For Scott Morrison and his Muppet Coalition Government, time is fast approaching the nervy end of an election cycle. So far, he has given us every indication that the next federal election will be held on Saturday 18th May 2019, the latest possible date he can leave it, but will he wait that long?

The result of the Wagga Wagga state by-election on Saturday was a disaster for the state liberal government and suggests a rough ride is in store for both state and federal members across New South Wales.

With that in mind, a number of questions will be running through the brains trust of the Liberal party machine right now. Would it be better to go early? Do they want their campaign to be riding through the dusty, unpredictable trail of the NSW state election in March?

Can they minimize the ongoing fallout from dumping the best leader they had, electorally speaking? Can they appear united? Have they a believable policy structure? Have they enough money to mount a competitive campaign? Do they have any quality candidates?

Looking at things from the outside, the answers to all those questions would appear to be a resounding, no! And the longer they wait, the fewer options they have. The Victorian State election to be held in late November is another hurdle to straddle.

Then comes Christmas, followed by the January holidays and the beginning of the school year. These are all periods where attracting the attention of the electorate is very difficult. There’s just too much going on.

Yet, that might be Morrison’s plan. The more the distraction, the less attention paid to important issues, the better their chances of not looking like idiots. Can Bill Shorten and Labor cut through those distractions and convince voters he, and Labor, are ready? In all likelihood, he may not have to.

After five years, we must wonder what Morrison has to sell that’s worth buying? Not much! Actually…….no, nothing. They have bluffed and lied their way through the most dysfunctional performance of this, or any previous conservative government.

Their internal bloodletting has been on public view ever since Malcolm Turnbull succeeded Tony Abbott as PM. Actually, it’s much longer than that.

So what can Morrison, the self-described muppet leader do? Current polling indicates his muppet coalition will lose government in a landslide. But, if he waited until May, could he reverse that?

Could he get some lipstick on his pigs?

One would have thought that trying to be heard across a minefield of distractions would be difficult enough. Expecting to come up with some jaw-dropping, knockout initiatives and reverse current polling trends, might just be a bridge too far.

And what of Morrison’s own legacy? The thought of lasting even less time as PM than Tony Abbott must be haunting him at the moment. Would he want to continue his parliamentary career as Opposition leader? One suspects he would. And he might also be thinking, the sooner the better.

Morrison’s best chance is to go before the end of 2018. Firstly, he can salvage some respect by relieving the voters of any more pain. But also, he can quite rightly, blame the loss, not on his leadership, but on the appalling behaviour of his party prior to him becoming PM.

This gives him a launching pad to begin rebuilding the shattered skeleton of a party, that was once a government. Mind you, his own record as treasurer will bring him some pain as Labor restores some of the heartless, unnecessary spending cuts he championed against the easiest of targets, the most vulnerable.

But, perhaps that’s a challenge he might find more appealing, rather than the humiliation that will await him, should he choose to wait until May next year.

Let’s hope so.

By 2353NM  

Ever since Internet blogs allowed comments, there has been a particularly nasty, vile group of people that visit the comments sections of blogs, post inflammatory comments to provoke others and move on when they have derailed the conversation. Usually the rationale for doing this is to disrupt the blog or to get some publicity for themselves. The process is known as trolling. The remedy is ‘don’t feed the trolls’ – ignore them.

It’s probably wasn’t a surprise to many when the offensiveness of new Senator Fraser Anning’s maiden speech in the Senate was reported as being deliberate. The Monthly’s Paddy Manning laid out the process in his daily email a couple of days after the speech was made. Briefly the concept behind the speech was to ‘out Hanson Hanson’ thus gaining free publicity and potentially longevity in the political system. In other words, Anning is trolling the Australian public.

Hanson’s particular brand of racism has allowed her to suck at the public teat of election funding for a quarter of a century. As Anning was born in 1949, his time in public life probably won’t run to 25 years, which is a blessing. Anning only got a seat in the Senate because he was third on the One Nation Senate ticket in Queensland at the last federal election. When the somewhat ‘strange’ Malcolm Roberts was ruled illegible for the Senate seat he occupied (remember he was the one that claimed he renounced his UK Citizenship by email without confirming the correct email address), Anning was nominated to fill the breach. Between the time of his call up to the Senate and his first appearance in Canberra, he ditched his alliance with Hanson’s One Nation and formed a ‘loose’ alliance with Senators Bernardi and Leyonhelm. By the time he read his ‘maiden’ speech, Anning had ditched them and joined Katter’s Australia Party. While Anning might have had some input, the speech was written by Roberts’ ex-speech writer.

Hanson lined up with Turnbull, Shorten and a host of others to condemn the speech by Anning. And it should be condemned as it is factually wrong according to Fairfax. It was also deliberately provocative, crude, racist and disgusting. The problem with Hanson et al condemning it is that they all have skin in using racism and hatred for political gain. Hanson’s ‘disapproval’ is disingenuous at best as her organisation was the one that put Anning in the Senate. Hanson’s comments were also probably a warning shot to ‘get off her turf’. Turnbull oversees the current inhumane policies towards refugees imposed by the Australian Government and his party’s current ‘elder statesman’ — John Howard — was the first to use the plight of refugees to win an election. Shorten doesn’t make treatment of refugees a point of difference between the ALP and LNP. Keating’s ALP Government introduced the concept of detention while refugees were ‘processed’. Pot – meet kettle. Demonstrating the point, as Paddy Manning wrote:

Within hours of denouncing Anning yesterday, Hanson introduced a bill backing the immigration plebiscite he’d proposed in Tuesday’s speech. Likewise, after decrying racism yesterday, as Andrew Wilkie tweeted, Labor and the Coalition “ganged up in Parliament to strip the rights away from 1,600 asylum seekers who’ve been illegally detained”. Only Wilkie, the Greens’ Adam Bandt and independent Cathy McGowan voted against the government’s legislation to retrospectively validate the excision of Ashmore Reef from Australia’s migration zone. Today Cory Bernardi tabled a 15,000-signature petition from the Halal Action Movement and moved a motion against Australia joining the UN’s Global Compact for Migration. It has to end.

So while the ‘shock and horror’ of Anning’s speech was still fresh in everyone’s minds, various politicians that were ‘outraged’ demonstrated that their words are cheap.

Unfortunately the trolls like Hanson, Anning and others such as Katter, Bernardi and Leyonhelm are seeking personal aggrandisement at your expense. It is far easier to attract followers by picking on a group such as Africans, non-Christians or those from the Middle East that don’t have the public recognition enjoyed by the trolls, blaming the group for some problem such as lack of employment for those from a low social-economic background and falsely claiming cause and effect.

It is base politics for the sake of base politics. From Manning’s article again:

We will not be the most successful multicultural nation in the world for long if this goes on. Something concrete has to happen to stop the downwards slide into open bigotry.

Look at Menzies’ ‘Forgotten People’ speech of 1942 or Chifley’s 1949 ‘Light on the Hill’ speech. While you might not agree with the particular points made in either speech, our politicians in the past could articulate policy that was inclusive, promoting a solution to perceived problems without hatred and finger pointing at those that ‘are different’ for some reason or other. They didn’t need to troll and incite hatred to gain publicity.

