As one day merges with the next and the year moves rapidly toward its own sunset, I cannot in all truth say that it is a season to be jolly.

Christmas will come and go and Australia will enter its annual month-long period of self-imposed thoughtlessness.

Then in February 2020 our politicians will begin to slug it out for another year without the slightest thought to how they progressed our country in the previous one.

Uppermost in the mind of this writer who will in February of the following year turn 80, will be this question: How can I better express in my writing the horrific damage that this government has and continues too insinuate on our society?

It seems to me, and as irrational as it is, people believe that the party least likely to have the answers that would guide us through this period of time in our history, is the same one to whom they allot their votes.

It is the same conservative government that is at present attacking whistle-blowers, press freedom, curbing peaceful protest, sidelining courts, and limiting advocacy by community organisations. All of which results in a decline in people’s basics rights and freedoms.

In Australia we are witnessing – a never seen in my lifetime – attack on open transparent government that involves the suppression of press freedoms and the malevolent use of our democratic institutions including the Parliament.

The Australian government is currently using any means available to it to erode constitutional foundations with new laws and practices that indoctrinate secrecy and strangle criticism and accountability.

Save the Children’s director of policy and public affairs, Mat Tinkler, said:

“The secrecy surrounding our offshore processing regime means that the Australian people are forced to judge the merits of acts done in their name without all of the facts on the table, forcing whistle-blowers to take matters into their own hands.”

Yes, it is true and it can be observed in all its manifestations across the world. People are voting for parties who have no intention of helping them and ignoring those who would.

Paramount in my mind is how do I counter their recidivist lying that has permeated the minds of millions.

I was recently asked what I thought were the major problems facing society, to which I answered there were many but I suggested that the overriding problem was that wrong people are in charge. “How so?” my friend asked.

Well, I put it to you that the right of politics are philosophically the wrong people to contend with the changes that need to be made now and into the future because all of them contain an element of humanity. An inability to combine society with economics is a prime example.

If capitalism is the way forward then it has to be capitalism that is supervised, regulated penalised and makes decisions that serve the common good.

Of course, we will still require free markets but it may very well also require limits to growth. Decisions will have to be made around not what we want but what we need. A re-questioning of consumerism.

On the point of people who are able to manage change. The right, who only see society through the prism of cash registers at closing time, will be the least able to understand that change is being thrust upon.

Conservatives have little idea of the concept of change where it pertains to common good because they only ever see change in increments of “what’s in it for me?”

In the new world we are confronting technology that is thrusting its way into every crevice of society, decisions involving climate change, ethics, education, morality, law, medicine, population, infrastructure, water, what we can grow and many other complex issues. The changes we make will have to contain a survive first ideology and not a love of profit first methodology.

In terms of energy and climate change it is clear that the conservatives – by their inaction – have no interest in changing the status quo. Change is simply beyond them even when jobs and profit are obvious winners.

The problem is that the wrong party is in power!

What we have now is known to all and I don’t think I need repeat my view of the people who have forsaken virtuous yet tuff politics for a politic that should remain in the place from whence it came.

We have at this time in our history a society that is so indifferent, so alienated and untrusting of politics and the people in it that they voted for a lot of hapless men and women who have demonstrated their unworthiness for nearly 7 years.

To say that they picked the wrong party is not sour grapes, but a statement in fact.

Only a socially progressive party that is stripped of the motive of profit and instead understands the difference between the purpose of life and the reason for it, is qualified to make the decisions necessary to survive into the future.

Monday 2 December was the 10^th Anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s Climate Change policy being voted down in the Senate. It was marked with speeches from Anthony Albanese, Ged Kearney, Josh Burns, Patrick Gorman, Pat Conroy, and Tanya Plibersek.

Last week saw the 10^th Anniversary of the Greens rejection of Labor’s attempt to pass an emissions trading scheme and in so doing put in train a series of events that were to bring great shame on our nation.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight the Greens may not have made the decision together with the Coalition to defeat Labor’s CPRS (Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme) in the Senate in 2009.

It was a decision at the time that was a “massive error of political judgement” that would prove to have consequences far beyond that of the environment but also on how we conducted our democracy.

“Australia’s carbon emissions would be more than 200m tonnes lower and electricity prices would be cheaper if the Greens had supported the carbon pollution reduction scheme a decade ago, the Labor frontbencher Pat Conroy says.”

