2024: A Year of Change for Labor
It seems that whenever Labor comes to power, it is under the worst possible economic conditions. If you have a long memory, you will recall the period known as the world oil crisis. It began in 1973 and inflicted on the Whitlam Government a period of economic mayhem.
By 1975, inflation was 15%, and Australia was teetering on the edge of a recession that eventually transpired and continued throughout the seventies. The oil crisis of the 1970s was:
“… brought about by two specific events in the Middle East: the Yom-Kippur War of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979.”
In 1983, the Hawke Labor government:
“… came to office with inflation still at 11.5%, unemployment at 10.3% and Australia in the middle of a long-lasting recession.
Hawke’s treasurer, Paul Keating, would later say about his early period as treasurer that there needed to be a prominent place to look for an answer to the economy’s problems.”
During this period, I had an overdraft with 19% interest. Remarkable, I hear you say, but running a business without one was nigh on impossible.
Kevin Rudd was in power briefly when extreme stress in global financial markets and banking systems happened between mid-2007 and early 2009. It was known as the “Global Financial Crisis.”
Through no fault of his own, Anthony Albanese has grappled with the worst worldwide cost of living surge in decades. However, none of these events, a pandemic and a war, have elicited a word of sympathy from a media intent on saying that Labor couldn’t manage money. It has been the LNP’s catchcry for as long as I can remember.
After leaving the country a trillion dollars in debt 18 months ago, the LNP has sarcastically repeated, “Labor cannot manage money.” But even the Murdoch muck tabloids and others from the far right agree that it would be inflationary to just hand out money.
After almost a decade of perpetual political controversy and inept governance, the Opposition parties and their media friends have dared to emerge from a period of disgraceful, immoral and corrupt Government and say: “Elect us again, and we will fix the problem.” And just 18 months without even apologising for the damage they caused to our institutions and democratic principles. It is laughable that they are being touted as a real possibility to return to power. What were they doing when they were in power?
The only evidence for a LNP re-election is a victory was in The Voice referendum and in the bad economic news worldwide. Sure, Labor has struggled with the cost of living, rents and interest rates, but they seem minuscule against the backdrop of the 70s and 80s.
Indeed, inflation is higher than people under 40 have experienced. Their parents lived through sharper price hikes in the 1970s and ’80s, but the media paints the worst possible canvas of today. Those experiences should help shape the way today’s economy is viewed in comparison. But it doesn’t because the world of conservative commentators and media sluts doesn’t do such fairness.
We haven’t even entered a recession, which means today’s economic conditions bear no comparison with the bloody awful circumstances of previous times.
Favouring a Labor victory is that the hatred of Peter Dutton is still there, and it exposes his vile political nakedness every time the words ‘immigration’ or ‘First Nations people’ are used. His history is still very much alive with the policeman’s authority.
The Roy Morgan 2023 politicians distrust list has:
“… former Prime Minister Scott Morrison on top, Peter Dutton at two. Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong took the most trusted title for a second straight year, and Jim Chalmers was a strong second.
“The very high levels of distrust in Peter Dutton, and others in the opposition make it unlikely they would be able to win government in the current climate,” Roy Morgan chief executive Michele Levine said.
As we leave 2023 and meander our way through the summer sojourn into 2024, both parties will leave a residue of little transparency. Albanese promised better politics, but somehow, it got left behind in the slipstream of too many overseas trips.
Labor has lost the flare for embellishment without exaggeration. In other words, it couldn’t sell ice to Eskimos. In policy terms, they have had an excellent first term so far, but you wouldn’t think so. Many of their promises have been fulfilled, but they face a year of re-engagement with change for the better.
In Peter Dutton, the right has a clone of Tony Abbott, excellent at negativity, but after that, he falls away to nothing. Outside of policing, does the electorate know his thoughts on anything? He reminds me of that night on ABC 7.30 many years ago when Abbott asked Kerry O’Brien not to ask him any questions about the internet because he didn’t understand it. “Wow,” I wonder how he does his banking these days.
How does he see the future of Australia in a rapidly changing world? Does he have the intellectual capacity to explain himself? For example, he has no knowledge of economics, and on top of that, his current shadow ministers would form his cabinet; yes, the same corrupt lot of them.
