Tag Archives: Scott Morrison

Australian Politics

Scott Morrison has destroyed the LNP, possibly for generations

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Even typing those words leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Will he attempt a come-back? Will his poisonous personality rear up out of the darkness? Or will he pull the pin on his parliamentary career, and move to the U.S., where nobody will know him, and he can make lots of money preaching to the terminally lost souls of the Trumpian world?

It is hard to put into words the dread that Morrison caused in many vulnerable Australians. There was something missing, something which suggested a break in the human connection between Morrison and the rest of us.

The single worst prime minister in our history, aided and abetted by the most aimless, and spineless collection of chancers and rent-seekers ever gathered. And yet he went close to setting up a government which was almost impossible to remove.

The power of the Murdoch press pack is still very much in evidence in Australia, but the rise of the independent media, and the very powerful effect of the twitter sphere, undermined what looked like a forever government.

Anthony Albanese’s day 1 failure to name the unemployment figure also gave rise to fears that Labor’s run would be sabotaged. The performance of the ABC and its political commentators was woeful, probably fuelled by the constant threats of funding cuts, and the intimidation by the Morrison ministry.

But failures in disaster management, naked vote-buying which favoured, as always, LNP electorates; the performance of electoral liabilities like Matt Canavan and George Christensen was a reminder of how low our democracy had fallen.

On any measure now the opposition will continue to be made up of the remnants of the shattered Liberal Party, and also by those in the National Party who escaped annihilation by the skin of their teeth, but are too stupid to know that their time must be nearly up.

Peter Dutton is so spectacularly unsuitable as a leader of anything, that it immediately forces one to cast around for something, anyone, to present an alternative government. Of course looking at Dutton’s performance since rising to the leadership could fill one with despair.

Instead of looking contrite and accepting the crushing verdict of the voters, his first words as opposition leader were to suggest that he would be ‘on hand’ to clean up Labor’s “inevitable mess” in 2025.

No sense of looking for redemption. No shame regarding his own failures, from his first days as a minister. No embarrassment regarding Australia’s fall from grace within the international community. No regrets about the fate of refugees, stranded and victimised by a series of contracted bullies, as Morrison allowed his cabinet to participate in some group cruelty.

Appointing Angus Taylor as the Treasury shadow serves to highlight the lack of able members to choose from. He has a proven difficulty with numbers, a la Clover Moore. He struggled to even pretend that he was committed to reducing carbon emissions.

He is vulnerable on questions of integrity. He has shown a chronic inability to meet deadlines when releasing data and commissioned reports. This all means that possibly the most important role in opposition is being filled by someone who will struggle, especially against such a polished performer as Jim Chalmers.

There was never any acknowledgement that the election was fought on climate action, fixing corruption and a demand for accountable and humane government. Every action the LNP took, from the botched pre-selections in New South Wales, to the last minute weaponisation of prejudice against trans-gender kids, to the excesses and cruelty of Robodebt, added up to a tone-deaf government which people did not just want gone, but one that many actually feared.

The only possible excuse for the conscious bastardry shown by the LNP through nine long years is that they were all struck with a group hysteria, in which they lost their minds, and their moral compasses, in the naked arrogance of never-ending power.

That is why so many in the community, with little or no interest in politics, finally woke up to the nasty excesses, the blame shifting and the outright theft, and mis-use of taxpayers’ funds.

How can we be expected to accept members of parliament with the obvious character flaws of some of the casualties of ‘the reckoning’? For such it was.

We woke up that the leader was from a religious cult, who only this year admitted, through a ‘sermon’ he gave at Margaret Court’s very own church, that he doesn’t believe in government, and thus does not believe in democracy.

As seems the case with the whole of the Pentecostal movement, it is their inability to understand the message of the New Testament which confuses us most.

Was Christ’s movement elitist, obsessed with money and material success, and a ‘closed door’ society? Could you be guaranteed a place in heaven, as long as you were baptised twice? The question must be asked: Do any of them actually read, and understand, the written word?

His beliefs are central to who he is, and they are incomprehensible. They have no connection to the Christianity most of us recognise, whether we believe or not.

The Prosperity Gospel is similarly impossible to reconcile with the ideas of Christ, who was apparently at pains to protect the meek from the powerful, and who espoused the virtue of spiritual grace above material wealth.

Morrison’s depiction of welfare as wrong-headed and immoral is further proof that he was always unsuitable for any position in government. He was, at the end of the day, unable to leave his self-affirming beliefs behind.

Even the Romans knew that at the least the people must be fed. Otherwise they will rise up, and the state will be consumed by revolution and turmoil. Morrison’s appearance at the Robodebt Royal Commission paid lip service to the notion of welfare, but he then had to be the ‘cop on the welfare beat’.

His playbook was spectacularly unsuited to Australian conditions. We are not a nation of religious bigots. We are not a nation of patriarchal misogynists. We are a nation which has always honoured the principles of fairness and justice before the law.

We have always believed that our representatives must act in a manner befitting their high status, and the rewards which accrue to politicians.

Morrison and his ‘vandals’ trashed the conventions, laying bare the lack of regulation and accountability, which had never been so nakedly exposed as it was by the behaviour of the LNP government.

If you are confronted by visions of Barnaby Joyce, apparently the worse for wear railing about whatever the issue of the day was, then Australia’s voters decided to disempower this collection of misfits, and to give the other team a go.

Anthony Albanese is not much of a speaker, and he can stumble on a simple answer, but he appears to be decent, caring, and competent. These qualities are in short supply, and especially on the opposition front bench.

Simon Birmingham is what I would call an old fashioned Liberal. He appears to be decent, caring, and competent. I expect that in the not too distant future, the LNP rump, following a couple more disastrous polls on Dutton and Ley, will decide the neo-liberal far right experiment has failed, and will attempt to reset the coalition.

