Election diary No 14. Saturday, 26 February 2022.

Who will you vote for and why? You should remember why if you intend to vote for the Labor Party. What was your reason, or if there was more than one and you are a non-aligned voter, what are they?

If you cannot remember then, l can help you. Please be patient.

The latest polls show no indication of returning to the pro-conservative levels post-Christmas and what l call “The undressing of Morrison,” a period in which the public finally woke to the thought that they may have been wrong about the government and its lying leader.

You can fool the people for an extended period, some of the time, but never all of the time. Eventually, they wake from their extended mental hibernation and see the truth for what it is. You don’t need many reasons to be rid of arguably the worst, most corrupt governments in Australia’s history. However, if you need additional information to assist you in your decision-making processes, here is a categorised list of issues for your perusal. Who would you trust to deliver good government?

Government

1 A voice for our First Nations People.

2 Restoring trust in our political system.

3 International relations (see current Essential poll).

4 Reduce the influence of the far-right.

5 Disproportion of influence in the mainstream media.

6 Ministry for the future.

7 Levels of immigration/population. The reason for low job rates now is that there isn’t any immigration.

8 Become a republic.

9 Restore the public service instead of spending millions on consultants.

10 Stop AUKUS.

11 Ethics taught in primary to high schools.

12 Re-establish manufacturing to its former status.

13 Buy back all infrastructure and overseas-owned farms.

14 Primary industry and fix public housing.

15 End donations and lobbying.

16 Reconciliation (including Closing the Gap).

17 Fix Indigenous deaths in custody, land rights, etc.

18 Outlaw all avenues of political influence by church/religions, secular mandate enforcement.

19 Limit politicians’ pay, removing early retirement.

20 Access to pension rackets, super and banning/curtailment revolving door employment after political career.

21 Genuine taxing of all. Including individuals, and businesses, and multi-nationals.

22 Domestic/foreign corporations and securing honest royalties for Australia.

23 Elimination of government rorts like the Great Barrier Reef $444 million.

24 Species extension should also be considered.

25 Royal Commission into the bugging of the Timor Leste parliamentary offices.

26 Free the asylum seekers that are left on Nauru and Manus Island immediately, as well as those confined in onshore detention centres.

27 Stop the cashless welfare card.

28 Restoration of funding for all that the Coalition have defunded: The ABC, FOI, National Audit Office. etc.

29 Genuine real-time realistic taxing of all domestic/foreign corporations and securing honest royalties for Australia.

30 A world-class NBN (for business, research, health, education, science).

Mainstream Media

31 Media ownership laws are broken and adversely corrupt, as is the ability of citizens to become informed with truthful information. Social media pages also need attention. Stop giving public money to Murdoch.

Social Change

32 Urgently address inequality and equality of opportunity.

33 Reinforce empathy and compassion by using social media.

34 Legalise small amounts of cannabis for recreational use.

35 Address narcissism in the community through social media.

Housing Affordability

36 Take action on negative gearing and capital gains tax.

Health

37 Try taking action on illicit drugs with unpopular methods.

38 Address poverty and homelessness.

39 Add dental to Medicare.

40 Better quality aged care. Oversight of facilities run for the mega-profits of owners rather than the inmates.

Education

41 Ethics taught in primary to high schools.

42 Politics taught in years 11 and 12.

43 Free TAFE and tertiary education.

44 University funding and fees. Overseas students.

45 Early childhood education.

46 Genuine education funding levels for all public schools, free unis, and decrease/remove private school funding.

The Economy

47 Lower the retirement age to 60.

48 Reverse the cuts to research and development funding.

49 Payback government debt.

50 Scrap all subsidies to mining companies.

51 Scrap the tax-free status of all religions.

52 Scrap all tax advantages for the wealthy and privileged.

Women’s Issues

53 Address the gender pay gap.

54 Equal representation in Parliament.

55 Seriously address the problem of domestic violence.

The Environment

56 Fix the Murray Darling Water fraud.

57 Fix the Great Barrier Reef (if not too late)

58 Funding for natural disasters.

59 Meet all our global obligations.

Unemployment

60 Address unemployment funding and all disability/aged pensions, with empathy and compassion.

And Finally:

61 Implement a Hawke style Cabinet where authority is delegated to the Minister.

62 Give the Public Service back the prominence and prestige it once had instead of outsourcing to consultants and advisors.

Conclusion

Should they lose the next election, the current government will have left a legacy of deceit and dishonesty that political historians will note as “The Luddite Period.”

As seen through the eyes of the left, the list of wrongs is so long that it would take one term (at least) to restore our democracy before addressing some of the more critical points.

The list is impossible to triage. All have worthiness to one degree or another.

For a government that has failed to deliver on so much from the above list – and more – it would be a travesty of significant proportion if they win the upcoming election.

A few dragons have been breathing fire of late, and these need to be slayed. One is the notion that Australia has had some miraculous sense of bipartisan understanding about national security, its politicians well briefed, cooperative and objective on the subject. The second is that politicising intelligence and national security are aberrations.

The Morrison government has made its own modest contribution to sinking these assumptions. It is, after all, an election year. There is a schoolboy simplicity to the effort: scream various words such as “appeasement” often enough, and it will take hold. Reiterate the term “Manchurian Candidate”, and hope it cakes opponents.

In the Australian Parliament, Prime Minister Scott Morrison demonstrated this month that accusation as politics without evidence governs his operating rationale. As he has done previously in attempting to paint the Labor opposition as stacked with pro-China stooges, he told the chamber that the Labor Deputy Opposition leader Richard Marles was a “Manchurian Candidate”.

Ever helpful, the Defence Minister Peter Dutton went one position higher with his claim that the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, was well favoured in Beijing. “We now see evidence that the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government has also made a decision about who they will back in the next federal election, and that is open and obvious.”

Not exactly a masterpiece of literary narrative (a “wild, vigorous, curiously readable melange,” was a description offered by Frederic Morton), the 1959 novel by Richard Condon of that same name captured the Cold War zeitgeist of paranoia. It features the deeds of a sleeper agent, one Sergeant Raymond Shaw, who returns from service in the Korean War. With ten other men, Shaw served in an Intelligence and Reconnaissance patrol subsequently captured and brainwashed by the Chinese. On their release, they are convinced that Shaw saved them, bare two. The seed is laid.

The brainwashed Shaw becomes, in effect, a manipulable assassin, his mind able to be triggered by a game of solitaire and the queen of diamonds. The chief brainwasher explains the reason for picking this stepson of a US Senator. “Although the paranoiacs make the great leaders, it is the resenters who make their best instruments because the resenters, those men with cancer of the psyche, make the great assassins.”

Shaw also has the misfortune of being controlled by his devilishly scheming mother Eleanor Iselin, intent on seeing the US morph into an authoritarian state even as she pushes the vice-presidential aspirations of her husband, Shaw’s lacklustre stepfather.

John Frankenheimer’s 1962 film adaptation of the book, featuring Lawrence Harvey as Shaw, Frank Sinatra as Major Bennett Marco, with Angela Lansbury in the role of Eleanor Iselin, has been considered a classic despite failing at the box office. A preposterous plotline is rendered seductive through aesthetic sequences and visualisation. Film historian David Thomson saw the link between pulp and celluloid; Condon’s book was “written so that an idiot could film it.”

Even if most Australian politicians would have only a nodding acquaintance with the work and its filmography, the cultural, denigrative baggage of the term remains. Morrison’s resort to it even smoked out the chief of ASIO, the Australian domestic intelligence service. “I’ll leave the politics to the politicians,” Mike Burgess observed in his interview with the 7.30 Report, “but I am very clear with everyone that I need to be, that that is not helpful for us.”

