In a wide-ranging interview with The Age, Robert Redlich, QC, said in the lead-up to the November state election that scrutinising “how the government of the day is expending the public purse” was the most important role of a commission like his.
Source: Anti-corruption commissioner Robert Redlich wants pork barrelling declared corrupt
Employment Minister Tony Burke does not believe wages growth is about to further fuel inflation, saying pay rates have suffered a decade of stagnation.
Source: Wages not fuelling inflation, Burke says – Michael West
But aye, there’s the rub! (Apologies to His Bardship). Most Indie contestants were campaigning on one, or perhaps a few specific issues that attracted sufficient support from their electorates, together with the last nine years of almost indescribable neglect of the succession of incompetent LNP governments, which provided such rich pickings!
Source: Welcome to The New Teal – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The ALP government confirms their action to increase renewables in order to reduce energy costs and emissions. While Dutton confirms nothing but a promise of opposition to the government offering no alternatives.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton signalled the Coalition would not support legislation for a more expensive, 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030 but declined to specify the size of its own, more modest target. “We will announce that before the next election,” Mr Dutton told the ABC.
Source: Government stands by renewables goal as Dutton flags opposition
The Coalition came to power in 2013 with the promise to wreck things and they didn’t disappoint. Labor had introduced a price on carbon that was working well. It encouraged polluters to reduce emissions, investment in renewable energy, and research and development. It gave money to farmers for carbon abatement. Trade exposed industries were compensated…
Over the last nine years, our relations with other countries soured. Our rankings for human rights, transparency and corruption, and press freedom have all tumbled, as has trust in government and other institutions.
These will all have to be rebuilt.
From the way Peter Dutton has started as leader, it seems the wrecking mentality continues in the federal Coalition. Luckily, the Australian electorate has made them irrelevant.
Source: Builders or wreckers – the contrast is stark – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The National Mindset denies the Region’s their possibilities
Graham Readfearn @readfearn Mon 20 Jun 2022 03.30 AEST Last modified on Mon 20 Jun 2022 03.31 AEST The regional powerhouses of Australia’s industrial economy could slash their greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80% and become centres for multibillion-dollar investments in renewable energy, according to a report backed by some of the country’s biggest companies.
Prepare to subsidise fossil fuel plants indefinitely. That is the message this morning as, in the wake of Coalition dithering, the new government grooms Australian energy customers for more of the same energy policy. It’s the Richard Wilkins solution. Callum Foote and Michael West report.
Nine years of Coalition dithering on climate and energy have surely taken their toll. Way behind the eight-ball on transition to renewable energy, the new government is now grooming Australians to subsidise multinational fossil fuel corporations to keep their polluting coal and gas power stations running way into the future.
The public grooming comes via Murdoch and Nine media this morning to extend the life of fossil fuel plants and entrench the power of the very same corporations which have just extorted the energy market operator AEMO by threatening to pull supply out of the grid unless richly compensated.
Art is an essential expression of human creativity. But today’s high-end art fairs are a carnival of consumerism for the ultra-wealthy rather than a celebration of creative expression.
The statement said that “The Council is deeply concerned by the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the recent escalation of violence, including the killing of journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, other journalists and other innocent victims.”
It seems to me that to run this argument is to suggest an equivalency exists between the left and the right when there isn’t one.
Trump’s Insurrection Stole the Strategies of Black Lives Matter
Donald Trump never gave a direct order to hang Mike Pence. In fact, Trump didn’t even come up with the specific idea of hanging, but when the insurrectionist mob he sent to the Capitol developed this idea on their own, he was only to happy to roll with it. As Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said during the first night of hearings, Trump responded to the chants of “hang Mike Pence” by saying the rioters “had the right idea” and that Pence “deserves it.”
Source: The Smirking Chimp | News And Commentary from the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy
According to a new poll from ABC News/Ipsos, 58 percent of US adults support prosecuting Trump for the riot—including 91 percent of Democrats and 19 percent of Republicans. (About 60 percent of independents believe Trump should be charged.)
Two decades ago, then-treasurer Peter Costello blocked Shell from a takeover of Woodside, arguing that a foreign takeover of the North-West Shelf was against the national interest. It’s happened anyway.
Source: How your spiking energy bills are making foreign investors rich – ABC News
It’s not rising workers’ wages that are causing spiraling inflation — it’s corporate profiteering.
Source: No, Rising Prices Are Not Being Driven by Rising Wages
I am not a fan of Rupert Murdoch’s subscription TV service, Sky News Australia. It is a low-budget, down-market clone of the reactionary Sky News in the UK, which was the major media booster of the Brexit calamity courtesy of regular promotion of windbag Nigel Farage.
