What a complete waste of time the last nine years have been
Cast your mind back to 2013.
Unlike the rest of the world, Australia had come through the GFC without suffering a recession. At the end of August, net debt was a bit over $161 billion and monthly hours worked per employed person averaged 141.42.
After three terms of a Coalition government, we have endured our first recession in thirty years, net debt is $606 billion, and monthly hours worked per employed person have plummeted to 125.16. Wages are stagnant- adjusted for inflation, Australian wages actually declined in 2021 by 0.3% – the worst outcome in 7.5 years. Penalty rates have been abolished for many low paid workers, and casual and contract work is increasingly the norm.
In 2013, the rollout of the nation-building fibre to the premises national broadband network was underway. Then along came Tony Abbott who thought the interwebby thingy was an expensive white elephant only used for playing games and watching videos – and trashed it.
On Thursday, the Minister for the Digital Economy, the hapless Jane Hume, announced in an address to CEDA, “The Morrison Government has set a goal and is unrolling a plan for Australia to be a top 10 digital economy and society by 2030.”
Good luck with that – we currently rank 61st in the world for fixed broadband speeds. (Though I hear Barnaby can organise something for those in the know – seems we are paying a lazy $520k to hook one of his mates up to FttP.)
In 2013, we had a price on carbon that was causing polluters to innovate to cut emissions, a renewable energy target that was driving investment, and we were considered a world leader in action against climate change.
Now we are known as the Colossal Fossil. Our arrogant disregard brings Pacific leaders to tears, literally. We pay people who promise not to cut down trees they were never going to cut down. We pay farmers not to run stock when they had cut herds anyway because of the drought. Polluters continue on their merry way making up numbers about emissions that bear no resemblance to the truth and electricity prices are higher than when we had carbon pricing.
Back in 2013, we had a car industry. But the Coalition hate unionised workplaces so they told them to piss off. They pretended it was about subsidies but that is obviously not the case as they find plenty to subsidise the fossil fuel, agriculture and armaments industries.
Imagine if we had retained that infrastructure and expertise to build the vehicles of the future so we weren’t so reliant on what happens elsewhere or our oil reserves that, for some obscure reason, Angus Taylor chose to store in the US.
We used to have a mining superprofits tax too which was just about to start paying dividends as mines moved from construction to production. Not only did we abolish that and all the redistributive measures attached to it, it seems many of the mining companies now get away with paying no tax at all.
In 2013 there was some optimism that we were on the path towards Reconciliation, that we were finally accepting some responsibility for causing the problems and listening about how to work towards fixing them. Until we were thrown brutally back into the world of terra nullius and Captain Cook and white supremacy.
We used to have a good reputation on the international stage. Now we are known as liars and our crazy Minister for Offence seems determined to start a war with China.
In 2013, we had a female Prime Minister and we subjected her to the very worst our misogynistic patriarchal society could offer for all the world to see. And the treatment of women has only gone downhill from there.
The only positive thing to come out of the Coalition’s term in office was when the voters dragged the government kicking and screaming to marriage equality and the conservatives have been looking for revenge ever since.
It’s time to call quits on what has been the most inept, most incompetent, most offensive, most dishonest, least intelligent, least compassionate, least prepared government this country has ever had the misfortune to endure.
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
30 comments
Login here Register here-
ajogrady -
Kaye Lee -
Michael Taylor -
Andrew J. Smith -
paul walter -
John Hanna -
Ahmid Vats Hod -
Kate Ahearne -
Mr Bronte ALLAN -
Kaye Lee -
Phil Pryor -
New England Cocky -
Terence Mills -
wam -
Keitha Granville -
Josephus -
Kaye Lee -
Una Partti -
Michael Taylor -
David Stakes -
GL -
Pagnol -
Terence Mills -
wam -
Kerri -
Fred -
Consume Less -
Denni -
GL -
Return to home pageMembers of the L/NP are selfish corrupt cowards who are of, at best, average talent. They are defined by their privilage and family connections that explains their mediocrity. Merit and ability is always a secondary consideration when deceit and deception is considered meritorious and rat cunning and a Machiavellian character is considered ability.
Taking all that into consideration is it any wonder that the L/NP have a leader that its own party members, who know Morrison best, consider him to be a fraud, a hypocrite, a psycho, a evil bully, a horrible horrible person and a blatant conniving liar that leaves no doubt in voters minds they made a dreadful mistake that will not be repeated.
ajogrady,
And Morrison is not even the worst of them.
It’s impossible to decide who exactly is the worst of them. It’s so fluid.
And reliant upon LNP legacy media running protection, or being like ABC/SBS, anodyne…. tried to explain to a friend, beef farmer in NE Vic, who I assume is rusted onto the ‘Hun’ for AFL and racing (owns a horse), but gets to read all the nativist &/or libertarian agitprop; his gripes and deflection from the LNP were distilled into blaming the ‘China virus’.
