By Ad astra

This short piece is not intended to be a serious treatise; instead it’s a light-hearted appraisal of federal politics. We have had our fill of commentaries on the ins and outs of the Canberra scene written by self-confident ‘experts’ who believe they understand the machinations of the political class. It can’t be all that complicated though; self-interest seems to explain most of the day-by-day behaviour of our politicians.

Instead, this is a search for our very own ‘Toad’, in our very own ‘Toad Hall’, federal parliament. Persist with me if you’re up for a disrespectful tilt at our politicians.

Why Toad, an inelegant creature with none of the refinements of a classy frog? What is it about this ugly fellow that attracted me?

I suspect it was the enigmatic personality of Toad in A A Milne’s dramatisation of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 novel Wind in the Willows (my favourite tale as a youngster), namely Toad of Toad Hall, that caught my attention at I grew up in what was then the rather sooty coal-mining precinct of Silkstone-Booval in Ipswich in SE Queensland.

He appealed to me because he was so full of ideas. Some were bright, some ridiculous, but they were always presented with such assurance, such confidence, such flair. His advocacy of his ideas was consistently enthusiastic, passionate, always patently honest. Yet the impetuosity with which he presented them resulted in blunder after blunder, which he conceded in his characteristic self-deprecating manner: “stupid Toad”, “silly Toad”, “ignorant Toad”...

The question I put to you is: Who, is our very own Toad in our very own Toad Hall, our federal parliament?

Who there has a personality that matches Toad? Can you identify a politician who consistently comes along with ‘bright’ ideas, who presents them with unbridled enthusiasm, who falls flat on his or her face over and again, but, and this is a big ‘but’, is ready to admit mistakes?

Or does your mind revert to the plethora of politicians who never do so, always seek to blame others, always find others whom they deem responsible?

Our PM is a past master at sheeting home mistakes to others. When have you heard him genuinely, I mean genuinely, accept responsibility, concede an error of judgement, appear eager to put the record straight? No, it’s always someone else’s fault. His verbal diarrhoea is legendary. As is his inability to utter a genuine full-throated ‘Sorry’. There’s always a ‘Morrison’ way of avoiding it.

Unfair appraisal? Reflect on his demeanour during press conferences, where his characteristic smirk bespeaks confidence, over-confidence some would say. Others may use a less polite descriptor.

Our PM is no ‘Toad’.

By John Haly

Much is made of the 21^st century being a post-truth world. Many identified it when presidential spokesperson Kellyanne Conway defended White House Press secretary Sean Spicer’s fallacious claim about attendance numbers at Donald Trump’s inauguration. Kellyanne Conway infamously referred to Spicer’s assertions as “Alternative facts“. This became a catch cry of satirists, comedians and news broadcasters reflecting the absurdity of presidential lies and fallacious propaganda. However, political manipulations of the “truth” are older than the writings of the ancient Chinese military treatise of “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu.

Populist lies

What does mark the 21st century is not the strategic lie of clever politicians but the blatant lie of the Populist. The blatant lie has replaced clever self-serving lies that take time and nuance to unravel. It’s an appeal to a demographic wanting the smallest of justifications to rise in the insurrection at the Capital or organise a packed, mask-less protest rally during a pandemic.

Great swathes of humanity descend into the 21st-century rabbit hole, emerging catatonic and confused into a world of irrationality, conspiracy theories, and QAnon. Framed by shameless populist’s admonition, whose goal is greed, popularity and personal gain/power at any cost to society. However, the political class has always been tarred with the brush of falsehoods by the public. Those goals aim to serve ideological or personal ends, but for the population, the falsehoods of this century have more dire consequences. These blatant lies blind us from the existential threats to us all, such as COVID-19 pandemics, climate change and biodiversity collapse.

Post-truth world equals Pre-Fascist realm

We should ask ourselves both why and how “alternative facts” (or, to put it bluntly, “mendacious lies”) dominate and hamper the cultures of the modern world and warp our perspective of the truth.

Here are my ten reasons why “alternative truths” hold sway.

1. Political advantage

Manipulating the populous through algorithms

Contemporary manipulations of the public for political gain are outsourced to the private capital of organisations such as Cambridge Analytica that resulted in the election of Trump and other populists. The data mining and psychological manipulation on behalf of Trump were detailed in the whistleblower’s book, “Mindf*ck” by Christopher Wylie. The broader European perspective of “This is Not Propaganda” by Peter Pomerantsev explores the dark world of influence operations run amok. It is a world of dark ads, psy-ops, hacks, bots and alternative fact propagation. This would include Firecrest technologies, Emerdata and SCL Group companies and even i360. The latter aided the conservative political gains in the South Australian elections but were abandoned despite protests from state branches by the evident lack of digital nous exhibited by federal Liberal Party operators. Nevertheless, it is a global phenomenon with many agents producing propaganda in social and mainstream media.

2. Media power and control

The dominance by organisations like the Murdoch press, OAN, and Fox News engage us in divisive propaganda instead of news and accurate journalism. Instead of holding power to account, the Fourth Estate is more frequently complicity with power. This is not merely an opinion but the legal defence used by Fox News to defend their hosts. Legal complications over the lack of veracity in reporting have long plagued the Murdoch press, but its power over parties and electoral influence is also a matter of record.

