The Australian High Court has just ruled that, if an employment contract says you are a casual worker, then you must be a casual worker — even if you work regular, ongoing hours. The decision is a massive blow to workers’ rights.
Source: Australia Has Rolled Workers’ Rights Back to the 1800s
The world of work has changed dramatically in the past two years of pandemic. Emergency measures have sent businesses to the wall and left others unable to fill staff gaps. We have learnt overdue lessons on the value of the people who conduct the many backbreaking and thankless tasks in hospitality and tourism. But control of the commanding heights of the labour market remains with the big end of town, writes Michael Sainsbury.
My thought for the day The left of politics is concerned with people who cannot help themselves. The right is concerned with those who can. (John Lord )
Source: This might help Labor win the ‘must win’ election – » The Australian Independent Media Network
They sure were feeding the chooks last night. Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian went live with its “exclusive” story at midnight: “Covid-19, NDIS, in $50bn blow to mid-year budget”. Michael West takes a light look at the Morrison government’s media and marketing tactics.
Source: Banquet of the Chooks: MYEFO budget leaks gobbled up in media feeding frenzy – Michael West Media
In Australia I follow AIM, IA, Michael West Media all of whom aren’t included in any Morrison Government Media plans to have Big tTech pay.. The Shovel and the The Shot are good for a laugh. There is truth in humor and it often hits the target. These are just a few along with some others listed below.
I follow the mainstream media, but I don’t limit myself to it. And I don’t rely on it to educate the public about bold, progressive ideas that would make America and the world fairer and stronger. I read the Guardian, the American Prospect (which, full disclosure, I helped found thirty years ago), Mother Jones, and The Atlantic. I follow several blogs (Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo, for example). I listen to the always thoughtful Democracy Now. And I subscribe to a few newsletters (I hope you like this one and spread word of it). But even with news sources I trust, I still ask myself: how are choices being framed? What’s being left out? What big underlying issues are being assumed away or obscured? When our democracy is under assault from so many directions, I think we need to educate and re-educate ourselves (and our children) about how to learn what’s really going on — how to absorb the news critically. Isn’t this a minimal responsibility of democratic citizenship? What do you think?
Source: Why I Don’t Trust the Mainstream Media | The Smirking Chimp
Extraordinary details have emerged of how the Reserve Bank intervened to stop Treasurer Josh Frydenberg crashing the economy as the pandemic took grip, how, contrary to their fable of “superior economic management”, the Morrison Coalition pursued political gain over good government, and how they have been borrowing its billions almost for free. Investigation by Michael West and @13foot7.
Source: How the Reserve Bank rescued Australia from Scott and Josh – Michael West Media
Wilson, is part of the past 30 years and a glimpse of the future of our most taxing government. Wilson thrashes about trying to convince us Labour is what the LNP has always been and Labor never was. Wilson was groomed by the very secretive IPA whose fake cover is that of an ” independent research think tank”. Which is meant to convey some intellectual prowess proves to be little more than an attention-seeking bully, government and public influencer. They’re the ideal Party thugs in the mold of Abbott, and Dutton. The new generation of clones that haven’t progressed a historic inch.
He goes on to tell us that “The media fundamentally got the last election wrong because they underestimated what issues move votes. They missed the nearly one million retirees who risked losing a third of their income overnight because of Labor’s retiree tax.” Seriously? Excess franking credit refunds are more important than action on climate change? Throughout his article – eight times in fact – Wilson uses the term so-called “independents”. He thrashes around trying everything he can to discredit and invalidate them. And then he finishes by saying they “will do far more damage to Labor and the Greens than Liberals at the ballot box.” So why are you so worried, Tim?
Source: Tim Wilson is getting hysterical – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The inequality, said two experts, “reaffirms the need to place generating robust wage growth for the vast majority and rebuilding worker power at the center of economic policymaking.”
