When this corrupt conservative reign of appalling governance ends, as it must, and the COVID-19 virus has been erased – in the aftermath we will come to the realisation that everything must change. Not just Australia, but the world.

In particular, the way in which we conduct our politics.

Conservatives will be hard-pressed to explain how the science of climate that discovered our planet is overheating and threatening our existence is somehow different (and unbelievable) to the science that discovered a virus that also threatened great destruction.

We will also grasp the understanding that our current monetary system doesn’t work. Capitalism has failed because it has no understanding of society.

Capitalism matched to a government that is society sympathetic could work. One that has the common good at the centre of its philosophy.

We live in a failed system. Capitalism does not allow for an equitable flow of economic resources. With this system a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level.

It cannot measure our humanness and its intercourse with economics. It only measures black and white or profit and loss. It does however measure greed.

In this current crisis governments have had the very unique example of human health colliding with monetary systems and billions of dollars will have to be spent on a peoples’ health and propping up our financial systems.

It does, however, give the world an opportunity to pause and question whether capitalism without government regulation and greed without conscience should form a part of a modern world economy.

“Like moving mountains,” I hear you say. Well yes, to a degree, but a renaissance is possible.

Three weeks ago Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers advocated that the government deliver a social wellbeing budget, including environmental outcomes alongside traditional financial indicators in the nation’s books.

He was very serious about it.

Extending it further it would give government the opportunity to wean itself off the multitude of ways it opens for the rich and privileged to reduce their tax and make companies pay tax and for companies not to receive subsidies unless they could demonstrate a return for the taxpayer.

All Jim Chalmers got for his educated suggestion was a decent serve from Josh Freydenberg, reported Katherine Murphy:.

“Now I want you to picture this alternative,” Frydenberg said. “The member for Rankin is about to deliver his first wellbeing budget. He walks in, barefoot, into the chamber … robes are flowing, incense is burning … beads in one hand and speech in the other … gone are the seats, gone are the benches … and in their place, meditation mats for all, Mr Speaker … hugs for all, Mr Speaker”.

Besides an apology to those Hindus he had offended he ended up with egg all over his face when he found himself making decisions that, had they gone into the usual May budget, would equate to a wellbeing humanist socialist budget.

Of course he won’t admit to it but his rolling fiscal stimulus is an emergency wellbeing budget. More so because the regular budget has been put back until October. (A scandal in itself)

Wellbeing budgets can be refined over time as objectives and priorities are decided but at the core of there intent should be a fairer distribution of the countries wealth and equality of opportunity both economically and educationally. Economics must touch base with society.

As I said at the beginning, these current tragic events have given us cause to reflect on our economics and our wellbeing but we also need to address the sort of democracy we want to be and the society that overlays it.

We must ask ourselves if we are content with the narcissistic, self-interested dog eat dog individualistic, stuff my neighbour, greed is good society we have now or can we dare for the want of something superior.

Will the events of this Australian summer, as ongoing and dreadful as they are, be the catalyst that might wake us from the political malaise that has bogged us down in a quagmire of narcissism? It’s the individual first second and third.

Every part of society, when you think about it, has been indoctrinated with a nefarious, conservative me first. Attitude that has seen the common good almost vanish.

There will of course be various views as to what comprises a society. Here are mine (you may find them a touch idealistic, but that’s just my manner):

Simply put, my society Incubuses a collective of people who have a desire to express themselves in every human endeavour. A collective who have at the very centre of there being aspirations to express their humanity, work, aspirations, spirituality, art, poetry and play with the richest possible diversity.

My society would have empathy instilled in their learning. Common good at the centre of their politics regardless of ideology.

This common good with equality of opportunity for all would be enshrined in its constitution.

A society where one’s sexual preference or gender is not a judgement upon your character and the colour of your skin says nothing about you other than perhaps your geographical place of birth.

My society advances the right of the individual to pursue whatever desires he/she has including the pursuit of wealth, which would only be regulated by the principles of the collective common good.

In other words, everyone is entitled to an equitable share of society’s wealth.

Freedom of expression would be guaranteed.

An enlightened society in which the suggestion that we need to legislate ones’ right to hate another person is considered intellectually barren.

Health and welfare of all would be at the forefront of its common-good philosophy.

Sacrosanct for all and access to treatment would be assured.

Most importantly, the principle that we should treat others in the same manner as we expect them to treat us would be indelible in the mind of every citizen.

My society would have a healthy respect for science over myth and mysticism, but at the same time recognise that each individual has a right to express their individual spirituality in their own way so long as it doesn’t corrupt the aspirations of ‘commongoodism’.

My society that would be judged by its welcoming, and the treatment it provides for its most vulnerable citizens.

Accessibility to the law regardless of stature or wealth would be available to everyone.

In democratic societies (the best – or least bad form of government) our herding instincts are realised by the election of leaders who form government.

A ‘fitness to serve’ stipulation would seek a clause in our constitution so as to as much as possible guarantee the most qualified serve in our parliament.

My ideal society would be one that acknowledges that a group mentality advances society better than dictatorial individuality.

If we are to live in a democracy then it is the government that decides and regulates the progress and ambitions of society.

Or at least provides the environment in which to do so.

In reality there is very little that is done in the name of progress that cannot be credited in some way to government.

Individual or collective ambition can only be achieved within a social structure built and controlled by a government that is sympathetic to it.

