Continued from Part 1

Peter Dutton’s motives for supporting the No vote are questionable. I devoted most of part one to the character of the man who will lead the No vote. I did so because it is essential to question the motives of those who lead Conservative parties. I have concluded that (as part one shows) Peter Dutton has no moral ethics and that, in their absence, he is saying No for purely political reasons. 

He and his Coalition partner, the Nationals, stand between justice for our First Nations people and continuing the status quo. As is usual in these circumstances, they offer no alternatives to what they oppose.

It is fair to say that in my lifetime, governments of both shades spent many billions of dollars seeking to improve the lives of Aboriginal folk. However, the programmes were devised by whites and implemented by them. It is also fair to say that many programmes failed for that reason.

Our First Nations people are asking first that they are recognised for what they are; the descendants of those who inhabited the lands for thousands of years. They would expect this be noted in our Constitution. Most of us, those who believe in a fair go, would agree.

Those who don’t are throwing spurious objections that are false or fake and intended to confuse the listener or reader.

Secondly, they ask that they be given a ‘voice’: One that will go directly to Parliament and be heard by those who make decisions. Parliament would not tolerate frivolous propositions and ambient claims. Thought-through proposals would be considered on merit, accepted or rejected.

It is a simple request for the First Nations people. There is nothing sinister to read into it. After long and thoughtful consideration, they have requested that they have a say in their future and be recognised in our Constitution. 

Adding logic to the debate, Mark Kenny recently wrote that:

“It was not right-wing cowardice that defeated apartheid but moral clarity and fierce purpose. It came from Nelson Mandella, Steve and Ntsiki Biko, and countless others.” 

Let us take a little time to examine what is meant by “moral clarity and fierce purpose” Kenny wrote (above) concerning the Voice.

We’ll start at the explanation of the referendum question and constitutional amendment:

On referendum day, voters will be asked to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a single question. Subject to the Parliament’s approval, the question on the ballot paper will be:

“A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

Do you approve this proposed alteration?”

Constitutional amendment

The proposed law that Australians are being asked to approve at the referendum would insert the following lines into the Constitution:

“Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples

129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

1. there shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;
2. the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
3. the Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.”

Constitution Alteration Bill

The Government has introduced the Constitution Alteration Bill into Parliament. The Bill sets the question that will be put to the Australian people later this year and includes the proposed alteration to the Constitution.

A Joint Parliamentary Committee will consider the Bill and report by 15 May 2023. Further information on the inquiry can be obtained from the Committee’s website.

You can follow the progress on the Constitution Alteration Bill on the Parliament of Australia website.

Referendum 2023

• Referendum question and constitutional amendment
• How a referendum works

Conclusion

There it is. It’s so clear-cut and easy to follow that blind Freddy could understand it. So why is Peter Dutton so intent on wrecking something that should have been done and dusted twenty years ago? 

In his unwarranted attacks on the Voice, the Opposition Leader suggested it would re-racialise Australia. I must admit I hadn’t come across the phrase before. However, it may confirm thoughts he may have had when he so shamefully turned his back and walked out on the National Apology in 2008.

The concept of a Voice is but a step away from a treaty, so Dutton would also take down any hope of an accord or a republic.

Many in his party agree with Dutton’s sentiments, but they are from the Trumpish, brutal right flank of conservatives. Others ostensibly can see that the Voice is an opportunity to heal the divisions of the past.  

It is also about truth-telling, recognising, listening and talking. If Dutton cannot identify those virtues, he has no place in Parliament, now or in the future.

It worries me; no, it disturbs me that now a little over a year since Labor won the election, no word of regret for their many failures (those who committed suicide or others hurt by their lack of empathy) has been uttered by anyone in the Opposition. Instead, its leader has indicated that he intends to take his party further right.

Admitting that you are wrong is an absolute prerequisite to starting anew, redefining who you are and what you and your party stand for. Dutton has yet to do this. Instead, he has opted to sabotage an idea put forward in good faith. One that would resolve generations of angst. After scaring the life out of decent people, will he drive them six miles out of town and let them find their way back.

Journo stumps Peter Dutton by asking why he hasn’t bothered to meet with the CEO of the Alice Springs Traditional Owners’ organisation Lhere Artepe, while he is there in Alice Springs.
Peter Dutton says he’d rather speak to “shoppers in shopping centres” 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/RiuROo9mfI

— stranger (@strangerous10) April 12, 2023

You are probably thinking, referring to the headline, that it is a stupid thing to say, and on the one hand, you might be right given the Government still has two years to serve. On the other, going early when your chances of winning are second to none is a good idea.

The Constitution provides that:

“… terms for the House of Representatives continue for a maximum of three years from the first meeting of the House after an election. This means that a Federal Election for the House of Representatives may be called at any time in the three years following the first sitting of the House. The Governor-General may also dissolve the House sooner than the three-year term.

The latest possible date of the next election is within 68 days from the expiry of the House. As the 47th Parliament first met on Tuesday, July 26 2022, it is due to expire on Friday, July 25 2025. The election for the House of Representatives must therefore be held by September 27 2025, the last Saturday within these 68 days. However, elections are generally called well before constitutionally or legally necessary.”

To make it clear, I support fixed election dates with 3-year terms, but in this instance, my support for an extended period of punishment for the conservative side of politics is as important to me as it is rising every day. And at my age, that is important. 

Now, allow me to put this into perspective. After almost ten years of the worst kind of grossly offensive governance, the Liberal and National parties lost the 2022 election on May 21.

In the time that has elapsed since that date, not once have I heard from the lips of a conservative politician any form of regret or apology, even remorse or shame. On the contrary, we have been served a recipe of poached platitudes, banalities and lies.

To listen to them is like listening to those who cannot express themselves adequately and repetitively mumble, “but we were still born to rule.”

People will, over time, forget their crimes of corruption, the scandals and their men of mad, destructive political beliefs and decisions. Of inequality toward women and lacking equality of opportunity. All of which have been identified in various media over the years and will now be investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).

We must do as I am now, reminding everyone of how foolish and rotten they were. Then repeating it repeatedly because another ten years would be unbearable and disastrous for our nation.

And this is why we must remind the electorate right up to the next election and beyond. Now you ask what would prevent another Luddite period of (mostly) men.

Going early is not uncommon. It allows you to govern for five straight years in circumstances primarily to your benefit. It will enable you to fulfil promises in an unfulfilled, more orderly manner.

An early election campaign creates the opportunity to remind the punters of just how deplorable the conservatives governed.

Another reason the conservatives will be up against it in the next election is that many mature-aged voters dropped from the rolls and were replaced with a cohort of young folk seeking change. This is guaranteed to transpire again. Both parties knew this would happen sometime, but the LNP did nothing about it. A note of caution is that the young are desperate for change. By that, I mean significant, meaningful change that excites and promotes new ways of doing things.

Women still feel ostracised by a party that showed them an indifference that harks from an Elizabethan period when women weren’t allowed to vote or inherit. Labor needs to remind women of the LNP’s misogyny and unrefined manners.

On the road to a new election, events will emerge to focus on the former Government’s corruption. A steady stream of bad news will be revealed on the road to the latest election. I speak of Robodebt and the long list of severe misdemeanours that will be placed before the NACC in June. The Robodebt Royal Commission report will be handed to the Governor General in mid-July. The report is expected to be explosive.

