Jobkeeper has proved to be a gravy train for wealthy private schools serving the most advantaged families in Victoria.

New financial statements posted on the Charities Commission website before Christmas reveal the shameless greed of some of the wealthiest most exclusive private schools in Victoria. Twenty-one schools received $90 million in Jobkeeper payments while making profits of $97 million. Most of them serve highly advantaged families.

One of Victoria’s most exclusive girls’ school, Methodist Ladies College (MLC), got $10.4 million from Jobkeeper and made a profit of $15 million in 2020. It increased its profit over the previous year by $7.8 million with the help of Jobkeeper.

MLC charges $34,000 fees for Years 11 and 12. Eighty per cent of its students are from the highest socio-educationally advantaged (SEA) quartile and 96 per cent come from the top two quartiles. It received nearly $10 million in recurrent government funding and has assets totalling $163 million.

A total of 60 Victorian private schools received $222 million from Jobkeeper and made $193 million in profits in 2020. Apart from five schools, all made a profit out of Jobkeeper and 52 increased their profits from 2019. The total increase in profits was $99 million. These schools also received $483 million in recurrent government funding in 2020.

Most of these schools serve privileged families. Between 60 and 80 per cent of their students are from the top SEA quartile and around 90 per cent or more are from the top two SEA quartiles. Several schools such as MLC, Lauriston and Strathcona provided fee remissions, rebates and discounts to their families.

As the Herald-Sun’s Susie O’Brien reported, several schools have repeatedly refused the divulge their payments (Herald-Sun. 30 December 2021). They have obscured their payments by including them with other government grants or other income. For example, Christ Church Grammar in Toorak received an increase in Commonwealth Government grants of nearly 200 per cent in 2020 but did not reveal its Jobkeeper payment.

The greed of these highly privileged schools is obscene. They grasp any opportunity to get their snouts in the taxpayer trough. Yet, they see themselves as having superior moral values that are central to their elitist culture. If they had any common decency, they would give the money back as some firms have done.

Jobkeeper was just another opportunity for the Morrison Government to provide even more special funding for private schools. It is icing on the cake of a huge funding boost for private schools through a highly flawed method of determining their financial need and by special funding deals not based on need such as the $1.2 billion Choice and Accountability Fund.

Government (Commonwealth and state) funding for private schools increased by four times that of public schools between 2009 and 2019. Government funding for Catholic and Independent schools increased by $2,050 and $2,006 per student respectively adjusted for inflation compared to only $514 per student for public schools.

The total resources of Victorian private schools far exceed those of public schools. The total income of Independent schools was $25,944 per student in 2019 and that of Catholic schools was $17,123 compared to $14,416 in public schools. Wealthy private schools seized on Jobkeeper with the connivance of the Commonwealth Government to extend their massive resource advantage.

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, has conceded that Catholic schools have “never had it so good” in terms of funding. The same can be said of Independent private schools.

The resource advantage of private schools is set to continue for the rest of the decade under the terms of the Commonwealth-State bilateral funding agreements. Private schools will be funded at over 100 per cent of their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) while public schools will be funded at less than 91 per cent of their SRS in all states except the ACT. As a result, public schools will remain massively under-funded. It points to the need for a comprehensive overhaul of school funding.

The above is an excerpt from an SOS article by Trevor Cobbold 3/1/2022

Putting aside the wishes of Chemist Warehouse, and Scott Morrison’s trademark retreat from leadership, there is a very obvious and easy way to solve the supposed dilemma of Rapid Antigen Tests – put them on the PBS.

Every month, changes are made to the PBS – new medications coming on, some coming off – which pharmacies are very used to dealing with as part of their monthly update. This can be done at any time.

Buying in bulk provides enormous discounts. Leaving it to each individual pharmacy to order their supplies from wholesalers greatly increases the price (except for huge discount chains) and the delay in delivery as they compete for limited stock.

The federal government could procure the needed supplies and provide them to pharmacies for free who could then distribute them for a set dispensing fee that covers their fixed costs – no mark-up, no GST, limited supply per person.

Other businesses could buy them in bulk for workplace testing for cost price from the government who would act as the wholesaler.

That’s why we have a universal healthcare system.

Use some of the Medical Future Fund that Costello is hatching if you really need some cash to pay for it.

Or stop spending billions on war toys we will never use.

