Where to from here for the Coalition?
It is hard to imagine what the Coalition’s strategy will be for the next election.
Their corporate tax cuts for big business are on the nose. Suggesting that someone on $200,000 should pay the same tax rate as someone on $40,000 will also be a hard sell.
How can they possibly pursue Bill Shorten for an old donation by the union to Getup after Malcolm’s Reefgate? Kill Bill has not resonated outside the rusted-ons.
The dual citizenship debacle appears to be over without punishment from the public.
Emma Husar has fallen on her sword and it will be hard to make mileage out of that considering unresolved allegations of sexual harassment still linger over Barnaby Joyce even if they didn’t pursue him for rooting a staff member and spending way too much time in Canberra.
They can’t trot out the debt and deficit disaster again as gross debt is now over $529 billion and they have run five deficit budgets.
Power prices will no doubt be a big issue but, even with “axing the tax”, electricity bills have continued to rise significantly over the last few years and most people believe, unlike the government, that renewables will make them cheaper.
The reef bleaching and the drought have focused attention on climate change again and here, the Coalition have got nothing. The very vocal group of climate change deniers in the government have hamstrung them from taking any meaningful action.
There is a stoush going on about funding deals for private schools. I have to say I don’t like the special deals the Labor Party are proposing but they are winning the support of the Catholics at the moment.
The public are screaming for a federal corruption watchdog but the Coalition remain implacable. Shorten is at least speaking about the possibility of some sort of integrity body.
No-one trusts the Coalition on health despite the bits and pieces funding announcements from Hunt for niche concerns. Hospital waiting times have blown out and many health services no longer bulk bill.
Ignoring calls from everyone, the Coalition refuses to consider increasing Newstart payments and have actively tried to reduce them along with benefits paid to pensioners. This is a promise Labor must commit to.
With every expert saying stagnant wages are a drag on the economy, the government chose to enact the recommendation to cut penalty rates for our lowest paid workers. You will also hear calls from some of them to abolish the minimum wage. Wages will always be viewed by the Liberal party as a drain on employers rather than a fair distribution of the wealth created by labour.
Superannuation is another area where the Coalition have angered many. First they scrapped the planned increase in the Superannuation Guarantee and then they changed the rules retrospectively about charging tax on super incomes over $100,000.
Even with housing prices coming down fractionally (or not rising as quickly), housing affordability remains a problem that the Coalition seem to have no plan to tackle. Cutting down on interest only loans has helped a bit but Labor’s plan to rein in excessively generous property tax concessions on existing properties will do more to address inequality and boost construction.
The Coalition tried to stir the leadership speculation pot suggesting Albanese was about to stage a coup, but that is a gutsy play considering every day, their own members are publicly questioning Turnbull’s leadership whilst Labor has presented a very united front (aside from some backroom factional stuff which they really must stop).
After peremptorily rejecting the Uluru Statement from the Heart, making no progress on constitutional recognition and very little on closing the gap, and slashing half a billion from promised funding, any pretence at concern for Indigenous Affairs is out.
Pretty much all the government is left with is Peter Dutton wandering around trying to scare us all by vilifying certain groups in our society.
What a sorry prospect that is.
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Shaun Newman -
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Matters Not
Return to home pageWell, you have to hand it to the Turnbull L’NP Government, when it comes to protecting their mates in high places. We have seen some absolutely scandalous behaviour from the big four banks and AMP and what do we get from this government? Another $70 million of public money spent to place ASIC officers into those financial organizations, who have already blatantly lied and ignored ASIC rules. Not one charge against the people who have charged customers for services that they have not received. In other settings that is known as theft.
Now picture if you will a group of underpaid frustrated workers who go on strike to bargain for a half decent pay rise because they have not had one in years. Well L’NP industrial legislation will put their industrial organization before a Court, as quick as look at them. There is a huge contrast in Australia at the moment with this tory government singling out ordinary working people to punish for trying to achieve a liveable wage while excusing the excesses of the finance industry managers, no wonder they (the Turnbull L’NP government) held out for 2 years before they were forced to call the Royal Commission.