Those of you who follow my daily political mutterings on Facebook will probably know that first and foremost I am passionate about thwarting the decline in our democracy and the corruption that accompanies it. Amid the daily enraged voices of doing over one’s opponent there must be people with a genuine desire to change the way our democracy functions. There has never been a better opportunity.

It rather reminds me of the story of the boy who cried wolf. Remember, it was one of Aesop’s fables. It went like this:

“A young shepherd would trick his fellow villagers by shouting for help, pretending that wolves were attacking his sheep. Several times the villagers rushed to his aid, only to find the shepherd laughing at them. One day, some wolves actually came. The shepherd cried for help, but the villagers, who had grown tired of his pranks, ignored him, and the wolves devoured his sheep.”

The story rings true of our Prime Minister and the folks who decided to divest our supermarket shelves of nature’s essentials.

And being the laconic lot that we are to catch a wave at Bondi in the face of Marketing Morrison’s decree that we practice some social isolation. Or was that social engineering?

Anyway when he said, as reported by Sarah Martin in The Guardian: “Stop hoarding … I can’t be more blunt about it,” people didn’t take any notice. After all, why would you pay any attention to those who have, like the boy in Aesop’s fable, been telling lie after lie for near on 7 years?

Remembering that trust in Australian politicians is at an all-time low, again, why would you when only a week and a bit ago, Friday the 13^th to be exact, Morrison – in the face of serious life and death decisions – wanted to go to the rugby and his beloved Hillsong needed the weekend for its conference.

He wasn’t practising civil compliance or social isolation so why should we? People are just fed up being told lies.

What we really had was a prime minister telling us not to succumb to the same fear that his party has injected us with every year since I was an infant.

For as long as my memory enables me to recollect the conservative parties have been masters of scare; winning election after election using age-old scare campaigns.

The point here is that the story of the boy who cried wolf, as simple as it is, portrays the modern LNP coalition in stark reality. After a litany of lies, no one believes them. Well, in the spirit of truth approximately 50% of the population believes them (going by the 2019 election results).

I have written much about conservative lying, particularly by Scott Morrison. In my recent piece; “Truth doesn’t have the same importance it once did” I said that:

“Lying in Australian politics has also reached unprecedented levels. The Prime minister and his Cabinet have taken lying to such depths that it is not disingenuous to suggest that this government under Morrison no longer has a moral compass nor any understanding of truth.”

In another piece; “You Cannot be a Leader and a bare-faced Liar at the same time” it was noted that:

“Climate change has been met with inaction, as our nation slips dramatically in the Climate Change Performance Index.”

Look at their recent record. We had the White House exclusion of Scott Morrison’s Hillsong pastor Brian Houston from the White House guest list, then there was the great secrecy used to hide the Prime Minister’s Hawaii holiday during the bushfire crisis, followed by Morrison’s active involvement in the allotment of sports grants before (and after) the May 2019 election.

Not having learnt any lesson from all of this, Government Services Minister Stuart Robert – when the MyGov website crashed – chose to tell a lie, originally saying that it was subject to a cyber attack … when it was a case of numbers. In parliament he retracted but his first reaction was to tell a lie.

Robert is a fellow Christian and friend of the Prime Minister.

All that has happened or is likely to happen will take time. It will certainly not end in the near future or without much pain be it financial or with great numbers losing their jobs, or worse, their lives.

Which brings me to my final point.

Australia has suffered tragedy upon tragedy the past few years with nature’s protests against its treatment going unheard.

Floods, fires, droughts and now a virus has come along to decimate us. With typical human ingenuity we will overcome these things only after nature and the virus has taught us yet another lesson.

Our conservative government had no hesitation in believing the science behind COVID19 and reacted accordingly yet they have failed to recognise the science that speaks of an impending disaster with climate change. Will they go back to their reactive ways or will they see the truth for what it is and become proactive?

The final days to this tragedy are in front of us and much economic suffering is to be inhaled by our society. To what extent, we do not know. Most of the population has not even lived through a recession, let alone a pandemic.

In the aftermath of these experiences what will politicians of all persuasions have learnt? Will it be that gratuitous lying achieves nothing, or that the ubiquitous annihilation of conventions and established norms of conduct must stop?

If we don’t learn then a dose of enlightenment will have been lost. In 2016, I wrote a piece titled; “A Society for the Common Good” (Updated 2018). My thoughts on this topic are worthy of a discussion.

In 2016 I wrote a piece for The AIMN, Only in America: Looking at Trump from ‘Down Under’ (which was also published by the popular American blog, Crooks and Liars). The following paragraph early in the piece explained the title.

Again, I had better pause lest you fail to grasp where I am heading. In Australia we have a saying, “Only in America.” It’s a phrase we use when something outrageously good or bad happens, as though such excesses can occur only in America. It might be violent racism, another Columbine, kids being slaughtered – any preventable, tragic loss of life that repeats time and again for which no remedy is forthcoming. All of this is beyond the average Australian’s capacity to understand. In contrast, we also use “Only in America” as a term of endearment when some outstanding achievement occurs: a significant scientific breakthrough, a sporting record, a foot touching the moon’s surface.

I went on at length to use the phrase in the context of electing Donald Trump President of the United States of America.

If you are in the habit of reading the American news as I am then you will be aware that President Trump has really put his foot in it this time.

The reporting from both sides of the media has been of universal condemnation.

Since the coronavirus revealed itself to a world mostly preoccupied with how they would finance their living from month to month, Donald Trump, with his usual bullshit and lies, has been inventing, or at least trying to invent, a world that is far from the reality of what damage this virus is capable of doing to the health and wealth of the world’s citizens.

