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Albo’s to-do list: There’s a lot for the new government to fix

Outside of Robert Menzies, 18 years; John Howard, 11 years; Bob Hawke, 8 years. Malcolm Fraser, Joseph Lyons and Billy Hughes all served 7 years. Many had very short stays. No other Prime Minister has experienced more than 4 years. Longevity in office, it seems, is very difficult to achieve.

Many of these esteemed gentlemen faced the problems of their times in their own way. Most achieved very little, and others like Whitlam, Hawke, and Keating achieved much. Whitlam achieved more than all the conservative Prime Ministers put together in his two years. All were progressive thinkers who brought about massive change because they were forward-thinking individuals.

If that seems unfair, I don’t regret saying it because it is true. Conservatives would have us believe that the entire realm and ownership of political understanding is found in one ideology. The records show that they stood by eagerly awaiting the time to pass in their periods in office. Covid excepted, though Morrison did try but wasn’t up to it, so he gave it over to the states.

After nine long years under the pathetic administration of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison, when we needed leadership these three men were dead to change, dead to any form of leadership and deaf to advice (though Turnbull has valid excuses).

In many of my articles I have promoted the idea that only Labor can mend the multitude of problems we are confronted with. They understand what change means. In my view, at least two terms, maybe three, to clean up the mess handed to them. For example, two weeks out from the election in my article titled When change seems to be the only course of action, I wrote:

“But of course, one’s desire to win must include accepting that you take the good with the bad. And in Labor’s case, it must take on some unprecedented demands on Government.

I cannot remember a time when the requests on Government have been so abundant. You can only get so many slices from a cake; however, it is time to change when some portions far outweigh others and favour the rich and privileged.

Over the past decade, the Coalition became so trapped in the longevity of sameness that they couldn’t see other ways of doing things. Corporate tax evasion, large subsidies to fossil fuel companies, tax cuts for the well-off, and privileges for the rich take an enormous slice of the cake. Only a Labor government can make the necessary changes. Of course, Climate Change is the most outstanding example of how an inability to adapt to change can be an unmitigated disaster.”

 

 

Expand our commitment to fixing the climate

We know what the Government proposes, but we also know that more can be done:

From July 1 there will be a new mega-department of climate change, energy, environment and water, responsible for the new 2030 emissions target and tweaks to the safeguard mechanism (The Guardian)

Cost of living

There are folks like disadvantaged pensioners: It is not this simple, but:

“The logic is this: if your weekly wage increases by $100, but your weekly expenses also increase by $150, then your real income hasn’t really grown at all… you’ve actually gone backwards. That’s what happened in Australia: the 2.3% wages increase is less than CPI/inflation of 3.5%.”

National Integrity Commission

The Government has committed to passing the legislation before Christmas. The Attorney General has already started on it. Then there should be a scramble to see who tops the list for the first customer.

An Indigenous voice

The Government is also committed to a referendum, and the onus is on Peter Dutton for a bi partisan approach; otherwise, history shows that it will be doomed to defeat. We owe it to our first nations people to see it passes.

A republic

Labor’s 2021 national platform says the Australian Labor party “supports and will work toward establishing an Australian republic with an Australian head of state.”

Fix the debt and the economy

 

Medicare

Strengthen Medicare by:

  1. Making it Easier to See a Doctor
  2. Cutting the Cost of Medications

Secure jobs 

Labor will:

Create secure local jobs by investing in Fee-Free TAFE and more university places, and make your job more secure with better pay and conditions.’

Restore faith in our democratic processes

This can only be achieved by setting an example and having the opposition follow. Eliminating a decade of “boys behaving badly” won’t be easy, but it is necessary.

Restore our reputation in matters of diplomacy

Use words that tell the other party that you understand their point of view whilst you cannot agree. Not that we are preparing for war. By simply using words that show honesty and “respect” for them.

Free childcare

Labor will:

“… reduce the cost of child care and make it easier for mums, children and working families to get ahead.”

Royal Commission into Robodebt

Bill Shorten will be anxious to get this up and running. The Terms of reference and the appointment of a commissioner will be the first issues.

Restore our former manufacturing ability

Labor will:

Make more things here in Australia by working with business to invest in manufacturing and renewables to create more Australian jobs.”

Fix the housing problem

The Albanese Government will:

“… help more people get into the housing market sooner by cutting the cost of buying a home by up to 40 per cent.

This will mean a smaller deposit, a smaller mortgage and smaller mortgage repayments. It’s an ambitious plan that, if successful, will go part way in solving the problem.”

Address the inequality in education

Private schools are still getting more commonwealth funding than they need at the expense of state-run schools. Often when they don’t need or want it.

