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I Have Some Good News And Some Bad News: Scott Morrison Is Prime Minister…

Let’s start with Matt Canavan’s strange good news and bad news tweet:

 

Now, some of you may find it strange to juxtapose the bushfires with the news of Adani even if one doesn’t accept a link between coal and climate change. It’s like going to the doctor and being told, “You have gangrene and we’ll need to remove your leg, but cheer up, I’m going to bulk bill you for today!”

Others may find it more strange, however, with the description of an Indian multibillion dollar company as a “little Aussie battler”. While I guess when you didn’t even know that your mother had made you an Italian citizen, it’s easy to be confused about nationality, it’s hard to see how a coal mine that’s constantly been described as big enough to create 10,000 jobs falls into the “little” category.

On the subject of jobs, Matty seems to be suggesting that his government has given up on the jobs and growth idea leading to jobs for all. The day after his tweet, he was on radio telling listeners, “The best thing you’ll learn about going to a protest is how to join the dole queue.” Given the number of protesters, this tends to suggest that he expects dole queues to be quite long into the future.

But – to be fair – he’s probably anticipating that a Labor victory will lead to another Global Financial Crisis like it did last time.

It would be nice to tell the Queensland senator not to give up, because the good news is that Scott Morrison is now PM and they don’t have to worry about that “lefty” Malcolm Turnbull leading them to electoral oblivion. They have the ScoMo who’s sent a bus with more seats than the Victorian Liberal Party to tour Queensland. It’s just a pity that the bus doesn’t actually pick up hitchhikers given it rarely has anyone on it.

Yes, it’s interesting that Malcolm the millionaire is being framed as left-wing. I mean, we’ve had millionaire Philip Adams as the token whipping boy with the constant question of “Where’s the right wing equivalent of Adams on the ABC?” …Usually by some IPA member speaking on the ABC. I guess, it’s possible to be rich and still be a Trotskyite, but I haven’t heard too much from either of them  that doesn’t actually fit within the spectrum of views from mainstream Australia. For example, Turnbull is on the left because he supports marriage equality which a resounding majority voted for. Republic? Turnbull says let’s leave it for a while. These views hardly put him in the Che Guevara camp.

And not just Malcolm. We’re discovering that the Liberal Party has a whole left wing. Former coorporate lawyers, Julie and Julia, for example. Of course, everything’s relative. Speer can be considered on the left of Hitler’s Nazi Party but even he’d be on the right of the LNP… Ok, maybe not the extreme right, but nonetheless…

But as I said, the good news is that we have a “centrist” leader in Scott Morrison who opposed marriage equality, created the video for asylum seekers, refused to say anything about what was happening with the people being incarcerated on Manus and Nauru and argued that distrust of Muslims could be exploited for political gain. Well, whatever, he’s no  Albert Speer…

Scott Morrison, genius behind Tourism Australia’s “Where the bloody hell are you?” campaign, must surely have a few good slogans between now and the election. Was calling Labor’s proposal for battery subsidies, ‘pink batteries” his idea? Yes, that’s the sort of intellectual stuff we’ve come to expect from the party that thought calling Shorten, “Electricity Bill” wasn’t something on a primary school level.

The good news for Labor supporters is that Scott Morrison is PM and that should ensure a wipeout for Liberals at the next election*. The bad news for everyone else is that Scott Morrison is PM and we have to endure this until the next election.

*I know that someone will argue that he’s leading Shorten as preferred PM. As I keep pointing out, the incumbent is nearly always preferred PM. If you go back through the records, you’ll find that even unpopular Prime Ministers rarely trail the opposition leader. In fact, the recent suggestion that Morrison wants to make the election a presendential-style constest between Shorten and him is the sort of attention that helpsOpposition leaders gain recognition. In Victoria, Dan Andrews virtually ignored the other guy making it harder for him to get any attention.  

And as for Adani, I’ve been writing for years that they wouldn’t get finance; their latest decision to announce that they’ll finance it themselves seems strange. If they were going to do that, why waste so much time trying to obtain someone else’s money… Unless it’s a ruse to justify taxpayers money being used to “help”.

 

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21 comments

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  1. Kaye Lee

    Kyran included some great quotes from the protesting kids on another thread.

    “If Scott Morrison wants children to stop acting like a parliament, then maybe the parliament should stop acting like children,” Manjot Kaur, 17, from Ravenswood school said.

    “Lucie Atkin-Bolton, 11, the school captain of Forest Lodge public school, said she had been let down by politicians.