Albanese isn’t a natural-born salesman whose words fly off the tip of their tongues with consummate ease, able to convince anyone to buy their blabber.
He must learn quickly that life isn’t about perception, not what it is, but what we perceive it to be. He must learn how to convince people of his sincerity.
The first twelve months of Labor’s tenure were dynamic, but then muckraker Murdoch’s relentless cost of living campaign slowly began to hit a government preoccupied with The Voice referendum. Of course, a sage mind would have determined that the referendum was lost the moment Dutton said he would oppose it.
His belief that the result would be a triumph of hope over experience proved incorrect. Subsequent polling by the Australian National University has shown majority support for a legislated Voice. Why didn’t Albanese just delay it when the result became apparent.
Labor passed some excellent legislation in the months leading up to Christmas, but again, Albanese should have sold it to the public using the authority of his office. He should have shouted their virtue to the heavens and every electorate. Yes, even advertisements to publicise their necessity.
- These policies included an agreement at the National Cabinet to create a National Firearms Register.
- They made a deal with the states to ensure the NDIS is solid and sustainable.
- They reached a landmark healthcare agreement to take pressure off hospitals and boost our health workforce and Medicare Urgent Care Clinics.
- They passed critical laws in Parliament to protect workers’ conditions and to improve the environment.
- Wage theft will become a crime, and industrial manslaughter will be legislated.
- Companies underpaying workers through labour-hire loopholes will be outlawed.
- They also passed a bill to establish a nature repair market. This will make it easier for farmers and landholders to carry out projects that repair nature – like replanting koala habitats.
- On top of all this was an announcement to dramatically reduce immigration.
- Add to that further funding to healthcare, childcare, and better policies on the environment and the Murry Darling, and you find Labor has done more in 18 months than the conservatives did in almost 10 years.
- “But that’s not all,” as the man selling the steak knives said. The sale of EVs is really picking up. There has been a slow relaxation of export embargoes. Unemployment benefits have risen. $10 billion has been designated for housing.
Labor enjoyed a dream run in their first 12 months, stabilising the government and getting things done competently, in contrast to sloppy Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison governments.
In all this excitement about the Conservatives possibly winning the next election, one thing seems to have escaped the minds of those supporting this idea: When in the hurly burly of an election campaign, the electorate is reminded of the sins of the National and Liberal parties over nine and a bit years, the hairs on the ends of voter’s heads will stand on end. Will they then feel inclined toward a repeat dose of the same medicine?
My thought for the day
People on the right of politics in Australia show an insensitivity to the common good that goes beyond thoughtful examination.
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Return to home pageNobody, least of all, Bridget McKenzie, will be able to convince me that Potty Boy Dutton really is a compassionate man any more than someone could convince me that Hitler wasn’t a racist because he was nice to Jesse Owens and saved an old Jewish comrade-in-arms. For context, it was said that Hitler stormed out of the stadium when Jesse Owens won an event, but as Jesse Owens said, “Hitler had to be at the stadium at a set time and leave at a set time.” Potty Boy Dutton has no capacity for compassion and is a weak man.
Not only was Tone the Botty an incompetent fool, but he was also an insincere one. Potty Boy is as bad as Tone the Botty.
In regard for John’s Thought For The Day, people on the Right of politics in Australia, and elsewhere, see their role in public affairs as the protection of the financial system that rules our lives.
Change the fundamentals of the financial system and the power of the Right to mismanage is taken from them.
It seems that whenever our nation is in crisis, the cowardly non-achieving thugs and totally inept imperialists in the LNP throw up their hands and run for the hills! If it wasn’t for John Curtin – during WW2 – who had the courage to tell that arrogant cigar-chomping war monger, Winston Churchill, to take a hike when Churchill and his collaborators in the LNP were quite willing to sacrifice Australia and Australians to the advancing Japanese in order to give absolute and total priority to the British agenda! If it wasn’t for John Curtin – who defied Churchill when he demanded Curtin to abandon Australia to the advancing Japanese army by leaving Australian troops in Europe and North Africa to fight for the “British cause” instead of being returned to the Malay peninsular and New Guinea to fight against the treacherous advancing Japanese army – we would ALL be speaking Japanese right now!