Together with Tony Abbott’s decision to repeal Labor’s ‘carbon tax’ a few years later, they are arguably the two worst policy decisions ever made by the Australian parliament.

The result is that a decade on we still have no national energy or environmental policies and all sides of the debate continue to argue matters of science for which they have no qualifications and repeat the same arguments that they have already had with the same outcomes. No doubt an exercise in dumbing-down the intelligence of our citizenry with debate lasting a decade leaving one speechless.

It is a debate, however, that would eventually come back to bite them on the bum. The past year (especially since the election) the tide of public opinion has sided with the view that serious action against climate change needs to be taken.

When kids are leaving the classroom to protest, and the effects of climate change being evidenced; the science now beyond rebuttal and communities demanding action Scot Morrison is finding himself trapped in his own “Trumpian” lies.

People are now resentful of his ‘do nothing’ approach.

Even Royal Banking Commissioner Haynes has weighed in with a stinging rebuke of the government and big business on their do nothing approach to the problem.

Hayne said that:

“… the country’s “opaque” decision-making processes were seen by the public as “skewed, if not captured” by powerful vested interests, while leaders were “unable to conduct reasoned debates about policy matters.”

And as if it couldn’t get worse finally the truth has come out publicly as to why Morrison has been so smug about Australia meeting its Kyoto targets.

As I have written many times, they intend using credits given to us as a form of encouragement to join Kyoto in the first negotiations.

The current meeting is debating whether to revoke the rule that made credits possible.

Using or not using credits is a moral argument. Without them we cannot reach our target and proves beyond doubt that we haven’t pulled our weight. In the eyes of the world we will be looked upon as international freeloaders.

Pat Conroy went on to say that:

“As a result, Australia is still in the midst of a ‘climate war’ with no real climate policy and has higher emissions today than under a scenario in which the CPRS was implemented.”

He conceded that Labor had also made mistakes in its handling of the vexed issue of climate policy, Conroy said the party should have gone to a double dissolution election in 2010 after the defeat of the CPRS.

On that he is correct. They probably would have conceded some seats but still have won.

The Greens in their stubbornness to get what they wanted – with the benefit of hindsight – would have realised that had the CPRS been implemented, emissions for 2020 would have been:

reduced to 459m tonnes compared to the 540m tonnes projected by the department, which are on track to keep rising to 563m tonnes by 2030.

Had the Greens voted for the bill we would have saved the nation much political angst; we would have been world leaders and the economic rewards would, by now, be flowing into government coffers. How incredibly stupid we have been.

We are all aware of the rorting of expenses by our politicians. Who can forget Bronwyn Bishop’s famous helicopter rides, or George Brandis and his bookshelves? Or Joe Hockey’s claiming expenses for staying overnight in houses his wife owned or Susan Ley’s claiming travel expenses for private business.

And what about the Finance Minister Senator Cormann chartering private planes to take him home?

Independent Australia disclosed more of this rorting in an article by Belinda Jones titled; “Out of Control Expenses claims made by Federal politicians.”

The list goes on of course but when a politician is elected on a generous salary and spends much of his time outside the country, well, that takes rorting the system to a whole new level. A reprehensible one.

He is a bit of an oddball is George Christensen. Wikipedia tells us that he is a vocal supporter of the sugar industry and has rejected policies such as a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages aimed at reducing obesity.

He has likened the climate change debate to a science fiction film plot, but says “alarmist” claims are more comedic than frightening.

He has previously stated that Australia was “at war” with Islam. In July 2015, speaking at a rally held by far-right group Reclaim Australia — which infamously held a 10th “anniversary” for the 2005 Cronulla race riots — Christensen said: “we would be foolishly naive to think that we are not at war with radical Islam.”

“On 20 September 2017, Christensen moved a motion to ban the burqa at the National Party’s annual conference in Canberra. The motion was voted down 51 votes to 55, with Christensen saying he would continue to advocate for the policy.”

A joint investigation between Nine News, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age alleges that Mr Christensen visited an adult bar called ‘Ponytails’ in the Philippines, and that:

Ponytails bartender Marjorie Lamsen told the organisations Mr Christensen was a “very regular visitor” to the venue. “He was always very good … he was a big spender,” she said.

And:

The bar manager of the night spot, which identifies itself as an “adult entertainment service”, said Mr Christensen did not reveal he was a politician and alleged his “weakness” was women.

I have read that he recently completed a degree in divinity enabling him to preach the gospel of Christ but the latest news has him frequenting the very best adult entertainment bars in the Philippines.