Of course, the best thing Labor has going for it, is Peter Dutton himself. On all accounts, he thinks there is nothing wrong with the party he leads. Its philosophy, its morality, its trust, its economic credentials and its equality. Peter Dutton is so disliked by all and sundry that he couldn’t win an election if he started now.

Having said all this, it must be noted that there is much to do. Labor’s first year has also seen many challenges. 

Inflation is still high, as are interest rates, the cost of living is higher than it should be, and housing and rents are also high. Most of this mess the Government has inherited from the LNP. Much of it has come from events beyond Labor’s control, eg the war in Ukraine and the pandemic.

Then there is The Voice referendum. If it were to pass despite Peter Dutton’s hatchet job, it would give our First Nations people a voice in their future and allow Labor a free hand to complete its agenda. Dutton, in dismissing any form of bipartisanship, has played to form. 

Labor has fulfilled 18 of its significant commitments, whilst others, like The Voice are a work in progress, and some are on hold pending the release of reports.

While writing, I also had Question Time playing on my iPad. The deputy leader of the Liberal Party, Susan Ley, asked the Prime Minister a question that she couldn’t seem to make coherent. The House burst into laughter at its stupidity. The Prime Minister admirably addressed it by calling it a salad, which I thought; “That the word salad sums up this Opposition.” It’s a combination of many ingredients. I’ll leave the dressing with you. 

Later this year, Labor must announce significant changes leading into a fresh election. One that will cement the middle ground and a further three years.

By Denis Bright  

In a crowded news week, the whistle stop in Canberra by Prime Minister Chris Hipkins of New Zealand (NZ) may have gone under the radar in many households. Even fewer readers would have watched the joint news conference at parliament house or Sarah Ferguson’s interview with Chris Hipkins on the 7.30 Report.

At a Joint Press Conference in Canberra on 7 February 2023, Anthony Albanese and Chris Hitchins made a convivial commitment to the closest Trans-Tasman ties on all fronts. This includes defence ties and joint participation in the Five Eyes (FVEY) which has an Oversight and Review Council (FIORC) to achieve added co-ordination between the strategic responses of these anglophone countries.

Both leaders at the press conferences upheld FVEY traditions to ensure that responses to the very limited interactions with the media did not stray into controversial areas.

Prime Minister Albanese showed respect for NZ’s long established nuclear weapon and nuclear ship ban as an aftermath to the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour on 10 July 1985 by French intelligence operatives. The photographer on the Greenpeace vessel was killed in this incident and one other person injured.

There was not a ripple of public dissent between the two leaders over NZ’s continuing ban on the entry of nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered vessels into NZ ports. This policy was restated by the visiting NZ Prime Minister. Prime Minister Albanese remained committed to Australia’s participation in AUKUS and to negotiations over the acquisition of nuclear submarines from the US and Britain.

Australia’s tolerance of differing Trans-Tasman perspectives on nuclear ship visits and transits of nuclear weapons should also extend to a tolerance of different perspectives of the forthcoming nuclear ships deal across the broader Labor Movement. However, the nuclear submarine deal still has overwhelming support in all demographics in Australia. It is one unfortunate policy skeleton from the Morrison Government which still affects our future strategic directions. Full details of the opinion polling authorized by the Lowy Institute are available and I cannot find any real chinks in the vitality of the old policy skeleton.

Writing for The Interpreter (22 July 2022) which is published by the Lowy Institute, Marianne Hanson urged the federal government to tread more cautiously before its final choices about the timing and composition of any nuclear submarine fleet.

Wriggle-room against Australia’s commitment to the nuclear submarine fleets were available from the enormous additional costs of the initial deal, the financial and safety risks of maintaining shore installations, reservations from Pacific and ASEAN countries as well as damage to our reputation as a country which supported a nuclear weapons ban in the Indo Pacific Region.

While remaining in FVEY, NZ has been outside the formal loop of the US Global Alliance. NZ has also co-operated with Australia under arrangements established by the Hawke Government in 1985 with the formation of the Australia-United States Ministerial Council (AUSMIN) to replace the original ANZUS Alliance.

AUSMIN was sold to dissident members of the Labor caucus in 1985 as operating in the best traditions of continued consultation between strategic partners which has been a feature of the original ANZUS Agreement. The strategic commitments and history of AUSMIN are covered in some detail on its web site:

Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) is the principal forum for bilateral consultations with the United States. Held regularly, alternating between Australia and the United States, AUSMIN brings together the Australian Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence with the US Secretaries of State and Defense, along with senior officials from both portfolios.

The consultations provide a major opportunity to discuss and share perspectives and approaches on major global and regional political issues, and to deepen bilateral foreign security and defence cooperation.

Having tested the waters on the formation of AUSMIN, the Hawke Government proceeded to make cosmetic changes to the management of the Pine Gap Intelligence Base. It was to be promoted as an instrument for the monitoring of nuclear weapons globally (Parliamentary Statement from Bob Hawke 22 November 1988). Decades later, Daniel Hurst of The Guardian (10 February 2022) offered a statement from former British spy chief Sir Richard Dearlove on the operational roles of the Pine Gap Base which are far more extensive than a commitment to peace and disarmament.

Critical reservations about proposed nuclear submarine fleet have come from both Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Keating (Katherine Murphy and Daniel Hurst in The Guardian- 2 February 2023).

Malcolm Turnbull declared that Australians should reasonably expect that military capabilities acquired by their government should be sovereign capabilities without the need for US technical operators to monitor our naval commanders under the guise of providing on-board technical assistance.

With more media investigation, the Australian electorate could drift closer to NZ’s stance on nuclear ship visits and the presence of nuclear weapons in domestic ports. Taking up the challenge of frank and fearless criticism of these financial costs and threats to our national sovereignty is a vital challenge.

NZ Labour in government can perform these roles and remain ahead in opinion polling. Since the retirement of Jacinda Ardern, Tess McClure of The Guardian in Auckland has detected an improvement in Labour’s election chances (31 January 2023):

New Zealand’s Labour party has seen a boost in its popularity after the resignation of Jacinda Ardern, according to two new polls, in some of the party’s best results in a year.

The polls, released on Monday night, are the first to be taken in the wake of Ardern’s shock exit, and show a rise in support for both the party and the new prime minister Chris Hipkins, who assumed office last week and immediately faced catastrophic flooding in New Zealand’s biggest city.

In the 1 News Kantar poll, the Labour party gained five percentage points, polling at 38% – one point ahead of the centre-right National party, and Labour’s best result since January 2022. Another poll, conducted by Newshub-Reid Research also showed Labour on 38%, up 5.7 points.

The Hipkins Government has inherited a struggling but growing economy after months of lock-down during the COVID-19 crisis. (Image: Trading Economics):

Percentage Changes in Quarterly Economic Growth

Compared with other countries that identify with the US Global Alliance, New Zealand has a high degree of independence in its foreign and strategic policies.

Tess McClure of The Guardian (16 September 2021) anticipated that Australia’s future fleet of nuclear-powered submarines would be denied access to New Zealand ports.

With the New Zealand elections approaching, NZ Labour policies on strategic policies have partially infiltrated the National Party in Opposition. Former National Party Prime Minister John Keys visited China in 2022 and made the following declarations to Newshub (17 October 2022):

“Overall, in the last 10 to 20 years, China has done a good job of lifting a huge part of its population out of poverty”.

