Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a chorus of voices is trying to convince ordinary consumers that paying higher gas prices is some kind of patriotic act. Big Oil doesn’t need the extra profits — it needs to have those profits taxed away.
Source: Oil Company Profits Have Surged. It’s Time to Tax the Windfall.
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.
Source: Twelve more things revealing Australia’s poor economic management
John Howard Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison didn’t have any sympathy let alone empathy for refugees and all used and politicized their difference from us. Scott Morrison was always know to be enthusiastic about the tactic of using Middle Easterners as political tools after the Cronulla riots. He still does holding innocent people for over 9 years “using them” as a deterrant rather than accepting the tragedy of their circumstance.
There are no benefits or advantages in war — any war — because it is always the poor, the innocent and the weak who pay the biggest price. However, war gives us the opportunity to study history, current affairs and future possibilities. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has, in just a few days, taught us some important lessons about how the West really views Arabs, Muslims and other Middle Easterners, including Arab Christians. It should also have taught us that it is necessary to sympathise with the victims, regardless of their race, gender or religion, while not forgetting our own victims, whether the guardians of the “universal values” myth like it or not.
Source: The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the West’s Double Standards on Refugees
Josh Frydenberg doesn’t tell it all. The Great Bungee Plunge downwards was always going to rebound back but in a much smaller space than when it came down and no rise as far when all is considered. Frydenberg is simply using bullshit stats as truth by eliminating the history and the changed context in which events have occurred. Besides what did Josh Frydenberg do to make his “good news event” even happen?
The Australian economy at the end of 2021 rebounded for one reason alone – people coming out of lockdowns in the late winter and spring period spent their money. But ironically this massive surge of growth from households comes at a time when workers are receiving a smaller share of the economy than ever before.
The challenge of professing to be a religious politician professing adherence to the Judeo-Christian faith, their responsibilities are clear. They must always tell the truth, serve the poor first and foremost, redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, welcome migrants and refugees, prosecute those who engage in corruption and refrain from self-aggrandizing attention-seeking. If ministers live by these teachings, there will be no question about the validity of their religious faith.
At a broader level, a functional democracy depends on common appreciation of basic facts. Yes, we can debate how to respond to climate change, but the genuine debate is only possible if we first accept the evidence that the climate is changing. If truth is seen as unattainable, anything goes. And if politicians ultimately do and say whatever they want, why bother engaging with politics at all?
As we have also seen recently, in times of crisis, mutual trust between government and the public produces greater compliance and better outcomes for everyone. Lies poison this trust. From this perspective, then, we should not accept lying politicians, and the media is well advised to hold our elected representatives to account. And if our Australian study is anything to go by, how our politicians deal with truth may end up affecting voters at the ballot box in May.
Corporate media’s reward and business model investment paycheck is about to arrive. The three-year investment in the quid pro quo arrangement with the L-NP is paying off. The No News, or Marshall McCluhan’s cool news business profit tap has been turned on, and the ABC has been crushed as insurance that real or hot news doesn’t get out.
Government advertising has skyrocketed to an all-time high of $685 million. With the looming election campaign, which promises to be the biggest political spend in Australian history, and a gigantic war chest for pork-barrelling, is it any wonder the corporate media barracks for the Coalition? Callum Foote and Michael West investigate.
The Liberal Party claims its ethos is “free thinking” individuals. It’s reality is to create and action Institutional systems to produce the opposite. Single-minded thought is a priority and Education is their training ground. Education to teach individuals to think freely is in no way on their agenda and resistense begins in primary schools. Training not learning the emphasis and a strict control of history the planned method. History turned into myth and learned as truth. Hitler, it must be reminded, had exactly the same program in mind.
