Compared with other OECD countries Australia has been a free for all when it comes to housing. Architects aren’t required. So, hit with climate change the reality of our low standards of housing compared with other nations is staring us in the face, and revealing why we are pp the world’s biggest domestic emitters of CO2.
Our national building standards need to be overhauled to fight climate change and energy poverty – and improve our lives
The LNP made it harder to gain access by those that needed help but so much easier for systemic fraud to be conducted by providers. Labor’s Bill Shorten intends to reverse that fraud, not the access by the needy. We saw the same system occur in the provision of Education, Childminding, Employment, and Jobkeeper services. Frydenberg willingly increased x4 funds to Guide Dogs Australia $3-4 M for 35 dogs. He proved he needed one himself. Meanwhile, he and the LNP kept calling themselves the better managers.
Oh yes The ALP was accused of being much worse because of Pink Bats in comparison a relatively smaller issue.
Experts say scheme ‘not working well for everyone’ after Bill Shorten says Labor will target fraudsters
35 dogs at what cost?Frydenberg has been tipped to be the new head of the AFL.
A Melbourne “charity” whose CEO almost certainly broke federal laws by officially spruiking a sitting member of parliament is charging taxpayers four times what it was a decade ago to deliver just three-quarters of the services.
Source: Frydenberg-funded guide dog charity caught swindling taxpayers
Lachlan Murdoch’s history in Australia doesn’t seem to read well. First Onetel and now Points Bet all business blunders. This Philosophy major doesn’t appear to have the business skills of his father. He knows how to spend but not make money. But then Rupert was driven out of the UK, threatened with jail, and the loss of license in the UK, only to be saved by the Tories with whom he had an arrangement of mutual benefit. He fled to America, the land of Trump, became an American, and flourished when he appointed Roger Ailes to head up Fox News.
Yes,the Murdochs have made money but it seems unclear that it was entirely their doing. Corporate raiders of the assets of others have served them well. However, Australia hasn’t been as kind to their bottom line despite Newscorp’s quid pro quo arrangements with the LNP to ransack the ABC, the IPA, and multinational non tax paying corporate interests. The Murdochs have never really had any regard for journalism, news and information or the Australian people.
The rationale for News is that digital betting would supplement the challenged earnings its traditional media assets have experienced in Australia over time.
Source: Lachlan Murdoch’s $220m bet on digital bookmaking falls flat
America’s only true Presidential Politician.
‘Is guaranteeing healthcare to all people socialistic?’ senator asks Lindsey Graham in stellar defense of political philosophy
Bernie Sanders is closer to what Americans need than any other politician, surely? Robert Reich is not always with us.
Liz Cheney’s courage and integrity are closer to Paul Wellstone’s than to almost any current politician I can think of. All of America needs her to run for president in 2024. Do we need her to win as well?
Trump produced an unprecedented flood of lies and false statements during his presidency—over 30,000, according to the Washington Post. Is it possible he cannot tell fact from fiction? As a narcissistic egomaniac, does he believe he can manufacture reality? His psychological relationship with the truth has always been difficult to fathom. Trump cannot cite any confirmed evidence of fraud, yet he has unwaveringly insisted dark sinister forces stole a grand electoral landslide from him. Again and again, reality was presented to him, but he acted as if it did not exist. Is this because he cannot recognize reality or because he doesn’t want to recognize reality for assorted transactional purposes? So far, the committee has not provided an authoritative answer. But that may be above its pay grade. In any event, there is a fundamental truth that transcends resolution of this issue: Whether or not Trump believes in his Big Lie, he has successfully encouraged millions of Americans to do so, and that includes the thousands who assaulted the Capitol on January 6. In either case, Trump is a threat to the republic.
Source: The 1/6 Committee’s Biggest Challenge: Assessing Whether Trump Is Bonkers – Mother Jones
January 6 and its aftermath clearly could have been far more bloody if the Capitol police and then the Secret Service had not done such a good job of protecting elected officials from these heavily armed and militarily trained wack jobs. It should be remembered how the odious Trump cultivated these right-wing militias, and told a similar group to “stand back and stand by” during his debate with Joe Biden. They stood by all right.
