Welcome to our annual Top 5. Being an election year we expected the Top 5 would have been filled with election talk, but it was not the case (as you will see below). It is safe to say that with Labor expected to win the May election in a canter, we were not as vociferous as normal at election time. Indeed, it wasn’t until December when Morrison’s profound incompetence as a leader was on full display that we really threw ourselves into full-time politics.
This year the Top 5 went down to the wire, with three articles published in late December making the Top 5. Even as late as the 30th of December there were positional changes.
Anyway, here are The AIMN’s five most popular posts in 2019:
(The Top 5 is based on the number of views only. It does not take into account the number of comments or the post’s popularity with other online media sites such as Facebook or Twitter).
Number One: The LNP Welfare Card: the true facts exposed. Corruption disguised as philanthropy!, by Michael Griffin.
This one surprised us. Why? It was also Number One for 2017!
Mid-year we noticed it being shared by widely Twitter – and it grew legs from there.
Excerpt:
The Liberal National Party (‘LNP’) Welfare Card programme resembles a LNP rort for the benefit of the Liberal and National Parties and their members, donors and supporters. Indue Pty Ltd, the corporation awarded the contract to manage the Welfare Card programme and to operate its underlying systems, is a corporation owned by Liberal and National Party members and that donates to various Liberal and National Party branches around Australia. The former chairman of Indue is none other than former LNP MP Larry Anthony who is the son of former Liberal Country Party Deputy Prime Minister Doug Anthony. Anthony now holds his shares in Indue in his corporate family trust managed by Illalangi Pty Ltd. Other companies now owned by Larry Anthony, or by the corporate trustee of his family trust, Illalangi Pty Ltd, work under ‘sub’ contracts for Indue itself and make their profits from dealings with Indue in the course of Indue performing its contracts with the LNP Government. These corporations are SAS Consulting Group Pty Ltd – a political lobbying group that counts Indue as a client – and Unidap Solutions Pty Ltd – a digital IT services corporation that provides Indue, as well as the current LNP Government directly, with various IT services. Larry Anthony is also current president of the National Party of Australia, that is, the ‘N’ in ‘LNP’.
Number Two: Bridget McKenzie revealed the Adani jobs lie and no-one noticed, by Kaye Lee.
This was another article that went crazy on Twitter, with even Zali Steggall, the Federal Member for Warringah retweeting it.
Excerpt:
Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie made an amazing admission in an interview on Sky but nobody (except The Australia Institute) seemed to notice.
“[Adani will] be employing 1500 through the construction phase and around about 100 ongoing.”
Just to emphasise, that’s 100 ongoing jobs – not 10,000, not 1500 – ONE HUNDRED.
Considering Ms McKenzie is an avid Adani fan girl, the “around about” makes even the 100 jobs dubious. After all, Adani told investors the whole project would be automated from mine to port (meaning driverless trucks and trains to reduce on labour costs i.e. jobs).
Compare that to Queensland’s renewable energy projects committed since 2015: 5687 construction jobs & 273 ongoing. Projects proposed: 33975 construction jobs & 1,562 ongoing.
There are around 40,000 jobs in tourism in reef regions on the North Queensland coast — twice as many as in coal mining, according to ABS data. Other estimates put the number higher at 59,000.
Number Three: Scott Morrison should resign, by RosemaryJ36
With the outbreak of the terrifying bushfires across four states our ineffectual Prime Minister did little to endear himself to most Australians. Rosemary summed up our thoughts with her article.
Excerpt:
When our accidental-Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, took office, he swore an oath to ‘be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Her heirs and successors according to law.’
No mention of his duties to his wife and daughters. They are a private matter and, as long as he remains Prime Minister, his duties lie to the high office to which he has (sadly) been elected, and for which it appears he totally lacks competence!
Prime Minister – this is not all about you.
You really don’t have a clue, do you?
It is not about your promises to your daughters.
It is not about sharing the grief of people whom you have let down.
It is not about getting a few more photo ops, showing the caring Prime Minister comforting the distraught property owner who has lost everything.
Or the grieving widow with a young family whose partner died fighting the fires because he cared about his community.
That is all hypocritical flim-flam which highlights your failings.
Number Four: Dutton could be next, so God help us!, by Kathryn.
This colourful article – which was originally published as a comment – made an impression on both sides of the political divide. Those of the Left roared their support, whilst those of the Right … well … let’s just say that our moderators were kept busy deleting their less than thoughtful responses.
Excerpt:
This depraved, unspeakably callous monster, Dutton, is using inhumanity, hatred, fear, division and breathtaking sadistic mistreatment of desperate asylum seekers to cater to the decreasing number of his putrid rabble of xenophobic racist supporters in the red-neck haven of far northern Queensland and other areas of Bogan Australia!
What is really worrying, is that this demonic creature has been salivating after the PM job for years and now that MorriScum has chosen to abandon Australia, race over to Hawaii (in order to hand over $150K of taxpayer funds to his mentor, Brian Houston of Hillsong notoriety), it looks like SlowMo has committed professional suicide with Dutton waiting in the wings like some enormous, demonic Grim Reaper!
In the Lying Nazi Party, the psuedo-leaders, bible-thumping hypocrites and sociopathic sadists just seem to get worse and worse!
Number Five: Where is Scott Morrison and why is it a secret?, by Dr Jennifer Wilson.
The Prime Minister’s whereabouts during the early days of the bushfires were a mystery. Was he hiding somewhere?
Excerpt:
The secrecy surrounding the PM’s location is bizarre. Leaving the country in the midst of a national emergency with bushfires out of control and soaring temperatures threatening to elevate the danger to another level altogether is, in itself, an odd choice of timing. Shrouding his destination and the length of his absence in mystery only adds to the sense that we are in the hands of a very peculiar individual indeed. The man is already copping serious condemnation for clearing off, why conceal his destination as well?
I’m trying hard to think of any other world leader who has simply disappeared from his country at any time, let alone when that country is in the crisis we’re currently experiencing. We’ve never had a PM who buggered off when there was a national disaster. They’ve all had their flaws, some of them major, but nobody ever buggered off and left the country rudderless and burning.
Rumours have placed Morrison in Hawaii, enjoying a summer break with his family. More rumours suggest Hawaii was merely a stop over in a much longer journey to New York, where his Pentecostal mentor, Hillsong’s Brian Houston, has just opened a church in a multi-million dollar property recently acquired by Hillsong in Manhattan. I couldn’t possibly comment. Well, actually, I could.
Special mention must go to Dr Tristan Ewins, whose article Jordan Peterson gets it wrong again on inequality was firmly set in the Top 5 until Scott Morrison fired up our readers.
And a big special mention must also to every author who published articles on The AIMN in 2019. Anyone of those could have been, and deserved to be, in the Top 5.
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