Former senior diplomat and head of the Office of National Assessments, Allan Gyngell, is dismissive about any significant differences between the Labor opposition and the governing Coalition on China. “An effective wedge has to be made out of something more than wishful thinking,” he surmises. “The language will differ person to person, but on the key policy issues, which is what matters – the Quad, foreign interference, 5G – I think it’s clear.”

Gyngell arcs up at the use of the word “appeasement” in current debates, given that “it has a very specific meaning in international relations, and none in which it is being used here seem applicable.”

Former ASIO director-general Dennis Richardson, in reproaching any effort to create “artificial” differences between the Coalition and Labor on the issue of China, proceeds to claim an artificial construction of his own. “The tradition in Australia has been that governments seek to promote bipartisanship on critical national security issues.”

Constant airing of the view that Australian politics remains, at its centre, in agreement about security threats has been repeatedly shown to be fable and nonsense. Australia’s history of politicising intelligence and security threats is extensive and disturbingly remarkable. As Justin McPhee shows in his landmark study Spinning the Secrets of State, Australian politicians have been habitually addicted to politicising matters regarding intelligence to undermine causes and adversaries since the origins of the Commonwealth.

The number of instances McPhee notes are too numerous to mention here, but it is worth recalling the use of intelligence by the ruthlessly wily Prime Minister Billy Hughes during the conscription debates of 1916 and 1917 and the close links between ASIO and Conservative Coalition governments that kept progressive politics at bay for a generation. Hardly bipartisan.

And who can ever forget the glacial relationship between the intelligence services and the Labor government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, culminating in the police raid of ASIO headquarters on orders by the Attorney General Lionel Murphy? Murphy had suspected ASIO of being less than frank about a possible security threat to the invited Yugoslav Prime Minister Džemal Bijedić from disgruntled Croatian nationalists. Right wing nationalist movements were less interesting to ASIO than godless Soviet communism.

This inglorious record existed prior to the sexed-up dossiers of dubious intelligence that were the hallmark of justifying the unlawful invasion of Iraq in 2003. Such monstrously cooked accounts were based on the dubious premise that Saddam Hussein constituted a mortally grave threat to the interests of Canberra, Washington and London, and had intimate links with al-Qaeda. Yet Saddam is dead, and the likes of George W. Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard live with shameless vigour. To the politicising cadres go the electoral spoils, and Morrison is trying to down to that noxious legacy.

An email in reply – from Scotty to his God

From: ScoMoses (Scooter)

To: The Lord

Cc: Pastor Brian, Brother Stuie

Subject: Your email

Nǐ hǎo oh Lord,

(See what I did there? Phil Gaetjens suggested I leave that out but what’s wrong with a bit of levity between old friends?)

I trust this finds You well. How good’s God, eh? 👍👍

I got Jen to read Your email to me as soon as I got back from the ophthalmologists – my eyesight is still a tad blurry. I am writing in response to said email wherein Thou hasn’t suggested that Your arrangement with me as Your “Chosen One in the great southern land of the Holy Spirit” was in need of review.

I had picked up a vibe that Thou was not happy when my nightly solicitations went unanswered.

Strictly between You and me, I will admit there have been some errors of judgement. Welding that woman’s head to the flat-pack chook pen was a staffer’s idea, and it was my CoS who didn’t clear any of the slogans through your office first (to be blunt I’m not sure he believes You really exist). Don’t get me started on Greg Hunt’s stuff ups on vaccines and RAT kits. Most of the other problems are the Labor premiers’ fault. I have passed your issues on to Phil G for investigation. No, seriously.

I was wondering if perhaps Emmanuel Macron had been in Your ear. Don’t believe a word he says – he’s a bit fond of the Beaujolais if You follow my drift.

Based on the transactional nature of our relationship i feel there is room for negotiation.

We’ve got $16 billion stashed away for “discretionary” use and we look after our mates 😉. If You provide me with a coded spreadsheet of Your favoured wealthy institutions I will ensure the appropriate disbursements are made from what’s left after Angus and Barnaby have had access to it.

Rupert has confirmed he and his flying monkeys are still on board. They may be evil incarnate but as we both know that’s no barrier to doing business.

If we keep poking the godless Chinese it could keep my arse in the big, green chair or even bring on the great end times a bit earlier. It hits on some of our shared values – fear, war, mass death, racism.

Are we good?

Your humble servant and good friend,

ScoMo

PS: Is my Rapture gold pass still valid?

PPS: Jen says ‘hi’.

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer.

Election diary No 13. Wednesday, 23 February 2022.

‘Desperation’ in team sports is different than in individual ones. We all react differently when under pressure. For those who see victory as the only outcome, how desperate you are is often the difference between winning or losing (collectively or individually)?

Desperation can be associated with many areas of life; sport, business, politics, or anything that requires a winning attitude. Therefore, it has been interesting to study Scott Morrison’s reaction to the somewhat unaccustomed pressure placed on him this year.

Desperation often brings out the best or worst in people. It can bring out a personal fear of losing – admirable qualities that bring victory or the use of unfair tactics. Morrison is desperate to maintain the power he has become accustomed to and chooses the worst of desperations qualities: Ruthlessness.

I see his personality in two parts. Firstly, his decision-making leaves a lot to be desired. Secondly, he needs to lie when he is in trouble or when being honest would be the better course. Both are, of course, in conflict with his faith and, as a consequence, prick his conscience. His religion tells him to believe his Bible literally; however, it is only the residue of things not understood and can never be a substitute for fact.

One and two combined are in direct conflict with his religion, and subsequently, this pricks at his conscience to the point that he becomes dangerously desperate. Imagine going against what your faith tells you to do so often. Indeed, the God he believes in and worships wouldn’t ask him to do the things he does.

I could enter a theological debate on that statement, but I would rather keep my argument simple.

But let’s get back to the sort of desperation he will most likely employ in the election campaign already underway. A few commentators have picked up on this aspect of Morrison’s demeanour in the past couple of weeks. Particularly when he attacks Albanese with this manner of desperation:

From 7 News:

“Billionaire businessman Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest says ministers’ rhetoric on China has entered ‘reds under the bed’ scare campaign territory.

The prime minister and defence minister have been leading the charge against Labor, accusing the party of being soft on China and labelling opposition leader Anthony Albanese as the communist party’s preferred candidate.”

Then Rachael Withers writing for The Monthly, reported that when:

“… speaking to RN Breakfast, The AFR’s Phil Coorey said that recent statements on national security by some government MPs were ‘fairly out there’, noting these were ‘desperate times’.”

Rachael Withers, in the same piece, reported that:

“In yesterday’s party room meeting, the PM basically admitted how desperate he was.”

Although he stopped short of using that word himself, his comments were nevertheless so direct that they surprised long-time political journo Katharine Murphy.

Desperate times may call for desperate measures, but just how low is this Government willing to go?”

The Australian’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly wrote that:

“… the prime minister’s partisan tactics on China “reveal a strand of desperation from the government”.”

Two years ago Morrison bragged that Chinese investment in Australia had grown 800% from 2008-2018

"We would be mugs if we denied ourselves access to this capital"

In this time Morrison's govt let the Ports of Darwin & Newcastle be sold to China

Who's soft on national security? pic.twitter.com/XXOLbQpzpI

— Media Analyst (@MediaAnalystOz) February 17, 2022

On this day in 2020, I wrote on Facebook that:

“At this time in the electoral cycle, why would Labor want its internal policy debates to distract from a government running from crisis to crisis – from Hawaii to sports rorts to coronavirus to robot debt?”

Who’s soft on national security?

The Government’s outrageous comments have drawn condemnation from former ASIO head Dennis Richardson, who said:

“… when it comes to national security issues – foreign affairs head, defence head, Asio head, ambassador to Washington, our most important ambassador – he has said it only serves the rhetoric of the government, only serves the interests of one country: China, not Australia.the Federal Government was ‘doing the work of China’ by eroding bipartisanship on national security.”

