Day to Day Politics: Budget week or campaign launch
Saturday 12 May 2018
What a bloody week that was! The Treasurer presented his third budget to the Parliament, or should I say he opened the Coalition election campaign on behalf of the Government. It was a very clumsy attempt to trap Labor on the tax issue. It was best summed up like this:
“As Fairfax’s Eryk Bagshaw reported this morning, the proposal goes further than former Treasury secretary Ken Henry proposed in his 2010 tax review, and ANU modelling shows that it will heavily favour the wealthy over the long-term, costing taxpayers $17 billion a year besides.”
There were further vindictive attempts to muscle the ABC and appease the red-headed one and advance the teaching of Christ in our schools with the permanent appointment of chaplains. All in all a very transparent Budget that allowed us to see the very thing we were not supposed to: class warfare. It seems the young, women, and climate change weren’t worth a mention.
Then Bill Shorten stole the show with a “Common Good” budget in reply speech that must have left Malcolm Turnbull shaking his head.
Comment of the Week goes to Leanne Jones for her comment on my post; Now let’s be honest about my bias:
“I have a few close friends and several acquaintances who are extremely biased in their faith in the coalition making them wealthy.
They’re biased against refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers, even though some of them are the children of any of the above.
They’re so biased that they wouldn’t ever consider voting for the common good and the future generations of this country.
One is so biased l have actually unfriended him on Facebook because he complained about what I post to my husband, who now describes this man as a bigoted bogun. He is so gutless that he couldn’t to tell me how he feels. I would be happy to hear his opinion only if he listened to mine.
He disapproves of my view that everyone deserves a fair go no matter where they’re from.
He’s a self-serving vulgarian.I too enjoy an eclectic taste in music, reading, cuisine and travel.
They do not.
These people do not read, and they like to listen to music from the 60’s and 70’s and would never consider broadening their horizons. ( Not that there is anything wrong with that music. Some of it is great.)
They’re rusted on conservatives in everything that they experience and have failed to grow as human beings.These people don’t understand l feel passionate about this country and it’s people, many of whom are victimised and looked down upon because of their race and socioeconomic status.
They blame the poor for their poverty.These particular people are extremely conservative and it’s appalling that they call themselves ”christians” and yet they do not display any of the attributes of what a good christian should have.
It’s like a dog eat dog view in their world.One of them used to work as a bank teller and a recent discussion about the banking sector and the royal commission made me wish that he could actually see that what has gone on is morally wrong and he told me that the government should not have started looking into the banks at all, because their job was to make money!
I’ve given up trying to figure out how they can be so biased against others and their views on just about any subject.
They think the latest budget is completely fine and don’t see anything wrong with much of it.
Unfortunately they’re not alone in their beliefs, values and ethos.I think a lack of education has created such ugliness inside them and nothing anyone says to them will change their bias towards others.
I have hope though that future generations of young people will become more knowledgeable about how the government works and maybe one day people will stop voting for the Dutton’s, Turnbulls and the Morrison’s of politics who stand for nothing but themselves and their own vested interests in their careers and big business.”
“Maintain your rage and enthusiasm”. Gough Whitlam
The Scandal Sheet
1 What’s his name. The leader of the country party. Anyway I was going to say how effectively he has been side lined. And Barnaby of course.
2 Yes it’s true. At the last election in 2016, Abbott had to go to Turnbull and beg for money as he was in a very real battle and Warringah was very much in play. Turnbull relented and he held the seat. Such irony as the result would have been a hung parliament, had Abbott lost, but Turnbull would have been free of Abbott’s “Support”, or could have lost government entirely, that would have been the best outcome. This is the very definition of “Double Edged Sword”. And More like his seat is on a knifes edge.
3 Just look at what is happening in the Victorian Branch of the Liberal Party where the Religious Right have taken control of the Presidency.
4 Who said this?
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
5 A survey of media outlets on 5/5/18 revealed the following:
Liberal – 96 articles
Labor – 27 articles
LNP – 10 articles
Other – 6 articles
National – 5 articles
Greens – 3 articles
6 $40 a day is not living. Not living at all, but survival: hand to mouth desperate, edge of a precipice survival. Or not. Today may be okay. Sort of. Tomorrow may be another thing entirely.
7 A President to be proud of.
With any other President any of these would be HUGE scandals:
- Cheated on his wives
- Profited off of the presidency
- Allegedly colluded with Russian
- Falsified medical reports
- Refused to release taxes
- Admitted to sexual assault
- Lied 3000 times
- Paid hush money from campaign funds to porn actress
- Giving the Russians classified info in an Oval Office visit covered only by the Russian media where he admitted to firing Comey because he was onto him.
