Growing up in the UK, in a Christian household (my mother’s father had been a Minister in the Church of Christ and my father’s family had belonged to the same faith group), I accepted as fact the existence of God, the history of the ministry of Christ and his disciples and, actually, still remain happy to follow the basic ethical principles I understood to have been espoused by those of that faith.

I attended a C of E Secondary school where we studied the scriptures and, more importantly, Comparative Religion.

In my teens I was actually a Sunday School teacher, but – with increasing maturity and awareness of conflict between what I was taught to ‘believe’ and a greater understanding of the place of evidence in science – I have ended up an agnostic.

Scott Morrison believes in miracles.

I have a different interpretation of some reported ‘miracles’, which is almost certainly not unique to me.

For example, the parable of the loaves and fishes implies that there was some magical appearance of enough food to feed the throng, whereas I see the probability that, once a few people started sharing with others the food they had brought for their own consumption, others overcame their selfishness and joined in sharing, so what might have a generous amount for individual family groups proved enough for the entire congregation.

And in some contexts you might regard overcoming innate selfishness is, indeed, a miracle!

Our understanding is so often limited to our own experience, and it is only when we start allowing ourselves to explore other possibilities that we start to see how much we do not know.

Maths was always my favourite subject, but it was not really until I started teaching it that I fully appreciated the importance of the logic which it embodies – particularly in Euclidean Geometry.

There are 5 basic postulates which form the foundation of this topic, which assumes that we are working on a flat surface – on which parallel lines can never meet – and the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees.

But we live on a planet which is roughly spherical, so if we wish to navigate its surface, we need to appreciate that Euclidean geometry no longer applies.

Imagine drawing a triangle on the surface of an orange. You can immediately see that the triangle you could draw on a flat sheet of paper has to be stretched out in such a way that its angles must now necessarily add up to more than 180 degrees – so a whole new world of spherical trigonometry (I know – trigonometry was, for many of you a nightmare, but that was largely because it was often taught badly!) has to be developed to ensure a safe arrival at the required destination.

And we can go further – as was indicated in the reference above – we can change the basic postulates, as was done by Riemann – so enabling Einstein to develop his Theory of Relativity – and, simultaneously, hence leading to claims of plagiarism, by Bolyai and Lobachevsky.

It is worth making the point here that much research is not valued by governments because they cannot see an immediate, commercial, application for the theory.

A great deal of research in the mathematics and science context fits into this category, and – as with Einstein’ s theories – the outcomes can be world changing, even if the initial research appeared to be purely based on suppositions.

There would be few people in the developed world who would not accept that advancements in scientific knowledge have led to massive social change.

And the basis of scientific research is evidence.

A theory is defined, and the means of ‘proving’ it valid, requires research which shows that the likelihood that it is NOT valid is so small that it must, indeed, be true.

That implies a possibility that it actually is not true, which is why scientific research is carefully documented to ensure that others can repeat the procedures that have been followed and compare their outcomes.

Some research is less easily conducted, particularly if it involves a possibility of  destroying the subjects! Testing medical procedures on living beings does not always allow a process of going back and trying a different procedure if the first one does not produce an acceptable outcome!

But what is important here, is that the people who offer themselves for election, and, subsequently, are involved in making decisions which affect people’s lives, are often ill-acquainted with scientific procedures and fail to appreciate the critical importance of evidence.

In one context, this has been horribly illustrated by the attempts of Donald Trump and too many of his supporters, whose firm belief – based on sentiment rather than fact – that he would, by right, win the recent election, and the fact that there was no evidence to support their claims of fraud in the election process was brushed on one side as irrelevant.

The ‘divine right of kings’ comes to mind, and how many of those lost their heads in consequence of their obstinate refusal to accept the facts?

And exactly that same approach is being applied by the Australian Coalition government when it comes to accepting that there is evidence that mankind’s actions in relying on fossil fuels as an energy source, has affected – and increasingly continues to affect – the process of global warming.

The evidence is there!

I would argue that if a particular course of action appears to be having deleterious effects, that is a strong argument for changing to a different course of action.

The alternatives here are, IMHO, to continue using fossil fuels, with a high likelihood of destroying lives as a result of severe climate outcomes and ill-health resulting from increasing air pollution – all of which has been clearly documented by appropriately qualified scientists – or, as speedily as possible, introduce policies to replace fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy, while also working as fast as possible to reduce pollution from all sources – particularly the manufacture and over-use of plastics.

The argument then becomes between which is the worse outcome – lives lost through climate change or damage to an economy currently based on inaction on global warming?

The government has already demonstrated that, by issuing government bonds, it can rapidly raise money to provide support to business and, selectively and on a very ad hoc basis, support individuals.

It has also demonstrated all too clearly that its ability to have plans ready to deal with a disaster is far from adequate, and its selectivity over who receives support is dangerously biased.

One of the functions of a national media service, like the ABC, is to ensure that – whoever is in government – criticism of inappropriate behaviour by government is publicised.

The Murdoch media ensures that the current government can tear the Opposition to shreds, yet the government, and the NSW Liberal government can happily pervert justice in favouring funding to their supporters, while screaming lack of balanced reporting at the ABC for criticising this behaviour.

So why the title of this rant?

Fact is found through scientific research, which continuously and ethically follows a path of updating knowledge.

Fiction is a consequence of mental processes which do not rely on fact or logical thinking.

Faith is dangerous because it too often ignores the need for evidence.

The Future is looking singularly bleak unless and until integrity overcomes the hubris of a Prime Minister whose belief in himself and his preferred policies is ill-founded and who has modelled his behaviour on one of the world’s least qualified leader, who is currently fighting to retain his status as POTUS.

May their god save America, because Trump sure as hell won’t!

Diary entry #26: Saturday, April 9 2022

1 It’s hard enough without all the criticism.

By the time this piece is posted, we may know the date of the 47th Australian Federal election. At that time, the Prime Minister’s power to do any more damage to our democracy, at least for the time being, will have been taken away.