Sky Australia takes some inspiration from the UK but more from its other toxic sibling, Fox News in the US, infamous for enabling Donald Trump’s appalling regime and his attempted coup.
I had my share of venomous exchanges with the Sky crew and their self-important ranters, the bottom feeders of the Australian media. Imagine my surprise when they asked me to participate in a documentary.
Source: Sky News is making a doco about the ABC. The host? Chris Kenny
Australia’s universities have been corporatised and compromised, and business schools are at the vanguard of academic capture. Jeanne Ryckmans investigates the rise and fall of the five-star travelling former professor who led the high-life on public grants.
Source: The great Sydney University grant swindle – Michael West
The cost of doing business
“We built Ranger against the wishes and against the consent of the traditional owners,” he says.
Source: Yassmin Abdel-Magied on marriage, her upbringing, and more
Whatever Avi Yemini does almost always seems to benefit the Liberal Party so the people who are demanding to know who @PRGuy17 is and who funds him/her should also be asking the same questions of Avi Yemini as he is a Liberal Party troll as much, if not more, as @PRGuy17 is a Labor Party troll. Has Avi Yemini received any money from the Liberal Party or its supporters and has Avi Yemini received any money from Clive Palmer for the free advertising he gave Palmer’s UAP during the 2022 election?
The Al Jazeera news network, based in Qatar, has received from the Palestine Authority an image of the bullet that killed American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and has concluded that it was certainly fired from an Israeli M4 rifle. The green-tipped, 5.56mm caliber bullet is deadly when fired at a human being and would only be used with an intent to kill. It was recovered from her skull.
It is pretty clear that Eastman knew there was a good chance for serious bloodshed if Pence overturned the election.
after the insurrection on Jan. 6th he came back to one of the White House lawyers who said what is no doubt going to be one of the most famous quotes of this scandal: “I’m going to give you the best free legal advice you’re ever getting in your life. Get a great f-ing criminal defense lawyer. You’re going to need it.” A few days later Eastman emailed Trump’s other attorney Rudy Giuliani asking to be on the “pardon list.”
When John Lennon said the Beatles had a bigger following than Christ he was right but misunderstood. Trump actually believes he has a bigger following than MLK. He’s speaking to Southern Christian Evangelists and wants them onside. They fill his coffers with gold and believe they are America.
Speaking to a crowd of evangelicals at the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Nashville on Friday, Trump claimed his speech at the outside the US Capitol on January 6 was more massive than Martin Luther King’s I had a dream speech.
This is sick on so many levels.
Source: Trump Compares Himself To Martin Luther King | Crooks and Liars
Patriot Front needs to be understood as a part of the militant wing of the Republican Party’s revanchist campaign to erase trans people from public life and push queer people back into the closet. When the right uses eliminationist rhetoric about LBGTQ people, it can’t then feign shock when straight-up fascists show up to support its cause.
Source: The Far-Right’s Assault On An Idaho Pride Event Was Meticulously Planned | HuffPost Latest News
From Arizona, where state Sen. Wendy Rogers spoke approvingly of hanging political enemies at a white nationalist rally, to Oklahoma, where the GOP chair and candidate for Congress talked about putting Anthony Fauci in front of a firing squad, Republicans are frequently musing about committing violence against their political opponents.
Source: The emerging Paramilitary Wing of the Republican Party
My thought for the day It is far better to form your own independent opinions relative to your life experience and reason than to allow yourself to be blindly led by others. ( John Lord )
Source: About “Boofhead” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Refuting critics who say the Coalition is ideologically opposed to solar energy, Shadow Treasurer and former Energy Minister Angus Taylor has announced a new energy policy that would take advantage of the sun’s rich resources by opening it up to his friend’s mining companies.
Source: Energy Crisis: Coalition outlines proposal to mine the sun | The Shovel
Fires. Floods. Pandemic. War. And now an energy crisis. These are wearing times for households and businesses – but there is a solution
Electricity poses a particular problem because businesses and households do not know what they are going to be charged until after they have used it.
So, what can we do?
Source: Zoe Daniel: How to fix the energy crisis the Coalition’s gave us
Does anyone understand the national electricity market?
Source: Energy markets give everyone a headache – Michael West
Patel, for her part, was never exercised by the more sordid details of the case. Her approach to matters of justice is one of premature adjudication: the guilty are everywhere, and only multiply. When it came to WikiLeaks, such fine points of law and fact as a shaky indictment based on fabricated evidence, meditations on assassination, and a genuine, diagnosed risk of self-harm, were piffling distractions. The US Department of Justice would not be denied.
