1. Cap Donations: Implement strict caps on political donations to reduce undue influence.
2. Enhance Transparency: Improve transparency in political donations and lobbying activities.
3. Adopt Ethical Standards: Encourage the adoption of Tony Fitzgerald’s code of ethics to promote integrity and accountability.
Source: Is It Easier to Buy a Politician Than to Buy a House? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Even in times of low official unemployment levels, the latest polling from the Freshwater Group (AFR 15 April 2024) shows that Labor’s primary vote has dropped to 31 per cent after just two years in government.
This is a crucial loss of 1.8 per cent in Labor’s support base or 2 per cent after preferences. Only Peter Dutton’s flat preferred prime ministerial ratings are keeping Labor two-party preferred vote at 50 per cent within the usual margin of error in all responsible polling.
It suits the Coalition to be seen as the closest party to Israel. The Trumpification of the LNP proceeds apace. This is purely Australian domestic politics – a principle-free zone that leads to bad policy.
Anyway, the longer we’ve waited to resume funding, the fewer UNRWA staff there are to pay.
At least 165 UNRWA team members have been killed on duty and more than 400 people have been killed while sheltering under the UN flag.
But none of that matters here. It’s only what domestic wedging can be attempted or risked or avoided.
Source: Australia’s ‘utter embarrassment’ in Israel-Palestine conflict
With Scott Morrison’s exit from politics, his legacy includes the very expensive and useless AUKUS deal, dubbed the ‘worst deal in all history’. Dr John Jiggens writes.
The same could be said of Dutton and Albanese if a comparison was to be made.
The person who is making America great again is Joe Biden even as the opposition tries to portray him as a lost old soul, bent in the back, scratching pictures in the dirt with a short stick, alone and mumbling. Media and analysts will continue to snort and sniff about his age even as he keeps working and building coalitions to accomplish goals that have left other leaders confounded. A measure to resolve the border crisis moved through the Senate and ran into Speaker Moses in the House because Republicans don’t want to solve the immigration problem and rob Trump of the issue he plans to use as a campaign cudgel. Party before country in the Trump cult. No voter should have to struggle with their decision in November. As President, Trump did nothing but hand out a giant corporate tax cut and bungle the pandemic response and cause millions to die through his incompetence. Joe Biden’s leadership and legislative accomplishments are transformative and will continue to improve life in the United States.
Source: Scratchings in the Dirt – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It is no accident that the Australian “conservative” movement has transformed into an echo of the toxic American Right. Fossil fuel money and a giant international network of junktanks bear much of the blame.
Dr Jeremy Walker’s research into the Atlas Network’s Australian partners brought that American body to prominence over the referendum campaign. The media coverage of his academic study into the influence of “think” tankssuch as the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) and the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) carrying Atlas strategies into the Australian civic discourse raised Atlas’s profile.
The latest attack by Atlas partner organisations, including (unofficially) News Corp, is a strategic campaign against offshore wind farms.
Isn’t this a case of the dog wagging the tail the only political strategy the LNP pursues whether in Opposition or in Government which has been a total disservice to this nation for the whole of this century. The ALP in the meantime does what is required of responsible management to carry out its promises without media support. How on earth can we believe the likes of Dutton and Cash they need to go the way of Price and Mundine so heavily promoted in the media before the referendum but gone like smoke immediately after.
While the government has included the judiciary in the process of seeking re-detention, the process has a distinctly punitive flavor, constituting a form of secondary punishment. It is also especially discriminatory, applying to non-Australian citizens. Yet again, the non-citizen is being treated as a non-person. As Michelle Peterie and Amy Nethery pertinently observe, “Australians with the same criminal histories and risk profiles will not be subject to the preventative detention regime under this legislation.” A potential legal challenge, for precisely that reason, maybe in the offing.
My apologies for adding to this letter, not the bold print, but I felt it helped clarify things in my own mind.
