When it comes to telling half a story or ignoring the obvious if it doesn’t suit the particular story they want to tell, politicians excel like no one else. All sides of politics are equally guilty of attempting to sell the rainbow coloured unicorn to the more gullible members of society as a perfectly reasonable outcome.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is attempting to convince Australians that nuclear power is renewable and worth far more of our attention than other renewable systems such as solar, wind power and pumped hydro. For a start, the claim of nuclear energy being renewable is dubious as there is a waste product that has to be safely stored for thousands of years. Dutton is also of the opinion that Australia could be producing nuclear power in a bit over a decade, which would be remarkable given the troubles the UK is having in the construction of the Hinkley Reactor C which is scheduled to commence generation five years late in 2030 after a construction period of 12 years and only if investors tip in another 4 Billion UK Pounds.

There are several troubling issues here. The UK already has nuclear power so the regulatory environment is in place. Australia’s regulatory environment currently prohibits the construction of nuclear power plants, both Federally and in some states. Dutton’s plan to use the sites of existing coal fired power generation sites means that the current infrastructure would have to be decommissioned prior to the construction of the nuclear facility. Assuming the current landowners are interested (some of them have publicly stated they aren’t) and Dutton’s claim that we need large fuel consuming infrastructure to provide ‘baseload’ power rather than renewables to power the country is correct (it’s not) where does the power come from while the nuclear plants are being constructed and commissioned?

The new Northern Territory Country Liberal Government and the Queensland LNP are both promising to be tough on crime. Despite ‘crime’ generally reducing in Australia over recent years, the respective conservative parties are claiming children as young as 10 should be considered to be adults when being convicted of a crime. The rationale is that children will somehow develop the ability to determine that if they do the crime, they will always be caught and do a number of years in prison. While perceptions differ and it is possible that some children will consider the likelihood of being in jail for a long time prior to stealing the car, demonstrably a lot don’t. If jail time was a deterrent, why are our jail populations already over-capacity at a number of jails around the country? If jail time was a deterrent, arguably the First Fleet would never have arrived in Australia in 1788 – remembering that some on the First Fleet were transported against their will across the world for stealing a loaf of bread. If jail time was a deterrent, there would have been no need for Port Arthur in Tasmania (where the ‘incorrigible rogues’ who committed more crime after transportation to Australia were sent). The Netherlands is actually closing prisons and converting them for other uses. There are a number of reasons, but

According to [Dutch Criminologist Frances Pakes, who is a professor at the University of Portsmouth] the Dutch are much more aware that a stay in prison does more harm than good. Society may be rid of a criminal for a while, but in many cases, criminals simply resume their activities when they leave prison. They may become more ruthless, due to the violent prison climate in which they have had to survive. And perhaps they have a wider criminal network that they built up behind bars.

“Tough on crime” isn’t a new mantra. Despite former Liberal Party Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser assisting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Vietnam War (many who arrived in Australian by fishing boat) to settle here and become a part of a vibrant society, Dutton was a part of a Liberal/National Government that actively persecuted refugees from another war in the middle east for political purposes, calling them ‘illegal arrivals’, ‘boat people’ and implementing other discriminatory practices designed to de-humanise them. Trump is doing the same thing in the USA, with his claims of ‘illegal immigrants’ committing various (generally) fantastical ‘crimes’ being a reason to vote for his Republican Party, rather than the Democrats in their upcoming election. A number of conservative governments in Europe are also demonstrating their ‘tough on crime’ pretensions by actively attaching the human rights of people fleeing violence and suffering in their own countries. The former UK Tory Government was also proposing to forcibly send ‘illegal immigrants’ to Rwanda, a country in South Africa (sound familiar?).

