Together with the usual suite of questions on coronavirus, the latest weekly Essential Research survey offers findings on the government’s robodebt the recent disturbances in the United States. The former make grim reading for the government, or might do if Newspoll hadn’t suggested the debacle had made no difference on voting intention: 74% say the government should apologise to those negatively impacted, with only 11% disagreeing; 66% support interest and damages for those who wrongly repaid money, with 13% disagreeing; 55% supported a royal commission, with 23% disagreeing; and only 32% agreed the automated notifications were a good idea “even if it was poorly implemented”, with 43% disagreeing.
Regarding the protests in the United States, the propositions that “protesters are right to demand better protection and treatment of African Americans in society” and that “the protesters want to loot and cause property damage, more than they want social change” both received majority support, though far more emphatically in the former case, with 80% agreeing and 11% disagreeing, compared with 54% and 33% for the latter. There were likewise large majorities in favour of the notions that “authorities in America have been unwilling to deal with institutional racism” (78% to 10%) and that the death of George Floyd pointed to “wider discrimination against minority cultures in society” (72% to 16%), while only 33% considered Floyd’s death isolated and not illustrative of institutional police racism, compared with 54% who disagreed.
As for coronavirus, the number who are “very concerned” maintains a steady decline, down five to 27%, with quite concerned down one to 48%, not that concerned up six to 21% and not at all concerned up one to 5%. Approval of the government’s handling of the matter is little changed, with 70% rating it good (up two) and 12% poor (steady). Small-sample state breakdowns provide a further increment of support for the notion that the Western Australian government has done best out of the crisis, with the good rating at 84% and poor at 6%, with other states ranging from 67% to 79% on good and 8% to 13% on poor. Queensland respondents were most likely to say their government was moving too slowly in easing restrictions, although even here the result was only 23% compared with 63% for “about the right speed”. The poll was conducted online from Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1073.
Elsewhere, yesterday’s declaration of candidates and ballot paper draw for the July 4 Eden-Monaro by-election revealed a field of 14 candidates. Along with Labor candidate Kristy McBain and Liberal candidate Fiona Kotvojs, there are starters for the Nationals (Trevor Hicks, who won a preselection vote on Saturday), the Greens, Shooters Fishers and Farmers, the Liberal Democrats, the Christian Democrats, Help End Marijuana Prohibition, the Science Party, Sustainable Australia, something called the Australian Federation Party and three independents.
Meher Baba seriously? “John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke, as I mentioned. Also Roger Scruton (who died earlier this year) and Michael Oakeshott (who died in 1990).”
I already said those old blokes – dead white males – didn’t know what we now know about human nature, the environment, etc. I have read a lot of them but I also read up to date commentary on how their ideas are not relevant for most of the human race. They wrote from a narrow and ignorant perspective that needs to be put in context.
Personally I think Spinoza was the best of the white male thinkers and Mary Wollstonecraft had some interesting perspectives also.
Meher Baba says “I’m not saying I agree with everything these writers had to say, but they’re well worth reading.”
Be specific Meher … why are they worth reading? What is it that the left misses by not reading them but this is wrong anyway. There are many contemporary commentaries from the leftists on what these Icons of our civilisation had to say and which bits of their treatises work and which bits are part of the specks or logs in their eyes.
What do you think of Thomas Paine? “In the preface to the English edition of The Rights of Man Paine maintained that “from the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution, it was natural that I should consider him a friend to mankind … but no sooner did he see the old prejudices wearing away, than he immediately began sowing the seeds of a new inveteracy, as if he were afraid that England and France would cease to be enemies.” 7 In Paine’s view Burke and his allies among the Old Whigs were simply hypocrites. They supported reform, he said, only when it benefitted themselves. Intent on their own self-interest, they could never admit that, “it is to a nation that the right of forming or reforming, generating or regenerating constitutions and governments belong;… those subjects … are always before a country as a matter of right….”
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/15024
About hanging on to property, you say “of course not if it was stolen” But you ignore the reality that there are people now whose lives would have been better off if land had not been stolen by white men who made ourselves rich on the theft of their property and the trashing of their culture.
