Barely a word has been spoken by his Coalition colleagues against former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s secret ministerial power grab, writes Dr Jennifer Wilson.
Donald Trump’s recent open embrace of the QAnon conspiracy cult that deifies him has predictably metastasized into full-on identification. This became clear at his Sept. 17 rally in Youngstown, Ohio, where QAnon fans in the audience raised their fingers in a coded salute while Q-derived theme music played over the loudspeakers. Over the past couple of weeks on his Truth Social chat platform, he has repeatedly posted and reposted Q-derived memes and hashtags, including ominous suggestions of future Jan. 6-style insurrectionist violence.
It is only fitting that, as well as senior bureaucrats who administered the scheme, the Royal Commission into the Robodebt disaster will likely call forth Scott Morrison, Alan Tudge, Stuart Robert, Christian Porter and Michael Keenan.
It is fitting because all of these men – two of whom still occupy parliamentary positions – oversaw the portfolio responsible for Robodebt. Each of them added to the pain and suffering of so many of Australia’s most vulnerable. And some of these men even added further muscle to an already drunk-with-power debt recovery scheme, wilfully creating deliberate fear among the populace and inciting hatred for the victims.
With the ABC neutered these past decade and Murdoch media, Ch9 and other mainstream organizations tied to the Government and it’s donors for financial gain political media in this country holds any oppositions to account rather than the Government. Democracy is no longer being served and an autocracy is encouraged to flourish. Grass roots politics brought an end to the slippery slide and has temporarily allowed the nation to catch its breathe.
Revelations about Scott Morrison’s power-grab of five secret ministries raise serious questions about the health of Australian media and in turn, the media’s commitment to contribute to a strong democracy.
The core function of political media is to hold power to account. The fact that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison was able to secretly sign himself in as co-minister in the portfolios of health, finance, resources, treasury and home affairs, in collusion with the Governor-General, speaks volumes of journalists’ unwillingness to scrutinise the powerful.
One of the more bizarre things Scott Morrison said in his hour-long, sometimes combative, Wednesday news conference was that he’d had a “wonderful” conversation with Josh Frydenberg on Tuesday.
Morrison contacted Frydenberg after the revelation the former prime minister had himself sworn into the treasury portfolio in May last year and never told the treasurer. On the same day he’d inserted himself in the home affairs ministry, unbeknown to occupant Karen Andrews.
When she learned this week of his action, Andrews exploded and called for Morrison to leave parliament. Frydenberg, now in the investment banking world although retaining a hankering for politics, acted with more restraint.
But for the ex-treasurer and ex-member for Kooyong, the affair must raise the “what if” question.
What if the story of Morrison’s extraordinary power-grab had come out a few months before the election?
How is it men like Trump and Scott Morrison are their own worst enemies when it comes to trying to justify their mistakes. Trump promises to pay his legal counsel but only does if they win. Morrison doesn’t trust anyone to be his lawyer and thinks he’s the best defense he has.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has many incredibly serious concerns in the unique, complex, high-wire situation in which he finds himself. The former president’s ability to personally articulate a meaningful defense to well-founded charges the attorney general is considering should not be one of them. Simply put, Donald Trump would end up being a very powerful witness against himself, if he decided to testify at all. The people in the best position to know, Trump’s own defense team, have certainly come to that conclusion
Recent revelations that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison secretly swore himself in as a co-minister in three portfolios may explain why he stood so firmly in the way of a Federal ICAC.
‘Nothing about the last government was real, PM saysPrime Minister Anthony Albanese says there is an ‘absolute need’ for clear transparency.”This isn’t some local footy club,” Mr Albanese says.”This is a government of Australia where the people of Australia were kept in the dark as to what the ministerial arrangements were.””It’s completely unacceptable.”
Let’s hope that it is decades before our secular nation is taken over by the appalling sanctimonious religious hypocrites, alpha male misogynists and corrupt self-serving elitists who seem to be holding sway within the LNP! Australia has a long, proud history of keeping religion out of politics – let’s keep it that way by never voting LNP again.