Australia is a successful multi-cultural society and like it or not, we are all immigrants to this country or descended from them. Perhaps Anning, Hanson and others who have a problem with multiculturalism should, in the words of a racist bumper sticker, ‘love Australia [as it is] or leave’. Meanwhile, the rest of us need to remember not to feed the trolls. The shame is, we really used to be better than this.

What do you think?

Aging chestnut mare, Aspirational, returns to the Canberra track, next week, in the lead-up to The Super Saturday By-election Stakes, to be run 28 July.  Aspirational, a J Howard favourite, now  hopelessly long in the tooth, was always a baulky, flea-bitten nag, but her recent runs are shocking.

Aspirational is all over the track. The PM’s spin unit has injected the tedious buzz-word into every MP’s talking points. Are they aiming for a wake-up call, or hitting the snooze button? What exactly is aspirational? Ambition 2.0? Hope? No. Currently, it is a cover for increasing inequality.

Abracadabra! Hocus pocus! By the magic trick of lifting the “tax burden” (a Tea Party, TM, idea) or making our tax system flatter, less progressive and more unfair, aspiration will kick in. Take off.

Those who’ll benefit the most over the next seven years are the rich. Turnbull’s tax cuts skew the system in favour of the wealthy. And they are subversive. The government’s new flat marginal tax rate of 32.5% for all workers earning between $41.000 to $200.000 a year undermines our progressive taxation system. It flouts the principle of each according to his or her means.

Workers average $62,000 a year. The median is trickier although there is no excuse for the PM taking the question on notice. It can range from 47K to 55K depending what you take into calculation. Easy. But how to reward the wealthy at a time of alarming increases in economic and social inequality? Easy. Pretend you are rewarding the mythical aspirational worker.

Is Liberal hoop Turnbull guilty of reckless riding? His backhand whip action and his attempts to box in rival top jock, Labor’s wily Will Shorten create uproar. But can he put Bill’s weights up?

“Slimy, insinuating and patronising” hisses the PM. It’s his best barb of the week. Turnbull is in the running for best venomous toad. His puffy eyes seem to fill with the milky white toxin which some toads produce from poison glands behind their eyes. He shouts. He bellows. He screams.

“This groveller, this man who abandoned workers while he tucked his knees under Pratt’s table.”

Turnbull is overcome by class hatred. ‘There’s class war all right,” US billionaire Warren Buffett reminds us, “but it’s my class, the rich class that’s making war and we’re winning’.

It’s the same, insane, snarling rage that ruined Turnbull’s pyrrhic victory speech, election night. Like Abbott, The Incredible Sulk, or his mentor, Donald monster man-baby Trump, a sore loser, Turnbull stoops to his “knees under the table” routine. It says more than he knows about himself.

Courtesy of Rupert Murdoch, whose Newspoll, which has installed itself as our national political oracle, Turnbull is reminded of two bitter truths each day parliament is in session.

As Tassie psephologist, Kevin Bonham, tweets, “Turnbull and Coalition lose an outright record 34 straight #Newspoll 2PPs, Bill Shorten 34 2PP wins in a row is the most for an Opposition Leader.”

Beyond desperate, the Coalition now tries to bribe the electorate with an over-hyped message about a “record” $140 billion of tax cuts, a mantra its ABC echo-chamber faithfully repeats. No matter those cuts are a long way into the future. Besides, aspiration, like grifting, is in its DNA.

 “We’re not mystified by [aspiration],” the PM crows this week. “We recognise it, we embrace it.”

Turnbull’s turns puce. His face is puffy. He howls down deputy Opposition Leader, Tanya Plibersek who doubts anyone refuses a pay rise, or a promotion just because they have to pay extra tax. She defends marginal tax rates which even The Grattan Institute says are vital to a progressive system.

Mal’s a dead man walking. Liberal Party internal polling predicts a Coalition rout next election. To use the surgical meaning, toxic Turnbull will soon be aspirated; sucked out of politics entirely.

In desperation, the PM tries to buy us with tax cuts. Yet his dodgy tax cuts will favour the rich. “Class warfare” is a reproach from the right of politics, whenever an attempt is made to help workers, those on low incomes, or the rapidly expanding underclass. Now it’s his main strategy.

A real class war election will be triggered by Turnbull’s move to lock future governments into huge income tax cuts for high income earners, as John Quiggin, notes. The top twenty per cent of earners will benefit – that is people who currently earn $87K or more.

Workers on $120,000-a-year today will still pay today’s average tax rate of 29 per cent in 2027-28, unchanged from today. Yet tax rates for middle-income earners will continue to rise.

If you earn $36,000-a-year today, your tax will increase from 10-16 percent, a 6 percent rise. Consequently, workers on the highest incomes get to pay a lower share of tax.

No wonder class inspires much of the PM’s bravura performance in Question Time this week.

Keeping his class-warfare personal, the PM attacks Tanya Plibersek’s family earnings, an extension of his mantra that the Labor Party is made up of class traitors just out for themselves.

“From the hard streets of Rosebery, with a household income of just under $1m, the deputy leader of the opposition says aspiration is a mystery,” he hectors. Our PM’s a class act. What a ham.

It’s a typical pick-on-Plibersek moment for a government which finds it uplifting to ridicule and publicly humiliate a woman. It’s a ritual that is, sadly, not just confined to the blokes.

Julie Bishop loves to mock Tanya Plibersek over such critical issues as Africa being a continent and not a country; or her knowledge of which of the Marshall Islands is now submerged due to climate change. Rebukes even echo the misogyny of the blokes in charge – in 2016, Bishop accused Plibersek of a “hysterical campaign of misinformation” about the government’s approach to Iran.

It’s inspiring, character-building stuff just guaranteed to make any woman feel equal and at ease. But it doesn’t stop with the put-downs. This week, Plibersek is even thrown out of the chamber when she attempts to table a transcript of the very interview which the PM is wilfully misquoting.

The transcript she offers would stop Turnbull’s mockery; correct the record – surely a reasonable and responsible action on her behalf. It is peremptorily disallowed by Speaker Tony Smith.

Her transcript reads: Honestly this aspiration term, it mystifies me. As if someone on $40,000 a year isn’t going to want to earn $100,000 a year because they’re going to pay a bit more tax. They’re going to get a lot more income, they’re going to pay a bit more tax.

I think it’s just an excuse and a cover for a government that is determined to give the biggest tax cuts to people like them, people that they want to look after at the big end of town. How is it fair that a surgeon on five times the income of a nurse gets a 16 times larger tax cut. Is that fair?”

Plibersek nails it. No wonder the government didn’t want the full text to appear in Hansard.

At other times, the PM and his team of mostly old white blokes tell men to wise up. Lift their game. Abuse of women would stop if only blokes could just show women a bit more respect. Further idle flapping of the gums is also devoted to why so few women are Coalition MPs. As for the PM’s guff about aspiration, that’s just a cover for injustice; a lame excuse to rip off the poor.

Not even Turnbull believes his cynical rhetoric – an excuse for rewarding the rich based on the lie that the harder you work, the richer you get. Australia has always been a stratified society. It’s a place, moreover, where’s been no real change in social mobility since the 1960s, former ANU economist, Andrew Leigh’s research, concludes, confirming other, significant, academic studies.

Family background still matters. What is growing, however, is income inequality and policies which accelerate it. Decades of neoliberal policies have widened the gap between the haves and have nots, enriching the toffs while creating an impoverished, marginalised underclass.

