Good news kids, the inheritance is safe, and so are we
I wonder if the Coalition realise just how incongruous their rhetoric is with Tony selling the ‘death cult’ and ‘home-grown terrorist’ angle and trying to convince us he has to spend billions to keep us safe, while Joe Hockey is telling us it will be ‘intergenerational theft’ to spend money on health, education, and welfare.
Tony has a hard sell because we don’t actually feel as afraid as he would like us to and people are starting to wonder about someone who uses twenty billion dollars to buy a vote to keep him leader when he may already have used that same $20 billion to buy a signature on a free trade agreement.
Now he is asking us to chip in over $400 million so he can spy on innocent people because the proposed metadata retention laws have so many gaps in them that they will be easily circumvented by anyone who wants to, be they genuine terrorists, pedophiles, or journalists.
Rather than helping the “war on terror”, I think we got more truth from AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin who said the scheme could “absolutely” be used to tackle online copyright infringement.
“Illegal downloads, piracy, cyber crimes, cyber security, all these matters – our ability to investigate them is absolutely pinned to our ability to retrieve and use metadata,” he told reporters.
Funnily enough, Malcolm Turnbull and Steve Ciobo were quite vociferous in their opposition to metadata retention when they were in opposition. This time around, Malcolm was excluded from National Security Committee discussions of the proposal but then, even though he hadn’t been at the meetings, he was sent out to explain it after both Tony Abbott and George Brandis struggled to clarify what data would be held.
Expecting them to have a consistent view on anything other than ‘stop the boats’ and ‘axe the tax’ has become unrealistic.
Against this backdrop, Joe is softening us up for the soon to be released Intergenerational Report which will contain lots of big scary numbers with no context.
Whether the delay in its release, which is a breach of the Charter of Budget Honesty, has been forced on Joe so he can do a quick rewrite, or he is choosing the timing to be closer to his next budget, we can be certain to hear a lot of “stealing from our children and our grandchildren”.
This is also going to be a very hard sell.
He has to convince students that, to save the government from having a future debt, they should take on a very large personal debt – so large that many of them will choose not to take on tertiary education.
He has to convince pensioners that they should take a cut to their indexation because it is too hard to tax high-earning superannuees.
He has to convince us that a “value signal” on going to the doctor won’t lead to increased chronic illness and hospital admissions.
He has to convince us that we must hunt down all the people who are rorting welfare payments but that chasing corporate taxation would be “detrimental for business”.
He has to convince us that, with unemployment rising particularly amongst our youth, that we should all work till we are 70.
And he has to convince us of this while Tony is boosting defence and security spending and buying submarines and fighter jets and helicopters and patrol boats hand over fist; while Peter Dutton is spending billions keeping children locked up in detention ; while Tony is spending tens of billions building his (finger number four) roads of the 21st century.
I would suggest that even Joe’s quivering references to his children won’t save him this time.
I have a suggestion on what we can do to fix the “debt and deficit disaster” without having to burden anyone at all or cut anything at all.
Borrow pot loads and invest it in the Future Fund. You remember the Future Fund, Australia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, established for the benefit of future generations of Australians? You may not because it isn’t counted in the budget bottom line.
Well, as at the 31st of December 2014, it was $109.21 billion in the black. We also have $3.77 billion in the Education Investment Fund, $3.71 billion in the Building Australia Fund, $1.95 billion in the Health and Hospitals Fund and $830 million in the DisabilityCare Australia Fund.
Its investment returns for the 2013-14 financial year yielded $12 billion ($48.7bn since its inception in May 2006 on accumulated contributions of $60.5 billion invested). The 2014-15 budget shows $13.2 billion interest will be paid to service CGS liabilities for the year to June 2014, so we came out roughly square (give or take a billion) so you can stop worrying about our billion a month in interest payments.
Despite the global financial crisis in 2008, the fund has enjoyed an average nominal annual growth rate of 7.2 per cent.
The Australia Government Bond 10Y rate is currently about 2.57 per cent. That means we could borrow money (issue bonds) and reinvest it making a net gain of almost 5%.
Interestingly, though you will hear Conservatives tell us this nest egg is solely due to John Howard’s surpluses (and the sale of Telstra), in the 2008 and 2009 federal budgets, the Labor Rudd Government transferred A$41 billion into the Future Fund, and established three new funds, known as the Nation-building Funds: a A$20 billion Building Australia Fund to invest in roads, rail, ports and broadband; an $11 billion Education Investment Fund, which absorbed a similar $6 billion fund set up by the previous government; and a A$10 billion Health and Hospital Fund.