Priorities.

It’s not rocket science, troops.

I keep reading that the Coalition will play to their strong points in the upcoming campaign which, according to some, are national security, the economy, cost of living, and something that hovers around vaccine rollout/post-pandemic recovery/getouttamyface freedom.

National security gets talked about a lot, mainly as a reason to block any scrutiny of what the government is doing.

Contracts are gifted without tender to obscure companies. Arms purchases are made involving eye-watering sums, all cloaked in a veil of secrecy. We export weapons – who knows what, who knows where?

Does anyone seriously believe that a few manned subs that might be delivered in several decades time are a deterrent to a supposedly imminent invasion by China?

Meanwhile, in response to our ham-fisted shirt-fronting in the media, China imposes trade sanctions, cutting off markets for our exporters and crucial supplies for our importers. So much for ChAFTA.

Diplomacy is for girlie-men – let’s get those great big armoured land vehicles for… ummmm…

Refugees and asylum seekers who have committed no crime are held hostage in the name of national security.

Instead of being strong on national security, they have angered China, alienated the French, neglected our neighbours, abandoned Afghani helpers and refugees, and outsourced control to the US/UK military machine.

At least the economy is going well… for some.

The final budget outcome for last financial year was a deficit of $134.2 billion. Gross debt is $855 billion and climbing, with deficits forecast for at least the next ten years. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, the tax cuts coming in 24-25 will create extra debt of 276 billion more by 2030-31.

We are the only G20 country to have increased debt by more than 200 per cent since the year 2000 – 221% according to the IMF – yet we are slashing revenue purely so the Coalition can say they cut taxes, not because it will bring a national benefit.

We experienced the first recession in thirty years even with the government pumping hundreds of billions into the economy through measures that saw many profitable businesses pocket a huge windfall courtesy of the taxpayer.

Despite all that government spending, there are more than 3.24 million people or 13.6% of the population living below the poverty line. That includes 774,000 children or more than 1 in 6.

Homelessness decreased during the pandemic when extra support payments were available but is now increasing again since that support has been wound back.

Wage growth has been stagnant. In the September quarter, growth in the wage price index was only 2.2 per cent, which is still below the rate of inflation with real wages going backwards even though unemployment is at low levels.

Headlines in The Australian tell us that energy prices are at an eight year low – which means they haven’t yet got down to what they were when we had carbon pricing. Headlines elsewhere point to petrol prices being at seven year highs, largely driven by even higher gas prices.

Putting the economy in front of public health must have sounded like a good idea at the time but, as per usual, we were unprepared for the inevitable result of that experiment.

ScoMo tells me there are millions of booster shots in the country but the earliest appointment I could get was for February and I can’t find a Rapid test for sale anywhere. PCR testing is now being reserved for those who are sick because the wait times for results are so long.

It’s all very well to open up but no-one can find uninfected unexposed staff as we let it rip. But we won’t mandate anything because the anti-vaxxers and the conspiracy theorists and religious fanatics and the bovver boys want the right to infect whoever they please with no-one telling them what to do in this new age of do-nothing government.

Everything is either someone else’s responsibility or someone else’s fault while the newspapers laud Morrison’s strong leadership, Frydenberg’s popularity, and Barnaby’s retail blokiness.

Everything will be fine if we all row together, united in our broad church of personal responsibility, reading the talking points with one voice.

Just don’t mention climate change, or bushfires, droughts, floods, coastal erosion, bleaching reefs or freak storms. Don’t be distracted by water security, biodiversity or endangered species.

Point to the reports and Royal Commissions and reviews if asked about endemic sexual harassment, neglect and abuse in the aged and disability care sectors, and the deaths in custody of Indigenous people and why they fill our detention centres. Consultation is ongoing in order to reach consensus before recommendations can be considered and trialled and reported back on to the committee.

Pork-barrelling is investing in electorates, rorting expenses is within guidelines, branch stacking is encouraging political engagement, photo shoots are connecting with the local community, attendance at sporting and cultural events is absolutely necessary for our lawmakers to network..

The Indue card and Robodebt show how much we care about getting people into jobs.

Any form of integrity or anti-corruption body would be a kangaroo court who destroys the careers of innocent people, crippling government largesse. A Voice to parliament would be a racist third chamber just after money and land for nothing. We’ll get to the religious freedom bill after their prayers are answered and the evil one is defeated.