Source: Yearly Wages of Most US Workers Grew Just 28% Since 1979 But ‘Skyrocketed’ for Top 0.1%
Dominated by untrustworthy Murdoch agents
Over the year, guest journalists made 133 appearances on the 44 Insiders programs. If we count presenter David Speers, that is 177 contributions. Of these, 92 were current or former employees of Murdoch’s News Corporation, the most untruthful and discredited “news” organisation in the English-speaking world. That’s 52%. Another 32 journalists, or 18%, were from the pro-Coalition Nine Entertainment network. There is no need for the public broadcaster to engage employees of organisations with proven records of falsifying data, suppressing vital information and blatant political manipulation. Australia has many journalists with excellent credentials Insiders could have used.
Source: ABC’s Insiders doesn’t serve its viewers or the nation
Governments have not been fulfilling their responsibilities for many years but this lot have given up any pretence of being motivated by the best interests of the people – unless they are ‘their’ people. This is an excerpt from that original essay that should remind us all what we have a right to expect from our government:
Source: We deserve better – » The Australian Independent Media Network
My thought for the day I found it impossible to imagine that the 2016Australian people could be so gullible as to elect for a third term a government that has performed so miserably in the first two. And it has has amongst its members some of the most devious, suspicious and chillingly corrupt men and women but they did. (John Lord )
This brings me to the quotation at the top of this article: ‘Let us look at ourselves, if we can bear to, and see what is becoming of us.’ Jean-Paul Sartre wrote this in his preface to Frantz Fanon’s ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, the classic study of how colonised and seduced and coerced and, yes, craven peoples do the bidding of the powerful. Who among us is prepared to stand up rather than remain mere bystanders to an epic travesty such as the judicial kidnapping of Julian Assange? What is at stake is both a courageous man’s life and, if we remain silent, the conquest of our intellects and sense of right and wrong: indeed our very humanity.
Source: JOHN PILGER: U.S. wins extradition appeal against Julian Assange
Parliament is in recess and another year has gone without the Morrison government honouring its promise to establish a federal ICAC. It is clearly reluctant to do so at all, while rorts and scandals continue to erode trust in our politicians. The system is broken, and it will take much more than an integrity and corruption commission to fix it. Kim Wingerei reports. A wise person once said: the problem is rarely the problem, it’s failure to deal with the problem that becomes the problem. The problems run deep in Federal Parliament, but they can be addressed.
Source: Back to first principles: a blueprint to revive Australian democracy – Michael West Media
Parliament is in recess and another year has gone without the Morrison government honouring its promise to establish a federal ICAC. It is clearly reluctant to do so at all, while rorts and scandals continue to erode trust in our politicians. The system is broken, and it will take much more than an integrity and corruption commission to fix it. Kim Wingerei reports.
Source: Back to first principles: a blueprint to revive Australian democracy – Michael West Media
What they did agree to makes for very interesting reading today in light of Morrison’s attempts to spook the electorate.
The concessions secured by the Greens included:
An admirable list of requests, few of which appear to have come to fruition with the parliament, instead, paralysed by attacks on Julia Gillard’s decades old involvement with the AWU, the evisceration of Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper, and the constant demonising of asylum seekers.
A little administrative juggling, and an unlikely set of funding proposals magically turns into reality, writes Jommy Tee in his continuing series on regional grants.
Michael West Media (MWM) has previously outlined the corrupt process where 161 grants worth $165 million were manipulated by the ministerial panel overseeing BBRF Round 3 and Round 4 and heavily skewed to Coalition seats. Round 5 grants worth $300 million were announced in early October. Not surprisingly the grants were heavily skewed to government seats by the ministerial panel that interferes in the awarding of the grants, despite the evidence of government officials.
First, let’s turn to the secretary’s evidence. Labor’s Senator Murray Watt tried to drill down into the opaque process of the advice that the department provided to the ministerial panel. The secretary responded:
… it may be in the nature of our advice into the cabinet deliberations, which, ordinarily — I think it is in the public interest for us to be able to do that in a way that remains private for governments of all persuasions going forward.
An extraordinary statement from the head of a department that oversees among others the rorted Community Development Grants, Urban Congestion Fund, and Commuter Car Park Fund.