He has previously stated that his frequent trips to Asia before meeting her was for church and charity work.

Many fellow parliamentarians now call the ‘Member for Manila’ because of his frequent travel to the region, including an astonishing 28 trips in a four-year period.

These allegations have surfaced in the mainstream media from time to time over the past few years even suggesting that George spent 300 days in the Philippines between 2014 and 2018. Now that’s a fair amount of time away from his electorate on the taxpayer. Apparently he met his now wife April Asuncion at Ponytails in 2017. We learn that:

Nine News, The Age and The Herald have seen documents, which suggest Ms Asuncion was an employee at the Ponytails bar.

Now, normally you would think that with so many rorting scandals behind them that political parties would wake up. How does a member of the House of Representatives get to spend 300 days holidaying (or) doing whatever one does at these places without being found out?

It is important to say that the AFP has concluded that Christensen hasn’t broken any law. Although they have said that he had compromised himself to foreign interests.

The problem here isn’t that of breaking the law but of the character and behaviour of the man involved.

He has obviously not represented his electorate in a manner befitting his office. Has the leader of his party reprimanded him? It would seem not, although both (then Prime Minister) Turnbull and National’s leader McCormack were both briefed by the AFP. McCormack apparently told Christensen to stop travelling overseas and focus on his marginal electorate only after he was elected leader.

At the last election – despite his constituents being in full knowledge of his escapades to the Philippines – returned him with an increased margin of 11.2 per cent.

Has the parliamentary committee who oversee such matters questioned him?

I mean, surely, you cannot get away with having 300 days away from the job on full pay without any consequences. Although judging by the inaction of anyone and everyone, you can.

George, the in-depth Christian, has decided to block the release of key documents about the federal police probe into his frequent travels.

Secrecy is fast turning into an art form with this extremely conservative and very right-wing government.

What sort of democracy are we? We are not allowed to know about the Lambie secret deal or the content of the Taylor emails; nor the circumstances of the secret trial jailing of witness J or the contents of an AFP report about George Christensen; and we are not allowed to know why Pastor Houston isn’t allowed into the White House. Why?

This government takes our right to know what they are doing very lightly.

1 What a terrible time it is for our Australian democracy, the government and its Prime Minister who is trying to cover up a minister, Angus Taylor, who judged by any pub test has lied about his conduct.

This is a sackable offence and the Australian people are entitled to know what is going on, but now we find that Labor has been denied an FOI request for the contents of two emails because they relate to an unspecified “ongoing process.

This government has made a mockery of the very existence of Freedom of Information by repeatedly knocking back request after request.

The two emails in question were sent at 8.52am on 25 October – the day after Guardian Australia revealed the controversy – and a second email chain at 3.23pm on the same day.

It is not only Labor’s right to know the contents of these two emails, but also the public’s.

When a political party deliberately withholds information that the voter needs to make an informed, balanced and reasoned assessment of how it is being governed is, in essence, lying by omission. It is also tantamount to the manipulation of our democracy.

2 The lack of any action by the government on climate change is regrettable. It is just trying to tough it out while it spends more on fossil fuels: but it is making a usually docile Australian public become decidedly angry.

Important to most Prime Ministers is the legacy they leave behind, and with Scott Morrison, it may very well be a picture of him in Parliament handing around a chunk of coal. The symbolism would be telling. A metaphor of Morrison’s complete incompetency.

It would paint a story of a man hopelessly out of touch with science, inflexible of mind with an inability to lead in the face of hostile opposition from within.

Having adopted the Trump methodology of governance bullshitting, sacking, threatening and lying he believes the more lies you tell the more confused people become.

It could be said that he may be satisfying those with vested interests, those with financial interests, those whose jobs are coal-dependent – those who rely on political donations for their survival or those who simply don’t believe in science but at the same time he empowers those who have the capacity to think for themselves.

But for all the untruth and repetition of it, those who inhabit middle ground, those who swing – who determine government, know that something is amiss. That our climate is changing not for the better but for the worse. Observation is the basis of all science. Finding the truth and reporting it is more important than creating a narrative where controversy matters more.

Repeating lines like; “We’re only 1.3 per cent of global emissions so we have no impact” has been trotted out and shot down so often as to be useless, or; “We are meeting our Paris targets” are wearing very thin indeed.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also gave the government an environmental going over in this interview with Katherine Murphy of The Guardian.

