I never thought it could happen in Australia, but Morrison with his temerarious judgment has decided to pick a fight about a $1 rise to the minimum wage, which is 38 cents more than the rise the business community has made in its submission to the Fair Work Commission (FWC).

Take that fact in for as many minutes as you need to; a Prime Minister who has legislated for very generous tax cuts for high income earners, who has accrued about $1Trillion in debt which there are not any long term national benefits for such borrowing, is saying the lowest paid wage earners, the people who will spend every single cent of those 38 cents, should not receive a pay increase in line with CPI inflation for which they hold no blame for it occurring (I refer you, the reader, to my previous article regarding why Australia should not be suffering this inflationary pressure).

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) Governor has not said the increase in inflation has been caused by wage growth, which makes our inflationary pressure different to the rest of the world. People’s wages in Australia have been essentially suppressed to 2013 rates (see Crikey review below). Morrison is saying these lowest paid workers should receive a pay cut.

To make matters even more ridiculous, Morrison is claiming the 38-cent increase beyond what business has submitted will crush the economy.’ This is the same economy which Morrison was claiming after the Federal Budget is a strong economy. Morrison initially said Labor could not change wages; now like a weathervane moving in the wind Morrison is claiming Labor will change the minimum wage. What? Even worse, Ms Hume says Labor’s intervention is unusual, unprecedented, which is once again incorrect. It is not improper for government to intervene in the FWC by making a submission about an actual figure, indeed the Howard Government did so. What is also rare is for the national minimum wage to increase by less than the rate of inflation.

Notwithstanding the factual matters referred to above, Morrison is still bludgeoning away as he has by his own fault wedged himself on the issue of the measly 38 cent increase above the 62 cents which business has submitted to the FWC as a pay increase for the minimum wage earner in Australia. It is absolute nonsense the 38-cent increase will “crush” the Australian economy and set out below are the facts and empirical research which support my opinion.

Crikey’s Opinion

I am indebted to Rod Welford, the former Queensland Attorney-General during the Beattie Government’s time in power here in Queensland, for posting this selected component of Mr Bernard Keane’s (@BernardKeane) of Crikey’s article on Thursday, 12 May 2021:

“Morrison says that there’s no magic wand to lift wages, and that businesses raise wages, not government (ignoring that he’s the biggest employer in the country, and was told by Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe to ditch his public sector wage cap to help wages growth).

But the history of the past decade is Australian businesses don’t lift wages. What they do is use multi-year enterprise agreements to lock workers into lower wages growth, demand increases in immigration to put downward pressure on wages, rely on the Coalition stacking the Fair Work Commission with employer group representatives and Coalition mates, and engage in economy-wide wage theft that has left workers out of pocket by billions.

And all along profits rose at the expense of wages, with the profit share of income surging from 2015 at the expense of the labour share – it currently stands near the all-time high level of 2020 – with real unit labour costs falling 9% between 2015 and 2021. Employers have banked all that, while ordinary households were stuck with real wages at 2013 levels.”

I concur with Mr Keane’s opinion regarding the parlous state household wages are left in after nine years of regressive Neoliberal economic theory being unleased on the Australian public.

However, the issue of economic theory is the subject which I wish to share with you today readers, as there is now taking place across the divide of the social sciences a new empirical approach to analysing data, including economic data relating to wages.

Harvard University

On 12 January 2020 Ms Natalia Emanuel and Ms Emma Harrington of the Harvard University School of Economics published a research paper titled “The Payoffs of Higher Pay” (Harvard article). Ironically, the subject matter of their study involved a pay rise of only $1.00. Surely somebody in either the Morrison Government or Department of Treasury (Treasury) should know about this research paper, and if they don’t, then a broom needs to be taken to Treasury, as well of course the Morrison Government.

The Harvard article confirmed what I had known for years from being educated in economics by my stepfather Mr Baldev Joshi (who was the top of his class in economics at the University of Queensland), but it was nice to see the economic theory being confirmed in writing in the United States, as unfortunately that is where this horrible 20^th Century Friedman exercise of market economics was first postulated. The Harvard paper in its opening introduction of ‘Abstract’ reports as follows:

Page 1:‘We document finite wage elasticities of turnover (between −3.0 and −4.5) and recruitment (between 3.2 and 4.2), which suggest the firm has some wage-setting power. Yet, on the margin, raising wages by $1 increases productivity by more than $1, giving the firm an incentive to pay more, even if they could pay lower wages.’

Page 3: “We estimate that the increase in productivity caused by raising wages fully pays for itself. This contributes to the important literature on efficiency wages, which has hypothesized about the effect of higher pay on productivity, but has struggled to quantify the elasticity of productivity with respect to pay Our findings echo the analysis of Ford Motor Company where high wages reduced turnover rates and elicited greater effort from workers (Raff and Summers, 1987) and Cappelli and Chauvin (1991), who find that higher relative pay in a multi-plant firm reduced disciplinary infractions as well as Cohn et al. (2014) who find a 25 percent pay cut reduces productivity by 15 percent among sales associates, and Hesford et al.…”

Page 5: “Our estimates reveal that women’s turnover is less responsive to pay then that of men in customer service, which would be consistent with a 6-cent pay gap. ” Importantly, we find that women’s productivity response to higher pay is substantially larger than men’s, suggesting a force that would push female wages higher than male wages. Together, these estimates underscore the importance of including productivity responses in addition to turnover responses when considering how worker responses to pay may affect firms’ pay-setting.”

The Harvard paper then proceeds to address in greater detail the summation of the findings set out in the Abstract, by making these observations or findings in chapter 1, Conceptual Framework:

Page 7: “Intuitively, if workers are unwilling to come to work except at high wages, or are willing to leave at lower wages, wages will be driven upward. The expression also shows that if productivity is increasing in wages, then wages will also be larger. Several explanations are plausible: If ability and reservation wages are positively correlated, then higher pay enhances the selection of workers (Weiss, 1980). Alternatively, if the job is more valuable, higher wages deter shirking (Shapiro and Stiglitz, 1984). Finally, if workers are more likely to feel that they are being paid fairly, they may respond with greater effort in a sort of gift exchange (Akerlof and Yellen, 1990).”

Page 7: “We estimate p(w), the worker output, based on what the firm had previously been paying for a given level of output, inclusive of taxes. Implicit in this usage is the assumption that any misoptimization in the payment is of second order. This means that when we arrive at a cost-benefit calculation, the concerns about taxes appear both on the cost-side and on the benefit-side, effectively cancelling out.”

At chapter 2, the Harvard paper reports its data is obtained from two Fortune 500 firms, however the second firm is critically important as the: “second source of data is the segment of a large staffing agency that provides temporary staffing for production and warehouse companies.”

Chapter 3 of the Harvard paper then proceeds to address productivity response to higher pay, and the following passages are relevant to the matters at hand regarding the value to businesses from the measly sum of a $1.00 increase in minimum pay:

Page 11: “We find that in both the retailer’s warehouse and among their on-site customer service agents, productivity increases when pay, or relative pay, increases. In the warehouse, when pay increases the number of boxes moved per hour by 7 percent (0.325/4.92 boxes per hour), reflecting an elasticity of 1.2. Among customer service representatives, paying $1/hour more than the local outside option increases calls taken per day by 7 percent, reflecting an elasticity of 1.12.”

Page 13: “… in the three months following the pay jump at the warehouse, boxes moved per hour increased by 0.328 off a base of 4.92 boxes moved per hour, an increase in productivity of 7 percent. This corresponds to an elasticity of 1.2. Our metric of boxes moved per moving hour is 0.316, an increase of 4 percent. Finally, we find an increase of 0.018 in the ratio of moving to total hours, which corresponds to an increase of 8.6 minutes of moving per person per day.”

Page 15: (the retailer data) “There is no statistically significant change in the share of absences that are unapproved by a manager in advance and thus difficult for the retailer to respond to.”

The Harvard paper at chapter 4 then examines the costly question of turnover elasticity, and in particular:

Page 16: “According to both estimates provided by the retailer and analysis of both warehouse and call-centre data, turnover is costly, even for workers in jobs that are relatively routine and do not require an advanced degree…(retailer data) Given the trajectory of learning, a higher rate of churn means that at any given time more workers will be new to the firm and have developed less skill in answering calls. This dynamic also suggests that retention of senior customer service representatives is more valuable than retention of junior ones because they will walk away with more human capital accumulated in the firm.…”

Page 16: “Using the same pay jump used to estimate the effect of pay on productivity in the warehouse context, we estimate the effects.”

Page 17: “In the three months before the pay increase, out of every 100 workers in the warehouse, on average 13.4 would be leave per month – a monthly retention rate of 86.6 percent. Paying an additional $1/hour decreases turnover by 2.5 individuals – a decrease in attrition of 18.7 percent, and an increase in retention of 2.8 percent. Since our point estimate captures the effect of a $1/hour increase off of $16.20/hour, our point estimate reflects an elasticity of turnover of 3.03… Since two of the three of these warehouses are within a 13-minute drive of the treated warehouse, if there were a shock to the local labour market for warehouse workers that were driving the decreased turnover, one would expect to see it decrease turnover in these warehouses as well. However, as Table B.9 shows, there is no decrease in turnover in other in-state warehouses.”

Page 17: “We likewise explore whether higher relative pay is associated with reduced turnover among customer service representatives. As in Section 3, we use the retailer’s sticky wages alongside changes in the local pay for customer service representatives as in Equation 3 to assess the value of an additional dollar in relative pay to reach these estimates.”

Page 18: “We find that higher pay is particularly effective at retaining representatives who start in the top third of daily call volume in their first month, as shown in Table B.6, Panel B. Each $1/hr of additional relative pay reduces turnover by 44% for initial top performers, implying a turnover elasticity of 6.6. …also find that in response to a commission adjustment that effectively lowers wages, high-performing call-centre workers are more likely to leave the company than low-performing workers.”

The Harvard paper also considers the impact on recruitment when the employer is paying $1 more an hour than a competitor:

Pages 18-19: “We find that when the retailer’s advertised wages are $1/hour higher than the local outside option, they recruit 23 to 30 percent more employees in the MSA, reflecting a recruitment elasticity between 3.2 and 4.2. Likewise $1/hour higher wages are associated with a 5 percent increase in the likelihood of employing a worker rated as excellent by their manager.”

Page 19: “We find that the retailer hires throughout the country and higher relative pay increases recruitment in MSAs throughout the country.”

Page 20: “As shown in Table 4, Panel A, every additional dollar the retailer pays above the average, local entry-level rate is associated with between 0.17 and 0.22 more customer service recruits in the MSA off of an average of 0.73. This translates into an elasticity of recruitment with respect to the wage of between 3.2 and 4.2.30 When customer service representatives are considering different options at the recruitment stage, their decision-making seems heavily swayed by relative pay.”

At chapter 6 the Harvard paper then examines the issue of the return to higher pay, and it opines:

Page 20: “We find that in both the warehouse context, where estimates arise from a deliberate increase in pay, and the customer service setting, where estimates arise from keeping pay constant, productivity shifts are instrumental in offsetting the costs of higher wages.”

Page 21: “We find that an increase of $1/hour means the warehouse has 2.5 fewer workers per hundred employees leave each month, yielding a savings of (2.5 fewer turnovers x $1849) $4623 per month… The gross returns of increased productivity in the warehouse are $1.44. Based on hourly pay in the treated warehouse, in the quarter before the pay jump, the firm was spending $4.27 per box moved ($16.20 in hourly wages * 1.30 in taxes / 4.92 boxes moved per person-hour). Since the higher pay increased the warehouse level productivity by 0.336 boxes per person-hour, the gross return on a $1 pay increase, which costs the firm $1.30/hour, is $1.44.”

Page 21: “Among customer service representatives at this retailer, the gross return on a $1/hour increase in the relative wage is also positive… Among customer service representatives, we find moderately small decreases in turnover from increasing relative pay. We estimate the cost of replacing a customer service representative to be $2,100, consisting of $1800 over the course of their 3-week training and $300 in badges and other administrative costs. According to these estimates, increased retention would thus reflect a savings of $2,730… A higher wage increases call volume by 1.90 calls per day, so the return on an $8/day in wages ($10.40 in total costs to the firm) in higher wages is $12.48 ($6.57 x 1.90) – or $1.56 on the $1/hour investment.”

To be thorough, the Harvard paper at chapter 7 examines the mechanisms of selection at behavioural responses, and it draws these interesting findings from the data:

Page 22: “To understand what share of the effects come from the same worker facing different wages and adjusting their behaviour accordingly, we leverage data from a staffing agency. While the dataset is distinct from the retailer data, the staffing agency places many workers in similar warehouse jobs, allowing us to consider the effects of pay on this occupation. Because we observe the same worker in multiple, comparable jobs with different pay, we can see what percent of the reduced form relationship is present when the same worker faces different pay rates. We find that over half of the turnover reduction and productivity increase arises from behavioural responses of the same worker facing different wages.”

