Tag Archives: Tony Abbott

The real stitch-up

February 28, 2015
Written by: Kaye Lee
52 Replies

Tony Abbott has been sneeringly yelling at anyone who will listen, if there are any of those left, that the government has no confidence in Gillian Triggs because the timing of her report shows it is a “stitch up” designed to make him look bad, like he isn’t capable of doing that on his own.

I would like to point out that Ms Triggs told Senate estimates hearings in early 2013 of the HRC’s concern about children in detention and their ongoing investigation. She was slapped down by George Brandis who wasn’t interested.

In February 2013, some seven months after Ms Triggs had assumed her role at the Human Rights Commission, and seven months before the election, Senator Brandis grilled her unmercilessly about why the HRC was not spending more of their budget on defending free speech.

When she pointed out that the HRC receive about 17,500 inquiries a year of which approximately three concern political opinion “so it is a very tiny part, in answer to your question, of the complaints function of the commission”, Brandis refused to accept her explanation.

Senator BRANDIS: That may very well be so, Professor Triggs, but why has it taken people other than the Human Rights Commission to elevate this debate? Why has it taken people like my friends at the Institute of Public Affairs, some of my colleagues in the coalition, columnists, editorial writers and writers of letters to the editors of the newspapers to get a debate up and going in Australia about limitations on freedom, when we have an agency, your agency, whose explicit statutory charter is to promote and advance those rights?

Prof. Triggs: I wonder if I could take another point here. I accept your question. I think it is a valuable one, as I have said. But let us look at another element of this – that is, a great deal of my time as president and that of many members of our human rights law and policy group has been responding to our profound concerns about the mandatory detention of asylum seekers. I understand that at the moment we have many thousands – and I do not know the exact number, but let us say 6,000 people – in mandatory detention in Australia, including children. Many have been there for years. Babies have been born within that environment. They have been charged with no offence, and they have not yet had their claims to refugee status assessed. That is an area that I think is of fundamental importance to human rights.

Senator BRANDIS: Well, it is.

Prof. Triggs: It concerns arbitrary detention without trial. If I may say so, I went to an interesting lecture by the foreign minister the other day to celebrate the Magna Carta, quoting the fundamental principles of the Magna Carta that no man – or presumably woman – can be charged or held without a trial of their peers. It seems extraordinary.

Senator BRANDIS: I do not think the barons at Runnymede had friends like Mr Eddie Obeid and Mr Ian Macdonald, unlike our foreign minister, who speaks with eloquence about the Magna Carta, at least.

Brandis mentions several times his “friends at the IPA”

“Whereas your commission is a dedicated and committed advocate of antidiscrimination principles, I do not see the commission being a dedicated and committed advocate of freedom principles. You have think tanks, like in the Institute of Public Affairs, which has something called a ‘freedom project’. I do not see a freedom project in the Human Rights Commission.”

Senator Brandis finishes with what was no doubt his aim all along.

Senator BRANDIS: My last question. Your commission does seem to have a superabundance of discrimination commissioners in various areas. Should the Human Rights Commission have a freedom commissioner whose particular brief is to promote the kind of balance of which you speak so that within the commission there is a person whose particular job is to promote freedom, just as, within the commission at the moment, there are, I think, five commissioners whose particular job is to promote antidiscrimination? Would that not be a desirable balance – one freedom person versus five anti-discrimination people?

Come on down, Timmy!

A couple of months later, in April 2013, Brandis attended the IPA 70^th birthday bash. He obviously enjoyed himself because he has been rewarding them ever since.

As soon as he assumed office, Brandis gifted to Tim Wilson a $400,000 a year job as a Human Rights Commissioner despite his “woefully inadequate” qualifications. It seems apparent that Wilson was appointed to destroy from within and, if worst comes to worst and he can’t abolish the HRC as he wants, then Tim will probably be offered the top job after the “anonymous” leaks about Triggs wanting to get out.

After the predictable backlash to this obvious act of cronyism, George wrote an article in The Australian condemning those who criticized his choice.

“But some things never change, like the reaction of the claque of bilious pseudo-intellectuals who constitute what passes for a left-wing commentariat in this country. Mike Carlton, Catherine Deveney, Van Badham and their ilk were nothing if not boorishly predictable. They and their followers unleashed a storm of hatred and bile against Wilson on social media, the like of which I have never seen.”

Or perhaps they just thought that sacking the Disability Commissioner to employ your unqualified inexperienced ideologically opposed little friend was a step too far? And is that any way for the highest legal officer in the land to speak?

This was all the more hypocritical considering Brandis, in opposition, had previously taken to the Australian to excoriate the appointment by Mark Dreyfus of Labor staffer-turned-intellectual Tim Soutphommasane as Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission, a role for which he was eminently qualified, labelling him as “yet another partisan of the Left”.

Dr Soutphommasane graduated from the University of Sydney with a first-class honours degree. He was then a Commonwealth Scholar and Jowett Senior Scholar at Balliol College of the University of Oxford where he completed a Master of Philosophy with distinction and a Doctor of Philosophy in political theory.

From 2010 to 2012 he was a Lecturer in Australian Studies and a Research Fellow at the National Centre for Australian Studies of Monash University.

Soutphommasane is the author of three books: The Virtuous Citizen: Patriotism in a Multicultural Society (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Don’t Go Back To Where You Came From: Why Multiculturalism Works (New South Books, 2012) which in 2013 won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award in the ‘Community Relations Commission Award’ section, and Reclaiming Patriotism: Nation-Building for Australian Progressives (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

By contrast, Wilson has a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters of Diplomacy and Trade from Monash University. He worked at the Institute of Public Affairs for seven years. He was a vocal critic of the Human Rights Commission and during his time there the IPA called for the abolition of the commission.

After his “surprise”appointment, Wilson wrote that:

“Attorney-General George Brandis has asked me, as Australia’s next human rights commissioner, to focus on traditional liberal democratic and common law rights, particularly article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

All rights should be defended, but the human right most being neglected is free speech. Arguably freedom of speech is the most important human right. It is the human right necessary to protect and defend all other human rights.

Article 19 of the covenant states: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”

Article 19 ought to be the human rights community’s starting point. But at the moment it seems more like a footnote.

Increasingly free speech has been pushed aside in favour of laws and regulations designed to stop people being offensive to each other, a steadily expanding corpus of anti-discrimination and defamation law, and the growing momentum towards restrictions on speech online.”

Whilst the Attorney General may appoint people to the HRC, I am not sure he has the power to direct them then what to say and do, and I am wondering how Tim feels about George’s recent announcement of devoting $17 million to monitor social media to take down terrorist propaganda

When the two Tims attended Senate estimates hearings in May 2014 to discuss proposed changes to Section 18C of the racial discrimination act, George Brandis objected to Tim Soutphommasane giving his opinion even though he is the Racial Discrimination Commissioner. Ian Macdonald, coincidentally, was also chairing this meeting as he was with the recent meeting with Gillian Triggs and he upheld Senator Brandis’ objection saying his opinion had no place in the discussion (see video here).

But later in the hearing, Tim Wilson was allowed to re-state, at length, his clear support for changing the Act.

After the hearing, Senator Singh said Dr Soutphommasane ”was gagged, in complete contradiction to Tim Wilson who was able to share his views on the RDA. Senator Brandis initially stopped me from asking the question and accused me of being dishonest in asking for Dr Soutphommasane’s views. This is a man who stands for freedom of speech yet won’t allow a witness at the table to speak.”

This absolute championing of freedom of speech seems very much at odds with Tony Abbott’s stand against Hizb ut-Tahrir, taken after Alan Jones urged him to “proscribe the movement”.

“We are changing the law that will make it easier to ban organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir. But before that even we should have a system in place which red cards these hate preachers and stops them coming to Australia.”

The response from our “Freedom Commissioner” was totally devoid of any legal facts, or gumption for that matter, as reported by Michelle Grattan in October:

“Wilson fears florid talk about “hate speech” can “justify censorship all over the place”. He is considering putting in a personal submission to the current parliamentary inquiry into the legislation, urging a tighter definition of the advocacy of terrorism. Wilson says it is unclear where the line would be between the advocacy of terrorism and for example attacking the coalition’s air strikes in the Middle East.”

Apparently, he either didn’t get around to his “personal submission” or it was ignored.

Abbott is right…this has been a stitch-up – one that began well before George Brandis was in a position to reward his “friends at the IPA” and, with the help of Senator Macdonald, take his revenge on that pesky woman.

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Mining the data on child sex abuse

February 22, 2015
Written by: The AIM Network
30 Replies

Is Tony Abbott trying to use an ill-informed myth about the link between metadata and child sex abuse in the hope that the Opposition, the Senate, and the electorate will allow him to do what he wants? Dean Laplonge reports.

Tony Abbott has stated there is a link between metadata storage and protecting children. In an attempt to secure support for legislation that will require companies to store metadata for two years, he has claimed the new law will assist with investigations into child pornography and child sexual abuse. “We know that access to metadata has played a role in preventing and investigating terrorism offences. But it’s also vital to investigating major crimes that destroy lives in this country – and no crime is more abhorrent than crimes against children.”

