Seven years later…
The Liberal Party have a very handy page that lists their achievements over the last 7 years, 4 months and 11 days (not that I’m counting).
Here are a few they neglected to mention:
The highest debt and deficit in history.
The first recession in thirty years.
The lowest wage growth in history despite company profits increasing by well over 50% overall and doubling for manufacturing and mining since 2013
Increasingly tenuous employment with contract, casual, part-time and gig economy jobs on the rise with the subsequent loss of workplace protection. Underemployment is a huge problem at well over 10%.
Relentless and unceasing prosecution and persecution of unions, from Royal Commissions to Double Dissolution elections, whilst corporate malfeasance goes unpunished, government accountability arms like the National Auditor and FOI office are decimated, and whistleblowers and journalists are hounded and threatened.
Slashing foreign aid whilst spending unprecedented gobsmacking amounts on defence.
Slashing the ABC budget and attempting to exert editorial influence whilst giving Murdoch’s pay tv tens of millions of dollars with no specific requirement or oversight or tender.
Abolishing carbon-pricing and replacing it with Angus Taylor handing over public funds to polluters. From 2007 until carbon pricing was repealed in 2014, emissions dropped by 94.8 Mt CO2-e. From 2014 to 2019, they dropped by 8.6 Mt CO2-e.
Disproportionate and increasing rates of Indigenous incarceration, child removal, and suicide. In December 2019 the incarceration rate was 2,536 prisoners per 100,000 adult Aboriginal population, compared to 218 prisoners per 100,000 non-Aboriginal population.
A brand new $50+ billion dollar NBN that gives us speeds slower than India, Kazakhstan or Latvia – 68th out of 177 countries.
International condemnation and hundreds of billions wasted for the illegal indefinite incarceration of asylum seekers in offshore gulags and the negligence in failing to protect, let alone care for, people who came seeking our help. (For pity’s sake, or purely economic and common sense reasons, free the family from Biloela.)
Knifing two sitting Prime Ministers. I wonder if Michaelia Cash has had a chance to revisit her Sisterhood screech since appearing with Judas Cormann in the courtyard.
Huge increases in university fees, childcare costs, and private healthcare.
Scandalous water theft leaving waterways dry and millions of fish dead.
Refusal to listen to warnings about catastrophic fire threats and the need for a domestic airborne fire-fighting capability resulting in overwhelming loss of flora, fauna, infrastructure, property and human lives.
Disproportionate increases in private school funding, a skewing of the history curriculum to an homage to white supremacy, and the removal of sustainability and Indigenous culture/history as core components.
A Foreign Minister who, for the sake of something to say on a morning tv show, showed that we can out-Trump Trump on the ‘China virus’, leading to a total breakdown in trade and diplomatic communication. That’ll shirtfront ya!
Government contracts are bestowed on friends, associates and donors with no tender process, and grants are sweeteners to be doled out where politically expedient. Jobs for the boys and girls are blatantly handed around, and they keep preselecting and enabling the likes of Craig Kelly and George Christensen…
And a significant number of them thought Peter Dutton would be a good Prime Minister. That, in itself, makes them unfit to govern.
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53 comments
Login here Register hereWelcome back Kaye Lee, seems like a while since we have enjoyed your penetrating analysis. Given the recent events in The Netherlands, I am surprised not to see reference to Robodebt but then, how long would an article be if absolutely every one of this mis-government’s egregious malfeasances was mentioned?
It might indeed equate to the Washington Post’s constantly updated list of Trump’s lies which, if I recall rightly stood somewhere beyond 25 000. At least we will soon be rid of that apogee of US Presidential awfulness.
And bravo for the shout-out re the Biloela family which, to my mind, is the single most emblematic instance of this government’s unfitness to govern. Hmmm hyperbole Romeo?
Yes, Robodebt should have got a mention. Keep em coming.
I also neglected to mention the horrific state of aged care.
Somehow we need to work out how they get elected, and stop it happening again. One reason might be the leaderless ineffective opposition. Too many people who don’t care about others less fortunate, the greedy ones who only vote for a party that promises not to take anything from them. The Murdoch Press and all their business mates who pay zero tax.
I am so disillusioned.
Welcome back Kaye Lee, your excellent articles have been sorely missed!!