Considering that Australia was one of the only developed Western nations in the world to not have a treaty with its First Nations peoples. ( Why did this come about? The British Crown did after all pass protection laws for its colonized native populations. They did require treaties to be signed and they were in Canada NZ, South Africa, the West Indies etc. While all these colonies obeyed the crown The governors and administrators here neither had the balls nor the manpower to enforce protection laws or demand treaties to be signed regarding the possession of “Crown Land” freely taken by squatters and leased back to them. Beyond a line indicating the city’s limits it was simply a free-for-all. The fear of rebellion resulted in no system ever being informed or actioned)
Every minority group knows how hard it is to not only fight for your rights but also to maintain them especially so now in the post-truth period of madmen. These madmen especially don’t want diversity or equality for all because they want to create the illusion of helping those going through economic and social hardship and weaponizing differences to gain and maintain power. This was the Big Lie strategy that Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany used for the Third Reich for Hitler.
It’s what the LNP promised for most of this century that they will do better only to come up with closing ASTIC, cutting $500M from the Indigenous budget, closing projects, and coming up with the Cash Card, Robodebt, and greater money spent on consultants and “planning” rather than reaching those in need.
Dutton is now calling for more auditing not of admin fraud but the remote communities fraud, in the same way, he’s calling for the investigation of sexual abuse of children in Indigenous communities but not the commercial scale widespread across the rest of white Australia. That Goebbels’s Strategy of weaponizing dysfunction among minorities for political gain will be deployed, assisted, and cheered on by News Corp, 2GB and all the other usual suspects.
Missing elements of mutual respect and vigilance seem to have been removed from our Democracy
Once an early experiment in democracy, Australia has declined into a quagmire of unrepresentative governments at state and federal levels. Power games are played obsessively by most members of a narrowly recruited and self-serving political class whose only interest seems to be staying in power. Politics is not a vocation for these leeches on the Australian body politic, it has become their business.
Source: Nail in the coffin: Australia has run out of luck – Pearls and Irritations
Greg Sheridan Murdoch’s Political Editor has more strings to his bow or is Murdoch the bow and Sheridan his arrow?
Senior Australian “conservative” figures continue to attend conferences backed by illiberal Hungarian leader Viktor Orban. The Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) hosted its 2023 London Summit in late June, featuring Alexander Downer and Greg Sheridan as two of the five speakers. Australians must focus on connections between our Right with Hungarian fascistic politics.
Latest Polls show Dutton remains a massive loser!! Meanwhile, Albo’s honeymoon period as leader has been the longest of any prime minister since Bob Hawke and Dutton’s the worst. The LNP’s troubles aren’t over by a long shot so why are the mainstream media crowing and sounding more like Andrew Bolt? is it that bad news sells papers Or is because Andrew Bolt’s lazy journalism just falls in step with the conservative mainstream run by Murdoch, Costello and Stokes?
Support for the government also softened over the last month amid growing voter pessimism about the state of the economy and a fractious debate on the Indigenous Voice, but it retains an election-winning primary vote lead.
There is great community opposition to the Labor Government’s embrace of AUKUS and its proposed spend of $368 billion on acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.
Source: AUKUS deal shows Australia’s subservience to U.S. dictates
In the spirit of the French Revolution Australians are obliged to vote YES to The Voice and YES to a Republic if Democracy is to have any real meaning. The birth of this country was and continues to be far from Democratic and the LNP ensures us that it must stay that way.
The return of revolutionary symbols expresses an old French passion for equality. The Republic only makes sense if it organizes popular sovereignty and if it is social. To fight for a vibrant democracy, for more justice, for more equality, is in keeping with French history.
Suffice to say, if Katy Gallagher needs to resign over Brittany Higgins’ sexual assault allegations or “misleading the parliament” over this issue, she would need to take a number and join the queue.
Source: The Katy Gallagher Higgins witch-hunt: Australian media’s cognitive dissonance
Marco the French President got it right when he said he was double-crossed. It was all about the money and selling the soul of the nation. The ALP hasn’t changed the direction or in any way deflected the AUKUS scam. They are assisting the rampant profiteering of the Military-Industrial Complex at the expense of the French.
Paul Keating described the AUKUS submarines deal negotiated by the Albanese government as the “worst deal in all history”. Is he right, and if so, just how bad is it?
Legal experts aren’t political experts according to the LNP who won’t be swayed.