Assuming it is Saturday, May 21, it will determine who governs our nation for the following three years. Clearly, for almost a decade now, the leaders of both Conservative parties and their acolytes of cruelness, dishonesty, corruption and self-interest haven’t governed for the nation’s good.

Scott Morrison is carrying so much lead in his saddle leading up to the election that you would think it is a handicap race.

Unquestionably, they have been the worst government in our history. (How many times have I said that?)

Accordingly, the polls show Labor well ahead of the Government:

“… the latest fortnightly Newspoll has Labor’s two-party lead narrowing from 55-45 to 54-46, from primary votes of Coalition 36% (up one), Labor 38% (down three) and Greens 10% (up two), with One Nation and the United Australia Party both steady on 3%.

We also have the first Ipsos poll for the Financial Review, as foreshadowed in the previous post, which has Labor’s two-party lead at 55-45.

Also, out on Wednesday:

“… was a new poll from Roy Morgan, which usually reports fortnightly but seems to have made an exception for a budget week, finds Labor recovering much of what it lost in last week’s poll, it’s two-party preferred having progressed over three polls from 58-42 to 55.5-44.5 to 57-43 in the latest result.”

Another survey conducted by The Resolve Political Monitor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age by research company Resolve Strategic showed that Labor was going into the election campaign in “pole position”. Its primary vote results produced a clear lead for the party in two-party terms.

The bookies have Labor at $1.33, and the Coalition is on $3.10.

Now that the election campaigns of both parties have started, it is time for the people of Australia to wake up from their political hibernation and be serious about this election. It well may be the most important one they will ever vote in.

2 Journalists who work for Rupert Murdoch must find a place in their personal journalistic ethics to incorporate fairness into the words they write. That is, of course, if they have any. Other journalists must also lift their game and not be lazy.

3 An announcement of the date had to be delayed because the Liberal Party needed to sort out some preselection issues with candidates unwanted by the local branches. So severe that Scott took them to court (using taxpayer funds) to sort out his own mess.

On Wednesday, April 6, in The Guardian, Mostafa Rachana reported that New South Wales premier Dominic Perrottet labelled the NSW Liberal preselection saga a ‘debacle’ and an ‘abject failure’.

Yet another example of Morrison not being able to manage his own party. Pathetic governance.

4 It was a strange ending to the 46th Australian Parliament with a budget delivered traditionally with the usual critiques from economic journalists, the Opposition and others. It was also timed to fit into the timing of an election, and its purpose was clear. Please give us your vote, and here are five hundred dollars with our compliments – the valedictory speeches – some worthy and others worthless – were heard from those who were not returning.

5 Then, on the tenth hour of that evening, the Senate Chamber erupted; a horrific payout echoed its way up and down the multitude of scandal-filled hallways with the words of Liberal Senator Fierravanti-Wells stopping at the Prime Minister’s door.

She joined a long list of parliamentarians and others critical of the prime minister’s character. The numbers that have spoken negatively regarding the man’s character are compelling.

The Senator concluded that he wasn’t a very nice man, among other unmentionable things. He has been called a liar by many, including Emmanuel Macron. His deputy, Barnaby Joyce said he was a hypocrite and a liar. The former NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian (allegedly) called him a horrible person. Jacquie Lambie and Pauline Hanson both called him an intimidating bully.

Michael Keenan – a former ministerial colleague of Morrison – (allegedly) called him a complete psycho. Another cabinet colleague described him as a fraud. Former MP Julia Banks said he was a “menacing controlling wallpaper“.

In Women’s Agenda, Madaline Hislop said that Katherine Cusak, the outgoing NSW Liberal, has joined a growing chorus of female politicians who have accused Scott Morrison of bullying. She also said that:

“… he had ‘ruined’ the Liberal party and that she would not vote for him or the party at the federal election.”

And on top of all that, David Crowe, in an article for the SMH, tells us that:

“Two men involved in a hard-fought Liberal preselection battle have signed written testimony that Scott Morrison warned people about the “Lebanese background” of his opponent in a crucial ballot to decide a safe federal seat, helping him win a bitter contest to enter Parliament more than a decade before he became Prime Minister.”

5 To say the least, trying to win an election carrying that sort of baggage plus the weight of his Christian hypocrisy will be burdensome.

Yet Scott Morrison robotically goes about his business like a talking machine, committed to rattling off one lie after another. There is no correction from the right-wing press, be it our carbon emissions reductions figures, the Great Barrier Reef, the budget or just questions in general.

6 Yet more scandal.

The well-informed ABC and its journalists found a tidy sum of $18 million (plus $4 million annually) hidden in the bowels of the budget for the Australian Future Leaders Foundation Limited Program. Have you ever heard of them? No, nor have I. Apparently, they have no staff or office. I’m confident they will follow up on this one.

7 And a blast from the past Barnaby Joyce scandal.

Did you know that when Barnaby Joyce was appointed drought envoy a couple of years ago he received $675,000 in expenses for the nine months he was in the job and was allocated two staff members at the cost of about $200,000? He never wrote a report, instead angrily claiming he sent “an awful lot” of correspondence to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, including by text message.

Oh dear, what a cesspool of corruption we have become.

8 What an awful look is all these government appointments are. They look like they are running scared and trying to prop up a tired and out of date conservative philosophy – jobs for the boys and girls.

9 The recently released United Nations Climate Report used what can only be ‘called last chance’ language:

“Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) is beyond reach. In the scenarios assessed, limiting warming to around 1.5°C requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43% by 2030; at the same time, methane would also need to be reduced by about a third. “

We are at a crossroads.

Also on this subject, Lisa Cox of The Guardian reports that “the Morrison government has been accused of sitting on a significant report card on the state of Australia’s environment.” It was received in December but hasn’t been released because of all the “bad news” it contains.

“Labor, the Greens, the independent MP Zali Steggall, environment groups and scientists have called on the government to release the Australia State of the Environment report before the election in May. Produced by scientists and compiled every five years, it was last reported in 2016.”

Environment minister, Susan Ley, has had it since December.

Meanwhile on the other side of the political fence:

“As part of its climate change commitment, a Labor government would seek to co-host a UN COP meeting with Pacific Island nations.”

