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What’s their policy this week?

While Tony Abbott spent his short tenure undoing everything Julia Gillard had achieved, Scott Morrison seems intent on undoing everything his own government has worked on over the past five years.

In an interview on Sky News, 21/3/18, then education minister Simon Birmingham criticised Labor’s plan to boost funding to Catholic schools saying it was “based on politicking, not principle and student need.”

Birmingham said it would “punish states who fund their schools well, and give a boost to non-government sectors who lobby the loudest.”

It took Morrison less than a month to throw out Gonski 2.0 without consultation and to gift billions extra to the non-government sector.

On 2 August, Scott Morrison declared the national energy guarantee was the “only plan on the table” to reduce electricity prices, warning critics that dumping the plan would fuel uncertainty and drive up household bills.

“This is a sliding doors moment to lower electricity prices,” Mr Morrison said when asked for his message to Mr Abbott and other backbenchers.

“If we lose this opportunity because of obstructionism, because of negativity, because of whatever else the Labor Party has in mind, to lose this opportunity for lower electricity prices, that would be very disappointing and it will flow through to impact on the economy and people’s household bills.”

Josh Frydenberg described it as “an opportunity for a historic national reform.”

Yet they rushed to dump it only three weeks later.

While Malcolm Turnbull is out and about claiming credit for removing discrimination from the marriage act, Scott Morrison, who couldn’t even bring himself to vote for marriage equality despite overwhelming community support, is busily cooking up new ways to protect those who refuse to accept the law of the land on religious grounds by legislating their right to discriminate based on someone’s sexuality.

In 2014, Morrison supported lifting the pension age to 70, voting for it in the House of Representatives. He then defended the policy when he was treasurer, saying it was necessary to ensure the system’s sustainability, given Australians were healthier and living longer in retirement.

Morrison chose the Today show to reveal he was scrapping that policy too, despite having said two years ago that if this, and the other measures contained in the 2014 budget weren’t passed, “gross debt will exceed $1 trillion in a decade”.

In April, Morrison said “The days of subsidies in energy are over, whether it is for coal, wind, solar, any of them,” but his new Energy Minister, Angus Taylor, said an underwriting program, where the government guaranteed finance for new generation projects, would proceed.

Taylor is also advocating the “upgrading of legacy [coal] generators” — something which is highly unlikely to happen without government paying for it or underwriting the investment. Matt Canavan is very keen to give money to anyone who wants to build a new coal-fired power station, except no-one is interested.

In May, the Coalition and Labor came to agreement about water allocation in the Murray-Darling Basin which Water Minister David Littleproud said would give the Basin’s 2 million residents clarity so they could get on with their lives.

But since Morrison took over and the government focus became all about the drought, Deputy PM Michael McCormack and Special Envoy Barnaby Joyce are calling for that deal to be scrapped.

Mr McCormack said several times last week the Federal Government “will certainly take a look at” changing legislation to allow water allocated for environmental flows under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to be used by irrigators dealing with the drought.

Barnaby Joyce said “We have a huge amount of water held by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. We don’t have to use it all but we can use some of it though and divert it for the growing of lucerne and show a real and decisive way to produce the fodder.”

However, both Agriculture Minister David Littleproud and the Environment Minister, Liberal MP Melissa Price, have ruled out changes to the water allocations in the basin plan.

“We don’t have any plans to change the legislation,” a spokesman for Ms Price said.

The Liberal Party have targets to boost female representation in parliament, yet they are losing them hand over fist due to the bullying and intimidation that, despite overwhelming evidence, Morrison denies exists. There are no repercussions for the bullies, many of whom have been rewarded for their role in bringing down a sitting PM. The complainants are told to toughen up and shut up.

Women are very rarely preselected for safe seats or winnable Senate spots and it appears that will continue under Mr Morrison.

When Bill Shorten said, in May, that the aged care sector was in crisis, the Minister, Ken Wyatt, responded angrily.