These transfers created or contributed to the budget deficits of A$27 and A$57 billion respectively in the 2008 and 2009 years. Rather than burdening our children with our debt they were setting money aside for their future needs.
Costello took money out of the economy by running surpluses and sold our assets to make his contribution. Swan borrowed money when times were toughest to invest even more to stimulate the economy through investments and to grow a fund for future generations. The Coalition takes from us while the Labor Party gives to us, and they call the progressives economic vandals. The Coalition simply have no understanding of how it works.
In 2007, Labor suggested it wanted to withdraw $2.7 billion to start the NBN, paying the Future Fund a commercial rate of return on the invested funds, with all profits being returned into the Future Fund allowing further investment.
The Howard government screamed blue murder proclaiming that Labor intended to “raid” the Future Fund for their own means. Surely this is exactly the type of thing we have a future fund for – something that would benefit all Australians through immediate employment in the design and construction, future generations who will benefit from access to high-speed broadband, and the investors who will receive a return on their investment.
Joe Hockey will tell you that the purpose of the fund is to meet the government’s future liabilities for the payment of superannuation to retired public servants. I very much doubt that bill would be anywhere near the fund’s annual return – $12 billion and growing – and this is entirely unnecessary anyway as any future liabilities can be paid for as they arise by issuing bonds if necessary. It is also not how the fund describes itself and nor should it. This money should not be quarantined but used to build our children’s future.
So the next time Hockey tears up about what we are doing to our children, remind him of the Future Fund that is sitting there earning money to “benefit future generations of Australians.”
What would be far more sensible than borrowing to park money in the Future Fund would be to follow Michael Pascoe’s advice in the SMH:
“Commonwealth 10-year bonds are trading with a yield of 2.5 per cent. Right now, the government could borrow as much as it can dream of for very little, invest it in infrastructure development with a double-digit rate of return, improve the nation’s productivity, overcome some of the shorter-term challenges of our structural adjustment, reduce unemployment, end its over-reliance on monetary policy and restore some of the inter-generational balance that has been lost by public sector investment falling to its lowest level in generations.
But that would take leadership and trust and confidence in the leadership – not a boy who’s been crying wolf.”
Whilst Tony and Joe will be pushing counter narratives on our spending power – unlimited funds for national security, but health education and welfare are unaffordable – they are consistent on one message – they want us to be afraid.
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iggy648
Return to home pageI’m afraid. I’m very afraid, and have been for the last seventeen months.
But, the thought of $1.60 a week increase in my age pension and the knowledge that our captain catholic (lower case intended) and his crusaders are doing their utmost to protect us from the vile religious hordes, and to balance the budget goes a long way to making me feel less afraid.
Spot in as usual Kaye.
An excellent article. Just keep chipping away. We are right behind you.
It’s so insanely laughable when a short article can demolish the reams of crap coming out of the coalition and corporate sector in one fell swoop.
I can hear the coalition knocking art your door for advise.
Whoops that’s just my mind wistfully blowing in the wind.
If they were really concerned about the age pension becoming unsustainable they would be continuing the increase to 12% superannuation guarantee so less people will need it. People who are retiring now did not have the benefit of compulsory super but those who will be retiring in the future will have had it for their entire working career. Most women now have at least some super compared to very few women in the past – keep the SG going and we will have far more self-funded retirees.
Now HERE is something to be afraid of…
TONY Abbott suggested a unilateral invasion of Iraq, with 3500 Australian ground troops to confront the Islamic State terrorist group.
Flanked by his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, in a meeting in Canberra on November 25, the Prime Minister said the move would help halt the surge of Islamic State in northern Iraq.
After receiving no resistance from Ms Credlin or his other staff in the room, Mr Abbott then raised the idea with Australia’s leading military planners. The military officials were stunned, telling Mr Abbott that sending 3500 Australian soldiers without any US or NATO cover would be disastrous for the Australians.
The Iraq idea was not the first time Mr Abbott had suggested a military intervention by Australia’s armed forces. The Australian reported in August that in the week following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine by Russian-backed militia, Mr Abbott suggested sending 1000 Australian soldiers to secure the site of the crash.
