I need a hero, I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night. He’s (or she’s) gotta be strong and he’s gotta be fast and he’s gotta be fresh from the fight. I couldn’t agree more with this article by Josh Bornstein in Crikey. The Left need a hero. But I don’t think we need a completely new policy platform. I just think we need to be reminded what we’re fighting for. Labour versus capital.

I’ve written before about the need for progressives in Australia to unite. Before the election, I hoped that progressives would see the risk of Abbott as too great, and would unite to keep him out. I thought this was more important than in-fighting and sniping between different groups on the Left. But alas, it didn’t happen and unfortunately it’s still not happening.

In a particularly characteristic debate I had this week with a type of Tweep that represents the problem with the Left, I was told, after writing about my outrage at Cory Bernardi’s comments and the lack of genuine condemnation from Tony Abbott:

“Perhaps you enjoy being perpetually outraged or something. Fine, carry on…”

This implies that I am outraged about Bernardi for my own entertainment, not because, lo and behold, I am incredibly outraged. It also implies that my outrage was exaggerated, that it was unimportant and that it did nothing. Apparently we should ignore members of our parliament who disparage groups of our community because, you know, that’s just what they want. To be criticised. Actually I don’t think that’s what they want. I think Cory Bernardi and Tony Abbott, and the rest of the Liberal National Coalition, wish that this sort of outrage on the Left would disappear so that there wasn’t always such a fuss when they tried to bring the country closer to their ideal state. And that’s what the Left need to come to terms with. Everything in politics is about what sort of society we want to create.

When I asked this Tweep what he would prefer we were all talking about on Twitter, other than condemning Bernardi’s remarks and reminding the community that Bernardi’s views are not acceptable, nor to be tolerated, I was told we should be discussing single mothers on Newstart. What a HUGE coincidence. This person wasn’t interested in criticising Bernardi. Because he wants people criticising Julia Gillard. And this is the problem with a huge number of people on the Left, who are definitely over-represented in my Twitter feed, who are no doubt representative of a wider group in the offline world too.

These people don’t want a hero on the Left to unite progressives to help us bring about crucial policy reform. They want to bitch about the problems with the Left. The Gillard Labor policies they don’t like. It’s always the same. Single mothers on Newstart. Asylum seekers. Gay Marriage. No matter that Gillard is no longer the Prime Minister. No matter that the single mothers on Newstart policy was Howard’s policy. No matter all the other policy successes of the Labor government that these people conveniently ignore. No matter that Abbott is now Prime Minister, and yet these politically engaged people still want to spend their time discussing the Gillard government and what’s wrong with Labor, and the Rudd vs Gillard debacle, with their overarching argument being that politics is shit, and everyone is as bad as each other, and it doesn’t matter who you vote for because you’ll get more of the same.

What comes with this attitude is also some more underlying arrogance that will be very familiar to people who discuss politics on Twitter (again a group representative of a wider community outside of social media).

• People who are outraged are hysterical and wasting their time.
• Supporters of Labor are too partisan and are ‘barracking’ for their team.
• The policy successes of the Labor government don’t count because they had some policies that these people didn’t agree with.
• It’s cool to be smug, emotionally distant from policy outcomes and to sit on the fence at every opportunity you have to differentiate Labor from Liberal.

So back to my mention of the sort of society I want. I am not afraid to say that I do barrack for the Labor Party. And I’m sick of people implying that this barracking makes my opinion less valid, because that is bullshit.

The reason I barrack for the Labor Party is because I have a very clear vision of my desired outcomes from politics. And I can say with absolutely certainty that Labor will bring me closer to my desired political outcomes than the Liberal Coalition will. It’s really that simple. Big picture stuff. In the great tug-of-war between the interests of labour and capital, there are too many who should have their hands on the rope of the labour side who are instead too cool for school. They are off in another playground, using their rope to skip. I’m sure they’re getting very fit from this activity, but they’re contributing nothing other than a personal sense of satisfaction. And without all progressive hands on the rope, the right-wing side, capital, is winning.

Abbott’s only been in power for four months and every day we are learning, with alarming speed and scale, just how different a country Abbott wants Australia to be, at the other end of the continuum from the Australia I barrack for. We now have a climate change denier in power. We have environmental regulations being dismantled. We have culture wars over the national curriculum. We have secrecy over the actions of our government in managing asylum seeker arrivals. We have cuts to social welfare targeting the disability pension. We have right-wing-cronies being given public office and business lobbyists being handed the keys to the budget. We potentially will see a user-pays system replace universal healthcare. This is just a snapshot and shows just how much outrage does need to be assembled to fight this Abbott vision for Australia.

I’m not going to stop fighting, or barracking as some people call it. The Labor Party is not perfect. No political party could ever please everyone all the time. But while the Left fixate and fragment to bicker amongst ourselves, and while the smug ‘I’m above this outrage stuff’ put down those who are trying to reinstate the policies we want, some progressives are not just taking their hands off the rope, they’re getting in the way of people trying to fight the fight on our behalf.

I still find it hard to come to terms with the fact that this country elected Tony Abbott. With the economic success of the previous Labor government, and the urgency about taking action on climate change, we’ve ended up with the least beneficial political party in power at the exact worst time for this country. It’s a disaster. There’s no other way to describe it. Perhaps I’m wrong about needing a hero. I was thinking someone needs to find a way to unite progressives, to get us back on track, fighting for the policy outcomes that bring the country closer to our ideals. Perhaps we don’t need one hero. Perhaps we need many. We need many more heroes and many less smug assholes. We need heroes with hands on the rope before Abbott’s government pulls us so far to the right that we’ll never find our way back.

The Abbott government haven’t used the holiday season merely to dump unpopular policies on out-of-office media teams and too-relaxed-to-take-much-notice Australian voters. They’ve also leaked/floated a few ideas that they plan to miraculously endorse after the release of the Commission of Audit, except that they’ve clearly thought the ideas up already. Go figure.

One of these ideas which hasn’t received much media coverage is the plan to remove the small business instant asset-write-off tax deduction, which also didn’t receive much media coverage before the election when Abbott announced it as policy. I guess Abbott’s cheer leaders in the mainstream media don’t want to make themselves look like idiots by admitting that policies like this are completely contradictory to the ‘open for business’ narrative which they have accepted without question and without scrutiny. Not wanting to look like idiots is a noble motivation, and explains why the right wing commentators are now going after the ABC (how dare they report the failings of the Abbott government) and Peppa Pig (look over there – a pig with a handbag!).