Sadly the coalition parties have been stripped of talent, and so we could see a Labor government for years to come. That poses a series of future problems. A good government needs a good opposition. Morrison has pretty much made that impossible.

This article has been updated, to better reflect the writer’s current opinion.

Australian Politics, International Affairs

‘The three amigos’ finally bite the dust

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Donald Trump

Donald Trump came into politics as an active player in 2016. He transformed every aspect of American life, and if that nation was headed toward disaster before, it is now there.

Trump’s chaotic and dishonest take on governance has infected the body politic, and the country is virtually ungovernable. Trump has not only allowed the rise of the next generation of nihilistic Republican leaders, he has legitimised stupidity, misogyny and religious extremism.

The country is now a legitimate candidate for third world status. It has a legislature which makes it nearly impossible to actually pass legislation. It has a Supreme Court, dutifully stacked by Trump with religious far-right conservatives, which is working towards throwing the country back toward becoming a theocracy. Gilead beckons.

They are now taking a literalist approach to its constitution, an outdated document which enshrines the views of an all-white, patriarchal cabal of slave owners and men of their time, with all their entrenched prejudices and unintended consequences being re-invigorated.

If this document continues to be read as if it was “sacred writ” then it can never be amended. Critics and those who question it are in peril of being named, and punished, as heretics; such is its power over the imaginations of the current Republicans.

The Supreme Court has recently reversed Roe v Wade, effectively criminalising abortion in many states. It has also further undermined American efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions, which, owing to their status as a huge emitter, puts the planet’s health at risk of irremediable damage.

The court has plans to roll back many other measures meant to protect rights as diverse as same sex marriage, voting rights, equal opportunity. The list goes on, and may well prove to be the unravelling of American democracy.

So Trump, although out of power, and possibly facing criminal charges for his role in the January 6 uprising, continues to wreck his country’s future viability. He has divided the country with his deranged lies.

Scott Morrison

An unknown man who rose to power, almost unnoticed. A man who took the party of Menzies and made it his own. He almost captured Australia, and if he had not lost the 2022 election, the country was on track to rush down the American path.

He relished the company of Trump, and embodied many of the worst aspects of American populism. His entire political playbook was apparently lifted from the Republicans.

Although adjusted for Australian conditions, he believed in small government, low taxes for the rich, removal of regulations, punishment for those on welfare, disdain for the working poor, cronyism and jobs for ‘mates’. His stacking of the AAT must rival Trump’s work on the Supreme Court. He ignored women, and subsequently lost their votes

Morrison had no policies. He was a shallow religious zealot, with no creativity, no vision, and no care for Australia. He embodied the world-view of his religion, with all the vacuousness of its ‘prosperity gospel’. His disregard for the environment, and especially the climate crisis convinced many that he believed in the end of the world, so why bother? The apocalypse was nigh.

The overwhelming feeling in Australia has been one of relief. We had no antidote for his smirking insolence, his lazy contempt for accountability, and he is now known as a serial liar, and a man who used the government’s budget for his own political purposes.

Many Christians struggled with his government’s cruel policies, towards whistleblowers, refugees, women, indigenous people, the aged and the disabled, even welfare recipients.

He trashed our international reputation wherever he went. An enduring image remains of Morrison standing alone at Glasgow for the COP26 meeting, studying his phone as the other world leaders stood in companionable groups.

His cabinet was filled with nonentities and toadies. Not one minister ever fought the good fight, over policy or principle. Many perfected the same teflon-coated approach to truth that Morrison practised so well.

It has been illuminating to see their shallow responses to a real government, with a real leader, with real policies. Not one has shown the capacity to provide a credible opposition, because lazy Morrison did all their ‘work’ for them.

The Albanese Government will spend years undoing the damage caused by the Morrison reign. Hopefully the Australian voter now knows how to spot a charlatan, and will take evasive action should another one pop up for election.

Boris Johnson

It is always amazing to read the press in countries which have reasonable defamation laws. Just this week we have seen Boris described as the “greased piglet”, the “Convict” and the “liar”.

He has shown himself as being as utterly shameless as his confederates in the ‘three amigos’. A self-interested liar, a chancer, a person who shamelessly hawked his government to wealthy donors.

His private life should have been a warning as to how he would perform in the ‘big chair’, but as the British have been heard to say, “I like Boris, he makes me laugh”. He doesn’t even know how many children he has fathered.

He had a set of rules for the plebs, and one for himself and his Conservative confreres. He took Britain back to the inequality of the 1960s, but not the glamour. Sadly this might be one reason why he failed so miserably during the Covid-19 pandemic. He ignored medical advice.

He made Great Britain into ‘little Britain’, by taking the country out of Europe. He fed the fantasy that Britain could return to past glories, while failing to realise that history has passed on, leaving plucky little countries like the U.K. alone, and searching for relevance.

His desperate use of the tactics of the discarded Morrison government’s refugee policy is the last gasp in a desperate search for a political solution to a moral question. Sending refugees to Rwanda sounds like an idea from a toddler, and a confused one at that.

Study the moral position of these three men. Populists, cynics, snobs, liars, opportunists, misogynists. In these most difficult of times, perhaps there is hope in the fact that the people are throwing out such obvious phonies, and voting for a bit of moral rectitude and honesty.

Imposing journalistic standards of truth-telling onto media moguls like Rupert Murdoch and his ilk, who seem to wallow in the strife they unleash on the societies which they pretend to uphold, would be a good start in improving the outlook for all of us. 

The three amigos have finally bitten the dust, and we can only hope that Russia, Brazil, Hungary, Poland and all the other nations still led by moral pygmies follow suit. We need good leaders to negotiate the next few difficult years in this planet’s existence.

Australian Politics

Just two weeks to go.

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It is time to ask yourself who you want to wake up with, again. Three years ago, we faced this decision with the disastrous reigns of Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull still fresh in our memories.