Yet Turnbull’s riposte is revealing – and ultimately self-sabotaging. It’s a key note in the week’s all-in brawl over tax cuts and justice which plays out against news of Donald Trump’s decree to separate babies from their mothers while their parents are prosecuted for illegal entry to America.

Nearly 1800 immigrant families are torn apart at the US-Mexico border from October 2016 to February this year. In Brisbane, a solo mother is being torn away from her eight year old son, Giro, who is an Australian citizen, by Peter Dutton’s Home Affairs and deported to the Philippines.

It will be at least three years before she will get a chance to return to see Giro again.

Like Dutton’s (broken) Home Affairs and his supporters, Trump peddles the pernicious myth that undocumented migrants are a danger. A myth? The Poynter Institute’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Politifact reports, “undocumented immigrants – (along with all other migrants) commit crimes at lower rates than the native born.”

Giro’s mother, Bernadette Romulo has lived in Australia with her children for 11 years. She works in aged care, pays taxes; contributes to her church community. Her son cannot leave with her because partial custody arrangements require that he not be separated from his father.

Trump boasts it’s his tough zero-tolerance border policy, but, in reality, he’s just his playing to the gallery, or as commenters love to say, his “base”. Immune to reason, impervious to all evidence of ineptitude, illegality, or betrayal of its base, a more suitable term for his devotees is “cult”.

Yet base is a perfect word to fit Trump’s hollow posturing. Like Dutton, Morrison or Abbott before him, he’s forsaking all decency and humanity to win votes by pretending he’s a tough guy. And everybody knows only tough guys are caring and protective. Alpha males rule. It’s a grotesque, dog eat pup, faux show of strength in a neoliberal theatre of unfathomable cruelty.

That theatre is even more terrifying because it operates in a void. Trump’s America does not care, writes Robert Kagan, It is unencumbered by historical memory. It recognizes no moral, political or strategic commitments. It feels free to pursue objectives without regard to the effect on allies or, for that matter, the world. It has no sense of responsibility to anything beyond itself.

We are dragged along by our great and powerful friend’s coat-tails. Melania Trump causes a fuss this week when she chooses to wear a $52 Zara coat which says “I really don’t care. Do U?”

Melania’s coat is seen as she embarks on a plane to head to McAllen, Texas, for a surprise visit to the heart of the family separation crisis at the southern border. Could she be so heartless?

In a word, yes. Yet a torrent of apologies, excuses and semiotic glosses ensues, including a tweet from the POTUS saying his wife was heroically liberating herself from the tyranny of fake news.

He tweets, “‘I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?’ written on the back of Melania’s jacket, refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!”

As if. Gertrude Stein points to the truth with elegant simplicity, “A rose is a rose is a rose”.

If fake news is a thing, so, too are fake tweets. Trump’s one big thing is to feed our mistrust.

Above all, we need to demonise the other. Even as neoliberalism’s mainspring unwinds, its selfish competition and commodification of relationships vitiates normal social bonds of reciprocity, obligation and responsibility, we are driven to blame aliens; enemy agents to appease our guilt.

Pastor Peter Dutton, ever keeping us safe from terror, pipes up about the need to keep our “foot on the throat” of demon people-smugglers, terrorists and bad dudes with tats and facial piercings from Kiwi bikie gangs we must deport back to Nelson, Wellington or Christchurch.

It’s critical, he tells The Weekend Australian  much in the same way that Christian Porter insists we pass the proposed espionage and foreign interference bill – a bill which he says is necessary to protect the Super Saturday by-elections, July 28, which could be sabotaged by foreign agents but he can’t say who, how or why.  It’s another excuse to silence advocacy groups and GetUp!

Dutton tells Coalition colleagues that Australia is in a “danger phase” with illegal boat arrivals. One act of compassion could “undo overnight” five years of hard work in “stopping the boats”.

His claim’s preposterous. But who needs a reasoned case with evidence in an age of metanoia?

In the end, Trump rescinds his decree. Sort of. He tells an aide, Tuesday, that “it doesn’t look good politically”. Instead, children will be locked up with their parents, on bases, a practice zealously embraced by Australia despite Dutton’s repeated fake claims that we have no children in custody.

Refugee Council of Australia figures indicate there are seven children in detention facilities; 33 on Nauru, 180 in community detention and an estimated 3,083 in the community on a bridging visa.

Since 2010, 40 asylum seekers have died in detention. This week, Home Affairs Minister, Dutton bows to pressure and allows Ali, a 65 year old man, dying of lung cancer, to return to Australia.

Afghan refugee, Ali, has been interned five years on Nauru. As loyal US allies, we are still helping turn Afghanistan into a hellhole. Worse, grave allegations emerge that our forces have committed war crimes, amid a “complete lack of accountability” from the military chain of command.

Yet no-one can explain what Australia is doing in Afghanistan – apart from blindly following the US.  Even the US can’t say what it is achieving in its longest war in history and the costliest since WWII. It began in 1981 as the Bush administration’s response to the September 11 attacks. It has cost over $1 trillion to date. Civilian casualties are fast rising under Trump’s “fight to win strategy”.  There were 10,000 civilian casualties last year with over 3000 deaths.

Trump’s push is as ineffective as his decision to drop the GBU-43, the mother of all bombs. What is certain is that the region has been the source of a flood of refugees which some estimate to number three million. The nation has the reputation of causing the greatest number of refugees in the world. Of those who do return, three quarters are forced by violence to flee again.

The brutal answer to the question of what we are doing is that we are creating refugees.

Similarly, few are prepared to make the link between our illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent flood of millions of refugees or those from Syria. Nor do we hear of the ways the US illegal invasion helped radicalise Iraqis; join al Qaeda in Iraq which would become ISIL and other groups. Easier to discover are estimates that around four million Iraqis were forced to flee ISIL.

We’ve helped to dispossess Afghans but we don’t want them here. Ali and his family were told “under no circumstances” would he be permitted to set foot on Australian soil. It’s a reversal of a Trump-like decision by Border Force and Home Affairs to deny all natural aspiration to humanity,  compassion or respect for international law regarding the unity and protection of the family unit.

The UNHCR reluctantly agrees to help in the relocation of refugees from Nauru and Manus to the US, reports Ben Doherty, in The Guardian, but “on the clear understanding” that vulnerable refugees with close family ties to Australia would ultimately be allowed to settle there.

This proviso is ignored. Our government’s aspirations do not embrace or honour UNHCR requests.

Australia’s refugee policy is now a byword for brutality. Our Nauru detention centre which bears the Orwellian name of Regional Processing Centre is a place of medical neglect, hunger strikes, suicides and abuse. Amnesty International calls our policy a “human rights catastrophe”.

330 refugees and asylum seekers, including 36 children, remain in detention on Nauru. Our government tells them that they will never be able to settle in Australia or New Zealand.

Are they, too, entitled to aspirations? Perish the thought. Time to return to Turnbull’s stunt.

Turnbull blunders. Is derision the best way he can respond to a Plibersek, a politician who has the integrity and intellectual honesty to own that she is mystified by his vacuous cliché? Bad enough that he must fend off her challenge to his platitude, a challenge which goes to the empty heart of his sonorous oratory; all sound and fury and no conviction, but he makes a very bad call.