“I’m slow to anger but I must admit that recently the Opposition Leader commenting that the system is in crisis and a national disgrace was not becoming of what I would expect in a bilateral and bipartisan approach to aged care. This demeans every one of those dedicated aged care workers and it achieves nothing but instilling fear into the hearts and minds of older Australians, just like Labor did in the lead-up to the last election when they were peddling ‘Medi-scare’ lies designed to scare the most deserving. For the Opposition Leader to continue this fear-mongering is verging on the abuse of elder Australians and it must stop.”

Yet, when faced by a Four Corners expose, Morrison pre-emptively rushed to announce a Royal Commission the day before it aired. Just like the RC into the banks, and the RC into child sex abuse by the church before that, the government has done a huge backflip, now embracing an investigation into an industry they previously denied had any problems.

It is glaringly apparent that the Morrison iteration of government has no plan, no credibility, and no integrity. They flounder around contradicting themselves, reacting to situations rather than leading any sort of coherent policy development. Protecting reputation is more important than truth-telling. Appeasing those who shout the loudest will be the order of the day. When caught out, deny, deny, deny and then blame Labor.

The ATM government has run out of cash and is handing out counterfeit bills in the hope we won’t notice.

Bring on an election.

36 comments

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  1. New England Cocky

    “Bring on an election” indeed.

    It appears that the RAbbott Morriscum Benito Liarbral Notional$ misgovernment have no policies to improve the best interests of anybody except their personal selves.

    Perhaps the Labor strategy could be “Enough for Everybody Labor” and the voters would understand how they had been short-changed since th 2013 elections.

  2. Wun Farlung

    I don’t know what they have on next time Parliament is sitting but I now understand what scummo means when he’s been saying “keeping Australians safe” every chance he gets.

    It’s a softening up exercise and if there is anyone in the Parliament or Senate that speaks against they will be labeled ‘soft on terrorists’

    The government is also introducing other security legislation that would sidestep privacy restrictions, to permit telecommunications and technology companies to hand over so-called backdoor access keys to their customers’ encrypted information. The Assistance and Access Bill would allow the companies to enable access to encrypted sites, devices and applications voluntarily. It would also enable security agencies to force them to create and provide access if they refused, under threat of jail.

    https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/law-crime/2018/09/22/new-domestic-intelligence-powers/15375384006887

  3. RomeoCharlie29

    Anyone who saw the ABC Foreign Correspondent piece on Tuesday will have got a glimpse of where our own government and security agencies are trying to take us, and with barely a peep from Labor. Look at the cashless welfare card being foisted on the most vulnerable in our communities as a different but no less invasive form of control.

    And has Wyatt apologised to Labor in the wake of 4c’s and Scummo’s announcement of a RC into aged care? Looks like, as Minister responsible, he was asleep at the wheel while his regulators went soft.

  4. pierre wilkinson

    With a government that rewards ineptitude, inefficiency and incompetence with promotion, is in denial concerning their own inability to create a cogent plan about the economy, domestic violence and climate change, who continually seek consultants to agree with them then ignore their findings…. plus one that ignores serious breaches of protocols and laws, what hope have we of lasting until the next election?
    Remember the outcries of “this government is not a legitimate government until it takes itself to the polls so the Australian people can determine their right to a mandate to govern?”
    and how have Bonkaby and the screeching Michaelia, nevermind favours for friends potato head or no sniping Tony, survived to be considered for ministerial positions when they should be with ashby and kathy facing criminal charges?

    Thanks Kaye Lee, your work is an inspiration of fact and logic.

  5. Jaquix

    Morrison fond of Captains Calls, obviously. And splashing the cash in any direction that will improve his chances of election. He hopes. He is a shameless liar, a complete populist, and media stunt afficiondo.

  6. Kaye Lee

    Labor would do well to reflect on how they hurt their own chances by chasing or competing for votes as Morrison is doing.

    When we first embarked on needs-based funding for education, Labor made the ridiculous condition that no school would be worse off. That meant funds would not be reallocated to where they could do the most, to those who most needed them – they just had to come up with a shitload more funding.

