Tag: Kaye Lee
Morrison and Frydenberg celebrated “low unemployment” as a sign of their ” management skills” when it’s really proved to be their “failure”. Qualified workers are simply not available why? They cut the funding to Tech colleges and closed the doors to immigration and now have a backlogged waiting list of visa applications. As a result businesses can’t find the right people needed for the jobs. They can’t even get unskilled workers. What’s more Peter Dutton the worst ever Health Minister was then the Immigration Minister leaving the department struggling with the visa applications. Dutton has now claimed the crown of the worst Immigration Minister ever. These LNP assholes saw us slide down the ladder when compared to other nations and they have been consistently doing it for the past decade. Morrison doing nothing but scaming us in front of the lights cameras and in different costmes telling us we are the best.
When governments have access to the best experts, the latest evidence and analysis and the benefits of a fiat currency, and yet these problems persist, it’s hard not to think that politicians think more about themselves than they do about making decisions in the best interests of the country.
Governments are the cause of many of our problems – they could also easily solve them – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Coalition came to power in 2013 with the promise to wreck things and they didn’t disappoint. Labor had introduced a price on carbon that was working well. It encouraged polluters to reduce emissions, investment in renewable energy, and research and development. It gave money to farmers for carbon abatement. Trade exposed industries were compensated…
Over the last nine years, our relations with other countries soured. Our rankings for human rights, transparency and corruption, and press freedom have all tumbled, as has trust in government and other institutions.
These will all have to be rebuilt.
From the way Peter Dutton has started as leader, it seems the wrecking mentality continues in the federal Coalition. Luckily, the Australian electorate has made them irrelevant.
Source: Builders or wreckers – the contrast is stark – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The new leader of the wedge and slogan party said the crisis has occurred because the power industry has been “spooked” by the ALP’s plans to promote renewables “too quickly”.
The new leader of the climate change denying party suggested nuclear power was the answer. It is the most expensive form of power. It would take 15 years to build. It is not renewable and it produces toxic waste.
It is obvious where the views of the alternate prime minister and his deputy come from and it isn’t any of the energy regulators, suppliers or academics in the field.
Oh no. If you want to know how to run the country, turn to Sky non-News.
There are three things that Labor should reconsider.
1 they should increase income support payments.
2 they should scrap the stage 3 tax cuts. With inflation on the rise, we certainly don’t need to give rich people more money.
They should revisit the taxation reform Tax concessions on property investment have fuelled the housing crisis – start there.
3 Labor should do a complete review of defense spending. We are wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on last century’s weapons of war. Cyber security, robotics, and autonomous systems, communications, international regulatory bodies, foreign aid, trade, and diplomacy will be far more important than accumulating manned tanks and submarines.
Governments,, have to be flexible enough to respond to changing circumstances.
Source: Three things Labor should reconsider – » The Australian Independent Media Network
If this didn’t tell you what Morrison and the Pentecostalists were intent on doing then nothing will. They wanted the end to the separation of powers, go the way of Israel and turn Australia into an Apartheid White Christian State. More so they were intent on doing it by stealth. It’s why the religious discrimination bill was their priority if they had won the election.
With all that’s going on in the world – a pointless war, a global pandemic, rampant global heating leading to increasingly severe and compounding natural disasters, superpowers competing over our region, soaring cost of living, rising inflation, unaffordable housing, poverty, social unrest – the last government spent its dying days fighting for a religious discrimination bill we didn’t need and arguing over trans women playing sport.
For years, he has been doling out money hand over fist, often to people with connections to the Liberal or National parties, for water rights or dubious dams.
There was the Politics in the Pub night in Shepparton where Joyce promised irrigators more water from the Murray-Darling.
“We have taken water, put it back into agriculture, so we could look after you and make sure we don’t have the greenies running the show.”
He dismissed a Four Corners program about water theft as “them trying to take more water off you, trying to create a calamity.”
Never mind about fish kills and dried up rivers and towns with no drinking water.
Then there was ‘Watergate’ where Barnaby paid $80 million to a company with connections to Angus Taylor for worthless overland water flows.
