By Alan Austin  

A colourful meme showing a grumpy Anthony Albanese and a genial Scott Morrison is doing the social media rounds.

Federal ministers have posted it on their Facebook pages with the comment “The next election will be a choice – a choice about who can best manage our economy to ensure a stronger future. It’s a clear choice.”

The meme lists fifteen items which purport to show the Liberals beating Labor. It is blatantly dishonest.

1 and 2. Unemployment and youth unemployment.

It is quite deceptive to compare today’s jobless rate with 2013. First, the collapse in migration has reduced the numbers of people with jobs and without jobs. So while this has cut jobless rates, it has also led to record job vacancies and dismal productivity.

Second, low hours worked per person per month makes the jobs market look healthier than it is. The lowest monthly level through the Labor years was 85.8 hours. This collapsed to below 84 in 2016 and below 80 in 2020. The latest monthly number, for January, was 79.4, the lowest January figure on record.

Thirdly, the public service has expanded inexplicably since 2015 by 464,000 “workers”. That is 3.4% of the workforce.

Yet even so, Australia’s headline jobless rate today of 4.2% ranks a lowly 15th in the OECD. In September 2013, Australia’s 5.7% ranked sixth. Labor clearly wins.

3. Welfare dependency

Of course welfare recipients would be high in 2013, after the worst global recession in 80 years. That was true everywhere.

But for this measure to have declined by less than one per cent is an appalling failure, given the boom times since 2014.

Corporate profits have soared 81.4% over that period. Taxation revenue has climbed 47.5%. For welfare dependency to have barely moved is shameful.

4 and 5. Taxation rates

It is blatantly dishonest to cherry-pick one or two tax brackets and try to make comparisons over a nine-year span. The best measure is the overall tax take relative to GDP.

According to Treasury, the Tax Office and the Bureau of Statistics (ABS), taxes are always higher under the Coalition. John Howard was the highest-taxing PM since records have been kept, Morrison the second highest.

6. Electricity prices

Over any nine year period, some prices will go up, others will go down. The critical measures are the overall inflation rate and wage rises. The data is crystal clear that inflation is always lower under Labor and wage rises are always lower under the Coalition.

7. Defence funding

It is extremely deceptive to compare military spending to GDP without noting (1) military needs and (2) the quantum wasted. When these are considered, Labor’s record is much stronger than the Coalition’s. An extremely high percentage of military spending under the Coalition has been wasted – from the F111 jets ordered in the 1960s which never flew in combat to the submarines ordered from Japan in 2014, then cancelled, then ordered from France, then cancelled, then … who know what will happen next? Billions have been wasted.

8. Naval shipbuilding

It is false to claim Labor built no vessels. The hull of the aircraft carrier HMAS Canberra was constructed in Spain in 2008, then transported to Williamstown, Victoria, in 2011 for completion. It was officially christened in February 2013. There appear to have been others.

It is equally false to claim 70 vessels were built since 2013. Published lists of Australia’s naval fleet show seven Australian-built vessels have been commissioned since 2013. Several of these were designed and ordered under Labor.

9. Foreign criminal visas cancelled

Why are so many criminals now seeking to come to Australia? That is answered by Transparency International which has shown corruption has escalated since 2014. Last year’s report claims:

“Australia faces several corruption challenges, including anonymous company ownership and money laundering. Following the FinCEN files, where thousands of leaked financial documents exposed a vast paper trail of money laundering across the globe, more than US$150 million were traced back to Australian banks.

“The country also shows severe deficiencies when it comes to corruption in international real estate.”

Australia’s international anti-corruption score was much healthier under Labor.

10. Detention centres for illegal immigrants

The sneaky deception here is that the Liberals under Tony Abbott abandoned bipartisanship on border control to maximise the deaths at sea during the Labor years. As is well-documented, Abbott orchestrated a global advertising campaign attracting illegal boats to Australia.

After the 2013 change of government, bipartisanship was restored by the Shorten Opposition and the billboard abandoned.

Nevertheless, Australia is now despised globally for its asylum seeker policies, as was not the case before 2013.

11. Hospital funding

No source is given, so we cannot check those figures. The deception here is that the break-down into public and private hospitals is not shown. The ABS confirms that private sector profits have soared since 2014. So these numbers may simply reflect higher corporate profits rather than quality care. We need more data.

12. Medicare bulk billing rates

So what? Far more critical is the impact on costs for vulnerable Australians. Advocacy groups remain profoundly concerned at the extra burden following the Morrison Government’s Medicare cuts.

13 and 14. Aged care and schools funding

Again, no source shown, so we cannot verify those figures. The deception again is that we can’t see how much went to healthy hot meals for elderly residents or to new yachts for the rich foreign owners of the private nursing home corporations. We need more data. Same regarding schools.

15. Mobile phone towers

Does the Liberal Party really expect us to believe that no towers were erected before 2014? This item is simply a blatant barefaced lie.

Liberals actually the worst economic managers

None of these fifteen items shows that the Liberal Party is a better choice than Labor. In fact, an Independent Australia article lists fifty economic outcomes under the Morrison Government which have been worst ever or worst for a very long time. These include:

• the longest sustained retail slump;
• Australia’s deepest post-war recession;
• the deepest budget deficits;
• greatest increase in gross debtsince World War II;
• a record number of profitable companies paying no tax;
• greatest wasteof any government program ever;
• lowest infrastructureinvestment as a percentage of GDP;
• lowest rate of wagesgrowth; and
• the first and only time household spendingdeclined year on year.

Not all these occurred during the Covid recession.

This exercise underscores two realities: First, the facts clearly show the current Government is the least competent at economic management since records have been kept. They also show Australia had the world’s best economy under Labor.

