Tag Archives: Government

A Conspiracy of Convenience

July 2, 2014
Written by: John Kelly
28 Replies

Much has been written here recently about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), the job guarantee, structural deficits, fiscal statements, fiat currency and the like. But that, it turns out, is just the tip of the iceberg. There is also the neo-liberal ideology that drives our governments, the buffer-stock of unemployed so necessary, it seems, to keep wages growth in check, the fallacy of supply side economics and a host of other measures that most people don’t understand and shy away from for fear of appearing stupid.

Most of this was foreign to me except for the gold standard; I knew about that and well remember the day Richard Nixon made the announcement that the USA would no longer tie its currency to its gold reserves. I remember that the gold price was fixed at $US35.00 per ounce and Nixon abandoned that as well. But that story pretty much got lost or buried as Watergate began to encroach upon ‘Tricky Dick’s’ tenure in the White House.

But last Friday, listening to ABC Radio 774 in Melbourne with Jon Faine, there was a discussion raging over the 457 visa programme and as it progressed I quickly realised its proximity and relevance to the previously mentioned buffer-stock of unemployment. The 457 visa programme, as most people would know, is designed to enable a company to employ people from overseas on short term visas; people who have the necessary skills needed for particular work where the company cannot find an Australian citizen or permanent resident to fill the position.

It was heralded as analogous to plugging a gap in the wall; a short term fix. Interestingly, such a worker with the required skills did not have to be outside the country when the application was made. Importantly, they did need to have the skills required and be sponsored by an approved business for up to four years. Holders of 457 visas could bring their families and even change jobs after they arrived provided a new employer sponsored them. Even more interesting, there was no limit on the number of people a company could sponsor.

On Jon Faine’s programme last Friday, two particular callers alerted me to what might be described as a window to rorting on a grand scale. One caller decried the system because it allowed one applicant to be sponsored and employed as a truck driver. Just how the sponsoring company was able to convince the Department of Immigration and Citizenship that they could not find any citizen in Australia able to drive a truck was beyond both me and Jon Faine, but somehow they did.

The second caller alerted me to something even more sinister. He claimed that he had received calls from a person offering him $10,000 to sign a few application forms that would enable multiple 457 visas to be issued to persons unknown for which he (the caller) had no need.

Clearly, there is something wrong here. Notwithstanding the obvious fact that 457 visas are being issued to foreign workers when local workers could quite easily be found, i.e. truck drivers, it also looks suspiciously like it is being used to maintain a buffer-stock of unemployed in the true tradition of neo-liberal economics.
In February, the Abbott government quietly lifted the cap on business nominations for skilled migrants imposed by the former Labor government and undertook a review of the scheme.
Subsequent changes meant that businesses could increase the number of foreign workers above their initial application.

The Australian Industry Group claimed the change would help those businesses that were struggling to find highly skilled people, but clearly the move has the potential to impact on wages and conditions for Australian workers and leave foreign workers vulnerable to exploitation. Currently there are more than 90,000 foreign workers in Australia with 457 visas.

When we look at what is happening with 457 visas and overlay that upon the neo liberal economic platform one can see it fits quite neatly into its broader ideology and looks a lot more like a programme designed to maintain a buffer stock of unemployed than it is to help meet the sometime dubious requirements of business. It might seem to be only a small part of a much larger conspiracy, but a conspiracy nonetheless; a conspiracy that proponents of MMT could effectively highlight and expose.

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Random thoughts

July 1, 2014
Written by: Kaye Lee
65 Replies

When Malcolm Turnbull called for a vote on the Liberal leadership in 2009, Tony Abbott eventually won by one vote. One of Malcolm’s supporters was in hospital at the time and was not given a proxy vote, but more interestingly, one person just wrote “NO” on the ballot paper. Whilst I can understand not being pleased with the choice on offer, what I cannot understand is how a Member of Parliament can so abrogate their responsibility as to vote informally when they are possibly choosing the future Prime Minister of Australia.

*****

The carbon price was introduced to encourage polluters to clean up their act or pay the price. Why was this cost then passed on to consumers on their power bills? It seems to me that the polluters got off scot free and that their customers actually footed their carbon tax bill. They should have achieved the savings they needed by reducing their pollution rather than charging us. If the government really wanted to reduce the power bills for the average Australian, why not make domestic power bills GST free since businesses can already claim the GST back?

*****

If you look at the entire worldwide cosmetic industry, sales reach about $170 Billion dollars a year. It’s distributed pretty uniformly around the world with ~$40 billion in the Americas, ~$60 billion in Europe, ~$60 billion in Australia & Asia, and another $10 billion in Africa. The Western world spends a bit more per person but India and Asia are quickly catching up. What an absolutely ridiculous waste of money and resources on making people feel inadequate.

*****

Why do footballers hug and kiss and cry so much nowadays? Remember when a handshake just involved extending your right hand to your opponent rather than clasping them to your bosom in a heartfelt embrace? Have you noticed how many athletes have emotional problems? Or gambling or substance abuse problems? Paying sports people millions of dollars to play a game has led to huge pressure on individuals, organised violence to win, cheating, match fixing, doping, infiltration by organised crime. Does a soccer player contribute more to the world than a nurse or a teacher?

*****

Finland has the best education system in the world but they do things quite differently to us. Perhaps we could learn a few things from them (though they did ban Donald Duck comics because he doesn’t wear pants).

School starts at 7 years
No homework for young children
No exams until you turn 13
All classes are mixed ability
Max 16 students in science class
Lots of break time every day
Teacher training to masters level
Teacher training is paid for by government

*****

Approximately 3.5 million people in the U.S. are homeless, many of them veterans. At the same time, there are 18.5 million vacant homes in the country. The situation is similar in Europe where more than 11 million homes lie empty while 4.1 million people are homeless. In Australia, at the 2006 census around 10 per cent of housing stock was recorded as vacant yet there are over 105,000 people who are homeless.

*****

The United States, Liberia and Burma are the only countries not to adopt the metric system.

*****

Time for a coffee

The Weird World Of Tony Abbott’s Australia

June 29, 2014
Written by: Rossleigh
24 Replies

While Googling Tony Abbott – now there’s something I wouldn’t have imagined myself doing twenty five years ago – I came across an interesting quote that I thought was refreshingly honest:

“It’s my job between now and polling day to remind the Australian people just what a hopeless, unreliable, untrustworthy, dishonest, deceptive Government this has been. It just doesn’t get democracy.”

Unfortunately, on closer examination, I discovered that the quote was from the Alan Jones program, and it was made in July, 2010. Unfortunate, because I thought this might be the beginning of a more honest approach by the government, where they actually admit that the Budget would be back in surplus if we simply went back to the tax rates of 2007. You know, back when John Howard was in charge, before Labor slashed our taxes.

Still, we are getting rid of that great big tax on everything, so that should help the Budget bottom line. I did hear a couple of Liberal politicians express the view that balancing the Budget would be a lot easier with the Carbon Tax gone. I wonder if they realise that the government doesn’t actually have to pay the Carbon Tax and that it receives the revenue. In fact, according to Liberal pamphlets, it receives an enormous amount of revenue from this source. But hey, let’s abolish this “King Kong” of taxes (to quote Mr Abbott again) and make pensioners pay to visit the doctor.

Yes, I’m being emotive. After all, some of these pensioners would still be working once the pension age goes to seventy. As Mr Abbott said just last week:

“We think this is right and proper and we think older people should be economic contributors, not just social and cultural contributors.”

But back to the Carbon Tax. In reporting Clive Palmer’s decision to back its abolition, the Herald-Sun – in a straight news story, under the Headline “The Weird Al and Clive Show” – began with: “Climate change scaremonger Al Gore and big polluter Clive Palmer combined in a bizarre press conference as Mr Palmer revealed revealed he would back the Government’s bid to abolish the carbon tax – with conditions.” (Emphasis added.)