Anthony Albanese responded to all the damaging personal abuse by saying:

“What I want to do is unite the country. I want to unite the country because unity is strength. What Scott Morrison is trying to do as a desperate political measure is to divide the country. It’s not in Australia’s national interest to have a divided country based on fake news.

We know what his own colleagues think about his capacity to not tell the truth. The fact is, his deputy prime minister has said that over a long period of time he’s observed that Scott Morrison is a hypocrite and a liar.

I say when it comes to national security, he should listen to what the director general of ASIO said this week. He should listen to what no less than the former secretary of the department of foreign affairs, head of ASIO, ambassador to Washington, appointed by John Howard – that’s Dennis Richardson’s credentials and he’s made some very strong comments this week.”

Twiggy Forrest – again – pleaded the message that the Government ought to tone down or scrap its security concerns over China, saying the “rhetoric on China has entered “reds under the bed” scare campaign territory.”

The Governments who have lost control of their public standing become desperate when polling shows them in danger of losing their power. Every time Morrison fronts the media, you can witness the desperation on his face. His speech quickens, as does his eye blink rate.

Of course, the Defence Minister, Peter Dutton, who ought to know better, has joined Morrison’s circus to sing from the clown’s book of desperate hits. To suggest China had picked Anthony Albanese as its election candidate showed why this very unpopular politician (he is the only one who doesn’t realise it) should never be given the leadership of anything.

That Morrison was prepared to trash our long-standing bi-partisanship in this area shows the depth of his desperation and how using gutter politics is just like kicking with the wind to him.

Former Australian Diplomat Bruce Haigh, a staunch government critic in a piece published in the Chinese Communist party’s tabloid, the Global Times last Monday, made an elementary point. He said that Labor might reset relations with China simply by not being Morrison and his Government if they win the election. And do so without necessarily making a substantial policy change.

Then came the deadest of dead cats:

“We now see evidence, Mr Speaker, that the Chinese Communist party, the Chinese government, has also made a decision about who they’re going to back in the next federal election, Mr Speaker, and that is open and that is obvious, and they have picked this bloke as that candidate,” Dutton said.

The art of diplomacy is not in their bag of political know-how.

Cartoon by Alan Moir (moir.com.au)

I wrote in my 2019 Election diary when referring to the Tony Abbott years:

“We need to know that what you are telling us is the truth. We want you to reform the system so that it is transparent, honourable and reflects your interest is in us, not you.

We want no more of the same old same old. You need not only restore our democracy but improve it. Change has to come.

The past six years has been shameful. If you cannot demonstrate that you can do these things at this election, we will come at you with baseball bats.

Those of my vintage will well remember Robert Menzies’ “Reds under your beds” scare campaigns.

We are to be invaded by the red hordes from the north,” he shouted loud and clear in every election campaign he participated in.

I remember as a young boy seeing pictures on posters in trams, in the newspapers, and news shorts at the cinema with images depicting the communist hordes thrusting their way towards us. There were others with hundreds of Chinese rolling across Sydney Harbour Bridge in their rickshaws with guns and communist flags.

Both the Trade Unions and Labor were pursued with vigorous anti-communist slurs and scare campaigns for decades.

Yes, the Carbon Tax was going to wreck the Australian economy. An insinuated crisis around every corner every day. Pathetically so, without fact or reason.

ISIS is coming to get us. And you personally. His scare campaigns were relentless dirty gutter politics. He stopped at nothing to frighten the shit out of people. So desperate was he that he promoted fear like a legitimate political weapon and wielded it unapologetically. It was like being on a permanent war footing.”

Not much has changed, has it?

The Prime Minister cannot sustain this desperate attack on the character of the Opposition leader. After national security, what else is there to attack? If Albo intends to play tiny target, Morrison will become more desperate. Will he trip himself up in the process?

This is a little piece I penned (and published) in 2018 when the Liberal Party in NSW were trying to make their pre-selection process more democratic. It was known as the Warringah Motion and was driven by Tony Abbott, and it was adopted. This meant that the pre-selection of candidates would be a matter for individual branches without federal interference or factional stacking.

That worked out well, didn’t it?

The Liberal Party is nothing if not democratic: perhaps it’s closer to being nothing after what happened over the Craig Kelly preselection for the NSW seat of Hughes.

Last year the Liberal party in NSW voted on what came to be known as the Warringah Motion sponsored by Tony Abbott and vigorously supported by temporary senator, Jim Molan.

The so-called Warringah motion was designed to reform the Liberal preselection process and ensure a members’ plebiscite to select candidates for state and federal seats in NSW. The motion passed 748 votes to 476 at a party convention in Sydney in July last year.

Tony Abbott emerged victorious from the NSW Liberal Party convention after his motion to give party members a greater say in selecting candidates was passed. “This, gives grassroots members more power in selecting candidates,” Abbott said. He went on to say that it would create a more democratic Liberal Party and end the potential for corruption: “It’s a clear road ahead to one member one vote preselections, a clear road ahead to a democratic political party which is controlled by its members not by lobbyists, not by factionists, not by strong pullers.”

“I think this is a great day for the NSW Liberal Party. And because it’s been a great day for the NSW Liberal Party, I think it will be good for our Government in Canberra and I think it will be very good for Australia” Abbott concluded.

So, a jubilant Tony Abbott must have been a bit non-plussed when this new era of democratic preselections was thrown under a bus at the first available opportunity, essentially to preserve a numpty by the name of Craig Kelly who is nominally the member for Hughes in the federal parliament. Nominally because he seems to spend more time waffling on the Sky-after-dark Muppet Show than he does making a useful contribution to our parliament.

When the preselectors in Hughes were showing signs of getting themselves a decent local member in the lead up to the 2019 election, Kelly made it known that if he was dumped by the grass roots membership, he would go to the cross-benches for the remainder of this parliamentary term and further erode the authority of this already lame minority government; perhaps even bring the government down.

Our prime minister acknowledging the power of the Right, in an act of desperation, capitulated and decided that expedience was the way to go and that preselections by the grass roots Liberal membership was all very well but only when they do as they are told. Clearly in Hughes they were not prepared to preselect Craig Kelly, so our action-man prime minister quite incredibly called on the NSW Liberal party executive to scrap all democratic processes and re-endorse all sitting members – including of course Kelly – without the need for the messy and inconvenient involvement of the party membership: and that’s just what they did.

Ironically, the Warringah Motion was promoted as broadening the democratic processes within the Liberal party which in turn it was thought would boost branch membership, a win win it was suggested.

The question is, when the executive of a political party is prepared to scrap their own democratic principles and processes to appease threats of blackmail from a person like Craig Kelly, is that the sort of party with which you would wish to associate yourself?

By 2353NM

Prime Minister Scott Morrison spent the Christmas break this year promoting Australia opening up to the world regardless of the increasing threat of yet another form of the COVID-19 virus. Morrison claimed that while there will be people in hospital and that others will die, the economic cost of retaining infection prevention measures was too great. New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet was just as gung-ho, removing almost all pandemic management restrictions in NSW just as the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was starting to appear.

While it is true that we can’t stay isolated forever, the reality of the past month or so is that as a country we have suffered through the highest death and serious illness tolls of a pandemic that has been affecting us for two years. Just think about that – more deaths and serious illness now, when the health experts have a pretty good idea how to minimise illness and death than at the beginning – when everyone was scrambling for understanding.

Agreed, the rest of Australia (except for Western Australia) followed Perrottet’s lead in partially reducing restrictions and ‘opening up’ their states. In reality, they didn’t have a choice. However none of them removed restrictions such as mask wearing and were then forced to reintroduce them, as was the case in NSW.