Quite simply, self-serving, chest-beating conservative regimes around the world (which includes the Tories in the UK, the Republican movement in the USA and the loathsome LNP here in Australia) are overloaded with misogynistic predators, pathological liars, callously inhumane miscreants, totally incompetent intellectual midgets and born-to-rule megalomaniacal narcissists!
History has PROVEN that the ONLY time(s) our nation of Australia has EVER made any progress or pushed through policies that provided any benefit, whatsoever, to ordinary working- and middle-class Australians is when we are being governed by a foresightful, progressive Labor Party who – in conjunction with our Unions – have provided working- and middle-class Australians with every benefit we currently enjoy: Superannuation, 4 weeks’ annual leave, accumulative sick leave, maternity leave, long service leave, generous overtime and penalty rates, OH&Safety regulations in the workplace and SO MANY other benefits!
My question to all those people out there foolish or Murdoch-manipulated enough to support the cold-blooded elitists and self-serving neoliberal capitalists in the LNP is this:
“Name one thing – ONE. SINGLE. THING. – that the LNP has EVER done, in its ignominious history, that provided ANY benefit whatsoever to the lives of ordinary working- and middle-class Australians?”
Of course, the answer to THAT question is “ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!” If it wasn’t for the compassionate and egalitarian collaboration between the ALP and our Unions, Australians would STILL be working a 60 hour week down in the coal mines! Trade unions have fought for laws that give rights to workers: the minimum wage, maximum working time, paid holidays, equal pay for work of equal value as well as anti-discrimination laws. It is the trade union movement that is fighting back against the discriminatory and unjust practices of our broken economic system.
Australians should ignore the non-stop denigration and unfair character-assassination of our Unions by the LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance and remember ONE important thing: When the tyrannical capitalists in the LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance attack Unions, they are, in fact, attacking ordinary Australians. Why? Because, despite what the born-to-rule imperialists in the LNP would have us believe, Unions are NOT some large amorphous organisations setting out to destroy our society nor are they a pack of flag-waving Communists – the FACT is that Unions are made up of ORDINARY working- and middle-class Australians, like you and I, who just want to earn a fair day’s wage, in safe conditions for a fair day’s work! History has shown, however, that the political psychopaths in the LNP/Murdoch/IPA don’t give a rat’s behind about ordinary Australians and they NEVER did! The Number One item on the self-serving, elitist Agenda rigidly followed by the contemptuous elitists that hide in every dark corner of the LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance is to further enrich and empower THEMSELVES and their billionaire, nontaxpaying “mates” in the Top 1% at the expense of ordinary working- and middle-class Australians !!!
@ Kathryn: An excellent post!! Well done!!
@ Steve Davis: It would be excellent for home buyers taking mortgages to pay the same interest rate throughout the loan period rather than boost the profit coffers of the banks unilateral interest rate increases producing bonus super-profits on established loans.
@ Cool Pete: Always remember the Pinkenba Aboriginal teenagers, abducted across Brisbane by Duddo, stripped of their shoes and told to walk home across Brisbane in the very early morning before dawn. Duddo is a confirmed self-serving racist ….
The thing about Peter Dutton is that he is incredibly lazy. He never focuses on detail and in his various ministerial portfolios whilst in office, he at no stage ever distinguished himself by introducing or initiating new policies.
Indeed, during his tenure as Federal Health Minister, Australian medical practitioners overwhelmingly voted Peter Dutton the worst health minister in living memory, according to a poll conducted by Australian Doctor magazine.
Even now as Opposition Leader he rarely fronts the media unless it’s for a love-in with Ray Hadley at 2GB or an ego stroking from Peta Credlin at Sky.
Any matters dealing with coalition policy – an oxymoron ? – are left to the hapless Simon Birmingham to sort out and explain to the media.
If Dutton ever slides into office it will be as the result of a major blunder on the part of the Albanese government coupled with the irrational exuberance of the Murdoch media.
