What’s the hold-up? Let’s change the country!
Considering that the Morrison Government was arguably the worst in Australian history, (apologies to Tony Abbott & Joe Hockey) it seems unbelievable that the Albanese Government, seen by so many as the adults come to the rescue of our fair land, should be as paralysed in the face of deadly peril as it is.
Catastrophic Floods
Look at the country in all its distress, and note the lack of urgency. We are being flooded to the gunwales almost weekly, and yet the federal government has left the heavy lifting to Dominic Perrottet, a mere slip of a lad who is so far out of his depth that sometimes I feel the need to rescue him. But it is the good folk of the Northern Rivers who need rescuing.
Many of them are homeless, facing more flooding rains, and we dither. The ugly truth in Australia is that politics gets in the way of basic humanity, every single day of the week.
You can almost hear their creaking brains as they weigh up the political costs of doing something, or hoping the approaching summer will make irrelevant the cold hard facts of homelessness, and the total lack of any sort of housing.
Announce (again) a grant of (our) money to an ice cream factory in Lismore; but where is the logic in a decision to look after future employment before we look after the current safety and welfare of the actual residents?
Lift the Basic Welfare Payment, or look after the children!
How many children are going to bed hungry every night, while we dither about the Stage 3 tax cuts? Who cares about whether wage earners get a tax cut, when the least well-off in the country are starving, or their children are?
And that is if they are blessed to have a roof over their heads. Imagine, as you sweat on your next mortgage interest rise, trying to make the car comfortable enough to sleep in, for yourself, but more importantly, your children.
Argue for a rise, Amanda Rishworth. These children are Australian, and I don’t want them to be hungry, or cold. She trained as a clinical psychologist, and she should know the damage that extreme poverty and homelessness can do to a child’s self-esteem. Life long shame.
Ask Peter Dutton, who seems to have appointed himself as the country’s pre-eminent protector of women and children, how he feels about the situation. Would he be prepared to give up a tax break, for the kiddies?
He certainly wouldn’t help bring home those unfortunate kids living in Syrian refugee camps; of course they are a real threat to our national security. And they are Muslim. They did not choose to live there, and they are entitled to the same protections as Dutton’s own children.
The Pandemic – oh, it’s over!
But of course we cannot ignore the Labor Party deciding that the Chief Medical Officers, at all levels of government, are surplus to requirements. So let Covid-19 rip, it is only killing our parents and grandparents. Talk about a compassion and empathy shortage; there it is, writ large.
Defence spending? Really?
We better get on board the AUKUS submarine deal, which might deliver submarines we don’t need in thirty years. Not to mention the wonderful fighter jets we have ordered, but haven’t been lucky enough to see yet. Oh, and don’t forget the tanks and armoured personnel carriers. So handy, when you consider we live on an island, a long way away from anywhere else.
Let’s give the rich a leg up. They need cheap education
In February 2022 it was reported that funding for private students rose by $3338 per student vs $703 for public schools, in the years between 2010 and 2020. That pretty well covers that topic.
Go and have a look at MLC in Melbourne, and compare its facilities with Hawthorn Secondary College. Why do we persist with this? If you don’t want your little darlings mixing with those of the great unwashed, then you should pay for them to be educated. Fully.
If you can’t afford it, try the state system. You might be surprised. Pleasantly if all children were given an even start. And we might be able to rid ourselves of the entitled twits who clog up the education system.
Why continue to encourage inequality in the one area where all children should be given equal opportunity. Let’s go for a level playing field, and divert the funds from the uber-wealthy to the needy. That way we all win.
Labor needs to act, and act now. The promise is that if you change the government, you change the country. I see cosmetic changes, and a more likeable group of leaders. But we need to focus more on function, over form.
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8 comments
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Keitha Granville -
Baby Jewels -
Harry Lime -
Stephen S -
RomeoCharlie29 -
New England Cocky -
Canguro -
wam
Return to home pageYes yes and yes, everything you said. Couched exactly in those terms so those wanting their snouts deeper in the trough have no mealy mouthed platitudes to hide behind.
Tax cut for a $200k earner or school dinners ? Negative gearing for your 6 holiday rental homes or social housing to end homelessness?
