A disaster is headed our way if we remain so ambivalent about our vote
It is impossible to imagine that the Australian people would be so gullible as to elect for a fourth term a government that has performed so pathetically in the first three. But they might.
At this stage of the electoral cycle you would have to say that the incumbent government has more than an even chance of being elected. I say this because of the closeness of the polls (and recent elections), and incumbent governments historically always come from behind.
But how do I conclude this when the facts suggest that the government has been an abject failure. The answer, I believe, can be found in our collective complacency or the “she’ll be right, mate” attitude of the Australian people. No matter the seriousness of the problem, in the end, “she’ll be right.” Things sort of work themselves out, mate.
We now accept that politicians these days are corrupt. Once, we trusted them and just got on with our lives. Now we don’t trust them but turn a blind eye to their shenanigans.
Most Australians have allowed themselves to be dumbed down to the point that they are in a state of political unconsciousness. Manipulated to the point of boredom, where more than half of us just go with the flow, re-elect the same idiots and give no thought to the consequences. We can then get on with it. Whatever “it” is.
The fact is we are so bloody compliant, so uncomplaining, so unwilling to take a chance on using our brains. And we are now showing this same indifference with vaccinations against COVID-19.
The pity is that these very same people are oblivious to what is at stake. But what if 20% of eligible voters of the swinging type just stopped and thought about what 9 years of conservatism had bequeathed us.
I confess I have never understood peoples’ unthinking attitude toward the gift that our democracy gives us – the privilege of voting.
I also confess I simply don’t understand how people would vote for anyone who had knowingly tried to put one over on the people by claiming, for example, expenses they were not entitled to.
And I also confess I don’t know how a politician who has been having an affair with one of his employees can be re- elected not once, but twice, and I fail to comprehend how so many mistakes and stuff-ups seems to have such little effect on voter’s intentions.
Has our social morality sunk to such an unfathomable depth?
I don’t understand how our largest banks can be so profoundly censured by a Royal Commission yet continue on their merry way with just a slap on the backside.
Why on earth don’t dried up river banks, dead fish and the Prime Minister’s response to bush fires and vaccines have little effect on his popularity?
How is it possible for a government to survive when aged care, domestic violence and women’s stature have been manipulated to the point of unmitigated sexism?
Why is it that while many are in a state of shock over these matters, the majority take such a layback attitude?
For example, I find it difficult to understand how the people of this nation could vote to re-elect existing members who are plainly degenerate. They are so devious, suspicious and corrupt that their parliamentary behaviour could only be described as a sort of sick moral degeneracy that saturates this government.
I fail to see how we could deliberately vote once again for a government that, by its actions, supports gas and dirty coal and tells lies about our emissions that are blatantly false. It is enough to make one weep in shame, and my temptation is to again list in total all of the government’s indiscretions.
And what a stuff up the vaccine rollout has proven to be.
But those who earnestly follow me on Facebook will know what I’m talking about. From Robodebt to sports rorts so on and so on. Ultimately it is Scott Morrison who is responsible for all of these events. His characterless unempathetic Christian leadership has done nothing to repair the damage done by his two predecessors and himself.
Fortunately, as I was writing, I came across the latest Guardian Essential poll, Tuesday 25May. I think it helps the points I make:
“The latest survey of 1,100 respondents suggests most voters would be irritated if Scott Morrison went to an election later this year rather in the first half of 2022, with 61% characterising any post-budget sprint to the ballot box as political opportunism, and 39% saying that would be reasonable because a lot has changed since the last federal election.
Only 25% of respondents said they were confident the government had a clear plan [for the vaccine rollout].
A further 42% suspected the government did have a plan for the vaccine rollout but believed it had been poorly communicated, while 32% were not confident a plan existed.
Only 21% of the sample believed there was a federal plan on quarantine facilities, while 79% thought either there was a plan but poor communication (38%) or no plan at all (41%).
[On] deficit reduction, 16% felt Morrison had a clear plan, while 84% thought there was a plan but poor communication (43%) or feared no plan (41%).
The idea of a Coalition plan for emissions reduction generated the highest level of scepticism from survey respondents (47% of the sample saw no plan, while 35% saw a poorly communicated plan and 18% felt they could divine a strategy).
Only 22% believed there was a clear plan to reform the Aged Care sector, while 39% thought there was a plan but poor communication, and 39% lacked confidence there was a plan.
On Australians returning from Covid-ravaged India, the latest poll suggests voters are restive about domestic quarantine facilities, with 63% of the sample agreeing with the statement, ‘It should be the federal government’s responsibility to build and manage quarantine facilities across the country’, and 37% believing that should be a state responsibility.”
So, at the risk of repeating myself, I once again ask that straightforward question: “How is it possible that the Australian people would be so gullible as to elect for a fourth term a government that has performed so pathetically in the first three?”
But they might.
My thought for the day
This Government’s performance over its time in office has been like a daily shower of offensiveness raining down on society. Surely performance or lack of it must mean something.
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Kathryn
Return to home pageUnfortunately it is quite possible and it’s due to our (ageing) electorates not being informed because we do not have a diverse, balanced, broad or deep media. It’s mostly promoting, if not entirely, white nativist conservative social cultural issues targeting ageing electors for a voter coalition, to mask deep seated radical right libertarian policies for working age.
