The ongoing commentary about the relative ages of the two Presidential candidates is becoming tedious. What matters most is their ability to lead. By the time of the election, Trump and Biden would have each spent a term in office. So, there has been sufficient time for the American people to have formed an opinion about their worthiness to take office for another.

So, how old is too old? Well, it depends on the individual. Many years ago, we were astonished when someone became a centurion. Now, it’s expected. It is part of our evolution. The same is true of our height, which has increased over centuries. People of seven feet are not uncommon.

Of course, this also applies to our cognitive abilities. Former Australian politician Barry Jones’s sagaciously intelligent mind is still writing books at 90, and Bob Hawke, at 89, took a significant interest in the world around him. John Howard will be 85 in July and takes an active interest in politics.

Rubert Murdoch is still telling lies. He is 91 and has become engaged yet again, while Paul McCartney toured Australia at 82. 

Maggie Thatcher was very old until she lost it. Her friend Mikhail Gorbachev lived until 91. The famous French resistance leader and President Charles de Gaulle was 80. Fidel Castro was the President of Cuba, aged 82. Queen Elizabeth was still serving her people at 96.

Spanish artist Picasso was still knocking them out at 91, and the Russian author and philosopher Leo Tolstoy was still writing at 82. US Industrialist Henry Ford was still producing at 84. American inventor Thomas Edison was still working at 84. 

These days, 90-year-olds have been known to obtain university degrees. 

In America, you must be over 35 to be eligible for the Presidency, 30 to be a Senator, and 25 to enter the House. Its parliament is filled with aging politicians. 

The New York Times lists twenty congressmen and women as aged. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is 81, and Nancy Pelosi will finish her term at 83. Plus we have:

1. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, 90 (retiring)
2. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, 89
3. Representative Grace F. Napolitano, Democrat of California, 86 (retiring)
4. Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, 86
5. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, Democrat of the District of Columbia, 86
6. Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky, 85
7. Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, 85
8. Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, 84
9. Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, 83
10. Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, 83
11. Representative Danny K. Davis, Democrat of Illinois, 82
12. Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, 82
13. Representative John Carter, Republican of Texas, 81
14. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, 81
15. Representative Frederica S. Wilson, Democrat of Florida, 80
16. Representative Anna G. Eshoo, Democrat of California, 80
17. Representative Kay Granger, Republican of Texas, 80
18. Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, 80
19. Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho, 80
20. Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, 80

(Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress).

Well, let me finish with the American Actor Cary Grant. He had five wives and fathered a child after he turned 60. (Steve Martin also became a father at 67, btw.)

People have children later in life, and sporting careers are being extended. Playing professional sports at 40 is common nowadays. Age is becoming less critical in all facets of society. Yes, we are living longer – for some, painfully so. Living to 80 was beyond my comprehension as a child, but here I am at 83, still writing for The AIMN, with an active interest in all that life offers those who enjoy its neverending wonderments. 

Of course, the curious among us will contemplate life’s reason and others its purpose, while some will endure it. We all think about its unfairness, suffering, and the energy it requires.

Gaining wisdom to answer philosophical questions requires a deep understanding of all that inhibits us. This understanding comes from long-term observation and experience. With time, we develop the intuition to look at things from different perspectives and make wise decisions. Therefore, aging is not just a process of getting old but can also be a path towards gaining knowledge and wisdom.

The cohort of people most prone to age abuse or bias is those we call the baby boomers. 

So, what has age got to do with it?

In particular, for the two aspirants for President of the USA.

Young politicians should not use their age to “create doubt” about the competency of aged politicians, and aged politicians should not use their age as a weapon of superiority.

Ageism is a critical issue that our society must address. To tackle this problem, we should only mention a candidate’s age when it’s legally required. It’s crucial to treat people of all ages with respect and dignity. We must focus our conversations on the candidate’s “qualifications and merits rather than their age.” Let’s have fair and thoughtful discussions that encourage us to value everyone’s contributions, regardless of age.

Understandably, American voters may have concerns about the competence of the candidates. However, we must remember that the First Amendment protects free speech, regardless of its accuracy. Thus, the challenge for the voter lies in finding a balance between protecting their rights and ensuring that the information shared is truthful.

And rightly so. Both have shown instances of observable ageism, be it by forgetting names, places, or physical difficulties.

In this instance, voters, the American people, will elect the (alleged) leader of the free world. 

Despite everything I have written, how does one eliminate the age factor? Is it possible to overcome human nature?

Well, no, you cannot. You cannot eliminate it from your judgment. The American system has given its people these two men to choose from.

In my view, Donald Trump and President Biden should be ordered to undergo a mental examination to ascertain their fitness to govern the country. If necessary, the Supreme Court could order both to submit to a complete physical and psychiatric evaluation if they were not prepared to do so voluntarily.

President Biden appears to be medically fit. His mental faculties seem reasonable. 

On the other hand, former President Trump might pass a fitness test, but his cognitive capacity is highly doubtful, and on that finding alone, he would be disqualified from running.

In addition, he faces many legal problems involving him defending many indictments (that could go on for years) while running for office, possibly from a prison cell.

My writing should not be interpreted as favouring those who have had the privilege of living long lives. Instead, I deeply empathise with those who seek the vitality and vigour of youth.

In 2016 I described Trump as follows:

“Australians see Trump as a sick, deluded, and sexually abusive narcissist and corrupt criminal with a limited understanding of complex world problems. He is a crash-through politician with a ubiquitous mouth who is entertaining to some but lacks the worldly character required for leadership.”

And that, has nothing to do with his age.

“If you live in Frankston, and you’ve got a problem with Victorian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor. “If you do not want to see Australian women being assaulted by foreign criminals, vote against Labor. Send Labor a message.”

Labor easily wins Dunkley, increasing its primary vote to forty per cent. As no-one predicted. On her way to Canberra is Jodie Belyea, who introduces herself as “a mum from Frankston with two dogs and a mortgage” and a local woman dedicated to empowering other women. The likeable, highly-respected and refreshingly unassuming, local community activist and founder of the Women’s Spirit Movement (2018) is the candidate preferred, at last count, by at least 52% of the 133,000 registered electors who cast a valid vote, in the Port Phillip Bay sand-belt electorate where On the Beach 1959, a film about the end of the world was shot.

It’s another crushing defeat for Peter Craig Dutton, who is now lying low over Anklegate a scandal in which a released detainee fingered by Dutton and deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley in Question Time for sexual assault and stalking turns out to be the wrong man – because the data from his electronic ankle bracelet wrongly put him at the scene of an alleged crime.

