The Murdochs and Packers have got their fingers in the taxpayer honeypot again, this time winning nearly $6 million without a tender from the Department of Health. Michael West reports on Mable and the latest in corporate welfare.
via News Corp and Packer aged care “win” is tip of corporate welfare iceberg – Michael West
Abbott’s legacy NBN. Trailer trashing regional areas but they won’t have a bar of it any longer. (ODT)
Communities are not going to sit and wait for what might or might not happen and regional towns know that they will not be first to get better broadband from NBN Co. Consequently, more and more cities will start developing their own plans in collaboration with their own state governments.
Unfortunately, this will mean overbuilding and wasting money, but with the Morrison Government – purely for party political reasons – stubbornly refusing to talk about fibre optic network, it is clear that many towns in Australia are not going to wait for the Federal Government to take a lead here. The economic and social future of their communities is simply too important to wait for politicians to finally get their act together on these issues.
via Regional Australia secures own digital success despite Coalition’s woeful NBN
A factor in the Coalition’s winning of the 2019 election could well have been the – dare I call it corrupt – pork barrelling through the sports grants.
All attempts, however feeble, by the Coalition to establish an anti-corruption watch dog have so far gone nowhere, but – praise be – religious discrimination laws seem to have been assigned to the dustbin!
The picture is not pretty – and even if our actions on climate change pale into insignificance beside those needing to be made by the really big polluters, USA, China and India – showing willing, added to efforts in Europe and elsewhere, would do much more good than harm.
I strongly feel that the actions of too many of our politicians go way beyond self-interest – ignoring their duties to electors – and actually move substantially into the realm of corruption.
Another facet of the government’s lack of consistency is the unspent $60 billion!
Millions were left without substantial help, while businesses were given first priority to be able to continue in existence.
If Morrison was prepared to spend the money for employees who, it transpires, do not exist, then he should use if for those who do exist, but who were abandoned because they fell outside his arbitrary criteria.
Morrison currently has a one seat majority and even if Eden Monaro turns that into a 2-seat majority, it is not an overwhelming mandate – particularly as he gained fewer than half the votes.
To ignore social distancing by inciting a revolution, out on the streets en masse, demanding attention to climate change action, would be irresponsible.
But come the end of the lock-down, we need to be prepared for action.
This probably corrupt and definitely uncaring government must be brought to heel!
via How deep does corruption in high places go? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It is not as though the government is without options. If it had the intestinal fortitude it could use a COVID-19 recovery that would drive full-time sustainable jobs and growth on the back of a low-emissions transition that would last 50 years or more.
The other option is to use the recovery to continue with fossil fuels and pretend (lie your way through it) that in a time of great uncertainty you had a moment of gas led fossil fuel enlightenment. Jobs versus the environment.
History tells me they will take option two.
via We are being conned if we believe the government – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Among a claque of western leaders yearning for “snap back” to the way things were before the virus – some pursuing “recovery” strategies of even lesser benefit – it’s New Zealand’s, conspicuously, who repeatedly shows the courage to snap forward. Little wonder she has become so popular.
Perhaps the most pathological problem with super is the most neoliberal: An enormous, extractive financial sub-industry has been built around it. Currently Australia pays over $30 billion dollars a year in super fees. Much of this is skimmed from low-balance accounts belonging to the worst off. It’s nearly the size of the military budget (roughly $40 billion) and twice what the whole country spends on electricity.
There are tens of different super funds, but all perform roughly the same role. This multiplication of effort means Australia’s superannuation system is absurdly wasteful. Super fees add up to more than $1,000 for every person in Australia, every year. By comparison, Norway’s nationalized pension fund has over twenty times lower fees per invested dollar.
So two significant stories currently making the rounds have been bowdlerized and disappeared to make the Israeli role in manipulating and spying against the United States go away. They are only two of many stories framed by a Zionist dominated media to control the narrative in a way favorable to the Jewish state. One would think that having a president of the United States who is the most pro-Israel ever, which is saying a great deal in and of itself, would be enough, but unfortunately when dealing with folks like Benjamin Netanyahu there can never be any restraint when dealing with the “useful idiots” in Washington.
via News Stories Avoid Naming Israel, by Philip Giraldi – The Unz Review
We now have Angus Taylor looking to change the rules of the CEFC and ARENA to further prop up fossil fuels. And his ‘hand-picked for previously expressed views’ advisers are giving a veneer of consultation to what is a full-court press to prolong the ‘climate destruction for profit’ policies of Coalition donors.
