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Author: NPA News

  • Week 5 Election Wrap, The Leader’s Debates, The Return of the Democrats, And A Failing Coalition Campaign

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    Scott Morrison must now be rueing his decision to embark on a six-week election campaign, and it appears the longer it continues, the worse his position has become. Week five of the campaign commenced with a leader’s debate which closely resembled a combination of a rugby scrum and an all-out brawl, before the sands of time put an end to proceedings, leaving the public no wiser as to who was the better performer.

    This was Nine Media’s version of a leaders’ debate, and a semblance of normality returned when Seven West Media hosted the final debate: at least the studio audience was able to adequately assess the performances of the two leaders and recorded a decisive victory to Anthony Albanese – 50%, to Morrison’s 34%.

    But the election is not going to won by undecided voters housed in the studios of Australia’s media moguls, and Morrison decided his best bet is to channel Donald Trump and attack lawyers, barristers – any elites will do – and push out the message that he is ‘one of the people’. Not any type of people though, but those who reside in the realms of bogan land, because it appears Morrison believes these are the people that offer him the narrowest pathway to victory: the snarlers, the anti-vaxx crowd, the disaffected, the people who believe the whole world is against them. These are not the “quiet Australians” who supposedly delivered victory to Morrison at the 2019 election, but the rowdy ones who hate everyone and everything.

    However, it’s far too late. According to all published opinion polls, the Coalition is on track to record a massive election loss – thoroughly deserved – but the ghosts of 2019 are still haunting those who dare to make a definitive prediction. The most courageous words we can hear from political experts is that this election is Anthony Albanese’s to lose, but it also has to be remembered that no political party has ever come from this far behind in the final week of a campaign, and managed to win the election. Can Morrison repeat his success of 2019? It’s not impossible, but it must be close to impossible.

    The worst-case scenario for the Liberal–National Coalition is a Labor majority victory, coupled with a team of teal independents who create a massive buffer between them and the Coalition, pushing government out of reach. If this scenario comes to fruition, the Coalition will be out of office for a long time.

    And one of the forgotten parties of Australian politics – the Australian Democrats – is making a comeback and we speak to two of their candidates: Elena Mitchell and Steve Baty. Their halcyon days were well over twenty years ago, when they held nine Senate seats, and even if they manage to win one seat, it will complete a remarkable comeback, after losing their final Senate seats in 2008. And it seems like it’s the right time for a political force to “keep the bastards honest”, the original slogan created by the original Democrat, Don Chipp. It’s well overdue.

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    The post Week 5 Election Wrap, The Leader’s Debates, The Return of the Democrats, And A Failing Coalition Campaign appeared first on New Politics.

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  • Week 4 Election Wrap, Labor Launch, Albanese At The Kitchen Table, The Economy And Corruption

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    Four weeks into the campaign and real votes are being cast, with the acceptance of postal votes and the prepoll period commencing soon.

    In 2019, Labor won the two-party preferred vote – but lost the vote by a wide margin during the prepolling period and, as a result, has reworked it’s campaigning processes and is viewing the 2022 election not just as ‘election day’, but the ‘election fortnight’.

    Some people were bemused by Labor’s relatively early campaign launch, but it makes sense when taking this ‘election fortnight’ strategy into account. The Liberal Party will hold their campaign launch in the final week – which means they’ll still collect public funding until this time – but this epitomises Scott Morrison perfectly. If there is a public handout available there, he’ll be there to collect it.

    As predicted, there was a cash rate rise during the week, but it’s not the Prime Minister’s fault: it’s all about external events, the war in Ukraine… maybe it’s even Labor’s fault, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s not about politics and mortgage holders have factored into account these rate rises through their savings. Apparently.

    Morrison takes the credit when the good news arrives, and always finds someone else to blame when the bad news arrives. But it cannot be like this: a Prime Minister has to take responsibility for everything, not just pick and choose the narrative that suits their agenda at the time.

    And, once again, Morrison claims a federal ICAC will be a ‘kangaroo court’, but we feel he doesn’t want an anti-corruption commission because he is likely to one of the first MPs to appear once this body is established. And, more than likely, followed by many of his frontbench team: this has the potential to keep a federal ICAC busy for a least a decade, decimate the Liberal and National parties, and keep them out of office for another decade on top of that, so it’s obvious why Morrison is not keen on a federal ICAC.

    A debate between Josh Frydenberg and Jim Chalmers focussed on ‘cost of living’ pressures: a civil affair, but if the Coalition wins the election, will Frydenberg actually be the Treasurer? He’s facing a difficult task in the seat of Kooyong and there’s inside speculation that the seat might already be lost to the independent challenger, Monique Ryan.

    There was also a new batch of opinion polls, and it’s the same story as before: no change – if anything, they’ve become worse for the Coalition. Labor is in a winning position in all of these polls, and has been for the past 104 surveys, but we have to remember what happened in 2019: Labor ahead in over 100 consecutive opinion polls, only to lose the election. It’s unlikely, but it could happen again in 2022 – the only hope for the Coalition is that it’s happened before, but this time around, they are much further behind.

    And we answer audience questions: this week, our opinions on the chances of The New Liberals; and the possibility of a Royal Commission into COVID management. We think there should be one.

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    The post Week 4 Election Wrap, Labor Launch, Albanese At The Kitchen Table, The Economy And Corruption appeared first on New Politics.

