Tag Archives: Coalition Government

Day to Day Politics: Pie in the sky politics.

April 1, 2016
Written by: John Lord
22 Replies

Friday April 1 2016

1 The now Abbott/Turnbull Government spent three years in opposition before coming to power in 2013 on the back of Labor leadership dysfunction. During this time Abbott spent an inordinate amount of time being negative, opposing everything.

‘Oppose’, that’s what oppositions do, he said.

Policy groundwork was neglected on the grounds that simply being in office would correct things. When the Australian people gifted them with government it became immediately apparent that, despite the most educated bunch of ministers in Australia’s history, they were policy deficient.

It dogged Abbott for the better part of his tenure. So much so that his leadership was challenged. He survived and made the most astonishing statement that ‘Good Government starts tomorrow.’ In doing so he made a public confession that he had governed badly.

Deplorable government continued unabated to the point where it was no longer tenable. So he was replaced with the more affable personality of Malcolm Turnbull. People’s expectations (including mine) was that a new era of public discourse might come to fruition. It didn’t because Turnbull was unable to be his own man. To get the job he had sold his soul to the extremists of his party. Bequeathed on us was a centre left leader under the control of the right.

He promised a new economic debate centered on tax reform saying that everything was on the table. We quickly found that the menu was so good that everything was gobbled up by the extremes of economic obesity.

The latest addition to the menu is a proposal to allow the states to impose their own income tax to fund schools and health. You won’t mind if we continue to fund the private schools will you?

Yesterday I listened to his interview with Fran Kelly and I was left with the unmistakable impression that this was yet another policy cockup. They haven’t done their homework. It is but a blatant attempt to pass the buck.

For some time now the government has been saying that to repair the budget, cuts have to be made. That cutting expenditure was the answer. Revenue was not the problem. Yet during the interview with Kelly whilst trying to justify his proposal he said:

‘It’s not an attempt to raise taxes but there is a revenue problem’.

There may be some merit in his proposal but can anyone seriously persuade me that the states over time won’t raise taxes to accommodate their needs. Turnbull insists that the State Tax plan isn’t about raising taxes but it is, in fact, the very point of the exercise.

This is simply a handball job. The economic mess the Coalition has made for itself could be fixed if they would put their ideology aside for five minutes, govern for the common good, and take note of the recommendations of CEDA, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia. (See their report ‘Deficit to balance: budget repair options’ laid the basis for economic recovery).

Has anyone considered the individual social inequality this will cause? Or state to state inequality for that matter. Or why would we even need a Federal Government.

What we are experiencing is simply ‘thought bubble on the run politics’. And from a man who should know better. And all because the Abbott/Turnbull Government has placed political egotism and ideology before sound policy development.

Further evidence of this government’s dysfunction was identified when the Treasurer soon after Turnbull’s announced his grand plan appeared to be at odds with his Prime Minister. The best one can say about their relationship is ‘it’s complicated’.

2 For me it’s odds on that the proposal will be rejected with some saving grace for the PM. However, we are no further advanced. A budget is looming in a matter of weeks. A budget that if the Treasurer is true to his word that spending is the only means of repairing the budget, should be a shocker. It has to be if he is fair dinkum. And what about the billions still there from the 2014 that is still stuck in the Senate? He can’t continue to leave it on the books, surely.

It’s hard to believe just how badly this Government is playing the political game.

3 Peta Credlin is to appear on Sky News as an election commentator. They apparently wanted her to join with Bolt to give the channel objectivity.

4 Billionaire retailer Jerry Harvey, the man who views the world through the prism of his own cash registers, reckons we need a two tier wage system where cheap labour is plentiful.

‘Australia doesn’t have cheap labour. Many overseas workers would be prepared to move here for a much better life and half the money Australians earn … I’ve got horse studs and it’s difficult to get staff‘ he said.

5 Conversely, I was reading the daily Morgan Report and would you believe the Fair Work Ombudsman did a nationwide investigation into the fast-food sector and found that nearly half (47 per cent) of 565 spot-checked employers have not been paying their staff correctly, with workers being paid as low as $6 per hour compared to the statutory minimum of $17.25 per hour.

The Fair Work Ombudsman’s investigation found that in nearly one-third of cases, the flat hourly rate paid by the employer to its workers was not enough to cover hours attracting penalty rates and loadings, resulting in underpayments for which an employer could be ordered to compensate the underpaid worker, and fined for breach of the applicable Industrial Award.

Royal Commission anyone?

6 Just when we thought Donald Trump couldn’t go any lower, he does.

Trump was asked by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to define his ‘pro-life’ stance and assertions that abortion should be banned.

‘Do you believe in punishment for abortion – yes or no – as a principle?’ asked Matthews, during the taping of a town hall event.

‘The answer is there has to be some form of punishment,’ said Trump.

‘For the woman?’ Matthews said.

‘Yeah, there has to be some form’ Trump replied.

‘Ten cents, 10 years, what?’ Matthews asked again, pressing.

‘That I don’t know,’ said Trump.

My Thought for the day.

‘At some time in the human narrative ... in our history, man declared himself superior to women. It must have been an accident, or at least an act of gross stupidity. But that’s men for you’.

Day to Day Politics: Is the IPA getting its way?

March 13, 2016
Written by: John Lord
29 Replies

Sunday March 13 2016

The Insidious Invasion of the IPA into Australian Politics, or Public Apathy and 75 Ideas to Make You Shudder.

The Institute of Public Affairs is a free market right-wing think tank that is funded by some of Australia’s major companies and is closely aligned to the Liberal Party.

In April 2013 it held its 70^th Birthday Bash with Rupert Murdoch as its keynote speaker. Andrew Bolt was the Master of Ceremonies. Special guests included Gina Rinehart, Cardinal George Pell and many other conservative luminaries. A special address by then opposition leader Tony Abbott was a highlight.

The IPA put forward 75 proposals for a future Abbott government to consider. They were accompanied by an article titled: ‘Be like Gough: 75 radical ideas to transform Australia’ and attributed to John Roskam, Chris Berg and James Paterson.

Here is a short extract.

“If he wins government, Abbott faces a clear choice. He could simply overturn one or two symbolic Gillard-era policies like the carbon tax, and govern moderately. He would not offend any interest groups. In doing so, he’d probably secure a couple of terms in office for himself and the Liberal Party. But would this be a successful government? We don’t believe so. The remorseless drift to bigger government and less freedom would not halt, and it would resume with vigor when the Coalition eventually loses office. We hope he grasps the opportunity to fundamentally reshape the political culture and stem the assault on individual liberty.”

In his speech Abbott acknowledged the Institute’s input into LNP policy and took the opportunity to commit to a whole raft of big promises to radically change the culture and political landscape of Australia.

“I want to assure you,” he said, “that the Coalition will indeed repeal the carbon tax, abolish the department of climate change, and abolish the Clean Energy Fund. We will repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, at least in its current form. We will abolish new health and environmental bureaucracies. We will deliver $1 billion in red-tape savings every year. We will develop northern Australia. We will repeal the mining tax. We will create a one-stop shop for environmental approvals. We will privatise Medibank Private. We will trim the public service and we will stop throwing good money after bad on the NBN.”

True to his word he made a decent hole in the list. He stopped subsidies to the car industry, eliminated (partly) Family Tax Benefits, destroyed the ABC’s Australia network, abandoned poker machine reform, and negotiated free trade deals with Japan, South Korea, China and India. Albeit without much detail. The NBN is now nothing like what was originally intended or needed.

An observation.

‘The problem with designing a network to meet the needs of today is that it denies you the ability to meet the needs of tomorrow’.

It doesn’t end there. He might not have abolished the Human Rights Commission, but has cut $1.65 million from its budget. It refused to renew the position of its disability commissioner and without due process appointed one of the IPAs own in Tim Wilson as a commissioner. (Since departed) Attorney-General George Brandis has flagged an intention to “further reform” the HRC.

The Australian National Preventive Health Agency also went and the food, alcohol and tobacco companies fell over with gratitude.

The IPA, not content with its list of 75 has added a further 25 items for the government’s consideration. They may not get them all, but the big fish is the institute’s desire to have all media ownership laws eliminated, for example, along with the relevant regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and requirements put in place that radio and TV broadcasts be “balanced”.

The then communications minister Malcolm Turnbull sought to change the media rules with the likely outcome: more concentration in Australia’s media, already the most concentrated and least diverse in the developed world. More influence for the IPA and Rupert Murdoch.

It makes you wonder just who is governing. The government or the IPA. Or, it at the very least, brings into question the influence lobby groups have over governments. Particularly extreme right think tanks like the IPA who seem only to exist for the benefit of big business, the rich and the privileged.

In a lifetime of following politics in this country I have never known the electorate to be in such a political malaise. A non-caring, non-knowing apathy seems to have gripped the nation. The polls tell us that a large portion of the population supports a government that is performing incompetently with a leader equally doing so.

John Howard said that people these days care little for ideology. He is correct. The undecided 10% that once decided elections has expanded to 20%. People just want good policy that represents the common good.