Everyone has an opinion about what should go into history curriculum. Politicians are especially good at expressing theirs. The acting federal education minister, Stuart Robert, has announced a delay in approving the revised Australian Curriculum until at least April. This means the ongoing debate about Australian history in the curriculum is likely to be dragged out to the eve of the next federal election. History curriculum is political but should not be used as a political plaything at election time. The federal government and Western Australian government are concerned that the revised history curriculum is “very busy”. Robert said Western civilisation “is well and truly back in the curriculum, but it remains quite cluttered”.
Source: The national history curriculum should not be used and abused as an election issue
NO MORE MONEY BUSINESS Reveal who donates more than a grand to your campaign — that’s the challenge from Victorian MP Helen Haines, The Age reports, as the fallout over donations from coal millionaire John Kinghorn to independent MP Zali Steggall continues. Haines says she’ll list every donation above $1000 on her website each quarter, and anything above the official threshold of $14,500 within just five days (!), demanding all sides of Parliament do likewise. At the moment donations are revealed eight months after the end of the financial year.
While the streets are running amok with a right-brigade protest no Left or “Commies ” are in sight. Morrison is dredging up the old LNP political cherry that the Reds are coming to get us. It goes to show just how desperate and a ridiculous political thinkers they are. Nobody is buying that Scamo is the nice daggy dad from Cronulla anymore. Promotional photos no longer cut it and have made him look the poor mad man he is.
Buying subs and tanks go to show the LNP is keeping the Industrial Military complex happy along with mining because while yelling “China is coming” they selling coal to them. Morrisson has wanted to go down this fear-mongering path since 2005 and the Cronulla riots. Fixating on the Lebanese, who happened to be Christians, was his desired political tactic and not Reds under beds. Abbott did it with the Russians and ignored the Chinese. Morrison and Dutton have decided on the Chinese and they are going to save us with 121 new tanks and AUKUS. Have those tanks even been delivered? Has AUKUS been deployed? They have our biggest and best naval vessel break down in Tonga and it has taken a week to deploy 129 ADF of 1700 promised to aged-care.
There is currently only one political party stable, rational, steady and democratic enough to be employed to to govern and “It’s Time Again”
Not since Robert Menzies used his “reds under the bed” anti-communist campaign in the 1950s has an Australian Prime Minister been so determined to paint an Opposition Leader as a quisling for a perceived enemy. It is now clear that is precisely what Scott Morrison and his colleagues, floundering in the polls, are up to as the federal election draws near.
Source: Scott Morrison supercharges his ‘reds under the bed’ election scare campaign
China isn’t gods gift to gas which isn’t as clean as the LNP make out.
“They have one view for investors, and then another view when they want to ask the government for money. They talk completely different messages out of both sides of their mouths, constantly. It’s incredible. And somehow still seem to convince everyone of the narrative for how useful gas is.”
Source: Ex-Woodside insider rejects gas industry’s ‘clean fuel’, ‘net zero’ claims
Morrison’s Miracle Maker: Scotty’s God is back to tip Democracy on its head again and Scott is bringing politics to church. However not like the Latin American church once brought Religion to politics.
In 2019 a billionaire spent $83.6 million to influence a federal election. Why in 2022 is our democracy still for sale? States and territories have introduced caps on political donations and campaign expenditure to prevent such tilting of the electoral playing field. But Clive Palmer is doing it again and the federal government has done nothing to prevent it.
So for several decades, the bureau has supplemented the official unemployment figures by also publishing the number of people underemployed – those part-timers who’d prefer working work more hours. The latest figures show an unemployment rate of 4.2 per cent, plus an underemployment rate of 6.6 per cent. Thus it is true the official unemployment rate of 4.2 per cent isn’t as good as it looks. It does understate the proportion of people who aren’t able to find as much work as they want.
Source: Can we believe the great news on unemployment? Yes and no
A capitalist economy wouldn’t work as well as it does were entrepreneurs not always trying new ways to increase their profits. The trouble is that not all the ways they try are of benefit to the rest of us, not just themselves and their shareholders. In such cases, governments should not shirk their responsibility to act in the interests of the many not the few. Nor should we fear that, unless we give businesses free rein in their pursuit of higher profits, our business people will lose all interest in running businesses.