3. Cultural complacency

Cogitative progressions and the death of reasoning

There is a culture of acceptability for political lies and even allowing the lies to slide by with populist politicians. Manipulative social media posts that appeal to emotional or perceptual biases are propagated. “People feel free to make unsupported claims, assertions, and accusations in online media,” said Vint Cerf. As Dan York also notes, “The ‘mob mentality’ can be easily fed, and there is little fact-checking or source-checking these days before people spread information and links through social media.”

Not only do we disparage fact-checking and frequently could not be bothered to check political veracity, but partisan “fact-checkers” also have weaponised “fact-checking”.

4. Experiential evaluation

There is a cultural belief in the fluidity of truth in which opinion and anecdotal expressions are given identical or greater weight than fact-checking and well developed and robust methods of statistical analysis. Cognitive Research states, “People are also more persuaded by low-quality scientific claims that are accompanied by anecdotes and endorsement cues, such as a greater number of Facebook ‘likes’ as well as prior exposure to misinformation. In particular, the presence of anecdotal evidence can serve as a powerful barrier for scientific reasoning and evidence-based decision-making.”

5. Underfunding education

The defunding and elimination of free university education has resulted in an inferior quality of education for the Australian/American/British populations. As John Biggs and Richard Davis’s paper on “The Subversion of Australian Universities” concludes, “Today, our tertiary system is no longer able to fulfil its proper function in the community.” The deteriorating quality standards in Australian Universities leaves many graduates unequipped for the working world. Academic bodies have for years petitioned against the cuts to higher education to increasingly deaf ears in parliament.

It is not just tertiary education in Australia that is suffering a decline. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) reports that high school test scores have been plummeting for years.

The deteriorating education results in a plummeting of quality standards in Australian Universities. Access is based on economic capacity to afford education and the resultant financial pressure to pass mediocre students. Instead of passing students based on individual intellectual demonstrations of academic quality, a culture of grading on a curve is the acceptable standard.

6. Irresponsibility

A list of Rabbit-holes to dive down

People have not been held accountable for the results of their inane opinions, whether they range from:

• anti-vaxxers,
• the divinity of Trump,
• the benignity of Scott Morrison,
• refugees are terrorists,
• that conservatives are better economic managers,
• selfish wealthy freeloaders hoarding franking credits at the expense of the government,
• climate change denial,
• arsonist claims on bushfires, etc.

These people have largely been able to get away with their foolish choices and claims that have generated destructive results for Australian society and civil liberties as a whole.

7. Poverty

The paucity of resources available for adequate discernment or investigation of the truth is underscored by the crushing weight of surviving poverty. Ill-equipped communities, schools, and teachers have to scale inter-generational poverty and abuse that impact brain development, breadth of opportunity, material resourcing, and starting education at an expected time and age. Economic disadvantage is linked to chronic tardiness, lack of motivation, and inappropriate behaviour in school children and follows them into adulthood. Eric Jensen documents this in his book “Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids’ Brains and What Schools Can Do About It.” This is before we even contemplate the issues of remote and regional education in the vastness of Australia. Underfunding public schools and TAFE and tertiary education have a long history in Australia. Extracurricular activities such as music, languages, travel/excursions, and etc are only available to children of wealthy parents or private education as public education has suffered multiple ongoing budget cuts that date back decades.

8. The “means” of production

Beyond poverty, the working class and the demands of their labour, of time and energy in terms of excessive working hours and inadequate wages and working conditions limit their socio-political awareness. One’s financial needs for personal and family obligations leave little time or energy for contemplation into the truth of State propaganda and media bias. Moreover, juggling more than one job to meet the financial demands of survival depletes time and resources for contemplative thinking. The ABS reported recently, “Filled jobs increased by 73,700 in the March quarter, 56,100 of which were jobs worked by people as a secondary job.”

9. Dismantling opposition

Diminishing critical public resources results in the inadequate assessment of proposals and developing ideas. The data necessary to evaluate deteriorating social and economic business concerns vanishes. This has been exemplified by defunding and closure of legal advice, research facilities and a raft of labour market monitoring (specifically during Abbott’s reign) along with compromising formerly independent bodies such as:

• Productivity commission with compromised business executive,
• Climate monitors stacked with fossil fuel executives.
• CSIRO being compromised with Gisera vested interests in Gas and Coal, and
• fact-checking units within public broadcasting.

The result is that critically based research becomes more inaccessible. Misinformation is easier to find, and the partisan media spoon-feeds that to the masses by the bucketful.

10. Illiteracy

Literacy is a surprisingly large issue in Australia; as Benjamin Law wrote some years ago, “…an OECD study surveyed Australians aged between 15 and 74 and rated them on their literacy skills. The results were shocking: 43.7 per cent had below-proficiency-level literacy.” Some indicators since then have seen improvement but as Helena Burke in the Australian noted: “According to the OECD, one in eight Australian adults are functionally illiterate, reading at an OECD Level 1 or below.” Unfortunately, though, she continued to say, “At present, there is no national adult literacy policy within Australia.”

Infotainment or Knowledge

Broadsheets to YouTube how conditions have worsened

Criticism of relative illiteracy notes how many in the community get their knowledge base from YouTube videos rather than reading and comprehension. Short podcasts and videos provide a superficial education with little by way of citations to follow up. In pursuit of easy to digest snippets of short-form, educational content (infotainment) provides an ephemeral intellectual reward and a diminished perspicacity. As a freelance journalist, I am aware this article exceeds the Guardian’s word limit of 800 words and Independent Australia’s at 1200. Long read articles are a small specialist market for a limited audience as the response of the larger public is usually conveyed by the acronym “TL;DR”. So even for the literate, reading can be viewed as onerous. Ask yourself when did you last read a non-fiction book? While the Australian Council for the Arts determined that 92% of Australians self-identify as ‘readers,’ the time spent doing so averages 6 hours and 18 minutes a week. That put our country in 15th place in the world.

