Who’s Mining the Store Barnaby is
There are real fears in the Morrison government that junior Coalition party – the Nationals – will derail its carefully laid re-election plans.
Source: Barnaby Joyce restoration spells trouble for Scott Morrison
Category: LNP Economic Management
After claiming “official” discussions with Pfizer had only started in December, Health Minister Greg Hunt has finally confirmed that the government met with Pfizer last July to discuss purchasing the Pfizer vaccine. Sources say Australia was given options for as many doses as needed to be delivered in January this year, yet government officials turned down the offer Callum Foote reports.
Source: Government’s “appalling” error, rejects offer of 40 million Pfizer doses in July 2020 – Michael West
After claiming “official” discussions with Pfizer had only started in December, Health Minister Greg Hunt has finally confirmed that the government met with Pfizer last July to discuss purchasing the Pfizer vaccine. Sources say Australia was given options for as many doses as needed to be delivered in January this year, yet government officials turned down the offer Callum Foote reports.
Source: Government’s “appalling” error, rejects offer of 40 million Pfizer doses in July 2020 – Michael West
A Liberal-led committee has told the Morrison government its plan to change the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) so it can fund a broader range of technologies including some using fossil fuels could be illegal. The standing committee for the scrutiny of delegated legislation has written to the energy minister, Angus Taylor, expressing concern that his proposal to change Arena’s remit without legislation goes beyond what the parliament envisaged when it passed laws to create the agency.
Australia’s competitiveness drops to lowest level in 25 years: WCY 2021 Australia has fallen four places to 22nd in a global ranking of the competitiveness of 64 nations released today. It is Australia’s worst result in 25 years. CEDA Chief Economist Jarrod Ball said our performance in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2021 showed we could not afford to stand still, despite our early success in managing the COVID-19 pandemic and recent strong economic recovery. “Australia cannot waste any time getting match-fit for the post-pandemic era,” Mr Ball said. “The rankings show business will need to do a lot of the heavy lifting, with business efficiency leading Australia’s slide in the rankings, driven by a lacklustre 58th place for management practices. “We are among the lowest-ranked of 64 nations on company agility, entrepreneurship, customer satisfaction and credibility of managers.
A $600m gas power plant promised by the Morrison government is not needed and has no prospect of generating enough revenue to justify its cost, according to a new analysis. A report by Victoria University’s energy policy centre suggested the case for the Hunter Valley plant, to be built by the publicly owned Snowy Hydro with taxpayers’ funds, failed on several grounds.
Many long-term issues plaguing the NBN could’ve been avoided if it was an all-fibre network, writes Paul Budde. RECENTLY, IT was reported that a new Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Commissioner, Anna Brakey, said: We’ve got an opportunity to have a look at the regulatory framework and to make sure, that we efficiently use the NBN. If we set prices too low, there would be overuse of the NBN. And as a result, that would require more investment that just would not be efficient. It would not be valued by people because we priced it too low in the first place. But if we set the price too high, there will be underuse of the asset and potentially bypass. So, without a doubt, I think, getting the NBN regulatory framework, giving that attention and coming up with a new [special access undertaking] or revised SAU, is by far my biggest priority for this year. It’s astonishing to hear from the ACCC that they think that the “NBN could be overused” and that “customers would not value it anymore”. The ACCC is mandated to act on behalf of the consumers, not the NBN company. The fact that she is in favour of protecting the NBN in the knowledge o
Source: Concerns about NBN overuse highlight Coalition Government’s failings
A secret marketing strategy to convince Australians to support a controversial overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) says the federal government must be “seen” to have listened to concerns of disability groups, who will be targeted with an extensive campaign. A leaked communications and engagement strategy from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which administers the $26 billion scheme, reveals an aim to announce a legislation date in late August. It also aims to combat any backlash from the disability community through what Labor calls an “expensive multi-media spin campaign”.
Source: Secret NDIS report warns of backlash unless government is ‘seen’ to have listened
The Morrison government has come under attack over “failed” quarantine arrangements and the sluggish pace of the national vaccine rollout as Victoria enters a seven-day “circuit breaker” lockdown. There is mounting concern the latest virus wave could have become “uncontrollable” with almost 30 cases in the Melbourne-based cluster. The acting Victorian premier, James Merlino, on Thursday pointed to vaccine delays and “aged care facilities where not one person has been vaccinated” as practical problems in managing the response. Both are the responsibility of the federal government. His Labor colleagues in Canberra declared the situation could have been avoided.