    Simon Birmingham got us as close as we have been to a semi-fairish framework before Labor, in a cynical and obvious bid for votes in by-elections, decided to do another special deal with the Catholics. Morrison, in his pitiful ‘please like me’ approach, has upped the ante with even more unfair special deals and we are back to where we began.

    Labor’s refusal to save the people on Manus and Nauru likewise hamstrings them in criticism of this inhumane torture. Their political fear of being wedged on border security makes them willing to sacrifice these people as collateral damage.

    They wave through the erosion of our privacy, the imposition of income control based on postcode, and obscenely pointless defence expenditure for the same purely political reasons.

    The brains trust in Labor need to work on their own integrity and credibility and stop chasing the votes of people who want to make Australia paltry.

  7. MöbiusEcko

    And what will be no surprise to anyone, Morrison reels out an attack on supposed welfare cheats. Nobody owing money to the government will be allowed to travel overseas unless of course, you are wealthy or big business, then Morrison will turn the other way and may even pay them public money as a pretence of them representing Australia.

    When the Liberals are floundering, sure as the day they will regurgitate two memes, welfare cheats and security/terrorism.

  8. Terence Mills

    Kaye

    As regards offshore detention, Dutton is just waiting for Labor to blink at which time he will launch the mother of all scare campaigns on border security ; remember the Longman by-election. He was trying to scare voters in the Caboolture area that boats would start arriving at Bribie Island if Labor got in (turned out a boat arrived at Port Douglas so he was a bit off the mark).

    Probably wise for Labor not to lead by the chin whilst in opposition but, as soon as they are in office they will I’m sure adopt the New Zealand offer and other resettlement options and empty the camps on both islands probably within ninety days. I know that I will be campaigning heavily for them to do so as will Labor branches throughout the land.

    After Ged Kearney (ALP Batman) in her first speech to parliament in May came out and said that Australia could not afford “the ongoing cost to our national psyche” of subjecting asylum seekers to “shameful” indefinite detention in offshore immigration centres and that people now detained on Manus Island and Nauru must be permanently resettled “as a priority” the coalition were ready and primed to attack within hours of her speech, with a host of players holding press conferences arguing that Labor will lose control of Australia’s borders if it wins the next federal election.

    Tough as it may seem, I just don’t think Labor can allow this to become an election issue again.

  9. Kaye Lee

    I do understand the political point you are making Terence but if Labor are not advocates for human rights, public education, public health, public transport, workplace entitlements, welfare safety nets etc, then they will lose THEIR base which is what is happening.

    I hate boat turnbacks but it is more that which has stopped the flow, not the incarceration of people needing help. We have enormous resources deployed patrolling the seas to our north. Are we to believe they are incapable of stopping people smugglers? What chance are we to protect our borders if we can;t stop a fishing vessel?

    The people on Manus and Nauru are ill and/or stuck with no hope because of us. I don’t give a flying fluck about the politics. They have to be helped. If the politicians are too gutless to do it, then we have to convince the community to insist just like we had to do to get marriage equality. We are only talking about 1,000 people. It is unconscionable to ignore their plight.

  10. MöbiusEcko

    Please forgive my grammar. Juggling too many social websites does that.

  11. paul walter

    I think Labor has been on the wrong track for a long time, which is why it has taken their popularity so long to return despite nearly six years of catastrophic LNP government.

    Even today, Shorten is so mistrusted that even a creature like Morrison scores above him in leadership preference polling.

    People used to look to the ALP for ethics and social concern, now they see conservatism and timidity, most of all on issues that really count, such as the latest surveillance legislation passed in the dark of night less than a week ago with their help, also endorsing the processes involving the various treasonous FTA’s.

  12. paul walter

    As for the LNP the less said the better and that includes their supposed bullying victim heroines who endorsed the head bully Dutton late last week and Phelps, who throws her lot in with those most responsible for attacks on gay people, at a time when the AMA is fighting a battle for medical aid for ill children on Nauru.

