via Government idiocy costing us billions – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Category: Informed Comment
What we don’t need is to waste hundreds of billions on obsolete weapons of mass destruction, billions on consultants and government advertising, and politicians who think attending sporting matches is more important than their day job.
We don’t need a surplus. We need someone who has a clue about how to invest in this country rather than their own political future.
via MYEFO will be interesting – » The Australian Independent Media Network
My thought for the day
At some time in the future history will record that even though they should have known better the people of Australia made, in May 2019, a monumental mistake in electing a Morrison government. Subsequently some lessons will be learned the hard way. (JOHN LORD)
via Politically illiterate, or just plain dumb – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Because it isn’t only our dry and overheated forests and grasslands that are tinderboxes, just waiting for a tiniest spark to go up in flames. All around the world, our human societies, scorched under the stresses of late capitalism, are political tinderboxes as well.
via Forged in Fire: California’s Lessons for a Green New Deal
My thought for the day
America may be the most advanced technological nation on earth but its social progress on matters of great moral importance, INCLUDING ITS POLITICS is still fighting its way out of the dark ages when mysticism was rampart. (John Lord)
via Impeaching the President: 5 possibilities – » The Australian Independent Media Network
As altruistic miners try to enter a building they’re stopped from their humanitarian aims by these incredibly selfish protestors who are just there for the fun of harassing the saints who, out of the goodness of their hearts, give up their spare time to find ways of giving people jobs. These saints of industry have worked tirelessly to eliminate all canaries from their coal mines and are moving towards a world where mining is fully automated and no humans will be forced to undertake such dangerous work. At such a time, they’ll then share the wealth they’ve created by donating their stuff to the people who can’t afford it at current prices because they’re such great human beings, unlike the bullies who are blocking their way just for the fun of it.
Whichever way you look at it, the protestors believe that they’re trying to save the planet. Even if you think that the planet doesn’t need saving, it’s really hard to argue that they’re the selfish ones. “You bastards, you’re only trying to save the Earth because you live on it! Have some consideration for people like Alan Jones who haven’t been on the planet for years!”
A couple of days before the Four Corners investigation, Who Cares, was to air, Scott Morrison rushed to announce a Royal Commission into Aged Care. This was a government turnaround directly in anticipation of the damning ABC expose.
When interviewed for the program about a month earlier, Wyatt had said a royal commission would be an unnecessary move because the Government was already reviewing the sector.
“A royal commission, after two years and maybe $200 million being spent on it, will come back with the same set or a very similar set of recommendations,” he said, preferring to see that money go towards frontline aged care services.
Emails revealed at the RC show a flurry of activity in response to programs on the ABC whilst reports from the department on how to address the problems languished on the Minister’s desk.
Protecting his precious surplus, Morrison is willing to let people die while waiting for help.
Not only that, he wants kudos for calling yet another inquiry into a crisis of his party’s making in its never-ending pursuit of profit and deregulation
via “I called the Royal Commission” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The removal of Trump from office would not threaten corporate power. It would not restore civil liberties, including our right to privacy and due process. It would not demilitarize the police or champion the rights of the working class. It would not impede the profits of the fossil fuel and banking industries. It would not address the climate emergency. It would not disrupt the warrantless surveillance of the public. It would not end extraordinary renditions, the kidnapping of those around the globe considered to be enemies of the state. It would not halt the assassinations by militarized drones. It would not halt the separation of children from their parents and the warehousing of these children in filthy, overcrowded conditions. It would not remedy the consolidation of wealth and power by the oligarchs and the further impoverishment of the citizenry. The expansion of our prison system and of black sites throughout the world, sites where we torture, would continue, as would the gunning down of poor, unarmed citizens in urban wastelands. Most importantly, the catastrophic foreign wars that have resulted in a series of failed states and wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars, would remain sacrosanct, enthusiastically embraced by the leaders of the two ruling parties, puppets of the deep state.
The East India Company once owned the British kingdom. The State had no control today much can be said of the LNP and it’s Corporate donors today.(ODT)
“Outlaw these indulgent and selfish practices that threaten the livelihood of fellow Australians,” declared Scott Morrison last week as the protests raged outside a Melbourne mining conference.
Ironically, most of the pesky protestors who have been upsetting the Prime Minister probably pay more income tax than the big businesses the PM seeks to protect; party donors mostly. Lendlease is one, zero income tax in Australia in the past six years. Michael West reports on Australia’s tax dodge du jour.
So this is what we have sunk to – a Prime Minister who wants us all to be quiet and, if we don’t, he’ll make us.
He doesn’t want us to talk about his government’s woeful record on greenhouse gas emissions. He doesn’t want us to talk about reefs dying and rivers drying up and mass extinctions. He doesn’t want us to choose ethical investments in sustainable industries.
He wants to bully insurance companies into insuring unviable projects and he wants banks to lend money to uncommercial ventures. He wants to make our superannuation funds invest in what will inevitably become stranded assets.
The idea that one would get their investment advice from the likes of mummy’s boy Matt Canavan is hilarious.
The current drought in Eastern Australia has focused the attention of all Australians on water but effective policy responses are missing in action. Isn’t it time to call it a water emergency? Quentin Grafton and John Williams report.
via Declaring a water emergency means putting people before profit – Michael West
Survey shows 56% of respondents would rather see the government fend off a downturn than deliver a surplus
That’s not America. After all, Lady Liberty used to welcome newcomers with a torch, not an AR-15. We don’t wall ourselves in while bombing others in distant parts of the world, right?
