The only defence that we, the people, have against an arrogant leader who is thumbing his nose at our democratic arrangements is by shining a light into dark corners and ensuring that our democracy has the ability to assert the power of those democratic fundamentals.

Former High Court Judge The Hon Virginia Bell AC has done a thorough investigation into the behaviour of former prime minister Scott Morrison in appointing himself minister of various government departments and then failing to make his actions public, even to the extent of not informing the ministers that were already appointed to administer those departments.

The Report notes at 217:

‘It is a serious deficiency in governance arrangements that Mr Morrison was able to be appointed to administer five departments of State (in addition to PM&C) without notification of the fact of the appointments to the Parliament or the public and in the case of the Departments of Health, Finance, Home Affairs and the Treasury, without notification to the Department or the other Ministers appointed to administer the Department. There is controversy with respect to the responsibility for this state of affairs.’

It goes on to say:

‘… it is unclear that those within PM&C with knowledge of the appointments gave thought to the fact that they had not been made public. It was apparent by 2021 that the mechanism of appointing Mr Morrison to administer additional departments of State had come to be employed for reasons having little if any connection to the pandemic. It was also apparent that these appointments were not being made public, albeit that it did not occur to anyone in PM&C that Mr Morrison was keeping the appointments secret from his Ministers. While it is troubling that by the time of the 2021 appointments, Mr Gaetjens did not take up the issue of the secrecy surrounding them with Mr Morrison and firmly argue for their public disclosure, the responsibility for that secrecy must reside with Mr Morrison.‘

Morrison declined the invitation to give evidence at the enquiry.

Our democracy has the safeguard of our Constitution and inherent in that is the separation of powers but it also relies heavily on conventions implicit in which is the goodwill and the veracity of those we elect to govern us. But, as Morrison was able to demonstrate, if those in power and those serving them wish to subvert the democratic safeguards there is little to stop them.

The Report is here in full together with the recommendations and whilst it doesn’t seek to criticise our Governor General, the King’s representative, it may be that there has been a bit too much karaoke going on in Government House and not enough thought of ‘We the people’. 

Mark Latham found himself a cushy number after he lost the leadership of the federal Labor Party. He nominated himself for a seat in the NSW Upper House, the Legislative Assembly, representing Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party : In March 2019, he was  elected for an eight year term.

In the NSW Legislative Assembly you don’t actually have to do much apart from appear on Sky after Dark periodically and give the impression of being a man of the people. But Mark’s ambition has been to get more One Nation representatives into the NSW parliament. Not the lower house as they would actually have to be elected, rather the upper house where they aren’t accountable to an electorate. So Mark has come up with a wheeze to get somebody into parliament without actually being elected.

The idea is that with four years remaining in his appointed term, he’s going to resign and create a casual vacancy. Under the Constitution Act 1902 (NSW) the procedure for filling that vacancy does not require a by-election (it’s the upper house you see) but calls for the state Governor to convene a joint sitting of the Legislative Council and the  Legislative Assembly to elect a person to fill the vacant seat.

The person nominated for election to fill a vacant seat – and this is where Mark has been doing his homework – must be a member of the same political party as the member he or she replaces at the time that member was elected.

So, Mark resigns and another One Nation luminary takes his place – they call it parachuting – and Mark goes off into semi-retirement somewhere on the NSW North coast ? Not on your Nelly ! Remember, it is Mr Latham’s intention to get more One Nation people into the NSW parliament and this strategy doesn’t achieve that – one out, one in doesn’t work.

This is where it gets tricky as Mark intends to nominate himself again at the state election in March 2023. He’s relying on his name recognition and the ‘donkey vote’ to achieve this. All going to plan, he will be elected for an eight year term next March and will join the person who took his place following his retirement.

This is all legal but is it ethical ? Is it democracy at work ? You be the judge.

Australia is at a critical point. A government that would cling to power to impose unpopular policy threatens the very nature of our democracy.

It is common to refer to countries that were “consolidated democracies” as corroding to “illiberal democracies”. Hungary is the most notable example. If, however, the term “competitive authoritarianism” is employed to describe regimes instead, it becomes clear that the danger for Australia is just as strong as it is for the USA and the UK, as well as for Hungary.

Levitsky and Way coined the term in 2002 to describe states where the democratic process still appeared to function but where the incumbents had nearly insuperable advantages. The main strategies described are the misuse of government funds to swing elections, disinformation, the distorting complicity of the most prominent media and the placing of partisans in key “referee” roles.

Levitsky and Way chose to use this term, because they felt that “illiberal democracy” placed these regimes within the array of democratic nations. “Competitive authoritarianism” by contrast shows that these governments no longer seek to honour the democratic tradition for which our societies have aimed.

The misuse of federal government money to distort electoral outcomes has been documented in startling detail in Morrison’s Coalition government. Professor Anne Twomey recently described the growth in money wasted this way as “exponential”. From sports rorts to car parks, the “pork barreling” is estimated to amount to billions of dollars so far.

Scott Morrison’s “miracle” victory in 2019 was as much about the misuse of taxpayer money, amplified by Clive Palmer’s $83 million disinformation campaign, as any divine intervention.

It is hardly surprising, in light of this, that the Coalition is adamantly opposed to a functioning federal anti-corruption commission. Unlike Labor’s preferred model, the government’s “Commonwealth Integrity Commission” actively shields politicians and public servants making it almost impossible to begin investigations and shrouding the results in secrecy.

The shameless lies and empty announcements that make up much of the Coalition government’s activity have been partially documented in Crikey’s “A dossier of lies and falsehoods”. Crikey believes itself driven to act because of the regularity of Morrison’s lies, the brazenness and the lack of accountability.

Morrison’s ministers have also been tracked over the years misleading the public regularly over climate issues, human rights and their own integrity.

The lack of transparency and accountability in the government is in part possible because Australia has the least diversity in its media ownership of any ostensibly “developed” nation. While the government has not confiscated opposing news outlets like Orban in Hungary, the ability for Australians to hear contrasting interpretations of government action is limited. News Corp owns approximately 100 physical and digital newspapers. Former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd have been speaking urgently in recent times about the toxic impact that Rupert Murdoch’s interventions have on Australian democracy.

Add to News Corp the shift in former Fairfax outlets’ reporting since it joined the Nine group. Former Liberal treasurer and Nine chairman Peter Costello has reportedly “assumed a greater role in the day-to-day running” of the media corporation this year and Nine never signed the Fairfax charter of editorial independence. Kerry Stokes at Seven West Media is reportedly happy to run sections of his media empire at a loss in exchange for political power.

Murdoch has long stated that the internet allows enough diversity of voices to counter his extensive control over traditional media platforms in Australia – including Sky’s expansion into country Australia with its recent free-to-air deals – but the pandemic era has made very clear the limitations of the internet in privileging reliable information over radicalising conspiracy theories.

Between the continued threat of further funding cuts, political pressure, legal action and politicised board appointments, the ABC is experiencing constant intimidation and crippling undermining of its independence. Schwartz Media’s The Saturday Paper and other online outlets have limited capacity to counter the narrative carried by the corporate platforms.

These distortions are amplified by the horrifying impacts on reporting that Australia’s secretive national security state is enforcing. In a report released this week by Get Up, academics Hardy, Ananian-Welsh and McGarrity document in chilling detail the “5000 pages of powers, rules and offences” that have been imposed on the nation since 9/11, markedly more than our Five Eyes partners.

The most startling public manifestations of these laws took place in Australian Federal Polic raids on reporters homes and work places, as well as the secret trials taking place of whistleblowers witnesses K and J, and lawyer Bernard Collaery. The government’s counter terrorism powers and “a growing culture of government secrecy” strike at the ability of journalists to report and the public to understand the nature of the government for which we vote.

It was under Peter Dutton and Mike Pezzullo’s super department Home Affairs that the most troubling repressive regulations escalated. In 2019, the Civicus Monitor downgraded Australia’s civic space and its “respect for fundamental freedoms” from “open” to “narrowed”.

Now the Coalition is imposing regulations to prevent charities from speaking out too, in a move reminiscent of Putin.