ScoMo spoke of receiving a sign from God in the shape of a photograph of an eagle – divine endorsement for his ascension to high office.

Perhaps he should take heed of the warning in Jeremiah 49:15 “Now I will make you small among the nations, despised by mankind. 16 The terror you inspire and the pride of your heart have deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks, who occupy the heights of the hill. Though you build your nest as high as the eagle’s, from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD.

Australians are generally despondent about the state of politics in this country. Daily scandals, both personal and political, fill the airwaves causing many people to tar politicians and parties with the same brush.

“They’re all the same” is an understandable response when confronted with evidence of dodgy donations, branch-stacking, pork-barrelling, factional in-fighting and rewards, expense rorting, prevarication, backstabbing, poor personal judgement, rampant sexual harassment and workplace bullying.

Disillusionment with the two major parties, or perhaps the inadequacy of some of their individual members, is causing people to look elsewhere to minor parties or independents.

But the reality is that after the next election, either Labor or the Liberal/National coalition will form government and that will determine our direction for the immediate future with consequences for the long term.

Whilst we may well have reason to complain about individual policies and politicians, the evidence shows a stark difference between the two contenders for government.

It has, almost invariably, been Labor governments that have introduced policies that have made real societal change.

The Australian Labor Commonwealth government led by Andrew Fisher introduced a national aged pension in 1908, a national invalid disability pension in 1910, and a national maternity allowance in 1912.

During the Second World War, Australia under a Labor government enacted national schemes for child endowment in 1941, a widows’ pension in 1942, a wife’s allowance in 1943, additional allowances for the children of pensioners in 1943, and unemployment, sickness, and special benefits in 1945.

The only mention the Coalition get on the Wikipedia page Social Security in Australia History is the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017 which introduced a demerit-point system for not meeting welfare obligations and the infamous and apparently illegal Robodebt. “As of June 2018, former social security recipients who owe a debt to Centrelink will not be allowed to travel outside Australia until they have repaid their debt, with interest.”

Whitlam gave funding to non-government schools and abolished fees for university.

Bob Hawke introduced Medicare.

Paul Keating gave us the Superannuation Guarantee.

Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generation, ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and got us through the GFC with early stimulus.

Julia Gillard gave us paid parental leave, the NBN, the NDIS and a carbon-pricing mechanism that everyone concedes would have been the cheapest and most effective way to reduce emissions.

Most of these things were fiercely opposed by the Coalition.

Repeated smear campaigns and draconian legislation have undermined the effectiveness of unions – the only groups where workers can unite to protect and promote their rights. This has led to wage stagnation, an avalanche of exploitation, insecure work and an erosion of workplace safety and entitlements.

Rather than eschewing their union affiliation, Labor should proudly point to its historical commitment to the workers of the country and their families.

Liberal/Nationals governments talk a lot about “the economy” and very little about society.

“The economy” is about allowing rich people to get richer so they will then employ people who work to make them even more money. The lower the labour cost, the higher the profit.

“The economy” is about the GDP – a number that is easily manipulated by including a big government program when it needs a boost.

“The economy” is about the budget, an obscure set of figures which are ripe for cherry-picking – a guess based on convenient assumptions, which can decide to leave stuff out at will, which never ends up being accurate, where debt and deficit can be a disaster one year and a wise investment the next.

The LNP would have us believe that they are very concerned for our mental health and well-being as a result of the pandemic. Prior to that, not so much.

When, in February last year, Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers suggested Australia should consider adopting a wellbeing budget, Josh Frydenberg absolutely ridiculed him.

This is a warning to every Australian.

Labor and @JEChalmers want to replace responsible economic management with a yoga mat, beads and a “wellbeing budget”.

Just another Labor excuse for higher taxes and bigger deficits👇 pic.twitter.com/8bBHvnS7GI

— Josh Frydenberg (@JoshFrydenberg) February 26, 2020

Josh’s shouty attempt at humour didn’t go over so well with the Hindu community who found it “derisive and offensive” not to mention “brazen, racist and Hindu-phobic.”

Fifty years ago, Gough Whitlam, as leader of the Opposition, made a historic trip to China where he more than held his own with Premier Zhou Enlai, devising the blueprint for Australia’s “one China policy”.

Today, they won’t even answer the phone.

