By John Haly  

Just when we thought 2020 was finished, 2021 got off to a foreboding start as Americans attacked their own capitol building in scenes reminiscent of some third world coup. Fortunately, it was completely unsuccessful. Trump has ignominiously left office with a whimper rather than any fanfare. Still, it is worth reviewing this coup/insurrection attempt by Trump and his allies, to understand both the depths of their treason and the legacy America has yet to deal with appropriately.

Long history

America has been deeply embedded in rebellion from its inception, commencing with British setting fire to the U.S. Capitol in 1814 during the British invasion of Washington. By 1861 to 1865, the American Civil War tore the country apart, demonstrating internal schisms have a deep-rooted history. The end of the American civil war gave rise to the KKK and a growing racist and fascist movement in America. By the time German Fascists emerged in the 1930s, America had established its own fascist movement as manifested by Charles Lindbergh’s “America First” isolationists rhetoric. American support by corporate fascists for the German’s authoritarian efforts in WW2 are well known. Enabling corporations such as IBM, Ford, GM and industrialists like Fred Koch (father of the Koch brothers) enabled a fascist regime. They experienced no real reprisals for supporting the German’s murderous regime. The USA continues to breed fascists and racists and strengthen its growth within its borders. For all the Americans’ rhetoric that protests “this is not who we are“, they might consider a review.

Insurrection or coup?

Percentages hide the depths of the problem in America that real numbers might reveal

These “movements” breed the insurrectionists amongst their constituents. Trump’s leadership encouraged their “activism” within America. I use the description “Insurrectionists” as defined under U.S. law to mean “a violent uprising by a group or movement acting for the specific purpose of overthrowing the constituted government and seizing its powers.” However, the Capitol riot’s description as a “coup” by Fiona Hill of Politico is compelling. On Wednesday, 1 pm on the 6th of January 2021, America’s right-wing racist/fascist community descended upon Washington’s Federal Capitol building. They began climbing its walls and smashing into its doors and windows, beating – and in one case killing – Capitol police officers. All to gain access to modify the outcome of the Electoral count, due to be finalised inside what many other Americans, consider the epicentre of American democracy. The insurrectionists were driven by either/or Qanon conspiracy theories, white supremacist racism and a Trump glorifying conservative Christianity. Despite philosophical contradictions, one consistent belief shared by all who stormed the Capitol was a false idea that Trump somehow won the 2020 election. This, despite all the evidence in recounts, court cases and scrutiniser’s oversight evidence, that the opposite is true.

It has been described as a failed attempted coup, long-planned by the rioters and motivated by America’s white supremacist-in-chief, Donald Trump. A president who has now been impeached, yet again, and this time for “aiding and abetting” the insurrection. Accepted now even by his previously most fervent supporter amongst the Republicans, Mitch McConnell. What has become increasingly evident is that the most significant reason for its failure as a coup was the insurrectionist’s incompetence and imbecility.

Election countermoves

Not, although for the lack of endeavoured planning. It wasn’t until the 12th of November a little over a week after the 2020 election that Trump tweeted his alignment to a debunked Qanon claims about voter fraud connected to Dominion Voting Systems that makes voting machines. Having descended into that “rabbit hole”, the claims became more absurd over time. Unfortunately, too many Donald Trump followers began to believe the lies and follow him down that “rabbit hole“. On the other hand, these rioters-to-be had been preparing and training, as revealed in intercepted Zello conversations.

Plans fermented over Social Media on sites such as Twitter and Facebook and later Gab and Parler. The consequences of which pushed Twitter and Facebook to crack down on QAnon and other conspiracy nonsense over the summer. Qanon followers frequently openly called for violence and an event known as “the storm“. Many expected January the 6th, was “the storm” although, given the way “after more than four hours, the mob was cleared” and subsequent protests fizzled away, it blew itself out as most storms do.

By the 22nd of December, the media (social and otherwise) raised the alarm about January the 6th. Arieh Kovler Twitter thread expressing anxiety about that date also speculated about the 2200 Capital police officers’ inability to defend the capital.

Capital offences

If journalists knew it then so did America’s security apparatus but only 500 capital police were assigned to the Capitol Building

Instead of a cast of thousands, the Capital police felt they did not need a full complement nor any extra support from the FBI or Pentagon despite foreknowledge by US Security services. Barely 500 Capital police without riot gear were deployed to defend the building against a cast of thousands. This failure of command led to U.S. Capitol Police Chief’s resignation, Steven Sund, as he fed his woefully equipped police force to the “lions”. Oddly the Capitol Police arrested only 14 people in sharp distinction to the 400 people arrested protesting Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, or the 181 people arrested in 2017 objecting to the GOP’s elimination of aspects of Obamacare or the 575 people arrested in 2018 while protesting the president’s immigration policies or … well it is a long list. The anomalous treatment of protesters gives credence to the idea that amongst the Capitol police were sympathisers to the “cause“. This was also evidenced by some police taking selfies with the rioters and providing unrestricted entrance to the Capitol while staff and lawmakers were still inside.

Accusations of complicity with the rioters were not isolated to the Capitol Police. Investigations into Republican lawmakers giving Capitol tours to insurrectionists in the week before the riots are being opened. Many events before January 6th prepared the insurgents, as Sandi Bachom, Video Journalist reported. Alex Jones (of Infowars) held a rally inciting crowds in preparation for January 6th where Donald Trump was scheduled to address the crowds at the Ellipse near the Washington monument. By Wednesday the 6th at midday, President Donald Trump in a recorded address encouraged thousands of supporters to march on the US Capitol to protest the election results. Promising to “be there with you” as they proceeded with his march on the Capitol, Trump had other premeditated plans. Trump travelled back to the White House to continue to view what he had unleashed, after having spent time in a Tent equipped with monitors, where his family had drank and watched the coup develop in complete safety.

Meanwhile, on Capitol grounds, some insurrectionists organisers armed with megaphones attempted to coordinate an orchestrated event with a coordinated plan. Many others had not been so well briefed or had the pre-riot tours. The results, although, were chaotic. As some called for peaceful protests, other demanded and exhibited violence dragging police into the crowd and beating them. What was ironic was the numbers of law enforcement and military personnel amongst the rioters and racist support staff amongst the Capitol Police. Eventually, Mike Pence authorised the National Guard to end the riots, as Trump had no stake in ending the chaos.

Aftermath

While Electoral Certification proceedings were halted when the riot began, they resumed at 8 pm. Despite ridiculous objections raised during the proceedings and the mass of Republicans who voted against the count, Biden was confirmed to be the next president. Thereafter the innumerable videos posted by the insurrectionists became the evidentiary material for their subsequent arrests. The FBI’s capacity to track the insurgents was aided by collected Parler posts’ depositories (including deleted entries), as used by the insurrectionists.

The embers are still hot, & the passion for conspiracies, racism, & RW Christianity still smoulder.

Despite whatever planning was put into the coup, it would seem they did not take into their considerations some features of telecommunications infrastructure unique to the Capital building. The Capital has it’s own “cellular and wireless data infrastructure of its own to make communications efficient in a building made largely of stone, and that extends deep underground and has pockets of shielded areas.” Hence every insurrectionist that entered the building were tracked and triangulated by their phones, that innumerable rioters were using to photograph and record. The computers that constitute that telecommunications infrastructure logged everything from their phone number to their location in the building.

Emboldened by the day, right-wing agitators planned further protests in the following days at other capitals. However, the turnout to these was classified as non-events by observers, as National Guard, and law-enforcement agencies were assigned to protect many other State’s capitol grounds.

Despite never winning the popular vote in either election, the twice impeached Donald Trump’s ascension to the president’s office was always supported by racism, religion and xenophobia. On page 13 in his book “Everybody Lies” by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, it was demonstrated that racist Google searches had the highest statistical correlation with support for Trump in the Republican primaries. Trump’s support amongst the bigots for whom racism, xenophobia and misogyny are psychological norms, I discussed four years ago, so I need not rehash that again. Nor do I need to discuss Trump’s relationship to Fascism which has apparently being rediscovered. The American’s support for this social dysfunctionality has not diminished, it has been – for now – merely suppressed.

The insurrection fire supporting installing Trump as president for an indeterminable further term of office cooled, spluttered, but has not died. They are repressed, not repentant. The embers are still hot, and the passion for conspiracies, racism, xenophobia and authoritarian Christianity still smoulder amongst the 74.222 million Americans who voted for Trump. God help America if they ever find a competent fascist to vote for in 2024.

[Correction: An earlier version of this article misrepresented the timing the events of the tent monitoring of the insurrection by Trump and his family.]

By John Haly  

Poor old gullible Gladys #koalakiller Berejiklian has all the emotional desires, so many of us have, and the demands of a taxing job that exacerbates her needs. She has always known she might have a lot to deal with, which explains why she has consolidated so many public departments. She just had to silence so many disparate voices making weekly demands of her, to lessen her obligations so that she could focus on matters of the heart. I mean, how many of us have not made the perfect choice of partners, that in later years reflectively ask, “WTF was I thinking?” Give her a break; it was a one-off mistake. “Princess” Gladys’s ruby complexion is a reflection of her private embarrassment. Her handling of public matters, although, has been exemplary – according to her liberal colleagues. I mean, it’s not like she makes a lot of mistakes as a public servant.