Last election campaign, or well before, was amazing how a supposed political party ‘Palmer United’ was basically an anti Labour and/or Greens agitprop cult with digital ads/vids appearing constantly online promoting the same, then with NewsCorp, dominated QLD.
Valid points of concern but I wonder if the nations parliamentary gangsters have, at last, shot a bullet through their collective instep. I’m thinking about the latest changes to Medicare.
The very small amount of detail I have been able to glean, from sparse news reports, gives these changes the look of derision for the very demographic most likely to wallow in complacency, till they realise they will be up for a truckload of money for their hip replacement.
Its not as if there is a halfway viable alternative to SCUMMO and the lying nasties. Despite the rants of leftist tragics, Albo is a fuckwit on steroids, the wilted greens are irrelevant, NoNotion is merely the extreme right wing of the LNP, and the rats & mice parties are even more unthinkable.
In the case of young people and a nun vs the Environment Minister, lawyers working for the “government” accepted climate change was part of the argument pushed; the but being, the “government”argument was it does not accept responsibility for young people or future generations. Pure negligence.
Negligence is also displayed in dealing with vaccination roll out for covid-19 in Aged Care Homes and for disabled people. They take no responsibility for quarantine. Apart from feathering the nests of wealthy people they sit on their hands. With covid-19 it has been the States which have kept people safe.
There is no sense of responsibility towards Afghan workers supporting Australians in Afghanistan during the war, the Taliban is ruthless, and the Afghan workers are being placed at high risk.
On the Drum last night it was suggested that some segments of US society believe that Australia had a worse reputation for treating Indigenous people than what had been experienced in South Africa under apartheid
Where disasters have occurred promises of financial delivery falls far short of what had been promised.
Where possible responsibility is not taken and blame is pushed elsewhere.
About all we can trust with the current “government” is that they will try and con us.
“Plan but poor communication” is laughable. All this mob do is try to put the best possible spin on what they say, without actually acting on anything (except funnelling money to themselves and their corporate buddies), and the MSM are complicit in this. If all the PR can’t communicate plans and procedures adequately, that’s because those plans and procedures are non-existent.
Politics and politicians are just not in most people’s everyday life. The mute button is the most overworked button on the remote when a politician gets their melon on the TV. These days we are cursed with the professional politician. Overqualified cretins for the most part with zero life experiences and zero skills yet these are the ones calling the shots.
Tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber is a description you hear a lot when people talk about the major parties. These party representatives say what they are told to say when and where they are told to say it, even if it goes against everything they believe in.
If asked most politicians would say they got into politics to make a difference, to make things better for all. Well they have failed miserably on that score, our children will inherit a world much worse than the one that was left to us oldies. And it’s our fault for taking our collective eye off the ball. It’s no wonder independents are making inroads when you bother to look at some of the well dressed well spoken morons, crackpots and desperado’s already in parliament.
In my opinion every ballot paper should have an extra box marked, none of the above.
If none of the above romps home the nominated candidates forfeit and new ones put up in a new election. But then again no normal reasonably sane person would ever want to be a politician.
Apologies for the rant but politicians get up my nose.
Australia..
Land of the Apathetic.
People seem to worship and revere thrones, monuments, great establishment figures, whether in The palace, cathedral, boardroom, headquarters.., rarely thinking of the hollowness of the office holders. Many an impostor was murdered in ancient societies like Rome over time, when the stupidities choked observers of failure and hypocrisy. But, the faithful hang on, stupidly, so that a church full of thieves, liars, propagandists, perverts, double crossers, cheats, egofixated hollow types, is still supported by some who must fantasise it will all go away and purity and salvation will return (hah). We live now in uncertan tmes, led by a poor government of inadequtes and deficients, with a core of a Society of Superstitious Shitskulls and Shysters, so, how can one hope, rationally, for better? Since 1901 in federal areas, we have never had worse. A coalition of greedy interests, (im-) pure selfishness, of conservative podpolishing proud peanuts is supported by enough media maggoting, money manipulating, mining marauding, mendacious misfits to ruin the present and curse the future. Hate their exclusivity, selfishness, contempt, and, fight for better and different.
Karen Joyce
I too have been trying to glean what is happening to Medicare services as the government pushes through its changes. The message coming back through the media is that there are more than 900 items on the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) that will be amended, with changes applying to general surgery, orthopaedic surgery, and cardiac services. A number of services will be cut from the MBS and gap payments will increase.
As always with this government, the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing and we are left in the dark – at the weekend the AMA President said this :
**”On Sunday, Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid said these were the biggest changes yet to the country’s Medicare system, and included some “very significant cuts to some rebates”.
“But the bigger problem is the chaos that’s going to ensue because doctors can’t tell patients how much they can expect to receive back from their health fund because they simply don’t know,” he said.**
This government has an ideological dislike of universal healthcare and whilst they say they are not privatising Medicare they are certainly limiting its scope to the benefit of the private insurers who have a considerable lobby group in Canberra.
It seems to me a lot of people
– do not care about politics
– do not connect the loss of services with government policies
– are jealous of anyone succeeding
– are willing to see everyone miserable
– are racist and sexist at best, misanthropes at worst.
Or maybe I just do not get the conservative mindset.