Ok, here’s a brief timeline of events in the vaccine rollout. August 2020: Scott Morrison announces that Australia has secured 25 million doses of the Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccines and that it would mean “early access” for all Australians. The vaccines would be “as mandatory as you could possibly make it.”
Companies linked to tax havens and one of China’s wealthiest property developers have been handed federal government grants to employ remote Aboriginal work-for-the-dole participants under the 1,000 jobs program – a scheme that was supposed to primarily benefit Indigenous business. The $50m, 1,000 jobs program, which aims to generate employment for Aboriginal jobseekers and businesses in remote Australia, has created just 400 jobs in the two years it has been running. The program offers a wage subsidy to support businesses to take on Community Development Program (CDP) participants as new, ongoing employees for a minimum of 15 hours per week, making payments once an employer provides evidence of employment outcomes. Coalition scraps remote work-for-the-dole program for Indigenous Australians Read more When the former Indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion launched the scheme in 2019, he said it would have “focus on supporting Indigenous businesses” and would help “businesses operating in remote Australia to expand”. Advertisement But the Guardian can reveal that among the companies approved to receive the payment are Shiying Yougawalla No.2 Pty Ltd and Argyle Cattle Company
Yesterday, Canberra again promised that we’ll be vaccinated by Christmas. Yet, three months into the rollout and only 1.9% of NSW has had both doses.
Despite official accounts showing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are falling, its contribution to the climate crisis has increased over the past 15 years once areas beyond the federal government’s control – the drought and emissions from land and forests – are excluded. Scott Morrison told a climate leaders summit hosted by the US president, Joe Biden, last month that Australia had cut its emissions by 19% since 2005. The prime minister said it was “more than most other similar economies” had done and the country was “on the pathway to net zero”. An analysis by the Australia Institute found the reduction in emissions over the past 15 years was largely due to two major shocks beyond government control – the drought and the pandemic – and mostly historical changes in the amount of CO2 released from the land and forests. Fossil fuel and other emissions not linked to the land or agriculture sectors – those from electricity, industry, mining, transport and landfill – actually increased by 7% prior to Covid-19. The institute found on this basis Australia had done much less to reduce emissions than several comparable countries, including the US, UK and members of the European Un
The federal government has announced a fuel security package to shore up Australia’s two remaining oil refineries, in Geelong and in Brisbane, with a hefty price tag of up to $2bn. Australia’s response to fuel security has been a hodgepodge of ineffective policies and taxpayer-funded subsidies, and this week’s announcement is another Band-Aid solution. It sits neatly in the budget alongside the $8bn in fuel tax credits (which is set to rise to just under $10bn in five years).
The Budget cash splash in aged care has rendered the Royal Commission a political stunt as the billions in extra funding are not tied to reform measures or direct care and food for elderly Australians. Dr Sarah Russell reports.
The federal government will direct its Snowy Hydro power corporation to build a $600 million gas-fired power plant in the Hunter Valley, ignoring calls that the investment is unneeded.
Source: Morrison government bankrolls $600m Hunter Valley gas plant
Documents released under Freedom of Information reveal Australia approved 103 military export permits to UAE and Saudi during the Yemen war – and denied just three permit applications. Michelle Fahy investigates Australia’s escalating export trade in weapons with the Saudi dictatorship, in defiance of its international commitments.
$280 million in funding for a wind and battery hub in Queensland has been axed because it is ‘inconsistent’ with the Morrison government’s policies.
Source: Minister Pitt uses extraordinary powers to veto renewable energy project
Government should focus on ‘disaster mitigation rather than clean-up’ as climate change events increase, industry experts say
Australia is building a slew of new coal projects just as global demand for coal is in retreat. It’s justified by “independent expert” reports from the likes of Big Four firms Deloitte and EY. Luke Stacey and Michael West report on the flawed economics and compromised reports of the consultants.
The latest official figures show Australia’s infrastructure investment has plummeted, reports Alan Austin.