The political fantasyland is not solely limited to the conservative parties. The Australian Greens have been campaigning for most of the current Federal Parliament for the Albanese Government to introduce rent caps and a number of other measures including relaxing town planning requirements that would, in the Greens view of the world, reduce the pressure and pricing of housing around around Australia. While they have produced some evidence to justify their position, the matters of regulation of real estate rents and town planning are the responsibilities of state and local governments – not the Federal Government. Albanese and his Ministers have as much say in these areas as most of the population. Should the Greens believe they have the ability to actually form a government, they need to understand what is legal and possible versus what makes good headlines. The Greens calls for negative gearing reform may also be popular and is a Federal responsibility – but does that mean the policy has economic creditability?

Which brings us to the Albanese Government. The impression they gave throughout the last election campaign is they would be far more responsive to the environment and First Nations concerns than the previous ATM (Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison) Coalition Government. Arguably, allowing the construction of additional coal mines and delays to the introduction of measures such as efficiency standards for vehicles doesn’t support the environmental marketing prior to the 2022 election. The ‘voice’ referendum was also poorly prosecuted and a lot of the opposition to the proposal could have been foreseen and counter-measures taken before the nastiness and division were seeded into the community.

We elect politicians to manage future events based on past performance. Unlike advertising for industries that also market themselves on their past performance such as superannuation, there is no regulation or legislation in the majority of jurisdictions around Australia to require an element of truth in political advertising. Until there is, we can expect more political fantasyland because once they are elected we can’t do anything about it for a number of years. And if you were in their position, you too would probably promise your version of Utopia – and deliver far less as well.

On June 14 2017, a social housing tower building in London known as Grenfell Tower caught fire. 72 people were killed as a result of the fire which burned for 60 hours. Subsequent to the investigation that determined how the fire occurred, a follow up enquiry was convened by the UK Government to ascertain the reasons for the failures of the systems and processes in place to prevent the poor design and construction decisions that lead to the fire occurring.

The second enquiry looked into how a combination of factors allowed the Grenfell Tower to be partially refurbished with a disregard to good practice that would have prevented the fire. The report, handed down in early September 2024, is 1,700 pages long and suggests there were a number of failures to protect human life by the designers of the refurbishment, the building owner, the suppliers of building material and government.

The Guardian reported

After 400 days of evidence in an inquiry that has cost the UK taxpayer more than £200m, [Sir Martin] Moore-Bick reserved some of his most damning conclusions for central government.

It regulates the safety of buildings but failed to tighten up ambiguous fire regulations while it was engaged in a “bonfire of red tape” launched by the Conservative prime minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2016 in an attempt to boost the economy after the global financial crisis.

The inquiry found that the government was “well aware” of the risks posed by highly flammable cladding “but failed to act on what it knew”.

Eric Pickles, Cameron’s housing secretary until 2015, had “enthusiastically supported” the prime minister’s drive to slash regulations and it dominated his department’s thinking to the extent that matters affecting fire safety and risk to life “were ignored, delayed or disregarded”, the inquiry concluded.

Pickles also failed to act on a coroner’s 2013 recommendation to tighten up fire safety regulations after a cladding fire at Lakanal House, another London council block, killed six people. It was “not treated with any sense of urgency”, the inquiry found and the tightening up had not happened by the time Grenfell went up in flames on 14 June 2017.

In cross-examination under oath, Pickles vehemently insisted the anti-red tape drive had not covered building regulations. But the inquiry said this evidence was “flatly contradicted by that of his officials and by the contemporaneous documents”.

It seems if the UK Central Government had done its job correctly ensuring the regulator of the building industry could function appropriately; the architects, material suppliers opportunities to potentially minimise expenditure and maximise profit could have been reduced. While both progressive and conservative sides of politics have been rightly accused of abrogating their responsibilities when ‘cutting red tape’ it’s reasonable to suggest the conservatives are far more open to the idea of allowing business to self regulate while promoting they are ‘tough on crime’ if an individual breaks the law. The Australian Conservative Coalition parties are good examples to demonstrate the point.

In 2021, The Monthly published a long list of examples where the Morrison Coalition Government appears not to have followed due process in governance as well as awarding contracts to business associates/supporters of the Coalition. At the same time the government was referring social security claimants to debt collectors through the ‘robodebt’ fiasco, forcing other social security recipients onto the “Indue” card system (by implication claiming all the recipients in certain localities were spending their benefits ‘inappropriately’) and indefinitely jailing refugees and asylum seekers in offshore detention centres.