These ten factors contribute to the ongoing undermining of truth in society. We often seek simplistic answers to complex questions. Too many of us will not spend the time reading and examining the nuance and subtleties of issues. (Especially when they can be breezed over in a five-minute video.)

Too Long; Didn’t read!

Still, you are here reading this article. Did you just scan it quickly out of idle curiosity? Did you click on even one embedded link out of that curiosity to further your knowledge of something herein written? Perhaps, I got something wrong, but would you know from reading the link’s contents? Was that “reading”, or did you skim over what was written quickly because it was a bit long and … hell … who has the time, education, or philosophical inclination for in-depth understanding?

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

Australians for War Powers Reform: Media Release

The tragic situation unfolding in Afghanistan should lead to a complete overhaul of how Australia goes to war.

That’s according to former diplomat and acting President of Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR), Dr Alison Broinowski.

“Hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan are now facing imminent danger following the complete mismanagement of the withdrawal of troops, in a war that was never properly and transparently scrutinised in Australia. There was a serious lack of oversight and accountability on both joining the war and how it was conducted.”

“In 2001 troops were sent off amid the shock of terrorist attacks on the US, but many key elements of a decision for war, including an exit strategy, were nowhere to be seen. Now the Afghan people are paying the price, as the Australian government has failed to protect those who worked with Australian forces.”

“For several months, numerous experts and NGOs have been pleading with the Morrison government to urgently offer visas to these staff and we have seen delay after delay.”

At present the power to take us to war is concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister, and the Parliament has no say whatsoever.

“We need legislation to ensure that our elected representatives have a vote before any Australian forces are sent overseas,” Dr Broinowski said.

“We also need rules in place that require Parliamentary oversight as any war proceeds. Transparency and accountability to Parliament are critical. Australian governments have repeatedly lied to the Australian people about the progress of the war in Afghanistan.”

“There is currently legislation sitting in the Senate to address war powers but both the major parties are refusing to debate the bill. They have done this repeatedly since 1985. This must change,” Dr Broinowski concluded.

By 2353NM

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve looked at some of the less savoury aspects of the current Coalition Government, led (for the moment) by Scott Morrison. This week, how about we look at the environmental record of this government, which reaches back to the days when Tony Abbott was the Prime Minister.

Abbott was elected partly on the false premise of ‘the carbon tax’ which really wasn’t a tax at all. To be brief, a tax is something you can’t legally avoid paying. A trading scheme, such as an Emission Trading Scheme, is a process where if you make the economic choice not to comply with regulations, you have to pay a penalty. The choice is yours. As Abbott’s Chief of Staff admitted years later, ‘the carbon tax’ was a figment of the LNP’s imagination designed to bring down the ALP government, although to be fair, the ALP Government of the day was ably assisting the process by repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot.

It’s history that Malcolm Turnbull rolled Incumbent Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2015. Turnbull attempted to introduce an emissions trading schem in 2018 which assisted Scott Morrison to roll Malcolm Turnbull and become Prime Minister.

AAP has provided a history of Morrison’s environmental credentials which seems to consist of maybe Australia will get to net zero emissions by 2050 (most of the world is actively working towards it rather than being aspirational) provided someone else stumps up the money and his caucus allows it.

We should remember Senator Michaela Cash’s claim at the last federal election that (then ALP Leader) Bill Shorten was going to kill off tradies using their ‘work’ vehicles on the weekend by subsidising electric cars.

“We are going to stand by our tradies and we are going to save their utes,” Ms Cash told reporters.

“We understand choice and that is what Bill Shorten is taking away from our tradies.”

She joined a chorus of Coalition figures who have criticised the Opposition’s announcement of a target for electric car sales to make up 50 per cent of the market by 2030 as well as new emissions standards for petrol vehicles.

While ‘fortress Australia’ attempts unsuccessfully to repel the infidel that may be carrying infection into Australia, the rest of the world is adopting measures that will improve the environment.

To purchase a petrol or diesel vehicle in the UK after 2030, it must be a hybrid – and even they are being phased out by 2035. Norway’s vehicle sales for the year 2020 were 141,412, about one tenth of the Australian annual vehicle sales. 83.45% of the vehicles sold were powered solely by electrons rather than fossil fuel.

In Australia, we are subsidising our remaining two oil refineries to upgrade and produce petrol that would only comply to the current European standards of sulphur by 2024 and the government has announced they will fund the installation of 403 electric vehicle chargers around the country.

The Gratten Institute has recently released a report calling for the removal of new petrol and diesel cars from sale in Australia by 2035 and subsidies for fully electric vehicles. Even the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industry agrees with most of the recommendations

However the FCAI has agreed with other aspects of Grattan Institute’s report, particularly its recommendations for tax reform including the axing of stamp duty, import duty, and luxury car tax on all zero-emission vehicles.

The UK is closing its last operational coal fired power stations by 2025 and Spain closed 7 of its 15 coal fired power stations on 30 June 2020.

The Coalition Government has attempted to interest the private sector in the construction of a new gas fired power plant in the Hunter Valley with no response – so they are funding it through Snowy Hydro which is owned by the Australian Government. It’s no wonder no one would build it for them, as news.com.au reported at the time, the plant is likely to become a stranded asset.