Note: Thankyou to Dr Binoy Kampmark for the term “visionless plodder.”
Rugby League Rorts: how Scott Morrison funnelled millions from Commonwealth grant programs into Rugby League
Brisbane Broncos.
One grant contributed $21.3m of the $23.7m. Initially the “Beyond the Broncos Girls Academy” received $8.8m for a 27-month period, a small variation decreased the amount by $200,000 after 11 months.
A second variation then added $13m and extending the contract by 24 months. The initial grant and variations were not allocated by a tender process, instead they were direct non-competitive grants.
The 1936 S23(i) Tax Act making sporting clubs tax exempt still apply to the Brisbane Broncos (Income from non-members are taxable)
Brisbane Broncos is a publicly listed company
News Corp owns 69% of the Brisbane Broncos.
News Corp owns the broadcast rights for NRL
News Corp is foreign-owned and often pays low or no taxes here.
Every Picture tells the story Barnaby believes it Morrison doesn’t.
Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce, at the time the Coalition lost the May election, were the most unpopular party leaders since the Australian Election Study began in 1987.
Despite what the mainstream press might have you believe, Scott Morrison has no one but himself to blame for his election loss, writes Dr Victoria Fielding.
Morrison puts on a white coat and says ” I’m like you dentist you don’t have to like me” He’s nothing like my dentist. I like my dentist. He’s just a moron in a white coat pretending to be her. If I didn’t like my dentist I’d change dentists. If she pulled the wrong teeth I’d sue her for malpractice.
Morrison is just the idiot in the sandpit spoiling my kid’s day, my day, in fact, everybody’s day pretending to be something he’s not and needs to be removed.
Despite the move, senior Liberal Party strategists apparently warned against the stunt, saying Scott Morrison acting as a Prime Minister would not be believable to voters.
The verdict is that, for me, the current 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. They have devalued our Australian identity by flouting international standards of behaviour, and by trying to be the Trumpian nightmare of the Pacific. There’s not a lot to like.
Inspired by the Brian Houston’s leadership approach to Hillsong no doubt. He will be pushed to leave but 60% of the numbers are now required to force him out. Who will be their leader if Josh isn’t kept Peter Dutton ?
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to say if he will stand down if he loses Saturday’s election after spending the day defending a controversial housing plan the day after launching it.
They are all about to benefit from stage 3 tax cuts the rest of will be left to watch.
It was pointed out, too, that politicians’ salaries have not suffered from the near-decade of wage stagnation that has afflicted the rest of us. Their pay has gone up 30 per cent over the past 10 years. The annual base rate for a backbencher is now $211,250 (ministers and shadows get more), and the prime minister’s salary is $550,000.
Morrison, his media backers and the business lobby were horrified at the thought that the wages of the poorest workers should meet inflation – which is to say, workers should not take a pay cut.
“Morrison supports decline in living standards” should have been the headline
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has repeatedly shown a lack of commitment to ensuring respect, safety and equity for all women in the workplace.
It’s shown in large ways and small: “We both respect females in the workplace …” Morrison said at a forum – not only a jarring reference to “females in the workforce”, as if working women are some form of rare species, but also creating another falsehood by wrongly co-opting Albanese, who, based on my experience and that of countless others who have either met or worked with both men, is a decent and respectful man.
I‘d never met Gillard, so I lined up in the queue after the unveiling.
The cameras were clicking furiously, and I knew the microphones would be on. So, when it came my turn, I whispered quietly so that only she could hear, and thanked her for ‘everything she had done for women’.
Obviously aware it had been a stressful time for me, she warmly whispered back while we were still shaking hands, “you know how to get my number – if you want a confidential chat”.
Despite the difference in our political status – and our politics – I saw it as a shared connection of mutual respect. And it was such a warm and embracing gesture – one which I shall never forget – from a former prime minister for whom I shall have enduring respect.
We are all, on average, about 3% poorer every year under the Morrison Government. Founder and publisher Dave Donovan debunks the “Coalition are better economic managers” theory.