Page 23: “Our estimates are thus identified off of variation in hourly pay across firms and workers in the same local labour market and industry… We find that an additional dollar of pay increases job completion by 2.6 percentage points, off a base of 40 percent completion. This is equivalent to an elasticity of 0.72. We estimate that 83 percent of that effect arises within the same worker… In this case, we find that 50% of the increase associated with higher pay arises within the same worker.”

At chapter 9 the Harvard paper then takes the reader to the important issue of benchmarking:

Page 26: “We find that higher relative pay increases job completion rates by 1.2 percentage points of a baseline completion rate of 83 percent… We estimate that an extra dollar in relative pay is associated with an 8 percent decrease in quits (-0.48 percentage points off of a base quit rate of 5.9 percent). We see no change in the evaluations proffer by on-site managers… Of the 8,477 temporary assignments that the shipper secures through the staffing agency, 75% are retained in our sample. To construct the outside option, we include all other warehouse jobs begun in the same season and in the same commuting zone filled through the staffing agency.”

Page 27: “We estimate that an additional dollar in relative hourly pay means the shipper is 6.7 percent (0.87 percentage points off a base of 13 percent) more likely to have a worker to is predicted to be reviewed excellently and 2 percent (0.75 percentage points off a base of 39 percent) less likely to have a new worker. There is no statistically significant difference in workers who are predicted to be poor.”

Page 28: “When the shipper is hiring at all, quits at rival firms increase by 12.4 percentage points off a base of 28 percent. An additional dollar of pay over the outside option is associated with a 1.45 percentage point increase in quits. We also assess bad endings– namely when workers be terminated for performance or attendance, or to receive a “Poor” Evaluation. When the shipper is hiring, bad endings at rival firms increase by 8 percentage points, off a base of 24 percent.”

The Harvard paper then delivers its overall opinion at chapter 10 under the heading of “Conclusion”, reporting these findings:

Page 28: “In this paper we present evidence that warehouse workers and customer service representatives are responsive to wages, not only with regard to recruitment and turnover, but also with regard to their on-the-job productivity. We estimate recruitment elasticities in excess of 3, turnover elasticities between -3 and -4.5, as well as productivity elasticities in excess of one. The productivity response to higher pay yields a net positive return. We estimate that 80 percent of the improvement in turnover arises from workers’ behavioural responses to higher pay… This paper also estimates gender differences in these elasticities. We find that while women’s labour supply is slightly less elastic than men’s, women increase their productivity in response to higher pay more than do men. The gender difference in labour supply elasticity is important because it suggests that when the concentration of firms is used as a measure of monopsony power, we may underestimate firms’ power to set female wages. The productivity response is particularly intriguing because it suggests that if wage discrimination were not illegal, women should be paid more than men in this context.”

Page 29: “Increases in the minimum wage will increase wages without decreasing employment. To the extent that our results are often measuring the difference between a firm’s pay and workers’ outside options, minimum wage changes change the outside option. If a minimum wage increase compresses the wage distribution, workers who were paid above the minimum wage will have less difference between their wages and their outside options. Our results suggest that firms can capture lower turnover and higher productivity by raising wages. Thus our paper suggests that in the wake of a minimum wage change, firms may seek to raise wages even for workers who were not paid the minimum wage.”

I have been meticulous as I can be with the content of the Harvard paper so that you the reader can understand the benefits the writers of the Harvard article found in increasing wages by only $1.00. Here in Australia, it is a measly 38 cents which Morrison is trying to run a scare campaign on. I just hope all the staff and students at the Harvard University School of Economics, when they eventually stop laughing about Morrison’s scare campaign, understand that his view does not conform with the views of most of the Australian public. One final comment, notwithstanding the pandemic, and the current inflationary pressures in the United States, this paper has not been changed in any respect to reflect a different finding, and therefore it remains an invaluable empirical resource to consider the question at hand. I have set out here the webpage address if you may wish to read this paper yourselves:

The 2021 Nobel Laureate Economics Prize

There can be no finer piece of empirical resource to resolve the 38 cents debate than the 2021 Nobel Laureate Economics Prize, which to describe the observations in the summation:

“This year’s Laureates – David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens – have shown that natural experiments can be used to answer central questions for society, such as how minimum wages and immigration affect the labour market. They have also clarified exactly which conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn using this research approach. Together, they have revolutionised empirical research in the economic sciences.” I have set out below the webpage address for you to examine the summation, if you may so desire to do:

What this opening to the summation conveys for the benefit of the dilettante (the uninitiated) of social sciences is that Mr Card, Mr Angrist and Mr Imbens have now revolutionised the approach for analysing data, particularly in economics. Their studies include how minimum wages affect the labour market. The summation refers to the following key points for the matter under consideration in this article:

1. One way of establishing causality is to use randomised experiments, where researchers allocate individuals to treatment groups by a random draw. This method is used to investigate the efficacy of new medicines, among other things, but is not suitable for investigating many societal issues – for example, we cannot have a randomised experiment determining who gets to attend upper-secondary school and who does not.
2. The Laureates have demonstrated that many of society’s big questions can be answered. Their solution is to use natural experiments – situations arising in real life that resemble randomised experiments. These natural experiments may be due to natural random variations, institutional rules or policy changes. In pioneering work from the early 1990s, David Card analysed some central questions in labour economics – such as the effects of a minimum wage, immigration and education – using this approach. The results of these studies challenged conventional wisdom and led to new research, to which Card has continued to make important contributions. Overall, we now have a considerably better understanding of how the labour market operates than we did 30 years ago.
3. In an innovative study from 1994, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens showed what conclusions about causation can be drawn from natural experiments in which people cannot be forced to participate in the programme being studied (nor forbidden from doing so). The framework they created has radically changed how researchers approach empirical questions using data from natural experiments or randomised field experiments.
4. In the early 1990s, the conventional wisdom among economists was that higher minimum wages lead to lower employment because they increase wage costs for businesses. However, the evidence supporting this conclusion was not fully convincing; there were indeed many studies that indicated a negative correlation between minimum wages and employment, but did this really mean that higher minimum wages led to higher unemployment? Reverse causation could even be the issue: when unemployment rises, employers can set lower wages which, in turn, may lead to demands to increase the minimum wage.
5. To investigate how increased minimum wages affect employment, Card and Krueger used a natural experiment. In the early 1990s, the minimum hourly wage in New Jersey was raised from 4.25 dollars to 5.05 dollars. Just studying what happened in New Jersey after this increase does not give a reliable answer to the question, as numerous other factors can influence how employment levels change over time. As with randomised experiments, a control group was needed, i.e., a group where wages didn’t change but all the other factors were the same.
6. Card and Krueger noted that there was no increase in neighbouring Pennsylvania. Of course, there were differences between the two states, but it is likely that the labour markets would evolve similarly close to the border. So, they studied the effects on employment in two neighbouring areas – New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania – which have a similar labour market, but where the minimum wage was increased on one side of the border but not the other.
7. Card and Krueger focused on employment in fast-food restaurants, an industry where pay is low and minimum wages matter. Contrary to previous research, they found that an increase in the minimum wage had no effect on the number of employees.
8. The overall conclusion is that the negative effects of increasing the minimum wage are small, and significantly smaller than was believed 30 years ago.
9. The Laureates’ contributions from the early 1990s demonstrate that it is possible to answer important questions about cause and effect using natural experiments. Their contributions complement and strengthen one another: Angrist and Imbens’ methodological insights about natural experiments and Card’s applications of this approach to important questions led the way for other researchers. We now have a coherent framework which, among other things, means that we know how the results of such studies should be interpreted. The work of the Laureates has revolutionised empirical research in the social sciences and significantly improved the ability of the research community to answer questions of great importance to us all.

I implore you the reader to take in the Laureates findings, consider them carefully, and then ask yourselves why 38 cents an hour on top of what business is arguing for as a minimum wage increase could possibly crush the economy as Morrison so inelegantly claims? The answer is it won’t, it will just assist the lowest paid workers in Australia to keep up with CPI in relation to their ever day costs of living expenses.

So why are we here?

To the educated mind the natural response would be “beats the living daylights out of me.” For everyday Australians earning the minimum wage it means a lot, as they struggle to pay their rent and other daily living costs.

For Morrison it is a poorly considered political tactic in an already sinking ship, and his whole approach to political life has been one of trying to manipulate the various Australian communities’ fears or passions, rather than doing what he should be, namely governing in the best interests of the nation. We have seen this week Morrison has had no moral compass when it comes to trying to manipulate social issues by supporting Ms Deves repulsive remarks, all in the name of trying to secure votes by trying to divide the nation. Morrison is not an economist, nor does he have a future vision for Australia, rather he tries to survive day by day by seeking opportunities for political expediency.

On this occasion Morrison jumped too soon, he did not consider the empirical research over the past 30 years, and now he has nothing but a ludicrous scare tactic which once again demonstrates he does not care if he causes harm to any people or group in Australian society. Indeed, his submission to the FWC has a whole chapter devoted to how keeping people below the poverty is good for the economy, which it isn’t.

The sought after 38 cents which means a $1.00 an hour increase to the minimum wage will not crush our economy, as it will just help the lowest paid workers keep up with the costs of living, and every single cent they receive will in any event be spent to keep the cycle of the economy running. However, what Morrison’s scare campaign does is it highlights his propensity to lie or be a hypocrite, not only for all the reasons stated herein, but also because he started this campaign by spruiking how strong the Australian economy is. Once again, Morrison’s dreadful character flaws are displayed.

Our lowest paid workers deserve that extra 38 cents. There is no sensible reason to militate against this happening.

Australia deserves a better future under an Albanese Government. On Saturday, 21 May 2022 vote 1 Labor, for a government which will govern for every Australian.

Continued from Part 3: Why an Albanese Government should be elected.

(In Part 1 of these articles I provided a link to the ALP’s 2022 policy agenda, and I ask that you take time to read those items of policy (if you haven’t done so as yet), before reading the matters I raise here-on-in.)

Climate Change

As I stated earlier, it has been a dreadful political tactic by Morrison and Abbott to weaponise climate change as a political point scoring mechanism, rather than treating it for what is, the most pressing global issue which all of us living on this beautiful little blue planet must address to ensure not just the survival of certain flora or fauna, but also our own survival. The Morrison Government do not have a proper climate change plan, and even the carbon credit scheme is being called an alleged fraud.

The ALP has a plan which addresses climate change in an expeditious and responsible manner.

Powering Australia

An Albanese Government will:

• Upgrade the electricity grid to fix energy transmission and drive down power prices.
• Make electric vehicles cheaper with an electric car discount and Australia’s first National Electric Vehicle Strategy.
• Adopt the Business Council of Australia’s recommendation for facilities already covered by the Government’s Safeguard Mechanism that emissions be reduced gradually and predictably over time, to support international competitiveness and economic growth – consistent with industry’s own commitment to net zero by 2050.
• Protect the competitiveness of Emissions Intensive Trade Exposed industries by ensuring they will not face a greater constraint than their competitors.
• Allocate up to $3 billion from Labor’s National Reconstruction Fund to invest in green metals (steel, alumina and aluminium); clean energy component manufacturing; hydrogen electrolysers and fuel switching; agricultural methane reduction and waste reduction.
• Provide direct financial support for measures that improve energy efficiency within existing industries and develop new industries in Regional Australia through a new Powering the Regions Fund. Roll out 85 solar banks around Australia to ensure more households can benefit from rooftop solar.
• Install 400 community batteries across the country.
• Demonstrate Commonwealth leadership by reducing the Australian Public Service’s own emissions to net zero by 2030.
• Invest in 10,000 New Energy Apprentices and a New Energy Skills Program.
• Establish a real-world vehicle fuel testing program to inform consumer choice.
• Work with large businesses to provide greater transparency on their climate related risks and opportunities.
• Re-establish leadership by restoring the role of the Climate Change Authority, while keeping decision-making and accountability with Government and introducing new annual Parliamentary reporting by the Minister.

The ALP’s plan will see Australia re-join key trading partners in their ambition to 2030, like Canada (with its similar economic base) at 40-45%, South Korea at 40% and Japan at 46%. Peak groups including the BCA, Australian Industry Group, and National Farmers Federation have said that raising Australia’s 2030 emissions mitigation goals is “necessary to provide a clear and credible basis for action and investment [and] maintain our competitiveness amidst a growing global transition.” Powering Australia puts Government policy in line with Australia’s leading industry, business and agricultural groups.