The connection he makes between crimes against children and terrorism is intentional. Both topics generate intense emotions of fear and anger. The mere thought of either occurring can lead people to insist that anything and everything must be done to prevent and stop them irrespective of whether the actions taken are illegal or curtail individual freedoms. The threat of terrorism has been used to justify wars. The fear of child sexual abuse has been used to gain cross-party support for the introduction of cyber predator laws in several Australia states – laws which allow police officers to masquerade as children online in an attempt to entrap potential paedophiles.

Abbott’s sudden concern for the well-being of children is at odds with his recent response to the Forgotten Children report issued by the Australian Human Rights Commission. This report concluded that the detainment of children in immigration detention camps breaches Australia’s international obligations. It recommends that all children in immigration detention be released and calls for a royal commission into the issue. Abbott labelled this report a “transparent stitch-up”.

On the one hand he views the fact that children in detention are suffering as less important than his and his government’s reputation, but now he claims to be working to protect children.

The children mentioned in the Commission’s report are real. This report does not talk about potential harm to children who might be placed in detention in the future. It cites examples of doctor’s reports on how actual children are suffering because of their detention now. The children to which Abbott refers in his latest comment are imaginary. His concern in this case is about the potential and possible sexual abuse of unknown and, as yet, invisible children.

This is not to say that children are not victims of sexual abuse. To help Tony Abbott better understand this issue too, however, we should consider what experts in this field have to say on the matter.

In her ground-breaking and challenging book, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, Judith Levine argued that “Projecting sexual menace onto a cardboard monster and pouring money and energy into vanquishing him” renders children “more vulnerable both at home and in the world”. This is because the vast majority of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by somebody already known to the child, and often from within the child’s own family circle.

In their 2012 article “Reconstructing the sexual abuse of children: ‘Cyber-paeds’, panic and power”, UK academics Yvonne Jewkes and Maggie Wykes argue that the relocation of child sexual abuse to the virtual space has effectively silenced reporting on sexual abuse in the domestic space. “Anxiety around ‘cyber-paeds’ has become a smokescreen diverting attention from the real sites of sexual harm to children: men in paternal/familial settings and a socio-economic context that constructs children as sexually desirable,” they write.

Another UK academic, Mark O’Brien, has argued that the response to internet child pornography and child abuse constitutes a moral panic. He quotes from professor Stanly Cohen’s work on moral panics about youth cultures in which a moral panic is defined as something that is “presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media” and when the “moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right thinking people”. The outcomes of the current moral panic about online child sexual abuse are, according to O’Brien, an absence of balanced scrutiny of the issue, a reluctance to debate the difference between voyeurism and practice, and opinions presented as fact.

Katherine Williams wrote in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law that laws which are introduced to respond to online child pornography seek to preserve a specific ideal of sexual morality. She notes that such laws are often introduced without evidence to support claims about what they will achieve. Instead, assumptions are made about who is viewing the images, what these images are being used for, and how they relate to the actual sexual abuse of children.

Professor Carissa Byrne Hessick from the College of Law at the University of Utah argues for disentangling child pornography from child sex abuse. She suggests that while “child sex abuse is often a messy intrafamilial problem,” we just don’t want to think about or deal with that. The idea of a stranger posing a threat to “our” children is oddly more appealing.

Looking at child pornography laws in Canada and the USA, Robert Danay has addressed the claim that any resistance to government intervention to restrict usage of the internet is simply a ploy on the part of paedophiles to organise and elevate their status. He writes that such a suggestion is based on “hysterical misinformation and has masked some of the real harms that stem from our current child pornography prohibitions.”

Finally, Ludwig Lowenstein’s review of “Recent research into the downloading of child pornographic materials from the internet” discovered that “Research concerning the use of child pornography by paedophiles had been mostly anecdotal, and the few empirical studies on the topic had been plagued by inconsistencies in definitions and problems involved in sampling methods and procedures.”

The ideas I have summarised here are not exhaustive or by any means extensive. There is a lot of work being done to investigate a range of related issues, including the effectiveness of online tools to monitor the circulation of child pornography, the use of sexting and pornographic selfies as methods of communication between young people, the impacts of the construction of child pornography on children, and the construction of the paedophilic gaze through laws that nevertheless claim to be seeking to put an end to viewing children as sexual objects.

The point I seek to emphasise is that the research does not state conclusively or even strongly that internet child sexual abuse is the biggest threat to children or that metadata laws solve this particular cultural problem. Child sexual abuse occurs; of that there is no doubt. How, where, and by whom are, however, matters of interest and debate, at least among those who seek to investigate this issue seriously.

Tony Abbott is no expert on this subject. It’s doubtful he has considered the issues of internet child pornography and child sexual abuse in as much detail as these researchers and writers have. Despite extensive search through journal databases, I was unable to find any peer reviewed article or even newspaper article written by him on this particular subject. He nevertheless deems it appropriate to speak about it in a way which puts forward his views and opinions as if they were unchallenged facts, and as if he does know what he is talking about.

Granted, the topic of child sexual abuse is highly charged. Even the presentation of other people’s ideas here is likely to result in personal abuse against me. I believe it important, however, that a serious and considered debate about this issue take place before we rush into accepting any new law which will allow greater government monitoring of our private communications but which has not been shown to be able to solve a problem to which it has now been linked.

Abbott has claimed that a report detailing the suffering of children in detention camps is politically motivated. I wonder if he will now dare to make the same claim about the facts concerning internet child pornography and child sexual abuse that I have outlined above. Are these people who read, investigate, gather and analyse data, and then write up their findings telling tales to get at him and his government? Or is he seeking to use yet another ill-informed myth in the hope that the Opposition, the Senate, and the electorate will allow him to do what he wants?

Author’s biography

Dean Laplonge is a cultural theorist whose research and consulting work explores the relationship between culture and everyday practices. He is the author of GenderImpacts (https://genderimpacts.wordpress.com), a blog which explores the impacts of gender on the way we think and behave. He is also the Director of the cultural research company Factive (www.factive.com.au) and an Adjunct senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales.

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Good news kids, the inheritance is safe, and so are we

February 21, 2015
Written by: Kaye Lee
48 Replies

I wonder if the Coalition realise just how incongruous their rhetoric is with Tony selling the ‘death cult’ and ‘home-grown terrorist’ angle and trying to convince us he has to spend billions to keep us safe, while Joe Hockey is telling us it will be ‘intergenerational theft’ to spend money on health, education, and welfare.

Tony has a hard sell because we don’t actually feel as afraid as he would like us to and people are starting to wonder about someone who uses twenty billion dollars to buy a vote to keep him leader when he may already have used that same $20 billion to buy a signature on a free trade agreement.

Now he is asking us to chip in over $400 million so he can spy on innocent people because the proposed metadata retention laws have so many gaps in them that they will be easily circumvented by anyone who wants to, be they genuine terrorists, pedophiles, or journalists.

Rather than helping the “war on terror”, I think we got more truth from AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin who said the scheme could “absolutely” be used to tackle online copyright infringement.

“Illegal downloads, piracy, cyber crimes, cyber security, all these matters – our ability to investigate them is absolutely pinned to our ability to retrieve and use metadata,” he told reporters.

Funnily enough, Malcolm Turnbull and Steve Ciobo were quite vociferous in their opposition to metadata retention when they were in opposition. This time around, Malcolm was excluded from National Security Committee discussions of the proposal but then, even though he hadn’t been at the meetings, he was sent out to explain it after both Tony Abbott and George Brandis struggled to clarify what data would be held.

Expecting them to have a consistent view on anything other than ‘stop the boats’ and ‘axe the tax’ has become unrealistic.

Against this backdrop, Joe is softening us up for the soon to be released Intergenerational Report which will contain lots of big scary numbers with no context.

Whether the delay in its release, which is a breach of the Charter of Budget Honesty, has been forced on Joe so he can do a quick rewrite, or he is choosing the timing to be closer to his next budget, we can be certain to hear a lot of “stealing from our children and our grandchildren”.

This is also going to be a very hard sell.

He has to convince students that, to save the government from having a future debt, they should take on a very large personal debt – so large that many of them will choose not to take on tertiary education.

He has to convince pensioners that they should take a cut to their indexation because it is too hard to tax high-earning superannuees.

He has to convince us that a “value signal” on going to the doctor won’t lead to increased chronic illness and hospital admissions.

He has to convince us that we must hunt down all the people who are rorting welfare payments but that chasing corporate taxation would be “detrimental for business”.

He has to convince us that, with unemployment rising particularly amongst our youth, that we should all work till we are 70.

And he has to convince us of this while Tony is boosting defence and security spending and buying submarines and fighter jets and helicopters and patrol boats hand over fist; while Peter Dutton is spending billions keeping children locked up in detention ; while Tony is spending tens of billions building his (finger number four) roads of the 21^st century.

I would suggest that even Joe’s quivering references to his children won’t save him this time.

I have a suggestion on what we can do to fix the “debt and deficit disaster” without having to burden anyone at all or cut anything at all.

