His popularity sliding, his colleagues sniping and his tax plans in confusion, the prime minister has effectively pressed control-alt-delete. On the entire parliament.

 

The reboot is intended to make him look decisive and put the policy debate back under some semblance of government control.

It’s pure Francis Underwood. “If you don’t like how the table is set, turn over the table.” In fact the House of Cards Twitter account approved of the strategy soon after it was announced on Monday.

— House of Cards (@HouseofCards)March 21, 2016

.@TurnbullMalcolm I admire your methodology, Prime Minister. If you don't like how the table is set, turn over the table.

The tactic answers the endless procedural questions about how Turnbull could go to a double dissolution – armed with the new Senate voting laws – a constitutional reboot button that had been sitting there all the while, unnoted because it hasn’t been used for so long.

It forces attention onto how the crossbench responds to the threat, rather than the Coalition’s policy plans still in formulation, filling the time between now and the 3 May budget with a high-stakes Senate standoff and a discussion on the Coalition’s preferred turf and about things Labor would prefer not to talk about. We will be again debating union corruption and the Heydon royal commission rather than the current stream-of-consciousness discussion about the government’s frequently changing taxation plans.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/21/malcolm-turnbull-hits-reboot-after-political-operating-system-starts-crashing

 

Setting his foot down, as if he was Dr Jerk-kill while being Malcolm Hyde... Malcolm smiles a lot while he give you an enema. His tactics have not changed much since entering politics in Wentworth and raining dollars on a useless technology. He still smiles a lot... 

------------------

This from Kangaroo Court: 

 

Before the 2007 election and two weeks after the election was called Malcolm Turnbull announced that the government would spend $11 million funding a trial of rainfall technology. The company in question was Australian Rain Corporation which was then part owned by Matt Handbury. Matt Handbury was one of the donors to Mr Turnbull’s Wentworth Forum.

It says on Mr Turnbull’s Wikipedia profile “During the 2007 election campaign, Turnbull announced that the then Government would contribute $10 million to the investigation of an untried Russian technology that aims to trigger rainfall from the atmosphere, even when there are no clouds. Literature suggests that the technology is based on bogus science. The Australian Rain Corporation presented research documents written in Russian, explained by a Russian researcher who spoke to local experts in Russian.” (Click here to read the full article)

The branch stacking in 2003 to get Turnbull elected to Parliament in 2004

Malcolm Turnbull was elected to federal parliament in 2004 in the Sydney seat of Wentworth. Firstly though Turnbull had to win Liberal Party preselection by beating the then Liberal Party federal MP Peter King. So Turnbull did what any proud crook would do. He started branch stacking and even enlisted James Packer for help. The Age reported in October 2003:

“A federal Liberal MP yesterday accused the party’s federal treasurer, Malcolm Turnbull, of a “millionaires’ plot” to unseat him, as sources confirmed that media magnate James Packer has been recruited to join a branch being stacked with Turnbull supporters.”

“Peter King, who holds the blue ribbon Sydney seat of Wentworth, is under siege from Mr Turnbull, who has more than 700 new members signed up or about to be signed up for the Point Piper branch.”

“In an extraordinary race for numbers before the cut-off date for branch members to be eligible to vote in the preselection, Mr King’s camp has sent out a letter appealing for people to join the party.”

“Mr King said this appeared to be “the largest branch stack in Liberal history”. and that it was “disgraceful” that a federal office bearer appeared to be personally perpetrating it.” (Click here to read more)

And who says money doesn’t talk?

 

 

Today (yesterday), we are fed some idiotic editorials and "news items" by the major mediocre mass media. The funniest serve comes from Peter Reith who claims that the opposition was caught unawares by the "Turnbull move". Since the whole shamble had been flagged with bells and whistles for at least a couple of months, we should trust that Peter lives under a shaggy rock that the SMH lifts from time to time, to present a rightwing point of view in its "balance"...
The cartoon by Moir in the said Sydney Morning Herald is more to the point: here we have Catain Malbecalmed peering through a one-eyed looking glass, flattering his own over-the-counter strategy of one blank cannon shot, for having caught the opposition by surprise which it was not, while his crew is fast asleep, snoring and sleep walking.
Then we have the ABC harping about the fight between Abbott and Turnbull as to whose policies are being taken to the electorate. "Abbott can't claim full credit for policies: Turnbull" says the headline. At this point, the electorate should ask WHAT POLICIES? We have not seen any! Well, nothing apart from the "Union Bashing, let the Banks, the Libs and Business Get Away With Murder Policy" of Abbott.
So YES. Abbott can claim his rotten fruit, apart from the cancellation by Turnbull of knights and dames dishonour list. This one was a no-brainer.
The guardian tells us without laughing that Malcolm says "Tony Abbott can be an election asset — as a force for good — or tear us down"
Lazarus, the former rugby league hitman, is a much better and far more honest politician than Malcolm Turnbull will ever be, who is a little shit.