And secondly, the Liberal Party now relies entirely for its messaging on distortions, exaggerations and lies.

By 2353NM  

Feeling some pain from the self-imposed ‘wedges’ of the religious ‘freedom’ legislation in the middle of February, Prime Minister Scott Morrison changed tack. According to Morrison, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese’s ALP MPs were closet communist China sympathisers.

Morrison isn’t the first to try a retro themed advertising campaign. The continual remakes of advertising containing the ‘Aeroplane Jelly’ or “Louie the Fly’ jingles prove that. Transportation companies also have used the retro theme to celebrate their history. Qantas has it’s ‘retro roos’, a number of railways in North America have applied older liveries to current locomotives, including Canadian Pacific and even Brisbane Transport has some ‘retro buses’ promoting ‘over 90 years of moving Brisbane’.

Morrison’s ‘reds under the bed’ claim is ridiculous, just as it was when used by many conservatives including former Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies in the 1950s and 60s. There is no evidence that would suggest Albanese would ‘sell out’ Australia to any of the few ‘communist’ countries left in the world. Retro advertising or retro liveries are different – the company concerned has been providing the service or goods for an extended period of time, it is proud of its legacy and is highlighting its history of service to its customers.

The ‘retro livery’ is also only a façade. If you do get one of Qantas’ ‘retro roos’ on your flight, you won’t be flying on a restored 707, you’ll be sitting on a recent generation 737. Brisbane Transport’s ‘retro buses’ are just vinyl graphics glued to the exterior of a handful of the hundreds of almost identical buses transporting people around Brisbane. The point is that while companies promote their heritage, they aren’t living it as they replicate the appearance of the past on their current equipment. Morrison’s Government is not only using slogans from the 60s, we have evidence to suggest they can’t understand, let alone manage current issues.

On 17 February, Origin Energy, announced the Eraring Power Station would close seven years ahead of schedule in 2025 due to

the rapidly changing conditions in the national electricity market, which are increasingly not well suited to traditional baseload power stations

Other operators, such as AGL and Energy Australia are making similar announcements. In fact all of Australia’s coal fired power stations will be decommissioned by 2050. We’ve all known this for a while. So what is the current Coalition Government’s process to transition the 400 people that work at Eraring (and hundreds of other people as further power stations are decommissioned) into other work? Well – there isn’t one. Perhaps tellingly, the Federal Energy Minister, Angus Taylor, claimed he wasn’t told of Eraring’s closure until the previous night while NSW’s Energy Minister was told months ago. Perhaps Origin learnt from what AGL went through when it announced the closure of the Liddell Power Station (also in the same region) last year.

The problem isn’t solely how the power workers survive with a lack of government support to transition them into alternate work, the local communities are supported by the power workers as well. Each of the 400 workers at the plant is a person – not a number. They have families, commitments, spend money at the shops, the pub, send their kids to school and occasionally purchase new homes, cars and appliances, No wonder the local Mayor and shopkeepers are concerned.

Georgina Woods, usually known for her work with Lock the Gate, represents the Nature Conservation Council on the jobs alliance.

Woods, who lives in Newcastle, said the Origin announcement was “a travesty” that could have been avoided were it not for Australia’s toxic climate politics.

Instead, there was no architecture in place to support workers.

“We can’t afford to let long term structural and environmental issues of this kind be held to ransom by the political process and elections,” she said.

She pointed to the closure of BHP’s steelworks in Newcastle in the 90s, which took years of planning and attention to pathways for workers.

“There was money from the federal government, there was investment in building stuff in Newcastle to provide new opportunities. It was a massive undertaking,” she said.

On 19 February, NSW’s Coalition Government Energy Minister, Matt Keen, announced a package that would create 3,700 roles in clean industries. All we heard from Morrison’s Coalition Government was a continuation of the ‘reds under the bed’ retro theme, designed apparently to win votes at the next election. The strategy does carry a risk. As discussed in The Guardian on 19 February, the last Prime Minister to suggest that his opponent was a communist China supporter was Billy McMahon in the early 70s, and that backfired spectacularly.

Rehashing past glories is all well and good if you have a broadly positive story to tell. Boeing 707s and 1960s commuter buses have been retired for a reason, they don’t meet current expectations and requirements. While those that operated 707s and 60s commuter buses have a right to reflect on the past, their current equipment complies with current safety standards and expectations despite the deliberately applied outside appearance.

A government reliving past scare campaigns (they would say glories) without having a regard for current expectations is deluding itself as well as those that vote for it. Where is the transition package for those workers who will be affected as coal burning power stations are decommissioned? Where is the package to ensure that all Australians have the ability to live above the poverty line with dignity and respect? Where is the funding to ensure that this country has a reputable, independent media such as ABC and SBS? Where is the path for refugees to settle in Australia, or help for all those living with a disability? We haven’t even heard rhetoric on most of these issues from Morrison’s Coalition Government.

It seems that instead of addressing current issues that affect people and communities, countless hours have been spent trying to funnel funding to favoured political mates, wedge the Opposition and re-hashing scare campaigns from 60 years ago to try and keep the keys to Kirribilli House. And that isn’t acceptable now – in fact, it never has been.

What do you think

By John Haly  

Was Banjo Paterson’s 1889 poem “Clancy, of the Overflow”, acknowledging a country of flooding plains? In not, Dorothea Mackellar’s “Sunburnt country” was in her 1906 poem about “drought and flooding rains”. Floods have long been a dominant feature of the Australian landscape, so much so, that “100-year floods” have been featured in recent decades every half dozen years or so. The apparent expectation of a lead-in like this is it’s a conversation on climate change. But, seriously, so many scientists and meteorological experts have spoken of this ad nauseam (see the 6^th IPCC report). There is not much this journalist can add to what’s already been said. The latest flooding on the Eastern coast of Australia speaks volumes. Ignoring the need to mitigate Climate change has only two protagonists.

