Why on earth would any ALP leader give Costello or Murdoch their plans to distort. It’s time Australia turned their backs on them rather than accepting them as a “normal” part of our media landscape.
Note the most significant uplifting thing today was South Australia leaders in providing the First Nations people with a Voice to the SA parliament. Do we hear either the Murdoch or Costello organizations celebrating the ” uniting event”?
Labor has united the country while the LNP has done everything to divide it for the duration of this century.
Andrews leaves for the four-day tour on Monday afternoon, which will make the first leader of an Australian government to visit China since the beginning of the pandemic. The plan to visit was first reported by The Age on Saturday.
LNP Vic divided by the extreme Right wants to jump Left on one leg
The Age last year revealed the Victorian Liberal Party’s powerful administrative committee voted for Deeming to run in the federal seat of Gorton at the 2022 election, but was deemed too risky by Scott Morrison’s office to run as part of his team.
Victoria’s major parties are set to release the costings for their election promises two days out from polling day.
So far Labor has made $12 billion worth of commitments while the Liberal and Nationals have pledged $28b, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office.
The Victorian Greens announced $37b worth of promises over the campaign.
Now, this would be a win, Matthew Guy. It hardly seems a swing away from the ALP to the LNP
Across Melbourne, the Victorian Socialists have knocked on over 180,000 doors and signed up hundreds of volunteers. Their campaign has set its sights on two upper house seats in the coming state election.
Victoria’s Labor Government jacked up its targets for clean energy and emissions reduction, setting the State on course to reach a 95% share of renewables on its electricity grid by 2035 and a 75-80% reduction in emissions by that date.
Victoria’s claim to fame in disasters is that it’s the most bushfire-prone region in the world (followed by California and Greece).
Fire risk also comes from climate. Victoria’s temperate climate means dry summers and less rain than its northern counterparts – around 520 millimetres of rain a year falls on average in Melbourne, compared to 1175mm a year in Sydney and 1149mm in Brisbane. Up north, rain tends to fall intensely, whereas Victoria’s rain tends to fall more as drizzle.
What’s different this time? September was wetter and colder than usual in Victoria, which meant the ground was already saturated in many areas. Colder weather means less water evaporates. Together, that made the state primed for floods.
For a flood to happen, you need a high rate of run-off, where rain hits saturated soils and flows overland rather than sinking in, as well as intense rains in a short period.
Rain has fallen across almost all of Australia’s mainland in the last two weeks. Our rain events are usually regional – not national like this.
The Victorian Liberal Party’s in-house lawyer has resigned, sending a damning email saying she could no longer work with the party’s campaign leadership team, who she accused of ignoring her legal advice that some of their decisions may have broken the law.
The parties of the right in Australia are changing faster than their voters might recognise. It is increasingly the case that a vote for the “conservatives” is a vote for the radical or religious right.
“Let’s make Victoria like Arizona” after that US state made the medical procedure illegal. The implication can only be that this group aims ultimately to plant the most extreme Christian Nationalist abortion bans from American states in Australia’s civil soil.
Unions are infiltrating the LNP and they aren’tLabor Unions . They are fundamentalist church groups recruited and welcomed by John Howard and are now an infestation. A threat to Democracy’s separation of powers and the notion of the Australian and Victorian Liberal Party being a broad secular party welcome to all. Traditional Liberals are abandoning the ship. Remember what the DLP did to the Labor Party in the 50s. Fundamentalists are doing it to the Liberal Party in the 2000s and they are stacking the branches..
long-serving Liberal Party member said she knew of 15 other members who had departed from the party in Victoria’s east in response to growing “infiltration” by church groups.
She resigned from the party last month after 30 years and said she sent an email to the party headquarters alleging that it was due to branch stacking by religious groups in eastern Victoria.
Instead of preparing for a state election in just over 100 days, and impressing on the voters their readiness to govern, Liberals are scouring their own ranks for the source of a catastrophic leak while also fighting off an insurgency from religious extremists who threaten to convert the Liberal Party to the Illiberal Party.
On Tuesday afternoon, O’Brien tweeted: “Sick of dodgy politics? So am I. It’s why I’ll fight for more power and more funding for our anti-corruption watchdogs.