Australia’s leading military planners also argued against that proposal, telling Mr Abbott there were serious problems with the plan: Australian soldiers would not be able to speak either Ukrainian or Russian, and the Australian troops would have difficulty distinguishing between Ukrainians and Russian militia.
The Weekend Australian investigation has uncovered the enormous power of Ms Credlin.
It has found Ms Credlin had a key role in developing last year’s budget, including on occasions acting as the chair of the expenditure review committee.
While Mr Abbott was nominally the chair, one person who sat in on the meetings said on occasions Ms Credlin would take over, determining the agenda and deciding which ministers and officials would prepare which reports.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/index.html?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&mode=premium&dest=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/terror/tony-abbott-sought-military-advice-on-go-it-alone-invasion-of-iraq/story-fnpdbcmu-1227233174095&memtype=anonymous
Commonwealth 10-year bonds are trading with a yield of 2.5 per cent. Right now, the government could borrow as much as it can dream of for very little, invest it in infrastructure development with a double-digit rate of return, improve the nation’s productivity, overcome some of the shorter-term challenges of our structural adjustment, reduce unemployment, end its over-reliance on monetary policy and restore some of the inter-generational balance that has been lost by public sector investment falling to its lowest level in generations.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/scary-joe-hockey-has-cried-wolf-too-often-20150220-13ker7.html#ixzz3SKTbEJcQ
The above is quoted from Michael Pascoe, Business Day contributing editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, as referenced by Kay Lee.
These are the measures that need to be taken by Hokey Pokey in getting Australia back on track with growing the economy, so we can actually fund the NON-negotiable basic necessities of equitable education, health, higher education, jobs and job creation, scientific research, environmental protections. (I’m running out of puff but the list of essentials goes on.)
If Hokey can’t think of valuable solutions to our economic problems, I will give him some advice on getting people out of unemployment and under-employment and gradually off Newstart, and into viable, reasonable, sustainable self-employment, thus providing viable diverse Australian grassroot industries, great choices for consumers and OMG, vastly increased tax revenue that can be re-injected into the economy.
The plan is that the government allows equitable access to government-backed financial incentives in the form of Micro Finance Grants (MFG) and Micro Credit Loans (MCL). If a person has an initiative, an idea or a small practice then that person, who may be on Newstart (because of the inability to gain meaningful employment), then that person should be able to gain either the MFG or MCL without the frustrations of discriminatory eligibility criteria based on their low incomes.
If MFG, then the proposed finance range would be $10,000 OVER and ABOVE the Newstart Allowance and as a grant, would not be re-payable. If MCL, the finance range would be $10,000-$20,000 and as a loan, it would be re-payable at a low interest rate over an affordable and reasonable period of time.
Yes, it will cost money to finance BOTH schemes for the thousands and thousands of ready, willing and able unemployed and under-employed people from ALL demographics who are suffering the humiliation and financial hardship of unemployment.
Yes, it always takes money with innovative schemes that seek to grow the pie of economic and proactive reforms.
But yes, the benefits for ALL of us would be magnificent because the unemployed person is out of the misery of unemployment and able to engage their skills and knowledge and qualifications in work that they can advance themselves and our society. This reduces over time, their dependence on welfare (and possibly health services).
The benefits are obvious to the community because then there are less people on welfare therefore less welfare tax dollars are needed and can be re-channelled into our other great community benefits that seek to advance opportunities for our wider society. See my list above and add to the positives yourselves. The increased tax revenue created out of these diverse grassroots enterprises similarly would feed the increased community benefits.
So Hokey, when next you lament our sorry state of affairs and how much you’re frightened for our children, give me a ring and I’ll give you a lesson on how to grow the economy by funding grassroots industries that will get people into well-financed self-employment that may even provide further employment opportunities for their peers. Simple really, mate.
More good TPP news.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/trans-pacific-partnership-whats-the-deal-being-negotiated-in-our-name-20150220-13jci9.html
Jennifer also a great idea for retirees locked out of the labor market without the funds to finance a small business venture. I would leap at the opportunity.
Kaye, what is more frightening about taking troops into Iraq, not one minister sitting around the table challenge him. That is if story is true. Must be, it is in the Australian.
Mr Hockey. I have a hint for you. If you start pulling for us, the voter, we just might get behind you.