People need to remember that the isms, be it Capitalism, Socialism, Fascism, Conservatism, Liberalism or Communism are only economic THEORIES! They are nothing more than words written on paper. They are not active and they do nothing. Each theory is neither good nor bad. Each theory is ultimately what the people make of them. Democracy is nothing more than a theory. Our constitution is nothing more or nothing less than what we make of it.

The US Constitution and Bill of Rights have no authority. They are nothing more than what the American people make of them. When, because of our apathy we choose to ignore and neglect our government it is easily influenced by self-interest groups like the IPA- to serve their own purposes and there is nothing that says that those who come to manage the government must be ethical, moral, or responsible to the people. When good people neglect their government they are then governed by lesser people. We then end up with the government we deserve.

In an article I wrote just prior to Abbott’s election I said this:

’I am in fact absolutely frightened, no petrified by the prospect that he might win and the devastation he might create with his inane personality, his reliance on lobbyists and right-wing think tanks to form policy. Also on his Catholicism and the mediocre minds of his shadow cabinet cohort’.

The rest of course is history and now we are confronted with a government led by a leader who is not his own man with all Abbott’s IPA inspired policies. A government that has lurched so far to the right that it is in dander of falling from a flat earth mindset.

The 75 IPA Ideas to send a shiver down your spine.

I had intended to comment on some of the individual proposals but on reflection thought it best to allow the reader to draw his or her own conclusions and comment if they so desire. The best advice I can give is to be seated while reading. A shot of whiskey might also help.

This of course is not to say that some don’t have merit.

1 Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.

2 Abolish the Department of Climate Change

3 Abolish the Clean Energy Fund

4 Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act

5 Abandon Australia’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council

6 Repeal the renewable energy target

7 Return income taxing powers to the states

8 Abolish the Commonwealth Grants Commission

9 Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

10 Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol

11 Introduce fee competition to Australian universities

12 Repeal the National Curriculum

13 Introduce competing private secondary school curriculums

14 Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)

15 Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be ‘balanced’

16 Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law

17 End local content requirements for Australian television stations

18 Eliminate family tax benefits

19 Abandon the paid parental leave scheme

20 Means-test Medicare

21 End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education

22 Introduce voluntary voting

23 End mandatory disclosures on political donations

24 End media blackout in final days of election campaigns

25 End public funding to political parties

26 Remove anti-dumping laws

27 Eliminate media ownership restrictions

28 Abolish the Foreign Investment Review Board

29 Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency

30 Cease subsidising the car industry

31 Formalise a one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction

32 Rule out federal funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games

33 Deregulate the parallel importation of books

34 End preferences for Industry Super Funds in workplace relations laws

35 Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a percentage of GDP

36 Legislate a balanced budget amendment which strictly limits the size of budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in deficit

37 Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database

38 Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food

39 Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities

40 Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools

41 Repeal the alcopops tax

42 Introduce a special economic zone in the north of Australia including:

a) Lower personal income tax for residents
b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers
c) Encourage the construction of dams

43 Repeal the mining tax

44 Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states

45 Introduce a single rate of income tax with a generous tax-free threshold

46 Cut company tax to an internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent

47 Cease funding the Australia Network

48 Privatise Australia Post

49 Privatise Medibank

50 Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function

51 Privatise SBS

52 Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784

53 Repeal the Fair Work Act

54 Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them

55 Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors

56 Abolish the Baby Bonus

57 Abolish the First Home Owners’ Grant

58 Allow the Northern Territory to become a state

59 Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16

60 Remove all remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade

61 Slash top public servant salaries to much lower international standards, like in the United States

62 End all public subsidies to sport and the arts

63 Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport

64 End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering

65 Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification

66 Rule out any government-supported or mandated internet censorship

67 Means test tertiary student loans

68 Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement

69 Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built

70 End all government funded Nanny State advertising

71 Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling

72 Privatise the CSIRO

73 Defund Harmony Day

74 Close the Office for Youth

75 Privatise the Snowy-Hydro Scheme

MY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

‘The left of politics is concerned with people who cannot help themselves. The right is concerned with those who can.’

Day to Day Politics: the Gospel according to Craig

March 11, 2016
Written by: John Lord
9 Replies

A departure from my usual post today. Craig Emerson is a Facebook friend and posted this last week. A witty piece of satire indeed. Hope you enjoy.

A Biblical, satirical piece of mine about the capturing of the tax reform debate by vested interests – the money changers. For those brethren who prefer to cut to the proverbial chase, go straight to the final two verses of the reading.

The second coming…

As commentators attack Prime Minister Turnbull for squibbing bold tax reform and he attacks Bill Shorten for proposing a sensible reform of his own, the public discourse on tax policy has fallen apart. The centre cannot hold against the anarchy being loosed upon the world by the worst – the money changers – full, as they are, of passionate intensity. Everywhere the endeavour of the innocents who offer dispassionate analysis is drowned in a blood-dimmed tide.

While comparing the corruption of the tax reform debate by vested interests with the end of civilisation prophesised by Yeats after the Great War might be slightly melodramatic, it is true that a barrage has been loosed against innocents who simply ask what is best for our country. Defenders of privilege load up their economic models as they would huge howitzers – Big Berthas – bombarding defenseless reformers with explosive findings: it is the working poor who will suffer from closing down tax shelters, not the privileged.

During the apocalyptic second coming of tax reform after the Abbott government’s failure, our freshly anointed leader was confronted by a vast image appearing in the sky out of Spiritus Mundi – a spirit world of images and symbols available only to the most perceptive, such as poets and highly intelligent prime ministers. It was the GST. And it was endowed with mystical qualities: it could pay for cuts in income taxes that would transform the nation into a land of milk and honey, free of famine, pestilence, earthquakes and even locusts.

But the image in the sky troubled the prime minister – and more so his predecessor’s loyal foot soldiers – so he instructed the high priests of the Treasury to inquire further into these mystical powers. With the patience of Job, the prime minister awaited the high priests’ findings. He need not have done so. Half a year ago the high priests of the Treasury had released a scripture titled Understanding the economy-wide efficiency and incidence of major Australian taxes (Isaiah 61:1 “The Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor”). The high priests estimated that the fabled tax-mix switch would produce one litre of milk, no honey and a plague of locusts.

Be-plagued by locusts, the prime minister was handed the scripture 31 days after the most recent celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. He promptly declared the mystical being the shadow of death into whose valley he had no intention of walking. Every money changer in the land and the media scribes and Pharisees attacked the prime minister for this wise decision to dismiss the mystical being in the sky. In his anger, the prime minister expelled the money changers from the temple and enunciated the seven woes of the scribes and Pharisees.

Having been led once into the valley of the shadow of death by the scribes, Pharisees and money changers, the prime minister appears to have become spooked by them. He has turned to attacking his rival, Brother Shorten, who wants to use the proceeds of lower subsidies on the rental incomes the money changers receive on their holdings of houses, apartments and temples to improve the life chances of the meek. Behold, it is the meek who will suffer at the hands of Brother Bill, warns the prime minister.

Yet frightening those who hunger and thirst for righteousness is not in the prime minister’s nature. When the anointed one succeeded his predecessor, his flock looked to him as their shepherd, willing him to lead them and trusting in him to know the way and, ideally, the truth and the light. But now, as the anointed one seeks to fend off his predecessor’s efforts at a second coming, the prime minister risks remaking himself in his predecessor’s own image and likeness.

If ours is to be the land of opportunity where the poor in spirit are given a chance, we must fund their education. If we are to comfort those who mourn, we must support them through hard times. If we are to end domestic violence and persecution, if we are to make peace on earth, then we must pay taxes to finance these noble endeavours. Caring for the sick, the frail and the elderly obliges us to be merciful, to be pure of heart. The people of our great nation are merciful, they are good-hearted and they are willing to pay their fair share in taxes to support those who need a helping hand. So let’s appeal to the better angels of the Australian people instead of promising them tax cuts to be handed down by the spirit in the sky.

Craig Emerson.

My thought for the day

Religion in many ways is akin to Politics in so much as it believes that telling the truth isn’t necessarily in its best interests.

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Day to Day Politics: Gutless leadership.

March 10, 2016
Written by: John Lord
21 Replies

Thursday 10 March 2016

1 I have been writing daily about Malcolm Turnbull’s takeover of the Liberal Party leadership. Anyone who follows my writing will attest to me at first embracing him as a new light on the hill. I said that Australians would be eternally grateful to him for removing the greatest liar of a politician the country had endured. He would bring a new era of reasoned political discourse.

For the ensuring five months it became apparent that despite his eloquent, articulate and grandiose statements, he had no plan, no economic reform agenda and his only motive has been one of self-interest. There was nothing to reasonably debate.

Some said I was overreacting and he just needed more time. Well I’m pleased that yesterday one of their own in former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett said it like it is.

Jeff, whether you liked him or not could never be accused of holding back. I got to ask him a question at a function many years ago. I asked him why he was going to an election when there was no reason to do so. His answer was a lie but forcefully put.

Anyhow, this is what he had to say about Malcolm Turnbull during a 2UE radio interview on Wednesday:

‘When they changed leaders, I thought we were in for a period of government, a period of stability, a period in which policy was going to be enunciated.’

‘This talk about an early election is an indication, sadly, that the government does not have a plan for the future of the country and they are trying, I think, to use this talk of a double dissolution, an early election, simply to cover up their own failings.’