So she spent too much money on ferries built overseas with asbestos and too tall to fit under bridges in Parramatta River. But who could have predicted that? So her trains don’t fit the rail lines or go through the tunnels in the Blue Mountains. But who else could have built those trains? Bejesus, who goes to those places by ferry or train anyhow! So she allowed state forests to be logged and Koala habitats to be destroyed. So she approved the expansion of a quarry in the Hunter which will eliminate 52 hectares of prime koala habitat. So she asserted that those lazy public service bludgers (aka “essential workers“) were not worthy of a mere 2.5% wage rise during a recession. Besides the coffers were depleted after the extravagant pay rises awarded to all 65 coalition politicians in Macquarie St earlier in 2019. Still, some public servants were rewarded, such as the $87K rise to our Police Commissioner. You know him, Mick, the fellow who defended the laws Gladys brought in to strip search our kids. A sentiment echoed by the NSW Police Minister, David Elliott.

She is so good with money, though. She got one million dollars for Vales Point Station. Not her fault that it was valued at $730M. Yeah, OK, there were a couple of over-runs. I mean, who doesn’t overrun a budget on the light rail by $3B and Stadiums by $100M Sadly the modern revamp to replace that old “dump” of a Museum at Ultimo which they were very keen to give to their donor property developers, will be retained after protests by all those caffe-latte-drinking leftist protestors. Moving the Powerhouse Museum to a flood plain was a mistake anyone could make when it was such a dry season, that bushfires were all the rage.

Speaking of the worst bushfires in NSW, wasn’t that a confusing time? Not helped by allegations that Gladys refused assistance by the Navy for fire-threatened south coast towns. Berejiklian pulled up short of suggesting our honourable prime minister was lying. Eliminating public service bloat is important – achieved by cutting rural fire service capital expenditure by 75% ($49.9M). These were efficiency dividends, and besides, they still had 25% of their funds. Such unneeded bloat was presumably why she needed to get rid of 26 out of the 36 specialist fire management officers responsible for doing hazard reduction? Ten officers are more than enough for a State area of over 80M hectares. Slashing 500 full-time positions from National Parks and Wildlife was just being economically rational, surely? She was just clearing the bush her own way, and who could have predicted climate change would result in more significant fires? Probably why she thought cutting $12.9M from the state’s Urban fire fighting budget was an act of foresight.

Blackened Home of Ash

Think of all the generous help she gave the federal government and irrigators by supporting the water trading of the Murray Darling Water Plan designed in 2012 whose Authority acted unlawfully when it “completely ignored” climate change projections for the determination of water allocations. Gladys did later begin to recant by considering new water-sharing plans for the Namoi River and water registries. This didn’t include the water registries of Helen Dalton’s Bill which would have listed MP’s water interests. That unsuitable Bill was allowed to lapse. Unlike the Broken Hill pipeline or profitable fracking at Narrabri that threatened water security, as they’d already been approved and one doesn’t want to antagonise donors by reversing decisions! So country towns in NSW ran out of water, Warragamba Dam got polluted, and we had to resort to the desalination plant in Kurnell that relies heavily on fossil fuels to run, making Sydney resident’s water bills to rise. Gladys Berejiklian’s degrees were in Arts and Commerce, so it is unfair to expect her to understand climate science and the causality of events that lead to droughts. It is no wonder she refused to meet with representatives of the Menindee Lakes. I mean, what did they expect her to do, raise the fish from the dead? Folks just expect too much from our Premiers who are far too busy meeting reputable donors or partaking in $950/ticket luncheons (a price just under the $1K disclosure guidelines) with dignitaries.

Westconnex Protest issues list

Gladys is good for business. She is raising so much money for her donors from the public and transport industry, via Sydney’s nine toll roads with a locked-in 4% rise in tolls per year till 2060. That donor, Transurban (Westconnex), may have struggled with the planning to get NSW’s road infrastructure built, but Berejiklian’s support did not waver. She not only supports her generous donor, but her ongoing support to the legal industry has been commendable. NSW will be tied up in litigation for decades because of the compulsory acquisitions of houses and the structural damages to still-standing homes wrought by Westconnex’s construction activity.

Let’s not forget the prescience she exhibited when she hired Aspen Medical (whose director hid $15M in the British Virgin Islands) for $57m for COVID-19 work in Newmarch House (which had 19 Aged Care deaths) and for that lovely cruise ship, the Ruby Princess! She seeks out the “best quality” advice when she needs it. But these errors are past us, and now our business-focused Premier has this COVID-19 infection all under control, almost!

The implications of corruption implicit in this ICAC investigation are over the top, surely? It’s not like someone gave Gladys a bottle of Grange Hermitage that she forgot. Although memory failures featured significantly in her testimony to ICAC, but then who needs an excellent memory to run a State? It’s not like she was accustomed to maintaining a detailed memory with “meticulous focus on every minor policy detail“.

I mean has the shock, horror, scandal news rags of Murdoch said anything critical of Gladys other than she had been “falling for a bloke called Daryl“? Of course not, so honestly, there isn’t anything to be seen here. Just move along and don’t forget to vote them back in, on March 2023! Besides, who will remember any of her government’s small foibles by then?

Fine wines & good times.

This article was originally published on Australia Awaken – Ignite your Torches.

By John Haly  

Disparaging the unemployed youth as lazy, pampered and opposed to hard work is a conservative mantra. Conscripting youth into the army (as Jacqui Lambie would have it) or off to rural farms to do hard graft, has been a talking point for years amongst conservatives.

This opinion has been prevalent during the pandemic associated with mass disappearance of jobs. Senator Gerard Rennick and Colin Boyce MP have respectively expressed these views, in Facebook posts from 16th Aug and 6th Sept 2020.

Similar views are echoed in the Courier Mail articles they posted. “Unemployed youth should be conscripted” by Peter Gleeson and “Crops rot as lazy young Aussies snub lucrative hard work” by Michael Madigan. The first article discussed claims Unions are calling for an end to the working holiday Visa because of exploitation of backpackers on Farms.

Despite the hyperbole, unions were asking for a reformed Visa system, rather than terminating the Visa. This distinction was missed by Peter Gleeson who dismissed union concerns about exploitation with the phrase, “What bulldust“. However, other Murdoch news sources have acknowledged systemic abuse problems when promoting a documentary about Backpacker abuse. Sydney Criminal Lawyers have also documented visa abuse by farmers as has the ABC and business-oriented websites. So, sorry, Peter, these union claims are not “bulldust“. The federal ministers supporting these stories should know that because of their Federal paper on the subject “Labour exploitation and Australia’s visa framework“.

The second story by Michael Madigan implies typically extravagant wages of $3800 are being offered by farmers desperate to find workers. Both articles have exaggerated the earning capacity of a good fruit picker (although Peter’s article “modestly” claims that farmworkers can earn up to $1500 a week). According to Madigan’s article, Gavin Scurr managing director of Piñata Farms (a multi-million dollar business) said, “We recently paid a worker $3800 for a weeks work recently, and that is a top pick up working six days a week, probably around 10 hours a day,…”. Now on that basis, one might be forgiven for presuming that you can earn $63 an hour for picking strawberries. This assumption would reflect a misunderstanding of how much growers pay their workers. Despite both Michael and Peter’s claim that farmworkers can earn extravagant amounts of money, it is somewhat contrary to the Horticulture Industry Award of $19.49 for full-time or $24.36 an hour for casuals.

None of these articles mentions the practice of bonus payments paid on top, of a meagre base pay rate. Performance bonuses are only given to their top picker to encourage competition amongst the workers. Neither do these articles mention the standard rate paid, to everyone else who picks fruit. It is only about the total paid to a single worker who had – in the case of Piñata Farms – worked a sixty-hour week for a farmer who “turns over more than $50 million a year and employs 70 full-time staff and 300 seasonal workers.” Contrast this with the projected cash income for Australian farms of an “average $216,000 per farm in 2016–17, the highest recorded in the past 20 years,” cited by the Department of Agriculture.

At least Peter’s claim of $1500 a week is possible if – at $25/hr – the casual worker picks for 60 hours a week. However, maintaining that level of manual labour on a farm would be unsustainable. Which is presumably why Piñata Farms paid one of their workers who did precisely that, a huge bonus, as per Madigan’s article.

Is the picture of the real potential earning for casual farm worker, gaining any more clarity now?

Senator Rennick’s FB protest disparaging Australian Youth

Colin Boyce’s FB protest disparaging Australian Youth

Why is it a backpacker industry?

Lower rates of pay than are legislated, are typical as many citizen’s confirmed on Colin Boyce MP’s Facebook feed. So why do backpackers take on this work? To qualify for the second Working Holiday Visa (subclass 417) applicants have to finish three months (or 88 days to be exact) of regional farm work in the country. The Visa promotes specific jobs such as fruit picking and packing, trimming vines, fishing, working in tree farming, or working in mining. Backpackers put up with being paid under the award and overcharged for food and accommodation and even sexually exploited. With backpackers in short supply, our politicians are suggesting the use of the “many young, pampered Australians [who] have an aversion to hard work.“

Selected social media comments on Colin Boyce’s FB page

Australian youth who are not seasoned backpackers, face relocation issues, such as the costs associated with travel, accommodation and feeding themselves while on a farm, which would diminish their earnings considerably. Although being accustomed to the poverty level of dole payments have presumably inured them to scrape by on very little. Current travel restrictions prevalent under pandemic conditions would limit Australian youth to work on farms only in their State. Is seeking minimum wages in an industry well known for underpayment, exploitation and poor working conditions the best we can do for our young Australians?

Senator Gerard Rennick echoing these sentiments elicited reaction to his post varying from gratuitous approval like, “Totally agree with this…” to criticism noting why relocation and picking work was fraught with problematic issues. These included the propensity for exploitation and anecdotal stories of the poor working conditions on farms.