And while Morrison and Perrottet can carry on about economic recovery and ‘pushing through’ the discomfort, every person who has died or has been in hospital Australia wide as a result of COVID-19 complications since the beginning of December 2021 is a direct demonstration of Morrison and Perrottet’s absolute lack of understanding. There is a person behind every statistic and that person, their family and friends are all adversely affected by Morrison and Perrottet’s fixation on ‘economic good times’.

Again, we have seen ‘panic buying’ in the supermarkets (what is it about toilet paper by the way?) and disruptions to various commonly available services. This time around, the root cause appears to be the number of people that are either forced or choose to isolate because they or someone close to them is infected by COVID. Not only are there a large number of health workers isolating because they or those close to them caught COVID, there are shortages of people to produce the food, transport the food and stock the shelves. On top of that there are shortages of people well enough to provide childcare for those that have to go to work, drive the public transport for those that rely on it to go to work and so on.

The past couple of years has proven to us the real essential workers in Australia are not the politicians, the marketing executives, the share brokers or the management consultants, all of whom probably contribute to the economy. They certainly don’t deliver the food to the shops, stack the shelves, look after the sick, the elderly or our children on a full-time basis. It is therefore easy to argue that the transport drivers, shop workers, nurses, aged or childcare workers are far more important in keeping our society functioning.

It’s also easy to argue that the transport drivers, shop workers, nurses, aged or childcare workers are some of the most poorly paid members of the community. That is probably because traditionally these roles are performed by those who are believed to be unskilled or female – often both.

There is nothing unskilled about driving a semi-trailer into a suburban shopping centre and backing it into the loading dock or piloting it along the highway for 8 to 10 hours between larger cities while remaining on a timetable that is calculated to reduce fuel costs and distribute merchandise as quickly as possible, rather than help the driver perform their role easily. Neither is it unskilled to be standing there and fielding questions without notice about a range of products that is available for sale in the retailer you are working for. Nurses, aged and child care workers require specific qualifications in 2022, however their hourly rates do not reflect the skill and experience they bring to their roles.

For example, at the time of preparation the minimum pay rate for a full time Enrolled Nursing Assistant is $22.19 per hour according to the Fair Work Commission’s website. Aged and childcare workers are similar. Yet those who choose to follow these professions turn up at work every day, COVID notwithstanding because it’s really hard to provide ‘hands on’ individualised care and attention to others using Zoom or email. The share brokers, politicians and management consultants have the option to work from home with the inherent comparative safety that allows.

Alan Kohler, writing for The New Daily suggests that

Too many jobs are chronically underpaid, and they are mainly the ones done by women: aged care, child care, nursing, waiting, interior design, book editing – in fact virtually any job done mainly by women is both undervalued and underpaid.

And that’s apart from the 12.5 billion hours of totally unpaid work that is estimated that women do worldwide, worth about 12 per cent of the global economy.

Kohler argues

Government subsidies for aged care, child care and health care could be increased sufficiently to lift wages, thereby socialising the solution rather than putting the burden entirely on those using the services.

But with taxes being cut (ridiculously), government debt heading for a trillion dollars and the necessarily government-funded NDIS and defence taking a growing share of the budget, that seems unlikely, even under a Labor government.

Whatever the solution, politicians in general need to remember that behind every set of statistics are people who are physically experiencing the ‘unfortunate’ outcome portrayed in the commentary. And in a lot of cases, they have no option but to turn up again tomorrow and do it all again for around $20 an hour while hoping they don’t get sick or injured.

Morrison and Perrottet could help immediately. Two $400 ‘special payments’ to aged care workers who are currently arguing in front of the Fair Work Commission for a 25% wage increase (which is $5 an hour) just doesn’t cut it. Morrison could repudiate the ‘trickle-down’ faux ideology, abolish the future tax cuts and and actually support those on lower incomes. His political mate Perrottet could show him how it’s done using the NSW health and education systems as examples.

As proven in the small period of time when JobKeeper was introduced and JobSeeker was increased for the lower paid and welfare recipients, those on lower incomes didn’t squirrel away the money to spend on the next $80k plus 4WD ute, SUV or future overseas trips. Generally they used it to improve their standard of living by getting their bills up to date, fixing the car they already had so it was actually roadworthy or replacing appliances around the house with ones that worked efficiently.

Who knows, engineering pay increases towards the lower paid by increasing subsidies to various industries that provide real essential services to our society might actually go a long way towards growing the economy beyond what is possible now. It will certainly reduce the current gender pay gap.

What do you think?

On June 26, 2019, Prime Minister Scott Morrison delivered a “major foreign policy address” at Asialink, in the lead-up to the 14th G20 Summit. Ttled “Where we live”, it outlined “our plan to foster an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific, consistent with our national interests.”

The following is an excerpt from that speech:

“We share a comprehensive strategic partnership and free trade agreement with the People’s Republic of China, with a broad and deep relationship underpinned by people-to-people ties; evidenced by the fact we are home to 1.2 million ethnic Chinese and are host to 1.4 million Chinese visitors and 205,000 Chinese students each year.

China’s conscious decision to pursue prosperity as a strategy for national unity and stability launched one of the world’s greatest economic miracles.

Now China is a significant power, with vast military, global interests and the biggest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power parity.

It is important to acknowledge that this success was made possible by the active and strategic engagement of the United States and the wider global community.

Firstly, through enthusiastic bilateral exchange and then by supporting access to the global rules-based trading system through China’s accession to the WTO in 2001, gave it much better access to the markets of 154 member economies.

This also required reforms from China that supported its rapid economic expansion.

China is now the major trading partner of more than 50 countries.

In 1980, China’s trade with the outside world amounted to less than $40 billion. By 2015, it had increased one hundredfold, to $4 trillion

China is the largest holder of foreign US currency reserves.

China’s economic rise has not been a zero sum game. This has been especially true in Australia’s case, but also for the United States.

This is why Australia has always, and will continue to, welcome China’s economic growth.

However, the ground has now shifted. It is now evident that the US believes that the rule-based trading system – in its current form – is not capable of dealing with China’s economic structure and policy practices.

Our prosperity, and that of our Indo-Pacific partners, depends strongly on the maintenance of an open global economy and a rules-based trading system.

It will also depend on a positive, productive and cooperative bilateral relationship between China and the US.

This will require the exercise of special responsibilities by these “Great Powers” to resist a narrow view of their interests.

In 1951 George Kennan wrote, in American Diplomacy:

“If our purposes and undertakings here at home are decent ones, unsullied by arrogance or hostility towards other people or delusions of superiority, then the pursuit of our national interest can never fail to be conducive to a better world.”

As a rising global power, China also now has additional responsibilities.

It is therefore important that US-China trade tensions are resolved in the broader context of their special power responsibilities, in a way that is WTO-consistent and does not undermine the interests of other parties, including Australia.

The accumulation of issues that have led to these tensions must be acknowledged, addressed and resolved at the negotiating table in a way that reinforces our open and inclusive global trading system.

Like all of us, China and the US have a strong interest, and a special responsibility, to modernise and support the system that has delivered unprecedented growth in national wealth and living standards over the last two decades.

We can support these efforts and outcomes by rejecting the fatalism of increased polarisation and resisting the analysis that only sees these issues through a binary prism.

It is in no-one’s interest in the Indo-Pacific to see an inevitably more competitive US-China relationship become adversarial in character.

All nations in our region, not just Australia, are having to adjust to this period of great power competition.

Like others who live here, Australia simply seeks the freedom to be ourselves, peacefully pursue our national interests, consistent with our values, appreciating our history and being transparent and honest about our aspirations for the future.

These shared challenges create important common ground, which is where I see Australia continuing to play an important role.

So we won’t be fazed, intimidated or fatalistic.

Of course the international environment is difficult.

Of course there are risks of further deterioration in key relationships and consequent collateral impacts on the global economy and regional stability.