10 I repeat:

Make your vote count: The importance of this election is such that it will determine our future for better or for worse.

“Art doesn’t imitate life, it imitates bad television”, quips Woody Allen.  ScoMo & Co’s reality TV Prime Ministership show, local franchise of the global schlock-horror melodrama of The House of Trump, sponsored by Multinational Oil Inc, exceeds our worst expectations this week. Our deep misgivings about its good faith are confirmed.

Frydenberg shills Philip Lowe into praising our tanking economy, trashing all vestige of RBA credibility as ScoMo re-runs Monster of the Third Chamber; kills any hope of constitutional recognition or voice to parliament for indigenous Australians – just to appease his right wing.

Daily, our Messiah from the Shire, the man without a plan, appears more a one seat wonder; every bit as impotent, inept and incoherent as either of his two immediate predecessors.  Daily, moreover, he seems to turn to theocracy rather than behave as the democratically elected representative of the people his political role entails.

Topping a top week, “Ecce ScoMo” gets invited to a nosh-up at a White House, once a type of confirmation ceremony, but it’s all going to hell under the current incumbent.

Trump backers attack the press in the Rose Garden, Thursday, an all-in brawl provoked by a reporter with the hide to ask Trump to take questions. Trump stalks off. He’s just ordered government to collect data it already collects, after failing to get a citizenship question on the US Census.  Sean Colarossi writes,

“The executive order meant to paper over his census loss went up in flames almost immediately – another loss for the president and his band of supporters.”

But help is on its way. When ScoMo scoots over to Washington in September, (if Dutton hasn’t toppled him), he’ll be sure to share his own media evasion tips. These include, as Immigration Minister, his infamous on water silences; then his abolishing press conferences altogether. Now it’s sooling the AFP on to nosey journos. At their homes.

The invite? It’s “a rare honour”, crows our ABC – equalled only by grovelling John Howard, Bush’s man of steel, a US lickspittle so keen to join in the killing of innocents; the illegal invasion of Iraq, that he lied, in 2003, to the parliament and people of Australia that he had legal authority. In fact, he had a couple of junior legal officers draw up a very specious case.

Howard still lies. Whistle-blower Andrew Wilkie quit his former job at the Office of National Assessments (ONA) in protest. He notes, “The US did not go to war in Iraq because of WMD and terrorism. Australia went to war in Iraq to support our alliance with the United States.”

Like his predecessor but with super-oleaginous sycophancy, Morrison is reviewing and  rehearsing ways to say “Yes, yes, yes!” to any request to join an illegal attack on Iran, although by September, Trump may have changed his plans several times.

He may have to. Report emerges from Sir Kim Darroch, Sunday, that Trump scrapped the Iran nuclear deal merely to spite Obama, “an act of diplomatic vandalism”  says the former British Ambassador who is promptly attacked by Boris Johnson as Boris performs his own act of subservience to Trump. It won’t silence Darroch.

In a wondrous case of art predicting the future – at least the generic, neoliberal political buffoon, HG Wells has a remarkably prescient image of Boris Johnson in A Dream of Armageddon (1901). Perhaps there’s more than a bit of ScoMo in the vision as well.

“He was one of those incredibly stupid energetic people who seem sent by Heaven to create disasters. His energy to the first glance seemed so wonderfully like capacity! But he had no imagination, no invention, only a stupid, vast, driving force of will, and a mad faith in his stupid idiot ‘luck’ to pull him through.” Wells would be happy substituting “Pentecostal faith” for luck.

Darroch highlights division among Trump’s advisors. And indecision. The White House lacks any ‘day-to-day’ strategy of what to do following withdrawal from the Iran deal. In other respects also, it lurches from chaos to catastrophe just as successfully as our own government.

But now, Trump’s past with registered sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, raises its ugly head.

Trump hosted Epstein as a guest at Mar-a-Lago, where he appears in photos in 1997 and 2000. Epstein’s little black book, leaked by an employee in 2009, contains 14 phone numbers for Trump, his wife, Melania, and several of his employees, reports Vanity Fair’s Eric Lutz.

Bill Clinton, a former frequent flyer with convicted paedophile, multi-millionaire money manager and sex-trafficker, Epstein aboard Jeff’s private 727 jet, nick-named the Lolita Express, an airborne bordello, is under the pump now that his friend, gigolo Jeffrey is indicted for sex trafficking minors, working-class girls to prostitute to the filthy-rich and perverted.

Trump is clearly worried that, he, too, needs to cover his tracks and they are extensive.

Trump once praised Epstein as, “a terrific guy .. who is a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Now, the US President is forced to say that he’s “not a fan”. The two had a falling out fifteen years ago. Times reporters assume this to be a sour business deal.

Epstein ran a shuttle service between Miami and New York. Trump is unlikely to have been a client. Yet the two were closer than The Donald admits, reports The New York Times on Tuesday. Trump’s association with Epstein, who was convicted in 2008 for soliciting underage girls for prostitution, includes the two co-hosting at Mar-a-Largo, a “calendar girl” competition in 1992, attended by twenty-eight girls and only two adults; organiser Trump and Epstein. The hopeful calendar girls were led to believe the contest would include many VIPs.

Trump fires his Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, former US Attorney in Miami, who negotiated a super-lenient, secret, “non-prosecution agreement” granting Epstein and his associates immunity from federal prosecution and a sentence of thirteen months in gaol for Epstein in 2008. The leniency included allowing the tycoon to leave prison to go to work each day and to hire his own private guards.

Epstein’s case makes our own corporate criminal, and thrice jailed national hero, Alan Bond’s final minimum security stretch in prison seem harsh. In 1997, Bond spent time in maximum-security Casuarina prison before transfer to minimum security Karnet Prison Farm – where he had his own art studio; four years for the biggest fraud in Australian corporate history – stripping over a billion dollars from Bell Resources shareholders.

Acosta’s dilemma is not without irony. A US Labor Secretary’s role is to protect workers and children from exploitation; enforcing laws on child labour and human trafficking. That’s the theory. In practice, Acosta may have acted to protect a sexual predator. Miami Herald investigative reporter, Julie K. Brown, estimates that in 2008, Epstein received “one of the most lenient sentences for a serial sex offender in U.S. history.”  

