Everyone knows how it goes, as things get a bit older, they are a little less reliable. This is being typed on a five year old computer. the computer still works but it’s a little slower to start up than it used to be and sometimes it has a conniption or two when swapping between programs. Those that have owned an older car will be well used to the phone call from the mechanic when the car is in for a service telling you that you really should think about getting something else done to maintain reliability.

This also apparently applies to power stations. Gradually the coal fired power stations are closing down as they getting older. There is probably the inevitable phone call from the technicians that maintain the infrastructure suggesting that they really should do something else while they are there. Even then, breakdowns are becoming more common according to AEMO, who have the responsibility to maintain the misnamed ‘National Grid’, which doesn’t include Western Australia.

In 2019, a Hong Kong investment firm was proposing to build two coal fired power stations in the Hunter Valley. It was a great opportunity according to some. It didn’t happen

Those with a memory that goes back further than Opposition Leader Peter Dutton would hope may recall that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison offered to pay a $600 million subsidy to assist in the construction of a gas fired power station in the Hunter Valley. Apart from the obvious ‘up yours’ to the then ALP Opposition Energy Spokesperson whose seat was in the Hunter Valley there was the small problem of the facility having to run on diesel until a gas supply could be secured.

While former

Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said the government had given the private sector every opportunity to act.

“Cheap power is crucial to ensuring families, businesses and job-creating industries in NSW can thrive, which is why we are committed to replacing the energy generated by Liddell to keep prices down,” he said in a statement.

“This important project is good news for NSW as well as the broader National Electricity Market.

“We were very clear from the start – we will not stand by and watch prices go up and the lights go off.”

Maybe the private sector knew better

Kerry Schott, chair of Australia’s Energy Security Board, told The Guardian the private sector wasn’t building the plant because gas was “expensive power” and the project “doesn’t stack up”.

“One of the reasons given for [a taxpayer-funded plant in the Hunter] is it will flood the market with gas-fired power and when there’s a tonne of supply in the market, prices go down,” she said.

“We all learned this in economics. However, that doesn’t work when there are a whole lot of other things around that are cheaper in price, like wind, solar and big batteries, like pumped hydro and we’ve got Snowy 2.0 coming.”

So Snowy Hydro (owned by the Federal Government) was told to build it. Stranded assets anyone?

The Coalition’s latest foray into reigniting the climate wars of the 2010’s is to claim nuclear energy is a valid option. It’ll take until the mid 2040’s to organise but we ‘should be right’ for ‘net zero’ by 2050. First the plan was to install a number of small modular nuclear reactors around the country. The fly in the ointment being that they are vapourware – there are absolutely none of them in operation in the western word at the moment.

When this small problem was pointed out to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, the focus changed to larger nuclear reactors to produce electricity. We have been waiting for a long time – and several promised dates – for the announcement where they will be located. While nuclear reactors are in operation in various parts of the world with a mixed safety record, they also have a few little issues including

• the timelines – about 20 years to be approved and built in various parts of the world,
• the cost – the latest UK nuclear power station is projected to be $88 billion and
• what to do with the waste – the Lucas Heights medical products and research reactor in Sydney which has been in temporary storage now for decades.

There are more problems with nuclear, have a look at this ABC report for details. Nuclear power is also more expensive than renewables.

So we have an aging fleet of coal fired power stations that are getting increasingly unreliable and an Opposition Leader that has a solution that is optimistically available in the 2040s. Regardless of Paris commitments, climate wars and anything else – what does Peter Dutton think is going to produce power in years between the demise of old coal fired power stations and the nuclear future? It wouldn’t be renewables by any chance?

It’s a pity someone hasn’t asked the question.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton made his Budget Reply speech last Thursday night. In his speech, he claimed a Coalition Government he led would have reduced permanent migration from 185,000 in the next year to 140,000. Telling ABC’s 7.30 immediately after the speech

“It’s not just housing. People know that if you move suburbs, it’s hard to get your kids into school, or into childcare. It’s hard to get into a GP because the doctors have closed their books. It’s hard to get elective surgery. These factors have all contributed to capacity constraints because of the lack of planning in the migration program.”

Dutton also would claimed he would implement a two-year ban on foreign investors and temporary residents purchasing existing homes in Australia

So, his cunning plan is to reduce demand for new homes, schools, roads, health care and so on.

Except – it won’t.

The permanent migration figure in the budget is only part of the story. In 2019, the Morrison Coalition Government – with Dutton as Home Affairs Minister (and responsible for immigration numbers) – was going to reduce the number of permanent migrants from 190,000 people per annum to 150,000 people per annum. Writing for the ABC’s website, Laura Tingle points out that

… the very same 2019 budget papers were forecasting that net overseas migration would be 271,700 in 2019 (compared to 190,000 permanent arrivals) before dropping ever so marginally to 271,300 in 2020 and then to 263,800 by 2022 (despite the cut of 30,000 permanent places a year).

But Dutton had an answer for that, according to Tingle

Dutton told Radio 2GB on Friday that “at the moment … the government’s predicting 528,000 this year” for net overseas migration.

Actually, no. That’s the figure for 2022-23 in the budget papers, which say that in the financial year just ending, net overseas migration has already fallen back to 395,000.

It is predicted to fall to 260,000 in 2024-25 (a number Dutton described as “pretty dodgy”) and then to about 235,000. (Both numbers notably also less than those forecast in 2019).

According to

Trent Wiltshire, the deputy director of migration and labour markets at the Grattan Institute, said that if the cuts fall on the family intake it “won’t do too much to the migration numbers in the short term because they’re already here on temporary visas, and will stay on temporary visas” for longer.

Simon Kuestenmacher, writing in The New Daily also suggests a cut in the permanent migration target number won’t do much to assist the scarcity of homes for people to live in because it isn’t the problem

The narrative is simple. How foolish were we to take in record numbers of migrants during a nationwide housing shortage?

No context is provided regarding last year’s record intake. The growth was exclusively driven by international students. All other visa categories were below pre-pandemic averages.

We let in so many international students in a single year because they weren’t able to come in the years prior due to our national lockdowns and the prolonged Chinese lockdowns.

This was pent-up demand and won’t be repeated. The spots for international students are now filled and we will bit by bit, and automatically, reach pre-pandemic levels.

So – Dutton is wrong again.

There are two problems here – Dutton is using a megaphone to misrepresent facts. Reducing the permanent migrant target number in the budget will do nothing to increase the number of homes available in Australia. As a former Minister in a government, Dutton should know this. So he’s either had absolutely no clue what he was doing when he was the Home Affairs Minister (which is concerning) or cynically using the plight of certain groups of people that have chosen to hopefully call Australia home to gain an advantage (which apparently is LNP policy and racist).

As Karen Middleton suggests in The Guardian

It was all straight from focus groups and from the Howard government’s old Crosby-Textor playbook. Find out what the people are complaining about and repeat it back to them, with sympathy and volume.

It was the verbal version of a colour-coded spreadsheet, cross-referencing important constituent groups and key demographics the coalition needs to win over, with focus-group data on what people say they care about and especially what worries them.

Certainly there is a conversation to be had about migration to Australia and the effects on the provision of services to all of the community. But the conversation isn’t as easy as reduce one component of a migration policy and all our problems will be solved. While Pauline Hanson has been trading on racism since the 1990’s (and at one time the Liberal Party de-selected her as a candidate because of her stated beliefs). Dutton is attempting to ‘blow the racist dogwhistle’ by calling for simplistic solution rather than make a genuine contribution.

It seems that politics still has the mental scars from John Hewson’s attempt to introduce a GST and reform the tax system and Bill Shorten’s attempt to reduce some overly generous concessions made to investors. A case in point being the brouhaha over the $300 being given to everyone with an electricity account in the Federal Budget. There is always some example the politicians and media can expose that don’t need the handout (despite the overwhelming evidence that a lot of people do). Rather than asking question in Parliament and in the media why someone with lots of money should get the assistance – wouldn’t the better option to use the advantages of your position in life to suggest that if you don’t need the money, make a matching donation to Lifeline, Vinnies, or some other group that you believe provides genuine help to those that are less well off?

We shouldn’t be kicking the can down the road by supplying simplistic solutions to complex questions as Dutton is attempting to do here. Yes the housing shortage is real, as is the need for universities to earn research funding from international students, the need for immigrants to provide labour in those fields where there are shortages and the desire by many people (most of whom are in the country already) to settle permanently and have their own roof over their heads.