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  • Week 3 Election Wrap, A Missing Leader, ANZAC Day And Peter Dutton’s War On China

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    Anthony Albanese was missing from the election campaign for one week, and didn’t the media have a field day. Unfortunately, the media has it in for Albanese, and instead of the predicted nightmare disaster that was meant to be caused by their leader’s absence, Labor managed to highlight key members from their frontbench – the differences between the two sides of politics could not be more stark.

    Perhaps it might have been better to focus on all the occasions Scott Morrison has been absent over the past three years?

    Climate change also entered the campaign, but Labor didn’t really need to make too many announcements on this issue. The King of Coal, Matt Canavan, suggested the net zero by 2050 target for the Liberal–National Coalition was “dead” and was never going to happen and, as a result of his statements, the eternal colour of happiness is teal. Candidates from the Voices Of group of independents could barely conceal their delight and the stupidity of Canavan and Colin Boyce in voicing their opinions so stridently. As Napoleon Bonaparte suggested, never interfere when your enemy is making all mistakes.

    ANZAC Day was held during the week, and what better way for a politician to show disrespect and disdain for those people who died in Australian wars, by talking up a war with China, or driving mobile Liberal Party billboards during an ANZAC Day service in Geelong.

    Really, we have to start questioning the sanity of leaders such as Peter Dutton and Morrison, because it’s these types of foolish leaders who sacrifice the lives of young soldiers, while hiding in their coward’s castles, far away from any mortal danger.

    And this foolishness was also on display in the Solomon Islands, where Australia threw away high level hard and soft diplomacy measures and allowed China extend its sphere of influence into the Pacific. The Prime Minister has really found himself on the sticky end of a fried dough stick.

    It’s also becoming more apparent this foolishness in Canberra is about to end, with all opinion polls predicting a Labor victory on election day – 21 May – they also predicted a Labor victory in 2019 but, this time around, it’s hard to see where Scott Morrison’s victory is going to come from. It really is.

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    The post Week 3 Election Wrap, A Missing Leader, ANZAC Day And Peter Dutton’s War On China appeared first on New Politics.

    This post was originally published on New Politics.

  • Week 2 Election Wrap And The Fine Art Of The Scare Campaign

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    Scare campaigns need to have a semblance of truth behind them to work effectively and Labor’s strategy of making pensioners think they’ll have their income managed through the cashless debit card if the Coalition wins the federal election, does gave some solid foundations.

    For a start: the scheme already exists. And the legislation to apply the scheme to age pensions also exists. And footage of many ministers outlining their support for the scheme – that also exists as well.

    Is it a “scare campaign” if it’s actually close to the truth? The media has been quick to point out that it is, and make the claim it’s hurting pensioners to have this “scare” aired in public, even though they didn’t seem so concerned during the 2019 election campaign, when they were very happy to talk up “Labor’s retiree tax”, even though such a plan has never existed, and never will.

    But given Scott Morrison was the architect of the disastrous “Robodebt” scheme – which cost the Australian taxpayers $1.2 billion – and was also Minister for Social Services when the Indue card trial was implemented, it’s likely that he’d also like to apply this draconian system to age pensioners. Why? Because that’s who he is.

    “Where’s the money going to come from?” It’s a question asked of Labor, but never of the Coalition, even though the answer is the same for both parties. The money comes from the Reserve Bank of Australia, as it always has. Why do political journalists continue to humiliate themselves by asking the most basic questions available to them?

    The opinions polls are still pointing towards a Labor victory at the next election, although a hung parliament is also a distinct possibility. If this comes into play, who would the crossbench support? It’s quite possible their numbers could come up to 13 and, as most of these would be taking seats away from the Liberal Party, would they support the Liberal Party to form government? It’s unlikely: all of these independents are campaigning strongly on several key issues – climate change, integrity in politics, women’s safety, corruption and mismanagement.

    It would be hard for them to support the Liberal Party, considering their lack of action on all of these issues over the past nine years.

    And it’s still quite predictable: the media has an intense dislike of Anthony Albanese, and doesn’t it show. He’s the man who cannot do anything right. He’s on stage at the Byron Bay Bluesfest: he ‘gatecrashed’, that’s obviously wrong.

    He wins the leaders debate on Sky News, 40 to 35 in an audience of 100 undecided voters: but the public doesn’t understand, so that result is obviously wrong too – Albanese didn’t win, Scott Morrison did. And, oh goodness me, now he’s gone off to catch COVID: that’s obviously wrong and it’s an absolute disaster and ‘nightmare’ for Albanese and Labor’s campaign! (hint: no, it’s not really).

    Australia has a paucity of quality political journalism and it’s a pity so many journalists swayed towards the one-sided disaster-style reporting when Albanese revealed he had contracted COVID. They could have thought a little more creatively and looking at the possibility that it might actually work in Labor’s favour. But squawking from the sidelines is far easier and far more enjoyable. And what better to make people disengage from politics by telling everyone how “boring” and “dismal” the election campaign.

    Who’s got time to report on the important matters?

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    The post Week 2 Election Wrap And The Fine Art Of The Scare Campaign appeared first on New Politics.

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  • Week 1 Election Wrap And Media Behaving Badly, Very Badly

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    A very hostile first media conference for Anthony Albanese in the marginal seat of Bass in Tasmania, where he couldn’t answer or gave the wrong answers to two questions from a journalist: what’s the Reserve Bank’s cash rate, and what is the official unemployment rate.

