Next federal election pendulum (provisional)

682 comments on “Next federal election pendulum (provisional)”

1. Rossmcg @ #395 Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 – 10:52 am

   Bemused

   I share your views on Anzac Day. War is a terrible thing. It is not to be celebrated the way have come to do it in Australia.

   My mother, who lived through war and saw men leave never to return and the damage to those who did come back invariably asks me each year why Anzac Day was turned into the media circus it has become.

   I blame politicians who just want their image on the news draped in the flag.

   My father served in the RAAF in WWII in the Middle East, Sicily and Italy. One of my uncles served in the RAN in the Pacific. My father was always conscious of his former comrades who were left behind in War Cemeteries and he worked tirelessly for Legacy, supporting War Widows and their Children. I grew up knowing many of his mates from WWII and held them all in deep respect.

   When in Singapore in 1980 I did a bus tour which stopped for a while at Kanji War Cemetery. I walked among the headstones reading the inscriptions on them and noting particularly the youth of so many and the tragedy of those who died so close to the end of the war and its immediate aftermath. I shed tears.

2. The ABC is assuring us of “full day coverage” of Anzac Day.
   This is Howard’s expensive “legacy”. I shan’t watch any of it.

3. lizzie @ #402 Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 – 11:06 am

   The ABC is assuring us of “full day coverage” of Anzac Day.
   This is Howard’s expensive “legacy”. I shan’t watch any of it.

   I have not watched decreasing amounts of it each year and certainly could not contemplate watching a day of it. Particularly Gallipoli.

4. The revelations about the Camp Gallipoli Foundation are contained in hundreds of pages of government-held documents obtained by The Sunday Age under freedom of information laws.

   The Department of Veterans Affairs continued to support the well-connected charity even though its officials found Camp Gallipoli had broken federal protections governing the use of the word “Anzac”, misrepresented itself to sponsors and donors, and attempted to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars in ineligible expenses.

   Camp Gallipoli, which was subsidised by a $2.5 million public grant administered by the department, was a series of nationwide concert-style camping events that were intended to educate and inspire a new generation of Australians about the sacrifices of the diggers.

   The foundation heavily promoted its relationship to veterans groups, which included promises it would donate any surplus funds raised to Legacy and the Returned and Services League.

   More than 40,000 people reportedly attended the events, paying up to $120 each for tickets.

   The concept attracted support from celebrities including Ray Martin, Shane Warne and Maggie Beer, as well as senior figures in Australia’s political and defence establishments such as Liberal MP Christopher Pyne, Air Marshal Angus Houston, and Australian War Memorial director Brendan Nelson.

   Ahead of Anzac Day in 2015, founder and chief executive Chris Fox told the media the foundation expected to donate around $900,000 to veterans groups.

   This claim remained unchallenged for more than a year until The Sunday Age revealed in April 2016 that RSL and Legacy had not received a cent, and Mr Fox had planned to profit from the charity by charging a “management fee” through a company linked to his family.

   Camp Gallipoli and companies linked to the group have also left a trail of unpaid debts around the country, including to the Australian Taxation Office.

   https://www.theage.com.au/national/failed-charity-s-1m-splurge-on-publicity-campaign-approved-by-government-20180420-p4zaus.html

5. C@t at 9:23am
   O’Dwyer refers to a Morality Tax if banks are denied their part of the company tax reduction windfall..
   That would be similar to the Morality Tax her mob want to impose on victims of child abuse if they had gone to jail. Her Glorious Gov’t wants to refuse any compensation to said victims if they subsequently committed criminal offences.

6. We have slipped into ‘Military Correctness’ …. wall to wall Gallipoli, and Western Front, and Kakoda, unquestioning of all modern military endeavours and personnel, unlimited budget increases for military spending (including foreign museums and now another 0.5 billion for the War Memorial), bizarre rewriting of our history as one of ceaseless military heroism (despite the nation being formed from a referendum and consensus)…all the while ignoring the real war of the AUSTRALIAN people fighting a foreign invader … I give up.
   I was hoping the Gallipoli 100th would be the final hurrah- and then we could go on and live our lives grateful, but unburdened by the sacrifices as we look to the future.