While might resonate with the ‘Sky after dark’ crowd, Dutton’s refusal to open a discussion on all the reasons for a housing shortage in his budget reply speech is telling. It generally takes longer than a 15 second news grab to explain the reasons for a problem and a preferred solution successfully. If Dutton had a real answer or a willingness to arrive at rational and responsible solutions to a host of problems in Australia he should have provided it on Thursday night instead of the speech full of marketing slogans and soundbites.

We should expect better than this.

It’s often claimed the major supermarkets would prefer to see tonnes of fresh food be dumped rather than sell less than ‘perfect’ fruit and veggies in their shops or some landlords keep perfectly good homes vacant so they can rent them at exorbitant prices for short periods to holiday makers on websites. Economists will tell you that these are examples of ‘the market’ making rational decisions.

There is also a ‘market’ in the electricity generation industry. This market believes it is rational to burn fossil fuels to generate ‘baseload’ power during the day while we are turning off solar farms, rather than storing the solar produced energy for use in the late afternoon peak. A frequent claim of those that do not support the change to renewable energy is renewable sources of electricity cannot be relied upon to produce baseload power. They are right – but not for the reasons they claim. The actual definition of baseload power is the generation of the minimum amount of power required to keep the turbines spinning in a coal powered power station. Unlike solar, wind, hydro or gas, it takes a considerable time for the restarting of a coal fired power generator should someone hit the off switch. It also takes a considerable time to turn them off.

Some that reside on the Coalition benches in Federal Parliament will tell you that we need baseload power, and if we can’t get it from burning coal, we need nuclear electricity generation. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton seems to be on board, spruiking nuclear power whenever he gets the opportunity – although his reluctance to actually suggest where these plants should be located indicates there he still has to convince most Australians of their worth. Writing on the ABC’s website, Annabel Crabb suggests that the reason Dutton is attempting to market nuclear power is that he has to offer something to the conservative flank in his party room

And while large parts of the Australian energy sector remain temporarily addicted to coal (even in Victoria, around 70 per cent of base load power comes from burning brown coal), the hard-core climate deniers of the Coalition are in the process of kicking the habit. Their methadone equivalent? Nuclear.

In terms of the culture wars, nuclear enrages the greenies in the same satisfying way that coal does. So, for your hardcore Sky After Dark watcher, it delivers the same political high.

The reality is there are a number of alternatives to coal or nuclear electricity generation. Writing in The New Daily, Richard Dennis from the Australia Institute observes

Indeed, in a real-world trial, a major building in Sydney shifted 800kWh of electricity demand from late afternoon to the middle of the day by simply lowering the air conditioning target temperature by 1 degree early in the day. A battery big enough to shift that much electricity would cost around $500,000. Similarly, small changes in the NEM rules could give buildings much greater incentives to utilise other forms of energy storage and interact with the grid far more efficiently.

It’s not hard to come to the conclusion that Dutton is attempting to ‘pick winners’ that satisfy the extremely rusted on conservatives that inhabit or support some parts of the Liberal and National Parties. At the same time he is criticising the government for attempting to ‘pick winners’ in industries that support the government’s stated ambition of net zero by 2050.

While governments in general don’t have a great reputation when it comes to ‘picking winners’, arguably they are no worse than other large organisations. The difference being that other large organisations don’t have to publicly report their failures. We do however have some evidence that the Coalition has extremely poor form in ‘picking winners’ in recent times.

The Rudd and Gillard ALP Governments between 2009 and 2013 implemented a program of converting the existing communications system around Australia to a high-speed digital system that involved replacing most of the copper communications cables with fibre cables. The program was called the National Broadband Network and was destined to install fibre connection to most homes in the country. Rudd lost the 2013 election for a number of reasons, one of the claims made against the ALP Government at the time was that the NBN was unaffordable and a waste of money. The incoming Prime Minster, Tony Abbott and his Communications Minister, Malcolm Turnbull scaled back the program so that fibre cable was installed to ‘nodes’ and then the existing copper phone cable would connect individual homes in a system known as Fibre to the Node.

The NBN recently reported that they had lost around 65,000 customers between June 2022 and April 2024. It is understood that the majority of these customers migrated to ‘fixed wireless’ or satellite communications plans where there is reduced cost as well as a faster internet connection. While

The Coalition’s communications spokesman, David Coleman, said this month the decline was a “troubling sign” for the company and the government had questions to answer. But others blame the Coalition itself.

In February, the company’s outgoing chief executive, Stephen Rue, told Guardian Australia those shifting away from the NBN were largely customers on fibre-to-the-node – the Abbott-Turnbull-era technology that uses legacy copper phone lines, where speed and quality decreases the further away your home is from the node.

“The main reason for that is service and a desire for faster speed … customers who are at the end of the FttN line … they get 25 megabits per second, but they can’t experience a faster speed and obviously there are some copper lines that have unreliability,” he said.

Ironically, NBN has commenced a program to convert the Fibre to the Node system to Fibre to the Premises, broadly implementing the plan initiated by the Rudd Government in 2009

The company has projected that 5m premises will be upgraded by the end of 2025. Over 200,000 premises have already been upgraded in these parts of the network to improve speeds and to keep customers on board, but the effort has not yet halted the decline in customers.

No wonder the NBN is considered to be expensive. They are currently re-working the connections to around 5 million premises due to the Coalition’s posturing and political point scoring over the past decade.

The cost of solar, wind and hydro are far cheaper than fossil fuels and nuclear. Only the Coalition and vested interests are arguing otherwise. No one in ‘the market’ was silly enough to take up the Morrison Coalition Government’s generous offer to build a new coal fired power station in the Hunter Valley a few years ago. ANSTO, the government agency responsible for operation of the Lucas Heights (Sydney) nuclear reactor has been looking for a solution to waste storage for the low volumes of waste produced as a by-product of medicine production for a number of years.

Given the problems storing nuclear waste and decommissioning obsolete nuclear facilities are far greater, take a lot longer and cost considerably than reworking internet connections – do we really want to back the Coalition’s understanding of technology and risk again?

It seems Prime Minister Anthony Albanese does. In Brisbane this week he announced that the ALP Government would be considering legislation that would bring some high technology manufacturing back to Australia. While some of us may be pining for the return of the ‘Aussie designed and made’ Holden or Ford, along with the Lightburn fridge, AWA Television and so on, that’s unlikely to be what he was talking about. It’s also fairly difficult to claim that Holden and Ford were wholly Australian anyway; as the ultimate decisions were made in Detroit and Dearborn respectively.

What Albanese is more likely to be talking about is the recent announcements regarding measures to support solar panel manufacturing as well as the machinery needed to make green hydrogen. No doubt there is more to come. Australia used to make solar panels and we had world leading technology. But we stopped partly because the government of the day decided not to provide some support when cheaper and initially less well made panels began to flood the market. While Abbott & Hockey withdrew support from Australia’s motor vehicle industry both sides have form in this area thanks to neo-liberal economic policy.

Albanese isn’t the only leader of a country that is promoting a process to bring manufacturing home. The USA’s Inflation Reduction Act is one example, with other ‘well developed’ economies either planning or implementing similar packages. And it makes sense. While not everything will work and bring us global domination in a particular area, the economics stack up. A local workforce employed in the design and manufacture of material and items required around the world pays taxes and funds the services and retailers in the area they live in (who then go on to pay more taxes, wages and so on). It also makes us far less susceptible to supply shocks should something happen somewhere in the world that disrupts trade and commerce such as another pandemic or some tinpot dictator determining that he should take over another country.

The media has noticed the change inside the government as well, an example being Michelle Grattan’s piece in The Conversation when’re she discusses Albanese’s Industry Policy as well as the governments change in attitude to the war in Palestine.

There is a good chance that no-one expected Opposition Leader Dutton to come out in full throated support for the governments apparently changes in policy on manufacturing and the worsening situation in the middle east, it’s telling what he did do. When Foreign Minister Penny Wong stated that Australia, like some other nations around the world, are considering options regarding recognising the Palestinian state, Dutton (ably assisted by his usual mouthpieces employed by ‘Sky after dark’, The Australian and Nine Media) was horrified. Rather than couch his opposition in terms of someone who aspires to the political leader of our country, he seems to think of something abhorrent to say and then goes to the next level. There is no correlation between a Palestinian protest in Sydney and a terrorist event in Tasmania, despite Dutton’s claim he was demonstrating how a conservative political leader might have acted. There has also been little if any comment on Albanese’s statement regarding supporting manufacturing in Australia.