Aspirations are not all to do with working harder, earning more or “improving” your social status and it diminishes any leader to pretend otherwise. Mal’s quip and the Coalition’s subsequent mockery by reiteration ad absurdum of the word aspiration in Question Time are another poor call. The nation is again dismayed by his lack of judgement. In World Cup terms, it’s an own goal.

Far from embracing or recognising aspiration, the Turnbull government will be remembered for its ever lowering of ambition in its desire to act with compassion, justice or humanity. Or humility.

It has heartlessly abandoned and abused to the point of torture those we choose to call asylum seekers. They are refugees; desperate men, women and children, fleeing war, famine and disaster whose only choice is to seek out Australia by boat and throw themselves on our compassion.

Embrace? No embrace here. Aspiration? More like apathy and perverse indifference to our own cruelty and inhumanity. At present, we illegally detain, indefinitely, over two thousand refugees on Manus, Nauru, Christmas Island as well as those in community detention on the mainland.

Despite Aspirational’s Liberal pedigree, Mr Turnbull, you would be well advised to drop the buzz-word immediately. Send the flea-bitten old nag to the knackery. While you’re at it you should drop the attacks on Tanya Plibersek. Can the wisecracks about her household income or Bill Shorten’s dinners with the Pratts. People in glass houses need to aspire to a higher standard of debate.

Finally, it may be a radical step for you, but it’s not too late to recall the last stage of your tax cut policy too. Or scrap the plan entirely. Australian voters are not mugs. They can tell when they’re being taken for a ride.

By Denis Bright

A month out from Super Saturday, the five simultaneous by-elections are already part of Australian political folklore. The forthcoming by-elections now have elements of a US mid-term election which can either confirm the existing administration or move it into a lame-duck phase.

With the passage of the three-staged tax package by the Senate on 21 June 2018, this unprecedented round of by-elections has become referenda on the drift to a more unequal Australian society. In Phase 3 of the tax package, billions in future federal revenue will be wiped away. Tax concessions to corporations might follow in the next phase of the tax plan which will be tested in the Senate and perhaps used as a campaign weapon before Super Saturday.

Federal deficits will persist as the federal government’s revenue base is eroded. Australia’s insurance against downturns in the global economy is lessened. Only a change of government can unscramble the mess.

Despite last minute pleas from thirty-three progressive senators, the federal LNP had already secured the support of senators from One Nation and the Centre Alliance through private negotiations. No explanations were given of reasons for the final betrayal of principles.

Voters in Braddon should be outraged by the potential erosion of the size of the federal tax take in an electorate which is so dependent on financial assistance from Canberra. While public sector austerity lives on in federal cabinet, Prime Minister Turnbull continues his financial largesse on the campaign trail in Tasmania. State budget day in Hobart brought a commitment from Prime Minister Turnbull to a new motorway crossing at Bridgewater on the Lower Derwent with more federal-state funding for completion by 2024.

Posing next to an awkwardly placed map of Tasmania, Prime Minister Turnbull provided some words of caution to his support base in Braddon:

Your Liberal candidate in Braddon, Brett Whiteley worked hard to help deliver more jobs and better services and facilities for West and North West Tasmania. If he is elected at this by-election, Brett will be a very strong voice for his community in our Government.

By contrast, Labor and Bill Shorten pose a real risk to our economy. Labor voted against tax relief for small and medium businesses and want to increase taxes by more than $200 billion over a decade – including on housing, small businesses, workers, investment and retirees.

A vote for Justine Keay in this by-election is a vote for Bill Shorten. Braddon can’t afford to take that risk.

The key to a better future for Tasmania is a stronger economy, which means more jobs and better services. That’s what the Liberals plan delivers.

Labor sensibly ignored such provocatively targeted ideological shots. At the front-line in Braddon, Labor’s Justine Keay holds the seat with a margin of 2.2 per cent margin after preferences. There is no room for such off the mark side-kicks.

LNP candidate Brett Whiteley has not been idle after losing Braddon to Justine Keay. The federal LNP has assisted its former colleague with a temporary role as policy advisor to the Assistant Federal Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation (The Advocate 1 May 2017). This has given Brett Whiteley just enough time to review the special needs of the Braddon federal electorate. Its needs are the subject of a recent Australia Institute discussion paper (February 2018).

In Braddon, new investment is needed to cope with the relative decline of mining, logging, rural industries and traditional manufacturing. It is the quality of this federal government financial support which needs close examination during a time of difficult economic transition for Braddon.

Data from the Tasmanian Department of Treasury and Finance shows that the state’s average weekly earnings are the lowest of all Australian wage jurisdictions. There are high levels of casualization and underemployment particularly in the two main employment growth sectors.

Employment Trends in Tasmania’s West & North West Region

Tasmania continues to be highly dependent on an enriched financial drip from the federal government in GST allocations, grants and on levels of the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme (TFES).

Other states and territories do not have the benefit of this rather uncritical federal largesse. 62.6 per cent of total revenue in the current Tasmanian state budget is derived from Canberra. This is a notch more than support for the Northern Territory (Tasmanian Budget Paper No.1 2018).

Tasmania has done well in the short-term out of the bipartisan largesse. The state economic growth rate was 3.5 per cent for 2017-18. Tasmania will achieve a small budget surplus in 2018-19. Current budget papers herald the possibility of zero net debt level from 2020-21.

The benefits of federal assistance to Braddon and the wider Tasmanian economy just keep on coming despite the overall financial austerity from Canberra. Winning Braddon means everything to the federal LNP as a timely morale booster after a long phase of internal tensions within the coalition. The tax changes are a bit for consensus-building between the conservative and liberal ranks within the federal LNP.

The Advocate (19 June 2018) announced that the Commonwealth had found another $164 million to fund social housing in the next five years under the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement which will be topped up by the state government’s own initiatives.

The favourable debt prognosis was achieved by tentatively capping new capital works at 28 per cent below current levels after 2020-21. The spike in the state’s capital expenditure to a record $752.4 million in 2018-19 carries $121.1 million in under-spending from 2017-18.

Sections of the mainstream media speak of a golden age for the Tasmania economy (Channel 9 News Hobart 14 June 2018).

Graphs showing falling net debt levels should of course be looked at in the context of increasing federal financial support for Tasmania which is a real asset in winning back Labor seats lost at the 2016 federal elections.

Tasmania’s Net Debt Levels

In the context of concerns about eliminating state debts, it could be noted that the long-deceased Labor veteran King O’Malley (1854-1953) represented Western Tasmania in federal parliament in the former electorate of Darwin. This become known as Braddon after 1955.

King O’Malley was an advocate of a strong investment multiplier of major capital works with credit from a national people’s bank long before Keynesian economics became fashionable. Alternatives to old style debt financing were King O’Malley’s dream for a young nation just federated within his life-time. All this evaporated as the Hughes Labor Government split over the extent of commitment needed to assist the British Empire’s war efforts.

Some positive elements of this federation era nationalism still linger on in the Tasmanian economy.

Productive Tasmanian state entities include Hydro Tasmania, its various subsidiary electricity units, Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT) and the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme (TSS), the Tasmanian Ports Corporation (TasPorts) and the TT-Line Shipping Company to name a few entities.

Conversation online (4 October 2017) showed that intervention in electricity generation had served Tasmanians well as measured by interstate comparisons of interstate base household electricity prices.

Comparing Base Household Electricity Prices

Environmentally sustainable sites for new hydro-electricity generation sites are virtually exhausted.