1. The most recalcitrant of ideologues in media and political circles who are bribed by corporate lobbying of fossil fuel interests or
2. The psychologically stunted individuals are driven by a  Dunning-Kruger misperception of their intellectual incapacity.

So if you fall into one of those categories, I will not waste time addressing your issues.

Climate change has created two very typical states of environmental disasters in the Australian landscape. Fires and Floods! The rescue of Australians from either disaster has different primary responder workforces.

Attitudes to the Flood Crisis show the contempt with which Rural Australians are held by former Liberal Party president.

Fire Management

Fire Brigades in Australia, began in the NSW colony in 1820, consisting of soldiers trained to use fire fighting appliances. By 1836 the Australian Insurance Company established a Fire Brigade, manned by local volunteers with buckets, ladders and axes. By 1884 the Fire Brigades Act created the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. By 1910 that Act was extended across the NSW state. In 2011 that Fire Brigade became known as “Fire and Rescue NSW”. Nowadays, paid professional and volunteer fire fighting bodies are funded in every state. However, the NSW fire mitigation bodies suffered significant funding reductions in the years leading up to the 2019 fires. Gladys Berejiklian’s government instigated the cuts, but only the alternative media outlets covered this failure of oversight and management.

Flood Management

Flood management, on the other hand, had an even poorer history. European settlement in New South Wales recognised the risk from the flood hazards as far back as 1788. However, the 1810 Hawkesbury River flooding and 1867 floods of Pitt Town and Windsor, resulted in differing strategies by the colonial government. By the 1870s, volunteer ‘water brigades’ arose. This, in time, developed into the State Emergency Service (SES) in 1955. The only professionally paid body associated with flooding is the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology. The under-resourced original SES had no mandate for Flood mitigation. It was not restructured till the emergence of the State Emergency Service Act 1989. Chas Keys, the Deputy Director-General, NSW State Emergency Service, wrote in a paper in 1999:

“Half a century ago, the management of Australia’s most serious natural hazard was very largely a matter of community self-help. Science was not brought to bear, there was little or no prior consideration of potential ways of handling flood problems, and the government was barely active except in after-the-fact relief endeavours.”

While Chas Keys claimed this had changed, recent events demonstrate effective real-time flood management still eludes the government and SES. The SES is still dominantly a volunteer organisation covering a wide range of emergency scenarios from fire, storms, floods, road crashes, as well as alpine, bush and abseiling search and rescue. There is training nowadays for all of these events, but it’s largely dependent on individual interest from the volunteer. At the end of 2018-19, NSW SES had a full-time equivalent workforce of 352 staff but 27 times as many volunteers.

Government reluctance

The State and Federal Government’s response to cries for help by flood victims has been woeful. The Federal Government, in particular, has demonstrated a consistent reluctance to step up, in any emergency, whether that be a pandemic, economic recession, bushfires or floods.

The Liberal Party’s previous reputation of being notoriously marred by climate-denying recidivists manifests as a reluctance to admit the consequences of Climate Change. So there is a foreseeable reluctance to acknowledge the existence of the symptoms. This follows a consequential hesitancy to act quickly to mitigate a flood crisis. Hence the slow and reluctant response from the Federal Government to the current floods. Considering the American experience of harsh public criticism of George W Bush over Cyclone Katrina flooding, the even slower response by the Australian Government draws understandable outrage. As does the continued reluctance to spend emergency funding of around $4.7 billion sitting idle in the bank! While eventually the ADF was assigned to the task, the perception of their commitment to the flood victims was marred by the need to create photo ops and filmmaking. This only drew further enragement on social media.

Liberal member Shane Stone, the director of a concocted agency called the National Resilience Centre is paid $617,000 a year.

That's $1,690 a day.

The federal government's Emergency Response Fund of $4.7 billion remains unspent and is administered by it's own Future Fund. https://t.co/w490Logaqe pic.twitter.com/PgGijdlUl3

— RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) March 6, 2022

Army not trained

Beyond the SES, the Australian Army Reserves have been solicited to provide community aid during the 2010 and 2011 floods. ADF Reservists called upon to assist communities during a flood crisis is problematic, because, as David Littleproud claimed, ADF personnel “aren’t trained in the immediate response”. Still, Army Reservists are called upon more frequently to assist in fire, flood and pandemic situations as they did during the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season. But the reference to a lack of adequate training was implied by the ADF’s flood response in 2022. ADF emergency support was marred by a week-long delayed response and the apparent order to conduct photo ops and training films many saw as a priority above saving lives. The Defence Force’s defence of their filmmaking drew further enragement on social media, but few stopped to query why the defence force thought the training was needed.

Good to see ADF has finally arrived in flood prone areas.
Though not as fast as G.Bush after Hurricane Katrina 🙄.
Trickle down economics may be BS, but trickle down priorities evidently are, as marketing & spin taking priority over action & outcomes shift from government to ADF. https://t.co/0kgfqY2vO2

— 🦉🤝🌍 Johnboy Halyucinations (@Halyucinations) March 8, 2022

SES not ready

The SES found themselves battered by a “natural disaster of unprecedented proportions” and subsequently demonstrated they were under-resourced and overwhelmed. The capitulation of government to reliance on volunteers to respond to natural disasters was admitted to by Premier Dominic Perrottet on Tuesday the 8^th in a Press statement. Perrottet acknowledged people felt let down by emergency services, overwhelmed by the scope of the crisis.

