“The federal Liberal Party must and does stay within the law, and we will always do that. It is crucial we do that if we’re to retain the trust of the Australian people.”

Straight man, Federal Minister for Law Enforcement and Cyber-security, formerly Digital Transformation, Angus “Trust-me” Taylor’s SBS News shtick is a crack-up: he denies his party’s into data mining, an electronic personal space invader devouring our democracy.

Angus may lack the gravitas of daggy Dan Tehan, MP for Wannon, his earnest predecessor, (now promoted to Social Services, a career move helped, no doubt, by his view that low-income earners – minimum wage and below should pay tax – how else will they break their welfare dependency?), but Angus can certainly keep a poker face.

The Enforcer hits the airwaves this week with the world’s funniest appeal to be taken seriously – “Trust us, we’re The Liberal Party” (only one of our treasurers is in gaol.)

Total team-player, Taylor won’t speak for the South Australian Libs, however.

Is he implying Marshall’s mob is crooked? SA Liberals freely admit to using i360, a data mining program which purloins voters’ precious personal details, vital to lobbying marginal seats. Some say it helped win its last election, although electoral boundary changes probably helped, too – and ballot paper changes sprung on unwary voters.

Liberals import i360 software from the US. Where would be without the land of the free? i360 is an electronic thieving magpie which steals glittering “information gleaned from social media, polls and surveys to pinpoint vacillating voters’ addresses and the issues they care about in key marginal seats so they can be targeted for lobbying”.

I360’s development has been a project of industrial billionaires, Charles and David Koch. Life isn’t easy for them. Chuck, 78, and Dave, 74, are worth $ 41 billion each but according to Forbes’ list are only the fourth richest men in the US. They tie for sixth on the world’s richest billionaires list. Clearly the bludgers are under-achieving.

To compensate, they’ve set up a network as the joint project of many mega-wealthy reactionaries determined to reshape US politics and public policy in libertarian and anti-government directions. Part of this corruption of democracy involves funding the i360 data mining project which dovetails neatly with Facebook. But don’t close your account.

Your personal information is not only stolen from social media or given away in those contests and claim forms which require your personal information, it is bought and sold. Thankfully, you can help things along a bit with a bit of far-sighted DIY data mining.

Digi.me 2009 says it is “a personal data collection company that equips consumers with the tools to take ownership of their digital footprint, enabling users to collect and share the information directly with companies on their own terms.”  Share or sell?

Sell yourself? Flog your own footprint? A Neoliberal wet dream. i360 is far more couth.

Politico explains that the i360 recipe matches voter information with consumer data purchased from credit agencies and other vendors. Blend in social network data. Add a dash of any interaction you may have had with campaigns and advocacy groups.

Don’t worry about your brushes with the law, or visits to the doctor, they may pop up all by themselves. In a massive leak by a private contractor, 50,000 sensitive personal records were exposed online last November. Angus is bound to be on to it by now.

(No biggie. Just names, passwords, ID data, phone numbers, credit card numbers and corporate information including salaries and expenses. Easy to fix now we have a whole new Law Enforcement and Cyber-security department. They’ll be sure to have forms or a recorded message or a self-help website for all that.)  Back to your own profile.

Add a topping of recent addresses, how often you have voted, and the make of car you drive. No need to reach for the TV remote. Another i360 service sifts information about your viewing habits to help campaigns target ads more precisely and cost efficiently.

i360 tells campaign workers which doors to knock on; phones to ring. Volunteers out door-knocking can even have their talking points updated in real-time along with their sincerity; fine-tuned with personal detail to match up with the couch-surfer who opens the door as opposed to the landlord or the person paying the rent. How cool is that?

Bear in mind, however, one size does not fit all. A major part of the exercise in the US, where voting is not compulsory and the turnout rate at the last presidential election was 53.5%, the lowest since 1999, is aimed primarily at getting people out to vote.

Is data mining a threat to democracy? Certainly. As are many other existing ailments.

David Marr, appearing on ABC Insiders, Sunday, warns that voters are micro-targeted secretly; issues are not contested publicly. A party can woo voters by “speaking out of both sides of its mouth” in ways which can’t be contested.

Some of this duplicity and born to rule arrogance is already eerily familiar to Australians.

No-one, for example, has been able to budge the Turnbull government from its lie that tax cuts for big corporations create jobs or drive economic growth. Or that renewables are more expensive and less reliable than coal in generating electricity. Or that small business is the engine of the economy. The only real contest takes place behind closed doors with members of the Senate cross-bench seeking their own odd concessions.

The “talking toilet-brush” as Derryn Hinch was known back at home in New Zealand appears to want to have the banks exempted from a tax cut, a reasonable aim given their massive profits. Yet he is quickly, quietly moved on to some lesser consolation prize.

Shock horror at the corruption of our democratic will is not confined to i360. Revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a UK data mining firm, once co-directed by Steve Bannon, which creates detailed profiles of voters and which helped swing the election for Donald Trump, cast another cloud over our otherwise halcyon political landscape.

Pristine Labor Senator, Kristina Keneally, calls Cambridge Analytica’s activities “the dark arts of secretly mining and manipulating our citizens’ personal data”. She doesn’t want it in Australian politics. Too late. Banks do it as the Royal Commission reveals recently when a bank admits to swapping the income and assets of the guarantor with the borrower. All a terrible error, of course, but it did expedite the granting of a loan.

Besides, what sort of profiling does Labor use? There are many competing data mining products in the marketplace. It is unlikely that Labor would not have access to one.

Of course it’s not the brand that matters. It’s the principle of spying and stealing other people’s personal data for your own political gain. As in Facebook trolling.

A spokesman for the Liberal Party’s federal secretariat denies the party uses Cambridge Analytica. In perfect sync with Angus Taylor. Why would they? i360 software can help their party achieve even better results.  The Liberals doth protest too much.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that “the tool (i360) is said to have been critical to the Liberals South Australian victory”. How do they know? Is it like selling Amway?

There’s no time to waste testing the snake oil claims. Victorian Libs are already frantically data-mining their way to certain victory in their November state election.

Matthew Guy’s lobster with a mobster fund-raiser and his alleged links with Mafioso will, doubtless be data-matched to sync his crime crackdown with his door-knocking; shield him from random encounters with aggrieved African gangsters.

Guy gets top billing on ABC News these days with his party’s latest Labor bashing. Our radio and TV also helpfully tell us or show us what they think we need to know, based on ratings systems, audience talkback, texts, tweets and station owner’s interests.

Not that mass media are to be confused with election campaign software programmes -but there is a complementary, if not exactly parallel, echo chamber or bubble in which the audience’s prejudices are massaged at the expense of any increased knowledge or understanding.

Of course, prominent MPs would rather a media that was a megaphone. Peter Dutton is in the news with his criticism that the ABC doesn’t applaud his daft claim that we need to extend preferential treatment to South African farmers that alt-right websites insist are becoming a persecuted minority. The facts don’t bear this out. So the ABC’s “dead to him”. Besides, he’s got a swing against him in Dickson that badly needs fixing.

Guy Rundle points out how cheering a discovery it must be to Peter to find that there are “neighbourhoods of white South Africans around his electorate’s Albany Creek area, little Johannesburg East. Being white South Africans, they are active in the local Liberal National Party. A few boatloads of the right, white refugees should pretty well guarantee his re-election.

This is not to ignore his powerful political tactic of dog-whistling racists

Unlike Dutton, Taylor’s ABC is not “dead to him”. So, too, with fossil-fuel tool Frydenberg, the world’s most hopelessly conflicted environment minister, who’ll save marine parks by letting in “well-managed fishing” and more tourists, so he tells Fran Kelly on RN. Josh is so good at what he does he’ll be PM one day. He’s earned it.

Abbott and Dutton are on a talk-show mission to save white South African farmers from a non-existent forced dispossession on their regular 2GB love-ins. All of this constant barrage of disinformation vitiates our national conversation; corrupts our capacity to make informed choices, surely? To say nothing of its power to inflame division.

MPs go into print or leak or go on air to “get the message out”, a spin about spin. And in our mainstream media spinners are winners. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Peter Dutton gets more than the odd nod of approval from Ray Hadley on 2GB.

Equally, no-one at SBS News, News Corp or ABC would be so naff as to challenge Angus Taylor on his strictly legal Liberals gag nor his hilarious punchline about “retaining” an abused and long-lost public trust. But it may tear the guts out of our body politic.

Trust is not so easy to talk up. Only around a third of Australians trust any government; most observers and studies suggest that fraction is declining. Save your breath, Taylor.

The Edelman Trust Barometer, for example, an 18-year annual study of attitudes across 28 countries towards government, non-government organisations, business and the media suggest most of us distrust Taylor’s spin. It’s a tribute to our discernment, surely, despite all the fashionable hand-wringing on The Drum, Q&A and other host-controlled, “balanced” “panel shows”, where we mourn our loss of trust in our unworthy leaders.

Our nation leads the world in growing scepticism about those in charge. Commendably, Australia and Singapore are the only two countries to have “declined in trust” across all four institutions this year: Australia’s trust in NGOs is 48%, business 45%, government 35% and media 31%.

Angus is clearly wasting his time hoping we’ll just accept his claim that Liberals are lawful. Tell that to the Australian Workers Union (AWU), whose offices in Sydney and in Melbourne were illegally raided by The Australian Federal Police, on instruction from the newly established Registered Organisation Commission (ROC) last October.

Josh Bornstein, of law firm Maurice Blackburn, who is taking the federal government to court, contends, on his client’s behalf, “That the raid conducted by the AFP was illegal; and That the investigation by the ROC is illegal because it is politically motivated.”

Illegal and politically motivated? It’s almost standard government procedure. It’s the essence of our immigration policy and practice or border protection, for example.

1287 people suffer illegal detention within Australia. 2000 more remain in offshore detention in conditions designed to break their spirit, conditions which the UNHCR has described as “tantamount to torture”. Taylor would have us believe this lawful?

His government itself has been forced to concede it has breached its duty of care of 2000 refugees and asylum-seekers, illegally detained in horrific conditions from 2012 to 2016. Each received a settlement, last June, an admission of culpability by the Australian government, Taylor claims is always law-abiding.

He would do well to talk to the people of Iraq whose nation we illegally invaded and whose lives we helped to destroy at the bidding of our great and powerful friend the US on the pretext of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, a decision made by former PM John Howard who claimed, falsely, to have obtained a legal ruling

Clearly he’s forgotten when former Liberal Party honorary Federal Treasurer, Michael Yabsley spilled his guts in May 2016 about how he knew donations made through the Free Enterprise Foundation (FEF) were illegal and how the FEF was designed to circumvent rules about donations from property developers.