Just in time for the Braddon by-election, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and Hydro Tasmania are investigating the possibilities of a $500 million revitalization of the 80-year-old Tarraleah Power Station (The Advocate 21 June 2018).

Alternative forms of energy have been sought by Hydro Tasmania in solar panels and wind farms.

Households and businesses across much of Tasmania are now linked to an undersea gas pipeline from Bass Strait through commercial investment by Tasmanian Gas Pipelines (TGL). This pipeline now fuels the Tamar Valley Power Station.

Some industry leaders across Tasmania have called for the bulk purchase of all gas supplies by Hydro Tasmania to eliminate TGL’s command of gas pricing as the sole supplier. Both sides of politics have strongly supported these vital levels of regulatory intervention which protects Tasmania in the coldest weather (ABC News Online 13 December 2017).

Projects of such proportions really need the support of an Energy Transition Authority to tap global private capital flows into state or federal national investment capture funds. This is little difference in kind between dividend earning from investment in productive infrastructure and politically opportune grants from Canberra out of tax coffers.

New generation federal LNP leaders show no interest in such possibilities (Mathias Cormann at the launch of The Forgotten People-Updated by Paul Ritchie 16 June 2018):

As the Prime Minister wrote “our Party’s conservatism is an anchor that points to our values, tempers our exuberances and reminds us of our history and traditions; and our Party’s liberalism is our compass that points to freedom, opportunity, and a future where more Australians can share in our country’s bounty.”

Our party is a living, breathing institution that continually seeks to use our values to interpret and improve our times.

The strength of this book is that it is not about ‘the forgotten people’ of Menzies time but it is about ‘the forgotten people’ of our time. It is a marker in our intellectual journey as a party.

Despite an initial lead by the federal LNP in the Sky News Poll for Braddon, many battlers might now be insulted by the tokenism of tax concessions in Phase 1 (2018-22) (Sky News Online 2 June 2018).

Calls for fiscal discipline on behalf of aspirational voters also co-exist with some sloppy uses of federal funding by the LNP’s Hodgman Government in Tasmania.

Rob Inglis of The Examiner Online (14 September 2017) provided vital specifics on capacity of TFES to serve the Tasmanian logging industry. Containers of wood chips from government timber reserves are now trans-shipped through mainland ports in a partnership with the Cayman Islands-incorporated Global Forest Partners LP

ABC News Online (9 November 2017) claims that logs and wood chips transported across Bass Strait attracts a federal subsidy of $700 per container from TFES.

Rob Inglis’ reporting in the Advocate Online offered a more balanced perspective on the Tasmanian economy with the imprimatur of economist Saul Eslake. It is the quality of federal financial support which trumps the current political largesse.

However, some federal-state projects have been financially successful in Braddon itself.

The Wilderness Railway from Regatta Point, Strahan to Queenstown in 2003 is a major source of tourist income. Tasmanian Labor is committed to the re-opening of other scenic tourist railways across Tasmania which once served an old rural and resource base economy.

Perhaps apathy and current spells of cold windy weather in Braddon combine to reduce interest in such policy debates. The federal LNP hopes that constituents will focus on their token tax cuts in Phase 1 of the new deal to 2021-22.

What of the possibility of alternative perspectives during the forthcoming by-election campaign?

Re-enactments of musical The Legend of King O’Malley by playwrights Bob Ellis and Michael Boddy might stir up some interest in alternative forms of funding for Tasmania’s continued sustainable development. Cosy bars across Braddon might welcome excerpts from the production by local drama students to arouse interest in politics and social justice issues during the forthcoming winter vacation. Street theatre to lampoon the federal LNP’s tax package would also be highly appropriate in the spirit of King O’Malley’s vision for the new Australian federation.

Image from monumentaustralia.org.au

The plaque to honour Labor veteran King O’Malley (1854-1953) in Burnie Park near the Bass Strait coastline is not completely isolated from contemporary debate about government debt levels and the exclusion of MPs who were born overseas.

Not being too sure of his precise birthday or even the country of his overseas birth, King O’Malley may have needed a high court clearance to serve as a member of parliament in today’s more disciplined political environment.

King O’Malley was defeated at the khaki-wartime federal elections in 1917. This brought a paradigm change in Australian federal politics which lasted until the Great Depression. Despite two more attempts to win another federal Tasmanian seat, King O’Malley did not make it back into the House of Representatives.

His optimistic spirit is still relevant advocates of social justice and commitment to peaceful international relations in contemporary Australia.

The federal LNP working towards a completely different paradigm based on the needs of aspirational voters and support for market ideology.

There are no precedents since 1901 in having five simultaneous federal by-elections on a single day. Probability in Braddon might appear to be on Labor’s side. My quick perusal of federal by-election results suggests Labor has not lost a federal seat at a by-election to a sitting conservative government since the fall of Kalgoorlie and Maranoa in 1920-21. The political headwinds of a conservative era also thwarted the re-election of King O’Malley in the Tasmanian seats of Denison (1919) and Bass (1922).

In fairness, probability illustration is hardly relevant. There are no precedents for Super Saturday. It is a risky political outreach exercise by the federal LNP.

History will tell us if Prime Minister Turnbull and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann are really in the ascendancy. Only the federal LNP’s game plan for Braddon is obvious. The Burnie-based Advocate Online will keep everyone well informed on developments in the campaign. The situation in Braddon is too close to call so far out from Super Saturday.

Saturday 26 May 2018

Introduction

One advantage of taking a rest is that the batteries get a chance to recharge and a new feeling of zest replaces the tiredness of trying to do too much.

A feeling of burnout had told its story. It’s a complicated one where the mind is steadfast, refusing to recognise the inner voice of a lifetime of hard work, saying, “enough is enough.” The mind fights the body’s thoughts saying, “when the bastards are gone” not until then will I sleep the sleep that victory brings.

Which brings me to “A dog act in a dog of a week” The Speaker Tony Smith had been told what to do and do it he did. The decision by the Prime Minister, after dismissing all the authoritative material supplied to him by The Speaker and The Australian Electoral Commission decided that the day of the Labor Party’s National Conference would suit just nicely. A 9-week campaign that would milk Labor dry of funds and he could then call a snap election.

The media isn’t giving this the attention it deserves. The ABC doesn’t even give it space in their Friday online edition.

When you are attacking your opposite about his character it doesn’t sit well to be tacky, deceitful, tricky, sneaky and downright disgraceful at the same time.

This decision does nothing more than put yet another nail in the coffin of our democracy and if our populace was smart enough they would see right through it.

If they do it will reflect badly on the Government, and deservedly so. It is simply not cricket. There are two teams playing one is not playing fair.

The trashing of our conventions and institutions by the conservatives must end. Abbott and Turnbull have done enough damage.

Unfortunately, in this case, Labor is not without fault and Shortens assured cockiness over citizenship has not helped but if Turnbull was half the man he pretended to be he would have made a better fist of it in this instance.

Comment of the Week 

In response to my piece – Can you trust them? Pauline and the polls?

Jaquix wrote

 “I agree with Peter F and not the author as to why the polls are tightening. There is no evidence whatsoever that Shorten has done anything lately to cause this change in figures. And nothing to show why the Coalitions figures should improve. The common denominator in all this is the MEDIA. Tedious but true. The media do not report properly on the dodgy and downright dangerous policies the Liberals are dealing us into. If they report on Labor at all, it’s negatively.”