Urannah dam is a whole other can of worms with hundreds of millions being funnelled to a company run by people with links to the LNP for a project facing serious questions about its economic benefit.
Likewise the Dungowan dam proposed for Barnaby’s own electorate, where he said he has “no real interest” in seeing the business case because “we’re not asking for a return”.
In March, Joyce promised $5.4 billion to build the Hells Gate dam on the Burdekin River despite there being no business case and no assessment of the environmental impacts yet.
Barnaby’s baby, the Inland Rail, also deserves scrutiny.
Source: Barnaby sounds worried – » The Australian Independent Media Network
We have become a hateful place over the last decade – suspicious of each other, greedy, unprincipled, uncaring, focused only on what’s in it for me.
The election showed the country is ready for a reset. It will be up to all of us to be part of that. We can and must do better.
Newly elected senator for the NT, Jacinta Price, told Sky’s Paul Murray that she is “feeling really strong” and ready to “get out there and fight” for Australians.
“Australia will soon realise that they’ve just elected our Joe Biden to run the country and they’re just going to have to learn the hard way. But I’m certainly going to be there to hold them to account and to help pick up the pieces once we have to.”
So much for constructive conciliation.
In fact, it’s hard to see how having Ms Price in parliament will be in any way constructive.
Source: Meet Sky After Dark’s Voice to Parliament – » The Australian Independent Media Network
On Saturday, Australia rejected this march of the religious right to take over our parliament. They chose science over faith and compassion over coercion.
Source: The day Australia “woke” up – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The election table is groaning under dead cats as the Liberals look for some traction on the dung heap they built and are rapidly sliding down. I don’t want to hear any more. Five more sleeps and we wake up to find out the result of what I think will be the most important election in my lifetime. A choice between profit or wages, between greed or saving the planet, between transparency or secrecy, between democracy or the cult of Morrison.
Source: “Labor haven’t released their costings” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Under threat from Independent candidates, so-called Liberal moderates have chosen a new and rather extraordinary campaign pitch – if we want action on climate change or protection of gay rights or gender equity, we need to send more moderate Liberal MPs to Canberra.
We tried that before and the Liberals themselves booted them out.
Malcolm Turnbull had his leadership rolled in 2009 over action on climate change and again in 2018 for the same reason. Moderate Julie Bishop’s long service as deputy leader meant nothing to the big swinging dicks who apparently hold sway in the party.
Kelly O’Dwyer, Craig Laundy, Jane Prentice, George Brandis, Arthur Sinodinis, Christopher Pyne, Sharman Stone, Judi Moylan, Sue Boyce, Judith Troeth, John Alexander, Scott Ryan and Tony Smith – all gone.
Here’s a tip for the so-called moderates – if you, like the rest of us, think your party is going in the wrong direction, change parties. Or go teal next time.
Source: The extraordinary plea from Liberal moderates – » The Australian Independent Media Network
I used to think climate change was our most urgent problem. Now I think it is integrity – in government particularly.
If you don’t think integrity is important, then it’s easy to lie.
It’s easy to use your position to dole out rewards to supporters who will keep you in power.
It’s easy to transfer public money to mates.
It’s easy to cover up what you are doing.
It’s easy to attack and undermine those who would hold you to account.
It’s easy to claim credit for things you didn’t do and point blame at others for things you should have done.
It’s easy to gloss over corruption.
In trying to suggest that Anthony Albanese is too weak to lead, Scott Morrison said being in government isn’t easy.
I dunno. I think it’s been pretty easy for him.
Source: If integrity doesn’t matter, nothing does – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Morrison says discrimination against LBGTQIs in schools “isn’t a problem just look at the figures”. But he believes in transgender girls in sports is but,” just don’t look a the figures”.
Morrison will say anything at any even contradicting himself. Catherine Deves has walked back on the apology she made and Morrison guaranteed. Her disgusting and cruel comment about children now stands. Like Tudge will “I don’t know anything about that ” now be Morrison’s response?
Scott Morrison has announced his determination to go ahead with his failed religious discrimination act, without the promised concurrent amendments to the sex discrimination act to protect gay and transgender students.