Swimming pools and tennis courts for grammar schools or basic classrooms that are properly heated and ventilated for the majority?
Extra bonus perks for private health or keeping our public hospitals functioning so that COVID 19 can stop killing people?
How about we have aged care homes that are that – homes, not gulags where we send old folk to wither away in festering squalor without adequate nourishment to line the pockets of the wealthy owners.
Agree, why in the name of ^%# do we need tanks and armoured personnel carriers ? Is there a war on our soil I am unaware of? It had better wait for 20 or 30 years before we’ve got the gear. Submarines?? Oh please !!!!!
I KNOW Labor will be canned for stepping back from any of this, but I am absolutely certain the majority of the electorate will applaud and vote for all of the above GOOD things.
Have they got the balls?? Can they summon the spirit of Gough ??
We can only hope so.
Thank you Mark. Couldn’t have said it better. If only we had a real government for the betterment of the people – ordinary people instead of endlessly propping up the very wealthy, the fossil fuel industry and other donors. So, so tired of it. Then let’s get rid of Murdoch, tighten media laws, and we might actually end up with a democracy.
Great article again, Mark Buckley,correct on all fronts.It seems Albo and Co are still fighting the 2018 election results,where an outrageous liar, an unpopular Opposition leader,and a brain dead,appalingly biased media got the Liar from the Shire up in a ‘miracle’two seat win.We urgently need decisive action,not timidity.Everyone knows what needs to be done, and fuck the naysayers,Albo can drop the mister considered nice guy and kick some arse,pronto.We are running out of time.And let Uncle Sam lose his own wars by himself,after all, he’s a grown up, isn’t he?So much to do,so little time.
Will they or won’t they, massage the tax cuts for the upper income earners? That’s all the media cares about.
The catastrophic failure to rein in the carnivorous gas cartel? What even is that, never heard of it. Chalmers’ super-radical mass immigration push? Oh, that’s just part of the furniture, we don’t report on that .
Regarding the tax cuts and the so-called internal agonising over the likely implications for dropping/amending them, nobody seems to be reflecting on the fact that it was Albanese who bloody well committed Labor to supporting them way back when. So many stupid promises, or ruling outs, which are now being used as excuses for not doing all the things mentioned here. FID. ( fuck I’m disappointed).
It appears that too many of the LABOR strategists live in inner city cellars and rarely see the light of day. Perhaps they should get out and follow the AP Campaign that returned Queensland to proper government by meeting and communicating with real Australian voters rather than corporate self-serving spongers.
Instead of quaking fearfully in the shadows, LABOR must come out and announce long term policies for the benefit of ALL AUSTRALIANS and advise the media that newspaper licences are renewable rather than permanent, especially when scandalous misinformation is repeatedly promoted to undermine government policy.
I don’t remember any LABOR ”good ole boys” in the Whitlam reforming government or the Hawke & Keating LABOR governments. I do remember that most social progress happened under those LABOR governments, and more progress is required to overcome nine (9) years of policy stagnation joined with maladministration & corruption by the COALition.
A quotation from the Australian movie (2000) Looking for Alibrandi…
“Two things happened to me yesterday. The first was I received all this shit about voting for the first time, which I chucked in the bin, cos I reckon all politicians are a bunch of dickheads. And the other thing was my old man was watching a documentary about insects rooting on fig leaves, so I caught the end of the world news. And I saw this guy who was being chased by his own government, and I didn’t understand anything about it except that he was wearing a Nick Cave t-shirt. And then I wondered how a guy my age, with my taste in music, had gotten himself into a situation where his own government was trying to have him shot, just because he had something to say. And I realised I’m lucky because in this country, I can rant and rave and call the Prime Minister a dickhead without the army coming in and shooting me, and stopping you all from listening. And I figured that in this country, we don’t vote to keep the best party in – cos there’s no such thing – but we vote to keep the worst party out. Because I don’t want to end up being watched by some bloke at the other end of the world who thinks that this can’t happen to him.”
A cruel read mark.
But labor should do what does best. id est: quickly fix and introduce before the next election.
Remember even gough got two wins?