Although just in the space of several weeks since, the LNP govt. has fallen into even more scandals…, but again being masked by media happily providing deflections from the LNP e.g. the supposed NSW rail strike….. like ‘freedom protests’ they encourage confected issues and coordinated events, which from a distance, maybe influential on regional and/or older voters legacy media types?
Setting up for vandalism and plunder. They are wrecking civilisation like the louts who killed the golden Goose.
The war in Ukraine will play right into scooter morrison’s hands and he will promote himself as a strongman and the ALP as weak on national security. Could not have happened at a worse time, the fear campaign to start shortly.
Morrison sees himself as a strongman when in fact he is a moral weakling. Being a noisy, brash, bullying, lying. divisive blabbermouth is no sign of strength only moral weakness. The LNP are weak on National Security as no reputable world leader would trust in sharing sensitive data with a pathological liar. “I don’t think, I know’.
Thanks, Kaye.
It’s wonderful how you come up with the salient facts, again and again! Hats off to you!
I’m getting the feeling that we might be about to get rid of these nasty dimwits, but if it does happen, the white-anting will be horrible. Let’s not get complacent this time.
YES!! Just have to vote ALL the lying fucking COALition dickheads OUT!! Great article, as usual, Ms Lee!
It’s not coming up with the failings that’s hard, it’s trying to condense them into something slightly shorter than the Encyclopaedia Brittanica that’s the challenge.
The worst part for me is the secrecy which has increased dramatically. That is what allows all the corrupt shenanigans to go on. The power of Ministers to be the decision maker has increased greatly. Nepotism and croneyism has always been a part of politics but it has gotten out of control. Sophie Mirabella is harder to get rid of than cane toads.
The Liberals and Nationals have lost basically anyone who could lay claim to any form of competence or decency. Poor old Warren Truss hung on in the hopes of “anyone but Barnaby” but to no avail. We are left with people who call themselves the Wolverines and put stickers of claw marks on their office doors, or the self-described big swinging dicks who colluded to oust Julie Bishop, or the factional numbers men who seem determined to install their own cabal. Power and access are handed to the wealthy and the religious to dictate policy that protects their privilege.
I better stop….for now…..
When an unwiped botty like B Joyce actually knew and declared that Morrison the Mighty Maggot was untrustworthy, a liar, an egofixated fraud, it shows the depth of reputation the P M has, so low that Jules Verne would not find him. And, our international reputation is gone, with the French distributing info on trustworthiness about the P M, a pernicious Misfit. Every nation knows, knows, that lies are the Morrison “truth”, which is insane self delusion and superstition fuelled idiocy. Morrison is a front for a way of politics that is evil, unreliable, lying and lazy.
A depressingly accurate evaluation of the demise of Australian democracy under the Liarbral Nazional$ COALition misgovernment, and the only beneficiaries have been & will be the foreign owned multinational corporations turning Australia into a third world export economy instead of a first world, low energy cost, manufacturing powerhouse.
Re the $520,000 FTTP funding for Costa Guyra Tomato Farm ….. How much, if anything, did Costa make as a ”political donation” aka ”political bribe” to the Nazional$?
During the 2019-2020 worst drought in living memory Costa were tempting aspiring politicians elected to Armidale Regional Council with ”gifts” of funding for tourist development around Guyra features. Now Costas receive ”horticultural water” at about a 60% discount to the price paid by pensioners in Armidale city. And which ”retired” Liarbral NSW MLC was a major player in establishing this deal with a former client?
The most immediate impact of the Ukraine invasion, in Australia is going to be on oil prices and Morrison should be directing some of his rhetoric to OPEC to have them increase production so that the impact is less than it is shaping up to be.
We have a strategic oil reserve of 1.7 million barrels of fuel oils but due to poor planning we have to store this reserve offshore in the USA as we don’t have the onshore storage : something else that Morrison could be turning his mind to.
For Morrison and Dutton to be calling on China to condemn the Russian actions in Ukraine is just another anti China distraction.
Inaction was the mainstay of the 23 years of menzies et al. He was a WASP and his party catholicless but the catholic workers, under directions of the church and mouthpiece, santa maria who thought labor ungodly, for their imagined communist connections, voted against labor. How ironic that labor is still accused of communist connections and the worker catholics will be under instructions, with the bonus of an extremist party millstone.
A great set of reasons as to why this government should be voted out, kaye, but how can it compete with a grandfather who was refused a loan because he was catholic so we need a religious discrimination policy?
Keep going, Kaye, somebody will tell Albo’s successor these facts and labor may well be ready for 2025.
ps
Loved the bit about the debt. Shame there is no debt limit for the morning shows to use as a focus for beating ‘fryer’ and scummo about the head??
This war is just what Scummo needed, a perfect distraction for people to ‘stay safe with current government,’ ‘ not a good time to change’. I can hear the propaganda already.
😪
Nothing like fear to keep vicious leaders in power. The 1930s plus threats of nukular bombs( using the Received Pronunciation of our hapless leader.)
Many more Hiroshimas anyone?
Meanwhile London isn’t disposing of all its Russian sourced wealth.
OMG will somebody shut Dutton up…..
