By 2353NM

On Christmas morning, Prime Minister Scott Morrison had a traditional start to the day. His family gathered around the Christmas Tree to exchange presents before heading off to church. They were all hoping for something extra from Santa because they have all had a rough year living through the resignation of Gladys Berejiklian, COVID and the large number of slurs and insults directed at the ‘head’ of the household.

When they settled and made themselves ready for the photograph that would inevitably appear later in the day on social media, they began to open Santa’s presents. Morrison’s wife, Jenny, was absolutely delighted with her new Pandora necklace with a label showing the gift was purchased at a jeweller’s shop in Engadine. His daughters realised the possibilities of what will be when they can travel to Queensland and use the 3 day passes to Seaworld and Movieworld that were found in their Santa sacks. Our illustrious Prime Minister found a lump of coal in his Santa Sack.

While he has used a lump of coal to belittle the opposition in Parliament, as you can probably understand Morrison was particularly unimpressed by the present. So, being a man of action, he got on to the phone and rang the President of Finland and asked him for Santa’s contact details. Soon afterwards, Morrison rang Santa and demanded to know why he received a present traditionally reserved for those that had been very naughty.

Santa, being rather tired and irritable after a longer than usual trip around the world (those QR codes and travel restrictions did his head in) told Morrison in no uncertain terms that the Elf on the Parliamentary Shelf had reported a litany of bad behaviour over the past 12 months. Morrison, not being used to getting a dressing down by anyone, objected. Santa decided that he had better things to do with his life than argue the point for hours with the unrepentant Prime Minister of Australia so began to list off items in the reports from the Elf on the Shelf.

Santa started with Morrison’s claim that he never called former Senator Sam Dastyari ‘Shanghai Sam’ when it was recorded on video, suggesting if Morrison had to lie over something that is reasonably trivial, what chance is there of truth when it really mattered?

Despite Morrison’s objections, Santa went on to discuss the justification for Morrison demonising electric vehicles at the time of the 2019 election and making them a large part of the unconvincing road to zero emissions by 2050.

Santa went on to ask Morrison how he could justify the wasted job keeper payments which, if redirected to Jobseeker, would have kept the payment above the poverty line for five years. Morrison didn’t answer.

And the pork-barrelling you presided over was even worse, said Santa. Regardless of the claimed capability of the individual member of Parliament, how is it possible that adjoining electorates receive 46 times the funding based, it would seem, on the political party the Representative belongs to? And while the first one was funny, Santa told Morrison he was concerned when a number of children wrote to him claiming to live in a marginal electorate to get better presents as it shows the country is aware of the problem.

Then Santa went on to tell Morrison that letters from the Attorney-General to the Prime Minister can’t ‘be lost’, rather someone seems to be trying to hide the legal information the letter contained about the administration of the community sports program which has also been called ‘sports rorts’.

About now, Morrison finally picked himself off the floor and bleated that it was highly unfair that he was not only fighting the Labor Party but a number of well financed independent candidates in the seats he would usually win. To make matters worse, these independents are well funded but not disclosing where every dollar of funding is coming from. Santa shot back that the most secretive political party in Australia when it came to funding was Morrison’s Liberal Party, so his point is what exactly?

Morrison decided he didn’t need to hear any more and hung up in Santa’s ear. From his home in the not so frozen north (climate change is a thing – apparently), Santa decided to keep an eye on Morrison for the first few weeks of January to see if there had been any improvement. He asked Michael Pascoe, one of his trusted helpers in Australia, to prepare a report. The report wasn’t pleasant reading.

• The COVID testing system has been blown up
• The Prime Minister’s monumental clanger of preferencing “the private market” for RATs over public health advice is hurting badly, with even the Australian Financial Review running multiple negative stories
• The overall RATs debacle is being sheeted home to the federal government for delaying the tests’ approval for use here and then failing to move on supply until there was already a shortage
• Businesses and individuals are increasingly suffering from a spreading voluntary lockdown as Omicron runs riot under the “let it rip” policy championed by Mr Morrison
• Stories are leaking out of hospitals failing their own care standards as cases jump and staff contract the virus
• About 2000 aged-care homes are short staffed, existing somewhere between a permanent state of fear of imminent disaster and the actual disaster of solitary confinement lockdowns
• Governments changing definitions to obtain less embarrassing outcomes are not fooling many
• And there is that ongoing problem of Mr Morrison “being economical with the truth”, to put it mildly.

Santa was unsurprised, but bitterly disappointed.

What do you think?

There are some things that strain credulity. There are the dubious accounts of virgin births. There are the resolute flat earth theorists and denialists of the moon landing. To this can be added the environmental stance of Australia’s Scott Morrison and his ministers, one resolutely opposed to the empirical world. We are now at the phoney stage of an electoral war, and, with the government in more than a spot of bother, you can start expecting some rather extravagant promises of public spending.

The Great Barrier Reef, one of the single most remarkable natural structures on Planet Earth, home to 400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusc, is not one that has been spared. Politically, the Environment Minister Sussan Ley has denied that its health is failing, citing Australia’s superior reef management skills. The Prime Minister, late last month, promised that his government would “invest an additional $1 billion in protecting the Great Barrier Reef, while supporting 64,000 Queenslanders and their jobs which drive the Reef economy.”

The coupling of both the expenditure and the “Reef economy” illustrates the narrow, ballot-driven focus here. Environmental considerations are subsidiary matters; what does matter is the electoral thrust and spin: the jobs, the Queenslanders in industry, votes.

Morrison does little to disabuse us of this. “We are backing the health of the reef and the economic future of tourism operators, hospitality providers and Queensland communities that are at the heart of the reef economy.” So the Reef better get its act together quickly to enable such communities to flourish. After all, we are told that it is the “best managed reef in the world.”

In substance, the new funding package stretching over nine years will cover water quality issues (remediate erosion, reduce nutrient and pesticide runoff); aid reef management and conservation; fund further research into the use of reef resilience; and modest funding for community and Traditional Owner projects.

The government is also mindful, at least in a fashion, of wanting to remain in UNESCO’s good books. Last year, moves were afoot to place the Reef on the list of world heritage sites “in danger.” UNESCO had recommended doing so in June 2021, claiming that targets for the improvement of water had not been met. “The recommendation from UNESCO,” Richard Leck, Head of Oceans from the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia stated at the time, “is clear and unequivocal that the Australian government is not doing enough to protect our greatest natural asset, especially on climate change.”