$250,000 from property developer Brickworks and $150,000 from Westfield Corporation were amongst the banned donations. The funds helped the NSW Liberal Party win the state’s 2011 election campaign.

Taylor’s crazy-lame denial-confirmation is another bombshell in a shocking week in which Donald Trump goes postal, provoking a world trade war with his tariff madness, imposing $60 billion on Chinese imports. Trade wars are good, Trump intones, as financial markets sink and the prospect a trans-Pacific trade war rises.

Trump also sacks Lt Gen H.R. McMaster, his sanest, most capable adviser in a White House of sycophants and buffoons, to appoint gonzo ambassador John Bolton, whom Fox describes both as “a bull-dog” and “a hawk”. To the non-Fox fraternity, Bird-Dog Bolton is a Neocon war-monger, one of the brains behind the 2003 illegal US invasion of Iraq.

While dark shafts of data mining allegations undercut the Tasmania and South Australian election results after revelations from Cambridge Analytica, Royal Commissioner, former High Court Judge Ken Hayne and his amazing assistant Rowena Orr QC steal the show in the national political theatre this week, by asking the banks all the right questions and demanding honest answers.

Clearly, they’ve done their research. They know exactly what they’re looking for.

Catch their performance in the brilliant Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. It has a few weeks to run.

So far it proves comprehensively just how much the government lies when it tells us ASIC is as good as a Royal Commission need because we already had ASIC – the Clayton’s corporate regulator you have when you are not having a corporate regulator.

CEOs have been forced to admit lending money to people who clearly didn’t have the capacity to repay, for example. The borrowers’ expenses were simply never checked.

The nation is delighted by news, this week, however that our government’s grovelling to the US is paying “yuge” dividends. We’ve cut a deal on aluminium and steel. A hundred years of mateship has helped us get an exemption from bad new tariffs.

Or has it? Echoing cringing, John “Winston” Howard’s servile, fawning, Malcolm Turnbull’s craven US arse-licking helps only, bigly, to normalise the monster-baby in The White House. And appease the enfant terrible. Donald cuts loose.

The deal turns out to be “a temporary measure”, we learn Friday, until we can show what else we can do to further American interests. What else can we do?

Despite the 23 Chapters, 4 Annexes, and 27 side letters of our free trade agreement with the US, AUSTFA furthers US interests. The US trade surplus with Australia, under the 2005 deal, grew from $14 to almost $25 billion in ten years.

ANU’s Peter Drysdale estimates that “Australia alone has suffered trade losses from AUSFTA, the annual equivalent of the current price of around 18 Japanese, German, Swedish or French submarines through this deal”

The New York Times reports that Trump decamps to Mar a Largo “after a head-spinning series of presidential decision on national security, trade and the budget” that Washington reels while White House staff still in work freak out.

Trump’s so up, that he wants to show Kim Jong-Un, just how much his “nuclear button is bigger than anyone else’s” by nuking North Korea. The Donald also gets a little global trade war happening; threatens the entire world economy.

Are we to blame? We’ve pumped the Trump at every opportunity, no wonder he’s taking no other advice.  Golf buddy, Greg Norman signs a letter. Joe Hockey who knows the ropes, pulls strings while in the land of The Oz, Merry Gerry Henderson gushes how “clever and cunning” Trump really is.

“He does not read much but he is highly intelligent”. Stable, genius, Trump’s disruption, furthermore, works to Australia’s advantage. Or does it?

“America First becomes America alone” McMaster has warned as Trump triggers total global trade war, this week. Trump sulks. Where are those yes men when you need them?

At last he gets staff who understand him. Enter Joltin’ John Bolton, so far stage right, he even frightens the alt-right. But he does love the Russians.

Selfless, compassionate to a fault, as Fairfax big notes Big Mal’s 2016 counselling of old family friend James Packer, currently laid so low by the black dog of despair that he must stand down from the family money laundering firm, no-one pretends that pumping up Trump’s tyres is solely for the dotard’s benefit.

Of course, reprising “lying rodent Howard”, our current PM, will do anything to boost his stocks at home.  His 30th dud Newspoll moves inexorably closer, with another dud.

The latest Newspoll of 1597 voters, the 29th published late Sunday in the Australian, also shows Labor’s primary vote climbing to 39 per cent against the coalition’s unchanged 37 percent. Labor’s first preference vote has not been as high since Mr Turnbull ousted Mr Abbott in September 2015.

July 2, 2016 is the last time his government led Labor in Newspoll on a two-party-preferred basis – the day of the last federal election.

Bill Shorten’s satisfaction rating is 34 per cent, two points ahead Mr Turnbull’s 32 percent. The preferred PM is pretty well neck and neck on 36 to 39 when you allow the poll’s margin of error.

Malcolm needs to talk to Angus Taylor. He’ll explain how no-one in the Liberal Party would ever do anything improper. How the Party’s integrity and legality has won it the public’s trust. You just need a massively deep data-mining exploration to discover it.

Monday 19 March 2018

Yesterday I posed the question; “Why in God’s name did Bill Shorten pick last Tuesday to announce a rather contentious policy? And in the full light of day knowing that there was a must win by-election the next week end, and a South Australian State election.”

The question of course referred to the dividend imputation benefits enjoyed by many retirees were a Howard-Costello largesse and are now unsustainable.

So we have a tax system that can no longer pay for all the services that older people have been accustomed to all their lives.

Well, Kaye Lee seems to have found an answer that sounds perfectly reasonable in the circumstances. It comes via an article by Guardian journalist Katherine Murphy:

“Katherine Murphy had a few ideas on the timing. In an article written before the election results were known, she suggested Labor needs to get these savings booked before the May budget so they can fund their policies and maybe match income tax cuts.”

Murphy assumed Labor would lose both elections and pondered how, after a poor result like that, the announcement of a contentious policy would look.

“So in this scenario Batman is lost, and the pontification complex is already off and racing, and then Shorten unveils the cash rebates policy, which triggers the public backlash we’ve seen this week. This would be written up as a colossal misjudgment, potentially as some kind of panicked response to events, and that wouldn’t give Shorten’s internal critics an inch.”

Of course Labor held Batman giving Shorten a trifold victory. Labor won the seat, have the policy, and the war chest. Does this make him a master political tactician? Well, I’m not sure about that but he certainly has a good mind for it. Murphy’s theory certainly explains the haste with which the policy was announced.

It is a policy not without risk but despite the criticism most commentators think it’s sensible political policy. Even the IPA. As with negative gearing, his timing has been impeccable.

Given that he and Labor can survive what will be a full on $250 leg of lamb scare campaign he will have a war chest of dollars easily matching that of the Coalition. With that sort of money to throw around Shorten should be able to minimise the fallout. And I might add that the public has had enough of scare campaigns.

I am also indebted to Kaye Lee for this short summary:

“For too long government policy has focused on wealth creation instead of the provision of essential services, equal opportunity, and protection of the vulnerable. Australians have become used to it and it has led to a selfish society where people only consider themselves. They are happy to invest in shares, but ask them to contribute $10 a week to save the planet from climate change and they will vote the government out. Ask them to give up an unreasonable unsustainable unnecessary rort and they scream blue murder. Yet these are often the same people who castigate politicians for rorting entitlements.”

After winning Batman I think the “Kill Bill” campaign still has a long way to go.

All the Murdoch media outlets, since Labor’s policy announcement, went in hard against Shorten and Bowen saying they were politically stupid for being so honest before the by-election. No doubt they will continue to throw more mud at this politically astute policy because they could never bring themselves to admit that Labor was right.

What else can you say about Ged Kearney other than “You can’t beat a good candidate”? Her victory gives women a 48% representation in the parliament leaving the Coalition on 20%.

The Greens go back to the drawing board yet again proving that minor parties in Australia have an abysmal record.

In South Australia, after 16 gruelling years Labor found that longevity of tenure and a four seat redistribution too much to overcome but nonetheless congratulations must go to the Liberals. But it was far from a disaster and they will be well placed to win the next election.

Nick Xenophon proved that you need more than a self-belief in your own ego to stand up as a truely third party candidate, and Cory Bernardi proved that a touch of charisma helps, as does being less judgmental of ordinary folk. The polls performed even worse.

In a doorstop interview yesterday Malcolm Turnbull, the hypocrite that he is, spoke as if we were meeting our Paris climate commitments and that SA was responsible for all of Australia’s energy problems. In a former life he would have been praising them.

On a personal note the Prime Minister looks hagged and drawn as though he is stressed out of his mind. I do hope he is looking after his health because he looks decidedly unwell at the moment.

My thought for the day

“Life is about perception, not what is but what we perceive it to be.”

Sunday 18 March 2018

I sit before my computer, fingers poised, well two of them anyway, searching for a beginning and I cannot find one. By the time people are reading this the Batman by-election and the South Australian Election will be done and dusted. Or perhaps we will have to wait and see. Both are filled with there own political complexities, intrigues even.

What effect will Bill Shorten’s controversial decision to announce cuts to Franking Dividends make in the Batman by-election?

If longevity of tenure was a measure by which you judge a government then Labor in South Australia, with 16 years consecutive years of governance must surely be applauded.

I shall come back to this later but first, there are a few matters to clear up.

1 Some tweets.

Wayne Swan Verified account @SwannyQLD

“Excessive executive pay drives a further wedge into Australia’s deepening economic inequality. Bank CEOs received 100 times more than average Australians in 2017. We ignore these gross distortions in distribution at our peril,”

Craig Emerson

“Howard-Costello buy votes with unsustainable spending – middle-class welfare, Baby Bonus, imputation refunds. Falls to Labor to unwind it against trenchant opposition from LNP & NewsLtd. #HandsOffOurLurks”

Bill Shorten Verified account @billshortenmp

“You either think Australians deserve a pay rise, or you don’t. I believe Australians deserve a pay rise.” #realPM

This tweet came to me via Geof Mason. I am an admirer of brevity in writing. This one is impressive.

Tweet by “Queen Victoria”:

So let me get this straight: Dutton wants to bring white South African farmers to Australia who aren’t refugees and don’t want to come, but he won’t let any actual refugees who aren’t white, who want to come, come at all? Makes perfect sense.