    A classic ‘gotcha’ question from the media, and it’s just another example of how poor political journalism is in Australia, where the value of catching a politician out – and getting the headline propaganda – is placed far higher than providing a vision for the future of this country, which is sorely needed after nine years of driftless and aimless government provided by the Liberal–National Coalition.

    But, these are rules of the game: Albanese should have known these figures or, at the least, had a strategy for dealing with this situation, which inevitably happens during an election campaign.

    If only he’d been quick enough to recite three words – “Google it, mate” – and all would have been forgiven. Adam Bandt from the Australian Greens put a journalist in his place for asking a ridiculous ‘gotcha’ question, but it’s unlikely to stop journalists from asking these inane questions, because the current crop of Australian journalists don’t have the intellect or depth of knowledge to provide a clearer analysis: best to trip over a political leader, and that’s the day’s work day. And if they’re lucky, score an invitation to the Prime Minister’s private drinks session for the travelling media: you never know who you might meet there and, hopefully snort some free cocaine in the Nepean Rowers Club bathrooms.

    Labor does receive different treatment from the media, there’s no questions about this: hostility and impatient demands for answers are always made of Labor Party leaders; for Scott Morrison, any answer will do – whether it’s correct or not, doesn’t really matter either – and then it’s off for some photo opportunities at a sewing machine centre in western Sydney, or shooting some hoops at a basketball court in Melbourne. Morrison is the media’s man: he can do no wrong, because he’s the convenient idiot for the media moguls. Or perhaps the Manchurian Candidate, but that might be a bit too sophisticated for legacy media, which prefers to glide with those in power, rather than hold power to account.

    Will this cost Albanese the election? Elections are more than just about first-day blunders: this election should be about climate change, cost of living pressures, wage stagnation, a lack of action for bushfire and flood victims, saving Medicare, women’s safety, the failures in the vaccination rollout and quarantine measures, incompetence, corruption, and all the rorting.

    These are the issues the election should be about, not about who can recite random statistics on a podium. The media is trying to hoodwink the electorate: they’re as evil and insipid as the Liberal Party that they keep cheering for. It’s just a question of whether the electorate can see through this, or keep swallowing the lies they’re been happily accepting over the past nine years.

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    The post Week 1 Election Wrap And Media Behaving Badly, Very Badly appeared first on New Politics.

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  • Big Pre-election Special And Talking Politics With The Very Reason-able Jane Caro

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    We’ve never seen a government in so much trouble entering an election campaign and it’s just a question of whether Scott Morrison has the political skills to turn matters around.

    But before everyone starts drawing a line through the Liberal–National Coalition and ending nine years of brutally poor government and incompetence, it has to be remembered that we’ve seen this story before – 2016 and 2019 – when a divided Coalition was expected to at least lose one of those elections – 2019 – before being return by a wafer-thin majority on both occasions.

    But as bad as a government has been for most of its existence, it only has to be on its best behaviour for five weeks – the length of the election campaign – of a 156-week parliamentary term, and all sins can be forgotten by the electorate. That is what Scott Morrison is hoping for. The big problem this time around is Morrison is not an unknown figure: the electorate suspects that he’s working for someone else, and not for the Australian electorate. They suspect he lies for most of the time, even when he doesn’t need to; they suspect that he’s incompetent, and they suspect that he might even be corrupt.

    He’s also looking for the same tactics and election tricks that worked so well for him during the 2019 election – the photo opportunities, the grand misrepresentation of Labor policies, and Bill Shorten the bogeyman, also known as the “Bill Australia can’t afford”. Again, it’s 2022, and it’s all so different. The electorate is tiring of the endless photo opportunities; they’ve worked Morrison out. Bill Shorten is no longer the leader of the Labor Party, replaced by the innocuous and inoffensive Anthony Albanese – but after years of division promoted by Morrison at every opportunity, being innocuous and inoffensive might be just what the election is looking for as they enter the third year of this COVID pandemic.

    The free character assessments offered by Liberal Party MP – and the long-departed Michael Towke, who reappeared like Banquo’s ghost after 15 years in exile, reminding the world what the media would hope would be forgotten – the brutal attack on him by Scott Morrison in the 2007 Liberal Party preselection battle in Cook. The media will do whatever they can to justify and promote the return of the Morrison government, even though it’s patently clear – especially over the past three years – that this is not a government worth saving. It might fall on deaf ears anyway: based on what all the polls are saying, it might not matter anymore, and the Liberal Party is heading for a period in exile, so it can lick its wounds, and return as a much better political party.

    Jane Caro is a social commentator, writer, academic and public education advocate. And she’s running as a Senate candidate for the Reason Party – David Lewis caught up with her to talk about public education, aged care and the upcoming election campaign. If Labor manages to win the next election – and Caro also manages to enter the Senate – we could be in for some interesting times as far as reform of the education and age care sectors are concerned. But, first things first: there’s an election campaign to be held and the election in May.

    It’s going to be a wild ride.

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    The post Big Pre-election Special And Talking Politics With The Very Reason-able Jane Caro appeared first on New Politics.

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  • Budget 2022 And A Wrecking Ball Government

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    The Budget was announced this week, and not only was it one of the most political ever, it was also one of the most expensive job applications in history for the federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, who is clearly angling for the leadership of the Liberal Party after the next election, win or lose.

