News yesterday that our Collins Class submarines will get fitted with Tomahawks reveals a serious lack of understanding about the tactical use of land attack missiles on submarines. Exposing the blithe war enthusiasts of the Murdoch press, former submariner Rex Patrick explains why Tomahawks on a Collins is a dumb idea.
His words were good too, though. Keating tore the concept of AUKUS – an alliance between two fading empires and their enthusiastic vassal state – to shreds, explicitly shaming Albanese’s barely beating lefty heart for selling off Australian sovereignty to the Yanks and Poms, paying an absurd amount of money for the privilege, and receiving a small quantity of chunky underwater boats and an endless quantity of nuclear waste in return. Art of the deal, baby!
Australia’s landmark nuclear submarines deal has sparked an angry reaction from China, but the federal government remains hopeful the countries’ trade relationship will not be affected.
Source: AUKUS casts shadow on Australia-China trade relations – Michael West
The PM says the base price for eight new submarines was $16 billion but ballooned to $386 billion after he added on heated leather seats, roof-racks, sports styling, Parking Assist and a range of other dealer extras.
Source: Albo admits he got talked into buying extras package on new subs | The Shovel
Who will control the Tomahawk Missiles? News that Australia will purchase up to 220 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles might seem like just another Defence purchase, but there’s a hidden sovereignty issue that needs to be examined. And that’s what Rex Patrick is here to do.
The United States Congress has just approved the sale of as many as 20 Block IV Tomahawks and 200 Block V Tomahawks for $1.3 billion dollars. The US will provide support consisting of unscheduled missile maintenance, spares; procurement, training, in-service support, software, hardware, communication equipment, operational flight test, engineering, and technical expertise.
Tomahawk missiles are a long range, all weather, subsonic cruise missile used to attack land targets. The intention is for these proven and highly effective missiles to be fitted to our navy’s three Air Warfare Destroyers. But while these missiles will be fitted to our ships and be under Australian command, the ability to target them properly may be constrained by the US. The purchase raises a sovereignty issue which must be bought out in the open and discussed.
Source: Uncle Sam, can you target my Tomahawk, please? – Michael West
While the former Coalition Government was never one to consider the frail, elderly, unwell or jobless as full members of society, you would expect better from an ALP Government. Perhaps we are expecting too much.
Source: Bright and shiny things – » The Australian Independent Media Network
One positive derived from this fracas. The ALP doesn’t hide it’s disputes behind closed doors and allows for diverse comment. The LNP sacked Malcolm Fraser and want Turnbull to go as well.
In the face of his stinging critique of Australian leaders and journalists for putting the nation at risk with its ill-conceived submarine subservience to the U.S. and Britain, Keating sustained withering counterattacks. Rather than listen to him as an elder statesman, the way most societies throughout history have listened to their elders, he was condemned as yesterday’s man who had lost touch with the world today.
Source: A Sane Voice Amidst the Madness
Australia’s Safeguard Mechanism gets a government greenwash while international efforts to control Scope 3 emissions increase. Pygmy chameleons and eagle-owls are fighting for survival in different ways. Please stop eating shark and Tassie farmed salmon.
Source: Environment: Labor safeguards our fossil fuel climate wreckers – Pearls and Irritations
In the wake of the PwC Robodebt scandal, the Senate has voted for an inquiry into the four most powerful firms in the world – PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and EY. What’s the scam?
The scam is the Big4 have been revelling in double-digit revenue growth thanks to the gutting of the public service yet there are egregious conflicts of interest between their government consulting, multinational tax avoidance and audit divisions. The Big4 have managed to fashion themselves as both the gatekeepers and the poachers of global commerce.
Source: Finally an inquiry into the Big4 – Greens bring it, Labor supports it – Michael West
Albanese talks integrity and transparency but walks back on it
The bottom line is Leo Hardiman was forced to quit his well-paid 5-year contract, by constructive dismissal, in less than a year because Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government would not give him what he needed to speed up the processing of freedom of information requests and reviews which are used to help keep the government accountable.
Prime Minister Albanese has announced plans for a new department within Home Affairs as a strategy against the growing threat of cybercrime, writes Paul Budde.
Labor has labelled its changes to the safeguard mechanism as the best chance in a decade to cut emissions from big polluters as the government continues on a collision course with the Greens over new fossil fuel projects.
Source: Safeguard a ‘once in a decade’ chance to cut emissions – Michael West
Murdoch propaganda in your face
It was the scare campaign of the week. Treasurer Jim Chalmers suggested a few superannuation tweaks might be in order and the backlash in corporate media was savage. What’s the scam?
IA applauds the Palaszczuk Queensland Labor Government’s new stance on drug law enforcement, sensibly stating that drug use is primarily a health issue, not one of criminal justice.
Source: The Qld end to the beginning for the failed War on Drugs?