So many reasons to be afraid of this government and Abbott in particular…
Jakarta-based international relations expert Pierre Marthinus said Mr Abbott had “jumped the shark” in his handling of the execution issue.
He said the link to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was offensive to Indonesians. “Look into the eye of a child who lost their parents and say: ‘You know what? We gave you money, now we want something in return.”
Mr Marthinus, the director of the Marthinus Academy, a not-for-profit centre focusing on transnational relations, said he can understand the frustration of Australians given the constant waiting and uncertainty around the executions.
But he was worried Mr Abbott’s belligerence would have a lasting impact on bilateral relations. “We really don’t want another fallout between Indonesia and Australia.”
Nothing is safe. The global debt is so huge, resources depleting at an increasing rate and with our environment in terminal decline, economic collapse is inevitable. The problems of 2008 have not been rectified. They have worsened.
Avagoodwun.
Just replace the GOP with the Colaition and Krugman makes it all very clear.
“Why Republicans Worship ‘Quacks and Charlatans'”
Getting things epically wrong and denying reality gains you points in today’s GOP. (Liberal National Party)
http://www.alternet.org/economy/paul-krugman-why-republicans-worship-quacks-and-charlatans
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Holy howling f**k!
That news about the Abbott/Credlin insane military adventurism needs amplification. What the f**k do both of them think war is just a bit of ‘colour and movement’ to distract the voters?
Fair warning dealing with the US through TPP and drug pricing.
Don’t want to overdo links however this is a red flag to a bull.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/pharma-drug-bankrupting-america?akid=12813.202908.Mi8CLE&rd=1&src=newsletter1032175&t=5
stephentardrew
February 21, 2015 at 10:38 am
Yes, my MFG and MCL schemes could include retirees, who are locked out of the job market and if they lack the funds to fund their own self-employment. This should also be seen as an incentive to the government for encouraging willing older people to keep working and thus reduce the age pension. They must be willing however.
Most importantly, both schemes are intended to support the vulnerable on welfare and to marry their skills with appropriate and dignified employment. That includes the highly educated, professionally-qualified people, who also happen to be unemployed or under-employed and who want suitable employment that demonstrates their intellectual credentials.
I see that someone on Facebook – in response to this post – has written ‘Kaye Lee for PM’. Good call. 🙂
Abbott wants war games to frighten us into believing he is the hero for our times. If Ukraine and Daesh had not occurred he would have found something to fight. Personally I think he should lead our troops into battle. On the ground. If you are interested in how badly politicians handle war games read James Brown’s book “Anzac’s Long Shadow” he is highly critical of Ministers for Defence and explains the myth that Australians are great soldiers. Abbott is a believer in the basic natural skills of Australian soldiers hence he believes if he sends in 3,500, 3499 will return!! He will have blood on his hands and a comfortable tax payer funded pension.
Can I do it from home?
You can even do it on a bike ride. 🙂
BTW, can I be your Chief of Staff?
Yes please….and there will be NO bike riding or photo shoots.
Can I be your speech writer?
Nah, actually I’d rather be – what’s that job where you don’t have to do anything and you just get paid large amounts of money for just agreeing with the PM?
What’s it called? Now I remember! Can I be your Minister for Education?
Kaye And no Lycra with advertising printed all over it,nor budgie smugglers, Tones is the proverbial show pony.
What we need in a PM
We need a humble person who has a vision for this country and the wider world, not some jumped up bigmouth aggressive punch and run fraudster like Tones,
We need someone who understands that money and how much they have or have not is not ones total worth,
We need someone who understands young people that have a fresh eyed view of the world and the future of technology and science as they have to live in the future world and survive, not Tones he is old and past his use by date.
We need someone who respects Mother Earth, nature, fauna and flora for all her glory, and preserve what we have now for future generations, not damage and scar her forever.
We need someone who can compromise, who is diplomatic, has a level head, and someone who dosnt think God is the almighty,
We need someone who values women for who they are, and not thinks their only worth is to do the ironing.
We need someone who is a leader, not a follower, and Tones is a follower always has been and always will be.
We need a real PM not the pretender we have now……
Must be confusing working for NEWS Ltd these days : whilst retaining their tacit support for Abbott, the Weekend Australian has launched a wholesale attack on his Chief of Staff who, evidently, put him up to much of his stupidity.