Tweet by “Edo Voloder”:

Under Labor’s policy a wealthy person who currently pays $0 tax, won’t get a franking credit refund..for tax they never paid saving the federal budget around $8billion dollars a year, which can be spent on vital services instead.

How is this bad Turnbull and Morrison?”

2 Some other thoughts.

The Tasmanian election is clearing the air and what do we find? Well, it’s certainly historical but who will notice? Tasmania has become the first Australian state to return a female-majority parliament.

Thirteen women and 12 men have been elected to the House Of Assembly as counting is finalised in the state election which was held on March 3. It should have received more media space but you know how it is with women.

3 Peter Dutton’s undoubtedly racist comments about the white South African farmers was totally unnecessary, but as usual, he couldn’t help but take the opportunity to express his white superiority. Most racists tend to want to hide the fact, but not our Peter.

As I thought about it, the plight of the remaining Asylum Seekers on Manus and Nauru came to mind. This Immigration Minister – who delights in showing his toughness – still hasn’t found places for them, meaning he has condemned them to a lifetime of incarceration without ever having committed a crime. What sort of man would do that?

4 On the Franking Credits, it must be remembered that of the $10 billion of franking credits, the overwhelming majority flow to high-income households, 75% going to the top 10%”!

5 I had a thought about those school kids protesting the ridiculous USA gun laws. “It is the children of the USA who lead the need for gun reform. You would think it is the adults who should know better.”

6 The conspiracy theorists are out again with the killing of the two Russians in England. The question is, is it mere coincidence that two weeks prior to the Russian Presidential elections and after Mr Putin says “We are under attack from the West” that these uncanny events take place?

7 It’s rather like if you were Prime Minister of Australia and your deputy had a voice louder than your own, what would you do? The sequence of events surrounding Barnaby Joyce’s resignation were also a touch conspiratorial. What do you think? Notice how there is only one voice speaking for the Coalition now?

8 I have had a bad week on Facebook, being attacked for my perceived bias. After giving it much consideration I thought the best way to describe a biased person is thus …

“I would say it is either an inability or unwillingness to want to understand an opposing point of view.”

9 Now back to where I started; “Why did he do it?”

Why in God’s name did Bill Shorten pick last Tuesday to announce a rather contentious policy? In the full light of day knowing that there was a must-win by-election the next weekend, and a South Australian State election? What sort of basic political thinking was going on in the head of Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen that on the surface at least sounds incredulous?

Was there thinking that a large section of the community would see Labor as progressive on tax reform, even courageous taking on problems that the Coalition didn’t have the guts to? But did it meet the fairness test? Fundamentally, yes.

Was it a risky proposal that they thought worth it, given they were well in front in the polls? Only time will tell if they were right or wrong.

Conversely, why wouldn’t they see the traffic jam of dissatisfaction that would confront them? Sure there would only be a small number of people affected but they would react like kids being stung by a bee’s nest.

Putting aside the fact that this initiative, politically speaking, is a good one what really did they have to gain. It could have waited until a better time. People are intuitively wary of change. Even beneficial change. Tinkering with a policy where the goal posts seem to be moved every week puts people on edge.

But however, you look at it something has to be done. Caitlin Fitzsimmons is the Money editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. She sums it up this way:

“The Howard-Costello largesse is now unsustainable. We have a tax system that can no longer pay for all the services that older people have been accustomed to all their lives.

The deficit in 2017-18 is estimated to be $24 billion. It’s unreasonable to expect working people – many of whom can’t afford their own home – to shoulder the entire burden of budget repair.
It’s also about intragenerational fairness, since it overwhelmingly affects well-off retirees, not all older people.
The fact we have so many retirees chasing fully franked dividends – where there’s a full credit because the company has paid the full rate of tax – is a huge distortion for the sharemarket. It means an excessive amount of money flows into the stocks of the big banks and Telstra.
There are many vested interests who cry foul over the proposals, but there are those in the investment world who acknowledge the status quo is far too generous.

Interestingly the Labor proposal doesn’t really affect pooled super funds – that is, the big industry and retail funds most people are members of. They have enough members paying tax to make the full use of all franking credits.

While the measure is aimed at well-off retirees, it catches some part pensioners and a very small number of full pensioners. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten hinted at some sort of compensation scheme for pensioners, before concluding that “we will make sure that pensioners are OK, full stop”.

My sources suggest a specific scheme is off the mark but there’ll be further announcements closer to the election to make sure pensioners are better off overall under a Labor government than a Coalition one.

Time alone will tell just what if any this announcement will make to peoples voting. Given the hole the Government is in it may not make any difference.

Whether we have the results for these two important elections we will continue to debate the merits of Shorten’s decision.

The Batman by-election will determine the structure of the current Parliament. Will the Greens pick up another seat or will the status quo prevail?

In South Australia will the Government hang onto power after 16 years or will the Nick Xenophon experiment against the major parties work? Or can the Libs form a Government?

Whatever happens, how will we judge Bill Shorten’s decision?

Wednesday 31 January 2017

1 I had hoped without any real conviction that Bill Shorten would announce something special at his speech to the National Press Club today. Not just another off-the-cuff speech about how Labor had and would always be the worker’s party. Then I saw the headline in the Sydney Morning Herald:

“Bill Shorten promises federal anti-corruption watchdog if he wins the next election”

Just as he had done with the announcement on Negative Gearing, he has put the people first. In this instance he has taken the political moral high ground. It is an announcement that will be tremendously popular with Labor supporters and the electorate in general.

The speech laid out – amongst other things – an agenda setting that will also flag that a future Labor government could change Australia’s workplace laws – an issue the peak union body, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, is preparing to campaign on in 2018. Mr Shorten may also outline possible changes to private health insurance.

In the many articles I have written about “What Shorten should do” I have vigorously advocated for a National Integrity Body. It now seems that it has come to fruition and Shorten signalled that it will have teeth. His speech was wide-ranging and I will cover the other stuff later.

But the Labor leader’s key pledge will be to create a National Integrity Commission.

In reply, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he was prepared to consider creating a federal anti-corruption watchdog, and repeated that view  yesterday before going on to attack Labor. His Deputy, Barnaby Joyce for the 1000th time contradicted him saying he rejected the need for a corruption fighting body. The Senate already performed that function. “I don’t think there is a real sense in Australia of a concern with the political system.”

i think he has the intelligence of an elephant. No that would be insulting elephants.

Labor’s announcement came just hours after the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption officially threw its support behind the push for a federal equivalent.

2 Don’t be alarmed: it is all normal. Very gradually we are wakening from our political malaise and into the normality we have come to expect. Yesterday The Poll Bludger reported that Essential had Labor widening its lead from 53-47 to 54-46. I use the word ‘normality’ advisedly because it means that 2018 is looking very much like 2017.

The government is behaving as it normally would. Having successfully closed down an industry that employed many thousands of people with some government assistance it now proposes to give as much aid as is needed to place us in the world’s top ten arms manufacturers.

Naturally it has two aims. One is super profits to reinforce capitalism’s benefits, and second, is the use of those arms to recycle more asylum seekers and then demonise them to make people scared.

Now one would think that the manufacture of arms with which to kill people might be anathema to the Labor Party and its supporters, but apparently not. It says that generally there is room to increase our supply.

The government has identified a number of “priority markets”  to sell more arms and weapons systems:

… the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific region, Europe, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.

“It is an ambitious, positive plan to boost Australian industry, increase investment, and create more jobs for Australian businesses,” the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said.

Fancy getting so excited about manufacturing weapons that will kill many innocent people. Perhaps this is part of the Australian values we were celebrating last Friday.

3 Now we all know that Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann in 2014 put together the most universally acclaimed unfair budget in Australia’s history, but now we find that they were intending to go further.

The razor gang of Abbott, Hockey and Cormann wanted to identify the so-called “job snobs” and strip them of all social security benefits. In fact they wanted to do the same to anyone under 30.

They really are a compassionless lot of elitist conservative snobs whose normality is bereft of any feeling for their fellow-man.

4 Proof that Coalition infighting continues comes with the release of three documents: the latest yesterday in which we find that the then Minister for Immigration, Scott Morrison agreed to “mitigation strategies”, including asking ASIO to slow down security checks so deadlines would be missed:

“It meant refugees about to start a new, permanent life in Australia would only be allowed to stay for three years.”

What a bastard act! What a disgraceful thing for a man of God to do? But when you peruse the character of individual ministers you find that word normality entrenched in their thinking.

The source and identity of these three leeks and just who they are intended to hurt may never become known, but we have to assume it’s Abbott and the intention is to kill him off altogether.

My thought for the day

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

Saturday 20 January 2018

It was around a year ago that I was suggesting a number of things that Labor, in its lead up narrative to the next election could advocate for. The most popular thing, amongst many Labor supporters and others, was to advocate for a National ICAC or something similar. Almost on cue at the time he started to advocate for an inquiry into the viability of such a commission.

But there were no headlines that shouted ”Shorten advocates ANTI corruption body?”

Shorten, at the time, was unequivocally robust in his support, saying that any reform needed to go beyond an independent parliamentary expenses system.

He supported “an open and honest discussion” about whether Australia should have a federal Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC). He said:

“For me, reform doesn’t just stop at parliamentarians’ expenses,”

“It must include greater transparency, greater accountability on political donations – and no discussion about electoral reform and rebuilding the confidence of Australians in the political process can take place without having an open and honest discussion about a federal ICAC.”

“Before the last election there was a Senate committee set up to examine the existing capacities of the anti-corruption regime in Australian federal sphere of government.”
He referred to a Senate Committee that lapsed after the last election. That inquiry received written submissions and held two public inquiries in April 2016, but lapsed before a final report could be handed down. It received little media attention.

“We need to get that Senate committee back going again.”
“We need to demonstrate to Australians that we’re working for them, not just for ourselves.”

There is no reason why, with the support of Labor, the Greens the crossbench senators with the Nick Xenophon Party, and others that a Senate inquiry could not be set up NOW.

There is genuine overwhelming public support for some sort of inquiry. With trust in politicians at an all-time low it would be in their own best interests to go beyond a Senate inquiry, which often go nowhere, and support a fully “independent” one. We are sick of the scandals and constant allegations of political corruption.

Labor should get cracking, take the moral high ground, and announce that a National ICAC with bite will be part of its policy platform for the next election. Shorten has a chance to lead on policy as he did prior to the last election and would be foolish not to take up this opportunity.

An observation

“The simplest way to turn the profession of politics on its head would be to demand they tell the truth.”