For some reason, we were treated to a list of Mr Palmer’s assets, as well as being told that Mr Gore used the phrase “climate crisis” three times in his “3min 30sec speech” (sic).

Mm, I’m waiting for the article that begins “Budget Crisis Scaremonger Joe Hockey” or when the phrase “Big Polluter” is applied to a member of one of Tony Abbott’s advisory groups.

The article went on to suggest that journalists were wondering whether Mr Gore had been paid to attend. However, it left me wondering, whether the writer of the article, Ellen Whinnett, was paid to put such a slant on it, or whether writing such tabloid rubbish is consistent with her principles.

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What a Circus!

June 4, 2014
Written by: John Kelly
55 Replies

Why is there a sense of foreboding whenever Tony Abbott travels overseas? Probably because one’s immediate reaction is, “Oh God, in what way will he embarrass us this time.” I can’t help thinking that as they watched John Oliver’s parody of Abbott on his weekly satirical, “Last Week Tonight” show, members of the American press were of a similar mind about his planned visit there next week. Tony Abbott’s poor media presence, his stilted speech, his fake laugh are grist for the mill to a press corp. aware of his tendency to say something incredibly stupid. My fervent wish would be that they ignore him and give us all a break from the cringing and squirming we will have to endure as we sit on our sofas, in front of our TV sets and follow his movements across the Northern Hemisphere. The planned meeting with US President Barack Obama will, no doubt, be particularly painful to watch. One can only hope that Obama will take pity and shield him from the US press or at least spring to his aid when Abbott inevitably sticks his foot in his mouth.

In the meantime, the Coalition government and particularly the Liberal side of it appear to be imploding. Bolt on Turnbull, Bernadi on Turnbull, all stirred up over a meal Turnbull had with Clive Palmer. And the winner was … Clive Palmer. Even West Australian Liberal MP Dennis Jensen, a former research scientist and defence analyst, was moved to criticise the government for cutting funding to the CSIRO? It’s not hard to see that the Liberals are running scared right now. Bad polling numbers, internal criticisms of Hockey’s budget and the press popularity of Clive Palmer who is clearly enjoying the road show and keeping everyone guessing as to what he’ll do next, is taking its toll. Queensland Coalition MPs in particular are already starting to panic. Palmer’s popularity in Queensland and the rising dissatisfaction with the Newman state government is a genuine concern for them. As most MP’s know only too well, when Queensland voters are upset they can be particularly savage come election time.

One wonders why Andrew Bolt raised the question of Turnbull’s activities on his programme. Was he prompted to do so by the Abbott camp or was he trying to gain some publicity for his show? Does he genuinely fear Turnbull? Has he forgotten the devastating impact leadership speculation had on the previous government? For all the commentary that has appeared on this issue, it was Bolt who started it. He is the one making the case for Turnbull’s so-called disloyalty. Interestingly, several Coalition MP’s came out this week criticising Turnbull and favouring Bolt, when the PM made it clear in parliament that he favoured Turnbull over Bolt. That is hardly what you would call a co-ordinated united front.

In the meantime, Hockey has gone strangely quiet and Scott Morrison is in damage control. Two self immolations and one murder so far on Scott Morrison’s watch. And that’s what we actually know. There are claims of asylum seekers being lost at sea while being forcibly repatriated to remote Indonesian Islands by the Royal Australian Navy. But the Minister is warning his critics against making “assumptions” about what led Sri Lankan man Leorsin Seemanpillai to take his life. Does he not realise by saying that, he is drawing attention to the obvious?

Now, a new problem has surfaced and it has gone viral. John Oliver’s ‘Last Week Tonight’ skit made Abbott look like the village idiot. Anyone familiar with the Comedy Channel who knows the threesome that is Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert and John Oliver, would also know their popularity worldwide via YouTube. And the Liberal party brains trust would have noticed too that Oliver was careful not to alienate his friends in Australia. He emphasised that only 30% supported Abbott. Australian politics is hardly ever presented in satirical form overseas. We are mostly ignored, criticised or praised depending on the circumstances, but rarely satirised. And for an Australian Prime Minister to be the subject of that satire, to be so jeered and made to look so inept and just plain stupid must be a first, particularly on the eve of an official visit. Will we be hearing accusations that this also was planned by Turnbull?

Everything about this farcical situation has been of the conservative’s side of politics own making. It might have been planned but the more likely explanation is that they are all just so rattled and dysfunctional these days, that it all came naturally. Did you see Barnaby Joyce’s sexist gaffe on The Project during the week? On Peta Credlin, he commented, “I’m on good information from her husband that she’s a woman.” He explained the gaffe as a poor attempt at humour. Yes it was, but it also validates the dysfunctional element infecting the government. What a circus!

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Soft corruption

May 24, 2014
Written by: ozfenric
22 Replies

The 2014 budget is a corrupt document.

A few words about corruption are necessary. Much has been said about potential conflicts of interest and corruption on the part of Tony Abbott with regards to his daughters. Some have intimated that Tony Abbott was bought and paid for with a scholarship for Frances to the Whitehouse Institute of Design. It is important to be clear that it is unlikely that there is malfeasance or corruption (as legally defined) in either the scholarship for Frances Abbott, or the appointment of Louise Abbott to a plum post in Geneva.

Frances Abbott, image by bmag.com.au

In the case of Frances Abbott, it appears that the Whitehouse Institute sought her out, courted her for a position, and sealed the deal with the scholarship. This happened during Labor’s term in office when Tony Abbott was Opposition Leader. There has been an indication that having Frances Abbott associated with the college might be good for its profile, although I find this unconvincing; but having Frances Abbott associated with the college has certainly proved good for its budget and its future. The budget has, for the first time, allocated government funds to private educational institutes such as Whitehouse, which will be of direct financial benefit to the Institute. Nevertheless, I am not claiming that this is a quid pro quo for favours given to Tony Abbott’s daughter.

It doesn’t have to be.

There is certainly preferential treatment being given to Whitehouse and its ilk, but this does not necessarily denote corruption or “payment in kind” – at least, not in a legal sense. It is more indicative of a culture of privilege. The age of entitlement has certainly not ended for the political class. For our politicians, the world is entitlement.

Where does privilege end and corruption begin? In Tony Abbott’s world, people do favours for others all the time. You give priority attention to a stakeholder’s needs. You give donations and gifts (money, bottles of Grange, scholarships). In most cases, it’s not illegal unless there’s an immediate expectation of a specific reward. But you do it in the expectation that there will be a reward. The reward for your efforts may be a policy friendly to your interests, a budget that bulldozes through the economy but carefully detours around your patch, a rebate extended rather than curtailed, or a convenient directorship of a government board. The reward doesn’t come in direct trade for your favour, but every favour you offer earns brownie points and neither you nor they will forget them. And things can turn ugly if it ever appears that your favours are not going to be duly returned.

Frances Abbott’s scholarship was probably like this. Tony Abbott likely didn’t press for it; he didn’t have to. It was a favour, offered freely, with no specific return in mind. But even if there was no expectation of a specific benefit that the Institute would gain, there was certainly an expectation that the government would look kindly upon it when the time came, and Tony Abbott and his government have not disappointed on that front.

In Tony Abbott’s world, money is quite literally no object. On a salary of over half a million dollars annually (plus entitlements) he could afford to pay the way of all three of his daughters and barely miss the money. At the time of Frances’ scholarship, however, Tony Abbott was not Prime Minister.

