AUSTRALIA HAS BEGUN its long, slow climb out of the sewers of sleaze and corruption now a new government committed to integrity has replaced the grimy and incompetent Coalition.
Government gross debt recorded last Friday was $894.6 billion, revealing the Albanese Government has added just $6.1 billion in its first 11 months. That compares with an average of $71.5 billion added each year by the previous Coalition Government over its term.
Chalmers is facing significant challenges as he prepares his second budget since gaining office nearly a year ago. They include persistent inflation, the housing shortage, the low share of national income going to workers, stalled productivity and rampant corporate tax evasion. All these were badly mismanaged by the previous conservative administration.
Australia’s official media watchdog has found three-quarters of recent complaints upheld for violations of media ethical principles were against Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, as Alan Austin reports.
Recent charges against Donald Trump have split observers worldwide, lawmakers in the USA, members of the Republican Party and even Trump’s family, as Alan Austin reports.
The earnest voices warning that a Trump conviction will end civilisation as we know it are mistaken. There is only one extraordinary thing about the current unfolding judicial saga, but it is not what the commentators think. In fact, it has already come and gone.
The latest court documents provide damning proof of News Corp’s intentional malice and mendacity, as Alan Austin reports.
NEWS CORP CEO Rupert Murdoch has just had the worst week of his professional life since the phone hacking scandals shut down his British newspaper, News of the World, in 2011.
A court decision last week green lights bold defamation action against the English-speaking world’s most powerful media empire, as Alan Austin reports.
We continue the countdown to our Top 5 most viewed articles in 2022. Number 2 goes to Alan Austin for this piece from April.
Worst debt blow-out in the developed world refutes Coalition claims of economic competence
Last Friday morning, just as Scott Morrison was spruiking his credentials on 3AW, Treasury updated Australia’s gross debt – a thumping $874.2 billion. The Coalition has now added a neat $600 billion to the nation’s debt.
AUSTRALIA, Brazil, Malaysia and Colombia all voted in reformist governments this year, after years of corrupt conservative Right-wing rule. Progressive governments were returned with strong mandates in Portugal, Malta and Denmark. Women were elected national leaders for the first time in Italy, Slovenia and Peru.
It is now possible to quantify accurately the death toll from the destructive Trump regime, as Alan Austin reports.
As Trump gears up his campaign to return as U.S. President, we can calculate the number of Americans who have died needlessly since his first announced run in mid-2015. The number is 548,800, more than half a million.
Events in the USA suggest the Trump era may be ending, but not before hundreds of thousands of Americans have died unnecessarily, as Alan Austin reports.
Figures in last Tuesday’s Budget Papers show the Coalition has cost Australians more than 400 billion dollars in waste and rorts, as Alan Austin reports.
The dramatic decline of the once-great U.S. economy has important lessons for Australia and the world, as Alan Austin reports. AMERICANS SEEKING WISDOM about the state of their economy will gain little insight from mainstream economics writers. They are like detectives called to investigate an assault. They note boot prints in the garden, the broken living room window and the smell of gunpowder. But they fail to observe the three dead bodies. These are the cadavers:
In a 24/7 news cycle this isn’t abandonment the reality will be closer to truth after the mid terms. Conservative America fears Trump will announce his hand before the up and coming elections. Murdoch hate backing losers and he’s simply laying the path for a Trump return. post November.
Powerful media owner Rupert Murdoch is no longer supporting Donald Trump as the next president of the USA, as Alan Austin reports.
Contrast this with what Morrison and Frydenberg were telling us, and reality bites the lies told. Now Peter Dutton is here to tell us what good managers they were.
The Independent Australia ranking on economic management (IAREM) for 2022 reveals Switzerland now leads the world and Australia remains outside the top 20, reports Alan Austin.
Australia’s dismal 22nd ranking – behind Portugal, Malaysia, Guatemala and Ecuador – is the nation’s fourth year outside the world’s top 20. This contrasts with being in the top spot under Labor in 2009 and from 2011 to 2013. This decline reflects the long-term effects of hundreds of billions lost offshore in company taxes not collected and billions more lost to corruption and gross mismanagement under the Coalition.
Variables which have deteriorated most severely over recent years in Australia are inflation, economic growth, the tax burden and federal government debt.
LAST WEDNESDAY’S national accounts confirm what voters have apparently already decided — that the Morrison Government was not that great at economic management after all.
Australia’s Parliament is not the only institution to have been trashed by the Coalition and corrupt corporate interests over the last decade, as Alan Austin reports.
Of all the post-election royal commissions proposed to deal with Coalition corruption, one has a chance of retrieving billions, as Alan Austin reports. THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has squandered hundreds of billions of dollars through either incompetence or, worse, deliberate intent to enrich its foreign mates. Most of the frittered funds are gone forever. But maybe not all. The vast wealth and income lost over the last eight years through export corporations that pay little or no tax may actually be traceable and recoverable, in part at least. This will require an investigation with the powers of a royal commission and broad terms of reference. It will also require a change of government.
