Friday 29th of March 2024

poor fellow, my country...

hats...hats...

Already, around the circuit of well-intended thinkers on the left, many think that Albo left his run too late… Well not his particularly, but Labor with Albo... Who knows. Now Albo is introducing his vision. We need to be careful. He needs to be careful. 

 

 

It’s simple. Capitalism has been the bête noire of socialists, lefties and of Labor. But none of these can exist without capitalism. It’s perverse. For example, we oldies have been told for yonks to contribute to our retirement to lift the government load having to give us a pension when we can’t work anymore. So we live frugally on the diminishing interest of our superannuation. But the governments of the capitalists have decided we had it too good and that the retirement age be lifted to about 70 and beyond for men and whatever for women, under the pretence that we live longer. We’re screwed again.

 

 

Meanwhile the youth who were on the upwards treadmills of getting careers have been side-tracked by our Covid-infested control system. We think that we’’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel soon, whenever by twenty-twenty-something. Meanwhile, the ScoMo government wants to punish the youth by March this year for not having a job, thus reducing the Newstart allocation to below the poverty line, while there is no job to be had — and should there be one, a few Covid-lockdowns coming along, the whole thing will crash again. Back in the street.

 

 

And any “vision thing” could be hovering a bit too close from a “great reset”… while ScoMo dishes out platitudes that would bore long Rookwood-buried people to death. 

 

 

We're still reeling from the Abbott years. Abbott destroyed the passions and the will of the people with his bicycle sponsorships, chocolate subsidies, destruction of everything he touched, silly knighthoods and burning budgie-smugglers just to name a few — not to mention his propensity to lie, and be a dork. And unfortunately, the question has been answered: Scomo is worse than Abbott.

 

 

While the main-stream Aussie media at large is pathetic, often seemingly in the pocket of politicians, the ABC budget cuts (in real terms, not in ScoMo’s “no budget cut to the ABC” which is a technical lie) has made the old broadcaster dig deep to find some excitement somewhere without repeating programming too often. Lucky for bushfires and floods giving the ABC the occasions to shine… The old-aware ABC journos have been retired and replaced with a youthful work-force coming from press-release-writing courses at various universities… 

 

 

Lucky, we’ve had a migration of serious journalists to some social citizen media sites. These can still pump the good oil, but their reach is limited. A swarm of caramelised new channels for profits are taking people away from thinking, luring them with “better quality” Hollywoodian dramas produced by CIA subsidiaries. The news has to compete with opinions on Sky news....

 

 

Poor fellow, our country...

 

 

GL.

 

 

Here comes Gary Linnell bashing Albo's utopia: 

The next time you feel the urge to utter out loud what most of us have long believed  – that Australian politics on both sides is a mediocre wasteland dominated by small men with no vision – take a moment to consider what happened to William Lane.

Lane wanted to create a utopian society he dubbed “New Australia”, an idyllic society where everyone would be equal and would share in the rewards of an honest day’s work.

He was literally laughed out of the country as he attempted to turn his idea into reality – and his subsequent failure simply reinforced the long-standing distrust Australians have for “dreamers” trying to sell us big-vision policies that might upend our lives.

As we head into an increasingly likely election year, it’s a story worth remembering.

On a miserable wet day in July 1893, Lane led 220 of his Australian followers on to the small ship Royal Tar and set sail out of Sydney for New Australia – a colony they would create in the jungles of the land-locked South American country of Paraguay.

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/people-entertainment/2021/02/09/garry-linnell-albanese/

 Yes, we erudites know about Lane's dream already mentioned on this site... We must say that Linnell has been a Murdoch employee and as someone said "once a Murdoch employee, always thinking like one"... Linnel was director of news and current affairs for the Nine network in the mid-2000s, the editorial director for Fairfax (now sold to channel nine) and a former editor of The Daily Telegraph (Murdoch stable) and The Bulletin magazine (defunct)...   On the other side of the ideals we should see:    How good is Morrison’s Australia? Going backwards and being left behind

 

 

By NOEL TURNBULL | On 10 February 2021  

After seven years of a Coalition government, household debt is the second highest of 43 countries; we ranked third last out of 35 OECD countries for wage growth and we have the third most unaffordable housing market in the OECD. But the good news is that the combined worth of Australian billionaires is 52.4% higher in December 2020 than it was a year earlier

Among the myths that seemingly never die is the belief – parroted by a supine media – that Liberal Governments are competent economic managers. This is despite overwhelming evidence that Australia’s performance across a range of areas is declining compared with other comparable countries.

Now Labor MHR for Bruce, Julian Hill, has belled the cat with a comprehensive report, “Australia’s Global Performance: Falling behind”, which demonstrates that “Australia is going backwards under the Liberals, and falling behind much of the rest of the world”.

The report is damning for the Government. Hill notes that when Morrison won the 2019 election his speech rhetorically asked:

“How good is Australia!?

The Prime Minister has developed a truly inane habit of asking that same question over and over again. Expecting that no one will ever bother to answer.”

 

It is a question Hill says can easily be answered – “not so good any more – going backwards and being left behind”. The answers he provides are drawn from OECD and other official figures, including detailed research by the Parliamentary Library which compares Australia’s performance with other countries since the Liberals came to power in 2013.

They show:

Real wages in Australia were 0.7% lower in 2019 compared to 2013, and Australia sat in third last place out of 35 OECD countries for wage growth. Now the Government is pursuing policies that will further depress wages and increase insecure work while inequality is getting worse. Australia has become the 11th most unequal nation in the OECD and ranks behind most of Western and Northern Europe, as well as Canada in its rate of inequality.

