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Tag Archives: Obama

Australia’s gun laws are the envy of Obama

I like this ‘Your Say’ section. I can have a say, basically, and keep it simple.

So keep this simple I will.

With some ultra Right-wing politicians calling for the relaxation of the guns laws which were introduced by John Howard after the Port Arthur massacre, it’s probably a good time to hear from the president of a country whose gun laws are the same as those few politicians – and some of our citizens, I assume – are calling for.

Australia’s strict gun laws are considered a role model for Obama, who presides over a country that arguably has more gun deaths than any other, and who has had the unenviable duty to deliver statements on gun violence 15 times. When’s the last time an Australian prime minister has had to do that? Howard, 1996.

Anyway, this little snippet from an article in The New York Times, ‘How a Conservative-Led Australia Ended Mass Killings‘ is worth throwing out there:

In the continuing debate over how to stop mass killings in the United States, Australia has become a familiar touchstone.

President Obama has cited the country’s gun laws as a model for the United States, calling Australia a nation “like ours.” On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has said the Australian approach is “worth considering.” The National Rifle Association has dismissed the policies, contending that they “robbed Australians of their right to self-defense and empowered criminals” without reducing violent crime.

The oft-cited statistic in Australia is a simple one: There have been no mass killings – defined by experts there as a gunman killing five or more people besides himself – since the nation significantly tightened its gun control laws almost 20 years ago.

This was not the first occasion on which Obama praised our gun laws:

After the shooting at Umpqua Community College, a visibly angry President Obama pointedly noted the contrasting responses in the United States and its allies to gun violence.

“Other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings,” he said on Thursday. “Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.”

And we have idiot politicians here who want our gun laws relaxed.

I shake my head in disbelief.

They need to speak to Obama.

 

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New EPA rules are a breath of fresh air

By Dr Anthony Horton

As part of the Obama Administration’s push to implement stricter environmental regulations, the US Government has announced a nationwide ground level ozone limit of 70 ppb. As the ground level ozone concentrations across the US are so variable, the 70 ppb limit will be introduced as early as 2020 in some regions and by 2037 in others.

The 70 ppb limit was determined following an EPA review which included more than 1,000 published studies since the last review in 2008. The ultimate aim of the revised limit is to significantly improve public health protection which will result in fewer premature deaths and lower reported absence from school and work. The EPA estimates that the benefit could be in the order of $3-6 billion per year in a decade, outweighing the compliance cost of $1.4 billion.

Ground level ozone is formed as a result of a series of chemical reactions involving a variety of sources including vehicle traffic and industrial areas. It is known to affect the respiratory system and to result in individuals having difficulty breathing and suffering airway inflammation. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy stated that the limit provided protection for people that are susceptible to the effects of air pollution and that it was the EPA’s job to set science based standards that facilitate that protection.

It could be said that ozone is one pollutant struggling to gain and maintain attention in the face of the extensive discussion of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Ozone is symptomatic of cities with rapidly growing populations, a reliance on cars as the primary weekday mode of transport and Governments that lack the political will to tackle traffic congestion and to require industry to move towards best practice emissions control technology and ensuring that environmental monitoring is conducted appropriately as per operating licence conditions.

The EPA is to be applauded for revising the ozone limit from an environmental as well as health perspective, as ozone is a significant pollutant in city areas around the world. However, as significant as ozone is, it is important to recognise that there is more to the ozone phenomena than identifying sources and reducing emissions from those sources using a range of mechanisms or regulatory instruments.

An appreciation of the local weather conditions (eg. seasonal temperatures and predominant/prevailing wind directions) is obviously important, as the prevailing wind directions throughout the year will influence in what direction and how far those emissions travel and where they will ultimately impact the community.

In May this year Infrastructure Australia highlighted the need for significant investment to avoid potentially crippling congestion in Australian cities, with Sydney home to seven of the worst road corridors in the country. Their report put the price of congestion as $13.74 billion in 2011 and estimated that the price by 2031 could be as much as $53 billion.

The report discussed a number of roads that require urgent attention in order to underpin Australia’s productivity and employment growth going forward, and a number of initiatives including the use of tolls and other pricing.

I can’t help but wonder the extent to which ozone concentrations could increase between now and 2031 in Australian cities under the scenario painted in the Infrastructure Australia report. By extension I wonder what the cost of these higher ozone concentrations in terms of health and lost productivity would be, and why this wasn’t looked into either as part of this report. Based on the ever increasing knowledge with regards to the health impacts of air pollution and the increasing level of interest from the general public as evidenced by scanning social media, I believe strongly that it should be discussed in Australia.