    Is this a good Budget? Budgets should be all about the community and the economy but, once again, the media has focused on whether the Budget will be enough to get the Coalition government re-elected or not, which seems to totally miss the point of national finances.

    And is this government incompetent, or is its mismanagement – inaction on climate change, bushfires, flooding, vaccination rollout – a deliberate strategy by design? Many people have suggested it’s impossible for a government to be so incompetent, and the Morrison government is following in the footsteps of the Bush administration in the United States: deliberate incompetence and recklessness that opens up the pathway for an obscene ideology that brings in all the spivs, charlatans, and private operators. Everything is against the public interest and in favour of the chosen few.

    We’ve had yet another once-in-3500 years weather event in Lismore and northern New South Wales. And, once again, government has acted slowly and its response has been too late. This is an issue that is going to feature in the background of the federal election campaign, once it is announced.

    Labor preselections always seem to attract controversy, especially when a white male economist from an affluent area is parachuted into a diverse multicultural western Sydney seat. Should parties insert high quality candidates into winnable seats, or choose the local who works the branches for many years, and ends up doing nothing once they become the MP?

    This, of course, is an issue. But nothing compared to the criticism being thrown at Scott Morrison by his own side of politics. Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has, effectively, been dumped by the Liberal Party and her final speech in the Senate shared her opinion of Morrison as a bully who is unfit to be Prime Minister and lacks a moral compass.

    There’s no come back for Morrison. Fierravanti-Wells is leaving politics but it appears there might be quite a few of her Liberal Party colleagues following her at the next election, whenever it is held.

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    The post Budget 2022 And A Wrecking Ball Government appeared first on New Politics.

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  • SA election, Labor factions, and the beginning of the end of Morrison

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    The electorate in South Australia has removed a one-term Liberal Party government and installed a Labor government under Peter Malinauskas. And with a state election so close to a federal election, will there be any implications for Scott Morrison?

    We keep being told that there’s no relationship between state and federal issues, but we think there is much for the Morrison government to be worried about. In almost every election result since the pandemic commenced, aside from a state election victory in Tasmania, there hasn’t been very much good news for the Liberal–National Coalition.

    A byelection loss in Eden–Monaro, general election losses in Western Australia, Queensland, Northern Territory, ACT and South Australia, even a 3.5% swing against the Coalition in the Queensland byelection in Groom. Massive byelection swings in New South Wales. This is not really a recipe for success, if the federal government is looking for any guidance.

    And if the federal government is not having much success in the management of the economy, the bushfires, the floods, COVID… and pretty much every else we’d expect from government, what better way to distract the public than highlighting factional problems in the Labor Party.

    The media’s behaviour – and that of the Coalition – has been unedifying in reporting on the death of Kimberley Kitching, and the innuendos, gossip and half-truths about Labor Party factions. Anything at all to smear Labor and try to prove to the public that Labor is unworthy of high office.

    The only problem is that very few people in the media understand what factions are – and the Liberal Party does have them too, despite what Malcolm Turnbull suggested several years ago – but presenting the idea of “factions: bad”, and something that only exists in the Labor Party is all the media is interested in.

    The polls keep getting worse for Scott Morrison and qualitative research confirms that the Prime Minister is considered to be incompetent and untrustworthy. If a half-decent Premier in South Australia is given a 5% swing against and thrown out of office, what type of punishment will be inflicted upon the Morrison government?

    Budget week will provide a few more answers and it will be the last chance for the federal government to turn everything around – and also a last chance for the Liberal Party to make a leadership change before the election: if it does indeed come to that.

    That’s how bad it has become.

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  • Attacking Albanese, The Media Plunge To A New Low, And We Take A Look At The Fusion Party

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    It was Anthony Albanese’s turn to appear on 60 Minutes, but not as much enthusiasm as they displayed for Scott Morrison, even though more people tuned in to watch Albanese, compared to Morrison’s episode several weeks earlier. And his appearance brought the ire of Morrison, who complained about Albanese’s weight loss, his lack of interest in Italian cakes and his choice of glasses.

    In Morrison’s mind, these are critical issues for choosing a prime minister and it explains why his time as prime minister has been a disaster.

    In his attacks on Albanese, Morrison claimed “he’s not pretending to be someone else” – except for sheep shearer, hair beautician, racing car driver, carpenter, barre dancer, gnocchi maker, chef, court sweeper, ukulele musician, a pilot. If these are Morrison’s ambitions, he should follow his dreams and allow someone else to become the prime minister but, with the opinion polls still pointing to a Coalition loss at the next federal election, perhaps the decision is going to be made for him.

    Senator Kimberley Kitching died last week and the grieving hadn’t even started before the media started blaming the Labor Party for causing her death. It was unedifying and yet another example of the mediocre standards of the Australian mainstream media, and how willing they are to support anything that is detrimental to the progress of the Labor Party.

    When Don Randall died in 2015, there was no discussion of the “stress of the job”, or Liberal Party preselection issues. But when it’s a Labor parliamentarian, it’s an open attack and no point is too low to go to.

    And election signage is causing problems in Melbourne. Michael Sukkar and Tim Wilson rarely do anything in Parliament – their ideological pursuits are based on that libertarian theme of no government at all, but they’ll jump to action when it comes to election posters. Wilson has actually gone to the Supreme Court to stop his opponent, Zoe Daniel, from putting up election posters. Parliamentary work: forget it. But work to get yourself re-elected into parliament to not actually do anything: that’s a definite yes. Wilson has got his priorities all wrong.