The recently elected Northern Territory CLP Government and current Queensland LNP Opposition are both proposing to reduce the age of criminal consent despite jails being full of people. Surely that demonstrates that incarceration doesn’t stop crime. Lowering the age of criminal consent may well contravene the guidelines of the UN Committee Against Torture. Meanwhile the Tasmanian Liberal Party Government has chosen to remove the construction of a treatment facility for those with heart problems in the north of the state from the state budget while at the same time promising to be ‘tough on youth crime’. Both issues were ‘priorities’ during the election campaign earlier this year. Is it too cynical to suggest that ‘tough on crime’ is seen to be the better popularity and vote winner over assisting people with needs for specific health care requirements?

The tragedy is that 72 people had to die and 7 years had to pass to demonstrate the failure of successive UK Conservative Governments to do their job. We should be concerned as the Australian Conservative Coalitions when in government have long supported ‘small government’ and ‘helping’ business to operate freely by removing ‘red tape’. We don’t know what successive Coalition governments have done to remove appropriate regulation and inspection activities in Australia by design or neglect. Hopefully we’ll find out in time to fix the problem before a tragedy. Campaigns to throw 10 year olds who commit crime into jail rather than understanding the causes why 10 year olds are considering committing crime are unconscionable as well as ethically doubtful, especially when conservatives actively choose to under regulate other sectors of the community.

The question is really who does more harm to the wider community? Is it the young person who steals a car, the company director that puts the profit motive over the health and safety of users of their products or the governments who don’t investigate, fund or regulate as appropriate to prevent crime occurring? The fire in the Grenfell Tower and the ‘marketing’ around youth crime probably gives us the answer to the question.

Arguably the Albanese Government is routinely tied up trying to explain their way out of a dilemma of their own creation. A recent example is the brouhaha around the potential Census question regarding how Australians identify themselves sexually. When some equivocation was displayed by the government, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton donned the hob-nailed workboots and strode into the debate decrying the ‘woke agenda’ of the Government on this issue. The Government explained their concerns were a response to the issue potentially becoming divisive, something that wasn’t an issue until the government accidentally made it one.

As The Conversation discussed late in 2023

Typically, “wokeness” and “woke ideology” are terms of abuse, used against a variety of practices that, despite their diversity, have a similar character. Often, what is dismissed as “woke” is a new practice that is recommended, requested, enacted or enforced as a replacement for an old one.

The talking heads on ‘Sky after dark’ along with their print stablemates are also expert at throwing the ’woke agenda’ claim at anything that seems to offend their particular world view. The UK’s Nigel Farage, the USA’s former President Donald Trump also seem to be expert at levelling the claim.

According to The Conversation’s definition, being ‘woke’ is discussing and implementing change to the status quo. We all know the status quo is far more comfortable than an uncertain future, the problem being the status quo is full of accidental and deliberate measures to actively disadvantage groups of people within our larger community. In the ‘rose coloured’ nostalgic view of some time in the past it’s easy to ignore that communications, health care and technology we all use and ‘need’ today were not as developed – if they existed at all.

If we want to go back 30 years, your mobile phone would have been the size of a small overnight bag and cost a fortune. Unsurprisingly not everyone had a mobile phone. Go back 50 years and computers were large devices that need climate controlled rooms. Rather than a keyboard and mouse, instructions were typically given to computers on punch cards. Nearly all of the safety, efficiency and convenience technology on new cars was only commercialised in the past 30 years. Even though Apollo 11 took three men to the moon in July 1969, the technology behind the mission is levels of magnitude behind the smartphones in common use in 2024. Those conservatives complaining that others promoting change have a ‘woke agenda’ seem to have no qualms in using social media to promote their cause, travelling in vehicles with far more inherent safety, convenience and efficiency than available in the past or even carrying and using mobile phones.