But another of the ideas floated over the Christmas break which definitely was not mentioned by Abbott before the election is the suggestion that visits to your local GP, and possibly emergency rooms, will be charged $5 or $6. Quite fairly, Labor has already begun to refer to this fee as a GREAT BIG TAX. (You have to say it slowly like you’re struggling to remember the next word, to really get the tone as Abbott-like as possible).

Apart from the obviously hypocritical stance of a man who did nothing else as Opposition Leader except tour businesses across the country, campaigning against the Carbon Price, because it was going to increase people’s ‘cost of living’ through a small increase in their electricity bills, the policy is a ridiculously stupid idea for other reasons.

Firstly, the administrative cost to raise such a small amount ($750 million over four years) doesn’t seem to make the political cost of this policy worth it. There are many other ways to save this sort of money. For example, Abbott could reduce the fuel-tax-credits rate for mining companies. But of course, Abbott wouldn’t dream of upsetting his friends/donors in the mining industry. That really would be political suicide.

On top of this, Medicare is a Labor policy which the community is very fond of. As soon as a Liberal government targets free universal healthcare, we are reminded that it was Liberal opposition to Medicare which made it such a huge battle for Labor to deliver the policy in the first place. Liberal and National ideologues have always been against Medicare, and Abbott has wasted no time in reminding us that he is one of these ideologues. He is reminding us that he would be on the Tea Party’s side in the US, calling ObamaCare communism, and getting hysterical about repealing it. He is reminding us that the $5 or $6 fee for visiting a doctor is ultimately a ‘user-pays’ system. What’s next – no more free education? No more social security? This is one very slippery slope which Abbott seems tempted to slide down very early in his first term.

Abbott really should read up on his political history if he wants a preview of how the electorate will respond to his GP tax. I hate to look like I’m giving Abbott advice, but since he doesn’t take advice anyway, I feel safe that I will be ignored. Over the last few days, I finally got around to reading George Megalogenis’s book – The Australian Moment. Within days of finding out about Abbott’s GREAT BIG TAX on sick children, I found myself reading Megalogenis’s retelling of the history of Labor’s budget in 1991, delivered by the then Treasurer John Kerin. Kerin was looking for cuts in the budget and suggested a plan to raise funds by charging $3.50 for GP appointments, which would save $1.65 billion over four years. There was a problem for Kerin, however. And that was the community’s reaction to this plan. As Megalogenis explains:

“But if it had a co-payment attached to it, Medicare lost its meaning as a universal health scheme funded directly out of the budget…. Medicare was one of the few things that Labor stood for that people held dear to them. To say the program was unaffordable was code for accusing Australians of being hypochondriacs”.

Labor eventually dropped this plan, and possibly Abbott will too. But I do hope that a brave journalist in the meantime does have a chance to ask Abbott a question about this idea, which would successfully reveal to the Australian public exactly who they elected to run the country. The question would ideally sound something like this:

The Carbon Price was designed to send a price-signal to consumers to encourage them to cut down on their electricity usage, in order to reduce carbon emissions, and to reduce climate change. You campaigned against what you called a ‘Carbon Tax’. Can you please tell us, with your plan to send a price-signal to consumers of doctors’ services, which ailments should we stop seeing a doctor for? The lump on our arm which may be skin cancer, or our child’s temperature which may be meningitis?

It’s hard to find a single political journalist in Australia who doesn’t trot out the same tired old line they’ve been using for three years to describe the Labor government, and now the former Labor government. Dysfunctional. The narrative between 2010 and September 2013 went something like this: The Gillard/Rudd government is dysfunctional so they must be voted out. And since the election, the line is: The Gillard/Rudd government was dysfunctional so they were voted out. But hang on a minute folks. Let’s scrutinise this narrative for just a moment. First by looking at this favourite word. Dysfunctional.

There are a couple of definitions of dysfunction that are relevant in this context. The first is the meaning no doubt justified by the journalists as true by evidence of the backgrounding by members of the Labor Party against Gillard and sometimes Rudd.

Dysfunction: characterized by a breakdown of normal or beneficial relationships between members of the group.

It would be entirely naïve of me to argue that Gillard and Rudd’s relationship was anything but dysfunctional, and damaging to the government’s reputation. However, when you look at a second definition for dysfunction, the journalists’ entire narrative falls apart through lack of facts and entirely contradictory evidence.

Dysfunction: unable to function normally.

The Gillard government, even whilst being white-anted by Rudd, even with its ability to govern precariously balanced on the knife-edge of minority government, even with the Abbott Opposition doing its best to push them off the knife-edge, and even with the media running with Peta Credlin’s ‘Labor bad bad bad, chaos, chaos, disunity, dysfunction’ circus, was anything but dysfunctional. If you don’t believe me, how do you explain all the fantastic progressive policies that the Abbott government is now busy undoing? The National Broadband Network. The proper one. Education reforms. Paid Parental Leave. The National Disability Insurance Scheme. The Mining Tax. The Carbon Price. Environmental reforms. I could go on and on. All in all Gillard’s government successfully passed over 300 pieces of legislation whilst in government, without Abbott’s Opposition blocking any of them. This record made Gillard’s government, as outlined in this analysis by the Guardian’s Nick Evershed, the most productive in Australia’s history. This is fact. A fact that the political journalists in this country continue to conveniently ignore, whilst also implicitly defending their ineptitude in reporting this success while it was happening. Hang on, no, not ineptitude. I’ve got a better word. Dysfunction.

The mainstream media in Australia was so obsessed with the Rudd and Gillard relationship, and still are, that they are completely dysfunctional in doing their jobs – reporting on what is actually happening. And now that their dysfunction has supported the Abbott government, ironically the most dysfunctional government Australia has ever seen, in winning power, they’re keeping up their pretence that the Gillard/Rudd governments were dysfunctional to explain how this mess came about. But I’m not buying it. Because it’s crap. The ‘dysfunction’ narrative is crap, and doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny, let alone the scrutiny of hindsight.

