By 2353NM  

There is a conspiracy theory that suggests that birds (in the USA at least) aren’t real. The claim is that all the birds in the USA were hunted down by the government between the late 50’s and early 70s and replaced with bird like drones to spy on you. According to the theory President John F. Kennedy was assassinated because he didn’t support the program to replace birds with surveillance drones. Before you get too concerned, the kookaburra or cockatoo sitting in the tree watching you is not a drone and neither are any ‘drone birds’ in the USA because

The conspiracy theory powered by Gen Z was started by a man named Peter McIndoe. He told The New York Times last year the movement began at a women’s march in Memphis, Tennessee, in January 2017. Counterprotesters supporting former President Donald Trump also attended the event, and when McIndoe saw the group he wrote “Birds Aren’t Real” on a poster as a joke.

“It was a spontaneous joke, but it was a reflection of the absurdity everyone was feeling,” he told the Times.

He continued to joke about the idea of the conspiracy at the rally, and a video of him went viral on Facebook. The claim spread among teenagers in the area, and McIndoe told the outlet that he and a friend, Connor Gaydos, wrote a fake history of the conspiracy, coming up with more jokes and fake details.

“It basically became an experiment in misinformation,” McIndoe said. “We were able to construct an entirely fictional world that was reported on as fact by local media and questioned by members of the public.”

There is a serious side to satirical movements such as Birds aren’t Real or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (go here for their ‘real’ history) and that is to draw attention to the absurd and ridiculous that some believe to the exclusion of reality. Unfortunately others believe conspiracy theories that are anything but harmless. For example when you have a current President of the USA claiming that the election was rigged and polling officials were substituting votes, there is a certain percentage of the population that will swallow the claim without question. They already feel so isolated from the system due to earlier pronouncements by the same President and his supporters they will follow anyone who offers an alternative. The January 6 riot in Washington DC is a demonstration of the power of conspiracy theories.

For those that believe it couldn’t happen on this side of the Pacific, think again. It’s pretty obvious why the Federal Government commissioned a report into why former Prime Minister Scott Morrison thought for a nano-second that ‘shadowing’ various Ministers of the Crown that he appointed was anything like a clever idea. The reason wasn’t political payback, although requesting the response by 25 November 2022, leading into the last week of Parliament for the year as well as being the day before the Victorian State Election could have been. The reason the report was commissioned was to ensure that there were processes in place to stop the next Prime Minster with an overinflated sense of their own importance from effectively being able to overrule decisions of the various Ministers of the Crown as well as understanding the role of Parliament in our system of governance.

Over the years, the various Parliaments of Australia have delegated authority to make decisions to various Ministers of the Crown in the belief the decision maker was responsible for that area of government. The minister would be answerable for those decisions to the people of Australia through our Parliamentary representatives. The Prime Minister, while leader of the government probably doesn’t (and arguably shouldn’t) have the access to all the necessary information and is responsible for the policy of their government to the people of Australia, again through our Parliamentary representatives. There is also the practical problem around if the decision impacts a multi-billion investment decision that is going to be made – such as a new mining venture – is the Minister the ‘decision maker’ or is there another undisclosed ‘decision maker’ above the Minster?

Justice Bell was requested to investigate what went wrong and what measures could be put into place to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Her report was scathing and delivered on time. The Prime Minister’s website states

The unprecedented and inexcusable actions of the former Prime Minister were emblematic of the culture of secrecy in which the previous Government operated.

The Bell Inquiry confirms the Solicitor-General’s conclusion that the principles of responsible government were “fundamentally undermined” because Mr Morrison was not “responsible” to the Parliament, and through the Parliament to the electors, for the departments he was appointed to administer.

Justice Bell found the secrecy around the appointments was “apt to undermine public confidence in government” and was “corrosive of trust in government.”

As ABC News reports

The report shreds any last remnants of credibility the former prime minister might have in regard to his disdain for proper process and in the way he treated his colleagues and the public.

Justice Bell doesn’t call the prime minister a liar, but dances splendidly through a range of creative terminology which doubts the reliability of what he said, in writing, through his lawyers, in response to her questions about the circumstances of him appointing himself to no less than six of 14 government departments (not including the one he considered adding to the collection, but subsequently did not act upon).

It further documents what can only appear to be an exceptionally sneaky way of going about running a government.

“Mr Morrison’s assumption that all the appointments were notified to the public in the Gazette is not easy to reconcile with his conduct at the time or with his public statements when the appointments came to light,” Justice Bell writes

Justice Bell also found there is a process in place to transfer responsibilities should a Minister become suddenly incapacitated, so Morrison’s claim that the ‘shadowing’ was only done to ensure continuity in the event of incapacity are marketing hype and spin – not based in reality. There are 6 recommendations in Justice Bell’s report which unsurprisingly, the Albanese Government has committed to implement.

Morrison’s past history really isn’t that impressive. While a background in marketing and leading the government tourism agencies in Australia and New Zealand sounds impressive, the reality is far less so when it is considered that both governments (and a Coalition one at that in Australia) terminated his employment early for undisclosed reasons but plenty of chatter suggests that process, policy and good governance were not followed. There was also some concern about the way Morrison managed to reopen the preselection for the seat of Cook, not to mention the way he claimed he became Prime Minister, riding in on his white charger to save the Liberal Party from former Prime Minister Turnbull and current Opposition Leader Dutton.

Maybe the Liberal Party has fallen victim to the biggest conspiracy theory this side of the Pacific in the last 20 years by believing the hype around Scott Morrison, generated by the same Scott Morrison. They sadly haven’t realised their gullibility yet as demonstrated by mostly voting against the censure motion brought to the House of Representatives when the real adults in the room. The ALP, Greens and Independents called his behaviour out for what it really was – a messiah complex combined with a confidence trick.

The snake oil salesmen of the early 20th Century would be proud of him.

What do you think?

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.