Shorten also said:

“I think it is no surprise that Australians get frustrated with the mainstream parties because they perceive that they are all the parliamentarians are behaving in the manner that we have seen the former health minister behave in,”

“I will work with Malcolm Turnbull to reform the expenses regime of parliamentarians.’’

“If he doesn’t have changes ready to go when parliament starts, we will be up for making those changes.”

A review of parliamentary was supposed to have been presented to the house prior to Christmas but as of now, we have had nothing

One would have thought that if the Opposition leader comes out, next week in support of a standing commission to look into corruption within our political system that the media would also come out in support.

After all it might supply them with some juicy gutter stories. So why wouldn’t all the journos be writing endless reams about Labor’s enlightened preparedness to tackle corruption within the political system? Why wouldn’t the news be full of stories and interviews with Shorten outlining Labor’s plans for reform?

My cynical mind tells me three things. Firstly that the media isn’t much interested because they themselves might be involved in some corruption.

Secondly, is just how fair dinkum is Shorten. Does he really want a department or commission overseeing politician’s ethics? And of course, thirdly, the Government wouldn’t be open to declaring where their donations come from.

It will take more than a few fine words spoken in the midst of an expenses or donations outrage, to achieve an equivalent to ICAC. It would take a determined effort by those in the Labor Party who are of good conscience who want to see the once noble profession of ”Member of Parliament” really mean something. That when the term ”Honourable member” is used that it would have some meaning or servitude attached to it.

My thought for the day

“Time never diminishes the crime.”

Sunday 14 January 2018

With the likelihood of an election this year it’s time for the Australian people to seriously decide what it is they want in the way of governance. Do they want a continuation of the sort of politics as expressed by both Abbott and Turnbull or another three years, or do they want to give the other mob a go? Do they want the participation of others on the right or left who have no chance of governing to unduly influence government?

When you look at the current makeup of the government – as I did when putting together my poll for the worst politician for 2017 – it became vividly clear to me just how many people of ill repute fill the government benches.

The fact is I was rather astonished when I “collectively” placed them all together just how many moronic individuals there were in the Coalition. Most of them have degrees from some of the best learning institutes in the world yet their record in governance is one of corruption, narcissism, lying, chaos, self-importance and bad judgement. They have been, and still are, a despicable bunch of cronies who have delivered nothing in terms of social reform. Until that fact hits you on the head your vote is worth zilch unless you take that into account.

And if you do it’s hard not to see a group of people who have no idea how to govern for the country as a whole, who are purely in politics for what they are able to extract from being an MP for themselves, being able to win the next election.

What a disaster it would be, if for whatever reason they were given the reins for another three years.

When a party is in such disarray the need to stay in “power” becomes the overarching imperative. This gives rise to the likes of Dutton to take any short cut to maintain his and the government’s grip on power. The Coalition’s only policy has been the demonising of those who are not white, Anglo-Saxon, and Christian.

So Dutton and others see no reason to deliver good government so close to an election. They see the rhetoric of blame as a “winning formula”.

Dutton’s attacks on the judiciary are not some recently found can to kick, they are long-held views. Most likely formed when he was a policeman in Queensland. This has also become a Coalition mantra when Trudge, Hunt and Sukkar were on the brink of being held in contempt of court some time back, an apology saved them.

If the Victorian judiciary were to hold Dutton in contempt, and his defence was an apology, that apology should be taken with a grain of salt. His views on “Light Sentences” and “Libertarian Judges” are provable long-held views. Just look at his maiden speech in 2002.

Throw the book at him, lock him up and lose the key.

Here is an extract from his maiden speech that addresses his “concerns”:

“Perhaps the most significant challenge our society faces today is the way in which we deal with the issue of national security, and indeed our continued and ongoing response to the terrorist and criminal attacks generally. The fact is that we live in a complex world.

The terrorist attacks and the attacks on our day-today lives by criminals who have complete disregard for common decency must be dealt with in a measured way. At this point in time it is stating the obvious that in my opinion the courts are not representing the views in the large of the broader community.

Time after time we see grossly inadequate sentences being delivered to criminals whose civil rights have far exceeded those of the victim and others in our society. This imbalance must be addressed, and for the sake of living standards and reasonable expectations for all Australians must be addressed as a matter of urgency.”

Dutton wears the traits of an authoritarian like a new suit. He seems to thrive on making explicit displays of power. His public speaking record reveals his naked contempt for due process, opposing views, and especially for non-Caucasian Australians. I believe he has been appointed way, way above his ability and is masking his weakness with bravado founded on racism, insult and rabble rousing.

People are once again questioning Shorten’s merit as opposition leader. However, it has to be said that he surprised everyone with a better campaign than Turnbull’s in the 2016 election He came within a whisker of winning.

So much so that he gained much prestige and respect from the people and the media. As it turned out he was the policy wonker I thought he was.

The areas of education, health and social welfare were big winners for Labor and if he is to continue as Labor leader he must promote an activist image on all these policies together with the NBN and climate change.

Having said that, it is fair for people to question his credentials. Many would agree that in terms of charisma he doesn’t have a lot going for him. He is drearily stoic on television, a wooden personality at best. He is at his best when angered by criticism of undeniable Labor ideology. He is Labor through and through whereas Turnbull is supposedly a leftish Prime Minister leading an ultra-right party.

And why would Labor want to change when it looks certain the incumbent is likely to lose the next election or possibly not be Coalition leader anyway. Having said that, if Labor think they can ride into power on the back of a white horse with golden mane is to ignore the lessons of Brexit, Hanson and Trump where the punters expressed in no uncertain way their dislike of conventional institutionalised politics. To do so is to invite a tidal wave of disaffected voters voting for minor extreme right parties and independents.

On all the policies that count Labor has the better credentials. Education, tax, health, climate change, and even the economy which is traditionally the Coalition’s stronghold.

He also has the advantage of leading a united party who have learnt the lessons of revolving door politics. At the moment Bill Shorten – despite all his shortcomings – is a better prospect to lead Australia.

Labor however does suffer from an emptiness of explanation that requires attention. What does Labor now stand for in the new political world where traditional politics has been given the thumbs down?

Shorten must convince the lost voters who have left our democracy to return. He has to turn Labor ideology on its head, shake it and re-examine it. Then reintroduce it as an enlightened ideology-opposite to the Tea Party politics that conservatism has descended into.

Somehow the lost voters must be given a reason to return. A reason that is valid and worthwhile. A reason that serves the collective and engages people in the process, and a politic for the social good of all – one that rewards personal initiative but at the same time recognises the basic human right of equality of opportunity.

Shorten needs to promote a robust but decent political system that is honest, decent, and transparent, and where respect is the order of the day. A political system where ideas of foresight surpass ideological politics, greed, disrespect, and truth. Where respect, civility and trust are part of vigorous debate and not just uninvited words in the process.

With the government currently unable to do anything right, internal rumblings, and threats of crossing the floor or forming another party I don’t see that Labor needs to replace its leader. It just needs to sit tight and allow the Government to dig its own grave.

My thought for the day

”The right to vote is the gift our democracy gives. If political parties (and media barons, for that matter) choose by their actions to destroy the people’s faith in democracy’s principles and conventions then they are in fact destroying the very thing that enables them to exist”.

Monday 1 January 2018

Having yesterday assessed the Coalition’s performance in 2017 what are we to make of Labor’s. Well, for me it was underwhelming, lacking any inspiration. Having said that, it is not unusual for oppositions to take a nap, so to speak, for the period of time preceding an election year.

For Labor it was a year of silence while the other mob traded blow for blow with itself. Conventional wisdom would have it that you never interfere with your opposition while they are committing suicide.

Was it too silent for its own good though? Its underwhelming performance in the Bennelong by-election has those in the inner circle worried. Certainly there was a swing but those of the left believed a large dent should have been left in the Coalition’s rear end.

Since being relegated to Opposition in 2013, Labor has led the policy debate and when they have been at their peak, Labor has been at its best.

I have expressed the view that this year will be an election year and from now on it must be prepared to pick some fights with Turnbull. Bill Shorten in 2017 wasn’t really called on to defend much. Barnaby Joyce spent most of the year, well you know what he was doing and it wasn’t just stealing water.

The Prime Minister spent most of the year trying to confirm with the populace that he was serious about his hypocrisy. Both indulged themselves in full-time refereeing the various fights that frequently broke out during the year.

It wasn’t until December that Shorten’s charmed life came to an end. His decision to not refer to the High Court the Labor MPs who failed to renounce their British citizenship in time so that the focus remained on the Government, came back to bite him on the bum.

The Government has had its share of by-elections and for a number of reasons (none of which are representative of current political trends) won each. Now rightly or wrongly it’s Labor’s turn. I say rightly or wrongly because the lack of information supplied by other Coalition MPs raises some doubt about their eligibility.

The Government has the numbers to refer three suspicious Labor MPs to the High Court next year to join David Feeney, who has already been referred.

So we could have four by-elections in three marginal seats. Good luck with that. Labor’s best antidote for problems – real or imagined – will be policy. I include Shorten in that. Despite Labor leading well in the polls people are still uncertain about him. Only well-thought through policies can rectify that.

On that point Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen is as enthusiastic as Bill Shorten when it comes to policy and has been at the forefront of the policy push, heralding more to come ahead of the election:

“We are very competitive. We came very close in the last election. We are tackling the big things. We are not out there saying we are a small target.”

“You might disagree with some of our policies, you might love some of the others. But one thing we cannot be accused of is saying to the Australian people ‘everything will be alright, just vote for us.”

“We are making tough decisions and we are seeking a mandate to do big and bold and ambitious things.”

I think there is little doubt that this election will be fought on equality. Turnbull will call it class warfare and Shorten shouldn’t be half-hearted in agreeing. As I said yesterday, the richest people on earth became $US1 trillion ($1.3 trillion) richer in 2017.

An observation

“Never in the history of this nation have the rich and privileged been so openly brazen.”

Whereas once upon a time the electorate didn’t or wouldn’t understand the complex descriptions of institutionalised neo-liberalism politics, it now does, and it would be to Labor’s advantage if they came up with some common good unique new policies bathed in fixing the inequality that unfairly insinuates itself upon this world.

With the year only a day old and it only being 18 months since the last election perhaps its time for the Opposition Leader to open the political discussion with a forthright question. One that sets the tone for 2018 with a re-evaluation of just where our democracy stands.

“Prime Minister, would you be prepared to go to the polls with both of us agreeing to future parliaments being fixed to a four year duration and a fixed date?”

