Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock has now told us that the latest iteration of inflation is being driven by demand, reflecting in increased demand for services such as dentistry and haircuts which are driving up prices and interest rates will have to follow.

So, showing my ignorance, which some would say borders on wokeism, I tentatively put my hand up and ask ‘why is it so ?’

Well, as economists roll their eyes at my naivety they patiently explain that interest rates need to increase for a number of reasons :

1. It will put more money in the pockets of bankers and their shareholders and that must be a win win, surely ?

2. Mortgage interest rates will increase – including on existing home loans because the banks don’t like to give fixed interest loans in this country – these increases will immediately flow through to aspiring homeowners and landlords who, in the latter case, will pass it on to renters. So, again it’s win win – it fits into the economist’s mantra articulated by W C Fields that you should ‘never give a sucker an even break’ more commonly, in banking circles, ‘always kick a man when he’s down’.

3. The stated objective of the Reserve Bank is to take money out of the economy to dampen demand ; clearly if people have no money to lavish on haircuts and dentists this is a good thing for the economy.

So my next hesitant question has to be, what about the stage three tax cuts, won’t that pump more money into the economy as the wealthy splurge on their mullets, quiffs and root-canal ?

Again the economists roll their collective eyes and explain that these tax cuts, passed by the Morrison government in mid-2019, begin in July 2024 will cost the economy around $254 billion over the next decade. The Parliamentary Budget Office [The PBO] has found that the tax cuts will cost $20.4bn in their first year, 2024-25, rising every year to $42.9bn in 2033-34. That evidently is a good thing as it directs large amounts of money into the pockets of the generally well-heeled who won’t fritter this windfall on things like dental care and perms but will wisely buy shares in banks because, as bank robber Willie Sutton once noted when asked why he robbed banks : “Because that’s where the money is.”

So the Governor of the Reserve Bank is clearly pointing at you lot for your lavish expectations of living in houses and driving cars and then, to add insult to economic injury, you insist on enriching dentists and barbers – shame on you !

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court in the UK has ruled that sending asylum seekers to Rwanda for their refugee status to be assessed, is unlawful.

As my wife frequently observes : ‘well, I could have told them that !’

The British government had made a fatal mistake in managing their asylum seeker challenge : they took their lead from Australia’s offshore processing policy and worse, at various times, they sought advice from former Australian politicians such as Alexander Downer and Tony Abbott. As Bill Hayden may have noted, a ‘drover’s dog ‘ could have told them that wasn’t going to work out too well.

The British government have so far committed one hundred and forty million pounds to the Rwanda solution ; some have suggested that this was just blatant bribery of corrupt Rwandan politicians and a necessary component of offshore processing. Certainly the Rwandan government has never demonstrated any ability or interest in processing refugee applications in the past and as they would assume the responsibility of processing these applicants from Britain there is no certainty that they would lift their game into the future.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has responded to the Supreme Court decision with the typical conservative solution and that is to pass some dodgy legislation in the House of Commons, get the Lord’s to sign off and thus get around the court’s decision – possibly they are still taking advice from Lord Downer (will they never learn).

As far as PM Sunak is concerned any set back can be overcome by a ‘dodge’. He demonstrated this when he considered that former prime minister and misguided lobbyist, his mate David Cameron would be a useful ally in Cabinet.The only problem was that Cameron had not been democratically elected to office by the long suffering British people : no problem, just hustle him through the back door of the House of Lords, a quick sword tap from King Charles, ‘arise Lord Cameron’ and bingo you have a new Foreign Secretary ready to serve .

A bit of advice for PM Sunak : offshore detention is not a solution it is a nightmare for all concerned although some host countries and dodgy politicians will make a nice little earner out of unsuspecting British taxpayers.

‘Pass the parcel’ is not a legitimate nor a viable strategy for processing asylum seekers !

The official Yes and No pamphlets are out and a hard copy will hit your mailbox any day. But in the meantime there is already controversy over some of the claims. This AEC website gives both arguments.

The No campaign has been accused by Professor Greg Craven of cynically using his early remarks to portray him as being opposed to the Voice.

Craven has said he was “thoroughly irritated” to be quoted. He said he was critical of the early drafting of the amendment but had supported it since the wording was settled.

“It’s well known to everyone in the No case and the opposition that my fundamental position has been I’m absolutely in favour of the voice and will campaign for the voice with great determination,” Craven said.

In an earlier article in The Australian Craven had said:

“I think it’s fatally flawed because what it does is retain the full range of review of executive action. This means the Voice can comment on everything from submarines to parking tickets… We will have regular judicial interventions.” (Professor Greg Craven AO).