There are alsopressures to decouple the Chinese and American economic systems, whether this be in technology, payments systems, financial services or other areas.

But these are not insurmountable obstacles. To think they are not does not amount to some modern form of appeasement. This is a straw man argument.

And what’s the alternative?

These risks not only can but must be mitigated, and this comes more possible when we work together.

We should not just sit back and passively await our fate in the wake of a major power contest.

This underestimates and gives up on the power of human, state and multilateral agency.

There are practical steps that we can pursue.

So we will play our part. We will not be passive bystanders.

Our approach will be based on key principles.

A commitment to open markets with trade relationships based on rules, not coercion.

An approach which builds resilience and sovereignty.

Respect for international law and the resolution of disputes peacefully, without the threat or use of coercive power.

And a commitment to cooperation and burden-sharing within strong and resilient regional architecture.

None of those principles is inconsistent with the natural instinct of sovereign nations to compete.

And It is not inevitable that competition leads to conflict.

We have already demonstrated that like-minded nations can take measures to help shape their own destiny.

We will continue to lead by example, developing our close web of relationships across and within the Indo-Pacific.

This year we hope to conclude the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, an agreement that includes 16 economies and accounts for about one-third of global GDP.

It would be the first regional free trade agreement to include India and has the 10 nations of ASEAN at its core.

RCEP’s membership includes 10 out of Australia’s top 15 trading partners, account forover 60 per cent of Australia’s two-way trade, andover 70 per cent of Australia’s goods and services exports.

To conclude the agreement when leaders meet in Bangkok in November this year, I would urge leaders to send their Trade Ministers to the meeting next month in Beijing with a clear mandate to deal.

While continuing to work with other partners in the region we will also deal directly with our great and powerful friends.

Our relationship with the US has never been stronger.

Ours is a resolute and mutually beneficial alliance partnership where neither party has the need to prove anything to each other.

My Government is also committed to further enhancing our relationship with China.

Our relationship with China has many strengths.

Our trading relationship is flourishing, with two-way trade reaching a remarkable $215 billion in 2018, which benefits both countries.

Our cooperation with China through our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership goes well beyond economic issues.

We are working together across fields including health, education, and taxation, where Australia offers world-class expertise.

We’ve also been cooperating successfully to counter drug trafficking through Taskforce Blaze.

There is more we can do. That’s why we established the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations earlier this year.

The Foundation will strengthen areas where we already cooperate, deepen the already rich links across our communities, and help identify new areas for practical cooperation.

While we will be clear-eyed that our political differences will affect aspects of our engagement, we are determined that our relationship not be dominated by areas of disagreement.

The decisions we make in relation to China are based solely on our national interests, just as theirs are towards Australia, and these are sometimes hard calls to make.

But they are designed always to leave large scope for cooperation on common interests and recognise the importance of China’s economic success.

This success is good for China, it is good for Australia.

McKinsey estimates that 2.6 per cent of consumption in the rest of the world is imported from China, compared with 0.8 per cent in 2000.

Chinese imports now account for 2.0 per cent of the gross output of the rest of the world, compared with 0.4 per cent in 2000.

We welcome Chinese investment.

We have welcomed it for decades.

The stock of Chinese investment in Australia in 2018 was more than 8 times larger than a decade ago, and China is our ninth largest investor behind the USA, Japan, UK and the Netherlands.

Australia has the most liberal foreign investment regime in our region. It is not possible for Australians to invest in China in the way Chinese investments are made here. Perhaps this will change, but our policy is not framed in the context of reciprocity, but national interest.

We retain our sovereignty over these investments, especially in relation to strategic and national security considerations, but where such issues are satisfied, we would be only harming our own economic interests if we were to deny our economy access to this capital.

That is why we operate a non-discriminatory approach to investment screening.

And I note that all nations, including China, screen foreign investment.

The infrastructure needs of the region are enormous and Australia welcomes the contribution that the Belt and Road Initiative can make to regional infrastructure investment and to regional development.

Let me close by making the following observations.

There are gathering clouds in the global economy.

The trading relationship between the world’s two most important economies is under serious strain.

But an ever-worsening trajectory in this relationship is not inevitable.

We all have responsibilities to deepen patterns of co-operation, especially in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia is ready to play its part.

We embrace free trade, global engagement and an international system where we agree rules, stick to them and honour our commitments.

That is the surest path to an open, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific.”

Election diary No 12. Saturday, 19 February 2022.

1 In 1996, John Howard, the then Opposition leader, offered the Australian people a “comfortable and relaxed” future. It worked a treat.

Labor had been in power for two periods and had achieved bold economic and cultural reforms.

In the 1996 election, the silent majority spoke, and Australia voted for a more peaceful future, and that’s not what they got. From Howard on, conservatives have given us cultural upheaval and political ratbaggery. It seems to work for them.

The conservatives have been in power for almost nine years. By their incompetence and adherence to ideology, they have stuffed up so many things that a likely mantra for Labor is “Let’s change for the better.”

So, in March 1996, Australia opted for a bit of calm. Years later, after a succession of failed prime ministers, the conservatives continue their abysmal flirtation with corruption and bad governance to the point where you couldn’t trust them as far as you could kick them.

Now, after two years of the coronavirus pandemic and three months into a third, delivering a comfortable and relaxed Australia might be unsuitable for the times because we have become a “do-nothing else” nation.

Repairing the many things that need to be mended won’t be accomplished with a “comfortable and relaxed” attitude.

The return of the Morrison government might give us continued “comfortable and relaxed” governance of the sort you are used to while electing an Albanese government would enable “Change for the better.”

Desperately seeking re-election this week has been noticeable for the Government’s unjustifiable attacks on the Leader of the Opposition. As its desperation grows, its shame escalates to a point of disgrace hitherto unseen in this country, leaving us in no doubt about the country’s future under them.

The attacks have honed in on national security and the character of Anthony Albanese.

Even Mike Burgess, the Chief of ASIO, found it necessary to appear with Leigh Sales on 7.30 to tell Dutton, Frydenberg and Morrison to basically shut up about Albanese being a threat to national security.

Rather timely, Rachael Withers wrote in The Monthly that:

“As deputy Labor leader Richard Marles said in an interview on RN Breakfast (in which he used the word “desperate” around 10 times in 10 minutes), the scare campaign about the ALP being China’s pick actually puts Australia’s security at risk – a sentiment backed up by the experts. “The attempt to politicise this is not only desperate, but it’s also not in the national interest,” Marles said, adding there has traditionally been strong bipartisanship in this area.”

The Government’s behaviour in Parliament during the past two weeks has been deplorable, and who knows how much lower it will stoop before it reaches rock bottom. When it’s backed into a corner, its white teeth anger is frightening. It acts like an animal in a fight to the death, and what a terrifying animal it makes.

2 I don’t read The Australian the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, The Advertiser, the Courier Mail and the Mercury (all Murdoch journals) for the same reason I don’t eat out of the toilet.

3 For your interest, The ABC show “Vera” had a higher viewer ranking than the cringe-worthy Morrison interview on 60 Minutes with 587,000 metro viewers, just ahead of 60 Minutes on 574,000.

Vera beats “At home with the Morrisons”. But liberal strategists are unfussed. She’s not a candidate in any electorate. https://t.co/oWKtkT4qPY

— Barrie Cassidy (@barriecassidy) February 14, 2022

4 In the event of a Labor win in the May (?) election, would Treasurer Josh Frydenberg become the undisputed heir to the Liberal Party leadership, or would Peter Dutton claim it? Time will tell.

5 Deals with the devil or just buying votes?

Clive Palmer, who has previously likened the Prime Minister with Hendrick Himmler, now he is doing dirty deals with him. The Liberal Party has agreed to exchange preferences with Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party in a deal nutted out by the two parties last week. The deal could decide many marginal seats and give Palmer a fair chance of gaining a seat in the Senate and perhaps even the balance of power in a close vote.