    “I wish I didn’t have to be here today,” she said. “I’m the school captain at my primary school. We’ve been taught what it means to be a leader. You have to think about other people.

    “When kids make a mess, adults tell us to clean it up and that’s fair. But when our leaders make a mess, they’re leaving it to us to clean up”.”

  2. Rossleigh

    I liked the “I’ve seen better cabinets in IKEA”…
    I did remark to my wife, not only that, but an IKEA cabinet would be less likely to fall apart even if I put it together.

  3. helvityni

    I suppose Scomo thinks that Bill and his boys ( Dreyfus, Albo, etc) are not REAL men like Dutton, Abbott, and Morrison himself..

    So when these Labor blokes talk about batteries they must be pink in colour, as ‘not-real- men’ according to him are ‘ poofters’ and therefore like the colour pink…

    I once knitted a jumper for hubby, the colour was a sort of pinkish. He wore it when shopping for fruit and vegies at a Sydney market. “You must be a poofter”, shouted a group of young men to him…

    I ended wearing the said sweater from that day on…(it was really his colour and it made me look a bit sickly, a pity)

    Not being aware of the Australian Rule of blue for boys and pink for girls did not help….so much to learn…

  4. helvityni

    “I’ve seen better cabinets in IKEA”…Priceless!

  5. Kronomex

    After reading this –

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/01/youve-done-a-fantastic-job-donald-trump-praises-scott-morrison-at-g20

    I could picture Scummo sitting there with his legs crossed hiding his erection of excitement because of The Donald shaking his hand actually speaking to him. Then his main brain would have gone limp very quickly after –

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/you-ve-done-a-fantastic-job-trump-praises-morrison-in-g20-meeting-20181201-p50jjs.html

    Albert Speer…jeez, I’ve become a spelling fiend…hheellpp…
    (Corrected – thank you)

  6. Geoff Andrews

    The school kids’ rallies against global warming is one of the most heartening developments. Could I suggest to the organisers of every meeting to ask for a show of hands of everyone who will turn 18 before May 2022.

  7. Shaun Newman

    Unfortunately, Slow Mo views the world through the lens of a religious fanatic who thinks he is one of God’s chosen ones, this I suspect is where his arrogance come from. Since he became Prime Minister he has mentioned many interest groups, farmers who he has given $5 Billion to over a period of years for not being able to produce anything. Soldiers $500 million (I think) for discounts on everything they purchase, etc, the only group he hasn’t mentioned is the workforce.

    These extremist right-wing faction people of the Liberal Party don’t care a jot about working people and are happy for wages to continue to flatline and for us to be constantly losing living standards while their mates (the executives) continue to pay themselves obscene amounts and the banking industry ripping us off (I’ll bet now, that no CEO goes to gaol) consistently.

    We must oust this unrepresentative swill at the next election come hell or high water, there is just so much government work that needs to be done to try to recoup even a proportion of what everyday Aussies have lost under these evil bastards in the past 5 years.

  8. Josephus

    I wish candidates for Parliament or Ministers had to score above average in intelligence tests as well as submit to character/ethics tests run by reputable psychologists. A bit like the Platonic idea perhaps, but anything is better than this ship of fools.

  9. Kyran

    “The best thing you’ll learn about going to a protest is how to join the dole queue.”
    Well, you certainly do progress from being a protester to being a government beneficiary. Remember eleventy? He seemed to do okay after protesting.
    “Earlier in the day, about 6,000 students from all over NSW had gathered at Moore Park and marched to the Town Hall to protest against the $250 tertiary student fee and visa charges for overseas students.
    After an address at the Town Hall by the president of Sydney University’s Student Representative Council, Mr Joe Hockey, students continued their march down to the Department of Education offices.”

    https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/14-arrests-after-tertiary-fees-protest-20140529-395qq.html

    If only ‘future eleventy’ could have remembered ‘past eleventy’ when he undertook the butchery of the budget in 2014, including the radical increase in student fees and charges and the defunding of so many vital support services (and not just for students).
    “Yes, it’s interesting that Malcolm the millionaire is being framed as left-wing.”
    That’s a tad harsh, given his philanthropy through his charitable donations to his own foundation, including his entire salary.

    https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/editorial-the-figjam-philanthropist,11644