It takes time to be constantly negative. Every idea and suggestion that is made has to be examined to look for the hidden agenda, half truth or trap that might be able to be blown out of all proportion to placate the ever diminishing ‘rusted on’ Coalition supporter as well as those further to the right. Half truths can also come back to discredit you. Recently Dutton flew to Western Australia to attend a birthday soirée hosted by Gina Reinhart. Dutton claimed he paid his own way and the records submitted to the Parliament support this. What Dutton didn’t mention is that the cost of travel for the staff that accompanied him was billed to the taxpayer and totalled around $6,000. Apparently Dutton was at Reinhart’s birthday party for under an hour and was back on the hustings in Dunkley talking about the cost of living the next morning! It’s doubtful Dutton’s staff would have felt an overwhelming need to be in Western Australia for an hour or so if Dutton wasn’t going there.

Albanese’s vision of the future may not be as rosy as the rhetoric suggests, and we have little detail on what the vision really is. No doubt there will be challenges and blind alleys on the way to a more vibrant and successful country. Dutton in contrast seems to believe that negativity and constant niggling will convince enough people to vote him into power at the next election.

While we might still have two older white men in change at the next election, one hopefully will be able to sell policies with positivity and vision while the other still apparently seeks a return to the days and practices of the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison government. If so, it might be a really interesting contest of ideas – at last!

In the past couple of weeks, the conservative parties have retained government in two jurisdictions across Australia, the (party political) Brisbane City Council and Tasmania. Before anyone scoffs at the Brisbane City Council, it is an amalgamation of around 20 shires and town councils that occurred in the 1920s Apart from managing the roads, rubbish and so on for most of the Brisbane urban area, it also operates a considerable component of South East Queensland bus network, has a significant part in the planning of South East Queensland with a budget and population larger than Tasmania’s.

In Brisbane, residents have two votes, one for a Councillor and one for the Lord Mayor. At the time of writing, the LNP’s Adrian Schrinner had received 48.58% of the vote, the ALP’s Tracey Price 26.40% of the vote and the Greens Johnathon Sriranganathan 19.40% of the vote. There are a couple of Independents as well as the Legalise Cannabis Party who account for the other 5% or thereabouts of the vote. So far, slightly over 703,000 votes have been counted. The Electoral Commission Queensland results page is here – should you want to see the current figures. Tellingly, there is no One Nation or Clive Palmer candidate to split the conservative vote.

On those figures, the ALP has a problem. While they can claim to be taking a ‘principled stand’ and not joining in a coalition of reasonably like minded people, the reality is that elections are a numbers game. The situation is even worse if you consider the individual votes in the ‘Wards’ that elect the Councillors that serve on the Brisbane City Council. The ABC’s Election Results show that rather than the traditional contest between the ALP and LNP, a lot of the contests are now LNP versus Greens. While the Greens may not have reached the tipping point on this occasion, it is likely that some of them will in four years time.

The Tasmanian State Election night finished with no one holding a majority of the seats required to form a government in their own right. While in February Premier Jeremy Rockliff was preaching the perils of minority government. He is likely to form one following the election. Especially telling was the ALP Leader, Rebecca White, saying on Election Night that she would attempt to form a minority government if Rockliff couldn’t, only to be walking the statement back on Sunday and resigning from the leadership by the middle of the following week. At the time of writing, the ALP could have formed a minority government based on the publicly available results.

In both the Brisbane City and Tasmania Elections, if the ALP had been prepared to work with others, they could have stitched together a deal to effectively be in control of the two jurisdictions. While it is probably harder work to manage the differing views of the various members of a coalition in power, the views of the different members of a minority government make better decisions for all. The ALP minority Government with Julia Gillard as Prime Minister managed to be more productive in terms of legislation passed than any government since. Some of the achievements of the Gillard Government, such as the NDIS and an effective carbon pollution reduction program was leading edge at the time – only to be neutered by subsequent governments.

As an outsider, it seems that the ALP has similar problems to the Coalition. It is highly unlikely that the alternative political parties to the left and right of the ALP and LNP will be going away any time soon. The ALP is losing votes to the Greens and they aren’t necessarily returning just as the LNP is losing votes to One Nation and others to their right. While the ALP knows and understands how to attempt to entice voters from the LNP and seems to be actively pursuing the strategy, they are ignoring those that do want stronger emissions reduction targets, humanity to refugees, action on the cost of housing and rentals, a better funding system for public schools and so on. Instead the ALP is trying to ‘out-flank’ the LNP on cruelty to refugees and refusing to change the rules around religious and racial discrimination without the Coalition joining them on a ‘unity ticket’. The ‘unity ticket’ is just as likely as verified sightings of the Easter Bunny delivering presents on Easter Sunday.

While minority government may not necessarily be easy, or enable legislation to be passed without full consideration and consent of the respective parliament, arguably it is a better result for the community at large as more than one ideological group has to be convinced of the worth of the measure. Minority governments work in many countries around the world. In reality every Liberal Party Prime Minister and most Liberal Party Premiers in Australia since World War 2 have been the leaders of minority governments as the Liberal Party usually doesn’t have the numbers to ‘govern’ in their own right. A progressive minority government would be a far better result than a conservative Liberal/National Party ‘Coalition’ lead by Peter Dutton this time next year. Maybe that’s something the ALP and Greens party operatives should think about seriously.

Despite the headlines on Sunday morning, it seems that the vast majority of the attendees at Mardi Gras last weekend were in fact ‘feeling the love’

police said the overall behaviour of 120,000 spectators and 12,500 participants on Saturday night was “pleasing”.

There were no major incidents other than the arrest of the seven men and two women.

Rev Fred Nile, who made a political career out of praying for rain on the night of the Mardi Gras must be singularly unimpressed. Those arrested were protesting a lack of ‘queer solidarity with Palestine’ and not the parade.

It’s actually wonderful that a group of over 130,000 people can gather together in a major city with so little in the way of disruption. While the Mardi Gras started off as a protest rally, it’s now a celebration and certainly a boost to the Sydney and New South Wales economy. It also demonstrates that there is a lot of good in humanity – arguably something that is completely missed by political operatives.

There have been many reports of the campaigning that occurred in the lead up to the Dunkley by-election. While both sides claim to have won, the reality is the swing to the opposition was within the usual expectations for a by election and governments vote didn’t do what it usually does in a by-election and go backwards. The new Member of Parliament will also be sitting on the government benches, so it’s not that easy to find any validity in the opposition’s claim of a famous victory.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton had been visiting the electorate and in his usual practice making statements before the facts were checked,

It was question time on Thursday, two days out from the Dunkley byelection. Victoria Police had just confirmed the arrest of a man released from immigration detention who was issued with four assault and stalking charges.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, made the alleged incidents in Richmond the centrepiece of the Coalition’s question time attack; soon after his deputy, Sussan Ley, tweeted an inflammatory claim about “foreign criminals”.

But just hours later, Victoria Police conceded they had got the wrong man. After reviewing footage, they no longer believed the person involved was someone released from immigration detention.

The was also a concerted campaign by a conservative activist group Advance, who according to Crikey, introduced a ‘new, nastier brand of politics’ in an attempt to win the Dunkley by-election for the opposition.

According to Crikey, Advance’s advertising claimed that the ALP ‘engineered’ the High Court decision to release the refugees and asylum seekers that had been placed in ‘permanent detention’. Not only that, but the implication was that every one of them was going to reoffend, despite not all of them offending in the first place. In the same article, it’s claimed that Advance spent $350,000 in Dunkley in the lead up to the by election and as we know now it didn’t affect the outcome at all.

Advance’s ultra-negativity is reasonably new to Australian politics and is a reflection of the conservative right in the USA. The difference in the USA is that elections are not compulsory, so if there is an increase in voters, organisations similar to Advance (as well as organisations such as ‘Occupy Democrats’ and ‘The Lincoln Project’ from the progressive side) can arguably claim that they increased the number of people voting, which is seen to be good for democracy.

Advance’s problem is it can’t point to any evidence that it increased the number of people voting or changed the vote outside what would be expected at a federal by-election. While super aggressive advertising may appeal to a small sector of the community, to most it is just another reason to turn away from any interest in politics whatsoever. We need people to be involved so that a representative group of people are sitting in our Parliaments making the laws for us all.