It’s par for the course for Dutton – a serial dud in every portfolio he’s ever held, from Health to Home Affairs. He’s now following Morrison’s delusion that Liberal Party salvation lies in the outer suburbs. The lie that Labor would tax utes and family cars when, in fact, its vehicle emissions standards will save money and help preserve what’s left of our planet’s atmosphere apes ScoMo’s abortive bid for the vote of a mythical outer suburban tradie.

But there’s more. Everybody loves trains. $900 million will treat rail travellers to an upgrade of the link to Baxter in the very Liberal seat of Flinders, should they wish to brave Stony Point mosquitoes in their eagerness to take a day trip to see how the other half lives.

For Liberal candidate Nathan Conroy, it’s all over. He did his best with a bad script about how bad crime was. Locals love that stuff. Is he a sore loser? It’s fashionable, in the heady hyper-partisan slanging match our politics is today, to maintain your hate. A developer-friendly Frankston Mayor for three years in a row, with a rate rise every year to show for it, Conroy, formerly of Cork, is a big man with a slab of a face such as you might encounter in a friendly punch-on in a rugby scrum or in a grudge-match of Gaelic football.

Thirty-one-year-old Conroy, who boasts he once ran a multi-million dollar business -as manager of a Richmond bowlo- (that’s a lot of parma)-is the Liberals’ archetypal pin-up boy. White, straight and blokey. With the business background, he could be another Bruce Billson who held Dunkley until he got a job representing small business, for which he was being paid months before he quit politics. Conroy is slow to congratulate his opponent – as are other Liberals – but he does publicly congratulate himself on his wife’s pregnancy.

He doesn’t know where he found the time … (to make a baby) … but he did, he says.

Conroy grins, sporting teeth like a barracuda. They are neat teeth in a crooked smile.

Mrs Conroy doesn’t know where to look. Does hubby think he’s at a buck’s night? Ley, who is as high as a kite, comes to the rescue; proclaims Nathan a national Liberal hero. Even better than making babies, he’s made Dunkley marginal. The truth is, the absence of One Nation and UAP from the ballot accounts for what Murdoch and our corporate media brand a four percent swing to the Coalition.

“We are coming for you,” Ley warbles, adding that a three to four percent swing across the nation would win the Coalition government. It wouldn’t. It holds fifty-five seats. Twenty-one are needed to form a majority government. The swing looks around 3.4 per cent at the AEC Tally Room, Sunday. But bunkum and bluster are the order of the day in the politics of a post-truth, Trumpian age era. Expect more “alternative facts” after Sky’s Peta Credlin stoutly declares that Dutton resonates in Dunkley.

Credlin strikes gold on the night. The heartland. It’s the Liberals’ Lassiter’s Reef. And it’s in Dunkley. Ground zero is probably half-way up Oliver’s Hill, under that cantilevered bungalow, where the late Graham Cyril Kennedy, AO, had an unimpeded view of Port Phillip Bay.

“… the base is back, the Liberal heartland is back”!

“Coming for you” means more smear ‘n fear. Look out, Albo. Albo is at least in Dunkley. Unlike Dutton, who does a bunk and is QANTAS clubbing his way back to Dickson. Classy.

The electorate is named in honour of feminist, telegraphist and union leader, the fearless, tireless, eloquent, advocate for equal pay for women in the public service, Louisa Dunkley 1886-1927. Victorian Liberal senator, Crumb-maiden Jane Hume, who is also at the Liberal campaign wake, thinks quotas are OK for corporations, but the Liberal Party is “a different beast”.

Discretion is the better part of valour, but it does mean Spud’s abandoned Ley and Hume at the bar to do the obsequies? At least former Frankston school-boy and Liberal fund-raiser, Jeffrey Gibb Kennett, is celebrating his 76th birthday there. It leaves Peter time to warm up the party bus. Tomorrow, Ley will be the scapegoat for that stunt about the released detainee being arrested by the police on charges of sexual assault and misconduct. After howling down Albo in parliament about his dereliction of duty in failing to defy the High Court and lock up all the detainees, most of whom, Team Dutton reckons, are hardened criminals and all primed to rape, pillage and “re-offend”.

Some detainees have already been locked up for a decade. Some have been offenders, but all have done their time. For most, their only “crime” is to seek refuge here by boat. We lock them up for the rest of their lives and when a High Court forces us to let them out we insist that the harmless and innocent majority wear ankle-bracelets alongside the few who have committed serious crimes? What could possibly go wrong?

But it’s not about justice, it’s about the theatre of cruelty as deterrence, and was once very popular. We’re so proud of our boat turnarounds, we’ve exported the idea to Rishi Sunak’s Littler Britain, where “illegals” will be exported at great expense to Rwanda.

Or back to certain death. Dutton once locked up “Deva”, a blind, mentally ill Sri Lankan man for ten years who sought refuge after being tortured by the Sri Lankan army, a fact established by Australian authorities. He could choose to go home, a type of death sentence. Or stay in detention. But we were flexible.

The Minister might grant him a visa. In the future. Which he wouldn’t get because the Minister had decided he had failed the character test. Concerns were raised then about Dutton’s use of the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose, god-like, arbitrary power the Home Affairs Minister has to either grant or deny visas at whim.

“In his decision, Federal Court Justice Rares called it “absurd” and “unacceptable” to put forth that Dutton might issue Deva with a visa in the future when he had just found – on grounds not disclosed – that the mentally ill refugee failed the character test. The justice found that the government’s position was unreasonable and legally invalid.”

It may be rhetoric when Team Dutton pledges to lock asylum-seekers with criminal records up again. That is, whilst the Coalition is in opposition. But cheap words cheapen lives. Demean our own. Not to be outdone on “sovereign borders” a high-sounding nonsense in the game of chicken that is our asylum-seeker debate in Question Time, Labor has already been forced into the squalid compromise of the ankle-bracelet.

Perhaps there’s a glimmer of hope. Demonising can be a vote winner. But not in Dunkley. It might have worked once for Howard and again for Abbott, who in turn fostered con-artist Morrison, who gave us his tough cop on the beat, while letting Mike Pezzullo take charge via intermediary Scott Briggs. For five years, Pezullo gave the orders. Not that Morrison has anything to atone for because his God forgives him. It’s in his valedictory speech. And Ley has still not retracted her women-assaulted-by-foreign-criminals tweet on X.

An increasingly rubbery figure, Ley easily wins most mobile face on a night of such jubilation and jocund hilarity you would swear that the Liberals had won. At least she’s fronted up. Eighty percent of success is showing up, Woody Allen reckons.

Delivery? Ley puts so much into it that it’s exhausting just to watch. Has she had elocution lessons from Michaelia Cash, the lip-reader’s friend? She somehow finds extra facial muscles to come up with the whopper of the night. Tonight’s swing will win us government.