On the subject of hindsight, it is very interesting and telling to compare the media’s portrayal of the Gillard/Rudd government, with governments from the past. I was a child and a teenager through the Hawke and Keating years. I remember thinking that all Prime Ministers were amazing, inspirational, intelligent and working in the best interest of Australians, until I grew up and understood politics properly, during the Howard years. But after watching the Keating interviews on the ABC recently, I realised that the sometimes very bitter division between Hawke and Keating over who was best fit to be leader, was not completely dissimilar to the ‘leadership tensions’ reported for the last three years between Gillard and Rudd. Throughout the Hawke and Keating years, there was absolutely no doubt that Australia was going through the most profound economic reforms the country had seen in years. People have a lot to say about the Hawke and Keating years, but dysfunction is never one of the words they use. No doubt some journalists will, like a broken record, blame the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle on this inconsistency, but I’m not buying this either. Because it’s crap. And I’m correcting the record.

Dear Mike Devereux,

I am writing you this open letter as a concerned South Australian. Please don’t shut down your Holden manufacturing business in Australia. I know you are working hard with the big wigs at General Motors in the US, and I know Australia’s most incompetent Prime Minister of all time is making your job really difficult. But I just hope you don’t let Abbott’s stupidity destroy the car manufacturing industry in Australia forever.

I must admit I’m as confused as you are about Abbott’s recent statements regarding government funding to car manufacturers. Before the election it was almost impossible to hold him down to an actual policy, and even when he did provide some detail, the mainstream media didn’t bother to scrutinise any of it. But I did find this reference from August to something Abbott apparently said:

“If the motor manufacturers want to come to us after the election, obviously they can and we will sit down and we will have an adult discussion with them about trying to ensure that those ­industries have a strong future, because that’s what all of us want.”

Note the word ‘adult’. I guess that sort of statement put lots of uninformed voters at ease. But what’s not putting anyone at ease now is the realisation that the words Abbott used to describe his potential behavior as Prime Minister appear to be the opposite of how he actually intended to behave. Calm. Mature. Adult. More like rabble. Chaos. Childish. Joke.

In fact, Abbott’s government is turning out not just to be a comedic joke but is actually becoming depressingly dangerous. And their shenanigans in their negotiations with your business could be their most damaging legacy. I’m guessing you, like me, are beside yourself with rage that Abbott would be so flippant about a decision that is going to destroy the lives of thousands of Australian workers and their families. I know you know all these facts, but I’m reminding you again to show just how serious this situation is. In Adelaide, Holden’s decision to leave Australia could cost 30,000 jobs when you include all the component and parts manufacturers becoming unviable after Holden leaves. Anyone with the ability to count can easily understand the economic equation in favour of providing government funding to Holden to enable you to keep producing cars in Australia. Quite simply it will cost the country far less in monetary and social costs to give Holden government funding to stay, rather than paying possibly generations of jobless members of our community a lifetime of unemployment assistance once their industry disappears.

All us rational thinkers understand why every car producing country in the world provides government assistance to car manufacturers. The benefits of keeping a manufacturing industry alive instead of crushing communities through endemic unemployment are impossible to quantify in monetary terms only. But the problem we’re facing is that the man who is in charge of the decision to provide the government assistance your company needs to justify making cars in Australia, is too incompetent to make the right decision. You see Mike, as I’m sure you’re finding, this is all a big game to Abbott. He thinks he’s playing chess with you, but the problem is, he doesn’t even know how to set up a chessboard. He’s currently bouncing sideways like a broken ping pong ball, reiterating that the government won’t give any more funding to car manufacturers, whilst also contradicting himself by putting off an official announcement until after the Productivity Commission delivers their report, whilst also ignoring your very clear deadline of Christmas this year. And now he’s saying he wants Holden to clarify your position, after his government colleagues have been leaking to the press about your apparent plans to shut down, which no one at Holden can confirm as fact. This is beyond chaos. This is farcical.

We just need you to hold on Mike, and don’t let Abbott put you off Australia. I’m really sorry about his behaviour. I’m sorry this country was fooled by three word slogans. I’m sorry so much of the business community got behind Abbott too. To think, Abbott claims his government is open for business. But apparently, Mike, no one read the fine print on this slogan. You see, Abbott is only open for business if you are open to helping him, personally. He doesn’t care about Holden workers’ jobs. He only cares about him and his mates. Like Gina Rinehart who is set to reap great returns from her investment into Abbott’s campaign, with Abbott currently working to remove the Mining Tax just for her and her fellow fat cats. And in doing this, he’s getting rid of tax revenue which could easily be used to fund the very affordable assistance to car manufacturers to keep you employing Australian workers. I can’t understand why even the most disengaged voters can’t see that this whole situation is blatantly ridiculous.

And that’s the other thing that upsets me about Abbott’s stupidity. Rinehart’s mining industry, which gets various types of government tax-breaks and subsidies, employs only around one seventh of the number of South Australians employed in manufacturing in this state. And Rinehart can’t take her business elsewhere because the dirt she needs is here. If she is forced to pay a super-profits tax on her already outrageous profits, that’s no disincentive for her to run her business here, because she can only make the money here. This is how her father set her up for a million consecutive lifetimes of fortune. But Holden cars can be made anywhere. Anywhere a government values employment and productivity growth. Anywhere a government understands the multiplier effect of investing in an industry to support the economy. This is simple economic theory. Again, I know you know this, but I’m just trying to show you that I feel your pain.

I implore you, Mike. Don’t let Australia’s village idiot of a Prime Minister ruin this great country through sheer ideological fundamentalism and intellectual inadequacy. And please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help keep Holden here.

Yours Sincerely
Victoria Rollison

Rupert Murdoch hates the ABC. This is obviously not a hugely surprising statement. And I also can’t say I’m that surprised that one of Murdoch’s most obedient puppets, Cori Bernardi, has been using the ABC’s factual analysis of a political story about spying to call for funding cuts to the ABC. On behalf of the commercial interests of Murdoch. In the same vein as the Abbott government’s determination to destroy the National Broadband Network, to make sure super-fast broadband doesn’t provide Australian consumers with a competitive internet TV service to rival Murdoch’s Foxtel monopoly, Bernardi is using his political power to find ways to do commercial favours for Murdoch. Fair enough too – it’s not like Murdoch’s media campaign to elect Abbott as Prime Minister should go unrewarded. Isn’t that how the world works – you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours?