    Obviously, the kicker was how the charity spent its ‘charity’. One wonders if that was the vehicle used to make his donation (or was it a loan) to his re-election fund. What was it again, $1.7mill to the LNP? Of course, there is no known association between his lefty charitable bent and advantages gained for his ‘assessable income’. He’s probably one of those struggling to make ends meet on an $80k ‘salary’ while enjoying the benefits of negative gearing. There never was too much discussion of the Panama Papers connection, was there?
    “*I know that someone will argue that he’s leading Shorten as preferred PM. As I keep pointing out, the incumbent is nearly always preferred PM. If you go back through the records, you’ll find that even unpopular Prime Ministers rarely trail the opposition leader.”
    This one is the source of endless amusement, isn’t it? The MSM and Press Gallery obsession, week after week, was cause for speculation (by them) about the incredible momentum to ‘roll Bill’. They were so concerned with rumours they’d just finished making up, that they ignored that there were no stated challengers and no vehicle for a challenge. They even missed that Dutton was in the process of rolling Turnbull! Hilarious stuff.
    And all of this ignores completely that the Australian people have never, ever elected a PM, let alone a minister. Why continuously ask people for an opinion (albeit somewhere between 1,100 and 1,600 people as a representative sample for 25mill) on something they have no control over on a person they have no interest in?
    “And as for Adani, I’ve been writing for years that they wouldn’t get finance;”
    The more the Adani saga rolls on, the more you have to assume it is the ‘canary in the coal mine’, an ongoing litmus test for the public perception of, and attitude to, the mining industry. Given their proposal (is it number fifteen or fifty?) is for a vastly reduced endeavour, presumably the number of jobs will be scaled back from the 1,000 or so ultimately promised.
    “Unless it’s a ruse to justify taxpayers money being used to “help”.”
    Naturally, on such a scaled back mine, the railway will no longer be economically viable. Perhaps Gina and the other miners in the area will be able to get Canavan to ramp up NAIF again. It seems Canavan is her new ‘go-to boy’, given her last ‘go-to boy’ is relearning the joys of diapers and sleepless nights. Presumably. He and his new ‘lady’ have been very quiet. There must be wedding invitations going out by now.
    The lead picture and caption “You won’t be settled in Australia” is a little understated. At the moment, there seem to be very few of us ‘settled’ in Australia.
    Thank you Mr Brisbane and commenters. Take care

  10. Julianne

    Shaun Newman – The $500 million is to build a monument – the veterans neither support, need or want this. In fact in the last budget – $300 million was cut from veterans and the dependents. These are the same people “glorified” by the LNP because they need to attract more human “cannon fodder” for their next designer war. The Armament manufacturers are in bed with the LNP – in fact the LNP are owned and run by Capital and Murdoch its propaganda machine – above the Law doing anything they wish – white collar crime flourishes openly with slaps on the wrist and “apologies” by those caught (e.g. politicians and banks for starters).

  11. Zoltan Balint

    Adani will finance it self … yes the parent company in a tax haven will lend money to the Australian arm at inflated interest rates and another Adani company will purchase the equipment and either sell or rent the stuff to the Australian company at 3 to 4 times the cost like they have done in other parts of the world, under investigation, and the Australian Adani will show a loss so they will not have to pay any tax and have tax credits for the next 20 years …

  12. United Humanity

    The link between coal and climate change has been established, well established in many respects. The data may be misleading but not the effects seen outside in so many parts of the world where records continues to be broken in an accelerating pace.

  13. Shaun Newman

    Julianne, Ah yes the Canberra monument that’s right, plenty of taxpayer’s money to be spent on a monument to those poor souls lost to war My father fought in Bougainville in WW2 and told me only a couple of stories of the horror he saw, he had no time for war, or the RSL for that matter. trump has been looking for a war for 2 years and he will find one before he is finished, and of course Australia will be drawn into it, I really fear for our young generation.

    Anyway, I derailed myself. Yes the tories will spend money on anything except “people” the poor bloody people trying to survive on Newstart are in the 3 million Aussies doing it tough. No consideration for them, they ‘hate’ we working class people, absolutely despise us with a passion, which is precisely why I ‘hate’ them in return and why it is so important that the Left in this country via the ACTU must lead a powerful movement to “change the rules” so working people can breathe again.

    If I were a younger man I’d be trying to lead a revolution against the tyranny of this extremist right-wing L’NP regime. I am grateful to Sally McManus.