The response from Ley was indignant. “Clearly there were politics behind it; clearly those politics have subverted a proper process.” Why, she insisted, was Australia being singled out, given that there “are 83 natural World Heritage properties facing climate change threats”? China, as the chair of the World Heritage Committee, was looked upon as being a deciding, prejudicial factor. Ley warned that this process risked “damaging [the] integrity of the World Heritage System.”

Due and proper process are not strong points for the Morrison government. But politicising procedure certainly is. Ley proceeded to screech and lobby against the move, leaving behind a hefty carbon footprint in convincing countries that Australia had been wronged. At the general assembly of the UN’s World Heritage Convention, Australia’s representatives claimed that any such decision might not be reversible.

The central concern here was a lack of clarity on how any change could be possible given the need for a more global approach. “What, in particular,” asked Australian government representative James Larsen of the general assembly, “is the route off the ‘in danger’ list for a single property if the dangers concerned are global developments that require global solutions?” The Australian effort was successful enough to convince 12 of the 21 voting members to refrain from changing the status of the Reef. Environmental vandalism had again won through.

Such funding promises as that of the Morrison government are decidedly narrow, the stuff of spreadsheet wonks and committees. These are almost always doomed to failure. Throw money at the problem in isolation, tinker with that deficiency, and ignore the more calamitous, expansive picture. John C. Day and Scott F. Heron, both of James Cook University, summarise the point: “While the new funding is meant to address other threats to the natural wonder and may improve its resilience, failing to address the climate threat is both disappointing and nonsensical.”

The picture painted by Day and Heron is bleak. In December 2021, the ocean temperatures on the Reef proved to be the warmest on record. The risk of a fourth mass bleaching event in this decade was very much a serious proposition.

Both the Commonwealth and Queensland governments have also shown an appetite for approving new coal and gas projects, which bring with them a greater expansion of ports and increased shipping. This is despite warnings stretching back years, including a 2013 declaration by concerned scientists about industrial development of the Great Barrier Reef coast. “As scientists, we therefore are concerned about the additional pressures that will be exerted by expansion of coastal ports and industrial development accompanied by a projected near-doubling in shipping, major coastal reclamation works, large-scale seabed dredging and dredge soil disposal.”

To date, compliance with such restrictions as fertiliser runoff that find their way into the Reef system and attempts to limit agricultural and clearing activities in reef catchment areas, has been uneven. Improving water quality, Day and Heron write, is not merely a matter of disbursing more funds, but more effective spending. But a de facto election campaign is underway, and climate change and coral bleaching can wait – so the voters are being told.

Election diary No 10. Wednesday, 9 February 2022.

1 In one of the most insincere acts of contrition ever in Australian politics, Barnaby Joyce apologises to the Prime Minister for saying nasty things about him when he was on the backbench. Things he meant, but later under different circumstances, when he became leader of his own party again, found him more likeable.

Mr Joyce said he commented in a text last year when he was a backbencher and had no working relationship with the PM. He now does and has found the PM to be a man of his word.

Kevin Rudd, the recipient of some name-calling himself, was right onto this hypocrisy, tweeting that:

“Barnaby’s claim that he barely knew Morrison before last year is ridiculous. They’d spent 8yrs together in either cabinet or shadow cabinet – including in the pressure cooker of the expenditure review committee.”

In the leaked text, forwarded to the former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins by a third-party Joyce said he did not “get along” with Morrison:

“He is a hypocrite, and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time,” Joyce said in the message, dated March last year.

“I have never trusted him, and I dislike how earnestly [he] rearranges the truth to a lie.”

The Guardian reported that:

“… it was the second time private text exchanges, critical of the prime minister, have been leaked in a week. On Tuesday, Morrison was blindsided when the Ten Network’s political editor, Peter van Onselen, used a televised question and answer session at the National Press Club to reveal private criticism of Morrison.

Van Onselen told Morrison he had a record of a text message exchange between a party colleague and the former New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian. She branded the prime minister a “horrible person” who was untrustworthy.

“The minister is even more scathing, describing you as a fraud and ‘a complete psycho’,” van Onselen said. “Does this exchange surprise you? And what does it tell us?”

Van Onselen later said the conversation was between Berejiklian and a federal minister.”

Barnaby Joyce was due to appear on Insiders last Sunday. Guess what? He declined the invitation. The home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, took his place. I’ll leave that to your own thoughts.

A Sunday night bombshell:

The minister who shared the text with van Onselen and gave permission to use it was Peter Dutton. If PM Morrison has one more week in free fall the prospect of a leadership change pre-election is real. Party rules don’t count if most MPs think you will lead them to defeat.

— Bob Carr (@bobjcarr) February 6, 2022

I expect his tweet to be splashed all over the front pages the following morning, but there was nothing. I can only find a note from a friend saying Dutton has asked for the tweet to be removed.

@bobjcarr's tweet is baseless, untrue and should be deleted.

— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) February 6, 2022

It was the subject of some discussion on ABC News 24 but nothing much else I. What it does highlight, however, is the infighting within the Coalition if it’s not about the future of renewables versus coal, its leadership or revenge.

It seems there is more discussion about politicians’ welfare than the peoples’.

Whether Bob Carr is exploiting an already sick situation for Morrison and the Coalition is unknown. Is it just his opinion, or does he know for sure? We shall have to wait to find out.

2 Now at the risk of repeating myself, let me talk about the voters, the ones who decide who governs us. Their opinions are reflected in the numerous opinion polls that are regularly published, but we cannot be 100% sure. Polls are often wrong.

The great majority of people come together every three years to vote unthinkingly for the party their parents voted for. As bad as they have governed, they wouldn’t betray the party.

There are others who, from election to election, glibly take little notice of the affairs of the state. They stand by dispassionately, wondering why politicians are paid so much to do so little.

I would also think that a fair proportion of voters wouldn’t even know who is standing for election in their electorate. Many wouldn’t know who they might vote for until they close the curtain on the booth.

There will be those who will decide based on the scantest information; however, given the lifestyle they live, that’s of little surprise. A modern lifestyle leaves little time for thoughts on politics.

Yet, another group changes their vote according to what’s in it for them. “How will your policies benefit me?”

By far, the largest growing group are those who have opted out of the system altogether, saying a pox on both your houses.

Smack in the middle is a cohort of non-aligned thinkers who put all else aside, placing the country’s good at the top of their priorities. They are called the swinging voter.

This group was estimated at 10% of voters long ago without research. It is now thought to be around 20%. Well that, as I recall, was John Howards figure. However, polling shows that older voters generally support the right and the younger ones the left.

