The consequences of a callous, incompetent government
A quick scan of today’s news paints a very sorry picture of a callous, incompetent, ideologically-driven, and arguably corrupt, government.
Aboriginal youth are being detained at a rate of more than 20 times that of non-indigenous young people in the justice system.
There is rising unmet demand in Australia for accommodation for people who are homeless, new figures show. The Productivity Commission report showed 33.8 per cent of Australians needing access to accommodation services in 2018-19 were not getting them.
Older Australians are waiting longer to enter residential aged care, with most waiting about five months after being approved for a spot by a health professional. The median waiting time was 152 days for 2018/19, an increase from 121 days from the year before, according to a Productivity Commission report released on Wednesday.
More pensioners than ever are having to work part-time just to get by according to new research, with nearly 5 per cent of people on the pension now doing paid work.
In Australia in 2019, politicians spent more time discussing how best to punish environmental protesters than they did devising legislation that might protect the climate. In part, the pivot away from climate represents a simple bait and switch. After the world recorded its second-hottest year ever, conversations about hazard reduction help drown out conversations about climate. But the new focus also shifts the debate in a direction the government likes.
If environmental bureaucracy had prevented hazard reduction (it didn’t), the answer lies in slashing green tape, an easy extension of an already existing ideological commitment to deregulation. More importantly, the identification of (a largely bogus) arson outbreak transforms an ecological crisis into a law and order problem, paving the way for new legislation and fresh penalties.
A legal challenge against plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight has been launched in the Federal Court. The Wilderness Society is taking the national regulator – the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) – to court after it granted conditional environmental approval to Norwegian oil company Equinor to conduct drilling.
Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie is facing an investigation into whether she breached ministerial standards as part of a sporting grants scandal.
Councils and sports clubs in Tony Abbott’s seat of Warringah received more than $1m in grants under a controversial federal program, including a $70,000 grant to a surf lifesaving club of which Abbott was a member. Trent Zimmerman did not declare to parliament that he was a patron of the Hunters Hill Rugby Club, which received a $500,000 grant just before the election.
The office of Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton was suspected of leaking information it was told was classified about the cost of medically evacuating refugees to Taiwan, as the Government geared up to campaign against newly passed medevac legislation last year.
And that’s just today’s news … so far.
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Return to home pageDo this current Australian Federal government do anything right ? I certainly dont think so.
Very sad for Australia when our non-esteemed “leader” is given the title of “Crime Minister”. Seems to suit him though…..Would you buy a used car from him?
you forgot to mention the selling out and privatising of our social security system in Australia to the 4 big banks and everyone who receives some type of benefit from centrelink on the indue card within 2 years. Jacqui Lambie has told people in Laverton/Kalgoorlie this information on her ‘fact finding mission’ to NT this week. the ABC ran a very brief story yesterday. Please follow it up, it is vitally important people know about this BEFORE the LNP quietly try to ram this through.
I think the Feral government can be described as a crime spree,given the evidence of the last few years,and it is definitely ramping up of late.The prosperity cult that Morrison subscribes to are just another bunch of deluded extremists,and his extremism is tearing the fabric of society in this country apart.What on earth is going on within the government itself that they allow this fool’s behaviour to continue? Surely they can’t all be that stupid.Although a glance at that photo at the top is pretty telling.
If no one inside that party is actively working on removing him,then they are all willing participants in the destruction of our country.Oh, and we DON”T need Darth Dutton to help us out.Albo? Vote of no confidence in the pipeline?
Corruption is world wide, in the news every day the one word that is more common than others is CORRUPTION.
Corrupt Countries, Corrupt Parliaments, Corrupt Governments, Corrupt Senates, Corrupt States, Corrupt Councils,
Corrupt Public Servants, Corrupt Corporations, Corrupt businesses, Corrupt Police, Corrupt MPs, Corruption, Corruption, Corruption I am sick of hearing the word Corruption. Sorry about that, one more time CORRUPTION.
Integrity is a word that is dying out. It’s a sorry state of affairs when our sports people are held to a higher standard and are more accountable than our politicians.
So KL you have identified some of the examples requiring investigation by a Federal ICAC. And what chance will there be for this Smirko Morriscum Liarbral Nazianal$ misgovernment to initiate the required legislation when so many of the politicians are on the scam for foreign owned multinational corporations?
Ken (above) is correct.
Jackie,
It has been going on for a while….this is over 15 months old….
“According to the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), who represent Centrelink workers employed directly by the government, 2700 Centrelink jobs have been outsourced to four private companies: Stellar Asia Pacific, Serco, Concentrix Services and DataCom Connect.