“We’ve been having this conversation for about the last four years, and on each occasion, it has been presented that apparently students are being expelled each and every day, each and every week, or each and every year. There is no evidence [of that] because the religious schools themselves don’t wish to do that. They don’t wish to do it. This is an issue that is actually not occurring in these schools.”
They may not want to expel students, just threaten them with burning in the fires of hell unless they give up their perverted, evil ways.
And that’s what this bill is designed to do – to protect the right of the religious to abuse and discriminate.
Back in 2017, Morrison revealed the true beginnings of this bill – a payback for losing the marriage equality plebiscite.
Capitalism hides the detail so it’s inevitable that it’s taken over the Election of 2022, commoditized, and commercialized it for profit. It’s a pity the ALP sees it has little option other than to be forced to play the second rung in what will be a dog fight of an event. A Trump show for the public not none intended to provide information. It’s all thet Morrison has ever had in his tank.
Somewhere along the line, election campaigning moved from being about vision and policies to being a hotchpotch of funding promises, a festival of pork-barrelling announced by leaders who are marketed as celebrities. We are bombarded with an ignominious display of our prospective PMs’ personal lives. Photos with the dog are a must. I always wonder who actually looks after those poor benighted creatures since their owners are so rarely at home. Who is feeding the chooks and cleaning out the pen that DIY Scotty built at the Lodge since they live at Kirribilli?
One thing we can be assured of Anthony Albanese isn’t Scott Morrison. Another he hasn’t the production team Morrison has and he doesn’t simply arrogantly say “I’m not answering that” or avoid questions altogether. Albanese is the man you can trust to try to answer every question put to him providing the ALP’s distinguishing difference if not the nuanced details.
With Morrison you can’t as there are no details. He wines, dines, and hosts the commercial mainstream media. Corporate leeches whose business model, “ratings”, depends on him, his government’s generosity, and Morrison being the central white knight for their consumer audience’s attention. It’s a codependent quid pro quo relationship rather than an Independent one as is that with the ABC.
By and large it’s a supportive rather than a critical marriage. The ABCs relationship is more investigative and less able to be manipulated by Morrison. As a consequence, Morrison avoids it like the plague. Particularly so during this election.
Albanese, the ALP on the other hand are the targets of the gotcha questions in the constant hunt for a front-page criticism. Sensationalism for the widest public,to curry Morrison’s favor, improve their bottom line and all in plain sight delivered in the guise of balanced News. Newscorp and Skye no longer even bother to hide the fact that cash for comment is their business.
Scott Morrison is asking the Australian people “Who do you trust?” – a gutsy approach from a man who has earned the sobriquet ‘Liar from the Shire’.
Do you trust the man who draped his arm around his leader, grinning innocently as he proclaimed “I’m ambitious for this guy” whilst his backroom boys were organising a coup?
Do you trust the man who left the country in flames to sip cocktails poolside in Hawaii, had his office deny it, and then excused it by saying he doesn’t hold a hose, mate?
Morrison claims he is the better economic manager. This was initially based on false claims of having delivered a surplus. Instead, we got the first recession in thirty years and debt levels unprecedented outside of wars.
After having said “governments don’t create jobs, businesses do”, Morrison is now claiming credit for creating 1.9 million jobs since they were elected in 2013.
Between September 2013 and February 2022, Australia’s population increased by 2.7 million people so that growth in jobs is basically just population growth.
Morrison also claims credit for an unemployment rate of 4%.
Antipoverty Centre analysis of ABS and Department of Social Services data shows that while the unemployment rate has not been this low since before the global financial crisis in 2008 when it was also 4%, the proportion of working-age people who rely on an unemployment payment has nearly doubled – from 3.3% in mid-2008 compared to about 5.9% today.
