A message given to those who are selling or promoting commodities and ideas, and trying to succeed in gaining a client, is along the lines of “You have two ears and one mouth and it’s best to use them in that proportion”

Listening is so important, and without doing so, we run the risk of failing to understand other people’s needs, or to encourage them to see the value in the message we are hoping they will hear.

This is a lesson many of our politicians have yet to learn. They are far more skilled at telling us what they think we need and what they are prepared to offer, than they are at listening to us telling them what we know we need!

One thing we have learned from this crisis is that the people who have been of most value to us, as individuals, are the ones who are least well paid, often less highly regarded and certainly least interested in promoting themselves in the process of helping us.

They are the undervalued health care workers, cleaners and many others doing essential but often menial work.

Many more people would have died, or been permanently and adversely affected by the novel coronavirus, had not these carers put their own lives on the line to help us.

This year’s Australian of the Year should be granted, en masse, to this group of people.

And they should be recognised by a significant review of their pay and conditions!

Those of us living in the NT have had no community transmissions of COVID-19, but we have listened in horror to what has happened elsewhere in Australia – particularly in Victoria and NSW.

We closed our borders because a significant proportion of our population is comprised of ATSI people, whose health and living conditions would make them singularly vulnerable to the pandemic.

We have had pressure exerted, by tourism, politicians of various flavours, and by mining, with its FIFO workers, to relax restrictions, but we have, rightly, resisted, because the mighty dollar does not have a value sufficient to cover the cost of the lives that would be put at risk by opening our borders.

This country, in recent years, has seen an alarming growth in government policies which exhibit an attitude of outright cruelty.

Cause and effect are a phenomenon which we have become very bad at understanding.

How long has it been that scientists have been warning us that there would, sooner or later, be another pandemic like the Spanish flu?

Is it not a responsibility of governments to take precautions and prepare plans for likely eventualities?

And to regularly update them – after all we have had warning signs through SARS and MERS, not to mention HIV-AIDS and a host of other less recent ones. 

The Coalition government has been complimented on the extent to which it has been listening to the appropriate scientists in dealing with the pandemic, but how thoroughly was it prepared to think these through properly?

It has also not been sufficiently proactive in ensuring that we have an adequate supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) or that those most at risk in fighting the pandemic and protecting us are properly informed in the appropriate use of PPE.

The disastrous situation in those ‘private’ Aged Care institutions, which are the responsibility of the Federal government, has been appalling, including the lack of plans, the lack of inspection and control and the conditions which applied to staff.

The Disability inquiry is finding these same criticisms apply to service for the disabled, who, along with the elderly, are the most vulnerable members of society. Because the NDIS is a more recent introduction, this might be excused, but for the fact that it shares so much in common with Aged Care needs that, had plans for the care of the elderly been in place, the needs of the disabled could have followed on similar lines.

For a normal household, living with and adhering to a budget is important. But many households do not receive enough to be able to set down a budget and are forced into a hand-to-mouth existence of choosing between putting food on the table or paying the power bill.

In a wealthy country like Australia, this is inexcusable, and it is often the result of policies being made by politicians with no experience or understanding of situations which face a large proportion of the population.

The real cruelty has crept in most obviously in two areas, and politicians of more than one persuasion must be held guilty here.

Not surprisingly, these two areas are linked – they are refugees and the Department which is responsible for administering Immigration and Citizenship – Home Affairs.

Those refugees arriving here by sea after a certain date have been denied the right to ever settle in Australia.

Maybe the Labor government of the time thought it might be able to find homes for them elsewhere, but they made the really big mistake of failing to line up those prospects before making that decision.

Big mistake!

Some limited efforts have been made subsequently by the Coalition – although the massive gift to Cambodia must have been a result of a regrettable brain storm – and the lives lost and damaged by this policy is a black mark on Australia’s history which can never be erased.

Is the mind-set which supports this attitude a consequence of the cruelty underlying the foundation of Australia as a penal colony?

Who knows.

But the malign forces which led to the establishment of the appallingly-managed Department of Home Affairs, and even more evil decision to put Peter Dutton in charge, have left most people of conscience confused as to the path Australia is following to Hell!

The entire Department should be sub-titled Cruelty Incarnate!

Families remain separated by unbelievably idiosyncratic decisions about visas, while families with a child suffering an incurable – but manageable – disease are deported.

And let us keep hope alive hope that the Biloela family will be quietly returned to the community where it has been so loved.

Some of the problems can probably be laid at the door of an AAT, which has been loaded with members lacking legal experience but being ardent adherents of the Coalition parties!

Most recently, carelessness by an official of Home Affairs, resulted in the release to a member of the public, in a seriously criminal breach, information regarding a whistle blower and – wait for it! – which has been passed back by the Ombudsman to Home Affairs for them to investigate and deal with.

HELP!!!

How inappropriate can you get?

I have a sneaking suspicion that it was Malcolm Turnbull who created Home Affairs and put Dutton in charge, in order to remove Dutton from the pool of those seeking to be rid of and/or replace Turnbull. If so, then that may well prove the greatest disservice to the people of Australia in Turnbull’s entire career.

The Coalition government, no doubt due to heavy pressure from the national Cabinet, has provided financial relief, temporarily, to most people, but has inexplicable excluded some specific groups.

These include non-citizens on various types of visa, Australians in various specific categories of employment, including the vast majority of those engaged in any and all aspects of the arts and entertainment, and university staff.

Incidentally – I am sure that the government has a moral responsibility to provide continuing financial assistance to those people forced out of work by government decisions. Is there also a legal responsibility placed on the government?

The only aspect of education which appears to have support from government, is private schools – a puzzling conundrum.

And for those seeking past-secondary education, beware, as a wrong choice of specialisation might leave you with a debt you cannot repay.

The ideology underlying the government’s most recent policies is really dangerous and is one of the issues which leaves me hoping against hope that the Pandemic will abate sufficiently that we can get out in the streets, en masse, to protest coalition mismanagement.

When it comes to the Coalition’s favourite – the economy – we have yet to learn how many people will retain a roof over their heads.

The banks and landlords are getting antsy over lost mortgage payments and rental revenue, and, as yet, the government has done nothing to provide mortgagees and tenants with any sense of security for a future, while unemployment soars.

The published figures bear no relationship to the truth. (Is the ABS revising its website because of the pandemic, or was the process underway before disaster struck?)

Being an optimist, and having had the most incredible run of lucky breaks in my own life, I realise that a reality check would reveal that my hopes that this government would even consider, let alone act on any of the above, stem from La La Land!

Before I go – my last vain hope is that, having used scientific advice during the pandemic, maybe, just maybe, the government might follow suit in reassessing action on climate change!

Oh! Another thing we have learned – the Australian Constitution is well and truly out of touch with the modern world and needs to be totally replaced with one including a Bill of Rights!

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.”

We are in many ways an incomplete democracy struggling along, so overburdened with the luggage consecutive conservative leaders have packed into bags so small that we never seem to find time for the bigger issues of nationhood.

Think a republic, a bill of rights; an overdue rehash of our Constitution has needed attention for many years. Indeed, a rethink of our democracy and how it functions should be at the very centre of our thinking.

But alas, given the conservative preoccupation with incremental change it would take them an eternity to make any major transformations.

The right to vote in an election is the gift that democracy gives. Therefore, it is incumbent on the voter to at least have a rudimentary understanding of politics and to take an interest in the political landscape.

Other than “climate heating” as the major piece of luggage the government carries into the New Year the erosion of our democracy is next important.

Its demise began with Tony Abbott and is continuing with the emergence of Scott Morrison as a Trumpish sort of warrior for the right.

In my last post for 2019 l alluded to the possibility of love playing a role in the way politics is practiced. By that I meant that a healthy respect for our democracy and a courteous manner toward one’s opponents might bring about better common good results than the hatred shown toward each other now.

In terms of readership it was one of my most least read posts for the year confirming within my thoughts that people are angry, confused and have dropped any semblance of the notion that we still live in a democracy. That logic, truth, trust and reason has the answers. On the contrary their frustration tells them that anger, belligerence, aggression and arrogance does.