The Scandal Sheet

1 “It is time that those with the capacity to change laws that might prevent the mass murder of children and refuse to do so were made to account. After all, they are as guilty or as mad, whatever the case, as the perpetrator himself”. JL

2 “Hanson withdraws from private agreements. However, if they give her what she wants who knows.”

3 “David Muir says we should examine other constitutional reform questions. For instance, introduce a casual vacancy system to fill House of Rep’s vacancies. Reduce the number of Senators. We have 12 per state. The USA has 2 per state.”

4 “What on earth do 12 Senators in Tasmania do?” JL

5 “Ms Downer thinks the minimum wage and penalty rates should be abolished.”

6 “Tax cuts are funded from surpluses that may never happen.”

7 “Tend to agree. The budget was about the next election rather than the future. Combined ideology with vote buying. So disappointing.”

8 “Can’t help but notice just how much Turnbull sounds like Abbott now. So totally negative, blaming Labor for everything and that the sky will fall in if Labor comes to power.”

9 “Mind you I have recently been criticised for being negative towards the LNP but honestly, if I tried I would run out of adjectives in 15 seconds.”

10 “Can anyone help me?”

11 “In the upcoming by-elections, Turnbull would have been campaigning on his tax cuts to big business. What will it be now?”

Who do these words refer to?

“He has worked up a lovely public persona: as cultured as Keating but blessed with a kinder sense of humour; as intelligent as Rudd but far from as malevolent. And somehow, with his green-froth-drinking diet success and his endearing leather jackets and business shirts, his Stephen Fry-like adoration of gadgets and mastery of social media, his raffish smile and mellifluous voice, he has formed the perfect personality for most popular, and probably most trusted politician in the nation”.

The Poll Bludger 

“Essential Research: 51-49 to Labor

Essentials two-party gap narrows to its lowest point in 18 months, despite Labor’s tax and budget policies being favoured over the Coalition’s.”

Top Tweets of the week

Paul Karp

“PMC officials say total cost for Ruddock religious freedom review around the $600K mark, a few hundred thousand under budget, of which $119K was remuneration and allowances for panellists. Croucher had no base pay cos she’s AHRC prez already.” ‪#auspol ‪#estimates

Simon Banks

“We believe:

“In the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples; and we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives and maximises individual and private sector initiative”

• @LiberalAus “Our Beliefs

twitter.com/Bevan Shields/s”

Lefties Troublemaker

“Oh gawd, it’s the Bikies and the CFMEU working together…lol” #auspol #qt

Simon Banks

“LNP’s Michelle Landry to face party review after criticising Jane Prentice dumping.”

Stephen Jones

“Peter Dutton boasts a $650,000 war chest to retain his seat of Dickson. Ali France hasn’t got the money but she has got what it takes to cause a major upset. Follow 👉🏻@alifrance5.”

Alan Koehler

“@ABCaustralia has put a statement today that @albericie was never found to have confused revenue with profit or that largest cos don’t pay tax, responding to yet another feral piece in @australian.”

Geoffery Payne

“Travel costs of Barnaby Joyce’s partner Vikki Campion won’t be released despite Freedom of Information request 🔥😮

Watchdog for parliamentary expenses is refusing to release information about staff travel relating to Vikki Campion 😠

#Auspol #qt”

Best read of the week

The Saturday Paper  Paul Bongiorno

“The delay in naming the day – and let’s face it, the Liberal speaker will make sure he does what the Liberal prime minister judges is in the government’s best interests – is baffling. It certainly didn’t take that long for Barnaby Joyce or John Alexander. Speculation is the polls will be in early July, eight weeks away, as if Turnbull has learnt nothing from the interminably long 2016 campaign that he almost lost.”

Tim’s titbits

1 “That issue has arisen.  Why does the AEC not vet dual citizens?  Does not have the resources to.  Or the authority.”

2 “One of the political journalists said he got a call from a Cabinet minister this week.  Who said he believed the Coalition could win the election?  There is trouble ahead for Labor.  Industrial relations.  Asylum seekers.”

3 “True. There are too many Liberal politicians in their thirties who used to work for politicians. For instance 10 per cent of Australians are Asians. There are not 10 percent of Asian Australians in the caucus or the Liberal Party room.”

4 “True. In a dual citizenship case (House of Reps) make the politician pay all expenses. Have a recount system like in the Senate to fill the vacancy. Then they might think twice before doing it.”

5 “The ACTU have done some research, which says half of all workers, will soon be casual workers. So not entitled to any protection if they lose their employment.”

6 “Travel costs re Barnaby’s partner are not being disclosed. On grounds it would put her life at risk. Well I don’t see how. And anyway if the taxpayer pays we have a right to know. If she paid or Barnaby paid then it’s their business – not ours.”

7 “Crossbenchers seem to want to support the Federal government’s tax plan in exchange for a tax on digital companies such as Google etc.”

8 “Dual citizenship prohibition puts us at the whims of other nations. Not true.”

9 “There is more hatred for Senator Wong than for any other politician l have observed in 30 years. Her citizenship status is always questioned.”

10 “True. Catholic church could crucify every priest and it would not be enough for some.”

11 “Richo was saying the federal election likely to be in the final 3 months of this year. He said the Libs have a chance to win government in Victoria. But will be trying to hang on in NSW. When considering everything it is likely to be late this year.”

12 “Chatting away about Newstart. Friend said $17 a day is enough to live on.  He said food is cheaper today than in 1994. When we were just coming out of a recession. Today – no recession.”

13 “I don’t think $17 a day is enough to live on.  He said that is all expenses paid – rent, telephone, electricity etc.  Well unsure about that.  Does not sound like it.”

My clown of the week

A toss up between Pauline Hansen, Peter Dutton, the Preachers son and the Prime Minister. I had to give it to Dutton who seems to be completely oblivious to the worth of human life.

My thought for the day

“Why is it we find such compelling reasons to treat each other badly.”

Rather than prosecuting the case for their policies, such as they are, the Coalition have decided their best chance of re-election lies with their “Kill Bill” strategy where they try to convince us, mainly through puerile name-calling like “Unvelieva-Bill”, that Bill Shorten can’t be trusted because he “says one thing in Canberra and another thing in Queensland/Victoria/Western Australia.”

Considering their own track record, that is a very dangerous road for them to go down.

It is true that Labor have argued for, and made, company tax cuts in the past but they were accompanied by increased taxes elsewhere to help pay for them.

When Paul Keating cut the company tax rate from 49 per cent to 33 per cent, he paid for it by a massive broadening to the base of the tax system: capital gains taxation at full marginal rates, a comprehensive fringe benefits tax, the abolition of entertainment as a deduction, tax on company cars etc.

The Gillard government went to the 2010 election proposing a modest cut to the company tax rate reducing it to 29%. The policy also referred to the introduction of “new resource tax arrangements including a Minerals Resource Rent Tax for coal and iron ore and an expansion of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax for oil and gas.”

At the time, the Coalition opposed any spending attached to the MRRT and so also opposed the company tax cuts.

When asked “If the legislation is introduced separately, which way will you vote on the company tax cut?”, Joe Hockey said they would still oppose it.

“The total amount of revenue to be raised by the mining tax over the next three years is the equivalent of just three months of borrowings by this Government in the last few weeks. This government is on track to have a deficit of nearly $40 billion this financial year. The mining tax is estimated to bring in around $10 billion over the next three years. It is a simple equation.”