Granted we probably have more than our fair share of blue skies in Australia compared to some other countries, however that shouldn’t be a reason not to raise the issue of ozone and other air pollutants. Many pollutants are formed as a result of complex reactions in the atmosphere and may not be detectable by the naked eye, however that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be investigated or aren’t as potentially (or even more) harmful than the pollutants we may be able to see.

The recent Volkswagen revelations that spread rapidly around the world may be the catalyst that promotes a discussion of air pollution. From my perspective it is difficult to see how an issue that is receiving as much attention as it is would not prompt people to think about where those emissions end up-ultimately in the air around and above them, and, given that we breathe that air, what the cost of breathing that air may be. I for one would most definitely welcome that discussion.

This article was originally published on The Climate Change Guy.

rWdMeee6_peAbout the author: Anthony Horton holds a PhD in Environmental Science, a Bachelor of Environmental Science with Honours and a Diploma of Carbon Management. He has a track record of delivering customised solutions in Academia, Government, the Mining Industry and Consulting based on the latest wisdom and his scientific background and experience in Climate/Atmospheric Science and Air Quality. Anthony’s work has been published in internationally recognised scientific journals and presented at international and national conferences, and he is currently on the Editorial Board of the Journal Nature Environment and Pollution Technology. Anthony also blogs on his own site, The Climate Change Guy.

 

More Than a Market Correction: China in Transition

Denis Bright invites responses about the long-term significance of the structural changes in China’s economy and its global financial outreach. Future implementation of such changes can be steered by Chinese leaders themselves or imposed from outside by joining the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) on terms that are not completely acceptable to China. The latter option would require a more corporate-led style of economic development. Evidence of the significance of the forthcoming structural changes in the Chinese economy is far from complete. The author is open to feedback on the issues raised in this article.

Chinese financial market jitters (FT Online 28 August 2015)

Chinese financial market jitters (FT Online 28 August 2015)

As global financial markets stabilise after recent volatility, news services have rushed to offer explanations of the recent downturns in Chinese financial markets.

There is little doubt about the extent of China’s market correction. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and the Chinese government were ready to use up a tiny portion of accrued foreign currency reserves to prevent a free-fall in the market.

News networks around the world tried to explain the significance of China’s market correction.

Germany’s DW News on 29 July 2015 sought clarification from Dr Sandra Heep of the Mercator Institute for Chinese Studies (MERICS) in Berlin on the significance of China’s market corrections for both China and the wider global economy.

The extent of the potential market volatility put Dr Sandra Heep on the spot as the eye of a financial storm was approaching. With her expertise in longer-term economic analysis, Dr Sandra Heep was careful not to join in the guessing game to predict tomorrow’s financial markets.

 

Seeking longer term perspectives for China

Months before in 2014, Dr Sandra Heep in her prior research position at the Institute of Chinese Studies at Freiburg University was able to be more forthright about the structural changes needed to complete China’s successful transition from its current status as a developmental economy.

Dr Sandra Heep’s broad interpretations of China in transition as the world’s second largest economy are readily endorsed by the news releases from China’s leaders themselves and economic data from independent sources.

More high tech future and global financial outreach for China? (Financial Times Online (London) 25 August)

More high tech future and global financial outreach for China? (Financial Times Online (London) 25 August)

Although China is now the world’s second largest economy, it may be reaching the limits of its sustainability as a global workshop for the supply of a full array of goods and services.

China’s current status comes with great social and environmental costs as noted by Dr Sandra Heep in her interpretation of China’s capacity as a developmental state with a considerable degree of state planning in its economy.

As a developmental state, China is still identified with the suppression of the purchasing power of lower paid workers, arrested improvements in environmental quality and the sheer cost of living challenges in congested cities.

Long Island, New York: Property haven for Chinese elites? (FT Online 31 August 2015)

Long Island, New York: Property haven for Chinese elites? (FT Online 31 August 2015)

Ironically, many other developing countries within the TPP network share similar problems which are excused by advocates of the market model as a necessary transitional phase.

Mexico is a prime example despite its long-standing free trade agreement with Canada and the US under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) since 1994.

China also lacks a fully globalized banking system on the scale of financial operations in the US and some Western European countries.

A section of Chinese economic elites are able to distance themselves from the real life problems of a transitional economy. The situation was similar in the earlier generations of industrialization in Britain, Germany and the US.