Source: Why the Oath Keepers looks an Awful lot like al-Qaeda and Trump is its Usama Bin Laden
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Supposing the Morrison Government wanted to turn successive failures to destroy the ABC’s credibility into a success story, it could not do better than make significant Murdoch appointments to the ABC board, writes Paul Begley.
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Make no mistake, we’ve been here before. No sooner did Kevin Rudd and Labor gain power in November 2007 than they were confronted by the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) which kicked off three months earlier, and threatened the banking industry just two months after the poll.
Source: Same as it ever was … – » The Australian Independent Media Network
How does Qantas get away with it?
Apart from pushing its faux neo-liberal creed of free markets, Qantas has always been a sacred cow. Our politicians and business leaders recline in comfort in their Qantas lounges, with Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News on their TV screens, enjoying their frequent fliers.
Yet the Spirit of Australia has vanished, replaced by an avaricious corporate monster preying on taxpayers at every turn. Old codgers such as this writer will recall better times. Once the staff were proud to work there.
Source: Qantas Smiles: shareholders and executives grin, customers and staff grit their teeth – Michael West
Defence Minister Richard Marles has scoffed at suggestions that the Coalition was anywhere near agreeing to a compensation package with France after Australia abandoned its submarine contract last year.
New opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie has questioned the size of the compensation being paid to France, saying the outgoing Morrison government had been aiming for a significantly lower figure.
“That’s just not true,” Mr Marles, who is also deputy prime minister, told Sky News’ Sunday Agenda program.
“What we are seeing from the Coalition weeks into their time in opposition is that they are just making stuff up now.”
Richard Marles scoffs that the Coalition was anywhere near agreeing to a compensation package with France after Australia abandoned its submarine contract
For life as we know it to persist, we must acknowledge there are natural limits to growth. Economic growth equals increased demand, which is simply not sustainable in a finite world, writes Keith Presnell.
Source: Mother Nature: Economic growth is sending her bankrupt
CITIC the Chinese coal mining juggernaut churns out $8bn in revenue from its suite of Australian coal mines, gets government subsidies, but pays almost no tax and actually faxes in its one financial report to regulators. What’s the scam?
Source: Still Faxing: CITIC the gigantic tiny Chinese coal miner – Michael West
Roosevelt would have relished the fight and going big. But Biden and the Democrats now seem intent on going small — so “smol” and petite and inoffensive that no one notices or gets mad at them. One especially dispiriting example of this that Kuttner does not address in the book, but has elsewhere, is inflation. The Biden administration could have gone on the offensive and made the case that inflation is being driven by supply chain issues, corporate price-gouging, and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince — as opposed to rising wages and government spending — but instead has largely settled into a silent defensive crouch. Now Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve reappointed by Biden, is saying that the Fed’s policy is to “get wages down,” something Americans will enjoy even less than inflation.
Source: History Says Democracy Will Die if Democrats Don’t Try “Going Big”
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell plans to address sky-high inflation by hiking interest rates — acknowledging that doing so will suppress wages and worker power. It’s a response that will force workers to bear the brunt of the inflation crisis.
Source: To Fight Inflation, the Fed Is Declaring a War on Workers
Who thought themselves guilty of an indictable offense?
Americans need to know who sought pardons from former President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, siege of the U.S. Capitol, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said Sunday.
Trump is satisfied he has enough wriggle room
Members of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot say they have uncovered enough evidence for the Justice Department to consider an unprecedented criminal indictment against former President Donald Trump for seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Source: US Capitol riots: Donald Trump evidence enough to indict ex president
MORRISON & FRYDENBERG’S PROUD ECONOMIC MANAGEMEMT
At age 66, Suad Hirmiz found herself on the hunt for a new house to rent.
With her only income being Centrelink disability payments and her husband’s age pension, she resorted to selling her gold jewellery and offered to pay four months’ rent up front.
“No real estate agents would accept our applications,” Ms Hirmiz told the ABC.
“So I sold my gold. I just went down to Sydney Road [in Melbourne] and sold it.”
The couple are on a housing commission waiting list, but in the meantime nearly half of their fortnightly government payments go towards rent.
With little or no superannuation, increasing costs of living and limited access to suitable care facilities, many Australians are struggling to retire.
