Category: Informed Comment
When Tony Abbott rolled Malcolm Turnbull for the Liberal Party leadership back in 2009, he immediately threw out the constructive negotiations towards an emissions reduction scheme.
“Oppositions are not there to get legislation through,” Abbott intoned, heralding his approach for the next 4 years.
There would be no discussion, no amendments, no working together to improve legislation. It would just be NO to everything.
So used to this approach did the Coalition become that, when they did finally become the government, they had nothing to offer. They have spent six years still opposing Labor’s ideas.
Our overly generous property tax concessions are a prime example.
via A free ride on the gravy train – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It’s important to uphold the constitution through impeachment – even if it goes nowhere, even if it’s unpopular with many voters, even if it’s politically risky
We have seen three leaders’ debates now (well a couple of us have), and the overarching takeout is that this election is all about Bill Shorten and Labor policies.
After six years in government, Scott Morrison has nothing to say about why we should vote for his party other than we will get him as PM as opposed to Bill Shorten.
Even the journalists are over it. Patricia Karvelas said she feels like Bart Simpson writing lines over and over – “if you vote for Labor, you get Bill Shorten, if you vote Coalition, you get me.”
via How will you fill in your time? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In a world that puts profit first, the idea of a social licence to operate seems to be disappearing.Shareholders are removed from the reputational damage that once kept business owners more accountable for acting responsibly. It’s all about the cheque.Worker exploitation, environmental vandalism, tax avoidance and market manipulation are goals rather than anathema.
via A star rating for companies and what it would mean – » The Australian Independent Media Network
I thought Shorten was brilliant on Q&A (ODT)
My thought for the day
“I think the PM last night set a world record for words per minute in his interview with Leigh Sales.” Lord
The policies Republicans smear as Stalinist are a good deal more popular than their own. By Jim Hightower | May 1, 2019
“Socialism,” snarled Donald Trump at a recent pep rally of far-right Republicans. The obedient crowd of Trumpistas snarled back in unison: So-sh’ll-izz-ummm!
There you have the entire intellectual content of the GOP’s 2020 re-election strategy under Generalissimo Trump: Slap Democrats with a scurrilous campaign branding them as Lenin-Trotsky-Stalin re-incarnate.
It’s not just Trump hissing out the socialist label in a frantic McCarthyesque attempt to make it stick by mindless repetition, but also Republican lawmakers. Unfortunately for them, they’re overplaying a weak hand and bumbling over their own ignorance.
Texas Senator John Cornyn, for example, compared Democrats who support ideas like Medicare-for-All to Mussolini.
Apparently, Cornyn is unaware that the brutish Italian dictator was no socialist, but a fascist. Mussolini’s ideology of ultra-nationalism, masculine authoritarianism, suppression of democratic rights, and rule by wealthy elites is the opposite of the progressive agenda. Indeed, it describes the policies of — guess who? — Trump and his acolytes, including Cornyn!
via The GOP is Demonizing the Left in New Red Scare, but US Public wants . . . Socialism
I invest in my health and don’t regard it as a cost. The cost is what happens if I don’t (ODT)
Think about this. If we fail to act and disaster results, then massive suffering will have been aggravated by stupidity.
The greatest hoax ever perpetrated on societies around the world is that it’s about costs. About which parties policy will cost less. It is not. It is about who has the best policy.
We all incur a cost for the upkeep of our health. Why then should we not be liable for the cost of a healthy planet?
We should first acknowledge that the science tells us that we need at least a 45% or more reduction.
Secondly, we need to ask ourselves what party has the most efficient and effective way of reaching the target.
For some reason, the very inept Amanda Vanstone is still appearing in the media. Perhaps she is offered up for comedy value because she sure as hell is no sort of objective political observer or analyst.
Her latest blatant propaganda piece in the SMH where she asks Will the real Bill Shorten please stand up? is just silly.
“Labor endlessly seeks to create the impression Liberals care more about business than they do people.”