This is after the government cut 2500 jobs.”
https://thesocialist.org.au/centrelink-being-privatised-by-stealth/
They are outsourcing the visa system too
“Is Scott Briggs – Scott Morrison mate, Liberal staffer, News Corp lobbyist and Packer empire crisis consultant – now the front-runner to win the Government’s billion-dollar privatisation of Australia’s visa system? Or is it his rival suitors from Accenture and Australia Post, a consortium packed with Liberal Party identities?”
The former architect of Australia’s immigration visa system has warned moves now afoot to outsource the processing of millions of applications to private infrastructure carries “immense” IT risks.
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/home-affairs-1bn-visa-platform-outsourcing-riddled-with-it-risks-531488
But hey, if mates of the Liberal party have a go, they get a go.
Not forgetting that what’s his name, the deputy monster’s son’s football clubs $147,000 grant. The scum suckers, firmly entrenched in their lies, hypocrisy, narcissism and greed, the childish petulance exhibited by by the slut from the shire, all the many examples of fck you peasants, we are the born to rule masters, all of their shitty lying bullshit just hammers another nail in the coffin of this broken democracy.
Do they realise? Do they care? Unable, unwilling, incompetent to see the writing on the wall that this construct of civilisation is now showing the rot and corruption that will be a rerun of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
The edifice is crumbling, worldwide, the peasants have had enough and mostly quite willing to show the accumulated frustration and anger towards these rotten to the core bastards. Politics and politicians as we know it now is beyond saving, certainly in this country. We have no one able and willing to stand up, all they seem interested in is protecting their legacy of a nice fat pension plus a position with one of the lobbying firms. Whores, the lot of them. Disgusting, shameful tarts, all willing to show their extraordinary lack of character, all willing to lie and deceive, all willing to show how grossly unsuitable they are as people.
These traitors need to be charged with crimes against humanity, to be held responsible for their way of being, for who and what they are.
From Gerard Bowe on the AIMN facebook page
Conspiracy to seize power for a sinecure for life. Politics Australian style in 2020.
Australian 2party preferred shitstom leaves no room for democracy to flourish, just criminals and barbarians flourish under cover of a lawless clique of Party Politoxics.
Power. Greed. Stupidity. The Australian Holy Trinity.
Bought to y’all daily by a subservient deviant media of opinionators pushing their own poisonous barrows.
There was once a time when news was reported sans opinions and personal views, but now irrelevant opinions matter most, getting that shot of personal fame. Just wish even the ABC would shut the fckup and report news without personal views.
Politics Australian Style is a bullies game, funded from the public purse and no change can come about without agreeance of the stinking greedy, stupid, power mongers from 2party preferred central, that thrall of criminality above the law of the land.
Extinction is forever
Trash the Planet, pay the price.
On the contrary, ‘integrity’ is a word that enjoys ‘bipartisan’ vogue.
There is the government’s promised ‘commonwealth integrity commission’ (currently on the ‘gunnadoo’ list), and there is the ALP’s once putatively mentioned ‘national integrity commission (with TEETH!).
The Labor model is but a memory of a whisper, and the coalition stick-figure sketch seems designed to maintain exactly the currently displayed standards of political ‘integrity’.
Personally, I I think calling such a body an ‘int. egrity commission is a lbit like defining the police as ‘goodwill encouragement’ rather than ‘law enforcement’.
On the bright side, late last year ALP senators did break with historical precedent and support a senate motion acknowledging the necessity of a ‘federal anti-corruption commission.
Theoretically encouraging.
Corvus, this, unfortunately, was poorly transcribed and ended up a how to avoid being caught corruption commission, enthusiastically supported in a rare bipartisan coming together. In a strange for him display of humanity, the Belgium cyborg passed around the cigars, baaarnaby opened his drinks locker, a repurposed shipping container, our Tanya supplied the cheese and bickies, me too albanese produced his stash of olives and deep fried pork, probably from that barrel. High time had by all, apparently, when one of the staffers mistook the instructions of bring the coke.
They were all theoretically encouraged.
Vikingduk,
This one was rather deflated to hear that the seemingly honourable Mr Albanese (a relative cleanskin in terms of suspicious stains) was far less keen on a toothy ‘FedICAC’ than the lukewarm Mr Shorten (who had some noticeable trailing flyclouds).
I probably need to learn to lower my expectations.
I note that John Morrison, father of Scott Morrison, has passed peacefully on to the other side of the Styx.