Source: Long way to go before the Australian economy is more equal
All of a sudden there are other priorities rather than saving Australian lives and livelihoods. There’s not enough money for free rapid antigen tests for everyone but there’s a stash of $16 billion to buy votes ahead of the election. We got a couple of installments at the weekend. There are one billion dollars for the Great Barrier Reef and $50 million to save koalas, both programs announced in North Queensland by the Prime Minister on the deadliest days of the Omicron wave. Despite assertions, Omicron is less severe, it has a four-times higher death rate than the original Delta outbreak. Four hundred elderly Australians in aged care died in January alone, more than the 300 over the entire 12 months of 2021. Experts are warning with the return to school we are sure to see another surge in infections, which can only prolong supply chain disruptions and staffing shortages. And yet calls from doctors, businesses and the opposition for free rapid antigen tests for everyone as a surveillance check on the spread of the virus continue to be rejected.
Source: Paul Bongiorno: Coalition offers a sick excuse for pandemic inaction
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
We once had a time when Politics was “hot” and we were eager informed and engaged. Then along came the Howard LNP who have sold work, the ” public service”, and gave them to the free market. Morrison has done everything to turned politics into a state of ” media cool” or “don’t worry be happy”. Hi Viz photo shoots, “on the water matters” the “cone of silence” better known as the Canberra bubble all real attempts to dampen our engagement in politics. But he’s done the opposite and once again politics has become “hot” When Morrison says he “keeps us safe” we experience and feel the opposite. The problem with all of this is his media illusion is in tatters and we can all see the machinery behind it and it’s not working. Scott Morrison has done that alone in one term of being PM and that’s his miracle.
To be precise, what we have today is a government that is at war with its citizens by other means. It’s a very real struggle. We cannot rely on traditional allies like the Fourth Estate. So, prepare yourself and the best preparation is knowledge. Ask questions and demand answers. It’s a life and death struggle for a form of democracy that truly represents us.
Source: Australia: a failing state in a hurry to fail – » The Australian Independent Media Network
So, if technology is not a problem, why are so many people feeling lost? On the material side, we could argue that we have never had it better. Especially if you compare this with our grandparents and the generations before them. In my opinion, the problem is emotional and not physical. Physically, we are better off but mentally, we seem to have problems with the way society functions. The complexity of our lives and our world is simply too big to fathom for most people in the Western world. I think the rest of the world is still too busy with the “physical” side. The mental problem – at least at this level – is mainly a Western problem. This lack of mental strength is also very clear in our leadership — they also don’t seem to be able to lead the people in a better direction. Instead, they are constantly reverting to political polarisation and populism. This adds to the confusion and anxiousness, people feel lost and become easy targets for fake news, conspiracies and so on.
Source: Technology isn’t ruining lives, that’s the Government’s job
Perpetuation of the myth that White settlers are the superior people of Western nations is inspiring racism and right-wing extremism, writes Bilal Cleland.
The Republicans demand stricter Voting ID and like good camp followers Australia’s LNP suggest the same. Republicans demand stricter education measures Australia’s LNP fight for the same. Morrison is against Lockdowns anti-mandates all Republican Trump decrees Morrison adopts the same plan. It looks like a game of Simon Says. Does the Morrison government have any original policies?
The assault on teachers in this country by Republicans continues as a new bill proposed by Florida State Rep. Bob Rommel would allow cameras in the classroom as well as put microphones on teachers to monitor what they say.