The biggest loser from the Dunkley by-election seems to be Advance. The unfortunate thing for all of us is they will probably ‘double down’ and try to be angrier and more aggressive next time around. We don’t really need or want US style politics in Australia, despite the aggro and hate, it leads to the ridiculous situation where the Democrats in the USA reckon they have a chance of getting an endorsement from Taylor Swift, who has already suggested to her fans that they should enrol to vote. And the Republicans Donald Trump is courting the Christian religious broadcasters in an attempt to gain support from their listeners. At their National Convention (despite their ‘tax-exempt and non-profit’ status prohibiting political comment)

Trump promised to create a new taskforce to counter “anti-Christian bias” by investigating “discrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in America”. He vowed to appoint more conservative judges, reminded the audience of his decision to break with decades of international consensus and move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and assured them a future Trump administration would take particular aim at transgender people – for example, by endorsing policies to restrict access to gender-affirming healthcare.

While some things that are made in America are good, political marketing isn’t one of them. And before anyone suggests that the progressive side of politics in Australia wouldn’t stoop so low, some of the advertising from the ALP and Greens for the upcoming party political Brisbane City Council election (which is the Coalition’s last toehold of power on the Australian mainland) isn’t too far behind the efforts of Advance and the Coalition that we have been criticising here.

It’s time for the political parties in general to tell us what they will do better, rather than tearing the other side down. Sure, tearing down is easier – but it leaves us with a diminished understanding of the ideals and policies of the eventual victor.

It’s widely acknowledged that Tony Abbott came to be Prime Minister because he continually listed some ‘critical’ failures of the then Rudd and Gillard Governments using three-word slogans. Current Opposition Leader Dutton seems to be attempting to follow the same strategy however he seems to be having difficulty in finding a line of attack that cannot be easily debunked. In reality, the restructuring of the Stage 3 Tax Cuts was his time to ‘shine’, however the government clearly won the marketing battle by making the tax cuts fairer to all. Discussing why legislation passed in an era prior to a number of economic shocks may not be ‘fit for purpose’ now – if it ever was probably helped. It’s not hard to see why the Coalition has been dubbed the ‘Noalition’.

It’s also a shame the Albanese Government hasn’t announced real and substantial reform in a number of areas including tax, healthcare and housing to improve the standard of living for all Australians while further isolating the Opposition who seem to be in the business of opposing for oppositions sake (after all it worked for Abbott).

The Opposition’s job is to consider the government’s agenda and either suggest improvement or present a rational and coherent discussion on what they would do better. Dutton seems to be incapable of doing either of these objectives to a satisfactory level. Saying ‘no’ because the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Government didn’t do it is not rational or coherent.

After Parliament resumed for the year, Dutton claimed that Immigration Minister Andrew Giles is incompetent because the High Court determined that Coalition era legislation regarding detention of refugees were unlawful. So for a number of days all the Coalition could contribute to Parliament’s Question Time was asking Minister Giles why he didn’t amend the laws before the High Court had passed judgement. Apart from the general absurdity of the logic here, people who have committed heinous crimes (and that’s not saying for a minute that all of the refugees in question were convicted of heinous crimes) are released from the prison system every day across Australia. While each state has their own processes that might allow for some monitoring of people released from prison, no state has the power to assume someone is forever guilty based on a previous crime where the person has ‘done the time’.

When some refugees arrived by fishing boat and wandered into a remote community in Western Australia recently, Dutton commenced a campaign suggesting that the Albanese Government has cut funding to the Coalition era border protection program so beloved of Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton (to name a few). A week ago, Dutton claimed:

“They’ve ripped a cumulative $600 million out of Operation Sovereign Borders and Border Force.”

Actually ‘they’ haven’t according to Head of Australian Border Force, Michael Outram in a statement issued a couple of days later,

“Border Force funding is currently the highest it’s been since its establishment in 2015, and in the last year the ABF has received additional funding totalling hundreds of millions of dollars, to support maritime and land-based operations,”

Dutton, ably supported by some interested spectators such as Toyota and Mazda, have claimed there are various dire consequences that will result from the introduction of the government’s New Vehicle Emissions Scheme. Not only will it ruin everyone’s ability to buy the vehicle that is capable of driving to Cape York even though the furthest off-road it will ever go is to jump a traffic island, every tradie in the land will go broke if their vehicle is subject to emissions regulations. When even the internet sites that promote all things motor vehicles are saying that’s not correct, such as here and here there is a problem for Dutton.

Dutton’s claims clearly don’t stand up to scrutiny. In fact, fuel efficiency regulations help the consumer to drive a car that uses less fuel and is cheaper to run (as well as creating less pollution). It’s also interesting the vehicle importers complaining about the speed or severity of the forthcoming regulations generally are also the companies that haven’t been all that serious about introducing more efficient cars into their Australian catalogues – even though they are available overseas where there is already regulation on fuel efficiency and/or emissions.

It was difficult for Dutton to win the debate over the Stage 3 Tax Cuts when sections of the media were headlining their reporting with ‘Working class communities in Coalition held seats the biggest winners in Labor’s stage three tax cuts overhaul’. It’s also difficult to argue that mandating better emissions control or better fuel consumption is a retrograde step for the consumer and the environment.

It’s a pity that the ALP Government seems to have done nothing to broaden the tax base away from wage and salary earners as our population ages or provide assistance to those who literally can’t find a house to rent. Maybe reinstating the former state government operated ‘housing commissions’ would help as the current programs to ‘assist’ housing affordability just don’t work. And while increasing the ‘incentive’ to bulk bill the elderly and children at the doctors may be having some effect, there is a large number of people who still have to work out if they should go to the doctor or eat more than one meal a day this week.

The Albanese Government has demonstrated that substantial policy changes can be made so they are beneficial to a lot more Australians. The political battle can also be won. The more beneficial change that occurs the more evidence there will be that Dutton’s scattergun approach is similar to the boy crying wolf. The ALP has a chance here to embed itself in government for a generation – the question is do they want to take it?

So Prime Minister Albanese has finally determined the Morrison era ‘Stage 3” tax cuts were not in the best interests of the country. It’s not hard to argue that they never were, but we’ll leave that to those far better qualified to make the case, such as Greg Jericho in The Guardian.

While most of the media is reminding us that Albanese’s change of heart is in fact a broken promise (and let’s be no doubt here – it is), they then go on to discuss why the change of mind is in fact a good idea for most Australians. The reason is simply that most Australians will now get a tax cut and the tax cuts are now structured towards those who need the ‘help’ far more. You could argue the person on $200,000 a year who needs the Coalition tax cut to manage the payments on the investment rental and put fuel in the new Ram truck to tow the big boat might suffer as a result – but you don’t need a investment rental or a Ram truck to survive. Those on lower incomes might argue that they can now afford to buy medicine, pay the rent or put petrol in the car.

The thing is that in essence the pre-pandemic era tax cuts legislated by the Morrison Government were made in an economic time completely different to the circumstances we find ourselves in today. The economy hadn’t taken hits from the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine or the current Palestine/Israel almost war just to name a few. There is a saying attributed to various people including Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keyes that suggest ‘When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do sir?’ Let’s face it we all change our minds when presented with new information, whether it be the route we take to work, the brand of breakfast cereal we consume or moving on from our ‘forever’ home due to circumstances we can’t control.

As probably expected, Opposition Leader Dutton is screaming from the rooftops that Albanese’s yet to be legislated changes to the Stage 3 tax cuts is tantamount to treason. According to Dutton, Albanese should call an election so the people can decide and implying the world will end when the tax change become effective on July 1. His claims are not justified of course, and the argument could be made that at the last election was lost by the Coalition despite the ‘rock solid’ promise to implement the Stage 3 tax cuts.

Albanese is certainly not the only one to break a political promise. John Howard’s ‘core’ and ‘non core’ promises still rankles some. Tony Abbott’s first budget was a litany of broken promises from the election that was held months earlier. And in 1993, Paul Keating went to an election suggesting tax cuts were L.A.W. as they were legislated, only to reverse the legislation after the election. We all survived Abbott’s and Keating’s broken tax promises, Dutton (who was in Abbott’s government) should be uncomfortable in demanding a higher standard of ‘promise keeping’ from the other side of politics than he accepts from his own side. After all – to quote another saying – ‘the standard you walk past is the standard you accept’.

In reality, apart from the politics of giving something to more people, Albanese has a lot of good reasons for breaking a promise. Given the changes in the economy, there is a far greater concern that a lot of the population is struggling to make do, let alone get ahead. Bringing more fairness and equity into the tax system should always be applauded, and others have argued that the ‘Stage 3’ tax cuts were always a political gift to the Coalition that could be used until they were implemented to bash the ALP around in the polls.