Yet the same people are resisting change in community opinion, insulting those that are suggesting change as being ‘woke’. Governments generally reflect the views of those elected to Parliament. Over time it has been realised in most countries around the world that all citizens should be equal regardless of ethnicity, religion or any other characteristic. Those resisting change, such as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton when he talks about the next census or opposing the issue of humanitarian visas to those fortunate enough to be able to escape war zones around the world seems to be hiding behind claims that the proponents of the change are pursuing a ‘woke/dangerous agenda’ without detailing the reasons for their concerns. In the case of the Albanese Government, the ‘woke card’ seems to have some magical power that ensures weeks of public introspection.

Given that there is general agreement that everyone should be considered equally in our society, why go and hide when the cards claiming the policy is some combination of ‘woke’, ‘a threat to national security’ or ‘people stop me in the street and say’ is played again? The majority of Australians don’t seem to have a problem with the multi-cultural society that exists today. Typically the LNP’s claims have no actual detail or specific concerns raised – rather (to borrow a term from a classic Australian movie) ‘it’s the vibe, your honour’.

The best form of defence is frequently to attack. To demonstrate, the effective campaign to vote against ‘The Voice’ referendum’ was based on the concept that if you don’t know the detail – vote no. While some detail was publicly available, those in opposition were asking for increasing granular detail that was impossible to provide. The Albanese Government should look at this and model their behaviour on the concept. Rather than retreat into a self made shell of deference and defeat, when the ‘card’ is played ask for more detail of exactly how the proposed change, be it questions on the census, issuing of visas or any other matter, will adversely affect the majority of Australians. If a response is made, ask for more granular detail.

A similar strategy seems to have been effective recently in the USA Presidential campaigns. While the Biden campaign was trying to defend his age and mental ability, Trump was allowed to promise to appease the concerns of all without question despite the failures of the Trump Presidency from 2016 to 2020. With Governor Tim Walz labelling the Republican’s as ‘weird’ due to some of their policies and providing examples, the momentum shifted. Not because the claim of weirdness is especially insulting or rude, rather some took an opportunity to consider the statement by Walz, think about the actions of Trump and the Republicans and realise he was correct.

If Albanese’s Government was to ask the coalition what the problem actually is when words like ‘woke’ or ‘national security’ are used, it falls on Dutton to demonstrate that there is a valid criticism or just rhetoric. More than likely there will not be a criticism that resonates with the majority of Australians. It is likely that, like Trump in the USA, the LNP’s claims will become more shrill and unbelievable. This should, if the American example is replicated, give evidence for a reasonable proportion of the population to either confirm or come to the opinion that the LNP don’t have any substance behind their increasingly ridiculous claims.

To provide a solution, the problem needs to be defined. Generalist claims such as ‘woke agendas’ or ‘national security concerns’ don’t define the problem, so no genuine solution can be offered or implemented. To solve a problem, you have to know what it is.

Most of us don’t like being abused, harassed or vilified. So much so there are laws that ensure that reported incidents in the workplace and at home can be addressed if reported. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s real job is to convince enough Australians that he would make a better Prime Minister at the next election. What should happen is the opposition leader looks at government policy and either suggests changes or explains what their government would do differently. While you could argue that Dutton and his Coalition Parties have taken the second option – the way they are doing it is to vilify, harass and abuse those who promote alternate viewpoints to the Coalition parties across the country. Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Dutton has suggested that the country’s aging fleet of coal fired power generators would be replaced by nuclear generators in the event of a Dutton Coalition government. He has consistently repudiated the rollout of renewable power, complaining that wind farms are a blight on the landscape, solar storage isn’t scalable and sooner or later the lights will go out because of a lack of power generation which nuclear generation would fix. Well actually – nuclear won’t fix anything.

Prior to even designing a nuclear generation plant there is the small problem that nuclear plants are banned in Australia with the exception of the medical production and research conducted at Lucas Heights in Sydney. As Professor Ian Lowe points out in The Saturday Paper, the ban was implemented by Prime Minister Howard.