The Environment

The ALP will commit to a suite of environmental policies that continues Labor’s legacy in the policy issue of the environment.

Federal ICAC

Morrison has really been caught on a lie of a broken promise regarding the implementation of a Federal ICAC. The ALP believes the time is long past for a National Anti-Corruption Commission to be established, and an Albanese Labor Government will give priority to introducing legislation to establish such a body.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission established by the ALP will operate with all the independence, resources and powers of a standing Royal Commission into serious and systemic corruption in the federal government. The ALP has been working with Australia’s preeminent legal and integrity experts to develop design principles that will ensure the Commission is the most effective anti-corruption watchdog in the country.

Under these design principles, the Commission will:

• have broad jurisdiction to investigate Commonwealth ministers, public servants, statutory office holders, government agencies, parliamentarians, and personal staff of politicians;
• carry out its functions independently of government, with discretion to commence inquiries into serious and systemic corruption on its own initiative or in response to referrals, including from whistleblowers and complaints from the public. To ensure the Commission’s independence, the Commissioner and any Deputy Commissioner would serve for a single fixed term and have security of tenure comparable to that of a federal judge;
• be overseen by a statutory bipartisan Joint Standing Committee of the Parliament, empowered to require the Commission to provide information about its work. To ensure bipartisan support for the Commission’s work, that Committee would be responsible for confirming the Commissioners nominated by the Government;
• have the power to investigate allegations of serious and systemic corruption that occurred before or after its establishment;
• have the power to hold public hearings where the Commission determines it is in the public interest to do so;
• be empowered to make findings of fact, including a finding of corrupt conduct, but not to make determinations of criminal liability. Findings that could constitute criminal conduct would be referred to the Australian Federal Police or the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions for further consideration; and
• operate with procedural fairness and its findings would be subject to judicial review.

Chris Bowen’s Q & A appearance resolutely stated the facts in relation to a Federal ICAC, namely one will only be implemented under a Labor federal government.

First Nations People

An Albanese Government will:

• Implement the Uluru Statement in full – Voice, Treaty and Truth.
• Work towards Closing the Gap.
• Abolish the punitive Community Development Program.
• Turn the tide on incarceration and deaths in custody through landmark justice reinvestment funding.
• Improve housing in remote Indigenous communities.
• Invest in First Nations management of land and waters.
• Strengthen First Nations economic and job opportunities.
• Get rid of the privatised Cashless Debit Card.

Aged Care

Older Australians helped build this country. They worked hard, paid their taxes and raised their families.

As I stated about the atrocious record of the Morrison Government regarding aged care, it is not only in crisis, it is also a national disgrace.

An Albanese Labor Government will take practical measures to ensure older Australians receive the aged care they deserve:

• Registered nurses on site 24/7: Under a Labor Government, every aged care facility will be required to have a registered, qualified nurse on site, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This will save thousands of stressful, expensive and ultimately unnecessary trips to hospital Emergency Departments, for issues a nurse could solve on the spot.
• More carers with more time to care: Labor will raise the standard of aged care across the board – by ensuring there are more carers, who have more time to care. We will mandate that every Australian living in aged care receives an average of 215 minutes of care per day, as recommended by the Royal Commission. That means more care for every resident, every day. Not just for essential medical treatment – but basic, important things like helping people take a shower, get dressed or eat a meal.
• A pay rise for aged care workers: Labor will back a real pay rise for aged care workers. Labor will support workers’ calls for better pay at the Fair Work Commission. And a Labor Government will fund the outcome of this case. Because if we want higher standards of care – we need to support higher wages for our carers.
• Better food for residents: Labor will ensure that there is better food for residents of aged care homes. A Labor Government will work with the sector to develop and implement mandatory nutrition standards for aged care homes to ensure every resident gets good food.
• Dollars going to care: Labor will make residential care providers report – in public and in detail – what they are spending money on. And we will give the Aged Care Safety Commissioner new powers to ensure there is accountability and integrity.

Labor has a plan to put security, dignity, quality and humanity back into aged care.

“Only an Albanese Labor Government will treat aged care residents with the respect they deserve.”

Scott Morrison and the Liberals have neglected older Australians and the aged care system for nearly a decade – it's a national disgrace.

Only an Albanese Labor Government will treat aged care residents with the respect they deserve. pic.twitter.com/n8bRAUy7mY

— Senator Tony Sheldon (@TonySheldonNSW) May 2, 2022

Other Policies

There are many other important policy issues the ALP wish to implement upon an Albanese Government being elected. These issues address women (protecting women and equality of pay are major issues for women which will be implemented by an ALP government), the NDIS, protecting the ABC and disaster readiness, to name a few. If you wish to examine all of the policies an Albanese Government will implement, please visit this website: Our plan for a better future for all Australians.

My ALP Candidate

I have previously written about my local ALP candidate for the seat of Ryan, Peter Cossar:

A Person For All Seasons

Peter is a good person, and he has been working hard to knock on as many doors as possible in Ryan, to understand the needs of the various community members which make up this l Federal Seat. The Liberal Party have for too long now treated Ryan like an old piece of discarded silver ware, deposited away in the darkest corners of the Liberals’ closet.

It’s time to turn Ryan Red. It’s time for Peter Cossar to be the new Honourable Member for Ryan.

Conclusion

The Coalition like to say a lot about the ALP, but they have too many skeltons in their closet. An Albanese Government will breathe a breath of fresh air into our democracy.

If a Coalition person makes a comment about Albanese personally to you, tell them these facts in response.

Have a nice day or evening, and remember, we are at the crossroads of history at this 2022 Federal Election, so please vote 1 for Labor.

Continued from Part 2.

Why an Albanese Government Should be Elected

My Morrison Must Go article set out a number of reasons why an Albanese Government should be elected but let us drill down a little further regarding the policies which the ALP have announced or have recorded on their website.

This is not change for the sake of change. I repeat what I said in my AIMN article of 28 April 2022 about the reasons why change is now necessary, in the interests of our democracy, and even in the compromised interests of our Fourth Estate. Indeed, when it comes to media bias in favour of the Liberal Party, I have previously raised these facts of concern. This week we saw that bias on full display as an impertinent reporter from Channel 9 tried to make a hero of himself with a gotcha question asked of Albanese, when all he did was interrupt the flow of policy discussion at an energy forum.

Notwithstanding the ongoing imbecilic reporting by Channels 7, 9, and the Murdochracy (and even some reporters at the ABC), there are very important policy objectives which the ALP will introduce to make Australia a better nation again, brought together and not the divided horde which Morrison has deliberately planned for it to be (take the intrusion by Morrison into the NSW Branch of the Liberal Party to insert as a candidate for Warringah, Katherine Deves).

In Part 1 of these articles, I provided a link to the ALP’s 2022 policy agenda, and I ask that you take time to read those items of policy (if you haven’t done so as yet), before reading the matters I raise here-on-in.

So, as I said earlier in reference to the theatrical work of art, “away we go.”

Cost of Living

Childcare

Nowhere have young families felt the cost of living more than in the failure of the Morrison Government to implement a policy regarding the costs of childcare. Indeed, for many families this cost makes it uneconomic for both parents to work when the childcare fees almost consume one of the incomes being brought in by a parent. An ALP government led by Anthony Albanese will:

• Lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families for the first child in care;
• Increase childcare subsidy rates for every family with one child in care earning less than $530,000 in household income;
• Keep higher childcare subsidy rates for the second and additional children in care;
• Extend the increased subsidy to outside school hours care.

96 per cent of Australian families will be better off under the ALP’s childcare reforms. Which in real terms amounts to 1.26 million families. The ALP will also get the ACCC to design a price regulation mechanism to drive out of pocket costs down for good, and the Productivity Commission will conduct a comprehensive review of the sector with the aim of implementing a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all families.

The ALP will also develop and implement a whole of government Early Years Strategy to create a new integrated approach to the early years and develop of program of action. The ALP will invest approximately $5.4 billion to make childcare cheaper, starting from July 2023.

Economic Plan and Budget Strategy

I have already in the matters discussed above regarding the Morrison Government’s mismanagement of the economy highlighted how unnecessary it has been for Australians to be subjected to the inflationary pressure (remember we did not go into recession under the helm of the Rudd and Gillard Governments).

Undoubtedly this is the worst nightmare of poor economic performance being displayed by the Morrison Government as it is an out-of-control truck of pork barrelling lacking criteria for billions of dollars of our money being handed over to undeserving recipients which would not meet the proper criteria for such large amounts of money being distributed to them. Indeed, it is almost like watching pigs in mud as the Morrison Government displays its focus on channelling funds into seats it needs to retain to be returned to government, and with that intention the beneficial outcome for the public has been negligible, such as building a carpark where there is no train station.

An ALP government’s Budget Strategy is tailored to Australia’s economic conditions and is designed to:

• Make room for smart, targeted investments that expand the capacity of the economy, so that it can grow stronger, broader and more sustainably.
• Improve the quality of spending to generate a budget position that will allow us to reduce debt as a share of the economy over time, while delivering real outcomes for Australians in essential areas like Medicare, aged care and childcare.

The ALP will do this by:

• Prioritising smart, responsible and targeted investments that deliver economic value.
• Dealing with the Liberals’ wasteful spending including by trimming spending on contractors, consultants and labour hire in the public service.
• Conducting a waste and rorts audit.
• Closing down loopholes which allow multinationals to avoid their tax obligations to Australians.

An Albanese Government will not impose new taxes on Australians, but it will go after the multinational companies trading here in Australia who have not paid tax under the Morrison Government. The ALP will tackle multinational tax avoidance in four ways:

1. Supporting the OECD’s Two-Pillar Solution for a global 15 per cent minimum tax and ensuring some of the profits of the largest multinationals – particularly digital firms – are taxed where the products or services are sold.
2. Limiting debt-related deductions by multinationals at 30 per cent of profits, consistent with the OECD’s recommended approach, while maintaining the arm’s length test and the worldwide gearing ratio.
3. Limiting the ability for multinationals to abuse Australia’s tax treaties when holding intellectual property in tax havens.
4. Introducing transparency measures including reporting requirements on tax information, beneficial ownership, tax haven exposure and in relation to government tenders.

An Albanese Government will support a global 15 per cent minimum tax and ensuring some of the profits of the largest multinationals are taxed where the products or services are sold as it will implement the OECD’s global Two Pillar Solution, which was designed to address challenges created by the digitisation of our economies. The Two-Pillar solution includes:

1. a Global Minimum Tax proposal to ensure multinationals pay an effective tax rate of at least 15 per cent on the profits they make around the world; and
2. a fairer distribution of profits by multinationals, in particular digital firms.

Creating artificial debts and repayment arrangements within related entities is one of the main strategies multinational groups use to minimise their profits in higher tax countries while maximising income in low tax countries. An Albanese Government will adapt Australia’s rules on deducting interest to fit with the OECD’s recommended approach to limit net interest expenses to 30 per cent of profits (EBITDA – earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) from 1 July 2023.

An Albanese Government will ensure we are targeting tax minimisation and firms may be able to make further deductions if they can substantiate those under the arm’s length test or worldwide gearing ratio test.

Many countries around the world have adopted similar approaches including the US, UK, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Spain and many other European countries.

Housing

A major cost of living issue in Australia is the price of housing.

Under the Morrison Government we have witnessed market politics at its worst in relation to the cost of housing. To put it in simple terms, the Morrison Government have been economically negligent in allowing the cost of housing to skyrocket.

An Albanese Labor Government will help more people get into the housing market sooner by:

• Cutting the cost of buying a home by up to 40 per cent. This will mean a smaller deposit, a smaller mortgage and smaller mortgage repayments. Help to Buy will be open to 10,000 Australians each financial year.
• Implementing a system whereby eligible home buyers will need a minimum deposit of 2 per cent, with an equity contribution from the Federal Government of up to a maximum of 40 per cent of the purchase price of a new home and up to a maximum of 30 per cent of the purchase price for an existing home. This would mean that for a homebuyer in Sydney, buying at the maximum price cap of $950,000 with 40 per cent equity, monthly mortgage repayments would be over $1,600 cheaper.
• Implementing a system for a homebuyer in regional Queensland, buying at the maximum price cap of $500,000 with 40 per cent equity, monthly mortgage repayments would be over $850 cheaper.

Similar schemes are already successfully operating in several states including Western Australia and Victoria. Homebuyers will not be required to pay rent on the stake of the home held by the Federal Government. Help to Buy will cost around $329 million over the forward estimates. Real Estate groups support the scheme.

Tomorrow: Why an Albanese Government should be elected (continued).

Continued from Part 1.