Covid19 is real and America isn’t immune from it and no amount of shouting fake news will make it go away.

Trump’s response was predictable:

So much FAKE NEWS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020

At his dumbfounding press conference last Thursday it was obvious his lies, fake news and “their out to get me defense” rhetoric went over like a lead balloon.

Quoting again from my piece:

From Down Under we see a sick deluded man of no redeeming features, full of racial hatred, bile and misogyny. A deluded pathetic liar unsuitable for the highest office in the land, if not the world.

He sees complex problems and impregnates them with populism and implausible black and white solutions.

He is a person of limited intellect and understanding only capable of seeing the world through the prism of his own wealth. The far edges of knowledge seem to have passed him by. Matters requiring deep philosophical consideration seem beyond him.

Trumps’ handling of the coronavirus emergency has been so bad that it may have ended his presidency. That’s not just a loan voice from Down Under, just read the American media.

Questions have been raised, writes Peter Wehner for The Atlantic, about fiascos in:

“… diagnostic testing, not testing enough people, and the delay in doing so together with problems in the supply chain. The delay in expanding testing to labs outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and problems in the supply chain.”

Judging from Trump’s demeanor at the press conference he has completely lost control of the emergency that is this coronavirus.

It would be an understatement that the USA is following the rest of the world but that is the truth of the matter.

The virus entered customs, and passed through the checkpoints a few weeks before the Americans discovered it. Now they are at the back on the queue.

Trump reportedly didn’t take early warning advice from about the severity of the virus … and that an outbreak was predictable.

You can add to that the fact that it was Trump who dismantled the National Security Council’s Global Health Office (no doubt because Obama formed it) whose job it was to warn of such outbreaks.

Is it any wonder that not only the media but also the general public are furious with the President?

The master of misinformation has claimed that America had contained the virus, “shut it down,” when the facts suggest it was spreading. Watch his speech on YouTube.

He said testing was available when it obviously wasn’t. The same about a vaccine that is at least a year away.

On top of that he couldn’t resist the Obama administration being responsible for something and it was that they impeded testing.

The master liar said the deaths in Italy were going down when in actual fact they were dramatically increasing.

He reached new heights when he admitted that he wanted to keep a cruise ship, off the California coast, rather than tying it up so that the count of reported cases of the coronavirus would be exaggeratedly low.

He said all these deplorable things one week and declared an emergency the next. Now there’s a leader for you.

The Oval Office speech did nothing to reassure the American people that he was on top of the emergency. It did nothing for the financial markets except turn them into a nose-dive. He even misrepresented his government’s policies.

It was a Murphy’s Law speech. Whatever could go wrong, did. The whole country woke the next day wondering what had happened. He had put the fear of God on them.

From Down Under we see a sick deluded man of no redeeming features, one full of racial hatred, bile and misogyny. A gullible pathetic liar unsuitable for the highest office in the land, if not the world.

He sees complex problems and impregnates them with populism and implausible black and white solutions.

He is a person of limited intellect and understanding only capable of seeing the world through the prism of his own wealth.

The far edges of knowledge seem to have passed him by. Matters requiring deep philosophical consideration seem beyond him.

If the coronavirus emergency is an example of his leadership in a crisis then God help us. I maybe wrong, but this time confronted with issues of their own health I think the American people will see him for the fool that he is.

“Another two years!” I hear you say.

While I have been resting up the past week or so after eye surgery I have also been adding to my “to read” list, which is in danger of self-destruction. So much so that I don’t think I will ever get through it all.

So, here is a brief overview of what’s in my “to read” box.

1 Besides the Coronavirus, I don’t think anything has gotten more coverage in the mainstream media than the “Sports rorts affair.”

The Prime Minister’s arrogant dismissal of a journalist trying to ask a question about it last week all but acknowledges the fact that he was up to his neck in composing the final list. McKenzie, in an act of self-defence, has said that she didn’t take any part in the selection process after the deadline.

It has now been firmly established that the Prime Minister is a first-class liar. However, writes Nick Feik in The Monthly:

“If we accept McKenzie’s statement, the only possible explanations for what occurred on April 11 are these: that someone in her office was independently making changes in her name without her approval; or that the prime minister’s office was dictating these changes.”

McKenzie herself adds:

“I did not make any changes or annotations to this brief or its attachments after 4 April 2019.”

Michael Pascoe writing for The New Daily suggests that he was lazy when he “stopped counting politically rorted federal grant programs when I got to $1.1 billion.”

He should have kept going to reach $8.1 billion.

That’s the total for 11 federal programs that have serious question marks – or worse – over their ethics, probity and basic governance.

That governments get away with this sort of corruption in a democracy such as ours speaks volumes for their dishonesty.

One of the funniest things I read during my break was this statement by the Prime Minister in The Canberra Times:

“Members of Parliament “live and breathe,” in their communities, giving them a better sense of what is needed than public servants”

QUOTE (Laura Tingle at AFR/ABC, 29/2/20): “The bitter dangers of budget politics, you would think, might make governments a little more careful about how they spend money, and how they manage things that they do control, like observing the law.

But while we continue to watch sanctimonious parsimony from MPs explaining why they can’t give the unemployed enough money to eat, the ongoing saga of the sports rorts scandal, and a broader picture of pork barrelling on an industrial scale, shows them not only cavalier in the way they spend our money to achieve their own political goals, but apparently not all that fussed about niceties such as the law and the constitution.”

