By Denis Bright

As the Wealth Divide increases in most western democracies, the electorate should be more committed to a more empathetic style of political debate. Outside Scandinavia, these renewed class tensions have fuelled a nasty style of conservative dogmatism. The ascendency of national governments in major western democracies with a commitment to market ideology is near universal.

Where the Centre-Left holds its ground as in Spain, majorities are usually trimmed. Centre-left governments creep back alter lengthy negotiations with regional parties.

In Australia, Oxfam has just released its wealth divide data:

Australia’s rich keep getting richer, with the top 1 per cent of Australians having more than double the wealth of the entire bottom 50 per cent — or more than 12.5 million people – according to Oxfam.

Oxfam’s annual list highlighting inequality has found the number of billionaires in Australia decreased from 43 in 2018 to 36 in 2019, but that the number has more than tripled over the past 10 years and the value of their wealth is still increasing.

The report, being released ahead of the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, found that the wealth of Australian billionaires, who are mostly men, grew by an average of $US460 million from 2018 to 2019.

Oxfam Australia chief executive Lyn Morgain said the top 1 per cent of Australians, just 250,000 people, owned nearly $US1.6 trillion — equating to 22.2 per cent of the nation’s wealth.

“This concentration of wealth in the hands of the super-rich is occurring while the share of wealth of the bottom half of our community has decreased over the last decade and workers’ wages continue to stagnate in Australia,” she said.

The world’s billionaires, 2,153 people in 2019, have more wealth between them than 4.6 billion people.

The report found the richest 22 men in the world own more wealth than all the women in Africa.

Despite its stagnant economy, British voters recently warmed to the Conservatives. Although one third of voters opted not to vote in Boris Johnson’s Outer-London constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris romped home despite the best efforts from progressive minor parties and some also-rans. This constituency has only been won twice by Labour in 1945 and 1966 so Boris was hardly in danger even though public opinion drifted towards the Remain Camp on the Brexit issue.

As enthusiasts for market ideology, Britain’s conservatives have a dismal economic record with growth rates that are insufficient to keep the lid on unemployment levels.

Australia faced a similar reversal of private sector investment after the ascendancy of Scott Morrison. New data for the December Quarter will not be released until late February 2020.

LNP members now holding marginal regional seats like Longman in Outer Metro Brisbane are busily re-writing Australian values to fit in with the prevailing market ideology of the Morrison Government and the resurgence of conservative values in developed countries worldwide.

Let’s take the extract from the maiden speech of the LNP’s Terry Young in Longman on 31 July 2019:

Finally, to the men and women, young and old, of Longman and Australia: if a boy from Kallangur, whose grandfather was a South Sea Island slave, commonly known as a Kanaka, in the late 1800s; who came from simple beginnings; and who left school with just a junior certificate can end up in this great House, anything is possible, so you go for it. I am a living example of, ‘If you have a go, you’ll get a go.’ You live in the country where the only limits to what you can achieve are the limits of your own dreams and aspirations.

What is contestable is not the noble heritage of Terry Young but his attacks on the reality of climate change or the need for stronger IR laws or the adequacy of federal investment in TAFE education.

The Victorian Branch of the Australian Education Union begs to differ with Terry Young’s benign interpretation of the federal LNP’s commitments to TAFE:

“The privatisation of vocational education in Australia over the past decade has been an abject failure. A wholesale federal takeover of the vocation education sector, along with ACPET’s push for 100 per cent contestable funding, would only make things worse,” Ms Haythorpe said.

“The Liberal-National government has cut over $3 billion from TAFE, apprenticeships and vocational education. Meanwhile governments have lavished education funding on private providers who have repeatedly left students in debt or without the qualifications they paid for.”

“TAFE campuses have closed, and jobs and vocational education courses have been lost under the Morrison Government’s watch, while government funding for private for-profit operators has soared. We have seen the proliferation of unscrupulous operators looking to cash in by charging exorbitant fees for poor-quality training,” Ms Haythorpe said.