Actually, it’s the Liberals that promote that as their strategy Amanda. They pretend that, if businesses make more profit (helped by paying their employees less and no tax), they will employ more people (as casuals with no entitlements or tenure).
Democracy is under attack, authoritarianism is on the rise, dissidents are being locked up without trial, journalists are declared enemies of the state, corruption is rampant and champions of freedom are harder to find.
The international watchdog Freedom House has now recorded 13 straight years of declining global freedom. It isn’t just countries like Russia and China, but now that historical beacon of democracy the United States is also in retreat.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The latter half of the 20th century was boom time for democracy, which accelerated after the end of the Cold War 30 years ago. Yet, countries that embraced democracy are now winding back those reforms.
We watched the banks make hay under the LNP who said “we don’t need a Royal Commission,” We saw the Panama Papers and “we don’t need to charge anyone” Water buy backs and the Murray/Darling “don’t worry about it”. (ODT)
Whilst everyone is talking about water and demanding more inquiries, they could just read the news and save us all a lot of time and money. It’s not like we don’t know what has happened and who allowed it to happen as this article from Blogotariat in 2017 shows.
via We don’t need a Royal Commission – we need consequences – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Media like Fox Corp and Sky News help spread tensions globally when tensions never existed before.(ODT)
ANZAC DAY DIVIDES
Despite feelings of resentment present towards Muslims in the world today, many stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our troops, writes Bilal Cleland.
Rather than defending us from the exploitation of unscrupulous merchants and employers, the government has decided it is best to leave us at the mercy of the free market – unless a donor needs a boost like underwriting their new coal-fired power station because no-one else will.
Whilst the Coalition asks who do you trust on national security, it seems clear that our greatest need for protection is from other institutions and from the abuses of government itself, particularly its collusion with these other institutions.
Democracy depends on Civic Mobilisation
In response to John Pesutto (‘The Age’, 14/4). What critics don’t seem to realise is that the strength of a democracy can hinge on the mobilisation and activity of its civil society. If we do not accept protest and civil disobedience, we are weakening the fabric of our democracy. Indeed, an active civil society is a safeguard for democracy’s long-term preservation. Perhaps free speech should not be ‘absolute’, but every time we weaken its universality, we set a precedent which ‘could come back to bite’ progressive forces later down the track. Further, Left advocates usually do not have the same opportunity to express their views. And by ‘Left’ I include left social democrats and democratic socialists. And even the more radical have a right for their ideas to be tested. When on the odd occasion a left-wing commentator appears on the ABC there are calls of ‘bias’. But Left views are almost absent in Newscorp newspapers ; and ‘The Age’ has moved to the relative Centre. What we need is a truly strong pluralism in our democracy. A ‘battlefield of ideas’ where journalists do not try and manipulate ; but rather a genuine, inclusive and honest contest of analysis and values.
What’s at stake in the election? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It is extraordinary that the profit from Barnaby Joyce’s record payment for Australian water rights, an $80 million payment of taxpayers’ money, found its way to a company in the Cayman Islands which had been set up by Angus Taylor, a company at which Taylor had been a director for six years. Report by Michael West.
via Barnaby Joyce, Angus Taylor, Australia and the Caribbean – Michael West
Why is it that when we talk about reform it is nearly always about how much something costs rather than what it is worth?
I remember the joy of the Whitlam years. It was invigorating. The changes he made – not promises for the distant future but real achievements – could truly be labelled reform.
Ended conscription and got us out of Vietnam
Opened relationships with China
Established Medibank
Introduced the supporting mother’s benefit and welfare payment for homeless people.
Equal pay for women and extended adult minimum wage to include women workers
Abolished the death penalty
No-fault divorce
Federal funding for state schools
Free university education
25% cut in tariffs across the board
Sewerage connection
Reduced voting age to 18
An Order of Australia replaced the British Honours system
Racial discrimination act
Land rights to Indigenous people
Replaced God Save the Queen with Advance Australia Fair as the national anthem.
