants without comparative appraisal.

As Glad and Pork Barilaro, reminded us, everyone does it. The spoils of war, so to speak.

Governments are under no compulsion to show us the basis for their decisions.

Cronyism, far from being considered corrupt, is de rigueur. There are no essential criteria or merit-based selection processes about whom you appoint to positions.

Politicians who wish to attend sporting events, New Year’s Eve parties, check up on their investment properties, or go to political fundraisers, only need have their photo taken in high vis or hair net somewhere or chat to a voter to claim their expense “entitlements”. No receipts necessary. It’s all “within the rules”. Bring the family.

The bullying and intimidation detailed by multiple female Liberal MPs and Senators during the 2018 leadership spill was not considered criminal behaviour.

Threatening the preselection of members in order to influence their vote on decriminalising abortion was found to be a contempt of the Queensland Parliament but attracted no punishment.

It’s not illegal to lie in political advertising and use public money to pay for your ads.

Lobby groups and individuals can contribute as much as they want to political campaigns and parties have no rules on how much they can spend.

It’s also not illegal for the people who make the taxation laws to invest their money in offshore tax havens, family trusts, and other tax avoidance schemes.

Integrity means the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. That sets the bar far higher than just not engaging in criminal conduct.

How many of our politicians would pass a genuine integrity test?

In reality, both major parties have commenced their 2022 campaigns, and it is about time the media (you know who I mean) of this country admitted that there is more than one party running for election and give Labor equal billing.

So far, Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has given the Prime Minister a decent shirtfront every time he has crossed the boundary of lying. In January, I expect Albanese to announce minor preliminary appetiser policies that Australians will find more attractive than the LNPs.

Those who follow politics will acknowledge that the country’s political establishments, conventions, and political truth have been devalued and run-down to the point of being unrecognisable to the constraints we had but a generation ago.

We also have to recognise that it is not those who follow politics (the devotees of both parties) that we have to bring over but those whose vote is insecure-those willing to listen to a story of transparency, trust, fairness, honesty, ideas and sound policy.

Of all the issues, two have captured the electorate’s attention more than the meagre efforts of the Coalition in combating climate change and the decline in the standard of Governance. Rorting and unfairness have run amok and continued throughout the terms of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison.

A virtual wage freeze has typified the lot of the average wage earner while the ultra-affluent have increased their wealth astronomically.

Robodebt is but one example of the Morrison Government’s unfairness, whilst the largesse of Jobkeeper for companies in comparison boomed during Covid is another.

The country now has more than a trillion dollars of debt, which raises the question of how it is repaid. The usual way of doing so for conservatives is to slash spending.

The usual targets are the ABC, universities, education, the unemployed, women’s programs, etc. After lowering taxes, they would unlikely increase them.

The answers to many questions remain so, but one thing we know for sure: The Morrison government must be defeated at this election.

Here is my plan for defeating the LNP in 2022. (You may also want to read Rob Gerrand and Noel Turnbull’s list on Pearls and Irritations, on which my list is based).

Trust

There is no common thread for a recovering society/economy to cling to without trust. Everyone likes to feel they can trust the other person. On multiple occasions, Morrison has been called out for lying.

The French president called him a liar on the international stage. Albo must go in hard exploiting his untrustworthiness. What will he do if he regains power? Can you trust him?

By comparison, Labor will stand by its promises and commitments.

The economy

Labor sees the post covid economy as an opportunity to marry society with economics where spending is bonded to and justified by the common good. It will grow the post-covid economy in a new state/national government cooperative agreement, including infrastructure and new green technologies.

An electric future confronts us. Electric vehicles are just a starting point. Incentives for Australian companies to undertake research into tomorrow’s key developments and services must be front and centre of Labor’s platform. Even to the extent of introducing a ministry for the future.

Taxation

The tax cuts introduced by the Coalition may not be sustainable, and Labor must be truthful about it.

With a trillion-dollar debt, cutting taxes may not be advisable. Labor should trust the rich and privileged to understand that the debt problem will have to be brought under control. Any economist would testify that it is unsustainable, and the nation has to fix it. A high-level enquiry with the powers of a Royal Commission is the proper way to address the problem. The ultra-greedy must pay their fair share.