Very interesting and brave of you to try and find a link between Burke and Confucian philosophy. But so what? How is that relevant to the fact that most cops and military men and women, are right wing racist bastards who hate Aborigines? Doesn’t that matter to you? You think we should become Confucist because there is “the ever-growing proportion of our population who come from a cultural background influenced by the ideas of Confucianism.” ?
Wow Meher you got something right …this is so true ….”The main problem is that a lot of right-wingers seem to be highly motivated by a hatred of all ideas coming from the left.” They hate all ideas they deem to be leftist though, not just environmentalism.
You say “To me, the left is also becoming divided, as a rather bored, rather privileged bunch of millenials,” That’s not what I see around me. I do see that the conservatives and libertarians are turning on each other and there is argy bargy here among the left but the nature of leftism is collectivism and co-operation and the nature of rightism is individualism and competition in which might is right..
So easy peasy…. rightism wins in the dog eat dog world which we have been building on the basis of free market and libertarian ideas – and the disgusting lies that the Murdoch press puts about – but leftism wins when people wake up to the need for cooperation and understand the idea of “self interest properly understood”.
Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. … Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.
https://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/04/self-interest-properly-understood.html
“politics of denunciation”?? Oh that’s a good one. lol You got all the jargon down pat.
You say “And then there’s globalisation: the western left doesn’t really know what to do with it.” Yes true but the left doesn’t say it has all the answers we just have more knowledge and understanding of what makes a better world and are willing to look at new ideas including the ‘woke’ ideas.
Bucephalus says:
Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 11:43 am
To you both:
Matthew 7:3-5 New International Version (NIV)
3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 Youhypocrite
first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.Do you really not see?
In fact boerwar tell my why the strategy for Australia to minimize Chinese spread and use of power wouldn’t be for Australia to seek to work very very closely with the EU.
we can’t really rely on the US or the UK at this point of time, although the US might spring back, if you think of a world where the US continues to decline the UK is completely irrelevant then when you look around the globe you probably are going to want to start with the EU and then bring along other parts of the world.
you probably do need to minimize damage in the short term by behaving like a trusted trading partner, where you say good things out loud and tackle any thorns very politely completely behind closed diplomatic doors – call that appeasement if you will.
And yes on Hong Kong, global border disputes, etc etc stand back and let the US be the chest thumping one on the block. Again call that appeasement if you will. Being the sacrificial lamb achieves nothing positive (except perhaps on the domestic political front as a racist call to arms) and lots and lots of bad things.
WeWantPaul @ #250 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 1:07 pm
Us plebs will never know.
Report for Victoria today
The total number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Victoria is 1,699, with eight new cases reported yesterday.
There have been no new deaths reported. To date, 19 people have died from coronavirus in Victoria.
There have been 179 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Victoria that have been acquired through unknown transmission. There are currently 57 active cases in Victoria.
Currently six people are in hospital, including one patient in intensive care. 1,621 people have recovered.
Of the total 1,699 cases, there have been 1,413 in metropolitan Melbourne and 238 in regional Victoria. Several cases remain under investigation. The total number of cases is made up of 904 men and 796 women. More than 564,000 tests have been processed to date.
One new case detected through routine testing may have been infectious while attending the Black Lives Matter march in Melbourne on Saturday 6 June. The Department is undertaking contact tracing and any close contacts will be tested and required to quarantine for 14 days.
Anyone who attended the march is urged to remain vigilant and if symptoms develop should isolate at home and get tested as a matter of urgency. There is no requirement to get tested or to quarantine if a person attended the march but is well and has not had symptoms since attending the march. The situation is under close investigation.
One new case has been detected in a close contact of a case in the Rydges on Swanston outbreak. This brings the total number of cases linked to this outbreak in Victoria to 15.
One new case has been detected through routine testing of a former staff member from BUPA Aged Care in Clayton. The former staff member, who finished employment with BUPA on 4 June, did not work while infectious, but all staff and residents of this facility are being tested as a precaution. BUPA has elected to take the precautionary step of limiting activities at the facility until 21 June so a deep clean and other public health actions can take place.