Mr Kennett said the Prime Minister ‘did not have any plan at all’ when he took the leadership ‘for his own self-interest’.

He added that Turnbull had received much public goodwill in taking over the leadership but had squandered it with his failure to create a narrative when the public was ‘craving good leadership’.

‘What they can’t stand is vacillation where politicians don’t have the courage, in this case in my opinion, to put the interests of the country well before their own and their own party’.

He went on to say that he had failed to stand by his beliefs on negative gearing and same-sex marriage:

‘We don’t need a plebiscite on this. We don’t need to waste another $139 million on a vote. If Malcolm had any courage, he would have simply stood up and said ‘I’m going to put this through the Parliament.’ What he’s saying now: ‘This decision, this policy position was decided by Tony Abbott and we’re going to stay with it,’ he said.

‘There’s a good example of where Malcolm set himself apart from Tony Abbott and yet, when he took on the leadership, he hid behind Tony’s clothes and did not have the courage of his conviction and that applies right across the board.’

Nothing different in all that than what I have been saying for some time. At the risk of repeating myself the fact is that he never had any policy to bring to the table, nor the conviction of his own beliefs. We have a ‘yes’ man, a hypocrite doing what he is told to by the extremists in his party.

2 The total absurdity of the Government’s Asylum seeker deal with Cambodia is revealed with a married Iranian couple who were once refugees on Nauru deciding to return to Iran. The deal has cost $55 million so far. Put that together with the $160 million for a nonsensical plebiscite and you have $215 million of taxpayer’s money being wasted on bad decisions. Now it doesn’t take much imagination to know what could be done with those sorts of dollars.

Their inability to secure alternative resettlement arrangements means that those in detention may remain so for the rest of their lives. No, I’m not joking.

3 A reader yesterday asked if I could give an overview of The Australian newspapers contents because it’s behind a paywall. Well I don’t read it for the same reason. I’ll have a stab at it though.

One headline refers to the election date but it’s not news because it seems that the PM is confused himself. Another asks the question ‘Will Windsor Challenge?’ The answer to that is that we will know today. Recent polls in New England suggest Windsor would give it a great shake. Wouldn’t it be great if his brain replaced that of Barnaby Joyce? The Parliament would be a better place.

Yet another headline – ‘Pull Libs out of Ice Age’ – refers to the right of the party insisting on a series of debates on Climate Change insisting that the science isn’t settled.

Conversely, The Guardian reported it like this:

‘Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has reportedly been heckled by parts of his party at a meeting where NSW Liberals voted for his government to conduct public debates about climate change and whether the science is settled.’

‘An overwhelming majority voted in favour of the motion at the party’s state council meeting on the NSW central coast following a speech by Mr Turnbull at the weekend, revealing the persisting level of climate change scepticism among the party, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.’

I know it’s hard to believe, but there it is.

An observation. A repeated one.

‘In terms of the environment. I wonder what price the people of tomorrow will pay for the stupidity of today’.

There is another headline about the ‘Risks mounting in poll timing’ another ‘PM might be in for a tough ride’ yet another talking about Turnbull’s confusion about the date of the poll and its effect on the budget.

All in all The Australian wasn’t its usual biased self.

4 I have also been warning about the public unrest a plebiscite on Marriage Equality might bring. Now I wouldn’t normally find myself on the same page as Alan Jones but he said this.

‘That means there must be a case presented for and against,” he said. “It could be angry and spiteful and divisive, the last thing we need. Many Australians have suffered enough as a result of their sexuality.’

5 Greens members who often comment on this blog must feel utterly betrayed with their party jumping into bed with the Conservatives. They joined the Greens because Labor wasn’t left enough and now the party is doing deals with the right.

DiNatale said this:

‘We are the natural home of progressive mainstream Australian voters…’

Is he saying that conservatives are progressive? Never heard such a thing. Is it all a hoax?

My thought for the day

‘On the NBN. The problem with designing a network to meet the needs of today is that it denies you the ability to meet the needs of tomorrow’.

PS I have it on good authority that the fixer has privately lobbied a broadcaster to help stop independent senator Nick Xenophon from running a candidate in his seat.

Day to Day Politics: ‘Shambolic’ – I cannot think of a better word.

March 8, 2016
Written by: John Lord
26 Replies

Tuesday 8 March 2016

1 One would have thought that after Tony Abbott was disposed of, the good government that we were promised so often might have actually occurred. It hasn’t. Malcolm Turnbull, with fine words, promised a new beginning and the public believed him. Words like reason, transparency, rational debate and policy explanation.

Two events over the past days in part explain that we have had a dysfunctional government for two and a half years. Not just dysfunctional, but incompetent. A first blush overview of Niki Savva’s book reveals a Prime Minister totally under the influence of a control freak with an intimidating disposition. Someone with an obsessive personality that borders on the pathological.

However, nothing demonstrates the absurdity of this government more than George Brandis’s announcement of a plebiscite on Marriage Equality before Christmas. When I first heard it I immediately assumed, I think as Brandis did, a July election, because the AEO had said that they needed 6 months to organise it. It would be impossible to have one if the election were to be in August/September and the voters would be upset, let alone the cost, if they had to go back to the polls a second time.

Why not have the Plebiscite at the same time as the election and save $160 million. Then, as the afternoon wore on and Turnbull’s office began retracting, it became manifestly clear that chaos was the order of the day.

Has Brandis put his foot in it? I think he has. I don’t think they have a policy on Marriage Equality other than to delay and delay.

Everything about this government points to a shambolic cabinet who haven’t the faintest idea what they are doing. Credlin controlled Abbott, the far right controls Turnbull. Turnbull has no authority and no guts for decision-making.

All he can offer is that the government was committed to holding the plebiscite ‘as soon after the election as can be done’.

Only a government in disarray could make an announcement before lunch and take it off the table prior to dinner. What a shambles.

An observation.

‘The secret of change is to focus all your energy on not fighting the old but on building the new’.

2 The revelations in Savva’s book ‘Road to Ruin’ are truly astonishing and deserve the country’s attention. Abbott often said that if our democracy was under threat it was because of the people who occupy government from time to time. He meant Labor of course, but he might have been looking in a mirror when he said it.

In the recipe of good leadership one of the vital ingredients is delegation. Having the confidence in one’s underlings to make decisions. The control Credlin imposed on the PMs Office leaves one’s head spinning. From foreign affairs to office decorations. Stuff that you wouldn’t experience in the biggest companies’ boardrooms. Even a quick scan of the accusations in her book make for astonishing reading.

It may not have been an affair in the conventional sense we understand, but it was a most unusual political one to say the least. One that could always be viewed with scandalous observation.

Tony Abbott’s response was to say: ‘The best response to this book is in the objective record of the Abbott government’.

An empty, highly debatable response at that. The problems of the Abbott Government didn’t start in Government but in Opposition where blind negativity was the order of the day replacing policy development. That’s where the dysfunctionality begun. He thought that just gaining office would put everything right.

The disclosure that it was Joe Hockey, now our Ambassador to the US, who broke a valuable marble table fills me with disgust. As does the instruction to Bishop not to apologise over the cost of a chopper.

Everyone with meagre political observational skills noted that Margie was only ever trotted out in crisis situations.

An observation.

‘In the recipe of good leadership there are many ingredients. Popularity is but one. It, however, ranks far below getting things done for the common good’.

3 Eight Coalition and 8 retiring Labor MPs are set to qualify for Parliamentary Pensions and most will be paid a minimum of $118,125.00 – or 75 per cent of a current MP’s base salary for superannuation purposes of $157,500.00.

Why don’t the sheeple protest?

4 Meanwhile in the US. ‘Only in the US,’ Donald Trump, in scenes reminiscent of a Hitler rally, asked, no demanded, that thousands of people at a rally swear an oath of allegiance. And they did. It was a scene that people of my vintage thought we might never experience again.

‘I do solemnly swear that I, no matter how I feel, no matter what the conditions, if there are hurricanes or whatever, will vote on or before the 12th for Donald J Trump for president.’

5 After last week’s embarrassing debacle over Negative Gearing you might have thought that The Australian might leave the chill of those waters behind for a while. But no, yesterday’s headline read: ‘Labor’s crackdown on negative gearing ‘a threat to small business’.

6 Peter Costello has warned against changes to Negative Gearing, Superannuation, and Capital Gains Tax. In fact he has urged Scott Morrison to maintain the generously immoral superannuation and tax arrangements of his tenure for the rich and privileged.

On the evidence thus far the Government never had a reform policy in the first place. They just needed something to talk about. Something they are good at.

7 I think I will stop here. I’m becoming very depressed of late about the way in which we are governed. The disrespect that we are treated with. The incompetence. Government for self; abounds. There is a stench about it that is contributing to the way I feel.

I wrote last week that this mob has degrees from the world’s finest learning institutions dripping from the walls of their parliamentary offices but all the learning seems unsuitable for good governance. The problem is that that conservative ideology and practical common sense just don’t mix.

I’m not sure that I want to read ‘Road to Ruin’ but I probably will. What seems to give the book integrity and is compelling about Niki Savva’s writing, is the number of sources who have gone on the record.