Since the ban was actually proposed to the Howard government by the Greens, it beggars belief to think they would support its removal. The premiers of all the states proposed for nuclear power have come out against the scheme. Even Dutton’s Liberal National Party colleagues in Queensland, facing a state election in October, have hastened to distance themselves from the proposal. So there is a formidable legal barrier to the proposal to build nuclear power stations.

While legislation can be changed, it’s unlikely that the Greens would support a repudiation of one of their core beliefs. Then Dutton has to convince the states to overturn their bans. It’s all technically possible, as is winning Lotto this week

Equally as important is that Dutton and his nuclear proponents apparently can’t add up. Dutton’s plan is ten years too late and wont generate enough power. Professor Ian Lowe’s article discusses this and other fundamental flaws.

According to The Guardian,

Peter Dutton has escalated the Coalition’s rhetoric against Palestinians fleeing the Gaza war zone, claiming that none should be allowed to Australia “at the moment” due to an unspecified “national security risk”

Well actually ASIO’s Mike Burgess assured Dutton and the rest of the country that nothing has changed in regard to the assessment of visa applications since Dutton was the Home Affairs Minister. Yet Dutton keeps up the rhetoric – days after Burgess specifically warned politicians to ‘watch their language’ so that existing tensions are not inflamed.

Dutton’s argument that if people come from Gaza they support Hamas is illogical at best. Using the same logic, all Australians supported the Morrison Coalition Government assuming we were living in Australia during the period. Yet, when the compulsory opinion survey better known as an election occurred in 2022, around two thirds of us chose to give their initial support to candidates that didn’t represent the Coalition Government.

ABC News reported this week on the difficulties Federal MP Zali Steggall was faced with to make a speech in the House of Representatives

The OG teal independent has always had an ability to get under the skin of the blokes in the Coalition — it comes with the territory when you win a once blue ribbon Liberal seat from a former prime minister.

But Thursday seemed different, with Steggall at times having to shout to get over the wall of words being levelled at her from the opposition benches.

While not suggesting for a second that other parties in the Parliaments around Australia are paragons of virtue in this regard, the outright disrespect for those that are seen by the Coalition to be representing areas that ‘belong’ to the Coalition across the country is not limited to Federal Parliament. This report is of similar behaviour shown by the LNP majority to an independent Councillor in the Brisbane City Council. This sentence from the news article probably explains the motives

Cr Johnston has had an acrimonious relationship with the LNP-majority council since she quit the party 12 years ago to become an independent.

See the similarities? Like Steggall, Johnston has been elected by the voters in her constituency which the Coalition seems to think they ‘own’. Both Steggall and Johnston has every right to address the forums where they have been elected and reflect the views of their respective communities. No group in any Parliament has all the answers and no group has the right to actively ensure that others with an alternative viewpoint are treated with ignorance and contempt.

As Bernard Keane suggests in Crikey

For politicians like Dutton, whose primary selling point is his “strength” (in contrast to the “weak” Anthony Albanese), a calmer, less inflamed civic life is a disaster; peaceful resolutions of conflicts are a body blow. The political temperature must always be high, there must always be a crisis, one with the highest stakes possible, and we must always be threatened, preferably existentially so.

Dutton is not trying to recreate a better world or clueless – he is the parent that would tell a 6 year old child that was pipped at the post ‘second is the first loser’, rather than they tried their best. He is ultimately responsible for the social unease that is being generated by the ignorant and gullible to groups of people who Dutton is victimising to maintain a fabricated crisis. He is the one that is responsible for the Australia wide scare campaigns against the shift in energy production which is happening around the world. The changes are necessary to mitigate events that will likely adversely affect his and our kids and grandchildren. He has no intention of implementing nuclear power, rather he will allow generators to (in the words of another politician who trades in similar tactics) ‘burn baby burn’. If you want proof, what happened to the second ‘The Voice’ referendum that he ‘promised’ during the bitter and divisive referendum campaign a year ago.