- Firing people for no reason
Why is this terrible human given a pass by so many for every evil/immoral thing he does?
8 A comment without a name. Last evening Treasurer Morrison told us that we need to “live within our means …”. During HIS time as Treasurer, Govt dept has risen FASTER & HIGHER than at any time in our history … he talks utter SHITE!!.
9 The Poll Bludger Essential Research: 53-47 to Labor
Labor maintains its existing lead in the latest Essential poll, despite improving perceptions on the outlook for the economy.
10
11 JOHN HEWSON A REAL LIBERAL SAYS THE TAX CUTS ARE JUST A POLITICAL STUNT SORTED BY LOOKING AT WHO WILL VOTE FOR IT. If it’s so good why do we have to wait 7 years, all outside the 4 year? Vote us in to get your $10 week crumbs you bums, is all they are saying.
12 Question Time.
I refer to his previous answer. Can the minister confirm that funding for residential and home care has been combined into a single-line item in the budget? And given this single-line item does not show anything close to the increase of $1.6bn for aged care the government has claimed, isn’t the minister perpetuating a cruel hoax on older Australians?
Top Tweets of the week
1 Simon Banks:
“The LNP originally said that all debt was bad
Now they can’t live within their means
They redefine debt to be good or bad
Meanwhile gross debt – their preferred measure – is $524.9 billion
Up $251.9 billion since the 2013 election”
2 Mary Jane Smith:
“So even though the story (in the Murdoch press) of Shorten missing a dinner with troops to shop, has been said to be untrue by Shorten, Chn 7 is running it at the bottom across the Sunrise screen. Bill said he had not known about a dinner.”
3 Craig Emerson:
“Look past the economics and the science and ask yourselves this ethical question: Are we as Australians happy to profit from appalling cruelty to sheep packed in together on long voyages in stinking heat? I say we are not.”
4 Craig Emerson:
Treasurer claims he is paying down debt. Surpluses are needed to pay down debt. The Budget doesn’t deliver a surplus, it only predicts one – as have the last six Budgets.
5 Ecor Toledo:
From tonight’s budget papers, federal government net debt has virtually doubled from $159 billion (10.4% of GDP) to $349 billion (18.4% of GDP) since the Coalition came to power. #Budget2018
6 Yugee:
The strength of our economy and our position in the world’s eco ranking is due to the ALP govt during the GFC! Australians kept working ! Am over the LNP lies! #LNPfail
7 Kristina Keneally:
ScoMo’s aged care announcement in tonight’s budget is a hoax. In his speech he said the Govt will increase home care places by 14,000. He left out that he was cutting residential aged care to pay for it, and that there are 100,000 people on the in-home care waiting list.
8 Peter Garrett:
As predicted completely devoid of climate change measures. Biggest, most costly challenge we face not referenced once & what do we get? Savage cuts to environment department, no more support for renewables, massive subsidies to fossil fuel industries – abject failure.
9 Bernard Keane:
Impressed by the sheer vindictiveness of the government’s $84m cut to the ABC in a budget that’s splashing money around like water. The sum makes no difference to the bottom line and may come with a political cost. But it just HAD to attack its enemy.
10 Emma Dawson:
This is radical stuff. Basically takes the knife to our progressive taxation system and massively flattens it. Someone on $45k ends up paying same proportion of their income in tax as someone on four times as much. 🤔#auspol #Budget2018
11 Mike Carlton:
The $84 million budget cut to the ABC is vindictive right-wing thuggery. But they can still find $30 million to shower on Murdoch, a gift that has never been explained. Beneath contempt.
12 Stephen Mears:
Thanks Michaelia – 734,100 Australians still have no job at all. That’s 29,200 more than four months ago. It is 41,400 more than when the Coalition took office in 2013 – MSM Stop supporting the LIES
Read of the Week
If you want to understand the next Prime Minister of Australia, “For the Common Good” is essential reading.
In For the Common Good, Bill Shorten reflects on the values and beliefs that led him to devote himself to the labour movement and stand for the nation’s highest office. He looks back on the emphasis on education and social justice in his childhood in suburban Melbourne, and his many years spent empowering tens of thousands of Australians in workplaces across our continent.