Whenever Frydenberg bangs on about tax, remember that the two highest taxing governments of the last thirty years have both been Liberal-National governments, including his. #factsmatter #auspol #qt

— Jim Chalmers MP (@JEChalmers) November 22, 2021

Climate change

The fear I have here is that Labor, after being burned in the past two elections, will fail to recognise that this time around that the climate is a red-hot topic and needs to be respected as such. Tell the country the truth. Coal is finished. It has no future.

Tell mine workers that Labor will ensure that they are looked after as Australia transitions out of coal. Insist that they will not be left behind.

Tell them that the “billions being spent on subsidies for fossil fuels and new gas exploration will be diverted to investment in green hydrogen plants (using solar and wind electricity to generate hydrogen).” Tell them they have a future.

Integrity Commission

Labor needs to go in hard with its promise to release a policy (before Christmas) for a Corruption Commission. Now that the Coalition has vacated the transparent government space, it must promise to end corruption and waste and establish a proper independent anti-Corruption Commission “that has the power to hold politicians to account and stop the rorting.”

The workplace

People may have jobs, and there might be more in the pipeline. However, “wages have barely increased since the Abbot/Turnbull/Morrison governments have been in power.” At the same time, company profits are overflowing.

Labor is, of course, “committed to good jobs with good wages and training all workers, especially the young, for tomorrow’s industries.” The promise of free TAFE places has been a good start, as has its pledge to increase JobSeeker to $450 a week, at the poverty line.

Health

Health has traditionally been one of Labor’s strong suits and it must keep with this tradition. A focus on prevention would appeal to the younger voter. Promising to work with the health funds to reward those willing to adopt healthy lifestyles would be popular with many.

With covid in mind, it must refund our hospitals for their incurred costs. Not only for their selfless efforts during the pandemic but simply because it is something that needs to be done.

Raising doctors’ Medicare rebates (deliberately held down for years) would show how much society appreciates their work.

International relations

Labor should promise to restore the principles of sound old-fashioned diplomatic principles and promise to restore relations with China. Whilst being a treaty nation with the US, we should diplomatically tell them that we will always do what’s best for Australia.

The ABC

Labor would assure the ABC that proper financial support would be legislated over five years instead of three. It would also undertake an assurance that Government would “stop undermining its independence.” The arts would also receive appropriate sustainable support.

Innovation

Labor has already undertaken to fix the balls up, known as the NBN (or Fraudband). It should empathise the urgency of the task.

Labor will make Australia the world leader in green technologies with a fund to support start-ups that show promise.

Labor should offer to increase university funding if they commit to more significant research programmes. It would also provide funding to launch new innovative firms and create thousands of jobs. It must also address the unfinished work of Gonski.

The standard of Governance

The one thing that Morrison is now disliked for that is revealed in focus groups, surveys, and polls is his appalling leadership and governance. You can add to that the performance of his cabinet and Ministers in significant portfolios. This pitiful governance can also be attributed to the junior partner in the Coalition, the National Party.

Morrison cannot even admit that he tells the most outrageous lies and lies on top of lies in the face of facts that show he does. He really believes he doesn’t.

When Howard was our dear leader I was certain I’d seen the worse PM we’ll ever have.

Then came Abbott, & I was convinced I’ll never see worse.

Now we have Morrison, & I’m certain, without a doubt, he can’t be topped as the worst ever.

Nonetheless, it’s a disturbing trend.

— Michael Taylor 🇦🇺🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🖤💛❤️ (@AusIndiMedia) December 12, 2021

I and many others have written over the year about the many examples of rorting in detail, almost to the point of boredom. Here are just a few reminders: Angus Taylor and Josh Frydenberg’s environmental stuff-ups; the sports rorts of Bridget McKenzie; the railway car parks fiasco; the gifting of billions of JobKeeper money to companies that earned record profits; the gifting of billions of dollars to the Government’s fossil fuel friends in the guise of meeting emission targets.

Need I go on?

“You can’t trust Scott Morrison” should be a slogan repeated ad nauseam throughout the election campaign.

By 2353NM

Those of us who are old enough to remember the Sydney Olympic Games will probably also remember there was some talk at the time that some countries were less than enthusiastic to compete because of Australia’s treatment of its First Nations people. Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, was under considerable pressure to apologise to our First Nations peoples for the dispossession of their lands, and ill treatment since Australian Federation in 1901. A mockumentry series on the workings of the Sydney Games Organising Committee starring John Clarke (RIP) and Brian Dawe called ‘The Games’ broadcast an apology by John Howard here from about 21:50 into this episode.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd did apologise to our first nations people in 2008 and Howard was reported as saying it was a mistake. While Howard is correct to the extent that equality across all ethnic groups in Australia is still a long way off, the Rudd apology did clear the way for a new beginning of understanding between Australians. The dire consequences suggested at the time didn’t occur. Instead, those that deeply felt the dispossession of their land and destruction of their culture and way of life had their values vindicated.