Dubious claims that CQ with 4.4% of State pop’ is a booming jobs zone

Logistic Viability

Is farm work a viable option to occupy our “indolent” and unemployed youth, irrespective of possible low pay rates?

Total unemployment is massive under the pandemic. Historically, it has not dipped under a million workers since May 2012, and it did so, only for that month, according to Roy Morgan. For regular numbers below one million you have has to look back before September 2011. ABS only reports half the numbers of domestic unemployment because of their international methodology, which I have explained previously.

Under/Unemployment and Job Vacancies under the coalition

Youth unemployment (15-24 yrs) has had a long history of being more than twice as high percentage-wise as the national average, even by ABS’s low standards. Which in July 2020 measured 16.3% of the youth labour market (Table 13) or 345,900 people.

ABS Youth Unemployment compared to all

Youth Unemployment

So what are the job prospects for this mostly unskilled market of unemployed youth? Are there plenty of jobs in the market?

The Government publishes such data every month in the IVI job vacancy statistics. Under the classification of Labourers, there is a sub-classification for “Farm, Forestry and Garden” Workers. Early September’s seasonally adjusted figures show that in July of 2020 there were 750 such jobs advertised in a class of general unskilled labourers of 10261 vacancies, that were a subset of total job vacancies advertised in Australia of 131072. Unemployment figures, according to Roy Morgan in July were 1,786,000 although the August figures (at the time of writing) were released showing a rise to 1,980,000 people. So from July’s perspective, we can note that farm labour vacancies represent 7.3% of general unskilled labour and 0.57% of all job vacancies advertised.

ABS Youth Employment/Unemployment and unskilled Labour jobs

Keep in mind that the IVI job statistics only drill down to the level of “Farm, Forestry and Garden” Workers which means that Farmworkers specifically are a subset of that 0.57% of Australia wide job vacancies. Given that the Courier Mail stories are spruiking the idea that Australians should be taking up these jobs, I think it is also safe to suggest farmers have been increasing their advertising for workers.

No matter how you cut the numbers and consider all the variables of remote location, physical suitability, skill limits, accessibility limitations, competition, financial limits, of young people; coupled with accounts of employer discrimination, exploitation, feeble pay and working conditions; one has to ask this question. Is the conscription of young people or shaming them into compliance, the best possible recourse of action, for which our political senators and ministers should be lobbying?

There are far greater vacancies in other industries. Should not these parliamentarians not be focusing on where the greatest needs are? Not that farmer’s needs are illegitimate because they are not. These crops do need to be harvested. But professional job roles like engineers, scientists, Health (particularly now), ICT, Lawyers and the like for which there are at least 39580 jobs advertised or 30% of the job market. Managerial roles have 13800 job vacancies (10.5%); Technical and trade workers have 18194 job vacancies (13.8%); Community and personal services workers have 12821 job vacancies (9.8%); Clerical and Administrative workers have 18655 job vacancies (14.2%). These jobs need an educated population to fill them so a better focus for young people would be – one might presume – to promote policies to make education more universally available to young Australians.

Instead, our political conservatives and Murdoch media are focused on the largest unemployed group in Australia to fill jobs in one of the smallest markets for jobs in the country. Dare I make the pun, that there will be no bonuses for your work ethics as you’re all targeting, the easy pickings of the lowest hanging fruit!

This article was originally publish on Australia Awaken – Ignite your Torches.

By John Haly  

Locking down the economy to save lives in a pandemic comes at the cost of unemployment, but how much, is the issue. Measuring that unemployment in Australia has been the focus of much dissent of late, in both social and mainstream media. The variations post-COVID have been extreme and rigour in methodology and measurement primarily abandoned.

Headlines like the ABC’s “Almost a million Australians out of work due to coronavirus; RBA tips economy to take 10pc hit”, are common. The Reserve Bank and Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre asserted similarly, “unemployment rate will rocket from 5.1 per cent past the 1992 high of 11.1 per cent as quickly as August before hitting 12.7 per cent in May 2021.”

ABS instability

Meanwhile, the underfunded and understaffed ABS produced statistics on unemployment that needed readjusting between January and May of 2020. Between 5.1% to 5.2% for any given month, raising or dropping unemployment estimates month to month anywhere between 5,500 to 10,900. The month of February shifted from 689.9K (5.1%) on the 19^th of March by an additional 10.9K to 709.8K (5.2%), by the 16^th of April. The adjacent chart shows the other four adjustments. Data accuracy was problematic under COVID-19.

ABS’s Unemployment website record of changes to unemplyment figures in 2020

Apparently, the ABS had stopped surveying the whole of March during the lockdown. By the 14^th of May, the ABS announced that unemployment had only risen from 5.2% (718.8K) in March to 6.2% (823.3K) in April. No trend estimates for April were released, despite being widely perceived as an underestimate. If this is to be considered valid, then this constituted a percentage of drastic unemployment which had previously been unseen, … since September of 2015 – when it was last 6.2%. In the middle of a Pandemic with apparently massive job losses, we were expected to believe it was as “catastrophic” as most of 2014 and 2015. Although if you look back far enough, it was much worse (as unemployment exceeded 6.2%) in the first half of 2003, back as far as the time ABS kept records, using the redesigned sample methodology developed, back in 1992.

6.2%? Really?

To everyone’s surprise, a certain level of healthy scepticism has arisen about the ABS statistics. There were dozens of social media posts that bandied the “one hour a week” rule for defining employment, as a criticism.

Questioning of Sen. Michaelia Cash 19th Sept 2019 at Doorstop Canberra

The idea that “anything over one” hour a week constitutes “employment” arose from a question raised by a journalist to Michaelia Cash. The reaction to Cash’s “one hour a week” measure of employment is problematic because neither was, the question well-posed nor the answer, accurate. The problem is the “one hour in a week” rule is a misnomer. Statistically, that is true of what is known as the “reference week”, BUT the ABS also takes regard of the four weeks before the end of the reference week. So “what counts as full-time work” is not measured in any one week, neither do they count your work history for only a week. Besides, no one works for merely one hour a week as Greg Jericho is quick to point out. It is far more likely the minimum is at least a single work shift a week. Although, Greg’s focusing on the “one hour a week”, ignores the other points of exclusion.

You also have to be actively looking for work during those four weeks to be counted as unemployed. Other exclusions include working without pay in either a family business or farm during the reference week. Steve Keen in “The Australian”, of all places:

“Herein lies the problem with spin in economic data: sometimes the spin turns your way, sometimes it doesn’t. The ABS uses the internationally sanctioned definition of unemployment, which is similar to Tom Waits’ definition of being drunk: you have to be really, really out of it to qualify. Not only must you not be in employment, but you can’t have done even one hour of paid or unpaid in the four weeks prior to the survey. Nor can you be discouraged by the absence of available jobs either — you must have applied for something in the previous four weeks — and you must be available to start immediately.”

This explains why – for the ABS – unemployment is only 6.2%. The Lockdown by Scott Morrison announced on the 13^th of March began on March 16^th – after his Church’s Pentecostal conference was over. Closures of pubs, clubs, cafes and restaurants weren’t mandated till the following Monday. Further closures of Auction houses, real estate auctions, eating in shopping centre food courts, amusement parks, play centres, etc., were not decided on, till later that week. Wage subsidy packages were decided on, by the end of March.

So, given people have to be unemployed for four weeks to begin to registering to the ABS as “unemployed”, many former employees, would not have even been designated as “unemployed” in April. Also one needs to factor in, that Jobkeeper “hid” people who were later fired in April or thereafter.

International vs domestic

The ABS unemployment methodology is often criticised for the wrong reasons. What people don’t understand is the methodology championed by ILO that ABS has a context – international comparisons. That is the correct context. The “I” in ILO stands for International not Intra-national.

As a stand-alone domestic measure, it is fundamentally flawed—realised by the concession that there is an element of “hidden unemployment” that is not measured by the ABS methods. There is also a concept of “discouraged job seekers” and “underutilisation”. All these additional descriptions are an admission that the ABS does not wholistically measure Australian unemployment. The ILO standard was never designed to be used to measure the internal or domestic unemployment of any country.  Alan Austin often uses ABS statistics to compare nations but continues to demonstrate that, there is more to Australian unemployment than just the 5+% the ABS has been claiming in recent years.

Australian domestic employment

The ABS does not adequately measure real domestic unemployment. The government frequently engages with these measures to deceive the public as to the actual extent of domestic unemployment. This is where the non-internationally comparative Roy Morgan’s statistics should be used. They are a far more accurate measure of real domestic unemployment in Australia. Roy Morgan is quite capable of defending its methodology. Comparing Roy Morgan and the ABS shows that the ABS has become increasingly misaligned.

Roy Morgan vs ABS statistics on unemployment

Charting Roy Morgan’s employment statistics for over a decade and adding the Department of Employment’s IVI statistics for job vacancies reveals several long-standing trends.

1. Full-time work has been falling as a portion of Employment in Australia, and Part-time has been rising.
2. The rate of entry into the workforce is not matched by employment growth.  Unemployment now at 15.3% from 6.3% in April 13 years ago as illustrated by the gap between workforce and employment.
3. There have never been enough job vacancies to fill the unemployed’s needs for work.
4. There was no robustness in the economy for jobs to survive any emergency that might disrupt it.

Workforce, employment and job vacancies in Australia over 13 years

This graph shows a stark drop in full-time employment when pandemic lockdown occurred, but not so for part-time employment. While these are early days to track significant reductions, there is another explanation.

Corporation’s human capital is often hard and expensive to acquire. Expertise that marches out the door from an enterprise can be irreplaceable, especially in high-end jobs. Drilling down into the IVI stats for job vacancies reveals numeric disparities between entry-level jobs and highly skilled positions.