When he moved from government into opposition in 2007, his salary dropped from ~$200,000 to ~$110,000 – which is still an awful lot of money compared to what most people in Australia earn. This wasn’t enough to support the luxurious lifestyle to which he had become accustomed, so he took out a $700,000 mortgage on his family home. (It’s interesting to note that he was happy enough to personally go into debt equivalent to 700% of GDP, with an understanding that he could service the loan. It’s interesting also that he failed to declare the mortgage on his pecuniary interests register for over three years.)

To be fair, the salary earned by politicians is at the lower end of their natural constituency; the rich and powerful routinely earn six-figure salaries and seven-figure salaries are not uncommon. This is why the Coalition can throw dinner parties for sixty guests and spend $50,000 catering; not because they’re being unwarrantedly profligate, but because ten thousand dollar dinners are not unusual. This is a world which I, and the vast majority of Australian taxpayers, can only imagine. For most Australians, ten thousand dollars is a windfall, a goodly proportion of their annual salary. To Tony Abbott’s people, ten thousand dollars is a watch.

This is why the 2014 budget has given rise to such anger in the Australian community. It’s not that it’s harsh, specifically, although it indubitably is. It’s not even because the budget will directly strike at the daily cost of living of so many. Rather, it’s because it’s so patently inequitable.

The $7 medicare co-payment has been written largely by people who don’t know what $7 looks like. The restrictions on Newstart were designed by people who have never needed to contend with unemployment, not while family friends own large businesses which can give a deserving youngster an internship, no questions asked. Increases to the price of petrol, of education, of medicines, of fresh food (coming soon to a GST near you!) mean little to people who’ve never set foot inside a Woolworths.

It is this pervasive culture of privilege that the budget seeks to shelter. The sad fact is that the beneficiaries of this system don’t see anything wrong with it. Tony Abbott, with his one-million-dollar-a-year entitlements claims, believes with all his heart that he deserves the privileges that come with office. To him, this is the kind of opportunity that the Coalition offers to all Australians: the opportunity to better yourself and reap the spoils.

The problem with this model of opportunity is that it depends on the existence of a downtrodden class. The powerful and the privileged can only remain so at the expense of the masses; not the poor, who are of little economic benefit to society, but the battlers. Our system depends on families on the median wage struggle month to month, paycheck to paycheck, and aspiring to the kind of luxuries and riches those in power have already left behind.

The system cannot support a migration en masse to the upper classes. Those who occupy the rarefied heights know this. The system defends itself, and it does so with the collusion of our leaders. The salary earned by politicians is high enough to give them exposure to this other world, but they are not really of it. The salary of a shadow minister apparently cannot support three children at expensive public schools, let alone a new car every two years. Ministers do slightly better and the Prime Minister does best of all, but even his half million is dwarfed by the real puppet-masters. The favours offered by the powerful allow their politician puppets to climb one rung higher; to sit at the table for a little longer and to feather their own nests just a little more. This is the real corruption: not of direct trade of favours for favourable treatment, not of service-in-kind, but the kind of soft corruption that says we have no expectations of you but we’re sure you’ll remember where your priorities should lie.

The Budget: All cruelty springs from weakness

May 19, 2014
Written by: Dr Jennifer Wilson
23 Replies

Image source: laberal.blogspot.com

It can’t be denied any longer, conservatives really do believe they have no responsibility to the vulnerable, and it is perfectly acceptable to the Abbott government that those who can least afford it endure the most harsh of financial limitations.

This piece in the Sydney Morning Herald reveals that while high income couples stand to lose scarcely at all, families on benefits may lose up to 10% of their income. Known as “Detailed family outcomes,” this information was withheld from the budget, contrary to custom, by Joe Hockey, obviously because it reveals the Abbott government lie that everyone will be doing their fair share of the heavy lifting allegedly required to get the budget back on track.

Abbott also stated in an interview with Alison Carabine on Radio National Breakfast this morning that the highly paid, such as politicians, judges and senior public servants, will suffer a pay freeze for twelve months, costing Abbott something like a $6000 addition to his $500,000 plus benefits salary package. Not even the most witless among us could possibly believe this can be in any way comparable to the situation of a young person without resources denied Newstart benefits, and low-income families and pensioners having to choose between a middy, a treat for the kids, the doctor’s bill, and medicine, for which they will also have to pay more.

Pensioners also stand to lose extras such as free car registration, and reductions in rates, water and electricity. These concessions were made available to the people in the community who were recognised as vulnerable and needing assistance by governments unlike this one, governments who were capable of making such acknowledgements.

The question I am waiting for a journalist to ask the Prime Minister and the Treasurer is, why are they placing an intolerable burden on the most vulnerable while the wealthy are called upon to do comparatively very little?

What is it in the conservative psychology that makes such unfairness acceptable to them?

No country can afford to be governed by people who hate and fear vulnerability, as do these Australian conservatives. Far from being adult such people are dangerously immature, incapable of understanding any life experience other than their own. Convinced of its superiority, this government asks little or nothing of those best placed to contribute to the country’s needs, while demanding that those least able, relinquish what little they already have. In other words, the Abbott government is determined to punish the vulnerable for their vulnerability.

All cruelty springs from weakness, declared the philosopher Seneca. Wealth and power do not guarantee strength of character, and it’s hard to detect that quality in Abbott and Hockey. Strength of character requires the ability to identify vulnerability and refrain from taking advantage of it. Hockey and Abbott have indeed identified the vulnerable, and have proceeded to take the most appalling advantage, of the kind they would never dream of imposing on the wealthy and comfortable.

Conservatives are, in general, weak and cruel. Our government is weak and cruel. We are in dangerous times, with this weak and cruel government. As we have seen with the treatment of asylum seekers in this country, (and this has been demonstrated by both major parties) once the bar has been lowered for the treatment of a particular group of human beings, it is very easy to escalate ill-treatment.

This budget is devastating for the vulnerable, and pays no mind to their survival. This budget will lower the bar on the treatment of vulnerable people in our society. It will become easier to treat them even more harshly, to consider them even less worthy, to demonise them as threats and parasites, just as has been done to asylum seekers in the last fourteen years. And in the way of things, as history has demonstrated over and over again, ill-treatment becomes normalised, and scapegoats become the bitter focus of a community’s fears and discontents.

Beware of cruel governments. They will only become more cruel. Because they are, at their heart, cowardly and weak, and when the cowardly and weak attain power, the vulnerable will be the first they destroy.

This article was first posted on Jennifer’s blog “No Place For Sheep” and reproduced with permission.

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My Country! A poem for our time…

March 30, 2014
Written by: Rossleigh
Leave a reply

I love a sunburnt country

A land of dames and knights,

Of rugged radio shock jocks

Who tell us of our rights.

I love her racist free speech

Now we have no 18C

Her bigots do have rights, you know,

The great white land for me.

I love our English PM

Who tells us what to think

On tax and debt and Labor

And how his doesn’t stink!

Our trees are made for chopping

Our seas are made quite deep

Just because there’s dumping –

No reason to lose sleep!

A resource rich mine country,

Which makes our country grand

All you who would now tax this,

You will not understand

Though our Earth holds many minerals

And there’s oil in our seas

Unless we own a company,

We have no right to these!

Core of my heart, my country!

No Holdens, Ansett, Ford,

When companies die on Liberals’ watch

We see these things ignored

But lose a hundred jobs when Labor’s in,

We know just who to name:

The papers make it front page news

The PM is to blame!

I love a sunburnt country

A land of knights and dames,

Of Andrew Bolt’s hurt feelings

And all his counterclaims

When people say our history

Shouldn’t always make us proud –

He’ll say free speech is relative

And some people are too loud.

Short Term Tony

January 22, 2014
Written by: Kaye Lee
18 Replies

“You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don’t believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can’t possibly foresee now.” (Harry S. Truman).