At 4:55 pm yesterday afternoon, Tanya Plibersek approved another Santos fracking project to go ahead in Queensland’s Surat Basin. No announcement or fanfare, and only a single researcher keeping a close eye picked it up, reports Callum Foote.
Decision allows Santos to open 116 new wells with an operational life of about 30 years in Queensland’s Surat Basin
Former PM says if operation of nuclear subs depends on US then that is ‘a momentous change which has not been acknowledged’
It’s no surprise that Jim Chalmers’ gentle challenge to neoliberal economics has generated an often rabid and intensely hostile response from the Murdoch media. To be hoped for is a more reasoned, informed national debate which focusses on, as Chalmers points to, fundamental changes to our economic environment.
Source: Jim Chalmers’ new economics: a frontal assault on capitalism? – Pearls and Irritations
Whitlam changed Australia and Fraser stole the benefits that followed but divided the nation like nobody before him. Hawke and Keating repaired that damage done, and made us part of South East Asian, a Pacific Nation. John Howard put an end to that and went on a spending spree and witch hunt for Asylum seekers. Rudd and Gillard saved the nation from the global shocks of the GFC with Wayne Swan being voted the world’s best treasurer and economic manager. Do you notice a pattern?
The past decade saw the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison LNP put an end to worrying about spending and took the nation’s debt to x3 times higher than ever before almost a Trillion dollars. The common thread in all of this has been the ALP is always being handed the LNP’s poisoned chalice of economic mismanagement and a new set of divisive set of culture wars. A revised set of fake identity politics, to hate in order to hide their economic malfeasance. After which they hand back government to the ALP to fix while calling them incompetent fuckwits from the bleachers of the opposition. The rich can afford to pay the price for their malpractice while the middle class shrink the poor expand and the majority of this nation suffer. Each cycle they find it harder to recover from the ever-expanding income and wealth gap. Their children’s expectations lessened and lessened by debt and false promises of opportunity
Tough times are ahead for the Albanese government this year, but how tough? The opposition’s strategy runs along the following lines. The economic slowdown caused by rises in the cash rate will smash the government’s financial credentials, with Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers in the frame to be blamed squarely for all of it, along with every price rise that comes along. The opposition’s mantra is already “why is everything dearer under Labor?”
Source: Federal politics: Labor Party under Anthony Albanese faces tough road ahead
Sincere appreciation must be extended to the Albanese Government for allowing Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead AO to be interviewed in some depth on the 7.30 Report (13 February 2023). Sarah Ferguson was up to speed again in her interviewing skills with a seasoned naval officer who was assigned to active service in the Persian Gulf in 2006 as Captain of HMAS Parramatta.
The secrecy associated with the formation of the Submarine Taskforce should be of great concern to Australians of all persuasions as our partners in France had no clues about what was happening behind the scenes as they made preparations to supply the contracted diesel submarines that more fully complied with commitments to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone with the support of New Zealand and other island states. No wonder that President Macron had little respect for Scott Morrison. (The video and the news clip of the French President’s remarks are available here.)
The question arises whether or not funding will go to private or public interest science and, whether will it be profit or value directed. Abbott tore the shreds out of the value-directed public research into climate science. He claimed scientific research needed to be a Capitalist free market activity and not one based on national and global needs. ” It’s not our job” Morrtison rubber-stamped that and readily funded a 5% cleaner fossil fuel technology calling it a “decarbonisation” success story rather than a maintenance of ” Carbon excess” tale.
Labor talks the talk but will it walk?
The analysis by STA shows that this Science Future Fund could inject $650 million every year from investment income into science breakthroughs, generating a massive $2.3 billion in new economic returns for the country every year.
Almost 20,000 refugees living in “limbo” in Australia will now be eligible to apply for permanent residency.
Source: Refugees in ‘limbo’ eligible for permanent residency – Michael West
Pressure is mounting for the Albanese Government to end the Coalition’s legacy of neoliberalism and take steps towards wealth equality, writes Bilal Cleland.
Source: Taxing the super-rich a good start to ending wealth inequality
Nothing coming from Albanese and the Labor government offers any hope for public schools.
Source: Labor abandons public education – Pearls and Irritations
Has MWM and Rex Patrick little or nothing to write about blaming the ALP and the recently elected PM Albanese’s government for not having his finger equally attending to every change on their list of promises? Is Albo the head of this government expected to be the stamp licker, bookkeeper and office janitor as well as the Party and Country’s leader? He’s already changed the direction of the country in the eyes of the world and is turning the ship. He may not be Gough but then MWM and Patrick seem to have taken on the cloak of nitpickers for nitpicking sake alone to keep up their image of “we’ll keep the bastards honest”. Whinging isn’t a substitute for criticism just a haggle over the list of minutia priorities.