While our elections are about individual members in individual electorates, the system has gradually become more presidential. The result may be that people vote for the local candidate if they like the leader of his or her party.

The Leaders

Scott Morrison

Scott Morrison was relatively new then, known to us only through his leadership of the Immigration portfolio. He had set off some red flags through his refusal to account for his department’s actions at sea, and his propensity for using men and women dressed in military uniforms as props. This was the first indication of his ‘Scotty from Marketing’ persona.

He is damaged goods now, seen as a pathological liar by many, but he does have the advantage of being the incumbent. That still carries a lot of weight in this country. Some older voters, and many in regional areas, still innately respect the office of prime minister.

This is a valuable asset to hold, because it is only in more recent years that institutions and titles, world-wide, have become more ‘democratised’, so that ordinary citizens have felt more freedom in questioning power.  

If you are unfortunate enough to live in an area with a heavy Murdoch media presence, you may not have even heard about his problems with the truth. His main strength has been his ability to come back, day after day, from drubbings to embarrassments, with a fresh re-set, and a new attack line.

Instead of setting out policies, he appears to be entirely reactive, struck silent unless he can find a perceived gaffe, or a mis-spoken opinion, on which to pounce. When Anthony Albanese was isolating because he had Covid-19, Morrison was reduced to accusing the opposition leader of working less hard than he did, during his enforced break from campaigning.

Morrison has a series of spectacular fails on his cv; we know them all, but he has moved on. The big question about this election is, has the electorate moved on?

Each failure during a natural disaster has been exceeded by the next. The “holiday in Hawaii” while the country burned, to his abject failure on Lismore and the floods affected northern rivers. Of course that brings to mind the people of Mallacoota, and his “I brought in the Navy to help you”  rhetoric. These are now the stuff of popular myth, with “I don’t hold a hose” perhaps the most memorable.

His next task was to combat the pandemic. He was relatively successful in the first phase, although his eagerness to re-open the economy was kept in check by the state premiers. His failure was in the initial lack of vaccines, and once ordered, their chaotic rollout to the country.

He was seen as being  unable to organise anything properly, and his “it is not a race” remark, followed by vehement denials he ever said it, was both inaccurate and proof he could not be trusted.  

Morrison compounds his failures by deflecting blame, usually to a state premier, or by lying outright to cover himself. His propensity for claiming innocence is often easily overturned by video evidence, and yet his ability to re-set his world on a daily basis speaks to some form of neurological quirk.

The list of failures is long. Women feel let down by him, and his government. Christine Holgate, Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins are conspicuous victims of his seemingly unconscious misogyny.

His standing by his disgraced ministers, with never a question that he believes the men every time, has led to a $500,000 settlement to Rachelle Miller. She has accused a Liberal minister of physical abuse, and Morrison has still denied any wrong-doing on the part of Alan Tudge. There is another un-named current minister who is also a part of the compensation.

Hardly appropriate that there is a settlement, and yet no adverse finding against Tudge, or the other minister. Morrison has invited Tudge to resume as Education Minister, which puts him in charge of educational and cultural standards in our country. That means a person who has had a half million dollars in compensation paid to his alleged victim. A smoking gun?

Anthony Albanese

The worst thing Morrison has said about Albanese is that he is unknown, and rather interestingly, inexperienced. He has been in parliament since 1996, so he has been in a variety of senior positions, in government and in opposition, for 26 years.

He has obviously learned from the 2019 election loss, and so, to the dismay of many Labor voters, he is presenting a ‘small target’. This strategy has worked a treat so far, and it does serve to de-fang Morrison, who needs someone, or something, to attack.

There is a valid argument that getting into power is the main game, and worry about reform once you have got your hands on the levers of power. Morrison has run the line that we don’t know Albanese, so don’t take the risk. This makes it difficult to portray Albanese in any depth, because if he is unknown, we know nothing ill of him. Morrison is asking us to vote for him, because he is not Albanese.

Morrison’s campaign rests on Morrison, bright and relentless every day. He appears to be waiting for the fatal mishap from Albanese, but the press pack is so ill-disciplined, and light on knowledge, that such a moment is unlikely. Many are armed with lists of ‘gotcha’ questions, which merely highlight the vacuous nature of the pack.

Morrison’s team has been reduced to Simon Birmingham, the only Liberal who does not invite drawn pitchforks, and Darren Chester in Victoria. The rest are either invisible, in hiding, or in protective custody.

Morrison has made the pitch – trust me, I will lead you to victory. He has also effectively dumped his inner city ‘wets’, so they are relying on distancing themselves from the Liberals. His choice of candidates in N.S.W. is imploding, as he is suspected of pursuing the transphobic vote. Some think he is trying to re-create the Liberals as the light version of the (U.S.) Republicans.

As for Labor, there is a powerful team. The likes of Penny Wong, Jim Chalmers, Kristina Keneally, Tanya Plibersek, and the find of the election, Jason Clare are all showing what they can do. It appears impressive.

On current tracking, Labor seem to have this in the bag. They must not choke, but nor must they be  triumphalist. As many have said in the past, elections change the country. The current government has had close to ten years. Time’s up, perhaps?

Australian Politics

Into the third week, what’s up?

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Let’s start with the environment and the issues which we supposedly put at the top of our agendas. As a side note, Anthony Albanese caught Covid-19, so he is on the sidelines for at least a week. That would be the pandemic which we have apparently dodged, as thousands die every month.

Labor’s team has performed well, but circumstances have left the LNP exposed. Matt Canavan, inflation figures, News Corp’s bias, Malcolm Turnbull, the Teal Independents, Katherine Deves; lots going on. Peter Dutton’s comment that to preserve peace, we must prepare for war might be the quote of the year.