It is not however, only in politics that we see it. It is but a reflection of our society.

More the fool me, I thought. Well, at least those people who commented in my favour and agreed gave me some room for reflection.

However, the public might be forgiven for thinking that our politics has descended into a swamp of hate where respect for the other’s view is seen as a weakness. Where light frivolity and wit has been replaced with smut, lies and sarcasm.

And in doing so politicians debase our democracy and themselves.

But let’s move on beyond the wreckers like Abbott, Morrison and Dutton and most of the current Cabinet.

The accumulated mistakes they have made seem to have not troubled them in the slightest. Conscience is never revealed.

1 The Australian National University conducts an annual poll into the state of politics. This year they found that public trust has reached an all-time low.

Key points:

• Australians’ satisfaction with democracy is the lowest it has been since the Dismissal in 1975, a new study suggests.
• Public trust in government is also at an all-time low, according to the study.
• Just over a decade ago, contentment with democracy was at an all-time high now it is at an all-time low.
• Just 25 per cent believed people in government could be trusted.

“I’ve been studying elections for 40 years, and never have I seen such poor returns for public trust in and satisfaction with democratic institutions,” lead researcher Professor Ian McAllister said.

Since gaining power in 2013 this government has taken umbrage at those who might say or print words critical of it. So much so that over a long period of time the attitude among politicians, public servants, security, officials and legal figures has been to halt the flow of information that one could be assured of from government in a liberal democracy.

Openness and transparency should be sacrosanct in any democracy, but it isn’t in Australia.

In a democracy the right to free speech is given by the people through the government. Therefore, it should be incumbent on people to display decorum, moderation, truth, fact, balance, reason, tolerance, civility and respect for the other point of view. Sadly, this seems to have been forgotten both here (and in the United States).

The very least we should expect from our government is an openness that gives the voter an assurance that whistleblower protection is in place. That freedom of information requests are treated with respect and that matters of governance and the national interest are best served with transparency.

Here is a simple example.

The Prime Minister has refused to disclose the content of Barnaby Joyce’s drought envoy reports in the form text messages.

Joyce has no objection, so why the refusal so here we have, yet again, the government shrouded in corruption, secrecy and incompetence.

2 Morrison returns.

After watching Scott Morrison’s, 22 December press conference after his embarrassing return from leave l have these comments. Firstly, his statement that this is a time for bipartisanship was a fib. The opposition has offered him it, many times.

Secondly, when asked about the use of credits to reach our Paris commitments he completely ignored the question and went on to repeat the lie of omission that we will meet our target in a canter.

The point is that 50% of our target can be taken up with the credits meaning that we would be guilty of not pulling our weight.

The world will be entitled to call us cheats, and they would be right.

He has literally refused to reconsider any part of his government’s climate change policy. He is in a very bad place with his attitude.

One thing I did conclude though was that sympathy doesn’t come naturally to the Prime Minister.

Next post my words will speak of leadership.

Link to Part 1

Note: If the title and the first part of this article looks eerily similar to yesterday’s article … it is because they are! A technical issue occurred. Yesterday’s article has been removed and here is the full article (as was intended for yesterday):

1 The heading refers to when one has spent a few hours writing what one thinks is a fairly decent piece for Saturday’s AIMN only to find that it didn’t save.

I had used the heading ‘A conga line of disasters.’ Diligently, I saved all my source material so that I could expand on each recent episode of bad government.

As much as I hate to admit it, I also deleted my source material so re writing is my only choice.

In my efforts to retrieve my work I stop and pause at the amount of stuff I have written over the past six years. It must run into thousands of articles.

If you add in all the other writers, it is no wonder our editor loses it from time to time.

As I recall I began with the fact that years ago in one of my many pieces on the destruction of our democracy by the conservatives that we should have a Ministry for the Future. (You can place any policy you like in it).

2 As we deal with the drought and find that the National Party’s answer to the problem is to build more dams.

Never mind that if it did rain and the mighty Murray flowed then 80% of the water would go to the irrigators.

Everyone has a plan, and everyone wants to release it. So characterless is the Nationals leader (what is his name again?) that it looks as though Barnaby has taken over again.

The problem is of course is how the water is dispensed. Who gets it, in other words?

Imagine if we had had a Ministry for the Future when all of the problems were first identified and forecast to grow inestimably into the future.

Why is it we react to problems instead of being proactive? With this government now in power for going on 7 years we have made no progress on a national drought policy, energy or climate policy.

That is genuinely poor by any standard.

The problems didn’t just invent themselves here and now and to invite prayer as a remedy is an insult to our collective intelligence.

3 But reports coming out of Canberra suggest the Nationals are most upset at being pushed out of what should be their sacred domain; the bush. So while this drought has its way with the animals the people and growers of produce the Nationals and Conservatives decide to have a Donny Brook about who should take the credit for the latest hand out.

4 They will do anything they can to assist people who are in the most dire of circumstances so long as it doesn’t diminish the possibly of a surplus.

Maryanne Slattery’s article in The Guardian; “The only thing as certain as drought in Australia is the stupid call to build new dams“ makes clear sense:

“The reason politicians don’t like to talk about these dams is they do nothing for drought-stricken towns and struggling communities. Instead they are on private land for the exclusive use of corporate agribusiness.”

On the subject of dams, or more generally lying, Tony Burke gave an impressive speech in the House of Representatives last week in which he names four policies for which the government blatantly – and unapologetically even – incontrovertibly tells lies.

They were: a) that Labor never built a new dam during its term in office, b) has to do with paying down Labor’s debt, c) is about us meeting our emissions targets, and d) had to do with extinctions and. And we can add another: The government is lying in the house itself and how it weakens our democracy. I urge the reader to watch the video (in the link above) and see just how Burke pulls the Government apart.

5 But let’s move on, for the Conga line is long.

Never in my lifetime would I have envisaged all our major newspapers, including Murdoch’s mastheads, simultaneously appeal to our democratically elected government to be more transparent about the way it conducts our business.

It simply reinforces the public’s view that our Prime Minister lies at will, lies by omission, misleads by choice and is evasive when we have a right to know.

6 Lying has become so ingrained in those in government that they treat it as a sort of divine right.

Journalism and press freedoms are an integral part of any democracy as is our right to know. Our government treats our right to know as a need to know. This is fundamentally wrong on many levels.

7 FOI applications are now almost impossible to obtain and when they are acquired, they are so redacted as to be useless.

8 This should not be taken as an endorsement of the behaviour of our news outlets, far from it. That is a different matter.

9 Here is another example of non-transparency in government. Did you know that:

“Australia’s richest private schools – which charge students as much as an astonishing $70,000 a year for boarding and tuition – can access cash assistance from a new $1.2 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund.

Senate estimates heard evidence on Thursday that no private school would be banned from accessing the fund, which was established in 2018 as a sweetener to quell the concerns of Catholic and independent schools about a new funding model.

However, public schools are not eligible to apply.”

10 And here is but another example of the Government’s complete lack of transparency:

“It pays to be in power. Especially if you’re one of the 52 people in Scott Morrison’s so-called “Star Chamber” lucky enough to score a secret taxpayer-funded pay rise.

According to the Department of Finance, as of October 1 the Prime Minister has signed off on 52 “personal staff” in his ministerial wing being paid a “salary that is above the top of the range of their classification”, adding an extra $1,414,272 a year to the budget.”

11 But no need to worry. There are some MPs in Canberra who have promised to campaign for more transparency.

The only trouble is that they are opposition members.

12 The mystery around an invitation to the White House for Pastor Brian Houston continues to amuse everyone except for the more seriously-minded political nerd such as myself. Well you see, the man in question went on radio Thursday to raise the question of his own importance but instead created another question.

Why is the Prime Minister going through this charade of not answering questions about the invite? The Pastor thinks it’s much to do about nothing so what does the PM know that we cannot? Ha Ha, is the CIA involved?