This move in the barley market have pushed other exporters up the ranks. France, Canada, even Argentina, seem like candidates for malt barley; the Black Sea appeals for feed barley. Australia, for its part, is considering the WTO for redress, something it did to India over claims of sugar subsidies. (That process grinds on in interminable slowness.) “China, we think in this case, has made errors of fact and law,” claims trade minister Simon Birmingham. But the hefty elephant in the room remains Canberra’s willingness to storm Beijing’s barricades on behalf of its chief security sponsor. This is coming across more as an act of misguided allegiance than valiant heroism.
While some pundits extol the virtue of strong government (i.e., dictatorship) in fighting Covid-19, Middle Eastern activists are once again mobilizing to insist that democracy is not a luxury in a time of pandemic. “Systems of government that are more democratic and transparent will keep citizens safe,” argues Mai El-Sadany. Because the human rights of all citizens are at stake, not just those of a minority, she explains, “this is a unique movement of norms creation.”
President Donald Trump’s incompetent handling of the Covid-19 pandemic is not only exacerbating the death and destruction caused by the virus in the US. It is also crippling the global response to the crisis, and the costs could be even deadlier.
Being a socialist won’t stop being hard anytime soon. But if we want to start winning, socialists need to study the recent defeats of Syriza in Greece, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, and Bernie Sanders in the US, along with the failures of twentieth-century social democracy and the declining relevance of Leninism.
In the interests of length I have omitted Angus Taylor’s alleged Cayman Island company, Peter Dutton failing to register one of his companies, and George Christensen summoning the Chinese Ambassador before a Senate Committee.
via Please, won’t you just say it as it is? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
No other nation has endured as much death from Covid-19 nor nearly as a high a death rate as has the United States.
With 4.25% of the world population, America has the tragic distinction of accounting for about 30% of pandemic deaths so far.
And it is the only advanced nation where the death rate is still climbing. Three thousand deaths per day are anticipated by 1 June.
via Under Trump, American Exceptionalism Means Poverty, Misery and Death | The Smirking Chimp
The horrific truth is that the uncoordinated, slipshod economic reopening spurred on by Trump and his minions is likely to double our per capita deaths before Election Day. At that point we will lead the world both in deaths per capita and in the total number of Covid-19 deaths. He finally will have made America number one again.
We have to face up to the chilling truth: To win reelection Trump is willfully allowing the virus to kill more and more of us, especially our most vulnerable—the old, the infirm, the poor, and the essential low-wage workers.
It’s on us if we let him get away with it.
via President Donald Trump Culls the Herd | The Smirking Chimp
The Australian Labor Party’s Kristina Keneally is using the lockdown to call for a reduction in immigration once borders reopen, citing the nativist trope that migrant workers are driving down wages. But it’s not immigrants that have driven down Australian workers’ wages — it’s the Labor Party’s own history of neoliberal policies.
Righto. So we expect China to be open and transparent but not our fearless men in black. If our own Border Force won’t co-operate then why should another country, particularly considering the accusations being made and broadcast by the Murdoch muckrakers like Sharri Markson who now seems to have become the letter box for US propaganda.
What a joke.
And where is the call for an investigation into the handling of the outbreak in the US and the UK and our failure to stop them importing the virus into Australia?
via Scotty’s shirtfronting sophistry – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The myth of the individual (ODT)
It’s not easy to imagine a Marxist love story. But in Normal People, Sally Rooney shows how our personal relationships — and the troubles we encounter — are inextricably bound to the society around us.
Bernie Sanders didn’t just put forward a set of progressive policies that we can fight for — he showed us that a completely different way of doing politics was possible.