Could be, lord, people think differently to you but still think before voting?
If the alternative is labor and the greens, the devil you know is preferable to the risk of loonies??
Scummo and fitzgibbon know, even if you don’t, that a vote for the greens means thousands jobs lost. QED Two labor seats lost in 2019.
With Scummo already campaigning on jobs, at least one more in the next election?
Can Albo avoid taking a stand when the loonies have him firmly wedged in their 9 seat plan. When fitzgibbon and Scummo are on about jobs jobs jobs?
Is there a chance that he can redress the debt scare and labor GFC with those tactics also being the cause of the economy recovery?? Can Albo get into the waste, corruption and rorts? Can he highlight the scandals, the sexism, racism robodebt vs hardly normal gifts and Medicare traumas
My main beef with the Federal “government ” is that they have no policy on climate change which will impact on our children. We might be said to be “woke”; though coming from the b-stards that it is coming from, it is a compliment.
Terrance Mills Absolutely agree, but most people 99% using so called private health insurance companies are oblivious of the fact that these so called “insurances” do not cover unscheduled procedures (fees set by government) and only a small % (ie 25%) of the scheduled fee, for any government procedure.
My wife and I have gone through 12 hospitalised procedures in the last 2.5 years and so (as an aged pensioner) have had to find $14000 to cover what Medicare and my so called insurer will not cover. $14000, this sum, of course entirely recoverable for anyone working, but as a pensioner recovery is either not possible or forcing us to downsize in order to recover equity in the home we have scrimpt and saved to own prior to retirement.
And let’s look at his so called downsizing, it means, for most ordinary home owners, a move from where they and their family have lived and grown up, to a town in a cheaper real estate locality often an hour, or more, away from their traditional home.
Then what happens when we have to undergo another hospitalised treatment (not recognised by medicare) do we move again further away from hospitals and amenities, do we turn around and start to rent a home, then be forced to forfiet some more aged pension, because we now have money in the bank (but not enough to buy a house).
Trust me, it is not Left v Right, it is the few v the many. 80% of us are the ‘many’, the 20% are the ‘few’ note the 1% are the new Pharaohs, Kings, Queens, and Emporers of later days, but the principle remains the same.
The ‘many’ us ordinary peasants, must remain subservient to the few. As Mathias Cormman let out of the bag it is LNP policy to keep wages as low. Keep your peasants, peasants, either keep their incomes low or keep them from accessing a thing that might assist them.
apathy by them…
…and apathy by us who believe that it is our job to vote…and that is it.
We have taken our eye off politics for many decades…and this is the result.
It is not an easy fix..there are ways…but it will be difficult.
There is plenty of misinformation all around us here in Oz. One little point we might consider, because it is not always understood, people do not vote for the prime minister – they vote for the member in their electorate. The party decides who is leader/PM.
Following are some sites which refer to interesting news points:
“ABC News economics department shows incompetence with false information [from Deloitte re Oz economic recovery]”, (independentaustralia.net, 8/6/2021)
“Federal Court awards $350,000 to unlawfully detained asylum seeker, opening door to further claims”, theconversation.com (8/6/2021). [also here at AIMN, Denmark seeking to copy Oz on refugee policy and also at many sites, the plight of a daughter of the Biloela family on Christmas Island, now ill in Perth, the family having cost the government some $6m for their incarceration. Their health is apparently declining.]
“Virus won’t stop Australia’s New York of the future”, Katrina Grace Kelly, Weekend Australian (5/6/2021)
This article is a change from the usual Dan Andrews pile-on in the Murdoch media. It explains Victoria’s several lockdowns in terms of Victoria’s and Melbourne’s population and geography compared with NSW and Sydney. Very sensible.
For more about “A toxic mix of media, politics and vested interests”, hear a free online broadcast of a conversation between Kevin Rudd and Quentin Dempster entitled “Disinformation” from the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre in Adelaide on Thursday, June 10, at 6 pm (Adelaide time). It will also be available after June 10. For information and registration, ph. 08 8302 0371
There are a LOT of totally gormless, Murdoch-manipulated, ill-informed intellectual midgets out there who keep voting for the WORST, most callously inhumane, ineffective and corrupt regime, the LNP, over and over again! Tragically, it is THESE unspeakably stupid fools who believe EVERYTHING they inhale from the twisted, totally biased, lying Murdoch press who keep propping up cruel, totally inept, misogynistic, self-serving, smug and elitist politicians – like Abbott and the current totally inept, smirking sociopath, Morrison, who has a LONG, notorious history of taking credit for the hard work, blood, sweat, toil and good ideas and achievements of OTHER people! Sadly, it is likely to happen again until gormless LNP voters attempt to learn MORE and research the backgrounds of the notorious types of ruthless psychopaths they put into power. In my experience there are THREE sorts of people who vote for the LNP:
1) The Top 1% – totally corrupt, self-serving billionaires like the obscene Gina Rinehart, Gerry Harvey, Twiggy Forrest, Clive Palmer and other truly vile billionaires who don’t give a shit about ANYONE or ANYTHING except themselves and the bottom line! Wealthy, selfish, slave-driving employers (like the despicably cruel Gerry Harvey) fit into this category!