1) ”By 1975, inflation was 15%, and Australia was teetering on the edge of a recession that eventually transpired and continued throughout the seventies. The oil crisis of the 1970s was: “… brought about by two specific events in the Middle East: the Yom-Kippur War of 1973 and the Iranian Revolution of 1979.”
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The foreign owned multinational oil corporations made a motza during these two events at enormous expense to Australian voters. There was some indication that they had prior knowledge of the matters.
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2) ”Kevin Rudd was in power briefly when extreme stress in global financial markets and banking systems happened between mid-2007 and early 2009. It was known as the “Global Financial Crisis.”
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LABOR Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Dr Ken Henry Reserve Bank Governor, saved Australian voters from the GFC
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3) ”After leaving the country a trillion dollars in debt 18 months ago, the LNP has sarcastically repeated, “Labor cannot manage money.”
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Managing finances requires more than non -returnable handouts from government when LIARBRAL$ supporting management appears certain to lose the corporation. Think of the difference between Unemployment ”Benefits” and corporate largesse during COVID.
Cocky, re mortgage interest rates, I agree entirely. Buying a first home should be a simple but sound investment, not a gamble.
A number of criminal actions were engaged in during the John Howard prime Ministership that stand out clearly in my mind, notwithstanding, those others from that same party (later Lib/Nat coalition party Prime Ministers) bear the evidence of the complicity that permitted the USA to influence Australia’s leadership government policy in contravention to Australia’s Electoral Act 1918 and its later amendments. https://www.aec.gov.aufaqs/misleading-and-deceptive-communications.htm
For a case example: Howard’s government had permitted the 50% owned by Australia’s Reserve Bank, Note Printing Australia along with its Securency business enterprise, had pleaded guilty to the charges alleged against both the above agencies. Guilty Pleas were made by Note Printing Australia and Securency in the Supreme Court of Victoria. https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2018/mr-18-29.html Both that oily Foreign Affairs minister, Alexander Downer, along with the notorious lying Prime Minister, John Howard, when both were called to answer by the Supreme Court prosecutor, each had claimed no prior knowledge, in response to the prosecutor on that occasion. Just this example alone would be sufficient to have both Downer & Howard serve a lengthy term in prison. That case matter had blown the constitutional Separation of Powers Act, to the fate of the four winds of Hell. Obviously, this fractious legal endeavour was to save the rancid hide of that treacherous Prime Minister, John Howard. A further fractious legal endeavour, as best as I know, was the grossly undecided criminal case having involved both Howard & Downer, was the “Wheat For Oil” scam to sell Australia’s wheat to Iraq’s late Saddam Hussein but more-so to trade for money.
There are additional putrid criminal actions that were engaged in by just Howard alone, I had referred some of those additional criminal acts to the Office of Australia’s Inspector General. (Even though I had to send off multiple letters to that pompous Australian government Office) to finally gain a response.
That response had as good as told me their particular Office provides protection to whomsoever is the elected Prime Minister, then to piss off and not to bother sending any further letters that were bound to rattle the bars of their cage.
And despite all of this Labor has done absolutely nothing to remedy the current situation of monopoly media ownership in Australia, which is perhaps their biggest enemy.
Excellent article, to the point, John Lord.
All the observations made by those commentators above are but the tip of the iceberg. The massive corruption and brutal collaborations of government, the judiciary and church go right back in Oz to the British imperium at the time of colonisation. Oz, run by drunken annoyances shipped from Britain’s aristocracy, instituted lies, threat, brutality, coercion, theft and murder as its m.o. from day dot.
Humanists, workers, unions, and what would become the Australian Labor Party were the ones with strength of purpose, fortitude and innate sense of fairness to take on those evil, drunken, toadying narcissists. Unable to tolerate any threat to the power of the status quo of usury, greed and violent self-interest, the remaining cringing flunkies formed what has now become the LNP.
Over time, hapless rational ones that ventured in skedaddled. Bereft, their main game, to disguise themselves as sophisticated neo-aristocrats, whilst robbing blind anyone and everyone not a member of their club. Dare I say, the inner rectum of wreckers. Lack of skill and imagination, lying and deceit lay behind their original disguise, now their history is so abraded by the outcomes of their stupidity, disguise is no longer available to them.