The CCP has had a “very strong focus” on lifting people out of poverty and economic growth, Sir John said, as well as on improving opportunities for the “least well-off in China”.

“China has also been very focused on what is required for growth to take place. And it’s very difficult,” he said.

“To do that you should have the infrastructure to support it. The Belt and Road Initiative has been quite an important initiative, not only because it links China with Europe, but also because their infrastructure is critically important to allow non-inflationary, highly productive growth to take place.”

Australian leaders are fully aware of the fact that our country is even more dependent on economic ties with China when compared to NZ. 43 per cent exports went to China in 2021. Australia took 29 per cent of its imports from China to give Australia an extraordinary and positive trading balance. This is being supplemented by the return of Chinese students to our universities and the arrival of more Chinese tourists later in 2023-24.

NZ has moved in a similar direction in financial relations with China and actually encourages more Chinese investment. NZ is less affected by the Machiavellian taxation practices of Anglo-American companies. Leakages from legalized tax avoidance practices have been cut to 0.6 per cent of taxation take on old estimates from business analyst, Tom Pullar-Strecker (23 November 2020).

Given the superb media profile of Chris Hipkins on his recent whistle stop visit to Canberra, the NZ Prime Minister will be around for a long time in government after the forthcoming national elections on 14 October 2023. As one of the world’s more youthful leaders, Chris Hipkins can think on his feet in his tactful commitments to national sovereignty and greater financial accountability.

Journalists should continue to challenge the Albanese Government’s certainties on this issue with support from responsible academics like Marianne Hanson with support from sections of the crossbench.

Through more inquiry and discussion in Australia more of Chris Hipkin’s strategic policies would probably gain more support here. Political change is strongly media driven and Sarah Ferguson’s follow-up interview with Chris Hipkins on 8 February 2023 showed outstanding commitment to the remnants of media independence. The structures of strategic power and influence are so overwhelming that it will take more than a miracle to overturn political agreements made in the dying days of the Morrison ascendency.

Across the Tasman, Chris Hipkins is also vulnerable to any slippage in NZ Labour’s primary vote under that country’s complex proportional voting system which is an ongoing skeleton from the National Party’s successful referendum in 1993.

Only the progressive media is still around to keep taps on the operatives from the intelligence services while Edward Snowden languishes somewhere in detention for exposing dirty secrets which are in effect a drift back to pre-democratic ways as noted by Wesley Chai for Whals.com which is worth a quick read.

FVEY also receives records of user data from large technology companies – including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, YouTube, AOL, Skype and Apple. Each member country has three to five government agencies involved; each agency is responsible for one to two roles, including human intelligence, defense intelligence, security intelligence, geo-intelligence and signal intelligence.

The Liberal-National COALition has had, to put it lightly, a bad time in recent electoral contests. From the utter wipeout in Western Australia to the recent trouncings in both Victoria and nationwide, the conservative side of politics is not in a good way. Now, as one who thinks in terms of collective benefit rather than laser-focused self-interest and corporate cuckoldry, this is a good thing. But as one interested in the why, as well as the what, I think a deep-dive into this issue may be useful. As sources for this piece, I am using the extremely well-researched and resourced piece in The Monthly about the LNP’s troubles, among other pieces.

Dutton Misses the Mark: Style over (Lack of) Substance, Part One

During yet another attempt to use the media to rehabilitate his image, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton suggested that the LNP is suffering an ‘identity crisis’. Specifically, from The Monthly

He [Dutton] says the Liberal Party is suffering from an “identity crisis” because it has let itself be defined by its opponents including people like businessman Simon Holmes à Court and the teal candidates he backed at the election.

Identity crisis? The Party may not know what it is, but the people certainly formed their opinion. They saw exactly what the Coalition stood for and roundly rejected it. Also, given how much of the media the LNP has on its side, it takes a great deal of nerve to suggest that your opponents define you as a party. Perhaps it has something to do with the utterly vacuous, substance-free garbage that passes for your political actions. Policies that quite openly serve the wealthy: as a single example, consider the first homeowners’ grant, which did nothing but push up real estate prices, helping sellers, not buyers.

Dutton went on to say that

“We have to reassert who we are so that people see the value proposition and understand that.”

As previously stated, Sir, this will not help. People know who you and your party are. People already think you personally are a pr*ck who did little but stoke fear (African gangs, anyone?). This point is, like the previous one, also rendered hollow by the media serving as the propaganda arm of the LNP.

Pseudo-Socratic Method: Nine Media Weighs In

Another angle of Dutton’s proposed redefinition of the LNP was noted by Nine columnist Sean Kelly. Kelly, as some of you may know, is the author of the fascinating book The Game about Scott Morrison.

When discussing yet another profile published in The Age about Dutton, Kelly makes the following quite scathing comments

As the profile noted, the public perceptions are also the result of Dutton’s own actions.

When Morrison became leader, he was allowed to shrug off much of what he’d done before. It wasn’t, it seemed, really who he was. In the end, it turned out to be exactly who he was.

So it is important to ask: how many of Dutton’s previous actions does he now disavow? What actions has he taken – as opposed to interviews given and words spoken – to demonstrate he is different from who he’s always seemed to be? Or to put this another way: at a certain point, if you’ve seemed to be somebody for long enough, isn’t that who you really are?

The key point here is that actions speak louder than words. This explains the question about what Dutton has done (as opposed to repeated profiles in the media) to belie the idea that he is a callous bastard. The media has repeatedly attempted to humanise Dutton and say ‘there is more to him than what he did with power’. Precisely the opposite is true. You are what you do, particularly with power. If you have seemed to be a certain way, as Kelly notes, that is who you are. Unless, of course, you were playing a character, in which case how can we possibly trust you? Finally, on these profiles, the very fact that you have to keep doing them suggests that they are not breaking through. To put it crudely, stop trying to photograph the turd from the right angle to sell it.

What is the LNP’s Real Problem?

Peter Dutton would have us believe that the Liberal Party has an image problem. In fact, what the Liberal Party has is a reality problem. Voters, particularly younger voters, saw how the Liberals governed for the last ten years and they did not like it. Buck passing, brazen lying, media manipulation, bigotry and punishing anyone who had the nerve not to be rich. The rich will be the focus of the next section, but for the moment the real problem with the LNP is that people know exactly who and what they are, and no amount of media profiles (read propaganda pieces) is going to change their minds.

The Killing of The Goose That Lays the Golden Eggs

It used to be said that people became more conservative as they aged. This truism, as I have referenced elsewhere on this site, is not actually a function of age, at least not directly. The true basis for this ‘tory turn’ as we might call it, is that with age tends to come wealth. With wealth typically comes economic security and with that comes less need for change. I’m doing ok thank you very much, so nothing needs to change. In other words, to paraphrase Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992, it’s the wealth, stupid.

It is no small irony that, by obsessively servicing the big end of town (broadly defined as The Owners), the LNP coalition left behind future generations. LNP policies meant that those younger voters did not share in the prosperity, did not become financially secure and so, despite being in their late thirties to forties, still want change. They are not financially stable and so have not calcified into the typical tory voter.