But Andrew Stock, a senior energy executive with over 40 years’ experience, said the construction of a new gas power station would not lower electricity prices for homes and businesses as promised by the government. He claimed it would only raise them.

“Gas is expensive and gas peakers that rarely run need to drive up prices to get a return … Federal interference in the electricity market also discourages private sector investment,” he said.

“Any potential shortfall created by the closure of Liddell Power Station (in 2023) would have been filled by the NSW state government and energy industry’s announced plans to build renewable energy zones and big batteries across the state.

“Renewables are the cheaper, smarter choice to meet future energy demand compared to gas, which is expensive, polluting and worsens climate change. This decision is an all-round poor move for Australian taxpayers.”

In the UK, a major 3.6 gigawatt gas fired power generator has recently been scrapped before it was built

Will Gardiner, CEO of Drax Group said “Our focus is on renewable power. Our carbon intensity is one of the lowest of all European power generators. We aim to be carbon negative by 2030 and are continuing to make progress. We are announcing today that we will not develop new gas fired power at Drax. This builds on our decision to end commercial coal generation and the recent sale of our existing gas power stations”.

And

Drax’s announcement was made on the same day UK analysis firm Carbon Tracker released a detailed report into the costs of heavy reliance on gas-fired power. “Betting on new gas today means shouldering consumers with higher prices tomorrow as well as missing the net zero pathway the UK government has committed to,” they said, in their ‘Foot off the gas’

We claimed a couple of weeks ago that Morrison obviously doesn’t plan for the future, rather reacts poorly to emergent issues while trying to ‘market’ his way out of the problem. Last week we questioned the morals and ethics of a government that thought it was acceptable to award contracts that run into the billions of dollars to firms with Liberal Party connections without a competitive tender process or throw money into electorates they either needed to keep or thought they could win at the last election, rather than address demonstrated needs across the community. While none of the behaviours that we have discussed over the past couple of weeks have been acceptable, the real crime of the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison Government is the environmental vandalism they have perpetrated, as future generations will be adversely affected by the Coalition Government’s lack of action.

Technology and new products will assist the transition to better environmental management. To demonstrate the point, was Michaela Cash correct when she claimed that Shorten was coming after your utes when promoting an electric vehicle subsidy? In a word – no. Ford in the USA is now accepting pre-orders for an all-electric F150 truck with a potential $7,500 US Government Tax Credit! If a large American ute is what you need to carry your tools during the week and tow your boat on the weekend, you’ll survive in an all-electric vehicle world.

What do you think?

By 2353NM

There have recently been a number of ‘freedom’ rallies across Australia where participants seem to be claiming that the current pandemic is somewhere between a farce and a ‘deep cover’ operation by unnamed authorities to exert control over the mindless minions (that’s the rest of us). Some who should know better, including LNP Federal member George Christensen, exercised their ‘freedom’ to protest that others were taking away ‘our freedoms’. Pity some of the company he was keeping seemed to identify with QAnon – a strange group of people that allegedly take instruction from an anonymous person who posts ‘cryptic’ messages on obscure internet message boards despite claiming they should be free of government instruction and direction.

There were plenty that decried the rallies as idiotic but you have to wonder if in amongst those with an ideological barrow to push, there were some that are completely bamboozled and concerned by the government’s seeming incompetence and want their opinion to be heard. We talked about Morrison’s lack of ability to organise or plan for the future a week or so ago in ‘The dog ate my homework’. Concern and confusion about the government’s actions is probably justified.

What we didn’t talk about last week was the use of our funds in attempts to purchase favour and grace from marginal electorates. At the same time the Coalition are dishing out favours and opportunities to those that have supported the conservative side of politics in the past without even a pretense of fairness or equity.

Prior to the 2019 election, the federal government promised commuter carparks at various locations in Australia’s larger cities. Normally councils and state government build public transport infrastructure but it wouldn’t be the first time the Federal Government has funded public transport infrastructure. While it’s true that car parking near transport nodes will probably increase the use of public transport, reduce congestion on our roads as well as reclaiming the nearby suburban streets for local residents, the Australian National Audit Office claims

the Commuter Car Park fund started with a list of “top 20 marginal seats” identified by the office of Alan Tudge, who was then minister for urban infrastructure.

ANAO officials said the government chose where to build the car parks based on the votes up for grabs rather than the potential to ease congestion and noted the office of Prime Minister Scott Morrison was involved in some of the decisions.

It claimed a similar approach was used for the wider $4.8 billion Urban Congestion Fund of which the car park program was just one part.

It is concerning the Audit Office thought there was little consideration of the need to increase public transport usage, rather the objective being to maximise the Coalition votes at the election. Apparently some of the commuter carparks were over half a kilometre from the railway station they were supposed to be servicing!

In late July, The Guardian reported that

Canstruct International, the Brisbane company and Liberal party donor running Australia’s offshore processing regime on Nauru, has won another uncontested contract extension – $180m over six months – bringing its total revenue from island contracts over the past five years to more than $1.5bn.

There are 108 people held on Nauru under Australia’s offshore processing regime. It costs Australian taxpayers more than $8,800 every day for each person held on the island, or $3.2m a person each year.

While no new asylum seeker arrivals have been sent to Nauru since 2014, the regime there will cost Australia more than $400m this year.