The United States remains a country of tenacious faith, including in the sanctity of guns.
The Patriot Front’s fascist rhetoric could make it a natural successor to the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as Donald Trump’s favorite white nationalist group.
Source: In the Shadow of Jan. 6 Hearings, Right-Wing Militancy Is on the Rise
” No no no, you don’t understand Mike, you can do this,” he reportedly insisted, adding, “I don’t want to be your friend anymore if you don’t do this.”
Donald Trump said Friday that he would look “very, very seriously” at pardoning his supporters who were charged in last year’s violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol if he’s elected president again.
He said Russia’s economy remained strong despite Western sanctions
The Russian President also vehemently defended his country’s actions in Ukraine
The message for the new government is clear: keep giving big business what it wants – weak merger and competition laws, plus prohibitions on union activity – and the economy will continue performing poorly. Profits will keep growing while household income shrinks.
Source: Why Albanese needs to protect capitalism from the capitalists
Woke Capitalism isn’t new. Capitalists will turn to anything that supports or even distracts from their economic activities. Anything doesn’t attempt to aggressively change them. In fact any cultural change that promotes and doesn’t directly harm is seen by definition as progressive even by capitalists. It’s why they even see social welfare as a business opportunity. They in fact need to allow for cultural change and use it to maintain or increase their bottom lines. As long as they can prevent unionization they are int the box seat.
The good news is that progressive political causes are so popular that they are worth cashing in on — times are changing for the better. But there is a critical caveat. When corporations get political, it is almost exclusively on social and environmental issues rather than economic ones.
Increasing the minimum wage, combatting aggressive corporate tax minimization, promoting income and wealth redistribution, reversing excessive executive remuneration, sharing the spoils of economic growth and curbing economic inequality are entirely off-limits to the woke corporation’s activist agenda.
Right-wing commentary over woke capitalism is distracting attention from addressing economic inequality.
Sometimes I wonder why something that I see as a simple idea isn’t being suggested by people in public office. You know, simple things like – given the shortage of workers in some industries – why don’t we double the amount that the unemployed could earn before they lose any of their benefits? It would…
It’s starting to sound all socialist and full of red tape and we all know that privatisation is the way to go because, hey, hasn’t privatisation worked a treat with all the areas where governments have privatised.
I’m trying to think of a specific example here, but I guess my trouble must be that there are so many of them,
Ah, Qantas. Once it used to be government-owned but now that it’s in private hands, they find your lost luggage much more efficiently because they’ve had so much experience at it…
All right, the Commonwealth Bank… Um, public transport?
Anyway, we know that it much be better because why else would governments keep selling off public assets to their mates?
Source: Lacking Energy? It’s Labor’s Fault Apparently… – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Is it hypocritical to write an op-ed about my hatred of op-eds and how they are an outdated medium? Probably, but fuck it, hear me out, and I’ll explain why “I hate free speech in the marketplace of ideas.”
The new leader of the wedge and slogan party said the crisis has occurred because the power industry has been “spooked” by the ALP’s plans to promote renewables “too quickly”.
The new leader of the climate change denying party suggested nuclear power was the answer. It is the most expensive form of power. It would take 15 years to build. It is not renewable and it produces toxic waste.
It is obvious where the views of the alternate prime minister and his deputy come from and it isn’t any of the energy regulators, suppliers or academics in the field.
Oh no. If you want to know how to run the country, turn to Sky non-News.
Strange how ex AG Cash can claim credit for a stat without being specific about what the LNP decisions were that caused low unemployment. The pandemic not the LNP was to blame. The clamp of students, skilled, workers and Immigration was a decision forced on the LNP by Covid and not a proactive decision to reduce unemployment. It was a decision forced on Morrison after the Ruby Princess debacle. We certainly weren’t party to their wisdom at the time and it was an act instep globally.
What isn’t claimed as credit however is the degree of underemployment hidden in the figures. Something the Liberals stay silent on. They cut penalty wages and watched the income gap widen. They even fought against the reason for the 5.2% minimum wage rise necessary to diminish the actual wage loss the poorest workers suffered under their management. The real hidden unemployment figure that has been suggested is closer to 10% and the quality of employment is suffering.
A pair of high-ranking former Coalition ministers — including WA Senator Michaelia Cash — have claimed credit for Australia’s record low unemployment rate while attempting to dodge responsibility for the energy crisis engulfing the east coast.