Source: Rampant rorts in the regions: how it happens – Michael West Media
With an election looming, the Coalition government will attempt to recultivate its image as the party for efficient government, and Labor as the party of bureaucratic red tape. Callum Foote investigates how the government has been run.
Source: Don’t be so reckless: Coalition government is anything but efficient – Michael West Media
Our financial analysis of the major earners from the publicly funded jobactive model suggests that it is primarily American-owned multinational corporations who are profiting, in the billions, from the privatised employment services model. The two largest jobactive providers, Max Solutions and APM are both controlled by American investment firms and together account for 56% of the $3.3 billion handed out to employment service providers since its inception in 2015.
Source: Jobactive report: who profited from it? – Michael West Media
My thought for the day Of all the things that have caused the disintegration in the public’s trust in the body politic. It is the lack of a truth that defines it. ( John Lord )
Source: How do we make an ideal society? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Climate change deniers in parliament have eroded confidence in our scientific institutions like the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. Their tireless efforts to present us with evidence are dismissed as alarmism or fake news. Their ongoing research into mitigation and adaptation is ignored in favour of support for pollution as usual. It seems the only people we can trust are ScoMo and Barnaby, backed up by the church, the police and Dutton’s army, any criticism of whom will be seen as unpatriotic heresy. That all of this is done for purely political purposes is quite legitimate apparently, though it does inevitably lead to humiliating backflips and apologies. The real worry is that, having let the dogs off the chain, this government is rapidly losing control of the pack.
Morrison is doing a Trump, running on “Alternative Facts, and polluting the very idea of Democracy.
Gladys Berejiklian managing to resign in disgrace, face the ICAC and bag a better job is emblematic of Australia becoming more corrupt.
Let’s be clear here. It was Gladys that mixed work and play. It was Gladys that chose to keep the relationship secret rather than manage the conflict of interest transparently. It was Gladys that overruled departmental advice to, instead, award grant money to bolster her partner’s political standing. As Gladys so arrogantly said in her defence, “I don’t think it would be a surprise to anybody that we throw money at seats to keep them. At the end of the day, whether we like it or not, that’s democracy.” Pork barrelling is not illegal, but it certainly isn’t democracy either.
Credlin’s apology wasn’t her St Paul moment she was forced to apologise because of Section 18C and the complaints put in to the UNHRC. Unlike Andrew Bolt she accepted the verdict and didn’t take it to court to be publicly found guilty. Credlin is far smarter.
Sky News host Peta Credlin’s apology to the South Sudanese community for comments which incorrectly linked them to a Covid-19 outbreak was a condition of a resolution to a human rights commission complaint against her. On Friday, Credlin issued a four-minute on-air apology for blaming the community for an outbreak in Melbourne and making other harmful comments. Her apology came almost 18 months after the offending statements were broadcast on 26 June 2020. Two individuals, who were also acting on behalf of other members of the community, made a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission on 3 November 2020 regarding Credlin and Australian News Channel (ANC), the company which operates Sky News Australia. Peta Credlin Sky News host Peta Credlin issues lengthy apology to South Sudanese community over Covid comments Read more The complaint related to the 26 June 2020 segment, and an apology Credlin made three days later. The complainants alleged the segments were discriminatory, contrary to s18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, and lodged a complaint on behalf of themselves and “other members of the South Sudanese community in Victoria who are aggrieved by the making and by the making and broadcasting of the Credlin Imputations”.
Eating meat comes with an enormous environmental footprint, with food systems responsible for an estimated 34% of global emissions. And yet, in most countries, meat consumption is continuing to rise.
Source: How much meat do we eat? New figures show 6 countries have hit their peak
When women across the nation joined together in an outpouring of grief and anger to demand change, Scott Morrison refused to come out and face the March 4 Justice crowds, instead saying from the floor of parliament that it was a triumph of democracy that protesters were not “met with bullets”. This is not the time to point at someone else saying they do it too. It shouldn’t be necessary to form another committee to work out what to do either. It’s easy. Just stop it!