AUSTRALIA HAS BORROWED heavily to weather the recent COVID-induced economic storm. But in contrast to previous major global recessions, it is emerging with virtually nothing tangible to show for the debt incurred.
Source: ALAN AUSTIN: Australia’s low infrastructure spend, despite record debt
The Coalition government’s signature employment policy for young people JobMaker has created just 609 jobs. And thanks to the flawed design of JobKeeper, which shut out many young people from key financial support, superannuation accounts were emptied, for which the young will pay a heavy price down the track. Kathryn Daley, Belinda Johnson and Patrick O’Keefe report.
Source: 
His problem is neither Christian Porter nor Linda Reynolds, the two ministers who for different reasons have caused so much political pain, volunteered to take one for the team.
Paul Bongiorno: Shuffling deck chairs can’t save sinking ship
The $90b JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme has ended, with a million workers still relying on it JobKeeper may have been propping up businesses that won’t survive Insolvencies are set to rise as the support ends
JobKeeper supports more than a million workers. It’s over … so what happens now? – ABC News
1 in 4 unemployed Australians has a degree. How did we get to this point?
more than one in four graduates can expect to be either unemployed or underemployed four months after completing their undergraduate degree. So how did that happen?
1 in 4 unemployed Australians has a degree. How did we get to this point?
Australia’s serious economic mismanagement demands more attention than it is getting, reports Alan Austin reports.
Morrison Government piling Australia in debt
Once the government releases the final draft of the legislation, it will be easier to make a judgment on what it has in mind, but Mr Robert’s approach to developing the new legislation so far seems too secretive and confrontational.
Copy of Secretive approach to reform threatens consensus on NDIS
AUSTRAC has held Australia’s largest companies to account while other regulators with vastly more resources cowered and eyed the “revolving door” of private sector jobs. In the past three years, AUSTRAC has delivered taxpayers more than $2 billion in penalties for anti-money laundering breaches. One would expect the regulator to be riding a wave of political support. Not so, writes Nathan Lynch. The power of the lawyers’, accountants’ and real estate lobbies continue to have it hobbled.
AUSTRAC muzzled in Peter Dutton’s ministry as Australia defies global money-laundering authorities – Michael West
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Party now acknowledge that migration is crucial to economic growth and prosperity, writes Dr Abul Rizvi. AFTER TELLING temporary entrants to “go home” just 12 months ago and cutting the Migration Program ceiling by 30,000 per annum to “bust congestion” as part of his 2019 pre-election Population Plan, Scott Morrison now says we must overhaul temporary migration in the post-COVID era to fill rapidly emerging skill shortages.
Morrison’s forthcoming ‘U-turn’ on migration
Since the Coalition won government in 2013, everything remaining that was good and worthwhile in this country has been trashed by the idiots who are theoretically in charge of running the country. All they are actually achieving is running us and our standards down to the level of the convicts and their keepers who first invaded this land. I am no Labor supporter, either, but I do want a government which shows a capacity to understand and cater for people’s needs. And, most importantly, recognises that equality of opportunity is a universal right! Instead we have a national government which has dragged a country, which once had enormous potential, into a ramshackle mess.
When will humanity, compassion, honesty and basic decency regain their places in our lives? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
More than 250,000 virus jabs have been administered in Australia so far, a long way off the four million Prime Minister Scott Morrison said would be complete by the end of March.
Australian GPs concerned about delays in vaccine rollout
A federal Labor MP has accused the Coalition of only taking national security threats seriously when it’s “politically convenient”, after the Australian spy agency, Asio, changed the language used to describe the rising threat of rightwing extremism. Ed Husic, who became the first federal MP to be sworn in on the Qur’an in 2010, said he and other Muslims had previously faced repeated calls from conservatives to condemn Islamist extremism “louder, stronger, and more regularly”. But Husic noted that some politicians in government ranks had taken exception to the term rightwing extremism now they were “being asked to confront an errant, ugly streak within conservatism”.
‘Hectoring’ from conservatives blamed for Asio move to dump term ‘rightwing extremism’ | Australian security and counter-terrorism | The Guardian
Most of the ASX-listed companies that received JobKeeper subsidies didn’t need it, and the great majority of those are keeping the money.