A key strategy in a “competitive authoritarian” regime is placing partisan figures in key roles. In public service, the courts, statutory bodies. Professor Glyn Davis in his 2021 Jim Carlton Lecture documented the crucial work needed to restore senior public servants to the role of respected independent authorities in developing policy. Jack Waterford detailed the fact that even on critical pandemic decisions, Morrison has steered decision making to achieve his own goals rather than recognising epidemiological best practice.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor has stacked the bodies in charge of transforming Australia to a post fossil fuel economy with sector lobbyists and executives. The Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO are both compromised by lobbyist appointments. The various “pork barrelling” scandals have further revealed the poor state of our statutory bodies’ independence. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which has power over 400 Commonwealth acts and legislative functions in a vast array of fields, has been stacked over the decade with “failed Liberal candidates, unemployed political staffers, and party donors”. The new human rights commissioner is another IPA figure, appointed without a transparent selection process, threatening our standing with the UN.

In 2020 comments, Levitsky and Way observed their shock that the oppressive regimes the West fought to bring into the “free world” had infected us with their oppressions rather than bringing our “freedom” to their borders. They also expressed their surprise that so many voters in democratic nations were calling for an end to the contest of platforms that elections are supposed to represent.

The Coalition government is clearly not interested in implementing their own rotten model of a federal anti-corruption commission. Change is going to take a Labor election victory with a commitment to overhauling the ways that Australia has slid so far down the path towards a “competitive authoritarian” regime.

Labor’s ICAC model is an excellent one and must be implemented in full on an ALP government taking power. It must be accompanied by a stronger code of conduct that shuts down the revolving door between the private sector, lobbyists and government. We need a thorough overhaul of our political donations arrangement: they should be limited to $3000 with backdoors like the parties’ “corporate memberships” and grandfathered exemptions closed.

We need the findings of the Thodey report into restructuring the public service implemented.

Zali Steggall’s Climate Change Bill also works to limit the degree to which the fossil fuel sector overrides the voters’ will in Australia’s critical energy decision-making.

Home Affairs’ steps towards a police state with increasing surveillance powers, attacks on transparency and efforts towards limiting public protest mean that citizens can no longer trust that our “rights” will be protected without an explicit bill to codify and defend them.

While it is undoubtedly too difficult to reinstate media diversity restrictions, we must debate the ways the nation strengthens balancing voices to the overwhelmingly dominant duopoly of News Corp and Nine.

Australia’s future hangs in the balance: the struggles facing us over climate crisis directions in particular endanger our ability to vote out a government determined to crush transparency and protest. It is by recognising the concept of “competitive authoritarianism” that we can truly see the breadth of the risk we face and the urgency of addressing the threat.

This article was originally published on Pearls and Irritations. 

Election diary No. 20: Saturday, 19, March 2022.

1 It was an intelligent move by Albanese to attach a legend to himself. Unknown to most Australians, he is of a dour disposition, ordinary in looks, and carries no political baggage.

After all, he doesn’t have much in the personality stakes that he can unpack for himself. To say as he did at the Australian Financial Review Business Summit 2022 last week that he would govern as Hawke may turn out to be a stroke of genius if he can maintain it, even build on it.

Hawke had a charisma that touched the rich, famous, and oppressed alike. He saw what changes were necessary and made them happen. Albo, at this time in our history, should promote himself as the “he gets things done” man, one who sees the need for change and makes it happen.

Further, Albanese needs to address voter hesitancy. He has now drawn even with Morrison on who would make the best Prime Minister stakes. However, if the Opposition Leader can successfully manage the transformation into a devotee of Hawke during the campaign itself, the way is clear to overtake Morrison. He now sits even with the Prime Minister in popularity, and Labor is well ahead in all the polls.

Remember when Kevin Rudd came on the scene? He was relatively unknown except for a niche television slot on Channel 7. He managed himself as a clone of John Howard but the light version to escape any comparison of being as scary. It worked for him.

Anthony Albanese, in his speech, invoked a Labor icon to soothe any fears of change that would disrupt or antagonise. His mantra would be bringing people together, seeking consensus, and working with business.

Of course, as leader of the unions forging a public persona together with what seems to be an uncanny ability to resolve disputes when many seemed beyond it.

If Albanese did win, he would take far less political capital than Hawke, although he undoubtedly would have a more unifying style than Scott Morrison.

History records that the Hawke/Keating partnership transformed the Australian economy, bringing about a more equitable economic distribution where everyone benefitted.

Hawke led a reform government that changed Australia. In partnership with Paul Keating, they engineered an economic transformation.

In his speech to the Financial Review Business Summit, Albanese laid out his economic goals: lifting productivity, re-igniting economic and jobs growth, remaking the economy using renewable energy, while stressing that he’s not  He added: “I’m not proposing revolution.”

Michelle Grattan, writing for The Canberra Times, noted that:

“When he was elected, Hawke wasn’t proposing a revolution either. His theme for the 1983 election was reconciliation, recovery and reconstruction, but the detail of his platform was very different from the significant things his government actually did over the following years.”

When in Opposition, leaders seek to define themselves on the road to an election. Their values, how they fit into party ideology, how they would treat the electorate. All of which is difficult for the voter because there is no way of knowing how a leader will handle power when they obtain it.

Who could have known how bad the last three would be? Well, except writers at The AIMN.

As much as our politicians must keep their promises, it is also essential that they let go of promises that prove to be unsuitable.

Hawke was willing to do this when circumstances demanded – those with long memories will remember that Gough Whitlam was not.

In their character assassination of Albanese, they proclaim that he would be the most left-wing prime minister since Whitlam. Yet they seek to paint him in swarthy, indistinct images and risky because he has no economic experience. Their problem is, of course, that they don’t have much to work with, Albo appears to be devoid of scandals or much else to attack.

Michelle Grattan points out that:

“Albanese had major responsibilities (infrastructure, transport) and served in cabinet during all of the 2007-13 government, including briefly as deputy PM. And as Labor likes to point out, although he’d held senior portfolios, Tony Abbott hadn’t held a central economic or a national security ministry when he became PM. Prime ministerial aspirants can prepare themselves on these issues and competent leaders will learn on the job.”

Morrison Freydenberg and Dutton, in their haste, to fill the canvas with dark exaggerated images of national security. And rejecting Albanese’s declarations of bipartisanship are but making fools of themselves.

Most of what they say wouldn’t pass a pub test, so irrational is their lying. Obviously, an essential part of good leadership is coping with the unexpected.

Albanese referenced this in his speech the following week to the Lowy Institute, saying that Labor’s wartime PM John Curtin had that ability. Kevin Rudd had reacted well to the Global Financial Crisis.

In total fairness, he cited the Coalition government, which signed a free trade agreement with China, only to be subjected to trade retribution by that country years later?

Despite Labor’s lift in the polls, Albanese’s challenge remains to convert those voters in marginal seats who stay uncertain. Yes, there are still hurdles to jump over.

The Coalition continued its attacks on Albanese on defence and security issues, accusing the Opposition Leader of appeasing China. So strident was its criticism that two former senior intelligence chiefs warned ministers against politicising national security.

So concerned is the Prime Minister that he seems to be simultaneously upset that Albanese has lost weight and, according to the PM, is pretending to be anyone else.

“I’m not pretending to be anyone else,” the PM said, to loud shouts from a 60 Minutes audience that included a man in a Trump shirt. “I’m still wearing the same glasses; sadly, the same suits. I weigh about the same, and I don’t mind a bit of Italian cake either.”

Appears on a paid TV service owned by his mate Rupert, with a curated audience, a sycophantic host, and with that cover, feels safe to criticise Albo because he lost a few kgs.

There is going to be a shit-tonne of this banal bullshit between now and May 21. He has nothing else. pic.twitter.com/2lOcqIZdBT

— Aaron Smith (@Aaronsmith333) March 14, 2022

Morrison's desperation is getting pathetic.

"(renewables) don't work when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing"

Only a clown says the quiet part out loud.