Prestige property investments in US or Australia are staked out by these economic elites as appropriate hedge assets.

The challenges of economic diversification and global financial outreach

The leaders of the real world China are probably enthusiastic about steering the economy in new directions. However, questions must remain about the appropriateness of the TPP’s market model.

China’s vast foreign currency reserves can be used to foster more dynamic forms of social market capitalism with an outreach into finance, infrastructure investment, environmental sustainability and development assistance.

Pragmatic neighbours like Russia as well as the countries of Central Asia and the Middle East are usually prepared to take advantage of China’s expanded international outreach.

Official Chinese investment could also bankroll longer-term projects in both the Australian private sector and future government sponsored sovereign wealth infrastructure funds along the lines of Temasek Holdings in Singapore.

To Australia’s credit, our support for China’s diversification is evident in the presence of Treasurer Joe Hockey at the inauguration of the expanded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing on 29 June 2015.

The extent of Australia’s role in the bank will be determined largely by the commitment of the next incoming government. AIIB will not be fully operational until 2016.

Significant for China is the presence of countries from Central Asia and the Middle East along the Silk Road Land Bridge to Europe.

Europe itself is represented by all the key economies, including the UK.

Israel has also joined the AIIB. This country has benefited from the investment of Chinese technology in urban transport.

The positive implications for peace and stability in the Middle East from this investment by Chinese infrastructure firms are immense.

There is no long-term reason for the exclusion of strife-ridden countries like Iraq and Syria from this investment outreach after UN-sanctioned peace initiatives.

Proposed Silk Road infrastructure for Central Asia (World Bulletin 2014)

Proposed Silk Road infrastructure for Central Asia (World Bulletin 2014)

Such positive commercial changes might be thwarted if China was forced to drift back to a pure market oriented financial system. Such infrastructure investment is always a long-term commitment.

This cannot be assured in a financial system which is preoccupied with short-term futures with a trickle-down capacity to benefit legitimate investment.

In this sense, the current negotiations to finalise the TPP present a dilemma for China.

While undoubtedly well informed of the TPP negotiations, China is not one of the core partners of an avowedly market oriented investment and trading network.

The challenges posed by the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) for China

It is for the China’s current leadership to decide just how to respond to the current TPP drafts which will greatly empower business corporations by internationalizing competition laws.

TPP drafts contain embedded assumptions about the superiority of the market model of development and of the carrots available from the trickle-down benefits of new corporate investment in each of the participating countries.

The hegemony of rogue elements in global financialization processes is also a temptation for China to take a similar path to economic diversification along the pure market model.

Professor Gerard Epstein of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst explains the mechanisms of these financialization processes which have become the ground rules for successful international finance.

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the late Professor Peter Gowan of the International Relations School at London Metropolitan University gave a similar but more detailed synopsis of the challenge of rogue capital flows in Crisis in the Heartland. This article is readily available online. (http://newleftreview.org/II/55/peter-gowan-crisis-in-the-heartland).

Changing the protocols for China’s global outreach

The US sponsored Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and a proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and the EU impose a fundamentally different style of economic development and global outreach for China.

China’s key financial institutions must operate within the prevailing rules for international finance. The more interventionist approaches of China’s Asian Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS Group of Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa and China itself are still minor players on a global scale.

China’s hesitancy to join the TPP negotiations has its parallels across the Pacific Rim where the internationalization of competition laws and intellectual property rights has its own detractor in most countries.

Without the release of the TPP negotiation drafts by Wikileaks in 2013, most political leaders would still remain silent about the implications of the voluminous chapters on intellectual property rights and investment protocols.

Wikileaks Press Release (https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip2/)

Wikileaks Press Release (https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip2/)

In the words of WikiLeak’s Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange, “If instituted, the TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”

While China’s leaders might hesitate about the benefits and costs of future participation in the TPP, the proposed internationalization of competition laws in favour of business corporations across the Asia Pacific Rim has also been a divisive issue within the Obama Administration which depends on the support of organized Labor in key swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.

In order to gain approval for current drafts of the TPP Treaty, President Obama needs to rely on the support of conservative Republicans for endorsement of the treaty in the senate.

Writing in The National Interest on 6 July 2015, Sean Mirski with a background at the Harvard Law School made the following observations about the impact of the TPP.

At first glance, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) looks much like any other trade deal. By increasing trade and investment among its partners, the TPP sets out to stimulate a higher rate of economic growth in the United States and among many of its Pacific friends. As with similar treaties, the TPP has been the subject of controversy in the U.S. Congress, which very nearly killed a key piece of legislation necessary to America’s ratification of the agreement. But while American lawmakers attacked and defended the treaty largely in narrow economic terms, they appeared to disregard its main strategic promise.