Borrow pot loads and invest it in the Future Fund. You remember the Future Fund, Australia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, established for the benefit of future generations of Australians? You may not because it isn’t counted in the budget bottom line.

Well, as at the 31^st of December 2014, it was $109.21 billion in the black. We also have $3.77 billion in the Education Investment Fund, $3.71 billion in the Building Australia Fund, $1.95 billion in the Health and Hospitals Fund and $830 million in the DisabilityCare Australia Fund.

Its investment returns for the 2013-14 financial year yielded $12 billion ($48.7bn since its inception in May 2006 on accumulated contributions of $60.5 billion invested). The 2014-15 budget shows $13.2 billion interest will be paid to service CGS liabilities for the year to June 2014, so we came out roughly square (give or take a billion) so you can stop worrying about our billion a month in interest payments.

Despite the global financial crisis in 2008, the fund has enjoyed an average nominal annual growth rate of 7.2 per cent.

The Australia Government Bond 10Y rate is currently about 2.57 per cent. That means we could borrow money (issue bonds) and reinvest it making a net gain of almost 5%.

Interestingly, though you will hear Conservatives tell us this nest egg is solely due to John Howard’s surpluses (and the sale of Telstra), in the 2008 and 2009 federal budgets, the Labor Rudd Government transferred A$41 billion into the Future Fund, and established three new funds, known as the Nation-building Funds: a A$20 billion Building Australia Fund to invest in roads, rail, ports and broadband; an $11 billion Education Investment Fund, which absorbed a similar $6 billion fund set up by the previous government; and a A$10 billion Health and Hospital Fund.

These transfers created or contributed to the budget deficits of A$27 and A$57 billion respectively in the 2008 and 2009 years. Rather than burdening our children with our debt they were setting money aside for their future needs.

Costello took money out of the economy by running surpluses and sold our assets to make his contribution. Swan borrowed money when times were toughest to invest even more to stimulate the economy through investments and to grow a fund for future generations. The Coalition takes from us while the Labor Party gives to us, and they call the progressives economic vandals. The Coalition simply have no understanding of how it works.

In 2007, Labor suggested it wanted to withdraw $2.7 billion to start the NBN, paying the Future Fund a commercial rate of return on the invested funds, with all profits being returned into the Future Fund allowing further investment.

The Howard government screamed blue murder proclaiming that Labor intended to “raid” the Future Fund for their own means. Surely this is exactly the type of thing we have a future fund for – something that would benefit all Australians through immediate employment in the design and construction, future generations who will benefit from access to high-speed broadband, and the investors who will receive a return on their investment.

Joe Hockey will tell you that the purpose of the fund is to meet the government’s future liabilities for the payment of superannuation to retired public servants. I very much doubt that bill would be anywhere near the fund’s annual return – $12 billion and growing – and this is entirely unnecessary anyway as any future liabilities can be paid for as they arise by issuing bonds if necessary. It is also not how the fund describes itself and nor should it. This money should not be quarantined but used to build our children’s future.

So the next time Hockey tears up about what we are doing to our children, remind him of the Future Fund that is sitting there earning money to “benefit future generations of Australians.”

What would be far more sensible than borrowing to park money in the Future Fund would be to follow Michael Pascoe’s advice in the SMH:

“Commonwealth 10-year bonds are trading with a yield of 2.5 per cent. Right now, the government could borrow as much as it can dream of for very little, invest it in infrastructure development with a double-digit rate of return, improve the nation’s productivity, overcome some of the shorter-term challenges of our structural adjustment, reduce unemployment, end its over-reliance on monetary policy and restore some of the inter-generational balance that has been lost by public sector investment falling to its lowest level in generations.

But that would take leadership and trust and confidence in the leadership – not a boy who’s been crying wolf.”

Whilst Tony and Joe will be pushing counter narratives on our spending power – unlimited funds for national security, but health education and welfare are unaffordable – they are consistent on one message – they want us to be afraid.

Deconstructing a dog whistle

February 16, 2015
Written by: ozfenric
40 Replies

Tony Abbott’s government has taken some body-blows in recent weeks, and Abbott’s own leadership standing is suffering. Some say that this is due to a savage budget that seeks to address a non-existent budget emergency by penalising those who can least afford it and by punching the powerless, compounded by poor communications and head-scratching political decisions. If this were the case, one might be forgiven for thinking that the best way of recovering the party’s fortunes might be to revisit the thinking behind the budget, to seek to appropriately identify who the real lifters and leaners in the economy are, and to fix the way that the government goes about doing business.

Or you could go for the approach of sowing distrust and disunity, painting an amorphous group as the “Other” in order to convince Australians that you are “One of them” and being strong to protect them from the forces of darkness. This is a skill-set and a rulebook Tony Abbott inherited from his great hero John Howard and this weekend’s video message shows that he has enthusiastically embraced it.

If national security is so important that it has prompted an address to the nation, at the expense of attention to Joe Hockey’s “Never back to surplus” budget and Andrew Robb’s TPP negotiations and the likely forthcoming execution of the Bali Nine kingpins, then it would seem worthwhile to examine the detail of Mr Abbott’s speech.

When you look at what Mr Abbott had to say, it becomes clear that he is taking two specific incidents and generalising threats from them, generalising failures from them, and using them to beat up the necessity for changes. In two minutes and 23 seconds, he commiserates with the victims of violence, generalises the threat to all Australians, spruiks the actions of the government, reminds us of the threat and reassures us that he is keeping us safe.

An examination of the specific incidents to which Abbott refers, however, tells a more sobering story. There have been no significant failures of our immigration and border protection regulations, no breaches of our balanced and considered jurisprudence and bail system. There are no practical measures that could have prevented these specific events that prompt Abbott’s address. Once you understand that any measures the government might propose can have no possible effect on preventing these specific events, the low-brow dog whistle becomes crystal clear, and it becomes possible to see the real threat behind the words – the threat of further intrusive and unwarranted interference into people’s everyday lives.

A Message from the PM

Abbott begins by referring to the recent Lindt cafe attack by Man Haron Monis. It is perfectly appropriate to “acknowledge the atrocity”. It was one man with a shotgun and three people, including the attacker, died in the event. “Atrocity” is a strong word, but Abbott commences as he means to continue. In any case, the scene is set, the tone of the address is identified: this is a message about terrorism.

Abbott continues with a pledge to keep Australia as “safe and secure” as humanly possible. Federal and State governments are conducting a joint review into the siege, and the report will be released soon. The report will make recommendations and the government intends to take some actions. History has shown us that actions taken by a government are often only a subset, or sometimes a completely different set, to the recommendations of any given report, but we will reserve judgement. In effect, Abbott is attempting to take credit in advance for an announcement the government has yet to make. He is showing the government is strong, by pointing to the future when it intends to take strong action that it can’t tell us about yet.

We may get an inkling of the actions the government has in mind when Abbott addresses the Parliament on the topic of national security next Monday. But we may have a sneak preview as Abbott continues on.

“For too long we have given those who might be a threat to our country the benefit of the doubt. There’s been the benefit of the doubt at our borders, the benefit of the doubt for residency, the benefit of the doubt for citizenship and the benefit of the doubt at Centrelink. And in the courts, there has been bail, when clearly there should have been jail.”

When we unpack this statement, in the context of recent events and of the preceding text, Abbott is effectively telling us that we have not been strong enough in our immigration policies, and failures in our bail and justice systems. Abbott refers very specifically to the one example he has mentioned, Man Haron Monis, the attacker in the Lindt cafe event. Australians – particularly those in Sydney, Abbott’s home constituency – will be very aware
also of the arrest this week of two young men, home-grown potential jihadists. Despite not mentioning them specifically, the media has been quick to connect the dots between their arrest and this statement by Abbott.

The problem is that neither our immigration, residency, citizenship nor bail processes failed in any of these cases.

Man Haron Monis was on bail for a variety of criminal offenses at the time of his cafe attack. These cases were not religious in nature. He was accused of being accessory before and after the fact for the murder of his wife by his girlfriend. Separately, he was on bail on indecency charges. Neither case could have given indication that he was planning to turn into a shotgun-wielding maniac. [Read: How was Man Haron Monis not on a security watchlist?]

There were indications perhaps of mental instability, of paranoia, and definite isolation and marginalisation. Monis was known for holding “extremist” views. That’s easy to say in retrospect. His views on the West’s involvement in Middle-Eastern conflicts would not be out of place in a Greens party room meeting. He was, until very shortly before his act of terror, a well-dressed and urbane Australian.

Could the Lindt Cafe attack have been avoided if Man Haron Monis was denied bail? Certainly. On what basis could bail have been denied, though? This was not a wild-haired fanatic before the magistrate.

Bail is a State issue of law enforcement. As it happens, laws have already been tightened in NSW that would have prevented Monis’ bail. So what exactly does Abbott, in the Federal sphere, expect to do to make Australians still safer?

The recent arrests in Sydney were of two young men, Mohammad Kiad and Omar al-Kutobi. Allegedly they were arrested just hours before they intended to attack members of the public with knives. Could either of these alleged terrorists have been captured earlier with tighter border protection policies, or more intelligence resources? Were they abusing their Centrelink entitlements?