Whatever the outcome I think it is fair to say that the Prime Minister has done himself immense harm. The sort of harm that sticks and creates an impression of one’s character.

In Scott Morrison’s case, he has only added to the blows his reputation took over his inaction over the fires. However, the electorate now knows that he is not quite the Christian man they thought him to be. He is a liar.

2 We haven’t seen the end of the hand out rorts.

The Guardian reported on 9 March that the former Indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion approved more than $560m worth of funding in his final six weeks in the role ahead of the announcement of the federal election in 2019.

Constitutional lawyers have given opinions that all the subsidies are unlawful but it seems that if they are not challenged then the government just gets away with it and life goes on. And there is no point asking the AFP to investigate. If it is the conservative side there is a “don’t touch” sign on the front door.

3 It’s rather like the government not being challenged about their efforts in continuously closing down the parliament.

I don’t know what the record is but this conservative government must be very close to it. “I move that the member no longer be heard” … four words after the Leader of the Opposition begins to speak.

And with the vote goes any portent of us being a democracy. The government immediately should stop stifling debate on issues like overseas companies not paying tax.

Maybe the government is acting on advice that the electorate is sick of all the constant bickering and would be better off doing nothing. Well, they would, given their record, probably stuff that up also.

But then with only six sitting weeks left for the year and no policies to debate they may as well take a leaf out of George Christiansen’s book and take up residence in, wherever it is he disappears into.

Yes, this “much to do about nothing” government has been doing it for almost 7 years. Enough time to catch a virus.

4 The same applies to this passage in the Reddit:

“Why did Scott Morrison finally admit this week he sought to have Hillsong pastor Brian Houston invited to a state dinner at the White House? For months he refused to answer questions about it, following a Wall Street Journal story on the matter.”

Talking about Hillsong, I came across this on the Channel 7 News site:

“Controversial megachurch Hillsong has pulled a page on its website detailing plans to recruit teenagers in state schools across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory in 2020.”

It’s what they do.

5 In a piece on the Hobbledehoy blog, British writer Nate White writes the best description of Donald Trump I have ever read. Just an exceptional piece of writing.

6 The demise of AAP is but a sad moment in the history of Australian news-gathering. Who is to blame. Well, Rupert’s rags are blaming everyone else but themselves, however, a very revealing piece in The Guardian said that:

“News Corp and Nine told staff they no longer wanted to subsidise a breaking news service for their competitors.”

It had Rupert’s hatred of competition all over it.

7 A blog that I came across late last year but plan to visit more often is the Sydney Criminal Lawyers. It contains some very useful information such their article How Do You Rate Morrison’s Performance in 2019?

They write that:

Sadly for many, our ‘lucky country’ has been trending in the wrong direction in several areas, as:

• The economy is in tatters, with national debt eclipsing the levels it reached during the purported ‘debt and deficit crisis’;
• There continues to be analarming erosion of individual freedoms and a concerted campaign to crush trade unions, and to silence protesters and those who are critical of government;
• The governmentrefuses to raise social security payments, despite recipients being barely able to afford housing and food;
• Homelessnesscontinues to rise and homeless people continue to be criminalised;
• Domestic violence is atall-time highs;
• Robodebt –which the Federal Court recently found to be ‘unlawful’ – has caused anxiety in many Australians and led to a number of suicides;
• Indigenous people continue to die in custody at unacceptable rates;
• Banks have beencaught behaving unlawfully, despite our leader having repeatedly voted against a Banking Royal Commission; and
• Climate change has been met with inaction, asour nation slips dramatically in the Climate Change Performance Index.

Hundreds of small businesses around the nation are bearing the cost of supporting the nation through these times, while big multi-national corporations get away with paying minimal or no tax.

Many farmers can’t feed their stock, some have given up. Fruit and vegetable producers are going bankrupt.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. And, undoubtedly, these can be incredibly complex and difficult issues to solve – which call for seeds to be sewn to achieve long-term success.

Many have criticised our man at the helm for taking an overseas vacation while fires raged across our nation, for holding up a piece of coal in Parliament as if it were the Holy Grail and for his dogged determination to ensure people of faith are allowed to express their beliefs, no matter how divisive and destructive they may be, and to discriminate against non-believers.

 

8 I was also interested to read Oxfam’s annual report on wealth and it is inescapable when looking at the facts that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. “So what,” you say, “we all know that.” The point though is that the concentration of wealth is becoming more confined to a smaller and smaller group. 

Reviewing the report, The ABC notes that:

“Australia’s rich keep getting richer, with the top 1 per cent of Australians having more than double the wealth of the entire bottom 50 per cent — or more than 12.5 million people – according to Oxfam.”

They continue:

“Oxfam’s annual list highlighting inequality has found the number of billionaires in Australia decreased from 43 in 2018 to 36 in 2019, but that the number has more than tripled over the past 10 years and the value of their wealth is still increasing.

The report, being released ahead of the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, found that the wealth of Australian billionaires, who are mostly men, grew by an average of $US460 million from 2018 to 2019.

Oxfam Australia chief executive Lyn Morgan said the top 1 per cent of Australians, just 250,000 people, owned nearly $US1.6 trillion — equating to 22.2 per cent of the nation’s wealth.

“This concentration of wealth in the hands of the super-rich is occurring while the share of wealth of the bottom half of our community has decreased over the last decade and workers’ wages continue to stagnate in Australia,” she said.