It is government by kakistocracy, the kleptocratic tyrants of a very bad soap opera.

Epstein’s Bust is also an event that rocks our own ruling class to its core; our age of obscene inequality, wage slavery, wage-theft and sexploitation, a melodrama in which the thrifty rich trumpet their virtuous ascendancy over the slothful working-poor, on whom our taxes are frittered to cover the prohibitive costs of a welfare safety net – plus tax cuts for the rich.

Unlike the prudent self-denying plutocrats, lower classes are addicts to instant gratification. As ScoMo implies, they are unworthy because we give a go (only) to those who have a go.

“The Epstein scandal blows holes through the foundational myths of our time, revealing them for the empty and sickening bromides used to justify obscene wealth and power and privilege that they really are,” observes The Washington Post’s Helaine Olen.

Barely days after sending him on a fool’s errand, to get consensus from the Liberal Party and its National Party abusive partners, in Beyond Our Ken, ScoMo pulls the rug from under Ken Wyatt and any justice or voice for Indigenous peoples. The right to be and to be heard. It is despicable betrayal of trust and Prime Ministerial responsibility.

In a parallel sub-plot entitled Labours of Hercules, bigot-whisperer, Christian Porter, a Jedi, meanwhile, gets a year to “workshop” Coalition colleagues into embracing Ruddock’s religious freedoms, a rear-guard ambush of marriage equality. At the same time, Israel Folau takes his homophobia to the Fair Work Commission in a cameo appearance in With God on My Side.

The preposterous notion that first peoples be heard by our law-makers; have a voice to parliament or any right to constitutional recognition is quickly denied by ScoMo as climate clown Craig Kelly makes a fool of him. Aboriginal people should just be Australian he says. The mineral lobby sponsored IPA calls The Voice racist.

Wilfully misrepresented, thank you Mal, as an impossible demand for a third chamber in parliament, right wing critics see The Voice as nothing less than an assault on our parliamentary democracy itself – which any fool can see is a sacred institution working flawlessly to serve the ruling elite, and as fairly run as the Uluru Camel Cup.

Or as fairly run as the Fair Work Commission (FWC), a Rudd legacy, which has been carefully stacked by the Coalition. Last December, Bill Shorten pointed out that the government had appointed twenty employer appointments in a row.

Israel Folau’s case to the Commission against his employer, Rugby Australia, is that he was punished for his religious beliefs when his contract was ended after his Instagram post that homosexuals were going to hell. Whilst Folau’s homophobic comments are mistaken by some for his religious freedom, the case will also expose the FWC.

And it may also embarrass Scott Morrison and our Social Service Minister Stuart Robert, currently in the gun with pensioners for his niggardly adjustment to pensioners’ deeming rates. Both have close ties with the homophobic Hillsong Church.

Righteousness exalts our nation as Stuart Robert escorts fellow evangelical ScoMo to the annual Hillsong cult conference show where Morrison leads 20,000-odd in prayer. ScoMo attends Horizon, a Hillsong affiliate.

Hillsong prospers from its 34,000 local congregation’s tithes and offerings to the tune of one hundred million dollars a year. Blessed are the poor in spirit.

The congregation gives Morrison a standing ovation. ScoMo then faffs around in dialogue with himself and the church and the nation claiming publicly that religious freedom is about “culture” not about the law when clearly it’s about both. ScoMo’s increasing reliance on his belief system to supplant his political role is a concern.

Most voters would rather see a government act on the science of climate change and measures to abate carbon emissions rather than see the PM pray for rain.

“Our nation needs more prayer, more worship. That’s how things are overcome.” In a min-sermon, the first Pentecostal PM in the English-speaking world calls for “an avalanche of love”.

More love? It’s up to Peter Dutton to continue the Coalition’s war on Shorten on Nine’s Today Show Friday, by telling Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, that his failure to expel CFMMEU Secretary John Setka from the Labor Party makes Bill Shorten look good.

“This country needs more love and less judgement.”  Dutto would do well to heed ScoMo who eerily echoes Hillsong’s Global Senior Pastor, Brian Houston’s, Message to Folau, April opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Less judgement? Brian was quick to judge his own father, Frank, sacking him from his role as pastor and head of Assemblies of God in 1999, when he was accused of the sexual abuse of nine boys – yet did not report the abuse to the police – records The Royal Commission in 2015.

Whilst he acknowledges that he understood his father’s acts to be criminal, Brian Houston made the judgement that he would conceal what he knew from the authorities. His grounds?

“Rightly or wrongly, I genuinely believed that I would be pre-empting the victim if I were to just call the police at that point.” “Genuine belief” trumps moral or legal responsibility?

And what precisely does he mean by pre-empting the victim? He’s pre-empting justice.

One of Frank’s victims, Brett Sengstock, routinely abused between the ages of seven and twelve, has publicly called upon Houston to explain why he did not report his father.

Instead, Frank was allowed to resign with a retirement package. Sengstock, who has terminal cancer, unsuccessfully sought compensation when it could not be proved Assemblies of God was responsible for the abuse he suffered.

Church service over, ScoMo can relax. Our nation is in good hands Gorgeous Gus Taylor, spivvy star of Watergate and fossil-fuel poster boy Energy Minister, continues his dazzling run by jacking up both electricity prices and carbon emissions. Power bills are up on average fourteen per cent last quarter. Carbon, energy and sustainability experts, Ndevr Environmental report that our direct emissions are at their highest since 2002.

For the 2017 financial year, our total emissions were 9.1 MtCO2-e more than the previous financial year and equivalent to an additional 3.37 million car exhausts over the same time.

At Taylor’s rates we won’t meet or beat our Paris emissions reduction targets. Or anything. But at least ScoMo’s rudderless, agenda-free yet bitterly divided government rivals Abbott’s in breaking election promises, as well as in austerity budgeting, although details of spending cuts, which will amount to forty billion a year by 2030, are still well-concealed from punters.