It would appear not. Kiad, now 25, came into Australia four years ago on a family visa to join his wife. al-Kutobi fled Iraq with his family ten years ago; he came to Australia in 2009. Shortly thereafter he received a protection visa and he became an Australian citizen in 2013. Neither man was a wild-haired fanatic, nor obviously a danger to the public.

The pair were not known to police. They were not known as religious extremists. Until recently, it doesn’t appear that they were. Instead, they were young Aussie men, fond of barbeques and American TV and luxury goods. Their radicalisation occurred over the last few weeks, perhaps triggered by the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices last month in Paris. Their rapid radicalisation was reported to Australian authorities by their own community about a week ago. Mere days later, police swooped.

How were tighter immigration rules four years ago going to prevent a planned terror attack that took months, at most, to be conceived and instigated, from men who by all reports only became extreme within the last six months, and on Australian soil?

The other problematic element of this densely offensive paragraph is the reference to Centrelink. In the context of this strident message, the inference is clear: that terrorists rely on Newstart. This is so ridiculous as to be laughable – yet it plays to the same crowd who lapped up the election rhetoric about boat people clogging up the motorways of Sydney.

The other possible reading is that people who rely on welfare are as bad as terrorists. I’m not certain which interpretation is the more offensive.

Abbott continues his address with the key message: all too often, “bad people play us for mugs. Well, that’s going to stop.”

Who are these bad people? That’s not been shown. Hopefully it’s not Man Haron Monis, because if we’re going to stop people like him from “taking us for mugs”, we presumably will no longer be providing welfare to those with mental issue. Hopefully it’s not Mohammad Kiad and Omar al-Kutobi, because in order to curtail the terrorist threat they pose, we would need to prevent muslims in general from entering the country.

Abbott makes a variety of references to the “Islamist death cult”. There’s a three-word slogan that’s earned him a couple of poll points before. It is also simultaneously emotive, highly offensive to large groups of undeserving people, and impossible to criticise without coming across as an apologist. Well, this author will criticise it. Islamic State might possibly be Islamist, but using the term paints all Muslims alike. IS is most certainly not a death cult. Yes, it uses unsupportable means and revels in bloodshed, but it does so not for the sake of killing people, but rather to attract those it considers devout. The killings are a means, not an end. And the idea of a world caliphate of muslims is dear to many. Nobody should seek to defend the actions or the Islamic State. However, belittling IS with a three-word slogan ignores the complexities and the real grievances and aspirations of millions of muslims everywhere.

Abbott goes on to talk about the much-discussed “new threats” of home-grown backyard terrorists, armed with “a knife, a flag, a camera phone, and a victim”. Terrorists are everywhere, around every corner, lurking under every bed.

By all means, do what you can to identify potential attackers before they take a life. But in the same way that it’s impossible to protect the public from an armed robber in a milk bar, it is impossible to protect the public from a quiet young man who just wants to be respected.

Abbott finishes his presentation by proudly boasting of working with other nations to degrade the Islamic State through military means; and improving the powers and resources of Australian intelligence agencies. Finally, he claims the need for stronger laws to “make it easier to keep you safe”. These include the data retention laws currently before parliament, but, worryingly, might also include other laws and regulations Abbott does not describe, but which will inevitably further encroach on our liberties and our privacy. Of course, it’s all for our own good. The government is being strong to keep Us safe from Them.

“As a country we won’t let evil people exploit our freedom.” As Kaye Lee has written today, it’s a pity that credo doesn’t stretch to include the current government.

Good Government Starts Today … Or Tomorrow, But We’re Definitely Committed To It!

February 14, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
17 Replies

There’s an old cartoon where the couple in a car are speeding down the highway while there’s hundreds of cars stuck in traffic in a lane beside it. The wife says, “Look at the sign – we’re going the wrong way!” To which the husband replies, “Who cares, we’re making great time.”

Every few days someone in the current Abbott Government makes me remember that cartoon.

Of course, unlike the man in the cartoon, most members of the government seem completely unable to acknowledge that they are going the wrong way, even though that’s what the sign clear says.

“We’ve made great progress on the Budget!”

But the deficit is growing and it’s not predicted to get back to surplus any faster than Labor planned.

“But you’d be a fool to trust what Labor said. They promised to get it back to surplus a couple of years ago and they still haven’t done it!”

But you’re the government now; you’re the ones promising to have it back in surplus, then changing the date.

“Yes, but I’m not a quitter. I’m determined to see this through, as is the PM. He’s a nice bloke, you know. A terrific guy. Family man. Athlete. He pedals really fast. Firefighter. And he’s a fighter. He’ll get back up. Really, I can’t think of someone with more attractive daughters. No, he’s certainly the best person to lead the country. “

Of course, Hockey did acknowledge that having the highest unemployment since John Howard was PM wasn’t great, but attempted to argue that it could be worse. Basically, his point was that if there hadn’t been so many jobs created last year then unemployment would have been over seven per cent, so we were really, really lucky that we’d rid ourselves of that Labor Government who wouldn’t have grown the economy.

He went on to argue that the best possible way to improve the unemployment figures was to get the economy growing faster. Which, to me, is a bit like a mechanic saying that the best possible thing for your car is to get it moving again, because once it’s moving then you won’t have this problem with it stalling. And if it keeps stalling, well, that’s because it’s not moving. At this point, don’t be tempted to ask the mechanic how you’re supposed to get it moving again, because he’ll just tap his nose and tell you that he has a plan, and, though it may not be popular, the best thing you could do is to pay his bill.

In fact, that’s more or less what Hockey said:

“I’m trying to get it to shift and things that have been unpopular but necessary have helped.”

I’m still trying to work out how sacking large numbers of public servants is meant to stimulate the economy and lead to an increase in employment numbers in the short term, even if one accepts the rather dubious argument that it’ll help get the Budget back in surplus and once the Budget is back in surplus, all will be well. (And once the car starts moving, it’ll no longer be stalled. $739, please, for parts and labour!!)

But, of course, the week truly belongs to Tony Abbott. Now I’m not going to mention the war – in particular, I’ll say nothing about the holocaust; neither will I make cheap shots about him not being able to stop Japanese subs from coming to Australia. (Actually they’ve announced that it’s no longer the case that Adelaide can’t build them, and that the they’ll be allowed to put in a thing that nobody seems to know what to call, before the contract is given to the Japanese under the free trade deal that’ll lead to jobs, jobs, jobs in whatever part of the world we’re trading with, and now that we have a free trade deal, well, what benefits them, benefits us, because we’re all just one happy free trading partnership where we’ve managed to break down the borders. Actually, change that to barriers. We want STRONGER borders, but no barriers to the movement of money, trade and anything else you care to name, if your donation is big enough.)

So after we’ve had the barnacle clearing, the learning, back to work Tuesday, more learning, and good government starts today day, we were treated to the government’s attempt to bury a report by waiting six months then releasing it late in the day, only to have Tony attack the Human Rights Commission for all he’s worth (no, actually, probably a bit more than that!) A report that was apparently partisan against his government, yet Mr Abbott suggested only minutes later that he was doing the Labor Party a favour by not following its recommendations, because if he implemented a Royal Commission “… it would condemn them (the former Labor government).” Strange that a report that was so ‘blatantly partisan’ report should also condemn the Labor Government, but, never mind, Abbott’s attack on Gillian Trigg’s managed to create enough attention that the report didn’t go the way of so many reports: We’ve got it, thanks, we’ll read it and get back to you, unless it’s the Gonski Report which Christopher Pyne refused to read because there were no pictures.

But just to cap off the week, we had the sacking of Phil “Smiley” Ruddock. Undertaker Ruddock, the Father of the House (do we know who the mother is?), the third longest serving member ever, Uncle Phil, the Liberal Party Whip was sacked. Make no mistake, Abbott wasn’t going to give him the dignity of resigning to promote generational change, or because he wanted to spend more time nursing a family member’s ingrown toenail, the PM made it clear that the decision was his. (I don’t think that he added and his alone, because that may have necessitated another announcement about how he intended to be more consultative in future, and people tend to grow a little cynical when you announce the same intention to change on a weekly basis, instead of the monthly basis that we’ve grown used to.)

Yep, I’ve heard people argue that the term, “forward progress” is a tautology, because you can’t have “backward progress”. That, of course, was before the Abbott Government.

Cheers,

Rossleigh.

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Tony Abbott’s horror week is now news in Indonesia

February 13, 2015
Written by: Michael Taylor
33 Replies

American think tank the Council on Foreign Relations made the headlines in Australia this week when their scathing report on Tony Abbott, aptly titled ‘Tony Abbott has to go’ filtered its way to our mainstream media.

Now we notice that the Americans are not the only ones who are writing about horror year Tony Abbott and his government are enduring. Tony Abbott has been hitting the headlines – front page headlines, no less – in Indonesia too.

The kicker is today’s story in the Jakarta Globe, ‘Australian PM Under Fresh Fire After Horror Week’ with Indonesians reading about of our Prime Minister’s ‘success’ since declaring the start of good government.

It does not read well.

“Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott came under fire on Friday over controversial comments on the arrest of two terror suspects and for referring to a “holocaust” of job losses, capping a horror week” they write.

“Abbott began the first parliamentary week of the year fighting for his job after poor poll ratings, a series of policy backflips and perceived high-handed decision making saw MPs from his conservative Liberal Party force a confidence vote”.

“He survived the “spill” motion on Monday and promised “good government” from that point on with the 39 of the 102 Liberal parliamentarians who tried to oust him grudgingly agreeing to give the unpopular leader a second chance”.

It was noticed that “. . . he has stumbled since, handing his detractors more ammunition”. I’m wondering if our local mainstream media makes the same conclusion.

But possibly the most damning of their condemnation refers to Tony Abbott’s comments on the trial of two terror suspects.

“On Friday, he was forced to defend himself after revealing in parliament a day earlier the contents of a video allegedly made by two men charged with terrorism offenses.

Lawyers said the detail and his remark that it was “monstrous extremism”, made under parliamentary privilege, could prejudice a future trial of Omar Al-Kutobi, 24, and Mohammad Kiad, 25”.

In other Indonesian news, Kirsty Wynn’s article ‘When Will Abbott Get Started on Good Governance?‘ – also in the Jakarta Globe – echoes the sentiments, in part, of those expressed in the now famous commentary from the Council on Foreign Relations.

Wynn writes that:

There is no doubt that Abbott’s ferocity made him an exceptional opposition leader. Time after time he managed to shred Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd amid the Labor Party ruckus, in turn elevating his status from unknown Sydney MP to a figure appreciated because of his absolute conviction. It could also be said that this is our blowback, as the heavy-handed tact we once lauded has now become irksome. The infallible strength that inspired the public during the last election has created a PM who refuses to see his own fallibility.

Abbott must now learn that as PM he is no longer a crusader. It is not expected (or desirable, at the least) for him to continue to violently strike down challenges. As a PM he is expected to navigate them, work in consultation with his own party, at the minimum, and produce outcomes that reflect assurances made pre-election but also in tune with more recent happenings.

The desire to return to surplus was a poignant example of this. Voters indeed agreed pre-election that returning to surplus would be advantageous, but the brute force of the measures put forth by the Abbott government managed to isolate large segments of the public. It was as if Abbott had been asked by the public to unlock a door (to surplus, for argument’s sake), only for him to instead kick the door down.

There remain plenty of problems-cum-opportunities for the PM to show his potential to solving issues constructively — instead of obliterating them. Most prominently, thorns exist over chief of staff Peta Credlin’s influence over Abbott. Her role is increasingly seen by colleagues as being subversive, and for most, too encompassing. In light of recent events, this issue could be a means for Abbott to showcase a new approach.

The benefit of democracy is that Abbott remains under no illusions now. He has been called out by his own staff and made to walk the plank. He has been saved this time, but will need more than luck to continue.

Restraint and tact are traits underappreciated by most. It’s high time Abbott rises to the challenge and train in both.

In just one week, the debacles surrounding Tony Abbott’s prime ministership have received wide coverage in America and Indonesia. At this rate, Tony Abbott will be making rest-of-world headlines within the fortnight.

For all the wrong reasons, of course.

Behind the shelter sheds with Tony Abbott doing adult things like saying ‘Holocaust’

February 12, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
40 Replies

From my younger days, I have this memory of someone pushing me. They were heavier and there was no way I was going to win a contest of strength, so I did the only thing I could think of: I moved back faster than they were moving forward and did a neat little side-step. With nothing to push against, they fell flat on their face.

Watching Tony Abbott over the past week, that memory suddenly flashed into my head, because it works pretty well as a metaphor for his time as PM. While there was a government to push against, he was very successful, but now he’s the government the pushing just lands him flat on his face.

If we had a dollar for every time we’ve heard the phrase “the mess we inherited”, not only would the Budget be in surplus, but we could bail out Greece (or “Greek”, as Alan Jones referred to it in an interview, where he talked about the problems of “Greek, Italy, and Turkey.)

“Labor have no ideas for reducing the deficit,” moan the Liberals, as if being in Opposition makes it mandatory for you to actually suggest the proper way forward. Not that I don’t think that it isn’t reasonable to suggest things from Opposition; it’s more that the Government would repeat its “We have no choice” mantra to any suggestions from the Opposition. (There is a rumour that Tony meant it when he said “Workchoices” was dead – it’s being replaced with “Worknochoice, even if you’re old or disabled because we believe in fairness.”

And speaking of fairness, I must say that Tony’s use of the word “holocaust” in relation to jobs had a certain element of … well, could I say a man under pressure:

“Under members opposite defence jobs in this country declined by 10 per cent. There was a holocaust of jobs in defence industries under members opposite.”

Before the Opposition could even raise a point of order, Mr Abbott continued, withdrawing the remark.

“That’s what there was Madame Speaker, jobs, jobs, jobs, I’m sorry if I, I’m sorry and I withdraw Madame Speaker. There was a decimation of jobs.”

I’m sorry if I, I’m sorry and I withdraw Madame Speaker.

One wonders what he was going to say with the “If I…” that wasn’t finished. Oh perhaps it was just a pause and it should have no comma be written as: “I’m sorry if I’m sorry and I withdraw, Madame Speaker”.

Of course, the PM was defending the rise in unemployment figures by attacking Labor. One wonders what he’d do if Labor suddenly announced that they’d taken everything he said to heart and were disbanding the Party and there’d be no Opposition at the next election.

In fact, I wonder if we all said, we’re right behind you Tony, nobody’s going to oppose anything you do. How long do you think you’ll need to put your plan into practice?

And, by the way, what exactly is your plan?

Or is that like the “Who are you?” question.

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The Queensland election was a bit seismic, says Tony

February 10, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
14 Replies

Extract From Leigh Sales Interview with Tony Abbott

Sales: “Who are you?”

Abbott: “Well, Leigh, let’s just focus for a second on the captain’s picks. There have essentially been two captain’s picks …”

Sales: “Can you actually just focus on the big picture there? Because there’s been three different Tony Abbotts. I just want to know, which one are you?”

Abbott: “Well Leigh, I will let the Australian people form their own conclusions, but let’s just go back to the captain’s picks. There’s been two of them. There’s the paid parental leave scheme, which we took to two elections, but I accept that good policy though it would be in different circumstances, now is not the right time for an expansion of paid parental leave. And then, of course, there was the knighthood. Now, all of these awards in the Order of Australia are now being handled by the Council of the Order of Australia.”

Sales: “How about my point though, that there’ve been … you know, we’re up to Tony Abbott 3.0? Do you accept that you’ve thoroughly confused the public about what your government is and what you stand for?”

Abbott: “Let’s look at the situation that we inherited, Leigh …”

Sales: “Can we just look at the big picture about you?”

Abbott: “I’d rather have a conversation rather than an argument, Leigh.”

Sales: “I think it’s a reasonable question, and one that voters would be asking themselves, and it would be remiss of me not to put to you.”

Abbott: “And let me answer it by saying, going into the last election, the then-government was saying that the deficit would be $18 billion. It turned out to be $48 billion, there was a $30 billion budget black hole that the Labor Party had created, should have known about, and wasn’t telling us about. Obviously, when the circumstances change, there are some things that have to change with them. Now I absolutely accept Leigh, that I said the night before the election, that there’d be no cuts to the ABC. But let’s face it Leigh, that for 18 years, the ABC had no efficiency dividend, and when there are spending restraints across a whole area of government policy, surely under those circumstances, it is possible to revise a particular commitment.”

Sales: “But it’s interesting that you’re not able to answer the question to me. Who are you, what do you stand for? Which Tony are you?”

Abbott: “Well obviously, we stand for a government that believes in smaller government, lower taxes, and greater freedom. We are a government that believes in values and institutions that have stood the test of time. Above all else though, we are a pragmatic government which wants to do what works. And if we try to do something sensible one way, and it doesn’t work, we’ll try to bring about the same sensible outcome in a different way. And there are challenges Leigh. We at least accept that there’s a serious fiscal challenge, that intergenerational theft has been going on, that the former government started, and that we are determined to fix. The Labor Party is in denial about all these things. You can embrace a government which is not perfect, but is at least fair dinkum, or you can go with the people who gave us the problem, and are now trying to say that it’s not their fault, and they’re not going to address it.”

“Thanks, Mr Abbott, and congratulations on nothing happening yesterday.”

“Good evening and thank you. I’ve listened, I’ve learned and today is the day after good government has re-started, it’s back to work Tuesday, it’s a brand new day, it’s an exciting opportunity, it’s the first day of the rest of our lives, it’s a dream come true, it’s the beginning of the end of the age of entitlement or rather the beginning of the age of hope, reward and opportunity, it’s a…”

“Excuse me, Mr Abbott, but can I pursue the question which you seemed reluctant to answer in your interview with Leigh Sales, who are you?”

“Now, I think the question was pretty much dealt with last night, and I’d like to move on, because it’s not all about me.”

“So, who are you?”