The Scandals

The scandals surrounding the Morrison Government are set out in my Morrison Must Go article. However, there are still these unanswered questions which we, the voting public, are being kept in the dark about regarding:

• Ms Rachelle Miller, as she wants the public to know all of the reasons why she was paid $500,000 of our money; we should thank Ms Miller as she also informed the nation Tudge was still a member of the Morrison Government cabinet, and Morrison has then remarkably said Tudge will be his Education Minister if his government is re-elected again (paying out $500,000.00 of our money would surely disqualify a person from holding a ministerial portfolio.
• Billions of dollars spent on grants without any criteria for reporting
• JobKeeper waste in the sum of $38Billion being paid to companies which did not meet the criteria for such payments.
• Misuse of our funds for private purposes
• Professor Hocking has previously written about the alleged culture of corruption which seems to have consumed the Morrison Government.
• The old Liberal Party pork barrelling, and all of the insidious factors which flow from this biased misuse (some may say even worse discretions) of our money.

That is quite list of allegedly scandalous behaviour whilst holding office. One matter is certain, you will not find one impertinent reporter from Channels 7, 9 and the Murdochracy shouting at Morrison about these scandals.

Aged Care and the Indue Card

Aged care in this country is not only in crisis, it is also a disgrace. The Commonwealth Government is responsible for the aged care facilities in this country, but this is what we have witnessed regarding the treatment of aged citizens who helped build this nation and paid their taxes:

• Many of you may say “tell me it’s not true”, but yes the costs of proper care were challenged by the Morrison Government:

Are YOU Really Arguing We Can’t Feed and Care for Our Grandparents?

• Covid was spreading like wildfire through our aged care facilities, but the Minister responsible for aged care decided a day at the Test Cricket match was more important.
• Letting it rip
• Whisky over wages

Now the second issue I have referred to under this heading is very concerning in relation to the Indue Card, as it is an overreach of governance to determine what pensioners and any other person requiring public money to support them should have to submit to, to receive such support because:

• If the Morrison Government didn’t intend to put aged pensioners on the Indue Card forever, why did they make this amendment to the legislation in 2020?
• Keith Pitt confirms the Indue Card is here to stay, despite all of the denials rushing out of the mouths of Morrison and Ms Rushton (I thank the ALP’s candidate for Hinkler Jason Scales for providing this information to all of us Facebook).

Medicare

The Coalition have never liked people being able to access proper medical care. Indeed, the Whitlam Government’s Medibank scheme was privatised by the Fraser Government, which then made Bob Hawke determined to introduce universal health care again when he came to office. These are the egregious examples as to how the Morrison Government is slowly but surely dismantling Medicare:

• I have previously written about the manner in which the Morrison Government, and the Liberal Party governments which preceded it, have been slowly but surely been dismantling Medicare:

Brick by brick we say goodbye to Medicare

• Ms Rushton being appointed to the Health portfolio just before the 2022 Federal Election was called, and she has a history of making statements about Medicare which are not comforting about the long-term intentions of the Morrison Government if they are re-elected.
• Vulnerable Australians missing out to the diminished funding of Medicare.

Covid

Morrison likes to boast about how many lives he saved here in Australia in response to the global pandemic, but the first question is “how as a nation girt by sea did Covid ever manage to enter Australia?” Well, a Royal Commission will need to be established to examine our response to Covid-19, but in the meantime our experienced press gallery members (not the barking mad junior members) have had this to say:

• The lack of planning
• Morrison said it isn’t a race regarding vaccines, but indeed it was, a comment which Morrison even said he regretted making it, but he still did make it in what was an obvious attempt to mislead us.
• The online media were even warning Morrison about his hubris and stubbornness when it comes to his decision making regarding Covid-19.
• Despite the warnings, Morrison was too optimistic about Covid-19 heading into the summer of 2021-2022, but he still won’t apologise.

Robodebt

This scheme is sad for the lives destroyed or lost by what was undoubtedly one of the most shameful chapters in the history of this almost a decade of miserable governance under the most inept governments in what has been a revolving door of Prime Ministers. Robodebt should always be looked upon with nothing but great shame, such was the harm which it caused in the community:

• In his usual pusillanimous style Morrison tried to absolve himself from blame, even though as Prime Minister he declared the funds received from the scheme would assist the government’s revenue declarations.
• A Federal Court judge stated the Robodebt scheme was a shameful chapter in our history.

When one scans one’s eyes over this atrocious history of federal governance, in which such shocking economic, social services, waste, scandals and foreign affairs policy are, to quote an old friend Nick, “the Smirking Turd has presided over the most corrupt, mendacious and inept government in Australia’s history.” Like many Australians, Nick, me and you the reader are at the crossroads of history in which in the interest’s of our descendants, those of our blood all the way through to those whom we shall never meet living in the next century, we must rid ourselves of the Morrison Government.

Continued tomorrow: Why an Albanese Government should be elected.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” (John F. Kennedy, 1963)

The former United States President spoke these eloquent words at a time when the USA was releasing itself from the restrictive leashes of its past and setting out at the dawn of an exciting new era.

Yesterday Mr Frydenberg said; “now is not the time for a change of government.” The same desperate words were spoken by Mr Morrison again this morning on The Today Show. They are desperate words spoken from the decks of the sinking ship which is the Morrison Government. However, peel back the layers of fear mongering, dog whistling, disinformation and now desperation, what lays beneath at the bottom of the Morrison Government’s ship? Nothing! There is no plan for our manufacturing sector, for our aged care sector, and tertiary education providers, to name a few. It’s just the same old song, and the Liberal Party wants the beat to go on. They ask that you ignore:

1. Mr Morrison’s secret trip to Hawaii as the country went up in flames; a bushfire the scale of which we had not seen before, but we now know Mr Morrison was forewarned about it occurring by the fire officials long before the fires occurred.
2. The Ruby Princess docking, which had already warned the harbour officials people were sick on board, but then those sick passengers were permitted to leave. The Ruby Princess occurred in circumstances whereby the Morrison Government had banned cruise ships from docking, but it had allowed four including the Ruby Princess to be exempt.
3. Proper quarantine centres for the pandemic, rather than continuing to rely upon hotel quarantine.
4. Telling us we were at the front of the queue for vaccines when we were at back, and we had to endure, as Ms Sally McManus called it, the ‘stroll out.’
5. Letting Omicron rip, or “living with Covid” as Mr Morrison said with such ‘affectlessness’ as our aged care sector were left to be so defenceless against the virus, whilst Mr Morrison had photo opportunities taken of him cooking a whole Barramundi.
6. The floods. Totally missing in action there, and when they did intervene, the Morrison Government only paid Queenslanders half of what the good people in New South Wales received.
7. Stagnant wage growth.
8. The worst failure in foreign affairs and national security since WWII.

Image from change.org

Ian William Chubb AC FAA, who is an Australian neuroscientist and academic and was the Chief Scientist of Australia, said in September 2018 at the National Press Club these words about where we were at politically at that time:

“A combination of cliché piled upon cliché, three-word mantras, endless quick fixes, avoidance of anything intellectually demanding, dog-whistling, vengeance politics and the adjourning of democracy (as just happened), is no way to build confidence or trust. The solemn declarations of commitment to ‘Australian values’ or to the ‘fair go’ and even to a ‘new generation’ out there ‘listening’, is risible. If they really did listen to us, we would have, just as an example, more focus on renewable energy (polls show about 84 per cent want more investment), less on coal (60 per cent support a global alliance promising to phase-out coal power by 2030) and more sensible emissions targets (56 per cent want a 45 per cent or greater reduction on CO2 emissions by 2030). And where are we? Pretending this is less important than a $3 per week reduction in electricity prices.”

An Albanese Government offers the Australian people a plan (this is not the complete list) for our future which includes:

1. Improved aged and health care.
2. Restoration of manufacturing or the secondary tier of the economy.
3. More TAFE and university places.
4. Cheaper childcare.
5. The Powering Australia energy plan which will assist us to reduce our emissions to 43% by 2030, create jobs and deliver cheaper power.
6. A Federal ICAC.
7. Budget repair.

The Morrison Government has destroyed our economy as we are witnessing inflation spiral upwards out of control, and interest rates will be increased to try to address the inflation problem we should never had in the first place. We now owe almost $1Trillion in national debt, with nothing to show for it. The Liberal Party is tearing itself apart internally, and meanwhile National Party members like Mr Canavan have started mumbling no net zero regarding climate change. There has been too much dysfunction, too much waste of our money, a lack of accountability and a clear message being conveyed to the electorate by the Morrison Government, a government which has no plans for this country’s future, they are in politics for their own selfish gain.

Benjamin Franklin once stated: “Lost time is never found again.”

Benjamin Franklin warns that time is a scarce resource, and if it’s wasted, it cannot be recovered later.

Time should not be wasted now by us on a stale, incompetent and dysfunctional rabble of a federal government.

It is time for Australia to seize the moment. It is time for a change to an Albanese Labor Government.

Yesterday Mr Morrison forthrightly gave a guarantee to Australia he would not increase taxes; a guarantee which is not even worth the money it’s written on. Walt Disney’s charming film ‘Dumbo’ comes to mind whenever I think about Morrison’s so-called guarantee, “Because I thought I had heard everything until I heard Morrison told another lie.”

We are now carrying a net national debt of $912B, and this was the same Liberal/ National Party Morrison Government which proclaimed just before the 2019 Federal Election, “Australia we are Back in Black.” I understand the coffee mugs which Parliament House was selling to push this propaganda ‘of Back in Black’ onto us are still selling cheaply at about 5 cents a mug, which is more than Mr Morrison’s Guarantee is worth.

To explain some of the terms in this article I shall explain them out:

• AGS is Australian Government Securities.
• GDP stands for gross domestic product, and it is the monetary value of all finished goods and services made within a country during a specific period. GDP provides an economic snapshot of a country, used to estimate the size of an economy and growth rate.
• Interest on the national debt is how much the federal government must pay on outstanding public debt each year.
• MYFEO is Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
• National debt includes debt owed to individuals, to businesses, and to foreign central banks, as well as intragovernmental holdings.
• Net debt is the sum of all financial liabilities (gross debt) of a government less its respective financial assets.

Not long before Mr Frydenberg delivered the Morrison Government’s 2022-23 Federal Budget, a paper was written by Robert Carling for The Centre For Independent Studies (CIS) titled “A sea of red: Tracking Australia’s debt iceberg.”

Mr Carling’s review of our net national debt (not gross), which currently sits at an eyewatering $912Billion, is he forecasts an increase in debt of $3.8Billion to 2024-25, and there being an increased level risk, drag on the economy and risks of crowding out some Govt services. In his introduction, Mr Carling opines that:

“… the increase in debt raises economic policy issues of major concern. It is reducing fiscal flexibility and the capacity of governments to respond effectively to future crises. It may also act as a drag on economic growth in the longer term. There is no prospect of debt being paid down as it was in the decade up to 2007. This would require budget surpluses and/or large privatisations of public enterprises – neither of which is likely. To the contrary, the outlook is for continuing structural budget deficits and there are fewer opportunities for privatisations, with none of substantial scale on governments’ agendas. The best that can be expected is that the debt burden will be gradually eroded relative to GDP as the economy grows. However, this will require interest rates on government bonds to remain below the economic growth rate. It will also require fiscal discipline that places budget deficits on a path to elimination over the next several years. This is the key lesson for the coming round of federal and state/territory budgets, and in particular a warning that expenditure restraint needs to be exercised.”

On page 2 of his report, Mr Carling states:

“… general government net debt – the measure most often used to gauge the debt burden – is estimated to reach 53% of GDP in 2024/25, up from 22% in 2018/19.” 53% of GDP by 2024-25.”

On page 7 Mr Carling discusses our net national debt in these terms:

“Such a large increase in indebtedness as is now under way cannot occur without consequences. At the very least, it raises the nation’s economic risk profile. It leaves Australia more vulnerable to future adverse shocks. More tangible is the drag on economic growth and the loss of public policy opportunities that would otherwise have been available. The impact of a public debt burden on economic growth is a controversial issue among economists. Large deficits may be stimulatory in the short-term, but the resulting debt may also act as a drag on economic growth in the medium to long term. However, there is much dispute about the level of debt at which a negative impact on growth begins to be felt. Debt will restrict future fiscal flexibility. Future tax cuts will have to be foregone or taxes increased. While there will be a welcome increase in discipline on governments to avoid wasteful spending, fiscal pressure will also crowd out beneficial new spending, including on infrastructure (emphasis added). Once the current crisis passes and governments focus – as they inevitably must – on budget repair, this task will be a distraction from the equally important challenge of implementing reforms to strengthen productivity growth. We can therefore say that looking at the Commonwealth and states in aggregate, general government net debt on current estimates will increase from 22% of GDP in 2019 to 53% in 2025.”