Source: Scott Morrison’s #themtoo moment – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Australia is not only trending down in diplomacy in South East Asia but globally since the LNP became government. The Lowey Institute Report is linked here.
Despite gains from vaccine diplomacy, border closures ‘weighed heavily on external views of the country’, Lowy Institute thinktank finds
“When is a new covid variant good news? When you’re a pharma shareholder, obviously.”
Australians are treated like mushrooms kept in the dark and fed bullshit. If QAnon is the great fantasy spin doctor of 2021 then the LNP is Q.
What would Menzies say? Treasurer Josh Frydenberg would have us believe Australia’s economy is back to leading its rivals after two years of pandemic. The latest economic update shows instead that we are not only lagging the field, we have had one of the poorest outcomes in the developed world, writes Alan Austin. The quarterly national accounts provide invaluable data on the state of Australia’s economy. Yesterday’s are the worst set of outcomes since the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) began tabulating this series in 1959, when the prime minister was Robert Menzies. That’s based on Australia’s historic data, or comparison with other developed countries, or both.
Source: Suffering in comparison: Australia’s economic outcomes the worst in 60 years – Michael West Media
If there’s any doubt about the partisan hackery of the supreme court’s six Republican appointees, it will be on full display when they overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion and prohibited states from banning the procedure before fetal viability, about 23 weeks.
Source: There Is No Doubt Any More: The US Supreme Court Is Run by Partisan Hacks | The Smirking Chimp
If it wasn’t for the feminazis, the ABC lovers, the gays, the Aborigines, the refugees, the ecoterrorists, the inner-city latte sippers, the kids, the aged, the disabled, the homeless, the poor and all those other woke identity politics bleeding heart whingers – this government could get on with the serious business of wealth creation and post-politics employment planning.
The federal government’s contempt for global co-operation, humanity and for climate science is brazen. Nothing is more important than winning the next election. And serving the fossil-fuel oligarchs who rule us through their wholly-owned subsidiary, the Liberal National Coalition. Yet what neither may have counted on is the Morrison government’s rapid disintegration through ineptitude and acute dysfunction combining with its record of betrayal over COVID to keep any of its promises; discharge its responsibilities. Add in the seamy underbelly revealed in the release of Kate Jenkin’s report, an expose of toxic masculinity and bullying guaranteed to alienate women voters. Despite all of Clive Palmer’s money and anti-Labor lies it may be in for a big shock at the ballot box.
Source: Not a dry eye in the House as rats abandon ship – » The Australian Independent Media Network
My thought for the day “We’ve had it now for the last dismal decade. This destruction of our Democracy. It’s damaged both sides of politics, it’s damaged our country and our reputation. It has to stop. It must stop.”( John Lord )
Source: Democracy: A work in progress – » The Australian Independent Media Network
If America falls whose left standing?
Biden must use the full strength of his presidency – his bully pulpit, the power of the executive branch, his influence inside the halls of the Senate (and over his old putative friend, the senior senator from West Virginia), and the credibility that comes with being President of the United States – to end the filibuster, and thereby open the way for voting rights. It is necessary. It is time.
Source: The Most Important Choice Ahead | The Smirking Chimp
Instead of investing in extremely expensive crewed platforms that take decades to design and manufacture and are potentially too valuable to lose, we should be making greater use of uncrewed and autonomous systems. Investing in cybersecurity and countering misinformation are far more relevant national security issues than buying bigger guns. Some say that having a few targeted long-range missiles would be a sufficient deterrent against aggression. It would certainly be cheaper than wasting money on submarines. Personally, I think respect given and earned, co-operation for mutual gain, and help in times of need or crisis, are far better defences than any weapon. The Coalition picked a bad time to cut Foreign Aid, ignore pleas to reduce emissions, and then act all offended when other suitors come calling. We need détente, not Dutton – a man who speaks very loudly and carries a tiny widdle stick.