7. lizzie @ #404 Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 – 11:16 am

   The revelations about the Camp Gallipoli Foundation are contained in hundreds of pages of government-held documents obtained by The Sunday Age under freedom of information laws.

   —

   https://www.theage.com.au/national/failed-charity-s-1m-splurge-on-publicity-campaign-approved-by-government-20180420-p4zaus.html

   Right from when I saw the first advertisement I suspected it was a scam. Sadly it appears I was right.
   Just more exploitation of dead servicemen and women. 🙁

8. Stand by for a week of hearing the word “sober” from Coalition MPs this week.
   Guaranteed!

9. bemused

   Just more exploitation of dead servicemen and women.

   They thought that if it is OK for pollies to exploit them then it is ok for them 🙁

10. “It’s false to say it doesn’t provide anything of value.”

    Yeah it is, but it is much more misleading to such it provides anything that justifies its clip. Yeah charge a reasonable fee for the app ($10?) maybe a few cents each ride could be justified too. But they, like bankers are taking a huge fee / clip and for 99% of that huge clip they are doing nothing other than exploit their position.

11. BK

    ‘Sober’ rather than ’emotional’ re the live cattle torture popped up at least once last week. They must have thought it brilliant and so will recycle it.

12. Just remember not to use the words “lest we forget” in anything other than the strictly prescribed manner.

    …lest ye be run out of the country like that poor Muslim woman was, last year.

13. As a councillor, I attended many ANZAC services. I found looking at the young cadets standing beside the War Memorial, and thinking that they were about the same age as those named on the death roll, was very sobering.

14. Just watched an interesting episode of Compass dealing with the Armenian Genocide.
    Worth watching, particularly if you are not already aware of it.
    The Nazis noted how the perpetrators got away with it, and it influenced their later policies in Eastern Europe and toward Jews and others.

15. Maude Lynne @ #405 Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 – 11:21 am

    C@t at 9:23am
    O’Dwyer refers to a Morality Tax if banks are denied their part of the company tax reduction windfall..
    That would be similar to the Morality Tax her mob want to impose on victims of child abuse if they had gone to jail.

    All I can say is that the Coalition government employs a very selective moral compass.

16. When this legislation for tougher penalties on the banks reaches Parliament, the ALP should consider moving an amendment to ban the banks/financial institutions from making donations to candidates and parties. Such a ban might fall foul of the implied freedom of political communication, though it would be an arguable point. But in any case, someone would have to mount a challenge, and if either the LNP or the banks did so, it would again serve to reinforce the argument that they are joined at the hip.

17. zoomster @ #413 Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 – 11:33 am

    As a councillor, I attended many ANZAC services. I found looking at the young cadets standing beside the War Memorial, and thinking that they were about the same age as those named on the death roll, was very sobering.

    As have I done. However, I think that in no way equates to, or excuses, the sort of Military Adulation porn we get shoved down our gobs these days. If it remained at the sort of local services and observances that we have then I would have no problem with it.

18. Torchbearer @ #406 Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 – 11:22 am

    We have slipped into ‘Military Correctness’ …. wall to wall Gallipoli, and Western Front, and Kakoda, unquestioning of all modern military endeavours and personnel, unlimited budget increases for military spending (including foreign museums and now another 0.5 billion for the War Memorial), bizarre rewriting of our history as one of ceaseless military heroism (despite the nation being formed from a referendum and consensus)…all the while ignoring the real war of the AUSTRALIAN people fighting a foreign invader … I give up.
    I was hoping the Gallipoli 100th would be the final hurrah- and then we could go on and live our lives grateful, but unburdened by the sacrifices as we look to the future.

    Well said, Torchbearer, and bears repeating.

19. I wonder if the new Rum Corps (AKA the Spivs, Banksters and Greedy Arseholes Party) will have to drag Malcolm Bligh Turnbull out from under his bed?

20. The ANZAC Day stories that run on the TV ‘news’ are the same every year. It seems obligatory for them to include some school children attending a service, to show that ANZAC Day still “means something” to them.

    Bollocks, I say.