“….. Barnaby Joyce even if they didn’t pursue him for rooting a staff member and spending way too much time in Canberra…..”
It’s because Barnaby is a man, they all have ‘rooting rights’, us women (Emma included) we have stay away from all that naughty business, and wait if someone will ask us to marry them…
What century are we living in…?
I can’t see anything ever changing with this tired mob. Just more of the same vicious policies. I am surprised that they haven’t started a renewed push to abolish compulsory voting. All I expect is more trolling of “the Left” from the usual wingnut drones at sky and limited news.
Kampbell. Talking of Sky, they are coming to FTA in September by taking over 10 News.
Shit!!!
Why should our taxes be used to pay the banks to abide by the law? Where’s the big stick we’re already paying for? Why aren’t charges being laid? Why is there, after all the revelations coming out of the Royal Commission, an acceptance that ‘boys (banks) will be boys’? What is wrong with this picture? Corruption, fraud, theft by the rich wreaking ruin on working people is okay in the eyes of this entitled Coalition. More money wasted on the toothless tiger called ASÌC. We have laws. We have a judicial system. Where are they in all of this? If I lied to Centerlink I’d be on charges in a flash.
Is the Australian public angry enough yet to demand these parasites pack their bags and get gone?
I’ve been seething for the last 5 years. And can’t wait to see the back of them.
There is a great rundown on Independent Australia (by Dave Donovan) on the past raids on the treasury by Turnbull, in favour of Rupert and his mates. The mind boggles when it is all listed, one after the other of million dollar grants to big business mates, dodgy foundations and ‘innovative projects” chaired, directed and run by either Murdoch family members or Turnbull family members.
All this largesse for the few, when we have people living below the poverty line on Newstart, homeless people early surviving on the streets, a drought that has been crippling farmers both financially and psychologically, but unrecognised by Murdoch’s MSM, until now, with an election approaching. Lack of water to feed cattle or grow crops but we can give Adani access to 12 billion litres of water without any environmental scrutiny to run his shitty mine.
The pilfering of the treasury by this IPA government has ensured that if Labor can claw their way to an election victory, in spite of the MSM caterwauling, it will be a sour one, as they try to negotiate the crippling debt that our ‘overlords’ have left behind, and struggle to implement the social policies they have promised.
Sure as eggs, the Murdoch MSM will be publishing propaganda as to how it’s all Labor’s fault.
Why can’t Labor, the Greens and various sane cross benchers demand the Governor (ha, ha, ha ) General support a no confidence motion against this travesty of government?
Why can’t the unions organise a massive rally to rise against this crud?
Another great article Kaye Lee.
Laws don’t apply to the rich & greedy.
Police, or more correctly, Policy Enforcement Officers are only here to enforce the policies of government, as long as that government is conservative and fascist. Working people are simply commodities the rich use to increase their wealth and entitlement. It has always been the case.
“It is not acknowledged in standard history texts, but fascist military coups were prepared for Australia, too, in the early 1930s—at both the state and federal levels. The would-be perpetrators were Synarchists in the mould of Mussolini and Hitler, and their backers, as in Europe, were to be found in the upper echelons of the financial oligarchy. Their efforts peaked in 1930- 1932, during the intense confrontation between the “old Labor” forces of Jack Lang, Frank Anstey and John Curtin, on the one side, and the “Money Power”—centred in London, but with powerful, aggressive allies inside Australia—on the other. The spectre of a fascist coup was instrumental in the toppling of the Labor government of
James Scullin and the ouster of Lang as New South Wales PM in 1932, dealing a grave setback to Australia’s potential national development during the depression, and throwing much of the population deeper into misery.”
The Old guard had the full support of Bob bloody Menzies and his UAP, which as we know was disbanded and reformed as the Liberal Party we know today. The LNP is, in my opinion, a fascist organisation hellbent of driving the working class into poverty, whatever the price.