    And we feature Sahar Khalili from the Fusion Party, candidate in the federal seat of Reid. It’s an amalgamation of several minor parties and find out what their ambitions are for federal politics and the future.

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    The post Attacking Albanese, The Media Plunge To A New Low, And We Take A Look At The Fusion Party appeared first on New Politics.

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  • The On-Water Matters Sweeping Out The Morrison Government To Oblivion: A Big Week In Politics

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    Dedicated to the memory of Senator Kimberley Kitching.

    The floods in northern NSW and Queensland are causing major political headaches for the Morrison government and, as the floodwaters flow back into the oceans, their ideological obsession with small government has been laid bare.

    Communities expect governments to act when events occur that are beyond their control and beyond their abilities to repair. Otherwise, what is the point of government?

    Are they not also made up from the people that live in these communities? Scott Morrison’s response has been haphazard, confused, illogical and, when it finally arrived, it was far too late.

    And with an election around the corner, the federal government’s chances are receding as quickly as the northern waters.

    Although current polls are indicated a change of government is in the air, Morrison has to continue what he has always been doing – announcing. A nuclear submarines base has been “announced” to be built in either Brisbane, Newcastle or Wollongong – areas where the Coalition needs to hold seats, or gain seats, if wants to have any chance of an election victory in May.

    But these three locations are not even in the top five recommended by the Australian Defence Force, but why should this matter if there’s an election to be won? And for the most “transactional” Prime Minister has ever seen, this is all that matters: the public interest comes a distance last.

    And what type of company does Peter Dutton keep? The Minister for Defence has some very peculiar relationships with a few Brisbane-based companies who, in turn, donate to the Liberal–National Party. It’s a stark reminder the Joh Bjelke-Petersen corruption of the 1970s and 1980s has never really disappeared: different faces, different characters, but the same old malfeasance. If only we had a federal anti-corruption commission that could look into these activities.

    It was also International Women’s Day this week: it seems Morrison was too busy to make any announcements or statements about IWD, but after his performances in 2019 and 2021, it’s probably a good thing he kept quiet. Anything he says will remind the election about the incredibly low number of women in the Coalition – just 21 per cent – and who wants to be reminded of that?

    And we might see another one-term government next week, with the South Australia Government facing a 5 per cent swing against it, and facing a loss of at least four seats. It’s a part of an international swing against the conservative regimes who want to see their role reduced, at a time when electorates are seeking more involvement of governments during an insecure and unpredictable time.

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    The post The On-Water Matters Sweeping Out The Morrison Government To Oblivion: A Big Week In Politics appeared first on New Politics.

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  • Ukraine, Climate Change Floods And A Look At The Australian Progressives


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    The war in Russian invasion in Ukraine is escalating, and it’s difficult to know how this will end. But Vladimir Putin has already lost, irrespective of the outcome: a crashing Russian economy, the Rouble has collapsed, and receiving opprobrium from most of the rest of the world.

    As well as what populist dictators hate the most: removal of the Russian football team from World Cup games.

    And is has also provided an opportunity for the Australian Prime Minister to talk tough. It’s obvious Scott Morrison wants to be seen as part of a war-time government, but it’s hard to convince the Australian public. He’s doing the right thing to call out Russian aggression in Ukraine but Australia is not at war.

    It’s also hard to think that if there wasn’t a federal election coming up, the government’s response would have been close to nothing. After all, that’s all they did when Russia annexed the Crimea in 2014, and almost as much during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia in the 1990s.

    Australia doesn’t have very much of a relationship with Russia or Ukraine: the electorate would like Australia to provide the support needed to end the conflict, but it’s a far away conflict and it probably won’t play on the mind of the electorate at the next federal election.

    There is one Australian connection, however, that needs to be looked at: Rupert Murdoch and Putin do have a close relationship. Putin facilitated the sale of Russian media companies to the Murdoch empire in the early 2000s, a time when Murdoch was having financial difficulties. And now the favour is being repaid, with favourable pro-Russian commentary on the US Fox News channel, which is now being replayed on Russian television. A friend in need is a friend indeed, and 20 years later, Murdoch is propagandising on behalf of Putin.

    There is very little governments could have done to stop the floods in Queensland and northern NSW – except for introduce climate change mitigation about 30 years ago – but, even still, there is action that can be taken to be prepared when the inevitable effects of climate change arrive.

    A report outlining the climate change events that would hit eastern Australia up until April 2022 was delivered to National Cabinet in November 2021, but it seems the government failed to act upon anything, and the communities now being affected by these floods were caught totally unawares.

    Preparing for a crisis and acting when the crisis arrives is the primary reason for the existence of governments – offering protection and support when the community needs it – but the federal and NSW governments seem to think that it’s best to do nothing. If you lose your house, it’s your fault. If an entire town is flooded, what’s that got to do with the government? Should have prayed a little bit more, otherwise this wouldn’t have happened to you.

    It’s the most narrow-minded perspective of what governments should be doing – or not doing, and it’s hard to see either the federal government or the NSW Government being able to win their respective elections with these types of ideological approaches. Governments are there to help and assist, not avoid people and punish them when a crisis arrives.

    And in our ongoing series on independent candidates and minor parties, David Lewis is in conversation with Therese Faulkner, the president of the Australian Progressives, to look at their ambitions at the next federal election.