One new case has been detected in a toddler attending the Professor Lyn Corcoran Early Learning Centre in Parkville. The facility will be closed for at least 24 hours for deep cleaning. The child attended two days of childcare while potentially infectious, but was not showing symptoms at the time. Contact tracing and other public health actions are ongoing.
Of yesterday’s other cases, two were detected in returned travelers in hotel quarantine, while two cases remain under investigation.
Mavis @ #245 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 1:00 pm
Don’t you mean, does he care about the First Amendment? To which the answer is, no he doesn’t. 🙂
WWP: “So I’d go for no inheritance tax, even though one could be very well targeted, but quarantine all super from inheritance. Super is given a light touch tax wise because it is FOR retirement. I’m sure with an data engine like alteryx and some historical data you could calculate the hit superfunds should get on inheritance, to even them up with tax income and then you could then also require those taxed funds go into super funds of the inheritor, for their retirement. Kind of a double win for the community.”
I think a general inheritance tax would be much fairer and easier to manage.
First of all, while you say superannuation is only for retirement, someone can inherit a large proportion of a superannuation pension if they are a dependent (a spouse of any age or offspring up to a certain age). So you’d have to make some equivalent allowance for any dependents to inherit money from an accumulation fund.
Otherwise, a superannuation accumulation fund is ultimately just a large pot of money. A person can withdraw all of it at any time: so anyone who thought they were dying would do just that, and put the money into shares or even just into the bank, and their heirs would get the lot. But, as I understand your scheme, someone who died suddenly and unexpectedly would have the whole of their fund confiscated by the ATO, and their heirs would miss out altogether. I don’t think you could sell this sort of arrangement to the voters in a month of Sundays.
Or are you saying that the tax concessions someone received on super over their lifetime should be repaid to the ATO from their estate? (Your proposal is a little unclear.) I can see some logic to that, but again there will be inequities: eg, there would be no way of doing this in relation to someone who had taken their super into a pension. And people who had benefited from taking advantage of negative gearing or dividend imputation wouldn’t be required to repay any of this.
All in all, your proposal seems like a bit of an anti-superannuation concept to me. You don’t happen to work for the Grattan Institute?
WWP
The Vic CMO said it. The guy was wearing a mask which should help matters but imagine the headache of trying to trace his contacts.
WWP
Xi is:
1. Personally megalomaniacal.
2. Militaristic in tone.
3. Overseeing massive increases in military expenditure.
4. Suppressing minorities with genocidal intent.
5. Grabbing territory.
6. Militarizing said grabbed territory.
7. Cultivating a sense of historical grievance.
8. Executing his political enemies.
9. Ignoring or subverting international norms and agencies when it suits.
10. Using, as a pattern, natinonal economic blackmail. (Victims to date: the Philippines, South Korea and Australia).
11. Seeking to suppress free expression at home and abroad.
None of those statements are in dispute.
You appear to think that Xi actually cares much whether Australia is racist. Xi knows full well that the Uighers and other minorities in China get curry.
Beyond that, you appear to be defeatist.
I am not sure what your preferred economic or national security paths for Australia really are.
meher baba,
Actually read a book that doesn’t just support Neoliberal economic concepts. May I recommend this one?
The book’s central thesis is that when the rate of return on capital (r) is greater than the rate of economic growth (g) over the long term, the result is concentration of wealth, and this unequal distribution of wealth causes social and economic instability. Piketty proposes a global system of progressive wealth taxes to help reduce inequality and avoid the vast majority of wealth coming under the control of a tiny minority.
Then your opinions, copious as they are but not representative of much in the way of quality, as they stand, may be more relevant to society going forward.
C@tmomma @ #239 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 12:46 pm
We apply different policies to different countries to further our own objectives – how can we complain when others do the same?