Which gets us back to politics and political promises. We elect our leaders to navigate unforeseen issues in the future for our country based on their and their political party’s past performance. Arguably Albanese, Abbott and Keating to name a few broke political promises for what they consider to be good reason after being advised by experts in their field. We should really be applauding them for having the courage to say that they have been given new information and adjusted their outlook to compensate.

Certainly we could have a discussion about the equity and fairness of the broken promises, as unlike Albanese’s changes to the legislated tax cuts, Abbott’s seemed at the time to be more about the Coalition’s habit of kicking people while they are down – but that’s another discussion altogether.

Regardless you have to feel sorry for Dutton. The ‘Stage 3’ tax cut bogyman has been finally killed off and all he can do is complain about a broken promise – while ignoring the long list of Coalition Prime Ministers that did the same thing for arguably far less altruistic motives. It must be uncomfortable sitting astride that particular barbed wire fence.

Rather than giving more oxygen to the gift that keep on giving for political blog writers, Peter Dutton, for lambasting Woolworths for announcing it wasn’t stocking specific Australia Day items, maybe we should look to the future.

If you want to be cynical about it, politicians in general always have their eye on their future at the next election. At the next election, the same politicians that are goading those easy to manipulate into damaging Woolworths stores because they choose not to stock merchandise for a public holiday at the end of January will turn around and tell us they are honest, moral and decent people. Furthermore, we should entrust them with the government of the country to for the next three years. Dutton has been remarkably quiet since the latest dog whistle was blown. Assuming the potential reactions to his comments were considered prior to them being made, it wouldn’t take Einstein levels of intelligence to consider that the outcome of criminal damage to the retailer’s premises was a likely outcome. And while there is a long list of Coalition faults and failures, they aren’t stupid.

That being the case we all have a problem. Dutton is the leader of the alternative government in Australia. Unlike One Nation and United Australia Party, there is a possibility that at the next election, the Coalition will gain power. One Nation and United Australia Party can blow dog whistles or promise the world and get away with it every time as they know they’ll never have to figure out how to deliver on their pronouncements. The Coalition does have a chance of forming a government. So what do we know about how our alternative federal government would behave and its priorities?

Not much really is the honest answer. We know they will fire up a small vocal minority that deem criminal damage is acceptable when a retailer chooses not to stock a range of products even though they are unprofitable. We know they will not support giving some assistance to a minority of Australians to bring their standard of living up to a similar standard as the majority of Australians. We know that they also happy to blow dog whistles regarding refugees and asylum seekers that were released from illegal indefinite detention.

The thing is that we choose political leaders based on their past performance to make decisions about issues that arise in the future. While every political party will make promises, a promise is worthless. The demonstration of character by the political party’s leaders prior to gaining power is far more important – as that gives us an understanding on how they will manage the issues of the future when they occur.

Economics Professor and former Liberal Party Leader John Hewson is also concerned about the lack of information we have available to determine the behaviours of Dutton and the Coalition, together with the media cheer squad who are happy to assist by making each day about scaremongering, point scoring and creating fear. As Hewson points out

Unfortunately, this is an environment sponsored and fed by much of the mainstream media, especially Sky News and Nine, which have already picked their champions and launched their campaign strategies, as indeed they did with the referendum. So many of their junior journalists and even some of their old guard are obsessed with “gotcha journalism”, compounded by the responses of the ignorant trolls on social media who naively suggest there are simple solutions to our mostly complex social and economic challenges, with little interest in good government – they just want to be players in the melee.

Hewson goes on to list some of the economic risks that have been identified by the United Nations that will affect the worldwide and Australian economies between now and the end of the decade. He rightly wants to know from both political parties that potentially can form a government what they intend to do to minimise the economic risks to Australia and Australians.

At the same time, the Albanese Government has to invest time in creating a narrative around what they have done in the first term. While there has been some positive outcomes, there has been some missed opportunities in policy development, policy implementation and the explanation of why the policy is good for the community. There also needs to be work on a roadmap for a second term together with a sales pitch that resonates with the community.

The Coalition has to flesh out its policy and publicise why it is a better choice than the Government. Continual negativity and complaints is not policy, but it is similar behaviour to the toddler that will hold their breath until their face turns blue if they don’t get what they want. Policy is saying that instead of the Government’s way of doing things, we would do something slightly different with a rational discussion on why the alternative would be a better outcome.

The media also has a part to play here. They are not up for election so they shouldn’t be grinding political axes, rather they should be doing their job – reporting the news in a fair and balanced way. The falling sales of newspapers and people switching to streaming and alternative news services demonstrates that the media are not doing their job.

Sadly, we are stuck with a government that, while apparently competent, couldn’t sell a beer at a Test Match, a Coalition that is too busy sniping to sell any positive outlook for the future and a media that is picking winners rather than reporting what is happening.

Hewson’s final paragraph is:

In commenting on the release of the UN report, Secretary-General António Guterres said 2024 would be a “tough” year, but “it must be the year that we break out of this quagmire”. This should certainly be the case for Australia. It is time to address the hollowness and inadequacy of our democracy and its debate.

How true.

The CSIRO and AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator) released the draft update to their annual ‘GenCost’ – cost of energy generation – report in the past week. It pointed out nuclear energy generation wasn’t particularly cheap and was hardly the ‘silver bullet’ to drive Australia’s decreasing reliance on coal energy generation into the ground. As the report is in draft, there is the provision that someone with sufficient knowledge and evidence in the area could point out to the CSIRO that they erred in the compilation or presentation of the evidence used to argue their point of view. It is also unlikely that the update would have been issued unless there was a good chance that no substantial changes would be made.

Energy generated from renewable sources is cheaper than energy generated from nuclear energy by quite a margin, the GenCost report has found. Unsurprisingly, the Energy Minister welcomed the report as it broadly aligned with the government’s publicised objective to move energy production away from coal and gas to fully renewable sources. The Opposition was less welcoming, with Energy Spokesperson Ted O’Brien claiming the government was ‘weaponising’ the report to argue that nuclear energy generation wasn’t viable in Australia.

O’Brien claims the report looks at the issue through an ‘investment’ lens rather than a ‘consumer’ lens. He is splitting hairs. Either he has forgotten simple economics or he isn’t letting the facts stand in the way of a good story. Inherently, companies exist to generate a financial return on investments made by their shareholders. It is called profit. If a company doesn’t make a profit, it will eventually use up all its financial resources and ask shareholders for more or declare bankruptcy. The investors need the consumers to purchase their product rather than similar alternatives. The purchase price typically is higher than the cost of the inputs to the product, which is returned to the investors as profit. Maybe O’Brien might like to discuss how the two ‘lenses’ are different.

As Katherine Murphy noted in The Guardian

The CSIRO’s new analysis this week noted conventional nuclear power is now cheaper than it used to be. But it also points out that some of the low-cost nuclear found overseas has either been “originally funded by governments” or was at a point where capital costs had been recovered. This allows plants to charge less for their generation because they don’t have to recover the costs of new, commercial, nuclear deployment. Given we don’t have existing generation here, this isn’t an option for Australia.

While we are on facts, here’s another one. The only company to have a small modular nuclear power plant [O’Brien’s favoured option] approved in the United States has recently cancelled its first project due to rising costs.

O’Brien isn’t the only one who should know better trying to talk down renewable energy production. Gina Rinehart is one of Australia’s wealthiest people. She provides considerable funding to the IPA (Institute of Public Affairs) which is a conservative leaning ‘think tank’ and apparently a nursery for upcoming conservative politicians.

Rinehart must be happy with her investment in the IPA as she is currently spruiking some research from the organisation that states that at least one third of Australia’s arable land will be required to generate sufficient electricity once the last coal and gas fired power stations are closed down The research was released to the world by the IPA using the well-known academic peer reviewed journal “X”, formerly “Twitter”.

The problem is the research misses a few facts. Michael Pascoe is a finance writer for The New Daily. He asked a couple of economists who work for the Australia Institute to review the IPA’s calculations and they found

The IPA assumes renewables need to replace the total primary energy from fossil fuel use instead of the actual delivered energy – the stuff that counts, what we get to use.

“Most of the energy from fossil fuels is lost as heat,” explain Messrs Saunders and Ogge. “For instance, for coal at least 60 per cent of the primary energy from coal in coal power is lost as heat, at least 40 per cent from gas.

“Renewables do not have to replace the waste heat from fossil fuels, just the delivered energy, which is significantly less than half the primary energy figure which includes waste heat.