Fast forward a few years and marriage equality was on the agenda. Despite overwhelming public support as expressed in opinion polls, the Coalition Government, this time with Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister, determined they would waste public money by running a ‘non-binding’ plebiscite across Australia to settle the issue which would ‘direct’ parliamentarians how to vote (yes, you read it correctly, the ‘non-binding’ part meant that parliamentarians could ignore the ‘direction’). On this occasion, the opinion polls were correct, there was overwhelming support for marriage equality so the legislation was put to Parliament. Because the Australian Electoral Commission was responsible for the plebiscite, not only did we know what the country thought, we also found out what the voters in each federal electorate thought of the proposal. The ‘carbon tax’ liar, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and current Prime Minister Scott Morrison both abstained from voting despite both of their electorates being strongly in support.

Marriage equality was legislated despite the attempts of the Coalition to derail the process. Again, the dire consequences suggested at the time didn’t occur. In fact the mental and physical health of a number of Australians probably improved immensely as they no longer had to hide part of their lives from those around them.

While demonstrating a complete disrespect for the majority opinion of the Australian public, at least the Coalition Governments of the past weren’t playing around with the future of not only the country but potentially the planet we live on. Scott Morrison rolled Malcolm Turnbull in essence because Turnbull was going to introduce an emissions trading scheme. If Morrison had believed in climate change at the time, he could have just as easily protected Turnbull from the leadership challenge. After going to the 2019 election claiming that climate change was crap, and mandates (that were never mandates anyway) for electric vehicles would ruin the weekend, Morrison scraped back into government with a majority of two.

It’s now history that we were all shamed by the actions of the Morrison Coalition Government at the recent COP26 meeting in Glasgow, when even fellow conservative headline grabbing Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Australia to commit to greater emissions cuts. Morrison’s ‘technology not taxes’ mantra is shorthand for walking away from a problem he helped create in the hope that someone, somewhere will fix it for him, while he hides behind the claims of ‘enormous’ economic costs of climate action.

It’s a similar behaviour to the ‘not holding a hose’ claim during the bushfires that battered a lot of Australia in early 2020 when he was holidaying in Hawaii. It’s a similar behaviour to the “it’s not a race” management of the pandemic response in aged care, vaccine procurement and quarantine – all of which are Federal Government responsibilities.

But Morrison and his fellow climate deniers such as Joyce, Canavan and Christensen are wrong. The economics doesn’t support their argument

The debate over the costs of inaction saw Treasurer Josh Frydenberg use a speech to the Australian Industry Group last month to warn households of a potential rise in mortgage rates unless Australia gets its act together on climate.

“Australia has a lot at stake,” he said.

“We cannot run the risk that markets falsely assume we are not transitioning in line with the rest of the world.”

Separate analysis by Deloitte Access Economists (DAE) estimates that the Australian economy could lose $3.4 trillion worth of GDP in today’s dollars by 2070 if climate change is unchecked.

One of Australia’s richest people, Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest told Morrison in October to commit to significant emissions reductions claiming

“clean” hydrogen, which is sometimes championed by the Morrison government, was a carbon-based product. Clean hydrogen, he said, was “a sound bite covering the fact it’s made from carbon-emitting fossil fuel – it has carbon all through its supply chain”.

Forrest likened “clean” coal and “clean” hydrogen to “cancer-free tobacco”.

“It all adds up to the same thing – misleading sound bites put out by industries wishing to continue a duplicitous social licence to operate,”

Even the industry body representing the purveyors of the emissions intensive utes and SUV’s that are apparently needed to ‘enjoy the weekend’ disagree with the Morrison Coalition Government’s approach

“Around the world, emissions targets are a clear sign of a governments [sic] intent to reduce emissions and sends a positive signal to automotive manufacturers to provide more electric-powered vehicles to those markets.

“This is exactly what is needed in Australia,” said [Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries] chief executive Tony Weber.

“… Governments should focus on setting targets, not trying to pick winners through specific technology,” Mr Weber added.