2) Sad little people who (falsely) THINK they are upper-middle-class (eg tradesmen, working class conservatives) who BELIEVE they are better than other people and who (tragically) believe the LNP cater to THEIR needs when, in fact, the LNP ONLY cater to the ABOVE Top 1%. These people are often misogynistic, racist and callously inhumane who target migrants, asylum seekers, women, anyone on welfare or ANYONE whom, they believe, is a “drain” on taxpayer funds when, in fact, the BIGGEST parasites in the country are the corrupt, self-serving politicians that line the cabinet of the LNP!
3) Totally gormless, uneducated, Murdoch-manipulated fools who know NOTHING about politics! These serial-conservatives believe EVERYTHING they foolishly inhale from the biased, right-wing-extremist pages of the Z-rated Murdoch rags! They know NOTHING about the type of sociopaths they put into power, could barely name more than one or two people in the cabinet of the LNP nor be able to name a SINGLE thing or any historical fact, criminal act of corruption or increasing level of environmental vandalism perpetrated by the smug, sneering grubs they keep vote for! Worse than that, is that these morons do not even CARE HOW corrupt, HOW deceptive, HOW callously inhumane or HOW destructive the lying, conniving parasites in the LNP are anyway – they would STILL vote for them because it is what their gormless parents did, what their spouse does or what Murdoch tells them to do!
Tragically, I have met quite a few of the rusted-on slaves to cruel, elitist right-wing ideology – they are OUT THERE ready to poison our nation over and over again. Already, Australia has sunk back into oblivion with this government internationally condemned and recognises as one of the worst, most regressive, coal-loving climate-change-denying and corrupt governments in history!
When the Rudd/Gillard government were in power, Australia was held in international esteeem as the ONLY country who managed to escape the ravages of the GFC – now? Now we have sunk lower and lower into disgrace with the strutting, inarticulate misogynist, Abbott, embarrassing our nation on the world stage and, NOW, Morrison being widely and internationally criticised for his mind-numbing adherence to the filthy, polluting coal industry, the way Morrison goes AWOL at the first sign of a disaster (eg the devastating fires), his totally inept mismanagement of the vaccine roll-out, his unspeakably callous inhumanity (with the very likely chance that he will have MORE blood on his hands if this poor little refugee, from Biloela, ends up dying an excruciatingly painful death from SAEPTECEMIA which, if this useless, totally depraved federal government did the RIGHT thing weeks ago, would have been absolutely PREVENTABLE! There is NO SUCH THING AS AN ILLEGAL ASYLUM SEEKER and the despicable, unspeakably inhumane LNP have gone out of their way to ILLEGALLY LOCK-UP this family (who were living in the Queensland town of Biloela) in terrible conditions in what amounts to an off-shore CONCENTRATION CAMP for more than FOUR YEARS!!!! This is a CRIMINAL ACT by the Abbott/Morrison regime and can NEVER EVER be tolerated by any humane society!
Instead, we have Morrison once again, desperately seeking publicity and TOTALLY IGNORING the plight of this little girl whose family should have been returned to the town of Biloela where they were welcomed and much-loved!
Wonderful, Kathryn! May we use it as a post?
Asking or wanting people to vote “not for the LNP” will not bring about a change in government. People need a focus that they can vote for. The majority of the media do not provide clear pictures of the alternative parties but this is not only because of their inherent bias.
Neither Labor nor the Greens seem able to confidently proclaim their vote-winning policies.
The Greens continue to be reactive rather than positive about mainstream issues and seem unable to present themselves as a viable alternative.
Federal Labor presents us with their factions and their wide spread philosophies that are sometimes matters of internal conflict in particular areas. They do not present themselves as a cohesive political force. They need to decide who they are and what they stand for.
The divides within Labor are becoming so profound that it is regrettably reminding me of the DLP split.
The fragmentation of old concepts began with the unprincipled knifing of Bill Hayden and was compounded when Hawke and Keating began to assemble their power bases from outside the Party as well as from within. As this quest for individual and factional power has progressed, alliances have been made with business and the media to the detriment of party cohesion.
The 1983 Labour Accord was hailed as providing economic benefits, but in the long run it has created the Animal Farm situation where some workers are more equal than others and certain unions and factions are beholden to ‘their’ industries.
Queensland Labor have clearly shown that the jobs of miners and the profitability of mining companies will be given priority over the lives lost in bushfires, the farmers and ecosystems that no longer have sufficient water and the declining health of the Great Barrier Reef (policies hard to sell to young voters). The creation of the Adani mine or anything similar is considered by the majority of the international community as an abomination but the Labor Party faction supporting such mining holds sway over the whole party.
If the crises of global warming and climate change were recent revelations there could be sympathy for a reluctance to change, but they have had 30 years to facilitate change and find methods to cope with it. But they have dug in their heels for all that time because they were protecting a power base and they have skewed the conduct of the whole party.
Because of the uncertainty of the power shifts within Labor it is difficult for a voter to be confident of what future policies will be. With a biased media hungry to feast upon such confusion Labor’s instability makes the anti-LNP vote less certain.
They have to stop pretending that they are entitled to the mantle of the Whitlam years. They have to show solidarity in policies and communicate effectively with the electorate on the basis of what they will do now.
They need a serious injection of responsibility towards the party and the electorate.