There will never be another Gough who made us feel like an independent nation for the first time but Scott Morrison’s idea of sovereignty looks a lot more like servitude to the US/UK military machine and the fossil fuel industry.

I could go on and on but this is already long enough to make the point – any suggestion that Labor and the LNP are the same ignores the evidence.

Well-being for all or wealth for a few?

According to ‘The Daily Telegraph’s Canberra experts rate our federal politicians‘, Scott Morrison scored an A for an outstanding year leading the nation.

“It has been a rollercoaster year for the PM that saw a number of mid-year struggles (Brittany Higgins, vaccine rollout) neutralised or turned into net positives,” the article reads.

“Yet big wins – including the UK free-trade deal, world-leading vaccination rates, and a seemingly resilient economy – all go in his favour.

“Morrison ends the year on a high, but needs to re-establish his leadership after being dragged down by less able students in the national cabinet group project.”

I’m a living breathing human being who had to fight tooth and nail to make it through the past 10 months.

In the wake of the findings of the Jenkins Review and the innumerable stories of abuse in Parliament House – to call this issue ‘neutralised’ is beyond insulting. https://t.co/8QLg4LwqAw

— Brittany Higgins (@BrittHiggins_) December 17, 2021

Three years ago, Scott Morrison issued a press release promising to establish a new Commonwealth Integrity Commission. The stated aim of this body was to investigate criminal corruption.

Without looking any further, we already have a problem, because most of the integrity issues we have with our government are not considered corrupt let alone criminal.

I am sure that Gladys Berejiklian is certain she has done nothing wrong.

It’s not illegal to use public funds to bolster your political standing or that of whomever of your team you may be rooting at the time.

It’s not corrupt to ignore departmental advice about cost- benefit analyses in favour of captain’s picks.

It’s not criminal to hand out contracts without tender or grants without comparative appraisal.

As Glad and Pork Barilaro, reminded us, everyone does it. The spoils of war, so to speak.

Governments are under no compulsion to show us the basis for their decisions.

Cronyism, far from being considered corrupt, is de rigueur. There are no essential criteria or merit-based selection processes about whom you appoint to positions.

Politicians who wish to attend sporting events, New Year’s Eve parties, check up on their investment properties, or go to political fundraisers, only need have their photo taken in high vis or hair net somewhere or chat to a voter to claim their expense “entitlements”. No receipts necessary. It’s all “within the rules”. Bring the family.

The bullying and intimidation detailed by multiple female Liberal MPs and Senators during the 2018 leadership spill was not considered criminal behaviour.

Threatening the preselection of members in order to influence their vote on decriminalising abortion was found to be a contempt of the Queensland Parliament but attracted no punishment.

It’s not illegal to lie in political advertising and use public money to pay for your ads.

Lobby groups and individuals can contribute as much as they want to political campaigns and parties have no rules on how much they can spend.

It’s also not illegal for the people who make the taxation laws to invest their money in offshore tax havens, family trusts, and other tax avoidance schemes.

Integrity means the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. That sets the bar far higher than just not engaging in criminal conduct.

How many of our politicians would pass a genuine integrity test?

I rarely use the term hysterical but I don’t know how else to describe Tim Wilson’s increasingly irrational attacks on Independents.

According to Tim, Zali Stegall’s proposal to establish an independent climate change commission to provide advice to the government on the appropriate policy mechanisms and interim targets needed to achieve net zero by 2050 amounts to “subversion and treason”.

Obviously terrified by the Climate 200 fund, Tim has penned an article in the SMH titled Independents more likely to hurt Labor and Greens than Liberals.

Wilson tries valiantly to use his most condescending, dismissive, sneering rhetoric, well-practised at the Rinehart-funded IPA, to suggest that the “Voices of” movement is astroturfing by confecting a community campaign, that they are bankrolled by outsiders, and that all the Independents “just happen to repeat precisely the same spin.”

Oh the irony.

Then it gets personal. Tim is being challenged for his seat of Goldstein by journalist Zoe Daniels.

“The strategy is very simple. Make voters think the so-called “independents” are Liberal-lite. That obviously doesn’t wash when the so-called “independent” candidate for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, admits she voted Liberal in 2016, only to vote for Labor and their retiree tax in 2019,” says the so-called assistant minister for energy and emissions reduction.