By Steve Davies  

Why it matters: During the 2022 elections the Labor Party promised to create a National Integrity Commission and reform public sector whistle blower laws.

Despite those promises the newly elected Labor Government is allowing the prosecution against Australian Taxation Office whistle blower, Mr Richard Boyle, to continue.

They are doing so using the very laws (Public Interest Disclosure Act), they vowed to reform. This is illogical. Worse still, it is driven by the moral the disengagement that has infected government and causes great harm. All funded with our taxes.

Look deeper: For decades Australia’s Federal Government had no whistle blower laws. Major political parties saw no need for it. Neither did the Australian Public Service.

The first laws, (Public Interest Disclosure Act) were passed in 2013 by the Gillard Labor Government.

The ultra-conservative Liberal Government of Tony Abbott was elected later that year. The Liberals remained in power until 2022. They hollowed out open government and freedom of information. The creation of a positive culture of public interest disclosures (whistle blowing), was snuffed out at birth.

Labor’s Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus, recently dropped the prosecution of lawyer Bernard Colleary for allegedly releasing classified information about alleged spying operations in East Timer.

In contrast, he is refusing to drop charges against Tax Office whistle blower Richard Boyle. Mr Boyle’s alleged crime? Blowing the whistle on unethical debt recovery practices in the Australian Taxation Office.

Mr Boyle has been subjected to hostile treatment since 2016 when he first raised issues within the Taxation Office concerning the aggressive and unethical use of garnishee powers against small business owners.

The typical pattern is that when public servants such as Mr Boyle raise serious issues, they are heavily managed and documented. As they pursue matters through due process, they experience more hostility. This gets worse when matters enter the legal battlefield.

The problem: Government agencies own the rigged whistle blowing battlefield from the start. Whistle blowers, at even a low level, are in a shooting gallery. All paid for by taxpayers.

The big questions: Why is the newly elected Labor Government choosing to go down a path that contradicts its election promises?

Why do otherwise good politicians and officials sanction behaviours and practices that cause harm to people and corrupt government organisations?

The Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus has stated:

“The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) takes decisions about the commencement of prosecutions independently of government,” … and the Attorney-General’s powers under section 71 were “reserved for very unusual and exceptional circumstances.”

The content of those two statements made by the Attorney General raises questions concerning the specific (and insidious), mechanisms of *moral disengagement:

The CDPP making decisions independently of government seems logical. However, in practice it is enabling the “diffusion of responsibility”.

The second statement also “displaces responsibility” by asserting that the “powers under section 71 were reserved for unusual circumstances.”

However, follow up reviews found that Mr Boyle’s allegations were valid and ATO investigations into his disclosures superficial. This shows that the situation is anything but usual.

In the light of the Labor Government’s election promises the Attorney General’s decision makes no sense. On that basis alone legal action against all whistle blowers should cease. It’s time for government to reflect deeply on the mechanisms of moral disengagement.

Taking action: What’s missing in all of this is a lens through which to understand and judge the behaviours, practices and actions of politicians and public servants. Such a lens is needed to keep government, our society and lives healthy.

The Morrison Government and COVOD-19 are tragic and dramatic proof that we all need a lens to help us cut thorough the politics, spin, denials and deception.

Moral disengagement was mentioned earlier. That term and the two mechanisms mentioned come from the lifelong work of the world-renowned Professor Albert Bandura (1925 – 2021).

His work spans two centuries and his book Moral Disengagement – How People Do Harm and Live with Themselves pulls together a lifetime of research, learning and teaching.

The mechanisms of moral disengagement provide a powerful lens for us to use to assess and judge the behaviours, practices and actions of politician public servants.

They provide a means to help us all judge the policies and services they provide to us. The very direction they seek to take our nation.

More than that using the mechanisms of moral disengagement provides a common foundation that we can use to talks and judge together.

At the moment the stories of the public, public servants and whistle blowers are isolated, untold and rarely listened to. They can be ignored, twisted or picked off one by one.

We all know there is a lot wrong. Politicians and public servants? They are all trapped in systems and institutions that are infected with moral disengagement.

Too many are a part of the problem. Too many forget that silence means consent.

More reading:

Senator Rex Patrick – Richard Boyle Sequence.

Stanford psychology professor Albert Bandura has died.

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.

Continued from Part 1

I want to be a prime minister who represents the entire country, our cities, our regions, our rural communities,” the PM says, following The Fair Work Commission’s (FWC) 18 June decision to lift the minimum wage to $21.38 an hour, a 5.2% boost for 186,000 workers, yet those on awards get 4.6%. 2.7 million workers will directly benefit.

NewsCorp goes ape. It’s as if a streaker jumps the SCG fence to run on to the pitch. Pay rises strike at the very heart of the wage-slavery so vital to the profiteering of the investor and business classes which have successfully frozen real wages for nigh on a decade. Thankfully, there’s still usury to fall back on with interest rates set to rocket.

The Coalition counter offer? Attack Albo. Call for wages to fall. Slur, sneer and smear.

So it’s a win for Labor? On points. Real wages will fall. But not as much, thanks to the FWC. Millions of workers suckered into selling themselves and their labor short under enterprise bargaining agreements, (EBA) on 2-4% rises will fall even further behind. QANTAS offers even less; 1.5% over five years, with a $5000 bribe to sign its EBA.

You can’t get real wage growth if wages stay below inflation. Forty dollars a week for the 186,000 of Australian workers on the minimum wage amounts to a 5.2 % rise. They’ll barely keep up with our price and profit spiral inflation. Currently it sits at 5.1% but it’s rapidly rising. 

Workers in “rural communities” can travel an hour each way every day to work and back. They’ll feel forgotten once again, whatever Albo may hope. The Community buzz-word does a lot of heavy-lifting. Already, low wage earners have lost a mozza under nine years of Coalition rip-offs despite Porter’s Omnibus Bill being gutted in the senate, March 2021. 