Established the National Gallery of Australia, the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Heritage Commission, FM and community radio.
The film industry flourishedTalk about tax cuts, national security, and surpluses doesn’t have the same inspirational ring to it somehow.
via Election campaigns are unedifying spectacles nowadays – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Here’s what Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said that wound everyone up: The U.S. should tax income over $10 million per year at a top rate of 60 or 70 percent.
Republicans responded by shamelessly lying about what this meant, pretending that Ocasio-Cortez was advocating a tax rate of 70 percent on all income. Some older Democrats, such as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, adopted the standard Democratic tactic of cowering in fear before a deceptive Republican onslaught, like abused dogs.
The hullabaloo was understandable: Ocasio-Cortez’s forthright advocacy demonstrated that American politics, against the odds, can sometimes be about what Americans want. After the “60 Minutes” episode aired, The Hill commissioned a poll that found that 59 percent of registered voters support raising the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent. The idea, The Hill wrote, even receives “a surprising amount of support among Republican voters. … 45 percent of GOP voters say they favor it.”
via Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Agrees With America About Taxes
Cash and ScomosMona Lisa Smirk (ODT)
The idea that Morrison will run a “truth campaign” is laughable. He doesn’t understand the meaning of the word.
via FauxMo’s “truth campaign” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Shorten, although not popular, is a thinker on policy and a leader with 6 hard years under his belt. He affords us the opportunity to make over our democracy. Instil fairness into it and intercede in all the rorting and corruption that has taken place over the past 6 years.
The Abbott, Turnbull and Morisson governments have been a mixture of blind incompetence and outright greed where simply doing the right thing by people became a step too far but advancing the lot of the wealthy and privileged was always a lightweight to lift.
An observation
Never in the history of this nation have the rich and the privileged been so openly brazen.
My thought for the day
The peoples of all the nations of the world increasingly seem to be having less to say about their own destiny.
If, as the polls predict, the latest budget will be the final one delivered by this LNP government, then it will be a perfectly apt way to go out. It was a document that reflected the full personality of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government – an amalgam of incompetence and greed, where the right thing is done belatedly and poorly, and underlying it all is a desire to deliver the largest benefits to the wealthy.
Socialism isn’t fundamentally about public ownership of private resources. It is about collective action in pursuit of common goals, where private action has destroyed or damaged the common good. It is demonized by concentrated private wealth precisely because it is so effective at redressing so many of the problems that concentrated private wealth has inflicted on society and the world.
Makarrata is a word from the language of the Yolngu people in Arnhem Land. As Noel Pearson has explained:
The Yolngu concept of Makarrata captures the idea of two parties coming together after a struggle, healing the divisions of the past. It is about acknowledging that something has been done wrong, and it seeks to make things right.
Mahatma Gandhi once said that ‘The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members’.
Unfortunately, we have a government who is more focused on wealth creation than on protection and support for those who need it the most.
If the government really cared about suicide prevention, they would look at what causes it – » The Australian Independent Media Network
and
On the cusp
The government has decided to quote modelling by Brian Fisher, who is already well known for his very dodgy modelling in favour of the coal mining industry, to say that Labor’s policy will cost workers $9,000 per year. This is, of course, complete rubbish and totally at odds with modelling by Frontier Economics and research by the ANU.
The question is not how much Labor’s policy will cost. The cost of not taking action is far too great to contemplate.
The damage from the cyclone coupled with a fire at a port facility in January will lead to a loss of about 14 million tonnes of production in 2019, the miner said in a statement.At today’s iron ore price, that equates to over $1.7 billion dollars lost revenue for one company from one cyclone.
In February, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the state budget is estimated to take a hit of at least $1.5 billion after catastrophic bushfires and floods ravaged Queensland over the summer.