(the Trump fan in the front row was apt)#auspol pic.twitter.com/VZt1dDqaQA

— Squizz (@SquizzSTK) March 14, 2022

The PM with gritted teeth was ready to attack Albanese’s makeover and weight loss. “When you’re prime minister, you can’t pretend to be anyone else,” Morrison added. Now, if my memory serves me correctly Scott has been a hairdresser, navel captain, basketball floor conditioner, exercise instructor, welder, wool classer, race driver and professional model with his own personal photographer.

This from the fakest Prime Minister the country has ever had!

A politician who gave HIMSELF a nickname.

A politician who is a walking rebranding exercise desperate to stay one new slogan away from his past failures catching up with him. pic.twitter.com/cE4mCNJS64

— Tim Watts MP (@TimWattsMP) March 14, 2022

I had to remind myself when writing of all the times the PM has quite literally pretended to be someone else.

"I'm not pretending to be anyone else." pic.twitter.com/UZYks05fHc

— Coalition Tea Lady (@ItsBouquet) March 15, 2022

The media, in general, have called the Prime Minister’s mockery of Albanese’s post-car-crash health kick has been widely condemned as “schoolyard stuff”.

Scott Morrison having a crack at Anthony Albanese's appearance is a low go. 👇 https://t.co/TyoTKLQuNW

— Chris O'Keefe (@cokeefe9) March 14, 2022

Writers Lech Blaine and Sean Kelly have exposed Morrison as the least authentic person ever to become Prime Minister. And Rachel Withers writes in The Monthly that he:

“… painstakingly constructed an entire personality around the daggy, blokey “ScoMo”, a Sharkies-loving, curry-cooking suburban dad…

‘I think the PM is threatened by Albo,’ observed former Labor leader Bill Shorten on the Today programme.”

The PM’s propensity for lying remarked writer Tim Dunlop makes it rather hard to see him as the trustworthy option.

Says the man who built an entire fake persona around the image of 'Scomo' and whose most distinctive feature as PM has been to become known as perhaps the biggest liar to have ever held the job.

What's more fake than pretending you didn't say what everyone heard you say? pic.twitter.com/AwFbyrWjMY

— timdunlop (@timdunlop) March 14, 2022

The Monday Newspoll backed up his opinion, which showed he is now the least trustworthy PM in 14 years, with only two in five voters trusting him.

I had better move on, or my diary will forever remain on the same day.

This may be the last chance Australian voters have to recover Australian democracy for our grandkids.

2 Tuesday, March 15. The ABC’s Lisa Millar interviewed Finance Minister Simon Birmingham. Here is a transcript. It’s well worth a read. Later in the day, Patricia Karvelas interviewed him on her program.

Labor promised a $750 million “spending blitz” on sporting clubs, pools and roads in marginal seats claiming some of this is to make up for the fact these communities have repeatedly missed out under the Coalition. However, that doesn’t entirely pass the pub test regarding marginals. Here is another worthwhile read on this subject by Rachael withers of The Monthly, which is critical of Labor. You be the judge.

I had better end there before I become too lengthy.

We begin the countdown to our Top 5 most viewed articles in 2021. Number 5 goes to Steve Davies for this article from February 2020, which narrowly missed out last year coming in at Number 6.

Hardly a week goes by on Twitter where I don’t seen this article being tweeted and its popularity continues to grow.

Pentecostalism – The decline, infiltration and fall of Australian Democracy

There is a strong sentiment that there’s something not right with the Morrison Government. There is also a sentiment something is not right with Prime Minister Morrison’s leadership.

These sentiments and concerns have gradually increased since Morrison’s “miracle” election win in 2019. Broadly speaking, that increase is due to the aggressive and arrogant manner in which this government has pursued its agenda.

As important as they are, set aside the many policy issues for the moment and you are left scratching your head. What is driving this government to behave so aggressively and arrogantly after an election win?

All of these questions, sentiments, views and concerns have increased further due to the reactions of this Prime Minister and that of his government to Australia’s bushfire disasters and its ongoing denial of the global climate crisis.

There have been recurring questions and reports in both the mainstream media and social media concerning Morrison’s religion – Pentecostalism. Some of these reports highlight the secrecy of the Pentacostalism.

“ … it is also a characteristic of Pentecostalism itself. Little more than a century old, this highly distinctive expression of Christianity has flourished in the spiritual marketplace by selling a feel-good message to seekers while keeping the full truth for trusted true believers.”

However, there is actually quite a lot of information that lifts the veil on the nature of Pentecostalism. In particular, the ideas and strategies that drive its ‘influence’ in the world of politics and government.

The conclusion I have come to is that serious questions need to be asked of the Prime Minister and his government.

We, the people, need to demand transparency from government on these issues. Religious influence is one thing. Dominance another.

The conversation that we must have

It is well known that the Christian Right seeks to shape government and society. The question is to what extent is the Australian Government is in the grip of dominionism and Pentecostalism? Arguably you can see this influence in this government’s stance on climate change, social welfare, employment policies, religious freedom and education.

Morrison has made no secret of his religious beliefs and affiliations – Pentacostalism. In addition, there have been questions about the influence of his religion in the press, social media and the wider community. Questions about his religious beliefs and affiliations have been further amplified by his response, as Prime Minister, to the bushfires that have ravaged Australia since September 2019.

What I am writing here is not an attack on the religious freedom of politicians as private citizens. The information I am presenting concerns dominionist strategies associated with the Pentecostalist movement and Christian Right. Strategies intended to shape and dominate governments and societies.

The strategies in question are known as the Seven Mountains Mandate. The Seven mountains mandate has a long history. It is a dominionist strategy for transforming nations and with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The advocates of this strategy have taken to using the term sphere’s of influence rather than mountains. They are doing so to soften the language. Why? To slide under the radar. To minimise resistance.

The marketing and communication is very clever. However, at the end of it the agenda is the same. To conquer the seven mountains to transform nations in the image of a particular brand of Christianity.

These strategies and their underpinnings raise serious questions concerning the infiltration of Australia’s system of government – the policies it sets and, indeed, its behaviour. Seeking to influence is one thing, seeking to dominate another.

The ideology of dominionism remains a divisive issue within the broader the fundamentalist movement itself. It has been reported that attempts have been made to recast dominionism as a benign influence (to soften the language), in order to deceive people. There is more detailed information in this Church Watch Central article; Is your church part of Houston’s NARpostolic Australian ‘Christian Churches’ (ACC) network?

Church Watch is essentially a religious research group:

“Founded by pastors, elders and members from various denominations around Australia (now with pastoral contributors from around the world), CWC investigates and publishes news on controversies, reports on scandals, resources on discernment and tools to identify cults and sects.”

They state:

“We wish to be factual as we can on Church Watch Central. If there is any information on ChurchWatch Central that you think is not accurate, please contact us at c3churchwatch@hotmail.com. All constructive criticism will be appreciated.”

There has always been tension over the separation of church and state in Australia. In view of the activities of what is broadly coated the Christian Right and the dominionist ideology we need to revisit that issue in 2020 with a particular focus on the degree of infiltration and the influence of the Seven Mountains Mandate on government policy making.

Decline

Between 2010 and 2018 public trust in Australia’s democracy, its institutions and leaders has more than halved. Research undertaken by the Museum of Australian Democracy predicts that:

“By 2025 if nothing is done and current trends continue, fewer than 10 per cent of Australians will trust their politicians and political institutions — resulting in ineffective and illegitimate government, and declining social and economic wellbeing”.

The decline in trust was sparked by conflicts within the Rudd Government. Those conflicts became public and resulted in the removal of the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the installation of Julia Gillard as Prime Minister.

The Liberal Party under Tony Abbott exploited those divisions to win office in 2013. The tactics used by the Liberal Party to gain power emboldened them to aggressively pursue a policy agenda that did not match the promises it made during the election. That resulted in a further decline in public trust.

Due to the falling popularity of the government Tony Abbott was removed from the Prime Ministership. He was replaced by Malcolm Turnbull. Prime Minister Turnbull attempted to shift and soften policy directions. Contrary to expectations within the Liberal Party Turnbull barely won the election. Hence, the seeds of conflict festered and grew within the Turnbull Government.

