Spokesmodel Christian Porter has been all over the airwaves announcing the government’s latest…ummm…announcement, which is that they want everyone else to sort out the “known problems” in industrial relations and to do so, they will form not one, not two, but five new “working groups” to come up with recommendations to add to the kazillion other ignored recommendations from countless previous reviews and inquiries and reports.
Unlike during the Accord, the government is not offering anything. In fact, they are, in advance, very much limiting what the “known problems” up for discussion are.
We won’t be discussing the minimum wage or the superannuation guarantee. We won’t be discussing the level of Newstart or the cutting of penalty rates. And we most definitely will not be considering sustainability in the “Jobmaker” discussion.
The task that ScottyFromMarketing has given the face of the latest advertising campaign is to, in Porter’s own words, “have a product come out of every working group.”
“…the product may in some instances be legislative, it may be budgetary, it may be a policy product, but whatever product there is, the purpose of the working groups is to try and garner as much agreement around that product as possible.”
And just in case you didn’t get the message of what these committees will do, Porter repeated the latest slogan over and over during his interview with Leigh Sales.
“They’re designed to deal with specific known problems in the system”
“There are known problems inside the system”
“What we’re concerned about is known problems”
“What we do have here is a known set of problems”
“why would we not try and limit ourselves to solving known problems”
The trouble with this approach is that the government gets to decide which problems to ignore.
Slogans like “technology not taxation” are not action. They are not even a plan for action. And they aren’t even true.
Spokesmodel Angus Taylor, whilst spouting his three-word script, is also pushing to spend taxation dollars propping up an expansion of fossil fuels. Even the very expensive Snowy 2.0 is to be powered by fossil fuels. The hydrogen industry will be powered by fossil fuels. The gas industry will be ramped despite that being the major source of rising emissions in this country.
At some stage today, the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources are obliged to publish the December quarter emissions figures. Bushfire emissions will not be included but reductions due to the drought will be. Not that we should be “setting our hair on fire about climate change and all the rest of it” as whatsisname, the Deputy PM, chided recently.
Meanwhile, the Senate inquiry into the recent catastrophic fires is hearing how the “known problem” of a potential disaster was ignored by the government. Current fire chiefs are gagged from linking bushfires to climate change. Limit what they can say and you limit your response to areas that are more politically advantageous. It’s not fossil fuels causing climate change, it’s greenies stopping hazard reduction burning and wholesale land clearing. And those hundreds of arsonists.
When you employ the gas industry to suggest a road map for the future, you aren’t trying to solve a “known problem” – you are looking for affirmation of the irresponsible abrogation of our responsibility to tackle global heating.
When the pandemic hit, we listened to the medical experts and took action. Sure, they have formed countless committees, but they didn’t push decisions down the road six months until the committee published their findings.
We have thousands of reviews and reports and recommendations. We know what the problems are and how to go about fixing them. And it certainly is not by creating more committees to produce more reports telling you what you want to hear and coming up with more slogans to announce.
The greatest “known problem” in this country is that we are run by ScottyFromMarketing and his inept band of backup vocals.
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