This actually amuses me to no end: serves you right, you bastards. You were so determined to serve the wealthy that you could not see the forest for the trees. You were so obsessed with growing their (and your own) investment property portfolios that you could not see (or simply did not care) that you were creating what is now known as Generation Rent. It is no wonder these people will not vote for you: you utterly screwed them out of the so-called Australian Dream of owning your own home. Your policies around negative gearing, tax cuts for the wealthy, superannuation concessions and so on – these tongue-baths to the rich have created a generation (and beyond) of serfs with iPhones. That, Spud, is why they will not vote for you!

By Denis Bright  

Victorians rejected the instability of minority government in favour of a third term for Labor’s Premier Daniel Andrews. He joins the ranks of just three Victorian Labor premiers who have achieved three consecutive election victories.

This Labor Government will have a comfortable majority in the Legislative Assembly with a likely 54 seats. Only the seat of Pakenham is still in the doubtful category with the Liberal Party just five votes ahead on preference estimates.

The Greens will have a stronger rhetorical voice in both houses of parliament. There will be a two additional Green Legislative Councillors. Under Victoria’s proportional voting system, the Andrew’s government has always lacked a majority in the upper house and will have to look beyond the Greens (3) to pass legislation perhaps with the support of pragmatic or progressive councillors from the Legalise Cannabis Party (2) or Democratic Labor (1).

The ABC News site has a full analysis of the swings and round-abouts from the Victorian elections including the results in the La Trobe Valley electorate of Morwell.

With a populist conservative campaign, the National Party (9) won three additional seats mainly at the expense of regional Independents. The National Party will take the Labor seat of Morwell in the La Trobe Valley on a primary vote of just 23.5 per cent with the support of preferences from the Liberals, One Nation (6 per cent) and a mix of local independents and far-right minor parties.

Photo from the ABC

Despite the weakness of the Labor Party’s vote outside the Geelong-Ballarat-Bendigo Triangle, one of the strengths of the Labor Party in Victoria is its formal and accountable policy committee structure covering fourteen policy chapters. Membership of these policy committees is decided by State Conference.

This committee structure has the capacity to zoom in on the policy concerns of voters between state elections. It can bring policy debates to branch networks particularly if it is supported by grassroots policy associations. This is a big change from the negative news about branch stacking which affects both sides of Australian politics including the NSW Liberal Party as noted by Anne Davies in The Guardian (23 January 2022).

Underlying the problem of branch stacking is the vacuous nature of political activity at the grass roots level. Victoria Labor’s Committee system could liven up grassroots politics through the formation of policy associations to extend the outreach of formal committee networks.

In contrast, the National Party offers a return to old time populism as emphasized by Nationals for Regional Victoria:

I’m a Traralgon boy, born and bred. I’m a plumber, run my own small business and I have had a lifelong involvement in the Traralgon Football Netball Club.

One thing I’m not, is a career politician. I come to this role as a genuine community candidate and I’m running because we need a strong voice in State Parliament to stand up for the Latrobe Valley.

​I’ve been a plumber for 35 years, running the business that my dad and mum set up myself for the past 20. I come from a strong family that values and rewards hard work and enterprise.

​Running my own small business means I know what it takes to create jobs in our community and the value of young people learning a trade. Life is tough for tradies and all businesses currently, with shortages of workers, endless government red tape and a lack of understanding of our region by decision makers in Spring Street.

Ali Cupper was prepared to co-operate with the Andrews Government to bring the Mildura Hospital back into public ownership after its privatization by the Kennett Liberal Government in 1992. The change back to publicly operated hospital was an quite amicable as the contracts for Ramsay Health’s operations was ready for renewal after twenty years. Ali Cupper just disagreed with Victoria Health’s new master plan for the hospital.

In that macro-theme of Floods of Challenges in Australian politics at all levels, progressive leaders can and should take up issues which appear to be insurmountable. Members of the broad Labor movement would surely welcome opportunities for involvement in policy formation even if their participation is through policy associations rather than formal committee structures.

The street art of Fintan Magee and others should encourage political elites to anticipate the need for greater community involvement in the fine tuning of grand plans.

Surely, the transition from guided democracy and political elitism is a plus for Australia’s slow transition from neoliberalism and demands for blind loyalty within the branch structures of mainstream political networks which raise money for those mindless political jingles at election time.

Image: The Pillars Art Gallery

This exposition of Australia’s mission, its raison d’etre, is provided by the Parliamentary Education Office:

“The Australian Government is responsible for making decisions about how the country is run, including setting a policy agenda, proposing new laws and putting laws into action. The government plays an important role in shaping our society and making sure that Australians have the services and safeguards we need.“

Do we share common aims with other countries?

That is how the Australian Parliament sees government, in a nutshell. It is interesting to note that many commentators in the United States, for example, emphasise the need for governments to ensure a safe society, by maintaining law and order. Some concentrate on defending their borders.

Others around the world, depending on their ideological positioning, will favour militarism, perhaps nationalistic fervour, or they will look after the better off. Others, like the Scandinavian countries, are thought to follow democratic socialism principles. Of course, in a state where the majority have the vote, the state should ideally reflect the wishes of the people.

Parliamentarians will, as a matter of instinct, generally look to systems, or methods that look after their own constituents. This will allow them to be popular, and incidentally, to look after their own interests.

Often, they do this under the cover of darkness. This is because, at least in democracies, such preferential treatment of selected groups will be seen as anti-democratic, or even corrupt.

Whatever the purpose of government is, it is generally agreed, within democratic systems, that the welfare of the people is paramount.

How are the ‘democracies’ faring?

One would have to question where most democracies are headed. In Europe, the rise of right-wing populist parties is alarming, and is obviously appealing to the less educated, and to those who are older.

These voters all seem to share a fear of the unknown, the arrival of large numbers of immigrants, who very conveniently are usually of different races, and who profess different religions.

The United States has a large dose of the same, although it can be argued that in Donald Trump they unearthed a brilliant communicator, if you are looking to bridge the gap between the rulers and the ruled. He was able to capture a large proportion of the disaffected, and take the country to the brink of civil war.

Did neo-liberalism contribute to this malaise?

If neo-liberalism can be said to have ‘taken off’ with the advent of Reagan and Thatcher, then the undermining of the welfare state has progressed significantly; the aim of “levelling up” has been effectively ditched, with inequality out of control; the belief in markets as being sufficient to regulate the economy, without any due consideration for the welfare of the people, has gained ground; the existence, or otherwise, of “society” has been more than questioned, but jettisoned.

What about ‘the people’?

There has been a vulgarisation of public discourse, such that the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity have become devalued, even mocked, by the followers of a small school of economists, based at the University of Chicago. It is a debased philosophy because it places the market above the welfare of the people.

This is the tail truly wagging the dog. It is stupid, and it is without care or compassion, and so, it is inhuman.

Do we want to follow Britain down the plug-hole?

Britain has been useful as an experiment in just how debased neo-liberal economics, taken to its preposterous limits, can be. It has effectively dismantled its welfare system, it has hobbled its national health service, during the worst pandemic in a century, withdrawn from the single market in Europe, sent home hundreds of thousands of migrants from Europe, incidentally losing the cultural diversity and intellectual and academic wealth of those migrants, and generally increasing inequality, in a nation which was already burdened by a rigid class structure, with a hereditary upper house in its parliament, and a hereditary royal family still leeching off the tax system.

Liz Truss has earned universal disrespect and mockery for her ridiculous assertions regarding tax cuts for the rich. Even that monolith the IMF has seen fit to admonish her, and her witless treasurer, for sabotaging Britain’s fiscal and monetary plans to defeat the cost of living rises.