Whilst there has been much speculation about whether our Prime Minister will become One-Term Tony, another title is already definite. Tony Abbott will most certainly be remembered as Short-Term Tony.

The short-sightedness of the Coalition is seen in their approach to pretty much all of their decisions. Immediate political expediency outweighs the greater good. Priorities have been shifted from safety for our most vulnerable to increased wealth for our richest. Planning beyond the next election is basically non-existent.

Action on climate change is one glaring example of this. As the rest of the world gears up for the inevitable move from fossil fuels, we repeal carbon pricing, approve huge new coal mines, get rid of the profitable Clean Energy Finance Corporation, renege on our Emission Reduction and Renewable Energy targets, and sign Free Trade agreements that will allow foreign corporations to sue us for laws which may affect their profitability. We remove the right of challenge to environmental approvals, and abandon development of renewable energy industries.

As the rest of the world recognises the need for fast, reliable broadband speeds, we are spending billions on a national broadband network that will only deliver those speeds to a very small percentage of the population. This will limit the benefit of the system and have flow on effects in housing and rental prices. We are building infrastructure that barely copes with today’s needs let alone the explosion of future applications this technology will undoubtedly unleash.

To date, Australia has avoided the high unemployment levels seen in other countries, but there are warning signs that it is on the increase. Slashing public service jobs and assistance to manufacturing industries is only serving to exacerbate the problem. Rescinding the instant asset write-off for small business removes one small avenue of assistance for the largest employer in Australia. Scrapping trade training centres will add to the skills shortages that will see more foreigners on 457 visas occupying jobs that our children and unemployed should be training to fill.

Refusal to guarantee funding reform in the education sector beyond four years indicates that the notion of needs-based funding will be scrapped as soon as they feel they can get away with it. The states who signed up late to the deal have already been released from their obligation to co-contribute and to have their funding dependent on assessed progress. Rewriting a curriculum that has just been developed after extensive consultation seems an unnecessary waste of time and money.

Much has been made of Tony’s desire to be the ‘infrastructure Prime Minister building the roads of the 21^st century’. Once again, this appears a very short term goal when we should be concentrating on urban and high speed rail as alternatives to road transport. Cars contribute to pollution and congestion in our cities where parking has become a luxury, and the rising price of petrol is an increasing burden on our cost of living. Facilitating more people working from home or using public transport should be a priority.

We have been told that our welfare system is in danger of becoming unsustainable, sparking an overdue review. With our aging population, the old age pension will become an increasing burden but, rather than encouraging low income earners to contribute towards their retirement through superannuation, Tony Abbott canned the co-contribution and the rise in the superannuation guarantee, thus reducing the capacity of the very people who would qualify for the pension to save towards their own retirement. At the same time, he has allowed very wealthy people to use superannuation as a legal way to avoid paying taxation.

Instead of increasing taxation and closing loopholes, Tony announces an amnesty for rich tax cheats so anything they got away with over 4 years ago will be forgiven. The timing of this is baffling as the information and agreements necessary to prosecute these people have just been made available. Since this information-sharing has begun, the Australian Taxation Office has collected $1.7 billion, recouping half-a-billion dollars via these international exchanges just in 2012-13 alone.

Right at the time when mining companies are moving from investment to production phase, when we might see some return on the billions of dollars profit that these companies and individuals make developing resources owned by us, we rescind the mining tax. Contrary to what they would have us believe, mining is a very small employer in the Australian labour market, and the vast majority of their profits go off-shore thus being lost to our economy.

We are being asked to embrace a paid parental leave scheme that is not means tested and will cost billions each year, with women who earn anything over $150,000 a year eligible to receive $75,000 to stay at home with their baby for 6 months. At the same time we see wage rises to childcare and aged care workers rescinded and, in perhaps the cruellest move yet, the government wants the most vulnerable workers in the Australian economy – intellectually disabled employees in managed workshops – to waive their legal rights to a wage claim in return for a one-off payment of backpay. These workers, who are pressured to sign away their legal rights, are currently paid around $1.77 an hour.

By hiding the boats and infringing on Indonesia’s sovereignty, we are being asked to believe that we are successfully addressing the asylum seeker problem. By illegally incarcerating innocent people in dreadful conditions in off-shore detention camps, we are being told we are fulfilling our obligations to the Refugee Convention. By cutting foreign aid and ignoring human rights abuses, we are contributing to the reasons people flee thus adding to the huge numbers of refugees worldwide.

The promise of a surplus has receded to the unforeseeable future amidst cries of Labor mismanagement and crippling debt, though it is hard to take these cries seriously when one of Mr Hockey’s first actions was to give the Reserve Bank $8.8 billion they had not asked for nor expected. We shall see if the rumours of a short term gamble on the exchange rate are true if Mr Hockey attempts to withdraw dividends just prior to the next election.

We have seen the disbanding of advisory groups on climate change, preventative health, positive aging, and crime prevention. Instead we are paying polluters, charging for doctors, cutting aged care wages and superannuation, and locking up people who have committed no crime.

Rather than being a visionary government, we have been saddled with a myopic group whose overriding goal is re-election on the back of big business and billionaires, paid for by our poorest and most vulnerable. Tony’s short-term decision-making is, I fear, going to have very real long-term consequences, and none of them are good.

In Defence of “Abbott’s Form of Social Engineering”

December 21, 2013
Written by: John Lord
23 Replies

Image by mad security.com

My recent piece “The Abbott Form of Social Engineering” seems to have struck a chord with a number of people. Mostly the comments have been positive however some observations have been critical. This of course is to be welcomed because none of us has an ownership of righteousness. So writers at The AIMN welcome considered critique. As an example fellow writer Dan Bowden, whose work I have much respect for, said this about my piece.

“We’re all social engineers. Labor engages in social engineering as much as anyone. It all depends on one’s socio-political ideology as to whether we like it or not.”

We went on to have a short exchange.

Me:

“True Dan. It is however a question of degree and intent and of course what serves the common good. I think one has to search ones conscience to find where that is.”

Dan:

“Oh, I agree with that totally. Complications arise, however, with respect to things like the notion of “common good”. There being no objective way to define such a thing, there will always be a battleground on which differences of perspective will fight for supremacy. Life is, in many respects, a battle of values. Questions of ethics of engagement with regard to “war” have always haunted humanity and will continue to do so forever, I suspect. What we’re seeing from the Coalition currently gives us a bit of an insight into how far they’ll go to win.”

Me:

“If I might clear one thing up. The title of the piece is “Abbots Form of Social Engineering”. The title itself acknowledges other forms. Dan is correct in saying it is practiced by other political ideologies, corporations, institutions ourselves and even the advertising industry. I used the term “Common Good” as a thought of demarcation. If Labor’s form results in National Health, Superannuation. Marbo, Equal pay for women, an apology to our indigenous people, equality in education, sexual equality and Disability Insurance. Policies that serve the common good. Then that form of social engineering is worthwhile.”

Then I read some rather extensive comments from a person by the name of Mitch. Who Mitch is I have no idea and generally speaking I prefer talking to people who identify themselves. At least it gives them credibility of identity. Mitch’s comments are abusive in so much as he mixes his criticism of the substance of my piece with personal invective.

Normally I don’t respond to tirades from unidentifiable morons, but I have always believed that sometimes one has to stand on one’s dig and speak up. What follows is the full text of Mitch’s comments with my response in bold type.