Mr Carling’s sources of information are based on International Monetary Fund reports, State and Commonwealth budgets, including Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlooks. Mr Carling’s experience and published works are set out on the final page of his report.

Now I kindly ask you to view pages 192 to 198 of the 2022-23 Budget papers (Budget), which address the issue of net national debt.

It’s evident the Morrison Government in presenting this Budget are planning on a ‘plain sailing’ outlook, which does not address properly interest rate rises arising from the runaway inflation which the World and Australia will experience for several months to come. On page 193 the Morrison Government says in its overview of national debt:

“Net debt is expected to be 31.1 per cent of GDP at 30 June 2023 before stabilising at 33.1 per cent of GDP at the end of forward estimates and falling to 26.9 per cent of GDP by the end of the medium term. Interest payments on AGS as a share of GDP are expected to remain broadly consistent with estimates at MYEFO and around long-run average levels.“

I then kindly ask you to view page 194 of the Budget, as the Morrison Government says:

“Net debt is expected to be lower than estimated at MYEFO across all years of the forward estimates. This primarily reflects the Government’s decreased borrowing requirement resulting from the expected improvement in the underlying cash balance, and a decrease in the market value of AGS due to higher yields than were assumed at MYEFO.”

There are a lot of ifs and assumptions in that opinion.

If you would then please turn to page 196 of the Budget as the Morrison Government proceeds to say:

“Interest payments as a share of GDP are expected to remain broadly consistent with estimates at MYEFO over the forward estimates, with the expected impact of the recent rise in interest rates partially offset by lower issuance of AGS. By the end of the medium term, interest payments as a share of GDP are projected to be lower than projected at MYEFO, as assumed higher interest rates are more than offset by the expected lower issuance of AGS. Interest payments as a share of the economy are expected to remain around the 30-year average of just under one per cent through the forward estimates.”

Also on page 196 of the Budget is a table numbered 6.9 in which it records interest payments, interest receipts and net interest payments.

One of the political and economics journalists at The Sydney Morning Herald (The SMH), Shane Wright, wrote an opinion piece about the Budget; “Debt grows, deficits continue despite $300b boost to economy” which was published by the SMH on 29 March 2022. Mr Wright held the following opinions about the Budget:

1 The Budget is forecast to show a $78Billion deficit for the 2022-23 financial year after a $79.8Billion shortfall in the current year.

2 Although being down on what was forecast in 2021-22, the deficits are still among the four largest deficits on record.

3 Gross debt is still expected to break the trillion-dollar mark in 2023-24 and hit $1.2Trillion by 2025.

4 Higher interest rates are also starting to bite into the Budget.

5 Whilst tax receipts for iron ore and coal prices remain at current levels until the end of the September quarter, tax receipts are likely to be $30Billion over four years better than forecast by Mr Frydenberg. Whilst that may improve the deficit, the federal government would also face higher costs linked to inflation and borrowing costs.

6 Treasury also notes a possible risk to the budget if China’s economy slows more quickly than expected due to another Covid outbreak, which would drive down the price of key commodities.

However, AMP in their article about the Budget expressed the view that:

1 At a micro level, the Budget may be criticised on the grounds that:

• The temporary fuel excise reduction is bad economic policy in that: it may be very hard to reverse if oil prices keep rising or stay high; it will make no sense if oil prices fall back on say a Ukraine peace deal; and it sets a bad precedent.
• Many welfare recipients are arguably getting compensated for “cost of living” pressures twice – via the one of payment and via the indexation of payments to inflation.
• The housing measures continue to focus more on demand than supply which will result in higher than otherwise home prices (even though they are unlikely to prevent the cyclical downturn in prices now starting) and will boost debt levels.

2 At a macro level there are two big risks flowing from the Budget as:

• Firstly, the pre-election cash splash (which is about 1% of GDP in terms of new stimulus in the Budget for this calendar year, but is actually a bit more if spending of the $16bn in “decisions taken but not yet announced” in MYEFO are allowed for) risks overstimulating the economy at a time when it is already strong, further adding to inflationary pressures and adding to the amount by which the RBA will have to hike interest rates.
• Secondly, the reliance on growing the economy to reduce the budget deficit and debt is unlikely to reduce debt quickly enough and is dependent on interest rates remaining low relative to economic growth. 10-year bond yields have already gone up more than four-fold since their 2020 low warning of a sharp increase in debt interest payments beyond the medium term. And economic growth is unlikely to be anywhere near strong enough to reduce the debt burden as it did in the post-WW2 period unless there is another immigration boom or 1980s style focus on boosting productivity – both of which look unlikely. In the meantime, the strategy would be highly vulnerable if anything came along to curtail the commodity boom. So, at some point, tough decisions are likely to be required either to reduce spending as a share of GDP or raise taxes.

It is evident the opinions on risk factors expressed by Mr Carling and AMP are strong regarding the Budget and national net debt levels, including the forward projections. There is a shared opinion between Mr Carling and AMP regarding the net national debt, namely reduce spending (goodbye Medicare, Aged Care and Education) or raise taxes, but Mr Morrison you can’t raise taxes as you gave us your guarantee! If the fairies at the bottom of the garden tell you every single item of economic, social, and international events will remain the same for the next three years, well then, you will be severely disappointed with those fairies about the economic opinions herein. What does this mean? Well, firstly it means Mr Morrison’s “tax guarantee” is a bucket of lies, unless he cuts spending on health, aged care, and education, or raises taxes. Secondly, it’s further evidence Mr Morrison and the rest of the Morrison Government are not fit to lead this country.

Shakespeare’s character Shylock from The Merchant of Venice had less malevolent intentions than Mr Morrison.

The past nine days of the electoral campaign have been interesting to say the least, and apart from a disgraceful display of partisan media publishing or broadcasting their anti-Labor and pro-Liberal rhetoric, we are now gaining a clearer picture on policy rather than media noise.

What we are now witnessing is a desperate Prime Minister saying anything he chooses to try and dig himself out of several holes of his making, namely the major one is his captains pick of Ms Catherine Deves to stand for the Federal seat of Warringah in Sydney, when Ms Deves had already held shocking transphobic views which crossed the line from extremism into the realm of ultra-extremism and zealotry. .

Mr Morrison is also trying to dig himself out of another hole he made for himself, namely stating he would appoint as a new Health Minister Ms Anne Ruston, should he form government. Ms Ruston has a recent history of publicly stating on the record it was one day the Morrison Government’s objective to place everyone, which by virtue of her words would include aged pensioners, on the Indue Card. In case you have been living on Mars for the past five years, the Indue Card is a debit card in which the Federal Government retains a discretion as to how the beneficiaries of social welfare and pensions spend their money. What is wrong with that you say? Everything, it is well and truly crossing the boundaries of ‘1984 Big Brother’ style domination as to how people should live their lives. On 18 April 2022 Mr Morrison proclaimed (after having earlier forgotten how much people on JobSeeker are paid) a further term of Morrison Government would not reduce Medicare funding, once again because Ms Ruston’s prior commentary was “Medicare is not sustainable.”

Here it is!

“We’re seeking, as I said, to put all income management onto the universal platform… which is the cashless debit card.”

Anne Ruston, Minister for Families and Social Services in Scott Morrison’s Liberal/National government, on 7 News, February 2020. #auspol pic.twitter.com/DoRJOaUlcf

— Van Badham ✊ (@vanbadham) April 19, 2022

Given Mr Morrison’s history of telling lies which I set out in Part 1 of my article ‘Scott Morrison’s Lies, Character and Incompetence’, in which I set out in detail the lies (it is not an exhaustive list) Mr Morrison has told over the years, it’s hard to accept him as an honest person. So, forgive me for the incertitude in which I hold any words that emanate from Mr Morrison’s mouth, but I couldn’t trust Mr Morrison for as far as I can spit, and that isn’t very far at all!

Medicare

I would like, if I may, to commence with the topic of Medicare, a universal public health scheme introduced by Mr Hawke, to restore the provision of universal healthcare which Mr Whitlam had established as Medibank, only for Mr Fraser to privatise Medibank as a private health insurance scheme.

As you may well be aware, Senator Ruston told the Senate in December 2014 that:

“Everybody would like to think that we could go on in life with universal healthcare, with universal education and with all these wonderful things that over the last 20 [actually it is 30 years but who’s counting hey, Anne?] years Australians have come to accept as a given. Unfortunately, the credit card is maxed out .”

In March 2015 (after the Abbott Government was attempting to make reforms to the Medicare legislation after abandoning the highly contentious co-payment) Senator Ruston told the Senate:

“Medicare in its current form is not sustainable into the future and without some changes being made… we do need to seek some alternatives for how we are going to make Medicare sustainable into the future.”

After Mr Albanese and Mr Chalmers had called out Senator Ruston’s previous statements, and rightly forewarned the electorate her proposed appointment to the health portfolio would lead to further cuts to Medicare, Senator Ruston then strangely responded the strength of the Australian economy (it’s a gross misuse of the word ‘strength’ or ‘strong’ to describe our economy) and her current position was not reflected in remarks she made 7 years ago. There are several matters wrong with Senator Ruston’s response, but I shall get out of the way the simple matter first. Over the course of the last 7 years Senator Ruston has never corrected the record, whether in the Senate or before the media, that she had disabused herself from these previous strongly held opinions. The next issue is the economy, which I have already stated herein my protestations about using the word strong to describe our economy, as it is not strong at all, indeed it is now hamstrung by the Morrison Government with an eye watering national debt of almost $1Trillion.

The interest payments on that debt will exceed the diminished Medicare funding and money spent on the PBS. A further increase of debt by $380 billion is expected in the next three years. When related to GDP, this represents an increase from 22% in 2019 to 41% in 2022 and 53% in 2025. This increase over six years is larger than that over the previous 11 years. The increase in Commonwealth debt is largely due to a recurrent deficit. The Commonwealth’s total net operating deficits are estimated at $525 billion over the six years beginning with 2019/20. Because of our national debt we are now in a weakened position to respond to another crisis beyond the current pandemic. Also, it raises the nation’s economic risk profile. It leaves Australia more vulnerable to future adverse shocks. More tangible is the drag on economic growth and the loss of public policy opportunities that would otherwise have been available. The outlook for interest rates has recently shifted towards higher interest rates in the near term. As existing public debt is refinanced interest expense will rise sharply and crowd out other government expenditures. In addition, the Morrison Government moved too much of the onus of discretionary debt onto all the states.

The current national debt will crowd out other government expenditures and given Mr Dutton wants us to fight aliens in space I hold strong doubts universal health cover would rate highly in the Morrison Government’s future expenditure plans. Beyond the parlous state of affairs we are facing regarding national debt, there is also the Liberal Party’s prior behaviour regarding Medicare funding which does not instil any other emotion than fear into our psyche. This is the almost 38-year history of the Coalition’s attitude towards Medicare:

• 1983: the Coalition in opposition opposed the Medicare legislation and threatened to dismantle it upon being re-elected.
• 1993: the Coalition in opposition went to 4 elections (1984,1987, 1990 and 1993) promising to dismantle Medicare.
• 2013: the Abbott Government floats the idea of a $5.00 tax to visit your GP.
• 2014: the Abbott Government cuts $1.7Billion in funding for Medicare and proposes a $7.00 tax to visit your GP, and they moved to privatise Medicare.
• 2015: the Abbott Government cuts almost $1Billion from Medicare’s funding and continues to pursue the proposal to privatise Medicare.
• 2019: the Morrison Government cuts bulk billing in suburban communities.
• 2021: the Morrison Government rushed through sneaky changes that will see cuts for vital surgeries.

In relation to the period of 2014 to 2021 Mr Morrison was either a Federal Minister or Prime Minister when these cuts were made to Medicare’s budget. As I said earlier, the incertitude of any reliability in Mr Morrison’s words is at zero on the gauge, and Senator Ruston presided over these cuts being made when she was in the Senate from 2015 until the present day. As I opined in my article dated 28 March 2022, we are saying goodbye to Medicare if the Morrison Government are elected to a further term of government. Neither Mr Morrison nor Senator Ruston will change their spots.

Indue Card

Now, the Orwellian nightmare of the Indue Card, as I stated above it is a government-controlled debit card which determines where the beneficiaries of a pension or social security may spend their money. The whole notion of the Indue Card is repugnant to the very foundations of a democracy, as it quarantines at least 80% of a person’s income support payment and cannot be used to withdraw cash. It is not only demeaning to those people who must use it but is also a tremendous overreach of government intervention in the public’s rights to live out their daily lives, and this is a proposal from the holier than thou overlords of smaller government.