“Just remember that. It was Labor in government who stationed the US marines in Darwin, and it was Scott Morrison that flogged off the port to the Chinese.” – Shadow Defence Minister Brendan O’Connor lands a heavy blow in his debate with Defence Minister Peter Dutton.
It’s not the lack of experience Scott it’s the lack of competence that’s the yardstick. After 25 years Albanese has shown he’s not lacking and in the same period that can’t be said of your history.
The Coalition and some media are arguing that Albanese’s ALP doesn’t have the knowledge, skills or abilities to form a government, an illogical argument as the only way to get direct and recent experience is to do the job. When Morrison started work in the Prime Ministerial office, we didn’t even get a say in his elevation, as the only election he won was one of his political party’s Members of Parliament. At that time, he too had none of the experience in the job that he now claims is mandatory.
Just imagine the 2nd Debate was between Tanya Plibersek and Scott Morrison and you would seen a Misogynistic Neanderthal v Rationality and Steadiness in an event sponsored by, and in Media’s Side Show Alley. “Don’t let me interrupt you Scott”
Conclusion: Sass to The Max The hostility of the media, along with its total hypocrisy (deficits are now an issue again just in time for a Labor government) is hereby exposed. Your role, Mr Albanese and the Labor team, is to no longer take the crap that media dishes out. Scott Morrison has cowered the media through his screeching about bias when confronted with facts he does not like, and they are compliant lapdogs instead of the watchdogs they are meant to be. Now, I am not suggesting that Mr. Albanese manipulate the press as his counterpart has done, but I do want him to say when confronted with some partisan BS question framed in some crap fashion Nice gotcha question there. Does anyone have a serious question they would like to ask? This is not hostile to the media broadly, but it does send the message ‘serious questions only, folks’. It will be necessary for Mr. Albanese to put the media in their place from the start, because if Labor is elected on May 21st, the media will commence Operation Restore Legitimate Government from May 22nd.
Scott Corporal Schultz Morrison also said ” I don’t know anything about that”
Scott Morrison and Senator Anne Ruston, who is the Coalition campaign spokesperson, have both stated the $500,000 that will be paid to Rachelle Miller is a for a separate matter other than the ones that were the subject of the Thom Inquiry which means it has to be for the alleged sexual harassment / sexual assault by federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
Stuart Robert has said he does not know where the education minister Alan Tudge is, and bizarrely claimed to have been doing Tudge’s job for “almost 12 months”.
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.
Gillard outperformed Abbott and Morrison when it came to bills passed by both houses. She topped the list when one considers the daily rate with which Acts were passed. Morrison and Abbott captains of Nope lagging considerably behind
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, and his treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, have both said voting for independent candidates in the federal election could lead to the “chaos” of a hung parliament. Scott Morrison Labor says rate rise highlights PM’s shredded credentials but Morrison insists it’s part of pandemic journey Read more However, a Guardian Australia analysis of legislation passed and not passed under various governments shows the minority government led by Julia Gillard actually had a better success rate in passing legislation than the Morrison government.
Last month Frydenberg warned in a media conference this was not the time to take a chance on “the chaos of a hung parliament”.
Similarly, when asked during an interview on Tuesday whether he would negotiate with independents, Morrison said he would not.
“This is a real question for the people who are voting at this election,” he told 3AW. “Voting for the independents is a vote for chaos.”
It should be noted that both of the above analyses do not count the number of bills lost to failed negotiations prior to the introduction of legislation.
However, in the context of minority governments, or governments that have a minority in the upper house, these indexes may give us an indication of which governments were better and worse in their negotiations with crossbenchers or the opposition.
Two more weeks and they will have lied their way to oblivion.
Fears that the cashless debit card will be implemented for all income recipients across the board, including those on the age pension, appear to originate from the Government’s own information and statements.