The Abbott government’s concern for the commercial interests of Murdoch is very touching – the spirit of mate-ship is alive and well. But what I’m not seeing talked about is just how bad a businessman Murdoch is. You see, the only reason he needs the Abbott government to corruptly defend his business interests, is because his business model is broken. He doesn’t have the business acumen and foresight to innovate, and so instead, he has to use his old-boys-club of politicians, who he supports with political campaigns to ensure they are deeply indebted to them. And wasn’t Abbott the perfect choice. The perfect tool. Because Abbott’s values are so anti-innovation, anti-progressive, and completely and utterly fixed in trying to pull Australia backwards to the old days when middle-aged-white-men could be stupid and uncharismatic, but go to a private school and therefore have successful careers, that Murdoch found his kindred spirit. He doesn’t have the skills to innovate his newspaper business or to produce a quality product (hacking phones does not count as innovation), and he needed someone to try to stop his competitors from innovating ahead of him.

Murdoch loved the old days when the only people who could write the news were working for him. Murdoch loved the old days when you either had the newspaper delivered to you each morning, or you bought it from someone on a street corner on your way to work. The readers only had one option, and so did the advertisers. So they had to go with Murdoch’s paper, whether it was a quality product or not. The readers couldn’t talk back then. And they definitely couldn’t write anything themselves, unless it was a letter to the editor which the editor could decide to publish or not. Oh how Murdoch hates people like me. People who use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube to reach thousands of other like-minded people.

People who couldn’t find quality articles to read on the internet, so decided to write them for ourselves, not for money, just because we enjoy it. While Murdoch is paying people to write articles which get only a handful of likes on Facebook, the independent media is churning out more free content that anyone has time to read, which can go viral at the click of a link on an iPhone. Perhaps if Murdoch was a good businessman, he would have worked out that people like Chris Kenny, and Grace Collier, and Andrew Bolt and Piers Akerman and the rest of the Liberal Party propaganda squad might be ticking the box in their hatred of progressive political policy, but certainly are not good enough writers, or popular enough writers to draw readers to News Ltd sites. So why are they being paid?

In reality, the ABC shouldn’t be a threat to Murdoch. But it is, because it’s doing something his loss-making business hasn’t worked out how to do. The ABC is delivering news, and some opinion, in an online format that people want to read (and they are far from perfect, but also far better than News Ltd at doing this). Apparently Murdoch thinks this is unfair.

Because the ABC doesn’t need to make a profit, he thinks they shouldn’t exist. But that’s not how the world of competition works Murdoch, in the capitalist economy you so admire. Because the truth is, if the ABC did have advertisements on it, and did have to make a profit to survive, it would still get more readers and therefore would make more money than News Ltd websites and newspapers. An advertisement is not going to put me off reading a quality article. I might even watch an advertisement video on a news website, if it was the only way I could access the quality content provided on the site. The reason I don’t read News Ltd news is because the vast majority of it is as infantile and irrelevant as it is untrustworthy and un-factual. I choose not to purchase a ticket behind News Ltd’s pay-wall, not because I read the ABC instead, but because the content behind the News Ltd pay-wall is not of a quality that I would pay for.

It is ironic that Murdoch’s inability to innovate, and to produce a quality product that is attractive to digital consumers, has led him to campaign against a faster National Broadband Network, which was going to be paid for by the government. This was an infrastructure that an innovative business owner in the digital age would see as a huge opportunity. And the government is paying for it so the commercial sector doesn’t have to! But to Murdoch, progress is a threat. Old people often don’t like change. I just wish Murdoch would stop blaming everyone else for his own inability to run a profitable news business. And rather than spending all his effort trying to elect people who will take Australia backwards to try to destroy his competitors, why doesn’t he take a look at his own business and put some effort into fixing it instead. Or my preferred option – give up altogether.

Dear Australians who voted for Tony Abbott,

I’m seriously unhappy with you. You might think that you understand why this is the case. You might think that I’m disappointed because the Labor Party is no longer in power, and it would be a lie for me to say this doesn’t contribute to my dissatisfaction. But what’s more important, and what’s driven me to write this letter to you all, is something far larger than the people who get elected. My issue is with you. You personally, and your greed and your selfishness, and your decision to put a fractional increase in your electricity bill ahead of your responsibility to provide a sustainable future for my planet. The planet I live on. The planet I am hoping will provide my children and grandchildren with a place to live. Yes, I’m hoping you haven’t contributed to the death of my offspring. This is how seriously outraged by you I am. This is personal.

So you probably noticed, or more likely didn’t unless Kyle Sandilands/Stefanovic mentioned it, that approximately 60,000 Australians turned out on Sunday to rally for action to combat climate change. You know, climate change, that thing that you deny, discount, laugh at, and generally ignore every time you have the opportunity. And yes, if you’re an Abbott voter, I do believe it’s fair to put you in this bucket. If you even begin to tell me you want action to reduce the catastrophic effects of climate change and that you also voted for the man who vowed to ‘axe the tax’, the very mechanism that was reducing Australian emissions and contributing to a world-wide acceptance of the need to do something about climate change, I will tell you you’re a moron. A dangerous moron. And this leads me to my reason for writing you this letter. I want you to know that I’m not just pissed off with you. I’m furious* (*not a strong enough word). And I’m not pandering to you anymore. This is a call for those who share my anger not to pander to you either.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that climate change rally-ers have been out in the streets before, with similar rallies calling for similar action to do something about climate change. Yes, we’ve been out before. But I think it’s time things changed. I think it’s time to talk about what’s happened in Australia. I think it’s time to call you all out for what you have done. Australia had action and emissions were reducing. But now Abbott is undoing it, because you supported him to do this. Because you elected Abbott, you have brought about an outcome which equates to you personally choosing a few dollars in your pocket over the safety of the planet. You don’t seem to care about your taxpayer dollars being wasted on Abbott’s ludicrous tree-planting exercise, Direct Action. Nor do you care that every credible scientist – and most economists – know that this policy will not work. This waste of money scheme is going to end up costing you far more personally, through your tax dollars, than the Carbon Price would ever have cost you. And no one has yet been able to explain to me in words that make sense how you processed this decision into a rational thought.

I actually think it’s pointless that we, those who want action, rally quietly in huge numbers and then go back to our day jobs on Monday and tell our work colleagues that we were there at the rally and how it’s going to help. We’re talking to work colleagues who, in their majority, have used their democratic vote to empower a man who everyone with half-a-brain knows is a climate change denier, for the personally convenient purpose of maintaining his friendship/donor relationship with the likes of Gina Rinehart.