On the subject of Hillsong, in 2006 the church secured funds for:

“Indigenous development grants. Hillsong‘s benevolent arm got the money, which went almost entirely to employing and providing offices for church staff, with only a trickle-reaching Aborigines.

In one case, Hillsong Emerge spent $315,000 in federal funds employing seven of its own staff in Sydney to administer a “micro-credit” project that made only six loans to Aborigines worth an average of $2856 each.

Hillsong also failed to enable a single Aborigine to become self-employed under a $610,968 federal grant to encourage indigenous entrepreneurship.”

13 Did you know that the Morrison Government spent $170 thousand on empathy experts for advice on how to deal with drought stricken communities?

They couldn’t find it in their own hearts.

14 And you can add to that $20 million for Christmas Island to remain open with eight cleaners and six gardeners at the detention center for a family of four Sri Lankans and of course, to keep the island on alert for a flood of asylum seekers.

15 Now talking about extinctions we find, as reported in The Guardian that hundreds of Australian academics have endorsed this view:

“The science is clear the facts are incontrovertible.

We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, with about 200 species becoming extinct each day. This includes many species of insects, some of which are essential to our food systems. Many people around the world have already died or been displaced from the effects of a rapidly warming climate.

July 2019 was the Earth’s hottest on record. Arctic peat is burning and ice is melting at rates far beyond even the most radical scientific predictions. The Amazon is burning at an alarming rate. All are creating devastating feedback loops, releasing more CO2 and reducing the Earth’s heat reflecting capacities.”

16 It’s hard to imagine a week passing without Angus Taylor finding himself in trouble. Besides him not being able to find solutions to our power problems and looking after his own self interests, he is now allegedly being accused of falsifying documents.

All the Minister is doing is showing contempt for accountability.

The Guardian reports that:

“Sydney’s Lord Mayor has categorically rejected Angus Taylor’s version of how he came to rely on inaccurate figures of the council’s travel spending to attack her, saying “there were no alternative versions of the document” on the council’s website at any time.”

Labor has asked the NSW to investigate a possible breach in the law, however, I have about as much trust in them as the AFP to find anything against the Coalition.

Any wonder only 13% of us trust politicians.

17 Did you know that the Prime Minister banned Craig Kelly from appearing on Q&A in case he made matters worse on climate change?

Any half-decent PM would have done the same. The man is a disgrace.

18 I think I will finish with the Prime Minister. Michael Pascoe in the The New Daily asks if the Prime Minister is a nutter. (By that he means in the Donald Trump mould).

Remember that no matter what the portfolio, Morrison was always loath to answer questions.

He was always evasive, and everything was on a ‘need to know basis.’ As Albanese said last week, he is loose with the truth.

Pascoe continues:

“They’re “gossip”, “bubble”, and “family privacy”. Running away from what should be simple matters creates fears about how bad the answers might be.”

The refusal to answer questions in Senate Estimates last week was unprecedented.

The first step towards fixing a problem is to admit you have one.

If you have an addiction to drugs, alcohol, smoking or gambling, you have to accept that you have a problem in order to take the first steps towards breaking the addiction.

If you are in an abusive relationship, you have to recognise the behaviour as unacceptable in order to move forward.

If you are suffering from chronic depression or anxiety, you need to admit you need help to combat it.

In order to remain fit and healthy, you must take responsibility.  Have regular check-ups.  If your lifestyle is contributing to health problems, change it.

If your business is failing, you can’t just carry on doing the same thing.

You don’t ignore the leak in the roof or the smoke coming out of the oven.

So why does none of this apply to government who has the health of the nation in their hands?

We pretend that the Great Barrier Reef is doing fine.  We pay a lot to kill a few crown of thorn starfish and we talk about cleaning up plastic and demand that any mention of the reef being stressed be removed from international reports because we have a glossy brochure with some lovely pictures and lots of promises.  Astonishingly, or perhaps not, it does not mention climate change.

The Reef 2050 Long Term Sustainability Plan was released in 2015 to satisfy the Unesco World Heritage Centre, which was considering adding the Great Barrier Reef to its list of world heritage sites in danger, that its condition could be improved.

Two years later, experts from government science agencies tasked with advising on the implementation of the plan said that improving the natural heritage values of the reef was no longer possible.

“There is great concern about the future of the reef, and the communities and businesses that depend on it, but hope still remains for maintaining ecological function over the coming decades.  Members agreed that in our lifetime and on our watch, substantial areas of the Great Barrier Reef and the surrounding ecosystems are experiencing major long-term damage which may be irreversible unless action is taken now.”

So what does the government do?  Approve huge new coal mines, whose produce will be shipped through the reef, and push for approval of great swathes of land-clearing in the catchment area.  Oh, and yet another feasibility study, this one into opening new coal-fired power stations.

The cyclical nature of the climate has altered.  There is an undeniable warming trend with all that entails – worse droughts, bushfires, heatwaves, cyclones, floods, hail storms, sea level rises, increasing ocean salinity, spread of diseases.

The government reacts with flood levies, disaster relief payments, drought assistance, cheap loans to maintain unsustainable farms, more extraction of water for irrigators and miners.

They talk a lot about jobs, bragging about how a record number of Australians are in work.  As Malcolm Farr pointed out on Insiders, that’s only because there are a record number of Australians.

Once again, the government is pretending everything is fine when millions are living in poverty, wages have stagnated, job insecurity has gotten much worse, and underemployment figures are at record highs for recent times.

The only time you hear the government talk about housing is the necessity of protecting tax concessions for “mum and dad” investors and keeping house prices rising to boost wealth.

With over 110,000 people homeless, public housing in crisis, the residential construction industry contracting, first home buyers priced out of the market, and city rents unaffordable, the discussion has been highjacked by those with a “property portfolio”.  Some people just long for a bed under a roof, an address.

We have an aged care crisis that is only going to get worse.  It’s all very well to have another Royal Commission but it is painfully obvious, literally, that the sector needs greater regulation starting with a staff to resident ratio and better training for staff.

But this government’s aim is to reduce regulations, despite the daily stories of businesses engaging in immoral and illegal conduct, ripping off workers and customers to maximise profits, creating pollution and waste and using resources with no regard for the environment, and paying financial advisers to reduce taxation.

One of the few examples of the government acknowledging that we actually have a problem is in closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage.  But every move they make only serves to intensify it.

You don’t teach people to accept responsibility by taking it away from them.  The cashless welfare card will never solve the cause of the problems.  Truancy officers won’t make kids want to go to school.  You don’t instil pride by rejecting the idea of people having a Voice in their own self-determination.  You don’t improve child welfare by locking their mother up for not paying a fine.  You don’t reduce incarceration rates by imposing mandatory sentences.  You don’t increase economic participation by closing down services to remote communities.

This government is addicted to ideology and slogans.  Until they start being honest about the reality of the problem’s we face as a nation, we will continue down the slide of an increasingly divided and fractured society where selfishness and greed are the only motives and more and more people fall through the cracks.  The beauty of our natural wonders and our unique wildlife will be lost.

The government has delivered tax cuts.  Some of us who already have a job will get an extra 20 bucks a week.

So fucking what?

Saturday 11 May 2018

1 By this time next week, only those who haven’t voted pre-poll will be left to cast their vote in this most important election. All the policies, or lack of them, will have resonated with the electorate in varying degrees. Some will vote in a state of confusion but most with certainty. The young have become engaged and hopefully, they might return our democracy to some form of respectability and transparency.

The issue though is will the right win, will they be emboldened to move further right to satisfy the interests of the establishment, corporates and rich individuals. Or on the other hand, will the electorate be prepared to give Labor’s policies of change a chance?

2 The polls have played a fairly negative part in portraying an accurate position of the parties. Given the knowledge all and sundry have of the previous 6 years I find it difficult to believe they are an accurate reflection of the public mood.