Which brings me to today, when the spectrum from left to right is the longest it’s been in my 50 years in and around politics. Despite all the howls from the right about “cancel culture” and “woke-ness” on the left, I don’t think the left has moved much from where it was a half-century ago. Nor, frankly, have I. But the right has moved far, far rightward. Donald Trump brought America about as close as we’ve ever come to fascism. He incited an attempted coup against the United States. To this day, he and most of the Republican Party continue to deny that he lost the 2020 election. And they are getting ready to suppress votes and disregard voting outcomes they disagree with.
At this rate, I can’t help but wonder where the “center” will be twenty-five years from now. What do you think?
Source: The Biggest Change During My 50 Years in and Around American Politics | The Smirking Chimp
The Australian Senate’s Privileges Committee, oft described as its most ‘powerful’ body, has found Australian Tax Office commissioner, Chris Jordan, not in contempt of the Senate for refusing to release the data on large companies who received JobKeeper payments reports Callum Foote.
My thought for the day Good democracies can only deliver good government and outcomes if the electorate demands it and it doesn’t come about by good people disengaging from the process. (John Lord )
In spite of the Liberal party’s small-government rhetoric, Prime Minister Scott Morrison is running the most expensive government in recent memory with departmental expenses outstripping both tax revenue and Australia’s GDP; and dwarfing Labor government. Callum Foote investigates.
Source: Scott Morrison’s bureaucracy bloat: cost of government soars to $100 billion – Michael West Media
Governments, like all living organisms, suffer from physical entropy. They have a limited life span and their end days are marked by a distinct decline in functionality. It’s not surprising as the Coalition is about to enter its ninth year in office, three prime ministers later and after the resignation of some of its most competent ministers over that period, the Morrison government is tired, and it is running scared. I do not make this claim lightly.
Source: Paul Bongiorno: The Morrison government is decaying before our eyes
But we’re not as generous now. Even though the American economy is far larger than it was then, the middle class is a smaller share of it. For the last four decades America has been dividing into well-off professionals who don’t feel any connection to the poor, and a beleaguered working class that’s easily convinced any help to the poor will cause their taxes to increase. Hence, in 1996 even a Democratic president decided to end aid to poor kids, largely because polls showed that most Americans — including the vast majority of the working class — no longer supported welfare. Twenty-five years later — and even after the awful consequences of that decision have become apparent — a Democratic Congress has chosen not to provide permanent help to the nation’s poor kids. In other words, I don’t think we’ve prioritized the elderly poor over poor children. The big difference is we have become far less equal as a society, which has made us less willing to remedy poverty at all.
Morrison says the LNP are the best economic managers and that’s no lie. Well the facts prove otherwise.
Today we heard him say that his government has instituted more changes than any other to deal with bullying and sexual abuse in the work place. When you bunjee jump and publicly take the LNP to the lowest state ever in the history of the parliament any changes made could be considered the “most” ever. However the historic record public humiliation still shows the Morrison government the worst. So much so the changes were in fact slow and forced on him by the victims and not really any SNAGs male or female in the LNP ministry or Scott Morrison himself. How clear was he whe he said he wasn’t going out to speak to the protesting women. He was too busy. Compared with the ALP the Morrison LNP remains lower in the eyes of the public than any other time in history. Victims sacked, mocked and gone while the perpertrators merely slapped on the wrist praised and then promoted.
I’ve just finished watching Dopesick about the Sacklers,their Pharmaceutical Company, Oxycontin and how they managed to avoid prosecution for years by applying the same token strategies as Morrison. Who like the Sacklers was found praising himself for some nominal changes while continuing to carry on down the same road. Morrison has the ad-mans confidence but he certainly lacks any real leadership skills.