A leading expert says the proposed wording of the constitutional change for an Indigenous voice will ensure parliament decides the legal effects of its representation.
Source: Constitutional expert says voice wording clears issues – Michael West
You don’t necessarily need to march in a parade, or donate to a charity, or cover yourself in glitter and pretend to be interested in The Real Housewives franchise, or go to a drag show – you just need to be smart enough to see that anti-trans hysteria is being pushed on you because they think you’re weak enough to fall for it.
Source: Nazis and grifters think you’re stupid enough to fall for trans panic, Australia | The Shot
The statement differs from a set of facts tendered by police during Coco’s case last year, which saw her sentenced to 15 months in prison with a non-parole period of eight months. She has launched an appeal against the sentence.
A former Nationals MP who quit the party because of its opposition to an Indigenous voice to parliament says sceptics will be proven wrong about the proposal.
Source: Ex-Nationals MP calls on voice ‘sceptics’ to open minds – Michael West
Democracy screams “show us your money”
Analysis shows almost one-quarter of total party income was hidden from public view in 2021-22
Analysis of the Australian Electoral Commission’s 2022 donations data dump has revealed ‘dark money’ comprised up to 40% of major political party revenue. Liberals were the worst offenders. Callum Foote reports.
Australia “should not face intimidation from so-called allies under the auspices of defense cooperation,” said one advocate.
Source: ‘So Irresponsible’: US Condemned for Warning Australia Against Joining Anti-Nuclear Treaty
The ongoing propaganda we see daily from the media requires a scalpel to get through. Hopefully this piece has begun to sift through the endless foray of Newspeak that we see every day.
Source: Beyond the BS: What Politcal Terms Really Mean – » The Australian Independent Media Network
One wonders if Dutton flew to the US to tell Murdoch he’d support his illegal investment in Israeli-occupied Syria, Genie Oil. How on earth could he remain a clean energy sceptic given what we have witnessed globally about the ineffectiveness of fossil fuels to service the world’s energy needs? Australia among all the world’s nations is positioned to be the world’s biggest renewable energy provider. Political donations obviously remain the biggest determinant on policy. When will Murdoch’s media support be officially evaluated and counted as an LNP donation?
Clean energy scepticism has become a defining issue for the Coalition under Opposition Leader Peter Dutton who made it the main point of policy difference in his first budget reply speech.
Source: Dutton hangs hat on energy scepticism, cost of living – not details
The Australian Greens won three new lower house seats and the Senate balance of power at the last election. By combining radical reforms and community activism, they are building a mass organization with the power to challenge the political establishment. Challe
Source: The Brisbane Greens Are Building a Mass Party With Unashamedly Left-Wing Politics
Is Australia behind the times or leading the world in its fight back against an enormous leap to the Right that started with Howard and ended with Morrison this century.
NSW Labor has taken the lead ahead of an upcoming election, but a turbulent week and a long road ahead will dampen any celebration.
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
When the LNP Dirt Brigade can call on their MSM media propagandists to turn one tree into a forrest, it becomes extremely evident the case of Kimberly Kitching of their level of desperation. Kitching never uttered any complaint or called for this level of publicity but the LNP’s own polls indicated Scott Morrison needed something to take the attention away from the shellacking the LNP was about to experience in South Sustralia.
Kitching’s death was weaponised for the purpose of political deflection and gained the equivalent and undeserved front page attention the death of Shane Warne did for that purpose. It’s not that it lasted over a week but it actually kept the Labor victory in SA off the front pages. It shows the unequal battle the ALP always faces in an election but also the degree to which Scott Morrison and the Liberals have fucked up this past not 3 but 9 years.
Think of it this way: If Steven Marshall had had an unexpected victory, what would have been the reaction? People would have said it showed again how wrong polls can be. The result would have inserted a discount into assessments of Anthony Albanese’s chances. SA Labor’s win will be a psychological boost for the federal Opposition, and a further dampener on the government’s mood.
Source: SA result is boost for Albanese, but he’s struggling with Kitching allegations
At a broader level, a functional democracy depends on common appreciation of basic facts. Yes, we can debate how to respond to climate change, but the genuine debate is only possible if we first accept the evidence that the climate is changing. If truth is seen as unattainable, anything goes. And if politicians ultimately do and say whatever they want, why bother engaging with politics at all?