At the same time, money for “soil magic” (as Lenore Taylor calls carbon sequestration) is drying up as the government’s Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) runs out of funds and projects. The ERF was climate denialist Abbott’s fabulous scam to fork more pork to Coalition sponsors. Now he is out of pork, while pesky emissions rocket ever upward, plucky Gus is over a barrel. And soon he’ll have to face a senate committee.

To be fair, Taylor is flat out hosing down claims he breached ministerial guidelines in March 2017 when he asked, then Environment minister, Josh Frydenberg to water down law to let him poison critically endangered grasses on 30 hectares of family property at Monaro, NSW.

But Taylor’s only an Energy Minister with no policy. His frantic efforts are dwarfed by a Morrison government which has set no course beyond tax cuts, which is already at the mercy of its reactionary rump and which seems content to muddle through on a wing and prayer.

That it took but four days for the Prime Minister to abort Ken Wyatt’s mission and to dismiss a quest for recognition and a voice to parliament made through extensive community consultation and in good faith is bad enough – but to do so by reviving the lie that a voice for indigenous peoples is a demand for a third chamber is to dismiss an act of good faith with an act of bad faith, a monstrous abrogation of democratic process, social contract and human rights.

Forget its surplus fetish and its neoliberal idiocy with regard to flattening our progressive tax system and its war on the poor, especially those who have endured a Newstart that hasn’t changed in twenty-five years, the Morrison government has failed a far more serious test, a test of its capacity to govern in good faith and to govern for all Australians. It will find it impossible to recover.

Beyond the Short-Term Cheers of Budget Night

In the wake of the mining and housing boom, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg faces the headwinds in the global economy with a cynical plan to get re-elected under the wand of the unsustainable appeal of a consumer revolution for middle-income families in the vast 30 per cent tax range extending to incomes of $200,000.

The structural problems of Australian investment as foreshadowed in the latest edition of RBA charts have been overlooked in an election grabbing agenda.

Thanks to the resistance of Labor and most of the cross-bench members of the Senate, company tax benefits for the big end of town from 2018 have been scrapped permanently. Treasury is awash with revenue for election hand-outs.

Labor is also able to take advantage of this windfall to consider addressing the waiting list of 2 years for Home Care Packages for elderly and disabled people which will have no growth in the post-election period. The budget was also silent on appalling rates for long-term unemployed people on Newstart Allowances.

Labor has promised to match the federal LNP initiatives with an additional tax break to lower-income workers in the 19 per cent taxable income range between at least $30-$40,000. The costs of these concessions will be offset by a continuation of the progressive tax surcharge on incomes above $200,000.  Labor’s largesse could be extended by a Medicare surcharge for the highest income levels.

Soon after the Budget speech, Queensland Deputy Premier and Treasurer reminded local constituents of the infrastructure shortfalls in public transport, health infrastructure, indigenous housing and TAFE projects. There is no funding for the Cross-River Rail Project in Brisbane (Blue Mountains Gazette-2 April 2019):

Queenslanders have been shunted in the federal government’s spending priorities for a second year running, state Treasurer Jackie Trad says.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s first budget revealed the Morrison government would shell out $4 billion on new infrastructure across Queensland, though only a quarter of that will be spent over the forward estimates.

But Ms Trad decried the budget as a bid to shore up support for the Coalition ahead of an imminent election, and said it ignores critical infrastructure needs in a growing state.

“There’s only one way to put it – Queensland is missing out,” she said.

“What’s clear from this budget is that Scott Morrison only has a plan to try and get re-elected not a plan for the future of Queensland.”

She says the money that has been pledged is problematic because it won’t be spent right away.

“Across the state, they say they’re spending $2.6 billion more on infrastructure but a massive $2.3 billion of that is more than four years down the track,” she said.

Are Long-Term Investment Multipliers Sustainable for both Private and Public Sectors?

Under-spending on the National Disability Scheme (NDIS) during 2018-19 has also added to the short-term revenue windfall for the Australian Treasury which minimizes the current deficit to $4.2 billion and magnifies the foreshadowed surplus of $7.1 billion. NDIS administrative economies contributed $1.6 billion to improve the fiscal data.

The federal LNP government has also massaged its capital expenditure spending to coincide with the three-year election cycle. Capital works spending has been eased back substantially in 2019-2020 and will peak again in 2022-23 (Budget Paper 5:45):

While Josh Frydenberg boasts on the ideological value of such trends, there are warning signs in the RBA Charts for Capital Investment which is predominantly from the private sector:

Blind-Spots Relating to the Social Consequences of the Cyber Revolution

The budget is quite silent on the long-term effects of the Cyber Revolution which is wiping out employment growth across the skill range from the fast food sector to retailing and selected professional categories.

The writing on the wall about technological change is quite familiar to the World Economic Forum with its headquarters in far-off Switzerland and attracts Australian observers from both business and public sectors World Economic Forum Online in Cologny-Geneva:

The Fourth Industrial Revolution represents a fundamental change in the way we live, work and relate to one another. It is a new chapter in human development, enabled by extraordinary technology advances commensurate with those of the first, second and third industrial revolutions. These advances are merging the physical, digital and biological worlds in ways that create both huge promise and potential peril.

The speed, breadth and depth of this revolution is forcing us to rethink how countries develop, how organisations create value and even what it means to be human. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is about more than just technology-driven change; it is an opportunity to help everyone, including leaders, policy-makers and people from all income groups and nations, to harness converging technologies in order to create an inclusive, human-centred future. The real opportunity is to look beyond technology and find ways to give the greatest number of people the ability to positively impact their families, organisations and communities.

Opinion at the neoliberal oriented World Economic Forum has moved on from the ideological tone of Josh Frydenberg’s continued faith in old style capitalism with its emphasis on environmentally unsustainable motorways to middle-income suburbs that are being cleared from bushlands at the expense of our treasured flora and fauna.

The world has changed since the Menzies Era but the federal LNP is stuck in the rhetoric of The Forgotten People which are still available in text and sound from the Menzies Virtual Museum.