Today (19 April 2022) Mr Morrison claimed it was all a lie about his government’s intention to expand the use of the card to all aged pensioners. The only problem with Mr Morrison claiming something is lie is, well, firstly he has an irrefutable history of lying to us, and there is plenty of prior evidence of words and conduct which suggests otherwise. On 6 February 2020 Senator Ruston is reported as saying the Morrison Government hoped to one day make a national rollout of the card (Source: The Guardian, 6 February 2020). The card was already being trialled at this time in certain regions of Australia, and the feedback about the Indue Card was not favourable from the users, and businesses and banks would not say they supported the card. Indeed, amendments to the act passed in 2020 made several significant changes including lifting existing trial participation caps and entrenching the program on an ongoing basis. The Prime Minister, Mr Morrison also reportedly said the results from the trial were commending [the card] for wider application (Source: ABC online article 23 March 2022). In November 2021, the Morrison Government paid to the payments firm Indue the sum of $26Million to extend its contract with the government for a further two years (Source: The Guardian, 4 November 2021).

ALP have undertaken to ditch the cashless debit card.

Why won't the LNP?

— Dr Sheep Person Podge (@noplaceforsheep) April 19, 2022

It seems the most sensible way the Morrison Government can dispel fears about expanding the Indue Card on a national level is to scrap it entirely; an invitation which Mr Albanese made to Mr Morrison today. Currently, at the time of writing this article, and notwithstanding Mr Albanese’s sensible proposal, the Morrison Government has not agreed to scrap the Indue Card. Given they wasted $5.5Billion on breaking the submarine contract, $26Million would be a trifling amount of waste for Mr Morrison.

🧵1/ INDUE- Cashless Debit Card
"A card by any other name would control as much"
📺A video showing the both the Liberal & National party support for a nationwide Cashless Debit Card
📖A small thread to provide background/context for this crucial issue.#Auspol #AlboForPM pic.twitter.com/dWY47iXmbm

— AusPolMate Researched Threads & oddities (@AusPolMate) February 24, 2022

Ms Deves

I will not need to spend much time in addressing Mr Morrison’s own goal in making Ms Katherine Deves his ‘captains pick’ as the Liberal Party candidate for the seat of Warringah. Mr Morrison has caused a civil war to break out in the NSW branch of the Liberal Party ever since he intervened in their preselection processes for candidates to stand for lower and upper houses of the Federal Parliament.

Ms Deves commentary about transgender people is now associated with denigrating a marginalised group as sex offenders, labelling them mutilated and comparing them the Stolen Generations (Source Crikey 19 April 2022). Ms Deves comments are simply appalling, not just for transgender members of our country, but also for the wider LGBTQIA community.

Mr Morrison has refused to disendorse Ms Deves. Firstly, if Mr Morrison did disendorse Ms Deves that would be Mr Morrison admitting he was wrong, and we all know Mr Morrison never accepts blame for his own mistakes. Secondly, it is not as though Mr Morrison was oblivious to Ms Deves views, because Ms Deves comments would have already been known to the members of the NSW branch of the Liberal Party. However, there is an even deeper concern which arises from Mr Morrison’s ‘captains pick’, and that is that her views accord with Mr Morrison’s personal beliefs about the LGBTQIA community. Remember, Mr Morrison walked out of the House of Representatives on the day same sex marriage was passed in a bipartisan vote of the Turnbull Government and the Labor Party opposition. By steadfastly standing by Ms Deves, and his previous exit from the same sex marriage vote, Mr Morrison just appears to harbour beliefs which are contrary to the interests of the LGBTQIA community, and it seems his spots have not changed since the same sex marriage vote.

Perhaps Mr Albanese’s comments today best describe the outcomes of Mr Morrison’s ‘captains picks’, as Mr Albanese said the last ‘captains pick’ was Mr Craig Kelly. We all know how well that ‘captains pick’ worked out.

Undoubtedly, as most of you are users of various platforms of social media you may well have encountered from time to time the hashtags #ThisIsNotJournalism and #MediaBias. Some of you may have dismissed the articles accompanying these two hashtags as just progressive politic gripes, whereas others of you may have read the various articles, Tweets, and posts. I would kindly ask you consider in full my article, and before you wave me away as being a Labor Party supporter with a gripe, may I say at the outset media bias has been a problem in this country for a very long time, and over the last 50 years I have witnessed media bias which includes a period in which the Labor Party benefitted from such bias.

When I was a young man of about 13 years of age, I remember discussing with my late mum the Dismissal of Gough Whitlam by Sir John Kerr. We had moved onto the subject of the media’s role in the Dismissal, and our discussion occurred against the background of the 1983 Federal Election having been called, and there were elements of the commercially owned media stoically fighting for the return of the Fraser Government. My mum being the intellectually honest academic which she had been told me, “Murdoch helped get Gough elected in 1972 and then he had Gough comprehensively voted out at the 1975 Federal Election.”

For those of you querying the second component of this quotation you should be reminded Mr Fraser immediately called an election after the Dismissal, and at the 1975 Federal Election the Coalition won 91 seats out of the 125 seats being contested. My mother’s comment intrigued me, and even though the broader ownership of media back in 1983 meant political opinions varied on television and in the newspapers, I still recall my mum and stepdad shaking their heads about the 60 Minutes interview conducted with Bob Hawke as being biased reporting from the Packer camp to favour of Mr Fraser.

Of course, we cannot forget the late Richard Carleton during the ABC Nationwide program on 3 February 1983 asking the late Mr Hawke when he assumed the role of opposition leader if he had “blood on his hands?” Mr Hawke berated Mr Carleton for such a ridiculous question, and rightly so. During the subsequent golden era of Hawke and Keating reforms, the Labor Party did benefit from media bias, hardly surprising given the wealth which was being created at that time. Nevertheless, it was not to extent we are witnessing now in favour of the Liberal Party, and that relationship with the media started to sour when Mr Keating granted the pay television licence to Mr Murdoch’s company over Mr Packer’s media interests, and with that Mr Packer turned on Mr Keating (Source: ‘Keating’, by Kerry O’Brien).

The genesis of my desire to write this article arose because of the very lopsided and biased reporting in favour of the Liberal Party in what was the first week of 2022 Federal Election campaign. The Labor Party leader Mr Anthony Albanese did suffer a moment of forgetfulness on Monday regarding the number of unemployed Australians (which is a questionable figure that I have previously reported on in my Facebook post on 13 April 2022) and the cash rate, but he took ownership of the mistake that same day, and we all saw former Prime Minister John Howard dismiss it as a trifling matter until the Liberal Party machine got up him for the rent (to quote the colloquial term for being upset) to form an unconvincing contrary view the next day. As an example of the biased reporting in favour of the Liberal Party, there I was sitting in the waiting area at Belmont Hospital before my ECT on 14 April 2022, and on the television screen they regrettably had The Today Show on. Ms Alison Langdon asked the Deputy Labor Leader Mr Richard Marles how he felt about Mr Albanese losing the election for Labor that week. Not only was that biased reporting in favour of the Liberal Party, it also overlooked numerous problems which had arisen for the Liberal Party that week, as well as the prior history of Scott Morrison’s lies, character and incompetence – which I wrote about in a two-part series on The AIMN on 13 April 2021 and 14 April 2022.

Subsequently, since 14 April 2022 the standard of reporting the 2022 Federal Election has not substantially improved, and I shall refer to those facts in due course.

Before I address the key component of this issue, being media bias in favour of the Liberal Party during the current campaigning of 2022 Federal Election, I would like to remind you all about the critical current weaknesses in one foundation stone of our democracy, being the Fourth Estate, namely the concentrated ownership of media in Australia and our poor Press Freedom Index (‘PFI’) rating. As of this 17^th day of April 2022:

1 Presently Australia is ranked in the 25^th position out of 180 countries in the 2021 Press Freedom Index (‘PFI’). What is wrong with that you say? Well, to be totally candid with you, a lot! When the first PFI was compiled in 2002 we ranked 12^th out of 139 countries, and our now AUKUS alliance partners (founded 15 September 2021) the USA were ranked in 17^th position and the United Kingdom in the 21^st position. Moving the hands of time back to 2021, the countries which outranked Australia on the PFI included Namibia, Samoa, Suriname (located in between Guyana and French Guyana in South America), and Estonia to name a few.

2 As there does not appear to be a PFI before 2002, I can only assume (yes, I know, it makes an ass out of u and me) Australia was in the top ten before the decline occurred under the Howard Government, particularly as they introduced cross media ownership laws in 2006 which permitted an owner of a metropolitan newspaper to own a television station (prior to that you may recall Paul Keating said, “you could be the queen of the screen or the prince of print, but you couldn’t be both). The legislative amendments introduced by Mr Howard accelerated the sad decline of concentrated cross-media ownership in Australia, and the quality of the news presented to us. The Murdoch News Corp stable and Fairfax waged a war against suggested amendments to media regulatory rules the Gillard Government suggested in 2011 to address the advent of the internet, and to introduce a new media standards body with teeth which would enforce fairness, accuracy, and media codes. (Source ABC ‘The history of media regulation in Australia’ 6 October 2015.) Subsequently, in 2017 the Turnbull Government further relaxed media ownership rules, which has led to Nine Entertainment (‘NE’) being able to purchase Fairfax print media.

3 You may not have noticed it because of the mainstream media being consumed by reporting the disturbing developments with the Covid-19 pandemic, but early in 2021 the Morrison Government introduced the News Media Bargaining Code, which essentially imposed a tax on Facebook and Google so that large media empires like News Corp and NE could be paid for snippets of their news posted on Facebook, and in relation to Google search engine optimisation, once freely dependent on clever headlines, could now be owned or controlled by large mainstream media suppliers, such as the Liberal Party’s good friends, News Corp. (Source: Independent Australia article by Michelle Pini, 25 February 201).

4 In relation to the concentration of commercially owned media ownership now, regarding:

(a) our old ‘idiot box’ of television, the:

• Nine Network (including other digital channels 91, 92, 93, 94 and 99 as well as affiliates WIN Television, Southern Cross Television, and Imparja Television) broadcasts to each capital city and it is owned by its parent company NE, which of course has as its Chairperson Mr Peter Costello, being the former Federal Treasurer in the Howard Liberal Government.
• Seven Network (which also includes digital channels 71, 72, 73, 74 And 76 affiliates Southern Cross and WIN Television) which is the second largest television network in Australia, and it is owned by Seven West Media Limited (‘SWM’) which has as its Chairperson Kerry Stokes. Mr Stokes also personally owns under his private company Australian Capital Equity mining, construction, and petroleum interests and thanks to Seven Group Holdings (Mr Stokes stepped down as chairperson of Seven Group Holdings in 2001) he also owns a cattle empire of more than a million hectares (Source: the Australian Financial Review (‘AFR’) 28 September 2017). SWM also owns Yahoo!7 which combines the Seven Network’s content with Yahoo!’s search and online capabilities.
• Network 10 (includes affiliates in Southern Cross Television, WIN Television, Mildura Digital Television, Tasmania Digital Television, Darwin Digital Television, Central Digital Television and West Digital Television), which is owned by Ten Network Holdings which in turn is owned by the American company Paramount Global. Network 10 broadcasts to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth.
• Foxtel, which is owned 65% by News Corp Australia (‘NCA’)(a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, incorporated in Delaware) and 35% by Telstra. Foxtel broadcasts Sky News Australia (which is owned by Australian News Channel Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of NCA) on its pay TV service in the Australian capital cities, whilst distributing its news to regional Australia on digital terrestrial television by Southern Cross Austereo (‘SCA’) (owned by Macquarie Bank and others) and Win Television (which is owned by Birketu Pty Ltd and chaired by former Network 10 shareholder Bruce Gordon).
• Australian Broadcasting Service (‘ABC’) which is totally funded (or underfunded as Dear Old Aunty is now) and the Special Broadcasting Service (‘SBS’) which is a hybrid funded Australian public broadcaster 80% funded by the Federal Government.