“An enlightened society is one in which the suggestion that we need to legislate ones right to hate another person is considered intellectually barren.” JL

3 In recent days it has really hit home to me just how intensive the use of social media has played in this election. My message box, my email, and any other way, the parties could attract my attention, they have pestered to a point where I have had to look the other way.

A positive is though that my diary has attracted new readers by ten a day for its duration.

“The fourth estate as the custodians of the public right to know should act responsibly and report fact and not just express biased opinion.” JL

4 Peter Dutton has come out from whatever slime hole to inform us that Bill Shorten intends letting the boats start again and the redhead insists they will introduce a death tax.

5 Yesterday Labor released its costing’s. Why? Well, it might have been because they were very confident that any criticism of them could be hit to leg but another reason might be that it would keep attention on Labor’s policies and bring Chris Bowen into the picture.

Predictions already show that Labor because of the huge and fair increases in its revenues will be able to better the governments planned surpluses by double and have a $200bn war chest to spend on further tax cuts over the next decade.

It has also allowed $55 million for a plebiscite on Australia becoming a Republic.

“The parliamentary budget office estimates will also reveal that Labor has about $200bn to spend on tax cuts beyond the forward estimates to meet a tax-to-GDP ratio of 24.3% – the same level achieved under the Howard government.”

On any level, you would have to admit that they have not been sitting idly by for the past three years. They have not left a stone unturned to get things right and be upfront and transparent with the public.

6 Also, the release might just detract from the Liberal Launch on Sunday. Which in itself, is but a liberal Party cost saying measure and if Turnbull is a no show, an embarrassment.

7 From the Press Club debate, I would have been tempted to say that I learnt nothing new but that wasn’t the case. I learnt that the opposition, if a world economic downturn did occur, is better placed, because of the savings from Franking and Negative gearing to ward off the effects.

8 The other thing was the Prime Minister saying that Melissa Price would be the Environment Minister in the next Government should he win. He had to be joking. But “Where is she?” said Bill. Time will tell.

“We will never truly understand the effect Free Speech has on an individual until we have suffered from the abuse of it.” JL

9 I cannot remember a government going to an election with so few policies. You would have to go back to Tony Abbott to make any comparison. Tony, of course, believed that just being in office fixed everything. The born to rule brashness.

“If a newspaper article is written in a manner to suggest objectivity but subjective words are scattered throughout it together with carefully phrased unsupported statements then dismiss the article as having no cogency.” JL

10 Incidentally what is the difference between Scott Morrison’s $2.4 billion cuts to the Aged Pension four years ago and cuts to Franking Credits? He sneakily changed the way future rises to the pension are calculated.

11 AIM readers may have missed my Facebook post on the Daily Telegraph’s version of what Bill Shorten knows about his own mum. So here it is.

I wrote this while ill in bed and managed to post it on Facebook but not the AIM.

“Why this was the most compelling moment of this election campaign”

This was the headline on the ABCs online site today. The Daily Mail had attacked him because he attended an elite school.

“In a new low, The Daily Telegraph has decided to use my mum’s life as a political attack on me, and on her memory.” Mr. Shorten said.

“Mother of Invention”, read the headline accusing him of not telling the full story about his mother.

Mr Shorten said his mother died from a catastrophic heart attack in her sleep in April 2014.

“I miss her every day,” he said. “I‘m glad she wasn’t here today to read that rubbish.” 

While appearing on Q&A last Monday, Mr Shorten had spoken of his mother, Dr Ann Shorten, as his inspiration.

He said, “She had wanted to study law but had to take a teacher’s scholarship so she could support her younger siblings.” 

The newspaper accused Mr Shorten of having neglected to say that his mother did go on to study law, and gained first-class honours before going on to practice for six years.

The Daily Telegraph also described Mr Shorten as having benefited from studying at “Melbourne’s elite Xavier College”. 

“I didn’t read it all because there’s only so much time in your day and you can’t afford to waste it on the rubbish,” Mr Shorten said of the article today.

“They think that [because] I explained myself at Q&A on a Monday night, that they play gotcha about your life story — more importantly, my mum’s.”

“She loved being a teacher and she was very good at it. She later became a teacher of teachers.”

“She worked at Monash University over three decades, but she always wanted to be in the law.”

He said, “his mother studied law in her 50s and he was proud of what she achieved.”

“When I was in my first year of law school, she was in her final year. She was her brilliant self and won the Supreme Court prize.”

“She finally realised her dream and qualified as a barrister in her late 50s.”

Conservative media seem to get some perverse satisfaction from this sort of defamation. Remember Alan Jones attack on Prime Minister Gillard:

‘’Her father died of shame because of her political lies.”

I am not well today but I felt compelled to say a little or a lot about the Daily Mail’s attraction of Bill Shorten. Firstly the leading tabloid of the Murdoch gutter publications published it. To say that it is the worst example, the most gutless of all his publications would be an understatement.

They are the newspapers where the truth goes to die. Bill Shorten doesn’t need me to defend him he does a fine job on his own. However, when one’s mother becomes the intentional centre of an attack on the son then we need to speak up and combat it.

I have never really understood the dislike of Bill Shorten because l have always found solace in my enquiries when criticisms have been directed at him by the press and every day by the government. They did the same with Gillard and I also found that reprehensible.

That he has gathered together a team that is so woven in solidarity. So married to his leadership and so surrounded with women is truly, to me at least, remarkable. Sure he has little habits that annoy me but nowhere near as much as the Prime Ministers overbearing nature.

In this election, Shorten has dared to go where other Labor leaders have not. He has taken on the rich and said enough is enough. Schools, hospitals and aged care are the priorities. He has bravely taken on top-down economics and said there is a better way.

“Scott Morrison had a choice between standing up for ripped off workers or sucking up to a tosser who ripped them off and he chose the tosser. He chose Clive Palmer,” Labor’s Anthony Albanese, MP Federal Member for Grayndler Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development Shadow Minister for Tourism

A land down-under stands tall this week as our nation is regaled with tales of former glory from our annual Anzackery bash, vows of congestion-busting and refugee-capping via Coalition focus-groups and a Labor policy with teeth, its $2.4 billion pensioner dental plan – along with a $4 billion boost to childcare subsidies announced Sunday.

William Richard Shorten is also impressing those contacted by News Poll which reports late Sunday his highest approval rating since March 2015, with 39 percent of voters satisfied with his performance. He’s also narrowed the gap between himself and Morrison in preferred Prime Minister to 37 percent compared with ScoMo’s 45 percent.

The poll puts the Coalition 49 to 51, two-party preferred which is an improvement of one point on its last survey, yet  YouGov Galaxy conducted by Sunday News Corp tabloids, published Saturday, has the margin 48-52.

Capturing the nation’s imagination, a last-minute Coalition preference deal with Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party may give Palmer the edge over Hanson’s One Nation and put Malcolm Roberts out of the race. Digger ScoMo, on the other hand, may imagine himself heroically plucking victory from the jaws of disaster; going over the top at The Nek in a Gallipoli all in his own mind, to win a few preferences in some marginal lower house Queensland seats.

History is against Morrison. “In the last three decades, Labor has won 86 seats on preferences after trailing on first preferences. The Coalition has won two,” election analyst, Anthony Green, cheerfully tells ABC TV. Clive was present for 25 of 400 votes last time he was an MP, Labor reminds Insiders. “It’s a marriage between a con-man and an ad-man” ventures Penny Wong leading wags on social media to suggest that ScoMo’s tag should be “failed ad-man”.

It’s a week of mythic stories of larrikin heroes, noble sacrifice, true grit and other inspiring fictions of national identity, our unique courage, enterprise and ingenuity  – our can-do attitude – from ANZAC Cove to Uruzgan, while our amazing run of luck with getting multinational mining companies to dig up our buried treasure, take our water and taxpayer subsidies, wreck our environment, extinguish our unique wildlife and evade paying tax continues.

Exxon Mobile’s $33.1 billion over four years with zero tax paid will be hard to beat – but Adani’s got form.