As we have also seen recently, in times of crisis, mutual trust between government and the public produces greater compliance and better outcomes for everyone. Lies poison this trust. From this perspective, then, we should not accept lying politicians, and the media is well advised to hold our elected representatives to account. And if our Australian study is anything to go by, how our politicians deal with truth may end up affecting voters at the ballot box in May.
Phillip Morris donates to the NP
Year after year, political parties receive tens of millions of dollars in “dark money”. This week, The Centre for Public Integrity, published research showing over $1.38 billion (29.5%) of political party funding since the 1998-99 financial year is of unexplained origin. In the 2020-21 financial year, some $68 million (38.6%) of party income was of unexplained origin. You won’t see who has been funding this year’s federal election as the donations data only happens once a year. By the time the February disclosures come along they are already at least 7 months old. We won’t see this until next February.
Source: AEC cracks down on Twitterati, lets breaches by major political parties slide – Michael West Media
Minor far-right parties like Clive Palmer’s UAP are poised to assist in the re-election of the Morrison Government through the disciplined distribution of preferences in Outer Suburban Areas where financial stresses have frustrated the delivery of affordable housing dreams. In the Outer Brisbane South Electorate of Forde, the combined vote for One Nation, the UAP and Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party approached 20 per cent of the primary vote and was highest in the most disadvantaged polling booths.
Alternative economic options are difficult to promote in more disadvantaged electorates where many residents are under siege from financial pressures of mortgage payments or high rentals. These stresses have generated a fair share of scepticism about national politics and the relevance of the old two-party divide in Australian politics.
Electorate profiling of constituents has become so intricate that political insiders in the federal LNP can exploit these financial and social tensions in Australian households to make use of the outrageous levels of opportunistic political communication from both federal LNP and minor far-right parties who are offering a disciplined distribution of preferences to the Morrison Government.
Morrison is grateful
“Our objective in the last election was to ensure Bill Shorten did not become prime minister,” he said when asked about the point of spending so much money on a seemingly doomed ambition.
Source: Unvaxxed billionaire Clive Palmer promises most expensive election campaign ever
No complaints were heard when Clive Palmer spent $$$
Escalating Coalition criticism of the ‘Voices Of’ independent movement is “attacking democracy”, one of the drive’s key supporters has claimed, as yet more senior ministers complain about its growing traction.
Despite the Coalition claiming the movement is a “front” for Labor or the Greens, most of the independent candidates say they’ve never been a member of any political party, and some have links to the Liberals. Ms Daniel, a former ABC journalist and former TND columnist, said she had voted for her opponent, Mr Wilson, in 2016. Allegra Spender, taking on Dave Sharma in Wentworth, is the daughter of former Liberal MP John Spender. Mr Holmes a Court said he was unsurprised the Voices campaigns largely came from Coalition seats. “They’re growing out of frustration at the representation they’re getting. I’m not surprised people in non-government seats aren’t energised enough to start a campaign,” he said. “This is a movement from the centre. It’s spot fires of people who are pi–ed off. If Labor was in power, I’m sure this movement would be targeting Labor seats. They’re pushing against people they think are doing a bad job. “[Mr Morrison] should be asking, ‘Why did these groups start up and why are people disaffected in heartland Liberal seats?’” Mr Holmes a Court said Climate 200 would look to support between 12 and 20 independent candidates, and hoped three to five would win
Source: ‘Attacking democracy’: Independent MPs hit back at Coalition
Put it another way. The very things the Labor party represents and supports Multiculturalism, Individual decent living conditions, Freedom, and Democracy are the very qualities that tie its arm behind its back. It’s why the US Democrats and Labor in the UK, aren’t the parties of extremes but centerist. In a Democracy, major parties should be prepared to lose and currently Labor seems to be the only party that accepts that. It’s why they aren’t the party fighting to divide and fragment the nation. The LNP on the other hand promote culture wars aren’t anti Independents who are divisive, forced into transactional arrangements to form unstable coalitions and we’ve seen just how that’s worked for the LNP. The ALP haven’t joined One Nation, Clive Palmer’s AUP and any other stand alone Independant.
