Tuesday 23rd of April 2024
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Libs/Nats tripping over themselves

I might be wrong and indeed since 1996 I have been bowled over by the stupidity of the Australian public, however it appears that the absence of a strong opposition is leading the Libs/Nats to do most of the opposition's leg work for them. A case in point is the call by Sophie Panopolous to have the muslim women's scarf known as the hjab banned in schools. Having seen "A Current Affair", I saw Bronwyn Bishop giving her support to Panopolous on the grounds of a clash of cultures must lead to the dominant culture prevailing (when did we last hear that! seig heil!)

I have also heard that Malcolm Turnbull is calling for a cut in the tax rate for high income earners - witht he rate comming down toe 30%. There was no mention of the tax rates for low to middle income earners.

I hope that there will be some form of backlash against this and the National Party's sell out on Telstra. I have heard that when the Irish govt decided to privatise telecom eiran shares were hyped up to the point where the shares sold at a record price. However with the arrival of competitors the company was forced to allow access to the physical phone line network. Profits remained steady for a while but steadily dropped. With the drop in profits the company share price dropped and eventually crashed. Shareholders subsequently began demonstrating and demanding compensation for money they lost. Telecom Eiran was then sold to Vodafone for a pitance.

Selling Telstra

There may be a clue to the fate of the Telstra cash in Alan Ramsey's article in SMH on Bill Heffernan,
A drenching, come hell over high water

... Heffernan didn't stop there. "I've got a really good grip on what's going on up there now. I've been to Queensland's Cubbie station [north of Hebel] two or three times over the years. I thought it was time to have another look. So I did, as you do when you want to be sure you're not talking through the back of your arse. I won't bore you with the technical detail, but they've got a 420,000 megalitre storage there. That's 420,000 million litres. So 420,000 megalitres is a [expletive] lot of water. I mean, the Cubbie main storage is 28 kilometres long, mate. Just unreal. So I've gone and had a real good look. Now I'm looking to have a parliamentary inquiry. That's what I told Tuesday's meeting, which resolved to write to the Prime Minister." Heffernan didn't stop there, either. He added, very deliberately: "What happened in Queensland 10 years ago [under the Borbidge Coalition state government] to allow this whole Cubbie thing to develop [for Queensland cotton growers] is, as I keep saying, a f---ing national disgrace. ..."

It will turn out that the Nats will come to understand that nothing is more important to the national interest in the sticks, than water reform. And that's where any spare cash should go. So, will the Tories offer to do battle with the States over water rights, etc? Not on yer life! Not when lucrative offers, affordable at the right price in the right way, are flooding into the PM's office, from mega-corps that have wealth of experience in managing water. Outfits like Macquarie have already earmarked their 10% of the Telstra sale revenue.

Next, a Halliburton tax (sorry, user-pays fees) on sunshine.

Further to my previous posting

I have been hoping I would be able to get more people watching for the faux pas made by Liberal/National politicians at both a federal and state level. I have noticed that Fred Niles festival of light awarded an award to one of the Liberal MLCs implicated in the destruction of John Brogden. In his acceptance speach he launched an attack on the ABC and other media. He the claimed he had no better role model than Reverend Fred. I am of the opinion that this speaks volumes on what is going on in the Liberal party of Australia both federally and in the NSW branch. The pot will often call the kettle black on the issue of branch stacking and other issues but the proof was in the pudding with the election by branch stack of Malcolm Turnbull and the subsequent battle against Peter King AND now the destruction of John Brogden the only Liberal leader to actually contemplate liberal ideas!

Telstra and the IPA

I have heard that there are some people involved in the community telco movement (Bendigo Telco established by the same company that established Bendigo Bank is an example), who have some illusion that the Telstra money will fall their way. I cannot help agreeing with you TG! In fact I suspect that they will be disappointed and possibly stifled should Sol Trujilo get his way - a dominant privatised company in a monopoly in regional Australia. Our only hope for the sale to be forgotten about is for the share price to plunge to new depths (one economics journalist actually believes it will go as low as $2.17 which is the mean price for privatised telcos eg UK + NZ telecom etc.

On what appears to be a mutual interest I was in the National Library of Australia (NLA) and broused the magazine section outside one of the reading rooms. I notice that the IPA and what I would describe as their sister organisation the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) appear to be taking an abnormal interest in attacking intellectuals and organisations from the centre and left side of politics. I note the CIS ran a critical review of Affluenza with a desperate effort made to attack the book with their own figures. And Mike Nahan went to the effort of quoating Garry Johns article on the progress of the "NGO project" in his own to attack NGOs in the same article.