The bill would be law now but for the dissenting vote of Centre Alliance’s Stirling Griff.

Porter’s law aimed both barrels of the Morrison IR shotgun at workers. Slash wages by degrading an awards system which sets minimum wages and conditions across industries and weaken what little remains of unions’ bargaining power. Workers are marginalised.

Women are hit hardest. Labor must know this. Almost half of women workers are part-time in an increasingly casualised workforce. (One in four workers). And under-employed. Young women are much more likely to be underemployed (18.3%) than men (15.0%)

Compounding the injustice, Australia women get paid less for the same work than men.

The full-time total earnings gender pay gap, which includes overtime payments, is 16.4%. A woman’s average weekly total full-time earnings are $316.80 less per week than a man.

And prices keep rising. Essentials are up 6.6% in the year to March. Even the RBA’s gnomic rate-whisperer, Philip Lowe tips 7% inflation by 31 December. Growth in real wages was Labor’s campaign catch cry. Economic vandalism, Bulldozer Morrison sneered.  

But can Labor deliver? 

Most of our 2.7 million workers on a few dollars more than the minimum will receive a 4.6% rise – in effect – a real wage cut, given the rising cost of food, shelter, healthcare and other necessities which the ABS coyly terms “non-discretionary expenditure”. 

It all adds up. From 2012 to 2019, cumulative non-discretionary inflation was 14.8 per cent, whilst discretionary inflation was 12.9 per cent. 

And it’s worse than it looks. The much-feted pay increase won’t take effect until November for tourism, hospitality and aviation workers. Casuals? Forget it. Retail wage-slaves must wait until September – despite the FWC acknowledging that retail has recovered. 

Recovered? Is the FWC looking at liquor sales which the ABS says jumped 27%, 2019/20. Or hardware, electrical and furniture, up 14% over the year as we spent online and on home projects when we couldn’t get out and about?

Murdoch minions are screaming about a wage breakout. Reserve Bank muppet, Phil Lowe, a type of pythian oracle, Still Livin’ in the ‘70s, whose $1m PA salary keeps him in touch with average households, warns us off bids for “unrealistic wage increases [which] could fuel inflation and risk a rerun of a 1970s style wages breakout.” 

You want to buy groceries, pay the rent and the power bill? Dream on.

It’s a low blow because we are in a price profit spiral – not a wages breakout, writes Richard Denniss, The Australia Institute’s Chief Economist. Phil’s perpetuating a myth that’s hardened into orthodoxy. Like Howard’s whopping lie that Liberals are better at managing the economy. It’s a go-to for the pocket sages who pop up on The Drum or on Q&A or Insiders, along with every Liberal MP’s favourite “downward pressure on prices”. 

Downward pressure is usually a lie about how electricity or gas will be cheaper because the industrial cartel owning generation and often retail, which colludes in price gouging, in the same way banks collude in rate fixing, is imagined to be in competition. Yet downward pressure is everywhere, depressing the value of the working woman’s labour.

Every time workers seek a pay rise, the tamed estate clutches its pearls and reaches for smelling salts. Without a skerrick of evidence, our media, wail, prices can only go up.

Theatrics abound. TV news even features vox pops with sobbing coffee bar proprietors and café owners who fear they must shut up shop as a result of paying staff the new minimum wage. In fact, you’d be paying another nine cents for your four dollar flat white. 

Lowe needs to lift his game. Get real. Or get out. Acknowledge, as Richard Denniss prompts, that current inflation is the result of worldwide increases in the price of energy and a wide range of consumer goods. Huge profits are driving our inflation, not wage rises. 

It’s “cost-push inflation” Denniss writes. 

“Hitting the Australian interest rate brakes will not do much to lower our inflation when there is a global freight train pushing it along.”

Those brakes themselves are defective, too. A third of Australians have mortgages. Businesses who borrow may trade a little less but a lot of things have to happen along the way before the rate rise curbs spending. Lowe must know this. He should level with us. 

The RBA Governor is also out of date. Oddly de trop. A bit fey. Fawning audiences, hanging on every syllable, parsing even your pauses can do that. Turn your wisdom into an in-joke. 

Lucky Jim Chalmers who’s as smart as a whip, reminds ABC’s Insiders of Labor’s review of the RBA in train. Lowe’s job is up next year. Chalmers chooses his words shrewdly.

Sally MacManus doesn’t mince words. Lowe’s fear of wage breakout is a “boomer fantasy”, retorts the ACT secretary. Our workforce has been de-unionised and centralised wage fixing is long gone, thanks to the same bosses, Libs lobbyists and our business-friendly, media oligopoly who now scream that we’ll all be ruined if employers have to pay workers a few cents more. Meanwhile business profits are up 20%. 

So what’s the go, Albo? A “real pay rise” that few of us will get? A wage cut in real terms? Is it just a bit of spin? There’s nothing wrong with PR, of course, for a good cause. But that’s all the last mob did. Pat itself on the back in public. Make announcements.

As for being inclusive, Julia Gillard warns that the times make it even harder for women to get recognition and due recompense for their labour. 

“There’s a risk that if nothing else changes in five years’ time, what we’ll see is a pattern where women have chosen, particularly in the family formation stage, disproportionately to work from home,” Gillard says.

“And men, who have been much more regular attenders at the office … that very visibility, if nothing else changes, will show in who’s been considered for promotion, sponsorship, mentorship. The women will be kind of invisible behind the screen.” 

We know, of course, there’d be no rise at all from the casualised, wage-slave precariat that lies at the sclerotic heart of any Labor-bashing, Coalition government’s IR. Yet helping workers feed their families has to be a core promise from the workers’ party – at least historically. What’s the go, Albo? You tell us you promise to listen.

Time to turn to the new PM’s second major pledge.