If we were to truly try playing on a level playing field, Australia would end up the biggest loser. I suggest we don’t go there 🙁
tripitaka: “About hanging on to property, you say “of course not if it was stolen” But you ignore the reality that there are people now whose lives would have been better off if land had not been stolen by white men who made ourselves rich on the theft of their property and the trashing of their culture.”
Yes, for the non-Indigenous, all of our homes and all of our wealth are the result of the dispossession of the Indigenous by our forebears. Are you planning to give yours back any time soon?
“…most cops and military men and women, are right wing racist bastards who hate Aborigines?”
Not in my experience. I have met many cops and military people who have worked in Indigenous communities, and most were far more idealistic about the people there than I am. The BLM portrayal of cops – both in the US and here – is rather misguided and in many ways archaic IMO: most cops today in both countries are no more the racists of half a century ago than the Democrat Party in the US is the old highly racist institution that it was only a few decades back (in fact, only a decade back, as Robert Byrd remained a Democrat Senator from West Virginia until 2010).
“What do you think of Thomas Paine?”
Very interesting dude. Something of a libertarian at heart. Got the French Revolution totally wrong (as so many did). Burke, on the other hand, got it 100% right.
I won’t go into trying to defend the writers I listed. I find them interesting. You apparently do not. That’s fine.
But it’s been interesting debating these ideas with you, so thanks.
I remember the heated discussion about this and the question about how many firefighters would qualify at the time
https://the-riotact.com/only-eight-volunteers-accessed-commonwealth-compensation-after-bushfires/381200
On the marcher who attended the BLM rally. Just remember there was a Covid-19 case at the T20 World Cup final, there were 87,000 of us there and not too many of us have caught it…
https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/06/11/bringing-down-the-death-house-and-changing-the-present-future-and-past/
Crikey is paywall free today.
laughtong @ #263 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 1:29 pm
Only 38 of 36,000 food packages delivered by the federal government.
Only 2 out of thousands of affected businesses receive federal government recovery grants.
Anyone seeing a pattern here?
Alpha Zero @ #264 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 1:30 pm
Nah, you already had Cricket Lovers Disease. 😉
Scott Dworkin
@funder
BREAKING: Fmr judge appointed in Flynn trial says they should proceed to sentencing phase. Calls DoJ attempts to toss case a gross abuse of power.
Meher Baba on super
Yeah the partner transfer needs to be tax free, it is why I put in the otherwise disconnected idea that couples should be treated as one for income / super / benefits. There are other potential solutions.
Yes I’m saying on a real inter-generational transfer of super amounts the amount transferred should be subject to tax such that the amount transferred is equivalent to what would have been transferred if the funds were never preferentially taxed. And then I’m saying that remaining now fully taxed balance should be quarantined into the super fund of the recipient.
No the Grattan institute doesn’t pay enough, but i might be in the market and desperate for a low paying job in the near future I’ll keep them in mind.
Yes I think the current superannuation system has been allowed to decay into a system to help wealthy people avoid tax, while at the same time not delivering the benefits needed to those on low and middle incomes. It desperately needs massive reform, that reform needs to be part of a targeted cradle to grave policy on retirement / education / housing and unemployment.
Cat,
Don’t forget the footy, the running, the cycling, etc.
However Horse Racing lost me as a fan over time…
Not sure if others have discussed this article, but things are going to be pretty interesting in Qld politics when coal income declines further. The article discusses trends in Chinese coal demand to highlight why. The only way Adani can proceed is if it kills off the demand from some other export thermal coal mines in the Hunter and Bowen basin.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/11/australia-cannot-expect-china-to-import-and-burn-coal-it-no-longer-needs
I still fondly remember the days when policy arguments would at least partly be based on facts.
Is this better than trying to remove the bad bits?
Edinburgh Council has announced that a plaque will be added to Henry Dundas’s monument in St Andrew Square, the first Viscount Melville and infamous prolonger of slavery to protect the elite, to inform the public on his cruel and self-serving role in the trade in human beings.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18506770.scotlands-brutal-slavery-links-must-confronted/
Sadly it was going to be inevitable that the plague would be in attendance at these mass gatherings. No-one should be shocked or surprised about this.