Unfortunately, divide and conquer is the historic truism that’s lead many Dictators and would be autocrats to pyrrhic and short lived victories in the past. Their politics tends to appeal to emotions, religious beliefs and culture rather than logic and rationality drawn from the data collected our material existense. An educated Australia or electorate isn’t in their interests.
To put it in a broader context, the independent lovefest comes down to a reassertion of the fact that the Labor Party is not accepted as fully legitimate. Decades of neoliberalism have undermined its ability to project a vision of the national interest that is equally valid as that of the corporate/politically conservative interests in Australia, where those interests include the media. Labor always fights with one hand tied behind its back – and until they prove otherwise, the independent candidates are simply another manifestation of anti Labor sentiment. What we really need is to do whatever it takes to elect a majority Labor government that will actually do something about the challenges we face.
Source: Independents are not the answer to our problems – » The Australian Independent Media Network
When a minority uses fake culture wars to blindside an election. It didn’t work in Warringa did it? The biker surfer volunteer fire fighter lost by a country mile.
Australia – a nation of self-proclaimed straight shooters – has been hijacked by a pack of fabricated larrikins and bona fide bullshit artists. For a quarter-century, Australia’s conservative establishment has profited from pitting working-class battlers against the inner-city elite, coalmines against universities, larrikins against feminists and gays, patriots against Aboriginals, Muslims and asylum seekers.
Former Liberal MP Craig Kelly has joined Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party so he can access a war chest of funds to more widely share his controversial views over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Source: Craig Kelly joins Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party for ad spend
Could progressive Independents be the way of the future? The opportunity to reduce the influence of party politics and all the politicking that this entails, and return Australia to the people? If more of the calibre of Dr Helen Haines can be encouraged to enter Australian politics, then we can look forward to an Australia of Dr Haines’ goal of “high quality, safe and (an) enjoyable healthy life.”
86 View all comments Nationals MPs fear a ruthless reshuffle of their federal cabinet posts to reward those who voted for Barnaby Joyce to lead the party, amid Labor scorn that he will join a cabinet taskforce on women’s safety.
Source: Nationals MPs fear ‘vindictive’ reshuffle of cabinet posts rewarding Barnaby Joyce backers
When it comes to thinking, progressives do it better than conservatives do. Progressives embrace novelty, nuance and complexity, while social conservatives struggle to process complex tasks.
In Australian politics today, the neoliberal consensus seems unshakable. But the experience of the Curtin and Whitlam Labor governments shows the potential of progressive populism to deliver social change — a potential we can also glimpse in the recent growth of the Greens.
Source: Progressive Populism Has Transformed Australia Before — It Could Do It Again
It’s a new head of power. And what’s extraordinary is that it’s been generated nationally by the voices of people conventionally thought powerless, or near enough to powerless for the difference not to mean much. A young political staffer, close to the bottom of the heap. Schoolgirls. The voice of a woman from her grave, telling a contested story from long ago. Women who’ve been spat out from the system in Parliament House. Tens of thousands of nobodies gathering in the streets.
A new power has risen in Australian politics — and it’s not coming quietly – ABC News
So let’s give anger its just due. Those of us who write political pieces do so because we are angry. Angry at the unfair deal life inflicts on so many, angry at the indifference to their plight that society and so many politicians exhibit, angry at their reluctance to address these needs, angry at their self-centred preoccupation with their own political needs and wants ahead of the needs of those who interests they are elected to represent.
Anger – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It took a pandemic to finally slow the hitherto remorseless rise of the big four consulting firms to the dominant position in Australian public affairs. Having grown in recent years to become one of the biggest sources of political donations while siphoning off billions in government contracts, Ernst & Young (EY), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG and Deloitte all pulled their political funding back in 2019-20, but still made major contributions.
Hand that gives also receives: government-dependent sectors keep giving
Whither Democracy? Political donations triple as AEC prepares 2021 data drop – Michael West
When the Australian Electoral Commission drops its political donations data tomorrow, it will almost certainly show that corporate donations are rising at an alarming clip and that Australia is tracking the US. Stephanie Tran and Michael West report on the extraordinary rise of money in politics.