Climate Action

The floods began in Queensland in 2021, and they persisted. They then crossed the border, but continued to re-visit Queensland, and are about to soak Far North Queensland again. La Nina is expected to peter out soon, but the damage has been done.

Once we were able to write off such happenings as Mother Nature flexing her muscles. Not anymore. We know the reason why the floods are a metre or so higher than the last one – climate change.

Northern New South Wales has never recovered from the first round of floods, and the situation remains hazardous. Some areas have only had a month between drenchings, and every time it rains the residents fear the worst.

A fair go, for whom?

The situation in Lismore and the surrounding areas was doubly hurtful to the residents, and their families and friends, when it was discovered that the Federal Government had passed responsibility onto the states, and was even playing politics with the level of financial assistance available to those worst affected.

If you need evidence of Morrison’s innate stupidity when it comes to the issue of fairness, look no further. If you were in a Coalition seat you were entitled to three times the assistance available to those in Labor seats. He actually thought no-one would notice, until the entire country did.

Once upon a time, in a fairer and better Australia, such naked and shameless favouritism would have been exposed by every media outlet, and the guilty party would have been totally shamed and disgraced, and driven from office.

There are NO empty houses or flats to rent, so many are forced to sleep on couches, or in their vehicles. At one pathetic but revealing moment Morrison announced that the government could not be relied on to help in every natural disaster.

Of course we know that governments are not all powerful. But we also know that this government has been found to have wasted billions of dollars on trifles – cancelling submarine contracts, overpaying companies who unjustly enriched themselves at the expense of JobKeeper, subsidies to fossil fuel corporations.

Private schools received an extra $10bn funding in Coalition ‘special deals’, study finds. Public schools underfunded by at least $6.5bn a year. Paul Karp in The Guardian today. Of course it looks like Morrison will sail through all of these, unscathed. But there is a change in the air, at this stage of the campaign.

When the Nationals’ Matt Canavan called the government’s “agreed position” on Net Zero by 2050 dead in the water, he renewed the climate wars. Morrison hit him with a wet lettuce leaf, and effectively abandoned his so-called “Moderate Liberals” to the Teal Independents.

The transphobia outbreak

The “Teal Independents” as they are known are challenging in several inner urban Liberal seats. The LNP has flip-flopped between accusing them of being Labor stooges, and agents of parliamentary chaos. They are neither.

They have been drawn into a loose confederation by Simon Holmes A’ Court, whose Climate 200 has partially funded their endeavours. Their motivation appears to be action on Climate Change, and equally importantly, a National Integrity Commission.

Morrison has personally chosen a candidate, Katherine Deves, to contest Warringah, a New South Wales seat. His ‘captain’s pick’ appears to be a raging transphobe, and many see Morrison’s sticking with her candidacy as a backdoor effort to win seats in the regions and outer suburban areas, at the cost of losing several of his inner urban seats.

The conspiracy theorists believe it is Morrison’s plan to divest himself of the last remaining vestiges of John Howard’s broad church, because the Modern Liberals are the last of the ‘wets’. After the election, the Liberal Party will be stacked with far right religious zealots, and whether in government or opposition, Morrison will be more ‘at home’.

Cost of living pressures

The inflation figures came out and they were a shock. Annually the figure was 5.1%, which is an easy number to remember. I am sure Albanese will be all over it.

Footage emerged of Matthias Cormann claiming that “low wages” were a part of the government’s “economic architecture”. So the gap between wages and inflation was not something the LNP could abandon. It is essentially the price they pay for neo-liberalism, and its assorted evils.

The government sent $250 to every welfare recipient and pensioner today. On Twitter it is a popular meme, where the homeless and the destitute will be ‘saved’ by such generosity. Note that it is less than the ‘bribe’ Albanese was accused of offering, to drive faster take up of vaccinations. It is also less than the daily travel allowance paid to MPs who go to work in Canberra. That is $288 per day, paid on top of their salaries.

Bring on the election, I say.

Australian Politics, COVID-19

Morrison is a dangerous fanatic

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Scott Morrison is dangerous because he is driven by a fantastically flawed personality, mixed with a deranged political ideology, with the added bonus of crazy end-of-times religious lunacy.

In Australia we presume the good faith of our political leaders. It has held to be true for over a century, but Morrison has picked up certain traits from his role models overseas, which are foreign to us.

The predominant trait I speak of is shamelessness, and an ability to instantly forget anything politically adverse; to instantly move on, in the naïve belief that we have no memories.

We have always looked at the authoritarian leaders of other countries as a strange breed, which would struggle in the Australian environment.

We characterise the victims of such leaders as strangely passive, helpless in the face of ruthless ambition, and though we pity their fate, we know it could never happen here.

We have deluded ourselves into believing that we are a nation of freedom-loving, individualistic larrikins, unable to be cowed into submission.

The perfect storm is here, and we should be on our guard. We should have noticed the changes to the political environment brought on by the never-ending pandemic, where in Australia we arguably gave up many of our rights, in the cause of public health.

There was a pay-off, which included a very low death rate, and pandemic financial support. Many of us thought that Morrison had grown into the role of leader. Of course Genghis Khan would have looked good when compared to some of the overseas leaders in power back in 2020. Trump, Bolsonaro and Johnson were so hopeless that they made even Morrison look good.

It is impossible to detect a precise moment when Morrison abandoned Australians, and any semblance of answering to ‘the people’. He lives in a parallel universe, where he is, in his own mind, on a mission from his god, to lead Australia until the ‘end times’.

We can all see the results. The death toll throughout the chaos of the Omicron variant was suddenly unimportant. Morrison and his faceless minions in cabinet pushed the fiction that hospitalisations were more important than deaths, which is like something out of George Orwell’s 1984. Reminder to all: When death occurs, the health system is irrelevant. Untimely deaths are the absolute failure of public health.