  13. Matters Not

    Re:

    used to look to the ALP for ethics and social concern

    Yep – what some might call the high moral ground. While I concede that (at one level) politics is all about winning, there are other levels which are deeper and more significant. Accordingly, I see that the winning is but a means to an end. Unfortunately, it seems that for too many in the ALP the means has become the end.

    Perhaps we might recall that in 2011 Tony Abbott, told his colleagues:

    that in a choice between policy purity and political pragmatism, I’ll take pragmatism every time

    Purity and/or principles were never Abbott’s guiding lights. Labor can do better than that.

  14. Adrianne Haddow

    What’s their policy this week?

    It depends on who they’ve received donations from, and which lobbyists they’ve granted an audience to.

    Or maybe they’re waiting to see what ‘small hours instructions’ the pastor of the Fire ministry has received from god. If anyone in the real world made that statement, we’d be prescribed anti-psychotic medication.
    Morrison bases ‘policy’ on it.

    The LNP have no idea. They’re still fumbling the show waiting for another secret direction from….. Rupert, the IPA, their shadowy American directors, the new real government in the form of the TPP.

    The fascists are no longer coming, they’ve arrived.

    Morrison and his happy clappers fly by the seat of their pants. Couldn’t make a decision to come out of the rain, on their own initiative.
    They are certainly unfit to run our country, oops, economy.

  15. Ian Hughes

    Yesterday, I was part of a small group campaigning at a local shopping centre to improve conditions in Aged Care. There is a lot of anger in our community on this issue, both young and old. I confess to being a little bit surprised at first and was shocked at some of the terrible personal stories some people were willing to share about their own experience with aged care facilities. Whilst I think the RC is a diversion tactic by LNP to appear to be doing something I think it is likely to blow up just like the Banking RC – here’s hoping anyway!

    I read last week that there have been 10 inquires/reviews into Aged Care over recent years. Surely, a starting point would be to consolidate the various findings and recommendations into a single doc and review each one. Too simple, I know (sigh).

    Kaye, for some reason that I don’t understand, whilst reading your article I kept thinking of that old song and dance “Do the Hokey Pokey” along the lines of policies in, policies out, policies in and you shake em all about! Seems apt, don’t you think? If there is a clip of the Muppets doing the Hokey Pokey, LNP could use it as their campaign song. I can just picture our interim-PM raising his arms above his head, shaking his hands while singing “oh, oh, the Hokey Pokey”! After all, his religion has trained him for it.

  16. Ian Hughes

    Thanks Kaye, but once seen, can’t be unseen!

    Here’s what I was thinking., start at 1 min in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cNAcSrFHE8

    I can see resemblance to some cabinet members!

  17. paul walter

    Here is another odd response from the Christians:

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/23/labor-says-it-will-force-companies-with-more-than-1000-employees-to-publicly-reveal-pay-gap

    How come they only reject fair ideas?

    Morrison and his goons are against Tanya Pliberseks idea, and claim it will promote “conflict with Labor”.

    Personally, I think it should go further and ban secret clauses on pay secrecy imposed by employers on ALL workers.

  18. Terence Mills

    Paul Waiter

    As I understand it, this move to eliminate these “gag clauses” from employment contracts has been promoted by Unions, lawyers and academics for some time and the Labor policy is welcomed as it would enable all Australian workers to discuss their pay with colleagues, in a bid to address the gender pay gap.

    At the present time Australian employers are able to include “gag clauses” in employment contracts that can see workers punished or sacked for talking about their pay. It is a cynical ploy allowing employers to play one employee off against another particularly in cases of gender equality.

    The ACTU have said for some time that pay secrecy means gender stereotyping on pay decisions could go “largely undetected,” while the Law Council of Australia, which is also calling for amendments to the law, said “discrimination is difficult to remove where it is hidden from view”.

    A previous Bill originally put up by The Greens in 2016 was rejected by Minister for Employment (and Minister for Women) Michaelia Cash who said the government did not support the bill and was in favour of maintaining confidentiality in employment agreements.