(b) the radio (still surviving after the Buggles famous song), which if we put to one side the major publicly funded stations of the ABC or hybrid funded SBS, is otherwise made up of the following networks:

• Australian Radio Network (‘ARN’) which is a group of commercial radio stations around Australia including Pure Gold, KIIS Network, CADA and iHeartRadio. ARN is owned by Here, There & Everywhere (company) (‘HTE’), which includes as one of its largest shareholders NCA. HTE also owns a 50% share in Nova 93.7 Perth, along with the other 50% owned by NOVA Entertainment (‘NOVA’) which is 100% owned by Lachlan Murdoch’s Illyria Pty Ltd (‘Illyria’).
• NOVA which owns numerous FM radio stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth, including Nova and smoothfm, as well as non-network radio Coles Radio, Star 104.5, FIVEaa and KIIS 97,3. There are also the online services of nova.fm. smooth.com.au, fiveaa.com.au and star1045.com.au. As discussed above, NOVA is 100% owned by Lachlan Murdoch’s company Illyria.
• NE which of course is chaired by the former Liberal Party Federal Treasurer Mr Costello, and it owns 2GB, 2UE, 3AW, Magic 1278, 4BC, 4BH 6PR, 6GT and NTS.
• Southern Cross Austereo (‘SCA’) (parent company is Southern Cross Media Group owned by Macquarie Bank [owned by the Macquarie Group] and others) which owns multiple FM radio stations which are part of the Hit Network and the Triple M Network across metropolitan and regional Qld/NSW/ Vict/WA, the ACT, Hobart, Adelaide, and Mount Gambier. SCA owns numerous regional television stations in NSW, the ACT, the Northern Territory (‘NT’), Qld, South Australia (‘SA’), Vict, and Tasmania. SCA also broadcasts across 13 digital radio stations, including the various Triple M themes of music, as well as many internet radio stations.

(c) Newspapers that are owned by:

• NCA, which owns The Courier Mail (‘CM’) and Quest Community Newspapers (‘QCN’) (which on 26 June 2020 became an online news service only although many of the QCN publications ceased to exist from this date), The Gold Coast Bulletin (‘GCB’), The Australian (‘Aust’), The Daily Telegraph (‘DT’) and NewsLocal (which became an online newspaper under the DT masthead), The Herald Sun (‘HN’), The Advertiser and Messenger Newspapers in SA and The Hobart Mercury (‘The Mercury’) in Tasmania.
• NE which owns The Sydney Morning Herald (‘SMH’), The Age and the Australian Financial Review (‘AFR’).
• The West Australian (‘TWA’) and The Sunday Times (‘ST’) which are owned by SWM.
• The Canberra Times which is owned by the Australian Community Media (‘ACM’). ACM also publishes 160 regional newspapers including The Land and Queensland Country Life. ACM is owned by the former chief executive of Domain, Antony Catalano (50%) and billionaire Alex Waislitz (50%).

(d) Online publications which not only include 7, 9, 10, the ABC, SBS, NCA’s newspapers including news.com.au, and The Guardian.

I have set out quite an extensive list of media ownership in Australia, but as you may see from the above list of media outlets, three names appear regularly. Murdoch (whether it’s Rupert’s NCA or Lachlan’s Illyian), SWM (or Kerry Stokes), and NE which of course has as its chairperson Mr Costello. So, you can see where we are heading given the concentration of media ownership in Australia, regarding television, newspaper, radio, and online publications.

Image from imgflip.com)

As I discussed earlier, media ownership laws were opened to a certain degree by the Hawke Government in 1986, which were overseen by Paul Keating. Although the Hawke/ Keating reforms paved the way for television networks to be formed, no media corporation was able to own simultaneously a metropolitan newspaper and a television channel. Critics of the 1986 reforms argue it paved the way for NCA to acquire 70% of the market share of newspapers, but despite that criticism it still was the case up until the Howard Government fully opened the floodgates in 2006 for cross media ownership (Source The Monthly article by Robert Manne November 2006), an owner of a metropolitan newspaper could not own a television station.

Which brings me to the present. I mentioned above The Today Show comment made by Ms Langdon on 14 April 2022, which was not only biased in favour of the Liberal Party, but it is also overlooked some very key facts about the Liberal Party’s first week of campaigning (I mention these matters at the conclusion of my article). The Today Show is of course the breakfast television show delivered to us each day by NE’s channel 9. My wife told me when she picked me up from hospital on Thursday, she had looked at the CM for that day, and she was shocked by the degree of biased reporting against the Labor Party and Mr Albanese in that publication. My Facebook and Twitter friends have also brought the following biased reporting either in favour of the Liberal Party or anti-Labor (this is not the entire list of biased reporting) on:

• 9 April 2022 whilst we were waiting for Mr Morrison to call the election, once he had of course exhausted our money on government advertising and getting his captains picks in line in NSW (oh how has that come back to bite #MorrisonMustGo on the backside) NE’s 9News online published a report by Mr Charles Croucher at 7.46am, the headline of which was “The ‘devastating line’ in Labor’s character assassination of Scott Morrison.” Mr Croucher, I think you need to read the news reports closely, or perhaps you have a case of Senator Hume, as Mr Morrison’s poor character was being called out by members of the Liberal Party.
• 12 April 2022 The Mercury printed on its front page a picture of Mr Albanese next to a large banner headline which read “Albo Who?” For crying out loud, there isn’t a person alive in Australia who doesn’t know who Mr Albanese is, about where he started in life to rise by this stage to be a former Deputy Prime Minister and now Leader of the Opposition, and soon to be our Prime Minister.
• 13 April 2022 NCA journalist Samantha Maiden in a podcast (Source news.com.au 13 April 2022 at 12.51pm) said, “One of the criticisms of Anthony Albanese, which is not unreasonable, is that he hasn’t really had a career in what you might describe as the real world.” Dear oh dear Samantha, and where is your commentary about Mr Morrison’s reported dismissal from Tourism Australia, or the Tourism NZ questions etc etc? I would much rather have a person of Mr Albanese’s character than Mr Morrison’s!!!
• 12 April 2022 the leading political correspondent in the nation Ms Laura Tingle reported for 8 minutes on the ABC program ‘730’ the many issues of the past 3 and bit years (I shall deal with these below) which militate against Mr Morrison being the right person to lead Australia. The usual suspects of the NCA, Mr Bolt and Mr Henderson, hollered in disapproval supporting Mr Morrison and calling for Ms Tingle to stand down, when all Ms Tingle did was 100% correctly quote the facts of the many issues which call into question Mr Morrison’s character and ability to lead (Source The Advertiser 14 April 2022).
• 14 April 2022 TWA’s frontpage headline about Mr Albanese was ‘Does He Know His A*** From His Albo?’ The TWA did not report on the front page the Labor Party’s announcement to restore Medicare by funding 50 urgent care clinics across the country, a matter of greater importance about leading this country in the right direction than the juvenile commentary of the TWA about Mr Albanese’s press conference.
• 14 April 2022 the AFR’s Phil Coorey completely misleading article about focus groups leaning towards Mr Morrison over Mr Albanese, when the groups only consisted of 5 people in each group. Don’t expect Roy Morgan to be offering Phil a job anytime soon. NE’s The Today Show of course ran with the Phil Coorey story that morning, just to add to Ms Langdon’s ridiculous commentary directed at Mr Marles.
• 14 April 2022 the NCA’s Herald Sun online not to be outdone for its biased reporting against Mr Albanese claimed in their online article about the unfortunate car crash Mr Morrison’s security detail were involved in was, “It comes after Anthony Albanese has backflipped on offshore detention centres.” What the actual? Mr Albanese did nothing of the sort that day, other than confirming an Albanese Government would continue to turn back the boats (for the record, the weaponisation of refugees by Mr Howard, Mr Abbott and Mr Morrison makes me sick to the bottom of my stomach).
• 14 April 2022 the ABC’s Mr Andrew Probyn on 730 continuing to refer to Mr Albanese’s loss of memory on the morning of 11 April 2022. Now, Mr Albanese had taken ownership of that memory loss moment, and Mr Howard (before the Liberal Party machine got to him) had said that same day on 11 April 2022 “so what.” You only have to study social media platforms to quickly realise the country is of the same view, so what, it was a memory fade. Where is your mention Mr Probyn of Mr Morrison having a more important brain fade at the National Press Club in February 2022 when he blatantly displayed a “who cares” attitude about him not knowing the price of bread, milk, and petrol?
• 15 April 2022 SWM channel 7 breakfast show Sunrise (I dislike breakfast television, but I watch it for the specific reason of bias) ran an over-the-top article about the Labor Party being in crisis over the outcome of the first week of the campaign. The reporter making these claims even thought it would assist her histrionics by reading out the headlines from each NCA metropolitan newspaper. The only political party in crisis by this time was the Liberal Party, as Mr Morrison was refusing to make Ms Deves stand down for her terrible views about transgender people, and Mr Morrison breaking a key election promise of the 2019 Federal Election regarding establishing a Federal ICAC.

In relation to the biased reporting in favour of the Liberal Party and against the Labor Party, as I previously said the above-mentioned facts are just a sample of the media bias. To be fair to NE, on 15 April 2022 the front page of the SMH heavily criticised Mr Morrison for abandoning establishing a Federal ICAC, a promise which he made at the 2019 Federal Election. The SMH also included on the front page a very derisive criticism of Mr Morrison by the SMH Editor for breaking this important 2019 Federal Election promise. The day beforehand the AFR published an article about how stage-managed Mr Morrison’s campaign is, including the fact they had not seen him meet with ‘real’ members of the public, only the staged Liberal Party supporters. I have not seen any evidence of the same newspaper reporting from NCA or SWM. Whether the NE stable of newspapers continues this reporting during the remainder of the campaign remains to be seen, but hopefully they teach Mr Coorey to count to five before 21 May 2022. I have also avoided criticising the ABC too much, apart from referring to Mr Probyn’s silly comment above, as for the past 9 years the ABC’s funding has been under attack, and we know a senate inquiry delivered a report prior to the 2019 Federal Election which confirmed there had been political interference with the ABC.

As you the reader may be aware, the Labor Party has a more ambitious policy agenda than the Morrison Government to reduce our emissions and manufacture renewable energy here products here. What many of you perhaps don’t know is the degree of business interest Rupert Murdoch reportedly has had in fossil fuels since 2010, the alleged misreporting by NCA and NE of how much tax mining companies have paid since 2010 and how much the Liberal Party are wrapped up in the toxic web of fossil fuels:

• In November 2010, Genie Energy, as a division of IDT Corporation, announced Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild had each purchased equity stakes in Genie Oil and Gas, and would join Dick Cheney on Genie Energy’s Strategic Advisory Board. The purchases were reportedly “equivalent to a cumulative 5.5% stake in Genie Oil and Gas Inc., which consists of IDT’s interests in American Shale Oil, LLC.. and Israel Energy Initiatives, Ltd… for a total of $11.0 million dollars.
• The Murdoch clan’s second company is buying a major global oil and gas data reporting website called Oil Price Information Service (OPIS).
• Mr Morrison is again running an election script prepared by his advisors Crosby Textor. The firm Crosby Textor was founded by Sir Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor, and the firm has lobbied for the powerful oil and gas association APPEA (in Queensland, NSW, and WA), and been involved in conservative election campaigns in Queensland (Newman), the UK (David Cameron & Theresa May) and NZ (John Key). Queensland Senator James McGrath previously worked with Crosby Textor in the UK. Crosby Textor also reportedly stage-managed Mr Morrison’s 2019 Federal Election campaign.
• Then there is the question which arose in June 2021 as to NCA, NE and the Morrison Government’s Mining and Resources Minister Mr Keith Pitt being allegedly duped by the Minerals Council of Australia (‘MCA’) in consistently repeating the alleged misleading claims of the MCA regarding how much money the mining industry was contributing to the Australian economy, only to be caught out by Michael West Media (‘MWM’) about the significant GST refund the mining industry receives as an exporting industry, allegedly it is approximately $80B in refunds over the previous 10 years. The MCA, as well as the editors of the Aust and AFR, were approached by MWM but they allegedly did not respond to that media organisation’s questions. MWM’s investigations also reported the former CEO of the MCA Mr Brendan Pearson was allegedly given a senior role in 2019 by the Morrison Government regarding international trade, after Mr Pearson was allegedly forced out as the Chief Executive of the MCA in 2017 when BHP took issue with Mr Pearson’s alleged pro-coal and anti-Paris Agreement lobbying.
• May I ask you to shift your focus now to AGL, an energy company which has continually been in the news during these early months of 2022. It’s reported in Climate & Capital Media (‘CCM’) that in 2017, Australia’s then Minister for the Environment and Energy (now treasurer) Mr Josh Frydenberg, allegedly made calls to AGL board members, not to insist the company speed up emissions reductions but for it to sack its CEO, American Andy Vesey. In the same CCM report it is also alleged Mr Vesey had been hired to navigate the company’s coal transition and by all reports was doing just that. So well in fact that he was apparently moving too fast for the pro-coal government and, after the phone calls, abruptly left the company and returned to the U.S. A year later, Prime Minister Scott Morrison publicly demanded AGL keep its aging Liddell coal plant for an additional 20 years despite its derelict state. This is an incredible intervention by a government in a publicly listed company. Some have called it bullying. CCM also reports in the same article the various NCA media, Australia’s biggest media owner, relentlessly parroting pro-coal rhetoric with cries of “save the jobs!” “Power prices will skyrocket!” and “China will take over!” NCA have previously been the subject of reports of allegedly publishing anti-renewable energy articles as long ago as 2014.