The world’s billionaires, 2,153 people in 2019, have more wealth between them than 4.6 billion people.

The report found the richest 22 men in the world own more wealth than all the women in Africa.”

9 Who said this? “Trump is the leading climate denier in the world. He’s leading the most influential nation in the world and he’s actively working against global action to reduce emissions.”

10 On Wednesday I tuned into a debate on the ABC about yet another stuff up by the government. The building of our fleet of 8 submarines by the French and the enormous cost blowouts. Added to the Robodebt, Energy, Climate Change, NDIS and the National Broadband Network you can see why people are fed up.

Anything this government touches it leaves behind a trail of wreckage as long as an airport runway. It is hard to think of a single notable achievement for which the three governments, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison will be credited or remembered for. And Morrison still praises himself at every opportunity.

“Another two years of that!” I hear you say. “God help us!”

Nothing divides a community, or a nation for that matter, more than inequality yet conservatives through out history have practised it with fervour unequalled by any other political philosophy.

Lack of equal treatment, inequality of opportunity as in education, inequality of opportunity in team selection. Inequality in sharing the country’s wealth, health services, aged care, or social service payments like the dole.

That’s what inequality means. It’s when the government assists those who have more than those who have not. It is a servant-master discipline or born to rule attitude that prevents it.

Conservatives say that their only responsibility is to help those who are in danger of falling through the safety net. After that they reward those who have a go. How they measure that, I don’t know.

Why then are they so hell bent on assisting those who “have”?

The Sports Rorts affair has shown just how elitist this government is. They are rotten, by any measure.

The evidence is in. The ‘Christian’ Prime Minister is an unmitigated liar. Nothing is more unedifying than a government handing out grants to sporting bodies in their own electorates.

If you judge a government on how it treats its most disadvantaged then this government would be lucky to score a point.

Do we in an equitable sense share the country’s wealth? When hundreds of companies pay no tax and others receive billions in subsidies while making huge profits could you say we are a nation of equality?

When the rich and privileged have a smorgasbord of tax breaks from which to choose, could you say that equality sets us apart from other nations?

When the law becomes a resource affordable only to the rich can you honestly plead a case for equality?

When our Indigenous folk are told year after year that we will bridge the gap of inequality, and we fail them,  can you openly preach the gospel of equality? Of course not.

When the government openly admits that it is deliberately keeping wages low can you see any equality?

When women suffer high incidence of domestic violence how do you explain equality to others?

Now we even find that children with development delay and who live in lower socioeconomic seats are waiting longer for a diagnosis than their counterparts in government seats in order to seek assistance from the NDIS.

In recent years Australian conservative governments have changed the way rises to the pension are calculated to save them billions of dollars.

A few years ago single mothers received $700 to help their children start the school year and pensioners got $1000 dollars toward the cost of their partner’s funeral. All have disappeared and there are many more examples.

The incidence of wages theft has become blight on the business sector but those on the right would have us believe that it is all so complicated that large businesses are just making tardy errors.

Home ownership is ever becoming but a dream for the low paid and in the meantime those who have purchase, with the assistance of the government, as many properties as they want.

From Gareth Hutchens in The Guardian, (30 September 17):

“In a speech to the Business Council of Australia on Thursday evening, Morrison said the Treasury and the Reserve Bank had found, in specific analysis of current wage fundamentals, that wages were growing slowly across most industries in the economy, and most regions of the country.

And six months later Michael Janda for the ABC reports:

“Using Treasury data, as well as various ABS figures and the University of Melbourne’s HILDA survey, Per Capita calculated that major tax concessions totalling $135 billion to the rich per year were costing the budget more than the four main welfare payments — the aged pension, family assistance payments, disability benefits and Newstart — combined.”

That is astonishing. Even more amazing is the fact that the research for Anglicare finds more than half of the benefit from tax concessions goes to the wealthiest fifth of households.

“The vast wealth generated over the last three decades has decisively gone into the hands of the privileged few, and not the many.” (Inequality in Australia).

It is true to say that we haven’t had a recession since 91/92 but our wages growth has been the slowest of any sustained period since World War 2.

The fact that they are deliberately keeping wages down is both a mystery and an indictment of the Morrison government.

In terms of a more equitable share of the country’s wealth we did better post-war than we are doing now.

Despite record profits and record growth inequality in Australia over the last three decades has bounded along like an intoxicated roo.

The latest Oxfam report shows that Australia’s top richest 1% have more than double the wealth of the total bottom 50% – or more than 12.5 million of us.

Globally, the wealthiest 1 per cent of people in the world has more than double the wealth of 6.9 billion people.

The problem is an historical misunderstanding of the relationship of money and society. The origin of money in ancient Greece resulted in the formation of class societies with inequality an unintended circumstance. It all happened at the same time.

Instead of being just a means of recompense or a medium of exchange, over time, money for public purpose came into being and the characteristic of money and inequality came with it.

The evolution of money was closely intertwined with the rise and consolidation of what we know as class society. Harmony and the use of money to procure it were forgotten and greed became entrenched. In modern society money, a class society, and inequality has become a huge problem because there is nothing natural about the existence of socioeconomic inequality.

“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” is a saying that we hear often and there is no doubting its truthfulness.

This concentration of wealth is astonishing.

The world’s billionaires, 2,153 people in 2019, have more wealth between them than 4.6 billion people.