I offer unfunded empathy in the form of thoughts and prayers.
Would it be unseemly to suggest that the PM’s dad had ‘died of shame’ because his son has not only stood up and told lies in parliament, but also consorts with a ‘man’ (Brian Houston) who covered up repeated crimes of child-rape?
I must consult Alan Jones on this moral dilemma.
Yes, Corvus, it seems we all must lower our expectations, unfortunately. Sinking slowly into the mire, desperate are some for that heroic figure who will lead us lost lambs away from this promised land, where frolicking amongst the milk and honey and coal, gamboling in the gold and diamonds and oil, is the accepted reality. Deflated, disgusted, ashamed, this is life in the lucky country.
A land ruled by the scrapings from the shallow end of the jean pool, flash rodents with gold teeth, funnily enough, cunning shithouse rats as well, the progeny of the lying rodent no doubt.
Well, enough of this reparteeee, the cous cous need feeding, vicious broooots when hunger gnaws.
Yep, got a few left over thoughts and prayers, I’ll add em to yours. If you consult the parrot, I’ll try Hadley and blot. Should cover all bases, can’t have any fox paws, moral dilemmas or confusion.
Looks like McKenzie is gone. Off to the back benches as early as tomorrow, according to the Liberal mouthpiece Sky News,and Scott from Marketing didn’t even tip him the wink. those knives must be honed to perfection by now.
Story is that the Prime Marketer had dinner with McWhatsisname, Friedicebergs and McKenzie last night and she was told to fall on her sword. If the Prime Marketer thinks he’s going to get away with his role in #SportsRorts, he better be very careful. No telling what harm a few choice leaks from certain mega-government departments would do to him.
A beaut read kaye.
It is indicative of a weakness that smirko needs an inquiry to decide his standards? Will albo have the guts to suggest bridget might step aside during the ‘investigation’ or perhaps he could suggest some form of independence in the investigators??
ps
Socialism’s not a dirty word???
Bring Back Eisenhower Socialism
Conservatives want you to believe that not having to choose between paying for rent or medicine is Soviet-style tyranny
by Chuck Collins
In trivial news, the good old ‘doomsday clock’ has been recalibrated, and now sits with hands set at 100 seconds to midnight.
This is the first time it has dropped below 2 minutes to phuqqed since the clock was first unveiled in 1946.
Apparently, this official recognition of our unprecedented slide towards oblivion comes from a combination of deteriorating international relations and escalating arms proliferation within the greater context of a rapidly boiling planetary climate.
Probably best not to let the kids know, it might upset their studies.
If only platypus loved cricket like we do, it might ease their slide into extinction.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-20/platypus-on-the-brink-of-extinction-national-call-to-action/11882584
cb, I am surprised it’s not below 60 seconds.
Australia is among 21 nations where perceived corruption has worsened “significantly” over the past eight years, a new report says.
The Transparency International Australia chief executive, Serena Lillywhite, said the “corrosive” influence of money in politics was continuing to undermine government integrity.
“What the corruption perceptions index clearly shows is that the murkier the political donations trail is, the more corrupt a country is perceived to be,” Lillywhite told the Guardian.
Lillywhite said the majority of countries that managed to improve their score in the past eight years have all strengthened rules around campaign financing, donations and grants.
“Countries that perform well on the CPI gave stronger campaign finance regulation, and broader political consultation, not just listening to well connected individuals and special interest groups,” she said.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/23/australia-among-21-nations-where-perceived-corruption-has-worsened
Horrible news, johno. 😢
Horrible news, Kaye.
Jeez, I’m experiencing deja vu this morning.
johno,
Not mentioned in the ABC article is another factor (apart from drought, water theft, pollution, feral animals and livestock) that has recently been observed to cause deaths amongst platypodes.
Where fires have ripped through upland headwater catchment areas, they have left deep drifts of fire ash.
When the first hard rains displace this potash into streams and rivers, it grossly elevates the levels of potassium in the water, often to fatally toxic levels, resulting in mass deaths of aquatic life, including platypodes.
This has been observed in the Nymboida and Severn catchments, and probably elsewhere
The platypus may well fall before the koala in the race to eradicate icons of native biodiversity.
On the subject, I must acknowledge the efforts of NSW deputy John Barilaro for his tireless work towards ensuring the extinction of the platypus, corroboree frog, and a bunch of other native aquatic species.
From his efforts in elevating feral horses to environmentally protected status, to his demands for decreased environmental flows for inland rivers, the coal-eyed creature that fronts the NSW Nats is the living definition of an ecologically threatening process.