Today’s voters have been subjected to (in my view) the worst governance of any period I can ever remember. The reader should assume that I don’t have a high opinion of the average voter. However, why people continue to vote for a failed party in the face of abject negligence is a mystery.

Then I turn my attention to Labor and wonder about its prospects. At the moment Albo is sitting back, allowing the Coalition to dig its own grave. Since being elected as leader he has restored some of Labor’s traditional ideology but with a modern take. There is far less importance on unions and a concentration on fairness and traditional left values like equality.

Those who want to apply the first rule of politics – obtaining power – must realise that the electorate has had enough of far-right ideology. Many are disgusted with the methods used to acquire power at all costs and its retention. Better to gather the trust of the people with good honest politics.

The door has opened for Labor to fix the many wrongs perpetrated by this undemocratic conservative bunch of unscrupulous lawbreakers full of people with little regard for the constitutional dignity of the parliament.

With scant regard for empathy, fairness, righteousness, compassion, equality of opportunity, it is prepared to go to any end to retain the power it has. A power they say they were born to rule with.

But right now the government is falling apart… let’s hope the voters are paying attention.

There is nothing like an election campaign to forcibly ram home how desperately disappointing politics has become.

Ridiculous photo shoots, leaked texts, pork-barrelling, character assassination, gotcha questions, drum beating and distraction – this is what we are dished up when we are asked to judge the performance of our government.

Legislative priority is decided by perceived political advantage rather than good governance. How else could you explain trying to bring on a severely flawed religious freedom bill before enacting the recommendations from the Aged Care Royal Commission?

Our aged care system is in crisis and yet @ScottMorrisonMP has put the Religious Discrimination Bill ahead of a Bill to implement some of the Aged Care Royal Commission recommendations. The Senate rarely gets to Bills listed for Thursday. His priorities are totally wrong! #auspol pic.twitter.com/YTRbfFOHLd

— Rex Patrick (@MrRexPatrick) February 5, 2022

Money is thrown around with gay abandon.

$222K per carpark is hardly value for money. But I guess when you’re buying votes with taxpayer money @JoshFrydenberg, any price is a good price, especially when it’s your own electorate. #FederalICAC now! #auspol #unethical https://t.co/F6zhv0FTyb

— Rex Patrick (@MrRexPatrick) February 6, 2022

Outright lies are deliberately told. Before the last election, a misinformation campaign that Labor had an agreement with the Greens and the unions to introduce a 40% death tax went viral. The source was our very own work experience Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in a thoroughly dishonest media release titled DEATH TAXES – YOU DON’T SAY, BILL!

In response to the current leaked texts fiasco, Coalition politicians are dismissing it as a media beat up, that everyone sends nasty texts after a bad day, it’s normal to disagree sometimes.

What rot! There is nothing normal about the whole business and it underlines just what a toxic workplace culture exists in our parliaments.

Blowing off steam to a partner or close friend might be one thing – nasty name-calling in print sent to people who live by leaking to the media is not how any management team should behave.

So why do our politicians do all this? Because their staffers and media advisers think it’s a good idea?

The marketing approach is delivering increasingly worse results in terms of personnel and outcomes. Politicians can’t be experts at everything but they could listen to people who are.

How about we leave the hairdressing to hairdressers, get rid of the personal photographer and image consultants, and get some policy experts on board instead.

The Prime Minister’s National Press Club address

No, it isn’t the most straightforward job on earth. The hours are horrendous, and the expectations unimaginable. No one would take it on thinking it was a piece of cake. That’s why people are paid an enormous sum. Some do so for the power it gives them; others are genuine in their desire to create a better place. Whatever it is, you must accept the responsibilities that go with it.

Sometimes when things go pear-shaped, a leader has to stand before his distracters and confess his wrongdoings. Scott Morrison went partway in doing just that when he addressed the National Press Club last Tuesday. Did he show enough contrition equal to his deplorable governance? Well, opinions might vary, but for me, he showed little that would match his inability to govern with any quality of leadership.

His speech wasn’t an apology, nor was it a confession that he had made many mistakes and shown little foresight in confronting the issue of COVID-19. It was a grim speech, never mentioning climate change and produced little to excite a nation worn out by the invading pandemic and its variants.

Morrison had his back to the wall. One could cut a knife through the suspense. There was an expectancy on his part that the audience would be understanding of the difficulties of governing. He toyed with a self-desired sympathy for his efforts that weren’t forthcoming.

Then he suggested that the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. The Coalition was still the better money manager, and their born to rule right still applied.

For me, many factors explained his unpopularity. Before giving his address, I believed that the media in general only attributed his handling of the virus to his recent bad polling. After question time, I concluded I was wrong. The journalists were ruthless in their cross-examination of the Prime Minister, covering a wide range of subjects of a controversial nature.

The air between them and the Prime Minister was as thick as I have experienced. Maybe they were sick of being lied to.

The Guardian reported on one of those ruthless questions:

“Laura Tingle (not exactly a favourite of the PM) asked Scott Morrison if he was going to apologise for ‘the mistakes he has made as prime minister’, citing the Government’s handling of the pandemic but also Morrison’s holiday to Hawaii during the black summer bushfires in 2019 and cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).”

He didn’t directly answer the question but did admit that:

“I haven’t got everything right. And I’ll take my fair share of the criticism and the blame… We’re all terribly sorry for what this pandemic has done to the world and to this country.”

An excellent example of not answering the question.

Defence involved in rollout of vaccine

The Prime Minister didn’t say sorry; he did say that if he had his time again, he’d have done the vaccine rollout differently:

“If I had my time over, I would have put [the rollout] under military operation from the outset, and not later in the year,” he said.

“As we went through those early months and we had the challenges that we had with the Health Department… I took the decision to send in General (John) Frewen and change the way we did it.

“[We] set up a change in the command structure, how logistics were managed, how it was planned.

“And it worked but I wish I’d done that earlier, and that’s a lesson.”

“Mr Morrison also said the confusion around whether and when aged care patients could be taken to public hospitals was another issue that proved challenging during the outbreaks in 2020.”

Lieutenant General John Frewen was responsible for the oversight of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

Safety in Parliament

The Prime Minister was asked what changes had been made to make Parliament and its political offices safer this year than last year.

Morrison answered that the most crucial difference this time around was the independent complaints body that was in place for anyone who was previously too worried about coming forward.

“That, I think, assists everybody who works in that building,” he said. “Not enough,” l thought.

Unemployment rate

Mr Morrison was exuberant when talking about the difference in the unemployment rates between now and the last time he addressed National Press Club a year ago.