If you consider that to be a little harsh, you probably don’t want to read this contribution from Nine Newspaper’s Drive website

That the Government even acknowledged electric vehicles as an enabling technology for their Net Zero by 2050 plans, was an amazing backflip on their 2019 election mocking of Labor’s electrical vehicle ambitions, which they decried as the death of the Australian weekend.

When pressed this week on that 2019 circus, Mr Morrison said he never had a problem with electric vehicles and the Coalition was moving forward with “technology, not taxes” and “choices, not mandates”. The Prime Minister claims it is “the massive change in technology” since 2019 that has seen the Government readjust its sights.

And yeah. We are calling bullsh*t on that.

If the war against climate change could be won on rhetoric alone, Australia would surely be at the front of the pack.

Fortunately for the rest of us, some are actively making meaningful change to mitigate the imminent (based on the research of scientists) climate catastrophe. A regional bus company in Queensland is moving it’s 120 vehicle diesel bus fleet which, the owners claim

[annually] consumed more than a million litres of fuel and produced 3,100 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

to a fleet powered by green hydrogen which they will produce themselves using solar power and rainwater. The real irony of this is the bus fleet is located in Emerald – one of the the principal service communities for the ‘Coalfields’ in Central Queensland. The same ‘Coalfields’ that Senator Canavan claims to represent. Somebody’s making it up – and it’s unlikely to be the people investing capital to reduce emissions in their own business.

When was the last time a Coalition government actually acted to validate the country’s public opinion rather than those of vested interests?

What do you think?

I rarely use the term hysterical but I don’t know how else to describe Tim Wilson’s increasingly irrational attacks on Independents.

According to Tim, Zali Stegall’s proposal to establish an independent climate change commission to provide advice to the government on the appropriate policy mechanisms and interim targets needed to achieve net zero by 2050 amounts to “subversion and treason”.

Obviously terrified by the Climate 200 fund, Tim has penned an article in the SMH titled Independents more likely to hurt Labor and Greens than Liberals.

Wilson tries valiantly to use his most condescending, dismissive, sneering rhetoric, well-practised at the Rinehart-funded IPA, to suggest that the “Voices of” movement is astroturfing by confecting a community campaign, that they are bankrolled by outsiders, and that all the Independents “just happen to repeat precisely the same spin.”

Oh the irony.

Then it gets personal. Tim is being challenged for his seat of Goldstein by journalist Zoe Daniels.

“The strategy is very simple. Make voters think the so-called “independents” are Liberal-lite. That obviously doesn’t wash when the so-called “independent” candidate for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, admits she voted Liberal in 2016, only to vote for Labor and their retiree tax in 2019,” says the so-called assistant minister for energy and emissions reduction.

I’m surprised Tim would remind us of his campaign against the “retiree tax” where he was rebuked by the Speaker for conduct that may have caused damage to the House economics committee’s reputation and to the House committee system.

Wilson collaborated with a multibillion-dollar fund manager on a campaign against the opposition’s franking credit policy, failed to declare his investments in funds run by the firm to inquiry hearings, and used the taxpayer-funded probe to help spruik Liberal Party fundraisers.

Needless to say, Tim has since been promoted and is now Angus Taylor’s assistant minister for emissions reduction – as you would with the man who wrote a glowing review of Ian Plimer’s climate change scepticism book ‘How to Get Expelled From School: A Guide to Climate Change for Pupils, Parents and Punters’.

Tim warns of “the confusion and chaos of a hung Parliament” where MPs “hold the nation’s policy agenda hostage.” That’s a gutsy call when we just witnessed the most chaotic two weeks from a majority government with their own members crossing the floor and threatening to withhold their votes until they get their way.

He then dismisses the contribution of independents as “carping from the crossbench” rather than being “at the decision-making table”.

Tim seems to be having an each way bet as to whether the crossbench are holding the country hostage or irrelevant.

His incoherence continues.

Tim states that “narrow, or single, issues may have electoral appeal, but it is not a sustainable and sufficiently broad foundation for government.”

He goes on to tell us that “The media fundamentally got the last election wrong because they underestimated what issues move votes. They missed the nearly one million retirees who risked losing a third of their income overnight because of Labor’s retiree tax.”

Seriously? Excess franking credit refunds are more important than action on climate change?

Throughout his article – eight times in fact – Wilson uses the term so-called “independents”. He thrashes around trying everything he can to discredit and invalidate them.