Her decision to borrow to pay for citizens’ energy bills beggars belief. She has consciously chosen to allow the energy companies, which are shamelessly enjoying windfall profits, to continue on their merry way, while she is stealing from taxpayers.

What about Australia?

Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison have similarly ransacked our national wealth for nine years. They have weakened Medicare, lowered taxes on the rich, stolen taxpayers’ funds to fund obscenely rich private schools at the expense of public schools, and gutted our universities.

They also spent billions adding to the fossil fuel companies’ ill-gotten gains, hamstrung climate change mitigation for a decade, attacked our national cohesion with the deliberate trashing of our international treaty obligations, especially regarding refugees, dog-whistling attacks on minorities, started an unnecessary war of words with China, and essentially destroyed our biodiversity so that land clearing can proceed.

But, I hear you say, we threw them out on their ear. We elected a reformist government, in whose DNA flows liberty, equality and fraternity.

We did change governments, but we are still on track to lower taxes to our richest minority. We still subsidise fossil fuel companies. We will not tax them for their ill-gotten gains, and we won’t even consider increasing the welfare payments of the poor.

Even though we know that it causes Australian children to go to bed hungry, and a recent finding that the average rent increase for the last year was $3000. That is, on average, $60 a week in rent alone. Then factor in energy cost rises, higher food costs due to shortages caused by floods, and you have a perfect recipe for a human disaster.

So there have been changes for the better, but this government is seemingly intent on ‘doing a Truss’ and going ahead with stage 3 tax cuts. Spare me from inhumane governments. They need to wake up as to why they exist, at all.

By John Haly  

Labor is seeking to have business and unions cooperate in spurring wages forward. This is despite decades of companies benefitting from increased productivity gains that have not resulted in increased wages for workers. This begs the question, what does Anthony Albanese think will improve wages, if productivity gains haven’t been doing that? More Visas, better skills training and fairer wage bargaining are considerations, but even Ross Gittins worries we won’t get it all from Labor’s Job Summit.

Strong Economy?

Wage stagnation coupled with the rabid supply-side inflation emanating from the war in Ukraine and the pandemic has meant real wages are falling, and solutions are thin on the ground. The economic inheritance left to the Labor party was described by the outgoing Liberal Party Prime minister as “strong”, despite:

• rising inflation,
• unrevealed reports about the pending rising cost of living issues,
• rising variants of Covid-19 worse than in previous years,
• impending tax rises for most Australians and $243B in tax cuts for the wealthy,
• diminished public service to handle the mixed successes and failures of the pandemic.
• Hiding a damning environmental report indicating the environment was in unsustainable decline.

So the Job summit has potential, but only if we correctly measure Australia’s problems. To quote my accountant father’s frequent refrain: “What gets measured, gets managed” conversely, “if you’re not measuring it correctly, you will not manage it appropriately”.

The only significant “success” the Liberals could point to was, the lowest unemployment figures from the ABS we have seen in decades.

“But while Labor will focus on wages and inflation, Mr Morrison will hope two sets of employment data due between now and election day – April 14 and May 19 – deliver him the lowest jobless rate since 1974”, reported by the Financial Review in April.

Productivity is booming so why aren’t wages?

International vs Domestic

On the surface, there is no word of a lie that ABS has reported lower unemployment figures since. The question is, are the ABS figures worth the paper they are written on (or perhaps, in this day and age – worth the hosting cost of the website they are published on)? ABS estimates its unemployment figures based on the ILO standards for a methodology of measurement that are internationally accepted to facilitate international comparative analysis.

For that purpose, each nation must conform to a standard everyone follows. The standard facilitates a common and verifiable point of comparison. For example, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate decreased to 3.5% in July 2022. In England, the Office of National Statistics UK unemployment rate was estimated at 3.8%. Whereas in Australia, it decreased to 3.4%, according to the ABS. Therefore we can conclude that Australia is doing better than our fellow western allies in the USA and UK. However, we need to ask whether, despite the comparative issue, do any of these numbers reflect the actual unemployment status inside the nation? It turns out the methodology of measurement that distinguished between international and domestic measures excludes hundreds of thousands of people who struggle with real unemployment inside each country.

As an Australian writer, I wish to focus on why it is the ABS does not, and certainly not in decades, measure real domestic unemployment in Australia. The fact that both media and political pundits represent that the ABS’s figures convey the domestic/internal measure of unemployment, as opposed to an internationally competitive figure, does the public a disservice and misrepresents the truth.

ABS a small subset of every other unemployment measure

To a limited extent, the public is not unfamiliar with the ABS’s methodology’s shortcomings. One has only to look to any social media posting about unemployment and find someone who angrily points out that “people are ‘employed’ if they work one hour a week”. The problem with this “shortcoming” is that it is easy and unnuanced to understand for the statistically illiterate. It is not entirely accurate or as significant as people think. I have previously dealt with the “one hour a week” misrepresentation in my article “Unemployment numbers likely worse than projected”, so I don’t want to rehash that. Instead, there is also the significance of the impact compared with people who have a “job attachment”, to use ABS’s terminology, but – because of their uncertain status in the GIG economy – have zero work and pay (90,600 in July – see graph). It isn’t folks who get a few hours on a shift once a month but people who get nothing and are still registered as “employed” by the ABS because of their “job attachment”. During the pandemic, the numbers in this class were significant (higher than one million – see graph), but they have dropped to the level of people working the equivalent of a single shift for a month.

Zero to nine hours of work with job Attachments all still “employed”

For example, in July 2022, there were only 54,900 people who worked between 1 and 9hrs in a month as a standard work arrangement. In addition, 66,200 worked similar hours because there was either “no work, not enough work, or stood down”. On top of that, in July, another 41,600 people had their working hours reduced to as few as 1-9hrs for “other” reasons that did not involve any form of leave (annual or otherwise), sickness, injury, maternity, plant breakdown or bad weather. These are all accordingly counted as “employed” by the ABS. Considering them as “employed” is technically accurate, although significantly underemployed. One certainly can’t be earning a living on less than nine hours of work a month.

Irrespective of where you put your cutoff point on working hours for registering someone as unemployed (and surprisingly zero, isn’t it), numerous other exclusions preclude people from being counted as unemployed. This fails the “so-called pub test”. I have listed these in my article “Frydenberg’s Maths problem”. The result is that, even if you added people who had a “job attachments” – but zero hours of work – the ABS estimate is smaller than, people receiving Job Seeker (let alone adding Youth Allowance – 15 to 22yrs – into the equation). There was a three-month period last year when that wasn’t true, which tells you that not all unemployed people register for JobSeeker. (Explained in “Josh’s Jobless Jargon”).

Real Domestic Unemployment

The real job gap for the under & unemployed vs job vacancies

These statistical anomalies leave Roy Morgan’s estimate as the best likely accurate reflection of domestic unemployment in Australia at 8.5% (or 1.2 million people). But of course, the Job Summit is unlikely to admit real unemployment is more than twice what ABS’s international comparative measurement standard, claims. As such, the Job Summit only acknowledges a subset of the genuinely unemployed, as the problem area. In that case, it is no wonder they are grooming us to believe that Job vacancies are rising to the point where there are close enough to absorb most of the unemployed. One supposes you have already read these “excited” claims in the media. In that case, the unacknowledged aspect is that they’re admitting there have never been enough jobs previously to absorb the subset of the unemployed that ABS claims. This renders all the previous admonitions to the unemployed to “just get a job”, pretty hollow.