Recent economic data brings the tally of failures in economic management by Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg to 40, as Alan Austin documents. WORLD BANK DATA shows the value of manufacturing in Australia as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) was 13.83% when that dataset began in 1990. It stayed above 12% until 1999, when a decline began. This fell to an all-time low of 5.64% in 2019, six years after the Coalition was elected on promises to ‘re-invigorate manufacturing industry’. The 2020 level was 5.72%, the second-lowest ever. The Australian Sovereign Capability Alliance reports that Australia now has the lowest manufacturing self-sufficiency of any country in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Source: Morrison Government notches up 40 ‘worst on record’ economic outcomes
Remember the days when the Coalition’s game plan was all about debt and deficit and how only they could manage money? Back in black next year?Well now that the debt is rapidly approaching $1 trillion, this bunch of financial wizards think it’s a great time to cut taxes for the wealthy, costing the budget more than $184 billion over the next decade.And since we don’t care about being in debt anymore, they are increasing military spending for the 9th straight year to over $122 million per day. The Defence Forces have so much money they can’t spend it even with the billions they are wasting on abandoned contracts.Must we really waste hundreds of billions of dollars just so the Coalition can say Labor taxes more and is weak on national security?If Scotty takes away the game-playing, what’s left?
Even once Trump started receiving the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a daily summary of high-level national security and intelligence issues, Trump chose not to read it, according to Ted Gistaro, a career CIA analyst who frequently briefed Trump. This backed up earlier reports that Trump did not read the PDB. “He touched it,” Gistaro said when asked how closely Trump read the briefs. “He doesn’t really read anything.”
Source: Trump Was ‘Fact Free’ During Briefings, Says Former Intel. Director – Rolling Stone
Just when you think this government can’t get any more sneaky. In a Human Rights Denied,virtually unnoticed move, the Coalition government has snuck an alarming last-minute amendment into an aged care bill before Parliament that removes the legal and human rights of aged care residents. The amendment removes the civil and criminal protections to which all other Australians are entitled. If a member of the public is restrained without their consent, the perpetrator can be charged. In contrast, an aged care resident who is restrained without their consent will have no legal recourse. Then the government has the gall to try to claim that this amendment relates to a recommendation of the Aged Care Royal Commission, when it is the complete opposite of what the royal commissioners recommended.
Source: Amended dignity: our elders denied their human rights again – Michael West Media
Labor pulled us out of that one in 72 and is doing the same for this one and 60% support Dan while over 90% have been willingly vaccinated. On the scale of things mandates haven’t resulted in the sackings of hundreds but have made work enviroments safer. Morrison isn’t “against mandates and for freedom” in fact he wants to pass a Bill and mandate against LGBTQIs
Scott Morrison’s chant over “people wanting their lives back” recalled some 200 young men dead in Vietnam, conscripted by his political Party, the Liberals, who cannot have their lives back. Prime Minister Scott Mo
Source: Liberal Party’s bloody history forgotten as Morrison cries freedom
Defence Minister Peter Dutton has pledged allegiance to the U.S. in defending Taiwan against attacks from China, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.
Source: Dutton commits to following U.S. into war for Taiwan
Dominic Perrottet’s controversial hedge fund is lending to Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Cayman Islands. What is the NSW Premier doing funding dictators with NSW taxpayers’ money? Michael West reports on the New Generations Fund.
Source: Perrottet invests in Putin not Parramatta – Michael West Media
“At the federal level the position is really dreadful, because donations do not include money that’s paid to fundraisers and events where people pay to sit at the same table as politicians. I think therefore it does mean that we’ve got to absolutely reappraise the whole system to avoid those sorts of perceptions of undue influence and too much access.” (former judge Anthony Whealy, QC.)
Source: Revealed: Rupert Murdoch’s crack team of Liberal Party fundraisers – Michael West Media
His lies are going fractal – each lie covered by another lie. Morrison’s liar tag will become a tattoo, his defining characteristic. The smarm will be replaced by the jutted jaw, shouted accusations, panicked, flatulant gibberings, and desperate sloganeering as the drain hole of a prospective Labor-initiated federal integrity commission draws nearer. “Who can you trust?” is an interesting election pitch from a bloke now widely tagged as a consummate deceiver, a nasty bully with a pathological fear of scrutiny. The slow yet satisfying unravelling of the most loathsome toad to ever infect our politics is coming. Enjoy!
Source: Scott Morrison lies here – » The Australian Independent Media Network
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