Ms Cash, the Shadow Employment and Workplace Relations Minster, and Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor said the nation’s 3.9 per cent jobless rate in May, confirmed by the ABS on Thursday, was evidence the economy inherited by recently elected Prime Minster Anthony Albanese was “in good shape”.
“The only reason you have an unemployment rate that has remained steady today at 3.9 per cent with the creation of 60,000 jobs… is because of the decisions that the former Coalition government took when they were in office,” Ms Cash said.
You have to laugh Russia first hails Murdoch’s Fox News as the Republic’s propaganda heroes but then condemns it’s doppelgangers Sky News and Newscorp Aus as its enemies. It welcomes Tucker Carlson, Ingraham etal, but bans Lachlan Murdoch, Andrew Bolt along with, the ABC’s, Ita Buttrose and Patricia Karvelas.
Bet you Andrew Bolt is feasting on his new left-wing, anti-fascist almost ANTIFA status. He’s been declared a journalist something he’s always said he wasn’t but now seems he is. It’s a celebrity boost. Is he ringing the Murdoch’s assuring them Tucker and Fox No News are still his role models down under? We do live in a circus of fools don’t we? The Russians are watching the ABC, Newscorp, and a random mix of others and are sanctioning them simply because they are there without any sense of logic. Bolt isn;t critical of Fox News or the Murdochs but is named simply because he’s there sold as a Journalist which he’s not and hasn’t been since Christ played ruck for Jerusalem.
Russia’s foreign ministry has announced it is sanctioning an additional 121 Australian citizens, including journalists and defence officials.
Russia’s foreign ministry has announced it is sanctioning an additional 121 Australian citizens in response to what it calls a “Russophobic agenda”.
ABC’s chair Ita Buttrose is on the list along with journalists from her station and those working for The Age,The Sydney Morning Herald and Sky News.
Defence chief Angus Campbell is also on the blacklist, as is News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt.
Russia announced a similar move against dozens of British journalists on Tuesday.
Source: Russia sanctions more Australians including ABC, Nine journalists
Is the US heading for a recession? Many signs point in that direction. New home construction slowed in April. Mortgage demand continues to decline. Some of the country’s largest and most influential retailers are reporting disappointing sales and profits. The stock market is in bear territory. Futures markets are signaling trouble ahead.
Source: Is the US heading for a recession? Here’s what you need to know | Robert Reich | The Guardian
Washington: Donald Trump put his own vice president’s life at risk by embracing an elaborate plot to overturn the 2020 election, despite knowing the plan was unlawful, a Congressional hearing on the US Capitol attack has been told.
Among the sanctioned individuals are journalists from ABC News, Sydney Morning Herald and Sky News, as well as various defence officials.
Governments usually change after a recession, not before one, so the job is a nice one – to manage the recovery. But this time is different.
So the number one political imperative in Anthony Albanese’s first term is fast becoming the need to make sure he is not blamed in three years’ time for the various crises he has been bequeathed.
He will especially need to find a Teflon recession coat. Tuesday’s minimum wage decision, in line with his own submission, won’t help.
Economic prospects are now changing rapidly as the Reserve Bank belatedly engineers a slowdown to deal with inflation. It will be touch and go whether there’s a recession.
Source: Alan Kohler: In case of recession, Albanese must don a Teflon overcoat
On the matter of trust, in March 2022 Roy Morgan published the results on polling undertaken that placed Angus Taylor as the 7th least trusted politician in Australia, placing behind Dominic Perrottet (6th), Craig Kelly (5th), Pauline Hanson (4th), Barnaby Joyce (3rd), Peter Dutton (2nd) and Scott Morrison (1st).
He has struggled with public perceptions that he has put his own, and his family’s, interests before the public interest. We all know that Morrison has damaged the Liberal brand, possibly irrevocably. We know that Peter Dutton had a limited field from which to choose when allocating shadow portfolios.
That does not make Angus Taylor a hopeless choice, but it illustrates the lack of front bench talent, and the question to ask is, is Angus Taylor up to the task? Did he lack the ability to do his last job properly, or was he running dead, to sabotage the transition to renewables? That is the question we must ask ourselves.
As to the Coalition attempting to put together an alternative government, I would question whether Peter Dutton as alternative prime minister, and Angus Taylor as the alternative treasurer, really cuts it. I wouldn’t vote for them in a fit.
Source: Was Angus Taylor running dead, or was he not so bright? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Backing the wage rise shows Labor is on the side of workers at a time when many are doing it tough
olddogthoughts 
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