I won’t consider the merits of the respective pamphlets in any detail here beyond noting that the No campaign continue to insist on using the slogan ‘If you don’t know, vote no’ which I find particularly irritating as clearly, if you don’t know, you should go and find out.

These pamphlets, now that they are out, cannot according to the Electoral Commissioner, be changed or amended in any way. As the Commissioner noted today, the AEC publishes what it is given by the Yes and No campaigns. The AEC does not fact-check and doesn’t even have the latitude to correct a spelling mistake or a grammatical error: that’s it folks these are the arguments on which the referendum will succeed or fail.

Let’s have some vigorous and courteous discussion.

A response to Callen Sorensen Karklis’ article titled “Saving DEMOCRACY within the Labour [sic] Movement”.

Callen, I applaud your idealism and hope you find an outlet in the Greens movement ; even so, I would be inclined if I were you to keep up your ALP membership.

In recent times my own positive feelings towards the Greens have been eroded when they have chosen to align themselves with the coalition and One Nation to thwart government (usually Labor) policy. It may well be that the Greens were seeking the perfect in their policies and in their opposition to the ALP but be assured that the coalition and One Nation had no higher ambition than opposing for the sake of opposing.

You will recall that the Greens stood out on Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in 2009 because the Greens wanted more ambitious targets. By siding with a cynical climate change denying coalition and One Nation the CPRS went down in the Senate effectively blocking climate action for another ten years and in the interim emissions have continued to increase.

The new Labor government recently decided that the best way to tackle the national deficiency in public and social housing was to institute an ongoing fund similar to the Future Fund to be known as the ‘Housing Australia Future Fund’. The idea was that the government on our behalf would invest $10 billion and spend the projected annual earnings of $500 million – a modest earning rate of five percent per annum – to build 30,000 affordable, social housing projects each year. Initially the greens, egged on by their fair-weather friends in the coalition and One Nation, criticised the scheme as being reliant on ‘gambling on the stock market’ with no guarantee of achieving the projected half billion dollars each year. David Pocock, Jacqui Lambie and the Teals not wanting to see this project go down, negotiated with the government to guarantee that any shortfall in the yearly earnings would be made up from other revenue sources and that the half billion dollars would be a floor rather than a ceiling ; Pocock succeeded in having the government index the fund outlays to the CPI.

Still the Greens and their mates in the coalition blocked the passage of the legislation saying that the fund would take too long to start generating funds and that immediate action on public housing was required. The government then announced that an immediate injection of $2 billion would be made available, divided between the states and territories to get housing projects underway ; this was applauded by the HIA and the Master Builders but still the Greens held out and would not allow passage of the Future Fund legislation (fortunately this blocking did not delay the implementation of the $2 billion allocation). The legislation has now been deferred until the Spring session of parliament, in October, further delaying the full implementation of the Housing Australia Future Fund.

It should be noted that the improvements to the scheme, which the Greens are claiming credit for, were in fact achieved by collaborative work between the Teal Independents, the Jacquie Lambie Network and consistently the steady influence of David Pocock (yes, I’m a fan !).

But the Greens continue to hold out and demand that the government impose a rent freeze on all residential housing across the nation.

Naturally the coalition and their hangers on are delighted at this impasse and they know full well as do the Greens, that the federal government have no constitutional power to impose a national rent freeze even if they wanted to. Any rent freeze would have to be implemented by the states and territories who have already said that they would not do so. The ACT already have a rental cap system that limits rent increases to one hundred and ten percent of the CPI each year – so with a CPI at seven percent renters in the ACT expect rents to increase by 7.7% this year – some economists criticise the simplicity of the ACT scheme and are not convinced that it is viable or that it helps renters. Additionally, as some of the state Premiers have noted, rental controls will inevitably slow the flow of private equity into rental housing construction (build to rent) as investors look for other ways to make their money work for them, free of government controls.

For the record it should also be noted that the state and territory governments independently spend money on social housing which, collectively was $4.6 billion in 2021-2022.

The Greens in their current quest for the perfect at the expense of the good need to look at the motives of their bedfellows, the coalition and One Nation, who will avidly support blocking government legislation but not necessarily for honourable or noble reasons.

Callen, my advice, keep your ALP membership in your back pocket, it may prove useful in the future and don’t forget the Independents.

Good Luck !

Stan Grant has made it known that he is quitting ABC television Program Q&A. In a heartfelt piece published by the ABC he said that “On Monday night I will present my Q+A program, then walk away. For how long? I don’t know.”