You know, she knows it’s a monstrous lie by the way she moves her jaw. Like a python swallowing an ox.

Dunkley, take a bow. The electorate is still “reeling”, as the Canberra gallery loves to say – it’s what you do after “bracing” yourself – another favourite cliché. But there is no word for how you recover from a sordid, multi-million dollar, US-style shit-storm of lies, stunts, and slurs amidst the static of Ley’s disgraceful racism, pitched so low it sounds as if it’s scripted by a tipsy One Nation intern.

The high spending low-punching campaign of fear, hate and racism is new to Dunkley, where the exotic and the aberrant are mainstream but try not to make eye contact after dark, especially in Young Street, Beach Street and around the train station subway. Even unflappable, seasoned, seen-it-all-before Frankston has never seen this before.

Ley may be a contender for a door prize, but what really steals the show is Advance. The Liberals are outspent by their bag-men and women, the billionaire, dark money propaganda unit Advance. But unlike The Voice, this time, the punters are not buying it. Cynics would say that the stage three tax cut beat Advance to it – a negative campaign doesn’t do so well against money in your pocket. But this battle for the hearts and minds of Dunkley probably is its own worst enemy. More than overkill, there is a sterling failure to communicate. And it’s hard not to see the whole, baroque excess of the assault, as something out of Monty Python; a futile exercise in lurid self-parody.

Perhaps we can take heart in the defeat of billionaire-backed Advance’s hate-bombing saturation campaign of lies, aggressing voters; “hammering letter boxes” texting, in-your-Facebooking, tweeting and other anti-social media sledging and its fleet of Truth Trucks, the mother of all defamatory mobile billboards. One features Chinese president, Xi Jinping, voting Labor insinuating that our ALP is somehow a crypto-Communist party. But the billionaires are thrifty. It’s the same image Advance deployed in the 2022 federal election.

It’s a wonder they weren’t laughed out of town. Advance’s outrageous assault on truth, democracy and decency belongs in Trump’s America. It’s an import we don’t need and won’t heed, however much a group of tone-deaf billionaires want it. But, it won’t stop trying. As Dr Jeremy Walker points out, behind Advance is the Atlas foundation, a global network of over six hundred libertarian think tanks.

Advance is a shadowy group funded by billionaires, including Gina Rinehart, also a queen pin in the IPA’s opaque funding and the man who did so well out of pro-coal Coalition energy policy, Trevor St Baker. It easily outspends the million dollar plus Liberal budget. It played a key role in sabotaging The Voice, but in Dunkley, failed to reprise its undermining of established democratic processes. As far as we know. We need, nevertheless, to demand to know who is behind it and what it is up to. Anthony Klan reports for Michael West Media, that Advance is being investigated by The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) because of its peculiarly opaque ownership structure.

Just as worrying is Advance’s calculated misrepresentation as some type of grassroots movement, a concept which Advance has already capably seeded in a corporatised and monopolistic Australian MSM where you can hear your ABC selling it as just a right-wing equivalent of Get-Up or the Unions. Every channel has the same pitch. We are being sold a pig in a poke.

In the meantime, we are vulnerable to a powerful propaganda machine, which may be crude at this stage but which will certainly be capable of refining its techniques.

We need to know just how tightly Advance has bound itself to the Coalition. The negativity of the “Noalition’s” campaign is an alarm call. Forget policy, issues, leaders’ integrity or party achievements, the Dunkley by-election is reheated leftovers and the Coalition’s happy place – rapists, paedophiles all aboard Tampa Redux; Howard’s trump card, politics as theatre of cruelty.

And Anklegate. Much as there will be a scapegoat at hand, the fiasco raises such serious questions about the role of the police and the liaison between it and the Coalition that in a healthy democratic system, Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley would already have resigned.

Sending Labor its threadbare message is less a federal opposition than the remnants of Morrison’s divide and rule legacy, not so much a Liberal parliamentary party as ten separate factions, headed by a duo of desperadoes, Peter “Paladin’s Cave” Dutton and deputy Sussan Ley who resigned from “Fizza” Turnbull’s cabinet over her 2015 “impulse buying” of a $795,000 Main Beach, Gold Coast investment property -from a Liberal vendor and party donor, whilst a gullible nation paid her travel bill to fly to Wesley Hospital in Brisbane to list new medicines on the PBS list. As you do. Team Dutton has swallowed Trump’s playbook whole in its bid to get attention; its eagerness to embrace the dark arts of media manipulation, disinformation. Lying its head off.

Flooding the zone with shit, Steve Bannon calls it. In other words, as Mike Seccombe explains in The Saturday Paper:

“Make outrageous populist pronouncements and then wait for the mainstream media to report them. Inevitably the other side will seek to debunk them. Ed Coper, Ed Coper, CEO of progressive communications outfit Populares. calls it the “weaponisation of lies”.  

We should not be too startled by the right’s uptake of the tactics. Lying is a Liberal tradition. Wanton wastrel, a sterling pioneer in the politics of squander, John Winston Howard, took the proceeds of a mining boom and blew it on the middle class and the rich. Lied his eyebrows off over babies overboard to win the 2001 election. Howard is still lying about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. He “misled parliament” or lied to the house that our illegal attack of Iraq was constitutionally justified. He’d taken expert advice.

Failed priest, Tony Abbott, who crashed and burnt as PM because although he had the keys to the Lodge, he had no idea how to drive it, tipped off a startled nation in 2010 that you could only take as the “Gospel truth” stuff which he had written down.

But it’s not just the lies that paint Labor as an enemy of the people. Beneath the rabid dog-eat-dog, rancorous, hyper partisan, post-truth politics of our increasingly rattled right wing you can feel the fear and the desperation mounting. Link it with unlimited resources – and what could possibly go wrong?

Let’s put the band together. Supercharged with fear and the dark money of billionaires’ right-wing lobby mob, Advance, lead vocalist, Federal Coalition deputy-leader, Siren Sussan Ley, belts out her wog rapist in our midst shtick.  Her leader and stand over tactician for Xenophobes-R-Us Benito Dutton, currently in witness protection because Victorians hate him – is on percussion. The Big Lie is that Labor (rather than the High Court) has released 149 former indefinite detainees into the community, a Goebbels-type lie central to a campaign of primal fearmongering, racist dog-whistling in conjunction with his corporate media backers.

Forget the light on the hill, we are out in the paddock in the ute, at night, roo-shooting, but with “rapists, paedophiles and murderers” in the spotlight. And not just at home. In the world theatre, “human animals” are to be exterminated by zealots.

Dunkley is won by a woman dedicated to the empowerment of women; Jodie Belyea represents some of the best values which are part of Labor’s democratic, social justice, working class heritage. Her victory gives us hope.