The combination of managers, professionals, technicians, social workers, clericals, etc., represent the largest portion of job vacancies whereas labourers, machinery operators, drivers and low skilled jobs are a much smaller proportion. I’ve outlined these proportions previously via Anglicare’s Jobs Availability Snapshot.

Shifting full-time workers to part-time helps employers retaining critical staff when their business recovers. The ACA promoted this as an option for keeping staff, and the JobKeeper legislation enables that approach.

Australian under and unemployment

Still, where is our recovery going to come from when you consider the figures of this graph on under and unemployment and job vacancies? Consider:

1. Given the enormity of under and unemployment (24.7%), how can our economy recover?
2. Given the trend in falling job vacancies to less than half what it was at the beginning of the year, from where is employment going to come?
3. Given Australia has been in a per-capita recession since late 2018 where is the pre-existing economic robustness for a functional recovery?
4. Given the previous falls in business & consumer confidence, Wage rates and household saving, and rises in CPI, Utility pricing, through household debt where is the cushion for a soft landing?

Under & unemployment and the poor job vacancy opportunities in Australia

The methodology for unemployment measurements during the great depression of the 1930s was different from how we measure today. Pointing out that unemployment reached a record high of around 30% in 1932, is problematic as we are not using comparable measures. That hasn’t stopped the media from making the comparison, and it is not that far fetched, given the enormity of the problem.

Poor economic indicators for Australia leading into 2020

This article was originally published on Australia Awaken – Ignite your Torches.

By John Haly  

The CovidSafe app has triggered innumerable privacy and security concerns amidst the public, who are already deeply suspicious of a government that has eroded public trust. Amongst recent instances of the diminishment of our trust are:

• accusing arsonists of being responsible for the Summer fires,
• much pork barrelling in coalition seats (including but not restricted to the Sports-Rorts),
• the draining of Australian river waters by the continued attempt to privatise water supply,
• the recalcitrance over climate change and the attacks instigated by many levels of Government upon members of the public raising the issue,
• government recalcitrance in addressing issues of wage stagnation, welfare reform, and phony debt recovery.

Despite the trust deficit, the Australian Government has spent $1.5m on CovidSafe, including over $700,000 for Amazon to host the data.

But is the issue Trust or Competence?

The lack of trust in this Government’s promotion of this CovidSafe App may be justifiable on their record on privacy and security. Still, you have to keep in mind their frequent displays of incompetence in science and technology. Remember Abbott and Brandis trying to tell the public what metadata was? Remember Malcolm Turnbull trying to come up with a better NBN? Recall both the Australian Census online or the Centrelink portal failures were falsely blamed on convenient DOS attacks? Attacking them on untrustworthiness can be done. Still, it is easier to criticise the App’s lack of suitability both technically and statistically. So I am going to stay away from the privacy and security issue and ask the question, is the CovidSafe App fit for purpose?

The Physics of Radio Signals

My analysis begins with a comment in a recent ABC article concerning the software bugs and issues of the COVIDSafe contact-tracing app:

“ … “Because mobile phone device models are different in Bluetooth strength and how they operate, all contacts within Bluetooth range are noted on the user’s device,” a DTA spokesperson said. …”

Bugs and issues can be fixed (although not in time before lockdown lift begins), but there are limits to what our science can discern about the physics of radio signals, like Bluetooth.

Let me ask you, dear reader, a few questions.

Do you live in the country, city, an apartment or have anyone who lives within 10 metres of you? Do you stand in a social distancing line keeping the required 1.5m while waiting to get into a shop? The answer to the last question ought to be yes, but bear with me. If you are within 10 metres – or in right circumstances, perhaps twice that – then you and a stranger or a known neighbour can be tagged with “associating” because this App uses Bluetooth to detect other phones.

Before you protest that it is supposed to be when you are within 1.5 metres, keep in mind using BlueTooth for localisation is a very well researched field of study. Bluetooth and other narrowband radio systems can only reach an accuracy of several metres at best without accompanying geolocation or triangulation of wifi data (a strategy later IEEE papers raise as attempts to overcome localisation inaccuracies). Naturally adding geolocation data, raises all the apparent privacy and monitoring concerns (which I said I was not going to go into). This App, for now, doesn’t use geolocation except on the Android/Google version of the App in a limited capacity.

Bluetooth Ranges by class dependancies

Signal strength isn’t a good indicator of distance between two connected BlueTooth devices, because it is too subject to environmental conditions. Is there a person between the devices? How is the owner holding his/her device? What is its proximity to metal plates that impede the signal path? Are there any other radio frequency reflecting surfaces? Is there a wall? Concrete walls will attenuate the radio signal. Using BlueTooth is essentially wholly inaccurate, and it has absolutely no sense of direction. Much like our Government, but I digress. Whereas the virus can’t traverse walls and floors (unless it is brought into enclosed spaces by people), Bluetooth can. Generically for a distance of approximately 10 metres. Although my testing on a five-year-old iPhone 5 running iOS 9 can make a connection from nearly 20 metres through two building walls or doors. So Bluetooth can’t tell when you are 1.5 metres away.

Bluetooth Ranges are extending not contracting.

Meaning two neighbours sitting alone watching TV in their lounge room – according to their respective phones running the App – have been in close contact for hours if your binge-watching a good series. Let’s not even discuss how long you and your neighbours have spent “sleeping” together, while alone in your adjacent houses or apartments with your phones on the charger by your beds. For all you know, anybody’s phone might be standing in the adjacent store, approximately ten or more metres away but with whom you never interact. The Government App will be rife with false positives without you even knowing who these “contacts” are.

Google Phone providing geolocation permissions

But alternatively, a passing stranger’s viral cough load, can in seconds, infect you. So can contact from a surface contaminated with coronavirus. Someone coughing into your face is undetectable by your mutual phones, unless he spends 15 minutes in your proximity, apologising. At least if that happens, you have plenty of time to ask for name and contact information for the contact tracers, when one of you gets unfortunate news after being tested. Touching an infected surface and forgetting to wash your hands before shovelling food into your mouth, means the time between contact and infection, can be hours, but either the wrong or no phone, might be blamed.

The App can detect none of these scenarios that tell you when another person with the same App, has a phone. None of these things will trigger a 15 minute Bluetooth alert. It is not just false positives that it will generate, but it simply can not detect anything other than another phone. Let me reiterate. It is a Phone detection facility, not a virus detection facility!!

The Lottery Probability

Now let’s discuss some numbers! The ABC reported on the 6th of May, that 5 million phones that had uploaded the App. The Government reported on the same day we had conducted 688K tests Australia-wide for the virus. This lifted our testing stats to 2.6% of the population, presuming not too many people have gone in for repeat tests.

Our consequent testing regime has risen (as of 21st of May) to 1,137,684 tests or 4.4% of the Australian population of 25.695 million. Simultaneously, the upload of CovidSafe has slowed to only 5.87 million by the 19th of May. So 22% of the population (a long way from Morrison’s desire for 40%) with an App that can only potentially detect 4.4% of the population, and a lot of these tests will be negative – for now. Only 0.65% of all those tests have been positive.

The Covid infection Status in Australia as of 6th of May

So let’s rephrase that.

So 22% of the population – if paired with mutual phones running a working version of the CovidSafe App – can confirm the 0.65% of 4.4% of our population, has coronavirus. To be fair, it might have a remote possibility of identifying someone with an infection, but the probability of my winning the lottery has a better chance. Let’s not forget the only alert the App – in theory – sends, is AFTER someone has been infected and have informed authorities and a tracing team has triggered the alarm, which, if they have infected you, is a little too late. Note I used phrases like, “might have” and “in theory.” Sadly as of writing this, the capacity of the App to do any of this is non-existent.

The Covid infection Status in Australia as of 21st of May

Operability

As of the 19th of May, no State in Australia has reported any use of the CovidSafe App data, and the State with the most substantial documented infection rate (NSW) “has had issues integrating it into the existing contact-tracing method.” In addition to the incapacity of States to process the data, many smartphones can’t run the CovidSafe App.  The Guardian reports, “there are no plans to make it work on phones operating older software than iOS 10 and Android 6.0.” This is not a recent discovery, as we have known for some time that the tracing capacity is inoperative.

Risk Factors

The most significant risk is the public’s misunderstanding that it will keep them safe. That leads to complacency, which means people may ease their due diligence and not be so cautious about social distancing and washing their hands regularly. That is where it becomes dangerous.

To quote one woman I interacted with recently on social media said, “I have the app because l want to be notified if l have come into contact with a positive person and get tested ASAP.” The App was never even conceived to be a buzzer that alerts you to positive people nearby. Perceptions like that actually make it dangerous! Not only does it not keep you ”safe,” but it also has the potential to increase the risk of infection through complacency. The Government has been negligent in educating the public not only to what it is supposed to do, but what are the limits of the physics of radio waves and statistical probability.

People’s misunderstanding of how the App works leads to risk taking.

Alternately?

Instead of focusing on a dysfunctional App, perhaps we should be following the examples of Iceland, South Korea, Germany, or our neighbour New Zealand and upscaling randomised asymptomatic testing or regular testing for critical workers. All the success stories of countries handling the virus have the common thread that testing was crucial.

Conclusion

The App is not a panacea for tracing infection. It is a placebo to placate the masses who are too technically illiterate to understand the nuances and limitations of technology, by an incompetent Government that focuses on misunderstood technology at the expense of more robust asymptomatic testing of Australians.

Unfit for purpose? Gov’t or App?