”Coalition MPs expressed nervousness about the potential political damage that could be caused by the episode. In particular, they were worried that Guy was susceptible to attacks on political integrity because of the “lobster with a mobster” dinner, where he dined with an alleged mafia boss, and scandals as a planning minister in the Baillieu-Napthine government.
Federal Liberals were also worried if Guy could withstand any further revelations about his involvement in the proposed arrangement with Catlin.
According to the The Age. Matthew Guy’s judgement has fallen short when chosing his staff.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy’s chief of staff asked a wealthy Liberal Party donor to make more than $100,000 in payments to his private marketing business, in addition to his taxpayer-funded salary.
Victoria has dethroned Tasmania as Australia’s best-performing state or territory, with its economy leading the nation for the first time since April 2020.
Matthew Guy really doesn’t have the Community Support
The wave of “teal” independents that dislodged a swathe of “moderate” Liberal MPs in Saturday’s federal election is expected to seep into upcoming state elections in Victoria and New South Wales.
Poor Matthew Guy he wants to control his members not lead them so instead he forced Quin to jump overboard.
Guy can’t even get his facts right and Robert Redlich IBAC’s head has to explain them. Guy suggested private conversations in-camera held with Dan Andrews are evidence of his guilt of corruption. Redlich publicly embarrassed Guy on his total lack of knowledge of what IBAC was actually doing. Private hearings are for those IBAC feels there is little or no evidence of corruption. the very reverse of what Guy is saying.
But wait isn’t Matthew Guy the LNP Minister for Planning who was actually caught in the act of corruption? Didn’t he illegally help a mate in Ventor on Philip Island with a $2M property problem and got busted? Wasn’t he the Mathew GUY caught wining and dining on a freebie lobster lunch with a renowned Mafia boss? Matthew Guy more than anyone should know what real corruption is behind closed doors while talking to IBAC in private isn’t
IBAC tends to hold public hearings only if it has strong evidence of alleged wrongdoing. When questioning witnesses in public, the commission must be satisfied there are reasonable grounds to conclude the witness has acted corruptly, or that it is in the public interest to examine the witness publicly and that no unreasonable damage will be done to their reputation.
Once upon a time Victoria was a byword for conservatism. Then it raised a Cain. Before you could say wine bars and Sunday trading, the state was skipping past the rest of the nation. And no matter how the nation votes, it is likely to remain a fortress for the anti-conservative forces this year. Mark Sawyer looks at political trends in the People’s Republic of Below Murray.
Matthew Guy is desperately trying to whitewash and rehabilitate a past that never happened. His teacher Scott Morrison who has been doing it for years. A one time leader of a political party who crashed like Tim Smith drunk on entitlement who not only believed he was born to rule but represented a small minority of like-minded Victorians who believed they were the only ones entitled to profit. Matthew Guy’s record speaks to his belief in that entitlement. However all his current advertising can’t hide his CV and personal history of scandals.
Returning Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy carries significant baggage into his contest for government with Premier Daniel Andrews. In his time as planning minister in the Baillieu/Napthine governments between 2010 and 2014, and later in his role as party leader, he was caught up in a string of controversies involving Liberal Party figures, donors or donations.
Little Matthew Guy has a Liberal vision of turning Victoria into an Australian China, Vietnam or Cambodia just as Morrison is. Filling our region with an imported and casualized workforce in “factories”. Meanwhile, 2021 owners of such organizations are dreaming of becoming automated in order to shrink human labor costs. It seems Little Matthew Guy still has a 20th-century vision returning to factories like those that used to make shoes and clothes for our military but with imported labor which fits with Morrison’s scheme of an easily manipulated, exploited casualized and an imported workforce. A workforce to keep the cost of labor down to less than automated. Currently the LNP are doing just that with a Pacific nations workforce.
We used to call it “blackbirding” cheapening labor costs. Doesn’t Guy realize China has an extremely highly-skilled workforce building the most advanced equipment the world has ever seen? Is he actually suggesting his incentives be directed to the renewable energy sector? The sector Morrison has put the brakes on. If he is he sounds very Dan Andrews to me. Albo is incentivising retraining by making TAFEs free. Neither are dreaming of factories filled with the sweat of human labor.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy wants to reclaim Victoria’s historic position as the manufacturing engine room of Australia with a $2.5 billion fund he says will create thousands of jobs.