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  • Scott Morrison’s War Against Everything and David Lewis interviews The New Liberals

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    Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton are keen to mention the Community Party of China at every opportunity and how terrible they are – ignoring the fact that China is Australia’s number one trading partner and Australian athletes recently competed at the Winter Olympics in Beijing (so surely it can be all that bad) – and making the link between bad China and the Labor Party, especially its leader, Anthony Albanese.

    And creating that link between Albanese and pinko-communist-leftist-Maoist-Guevarian-socialist thoughts, all because (allegedly) he glanced at the Communist Party of Australia’s newspaper, The Tribune, at some point in 1992. The Liberal Party support team at News Corporation did fall short of calling for the execution of Albanese for thought crimes against the state, but the sentiment was there.

    An incident between an Australian Defence Force aircraft and a Chinese vessel in international waters in the Arafura Sea was magnified in the media and by the federal government – we still are not sure what occurred – but who’s got time for the facts when there’s an election to be won. And if the electorate tires from hearing about ‘China’, there’s always an opportunity to drag Australia into the Russia–Ukraine conflict, even though it’s not within Australia’s field of interest.

    Yes, we need to be concerned about Russia’s invasions in Ukraine, but it’s a complex situation based on old Soviet Union politics, history, imperialism, economics and control of resources. But that doesn’t matter: it‘s an opportunity to push Australia towards a ‘khaki’ election, which the Coalition believes it has a stronger chance of winning, as well as being about to promote the idea that Albanese is ‘weak on border protection’. But will it work?

    The Liberal Party seems to be at war with everyone and when they’ve cycled through the usual suspects – China, communists, the Greens, Labor, pensioners, welfare recipients, the poor – they return to an old and trusted enemy: the unions. A shutdown of Sydney’s train system was caused by the NSW Government, with the intention of blaming the unions.

    Australia is poorly served by its mainstream media, and the Sydney Morning Herald provided a fine example of this when they pushed the idea that it was strike action caused by unions (no, it was a lockout by the NSW Government), and this provided attack points for Morrison over the next few days against unions – it’s a pity that it was all incorrect, but that was never the point.

    It allowed Morrison to push the message about life under an Albanese government – train strikes every day of week; misery; inconvenience; something about communism and the left.

    In Morrison’s dystopia, there are no shades of grey, just Neanderthal simplicity: Scomo, good. Albo, bad.

    And David Lewis catches up with Ryan Bruce, who is the candidate in Aston for The New Liberals: we find out about his campaign, and what The New Liberals are all about and what the future holds for them.

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  • Chasing the April sun and an election disaster for the Liberal Party

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    Butchering a classic pop song from a 1970s Australian band and playing a ukulele might not seem like the best way to prepare for a critical election year, but that’s exactly what Scott Morrison did. It seemed bizarre but there is a method to this madness: it keeps all the bad news away from the headlines and keeps the enemies of the Liberal Party occupied with the unimportant and minute details. It’s the hallmark of a populist politician: distract with stunts and gimmicks, keep your opponents in the electorate occupied with irrelevant material, and hope that everyone else forgets about all of your errors.

    And, of course, part of the sing-song needs to include your wife and two daughters at Kirribilli House, because nothing overcomes a Liberal Party “problem with women” better than wheeling out Jen And The Girls©™ as a political “secret weapon”. Should family members be used politically to help a prime minister win an election? It would be better to stay in the background but if a spouse is going to become a part of the political process, they need to expect the scrutiny coming their way.

    A desperate government will always resort to desperate measures and a government influenced by libertarian thinking and free-market and religio-fascist Christian values will always seek the maximum advantage in the most destructive way possible. If there is a vote to be gained, nothing is too low for the Liberal Party and for Morrison to reach.

    And following on from the debacle of the Religious Discrimination Bill, Morrison and Peter Dutton – aided and abetted by a posse of Liberal Party MPs – decided to create all sorts of problems with China (as if they haven’t done enough damage already) by dropping bipartisanship on foreign relations and accusing Labor deputy leader Richard Marles of being the “Manchurian Candidate” – and their friends at News Corporation managed to find a video of Anthony Albanese speaking three sentences of Mandarin to a China–Australia forum in 2018.

    Welcome to modern Australia, as interpreted by conservatives: education and being able to speak a foreign language is rubbished, and national security and relationships with the biggest trading partner is damaged, for the sake of an unlikely and undeserved election victory. It’s another good reason why the Liberal Party needs to be turfed out at the next election.

    The weekend byelections in NSW suggest the main problems for the Morrison government will be the independents – the seat of Willoughby was almost lost to the independent candidate, Larissa Penn through a swing of 19%, and this spells trouble in the seats of North Sydney, Bennelong, Kooyong, Flinders and Goldstein.

    And how difficult will it be for the Labor Party to win the 2022 federal election? Although they are 10 percentage points ahead of the Liberal–National Coalition in the current polls – 55% to 45% – it will still be a difficult election, for mathematical reasons: they only need a net gain of seven seats, but where the votes fall will be critical to whether there are also enough seats that will change hands.

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  • A big week in Parliament and talking politics with Jim Chalmers

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    It was an explosive week of Parliament, the first of very few in 2022. The government decided not to schedule too many sitting days this year because, when there’s an election year, a most secretive government doesn’t want too much scrutiny placed upon itself.