Job vacancy breakdowns into industry & job type according to ABS & Dept of Emp’

That raises two questions:

1. What is the actual gap between job vacancies and the under and unemployed
2. How compatible are the job vacancies with the skills available in the community for the unemployed to be absorbed?

Zooming in on the industries with job vacancies

Now there are two measures of vacancies available. The Department of Employment’s internet vacancy index (IVI), and ABS’s quarterly survey of vacancies claimed by businesses. The IVI was more significant in previous decades than the ABS’s claim (see Roy Morgan graph). This discrepancy has changed in recent years, which I explained in “Vacant Claimants”. The fact is that even taking the largest count, the gap between job vacancies and Roy Morgan’s realistic unemployed figures is enormous. The opportunities for people with limited skills (lacking expensive university education) are just as limited now as when I wrote “The myth of Jobs Growth”. As you can see from the graph of divisions of jobs and industries where vacancies exist, most of them are still only available for the professional/educated market.

Farmer’s Plight

Instead, we still focus on the smallest unskilled end of employment opportunities, as depicted by the article this week, “Nobody wants to work: Fruit left to rot leaves, farmers feeling sour” page 8 of Tuesday’s (30th Aug) SMH. I long ago addressed this in “Low hanging Fruit”. Alternatively, the government could develop a comprehensive agricultural industry labour market policy. This policy should include government means-tested subsidisation of core wages at an adequate level, paying members of the agricultural workforce, with less profitable (but still essential) farmers providing monetary incentives to promote performance. This should include government coordination with Tafes and Universities and agricultural employers to provide a clear career path spanning entry-level agricultural roles to agriculture science and management qualifications at degree and post-grad levels. The package should include the government providing business coaching and mentoring to agricultural employers to build their capacity to be “employers of choice”. Adding offerings such as a cafeteria-style remuneration package of transport, accommodation, meals, training, on-the-job components of vocational credentialing and performance-based pay.

The contemporary issue, as usual, is poor pay and conditions, which the Job Summit needs to handle. The solution on offer is more migrants who will work for a pittance. This is in the face of over a million people unemployed in Australia and over another million underemployed. This statement is largely true of any month in the previous decade, with minor exceptions for underemployment before 2017 when it fell as low as 917,000.

Full Employment Summit?

The long-term perspective on employment and unemployment

Interestingly Albanese’s claim of the Job Summit was to seek a “Full Employment Summit”. But unfortunately, the neo-liberals adhere to the conservative myth of the NAIRU instead of a NABIER, which suggests we are already “fully employed”. A goal that has been achieved if you conclude ABS measures domestic unemployment. This is why “what gets measured” is essential. But, of course, if you want more realistic “full employment” policies, look at that instigated by the Curtin Government from 1945 to 1974. During which unemployment was dominantly measured at 2%. Then we would have the beginnings of a proven policy that survived decades until the introduction of neo-liberal policies under Whitlam, Hawke and Keating. For an informative reading on that, get a hold of Elizabeth Humphrey’s 2020 book, “How Labour Built Neoliberalism”.

The framework of a Federal Jobs Guarantee and what it could achieve for wages and workers has evolved from Curtin’s conception to a far more robust framework than that of the 1940s. Dr Steven Hail’s paper on a Job Guarantee is among the architects of alternatives. However, given that 30% of the attendees of the Job Summit are from the Business community and 30% from Unions, I very much expect such solutions will not even get a hearing in a barely two-day conference.

Given the minor target nature of political reforms exhibited by Labor to date where:

• they raise the minimum wage but not Jobseeker,
• send one family of refugees home but don’t address the rest,
• talk about addressing climate change but allow further gas mining,
• limit debt-related deductions for multinationals but refuses to concede an end to stage three tax cuts,

it is evident that state capture by industry donors is still a problem.

Hence we should expect far more modest recommendations from the Job Summit, which will involve more migrants, claims about needing even more productivity and further capitulation to vested business interests.

Real solutions

I don’t doubt that concessions will be generated from the Job Summit, but they will be bandages rather than solutions. But what would serious reform of the jobs market include?

1. Restoration and widening the scope of the public service/taxation/health/education/industrial relations departments.
2. Reviewing agricultural policy that subsidises agricultural employment – subject to annual review of employee conditions – to maintain viable, essential food security and attract Australians to farms. (As outlined above).
3. Nationalising private employment agencies and implementing ambitious public sector-driven active labour market programs comparable to what exists in Scandinavia.
4. An end to TAFE & university education fees to facilitate a more highly educated public that can reduce the growing professional job vacancies.
5. Establishment of technically based career paths from entry-level positions to professional and senior executive roles.
6. A return to centralised wage-fixing such as what existed in the 1970s.
7. A decrease in the exploitation of migrant labour by increasing random fair work inspections of workplaces backed by substantial legal penalties.
8. Expansion of cadetships and apprenticeships, and graduate programs in public service departments.
9. End costly Public Private Partnerships infrastructure projects to staff public sector expertise for infrastructure development fully.
10. A Federal Job Guarantee linked to career paths.
11. Implementing a Green New Deal where energy and transport infrastructure is wholly returned to the public sector.

I am confident I can predict none of these, especially the re-conceptions of the public sector, will come out of this week end’s Jobs Summit. The reason is necessary, and fair reform isn’t on the agenda. Besides this, the way they measure Australia’s unemployment and the issues and focus on what job vacancies matter is misdirected.

This article was originally published on AUSTRALIA AWAKEN – IGNITE YOUR TORCHES.

Why the sharp intake of breath, the tingling shock? In one of the world’s most secretive liberal democracies, the revelation that the previous Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison ran a shadow government overseen by personal quasi-despotic whim spanning several ministerial positions has caused chill and consternation. That’s not the way we do things – except when we do.

Such consternation, in a country that tolerates secret trials only revealed by accident, raids upon journalists and the headquarters of the national broadcaster, full-throated prosecutions of whistleblowers, the torture-tinged indefinite detention of refugees, and brazen immunities for intelligence officers engaged in alleged criminal activity.

Such consternation, in a country that mandates data retention by telecommunication companies for up to two years and disruptive warrants in violation of privacy, a country that gives government ministers, notably immigration ministers, God-like powers (in a secular sense, revolting) to determine the fate of individuals and, most unappealingly for believers in natural justice, rejects a bill of rights or a human rights charter. With these monstrous realities, Morrison’s conduct and his shady actions indicate an almost mild consistency.

Given that Australia’s Pentecostal former PM has openly expressed his contempt for government and international institutions, almost in inverse proportion to a professed love of God, the hunky-dory afterlife and all matters divine, the assumption of extra duties, the encroachment, as it were, upon such ministerial portfolios as health and finance, was as natural as it was distasteful. It may explain, in some measure, why he did not perform his mini-dictatorial duties with any degree of competence. He could barely manage the prime ministerial portfolio, let alone any other duties.

The current volcanic fuss over Morrison is something to behold. It was outrageous, say critics, because it was secret, given that such appointments are normally published in the never read Commonwealth Gazette. For one thing, it brought in the Governor-General, David Hurley, representative of Queen Elizabeth II. Hurley confirmed that he signed the relevant documents enabling Morrison to assume control over other portfolios “consistent with section 64 of the constitution.” Hurley also confirmed that it was not an unusual process – in a fashion. “The Governor-General signs an administrative instrument on the advice of the prime minister.” Whether that decision was publicised or not was up to the relevant government of the day.