On the Coalition’s side of the ledger of party politics appears a yawning chasm of moral deficit and at times comically incompetent leadership, a party ripe for exploitation by Advance, a sinister organisation with its own agenda masquerading as a popular, home-spun movement. This enemy of the people is controlled by a small group of powerful billionaires with international links. Beneath the theatre of the by-election and the alarming spectacle of the Liberal Party’s decline are symptoms of its capture by a secretive, self-interested cabal which warrant urgent, extensive and through investigation.

By Martha Knox-Haly  

From April 2023 to October 2023, Australian voters were subjected to an unprecedented social media disinformation campaign around the Voice to Parliament Referendum. The Voice to Government was supported by Scott Morrison in 2017, and it had enjoyed the steady support of the majority of Australian voters several years. The proposal was modest. It did not extend to a treaty, and there was no reason to suspect the Voice referendum would be controversial. Then in April 2023, the new coalition leader Peter Dutton signalled he was going to side with West Australian Liberals, and that he would campaign against the Coalition’s previous policy.

This was the cue for the launch of the ‘No campaign’ in April 2023. The associated digital disinformation campaign was unparalleled in intensity, spread and sophistication. The ultimate victims of the no campaign were amongst the most impoverished and marginalised Australians. The trashing of Indigenous dreams by wealthy donors was reprehensible. To date, these wealthy donors have not apologised for the spike in Indigenous suicide rates that occurred from April 2023. The No campaign claimed to champion free speech, but how can speech be free when discourse is the product of online manipulation and deceit? It was not the first time political actors had pursued digital disinformation campaigns, but it was the first time these strategies had succeeded.

How can Australian voters be protected against digital disinformation and attacks on democracy? A robust regulatory framework requires coercive powers. It needs to be able to combat disinformation from the point of initiation and within echo chambers. The framework needs to empower social media users and the associated regulatory institutions. Above all, the regulatory frameworks needs to be agile enough to make a difference in the tight time frames that exist around electoral activity.

The Albanese Government proposed amendments to the Broadcasting Act of 1992, strengthening the powers of the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Despite the proposed amendment containing many of the elements the Coalition Government had taken to the 2022 election, the Coalition’s response was predictably histrionic. There were assertions that the bill would establish ‘a ministry of truth’ and ‘was a threat to democracy’. In reality, the amendment bill provided ACMA with a modest increase in the power to gather information and maintain records about a social media platform’s responses to disinformation. ACMA was not given powers to force content to be taken down expeditiously, and it did not cover media organisations.

Coercive powers around the removal of content were reserved for the ‘e-safety commissioner.’ The ‘e-safety commissioner’ is concerned with protecting the rights of adults or children who are subject to abuse, and its scope does not extend to ensuring the safety of democratic electoral systems. Under the Online Safety Act 2021, online providers are required to develop codes of conduct, and the E-Safety Commissioner can pursue fines. Online providers are required to respond to the E-Safety Commissioner’s questions, and take down content. There is nothing about compliance audits of social media platforms, or promoting algorithmic transparency and sovreignty in either the Online Safety Act or the proposed ACMA amendments. These frameworks are complaints focused, and not designed to bring about systemic reform of social media providers.

There is a proposal to introduce new laws based on recommendations from the Commission into Robodebt. These recommendations are that all federal government agencies be transparent in explaining how algorithms and AI affect decision making processes. Unfortunately, these recommendations do not extend to online service providers.

The regulatory gap is a problem. The onus is on social media giants to be responsive to requests to remove offensive content. The platform owner’s personality can influence responsiveness. For example, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was a programmer by background, and proactively managed the risks to elections. Regretfully Elon Musk, the current owner of X, dismantled the capacity for users to flag political disinformation during the referendum campaign.

The ACMA amendments permit the regulator to raise concerns with a platform, and investigate the platform’s self-regulatory process. If the self-regulatory processes of a platform are deemed inadequate, there are potential penalties and enforcement of a mandatory code of conduct. The emphasis is on providing the platform with as many opportunities as possible to take mitigating action before levying sanctions. The process is not in any sense fast moving or agile. There is nothing in the legislation around algorithmic sovereignty or opt outs from personalised recommendations. These are the very tools that a platform user needs to have to start creating an information ecosystem where disinformation is weeded out.

The European Union’s Digital Services Act provides an example of how social media users can be provided with these tools. On the 20^th October 2023, the European Union adopted a delegated regulation under the Digital Services Act around compliance audits for what is referred to as very large online search platforms (VLOSP) and very large online search engines (VLOSE). The delegated regulation specified the role of independent auditors, who were required to use templates for implementation reports. In August 2023, Articles 34-48 of the Digital Services Act came into effect, with a range of compliance provisions, such as risk assessments, opt outs from personalised recommendations, algorithm transparency, data and access for researchers. The mandatory annual independent audit assesses compliance with these provisions, which are the basis for mandatory reports to the European Commission and Digital Services Coordinator. One notable weakness in the European Union delegated regulation is that auditors will be paid for by the companies they are auditing. The EU’s Digital Services Act is not an agile framework either. Importantly none of the regulatory frameworks in Australia or the EU is particularly effective at combating the formation of echo chambers, which are the repositories for disinformation.

Only technological solutions have the capacity to combat the lightning spread of disinformation. Examples of agile technology that could be incorporated into policy frameworks include BotSlayer, a software program designed by researchers at the University of Indiana. Botslayer detects the presence of coordinated disinformation campaigns through the use of bots. It is free software that can be used to monitor sudden suspicious spikes in activity. Another technological solution includes random dynamical nudges.

Researchers Curin, Vera and Khaledi-Nasab have explained that social media is built around the advertising culture of the ‘hyper-nudge’. This is a marketing technique of communicating identity-based messages that appeal to generating user consumer behaviours. This social media design feature is responsible for generating echo chambers. Curin and colleagues developed the concept of the random dynamical nudge, where social media users are presented with a random selection of other users’ opinions. Their research found that using random dynamical nudges led to consensus formation, rather than fragmentation of political discourse and formation of echo chambers.

Policy frameworks could mandate joint systematic monitoring by the Social Media Platform, ACMA and the AEC with the use of BotSlayer style software, with compulsory auditing for the dismantling of disinformation campaigns and deployment of random dynamical nudges around electoral promises. Regulating online platforms and providers is complex, but protecting democracy is worth the effort.

By Denis Bright

Nothing excites the electorate more than the voice of our leaders’ messages of hope over adversarial politics. Prime Minister Albanese has been busy consolidating with art in media releases over the holiday break.