It is a bitter pill to swallow but factional fighting is as much about personal selfish ambition as it is about differing philosophies – serving lobbies outside the party is also about selfish ambition.
I have been voting for almost 50 years and I have never and will never vote LNP or conservative,but I can understand the confusion in the electorate.
I have voted for the ALP many times and will again, unless local realities dictate otherwise, but for a long time I have been disappointed in much to do with the Party. In its present form I doubt that it would create universal health care, pass Trade Practices or Family Law legislation or pull Australia out of illegal or ill-advised overseas conflicts. They are not even a pale shadow of the Labor Party I used to respect.
The system is broken.
Unless we repair the system then good people will be beaten by bad systems…always.
David Spry,
After all that misery, you will need to explain exactly what that “factional fighting” is about if you are referring merely to Joel’s self-interest.
And then explain why Labor was expected to win the 2019 election but lost it on deceitful politicking and huge funding.
Remember, Labor was ahead in the polls for a large part of both the Abbott rule and the Turnbull experiment. Even now, Labor has led in the Morrison misrule and is at present equal with the Coalition and Morrison is personally down. All this despite Labor being in the shadows in the past 18 months.
But as John Lord says, the Coalition could win, but, given the truth about the slide in the economic recovery (see the Alan Austin post at Independent Australia) the uptake of industry and business to address Climate Change in a far more comprehensive and pragmatic way than the Coalition is (think about their adherence to fossil fuels, the dimwitted idea of a gas fired power station working at 2% capacity, or the inefficient, ineffective Snowy 2 hydro-electric scheme), and we see the Coalition is clutching at ideological straws.
The world is changing, coal is in decline, people are crying out for the greening of the world, the re-wilding of the oceans, for a cleaner and healthier atmosphere (even China, which knows what cooking the planet means), for jobs which work for the planet and not against it, for more inter-national cooperation rather than competitive chest-beating and flag-waving.
The notion of ever-lasting economic growth and continuously growing wealth for the few while most of the world scratches in the dirt is not a useful ideology. It is not working well and climate driven migration and poverty proves it.
Read David Attenborough’s “A Life on Our Planet”. For 2020 he gives these significant numbers:World Population: 7.8 billion. Carbon in the atmosphere: 415 parts per million. Remaining wilderness: 35%.
There are people who deny the significance of such numbers, such as the IPA – who deny that Climate Change is is driven by carbon, and even if it is occurring, it is not a serious matter and we can adapt. Climate change is natural and is caused by natural “cycles”.
Such rubbish has put brakes on dealing with Climate Change, but look at pictures from around the world: everywhere are renewable energy generators of power. Even China is a leading manufacturer of renewable energy and electric vehicles.
Albanese has enough ammunition with the great list of bloopers and clangers that the Coalition has done, with no real redeeming successes, to defeat this failing government.
If the Coalition succeeds, they will no doubt slide further into disaster – and we get the government we deserve if we let them do it.
The only reason that David Attenborough expresses any concern about the observed impacts of human activities upon biospheric processes is because he is a racist who wants to mass-sterilize brown people.
I read this fact in AIMN comments, so therefore it must be true.
guest,
It would be possible to list the evidence of flaws, discord and differences in the public image of the ALP such as those relating to the AWU and the CMFEU and the fractured nature of the party in Tasmania; the latter has been limping along for more than 20 years with Labor Values on the North-West Coast being radically different to those in the North and particularly those in the South (I was a resident there for over 40 years).
The recent move further to the right in the NSW party, not just causes dismay to many traditional supporters, but can be seen as an effort to be more like the LNP which can be confusing for voters (The recent Upper Hunter ALP candidate campaigned on a pro-coal ticket).
However, you and John Lord seem to be convinced that there is nothing that the party needs to be concerned about in its policies and public image and that the party, without any further effort, is presenting a trustworthy alternate government, that should have won the last 3 elections and should win the next one.
But, rather than consider what those losses must say about how your party is perceived, you blame the electorate for getting it wrong.
John Lord calls them “gullible” – by definition “dupes and fools” – and apparently wants to shame them into changing their votes.
But neither you nor Mr Lord want to give any attention as to why they are acting like dupes and fools – if that is a fair assessment.
Is it too difficult to ask why they don’t believe you or the ALP?
You both believe strongly in the ALP but the strength of your beliefs will not change people’s voting habits.
The only option supporters like the two of you and the party machine have is to educate and persuade more voters to join you, and the last 3 electoral failures show that you have more to do than you did before.
Bemoaning ignorance is pointless and can bring about knee-jerk rejection from those so dismissively labelled. Guiding and teaching are the positive responses needed and they do better if the values being expounded are clear and uncompromised.
I want to see the LNP soundly defeated and for that reason my vote will go to the ALP if there is a viable candidate.
But every time I vote for the ALP it troubles me to think that I am no longer voting for a people’s party that is fully committed to equality, fairness and the sharing of resources. It is so far from the party it once was and it has lost many of its principles and ethics.
I have no doubt that the flaws that I have referred to, and unfortunately the longer list that I have not, have not only effected my attitude but have caused a significant number of voters to question their attitude to the ALP.
Unfortunately for the ALP I suspect that many of the doubters will not ignore the flaws in deciding their voting preference.
The party needs to show the electorate that it is a solid structure and not a house of cards.