At a presser this afternoon, NSW Premier Dom Perrottet declared that Australia's system for responding to natural disasters is to rely on volunteers. He literally said this. Reminder: The NSW state election will be held on 25 March, 2023.😏 #nswpol #NSWFloods #sydneyfloods pic.twitter.com/QF9SOdvfFJ

— Peter Murphy (@PeterWMurphy1) March 8, 2022

If the Federal and State governments, SES and ADF are not up to the task required of them, for whatever reason, legitimate or otherwise, perhaps we need a more focussed body to deal with floods. Although, there is no dedicated, professionally paid specialist “Flood Brigade”, despite flooding being an interstate issue of significant frequency, resulting in large scale relocations, property damage, and even deaths.

Once in a Century?

The history emerging in the 21^st century, complete with lives lost, began in the 2007 Hunter Valley/Maitland and Gippsland Floods. This was followed by the 2011 Queensland floods and again by Victorian Floods, till finally later that year, Gippsland again. A year later, in 2012, Eastern Australia and Gippsland suffered floods between February and March. 2013 saw Eastern Australia Floods in Queensland and NSW. While we got a break in 2014, 2015 saw Hunter Valley/Central Coast/Sydney Floods and South – East Queensland, in which 13 people in total died. Tasmanian Floods in 2016 only killed three, and one died in the Central West and Riverina Floods. After the Western Australian Floods of 2017, Cyclone Debbie caused flooding in Eastern Australia. Townsville floods in Queensland killed five people in 2019. Tropical Cyclone Damien in Karratha in 2020 caused flooding in NSW, but it was one of few floods where there were no deaths (although plentiful damage).

Such good luck wasn’t maintained the next year when widespread flash flooding across Gippsland in 2021 killed two people while 200 homes were evacuated in the Latrobe Valley. That flooding occurred only three months after widespread flooding in the Sydney basin, and the Mid North Coast of NSW had already killed three folks.

Shane the disaster tsar in charge of Emergency Disaster fund.

In 2022 Australia’s Eastern coast has been inundated with rain, and the current score – as of writing – has been 21 lives between Queensland and NSW. New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet described the extreme weather as a “one-in-a-one-thousand-year event“.

Describing these floods as the one-in-a-one-thousand-year event (or “one-in-500-year” as Morrison did in Lismore) is not only wholly delusional and contrary to every scientific flood report, but also contrary to the lived experience of Australians seeing floods occur year after year. For example, with extensive Brisbane floods increasing in frequency from 1974, four lives were lost, and some 8,000 householders were affected. From 2011 and on to 2022, the comparisons are startling, given all the flood mitigation work done in between. As for Shane Stone, the disaster relief chief and head of the National Resilience and Recovery Agency blaming the victims for their choice of residency, that says much about Morrison’s hand-picked disaster tsar.

Politicians depicted this as a once in a century event, only to experience more in the coming years, stretching their credibility and the public’s resilience with each flood.

Who’s to blame?

Some elements of the government have been prepared to acknowledge how “unacceptable” emergency flood response has been. Others, especially in the Federal Government, are looking to direct blame elsewhere. Blaming the Bureau of Meteorology for an inaccurate forecast only gets you a day’s grace, not a whole week. These disasters have been consistently predicted. The Australian Rainfall and Runoff report: “A guide to flood estimation” notes on page 22:

“There is also mounting evidence that longer-term climate processes also have a major impact on flood risk.”

It goes on to describe La Nina events and interdecadal pacific oscillation, and after “investigating a range of sites in NSW”, it found floods were 1.8 larger than “normal”. (see the report page 22 for a more nuanced explanation of “normal”) Notably, Wilsons River flooding to Lismore in 2017 has no specific mention in the report, unlike the Hunter, Clarence and Woolomombi because most of the data relied upon only extends to 2015. While this report has some 2016 updates, its release in 2019 does not mean the fallout of 2017 mass flooding is included. It may be time for a revision in 2022. That said, making excuses for why we were not ready in the face of all this data – including all the reports preceding the 2022 IPCC report – is a little pathetic.

Alternative?

As the existing system doesn’t work and will become increasingly dysfunctional in the future, we need a complete regime change. Volunteers in Fire Brigade, SES, and Army Reservists (some of whom operate in a mix of either, some or all services) should continue as separate entities. Given that these disasters cross the State lines, funding should be federal at all levels. The temptation for tight budgets at State levels to be a reason to cut back on these services, should be dissuaded by shifting these to a federal responsibility. Professional crewed Fire Brigades and Flood Brigades bodies to manage mitigation, rescue, and recovery for these disasters need launching! It should transition all current State-based professionals. These brigades’ immediate responses should be based on predictive science measuring environmental changes and preparing for the worst.

Forget the ADF we need a property resourced civil disaster response and rebuild organisation, not reliant on volunteers but properly paid and trained. It’s just going to be worsening disasters for the rest of our lives time to build the social infrastructure we need to survive

— Padraic Gibson (@paddygibson) March 7, 2022

To have these federally funded bodies respond to these emergencies far faster than this government and ADF have reacted to people in need in Lismore, Coraki, Girards Hill, Southgate, Mullumbimby, Picton and many others, we need one more change. We need a federal government that will not simply announce its intentions without any measurable, functional outcomes or run off overseas or hide from public scrutiny, but act promptly to produce results in infrastructure and finance in the towns that will preserve our communities. But, unfortunately, that government is not our current incumbent, whose leader only now, weeks after the start of the floods, while visiting Lismore, indicated an “intention” to declare a “State of Emergency”.