“Unemployment is at 4.2 per cent. When I stood here a year ago, it was 6.6 per cent,” the Prime Minister said.

I find the unemployment figures being thrown around at the moment almost unacceptable, including folk who work one hour a week as in full-time employment totally inappropriate. A new method of measurement needs to be found.

Cost of living

When asked about what his Government would, or could, do to ease the rising cost of living for millions of Australians. Mr Morrison’s answer was an off the shelf one:

“That is why good economic management was more important than ever.”

The truth is that the cost of living will be a significant item in this election.

When asked a standard stock question on how much a loaf of bread, a litre of petrol and a rapid antigen test cost, Mr Morrison replied that:

“I’m not going to pretend to you that I go out each day and I buy a loaf of bread and I buy a litre of milk.”

“The point is that I do my job every day to ensure that those things are as affordable as they possibly can be for Australians every single day.”

In any campaign, an answer is essential, and candidates should know it off the top of their heads. Indeed, he drives past a servo in his travels.

How do you know if he is telling the truth?

A long line of journalists asked further questions about the public anger with the PM, a few on aged care, a royal commission question on COVID-19 to which Morrison gave a non-committal answer.

Samantha Maiden asked about government members claiming expenses when staying in their own homes. He was okay with it so long as they weren’t breaking the law. David Crowe queried the availability of RATs.

Andrew Probyn asked why the prime minister thought he was the best person to lead the country. Still, the most controversial was by Peter van Onselen about tweets concerning the former Premier of NSW Gladys Berejiklian. It caused a bit of a stir that forced the Prime Ministers eye blink rate into overdrive. I’m sure there is more to come on that one.

All in all, it was a most unsatisfactory performance by a Prime Minister with his back to the wall. His Ministers, who would remain much the same if he wins the election, need shoulder much of the blame. It is as well the National Press Club address isn’t a viewing highlight of the week for the general population. They would have been very disappointed.

To those who say Albo doesn’t have charisma, I ask which of the following. Did:

John Howard, Julia Gillard, John Hewson, Bob Hawke, Gough Whitlam, Bill Shorten, Kim Beasley, Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Fraser, Anthony Albanese and Scott Morrison?

There are three, and they are all Labor.

Election diary No 9. Wednesday, 2 February 2022.

1 All governments make mistakes, but this one’s capacity for cock ups is becoming legendary. So consistent are they that they are like a daily thunderstorm of crisis downpours.

This time, pharmacists have their knickers in a knot over the prime minister’s “free” rapid antigen test program.

News.com.au reported that they have dubbed the RAT test debacle as “reckless and negligent.” If this is so, it could cause trouble for the Government.

According to pharmacists, the so-called “free” rapid antigen test program with a $10 rebate that won’t cover the wholesale cost and won’t be refunded for weeks.

It means that the Government expects the pharmacists (small businesses) to hand out the tests free to concession cardholders, leaving them out of pocket.

The crux of the matter, according to the pharmacists, is that had the Government ordered the tests directly from wholesalers in November and December, it could have handed them out free or at a cost to taxpayers of $5 per test.

Conversely, the Government is:

“… offering a rebate of double the amount – $10 for a single test to chemists – when soaring demand means that the wholesale price is now more than the rebate.”

How stupid is that?

The wholesale price has risen to $12 “off the back of” huge orders placed by state and federal governments during January:

“Pharmacists say they are paying as much as $12 or more for the tests wholesale in some instances, as demand soared off the back of massive orders from state and federal governments in January.”

Adding to the frenzy, the scheme started last Monday with pensioners and concession cardholders unable to sauce the “free” tests.

It was last August that Scott Morrison first raised the issue of RATS tests. No excuses on this one.

Chalk this up as a massive fail.

The campaigns

2 The Prime Minister continues his preliminary Clayton’s campaigning, trying to convince all and sundry that he is responsible for everything good that happens as if it is a gift from a higher order. At the same time, he refuses to “risk his parliamentary majority” by condemning ministers in his party who cross the fine line of incompetence. The hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed.

3 Last Sunday, 30 January, the consensus on the first Insiders panel seemed to be that although Labor was well ahead in the polls and would win if an election were held now. The Coalition still had plenty of time to recover.

Later the same day, Newspoll released its first poll for the year and described it as a horror result for the Government. 56-44 to Labor. Read more at The Poll Bludger.

The importance of this poll is that it is the first one close to the election that signals how people will vote. Generally, in the election cycle, polls only measure how people are thinking at the time. From here on in, they measure peoples voting intentions.

Albanese speaks to the National Press Club

4 In a very down to earth speech to the National Press Club the Opposition Leader impressed with his sincerity.

During the questioning period, the ABCs, Andrew Probyn, asked Albanese to explain who he was. The obvious inference was that nobody knew him. He gave his standard stock answer that he will probably repeat a hundred times during the campaign, but I would make the point that there isn’t a lot to know. And I would add to that, that ALP campaign strategists should make a virtue of it.

Compare Morrison, a Prime Minister embroiled in corruption, an unhealthy attitude toward women with a fundamentally conservative narrow world view versus Alabanese, a clean skin with no hint of controversy, a progressive who sees things as they are and could be. A man for the times.

Accountability

5 Worth repeating this from January 2020, but a few months after the 2019 election, the McKenzie Sports Rorts scandal seems to be growing legs by the day. With the PM making a major speech at the National Press Club on Wednesday, he won’t want this on his head unless he wants to face a line-up of the best journalists in the land.

For me, it is inconceivable that in the process of making announcements daily during the election, he knew nothing of how they came about. He must have taken part in the process to have authority over his statements.

It still follows him everywhere here he goes.

Uncoloured waters

6 Another ongoing crisis has been the state of the Great Barrier Reef. It has been in crisis for as long as I can recall, yet the Morrison Government now decides on the eve of an election that they can spare a billion dollars over ten years to fix things up.

Pub test, anyone?

7 The response has been a resounding voice of disbelief from the scientific community, who with raised voices of a resounding crescendo saying, “you fix it when you fix climate change, you fools.”

And whatever happened to the $440 million Malcolm Turnbull gave to some little tinpot show up north with liberal party connections?

Responsibility

Let’s be serious. Richard Colbeck would not be the Aged Care Minister if a better person were available. Instead of giving his portfolio his full attention when asked to attend a Senate Enquiry, he said he couldn’t justify diverting his time. He was at the cricket for three days. There wasn’t a crisis at the cricket, but there is in aged care.