Oxfam’s report cited World Bank figures showing almost half the world is trying to survive on $5.50 a day or less.

Conservatives have never understood that economics and the social structure are intertwined each dependent on the other.

Look around you see how obvious it is.

Don Chipp left the Liberals in 1977 to help create a new party, the Democrats, and famously promised to “keep the bastards honest.”

It worked for a period, but the passing years seem to have taken the gloss from the statement.

Many things have changed since then. None more so than the political environment which has found itself in a swamp of lies.

Prior to the last election many Labor supporters, including myself, had been tossing about ideas for Labor to include in their campaign.

By far, the most popular policy suggestions were to advocate for a National ICAC or something similar.

Then as if on cue Bill Shorten started to advocate for an inquiry into the viability of such a commission.

”Bill Shorten supports an anti-corruption commission,” read the headlines.

Shorten was unequivocally robust in his support, saying that any reform needed to go beyond an independent parliamentary expenses system.

He supported “an open and honest discussion” about whether Australia should have a federal Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC).

“For me, reform doesn’t just stop at parliamentarians’ expenses,” he said.

“It must include greater transparency, greater accountability on political donations – and no discussion about electoral reform and rebuilding the confidence of Australians in the political process can take place without having an open and honest discussion about a federal ICAC.”

He further stated that:

“Before the last election there was a Senate committee set up to examine the existing capacities of the anti-corruption regime in Australian federal sphere of government.”

He was referring to a Senate Committee that lapsed after the last election. That inquiry received written submissions and held two public inquiries in April 2016, but lapsed before a final report could be handed down. It received little media attention.

Finally, when the Coalition took office the problem was hand-balled to the newly appointed Attorney General, Christian Porter.

The Coalition had also advocated an anti-corruption body – albeit a watered-down version – with questions being asked behind closed doors with the public having little insight into its enquiries or indeed its results.

With trust in politicians at an all-time low, there is genuine, overwhelming public support for some sort of ICAC with teeth.

So the question arises as to what stage has Christian Porter carried the proposed legislation forward?

Well, let me bring you up to date.

In September of 2019, Porter said that the proposed draft legislation was near completion.

It is now 2020, and over a year since the Coalition promised its formula for a federal integrity commission legislation.

It had promised to have it done and dusted by last December, but strangely, more than a few scandals seem to have gotten in their way.

That aside, Labor is rightly more than a little upset.

“Continuous scandals showed the government wasn’t interested in integrity, Labor leader Anthony Albanese said.

“Despite overwhelming public support for a national integrity commission the government had to be dragged kicking and screaming all the way,” he said.

Albanese pointed to comments  Porter made in parliament in September, when he said a draft was “well advanced.”

In the meantime. critics have rubbished the draft:

“It would create two divisions, a law enforcement division and a public sector integrity division.”

“It would have the power to conduct public hearings in its law enforcement division, but the public sector integrity division will not have the power to make public findings of corruption.”

It is fair to say that the people have been screaming out for some sort of means of checking on the integrity of their politicians for some years. Or was it the time that they happened to notice that they weren’t as lily-white as they first thought?

Now that politicians on all sides of the divide have agreed to an integrity commission the battle has turned to getting one that has enough teeth to bite those who might or have been led astray.

The National Party’s Bridget McKenzie’s allocation of funds to sporting clubs is exactly the sort of scandal that an independent integrity commission would investigate, yet here we have a Liberal Attorney General who is responsible for pulling it all together; seemingly doing his utmost to delay and delay.

The scandals surrounding the practices of Energy Minister Angus Taylor should also be investigated, regardless of the AFPs decision not to take matters any further.

Instead, the Prime Minister, in the case of McKenzie, decided to have his department head take a look at it.

His findings wouldn’t pass a pub test anywhere in the world and to say that she was only guilty of not confessing to joining a gun club was nothing more than contemptible bullshit.

Where is the integrity, the transparency?

Is it any wonder that 32 retired judges from around Australia recently came together to speak as one?

“In an open letter published in the media, they used their considerable expertise in the corruption-integrity area to clearly state why Australia needs such a body at the federal level. They did not put forward a suggested model, deciding instead to try to have the issue placed firmly on the political agenda. Their approach has been successful.”

Well, in so much as we have some construct of an agenda for a commission and an objectionable draft. What we don’t have is a minister with the will and desire to get his legislation passed in the parliament.

The way we are governed has been in serious decline since Tony Abbott took power in 2013.

It has happened at a time in our history when we need an astuteness of leadership – that is seemingly beyond the current crop of politicians.

Never in our history, in the time in which we live, have the consequences of bad governance been more profound.

Getting any sort of reform, given the government is capable of drawing up the legislation, seems to get stalled in a philosophical vacuum that never gets emptied.

There was a time when the major parties could at least work together for some common goals but now even those ideals seem to have lost their appeal.

What do the words Disaster, Adaptation and Resilience mean to you? Do they mean that the government has given up on reducing our carbon emissions and are now taking the approach that the world’s carbon emissions will rise no matter what we do to limit it, and that we shall have to be resilient and adapt to whatever comes our way?

To find the answer to this question – and more – I spoke to Amanda Leck*, the Executive Director of The Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR).

I pondered this question in the headline as I sat watching the endless ebb and flow of humanity on Flinders Street station as I waited for my train back to Traralgon.

My mind ran pictures of my grandchildren, particularly the youngest (aged 10) as I contemplated with awful dread the environment she will need to contend with when she is my age and earlier.