Yes, as I said, Morrison’s legacy might very well be just a lump of coal and all the judgement that goes with it.

3 Robodebt has been added to a long list of government policy failures that has left it red-faced and embarrassed.

Failures with the NBN, NDIS, climate, power, equality of opportunity in education, water, drought, infrastructure, submarines and motor vehicles. Marriage Equality’s success you can give to the people. You could make a list as long as the lord’s arm.

With Robodebt, management quietly sent an email to staff of the Department of Human Services telling them that it would abandon sole reliance on the controversial “income averaging” method and instead require additional proof before demanding welfare recipients pay back alleged debts.

The department also revealed it would review all existing alleged debts and freeze existing debt recovery pending the review.

And then they found out what they were doing was illegal anyway.

4 An illustration of just how secret our society has become is when a Canberra judge doesn’t know what happened to a man who appears to have been tried in secret. Are we now an authoritarian state?

Last Thursday Greens Senator Nick McKim asked the government to tell the Senate why the inmate – given the court pseudonym Alan Johns – was charged and imprisoned in near-total secrecy due to commonwealth orders.

Anthony Whealy, a judge in NSW’s highest courts, reckons the secret prosecution and imprisonment of a man in the ACT raises many questions about the quality of our justice system. The judge said:

Are we now a totalitarian state where people are prosecuted, convicted and shunted off to prison without they or the public having any notion as to what has happened?

5 The Prime Minister is still refusing to answer questions about Pastor Brian Houston’s knockback invitation to the White House giving the impression that he is hiding something.

6 On top of the Royal Commission into the Financial Industry, we now have Westpac breaking the rules a zillion times without caring.

With the government refusing to have a RC and repeatedly voting against it gives off a whiff of corruption somewhere in the corridors of power.

All things considered, the banks and large companies – avoiding tax and not paying award wages – commit more crime than all the unions put together.

But even with unions now only making up 14% of the workforce the federal government was hopeful that One Nation would support its Ensuring Integrity Bill, with the minor party’s two votes being crucial to its passage through the Senate. Meanwhile, independent senator Jacqui Lambie had proposed a number of last-minute amendments to the bill in return for her support. (Taken from the Roy Morgan daily newsletter 26/11/2019).

How anyone could barter with peoples right to receive medical treatment is beyond me.

Then in the midst of my writing, a bill in the Senate is voted on and to the shock and horror of the government, the bill is defeated in the Senate. Yes, the redhead, the mad scientist and the queen of Tassie have said “no” to the elimination of unions in this country.

7 Also in the same Roy Morgan newsletter and coming on top of the band-aid $500 million infrastructure spend announced by the government:

The Parliamentary Budget Office has forecast that Australia’s net infrastructure investment will peak at $38 billion in 2019-20, before falling over the next three years.

This is primarily due to expectations that the net debt of the state governments will blow out to around $156 billion by 2022. This would constitute the states’ highest share of public debt in two decades.

8 As the China Syndrome takes a foothold in the consciousness of our citizens Scott Morrison is doing his usual band-aid solution on our relationship with the great mass from the north. Logic would have it that in the future China will become, in many ways, the most dominant country on earth.

Time for a policy that recognises this and logically makes the most of it while at the same time caters for the most self-obsessed nation on earth.

9 The same can be said for the $500 million for Aged Care. It won’t even cover a shaving nick by a 90-year-old. Always reactionary never proactive, that’s our government.

10 But for what it’s worth the answers to these questions are summed up in the way the cake is carved. Take a look at my post on just how much money is used this government gives away to the rich in subsidies.

Note: If the title and the first part of this article looks eerily similar to yesterday’s article … it is because they are! A technical issue occurred. Yesterday’s article has been removed and here is the full article (as was intended for yesterday):

1 The heading refers to when one has spent a few hours writing what one thinks is a fairly decent piece for Saturday’s AIMN only to find that it didn’t save.

I had used the heading ‘A conga line of disasters.’ Diligently, I saved all my source material so that I could expand on each recent episode of bad government.

As much as I hate to admit it, I also deleted my source material so re writing is my only choice.

In my efforts to retrieve my work I stop and pause at the amount of stuff I have written over the past six years. It must run into thousands of articles.

If you add in all the other writers, it is no wonder our editor loses it from time to time.

As I recall I began with the fact that years ago in one of my many pieces on the destruction of our democracy by the conservatives that we should have a Ministry for the Future. (You can place any policy you like in it).