But that’s the thing about Tony Abbott. You people, the ones who voted for him, invented him. Like a disturbingly incoherent Frankenstein thug, you needed someone to tell you that climate change wasn’t a problem. You needed someone to maintain your comfortable status quo, to tell you that your pastimes of shopping and buying credits on your Candy Crush iPhone game were perfectly justifiable ways to spend your spare time and money. You needed this man to give you a reason to do nothing, and to campaign against action when someone tried to do something about the biggest problem our society has ever, and will ever, encounter, to make you feel like you’re not doing something wrong by doing nothing. But that’s the thing. You’re not just doing nothing. You’ve given Tony Abbott a mandate to undo the only action we had. The action we, the responsible Australians, rallied for. You’re the handbrake, you’re the ‘control z’ that could destroy the lives of my future offspring. You don’t care that people are already dying in countries you’ve heard of but never visited, as long as your electricity bill isn’t more than it was last month, which it probably isn’t because you spent half the month in Bali drinking 50c beers and buying $1 copies of Breaking Bad Season 2 so your plasma TV wasn’t on for 18 hours a day. And this is the point I want to make.

Climate change is not a debate. You have no right to an opinion on climate change. You’re not a climate scientist, I can guarantee it. Climate change is happening. It’s killing people now. Whether you like it or not in your comfortable little greed fest, we’re having more regular and more severe storms, droughts, floods and fires across the planet because of climate change, right now. People like me don’t go to rallies because we have nothing better to do on a weekend. And personally, I’m sick of the attitude that we, as a community of people who want to do something, should pander to people like you who refuse to listen, who refuse to understand what scientists are saying (note I say ‘understand’ and not ‘believe’ because this is not a fairy in the garden that you can choose to believe in or not). This is real. And it’s affecting those who want to do something about it just as much as it’s affecting you. But since you voted for Abbott, the coal companies are back in charge. Now we have a government who doesn’t even bother to attend the Warsaw climate conference, where the world is discussing plans to do something. Now we have an environment minister referencing Wikipedia to justify his denial.

So this is my statement: I’m not pandering to you anymore. I’m not pretending it’s a good use of my time to try to convince you of the completely and utterly proven fact of climate change. Polite diplomacy has not got us anywhere. You need to know loud and clear that you’re the problem. And you need to take responsibility for what you and your selfish lifestyle, and your prioritising of dollars on your electricity bill have done to the continuation of the planet we all live on, the same place where we all hope to see our children live without being destroyed by your selfishness and greed.

Your legacy is a country which convinced other wavering, weak societies that there was no point taking action, because it would just be un-done if they did. You will be remembered, and studied by future generations as the people who had the chance to do something, but were too selfish, mean, greedy and self-centered to sacrifice just a small amount for the benefit of the future. I don’t give a shit if this statement upsets you. You deserve to feel upset. You deserve to feel like total cowards. You needed to think of people in the future, and all you could think of was an insignificant sacrifice on your electricity bill which might affect how much, ever so slightly, you can afford to spend on your lifestyle today. You could have just made the easy and smart decision to cut down on your electricity usage, which was really the point of the Carbon Price in the first place. But this was an inconvenience to you. Your mindset is a complete outrage. You’ve democratically elected the most dangerous person you could possibly have voted for at a tipping point in the future of humanity, and you argue in favour of this disastrous decision with all your energy whenever you can. This is beyond wrong. Your behaviour is reprehensible and it’s time we told you so.

Next time you’re in the tearoom at work equating climate change to the Y2K bug, I think someone should tell you you’re a blight on our future. Next time you spout your bullshit about the science not being settled on my Twitter stream, or you write loony comments on my blog to justify why you don’t want to do anything about climate change, I’m not going to engage in a debate with you as this just gives you the idea you’ve got some credibility in the argument. You have no credibility. I’m going to tell you you’re selfish and greedy. And I’m going to bring up this conversation with you rather than letting you ignore it. I’m calling on others who are as concerned as I am about the path this country has chosen not to pander to you anymore either. This is not a debate. This is you choosing to play Russian roulette with the lives of my unborn children. It’s not time for me to try to convince you to do the right thing because you’ve already had the chance to do the right thing and you spectacularly didn’t do it. Those who are worried about climate change aren’t going to get anywhere by being nice to you people. It’s time to get angry. It’s time to explain to you the gigantic error you have made. You voted for Tony Abbott. Now you have to live with what that means. It’s time to pop your comfortable little bubble. You’ve done the wrong thing.

Yours sincerely
Victoria Rollison

Dear George Monbiot

Let me start by saying I’m a big fan. You can file this letter under fan-mail if you like, but as you can see, since it’s an Open Letter, it clearly has a much larger purpose than patting you on the back. The reason for my letter is that I wanted to let you know about a huge problem Australians like me are currently having to deal with. This problem is our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and his blatant predilection for making political decisions in the interest of his corporate mates, while stomping on the interests of working Australians.

Today you published a brilliant article about the state of politics in the UK, which started with this cracker of a first paragraph:

“It’s the reason for the collapse of democratic choice. It’s the source of our growing disillusionment with politics. It’s the great unmentionable. Corporate power. The media will scarcely whisper its name. It is howlingly absent from parliamentary debates. Until we name it and confront it, politics is a waste of time.”

Corporate power. I couldn’t agree with you more that corporate power is a scourge on democracy. It’s hard to know where to start to explain just how bad things have got under our very new Abbott government. But the following information might give you a good starting point to understand the outrageous advantage our new Prime Minister is giving corporations. One of Abbott’s first acts in office has been to establish a ‘Commission of Audit’. The ‘Commission of Audit’ is Liberal government speak for ‘making it look like we’ve consulted and analysed better ways to cut government funding for government programs, services and infrastructure, when really our plan is just to slash and burn without any thought for the outcomes on the community’. Or, shorter, the ‘Commission of Audit’ is code for ‘justifying our small government ideals’. If it’s not bad enough that Abbott is pretending to cut government spending through a responsible process when in actual fact the very act of cutting government spending is an irresponsible process, the extra outrage is really too much to bare. Wait for it George, because I can just tell you are going to be as outraged as I am. Who do you think Abbott has chosen to chair the five person panel carrying out this Commission of Audit? Who has he given this crucial job, the outcomes of which will impact harshly on every Australian earning yearly just a small fraction of what the corporate interests earn every day? Yep, you’ve got it. Tony Shepherd. President of the Business Council of Australia. A lobby group for business. Australia’s Liberal Prime Minister has handed over responsibility for deciding how tax-payer funds are distributed, to big business. I can completely understand that you’re pissed off with your UK government for obviously being influenced by big business, so imagine how you would feel if you were me, and your leader was actually handing over power directly to corporate interests. It’s a bloody outrage!