Source: “Who do you trust?” asks the Liar from the Shire – » The Australian Independent Media Network
PUT THE LNP & MORRISON PROXIES LAST ABOVE AND BELOW THE LINE
If you are sick of the disappointment and white noise of a presidential style campaign where two rather ordinary men vie to be the chosen one, pre-poll voting starts May 9. It gets to the stage where there is nothing left to say. I wrote this two years ago. It’s kind of tragic that, despite…
When you employ the gas industry to suggest a road map for the future, you aren’t trying to solve a “known problem” – you are looking for affirmation of the irresponsible abrogation of our responsibility to tackle global heating.
When the pandemic hit, we listened to the medical experts and took action. Sure, they have formed countless committees, but they didn’t push decisions down the road six months until the committee published their findings.
We have thousands of reviews and reports and recommendations. We know what the problems are and how to go about fixing them. And it certainly is not by creating more committees to produce more reports telling you what you want to hear and coming up with more slogans to announce.
The greatest “known problem” in this country is that we are run by ScottyFromMarketing and his inept band of backup vocals.
Source: The Prime Minister for Announcements and Photographs – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Did you hear the LNP telling us that China was building a military base in Vanuatu? Or was that Norfolk Island?
Oh wait, that was 2018 when the headline read China eyes Vanuatu military base in plan with global ramifications.
Despite racking up huge debts and a structural deficit that will continue for years, the Coalition are still laying claim to being better economic managers, a claim that is debunked by Alan Austin in his article Worst debt blow-out in the developed world refutes Coalition claims of economic competence Having lost the battle to stop marriage equality, persecution of the rainbow community has moved to expelling gay students and stopping trans kids from playing sport. Different target, same bigotry. Oh, and death taxes….again. You have to wonder what the point is of this travelling circus since we’ve seen and heard it all before.
Source: Different year, same campaign – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Has anyone noticed what an Automaton Scott Morrison is? He’s protected from real voters at every moment while hearing the call “lights, camera and action”. So much so Mr Spontaneous doesn’t even know where he is because it’s all a totally staged and move on experience. “Mr Speaker” oops, “I thought…” no Scott Morrison that’s the problem you didn’t.
“Jobs Jobs Jobs” sorry Mr PM there aren’t any knew jobs at Rheem they are downsizing their workforce by 30% and sending them to Vietnam. Your totally faking it ScaMo. Yes,Morrison is all lights and cameras and risk devoid when and wherever he goes and a AAA fake. If he does see a smile and tries to engage with a voter off script he’s surprised again and again by the disaster. They don’t fall down and bow to his Christ like appearance. He in fact runs, runs and runs away and we have seen it happen time and time again while his security just can’t stop it.
Anthony Albo Albanese walks and talks and mixes with all people, and unlike Morrison doesn’t treat any voters like a risk. He listens and answers their questions. How can we forget when Morrison was just too “busy” to meet the women demanding to speak with him in Canberra.
Scott Morrison has worked very hard on selling himself as an ordinary bloke who wears baseball caps and board shorts and thongs, a daggy dad who loves his footy and cooking curries, a good Christian family man. At least, that’s the marketing. But time and again, the veneer cracks and we see the real Scott Morrison – a power-hungry, political animal, devoid of empathy.
Source: The daggy dad’s empathy vacuum – » The Australian Independent Media Network
I sure hope Labor get this right because the country, and in fact the world, cannot afford another three years of Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce – a more short-sighted self-serving pair would be hard to find.
Source: Labor needs to get better at answering questions – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Scott Morrison has successfully completed his coup, disenfranchising party members and installing sycophantic supporters, but he has failed at every turn in his constitutional obligation to act in the public interest and should, along with his enablers, be rejected by the public whose interest he so wilfully ignores.
Source: Redefining “public interest” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Liar
On August 16, 2010, five days before the federal election, Julia Gillard said “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead”. On August 20, the day before the election, she said “I don’t rule out the possibility of legislating a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a market-based mechanism. I rule out a carbon tax.” When she announced the market-based carbon pricing scheme on February 24, 2011, the government’s press release said: The two-year plan for a carbon price mechanism will start with a fixed price period for three to five years before transitioning to an emissions trading scheme. Despite these easily verifiable facts, Peta Credlin and Alan Jones decided it would be politically expedient to label Gillard a liar, even promoting the puerile putdown “Juliar”. The fact that the Coalition got rid of a well-functioning emissions trading scheme only to introduce their own fatally flawed emissions reduction fund and carbon offsets scheme shows they are far more interested in the politics than the outcomes. Julia did not lie. Scott, on the other hand – well, how long have you got?
