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,

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.

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.

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.