We then had the farce of debating whether people who died did so from Covid-19, or with it. Ageing white men are familiar with the analogy – it relates to prostate cancer. The only problem is that Covid-19 is a novel, preventable way to die, and semantics merely indicates an empathy failure. This government minimises it, or parses the cause of death.

That was a pivotal moment in Australia, when we discovered that the Morrison Government had decided the pursuit of economic recovery was more important than the public’s health.

Shamefully, the premiers followed suit. They enabled his sociopathic path out of the pandemic. Morrison threw the dice, betting that the election would be held before the results of his negligence became evident. The mainstream media was complicit.

Many Australians believed them when they said it was now no more dangerous than the seasonal flu. Well, look around you. Over a half million active cases. If you read figures better than words, that is 500,000 + active cases, with a death count of over 6,000 and rising.

Recent elections in Hungary have shown us how a persistent and underhanded campaign can undermine democracy. Viktor Orban has allies in almost complete control of the media. He has a security apparatus which is reminiscent of Putin’s in Russia.

In Australia we have the shameful and sycophantic Murdoch Media, 7 West Media, and 9 Entertainment Media. Social media such as twitter, and the ‘ratbag independent media’ are the only outlets which dare to criticise Morrison and his government.

There is a groundswell of raw visceral loathing for Scott Morrison, but no-one dares to write him off yet. That is because he was able to pull off the 2019 ‘miracle win’.

This time around, his numbers are even worse than in 2019, many of his troops are accused of vile behaviour, many from his own party are either deserting the ship, or are voicing their resentment against his “egotism and bullying nature”.

He has just announced another round of appointments, to mates of the government, for six years, no less, to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), a sore point from 2019. But can it be seen as hubris, to do it so boldly, again, on the eve of an election campaign his party is expected to lose?

It seems every day we are privy to more shameful and embarrassing failures of public administration by this government. The latest is an expose which refers to three parliamentarians having been investigated, by the Australian Federal Police, for meeting in the Parliament House Prayer Room, with sex-workers, for sexual purposes.

The questions raised by this episode includes the time, the place, the age of the sex-workers, their safety, the slackness of the security, the national security aspects, the possibility of blackmail, the moral dimension of using taxpayers’ funds, or at best the tax-payers’ funds used to pay them for having sex at work.

This appears to have occurred in our national showpiece, the new(ish) and grandiose Parliament House. If true, it points to the moral bankruptcy of the current government, and the steady decline of standards since Mr Morrison became Prime Minister.

Mr Morrison is expected to call the election inside a week. Expect lots of rorting, no accountability, and no peace.

Australian Politics

A government which could not lie straight in bed

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When we look at the individual Morrison Government members we see very few who distinguish themselves from their peers. What we see is a collection of odd, socially awkward people, thrown together by a strange ideology which really sets them apart from our society. Birds of a feather really do flock together.

For convenience sake we can call it the anti-social cabal. They all seem to share certain ‘core beliefs’, which can be condensed into a single word – greed. Greedy for advancement, for money, for power, for success. They trust that the majority of our people share that basic belief, and they are callously indifferent to the inequity that is inevitably unleashed by unfettered venality. It invites us all to get in while the getting is good. Morrison has even given it a catchy theme – “You’ll get a go, if you have a go.”

They remind me of a man who has been on an alcohol and drug fuelled bender and wakes up in an opium den. The years of Liberal National Party domination of Australian politics has been like a gigantic bender, where decency, fairness and even care has been really, visibly absent.

We are all watching as the nine year ‘party’ ends. So when we speak of distinguishing themselves from the rest, has anyone called time on the excesses, the disrespect toward the Australian people, and the trashing of our international reputation?

Julia Banks did, and she has written about the experience. In her words “the Liberal Party has reached the point of no return for its self-described “broad church”. The moderate voice has been drowned out and the party is firmly a Christian, conservative, right-wing party.”

That is true. But what shocks us is the “Carry on and keep lying, and the party might never end.” The LNP’s collection of greedy hedonists is now drawing the wagons into a circle, and lying about every issue we find important, and using our money to broadcast their lies. Their terrified leader refuses to call the election, which means their so-called “public announcements” are being paid for out of consolidated revenue, rather than their own LNP funds.

Has any of us been spared those ads concerning Net Zero by 2050? Lies and more lies. The terms “clean hydrogen” and “carbon capture and storage” are lies. Morrison rather outperformed himself this week, when he managed to outrage those of us who care about global heating, with his stupid and embarrassing promise to send 70,000 tonnes of coal to Poland, for eventual use in Ukraine. Wow, we can’t send drinking water to Tonga, and we are going to send 70,000 tons of coal to Poland? I hope it arrives before winter.

When the Secretary-General of the United Nations called Australia out, by name, as a “hold-out” against climate action, Paul Fletcher dismissed the comments as being made by the “chattering classes”. This government is intent on reducing trust, not only in Australian democracy, but in the institutions we trust.

It is not just that they lie daily, but they actually persist in the belief that Australians are terminally stupid. Simon Birmingham, the inoffensive looking one, is regularly wheeled out for public appearances, because if they use any of their other leaders, there is an unseemly rush to turn the TV off. ‘Good ol Birmo’ seems to enrage us less than the others do.

Anyway, during The Insiders show this week, which actually had three Murdoch proxies (two as guests, the other the host) banging on about how the Labor Party’s “mean girls” had not actually murdered Kimberley Kitching, but had somehow ’caused’ her death. Perhaps Katie Allen, who is a real doctor, might be able to explain to anyone who cares to know, that heart attacks usually happen due to a range of underlying cardiac conditions.

The list of women, and men, Morrison has bullied personally, or has back-grounded against, is long. That is why it is so infuriating when he gets on his high horse about Albanese ‘hiding’ from scrutiny. Julia Banks, Bridget Archer, Christine Holgate, the entire NSW Liberal Party, Gladys Berejiklian, Brittany Higgins have all been in his sights at some time.

