Brands Liberal/National are on the nose
Election diary No. 21: Wednesday, 23, March 2022.
1 In what can only be described as a stunning victory, the South Australian Labor Party has taken the state after one term of conservative government. No doubt the Prime Minister will scream “state issues,” but I suspect, and with good reason, that brands Liberal/National are on the nose throughout the country, with the possible exception of Queensland.
Writing on the ABCs web page Stacy Pestrin and Sara Garcia reported that: premier-elect Peter Malinauskas:
“… thanked South Australians and said the significance of the privilege and the size of responsibility was not lost on him.
“I think sometimes on election nights when governments change hands, that the successful party can confuse the elation of electoral success with an inflated sense of achievement,” he said.
“Naturally, people of South Australia and Labor are right to feel satisfied tonight.”
“But true satisfaction for us comes in realising our ambition, ideal of delivering a fairer, better society and more opportunity for those who need it most.”
Refreshing words from the new premier. Words that reflect (I suspect) the current mood across the nation. As is usually the case, federal politicians of the same ilk will shout; “no reflection on us, it was all about state issues.”
I respectfully suggest that isn’t true. It’s the brands Liberal/National that are on the nose. Lying, false promises, no accountability, little transparency, and the assassination of our democracy by the ultra-right have all come together, at this time in our history, to wrongly reward those who have and forgotten those who have not. The people are sick of the political practice of the day, be it state or Federal.
A very satisfying result for those of us who like a little bit of humanity in our government,
The mainstream media will only ever print or say whatever is in its best interests. This is blatant bias. Then it might say something interesting and truthful.
2 Let me make this very clear: Lying by omission is lying. Just as bad as unadulterated lying. Take employment number, for example. Sure, unemployment is at record lows. Why? Think about this:
“The level of employment is around 2.2% below what would have been expected, but the key thing to remember is that the unemployment rate is a percentage (the ABC’s Gareth Hutchens has some funky videos explaining this).
It is related to the number of people in the labour force – and one of the big changes since the pandemic is the absence of migration has meant the pool of working age people has barely grown at all.
When you have a labour force that isn’t growing, employment doesn’t need to grow as fast for unemployment to fall. Unemployment with a four front and centre looks impressive, but it doesn’t tell the truth. It doesn’t, for example, mean a better community or economy. It just means you are lying by omission.
Have we reached the point in politics where truth is something that politicians have persuaded us to believe, like alternative facts rather than truth based on factual evidence, arguments and assertions?
3 Good to see my old friend Alan Austin writing an article for The AIMN. Alan is an Australian freelance journalist now living near Nîmes in the South of France. His interests are the news media, religious affairs and economic and social issues which impact the disadvantaged. Hope to read more of your authoritative work, Alan.
4 Like most deaths in professions associated with stress and anxiety, they are usually sudden and have a semblance of unreality. Senator Kimberley Kitching’s was no different. It has been the occasion for some pretty shoddy politicking within the Labor Party and some additional shit-stirring by the Australian media. Guy Rundle raised eyebrows when he wrote in Crikey that:
“The sudden and sad death of Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching has been the occasion for a pretty extraordinary display of politicking within the Labor Party, and the usual gormless amnesia in the mainstream media.
Kitching, 52, in a high-pressure job, taking medication for a thyroid problem, died of a heart attack between meetings in the interminable process of selecting Labor’s Victoria Senate list.
From the moment her death was announced, her allies in the subsection of the right were framing it as the product of ‘bullying’ by other factions who had been trying to remove her from the Senate list and had earlier excluded her from the tactics committee.”
lt is sacrosanct in the Labor Party that everyone support whatever decision is reached regardless of one’s personal view. I suggest there may have been a problem in that respect.
Her funeral was last Monday. May she rest in peace.
5 On the one hand, we have a government who was found shamelessly guilty of pork-barrelling over a long period. On the other, an opposition that has offered millions in pledges, with no evidence, and it is yet to be proven it was doing the same thing. It is, therefore, a bit rich for some in the media to suggest that both parties are as bad as one another.
Sure, any Labor proposals should be scrutinised as much as any other parties but to suggest that both entities are as guilty as each other when one has not been in government for nearly a decade is a bit rich.
I am convinced Morrison believes that the effect of lying diminishes over time and forgets that he will leave behind a residue of broken trust.
6 We are but weeks away from an election being called. The reality, however, is that based on the flurry of photo ops from Scott Morrison it has already started.
7 Here is another lie by omission: Morrison tells us that Australia is performing well when it comes to reducing our emissions. He says we only emit 1.2 of the world’s emissions, so we are not of much help. Have you ever thought about the size of the total emissions collectively of those countries with around 1.2 % emissions?