    This move by Labor is good progressive policy.

  19. paul walter

    Yes, Terence Mills, I don’t get why employers would insist on this demand if the wages were fair. In fact, it is not employers business WHO a worker talks to outside of work. What is this, Nazi Russia?

    I would have thought if wages were good it would be a good reflection on the employer to have that publicised.

    Am sorry.

    Once again I am defeated where it comes to consideration of reactionary policy.

    If this is employer morality and the LNP’s idea of fair play, heaven forgive me if I ever vote for them.

  20. paul walter

    Off the beaten track slightly.

    What does the public really think of intrusive and fascistic policies that ignore public interest emanating from politics nowadays?

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/sep/23/adani-coalmine-most-queenslanders-want-water-licence-revoked-poll-finds

    and

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/23/energy-policy-captive-to-lobbyists-and-mad-ideologues-tim-flannery-says

    I should say here, I remain in an eternal bind at 50% labor and 50% Greens and suppose this is down to the split in the ‘nineties between the labor left and right factions that contributed to the rise of the Greens and the consequent more conservative line taken by Labor on both social and neoliberal thinking.

    But the Green party also began abandoning it left in favor of identity politics way in excess of the necessary and boutique neoliberalism, so where does someone like me go?

  21. Kaye Lee

    paul,

    Get to know your local candidates. The more you know about them, the better you can chose someone who will be strong enough to express an opinion that you agree with. The Senate is very important but most people don’t bother researching the candidates. I refuse to use a how to vote direction. Voting below the line in the senate gives you some power to choose an individual you feel can make a difference.

    Write to MPs and Senators. Ring them. Hassle them. Make them know we are watching.

    It’s not much but we must do what we can.

  22. paul walter

    Thanks, Kaye Lee. It is so that elections must be due in the six months and the first object would be to ensure the LNP is repudiated.

    I live in the marginal seat of Adelaide, where Kate Ellis is retiring and would normally vote Labor, but if the ALP upper echelons don’t drop the soc conservative and neo-lib/ anti-enviro stuff, I may have to preference them through the Greens first.

    The Senate is different. Here the choice is between the ALP and the Greens as to how I will fill the ticket. I don’t care if a Green or Labor candidate gets the last position, so long as some species of Tory doesn’t get in, so I am going try and work out this more tricky issue between now and the election.

    Now back to the last moments of the SANFL final where long shots North Adelaide, coming in from the cold, look just likely to pip the highly fancied Norwood side…best analogy would be Collingwood getting past Richmond last week.

  23. Kaye Lee

    I’m a rugby girl paul but good luck to whomever you follow.

    I agree, getting rid of the Coalition is priority one. We are stuck with Pauline for another term but I sincerely hope she is a lone voice screeching on the sidelines. It is also time for Katter to give it away. He is getting truly weird.

    In all parties, there are good and bad but any good voices in the Coalition are quickly silenced nowadays.

  24. Harry

    Robert Manne in relation to the asylum seeker conundrum:

    “Tim Costello, Frank Brennan, John Menadue and I have been arguing for the past two years that a politically feasible solution does exist. The solution has several elements. Allowing the people from Nauru and Manus Island in Australia for medical reasons to stay here and providing them with suitable visas. Accepting without delay the New Zealand offer of 150 settlement places. Gradually bringing all the refugees and asylum seekers from Nauru and Manus Island to Australia. And maintaining the policy of naval turnback and interception. Until assured that no armada of asylum seeker boats will set sail, which is the prevailing “Canberra” nightmare, as an insurance policy the Indian Ocean surveillance fleet can not only be retained but can even be strengthened as was done at the time of the announcement of the Turnbull-Obama deal. And, in addition, the offshore processing facilities on Nauru need not be closed but only mothballed”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/23/this-pains-me-but-its-time-to-compromise-on-australias-cruel-asylum-seeker-policy

  25. Rossleigh

    Paul, my mother voted Country Party then National Party pretty much all her life. In my teenage years, a Labor candidate in our electorate ran an exceptionally good campaign and she actually agreed with almost everything he said. When she told me that she was extremely impressed with him but was still going to vote for her usual party, I simply said, “So it doesn’t matter what the candidates do?” She told me that it did – of course. I told her that I wasn’t going to discuss politics with her; she’d just continue to vote for the same old candidate. She told me that wasn’t true. I said, “But clearly it is!”
    She later told that she wasn’t sure how she’d vote until she got into the polling booth, but then she remembered what I’d said.
    She voted Labor for the only time in her life.