My thought for the day

“We exercise our involvement in our democracy every three years by voting. After that the vast majority takes very little interest. Why is it so?”

PS: May you all be blessed with the best year possible. Sometimes it’s better to make things happen rather than just allowing them to.

Loud hosannas resound in Canberra. Hallelujah. Could it be the joyous news that Harry and Meghan Markle will grace us with their royal presence at a charity polo match in Marvellous Melbourne early next year?

Or is it Dotard Trump’s Middle East diplomatic masterstroke? Swayed by Zionist lobbyists and fat-cat Republican donors’ demands he moves the US embassy to Jerusalem? Images of rioting, protesting Palestinians appear immediately. Any moment, son-in-law, slumlord Jared Kushner, will “deliver peace” in the Middle East on cue.

No. It’s our own joyous ritual bloodletting. The killing season is upon us. A PM should watch his back. Beware Daily Telegraph claims that Turnbull is “turning the tide on Labor”.  Which tide? A chorus of MSM hacks ignore NewsPoll and Ipsos showing the Coalition lagging Labor 47:53, while Essential has the government 45-55 to Labor.

Yet Turnbull insists he’s ending the year on a high. Even lurching from crisis to catastrophe, a Coalition government always gets a fabulous press. It has the best connections.

Or it just helps itself to credit due to others.  A week before parliament plunges into recess, the government covers itself in stolen glory. In a stunt worthy of a Mean Girls’ character, little Malco takes credit for the Yes vote himself, despite leaving all advocacy to others. It’s his big win. This does not endear him to any LGTBI advocates.

More worryingly, Turnbull shows no sense that the survey was a delaying stunt. Nor is there any hint he feels sorry – or some responsibility for all of the injury done. Mental health expert, Professor Patrick McGorry – reports that, for many, the campaign revived traumatic memories of bullying and discrimination they faced at school.

Online agencies report a similar pattern. Digital Youth service ReachOut, a Frontline Service which attracts 1.5 million unique visitors to its website annually, reports its online forums recorded a sharp increase in activity, with young gay people reporting feeling scared and tired of personal attacks.

Many other agencies report distress. A key source of psychological suffering stemmed from the flaw in the survey’s conception. Many share Dennis Halloran’s anger that other people get to vote about his personal life.

“It’s insulting,” says Halloran a voter in Turnbull’s Wentworth electorate . “I believe equality is a human right.”

In other aspects, Turnbull’s support of marriage equality is equivocal; inconsistent. In 1997, he wrote a case against a postal vote because “it flies in the face of Australian democratic values”. In 2012 in Julia Gillard’s conscience vote in parliament, he voted against marriage equality. Bill Shorten voted in favour.

Turnbull has not been honest about the concept. The postal survey was not Dutton’s idea but came from Andrew Laming, an MP who drew up many surveys, which, when trialled always managed to get a negative result.

Most tellingly, Turnbull has never been keen to canvass the thoughts and feelings of those whose interests and experiences are most relevant.   Last August he ignored calls to consult with the LGTBI community before introducing his postal survey which, in inception at least, was a Trojan horse to forestall marriage equality.

Congratulations? The PM will be lucky to receive a Mean Girls  Spring Fling plastic tiara a cheap, hollow crown.

Yet a euphoria descends upon weary but relieved yes supporters. Even IPA tool, former anti-human rights commission, human rights commissioner Tim Wilson proposes to partner Ryan mid-debate.

You can read it in Hansard. Then, quickly compartmentalising joy as all male-dominated outfits must; it moves on to pride. The Coalition channels its inner Trump, boasting over its glorious, historic victory in the New England by-election.

The Coalition  crows. Biggest swing to a sitting government in history, even if it must say so itself – repeatedly.

This “wasn’t a Newspoll”, this was “a real poll” shouts a PM whose credibility is in free fall as a nation has just seen him cynically cancel a week of parliament on the pretext of making room for marriage equality law-making. The hiatus is a desperate move to ensure his own political survival. So, too, is his over-promotion of Peter Dutto.

Yet joyous exultation froths out of the Liberal spin machine over the imminent elevation of our Lord High Protector Peter “Spud” Dutton to his new Home Affairs gig. His installation is fast-tracked not by popular demand but by Turnbull’s need to appease right wing party bullies intent on total domination via ownership of the PM.

Dutto, too, kicks along the nation’s ersatz euphoria as Dastyari-bashing, a national blood-sport, is back in season.

“Sam Dastyari is a Chinese spy. A double agent”, dirty Dutto dog-whistles in Question Time. It’s a slur speaker Tony Smith doesn’t hear, he says, but it’s clear enough to 2GB listeners when Dutto first makes it a week earlier.

“You can’t have a double agent in the Australian parliament. It’s simply not good enough, Ray.”  

Government MPs love a lynch mob – especially with a racist vibe. All week, MPs pile on; raid the Liberals’ stock of Yellow Peril formula from the Cold War to whip up a fresh brew of Sinophobia. They howl Dastyari down, a Labor traitor in our midst, while putting the wind up the 44341 Bennelong residents who identify as Chinese-Australians.

Political piñata he may be, but Dastyari’s bashing goes too far. And not just in Sydney. China is “astonished” by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s statements which risk “poisoning” our bilateral relationship.

Less puzzled, however, is Martin McKenzie Murray who reports in The Saturday Paper that senior Labor Party figures believe the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) leaked the audio of Sam Dastyari’s 2016 press conference in front of Chinese media, but possibly did so following pressure from a disgruntled US.

Like the giant panda in the room, the issue of how the media gained report of Dastyari’s diabolical treachery is largely ignored in our MSM. A security agency’s spook may have leaked intelligence to the media in order to damage Dastyari and Labor but the story of the week has been largely ignored, save by McKenzie-Murray.

A hostile US embassy concerned with Labor’s links to China – and a willingness to co-operate may have stitched up Sam – and his PM.

How this Chinese-whisper stacks up against Andrew Robb, for example, or countless other money-grubbing Coalition figures is problematic. Dastyari’s breach of protocol is nowhere as serious, for example,  as Stuart Robert who, as assistant minister of defence, oversaw a mining deal between Nimrod Resources – run by his close friend, major Liberal Party donor Paul Marks – and the Chinese government-owned company Minmetals.

In a review conducted by Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMC)head, Dr Martin Parkinson, it was found that Mr Robert had acted inconsistently with the Statement of Ministerial Standards, if unwittingly. Parkinson also notes Mr Robert appears not to have received any financial benefit from the deal. Unlike Andrew Robb.

Andrew Robb’s contract with Chinese company Landridge, a document shrouded in confidentiality,  effectively guarantees him $800,000 per year with little in the way of prescribed, part-time  duties, – beginning shortly after he left parliament in 2016 – a contract revealed by Fairfax Media and Four Corners in June.

Billionaire Ye Cheng owns Landridge, which controversially acquired a 99-year lease for the Port of Darwin in 2015. In brief, any investigation of China’s influence in Australia would begin with far bigger firms and entrepreneurs.

And agents. McKenzie Murray reports sources who suggest that the damaging leak against Dastyari may arise from his association with Chinese businessman Huang Xiangmo. ASIO had forewarned major parties Huang was a likely agent for the Chinese Communist Party. Some suggest the NSW Right may have leaked the story.

A separate leak against Shorten was made quickly after the Dastyari tape went public. The Opposition leader is reported to have visited Huang prior to the federal election – months after an ASIO warning – for a campaign donation. The NSW Right may have leaked to warn Shorten to acquiesce with the pro-China faction.

All of this is damaging to Labor. Yet more than some of the story beggars belief.

Getting great airplay in parliament and in MSM is the PM’s story that Dastyari visited Huang at his home. He suggested to Huang that his phone may be tapped, or its microphone remotely activated. The story depends on the willing suspension of belief that neither man would simply turn his phone off.

Or that neither uses Telegram or some similarly secure popular messaging device. But we mustn’t spoil the story.

Being bugged by a phone which is  turned off taps vast reserves of fiendish oriental cunning and other Sinophobic prejudices. It is also fed by popular mythology of all-pervasive, ruthless modern cyber espionage, currently fanned to fever pitch by dynamic Dan Tehan and his PM on behalf of a government keen to crank up fear of Cyber-attack.

Hysteria beckons. MSM report stories of people fearing they are being spied on by their microwave ovens.

The attacks on Sam are problematic. It is unwise, however enjoyable, to speculate on motivation. Yet they are odd and appear orchestrated.  Are they US inspired? Shopping a spook – or a double agent could help the coalition show its fealty to the US and also be part of an attack on Shorten, an MP who has been pilloried mercilessly since Abbott in a prolonged and damaging process of character assassination and personal slur.

What is alarming is the number of MSM stories which now suggest Shorten faces troubling times.  Even more disturbing is Peter Dutton’s promise that he has more dirt to dish on Dastyari.

There will be more revelations to come out on shady Dastyari, he threatens in that menacing generality one expects from a super minister about to run a Home Affairs super ministry. Or a drug cop about to fit you up.

Huge damage has been done, despite Labor’s strong opinion polling. So effective has coalition sledging been, alone, the name “Bill Shorten” has in some contexts become a type of gag-line; a means to invoke derision or worse. Barnaby Joyce loves to make himself useful with such attacks. Nationals exist to bait Labor.

“You might be leader of the Labor Party, but it looks like you’ve never done a day’s labour in your life.

“He couldn’t run a pie shop and the thought of him running the country fills me with dread.”

Lapdog Barnaby is eager to follow Turnbull’s lead in preferring personal insult to political debate. Character assassination takes far less preparation than refutation or rebuttal or any other of the arts of debate. Far more damaging, too.

Yet there’s another twist. Mal’s cunning plan is to crank up the war on Dastyari to smooth the passage of a bill or several –he talks loosely of laws – which will restrict foreign influence- not just Chinese interference- while it prevents charities from advocacy (which entails criticising government policy) and nobbles GetUp!

More worrying is that the new legislation appears directed against Sam Dastyari, our Labor opponent du jour.

“In my view, the conduct alleged against him does not reach the threshold of the existing laws of treason and espionage, but that is why we are introducing – because of the gap in those laws, a new offence of unlawful foreign interference,” argues Attorney-General Brandis, a Queensland QC who argued in August that ignorance would save Barnaby Joyce.

Ironically, Australia takes further moves to silence dissent and to diminish agencies of advocacy or criticism, while China, with a long history of such measures  including persecution of dissidents, is quick to voice its displeasure.