Source: Florida Lawmakers Wants To Put Microphones On Teachers | Crooks and Liars
Australians are getting a stark reminder about how value is actually created in an economy, and how supply chains truly work. Ask chief executives where value comes from and they will credit their own smart decisions that inflate shareholder wealth. Ask logistics experts how supply chains work and they will wax eloquent about ports, terminals and trucks. Politicians, meanwhile, highlight nebulous intangibles like “investor confidence” – enhanced, presumably, by their own steady hands on the tiller. The reality of value-added production and supply is much more human than all of this. It is people who are the driving force behind production, distribution and supply. Labour – human beings getting out of bed and going to work, using their brains and brawn to produce actual goods and services – is the only thing that adds value to the “free gifts” we harvest from nature. It’s the only thing that puts food on supermarket shelves, cares for sick people and teaches our children.
Assange is currently detained for publishing “crimes” he’s said to have committed in the USA when not even there. Simply out the Americans can ask for you or me to be brought to them form our beds. Currently, the world is watching Australia for having released Djokovic for a real crime. One he admits to and he did commit here, in Spain, and in Serbia. So why did Australia agonize over Djokovic and do sweet FA about Assange whose as innocent as an assylum seeker?
It’s time to kick these do nothing assholes out
Julian Assange has now been in the maximum-security facilities of Belmarsh prison for over 1,000 days. On the occasion of his 1,000th day of imprisonment, campaigners, supporters and kindred spirits gathered to show their support, indignation and solidarity at this political detention most foul.
Source: Julian Assange: A Thousand Days in Belmarsh – » The Australian Independent Media Network
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. PS: Contribute to my diary by making a comment. ( John Lord)
A Vote for Palmer’s UAP is a Vote for Morrison and that’s as diseased as Democracy gets. Remind yourself what Morrison did these past 3 years and what he would do with another 3 owing Palmer. Palmer is the bastard who keeps nobody honest when it comes to getting what he wants.
Published opinion polls are barely recording more than 5 per cent for “others”, but several insiders insist Palmer’s UAP is looking at a vote across Victoria, NSW and Queensland of around 8 per cent and as high as 12 per cent across suburban Melbourne and Brisbane. About 17 per cent voters under 40 are considering voting for Palmer, one strategist told this columnist.
Source: Clive Palmer woos a demographic that is disaffected and ‘mad as hell’
Today we discovered that over the past four years the Coalition has spent three times as much on Liberal electorates when compared to Labor-held seats. This proves that we should move house if we want some of our taxes to come back to us, or maybe just vote them out. Which brings us to accountability. No bill has been seen. Morrison blames Labor because he cannot get his own pathetic version of an integrity commission past his own backbenchers. Ask yourself why he won’t legislate a national integrity commission. Ask yourself why he vilifies the NSW ICAC every second day. You know the old saying – if you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. The verdict is that, for me, the Coalition government is the single worst government in living memory, possibly in our history of representative government. From the top to the bottom they shred convention, they outsource our governing functions to multinationals, they have starved our elderly in aged care, they keep the unemployed poverty-stricken, they are fanning the flames of conflict with China, they have destroyed our social fabric, and they run kangaroo courts. There’s not a lot to like.
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.
”Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.” So said Warren Buffett. And the tide has ebbed on the Coalition’s claim to be superior economic managers. Exposed by its bungled response to the pandemic, both in the provision of health protections and economic safety nets, the government has proved Buffett’s aphorism. Alan Austin crunches the numbers.
Source: Eight years in, how do our Coalition economic management gurus measure up? – Michael West Media
Preferences and power of Billionaire Clive’s money are all for the benefit of the LNP and assured and underpinned by a quietly understood transactional Quid pro Quo arrangement.
Members of the anti-vax movement have been showing support for the United Australia Party, two factions that share similar characteristics, writes Tom Tanuki.
But things have devolved rather rapidly of late. And now, the greatest letdown of the “freedom” movement – not to me but to itself, a great letdown of its own potential – is the eagerness with which it has rolled over for one Clive Palmer.
The Freedom Movement have been…
Former Liberal Party minister Pru Goward recently published an opinion piece outlining her views on the “underclass.” Her analysis exemplifies the ignorance, mediocrity, and condescension of Australia’s elite.