“Well, the most important thing is that I’m not the Labor Party. In particular, I’m not Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard, but I think it’s also far to say that I’m not Bill Shorten. Neither, I think it fair to say, am I … ah, Dexter, or Charles Manson, although Manson certainly knew how to inspire loyalty, which I obviously have, because all the traitors who voted against me have agreed to back me..”

“Excuse me again, but the question was ‘Who are you?’, not ‘Who aren’t you?'”

“Now… If you’d stop throwing all these rapid fire questions at me, like when I said I hadn’t read the BHP thingy, which I obviously had, because I said that I had the next day. If you keep interrupting and don’t give me the chance to finish then, of course, I’ll be misunderstood.”

“Ok. Go on.”

“Well, the thing is … ah… we inherited this mess from Labor… ah…, where the Budget doesn’t…um, balance… look, I’m not Treasurer, so he’d be better at explaining these things, but we abolished the Carbon and … ah, Mining Taxes which has left people a lot better off… and … ah, we need to cut spending so that we can afford to keep our standard of living… like, I mean, I’ve made all the households better off to the tune of “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” … no, not that to the tune of $550, which is helping to get us all back on track… Joe’s better at all this number’s stuff. So, I don’t know why you’re asking me an economic question.”

“I asked you who you were.”

“Look, let me make it absolutely clear that I stopped the boats. It’s only because it’s operational matter that I haven’t been able to tell you exactly how many boats I’ve stopped…”

“Let’s try this another way, how old are you?”

“Let me assure you that Kevin Andrews is absolutely right when he says that we shouldn’t be dictated to about how we choose to describe a competitive evaluation process.”

“And Joe Hockey has your full support?”

“Of course, but that’s got nothing to do with what we’re discussing. I’d like to be able to finish one answer before you change the subject.”

“So who are you, Mr Abbott?”

“Rupert Murdoch is a great Australian and I think that he said it best when he said that the Labor Party’s opposition to 457 visa holders was racist and disgusting.”

“Mr Abbott, I’m sorry but your time is up.”

“No, they gave me until after the Budget and then I’m going to call an early election, that’ll stop those backbench bastards…”

“I meant for the interview.”

“Oh, well, it’s been a pleasure.”

The trust deficit

February 10, 2015
Written by: Kaye Lee
42 Replies

Mr Abbott,

You have made promises to your colleagues to be more “consultative and collegial”. Will you make the same assurances to the Australian people?

You said in your speech to the National Press Club “I hope that in 2015 we will see a much more honest national conversation.”

How can we have a national conversation when you won’t let us in on it?

Why won’t you release the tax discussion paper finalised late last year, or Treasury’s intergenerational report?

Why are the free trade agreements and negotiations for the TPP so secretive? We have a right to know what is being given away before you sign on the dotted line.

Why are journalists and human rights groups not allowed access to our refugee detention camps?

Why did Mr Hockey purposely omit Treasury’s calculations showing the households that won or lost in the budget?

Why have you taken away our right to appeal development and mining decisions on environmental grounds and the right of refugees to appeal negative decisions about their status?

Why are you refusing Freedom of Information requests that do not affect national security?

Why, after commissioning one extensive (Productivity Commission) and one expensive (PriceWaterhouseCoopers) report into childcare do you now promise to consult? Isn’t it time to act?

Why was the GP co-payment policy developed without any modelling as to its impact and without consultation with health providers?

When one of our greatest assets and productivity drivers is education, why abandon the recommendations of the very well-researched Gonski report, and the implementation of the National Curriculum which was the result of extensive consultation and thousands of submissions from educational experts and stakeholders, and give two men with extreme ideological views a few months to come up with their version of what should be taught in our schools?

And if we are going to have an honest conversation then you need to start being honest with us. When you and your Ministers all repeat the same lines it shows lazy group think and collusion to mislead.

Over the last few days many government MPs have repeated the line that job creation in 2014 was three times that in 2013. A spokesman for Mr Hockey told me the figures supporting that assertion came from the ANZ survey of job vacancies and the ABS Labour Force survey.

ANZ chief economist Warren Hogan said new job opportunities were not keeping up with the number of new entrants to the workforce or job losses in certain sectors.

Although job ads were growing at a brisk rate compared with the previous few years, new opportunities were not keeping up with the rise in unemployment, said Scutt Partners market strategist David Scutt.

The ABS told me that they do not measure job creation and that figures relating to job ads do not identify new jobs as they include existing jobs which are currently vacant.

The trend figures from the ABS are as follows:

Number of employed persons

December 2012 (11, 541, 500)

December 2013 (11, 636, 600 )

December 2014 (11, 646, 800)

Unemployed persons

December 2012 (653,800)

December 2013 (716,000)

December 2014 (770,900)

Aggregate monthly hours worked

December 2012 ( 1,622.9 million hours)

December 2013 ( 1,636.0 million hours)

December 2014 (1,602.0 million hours)

You have also been saying that Labor said the deficit was $18 billion when it was actually $48 billion.

It is true that Wayne Swan projected a deficit of $18 billion in the May 2013 budget. In August 2013, due to falling revenue, this was revised to show a $30.1 billion deficit in the Economic Outlook produced by the Labor Party. This was confirmed by Treasury and Finance a week or two later in PEFO. By the time Joe Hockey brought out MYEFO in December 2013 the deficit for 2013-14 had blown out to $47 billion.

“The deterioration in the underlying cash balance since the 2013 PEFO is $16.8 billion in the 2013‑14 financial year.”

This included the $8.8 billion gift to the Reserve Bank of Australia, $1.2 billion extra funding for offshore detention camps, and $2.9 billion revenue lost by not implementing tax and superannuation measures proposed by Labor.

When you talk about the unsustainability of health spending, telling us that in ten years the cost of Medicare had climbed 124 per cent, the cost of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme 90 per cent and the cost of public hospitals 83 per cent, you neglect to mention that Australia’s gross domestic product also climbed by 94 per cent.

You talk about intergenerational theft whilst letting foreign companies take our finite resources and pay virtually nothing for the superprofits they make. They degrade our environment and pollute our air and water while you assure us that coal is good for humanity and that action on climate change would hurt business. This is the ultimate burden you will leave our children and grandchildren.

As everyone is trying to tell you . . . well everyone outside your party room and office at least . . . we don’t want better spin. We want the truth. We don’t accept that yours is the only way. We want fairer alternatives.

Stop thinking spin will save you. It may have got you the job but, as you can plainly see, it is not going to keep you there. You have created a trust deficit that will be impossible to heal while you continue to treat the electorate with such cavalier disdain.

Nice try, Barnaby

January 24, 2015
Written by: Kaye Lee
32 Replies

August 28 2013: The Coalition has today promised $100 million in funding for the 15 Rural Research and Development Corporations specifically targeted at increasing the profitability of Australian agriculture.

To date, it has failed to actually deliver one additional cent of new money for R&D projects. The hastily contrived $20 billion slush fund for pharmaceutical companies is dependent on the GP co-payment and is a long way from providing any significant money to R&D should it ever come to fruition which is doubtful.

On Thursday, Barnaby Joyce’s announcement that the Queensland grains industry will receive $14.3 million over five years is another sign of desperation by the Abbott Government to shore up votes in Queensland.

The reality is that the Abbott Government has slashed funding

$80 million from Cooperative Research Centres
$115 million from the CSIRO – the biggest job losses to the organisation in history
$11 million from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation
$7 million of R&D Commonwealth matching dollars cut from Rural Research and Development Corporations announced in the May Budget.

Under Labor’s analysis, there is a total of $836.2 million in direct cuts to research, led by cuts to the CSIRO and the Research Training Scheme, and the abolition of Commercialisation Australia.

It says other savings will also hit research, including the 20 per cent cut to undergraduate places in universities and a more than half-billion-dollar cut to the student start-up loan scholarships scheme.

Add to that $6 billion in combined cuts to higher education and preventative health programs.

The impact of lower funding is likely to slow or stop vital research on infectious diseases such as the deadly Ebola virus. Other efforts that will be affected are the fights against bowel or colorectal cancer, which could stop completely. These had been under way at the CSIRO.

The CSIRO generated $37.5 million in licence fees and royalties last financial year and $278.5 million in 2011-12, when royalties from a wireless technology were significantly higher.

Inventions developed at CSIRO range from cotton seeds to contact lenses, with much of the income returned to the organisation’s research budget.

Much of the royalties flowing in stem from research projects that began decades ago. Among them is wireless technology, which has produced $420 million in the past five years, and pest-resistant cotton seed varieties used in 95 per cent of Australia’s cotton crops. Multinational partners include Bayer and Monsanto as well as local partner Cotton Seed Distributors. Royalties from the cotton seed varieties, developed to be disease and pest-resistant, range between $10 million and $20 million a year.

”A lot of the commercial outcomes we are getting now are based on investment we were able to make in the science using federal government taxpayer money in the past,” Ms Bingley said. ”If we don’t have access to that, then it makes it that much harder to innovate because it’s difficult to get industry to pay for things so early on in development.”

She pointed to start-up companies that have emerged as a result of CSIRO inventions, including GeoSLAM, a company commercialising an advanced 3D laser-scanning device called Zebedee.