And then he finishes by saying they “will do far more damage to Labor and the Greens than Liberals at the ballot box.”

So why are you so worried, Tim?

The free speech argument in Australia has always been skewed. Lacking the confidence, courage and maturity to have a bill of rights that might protect it, Australia’s body politic has stammered its way to the frailest of protections. The Australian High Court has done its small bit to read an implied right into one of the world’s dreariest constitutions, though the judges have been at pains to point out that it can never be personally exercised. The wordy “implied right to protect freedom of communication on political subjects” can only ever act as a restraint on excessive legislative or executive actions.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Australia is a signatory, enumerates a right to hold opinions without interference and the right to freedom of expression (Article 19). As uplifting as this is, the article also permits restrictions upon that right for reasons of protecting the rights or reputations of others, national security, public order, public health or morals. With such exceptions, authorities have vast latitude to clip, curtail and restrain. But even then, Australia expressly implemented the machinery that would enable anyone in the country to enforce it.

The great stifling brake on free expression in the country comes in the form of draconian defamation laws that can be used by the powerful, the petty and the privileged. The political classes, for one, regularly resort to that mechanism to silence critics, claiming that their tattered reputations would somehow be impugned by a comedy sketch, an angry social media post, or a hurtful remark.

One particularly nasty example of this has come from current Defence Minister Peter Dutton, described by the late Bob Ellis as a “simian sadist”, a pious detainer of refugees. Since then, we can also add war enthusiast, given his regular remarks about a willingness to send Australians over to die on that piece of land formerly known as Formosa.

Despite being in a government proclaiming the importance of free speech, Dutton has, like other politicians, availed himself of the tools that undermine it. That tool – namely, the defamation action – was used recently, with partial and regrettable success, against refugee advocate Shane Bazzi. It is worth reflecting that the action took place over a six-word tweet posted on February 25 this year. The tweet was flavour-fuelled with accusation: “Peter Dutton is a rape apologist.”

It had been typed – as things often are – in the heat of anger: some hours after Dutton had told a press conference that he had not been furnished with the “she said, he said” details of a rape allegation made by Britney Higgins, a former Coalition staffer who has spurred a movement to redress Parliament’s sexual violence problem.

That comment, while seemingly rash, had rich context in terms of opinion, taking issue with Dutton’s characterisation of refugee women detained on Nauru as being the sort who were “trying it on” to ensure entry to the Australian mainland. Those were Dutton’s own words, noted in a 2019 Guardian Australia article mentioned in the tweet.

This legal action was merely one measure of the Morrison government’s general enthusiasm for trying to regulate the Internet and, more specifically, the effusive, often mad hat chatter on social media. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, no less, has called it “a coward’s place” filled with anonymous abusers and vilifiers, and has been on a crusade to make publishers of defamatory comments, and the platforms hosting them, liable.

Dutton had also promised in March with menace that he would start to “pick out some” individuals who were “trending on Twitter or have the anonymity of different Twitter accounts” posting “all these statements and tweets that are frankly defamatory.”

His government is also drafting laws which will require social media companies to gather the details of all users and permit courts to force companies to divulge their identities to aid defamation cases. These regulations stink of advantaging the powerful and political whose tendency to be offended is easy to provoke. They also point to an obvious purpose: reining in criticism, however sound, of the government.

In instigating proceedings against Bazzi, Dutton claimed in the trial that he was “deeply offended” by the contents of the tweet. He claimed to be a paragon of veracity and accuracy severely misunderstood. “As a minister for immigration or home affairs … people make comments that are false or untrue, offensive, profane, but that’s part of the rough and tumble.”

Bazzi, however, had crossed the line; his comments were made by a person verified by Twitter. “It was somebody that held himself out as an authority or a journalist.” His remarks “went beyond” the acceptably rough and tumbling nature of politics. “And it went against who I am, my beliefs … I thought it was hurtful.”

In court, Dutton outlined a series of measures he had taken as a minister to deal with allegations of abuse. He created the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. He dispatched Australian Federal Police officers to Nauru to investigate sexual assault allegations. It never once occurred to him that these initiatives took place on a problem of his own government’s making. If you set up concentration camps on Pacific islands to allow asylum seekers and refugees to sunder, subsidizing client states to so, denigration and depravity follow.

Bazzi, through his lawyer, Richard Potter SC, claimed that the defences of honest opinion or fair comment applied. According to Potter, the honest opinion defence was “a fundamental protection in our society”, “a bulwark of freedom of speech”. In Australia, such assertions would be going too far, given how difficult they are to apply.