Corvus
The cretin Barilaro is obviously Federal leadership material with his magnificent track record.McWhatisname might have to go back to writing homophobic articles in shit creek where he belongs,or perhaps work on bad Elvis impersonations.As for the doomsday clock,we can’t accuse the prime weasel of not doing his bit.When are our rotten government going to implode?
Harry Lime,
Barilaro also really distinguished himself during the bushfires.
As much of his state was incinerated during a declared state and national emergency, the 2IC of NSW chose that moment to fly off to London for a ‘well earned’ break from all the smoke and stress.
Safely ensconced in an upmarket suite half a world away, he contributed to the emergency situation back home by tweeting a few extremist opinions.
Barilaro is a particularly putrid cancer on the ailing wreck of the body politic.
Yesterday, I had a discussion with a mate about climate change, he has a University education; yet he was defending the view that the Medieval era was warmer than contemporary times. In some regions it may have been; but, proxy records from both hemispheres show that the temperatures being experienced now are higher than those of the last 2,000 years (Pages2k). There are so many studies now that uphold Professor Mann’s initial study. It seems to me that those with a conservative mind set once having made an opinion will not adapt to new information.
A reference that arrived in my email today about modelling provides cold comfort.
A study reviewing climate change models found them to provide quite accurate results. The amount of detail used in computing model predictions has been constantly increasing. The bad news is that the results of recent modelling suggests CO2 is more potent than previously thought, meaning that the 1.5C -2C increase in temperature over pre-Industrial times is not attainable. All the more reason to push harder against the use of fossil fuels. Already when the Paris Accord was being formulated Professor Kevin Anderson stated that 1.5C increase in global temperature was not attainable. Professor John Anderson has suggested worse, he had gained recognition for his work on CFCs.
The debate is still raging about the accuracy of models which might be seen to be outliers; but, they do display the risk of continuing to pursue current policies on climate change. Ice cores have displayed abrupt climate change within a decade according to Professor Richard Alley.
https://climatenewsnetwork.net/paris-climate-goals-may-be-beyond-reach/
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/12/4/20991315/climate-change-prediction-models-accurate
corvus, yes, anything living in rivers downstream of significant ash and silt loads are kaput. Drought areas that have not had fires will also see nutrient and silt runoff which won’t be good news for aquatic life. Looks like a lose lose to me.
I often wonder how Darren Chester tolerates party room meetings or National conferences. He seems to be the only sane one amongst them.
Kaye Lee
I’d imagine he feels(a) foolish, (b), lonely.We can’t let him off the hook,Is it the country or himself?
Same goes for any one else with the echo of a conscience.
The “Sports Grant” received by Bridget McKenzie’s Gun Club should be seen as a seperate issue to the general “Sports Grant” scam.
The LNP has been handing over money to Gun Clubs to the tune of $77 million since 2014. They are trying to buy back the votes of those who have drifted to “Farmers and Shooters” parties and OneNation.
https://www.guncontrolaustralia.org/_77_million_in_taxpayer_funds_for_australian_gun_clubs
So who replaces Bridget as Deputy Leader of the Nationals and therefore Cabinet Minister? Which way will the (2) factions split? Probably come down to Chester or Canavan with Barnaby (who wanted to throw Chester under the bus and out of the Ministry not that long ago) not yet ready to rise from his own ashes. My dollars are on Minister Canavan – from the Senate, from Queensland, from the North (almost),articulate, talented (at least in National Party terms) and has a profile. Can’t see a female Senator (politically ideal as it would be) ready for that elevation – unless of course she becomes a compromise when the factions can’t agree.
Make a selection. And then await the negative leaking which will begin very soon.
Due to funding cuts our local Legal Advice office has shut down for four or five weeks at least, funding cuts by the Federal and State liberal government. Staff were told to take all their leave entitlements just before Christmas as there may not be enough money to pay them in the New Year.
This office provided free legal advice and backup for people who couldn’t afford solicitors, legal advice or financial advice.
How good is this government?
Whilst Morrison foreshadowed a Royal Commission into the bush-fires this would inevitably have to include, in the terms of reference, the impacts of climate change and this has got the coalition worried.
Over recent days several coalition voices have said that we don’t need a Royal Commission, that it’s too expensive, takes too long and won’t tell us anything that we don’t already know.
What they will not concede is that a Royal Commission with broad terms of reference will expose this government to scrutiny on an international basis and will allow scientists from around the world to have input on the role that climate change is having on global weather patterns, drought and inevitably bush-fires.