The Australian Electorate – We have been living through the disaster for years now and we are very much diminished as a nation and people. Our moral compass has been gutted and our will as a people for a better country for all, destroyed. We fight solely on self interest and consequently amongst ourselves oblivious of the world around us and we vote with despicable unchanging indifference, ignorance, absence of reason and humanity. That’s how the Liberals and Nationals keep winning, they are chronically criminal and corrupt, we are persistently reminded of this but we are responsible [June 2021].
Well, for what it is worth, each time discourse returns to this topic I am reminded of the conspiracy which effected the downfall of the Labor government in 1975.
The media, the Governor General, the Queen, the CIA, MI6 and the Conservative establishments, including the Christian churches and politically right wing Parties were all involved.
Those conspirators are still active in the maintainance of priviledge and wealth for a few at the expense of the welfare of the general population.
By nature, I am not a conspiracy-minded person, but this conclusion keeps returning, unasked and otherwise unprompted.
The concept that we live in a representative democracy extends only as far as the few who are actually being represented by the governments which we have elected – the already rich and powerful.
i.e. Warren Buffett’s definintion of a class war which his class continue to win.
David Spry,
Thank you for your reply. There is much we could discuss about Australian politics, but I am not a politically trained person, but I can read and I form opinions by trying to read widely I once voted Liberal because my parents did, but when Howard came along and the children overboard affair, I realised what he and the Liberals were up to.
So with regard to your reply, I welcome the fact you support Labor, and that you have reservations about the present party compared with the past Labor parties. I would remind you first of all that Whitlam was removed by devious means which have made him a martyr and Labor icon. Then we had the Hawke/ Keating combination which moved Labor more to the neoliberal right.
So it is not surprising that Tasmanian Labor is not consistent in its policies, but tailors its stance according to the area of the country. Its voting system is not the same as other parts of Australia. Yet I note that there is not much to split the parties there, and the recent quite early election is a move to gain from recent outside events. Also I recall the influenc of the gambling lobby in the past.
So also in Queensland, Labor encourages coal, but in Federal politics Queenslanders are more likely to vote Coalition. In the Hunter recent election, the Unions attacked Labor for its anti-coal stance and Labor lost 7.5% compared to the last election. At the same election, the NATs first preference count dropped 2.8% and a string of Independents collectively won as much as the NATs.
So, according to you, the federal Labor party needs to be concerned with its policies and public image Yet over the term of the Coalition reign at the helm (2013-2021), Labor has been ahead for large stretches time over the Coalition and at present is level. You have not addressed that anomaly.
You say that Labor needs to “educate and persuade” and be “clear and uncompromised”. Yet Labor and Albanese are able to articulate a large list of failings and muddles and plain rorts which make the incompetence of the government blindingly obvious and well publicised in some media especially. It is such media that the Murdoch media attacks relentlessly and in the last election was aided by some $80m from Clive Palmer attacking Labor. There was a crude ad hominem attack on Bill Shorten saying Shorten was not to trusted. (The old Howard “Who do you trust?)
So what do we get? Morrison fiddling the numbers in party internal counting to weasel his way to the top. And what a disaster that has been from bushfires to pandemic.
As for educating the populace, there could be no clearer message than the IPCC world-wide message about Climate Change, which is treated so poorly by the Murdoch media, the IPA and the Coalition. Labor has been rather shy in some places, but the effects of Climate Change around the world is there for all to see – if we look.
The real house of cards is the Coalition with its fossil fuel obfuscation and denial. Meanwhile, business and industry is getting on with what is needed to reduce carbon emissions, aided now by more and more court orders.
A Sword of Damocles and its political nemesis hangs over the Coalition.
A couple of concerns have been exercising minds in South Australia. One is the matter of Carbon Capture and Storage. The other is the storage of radio-active waste.
With regard to the first (CCS), the International Energy Agency (iea) based in Paris is quite keen on the idea. As is petroleum.sa.gov. And Angus Taylor at industry.gov.au “Energy and Emissions Reduction Agreement with South Australia” which Taylor says is a $1.08bn deal.
Wikipedia tells us about CCS in cases around the world. While the Carbon Council at carboncouncil.org.au “What is Carbon Capture and Storage?” tells us “CCS in the fossil fuel sector is best described as an expensive failure… likely to be six times more expensive than electricity generated from wind power backed by battery storage.”
The Council gives some key points:
“CCS is unproven and expensive
Despite billions of dollars being spent here and overseas, no successful CCS projects exist.
The quickest and cheapest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to stop burning coal, gas and oil and replace them with renewables.”
It also tells us Chevron’s gas plant continues to belch out huge amounts of pollution.
There is no guarantee that the buried gases will not leak out in the future. Even in the capture, transportation and storage there will be fugitive gases.
With regard to the storage of radioactive, world-nuclear.org tells us that: “Each year Australia produces about 45 cubic metres [about three truckloads] of radioactive waste arising from producing radioisotopes in medicine …stored in over 100 sites around Australia.”
There is some controversy in Kimba in SA that such material might be stored near that town.
“Around the world”, we are told,”nuclear power generation produces over 150,000 cubic metres of low and intermediate level waste each year…shallow buried, incinerated or compressed to reduce volume.”
We might well be thankful we do not have nuclear power stations.