The law firm representing Bazzi, O’Brien Criminal and Civil Solicitors, also made the understandable claim in April that the whole proceedings should worry us all. “For a politician to use defamation law to stifle expression of a public opinion is a cause for real concern.”

In the public domain, individuals who had known a thing or two about the spiritual and physical torment of rape expressed their puzzlement over Dutton’s response. Higgins, who is seeking redress for her own suffering in this matter, found the minister’s legal response to Bazzi “baffling”. “I’ve been offended plenty.” Despite that, it still afforded “people … the right to engage in public debate and assert their opinion.” The whole case was a “shocking indictment on free speech.”

From the outset, the Federal Court seemed, as much of Australia’s legal system is, inclined to the complainant. The Anglo-Australian culture puts much stock in the artificial contrivance of reputation, which is often a social illusion that says little about the conduct of the defamed individual. Reputations are often false veneers fiercely protected.

And so it came as no surprise that Justice Richard White was critical of the legal firm defending Barazzi. The justice asked those representing the firm whether they were appearing as solicitors with obligations to be objective and independent, or as “supporters and barrackers” of their client. He preferred the parties to seek a settlement. “It does seem to me that this should be a matter of capable resolution. There are risks on both sides.”

In finding for Dutton in November, Justice White ruled that the tweet had been defamatory, and that Bazzi could not resort to the defence of honest opinion. With classic, skewering casuistry, the judge found that “Bazzi may have used the word ‘apologist’ without an understanding of the meaning he was, in fact conveying.” If this had been the case, “it would follow that he did not hold the opinion actually conveyed by the words.” Let it be known: if you do no not understand the meaning of certain words, you can have no opinions about them.

Despite his eagerness to seek damages for all grounds, Dutton was only successful on one of the four pleaded imputations. Claims for aggravated damages and an injunction targeting Bazzi’s comments, were rejected. The Defence Minister’s appetite for pursuing Bazzi for his full legal bill also troubled Justice White, who had repeatedly urged the parties to reach a settlement. Why had Dutton not sued in a lower court, he asked? The reason, claimed Dutton’s barrister Hamish Clift this month, was because his client was a prominent figure requiring a prominent stage to protect his prominent reputation. “It would not be appropriate for the court,” retorted White, “to exercise their discretion more favourably to Dutton simply because of the important public and national office of which he holds.”

In stating that all were equal before the law irrespective of their position, White made a sound point that those schooled in aspirational justice would appreciate but hardly believe. When it comes to Australia’s defamation laws, such a statement is a matter of form and formality, not substance and reality.

I was going to write an article about Barnaby’s Dam Scam – I may still later – but it struck me that all this exposing of dubious grants and dodgy contracts is missing the bigger point that our government doesn’t seem to even know what it is for.

They want “small government” but aren’t suggesting we need less of the political class. They just want less to do apparently. They want to “get out of the way”, leave it to us and the market and “technology”. Meanwhile, they spend their time canvassing each other and their donors for random wish lists to spend all the money on.

It seems to me, that isn’t going so well.

Years ago, I read an essay titled The Responsibilities of Government. I cannot find it on the internet anywhere except where I quoted it in an article I wrote in 2013 when the spectre of an Abbott government had become awful reality. I knew Tony wasn’t up to the job so thought I should remind him of the role a government should play.

Governments have not been fulfilling their responsibilities for many years but this lot have given up any pretence of being motivated by the best interests of the people – unless they are ‘their’ people.

This is an excerpt from that original essay that should remind us all what we have a right to expect from our government:

“The government of a democracy is accountable to the people. It must fulfil its end of the social contract. And, in a practical sense, government must be accountable because of the severe consequences that may result from its failure. As the outcomes of fighting unjust wars and inadequately responding to critical threats such as global warming illustrate, great power implies great responsibility.

The central purpose of government in a democracy is to be the role model for, and protector of, equality and freedom and our associated human rights. For the first, government leaders are social servants, since through completing their specific responsibilities they serve society and the people. But above and beyond this they must set an ethical standard, for the people to emulate. For the second, the legal system and associated regulation are the basic means to such protection, along with the institutions of the military, for defence against foreign threats, and the police.

Government economic responsibility is also linked to protection from the negative consequences of free markets. The government must defend us against unscrupulous merchants and employers, and the extreme class structure that results from their exploitation.