And probably more telling

The original contract for “provision of garrison and welfare services on Nauru” awarded to Canstruct was worth just $8m in October 2017 but this was amended almost immediately – increased by 4,500% to $385m just a month after being signed.

These two examples are not outliers. Crikey has ‘a dossier of lies and falsehoods’ that make interesting reading.

The medical experts seem to suggest that the way out of the COVID pandemic is vaccination. The vaccination rate in the US is considerably higher than Australia’s, yet people are still dying. The sad fact is that most COVID-19 related deaths in the USA are among unvaccinated people. Taking part in a ‘freedom’ protest where social distancing and mask wearing is obviously not encouraged is only likely to be hazardous to your health. If people really are flummoxed or confused about the Government’s management in general, as some protestors seem to be, the best option for them is to become politically aware and ‘fight the good fight’ from the inside. The alternative is to be associated with a ragtag bunch of conspiracy theorists who could be the recipients of a number of ‘Darwin Awards’ in the not-too-distant future.

What do you think?

By Brian Morris

Authoritarian religion – throughout history – has had a seamless simpatico relationship with authoritarian governments. Think middle-ages, the Conquistadors, and Catholic pogroms against heretics. Over recent decades it’s become a triumvirate of conservative clerics, politicians and media hacks – trying to stamp out rationalism!

This census is a classic example of how fundamentalist religion, politics and media have come together.

Of course, they were driven to tightly re-group to fight off the dastardly ‘secularists’ who dared to challenge dishonesty in the perpetual census question on religion. It’s been hopelessly biased since the first census in 1911.

But what does it matter if the data is a bit skewed? More on that shortly, but first, what’s going on?

Secular groups across the country have commissioned reputable independent national polls, and voluminous academic research, to amass indisputable “evidence” that ABS data on religion is fatally flawed. It matters simply because there are serious consequences.

But in similar vein to fervent anti-Vaxxers, QAnon conspiracists, and Young-Earth evangelicals – “evidence” and “facts” are completely irrelevant to conservative MPs, fundamentalist Christians, and pseudo-journalists.

Take this incredible interview on news.com.au with Peta Credlin and Michael Sukkar MP, billed as the “minister for the census”. It’s loaded with hate and bile and panic – that Barbarians are hammering at the Pearly Gates!

The secular Census Campaign has been a measured and rational effort to present the facts that this religious question is collecting tainted data, which grants unfair billions to religious businesses. More on that shortly. But:

Peta Credlin: “Why are they (secularists) so scared of Christianity?” and “…it diminishes our values, it puts the family unit under threat if you diminish faith.” Really, how so?

Minister Sukkar: “…It’s an intolerant hatred of people of faith and of faith itself.” and “I think it’s quite bizarre that people would be motivated to try and influence how other people respond to their Census but I suspect that it’s an underlying intolerance and indeed a hatred for people of faith.”

“… pressure from relatively strange, unusual groups trying to tell you how to answer your Census should be ignored … these sorts of unusual groups (are) trying to pressure you or cajole you into answering a Census in any way other than what is truthful.”

Oh, the irony – they want their truth. But they can’t handle the real “truth”. Tones here of Jack Nicholson, from the film, ‘A Few Good Men’ (54 seconds). It’s the unvarnished literal truth that’s difficult for the indoctrinated.

And there’s more of this bizarre right-wing “fake news” here, and here, and here, and here. As you’d expect, too, social media is alive with anti-secular trolls who think the sky will fall in if the Christian vote declines (again!).

Which it will! But only marginally! And that’s because, like all past census questions on religion, it’s knowingly flawed. Nine out of ten psychologists will tell you that – the tenth is probably an evangelist.

All reference below will confirm the census question, “What is the person’s religion?” is biased, as it implicitly assumes every citizen has one. Links in the next paragraph show the government knows the data is skewed.

The 2016 census result showed 30 per cent No Religion, and 60 per cent Religion. That’s hopelessly wrong. ABS and government know that! They have no qualms collecting “childhood” faiths from people who have long ago abandoned a family religion. They don’t practice it, and feel religion is not important to them. ABS here and here.

The “truth” is that 78 per cent of Australians want religion to be separated from politics. The July Essential Poll, commission by the National Secular Lobby shows the current public view of the ‘No Religion vs Religion’ split. It’s NOT the 2016 result of 30/60 – but in fact 52/41. A two-thirds rise in No Religion and a one-third drop in Religion. (No incongruity with the differential in ‘thirds’, you have to do the maths.)

Keep in mind that around 10 per cent are “other religions”, so Christianity right now is around just 30 per cent! And all the evidence comes from the 152-page Religiosity in Australia report. And when all respondents were asked if they “belonged” to a religion, 62 per cent said NO.” Read the Executive Summary (better, all 152 pages).

That report shows that for all religions the ‘truly’ committed people of faith total only around 15 per cent! Again, for the speed-readers – only 15 per cent committed to a religion! These are known colloquially as ‘Devouts’ (10 per cent) and the ‘Regulars’ (5 per cent).

So, in truth, Christians who have a full-on devout faith – mostly Pentecostals (like the PM, Scott Morrison) and other evangelicals – number just 10 per cent. A small base, with too much power to sway politicians. And that’s telling too. Academic Dr Andy Marks shows only 7.5 per cent of MPs claim “No Religion”. Why is it now blocked?

So, the earlier question was, “why is all this important?”.