This morning he said “The world has been united in its view against Putin, except for China … they’re not prepared to do that it seems, which is deeply concerning … they’re probably watching the world reaction, so they can make their calculations down the track in relation to Taiwan.”
Meanwhile, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying called on “all sides to exercise restraint and prevent the situation from getting out of control”. She said the situation in Ukraine had “a complicated historical background and context” and added “The current state of affairs is not what we would hope to see.”
Our QUAD partner India, on the other hand, is remaining silent. Might have something to do with the $5 billion missile defence system they purchased from Russia?
Good article Kaye, ‘complete waste of time’ is close to the mark, only the handlers of the Aus UnaParty (LNP, Labor & Greens) would disagree. The orchestrated UnaParty plan is on track to deliver to their puppeteers as the pollie-parasites line up to cash in their bonuses.
TM, true, except for your 2nd sentence which has a superfluous ‘poor’ before ‘planning’. There have been numerous enquiries including one by the Senate back in June 2015 and this situation can only be described as deliberately well-planned.
Guardian News 22/04/2020 ‘Australia to spend $94m on crude oil stockpile – but will store the fuel in the US’. Who is to say the US will even release paid-for-fuel if it’s in their national interest to keep it at home.
As much as I despised John Howard – and begrudgingly remained apolitical while serving his government – he did have one excellent quality: he knew when to shut his ministers up.
After calling an election he would always put a sock in Joe Hockey’s mouth, for if there was one person in his ministry who could put his foot in it, it was Joe Hockey. He was ‘banned’ from going anywhere near a microphone or camera.
The added bonus for my department (Joe Hockey was our minister at the time of the 2007 election) was that we had a short reprieve from explaining – or covering up – his lunacy to the press.
Morrison has gone the opposite way to Howard, and in full throttle.
It frightens the life out of me that the dreadful mistake will be repeated, because of Apathy, Ignorance, and Fear.
Scummo the little puffer fish blowing up as usual –
https://media.wsimag.com/attachments/716f6066bcc6b29e1054ca0264022c56d729607c/store/fill/1090/613/e6101c269024548aa40ddcac9b3fa54eee13cb721e7c8f8bcdf890436959/A-puffer-fish.jpg
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/25/scott-morrison-denounces-china-for-offering-russia-trade-lifeline
David Stakes, the only thing worse than the Morrison government is the enablers who support them.
It seems that Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton (who appear to be running this government) believe that sanctions are designed to hurt the citizens of a country whereas the rest of the world try to aim sanctions at the government leaders, the banks and, with Russia, the oligarchs.
Morrison and Dutton see it as quite approprIate to see the people of Afghanistan starve after the pull-out of the occupying forces [that included Australia] and they see no problem in doing the same with the citizens of Russia : this is why both men have come out swinging against China who appear to be more balanced in their approach.
Perhaps it’s their lack of experience in matters of international diplomacy and the norms adopted to bring a rogue leader to heel – if you set out to hurt the people they will hate you.
Josephus,
Arguably the septics had some justification for Hiroshima but none for Nagasaki.
Come on Terence, deliberately hurting some people can gain votes. the libs attack the dole bludgers, Aborigines, the unions and boat people, with the perennial hurtful lies about labor being loved by the crows and accepted by the 19 pointed port adelaidians????
Looks like a hard year ahead, michael?
Well said Kaye Lee.
TM: Perspective check: while you are correct about the usefulness of having the 1.7M barrels of strategic oil reserves stored in the USA, the total quantity barely represents 2 days of consumption. Ref: https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/australia/oil-consumption
Not sure that I would call the quantity “strategic”. Given that it takes 3+ weeks to sail from mainland USA to Oz, reserves of 6 to 8 weeks would be strategic. 1.7M barrels = 266,000 metric tonnes = most of 1 very large crude carrier load.
With us aussies now buying RAM’s and suchlike we are going to need more than 1.7M barrels of reserve. Net zero, what does that mean ??
Consume Less, “Net zero, what does that mean”. The UK Fires org has some reports out that make it explicit, eg. in the Minus 45 Report (reduce CO2 by 45% by 2030), the Net Zero Emissions “strategy places all its hope in technologies that don’t yet operate at all in the UK, fails to account for the new electricity demand created by its plans for greenhouse gas removal technologies and synthetic jet fuel, and includes no commitments on key areas such as rail electrification, reducing demand for aviation or reducing ruminant herds.”
Right, got it, the strategy:
– places hope in tech that doesn’t exist,
– fails to account for new demand, and
– fails to include key areas of the economy – transport and food.
What could possible go wrong?
Another associated group to look up is ‘The Use Less Group’. https://www.uselessgroup.org
This group is not to be confused with ‘The Useless Group’, aka the LNP and its propaganda wing the msm.
Hope this helps.
The simple answer for not being delivered and failing: The LNP.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-28/gonski-ten-years-on-why-these-experts-say-its-failed/100859754
Pingback: We've gone seriously backwards since 2013 - The Big Smoke