The Coalition’s repeated claims that Australia’s economy is one of the world’s strongest can be refuted by simply looking at the numbers. THEY ARE LYING AUSTRALIA
Income per person
Slumped 4 to 8th under the LNP
Economic growth
27th of 38 OECD countries
Jobless rates
2008- 2013 under the ALP it went from 8th to 6th Under LNP it went to 18th in 2019 and now 16th
Government spending
Under Howard we were 14th Under the ALP we ranked 7-10th then we tumbled back to 15th
Government debt
In 2013 4th 2019 15th and now 18th
Value of the Aussie dollar
Under the ALP it averaged $1 and Under the LNP it’s 0.72
We can also look at wage rises, productivity and other variables to see the same trends. Clearly, Australia’s economy is not leading the advanced world. It is barely leading Costa Rica and Chile.
In what world other than in La La Land can what Frydenberg or Morrison are saying be believed the reality and facts tell a totally different story.
Morrison’s “I feel Optimistic” v Department Head Reports
The heads of Treasury and the Finance Department have just issued the most pessimistic Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook report since PEFOs have been a thing, as Alan Austin reports. LAST WEEK’S official assessment of the health of Australia’s economy foreshadows continuing worst-ever outcomes on virtually all important indicators. Had this been released with Labor in office, screaming headlines would be demanding the incompetent regime’s immediate sacking. The tabloids would be exhorting readers to take to the streets with pitchforks and flaming brands.
“We inherited 5.7% unemployment and today it is at 4% and 1.7 million jobs [were] created over the term of this Government.” ( Rusden )
That is a whopper of almost Trumpian proportions. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), File 6202, Table 1, the increase in jobs over the term of the current Government is a modest 531,200. That’s nowhere near 1.7 million. Clearly, this Minister is ambitious for promotion.
In 2013 ALP debt of $280 M was critical to the LNP,and a disaster to the Aus Economy. Today it’s $900 M and is “well in-hand” and managed “perfectly” and in control under this LNP why? Because Morrison and his media associates treat the nation like mushrooms. Keep us in the dark and feed us bullshit.
Why does debt matter?
There are two answers to this question – economic and political.
There is less to Australia’s jobless situation than the Coalition and the craven mainstream media want us to believe, as Alan Austin reports. AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY RECENTLY, before, during and after delivering last week’s Budget, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has bragged about Australia’s jobless. He has boasted that the unemployment rate is at a 50-year low, that a million new jobs were created late last year, that Australia leads advanced economies and that all this is due to effective Coalition policies. The hard, cold evidence refutes all these claims. Blatantly falsified figures
Albanese, even if he never leads Australia, will leave a lasting legacy. His infrastructure will make the nation safer and more prosperous for the next century or longer. Savage will always be honoured for New Zealand’s visionary social security system and for his Government’s low rate of ministerial departures due to corruption, incompetence or scandal. Australia needs another Michael Joseph Savage, a reformist leader who can bring high values to the top job and transform the nation. And, importantly, win an election and stay in office.
The number of published results of the Coalition’s economic mismanagement which are the worst on record has now reached 60, as Alan Austin reports. NO PREVIOUS Australian government has delivered such low economic growth over a sustained period of years as the Morrison-Joyce Government. The mainstream media’s economics writers will not report this. But they should. This is yet another appalling all-time weakest statistic generated by the Coalition and starts this list of the next ten, which brings the grand total to 60. Yes, 60 – six-oh – outcomes which are the worst on record, or in a very long time, or have collapsed furthest on global tables. The first 50 have been published already, with links to the raw data.
This meme lists fifteen items which purport to show the Liberals beating Labor. It is blatantly dishonest.
Federal ministers have posted it on their Facebook pages with the comment “The next election will be a choice – a choice about who can best manage our economy to ensure a stronger future. It’s a clear choice.”
There is plenty in last week’s quarterly national accounts that the Coalition Government does not want voters to discover, as Alan Austin reports. THE SHARE of Australia’s income going to workers is now at an all-time low. The big corporations are getting the highest share ever. These are two pretty important facts that the Morrison-Joyce Government and the mainstream media – who are all big corporations – want concealed. They are well-hidden in the extensive files published last Wednesday by the Bureau of Statistics. But they are there.
After a humiliating defeat in the Senate, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was described as ‘lighter than helium’ and having ‘no agenda’ by one staunchly pro-Coalition media outlet, as Alan Austin reports. ONE OF THE MOST sycophantic pro-Liberal Party newspapers, The Australian Financial Review (AFR), labelled Treasurer Josh Frydenberg ‘the dolt from Kooyong’ last Thursday, claiming his ‘humiliation is total’ and ‘his complete lack of political judgment has been exposed for all to see’.
Over the year, guest journalists made 133 appearances on the 44 Insiders programs. If we count presenter David Speers, that is 177 contributions. Of these, 92 were current or former employees of Murdoch’s News Corporation, the most untruthful and discredited “news” organisation in the English-speaking world. That’s 52%. Another 32 journalists, or 18%, were from the pro-Coalition Nine Entertainment network. There is no need for the public broadcaster to engage employees of organisations with proven records of falsifying data, suppressing vital information and blatant political manipulation. Australia has many journalists with excellent credentials Insiders could have used.
Virtually every new data release confirms Australia’s economic demise under Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg. Alan Austin updates the tally of disastrous outcomes.
INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT IS at an all-time low. As is Australia’s net worth and its global ranking on economic growth. Tax-free corporate profits are at an all-time high.
It is not just Scott Morrison and his ministers disseminating dubious data. The head of at least one federal department is making factually questionable assertions of a political nature, writes Alan Austin.
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