Who the hell does Mudrock and the feckless msm think they’re going to put forward as the next puppet for the greedy accumulators and international crime oligarchy?
A dissenting voice: Elanor Rhines from Labor True Believers, Political Analysis and Satire Group.
imo john lord & The Australian Independent Media Network have got it badly wrong :
ordinary aussies will never get a fair suck of the sav as long as our main political parties remain stubbornly committed to their neoliberal social, economic & political values
imo LNP is dead to us : their brutal & violent corruption of our system of Responsible government & rule of law
now Federal ALP has shown itself devoid of its’ traditional social democratic values & unlike past Labor giants : curtin & whitlam, today, Federal Labor has shown us they have no passion for reforms that could bend our trajectory towards a fairer & more just Australia –
* Assange
* McBride
* Boyle
* Stage 3 Tax Cuts – 4% of wealthiest aussies to get $368 Billion dollars in next decade …
* Austerity – below Henderson line poverty social security support payments
* Refusal to enact fiscal reforms eg Price Control Tribunal to reign in super-price gouging Corporations in retail, energy, housing etcetera
* Handing over control of our Monetary Policies to RBA ie read Big Banks & global Central Banks
* Free Education – Primary, Secondary & Tertiary (the cost of sending kids to school is outrageous i.e. uniforms, excursions, books)
* Huge disparity in funding of Private schools vs public system
* Taxation Loopholes funnelling our wealth to national & global Corporations & wealthy aussies
* AUKUS – aussies financing USA military-industrial infrastructure to the tune of $368 Billion dollars
* Privatization of all things now on steroids eg Privatisation of Nature, HAFF
* No action to bring PwC & other Big 4 to NACC
* a Secret NACC & ongoing lack of transparency & accountability eg pezullo, katherine campbell let off without even a wrist slap
* a Federal Procurement system riddled with corruption
* Epic ongoing failure to Stand for Justice in Palestine
* No National Debate on Reform of our woefully corrupted Taxation System
for ordinary aussies : poverty, homelessness or serious risk of homelessness, debt-ridden students, whistleblowers facing long terms of imprisonment, moral outrage & anger over albo/wong’s ‘we stand with Israel (& USA)’, NO cost of living relief anywhere in sight …
so: wax lyrical AIMN & john lord: but like wong, you’re wrong
Albo needs a shyster like Tony Abbott to achieve Net 0 right now! Neither Bowen nor Plibarsek are committed, nor able to achieve Net 0 by 2030! It’s pretty clear why this Welsh/Cornish Coal Mining enclave has no interest in going Fossil Free!
I have an alternative view of the universe.
The government is being pressured to deliver a budget that doesnt “tip inflation”. They are being urged restraint.
All i can say is what a lot of balonie. We have put $17T into housing and super, thats money come out of the economy and STILL we get dicked by inflation. So taking lots of money out of the economy does not equate to inflation control.
We got hit by the oil crisis in the seventies and the smart money would have been used to make us fully independant of external fuel sources. Then we got hit with the “gas lead recovery” over the last two years. The smart money would be to ween us off fossil fuels completely. Our balance of trade would recover and we wouldnt be subjected to market forces making us miserable.
Same with housing prices, i need to burst the cry that immigration will make things worse. During covid, nobody came or went yet we still had prices increasing. So that experiment says we are looking at the wrong triggers for price rises. The government is addressing that straw man by reducing immigration.
I just dont get it, what are people drinking to make such absurd assertions that become government mantra. The gospel truth according to economists. Who the fuck do economists think they are?
I am not quite ready to sink the boots into labor, that will come when the libs cease to exist. I ams still bitter and twisted over their demented reign.
I hope that AIMn will act for environmental purposes rather than Journalists trophies.