Suicide is painless
With all of that in mind, if we at the time would have followed Tony Abbott’s advice to kill the NBN altogether, would that have been better? Was Malcolm Turnbull’s alternative of stripping down the fibre to the home (FttH) plan to the Multi Technology Mix (MTM), with hindsight, indeed the better option?
And the NBN is not the only casualty of this level of politicking. The energy policy, climate change policy, electric vehicle policy — all have been delayed by the Coalition Government for a decade. They are now finally followed by one backflip after the other.
Obviously, this also reflects the voters who preferred a conservative government that would not come up with those “scary” progressive policies. We no longer are trying to reach each other at the middle ground. When I (and others) between 2007 and 2012 tried to build broadband bridges between the Labor Government and, at that time, the Coalition Opposition, there was absolutely no interest from the Liberal Party to do this — not on broadband, not on smart energy, not on e-health and so on.
Now, 10-15 years later, all these policies are suddenly being accepted by the Coalition. What a waste of time having delayed progress on these issues for so long.
Source: Tony Abbott’s NBN plan may have been a better option
Not fit for office
In the public domain, individuals who had known a thing or two about the spiritual and physical torment of rape expressed their puzzlement over Dutton’s response. Higgins, who is seeking redress for her own suffering in this matter, found the minister’s legal response to Bazzi “baffling”. “I’ve been offended plenty.” Despite that, it still afforded “people … the right to engage in public debate and assert their opinion.” The whole case was a “shocking indictment on free speech.”
In finding for Dutton in November, Justice White ruled that the tweet had been defamatory, and that Bazzi could not resort to the defence of honest opinion. With classic, skewering casuistry, the judge found that “Bazzi may have used the word ‘apologist’ without an understanding of the meaning he was, in fact conveying.” If this had been the case, “it would follow that he did not hold the opinion actually conveyed by the words.” Let it be known: if you do no not understand the meaning of certain words, you can have no opinions about them.
Despite his eagerness to seek damages for all grounds, Dutton was only successful on one of the four pleaded imputations. Claims for aggravated damages and an injunction targeting Bazzi’s comments, were rejected. The Defence Minister’s appetite for pursuing Bazzi for his full legal bill also troubled Justice White, who had repeatedly urged the parties to reach a settlement. Why had Dutton not sued in a lower court, he asked? The reason, claimed Dutton’s barrister Hamish Clift this month, was because his client was a prominent figure requiring a prominent stage to protect his prominent reputation. “It would not be appropriate for the court,” retorted White, “to exercise their discretion more favourably to Dutton simply because of the important public and national office of which he holds.”
Source: How to Chill Free Speech: Defamation Down Under – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The unfitness for office of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his coalition government now stands comprehensively exposed. Yet the apparent criminality of Liberal-National cruelty to immigration detainees has somehow remained largely unexposed, unprevented, and unpunished for nearly a decade.
The federal government has “raised the situation” of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s confinement with the UK and US, but has stopped short of calling for the Australian to be released.
The UK court’s decision has drawn ire from the United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, who sharply criticised the verdict.
“This is a shortcoming for the British judiciary,” Mr Melzer told the DPA news agency on Friday.
“You can think what you want about Assange but he is not in a condition to be extradited,” he said, referring to a “politically motivated verdict”.
Source: Australia asks about Assange but won’t call for release
Parliament is in recess and another year has gone without the Morrison government honouring its promise to establish a federal ICAC. It is clearly reluctant to do so at all, while rorts and scandals continue to erode trust in our politicians. The system is broken, and it will take much more than an integrity and corruption commission to fix it. Kim Wingerei reports. A wise person once said: the problem is rarely the problem, it’s failure to deal with the problem that becomes the problem. The problems run deep in Federal Parliament, but they can be addressed.
