Tuesday 25 July 2017

1 The question is, “are we entitled to know?”. When Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister after successfully challenging Tony Abbott the National Party placed certain conditions on him before they would form a Coalition.

Is he, or both, entitled to keep the secret to themselves or conversely are the voters entitled to know?

There are two sides to any argument. Turnbull might, on the one hand, argue that it is a private matter pertaining to his conditions of employment and therefore of no one’s business but his own.

On the other hand it might well be argued that it is in the public interest to know just what conditions did the junior party in a Coalition place on a senior party leader.

After all, with only 4% of the vote why should they yield such power? Whatever way you look at it Labor, after trying to get the information through FOI, and failing, are taking it to the Federal Court. Remember the PM tried to keep secret his personal donation to the party when it should have been disclosed immediately.

Malcolm is full-body when talking about open and transparent government but is ambiguous when he has to walk the walk. For me it goes without saying that deals between parties either by written or by spoken word should be known to the public.

August should at least be illuminating one-way or the other.

2 Australians have a notorious record for passing referenda. Even good referendums have been sunk in the murky waters of public mistrust. So what makes us think that a move to set parliamentary terms at four years would win approval. For Turnbull to consider a bipartisan effort suggests he is confident of winning the next election. It would give him another four years and then bow out gracefully.

Many say 4 years would give parties sufficient time to implement policy without having to worry about the next election.

Others of course justifiably say it’s just an extra year for politicians to stuff things up.

There are rights, wrongs and complications, whichever way you look. A three-year term with a fixed date might be the best compromise. Yesterday we had Scott Morrison overriding the PM saying it wasn’t a top priority. Just goes to show how little authority Turnbull has when his Treasurer just puts him in his place.

Mind you, he (Morisson) has a limited capacity for thoughts other than self-interest. I am sick to death of hearing that things are all too hard.

However, for those who follow my writing you will know I often refer to the inadequacy of the constitution. A document that has so many holes in it that one could, if one had the skill, fly a B52 through them.

If we had an independent standing ”Committee of constitutional Review’’ matters of this sort of could be referred to it, and recommendations made.

An observation.

”The danger in looking back to often is that we lose the will to go forward.”

3 All of this came from an interview where Bill Shorten gave a few insights into how Labor would approach the next election. I thought his answer to a question about the influence of Sanders and Corbyn was a little insipid and could have been handled better.

He inferred that there would be an announcement soon about tax reform and its odds on that ”Family Trusts” will be the target. Yes, inequality will be the central focus for Labor. You have to give it to Shorten he is certainly not playing small target and is prepared to announce policies during the off season so to speak.

At this stage I am prepared to stick my neck out and say that the election, after taking into account state elections and Senate requirements, will be in November of next year.

4 By the way, did you know that our carbon emissions continue to rise?

5 Almost everyone besides the Coalition believes that unemployment benefits are one reason many Australians are poor. They are simply inadequate for people to live on.

A Turnbull government minister has taken the novel approach of changing the definition of poverty to reject the widely held conclusion that inadequate unemployment benefits are one reason many Australians are poor.

But Human Services minister Alan Tudge’s speech this last week that bought high praise from the rapidly dementia ridden

Alan Jones, who told his listeners the minister was ”1000 per cent” right.

What did he do you ask. Well he had a very simple solution to paying out all this welfare. You simply redefine what welfare is. made the very valid point, we are one of the richest countries in the world, we’ve experienced 25 years of uninterrupted economic growth but impoverishment still exists. And it’s not a function of welfare you say, but of dysfunctional families,” Jones swooned.”

Tudge proposes a new definition – ”absolute deprivation” – a measure of whether people can afford the basics, such as food, clothing, shelter and education. You can read it all here.

An observation.

”The right of politics governs for those that have and the left for those who have not.”

6 Newspoll yesterday came in at 53/47 to Labor. Hate to sound like a broken record but once you dig a hole for yourself it’s very difficult to dig yourself out.

7 The Conservatives on the subject of Marriage Equality are all over the place with Peter Dutton (you would think he had enough to do) now wanting a postal plebiscite. It really is just making them appear more and more desperate on an issue that the public has made up their minds about.

An observation.

”But change is a bit like the free market. If you leave it to its own devices, people can get hurt.”

8 Malcolm Turnbull’s monumental stuff-up of the NBN rollout seems to have gone past the point of no return. By that I mean scrapping it and starting from scratch appears out of the question.

That being the case Labor is preparing to put a compromise technology known as fibre-to-the-kerb at the centre of its plans for the National Broadband Network should it win the next election.

It is seen as a superior technology than fibre-to-the-node, which uses existing copper lines to connect premises to broadband through purpose-built street cabinets.

9 In the US never a day goes by without a Trump scandal of sorts. But it appears that the President has it all under control. Pardon me I hear you say. Exactly, he reckons he is able to pardon anybody for whatever they do and it will set matters right.

Sometimes I really think the man is really crazy. Like mad crazy.

To quote Tony Wright in Fairfax:

All those not-terribly-ancient tweets of his, now deleted, urging sensible folk not to fall for walls because they don’t work, praising a governor for staying out of the “Trump spectacle”, supporting Hillary Clinton (though that was way back in 2012), calling for gun control, describing himself as “for gay marriage, against the death penalty, and pro-choice”, not to mention praising Islam as a religion of peace. Oh, and dumping on the existence of climate-change deniers as “disheartening”.

His appointment as Trump’s communications director would, if such a thing were to occur in Australian politics, be as sensational and about as authentic as if Malcolm Turnbull suddenly put Peta Credlin in charge of sharpening his public message.

An observation

”Only in America.”

10 And if you read the tweets of his new communications guru Anthony Scaramucci’s you will find he agrees with me. And you’ll understand why he’s deleting them. It’s absolutely bizarre that you can say such things about you master and yet wind up as his chief spokesperson.

My thought for the day

”There of those who like to have robust political opinions yet conveniently ignore the consequences of what they say.”

PS: As I predicted. Channel 10 news service started with Bill Shorten’s class warfare has begun. You can rely on commercial TV for objectivity.