Pascoe goes on to suggest (correctly) that the land required for renewable energy production doesn’t have to be prime arable land, although sheep apparently like the shade provided by solar panels and will in return help to keep the grass under control.

So what is it with conservatives and renewable energy? Leaving aside the discussion around conservatives views on climate change and emissions reduction for a minute, is the concern that renewable energy is far more democratic? After all, you and I can install solar panels on the roof of our house with possibly a battery in the garage and to an extent dictated by energy regulations, finance and availability we can eliminate or at worst reduce significantly our requirement to purchase commercially generated electricity. It really doesn’t help the business model of the extractors of fossil fuels who have until now had a captive market.

It isn’t only electricity generation profits that are at risk here. The increasing uptake of electric vehicles is reducing ongoing demand for petrol and diesel, as evidenced by some traditional petrol retailers installing EV charging facilities. The problem for the retailers is that EV charging can be done at home from the solar panels and batteries, so we are far less dependant on their services. The EV can, in some cases, also be used a a battery to reduce the domestic dependence on commercially generated electricity as well.

On top of conservatives being told that fossil fuel extraction will be subject to far less demand and consequently be far less profitable, it breaks the business model they know and understand. And thats the real problem here. It’s a brave new world which is far more democratic than large companies having the monopoly on the ability to generate electricity. Even though most of us have hesitation when it comes to change, most of us either embrace it because we see the possibilities or learn to live with it.

Society will adapt as demonstrated when the ‘horseless carriage’ gained supremacy over the carriage with horses. Arguably, the change made the world far more democratic as the costs of running a horseless carriage were far less than a stable of horses. We all got used to carrying a small computer that could also make phone calls around in our pockets or bags very quickly as well.

There may be really good arguments for alternatives to renewable energy – but O’Brien hasn’t given us one yet and Rinehart frankly should have pulled her funding if the IPA can’t do far better than the drivel they have presented as ‘research’ on this occasion. It’s time to put up or shut up.

If you walk into a business that retails new cars, find a salesperson and have a discussion on what your specific wants and needs they will always be able to recommend something from the range of vehicles in the dealership. If you’re talking to a Toyota salesperson, they are most unlikely to suggest that a Hyundai or a Subaru would provide a closer fit with the requirements that you set out. Of course, the Toyota wouldn’t have everything you described as needing or wanting, to which the salesperson would go into great detail on why you didn’t need the missing feature or lead you towards a similar ‘better’ feature in the range of vehicles they sold.

It’s the process of making a sale. You can also observe similar practices if you were to wander into an Apple or Samsung store or one of the stores run by the big telcos. The Telcos are even more reliant on making a sale as the products they offer are almost identical. They all offer NBN services, mobile phones and fixed wireless internet. In the case of the NBN, they all resell the same service but claim a point of difference with the price, the quality of their call centre or the inclusion of ‘added extras’.

Everyone does it, Woolworths and Coles have access to the manufacturers of packaged goods, commercial arrangements with primary producers and contracts with logistics companies to get the goods from the paddock or warehouse to the plate as fast as possible with only minimal damage to the quality at worst. Woolworths prices are kept ‘down’ using similar practices to Coles who in turn sell equally ‘fresh’ food as Woolworths. The proof is Aldi who are in the same business, but rarely advertise the freshness or cost of items bought from their shops – but promote their ‘difference’.

It’s not hard to sell something. As we’ve seen business does it relentlessly and well. Bank staff ‘sell’ home loans, electronics manufacturers convince people to throw out perfectly good equipment because it doesn’t have the latest gadget with a multi-letter acronym that ‘guarantees’ a better experience. There are people employed to convince you to change your brand of shampoo as your current one doesn’t leave enough shine or bounce in your hair! So what is Prime Minister Albanese’s excuse for not selling his governments achievements?

In the chaotic last week of Parliament for the year, Albanese’s government managed to cement a deal with the states to ensure the NDIS is used for supporting those that need the support, which meant the states have to tip some additional money into the pot. A report on the NDIS was released that identified where considerable waste (hint: a lot of it is to do with the process the previous Government put in to manage the scheme). Albanese steered the original NDIS legislation through the Parliament when a minister in Gillard’s minority government. He should be shouting from the rooftops that they have fixed the problems with the system imposed by the government where the current Opposition Leader was a key Minister.

In the same week, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek landed a deal to increase the flows in the Murray-Darling river system that landowners, the Greens and the government could agree to. No, the deal isn’t perfect and each party to the agreement would be able to suggest ‘improvements’ but some improvement is better than the status quo. There was also movement on the long overdue ‘same work, same pay’ legislation.

So, a bit of competence all round eh? Maybe in an alternative universe there was some acknowledgement of a job well done that actually supports those who need some assistance to live in our society or comment on how the additional flows will assist in returning the environment in and around the Murray-Darling basin to something remotely resembling health. It certainly didn’t happen in this universe. Most of the media were reporting Coalition concerns that some refugees that the government had been forced to released from detention after they had completed sentences for criminal offences had been re-arrested, using the Coalitions talking point that it was all a government foul up. Katherine Murphy in The Guardian was one of the few exceptions.

The ‘refugee crisis’ always was a beat up by the Coalition. Apart from the tradition suggesting that once you have done the time associated with the crime, you are rehabilitated and free to go, the policy around permanent detention was written and implemented predominately by the Coalition when in government. In short, the Coalition was arguing that its own lawmaking process was incompetent or badly managed. Albanese folded and brought in rushed and ill-considered legislation before he even tried to make the argument. Maybe the Home Affairs and Immigration Ministers should have been out prior to the Court’s decision suggesting there was a chance that the refugees would have to be released and if that occurred, it was the Coalition’s poor legislation drafting that would cause it. Alternately having the discussion around the ethics and morals of keeping one group of people in detention indefinitely while others who had behaved in a similar way were free of restrictions would have made Australia a slightly fairer and more equal society could have been worth it.

The problem with generally competent governments is the media loses influence if it’s not seen to be driving the agenda and hammering home what you should believe. While some will have a genuine concern with some of the actions of a government, a lot of the output is aligned to the media owner’s individual political preferences. Nature abhors a vacuum and tries to fill it, so if you don’t get your positive message out to fill the available space, others will have no hesitation in filling the space with negativity.

In the 1970s, both the Queensland Government and Brisbane City Council had regular five-minute TV broadcasts that gave their version on the benefits of the programs they were implementing. Rightly or wrongly, both the Premier (Joh Bjelke-Petersen) and Lord Mayor (Clem Jones) stayed in their roles through multiple elections. They both knew that if they drove the agenda it was harder for opposition to catch up, regardless of the issue of the day.

For the Government to succeed, they have to suck the venom out of the Opposition’s opposition to everything. A comprehensive demolition across the Dispatch Box won’t do it as most of us might see the 30 second version on the TV and decide it’s just politicians being politicians again. The media won’t help the government as there is a commercial imperative to sell the conflict. The government telling us to wait a little while until the release something clearly doesn’t work as it allows the vacuum to be filled by others to set the agendas in a competition where coming from behind is always difficult.

If the government doesn’t change how it markets itself – Dutton will be Prime Minister in 2025 and a textbook case of how to win government in one term.

It’s very convenient for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton that a lot of us are not overly interested in politics and can’t remember what we had for lunch last Tuesday. It gives him the chance to suggest that white is white today and suggest black is white in a month’s time.

According to Dutton and the Opposition, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been too busy jetting off overseas to understand the nominated issue of the day, whether it be interest rates, refugees or some other confected crisis that will destroy the country because the Prime Minister is not in his office in Canberra. As this is being written, Albanese is in San Francisco, attending an APEC meeting. It is his 18th trip overseas in his 18 months in office. San Francisco has its charms but its a pretty good bet that Albanese and the other Asia-Pacific leaders won’t be riding the cable cars or ‘chillin’ out’ with some legalised cannabis. Dutton’s criticism is probably based around attempting to make the argument that ‘Airbus Albo’ is travelling far more frequently than the ‘gold standard’ in Australian political leadership – recent Coalition Prime Ministers.

Well he’s not. According to RMIT’s FactCheck unit, Albanese’s 18 trips

nudges him slightly ahead of former prime ministers Scott Morrison (17 trips) and Tony Abbott (16) at the same point in their tenure.