You accept the standard you walk past. Others in the Liberal and National Parties along with the related organisations around Australia can point to Dutton, his ‘shadow ministers’ or the Brisbane LNP Councillors and say ‘it wasn’t me’. But by not publicly calling out the abuse and vilification that is day to day method of operation for the Coalition’s leadership at all levels of government, each member accepts the tactics. Each member of the Coalition parties, from the members of parliament to those that permit advertising material on their fences or stand on street corners come election time and hand out the how to vote cards are equally culpable.

So how do we fix this? Well actually you and I can make a start to changing this culture. If you know a Coalition party member – ask what they are personally doing to change the bullying victimisation, fear mongering and harassment actively supported by their leadership? And when the answer is nothing – ask them why?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was at the Garma Festival of Traditional Cultures last weekend. In his speech at the Festival he touched on the failure of ‘The Voice’ referendum and made a commitment to continue to work towards the recognition of First Nations peoples. One of the strategies that was suggested was a ‘truth telling’ and healing process known as Makarrata. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who chose to be elsewhere last weekend announced that a government he would lead would not support a Makarrata process.

Once of Dutton’s concerns apparently was that the details of any Makarrata were not available. His view of ‘The Voice’ referendum was similar. In short, because no one could tell Dutton that at 2pm on Friday 1 May 2026 a certain event would occur, there was no hope of Dutton supporting the initiative. The demand is a bit strange really, as Dutton and his ‘shadow ministry’ are far less forthcoming when spruiking detail of policies they claim they will implement when they return to power in 2025 (because the current government is so bad). When asked for details on where nuclear power plants were intended to go and how much it would cost, Dutton and his ‘energy spokesman’ Ted O’Brien suggested that the detail would be announced in due course.

While, to the great concern and befuddlement of the actual land owners in a number of cases who were not consulted, the Coalition have subsequently announced the proposed locations of the nuclear plants. They have been far less forthcoming on the costs, technology, safeguards and how these plants would operate. So much for only backing initiatives when all the detail was disclosed for all to see.

Dutton’s claims on understanding the current energy transition energy are dubious at best anyway. He won’t even commit to maintaining this country’s commitment to emission reduction. He claims he will announce something after the next election. He could look for inspiration to examples like California with a similar population to Australia. According to this report California until recently relied on gas and nuclear power to supply it’s early evening consumption demands. In April, batteries supplied more energy than gas for the first time. The energy produced was similar to the output of 7 nuclear power stations for a number of hours. While California is known to be one the USA’s progressive states, another US state that is actively developing renewable energy is the far from progressive Texas.

In the same week as Garma, REX airlines ‘capital city’ venture was grounded. There are still a number of speculative claims from all sorts of people with different levels of actual knowledge of the reasons for REX and Bonza’s economic turbulence this year. Various politicians lined up to comment that if REX was to cease flying altogether it would be a disaster for regional Australia (which is probably true enough), but some of them went on to apportion blame to other airlines for predatory behaviours and Coalition Senator Bridget McKenzie went as far as saying:

Labor should have started reforming Sydney Airport slots a year ago, instead of allowing a company majority-owned by Qantas and Virgin to make the decisions on allocating precious slots without any oversight,”

Logically, if the problem existed in 2023 it also existed in the almost 10 years of Coalition government that preceded it. McKenzie fails to mention any measures the former government took to reduce the apparent capacity problem at Sydney Airport. McKenzie, as a former minister, would also be well aware of the timeframes relating to the preparation of proposed legislation to be considered by parliament. Yes, both sides of politics are equally as cupable for selling off infrastructure, such as airports in the past. At least McKenzie isn’t blaming the ALP for that as well.

It is said that arguing with fools only reduces you to their level where they will beat you with experience. Who knows if the Harris for President claim the Republicans were ‘weird’ was scripted or not – but it has worked. There has to be a similar descriptor for a political party that is simply sitting on both sides of the barbed wire fence – demanding detail in the policies of the government but promising ‘don’t you worry about that’ for their own policies and promises. It reminds us of the methods used by the Bjelke-Petersen conservative governments in Queensland. We know how that ended!

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.