His time hosting Q&A has not been without controversy as with the time he took the extraordinary step of expelling a member of the audience from the studio after the young man, named Sasha, expressed support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This decision was greeted by cheers from the studio audience and met largely with approval on Twitter, although some saw this as an attempt to restrict freedom of speech and communication on this serious global conflict – you be the judge.

Grant was also part of a panel discussion prior to the coronation of Charles III and some, again on Twitter, castigated him for trying to direct the conversation towards colonisation and the wrongs inflicted on the Aboriginal people at the instigation of the British monarchy.

Stan also has a problem with the ABC for not being more supportive of his situation even though they have registered a protest with Twitter about the amount of abuse directed towards Grant much of which is in the form of racial hatred. ABC Managing Director has also personally apologised to Grant.

But it’s not just Twitter, data obtained by the Guardian from media monitoring firm Streem has found that there were more than 150 mentions of the ABC’s coronation coverage by the Australian and Sky News in the two weeks since the broadcast.

That included 18 mentions in the Australian online, four on Chris Kenny’s program, three on Sky News’s media show, and two each on Bernadi, Outsiders and Paul Murray Live.

Q+A host Stan Grant standing down from ABC show after racist abuse

That coverage included the Australian’s media writer Sophie Elsworth on Kenny’s show describing the ABC broadcast as a “pile-on” and “hate-fest”. Outsiders hosts Rita Panahi and James Morrow said the ABC’s broadcast was “over the top”, “race-obsessed” and a “woke bin fire of self-loathing”.

The ABC did not specifically call out Sky News or the Australian but we know that Murdoch outlets will never miss an opportunity to attack the public broadcaster. Indeed SKY has a media show weekly that seems to be fashioned around denigration of the ABC. A spokesperson for the ABC indicated that the ongoing coverage of the coronation broadcast could “clearly generate or contribute to fuelling abuse” that had led to racist attacks on social media.

Grant, has been the sole host of Q+A since August last year. Before that he had been one of three – alongside Virginia Trioli and David Speers – who shared hosting duties from August 2021, following the departure of Hamish MacDonald, who also cited social media vilification as a factor in his decision to quit.

It was only weeks ago that ABC morning television host Lisa Miller received a barrage of personal abuse on social media evidently related to what she had been wearing one morning. She is clearly a strong woman and took the opportunity to make an on-air statement which read, in part :

“I’d like to take a minute to talk about what went on during the last 48 hours. If you’re blessedly oblivious and you’ve just been getting on with your life – great! – I won’t dwell on it,” she said.

“The fact that what I wore on Monday attracted obnoxious commentary on Twitter – foul disgusting personal abuse that I couldn’t and wouldn’t repeat – was upsetting.”

She clearly found the episode personally confronting as Grant has found the racist comments hurtful but they are by no means the only public personalities in Australia or elsewhere to be personally attacked on social media. As far as this commentator can ascertain, the main delivery vehicle for this abuse is essentially Elon Musk’s Twitter. Whilst the Murdoch media takes every opportunity to attack the national broadcaster, clearly the problem is not just Sky and The Australian. The ABC is used to attacks from the Murdoch minions and is more than capable to fight back. Twitter (and it is mainly Twitter of the various social media players) on the other hand seems to have no effective moderation and since Musk took over it seems that it has taken a deep dive into the global sewer.

So, I pose the question : do we really need Twitter ?

So, we are approaching the anniversary of Arthur Phillip’s epic voyage from England to Australia, arriving in January 1788. He chaperoned eleven ships with fifteen hundred souls onboard, roughly half of whom were manacled, half way around the world. A voyage that, in its dimensions and its impact is up there with those of Columbus and Magellan, even the Mayflower.

“I came upon the prison ship
Bowed down by iron chains
I fought the land, endured the lash
And waited for the rains
I’m a settler, I’m a farmer’s wife
On a dry and barren run
A convict, then a free man
I became Australian”

We know that in August 1770 Lieutenant James Cook had claimed the East Coast of Australia as New South Wales, on behalf of George III : that’s what you did in that era at a time when Britain had very little in the way of ‘possessions’ in the southern hemisphere and there was much competition.

It is rarely recorded that the French, in 1772 planted a flag on the Western portion of this continent in the name of Louis XV. On 28 March 1772, the Breton navigator Louis Aleno de St Aloüarn landed on Dirk Hartog Island and became the first European to claim possession of what is now Western Australia as Australie-Occidentale Française.