“And I want to make sure, as well, that we listen to Australians wherever they live, whoever they voted for. We will be a government that represents the entire nation. And I want to bring the country together and concentrate on what unites us rather than look for division, which is what characterised the former government.”

Listening seems to be going well in work towards an indigenous voice to parliament. It’s part of Jim Chalmers’ spiel on ABC Insiders where the Federal Treasurer agrees there should be an ACTU representative on the Reserve Bank Board. He’s having talks with pensioner organisations and others to seek their input on a range of social justice issues. 

Jim’s keen to “have a conversation” as part of the RBA review. Ensure the review examines the composition of what is currently a very narrow board of mainly business-class types.

We must ask, he says “whether it’s broad enough, in geographic terms and gender and all the important considerations, but to also make sure that the right voices are represented around the table, that the board is of the right composition and size”.

You always feel cheered by Lucky Jim because he’s on the ball. He exudes intelligence, principle and decency. Despite inheriting a trillion dollars of debt. No doubt, he’ll already have mapped out possibilities in his own mind. He’s had nine years to think about things. But due process has to be done and seen to be done. 

But is Labor listening to its arch-enemy, The Greens? The Greens and 34 crossbenchers – 16 in the HOR and 18 in the Senate wail that their advisors are a quarter of the previous government’s staffing largesse. Not feeling the love from Labor at the moment?

Here, you can’t fault Albo’s unity pitch. Morrison’s doubling the staffing for crossbenchers to buy their support is one of the many boobytraps left in the wake of his electoral rout.

A new PM should seek parity in the parliamentary workplace. Equal support staff. Expect this to be beaten up into an attack on democracy itself, despite being regularly treated to MSM stories on how The Greens will wreck everything- including our national flag fetish. 

True, Labor’s listening to The Greens hasn’t started so well. The PM bags Adam Bandt when the Greens’ Leader removes the flag with a Union Jack, Commonwealth Star and The Southern Cross, a symbol of oppression for first nation’s peoples, from his presser. 

But it’s the Vision Thing. You can’t quibble, carp or cavil. Nor can Dutton’s flummoxed opposition, even if it does have trouble finding its own bum with both hands. (Angus “air-miles” Taylor is Shadow Treasurer. Brave choice. Shady Taylor holds a press conference. No-one turns up.) If you hold a presser and no press attend …?

Shady’s innumeracy is legendary. Wind? “By 2020, the impost on Australian electricity bills will amount to about $3 billion a year,” he warned. He is only $3 billion out. 

Gus miscalculated on renewable compliance certificates remaining high because of Abbott’s threat to abolish the RET. Their price plummeted. As Shady posts on his own FB account, “Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus”.

Unity? “It’s the vibe of the thing …” for Loose Units and Liberals. Word-salad whiz, ScoMo, spins similar, hokey, platitudes, in August 2018, when helped by Murdoch and Cormann “the ultimate seducer and betrayer” he knifes Fizza, “fraudband” Turnbull and undermines Spud. 

But Murdoch does the groundwork. In 2018, The AFR and ABC both report that Murdoch tells Stokes, Seven chairman and victim of Ben Roberts-Smith backer, that Turnbull needs to be replaced as PM. Thirty straight NewsPoll losses help.

Having pumped Dutton’s tyres in an earlier ballot, ensuring Turnbull’s defeat, Duplicity Morrison gets key backers to switch their votes to himself 45-40. Then the PM for himself alone promises to be a responsible leader. Having Corman on camera, too, makes it democratic.

“We will provide the stability and the unity and the direction and the purpose that the Australian people expect of us as leaders,” he lies. “We are on your side..”

Sceptics may demur, but as La Belle France’s toy-boy, Emanuel Macron, president of a self-deceiving, soi-disant, “Pacific Power” knows, Scotty is an inveterate liar. And with the help of Murdoch, Trump, Costello and Stokes, we do live in a post truth world. How else can $u$$an Ley keep a straight face when she claims she’s listening to women?

There’s no sign she understands remotely what they are saying.

“What you hear from the opposition is this long, ongoing, bleak, dreary narrative about entrenched disadvantage. And, you know, it’s just so last century.”

That may be the case for high-flyers such as herself, (a pilot, Ley did get into trouble booking her air miles up to taxpayers) but a glance at ABS statistics show she’s ignoring a very modern injustice. Government gender workplace data includes an array of evidence. 

As of 24 February 2022… “full-time average weekly ordinary earnings for women are 13.8% less than for men. This has decreased by 0.4 percentage points since May 2021.” Instead, Ley gushes about opportunities. As fact-free as her love-in with Dutto.

Ley praises the new soft and cuddly Dutton 2.0 who in 2019 accuses women of faking being raped so they get their ticket of leave from Nauru to give birth in Australia. 

In 2016, a federal court finds him guilty of breaching his duty of care to an asylum seeker who became pregnant after being raped on Nauru, and exposed her to serious medical and legal risks. Dutton had her flown to Papua New Guinea for the procedure, despite abortion being illegal in that country and the hospital lacking the expert staff and equipment required to make the operation as safe as possible. The abortion would have placed the woman at risk of criminal prosecution, Justice Bromberg found.

In the midst of the Covid pandemic, the former head of Home Affairs Peter tried to sneak through an Amendment to the Migration Act (1958) to give Australian Border Force power to confiscate the phones of asylum seekers and refugees being held in detention. He nearly succeeds, but for Jacqui Lambie’s dissenting vote in the Senate.

“I think he’s quite unassuming. I know that isn’t what people see, but it is what I see. He’s much more of a modern person than people realise.”

Dutton is a dead man walking. Another serial failure in every portfolio he’s been given, he will be another Abbott wrecker but with a smaller parliamentary cheer squad. Spare us the spin. Tell us the truth about COVID. Our lucky country is struck by a pandemic killing fifty a day as it mutates, yet barely makes the news. The cabal we let buy, redesign and ruin our semi-national grid is price gouging, leaving us in the cold and dark as it boosts a profit-driven inflation spiral with government subsidies. Yet workers must not seek wage rises lest they add to inflation, grins winsome Phil Lowe. 