The press conference in Sydney on 3 January 2024 was a sign-on for more duties that are usually beyond the scope of a Prime Minister:

Happy New Year everyone. In 2024 I’m very positive as we enter the new year. And later this morning I will be briefly attending the beginning of David Warner’s last test match at the SCG. And I do hope, if it hasn’t happened already, whoever knows anything about the missing caps – David Warner has represented Australia on more than one hundred occasions. The baggy green caps belong to him. He has earnt them and they should be returned.

The press conference continued to cover vital issues about living standards and skilling the nation. There was a promise of 300,000 fee-free TAFE places during 2024. The MYEFO spirit continued with a promise of more commitment to cost-of-living-relief in the 2024-25 budget scheduled for 9 May.

What a contrast to the political statements from Prime Minister Morrison exactly two years ago. In a live interview from Kirribilli House to Sarah Abo on the Today Show, discussion moved to the leadership skills of then Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese:

Well, he’s always full of complaints after the fact. I’ve found with the Leader of the Opposition. He’s like that person on the Monday morning who always says what the coach should have done and what all the players have done. But you know, I don’t think you want that bloke running the team at any time.

The current press conference marginalized adversarial politics. Responding to a journalist’s questions Prime Minister Albanese offered New Year on several fronts:

What we want is to take pressure off people who are feeling pressure as a result of global inflation. This has had an impact. Australians, of course, were hit by the pandemic and then they were hit by global inflation, which was a result of two global impacts. One was the ongoing supply issues related to the pandemic, and the second of course, was the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine that had an impact on prices here as they did right around the world. So, we’re very conscious about those cost-of-living pressures. That’s why we have introduced a range of measures, including fee-free TAFE, but in addition to that, our energy price relief plan, our plan that has made an enormous difference in reducing the price of medicines. That’s why we’ve also undertaken increases in rent relief, for example, the largest increase in rent assistance for 30 years, along with other measures that we took assisting single mums, assisting others.

Peter Dutton as Opposition Leader received just one mention from the Prime Minister at the press conference and in response to a journalist’s question:

JOURNALIST: Did you reflect over the break over any changes you would like to see in the way the Government operates in the New Year?

PRIME MINISTER: We continue to engage in a positive way. We’ll continue to put forward our positive plans for the nation. Continue to point out that Peter Dutton has no solutions and nothing positive to offer the nation.

More mention of the Opposition or the Opposition leader merely fosters a return to unproductive pollical polemics. This outcome would be detested in households, comfortably-off and disadvantaged alike. The recovery of Labor’s primary vote would be inhibited.

Having outperformed on budget estimates from May 2023 as recorded in MYEFO 2023, the Labor Government can perhaps consider more generous cost-of-living relief measures. Some review of the rate of delivery of Stage 3 tax concession might even be possible. Fully implemented on the Morrison Government’s formula would cost around $69 billion over the forward estimates period (to 2026-27), and around $313 billion over the medium-term projection period (to 2033-34) according to ATO estimates. Adjustments for bracket creep can still be accommodated at the lower end of the taxable income stage where households deserve a 30 per cent income tax rate.

Most voters would surely welcome a review of the background to Australia’s commitment to the Iraq War in 2003 which brought thousands of Australia’s out onto the streets in protest in 2003. Prime Minister Albanese cautiously did not pre-empt the results of the inquiry chaired by Dennis Richardson:

I do want to make some comments about the release of documents that takes place every twenty years. The process there is that documents are provided to the National Archives of Australia three years in advance. So, the documents for what occurred in 2003 were provided in 2020 by the then Morrison Government to the National Archives of Australia. It’s clear that there were some Cabinet records missing from that transfer from the Government. Some 78 Cabinet records were not transferred to the National Archives. The public service has now, within days of being notified of that, provided the remaining documents to the Archives, and the head of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has commenced an independent review that will be conducted by Dennis Richardson, as to how this failure in 2020 to provide all the appropriate documentation occurred. Let me make it very clear of what my government’s position is. Australians have a right to know the basis upon which Australia went to war in Iraq. Australians lost their lives during that conflict and we know that some of the stated reason for going to war was not correct in terms of the weapons of mass destruction that was alleged Iraq had at that time. Australians do have a right to know what the decision-making process was, and my Government believes that this mistake must be corrected, that the National Archives of Australia should release all the documentation that has been provided to them, having account for any national security issues, of course, upon the advice of the national security agencies.

Unless more investigative journalism is hastened on the background to the LNP’s AUKUS defence deal in 2021, readers will need to wait until the early 2040s before details just maybe available of the background to the nuclear-powered submarine acquisitions.

The AUKUS deal was announced in an imperious style on 16 September 2021 with the imprimatur of Scott Morrison, Boris Johnson and Joe Biden. The statement offered strategic aspirations without details of forthcoming contracts an advanced warning about future costs. Later Australian government officially estimates the cost of the program to be between $268 billion and $368 billion over the next 30 years. These far-ranging estimates include:

• Acquisition of submarines: Purchasing at least eight nuclear-powered submarines, either directly from the US or built in Australia with US and UK assistance.
• Infrastructure and facilities: Upgrading existing facilities and building new ones to support the operation and maintenance of the submarines.
• Operational costs: Fuel, crew training, and ongoing maintenance throughout the lifespan of the submarines.

The press conference on 3 January 2024 provides just a peek into the need for more openness in government processes. The media team handled this press conference with outstanding professionalism. The complex issues were communicated in stages after that less than nerdy reference to David Warner’s stolen cricket cap. Perhaps the chase is a negative metaphor against unnecessary secrecy in government.

Can this openness ease the current fragmentation shown by recent national opinion polling? Currently, support for the Greens is completely offset by preferences from far-right parties back to the LNP?

Perhaps the solutions require much more than offering a higher standard of new clips to promote a more thorough understanding of the processes of government so that populist whims and soft media discussions do not determine outcomes relating to living standards and Australia’s stamp in geopolitics.  

Within my social media circle and in the news reporting I read, there is growing support for the view that Dutton and the LNP are ripe to win the next election.

This assumption is based on views that Labor has done nothing about the cost of living or that Prime Minister Albanese travels too much and interest rates are too high. Of course, our debt needs to be lowered; asylum seekers should never have been released, and we need to spend more on infrastructure. You can add to that the cost of renting, and more houses need to be built.

Andrew Bolt is certainly confident of a Labor loss (isn’t he always?): 

“The Coalition under Peter Dutton could actually win the next election.”

He then advised they needed a reshuffle and suggested they bring back former prime minister Scott Morrison. Yes, he did. Check it out. It really is difficult to take Andrew Bolt seriously.

Or Shadow Attorney General Michaelia Cash, who says that:

“… the Government’s handling of the High Court overturning indefinite detention proves they are ‘hopelessly’ out of their depth.”