Women’s safety and equality

“Australian women don’t want special treatment, they just want equality” and to be treated fairly.

“A Labor Government will take action to get us there by:

  • Delivering cheaper child care for working families – helping parents balance family and work responsibilities. 
  • Closing the gender gap at work with a national drive to close the gender pay gap, easier pay increases for low and middle income women workers, and a Secure Australian Jobs Plan to support women in insecure work.
  • Providing the national leadership and investment needed to end family, domestic and sexual violence, starting with: 
    • 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave. 
    • Safe and affordable housing for women and children fleeing violence. 
    • Hundreds more frontline workers to support women in crisis. 
    • Consent and respectful relationships education to help break the cycle. 
  • Taking real action to stop sexual harassment at work by implementing all 55 recommendations of the Respect@Work report and providing support for women who experience sexual harassment at work.”

More assistance for older Australians

Restoring the previous measure by which pension rises were determined would be an excellent first step.

A better future for country folk

Labor has announced:

“… it will reserve $500 million of its National Reconstruction Fund specifically for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and fibre.”

Realise the value of both the arts and sport

Let’s buck the trend:

“Researcher on government policy, economics and sport and professor of economics at the University of Adelaide, Richard Pomfret … believes there is a lack of understanding about what constitutes the arts in Australia, leading to misinterpretations, especially when compared to sport. Sport is always the winner.”

Take away subsidies to miners.

According to The Australia Institute:

“Fossil fuel subsidies cost $11.6 billion in 2021-22 across all federal, state and territory governments, equivalent to $22,139 per minute.”

Fix the NDIS

It seems that more is spent on lawyers than patients. Bill Shorten will have his work cut out trying to correct this bureaucratic mess. 

A more equal nation

Labor believes that:

“All Australians should be able to go about their lives free from discrimination and share in an equitable distribution of the country’s wealth.”

Better funding for the ABC

Labor has:

“… a five-year funding commitment in addition to Labor’s previous promise that an Albanese Government will reverse Scott Morrison’s cut of $83.7 million.”

Restore the role of the public service

Return the work now outsourced to the private sector (costing exorbitant amounts) to the Public Service, which is its rightful place.

Better manage our water

With so many competing forces, the same old problems will arise. However, Tania Plibersek may bring a fresh approach.

Fix the NBN

Labor’s plan is to have access to world-class gigabit speeds by 2025. How much could we have saved had we done it correctly in the first place?

Give the independents a voice

As an act of goodwill, the Prime Minister should regularly meet with the cross benches.

Covid: Where to now?

There were 35,000 cases reported on June 2. Labor needs an up-to-date assessment of just where we are at with this dreadful virus.

International company tax

This is wrong, so wrong:

“Five of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association’s (APPEA) most prominent member companies have paid no income tax for at least the past seven years despite combined income from their Australian operations of $138 billion.”

Fix it please, Albo.

End the prosecution of Bernard Collaery

Greens and independents are calling on Mark Dreyfus to withdraw commonwealth consent to all charges in the alleged Timor-Leste bugging case. The man is a hero, not a criminal.

End the prosecution of Julian Assange.

The telling of truth has a high price.

Fix the problems with Aged Care

After many enquiries and a Royal Commission into aged care, the time has come to fix it.

Summary

Please note that my list isn’t prioritised, meaning it is not in any particular order. People will form their own urgency.

Two points need to be made. Firstly: That any Government would leave the nation’s affairs in such a mess is scandalous. Secondly: Government is a slow-moving beast. Our expectations need to be tempered with patience; however, we are entitled to think that a new era of sensible governance can be established.

 

My previous post: One that the Murdoch Media got horribly wrong.

My thought for the day

Labor will deliver a future where no one is held back, and no one is left behind (Anthony Albanese).

 

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9 comments

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  1. wam

    Selemat pagi, lord,
    Didn’t Albo look good with Joko?
    A bit disappointed gillard didn’t get a run in your ‘didalot in a short time.(gough got 2 elections not 2 years)
    The most difficult task of labor is priorities and in terms of media coverage that is difficult. The debt of a $trillion os already being touted as covid so that lie needs a morning show smackdown and exposing the rort spending on the bush shack on KI and the 4 man reef gift.
    Albo et AL, just need to be honest and do their best to reveal their plans in the media. Just as independents need to be kept in the loop so do the parties in parliament, all the press, including the shock jocks, sky, ch7, 9, 10 and the papers are important.
    I am a vindictive bastard and I would reactivate keatings ‘I want to do you slowly’ by publicising the previous government’s myriad of failings including debt, gifts, rorts, waste on consultants and inept handling of covid, at every interview.
    All with an aim to send the findings to an ICAC.
    Marvellous thought but just make your people honest, Albo!!!