At the time, health minister Greg Hunt was one of the few who knew and agreed to the expansion as a measure to cope with possible COVID-19 incapacitation and turn the country into Fortress Australia. Few would have noticed the difference, but it was good to cover the contingency. However, the then finance minister Mathias Cormann, currently OECD Secretary-General, was not told that the Prime Minister had also appointed himself as joint holder of the role. In such measures, the spirit of Caligula groaned and rumbled upon a horse he teasingly might have made consul.

Other members of the cabinet were also kept in blissful, mushroom-fecund darkness. “I wasn’t part of that decision-making process and they’re decisions that are within the domain of the prime minister,” current opposition leader Peter Dutton stated, betraying a slight twinge of envy.

The leader of the Nationals, David Littleproud, who was also a member of the previous government, was less impressed. “That’s pretty ordinary, as far as I’m concerned.” In his view, “If you have a cabinet government, you trust your cabinet.”

Such a self-arrogation of power was also used to quash the controversial petroleum exploration permit known as PEP 11. The then resources minister, Nationals MP Keith Pitt, was bemused by the whole matter, though he claimed no knowledge of Morrison’ usurpation of the Industry, Science, Energy and Resources portfolio. “I certainly found it unusual, but as I said I worked very closely with Scott through a very difficult period through COVID.”

Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, in casting an eye over the affair, was adamant that, “The people in Australia were kept in the dark as to what the ministerial arrangements were.” It was “very contrary to our Westminster system. It was cynical and it was just weird that this has occurred.”

“Weird” is a term abuzz in the commentary. The other is “bizarre”. Former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull even called it “sinister”, wondering why the cabinet and the Governor-General went along with it. Sinister, perhaps, but why so weird or bizarre? There is no express provision preventing it, no law banning it, no figure halting it – necessarily. This is the glorious, colonial relic known as the Australian constitution, plastered over by rusted practices born in the days of the old country when beheading was not frowned upon and conquering the swarthy races was deemed a good thing.

Of interest is the legal commentary, which has been prickly, picky and sometimes missing the point.  Constitutional law high priestess Anne Twomey reproaches those who err in claiming that Morrison swore himself in. He could not do so – only the Governor-General can. She also points out that the statutory landscape permits ministers to confer power on others. What was unusual here was that powers of such sort are exercised by other ministers when the figure in question is unavailable. And that it was kept secret, which was “inappropriate”. This “lack of transparency” showed a disregard for “the institutions of government and for the general public who have a right to know how power is allocated.”

Constitutional law academic Kim Rubenstein also shows a faith in the very system that produced such daring subversion on the part of Morrison. On Australia’s Radio National, she offered the view that collective government responsibility and the Westminster system has a certain admirable accountability that, say, the US system lacks. This is parochial nonsense, given that the prime minister is drawn from Parliament and not directly elected by the voters. The US system may have appointed, unelected cabinet ministers, but the Westminster system comprising parliament, not the general voter, appoints the prime minister who, in turn, appoints the ministers who are then sworn in by the monarch’s Governor-General. Hardly the paragon of accountable democracy.

The next step is to make a balanced assessment about a form of government that can so easily fall to usurpations of power by the executive. It throws up other vital matters: how war is declared; how military agreements can be made without public or parliamentary scrutiny; and how decisions affecting sovereignty are implemented at enormous cost.

The chances of having that broader debate are minimal. Albanese and his hounds smell blood, but the stains are not going to be that revealing. The Westminster model will be praised and defended; Morrison will be dismissed as pettily dictatorial. The fatuous notion of convention, the false assumption of gentlemanly conduct – for women do not feature in this – says everything about what is wrong about this rotten state of affairs.  Inadvertently, Morrison acted consistently with, and enacted his belief: government cannot be trusted.

1 The right of politics has, for some time now, imposed its thuggish propaganda and intimidatory behaviour on democracies worldwide. As far back as Reagan and Thatcher, the right has had its way. Other than a few exceptions, they have chalked up many more years in power than governments of the left. In Australia the extreme right-wing has primarily been in power. Since 1910, non-Labor governments have governed for two-thirds of the time and Labor for one-third.

In their governance, the right has attracted a proliferation of odd xenophobic people who have sought to plaster their thoughts on every parliament wall, from religious extremism to coal is good.

The true Liberalism of Menzies is now dead and buried and has been replaced by a brand of Conservatism unique to American politics. The Liberal party exists in name only.

In an article for The Conversation, Frank Bongiorno points out that:

“Labor’s two-party-preferred vote in 2022 is only slightly behind Gough Whitlam’s in 1972… an argument can be made that the 2022 election discloses an electoral shift to the left. It is perhaps the most significant since the combined momentum of the elections of 1969 and 1972 that brought the Whitlam government to office.

Changes of government in federal politics don’t happen often. There have been eight since the second world war, and three of those were in a turbulent decade between late 1972 and early 1983.”

Australian voters are a laconic bunch who have wrongly interpreted the quote “she’ll be right.”

It was never meant to have a lazy terse meaning but an optimistic one. So, we have, for the most part, clung tightly to antagonistic non-Labor governments.

Because Australian voters regularly return governments, tending not to discard the incumbent, we can reasonably assume that the last election signals a broader shift in voter attitudes and leanings.

This Government I speak of was a false democracy. It looked harmless to the voting population, but as time progressed, all the interaction with everyday people, the pretending to be a hairdresser or whatever, was only a perception of Morrison’s creation. In the beginning, people were fooled by his acting, but when you see it every day for years, you eventually must wake up from your vacation.

It was peculiar to all governments that the conservatives held power over, from Howard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison.

Although Albanese started his leadership in times unsuited to massive change, it may be that he was chosen for just that reason. Therefore, we can reasonably be assured that an Albanese Government will receive two terms of Government if they fulfil their commitments. All going well, perhaps another three.

The start of his tenure demonstrates that he comfortably fills the shoes of the office. He looks the part, listens with dignity, and speaks with understanding.

No one would dare suggest that Albo has the charisma of John Curtin, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke or Kevin Rudd. Still, he does display sincerity, warmth, integrity and authenticity.

In comparison, the newly elected Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, decided to go on holiday not long after being elected. I would have thought he would immediately start mending the many things that needed fixing, but he has continued as though nothing happened.

On Albanese’s travel, the Opposition has proven that they have taken nothing from their loss. The cynicism coming from it about Albanese being out of the country is nothing more than what the Prime Minister himself described as nothing more than “beyond contempt.”

We seem to learn more about governments and their leadership when they have died (much the same as ordinary people) than when they are in Government.

Climate change, anti-corruption, gender equality and competent Government – are now the domain of the progressive left and hopefully will remain so for some time.

Whom should the Coalition blame? Well, Howard and Abbott are front and centre. Scott Morrison, his lying, and the Coalition support for fossil fuels and, of course, the rogue irrational MPs for their climate denial.

The Murdoch media defended their stupidity but couldn’t recognise its own. And let’s not forget their attitude toward women and the party infighting. And, of course, their questionable values and governance.

And yet they still seem to be at peace with their party’s relationship with the fossil fuel industry.