Cartoon by Alan Moir (moir.com.au)

Writing in The Monthly, Rachel Withers reported the Prime Minister’s response in unglowing terms:

“Morrison defended his minister against the “knockers”, insisting that Colbeck – who has been slammed in the past for not knowing how many aged-care workers had been vaccinated or how many residents had died – works very hard. Pushed on the fact the incident did not pass the pub test, the PM insisted that Colbeck had taken the feedback “on board”. “He will take that criticism on the chin,” Morrison said, “and he’ll get back to work, which he does every single day.” One wonders whether those “knockers” who have lost loved ones in residential aged care (415 residents have died this year alone) or the overworked staff will also be willing to take it on the chin.”

9 When he was elected, Tony Abbott was quick to have a Royal Commission into four pink batts deaths. Still, a more practical examination of the occurrences of covid would be to look at the separation of the politics from the event to find the best path forward should a future event occur.

The Coalition stakes a lot on the perception of them as better managers of the economy. In the past, they have relied on ‘debt and deficit disaster’ rhetoric with promises of surpluses. That’s out for the foreseeable future.

They are now spruiking a low unemployment rate without ever acknowledging the impact that no foreign workers may have had on that. Nor do they ever speak of the precarious nature of employment and stagnant wages. They speak proudly of growth in GDP, not admitting that government spending (read debt) is driving it, and glossing over the increasing cost of living that inflation brings.

Another tactic they persistently use to undermine Labor policies is asking how much they will cost and how are they going to pay for them.

At the last election, Labor had excellent policies for taxation reform that a misinformed electorate rejected. It was too much for people to comprehend and, as such, was easily weaponised with the old adage about Labor will tax you more even though what they were mainly doing was closing loopholes and distortions thrust on us by the profligate Howard government.

The Coalition were able to get away with asking how much action on climate change would cost while never answering how much inaction would cost.

Well this time around, Labor could have an easy answer to how they will pay for policies whilst reducing debt if they are brave enough to use it – delay/abandon the stage 3 tax cuts.

The cuts, set to come into effect in 2024, apply a standard 30 per cent income tax rate to those who earn between $45,000 and $200,000 a year.

The reason given for this is to reverse bracket creep – where a pay rise puts an individual’s income over the threshold for the next tax bracket. (It should be stressed that the higher rate only applies to the excess over that threshold, not your whole income.)

The only way to truly eliminate bracket creep is to make annual adjustments to the thresholds as explained by a very interesting paper from the Parliamentary Budget Office, Bracket creep and its fiscal impact, released in September last year.

“In the absence of the Stage 3 tax cuts, bracket creep over the next decade would be projected to reduce net debt in 2031‑32 by $276 billion.”

What the government is proposing is “projected to add around $197 billion to net debt in 2031‑32.”

That’s a $473 billion difference in net debt, and it doesn’t keep up with bracket creep anyway.

“The impact of the Stage 3 tax cuts will be more than offset by bracket creep by 2031-32. In that year, the tax cuts are estimated to cost just over $30 billion, while bracket creep is projected to have added $57 billion in additional revenue.”

Research by The Australia Institute shows the benefit from the cuts would predominantly go to high income earners.

“In 2024-25, when stage 3(a) first comes into effect, almost a third of the benefit goes to the top 10 per cent of taxpayers and the top 20 per cent will get more than half of the benefit. At the other end of the distribution the bottom 10 per cent gets none of the benefit while the bottom 20 per cent gets less than one per cent of the benefit.”

As most women are middle to low income earners, these cuts disproportionately favour men according to analysis prepared by the parliamentary budget office for the Greens.

“Men will receive about $2 for every $1 women receive between 2024 and 2031 under the tax plan, receiving a total of an extra $121.7bn compared with $62.4bn for women over the period.”

The wealthy have already been doing quite well out of the pandemic with property and share prices ballooning. Low interest rates and government stimulus have made an ideal environment for those able to take advantage.

Giving the rich more isn’t necessary to stimulate an economy with low unemployment and growth in the target range.

Lifting the tax-free threshold would have a far more beneficial flow-on effect giving assistance where it is most needed, knowing it will be spent, and saving more people from having to fill in a tax return for the ATO to process.

Governments face a trade-off between returning bracket creep and allowing bracket creep to reduce debt faster.

With December’s MYEFO projecting net debt will peak in 2025 at $915 billion, it would be fiscally responsible for Labor to say now is not the time for this tax cut, which would then put their second term budget in far better shape than the Coalition’s.

As the Coalition goes to an election promising to spend hundreds of billions on obsolete and inappropriate armaments and hundreds more on tax cuts for the wealthy, perhaps it’s time to ask them about everything else they promise…

How are you going to pay for it?

Labor Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has come under fire from the Conservative Coalition Government for suggesting on the ABC’s ‘Insiders’ program that extra funding may be made available for Aged Care, Health, and perhaps welfare reform. This in a context where billions of subsidies have been provided to businesses due to Covid, and yet many businesses who managed to remain profitable regardless of Covid have simply kept these subsidies provided for them in the form of pure profit. While the Federal Government ruthlessly pursues welfare recipients over any debts incurred (and even some that have turned out to be unreal), corporations enjoy public money without accountability.

The simple fact is that public spending commitments in social services and infrastructure are not necessarily ‘irresponsible’ or ‘wasteful’. Often Government needs to invest in the health and happiness of the people to ensure the best outcomes. What needs to be understood is that social spending is a form of ‘collective consumption’ where we gain a better deal in areas like health by purchasing crucial services more efficiently and collectively as taxpayers, rather than being isolated and fleeced as private consumers. Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme are important examples of collective consumption.

Albanese has spoken of the “habitual buck passing” of the Morrison Government on Aged Care. Failure to attract new workers into the field with fair wages and conditions, and respect for workers; and failure to ensure necessary staffing levels including the presence of Registered Nurses – remain sore points even after the Conservatives’ response to the Aged Care Royal Commission. The training, wages and conditions of Personal Care workers who help many elderly remain in the community are also in need of further funding; and packages must be available to all with the need upon demand; and without cruel waiting queues.

The reality also is that Aged Care reform needs to go beyond the bare essentials to address broader quality of life issues; so that in the future Aged Australians with have access to social engagement; and where those in residential care will enjoy privacy, access to information technology, access to gardens and pleasant surrounds. They must not just be locked in their rooms or sat down in front of TVs in common rooms all day. Our vulnerable elderly need social engagement. Everything from discussing their lives to enjoying games, listening to music, or discussing the issues of the day. Dementia training is also essential to ensure the best quality of life to those affected; and those around them. Quality of food also needs to be monitored closely; and without meeting staff quota targets, Aged Care workers will remain rushed in the business of helping to dress and shower residents daily; or may not be able to respond in a timely manner to situations such as where sheets are soiled. The consequences of under-resourcing have been trauma and suffering for vulnerable aged Australians.