    My basic point is that you need to make every candidate think. You need to make every voter think. You need to think yourself. If you, me, and everyone does that, then maybe, just maybe, people will stop just going along with their prefered candidate and say, “Nah, you need to change before I’ll vote for you!”

  26. Rossleigh

    Oh, perhaps I should add that this was in the days of conscription.
    I may have added, “So you’d rather vote for the guy who wants to send me to Vietnam, you murderous bitch!” but I suspect that I was more politically correct in those days and I would have never said such a thing to my mother because one didn’t speak that way to women and any memory of that is clearly a false one…

  27. paul walter

    Some interesting comments, but here must go back to Terrence Mills’ comment esp. first para of his comment, 3.01.

    I would have thought that as purveyors of free enterprise the LNP would have no objection in a free market economy for information to be open to workers to compare and choose apt working conditions.

    Why do liberals not understand the basic precepts of their theory and philosophy in general; things like syllogism abuse and basic logical reasoning for example?

    Let me explain.

    Should I want to buy a new lounge suite, there would be no rule preventing comparison checking along Rundle Mall at the different furnishings shops.

    Why would I then not be enabled to inquire of wages and conditions involving different employers from working friends? or they, me?

    Seems like the free market has become a very selective concept rather than an abstract vehicle of freedom of choice through which a person may actualise him or herself in thought and action.

  28. paul walter

    I’ve been wondering if I live in a bell jar, the viewing of Insiders late at night is not something this participant would commend to other AIM readers.

    I sometimes feel like I am living in a vacuum, but sometimes someone else says something that resonates, like this:

    What On Earth Is The Point Of The Australian Labor Party?

    Now, I know full well there is very little the ALP can do about some of the things mentioned in the piece I’ve linked, but I just so identify with some of the sentiments. It is a deep relief sometimes that someone else somewhere in the multiverse wonders about things akin to the things I worry about, just the same.

    Perhaps the vague, nebulous Kafkaesque sense of unease relates in some way back to the Eva Cripps piece, ” Why was Quaedvlieg really sacked”, but this sort of suggestion is only going to lead to accusations of irrational suspicion and conspiracy theory mongerism. Blame these ramblings on an overdose of Nikki Savva a short while ago.

  29. Adrianne Haddow

    @ paul walter.

    May I suggest the ridicule of conspiracy theories enables the masking of the actual conspiracies that are taking place?

    Consider:

    The demolition of the Whitlam government after the attempt to unshackle Australia from the American imperialism in South East Asia.
    The Timor Leste experience with Alexander Downer.
    News Corp’s infiltration of various democracies.
    The revolving door between government ministers and lobby groups.
    Gina Rinehart’s insidious buying of think tanks.
    The growing infiltration of groups such as the IPA in government positions, and on media platforms to influence public opinion.

    The denigration of science.

    Julian Assange’s long incarceration in the Ecuadorian Embassy, ostensibly over consensual sex which, later, became accusation of rape, and an insistence on extradition to Sweden to answer charges, which many high profile supporters believe to have been an attempt to extradite him to the US for doing a real journalist’s job.

    Trump’s election.
    Cambridge Analytica, now defunct, but the minions employed by them have been absorbed into similar enterprises.

    The almost spontaneous demonising and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers from countries suffering under American imperialism, in many parts of the world
    The proliferation of right wing governments throughout the world , during the present time.
    The re-emergence of Fascism and Nazism.