Governments argue that people need to be assisted with the economic competition that now dominates the world. But the real intent of this position is to justify helping corporate interests . . . siding against local workers, consumers and the environment.

Another general role, related to the need for efficiency, is the organization of large-scale projects. It is for this benefit that we accept government involvement in the construction of society’s infrastructure, including roads, posts and telecommunications, and water, sewage and energy utilities. Further, giving government charge over these utilities guarantees that they remain in public hands, and solely dedicated to the common good. If such services are privatized, the owners have a selfish motivation, which could negatively affect the quality of the services.

That such assets should have public ownership is expressed in the idea of the “commons.” They should be owned by and shared between the members of the current population, and preserved for future generations.

Indeed, while we of course still need a means of defence, including against both external and internal (criminal) aggressors, it seems clear that our greatest need for protection is from other institutions and from the abuses of government itself, particularly its collusion with these other institutions. (Many of the needs that we now have for government are actually to solve the problems that it creates.)”

We deserve better than the ScoMo Beetrooter muppet show.

British justice is advertised by its proponents as upright, historically different to the savages upon which it sought to civilise, and apparently fair. Such outrages as the unjust convictions of the Guilford Four and Maguire Seven, both having served time in prison for terrorist offences they did not commit, are treated as blemishes.

In recent memory, fewer blemishes can be more profound and disturbing to a legal system than the treatment of Australian citizen and WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. The British legal system has been so conspicuously outsourced to the wishes of the US Department of Justice and the military-industrial complex Assange did so much to expose. The decision of the UK High Court, handed down on December 10, will go down in the annals of law as a particularly disgraceful instance of this.

From the outset, extradition proceedings utilising a First World War US statute – the Espionage Act of 1917 – should have sent legal eagles in the UK swooping with alarm. 17 of the 18 charges Assange is accused of have been drawn from it. It criminalises the receipt, dissemination and publication of national security information. It attacks the very foundations of the Fourth Estate’s pursuit of accountability and subverts the protections of the First Amendment in the US constitution. It invalidates motive and purpose. And, were this to be successful – and here, the British justices seem willing to ensure that it is – the United States will be able to globally target any publisher of its dirty trove of classified material using an archaic, barbaric law.

It should also have occurred to the good members of the English legal profession that these lamentable proceedings have always been political. Extraditions are generally not awarded on such grounds. But this entire affair reeks of it. The US security establishment wants their man, desperately. With the coming to power of President Donald Trump, one counterintelligence officer, reflecting on Assange’s plight, made the pertinent observation that, “Nobody in that crew was going to be too broken up about the First Amendment issues.”

The original decision by District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser was hardly grand. It was chastising and vicious to journalism, cruel to those revealing information that might expose state abuses and an offense to the sensibility of democratic minded persons. The point was made that security and intelligence experts, however morally inclined or principled, were best suited to assessing the merits of releasing classified information. Journalists should never be involved in publishing such material. Besides, thought the Judge, Assange was not a true journalist. Such people did not purposely go out to disclose the identities of informants or propagandise their cause.

The only thing going for that otherwise woeful judgment was its acceptance that Assange would well perish in the US legal system. Noting such cases as Laurie Love, Baraitser accepted that the prosecution had failed to show that Assange would not be placed in a position where he could be prevented from taking his own life. Should he be sent across the Atlantic, he would face Special Administrative Measures and conclude his life in the wretched cul-de-sac of the ADX Florence supermax. Any extradition to such conditions of sheer baroque cruelty would be “oppressive” given “his mental condition.”

The prosecution had no qualms trying to appeal and broaden the arguments, citing several propositions. Contemptibly, these focused on Assange the pretender (suicidal autistics cannot give conference plenaries or host television programs), expert witnesses as deceivers (neuropsychiatrist Michael Kopelman, for initially “concealing” evidence from the court of Assange’s relationship with Stella Moris and their children), and the merits of the US prison system: matronly, saintly, and filled with soft beds and tender shrinks. Why, scolded the prosecutor James Lewis QC in October, had the good judge not asked the US Department of Justice for reassurances? Assange would not face the brutal end of special administrative measures. He would not be sent to decline and moulder in ADX Florence. He could also serve his sentence in Australia, provided, of course, the Department of Justice approved.