I hate to be a prophet of doom but, I can’t see Morrison going for a Royal Commission with broad terms of reference. I don’t think the deniers in his party will let him.
Or perhaps he will appoint somebody like Maurice Newman as the Royal Commissioner.
We shall see !
“A quick scan of today’s news paints a very sorry picture of a callous, incompetent, ideologically-driven, and arguably corrupt, government.”
Is it really arguable? I mean, for anyone who has even the faintest connection to reality . . . ?
Deluges of ash and sediment are also reportedly contributing to large scale deaths in wildlife along the Macquarie, Bell, Macleay and upper Murray rivers, with aquatic vertebrate mortality field-estimated at 100% in some sites.
The influx of gross nutrients during a period of intense heat has also, rather predictably, triggered or exacerbated broad-scale blooms of blue-green algae in the more sluggish or stagnant stretches of affected waterways.
Meanwhile, at multiple locations within catchment areas, huge areas are being stripped naked and blast-mined, with surrounding groundwater diverted and pumped in, mainly for purposes of dust-damping and coal-scrubbing, to end up as part of the toxic stagnant stews brewing in minesite tailing ponds.
The new Tasmanian Premier and Minister for Everything Including Climate Change agrees we need more hazard reduction to protect against bushfires but, because the safe window is less now due to ‘çlimate change’, he wants to send in the bulldozers.
He doesn’t have time for mucking about with emissions reduction being premier, treasurer, minster for climate change, tourism and prevention of family violence.
Corvus.. the actions by the mining industry you point out is a gross act of environmental vandalism, sickening.
johno,
My personal favourite is the Carmichael mine operating at Maules Creek in Leard’s state forest.
This export coal mine was approved despite numerous legal objections, including the fact that it would destroy nearly 50% of a critically endangered ecological community and completely fragment the remains.
Now that it is off and running, it has been the subject of numerous (currently unresolved) legal investigations into multiple complaints over the alleged misappropriation and misuse of groundwater.
As you say, sickening.
Correction on a slip of the tongue: the Maules Creek mine is run by Whitehaven coal, not Carmichael.
Interestingly, the chairman of Whitehaven coal (specialising in earth-rape and water-theft) happens to be ‘the honourable’ Mark Vaille, former Nats leader and one-time deputy PM.
Surprise surprise. I sometimes wonder why we bother to have a department for the environment.
jphno,
From what I can see, their job is to get rid of green tape and approve things, as well as come up with how they can justify subsidising fossil fuels.
In a prior comment on the AIM network or, it may have been another independent media publisher, I wrote about the Morrison led Lib/Nat coalition party PM having engaged in the non-regulatory governance of our nation as regards our Australian Constitution. (Yes, I have read our constitution) no mention in that founding document that permits a Federal government to ignore or to violate any of the key principles contained therein. One can readily confirm that a violation of the above founding principles must be dealt with under the law of tort, as a malfeasance. Better still, intentional acts of malfeasance. So where the hell is our Governor General or even Attorney General in situations of this kind? Or are they just as culpable to the acts of malfeasance, the same goes for the whole of the Lib/Nat coalition party of rogues, liars and deceptive ministers?
As many may not yet know, a certain sly smug J W Howard had been a party to the false flag event of the Port Arthur massacre back in 1996 (Howard had become the sitting Australian Prime Minister, so, one asks why the locking away of all the evidence and all its applicable legal documentation for a period of 75 years. In that file of evidence, was the mention of a special constructed (manufactured?) 22 stretcher refrigerated ambulance, which, had arrived in Tasmania well prior to the Port Arthur Massacre.
Obviously a special order by the Federal government or Tasmanian State Government, or one of its departments. So thereby Howard had need for a number of others prepared to commit that “false flag treason” against the people, not just the people of Tasmania but all of our Australia.
Howard should have been hung by his false flag neck until he croaked.
Protecting Howard from his act of treason, was the office of The Inspector General, which tells us they in that office had been culpable to that heinous false flag massacre of persons, having been given the nod from Howard. Just 12 days later, Howard’s gun laws had sailed through the legislative process, the gun buyback scheme had then been announced.
(Howard being afraid of being pinged off by some radical sniper or some righteous sniping person.)
Now back to the criminality of the Morrison government. Does any member of the AIM have a record of all the “lies” uttered by Scum-mo and his ministers while he was the Lib/Nat party leader? … Otherwise, known as false testimony.
Yet no one with the testosterone, nor the integrity, has been game to call out Morrison. Notwithstanding, he and his mob of cutthroats adding half a Trillion dollars to our nation’s debt.