Shorten examines the rapid pace of change in our modern world and offers a way forward that enables all Australians to adapt, seize new opportunities and preserve the Australian way—a prosperous society unshakably committed to fairness. He argues that the key to unlocking a new century of national progress is in building a renewed common good between workers, businesses, governments and the community, from our cities to the regions.
Tim’s titbits
1 Labor and Liberal have called an amnesty on dual citizenship. don’t won’t to worry about by-elections etc.
2 Raise the pension age to 70. All that will do is put people over 65 say onto Newstart. Which is less than the pension. Unfortunately in many cases they will find it very hard to find work.
Isn’t that what they want?
3 The Illinois Senate has passed a bill that would require public schools in the state to teach lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history, as well as use inclusive and “non-discriminatory” textbooks. The bill would require “all elementary and high schools to teach a unit studying ‘the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this State.
4 Peter Costello has declared the nation’s top banks are being more damaged now because of the royal commission than during the global financial crisis.
5 There are meant to be more dual citizens in parliament – on both sides.
6 The Senate crossbench say they will block the tax cuts. Well I am sure its just a game. They will block it for now to see what they are offered as a reward to vote for it.
7 Tax cuts are funded from surpluses that may never happen.
8 Labor had no option but to agree with the tax cuts to people on low to middle incomes.
9 Tend to agree. That budget was about the next election rather than the future. Combined ideology with vote-buying. So disappointing.
10 Report this morning there is 20 days of petrol left. Would mean a rationing system. If that happens the government is really finished electorally.
My clown of the week
The person who originated the latest name for Bill Shorten. It’s so stupid I can’t even remember what it was. It’s about the 20th now. None have stuck.
My thought for the day
“When drafting a budget for the common good what should your priorities be?”
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Jaquix
Return to home pageGreat article, as usual Mr Lord! I am a 72 year old Pensioner, who has been a Labor supporter & a Union member for almost all my working life. I DO NOT like or tolerate anybody in the Federal Liberal party. To a person they are ALL liars, inept excuses for politicians, obscenely over-paid &, flat earth & climate change denialists. This latest budget is yet just another Liberal excuse to ensure persons on Welfare, low paid workers, the unemployed & Pensioners etc will not be getting any relief in the form of realistic pay increase or tax cuts. This bloody mob are determined to shut down ANY supposed bias towards them from the ABC, cutting funding yet again! Sadly,. the entire Mudrake press & the shock jocks & stupid columnists like Bolts & nuts ALL think his Liberal mob are the greatest party ever, their “leader” is the greatest PM ever, they are the greatest money mangers ever (WRONG!!), & only the Liberals can keep Australia on the rise with their “excellent” money managing skills (WTF?), their tremendous “achievement” (?) in increasing the number of people in the workplace (WHERE??), etc etc. The sooner this mob of idiots is voted out of office the better off ALL Australians, especially the unemployed & under employed, persons on Welfare & the Pensioners will be! Incidentally, I love 50’s, 60’s & 70’s music very much (all from my era!), listen here in Adelaide to Coast FM (a Community station) & 1323 am/DAB, a commercial station–both of which play my sort off music all day, & I am not a bogan I am not a “rusted on” Conservative I absolutely abhor anything that inept, lying obscenely wealthy bloody bad hair Trumpster does or says, nor do I like what he supposedly represents either!
The 2018 Budget was nasty, it provides further wealth for the well off, and a few crumbs are left for people on low incomes.
The Budget involved a pea and thumbles trick of moving resources from one area to another domain, for example aged care.
Young people apparently do not exist.
Bill Shorten’s Budget speech in comparison was future focussed and people orientated.
The ALP have shown they wish to tackle the accomodation crisis, eduction, health and climate change.
Though with climate change it remains to be seen whether new coal mines or extensions to old coal mines are allowed to proceed.
I’m at the stage where I just can’t follow my fellow Australians
2 Polls this week and I wonder if QLD tune in on the same frequency as the rest of the country
#ReachTEL Poll Federal Seat of #Longman 2 Party Preferred: ALP 47 (-3.8 since election) LNP 53 (+3.8) #auspol
#Galaxy Poll QLD Federal 2 Party Preferred: L/NP 52 (0) ALP 48 (0) #auspol
Mick,
Polls said Pauline was going to do well in Queensland too. She didn’t.
“Budget week or campaign launch.” The latter, dependent of course on future polls, which the LNP likes to remind us mean nothing and can be ignored.
Do they want the expense of contesting 5 by-elections? Why not just have a general election and save us all a motza?