This article was originally published on Australia Awaken – Ignite Your Torches.

By Ad astra  

What a contrast we’ve witnessed on our TV screens these last few weeks. As we tuned into the Winter Olympics we saw an almost endless display of skill, dedication, and self confidence. Although the participants were intensely competitive, they appeared to harbour no animosity towards their fellows. Seemingly, they were not out to destroy them; rather they were intent on doing better. They showed respect for their competitors; they honoured their skills and their dedication.

Over the same period, our political leaders exhibited the opposite! Their purpose was, as always, to win by any means, no matter how underhand, no matter how disgraceful. We don’t need long memories to recall examples of political intrigue, nastiness, destructive behaviour, disrespect, even hatred.

To tune into the contemporary scene all we need to do is to listen to Question Time in the House of Representatives. Acerbic questions; facile, sarcastic, aggressive answers; pathetic ‘Dorothy Dixers’ and equally pitiful responses, are all hallmarks of this part of the political process, which our politicians revel in day after boring day. This is central to their pathologically competitive nature. When we hear a carefully-considered utterance from any of them, we are pleased, even if surprised. When we hear words of praise for an opponent, we are gobsmacked!

Recently, our PM embarked on a vicious programme of denigration of Labor and Anthony Albanese, labelling deputy Labor leader Richard Marles a “Manchurian candidate”, a term based on the book and movie of the same name, used to describe a person, especially a politician, who’s being used as a puppet by a foreign power.

While Morrison has ‘withdrawn’ his comments, (knowing full well that their effect would persist in voters’ minds) Mike Burgess – director-general of the country’s top spy agency, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) – referred to this politicisation of national security issues as “not helpful” in a rare TV interview with the ABC.

Why is it that politicians lack what athletes seem to have in abundance? What is it that politicians crave more than anything else?

If forced into a one-word answer, I would use ‘POWER”. The ‘Power Syndrome’ is pervasive throughout the political class.

Power is the single most important need for politicians. Not that this is confined to them; many people in positions of importance seek power, the capacity to ‘call the shots’, to get their own way, to control the process and the outcome. It’s a common human attribute, seen at all levels of society from the family circle, to the schoolyard, to the business environment, to community organisations, to political parties, and to wider society – at home and abroad. People want power, more power than others have. The root reason is our most pervasive and damaging human attribute: ‘selfishness’. The preacher at our local church listed selfishness as the most corrosive ‘sin’ of all.

It takes little effort to find examples of the ‘power syndrome’. Just turn on the TV any time and select an overseas programme. Who could remain unconvinced by the catastrophic state of contemporary international affairs and the unfolding power plays we witness there, day after awful day.

Military might: tanks, trucks, massive aeroplanes and helicopters, and countless helmeted soldiers carrying their bulky gear, abound in dramatic TV image after image. Singly and collectively, they project power, irrepressible power. ‘Touch me if you dare’ is the unspoken message. This too is Morrison’s.

On the home front, we see the same as our politicians fight each other for pre-selection, for the allotment of a winnable seat, for patronage, for funds, for anything that might give them an advantage over an opponent, or even a potential opponent. Our PM leads the pack with vicious intent. Winning at all costs, no matter how disgraceful, is his clear purpose. He is worried, very worried, that he is in real danger of losing at the next election. His nature is such that he cannot bear the thought of this outcome. So expect him to use every dirty trick in the book to avoid this. Nothing will be too nasty, too disgraceful, too awful to stop him. He’s desperate; his behaviour already matches his desperation. Watch him at ‘doorstops’ or press conferences. His mouth never stops moving. He scarcely draws breath! He uses words as poisoned darts to stab his enemies.

Morrison’s latest ploy is to use the odious term ‘Manchurian candidate’ to berate opponents, insinuating as it does subservience to a foreign power. Perversely, as it turns out, it is he who has most genuinely earned the term! Beijing’s Chinese Communist Party prefers him! They’ve said so!

Power perverts. Morrison is perverted by the pursuit of it. He knows this, but will allow nothing to dissuade him from it! Captured by it, addicted to it, poisoned by it, recovery is out of his reach!

Where does that leave the rest of us?

By Denis Bright  

Delivering financial support for sustainable infrastructure were recommendations of the Morrison Government’s Inquiry into the future of our cities in 2018. Commitment to sustainability in an era of profound climate change receives 363 mentions in the Building Up & Moving Out Report.

These changes cannot be left to the states and territories alone. This is a real challenge locally when 50.2 per cent of state revenue in Queensland’s 2021-22 budget is derived from the Commonwealth in combined grants and CST allocations. Queensland’s own taxation revenue is merely 27.3 per cent of current budget revenue.

The projected deficit exceeds $6 billion but the urgency of both sustainable planning and flood mitigation have never been greater.

In some of my previous articles for The AIM Network, I also had reservations about the South East Queensland (SEQ) Regional Plan 2017 and its capacity to deliver the ambitious stated goals without more federal financial assistance. The planning mechanisms ploughed on with some lofty goals which were not supported by adequate financial assistance:

At a public seminar organized by the Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) in Brisbane on 14 November 2016, the need for more financial commitment from the federal government to support Queensland ShapingSEQ priorities were raised for consideration by representatives from the office of the Director-General of State Planning at the event.

Without more federal funding for sustainable urban development, appalling levels of forest clearing were tolerated in the Shaping SEQPlan. Turning hillsides into outer suburban and semi-rural subdivisions accentuates flood run-offs.