Militarism in the USA & The Decay of Democracy
Democracy shouldn’t be about celebrating overlords in uniform. A now-widely accepted belief is that America is more divided, more partisan than ever, approaching perhaps a new civil war, as echoed in the rhetoric of our current president. Small wonder that inflammatory rhetoric is thriving and the list of this country’s enemies lengthening when Americans themselves have so softly yet fervently embraced militarism.
via Killing Me Softly with Militarism: The Decay of Democracy in America
The Foreign Investment Review Board has already waved through the Healthscope acquisition and is presently deliberating on the Aveo deal. Yet the question must be asked; as Brookfield pays so little tax in Australia, what is the national interest in allowing this tax haven operator to buy billions of dollars buying key infrastructure when it merely siphons the profits offshore?
via House of Cards: is Brookfield the next Babcock & Brown? – Michael West
One of Joe Hockey’s first acts as Treasurer in 2013 was to gift the RBA $8.8 billion. The main reason for this was to make Labor’s deficit look bigger. As a side bonus, it allowed the RBA to invest in the forex market, banking on the Australian dollar losing value as the mining boom subsided.
And that is exactly what happened allowing the government to draw…wait for it…$8.8 billion in dividends over the last six years. That’s all very well (if we ignore how the Coalition screamed like stuck pigs when Labor took a one-off dividend of $500 million in 2013) except Hockey borrowed the $8.8 billion so we are still paying interest on it.
via The Coalition money shuffle – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Kurds have a saying that their only friend is the mountains, and in the past few weeks, US President Donald Trump and his deputy, Mike Pence, have seemed determined to prove them right.
Kurdish forces fought alongside Americans to defeat Islamic State at the cost of 11,000 of their young fighting men and women’s lives. Despite this, almost two weeks ago the United States withdrew the 1000 troops who were keeping the peace along the border with the Kurds’ long-time enemy, Turkey.
Ankara responded almost immediately by invading territory the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces have effectively ruled over for several years.
On top of that, as is his habit, Trump insulted them. Their existential battle with Turkey “has nothing to do with us”, the President said, and Kurds were, by the way, “no angels”.
via Turkey-Syrian conflict: If you were American I would have told you this was all your fault
From this moment on, whenever anyone asks my why – as a lifelong environmentalist – I continue to vote Labor and will never, *ever* vote Green again, I’m gonna refer them to this speech from the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.
It was in response to a question from a Greens MP asking if Andrews would support a “climate emergency”. I could not like this more if it turned up on my doorstep with LPs of the entire KLF back catalogue and ten boxes of doughnuts. If you are with m…
My thought for the day
I found it impossible to imagine that the Australian people could be so gullible as to elect for a third term a government that has performed so miserably in the first two and has amongst its members some of the most devious, suspicious and corrupt men and women but they did. (John Lord)
via The Bill that Australia despised – » The Australian Independent Media Network
When the Coalition under Malcolm Turnbull won 76 seats in the 2016 election, it was generally accepted that Turnbull had “blown it” and the knives were quickly sharpened. Yet when the ad man wins 77 seats, he is hailed as a messiah that has delivered a decisive victory enabling the Coalition to do whatever they damn well please.
Let’s be clear about that election result.
Leaving out Queensland, in the rest of the country, Labor won 62 seats compared to the Coalition’s 54. That is a resounding victory.
We have the government that Queensland thrust upon us against the wishes of every other state and territory (except WA – the only other state where the Coalition won a majority of seats).
via Labor are losing their nerve – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Just who does this Prime Minister think he is that on a thought bubble of his own wind, in the loneliness of his limited intellect, think that he can make decisions concerning our standing in the world with all the simplicity of a leader unsuited to the task?
It’s not often you can offend all sides of an argument.
My thought for the day
This American Conservative political strategy of painting everything as black as possible and then pretending it’s only they that have the answers is being duplicated in Australia. It seems Australians are falling for it. I thought we were brighter than that.( John Lord)
via The state of play – » The Australian Independent Media Network
There is a disturbing trend emerging in Australia where the government is increasingly trying to silence the people.
They have painted unionists as lawless thugs and removed our ability to withhold our labour without their pre-arranged permission.
They have made charity funding dependent on them being uncritical of government policy.
They label conservationists and animal welfare groups as ecoterrorists and are pushing forward with legislation to make protesting unlawful if it causes any sort of disruption.
Public servants, journalists and whistleblowers face prosecution if they reveal what the government is doing.
They claim the gay community has “an agenda” and are therefore trying to introduce laws that make discrimination against them legal but discrimination against religious people illegal.
They dismiss school students who are concerned about inaction on climate change as being brainwashed by virtue-signalling elites and tell them to be quiet and get back to school.
via Now is NOT the time to be a ‘quiet Australian’ – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Of more than 50,000 Australians who participated in the mammoth study, most — 78 per cent — were optimistic about their own futures.
But they were much less hopeful for the future of the nation at large (51 per cent optimistic), and frankly despairing about where the world’s headed, with only 30 per cent hopeful for the future of the globe.
In a hyperactive and increasingly tribalised world, it seems the fear of what lies outside our own sphere of control is far worse than the adversity we face personally.
Paul Bongiorno
@PaulBongiorno
I am more convinced than ever it is time for churches, pseudo churches and those claiming to be churches paid taxes. Why should secular Australia bankroll, homophobes, frauds, misogynists, child abusers,main chancers and hypocrites ? Let them pass the plate and pay up.
via What a ‘balls-up’ of a government – » The Australian Independent Media Network
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