Like these historic treasurers, the current federal budget is hardly a spirited vision for an Australian future as a vibrant part of the Indo-Pacific Basin. Cutting back on developmental assistance to the region is indeed one of our worst blind-spots (Parliament of Australia and DFAT):

The cynical priorities in the current federal budget makes the forthcoming election more competitive for the LNP in an electorate where concern about Australia’s real future may be less significant than the consumer clout of middle-income families in the motorway suburbs of our sprawling metropolitan areas.

A lot is riding on Labor’s Address in Reply as Prime Minister Morrison anticipates a reduction in his seat losses to remain in office as a minority government supported by a few compliant federal centre-right independent members as summed up in the lead finger-counting picture from the ABC’s Conservation Programme.

Denis Bright continues discussion of three scenarios for the future of Australia’s international relations in 2051.  

Scenario 2 is the steady state view of international relations. Incremental changes have occurred as the US shares its strategic influence with other responsible middle powers like Australia, China, India, Japan and Indonesia. The old Australia-US Alliance has been re-branded as the New Coalition of the Willing (New Coalition).  

Once positive change is the formation of a unified and Unified Korea thanks to a pragmatic Five Power Agreement as the momentum towards armed conflict had to be avoided.

This is probably the most likely scenario on current trends in both Australian and US Politics if humanity survives the Trump Presidency. This possibility was reinforced in 2020 by the return of the US to its former role as bastion of mainstream modernism within contemporary globalization with opportunities for new power sharing.

Hopes for the militarization of the Indo Pacific on terms favourable to US strategic realists were certainly on the rise in 2017 as the Aircraft Carrier the USS Ronald Reagan headed off to Japan from its participation in the Talisman Sabre Exercises in Central Queensland and a goodwill trip to Brisbane.

The Twenty-Year War on Terrorism (2001-21) had ended favourably. Strong steady states across the Indo Pacific were eager to do more to stabilize the Indo-Pacific Hemisphere. Even China wanted to throw in its lot with the new shared hegemony. Its leadership was still basking in its role as co-facilitator of the neutralization of the Korean Peninsula.

With the strategic profile of the US reduced across the Indo-Pacific Hemisphere, the Australian electorate clung to Centre-right governments with their high market-led growth strategies and proactive foreign policies of working with new great and powerful friends.

Political instability was a recurrent challenge in Papua-New Guinea (PNG) and Melanesia. Freedom of migration remains an unresolved issue and a source of tension in these underdeveloped regions adjacent to Australia.

The Draft Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons did not receive endorsement from the nuclear weapons states.

Australia was now spending 5 per cent of its GDP on defence and working co-operatively with key regional strategic players from Israel to India, Japan and Indonesia.

Understandably, Australia was pleased to stay under the nuclear umbrella which was shared equitably to the most trustworthy members of the US Alliance.

High defence spending to control regional tensions and internal regional unrest was still an imperative right up to 2051. Australia’s centre-right republican leaders eulogize our manifest destiny across the Indo-Pacific Hemisphere.

Close to Australia, naval patrols are still active to control illegal migration in the fine traditions of John Howard.

Australia was also particularly active in assisting regional governments to control social unrest and the enforcement of a Pax Australiana with training programmes for military and police operations particularly in PNG.

Deployment of Australian troops to the region was an ongoing possibility and defence units always on stand-by for deployment in the Near North and across Melanesia.

Changes of government do occur very occasionally in the Australian Republic but bipartisan commitments are articles of faith for the media and the wider society.

Welcome to the Brave New World of predictable Steady States across the Indo-Pacific Hemisphere. May our republican force be with you in these peaceful waters of our strategic seas whose various entry points are carefully patrolled by the New Coalition.

Tomorrow … Scenario 3 in Indo Pacific Futures 2051: Reaching for Aquarius

Introducing the Scenarios

Denis Bright introduces three scenarios for the future of Australia’s international relations in 2051. It is the 150^th Anniversary of Australian Federation but just another season in 60,000 plus years of Indigenous settlements.

Pre-historic indigenous migrations and exploration of our northern coastlines by Makassan, Indo-Malaya and Chinese navigators had also long predated such formal constitutional events in the long historical perspective of the Australian Republic.

The scenarios have the macro-political goals of fostering debate about future trends in international relations across a vast Indo-Pacific Hemisphere that extends from East Africa to the Pacific Coast of the US and Canada.

The three scenarios presented in these articles are far from cataclysmic. Other darker scenarios are possible.

The first two scenarios might indeed be very consoling to surviving federal LNP stalwarts from the Abbott-Turnbull Era.

In Scenario 1, Australia is a key player in the US Global Alliance Systems which has been re-branded as the New Coalition of the Willing (New Coalition).  

Our localized responsibility is to monitor the sea lanes and strategic air routes between the Pacific and Indians Ocean which are adjacent to US Bases in Micronesia and Diego Garcia in the Mid-Indian Ocean.

This is a demanding responsibility for Australia. It comes with a heavy price tag. It is also compromises Australia’s sovereignty. For the centre-right government of the Australian Republic, the challenge is a true imperative.

Clinging onto the strategic might of the US remains the cornerstone of Australian foreign policy in 2051 in the re-branded New Coalition of the Willing.

Australia basks in its evolving role as a key regional player with Japan, Indonesia, a United Korea and India to consolidate key strategic and economic goals of most countries in the Indo-Pacific Hemisphere.

Progress in building the New Coalition had come through a series of clever incremental steps since those unstable days of the Abbott-Turnbull Era. Eyewitness news services barely noticed the extent of Australia’s firm integration with the New Coalition. Media coverage of open days on naval vessels and sweeping shots of US troops in transit through Darwin helped to answer any doubts about Australia’s sovereignty.

Step by step the momentum of the New Coalition became unstoppable. Looking through the news archives prior to 2051, today’s students are becoming concerned at the extent of commitment required to be on the verge of armed conflict year after year. The universal concern after archival sessions in foreign policy research is quite simply how did Australia get into such an international stew.

Let’s visit this hypothetical university class who is looking back through the digital archives on the events of 2017. What incremental pathways towards the New Coalition is the class identifying?