Right-wing columnist Gerard Henderson, writing for The Australian (paywalled) was quick to blow Dutton’s trumpet:

“Despite all the naysayers decrying his decision for the Liberals to campaign against the voice, Peter Dutton has been vindicated and is looking strong in the lead up to the next election.”

These astonishing predictions came after The Voice Referendum and Labor’s decision to let some refugees with bad records into the community following a high court decision and before the Court gave its reasons. 

Is it possible that at this time in the election cycle, the Coalition is indeed in a position to win in 2025? My first reaction is to say, “no chance”. After all, it was only a short time ago that Morrison lost on May 21 2022, after almost a decade of corruption, immorality, disgrace, continuous scandals, poor leadership, and lying. Keeping up with all the controversy and poor decisions was a daily grind: Lack of action on climate change, a poor response to the pandemic and the tragedy behind Robo debt are just a few. 

Is the electorate ready to forgive them and return the same people to office within one term? In normal circumstances, you would say no; they wouldn’t, but I confess, we live in strange times. 

Let’s look at where people say Labor is vulnerable, remembering we are some ways out from the next election.

1. The subs deal (a Morrison leftover) has been unpopular. Only time will tell by how much, and there is lots of it. I also disagree with this decision. However, I don’t think it is a front-of-mind issue.

2. Regarding the next tax breaks (another Morrison leftover), people think the money could be better spent other than handing money back to the wealthy. But to break a promise of such enormity. A broken promise for the greater good takes guts. Do it, Albo.

It really is starting to become glaringly obvious that Stage 3 is not just an unfair tax cut that gives massive cuts to the richest, it is also very, very dumb economics. https://t.co/DLqYOXck3L

— Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) November 21, 2023

Make some big decisions. Negative gearing is nothing more than a tax rort for wealthy investors that reduces housing affordability. Get rid of it.

3. The cost of living. Coles, Woolworths and others control the cost of living more than any government. Fuel is controlled by external forces. Allow more competition.

4. High interest rates. No government controls interest rates. It is as accurate as that.

5. Albo travels too much. It is in our own interest that he does. It has also been shown that he travels roughly the same – or less- as other recent PMs. Most of it has been restoring the damage done by the previous Government. China, in particular. Labor has restored our trade, which was almost destroyed by Morrison. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will attend the COP 28 Meeting in December.

6. Release of asylum seekers. The Government obeyed the High Court of Australia. The Court has yet to release its reasons for the decision. The legislation passed thus far could be more explicit but can only be so once their reasons are known.

Further news on this story was exposed in The Guardian on November 21. Five of the 93 people affected by this month’s high court decision on indefinite detention had already been released into community detention by the Coalition.

7. Cost of renting. A carryover problem from the Morrison Government. A decade of doing nothing.

8. Build more housing. But both are being addressed, if not to everyone’s satisfaction.

9. Spend more on infrastructure. Yes, but now is not the time. It would make inflation much worse.

10. The Voice referendum. It was a bad loss and poorly sold, but it isn’t an election breaker. The conservatives not only destroyed “The Voice” but also any chance of us ever becoming a republic.

11. The economy. In answer to a question during Question Time, the Prime Minister said:

“Let’s compare our economy, I’m asked about international comparisons of our economy and how it’s going,” “Our unemployment rate is 3.6 – lower than what we inherited; our participation rate is 66.7 – higher than what we inherited; our gender pay gap is 13 – lower than what we inherited.”

Mr Albanese said manufacturing jobs and women employed full-time were higher than what was “inherited”. His time expired.

And let’s remember the enormous debt Morrison left behind.

Labor’s record in office so far might appear bland, but a glimpse at their website tells a different story.

For example, on November 23, Albanese announced his government would “rapidly expand investment schemes for clean energy projects.”

i. Robodebt. People will be reminded that somebody must be responsible. Who might it be? Scott Morrison, Marise Payne, Malcolm Turnbull, Alan Tudge, Christian Porter and/or Stuart Robert?

How damaging would it be during an election campaign?

Would you again put the same people in charge of policies similar to Robodebt?

ii. Many other Cases are before the NACC:

“146 referrals are pending triage. 53 referrals are currently in active triage, and 181 referrals that have been triaged are currently under assessment.”

Some, like Robodebt, will be open to the public. So, a constant stream of bad news stories will emerge from the NACC.

iii. Despite current events, Peter Dutton is still the best thing Labor has going for it. Outside of being tough on immigration, he has little going for him. A personality transplant might be a good idea. He carries a load of baggage.

iv. The Guardian Essential Survey of November 14 showed Australia at its pessimistic best, but I suspect this pessimism will have a brighter smile by the time of the election. Most people felt Australia should stay out of trouble between the superpowers and the war in the Middle East.

Most folks surveyed thought interest rates would go up again and rent would continue to rise. The price of petrol is decided overseas and not by our government.

The new social cohesion report released around the same time was also “sobering“. Katherine Murphy reports that:

“After the polarising voice referendum campaign, amid rising community tensions over the Middle East war and sustained anxiety about the economy, shows little appetite for frivolity. 

v. This same apathetic view of the world, like rust, is spreading throughout the community. From its governing position, Labor is well-placed to combat the conservatives’ attacks on institutions and the future of life as we know it.

Importantly, continues Murphy, this:

“… new research suggests many Liberal and National voters are in a severe funk now Labor is in power. 

“The number of people in this cohort who say they are pessimistic or very pessimistic about Australia’s future also increased by 27 points.”

If that’s what their supporters think about the future, I wonder what they think of Dutton as a leader. Is he just another Abbott, good at spewing out negative thought bubbles but never able to transition to Prime Minister?

The LNP is a coalition of political parties that took an extraordinary toll, over almost a decade, on our institutions and democracy. They are nothing more than a coalition of capitalistic shysters more interested in the top than those in need and have never apologised for the most deplorable period of governance in Australian political history. For example, see this list of lies that Scott Morrison told during his tenure as Prime Minister. Then there is this list of Peter Dutton’s lies about The Voice.

Am I to believe that the LNP under Dutton, without even a climate change or energy policy, will right all their wrongs when they didn’t even confess to Robodebt (or all the other falsehoods and acts of corruption)? Are they really a serious contender to become our next government after only 18 months?

Many conservatives believe that they have the power to shape society in a way that benefits the elite. They see themselves as the superior class, adhering to the principle of the aristocracy or the ‘betters’. They believe that they are natural leaders and the best suited to rule. They feel entitled to all the benefits that society creates as a reward for their superiority.

Considering that we live in a more complex and scientifically advanced world than ever, it seems unrealistic to expect the LNP, with its Luddite principles, to guide us through these complexities. Since the May 21, 2022 election, Labor has been busy correcting the mistakes made by Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison. Fixing the country’s economy may take years.