All we can do is hope the plague hasn’t been too sociable.
The downside of having a very low infection rate compared to other countries is that a lot of our citizens clearly still haven’t really come to grips with the dangers of this virus.
C@tmomma:
As you’d no doubt be aware, the Ist has a number threads, one which is ‘the right of the people peaceably to assemble’ and which Trump and his uniformed thugs shamefully breached for that photo op with the book Bucephalus sometimes quotes from. So, no, he doesn’t give a tinker’s about the Constitution and the Amendments thereto.
Bec Carver says:
Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 1:12 pm
You don’t like what I write. I get it.
I don’t consider that I behave significantly differently to other participants on this site. The fact that you disagree with my politics doesn’t disqualify me from writing here – unless William asks me to stop but he is a very fair referee as far as I am concerned.
Socrates @ #271 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 11:45 am
Yeah!
C@tmomma: “Then your opinions, copious as they are but not representative of much in the way of quality, as they stand, may be more relevant to society going forward.”
How rude you are. Obviously you weren’t brought up very well.
I assume of course that you’ve read each and every one of the 800+ pages of Picketty’s unbelievably tedious book.
I’ve talked to a lot of left-wing people who tell me that the answers to all of the world’s economic problems are in that book. But none of them have been able to convince me that they have actually read much or any of it. I think it’s up there with books of the past like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock that everyone said was groovy, but nobody had actually read.
There is already an Inheritance Tax on superannuation in the form of the Death Benefit Tax.
Alex Turnbull pointing out hte bleeding obvious.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/11/australia-cannot-expect-china-to-import-and-burn-coal-it-no-longer-needs
WWP: “Yes I think the current superannuation system has been allowed to decay into a system to help wealthy people avoid tax.”
The general superannuation system really doesn’t enable wealthy people to avoid much tax nowadays. There are strict limits on how much pre-tax money can go into super (less than $1k per fortnight, including employer contributions) and even on post-tax contributions. People on high incomes pay 30 cents in the dollar on their contributions. At the end of the day, the most that any one individual can have in a super fund is $1.6 million (an amount on which the median house price in Sydney is steadily creeping up). And, due to the escalating annual minimum withdrawal requirement, they would have to die relatively young to be in a position to leave the bulk of that to their offspring.
Self-managed super is a different matter, as people with that can take advantage of negative gearing and dividend imputation. As I have posted in the past, I don’t see why self-managed funds shouldn’t be prohibited. I think that’s the reform that would address your concerns about the wealthy.
The main game here isn’t super, or even shares, it’s owner-occupied housing: that’s the source of the overwhelming majority of inherited wealth in modern Australia. But trying to do anything about that is a hopeless cause.
Socrates @ #271 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 1:45 pm
Well, if governments just made decisions based on fact, why would they need ‘policy’?
meher baba,
There are those who say reading Edmund Bourke and John Stuart Mill is boring but that doesn’t stop you quoting them, so why should it be a disqualifying factor as it pertains to the work of Thomas Pikkety? And if you think that is rude to point things like that out about your contributions, then so be it, I guess.
In fact, what I pointed out to be the essence of Pikkety’s work is something you have refused to discuss. That’s pretty dismissive, and some would say rude, too.
frednk @ #279 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 2:00 pm
Australia seems to be committing economic suicide on so many fronts at the moment. It beggars belief that the coal huggers can’t see the stupidity of alienating one of our biggest coal export markets.
Still, it is undeniably good for the planet, so I guess we should be thankful for our own stupidity. **
** Something I never thought I’d find myself saying.
Just to clarify MB’s comment re super fund maximums the $1.6 million refers to the retirement phase, also called pension phase, on which all earnings are tax free. When in this phase no contributions can be made and a certain percentage, depending on age, must be drawn down each year.
Anything over the $1.6 million will have a tax of 15% on the earnings.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/11/bhp-to-destroy-at-least-40-aboriginal-sites-up-to-15000-years-old-to-expand-pilbara-mine
When will Mark McGowan put a stop to the destruction of historically significant Indigenous sites.