    I remember (in the 80s and 90s) having to endure a special school assembly for ANZAC Day every year; it meant nothing. One of my grandfathers, a war veteran, died on ANZAC Day (before I was born), and I associate the day with going to visit his grave as a kid with my grandmother. A sombre day of ‘reflection’, perhaps (and with all of the shops closed) – not the boganised flag-waving ceremony glorifying war that it seems to have evolved into, with ample photo opportunities for politicians.

21. Jim Dalrymple IIVerified account@Dalrymple
    19m19 minutes ago
    Mitt Romney has failed to secure the Republican nomination for senate at Utah’s convention (like a caucus), forcing him into a primary. But it’s worth noting that he’s still very likely to win that primary and ultimately the senate seat.

    He narrowly lost 49.12 to Mike Kennedy 50.88.

22. Might I also add that there is a perverse consequence of the fact that we are no longer at present sending our sons, mainly, and daughters off to war. For although it was the case that many of them, and those from my own family, came back horribly scarred both mentally and physically, from those wars, they did also come back ennobled at having, literally, fought the good fight against the evils that this world can throw up.

    Now, however, and I can only say this from a personal perspective, many of those same young people see evil just as bad as any experienced before, yet feel a sense of powerlessness to do anything about it. So a sense of impotency ensues.

    And it is not enough to simplistically say that, if they feel this way they should just sign up to serve in the Military, because the way things are now it is very, very hard to get accepted into the Armed Forces, and often , even if you do end up there, you are sent on missions nowhere near as noble as those that your forebears fought in before you, and often to do distasteful things and go to fight in conflicts without clear moral justification, and so you come back with a very different sense of what you have been a part of.

    Not that I support compulsory military service, either. It’s just a conundrum that is playing out in society.

23. Mr Newbie

    I was sent out in torrential rain as a five year old at primary school to lay a wreath.

    I had no choice, I was simply told to do it. I doubt any of my classmates had any idea what was going on.

    Particularly ironic, as my mother used to tell me that “these are the men who tried to kill your father during the war.” and my grandfather had been very active in the pacifist movement.

24. Eric Bogle nailed ANZAC Day, though the most potent version is June Tabor’s .

25. Trump just got his first confirmed 2020 challenger: conservative author Brad Thor:

    https://www.redstate.com/sarah-rumpf/2018/04/21/hammer-time-author-brad-thor-vows-2020-challenge-trump/

26. Brad ThorVerified account@BradThor
    2h2 hours ago

    Heads up @realDonaldTrump. The era of know-nothing, insult-comedy politics is over. Leadership, stability, and intelligence are on the way back. #Thor2020

27. rhwombat,
    Thanks for that. It gave me goosebumps! But then I am physiologically predisposed to that when I listen to music. 🙂

28. zoomster:

    I was sent out in torrential rain as a five year old at primary school to lay a wreath.

    I had no choice, I was simply told to do it.

    Precisely.

    Those school-aged children they show on the news every year probably don’t want to be there either; it’s what they’ve been told to do.

    A little part of me does wonder what would happen to the wall-to-wall coverage if some other ‘major event’ happened on the day (say, a terrorist attack, natural disaster or a person of major note dying unexpectedly).

29. Confessions

    Oh great a member of the bloody Heritage Foundation. What an improvement 🙁

30. I think it is a good thing that the Vietnam Vets in particular have a day to remember and be remembered. But everything doesn’t need to stop for that to happen.

    We don’t really do that for WW1 or WW2, we kind of worship a nationalistic myth rather than genuinely remember.

    Mostly white racist politicians use it as a day of faux nationalism, rather than we use it to remember what nasty politicians do if left unchecked (that is Vietnam).

31. poroti:

    At present it’s hard to imagine anyone could be worse than Trump!

32. C@tmomma @ #427 Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 – 11:59 am

    rhwombat,
    Thanks for that. It gave me goosebumps! But then I am physiologically predisposed to that when I listen to music. 🙂

    Tabor a capella can directly link to my limbic and autonomic nervous systems. Vide :

33. rhwombat

    Definitely a better version.

34. Confessions

    Oh I’m sure they can and will. The end f an empire can be messy.