Sorry, I cannot swallow this nonsense. Andrew, Michaelia and Gerard should get a grip on themselves.

Anyway, Coalition strategists would know victory next time for them is a huge ask. First-term governments federally very rarely lose.

In my 10+ years writing for The AIMN, the world has changed significantly. Governments worldwide have shifted to the right or have other undemocratic systems, from forms of grey communism to outright dictatorships.

The rise in the advocacy of female equality is fighting a brave fight, while men are blindly chasing everything narcissism offers. But are we becoming better nations, more caring, more equal, more just and less corrupt? 

In Australia, I care about how we are managed as a society, including those things necessary for social cohesion. All communities are controlled by laws, systems or regulations, including the philosophy of whatever party is in power at the time.

The word ‘manipulated’ is used repeatably in my text to emphasise the point, so read on and please contribute to the comments section.

I contend that the world changed significantly in the period of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. There was an abrupt turn to the right of politics, which worsened people’s lives. The conservatives within their parties sprang into action and also headed to the right. When one looks back, it not only changed our lives, but it opened the doors to mass manipulation.

In debating some of the following issues with colleagues and friends, I have also noticed and agree with the observation that:

“… the Fox [and Sky] viewership is marked by a sort of collective personality disorder whereby the viewer feels almost like they’ve been let into a secret society.”

In the US, President Reagan took away responsibility for social services from the Government budget and gave the money to the churches to do what the bureaucracy did. Religion entered politics, and the US political system slowly fell apart.

Conversely, in England, Prime Minister Thatcher determined that there was “No such thing as society”, and their country also began to fall apart. Thus began the days of the two-income family. A decline in marriage with more divorces, bigger houses, and empty hearts. And a proliferation of kids with single parents. Ask any state schoolteacher, and they might suggest that around 70% of their pupils come from single parents.

Poverty has increased worldwide to the extent it is today, yet those of a conservative ilk insist they have done nothing wrong; “American exceptionalism still exists“. Later, an era of Trumpism developed when the masses became manipulated to the point where one wondered if they were ever educated.

Yet he hopes to overcome many lawsuits and have another crack at the presidency. His lies and hatred for those who desire equal opportunity and fairness know no bounds. He is manifestly the most incredible narcissist in the world of politics.

“Because they mistakenly believed in their own righteousness,” Churches have manipulated people into believing love and morality are exclusively religious. 

They never allowed their own immorality to stymie their self-righteousness. Added to this, the manipulation of minors by some men of the cloth was exposed, and the whole world turned against them.

We have become obsessed with celebrities and the media, who – with the help of the media – manipulate us into believing that people of little virtue, talent or character are somehow important. More often than not, they have acquired notoriety through wealth or influence.

The battle for wealth, whether corporate or individual, has intensified and divided us into sections: those with and those without.

We have been manipulated into competitive living (making money for money’s sake) while, at the same time, we have forgotten how to laugh or even volunteer. Now, what was the name of that family across the road? We need to comprehend the difference between manners and civility. 

Well, our kids don’t. Narcissism is rife, and men are particularly prone to it.

Enormous advances have been made in medicine, and future discoveries will increase enormously. Artificial intelligence has arrived on many fronts. They will further change a world now stressed out with advances in technology.

More drugs are available for many illnesses, but the large drug companies manipulate who gets them and the price paid. The vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic are a case in point. A vaccine was found in record time, but the wealthiest nations were the most advantaged. 

Acquiring a wage has become a necessary function of survival or at least having a reasonable standard of living.

There is much less wellness. Mental illness, at last, has been recognised. Still, men have succumbed to domestic violence, where men manipulating women has become a pastime, resulting in at least one death each week in Australia. 

Record amounts of money are thrown at the problems, but no evidence of success results.

Australian Aborigines are a case in point. The voters were so manipulated at the recent referendum that they were confused between right and wrong or didn’t know the difference.

“If you don’t know, vote no.” (Seriously.)

The right of politics manipulates women to maintain a perceived physical, academic, corporate and sexual dominance. History records their manipulation and the ongoing incompetence of extremist right-wing Government. Those of Howard, Abbott, Dutton and Morrison. In Australia, we have experienced the extremities of these men, their ignorance and corruption, to the point that their parties should not be allowed to stand in the next election in their current form.

People may live longer but, in my observation, are less happy, and the incidence of mental health has become a social problem. 

We mumble a lot without saying much, we seldom love meaningfully, and the joy of sex has degenerated into casual opportunism where women are manipulated.

It is a time of enormous profits, little leadership, shallow thinking and superficial relationships. It is a time in which technology is making extraordinary advances, but our intellectual reasoning seems only able to appreciate its capacity for good with the word ‘profit’ attached. 

We are conquering outer space and diseases yet polluting our environment and souls. We have been so foolish as to allow ourselves to be manipulated by the fools who, once proven wrong, repeat the dose at every opportunity.

We allow ourselves to be manipulated by exaggerated, flamboyant rhetoric designed to heighten a sense of alarm or simply gain our attention. Think Andrew Bolt, for example.

The First Nations referendum was another example of this nefarious manipulation of our democracy. The uneducated on this crucial matter was exploited with propaganda to vote no, and its unfairness was wrong, but the conservatives say it’s just politics. They always do.

Unscrupulous people manipulate our social behaviour, and the young fall victim to the persuasive influence of debilitative drugs.

We know beyond doubt that climate change has surpassed all predictions, yet few countries remain concerned. Gloom is upon us because they lust for power and wealth.

And the purity of our playtime, our sport, has been manipulated by the corrosive effect of gambling money and drugs.

And the cheats, in turn, manipulate us with their lies.

Because of the rise of far-right Neoconservatism, I am currently reviewing my thoughts on the future.

By Denis Bright  

After more than a decade in Opposition, NSW Labor is striving to deliver an inspirational Budget for the Many.

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey’s budget presentation has been well received by ABC News coverage (19 September 2023) for its cautious and responsible priorities. In the absence of recent state polling data in NSW, Labor should be satisfied with its Federal Newspoll results in NSW with a 56-44 divide in that state. This might assist in marginal state seats like East Hills, Upper Hunter and Penrith which are all held by the LNP by less than a one per cent margin after preferences. Labor needs to win these seats in the future to achieve majority government after a decisive 6.3 per cent swing to Labor after preferences on 25 March 2023 which gave Chris Minns the Premier’s job.

The NSW state budget is projected to be in surplus 2023-24 if the growth in the revenue base continues from land taxes, payroll taxes, property transfers and coal royalties. The stars have aligned well for the change agenda in NSW before the economy slows in the mid-2020s across Australia.