Whither Democracy? Political donations triple as AEC prepares 2021 data drop – Michael West
Australia is good at lying to itself. It’s done it for years over racism and misogyny. Are we going to kid ourselves that we are a fair, progressive, intelligent nation while allowing the manipulation of truth, as identified by George Orwell, to run rampant? How far are we willing to go? Perhaps fostering hate to the point that people feel that it is OK to kill? Allowing the entitled to destroy our democracy, as nearly happened in America over recent weeks? How far Australia, how far?
How many lies are too many lies? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
we present our alphabet of 2020, pulling in everything you’ll remember about this year we’d rather forget (and probably a few things you’d managed to put out of your mind already). Whet your whistle with the first half.
Australian politics 2020: A to M of the biggest moments across the nation
Investigation: how political donations protect a cosy loophole for Australia’s plutocrats – Michael West
“Political donations buy access to parliamentarians, they buy policy outcomes, and they buy a post-parliament career with the revolving door between politics and business”. Stephanie Tran and Michael West investigate the dark money which flows from Australia’s family business empires to the major political parties and identify a raft of failures in the donations system.
Investigation: how political donations protect a cosy loophole for Australia’s plutocrats – Michael West
When the Coalition quietly changed the regulations to enable access to millions of unlisted mobile phone numbers for ‘political research’, the Liberal Party’s pollster Crosby Textor was quick out of the blocks with an application to access the database, writes Jommy Tee. Now, the lobby group closest to Scott Morrison has access to 27 million phone numbers heading into the next Federal election.
A salient point for other political parties wishing to access the database is don’t leave it too late because it may take several months to satisfy the approval conditions.
The long-suffering public may beg to differ on whether access should be granted.
A Pushy Number: Libs’ pollster Crosby Textor granted access to 27 million unlisted mobiles – Michael West
Is adversarial politics damaging our democracy?
Those who despise adversarial politics find it to be contemptible, a damaging affliction on our political system. They resent the stifling impediments it places on governing, on governments carrying out what they promised the electorate they would do. They see it as focused on ‘winning’, on gaining a political advantage, rather than telling or establishing the truth, or contributing usefully to the discourse. It sets the teeth of the electorate on edge, which ‘turns off’ in despair. Voters would prefer politicians to be open and upfront, more focussed on the good of the nation, less willing to corrupt the usually-worthy principles that brought them into politics in the first place. At least our PM and Opposition leader are now cooperating well during the COVID-19 crisis.
What can we ordinary citizens do?We might be able to bring about change if we, who pay our politicians’ wages via taxes, raise our voices against the use of exaggerated, depreciatory, derogatory and dishonest language by politicians, commentators and columnists. While the media might miss the theatre and the ‘newsworthy’ copy adversarial politics provides, the public would applaud a more measured approach, free from adversarial behaviour – so wasteful, so unproductive, so distasteful. We could write to our parliamentarians individually. Responders to this piece may have other suggestions. Sadly though, if history tells us anything, any change for the better is probably a vain hope.
via Is adversarial politics damaging our democracy? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Bouyed by the success of Bernie Sanders on an International level the Greens have an opportunity to influence the very direction of Australian politics (ODT)
It’s flagship policy is a Green New Deal, articulated along similar lines to those in the United States and the UK, which aims to address the crises of work, inequality, and the climate at the same time.
In theory, conditions seem favorable to turn this around. Even before the pandemic, continent-spanning bushfires transparently linked to climate change devoured 20 percent of our forests and killed at least thirty-four people. Prior to the worst recession since the 1930s, the Liberal–National Coalition government presided over stagnant wages and 3.2 million people living in poverty. Racism and xenophobia were already on the rise — in the last month anti-Chinese and Asian racism has spiked.
While Australia has so far escaped runaway coronavirus infections, the crisis has pushed millions more into poverty and housing insecurity. Excluded from the JobKeeper scheme, millions of casual and migrant workers are particularly vulnerable.
via The Australian Greens Must Democratize Their Party Structures
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