Well, it’s more that important – it’s critical. The article “Corrupted census data on religion ‘gifts’ billions to Churches” says it all – backed up by hard evidence!

Think about this logically. Conservative prime ministers from Robert Menzies, John Howard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, and now Scott Morrison – not to mention the ALP – have contributed greatly to the promotion of religion. They have all ignored the fact that religiosity in Australia, since 1911, has been in steady decline!

Be clear! This is not an attack on people having a faith; it’s about religious political influence and dishonesty.

Undeniably, religious political influence has steadily increased. In 2014 a full 40 per cent of kids attended private religious schools, up from near zero when PM Menzies first started to fund Catholic schools. In 2016 Catholic school funding was $12 billion, and public schools struggle for functional funding. It’s now education welfare!

Add to this the additional billions that the government ‘gifts’ to a variety or private religious businesses in hospitals, aged care and other public services – not including genuine charities! Concurrently, vital services in public schools and higher education, public hospitals, health and support, are basically welfare programs!

Just like the ‘sports rort’ and the ‘car parks’ rort before the last federal election, the multi-billion dollars funding of private religious businesses – all of which pay no tax – amounts to ‘spiritual pork-barreling’.

Peta Credlin, other right-wing media, conservative politicians, and religious hierarchies are absolutely wrong about secular Australians being “anti-religion.” People can believe exactly what they wish – even if it’s alien invasion, a flat Earth, or homeopathy.

But please, don’t weaponise your religion to rort billions of taxpayer funds, based on shonky census data – which starves vital funds from a vast array of public education and other services. It’s dishonest and un-Australian.

The secular majority – now armed with indisputable evidence of the ongoing rort, caused by a ‘loaded’ religious question – will launch its new campaign in 2022, when ABS call for submissions for Census 2026. The question must FINALLY be changed, to end this spiritual pork-barrel rort.

By 2353NM

When you were a toddler and those responsible for looking after you asked you to do something you didn’t want to do, you probably threw a tantrum. A couple of years later when you had learnt to communicate, you probably expressed your disapproval (then threw a tantrum when your disapproval was noted but made no difference). By the time you got to school, you were used to people telling you what to do, but you had a number of ‘reasonable’ excuses at hand such as ‘the dog ate my homework’, ’s/he made me do it’, ‘I wasn’t told’, ‘I didn’t hear you’, ‘I didn’t understand’ or simply ‘I don’t want to’. At the time, you probably considered the responses to be absolutely logical, argued rationally, clear and indisputable. In short, they were (in your opinion at the time) world class responses to external events.

It’s a bit like Prime Minister Morrison’s claims around the ‘world leading’ management of the pandemic response by his government. To date, Australia has been relatively successful at ensuring the virus didn’t get more than a toehold in the community. In spite of Morrison’s claims, the state and territory leaders have done the heavy lifting through building their contact tracing capability, isolating areas within their states where necessary to prevent the virus spreading and managing a quarantine process (on behalf of the federal government) for people coming into the country from overseas. While Morrison claims success, in reality the only two items in the pandemic response that have been left to the federal government were vaccine procurement and distribution as well as finding a better alternative to quarantine than that offered by the stop gap use of large hotels in our major cities. The ‘dog’ didn’t get to the Morrison Government’s homework – it seems the work was never done. As we entered the 2021/2022 financial year, there were lockdowns in 3 states and one territory, with other states telling their residents to exercise extreme caution, wear masks and observe various restrictions.

On July 2 2021, following a National Cabinet meeting apparently called to bring the state leaders on board, Morrison fronted a press conference and announced Australia’s four stage plan to return to something like ‘pre-COVID’ normality – where the virus is treated like any other seasonal virus such as the flu. All well and good in theory, but the COVID-19 ‘emergency’ is now 18 months old and according to Morrison we as a nation had a ‘world leading’ response. Had Morrison’s government started to develop a plan to exit the pandemic in January 2020, he could rightly claim to have a ‘world leading’ response. It’s not like they weren’t warned by the World Health Organisation that there was a highly contagious virus on the way and it was the ideal time to accumulate test kits, medical equipment and supplies and make arrangements for the isolation of people that were affected.

In March 2020, The Saturday Paper interviewed Dr Bill Bowtell, who was scathing in his criticism of the COVID-19 response. As he had a considerable role in this nation’s management of the HIV crisis in the 1980s, he probably had some idea of what he was talking about. Frankly, a lot of his predictions have come to pass. Particularly telling is the discussion around a March 2020 press conference with Morrison, Health Minister Hunt and Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly where

Between them the three men said the word “plan” 32 times, but in reality it was more like a blueprint for bureaucratic consultation. There were no concrete actions mentioned. None of the three men uttered the words hygiene, handwashing or social distancing.

By September 2020, we were going to have a ‘gas fired’ economic recovery from the COIVD pandemic. According to a report in The Guardian, Morrison’s announcement at a speech in the Hunter Valley claimed that there was no credible transition strategy for our energy requirements that didn’t rely on the burning of gas

He announced steps that could expand the gas industry, but few measures designed to boost the economy in the short-term – most were little more than commitments to coming up with a plan.

Morrison acknowledged the rise of cheap solar and wind energy, but beyond a passing reference, there was no discussion of a transition plan or dealing with climate change. The destination set out in the speech was an expansion of gas that could last for decades.