In reversing the decision to discharge Assange, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Ian Burnett, and Lord Justice Timothy Holroyde were persuaded by two of the five grounds submitted by the prosecutors. Sounding astonishingly naïve (or possibly disingenuous) at points, the justices accepted the prosecution’s argument that undertakings or assurances could be made at a later stage, even during an appeal. Delays by a requesting state to make such assurances might be tactical and stem from bad faith, but not entertaining such assurances, even if made later, might also result in “a windfall to an alleged or convicted criminal, which would defeat the public interest in extradition.”

Judge Baraitser should have also been mindful of seeking the assurances in the first place, given how vital the issue of Assange’s suicide risk and future treatment in US prisons was in making her decision against extradition.

It followed that the justices did “not accept that the USA refrained for tactical reasons from offering assurances at an earlier stage, or acted in bad faith in choosing only to offer them at the appeal stage.” Diplomatic Note no. 74 contained “solemn undertakings, offered by one government to another, which will bind all officials and prosecutors who will deal with the relevant aspects of Mr Assange’s case now and in the future.”

This meant that Assange would not be subjected to SAMs, or sent to ADX Florence, and that he would receive appropriate medical treatment to mitigate the risk of suicide. (The justices erred in not understanding that the assurance to not detain Assange ADX “pre-trial” was irrelevant as ADX is a post-conviction establishment.) He could also serve his post-trial and post-appeal sentence in Australia, though that would be at the mercy of DOJ approval. All undertakings were naturally provisional on the conduct of the accused.

As the original judgement was premised upon Assange being subjected to the “harshest SAMs regime,” and given the significance of the evidence submitted by Kopelman and Dr Quinton Deeley on Assange’s suicide risk in “being held under such harsh conditions of isolation,” the justices were “unable to accept the submission that the judge’s conclusion would have been the same if she had not found a real risk of detention in those conditions.”

Such narrow reasoning served to ignore the ample evidence that such diplomatic assurances are unreliable, mutable and without legal standing. In terms of solitary confinement, the US legal system is filled with euphemistic designations that all amount to aspects of the same thing. If it is not SAMs, it is certainly something amounting to it, such as Administrative Segregation.

Previous diplomatic assurances given by US authorities have also been found wanting. The fate of Spanish drug trafficker David Mendoza Herrarte stands out. In that case, a Spanish court was given an assurance that Mendoza, if extradited to the US to face trial, could serve any subsequent prison sentence in Spain. When the application to the US Department of Justice was made to make good that undertaking, the transfer application was refused. The pledge only applied, it was claimed, to allow Mendoza to apply for a transfer; it never meant that the DOJ had to agree to it. A diplomatic wrangle between Madrid and Washington ensued for six years before the decision was altered.

And just to make such undertakings all the more implausible, the “solemn assurances” were coming from, as Craig Murray pointedly remarked, “a state whose war crimes and murder of civilians were exposed by Julian Assange.”

“…these are ‘solemn assurances’ from the state whose war crimes and murder of civilians were exposed by Julian Assange…” @CraigMurrayOrg speaking in London (via BBC news). #AssangeVerdict @CredicoRandy pic.twitter.com/8TUJuOYLOI

— ScotNews (@indyscotnews) December 10, 2021

The justices also failed to consider the murderous elephant in the room, one that had been submitted by the defence at both the extradition hearing and the appeal: that US government officials had contemplated abducting and assassinating the very individual whose extradition they were seeking. This was a view that held sway with former US Secretary of State and CIA chief Mike Pompeo.

In the United States, talking heads expressed their satisfaction about the glories of the US justice and prison system. Former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill told MSNBC that, “This was really a guy who just violated the law.” Concerns by Assange’s defence team that his “safety in [US] prison” would be compromised showed that “they really don’t have perspective on this.”

It is fittingly monstrous that this decision should be handed down the same day the Nobel Peace Prize was being awarded to two journalists, Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov. Or that it should happen on Human Rights Day, which saw US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s boast that “we will continue to promote accountability for human rights violators.” Except one’s own.

On this #HumanRightsDay, we are designating 12 officials for their involvement in gross violations of human rights. As part of our commitment to put human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy, we will continue to promote accountability for human rights violators.

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) December 10, 2021

Inevitably, these cruel, gradually lethal proceedings move to the next stage: an appeal to the Supreme Court. As the paperwork is gathered, Assange will muse, grimly, that the entire period of his discharge never saw him leave Belmarsh Prison.