Yes, it was just a cheap shot from Albanese when he pointed out how strange it was that Peter Dutton is opposed to “truth-telling”, but Dutton’s comments left him open to it. It would have been so easy for Dutton to say that his government won’t pursue a truth-telling commission or some form of words that weren’t “there’ll be no revisiting of truth-telling”.
Ok, maybe it’s the most honest thing that he’s said but it does seem like he hasn’t thought his statement through. While we don’t have the sort of journalists who are likely to ask him, “Just to be clear, are you only against truth-telling when it comes to Indigenous affairs or is it a general policy?”
The more I think about it, the more I think that’s a great question…
Of course we now have Labor being criticised for supposedly walking back their commitment to a Makarrata. While this may be a reasonable criticism, we also need to remind ourselves that if they were to reaffirm their total commitment, then we’d have all those people who urged a “No” vote in the Voice Referendum telling us that Labor weren’t listening to the people. And yes, people with long memories will point out that it wasn’t racist to vote against the Voice; they just didn’t think it should be in the Constitution and we shouldn’t be treating one group of people differently… except when it comes to truth telling.
Most of the media seem intent on criticising Labor whatever they do. For example, they were happy to repeat the nickname “Airbus Albo” but they were also happy to repeat the criticism that Albanese should have been in the USA for a meeting because sending your Deputy Leader and Defence secretary just isn’t good enough even though that’s pretty much what previous PMs have all done. And there doesn’t seem much concern that in the last few months, Departing Dutton seems to have been trotting off to Israel, America, India and Western Australia… Ok the last one isn’t actually a foreign country but it does have a separate ruler in Gina Rinehart.
As I write this, we are anxiously waiting to see if the Reserve Bank lifts interest rates. If I could rely on the economists at the RBA showing some form of intelligence, I’d say that there’s no chance of it. However, that is a big IF given some other economists still think that they should even though the figures were all pretty much what was expected. Add to that the fact that the Stock Markets around the world all had a significant correction in the last few days, you’d be brave to go now and not wait another month just to see that you aren’t the central bank that raised interest rates just before the next Great Depression or GFC… Whoops, did we go up, we meant to go down!!!
Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m picking on economists just because most of them seem like they have some sort of personality disorder that prevents them from understanding that Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”* was satire.
I read an article from one a couple of weeks ago where he suggested that Rents, Energy and Insurance were all rising at a rate that was putting pressure on the inflation numbers and, while an interest rate rise wouldn’t have much effect on these, it would suppress other things so that the overall number would be better. While that seems like a good idea in theory, you only need to stop for a moment to realise that an increase would likely lead to an increase in rents. However, if you stop for longer you might question the logic of telling people that a person with their feet in the hot stove and their head in the fridge should be comfortable because their average temperature is just about perfect!
To use an imperfect analogy: this would be like giving an enormous tax break to one group of people so that they could buy up more and more houses, while others can’t even afford to rent… Wait, that’s what we do… Anyway, no economist suggests that housing problem is solved because when you average out the number of houses there’s enough for everyone so what does it matter if Oliver has three holiday houses, while Barry’s family are sleeping in their car!
*Swift wrote a piece where he said that the Irish could solve both their balance of payments problem and overpopulation by selling their children as gourmet food to the rich. He wasn’t an economist so it’s generally thought that it was satire although I’m sure that Maggie Thatcher may have thought that it was a good idea.
[textblock style=”7″]
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
[/textblock]