    And, because it’s an election year, a funding freeze for the ABC has been lifted, which is a little bit awkward: the Liberal Party conference in 2015 voted to privatise the ABC (and SBS), and it’s one of the Institute of Public Affair’s top 50 items on its to-do list. And that’s aside from the 30 years of hardline attacks on the ABC by the Liberal Party, which have dramatically escalated since 2013.

    So much time has been spent on the Religious Discrimination Bill, a Bill that not too many people care about, or even want – but Scott Morrison believes this Bill may provide him with a narrow pathway to victory at the 2022 federal election. But it’s off the table now: the government didn’t have the parliamentary competence to manage its own legislation.

    The emphasis on a Bill that nobody wants is also instructive for the areas the government is not focusing upon: a national anti-corruption commission was promised over three years ago, but is nowhere to be seen. The Minister for Aged Care attends a cricket match, rather than face scrutiny at a Senate Estimates hearing.

    Women’s safety issues are being left behind – and didn’t Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame give the Prime Minister an earful for this: women have had enough, they’re not going to smile and be silent. The powerful never easily relinquish power, but it’s a reminder of what can be achieved with effective advocacy.

    And while the Prime Minister was very busy washing a young woman’s hair at a Coco hair salon – creepy! – the Labor Party is carefully preparing its economic agenda for when it returns to government. It will be difficult for Labor to win at the next election – as it is for any Opposition party – but they are ensuring that they are well prepared.

    Shadow Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, believes the federal government has forgotten the “people” part of the economy and the pandemic has clearly shown that a healthy economy also needs a healthy community and workforce. The current problems in the economy: wage stagnation, a generational debt without a generational dividend, poor economic management, poor management of the pandemic – all need to be addressed, but better economic thinking needs to adopted if the economy is going to “build back better”, rather than a futile “snap back” to a pre-pandemic world, which might be unachievable anyway.

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  • A summer of discontent and the beginning of the end for Morrison

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    An absolute summer of discontent is almost sealing the fate of the Morrison government, one of the most incompetent administrations Australia has ever seen, aided and abetted by a NSW Government which has managed – or mismanaged – the Omicron outbreak in the worst possible way.

    For many families, Christmas was spent in isolation, either with COVID, or waiting until the results of their PCR tests arrived – and this was in contrast to the message Scott Morrison put out in November, when he promised “the restaurants are open and a big Christmas is coming for all of us”.

    Of course, Morrison is not solely to blame for the Omicron outbreak: that blame can be fully placed at the feet of the NSW Government. But Morrison, supported by many donors and supporters in the business community, egged this on, and pushed the idea of opening up the community and the economy at any cost.

    Although Morrison claimed his government was “blindsided”, every expert warned him about the effects of the spread of Omicron, from as early as November, and explained that a population with a high infection rate, will also have a deleterious effect on the economy. And by ignoring the experts and pursuing his ideological agenda, Morrison ended up with the worst of all worlds: a sick population, a sick workforce. And a sick economy.

    The government that did fully follow the medical advice resides in Western Australia and they’ve had the best of all worlds: a healthy population, and a healthy economy growing at the rate of 3.5%. But, for some strange reason, the media and Liberal Party has attacked the state that has the most success. Partisanship in its most extreme form is an ugly sight, and the media was happy to amplify every negative small business story from Western Australia and ignore the successes of keeping the Omicron out and the community safe.

    Labor leader Anthony Albanese has had an image make-over and his performance at the National Press Club was smooth, confident and assured, whereas Morrison’s appearance was flustered, pressured and the opposite of confident. That tends to happen when journalists start asking the hostile questions and relay information from unnamed Ministers who claim Morrison is a “horrible man”, a “fraud”, and a “complete psycho”.

    Morrison is way behind in the polls and under severe pressure and, with less than four months before the next federal election, is looking less likely to be a winner. Things can always be turned around in politics, but that possibility may have slipped by and it’s hard to see how his ship of state can be turned around at all.

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  • Reinventing politics in the seat of Hughes: Georgia Steele

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    Georgia Steele is an independent candidate in the southern Sydney seat of Hughes and is up against the current member Craig Kelly, and candidates from the major political parties.

    It’s a difficult task for any independent to win any federal seat but there seems to be a groundswell of support for change in the 2022 federal election.

    There are many key issues not being addressed by the federal government – climate change, women’s safety, the management of the pandemic – and Steele is using these issues as a focus for her campaign, as well as taking action on integrity in politics.

    At a time when Australia has slipped dramatically in the international corruption index – from 85% in 2012, to its current ranking of 73% (Australia’s lowest ranking ever), it seems a focus on these issues is coming at the right time for the electorate. And for candidates who are prepared to make a stand and try to do things differently, there may be some electoral reward, because in the current era of the pandemic, doing more of the same in politics is not going to work.

    In this in-depth interview with David Lewis, Steele outlines all the reasons why she would be best placed to make positive changes to the Australian political landscape and offer the electorate of Hughes a far better voice to Parliament.

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  • The independent voice of Boothby: Jo Dyer

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    Jo Dyer is the independent candidate in the South Australia seat of Boothby, the third-most marginal seat in Australia. And she’s running under the banner of the ‘Voices Of’ movement, a loose alliance of independents campaigning all across Australia on the issues of climate change, integrity and women’s safety – all of which the Prime Minister and his team are doing very little about, and seem to care even less about.

    Which major party forms government at the next election could be determined by independent candidates and there’s a fair chance of this happening, with many in the electorate disenchanted with the Morrison government but unsure if the Labor Party will provide the direction the community is interested in.