The forthcoming Australian election and the ongoing attacks on unions and workers

Posted by John, March 22nd, 2016 - under Australian Building and Construction Commission, CFMEU, Double dissolution, Elections, Unions,Workers, Working class.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has outmanoeuvred the too clever by half Greens. He has got the Governor General to prorogue and recall the Parliament for 18 April to debate the anti-union Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC)Bill. Turnbull has also moved the Budget forward a week to 3 May, allowing time for a debate on its likely softly softly anti-worker content and passage of Supply Bills for him to call a double dissolution on or before 11 May, the last day he can do so under the Constitution.

If the Senate rejects the ABCC Bill, or fails to pass it, Turnbull will use that, and the previous rejection of the Bill some time ago, as the grounds for going to the Governor-General to call a double dissolution election on 2 July.

The government has made it clear that the crossbench Senators can avoid a double dissolution (and keep their bums on Senate seats for a few more years) by voting for the ABCC Bill. However the government already ahs a trigger for a double dissolution, the previously twice rejected Bill. Can Senators trust the snake oil salesman in charge?

In any event, some Senators, like Jacqui Lambie, might fancy their chances in a double dissolution election since the quota to get elected is almost halved. They need only to win 7.69% (1/(12+1)) of the vote, compared to a normal half-Senate election where the quota is 14.28% (1/(6+1)). Others, like Palmer United Party Senator Dio Wang, are doomed either way.

Senators who normally vote with the Government, like the conservative Family First’s Bob Day and the free market extremist from the Liberal Democrats, David Leyonhjelm, are extremely angry with the Turnbull government over its Senate reforms. Those ‘reforms’ aim to silence the voice of many of the 3 million Australians who do not vote for the major parties in the Senate and concentrate the votes in the major parties. They will see it more likely that the Liberals and Nationals have close to a majority in the Senate.

The Greens think the voting changes will deliver them the balance of power in the Senate. This fits in and reinforces their overall strategy of parliament rather than the people in struggle as the focus and locus of change. It also fits in and reinforces the move by the Greens leader Richard Di Natale to be more accommodating of the Turnbull government and to negotiate with them on some contentious legislation.

The Greens and the Labor Party will oppose the ABCC Bill. They are right to do so. For a start there are some horrendous anti-human provisions in the Bill. It seeks for example to reverse the onus of proof so that unions have to prove they did not undertake the alleged criminal activity. It also removes the right of an accused person to silence. Failure to answer questions will itself be criminalised, with 6 months in jail the result.

Some years ago the Howard government set up the ABCC and CFMEU member Ark Tribe refused to answer questions. He was charged and could potentially have been jailed for the crime of attending a lunch time union meeting to discuss safety on site and not answering questions about it. Those charging him got their administrative procedures wrong, and thankfully Ark got off on a technicality.

They won’t make the same mistake this time round. If this ABCC Bill goes through there will be a number of unionists jailed for the crime of not talking to an anti-union Tribunal of Inquisition about union matters.

Turnbull has claimed that the ABCC is at the centre of his government’s economic reform package. While the government mouths nonsense about the ABCC Bill improving productivity in the building industry, the Bill is really about neutering the building unions, in particular the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy union (CFMEU). The CFMEU is one of the few unions in Australia prepared to stand up for and mobilise its members to win wage increases, defend jobs and make workplaces safe. These activities cut into the profit of the big building companies and the ABCC is about making it even more profitable for tax avoiding building companies to screw more profits out of their workers at the expense of workers’ lives.

When the ABCC was last set up, deaths on building sites increased markedly. TheCFMEU says that ‘the number of deaths [went] up: from 3.14 per 100,000 workers in 2004 – before the ABCC started – to 4.8 per 100,000 workers in 2007 and 4.27 in 2008.’

 
The reason for the increase in deaths is simple. It is the unions, not the employers, who want safe worksites. The bosses’ only concern is profits. The ABCC is a classic case of putting profits before people. If the ABCC is reintroduced there will be an increase in deaths and serious injuries on building sites. All so the rich tax avoiding building magnates can make even more profits.

It is not just the building industry that will feel the impact of the ABCC. The ABCC sends a message to all unions and unionists. Don’t fight for better wages and conditions, for jobs or for safety. If you do we will come down hard on you. With the CFMEU and other building unions under control other unions and unionists will be even more unlikely to fight the boss. It is, as the public sector union campaign for decent pay rises shows, already incredibly difficult to win pay increases and retain conditions without a real industrial campaign.

For most workers, however, the election won’t be about the ABCC. As a senior CFMEU official said to me recently, most people don’t know anything about the ABCC and won’t change their vote on it. This ABCC election trigger is about Malcom Turnbull showing the rest of the ruling class he does rule for them and will do so after the election with gusto. It won’t just be building unions under attack. It will be all workers, their unions, government spending on the poor and working class and this will be given cover by demonising the various ‘others’ in society such as asylum seekers.