Chief executive of BioMelbourne Network, a Victorian industry association for the biotech sector, Michelle Gallaher said much of Australia’s success in the field was founded on CSIRO research. She said the organisation grew not only technology but also talent.

It was also helping at least 50 Australian biotech companies to develop and commercialise their research. ”Any kind of cuts to CSIRO will translate to a lack of opportunity down the track,” she said.

Last August, Education Minister Christopher Pyne said university research cuts could not be ruled out if Parliament continued to block budget measures.

When having his photo taken at a cancer research facility so he could claim his $560 allowance after attending a private function the previous evening, Tony Abbott said:

“We want to get our higher education changes through because they will be good for universities, they will be good for research, they will be good for Australia, but what we are doing is we are modestly reducing government funding but at the same time we are liberating – we are liberating – our universities to achieve what they can because if there is one institution that ought to be capable of looking after its own affairs it is a university, which is, by definition, a bastion of our best and brightest.

But I want to stress here at the Peter Mac – this is a government which is dedicated to science, which is devoted to research, and wants to massively increase Australia’s research effort.”

It seems a convenient devotion to only be discussed during campaigns and ignored during budgets, unless the sick, the unemployed, and our kids are willing to fund it of course.

In Abu Dhabi, at a series of sessions at the World Future Energy Conference on the future of global renewable energy investment and clean energy markets, there was a lot of debate among some of the world’s leading bankers and clean energy developers about which countries offered the best opportunities.

“Australia is dead,” said Edgare Kerkwijk, the head of Singapore-based Asia Green Capital, to the general agreement of all.

Just how dead the market is has been highlighted by the fact that no new projects have gotten financial commitment since the election of the Abbott government in late 2013. In 2014, investment in large scale renewables plunged 88 per cent, taking Australia from 11th ranking to 39th.

A new report from Green Energy Markets, looking at the last quarter of 2014, notes that only one large scale project got new finance approval in 2014 – the 70MW Moree solar farm, and that was mostly due to the financing awarded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

We were asked to judge the Coalition by their actions rather than their words.

Nice try, Barnaby, but your election sweetener to the grains industry pales into insignificance in light of your short-sighted approach to research, development, innovation and investment.

You want a country that has no debt…and no future.

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Plutocrats and Pitchforks

January 14, 2015
Written by: John Kelly
43 Replies

The word ‘revolution’ has throughout history been synonymous with the cry for equality and social change. The French Revolution of 1789, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Cuban Revolution of 1959 to name a few, all began because the divide between the haves and the have nots became intolerable. In the examples above, social inequality was at historically high levels and getting worse by the day. Something had to happen and it did, much of it violent and bloody.

Revolutions were generally born of peasant unrest, dissatisfaction, a sense of betrayal by once revered heroes who were seduced by their own power and their accumulation of vast wealth. When that peasant dissatisfaction reached a tipping point, revolution became the only recourse.

Today the wealthiest 1% in our society enjoy a lifestyle that much of the 99% could not even imagine. Furthermore, the gap continues to widen such that the line between middle and lower class workers is now blurred, while the gap between middle and upper income levels grows wider and easier to see.

While any high functioning capitalist economy will always have inequality to some degree, the divide as it exists today is so geared toward greater wealth for the fewer that the middle class is in danger of disappearing altogether. The message for all those living in their gated compounds and ivory towers is, it cannot last.

Statistics are not needed to reinforce these claims. They simply confirm what the 99% already know. But, for the record, in 1980 in the USA, the top 1% controlled about 8% of the national income while the bottom 50% shared about 18%. Today, the top 1% share 20% of the national income while the bottom 50% share just 12%.

In Australia, similar comparisons are difficult to find but in measuring wealth by quintiles, the ABS found that in 2011 the top 20% of households owned 62% of the wealth while the bottom 20% held less than 1%. In fact the top 20% held more wealth than the rest combined. The conclusion was that wealth inequality was rising fast.

Free market capitalism in its present form is no longer a recipe for a sustained, prosperous, happy, healthy society. Today, capitalism is synonymous with inequality, unfairness and discrimination. With today’s capitalism we are drifting toward feudalism.

Inequality has grown so dramatically over the past thirty years that our once great egalitarian Australia of the 1960s and ’70s has all but disappeared. And to quote Joseph Stiglitz, “one of the major culprits has been trickle-down economics—the idea that the government can just step back and if the rich get richer and use their talents and resources to create jobs, everyone will benefit. It just doesn’t work; the historical data now proves that.”

If ever world leaders had an opportunity to revolutionise capitalism it was in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Just six years on from that incredible opportunity, we can see they have failed and have done so, spectacularly.

Bank bailouts without conditions will be a dark legacy for Barack Obama in an otherwise reasonable presidency and now the opportunity has all but passed. The US stock market has not just recovered but surpassed pre 2008 lows. The rich are richer and the poor are poorer in far greater numbers than before. For the 1%, the plutocrats, it’s business as usual.

The Reagan trickle-down effect is back with a vengeance and is now the hallmark of the present Australian government despite a plethora of information, data, and recent history to demonstrate its failure. They still expect business to lead a national recovery with investment in goods and services. What they don’t get, is that an underutilised workforce cannot afford it. Business knows this. That is why they will not commit.

The government cannot see that a vibrant, active, well-educated workforce is an essential component of a strong, robust economy; a component that creates demand that results in stronger growth, stronger investment and stronger taxes.

Blinded by the advice from bankers, investment houses and those whose fortunes are derived from manipulating stock markets and overvaluing mortgage stocks, Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are no more than a mouthpiece for the 1%; the plutocrats. They are victims of their own self-serving ideology. While they are in power nothing will change, no improvement for the 99% will ever eventuate.

Any realistic observer can see that this trend is unsustainable and its future unpredictable. While the plutocrats continue to build their wealth, billionaire Nick Hanauer thinks they might inherit pitchforks.

While the 1% enjoy their wealth, blind to the signs of desperation around them, a single act of defiance by someone desperate and destitute enough could mobilise thousands in support and roll across the country like a tidal wave. The 1% could be caught like the frog in the saucepan unaware the water has reached boiling point. But by then, it will be too late.

I don’t think anyone in government, least of all Scott Morrison, anticipated riots leading to murder and self-immolation when he embarked upon his ruthless policy of deprivation detention on Manus Island. That crept up without warning. And now, I don’t think either he or his party foresee all the possible outcomes if they embark upon a policy of reducing welfare at a time of fiscal contraction.

He may not even care but he could well be responsible for creating a new underclass that has no respect for law and order. He could well extend existing poverty further into the realm of the middle class, bringing welfare agencies to their knees trying to cope. This is where that one defiant act could likely emerge.

History is littered with such circumstances and the consequences of doing nothing. The 1% won’t see it coming, but governments should. And they should do something to stop it, or they too will feel the pitchforks. They can plead ignorance but that won’t save them.

They can say their hands were tied but their complicity will be all too obvious. The plutocrats will never change voluntarily. The government is running out of time to do it for them.

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Why Tony Abbott left the priesthood – the Bible is pretty clear on this!

January 13, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
14 Replies

“16 The Lord said to Moses, 17 “Say to Aaron: ‘For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. 18 No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed;19 no man with a crippled foot or hand, 20 or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. 21 No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord.”

Leviticus

Now, I have no idea about the condition of Abbott’s testicles. Or anyone else’s (apart from my own) for that matter. Neither do I much care. I just went too far with the bold thingy!

But clearly, one can’t be in charge of communion with an eye defect. That must be why Abbott left the priesthood.

Ok, he’s hidden it for years. Look at this photo pre-election:

I haven’t been able to find a single photo of him pre-election wearing glasses, but come post election, look:

Wait, those glasses look familiar. Let’s take a close look.

Mm, don’t they resemble Mr Howard’s glasses?

Yep, he’s gone and got himself a pair just like John’s to make himself more prime ministerial…

I need to check this out on Google…

Let’s see, images,

images,

images.

More images and they lead me to one inescapable conclusion now that I’ve found image after image of Mr Howard post election and it’s pretty clear what’s happened:

Mm, after an extensive investigation, I’ve discovered that in all the recent photos of Howard he has no glasses. There’s only one logical conclusion:

Tony Abbott has stolen Mr Howard’s glasses!!

I was wrong about his poor eyesight being the reason he left the priesthood. A real man like him would have perfect vision, he’s just wearing the glasses so that people mistake him for Howard.

You wait – next he’ll be shaving his head and dying it grey!

P.S. Did anyone else notice any photos of Mr Abbott in South Australia apart from the three on his Facebook page, including this one of a Firefighter trying to escape?

Oh well, I guess he was in a hurry to meet his commitment at the cricket just a couple of hours later and more than thirty two minutes was far too long to spend in the Adelaide Hills.

“The Rise and Fall of Australia”

January 10, 2015
Written by: John Lord
9 Replies

Book Review by John Lord

Nick Bryant Is a BBC correspondent and author who often appears on Q&A and The Drum.

I made the dreadful mistake of reading some reviews of this book (that conflicted with my own analysis) before I sat down to write this. Now I don’t expect everyone to agree with me but in this case, I must say, they all had a clear misunderstanding of exactly what the author was on about.