How I look at the past few years. They have been the catalyst that might wake us from the political malaise that had bogged us down in a quagmire of narcissism. It’s the individual first second and third.
Every part of society, when you think about it, has been indoctrinated with a nefarious, me first attitude that has seen the common good almost vanish.
Where as the common good should be at the center of any political philosophy. However, it is more likely to be found on the left than the right.
What they deny and the denials Bolt Jones and Sky support (ODT)
The comments were broadcast at the tail end of part two of last week’s Al Jazeera documentary on One Nation, the compelling result of the covert recordings.
“You cannot, in life, and especially in politics… take into account everybody’s emotions,” Ashby, Pauline Hanson’s chief of staff, tells Rodger Muller, the undercover operative he believes is the head of an Australian gun rights lobby group.
The men, accompanied by One Nation’s Steve Dickson, are about to board a plane back to Australia, having completed their piss-powered bumpkins’ tour of the odious Washington gun lobby, trying to solicit cash and pick up tips on how to weaken Australia’s gun laws.
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via The callous, pointless vacuum at the dead heart of One Nation
There really are no secrets here. In the end, Donald Trump clearly cares about nothing but himself (and perhaps his family as an extension of that self).
So read or listen to that first campaign speech again. Reintroduce yourself to Donald Trump presenting himself with naked honesty—with that single exception—and then consider the future for a moment. Whether in his first or second term (should he win again in 2020), if things start to head south economically, count on this: He’ll repeat his well-documented history and jump ship, leaving the American people, including that beloved base of his, holding the bag.
Trump Warned Us He Would Be a Terrible President | The Nation
Right. Turnbull was a means to an end; a ploy to win the next election. Neither the electorate nor his own faction saw him as particularly effective or useful. To the extent that he was trapped, a degree of empathy is due Mr. Turnbull. Had he been allowed to govern in his own right, he could arguably have been quite effective. But he craved power itself, and thought more about that, than how he would use that power to better the country. He was shortsighted, and paid the political price.
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.
via It’s been hard yakka, and there are so many to thank – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The winner-take-all result where the party or Coalition with the majority of seats has all the power just does not work. Politicians are focused on beating their opponents rather than working collaboratively to do what is in the best interests of the nation. And increasingly, it is attracting those who are in it for themselves.
We must break the influence of vested interests and lobbyists who, by donating to a political party, can buy a whole bloc of votes.
We must invest in a public service capable of giving frank and fearless advice based on real evidence and who have the resources to oversee and assess the results from the expenditure of public money.
But first and foremost, we must elect people whose focus is on facilitating all Australians to make the best contribution they can to our society and supporting them to lead happy fulfilling lives in a healthy environment.
There are no Jacinda Arderns here! All we have is Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton, Tony Abbott, Barnaby Joyce, Pauline Hanson, Fraser Anning, Cory Bernardi, and their ilk; the pitiable list goes on. What hope have we?
The only hope we have is to rid ourselves of this pox upon our nation. We want an Ardern. As we can’t find one among our current crop of ministers, let’s start again when next we get the chance. We might not do much better, but at least it’s worth a try.
via The Tragic Toll of Hatred – » The Australian Independent Media Network
One Nation is openly racist, it wants to wind back Australia’s gun laws, and its short-lived representatives are a policy-free zone pushing fringe conspiracy theories. The Greens have a history of long-serving MPs, and a policy platform developed over decades that includes serious action on climate change and inequality, and which promotes acts of tolerance like legislating for marriage equality, supported by two-thirds of Australians. When Prime Minister Scott Morrison calls the Greens “a real, serious danger to Australia” he is using nicer words but saying the same thing as James Ashby who, in the first instalment of How to Sell a Massacre, called the Greens “f*cktards”. It is the same false equivalence that Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton drew in the wake of the Christchurch massacre, when he equated Fraser Anning with Richard Di Natale, and in doing so simply showed where his own sympathies lay, and revealed his own extremism.
olddogthoughts 
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