Hidden away in my ‘To read’ file I found a piece written by former Liberal Party leader John Hewson. I shall have to clean my list out more often in the hope of finding more gems. Hewson’s piece is important and I’m not sure how I missed it because I have witnessed him going through a Fraser-like conversion in his approach to politics in the past few years. The piece was written almost 12 months ago and spoke to a favourite subject of mine. How to clean up our politics to make for a better democracy for all Australians. John Hewson proposes six Rules of engagement.
My thought for the day Wouldn’t it be good if in our parliament, regardless of ideology, we had politicians whose first interest was the peoples’ and not their own. Eg: Wage stagnation. Massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Australians and foreign corporations. Attempts to undermine Medicare. More expensive university degrees. Shrinking homeownership. The everyday cost of living up. Higher debt. ( John Lord)
My thought for the day If we are to save our democracy, we might begin by asking that at the very least our politicians should be transparent and tell the truth.
My thought for the day I feel people on the right of politics in Australia show an insensitivity to the common good that goes beyond any thoughtful examination. They have hate on their lips, and their hate starts with the beginning of a smile.
My thought for the day The pedlars of verbal violence and dishonesty are the most vigorous defenders of free speech because it gives their vitriolic nonsense legitimacy. With the use of free speech, the bigots and hate-mongers seek to influence those in the community who are susceptible or like-minded.
My thought for the day People need to wake up to the fact that government affects every part of their life and should be more interested. But there is a deep-seated political malaise. ( John Lord)
Come April/May of 2020 the coronavirus had taken control of our economy and our health. The government, to its credit, believed in the science and took the advice of experts. Which is something they refused to do with climate change.
I finished the year 2019 with a piece titled George Christensen and other secrets about the rather rotund figure of George. Well, not about his wholesome physique but about why he needed to spend so much time in Manilla. “Many fellow parliamentarians now call him the ‘Member for Manila’ because of his frequent travel to the region, including an astonishing 28 trips in a four-year period.”
My thought for the day The Office of the American President was once viewed by its people as an office of prestige and importance. Trump has reduced it to one of ridicule and contempt.
Looking back on my writing for 2020 and what has motivated it the most common ingredient has been a sense of frustration that I’m not having the impact I once did. By that I mean my readership has dropped a little. I want more people to know the truth. Perhaps I have become too repetitive and people are bored by it. Or as my son suggests, l’m a bit too lengthy. That’s not my fault of course, it’s the government’s. They have been so consistently horrific in yet another year of awfulness that one feels compelled to regularly convey it to the AIMN readers.
Murdoch has them by the balls. What is it that Rupert Murdoch has that enables him to demand of our government millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money whenever he wants it? I first came across this story in 2017 when the government kicked in $30 million dollars to Foxtel to promote women’s sports. It appeared as a one-line item in the budget of that year.
The ability of thinking human beings to blindly embrace what they are being told without referring to evaluation and the consideration of reason never ceases to amaze me. It is tantamount to the rejection of rational explanation. (John Lord)
My thought for the day An artist creates a sculpture alone; a painter uses a brush in isolation. But music forms a community, where the spirit of life can be felt. ( John Lord )
My thought for the day This Governments performance over its time in office has been like a daily shower of uncouthness raining down on society. Surely performance or lack of it must mean something.
What is it in the hearts and minds of men (l declare women more honest than men, but they also indulge) that turns them into liars, robbers, cheats, people of ill repute, corrupt scoundrels who would take from the public purse – that which is not theirs – in order to feather their own nest?
My thought for the day Have we reached the point in politics where TRUTH is something that politicians have persuaded us to believe is, “Like alternative facts” rather than TRUTH based on factual evidence, arguments and assertions? John Lord
From Down Under we see a sick deluded man of no redeeming features, full of racial hatred, bile and misogyny. A deluded, pathetic liar unsuitable for the highest office in the land, if not the world. He sees complex problems and impregnates them with populism and implausible black and white solutions.
Australian politics is now a corrupt mess and the more the government get away with the more emboldened they become. We have seen such a decline in the practice of government that it wouldn’t surprise me if circumstances might prevail that would give the conservatives a long period of power that might entrench them. So good has the propaganda been. Add to it the lack of interest the public has in politics and you have a situation where maintaining the status quo is but a few lies away. Our current Christian Prime Minister copies the Trump methodology of only pleasing those that will help you win. How bitterly dispiriting it is when the hearts and minds of our politicians are so utterly corrupted by this virus of political lies, but more demoralising it is that ordinary people catch the same infection. So emphatically poor of political morality is the U.S. now that there is a distinct possibility that an ill of mind billionaire entertainer in Donald Trump might trump a second-grade movie actor to become the next president. How a man of such ill repute, threatened by two countries to be disallowed entry, could even be nominated beggar’s belief. It even questions the sanity of those who would contemplate his election. To think that the Republican Party could ever consider a megalomaniac like Trump as a nominee to run for the presidency illustrates just how low the GOP have fallen. That he wanted to exit the hospital after treatment for COVID-19 wearing a Superman t-shirt under his suit so he could dramatically reveal it upon leaving hospital last week confirms his mental state. The New York times says that “he ultimately decided against the stunt, thus depriving the world of what would have been a… memorable moment in a year of memorable moments.” Continued tomorrow… My thought for the day The Office of the American President was once viewed by its people as an office of prestige and importance. Trump has reduced it to one of ridicule and contempt.
So, the man who has spread more misinformation about COVID-19 than any other individual on the planet has caught the coronavirus. The fact that he will now not be able to campaign personally will, ironically, perhaps save some lives.
My thought for the day We would be a much better society if we took the risk of thinking for ourselves unhindered by the unadulterated crap served up by the government, the media, and self-interest groups.( John Lord)
My thoughts for the day Honesty isn’t popular anymore. It doesn’t carry the weight of society’s approval it once did. * * * 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)
If one day in the future our children wake to find our prosperity gravely ill. It will be because Australia’s conservative politicians during the years 2013 to 202? Didn’t believe the science of a changing climate and left you with the consequences.
My thought for the day It is clear that from whatever way you look at it that Trump lied and people died. PS: For the complete list of Trump’s lies about the coronavirus (John Lord) click here.
My thought for the day “The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages … It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom or our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” (Robert Kennedy, 1968).(John Lord)
My thought for the day We can sometimes become so engrossed in our own problems that we can easily overlook the enormity of the suffering of others. (John Lord)
My thought for the day For the life of me I fail to understand how anyone could vote for a party who thinks the existing education, aged care and health systems are adequately funded and addresses the needs of the disadvantaged. (John Lord)
My thought for the day Our lives should be subject to constant reflection, otherwise the way forward is locked into the constraints of today’s thoughts. PS: On concluding this piece I note that the NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has apologised “unreservedly” to anyone affected by community transmission resulting from the disembarkation of the Ruby Princess.
Albanese has been onto it, saying that Morrison must answer why he has made no effort to clean up these privately owned Aged Care Homes where profit comes before human health.
It is not as though the government is without options. If it had the intestinal fortitude it could use a COVID-19 recovery that would drive full-time sustainable jobs and growth on the back of a low-emissions transition that would last 50 years or more.
The other option is to use the recovery to continue with fossil fuels and pretend (lie your way through it) that in a time of great uncertainty you had a moment of gas led fossil fuel enlightenment. Jobs versus the environment.