What about that champion of “Nazional$, the representative of the Nazional$ in New England, best known for his practising those ”Nazional$ family values” of adultery, alcoholism, bigotry, cronyism, deceit, egotism, fornication & misogyny, whose dealings included paying $80 MILLION for an empty glass of MDB water, and participating in the sale of Armidale drinking water from Malpas Dam to Costa Guyra Tomato Farm at a price heavily subsidised by Armidale ratepayers, for the benefit of future ”political donations” to the metropolitan based unelected Party hacks in their airconditioned metropolitan offices?
Ripper, Kaye. You’ve lost none of your brilliance.
So glad to have your comments to read again, Kaye. A dear friend who passed away late last year and I used to delight in your penetrating comments with their knock-out blows in the last paragraph or two. I have kept as many of your comments as I could find in a file. I look forward to your further demolitions of ScoMo, or ProMe as my friend and I used to call him. His feeble murmurs about the disgraceful, dangerous assault on the US Capitol building are likewise dangerous and encouraging to far-right groups in Oz.
And Abbott took money out of Julia Gillard’s Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse to spend on his failed union witch-hunt.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Coalition needed a rule written down to tell them that it was inappropriate to have sexual relations with junior staffers.
Jamie Briggs, Barnaby Joyce….and a little bird tells me we haven’t heard the last of the Christian Porter and Alan Tudge imbroglios.
But hallelujah and praise the Lord, Christian family values and all that.
Also the cashless welfare card and the Abbott suppository of all wisdom.
Oh yes, the cashless welfare card must rate a mention. Help people to take responsibility by removing all agency (and choice) from them.
Spot on Kaye Lee re cashless welfare card.
The cashless welfare card will be the end of this government if they put age pensioners on it.
And the postal vote for same-sex marriage. At a cost of approximately $122 million we worked out what we already knew, 61.6 per cent yes and 38.4 per cent no.
And let us not forget the abandonment of Julian Assange by a government not prepared to support its own citizen whose only crime was to expose crimes committed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Welcome article and this is what Labor needs to do till an election campaign is announced; get voters aware now versus waiting for a campaign.
The LNP has several weaknesses including HR, but also the issues they promote negatively have little impact on their target voting audience in the above median age vote, whether retiree or pensioner, vs. long term impact upon younger generations; UK’s Brexit good example.
Further, can compare with the IPA’s wish list (imported from US Koch managed radical right libertarian ideological think tanks) on policies already public, and predict what future policies may lie ahead……
First time I have read any of your articles Kaye Lee. I am looking forward to reading more. An independent Media that is not influenced by Murdoch. Thank you.
Wowo, kaye,
I can hear the cheers at every sentence with one long boo:
July 17 2007 Liberal prime minister John Howard announces a carbon trading scheme will be set up if he wins the 2007 federal election. “Implementing an emissions trading scheme and setting a long-term goal for reducing emissions will be the most momentous economic decision Australia will take in the next decade,” he tells ABC’s AM program.
Dec 3 2007 After Labor wins the November 2007 federal election, prime minister Kevin Rudd ratifies the Kyoto Protocol.
A year later Labor commits to a (CPRS) cap-and-trade scheme which it wants to start by July 2010. August 2009 Emissions trading legislation voted down in Parliament for the first time
Late 2009 Prime minister Kevin Rudd negotiates a deal with opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull on amendments to the CPRS. Mr Turnbull urges Coalition MPs to support the revised scheme
Dec 2009 Tony Abbott replaces Mr Turnbull as leader and withdraws Coalition support for the scheme.
The CPRS is voted down in Parliament for a second time. unbelievably losing in the senate thereby cementing the rabbott in the opposition to climate action.
Feb 2 2010 Opposition leader Tony Abbott announces a policy for a fund, now worth $2.5 billion, to provide incentives to farmers and industries to reduce emissions. “Our policy will deliver the same emissions reductions as the Government’s, but without the Government’s great big new tax”.
April 2010, Prime minister Kevin Rudd puts its emissions trading scheme on hold until at least 2013, after accepting the Senate is unlikely to pass the legislation any time soon.
Support for Labor drops in opinion polls.
Gillard topples the lemon but loses the ‘juliar’ debate over ETS being a TAX. and 7 years of bullshit on greenhouse gas emission and global warming ensue.
How many more???
Well said!
Also, I wonder if the total mishandling of NDIS should also be listed? IIRC they allocated a certain amount of money, then didn’t spend it, denying people who genuinely needed access to services.