“The stormtrooper organisations were the Melbourne-based League of National Security, and the Old Guard and the New Guard, based in Sydney. Combined, these three groups comprised over 100,000 well-armed and highly organized militants. The best known of the three, though actually the least important, was the New Guard, led by Mussolini- and Hitler worshipper Eric Campbell. The New Guard achieved notoriety on March 19, 1932, when New Guardsman Col. Francis DeGroot jumped ahead of Premier Jack Lang to pre-empt him, with a sword, at the ribbon-cutting for the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
These armed fascist brigades were modeled explicitly on the blackshirts and brownshirts of Mussolini and Hitler. Like them, the paramilitaries invariably had their front organisations: mass “citizens leagues,” which shared the same philosophies, and whose members often did double duty, as both league activists, and members of the armed detachments. Both the armed brigades and their “citizen” fronts were created, staffed and run at the highest levels, by the leading financial organisations in Australia.
Some of the relevant government files of the period have been carefully culled, while others are mysteriously missing. But enough evidence has survived, to demonstrate that the fascist citizens leagues and their armed
counterparts were supported by top banking and corporate institutions, among them:
• the Bank of New South Wales, Australia’s largest and oldest bank;
• Colonial Sugar Refining Co. (CSR), the largest corporation in Australia;
• J.B. Were and Sons, Australia’s largest brokerage, and handler of government loans;
• G. J. Coles and Myers, the two largest retail firms in the country;
• leading executives or directors of the BHP and Collins House manufacturing and minerals empires;
and many other banks, insurance companies, corporations, chambers of commerce and pastoral houses. This section of our report presents that evidence.
In New South Wales, the fascist armies were days or hours from marching on Sydney, an eventuality avoided only when King George V directed his Governor General, Sir Philip Game, to sack Premier Lang. An overt fascist takeover was forestalled, but at the sacrifice of Australia’s best leaders and policies for that time of economic crisis.”
From: https://cecaust.com.au/pubs/pdfs/articles/Synarchist-Aust.pdf
The LNP is nothing more than a front for FASCISM in Australia. They stand for nothing except the redistribution of our Country’s wealth in favour of the rich and greedy!!
More good reading: https://cecaust.com.au/pubs/pdfs/Section3.pdf
Re:
Yep in the schools funding bidding war Labor is ahead temporarily – but let’s not forget the bigger picture and its implications. The Catholics want a funding war because they (uniquely) have schools in all social class locations and receive monies from both the State and the Commonwealth. There’s lots of money to be won by selling their political support (both real and imaginary.)
Gonski recommended that the politics be removed from school funding and monies allocated be on the basis of need determined mathematically. He recommended an independent body be established to do that task. Shorten ignored that recommendation and instead did 27 special deals. The Catholics (particularly the administrators) were delighted. They remain happy, particularly now when the Government (who did set up an independent body) are prepared to once again go into an arrangement that’s been the running sore of educational resource provision for decades. What GonskBostoni hoped to stop has come full circle.
What delights Shorten sickens those who know the history. I feel betrayed!
The Big End of Town have already realised that their preferred Government is going to be trashed at the coming Federal election, so I believe that they are approaching Shorten and the ALP to see whether they can get anything from them…. This is a MASSIVE test for the ALP integrity. I don’t expect Shorten and the ALP to tell Big Business: “F..k Off!”, this is and it will continue to be a Capitalist country. BUT I do expect Shorten and the ALP to explain to the Big End of Town the meaning of the concept “Mixed Economy”, where they can run their businesses, BUT under strict regulations (to protect the workers, society at large, the smooth running of the economy and the environment) and with new taxation rules. The Private Sector will have to accept more activism from the Public Sector, and compete as they say that they are so good at.
The changes are not going to be one-term only… we are starting a far more important process than most people in this country is currently even dreaming of…. We are going to turn a mainly Neoliberal Country into a Social Democratic one!…. That’s a pretty big deal..