Source: A tale of two “liars” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Coalition claims the budget sets out their plan for the nation, so what is that plan? To address cost of living pressures, millions of people will be given a one-off few hundred dollars and a temporary reduction in petrol prices. No permanent increase to pensions or Jobseeker. No support for an increase to the minimum wage. Nothing to address unaffordable housing and childcare. To address climate change, we will increase our exports of “cleaner” coal and pin our future on gas, carbon capture and storage, and buying carbon credits. No plan to genuinely cut emissions. No risk assessment of potentially stranded assets. No commitment to, or recognition of, the global effort to keep heating below 1.5 degrees. To address the aged care crisis, a few hundred million will be spent on improving medication management. No increase in wages for aged care workers. No mandated staff to resident ratio. No requirement for specifically trained staff. To address national security, we will spend hundreds of billions on war toys that won’t arrive for decades, recruit more personnel, who also won’t materialise for decades, and join the dirty world of cyber and space warfare. No thought of the value of soft diplomacy or being a responsible, respectful, reliable global citizen – it’s all about military ‘alliances’.
Source: What’s the plan, boss? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It’s time the workers united again to claim their share of the profits their labour produces. Companies should fulfil their part of the social contract by paying fair wages and taxation. With 12% of Australians living in poverty, it’s time we had a government that puts the welfare of its people first. It’s time.
Source: Why isn’t our “strong economy” benefitting workers? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
There are so many things that come to mind with that headline – like when Barnaby Joyce wrote off an $80,000 government Toyota LandCruiser wagon by driving it into a flooded creek on the way to his northern NSW grazing property. Or when he had unprotected extramarital sex with a staffer and got her pregnant. Or when he turned up drunk at work. Those are the sort of personal lapses of judgement you worry about with teenage kids.
Source: Barnaby Joyce is an idiot – » The Australian Independent Media Network
I don’t often agree with Greg Sheridan but when he described Scott Morrison’s announcement that Australia was sending weapons to Ukraine as “performative symbolism”, he was right on the money.
When Scotty left his job with Tourism New Zealand, then sports minister Trevor Mallard laid the blame for problems at the Office of Tourism and Sport squarely with Morrison. Australian standards of public sector behaviour “are lower than ours,” Mallard told the NZ Herald. “My experience with Australian politicians is that rules and ethics are not as important to them as they are to New Zealanders.” Sorry, but this lot make me feel far from secure.
I don’t profess to understand how other countries operate but, in Australia, we rely on our government to make things work.Or we used to. Until politicians decided that the private sector, whose survival depends on making a profit, could do things better for cheaper.And where has that got us?
Parts of NSW and Queensland are suffering unprecedented floods. At the same time, they are experiencing an unprecedented pandemic. Before that, they were dealing with unprecedented bushfires, following unprecedented heatwaves causing unprecedented drought. The loss of biodiversity is being labelled an extinction event as we clear land and destroy habitats. More pandemics are inevitable as we further crowd the planet. Despite decades of warning from every credible expert about the inevitable consequences of constant growth with no regard for the environment, our politicians assume surprise when their unbridled fetish for wealth and power wreaks havoc on the world. We have to sell coal because it increases our GDP. Temporarily. Until the next unprecedented “natural” disaster comes along.