Besides creating jobs, the TPP may also alter the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific. The treaty will increase the rate of economic growth in the United States and in an array of friendly nations while simultaneously diverting trade flows away from Washington’s greatest competitor, China. More important than any of these absolute changes in economic output, though, is the relative change in national power, itself the product of economic might. Whereas trade is often discussed in absolute terms, relative gains are more important in the often zero-sum world of international politics. If the TPP can change the trajectory of American power relative to China’s, it may be the single most important factor in whether the United States retains its “indispensable” role in the 21st Century.

The National Interest 6 July 2015 available at (http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-trans-pacific-partnership-china-america-the-balance-13264)

These comments from an articulate writer with close links to the US intelligence community provide justification for further discussion about the geopolitical role of the TPP as a vehicle for the return of old balance of power strategies for the containment of China.

With China outside the current TPP draft deals, its business and investment agencies must ultimately compete on the terms of investment protocols decided by the TPP across the entire Pacific Basin.

Taiwan’s potential membership of the TPP provides an additional twist to the current economic diplomacy and has security implications for the stability of the Pacific Rim.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan strongly endorses its unilateral participation in the TPP without reference to China:

The TPP aims to establish a comprehensive, next-generation regional agreement that liberalizes trade and investment and addresses new and traditional trade issues and 21st century challenges. It currently has 12 members, including the US, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Mexico, Chile and Peru. Most of the TPP members are Taiwan’s major trading partners, accounting for over 30 percent of our foreign trade. Thus, the significance of joining the TPP cannot be overemphasized. President Ma Ying-jeou has announced our resolution to join the TPP and we have won support from the US and Japan, with both countries publicly welcoming Taiwan’s interest in joining the TPP. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its representative offices overseas have taken bilateral relations as the cornerstone and are making every effort to garner the support of other members pursuant to our accession to the group (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of China (Taiwan) 2014)

Data from the Center for East Asia Policy Studies shows the vast economic capacity within a TPP that included Taiwan. South Korea is likely to be added to the matrix.

Center for East Asia Policy Studies 2014

Center for East Asia Policy Studies 2014

Thwarting the economic diversification of China on its own terms through the formula proposed by the TPP investment in the Pacific Rim would be a triumph of short-term politics over international peace and stability if Chinese leaders continued to be shut out of the negotiation processes.

Added to the challenges of future economic diplomacy are the separate but near identical territorial claims by both China and Taiwan over sections of the East China Sea and the South China Sea.

Under current co-operative arrangements between the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) Government in Taiwan and China, the Taiwanese proposal to resolve territorial disputes and fishing rights might gain some traction within China itself.

Such claims would be taken more seriously if both Taiwan and China presented a joint submission as part of a One China Additional Systems Approach as with the resolution of Hong Kong’s closer association with China almost 20 years ago.

The window of opportunity facing the TPP Negotiators and Australia

The window of opportunity is closing on this pragmatic arrangement with Taiwan. Local opinion polls are highly favourable to the opposition right-wing Democratic Party in Taiwan as the presidential elections approach on 16 January 2016.

President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan inspecting US made military hardware

President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan inspecting US made military hardware

President Obama will go down in history as one of the greatest of negotiators if a Win Win Win can be developed during President Xi Jinping’s visit to the US in September 2015. This trifecta would have to be a deal which is totally acceptable to China, Taiwan and the US.

Meanwhile it is in Australia’s interests as a responsible middle power to maintain an independent voice in the resolution of the problems posed by the TPP and the sensitivities of China towards the resurgence of Taiwan as a nation state.

Prime Minister Abbott’s support for the prevailing texts of the TPP is hardly Whitlamesque.

Opposition to the current draft of the TPP comes from both sides of the political spectrum across the Pacific Rim.

1973 Postcard from Beijing: A precedent for a constructive role for Australia

1973 Postcard from Beijing: A precedent for a constructive role for Australia

Rural lobbies in New Zealand and Japan are delaying the final draft from the political right.

Organized Labor in the US fears job losses in key swing states which must be won by the Democratic Party to keep the Republicans out of office in 2016. In these states, Democratic representatives and senators are cautious about opening up the domestic economy to more overseas competition.

The exclusion of China from the TPP negotiations also hinders its financial outreach across the Pacific Rim as a major economic superpower.