2 As we deal with the drought and find that the National Party’s answer to the problem is to build more dams.

Never mind that if it did rain and the mighty Murray flowed then 80% of the water would go to the irrigators.

Everyone has a plan, and everyone wants to release it. So characterless is the Nationals leader (what is his name again?) that it looks as though Barnaby has taken over again.

The problem is of course is how the water is dispensed. Who gets it, in other words?

Imagine if we had had a Ministry for the Future when all of the problems were first identified and forecast to grow inestimably into the future.

Why is it we react to problems instead of being proactive? With this government now in power for going on 7 years we have made no progress on a national drought policy, energy or climate policy.

That is genuinely poor by any standard.

The problems didn’t just invent themselves here and now and to invite prayer as a remedy is an insult to our collective intelligence.

3 But reports coming out of Canberra suggest the Nationals are most upset at being pushed out of what should be their sacred domain; the bush. So while this drought has its way with the animals the people and growers of produce the Nationals and Conservatives decide to have a Donny Brook about who should take the credit for the latest hand out.

4 They will do anything they can to assist people who are in the most dire of circumstances so long as it doesn’t diminish the possibly of a surplus.

Maryanne Slattery’s article in The Guardian; “The only thing as certain as drought in Australia is the stupid call to build new dams“ makes clear sense:

“The reason politicians don’t like to talk about these dams is they do nothing for drought-stricken towns and struggling communities. Instead they are on private land for the exclusive use of corporate agribusiness.”

On the subject of dams, or more generally lying, Tony Burke gave an impressive speech in the House of Representatives last week in which he names four policies for which the government blatantly – and unapologetically even – incontrovertibly tells lies.

They were: a) that Labor never built a new dam during its term in office, b) has to do with paying down Labor’s debt, c) is about us meeting our emissions targets, and d) had to do with extinctions and. And we can add another: The government is lying in the house itself and how it weakens our democracy. I urge the reader to watch the video (in the link above) and see just how Burke pulls the Government apart.

5 But let’s move on, for the Conga line is long.

Never in my lifetime would I have envisaged all our major newspapers, including Murdoch’s mastheads, simultaneously appeal to our democratically elected government to be more transparent about the way it conducts our business.

It simply reinforces the public’s view that our Prime Minister lies at will, lies by omission, misleads by choice and is evasive when we have a right to know.

6 Lying has become so ingrained in those in government that they treat it as a sort of divine right.

Journalism and press freedoms are an integral part of any democracy as is our right to know. Our government treats our right to know as a need to know. This is fundamentally wrong on many levels.

7 FOI applications are now almost impossible to obtain and when they are acquired, they are so redacted as to be useless.

8 This should not be taken as an endorsement of the behaviour of our news outlets, far from it. That is a different matter.

9 Here is another example of non-transparency in government. Did you know that:

“Australia’s richest private schools – which charge students as much as an astonishing $70,000 a year for boarding and tuition – can access cash assistance from a new $1.2 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund.

Senate estimates heard evidence on Thursday that no private school would be banned from accessing the fund, which was established in 2018 as a sweetener to quell the concerns of Catholic and independent schools about a new funding model.

However, public schools are not eligible to apply.”

10 And here is but another example of the Government’s complete lack of transparency:

“It pays to be in power. Especially if you’re one of the 52 people in Scott Morrison’s so-called “Star Chamber” lucky enough to score a secret taxpayer-funded pay rise.

According to the Department of Finance, as of October 1 the Prime Minister has signed off on 52 “personal staff” in his ministerial wing being paid a “salary that is above the top of the range of their classification”, adding an extra $1,414,272 a year to the budget.”

11 But no need to worry. There are some MPs in Canberra who have promised to campaign for more transparency.

The only trouble is that they are opposition members.

12 The mystery around an invitation to the White House for Pastor Brian Houston continues to amuse everyone except for the more seriously-minded political nerd such as myself. Well you see, the man in question went on radio Thursday to raise the question of his own importance but instead created another question.

Why is the Prime Minister going through this charade of not answering questions about the invite? The Pastor thinks it’s much to do about nothing so what does the PM know that we cannot? Ha Ha, is the CIA involved?

On the subject of Hillsong, in 2006 the church secured funds for:

“Indigenous development grants. Hillsong‘s benevolent arm got the money, which went almost entirely to employing and providing offices for church staff, with only a trickle-reaching Aborigines.