I’m surprised Tim would remind us of his campaign against the “retiree tax” where he was rebuked by the Speaker for conduct that may have caused damage to the House economics committee’s reputation and to the House committee system.

Wilson collaborated with a multibillion-dollar fund manager on a campaign against the opposition’s franking credit policy, failed to declare his investments in funds run by the firm to inquiry hearings, and used the taxpayer-funded probe to help spruik Liberal Party fundraisers.

Needless to say, Tim has since been promoted and is now Angus Taylor’s assistant minister for emissions reduction – as you would with the man who wrote a glowing review of Ian Plimer’s climate change scepticism book ‘How to Get Expelled From School: A Guide to Climate Change for Pupils, Parents and Punters’.

Tim warns of “the confusion and chaos of a hung Parliament” where MPs “hold the nation’s policy agenda hostage.” That’s a gutsy call when we just witnessed the most chaotic two weeks from a majority government with their own members crossing the floor and threatening to withhold their votes until they get their way.

He then dismisses the contribution of independents as “carping from the crossbench” rather than being “at the decision-making table”.

Tim seems to be having an each way bet as to whether the crossbench are holding the country hostage or irrelevant.

His incoherence continues.

Tim states that “narrow, or single, issues may have electoral appeal, but it is not a sustainable and sufficiently broad foundation for government.”

He goes on to tell us that “The media fundamentally got the last election wrong because they underestimated what issues move votes. They missed the nearly one million retirees who risked losing a third of their income overnight because of Labor’s retiree tax.”

Seriously? Excess franking credit refunds are more important than action on climate change?

Throughout his article – eight times in fact – Wilson uses the term so-called “independents”. He thrashes around trying everything he can to discredit and invalidate them.

And then he finishes by saying they “will do far more damage to Labor and the Greens than Liberals at the ballot box.”

So why are you so worried, Tim?

I was going to write an article about Barnaby’s Dam Scam – I may still later – but it struck me that all this exposing of dubious grants and dodgy contracts is missing the bigger point that our government doesn’t seem to even know what it is for.

They want “small government” but aren’t suggesting we need less of the political class. They just want less to do apparently. They want to “get out of the way”, leave it to us and the market and “technology”. Meanwhile, they spend their time canvassing each other and their donors for random wish lists to spend all the money on.

It seems to me, that isn’t going so well.

Years ago, I read an essay titled The Responsibilities of Government. I cannot find it on the internet anywhere except where I quoted it in an article I wrote in 2013 when the spectre of an Abbott government had become awful reality. I knew Tony wasn’t up to the job so thought I should remind him of the role a government should play.

Governments have not been fulfilling their responsibilities for many years but this lot have given up any pretence of being motivated by the best interests of the people – unless they are ‘their’ people.

This is an excerpt from that original essay that should remind us all what we have a right to expect from our government:

“The government of a democracy is accountable to the people. It must fulfil its end of the social contract. And, in a practical sense, government must be accountable because of the severe consequences that may result from its failure. As the outcomes of fighting unjust wars and inadequately responding to critical threats such as global warming illustrate, great power implies great responsibility.

The central purpose of government in a democracy is to be the role model for, and protector of, equality and freedom and our associated human rights. For the first, government leaders are social servants, since through completing their specific responsibilities they serve society and the people. But above and beyond this they must set an ethical standard, for the people to emulate. For the second, the legal system and associated regulation are the basic means to such protection, along with the institutions of the military, for defence against foreign threats, and the police.

Government economic responsibility is also linked to protection from the negative consequences of free markets. The government must defend us against unscrupulous merchants and employers, and the extreme class structure that results from their exploitation.

Governments argue that people need to be assisted with the economic competition that now dominates the world. But the real intent of this position is to justify helping corporate interests . . . siding against local workers, consumers and the environment.

Another general role, related to the need for efficiency, is the organization of large-scale projects. It is for this benefit that we accept government involvement in the construction of society’s infrastructure, including roads, posts and telecommunications, and water, sewage and energy utilities. Further, giving government charge over these utilities guarantees that they remain in public hands, and solely dedicated to the common good. If such services are privatized, the owners have a selfish motivation, which could negatively affect the quality of the services.

That such assets should have public ownership is expressed in the idea of the “commons.” They should be owned by and shared between the members of the current population, and preserved for future generations.