Adani has breached its licence twice in two years and was prosecuted for releasing coal-contaminated water near the Great Barrier Reef, but its scaled-down, 15 million tonnes a year, mini-monster, a mine opposed by two-thirds of Australians, gets a federal government rubber-stamp on its flawed groundwater management plan.

CSIRO tells the minister the plan is useless given its poor modelling and is riddled with errors and false assumptions.

“The modelling used is not suitable to ensure the outcomes sought by the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Protection Act are met,” the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia state in a joint report.

Adani underestimates how the mine will guzzle bore water local farmers rely on. The water will be drained more severely; more quickly than predicted, the scientists warn. Above all, the mine could drain Doongmabulla an ecologically sensitive ancient natural springs complex, exceeding strict limits on draw-down of the springs’ waters.

But there’s more. Adani also gets a secret sweetheart royalty holiday possibly worth hundreds of millions, unlimited free water, a $100 million access road and an airport funded by Rockhampton and Townsville local councils in a not so open tender deal which has attracted the attention of the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission.

Giant Canadian uranium miner, Cameco, with its massive Yeelirrie mine, 500km north of Kalgoorlie in Environment Minister “M.I.A.” Melissa Price’s Durack, WA, electorate also gets approval.  Is Price bullied into any decision? Nope, just “intense pressure” over Adani by her QLD colleagues, James McGrath, Matt Canavan and Peter Dutton.

We know from previous incidents, revealed by Julia Banks and others that there’s no bullying in the Coalition. Nor any hard feelings. Julia will now exchange her preferences with Labor in the seat of Flinders, she announces Sunday.

Mad-dog James McGrath merely threatened to call publicly for Ms Price to be sacked if she didn’t sign off on the project. Jacqueline Maley hates that the Coalition campaign is a bit of men’s shed, blokes-only show but that’s what you get with ScoMo who promised to look into the whole bullying thing, last September after Ann Sudmalis quit.

Maley is disgusted by ScoMo’s duck-shoving, not to mention his high-handed if not autocratic, abortion gag.

“There has been no investigation into the claims of misogynistic bullying made following the coup against Malcolm Turnbull, and just before the campaign began, Morrison decreed that the issue of abortion was a “debate” that doesn’t “unite” Australians, and was therefore not “good for the country”.

Mining is clearly good for the country, the Coalition contends, but it has botched both uranium and coal decisions in its rush to win votes and reward a mining lobby which donated $45,000 to the LNP last year. Good for the country? There is every reason, economic, environmental or health, to leave our coal and uranium underground.

“55,000 jobs depend on our coal mining industry. That’s what it does. And I think that’s great for Australia,” crows “Stunts” ScoMo who gained notoriety for waving a lump of coal at the despatch box. But 55,000 jobs is less than half of one per cent of Australia’s workforce. And far from being great for us, it’s toxic and costly. Taxpayers fork out $12 billion, a year in fossil-fuel subsidies alone. Other costs are borne by government. Then there are health costs.

Coal mining is the second greatest source of coarse particle pollution (22%) after metal ore mining (28%). Australia’s 92 coal mines emitted 320 million kg of PM10 (coarse particles) in 2017-18. There is no safe threshold for coal dust. Coal particulates contain heavy metals; toxic at low concentrations.

Coal dust blows out over MacKay from open stockpiles and uncovered rail wagons when the wind is right and port workers along with mine workers contract black lung, a disease thought to have been eradicated in 2015.

What’s great about inhaling lead, mercury, nickel, tin, cadmium, mercury, antimony, and arsenic, as well as radio isotopes of thorium and strontium?  Fine coal dust causes a range of diseases and health problems including an increased incidence of heart and respiratory diseases like asthma and lung cancer.

Coal is toxic; lethal. Along with the enormous, social and environmental costs of coal mining and coal burning are how it helps to shorten our lives. If you live within 50km of a coal-fired power station, you are three to four times more likely to die prematurely than your peers who live further away. Not that our states appear alarmed.

The government’s National Pollutant Inventory NPI’s April 2019 report shows our State governments allow coal-fired power stations to pump out as much as 20 times more toxic air pollution than other countries allow. Coal-fired power stations are the main source of Australia’s fine particle pollution (26% of the national ‘all sources’ total), oxides of nitrogen (26%), and sulphur dioxide (49%). They are responsible for a health bill of $2.6 billion, P.A.

Australia produces 5.5% of the world’s coal. We export more coal than any other nation; 38% of the world’s total coal exports. But there is little to be proud of. Assuming that only two million of the seven million deaths attributed to air pollution are due to coal burning, Australian coal causes 110 000 deaths each year.

All uranium ends up as either nuclear weapons or highly radioactive waste from nuclear reactors. Yet Yeelirrie’s approval is only after the federal government is persuaded to drop a requirement that would render it less hazardous – a requirement that the company demonstrate that no species would be made extinct. This requirement had previously caused the WA EPA in 2016 to issue advice that the mine not be implemented.

Matthias Cormann tells Sky News the approval was made 5 March but it is not until 10 April, the day before the election date is proclaimed, that the news is quietly posted on the department’s website. Australian Conservation Foundation’s national nuclear campaigner, Dave Sweeney, deplores a political decision based on a flawed process.

An environmental catastrophe, Yeelirrie may yield over 35 million tonnes of radioactive waste, consume 10 billion litres of groundwater while 2500 hectares of vegetation will be razed for its nine-kilometre long open pit.

Groundwater levels may drop by 50cm and not recover for 200 years, according to Cameco’s own reports.

“Australia could be a leader and driver of renewable energy tech. Instead, the government is rushing through approvals of the Yeelirrie uranium mine and Adani coal mine in what could be the government’s dying days,” Sweeney says.

Yeelirrie means “place of death” in the language of the local Tjiwarl people who were not notified of the decision.

Place of death? Mining uranium could drive to extinction rare subterranean fauna species and harm other wildlife species like the rare and likely to become extinct Malleefowl, the vulnerable Princess parrot and Greater bilby.

The elusive Price drops off the radar. Labor says she’s in witness protection after another shonky Morrison deal.

Shonky? True, the minister did vow last October to wait until the WA Supreme Court ruled on the legitimacy of state government approvals. Granted also, mining won’t proceed until uranium prices rise, if they ever do, but, in the meantime, what a coup for the rule of brute force, duplicity and stupidity. Bugger science or due process.

Our lucky country’s spoilt for choice, national chaplain, Father Morrison, tells us in what Paul Bongiorno calls the PM’s “warm and cuddly appearances” for nightly television bulletins: remember the fallen, mind our own small business, (the nation’s backbone), have a go to get a fair go and don’t ask questions. Especially on the Reserve Bank’s tipped to cut interest rates or water rorts. Or anything else. ScoMo is into government by announceables.

ScoMo, like Abbott and like Rupert Murdoch and before him the great showman Phineas T Barnum, follow Hollywood’s golden rule, as Jerry Roberts notes in The Dumbing down of politics, religion and trade unions.

“People are stupid. Therefore, they should be fed garbage.  An alternative rule goes back to the Scottish enlightenment and Presbyterian social conscience and says people are stupid because they are fed garbage.”

Morrison talks down to us at his peril. His folksy homilies, collection of caps and his tedious family anecdotes are barely coherent but the intent is clear; he seeks to patronise. Thus he alienates where he seeks to ingratiate. Nowhere is this clearer than in his pathological evasion of questions. His bullying, autocratic ego will be his undoing.

“Canberra bubble stuff” is ScoMo’s pet brush-off. Sometimes he borrows Angus Taylor’s favourite evasion “I’ve already answered that question.” Michelle Grattan notes a third evasive tactic he favours, also given detailed analysis by The Monthly’s Sean Kelly in The Rise, Duck and Weave of Australia’s no-fault Prime Minister.

Q: Should Clive Palmer, given he’s spending $50 million in advertising, pay the $70 million back to the Commonwealth plus the $7 million he owes to workers?

PM: Clive Palmer is making his own statements on those matters.