Mitch:

Is this article not a piece of social engineering unto itself?
Stating that social engineering is a realm confined only to that of politicians/political parties is the first piece of misinformation you are enacting that reinforces the notion that this article is indeed your own (somewhat limited attempt)at social engineering. More over social engineering is a tool often associated with those seeking to use psychological manipulation to commit fraudulent acts. Quite fitting when reading this article. For mine this article reeks of hypocrisy as ideologically it seems evident that you feel that your political stance (extrême-gauche) is the only one that holds true to modern Australia. I’m not too sure how this fits into your definition of “democratic”.

Obviously Mitch did not take the time to read the companion pieces to this one, otherwise he would have a broader grasp of my argument. Nowhere in my piece do I state that social engineering was the sole domain of politics. The title of the piece itself suggests there are others. Perhaps Mitch skipped the title and didn’t read people’s comments.

Why is it so irresponsible for the government of the day to discuss the notion that debt, in an uncertain global economic climate is something that they ideologically believe might leave Australia vulnerable structurally to changing headwinds? Why is it so offensive to mention boat arrivals and border security in the same sentence? Why can’t we have a discussion about cost of living pressures and seeking to implement measure to ease such pressures (if you don’t feel there are cost burdens on families these days then I am afraid you are simply a pseudo academic who is not in touch with reality)? Seemingly your point of view is the only one that has any merit moving forward, all the while implementing rhetoric to reinforce this and perpetuate your gross manipulation. The phrase social engineering springs to mind.

1. Nowhere do I say it is irresponsible to discuss debt. I was pointing out the hypocrisy of the government condemning debt on the one hand and raising it at the same time. 2. I didn’t tie boat arrivals together with border security. I simple said that it is silly to suggest that our thousands of miles of coastline are under threat from a few unarmed asylum seekers. 3. Yes I said Australians have never had it better. That includes this pensioner who is grateful for the rises that ONLY Labor has given us. Perhaps Mitch is confused with the cost of lifestyle as opposed to the cost of living. 4. I will skip the personal inflection. Often our opinion are based on our values rather than our understanding and the difficulty is separating the two.

A theme of this article appears to be that Abbott Co are seeking to implement some form of class warfare aimed at breaking the backs of lower and middle income earners through adjustments to various mechanisms of social welfare whilst ensuring high income earners are given tax benefits that would befit the tea party. Further to this noting “when the commission of audit reports I should think the assault on the middle and lower income earners will be on in earnest” A blatant attempt to create a perceived fear of something that may never occur. Social Engineering?

I supplied the evidence to suggest this is the case. You use the expression ‘’ adjustments to various mechanisms of social welfare’’ I was talking wages. You are just making words up to fit your argument. There has been much talk of this in the media. Perhaps you missed it all. And it’s reasonable to assume based on the evidence thus far that whatever cuts occur, they will not be directed at the rich or big business.

Commentators such as you seem determined to spell out a yawning divide in the Australian political spectrum, when in fact I think any informed/rational individual would take a more moderate approach that in general terms we all sit slightly left or right of centre. But invariably are open to crossing the floor depending on the subject matter, personally for me gay marriage is a “no brainer” and should be legislated ASAP as to move on to other pressing issues. Individuals such as yourself however seem adamant that Armageddon is about to ensue because a moderate conservative is our prime minister and you are more than happy to use misinformation and deception to convey your opinion. This is social engineering.

If you think Tony Abbott is a moderate conservative leader and that the LNP are the parties of bygone years then you must occupy some sort of time warp. Robert Menzies would turn in his grave at the doctrine of neo conservatism. Malcolm Fraser describes him as the most dangerous politician in Australia. You don’t identify my misinformation and deception so I cannot comment. Now isn’t that deceptive.

Your most blatant and insidious manipulation of the truth is “The very premeditated, deliberate government induced exodus of GMH”. This is by far the most unashamed attempt at Social Engineering by trying to influence the attitudes of the masses through pure fallacy. This statement is simply not true but further to this why is it our responsibility as tax payers to prop up an industry that has not and in all likelihood will never be profitable? I would have thought these funds would be better used to initiate structural change to ensure the viability of our economy on a holistic level as well as creating sustainable industry meaning improved job security for an entire nation. Not throw good money after bad so the saying goes. But more importantly this was clearly not the decision of the government. This aside you seem to be very forgetful of what the previous government did with Ford and Mitsubishi.

1.You were obviously not watching question time on Tuesday 10 December when the treasurer and the Deputy PM both unashamedly suggested they go. This was well documented by the media. Perhaps you don’t read or watch the news. 2. I never mentioned the rights or wrongs of the argument. You have.3 The decisions of Ford and Mitsubishi to leave our shores were made during the tenure of the Howard Government and executed during Labors term.

I think an underlying life principle that you do not seem not to understand is that if you cannot afford something, you simply can’t afford it. NBN is a prime example of this. It was poorly costed, poorly implemented and poorly run. Why is it so shocking when something that is going to cost as much as the NBN does for the government to say “wait a minute this is too much we can’t afford this”? This in comparison to the “there will be no carbon tax” lie is comparing apples with oranges. The former being an honest appraisal and to say otherwise is to go to the fraudulent nature of this article. This is social engineering.

1. I never mentioned affordability. I spoke of inequality. 2. When the former Prime Minister said “I don’t rule out the possibility of legislating a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a market-based mechanism”, “I rule out a carbon tax”, did she actually tell a lie? Clearly she showed an intent to keep her options open. You have been influenced by Abbots social engineering.

The final insult you throw us is to put your name alongside and truly great minds like Thatcher, Lincoln and Roosevelt indicating that you are nothing but an ill-informed narcissist seeking to spread fallacy and singular opinion in your own vain attempt at social engineering. It would appear that you are indeed a hypocrite.

I will leave you to ponder:

You make no mention of my quote and its worthiness or otherwise to stand alongside the others. Instead you attack me as an individual you disagree with. I hear my family and friends laughing at the thought of me being a narcissist. And of course mine is a singular opinion. Is not what you have written, or did you have collaborators?

I welcome differing opinions however, I detest being attacked personally. Alas some people revert to their feeling when they can’t substantiate the facts.

Mitch (whoever you are) I have been as civil as I can be and leave you to ponder a couple of my quotes

“Perhaps a greater understanding of what I am saying might be obtained by exercising a greater willingness to think more deeply”.

“We have so much to gain from people we disagree with that it’s a wonder we don’t do it more often”.

PS: And my thanks to Kaye Lee who so adequately came to my defense in comments.

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“Why don’t you people just accept that the Coalition won the election and stop complaining?”

aside
September 29, 2013
Written by: Rossleigh
106 Replies

Our economy is in a mess. And we’ve just had the worst Government in the history of Australia. We know this because we’ve been told so by the Liberals on a number of occasions. But it’s OK, now because the adults are back in charge and Australia is “open for business”. And as somebody wrote…

September 14, 2013
Written by: ozfenric
96 Replies

So it’s over; the Coalition has triumphed in the contest of ideas and will (eventually, one hopes) form a government.

Tony Abbott has been described as the most effective opposition leader in a generation. This may or may not be accurate, but it cannot be argued that he has achieved his goals with a combination of balls-to-the-wall confrontation and maintaining a small target on his weakest points. The question now becomes what kind of a Prime Minister he will make, and what his collection of Howard-era ministers will do now they’ve reached power in the 21st century.

The first thing we need to understand is that what the Coalition government will do, now it’s in power, is not what they said they would do while they were in opposition.

To some in the electorate, this may come as a surprise. They may actually think the Coalition fully intends to do the things they talked about during the campaign. But things promised during the campaign were not real; they were props, to support Tony Abbott’s approach to the job of opposition. They continued on from the years preceding the election, from the very moment of Abbott’s elevation to the position of Leader of the Opposition.

“The job of an opposition is to oppose”, and that’s what the Coalition did – regardless of whether they agreed with the policies on offer or not.