IMHO The Indue Welfare card should be treated as a crime against humanity. Not just for putting age pensioners on it, but also people on disability. For many disability does not mean a total (or even any) loss of ability to manage one’s finances.I’m sorry, I feel physically ill every time I think about this subject.
While highlighting LNP failures resonates with the Labor heartland, it doesn’t win elections.
But what to do? Even bigger and better lists? Or a different approach? Any ideas?
Abbott sacking Department Secretaries who believed in climate change:
What to do? A Labor Green coalition with clear policies to counter current Liberal wrongdoing as outlined above which are then taught to an army of volunteers who door knock and campaign in the next election. Let’s have honest politicians elected next time who show they care about the disadvantages perpetrated by our current so-called leadership, more accurately viewed as pigs at a trough. The campaigners for the honest politicians will show how they will tackle and redress the evils. They will use simple language and local issues and persuade voters to support honesty and integrity. Must be do-able surely? On with our walking shoes…
So good to see you have returned KL with your usual forensic writing.
The Guardian Australia’s lead story today overviews the tardiness and refusal to implement the recommendations of the Hayne Royal Commission into the banking industry.
I could not see anything on this matter in Nine’s ‘ The Age’ , but then with Peter Costello at the head of that organisation now.
Anthropologists looking at the photo know that if they want to study knuckle dragging grunting cavemen they only need to visit the LNP gubmint here in Australia.
Kronomex, I learnt at uni that Neanderthals have been extinct for over 40,000 years. Not true. I saw dozens of them in the LNP ranks when sitting in the gallery during Question Time.
Next time I go I’ll take a large note pad and treat it like an anthropology field trip.
And yet half the country will vote for them again because they’re ‘better at managing the economy’!
When will Albo slip into stride?
There’s tons of data our there that proves Labor are better managers of the economy, but Howard wouldn’t go a day without saying how good the Liberals are. It was drummed into peoples’ mind then, and they still believe it now.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/01/18/michael-pascoe-grant-rorts/
Sorry can’t seem to get link right, perhaps a non dinosaur in the audience can get it right.
Well worth a read, absolutely outrageous what these corrupt unflushable turds are getting away with. Not accountable, no shame, no morals headed by a smirking fucking jerk. Honourable members? Yeah, right. Upstanding christians? Yeah, right, as the Biloela family pass 1000 days in custody, two adults, two children, one bed. It really would make brown dog weep.
Aren’t ya proud to be Australian?
Grant rorts story in yesterday’s New Daily. Cheers Kaye, hope all is well.
All’s well, link seems to work.
Seems the comment the above refers to being held by the censors. Oh well, back later, repost link minus comments if necessary.
Both recent comments being held by the censor. Why?
If I post something inconsequential, will I make it past the censor?
I think I’m up to three posts disappeared now, if I use different name, I wonder, will that make a difference, give it a go next time. Made it through, woopee, give link a go again
@Vikingduk there was a problem with the link and that could’ve been why it didn’t post for you. all good now.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2021/01/18michael-pascoe-grant-rorts/?utm_campaign=Morning%20News%20-%2020210118
Thankyou@Kathy. Doesn’t explain what happened to the disappeared comments, though. Perhaps they’ll reappear or a moderator has explanation. Cheers.
@Vikingduk the link you’ve reposted above doesn’t work as there’s a backslash missing between number 18 and michael. I’m not sure either why your comments went into the pending folder.
I think you forgot robodebt, unprecedented corruption, sports rorts,McCormack’s regional funding, NDIS, parliamentary bonking, complete and utter neglect of FOI, koala killing (amongst many other local flora and fauna), aged care,coronavirus, etc. I am sure there are many more I have forgotten for the moment.
It’s a mystery, Vikingduk. There’s no way that we’d ever hold your comments for moderation, so all I can put it down to is a glitch in the system. They happen, though they are rare. Nonetheless, I apologise for the inconvenience.
Kath, thanks for fixing. I was out in the garden fighting with a self-installed drip system.
All good Michael. We were fixing up a sprinkler system yesterday too. Fun to do when it’s super hot as it is over here in the west at the moment.
Vikingduk, obvious the mods have been bought off by the government.
Trepidous times…
No. This govt only gives money to the wealthy. I’m only $249,999,999 short or I’d qualify.
On the chance that the LNP will hold an election around the end of 2021, I hope that Labor has super great plans and policies on how to convince Australians to vote Labor, because the LNP will continue to market how well they have done with Covid and how well they have done with the economy. No matter what we think on this forum, convincing the average voter to back Labor again is going to be a massive challenge. Unfortunately most wear blinkers.