35. The banking licenses are like the TV broadcast licenses, they are subject to a review but there is no way they would ever be revoked. The banks themselves are just too big.

    There needs to be a middle ground , like the very large penalties applied to US and European banks.

    The regulations planned to be put before parliament deserve scrutiny. I think Labor won’t have to look too hard to find a loophole ‘left’ open. They can then attempt to move an amendment and see how Labor reacts.

36. Conservationists thinking outside the square in California.

    New research shows that an ingenious program to transform rice fields into pop-up wetlands for shorebirds in California’s Central Valley is working, yielding the largest average shorebird densities ever reported for agriculture in the region.

    …Reynolds and his colleagues realized that traditional conservation methods — buying conservation easements on remaining natural areas — were too expensive and time consuming to adequately protect hundreds of thousands of acres of shorebird habitat. And they also weren’t flexible. California already has the highest variation in annual precipitation of any region in North America. That variability is projected to worsen with climate change, potentially leaving many protected lands high and dry.

    But they had a solution — renting the habitat.

    https://blog.nature.org/science/2018/01/29/bumper-crop-birds-pop-up-wetlands-are-a-success-in-california/?src=social.nature.twitter.main&utm_content=1524172370&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=social.nature

37. John R

    ” like the very large penalties applied to US and European banks.”
    .
    A regulatory overseer with fangs and ” very large penalties jail time” would see it cleaned up in no time.

38. “” like the very large penalties applied to US and European banks.””

    The penalties have to hit individuals in their own hip pocket or they are meaningless no matter how big. I’m quite happy for it to hit hip pockets of people in jail.

39. Yes poroti I am talking about both , jail for the executives, but also large penalties for the corporation. This will get the institutional shareholders notice and drive change.

40. Also perhaps as an intermediate step, if you have pretty long, pretty easily imposed, say 5 – 10 year bans from being a director, or perhaps just on drawing an directors fee or payments of any kind.

    So you company breaks the anti-money laundering laws, a couple of people directly responsible go to jail, the bank suffers a big fine and every single one of the directors is banned from receiving any compensation for being a director for 10 years.

41. Snigger.

    Michael Pascoe‏ @MichaelPascoe01 · 3h3 hours ago

    PR and media traning types will be using #insiders @KellyODwyer tape for decades as prime example of what not to do.

42. re: calling a royal commission:

    was it defeated in the House by the votes of the Coalition and some Cross Benchers?

    I am not a lawyer. I am under the impression that the executive, and effectively only the executive, can institute a royal commission.

    The Royal Commissions Act 1902 is the usual mechanism, and obviously already exists in legislation, (as I understand it) allowing the executive to request the GG to kick off a Royal Commission:

    The Act allows the Governor-General to issue letters patent in the name of the Crown for a Commission of Inquiry. Specifically, the Act grants the Governor-General the power to make or authorise any inquiry, or to issue any commission to make any inquiry.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Commissions_Act_1902

    Additional legislation not required as far as I am aware.

    It is conceivable that legislation could be passed by parliament that duplicates/simulates the Royal Commissions Act 1902 (which I’m guessing is what happened with the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into Justice Lionel Murphy in 1986):

    While the inquiry was not set up under the Royal Commissions Act 1902 (it was set up under the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry Act 1986 and later terminated by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (Repeal) Act 1986) it is included in this list due to its unique nature.

    https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Browse_by_Topic/law/royalcommissions

    And this indicates that there was discussion in 2016 (that I vaguely recall, and why this sidetrack was interesting for me) about parliament passing legislation to initiate a royal commission or equivalent against the will of the executive (obviously in a minority government situation), and the above links to advice provided to Senator Whish-Wilson on this topic which is kind of interesting if you’re into that kind of thing:

    Putting aside the specific purpose of the 1986 Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry legislation, it would be open to the Parliament to establish a commission of inquiry, to give it appropriate powers and immunities and to require it to report to the Houses rather than the executive government, provided the inquiry was within the powers of the Commonwealth as reflected in the Constitution. Any such commission would have the powers that the Parliament saw fit to give to it. They might replicate those of a Royal Commission or a parliamentary committee or be specifically designed for a particular purpose.