Prior to Tony Abbott, worthy policies had a chance of bipartisan support. Abbott himself in years gone by argued for the imposition of a carbon tax; Malcolm Turnbull was ready to sign on to support Labor’s policy in this area.

It was on this very matter that Abbott was able to replace Turnbull as the leader, and he never looked back. Even in those areas where there is “bipartisan support”, it is conditional; according to Tony Abbott, the Coalition wouldn’t be doing its job if it didn’t find aspects to criticise in even the best policy.

The Coalition’s stated intention since 2010 has been to oppose the government on any and all fronts. Opposing requires you to have an alternative solution to point to. It doesn’t have to be fully fleshed, or even achievable; nobody will look at it too closely whilst it’s just an alternative. But you can’t oppose a successful or important piece of policy or legislation without pointing people to an alternative; it shows that the thing you’re opposing is not inevitable.

So the Coalition threw its weight behind a bunch of pointless, useless or impractical ideas – not as real policies, but as props for its position of opposition. NBN-lite, Direct Action, the easy bits of Gonski; these helped it to point to Labor’s NBN, the carbon price, and the full package of Gonski and say “we don’t agree with these, and we don’t need them.” Despite the fact that experts universally panned the alternatives on offer, showed that they were impractical and expensive and simply couldn’t do what the Coalition was claiming, the opposition stuck to its guns knowing that the electorate didn’t care about details and didn’t care about feasibility. Pandering to a voter’s fears is eighty percent of the job, but the other twenty percent is to quiet that little part of their subconscious that says “what do we do instead”?

But now the time of opposition is over, and Tony Abbott and the Coalition have made a rod for their own back. They’ve sworn not to do deals. They’ve sworn to stick to their guns and get their promises delivered. They’ve sworn to be a no-nonsense government that says what it means and does what it says. And now it’s achieved government saying all of these impractical and counterproductive things that it is going to be required to do.

There are always get-out-of-jail clauses; every incoming Coalition government goes down the same path. The “budget position is so much worse than we knew that we can’t do the things we promised” route. Will the Australian people stand for it this time? For the first time, there was a PEFO, as thorough a retelling of the budget standing as possible, to ensure there are no surprises for an incoming government. Despite this, the amazing invisible Joe Hockey has been reported as saying that the Coalition would need an independent, external audit of the finances before they knew the true budget standing, so it seems obvious that they’re going to try this well-travelled road again.

And if the “not enough money” issue isn’t going to serve – for instance, in repealing taxes that you’ve sworn black and blue are losing money, or replacing a nation-building effort with something cheaper and nastier – then you can delay. Thus, the NBN will undergo “three separate reviews and a forensic audit” before the Coalition will even know what to do with it. Who wants to bet that these won’t take up most of the Coalition’s first term of government and be ready with propositions by the time the next election comes around? (Labor took a very similar approach to a series of policy areas in 2007, so it’s certainly not without precedent).

But eventually a government has to be judged on what it did, not what it said it would do. Sometimes, the promises that a government has made to get elected can come back to bite them. Thus Labor’s rounds of tax cuts, promised at the 2007 election in answer to the Coalition’s same promises, had to be delivered in subsequent years as the budget situation worsened and they became progressively more unaffordable. Those tax cuts may even have contributed to Labor’s more recent budget woes and its need to find new sources of revenue. Kevin Rudd, in those days, was desperate to keep all of his promises, just as Tony Abbott is now. Julia Gillard found out the hard way the results of being publicly excoriated over reneging on a promise (even though Gillard’s was a matter of semantics rather than intent). So will Tony Abbott back off his promises on NBN, on direct action, on PPL, on returning to budget surplus?

Those with memories of past conservative governments fear what this one might do when the promising is over and the sharp teeth of conservative policy are revealed. In any number of areas, in the last days of the election campaign, Tony Abbott and his senior staff were careful to put caveats on their promises. Undertakings which had previously been unequivocal – promises in blood, you might say – became subject to conditions. If the Direct Action plan on climate change fails to reach agreed emissions targets, the Coalition will renege rather than spend more money. The boats will be turned around – presuming it is safe to do so, which it never will be. (And incidentally, we won’t hear about it one way or another, because boats arriving is a politically damaging sight.) The NBN will be killed, with the exception of contracts already signed, because you can’t break contracts.

The big test for the Coalition is still to come. Will it stick to its guns? Will it attempt to implement damaging and ineffective policies that it doesn’t believe in itself? Will it revert on policy to ideas that are more useful, that might actually work, at the expense of going back on their word? And if so, what tricks will they pull to prove that what they said before the election was not a lie, but simply a position that had to be changed as circumstances changed?

And will the Australian people remember how well that particular approach worked for Julia Gillard?

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“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” – Aldous Huxley

September 12, 2013
Written by: Rossleigh
9 Replies

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

Donald Rumsfeld

“When you understand,” Brandy says, “that what you’re telling is just a story. It isn’t happening anymore. When you realize the story you’re telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan,” Brandy says, “then we’ll figure out who you’re going to be.”

― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

When John Howard contested the 2007 election, he stood on his interest rate record. The Interest rates had been – on average – lower than when Labor was in office. After Labor’s election, interest rates didn’t climb as had been predicted by the Liberals, so the mantra changed. We were told that interest rates would be even lower if we didn’t have a Labor Government.

At some point, this changed again. Low interest rates become a sign that the economy was in crisis. They were a sign of the weakness in the Australian economy. Which, to some extent, is true. As to how much that weakness is the result of Government policy and how much a result of the high Australian dollar is a matter that can be debated, but the fact remains that the Reserve Bank increases interest rates to slow down an overheating economy and reduces them to stimulate a flagging economy. Depending on what else is happening, a fall, rise or no movement at all may be a cause for concern or celebration.

However, while politics has always been a matter of trying to talk up your achievements and imply that your opponent is not as good as you, we’ve usually relied on the media as some sort of arbiter, pointing out obvious exaggerations, educating us on the expectations, and informing us so that we can make informed decisions. We don’t expect them to simply re-write press releases.

Interpreting history is always political. Part of the difficulty is that we only have one result and it’s always possible to make an argument that it was the best – or worst – result possible. Just as the Liberals argue that things would have been better if they’d been in charge of the economy, it’s possible for me to argue that the Melbourne Football Club would have been better off if they’d appointed me as coach last year. All right, my lack of any qualifications would have been controversial, but it’s hard to argue that they’d have been worse off! Whatever the reality, all we have is what happened, and it’s always easy to make a case for the thing that wasn’t done, using some ideal “if only” scenario.

“If only Rudd hadn’t spent all that money in 2008, we wouldn’t be in debt now. They claimed we were about to be hit by the worst recession in eighty years and the economy actually grew. If the Liberals had been in charge they wouldn’t have spent any money on insulation and school halls or given handouts of $900, and the economy would have grown twice as fast and we could have put more into cancer research leading to world peace and a Nobel Prize for every Australian.”

And, of course, we’re going to hear various theories about replacing Rudd with Gillard, and then back again. It’s perfectly reasonable to argue that Rudd saved the Labor Party from a complete wipe-out. But it’s just as reasonable to argue that if the party had stuck with Gillard, they’d have been more credible and, while Rudd was losing support from his initial surge, Gillard would have slowly increased as we got closer to the election. It’s possible to argue that Labor should have waited as long as possible in the hope that we go to war with Syria – always a boost for a Government. Whatever your point of view, we’ll never know if you’re right and there is no way you can prove it, and we’ll never know for sure.

So tempting and all as it is to pontificate about what Labor should have done, perhaps it’s time to start thinking about the future. What’s the way forward? What should the Labor Party do NOW?

More importantly, what should you do now?