    The disenfranchisement of indigenous people in many parts of the world, to allow the takeover of land and resources by corporations who lobby governments, and donate to election campaigns.

    I could go on and on, but it makes me too depressed.

  30. Terence Mills

    Paul,

    Concerning gags on employees discussing or comparing their pay, I believe that this anomaly crept in with Work Choices where the Howard government tried to do away with collective bargaining and gave employers the ability to restrict employees, especially those who receive a salary and those in the private sector, from discussing their pay with colleagues. Work Choices was all about creating division and playing one employee off against another, this was the only way it could work. Employers then wrote this confidentiality requirement into individual employment contracts with penalties for those who breached it .

    The Labor bill would amend the Fair Work Act 2009 to provide that any term of a modern award, enterprise agreement or contract of employment has no effect to the extent that it prohibits workers from discussing their own pay. The bill would also prohibit employers from taking adverse action against employees for disclosing information about their own pay.

    So far, the coalition are being very cagey about whether they would support this type of transparency ; the odds are that they won’t even though it would encourage gender parity,

  31. Aleena

    @ Terence, good point on the conspiratorial nature of the LNP. Divide and conquer and all things mushrooms, or something like that. On the matter of hiding incomes, we’re about 3 centuries behind Nordic countries which have made it a matter of public policy to make incomes earned transparent, a 18th Century idea yet to catch on here. I highly recommend this article (Aug 2017) –

    ‘Income and Tax Transparency in Norway and Sweden’
    “In the grand tradition of the “Jantelov”, where no-one is better than anyone else, Sweden and Norway publish everyone’s income and tax details, every year. So it’s possible to find out the average gap between women and men. However, only total income and total tax paid is revealed.”

    Income and Tax Transparency in Norway and Sweden

    @ Adrianne, great description, if only more people were aware of the big picture.
    @ paul walter, there is your correct observation of what is happening and there is media brainwashing – one always have a choice into regard to keeping sane.

  32. Terence Mills

    Breaking news :

    ABC MD Michelle Guthrie has been sacked – finally !

    The ABC board said in a statement the former managing director (Michelle Guthrie) had already left and it was “in the long-term interests” of the ABC. Head of television, David Anderson, was now acting managing director.

    “The decision follows discussions over several months that concluded when directors resolved that it was not in the best interests of the ABC for Ms Guthrie to continue to lead the organisation, a formal process to find a new managing director has already begun.

    The ABC chairman, Justin Milne, said the board believed that new leadership would benefit the organisation, its employees and the ABC’s audiences.

    That will put a spring in the step of those of us who could see the ABC being gradually neutered but it won’t please the coalition who still want to sell off the national broadcaster !

  33. DrakeN

    Terence,

    Perhaps the ‘neutering’ was deemed too ‘gradual’ with the prospect of a federal election on the cards.

    They might be looking for someone a bit more radical 😉

  34. DrakeN

    Adrianne,

    Conspiracy is less apparent than simple collusion between people of similiar mindsets.

    It is a case of Standard Operating Proceedures and, based on any reading of history which includes vernacular events, is to be expected.

    As the Great Bard put it: ” ‘t was ever thus.”

  35. paul walter

    Adrianne Haddow your comprehensive comments were a blessing and a joy to behold, also others this morning.

    I am wary that the board sacking of Guthrie represents an implementation of another component of the same coup from the right that removed Turnbull.

    I am suspicious that the Board removed Guthrie with an eye to her replacement by someone even more conservative and willing to censor, given the Government is in deep trouble and needs freedom from scrutiny as it swings even further to the right.

    Abetz has cheered it, that is almost enough on its own to raise a substantial doubt in my mind. I wonder if the Probyn article last week was not a catalyst in her removal, given its criticisms of Murdoch and Stokes.

    I was left very suspicious after watching glib Milne interviewed earlier today and think we now see the reaping of a bitter harvest that follows the failure of the Dutton censure last week.

    “Ask not
    for whom the bell tolls,
    *It (may well) toll for thee”.

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