Along the way many young people boarded the train with their typical youthful appetite for schools’ end and I wondered how many might have had any insight into what they might confront in middle-age and beyond.

I drew consolation from my meeting with Amanda that there were good people and organisations such as The Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience trying to make a difference in a political quagmire of unbelief and senselessness.

Sorry. I digress.

The purpose of my meeting was twofold. The first was to seek some explanation for matters concerning her organisation I had raised in an article for The AIMN titled “Asking Peter Dutton.”

The second was to find out more about adaptation and resilience.

It had begun with this message from a Facebook friend, which then led into many other questions.

“Hi John, Part of the bloated Dutton budget is spent on this group [AIDR]. Young Peter has been strangely silent of late so may be an appropriate time to highlight his expertise.”

Hence, my first question to Amanda was this:

Why is it the government never mentions the AIDR and your work in this area?

“I don’t know but I wish they would,” she replied.

I thought it rather obvious given all the adaptation and resilience talk the Prime Minister was throwing about.

I followed up with; Why was funding in the 2017 budget axed for The National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility?

When it existed it worked to support decision makers throughout Australia as they prepared for the management of risks from climate change and sea-level rise.

The answer was that; “funds were likely withdrawn from 2013 onwards after Tony Abbott came to power and funding ended in 2017.”

“That would be right,” I thought to myself.

Their web page is still in existence.

My next question related to funding for AIDR: Why are you funded by the Attorney Generals department yet you come under the department of Home Affairs? Isn’t that a bit strange?

Her answer was along these lines:

“There isn’t anything sinister in this. It was just the complexity of the workings of government. How budgets start and end with overruns and unused funds becoming available. Our funding has recently been doubled.”

Are restrictions placed on you by the government in speaking out about the causes of Climate Change?

“No not at all, although I prefer to steer clear of the topic and concentrate on adaptation and resistance.” This led into another question on the same topic:

It maybe my imagination but I’m fascinated as to how the two words adaptation and resilience have become buzz words.

“I think that would be pure coincidence but I wish they would use them more often came the answer.”

Is there any connection between Twiggy Forrest forming a volunteer group and AIDR doing the same thing in WA?

“No, there is no connection except for one with his Minderoo Foundation and CSIRO’s Data61, the data science arm of Australia’s national science agency.”

Tell me about ADRC Australian Disaster Residence Conference.

“It had become an annual conference where a number of agencies come together to discuss the changing climate, and how reducing risk contributes to the resilience of our nation.”

But how do you adapt to an ever-worsening climate while we are simultaneously pursuing policies that are accelerating warming?

“That’s one for the politicians, John. I’m sorry about that. I do have a view but it would be off the record. I did, however, detect from the Prime Minister’s interview with David Speers a change in policy direction.”

But if we are trying to limit the increase in emissions to 1 1/2 % and Indications are that the frequency of major weather events links them to climate change. What if we reach 3%?

No definitive answer emerged from this question other than a discussion that I will touch on later.

My final question was:

What affect would a Royal Commission into the fires or drought or Climate Change have on your organisation?

Administratively, you mean?

Yes.

“Well depending on the terms of reference I imagine we might be called but to what degree I couldn’t be sure.”

I found after listening to Amanda’s answers to my questions and our general conversation that the matters I raised in my original piece were unquestionably without foundation.

As is often the case, there isn’t always controversy at the end of every story.

With any chance of some Facebook conspiracy theory laid to rest I found that I wanted to do what I could to publicise the work of the AIDR, which has a foundation in community involvement.

As I said earlier, what I had intended as a formal interview became more of discussion about adaptation and resilience.

On a meagre budget the amount of work the AIDR do is formidable, from education in schools, research, supporting emergency service agencies, non-government organisations, universities and researchers, production of handbooks and educating volunteers.

Climate Change is real and even at the lowest levels of increased emissions our resilience and how we adapt to it will form a vital, if not essential, part of change.

These two words, adaptation and resilience that seem to have suddenly entered the vocabulary of every conservative politician, invite further exploration by everyone.

On its website the AIDR has a comprehensive Knowledge Hub together with education for kids with a volunteer leadership program. It also has a number of booklets on various subjects for sale.

An example of AIDR’s effectiveness is shown by the fact that 11 years ago 173 people lost their lives in the Black Saturday fires. Since then, science and research has informed our knowledge to create more prepared and resilient communities for the future.

It is notable that in our current season that with significant developments in warnings and a more aware and responsive community appear to be important factors.

“Build Back Better” is the current catchphrase:

“The use of the recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction phases after a disaster to increase the resilience of nations and communities through integrating disaster risk reduction measures into the restoration of physical infrastructure and societal systems, and into the revitalization of livelihoods, economies and the environment.

The term “societal” will not be interpreted as a political system of any country.“

A planet subject to ever increasing heat will result in intensified drought, declining water supplies because of reduced rainfall, reduced agricultural yields, and health impacts to both humans and animals and of course more bush fires and floods.

Also impacted will be our primary industries like forestry and fisheries.

Livestock and many animals will be at greater risk of heat stress, reducing livestock productivity and reproductive rates.

Food productivity will suffer from crop failures caused by crop destruction or failures, and the social unrest and mental health problems caused by food shortages, potential loss of habitable land, and prolonged uncertainty.

Continued climate change will have far-reaching impacts upon our society and will necessitate great change. The Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience and their research partners like the AFAC, CFA, Australian Red Cross and the CSIRO are at the forefront of what these changes will require from us; or indeed what we will need to change in order to survive.