Yes, this will cost billions on top of those limited initiatives already announced. But most of us will grow elderly and frail one day; and even if ourselves we do not experience this, surely we will have family who are affected by a neglected Aged Care sector. Rather than backing down, Albanese needs to ‘step up to the plate’ and confidently put the case for progressive collective consumption of Aged Care; and a much better deal for both ‘consumers’ and for workers in the broader Health sector.

There will also be a significant backlog in waiting lists for supposedly ‘elective’ hospital procedures thanks to the pressure Covid has placed the health system under. This was already a crisis; but has been significantly magnified with Covid. Medicare needs to be extended into dental, optical and prosthetics; but the broader health system needs to be expanded to ensure timely care, breadth of coverage and quality of care.

Australian of the Year, tennis star Dylan Alcott has also highlighted the high unemployment levels (over 50 per cent) for disabled Australians. The focus here was mainly on those with physical disability ; but exclusion from the labour market also applies to those with psycho-social disabilities. Exclusion is a vicious circle which needs to be broken. Sometimes it goes on for years. Often it is permanent. Government needs to intervene directly to provide opportunity for all; and employment needs to be made more viable by lessening means tests for Pensioners in the workforce. Also there need to be viable career paths, and not merely ‘dead end jobs’.

Importantly, Labor needs to pitch to ‘average’ workers as well. Labor needs to pitch to the majority to enjoy electoral success; and provision for equity groups alone will not win government. Delivering wage gains and improving the bargaining position of average workers in the labour market is important here. As is a restructuring of the broader tax system: delivering distributive justice outcomes not only for the most vulnerable, but also the majority of workers. Further; improvement of the Aged Pension could act as a ‘bridge’ which enhances the case for reform of other pensions. Labor needs to build a ‘bloc’ based on solidarity and mutual recognition rather than allowing the Coalition to ‘Divide and Rule’ – which so often has been the case.

So come on, Albo, ‘step up to the plate’. A ‘small target’ can take us so far; but as the campaign progresses voters will want a clearer sense of what Labor is going to do. Labor will need to have answers. And it must not ‘back itself into a corner’ where it cannot deliver significantly to its constituents. Early signs suggest some hope.

This article was originally published on ALP Socialist Left Forum.

Politicians, predominantly on the right, have repeatedly been caught lying in direct contravention of video evidence. The falsifications aren’t minor.

In Canberra at the moment there is an almost total lack of accountability. Any effort to confront Prime Minister Scott Morrison or his cabinet with their lies, corruption and ineptitude is met with deflection to a disingenuous list of “achievements” or more lies. Without effective supervision and repercussions, the threat this poses to our democracy will only become more dire.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is potentially facing repercussions after years of lying to the electorate. Whether or not he does so, the damage to British democracy taking place under the Tories is confronting. In the US, Donald Trump’s lies have been embraced by the party he led and the majority of Republican voters. Deception is widespread in that party’s efforts to subvert the possibility of Democrat victories in the future. The American Republic’s democratic processes are already undermined; whether they will survive the next decade is in doubt.

From Plato’s time, philosophers have noted the instability of democracy. Its freedoms – including freedom of speech – are the seeds of its own destruction. Would-be tyrants and their propaganda have the capacity to end the system we prize, even without us noticing. Truth, and trust in what is being said, is crucial to the democratic system.

Deceit is at the heart of the problem. Sometimes it is the insidious propaganda that aims to (mis)represent our nations as well-run liberal democracies. At other times the stratagem is outright demagoguery that seems likely to end in bloodshed.

In Australia, Crikey in particular has been tracking the lies that mark Morrison’s government. While there has long been an expectation that politicians aren’t always truthful, the scope of deceit that has besmirched the performance of the Coalition, just like this era’s Republican and Tory parties, is enough to shove the timid media beyond euphemisms.

The brazenness of the deceit is the factor that has provoked that shift. Politicians – predominantly on the right – have repeatedly been caught lying in direct contravention of video evidence of their own previous statements. The falsifications aren’t minor: some are complete inversions of earlier positions. In America some Republican politicians supporting Trump’s Big Lie do so because they literally fear for their lives. Without an armed and angry base to threaten them back into line, Australian and British leaders have little justification beyond knowing that there are no consequences any more.

In January 2022, as Australians largely fail to find the rapid antigen tests (RATs) we need to participate in society in a pandemic, the government is running advertisements that boast it has them. Nobody is sure whether these are the collation of RATs that have been taken from private and public sector organisations’ deliveries, or an inflated boast. As with so many other (in)actions of this government, the disaster follows supply offers and warnings made months before, instructing the government that millions would be necessary. According to the AMA, the government refused to purchase them, wanting to let the private sector profiteer.

In the wake of the Park Hotel Djokovic drama, Morrison misinformed radio listeners about the refugee status of the people imprisoned for months in the Alternative Place of Detention (APOD). When confronted he disingenuously asserted he hadn’t “said” what he’d clearly implied. Given that the innocent men (some then boys) were placed in indefinite detention by Morrison as immigration minister eight years ago, his claim to vagueness on the cases seems disingenuous.

Over COP26 in Glasgow last year, the Australian delegation was reviled for its blatant climate action disinformation. French President Emmanuel Macron’s assertion that Morrison is a liar was confirmed by the Prime Minister’s former colleagues. It’s not just our own civic space under threat from constant deceit, but our standing among nations.

Part of the dissimulation is intended to suggest that the system is functioning well. In none of the three countries is that the case, and healthcare workers have been bearing the brunt of the pandemic mismanagement. NSW nurses held a stopwork protest in mid-January because their workplace is unsafe for them and their patients in the Omicron surge. Their exhaustion and the nurse-to-patient-ratio blowout are making hospitals dangerous. In the face of constant federal and state government mantras that they are coping, the nurses’ signs said they are not.

Rather than listening to poorly paid frontline workers exhausted by the third year of bearing the brunt, Josh Frydenberg mislabelled them “militant unions”. He hoped thus to nullify a cry for help for his voter base. The former “essential worker” praise was quickly inverted to disdain when the nurses drew attention to being Sisyphus borne down by the weight of government “let it rip” apathy.

The moment where the crisis of truth in “conservative” Anglosphere politics and some parts of the media became obvious might be pinned in 2016 when “post-truth” became word of the year. The fact that Trump’s victory and the Brexit referendum occurred in that year is not unrelated.