MN and Alpo,
I pert near choked listening to Tanya Plibersek the other day when she said Labor policy is to just hand the money to the Catholic School Board and let them determine how to allocate it because a body who has been operating for 100 years should know what it is doing and how best to use that money. Except we all know they use it to buy new rowing sculls or a 5th first class oval or recording studios or squash courts for their most privileged schools and then cry about their poorer schools (who still charge parents fees regardless of their income).
Up until 1970, private schools did not receive recurrent public funding. They got a grant to build science blocks in the 60s but they did not get per student money annually. Look at the wealth amassed by the Catholic Church. Likewise the prestigious private schools.
For Labor to abandon real needs based funding is obviously political but a slap in the face to their real base.
I hope, as you say Alpo, that we see some integrity and not tawdry deal-making in exchange for support.
Surely Malcolm knows he is not a very good prime minister, everyone else in Australia knows it.
He may have got away with it if the coalition was firmly behind him but this coalition government is just a squabbling rabble of incompetent privileged little shits trying to throw Mr T out of the sandpit.
If Malcolm had any sense of self respect he would call a quick snap election then immediately resign.
Malcolm Turnbull would then go down in history as a real Aussie Legend instead of in a few short years to people asking, Malcolm who?
There used to be some decent people in the Liberal Party. In more recent times, John Hewson, Judi Moylan and Sharman Stone come to mind.
But unfortunately, the current crop are smug young apparatchiks who see a cushy income, guys on the make, and otherwise unemployable ideologues. That may not describe them all – Julie Bishop seems to be in it for the social functions and Dean Smith seems to have a heart – but honest people would find it hard to work with this lot.
They need to be purged at next election. Perhaps they might then be able to preselect some people who want to serve the public rather than themselves.
Now Kaye Lee, your excellent objective analysis overlooks the LNP misgovernment ability to create chaos were peace has always existed.
Remember the Tampa Affair, used by John Howard to retain political power in 2001 when he quite properly should have been booted out.
Look further back to the Petrov Affair that saved Menzies.
Benito Dutto wants to be PM and he will do anything and everything to achieve that goal. So it is up to all Australian voters to frustrate that ambition by voting against each and every NLP misgovernment candidate at the 2019 Federal election.
Don’t get angry, get organised and campaign for a better Australia without Turnbull, Rabbott, Dutton, Morrison and Joyce.
Got this from a friend a few minutes ago, sums up the state of the nation quite nicely –
https://outline.com/gJUA8h
RE:
Therein lies a big problem. Catholic Education as an organisation is in fact a multitude of local organisations – each with their own bureaucracy, history, tensions, rivalries, and the like. Not all Catholic schools are tied to the local Catholic Education office, with the rich prestigious GPS type schools preferring to ‘go it alone’. The idea that they should share their obvious wealth with the poor parish school down the road is unthinkable.
Some Catholic education offices are quite wealthy Indeed in some areas, government funding for the local parish school(s) is greater than that provided to the equivalent State school AND that’s before the school fees are collected. Golborne, as Chris Bonnor notes, is an area where funding has reached ridiculous proportions.
That Labor would run away from crucial recommendations of an Inquiry it established is pathetic. The only Labor Senator who seems to appreciate the policy difficulties is Jacinta Collins but maybe there’s more. Tanya, when it comes to the education policy debate, is all politician and a policy free zone and that’s surprising given her husband was on an Education DG in NSW. Perhaps it’s all too hard?
One could go on but the betrayal is almost complete.
“a body who has been operating for 100 years should know what it is doing and how best to use that money”
Ha, ha! I can show you any number of bodies that have been operating for thousands of years and still can’t seem to get rid of the criminals, fraudsters and cheats in their midst. You will find them all over the world.
Re:
The problem of just handing money to the Catholic School Board begins (and ends) with establishing the quantum to be handed over. What method(s) will be employed? Perhaps a random number? Wait for Divine guidance? Or remain historically consistent and do a behind closed door deal(s)? You know – what got us into this mess.
That government funding comes from both the State and the Commonwealth is an additional complication. There is a need to operate from principles not shady deals:
Nor political deal making!