According to Newspoll, Palmer’s vote is somewhere between 5% and 14%. Talk about buying votes.

6 The Prime Minister has had a report into allegations against Education Minister Alan Tudge since 28 January in his grubby little hands. Still, the Government cannot say if it will be dealt with before the coming election. Yet another cover-up that wouldn’t pass the pub test.

The ‘journalist for leaks’, Channel Ten commentator Peter van Onselen has revealed that Prime Minister Scott Morrison will soon cut Alan Tudge from the Ministry. Well, it’s a fair bet when you observe his name being taken from the door of his office.

Of course, Mr Tudge will be sacked, but Morrison cannot say when. You can bet it won’t be until the Parliament has risen.

7 After three years, the Conservatives confirmed today that they didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to legislate for a Federal ICAC. Incredible when you have had three years to do something about it. Yet to be seen if it will cost them votes.

8 Oh my God, not another one. Another Government grant’s scandal. This time, as reported in The Guardian, the Auditor General found that the Coalition used its $187m safer communities grants program to fund at least ten projects deemed “unsuitable” by the department.

This was after the project applicants were visited in person by Peter Dutton’s assistant minister, Jason Wood.

The Guardian reported that:

“… the audit, which found the program favoured Coalition-held seats in the lead-up to the last election, is critical of how grants were awarded more than half delivered without a “clear basis for the decision.”

9 Remember when? Memories of the last election?

With the knowledge we now have, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that the Coalition won the last election in circumstances contrary to what people expect of our democracy.

Clive Palmer spent $60 million on advertising. This year it’s reported he will spend another $20 million. Why?

Street Signs were written in Chinese. Why?

Grants were given to sporting bodies in Coalition electorates, and the Auditor General found them out.

Unequivocally the Prime Minister lied repeatedly.

Then another $150 million scheme for government or fringe seats appeared without rules and no need to apply; just let us know how much?

If we had some form of ICAC, they would be out on their arse.

Have I made myself clear?

10 On the subject of winning, Eddie Otto, on 17 February, wrote the following Facebook comment:

“Thanks to Lynton Crosby, the Liberals have been winning elections since Howard in 1996 with the old “dead cat on the table” and contentless policies and vacuous platitudes.

And it happened again in 2019 with the Death Tax, Retiree Tax, and it has already started again…

Already creating fake Labor policies, fear-mongering, Labor “high taxing & spending”, economic mismanagement.

With no facts and figures, no justification, no validation… just lies…

And it was amplified repeatedly by the complicit mainstream media.

All the accusations are projections of the Liberal’s shortcomings.”

10 Broken promises.

In addition to breaking its promise to pass Religious Discrimination legislation this term, it can now add a bill for a National Integrity Commission.

Except on Wednesday 16 February, outgoing Liberal MP John Alexander, who reckons he would “seriously consider” supporting Helen Haine’s bill for a federal integrity commission if the independent member for Indi attempts to have her draft legislation debated by Parliament before the election.

11 Remember, $16 billion in the last budget for unallocated policies. Well, that’s code, meaning that its money put aside for Government giveaways in the election campaign.

12 The wash-up of the NSW By-elections was that large swings favoured Labor and the independents. No point repeating myself.

13 I received a message from an AIM reader asking why we don’t have donations with real-time online- and online voting. They are good points, and l will do some research.

14 The closure by Origin Energy of Australia’s most significant and largest coal mine says the 2,880MW black-coal generator in NSW is not well-suited to rapidly changing conditions in the national electricity market. Certainly, throws a cat amongst the pigeons.

To: Scooter

From: The Heavenly Father

Cc: the Son, the Holy Ghost, the Eagle painting

Hi Scoot,

Apologies for the delay in responding to your prayers, it’s been a bit frantic what with My latest round of global misanthropy and Beelzebub’s interference wrt Ukraine; not to mention the two new galaxies I have on the drawing board. I did leave a couple of messages as per the Lad’s face in your cheese toasties – whilst I am infallible that was a tad ambiguous I must confess, so thank Heavens (LOL) for modern technology where we can avoid any confusion.

You want Me to save your arse, yeah? There has been a bit of a misunderstanding, My son. Drought, fires, floods, pestilence, the mouse plague, the Canberra convoy – do you see the theme? I gave you the top job as a warning to humanity for what I had planned and as a do-nothing PM that job was also to not interfere in My malevolence. You’re familiar with My genocidal track record so I was expecting you’d readily pick up on this and the early signs were promising (kudos for Hawaii, quarantine and the old folks homes) but you then fucked up everything you touched and then hinted at My involvement … you’ve taken things too far. While blaming everyone else is a nice touch, putting Me in the frame with all of your public announcements of our supposed collaboration is not on. I’m good with the angry God routine (obvs) but you’re on your own with the constant fails – after all, My brand is ‘all powerful deity’, dude. When the time comes for Me to claim credit for something I’ll distribute a weeping statue or two and chuck in another miracle (note though that not even My omnipotence could get persona au gratin Gorgeous George laid; I tried as per your request but he has to negotiate that for himself. Please note that Brother Stuie has dibs on the stigmata – did he let you know? Sobering Barnaby up is a future option perhaps. (Thoughts?).

Regardless, there’s bad news: It’s over

I like to throw positive stuff into the mix – you know, carrot and stick, loaves and fishes, water into wine (or as I now call it, the reverse Barnaby. ROFL). Junior claims credit for those but they’re mine. Old school sure, but I don’t want a despondent, fuck-up weary flock pulling a Jim Jones – I weep on mass murder and suicide’s a no-no. My people are My greatest creation (blackholes aside – I’m pretty chuffed with those) and they need an occasional upside and I am not seeing any from you. To be frank, you’ve become an embarrassment to yourself and to Me.

I could overlook the rather tragic self-applied nickname, the risible curry cooking and the wholly invented daggy DIY dad routine, after all, the exploitation of a gullible public is the business model for My franchisees but the panicked, shrill tantrums, throwing Jen under the bus, the ukelele, the washing of a stranger’s head (I noted the baptismal undertones on that one so thank fuck you didn’t do her feet) and now the facile “reds under the beds” faux outrage – I don’t want people thinking I am advising you on this shit.

If it’s any consolation it’s not just you; it’s your entire cabal of incompetence, sleaze, grift, cruelty and planetary destruction. I’ve borrowed the résumés of the entire LNP gene puddle from Old Nick and what a disheartening read!

I once had some hope for Joshy, a nice Jewish boy, but in digging down he’s a nasty little shit, isn’t he? And innumerate to boot. Spud, as is obvious, is the anti-Christ in a human skin suit. And what’s with Fingers Taylor? I created this fucking planet and I’ll be the one to destroy it – so tell that pyromaniacal eco-maniac to back the fuck off. Spotty dick Jimmy Paterson’s Hitler Youth of the Month persona makes Me uncomfortable. I looked away first time round but questions were asked. Jimmy should focus on completing his Hitch-hikers Guide To State Forests.

The lady folk™ are no better. Michaelia (Blah Stupenda) has a future as a roof-top, active shooter alarm, Mandy Stoker gives off a Nazi doctor vibe, while Holly Hughes and Anne Ruston belong in a home for foundlings confiscating the orphans’ Christmas presents.

As for the Rustic Party, that souser BJ has the bladder control of a Wiggles concert mosh pit and an entirely misunderstood interpretation of the comfort to be derived from “thy rod and thy staff”. Sweaty Betty McKenzie, Miss Appropriation 2019 and the fastest drawers in the west would re-gift her nastiness yet she’s the best the rubes have to offer? FMD!

While it’s a good idea to assemble the worst possible people imaginable in one place that one place is not something I want My name associated with. That’s B.Bub’s domain.