The extent of potential greenfield development (new urban expansion) was anticipated by each of the twelve local authorities in SEQ. Established urban areas in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Moreton Bay, Redlands, Sunshine Coast and Noosa were less dependent on new urban expansion. However, many of the semi-rural local authorities became havens for this new expansion. Catchments from these hinterlands feed into the coastal local authorities.

Offering hardship assistance to the victims of flood inundation needs to be supplemented by stronger planning controls on the new town plans of hinterland local authorities. This is not a criticism of the need for essential short-term financial assistance to flood victims.

Services Australia is offering only token financial assistance to the flood victims of SE Queensland (SEQ) and NSW despite some fanfare about the level of generosity in public pronouncements (Services Australia web site):

In the traditions of the federal LNP for political marketing style of communication, the Prime Minister’s office has grossly inflated the level of emergency assistance offered across Australia by adding COVID-19 relief to total expenditure (PM 27 February 2021).

Most local authorities are fully aware of the risks of the more flood-prone subdivisions where flood market insurance premiums are unbelievably high.  In the case of the Moreton Bay Regional Council and some other local authorities, probability estimates of flooding risks are available for most residential addresses. All new riverside residential developments pose potential flooding problems and drainage hazards even if the sites have not been affected by recent flooding problems.

The media office of BWC Group which operates for property developer Peet Limited explained that drainage problems on the Riverbank estate in Caboolture South within the Moreton Bay Regional Council had been minimal during the current flood run-off problems.

Readers can offer their own feedback on the level of financial assistance to flood victims in high-risk localities across other localities in Eastern Australia. The feedback mechanisms offered by The AIM Network will facilitate your comments.

Even before the great Queensland floods of 1893, local authorities and their colonial governments were aware of the financial and emotional costs of major floods and other natural disasters. The liability of local authorities for allowing housing subdivisions in flood prone areas in New Zealand was reviewed by Sean Brennan as part of his honour research programme in law at Victoria University in Wellington in 2015. Here are some concluding remarks of his paper:

Flooding is a significant problem in New Zealand. Its cost is surpassed only by the recent Canterbury earthquakes. Councils and communities have a real interest in protecting against flooding as best they can, but some of these measures will eventually fail, either because natural forces exceed the limits of the works, or because of problems with the protections themselves.

This article demonstrates that councils can be liable for flooding damage in respect of their own torts, but that a non-delegable duty is arguably not owed to general members of the public. This may have the effect that where a property is uninsured and the contractor who did the work leading to the damage is insolvent, the property owner cannot recover. The extent to which councils should be liable ultimately falls to whether the moral obligation of socialising loss outweighs acknowledging individual responsibility to insure one’s own assets.

In the author’s view, while councils should remain liable at least for harm caused by their negligence, it would be more economically effective for individuals to remain responsible for protecting their assets through private insurance policies.

Stricter legislative bans might be considered on new residential subdivision of flood-prone areas. Voluntary purchases of existing flood prone land for community uses are a possibility in situations where owners and landlords cannot afford to continue high rates of disaster insurance. Some residential relocations have already been completed in the township of Grantham in the Lockyer Valley with support from the Queensland Government.

Fulfilling more sustainable planning initiatives is an ongoing challenge throughout Australia in the decades ahead when federal financial support is available to support the planning acts in all states and territories. Let these bipartisan initiatives continue in the interventionist traditions of economic and social economist Noel Butlin (1921-91) whose works predated the debt and deficit rhetoric of the federal LNP’s post-1996 political era in Australia.

By Andrew Wicks  

Yes, Scott Morrison has COVID. But jokes aside, how did the most protected man in the country fail to protect himself?

Late last night, the spirit of pandemic (not so) past visited the Morrison household. Via a media statement, written in his inexorable style, the Prime Minister confirmed that he tested positive to COVID. “I am experiencing flu-like symptoms and will be recovering over the next week. I am continuing to follow health guidelines and am isolating(sic) at home in Sydney. Jenny and the girls have thankfully tested negative,” he said.

Now, while the public’s COVID-marginalising-leader-catching-COVID schadenfreude is well established (see: Dutton, Boris), the nice people of Twitter have poked some holes in his story. In his statement, Morrison said he was testing himself “daily since Sunday.” However, on that day, he was in Queensland, meeting with the Premier, Deputy Mayor and all those coordinating the flood response in that state. Users are rightly asking, why did he suddenly start testing on Sunday, and who else did he infect on his travels?

There’s more. As Sally Rugg asked on Twitter, “why no PCR test for two days while symptomatic?” Moreover, how did his PCR test return a result in just a few hours, when it takes the rest of the populace days, primarily due to the lab testing (and transportation) required? Unless, of course, Morrison has a travelling lab that follows him around wherever he goes, or he’s lied about when he knew.

But while there should be no joy in celebrating another’s COVID, Morrison’s case is a moment of reflection, where we should think about all the regular citizens who were put in danger through his policy to favour the economy or the individual; those who faced work or school or the necessities of life, those who had no choice but to work, or somehow survive with zero financial assistance or sat in completely unprepared aged care facilities, disconnected, watching their friends die as they hope it doesn’t walk down the hall. We should think of them as we wonder why the most protected man in the country couldn’t protect himself.

But therein lies the trap. When one actually experiences what we’re all fearing, you’d assume that perceptions would change. Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge chose to push his actions beyond mere platitude when he experienced the breadth of his awfulness. He chose to use his power to save the ailing Tiny Tim from death. As Dickens wrote, “Scrooge was better than his word…he became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.”

Whether Scott Morrison will come to the same revelation on the other side of his COVID-induced fever dream, we do not know. But we know where he stands, as we’ve lived it. In the words of the man himself, we should be “living with the virus” and “we should treat it like the flu.”

