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.

As the now former Royal Spanish Football Federation President Luis Rubiales discovered recently, no means no. Kissing someone on the lips without consent has consequences – and rightly so. There were various arguments put up why the non-consensual action was permissible before the reality hit that the action was completely inappropriate and even if Rubiales thought the gesture harmless, it wasn’t. His ‘resignation’ is pretty fair and reasonable in the scheme of things. We teach our youth that ‘no means no’ for a reason. There are no exemptions or excuses such as it was harmless or it didn’t mean anything to reduce its severity or ‘explain it away’.

There seems to be a growing list of those opposed to the Voice to Parliament who are claiming they are supporting the Opposition Leader Dutton ‘no’, Warren Mundine’s ‘no’ or the Senator Price ‘no’. In reality, it doesn’t make a scrap of difference – no mean no. Regardless of which ‘no’ you favour, no means nothing happens to alleviate the centuries of pain, torment and angst caused to the First Nations of this country by those who have immigrated or lived here since 1788.

The ABC recently published an article online that discussed what would happen to the Constitution if the referendum is agreed to. First of all, the Constitution covers:

• the structure and law-making powers of federal parliament

• how the federal and state parliaments share power and expenditures

• the roles of the executive government and the High Court of Australia

• frequency of elections

The constitution is a legally binding document and has a special status – it can only be changed through a referendum and it overrides all other laws.

Even a law passed by federal parliament is invalid if it contradicts the constitution.

Those that believe their actions are legitimised because of the ‘bill of rights’ should be concerned because:

Unlike the constitutions of some other countries, Australia’s does not include a list of the rights of citizens or a “bill of rights”. [There is also no legislated ‘bill of rights’ in Australia.]

These rights are, instead, protected by common law (made by the courts) and statute law (made by parliament).

Also, the Australian Constitution didn’t include a reference to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people until 1967, when recognition was included as a result of a referendum.

So what are the changes? According to the ABC:

The federal government is proposing to add a ninth chapter to the document.

It comes in response to the Uluru Statement from the Heart – which was signed by more than 250 Indigenous representatives and calls for constitutional recognition through a Voice.

The proposed chapter would come after Chapter 8 and just before the Schedule and Notes.

The new chapter contains four paragraphs and are typed out for you to read and consider if you click here.

Like in a lot of discussions, there is considerable nuance that separates the views of different members of the community. Dutton’s ‘no’ seems to be predicated on blanket opposition to anything proposed by the Australian Government rather than any ideological concerns with the Voice. He had a number of meeting s during the planning stages with supporters to attempt to come to an agreed common ground. Dutton also has a history of not understanding our history with First Nations People, having walked out on PM Rudd’s Apology to the Stolen Generation in 2008 (although he did apologise for that 15 years later when politically expedient to do so).

Senator Price’s ‘no’ seems to be because she believes that the Voice effectively doesn’t go far enough. She may be correct, however the Voice referendum is the product of the Uluru ‘Statement from the Heart’ where 250 representatives of First Nations Peoples came together and developed a consensus view of a way forward. As each of these people would have brought different views and objectivity to the discussion, the result is a distillation of the views and almost certainly not the view of one or two individuals. Senator Price has every opportunity in the Parliament to influence the makeup and process of the Voice – should it be agreed to, but she will have to compromise as she is one of over 200 Parliamentarians that consider federal legislation.

Warren Mundine’s ‘no’ seems to be less ‘hard line’ that Price’s, however he still argues a treaty between First Nations people and the Australian Government is required. Mundine’s list of requirements also includes changing the date of Australia Day to a day less emotive for all of us. 

The obvious question is if a representative group of First Nations people determined that the current process is preferable, would those opposing it be acting any different if Australia was voting on a proposed treaty that didn’t cover off on their individual requirements? Realistically – probably not. In any society not everyone is going to get everything they want – ever.

When you’re watching your favourite football code finals over the next week or so, just remember that no one has got on the field because they stood back and covered off on all the risks and uncertainties. The players, coaches and team staff are there because they took calculated chances. The Uluru ‘Statement from the Heart’ participants have taken the calculated risk and hope to achieve a positive outcome. 

They developed a solution that was acceptable to the majority at the forum and presented to all Australians for consideration. It may not have been the best, almost certainly could have been worse, but it is a consensus and a pathway to finding a solution to a long running sore that is holding back Australia. Regardless, there seems to be people who are telling us to disregard the Uluru ‘Statement from the Heart’ because it doesn’t represent their world view of the ideal process for recognition and treaty. It’s a bit like the 3-year-old child throwing a tantrum because they aren’t getting their own way.

Voting ‘no’ is essentially a vote to not change anything because there might be something we didn’t think about that happens down the track. As countless people, including the former Spanish Football President have found out to their cost – no means no – there are no excuses. Your ‘no’ vote is the same as Dutton’s, Price’s or Mundine’s – regardless of how you try to justify it to yourself or others.

And if you don’t know – do the research. Here’s a link to help you start.