You’re desperate and looking ridiculous so I say this more in sorrow than in anger. It’s time for you to get up off your knees and fuck off. If you could leave My name out of future stunts that will be most appreciated.

(Please acknowledge receipt via return email).

Regards,

The G Dog

😎

PS: Please ask Brian to forward the details of the tithe account so I can draw down on some of that lovely stash. My new Jag is a gas-guzzler and with the price of petrol lately my weekends are being ruined.

This article was originally published on Grumpy Geezer.

Election diary No 11. Wednesday, 16 February 2022.

The first thing to say about the National Press Clubs ladies’ speech day was that Albo turned up; Scomo didn’t.

1 In one of those moments you cannot manufacture, Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins at the National Press Club expressed themselves in terms that honoured their femininity. They articulated their anger in a manner usually reserved for the angriest of men. It’s the men who have to modify their behaviour.

Let’s hear it for these courageous ladies.

Conspicuous by his absence, the prime minister could have given the occasion the potency of his masculinity. He had the opportunity to display some leadership, but he seemed to belong to another era. Like Abbott, he allowed the opportunity to pass through to the keeper, reinforcing the point that it’s men who are the problem.

Sure, he would have had to experience the indignity of exposing his lack of understanding of just what women were telling him. But he could have made the statement that he cared and was prepared to listen despite the alleged embarrassment it would cause him.

Instead, again he paints himself as part of the problem and not the solution.

Tame and Higgins delivered what could be a final knockout blow for Morrison, labelling him an abuser. Now it’s up to us to ensure that the final blow is struck at the ballot box!

In a tweet, Barrie Cassidy, former Insiders presenter, described their appearance thus:

An exceptional moment in 2 speeches that were jaw dropping in their power, intelligence and emotion. Extraordinary how 2 people brought together by abuse will surely change the country. https://t.co/nqRGsOjiCY

— Barrie Cassidy (@barriecassidy) February 9, 2022

The ABC’s Dannielle Macguire and Georgia Hitch wrote an excellent summary of the two speeches at the National Press Club.

In my reading, listening on this subject, I must say that most people miss the point. That is that men are the concern. It doesn’t occur to them, so women have to tell it as it is. It is our actions that have implications for others. Some men have never grown up. It can be seen in every sphere of life, from war to rape. The rise of narcissism and inequality and the demise of compassion is a male trait.

Unfortunately, the audience at the press club was comprised mainly of females. Even male journalists failed to front up. Were they in their absence making a point, or were they too embarrassed to do so? Anyway, two better speeches you are unlikely to hear again. It was a moment in time when women of today told men of yesterday that they needed to change. Not today, not yesterday or tomorrow. But immediately.

Of course, Andrew Bolt had a different take on the event. Writing in The Herald Sun, he lamented that:

“There was “unbridled hate” for Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the National Press Club today, says Sky News host Andrew Bolt.

It comes as advocates for survivors of sexual assault and abuse, Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins, addressed the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.

“Unbridled hate, not the slightest attempt to reach out to the Liberals to join in tackling an issue that should concern all of us,” Mr Bolt said.

Bolt would have his supporters, but obviously, he also misses the point. Reaching out to Liberals has no future in it. Given their record, it would be the last thing you would do.

2 Scott Morrison warned his ministers (as all Prime Ministers do) that disunity spelt political death. He told the party room:

“I’m going to lead, and I’m asking you once again to follow me to an election victory.”

After an all-night sitting and as dawn approached on Thursday, five Liberals ignored the prime minister’s advice and crossed the floor to vote against Morrison’s baby; the religious discrimination bill.

The show of faces was more extensive than expected and left senior figures somewhat bewildered.

News from the Senate was no better. They didn’t have the numbers to get its religious discrimination legislation through the Senate. Liberal senator Andrew Bragg also intended to cross the floor.

It wasn’t Morrison’s only problem. As per The Guardian, a “Fresh leak revealed Scott Morrison was rolled in cabinet over a plan to win back the renegade MPs.” Now, he was facing a boilover on the right.

The over-represented Australian Christian Lobby was so aggrieved it called for the legislation to be withdrawn.

Remember Morrison had told the Christian right after seeing same-sex marriage pass through the Parliament that he would give them protection. Religious discrimination would be Morrison’s major reform, the legacy of his prime ministership.

He also saw it as a potent political wedge against Labor as ever playing the political game. But the legislation failed to protect vulnerable kids. Once again, his political judgement was found wanting. It would greatly diminish his ability to raise the voice of religious discrimination in the coming election.

The wedge had become a reverse wedgie with a two-hand grip.

Scott Morrison has been rolled by his own cabinet, despite telling them that he was putting his leadership on the line in a bid to secure safe passage of his religious discrimination bill. Exclusive by @vanOnselenP. Watch @10NewsFirst at 5pm for more. https://t.co/78mDRgObzu

— Stela Todorovic (@Stela_Todorovic) February 10, 2022

Channel 10 and the Australian were reporting that:

“Scott Morrison was rolled by his own cabinet, after presenting them with a plan to save his religious discrimination bill by also putting a national integrity commission bill back on the agenda.”

3 By the end of the week, or should I say three years late, Peter Dutton sought to even the score by saying that the five (who crossed the floor) had given assurances. Any Government that takes 3 three years to pull some relatively simple legislation together doesn’t deserve to govern.

Dutton also raised the spectre of Labor being connected to China, bringing yet another scare campaign into focus.

4 Come Saturday, the headlines in mainstream media outlets confirmed that Morrison had suffered another horror fortnight of political chaos. The following day, all three journalists on Insiders were aggressive in their condemnation of our governance.

Here are some of the major headlines:

Familiar tune: Morrison opens up his home amid ‘kitchen sink’ strategy, but will it actually work? (The Sydney Morning Herald).

Scott Morrison says he ‘understands’ Canberra antivax protesters amid skirmishes with police (The Guardian).

Discriminatory ‘sword’ may spill Coalition blood (The Australian).

The government lost a dramatic showdown on religious discrimination laws overnight. So, what happened? (The ABC).

Why the Liberals will not dump Scott Morrison … but the voters might (The Sydney Morning Herald).

Our hard-ball next PM? Peter Dutton signed up ‘to play tackle, not touch’ (The Sydney Morning Herald).

The political week that ended in the toilet, literally (WAtoday).

Stood-aside MP Alan Tudge will recontest his seat, despite cloud of allegations (The Sydney Morning Herald).

5 George Christensen, the soon to depart extortioner of public funds, was found ripping off the taxpayer to the tune of $10,000 a month to feed like-minded nutters with conspiracy theories about “unelected global elites.”

https://twitter.com/choosing150/status/1490790644205645824

In August last year, the federal Parliament condemned Christensen after describing COVID-19 restrictions as “madness“.

And the promotion of anti-vaccination, of course.

6 If you come across the word Cakeism (as used in politics), it means “You cannot be all things to everybody all the time.” Or “you cannot have your cake and eat it too.”

7 Monday 14 February, The Poll Bludger reports Newspoll 55/45 for Labor.

“Newspoll’s second poll for the year records no change on the major party primary votes since the Coalition’s disastrous result a fortnight ago, but a decline in Greens support and Anthony Albanese’s personal ratings.”

Time and time again, we are told that making people vote improves representation and representativeness. Herding them on pain of penalty will somehow keep politics honest, and ensure that those in Parliament, or whatever chamber it may be, will be kept accountable. Imagine how awful it is to have a President voted in on a mere third of the vote, or political representatives who only ever speak on behalf of a small portion of their electorate?

The argument is only superficially appealing. A look at the ABC’s Four Corners episodes, featuring picked electors by the national broadcaster, did little to instil confidence in compulsory voting, which has been the mainstay in Australia since 1924. From that year on, electoral legislation has stipulated that “it shall be the duty of every elector” to vote “at each election”.