But it is the ‘jobs for the boys’ that is so tiresome. Stuart Robert should not be in Cabinet. Every area he is appointed to suffers. Richard Colbeck has failed our elderly in Aged Care for as long as Covid has lasted. Sussan Ley has presided over green-lighting coal mines, the continuing destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, and land clearing that is leading to the demise of the koala. That is some collection of failures. Thank God she won her case against those pesky children who dared to believe a Minister in an Australian government had a duty of care to them.

Matthias Cormann is now Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Wow. His friend Mr Morrison ‘loaned’ him a VIP jet so he could travel the world and lobby for the job. He already had one. It even included free holidays, did it not? Courtesy of Helloworld. In March 2021, 29 Australian and global humanitarian and environmental organisations wrote to the OECD, citing “grave concerns” and asking that Cormann be disqualified due to his record of “thwarting effective climate action”. Wikipedia

Morrison has a unique campaigning method. Death by boring repetition, and a boundless lack of shame. Only today he was upset that Lismore residents are not more grateful for Government assistance.

He also broke old ground today, informing us that if we vote for Labor, we will get Labor. That is something of a compliment to the Australian Electoral Commission, and a huge relief. He sees no warning in the South Australian election debacle. So, call the election. We know you now.

Australian Politics, COVID-19

Did the parliamentary cat forget to order the RATs

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You know something is awry when they roll out Simon Birmingham. That is because he is the only remaining member of Morrison’s Government who is not openly despised by the vast majority of people in Australia.

He took over the role after Matthias Cormann got his big job. It is hard to say who is more dedicated to talking points, but Birmingham is growing into the role. He makes the relentless spinning, no matter how dire the situation, appear normal. He would make a jolly good grief counsellor, post politics.

Today he was sent out to defend the so-called “push-through” that Morrison, and his fellow Christian fundamentalist Perrottet, have forced on an unwilling populace. Lost amongst the blather and the word salads look at the deaths recorded every single day, mainly restricted in these early days of Omicron, to Sydney and Melbourne.

How many deaths from this ‘mild’ variant are they prepared to wear? Do five figures mean they made a mistake? What about the next variant? Will we have the same magical thinkers still trying to manage this outbreak? Will they have an adviser explain that without healthy workers we cannot have a healthy economy?

Birmingham spent five minutes telling ABC morning television that the Omicron variant is mild, and that the government is on top of it, that RATs are on their way, and that there is no problem sending close contacts back to work, and school-kids back to school, because one it is mild, and two, the RATs are on their way. The fact that GPs all over the country are being forced to cancel their appointments to vaccinate schoolkids is merely a matter of people talking to their GP. Incorrect. There are not enough vaccines for the 5-11 year olds, and if there are they are not where they are needed.

Responding to questions as to why there are no RATs to be found, he responds that there is a world-wide shortage. There isn’t, because the other countries with which these people compare Australia, ordered theirs, in quantity, and in time. So there you have the complete picture. Morrison, or Hunt, or maybe the parliamentary cat, forgot to order any, until they lost the advantage of being able to observe the wave spread throughout the northern hemisphere.

They saw that hospitals became choked with desperate patients, looked after by exhausted medical staff. They were able to see the importance of RATs in controlling the ability of the workforces to be at least protected from infectious colleagues.

So, Morrison is embarrassed, again, by another crucial failure. Don’t they add up, though? The bushfires, the vaccine strollout, the fiasco in Glasgow, his failure to protect women in the workplace, in the home, and in the streets.

Now we are facing shortages of food, shortages of medical care, shortages of vaccines again, his re-deployment of the general to hide behind, and a new catch-cry, “push through”. He defends his inability to plan by the diversion of telling us we cannot be trusted not to hoard non-available RATs, and that as a responsible money manager, no free tests. We then had the outgoing Health Minister join in, telling us we can’t have any more free stuff. Let me assure my fellow Australians that Greg Hunt will retire this year, with lots and lots of our money, packaged into a super account which would make your eyes water.

But wait, there is more! Old freedom loving Morrison tells us to exercise our Australian larrikin spirit, by getting governments out of our lives. Remember who is speaking here; this freedom fighter is a devotee of a church which believes the bible is literal truth, and who will not be guaranteed a place in heaven unless he is publicly baptised. A man who voted against same-sex marriage, because he believes so strongly in freedom.

And yet we are continuing to die, at a steady rate, and rising. Sydney and Melbourne today, total deaths 50. Not so mild, if it has the ability to regularly take our lives. Remember his executive action when someone was putting pins in strawberries? Very strict laws, his most rewarding legislative triumph, we presume.

What about ensuring we have the necessary testing equipment before throwing the old and the sick to the wolves? How about telling the truth when asked about the kids’ vaccinations? What about the matter of free RATs, for everyone. Because it works. Even his role model, Boris the party boy, gives RATs away.

He is still pushing the Religious Discrimination Bill, which is so important that no-one in the country cares. Oh, except for the homophobes and the Christian lobby, who want to be able to discriminate against Muslims and gay school kids. And gay teachers, or even teachers who don’t see anything wrong with being gay.

He won’t even introduce his Federal Integrity Bill, though. It is interesting to watch the goings on inside this man’s head, even as the death toll mounts, and he continues to go missing when the going gets tough. Is this a good time to say, God help us! But no more tennis players, please.

Australian Politics, COVID-19

The Morrison Government has just given up

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When you live in Australia these days you immediately become aware of the total lack of competent leadership, and the endless self-promotion of the Prime Minister. Talk of his personal photographer, tales of photo-shopping his image to show more hair on that head, and less fat in the face. His staff rolling out red carpets for when he leaves an aircraft. The man is a walking joke.