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Do try to keep up, Tony

June 17, 2013
Written by: Michael Taylor
48 Replies

From today’s South Coast Register in their thrilling article Abbott show rolls into town we read these wise words from Tony himself:

“Well, in the case of the Federal Government we are going to have this organisation, Infrastructure Australia, which will do its best to rationally and as scientifically as you can look at various infrastructure projects and rank the best on public cost benefit – then all levels of governments will be able to fund what they choose to be the one that makes most sense.”

Someone needs to point out that:

Infrastructure Australia is a statutory body, established under the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008 which came into effect on 9 April 2008.

Infrastructure Australia advises governments, investors and infrastructure owners on a wide range of issues. These include:

Australia’s current and future infrastructure needs

mechanisms for financing infrastructure investments, and

policy, pricing and regulation and their impacts on investment and on the efficiency of the delivery, operation and use of national infrastructure networks.

Infrastructure Australia’s focus is on assisting Australian governments to develop a strategic blueprint for unlocking infrastructure bottlenecks and to modernise the nation’s economic infrastructure.

Infrastructure Australia reports regularly to the Council of Australian Governments through the Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport.

It has only been a statutory body for five years, doing what Tony says he will do.

Do try to keep up, mate.

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An Open Letter to Tony Abbott

February 9, 2013
Written by: Dr Victoria Fielding

Dear Tony Abbott

I notice that you’ve been getting a free run in the mainstream media over your whole career and it occurred to me that you are out of practice in responding to scrutiny. So I thought I’d do you a favour and scrutinise your supposed vision for our country, on the off chance that this experience might come in useful one day. Like, just say, if you become Prime Minister of Australia and someone dares to ask you what on earth you might actually do during your time in the top job. Assuming anyone cares.

Now bear with me as I examine your policies, as I do understand that you are very keen not to reveal these until the last minute before the election. So I’m just going to have to go by ideas that you’ve floated and talking points that your colleagues have mistakenly inserted in between the barrage of harassment, verbal abuse, smear and stunts that is your unique brand of Opposition conduct.

Let’s start with an important policy – the Carbon Price. We haven’t missed that you don’t like this policy. You resigned from Turnbull’s Shadow Ministry in 2009 in protest against his support of Rudd’s Emissions Trading policy. You won the Liberal leadership by one vote (probably Peter Slipper’s) by promising to attack this policy. You won the support of your fossilized front bench by mounting a mission to destroy the Carbon Price. And most importantly, you won the support of Gina Rinehart, someone who appears to hate the Carbon Price more than you do, by promising to ‘axe the tax’. This strategy has literally paid dividends to your party. So I can see, from your point of view, your opposition to this policy is a winner. But this is where I have a slight problem. It’s the whole ‘your point of view’ thing. You see, Tony, when I look at your policies, all I can see is that they are going to benefit you. You personally. When your policies also coincidentally benefit some of your rich mates like Rinehart, the end result is that these rich mates pay your party money to continue your quest to help them. Their support personally benefits you. You’ve made it very clear that you’re an ambitious person and you obviously desperately want to be PM. Tony Windsor has a voice mail from you that outlines this desperation succinctly. But here’s the rub. I feel you’ve also made it blatantly clear with your behaviour and ideas over your time as Leader of the Opposition that you are more interested in short term personal gain for yourself, than long term, difficult but ultimately beneficial reform for Australia.

Your Direct Action Policy is obviously bullshit and won’t go anywhere near meeting the emissions reduction target agreed to by your party. You don’t seem to mind that you’re attacking market based mechanisms (Carbon Pricing and the ETS), which is odd because your party is very fond of letting the market run free. Instead, you are advocating a centrally controlled, government funded scheme that will cost tax payers $30 billion dollars and would definitely be labeled ‘Communism’ by your friends from the Tea Party. $30 billion dollars, Tony, is a lot of electricity bills. And worst of all, you don’t seem to give a crap about the environment and the effect that Climate Change will have on my generation and future generations of Australians. (Notice how I used the word crap).

The Carbon Price was a difficult reform for the minority Labor government to implement. Good reforms are often challenging political battles to win. Successfully implementing the policy, of course, was made a lot harder by your anti-Carbon Price circus, but thankfully the Labor government prevailed, the sky didn’t fall down and Whyalla hasn’t been wiped off the map. In fact, emissions are already reducing. Good result! But rather than applaud this policy success, and acknowledge the good that it will do for reducing Australia’s emissions, and also the importance of acting as a responsible global citizen, you are basing an election campaign on a promise to kill this crucial, once in a lifetime reform. To deliver what exactly? Slightly cheaper electricity bills. So you’re appealing to the electorate’s lowest common denominator – their hip pockets – today – rather than being a leader and making the necessary tough decisions to ensure the safety and economic security of our nation’s future.

What about the National Broadband Network? Your so-called mate Turnbull is trumpeting this reform around town as a waste of money. Like a used car salesman trying to undercut a dealer down the road, Turnbull is offering a cheaper, lesser quality broadband network, in the place of the one that experts in the technology sector say is the only viable option for sufficiently increasing broadband speeds Australia wide. Getting the National Broadband Network right the first time, rather than paying less and installing a lemon, is, in my view, very important for the future efficiency and productivity of Australia’s economy. Your party likes to talk about increasing productivity doesn’t it? But again, you take the easy road to policy popularity and mislead the Australian public into thinking that you can wave a magic wand and fix everything with your supposedly bottomless pit of revenue. It’s clear that experts and you don’t see eye to eye. But I can tell you, the electorate is going to be rightly pissed off if you rip apart a high quality, revenue generating broadband network, and replace it with one that keeps Telstra in the arrangement, relies on rotting copper and will result not only in lower speeds but in tens of thousands of ugly fridge-like cabinets churning away on suburban streets and sucking power. That’s right, the NBNCo cabinets currently being installed around the country are small and don’t require power. The fibre being installed currently is waterproof, so it won’t cut out when an area floods (due to Climate Change) and will provide the fastest possible signal to most of the country. But you plan to replace this technically superior product with a dodgy ‘solution’ that will require a new coal fired power station just to run it, and will keep Telstra happily maintaining copper that is way past its used by date. In fact most experts are now questioning whether Turnbull’s Fibre-To-The-Node solution will end up costing more than the current NBN. It’s interesting to note that you don’t seem to give much thought to what might happen on the other side of September 14. There’s only one thing you care about. You and you being in power, right now.

I noticed that one of your policies (or so called ‘Discussion Papers’) about a northern Australian economic zone accidentally got leaked to the media this week. I see you have been busy denying that this plan will ever be put into practice, but excuse me if I don’t believe you. You see, we know how much Rinehart means to you (your pocket) and your future plans for your career. We know how important getting rid of the mining super profits tax is to Rinehart. Funny that you and your colleagues have been calling on Wayne Swan to resign because the Mining Tax so far hasn’t brought in enough revenue. Don’t you think this attitude is pretty rich coming from the party who has promised to get rid of the tax, and it’s resulting government revenue, altogether? No doubt you think you can get away with such hypocrisy since the mainstream media never call you out on anything. But we all know how much you would like to support Rinehart in her quest to pay little or no tax at all. So we can see that you’re working behind the scenes to bring Rinehart’s plan for this country to fruition. It’s really not a good look that you’d prefer to support Rinehart’s ever growing multi-billion dollar fortune, rather than sharing the benefits from the sale of mineral resources with all Australians. I think the electorate would think this was a pretty bad look too if the mainstream media bothered to make as big a deal out of it as they would if they had any professional integrity and journalistic skill.