Source: Back to first principles: a blueprint to revive Australian democracy – Michael West Media
We have seen the IPA’s and Murdoch’s influence when it comes to attacking the ABC. They had Tony Abbott their puppet on a string as far back as 2013 with a list of 75 demands. He promised: “No cuts to the ABC”. a lie that turned into Treasurer Morrison’s claim that $1Bn wasn’t a cut but an efficiency review. or improvement.
Yes, Kennedy wasn’t assassinated either his heart merely stopped. “Alternative Facts” have been finessed by the LNP and Morrison is the major practitioner of the art. Remember when he couldn’t reveal anything of refugees because those questions were “On the Water Matters”?
The Institute of Public Affairs is seeking to harm the ABC’s reputation, while questions linger over its own operations and purpose, writes Anthony Klan. WELL-HEELED secretive lobby group the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), which seeks to influence Australia’s public debate, sway government policy – and is running an aggressive campaign against the nation’s most trusted news outlet – is refusing to say who actually funds it.
If it wasn’t for the feminazis, the ABC lovers, the gays, the Aborigines, the refugees, the ecoterrorists, the inner-city latte sippers, the kids, the aged, the disabled, the homeless, the poor and all those other woke identity politics bleeding heart whingers – this government could get on with the serious business of wealth creation and post-politics employment planning.
Key crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie says she will not vote for the government’s proposed voter ID laws, significantly reducing the chance of them passing.
My thought for the day Good democracies can only deliver good government and outcomes if the electorate demands it and it doesn’t come about by good people disengaging from the process. (John Lord )
Simply take the money out of politics and you’ll get more Democracy. After all, Palmer is wealthy, an Independent whose money shouldn’t be his advantage over your’s or my vote. Surely same applies to the members of the LNP. But with private media waiting for a return on their 3 year investment. Their business model dictates they perform for the money which flows from the top down. The ABC’s charter and reason for being an Independant Statuary Body is to question all forms of power no matter the wealth. Why is it the LNP sees them as their enemy?
There is no place for “Blind Trust” yet Porter exhonerated by the privileges committee and he was declared innocent of any wrong doing. Isn’t a fundamental principle in law that “ignorance is no excuse”, but it seems power is? Despite his ignorance Porter went ahead and used that Blind Trust money. Our prisons are filled with the powerless innocent despite their claims of ignorance.
Arguably, the Gillard Government that relied on the support of the trio of Bob Katter, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor was the most effective government Australia has had in the past 50 years. The reason is simple – to survive the government of the day had to actively listen to the concerns, aspirations and ideas of people ‘outside the ALP tent’. Gillard and current Opposition Leader Albanese (who was Leader of the House) did so, which is to their eternal credit.
Source: Lies, damn lies and economics – » The Australian Independent Media Network
We know what a cunt is but we have to have a Government define “a troll”. America defined Julian Assange as a type of troll and Morrison simply shut up watched and, stayed silent. Morrison wants us to “Shaddup our face” and more, stay silent. But heaven help us if anything happens in China. Then we should all be upfront vocal and yell as if the world is falling apart.
People around the country have reacted to the news by saying absolutely nothing, just in case it costs them $35,000.
Just when you think this government can’t get any more sneaky. In a Human Rights Denied,virtually unnoticed move, the Coalition government has snuck an alarming last-minute amendment into an aged care bill before Parliament that removes the legal and human rights of aged care residents. The amendment removes the civil and criminal protections to which all other Australians are entitled. If a member of the public is restrained without their consent, the perpetrator can be charged. In contrast, an aged care resident who is restrained without their consent will have no legal recourse. Then the government has the gall to try to claim that this amendment relates to a recommendation of the Aged Care Royal Commission, when it is the complete opposite of what the royal commissioners recommended.