Robodebt led to a greater number of deaths and breakdowns than Pink Bats. It was a protracted denial by everyone in the LNP that it was their doing, including Morrison who was the Minister at the time and who will go down in history as the worst Social Services Minister on record. When Albanese was Deputy PM and Minister for Infrastructure unlike Morrison he delivered all his projects on time and at cost.
Labor would launch a royal commission into the Robodebt scheme if it won government to find out who was responsible for implementing the discredited program. The automated matching of tax and Centrelink data to raise debts against welfare recipients, for money the coalition government claimed to have overpaid, was ruled unlawful in 2019. A $1.2 billion settlement between Robodebt victims and the federal government was reached in 2020. But the Morrison government has never detailed who was accountable for the four-year scheme, and which ministers knew about its problems. Scott Morrison was social services minister when the scheme was conceived, but has denied personal responsibility for the disaster.
Frydenberg would have, if he could have, said “They’re doing it tougher in Ukraine therefore we should be grateful for Morrison’s LNP”
‘‘Australians couldn’t give a stuff about inflation in the United States,’’ Labor’s Jim Chalmers told a media conference. ‘’And the UK,’’ he added later. The shadow treasurer was responding to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s attempts to play down the inflation rate (5.1%, the highest in 21 years) by citing higher rates elsewhere. Malcolm Fraser tried similar to Frydenberg in 1983 amid severe recession, running the slogan: ‘‘We’re not waiting for the world’’. It didn’t save the Coalition from a thumping defeat.
Combining findings from more than 2,000 scientific and government studies, a report published Thursday details how hydraulic fracturing has “dire impacts on public health and the climate.”
“Fracking swings a wrecking ball at our climate.” Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY) released the eighth edition of their Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking, a comprehensive examination of the state of the hydraulic fracturing industry and its impacts.
“The scientific evidence reveals conclusively that fracking causes widespread and severe harm to people and the climate,” Sandra Steingraber, CHPNY co-founder and compendium co-author, said in a statement. “For over 10 years, individual studies have demonstrated impacts in multiple areas, including toxic air pollution, water contamination, radioactive releases, earthquakes, methane emissions, and much more,” she added. “The compendium takes stock of all the science together, which shows that continuing and expanding fracking brings with it a grave cost.”
Morrison announces a “Lemming’s Promise” and expects us to follow
A Coalition pledge to keep taxes lower will inevitably lead to either budget blowouts, cuts to services or a broken promise, a leading economist has warned.
It’s a case of the tent preacher leading a ragged bunch of camp followers into town banging his drum promising “miracles” having left disaster behind in his wake. It’s the huckster promising the last 3 years didn’t happen and weren’t his fault that it was the opposition that made him do it. Yes, It’s Morrison the grasshopper leaving our cupboard bare and a bill to pay, and the ant wanting, he, and his team to rebuild it. It’s the hare prancing about like the energizer bunny doing little or nothing while the tortoise has been purposefully moving forward knowing what the race really means It’s not about blind faith or optimism or blind trust but focused rational attention to work changing direction and everyone doing it together for their kids kids.
In a pair of opinion pieces commissioned by The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age four weeks out from polling day on May 21, both men have laid out their visions for Australia’s future – while emphasising the risks presented by their opponents.
My thought for the day Wouldn’t it be good if in our parliament, regardless of ideology, we had politician’s whose first interest was the peoples and not their own. (John Lord )
Once, when I was a government MP under Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership, I was watching him in a TV interview. At the end, the host held a ‘fun pop quiz’ requiring ‘one-word answers only’. What’s the most important quality in a Prime Minister?: Without hesitation came the then-prime minister’s answer. Integrity. I believe him.
The aspiring prime minister Anthony Albanese has said of himself, “what you see is what you get”, and I will treat you with ‘respect and integrity’. And he also says he will implement an Integrity Commission. I believe him.
Aside from MPs on the cross bench and in other parties, I have lost count of the number of current and former Liberals MPs and members – many of whom I know personally – who, in addition to the ones who have ‘gone public’, say that Morrison can’t be trusted, is only interested in power not people, and has no integrity. I believe them.
olddogthoughts 