Point of difference:- Peter Dutton declares Albanese empathy a danger to Australia
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has opened the door for the Nadesalingam family to pursuie permanent residency after their four-year ordeal in immigration detention.
Source: ‘No impediment’: PM backs permanent residency for Biloela family
Even before the Albanese government was certain that it would have a clear majority, the Sky News chorus had begun baying about the “mad left” taking power. What the madness constitutes is never quite made clear. It is “vibe” rather than diagnosis.
It is not to be dismissed because of that inexactitude. This is another echo of the games deriving from the American right where the so-called left is essentially unfit to hold office; only the right can form a legitimate government. The fear-mongering underpins the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, as well as the continuing efforts to “stop the steal.”
It is further developed in the US. The intertwining of the religious right with the Republican Party has given an Evangelical (Pentecostal) infusion to the mix. In the Spiritual Warfare battle between good and evil that must be won for Jesus to return, Jesus votes Republican and the “left” is a demonic force obstructing him
Source: What is the “mad left”? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Even among Marx-friendly economists, the labor theory of value has fallen out of favor. But its technical validity is less important than the core message: workers are exploited because the value they create is undemocratically taken by capitalists.
Source: Karl Marx Was Right: Workers Are Systematically Exploited Under Capitalism
Frydenberg kept telling us how he managed the Pandemic better than the UK but he never mentioned Brexit
When the most anti-EU newspapers are pointing to the policy’s inevitable failures, it’s time our government admitted the truth
While 88% of Americans want Strict Gun Control Fox News and Murdoch Media to speak and broadcast to less than the 12% to insure the 88% aren’t heard. Who is paying? The corporate gun manufacturers behind the NRA
“Avoid attending school if your leaders fail to do the job and keep us safe from gun violence.”
Source: At March for Our Lives, A Call for a Nationwide Strike of Schools
Golfer Phil Mickelson, on the other hand, went for the money, though he called the Saudis “scary motherf**kers.”
Legendary golf champ Tiger Woods declined a nearly $1 billion deal to play in a controversial new tournament circuit bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, the CEO of the operation has told The Washington Post.
In other words, even if he avoids prosecution, even if he is never formally deemed a criminal under the law, Trump will be accountable to history. That is not as satisfying a form of accountability as a criminal judgment, to be sure. But it is a form of accountability that is inescapable. If the committee does its work properly — and I have every confidence it will — it will create a clear record. Which means that for our children and our children’s children — for as far as future generations will know of our recorded history — Donald Trump will live in infamy.
Source: A Final Thought on the Hearings: How Trump Will Be Held Accountable | The Smirking Chimp
Thursday night’s public hearing by the House Jan. 6 committee made one thing very clear: Donald Trump is personally in the crosshairs. They are coming for him with receipts, in the form of testimony from some of his closest aides and allies. The committee seems prepared to destroy any pretense that Trump was a casual bystander to the insurrection. In fact, its members are building a case that he actively encouraged it, and that by refusing to take action for many hours that day, he was an actual accomplice.
Source: Liz Cheney to GOP and America: Trump did it, and we’re coming for him | Salon.com
Julian Assange has been imprisoned for a decade for publishing the truth he didn’t steal. How is this guy still walking free?
By NewsHound Ellen — June 11, 2022 Bannon’s fever dreams of impeaching President Joe Biden and destroying American institutions is nothing new. But on his podcast (he hates having it called a podcast), he sounded especially triggered by the hearings.
BANNON: Trump won the presidency and he is the legitimate president of the United States and your guy’s illegitimate and the American people are awakening to that. And we don’t care what you have to say and I dare Merrick Garland to take that crap there last night and try to indict Donald J. Trump. We dare you, ’cause we will impeach. We’re winning in November, and we’re gonna impeach you and everybody around you. F**k – screw the White House. We’re going to impeach you and everybody at DOJ.
So what has Bannon so worried? Was it Ivanka saying she “accepted” Trump’s attorney general calling “bulls**t” on the stolen election claims? Liz Cheney teasing that “multiple” congressmen sought pardons from Trump over their role in the January 6th insurrection?
Or are we going to learn some very interesting information about Bannon, who got a suspicious pardon from Donald Trump after swindling millions of their supporters over the “non profit” that promised to build the wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for?