Conflicts between the extreme right and moderate wings of the Liberal Party resulted in two leadership spills. The eventual result of these leadership spills was the installation of Scott Morrison as Prime Minister on 18 August 2018. Scott Morrison called an election for May 2019 and won with a wafer thin majority.

The Morrison Government has continued with a policy agenda driven by its extreme right. Public disquiet with its policies and approach has grown. The Morrison Government’s weak approach to climate change, coupled with its reaction to the bushfires that have devastated large areas of Australia and have outraged Australians and the world.

Public trust is still at an all time low. The tipping point alluded to by the Museum of Australian Democracy in its December 2018 report Trust and Democracy in Australia remains.

Indeed, we are arguably past the tipping point due to the arrogance shown by the Morrison Government since the last election. An arrogance underlined by the horrific impacts of the bushfires, the government’s refusal to accept the science of climate change and listen to the public.

The gulf between the government and the community is clear – Australia found to be much less divided on need to tackle climate change than US.

Infiltration

The community and media are scratching their heads over the reaction of the Prime Minister and his Government to climate change and the bushfires. This is on top of disquiet over policies as diverse as those associated with financial institutions, Newstart, Aged Care, health and more. Increasingly the  sentiment is that we do not have a normal government.

There are also deep concerns over the behaviour of government politicians and, to this day, concerns about the influence of Pentecostalism within the Morrison Government. Concerns about dominionism and the Seven Mountains mandate have been raised some media reports.

An excellent 2011 report by Chrys Stevenson; Is the Australian Christian Lobby dominionist? states:

“They say when the United States sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. And so it is with dominionism. Now an international movement, dominionism is thriving in Australia.

From local parents and citizens associations to regional councils, from our previously secular state schools to state government departments and even within Parliament House, Canberra, this particular clique of evangelical Christian extremists is working quietly but assiduously to tear down the division between church and state, subvert secularism and reclaim this nation for Jesus.

But, is there sufficient evidence to suggest that the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) is at the forefront of this ideological holy war? In order to achieve their aim, dominionists plan to infiltrate, influence and eventually take over seven key spheres of society: business, government (including the military and the law), media, arts and entertainment, education, the family and religion.”

The Seven Mountains Mandate is essentially a Christian Right strategy of political and cultural infiltration and conquest.

The mandate has a long history and is also a means of unifying and growing the Christian Right. Some say, of dominating Christianity itself. The Christian right and neo-conservative politics increasingly work hand in glove. The mandate is a strategic theocratic weapon.

The convergence of interests between the Christian Right and neo-conservatives was reflected in the election of Donald Trump and, indeed, in the election of Scott Morrison.

“The parallels between Donald Trump’s unexpected triumph and Scott Morrison’s “miracle” election win are remarkable. A week on, it’s increasingly apparent this was a Trump-like victory.”

This convergence is so strong that after Scott Morrison’s election victory:

“Some of Australia’s most extreme Christian-right parties have withdrawn from politics, claiming the election of Prime Minister Scott Morrison had rendered them redundant.”

In Australia, as in America, it is evident that:

“Dominionism, like the Christian Right itself, has come a long way from obscure beginnings. What is remarkable today is that the nature of this driving ideology of the Christian Right remains obscure to most of society, most of the time. Dominionism’s proponents and their allies know it takes time to infuse their ideas into the constituencies most likely to be receptive. They also know it is likely—and rightly—to alarm many others.

It is time to ring the alarm bells over the influence of dominionism in Australia and the very real threat it poses to our system of government, democracy and society.

Fall

In a very real sense Australian democracy has already fallen. Public trust in our institutions has collapsed. We have a government that simply does not listen.

We have a government under the influence of a religious ideology that advocates the establishment of a theocracy. Capturing the Government Mountain through “Archangels” is one of the keys to that.

We have a government whose behaviour and actions suggest that it has adopted the strategies and intent of the Seven Mountain Mandate. One indication of that is the Religious Freedom Bill.

One thing is certainly clear in all of this. This government needs to come clean on the influence of this religious ideology on its behaviour, policies and actions.

I will be writing more about these matters in the very near future.

“I know perfectly well that it can’t last. Whatever we think, we are courtiers in an oriental Sultanate, and there is a corps of janissaries, with bowstrings at the ready, at the palace door.”  Hugh Trevor Roper

Imagine half a million Australians, a record 501,876 to be precise, petition for a royal commission into your patron, rabid reactionary, Rupert Murdoch, billionaire media monopolist and monster powerbroker. Does our PM, whose Liberal Party is effectively a wholly-owned subsidiary of News Corp, act democratically?

No. Head Office steps in. Sharri Markson and Richard Ferguson of Murdoch’s The Australian publish an article, Kevin Rudd’s Bangladeshi ‘bots’ in media royal commission petition, Thursday 11 February, quoting a “Nicholas Smith”, who claims to have paid an overseas freelancer to “sign” the petition “hundreds of times” in order to “demonstrate to you how easy it is to manipulate our own government’s website.”

Smear tactics. Neither mud-slinger Markson, nor feckless Ferguson take the next responsible step: concede that even without this stunt, there are more names on Rudd’s e-petition that any other. Ever.

And just who is this Smith and his podcast The Turncoat? The story is a fake. SBS notes that The Turncoat’s Facebook page is littered with posts that have been flagged as misinformation, baseless claims about the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, and others, expressing support for President Trump.

Shades of Craig Kelly, MP for Hughes, who despite his dressing down from his PM, immediately returns to Facebook to promote more toxic nonsense about fake cures for Covid-19 and to sow doubt about vaccines. Former furniture rep Kelly appears regularly from his chair on Murdoch’s Sky News, beaming his dangerous disinformation around the country and – via the internet – around the globe – from whence it came.

There’s a restless, recycling in Kelly’s quest. As Crikey’s David Hardaker observes, “the outrageous nonsense spouted by the renegade Liberal MP is mostly spun from generic alt-right conspiracies and ideas.”

News Corp also loves nonsense. Dr Daniel Angus, Associate Professor of Digital Communication at the Queensland University of Technology says The Australian’s story is a “beat-up” and “bereft of any substance.” Dr Timothy Graham, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at the Queensland University of Technology, who researches bots and misinformation, notes that there is no evidence that Kevin Rudd is linked to the bots.

“The headline of this article is misleading because it tries to weaponise the context of the fact that yes, it is possible to game these systems or any number of petitions,” he tells SBS. “The only influence is the unnamed individual, who paid someone overseas.”

The Ferguson – Markson abortive muck-raking comes on top of a slew of smears including alleged links between Rudd and Jeffrey Epstein. Almost every Murdoch paper runs a story about the International Peace Institute, chaired by Rudd, accepting US$650,000 from Epstein’s charities between 2011 and 2019.

Rudd says he convened a board meeting on December 4, 2019, to recommend an amount comparable to Epstein’s donations to the IPI be forwarded to charity. He said it was important to remember that Epstein’s foundations were donating millions of dollars to “dozens and dozens of charitable organisations” and he had never “to his knowledge” met him.

“I recommended to the board, and the board accepted my recommendation, that a donation of comparable amount be made to a charity, so that we would not in any way be a beneficiary of the cumulative donations from Epstein over a long period of time,” he tells ABC radio on Thursday, adding that he regarded Epstein as an “odious character in the extreme.”

Enter the Daily Telegraph, a Murdoch paper which defamed Michael Towke who was pre-selected hands down 82-8 for Cook, in July 2007. The Tele ran four articles, by four different journalists, two of them very senior. They defamed him, destroyed his political career, and caused untold stress to his family.

”These stories sent my mother to hospital. ‘They demonised me. I wanted to confront them in court.”

The false stories also caused the Liberal Party to rescind his nomination, allowing Scott Morrison to walk unelected into the seat. Never lacking in creativity, the Tele now tries a Hunter Biden yarn.