Shame on WA Labor, SHAME !!!
BLM protesters should be flooding the WA Premiers office in protest over the destruction of historically significant Indigenous sites.
Veteran pollster explains why Trump’s least-favorite poll from CNN might actually be accurate
Cook began his explanation of Trump’s loss to former Vice President Joe Biden. “NBC/Wall Street Journal and ABC/Washington Post had it at 7. CNN had it 14. Quinnipiac and Marist had it at 11. Basically 10 is the average of the real polls.”
He went on to say that regardless there is also a margin of error of about 3 percent.
“He has clearly slipped several points, three or four points in the last few weeks and the thing is that CNN poll was actually taken after all the other polls were so it could be absolutely dead-on,” said Cook. “But look at the state polling. The Real Clear Politics Averages. He is behind in five of the six key states. Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and tied in North Carolina. Clearly there has been slippage. How much you could argue about.”
O’Donnell also noted that a new Gallup poll was released this week showing Trump’s approval rating dropped to 39 percent. It’s a ten-point drop in just one month.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/veteran-pollster-explains-why-trumps-least-favorite-poll-from-cnn-might-actually-be-accurate/
Rex Douglas @ #286 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 2:33 pm
Why not BHP’s offices? They’re the ones trying to destroy the things in the first place.
Not that the WA government should allow it, but that’s just a symptom. BHP thinking it can/should do these things is the disease. They’re not going to learn ethics if/while the state government cops all the flak for their failings.
Piketty:
“ The technical flaws in Piketty’s argument are pervasive. When you dig, you find them. The fundamental problem is that Piketty does not understand how markets work. In keeping with his position as a man of the left, he has a vague and confused idea about how supply responds to higher prices. Startling evidence of Piketty’s miseducation occurs as early as page 6.”
https://www.cato.org/policy-report/julyaugust-2015/how-piketty-misses-point
boerwar @ #230 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 12:26 pm
No slavery eh …?
a r @ #288 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 2:44 pm
Govt create the laws.
Don’t deflect away from who actually makes the rules.
McGowan needs to stop this DISGUSTING and DISGRACEFUL destruction of our cultural history.
should be charged.’]
How do you arrest and charge some 20,000 protestors? I know, mobilise the troops.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-11/black-lives-matter-protests-morrison-calls-for-charges/12342762
Morrison needs to show some leadership on the issue of racism, not go gung-ho, like Trump.
So I think labor should be calling SSO’s every day multiple times a day about the Robo debt stuff.
If the government is so in the clear about it, then it should be easily able to debate away the fight.
Also i think Albo is depressed. He doesn’t look very enthusiastic.
Bill Shorten relentless attack on Morrison and Roberts paid off , they crumbled under the pressure
Lol. The Cato Institute. Now there’s an authority on Pikkety which should be taken seriously:
The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded as the Charles Koch Foundation in 1974 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries. In July 1976, the name was changed to the Cato Institute.
The Cato Institute is libertarian in its political philosophy, and advocates a limited role for government in domestic and foreign affairs as well as a strong protection of civil rights. This includes support for the demilitarization of the police, lowering or abolishing most taxes, opposition to the Federal Reserve system, the privatization of numerous government agencies and programs including Social Security, the Affordable Care Act and the United States Postal Service, along with adhering to a non-interventionist foreign policy.
The only thing a reasonable person can agree with there is the demilitarisaion of the police. So, and especially as a result of its links to the Kochs, I think I’ll not be taking my lead from anything they have to say, thanks very much.
Bucephalus says:
Thursday, June 11, 2020 at 1:53 pm
You don’t know that I disagree with your “politics” at all. And no-one’s attempted nor is attempting to stop you posting as far as I can see. If you’ve nothing left to achieve in life post a thousand times/day if you like.
But you certainly know how to DISTRACT from being called out on your professed all-knowing wisdom to say nothing of your repetitive bullying of anyone who would disagree with you.