Helped by our blinkered “news media”, we are busy violating China’s Economic zone. An embedded media never reports how we drop sonobuoys, small portable radar units, which will help the US detect and destroy China’s subs in its next act of military madness. Better to pretend we are innocents abroad in international waters. 

Yet far worse occurs – the triumph of experience over hope. Jerry and Rupert are to split. 

A teary nation grieves the cleavage of Jerry Hall (65) from her crocodile man bag, Rupie (91), our own Australian Fairy Godfather, who uses his supernatural powers to choose our governments, make life hell for Dictator Dan and ruin any other Labor upstart Down Under, while still finding time to be the perfect Murdoch Mafia don. And wage war on the truth and climate science. Not to mention his unceasing campaign against unions and workers.

How does he keep it up?  There is some hope he is starting to struggle financially.

Two years ago, Michael West reports, the Murdochs ripped a cool $1.4 billion in salary and bonuses from public companies since 1999. Now the family fortune is sunk in Disney+ shares, a deal which excludes Rupert and Sons from any seats on the board. The shares are sinking and the Murdoch empire may already have halved in value.

Albo’s “I will unite” stuff really bucks us up just when we need to toughen up to cope with the big stuff. A split in the October-December marriage of two star-crossed lovers. 

But six years hence, Jerry sensibly gave Mick Jagger the flick to reset her love-life, seeking the romance she so richly deserves. And now Rupe and Jerry are getting unhitched? Jerry married the love of her life only to find old age creeping up on her?

That bastion of plagiarism, The Daily Mail claims Rupe told Jerry to butt out. He doesn’t like her smoking in the house. Sounds plausible. Be a drag on any relationship.

Some wags unkindly suggest that Jerry expected Rupert to peg out a little earlier. No wonder she’s on edge. Did she fail to understand that no one sees off The Dirty Digger? 

Besides, he’s a man on a mission. Marina Hyde understands. 

“Rupert will be one of Earth’s last-surviving life forms, affectlessly inciting the tardigrades to insurrection and publishing grotesque lies about the cockroaches.”

Beware. Rupert is now free to follow his heart. Do what he loves. Destroy our Labor PMs.

No-one can cavil at the way our new PM hits the ground running on the Albanese Labor Government project, a work very much in progress. The vibe is right. Team Albo seems intelligent, articulate, co-ordinated and decent, even allowing for a halo effect bestowed on any act following the Morrison omnishambles. 

Experienced, too, which is what we need with The World Bank tipping economic recession for most of us. Plus a return to seventies stagflation. The US economy will tip into a recession next year, say 70 per cent of leading academic economists polled by the Financial Times. That’s two consecutive terms of negative GDP.

It’s not just the threat of Murdoch god-like power. Albo knows, “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.” If not, he isn’t listening to Kevin Rudd. 

On all sides, Labor is in danger of being mugged by ugly realities. Already, it’s struggling to put its money where its mouth is – even if you can’t fault its rhetoric. 

If Albo wants unity, however, he needs first to deal with the divisive disinformation, the undermining of Labor and the abuse of power that is the malignant Murdoch empire’s stock in trade. What’s the go with Rudd’s call for a Royal Commission?    

Similarly, a “business friendly” Labor government needs to reassure true believers that it still cares about workers, a quarter of whom are now casual and exploited mercilessly. 

Late last year, The Australian High Court ruled that, if an employment contract says you are a casual worker, then you must be a casual worker – even if you work regular, ongoing hours. This denial of workers’ rights is a massive wrong that needs to be put right. 

A token rise in the minimum wage is a start, but our whole IR system lies in ruins after nearly a decade of Coalition onslaughts. Our workers suffer one of the most draconian, anti-union IR regimes in the democratic world, in which they have all but surrendered their rights to organise; their rights to withdraw their labour; take industrial action. 

But can Labor make a move whilst an American billionaire runs the country? Before Murdoch sells News Corp, (if indeed, he still owns it – you’d never know with an outfit registerd in Delaware) time to get that federal ICAC into gear. 

Albo promises that it will be ready by the end of the year. There’s a lot of questions about the rorting, the corruption and the colluding with the nation’s power-generating oligarchy that the previous mis-government needs to answer. Just don’t expect Murdoch’s hacks to be happy about it. In the meantime, make nice with the Greens. Hold a truth and reconciliation commission, if you need to, Albo. 

Time to get over the Malaysian solution and the carbon tax betrayals. Your new Labor government needs to be fair dinkum about unity and be a genuine workers’ party if it is to achieve the pressing reforms on the IR front that are at least nine years’ overdue. It needs to be fearless about climate change, reducing emissions and renewable power generation. Most important, it needs to follow through on its commitment to women’s safety. At least seven hundred women have been killed in the twelve years since Labor tabled the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children.

Above all, those women who helped you to win deserve to be listened to, too.  

Outside of Robert Menzies, 18 years; John Howard, 11 years; Bob Hawke, 8 years. Malcolm Fraser, Joseph Lyons and Billy Hughes all served 7 years. Many had very short stays. No other Prime Minister has experienced more than 4 years. Longevity in office, it seems, is very difficult to achieve.

Many of these esteemed gentlemen faced the problems of their times in their own way. Most achieved very little, and others like Whitlam, Hawke, and Keating achieved much. Whitlam achieved more than all the conservative Prime Ministers put together in his two years. All were progressive thinkers who brought about massive change because they were forward-thinking individuals.

If that seems unfair, I don’t regret saying it because it is true. Conservatives would have us believe that the entire realm and ownership of political understanding is found in one ideology. The records show that they stood by eagerly awaiting the time to pass in their periods in office. Covid excepted, though Morrison did try but wasn’t up to it, so he gave it over to the states.