Morrison clocked up his 17 trips in 14 months before his ill-fated family holiday to Hawaii. which was disclosed only after Morrison was photographed in Hawaii during the severe bushfires on the east coast of Australia in 2019. Despite the lack of travel that was a fallout of his ill-timed vacation to Hawaii and a long period without travel due to the pandemic, Morrison still clocked up 24 overseas trips in his term. Abbott did 21 in 2 years while Turnbull travelled overseas 23 times in his 3-year Prime Ministership. As RMIT FactCheck notes

For all the criticism of Mr Albanese, the Coalition has itself defended the necessity of prime ministerial travel, at least for Liberal prime ministers.

“Every trip the prime minister makes is to advance Australia’s interests [by] strengthening our trading relationships and strengthening our national security,” a spokesperson for Mr Morrison told SBS News in 2019.

“… he only travels overseas when it is necessary and will deliver outcomes that benefit Australian families and businesses.”

As recently as last month, Dutton was telling us the Constitution of this country was sacrosanct. Any change to it, such as recognition of First Nations people and creating a mechanism where the was a Voice to Parliament enshrined in the Constitution was effectively heresy. Yet, when the High Court rules that a number of refugees and asylum seekers are to be released from indefinite detention, the Coalition is claiming as some of them are reputed to have committed ‘heinous’ crimes the government needs to ignore the High Court. The government has pointed out that not all of the indefinite detainees were found to be guilty of a criminal offence and those who were released have completed their term of imprisionment.

Despite the claims of the Coalition, people are released into the community every day who have been found guilty of heinous crimes and have served their punishment. There are a number of well tried and tested measures in place to manage the release of former criminals into the community. It is not a national emergency, despite the Coalition’s claims. According to the Parliamentary Education Office

The High Court of Australia and other federal courts have the power to interpret laws made by Parliament and judge if laws are consistent – valid – with the Constitution.

The Parliament and the Judiciary are independent of each other. This allows each to keep a check on the actions of the other. However, the Parliament, Executive and Judiciary are not completely separate; for example, the Parliament can create Federal courts and the Executive appoints High Court judges.

So the Coalition suggestion to ignore the ruling of the High Court breaches the Constitution that a month ago the Coalition said was never meant to be changed.

The Coalition claims they are the better economic managers. Yet the government cancelled $30Billion or so in transportation projects that the Coalition promised but never actually funded or started. While the cancelled projects may have sounded like a good idea, no one had put much thought into them except the (Coalition) politicians announcing them presumably to gain additional votes. As the ABC News website suggests

Now, some of these were kind of pie-in-the-sky anyway, having either been promised by a past Coalition government convinced it was about to lose which then awkwardly didn’t, or offered as a squeaky toy to distract Barnaby Joyce from COP26.

Five commuter car park projects (remember those?) were quietly euthanased among a bunch of other largely unviable plans…

For an opposition, the chance to curry electoral favour by theatrically mourning the loss of amazing things that you rashly promised to do to curry electoral favour but then didn’t actually have to do because you lost is … well, it doesn’t come along all that often, so you enjoy it when you can.

It’s true that this week’s news is next week’s fish and chips wrapping but there is a larger issue here. Week in and week out Dutton and the Coalition make statements that are calculated to cause damage and division. It’s a sad reflection on all of us that instead of discussing how the Coalition might do things better than the government, they are attempting to tear it down. The ALP isn’t much better when in opposition as the conventional wisdom suggests that the release of any policy document leaves the party open to a death by a thousand cuts – as was recently demonstrated in the referendum campaigns. It’s not a recent thing as the same tactics were used by the Coalition against Shorten’s ALP in the 2019 election and by the ALP against Hewson’s Coalition when it proposed a GST in the early 1990s.

There is a maxim that we get the government we deserve. Arguably we deserve better than a Opposition that changes position faster than fast food chains serve burgers, a government that trashes its own party policy on refugees and the environment and a potential alternative that claims to have an environmental focus but will happily vote against environmental legislation because its only 60% of what they want.

The media won’t change it, the ‘conventional wisdom’ won’t change it – so it’s down to us.

It seems the Coalition under Dutton isn’t planning to work with the government anytime soon. Dutton and his cohort are throwing whatever they think it takes out there to go negative. Any positive measures (such as a second referendum to acknowledge First Nations people in the Constitution) are reversed almost before they are announced. After all, absolute opposition eventually got Abbott the Prime Ministership. ‘Back to the Future’ was a successful movie franchise and Dutton’s betting it is a good political strategy as well.

Not that the ALP is much better. While the referendum failed, there are a number of ways for the Albanese Government to legislate for a fairer and more equal society. While the move to ensure ‘labour hire’ staff are paid the same as employees doing the same work and laws around the deliberate use of mis-information are a good start, there is a number of additional measures that should be undertaken.

In an environment when state and the federal governments are all claiming they cannot afford to deliver basic health, transportation and education needs to all in the communities they service, the lack of resolve to cancel or at least significantly reduce the cost of the Stage 3 Tax Cuts is criminal. Supporters of Modern Monetary Theory may disagree with claims of balanced budgets and so on, but the ‘conventional wisdom’ is that governments don’t have limitless credit cards and taxes are one of the measures used to engender trust in a sovereign currency. So if there is a need to fund education, transportation and health services equitably to most if not all Australians, why is the government committed to a previous governments failed re-election strategy of handing money back to those that have less absolute need for it rather than actually benefitting the community?

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the operator of the ‘off-shore’ asylum and refugee processing and detention Centre in Nauru has been paid $1.82 Billion over the past 5 years to run the facility on your and my behalf. The payments haven’t decreased in line with the reduced number of refugees being held in what the PNG Court system determined was an illegal detention system when a similar scheme was operational in that country.

There are now more New Zealanders and ‘others’ in some form of ‘onshore’ immigration detention in Australia due to cancelled visas than ‘Unauthorised Maritime Arrivals’ according to the government’s own report yet there is no apparent need to fly them around the South Pacific to ‘suitable’ places of detention at your and my expense. It is still the case that a large number of asylum seekers are in fear of their lives if they return to their homeland. It doesn’t necessarily follow that Australia should be seen to be still running pseudo-concentration camps as a deterrence measure to address a confected political issue where both sides of politics have been equally culpable until now. Onshore detention is equally as horrid – as demonstrated by the plight of the Murugappan family from Biloela. There has to be a better and more humane way to do establish bona-fides quickly and settle people into our community permanently.

With frequent reports of the earth getting close to a tipping point where climate change will be irreversible, transport is one of the more obvious areas to work on and clean up (pun intended). The Coalition Government pushed actual action on doing anything about reducing the emissions and average fuel consumption of any vehicles into the weeds by commissioning report after task-force after strategy. The ALP Government has at least determined that something has to happen. However in the past 18 months, we are still stuck in a limbo where yet another strategy is being developed to determine how to do some things that have been in place in the majority of the economically developed world for decades. There is no local manufacturing industry that has to be given time to adapt – all our vehicles are imported (thanks to the Coalition). Even the USA has fuel efficiency and consumption standards that are yet to be beaten by Australia.

The thing is that the ALP doesn’t need to rely on Coalition support to implement anything. There are enough Greens and independent Members of Parliament to legislate a fairer and more equal Australia tomorrow if the ALP had the political will to work with others to achieve a solution. Rather that talking about it, they could be implementing appropriate funding of services designed to help those who need a hand, remove the stain of inhumane practices to asylum seekers and refugees or pick some more low hanging fruit in the battle to reduce emissions before the planet cooks.

Certainly, Dutton and his cohort of media mouthpieces will scream blue murder, however the proof is in the pudding. If the ALP, the Greens and the independents can go to the next election with well marketed evidence that they have actually made a positive difference to everyone’s lives and the future of the planet in the past 3 years, they have a pretty good shot at re-election. As Leader of the House in the Gillard minority government, Albanese knows how to do it – he just needs the political courage to actually commit.

Apparently during the recent referendum, there were a number of social media posts that suggested if Australia had voted for the proposed Voice to Parliament all sorts of dire consequences would occur.

Some claimed that we would all lose our homes. The same claim was made at the time of the Mabo Decision in the High Court and despite a number of government departments knowing where I live, how much I earn, who I bank with, my phone and email contact details – it never happened. Granted I am still not in the same home as I was when land rights legislation was implemented – but that was my decision. Governments and the Native Title Legislation had nothing to do with it.

Another claim made was that all immigrants since a certain [variable] date would be repatriated back to where they came from. That bit of the referendum question must have been in the 25 or so pages of the Uluru Response that only those with tin foil hats could see. The additional pages never existed, neither did any documented evidence that any immigrant would be repatriated.