Yet Turnbull’s gone overboard – or thrown the Dastyari out with the bath water. Whipping up anti-Dastyari hysteria so keenly as to offend a major trading partner amounts, is another poor judgement call from the PM. Happily the Liberals’ broad church can celebrate Barnaby’s brain farts instead.

Joyce to the world. Barnaby is not just Tamworth’s Salvator Mundi, says the PM although BJ says he’s no saint.

New England writs return in record time; Turnbull urgently needs BJ’s vote. By Wednesday, Joyce’s back at the despatch box ranting at Labor in a mongrel attack bagging Shorten for not sending MPs straight to the High Court .

 “Even after seeing the decision in the High Court where it is black and white, they (Labor) still made it a resolve of theirs to hide, to obfuscate and treat us all as fools,” he thunders his face all beetroot borscht and no cream.

“To Mr Shorten, to the Labor Party, to those being led around by the nose by the Labor Party, who actually took them on good faith to what they told you. I think now is the time that you should truly hold the Labor Party under the tutelage of Mr Bill Shorten well and truly to account.”   

There’s more of this from the former bean counter but the jig is up. Joyce is rewriting history. Preposterous is his outrageous claim that his delayed appearance in the High Court was not an attempt to hide, obfuscate and treat judges like fools. But he knows, as well as his government’s dirt unit, that it’s the big lies that work best.

Mangling syntax, forging tortuous metaphors, BJ rivals Bob Katter for wrangling language into nonsense.  Barnaby has his own wordsmithing ways and he’s not afraid to enter the smithy. Even if it gets him into serious trouble.

In October 2014, Barnaby corrected Hansard  His drought assistance answer claimed farmers received immediate help. He added disclaimers and qualifiers – “unless it is a new application,” and “if you were also a recipient of the Interim Farm Household Allowance”. He later had the changes struck out, blaming his staff for the error.

In  March 2015 his secretary Paul Grimes wrote to the now-Deputy Prime Minister telling him he “no longer [had] confidence in [his] capacity to resolve matters relating to integrity” with him. Grimes resigned. Fudging Hansard is probably not something to put on a CV but Barnaby’s absolved of all sin by his latest, greatest, glorious win.

The government has Joyce sworn in just before Question Time Wednesday and uses his crucial vote to stymie Labor’s attempt to send a joint referral of its current crop of nine MPs with dual citizenship to the High Court.

Turnbull does another flip-flop, back-flip. His political gymnastics are guaranteed to convey stability; strength.

For all its hype about a bipartisan resolution of the citizenship crisis , the government is now adamant that only Labor MP David Feeney and senator Katy Gallagher will be referred to the High Court. Given a chance to clear up an unpopular and time-consuming crisis, Malcolm Turnbull has chosen to prolong it indefinitely.

Yet, just as big, is the news of the elevation of Liberal top banana, former QLD drug squaddie “Dirty” Peter Dutton.

Riding high on the runaway success of his off-shore detention regime of deterrence and the genius of his Manus’ final solution, Dirty Dutto’s long overdue promotion to a Home Office super-ministry is tipped for 17 December.

The move strengthens talk that Santorin George Brandis, our Attorney-General, will slope off to Old Blighty to replace High Commissioner to the UK Alexander Downer even if he does have to evict Downer kicking and screaming out of his High Commissioner’s mansion. At least Theresa May will receive some free entertainment.

Yet Dutto has a tough gig. Long overdue is Australia’s response to the UN Human Rights Committee, a body which harshly condemns of Australia for failing in its treatment of refugees, Indigenous rights and inadequate protection of human rights, including the lack of a national human rights act.  On past form, Dutto will ignore all this.

His pal Tony Abbott provides a clue. Going on the offensive, Abbott declared that we were sick of being lectured to when a 2015 UN report found Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers breaches an international anti-torture convention. It was just after he called Professor Gillian Triggs report on children in detention a stitch-up.

The UN’s special rapporteur on torture finds Australia is violating the rights of asylum seekers on multiple fronts under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, a notion which Eric Abetz calls deluded when Tasmanian Senator Lisa Singh repeats it on ABC Q&A last Monday.

Dutto will be champing to get this bit between his teeth. His  super ministry will combine Australian Federal Police (AFP), spy agency Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), and the Australian Border Force (ABF).

But the week has a happy ending after all.

All hail New England’s conquering hero, former dual Kiwi, bar-storming, Barnaby Joyce, a man of the Tamworth world, who returns to Canberra in a blaze of glory, a cloud of bull-dust and his Akubra Cattleman hat. He’s back in parliament in a flash. His government’s majority rides on his RM Williams hand-tooled dynamic flex boots.

A boisterous, brawling government is abuzz with something more than the size of the New Election by-election win, a win which Turnbull instantly appropriates for the coalition – as he does with the marriage equality Yes vote.

Meanwhile, true-blue, Aussie battler and patriot Barnaby is pitted against Sam Dastyari public enemy number one.

Or that’s this week’s national mythic contest. It doesn’t pay to look closely. Barnaby may be Australia’s best retail politician but he’s a mining lobbyist who would help pollute the Great Artesian Basin, the world’s largest and deepest and our island continent’s biggest water source is extolled as a paragon of Aussie loyalty and fidelity.

“If you want to focus on the person in the weatherboard and iron they will give you the grace of their vote,” says the MP with a touch of Huey Long a politician who like Donald Trump appeals to the battlers and does nothing for them. And almost everything against them. Barnaby’s backers include billionaire Gina Rinehart

A deputy PM in charge of resources and water, he has no issue with spruiking for Santos on the local radio despite the damage done by fracking to local water.

Amidst the crush to cheer on Barnaby and install him in Tamworth’s pantheon as a cultural icon and appropriate his victory as the greatest swing to a sitting government ever, a frantic Canberra reaches fever pitch Thursday as religious freedom fears or time-wasting “pious amendments” such as Tony Abbott proposes are brushed aside and it becomes legal for same sex couples to marry. The winners’ circle is swamped by raucous gate-crashers.

Much of the ruckus is joyous celebration over the removal of an injustice and the recognition of a human right but there is also a desperate rush by a crush of unlikely MPs – rent-seekers eager to claim the victory of marriage equality, hitch their star to true-blue Barnaby’s iconic victory – while Dutton’s hot-eyed zealots pool resources, horses, water and feed and prepare to run any double agents right out of town.

Activists, lefties, greenies, advocates and dissidents all need to sit up and take notice.

November 14 2017

The Newspoll results yesterday came as no surprise. It fact, it was totally predictable. We are governed by a political party that doesn’t know what it stands for. It has no plan for the nation; no narrative that it can present to the Australian populace.

The fact is that as a party it is flat-out trying to define if it is a conservative party or just a tired old political “small L” one. The one certain thing that it can proclaim is that it is a party at war with itself.

What it does need is to lose an election and go away and decide what form of political philosophy it wants to be. As things stand, it would seem the neo-conservatives have the upper hand and it’s to that extremity it should go. Mind you, Menzies might wriggle a toe or two in his place of rest at the idea but it seems that is where they want to be.

And you cannot have a leader from the centre-left leading you. So in this party realignment, Malcolm Turnbull will have to go. It has been obvious since he took over that he is controlled in his decision-making by a group of neo-conservatives who control the party. Whereas when the party would describe itself as a broad church it is now obvious that the softer voices have no influence whatsoever. The voices of hate arise from capitalistic monopolies within the party.

Just when the spill will take place it is difficult to say. But rest assured, it will. The point here is that when the Prime Minister is culled, the moderates of this once great party will be weeded out until the extreme-right has control.

But all this kerfuffle in the Coalition has ramifications for Labor and Bill Shorten. The danger being that they gain office without earning it. And it is highly likely that they will. Increasingly it looks like one of those elections that former leader Bill Hayden described as one that even a drover’s dog could win. Is Labor ready for office is a question we cannot know the answer to. It also must define where its ideology sits.

I believe the current political environment, both internally, nationally and worldwide offers Bill Shorten a unique opportunity.

Putting aside the variations that occur from country to country, state to state and ethnicity to ethnicity it is manifestly true that people are dissatisfied with institutionalised politics. No matter how you come at it, it’s the only conclusion you can reach.

Brexit, the revival of Hanson and the triumph of Trumpism prove it. The young of course wouldn’t have a bar of these three changes to political history but they too feel disenfranchised by the process.

The overwhelming thing that comes from these three events is that people will respond to the voices of action. Action against any form of long-standing entrenched institutionalised politics. They don’t know exactly what it is they want but for sure they don’t want more of the same old self-serving politics that ignores them

Suppose for a moment you are an advisor to the opposition leader in Australia. What would you tell Shorten to do?

Some background …

The Australian people in their collective wisdom, or lack of it, depending on which side your bread is buttered, chose to give a leader and his Government that had failed miserably in its first three years, another three.

They had a one seat majority in the House of Representatives but now govern in a minority. Plus a Senate ruled by some peculiar personalities. Thus far they have governed deplorably and it is difficult to know how they will govern into the future let alone do anything good for the country.

The LNP just got over the line and at the moment face a nightmare of party disunity, with a leader whose judgement is in question, a treasurer ensconced in old economics and policies mired in the politics of power retention rather than a common good for the future.

In the last election there can be no doubt that Shorten surprised everyone with a better campaign than Turnbulls. So much so that he gained much prestige and respect both from the people and the media.

As it turned out he was the policy wonker that he said he was and now has the opportunity to cement his credentials in this area. The areas of education, health and social welfare were big winners for Labor and he must continue to present an activist image on all these policies particularly with the NBN and Climate Change.

He has the perfect opportunity to build on his policy accomplishments on the back of an excellent election campaign. People now understand Labor’s Economic policies and Shorten has the credentials to further press his case on the revenue side.

Given the closeness (I predict around early November 2018) of the election Shorten should not step back from any of his policies but balance an eagerness to help the county with good political decision-making. He can be conciliatory and helpful while at the same time still play hardball with Turnbull on the dual citizenship problem.But will that be enough. The aforementioned successes will be quickly forgotten over time. So when thinking about “what should Shorten do?” there are two issues that have to be tackled.

One is developing an explanation of just what a new Labor Party stands for and a reappraisal of and repair of our democracy.

Labor suffers from an emptiness of explanation that requires attention. What does Labor stand for? It is losing members and its primary vote is at an all-time low.

If the new politic is no longer Left Vs Right but Open Vs Closed then it needs to explain just what it means and how Labor and its values fit in this new political paradigm. Trump campaigned on a closed society in order to make America great again.