In this surreal spin, jailed business partner of presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter claims ex-PM Kevin Rudd was coming to one of their company’s banquets in order to celebrate a controversial Chinese takeover deal. But Rudd was in London and Abu Dhabi that week, as ABC’s Media Watch’s Paul Barry points out. But that doesn’t stop Murdoch hacks, from just making stuff up. Take a bow, Peta Credlin.

Sky hack Peta Credlin is forced to apologise for falsely calling Rudd’s petition just “a data-harvesting exercise,” part of a defamation settlement. “An egomaniacal fantasist, notes the AFR’s Joe Aston, Credlin is a flack who derided the jabbering nobodies and has-beens on Sky News while deciding which prestigious corporate role she would accept post-politics, only to become a jabbering has-been on Sky News.”

Murdoch allegedly colluded with miner, broadcaster and warmonger, Kerry Stokes, to help Morrison knife his predecessor Malcolm Turnbull. How dare Kevin Rudd get up an e-petition to call for a royal commission into  the Murdoch empire’s ways and means? Of course, the empire strikes back. And misses. Spectacularly.

But there are more ways to kill a porcupine than smothering it with lotus petals. The PM steps up. Or does he? What would you do if you were Murdoch’s minion, Scott Morrison? Or Morrison’s catspaw? Organise an award, of course. Time it to coincide with Straya Day, a national holiday, 26 January, now colonised by its largely Liberal Party Committee to reward supporters and obscure the sordid reality of European invasion.

Thus “His Excellency”, Keith Rupert Murdoch is lauded for transforming the media landscape. The “how” is left unsaid. Buying competitors and selling controversy is key to his seamy business model. And sexploitation sells; look at his titillating page three girls. As does publishing lies about climate science, inventing a sinister agenda behind moves towards gender equality and defaming opponents, especially Labor and union figures.

Oddly, not everyone approves of Murdoch’s business model. Dacre deplores its vulgarity and vitriol.

I felt that whatever Murdoch touched went down-market, though it also moved from loss into profit. For the sake of sales, he aims to moronise and Americanise the population.

He also wants to destroy our institutions, to rot them with a daily corrosive acid… He certainly has a hatred of what he considers the stuffiness of the British establishment.

Being Morrison, someone else does the award. Of course. The PM’s Principal Private Secretary Yaron Finkelstein, spin doctor and former CEO of Crosby Textor knows whom to call. Of course, Scotty knows nothing. Chinese warlord, Feng Yü-hsiang, baptised his troops with a hose. Morrison is similarly doctrinaire and just as much of a control freak, whilst always disclaiming responsibility, I don’t hold the hose, mate.

Rupert’s rags attribute the Lifetime Achievement Award to The Australia Day Foundation UK a cabal of well-heeled, Tory corporate elitists, with rent-free offices in Australia House. The Foundation first gave out awards in 2003, the year of his illegal invasion of Iraq, under John Howard, who lied to parliament about it.

Some of these achievements are unique. Eight years ago, Murdoch’s News of the World, a now defunct UK Sunday tabloid, whose prurient interest in sex scandals earned it the soubriquet news of the screws, delighted readers by publishing pictures and video of Max Mosely, son of British fascist, Oswald Mosely.

The then UK Formula One Boss, indulged in a five-hour sadomasochistic session with prostitutes in a Chelsea apartment. News Group Newspapers, the tabloid’s publishers, had to pay £60,000 for grossly invading Mosely’s privacy. His sadomasochism he freely admits to. But much more damaging to Mosely is the News of the World’s false assertion that the motor-racing boss took part in a Hitler-themed orgy.

There was no Sick Nazi Orgy, as News maintains, he successfully argues in court – just a private “party” for himself and five like-minded, consenting women, and there was no public interest in reporting it.

Our government uses Australia House for the virtual ceremony. As taxpayers we pay (and pay) for a large part for Murdoch’s honour, while the pot is topped up by donations from Woodside Petroleum, in the news again for reaping a bonanza, after Alexander Downer helped bug East Timor’s cabinet in 2004 under cover of an aid project. Witness K, the ASIS agent involved in the bugging turned whistle-blower, is currently on secret trial in Canberra in a travesty of justice because he’s embarrassed the government in telling the truth.

Rio Tinto contributes, Anglo American, energy giant Worley resources and billionaire hedge fund manager Sir Michael Hintze’s own asset management fund CQS. In brief, a claque of Murdoch media icons.

News of the award is not just a rude shock. It’s a mystery. Who gonged the Doctor Evil of Global Media? Not that invisible hand of capitalism again? Each of us working for his or her own gain, benefiting us all? Scott Morrison just loves to keep us in the dark. Especially as the alternative could be as embarrassing as former half-term PM Tony Abbott discovered with his Sir Philip knighthood. But Murdoch won’t blab.

Rupert’s addicted to power. And he’s had a sniff. Eminence grise in Blair’s family affair, Trump’s enabler and dinner guest. And now, Muppet Morrison’s puppeteer. Or is it self-help? His devout faith in money and power, helped Rupie buy a papal knighthood in 1988, by donating to a Church education fund and chipping in $10 mill to help build LA’s Catholic cathedral, thus buying the right to be addressed as “His Excellency.”

Who’d honour an Establishment reject? Well, we did, in effect. And we paid for our part. Just as we stuff $40 million into the Murdoch family’s pockets for Foxtel, to do something with women’s sport. Michael West believes Murdoch may have recently, quietly sold Foxtel- but the Coalition is keen to see Google and Facebook pay the Murdoch empire (and the boutique Nine Newspapers, now under Chairman Costello, a Liberal rag appended to its real estate business) for bringing visitors to his dying pay-walled newspapers.

Google knows search engines are not killing mainstream media. Its advertising didn’t kill the classified ads that paid for newspapers. Specialised online sites did that. Above all, Canberra’s plan is an “unworkable” dud.

You wouldn’t read about it – at least not in mainstream media. But Rupie has the gall to play the victim.  Claims he’s being muzzled. He’s clearly dog-whistling not only those who have no bullshit filter but those who fear wokeness, a state of being socially aware, especially of issues of justice, inequality and racism. He protests,

“For those of us in media, there’s a real challenge to confront a wave of censorship that seeks to silence conversations. To stifle debate and ultimately stop individuals and societies from realizing their potential.

This rigidly enforced conformity, aided and abetted by so-called social media, is a straitjacket on sensibilities. Too many people have fought too hard in too many places for freedom of speech to be suppressed by this awful woke orthodoxy.”

Murdoch’s hypocrisy does not go unnoticed by the lynx-eyed, Rudd who had the wit to observe in Copenhagen in Christmas 2009, that “those Chinese fuckers are trying to rat-fuck us.”  

“Rank hypocrisy from Murdoch accepting an Australia Day award. He pretends to champion freedom of speech, but he’s spent decades abusing his monopoly to bully Australians he doesn’t like into silence. Murdoch invented “cancel culture” in Australia,” he tweets.

But an “achievement award”? True, His Excellency helps pick our PM; set his agenda. And granted, Rupert always does his level best to help capital protect itself from the curse of working voters. But achievement?

“If you’re just choosing from people in OECD countries, ostensible liberal democracies, Rupert Murdoch has to be up there as the most-single-handedly destructive person of the last three decades, right?” MSNBC anchor, Chris Hayes, is stung by the brazen duplicity in Fox’s peddling the Hunter Biden laptop canard. He may as well be talking about how Murdoch has stymied carbon abatement or backed the Iraq incursion. On a national level he could be talking of how the empire has destroyed progressive candidates’ lives.

Rudd, who unlike our current charlatan, was a real PM, sees Murdoch as “a cancer on our democracy.”

Worse, Rupert enables mob violence. For The Washington Post’s, Margaret Sullivan , the mob that stormed and desecrated the Capitol, 6 January, 2021, could only exist in a nation radicalized by the urging of Murdoch’s factoid Fox News. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham all helped incite that riot.

Perhaps, in a post-modern, post structuralist, post-truth, world, inciting destruction is a type of achievement. Yet given his history in the British newspaper business, few would mistake Murdoch’s award for anything but a set-up. Rupert’s gong is an award conferred on the other side of the world, aimed squarely at an Australian audience. Kevin Rudd – and the signatories to his e-petition – will have no difficulty recognising the target.