Vital Incremental Steps from 2017

Back in the last weekend of July 2017, Australia and Indonesia had just co-chaired a leaders’ forum at Manado in South Sulawesi Indonesia. Makassan navigators had visited Northern Australia from here at least three hundred years ago. Now our leaders arrived in Sulawesi on a strong tail wind of political enthusiasm from the mythical South Land.

Australia’s then Attorney-General Senator the Hon George Brandis QC had arrived with some high-profile information briefs. The official agenda was to encourage leaders from Malaysia, Brunei and New Zealand for joint action against Islamic terrorism in South East Asia (ABC News Online 29 July 2017: DFAT Media 29 July 2017).

A secondary but possibly more important longer-term agenda was to rescue the Philippines and Indonesia from any drift towards non-alignment in international relations.

Except for Australia, governments represented at Manado had supported the Draft Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the UN Committee Meetings in New York during 2016-17 and supported the draft text for ratification on 7 July 2017.

Intensive lobbying by Australia and the US failed to stop Brunei and New Zealand from breaking ranks with their long-standing support for the Draft Treaty. This agenda had not been exhausted. A short-term set back was quite anticipated.

Ratification of this Draft Treaty would have closed the sea lanes and air routes in our near north to the movement of nuclear weapons between US bases in Micronesia to Diego Garcia and the Middle East.

Despite its long-standing commitment to non-alignment in Indonesia, Australia had worked behind the scenes with supportive sections of President Widodo’s administration which was still basking in the successes of a state visit to Australia in February 2017.

Indonesia’s Defence Minister Retired General Ryacudu was particularly receptive to a more militarized Indonesia. He proved his strategic credentials as Chief of Staff of the Indonesian Army (2002-05), Commander of Security Operations in Kostrad (2000-02) and long-standing but retrospective supporter of General Suharto’s coup d’état in 1965 when General Ryacudu was still at high school.

Despite the relative decline of the US in the global economy particularly after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2007, right-wing governments from Israel to Saudi Arabia, India, Taiwan, United Korea all welcomed the assistance of Australia and Japan in maintaining US strategic influence across the Indo-Pacific Hemisphere.

In 2017, New Zealand was still a strategic challenge for the New Coalition. Since 1986, New Zealand had been off-limits to visits by nuclear powered ships carrying nuclear weapons.

Now in 2017 opportunities existed for changes in New Zealand’s strategic outlook after the election on 23 September 2017 if Prime Minister Bill English could be returned as a minority but potentially unstable government with the support of the NZ First Party of Winston Peters to survive the unexpectedly strong swing to the Labour/Green Alliance bloc.

The role of Japan’s Abe Government in maintaining the profile of the New Coalition was also invaluable to the New Coalition across the Indo-Pacific Region. Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott had helped by claiming Japan as our best economic and strategic partner in Asia. Now our contacts in the New Coalition were swamping us with more and more strategic friends from Israel across to Canada.

Japan contributed $3.1 billion to assist in the redeployment of US Marines in Micronesia which still bristles with US bases in Guam, Marshall Islands and other locations (ABC News Online 27 April 2016):

While international attention is often captured by US military operations in the Middle East, for the past decade, Guam has quietly been the location of what the US assistant secretary for the navy, B.J. Penn, called “the largest project that the Department of Defence has ever attempted”.

About $US20 billion ($26 billion) is being spent on establishing a Marine base and upgrading existing bases including the Andersen Air Force Base and the naval base around Apra Harbour.

Guam also hosts an increasing number of B52 bombers and jet fighters, and its upgraded ports will soon be able to accommodate more submarines and destroyers.

The US regularly flies its B52s on training missions over the South China Sea, which is now the site of aggressive Chinese territorial expansion.

Always on Patrol

Keeping the sea lanes and air routes open for strategic aircraft between Micronesia, Diego Garcia and the Middle East to Australia’s North became a diplomatic imperative for other right-wing governments in Taiwan, India and Israel whose Red Sea Fleet operates in the Indian Ocean with operational undersea nuclear missiles (The National Interest Online 9 October 2014).

As the confidence of these loyal US Allies increases, Australia is becoming more daring in its local commitments to Pax Australiana with offers of military assistance to our neighbours in the Near North in PNG, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu who persist in retaining that foolish nostalgia for ASEAN values of keeping out of the global arms race.

Under Australia’s highly politicised presidency, Australia remains a bastion of the New Coalition.

This is a badge of honour which continues to frighten dissidents at home and abroad.  After a century of evolution since the ANZUS Treaty of 1951, the New Coalition has become a locally focused article of faith in shared wider economic and political values. Singing that our land is girt by sea has become a real understatement in 2051 in the centenary year of the ANZUS Treaty under its mid-century New Coalition logo that is so eulogised by the mainstream pro-republican media networks.

Tomorrow … Scenario 2 in Indo Pacific Futures 2051: Living with Strong Steady States

By James Moore  

I will not believe it. I cannot. There is nothing left to know about Donald Trump. And I will not accept that even the most base and uneducated of Americans will offer him enough support to restore him to the White House. Just after writing those sentences, I went to the betting markets and saw that he was now leading Kamala Harris in the presidential race. Too many observers assign a level of credibility and accuracy to the thinking of the bettors, but that’s probably not wise. Decisions can be based on hype or responses to aggregated polls that include an overabundance of surveyors who work for conservative and GOP groups. Data gets distorted; opinions become influenced by skewed results.

The gambling markets can sometimes, however, capture consensus. Obama’s elections were both accurately predicted but in 2016 bettors put their money on Hilary Clinton and she was heavily favored over Trump until election night. The outcome defied expectations, which is also what happened when gamers tried to make money off the Brexit vote; they got it wrong. The true value of these markets is to capture in real time the impact of changes in sentiment among the electorate. Polls are more methodical and rife with latency. The assumption is not safe that people betting on elections are any more informed than the average voter. In fact, a large number of gamblers from any political party can easily skew results, which is what happens when party pols buy up thousands of books written by a favorite candidate and make it a faux bestseller.