That being an inability by some social commentators and critics to acknowledge that we have, to a large degree, thrown off our cultural cringe, our adolescence, and taken our place in the world.

We have come to realise the profound truth that we have gone through a period of becoming mature, knowing who we are, and feeling deeply about it. We have earned a national consciousness.

It seemed to me that the reviews I read resented the fact that we were being dissected by an outsider, and a bloody Pommy one at that.

But this is exactly what makes it such an enthralling read. He dares to go where our own self-consciousness about ourselves won’t, unrestrained by our provincial restrictions of self-analysis.

The directness and astuteness of his writing is impressive. His research impeccable and for a person of my vintage his writing gave understanding to my life’s Australian experience. From what we were to what we are. He exhaustively covers every cultural aspect of our society from sport, art, music, dance, theatre, science, medicine, government and our financial structures. He describes a full compilation of our assets and eccentricities.

In some chapters I felt positively enthused about how far we have come as a nation. How much we had achieved, often in spite of ourselves.
He states that today the characteristic that most defines modern Australia is “diversity”. In all its forms, together with multiculturalism it defines us as a nation. That is something I wholeheartedly agree with.

But the contradiction, as he points out is:

The great paradox of modern-day Australian life: of how the country has got richer at a time when its politics have become more impoverished.

It is in the chapters that deal with politics and our democracy that Bryant rightly portrays the sagacious ugliness of our system.

He abhors the fierce partisanship of our politics and the Abbott government’s currentattempts to take us back to an older Australia, a place that we no longer inhabit.

A place languid in the institutionalised comforts of post colonialism.

And this is the paradox the author speaks of. How is it that our politics has gone so backwards while at the same time we have progressed, in other areas, so much?

Might it be as the Prime Minister so sarcastically remarked when asked about the state of our democracy:

There is nothing wrong with it. It’s just the people who inhabit it from time to time.

Or might it be when he describes his cricketing skills.

I couldn’t bowl, field or bat, but I was a good sledger.

This is a refreshing look at this country with new eyes. Eyes that have taken, with simple exhaustive elegance and skill, the time to see us for what we truly are.

The most agreeable thing about, about this book, is the author’s confirmation of my own view. That being that we are being led by a moron.

Although I do concede that he doesn’t say it exactly in those terms. He in fact gives both sides of politics a decent serve. As Australians are so apt to say.

“I’m with Stupid” man arrested; imagine if he’d been against Stupid!

January 8, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
75 Replies

Photo: Word Art generator

Ok, for those of you who haven’t caught up with the Queensland man who was arrested for standing next to LNP supporters and waving while wearing an “I’m With Stupid” T-Shirt I give you the link “The Courier Mail”‘s report just so you know that it isn’t made up!

Now, because I write on this site, I’m often accused of being a lefty, which is ridiculous because I’m a Capitalist through and through. Any time I see I chance to make money, I’m there, and I’d be as rich as Gina or Rupert if it wasn’t for the fact that – like the current government – I suffer from poor marketing.

I read the article and immediately saw an opportunity to make a few bucks by marketing a t-shirt saying “I’m Not With Stupid – I’m Voting xxx”. Of course, The Greens would be too full of priniciple to replace the xxx with “Green”, and Labor supporters don’t have any money because they’ve put everything on the credit card, so the obvious person to approach with the idea was Clive Palmer.

Initiallly, his representative was very supportive and said that most of the members of his party wanted one. However, when it was discovered that the PUP members, in fact, wanted one with Clive Palmer’s photo instead of Campbell Newman’s, apparently Clive went cold on the idea.

Senator Lambie, on the other hand…

All right, I’m making it up. In a country where people are arrested for creating a public disturbance by waving while wearing a t-shirt, I feel that I have to make that clear. Just as I feel that I feel I need to make it clear that he was lucky that he wasn’t arrested under the VLAD laws.

And, while I’m at it, I also feel that I have to set the record straight on what I wrote about Abbott not visiting South Australia or commenting on their bushfires. He went there “as soon as he could” and offered them $4 million. Which is really extraordinarily generous. After all, he only offered $5 million to Iraq!

Perhaps, John Cleese should have the final say!

Stupidity.

P.S. For those who have pointed out that I posted the wrong link, I’m posting the accident as well, in case anyone is looking for it. (Yes, yes, it is ironic that I post a link on stupidity and it’s the wrong link, yes it is ironic, yes, this is why I could never be a member of Abbott’s front bench because I can actually acknowledge when I make a mistake, and clearly none of them can or we’d have mass resignations and by-elections!) This is the John Lloyd one which I accidentally posted which although it’s a little longer is thoroughly worth it: John Lloyd.

“Battlelines” by Tony Abbott; my computer thinks even the title is wrong!

January 6, 2015
Written by: Rossleigh
42 Replies

As many of you are aware, before becoming Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott put his brain to work penning a manifesto which he published under the name “Battlelines”, which according to the spell check on my comuputer is incorrectly spelt because it should be two words.

Apart from that, there’s nothing wrong with the title. except that it does suggest a rather combative approach for someone who wants to us all to be on “Team Australia”. And it does tend to suggest some sort of class warfare. Flicking through the book in 2015, there are some interesting little snippets of how our beloved leader’s brain works.

For example:

“Last October’s notorious leaked phone call had a savvy Prime Minister Rudd browbeating an ignorant President Bush. There’s something unsettling about an Australian prime minister who needs to big-note himself by appearing to ‘verbal’ the American president.”

Unless, of course, the American President happens to suggest that we should do all we can to protect the Great Barrier Reef. Well, them’s fighting words, because clearly that Obama guy is suggesting that we’re not managing the Reef well. Yeah, yeah, he never said so, but we all know that he’s hinting that dumping crap into the ocean near the Reef will somehow have a negative effect!

Of course, Abbott’s views on Climate Change are interesting too:

“Finally, (in 2020) there will have been bigger fires, more extensive floods and more ferocious storms because records are always being broken. But sea levels will be much the same, desert boundaries will not have changed much, and technology, rather than economic self-denial, will be starting to cut down atmospheric pollution.”

Mm, bigger fires and floods and storms can’t be used as evidence of climate change because, “records are always being broken” and “sea levels will be much the same” because… um… ah… well, they just will, ok. Like the deserts – their boundaries won’t change either, because well, nothing changes, does it?

We get an inkling of his attitude to pensions with this:

“Given that people invariably earn more working than on the pension and can access other forms of social security if they can’t work, delaying access to the pension does not raise issues of fairness comparable to those potentially involved in changes to existing superannuation entitlements.”

And, as for education, parents are in the best position to judge what works because they care about their children.

“As with public hospitals, better public schools are likely to emerge when local teachers and parents have more say over how their schools are run. It’s especially important to give parents a direct say in the running of schools rather than just an advisory role. Even though classroom teachers are often among the highest-minded of people, the one group to whom the interests of children are invariably paramount is those children’s parents.”

Does this mean that the families of patients should have final say over the treatment, because even though doctors might be high-minded, it’s the families who have the patient’s best interest at heart, and nobody should worry about their decision to use leeches because traditional methods are best?

But it’s his statements on economics which are truly troubling:

“Quite soon, the Rudd Government’s attempts to stave off a recession by fiscal sugar hits and propping up uncompetitive businesses will come to seem like putting off the inevitable at unsustainable cost.”

Putting off the inevitable, eh? Yeah, “inevitably” the Liberals will win government and then we’ll “inevitably” have the recession, because:

“The real question is how much damage will be done in the process of trying to avoid the recession that is almost inevitable. My instinct is that Australians who were dismayed by the seeming harshness of the original Work Choices legislation could be much less sentimental about ‘hard-won conditions’ when businesses are struggling to survive and jobs are disappearing”

So, they do have a plan – stifle economic growth, reduce jobs in the public service and manufacturing by buying submarines and cars from overseas, and use the economic conditions to make us less “sentimental” about things like a minimum wage and work safety! Still perhaps this next quote will end up being more profound than he realised at the time:

“If Australia had large and growing gaps between rich and poor, if minorities were persecuted, if we were struggling to meet an existential challenge, there’d be every reason to want fundamental change.”

There many other interesting little ideas that Abbott, the backbencher, shared with his readership. But they’re not so interesting that I’d recommend buyiing the book. Even at the cut price of $2.95!

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Tag Archives: Tony Abbott

The real stitch-up

Mining the data on child sex abuse

Good news kids, the inheritance is safe, and so are we

Deconstructing a dog whistle

Good Government Starts Today … Or Tomorrow, But We’re Definitely Committed To It!

Tony Abbott’s horror week is now news in Indonesia

Behind the shelter sheds with Tony Abbott doing adult things like saying ‘Holocaust’

The Queensland election was a bit seismic, says Tony

The trust deficit

Nice try, Barnaby

Plutocrats and Pitchforks

Why Tony Abbott left the priesthood – the Bible is pretty clear on this!

“The Rise and Fall of Australia”

“I’m with Stupid” man arrested; imagine if he’d been against Stupid!

“Battlelines” by Tony Abbott; my computer thinks even the title is wrong!