  2. Max Gross

    It will take more than nine years of ALP government to repair the harm done by the previous nine LNP years

  3. Henry Rodrigues

    The trillion debt left behind by the idiots and ignored by Murdoch’s minions has to be tackled. Firstly by changing the tax laws to make everyone and every revenue earning entity that operates in Australia, to pay their fair share of taxes. Why should ordinary workers whose tax is deducted before they even see their pay packet, pay tax every time they shop for the essentials in the supermarket (GST) while comparatively well off people get tax cuts, companies get tax exemptions and as many as 876 companies pay no tax at all. Why should the ability of someone able to afford an expensive accountant be allowed to evade and avoid paying tax, whilst ordinary workers are obliged under threat of the law to pay up in full.

    Why should grubs like Murdoch be given tax refunds of nearly $900m, giant mining companies be given diesel rebates and be allowed to minimise their tax burdens and send their profits overseas.

    As for tax cuts for those earning more than $200,000 ? Let them lump it like the rest of us. Friedenberg is no longer around to stroke their backs and nurture their egos and bank balances..

    Negative gearing has got to be curbed or reorganized. so that those who deserve a home can get one.

  4. leefe

    “Covid excepted, though Morrison did try … ”

    Citations required.

    Scummo did the same thing with thte pandemic that he did with the bushfires: ignored it and hoped it would go away. The only action he took was what he was forced into by growing outrage, and he screwed up everything he did try. Getting the state leaders to do the heavy lifting – most of whom did a reasonable job – was his only useful contribution.

    Their TO DO list is longer than mine, which is quite a feat. And every one of those items on it should have been dealt with by the Coalition while they were in charge.

  5. Harry Lime

    I think we are in far deeper shit than what we already knew about the worst government in Australia’s history,and it’s become obvious that the new government is badly shaken by the stark facts being daily revealed.Albanese is going to need all the help and all the nerve he can muster if we are to avoid the abyss bequeathed by the shocking Morrison and his pathetic henchmen.In the next few weeks and months, Albanese is going to have to lay out,in plain English,exactly what we face, and what radical steps will be needed to turn the ship around,and this will involve sacrifice from EVERYONE.
    The media in general can spare us the nauseating bullshit about a softer,cuddlier Dutton…this prick is emblematic of the problems we now face.
    Albanese and his government will have to embrace radical reform in the vein of Whitlam,after all he has the talent in his Ministry,if they have the collective balls.No time to lose.No 1 issue for me is the annihilation of Murdoch’s poisonous garbage.

  6. leefe

    Housing problem requires more than reducing prices for first-home buyers. We need a lot more public housing.

  7. Henry Rodrigues

    Harry L…..Couldn’t agree with you more, sweeping away the garbage that is Murdoch, his minions and their dangerous bullshit, that is the task number 1.

  8. B Sullivan

    ““… help more people get into the housing market”

    Isn’t it the housing market that is the problem? Instead of being concerned about ensuring that people are housed, the real concern is about buying houses and selling them at a higher price. In the national census prior to the last it was revealed that on census night more than a million homes in Australia were unoccupied, which implies that the housing shortage in Australia is a myth propagated to justify the shortage of affordable housing which in turn is used as the big excuse for high house prices.

    The concern isn’t about the need for shelter. Homeless people are of no concern to the market. They do not count as a target demographic. The concern is the about the difficulty of affording that first home, the entry fee to the privileged Real Estate Club.

    First rule of Real Estate Club – “You do not talk about Real Estate Club.” You talk about first home buyers instead. How hard and unfair it is for them and that measures must be taken that, while appearing to make it a bit easier for new members to join the club, will actually serve to increase house prices.

    Second rule of Real Estate Club – “House prices will always increase.”

    Third rule of Real Estate Club – “House prices will never decrease.”

    First home buyers are priced out of the market/club, because they are competing with second, third, fourth and more home buyers who can always afford to out bid them. In the market that exists, houses are not meant for people to live in. They are investments expected to return ever higher profits. They are for living off, not living in.

  9. Avere

    B Sullivan & leefe, very true both. It’s virtually a closed shop with tax advantages all going to investors. Labor is gun-shy about touching negative gearing. But, what f only PRINCIPAL + INTEREST (P&I) loans were allowed as a item of claim deduction at tax time? RE property could once again slowly become essentially shelter for families and not shelter from taxes.
    The argument around ‘what about share investors’? – anyone ever lived inside a share? Shares are units of equity ownership in a corporation, so why wtf are mum and dad ‘investors’ treated as corps without actually being corps? A home is physical shelter and can exist without being dragged into a corp. Creative legislation! Make ‘investors’ switch to P&I loans or make them register as corps.

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