Conservative political leaders were at best bending the truth to suit their narrative. Dutton’s claim that the concept of a Voice to Parliament was divisive had nothing on his and his Coalition Colleagues divisive actions over the past 20 years in regard to refugees, social security recipients, conservationists and even First Nations people. Dutton, Price, Mundine and Thorpe all showed that they are incapable of listening to others opinion, considering alternative points of view or understanding that not everyone gets exactly what they want all the time.

Of course Dutton and his fellow travellers were ably assisted by sections of the media who, instead of encouraging people to look at both sides of this or any other issue and make up their own mind – pushed a dumbed down agenda which some obviously swallowed without thinking. ‘If you don’t know – vote no is an insult to everyone’s intelligence. It is assuming that we are incapable of finding out information, thinking about it and making a decision. Very 1950ish ‘father knows best’ really – isn’t it? It could also be described as a scam as there was little if any factual information being presented.

The sad reality is that people have been falling for scams for centuries. Governments have introduced legislation to mitigate scams in certain areas. For example, it is illegal to sell a product in Australia that claims some medical benefit without evidence to support the claim. All new motor vehicles must have certain features to mitigate harm before they are allowed to be sold in Australia (and most countries around the world of that matter). You can’t legally give yourself a whole list of titles such as Medical Doctor, Lawyer, Architect or even a Justice of the Peace unless you are actually qualified to use the title.

So why did we endure months of lies and misinformation from those with a political axe to grind in the lead up to the referendum? The real reason is there is no legislation requiring truth in political advertising. Not only that, but anybody with an axe to grind and sufficient money to spend can make any ludicrous statement they want to and buy the publicity to do so. As recent events have demonstrated yet again, we all suffer as a result.

The government’s response to the failure of the referendum should be multi-pronged. First, find a way to commit to Truth, Voice and Treaty that is acceptable to our First Nations People where they don’t have to rely on the ‘good graces’ of the Coalition. Second, point out to Dutton and his political mouthpieces that if there is a need for a Royal Commission into child abuse or grants expenditure, it should examine the problem across the country – as limiting it to Aboriginal communities is divisive. Lastly, but not least importantly there should be a massive overhaul of the Electoral Act to prohibit falsehood in political advertising and comments by politicians.

Despite the claims of Dutton, Thorpe, Price and Mundine there had to be some serious money from ‘elites’ going to the ‘no’ case as well as the ‘yes’ case. The ‘yes’ case were disclosing donations, who the ‘elites’ funding the ‘no’ case will be disclosed in a year or so by the AEC. Funding of political campaigns must be online and real time so that you and I are aware of who is potentially providing the script for politicians to act out. At the moment, federally it isn’t.

Obviously the Coalition wouldn’t support any of these measures. The second referendum for recognition without a ‘voice’ promised by Dutton in the lead up to the referendum a week or so ago was quietly taken out the back and strangled within hours of the referendum result being obvious to all. The Greens and independents probably would support advertising and financial truth in politics. It’s about time Albanese’s ALP Government worked with them to achieve real and hopefully meaningful change to our political processes. While politics should be the contest of ideas, the ideas have to be grounded in facts rather than the obvious falsehoods some relied on in the recent referendum.

As for the financial disclosure, if a multitude of on-line shopping websites can tell you within minutes that Anthony A of Marrickville purchased a “Comfy” camping chair – complete with image and price for your fear or missing out to trigger and get the identical product – the software exists for the $20,000 donation to any political party to be given similar publicity. It can’t be that hard.

A ban on lies in political advertising is popular according to a survey by The Australia Institute. All we need is the Parliament to work together and make it happen.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Senator Price and others are telling us to vote ‘no’ at the Referendum because we don’t know what will happen and it is divisive. Let’s take that advice and consider it further.

Most Australians have had a loan for some reason at some point in their lives. Essentially what you do when applying for a loan is (with your hand on your heart) suggest to the people that are considering giving you what is sometimes a multiple of your annual income that you will be able to pay it back with interest – over a number of years. Realistically, you don’t know if you can keep you end of the bargain this time next year – let alone in 30 years’ time. Using Dutton’s logic, if you don’t know what is going to happen you shouldn’t be taking out a loan for a car, house or anything else for that matter because you can’t guarantee you’ll pay it back.

It is generally acknowledged that compulsory superannuation (introduced by the Hawke/Keating Government) has and will allow most Australians to retire and look forward to a better lifestyle than the Age Pension would have allowed without supplementation. The problem with Superannuation is that each individual’s funds are combined and large sums of money are invested by ‘specialists’ in various ways to ensure there is more money returned to the ‘specialist’ either through continual income or a lump sum payment. If we don’t go near anything where we don’t know what is going to happen, why would you let someone else take your money and invest it anywhere? After all, even the Superannuation funds acknowledge that every so often you will have a negative return on your investment – in short, the ‘specialists’ sometimes get it wrong. You’d be better off stashing the money in your mattress, until your house burnt down or the mattress was thrown out by some well-intentioned relative during a clean out.

Most of us will leave our homes this week at some point for work, to buy food, see a medical professional, go on holiday or a million and one other reasons. We could choose to stay at home because we’re concerned that we’ll be in a car crash, the 8.04 bus won’t turn up and leave us standing in the sun or rain, the doctor’s office has lots of germs and you’ll catch a fatal illness, or the holiday starts with a Qantas flight and you don’t want to be stranded at the airport, If you did stay at home you could also have a problem. What if you stay at home and the power goes off and you can’t store food appropriately? What happens if your house does catch fire? What happens if a car runs into your house? How do you make sufficient money to pay the bills, buy food and keep the power on?

Really it doesn’t matter if the 8.04 bus turns up at 8.17, there is a negative return on your Superannuation account for one year in several or if you have to ring the bank and ask for some clemency if you know you’re going to miss a payment. In the long term, none of these problems will change your lifestyle completely. In the scheme of things it might be slightly annoying that the plane to start your holiday is an hour later than you expected, but it’s not going to kill you. Even if you were unfortunate enough to catch a severe illness in the doctor’s office, Australia has one of the best and most affordable health systems in the world.

The point is we all take risks, every day. To suggest that we shouldn’t support what is potentially a positive life-changing experience for our First Nations peoples because we don’t know exactly whats going to happen is absurd. The Referendum question goes too far (in Dutton’s view) or not far enough (in Price’s view) so potentially the question is pretty close to reasonable, especially when a representative body of First Nations peoples have said through the Uluru Statement From the Heart that this is their preferred option.

As far as Dutton and Price’s claims of divisive are concerned, they are even more ridiculous. Currently the average life of a First Nations person in this country is significantly below the national average. The average First Nations income is also significantly below the national average. the average First Nations person is not as healthy as the population generally. That is divisive – an attempt to listen to the ultimate consumer of services to ‘close the gap’ isn’t.

First Nations people have been subject to measures to ‘close the gap’ being forced on them for two centuries. While some of the measures have been more ‘well meaning’ and ‘productive’ than others, none of them have been totally successful. We all know that people are more invested in a process where they have input to it. While in the past a number of versions of a representative body of First Nations people have provided advice to the government of the day. All of these bodies were formed by legislation which was subsequently repealed by a government with (lets be nice here) alternative agendas.

If we want our kids to eat dinner, it’s not a bad idea to ask them what they want rather than serve up something they dislike. No group of outsiders with a political agenda (a government) can ever hope to understand the needs of distinct groups around the country – and the needs of one group could be substantially different from another. If we really want to ‘close the gap’ between the national averages and the First Nations averages – why wouldn’t we seek advice from those affected?

Sure, a Voice to Parliament can be legislated again, but whats to stop a future government with an alternative agenda repeating the legislation – again? Since the current Referendum was announced the leader of the alternative government in Australia has had a number of different positions on the concept of a Voice to Parliament. None of the proposals saw the light of day in the nine years of Coalition Government where the current Leader was a ‘Senior Minister’. Don’t forget the last Coalition Government were responsible for income management for those on social security payments, an ‘intervention’ that was close to Martial Law in the Northern Territory, Robodebt, moving legitimate refugees to detention centres offshore and defunding of education, child care and aged care programs. And a lot of the moderate members of the last Coalition Government were voted out at the last election!

Doing nothing is always an option – but generally not a good one. To blindly accept the divisive and fear filled arguments of Dutton, Price and their fellow travellers to do nothing is a disservice to your intelligence and the nation. If you don’t know – do the research and make up your own mind.