Source: Steve Bannon Seems Very, Very Worried Trump Will Be Indicted | Crooks and Liars
Bringing people together not apart Anthony Albanese
People tend to think of Albanese as a veteran of the Rudd-Gillard era, and of course he is. But his sensibility and political identity was formed in the Hawke-Keating period.
So, what could be Morrison’s motivation for staying on? Perhaps his ego is telling him to be patient for another opportunity. Maybe he believes God’s will is for him to fulfil his destiny. Maybe there is another reason. Maybe it’s for the money (though I’m not suggesting it is).
Source: Why is Scott Morrison remaining in the Parliament? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Albanese has to do what Morrison and Frydenberg didn’t. Have the guts to do and fix that which led us to, and created the crisis we find ourselves in now. Make those that profited from the LNP’s gross generosity pay, and take those steps immediately rather than later….increase their taxes and collect what they haven’t paid.
Anthony Albanese and his Treasurer, Dr Jim Chalmers, have inherited many problems that won’t be solved quickly or easily. Nor will they be solved without the new government being willing to persuade voters to accept the sort of tax changes no pollie wants to talk about in an election campaign.
Source: Treasury boss Steven Kennedy’s cure for debt and deficit
National Times 23h ·
Source: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1613237225725113&id=731244863924358
‘’There are two ways to reside in a house. Rent the house from a landlord or rent the money from a bank and become your own landlord. What happens when these prices are out of whack prices will change in the housing market to make them equal again. So if you put interest rates up, the cost of renting money goes up compared to the cost of renting a house and to make them equal again the price of the house must drop”. So any way you cut it, the cost of residing in a house is likely to remain the same before and after these interest rate rises.
Higher interest rates are on their way
Further interest rate rises are expected, with Governor Lowe saying that: “The Board is committed to doing what is necessary to ensure that inflation in Australia returns to target over time. This will require a further lift in interest rates over the period ahead.” With these rises, banks with billions in their exchange settlement accounts will see higher and higher risk-free profits.
Source: RBA’s rate rise gives free billions to Aussie banks – Michael West
Last night, we learned several things from the first hearing of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol:
Source: The Two Biggest Questions About Last Night’s Hearings on Trump’s Attempted Coup | The Smirking Chimp
Fox News continues to deny Jan 6th ever happened. It’s a lie, so they won’t broadcast ignorance to America. But, they continue to call themselves the leading corporate agents of news and information in the nation. Just as 88% of America wants gun control Fox News continues to tell America that’s also a lie.
For a country where few people remember what happened before last week’s verdict in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard case, Thursday night’s hearing provided a gut-punch reminder of the violence of the insurrection.
Source: Jan. 6 Hearings Seek to Remind U.S. That Trump Almost Engineered a Coup
Former President Donald Trump’s social site describes itself as “Truth Social is America’s “Big Tent” social media platform that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating on the basis of political ideology.” However, unsurprisingly, that’s not true.
Conservatives pretend they are staunch First Amendment supporters, but that isn’t true either. Trump exploded on Truth Social last night during the first of a series of Jan. 6 hearings which revealed that even Bloaty McBatshit’s daughter, Ivanka, didn’t believe the 2020 election was stolen. And over Bill Barr’s testimony. So, Trump’s site started banning anyone that mentioned the hearing because he has tender feelings.
Source: Truth Social Is Banning Anyone Who Mentions The Jan. 6 Hearing | Crooks and Liars
What one needs to remember 88% of Americans believe in strict gun control but 88% don’t get that programming they should. The majority of Americans believe there was an attempted coup on Jan 6th with Pence doing his job to prevent it and Trump doing nothing to stop that mayhem. Yet the minority voice is being programmed to megaphone and counter that majority’s voice to that truth as well. American media no longer is the best fit to protect the Constitution and Murdoch leads the revolution to tear it apart.
It shouldn’t be forgotten that Rupert Murdoch fled the UK because he was almost jailed for his transgressions against British media standards. He became an American citizen not for the love of America but the love of his already corrupt business model. He was kicked out of China, Not allowed into Canada or NZ. But has been welcomed into Putin’s Russia.
