Children are striking in the streets and demanding an effective response to climate change, while many adults sit on their hands. It is a sharp illustration of intergenerational conflict, and Greta Thunberg has become a lightning rod for that conflict. Social media is awash with objections by conservative commentators. The abrupt and defiant language of […]
Politicians
Donation Transparency
The Australian government’s increasing corruption is both measurable and comparable with other sovereign states. Trends in fluctuating Transparency International score for Australia in the last 25 years and international comparisons on political donations rules, are revelatory. In 2013, Australia was amongst the top 10 countries on the Transparency International Index. Now in 2019, it has […]
Voting Values
Voting is the expression of the rights of an individual to participate in their government, but like any expression, it can be misdirected, coerced, bought and sold. Political Parties understand the role and importance of marketing, propaganda and salesmanship in seeking your vote, irrespective of whether it is in your or your community’s best interest, […]
The Banality of Evil
When we contemplate great evil, who comes to mind? Genghis Khan, Vlad the Impaler, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, Idi Amin, Kim Il Sung, Josef Mengele, Saddam Hussein, Emperor Nero and so on? Too easy. The reasons are apparent, the history unrefuted and the weight of affirming opinions […]
James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree / Politicians, Privatisation, Voting / 0
Comparative corruption and transparency
The media and public’s desire for a Federal anti-corruption body and the search for revealing transparency has met with a lagging response by the government. From the mantra of “on water matters” when resisting transparency around refugee issues to the failure to submit Peter Dutton to the High Court over his extraordinary profiting from the […]
The wages of pollution is tax
How is it that recent parliamentary bloodletting over tax breaks and electricity pricing continues to detract from steady planetary exsanguination? Are we now to accept that farm tours, milk levies and infrastructure spends are to be the ready tourniquets for our Australian economy? The political focus on Tax breaks to increase wage rates while the […]
James J. Morrison W.G. Dupree / Employment, Environment, Politicians, Taxes / 0
Right or Left – the invasion of the neo-liberal agenda.
Identifying bipartisan values within in our polarised political class is hard. Common ground is elusive not only because the values represented by politics have changed, but discerning the truth in an alternative fact world, filled with propaganda, is problematic. What values do our politicians really hold, as opposed to what they say, they do? What […]
Bribery or Donations
There is a growing awareness that our conservative government’s policy needs a little work or is that a massive understatement? The Sydney Morning Herald listed just a few policies that it had no problem in describing as “Bad Policies“. The article (in the link aforementioned) doesn’t touch on the one cause and two reasons for […]
Debt Collection
Centrelink has been fraudulently issuing debt notices to people who owe no money. Persons so identified are then harassed and threatened to the point that they pay this un-owed debt rather than being penalised by a system, which they already know actively disparages them. Labor’s Anthony Albanese, while being concerned about this government’s debt collection […]
There’s been a Fall
Winter is coming! This winter was cold apparently, and Australia slipped on the ice. No limbs were broken in the fall, but the economic dilatometer for Australia’s GDP has demonstrated contraction. Not a surprise when you consider a full range of economic indicators for the Abbott/Turnbull Government. The September quarter revealed a .5% shrinkage in […]