Sorry, Michael, Neanderthals not only had a brain but it was larger than sapiens, making them unlikely to be in the LNP.
Sadly, Lynette, if would be ridiculous to form a coalition with an extreme party that has one seat. Certainly, Labor cannot win government without green preferences However, labor will be very lucky to win government with the brandytea led green millstone when Scummo gets rid of the current preferential system.
Spot on Anne it #@$*)(&& time again Albo shape up or ship out!
Rubbish… I watched them unload the armoured car the other day outside your house.
That was after the first one had left.
Re:
That’s one possible strategy but it didn’t work last time even when all the correct stars seemed aligned. Another strategic approach is to provide a whole host of reasons as to why citizens shouldn’t vote for Morrison.(See above,)
At the last election (and generally) – did Morrison win or did Shorten lose? In the US, did Biden (who spent lots of time in his bunker out of the media spotlight) win OR did Trump (who spent considerable time at mass gatherings with saturation media coverage) lose?
Seems to me that Albo is at least considering the let Morrison lose strategy by adopting to date a very low profile. The danger of sites like this is they can become echo chambers with group think flourishing. Hopefully. Albo’s strategists are looking at the really big picture and not paying undue attention to those who will (effectively) vote Labor anyway. Elections are won in the middle and it’s therefore only a few percent that’s ever in play. The trick is to identify those still in play and determine which emotions can be triggered.
Perhaps it might come down to creative types such as Dee Madigan (Campaign Edge) versus Crosby Textor (C|T Group) rather than the policy wonks.
Welcome back Kaye. Your fighting words have been missed.
Has anyone mentioned their gag on democracy and fair debate with “I move that the member be no longer heard”, and the delay in releasing reports, or the constant announcements that never materialise?
Here’s another…
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/environmental-activists-in-the-dark-as-government-refuses-delays-access-to-information-20210114-p56u2p.html
Thank you Kaye.
It really is great to see you back and in fine fettle.
Just a small suggestion: Make a comprehensive list and forward it to the GetUp people who seem to be the only non-political body attempting to right wrongs across the whole spectrum of political shennaneghans.
Cheers
Jesus MN what horror, telling labor to attack their colleagues in the lnp will put you on my side of the fence.
How about agreeing with the logic that greenhouse gases have a greenhouse effect???
I should have read your words properly, Matters Not. Remember the harridans in townsville?? Their antics shi(f)ted enough labor voters, who hoping to keep the jobs they had with coal or were wishing for the, projected jobs from adani, to the lnp who they knew would support those jobs and, bingo, two seats lost.
The Greens increased their vote In Queensland by 1.5% at the 2019 Federal election. I get heartily sick of the attacks on the Greens and the blaming of Bob Browne for the Labor Party’s failings. It is so much easier to blame the Greens than reflect on how wishy washy prevarication left labor in no-man’s land and premature congratulation made them think they didn’t have to actually take a stand.
What’s that saying about better to die on your feet than live on your knees? It’s probably time that Labor realised there are things worth standing up for.
Welcome back kaye, you are wrong about the loonies. Their cash take went up $3m on booby’s van but they now have no influence in the senate except to support the LNP(historically disastrous) Perhaps you can just concentrate on the other man, whom I am sure is, in all but the loonies uxorius and who wants honesty from brandt’s boys about the caravan, its purposeS and the decision on the timing.
He might cave in under maritorius pressure??? It was only from the two of us that you are sick of hearing about the new loonies?? Alyson Horn is a third: “Contrary to even internal polling, no LNP politicians lost their seats. In Adani country, Michelle Landry, George Christensen and Ken O’Dowd recorded swings of up to 15 per cent (after preferences were distributed), to transform their ultra-marginal electorates into comfortably safe seats.” Longmans and Hebert sitting labor members defeated. In the former PHON doubled the loonies. But why let facts influence opinion. You think the greens honourable two of us think they are conning the 10%, QED ps here is a 4th LNP Michelle Landry. “Thank you Bob Brown is all I can say. He came up here trying to tell Queenslanders what we should and shouldn’t be doing, and it actually drew together the agriculture and mining sectors — I’ve never seen anything like it.”
So it is time for you or anyone to give us some evidence of why you think two sitting labor members lost their nth qld seat(or nw tassie???).