This locks China into its current workshop of the world status. Forcing compliance from China with TPP protocols can contain this economy’s sustainable growth rate and build-in a lower potential threshold for future Australian exports, service agreements and financial ties with a weaker than necessary China.

In this context, Australia can afford to be more proactive in seeking more Whitlamesque amendments that bring China into the TPP on fair terms and conditions. Given the pockets of discontent with the current TPP negotiators, Australia can win goodwill in most countries across the Pacific Rim by becoming a more independent player in both economic diplomacy and the containment of security concerns.

denis brightDenis Bright (pictured) is a registered teacher and a member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). He has recent postgraduate qualifications in journalism, public policy and international relations. His specialist interest is the impact of contemporary globalization on the delivery of progressive public policies.

 

 

Abbott, the Great Battologist

Reading Barry Cassidy’s article in ‘The Drum’ this week, I learnt a new word: Battologist, which means ‘wearisome repetition of words in speaking or writing’. Perhaps there are many of you out there who knew of this word but, unlike Cassidy, never thought to apply it to our prime minister, Tony Abbott. Or perhaps you did, but never told me.

I think it fits perfectly, particularly the bit about being wearisome. How often, in sound bites graciously granted to us by the commercial television networks, do we groan as we descend into a mediocre slump listening to another wearisome, repetitious monologue from this man?

I have often thought, while suffering through this tedious monotony, that he does it as a delay tactic, forcing us to endure this absence of interest, this mind-numbing routine, while he presses home the point.

But of late, I have come to the view that he does it to hide the fact that he really has nothing else to say; that he’s waiting for another thought bubble.

It’s something many politicians do when speaking in Parliament. I thought they did it to reward themselves for saying something they thought was so eloquent it deserved a repeat performance, or to hear themselves above all the shouting and abuse that flies from one side of the chamber to the other.

But no, Barry Cassidy has led me to see it differently. In all previous governments of my experience, there was a narrative, a clearly defined storyline that one could identify, if not agree with, that set a government apart from the Opposition. This is what gave them their mental script. But Abbott and his government have none.

They simply make it up as they go. Policy on the run, disaster management (if you could call it that) on the run, they govern for the day, the hour, even the minute, but never for the future. The future, it seems, will take care of itself.

battologyThe Abbott government really is a policy vacuum. I can just see its leading lights at the next election telling us that they have stopped the boats, got rid of the carbon tax and the mining tax and little else. It will be the mother of all negative campaigns. ‘If you don’t vote for us, you’ll get Labor’, ‘Labor will drive us into bankruptcy’, blah, blah, blah.

I doubt there will be one visionary item on their agenda. They simply don’t think that far ahead. As Cassidy so rightly points out, they have lost any initiative on the economy, climate change, employment, debt and deficit, same sex marriage and asylum seekers. The government has no teeth to bite or chew over these issues anymore.

Abbott the battologist, has reinforced this view time and time again, repeating himself constantly, but saying nothing inspiring, nothing new. Likewise his body-english betrays a cave-man element; the apeman-type rolling of the shoulders, left to right as he marches down the parliamentary corridor and the meaningless arm movements when he stands at the podium.

How I long for an orator, a statesmanlike leader, an Obama, to rise like the Phoenix from the ashes of our present mediocrity. In the absence of that, who is there that will give us an eye into the future, a vision, something to show we are moving ahead? Silly question, I know.

My alternative offering is to reverse the process. Let the people lead the politicians. Let us look again at those areas where neither party has the initiative, where neither party has the advantage. I propose we put a short questionnaire to them. They may not know the answers but it could go a long way toward starting a national conversation. We should make it simple with a yes, no, or ‘one word’ answer:

You choose your favourite subject and submit 5 questions you would like answered. The other topics are: climate change, employment, asylum seekers and national security, or you could nominate a pet topic of your own.

questMy questions below, are on the economy.

Do you believe that running a national economy is the same as running a household economy, only larger?

If the government spends more than it taxes, does that mean it has to borrow the difference?

Do you believe that when a government spends less than it taxes, that the difference is money saved for the future?

Do you believe that a sovereign government can ever run out of money?

What comes first, taxes or spending?

Perhaps asking the right questions will inject some inspiration, some life back into this wearisome, repetitious, near-carcass like animal we call government. I suspect, however, it will only show up the hollow nature of their battology.