Indeed, while we of course still need a means of defence, including against both external and internal (criminal) aggressors, it seems clear that our greatest need for protection is from other institutions and from the abuses of government itself, particularly its collusion with these other institutions. (Many of the needs that we now have for government are actually to solve the problems that it creates.)”

We deserve better than the ScoMo Beetrooter muppet show.

The longer the Coalition remain in power, the greater their arrogance and disregard for our institutions grows.

I don’t expect any better from that idiot George Christensen who recently appeared on the far right wing conspiracy show Infowars spruiking a whole lot of anti-government crap. He is as mad as a hatter and will be gone at the next election. Likewise Criag Kelly hopefully. Good riddance.

The fact that Morrison and Joyce are too scared to “poke the bear” and tell him to pull his head in, their failure to decisively denounce the misinformation, is yet another example of the problems caused by the lack of leadership in our government.

Parents know that children must be taught to respect boundaries and that they themselves must set a good example for their children to follow.

We now find ourselves in a position where both the Prime Minister and his Deputy are telling us that we need to get government out of our lives. They give approval to protests demanding that health orders be overturned in the name of freedom. They ignore the warnings from security agencies that far right-wing groups are infiltrating and leading these protests and the threats to health staff and politicians, and are deliberately fuelling anger towards state premiers.

We also have our leaders waging a shameful attack on the NSW ICAC, describing it as a kangaroo court and pre-empting the results of their investigation into Gladys Berejiklian, presumptuously suggesting that no evidence of wrongdoing had been found.

This disdain for the legal system isn’t an isolated case.

Greg Hunt, Alan Tudge and Michael Sukkar barely escaped contempt charges after they criticised the highest court in Victoria during an active terrorism appeal. In comments published in the Australian, they described the court as an “ideological experiment” run by “hard-left activist judges”.

Peter Dutton, as Home Affairs Minister, launched a similar attack on the Victorian judicial system, blaming the state’s street crime on the appointment of “civil libertarians” to the courts. Dutton also claimed Victorians were “bemused” when they looked “at the jokes of sentences being handed down” due to “political correctness that’s taken hold”.

Attacks on statutory bodies began very early on with the evisceration of Gillian Triggs for being the face of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s report on children in detention which Tony Abbott described as a “blatantly partisan politicised exercise and the Human Rights Commission ought to be ashamed of itself. it would be a lot easier to respect the Human Rights Commission if it did not engage in what are transparent stitch ups.”

There have also been unrelenting attacks on the ABC, now described as the “Ultimo wokehive”. The really galling part is the government’s reliance on the ABC’s investigative work for so much of their policing and evidence for Royal Commissions. They also rely on it every time there is a disaster. Yet they want to sell it off because they sometimes expose government failings too.

The Freedom of Information Office and the Auditor-General have both had their funding slashed because answering questions about what you are doing is way too inconvenient.

Equally unrelenting has been their attack on unions. The demise of union membership and power has coincided with erosion of workplace entitlements, loss of job security and increased casualisation of the workforce, countless examples of exploitation and underpayment, a rise in workplace accidents, and flat lining of wages. The workers no longer have the right to withdraw their labour without incurring significant penalty.

Public education has been undermined with culture wars waged about the curriculum. Stop wasting time on critical thinking and get back to rote learning.

The hysterical reaction to, and demonisation of, the anti-bullying respectful relationships Safe Schools program was beyond ridiculous. Teachers had asked for advice and professional development on making LGBTI kids safe and reducing their profound distress and social isolation. But according to then Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi, the program instead “indoctrinates kids with a Marxist cultural relativism”, with George Christensen stating it is tantamount to a “paedophile grooming a child”.

Climate change deniers in parliament have eroded confidence in our scientific institutions like the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. Their tireless efforts to present us with evidence are dismissed as alarmism or fake news. Their ongoing research into mitigation and adaptation is ignored in favour of support for pollution as usual.

It seems the only people we can trust are ScoMo and Barnaby, backed up by the church, the police and Dutton’s army, any criticism of whom will be seen as unpatriotic heresy.

That all of this is done for purely political purposes is quite legitimate apparently, though it does inevitably lead to humiliating backflips and apologies. The real worry is that, having let the dogs off the chain, this government is rapidly losing control of the pack.