In my case they’ve told me my request will cost an outrageous $1,344 to process 179 days displayed in weekly view – that is to process 29 pages of diary. I say that’s ‘outrageous’ having personally made more than 300 FOIs request over the past 5 years and never been charged that sort of money, even for far more voluminous requests.
Transparency builds confidence in our political leaders. Attempting to bury or stall an FOI diary request just does the opposite. It promotes the idea that the Prime Minster is disingenuous in his claims that his Government is transparent, and it erodes people trust in him”.
And when the mud starts flying about, some of it inevitably sticks.
Instead of thinking through and independently acting in Australia’s best interests, Prime Minister Albanese has followed in the footsteps of his discredited predecessors and outsourced defence and foreign policy to the US.
Source: Albo is in denial. He seeks protection and reassurance – Pearls and Irritations
Israel has assassinated people on foreign soil using fake Australian documents to facilitate their crimes. It has kidnapped people from Australia without any government permission. It has held Australian citizens in jail without informing us of their existence and has simply spied on us as if we were its enemy. It has misused its relationship with Australia in so many ways and we have always turned the other way and allowed them to abuse that relationship,why?
In November 2022, I brought a Freedom of Information (FOI) request for the Australian Government to disclose the basis of its non-acceptance of the reports that apartheid exists in Israel. Last week, DFAT rejected the request on the risible basis that to process it would “unreasonably divert the department’s resources.”
Source: Australia’s DFAT blocks FOI request on Israel apartheid status – Pearls and Irritations
The Albanese government’s gas caps are not enough. Gas reservation for the East Coast of Australia is likely as both industry and electricity consumers are held to ransom by high prices and gas cartel threats to withhold supply. Analyst Bruce Robertson reports.
Source: Gas reservation? Threats by the fossil fuel cartel may force government’s hand – Michael West
We seem to have forgotten what Labor was once and did bravely and with courage under Gough Whitlam. Whitlam changed whole systems, patterns of behaviours, and institutions under which we habitually and intergenerationally operated. He didn’t just adjust them making the nation a fairer place. Albanese isn’t a Gough.
The government has ended the year on a high note however the clear message from the Greens and cross-benchers is that there are strong calls for them to go far further. Australians want a windfall profits tax, they want an end to Australia’s gas cartel and they want to improve transparency around how their government makes decisions.
Just as a fish can’t taste the water it swims in, it is hard for Australians to notice how bizarre our climate and energy policy debates have become. We have seemingly abandoned economics, climate science and even opinion polling when it comes to identifying options for reform. The only way forward is what the fossil fuel industry tells us to do. Imagine if we had taken that approach to tobacco control.
The Whitlam government fostered a great strengthening of the public service and its policy capacity. Sadly, much of that has been lost with the excessive political controls of more recent governments. Can the Albanese Government reverse some of the decline?
Source: Whitlam strengthened the public service. Can Albanese do the same? – Pearls and Irritations
Our bestie America is “prepared” to sacrifice and sell us their used and no longer wanted nuclear subs at “their price” and build new ones for themselves. In the meantime, they are also for a price prepared to man, maintain and train us here in our newly built by them specialist American ports. Ports, built to purpose, by them, for a price,why? Because most other Pacific nations don’t want a bar of endangering themselves with that sort of deal. The Americans know they’re not wanted anywhere else at any price and so we are now the safest option. Meanwhile, we the people are being promised very loudly that these aren’t really fully purposed nuclear subs or facilities. Now that sounds a fair dinkum deal to be believed, doesn’t it?
There has been speculation that Washington is prepared to sell Australia its own submarines to plug any gaps in the meantime in light of China’s increased aggression and the fact that the first nuclear sub is not set to arrive for at least 15 years.
Source: US talks to underpin nuclear sub decision – Michael West
The latest Newspoll has delivered good news for federal Labor and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Labor’s primary vote has lifted a point to 39 per cent while the Coalition remains unchanged on 35 per cent, according to the final Newspoll survey for the year.
Mr Albanese also enjoyed a surge in support as preferred prime minister, the poll conducted for The Australian newspaper shows.
The result for Labor is is more than six points stronger than its election result of 32.6 per cent, while the Coalition’s result is almost a point down on its election tally of 35.7 per cent.
Source: Newspoll shows lift for Labor and Albanese – Michael West
Below is an interview I recorded with war crimes whistleblower and lawyer David McBride on Friday (2/12/22) discussing the failings of the National Anti-Corruption Commission legislation which passed parliament this week.
After decades of stagnant wage growth and the collapse of enterprise bargaining, Australia is in crying need of industrial relations reform. The Labor Party’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay Act promises this — the question is whether it can actually deliver it.