The US government’s chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci warned on Sunday that time was running short to prevent a “dangerous” new surge of Covid-19 infections from overwhelming the upcoming holiday season. Coronavirus cases across the US are rising again for the first time in weeks, and approaching 100,000 per day. Experts fear that this week’s Thanksgiving holiday, for which tens of millions of Americans will travel for indoor celebrations with family and friends, will fuel a further surge.
Why 60% Vic supports Dan.. He does what he says and it’s for the benefit of the “common good”
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced a widespread easing of virus rules from midnight Thursday, declaring “no more caps, no more closures” in the state. It came with Victoria poised to tick over 90 per cent of over-12s fully vaccinated on Saturday or Sunday.
While Dan looks past the horizon Melbourne activists stare at the navels yelling “fuck you. me not we” at their neighbours
Austria is taking a stand against people who have not been protected against the coronavirus, announcing unvaccinated people must lockdown. About two million people are expected to be forced to stay home from Monday amid record infection levels and growing pressure on hospitals. “We are not taking this step lightly but it is necessary,” Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said.
This was part and parcel of Morrison’s National Quarantine Plan which he financed to be placed with the cooperation of Dan Andrews. Now Josh Frydenberg seems to be saying Victoria is the uncooperative outlier. How incompetent are these clowns as leaders and negotiators.?
Morrison capitulates to the Queens demands and Frydenberg declares it’s proof of Australia’s goodwill in cooperating at COP26. If the media doesn’t criticize this bullshit we are expected to believe it’s true when it’s patently not what happened. Did Frydenberg bullshit his way through Harvard too?
Victoria’s purpose-built $200 million quarantine facility still has a role to play in the pandemic, experts say, however it won’t be as crucial as anticipated due to high case numbers and vaccination rates.The Mickleham “centre for national resilience” for incoming travellers won’t be ready until the end of the year, however there is a risk it may become a white elephant if Victoria relaxes quarantine rules.NSW’s move to effectively end quarantine for most travellers by opening international borders to those who are vaccinated from November 1 has raised questions over the purpose of the facility being built in Melbourne’s north.
P.S, Speaking of freedom, Clive Palmer has put out this statement: “Our position is clear and simple – Every Australian should have the right to choose what they put into their body.” Does this mean he’s supporting the legalisation of drugs?
Written in 2018 prior to Guy losing 11 seats at the Victorian State Election and resigning from his leadership, this story will leave you wondering if he’s really the best Guy for the job.
It’s a convenient falsehood that Victoria could have avoided a lockdown if it weren’t for the mistakes of other jurisdictions. Again we are told to believe that this was a crisis inflicted on Victoria, not inflamed or aggravated by it.
The lockdown purpose isn’t to stop the virus but its “spread”. The spread can’t be stopped without effective vaccinations and quarantine. Morrison failed on both counts and continues to do so. However, this Ch9 writer says Victoria has to share the blame. Vaccination reduced the spread in the UK from 60k a day to 2000 similar massive reductions have been seen in the US. Yet Smethhurst says Vic should “share the blame”. Morrison’s 2% vaccination success certainly doesn’t cut it yet Hunt and Morrison keep chest banging. They refuse sole responsibility for quarantine on our borders because if they make a mistake they then can’t “avoid the blame”. Politics is their priority for Morrison is the first to deny any blame and first to share the state’s success. The virus well it’s a political opportunity as long as he can seem to be doing something while doing nothing and control the narrative with Ch9’s help.
Victoria is entering yet another lockdown, but Victorians shouldn’t be blaming contact tracers or the State Government, they should be blaming Scott Morrison for his inaction on purpose-built quarantine facilities, writes Hayden O’Connor.
Victoria has powered its electricity grid with 50 per cent renewable energy for the first time, well ahead of state government projections for the transition to clean energy.
The decision comes as a flood of new renewable energy has been driving down daytime power prices and piling enormous pressure on Australia’s fleet of ageing coal-fired power plants, which are far more expensive to operate and, increasingly, struggling to compete.
The hysteria over the Victorian government’s MoU with China’s Belt and Road Initiative shows a disturbing lack of understanding of the project by media commentators, academics and some MPs, writes Colin Heseltine.