Scott Morrison’s reaction to the Kate Jenkins’ review was to make it very clear that it wasn’t just his side that behaved deplorably towards women. Whilst no doubt true, it’s a pitiful comeback which invites a response.

Remember in 2011 when Tony Abbott attended an anti-carbon tax rally where he spoke in front of placards that read “JuLIAR, Bob Brown’s Bitch” and “Ditch the witch”? After a speech that was punctuated by chants of “ditch the bitch” and “liar, liar”, Abbott said the crowd was “a representative snapshot of middle Australia”. He said people are “more than entitled” to protest against a Government and a Prime Minister “which has not been straight with them… let’s not get too precious about these things”.

That’s the same man who, as Employment and Workplace Relations Minister, told an Industrial relations conference that bad bosses, like bad fathers and husbands, should be tolerated because they generally do more good than harm. The same man who, when asked to describe the attributes of a female candidate, said she had sex appeal.

Remember the 2013 Mal Brough fundraiser, attended by Joe Hockey? The menu featured a dish called “Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail – Small Breasts, Huge Thighs & A Big Red Box.” That didn’t stop him from contesting and winning his seat – he only stood down when a police investigation into the James Ashby imbroglio was launched.

Around the same time, a public servant accused Minister for Cities and the Built Environment, Jamie Briggs, of inappropriate behaviour on a boozy late night out in Hong Kong. Brigg’s response was to send “a few people” a photo of the complainant which was then published prominently in weekend newspapers as well as private text messages sent by her, her age and job title.

This did not cost Briggs his preselection for the 2016 election. The voters of Mayo had to turf him out.

Peter Dutton’s response to an article criticising Briggs was to send a supportive text to him calling the female journalist a “mad fucking witch” – except in another glaring example of Dutton incompetency, he sent it to the “mad fuckling witch” by mistake.

Dutton has form with this sort of puerile sexist behaviour. In 2010, he defended telling then health minister, Nicola Roxon, to get on her broomstick.

telling nicola to get on her broomstick is hardly "grossly unparliamentary" as joolia claimed

— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) February 11, 2010

When it was revealed that that champion for the sanctity of marriage, that dedicated dad that just wanted his daughters to marry a bloke (not sheila), our on again off again Deputy Dawg, the Beetrooter aka the red octopus, had allegedly impregnated a staffer with whom he had been having an ongoing affair, his response was to question the child’s paternity.

Barnaby told Fairfax Media, as you do, that he had “no choice” but to tell the story about the question mark that hung over whether he is the biological father because, around the time the baby was conceived, he had been on an overseas work trip with his wife Natalie followed by a period as acting prime minister during which he was apparently “accompanied by close personal protection bodyguards”.

I cannot type what I would have said to Joyce had I been either of the women he so cruelly and cavalierly disrespected with this completely self-centred abomination, but I did enjoy reading that Natalie threw all his clothes outside and ran over them with the ride-on mower.

This situation led to the extraordinary bonk ban where the PM felt it necessary to make it a rule that MPs stop rooting their staff.

Still Barnaby hung on until details of a confidential sexual harassment complaint against him by a prominent Nationals woman were, once again, leaked to the press without her consent.

Andrew Broad was the first Nationals MP to break ranks and condemn Joyce for his affair with a staffer, only to have to humiliatingly step down after it was revealed he, once again on a work trip to Hong Kong, went out with a woman he had met on a “sugar babies” website where wealthy older men meet women and provide them with gifts in exchange for company.

The WhatsApp messages were excruciating.

“I pull you close, run my strong hands down your back, softly kiss your neck and whisper G’day mate.”

“I’m a country guy, so I know how to fly a plane, ride a horse, fuck my woman. My intentions are completely dishonourable.”

Broad said he could have survived another campaign, despite the scandal, buffeted by the 21% margin in his Victorian seat of Mallee, but he didn’t want to become a “half laughing-stock” figure like Barnaby Joyce.

That most religious of men, George Christensen’s preferred destination was the girly bars in Angeles City near Manila. So much so that he became a potential threat to national security.

When Four Corners aired an episode titled “Inside the Canberra Bubble”, detailing allegations of inappropriate conduct and extramarital affairs by Attorney-General Christian Porter and Population Minister Alan Tudge with female ministerial staffers, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher was quick to express his outrage to Ita Buttrose.