The short-term revenue windfall extends beyond debt reduction. There are popular initiatives in affordable housing, alternative energy projects, rental assistance and support for Western Syndey.

Unfortunately, higher coal royalties of $2.7 billion will not commence until 1 July 2024. Royalties have not been increased since 2009.

The budget brought a spending cut of $188 million in NSW film and television productions. This was a token saving in a total budget with a projected outlay of $120.23 billion for 2023-24. This token saving helped to achieve a slight reduction of $101 million in accumulated debt of $26.28 billion inherited largely from the LNP years.  

The address in reply (21 September 2023) from Opposition Leader Mark Speakman SC MP (Cronulla) can also be perused by readers.

The state LNP’s concerns about Union Mates of State Labor, is not backed up by a healthy state of trade union membership or impending militancy in the workforce which can expect a significant rise in unemployment during the first term of the Minns Government.

Mark Speakman criticized pending wage agreements in his address in reply speech by insisting that pay increases should be moderated by productivity criteria over cost-of-living adjustments. This would not be a popular initiative by voters who are paying higher rents and mortgages.

A commitment to bipartisanship in handling burgeoning debt problems in NSW and a positive feature of Mark Speakman’s address-in-reply.

Both sides of NSW politics should be addressing the consequences of a slowing economy and its future impact on capital works programmes after the euphoria from the current short-term revenue windfalls tapers off during the mid-2020s. Projected capital expenditure of $19.92 billion in 2026-27 compares with current record levels of $22.23 billion in 2023-24 as summarized in the budget papers.

The new government will temporarily terminate revenue transfers to support the NSW Generations Fund. It will review options for the other key NSW investment funds.

The Media office at NSW Treasury Corporation (TCorp) did not want to speculate about alternatives to the decline in capital works spending in the forward estimates. As an executive arm of government, this response is quite appropriate. Perhaps senior officers at TCorp are appropriately working on these problems behind the scenes.

The current budget papers estimate that funds under management from TCorp amounted to $106 billion on 30 June 2023, including $2 billion in sustainability bonds.

T Corp has a list of its extensive bond offerings which have been updated to 30 September 2023. These bonds are available to institutional investors both within Australia and overseas.

Financial commentators as well should indeed be thinking ahead of the showdown in capital works expenditure in the forward estimates.

With Labor now in control of the national government and all mainland states and territories, it is time for inspirational commitment to the policy essentials in housing, infrastructure and community development.

Capital investment flows cleared on security grounds by appropriate national authority like Treasury or the Reserve Bank might be possible might be a source of new capital equity. This is a good opportunity for Premier Minns and Treasurer Daniel Mookhey to inspire the nation in the traditions of Premier Sir William McKell and other great Labor luminaries in NSW politics. 

Infrastructure and Community Development strategies need to be steered away from the pork-barrelling strategies of the recently defeated LNP Governments in NSW.

Successful and ethical methods of new investment are a feature of many of our best Australian corporations. Perusal of the latest annual report from the Woolworth’s Group for 2023 offers investors access annual revenue base that is half the value of expenditure by the government of NSW.

Just 92 shareholders in the Woolworth’s Group control 62.93 per cent of all issued capital and dwarf the humble shareholdings of almost 250,000 shareholders who own 6.75 per cent of issued capital.

The Woolworth’s Annual Report is quite open about its major shareholders. (There is also a category for Substantial shareholders in the 2023 Annual Report.)

Some investors from the Top of Town might also be attracted to well credentialled public sector investment and sovereign wealth funds. There could be good returns for investors in delivering better port facilities, transport-oriented development centres of housing, shops and offices, refilling stations for electric vehicles and alternative energy programmes to name a few revenue earning prospects.

Currently, Australian public sector funds reply on bond offerings, investment from internal government reserves and state managed superannuation funds through co-investment processes.

Some exemplars include Temasek Holdings and GIC in Singapore, the Canadian Pension Fund, the Canadian Infrastructure Bank and in Australia the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and Biomedical Translation Fund (BTF).

The previous NSW LNP was so desperate for investment that it dipped into government coffers for new investment in the NSW Generations Fund. These irregularities have been temporarily terminated by the Minns Government but may have to return in the mid-2020s when capital works spending slows unless alternative sources of investment are considered.

Peter Hannam of The Guardian (21 October 2021) gave a critical take on public sector investment in the NSW Generations Fund using taxation revenue. At that time, NSW’s ballooning debt is on track to reach $171 billion by 2025.

With better safeguards in place, Labor governments at state and federal levels, should be able to do much better.

The Queensland Investment Fund (QIC) has profitable outcomes from the investment of government and state superannuation reserves. It is not geared up to accept capital equity from the private sector like most public sector investment funds across Australia.

Despite these limitations, QIC acquired Castle Towers in Sydney in 1998. It has invested $1 billion in the project and just lodged a development application for a $560 million precinct known as The Village with three levels of retail, a 200-room hotel and a 12-storey office tower. As an investment fund QIC focuses primarily on investment returns for the Queensland government. Social and environmental criteria are an optional extra but usually receive careful consideration.

In the far-off USA, QIC has fifty-year leases over the management of university car parking facilities at Northeastern University in Boston and Ohio State University in Colombus. The combined investment at these two sites approaches $1.5 billion and involves competition with top of the town firms like BlackRock and Morgan Stanley who are both key investors in the Woolworth’s Group closer to home.

Serving the needs of university students in the USA provides an indicator of just what can be achieved for the benefit of residents on the home front back in Australia as dividends accrue. Too much freedom to overseas corporate investors in Australia can produce negative outcomes as profits drift back to overseas headquarters or exotic tax havens.       

Under the free trade and investment arrangements between Australia and the USA which were negotiated by the Howard Government twenty years ago, there seem to be embedded opportunities for tax avoidance which contributes to the public debt problems faced by Australian governments. Hopefully, ABC News will assist readers by sharing the no taxation payment list of these corporate giants later this year when taxation returns are available for 2022-23 in the first full year of the Albanese Government.

Although sections of the mainstream press generally applaud the economic management skills of LNP governments and neoliberal governments at all three levels, the real evidence of this expertise is difficult to find in NSW Government investment priorities during the LNP years or with federal LNP government projects like the Inland Railway.

The federal LNP’s Inland Railway still lacks a starting point and terminus although construction has been underway since 2018. Its estimated cost has doubled to $31.4 billion.

Labor needs to take initiative to reclaim its heartland base in outer metro and regional areas. Revitalizing infrastructure is a real opportunity for voters in NSW and Beyond.

Voters will warm to the policies of dedicated governments that are delivering for them by welcoming the resources from the bid end of town in hedge-fund commitments to public sector investment and sovereign wealth funds.