By John Haly

Voting is the expression of the rights of an individual to participate in their government, but like any expression, it can be misdirected, coerced, bought and sold. Political Parties understand the role and importance of marketing, propaganda and salesmanship in seeking your vote, irrespective of whether it is in your or your community’s best interest, or aligns with your values.

Value development

For the rest of us, our political attitudes are not always based on careful consideration of policy. Instead, a range of factors including gender, family, religion, race and ethnicity, and early childhood environments are strong predictors of political beliefs.

However, we arrive at our political beliefs; the next question we need to ask is, who in the political spectrum best represents those beliefs. This may be discovered by:

• an analysis of the policies and their consequences
• an evaluation of the perceived integrity of the political party

There is a range of political analysis strategies to make a systematic evaluation.  Though this does presume that:

1. Any of us spend any time to analyse the policies of political parties.
2. Politicians can be trusted to follow through on their promises and ideological pronouncements.
3. Politicians represent their constituents and not the interests of well-financed lobbyists and donors.

Instead of a rationally researched choice, research demonstrates that we engage in:

1. Bandwagon voting [1]  in which people’s voting preferences are reflecting a desire to follow trends and “hop on the bandwagon” regardless of the underlying evidence. [2]
2. Reluctance to change voting patterns as other research from Europe demonstrates that voters do not adjust their perceptions according to what parties advocate in their campaigns. [3]
3. A lack of comprehension of essential differences between the major parties motivated by the desire to decrease the potential costs of post-decision regrets. [4]

Why discouraging small party votes disempowers voter’s message.

Major political parties actively encourage bandwagon voting. A prime example is an argument that you should vote for a major party on the pretext that that is more likely to win, instead of voting for the minor party which holds policies with which you agree. This argument ensures you throw away your real choices, for a compromise with values you don’t own, for people you would rather not have in power and relinquish your one element of control to power brokers. I can only assume this must be very empowering for someone, just not the voter.

The reluctance to change your voting patterns despite disagreeing with what parties advocate is a common problem in every democracy.  Pensioners expressing anger at being shafted by the government, then declaring their continuance to vote for the same party, may seem odd to an outsider, but we know it happens.

Turnout % failure increasing in real numbers in recent decades.

Failure to comprehend essential policy differences underpins the high incidence of informal voting in Australia of around 6%. The percentages of voter turnout failures and eligible voters not registering has also increased over time, although offset recently by the Marriage Equality plebiscite voter enrolments. Informal vote margins could have changed outcomes in electorates and possibly even the election of 2016.  Many are content to throw away their only leverage in politics; protesting that we don’t like our options when we don’t know what our options are. These folk are highly disengaged with the ability to change politics but are very deliberate in expressing their political disappointment.

Left or Right

Other issues are the misperception of where your values lie on the spectrum between left and right wing, or “progressive” versus “tyrannical”.  Some other people are sufficiently misled in concepts of political theory to associate socialism with the Nazis or can’t distinguish between communism, socialism, capitalism and democratic socialism.

ABC’s insular perception of political positioning

To aid objective rationality researchers examine party policies, attempting to map a parties position on the political spectrum. The ABC’s vote compass tries to help voters understand their position relative to each of the main political parties. The ABC describes its online survey as a civic engagement application, where one can:

“Based on a user’s responses to a series of propositions that reflect salient aspects of the campaign discourse, Vote Compass calculates the alignment between the user’s personal views and the positions of the political parties.”

Its critics suggest it’s an insular Australia-centric representation of political ideology, treating the Labor Party as Left-wing party and the Liberals as Right-wing party.  The Greens and One Nations are treated as political extremists. The basis of the perception is that it reflects community attitudes. There is an apparent political reluctance for the ABC – and the “political scientists” who designed the “compass”, – to challenge the status quo or adopt an international perspective.

Democratic Socialism or Nationalist conservatism

The Liberal Party in Australia sees themselves as conservative which former prime minister John Howard described as a “broad church”. The Labor party still see themselves as a left-wing “democratic socialist party”. Oddly both Labor and Liberal suffer from the delusion that they are progressive parties who are at odds with each other when they are really merely in heated agreement. Some pundits legitimately note there are left and right factions within both Parties, but the party as a whole, cannot be both.  Both Labor and Liberal party candidates vote as a whole and discourage “crossing the floor“.

The party as defined by what its policies support, must by logical necessity, establish itself as either one or the other, independent of its internal divisions. As such, I am not interested in the individuals but the gestalt organisation. Also, I want to introduce a more global view of politics rather than the insular ABC Vote compass.   A broader international perspective lifts us away from the tedious bias criticisms levelled at the ABC from both “sides” of the political spectrum.

The shifting polarisations of localised political perspective over time.

How the world sees the political spectrum has changed since it was simplistically regarded as American capitalism versus the communist Soviet Union. This died with the Soviet Union’s restructure via Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika. In the latter part of the 1980s, as the walls came down in Berlin, perspectives changed. The attitudes of Menzies’ worship in the 1980s that framed perspectives for political engagement, for men like Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey, and Christopher Pine at college, have shifted significantly.

The Global Compass

Political Compass positioning of Parties in 2016

The internet phenomenon of the political compass did not originate from the ABC but from further afield from an older body of political analysts, who review politics from an international perspective as opposed to our myopic national perception. “The Political Compass” has been analysing OECD democracies since 2001. Their perspective on the political positioning of Australian politics is very different and revealing. The political compass provides a much more accurate assessment of the exact nature of the political positioning of parties in the Australian democracy (and for that matter several other democracies such as the UK, Canada, America, Germany, New Zealand, Irish, and European Governments).

Previous Labor Party progression and direction change since 2016.

What is of particular interest to myself was to review their separately graphed analysis of each year to gain a perspective on how we have changed over time. To this end, I have overlaid the graphs from the last four elections as depicted by the analysis from https://www.politicalcompass.org/aus2007 to https://www.politicalcompass.org/aus2016. This show’s Labor as a right-wing authoritarian party that had been steadily marching further rightwards and more authoritarian until 2016 when it seems they took a back step.

Liberal policy blip leftwards corrected under Morrison and back on course.

It has primarily followed behind the Liberal party, which, although always further right in political ideology at any instance in time, shifted towards the centre in 2016. While this shift helped the Liberals under Turnbull win the 2016 election, the Right-wing factions of the Liberal Party subsequently reasserted themselves. After a challenge by former immigration ministers Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison, the conservative Morrison claimed the Leadership of the party.  The direction of the party reassumed the previous course to the Right.

National Party being utterly consistent and never swerving from the path.

Interestingly, the only party that has made no backstep at all was the National Party. They have stopped for nobody including their partners in the Liberal Party. If you are a right-wing voter who expresses some concern that the Liberal party has softened, then the Nationals have compromised for nobody. Neither, for that matter, has Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party.

Menzies & Whitlam

White Australia Policy – Racist & misogynist

From 1949 to 1966 Sir Robert Menzies dominated conservative politics as the Prime Minister.  While described by contemporaries as the Father of the modern conservative movement he was far more pro-refugee, pro-family, pro-freedom, pro-middle-class as the “The Forgotten People” broadcasts showed, then the current manifestation of the Liberal Party. Despite his support for the racist White Australia policy (which is an attitude that has run consistently through his party for generations) his later dismantling the policy and ratification of the UN Refugee Convention was far more progressive than what is exhibited by his party today with their indefinite detention programs. The conservatives held power until 1972 when Australia reacted to a long run of conservative political leadership and voted Whitlam and his agenda into power. By 1973 Whitlam’s Government changed immigration laws to repudiate race as an issue.  Gough Whitlam from 1972 to 1975 shifted the political face of the country sharply to the left-wing.  From the perspective of where Australia had been, his policies seemed radical. Some suggest that in comparison with the world stage, Gough was predominately only playing catch-up with many more progressive countries that had already gone down the path Gough was following. He admitted this in his 1969 election policy speech in Sydney Town Hall about education. Though to many Australians, especially the Right-wing, it was radical politics. While “The Political Compass” has taken no stock or measure of what the Labor Party looked like then, I suspect given the history of the movement of the Labor party in the socioeconomic, political spectrum, and it would be fair to suggest it was legitimately a Left-wing party at that time. It has marched steadily rightwards in the decades that followed.

Strange bedfellows

The only significant left-wing parties in existence anymore according to “The Political Compass”, were the Democrats, Bob Katter’s party and the Greens. Sadly, Don Chip’s political ambitions to “keep the bastards honest”, has been mostly lost to history.  Bob Katter – while initially a member of the National Party – formed his party in 2011 and remained as a member of Parliament – neither gaining or losing ground. The Greens party, on the other hand, shifted towards the centre where the Democrats once trod, even taking on board as members, former state party politicians from the Democrats.

Labor catching up with the Nationals.

So regarding the left/right divides of the political spectrum, it is incorrect to think of it as between the ALP and the LNP. The real gap between left and right policies, ideologies, and social causes are primarily between the Greens on the left and the Labor/National/Liberal “coalition” on the right. Not of course, that the Liberals or Labor party would consider themselves in such an alliance, given their antipathy.  In 2013 the political compass placed the Labor Party’s positioning under Kevin Rudd, to the right of the National party’s position in 2007 under Mark Vaile.  Perhaps discovering the Labor party held a political policy position further to the right and closer toward authoritarian than the Liberal party’s partners (The Nationals) during the Howard years is undoubtedly challenging to some. While the conception of a Liberal/Labor coalition is unpalatable to both parties, keep in mind the Nationals under the Leadership of Barnaby Joyce had marched onwards unrelentingly rightwards and authoritarian and are no longer trailing behind the Liberal party the way Labor has done.

How far Right?