After nine long years under the pathetic administration of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison, when we needed leadership these three men were dead to change, dead to any form of leadership and deaf to advice (though Turnbull has valid excuses).

In many of my articles I have promoted the idea that only Labor can mend the multitude of problems we are confronted with. They understand what change means. In my view, at least two terms, maybe three, to clean up the mess handed to them. For example, two weeks out from the election in my article titled When change seems to be the only course of action, I wrote:

“But of course, one’s desire to win must include accepting that you take the good with the bad. And in Labor’s case, it must take on some unprecedented demands on Government.

I cannot remember a time when the requests on Government have been so abundant. You can only get so many slices from a cake; however, it is time to change when some portions far outweigh others and favour the rich and privileged.

Over the past decade, the Coalition became so trapped in the longevity of sameness that they couldn’t see other ways of doing things. Corporate tax evasion, large subsidies to fossil fuel companies, tax cuts for the well-off, and privileges for the rich take an enormous slice of the cake. Only a Labor government can make the necessary changes. Of course, Climate Change is the most outstanding example of how an inability to adapt to change can be an unmitigated disaster.”

"History shows we are much better for 'changing the curtains' from time to time, for our balancing act. That thought will provide no comfort for the carnival barkers on Sky After Dark," – @MichaelPascoe01 in today's TND Starter. #auspol https://t.co/XrGKMkpUgF

— The New Daily (@TheNewDailyAu) May 31, 2022

Expand our commitment to fixing the climate

We know what the Government proposes, but we also know that more can be done:

From July 1 there will be a new mega-department of climate change, energy, environment and water, responsible for the new 2030 emissions target and tweaks to the safeguard mechanism (The Guardian)

Cost of living

There are folks like disadvantaged pensioners: It is not this simple, but:

“The logic is this: if your weekly wage increases by $100, but your weekly expenses also increase by $150, then your real income hasn’t really grown at all… you’ve actually gone backwards. That’s what happened in Australia: the 2.3% wages increase is less than CPI/inflation of 3.5%.”

National Integrity Commission

The Government has committed to passing the legislation before Christmas. The Attorney General has already started on it. Then there should be a scramble to see who tops the list for the first customer.

An Indigenous voice

The Government is also committed to a referendum, and the onus is on Peter Dutton for a bi partisan approach; otherwise, history shows that it will be doomed to defeat. We owe it to our first nations people to see it passes.

A republic

Labor’s 2021 national platform says the Australian Labor party “supports and will work toward establishing an Australian republic with an Australian head of state.”

Fix the debt and the economy

The Morrison govt has trashed the budget & fuelled the inflation pressures we are now seeing.
Govt consumption rose a staggering 8.3% in the last year & the budget deficit in 2022-23 will be about the same as it was at the high point of the GFC.
My Two MInute Take pic.twitter.com/5X3OsCfRSR

— Stephen Koukoulas (@TheKouk) June 1, 2022

Medicare

Strengthen Medicare by:

1. Making it Easier to See a Doctor
2. Cutting the Cost of Medications

Secure jobs 

Labor will:

“Create secure local jobs by investing in Fee-Free TAFE and more university places, and make your job more secure with better pay and conditions.’

Restore faith in our democratic processes

This can only be achieved by setting an example and having the opposition follow. Eliminating a decade of “boys behaving badly” won’t be easy, but it is necessary.

Restore our reputation in matters of diplomacy

Use words that tell the other party that you understand their point of view whilst you cannot agree. Not that we are preparing for war. By simply using words that show honesty and “respect” for them.

Free childcare

Labor will:

“… reduce the cost of child care and make it easier for mums, children and working families to get ahead.”

Royal Commission into Robodebt

Bill Shorten will be anxious to get this up and running. The Terms of reference and the appointment of a commissioner will be the first issues.

Restore our former manufacturing ability

Labor will:

“Make more things here in Australia by working with business to invest in manufacturing and renewables to create more Australian jobs.”

Fix the housing problem

The Albanese Government will:

“… help more people get into the housing market sooner by cutting the cost of buying a home by up to 40 per cent.

This will mean a smaller deposit, a smaller mortgage and smaller mortgage repayments. It’s an ambitious plan that, if successful, will go part way in solving the problem.”

Address the inequality in education

Private schools are still getting more commonwealth funding than they need at the expense of state-run schools. Often when they don’t need or want it.

Women’s safety and equality

“Australian women don’t want special treatment, they just want equality” and to be treated fairly.

“A Labor Government will take action to get us there by:

• Delivering cheaper child care for working families – helping parents balance family and work responsibilities. 
• Closing the gender gap at work with a national drive to close the gender pay gap, easier pay increases for low and middle income women workers, and a Secure Australian Jobs Plan to support women in insecure work.
• Providing the national leadership and investment needed to end family, domestic and sexual violence, starting with: 
  • 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave. 
  • Safe and affordable housing for women and children fleeing violence. 
  • Hundreds more frontline workers to support women in crisis. 
  • Consent and respectful relationships education to help break the cycle. 
• Taking real action to stop sexual harassment at work by implementing all 55 recommendations of the Respect@Work report and providing support for women who experience sexual harassment at work.”

More assistance for older Australians

Restoring the previous measure by which pension rises were determined would be an excellent first step.

A better future for country folk

Labor has announced:

“… it will reserve $500 million of its National Reconstruction Fund specifically for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food and fibre.”

Realise the value of both the arts and sport

Let’s buck the trend:

“Researcher on government policy, economics and sport and professor of economics at the University of Adelaide, Richard Pomfret … believes there is a lack of understanding about what constitutes the arts in Australia, leading to misinterpretations, especially when compared to sport. Sport is always the winner.”

Take away subsidies to miners.

According to The Australia Institute:

“Fossil fuel subsidies cost $11.6 billion in 2021-22 across all federal, state and territory governments, equivalent to $22,139 per minute.”