Many factors made the truth harder to detect at that moment: the swirl of social media disinformation; its targeting by bad actors like Cambridge Analytica; increasing competition in the attention economy; and the internet’s devastating impact on legacy media (partly celebrated initially because of the establishment’s own failures to convey truth, such as The New York Times and its assertion of the presence in Iraq of WMD).

It did not begin that recently, though. In 2004 George Bush adviser Karl Rove was alleged to have said that the US government did not function in the “reality-based community,” instead having the ability to “create our own reality.” Fittingly, he denies having said it.

The following year, commentator Stephen Colbert coined the word “truthiness” which became the American 2006 word of the year. It is intended to cover the sense or feeling that something feels true on intuition rather than requiring data to bear it out. It was meant to satirise the Tea Party development in Republican politics and its unhinged assertions. In Trump’s era, Kellyanne Conway called truthiness “alternative facts.”

Now Republican politicians and pundits spew the “blue lies” that divide tribes, and even the “accusations in a mirror” of total inversions of truth that precede horrors. Their followers often appear to see lies as weapons of war rather than necessarily a matter of sincerity. Verifiability does not matter as much hurting the loathed enemy.

The internet has unleashed those alternative realities. Right-wing thought leaders such as Joe Rogan on podcasts and YouTube and social media speak to millions around the world. They have a much more powerful impact than radio shock jocks or “conservative” media pundits. Provocative communications are shared to provoke “lib tears” and then these right wing figures “rage farm” the resultant furore.

Part of the long-term crisis is based in the role of PR in politics, with the right over the decades deploying increasingly effective marketing and communications strategies. Funded by the ultra wealthy and honed through free-market think-tanks, this strategy was intended to counteract alienating policies meant to benefit only the donors.

The Coalition government is much more concerned with messaging than being able to do the job of creating policy that benefits the country. It is aided by co-operative media that is satisfied to echo government talking points in gormless stenographic journalism. The fact that Morrison’s own marketing background is not strewn with successes might explain lacklustre efforts such as under-age forklift drivers.

Rather than finding strategies to solve the massive challenges of living through a pandemic, the government is involved with the spin project of their religious “freedom” bill or the ability to unmask anonymous “trolls” on the internet. This is intended to enable Coalition politicians to sue internet commentators for defamation if they expose government misdeeds. The point is to chill criticism of government (in)action, hardly consonant with their posture as “free speech” warriors. It sits well, however, with the government’s many efforts to prevent transparency over the years, including working to silence charities.

Structuring a narrative to sell a government as successful and a country as efficiently navigating difficult times is not the same as being successful or dealing with challenges. Lies and misleading messaging buttressed with strategies to silence criticism leave us with a crisis of trust, and with cynicism. This is combined with the swirl of internet misinformation centred in America but with enthusiastic adherents here. The result is a total inability to agree on a shared data-based reality that must ground our decisions as we face the much bigger crisis of the climate emergency.

The Coalition must confront its decision to pursue the American right into a focus on culture wars and spin. The US is proving to us that this divisive propaganda can only be destructive. We must transform the supervision of Australia’s federal government to ensure truth, integrity and accountability. Without those steps, we too risk losing our liberal democracy.

This article was originally published on Pearls and Irritations.

When the Prime Minister chooses his Ministry, he has many things to consider – reward for support, factions, states, urban/country, diversity, longevity of service.

Merit doesn’t get a look in.

Or perhaps this bunch are the best the Coalition has?

“If you vote Coalition, you get Barnaby Joyce as Deputy Prime Minister” has become a campaign on its own and, for mine, that alone is sufficient reason to change government.

Until recently, we had an Attorney-General who thought it was fine to take anonymous donations to fund a private lawsuit against the national broadcaster.

He has been replaced by a woman who threatened to slut shame parliamentary staff, to “noim noims”, a Minister who refused to co-operate with police regarding the illegal tipping off of the media about an impending raid on union headquarters.

The Minister for Education and Youth has been stood down pending an investigation into allegations of domestic violence by a staffer he admits to having had an affair with.

Not that being stood down means much.

Bridget McKenzie was stood down for using sports rorts to give money to her gun club in 2020. In 2021 she was promoted to Minister for Regionalisation, Regional Communications and Regional Education plus Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience.

Likewise Sussan Ley, who was forced to quit as Health Minister amid investigations into expense claims which included billing taxpayers to attend two New Year’s Eve events hosted by a prominent Queensland businesswoman and donor and the “impulse purchase” of a luxury Gold Coast apartment while on a taxpayer funded trip. She is now Minister for the Environment.

Her predecessor in the portfolio, Melissa Price, will be remembered for insulting the former President of Kiribati by saying, when introduced to him at dinner by Pat Dodson, “I know why you are here, it’s for the cash. For the Pacific, it’s always about the cash. I have my chequebook here, how much do you want?” After being dubbed the “Invisible Minister” for her obvious disinterest in the environment, Price was “demoted” to Minister for Defence Industry and Minister for Science and Technology. Because that’s what happens when you do a crap job?

Take Linda Reynolds, who had to give Peter Dutton Defence after calling Brittany Higgins a lying cow. She only got the gig to keep her quiet after she made a speech in the Senate about the bullying during the leadership spill which she completely forgot about with her short-lived promotion. She is now Minister for Government Services and Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Which I thought was Stuart Robert’s portfolio but I am so yesterday. Since the 2013 federal election, Robert has been appointed the Assistant Minister for Defence, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Minister for Human Services, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC, Assistant Treasurer, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Minister for Government Services and, most recently, Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business, with responsibility for whole-of-government technology through the Digital Transformation Agency.

He is most remembered for Robodebt and charging us tens of thousands for his home internet. Oh and being a fellow Pentacostal who, along with Hillsong attendee Alex Hawke, did the numbers for Morrison’s leadership coup.

Hawke, who has only ever worked for the Liberal party (unless you count Woollies in uni holidays), was rewarded with Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs. Alex has the certainty that being a religious conservative Young Liberal bestows, which didn’t go over so well in his previous gig when he tried to convince Pacific leaders that Australia was doing more than enough on climate change.

I mean look who we have taking care of it for us – Angus Taylor who entered politics to protect his family’s view from wind farms and their right to poison whatever damn grass they please. Angus, who writes Facebook messages congratulating himself (whilst forgetting to change his name), will be most remembered for giving a forged document to the Murdoch press, and quoting it in parliament, to try and belittle an opponent’s attempt to reduce emissions. The police couldn’t work out where Angus got the document because they didn’t ask him. Case over.