Don’t know if you’ve noticed that in some of the major supermarket chains they have cameras throughout the store. If you use one of the farcically named ‘assisted checkouts’ in some stores there is a camera focused on your face. The large supermarket chains tell us the reason for all the cameras are that people were scanning high value goods as lower value goods. What a surprise! People will take advantage of the opportunity to steal from a large supermarket. In fact the supermarkets budget for a certain amount of theft, making the business decision that items not being scanned correctly is cheaper than employing people to ensure items are scanned correctly. 

And if the people that are staffing the ‘assisted checkouts’ can get a break from attempting to get the checkouts to work when someone does something the programmers didn’t think of – they are supposed to be watching for people scanning $20 items for 20 cents. Given that frequently if the staff member has left school, it wasn’t that long ago, assertiveness towards thieves incorrectly scanning goods isn’t guaranteed. ‘Assisted’ checkouts are really a recipe for stock disappearing from the store without payment. Yet, the stock disappearing is the justification for increased video surveillance and those that have to buy food losing more of their privacy. The stores are happy to shout from the rooftops how low their prices are or how fresh their food is, but won’t address the ‘own goal’ of self serve checkouts, making the rest of us responsible for their economic decision.

Melbourne relies on Skybus to transport passengers to and from the major airport in the city. While the Skybus service and cost is reasonable, it is less environmentally friendly and has a lower capacity than the electric trains used in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Various Victorian State Governments have announced that they will construct a rail line to Tullamarine Airport which would link into the Melbourne suburban rail network. The latest version of the scheme (first discussed nearly 60 years ago) was supposed to be completed by the end of the decade and cost $13billion. 

The Guardian recently reported  

Transport and planning experts agree a train line to the airport has multiple benefits. It would reduce emissions from car travel, ease road congestion, cut travel times and improve connectivity for Melbourne’s western suburbs – which include some of the fastest growing local government areas in Australia.

However, there is a shortage of construction workers and material that would add to the cost of the project, so it is likely to be delayed. 

But Infrastructure Australia found most of the project’s benefits would not be felt until the recently widened Tullamarine Freeway – which links the airport to the city – reaches capacity. This is expected to happen in 2036.

“Delaying it would not reduce those benefits because the benefits were not expected to be felt for some time,” says Bradshaw, from the Grattan Institute.

Jago Dodson, the director of RMIT’s Centre for Urban Research, argues an airport rail project would help Victoria be a competitive city.

But he says the wider issue Victoria faced was not having an overarching transport plan to determine infrastructure priorities, which he believes is “failing” the state.

“If we had a coherent transport plan it could have asked whether it was preferable to leave the Tullamarine Freeway at previous capacity and for a rail line to pick up the future additional travel to the airport,” he says.

What a surprise! Spending billions on what was probably the more popular option (because people could see the work occurring) – widening the Tullamarine Freeway – is not the best answer to the real problem which is the ability of airline passengers and workers to travel to and from Melbourne City and surrounds quickly and efficiently. The article reports that transit times on Skybus (and logically every other vehicle accessing the airport from Melbourne) are expected to almost double over the next 30 years. Again, those that came up with the solution didn’t think through all the issues before implementing a solution that will cost more in the long term. And if the construction of a rail line is left until the Tullamarine Freeway reaches capacity in the mid 2030’s, Melbourne’s residents and visitors will have to put up with many years of substandard transport to and from the Airport until the infrastructure catches up with the reality that is already understood. To be fair, the same commentary could be applied to the Cross River Rail works in Brisbane or the need for the abundance of toll roads in Sydney. Again, we all pay for the ‘own goal’ of economics.

We could end up like the UK where there are reports of the roofs on schools are falling down because of lack of funding for repairs. It seems that there is a cost to the 13 years of austerity and ideology supported by the Conservative Government.  

In 2010, when David Cameron and Osborne, with the help of Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems, ushered in austerity, they presented it as a short period of necessary pain that had to be forced on the country to put the public finances right.

Instead, today, the images and experiences are of under-resourced services and a general decline resulting from chronic, systematic lack of investment.

During the first term of Tory rule, austerity often went hand in glove with ideological arguments about creating a smaller state. But here, too, as Conservative MPs search for positive stories, there is instead evidence of mismanagement in pursuit of those ideological visions.

What a surprise! Poor building standards and a lack of maintenance even when essential, eventually ensures that infrastructure starts to decay.

The thing is that it doesn’t have to be like this. Essentially austerity and ‘small government’ hasn’t worked, as demonstrated in the UK. Can Australia become the ‘lucky country’ again by observing the problems elsewhere and refocus on people rather than attempting to judge when an economic benefit will be realised in the short term?

We can start by supporting the Voice Referendum. Giving our First Nations people input into decisions that affect their lives is logical because we all know that imposing economic solutions hasn’t worked for over 200 years. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the next referendum was to revoke the Voice to Parliament because there was essentially equity in lifespans and opportunities between all who choose to live in this country?

We have the means and ability to help people rather than ideology on October 14 – don’t waste it.