In one case, Hillsong Emerge spent $315,000 in federal funds employing seven of its own staff in Sydney to administer a “micro-credit” project that made only six loans to Aborigines worth an average of $2856 each.

Hillsong also failed to enable a single Aborigine to become self-employed under a $610,968 federal grant to encourage indigenous entrepreneurship.”

13 Did you know that the Morrison Government spent $170 thousand on empathy experts for advice on how to deal with drought stricken communities?

They couldn’t find it in their own hearts.

14 And you can add to that $20 million for Christmas Island to remain open with eight cleaners and six gardeners at the detention center for a family of four Sri Lankans and of course, to keep the island on alert for a flood of asylum seekers.

15 Now talking about extinctions we find, as reported in The Guardian that hundreds of Australian academics have endorsed this view:

“The science is clear the facts are incontrovertible.

We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, with about 200 species becoming extinct each day. This includes many species of insects, some of which are essential to our food systems. Many people around the world have already died or been displaced from the effects of a rapidly warming climate.

July 2019 was the Earth’s hottest on record. Arctic peat is burning and ice is melting at rates far beyond even the most radical scientific predictions. The Amazon is burning at an alarming rate. All are creating devastating feedback loops, releasing more CO2 and reducing the Earth’s heat reflecting capacities.”

16 It’s hard to imagine a week passing without Angus Taylor finding himself in trouble. Besides him not being able to find solutions to our power problems and looking after his own self interests, he is now allegedly being accused of falsifying documents.

All the Minister is doing is showing contempt for accountability.

The Guardian reports that:

“Sydney’s Lord Mayor has categorically rejected Angus Taylor’s version of how he came to rely on inaccurate figures of the council’s travel spending to attack her, saying “there were no alternative versions of the document” on the council’s website at any time.”

Labor has asked the NSW to investigate a possible breach in the law, however, I have about as much trust in them as the AFP to find anything against the Coalition.

Any wonder only 13% of us trust politicians.

17 Did you know that the Prime Minister banned Craig Kelly from appearing on Q&A in case he made matters worse on climate change?

Any half-decent PM would have done the same. The man is a disgrace.

18 I think I will finish with the Prime Minister. Michael Pascoe in the The New Daily asks if the Prime Minister is a nutter. (By that he means in the Donald Trump mould).

Remember that no matter what the portfolio, Morrison was always loath to answer questions.

He was always evasive, and everything was on a ‘need to know basis.’ As Albanese said last week, he is loose with the truth.

Pascoe continues:

“They’re “gossip”, “bubble”, and “family privacy”. Running away from what should be simple matters creates fears about how bad the answers might be.”

The refusal to answer questions in Senate Estimates last week was unprecedented.

In my two most recent posts, I have, in “The State of Play” discussed the background or lead into the 2019 election.

In the second, “The Bill the Australia despised” I canvassed the comparative campaigns of both major parties.

In this one I concentrate on the aftermath of the election and dip into the future of both parties. Firstly, that of  the Liberal and National Parties and then the prospects of Labor.

It is predictable, even inevitable, that those who participated in the Australian general election of May 2019 will step back and consider the result. Many have done so already.

Members of the victorious party – in this case the Coalition – all charged their glasses and drank of the well of the unworthiness of its victory.

And through rose coloured glasses – after it sobered up – found that nothing had changed.

They were still the same party with the same incompetent personnel. They had won yet another undeserved victory. Yes, nothing had changed. They were blessed with victory but little else.

The same problems (many of their own creation) still challenged them and they are now battling their way through their own incompetence with all the pace of conservative thinking.

In the meantime, the people who voted for them in their melancholy lethargy give not a thought to their decision to vote through their pockets.

In Australia uninformed voters unfortunately outnumber the more politically aware. Therefore, conservatives fed them all the bullshit they needed and the menu generally contained a fair portion of untruths. It was true of this election, and those before it.

Way back on August 1, 2014 I wrote the following:

How has democracy worldwide become such a basket case? Unequivocally it can be traced to a second-rate Hollywood actor, a bad haircut of an English woman, and in Australia a small bald headed man of little virtue. They all had one thing in common. This can be observed in this statement (paraphrased):

“There is no such thing as society. There are only individuals making their way. The poor shall be looked after by the drip down effect of the rich.”