Scott Morrison knew he was having covid symptoms when he did this. pic.twitter.com/3T28g1DaWr

— Occupy Centrelink (@OccupyMyGov) March 1, 2022

God bless us, everyone.

This article was originally published on The Big Smoke.

By 2353NM  

It’s not hard to make the case that the karma bus found Prime Minister Scott Morrison in February 2022. A whole lot of poor choices made by Morrison and his colleagues over the past few years all combined to make February one to remember for all the wrong reasons.

Morrison’s discomfort probably started in late January with his friend Brian Houston standing down as the worldwide head of Hillsong to clear his name from charges that he dealt inappropriately with allegations his father, also a Pentecostal Minister, was guilty of historical child molestation charges. Around the same time, Citipointe Christian College in Brisbane emailed parents and requested them to sign a new enrolment contract that stated

We believe that any form of sexual immorality (including but not limiting to adultery, fornication, homosexual acts, bisexual acts, bestiality, incest, paedophilia and pornography) is sinful and offensive to God and is destructive to human relationships and society

The contract also required students to be enrolled corresponding to their biological gender. Even Prime Minister and Pentecostal Church attending Scott Morrison didn’t support it. Morrison went as far as suggesting that the contract discriminated against some students, however in reality he was likely concerned that one probable ‘acceptable’ outcome of his religious ‘freedom’ legislation had been advertised ahead of time.

Morrison did introduce a religious ‘freedom’ bill to Parliament in one of the two sitting weeks of the House of Representatives in February. The bill, which was supported by a number of ‘Christian Groups’ would allow for discrimination against those who didn’t necessarily demonstrate the beliefs of the organisation because of their lifestyle, sexuality or preferred gender while working for or receiving the religious organisation’s services. In essence it was ‘legalising’ the potential outcomes of CItipointe’s enrolment contract or similar activities. Depending on which MP you believe, Morrison had or had not promised to amend the Sex Discrimination Act ensuring that transgender school students and staff would be protected at the same time the religious ‘freedom’ legislation was introduced.

After an all-night sitting, the legislation was passed only after five Liberal Party MPs ‘crossed the floor’ and supported amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act that stopped active discrimination against transgender school students, initiated by Independent MP Rebekha Sharkie.

The next day, the ’conservative‘ Australian Christian Lobby wanted the legislation to be dumped as

[The exemptions] have enabled faith-based schools to teach their religion and conduct their schools according to their faith values,” ACL director Wendy Francis said.

“The loss of this protection would outweigh any benefits that could be obtained by the religious discrimination bill.

“With the amendments so damaging to religious freedom, the government should immediately withdraw the bills.

Morrison complied with the request (probably after ‘doing the numbers’). It’s doubtful the legislation will be introduced in the Senate this side of the next election.

The same week, regulations designed to cripple the ability of industry superannuation funds to own and operate firms that provide investment advice to the funds were also disallowed by the Senate. While Frydenberg made the regulations some time ago, they only came into effect three days earlier. Apparently the ‘for profit’ superannuation funds and the Institute of Company Directors were not impressed!

Morrison made a commitment in 2018 to create laws around religious freedom as well as laws to set up and operate a federal anti-corruption commission. There are claims Morrison apparently tried to also get anti-corruption commission legislation into Parliament in the same week as the religious ‘freedom’ legislation as a distraction to ameliorate the effects of the acknowledged flaws in the religious ‘freedom’ legislation. Not only was he rolled by his own Ministers, the action taken was leaked to the media with a number of commentators also asking why he left both pieces of legislation so late in the term of government.

So why would the Morrison Coalition Government choose to nail themselves to a cross (pun intended) on religious ‘freedom’ legislation that apparently not even all Coalition parliamentarians could agree on. As the ABC’s Brett Worthington suggests

The federal Coalition wants to wedge Labor, in the hope it can campaign against the opposition as being anti-religion in suburban electorates that will determine the election – a move that worked successfully in 2019.

But in order for a political wedge to work, you need everyone on your own side singing from the same hymn sheet.

The Liberal Party likes to describe itself as a broad church. Although, when five of your own cross the floor to join with the opposition and crossbench, you start to get the sense that on this issue, these Liberals come from a different denomination.

A week after the religious wedge failed miserably, Morrison and his family sat down with Karl Stefanovic on Channel 9’s 60 Minutes so we could all get to meet the ‘real Scott’. Probably unwisely, Morrison chose to demonstrate that he can’t sing by attempting to perform Dragon’s April Sun in Cuba on a ukulele. He’s also pretty crap at remembering the words to the chorus. The ABC’s Vera rated better than 60 Minutes that night. Morrison also finally found out how to ‘hold a hose’, at a media event in a hair dressing salon somewhere in Victoria. Yes, the obvious comparisons were made.

The sharks are circling in the Liberal Party. Both Frydenberg and Dutton can apparently see the writing on the wall and other MPs are either finding a spine or listening to their electorates on the proposed anti-corruption commission having some real legislative ability to prevent corruption. Morrison was asked at the National Press Club to comment on his former ‘valued colleague’, Gladys Berejiklian’s text to an unnamed current Federal Minister providing a free character assessment of Morrison as a “horrible person” who was untrustworthy.

With the election still a few months away, all Morrison has left is name calling, pork barrelling and inaccuracy. His recent claims that various members of the Opposition are supported by and behoved to China has been repudiated by the current and former heads of ASIO. His claims of the dangers of a Coalition Government (if it was between the ALP and Greens) are laughable – considering neither the Liberal Party or National Party have had enough MPs to form Government in their own right for decades. Sadly for Morrison, it seems that pork-barrelling isn’t a sure-fire winner either.