Now, I don’t have any evidence from employees of NCA, NE and SWM which suggests NCA, NE, SWM are persistently attacking the Labor Party with biased reporting because of any connections with the fossil fuel industry, but we do know from the above-mentioned reports the Murdoch clan allegedly do have an interest in fossil fuels, and Mr Stokes has some interests in mining (the type of mining is still under investigation by me) so it’s arguable any policies which expedite the reduction of the use of such fuels may be contrary to the Murdoch’s and Mr Stokes other business interests. What we do know is that on 9 December 2021 Labor and the Greens recommended a judicial inquiry with the powers of a royal commission be formed to conduct an inquiry into media diversity and NCA. Both the Labor Party and the Greens want this inquiry to be conducted to address the current outdated regulatory framework. A judicial inquiry could compel evidence from witnesses and be conducted at arm’s length. That bipartisan approach to attempting to cure the decline of the standards of reporting and ownership of our media, a decline which has eroded our faith of the Fourth Estate, may certainly be a significant policy issue which collides with the media business interests of NCA, NE and SWM.

Finally, these are the key facts of the 2022 Federal Election which have either not been properly reported by our media, or totally forgotten in relation to Morrison Government:

1. The payment to Ms Miller of $500,000.00, which even Ms Miller has called upon Mr Morrison to provide the true reasons for such a large payment being made to her.
2. Mr Morrison’s failure to establish a Federal ICAC, and his feeble excuses for not doing so.
3. The Morrison Government’s mishandling of the 2019 Bushfires (including Hawaii), the pandemic, aged care and the 2022 floods.
4. Mr Morrison’s character regarding his history of lies as Prime Minister (see Part 1 of my article link above Scott Morrison’s Lies, Character and Incompetence), which includes him lying to us up to 10 April 2022 about Mr Tudge no longer being a member of cabinet.
5. Mr Morrison’s character regarding the fresh evidence matters raised by Mr Michael Towke on The Project.
6. The Morrison Government’s poor economic record, including how we have accrued $1Trillion in debt (also doubling the debt before the pandemic) without any positive economic benefits arising from that debt, their failure to foresee the economic consequences of increased inflation from the shutting down of supply lines and their failure to develop Australian manufacturing (including electric cars and solar panels) so that we are not so reliant on China and India for secondary level manufacturing purposes.
7. Mr Morrison’s interference in the NSW Liberal Party, including his captains pick of Ms Deves who holds such concerning views about trans gender adults and children.
8. The Morrison Government’s national security and foreign affairs failures regarding our Pacific neighbours and leasing the Port of Darwin to China.
9. The Morrison Government’s lies about climate change steps they have taken, and their failure to implement a proper climate change policy.

This is not an exhaustive list of the matters the media should be extensively covering regarding the Morrison Government, being the worst government in our history which is also being presided over by our worst Prime Minister, but it sure would be a good start for the media to focus on these issues, and Labor’s policy announcements, if we wish to see some ‘balance’ in coverage of the 2022 Federal Election.

We are witnessing media bias in the 2022 Federal Election campaign, and it certainly isn’t journalism.

Continued from Part 1

Character

Now let us move onto the question of Mr Morrison’s poor character, which is supported by amongst other matters his long history of lying to us, and it goes to the very heart of the reason why Mr Morrison is unfit to lead this country, indeed unfit for him to be elected as Prime Minister at the 2022 Federal Election. We of course have seen or read in the news the stories about the leaked text messages, whether it was Barnaby Joyce as I referred to in Part 1 yesterday, or Gladys Berejiklian, which describe Mr Morrison as a liar, a complete psychopath, and a horrible, horrible person. These are texts sent by Mr Morrison’s own party or Coalition partner.

In addition to the lies set out above (which by themselves scream out unfitness to hold office), and the leaked text messages, we have witnessed on the night of the 2022 budget Senator Fierravanti-Wells alleged Mr Morrison is a bully, an autocrat, a person who has no moral compass and finally, and most concerning of all, that Mr Morrison allegedly used racism to overturn the unanimous preselection vote win which Mr Michael Towke received to be the candidate for Cook at the 2007 Federal Election (Senator Hanson and Senator Lambie have also alleged they have been bullied by Mr Morrison). Senator Fierravanti-Wells’ budget night allegations have been made in the context of what could only be described as a cluster-stuff-up of Mr Morrison intervening in the decision making of branches of the NSW Liberal Party so that he could insert his own ‘Captain’s Picks’ of candidates (and dear oh dear, aren’t some of those candidates expressing far-right views, particularly regarding the LGBTQIA community?), a cluster-stuff-up which has also seen Senator Fierravanti-Wells reduced to the unwinnable position of number 3 on the Liberal Party senate ticket.

I have already addressed above what is a clear lie Mr Morrison made to Ms Sales on 7:30 regarding the reason why he intervened in NSW, and yes some of the people speaking out about his character may have motives to do so, but it doesn’t explain the genesis of the disquiet, it doesn’t explain why Mr Chapman would sign a statutory declaration supporting Mr Towke’s version of events. I have never seen a Prime Minister have so many people from their own party so disappointed with them like I am witnessing with Mr Morrison, and I have been following Australian politics since 1975. I wrote to the Prime Minister by email on Friday, 8 April 2022 in which I not only asserted he was unfit to hold office, and to immediately call an election, but I also raised these points about Mr Towke’s interview with Mr Aly of The Project on 6 April 2022 which Mr Morrison has not answered:

1 A Federal Cabinet Minister in your government has encouraged him to speak out, but Mr Towke for the sake of that Cabinet Minister’s privacy will not reveal his name. This same Cabinet Minister has also said he believes Mr Towke, and told him to be careful, because he was being backgrounded.

2 Further to the first appoint above, when Waleed Aly asked Mr Towke what he had to be worried about, Mr Towke replied he had been told by respected Canberra journalists “people associated” with you were backgrounding him attempting to link Mr Towke to neo-Nazi groups. Mr Towke very objectively said it was possible you were not aware of this, and it was just the “hacks” in your office who are doing this. Mr Towke also said it was possible you were “wilfully ignorant”. One matter is certain, you have not either called a press conference about this allegation or taken any questions from the media about it. Your conduct in relation to your failure to address this allegation only seems to strengthen Mr Towke’s position, as in my 47 years of following politics any other Australian Prime Minister would have called a press conference by now to address such a serious matter as the allegations set out by Mr Towke at points 1 and 2 herein. Of course, there is more to Mr Towke’s interview with Mr Aly than just this allegation, and those matters are dealt with by me below.

3 It has already been reported for about 15 years now Mr Towke initially comprehensively defeated you in the first 2007 preselection ballot for Cook by 82 votes to your 8. As reported by The Saturday Paper on 2 April 2022, and then again by The Sydney Morning Herald (‘SMH’) on 3 April 2022, Mr Towke alleges after he won this first preselection ballot, you allegedly racially vilified him in which you told Liberals in 2007 they could not support Towke because he was Lebanese and there are rumours he was a Muslim. It is also alleged in The Saturday Paper and the SMH there is a signed statutory declaration made by another Liberal named Scott Chapman, and he alleges you spoke the same words to him about Mr Towke.

During your maiden address to Parliament in about February 2008 you warmly thanked Mr Chapman for his assistance in helping you to get elected to Parliament. I acknowledge your responses to Mr Towke’s claims has been they are lies; you find it offensive and the allegations which are made by Liberal Party people against you are made by “disappointed” people. As I said above, there seems to be many disappointed people with you, and you may be correct about how they feel, but that does explain the genesis of their disappointment. However, what disturbs me the most about this whole disturbing state of affairs is that since the story was reported in The Saturday Paper last Saturday you have not provided any cogent reasons why Mr Chapman, a man in whom you had so much admiration for when you first addressed Parliament, would sign a statutory declaration supporting Mr Towke’s version of events?

Your averse short form response of lies and offensive don’t seem to answer this great unexplained question about Mr Chapman, and I would have thought a person bearing the office of Prime Minister would address this question in detail at a press conference. I otherwise note you proclaimed on 3 April 2022 you would sign a statutory declaration, but then resiled from this position on 4 April 2022 in claiming there are no court proceedings for you to sign one. But that is not right, as the New South Wales Communities and Justice webpage confirms statutory declarations may be used where there are no court proceedings; surely as the Prime Minister of Australia you would know this fact?

4 One further matter which Mr Towke raised during his interview with Mr Aly (and I might add Mr Aly asked all the questions you would expect a journalist to ask a person about such serious allegations) is that he alleges at the second preselection the other candidates didn’t show up to the second preselection, and Mr Towke’s voting block went in behind you because he figuratively speaking had a gun held to his head, in that he was allegedly told by one person who is your close personal friend he would be ruined and never able to obtain employment if he did not swing his voting bloc in behind you. Now I acknowledge you have previously denied Mr Towke’s allegations you made racially vilifying comments about him, but after the interview between Mr Aly and Mr Towke on 6 April 2022 you have also failed to call a press conference to address these further allegations as to how Mr Towke’s bloc of votes swung in behind you for the second ballot, a matter which one would expect the Prime Minister of this country to address.

Now of course I have not received a response from Mr Morrison, and I don’t expect one will be forthcoming. However, the lies set out above in section titled ‘Lies’, and then this further character evidence coming from either Liberal Party members, or female Senators, of its own raises unfitness for office. When you then include Mr Towke’s further allegations raised with Mr Ally on 6 April 2022 it raises serious questions about Mr Morrison’s fitness for office. Look those allegations by Mr Towke may well be a lie (but Mr Towke did not appear to be a person either prone to lying or intent on burning down the palace), one question remains which Mr Morrison has not answered, and that is why would Mr Chapman sign that statutory declaration when he has had no reason to be disappointed with Mr Morrison? Even excluding Mr Towke’s allegations, and excluding all the Senators’ allegations, I nevertheless submit to you the reader all of Mr Morrison’s lies alone militate against his fitness for office.

Incompetence

Then there is the issue of competency regarding this shambolic Morrison Government. I have already raised my views regarding the Morrison Government’s poor handling of the pandemic. In addition, we have seen so many scandals ending with the hashtag ‘gate’, there wouldn’t be enough paddocks in Australia with gates to match the hashtags. Some readers may jump up and down saying I’m being too soft to call these numerous ‘gates’ acts of incompetency, but until a Federal ICAC is established, and until a court of law says otherwise, I can only personally say the word incompetency. I have set out in detail in my previous articles published by the good people at the Australian Independent Media Network (The AIMN) the Morrison Government’s incompetency regarding:

Economics: The inflation we did not need to have

Medicare: Brick by brick we say goodbye to Medicare

Aged Care: Are YOU Really Arguing We Can’t Feed and Care for Our Grandparents?

There will be future articles I shall write about 9 years of lost opportunity in Australia to make a difference about climate change arising from the weaponisation of the issue by the Liberal Party. The failure by the Liberals to implement a meaningful climate policy is a further issue regarding their incompetence, and their culpability for destroying the future lives of our descendants. The state of our nation is an appalling mess because of the economic and social mismanagement of the Morrison Government, and the previous Liberal Governments from when they came to power in 2013. To quote the famous line of Obi-Wan Kenobi from ‘A New Hope’, in relation to both Mr Morrison and the Morrison Government; “you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

Media

There are also the issues about our partisan media, examples of which may be evidenced from some of Mr Morrison’s lies particularised above, which includes the media’s failures to either properly call out Mr Morrison’s lies or raise them at all. The limited ownership of media in Australia and the media’s apparent biased reporting in favour of the Liberal Party, as opposed to their persistent attacks on the Labor Party, are matters which go to very heart of our democracy as the public has lost faith in the Fourth Estate. Even our public broadcaster, the ABC, is now consumed by biased reporting in favour of the Liberal Party, and many Australians no longer think of it as “our ABC”. In most cases, only the domain of social media, or as some people may call it the Fifth Estate, provides an outlet for progressive minds to fully express their views in favour of the Labor Party’s progressive policies.

The vicious attack on the Labor Party by the Fourth Estate will continue throughout the remainder of this 2022 Federal Election campaign, just as it did during the 2019 Federal Election. The Fourth Estate will not call out the Morrison Government properly for failing us on economics, failing us on education, failing us on healthcare, failing us on climate change, failing us on Aged Care and failing us on other important social issues, such as First Nations People having a voice to Parliament.

I was born on 13 June 1969. This is not the Australia I was born into.