Plucky Gus, pencil-sharpie of post-modern Aussie mateship and rule by oligarchical collectivism may be our latest national hero, as he almost single-handedly bails out Team Barnaby; plugging leaks in the dyke of Watergate, a boondoggle where government pays $79 million for rain collected by agri-business rich and shrewd enough to build huge levees to divert overland flows into their own dams leaving high and dry the river system nature favours.

And sell it back to us. 28,000 megalitres. At huge profit. Exactly who profits is invisible thanks to cutting-edge Gus’s Cayman Island company, Eastern Australia Irrigation (EAI), parent of Eastern Australia Agriculture, (EAA), a mob the former director has nothing to do with now; knows nothing about. No further questions? But where’s the water?

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder confirms to Karen Middleton of The Saturday Paper that the two contentious water licences for which the federal government paid $79 million have returned next to no water to the environment since they were purchased two years ago. Is this why ScoMo and co insist there’s nothing to see here?

Our ABC has a go. ABC RN’s Patricia Karvelas asks Barnaby Joyce some fair and reasonable questions, Monday. Why buy water that cannot be returned to the environment? Why pay so much for rights to water so unreliable? Why no open tender? Who were the beneficiaries? It’s a train-wreck of an interview from an MP who could well be our next deputy PM should the Coalition be returned to office. But only if you’re looking for accountability, lucidity or logic.

Labor. Labor. Labor. Labor. Barnaby seeks to shift the blame. Evade all responsibility. It’s a surreal performance – a Dadaist interpretation of ministerial irresponsibility. “How would I know?” is his most lucid response.

“And Labor did it, too.” The lie is repeated by ScoMo’s daggy dad, avatar, our nation’s post-truth pastor. That Labor ran open tenders, is way too much information for most voters, ScoMo calculates.  Meanwhile, his turd-polishing unit will come up with other trusty falsehoods: Taylor’s water problem is all due to politics anyway. One side is just as bad as the other. The line is now received wisdom on energy, despite its palpable absurdity.

Perhaps, after all, it’s the river’s fault? In a novel twist, former NSW MP Pru Goward blames the victim,

“Governments have struggled with how do we solve sharing a very poor river. Let’s face it, it’s a terrible river, between three states with all these competing interests.”

ANZAC Day brings a brief lull in the slanging-match between our business, banking and mining proxies, the volatile, Liberal, National Coalition, telling lies about Labor death taxes while trying to bribe voters with tax cuts and the representatives of their wage-slaves, Labor, once a workers’ party but, now, badly ravaged by the neoliberal pox.

Coalition campaigning gets a boost from a fake news item in local Chinese language social media about how Labor plans school programmes to instruct youngsters in gay sex. It’s an extension of the disinformation circulated about the Safe Schools anti-bullying programme. A photograph of William Richard Shorten accompanies the article which warns readers of Mandarin using recycled scare tactics from some quarters of the marriage equality debate.

“That men can use women’s toilets. For men to wear women’s clothing. That the following vocabulary cannot be used: dad, mum, older brother, younger brother, older sister, younger sister, uncle, aunt, boy, girl, pregnant, and other gendered words.”

From Queensland, appears a fresh source of hope to the far right or just far out. The civil war the Coalition loves to call its” broad church” whose views on climate change, are enriched by such luminaries as Craig Kelly and Tony Abbott will embrace its recent recruit, Queensland LNP climate nut and (winnable) number three spot senate candidate, Gerard Rennick, whose $30,000 party donation last year is totally unrelated to his pre-selection.

An advocate of a nuclear-armed Australia and a self-professed Russophile, Gerry has a compelling case. He “hates it when we vilify the Russians”, “They don’t want to be hated. I mean, they’re part of the West: they drink, they’re Christians, they play soccer, they’re Caucasians, they have very similar customs and values to us.”

Rennick will not only be a big help to Penny Wong on foreign policy but a boon to the Senate’s deliberations on climate and energy with his belief that the Bureau of meteorology fakes data to pump up global warming hysteria. To be fair to Gerard, this mad claim is one of many circulated to all conservative candidates by our friendly IPA.

Of course, there’s no real cessation of hostilities. ‘Our heroes don’t just belong to the past, they live with us today,’ claims ScoMo in Townsville, where he embraces coal-mining, the Coalition’s back to the future portal with its iconic anti-Greenie, Australia based around real heroes, big blokes digging up stuff in our glorious war on nature and science.

All is well, however, in Rupert Murdoch’s media monopoly where scribes quietly declare their man Morrison to be well in front of shifty Bill Shorten. Others give the Murdoch empire a pat on the back. Election campaign and Canberra bubble veteran, Michelle Grattan, opines,

“Morrison so far has more than held his own on the campaign trail; Bill Shorten has under-performed. Second, the Liberals’ relentlessly negative campaign looks dangerous for Labor. This is especially so as Shorten is facing the full weight of News Corp’s hostility.” 

Grattan is articulating a key component of the upcoming federal election, the mainstream media narrative. The scorer, whom she awaits eagerly is of course News Poll. Expect a frenzy of adulation as “Morrison closes gap”. In truth, the News Poll may well be an outlier while Labor needs a uniform swing of just one per cent to win government. Pre-polling will open Monday and it’s clear that many voters have already made up their minds.

The Coalition’s hasty, flawed, last minute mining approvals are unlikely to provide the boost in popularity it seeks. If public opinion polls are any guide, neither new mine is likely to win hearts and minds. Nor is it certain either will proceed if only on economic grounds and each could face a series of legal challenges over the approval process.

What is clear is that any political party that underestimates voters’ intelligence and common sense is in for a rude awakening. With three weeks until election day and still no sign of policies on energy, environment, education, the Coalition will have to do better than rely on bogus announceables, attacking Labor and lurid scare campaigns.

“What we are talking about here is reliable, renewable, energy,” gurgles a pumped PM, Tuesday. He stands in the same spot as Turnbull, before ScoMo deposed him; the same huge penstock steel pipes arch back behind him like some gigantic, shamanic, horned headdress. The pose gives pause for thought. As does ScoMo’s pivot; his sudden switch from bearer of the black rock in parliament to ScoMo of Snowy 2.0, a study of calculation in concrete brutalism.

In an incredible back-flip, Faux-Mo re-invents his carbon-emitting, coal-powered government as climate and environmental custodians. Snowy 2.0 is the site of Turnbull’s nation-building pet project. Is his an act of homage, or  usurpation? Yet it could be a lemon. Neither the Coalition, nor its wholly owned Snowy Hydro, will reveal any financial models. Giles Parkinson notes that there’s a fair bit of red tape to clear, not to mention environmental issues to resolve.

No financial modelling? No worries. Whether nation-building with your ego or your energy policy, it’s the vibe that matters. And the mix. A “technologically neutral” ScoMo-government may green-wash itself overnight but it’s careful to leave black or brown coal-fired power generation still in the energy mix. It prolongs the hoax that coal and wind and solar can somehow co-exist, whatever the market is saying about the need to invest in renewables to make a profit.

Naturally a few false prophets must be ignored. The Australian‘s Chris Kenny is all for a nuclear option, safe, cheap; a boon, environmentally, as Fukushima and Chernobyl attest, with only a few drawbacks including toxicity, short life-span, long build time and prohibitive price as demand for electricity diminishes. Nuclear is so yesterday. As for green, any saving in daily running cost is offset by a large environmental debit incurred in the massive concrete construction.

But is our new ScoMo Coalition with clean, green, pumped snowy hydro 2.0 fair-dinkum? Giles Parkinson drily notes,

“…a government that “scrapped the carbon price, tried to kill the renewable energy target, defenestrated the Climate Change Authority and tried to scrap the Clean Energy Finance Corp and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency appears to be taking note that climate focused independents are posing a real threat to incumbent MPs.”

Is it green? Will our unreliable, coal-fired clunkers such as Liddell be taken off life support? (Liddell’s expected life-span was 25 years, when built in 1973.) Will filthy, new, polluting smoke stacks rise phoenix-like from the ashes, as the Coalition honours Matt Canavan’s recent pledge to fund ten new coal-fired power plants? Funding? Banks won’t touch them. China doesn’t love us any more and the Russians have already been well-tapped by Trump.

