“How Good Is Putting Everyone On The Indue Card To Stop Secondary Boycotts?”
One of the things that’s always intrigued me is the way in which things can be framed so that people completely miss what’s going on. I’d like to think that I’m immune but I’m sure I’ve missed the main act while being misled into concentrating on the sideshow. I’d give you an example but – obviously – I can’t think of any personal examples because I failed to notice what was really going on, owing to the clever framing of the topic at hand. Or not at hand, given I was misdirected to something minor.
However, I can’t help but feel that Scottie isn’t as good as he thinks he is. Let’s take the whole protest thing. While it’s true that while we concentrate on the tactics of the protestors, I’m not going down the whole “Hitler liked quiet Germans so much that if they weren’t, they soon were!” path. The Liberal Party is at least two elections away from actually executing those who don’t like their policies… Although I did see a tweet from failed candidate Warren Mundine suggesting that QandA should be dragged over hot coals for their recent program. To be fair, this may not have been because he was advocating violence, but more about finding another use for coal when the rest of the world stops buying the stuff.
It was more the way Morrison described the protestors as “selfish” and “indulgent” which I found interesting in terms of the framing. Let’s just accept for a moment the rather interesting notion that they overstepped the mark when they got in the way of all those police batons and how the poor horse was subject to PTSD after that woman forced it to break her leg and look at our national waterboy’s framing of the situation.
As altruistic miners try to enter a building they’re stopped from their humanitarian aims by these incredibly selfish protestors who are just there for the fun of harassing the saints who, out of the goodness of their hearts, give up their spare time to find ways of giving people jobs. These saints of industry have worked tirelessly to eliminate all canaries from their coal mines and are moving towards a world where mining is fully automated and no humans will be forced to undertake such dangerous work. At such a time, they’ll then share the wealth they’ve created by donating their stuff to the people who can’t afford it at current prices because they’re such great human beings, unlike the bullies who are blocking their way just for the fun of it.
Whichever way you look at it, the protestors believe that they’re trying to save the planet. Even if you think that the planet doesn’t need saving, it’s really hard to argue that they’re the selfish ones. “You bastards, you’re only trying to save the Earth because you live on it! Have some consideration for people like Alan Jones who haven’t been on the planet for years!”
Whatever, it’s easy to see how you can crack down on people blocking pedestrian traffic. There is actually a thing called the riot act and police can read it, demand people disburse and arrest them if they don’t.
The secondary boycott prohibition, however, seemed so impossible to enforce that I just presumed this was another attempt at framing the debate so that we were discussing this instead of the whole climate change issue. It’s been quite easy to shift the focus. After Greta Thunberg addressed the UN, we were suddenly arguing about such things as her age, the nasty personal attacks and then to top it all off, we had the same people who’ve been spouting their own opinions with scant regard for the facts telling us that we should be listening to the scientists… even though that’s exactly what Greta had done.*
But then I started thinking about it…
Now, I know that I’m going to sound crazy. I know that this is going to sound like satire. However, let’s have a good long think about the Indue card. First they come for the unemployed and we don’t mind if we’re not unemployed. Then they come for the aged pensioners, and we don’t mind because we’re not aged pensioners. And then it’s for the childcare rebates and parents with dependants start to mind, but it’s too late because before we can do anything there’s no such thing as cash any more and the government tells us it’s to crack down on the black economy and make everyone pay their share so that we can finally get the Budget surplus that we’d have if it weren’t for all these tradesmen doing cash jobs, then…
You can’t boycott a company because the government says that it’s a good one and you can’t use your money to help that other company because it’s not on the list of approved companies and not just because it didn’t lend money to Adani or donate to the Liberals. There are other reasons but these like Scott Cam’s salary and what he’s actually doing for the money are commercial-in-confidence…
Ok, nonsense. I know…
But it might make a great scare campaign and that seems to be what wins elections these days!
*A few weeks ago, Kevin Donnelly, told us that 47 respected climate experts disagreed with Thunberg and that the world had managed with higher levels of CO2 about 500,000,000 years ago and we still have plants and animals. Yes, I thought, but not the same ones. Anyway, I wonder how Kevie feels about the 11,000 scientists who came out telling us that climate change is real and we better start taking it seriously. Nah, he’ll say, I like my 47 better and those 11,000 were probably just taken in by that sixteen year old.
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17 comments
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RomeoCharlie29 -
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Rossleigh -
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Josephus
Return to home pageLove your work Rossleigh. Everywhere you look you see chickens coming home to roost for the two decades of predominantly, but not exclusively, LNP privatisation, watering down or removal of regulations to ensure the fair operation of services the public rightfully expects to be efficient and effective. The evils uncovered by the various RC’s: banks, childcare, Aged Care, the unions ( oh no that one didn’t work did it) refugee health and safety, all began with, sorry to say Hawke and Keating (Qantas, Telstra, HECS) , but were more enthusiastically taken up by Howard etc. Now we have the most wicked combination of shills in Morrison and Dutton determined to crush every form of dissent. I live in hope Frydenberg and Liu are forced back to an election giving us ( or at least the people of those two electorates) a chance to remove this hateful swill.