The election won’t be about the ABCC. It will be about the lives of workers. This means it will be about jobs, and pay, and social spending that benefits workers and the poor.

Unemployment remains around 6% according to official ABCC figures. The latest figures showed a drop to 5.8% but that seems in the main to have been because the participation rate fell. People simply gave up looking for work. This is not surprising given the number of people officially looking for work is about 7 times the number of jobs vacant.

As well as the 6% or thereabouts who are unemployed, according to Roy Morgan8.8 percent of the workforce are looking to work more hours. Roy Morgan also put the real unemployment rate, based on their surveys, in February 2016, at 10 percent. In other words almost one fifth of the workforce is unemployed or underemployed.

On top of that real wages have been stagnating. As the Australian Bureau of Statistics says of the last year wages growth of 2.2%: ‘Wage growth through the year is now the lowest on record since the series was first published in September quarter 1998.’

Perhaps part of the explanation for that is that strikes are at very low historical levels. The more the trade union bureaucracy capitulates to the bosses, the more the bosses want and take.

The ruling class wants a company tax cut and given the resistance to any increase in the goods and services tax this will be paid for out of cuts to social welfare and other spending like health and education and transport that benefit the working class. The government will try to sell this company tax cuts in terms of trickle down. If only the tax avoiders paid even less tax all would be right for Australian capitalism.

Because of the forthcoming election my guess is that the government will save its more brutal attacks on spending for after the double dissolution on 2 July. However there will be cuts, for example to some medical services such as pathology, due to come into effect on 1 July. School kids dental serves are in the governments cross hairs too.

Growing inequality is a reflection of underlying declines in the global and now Australian profit rates and the transfer of wealth and income from labour to capital as a consequence. That has been an ongoing process that began with the election of the Hawke Labor government in 1983 and its reforms, in particular industrial relations ‘reforms’ and bringing unions inside the tent, that made that shift easier.

With growing inequality and austerity has come growing anger, inchoate in Australia but finding leftwing political expression in places like the UK and US in the form of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders.

There looks little prospect in Australia for the rise of a Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders as an expression of the anger with austerity and inequality – neoliberalism if you like – within the major parties. Labor has been the key party for the ruling class in introducing neoliberal policies in Australia and restraining the labour movement. Tony Turnbull is the logical expression of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, as are Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese.

Given the underlying inchoate anger, the Turnbull government will look at distractions from their anti-working class agenda, and in some cases Labor will join them. One target is unions and the lies about criminal activity. Another is demonising refugees and asylum seekers. A third distraction for sections of society will be gays and lesbians as the Turnbull government’s nudge nudge wink wink vilification in the form of a plebiscite on equal marriage and its defunding of Safe Schools show. And of course the eternal other in Australian capitalism is Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders and while there are words of inclusiveness the reality is that the government and Labor will continue to run a system that destroys their lives.

Can the working class break out of the double helix of Labor and Liberal neoliberalism? Open class struggle will break out at some stage. The examples of the explosions of class anger on the streets, in the workplaces and through established and alternative left parties in Europe gives some hope. Workers in struggle are the short term solution to the problems of capitalism. Workers in struggle are the long term solution to the problem that is capitalism.

If I were a Senator opposed to Mal's crappo, I would not show up at his extraordinary recall of "parliament". I would go to the doctors and get a note stating that I feel sick at the word "Malcolm"... His legislation would get passed of course, but this would show up in history as a massive Malcolm dreadful political fiddle. A protest-no-vote that will save your arse is better than a no vote that will kill you.

Independent Economics, formerly known as Econtech, did the work for the ABCC itself. After academics from Griffith University uncovered errors in the analysis, the ABCC removed it from its website. Then the Master Builders Association commissioned Independent Economics to update it. The Productivity Commission examined the findings in 2014 and disassociated itself from them in unusually strong terms.

"When scrutinised meticulously, the quantitative results provided by Independent Economics or others do not provide credible evidence that the Building Industry Taskforce – Australian Building and Construction Commission regime created a resurgence in aggregate construction productivity or that the removal of the ABCC has had material aggregate effects," the Productivity Commission said. "Indeed, the available data suggests that the regime did not have a large aggregate impact."

The absence of a big effect was "neither surprising nor inimical to the need for further reform". It thought productivity in some parts of the industry probably had improved during the ABCC era, and it recommended boosting penalties and adequately resourcing the body that replaced it. But it stopped short of recommending the re-establishment of an organisation with the power to compel witnesses to answer questions. It's a power denied to courts and denied to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/restoring-the-abcc-a-poor-foundation-for-malcolm-turnbull-to-build-an-election-on-20160322-gnox7n.html#ixzz43xFxvhzC
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As shown in a couple of comments above, all the ABCC did is allow for the death of more workers at the work place... Malcolm is deluded and insulting...