Government funding is promised to those keen to build new coal-fired power projects – but is it legal? In a startling new piece of legal advice from barristers Fiona McLeod SC and Lindy Barrett, The Australia Institute reports McLeod and Barrett argue that the government will need parliament’s approval before it can underwrite any new coal fired plant.

The only existing authority for such appropriation of funds is the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, a body set up to encourage investment in energy-efficient; low energy or low emission technology. Coal or gas projects are excluded.

The barristers hazard that “Energy Minister Angus Taylor is in such a rush to funnel taxpayer funds to new coal fired power stations before the election, he seems to have overlooked that he has no constitutional authority to do so.”

Assistance for new coal fired power projects, it is argued, will require “some form of supporting legislation”, reports Katharine Murphy, either new or existing, to operate and fund the program, otherwise the arrangements would be open to a high court challenge. Certainly, Energy Minister Angus Taylor is coy about new build details.

Taylor, is tight-lipped on ABC Insiders, Sunday. Incredibly, after six years in government and with an election in May, he acts as if he is being put on the spot by a key question on major policy. Perhaps he is. Has no-one done the research?

“I’m the energy minister, I am not going to commit to a number here and now.” An evasive Taylor sees fit to use the Westminster code of ministerial responsibility to parliament to weasel out of a simple question in the national interest.

Instead, Trump-like, the Energy Minister spins a web of lies. He risks ridicule in pretending that the Coalition is reducing its carbon emissions. The government’s own figures show a five-year increase. (Emission rose again when, then PM, Abbott “axed the carbon tax: a lie which even former Chief of Staff Peta Credlin now admits was untrue – “just brutal retail politics” – by which she means ruthless, self-serving, pragmatism. Any means to win an election is OK.)

Yet Taylor’s cool with coal and pumped hydro competing. Has he read Tassie’s Project Marinus’ feasibility study? It’s clear from the project brief that the interlink will be economically viable only if coal is taken out of the mix – and soon.

“… when approximately 7,000MW of the national electricity market’s present coal-fired generation capacity retires”,

Pouncing, like a terrier, on the word “competition”, the topic of his M.Phil from Oxford where, like Abbott, he was a Rhodes Scholar, Taylor offers a touching non-sequitur, “You put your finger on it – we want more competition, Barrie.” Perhaps coal can compete with pumped hydro in the parallel universe of the coal lobby shill or the Kelly “ginger group”.

Taylor has ScoMo’s biggest lie off pat. “We will reach our Paris targets in a canter.” The Coalition knows that with repetition the lie will become orthodoxy  – as has the false narrative that our energy policy is a failure because “both sides” have been bickering, a point repeatedly made by Coalition MPs and their supporters on mainstream media, including the ABC’s The Drum and Q&A. No. It’s a Coalition wedded to its coal sponsors causing the damage.

There are no reputable scientists or economists who believe we will meet our Paris target to reduce our emissions by 26%, based on 2005 levels, by 2030 in a canter. Now the talk is of carry-over credits.

The question has Taylor talking about The Kyoto agreement to Australia fudging its figures; being allowed a credit for land-clearing and forestry in article 3.7 of the Kyoto Protocol, known but not fondly, as The Australian Clause and inserted at the behest of Senator Robert Hill. In brief, we chose 1990, a year when land-clearing had been high as our base, thus giving the impression of progress even if we did nothing. The Coalition’s attitude remains unchanged.

We did not do nothing. The Hawke government introduced policies to restrict land-clearing and established Landcare. When Kyoto was officially ratified in 2008, under Rudd, Australia was able to claim “emissions from Land-use, Land-use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) had fallen by over 80 million tonnes CO2-e … an almost 15 per cent reduction in Australia’s emissions – enough to offset the significant growth in emissions from electricity generation over the same period, which had added 82 million tonnes CO2-e by 2009.”

Because we will beat our 2020 Kyoto targets by 240 million tonnes of CO2, the Morrison government will carry these forward against our 2030 Paris pledge, if other countries are weak enough to allow this. The 26 to 28 per cent target effectively turns into a 15 per cent cut on 2005 levels.

It seems like sharp practice – and in terms of our real contribution to curbing global warming it is a shamefully weak effort, yet our environment minister, “Invisible” Melissa Price, says “it’s a great result for the environment and for the economy”, helping prosecute the fallacy that curbing emissions acts as a break on prosperity, a myth so widely and frequently circulated that it is Coalition and mainstream media orthodoxy.

Bill Hare, director of Perth-based global consultancy Climate Analytics, says there’s no chance we can meet our target without new policies. Most other experts agree. Yet the Coalition is a policy-free zone, especially around energy.

Barrie tries to chat about rats leaving the sinking Coalition ship. Ten faux-green bottles no longer hanging on the wall. More to accidentally fall? Taylor recycles ScoMo’s spin that while the faces may change, the policies remain “focused”. Yet  coal is in now out of-focus while hydro gets a spin.  And since Taylor’s debut in August, energy is an enigma. Even Frydenberg didn’t try to ride two horses at once. You can’t burn coal and pump hydro. It’s one or the other.

Unless it’s for show. This week the Coalition puts another $1.6bn into the kitty for Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro. Invests $56m in interconnector 2.0, or the Marinus link to make little Tassie a powerhouse; “the battery of the nation”.

Marinus will carry power not only from pumped hydro, moreover, it will be able to conduct electricity from wind-power projects in the pipeline. But it won’t be economic; it can’t pay its way unless coal-fired power generation is retired. The costs of the poles and wires are extra. These, ScoMo generously makes clear, are to be borne by the relevant states.

For Tassie’s Marinus 2 project to work, however, its feasibility report says its necessary or our nation to get out of coal-fired power generation. Fast. 2020 is suggested. Yet Angus Taylor suggests there may be ten coal-fired plants which the government may subsidise. Again, it’s impossible to have an each-way bet. Giles Parkinson sums up: Snowy 2.0 and the Tasmanian scheme only make economic and financial sense if coal-fired power production ceases.

“There is no place in the schemes if coal-fired generators remain.”

That’s entirely at odds with Coalition policy. This includes a type of state aid to Trevor St Baker, the billionaire who bought Vales Point from the NSW government for a song – and poised to set up some new ones; a white knight of the black rock and a Liberal Party donor just battling to make a quid by keeping old stations such as Liddell running well past their use-by date. No wonder the government is releasing no feasibility study. What they propose is impossible.

At base, however, Snowy 2.0’s just another show.  “Getting on with the job”, as Showboat ScoMo pitches his cynical faux humility. Typically, “the job” entails the hard slog of deception, disinformation and spin but the old stager knows no sort of performance can distract from the reality that at least ten of his Coalition crew are madly stampeding for the exits.

“Jobs for the boys” are what we are in fact talking about, as Labor’s Penny Wong never tires of reminding us.

Wait, there’s more good news. “A record seven women in cabinet”, boasts Nine news. ScoMo boldly overpromotes rookie WA Senator Linda Reynolds straight from assistant Minister for Home Affairs, to Minister for Defence Industry.

“When you can call up a brigadier, in the form of Linda Reynolds, to take on the role of defence minister, it shows we have a lot of talent on our bench to draw from” Morrison lies. It does show the Liberals’ fetish for militarism. Above all, it rewards Reynolds for quickly abandoning her complaints of bullying in the Liberal Party.

“As a soldier I believe you go through a chain of command and you do things internally,” she says. Her cryptic comment may make sense to a part-time army reservist on a weekend camp but how is this Liberal individualism?  Of far more concern, is how the potential Minister of Defence would respond to whistle-blowers.

Alarmingly, Reynolds repeats Morrison’s myth that voters have no interest in the internal workings of the party – a nonsense given the party’s commitment to transparency – and given the ways our choices of candidate and party are justly informed by insights into party culture – or as Kelly O’Dwyer put it, ways votes are lost by a popular perception that the Liberal party is a mob of “homophobic, anti-women, climate-change deniers”.