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It’s Time for Abbott to Step Down

Surely when Alan Jones, one of Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s most fervent supporters, gives him a grilling on radio, it is time to say enough is enough. For whatever reason the talkback radio host found it necessary to take Abbott to task on the issue of the free trade agreement with China, it was enough to ask: if his friends are unhappy, isn’t it time someone tapped him on the shoulder?

On Insiders Sunday November 15th, Malcolm Farr summed up his thoughts: “Tony Abbott is a man who should not be left alone with his own mouth.” The comment was made in reference to Abbott’s opening remarks to the leaders of the G20 on the weekend about the $7 GP co-payment, the carbon tax and stopping the boats.

It was that, and Abbott’s attempts to exclude climate change from the G20 agenda that made him look foolish. Laura Tingle said it well enough in the Australian Financial Review. “Unfortunately for our Prime Minister, however, Barack Obama has delivered a rather humiliating exercise in power politics over the weekend: showing how leadership and power lies in setting and controlling an agenda.”

blew it

Obama expressing disbelief?

If Abbott ever had a golden moment to look every inch the statesman, it was the G20. He blew it in breathtaking fashion. Surely there must be a point where the collective mental health of the nation takes precedence over the choice of a national leader. How much more are we expected to endure?

If ever a supportive media had the chance to make him look worldly, it was at the G20, but even they could not do it. We saw him, warts and all, make an idiot of all those who voted for him and have the rest of us reaching for the Prozac. Then, on Monday night at a dinner to host the Chinese president, he confused China with Tasmania.

The thought of having to endure another two years watching this man stumble from one gaffe to another while continuing to lead our country, is asking too much. We deserve better. Whatever misgivings people may have had about Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard, surely those misgivings must pale into insignificance when placed alongside the recurring examples of ineptitude displayed by this man.

For a moment, let us look beyond the sheer dishonesty that is the trail of broken promises. As unfair as they are, as economically unsound and unlikely to work as they are, his government would not be the first to play that card. Let us look beyond the appalling treatment of asylum seekers, a policy decision based solely on the belief that it gave his party an electoral advantage.

Let us look beyond his extraordinary approach to the issue of climate change. Let us put some of his utterly stupid remarks about coal to one side for the time being. Let us look beyond the possibility that he is, and has been, ineligible to stand for parliament in the first place, because of Section 44 of the Constitution which prohibits those holding dual citizenship from being candidates.

These are all issues we can debate but which are overshadowed by another. The question all LNP members of parliament should be asking is: does this man demonstrate the qualities and mental capacity necessary to lead the nation, or is he simply a figurehead, a puppet attached to, and dangled by, other more powerful interests who take advantage of his inability to articulate a coherent narrative?

bizarreWhen one addresses that question and places all his bizarre comments, his misguided sense of equality, his inability to express an original thought, surely they must scratch their heads and wonder: is he the best they have to offer?

If they cannot nominate an alternative, then they too must all be seen as incompetent and tarred with the same brush.

That then leaves the only alternative: to demand of the Governor General that he be replaced.

It’s not as if he would be the first. As unlikely as that is to happen, however, it is as clear as it is appropriate. If the man himself was willing to put the country ahead of his own personal ambitions, he would step down.

The latest Newspoll would suggest the majority of voters agree.

Stop pandering to minority groups!

Far too many minority groups are being given special privileges! I suspect it may be because of these special allowances that we now have one of those “special” minorities in the White House, and I know, the politically correct would prefer I didn’t mention that Obama is one. When a group is in the minority, they should accept it and just try to fit in. Basically, we have an alarming tendency to allow people to wallow in their difference, as the US President frequently does. He even jokes about his left-handedness!

We all know that right-handedness is the correct way, and all this pandering to the politically correct just wouldn’t have been tolerated in the fifties. We are all one society, so I think all people should be treated the same and not divided into groups. However, now the left-handed are refusing to integrate, and becoming exclusive. There are even shops dedicated to being left-handed. For example, I found this on the internet:

Lefty’s online left hand store has the world’s leading and most extensive selection of Left-Handed Products designed specifically for left-handers. Since 2008, our left-handed buyers have researched and commissioned custom left-handed merchandise ranging from left-handed scissors, left-handed pens, and left-handed notebooks, to left-handed office and school supplies, left-handed childrens’ writing guides and shoe tying instruction cards, to left-handed kitchen tools and equipment. We have collected the most fun left-handed sayings, which we print on T-shirts, left-handed mugs, left-handed portfolios, and lots of other items.”

Some may call it tolerance, but I see it as an attempt to destroy our right-handed way of life. Left-handed people should just learn to be right-handed. It’s a right-handed world after all.

 

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