Real Facts
Unlike the rest of the world, Australia had come through the GFC without suffering a recession. At the end of August, net debt was a bit over $161 billion and monthly hours worked per employed person averaged 141.42. After three terms of a Coalition government, we have endured our first recession in thirty years, net debt is $606 billion, and monthly hours worked per employed person have plummeted to 125.16. Wages are stagnant- adjusted for inflation, Australian wages actually declined in 2021 by 0.3% – the worst outcome in 7.5 years. Penalty rates have been abolished for many low paid workers, and casual and contract work is increasingly the norm. In 2013, the rollout of the nation-building fibre to the premises national broadband network was underway. Then along came Tony Abbott who thought the interwebby thingy was an expensive white elephant only used for playing games and watching videos – and trashed it. On Thursday, the Minister for the Digital Economy, the hapless Jane Hume, announced in an address to CEDA, “The Morrison Government has set a goal and is unrolling a plan for Australia to be a top 10 digital economy and society by 2030.” Good luck with that – we currently
Morrison’s praise of China and what he said and how our National Interests are aligned. Back then Muslims were the primary enemy within the country and whithout.
On June 26, 2019, Prime Minister Scott Morrison delivered a “major foreign policy address” at Asialink, in the lead-up to the 14th G20 Summit. Ttled “Where we live”, it outlined “our plan to foster an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific, consistent with our national interests.” The following is an excerpt from that speech: “We share…
If your husband stopped condoning and facilitating such persecution, it would do a lot more to improve his standing than cooking curries, playing the ukelele (badly – seriously whose idea was that), and shoving his wife and kids in front of him to say ‘please like me’. Mean Peop
In response to the current leaked texts fiasco, Coalition politicians are dismissing it as a media beat up, that everyone sends nasty texts after a bad day, it’s normal to disagree sometimes. What rot! There is nothing normal about the whole business and it underlines just what a toxic workplace culture exists in our parliaments. Blowing off steam to a partner or close friend might be one thing – nasty name-calling in print sent to people who live by leaking to the media is not how any management team should behave. So why do our politicians do all this? Because their staffers and media advisers think it’s a good idea? The marketing approach is delivering increasingly worse results in terms of personnel and outcomes. Politicians can’t be experts at everything but they could listen to people who are. How about we leave the hairdressing to hairdressers, get rid of the personal photographer and image consultants, and get some policy experts onboard instead.
There were a lot of his peers that rate him as lower than a snake’s belly. Turnbull no doubts a recent one.
It seems whatever he does, Scott Morrison leaves a bevy of disgruntled colleagues in his wake. An early job was with the Tourism Task Force where he was 2IC. After he jumped ship to join its main rival, Tourism Council Australia run by Bruce Baird, the TTF was unimpressed and changed its employment contracts to prevent others from “doing a Morrison”. From there, Morrison moved on to the Office of Tourism and Sport in New Zealand. Within weeks, the tourism board’s three most senior figures — the chair, the deputy chair and the chief executive — were gone. “I suspect it was just about power,” said board member Gerry McSweeney. “You had the meeting of two people [Morrison and Tourism Minister Mike McCully] who were very ambitious.” The Auditor-General was scathing about Morrison’s role in commissioning PwC to conduct a secret review of the board and then recommending they be sacked. “We were surprised by the vehemence and timing of this advice,” the auditor-general commented. “Mr Morrison was aware that the board’s directors (including the chairperson) had deliberately been excluded from the review process, as part of the terms of reference.” When interviewed last year, McSweeney said of Morrison, “Picking off soft targets, seems to have been a career projection of your PM.”
Source: Morrison is an “arsehole”, just ask his colleagues – » The Australian Independent Media Network
When the Prime Minister chooses his Ministry, he has many things to consider – reward for support, factions, states, urban/country, diversity, longevity of service. Merit doesn’t get a look in. Or perhaps this bunch are the best the Coalition has?
Source: The best a man can get – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Labor’s Helen Polley and Anne Urquhart should be returned in Tasmania as should Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson. After an unsuccessful tussle with his former staffer Jonathon Duniam, Eric Abetz has been relegated to third spot on the Liberal party ballot with Wendy Askew at #2. There is a slim chance Eric could be gone and Labor pick up a seat but unlikely. It’s a nice thought nevertheless. Putting all that together, the likely end composition of the Senate is 37 Coalition, 24 Labor, 12 Greens, and Jacquie Lambie, with Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts as the deciding votes on legislation. I would suggest we all get very active about discussing the importance of the Senate vote with friends, family, neighbours, colleagues and anyone who will listen. A hung parliament is one thing but we don’t have time for a paralysed one at the mercy of PHON.