Source: Australia’s New Industrial Relations Bill Could Be Good News for Unions
Six months on from the federal election, the survey of more than 1,000 voters indicates Labor is ahead of the Coalition on the two-party-preferred “plus” measure 51.4% to 43.1%, with 5.5% of respondents undecided.
Labor may rue the day it mired the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) in secrecy. Transparency warrior Rex Patrick reports on the “exceptional circumstances” provision which weakens corruption watchdog.
Source: Rex Patrick: “exceptional circumstances” choke National Anti-Corruption Commission – Michael West
Curiously, no-one publicly made the obvious point that if this were so, it was also by definition a referendum on the opposition leader, Matthew Guy. If Andrews, seeking re-election for a third term, was putting the Yes case, then Guy was running the argument for No.
Source: How Dan Andrews pulled off one of the most remarkable victories in modern politics
“ ….. to transition towards low-emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up the deployment of clean power generation and energy efficiency measures, including accelerating efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies……
” The inclusion of ‘low emission’ (read gas) fuels means gas is now promoted alongside renewable energy as a pathway to carbon neutrality. The driving force behind this blatant policy regression was middle eastern oil interests/ governments and a compliant Egyptian host (one wonders what extraordinary wisdom led to this choice of country and region for such a critically important meeting of COP which, not surprisingly, was besieged by regional carbon industry delegates). An Australian pushback to this regression was nowhere to be seen nor its absence reported on. Backing up the promotion of gas is the reference to ‘clean’ (read carbon capture and storage (CCS)) energy. No recognition here that, as Australia has found, CCS remains unproven at scale and therefore its cost-benefit unknown – both for gas extraction and coal fired power generation.
Source: COP27: Australia promotes fossil fuels as pathway to carbon neutrality – Pearls and Irritations
Relentless prosecution of whistleblowers David McBride and Richard Boyle may damage the credibility of Australia’s government on the world stage, writes Rex Patrick. Whistleblower protection laws need urgent reform.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party hate Lwhistleblowers just as much as former Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Coalition hate whistleblowers. That can easily be proven on many grounds including but not limited to the fact that PM Albanese and the Labor Party have continued with the prosecutions of whistleblowers Richard Boyle and David McBride.
Despite the best endeavours of Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, to put the relationship with China on a more even keel, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, seems determined to destabilise it.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Weekend Australian on 4 November, Albanese framed China as a threat, citing aggressive intent toward Taiwan and hostile activities in the South China Sea, he advocated strongly for increased defence spending, at a time of budget cuts.
Has he taken this position to avoid being wedged by the Opposition, LNP, or because he has been captured by the US military/industrial lobbyists?
Source: God save Australia because America will not – Pearls and Irritations
Albo isn’t all that he seems to be!
Anthony Albanese and Labor have already done a dirty deal with Liberal Leader Peter Dutton to support a National Anti-Corruption Commission where all hearings will be in private except in exceptional circumstances. One of the ways they are trying to fool the public into believing that is the norm is by arguing that is what the NSW ICAC do, and therefore acceptable, but they are cooking the books with fake statics.
With Mark Dreyfus’s ancestry, you’d think he’d go out of his way to do something.
The rise of the Albanese government spared hopes of a new deal for people blowing the lid on government malfeasance. It isn’t working out that way for one prominent whistleblower, writes Callum Foote.
Source: Bad intentions: Labor failing to protect whistleblower David McBride
Nuclear subs,B52s, but no warheads not even stored here? Just dinky toys to play and warn with? We seem to have an American mindset, not a Pacific Regional one and are hair-trigger-armed.
In an arc of militarisation across northern Australia, successive Australian governments, in close concert with the United States, have responded to the rise of a newly assertive China in terms that constitute an almost historically irrevocable opposition to any accommodation with China as a regional great power.
Longtime Labor supporter says Plibersek told him she disagreed with the decision to keep tax cuts legislated by former Coalition government
Four Corners last night showed how Australia is becoming ‘a proxy’ or is it ‘a patsy’ for the US in a possible conflict with China. Our actions invite a Chinese response. Sometimes I wonder why the Chinese bother about a reset in relations when we behave so foolishly at the behest of the US. China is not a threat to Australia but our ‘dangerous ally’ keeps goading China to provoke a war.
Last night Four Corners reported:
Source: Four Corners: Australia becomes US nuclear spear carrier in Asia – Pearls and Irritations
Unlike Abbott and Hockey’s first budget from hell was meant to prepare the way for sweeteners in three years’ time. It ended both their careers. It was hardly a model of responsibility over the next decade Morrison guaranteed that taking the nation’s debt from $300M to $900+ M without visible benefit. At least the debt under the ALP delivered us the NDIS.
Jim Chalmer’s first Federal Budget was delivered this week. Politically astute, yet containing few surprises or significant reform measures, it was a budget lacking in courage to tackle the big challenges. Kim Wingerei reports.
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