  14. Shaun Newman

    Zoltan Balint, these are rules that also need to be changed. All the tax deductions that business get must be reviewed also so that the minimum income tax to be paid on any corporate income cannot be below 17.5% If a Shorten Labor government had the courage to legislate that each and every multinational corporation operating within Australia must pay a minimum of 17.5% income tax on their “actual” income, as working people do, then the federal government would be able to undertake the modernization of the countries infrastructure that is urgently required.

    In North Queensland, much of our infrastructure is WW2 vintage, and huge public works are required costing hundreds of millions of dollars which are currently being spent on farmers an war memorials.

  15. DrakeN

    Shaun, a well calculated impost on all financial transactions could replace the current mish-mash of tax law.
    In so doing, those who gain from the efforts of others – themselves doing little more than manipulating the planet’s wealth for their personal benefit – would bear the greater burden of returning some of their excessive opulence to the people who actually create it for them.
    Gathering from the programme on a basic universal income on SBS the other evening, that would be in the order of 0.5% – a figure substantially below the GST impost on most daily expenditures by ordinary folk.
    See: https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/1371505731699/free-money-the-case-for-basic-income

  16. Matters Not

    When it comes to elections, it ain’t over ’till it’s over.

    The Victorian Greens have claimed victory in the inner-Melbourne seat of Brunswick … Since 1904 this seat was held by Labor, so this is historic. A few more postal votes were counted this morning, but too few to alter the result, and now it’s on Wikipedia,” Dr Read said

    The Bavaria of the South? But probably not. Might have something to do with the quality of the candidate

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-01/victorian-election-victory-for-greens-in-brunswick/10574246

  17. New England Cocky

    @Geoff Andrews: Bouquets to the school kids who were revolting!! That is the only way that our generation got Australia out of the Vietnam Imperialist war of aggression by the USA (United States of Apartheid) in 1972.

    @Josephus: A great idea!! School teachers should be paid at the same rate with the same allowances as politicians, then we would have excellent students seeking the financial rewards due to their abilities, and the whole community would benefit. That was the situation in the 60s.

    Now teachers are expected to jump academic barriers to be paid about the average wage after five years of tertiary studies, while politicians can stick their snouts into the Parliamentary Allowances trough by licking the backsides of the unelected political hacks who control pre-selection in the major parties.

    @Kyran: Agreed. When you have about $250 MILLION you must be left wing person and donating your salary to your personal foundation does allow your foundation to pay for all your worldly needs so that you can make a small $1.7 MILLION political donation to return Toxic RAbbott in Parliament after the 2013 election. Seems to have been a poor decision, somehow …. but it did keep the Turdball misgovernment on the Treasury benches to further destroy the Australian economy for the benefit of foreign owned multinational corporations.

    @Zoltan Balint: Yep, that just about demonstrates how all multinational corporations organise their finances to ensure that they pay no taxation in Australia. Perhaps the optimal solution is an International Financial Transaction Tax on the movement of all amounts of money out of Australia over $1million set at the enormous rate of 0.0001% or $100 per $1 million moved, that would generate about $1BILLION return for Australian voters presently living in a third world economy thanks to the LNP misgovernment.

    @Shaun Newman: The reason that NQ infrastructure is WWII vintage is that the population were happy being considered third rate citizens by the National$ under Joh and since, now they are whinging the NQ is being left behind ….. so yes, it is about time they sacked the National$ and elected a credible Independent to drag the region screaming in protest about joining the 21st century, about 120 years after metropolitan folks.

    Any body but National$ ….. put the National$ candidate LAST!!

    And to finish ….. I think Peter Dutton should be the Prim Monster who takes the LIarbral Notional$ misgovernment to face the Australian voters at the 2019 Federal elections …..

  18. Pappinbarra Fox

    I haven’t seen an IKEA cabinet that is more than 2 years old that isn’t busted up and falling apart and they ARE still better that this LNP dysfunctional mob. Should get FACS to raid them and take the children away. What are their parents up to?

  19. Ross in Gippsland

    This Liberal/National coalition government is on the nose, everyone but a small minority of diehards realise the only question now is how bad the electoral belting is going to be. A politician of Matt Canavan’s limited intellect should know not to match wits with far more intelligent people, in this case school students, no not uni students ordinary school kids. Denigrating the next generation of voters is not a good idea especially when they may not vote yet but their parents do and these kids are protesting about the state of the planet they will inherit.
    ”I’ve seen better cabinets at IKEA” classic.

  20. Kaye Lee

    If they think keeping Kelly is advantageous to them then they have truly given up listening. Mind you, Shorten will be pleased. Another certain Liberal seat lost.

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