Source: Is time up for Eric Abetz? – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In February last year, Andrew Wilkie introduced a Private Members Bill, seconded by Zali Steggall, calling for an end to the immoral, illegal, and extremely expensive practice of indefinite and arbitrary immigration detention. In presenting the Bill, Wilkie drew attention to the staggering cost of this irrational cruelty. It costs approximately $346,000 to hold someone in immigration detention in Australia for one year but it costs only about $10,221 for a refugee or an asylum seeker to live in the community. In fact, the budget for our offshore detention is still running at about $1 billion per year. These figures are breathtaking and almost unbelievable.
Whilst Labor’s policies are preferable to the Coalition’s, they fall far short of what must be done. We cannot afford the timidity shown by the two major parties who bow to pressure from vested interests and are paralysed by fear of reprisal from their colleagues as much as from the electorate. Nor can we afford the denial from Barnaby’s mob and the Pauline and Clive cults. When Labor form government, the necessity for action will only be greater and the voices demanding it even louder. I hope they are ready.
When Barnaby Joyce regained the leadership of the Nationals in June last year, no-one could have been happier than his dear friend and supporter, Gina Rinehart. She immediately offered to host a party for him. Those VIPs lucky enough to secure an invitation to spend an evening with Barnaby and Gina at her palatial coastal hideaway in Noosa could secure their spot for a mere $10,000 a head. At a fundraiser for Wide Bay MP Llew O’Brien shortly after their soiree, Barnaby sang Gina’s praises, which Ms Rinehart has graciously shared with us on her website. Mr Joyce spoke of the LNP’s belief in the importance of the individual to be master of their own game as opposed to being controlled by the state. He praised the efforts of his long-time “mate”, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, who attended the event. “Gina is one of the most powerful women in the world,” he said. “If we had more Gina’s we’d have a more powerful nation,” he said.
When Scotty-from-Marketing became Prime Minister, he hired Adam Taylor, formerly of News Corp, as his official photographer – a job that has increased in prominence due to the pandemic and the wholesale sacking of media staff photographers.Taylor often has exclusive access to the PM and feeds his sanitised photos to the Murdoch media in an image-making exercise that smacks more of propaganda than recording history.Instagram has become not only a platform for Adam’s photos, but a place for him to accompany them with fawning homilies.Ronni Salt tweeted about “The messiah imagery – the powerful religious saviour symbolism of Scott Morrison as our saviour and leader complete with halos of light, crowns of thorns and birds of peace – none of this is an accident…Scott alone will save you.”She then included a collection of shots by Adam Taylor to illustrate her point.It’s kinda scary.
Source: Image is everything for the Messiah from the Shire – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The flooding of the media by the Djokovic case has tangentially drawn attention to Australia’s draconian border enforcement and the plight of the refugees who have been held hostage for nine years.When Morrison was told about the declining health and the neglect and abuse of children in detention, he denied it and accused advocates of promoting self-harm. When told that refugees are suffering torture, he claimed our strong borders make that necessary. Which makes his newfound concern about the mental health issues caused by state border closures sound very hollow.It really doesn’t matter what issue is facing the nation, risk assessment and expert advice are ignored in favour of tame consultants, ministerial decree, contracts without tender, grants without due process, and appointments without merit. We have panels and departments and commissions and reviews to make recommendations – all routinely ignored. To have such unerring confidence that you know better is foolhardy.Australia is paying a high price for Morrison’s hubris.
Source: He just won’t listen – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Health- medical frontline staff shortage, Education- Teaching Staff Shortage and Morrison is yelling “Let it RIP”.
We all want our kids to be back at school, learning and playing and doing all the normal kid stuff. But these are not normal times and teachers are not easily replaceable babysitters.
Source: Teachers are not babysitters – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The resource advantage of private schools is set to continue for the rest of the decade under the terms of the Commonwealth-State bilateral funding agreements. Private schools will be funded at over 100 per cent of their Schooling Resource Standard (SRS) while public schools will be funded at less than 91 per cent of their SRS in all states except the ACT. As a result, public schools will remain massively under-funded. It points to the need for a comprehensive overhaul of school funding.