Small party movements and trajectories.

We should evaluate parties regarding their real and current political persuasions in the 21st-century rather than what they were in the 20th century under Menzies or Whitlam. The Labor “left” is no longer close to left-wing!  If the rise of far-right nationalist movements from National Action in the 1980s, to Australia First, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Rise Up Australia (RUA),  and the Australian Protectionist Party (APP), are any indicators, the two major parties are far more closely aligned. The political compass only charted One Nation in 2007 and 2013, but it is evident where on the spectrum it sits. In the absence of a re-evaluation for 2019, we must look to policy changes in parties to determine how far to the Right-wing sit Liberal, Nationals, One Nation and Labor. Given the bipartisan agreement around legislation and policies over initial Adani Coal mining support (although there are signs of change recently), refugee detention, Foreign interference, Encryption laws, journalists and whistle-blower repression, Social media laws restraints, Low targets for NEG energy , website blocking, the PM’s war powers, cutting migrant welfare, Aged care funding cuts, costly education, private healthcare, Metadata retention, globalisation of trade, mandatory sentencing agendas, static Newstart allowances,  criminalisation of abuse reporting and privatisation of public assets, it is not hard to deduce the policy direction. While they have differences on minimum wage (only recently), marriage equality, climate change, Medicare, tax cuts, Federal ICAC, negative gearing and infrastructure & economy, remember that the Labor party has voted with the Liberals for at least 40% of all Liberal legislative agendas since 2013.

How Far Left?

Greens and Liberals – just who are the “Neo-liberals on bikes”?

The only representative left-wing parties noted by the “The Political Compass”, were the Democrats, Bob Katter’s party and the Greens.  The Democrats being the only real centrists to speak of had largely exited the realm of political influence but have returned to contest 2019’s election. The Green’s have floated around on the left side of the political spectrum becoming more Libertarian/Progressive over time but lately shifting rightwards. The Greens have been disparagingly referred to as “neoliberals on bikes”, but while it is true, they have as a party moved rightwards they are by the Political Compass’s assessment a long way from the Labor/Liberal/National neoliberal agendas. The Democrats and Greens are the closest to centrist parties Australia has.

Beyond these parties, the “Political Compass” has not assessed other left-wing or progressive smaller parties. These would include the Pirate Party, the Arts Party, Science Party, Socialist Alliance, and Reason Party, amongst others. The rise of small parties has been marked, and while the Political Compass does not evaluate them, recent emergents have been summarised in the embedded link here.

Choices

As 2019 election draws close, whatever values you seek in a party, left or right, socially conservative or progressive, it behoves you to consider which party aligns to your values. So perhaps it is time to reassess both your perception of where your party of choice stands in relation to what you believe. As such “The Political Compass” test, may be revelatory.

The right-wing power Block and what we can expect for 2019.

In doing so, perhaps you might adapt the fixed impression you’ve held over the past, for where the party you’ve always voted for, has moved to in the dynamic and ever-shifting landscape of Australian politics.

If you are a member of any number of right-wing nationalist parties such as “Rise Up”, “Australia First”, “Love Australia or Leave”, then your mainstream preferences would likely be extended to One Nation, the Nationals and the Liberal party in that order. If that is too far right-wing for your liking, but you are still conservative, then the Liberal Party followed by Labor makes a good choice. If you are what many refer to as a conservative “small l” liberal or a mild to a moderate right-wing constituent, then the Labor Party is the only option left to the right. Should in that process, you discover your leanings are significant enough to the left of the Labor/National/Liberal/One Nation right-wing power block, then you have three main options in Bob Katter, the Democrats and the Greens and numerous small progressive party options to choose from, depending on if they have representatives in your electorate.

To many realising that “Labor” is a right-wing party and “The Greens” are the only progressive centrist mainstream party is disturbing enough to one’s decision process, without having to evaluate the real position of smaller parties. The public’s expectations of democracy in Australia are damaged enough already.

What’s in it for …?

While there is inevitably, the hedonistic approach to politics, on which so many politicians count. All to garner your vote, with “What’s in it for me?”,  as opposed to “What’s in it for my country?”!  Might I remind you of the words of Gough Whitlam when writing in the London Daily Telegraph in October of 1989?

“The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.”

 Footnotes:

[1] Rebecca B. Morton, Daniel Muller, Lionel Page, Benno Torgler (2015) “Exit polls, turnout, and bandwagon voting: Evidence from a natural experiment”, European Economic Review, Volume 77, July 2015, Pages 65-81, Elsevier [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292115000483]

[2] David J. Lanoue and Shaun Bowler (1988), “Picking the Winners: Perceptions of Party Viability and Their Impact on Voting Behavior”, Social Science Quarterly Vol. 79, No. 2 (June 1998), pp. 361-377, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/42863794]

[3] Fernandez-Vazquez, P., & Somer-Topcu, Z. (2017). The Informational Role of Party Leader Changes on Voter Perceptions of Party Positions. British Journal of Political Science, 1-20. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123417000047]

[4] Craig Goodman, Gregg R. Murray (2007), “Do You See What I See? Perceptions of Party Differences and Voting Behavior”, American Politics Research, Volume: 35 issue: 6, page(s): 905-931 [https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X07303755]

This article was originally published on Australia Awaken – Ignite your Torches

By John Haly and Dr Martha Knox-Haly  

Transparency International’s official assessment released in January 2019, indicated that corruption grew in Australia.

During the current term of the Federal Coalition Government, Australia fell from 7th place to 13^th place in 2015 and has not shifted since on Transparency International’s index. This relative stability is illusory. The indexed gap United Kingdom (80) and Austria (76) is the widest available for the top 20 least corrupt countries. The width of this gap has obscured Australia’s actual fall from 79 to 77. The latest review by TI was completed by September 2018, after which time new Federal Government scandals emerged:

• Paladin corruption allegations,
• Royal Commission findings on Banks,
• No charges laid over questionable tip-offs on AFP’s union raid from Michaelia Cash’s office.
• Northern Territory’s public service corruption charges

Federal ICAC proposals

This prompting renewed calls from the media and public for a federal ICAC to be established. Previously submitted by Sen Bob Brown in 2010, Adam Brant in 2012 & 2017, Christine Milne in 2013 and lately Cathy McGowan in 2018.  None of which have come to fruition.

In early 2018, the Australia Institute convened a panel of experts on the subject of the different forms of anti-corruption commissions, generating diverse political and legal reactions. The report’s recommendations remain unenacted despite growing corruption in our governance.

Apart from Tony Abbott begging the government not to create an integrity commission, both major political parties were at least considering such a commission. The Federal Labour party has promised to implement an anti-corruption agency based on the Australia Institute research. In the meantime, Cathy McGowen delivered her National Integrity Commission (NIC) legislation in the last week of November and the second bill for National Integrity Bill in early December. Despite a motion in support in Parliament, it was referred to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee for a report due April 5th. Morrison was initially dismissing it as a “fringe issue”, rejected the McGowen model, offering the coalition’s version, which was neither retrospective, public nor able to make findings of corruption.

The debate has since become what model of Anti-corruption enforcement might actually be useful and agreed upon federally.

Corruption fight as a threat to democracy

How we structure and manage anticorruption commissions, matters.

Transparency International’s anti-corruption conference in Denmark in 2018 made a predictive and correct analysis of Brazil’s presidential elections based on what many saw as the failure of anti-corruption measures.  I attended a workshop in Copenhagen titled “The fight against corruption as a threat to democracy” predominately concerned with achieving increased transparency without political radicalisation. Jair Bolsonaro’s rise to power was a cautionary example.

The workshop concluded that an improperly managed anti-corruption body could be both ineffective and harmful to civil society, engendering populist movements and anti-establishment radicalism as manifested in Brazil. Corruption prevention by itself would not strengthen democracy and scandals could lead to:

1. A power vacuum to be filled by even worse governance,
2. Fuel cynicism towards politics,
3. Entrench the idea that corruption is inevitable.

So we need to ask of any commission:

• What should the characteristics of it be?
• Is it a court or an investigative body
• Does it secure prosecutions?
• Should it raise community expectations of a transparent clean society?
• To whom does it report?
• Who is covered by this legislation?

In Singapore, the CPIB reports directly to the Prime Minister’s office, but in the era of Donald Trump, is a direct line to the top a good idea?  Does it cover civilian public servants, the private sector, the police? Should elected officials, including our Prime Minister, to be classed as public servants and answerable to this commission?

At this point, we come to the conflict that occurs between lawyers versus political/civil objectives. Legal experts have argued that public hearings risk reputational damage, but interestingly, even the Australian’s Mark Coultan noted that “ICAC routinely conducts priv­ate hearings before proceeding to a public inquiry.”  He went on to remind us that:

“Mr Sturgess, head of the cab­inet office in the Greiner government when ICAC was established, warned that making all hearings private would radically alter the nature of the organisation.”

When you consider that it was Ian Macdonald, found guilty of corruption, who said making hearings private was long overdue, it may be mindful to ask who seeks to gain the most from secret hearings? A lack of transparency will always hide corruption.

Lawyers also express concerns around the lack of the usual rules of evidence that exist around admissibility of evidence to these commissions.  For example, lack of available admissible evidence was why in the case of Bankstown and Strathfield councils in November of 2007 resulted in findings of corrupt conduct, but did not result in a referral to the Director of Public Prosecutions. This case essentially represented a tussle between criminal standards of evidence versus a civil good.