A little light on the detail, which coincidentally is a little like Morrison’s four stage plan to return to something like a pre-COVID normal that he announced on July 2. The first stage is ‘Vaccinate, Prepare and Pilot’ which requires a reduction in overseas arrivals into the country while we all go and get vaccinated when the vaccine is available (weren’t we supposed to be at the ‘front of the queue’?). As The New Daily reminds us,

Moving on to the next phases relies heavily on the rate of vaccination.

As of Thursday [1 July 2021], 7.9 per cent of Australians are fully vaccinated while 29.6 per cent have received at least one shot.

To see how we rate in comparison to the rest of the world, click here.

In the ‘Post Vaccination’ phase, lock downs will become less frequent and those who have been fully vaccinated will have less restriction than others. Arrival numbers from overseas will increase and those who can demonstrate full vaccination may be able to arrive in this country without quotas. Again, as The New Daily suggests

Phase Two of the plan will commence when enough Australians have been vaccinated, though we don’t yet know what number that is.

Mr Morrison said it will be determined by a “scientific number” in agreement with each state and territory.

Again, little detail. Apparently no-one knows how many of us have to be vaccinated before we move to ‘Stage 2’. But once we get there, ‘the plan’ suggests we then move through a consolidation phase to an ongoing process where COVID infections are treated like we treat the seasonal flu with some additional requirements around arrivals from overseas.

Cartoon by Alan Moir (moir.com.au)

The Morrison government’s COVID-19 management process is similar to his management of many of the challenges in government, long on rhetoric and short on achievement. Certainly, he should be guided by the medical evidence to determine a response to a problem that has a medical root cause, but aren’t we paying him to be thinking of the potential issues before he is forced to address them by the state leaders and have the information to hand? Telling us all, 18 months into the pandemic, that the Australian Government has yet to determine an appropriate level of herd immunity to a virus because they haven’t asked the question until now is insulting to us all. You might recall that vaccination was always seen as the way out of the pandemic.

Most of us are well aware it’s far more likely that a 7-year-old hasn’t done their homework than the dog actually ate it. Morrison hasn’t even attempted to give us a reason why his government’s homework hasn’t been done. Fortunately for us, the state leaders have demonstrated they have the real power, time and time again.

What do you think?

By Denis Bright

Like the tornado from The Wizard of Oz, COVID’s Delta variant has taken charge globally.

The Delta variant accounts for 82 per cent of US COVID cases according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on 17 July 2021. Just back in May 2021, the caseload from the Delta variant was still insignificant. Our world is mutating at lightning speed on so many fronts. It was a different matter until a century ago before the arrival of the Spanish flu pandemic at the end of the Great War (1914-18).

In the children’s fantasy created by US novelist Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919), Heroine Dorothy Gale’s support troupe takes their distresses to the Wizard of Oz after some leisurely adventures along the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City. Dorothy compliantly followed the Wizard’s advice. She put on those transformative Silver Shoes that would take her back to the familiar securities of family life in rural Kansas.

Today’s superpower wizards in the Biden-Harris administration have a seven-point plan to confront the challenges of the Delta strain to ensure all Americans have access to regular, reliable, and free testing.

• Double the number of drive-through testing sites.
• Invest in next-generation testing, including at home tests and instant tests, so we can scale up our testing capacity by orders of magnitude.
• Stand up a Pandemic Testing Board like Roosevelt’s War Production Board. It’s how we produced tanks, planes, uniforms, and supplies in record time, and it’s how we will produce and distribute tens of millions of tests.
• Establish a U.S. Public Health Jobs Corps to mobilize at least 100,000 Americans across the country with support from trusted local organizations in communities most at risk to perform culturally competent approaches to contact tracing and protecting at-risk populations.

Such proactive policies contrast with the condescending antics of authority figures in the children’s adventure story.

Novelist Baum supported the leisurely pace of old-world politics. His political support for the Democratic Party’s Populist Movement was embedded in a children’s fantasy. According to Economics professor Gregory Mankiw of Harvard University, the Wizard was a metaphor for President McKinley.

In the America First Traditions of his time, William McKinley served the US military and financial establishments with the consent of an increasingly jingoistic electorate.

After an initial but unsuccessful tilt at the presidency in 1896, the populist challenger William Jennings Bryan made two more unsuccessful challenges to Republican hegemony. The McKinley model of US global involvement now has largely bipartisan appeal in most countries within the US Global Alliance.

However, Dorothy Gale’s impulsive interactions with authority figures is still legendary. Popular culture seems to be caught between the two extremes of leadership. Today’s authority figures skilfully incorporate her homespun political values into their re-election campaigns.

A small stream of visitors calls at the reconstruction of Dorothy’s house at a park in the township of Liberal in Kansas.

Decades later the plight of alienated and suffering humanity has been revived in a re-take of Dorothy’s Song.

The lament for contemporary hazards has achieved some traction in the COVID-era and after four years of volatile America First Strategies of Donald Trump. Whether the Biden administration can make a difference is still unresolved at a time of mounting domestic political tensions.

There has been an upswing in the challenges posed by COVID-19 Delta-variant. Globally, the new COVID-19 case-load hovers around the 600,000 mark on the latest seven-day average. New COVID-19 cases are approaching 80,000 in the USA itself. More responsible risk-taking is clearly needed on both domestic and international strategic fronts to respond to the challenges posed by COVID’s Delta variant.