The federal government could procure the needed supplies and provide them to pharmacies for free who could then distribute them for a set dispensing fee that covers their fixed costs – no mark-up, no GST, limited supply per person.Other businesses could buy them in bulk for workplace testing for cost price from the government who would act as the wholesaler.That’s why we have a universal healthcare system.Use some of the Medical Future Fund that Costello is hatching if you really need some cash to pay for it.Or stop spending billions on war toys we will never use.Priorities.It’s not rocket science, troops.
Source: How to solve the RAT supply dilemma – » The Australian Independent Media Network
As NSW records over 22,000 new cases of COVID and the number in hospital races towards a thousand, it’s worth getting to know the man who decided to “open up” just as the Omicron strain was taking off.At 39, Dominic Perrottet is our youngest premier. He is one of 12 children and is about to become a father for the 7th time.His younger brother gave an interesting defence to police when he faced allegations of rape in 2017. Mr Perrottet, who comes from a large family belonging to the conservative Catholic order Opus Dei, later told police there was no way they had sexual intercourse. “It’s against my religion,” he said.Dom was born in 1982 and was preselected in 2010 for the NSW seat of Castle Hill. Prior to that he had completed a commerce/law degree which takes 5 years. He apparently worked briefly for a law firm but it was purely a stepping stone as his political ambitions were clear, serving as the President of the NSW Young Liberals Movement in 2005 and on the NSW State Executive of the Liberal Party from 2008 to 2011.Perrottet is an electorate hopper, moving from Castle Hill to Hawkesbury to Epping, wherever he sees the cushiest path.
Source: Know your Premier – » The Australian Independent Media Network
I keep reading that the Coalition will play to their strong points in the upcoming campaign which, according to some, are national security, the economy, cost of living, and something that hovers around vaccine rollout/post-pandemic recovery/getouttamyface freedom.
Source: Strong points? I don’t think so – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Liberal/Nationals governments talk a lot about “the economy” and very little about society. “The economy” is about allowing rich people to get richer so they will then employ people who work to make them even more money. The lower the labour cost, the higher the profit. “The economy” is about the GDP – a number that is easily manipulated by including a big government program when it needs a boost. “The economy” is about the budget, an obscure set of figures which are ripe for cherry-picking – a guess based on convenient assumptions, which can decide to leave stuff out at will, which never ends up being accurate, where debt and deficit can be a disaster one year and a wise investment the next. The LNP would have us believe that they are very concerned for our mental health and well-being as a result of the pandemic. Prior to that, not so much. When, in February last year, Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers suggested Australia should consider adopting a wellbeing budget, Josh Frydenberg absolutely ridiculed him.
Integrity means the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. That sets the bar far higher than just not engaging in criminal conduct. How many of our politicians would pass a genuine integrity test?
Wilson, is part of the past 30 years and a glimpse of the future of our most taxing government. Wilson thrashes about trying to convince us Labour is what the LNP has always been and Labor never was. Wilson was groomed by the very secretive IPA whose fake cover is that of an ” independent research think tank”. Which is meant to convey some intellectual prowess proves to be little more than an attention-seeking bully, government and public influencer. They’re the ideal Party thugs in the mold of Abbott, and Dutton. The new generation of clones that haven’t progressed a historic inch.
He goes on to tell us that “The media fundamentally got the last election wrong because they underestimated what issues move votes. They missed the nearly one million retirees who risked losing a third of their income overnight because of Labor’s retiree tax.” Seriously? Excess franking credit refunds are more important than action on climate change? Throughout his article – eight times in fact – Wilson uses the term so-called “independents”. He thrashes around trying everything he can to discredit and invalidate them. And then he finishes by saying they “will do far more damage to Labor and the Greens than Liberals at the ballot box.” So why are you so worried, Tim?
Source: Tim Wilson is getting hysterical – » The Australian Independent Media Network
olddogthoughts 