Fix the NDIS

It seems that more is spent on lawyers than patients. Bill Shorten will have his work cut out trying to correct this bureaucratic mess. 

A more equal nation

Labor believes that:

“All Australians should be able to go about their lives free from discrimination and share in an equitable distribution of the country’s wealth.”

Better funding for the ABC

Labor has:

“… a five-year funding commitment in addition to Labor’s previous promise that an Albanese Government will reverse Scott Morrison’s cut of $83.7 million.”

Restore the role of the public service

Return the work now outsourced to the private sector (costing exorbitant amounts) to the Public Service, which is its rightful place.

Better manage our water

With so many competing forces, the same old problems will arise. However, Tania Plibersek may bring a fresh approach.

Fix the NBN

Labor’s plan is to have access to world-class gigabit speeds by 2025. How much could we have saved had we done it correctly in the first place?

Give the independents a voice

As an act of goodwill, the Prime Minister should regularly meet with the cross benches.

Covid: Where to now?

There were 35,000 cases reported on June 2. Labor needs an up-to-date assessment of just where we are at with this dreadful virus.

International company tax

This is wrong, so wrong:

“Five of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association’s (APPEA) most prominent member companies have paid no income tax for at least the past seven years despite combined income from their Australian operations of $138 billion.”

Fix it please, Albo.

End the prosecution of Bernard Collaery

Greens and independents are calling on Mark Dreyfus to withdraw commonwealth consent to all charges in the alleged Timor-Leste bugging case. The man is a hero, not a criminal.

End the prosecution of Julian Assange.

The telling of truth has a high price.

Fix the problems with Aged Care

After many enquiries and a Royal Commission into aged care, the time has come to fix it.

Summary

Please note that my list isn’t prioritised, meaning it is not in any particular order. People will form their own urgency.

Two points need to be made. Firstly: That any Government would leave the nation’s affairs in such a mess is scandalous. Secondly: Government is a slow-moving beast. Our expectations need to be tempered with patience; however, we are entitled to think that a new era of sensible governance can be established.

My previous post: One that the Murdoch Media got horribly wrong.

It is time to ask yourself who you want to wake up with, again. Three years ago, we faced this decision with the disastrous reigns of Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull still fresh in our memories.

While our elections are about individual members in individual electorates, the system has gradually become more presidential. The result may be that people vote for the local candidate if they like the leader of his or her party.

The Leaders

Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison was relatively new then, known to us only through his leadership of the Immigration portfolio. He had set off some red flags through his refusal to account for his department’s actions at sea, and his propensity for using men and women dressed in military uniforms as props. This was the first indication of his ‘Scotty from Marketing’ persona.

He is damaged goods now, seen as a pathological liar by many, but he does have the advantage of being the incumbent. That still carries a lot of weight in this country. Some older voters, and many in regional areas, still innately respect the office of prime minister. This is a valuable commodity to hold, because it is only in more recent years that institutions and titles, world-wide, have become more ‘democratised’, so that ordinary citizens have felt more freedom in questioning power.

If you are unfortunate enough to live in an area with a heavy Murdoch media presence, you may not have even heard about his problems with the truth. His main strength has been his ability to come back, day after day, from drubbings to embarrassments, with a fresh re-set, and a new attack line.

Instead of setting out policies, he appears to be entirely reactive, struck silent unless he can find a perceived gaffe, or a mis-spoken opinion, on which to pounce. When Anthony Albanese was isolating because he had Covid-19, Morrison was reduced to accusing the opposition leader of working less hard during his enforced break from campaigning.

Morrison has a series of spectacular fails on his cv; we know them all, but he has moved on. The big question about this election is, has the electorate moved on?

Each failure during a natural disaster has been exceeded by the next. The “holiday in Hawaii” while the country burned, to his abject failure on Lismore and the floods affected northern rivers. Of course that brings to mind the people of Mallacoota, and his “I brought in the Navy to help you” rhetoric. These are now the stuff of popular myth, with “I don’t hold a hose” perhaps the most memorable.

His next task was to combat the pandemic. He was relatively successful in the first phase, although his eagerness to re-open the economy was kept in check by the state premiers. His failure was in the initial lack of vaccines, and once ordered, their chaotic rollout to the country. He was seen as being  unable to organise anything properly, and his it is “not a race” remark, followed by vehement denials he ever said it, was both inaccurate and proof he could not be trusted.

Morrison compounds his failures by deflecting blame, usually to a state premier, or by lying outright to cover himself. His propensity for claiming innocence is often easily overturned by video evidence, and yet his ability to re-set his world on a daily basis speaks to some form of undefinable quirk.

The list of failures is long. Women feel let down by him, and his government. Christine Holgate, Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins are conspicuous victims of his seemingly unconscious misogyny.

His standing by his disgraced ministers, with never a question that he believes the men every time, has led to a $500,000 settlement to Rachelle Miller. She has accused a Liberal minister of physical abuse, and Morrison has still denied any wrong-doing on the part of Alan Tudge. There is another un-named current minister who is also a part of the compensation.

Hardly appropriate that there is a settlement, and yet no adverse finding against Tudge, or the other minister. Morrison has invited Tudge to resume as Education Minister, which puts him in charge of educational and cultural standards in our country. That means a person who has had a half million dollars in compensation paid to his alleged victim. A smoking gun?

Anthony Albanese

The worst thing Morrison has said about Albanese is that he is unknown, and rather interestingly, inexperienced. He has been in parliament since 1996, so he has been in a variety of senior positions, in government and in opposition, for 26 years.

He has obviously learned from the 2019 election loss, and so, to the dismay of many Labor voters, he is presenting a ‘small target’. This strategy has worked a treat so far, and it does serve to de-fang Morrison, who needs someone, or something, to attack.