I imagine they are loyally trying to support their overlord’s demand that Credlin be sacked. They are just a whisker away from them dropping all support for Abbott and turning to Turnbull – follow Rupert’s tweets if you want to know what’s happening in Australia.
I love the fact that it was the military chiefs who had to explain to Abbott that sending 1000 of our troops to Ukraine to safeguard the MH17 wreckage was a bad idea, not least because our troops would be going into a civil war situation and would not be able to communicate with either the Ukranians or the Russians – strains of Blackadder right there.
In other words the LNP have to try to convince us that black is white that unreal is real and that lies are in fact truth. Australians have been in the past a pretty gullible lot who have accepted things on face value, however since Hockey’s 1st budget things have changed, people in the low income bracket have been squeezed to within an inch of their lives and they don’t like it. Just yesterday I saw that 34,000 Victorians had been disconnected from the electricity grid because they could not pay their electricity bills, the anger is rising in the Australian community and they quite clearly see as never before, that tory (LNP) policies are playing havoc with their ability to survive. Unless the Labor Party can come up with some good policies to re-balance the economy in favor of hard working people and the elderly and disabled I can see the day that social unrest escalates and the masses protest for the Aussie “fair go.”
Great writing Kaye Lee – how utterly atrocious this Coalition government is – how vacuous is their policy vision and how fanatical is their allegiance to failed ideology. The Coalition should be called the Ministry of Deciet.
Off-colour so will read the rest later. But that first sentence was a gem.
A melancholic, morbid beast indeed, the chthonic inheritance cult thingie.
Medibank shares slump as customers switch to cheaper policies
Another National inheritance gone because of right wing ideology and not just lost to the Australian public who owned it but now to those who bought into it. Very predicable and predicted by many economists yet still sold as a dream by this government.
This failure so aptly illustrates how this government sells everything on bullshit and cannot be trusted on anything it says or does.
———————————–
On another current topic can someone tell me why Cormann, the Minister for Finance, came out and defended Abbott’s supposed captain’s call to unilaterally send troops to Iraq instead of Abbott or the PM’s office coming out and responding to the article?
rossleigh,
You can be whatever you want to be….lord knows we would need your wit to keep us sane if we had to deal with politicians.
ME,
Hockey was tweeting his defence as well. The three amigos sink or swim together and with the number of negative stories about Tony that can only have come from government leaks, I would suggest they are taking on water. Even I have been leaked info that something is afoot this week (or next).
I don’t ever recall seeing a P.M. in their pajamas.
Kaye Lee, everything you write makes so much sense to me. You manage to put into words the ideas that float through my mind. Maybe you can put into clear words the thoughts i have about these men (and 2 women) who have gained control of our country, and how the hell they developed the limited mindset that they have. How do they not see the awfulness of what they’re preaching; how do they not see the sensibilities of alternatives as suggested above. Seriously i just cannot comprehend their thinking. Where and how do they, and their rusted on defenders get so far off a rational pathway?
What skillset do you bring to your analysis; what is it that they are missing?
Another great article. The one and only upside of this, the worst government I have ever known, is that it has woken up a large number of people to how government works and who and what government is for. As democracy takes effort, this is a good thing.
What it has forced me to do is to try to understand money now that currency is free of the gold standard/Bretton Woods. The government does not ‘borrow’ money unless it sells bonds. It creates money, by fiat – as in ‘fiat lux’, ‘Let there be light.’ As long as we use that money to employ people to make and do useful things, all is well. It seems that very few people actually understand this – the LNP certainly don’t. Even if we were to issue lots of bonds, the return on investment would be huge. We have the world centre of excellence in solar PV, for example, and could become huge exporters at the same time as saving the planet, the failure to do which strikes me as a bit more like intergenerational theft than some figures in an electronic ledger.
We all need to grasp this ‘borrowing’ and ‘debt’ by governments is nothing like a household budget, because households cannot legally create money.
We will get you Gucci Pajamas Kaye.
Jennifer, when Kaye is PM and you are Treasurer, I’ll have one of your MFGs please, so long as you resurrect a proper high speed internet service everywhere. After working as a psychologist for 35 years, before I retiredI was toying with the idea of starting up a small business providing psychological services to people living in remote areas via the internet (e.g. Skype). But this would require good quality internet at both ends. You need to be able to see a person’s body language and facial expressions in real time, (i.e. instantly) without dropouts, gaps or delays, as well as hear what they are saying. It was very dismaying to learn that the current mob opted for the low quality system, unless you can afford to pay for it, as the vast majority of my target population in remote areas would certainly not have had the wherewithal. Hence I retired and collect the age pension. The stupid bastards can pay me $800 a fortnight to go to the beach.