Well, Peter Hannan writing for the SMH, reported:
“That doesn’t sound like a lot but, as the Australia Institute’s Tom Swann notes, if all the countries polluting less than Australia were taken together, they would account for 30 per cent of global emissions, or more than China’s 27 per cent share. China, the US, the EU and India emit about 60 per cent of the world’s total – and they all need to take action to cut back – but the emissions of the rest also matter.”
This week the left-leaning Australia Institute thinktank will launch a new television campaign accusing the government of using “dodgy carbon credits” and calling the Coalition’s net-zero by 2050 plan a “fraud.”
Companies are set to spend $1 billion on renewable energy projects this year as the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy increases.
If Labor wins the next federal election, the probability is that they will be given the green light to spend more.
My previous diary entry: This may be the last chance we have to save our democracy
My thoughts for the day
With the budget coming up in a few days, something has been on my mind for some time.
My wife and I, together with other welfare recipients, would like to apologise to Joe Hockey for being such a burden on him in the 2014 budget.
When drafting a budget for the common good what should your priorities be?
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17 comments
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Terence Mills -
leefe -
Andrew J. Smith -
wam -
Phil Pryor -
Terence Mills -
totaram -
totaram -
GL -
wam -
GL -
GL -
GL -
Harry Lime -
GL -
leefe -
GL
Return to home pageDon’t overlook the fact that the people of Queensland after being duped by the Can do Campbell scam unceremoniously ousted the LNP from office after one term and Newman lost his own seat.
At the present time announcements are being made on dams in Queensland that appear to have been part of a backroom deal between Joyce and Morrison.
Whilst we can all agree that water conservation is generally a good thing, it seems that with this government the announcement comes first and then there is talk of putting together a business case – clearly it should be the other way around !
The federal government has announced it will contribute $483 million towards building the Urannah Dam, 80 kilometres north-west of Mackay. Proponents say the dam will create jobs, open up agricultural land and potentially lower the cost of power although no business case has been put up : others say that it is to facilitate the opening of new coalmines the the region.
Today we hear that another dam, the Morrison government has announced funding of $5.4 billion to build the Hells Gates Dam West of Townsville. Again, it seems that this is very much an election announcement as a business case has yet to be developed.
Clearly, in Queensland the LNP are playing for the coal industry vote as many potential agricultural irrigators are saying that the cost of the water from these dams will not allow for the economic production of crops.
FIRST DO THE ECONOMIC BUSINESS CASE !
re Item 2: The other reason unemployment figures are so low is the ridiculous definition of employment used in the calculations.
You can be on a zero-hours contract and be lucky to get any paid work from that business, but are still considered employed. Or one hour of casual work per week and … you’re employed. It’s ludicrous.
And there’s the issue of people dropping completely out of the official system because it’s too onerous and stressful to deal with.
See you caught the Rundle @ Crikey line where they seem obsessed atm about KK & Labour, but set against recent opinion essays by Rundle on Ukraine (drawing upon perceptions of how someone exemplifies the ‘left’ from a generation ago); trying to hard to be ‘fair and balanced’ in Oz right wing media environment?
One would also keep an eye on super industry supported TND which has gone very tabloid, and now cooperates with C10…?
Any upcoming campaign for LNP, ON & related independents will have most media, if not onside, able to raise enough doubts on issues to confuse or scare voters….
Wow no warmth from this lot, lord. I need it in Middleton with a cold sea breeze..
The media is a business and to expect them to be labor politicians or workers and do what is not in their best interest is ridiculous.
When are you going to concede, what you believe is the truth?
She and her supporters are not resting in peace, with the ratings media and the ABC falling over themselves to sink the lowest.
Leaving Albo a headache. Can he risk explaining her cultural failings to a grieving family, a vicious Scummo and a voracious media?
Scummo could give the poorest workers $380, median $650 and themselves $740 with just a modest increase in the tax free thresh hold. Add your tax offsets could put you in the no tax corner with twiggy and even up with the frankers, lord? But the big end expect far more than the peanuts to the poor? Funny that the pollie pricks want to lower their high end tax but not the poor end by making out they pay 37 cents in the dollar. (Another lie by omission?)
Greenhouse gases are visibly affecting glaciers all over the world. NZ at about 1.5 m thinning per year, should be enough to convince Australia to at least the level of action destroyed in 2009?
But I loved your thought, as even the rabbott and Joey were framing budgets for the common good which is based on their theory of ‘trickling’ and their truth that it is in Australia’s best interest to elect a liberal government.
ps
As penance, you should publicly burn your health card.
Lying to Morrison is life, faith, belief. He lies because he talks. Drenched in superstition, he has faith in his squirts of driven drivel, and the gullible digest these announcements and statements as a manifestation of submission and an excuse for inaction. Conservatives, at the extreme, do not tell the truth; they tell tales, slanted and shaped to suit. Success is not in being good or honest; that is for suckers, losers. Success relies in developing a face, a persona, a brand, and only driven story telling can assert one’s conservative admirable position. Chronic lying works. Ask Rupert.