My thought for the day.

‘A commitment to social justice demands the transformation of social structures as well as our hearts and minds’.

A dirty deal to drown out our inner voice

February 27, 2016
Written by: Trish Corry
349 Replies

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” Steve Jobs, 2005

Voices, opinions and narrative shape a society in a free democracy. This is a crucial underlying construct of our ‘Australian Culture.’ It is one of the essential freedoms we enjoy as a country. Our voices, my voice, your voice shapes us.

The right to use our voice to protest. The right to use our voice to use social media and other platforms to speak up loudly for or against issues. The right for journalists to report on sensitive issues and to criticise the Government. The right to nominate as a voice in our parliament and the right to vote for that voice.

Sometimes debate in our country is a lovely, manicured clear pathway and sometimes our debate is a thick forest with bruising scrub, dry arid land, harsh conditions, thorns that cut and grab and where we have to step around snakes with fear and angst.

However, it is our inner voice which allows us to block out the loud opinions of others and look up above that noise to the wisest of owls who will guide us out, beyond the snakes and to the other side to a place of peace and tranquility.

Every single person’s landscape of peace and tranquility is not the same. Some will find that peace in a conservative landscape, an authoritarian landscape, a socialist landscape, a (small l) liberal landscape or a libertarian landscape. For some people, depending on the issue at hand, they might find they have unfolded their deckchair and soaked up the sun in different landscapes over time. For example, some may sit in the socialist landscape for worker’s rights, but will also sit in the punitive and conservative landscape to advocate for the death penalty.

There are also some people who don’t fight through harsh scrub and snakes, they have no wise owl to guide them to their landscape, they are trapped forever in a 70’s disco doing ‘The Shrug’ to the tune of ‘meh, meh, meh, meh, meh.’ Sometimes they might reach out and take a few steps down the easy manicured path of debate, but you will never get them near the forest.

Sadly, today, there are still many loud voices which drown out the opinions of those in minority groups who are suffering from harm. More and more people look to the wise-owl of their inner voice, to guide them and set themselves down in the landscape of the minorities in solidarity and that is a good thing, because it is so important that these voices are the loud and heard.

I do not support the argument that the only voices we should have in our parliament are the Independent voices and that the parliament would be better without the major parties.

I do not believe a parliament of independents is the panacea to some of the issues we have in parliament today. There are only so many frames of political ideology and to have the necessary legitimate and at times coercive power, blocs would be formed, representing that ideology.

The theories which explain power in relationships and politics are complex. Power can see people struggle over finite resources, some have the ability to use referent power, some can use power to make other’s dependent upon them and some can use coercive power. A party of Independent MPs or Senators is not the nice walk down the manicured path, some believe it to be.

What I strongly advocate for, is that all citizens should have the freedom to vote for a party who has either a solid platform they agree with, or a vote for an independent voice, which may take a myriad of conflicting positions.

My strongest argument is for informed voting. Although I am not a supporter of the Liberal party, I would prefer to see a voter vote conservative/LNP who has a truly informed conservative position they align with. They are informed and fully understand the damage that this party’s ideology and policies will do to certain groups of people, how their authoritarian nature will aim to suppress our voices and that they favour punitive measures above all else. I support that this voter is comfortable with being a bastard and owns it and wears it on their sleeve with pride.

I would rather this than just voting because of the aesthetical appeal of an individual politician, or they find a slogan catchy, without knowing what that party or person is really about. I want to turn the music off at the “Meh, meh, meh” disco and fill the disco full of owls to be followed right out of there.

I argue strongly for this, because this is critical in shaping who we really are. The voices who end up on the other side of power (whomever that may be), end up battling through the forest and/or sitting in solidarity with groups of minorities. They know their collective needs to grow stronger and their voices need to be more persuasive and louder. This enables robust debate and shapes our country. This is important as we do not want to just stretch out on a deckchair and catch a few rays in our ideal landscapes, but to build a house on it for life.

In the debate of democratic voting, the majority of people have built their house on the landscape of democracy. The Greens, the Xenophon party and The Liberals want to knock down our democratic houses. They have done a dirty deal to silence the voices of the independents in the Senate. They are essentially forming a bloc on this issue to use legitimate power to drown out the inner voices who sit in their landscape and in solidarity with the Independents.

The Greens, the Xenophon party and the Liberals want to knock down your house of democracy by relying on the voters who are bopping away to “The Shrug” to the tune of “meh, meh, meh, meh.” This is the key to their success and the key to suppressing the independent voice.

Bill Shorten’s Labor is sitting in solidarity in the Independent’s landscape of democracy.

As a member of the Labor party, I am glad that this is where my party sits, as it is where I would be sitting regardless.

I will end this article, not with my own conclusion of why this is so wrong, but I will leave you with a must watch video of Anthony Albanese speaking out against the changes to the Senate Voting system. I hope that the voice in this video, encourages you speak up against these voting reforms with your pen on election day.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRnHSZsiKfc&w=560&h=315]

Originally posted on Polyfeministix

Day to Day Politics: Captain Turnbull batting on a sticky wicket.

February 21, 2016
Written by: John Lord
11 Replies

Sunday 21 February 2016

Having replaced Abbott as captain of the Australian side Malcolm Turnbull finds himself on a sticky wicket. He promised much as the side’s new leader but on Friday, when commenting on the other side’s policy on negative gearing looked as though he had been hit ‘to leg’. In fact he talked decidedly like the previous captain. Maybe the protector he was using was too small or something, and it was affecting his concentration.

The other team looked as though they, given the advantage of batting first, have out played the incumbents with a solid opening partnership. They have runs on the board hitting opening bowler Gunna Morrison for six on a number of occasions.

He gave a few interviews after his opening spell but the consensus in the press box was that he was bowling without a plan. He wasn’t on a length and too many were going down leg side. Mind you all the sledging from opener Bowen after three consecutive sixes in the first over of the day didn’t help.

It ended with Turnbull having to bring himself on. He spent what seemed an eternity discussing what positions the new members of the team should field in. The other opener Bill Shorten complained to the umps about time-wasting, shouting ‘less talk and more action’. Turnbull responded by saying it takes time to get a plan right.

Wicketkeeper Pyne adjusted his box shouting, in indignation. ‘Don’t forget the Double Dissolution, Mal’. Shorten’s opening partner Albanese was heard to mumble that Pyne should be dropped or that he should at least get a manager because he has been handling himself too long.

The current state of play indicates a subtle but significant shift in how the game is being played. The Opposition captain is on the back foot firmly behind the ball, playing a flamboyant innings, prepared to have a go early. Turnbull doesn’t like it either when the yobbos in Bay 13 keep reminding him that his sides been out of form for the better part of two and a half years. And the government’s bowling has been off-line. If fact, its bowlers have been no-balled a few times for bowling wide of the crease.

I mean, when you’re bowling on a green top, why on earth would you bowl so much spin? Poor form, that.

At the close of play on the second day the Opposition has the Government by the short and curlies. For how long is anyone’s guess.

So let’s see if we can analyse the match thus far, remembering this is a five test series leading into September.

Despite replacing many ageing, out of form players who had seemingly lost touch with the modern game ages ago, captain Turnbull seems determined to take the game back to the quaint days of W.C. Grace.

However, there’s talk that he might chance his arm and change the line-up for the next match. ‘Too many leaners and not enough lifters’, he was reminded. Of course, the Murdoch press is playing ball supporting the Captain despite a longing for the previous captain’s deleterious leadership style.

On the other hand, social media has stumped a few batters by chucking a lot of fast positive commentary at a government deemed to be under-performing. This bloody underarm stuff is “simply unbecoming” said the editor of The AIMN.

One spectator on the square leg boundary was heard to say to Dutton, whose head was not taking kindly to the sun. ‘When will you recognise that it’s time to concentrate on the finer points of the game and consider traditional fair play?’ Even the umpires have chatted to him about his ball tampering.

The fact is, the Government has been caught behind and need to play ball with the umpiring public. At the rate Turnbull is scoring he is unlikely to captain the side in the next test, and there is talk about the composition of the team including some new arrivals.

Some are saying that Joyce should be dropped on the grounds that the vice captaincy requires a degree of fitness for the position. He always appears out of breath.

Another on the back foot, as it were, is Cormann, who it is said is always short of a length and is finding it difficult to run between the wickets. Too many cigars while waiting to bat must be detrimental to one’s health. He always seems to be full of puff.

Dutton was well out of his crease batting at third drop and stumped several times when he wouldn’t give an undertaking that his team would play by the rules, instead opting to never allow juniors a chance to play on his turf.

Meanwhile the rich and privileged in the members pavilion could be seen clapping his every shot. It’s fair to say that the Government has been creamed on every economic announcement by the opposition. Gunna Morrison looked like he was acting as a reluctant runner for the injured opener. It’s a pity they couldn’t have used the 12th man. He is known to be up to speed on economics.

Well, they did get rid of the Carbon Tax but the entire team still seems to be confused by the difference between weather and climate which doesn’t go well for the quality of future pitches.

You might say the spectators have been hit for six on this one. Maybe it’s time to bring on the quicks. A bit of bodyline or Direct Action of the right sort, that’s what’s needed.