It’s not my blog, post all you like, but bear in mind in just 24 hours you’ve been called out for your apparent hypocrisy over:
-Knowledge and/or experience you claim to have but apparently don’t
-Repetitive Bias if not direct Misinformation
-Bullying
-And an almost total blind partisanship wrt political thought and theory
And your ONLY FACTUAL response was to resort to quoting “god” which only suggests you, like many who do this either don’t understand or selectively absolve yourself from the text’s true intent
Then when that fails you fall back on the graces of the owner of the blog? Fuck me.
Post all you like Buce. But IMO the WAY you post is a disservice to your significant knowledge and life experience.
Let me repeat that: “the WAY you post is a disservice to your significant knowledge and life experience”
I find it ENDLESSLY tiring having to bypass so many posts that SUGGEST you’re more interested in swinging your little dick around like Linus’s neutered blanket on a fucking blog than persuading anyone.
And yes, I will always lose a “big swinging dick” competition for obvious reasons – but you won’t change one little mind doing it let alone the World.
It’s painful enough having to endlessly scroll past your numerous daily attacks on anyone “not you” then the Collingwood FC cheersquad’s wrongheaded version of sanctify “Christ shorten” (sarc) to say nothing of the bobble headed ventriloquists’ dummy speaking in third person tongues with Mundo’s hand jammed up its arse…
ALL to get to BKs herculean efforts and the apparently dwindling substantiated or at least thoughtful debate that’s actually relevant to this rapidly changing world.
And all on a Psephology blog.
Mic Drop. Out.
south @ #291 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 2:55 pm
‘Also i think Albo is depressed. He doesn’t look very enthusiastic.’
He doesn’t want to fight tories anymore.
Lost the taste for it.
Scrooter’s a hard nut to crack.
Albo might stand aside and let Jim have a go.
Yay Bill!
Keep pulling the number of suicides thread! I know from a first hand account that human services do have an official estimate on record for the number of suicide’s due to robo debt.
The ABC will unveil substantial cuts to programming and services at the end of the month – on top of the 250 redundancies – to meet a $41m budget shortfall.
The cuts, which will impact audiences, are being forced on the ABC by a funding freeze despite the vital role it played during the bushfires and the Covid-19 pandemic. The staff cuts will come from the news, television, entertainment and regional divisions.
Labor’s candidate for Eden-Monaro, Kristy McBain, said: “Our regions rely on the ABC, especially during bushfires.”
The broadcaster spent an additional $3m on the bushfires this year, including 500 hours of rolling fire coverage in New South Wales and Victoria, but has not received any additional emergency broadcasting funding.
“During the Black Summer fires so many people and so many communities tuned into the local ABC to get the latest news and information,” McBain told Guardian Australia.
“Put simply, the ABC helped save lives during the bushfires. The last thing communities in the Eden-Monaro need right now is cuts to our ABC.
“Two-hundred job losses will undermine the ability of the ABC to cover local issues in the regions. It’s just unacceptable.”
A recent report revealed the ABC lost $783m in funding since the Coalition came to power in 2014, including an $84m indexation pause in the 2018 budget.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions president, Michele O’Neil, said there was an “urgent need” to restore the $783m because the ABC is “such a critical part of our media – it provides a public service”.
“Throughout the whole pandemic and of course the bushfires before that, we saw how critical it was to have an independent publicly owned media that the majority of Australians relied on for live-saving information,” she said.
Sources say radio bulletins may be trimmed, current affairs may be cut and lifestyle content could be targeted when managing director David Anderson announces his five-year plan before the end of June.
One department which is under scrutiny is the lifestyle division, ABC Life, which costs $3m a year.
Anderson told Senate estimates in March he and ABC chair Ita Buttrose had asked the prime minister and the minister for communications to “end the current indexation pause so we can continue to make the greatest contribution”, but there has been no reprieve.
south @ #291 Thursday, June 11th, 2020 – 2:55 pm
‘So I think labor should be calling SSO’s every day’
It worked for Monkey.