What do they care about expense? It’s all one big gravy train to them. The two lady bishops and the outrageous travel allowances, the Royal commission into trade unions, the pink bats enquiry, the marriage equality postal vote, Ruddock’s review of religious freedom (as long as it’s Christian), etc, etc.
I wish the young would glance up from their mobile phones and ‘eat the rich’
Thanks for a great start to the day:
“That budget was about the next election rather than the future. Combined ideology with vote-buying. So disappointing.” Wow wonder what you expected?
loved leanne’s laments:
“He is so gutless that he couldn’t to tell me how he feels. I would be happy to hear his opinion only if he listened to mine.” I can see her fidgeting with her phone and, as sales (et al) does, showing impatience and thinking about what she is going to say next whilst her friend is talking. The one as driven by bias as the other.
“I’ve given up trying to figure out how they can be so biased against others and their views on just about any subject”.
she needs to read posts about britains laws on blaspemy or labor’s muslim on the topic??
Mary Smith must have given you thought:
the dinner was true billy went shopping was true not fair and deliberately anti shorten but the truth?
ps: Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed one of the country’s most restrictive abortion bills into law on Friday.
The so-called “heartbeat” legislation bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat has been detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy.
pps water is costing $9 a bottle, are we rich enough not to care about dole bludgers?
Thank you Mr Lord for your insight. The lack of support for the unemployed, the welfare needs, TAFE education continues to fail to support the economy. Better to spend it on the rich who don’t spend in the economy the way the poor do but stash it overseas in tax havens.
The disenfranchised, the poor, the unemployed, the bottom rung on which many step over to elevate ourselves to positions of power and entitlement are the subject of derision and blame for ills they have no power to implement. It is not at all odd when a society turns on its powerless to punish them for the “evil” of being disadvantaged. In fact we call it “bullying” if it occurs in the school grounds. But if it occurs in adult society many normalise it and entrench it in law and our value systems and evidently into our national budget.
The aspiration to raise one’s self from the gutter is besmirched as class envy and is immediately put down. If despite that oppression you do succeed in joining the echelons of the wealthy class by good fortune then your serendipity is referenced as achieving lofty Australian dreamers heights. Though you have reached into the “big time” to become a social anecdotal reference of how the “little people” can make it, that ascension ladder is quickly removed. New obstacles are erected by the law and governance of the land to ensure repetition is unlikely. Having for example taken advantage of an era of free university education, there must now be placed a price on education to put road blocks up for any who follow after you. The point you make about defunding TAFE is about pulling up the ladder before anyone else climbs it. Or if you have benefitted from welfare that allowed you sufficient means to survive to get that good job break, governance must ensure that that welfare never keeps up with the cost of living so that path is now denied. Or if you benefitted by having wages at a level that afforded you access to a home of your own, legislative incentives to investors will accelerate the cost of housing beyond the reach of mere middle class wage earners. Add any other similar examples yourself as they are numerous.
So do the newly elevated assume their new class role, and do their level best to prevent the progress of any other social climbers. This is the essence of inequality and is no doubt why the Conservative class seek to punish and berate the underclass to ensure that they always “know their place”. These are the values Conservatives adopt and normalise. From this perspective it is little wonder that they “blame poor people for their lot”.
Well said John Haly.
The polls are going crazy lately! Like Kaye Lee said, Pauline Hanson was supposed to do really well in Qld, but she didnt. She was predicted to get 11 or 12 seats. Got 1, unfortunately, but certainly a long way from 11or 12. Same in WA, where Lib voters were incensed that their party was doing a deal with her on preferences. Yes theyre always a wild card. But also have a history of being predicted to do really well, and then not doing so.
So in the last week we have Federal polls Essential 53-47, Fairfax IPSOS 54-46 (today) and Newspoll 51-49 (yesterday).
Take your pick! Newspoll really does seem impossible to believe. Twitter and FB are alight with anti government comments.
I skimmed (at library!) Weekend Australian yesterday, full of anti-Labor articles and letters to editor of course, but very little praising the government, in fact, they got little attention. Fairfax and Guardian have particularly good anti-govt-budget articles, including of all people, Peter Hartcher!
The ABC funding cut has spurred many into action – a public meeting is planned for Melbourne, and is calling for interested ex industry people, the public etc. who would be interested. As well, ABC Board is said to be “very sensitive” about its reputation for being trusted. So plan a roadshow around Australia. Obviously to sell themselves, not listen or seek solutions. I would suggest they should just check the Facebook and Twitter comments and they would see what people are saying about them.