Since Margaret Thatcher made that statement and the subsequent reins of the three, unregulated capitalism has insinuated its ugliness on Western Society and now we have an absurdly evil growth in corporate and individual wealth and an encroaching destruction of the middle and lower classes. These three have done democracy a great disservice.

Where once bi-partisanship flourished in proud democracies, it has been replaced with the politics of hatred and extremism. Where compromise gets in the way of power, and power rules the world.

Australians have tuned out of politics because of the destabilisation of leadership, corruption on both sides, and the negativity and lies of Tony Abbott. The propaganda of a right-wing monopoly owned media and the exploitation of its parliament by Abbott.

Somehow the lost voters must be given a reason to return. A reason that is valid and worthwhile. A reason that serves the collective and engages people in the process, and a politic for the social good of all – one that rewards personal initiative but at the same time recognises the basic human right of equality of opportunity.

We need a robust but decent political system that is honest, decent, and transparent, and where respect is the order of the day. A political system where ideas of foresight surpass the politics of greed and disrespect, and truth, respect, civility and trust are part of vigorous debate and not just uninvited words in the process.

The right to vote is the gift our democracy gives. If political parties (and media barons, for that matter) choose by their actions to destroy the people’s faith in democracy’s principles and conventions then they are in fact destroying the very thing that enables them to exist.

The misuse of free speech may have contributed to the decline of our democracy, but it is free speech that might ultimately save it.

Of course, since then the phenomenon of Trumpism has reached our shores and taken us into a pit of sewage that we struggle to escape from

Opposition in this country has much to overcome before it can govern.

As for the loser well sad to say that they are still recovering from a loss of momentous proportion. How was it possible to lose an election that was well within their grasp?

(Well I will address that in my next article for The AIMN).

Here, however, is my summary of Coalition incompetence past, present, and likely future.

If government is a work in progress then how come this one has so much carry over work from election to election?

Power: Whatever happened to the 25% reduction in power prices we were promised? When will the government tell us its future intentions regarding coal? You would think a decade is long enough. I watched Angus Taylor on Monday’s 7.30 Report and he didn’t seem to have a clue on national energy policy.

Snowy Mountain Scheme: Taylor spoke about Snowy 2 as though it was a done deal and that the cost estimates all stacked up, whereas I could see cost overruns written all over it. And not just the costs but also the completion date of around 2025 seems ambitious. It’s reasonable to assume that it could come in over $10 billion given this governments record.

“Initially promised at $2 billion, it was quickly revised to $4 billion and a contract for part of its construction has been agreed at $5.1 billion,” said Dr Bruce Mountain, director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre.

Climate Change: Will they ever take it seriously and admit that Abbott’s decision to rescind the ‘carbon tax’ was probably the worst policy decision ever taken by an Australian Prime Minister?

Drought: What is being done to future proof us from worsening drought? Does anyone know?

Water/ Murray Darling: What is being done to resurrect this once mighty river? Who was responsible for stealing much of the water?  Who is looking to its future?

Religion and free speech: With religion now (as proven by the last national census) in rapid decline will the government come clean on its proposals regarding the influence of religion and free speech?

Banks: The government is going through yet another ‘bash the banks’ exercise, shouting that it’s not us who are responsible for such low interest rates. It’s them, the banks. Now we have to wait for another inquiry for some blame shifting.

Newstart: The government continues to put a surplus ahead of any rise in Newstart. Their reasons are purely political and without a thought for the welfare of its recipients.

A fair rise in this welfare payment would kickstart the economy

National Broadband Network: Together with the tax on carbon it has been a monumental tragedy. To have spent so much money on something so important to the country’s future is a national disgrace.

ABC News reported the Chairman of Telstra, John Mullen as saying that the NBN “was a massively expensive waste of resources that has entrenched a slow, state-owned monopoly, rather than a competitive high-speed broadband network.”

Aged care crisis: It is totally incomprehensible how any government, whilst at the time of instigating a Royal Commission into what is another national disgrace, should instead seek a budgetary surplus when previous reports have disclosed problems that could be attended to immediately.

Immigration: Forget about the boats, asylum seekers are flooding in by plane. This is what David Crowe of the SMH had to say:

“Australia is on track to post a new annual record for asylum seekers who arrive by air after official figures confirmed more than 95,000 arrivals over the past five years amid fears of corruption and exploitation.

About 80 people every day since the start of July have claimed protection after landing at an Australian airport, highlighting a huge change in people smuggling operations since the government’s crackdown on boat arrivals.”