After bowling a few maiden overs there can be no doubt Turnbull has copped one in the box over his inability to get his side moving. The protector needs something like speedos to keep it in place otherwise everything hangs loose.

It’s been a balls-up all round and the Turnbull has been no balled four times during the current over while trying to get his point across. He reckons its all the talk from the batsmen that affecting his concentration. He’s asked the umpire to stop everyone talking saying there’s too much of it.

Fact is, the lack of policy has been comprehensively hit to square leg and team mascot Wyatt Roy was seen chasing after it with a view to retrieving it because he’s not guaranteed of a second knock.

Leader Turnbull nicked one to slips over the latest job figures. Reminds me of something Merve Hugh’s said to a spectator at fine leg at the G after dropping a catch; ‘Fkn hopeless’. It seems that because of budgetary constraints he will be powerless to give those unable to win a place on team Australia any assistance. Instead he wants them all to field in slips and repeat the word plebiscite while waiting. If they drop one he can blame it on Labor for bowling too many short pitched deliveries.

Turnbull’s team are appallingly bad sports. Hypocrisy abounds. It’s a pity the opposition can’t appeal to the third umpire. Once upon a time it was a gentleman’s game and we played by traditional rules, but captain Turnbull seems to have let it all roll into the gutter. He has replaced everything our beloved game stands for with Lillee white lies. All the video replays confirm it. When a captain says something he should stick with it.

I think for the last six months he has just been batting with the breeze or must have been hit with a bouncer while not wearing a helmet. Concussion set in and when he recovered he realised that there are real known facts in the world and that one’s word does matter.

When I found out about all the lies, any respect I had for the new captain of Team Australia went to the boundry. My God, I felt like I had just copped one in the nuts from Malcolm Marshall I was so distressed. Bloody hypocrite. No wonder, a captain who bats at 10 isn’t a cricketer’s arsehole. No wonder he’s on a pair.

Then during the lunch break he was complaining about the cost of living (or was it lifestyle?) pressures on the players and spruiked that it was perfectly OK to receive expenses even if they were given to the spouses. Nothing worse than a bloody all-rounder who can only bowl arm balls.

Then after lunch he brings on his slowest bowler Greg Hunt to bowl ‘Chinaman’ deliveries. In a recorded interview before play he was quoted as saying that he was stumped as to why the game had never appealed to environmentalists.

Goodness knows he is good at bowling spin on sticky wickets. Hunt was on a hat-trick but the umpire dismissed his third appeal on the basis of an obstructed view – something to do with an indirect action.

Anyway, at the close of play Turnbull’s team Australia has shown little desire to get on with the game. He gives the impression he would rather be sipping a Merlot in the members. The team treasurer is still saying the team budget will be presented in May. They just needed to talk more about it.

After a long drawn out final session, the captain of team Australia looks intent on a draw of sorts. He doesn’t seem to have the spectators on side. His captaincy shows little of the innovation, transparency and flamboyancy he promised. In fact the team is in disarray, the pitch is deteriorating, and he shows little inclination to arrest his and his teams appalling governance of the game. Some say his vision is effecting his batting.

At the after play drinks one player in the opposition was heard to say: ‘That bloody Turnbull must have been born with two dicks. He couldn’t be that stupid playing with one.’

Anyway, who’s for a game of backyard cricket? Pitches will be going cheap according to the man with it all.

My thought for the day.

‘It is far better to form your own your own independent opinions relative to your life experience and reason than to allow yourself to be blindly led by others.’

Day to Day Politics: When action is needed we get waffle

February 18, 2016
Written by: John Lord
15 Replies

Thursday 18 February 2016

1 Gunna Morrison was at the Press Club yesterday spruicking about what the Government is gunna do with the economy. It was highly anticipated that he might make a policy announcement on negative gearing but surprised no one when he didn’t. They need more time to talk and plan. A blueprint perhaps.

They came into government two and a half years ago on the back of a concentrated campaign of the need for action. Remember, there was a budget emergency. Unprecedented in its depth. The country was in a situation as bad as that of Greece. The sky was about to fall in. Day after day Hockey and Abbott told us that we were in dire straits.

Yet two and a half years after being in government, knowing all too well that aspects of the economy needed attention, they decide to formulate a plan. But it is a plan remarkably short in detail. If the strategy, or the answer is in savings it didn’t make sense that he had saved 80 billion but allocated 70 in new spending. What he didn’t say was that without the spending we may very well have had a recession.

The only thing we got today was journalists shaking their heads at his answers to their questions.

Where is the much vented real structural tax reform that Turnbull has been talking about? The sort a treasurer of the ilk of Keating might deliver.

Like Hockey and Costello before him all Morrison did today was give himself a big pat on the back.

He’s going to fund tax cuts from savings on future spending. The look on Peter Martin’s face was priceless.

I told you he could waffle. ‘Assembly of God’ men can.

The punters really need to ask themselves what this government been doing for two and a half years.

2 Quoting Peter Reith:

The pity was that the Abbott government did little to address the longer term reform issues. Now people like Andrew Bolt expect Turnbull to rearrange Australia virtually overnight.’

It seems Turnbull had always had a long-term plan to displace Abbott but not one for the country. You might recall when he took over the leadership he gave a pungent appraisal of the Government’s performance. He said the country faced challenges that required a more developed conversation.

‘We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges … and sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy, not slogans.’

So the question is: Where and what are they?

3 Essential Poll Tuesday has the Coalition on 51% and Labor 49%.

4 Steven Ciobo is the MP who once implied that Prime Minister Julia Gillard should have her throat cut. He was back on Q&A on Monday night. A huge supporter of Malcolm Turnbull I think he was hoping that his Government’s efforts in silencing the program last year wouldn’t be mentioned.

Tony Jones wasn’t going to let it pass. Ciobo wouldn’t take the bait. Talking about free speech:

‘I’m attracted to the classic liberal freedoms as a starting point but it doesn’t apply carte blanche’, he began.

Jones: ‘Didn’t apply to Zaky Mallah, for example.’

Ciobo waved the interjection away, as he did sniping from other members of the panel. ‘I am attracted to the principle but there does need to be limits on it. I think that’s a reasonable position.’

I was left wondering how a Turnbull government might have handled the matter just a few months back. It might have been an interesting avenue to pursue but Jones, perhaps wisely, didn’t pursue the matter.

An observation:

‘Until you are a victim of free speech you will truly never understand what free speech means.’

5 The request by the Australian Christian Lobby that existing laws pertaining to anti-discrimination be suspended, held over, over ridden or shelved for the duration of a plebiscite on equality in marriage would only serve to make a mockery of why they were legislated in the first place.

6 Every time you think the Republican Party has reached the zenith of its stupidity if finds another way to look ludicrous. By intending to vote against a new justice nominee put forward by President Obama (his constitutional right) it is doing enormous damage to the prospects of re-election of its incumbent senators.

On top of that we have Donald Trump suggesting that there are unusual circumstances behind the death of a Supreme Court justice.

Only in America!

7 It seems that New Zealand is set to again offer to take our refugees. On the surface you might say that the offer is compassionate and a way out for the Government.

It won’t be accepted for two reasons. Firstly we need to keep men, women and children incarcerated for life, no matter the human cost, so as to send others wanting to escape their hopelessness a message. Secondly giving them safe passage to a country more humane than us might encourage others to come. And we wouldn’t want them to become NZ citizens with rights to visit us.

My thought for the day

‘Everyone has a choice. You can either whinge about the issues you have or do something about them.’

No, I’m not rejoycing

February 12, 2016
Written by: John Lord
29 Replies

1 The day has finally arrived. Barnaby Joyce has become Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. Now we have a Prime Minister who firmly believes in a Republic, equality in marriage and the science of Climate Change and a deputy who does not. The intellectual gap between them is of sagacious proportion.

It is said of Barnaby that he is the best retail salesman in Australia. I would suggest the public sees him as a person of mockery. It’s not so much his ocker image. After all, Hawke and Keating had colourful turns of phrase. It’s the depth of comprehension. The understanding of things beyond politics.

It seems incredible that a man who was one of the principle instigators in 2009 of the downfall of the then opposition leader can now be his deputy.

It also seems implausible that a Senator who has crossed the floor to vote against his party on 19 occasions can now lead it.

Remember what Joyce said about mining Antarctica in 2006. He went there for a month and came back spruiking the beauty of it:

’The vastness of nature itself’.

We staked a claim to a large part of it and signed an agreement not to mine it. Then he suggested on the ABC that we should:

‘We can really realise that [mining’s] the game … or we can stick our head in the snow’.

‘Do I turn my head and allow another country to exploit my resource … or do I position myself in such a way as I’m going to exploit it myself before they get there’ said Barnaby

In the same year Barnaby opposed the new wonder drug Gardasil for the treatment of cervical cancer. The drug is now common place and is administered to boys and girls in their first year of high school.

Barnaby opposed it because of:

‘The psychological implications or the social implications’.

‘There might be an overwhelming (public) backlash from people saying ‘don’t you dare put something out there that gives my 12-year-old daughter a license to be promiscuous’

It gets worse. On Climate Change, when he was a Senator he said, despite all the science, that he had:

‘Serious doubt about our ability to change the climate” and that “the climate change debate is an ongoing debate’.

