As it usually does on Boxing Day, The Australian has published quarterly aggregates of Newspoll with state and demographic breakdowns, on this occasion casting an unusually wide net from its polling all the way back to July to early this month, reflecting the relative infrequency of its results over this time. The result is a combined survey of 5771 respondents that finds Labor leading 55-45 in New South Wales (a swing of about 3.5% to Labor compared with the election), 57-43 in Victoria (about 2%), 55-45 in Western Australia (no change) and 57-43 in South Australia (a 4.0% swing), while trailing 51-49 in Queensland a 3% swing).
Gender breakdowns show only a slight gap, with Labor leading 54-46 among men and 56-44 among women, with the Greens as usual stronger among women among men. Age cohort results trend from 65-35 to Labor for 18-to-34 to 54-46 to the Coalition among 65-plus, with the Greens respectively on 24% and 3%. Little variation is recorded according to education or income, but Labor are strongest among part-time workers and weakest among the retired, stronger among non-English speakers but well ahead either way, and 62-38 ahead among those identifying as of no religion but 53-47 behind among Christians. You can find all the relevant data, at least for voting intention, in the poll data feature on BludgerTrack.
Remind me what Hill did as environment minister to rate that? I don’t remember the Howard years as that environmentally conscious but memory fades etc.
Asshole that he is and indeed was, Richo was Minister when Australia played a leading role on the Montreal Protocol to phase out CFCs, which unfortunately did not so much serve as a model to the international community for further environmental cooperation as a red alert to industry to start throwing money at destroying future attempts. Actually do I also recall correctly he was the first to have Environment as a Cabinet post?
He wasn’t the minister at the time of the Franklin Dam case but that was a Hawke election promise anyway rather than the work of the minister.
You could make a case for Hawke as the de facto greatest environment minister we’ve had since he was actually the one elevating environmental issues in campaigns, making it a Cabinet post etc.
Combet, Milne, Oakeshott and Windsor together established Australia’s greatest environmental policy.
The fossil fuel cartel later tore it down.
At 82, Tom Jones has still got one hell of a voice (just a little light relief this Sunday afternoon)
https://twitter.com/Cromwell606/status/1609291753076686851?s=20&t=6iuum0XcZIq8xhyfnhbanw
This is my critique of the 2017 Whitlam Oration, given at the University of Western Sydney by Dr Stephen Fitzgerald.
https://www.whitlam.org/publications/2017/10/4/managing-ourselves-in-a-chinese-world-australian-foreign-policy-in-an-age-of-disruption
Fitzgerald makes the opening statement that We are living in a Chinese world but we don’t have a relationship to match it
From the get go statements like this strain credulity. I will not subscribe to this world view. Fitzgerald may be fully on board with the conceptual framework that we are living in a Chinese world but I beg to differ. At the moment it looks to me like China is faltering, it’s plans and projects for global world domination are not coming to fruition and President Xi was recently schooled by President Biden in a 3 hour meeting that the two had recently at the G20.
Also, I believe it’s perfectly fine that Australia doesn’t have a relationship with China which admits to ‘a Chinese world’. However, I do agree with Gough Whitlam that our relationship should be, ‘enlightened, independent and constructive’, based upon, ‘friendship, co-operation and mutual trust’.
A cautionary note is injected early on in saying that the Chinese are, ‘hard-headed realists’, and we should never forget it.
I also note that the speech was constructed wrt Trump’s America, and thankfully President Biden isn’t reflecting the weakness on the world stage that Trump. ‘Hard-headed realists’ can detect weakness.
Fitzgerald calls America, ‘plutocratic’, but not China?
Fitzgerald highlights an early speech given by Penny Wong as Shadow Foreign Minister, in which she characterises a relationship with China that should be, ‘based on democracy, freedom and human rights’, from Australia’s perspective. Also to have, ‘a relationship of influence with China’. I couldn’t agree more.