What I am advocating is that Shorten should take on the high moral ground starting with the repair of our democracy. Necessarily required because of the destruction caused to it by the former Prime Minister Abbott. There is any amount of evidence for it.

There is no doubt that the Australian political system is in need of repair, but it is not beyond it.

Labor has already taken a small but important first step in allowing a greater say in the election of its leader, however it still has a reform mountain to climb. Besides internal reform that engages its members, it needs to look at ways of opening our democracy to new ways of doing politics: ways that involve those that are in a political malaise so that they feel part of the decision-making process again. There is much that can be done at little or no cost.

Some examples of this are fixed terms, and the genuine reform of Question Time with an independent Speaker. No Government questions etc. Shorten needs to promote the principle of transparency by advocating things like no advertising in the final month of an election campaign, and policies and costing submitted in the same time frame.

You can add reform of the Senate into this mix, and perhaps some form of citizen initiated referendum. Also things like implementing a form of a National ICAC. Perhaps even a 10 point common good caveat on all legalisation. A plebiscite on the question. Should we have an Australian as head of state?

I have no doubt that the first party to deliver on these reforms and many others including politicians entitlements, will gain government. Recent experience tells us that people will respond to boldness. To anything that acknowledges problems and speaks to them.

Address inequality. The world’s richest 1 per cent will own more than the other 99 per cent of the world’s wealth by next year. It must promote and vigorously argue the case for action against growing inequality in all its nefarious guises: re-casting its socialist tag, giving it new meaning, and seeing policy in common good versus elitist/closed terms. The same fight must also be had for the future of the planet.

Appeal for bipartisan government for the common good as Howard did with Hawke and Keating. On top of this is the need to do something about politician’s expenses and their justification. Talk about the need to exercise our creativeness, use our brains, and talk about what is best for ourselves as individuals, couples, families, employees, employers, retirees, welfare recipients and what is affordable for the future of the country.

The biggest issue though is a commitment to truth. Shorten needs to convince people of the need for a truly collective representative democracy that involves the people and encourages us to be creative, imaginative and exciting.

In a future world dependent on innovation it will be ideas that determines government, and not the pursuit of power for power’s sake.

His narrative must convince the lost voters who have left our democracy to return. (And I am assuming that most would be Labor), Shorten has to turn Labor ideology on its head, shake it and re-examine it. Then reintroduce it as an updated enlightened ideology-opposite to the Tea Party politics that conservatism has descended into.

He must turn his attention to the young, and have the courage to ask of them that they should go beyond personal desire and aspiration and accomplish not the trivial, but greatness. That they should not allow the morality they have inherited from good folk to be corrupted by the immorality of right-wing political indoctrination.

He might even advocate lowering the voting age to sixteen (16 year olds are given that right in the Scottish referendum). An article I read recently suggested the teaching of politics from Year 8, with eligibility to vote being automatic if you were on the school roll. Debates would be part of the curriculum and voting would be supervised on the school grounds. With an aging population the young would then not feel disenfranchised. Now that’s radical thinking; the sort of thing that commands attention. It might also ensure voters for life.

Why did the voters leave?

How has democracy worldwide become such a basket case? Unequivocally it can be traced to a second-rate Hollywood actor, a bad haircut, and in Australia a small bald-headed man of little virtue. They all had one thing in common. This can be observed in this statement:

“There is no such thing as society. There are only individuals making their way. The poor shall be looked after by the drip down effect of the rich”.(Paraphrased)

Since Margaret Thatcher made that statement and the subsequent reins of the three, unregulated capitalism has insinuated its ugliness on Western Society and now we have an absurdly evil growth in corporate and individual wealth and an encroaching destruction of the middle and lower classes. These three have done democracy a great disservice.

Where once bi-partisanship flourished in proud democracies, it has been replaced with the politics of hatred and extremism. Where compromise gets in the way of power, and power rules the world.

Millions of Australians have tuned out of politics because of the destabilisation of leadership, corruption on both sides, the negativity and lies of Abbott/ Turnbull, the propaganda of a right-wing monopoly owned media, and the exploitation of its Parliament by Abbott in particular.

Somehow the lost voters must be given a reason to return. A reason that is valid and worthwhile. A reason that serves the collective and engages people in the process, and a politic for the social good of all one that rewards personal initiative but at the same time recognises the basic human right of equality of opportunity.

Shorten needs to promote a robust but decent political system that is honest, decent, and transparent, and where respect is the order of the day. A political system where ideas of foresight surpass ideological politics, greed, disrespect, and truth. Where respect, civility and trust are part of vigorous debate and not just uninvited words in the process.

An observation

Unlike America, “The right to vote is the gift our democracy gives. If political parties (and media barons, for that matter) choose by their actions to destroy the people’s faith in democracy’s principles and conventions then they are in fact destroying the very thing that enables them to exist”.

There is much in the way of common sense to support the narrative I suggest but will a politician of Bill Shortens ilk take the plunge?

My thought for the day

“We dislike and resist change in the foolish assumption that we can make permanent that which makes us feel secure. Yet change is in fact part of the very fabric of our existence. Change sometimes disregards opinion and becomes a phenomenon of its own making. With Its own inevitability.”

Warwick: See how the pangs of death doth make him grin. William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2, Act iii.

Our PM and Opposition leader start their week with a flying visit to Israel to commemorate the Battle of Beersheba, a joyous trip into history and myth. Time to salute again the legendary, bronzed, invincible Digger, fearless in his duty to his King, his country and British Empire. Keeping Australia white. Inspiring. But somehow Mal can’t stay focused.

It’s a battle for Turnbull just to leave home. All hell is breaking loose. A Beersheba centenary bash doesn’t happen every year. But his sinking Prime Ministership needs him. The dual citizenship debacle is destroying his government.

Labor maintains an election-winning lead in opinion polls. Essential Research has Labor’s two-party lead bouncing back to 54-46, a result which mirrors this week’s Newspoll.  A leadership spill is imminent, surely.

Meanwhile insurrection rears its neatly tonsured head. Kevin Andrews, Abbott ally and fellow-travelling malcontent, “father of the house”, suddenly has his Tintoretto head on all channels. Mal’s “the leader at the moment”, he snipes. “Voters are unhappy with inadequate leadership.”  Is he echoing Turnbull’s rationale for toppling Abbott?

Kev’s not advocating (much) for a change of leader but Australians want clear, decisive, stable leadership. Not a fizza.

Above all, is the issue of Mal’s accursed poor judgement even if Father Kev is too kind to spell it out. Another day, another dud call is the Turnbull story so far. But all duds are not equal. His spectacularly bad call on The High Court’s dual citizenship of his deputy, in particular, is causing his prime ministership to explode in his face like a trick cigar.

Choosing to tough it out with Joyce’s eligibility in doubt is the PM’s most costly misjudgement yet. Some, at least, of his deputy’s decisions are now open to challenge, especially his casting vote for cutting penalty rates for some workers.

Penalty rates are part of his government’s war on workers. And unions. After creating her own credibility crisis, anti-worker, anti-union Employment Minister, Michaelia Cash, has yet to come out of witness protection after misleading parliament about her registered organisation commission (ROC)’s illicit AFP raid on AWU offices seeking documents already tendered to Abbott’s witch hunt on Shorten, the $61m Trade Union Royal Commission.

The AFP were seeking the minutes of an AWU meeting 12 years ago when Shorten was boss. The AWU voted to give $100,000 to what was then a brand-new progressive activist outfit calling itself Getup! It was a legitimate donation. No law was broken. Instead the ROC – AFP raid itself was illegal and clearly nothing more than an ugly, political stunt.

If the botched AFP raid is not enough, add Nigel Hadgkiss. The rule of law clearly didn’t trouble Cash or the government when appointing Hadgkiss to head the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), the “new tough cop on the block” to keep workers honest. Hadgkiss had broken the Fair Work Act himself. And Cash knew.

Some good has been done. Cash has helped spotlight the injustice of the Coalition’s war on workers. Since 2013, it has used politicised commissions and investigations to pursue its sworn enemy the unions and The Australian Labor Party, with extreme prejudice toward Julia Gillard and Bill Shorten, in show trials assisted and amplified by a tame MSM.

Cash may well have done her dash. Certainly she has put her government and her PM between a ROC and a hard place. She is one of the few cabinet ministers who don’t show up in Jerusalem – apart from Turnbull who misses the start.

Dithering only for a couple of days, agonising whom to leave minding the red teapot, Turnbull opts to put Ms Julie Bishop in charge. It’s no easy delegation. The Foreign Minister’s diary is already chockers with work-related Flemington Spring carnival engagements. Still, Julie will read out the day’s talking points and evade any ABC questions splendidly.

At last! Mal makes his mad dash to Jerusalem, where he buddies up with his bestie, Bibi, the terminally scandal-ridden Israeli PM who needs him in his quest to recruit history to the Zionist cause while he continues Israel’s war on Palestine.

Turnbull plunges into a speech mangling history; heavy on the brotherhood of battle between Israel and Australia and our two nations’ shared values. The Turnbull government’s commitment to the rule of law also cops a lot of repetition.

Reporters fidget with phones and microphones. The PM’s speech-making so often mires itself in the no man’s land between homily and harangue. He’s sonorous but sincerity and conviction suffer. At the end he takes media questions.

“Do you ever feel you’ve had enough? You’d just like to — it’s all been too much?”  I’ve never had more fun in my life, he replies. A cheeky scribe wants to know why the PM hasn’t just resigned, given his record of epic, inglorious failure. Why, like disgraced employment minister Michaelia Cash, doesn’t he just lie down and pull the doona up over his head?

Mal puts on his brave smile, something Katharine Murphy calls a rictus, – an allusion to the death rictus. A harsh Jerusalem sun which somehow finds the gaps between the olive leaves at The Grove of Nations reveals too much ugly sinew. His thin, dry, skin puckers at the cheekbone betraying a face ravaged by age and the vicissitudes of fate.

He flashes a shit-eating grin, so brightly polished it could light up the entire east coast of Australia. It’s his cue to stride away manfully. End the presser in a triumphant display of strong and resolute leadership.  Another shutdown.

But the PM makes a gaffe. Is it jet lag or just poor judgement? Somehow he thinks it would be a top occasion for a prank. The PM pretends, puckishly, to confuse Bill Shorten with “Bill the Bastard”, a notorious old war horse.

“Bill the Bastard – that was a horse, that was a horse, I hasten to add – he was un-rideable. He was a rogue“, he sniggers.