Yet now, with government debt hundreds of billions higher, the Coalition feel they can give substantial company and personal income tax cuts with no broadening of the tax base or reduction of concessions whilst also delivering a surplus, mainly by relying on what appear to be unrealistic estimates of wage growth and the hope that the windfall from increased commodity prices and surging company profits will continue.

And if we want to revisit what the party leaders have said in the past, it is worth looking at what Malcolm Turnbull wrote about negative gearing, capital gains tax discounts, and concessions for the wealthy in general.

In his 2005 tax policy paper, Turnbull described negative gearing and the CGT discount as a “sheltering tax haven” that is “skewing national investment away from wealth-creating pursuits, towards housing”, and has caused a “property bubble”. Turnbull also acknowledged that “Australia’s rules on negative gearing are very generous compared to many other countries” and that “the normal deductibility principles do not apply to negatively geared real estate such that the taxpayer is not obliged to demonstrate that the negatively geared property will generate positive cash flow at some point in the distant future”.

In 2014 he said “Looking at Australia’s tax regime you would say that it is too tough on people earning income… but is incredibly concessional to older people who have made their money…”

But according to Scott Morrison, Labor’s policy to stop refunds for excess franking credits is “ripping off retirees, pensioners, nannas, nonnas and yayas all over the country.”

There was a time when Malcolm Turnbull spoke the truth about important things.

In a speech to the House of Representatives in February 2010, Malcolm warned that “having the Government pay for emissions abatement, as opposed to the polluting industries themselves, is a slippery slope which can only result in higher taxes and more costly and less effective abatement of emissions.”

He told Lateline in 2011, “If you want to have a long-term technique of cutting carbon emissions, you know, in a very substantial way to the levels that the scientists are telling us we need to do by mid-century to avoid dangerous climate change, then a direct action policy where the Government, where industry was able to freely pollute, if you like, and the Government was just spending more and more taxpayers’ money to offset it, that would become a very expensive charge on the budget in the years ahead.”

They have avoided that by refusing to commit any more money to Direct Action and not giving a shit about emissions rising.

When the Coalition say that you will always pay higher taxes under Labor, they seem to forget that they introduced the GST, adding enormously to the cost of living in one fell swoop.

They were also the ones who introduced the budget repair levy, removing it before the budget is repaired but in time for an election. Suggestions by Labor that it should be kept until the budget is repaired bring howls of class warfare from the very people who introduced it in the first place.

They also conveniently ignore the fact that the Gillard government tripled the tax-free threshold putting thousands of dollars back into the hands of low income earners.

Whoever is advising government strategy would do well to remember the words of Matthew:

“You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

We will never achieve genuine tax reform with a government who is more interested in name-calling than honesty.

Monday 7 May 2018

Tuesday night the Treasurer will deliver yet another pre-election budget which will undoubtedly be just that. It will neglect the long-term common good in favour of retaining power. As is usual some things have been leaked but it seems more sweeteners will be handed out on the night.

Unashamedly all pretence to “Debt and deficit” has been dropped as if it never existed and was never a problem. Morrisson will have doubled the debt but will say “bugger it”, the kids can pay for that. Australia has had a “disappointing” debt legacy created by federal governments of both persuasions.

If something is not done now the young of today will live lives more impoverished than their parents. They will look back and ask why on earth were the olds so stupid? Look at all the prosperity you had and what did you do with it? Why didn’t you invest in our people rather than seek profit?

Pre-night rumours abound, the first being that the Government plans to spend $100 billion on increased in-home care and streamlined services which should be popular amongst their key voters. I read on the weekend that the 2018 Turnbull government budget will build on the foundation provided by the Gillard government’s “Living Longer, Living Better plan”.

From what has been leaked thus far it would appear that Aged Care will be a major beneficiary of the handouts with in-house care a central focus. This, of course, will appease the older members of the community who are the conservative base.

Tax cuts will also be a central feature in this pre-election budget. They will apply to those earning under $87,000.

Depending on when they apply personal tax cuts will momentarily replace wage rises that seem to have dried up. Those earning above $180,000 will benefit from 2024. I cannot imagine too many getting excited about that prospect.

Mr Morrison won’t say if the budget will be back in surplus faster. Last year he predicted the budget would be back in surplus in 2021, after a deficit of just $2.5 billion in 2020. First and foremost the budget must be if we are to have sustainable surpluses, be fair and reasonable recognising that revenue is important. Something they have denied for years.

Labor is in the box seat to match the Coalition promises with a huge war-chest from not proceeding with company tax cuts, and to achieve a stronger surplus. However, both parties need to urgently tackle the problem of “bracket creep” otherwise tax cuts will become meaningless. Having said that the whole tax system badly needs a review.

All the permanent promises so far have been made on a temporary and sudden rise in revenue.

If there were to be a domestic or worldwide economic downturn then we would be up shit creek without a paddle.

So far all we are seeing are sweeteners when what is needed is a grand plan that explains Australia’s economic path toward the future that includes jobs and growth and takes into account the collective feelings of our citizens, or “Common Good” as I have written on these pages dozens of times.

Labor philosophy (no link available)

“Is it impossible to hope that there are some people of integrity who might form a centrist party dedicated to honest government for all and the principles of “from each according to her/his ability, to each according to her/his need”? There is no one now to keep the bastards honest.”

All this talk about budget surpluses doesn’t register with the historical facts

“Since 1945, significant budget surpluses have been achieved only rarely: once by Ben Chifley, three times by Bob Hawke, and eight times by John Howard, who shared another with Rudd, who was elected during the 2007-08 fiscal year. That is, the Menzies, Holt, Gorton, McMahon and Fraser governments managed only a few, small surpluses. So much for the claim about the Coalition’s Fiscal management. The surpluses by Howard came from an unprecedented, never to be repeated mining boom and the sale of public assets. Let’s keep it in perspective.”

Lastly, a few things to consider from yours truly

Day to Day Politics: A new way forward to a better society: a Labor perspective (part 1)

My thought for the day

”We live in a time where horrible things are being perpetrated on us. The shame is that we have normalised them and adjusted accordingly”.

Friday 27 2018

The Government would have us believe the economy is in such fine shape, that despite adding 5 million dollars a day to the national debt, it can afford to drop the tax, in the form of a levy, on Medicare. Sorry for that. It has saved 5 billion on something that didn’t exist. It’s a bit of a Claytons tax on tax approach that was never going to pass the Senate.

The Government is already throwing out signals that this will be a giveaway budget, full of goodies to bribe the electorate into believing that after almost six years we have made a remarkable recovery without doing anything. We will even return to a surplus on time. It’s enough to get you dancing in the streets.

I find that a bit hard to digest. It is only a short time ago that they were telling us the economy was a cot-case. A disaster of the first order. Remember how they drove around in a truck with a dial indicating that we were at the abyss of a global meltdown.

How has this remarkable turnaround been achieved and how can we drop the Medicare levy and still pay for the cost of administering the NDIS. Well, we don’t know and we won’t know until the budget. But of course cynical minds like my own would question if the available funding for the NDIS will be adequate for its needs. There are many in the sector who say no. At the moment the Finance Department has an employment cap on them.