In 2010 he said he didn’t believe that global warming is as bad as everyone says.

‘Why do I say that … not because I have the factual premise to debunk them on the science’ Barnaby explained.

Then he said that Climate Change was:

‘An indulgent and irrelevant debate because, even if climate changes turns out to exist one day, we will have absolutely no impact on it whatsoever’.

It doesn’t finish there. When he was asked about being identified as a climate denier he answered:

‘The whole terms repugnant. Climate change denier, like Holocaust denier … ’

On the subject of abortion he tends to lecture women. Whatever your view on the subject in Australia the topic is generally treated with caution by politicians.

In 2004 speaking to Mark Colvin he said. He’s:

‘Pro-life, unashamedly pro-life’ and that his ‘personal philosophy is anti-abortion’.

In 2005 he said that his greatest achievement would be to:

‘Stop abortion … The slavery debate of our time’ he was ‘philosophically opposed’ to Medicare paying for abortions.

He said that using the RU486 drug was like an act of murder:

‘So if I shoot a woman in the abdomen and do not kill her but kill the baby, I have not actually committed a crime’ Barnaby argued before the Community Affairs Legislation committee.

The absurdity of this statement was pointed out at the time by Women’s Electoral Lobby ACT convenor Rosyln Dundas who commented:

‘No, you actually have committed a crime by shooting a woman’.

He also gloated about being instrumental in the rolling of the then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull.

Leadership demands more than just a ‘retail’ personality. It requires, in the sense of leading a country, a deep insightful world view. Anyone who has seen Joyce on a Q&A panel with guests who present an understanding of life in all its variances will acknowledge that he has not the capacity to appreciate life beyond politics. He is like Abbott, caught in a world that the rest of us have left far behind.

And so we have as Deputy PM the man who said a roast would cost $100 under Labor’s Carbon tax and who, when Finance Minister said Australia would default on its debt. The then Reserve bank Governor at the time said he was unfit for the job.

We deserve better.

2 Continuing on from yesterday and I promise you this is true. Greg Hunt, the man some people refer to as the Environment Minister in Opposition advocated for the protection of the Tasmania Tiger, extinct since 1936.

In Government he turned his attention to the Antarctic Walrus – population: zero. Walruses live in the Northern Hemisphere.

Asked where the Paris deal left Australia’s climate change policy, the expert adviser to the former government Professor Ross Garnaut said:

“Exactly where it was before the US-China announcement – up shit creek.”

3 Regardless of whether Stuart Robert resigns, or is forced to won’t make any difference to the dodgy way in which political parties elicit donations and influence law making and policy.

4 The Guardian is reporting that the Catholic Church is telling newly appointed bishops that it is ‘not necessarily’ their duty to report accusations of clerical child abuse and that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police.

What a morally bankrupt institution is the Catholic Church. After many years of constant disclosure of worldwide systemic abuse of children, we now find that they are no further advanced in protecting children. No wonder they are losing parishioners in the tens of thousands worldwide.

5 That’s enough for today. I have to go shopping. I promised my wife a gold Rolex for her birthday. I’m not faking, either.

My thought for the day

Love is when there is an irresistible urge for the need of the affection of another and the irresistibility is of its nature mutual. It has no gender.

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Day to Day Politics: Hunting with hypocrisy.

February 11, 2016
Written by: John Lord
25 Replies

Thursday 11 February 2016

1 The news that Greg Hunt has received an award as ‘Best Minister in the World’ will be received with much scepticism by many Australians. Even hilarity.

Mr Hunt told Fairfax Media he was “genuinely humbled” by the prize, but noted “this is really an award for Australia”.

The criteria for winning the award, according to the organisers, is that the minister should lead quality successful initiatives that serve the needs of citizens.

Any economist, environmentalist or climate scientist or journalist specialising in the subject would be aghast that a person who has done so much harm to environmental policy could be honoured with an award.

Politics in this country is rapidly turning to farce. First we make Philip Ruddock our Human Rights Envoy, and now this!

Internationally, in environmental gatherings Hunt is referred to as the man for all seasons. He has long been admired for his ability to put the case for Direct Action without ever explaining exactly how it might work. Or how it might be paid for.

He gained a masters with honours in 1990 with a brilliantly argued thesis for a carbon tax to reduce carbon emissions. Then he did an about turn when Abbott gained power supporting Direct Action. It was then that he lost all credibility and has been ridiculed ever since.

There is an award at every climate summit called ‘The Fossil of the Day’. The award is given by the international Climate Action Network to the country which has done the most to block progress at the climate change negotiations.

We are a regular recipient of this award.

2 The Polls are beginning to reveal the electorate’s disapproval of the government’s pathetic handling of the GST proposal and general Tax Reform.

It has become so silly that the State Ministers and Chief Ministers had to recently cancel a meeting on tax reform because they had no idea what on earth they should be talking about.

Essential this week has the Coalition 51/49 and Morgan 52.5/47.5.

“Morgan finds serious slippage in support for the Coalition for the first time since Malcolm Turnbull became leader, bringing it more closely into line with Essential Research, which continues to find the Coalition with a narrow lead. Morgan also finds serious slippage in support for the Coalition for the first time since Malcolm Turnbull became leader, bringing it more closely into line with Essential Research, which continues to find the Coalition with a narrow lead.’’

An observation:

Is it morally sustainable that in order to protect our borders that we should allow the indefinite incarceration of people? The sexual abuse of children. The rape of women and the murder of men. If it is so then by any fair judgement we must be a decadent society.

3 Health Minister Susan Ley said her department may outsource Government healthcare payments using innovative high-tech methods. I’m ok with that provided substantial safeguards are built-in and the work is conducted within Australia.

But the continuous floating of thought bubbles on top of an as yet unexplained narrative of why all these changes are warranted, is disconcerting.

4 The Stuart Robert scandal is taking a highly familiar road to nowhere. We have to wait on yet another report. The AFP are still to report on Mal Brough. We are still waiting on the report on parliamentary expenses and ICACs ruling on Arthur Sinodinos. Mounting a paper bill that might yet keep the paper mill in Morwell open. It is struggling because the government won’t buy its Reflex copy paper.

That aside, with the imminent retirement of Nationals leader Truss and Trade Minister Andrew Robb, Turnbull faces a nightmare of a cabinet reshuffle.

5 The ABC made a mistake in falsely reporting that a 5-year-old had been raped on Nauru. When it confirmed an error had been made it apologised. And correctly so.

I made the following remark on a Facebook debating site:

It’s a pity other news sources didn’t apologise when they make mistakes.

The following transpired:

Jack: Perhaps you could lead by example, John.

Me: Healthy thing to do, Jack.

Jack: You would be busy for quite some time bringing things up to date.

Me: How long do you think it would take Bolt, Jack?

Jack: I don’t believe Bolt lies – in fact the press would rip into him if he did. And that is irrelevant. We are talking about you.

Me: Two court cases and the Press Council think he does, Jack.

Me again: It would be a good idea if all media outlets corrected their errors.

Jack: Well that means nothing until proven guilty and I know you’re spreading lies and bullshit every time you post.

Jack again: We are talking about you, John Lord. Like all lefties you love to deflect and not take responsibility for your own actions.

Me: Two courts found him guilty of lying and the press council asked him to retract.

Jack: We are talking about you, John Lord. Like all lefties you love to deflect and not take responsibility for your actions.

Me: Jack, you are talking about me. I am not.

Jack: Like I said you deflect and won’t take responsibility for your actions.

Me: What am I deflecting from, Jack? All I suggested that it was a good idea for media outlets to own up when they make a mistake.

Geoff: Send them a terse letter, John. Let us know the response.

Jack: You are deflecting from my comment you should lead by example.

Rohan: That’s the AIMN guy’s modus operandi. Call all the media liars and de-flectors, then double down on lying and deflecting. Shouldn’t be surprised, Jack. It’s the only way they can cobble together their contrarian views.

An observation:

Social media has opened the world to a new method of communication. Unfortunately it has also given a voice to the nutters.

I recalled some lines from an old West Indian folk song:

‘It was as clear as mud and it covered the ground. And the confusion made me brain go round.’

6 Former PM Tony Abbott has warned disenchanted voters may be tempted to “flirt” with extreme right-wing parties.

What was it he was leading?

7 Gillian Triggs is reported as saying that the PM reversed a decision to include her on the selection panel for the sex discrimination commissioner and was not consulted about Ruddock being appointed Human Rights envoy:

My Thought for the day:

‘Never be burdened by the negativity of others. Wear positively as if your life depended on it’.

Day to Day Politics: The Great Paradox of Our Times

February 7, 2016
Written by: John Lord
21 Replies

Sunday February 7 2016

I have a confession to make. Writing a daily post is time-consuming. It takes a lot of research and you have to be on top of things, constantly thinking a day ahead. And of course one is reliant on the day-to-day political gossip for source material.

Occasionally though one just feels flat, in want of a day off. Today is that day.