Nonetheless, as I watched Trump on his “Insult America Tour,” I had to contemplate how in the hell the presidential race is even close. In Detroit, the biggest city in an important swing state, he ignored the billions spent on reinvestment and reinvention of the motor city and its vital emerging new economy. Ignorant of history, as he is of most subjects, he figured the people at the Detroit Economic Club would be on his side if he spoke condescendingly of their efforts to forge a different future by telling them the all of America would be as screwed up as where they are living if Harris wins in November.

“Our whole country will end up being like Detroit,” he said, “If (Harris is) your president. You’re going to have a mess on your hands.”

There was never any chance Trump was going to carry Detroit. President Biden won 94 percent of the vote in the last presidential contest and an energized electorate turned out more than 250,000 voters. The numbers are likely to be similar for Harris but Trump’s insult cuts more than just residents of Detroit. Michiganders have taken substantial pride in Motown’s turnaround, which did not escape the Democratic campaign’s attention. The rapid response ad below from Harris’ team, prompted by Trump’s ponderous stupidity, is one of the best political ads I’ve ever seen in decades of writing, reporting, and analyzing politics.

The man who believes dogs and cats, household pets, are on the dinner tables of Haitian immigrants in Ohio, zipped off to Aurora, Colorado after Detroit to inform them of a threat they had not noticed. Without their knowledge of the danger, Trump told the residents of the Denver suburb that they were being overrun by gangs from Venezuela, who came from dungeons and prisons and were being personally shipped in by Kamala Harris. His entire campaign has thematically been built about blaming immigrants. If anything bad has transpired in America, immigrants are the cause. Even though red states are complimenting FEMA for hurricane recovery, Trump has convinced his mindless minions there is no money for real relief because Harris has given it all to illegal immigrants. Who do we believe? The bronzer poster boy or the governors of states hit by hurricanes who are pleased with the assistance they are receiving from Washington?

Trump is promising to find and deport the estimated 11 million immigrants in the U.S. without documentation. Logistically, it is almost certainly impossible and another one of his hollow promises like a health care plan or infrastructure week. Regardless, he is describing a kind of jack-booted army of gunslinging agents of Homeland Security who will ferret out the immigrants, load them up in vans, and take their numbers to the border. That will not work, of course, even if he were able to put the pieces together to execute the assault of his storm troopers. Mexico will only take back Mexican citizens and they account for less than half of undocumented people living here at 47 percent of the total. If he gets a chance, though, Trump will not exercise discretion. Anyone who votes for him can have on their tiny conscience the coming images of families being loaded onto trains and shipped off to oblivion.

The most confounding element of this election is the ability of the GOP MAGAts to listen to Trump speak and still consider giving him their vote. The broadcast and social media ether are filled with his strange non-sequiturs and and speech pathologies that would have him sent to a rest home by most families. Instead, he’s running for president as if he is healthy and knows what he is doing and seems to be clinging to his 70 million supporters from the last election. Because he was in Detroit, a city I know well and where I have spent a fair amount of time, I watched Trump’s speech to see what he might tell the community’s economic leaders. I had been in the same room in 2000 when George W. Bush laid out his economic vision of tax cuts, reform of Social Security and Medicare, and job growth plans along with a policy of fiscal and compassionate conservatism.

Trump’s economic vision was a bit different.

“It’s so simple,” he said. “You know. It isn’t like Elon with his rocket ships that land on the moon within 12 inches of where they want to land or he gets the engines back. That was the first, I really…I said ‘who the hell did that?’ I saw engines about three, four years ago. These things were coming, cylinders, no wings, no nothing, and they’re coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle. Boom! Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right? He’d have eight circles, and he couldn’t fill them up. And then I heard that he beat us in the popular vote. But that, I don’t know, I don’t know. Couldn’t fill up the eight circles. Couldn’t fill up the eight circles. I always loved those circles. They were so beautiful to look at. In fact, the person who did that, that was the best thing about his, the level of that circle was great. But they couldn’t get people, so they used to have the press stand in those circles, because they couldn’t get the people. Then I heard we lost. Oh, we lost. But we’re never going to let that happen again. We’ve been abused by other countries but we’ve been abused by our own politicians, really, more than other countries.”

Is there any remaining wonder why Biden decided not to run for reelection? He could not fill up his circles. And, for the record, Elon has never landed anything on the moon. He has landed a few rocket bodies on barges in the ocean after they have lifted cargo capsules into orbit. Not sure if Biden ever “filled up his circles,” but don’t even know if he had any or where they were. Trump, though, has not made a single public appearance where he has not sounded like some kind of a demented clown or an alcoholic street preacher predicting the end is near and angels and ariels will come and carry you away if you do not vote for him. An irreligious man is trying to expropriate faith and scripture and between his litany of sins continues to convince evangelicals he is an emissary of their god, if not god manifest.

And yet the race remains close because there appear to be millions of Americans who live in Trump’s illusions. They believe the government can create and steer hurricanes to state’s where he has majority support. They believe in Jewish space lasers and pizza parlor pedophile rings run by Democrats. They believe Trump is still the president and Biden is a hologram or an actor who is being controlled by satanic forces. They are convinced President Kennedy is still alive and with his son may still show up to help Trump take control of the government and they waited days at Dealey Plaza in Dallas for the dead JFK and his dead son, JFK Jr., to arrive as political saviors. Too many of them are still convinced the Covid virus was a hoax and that vaccines were part of a plot involving microchips, mass sterilization, or government control.

I do not believe there are enough MAGAts to reelect Trump, and even though the polls are close, I believe Trump fatigue and his rank idiocy will help people get America shed of this madman. Everybody knows who he is and what he wants and his ambitions are connected to himself and his family, not you, not this country. To vote for Trump is to surrender America’s imperfect democracy to a man who will destroy it in due course. I think the polls in these closing weeks will show the undecideds breaking toward Harris. According to Simon Rosenberg of Hopium, Republicans have dropped 60 polls in swing states in the past two weeks trying to push poll numbers in their direction. Do not fall for the cooked data. This race is not as close as they claim.

And I expect sanity to prevail.

This article was originally published on Texas to the world.