    …

    If such a statute were passed, even without the support of the Government, it would be a clear indication that the two Houses of the Parliament, as constituted by elected representatives, were in support of the inquiry. Any government would find it difficult to resist the views of both Houses in this form.

    That said, the parliamentary, constitutional or procedural barriers or challenges are numerous.

    https://greensmps.org.au/sites/default/files/d16-137012_-_advice_-_senator_whish-wilson_-_parliamentary_commission_of_inquiry_into_the_financial_sector.pdf

    So as I understand it the executive basically just has to ask the GG and hey presto, we have a royal commission. In that sense O’Dwyer would be correct (if Butler had been requesting such and Shorten/Gillard simply ignoring, which I imagine is a gross oversimplification if indeed it is correct at all), but undoubtedly misrepresents the timeline of when and why Labor came to support a RC into the banks, and clearly doesn’t mitigate the numerous very recent statements from all of the Liberal figures from Turnbull to Morrison to O’Dwyer to Cormann stating how pointless/irresponsible/silly calls from Labor (and the Greens before them) for a RC into the banks.

43. John R™

    Post GFC the thing that shocked me was the blatant fraud ,theft,collusion,misrepresentation by the big money men in the US was “rewarded” by John and Janet Citizen having to bail them out and pay the price. Too big to fail my arse.

    Fecking Cameron in the UK initially cracked down on bonuses for The City banksters. Quickly reinstated it giving the reason the Chaps Spivs would lose their incentive to try hard to make money. Within a couple of years the pricks were back to pre GFC bonus payments and meanwhile the rest of the country was served up bucket loads of “Austerity” to pay for the losses of the shonks in the finance casino.

44. Confessions says:
    Sunday, April 22, 2018 at 9:30 am
    I give you the face of the modern Liberal Party – Kelly O’Bigmouth.

    The ‘face’ of the modern Liberal party is still Old, White, Male.

    Have to disagree with you on that one Fess. The face of the LiberaL party is whoever spouts their outdated neoliberal ideology. It doesn’t matter whether they are male, female, young or old. They are all tarred with the one brush.

45. I’ve just watched the Kelly O’Dwyer interview on Insiders. That’s the hardest I’ve seen Cassidy be with one of his interviewees in a long time.

    Obviously the accusations of hypocrisy stung; she had no credible responses to his questions about her own statements only a year ago about how a RC would do nothing for consumers, risk the economy blah blah.

46. Darn:

    There are hardly any women on the coalition front bench, indeed hardly any Liberal women in parliament! Their public face is still very much male.

47. While browsing through the Prince Alfred College Chronicle on line, came across the grand reception Lieuteneant Hugo Throssell received at his old school in 1916 after he had received the VC for brave exploits at Gallipoli.

    He wasn’t so welcome in later years after he married the Communist author Katharine Susannah Pritchard and became an outspoken pacifist. Their son Ric saw his career in Foreign Affairs blighted because of his parents’ politics. Disgusting.

48. John R™ @ #439 Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 – 12:32 pm

    Yes poroti I am talking about both , jail for the executives, but also large penalties for the corporation. This will get the institutional shareholders notice and drive change.

    You omitted to mention the Directors.
    They are the ones with a governance responsibility and are therefore responsible to ensure the management are doing the right thing.
    ALL companies should be forced to have a policy to protect whistle-blowers and whistle-blowers should have a direct channel of communications to the Directors, bypassing management.
    If Directors can be shown to have ignored any reports of misconduct from whistle-blowers or others, then they have failed in their fundamental duties as Directors and should face civil and criminal charges.

49. Banking should be a ‘boring job. All you are doing is looking after people’s money and facilitating business investment or loans.

    That is how it used to be.

    I think O’Dwyer did ok in the interview given what she had to work with.
    I think she was given ‘Credlin style’ riding instructions and wasn’t going to deviate one little bit. So the problem is the government’s management strategy for the banking RC.

50. BK @ #408 Sunday, April 22nd, 2018 – 9:27 am

    Stand by for a week of hearing the word “sober” from Coalition MPs this week.
    Guaranteed!

    If everyone takes a drink whenever they use the word sober, the whole nation will end up far from sober.