NEC and Elizabeth Rhines have nailed it. From Assange to AUKUS Labor is proving itself a disappointment.. But I am happy to be proven wrong. I expect 2024 to be the year Labor takes action at the NACC with no holds barred. Time to refresh memories of the ten years of wasted time on CC and , Prosecute the LNP for its East Timor dealings. Time to drop charges against whistle blowers and overhaul the security laws used to prosecute ordinary citizens as if they were terrorists. Jordan Shanks’ photographer comes to mind. friend comes to mind. I want Pezullo and Dutton in front of a RC. I want open government . I want Labor values adhered to and I want all elected members to read their mail and answer it. I don’t want much really
Oh and I forgot to mention treatment of refugees and spending millions on keeping offshore detention. Disgraceful.
The pool is cool, lord. a very merry welcome to 2024, with your warming causerie.
I have a casual observation of rabbottians.
When I scraped into 1A I thought everyone would be labor but when I and my two friends were walking to the science lab I tripped and dropped my books and pencilcase pens and pencils everywhere they just walked on with no thought to help. Their families, and therefore them, were playford/menzies.
Over the last 55 years of golf rabbottians often showed an inability to notice others.
The inconveniencing is, usually, innate and not deliberate just ‘unknowing’ but is tinged with a serious flaw eg my long time best friend, loved and admired by my family, was towing his caravan towards a bush T junction we could see a 4 bogey truck on the main road. I said if you slow down the truck can get in front. Why? I am as entitled to the road as he is?
Result the truck driver sat behind us for nearly an hour and my mate was oblivious to the inconvenience and cost in time and money.
ps
A great post, Kathryn!!!
I still ask lying rodent lovers to give me three things he did.
During their thinking I tell them my three of his many lies and poor policies:
selling half our gold reserves cheaply
weapons of mass destruction war
children overboard
The best of them tell me
gun buy back
GST
work choices
whilst the usual answer is’ eff off, wam’
CAZ
Refugees are an international challenge, from the tens of thousands surging along the US/ Mexican border to the organised people trafficking across the English Channel – for which the British solution with Australian ‘expertise’ from people like Abbott and Downer is to export them to Rwanda and now we hear from the Israeli Right Wing that Palestinians should be pushed out of their homeland in Gaza and be made an international problem for resettlement beyond their borders.
It is an enormous challenge and one that we must not ignore but neither can we allow the traffickers to restart their cynical conduit through Indonesia and into small boats bound for Australia or death at sea.
I don’t have a solution but I do see international refugee resettlement as potentially the greatest challenge of the next generation.
“wax lyrical AIMN & john lord: but like wong, you’re wrong.”
Don’t include me in that, NEC. Nobody is more disappointed than me. I agree with you 100%.
PS: All articles represent the views of the author. Not the site owners.
NEC, enlightening post about Elanor Rhine’s commentary.
Interesting that it’s allegedly from ‘Labor True Believers, Political Analysis and Satire Group’, and in its intro, the main whinge is elucidated via, “… Federal Labor has shown us they have no passion for reforms that could bend our trajectory towards a fairer & more just Australia -“
The list contains no political analysis, contains factual errors, and represents a grab-bag of issues that are largely being addressed systematically by Federal Labor. It’s a classic representation of any ‘rusted on’ whinge that fails to account for the 10 year mess of inaction by the LNP, and the very rapid changes and headwinds internationally. It fails to address the necessities of the political process, and the complexities involved in making lasting change suitable for the future, whilst at the same time addressing tsunamis of misinformation.
It represents perception and attitude born out of laziness. That said, it stands as typical of the social media / gossip driven squawk dosed by the evil divisive Mudrock / mainstream media and FF / neo-religious networks in Oz. A stain on the fundament of Oz politics that Labor has to deal with, like it or not.
Terence, there is one statement i must take up with you.
“… must not ignore but neither can we allow the traffickers to restart their cynical conduit …”
The traffickers started because OF DEMAND. Not because of greed, that came after demand.
And like all drugs, supply is demand driven. The easiest way to stop demand is to ADDRESS THE FUCKING ISSUE.
Put yourself in the shoes of a refugee, then consider your options. Its that fucking simple.
Sure you dont want to encourage them to make the hazardous journey, but what choices are presented to them? To wasted what little money they have and then contemplate a 50% chance of not making it seems like a satanic choice. The alternative must be fucking worse.