It’s unlikely Murdoch will feel the need to add the Lifetime Achievement award to his CV for his next big commercial adventure. The News Corp CEO and his right-hand woman, Rebekah Brooks have held a series of meetings with the orchestrated catastrophe that is Boris Johnson’s Conservative government. Sam Bright in Byline Times reports that the pair had seven meetings with five senior ministers last August-September.

It’s clear that the Murdoch empire proposes to open an “opinionated” news channel, News UK TV which some worry will turn out to be just another version of the highly profitable Fox. The banner headline in The Sunday Mail is a hint, Top Tory Launches Rival to Woke Wet BBC.

While the Murdoch channel may struggle to achieve a big audience, its influence may be much larger. Fox News, for example, one of the most popular US networks, reaches fewer than four million primetime viewers. But it’s a sterling example of how even a shameless train-wreck of opinionated hackery can have a significant intermedia effect, setting the agenda of mainstream network news as well as its cable TV rivals.

Similarly The Australian can set and frame the news agenda on any given day in Australia with even the ABC taking its lead from the stories that News Corp publishes. Murdoch pretends that he doesn’t tell his editors what to print. The truth is that each editor is left in no doubt. And Murdoch is in constant communication. His power over his papers and over many of the governments they are published in is enormous.

But power does not confer acceptance. His experience in the UK is instructive. To the establishment, Murdoch is the archetypical antipodean gold-digger, a crassly ambitious vulgarian for whom no gutter is too deep. This reputation was earned when his News of the World ran Christine Keeler’s memoirs in 1968. The Aussie nonentity morphed effortlessly into the Dirty Digger inside six months.

“It was his first very big story in his first very big British newspaper,” writes The Guardian’s Steve Hewlett.  If it won few friends in high places, it got attention. It earned him a reputation for muck-raking for personal gain. Later, of course, Murdoch would ingratiate himself with the power elite only to ultimately alienate it.

Murdoch’s illegal Phone Hacking Scandal, nearly finished him in Britain. Only nine years ago, a cross-party UK parliamentary committee tells the News Corp chief he “lacks credibility,” his son, James, “appears incompetent” and the company is guilty of “wilful blindness” towards its staff at The News of the World.

Murdoch is not, they conclude, a fit and proper person to run any sort of rag. Luckily for “Pops” as he’s known to his kids, his pal David Cameron’s four Conservative MPs on the ten person committee loyally dissent.

Elisabeth Murdoch is ropeable. As Rupert’s only daughter and the child with the most business acumen, puts it with characteristic Murdoch delicacy, her brother, James and Rebekah have “fucked the company.”

And as the revelations reverberate, The Guardian’s John Harris fears, quite reasonably, the duo may have done the self-same thing to UK politics and public life. As in Australia.

It’s not just the mogul’s dominance, or his petty vendettas against progressives and his pleasure in ruining people’s lives, his prurient eagerness to drag us into the gutter, his brazen fabrication and his outright lies, there’s the damage Murdoch does as he debases public discourse.

Roger Ebert’s account of the uber-grub’s arrival at the Chicago Sun-Times, reveals something more than an assault on decorum and decency, a perverse, pernicious vulgarity.

“… first day of Murdoch’s ownership, he walks into the newsroom and we all gather around and he recites the usual blather and rolls up his shirtsleeves and started to lay out a new front page. Well, he was a real newspaperman, give him that. He throws out every meticulous detail of the beautiful design, orders up big, garish headlines, and gives big play to a story about a North Shore rabbi accused of holding a sex slave.”

Rudd protests the ways the Murdoch empire’s power is routinely used and wantonly abused, “to attack opponents in business and politics by blending editorial opinion with news reporting. Australians who hold contrary views have felt intimidated into silence. These facts chill free speech and undermine public debate.”

True. Our trust in institutions, including democracy itself, not to mention our sense of integrity, is polluted by Rupert’s alarmism, climate denialism, muckraking, titillation, innuendo and character assassination, although it’s not spelled out in Rudd’s petition.  But schlock and horror is just the dirty digger’s house style.

For Murdoch and his family firm, media ownership is a means to power. He is the most powerful single force in Australian politics, “bigger than the major parties or the combined weight of the unions,” says veteran Labor politico, Bruce Hawker, in The Rudd Rebellion. Bigger than Big Gina and Twiggy combined.

Power confers contempt. He lets his useful idiot, Donald Trump call him “Rupie”. Rupie calls Trump a “fucking moron” behind his back.

And the Murdoch family business’ power is metastasising further, thanks to the Coalition gifting Foxtel $40 million to make three out of four Australians lose free access to sport. Not that Foxtel is making any money as far as anyone can tell – now that Murdoch has “disappeared” the company to the secret state of Delaware, the small Eastern U.S. State, which boasts more corporate entities—public and private—than people.

The ratio stands at 945,326 to 897,934, at last count.

Helping the dynasty increase its power, is the Morrison government with its Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code a form of extorting money from Google and Facebook on the lie that the social media giants profit unfairly from news. Or else Microsoft’s Bing gets it. Morrison licks his lips at the APC.

Bing is the winner in a 2019 Stamford study which shows the search engine is far more likely to return disinformation, misinformation conspiracy and white supremacist sites. Out of 600 results for 12 search queries, Bing returned 125 sources of disinformation while Google returned 13.

Microsoft is pleased, too, because whilst it commands 30 per cent of traffic in the US, Bing currently has only 3.6 per cent of traffic. In response to queries for vaccines autism, Bing returns six anti-vax sites in its top 50 results. Google, in contrast, shows none. In general, Bing directs users to conspiracy sites even if they are not looking for them. Our PM is either unaware of this research or it fits his friendship with QAnon follower, Tim Stewart whose wife Lynelle is paid $80K PA with a car allowance to be Jenny Morrison’s special companion .

The tech giants face payments which will flow to News Corp and Nine helping them increase their dominance at the expense of smaller, more independent publications and as Kevin Rudd puts it “media diversity.”

A code should not just profit two giant companies, Chair of Private Media and Solstice Eric Beecher argues,

“This ‘ground-breaking’ legislation, as the government and its big media supporters constantly describe it, should not just be a mechanism to ensure the bulk of Google and Facebook money lines the pockets of a couple of multibillion-dollar public companies for whom news journalism is a small part of their business.”

News journalism is not a big part of Murdoch’s business. News Corp is more a propaganda operation masquerading as a news service, argues academic Denis Muller, a role which Sally Young notes is how the business began its corporate life in 1922 as News Limited. Secretly established by a mining company owned by industrial titans of the day, it was created for the express purpose of disseminating “propaganda.”

Rupert did not invent the tabloid, although he’d love to take credit. Edward Lloyd (1815-1890), published the first newspaper to sell a million copies a hundred years earlier. And while Murdoch is always happy to take kudos for “writing what the public want to read”, a Lord Northcliffe motto, his papers and his TV shows are part of more complex and more pernicious transactions than simply pandering to base or popular appetites.

“Those who say they give the public what it wants begin by underestimating public taste, and end by debauching it,” quotes The Monthly’s Richard Cooke. The insight’s attributed to TS Eliot in The Pilkington Report on Broadcasting, 1962, which opposed commercial broadcasting in the UK.

Murdoch knows the tabloid’s days are numbered, like all print newspapers, along with the days of their most successful modern exponent. It’s not just the Internet. In Britain it’s the pandemic. Which is why it doesn’t hurt to get out the turd-polish. Murdoch has a big TV project in the wings and his lifetime achievement award is a kick in the teeth for Rudd and a timely bit of a back scratch from Morrison in advance of an early election.

News of the World was ultimately wound up after a notorious phone hacking scandal led to an eight month trial in which Murdoch did not appear. Instead his money did the talking. Editor Rebekah Brooks was his proxy, just as Andy Coulson was a de facto proxy for the PM at the time David Cameron and his political reputation.

It cost Murdoch over a billion dollars to engage top silks and assistants, a tour de force which overwhelmed the state’s prosecutor, one assistant and meagre resources.