Bin-Stickers anybody : https://www.smartvoting.store/shop/p/bin-sticker-pack-2
Regarding the bullying that led to a heart attack for Kimberly. So who bullied Shane Warne that he died of a very similar heart attack almost at the same time? No one is asking. Funny that!
Andrew J. Smith: Thank you. Your concerns are noted and emphasised.
Scummo is only interested in remaining as PM, everything else outside that aim is completely superflous except as media news bites and/or verbal attacks on perceived enemies who get in his way.That is why he has been in election mode from the following morning of the 2019 election. If the LNP loses he will jump ship and run before he gets the same treatment he dished out when he helped to knife Abbott and then Turnbull. Plainly and simply, he’s a pathetic little nobody with a massive (but easily damaged) ego, thug and a coward.
Totaram
Shane Warne, according to my anti-vaxxer carpenter, died from a heart attack caused by the 3rd vivid injection whilst Kimberley died of evil labor women’s bullying and Albo is no Malinauskus says Scummo.
Good one AJ confusion works in scummo’s favour and another SA electorate confusing slimy lawyer is crawling back to the senate.
Ye goode old attempted pensioner election bribe disguised a “budget measure”. Of course you get to see on The Rupert first…what a surprise. We must bend the knee to The Bilious and Wrinkled Murdoch.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/federal-budget/federal-budget-2022-aussies-to-receive-oneoff-250-cash-handout/news-story/55545a270801acff742be6274fcb9b37
Sharma and his slight bending of the truth then it’s, ““Ego and professional rivalry should not be coming into it, but that seems to be the case here.” Yes, blame the “egos” of the doctors you vile little shitbag!
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/top-surgeon-blasts-wentworth-mp-dave-sharma-for-misleading-and-inaccurate-children-s-hospital-boast-in-election-leaflet-20220324-p5a7kh.html
FOR FIRETRUCKINGS SAKE!
Welcome to Australia, don’t forget to bring your new variants of Covid, Delta, Omicron, Deltacron, etc, etc, variants with you. We don’t give a shit about the population here, it’s only your money we want.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-25/pre-departure-covid-test-international-travellers-australia/100938716
On a side note…sort of,
This was a given that the Taliban would renege on their pledge, almost exactly like the LNP here: make promise after promise, pledge after pledge full knowing that it’s all just meaningless words.No surprise.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-25/many-baffled-by-taliban-reneging-pledge-on-girls-education/100940458
The alarming thing is GL,the Taliban have far more integrity and honor than the Ayatollah Khamorrisoni.If he wasn’t a useful and pliable tool of Uncle Sam,he would already be dust.If things further deteriorate around Ukraine,I’d be moving away from Alice Springs.
Harry,
That’s true in a weird way about the Taliban.
The following is just a complete and pile steaming bullshit and is just being used to attack and villify Albo (oddly enough around the time of an election being called). Scummo will no doubt try to stick his six foot long and still growing lying nose in to have a go.
If someone had asked me the same question my answer would have been without hesitation, “No.” Trans means: externally male, internally female so yes it’s more than possible. Trans means: externally female but internally male without the internal structure to carry a baby to term. Does this make me transphobic because I am looking at it from a medical and anatomical view? No it bloody does not, but the woke would argue that I am. Goody for them.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/anthony-albanese-cops-backlash-after-saying-men-cant-have-babies/news-story/ed3d7c9416a1c4c868d83a9bb63f3f38
And it’s also typical bloody Murdoch dirty tactics and sewer level journalism (I use that word disparagingly).
GL
Transgender men can get pregnant and can carry to term if they have not had GRS (genital reconstruction surgery). It’s more common than you realise.
Man =/= ‘biologically’ male, and woman =/= ‘biologically’ female. And that’s before we get into the complexities of exactly what ‘biological sex’ is anyway. It’s far more complex than 40-year old grade 5 science lessons, and involves anatomy, chromosomes, genes and hormones.
Gender is entirely different.
Givien ScoMoFo’s and NewsCorpse’s objections to, and actions against, the LGBTQIA community, it’s rich for them to attack anyone else over being insufficiently woke on the subject.
leefe,
I realise that there are medical procedures that can be performed if the recipient so requires it. My point is that if you were hit with the question, “Can men have babies?” out of the blue the first thought would most likely be, “No.” I can easliy imagine Albo would have recieved the same treatment if he stopped to think about the question before answering. It was a loaded question just ripe for social media warriors and the main sleaze Murdoch media to leap on use to smear him (electioneering stunt anyone).
Would Scummo have been asked the same question if he was there?