Ironically, they would probably make the best australians ever.
NEC AND WAM
How odd it is that l agree with much of what you say but l’m not a frustrated Green who thinks the wrongs of the world can be righted by a party that will never govern. All the wrong’s mentioned cannot be righted with one service ace. It is a game of many frustrating serves. Some go out of bounds and some remain for the length of the match in which you face many decisions . You cannot compare the game of today with how it was played in 1956. Poverty today is not the same as it was back then for example.
But thank you for your list. As I said l agree with much of it. Perhaps you could send another list of how you would go about fixing everything on the list together with costings and timelines.
John, you answered that well.
It’s the eternal thing writers are damned for: Just because you say good things about a person or government it doesn’t mean you’re ignoring the bad things.
And then when you do write about those bad things you get hit with stuff like; “But last week you said blah blah blah.” 🤷🏻♂️
People seem to forget that writers try to aim for balance, or neutrality in their articles.
For my two bob’s worth, and like Oz observed in US, UK, Canada, NZ and disturbingly some rumbles in EU Ireland, due to the past generation or two of corrupt nativist authoritarian policies from the right, catering to and manipulating ageing electorates through media (inc Sky News AD seem offshore).
It’s also nibbling away at the ageing centre-left via MSM and more so now social media; Koch network, Murdoch led media with a posse of RW grifters and influencers, including ‘faux’ left on culture wars or sociocultural issues; boiling uninformed frogs used for elections.
Like US and UK there is immense pressure from RW media and influencers, including supposed left, to dog whistle the centre and left, to encourage and condition the idea that the left like the ‘west’ is f**ked, so you may as well stick with ‘realism’, RW power and the status quo; see negative talking points, polls, disappearing bad news for the right and avoiding analysis.
Often one sees threats from genuine and faux left to vote right because the left has supposedly has become right, incompetent, elite or woke etc.; it’s a Koch & Bannon voter suppression tactic (esp for non compulsory voting) to have centre left either not vote, or vote for the right, by the centre-left becoming angry and misdirected.
Too easy and one is concerned how even educated on centre – left, have been conditioned to demand their sentiments to be acted on e.g. Brexit, on their issues, but ignore RW legacy and social media war going on to preclude good policies by putting pressure on the centre-left, and ignoring the right…. it’s also how over a generation Putin’s Russia has used the same RW infrastructure for influence (in fact clear crossovers in US, UK & Hungary).
Rome wasn’t built in a day and to ameliorate generation long policies, ‘architecture of influence’ and ‘libertarian traps’ precluding ALP govt. from implementing grounded policy over the long term, when both left and right are shouting at them in a pincer movement for the status quo to remain?
One’s late mother, rusted on Lib and political analyst (not) was very concerned in aged care in northern Vic at how many oldies were encouraged by MSM to be angry and ‘maintain the rage’ (Whitlam, & Howard!?), but she said how awful is this for younger people if older people are so negative?
George Monbiot nails it, again. The dark forces at work are powerful & persuasive, and wield undue influence over the political players… who, it seems, are seriously lacking in integrity, vision, ethical sensitivity and appropriate concern vis-a-vis the critical concerns that impinge on us all. All very well to wax lyrical about good times ahead, a fever dream if ever there was one, but be under no illusion, the opposition is powerful, well-funded, adept at spinning their machiavellian tales, and skilled in shaping the dominant narrative.
Like all governments, Labor is far from perfect, unable to please all. I don’t understand why many so-called supporters have joined the nitpicking brigade, which is what much of the criticism aimed at Albanese & Labor is. Does it matter if the PM is a boring speaker? It is the context that counts. The criticism is welcome & necessary. Ignoring what they have done halfway through the term isn’t.
Message for Senator Janet Rice
Dear Senator Janet Rice,
I am a jobseeker robbed by Services Australia. They forced me into significant debts as a result of their review conducted by an anonymous “delegate or authorised officer” not an authorised review officer (required by law).
A few months ago, I provided you with a copy of the decision and asked you to take action. I received an automatic email confirmation from your office, and that was it. Senator Janet Rice, please respond.