I think we can now be assured that we are heading toward an election in August/September of 2018. John Howard always had enough money to buy his election wins. We will be able to afford it all plus the huge tax cuts to the businesses who don’t pay tax and those who break the law to ensure they maximise profits.

Undoubtedly we will be subjected to a barrage of self-congratulatory words from the likes of those ministers with the loudest mouths and the fastest tongues.

“We are now in a position to give our guarantee to Australians living with a disability and their families and carers that all planned expenditure on the NDIS will be able to be met in this year’s budget and beyond without any longer having to increase the Medicare levy. This is the benefit that comes from a stronger economy,” Morrison will tell Australian Business Economists in Sydney.

One has to really wonder if, had the levy already been imposed, would the taxpayer have enjoyed a conservative government dropping it? I wonder. Anyhow, the politics will now open up.

The other thing to consider is that a levy would have guaranteed the NDIS funding. Now it is year to year.

Had the levy come into being at 0.5% then every Australian earning over $21,655, would have felt the effect but this is improbable because the government looked unlikely to secure Senate support to legislate it.

“Labor moved in budget week last year to say it would only support an increase for workers in the top two tax brackets – people earning more than $87,000 – despite the fact that it levied a similar universal increase when in government.”

“The opposition is also proposing to keep a 2% deficit levy first imposed by the Coalition in the 2014 budget applying to earnings above $180,000, which the government has moved to scrap.”

I am now looking forward to Scott Morisson’s budget speech in which all this wizardry will then be revealed. If it is all as good as they are telling us then two things interest me. One is how did he do it and two, what’s in it for me?

My thought for the day:

People need to wake up to the fact that government affects every part of their life (other than what they do in bed) and should be more interested. But there is a political malaise that is deep-seated.

Monday March 26 2018

To see the Australian cricketer Cameron Bancroft looking as though he was fiddling with the crown jewels when he was actually tampering with the ball wasn’t just a bad look for Australian cricket, but also an inditement of just how much public and private morality has slipped in our country. Call it ethics if you want l, or boil it down to cheating or better still, call it plain old-fashioned lying. Like rust it has now permeated itself into all facets of society. Or maybe we have just inherited another of America’s worst traits.

We have had two examples this week in politics. Trust in politicians in recent surveys has them at a well deserved 13%. These are the people we trudge of to polling booths every three years to vote for and entrust to do their very best to govern for us until we form judgment on their efforts the next time around. Well, at least 10 to 20% do.

For the last 10 years or so deceit or lying in politics has reached outrageous proportions. The contempt with which politicians treat us is so perfunctory that they believe we actually believe them. Now we are not talking about little white lies … we are talking about whoppers. You know the ones that leave you breathtakingly open-mouthed for there unconscionable audacity.

An observation

“When you tell a lie you deny the other persons right to the truth.”

Writing for The New Daily on Sunday, Paula Mathewson identifies them (politician’s lies) as follows:

1 “The Labor opposition constantly peddled its claim that the proposed company tax cut for big business is $65 billion. It’s not. The whole company tax cut package costs $65 billion, but the cost of the cut for the big end of town is $36 billion.
The tax cuts that have already been implemented for smaller businesses account for $29 billion of the $65 billion.
Now $36 billion is still a truckload of money, with which Labor could just as easily make its point. But no, it continues to talk about the Turnbull government planning to give a $65 billion gift to big business – which is an outright lie.”

2 “The Coalition is no better, of course. It peddled its own porkies this week about the opposition’s new proposal to scrap cash refunds on dividends.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was one of the chief offenders, asserting his opponent, Bill Shorten, was “robbing pensioners and retirees of their tax refunds”, and that “these are not rich Australians”.
The PM then doubled down on the deception, claiming “Bill Shorten is targeting mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers on low incomes who rely on a tax refund to help pay the bills”.

This is a lie by omission – Mr Turnbull was referring to pensioners and retirees on low taxable incomes, which means they may also be (and most likely are) rich in assets and superannuation. That is why the Grattan Institute reported this week that the government’s conflation of low-income and low taxable income in this debate was “deeply misleading”.

What is it with politicians that they would believe that we are dumb enough to believe they are telling the truth when with every lie they tell they are simply reinforcing the fact that we know they are telling them, regardless of whether they are blatant or lies of omission?

All they do is increase our scepticism of everything they say.

When politicians lie over a long period of time, it only serves to denigrate the liar and show contempt for the voters intelligence. Especially if the lies are chronic and systemic. The current use of the term “no direct knowledge” is a lie within a lie pretending to absolve a person who is fully conversant with the facts.

There are many reasons why people think lying is wrong; which ones resonate best with you will depend on the way you think about ethics.

Lying is bad because a generally truthful world is a good thing: lying diminishes trust between human beings. If people generally didn’t tell the truth, life would become very difficult, as nobody could be trusted and nothing you heard or read could be trusted – you would have to find everything out for yourself and an untrusting world is also bad for liars – lying isn’t much use if everyone is doing it.

If we were truly enlightened we would treat our fellow human beings, with respect love and faithfulness. We would do unto them as we would expect them to do unto us and we would strive to do no harm. We would love life and live it with a sense of joy and wonderment.

We would form our own independent opinions on the basis of our own reason and experience; and not allow ourselves to be led blindly by others. And we would test all things; always checking our ideas against our facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it did not conform to them. We would readily admit it when we are wrong in the knowledge that humility is the basis of intellectual advancement and that it is truth that enables human progress.

And of course we would enjoy our own sex life (so long as it damages nobody) and leaves others to enjoy theirs in private whatever their inclinations, which are none or your business.

We would uphold the principle that no one individual or group has an ownership of righteousness. We would seek not to judge but to understand. We would seek dialogue ahead of confrontation.

An observation

“Humility is the basis of all intellectual advancement. However, it is truth that enables human progress.”

We would place internationalism before nationalism acknowledging that the planet earth does not have infinite resources and needs care and attention if we are to survive on it. In doing so we would value the future on a timescale longer than our own. We would recognise that the individual has rights but no man is an island and can only exist, and have his rights fulfilled, only by the determination of a collective.

We would insist on equality of opportunity in education acknowledging that it is knowledge that gives an understanding. We would seek not to indoctrinate our children in any way but instead teach them how to think for themselves, evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with us. We would, in our schools open their minds equally to an understanding of ethics and the history and practice of religion.

An observation

“Free speech does not mean it should be free from ethics. Like truth, for example.”

We would never seek to cut ourselves off from dissent, and always respect the right of others to disagree with us. Importantly, we would not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

Lastly, we would question everything. What we see, what we feel, what we hear, what we read and what we are told until we understand the truth of it because thoughtlessness is the residue of things not understood and can never be a replacement for fact.

Politicians currently are playing a dangerous game in thinking that we are all dumb and without understanding. Look what happened to Abbott when he tested us.

Meanwhile, the latest bunch of cheating, lying Australians are protesting their innocence despite trying to lie their way out of a situation that is simply not cricket. Last night the Prime Minister, in yet another display of hypocrisy, gave Steve Smith and the team a full-on blast. It seem politicians can tell lies and cheat as much as they like but for the national cricket team it’s taboo.

My thought for the day

“Do you shape the truth for the sake of good impression? On the other hand, do you tell the truth even if it may tear down the view people may have of you? Alternatively, do you simply use the contrivance of omission and create another lie. I can only conclude that there might often be pain in truth but there is no harm in it.”