In both instances these competing colonial powers realized that you can’t just plant a flag and leave a jar of coins and express a few pompous sentiments to acquire a new possession or colony. You actually had to occupy the land either as the result of invasion or by peaceful settlement with or without the consent of any existing inhabitants.

“I came from the dream-time
From the dusty red-soil plains
I am the ancient heart
The keeper of the flame
I stood upon the rocky shores
I watched the tall ships come
For forty thousand years I’ve been
The first Australian”

The English had adopted the rather dodgy concept of Terra Nullius to justify their acquisition of territories on the basis that the land belonged to no-one – a legal concept used by the British government to justify the settlement of Australia.

As one of Irish heritage I tend to be somewhat ambivalent about being invaded by the English and we probably don’t need to get into whether it was an invasion or a settlement or an uninvited occupation. What is clear is that the colonial powers of the day saw it as their right to seize the land of others, frequently in the name of a monarch and enthusiastically supported by their chosen deity. This happened on every major land mass on this planet, with the Americas and Africa featuring prominently not to overlook the Indian sub-continent and many parts of Asia. At least in Australia, Christian conversion was not the primary driver for Arthur Phillip’s south seas adventure : that came later.

The race for possessions was on and in 1788 it was largely the British and the French who were out to grab their share in the Southern hemisphere : the Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch had already ‘settled’ areas of South and central America, the Philippines and Indonesian archipelagoes and whilst the Dutch were very familiar with New Holland as they called Australia, they saw little commercial value in claiming the continent. Joseph Banks, however had convinced George III that Terra Australis represented an ideal location for a convict settlement particularly so now that the North American settlers had demanded independence and America was no longer a dumping ground for British miscreants.

Shortly after his arrival at Botany Bay Arthur Phillip was joined by Comte La Pérouse’s two ships which had arrived off the coast on 24 January 1788, but were unable to enter Botany Bay until 26 January, the same day that Phillip began to move the entire First Fleet to the more hospitable Sydney Cove in the harbour of Port Jackson. The French must have realized that their ambitions on the East Coast were forfeit to the English and La Peruse soon headed out to sea and was never heard from again.

As we approach Australia Day or Invasion Day 2023 and as we anticipate a referendum on an Aboriginal Voice to our parliament it is, in my view, time that we acknowledge that whatever has occurred in the past we are now one nation and in the words of what should be our national anthem :

“We are one, but we are many
And from all the lands on earth we come
We’ll share a dream and sing with one voice
I am, you are, we are Australian”
I am, you are, we are Australian”

Here are The Seekers with the full rendition of that anthem :

You may recall how Heracles undertook the task of cleaning the stables of king Augeas in one day. Augeas was king of Elis, and extremely rich in cattle. Heracles, went to Augeas, offering in one day to clean his stables, if he would give him the tenth part of the cattle herd for his efforts. Augeas, believing that Heracles could not possibly accomplish what he promised, agreed, and Heracles took Phyleus, the son of Augeas, as his witness as he commenced his task.

Heracles had thought this through and he diverted the rivers Alpheius and Peneius through the stables, which were thus cleaned in the time fixed upon.

So what has this got to do with the price of eggs you may be saying. Well, nothing but it has a lot to do with the way Newscorp one of the world’s biggest news organisations is run. For some considerable time this media empire has attracted the sort of creatures that swarm on piles of excrement. It was clear that the old ‘coffin-dodger’ who built the empire was not going to clean his own stables so it has been left to the prodigal son (s). It was said a few years ago when James Murdoch was still in the game and after the News of the World phone tapping scandals that the young Murdochs were trying to convince their Dad that they had to get away from the perception that they only employed ‘lecherous old white dudes’ to run their business.

A case in point, Fox News in the US where the two sons combined to flush out the ailing Roger Ailes, a proven serial misogynist (to put it nicely) who exploited young women in his employ and in his thrall.

Fox News a pay TV channel in America was created by Murdoch senior in 1996 to appeal to a conservative audience, hiring former Republican media consultant and CNBC executive Roger Ailes as its founding CEO. Depending on your viewpoint, Ailes was a pioneer in providing a platform for right-wing disaffected Republicans or he was the worst thing ever to happen to impartial and objective journalism in the US. Despite their father’s objections the Murdoch boys conspired to get rid of Ailes and they succeeded but it cost a reputed forty million dollars to get rid of that lecherous old dude.