When a government department requires your land for a new electricity transmission tower, a highway or some other infrastructure they normally advise you of the need and negotiate a sale around the price identified by an independent valuer. The price doesn’t take into account that you will never be able to look at the spot under the gum tree where little Jenny (who is now 35) took her first step, or where little Johnny (who is now 32) first rode his bike unaided – but your compensation for having to move is usually reasonable. Some government departments will notify owners of properties 20 or more years out that the property will be required in the future and inviting discussions around the sale at any time the owner is ready.

Who knows, the sale of the family home to the authorities may be the catalyst to eliminate a number of financial or physical issues to do with aging, the state of the house you are living in or may generate a much wanted change in lifestyle. At the very least you will usually be in a similar financial position to where you were before the sale and most will quickly find the location of the local supermarket, sporting clubs and so on that is part and parcel of moving to a different community.

In 1788, our First Nations people were not give the opportunity to negotiate a sale price for the continent that subsequently became Australia and there was no prior notice given either. In fact the English invented a legal fiction know as “Terra Nullius” to justify their actions. Some First Nations people were massacred, others forced to live in squalid conditions on the boundaries of towns or forced to relinquish their children in a process of ‘assimilation’. Most were never compensated for the loss of their history and lands. Yet, some will tell us if we formally recognise our First Nations peoples lifestyles and traditions were irrevocably changed without any chance of input into the process, we will all go to hell in a hand basket.

The introduction of the Native Title Act in 1993 by then Prime Minister Paul Keating was bitterly opposed by then Opposition Leader John Howard. There were claims that no Australian backyard would be exempted from claims from First Nations Peoples making ‘land grabs’. The reality is somewhat different – 

According to the National Native Title Tribunal, the 2022 statistics for the existence of Native Title in Australia includes:

555 Registered Native Title Determinations, of which:

441 were by consent – meaning a court or other official body negotiated an agreement under the Native Title Act. 60 of these were unopposed, and not contested by another party.

55 were litigated – meaning it had to go to trial.

So much for Howard’s claim Native Title Legislation would mean the Australian way of life would be going to hell in a hand basket.

In the early 2010’s then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott claimed that emissions reduction legislation would be the ruin of Australia. His Chief of Staff and now one of the Sky after dark ‘talking heads’, Peta Credlin admitted years later that the claims were ‘brutal retail politics’ with no basis in fact. So much for Australia going to hell in a hand basket.

The Marriage Equality legislation was implemented by the Turnbull Government in the mid 2010’s. While the process taken to get there was questionable (there was no reason for a plebiscite when the various Members of Parliament could ignore the direction from their electorate) the outcome was in accordance with the general mood of the country. While those with a moral axe to grind didn’t like the outcome and foresaw all sorts of moral and physical harm as a result of the legislation becoming the law, again Australia hasn’t gone to hell in a hand basket.

As a matter of fact, the scare campaigns have existed for centuries. According to various interest groups at the time, decimal currency, the introduction of the metric system, changes to legislation to promote equal pay for equal work regardless of gender and similar changes to our lifestyle have generally improved lives for those affected – despite the claims of the naysayers that each change would mean that Australia would go to hell in a hand basket.

Given Australians love of travel, it is interesting to note that the naysayers of the 1830’s claimed the use of railways to carry people to different towns would lead to ‘decay of moral fibre’. Perhaps the real concern here was that those that defined ‘moral fibre’ in each small community saw the potential for travel to broaden the mind and potentially people would find out the guardians of ‘moral fibre’ in the next community down the line might have been more liberal. Regardless, people moving from community to community and later across the world didn’t mean the world went to hell in a hand basket.

The point is that change is really the only constant in life. Our families change with the birth of new children, people finding their life partner, family members moving to or from the area local to you and so on. We routinely change jobs, vehicles, furnishing in the home, allegiances and points of view. If we never changed anything, the ability to light a fire would never have been successfully popularised by cave dwellers. Those that want to live forever in what is a halcyon era (for them) commonly don’t reflect that the era may be anything but agreeable for others. Why should you be able to impose your chosen point in time without questions?

You would have to wonder if those that are considering voting ‘no’ at the forthcoming referendum because they don’t know what the consequences will be are still concerned about the use of mobile phones, television, computers and many other items that are in daily use around the world. If they aren’t, they should be as not all of the current features inherent in the latest mobile phone, television or computer operating systems were explained in detail and agreed prior to the introduction of the first itineration of the devices some years ago. The lack of consistency in accepting upgraded and new features without full relevant disclosure at the same time as voting against the ‘voice’ because you claim not to have enough detail is duplicitous at best.

And the biggest example of duplicity goes to current Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. He has offered to run a referendum if he gets to be Prime Minister at the next election to create a symbolic reference to our First Nations people in the Constitution – while justifying his absence from the Australian Parliament’s 2008 apology to the stolen generations because in his view, it was only symbolic. It’s almost Trumpian, isn’t it? 

Why should we let Peter Dutton and his fellow travellers confuse the real issue for their own political ends? The Voice is necessary to enable our Fist Nations people to have a discussion with our elected representatives around what they need – rather than governments forcing what they believe First Nations peoples want. Determining what people want without input has worked so well in the past!

The Voice may not be perfect, it may not answer all the questions but it’s a start and just like most other changes we have seen in our lifetimes, won’t lead us to hell in a hand basket.