Facebook is bolstering right-wing media attempts to distract audiences from the first televised hearing from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Media Matters compiled and analyzed more than 3,200 Facebook posts from U.S. news and politics pages from June 9 and 10 and found that a video from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight is the top video post about the January 6 committee hearing. The video is also the top performing post overall among right-leaning pages.
Fox News was the only news network not to carry the first day of the Jan. 6 committee hearings as its hosts repeatedly trashed the two-hour hearing without providing their audience any of the content.
Central to Jan 6th the Proud Boys admit to the Call of Donald Trump on Jan 6th to Stop the Steal by preventing the certification of the new Government. The Proud Boy’s support for Trump was full aligned with their mutual interest even though Trump’s was more pragmatic self-interest than Nationalistic
Russian agents reveal the their plot to kill Navalny
While Roher filmed, Navalny starts phoning the agents one by one to ask why they wanted to kill him. They hang up immediately so he decides to pass himself off as an investigating official asking why the operation failed.
Another agent, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, falls for the ruse and spends more than 45 minutes discussing the murder plot.
“We did it just as planned,” he says. “The way we rehearsed it many times.”
Kudryavtsev reveals the poison had been smeared inside Navalny’s blue underpants. He thought the operation failed because the emergency landing allowed Russian medics to treat him quickly with an antidote.
After Navalny revealed the phone conversation on social media, Kudryavtsev disappeared and is presumed dead. While he feels for Kudryavtsev’s family, Roher has no sympathy for the agent.
Source: Alexei Navalny poisoning: Documentary captures confession by agents
Scott Morrison is gone. Although he isn’t dead, something is gone all the same.
He’s alive, but he is gone. Gone from our television screens. Gone to pack the barbecued barramundi lifestyle of Kirribilli House he lived in at our expense. Gone from our news cycle. Gone from the front pages of his fawning tabloids. Gone from our mouths.
Gone from the Australian government. Gone from the Prime Minister’s plane that will never carry his swindling, lying, masquerading bulk again. Gone from our conscience. Gone from our lives, from our daily grind. Gone from our souls. Gone.
A greater fraud and malcontent never disgraced the mantle of Prime Minister. That he was disliked throughout Australia goes without saying. That he was despised as well is truly extraordinary.
Looking back at Scott Morrison and the legacy he left behind.
Where do we go from here with a pulpit-loving, personalized-prosperity preaching Pentecostal prime minister who habitually shirks responsibility, who refuses to apologise for even the most minor infraction to avoid accountability and is quite content to allow his ministers to fly under the radar without the threat of a federal ICAC hanging over their heads? A prime minister who increases the secrecy of government, often legislating or introducing bills to avoid scrutiny of cabinet while reducing the freedom of others, silencing them through litigation and costly secret trials that could result in gaol time for speaking out?
Source: The Failure of a Faux PM
Watch Dutton keep the divide he and Morrison created between Aus and NZ
International and regional concerns will be on the agenda as NZ’s Jacinda Ardern becomes the first world leader to visit Anthony Albanese as Australian PM.
Should the Australian government cede ground, they can expect a fiery pushback from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who as immigration and home affairs minister oversaw increased deportations.
“It was right to deport them and we’re safer because of having done so,” he told Sydney radio station 2GB on Thursday.
“I don’t want to see the Albanese government walk it back.”
Another major shift is that climate change is back on the agenda, with senior NZ government figures telling AAP the issue was declared a no-go zone under the previous coalition government.
“It’s a huge relief,” one source said. “It hasn’t caused problems in the relationship per se, but it’s just been such an anomaly in that Australia hasn’t been interested.”
In October 2021, the Coalition introduced a bill to require the electoral commission to ask voters for identification.
Turnout in Lingiari is down from 73.70% in 2016, to 72.85% in 2019, to 66.8% in 2022 (although this may increase slightly as final declaration votes are counted).
Verdict
While some criticism of the Coalition’s attempted voter ID bill is justified,
Queensland is unveiling its first monument dedicated to Indigenous servicemen and women, many of whom fought for a country that did not recognise them as citizens.
Fossil fuel companies are suing countries that enact climate change policies, arguing that they are illegally cutting into their profits — and they’re winning 72 percent of the time. Now governments risk being sued for billions when enacting climate policies.
Source: Oil Companies Around the World Are Suing to Block Climate Action
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