ScoMo promises to make Reynolds Defence Minister after Christopher Pyne tidies up his sock drawer and ties up a few other loose ends such as our $79 billion submarine contract. Can he get the boats built in Australia by Australians – preferably in his own state, if not his own electorate? How will we provide crews? A lot for the Fixer to work through.

Reynolds is also – gasp – a woman and a Brigadier in the Army Reserve – irrefutable proof of the Liberals’ egalitarian democracy, despite only nineteen MPs being women.  And a reservist Brigadier will instantly win over any full-time ADF member. Yet the PM fails to cut a dash given the splash as rats desert HMAS Chum-bucket his sinking submarine.

The week in politics sees the federal Coalition frantically green-wash its cred – even recycling the direct action scam, a monster magic soil boondoggle only Hunt could flog, as it struggles to “get on with the job” as ScoMo puts it.

Everyone else lost interest long ago. Or they’re jumping overboard or already off-grid, as a weary nation battles fair-dinkum fatigue, a torpor not even Snowy Hydro 2.0, a Sisyphean marvel now bigger than ANZAC, Phar Lap and Kokoda put together can shift.

“It’s absolutely fair-dinkum power. It doesn’t get more fair dinkum than this,” gurgles ScoMo, who transforms, this week, into state socialist as he widens the sluice-gate of government funding on a project which has already cost a mozza; $6 billion for the Commonwealth just to buy out NSW and Victorian states’ investments.

This week’s capital transfusion transforms Malcom Turnbull’s pipe-dream into a Ponzi scheme. Snowy 2.0 will pump water uphill when power is cheap and let it rush downhill again when the price is right driving whirling turbines to produce top dollar power which cannot but help drive up power bills.

“We don’t need Morrison’s money”, carps Snowy Hydro CEO, Paul Broad, to News Corp, rejecting the Coalition’s sudden, unbidden injection of $1.4 billion part of a largesse which includes glad-handing $440 million to The Great Barrier Reef Foundation, a sign that the outfit may be struggling to stay afloat; struggling to make its numbers add up.

Pumped hydro schemes are generally not profitable, reports Giles Parkinson. Last year, data from the Australian Energy Market shows that existing pumped hydro schemes made almost no money from this activity. In the last quarter, they actually lost money and over the previous four quarters made virtually no money. Paul Broad is less expansive.

“The government decided the way it wanted to balance out the funding. It wanted to sustain dividends,” Broad says. “It wanted to support the project with equity. These things are part of negotiations that go on. We never asked for it. We never asked for anything.” Keeping financial modelling secret only fuels suspicion that Pacific Hydro’s in trouble already.

 Our PM quickly whips up a succession of other phantasmagorical stunts, this week, ranging from Monday’s Climate Solutions fund to spruik the ERF’s resurrection, an Abbott scam for channelling funding to Big Agriculture and even Big Coal amongst other worthy Liberal donors and supporters. It would cost $200 bn to use it to reach our Paris targets.

In other words, it’s “a recipe for fiscal recklessness on a grand scale and a fig leaf to cover its determination to do nothing”, as Malcolm Turnbull proclaimed of Abbott’s ERF plan prior to the 2013 election.

An emission-abating nation gasps as “showboat” ScoMo simultaneously flogs a dead horse, puts lipstick on a pig and executes a reverse pork barrel dive with pike all in free-fall off Mount Kosciuszko in the Snowy Mountains region.

“Magic-soil” Morrison rebadges Abbott’s quick and dirty emissions reduction fund (ERF) boondoggle as a $2bn Climate Solutions Fund (CSF) whilst slashing its annual budget from $510 million to $200 million.  Sheer genius.

It’s half of the funding Abbott committed in the 2013 election campaign. The Kiwis are right. ScoMo’s a phenomenon; a force of nature; a cunning stunt and not a one trick pony after all.

If there’s less pork to fork, what’s left is spread more widely; farmers, whose fingers are already worked to the bone filling in drought-relief forms can now apply for a CSF handout to “drought-proof” their farms, whatever that means, or just do a bit of re-vegetation. Businesses get handouts for “energy efficient projects” and not just planting for trees they would have planted anyway. Given that ERF farmers are agri-businesses, also, a double dip may well be possible.

The Wilderness Society calls on the invisible Environment Minister Melissa Price, former  to review the channelling of funds into paying farmers to protect native vegetation after Queensland satellite data suggested recipients of such money were clearing other parts of their land. What could possibly go wrong?

“Our analysis shows that 13,317 hectares of forest and bushland clearing has occurred across 19 properties in the same year or years subsequent to winning ERF contracts for funding under vegetation methodologies,” Glenn Walker, climate campaign manager for the group, says in a letter to Minister Price.

Not to be outdone, Home Affairs Super-Minister, one trick pony, Peter Dutton doctors up his fear campaign Thursday, with another populist dog-whistle from Dutts Unplugged, a long-running White Australia revival tour.

“People who need medical services are going to be displaced from those services, because if you bring hundreds and hundreds of people from Nauru and Manus down to our country, they are going to go into the health network,” Uncle Dutts tells a fawning of loyal reporters in Brisbane. Doctors respond that the claim is nonsense.

Oddly, not a word of support is heard from anyone, not even Craig and the rest of the Kelly gang, a sect whose job it is to invite climate-change deniers to parliament to mislead policy-makers and to hold Morrison to ransom on energy, a kindness paid forward by the PM and his federal energy minister, Angus Taylor in dictating to the states.

Nobody’s talking. It’s an “announceable” – not a discussion topic. Flanking his PM in the photo opportunity, is Angus, “Squizzy” Taylor, our federal energy enforcer. Was he in witness protection since his rout late last December’s COAG meeting? Then he refused NSW energy minister, Don Harwin’s call for a new national zero emissions policy?

“Industry is spooked by poor policy”, Harwin holds; a circuit-breaker is needed. Squizzy shoots him down. Out of order.

December’s COAG meeting does not even hear NSW’s point of view. Taylor tells Harwin to zip it, citing procedural grounds. Vetoes discussion. “It got ugly very quickly. It was a full-on revolt”, a source tells Fairfax, now Nine Newspapers.

Happily Craig Kelly’s not worried. “I know how [Taylor’s] mind works”, he explains to Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy. Murphy wisely leaves this alone. On Sky, Taylor won’t divulge how many Coalition coal projects are planned but Matt Canavan blabs that the government is looking at including ten in the underwriting scheme. Someone needs to talk to Canavan but only after voters are sold on the wave of jobs that will flow from so many new automated hell-holes and black-lung health hazards.

But it’s not Handbrake Kelly’s backbench committee to abort any change in energy or environment that Morrison really needs to win over. Nor is it the cabal of climate deniers Buzzfeed dubbed “The Dirty Dozen”, in 2016. Still in parliament, at least until May, are Tony Abbott, Eric Abetz, Craig Kelly, Zed Seselja, Peter Dutton, Barnaby Joyce and George Christensen. Senator Linda Reynolds must surely get a Dirty Dozen supporter lapel pin for disinformation,

“Remember when the coalition repealed the carbon tax? It led to the largest fall of electricity prices on record,” she lies.

ScoMo’s Snowy Hydro 2.0 reboot is a bid to woo Kooyong, Warringah, Wentworth, Higgins and Tasmanians who’ll be pumped to be included, even if they’ll have to pay for the bits to make the interlink link anywhere. Knit their own cables.

The media narrative that both major parties’ squabble threaten the development of a sound energy policy is a myth invented by those reactionaries and others who call themselves conservative parties. Conservative?

The lack of progress towards renewable energy is no fault of partisan politics or any 24-hour news cycle, but an outcome actively planned and funded by key stake-holders whose institutes, associations and think tanks enjoy remarkably success – if you can count the win of the mining lobby, (just for example), as a win and not an irretrievable, egregious loss in terms of global warming, environmental vandalism and humanity.