Yet it was not the indictments in court that were at stake, less about journalists behaving badly so much as the power of money and the abuse of that power, an issue which is very much alive in the incorporation of a “charity” The Australia Day Institute, UK, so that members of the power elite can applaud each other

“… the perception that some news organisations were all too happy to invade privacy and ruin lives in order to sell more papers; that they regarded themselves as not only above the law but above the government, which would do their will or suffer for it; that they had poisoned the mainstream of public debate with a daily drip-feed of falsehood and distortion.”

Achievements? Inciting riotous insurrection via Fox in the US and colluding with the Morrison government in promoting climate science denial on Sky and in his News Corp papers in Australia – now quietly relocated to Delaware?  As Michael West reports, Murdoch has already funnelled his Foxtel monopoly out of Australia into a new company, or “mysterious entity” as West puts it, set up in the secrecy jurisdiction of Delaware where shareholders, directors and other picayune details remain hidden from public scrutiny. A ScoMoesque move.

Delaware seems to be part of a radical restructure of News Corp’s Australian assets in preparation for sale. Yet Rupie even at 89 is his dynasty’s biggest asset.

Rupert poses; flash as a rat with a gold tooth in what seems to be a budget hotel bathroom. He’s spent his life crushing editors and standards even for hacks of the gutter press. Setting the bar lower than a snake’s belly.

 ”Silence. I am the billionaire tyrant Rupert Murdoch,”  says Murdoch’s avatar on an episode of The Simpsons as he commands attention to open the Super Bowl. A man with a massive ego, writes Paul Barry, an elephant hide and an extraordinary sense of entitlement. A mammoth sense of his own self worth.

Fox sponsors Trump’s conspiracy theory of election theft and voter fraud just because it makes money. But the outlook is not rosy. As with News Corp, the rivers of gold are drying up and it’s time to move on and sell up.

Is the gong Morrison’s revenge on Rudd whose petition for a Royal Commission into News Corp gained over half a million signatures? Investigative journalist Ronni Salt traces our PM’s links with the mysterious Foundation, which include a one-time PR manager for our PM during his brief time at Tourism Australia.

Ronni generously calls the award “a fabricated piece of performance frippery” and an after-thought.

“It’s that long forgotten party hat left under the stairs given to that extra birthday party guest at the last minute.”

But even at 89 it would be dangerous to write Rupert off yet. His mother lived to 103. Surely he can live long enough to be arraigned before Rudd’s Royal Commission.

Democracy has been destroyed by globalisation!

The massive growth in size and power of monopolistic organisations, and collusion over issues like prices and interest rate fixing, means that commercial interests now have more power than governments.

The inducements they are then able to offer – which extend to cosy sinecures post-politics for many senior Ministers – almost inevitably result in an increasing level of corruption in government.

The stubborn refusal of leaders like Morrison to introduce any version of integrity oversight – let alone a truly effective one – is even more alarming, when you examine the extent to which individual rights are being eroded and penalties increased for whistle blowers.

Julian Assange is wanted by the USA because he revealed the venality and illegality of their actions, while Witness K and Bernard Collaery have embarrassed former Coalition politicians by showing that they sought commercial advantage over the world’s poorest new nation under the cloak of national security!

Many of the wars in which we tagged on the tail of the USA, were at the behest of the munitions industry in the USA.

Countries like Saudi Arabia are allowed to – literally – get away with murder because of their importance to the oil industry.

If governments were doing the right thing by taking action on climate change, oil would lose its importance, as would other fossil fuels – and there would be a much greater chance that women in the Middle East might have the opportunity to move into a modern world environment!

COVID-19 might be a virus which is causing major disruption all round the world, but it truly pales into insignificance when you compare it to the adverse effects, world-wide, of the greed associated with globalisation, and, in particular, the worship of fossil fuels!

China might seem to pose a threat, but look more closely at Amazon, Google, Facebook and all the oil and gas conglomerates and ask yourself – how can the environment and society survive unless something changes really soon.

Is allowing the Australian government to see its term in office all the way through, really an option, or do we need to be using people power to bring on desperately needed policy change?

What do we want?

ICAC!!

How do we want it!

With real teeth!

When do we want it?

NOW!!

I sometimes wonder if it is in becoming a parent, responsible for the health and well-being of a tiny morsel of humanity, that we first experience a real awareness of the interdependence of human beings.

For those who wait until they are reasonably mature adults to give birth the first time, it is often a total life-changer.

The fact that, without your almost continuous monitoring and attention, the baby’s very life is at risk, takes an enormous amount of adjustment.

My first child was born with a stridor, and I was regularly asked by total strangers if my baby had whooping cough. At 9 or 10 weeks old, he was admitted to hospital for 10 days for assessment of his condition. I had been struggling with breast-feeding, and, by the time he was discharged he was totally bottle fed.

I felt a total failure – a feeling I can imagine has been shared by many new mothers over the years! And – now that many men are – thank goodness! – becoming more actively  involved with their children from a much earlier stage of their development than was traditionally the case – they, too, are more emotionally involved in many of the earlier adjustments.

Children need a level of structure in their lives, IMHO, if they are to become self-sufficient as they themselves mature, and part of that structure is awareness of how their behaviours affects others.

Learning to share toys, for example, and generally learning empathy from as early an age as possible make it much easier for the child to be aware of the needs of others, which can often be even more important than their own!

Recent events in some exclusive schools plus regular reports of bullying in schools give us a much clearer picture of why sexual harassment and bullying in the workplace are the eventual outcome of parental – and educational – failure to encourage the child to recognise the needs of others.

The problem is not exclusively male, either. Schoolgirls can have social cliques and be remarkably cruel to ‘outsiders’!

And it might be appropriate to add that increasing awareness of the conditions applying to those in the ASD spectrum, add a further nuance to what can be expected from an individual who might be supremely intelligent, but oblivious to their impact on others.

So, however independent we might become as adults. we still live in a world with massive variations in needs and aspirations, so, without rules, life can be very hectic and often unpleasant!

A cursory reading of the new Testament of the Christian Bible, reveals that the Jews practised a form of Sharia Law, as do countless Muslims all round the world to this day.

Many countries have, however started (and I stress the word ‘started’ – we have still a long way to go!) moving away from the real cruelty associated with the ‘eye for an eye’ thinking which underpinned the foundation of ancient laws. Even the death penalty, now seen in some some countries as being actually judicial murder, is being abandoned, in part on the basis that, if the law has been administered unjustly, you cannot bring back to life someone who has been wrongly subjected to the death penalty!

But Australia is far from having properly embraced human rights – despite our government preaching to countries like China and Russia – and the USA – of their failure to do so!

If we operated under a proper Human Rights system, we would not have refugees incarcerated both offshore and in onshore detention centres, or released into the community with no right to any benefits nor to seek work. Just think about the utter cruelty of that scenario!!

And, most importantly, the Biloela children would be living in the community!

We have politicians who are strong on touting values, but if the laws they devise are based on their values, I do not wish to share them!

I value compassion, tolerance and empathy, but the laws I see added to the Statute Books, and the behaviour I observe from those in power, do not coincide in any way which what I see as values related to human rights.

Given the plethora of complaints available online, I am far from alone.

To be a democracy means the people are responsible for forming a government from the adult population which bases its laws on the wishes of the people.

Somewhere along the line, the question of having a majority rears its head, and the smaller the margin, the more important it is to take note of the minority views.

All polls in recent years have moved the numbers of those wanting the government to introduce, as soon as possible – because time is of the essence – realistic policies to counter global warming. These policies would have to include reducing, as quickly as possible, reliance on fossil fuels.

We cannot force other countries to follow suit , but we are actually lagging way behind many other countries who have long since realised the need for action.

We could lead the tail-end Charlies – but, instead, we have, it appears, a cohort in power who believe that, by supporting the policies of the fossil fuel giants, they might be assured a financially beneficial sinecure, post-politics,  and to hell with the rest of us!

The actions of the former Minister for Sport, and others in Cabinet, in openly ensuring grants went to those most likely to support the Coalition, has left us in no doubt that we are led by a corrupt government.