But, I’m sorry to say, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There is more outrage to come. I know you know all about how evil Rupert Murdoch is, and like me, you probably wouldn’t trust this man to feed your cat for the weekend, let alone trust him to decide who should be Prime Minister. But have you heard what Abbott is doing for Murdoch, his buddy, who conveniently and corruptly used his media empire to campaign on Abbott’s behalf throughout the election? Did you know that our previous Labor government had already started rolling out a National Broadband Network (NBN), which would finally bring Australia equal to European and American internet infrastructure? This NBN was not only crucial for the economic productivity and competitiveness of Australian businesses, but also of great benefit to households, especially those in rural areas, as it provided new access to education, health and community involvement via home computers. I can hear you thinking – surely Murdoch and his buddy Abbott would have no problem with Australia moving out of the backwater and into the twenty first century via a high speed NBN? Well, yes and no. You see, Murdoch couldn’t allow Labor’s NBN to be rolled out to households as it would give Australians improved access to internet TV via companies like Netflix. And the last thing Murdoch wants is a competitor to his Foxtel Pay-TV network. So Abbott is working to destroy the Labor NBN, and is instead building a not-super-fast broadband network only available to companies, and not available to households at all (unless you can afford a huge cost to connect. A new type of haves and have-nots). All this for his buddy Murdoch. For Murdoch’s corporate interests.

As you are learning George, Abbott is very selective about which corporate interests he is interested in helping. For example, you would think he would be all for innovation and scientific advancement to grow the capability of Australian companies, to grow their capacity to contribute to the economy, which is his number one concern. But Abbott isn’t if for innovation if this innovation happens to be in the field of renewable energy. Because this entire field of endeavor is very inconvenient to Abbott’s buddies in the coal industry, who provide much support to Abbott’s election campaign fund. So Abbott cuts funding to renewable energy and has also recently slashed funding to the CSIRO, Australia’s scientific research powerhouse. Of course, Abbott is no friend of science, if by science you are talking about people who believe climate change is caused by anthropogenic activities.

Speaking of climate change, another of Abbott’s best buddies is the ludicrously wealthy mining magnate Gina Rinehart, who makes billions by mining iron ore. Apparently Rinehart is deeply angered by the idea that her company should have to contribute compensation to the community for the pollution she spews into our atmosphere via her profit-making activities. So Abbott is hoping to appease Rinehart’s anger by killing the Carbon Price. Wouldn’t it be nice to have such helpful friends?

And speaking of Rinehart’s profit-making activities, you might also be interested to hear that the Labor government introduced a super-profits tax for mining companies, to try to recoup some of the value from the sale of natural resources to be shared with all Australians, rather than it being spent on Rinehart’s endless court battles with her children over, you guessed it, money. But no, the Mining Tax deletion was also high up on Abbott’s Rinehart inspired agenda. He sure does know how to look after his mates, who are very agreeable to providing campaign funds to support his election campaign.

In conclusion, in defence of the Australian Labor Party, who could definitely do with someone defending them once in a while, I would like you to know that our previous Labor government were trying to fight corporate interests, exactly as you would like a political party to stand up and do. The Rudd and Gillard governments definitely were not a waste of time. They wanted the NBN to be for all Australians, but Abbott has said no. Labor wanted Australia to do our bit to reduce carbon emissions via the Carbon Price, but Abbott has said no. And Labor wanted to redistribute the wealth accumulated by greedy corporate interests through the sale of Australian natural resources, but Abbott has said no. And now Abbott is handing power to the very same people who helped him to produce the political policies to benefit themselves. It’s enough to make me sick George. I just thought you should know what’s going on down here. And the last thing that is going to help is if we give up and let them have what they want (and by the way Russell Brand, not voting is not an option in Australia, thankfully).

Finally George, I’m glad you’ve said you’re not giving up yet. Because neither am I.

Yours sincerely
Victoria Rollison

I feel that if progressive Australians are ever going to come to terms with what happened on September 7 2013, we’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that the Liberal National Coalition are the government that the people of Australia want. And if we’re going to come to terms with this, I think we need to understand why on earth it is that people want Abbott to lead this country. I have lost many hours of sleep trying to work out what on earth is wrong with voting-age Australians for them to choose this complete and utter imbecile and intellectual nobody as the person who they want to make the most important decisions on behalf of all of us. More accurately, we have learnt that this person will not make decisions as the Prime Minister of Australia. Rather, he will float ideas and then judge the reaction on a narrow criteria of how pissed off influential people are, before deciding whether such an idea will be culled or snuck in a bit later when everyone has forgotten about it.

Anyway, yesterday when I was driving to work, I got a convincing insight into how this appalling outcome came to be. This is just one example, but I feel it is representative of a much larger whole. I was listening to ABC Radio National when Geraldine Doogue was interviewing Terry O’Brien, Managing Director of frozen food processing company, Simplot Australia. Geraldine was discussing with Terry the challenges the Australian arm of this American owned multi-national company are facing in remaining viable in the Australian market, with considerable cost pressures compared to cheaper alternatives that can be imported from overseas. You know, in places where they pay people considerably less than a dollar a day and where these people live in poverty. As one of the last frozen vegetable processing companies in Australia, Simplot Australia is a large employer and presumably the government, any government, would not like to see them disappear. A bit like Holden and Ford’s manufacturing businesses in Australia? Or maybe not. Abbott’s not finished floating on this one.

At the end of the interview, as the discussion centered around the actions Simplot Australia were taking to modernise their plant, to lower costs and to remain competitive, Geraldine asked:

“Well, how much do you need government here? I notice that the Federal Industry Minister, Ian McFarlane, who’s a bit busy lately defending industries, has said recently everyone will be involved in making this plant sustainable, but there’s no cash on the table yet. And the Manufacturing Workers Union representative John Short says the previous Federal Labor government pledged $15 million, and he wants the new government to match this. What are you hearing?”