Watch a press conference from Morrison, and wait for the inevitable fact checking which follows; it always shows lies, half-truths, evasions, blame shifting. Of course if you have any brains, you know it’s happening before the fact-checkers verify it. He cannot help himself. Watch for the first difficult question, and watch him scamper away.

At the moment, in early January 2022, the country has descended into chaos. And yet you have the spectacle of the Prime Minister, and his boy treasurer asserting the recovery is on track. A walk through Ivanhoe shopping centre last Saturday showed more than half the shopfronts empty, and for lease. If that is a recovery, I will eat my baseball cap.

Every state except Western Australia, going from handfuls of cases, to thousands, every day. Hospitals filling up, staff becoming ill, or just plain overworked to exhaustion. Supermarket shelves are emptying, shops can’t get stock, or staff.

In Melbourne we have an informal, self-imposed lockdown. That is because we have been here before, and the Commonwealth Government is more interested in semantics, defining, and re-defining the meaning of words we all understand. Testing, isolation, quarantine, case numbers are all in the firing line. They are trying out the meaning of the word “death”, by planting the notion of “dying with covid” as somehow different from “dying of covid”.

Economists and health professionals are united in pushing for free Rapid Antigen Tests, (RAT) as being in the national interest, both from a health perspective, but economically as well. That is because if you suspect you have symptoms you can self-test and isolate at home. That way you don’t infect everyone you meet on the way to work, or at work. Simple really.

To say he wants to protect the private companies who would sell the test kits is false, and stupid. Harvey Norman and Chemist Warehouse are doing ok already, they don’t need a leg up from a person who has never worked in the private sector, and couldn’t organise a trip to the toilet on his own.

Of course switching over to RATs was suggested by epidemiologists as far back as February 2021, and again by the AMA in September 2021. But the gambler in the Lodge didn’t want to spend the money, which was of course a false economy, as so much of his penny-pinching (with our money) is.

Morrison denies being unprepared, even as our case numbers approach 100,000 a day, notwithstanding the lack of testing. So using Trump’s logic, his first act is to suspend testing, by not supporting the testing regime in the states. He exhibits a mixture of blind arrogance, and a total lack of planning.

He tells us not to look at the case numbers, look at hospitalisations. All right, look at hospitalisations. Going through the roof. So Morrison and his willing accomplice Perrottet have managed to upend our entire covid response, and to throw public health care back on to individuals.

That is not why we elect governments, and it is not the reason we pay these clowns. Part of modern governments’ remit is to keep their people safe. It is difficult to comprehend, but there is no responsible adult available to help. Greg Hunt is a cipher, toeing the party line, until he retires. It will be interesting to see who employs him post-parliament.

The medical officials have also been side-lined by the clowns, and the country is going to the dogs. In this free for all, the states are as guilty as the feds. All we can hope for is that the states step up, and take over. They are showing signs of panic, so maybe the ‘let it rip’ philosophy is going to change.

The latest diversion from our dire straits is a tennis player. Even then, Morrison cannot tell the tale without lies, half-truths, and blaming. The federal government issues visas, not the Victorian Government. Not Tennis Australia, but like he did with Christine Holgate, throw a tantrum, stand up for the ‘little man’ and throw someone under the public outrage bus. If he thinks this will save his bacon in Victoria come election day, think again. Most of us cannot stand the sight of you, and the quicker we can consign you back to obscurity, the better.

Norman Swan raised the issue of ‘acceptable number of deaths’ today. We accept 1000 road deaths a year, 1000 flu deaths. What will we consider an acceptable number of deaths a year from covid? And if you can provide a number, are you prepared to lose your grandmother, or a sibling who is immuno-compromised? An old friend with a dodgy ticker?

Considering the success we enjoyed over the last couple of pandemic years, we must demand a return to intelligent public health measures, and stop the steady creep down the path of allowing our vulnerable to die, because of the ideological preferences of narrow, unfit for public service, religious zealots and neoliberals.

Australian Politics

Scott puts in a Barry Crocker (shocker) in Glasgow

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Scott Morrison has somehow imposed himself on the Australian consciousness like an annoying jingle, or even like that awful and embarrassing uncle who continues to turn up at family gatherings. We can now include Rome and Glasgow amongst the places where he has purported to represent us, so that most of the thinking universe now sees Australians as of a kind, throwbacks to the types of characters made ‘famous’ in the Adventures of Barry McKenzie era, of our cultural cringe.


His personality is endlessly grating, like the boy with a chip on his shoulder; he is always looking for the verbal trap, and his pugnacity is more suited to a rugby field than to a conference. Talk about being labelled by how you look, and by how you speak. Many of us expected him to grow into the job, as some have in the past, but he is permanently stuck in a battle to the death, with the forces of liberality, of reason, of social and political progress.


We are endlessly naive in Australia, in that we believe in the inherent fitness for purpose of our institutions, and the innate moral character of our representatives. Morrison has upended our moral certainties, because he is without conscience, without memory, and without a policy purpose. He also lacks a stabilising presence in his life.


His friends include Brian Houston, who is under investigation, and sidelined from leadership of his father’s church, for allegedly covering up his father’s sexual abuse of children; Stuart Robert, who has seen time on the sidelines himself, because of his own problems with record-keeping and conflicts of interest; and Alex Hawke, a man who believes that “The two greatest forces for good in human history are capitalism and Christianity, and when they’re blended it’s a very powerful duo.” (Sydney Morning Herald)

The Cabinet

We have all heard about Scott Morrison’s Cabinet, mostly because they are almost invisible, they are constantly changing roles, and also because the Cabinet seems to have no coherence, no sense of passion for governing, and only one defining rule – follow Morrison, and repeat his talking points, until your voice hurts. So no Minister is respected, no Minister is seen as being on top of his or her portfolio, no Minister is seen as a rival to Morrison, and the Agenda is virtually non-existent.


