by DAVID FLINT – IN THAT vast phalanx of taxpayer-funded partisan advisers surrounding Prime Minister Albanese, couldn’t one of them have reminded him of Aesop’s fable, The boy who cried wolf?
The moral is that a known liar will never be believed, even when he speaks the truth.
- The PM’s conduct of the Voice referendum has been appalling.
- This is a government with a truly shocking agenda.
- But the media is desperate to perpetuate Albanese’s honeymoon after covering up his incompetence during the election.
That is the fate of the Prime Minister and his government with its secret agenda, a government which must surely hold the record for its surprisingly early descent into lies and sleaze.
There is now a justified and legitimate fear in the electorate that neither their superannuation, their savings, their children’s inheritance nor even their homes are safe from the Albanese government’s predatory lust.
FEAR
That fear will never go away.
Pleas that this breach of faith will only affect the rich will impress few. (As to the latest Newspoll showing “support” for Chalmers’ superannuation changes, just read the question.)
This failure to impress is aggravated by the PM’s contemptuous refusal to explain why his taxpayer-funded on-demand $400,000pa pension and luxury-for-life perks won’t be touched.
The superannuation lie has also triggered the last thing Labor grandees want. Superannuation is being increasingly seen not through yet another lie, that it’s the envy of the world, but rather as a rort to enrich Labor and the armies of consultants needed to manage something so inordinately complicated.
Worse, the loose-lipped Treasurer has let yet another cat out of the bag. What’s left of your money after Labor’s depredations will be put into government-preferred investments. Investments no doubt like the NBN, which just lost $39 billion of your hard-earned money.
Now, it is possible that one hapless adviser did warn the Prime Minister, suggesting he follow John Howard’s courageous decision when he changed his mind on the GST and went to an early election over it.
In any event, Albanese grandly said it would be an issue in the next election. Of course it will, but those who say Albanese is only doing what Howard did are lying.
Howard took the unlegislated GST to an election, while Albanese plans to pass this with the support of some crossbench senators vying to be forever known as the most naive, some will say the most stupid, in the history of this Commonwealth.
HONEYMOON
Meanwhile, a section of the media seems desperate to perpetuate the honeymoon they gave the Prime Minister after covering up his incompetence during the election.
This has become ridiculous, with some reporting, without the slightest hint of embarrassment, that Albanese’s “marching” in the gay mardi gras was “history-making”. If that’s history, no wonder some of our education standards have fallen below Kazakhstan’s.
This only encouraged Albanese to join the Harbour Bridge march, thus probably spending more time on gay pride than at the scene of his government’s disgrace, causing the breakdown of law and order in Alice Springs and throughout that vast federal, I stress “federal”, Northern Territory.
Not only was this a flying visit prior to his far greater indulgence in celebrity tennis, Alice Springs was sanitised for various photo opportunities showing a “concerned” Prime Minister by having the streets cleared of drunks, delinquents and wandering children.
As in any banana republic, the problem was hidden away, thus making understandable the republic referendum which Assistant Minister for the Republic Thistlethwaite is pushing but which will probably never be held.
But in doing so, he let yet another cat out of the bag, hinting that the day the politicians’ republic is installed will be the new Australia Day.
He was rapped over the knuckles for this just as the Treasurer was for revealing the government has its eyes on your house, your savings and anything you plan to leave to your children.
This is not only a government with a shocking agenda which, if revealed, would have been more unelectable than Bill Shorten’s, this is one which holds the record for so quickly also becoming a government of broken promises and of sleaze. It is already spending taxpayers’ funds in circumstances which are highly questionable.
We have seen the Brittany Higgins’ payout of millions following a one-day mediation.
FORGIVEN
Court-ordered costs against a union with a record of ignoring the law have been mysteriously forgiven.
Industrial relations law has been dragged back to before the Hawke-Keating reforms, with small business made potentially parties to union disputes with rich corporations.
Large funds to improve mobile reception have been concentrated in Labor-held seats.
The conduct of the Voice referendum is the sleaziest yet known. The Labor leaders in the Fisher government who early last century set up the Yes/No booklet to ensure the people were properly informed of the official cases for and against a referendum, would be appalled.
John Howard set the gold standard for the proper conduct of a modern referendum in 1999, although when the Turnbull republicans lost, they blamed him by concocting stories about his alleged misbehaviour.