Alan Kohler on JobKeeper and how big companies made out like bandits
Coalition’s war on casual workers a harbinger for assault on permanent workers – Michael West
The workplace abuses of the 18th and 19th centuries have returned under the guise of the gig economy. The Morrison government has now proposed sweeping changes to labour laws that will cut wages, entrench precarious work, cripple unions and hand absolute power to bosses. But the assault on casual workers is just the beginning. If the IR bill becomes law, permanent workers will also be affected. Alison Pennington reports.
Coalition’s war on casual workers a harbinger for assault on permanent workers – Michael West
The US will spend, if we want to be purists, $716 billion on the military. It’s actually a lot more because the National Security Agency is part of the military, and the CIA to all intents and purposes is military in nature and between them their secret budgets top more than the $50 billion that was leaked in a Congressional hearing eight years ago, and could be double that now since so much more US military activity is now handled by Special Forces acting under the direction of the CIA, but for sake of argument let’s just leave it at $716 billion. Russia’s military budget is $65 billion, and even if you tripled that to account for how much more expensive everything is in the US from soldiers’ pay to weapons systems would represent less than a third of what the US spends. China’s military budget $183 billion, and again, you could double that if you like to account for different costs and it would be less than half of the US military budget.
Let’s Stop Pretending Russia and China are Military Threats | The Smirking Chimp
Australia has exploited international students by reaping the benefits of their economic contribution before locking them out of the country during the pandemic, writes Hayden O’Connor.
The Australian Government’s shameful exploitation of international students
Scott Morrison might have been a moderately successful salesman – he has certainly bamboozled his political peers into buying into his pseudo policies – but his realistic concern for people’s needs is absolutely non-existent and every policy he announces is doing more and more damage to our future.
Are we really making progress? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Australia’s biggest private and corporatised charities in aged care are threatening the government with a political campaign if they don’t get more money, on top of the $21 billion in government funding they get already. Throwing money at large providers has not worked, write Elizabeth Minter and Dr Sarah Russell, in a call for greater transparency and significant reform for the sector.
Aged care giants extort government for funding hike, threaten campaign in marginal seats – Michael West
Nobody in the coalition government is prepared to concede they are failing the unemployed. The party of “Jobs and Growth” has in reality been expanding “Unemployment and Recession” for years and no policy the government has implemented in Morrison’s $9B Social Security Safety Net seems capable of changing that path.
Dob in a bludger – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Millions in JobKeeper subsidies and rent waivers has helped struggling department store Myer grow its profits by 8 per cent for the first half of the financial year despite a plunge in sales.
Myer sales plunge but profits rise on back of JobKeeper boost
The Coalition could have saved the country billions if it had stuck to Labor’s original NBN plans and adjusted them with new technologies, Paul Budde reports.
Coalition’s NBN bungle may have cost the country billions
The Morrison Government’s eye-watering stimulus package has little to show in the way of long-term benefit for the majority of Australians. Tarric Brooker reports. AS THE BULK of the Morrison Government’s coronavirus stimulus package draws to a close, one can’t help but be reminded of a quote from wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
Coalition’s eye-watering debt yields underwhelming results
JobSlayer: gas giants grab $300m subsidy then axe 3000 workers – Michael West
The Government touts gas as being a key plank of JobMaker, its Covid-19 recession recovery plan. To help “support jobs” the government has given the gas industry $300 million of taxpayers’ money in subsidies. In return, the industry has cut about 3000 workers, more than 10% of it workforce, in a boom production year. Mark Ogge and Elizabeth Minter report.
JobSlayer: gas giants grab $300m subsidy then axe 3000 workers – Michael West
Shipping group Qube Holdings will give back $17m in JobKeeper subsidies but pockets $13.5m and some fancy executive bonuses despite its revenue rising strongly. How did it pull this off? Callum Foote investigates how the Liberal Party-linked Qube gamed the Tax Office.
BossKeeper: ports giant Qube bullies its way into Jobkeeper and plush bonuses – Michael West
Step right up, every billionaire is a winner. There’s $100 billion up for grabs and winning is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
The greatest rort on earth: JobKeeper is making billionaires richer