Source: Amended dignity: our elders denied their human rights again – Michael West Media
The very notion of ridding us of the ABC was once a “dead cat ” on the table. It too started as a “distraction” just as changing Voter ID laws are suggested to be. However, that “dead cat” has been alive for more than 20 years and in fact, has grown into a feral zombie of a tiger feeding on the ABC. It has reduced our most trusted newscaster’s budget by a billion dollars leaving it with the equivalent of 1984’s to work with. Bragg’s inquiry is not only dominated by the LNP and has only one intent ” to ilegally cripple our the ABC”.
The fate of Senator Andrew Bragg’s inquiry into the way the ABC and SBS handle complaints will be decided in a matter of days, with two independent senators and the Labor Party signalling they would support a motion by the Greens to terminate it. But Dhanya Mani, a campaigner against misconduct towards women, backed the inquiry, saying it would be a better alternative to the ABC’s independent review.
Source: ABC Senate inquiry on knife edge as advocate backs review
Why Morrison and Taylor talk is BULLSHIT
his rebrand was so consistent that ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, Chevron CEO Michael Wirth, Shell Oil President Gretchen Watkins, BP America CEO David Lawler, and American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers all touted their commitment to a “low carbon” or “lower carbon” future in their scripted opening statements. And what are these low carbon solutions? Largely natural gas, which as science has repeatedly shown, is roughly as bad for the climate as coal when methane leaks and total emissions are added to the equation. Natural gas is so problematic that to meet the 1.5 C Paris goal, production will have to decline 3 percent per year to 2030, starting last year.
If there is one lesson to be learned from these executives, it is that their climate pledges depend almost entirely on convincing members of Congress that they are doing something that they are clearly not doing: significantly reducing emissions from their products over the next ten years.
Enter natural gas, the “low tar” cigarette of fossil fuels.
Source: How ‘Low Carbon’ Energy Became the New ‘Low Tar’ Cigarette | The Smirking Chimp
Meanwhile, the LNP is moving forward with their Religious Freedom Bill
Sydney’s Muslims are considering a complaint to ICAC over Premier Dominic Perrottet’s apparent favoritism towards the Catholic Church’s attempted takeover of NSW cemeteries, reports Callum Foote.
Source: Unquiet graves: Muslims add to criticism over the great cemetery takeover – Michael West Media
Lawyers for Attorney-General Michaelia Cash have warned of national security issues if the trial of Bernard Collaery continues in public, writes Dechlan Brennan.
With the coming of the LNP in 2013 the Government budget for Science and Research into anything Climate Science project or Clean energy one was cut. Any ideas for research need not apply. “Go find your funding in the private market place”. The CSIRO came close to being dismantled and climate related shown the door.
Meanwhile PM Tony Abbott tried to install Dr Bjorn Lomborg and his Copenhagen Consensus Center into any Tertiary Institute that would take him with a $4m carrot. The CCC had been kicked out of Denmark and no longer the favoured spruiker of America’s Kings of Coal the Koch Bros because he was too globally recognized as a mere propagandist. The incentives for renewable energy in Australia the world’s best placed nation for clean energy development were abandoned to the private market which today PM Scott Morrison still spruiks as the world’s best practice.
Is it a coincidence that 40,000 University academics lost their jobs and weren’t declared eligible for JobKeeper? That Education is one of the most casualised job sectors in Australia and that we have become the laggards of scientific R&D in the OECD? No, because that appears to be the LNP’s vision of a ” great do nothing government”. Yet has 100 coal projects ready to be funded along with gas and oil on it’s books moving forward. In fact SANTOS was the primo government supported attraction in the Australian pavillion at COP26. All in all Morrison made Australia look like Philip Morris which is claiming it intends to UNSMOKE the world with “more tobacco”. Australia’s Fossil Fuel Industry Santos etal claim they intend to DECARBONISE it by selling “more gas” aided by the LNP.
Federal support for developing a green fuel export industry is growing slowly. However, industry and financial consortia have been investing rapidly in green technologies and plants.
Source: How can Australia get cracking on emissions? The know-how we need is in our universities
olddogthoughts 
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