The disaster is not heading our way, it has been with us, rotting away the core of the “democracy” they keep telling us we have, since 2013. When, and I still believe it will happen, the LNP get back in again then we will most likely never get rid of them. I might be wrong but…
“Why on earth don’t dried up river banks, dead fish and the Prime Minister’s response to bush fires and vaccines have little effect on his popularity?”
I guess that should be do instead of don’t!
“How is it possible that the Australian people would be so gullible as to elect for a fourth term a government that has performed so pathetically in the first three?”
How is it possible that the Australian people can be so blind about an electoral system that denies fair parliamentary representation to all voters equally? AEC figures clearly show that with half the number of primary votes as the Greens the National Party is awarded ten times as many seats.
Federal Australian Elections are not decided by policies that appeal to democratic majorities. They are decided by appealing to the minorities that are favoured by this flaw in the electoral system.
Stop banging on about why policies aren’t working. The fault is with the system. Make it properly democratic with proportional representation and we might stand a chance of getting responsible government.
Kathryn, The treatment of Australian children is reprehensible. But the fact that Scummo will garner votes is the measure of how low we have sunk. However the term used by Scummo is illegal immigrants and the images shown are of strong young men who have left their women and old men behind in the danger whilst they fled. The term ‘not illegal asylum seekers’ is used by refugee advocates and the images used are women and children which has more fear voting power? Asylum seekers need temporary protection for their safety. The circumstances of asylum seekers and the horrific conditions of the camps have been on the news for many years. These people have been forced to leave. The boat asylum seekers choose to leave and have the money to pay. As the Tamil speaking area of India is merely a few kilometres from Sri Lanka, doesn’t it seems odd that Tamils would undertake such an arduous and costly trip to Australia for temporary asylum? QED no votes in asylum but there may be votes from the disgusting treatment of the billoela family??We can but hope that our ‘fair go’ will return.
wam,
you have to do more than peep at your atlas. Have you forgotten about what has happened to Tamils since 1948. One third of Tamils live outside Sri Lanka. Why is that? 100,000 in India, 300,000 in Canada – and tens of thousands in other parts of the world.
Why were the the Indian Tamils not willing to go the Sri Lanka? Something about thousands of Tamils being killed or disappeared? You can read about it in Wikipedia.
And what is this about refugees being forced to flee compared to those who chose to flee. What is the difference? How do you decide? Is it for you to decide?
Talk of economic refugees compared to real refugees. We have been through all this – the lies and the misinformation. Refugees are not “illegal”.
As for “votes”, that has been all done and dusted on both sides of parliament. Just send them to NZ or the USA.
When you have checked Wikipedia, try Behrouz Boochani’s experience in his book “No Friend But the Mountains”. He is not Tamil; he is Kurish-Iranian with a Masters degree in political science.
He came by boat and ended up on Manus. Such is our “fair go”.
And some others came by boat, paying smugglers to take them in leaky boats. Why did they not fly? Because the needed a visa – and where was the nearest Australian embassy?
To: AIM, you are welcome to use any post from me. Cheers xx
Thank you, Kathryn. We’ll get a start on it this evening.
Guest , Thanks for the history lesson and I expect you mean put a hole in both ends before you blow. Refugees and asylum seekers are not illegal that is obvious but immigrants can be and that is the disingenuous nature of this discussion. Kathryn uses ‘illegal asylum seekers’ the government uses ‘illegal immigrants’ for their own purposes. The history of my youth showed the poms spread Tamils all over the world as low paid workers but their home is in India where some 70m live and 3m in Sri Lanka with a million in Myanmar and Malaysia. If you read carefully you will see that my reference is for the Tamil Tiger asylum seekers to go to India not vice versa. As for flying that is the easiest way around Dutton but that requires a passport. ps You might check who Israel and Ukraine (plus dodgy sources) supported, with arms, in the Sri Lankan conflict.
wam,
I find it difficult to match what you are saying here with what you said earlier, where you make no mention of Tamil Tigers, but here claim 70m Tamils live in India! Who supplied weapons in the Sri Lanka civil war is not relevant to the discussion. (Weapons come from many parts of the world, legal and illegal)
I was not telling you how to suck eggs. I was replying to your first post which was open to reply.
Yes guest my posts, like me, are obtuse.
I often assume factors like the members are aware of the pommie history people, of my generation, were taught, where they dragged Tamils, from SE India, to all their conquered countries to work the plantations. They then left them there with varying outcomes. Australia avoided this because we were a white country and preferred black-birding slaves.
Many thousands of Tamils were brought from India to Sri Lanka in the 19th century for the plantations.
All I tried to say is if Tamils were seeking asylum they would go to their homeland in SE India.
So I am sorry for my confusion and your analysis is right.
POLITICAL RESPECT NEEDS TO BE EARNED!
It is NOT a God-given right for a politician to EXPECT respect especially when one realises that the bible-thumping hypocrite, Sloth MorriSCUM, has the appalling, and un-Christian, ability to treacherously backstab his way to the top of the worst government in living memory, through his malicious betrayal of his political colleagues, to become the worst, most inhumane, corrupt and self-promoting PM in living memory – just ask Michael Towke, Malcolm Turnbull and Brittany Higgins, all of whom were victims of Morrison’s unspeakable sense of entitlement, despotic political ambition and perfidy!