“This isn’t going to solve the problem of insecure work overnight, but someone has to put their hand up and say we’re going to take this out of the ‘too hard’ basket and do something about it – and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.
Victoria’s lockdown has provoked a self-styled rebellion that postures as defending freedom against the state premier, “Dictator” Dan Andrews. But once you scratch the plebian surface, the “movement” is led by right-wing activists and funded by Liberal Party money.
Perhaps though, what has annoyed the lynch mob most is that Andrews’ strategy for controlling the spread of COVID-19 in Victoria has worked. The number of cases has been falling steadily. This past weekend, record low figures were achieved. As a result, restrictions have been eased, as promised, with more to come next weekend. Whatever he does though, it will never be right, never enough for his detractors. The painful reality for the lynch mob though is that Andrews has stared them down, and they don’t like it. This daily inquisition is demeaning, unnecessary, unbecoming, and a pox on our politics. It must now stop.
We have learned a lot from the judicial inquiry into hotel quarantine in Victoria, and the lessons should not be obscured by the fact that the failures were systemic and cultural, rather than the result of people acting corruptly or in bad faith.
Murmours of Andrews being a model of what a PM should look like has set Morrison and Frydenberg off against not just Andrews but Victoria blaming the State for everything they haven’t done. (ODT)
They need him to succeed on their behalf. The Prime Minister might find that destabilising the state government during a recession and a pandemic might not please as many Victorians as he thinks.
Frydenberg has stepped in front and center to try to deflect all the blame onto Victoria after all if The Commonwealth is found to be responsible for the outbreak of Covid in aged-care due to poorly regulated providers then they too are to blame for the crippling of the economy and not as Frydenberg would prefer it to be Andrews work. It seems Andrews doesn’t even need to buy into what’s patently obvious. (ODT)
Morrison has accepted some accountability for what’s happened, but he’s also kept Andrews squarely in the frame as I mentioned a moment ago. I’ve said before it is reasonable to point out that states have a role in managing outbreaks during the pandemic, and there are some overlapping responsibilities in aged care – but this offensive should also be called for what it is: a patent prime ministerial effort to sidestep blame. The prime ministerial sidestep is obviously effective, though, if our Guardian Essential poll is a reliable guide. When asked in the latest survey to identify who was to blame for the outbreaks in aged care during the pandemic, slightly more respondents identified the state government (30%) than the federal government (28%) – but more people blamed the providers (42%).
It wasn’t so long ago Morrison was warding off Australia’s crisis with the success of Victoria’s Economy he didn’t emphasize that then. Now they are ready to blame Australia’s Economy on Victoria. (LNP
But while we are living as two Australias, we are one country. That means the huge whack the virus is inflicting on Victoria is dragging down the rest of the nation, holding back recovery.
The dire turn of events is affecting political leaders’ responses. Risk averse premiers are running their states as gated communities.
Morrison maintains a level of public solidarity with Andrews but the PM may find himself under mounting pressure from those within his party and its base who want the economy given a much higher priority.
The trouble is The LNP aren’t about to kick up a shitstorm about that (ODT)
The Labor Party in Australia speaks a progressive language on climate change that it rarely enacts in policy. Now, under cover of the health crisis, the Victorian branch is expanding deforestation projects and onshore gas exploration.
Anyone feel there’s a concerted effort to “Get Andrews” maybe because he’s doing a real job. (ODT)
The Wage Theft Bill, was viewed as a cornerstone promise in Premier Daniel Andrews’s state re-election campaign in 2018. It now sees guilty parties – such as business owners, managers, shopkeepers and accountants, or anyone connected to a business enterprise – who deliberately withhold award wages and related entitlements established under the Fair Work Act (2009) from their workers risk prison sentences up to ten years and face fines upwards of $198,264 for individuals and $991,320 for companies.
Victoria has signed a fresh deal with the Chinese government and its global ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure project with Premier Daniel Andrew urging other Australian governments to follow suit.
The agreement, signed in Beijing on Wednesday evening, will deepen cooperation between the state and the Communist-ruled country in the key areas of infrastructure, innovation, ageing and trade development.
Wednesday’s deal was signed only a few hours after federal Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton questioned whether the Premier’s trade efforts in China were in the “national interest”.
olddogthoughts 