The more I scrutinise the bare bones of un-costed ideas that claim to count as political policy, the better I get to know you Tony. You’re that five year old who takes the one marshmallow now, instead of deferring gratification in order to wait for two in the future. You’re offering the Australian people a magic pudding economy of higher government spending, lower taxes, a better economy, lower cost of living and no concerns about Climate Change, that anyone with half a brain can see that you have no hope of delivering. Yet you are so blinkered by blind ambition and selfish yearnings for personal success that it’s clear that you don’t give a shit about Australia. And this is why I think you don’t deserve to be captain of a CFS unit, let alone Prime Minister of this country.

Yours Sincerely
Victoria Rollison

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Trial by media

January 18, 2013
Written by: Barry Tucker
39 Replies

In the heart of the nation’s capital, in the heart of its Parliament, we have the Canberra Press Gallery and, in its private alcove, the National Press Club. It appears to be the beating heart of the political news media bias that is driving at least half of the country nuts.

The National Press Club has a Facebook page and when you start looking around you don’t have to go far to see obvious signs of bias.

What’s obvious is a single announcement of guest appearances by the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and, on the following day, the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott. Further down the page there’s a separate notice for the appearance of Mr Abbott. No sign of a separate notice for Ms Gillard, so that looks like favouritism.

What’s not so obvious is a complaint by Neil Spencer, on December 16, 2012. Mr Spencer questions the relatively poor coverage of the outcome of a court case which has become known as Ashbygate. The hearing created sensational front-page news. The verdict was buried in the back pages.

Instead of replying directly to Mr Spencer’s post, the FB page administrator referred him to another story in The Daily Telegraph relating to action being taken against the former Speaker, Peter Slipper, by the Federal Police. The administrator makes the rather snide remark: “We thought you would appreciate this one.”

Clearly, the administrator is of the same mind as the Opposition Leader, Mr Abbott. In three separate and long-running attacks on the government Mr Abbott has chosen to ignore the rule of law, the assumption of innocence, and demand that the government leap into a guilty verdict that would advantage him politically and damage our legal and parliamentary process severely (see Lies, damned lies and sour grapes).

Mr Spencer’s post, the administrator’s response, and my comment appear in full (so far January 18, 2013 12.45 pm) below.

Neil Spencer

To all you journalists please read the following:

I am very disillusioned with the media response to the Slipper/Ashby verdict. The whole issue is being played down by most media outlets. I don’t know why. Here is a story that any investigative journalist would love to get their teeth into. But yet there is this apprehension from the print media and on air media alike. The Daily Telegraph reported the verdict of the case on page 17 on 13th December. That in itself is an admission of reporting bias. [Right-wing News Limited commentator] Chris Kenny stated that [Prime Minister] Julia Gillard shouldn’t get involved in this muck raking. My god. After what she has been subjected to from the Opposition and, in particular Tony Abbott, she has every reason to ask Mr Abbott for a full explanation. The Australian people deserve a full explanation.

The Australian people deserve to have balanced reporting on all issues, especially those of a political nature. Is there not one journalist out there who is in the MSM who is prepared to investigate the story of possible conspiracy by Brough and other members of the LNP? Are they afraid there might be repercussions from their employer if they did so? If that is the case, then they are being accessories after the fact by assisting in concealing the truth. The employer would not be the type of employer that a professional journalist should be associated with. Regardless of the outcome of investigations our country will be the better for it.

I just don’t know how reputable journalists can be instructed on what they should or should not investigate. If a story comes to light then a journalist should find out the facts by investigating until such time as the story can go no further. Under the present climate of investigation a Watergate could be carried out in this country and the perpetrators would be able to get away with it. God help Australia.

Like December 16, 2012 at 8:28pm

National Press Club of Australia

We thought you would appreciate this one:

January 10 at 9:54am

Barry Tucker

Neil Spencer raised a valid point. You didn’t address his complaint. Instead, you referred him to another Telegraph story about Federal Police charging Mr Slipper with fraud (their first attempt to charge him fell through, so they went back further in history to find another one).

Your failure to address Mr Spencer’s complaint is pathetic. Referring him to another story (in which Mr Slipper is a defendant and not proven guilty of anything) is even worse. It is worse because your actions in this matter amount to Trial by Media. Your actions tell me that you believe Mr Slipper is not entitled to natural justice, that in the view of the National Press Club he is guilty and must remain so, regardless of the outcome of the Ashby/Slipper court case and the comments and judgment of Justice Rares.

If there are any further developments, I will add to this article.

Further comment: The Daily Telegraph article that Neil Spencer was referred to was written by News Limited journalists Steve* Lewis and Patrick Lion. Steve Lewis was liaising with James Ashby before he filed his sexual harassment claim against Mr Slipper in the Federal Court. Mr Lewis was summonsed to appear before the court.

[*Steve Lewis was elected to his second term as vice president of the National Press Club in 2009. I did not know that when I wrote this story yesterday.]

The judge ruled that matters related to cab charge documents had nothing to do with the allegations of sexual harassment and were introduced in an attempt to damage Mr Slipper’s character in order to strengthen Mr Ashby’s claim.

The Lewis/Lion story acknowledges Mr Slipper’s court victory. It then refers to Mr Ashby’s allegations re the cabcharge dockets, which the judge has ruled are irrelevant:

The allegations are a major setback for the former speaker, who three weeks ago secured a victory when allegations of sexual harassment were thrown out in the Federal Court. His accuser, former adviser James Ashby, alleged he saw Mr Slipper signing blank Cabcharge dockets on visits to Sydney in early 2012. Those allegations are not the subject of the court action.

Note carefully the last sentence above. If Mr Ashby’s evidence re cabcharge documents has been ruled irrelevant, and “Those allegations are not the subject of the court action.” then what is the point of including the last two sentences in italic above?

In his judgment, Justice Steven Rares said Mr Lewis ”was motivated by the opportunity to obtain newsworthy stories”. He also noted there was ”nothing unusual in a symbiotic relationship between members of the media … and persons involved in politics”.

It may not be obvious to the casual reader, but it is clear to me that Mr Lewis, at least, is continuing his campaign to damage the former Speaker, Mr Slipper – a campaign that began with his liaison with Mr Ashby and is continuing in spite of the Federal Court dismissing the allegations of sexual harassment. Mr Ashby and one of his legal advisors are appealing the judge’s decision and comments on the case.

The judge also was of the opinion that Mr Ashby’s case against Mr Slipper was a conspiracy to bring down the federal Australian government. It has been pointed out by news media commentators and members of the fifth estate (the new, alternative, news media) that while Steve Lewis had his head down feeding stories back to his newspaper he somehow missed one of the biggest political scoops of the past decade.

A story about a conspiracy to bring down the government would not serve the agenda of Mr Lewis’ employer, News Limited, in the same way as a series of stories alleging sexual and other misconduct by Mr Slipper. That’s why this story is being referred to as Ashbygate.

[Additional information, January 19, 2013]

While News Limited media maintains its campaign against the federal government, the Fairfax owned press, notably The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and Melbourne’s The Age, have softened their approach since about the time of the Prime Minister’s so-called “misogyny speech” (see Pennies drop and the balance shifts).

SMH columnist Richard Ackland in his column yesterday (January 18, 2013) said the investigative bloodhounds of the press have let “Tony Abbott and other leading Coalition ornaments off the hook”.

“There are still so many loose threads dangling off the James Ashby case it is amazing that those dedicated to holding politicians to account have let this one pass.”

Read Mr Ackland’s column here.

Veteran investigative reporter Margo Kingston (a former SMH journalist) also commented on the sudden lack of interest in the Ashbygate affair in her story for Independent Australia yesterday. See: http://bit.ly/ScavyA

Are the actions of Mr Lewis in investigating and reporting the Ashby case as squeaky clean as Justice Rares seems to think they are?

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