Filling in for me today is my friend Stuart Whitman. I met Stuart on Facebook about four years ago. We have had coffee together a few times. His engaging personality and kindly disposition always makes for enjoyable discourse. Until this week Stuart worked in the Senate Canberra. He is well versed in the machinations of government and that of the Labor Party.

The Great Paradox of Our Times

The paradox of our times is that we live in a pre-revolutionary age of massive global economic, environmental, social and cross-cultural convulsions as the old order of the world we have known to be “reality” collapses around us yet the political status quo internationally lacks the courage or vision to lead the profound systemic change or even ask the deep questions we need to be asked or to re-imagine how the world can work.

Yet forces such as climate change, the new industrial revolution and subsequent loss of a large part of the workforce, and the widening inequality will not wait for us, they demand a brave and visionary response.

We can’t put these global bushfires out with a garden hose.

Not wanting to unsettle an electorate they wrongly assume is unable to think critically or act rationally or behave humanely, we are told to accept the crumbs of piecemeal progress because anything of the scale of transformational polices required to see our civilisation through to the other side, renders any political figure proposing them nuts or “unelectable”.

Instead of embracing the challenge and adventure of the age and the hard work required to lead and channel the coming transition to make sure it is peaceful, democratic and wise we have timid responses and focus group marketing lines. Instead of working together to ensure the global underclass is finally lifted out of their desperation and afforded dignity instead of growing in ranks of misery, we have a generation of people who don’t seem to be capable of thinking beyond the entrenched Thatcher-Reagan worldview of the past thirty years. The only world so much of the electorate and political class has ever really known.

There seems to be deep fear of any alternative to the view offered by Thatcher and Reagan that we are not to trust the common will of the people in the democratic state offering grand scale programs of much-needed reform and change. God forbid we challenge the dogma that the market has all the answers and the constituent body of the people is not to be trusted. Better to go quietly about your business and not rock the boat. Trust the powers that be and your political patrons, and shut your mouth and you will be looked after.

In an age that demands courage, everywhere we look we see cowardice.

Why is it that in this time the world-weary old men and women are now the radicals and so many of the youth even on the left of politics are so illogically conservative and reactionary?

I am thankful that although I was an infant at the time, I still have a memory of a world before Ayn Rand ruled. I hope I get to see it again in my lifetime.

Stuart Whitman.

My thought for the day

‘It seems to me that the wisest people I know are the ones that apply reason, and logic and leave room for doubt. The most unwise are the fools and fanatics who don’t’.

Day to Day Politics: If it were a business you would sack them all

February 5, 2016
Written by: John Lord
32 Replies

1 As opposed to the lifestyle TV show ‘The Block’ which revolves around the contestants personalities, rather that the renovations they carry out, the ABCs ‘Grand Designs’ hosted by Kevin McLeod is a fascinating insight into the construction of homes or the conversion of building into homes.

We witness the planning, the economics, the unforeseen traps, the mistakes, the personalities, the battles and the time it all takes. They are just everyday people who take on a challenge and prove to be remarkable problem solvers, able to cope with all sorts of problems that arise.

Unlike Australian politics they all have a plan even if some are rudimentary. They have a sense of purpose.

What I am getting at here is that Australian politics is like a construction where the builder thinks he is in charge but the foreman and his crew are undermining all the work because they want to do it their way. The architect drew up a grand design but everyone on the site thinks they know better. The construction is a mess and everyone thinks they have a plan but the sites pet dog ate it.

Look at our Politics. The economy is in a mess as is health and education. Immigration Policy a disaster as is the Environment.

Despite having the most qualified cabinet in Australian political history you would have to say that if they were the board of a major business you would sack them all. There would be a shareholders revolt.

You see we, with undoubtable evidence, have proved that we are just very bad at doing politics. Our democracy is badly in need of a makeover, restoration even. The problem is that everyone is so busy building their own egos that they don’t have time to plan anything, let alone fix it. The only thing they are good at is talking about what they might do.

2 On Wednesday I wrote about the politics of hate. Thursday morning I had the misfortune of seeing an interview on News24 with Cory Bernardi. Virginia Troili asked a question about returning children to Nauru. The question arose following a High Court decision that offshore detention wasn’t illegal. She framed the question in the context of criticism from many organisations interested in the rights of the child, and particularly those groups warning about the damage being done mentally to them.

He answered by saying ‘That’s our policy. I’m perfectly happy with it’

My point is that I have never heard the word ‘happy’ bastardised is such a fashion.

A short time later Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was interviewed on ABC News radio. He said during the course of it something that made my hair stand on end. (That parts a bad joke)…’best interests of these children and those who might follow them’

In the context of what was being said it could only have meant that the children would be sent back as a deterrent to those who might consider sending other children. That the Government was prepared to sacrifice some children so that more wouldn’t come. The bastards really do know how to hate I thought to myself.

This Parliament is collectively liable for its incapacity to find solutions. With a collective communal brainpower from the best learning institutions in the world it has no answers other than hateful ones.

Moreover to make it worse it makes no attempt to find a reginal solution. The politics of hate prevail. The appeal to base instincts for political gain override the best interests of the child.

I’m tougher than my opponent has become the new mantra. It’s not the Australia I so once admired.

3 The Liberal preselection wrangles continue. Craig Kelly is being challenged in his seat of Hugh’s by Kent Johns.

Broadcaster and right wing ratbag Alan Jones will have none of it:

‘You’re not going to get anyone better than that bloke.’

‘So let me say to Kent Johns and anyone else who’s thinking of standing for the preselection out there and to put a torpedo under this bloke.’

He then threatened Kent Johns saying:

‘You’d better pull your head in, Kent Johns. Because I’ll tell you what: if you put your head up, there’ll be a hell of a story that’ll be told about you, Mr Johns.’

It rather reminded me of a few years ago when Alan was visually outraged when a NSW Premier appointed a Police Commissioner and Jones felt he should have been consulted first.

4 As I said last week. Good government has been delayed indefinitely.

Here’s proof.

A NSW government minister has launched a blistering attack on the federal government’s administration of the scandal-ridden private vocational education sector.

In an exclusive interview, NSW Minister for Skills and Industry John Barilaro told Fairfax Media that his ministerial federal coalition colleagues “have made errors that I would not have ever believed from a government” in allowing the private vocational education sector to blow out to an expected $4 billion in public debt this year.

“How have we allowed a private provider in one year to have $300,000 in funding go to a hundred million in funding?” he said.

5 Malcolm Turnbull came to power promising a new politic. One of openness and transparency.

What we have had since is a Prime Ministers department fighting tooth and nail to prevent the release of information under freedom of information laws. And they have spent $70,000 in legal fees doing so.

6 How confusing economics can be to the lay person. This is how my friend Fred Martin put it:

‘The LNP claim they are about “growth and jobs” but I fail to see how you can “grow” the economy by cutting Government expenditure and increasing taxes on consumers.’

Remember that, according to the last budget update, the only reason we are not in recession is because of Government spending.

I think they are more about “profit and loss”, profit for the big end of town and the mega rich and the loss of living standards and dignity for the rest of us.

My thought for the day.

‘Ask yourself. Does the culture we have make us feel good about ourselves?’

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Day to Day Politics: ‘Would Honourable Members Rise in their places’

February 2, 2016
Written by: John Lord
5 Replies

Tuesday February 2 2016

1 Today the political year starts in earnest. Parliament resumes. The Honourable members will start hurling abuse at one another. A war or words will erupt about many and varied issues.

The Parliament will place great store on how best it can serve itself and its Honourable members.

Unless it’s been forgotten a report on Honourable member’s expenses will be tabled.

Some Honourable gentlemen lost their jobs during the break. A couple of other Honourable gentlemen are awaiting reports. One is wiping his Brough and the other might find himself in the Sin bin.

Honourable members will spend most of their time working out how to negatively debase their opponents.

They will in fact spend very little time being honourable, telling the truth and serving the people. Every decision the Honourable members make will be based firstly on how best it serves his or her party. Rarely on how it serves the country and the people.

The Honourable members should visit the bathroom often on the first day, look in the mirror and ask. ‘Am I really honourable?’ Then a supplementary question. ‘Why is it only 13% of the population think I am worthy of their trust.’

There, this honourable gentleman has said enough. I don’t judge people. I do however form my own opinion.

An observation.

‘Good democracies can only deliver good government and outcomes if the electorate demands it’.

2 The year begins with, according to Newspoll the Coalition leading Labor 53% to 47%. Of course Turnbull still has a commanding lead over Shorten in the popularity stakes.

3 Whilst the Government says it will run the full term its hard to imagine they will continue just talking about doing things when what is required is some actual doing. Gunna Morisson was at it again today. I mean they said we had a budget crisis. Didnt they. If there is a budget crisis and if as they say there is no revenue crisis it must mean, because of the crisis there will have to be enormous cuts.

What a crisis.

4 You would think the people who believe that love has no gender would be happy with the progress they have made. I mean up until 1949 if you dared to love someone of the same-sex and exhibited your love, then the death penalty applied. Well in Victoria at least. Of course in Tasmania until 1997 being gay was illegal and if you practiced being what you naturally were you could be put in the dungeon for 21 years. So demanding that in some way you are an equal in human terms, in 2016 is a bit of a stretch.