They hoped the mainstream media would forget the ovation the Turnbull republicans gave Howard when he allowed them to put their preferred model to the people, notwithstanding that it failed to gain the required absolute majority at the Convention.
APPALLING
Albanese’s conduct of the referendum is appalling, worthy of the sleaziest banana republic. The strategy has been to gag the No case and ensure it has no funds.
The bill to change the conduct of the referendum, the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Amendment Bill, is an outrage, as I explained in a detailed and accessible submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.
This sorry story demonstrates yet again that we need neither a referendum for a Voice nor a politicians’ republic.
We need a referendum, preceded by an elected convention, to allow electors themselves to initiate referendums as well as recall by-elections in either house and even general elections.
The politicians must be made truly accountable, 24/7. It is the only hope for Australia.PC
David Flint mentions the provision of re-call (of a politician who is on the nose mid-term) and, similarly, a Citizens-Initiated Referendum/ Plebiscite process to adjudge specific issues individually, rather than the grab-bag of vague promises offerred by all parties only at 3-year intervals.
Switzerland, and some jurisdictions in America do this to de-politicise specific issues (say, Gay marriage, immigration limits, conscription, euthanasia, abortion…) where resort to an electorate-wide vote gives a far more focused sounding of popular opinion on a specific issue. Effectively, it de-politicises a lot of politics without the need of a change of government. The noble Ted Mack did it in his local electorate of North Sydney along with each Council election. How to get any Party in Australia to adopt this (Non-Constitutional) referendum procedure is the difficulty. The only way would be to have a strong crossbench or balance-of-power MP/Senator to twist the tail of the government of the day to implement Citizens-initiated Referenda into the Constitution. If it’s good enough for democratic Switzerland for the last few centuries, surely it is the ultimate in Democracy for us here in Australia.
The “lies and sleaze”, character assassination, weaselling, smearing and more began targeting Prime Minister Scott Morrison soon after Labor lost the 2019 election and Anthony Albanese was appointed to replace Bill Shorten as Opposition Leader.
Closer to the 2022 election the Opposition Leader was caught out with no answer to simple questions like the rate of inflation, interest rate, unemployment, but he told his stories about being raised in public housing by a single mother, no mention of the dwelling being rented by his grandparents who provided their daughter and grandson with accommodation, or that he attended high school at the prestigious Sydney CBD located St.Mary’s Catholic College.
And the story about him having been economics adviser to Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, soon after that claim Sky journalist Andrew Clennell researched and discovered that at the time Anthony Albanese was a staffer at the Sydney electorate office of Hawke Cabinet Minister, far left faction Cabinet Minister Tom Uren. The whatever it takes approach to image building. The same whatever it took approach to attacking Prime Minister Morrison.
Now we know that PM Morrison faults aside, we all have them, had managed the Federal Government responsibilities very well during the early 2020 pandemic arrival here. Of course with his Cabinet Ministers support. That he had rejuvenated the Quad defence arrangements with India, Japan and United States with support from President Trump, and now Australia is recognised as being one of the few countries that realised China was becoming a potential problem for other nations. Maybe that prompted the Quad revival?
And AUKUS, Scott Morrison MP has revealed this past week that he was unable to discuss the formation of AUKUS during the leaders discussions leading up to the 2021 announcement when they were in the UK for the Glasgow Climate Conference – and by the way, where our PM refused to ban coal mining, refused to increase the Paris Agreement emissions and year for completion of reaching agreed target, despite being encouraged to cooperate by Prime Minister Johnson and President Biden. And for net zero emissions he refused to sign an agreement and instead diplomatically offered that Australia would have “an aspirational goal” based on development of new technology over time and without damaging the economy.
There are many achievements for which the Morrison Government was not given due credit for, much like the Abbott Government and similar distractions, relentless negativity, noise, smokescreens and mirrors used as diversionary tactics by Labor and unfortunately LINO left sources that, I have read, recruited Union established activist organisation GetUp to assist them to get Abbott. When he was replaced by Malcolm Turnbull in 2015 Tony Abbott gave us a clue when he cautioned media not to accept leaks from MPs who are not willing to be named as the source.
As I have posted before, mud sticks and after a while the target is covered in mud and few people remember the before being muddied victim.
Mr Hawaii?