Conversely, it has been argued that public hearings play an essential role in engaging the public in democratic processes, and this is clear through regular community surveys. Transparency builds confidence in public institutions and giving whistleblowers a line of sight between their actions and consequences. Whistleblower Rebecca Connor’s mining corruption allegations could have been buried with parliamentary debate and committees. Although, parliamentary committees have upheld the principle of public hearings on several occasions. Assertions of unfair reputational damage overlook the detailed pre-investigative processes that preceded public hearings.

NSW ICAC regularly receives approval levels above 85% in community surveys. In states where hearings are conducted in secrecy such as Victoria’s IBAC or South Australia’s ICAC, there is little community awareness, and consequently has no role in building community confidence. The vast majority of the public perceives most, if not all, politicians are corrupt.

Positive perceptions of ICAC for the people of NSW over time.

The next important consideration is that operational legislation specifies the right to investigate, recommend charges, present reports to parliament, and pursue parliamentarians. The early successes of NSW ICAC from 1989 to 1993, and then later from 2011 to 2015 were facilitated by strong political will and commitment to transparency. A commission thrives or withers depending on the level of political favour. The first few years of an agency being established are marked by many legal challenges to its jurisdiction. Therefore, a dynamically supportive legislature is a must in addressing weaknesses exposed by legal challenges.

Does the commission have funding for a dedicated unit to provide advice around legislative reforms? One of the reasons for NSW ICAC’s success under Ian Temby QC was the existence of such a department which was able to provide advice on matters of legislative reform. [NSW ICAC Annual report 1991 pg 66]. There also needs to be a mechanism for independent evaluation of the ICAC’s budgetary needs, as investigations and public hearings are costly.

McGowan or Morrison’s model?

So how do the respective models offered by McGowan versus Morrison stack up? On 13^th December 2018, Morrison announced a Commonwealth Integrity Commissioner (CIC), who would have oversight over a Law Enforcement Integrity Commissioner and a Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. The new commission will have the power to investigate politicians and their staff but is not allowed to act on complaints raised by the public or reported in the media. It will not have public hearings and is designed to respond to allegations of criminal conduct. Criminal conduct represents a much narrower standard than what has been applicable for other state-level anti-corruption agencies, which had a broad mandate of investigating misconduct. Grey instances such as Susan Ley’s use of tax-payer funded travel to coincidentally inspect an investment property; Barnaby Joyce created a position for his partner or Peter Dutton’s profiting from Childcare facilities, or the lack of tendering for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority funding scandal would not be referred. Can the status quo be challenged as we sanction misconduct by directing it to internal review?

The CIC cannot make findings of corruption, misconduct or criminal matters. This stands in contrast to NSW ICAC which is allowed to make findings of contempt, corrupt conduct and report on recommendations for criminal charges.

Funding is estimated to be between $100 to $125 million and is considered inadequate. There is a proposal around mandatory reporting of corrupt conduct by public servants, but this does not include mandatory reporting by parliamentarians. It is not clear whom this commission will report to, or whether it would present publicly available reports to parliament. Not surprisingly, former NSW ICAC Commissioner David Ipp described the CIC as the “kind of integrity commission that you would have when you don’t want to have an integrity commission.”

Audio file from the conference:

This article was originally published on Australia Awaken – Ignite your Torches.

By John Haly 

When we contemplate great evil, who comes to mind? Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Idi Amin, Kim Il Sung, Josef Mengele, Saddam Hussein, Emperor Nero and so on? Too easy. The reasons are apparent, the history unrefuted and the weight of affirming opinions near universal.

We all like to think of evil as insidious, intentional, cruel, focused and malodorous even. Isn’t “evil” patently recognisable by its social maladjustment? That is the comfortable illusion of how “good folk” describe evil to distinguish ourselves from it. So it may be surprising to hear that according to psychologists nobody thinks of themselves as evil. We self-justify actions and beliefs. Folks may hold their irrationality within their mindset, as they persist with the delusion of being the good guys.

Hitler, for example, grew up in a time where he experienced the open expression of anti-Semitism. He didn’t create anti-semitism, it was his honest belief, that the Jews were responsible for the economic hard times of other Germans in the post-war years. Seems almost banal, doesn’t it?

Chase Replogle writes “Arendt coined the phrase, the ‘banality of evil.’ You can define banal as, ‘so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring.’ What Arendt observed was that evil feeds not just on extremism, but just as frequently on our banality. Sin works its way deepest into the most boring and apathetic lives.”

We often don’t recognise evil amidst banality as it is human nature to separate “evil” from our apathy, ignorance, “benign neglect”, “thoughtless bureaucracy”, or our an innate desire to please our perceived “superiors”. Aren’t we all just inclined to follow orders? Resistance is hard, besides “who has the time to protest”? Perhaps you vote for the good guys (however or whomever you decide are the “good guys“), and in that single choice, you make once every three years, some may consider their duty complete. “That’s a democracy“, you cry. As though to comfort ourselves we say, “I’ve done the right thing; I’m not evil or fascist!”

The evils of indecision

Last century’s Version of Fascism

But then who is fascist? Is it what it was or what it will be? How often do we accuse the comparative justification of calling the alt-right “fascist” as being too radical? “Nobody is exterminating minorities in gas chambers” one may say defensively. But recall that Hitler took seven years to bring Germany to war. When was it a step too far?

1. When he was promoted to Chancellor on a minority vote in a democracy?
2. When he consolidated the Nazi Party’s control of Germany and secretly rebuilt its army from 1933 to 1935?
3. When he only talked for years about the possibility of expelling Jews and removing their civil rights?
4. When he was objectifying women as subservient for reproductive purposes with no place in key influence roles?
5. When he disengaged from the Treaty of Versailles in 1936 and war-tested his military in the Spanish Civil War?
6. When he shifted non-german foreigners and Jews into gulags or race specific ghettos?

A thousand banal little steps were undertaken in the decade after the Nazi Party grew from 12 seats in the Reichstag to 107 seats in 1930. By the 1940s his troops were frog-marching across Europe and throwing people into gas chambers. When would you have stopped him or protested or objected in that decade? Neither current parties of the Australian nor American government have been in power as long as Hitler before the war (Jan 1933 to Sep 1939).

When I raised a draft version of the above paragraphs in social media, I was warned, “I think comparison with the holocaust needs to used carefully. The Germans did not just “go along” with the Nazi’s they fought against them until a police state was imposed upon them – while most of the political class stood by till it was too late.” This statement, although, was not entirely valid, as the elite of German society did embrace Hitler enthusiastically. While it is true that some “good” people resisted fascism, as they do today, many others, including Jews didn’t realise the consequences. Irrespective of resistance or because of obliviousness the Nazis still marched across Europe, so perhaps it is a moot point. Contemporaneously the problem is, as always, identifying how fascism has evolved. This awareness is painful for many, as they only want to recognise it in the form it took 80 years ago.

This Century’s version?

Despite refutations of such positions, Perhaps because that was before your lifetime and people are so more “woke” now, it is all very different. So let’s explore into what it may have evolved. Have your responses evolved?

1. Did you react when Donald Trump seized power via the electoral college on the votes of a minority?
2. Did you respond when Trump began to refocus on the military?
3. How about when he spoke of expelling Mexicans and Muslims?
4. Did his objectifying of women whom he grabbed by the pussy upset you?
5. Did launching air strikes in Syria or breaking established treaties caused you concern? Paris climate accord, Iran Deal, TPP, or NAFTA?
6. Did locking children in Gulags and separating many permanently from their parents, upset you?

Australian wannabe

OK, so perhaps America has dysfunctional parallels, but we in Australia are markedly different some may claim.

Our politicians are more subtle and more sophisticatedly communicators than Trump. Still, what were your responses in these circumstances?

1. When 41.8% of all voters voted for the coalition in 2016, did you defend and justify the preferences system for its selection of what the majority wanted?
2. When Abbott started spending billions on faulty American aircraft, late running Submarines and involved us in America’s pointless Syrian war, did our propensity for violence concern you?
3. When the social dialogue about banning Muslims entered the political fear mongering, did you speak in defence of the vast majority of adherents to a peaceful religious code?
4. When misogyny became a familiar and recognisable feature of legislation and leadership, did you say this went too far and defended women?
5. When Indigenous treaties were scrapped, and political impetus arose that sought to have us withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement were we at all surprised?  Did Morrison’s undermining of Refugee Convention obligations, all while adding to our refugee push-factor in bombing raids in Syria, cause alarm?
6.  When we against any decent moral code not only locked innocent adults and children in gulags for the “crime” of being foreign and desperate and then began actively resisting efforts to provide medical assistance to children, did any sparrows die?

Policies for the people?

On such subjects, the coalition argues that we need secure border protection for an Island like Australia with minimal 150 km of sea between us at the tip of Queensland and Papua New Guinea to fight off refugees. Even though the majority of refugees fly in and by-pass our secretive “on water matters” border protection. There are many absurdly opposing arguments, such as desperately trying to entwine refugee policy with the war on terror. Money, alternatively, is unavailable for the likes of education, health, social and legal justice, wage equality, mediocre wage growth and affordable housing, utilities food or justice. This absurdity of fearmongering about refugee crime suggests we need be strong and prepared for an invasion of terrorism in our population but simultaneously drives policy to make our community uneducated, poor, unhealthy, un-housed, oppressed and socially divided.

So just because we can see the correlation between what we thought was the progress towards evil and contemporary examples of the same, does it mean we should rethink real “evil”? I mean we all accept that these things happen in society. Unfortunate, perhaps but “evil”. Let’s try to compromise surely. “We are doing this for your security and to save you from the threat of terrorism,” says our politicians. “You will hardly notice it”, they say. Moreover, that last part is right. Like the gradually heated frog in the pot you don’t mainly notice it, and by the time the pot boils, it is way too late.