5 The Newspoll also indicated that 54% oppose raising the GST from 10% to 15% as part of a package including tax cuts for all income earners and compensation for low-income earners and welfare recipients. It showed 37% backed a GST increase while 9% were uncommitted.

Its got me tossed how you can do all that and fix health and education at the same time. And to ask those who pay the most GST, middle and low-income earners, to fund tax cuts for higher wage earners and businesses, some who don’t pay any tax anyway, is beyond me.

As a cohort the better off pay less GST tax than any other group. The government takes from the poor and middle class to help them pay for their kids private school education. They can negatively gear as many houses as they want. There are numerous tax concessions. And they, if they so choose, get a 15% tax discount if they put their money into super. Then there are Capital Gains offsets.

Negative gearing is costing the Federal Government about $3.7 billion a year in lost revenue, while the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount wipes off $4 billion.

In two years’ time the tax breaks on Superannuation will cost as much as the pension $50 billion a year.

And of course many of them with family businesses pay no tax at all.

Now we want to give them tax cuts. Bloody Tea Party politics if you ask me.

6 Only in America.

How sickening it was to see Republican Presidential hopeful Ted Cruz whipping up the support of the far right Evangelical Christian movement. Ronald Reagan has a lot to answer for in opening the religious door to American politics.

An observation

‘Religion in many ways is akin to Politics in so much as it believes that telling the truth isn’t necessarily in its best interests’.

7 The Royal Commission into Unions issued a separate volume of secret findings. Repeat secret. Not so secret that they can’t be shown to individual Senators that might help you get legislation passed that will stymie Union activity. For anyone else interested I have to inform you they are a secret.

My thought for the day.

‘The ability of thinking human beings to blindly embrace what they are being told without referring to evaluation and the consideration of scientific fact, truth and reason, never ceases to amaze me. It is tantamount to the rejection of rational explanation’.

Day to Day Politics. Turnbull’s New Year Turmoil.

January 18, 2016
Written by: John Lord
24 Replies

Monday 18 January 2016

1 No doubt Labor starts the year behind the eight ball. But have you considered what Malcolm Turnbull faces?

He will be anxious to erase from the electorates mind two years of abysmal governance. Not an easy task given that after five months he has hardly made any impact at all.

Conservatives will want the policies of Tony Abbott to continue as they are now. Somehow he has to put his own stamp on the party he leads or be seen as just a smooth talking power grabber. And he will have to do it with Abbott and his supporters snapping at his heels.

It’s a ‘try to keep everybody happy’ scenario that will be hard to balance in an election year complicated by internal dissent.

It may well be the next budget that defines his leadership, his political philosophy and indeed his authority over the party.

Formulating the next budget will have many implications. It will be imbedded with many dangers, with many decisions to be made. All muddled by an economic white paper requiring decisions influencing the election.

Increasing the GST, Superannuation, negative gearing. An out of control NBN, Companies not paying tax, Capital Gains Tax, Subsidies to coal miners, Climate Change, Health, Money for science innovation. Investment in renewable energy and the revenue future.

A rise in the GST would mean further tax reform including cuts to personal income tax and company tax rates, as well as compensation for low-income earners.

However it will be a hard sell. Personally I don’t much see the point in lowering the company tax rate given its hard to get them to pay tax now.

Besides the ‘where is the money coming from’ to address the Climate Change question the one most challenging is the immoral Super tax rorts for high wage earners.

An observation.

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

If he retains them at the same cost as pensions he will be seen as pandering to the rich. If he acts against them he will have to cop the wrath of the powerful superannuation industry.

There will come a point in time where Turnbull will have to take ownership of Government policy. The difficulty might be matching the expectations and hopes people have of him with the undoubted difficult decisions that lay ahead.

2 When is it all going to end? Asylum seekers were demonised by Philip Ruddock many years ago purely for political purposes. It has continued to the point where both parties have become so ensconced in the immorality of it that history will record them as unconscionable retards.

What does it take to get a Royal Commission? We have people committing suicide, self-harming. Charities being maligned, growing lengths of detention now averaging 445 days. Millions of taxpayers money wasted. Paying criminals to tow boats back. New Zealand’s offer to resettle people being refused so that more lengthy detentions can be seen as a deterrent.

3 Lenore Taylor writes an excellent piece on Political Donations:

‘Combining stricter disclosure rules for donations and ending political ads dressed up as government information could enhance voters’ faith in the system’.

My thought for the day

‘In the information age, those who control the dissemination of news have more power than government’.

The Future of Work. Part one. The Australian Motor Industry.

January 10, 2016
Written by: John Lord
20 Replies

I think we would all agree that work is a good thing. I have practiced it all of my life. To a substantial degree it formed a large part of who I became. I was diligent and loyal to whoever employed me. I always demanded a rewarding salary commensurate with what I thought my abilities were. I was unfairly sacked once and immediately formed my own company. I employed others and I demanded of my staff the same principles I had shown as an employee.

For the final 25 years of my working life I experienced the ups and downs of running a small business. Balancing the needs of my business while at the same time harmonising the needs of those I employed was a constant juggling act.

Sacking someone is an unpleasant experience. When I was first required to do so I was filled with trepidation. I sought advice from a friend. ‘There is no best way. However you do it, ‘do it with dignity’ he said.

Later this year many thousands of men and women in the Australian Motor car Industry will lose their jobs. All will be faced with the heartbreak of it. The indignity of not having a job will hit some to the point of suicide. There will be no dignity in their dismissals. How will they find work? How will they feed their children, pay the mortgage. It is a frightening prospect for many.

Ford is due to close its operation this year. General Motors and Toyota in 2017. However, given that new models take on average six years from start to finish and there are no new models on the drawing boards their closures are likely to be brought forward. Already designers and engineers are being laid off.

It is estimated that when all the plants close 12,500 people will join the dole queues. It may prove to be just the tip of the iceberg. When those who supply the components close it will add another 33,000 people.

A school of thought came up with a six-to-one multiplier effect, subsequently endorsed by the 2008 Brack’s report on the car industry. Senator Nick Xenophon calculated, using this method that there will be between 150,000 and 200,000 people out of an automotive-related job.

And if as The Department of Industry suggests 930,000 people are employed in manufacturing. So if 200,000 automotive workers lose their jobs that will represent more than 21 per cent of the entire manufacturing workforce.

A loss of jobs of this magnitude will have a disastrous effect on our economy. Not only on the unemployment levels but welfare payments and manufacturing levels. The trade deficit will rise because we will have to import 150,000 vehicles we will no longer produce. 3.8 billion the money car manufactures had intended to invest in new models will also be lost. In addition $1.5 billion will be lost in income tax receipts from workers in just one year. And remember that Toyota did export 90,000 vehicles to the Middle East.

According to Ian Porter (a manufacturing analyst and a former business editor of The Age) soon after the next election, assuming Turnbull runs the full term, 200,000 people will hit the dole queue.

‘When those people lose their spending power and start drawing on the public purse, there will be a recession all right. It’s just a question of how deep, and for how long’

He may or may not be correct about a recession. And of course given the ABS has, given the complexity of its methodology, a great deal of difficulty with its forecasts we may never know the real unemployment figures.

Having said that, Morgan Research who use a different methodology to measure unemployment say that it is 9.7% as opposed to the ABS 5.8 The number of people in the workforce now totals 13,007,000 (up 106,000 since December 2014), and 11,751,000 Australians are employed (up 252,000 since December 2014). Meanwhile, the number of people who are under-employed has risen by 188,000 in the last 12 months, to a record 1,434,000 (11 per cent of the workforce).

What is being done to counter these job losses and the destruction they will cause to the fabric of society?

Some of course will be absorbed into other areas but talking up the slack will not be easy. Other than a call from the Prime Minister to innovate more and be confident in the future, in practicable terms it seems little is being done.

The problem of course doesn’t end with job losses in the Manufacturing Sector. Have you thought about what 3D Printing, robotics and as yet undiscovered advancements in science and technology will do to the job markets of the future?

Authors Note. Statistical figures for this piece acquired from an article by Ian Porter.

The Future of Work. Part two. Jobs in the Technological Future.

Another thought.

‘Science has made in my lifetime the most staggering achievements and they are embraced, recognised and enjoyed by all sections of society. The only area that I can think of where science is questioned is the religious fever of climate change doubters and unconventional religious belief.’

Religious violence

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Tag Archives: Coalition Government

Day to Day Politics: Pie in the sky politics.

Day to Day Politics: Is the IPA getting its way?

Day to Day Politics: the Gospel according to Craig

Day to Day Politics: Gutless leadership.

Day to Day Politics: ‘Shambolic’ – I cannot think of a better word.

A dirty deal to drown out our inner voice

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” Steve Jobs, 2005

Day to Day Politics: Captain Turnbull batting on a sticky wicket.

Day to Day Politics: When action is needed we get waffle

No, I’m not rejoycing

Day to Day Politics: Hunting with hypocrisy.

Day to Day Politics: The Great Paradox of Our Times

Day to Day Politics: If it were a business you would sack them all

Day to Day Politics: ‘Would Honourable Members Rise in their places’

Day to Day Politics. Turnbull’s New Year Turmoil.

The Future of Work. Part one. The Australian Motor Industry.