To which Terry replied:

“I’m hearing exactly what you said. The Federal government, the new Federal government hasn’t been inclined towards putting money up. And quite frankly, we can live with that, if they deliver on their election pledge of things like rolling back the Carbon Tax, which certainly hurts us a bit. If they can look at the regulation. In the food industry regulation costs us an absolute squillion dollars and there’s a lot of regulation that’s really there for its own sake and not really adding any value…”

And then Geraldine said:

“But they can’t roll it back just for you, can they?”

Then Terry replied, with the clincher:

“No, but the sort of things they’re talking about doing will benefit us. And then on top of that, their catch call is ‘open for business’, you know, and if they can get a more business friendly environment going, that will benefit us.”

To summarise, the Labor government, baddy baddy bad for business, were putting money on the table to help the profit-making, American capitalist owned corporation modernise their facilities, to make them more efficient, so they wouldn’t pull out of Australia and cancel thousands of Australian jobs in the process. Labor were looking out for workers. But the Managing Director of this company doesn’t need this Labor government funding, as long as he doesn’t have to account for the pollution his company spews into our environment, contributing to climate change which is not a sustainable future (especially for vegetable growing). And he doesn’t need this Labor government funding as long as he doesn’t have to worry about regulations that we all know are not there just to give public servants something to do between twiddling their thumbs, but are actually there so that the food that Australians buy is safe and the working environment the workers of this company produce this food in is safe. Bad regulation, bad! Oh, and don’t forget the ‘catch call’ of ‘open for business’. Yes, this Managing Director really did say ‘catch call’. And he really did imply that this ‘catch call’ made him feel more positive about the future of his job, even if there is no actual government action arising from this catch call, when in fact the baddy baddy bad Labor government was offering investment to help the company, so not to see generations of the manufacturing workers on unemployment benefits for the rest of their lives, and so not to see the resulting community deterioration that comes from generations of unemployed.

To summarise even more concisely – it was big business, men like Terry O’Brien and those in the electorate who believe people like Terry O’Brien when they say ‘catch calls’ like ‘open for business’ are going to make their lives easier, and to make their businesses richer, and to make them individually richer, who brought about the Abbott victory. No care for the environment. No care for the level or regulation that is sensible and makes Australia a first world country. No care for the fact that they are using three word slogans to justify the biggest f*ck up this country has ever democratically elected. It’s just the vibe. And if you weren’t depressed enough by this revelation, here is a line from Simplot Australia’s Sustainability Report 2012:

“We are committed to delivering lower emissions through using energy more efficiently, the installation of a cogeneration plant together with other improvements in refrigeration and efficient lighting.”

Presumably this commitment to delivering lower emissions is only a value of the company if it doesn’t cost them anything. Or was this just included to appease prospective investors and customers, who might by some chance have a social conscience? Ok. I think I finally get it.

If it is the wrong time to talk about climate change while New South Wales is experiencing devastating October fires, then when is the right time? In fact, I can think of no better time to talk about climate change than today. While Abbott organises his government to repeal Labor’s Carbon Price, and while he bumbles around trying to make his Direct Action Policy look even half plausible, something he has failed to do in the previous six years, the news headlines are all about New South Wales bushfires. In October. But when someone bravely points out the link between climate change, and October bush fires, he is savagely rebuked in various different forms of shooting the messenger. In this case, the brave person is Green Adam Bandt, who linked this tweet to his article about how irresponsible Abbott is for reversing action to reduce the catastrophic effects of climate change. Catastrophic effects like bushfires:

(Click here to see the image shared in this tweet).

In response to this truth talking, Bandt got a range of negative responses, calling him everything from ‘grossly insensitive’ to liar, ‘hysterical’ and ‘scaremonger’.

I really don’t understand this reaction. Obviously I understand that most of these people are climate change deniers and would hate to have to confront the possibility that their denial is completely and utterly outdated, debunked, discredited and most importantly dangerous. But what about Anthony Sharwood, who claims to be an advocate of action against climate change? What could have offended him so badly about Bandt’s statement that would lead him to call Bandt grossly insensitive? Sharwood received this reply from another tweeter:

No need to talk about climate change now, when homes and LIVES are being lost? But climate change is the reason homes and lives are being lost. This is like saying we shouldn’t talk about drink driving when someone is killed by a drunk driver. I think you’ll find most families who are the victims of drink driving want police and law-makers to have a conversation about this blight on our community now. Not tomorrow. They might not be the ones having the conversation, but they definitely want it had, to stop others going through what they went through. And what about gun deaths? Should we wait until after a school massacre, when the victims are buried and no longer on the front page, before using the disgust over the tragedy to commit a community to take action to stop it happening again? If my house burnt down and if I lost someone I loved in the bushfires that are happening today in New South Wales, I would be too devastated, too busy and too stressed to talk about climate change myself. But I’m sure I would like the rest of Australia to do this talking for me. And I’m sure I would like them to start this conversation before the threat seems to have passed, when in reality the threat is not going anywhere and Abbott’s government is doing nothing about reducing it.

Let’s talk about Abbott’s rejection of the carbon price and not only what it will do to emissions in Australia, but also to the political will of other countries fighting for similar action. Let’s talk about the fraud of his Direct Action policy – a costly joke which no expert has been able to prove will come anywhere near meeting emission reduction targets. These targets are now promises which Abbott is busy backing away from. Abbott’s done a great job of making people scared of their electricity bills. And he’s done the most immoral thing possible in using this fear to win himself the job of Prime Minister, while playing down the risks of climate change. He’s taking us backwards, towards more danger, when he should be advocating plans to move forward. To do more, not less. And it’s not just Abbott. It’s Barry O’Farrell, one of the original deniers. It’s every Liberal who refuses to do the right thing, from Malcolm Turnbull who claims to passionately want action to reduce climate change yet wont cross the floor, to supposed scientist Dennis Jensen, resident Liberal climate change denier who criticised Abbott for not having a science minister. Because he wanted the job. This is who Australia elected as their government.

Let’s talk about the real thing we should be scared of for once. Climate change is here and we’re having bushfires in May and October. Remember when Bob Brown was called ‘insensitive’ in 2011 for linking the Queensland floods to climate change? Maybe those criticising him can explain to me why floods that happened almost three years ago haven’t yet generated that conversation about what caused them and what should be done to limit this happening again and again and again in the future. Maybe we should have talked about it at the time. Maybe we shouldn’t have shot down Brown for starting the discussion.