Equality in Australia: How we treat anyone without wealth.

What we don’t discuss over dinner

“Isn’t that politics”? “I’m not political”. “I disengage from that stuff”. What was it Martin Luthor King said? “All that needs to happen for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.” Do we by our silence, allow all of that to happen? Perhaps we are too busy to notice the correlations, too compromised by our selfish preoccupations, perhaps we don’t care. However, surely that isn’t bad. Surely that isn’t “evil”.

Amidst the same social media post commentary I previously referenced one gentleman wrote “most people aren’t evil just caught up in their own lives… “and in this contemporary society this is, unfortunately, both accurate and a misconception.

The unheeded dark side

Distractive Accuracy

“Accurate” because of our history of

• deregulation of industrial relations has meant more extended unofficial work hours and strangled wage growth,
• financial deregulation, negative gearing, foreign investment and Capital Gains Concessions has blown out mortgage costs
• Privatisation and deregulation of Education has made higher education expenses and debt-ridden
• the privatisation of energy provision, scheduled generation markets and resistance to renewables have resulted in larger utility bills increasing household debt.

Productivity and wages unlinked

Being “caught up in our own lives” is true because of more extended hours with reduced skill sets for less pay and bigger bills. These are the results of deliberate bi-partisan political policy choices. We should never forget that policies designed to redistribute wealth upwards, increase inequality, engage in a civil war on society using the tools of racism and attacks on a range of marginalised groups, have a deliberate purpose.

It’s not like there isn’t plenty of issues to raise, provided we can raise ourselves

Misperceived evils

A “misperception” because as an act of self-protection of ego, we protest that we are not evil, just a little compromised, more compliant, obedient or scared of being socially ostracised, perhaps?” As I said before, evil is integral to life’s banality; it is everyday ordinary barely conscious choices we make. It exists in the tiny, tired, “I don’t have the time“, “it’s not that bad“, “there are worse situations” excuses we tell ourselves to support the choices we make. Evil is not in the individual decision but the cumulative. It takes thousands of bad collective small choices made over years, that lead to the exclamation of “how the f#ck did we get here?” as we watch border patrol march down our streets, while our “authorities” detain and abuse our children and bash our disabled neighbours.

Worry not, you’re safe!

But fret not, if you never raised a voice in protest, then they are unlikely to arrest or hamper you because you played it safe with your daily banality. You remained silenced by indecision and compromise; you respected authority and the status quo; you defended the need for thoughtless bureaucracy and realised it was too much work to improve your knowledge of history and politics. Besides, our administration is acutely aware from their study of your metadata, your phone messages, your Facebook posts, and even your TV set-top box that you’re still compliant, malleable, cooperative, collaborators but never, really, truly, magnanimously, unambiguously … “evil”?

By John Haly 

The media and public’s desire for a Federal anti-corruption body and the search for revealing transparency has met with a lagging response by the government. From the mantra of “on water matters” when resisting transparency around refugee issues to the failure to submit Peter Dutton to the High Court over his extraordinary profiting from the public purse, the lack of transparency is wearing thin with the public. As the media scrutiny digs deep into the hidden recesses of the largess to ministers provided by government coffers, the public is finding their protests about the “double dipping” of mothers or the “lifters and leaners” or justification of “Robo debt” claims, a tad hypocritical.

The years of shielding the banks from the scrutiny of what the royal commission has revealed, while these same banks donated millions over time to their political coffers, has upset the public. Especially as they have often been the victims of these banking scams. That successive prime ministers wanted to offer millions in tax welfare as a gratuitous icing on the cake above and beyond protecting them from their crimes, was seen as very “rich”.

That Morrison could claim that he was unaware of the long history of banking fraud and money laundering or saw it as nothing more than a “populist whinge“, flies in the face of what banks have been seen to do here and across the globe. Repeated inquiries into the banks from the Wallis inquiry in 1997 to the Murray inquiry in 2015 and the equally numerous scandals from merely this century, from NAB concealing losses in 2004 to CommInsure payments scandal in 2016, have demonstrated clearly that unregulated banks will always misbehave. There was never any legitimate grounds for not having a Royal Commission, but the government resistance was palpable. As with most cases of corruption and graft to be found in Banks, isn’t it always recommended that one “follow the money”?

Meanwhile in Denmark

On the international scale, one has only to look at the Danish Banks in a country routinely near the top of the Transparency International index. As the Danish government hosted the International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) in Copenhagen on the 22nd of October 2018, the scandal of the Danske Bank was prevalent in the media. The national Danish Chair of Transparency International, Natascha Felix, welcomed the collective audience to three days of workshops and discussion groups. She spoke specifically of the failure of control systems that “allows individuals to steal from the most vulnerable populations in Denmark” and how a Danish bank laundered millions of dollars. The rather ironic timing of Denmark holding this conference and their banking scandal was a subject that came up many times in the course of discussions that followed. The illusion that Denmark was immune to the sin of corruption because of its view that it was an isolated island of progressive values, had been dealt a significant blow. Natascha Felix noted that while Denmark had often been at the top of the Transparency International index, “it doesn’t mean that power and access doesn’t corrupt the Danes.”

Opening of IACC conference in Bella Centre’s Congress Hall in Copenhagen, Denmark

One of Natascha’s important opening points was that “when it comes to corruption there is so much more at play than rules and regulations and procedures”. For example, locking people in German gulags in the mid-1940s was legal whereas smuggling Jewish people out of Germany was illegal. In a contemporary example, locking up asylum seekers – who have no criminal charges laid against them – in gulags has been legal for years in Australia. Current illegalities have echoes of the German past. When even so much as reporting crimescommitted against “legally innocent people” while working in these gulags, is illegal, the roles of values and ethics that transcend laws of convenience are significant. Corruption and oppression championed by poorly drafted laws and regulations, does not make the actions of governments less corrupt.

Natascha Linn Felix presenting at the opening of the 18th IACC

Australia’s fall

Australia held the enviable position of being 7th in the world in the Transparency index in 2013, but since the coalition government has been in power, we have dropped to 13th. This is still an enviable position, especially after I was confronted by a response about that fall, by the former Syrian Minister, Abdullah Al Dardari. While on a panel in a workshop at the IACC conference, he gave an amused response to my query about how Australia should proceed. “I will take Australia at any time now … this is a different planet, what you are talking about … 13th, [we’ve] never been 150th”. While many in the audience laughed, context on the international scale can be quite sobering. (Just in case you were curious, Syria comes at 178th, so you can see why the ex-minister suggested my concerns were “from another planet”.) Still, we are not without our battles to seek better from our governments regarding transparency and the absence of corruption.

Abdullah Al Dardari answering questions in the Conflict and Development workshop

As Denmark and our own experience demonstrate, being amidst the top end of the transparency index doesn’t mean our governments and banks and institutions will not make every effort to “rob you blind” and quite literally, “rob the dead”.

What we may never have heard

Corruption still holds sway in robust democracies with independent judicial and media oversight. Were we in Syria, it is unlikely we would even hear of banking scandals, much less have any official inquiries. Nor might we have heard that Peter Dutton made $5.63 million from direct subsidisation of his childcare facilities for which he voted. Perhaps it didn’t occur to him there was a conflict of interest? Nor might we have heard of his submission to build a third childcare unit, which is a remarkable interest in children despite his ongoing and robust resistance to other children in his care receiving medical care. Perhaps his interest is not the children, one might speculate?

Nor might we hear about:

• Bronwyn Bishop’s questionable use of helicopters;
• The $443 million been given to six people in a laughably named group called the “Barrier Reef Foundation” to get rid of money that might jeopardise an “on paper” budget surplus proposal;
• Tony Abbott’s enormous expenses claims, or just about any politician’s expenses nowadays;
• Susan Ley’s coincidental and very rapid decisions on the purchase of Goldcoast property while funded by parliamentary travel entitlements;
• Assistant treasurer, Stuart Robert’s family company, in receipts of 356 government contracts worth more than $37 million;
• Or again, Stuart Robert’s elephantine internet bills;
• David Gillespie’s postal office profits which were the subject of an unsuccessful reference by Labor to the High Court.

I am stopping here although I am sure dear reader you can find many more.

Helicopter scandals, perks & privileges should face a Federal ICAC

Whereas attempts to pork barrel electorates whether it be Barnaby Joyce or a Wentworth by-election will always receive high publicity under any regime as long as it was positive and complimentary. Negative stories like Joyce’s condemnation of women to cervical cancer deaths would, of course, be wholly suppressed where less robust protections for journalists exist.

We are not Syria, but …

Corruption is multifaceted and has high-level impacts of any country, and even if we are not the worst, we are infected by its influence.

So we are not Syria. We do hear of, or have a public reaction to, and legal stoushes over, the apparent corrupt conduct of our political leaders, banks and institutions. And with respect to Abdullah Al Dardari’s entirely appropriate observation that we in Australia are “on a different planet”, compared to what he has had to battle in his roles in Syria and later the United Nations, it is a fight none of us should relinquish because there are darker shades of grey. To have fallen to 7th to 13th on the international transparency index – although to over a hundred other nations that is still enviable – it is indicative of a systematic weakening of our democracy. We are on a downward track which our government is responsible for, as are we who do not hold them accountable. We are a lucky country compared to so many, and ours is an elevated state we have taken for granted. For a long time, we’ve remained politically disengaged, proud of apolitical inclinations, unwilling to take stand over the dinner table on behalf of the struggle of others, lest we offend our privileged white neighbours. We have paid scant attention to the slippage that once it gains momentum, will career downwards unless we put our backs against our pedestal and push hard.