Never before in our history have we seen a government that is so unspeakably depraved; a cabinet of arrogant, smirking, misguided, self-serving, totally obscene miscreants who hide, protect and even promote the worst kind of shallow, criminally corrupt grubs, stone cold capitalistic sociopaths and misogynistic predators (even rapists) in their midst! The internationally condemned manner in which the LNP continue to treat hapless asylum seekers – particularly the desperate Sri Lankan family who were (once) beloved residents of the small Qld town of Biloela – is PROOF of their callous disregard for humanity! If that poor little 3 year old girl – who has spent her WHOLE life behind razor wire on Christmas Island – ends up dying a painful death from septicaemia, then – once again – Morrison has BLOOD on his hands on TOP of the notoriously barbaric ROBODEBT scandal that has caused the needless, preventable suicide of so many desperate people!
The LNP are nothing more than a rabid pack of undemocratic fascists who will lie, lie and lie, say and do ANYTHING to warp and control the gormless, Murdoch-manipulated masses in order to win an election and to maintain their bloodstained grip on autocratic power! This is a regime that don’t give a rat’s behind about ANYONE but themselves and their billionaire donors. This is a shameless, dictatorial regime who’s every policy is based on self-serving greed and deliberately designed to enrich, empower and provide benefit to themselves and their cronies in the Top 1% and to HELL with everyone else! The entitled, ruthlessly draconian LNP firmly believe that things will be done THEIR way or the highway!
As for the rest of us? The LNP continue to target, vilify, cruelly attack and denigrate anyone and everyone who is struggling, on a pension, or receiving welfare of any kind; The LNP are a pack of smug, entitled fascists who seek to muzzle democratic debate or silence any other political view or opinion that goes AGAINST their own sick, twisted, ultra-conservative, self-serving and insular ideology! The fact is that history has PROVEN – over and over again – that the LNP are overflowing with callously inhumane, rapacious snivelling and totally useless political parasites who STILL maintain their hateful attacks against the most vulnerable people in our society! This is IN SPITE OF THE FACT that the LNP are, in fact, the WORST burdens on our taxpayer system with Sloth MorriSCAMMER, a totally insignificant failed marketeer, an internationally condemned sociopath widely known as the Pariah from the Shire; a publicity-seeking, lazy, bible-thumping hypocrite as a psuedo “leader” who just happens to be the fifth HIGHEST paid politician in the world! Whilst MorriSCAMMER earns more than $1,520 per day for EVERY SEVEN DAYS he parks his smug, pretentious rear end on a seat in our parliament house (not including all the rorts, perks and MASSIVE superannuation he gets on TOP of his obscene salary), as far as the LNP are concerned, pensioners, working- and middle-class Australians can GO TO HELL with so many Australians doing it tough or even losing their jobs during a virulent pandemic!
In the meantime, whilst depraved politicians like Peter Dutton are amassing a personal fortune of over $300 MILLION, with Sloth Morrison said to be worth more than $36 MILLION, we have the LNP currently introducing vile legislation that will defund our valued MEDICARE system into oblivion, tearing down Superannuation benefits, obliterating federal funding from our children’s State education and have torn away more than ONE BILLION DOLLARS from OUR taxpayer-funded ABC. Why? Because the fascists in the LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance are desperate to obliterate the ABC (and any other form of media) that provides the facts, justifiable criticism or condemnation about the increasing level of corruption and depravity committed by the right-wing-extremists that hold force in the skewed version of the Abbott/Murdoch Liberal National Party. The bottom line is that the ruthless LNP/Murdoch/IPA Alliance only want us to hear and see what THEY want us to hear and see. If it wasn’t for AIMN, Get-Up, Crikey, The Guardian, SBS and the ABC, Australians (with any discernment) would NEVER hear anything that puts the LNP in a bad light or reveals their rising level of malfeasance. Over the last eight years of environmental vandalism, corruption and smug arrogance, anyone with an IQ >10 realises that the word “Liberal” is a complete misnomer, when referring to the Liberal National Party, because there is absolutely NOTHING at all Liberal, democratic, fair or egalitarian about the LNP!
Sloth Morrison is a Machiavellian hypocrite, a signed-up member of a diabolical, profit-obsessed CULT whose incompetence, heartlessness and complete inability to LEAD has been proven time and time again! The way he cowardly ran off to Hawaii during one of the worst fires on record; the way he traitorously backstabbed his way to the top, the way Morrison has been pushed out of just about EVERY job he ever tried – and failed – to hold before he became the WORST Crime Minister in our history! WOW! If anyone can name ONE SINGLE THING Sloth Morrison has achieved to benefit the lives of ANYONE but himself, please enlighten me!
….. And yet there are STILL idiots out there who keep voting for these sociopaths? Stupid is what stupid does! Anyone with even the most basic level of discernment now KNOWS that the words: “Intelligent LNP supporter” or “Compassionate LNP supporter” are probably the most laughable oxymorons on record!
The LNP cabinet are overloaded with psychopaths, ANNIHILATORS, destroyers, pathological liars and callously inhumane sociopaths. Vandalising our environment; defunding everything Australians value and privatising/selling-off everything taxpayers own (often to foreign owned predators).
WAKE UP AUSTRALIA BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!!