Abbott’s problem is to appeal to the voters on a primal level, he requires your faith in creating fear for the public and he is your savior protecting you against the threat of evil and he can save you, this appeal has only a limited to those who feel insecure, in the big picture you have far more danger in going out to work and being killed on the road.
We do not need this type of individual as leader, we need more than anything leaders of vision sadly we lack any leader having this capability, in part the system creates the lap dog mentality.
“Our challenge is to answer uncertainty with conviction and to refute doubt with faith.
This is not a matter of logical argument. No-one can be persuaded to believe. People must be inspired to believe; they must be picked up and carried along by other people—people who believe with heart and soul ”
Exert from Anthony Abbott’s maiden parliamentary speech espousing the benefits of passionate ideology over rational analysis, subtitled ‘How to rouse the rabble and incite a mob’.
Now lookit that! So much reason and so little action buried under mountains of bullshit.
I had not heard that before cb. How arrogant. I certainly believe that people need to be inspired but that should be done through truth and hope. Identify the problems, prioritise them, listen to experts and stakeholders, discuss alternative solutions, present suggestions with pros and cons, and then decide on the course that gives maximum benefit which does not just depend on monetary return. A balance sheet does not, on its own, adequately reflect the value of the well-being of human and environmental capital.
iggy648
February 21, 2015 at 3:38 pm
Your business vision is a great example of what I’m talking about. You have the vision, the expertise but presumably not the finances that can afford to get it up and running viably. Such human wealth is lost.
Such loss would be avoided through realistic funding Over and Above reasonable living costs, which in your case, would be $10,000 MFG – and your $800 pension per fortnight. The income you produce and the taxes you would pay would largely cover the initial grant and then provide further tax revenue on top.
And I share your frustration at the deliberate short-sightedness of the rabid Abbott Government in stifling such socio-economic opportunities through hamstringing the NBN.
Kaye Lee,
Here’s the full version;
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F1994-05-31%2F0043%22
It is one of those (sadly none too rare) moments of absolute cognitive dissonance for me as well.
I look at someone who claims that ‘no-one can be persuaded by logical argument’, only ‘inspiration’ or ‘faith’ and say “how the phuq can you ever claim or hope to represent me?”
Kaye,
Another wonderful evidence-based article that applies lateral thinking to the Australia’s current challenge which this appalling ideologically-blinkered government stumbling around its facile slogans, is making worse.
Thank you for your lucid thought-provoking writing, it’s perspicacity, your scholarship and your energy.
Faith
b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs
without question <took everything he said on faith
Examples of FAITH
His supporters have accepted his claims with blind faith.
Our faith in the government has been badly shaken by the recent scandals.
Lending him the money to start his own business was an act of faith.
It requires a giant leap of faith for us to believe that she is telling the truth.
Nothing is more important to her than her faith in God.
She says that her faith has given her the courage to deal with this tragedy.
Faith without doubt leads to moral arrogance, the eternal pratfall of the religiously convinced. —Joe Klein, Time, 17 May 2004
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith
“Propaganda must therefore always be essential and repetitious. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” — Joseph Goebbels.
“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over… to kind of catapult the propaganda.” — George Bush.
Ring any bells?
Kaye Lee for Treasurer! She herself is a national treasure in my estimation!
Inside Cory Bernadis business web
http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2015/02/21/inside-sa-senator-cory-bernardis-business-web/14244372001523?utm_source=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_campaign=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_medium=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_term=PANTHEON_STRIPPED#.VOkcnoFXerX
Actually, the issue of means testing the family home or mansion as a means for targeting welfare more eficiently, was some thing both Morrison and Gerard Hemderson botched badly this morning on telly.
Just long as the oldies have control of the purse strings they control the lives of younger people..lovely stuff, straight out of Dickens or Agatha Christie.
If oldies have wealth, it’s probably because they’ve been working for 50 years to earn it. But if you want to change things, get young people off their bums.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-21/figures-show-25-per-cent-of-young-people-failed-to-enrol-to-vote/4903292