The strategic advice from Dani Rodrik at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University is to explore opportunities to cool the trade and investment disputes between the US and China. Responsible middle powers like France and Australia should support such initiatives (Paper from Dani Rodrik and Stefanie Stratcheva to the Oxford Review of Economic Policy-June 2021). The Biden administration has kept some slender lines of communication open according to an extract from China Brief from consulting firm Dezan Shira and Associates:

US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman will travel to the eastern Chinese city of Tianjin from July 25 to July 26 and meet with Chinese officials, including Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

During the two-day trip, Sherman will “discuss areas where we have serious concerns about PRC actions, as well as areas where our interests align,” according to a statement of the US State Department.

Sherman will be the second senior American official visiting China since President Joe Biden took office, following a visit to Shanghai in April by John Kerry, Biden’s special envoy on climate.

There is an urgency for some better news on domestic and international fronts for the Biden administration before the mid-term elections on 8 November 2022.

The Democratic Party has a slender majority in both houses of congress. First mid-term elections are often a challenge to an incoming administration. Even Joe Biden’s historic presidential victory on 3 November 2020 was accompanied by a net gain of fourteen house seats by the Republicans who are within five congressional districts of controlling the House of Representatives. Neutralizing the Biden-Harris administration with loss of control in both Houses of Congress would be a disaster for the Democratic Party.

Contemporary pragmatic values justify more than rhetorical good-news slogans over the quest for really positive outcomes. Unlike novelist Baum and his heroine Dorothy, today’s electorates are not going to wait for long-term changes in macro-policy settings. New opportunities for proactive risk-taking behaviour are seized upon in so many situations. Let’s take the Robinhood app for small-time investors.

Faced with low interest rates on savings and unaffordable rents and housing prices in major US cities, the Robinhood app provides access to Wall Street financial markets without the need for expensive transfer fees or large deposits in investment accounts for instant trades.

Image from Yahoo Dow Jones Trendlines to 31 July 2021

Robinhood investment accounts with appropriately green Emerald City credentials permit share market access in seconds to permit profit taking on currently high levels of short-term volatility. Robinhood Markets Inc. use investments in cryptocurrency and other speculative ventures to maintain their administrative network in California’s Silicon Valley.

Just in a week of volatile trading to 31 July 2021, there are opportunities for Robinhood investors to profit from short-term speculation which is what financial elites have always done in a more professional manner.

These are still anything could happen times. For Australians in one of the most loyal outposts of the US Global Alliance, it is time for aspiring leaders to consider the value of responsible risk-taking which unites old world heroines like Dorothy Gale with New Age players.

Logan Martin Winning Gold for Freestyle BMX Racing (Image from ABC News 1 August 2021)

By Ad astra

Asked what he wanted from life, a wise man said: I want to live; I want to be loved; and I want a little variety.

This piece is about the latter: “a little variety”.

Are you, like me, wearied by the sameness of so much of contemporary life? Multiple lockdowns occasioned by Covid-19 has afflicted all of us. We have suffered the monotony of sameness, day after day. As many of you follow the political scene, let’s focus on the sameness of politics.

When parliament is in session, I tune into it to Question Time to update my knowledge of the issues that are extant in federal politics. Though a genuine quest for useful information, this is where my weariness with politics gets its daily top-up.

Every day, without fail, Anthony Albanese uses his privilege as Leader of the Opposition to ask the opening question, which he spits out with characteristic sarcasm, even venom. Habitually, he looks angry, hostile, even belligerent. His demeanour invites a similar response from the object of his question: almost always PM Morrison.

We know what the tenor of Morrison’s response will be: blustering, assertive, aggressive, sarcastic. We have come to expect a torrent of words, propelled angrily from his emotionally-charged glottis. The enjoyment he shows when his questioner is wounded is obvious, even to the amateur observer.

Wouldn’t it be a welcome surprise if Albanese asked a gentle question, one that sincerely sought a considered, informative response? Instead, his questions are barbed, designed not to elicit information, but to trap, to trip up, to annoy. Instead of snarling Anthony, why not surprise Scott Morrison with a carefully structured question, one that genuinely seeks important information, one that soothes rather than angers? He might be left almost, but not quite, speechless.

Scott Morrison, you would surprise everyone if your responses were helpful, gentle, and focused on offering useful information. You seem though to fear that the colleagues sitting behind you might perceive such responses as weak, as going soft on your opponents. You know that they expect you never to concede mistakes, and instead attack your adversaries relentlessly, to disparage them, to highlight their perceived past and present errors and deficiencies. Every day you sarcastically parade the same old clichés, accusations, mistakes, and perceived errors of judgement with palpable pleasure, to the enthusiastic applause of your supporters, who clearly enjoy the daily circus.

Image from crikey.com.au (Photo by AAP/Mick Tsikas)

As a torrent of allegations of misconduct, harassment, and bullying plague the government, our PM likes to portray himself as an unlucky leader of an unruly party. But a new book Power Play. Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys’ Clubs, an honest guide … by former LNP Minister Julia Banks, paints a different picture, one where Morrison is not just complicit, but a ringleader in advancing the toxicity, a man more concerned with controlling the narrative than changing the culture.

And that’s why Australian women are turning their backs on a government that just doesn’t get it. Hopefully, Julia’s courage will challenge Morrison’s carefully curated image. But it does invite the question: “When will we stop placing the burden of fixing inequality on women?”

Writing in Women’s Agenda Angela Priestly spells out Banks’ dilemma: “If women with power can’t change a toxic culture by speaking up, can anything? If that happens where there’s a minimal power disparity … you can only imagine what happens to people who don’t have that sort of power.”

Enough said!