Yet Bill the Bastard was fractious, fierce and built like a rhinoceros. Turnbull’s ironic insult won’t harm Shorten.

Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag. Smile boys that’s the style. No festering enmity while paying respects.

Mal and Bill are at war with history in Jerusalem, helping war criminal Israeli PM, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu pretend that the 1917 Australian Light Horse charge on Beersheba struck a blow for Israel, a state created 31 years later.

Turnbull will pose as a patriot, this time in a vote-winning re-creation of the Battle of Beersheba as an Australian-led victory, a version of events which discounts the heavy and decisive fighting of British infantry and artillery and other colonial forces. To be fair, he does also briefly mention New Zealand but it won’t please our ANZAC partners.

The Australian raid was made possible only when the Kiwi Canterbury Mounted Rifles Regiment enabled Auckland Mounted Rifles to capture of Tel el Saba, a Turkish fortified hill overlooking the plain 3.2 kms north-east of Beersheba.

“It was a great victory, a great charge, the last successful cavalry charge in military history, and certainly one that rings through the ages, profoundly Australian in every respect, deeply etched in our national psyche,” Turnbull claims.

Military historians cringe. The Fourth Light Horse Brigade, confused on Channel 7 with the Light Brigade were not cavalry but rather, mounted infantry who would ride into battle; dismount and fight on foot. Other errors are legion.

It’s the last successful cavalry charge apart from all those which came after it. These include the 18th Pomeranian Uhlans, a Polish cavalry charged charge against a German infantry regiment at Krojanty, routing a larger force with lance & sabre. Or the Battle of Schoenfeld, March 1945 when Polish cavalry overran German antitank gun positions.

Beersheba would have fallen anyway. Yet the PM takes another vital step in the long march of what Henry Reynolds describes as “the progressive militarisation of Australian history”. He declares open the ANZAC history museum endowed by the Pratt family monopolists and others, who also set up the 2008, (theme) Park of the Australian Soldier.

Yet it’s not just a fake history excursion. Big-note club veteran, Turnbull “beefs up our defence and security ties with Israel” which involves signing a memorandum of understanding on defence industry co-operation. Dan Tehan looks on.

Any excuse to use the word cyber and to parade danger mouse, Dan Tehan, The Minister for Anzackery and cyber security amongst other portfolios. Dan heads a Melbourne Cup field of MPs on the junket.  Frydenberg is even sighted.

The PM reminds everyone that we are already at war; brothers in arms with Israel. A band of brothers and sheilas.

“We are all fighting together against militant Islamist terrorism,” the PM says, relaying a cheap shot at the ethos of Islam, part of the obligatory public bellicosity or Trump-grovelling that being a US ally demands from this government.

“It’s a threat to Israel, it’s a threat to Australia and it’s a threat to all who value and cherish freedom.”

Demonising is a great way to alienate the 2 billion people of the world’s second largest religious faith. Most Muslims feel insulted, wronged, or angry at hearing expressions which seem to blame terrorism on Islam.

Keeping us safe, Turnbull helps terrorists by reinforcing the idea that the West sees Islam as a source of evil.

Of course there’s a lot of jaw-boning about our shared values. The f-word gets a huge work out.

Bibi knows his bestie will understand that for Israel, freedom is a relative term. A 2015 US Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, shows Israel faces significant human rights problems regarding institutional discrimination of Arab citizens of Israel, many of whom see themselves as Palestinian, a type of apartheid, Ethiopian Israelis, women, and the treatment of refugees and irregular migrants.

Non-Orthodox Jews face institutional discrimination as do intermarried families. Abuses of Labour rights are experienced by foreign workers.[3] Then there’s freedom of speech, a work in regress in Australia and in Israel.

On top of all is the elephant in the room, the Israeli dispossession of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Or the 2014 attack on Gaza, its offensive against Hamas, in which killed more than 2,200 Palestinians and 73 Israelis.

According to the UN, Israel conducted 6,000 airstrikes and fired over 50,000 tank and artillery shells in its war on Gaza.

Al Jazeera reports that the Israeli army indiscriminately and deliberately targeted civilians during a brutal 2014 assault known as “Black Friday”, according to a 2015 report on the Gaza war. Save the Children reports that in a survey of 300 families, 70% of children suffer post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Netanyahu banned Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem bureau chief from a recent state-sponsored event on freedom of speech.

“Bibi”, as Turnbull and other big-shot Zionist pals call the Israeli PM, is at war with the free press in his own country. Last year, Freedom House, a US democracy advocacy organisation, downgraded Israel’s press freedom from free to partly free. Turnbull could proudly share how he allows only News Corp reporters on to Manus Island.

Or how he could brag how he and his ministers can ring up to roast the ABC if they see a dangerous Muslim like Zaky Mallah in the Q&A audience or when Four Corners reports the truth on Nauru without putting the other side.

Mal may even brag how soon to be Home Affairs Super-Minister, top dog, paranoid Peter Dutton accuses The Guardian of jihadist, left-wing conspiracy in his regular media bullying. How he can complain the “activists have taken over” at the ABC. But chin up Dutto. This week ABC screens a programme showing us how Border Force is keeping us all safe.

Beersheba’s commemoration is not only the culmination of our government’s three year, $600,000 commemoration of World War One, it is highly symbolic. Netanyahu knows his propaganda. When Israel bombarded Gaza, he said

“They want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can. They use telegenically dead Palestinians for their cause. They want the more dead, the better.”

There’s a parallel here with John Howard whose “babies overboard”, demonised asylum-seekers. An echo also of Josef Goebbels who wrote in 1941, “One suddenly has the impression that the Berlin Jewish population consists only of little babies whose childish helplessness might move us, or else fragile old ladies. The Jews send out the pitiable.”

Despite all his demonisation and his recent claims that refugees are wealthy Armani-wearing frauds or child abusers whom the locals quite rightfully want to kill, Dutton’s epic Manus Island failure is a humanitarian crisis, says the UN.

Sunday, the PM rebuffs Jacinda Ardern’s offer to take 150 refugees yet PNG tells Al Jazeera Australia ought accept it. Turnbull tries to make a case for his US deal taking priority, playing down the urgency of the situation. Is the government rejecting New Zealand’s offer, which Labor urges it to accept, just to paint the opposition as soft on border protection?

Manus represents Peter Dutton’s department’s total failure to plan for the needs of the 600 or so refugees and asylum seekers when there has been adequate warning that PNG was closing the centre. In April 2016, PNG’s Supreme Court ruled that the detention of refugees on Manus was illegal and in breach of fundamental human rights.

The men on Manus have no facilities; no power, water or food. Attempts by others to bring food and water have been rebuffed by a government prepared to adopt the heartless and inhumane expedient of starving the men out.

The men are terrified to leave the centre. They fear for their safety in the unfinished camp the Australian government is building at Lorengau, after no consultation with local people as part of a process of moving them into a hostile PNG community with which they have no ties. Lives are at risk. The suffering has gone on too long.

As Tim Costello argues, after four years no other solution has been found. The government needs to come to its sense and  bring the refugees and asylum seekers to Australia. There is no other option than to resettle the men here.

The PM seems unmoved. He does makes an emotive appeal on behalf of Josh Frydenberg who may be Hungarian.  His rhetoric seems designed to distract from the fact that in 2011, Hungary’s new constitution restored citizenship stripped from Jewish people by the Nazis. It also conferred nationality on their children.

“We must not allow ourselves to be dragged into a sort of lynch mob, witch-hunt, trial by innuendo and denunciation,” the prime minister rants from Perth forsaking all outward sign of sobriety and rationality himself. It’s unfortunate that AWU witch hunt organised by Michaelia Cash and her ROC is fresh in the nation’s memory.

Yet the genie is out of the bottle. “Business as usual” will see other dual citizen MPs pressed to confess to lying low while the High Court got it sorted. Or somehow the dogs are called off.

Ma’s just mad about Parry.  Stephen Parry, former undertaker by trade, and now ex-Liberal Senate leader kept a long time mum about his English dad. Parry clearly punted on the High Court voting the way his PM tipped it. And lost.

Turnbull publicly laments Parry’s delay. It’s a lame leadership strategy from a lame leader. Parry tries to justify himself.

The High Court’s decision on Friday had provided, he says in a statement, “absolute clarity about the application of section 44 of the Australian constitution” and that he had written to the British Home Office to clarify his status.

Assistant Immigration Minister, Alex Hawke is the latest MP to face calls to prove he is not a dual Greek-Australian citizen. There is also chatter about MP Ann Sudmalis not having renounced her British citizenship. Yet whilst Labor has better procedures, neither major party wants to take up The Greens  audit proposal. There is clearly too much to lose.

The Turnbull government is one by-election in a marginal away from political extinction. Astrophysicist Colin Jacobs calculates the mathematical probability of additional “dual” citizens in 150-member lower house as 99.96 per cent.

The Australian an anti-Turnbull journal which counts Tony Abbott amongst its contributors, helpfully concludes that his Prime Ministership is built on pillars of sand and “can no longer be assured” and gives the nod to Turnbull party room loyalists such as Scott Ryan and James McGrath who are beginning to “crab-walk” away from their leader.

Julie Bishop’s leadership chances get yet another spin while there is talk of Dutton-Hunt ticket. (To be fair several “senior Liberals” – say they would rather go into Opposition than serve under Julie Bishop.)

Worms will turn. Barnaby Joyce now says he knew in his gut he was done for. But the Solicitor General, (read PM) made him stay. Why, if it’d been up to him, he’d have done the decent thing. Got this by-election over with months ago.

Joyce is openly disloyal to Turnbull. Already a stink is brewing over who gets to replace Fiona Nash. Joyce also bleats about how the Nationals won the last election and how somehow that makes them dominant partner in the Coalition why, they ought to be leading the senate, now that Tassie Senator Parry’s come out as a Pom.

Turnbull’s Battle of Beersheba excursion may prove a costly diversion from his local problems. Without any strategy in place to stem the dual citizenship catastrophe and without any plan to acknowledge, let alone end the humanitarian crisis on Manus and his anti-union witch-hunt unravelling, he has just given opportunity to his opponents to lead a movement against him.

Whatever they may achieve now, his enemies certainly have plans to stall any change to the Marriage Act when the postal survey result is known. Given that he has nothing whatsoever to lose, Turnbull should bring those 600 or so suffering acutely now on Manus Island home to Australia immediately.

Author’s note; David will be taking a break for a few weeks. Posting again early in December.