Some of the problems mentioned are already evidenced in the frequency of major events we are currently experiencing.

My conversation with Amanda had to end sometime and I still have much to learn to pass onto my grandchildren.

But the big question for me remains:

How do you adapt to an ever-worsening climate while we are simultaneously pursuing policies that are accelerating warming?

As she said, that question is for the politicians. Should they allow a 3% rise in emissions then a great deal of resilience and adaptation will be required from my grandchildren.

Further reading

A useful article from the recent AJEM article that frames the meaning of resilience.

The Australian Disaster Resilience Handbook collection provides guidance  on national principles and practices for disaster resilience.

AIDR runs the Education for Young People program with a vision of creating a disaster resilient nation. You can join the Network here.

With January almost done and dusted the Coalition’s form over the past six and a bit years has shown no signs of improvement.

Sincerely, I would much rather be writing about the remarkable advancements the government has made since Scott Morrison came to power. I would gladly take it on the chin and congratulate his work.

About how when he took the reins of the leadership of our nation that he confronted the climate change deniers of his party in the best Whitlamesque “crash through or crash” style of leadership – won the day for the nation and now governs for the common good.

But alas, I cannot. The story is as sad as it is true. It is an ongoing seemingly never-ending narrative of poor leadership that has no vision, no goals that long for completion and no truth that the people can trust.

I would like to say that they have a blueprint, a narrative that inspires me to follow a leader I can have faith in, who has the nation in his heart.

Again, I cannot.

What they are good at is producing advertisements that falsely sing their own praises no matter the wickedness of what they have done.

I and others who write for The AIMN, over many years now have repeatedly explored the incompetence of the Coalition partners.

“Good government starts tomorrow,” said Tony Abbott in 2014. It never did. In fact, it has gotten progressively worse since to the point where the latest polls reflect the electorates current disdain for Scott Morrison’s leadership.

It has been and will be for the duration of its tenure a government lacking in confidence, without having their heart in it given they never expected to win the last election. Nor can it improve given the quality of its leadership, its outmoded economics and its untrustworthiness.

The worry is the time a new government, whenever it is elected, will take to restore any semblance of what we know of good governance, Our memories might have faded so much by then that its meaning might leave us altogether.

I can now confidently predict that spin of the political kind will start to emerge about the reasons why the government is now unable to produce a budget surplus. The fires burnt it all. Was it going to happen? Well, we will never will. Convenient, isn’t it?

The Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, for many and differing reasons, have been a complete and utter failure. Why?

The main problem is that the team is full of highly-educated people who have been in the game for so long that they know nothing other than the negativity they have inherited from previous leaders.

They have a fear of doing the right thing, as is the case of Minister Bridget McKenzie’s pork barrelling distribution of funds to sporting clubs prior to the last election. That she was wrong to do so is beyond dispute but to admit it would be against the principle of fake news.

Seriously though, Labor is correct. This is exactly the sort of thing they suggest that should go before a National Integrity Commission.

Probably because they thought they would lose the election this effort at deception was particularly brazen. It was nothing less than using taxpayer money for campaign funding.

The Prime Minister, in this instance, isn’t immune to charges that he would have known. After all, he did the announcements on a daily basis.

Twenty-four years ago Labor’s Ros Kelly did a similar thing and resigned from the ministry. McKenzie should do the same.

The only man I know who could possibly talk underwater was sadly out of form during the first month of the year. His leadership during the current bushfire crisis left a lot to be desired and this reflected itself in a large drop in the polls.

His woeful leadership doesn’t include a thought for the possibility of being wrong or the capacity to tell others of his own ilk they are.

It is in this inflexibility that we may see him lose his job during the course of a year that may have profound consequences for the citizens of this great land.

Speaking of leadership, the National Party itself demonstrates the dearth of talent we have in our country. The only candidate the party could come up with to replace Barnaby Joyce (a renegade politician with an obsession for the ownership of self-righteousness) was Michael McCormack who seems to suffer from foot in mouth disease an aversion to gay people and any socially progressive decisions made post his birth date.

During January the two most obnoxious politicians in the parliament; George (have you met my wife) Christiansen and Craig (if I cannot say it here I will fly to England to do so) Kelly continued to promote coal as opposed to common sense.

The Minister for Things including the NDIS, Stuart Robert (the man with the biggest NBN bills in the land) had the affront to claim that no one had died waiting for the scheme, despite the agency saying more than 1,200 people have died before they received a scheme plan and the prime minister describing those same figures as “unacceptable”. Go figure that one.

And while all this was happening Peter Dutton was nowhere to be found. “Let him stew in his own mess” probably preoccupied his thoughts as Morrison slugged it out in the heat of unwanted flames.

Or maybe he was privately talking about resilience and just how much the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience (AIDR) develops, maintains and shares knowledge and learning to support a disaster resilient Australia.

Or his absence might mean he is busy congratulating those asylum seekers who are this year entering their 8^th year of forced incarceration for never having committed a crime.

There was one reason to take some joy from the first month of the New Year. It was that James and Kathryn Murdoch were quoted as saying:

“They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial of the role of climate change among the news outlets in Australia, given obvious evidence to the contrary.”

They, of course, were referring to the overwhelming evidence that all Murdoch news outlets in Australia were to a large degree biased against climate heating and heavily biased toward the right of the political spectrum.