Hill cites Bloomberg research which show that Covid has been great for Australian billionaires, whose combined worth is 52.4% higher in December 2020 than at the same time in 2019. Needless to say, Morrison tax policies give leave passes to companies that use tax havens and major tax avoidance strategies while delivering tax cuts that favour the wealthy.

  • Just 20% of people in Australia hold 64% of the nation’s wealth while the younger and poorer 60% have just 16% of the wealth.
  • Australia has the third most unaffordable housing market and is the 11th most unequal OECD country.
  • Australia ranked fifth last in the OECD in terms of its productivity rates. In fact, Australian productivity was negative at -0.3%.
  • Household debt as a share of GDP is 119.4% — now the second highest rate among 43 countries.
  • Australia ranks behind Uganda at 87th out of 133 countries globally for “economic complexity”. Economic complexity measures the ability of countries to make and export a wide variety of goods, especially complex, high-value products that few other countries can make.

We dig things up, harvest things and cut things down and under Morrison’s Government the economic trend is towards the products of the past and not the future.

In doing so we are putting too many of our eggs in the one basket as the IMF Export Diversification Index (a long-term study of export diversification and quality) showed with us ranked 84th globally in 2014. Back then trade with China was about 26% of total exports but in 2019-2020 it had reached 35%. To make matters worse, swashbuckling foreign policy is putting much of that at risk.

Australia ranks 54th out of 64 countries in the 2021 Global Climate Performance Index. Our rate of greenhouse gas emissions per capita has been the highest in the world. It’s official government policy to invest in dying industries while claiming it can’t encourage electric vehicles because that would involve subsidies – typical Morrison hypocrisy given the subsidies rorts it throws around.

We also have the second highest level of biodiversity deterioration in the world and Australia’s wild koala population is now at real risk of extinction.

For a government allegedly pro-business the World Bank has news – since 2010 Australia has slipped from 12th to 14th place globally in ease of doing business and fourth to seventh place overall for ease of starting a business.

Australian children’s educational outcomes have slipped in both national and international terms. Remote education during lockdown and distance has been handicapped by the fact that broadband speeds are now so slow that Australia ranks 61st in the world. Only our new French submarines will offer less value for money than the National Broadband Network.

The outlook for young Australians as measured by the NEET (Not in education, employment or training) rate is not that flash, as Morrison would say if he were interested in the subject. The rate for 20-24 year olds was 11.9% – the eighth lowest out of 27 countries compared with fourth lowest in 2010.

Private health insurance costs 36% more than it did and the coverage rate is at its lowest since 2005. Meanwhile, out-of-pocket costs for seeing a GP have increased by a third under the Morrison government and Australia now ranks eighth out of 11 high-income countries for healthcare affordability.

The Coalition has punished its enemies relentlessly. Cumulative funding cuts for the ABC total $783 million between 2013 and 2020. As a percentage of GDP arts funding is 0.72% – well below the OECD average of 1.09%.

International corruption rankings are not needed to tell Australians that Australia is becoming more and more corrupt, and Australians are increasingly distrustful of government.

Our greatest source of international shame is our treatment of Indigenous Australians. First Nations Australians have the lowest life expectancy among First Nations people in the world. Indigenous incarceration rates are 27% of the prison population despite Indigenous Australians being only 2% of the population. We also imprison young Indigenous (and non-Indigenous Australians) from the age of 10, an age not comparable with other developed nations.

We might well all ask: how the bloody hell did Morrison get us here?

Read more:https://johnmenadue.com/how-good-is-morrisons-australia-going-backwards-and-being-left-behind/  We might well all ask: how the bloody hell did Morrison get us here?  He's worse than Abbott, and is a sneakier liar...  See also: the miracle man boils a frog...

a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work...

An Albanese Labor government would direct government contracts to companies that offer secure jobs to Australian workers as part of an industrial relations plan the opposition hopes will win back votes at the next election.

In a speech in Queensland laying out Labor’s alternative path out of the coronavirus-driven downturn on Wednesday, opposition leader Anthony Albanese will promise to create secure jobs as the cornerstone of the party’s election pitch.

It sets up an alternative to the Morrison government’s industrial overhaul, which The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age can reveal has not won the support of One Nation and its crucial Senate votes, in part because of a proposal to allow coronavirus-hit businesses to strike wages deals that leave workers worse off.

Mr Albanese is promising a set of changes long sought by unions, including promising to let contractors who move between jobs — a practice common in industries such as cleaning — take annual and sick leave with them in a plan that could later be expanded to casuals.


Amid the darkest days of the pandemic, one of the most confronting revelations was how many workers – casuals, contractors, gig workers – had no right at all to paid sick leave,” Mr Albanese will say, according to a draft of his speech.


“That’s why a Labor government that I lead will work with state and territory governments, unions and industry to develop portable entitlements for annual leave, sick leave and long service leave for Australians in insecure work.”

Employers will also be forced to offer permanent work to any staff member after two years or two fixed-term contracts in the same job in a row and “job security” will be enshrined as an objective of the nation’s workplace laws, Mr Albanese will propose.

All workers on a worksite will have to be paid the same for the same job regardless of their employer and the national industrial commission will get the power to award independent contractors the same rights as employees.

The raft of changes will not hurt businesses, Mr Albanese will say, arguing it will improve relationships between workers and bosses, who would have an incentive to provide secure work in order to win government contracts.

“Good employers give their workers security and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work,” his draft speech reads.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/anthony-albanese-reveals-labor-s-jobs-plan-to-win-back-votes-20210209-p570v5.html