    A conversation with Jo Dyer about her views on the current state of federal politics, why she’s running as an independent candidate, why a vote away from the major parties is an important part of the democratic process, her background in creative arts, and how she hopes to be a voice for positive change in politics.

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  • Independents day in Boothby: Jo Dyer

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  • A Week of Disaster and Corruption: Preselections, COVID Outbreaks, Submarines and Blind Trusts

    The Labor factions are at it again, this time creating a preselection problem in South West Sydney. Kristina Keneally is a former NSW Premier and sits in the Senate, but if she wanted to continue in politics, she had to be parachuted into the seat of Fowler, which is specifically a back-up-seat when preselection problems arise. It means whoever has been preselected in the seat of Fowler has to stand aside, because whatever the Labor factions want, they are provided with it. They are hungry beasts. So a good local community candidate has been dumped. Is it terrible? Yes, of course it is. But it’s the way all political parties operate, if they decide they want someone to enter parliament. Scott Morrison, for example.

    It was like the final show on Broadway: NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian decided the 11am media conferences were going to end, because she didn’t want to give the COVID outbreak the gravity it deserves. And a few journalists were starting to ask difficult questions about corruption and her involvement in a $5 million grant in Wagga Wagga. But then Berejiklian uncancelled her cancellation, and much to the bemusement of the citizens of NSW, she appeared in a media conference at 11am on Monday, the day after she said they wouldn’t proceed any further. And the NSW Labor leader, Chris Minns held his own media conference at the same time to highlight all the problems with the management of COVID by the NSW Government. Any relationship between these two events would surely be co-incidental. Wouldn’t they?

    A $90 billion deal with a French submarine company to provide 12 submarines had been scuppered and the Australian Government has signed a tripartite deal with the UK and US to purchase shiny new nuclear-powered submarines – in the year 2040. So, in one fell swoop, we managed to annoy the French and Chinese governments, and send a message to the rest of the world community that Australia is a friend which cannot be trusted. But this is all about politics and the bigger question keeps being ignored: why does Australia need nuclear-powered submarines at a cost of over $100 billion?

    And Christian Porter is in trouble again, this time, a blind trust has been created to cover his legal costs from a defamation which was settled before it reached trial. But why would a blind trust be created in this way? What does Porter have to hide? The error-prone Porter is likely to keep making mistakes and Morrison is likely to sack him from the frontbench. And if he had any political sense, this would be his first course of action on Monday morning: Porter is now a serious political liability.

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  • Dissecting the latest Newspoll figures

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  • Why was Scott Morrison sacked from Tourism Australia?

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  • When is the next election, who will win, and will it be Morrison v Albanese?

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  • Dr Chant and the politicisation of the public service

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  • Too much politics: Why the vaccination rollout has failed

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  • Why did Labor support tax cuts? History, politics and the election

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  • Newspoll: It doesn’t mean everything but it does mean something

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  • The Lockdown Schadenfreude in NSW And A Two Jobs Failure: Vaccination and Quarantine

    The NSW Government’s ‘gold standard’ in COVID management  has soured into a more tarnished puce colour, with Premier Gladys  Berejiklian’s reluctance to shut down Sydney a week earlier, resulting  in a more protracted lockdown than would otherwise have been required.

    Aside  from the extra billions of dollars it will cost the NSW economy, it  took a full 24 hours before Berejiklian could even mention the word that  shall not be mentioned: LOCKDOWN – a dastardly word that fellow  Liberals were ridiculing just the day before the lockdown was announced,  and suggesting it was something only those lunatic states run by the Labor Party would think about doing.

    But we are all lockdowners now. And it’s a reflection of the national ‘debts and deficits’  argument: Liberal Party lockdowns, good; Labor Party lockdowns, bad. It’s beyond belief that conservative politics in Australia can be so  infantile.

    FULL POST: https://newpolitics.com.au/2021/07/03/the-lockdown 

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  • Albanese’s Budget Reply wants to be on your side

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  • A Big Year In Politics: 2021 In Review And A Preview Of 2022

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    An incredible year in Australian politics, but the biggest feature was all the issues left behind and the issues that were not managed very well at all: climate change, corruption, the way women are treated within the political system.

    And the biggest issue of all for 2021: the coronavirus pandemic. It can be argued that at least by the end of the year, high vaccination rates were achieved and we finally got there, but in the meantime, there were two protracted lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne that could have been avoided, if the government had procured vaccinations far earlier. And if Australia had the right leadership in place. But that will be up to the electorate to decide at the next federal election, which will either be held in March or May 2022.

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    Scott Morrison is predictable and is basing his leadership on spin and marketing. Anthony Albanese has cleaned up his image, becoming more forceful and targeted in his messaging. 2022 will be based on the three “C”s: Character, Corruption, Climate change. Or four, if you include Coronavirus.

    They’ve been the big issues that electorate has been thinking about during 2021, and we think they will also be the defining issues of the next federal election.

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  • Independents Day In North Sydney: Kylea Tink

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    Independent candidates are set to play a big role in the next federal election. And why are they running for election? Because they’ve had enough of the politics-as-usual approach and feel Australia is being held back by poor leadership, especially on climate change, a lack of action against corruption, and the treatment of women in politics.

    David Lewis speaks with Kylea Tink, the independent candidate in the seat of North Sydney, to find out why she is running for politics and how she is hoping to win the seat from the Liberal Party.

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