Then there was Bill O’Reilly a FOX anchor and a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Numerous allegations and an internal investigation at FOX found that multiple women had reported inappropriate behaviour by O’Reilly and he too was flushed but not before advertisers had started to withdraw their support, something that will always get the attention of Rupert : O’Reilly was sent packing after collecting a reported exit fee of some $US 30million.

Back home in Australia, it’s not clear what actually occurred to bring on the hasty exit of Chris Dore, Editor in Chief at The Australian. Reports suggest that senior executives at Newscorp had witnessed highly inappropriate, drunken behaviour by Dore on several occasions, including most recently at a Newscorp function in California which appears to have been the catalyst for him to be shown the door (or as they usually say, the opportunity for him to spend more time with his family).

Meanwhile we had the depressing report of Sky News right-wing presenter and Courier-Mail columnist Peter Gleeson who left News Corp after multiple instances of plagiarism were uncovered. The Courier-Mail announced that after thirty four years with Newscorp he was gone, also it seems with an overwhelming desire to spend more time with his family, although they may not have shared that ambition. Gleeson had his own program on Sky-after-Dark and will not be missed.

His stablemate Chris Smith was next to go. Smith was a broadcaster with 2GB and Sky after dark where he had his own program, Chris Smith Tonight where he conducted predictable right-wing rants and forgettable echo-chamber ‘interviews’ with the usual right-wing suspects.

Smith was sacked by Sky News Australia as well as 2GB after alleged drunken behaviour and “serious misconduct” involving the treatment of women at a Sydney venue after a Sky News Christmas party. Allegedly Smith is a serial offender . In 1998 he was fired from his role as chief of staff at A Current Affair for allegedly exposing himself to four women at a Nine farewell party. Then in 2009 he was suspended by the Macquarie Radio Network (now Nine Entertainment) for allegedly exposing himself to several women at a 2GB function, attempting to kiss a female colleague and allegedly groping a female weather presenter. Both Andrew Bolt at Sky and Ray Hadley at 2GB showed no sympathy for their former colleague as he was flushed away to the reluctant embrace of his family .

Why are so many of these old white dudes getting the DCM (don’t come Monday) in the Murdoch media empire ? Is it something to do with the quality of people Murdoch has attracted and promoted over the years ? Is it only now that Lachlan has taken over that action is finally being taken ? Who knows, suffice to say that young Murdoch still has a way to go until these stables are free of excrement !

Most references to these shenanigans come from sources other than Newscorp and that could be part of the problem, that a news organisation refuses to recognise or record its own failings :

Chris Dore’s exit from News Corp lifts lid on behaviour at governor general’s residence

The only defence that we, the people, have against an arrogant leader who is thumbing his nose at our democratic arrangements is by shining a light into dark corners and ensuring that our democracy has the ability to assert the power of those democratic fundamentals.

Former High Court Judge The Hon Virginia Bell AC has done a thorough investigation into the behaviour of former prime minister Scott Morrison in appointing himself minister of various government departments and then failing to make his actions public, even to the extent of not informing the ministers that were already appointed to administer those departments.

The Report notes at 217:

‘It is a serious deficiency in governance arrangements that Mr Morrison was able to be appointed to administer five departments of State (in addition to PM&C) without notification of the fact of the appointments to the Parliament or the public and in the case of the Departments of Health, Finance, Home Affairs and the Treasury, without notification to the Department or the other Ministers appointed to administer the Department. There is controversy with respect to the responsibility for this state of affairs.’

It goes on to say:

‘… it is unclear that those within PM&C with knowledge of the appointments gave thought to the fact that they had not been made public. It was apparent by 2021 that the mechanism of appointing Mr Morrison to administer additional departments of State had come to be employed for reasons having little if any connection to the pandemic. It was also apparent that these appointments were not being made public, albeit that it did not occur to anyone in PM&C that Mr Morrison was keeping the appointments secret from his Ministers. While it is troubling that by the time of the 2021 appointments, Mr Gaetjens did not take up the issue of the secrecy surrounding them with Mr Morrison and firmly argue for their public disclosure, the responsibility for that secrecy must reside with Mr Morrison.‘

Morrison declined the invitation to give evidence at the enquiry.

Our democracy has the safeguard of our Constitution and inherent in that is the separation of powers but it also relies heavily on conventions implicit in which is the goodwill and the veracity of those we elect to govern us. But, as Morrison was able to demonstrate, if those in power and those serving them wish to subvert the democratic safeguards there is little to stop them.

The Report is here in full together with the recommendations and whilst it doesn’t seek to criticise our Governor General, the King’s representative, it may be that there has been a bit too much karaoke going on in Government House and not enough thought of ‘We the people’.