I heard the first mutter yesterday that an early election might be in the wind.

Should that transpire, we need to look incredibly closely at the integrity and aspirations of the candidates, because both major parties are failing us badly!

The old cliché that you get the government you deserve, irks me greatly, because I am fairly sure that a majority of us do not deserve the government we have been lumbered with!

I end as always – this is my 2020 New Year Resolution:

“I will do everything in my power to enable Australia to be restored to responsible government.”

By Ad astra  

It was twelve years ago, on July 10, 2008, before The Political Sword was inaugurated, that I wrote Is adversarial politics damaging our democracy?. It was published on The Possum Box hosted by Possum Comitatus, who gave me my start at political blogging, for which I continue to be grateful. Some of that piece is reproduced below because recent political events demonstrate that its messages are as relevant today as they were then.

While most readers will have their own ideas about the meaning of ‘adversarial politics’, so that we’re all on the same page, let’s use the following definitions: “Adversarial politics exists when the proposals put forward by government are routinely criticised by opposition parties. Any stance taken by government is automatically opposed, whatever its merits,” and “Adversarial politics takes place when one party (usually not in Government) takes the opposite (or at least a different) opinion to that of the other (usually the Government) even when they may personally agree with what the Government is trying to do.” It is a characteristic of the Westminster system, and if one can judge from its most flagrant manifestation, Question Time, most parliamentarians seem to revel in it. They enjoy the contest, which at times takes on gladiatorial proportions.

Because it provides a rich source of sensational copy, the media thrive on adversarial politics, and contribute powerfully to it through the press, TV and radio. Without it, life for journalists would be less lively and the preparation of material that might interest the public more demanding.

But to some who closely follow events in the political arena, it is a source of irritation because inherently it involves dishonesty and at times downright deceit. The main game seems to be winning or scoring political points even if that requires taking an opposing position that is inconsistent with previous positions or policy, and in the process demeaning or humiliating the other person or party. All observers of the political process applaud informed and vigorous debate that teases out the issues and ensures that sound decisions are made. But is an adversarial approach required to achieve this? Some might argue that it is; most would disagree.

The COVID-19 disaster

We are in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. No one is certain about how to manage it; it is unique. Medical experts and epidemiologists have guided political decision making. A piece on TPS titled Listen to the experts showed how effective this strategy was.

Some of the rubbish served up to Daniel Andrews (Image from Twitter)

Victoria’s Premier, Dan Andrews has been at the forefront of this wildly spreading infection, giving stark updates and offering predictions and advice every day for the people of Victoria and beyond. He is exhausted. He, like everyone else, is operating in an environment in which no one knows what to do with certainty. He takes the advice of the medical experts. Nobody should doubt his sincerity, his earnestness, his integrity. He wants to do the right thing for the people of Victoria. Does anyone seriously doubt that?

Yet we have State Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien out every day miserably bellyaching about what Andrews has said, done, or advised. He thinks he knows better. He is sure of his position despite working on the same data. His carping criticism is as irritating as his words: ‘bungling’, ‘inept’, ‘hopeless’, ‘dictator’, ‘Chairman Andrews’ or ‘Chairman Dan’. How depressing it must be for Andrews to have to endure such talk!

And it’s not just O’Brien. If you can stomach it, tune into Peta Credlin on Sky News, or Andrew Bolt on The Bolt Report where he brings on assorted right wing stooges who embellish his sarcasm. Or listen to so-called ‘Sky after Dark’ where you can hear Chris Kenny, Paul Murray and other luminaries ridicule Labor at every opportunity. Then read the assessment of it on The New Daily.

Question Time shenanigans

Because adversarial positions are more often taken by parties in opposition, many examples are seen in Question Time, where acerbic questions are aimed at the PM and his ministers. The Government too uses Question Time to score political points via ‘Dorothy Dixers’ where backbenchers read a question written elsewhere and designed to give the responder an opening to attack the Opposition.

It’s not just at Question Time that we see adversarial politics. It’s seen at press conferences, doorstops, and radio and TV interviews where journalists are at times downright aggressive and rude in interviewing politicians. While we all want probing interviewers, with the courage to challenge politicians, their stated policies and their utterances, why do journalists persist ad nauseam in asking questions that no prudent politician would or should answer?

Perhaps as a reaction to adversarial probing, there are two words that are seldom used by politicians: ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Some politicians manage to avoid ever using them, instead preferring “let me make this point”. Frustrated interviewers yearn for those blessed, unequivocal words, yet seldom hear them. Instead they so often get a long and convoluted response that doesn’t answer the question, and when it occasionally does, a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have saved everyone a lot of time and irritation.

Some interviewers on TV or at doorstops are devotees of the ‘will you guarantee’ or ‘will you rule out’ syndromes, hoping for a ‘Gotcha’ moment. Sometimes it’s justified, but at times it’s sheer harassment in an effort to get a scoop.

The language of adversarial politics

Language creates perceptions. In adversarial politics exaggerated language is used to embarrass, put down, demean or diminish. It is designed to give the user a ‘win’ or an advantage over the other. There are many examples: ‘Back-flip’ and its colourful variants, ‘back flip with double pike’, ‘back-down’, ‘about-face’, or the more benign ‘about turn’ or ‘U-turn’ are terms used to indicate a change of mind or a different approach. Politicians are entitled to change their minds in the face of new evidence, different thinking or changed circumstances; the opposite, sticking stubbornly to an outdated or untenable position, is foolish. So why not use terms such as ‘change of mind’ or ‘different approach’, or ‘new tactic’ or ‘changed attitude’ or ‘revised position’?

Columnists enjoy describing ideas, proposals or political structures with which they disagree as being in ‘tatters’, in ‘disarray’, even ‘a shambles’, or in ‘chaos’. These terms imply a disastrous turn of events, yet usually nothing catastrophic has occurred. Parliamentarians making submissions to cabinet are sometimes unsuccessful – the proposal is declined or deferred. The individual is then described by journalists as having been ‘rolled’ or ‘humiliated’, or has ‘rolled over’, and is therefore painted as a loser.

Slogans and mantras

Slogans are part and parcel of the language of adversarial politics. ‘Stunts’, ‘gimmicks’, ‘symbolism’, ‘all style and no substance’, are frequently used. ‘Control freak’ is another used by opponents. Yet what evidence is ever offered to support the ‘control freak’ mantra? It seems this phrase often refers to the clearing of written statements for distribution to the public through the leader’s office. Is that unreasonable, is it a serious restriction? Or is it a sensible approach to transmitting consistent messages to the public? Alternatives to ‘control freak’ could have been ‘having a finger on the pulse’, or ‘aware of everything that is going on’, or ‘directing traffic’, but they would not have had the desired affect that pejorative labelling achieves. Slogans and mantras are used because they work. Start a catchy slogan and soon many will be mindlessly repeating it. It doesn’t have to have much or even any substance, so long as it sounds believable.

Is adversarial politics damaging our democracy?

Those who despise adversarial politics find it to be contemptible, a damaging affliction on our political system. They resent the stifling impediments it places on governing, on governments carrying out what they promised the electorate they would do. They see it as focused on ‘winning’, on gaining a political advantage, rather than telling or establishing the truth, or contributing usefully to the discourse. It sets the teeth of the electorate on edge, which ‘turns off’ in despair. Voters would prefer politicians to be open and upfront, more focussed on the good of the nation, less willing to corrupt the usually-worthy principles that brought them into politics in the first place. At least our PM and Opposition leader are now cooperating well during the COVID-19 crisis.

What can we ordinary citizens do?

We might be able to bring about change if we, who pay our politicians’ wages via taxes, raise our voices against the use of exaggerated, depreciatory, derogatory and dishonest language by politicians, commentators and columnists. While the media might miss the theatre and the ‘newsworthy’ copy adversarial politics provides, the public would applaud a more measured approach, free from adversarial behaviour – so wasteful, so unproductive, so distasteful. We could write to our parliamentarians individually. Responders to this piece may have other suggestions. Sadly though, if history tells us anything, any change for the better is probably a vain hope.