It’s time to stop pretending that those who are frightened about climate change are just being alarmist. It’s time to stop demanding facts when there are too many facts and too many reports collating these facts to know where to begin showing the facts. This is just stall tactics to stop having the conversation we need to have. It’s time to stop dumbing down the debate. It’s time to stop calling climate change scientists Henny Penny. It’s time to stop letting deniers get away with saying that we’ve always had floods and we’ve always had bushfires so the huge increase in bushfires and floods that we’re seeing on a global scale couldn’t possibly be evidence of exactly what scientists have been warning us about for years. No one is saying that the only reason natural disasters happen is because of climate change. But they are saying natural disasters will happen more often because of climate change, and this is exactly what we are seeing. So let’s talk about that. It’s seriously scary. Let’s not make that a reason not to talk about it.

Perhaps the most telling tweet of all was Sharwood’s suggestion:

Emergency passed. What, when the bushfires are no longer a threat? When climate change again recedes into the back of people’s mind as that thing that isn’t an emergency now, so isn’t worth even thinking of, let alone discussing? That thing that spawned a political policy that Abbott used to destroy Gillard’s credibility, and won an election over promising to delete? That thing that the Australian electorate would like to ignore? Except when there’s a bushfire or a flood. It’s time to stop enabling Australians in their quest to ignore. Let’s talk about climate change. Let’s talk about it now.

I’ve seen quite a few articles written recently about the outrage of Tony Abbott’s expense scandal. Van Badham made a good point about weddings, and how f*ck-wit it is to charge your attendance at one to the taxpayer. Mike Carlton wrote eloquently about ‘bludger Abbott’ immorally charging the taxpayer for his election campaign. At first I thought enough had been said on this matter. I thought all bases were covered with various reasons for varying forms of outrage about the scandal. However there is still one thing which I haven’t seen said, which I feel needs to be added to the pile. And this relates to the Liberals, their sense of entitlement and the way that this sense of entitlement clashes quite inconsistently with their rabid resentment of anyone who works in the public sector.

So we all know that public servant bashing is a favourite sport of the Liberals. Every time Liberals talk about job losses with a forlorn look and talk of insecurity for families, I am reminded that they only seem to care about job losses in the private sector. In the public sector, they are the ones slashing jobs. Yet, somehow in their very well crafted rhetoric of ‘government waste’, they manage to get away with painting public sector workers as a different species of Australian worker. Public sector job losses, whether they be in Canberra, or in health, education and community services around the country, don’t really count as job losses. Because, as any Liberal will tell you given half the chance, the public sector is inefficient and over-inflated, and not as good at getting things done as companies who need to make a profit and need to keep their shareholders happy. No matter whether this idea is truth (which it is not), nevertheless, it’s always the first priority of a Liberal government to make sure public sector workers are fired, for no other reason than it must sound efficient to do this. It all relates to the very fuzzy reasoning of Liberals around ‘small government’ and ‘efficiency’ and ‘waste’ and all the fluff they go on and on about all the time.

Remember when Howard got rid of thousands of public servants who he must have thought were just sitting at their desks twiddling their thumbs, in their ‘jobs for life’, playing solitaire and drinking coffee at the taxpayers expense? But then when he realised the people he had fired were actually running the country, he hired more of them, but just as individual contractors, at a huge hourly rate, which ended up costing the taxpayer more than the public sector workers who were fired. Well done Johnny. Keep them off the books and all that. Abbott is doing the same things as Howard – promising to fire 12,000 in Canberra alone, and that’s before his ‘commission of audit’ takes the axe to who knows how many more jobs. Will these Liberals ever learn? And even Abbott’s master, Murdoch got in on the act of public servant bashing in a recent tweet, saying:

“Aust election public sick of public sector workers and phony welfare scroungers sucking life out of economy. Others nations to follow in time.”

So, if Australians really are happy to vote for someone like Abbott who promises to sack the public service, what does the Australian electorate think about his sense of entitlement in racking up thousands of dollars of expenses, and charging them to the taxpayer? Doesn’t this make Abbott the hugest of all hypocrites to ever walk the earth? Do we need a new, stronger word for hypocrite, to explain the ferocity of Abbott’s wankery in using taxpayer funded travel to attend charity events, sporting events and weddings? Saying ‘pot-kettle-black’ just doesn’t seem to cut it. How about we just agree it’s un-Australian. On the one hand, Abbott implies that public sector workers are bludging off the taxpayers and need to be fired, while at the same time using taxpayers money for his own personal entertainment and political ambition. Perhaps Abbott is the one who should be sacked. #OneTermTony.

Public sector workers are hard working Australian people who have families, who pay tax, who don’t get paid as much as they would in the same job in the private sector, who work hard, who join clubs, who raise funds for charity, who buy or rent houses, who buy cars, who shop at Coles and Woolies, who deal with all sorts of stress by never knowing whether a new government is going to fire them, who don’t and never have assumed they have a job for life.

But Tony Abbott is just an arrogant man who needed to improve his public profile, after years of being known as the resident Liberal nut-job, and who needed to be seen with his wife and daughters having fun in the public eye to try to prove he doesn’t hate women, who needed to look like he did charity work, even if he wouldn’t actually do charity work if it cost him a cent personally, who needed to look fit and sporty, if in actual fact he wouldn’t get fit or go to a sporting event without charging it to the taxpayer, for his own personal vested interest of getting a better job as the Prime Minister of Australia. No one can claim that Abbott’s helping their community by riding a bike through it. Even if they live in a marginal seat. Abbott’s only interested in getting his face on the news, for his own benefit. And the news media laps this sort of crap up.

That’s what really infuriates me about Abbott’s expense scandal. He’s firing honest, hard working public servants, to the detriment of the communities they serve (us), while he spends thousands of taxpayer dollars on his self-entitled quest to have himself elected to the position of Prime Minister. While he’s promoting his public image. But while he’s swanning around the country at our expense, and shouting his wife and daughters the lifestyles of a Paris-Hilton-esque socialite at our expense, what work is he actually doing for the community he wants to represent? How has he earned his government funded-salary, let alone the extra costs of his travel and accommodation, when he’s spent his entire time campaigning for himself? Next time Tony Abbott calls the public sector a ‘waste’, can someone please hand him a mirror.