Terry Young covered a highly specific TAFE issue in his statement to the House of Representatives on this issue (25 November 2019):

Last week the Morrison government broadened the horizons of the people of Longman by providing more pathways into employment and, at the same time, has kept the art of welding alive and assisted welding apprentices and qualified welders to keep developing their skills in an ever-changing world. The coalition government provided $750,000 to establish an Augmented Reality Welder Training Centre in Caboolture to train and upskill local welding apprentices and workers.

This new state-of-the-art facility, based at the TAFE college campus in Caboolture, was officially opened by Assistant Minister for Vocational Education, Training and Apprenticeships, the Hon. Steve Irons MP, last Tuesday. The coalition government has collaborated with Weld Australia to invest in this facility, which will include 10 welding simulators and has the capacity to train up to 200 workers each year to international welding standards. These are welding simulators rather than actual welders, although having used one at the opening on Tuesday—very badly—they react and sound like the real deal.

The industry authority, Weld Australia, is right behind them. The benefits are that there are no health and safety issues to worry about, there is a monetary and environmental saving aspect as well, and all the different types of welding can be simulated on these devices.

Industry experts tell us that companies that are using robotic devices in many trades, including welding, are looking for qualified tradesmen who have completed on-the-job apprenticeships, who will operate these robots, because they are simply the best at it—nothing replaces gut feeling.

Fortunately, ABC News can fact-check the most outrageous claims by federal LNP members. While the electorate might overlook really important issues such as the state of vocational education at TAFE Colleges, the Sports Grants’ Anomalies have captured the wrath of the nation:

The ABC yesterday revealed a spreadsheet developed by then-sports minister Bridget McKenzie’s office, which detailed the rating Sport Australia gave clubs that applied for community sports funding.

It showed 94 of 223 projects deemed “successful” in the first round of Government funding failed to meet the threshold set by Sport Australia to receive funding.

When parliament resumes, Prime Minister Morrison must explain the gross discrimination against needy sports grant projects (Rob Harris in The SMH 28 January 2020):

Embattled Senator Bridget McKenzie joined Wangaratta Clay Target Club as a member just four days before her office sent a list to Sport Australia recommending projects it wanted to share in the federal government’s $100 million sport grants “slush fund”.

In Central Queensland’s LNP electorate of Flynn, the application from the Woorabinda Community for $500,000 in a Sports Grants was passed over in favour of other projects despite the rating given by Sports Australia of 84 to this application.

With its high Labor Vote in a sea of federal LNP resurgence in the Flynn Electorate, the Woorabinda Community was of little value to the federal LNP in its successful re-election bid in 2019.

Sport has a vital place in Woorabinda. The Woorabinda Aboriginal Shire Council had communicated a profile of a proud community:

Woorabinda has a pastoral company, a hospital, a stadium, a sports complex, a swimming pool, a retail store, primary school (1928) and high school, cafe, post office and butcher shop. There are two churches and the Aboriginal Inland Mission has resident lay pastors. There are a number of community agencies working in Woorabinda such as the Australian Red Cross, Cathy Freeman Foundation, Police Citizens Youth Club, Central Queensland Indigenous Development, Men’s and Women’s groups, a Domestic Violence Women’s Shelter as well as an Aged Care home. An airstrip is located near the town.

Cheers in conservative circles for alcohol bans and cashless welfare payments in Indigenous communities with high levels of unemployment did not extend for Sports Grants to the Woorabinda Aboriginal Shire Council.

The Prime Minister reminded the nation in his address to the National Press Club on 29 January 2020 of the LNP’s disciplined approach to market ideology and to a rigorous assessment of the needs of the wider community. Surely, the Sports Grant issue is a sloppy exercise which is likely to take out the political career of Bridget McKenzie and permanently scar the historical record of Scott Morrison.

Historians will note that Australia was recovering from the excesses of the Abbott Government’s austerity programmes to be plunged into a deeper morass after the toppling of Malcolm Turnbull.