There is a valid argument that getting into power is the main game, and worry about reform once you have got your hands on the levers of power. Morrison has run the line that we don’t know Albanese, so don’t take the risk. This makes it difficult to portray Albanese in any depth, because if he is unknown, we know nothing ill of him. Morrison is asking us to vote for him, because he is not Albanese.

Morrison’s campaign rests on Morrison, bright and relentless every day. He appears to be waiting for the fatal mishap from Albanese, but the press pack is so ill-disciplined, and light on knowledge, that such a moment is unlikely. Many are armed with lists of ‘gotcha’ questions, which merely highlight the vacuous nature of the pack.

Morrison’s team has been reduced to Simon Birmingham, the only Liberal who does not invite drawn pitchforks, and Darren Chester in Victoria. The rest are either invisible, in hiding, or in protective custody.

Morrison has made the pitch – trust me, I will lead you to victory. He has also effectively dumped his inner city ‘wets’, so they are relying on distancing themselves from the Liberals. His choice of candidates in N.S.W. is imploding, as he is suspected of pursuing the transphobic vote. Some think he is trying to re-create the Liberals as the light version of the (U.S.) Republicans.

As for Labor, there is a powerful team. The likes of Penny Wong, Jim Chalmers, Kristina Keneally, Tanya Plibersek, and the find of the election, Jason Clare are all showing what they can do. It appears impressive.

On current tracking, Labor seem to have this in the bag. They must not choke, but nor must they be triumphalist. As many have said in the past, elections change the country. The current government has had close to ten years. Time’s up, perhaps?

1 Today, I would like to draw your attention to a campaign press conference the Prime Minister gave at around 10 am April 27, in which he was asked a question about taxes.

Now I must confess that my objectivity these days suffers when I listen to him. I have written much about his lying (and his proven guilt of lying) that I’m trying to pick out the pieces of truth when I listen to him now.

He had previously said that taxes would not rise under his government. This, of course, is an absurdity because:

“… the Low-Middle Income Tax Offset, LMITO, was boosted to a maximum of $1,500, but it has not been extended beyond this financial year.

In his Federal Budget speech, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said low to middle-income .

The increase is estimated to benefit more than 10 million income earners and applies to those earning incomes up to $126,000.economy

However, unlike what the rumour mill suggested, the LMITO – in place from 2018-to 19 – will not be extended past this financial year.

Harrison Ashbury at Savings.com reported that “Mark Chapman, director of H&R Block’s tax communications, said this is effectively a tax hike in disguise.”

Next year, the “low and middle-income tax offset” disappears completely – meaning that people earning up to $126,000 will see a tax rise of up to $1,080,” Mr Chapman said. A return to the Government of $14.8 billion. Not bad, said tricky dicky.

It’s hard to see how that will do anything to help cost of living pressures over the medium and long term.

Worse, just as most Australians will see this tax rise, the wealthiest Australians will be anticipating a tax cut of up to $9,075 in 2024-25.”

Meaning that, in effect, the Prime Minister was telling a lie. The question asked of the Prime Minister was a good one, but unfortunately, it wasn’t followed up by other journos, and that’s what they are supposed to do. Either they are too inexperienced, unresearched or just dumb.

https://twitter.com/vanOnselenP/status/1519252556949909505

Scott Morrison then said that Labor would implement a carbon tax by stealth within the Carbon Credits Scheme, which is bullshit, but you can’t stop him. Again, the journalists couldn’t find a question. Tony Abbott implemented the CCS they refer to.

Yet again, he put Matt Canavan in his place. Still, no one raised the possibility of history repeating itself in the case of a hung parliament and a group of National MPs threatening to cross the floor or bring the Government down if they didn’t like specific climate legislation.

And to prove that they are still deniers of the highest order, the Liberal candidate for the Melbourne seat of Macnamara Colleen Harkin reckons that describing global warming as a climate emergency is akin to child abuse.

2 The inflation rate came in at 5.1% – the highest in twenty years. This will guarantee that prices will rise further, and interest rates will follow. It also puts paid to a lot of Government economics forecasts.

Greg Jericho in The Guardian put this slant on it:

“The latest inflation figures showing a 5.1% increase in prices over the past 12 months mean three things: the budget figures are already wrong, an interest rate rise next week is very likely, and last, workers have seen their real wages absolutely smashed.

It is not unusual for budget figures to be wrong, but to be wrong after just one month takes some doing.”

With China shutting down and testing many of its citizens because of another Covid outbreak, sales of our commodities will obviously fall, resulting in a significant revenue decline.

Frydenberg is busily trying to save his backside, so the defence of the Governments’ economic performance will fall on a lying Prime Minister.

At 5.1 per cent, Morrison is right to point out that inflation is worse elsewhere. And the Treasurer, when he gets a word in, is correct to blame the war in Ukraine and COVID supply constraints. But these comparisons are unlikely to appease communities faced with colossal cost of living expenses. Especially the lower-paid cohorts.

As sure as night follows day, we will be consumed over the next few days with debate about who the best economic managers are.

Of course, the Reserve Bank, at the same time, will be thinking about not when but by how much interest rates will rise.

Blaming international events won’t cut it. Keeping wages low for so long has led to this inevitable result as it has in the US.

Some quick thoughts:

3 Albo cannot afford to let go of an opportunity to attack Morrison’s style of blaming others, telling lies and degrading our democratic institutions.

4 Anyone who thinks that Morrison’s comment about he and Jen being blessed that they didn’t have kids with disabilities wasn’t part of his characteristics should read the book by Sean Kelly titled “The Game.”

5 The Coalition’s latest scare campaign over Labor’s climate policy highlights the real mess surrounding adequate planning for a shift towards renewables. Half of the experts cited say they were misquoted. 

6 A second leader’s debate has been proposed for Sunday, May 8, in the 60 Minutes timeslot. That timeslot would ensure a vast audience. Labor is awaiting the outcome of Albanese’s bout of Covid before committing.

That’s all for now.