As Assistant Minister to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction, we have the archetypal dilettante Tim Wison, well suited for the job after his apprenticeship with the IPA where he penned a glowing review of Ian Plimer’s climate denial book. Tim now wanders around the country having his photo taken with solar panels.

Keith Pitt’s combined water and resources portfolio is presumably to make sure the coal mines, and nuclear power plants if the Minister gets his way, have all the water they need.

We have a health Minister who tells us that Australia has done the bestest in the whole wide world in dealing with the pandemic as our infection rate surges past the US, UK and India, RATs become rarer than numbats, and daily deaths hit new highs.

We have a Treasurer who thinks the most important part of his job is a slide show of cherry-picked graphs and smiling photo ops with the latest brochure.

We have a defence Minister, who talks very loudly and carries a tiny widdle stick, eagerly agreeing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to take obsolete weapons off the hands of the US and UK armaments industries.

The Minister for Aged Care has given up all pretence of knowing or caring what he is doing and gone to the cricket instead.

If, as the old Gillette ad goes, these are “the best a man can get”, a change of government isn’t just desirable, it’s a national imperative.

Election diary No 8. Saturday, January 29 2022.

As one summers day oozes into the next and the heat on small bald feet diminishes, kids, prepare for the start of another school year, having learned that it isn’t as bad as they thought.

Having downed his last stubbie and Mum having prepared her last meal in unfamiliar surroundings, both give their thoughts to returning to work.

Unlike most years, this one is different. Mum and Dad and all those 18 and over will have to vote, some for the first time. And others like my wife and I will be doing so for the umpteenth time.

Some take it seriously. Others do so because they are expected to. Most vote for the same party every time. Too many, because they are dissatisfied with the system, don’t vote at all. And then some vote after giving serious consideration to why they are doing so.

With a likely May election, now is the time we all pay more attention to what our politicians are doing and saying. Given that the stakes are so high in this election, people may give their thoughts over to things like integrity now that the current media focuses somewhat on politicians’ behaviour.

When l say the stakes are high, I’m not kidding. This Government collectively is a bunch of the most corrupt, self-serving politicians who will further destroy our democracy if given the opportunity.

There is an abundance of evidence to support my claims. Even now, we have a repetitive TV commercial that claims emissions have come down by 15%, whereas The Guardian reports they have risen by 7%. It might just be me, but I’ll take The Guardian‘s word over the Government’s any day.

The pre-election period is when the Government thinks it’s perfectly alright to spend our taxpayer’s money on falsehoods that make them look good. The budget for this lying rises considerably before each election.

If you live on a hill, look out for the pork barrels

There is always the temptation to use taxpayers’ money in marginal seats in the pre-election period. No doubt, most will recall the Sports Rorts affair when in the lead-up to the 2019 election, the Government used the $100m community sports grants program to prop up many seats. Later a massive scandal broke when the Auditor General found the grants were not awarded consistent with assessed merit and were biased in favour of marginal electorates.

This was followed by the revelation that the Auditor General also had a problem with $660m allocated to 47 sites for commuter car parks. 77% were located in Coalition electorates. Headlines like; Sports rorts on steroids’: scathing report finds Coalition car park program not effective or merit-based followed.

With a significantly increased war chest of $15.9bn in unidentified spending for “decisions taken but not yet announced,” a whopping increase on the previous year’s December budget update figure of $1.5bn.

We must be vigilant and watch out for the Government’s pork barrelling attempts in marginal seats. It is difficult to see them trying to put one over on the electorate again, but it isn’t beyond them.

The money rolls in

Political donations begin to roll in during the pre-election period to back the winner and buy influence into the future.

The big story in the 2019 election was Clive Palmer’s $60m to fund his own campaign. There wasn’t a suggestion of illegality, and he failed to win a seat; however, there can be no doubt that his repetitious anti-Labor advertising made a considerable difference to the Coalition’s vote.

Yes, you’re correct. Grattan Institute analysis tells us that the parties’ top 5% of donors account for more than half of their declared donations. And guess who they might be.

We all know of the subsidies given to the gambling companies property, mining and construction companies that would be better spent elsewhere. No wonder their donations are so sizable.

Something urgently needs to be done about political donations and their disclosure. An excellent first step to squashing this grey corruption is making it more visible.

Real-time disclosure is a must. The Grattan Institute reports that:

“… we won’t find out where the money came from until February 2023 because donation disclosures are only published annually. And even then we will only get a partial picture because high declarations thresholds and big loopholes mean that the major parties generally declare less than 60% of their total private funding.”

Taxpayer-funded political advertising

Governments frequently significantly bolster taxpayer-funded advertising in the months before election campaigns.

The guidelines are supposed to restrict taxpayer-funded advertising for political purposes. However, the Grattan Institute examinations tell us:

“… that over the past five elections, federal governments have doubled their spending in the two-to-three months before an election, compared to the previous three months.”

With a budget in March, goodness knows what they will throw into their electioneering.

The analysis published in The Guardian suggests another 59 million dollars will be spent on advertising.

The “positive energy” campaign and advertisements about the Government securing more rapid antigen tests have already hit our screens. Both are full of inaccuracies, I suggest. Or just plain propaganda.

Government appointments galore, or is that galah?

The Grattan Institute reports that:

“Ministers are responsible for filling hundreds of positions on independent government boards and agencies. In the lead-up to an election, there seems to be a rush to fill these spots – even some of the ones that aren’t currently vacant.

Governments like to control who sits in powerful positions, even more so when these positions are prestigious or well-paid. A forthcoming Grattan Institute report will show that appointing “political mates” to these positions is becoming more common.”

There isn’t much to be done except to highlight the hypocrisy. These appointments of former politicians and staffers need to be forensically examined by the media and Labor. Hopefully, the press will provide background on those who get a position.

Looking at a way to boost integrity?

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese, in his address to the Press Club on Tuesday, January 25, placed great emphasis on the restoration of the dignity that once was the Australian parliament. Making things transparent that have been allowed to disappear will take more effort, and still more challenging will be the replacement of those who have made it all possible. It won’t be easy to suppress the influence of money and corruption after it has flourished carte blanche for a decade or more. But all of it must be done.

Elections allow all of us a chance to change things. They afford us the opportunity to right wrongs and start afresh.

In his speech, Albanese said:

“A country and a people as extraordinary as ours deserve a government to match. A government of competence and a government of integrity. A government that doesn’t get out of the way but helps to create the way.”

Hear hear, Albo. Hear hear.