What was dismal in the exercise by the national broadcaster was the happily conceded ignorance of the punters, who, with the exception of one “voter”, seemed to have gone for the whole political spread in their electing history. In other words, they were swingers, fidelity adjustable. This ignored the fundamental point that Australians remain, even now, hostile to eclectic coalitions and representatives unaligned to the major political parties. On the issue of whether the Labor opposition leader Anthony Albanese would be a suitable leader, let alone prime minister, no illumination was offered, only a blanket of ignorant darkness, occasionally rented by observations that “he might be a decent bloke” who hated Tories and loved his beer.

The major parties still command automatic blocs of votes: the Labor voter who could never imagine voting for the party of the corporate boss; the Liberal, business minded voter, who cannot possibly conceive of an alternative that might mean more taxes or a raid on the family trust. This state of affairs has produced a particularly mercenary approach in politics, with political apparatchiks ignoring campaigning in safe seats while obsessing over the swinging “marginals”. Don Aitkin, rather accurately, has also observed that Australian political parties have had little need for mass membership in such a system. Parties, he remarks, “have become career structures for the politically active.”

The history of compulsory voting in Australia is fascinating. Those protecting it do so with a suicide-bomber’s fanaticism. Many who have questioned the system invite apostasy and ostracising. After the 2004 federal election, there were some murmurings of disagreement from some members of the Liberal Party, unsurprising given the historic advantage left-wing parties have had over conservatives in the process.

This sentiment, however, went nowhere. The approach is rusted down, and opinion polls on Australian attitudes to compulsory voting have persistently shown that “never less than six out of every 10 voters [support] compulsory voting.”

The arguments for maintaining the status quo include, for instance, a chance to snuff out potential extremists. They are neutralised by the sheer bulk of the beige middle ground. The problem with that line of thinking is evident. Such a process also discourages the voting in of independent voices unattached to worn, factional party machines.

For its modest merits, no compulsory voting system creates a more enlightened voter. In Australia, the ritual is a well-rehearsed one on polling day. Often held on the weekend so as not to be a disruption to work. Sausage-sizzles. How to vote cards handed out by volunteers. Party paraphernalia just outside the polling booths. Many trees felled in the enterprise.

None of this guarantees a more educated, informed choice. Dismally, individuals who turn 18 can be asked whether they even know the bicameral nature of the Australian Commonwealth, only to be greeted by blank stares. How puzzled are those looks when they are asked to fill out the boxes of the Senate candidates at the polling booth, which has historically had ballot papers so long they would provide gift wrapping for many an occasion. To date, the teaching in schools to rectify this problem has shown no evidence of correcting this. But then again, the teachers may themselves be ignorant of it.

Certain authorities on the nature of electoral choice, such as Keith Jakee and Guang-Zhen Sun, argue that compulsion for those who are not interested in the first place in the process can lead to an increase in the proportion of random votes. Less popular candidates, ironically enough, can find themselves being elected.

There have been some clever arguments framed against the compulsory voting model, notably within the peculiarities of the Australian political system. Unfortunately, these have not made much headway except in the dry and narrow channels of academe and the occasional policy paper.

One is that such a system infringes the implied freedom of political communication recognised by the Australian High Court since 1992. Another goes back to the basic understanding of a right to vote, one recognised by the same judicial body as inherent in the Constitution. A right to vote entails the freedom not to vote. In making Australians vote, the right becomes an obligation or, as the propagandists for this cause claim, a duty.

There are some things that would not be addressed if voting was made voluntary. The Australian voter has had an enormous capacity to tolerate illegal wars, incursions into foreign territories without parliamentary approval, the torture, degrading and permanent detention of refugees, and pandemic policies tinged with a policing frown. Big picture issues, at least since the 1990s, have been treated with withering suspicion.

Voters will remain purchasers and customers, the political parties hawking products and opportunities to entice self-interested choices. Talk will continue to remain about interest rates, the crushing mortgage, the housing market, and finance. Climate change chatter has finally made it into the pubs and public halls, but this has been a painfully slow thing in a country where digging the earth and exporting readymade resources is a dandy thing to do. We can only hope, come the next federal election, that voters resolve to make their elected officials work. And there is no greater incentive than a hung parliament in achieving that aim.

Zali Steggall has been a target of the Liberal Party ever since she dared topple Tony Abbott, in the 2019 election, in the seat of Warringah.

So, it now seems there has been a political hit on Steggall over electoral donations she received from the KInghorn Family Trust which had donated $100,000 to Steggall’s campaign. This donation was in one cheque but represented pledges of $12,500 each on behalf of eight members of the family trust.

The eight separate donations at $12,500 fell below the disclosure threshold but the AEC quite correctly noted that the payment by a single cheque exceeded the threshold and required further disclosure: this disclosure was corrected by Steggall in February 2021.

The threshold for donations requiring disclosure at that time was $13,800 since then it has been increased by indexation to $14,500. The system at the federal level was running quite well with a disclosure threshold of just $1500 until 2006 when John Howard decided that was too low and increased it to “more than $10,000” with annual indexation : that’s when the rot set in and neither party has been prepared to address the growing problem since.

This practice of donation splitting, when payments are divided into smaller amounts so that large payments can be kept under the disclosure threshold, has been widely adopted by all political parties and is still quite common and legal. Where Steggall came undone was that the established political parties are alert to the need to keep the individual donations under the threshold ; that’s why they are calling Steggall’s blunder a rookie mistake.

So, in effect nothing illegal has occurred and when the oversight was brought to the independent member for Warringah’s attention, it was corrected.

Does it warrant a media hit? I don’t think so but there is no doubt that the whole of the regulatory system governing political donations badly needs to be overhauled. When you consider that just $17.9 million worth of individual donations were declared for the 2020 – 2021 year compared with the almost $177 million received by parties you would be forgiven if you thought that the disclosure regime was better described as a non-disclosure scheme.

Personally, Steggall’s oversight doesn’t concern me but I am far more concerned that our former Attorney General, Christian Porter, was able to receive and conceal an anonymous donation said to be in the order of a million dollars. In Porter’s case he threw a legal doona over the donation by calling it the proceeds of a blind trust and thus he could not reveal either the source of the funds or the donor – all legal according to him, wink wink, nudge nudge !

Not to mention the potential for disruption to our democracy, not from overseas interests as Peter Dutton would have us believe, but closer to home in the form of Clive Frederick Palmer who spent $60 million in the lead up to the 2019 election without much of a return on his money. But he threatens to spend even more this time around and may well be able to insert one or more of his stooges into the senate: that’s what ASIO are worried about and we should be too.

Scott Morrison worships at a church that deems homosexuality as a “broken-ness”, something that can be fixed with conversion therapy.

When the country overwhelmingly voted for marriage equality, Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce, the men who lead this country, both abstained despite their electorates instructing them to vote in favour.

When Israel Folau insisted that gay people would go to Hell, Scott Morrison said “He’s a good man. Good on him for standing up for his faith.”

In fact, Morrison made it his “signature” legislation to enshrine the right of the religious to vilify and actively discriminate against the queer community.

Tonight, we are going to hear how upset Jen and the girls were to hear Scotty called mean names by his colleagues and how unfair that was to read those texts out in public.

Well, Jen, how do you think gay/trans kids feel when your church preaches from the pulpit that they are an abomination who will burn in hell forever unless they give up their evil and unnatural ways? How do you think that affects gay people of faith? How must it feel to have your very identity debated by strangers? How do you think it feels to have parliament vote on who you are and what you can do?

If your husband stopped condoning and facilitating such persecution, it would do a lot more to improve his standing than cooking curries, playing the ukelele (badly – seriously whose idea was that), and shoving his wife and kids in front of him to say ‘please like me’.