But the Coalition stars will always be John Howard, who took the party to the right. Tony Abbott may have been a better liar than Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull, who traded the leadership for well-worn beliefs and Barnaby Joyce, who proved himself to be the Leader of the many nut cases that formed the National Party.

Morrison believed that success, for whatever reason, depended on being seen doing everyone’s job but their own. Albanese is allowing his ministers to do their jobs.

How many guises did you see Scott Morrison in, ambo, hairdresser, test pilot or poultry boner and many more?

He put on hard hats, high-vis vests and gauze caps and propelled himself into the lives of the average working citizens who have been identified as politically advantageous. All these images were implanted in us, on TV, in hotels and in gymnasiums.

Do you know why? Well I don’t, either. I guess that about sums it up. Now let’s move on.

2 Together with the Prime Minister’s promise of a new politic comes a commitment to implement an influential Integrity Commission. The Greens and the independents will reject loose ends that allow for an escape route for corrupt politicians.

Furthermore, if this promise is to have some bite, it must also have adequate freedom of information process.

The independent auditor-general must be “independent” with a reasonable budget. The same goes for the Ombudsman.

The Government must create an impartial, professional and effective public service resembling that of yesteryear.

3 Something we can all agree on:

“Former Attorney-General Gareth Evans has called for Witness K’s conviction to be reversed following the decision to abandon the prosecution of the whistle-blower’s lawyer Bernard Collaery.

And Evans states that:

“Decency would also demand that the Witness K conviction be effectively reversed, but that’s probably a bridge too far.”

4 The Monthly reported that:

“The gap between male and female Coalition voters: only 28 per cent of women now say they would vote for the Coalition, compared to 38 per cent of male voters. The gap has widened since the federal election, with women continuing to drift from the Coalition under Peter Dutton.”

Who could blame them?

5 They are not mucking about, this Albanese Government. They have announced details on:

“… its promised jobs summit, to be held in Parliament House in early September. Treasurer Jim Chalmers says workplace reforms agreed to as part of the summit may be introduced as early as this year.”

6 In yet another example of Labor’s intention to make change a priority:

“Politicians will have to declare political donations over $1000 in real-time as part of a sweeping package of integrity measures.”

7 Special Minister of State Don Farrell wants to introduce the changes by mid-2023. “Truth in political advertising” laws will also accompany this legislation.

8 Another change will “potentially double the number of senators allocated to the Northern Territory and the ACT, from two to four.” The joint standing committee will examine the proposals on electoral matters.

Having lived through the last Labor government where the Greens were involved, I am cautious about how the Greens, with their increased influence, will behave under the Albanese government. Leader Adam Bandt spoke of a ‘green-slide’ on election night, despite the party holding roughly 3% of the seats in the House. The popular conception of the Greens is as a ‘non-governing party’. A minor party in the true sense of the word. I say this not to disparage the Greens, merely to acknowledge the reality of their very small numbers in the House.

I want to look today at a piece in the SMH dealing with the rise of the Greens in the recent election.

Background: The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme – Unreasonable?

The Labor Government elected in 2007 was keen to introduce a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), later demonised as the ‘carbon tax’. The statement was not accurate of course, but when did that ever stop the LNP? But back to the Greens. The Guardian outlined the timeline of events surrounding the fall of the scheme, and the role of the Greens in that process. Even under threat of a double-dissolution, the Senate still rejected the scheme a second time, seemingly because it was not up to the standards of the Greens.

While there is an argument of ‘if you plan to do it, do it right’, the Greens did not seem to acknowledge that compromise is the essence of practical politics. One may ask for much more than one wants in a negotiation, but there is a limit. It is for this reason that the Greens earned the ire of certain political observers. Their policies are rarely costed since it is known that they will likely never be implemented.

The Election Result: Ideology and The Structure of The House of Representatives

All seats in the House of Representatives (the House) have now been called. Labor will govern with a majority of 77 seats. The LNP have 58 and the remaining 18 are shared between the Greens, the Teal Independents and the Others. The Greens have four seats out of 151. Hardly the ‘green-slide’ that Mr Bandt declared.

The SMH article asks this question of all the parties

when it comes to ideology, how much is enough?

The Greens seemed to be the most ideological at the election, with Labor a close second. The Lliberals, as normal for Morrison, stood for precisely nothing. Given the Greens’ increased share of the vote (roughly one in eight), something more ideologically stringent (whatever one thinks of their policies) was the order of the day.

I want to turn briefly to the Liberals and ideology at the recent election. The piece referenced above makes an interesting observation on Morrison and his rise in the LNP

Morrison’s philosophical and ideological vacuity was not an accident. He was chosen out of panic after the Liberals had worked through Abbott, whose most successful setting was negative, and Turnbull…

Faced in 2018 with the prospect of Peter Dutton taking over, the party room gave the nod to Morrison, renowned by his colleagues for having zero ideological attachments beyond his existence as a Liberal.

That last clause is decisive: the decision to place Morrison in leadership was based on his being an empty vessel. He believed nothing beyond being a Liberal. If one may assign a core belief to Scott Morrison, it was in power. As Sean Kelly made clear in his (highly recommended) book The Game, Morrison saw politics as a match between two teams, where winning, rather than good policy, was the goal. This, however, is not an ideology.

Ideology on Steroids: The New Greens

The piece goes on to state

To hear him [Bandt] and his new MPs advocating for the immediate introduction of their climate change stance, you’d think the entire nation had voted Green, not one-in-eight voters.

It is correct to chastise Bandt and his troops for what is, by any other name, entitlement around the implementation of their policy. The party has four seats in the House. This is hardly a mandate. Their slightly increased share of the vote looks to be going to their heads. We have seen this movie before under a previous Labor government. The Greens, who have some good ideas, forget their place as a tiny minority in the grand scheme of things. The Senate is another matter, however. The Greens have at least twelve senators, so on that front they should be taken more seriously. However, the role of the Senate is different to that of the House.

The Prime Minister Responds: Albanese and The New Greens

In another SMH piece, Mr Albanese ruled out negotiating with what he called ‘fringe groups’, including the Greens. The context here was the event of a hung parliament. Interestingly, this did not change after the election. Mr Albanese said that he had confidence and supply secured, and did not need to negotiate with the Greens. The assurance of confidence and supply was presumably a reference to some of the Teal Independents. If this is the case, this lends more credence to the idea that at least some of the Teals are not just Liberals in cheaper suits.

I suspect that The Prime Minister has seen this movie before as well. He is trying to avoid being beholden to the Greens, and it is easy to see why. Having witnessed the destruction of the original CPRS by a Senate where the Greens held much sway. He does not wish to be in a place where he can be dragged too far in one direction or another. With majority government (including, if he desires, a Speaker) now secure, being beholden to the Greens (in the House at least) is now a dead letter.

Conclusion: Learn from History or Repeat It

The newly minted Prime Minister and his government seem to have learned the lesson from ten years ago. They are not willing to be beholden to the Greens because they know how that plays out. This is not to say that the Greens should be utterly shut out. Some of their policy ideas are positive (expanding Medicare to include mental health and dental care for one). But they should not be allowed to demand their policies be implemented when they received a tiny percentage of the vote. Who do they think they are, the Nationals?

More seriously, the lesson of allowing small minority parties to have large influence over policy is not a lesson that Anthony Albanese has forgotten. Long may this strategic competence continue.