And might I mention those who came by boat and are now in year 7 of an unofficial jail sentence for not committing any crime. Shame, Dutton shame.

Inequality in education: The Australian Government continues to spend the majority of commonwealth funding of private and Catholic schools. This is fundamentally wrong. Every child is entitled to equality of opportunity in education.

According to this article in The Guardian, educational inequality has cost the Australian economy more than $20bn, as well as contributing to the widening gap between rich and poor.

International Diplomacy.:Since Scott Morrison adopted the language of Trumpism our voice of international diplomacy has declined into crass gutter talk. Sure you can make your point, but trying to punch above one’s weight usually results in a very uneven fight.

Instead of trying to build a relationship with China it looks as though we are trying to intimidate them. Ah, the art of diplomacy.

Trumpism: In his speeches in America the Prime Minister seemed to indicate that the characteristics of Donald Trump – with its self-styled disingenuous narcissism, hard right authoritarian dictatorial messages using accusations of fake news, or other methods to attack one’s opponents – would be the style he would follow.

The problems facing the world are global ones yet we find right-wing dictators of the Trump ilk using populism to talk about national issues.

Australians have a low opinion of Trump, and for the Prime Minister to deliberately copy his concept of and attitude towards life is to embarrass and lower the public opinion people overseas have of us even further. And at a time when restoring trust in politics is important.

Internally the Coalition’s hard-right is holding sway over the small L liberals. Scott Morrison has control but only for as long as Peter Dutton’s ambitions are kept under control: Usually by allowing him to do and say what he wants.

Former Liberal leader John Hewson recently wrote this for the SMH:

“Prime Minister Scott Morrison would have us believe that he is putting Australia “first”, and is governing primarily to reflect the values and aspirations of the “quiet Australians” he would also have us believe gave him his “miracle” election win.

He would have us believe he was putting Australia “first” when he sat like a muppet through US President Donald Trump’s excruciatingly embarrassing press conference at the White House recently, when he allowed Trump to turn the opening of an Australian manufacturing plant in Ohio into one of his cheap presidential campaign rallies, when he did Trump’s bidding on the trade status of the Chinese and when he grossly misrepresented our climate actions in his address to the UN, including a sideswipe at the messenger Greta Thunberg and other student climate protesters.”

The economy: With what appears to be an economy going backwards and the government more inclined towards a political surplus, just what does the government plan to do? Create a surplus or try and fix what they have broken, including many people?

On Wednesday of this week the International Monetary Fund reported on the state of the Australian economy and it wasn’t pleasant reading:

The IMF – again – downgraded Australia’s forecasts, slicing 0.4 of a percentage point off growth for 2019 and cutting the 2020 expected recovery rate by 0.5 of a percentage point to a below-average 2.3 per cent.

As the IMF gave the Australian economy the thumbs down the Australian Financial Review reported that:

“Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared his budget surplus plan will not be ‘spooked’ by international events, as the International Monetary Fund slashed Australia’s economic growth forecast to just 1.7 per cent and advised world governments to unleash a spending stimulus.”

Rudd prevented a recession during the WFC with a massive stimulus spend. However, it looks as though the Coalition, according to Mathias Cormann, would never consider a Rudd style stimulus.

Given that they have no intention of spending anything immediately on infrastructure and their tax cuts and other measures haven’t worked l’m wondering just what miracle Scott Morrison is praying for to prevent a full-on recession.

Employment: Unemployment is measured with a less than perfect analytical process (one hours work a week= full time) and is probably much higher than the current figure.

Any increases in work participation are only matching the immigration rate so when the government heaps praise on itself for creating jobs this is all they are doing.

It has become obvious that the party that promotes itself as the only one that knows anything about economics is making a mess of it.

In fact ,during their tenure of government this government has made a monumental mess of almost everything they have touched.

* * * * *

Thus far I haven’t yet mentioned Medivac, funding for health, funding for the NDIS, an urgent requirement to do something about political donations, a national ICAC and revised rules for Question Time.

We have been wandering around like a drunk looking for a drink under this government, from one serious setback to another. They say they have ‘a plan’ but in six plus years they have never revealed it.

What an abysmal bunch of well-educated yet incompetent fools we have in charge of so many important portfolios.

You cannot have clowns in positions of authority when the future of the country is at stake, and with two and a half years of his term still to go just being some sort of crazy clone of Trump wont get us to where we need to be.