Cut the public service to the bone, sling cash at the world’s largest consultancies, privatise every possible service and watch it slide into decay and despair, look after your mates. Never apologise, if in doubt call an enquiry, ignore the vast majority of recommendations from the myriad Royal Commissions afoot, and for God’s sake do not introduce a Federal Integrity Commission.

Never admit that you once knew Christian Porter, but defend to the death his right to accept large amounts of money from anyone, as long as he promised to not divulge. Continue to demonise all refugees, except possibly white farmers from South Africa.

The Glasgow performance


Morrison’s performance in Glasgow and Rome was pathetic. He behaved like a thug, first of all by arriving in both cities, with nothing to show the other leaders, for the six long years since we signed up to Paris. As unashamedly as he had presented us with empty brochures, he did the same to them. Like us, they were underwhelmed, but too polite to really say so. Take it as read that our country has taken another reputational hit.


And never forget Angus Taylor. He delivers misleading statistics and rubbish conclusions with a passionate fervour. His background as a management consultant sees him with only one forward gear – manic, and no reverse gear. He was actually in Glasgow dealing with the other rogue nations, promoting fossil fuels, far into the future. It is totally amazing that Morrison and Taylor were running this scam, even as the world watched.

The French fiasco


Emmanuel Macron is still reeling from Morrison’s clumsy lack of style. First he meets with the French, and deceives them until, at the last moment, he dumps them for the Americans and the British. So, knowing how the French feel personally about him, he takes the first opportunity to speak to Macron, by sneaking up behind the French President, and touching him from behind, unannounced. Very like that annoying uncle I mentioned earlier. And laying on of hands? Not cool, Scott. We generally seek consent before touching one another.


Later Mr Macron asserts that Morrison is a liar, and instead of turning the other cheek, (after all, Macron was speaking the truth) he argues the point, and then selectively leaks some texts, supposedly strengthening his position. So we are in Glasgow, with the world watching, and Morrison is behaving as if he is involved in a factional turf war in Sydney, back-grounding his opponent, who is, did I mention this already, the President of France.


Do not believe for a moment that Morrison has had a change of heart. He wants only one thing, and that is re-election. Nothing else matters, and he will subvert COP26, Parliament, his own Government, even Sky News if he has to. The climate change policies he has pretended to create are meaningless, and his Government knows it.

Australian Politics, COVID-19

The Pandemic Diaries-will he or won’t he?

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October 12, 2021

The country is on a knife edge. We are all wondering if Scott Morrison will go to Glasgow, or will he not? He is presumably going through a long, dark night of the soul, deciding whether to represent Australia at this, the most important international conference, which just might light the way forward on Global Heating.

Does he hold a microphone? Should he put Australia’s future first, or should he stay behind and try and stitch up an election win, while the rest of the world is trying to save the planet? Australia, or Scott? Glasgow, or Sydney?

All his ‘close friends’ will be there, although Mr Macron will prove hard to pin down to a meeting.

Has Scott got the guts to attend? Or will his ‘leadership’ fail to deliver a credible pathway to emissions reduction? Will 2030 be the new normal target date? Will Scott continue with his nonsensical “technology not taxes” refrain?

There are several other issues bubbling away. New South Wales has just re-opened. Many say it is overdue, while many believe it was too early. Time will tell, but no matter which way the number of cases goes, Morrison will claim it as a victory for common sense.

Hospitals across the country are struggling. He believes that is a state responsibility, except that during a global pandemic it becomes everyone’s problem. And it is our money!

Victims of domestic violence have run out of funding. Again.

Parliament House in Canberra is still unsafe for women to work within.

We are failing to deliver on the challenges of loss of biodiversity. The Minister signed up to the latest UNESCO agreement, but 30% of the country is not included. How will that work? Should we say goodbye to the koala?

Luckily she saved the Great Barrier Reef. Sorry, she had its status upgraded from “in danger.” That didn’t actually help, because Matt Canavan and George Christensen are still reluctant to roll up their hi-vis sleeves, and help.

The country is drowning in malfeasance and public corruption. Three years later, they don’t want a real National Integrity Commission, because it might be too strict. Strict? They just want to be above the law.

Mr Morrison believes that Gladys Berejiklian’s resignation sent an alarming message. He saw it as unfair and an example of a kangaroo court, or of trial by media. Many saw it as “if you are a person of interest, we will investigate your behaviour.”

There was no trial, no verdict, no compulsion to resign. She resigned as a person of interest, which means she may have a case to answer. Not for being unlucky in love, but because she looked the other way when her boyfriend appeared to break the law. She had a positive duty to report the activity.

The Governments of Australia continue to lock up children who are ten years old. Our Attorneys General are paralysed by hand-wringing incompetence. They feel the need to publicly punish these children, somehow, which shines a ghastly light on the legal profession. If these are the brightest and the best the Law Schools have to offer, we might need to change the paradigm.

Barnaby Joyce wants to run another pork-barrel raffle. He thinks if it is fine in Sydney, why not in the regions?

Watching Barnaby speak about farmers and miners, and obtaining a price before you order a meal, rounding up his cattle, shutting down social media companies, though he was not too fussed by the lack of a price for submarines. A daily word salad from our Deputy Prime Minister.

Angus Taylor has claimed that the Business Council of Australia wants a carbon tax. He also wants to sequester carbon, which has been proved to be a dud technology, both expensive and useless. Even Twiggy Forrest agrees that it doesn’t work, but forge onward, Angus.

Matt Canavan and George Christensen continue their revolt against the science, and their own Government, which has tried to pivot away from its knuckle dragging climate ways.

On Scott Morrison’s tricky moral and social dilemmas, can he take Jenny with him? What if he meets up with Greta Thunberg, or some other difficult female? Greta is now 18, so she is becoming even more of a threat to the mental health of the world’s leaders, who are mostly middle aged and white.

So, plenty happening. Tune in for more news from Tiny-town next week.