Ok, a quote from Rossleigh’s article “*A few weeks ago, Kevin Donnelly, told us that 47 respected climate experts disagreed with Thunberg and that the world had managed with higher levels of CO2 about 500,000,000 years ago and we still have plants and animals.” Um, 500,000,000 years ago did the planet have to deal with mining, fracking, mass production, etc that is helping the atmosphere not be as clean was it might be? Sometimes I wonder if people forget industrialisation didn’t occur 500,000,000 year ago. I find comments stating this or that happened thousands of years ago totally irrelevant to today’s world. I am sure the building of the pyramids in Egypt didn’t affect the climate of the planet. We have the best govt from fairyland guiding us these days. Oh and of course a terrific article Rossleigh, as always!
Rossleigh,
You have an amazing talent for showing just how ridiculous our current reality is.
Well, to paraphrase Sir Isaac Newton, “I have stood on the shoulders of snakes.”
Good piece Rossleigh and isn’t it so predictable, do unto others what you would never do to yourselves, Go Libs.
One point of difference to your article, why does the media fail to look at the climate change story from all angles?
For example, ‘Climatic warfare’ has been excluded from the agenda on climate change!
Why is it so, the all-nodding, all-smiling media can rave at great length about Greta how-dare-you Thunberg but then, with that universal silly expression that seems to be the hallmark of ‘news’ readers, ignore the packyderm in the forest:
Weaponized Intervention in weather.
Keep sleepwalking Australians, you got in the bag.
Rossleigh, you are crazy.
(Which from me is a tick of approval)
Kevin Donnelly would be a constant source of amusement except for the fact that the government and media think he’s an “expert” something.
“I’ve just been on the Strike 4 Climate webpage, where you’ve got seven or eight-year-old kids barely out of nappies being involved in a strike,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide.
“A lot of these students are barely literate or numerate.
“I think it’s absurd.”
Says Kevin who thinks climate change is about his favourite topic, “political correctness”
Perhaps we should stop making those 7 and 8 year olds go to Kevin’s church as well?
The LNP spout “small government” yet they are becoming more and more “big brother” by the day.
Yet another great article Rossleigh! I absolutely agree with everything you said, & cannot wait for this effing card to be “awarded” to those of us who have retired–NOT!!! The sooner this rag-tag bunch of so-called liberal/country party mob are kicked out the better off we ALL will be, & so will this land of ours also! I will always use cash until I am forced to use a card, I DO NOT agree with this bloody stupid card & refuse to believe it is actually doing any good at all!
if the cost of administering the card, @$12k each, was disbursed amongst the recipients, what a wonderful change we would see…
but that would not improve their donors bottom line and that is all they care about – apart from Herr Spuddo, who yearns for world domination, though he will be partially satisfied with becoming Australia’s first benevolent peacekeeper prince, though overlord would be preferable
MorriSCUM is a fakearse religious cultist.
The Andrew Forrest Indue card is a financial boondoggle for the fundraising arm of the Federal Liberal Party.
Thanks Rossliegh.
I wonder if there will be a ‘robbodebt’ charge to each and every indue card recipient, to pay for the annual $12k ‘administration’ charge?
With this gummint, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Brozza re:
So there’s an annual $12k ‘administration’ charge for every Indue Card recipient? So this annual charge continues?
Interesting claim. (For all sorts of reasons.)
Matters Not – https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/may/02/cashless-welfare-card-trialled-for-fewer-than-2000-people-at-cost-of-up-to-189m
In the article, it is claimed that it costs around $10k per year per participant for a person on a $14k per year newstart allowance.
How good is it being an economic master eh?
Brozza, your link takes me back to 2017. A time when it was being trialled. While it’s still in a trial mode of sorts, the administrative cost are in significant decline. That’s to be expected.
Note that the operational costs are well under $1 000 per head. Note also the date of press relase. Mon, 25 Mar – 14:42 when Paul Fletcher was Minister for Minister for Families and Social Services. Lots of things wrong with the Cashless Welfare Card (particularly the administration of same) without citing outdated historical data. It weakens the argument and undermines credibility
https://www.paulfletcher.com.au/media-releases/media-release-morrison-government-extends-successful-cashless-debit-card
On the topic of rhetoric and reality, can anyone explain why suddenly no one is to be alerted to isolate until s/he has been four whole hours with a spreader, given that the latest mutated virus is highly contagious? That must mean a vast increase in spreaders. Is this a move to make us all get it? or to cut costs short term? And who is to measure how long the exposure is ? No one stays that long in a shop. Please explain, as the redhead said.
It is now March 2022. Just saying, I never was near anyone that I know, wearing masks always outside and living alone. Yet I have now got Covid. Not severe, but still. Locked in.