“Why, in the judgement of the Board, are the personal lives of politicians newsworthy?” spluttered Fletcher as he publicly tweeted the letter he sent trying to intimdate the ABC Chair. After all, this was before Malcolm told them that having sex with their staff was a no-no.

Four Corners executive producer Sally Neighbour tweeted ahead of the episode’s airing that the “political pressure applied to the ABC behind the scenes over this story has been extreme and unrelenting”.

The staffer who had an affair with Tudge has recently claimed it was an emotionally, and on one occasion physically, abusive relationship – a claim Tudge denied as he stood aside whilst the complaint is investigated.

Also emerging in recent days, claims by Natalie Baini, the former Liberal who will run as an independent in the Sydney seat of Reid, that her political ambitions were thwarted after she complained about Craig Laundy allegedly lying to her about his marital status before she entered into a consensual relationship with him.

The bullying and intimidation of Liberal women during the leadership spill in 2018 was well documented yet no-one seemed to bear any consequences for it.

Linda Reynolds said in the Senate, before her silence was bought with a promotion, “In fact, some of the behaviour is behaviour I simply do not recognise and I think has no place in my party or this chamber. I cannot condone and I cannot support what has happened to some of my colleagues on this side, in this chamber, in this place”.

I won’t even start on Liberal party staffers masturbating on desks or prayer room orgies or allegations of grooming or drunken late night sexual assaults and the responses to them.

When women across the nation joined together in an outpouring of grief and anger to demand change, Scott Morrison refused to come out and face the March 4 Justice crowds, instead saying from the floor of parliament that it was a triumph of democracy that protesters were not “met with bullets”.

This is not the time to point at someone else saying they do it too. It shouldn’t be necessary to form another committee to work out what to do either. It’s easy.

Just stop it!

There is nothing more infuriating, and typical, than hearing the things you care about being dismissed by affluent white men in power as “woke identity politics”.

The inspiring Uluru Statement from the Heart has been dismissed as such. Instead of using this blueprint to move forward, the men run scared at this perceived assault on their power. They won’t have an Indigenous Voice telling them what to do – we have lobbyists and consultants who are paid a fortune to do that. Their best effort has been to introduce, and widen the reach of, the cashless welfare card. And employ more truancy officers and police. And pay for more privately run detention centres.

Speaking of detention centres, the ongoing plight of refugees, indefinitely incarcerated for the non-crime of asking for our help to flee persecution and war, is also dismissed as bleeding heart lefty nonsense or, for some of the more rabid, a threat to national security and an assault on Western values and our Judeo-Christian way of life.

Which is kind of dismissive to we Australians who do not feel that Christian institutions should take credit for our values and morality or dictate how we should live our lives. To do anything but revere, protect, and fund the church, regardless of all that we know, is apparently verboten. Civilisation and salvation arrives and resides with the Christian Church. Truth-telling is dismissed as “black-armband” history that will upset the kiddies.

Those kiddies should be in school concentrating on rote learning and practising for standardised tests, not worrying their pretty little heads about alarmist stuff like climate change. Leave it to the grownups. The can-do-capitalists have that all sorted out.

Go watch some tv. Better catch your favourite shows on the ABC before they are sold off and filled with ads. Because we really can’t allow that Ultimo wokehive to keep spewing out its biased green-left agenda. It’s costing us too much in Royal Commissions and compensation payouts.

Who could have known the horrors in nursing homes that were exposed by the Four Corners program that was set to air the day after our brave PM changed his mind and announced an RC into Aged Care. And imagine the surprise we felt when we found out the disabled are being abused and neglected too. Why didn’t they speak up?

Women should speak up more too. Not those communist pot-smoking lesbians at the Teachers Federation who want to turn all of our kids into breast-binding, penis-tucking transgender Marxists. And not those rabid feminazis who keep demanding control of their own reproductive health. Or those token snowflakes that have pushed their way into parliament and then can’t handle it when the boys have a joke. We need more women like those esteemed award winners, Peta Credlin and Bettina Arndt.

If it wasn’t for the feminazis, the ABC lovers, the gays, the Aborigines, the refugees, the ecoterrorists, the inner-city latte sippers, the kids, the aged, the disabled, the homeless, the poor and all those other woke identity politics bleeding heart whingers – this government could get on with the serious business of wealth creation and post-politics employment planning.