Simply put – February was a shocker. With Dutton and Frydenberg circling, will Morrison make it past Ihe ides of March?

What do you think?

By 2353NM

Prime Minister Scott Morrison spent the Christmas break this year promoting Australia opening up to the world regardless of the increasing threat of yet another form of the COVID-19 virus. Morrison claimed that while there will be people in hospital and that others will die, the economic cost of retaining infection prevention measures was too great. New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet was just as gung-ho, removing almost all pandemic management restrictions in NSW just as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was starting to appear.

While it is true that we can’t stay isolated forever, the reality of the past month or so is that as a country we have suffered through the highest death and serious illness tolls of a pandemic that has been affecting us for two years. Just think about that – more deaths and serious illness now, when the health experts have a pretty good idea how to minimise illness and death than at the beginning – when everyone was scrambling for understanding.

Agreed, the rest of Australia (except for Western Australia) followed Perrottet’s lead in partially reducing restrictions and ‘opening up’ their states. In reality, they didn’t have a choice. However none of them removed restrictions such as mask wearing and were then forced to reintroduce them, as was the case in NSW.

And while Morrison and Perrottet can carry on about economic recovery and ‘pushing through’ the discomfort, every person who has died or has been in hospital Australia wide as a result of COVID-19 complications since the beginning of December 2021 is a direct demonstration of Morrison and Perrottet’s absolute lack of understanding. There is a person behind every statistic and that person, their family and friends are all adversely affected by Morrison and Perrottet’s fixation on ‘economic good times’.

Again, we have seen ‘panic buying’ in the supermarkets (what is it about toilet paper by the way?) and disruptions to various commonly available services. This time around, the root cause appears to be the number of people that are either forced or choose to isolate because they or someone close to them is infected by COVID. Not only are there a large number of health workers isolating because they or those close to them caught COVID, there are shortages of people to produce the food, transport the food and stock the shelves. On top of that there are shortages of people well enough to provide childcare for those that have to go to work, drive the public transport for those that rely on it to go to work and so on.

The past couple of years has proven to us the real essential workers in Australia are not the politicians, the marketing executives, the share brokers or the management consultants, all of whom probably contribute to the economy. They certainly don’t deliver the food to the shops, stack the shelves, look after the sick, the elderly or our children on a full-time basis. It is therefore easy to argue that the transport drivers, shop workers, nurses, aged or childcare workers are far more important in keeping our society functioning.

It’s also easy to argue that the transport drivers, shop workers, nurses, aged or childcare workers are some of the most poorly paid members of the community. That is probably because traditionally these roles are performed by those who are believed to be unskilled or female – often both.

There is nothing unskilled about driving a semi-trailer into a suburban shopping centre and backing it into the loading dock or piloting it along the highway for 8 to 10 hours between larger cities while remaining on a timetable that is calculated to reduce fuel costs and distribute merchandise as quickly as possible, rather than help the driver perform their role easily. Neither is it unskilled to be standing there and fielding questions without notice about a range of products that is available for sale in the retailer you are working for. Nurses, aged and child care workers require specific qualifications in 2022, however their hourly rates do not reflect the skill and experience they bring to their roles.

For example, at the time of preparation the minimum pay rate for a full time Enrolled Nursing Assistant is $22.19 per hour according to the Fair Work Commission’s website. Aged and childcare workers are similar. Yet those who choose to follow these professions turn up at work every day, COVID notwithstanding because it’s really hard to provide ‘hands on’ individualised care and attention to others using Zoom or email. The share brokers, politicians and management consultants have the option to work from home with the inherent comparative safety that allows.

Alan Kohler, writing for The New Daily suggests that

Too many jobs are chronically underpaid, and they are mainly the ones done by women: aged care, child care, nursing, waiting, interior design, book editing – in fact virtually any job done mainly by women is both undervalued and underpaid.

And that’s apart from the 12.5 billion hours of totally unpaid work that is estimated that women do worldwide, worth about 12 per cent of the global economy.

Kohler argues

Government subsidies for aged care, child care and health care could be increased sufficiently to lift wages, thereby socialising the solution rather than putting the burden entirely on those using the services.

But with taxes being cut (ridiculously), government debt heading for a trillion dollars and the necessarily government-funded NDIS and defence taking a growing share of the budget, that seems unlikely, even under a Labor government.

Whatever the solution, politicians in general need to remember that behind every set of statistics are people who are physically experiencing the ‘unfortunate’ outcome portrayed in the commentary. And in a lot of cases, they have no option but to turn up again tomorrow and do it all again for around $20 an hour while hoping they don’t get sick or injured.

Morrison and Perrottet could help immediately. Two $400 ‘special payments’ to aged care workers who are currently arguing in front of the Fair Work Commission for a 25% wage increase (which is $5 an hour) just doesn’t cut it. Morrison could repudiate the ‘trickle-down’ faux ideology, abolish the future tax cuts and and actually support those on lower incomes. His political mate Perrottet could show him how it’s done using the NSW health and education systems as examples.

As proven in the small period of time when JobKeeper was introduced and JobSeeker was increased for the lower paid and welfare recipients, those on lower incomes didn’t squirrel away the money to spend on the next $80k plus 4WD ute, SUV or future overseas trips. Generally they used it to improve their standard of living by getting their bills up to date, fixing the car they already had so it was actually roadworthy or replacing appliances around the house with ones that worked efficiently.

Who knows, engineering pay increases towards the lower paid by increasing subsidies to various industries that provide real essential services to our society might actually go a long way towards growing the economy beyond what is possible now. It will certainly reduce the current gender pay gap.

What do you think?