Host Jamilah King asked Mother Jones DC Bureau Chief David Corn to analyze the ways in which Trump has, or hasn’t, taken responsibility for the United States’ pandemic, uncovering an all-too familiar pattern. “He is trying to blame foreign power for what it did wrong so that we don’t look at what he did wrong,” Corn says.
via “You Can’t Bullshit a Virus.” What Trump Doesn’t Get About His 2020 Election Strategy – Mother Jones
Blame Game
To some people the answer is self-evident: China. Maybe those calling for a “China only” investigation should be looking closer to home?
The world is entitled to know the origins of COVID-19 and exactly how the outbreak began and how it was handled by every major nation, including China, given the pandemic alarm was raised back in September 2019. The World At Risk report by WHO and the World Bank Group contained dire warnings of a possible pandemic. These were largely ignored by most G20 countries including Australia. Is it any wonder most countries were dangerously ill-prepared, resulting in needless deaths? Marcus Reubenstein reports.
Thanks to a virus, transported in droplets just 0.005 millimetres in diameter, life as we know it has changed enormously.
The mortality rate of COVID-19 should see that is does not even come close to the deadliest pandemic in global history. However, as the world is so much more interconnected than at any previous time in history, the global disruption and economic fallout is without precedent.
With the world having sustained so much damage, the inevitable question is: Who is to blame?
Expand China investigation – most G20 countries ignored pandemic warning – Michael West
The pandemic is putting America’s deepening class divide into stark relief. Four classes are emerging.
My thought for the day
The Office of the American President was once viewed by its people as an office of prestige and importance. Trump has reduced it to one of ridicule and contempt.
via A very unstable genius – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Currently, less than 1% of Defence’s budget goes into its innovation funds. There’s no point investing billions in military capability if it doesn’t support Australia’s needs.
The ADF are a highly-skilled, well trained, well-resourced, mobile workforce who are being wasted on war games.
Forty-one Australian soldiers died in Afghanistan. Eighty Australians have died in the last couple of months from the coronavirus.
Perhaps old generals are not the best people to equip us for the world of the future.
via Time to rethink the purpose of the ADF – » The Australian Independent Media Network
When people are ill En masse, as is the case now, they cannot go about their daily lives. Thus our only option is to do as we are doing, namely stop everything, stem the spread of the illness and remove the threat of the virus infecting the citizenry. Developing a vaccine is a hallowed grail, but until this is achieved, it is the role of government to sustain the populace no matter the cost. To not do so is to flirt with social chaos.
If we remain calm and ignore the lunatic demands of the far right, we just might avoid the formation of hundreds of hungry miles snaking across the roads and highways of the United States.
So no more calls about tax reform please Mr Roskam. Instead demand a fair wage for our public health workers, our teachers, our internet technicians, our police officers and the underpaid workers in local grocery stores, who are keeping us fed, healthy and connected.
via Hungry miles – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The problem no addressed here is the involvement and irresponsible incitement by Murdoch Media to incite back to work demonstrations in the English speaking world. The demand to go back to the normal rather than progress to a very different economy. The talk of 28 years of GDP growth doesn’t begin to address the increasing income and wealth gap that helped generate it and the public austerity measures that accompanied it leaving us ill-equipped to deal with emergencies we face. Yes, Australia has fared better but I’d suggest it’s more a sake of good fortune than intent. We have always been some years behind first following the British and now the Americans last in line but nevertheless over that cliff. We aren’t our own masters we do have a level of solidarity but when the Oligarchs, LNP IPA and News Corp hold the wealth and power and are now assisted by the ALP what chance is there of a progressive peoples bailout and not just a corporate one in the future? (ODT)
Morrison government setting itself for an aggressive pro-business plan for our post-pandemic economy. Specifically, that means tax breaks for businesses and even a big swing at industrial relations. It’s the road that leads to lower wages, worse conditions and limited tax revenue. And while some of that might end up being an economic necessity, if that’s not done perfectly, it’s a road of austerity and increasing inequality that has proven so destructive elsewhere.
Obviously, all that will depend on the detail. But we should take this chance to heed the warning from those nations that are presently unravelling. Sacrifice a basic level of equality for economic growth and you risk social and political fracture. There will be much we can’t afford after this, but one of them is losing the threads of social solidarity we still have left, because we’ll need them desperately when the next crisis hits.
via Coronavirus Australia: The US and UK response should make us heed warnings about COVID-19
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