Next, Fitzgerald references an essay which proclaims the ‘upturning of the Vasco De Gama world’ by China. As in, the end of Western ascendency over the Non-Western world and the end of unchallenged US supremacy/paramouncy. I think that, since the end of the Trump era that prognostication has proved to be premature, if not ever going to happen. America is retooling its place in the world to counter the Chinese. Various legislation passed over the last two years attests to that, as does the support for Ukraine against the Chinese vassal state, Russia.
In support of his thesis, Fitzgerald quotes the fact of China’s wealth and power; its business culture; the kindling of Chineseness in the diaspora; Mandarin reseeded and refreshed in the streets and towns of Australia; Chinese influence, state-sponsored and spontaneous, percolating through Australian society and in our universities (like that’s a good thing?)
He says ‘this influence is not benign, threatening or malign. This influence is welcome’ (!), it’s how we handle it that matters’.
Then he assumes a particularly nasty tone to his voice and criticises, ‘Canberra politicians and certain Americophile think tanks’ (biased much?) and ‘media that mostly processes feed from those two are locked in thinking about past ways of China, China as security concern and denying how pervasive is the influence of the Chinese world on ours’.
He gives 3 reasons for this denial.
* ‘It’s hard for Australians to acknowledge the end of the era of Vasco De Gama, that, face the fact, the influence may now be the other way’. That the influence of China on Australia is greater than the influence of America now? No.
* ‘The failure of governments to implant in our education the study of China and Chinese’. Not to my way of thinking about it. I think strategic perpetuation of our own Western & Indigenous identity is preferable.
* A failure of Australia to have a critical mass of leaders who know China, understand Chinese thinking and who can imagine a Chinese world and not be intimidated by it and can think in Chinese.
Whereas I believe that we should not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed in this way due to the way that, I believe, China would see it as a back door into the Australian psyche such as to be subsumed by it. Considering also the way in which China maintains full spectrum control over any message about China. Or at least tries to.
(This is the end of Part 1 of my critique, understanding as I do that Word Press doesn’t like long posts).
Hill
1. EPBC Act.
2. Reform of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park management arrangements.
3. Initiated the development of Commonwealth Marine Reserves
4. Largest ever single cash transfer to biodiversity management by way of Natural Heritage Trust.
5. Backed Indigenous rangers and what eventually evolved into Indigenous Protected Areas.
No other environment minister comes close.
A very interesting discussion on disinformation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt3rrpVxO40&ab_channel=TheProblemWithJonStewart
jamie clements i dont think is even a party member any more he has represented somebad former labor mps around the senteral cost on vad perrottit also appers to be like the former nsw labor leader in 2007 comes a cross as arogent and dismisive lacks the main apeel of gladis that she seemed down to earth and just wanted to get on with the job perottit is all about focus groups and spin wedge politics
“Jacinta Price is a positive for the indigenous community because the biggest mistake in the 1990s was the lack of conservative indigenous leaders and that put Howard and many conservatives offside.”
Absolute rubbish they were just racist qunts through and through.
i assume bower is personaly good friends with hill and thats whiy is protending he was a good minister he never got to the lower house or was given his dream job as foreign minister even richardson as bad a person as he is part of labors bad old guard now working with former nsw liberal mp michael photeis he was a good minister hill was one of the leser remembered members of howards team
An
Lots of people are confused by the thought that Hill was our best ever environment minister.
You name your nomination for best environment minister ever and we can take it from there.
‘…fear of diplomatic backlash…’
Indeed.
China is already threatening countries with a tourism boycott.
The Chicommies inner bully is never far from the surface.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/01/australia-imposes-mandatory-covid-tests-for-travellers-from-china-amid-fears-of-diplomatic-backlash
Boerwar @ #2160 Sunday, January 1st, 2023 – 5:15 pm
You’re just fishing now.
Garrett.
Rex & NATH
I’ve been puzzled for some time about your antipathy towards the Union movement and It’s connection to Labor, because I know you would realise the Labor Party grew out of the Union movement as its political arm. I can only come to the conclusion that this is so because neither of you understand the main strength of both is solidarity, it means you have your say but if lose the. Vote you back the collective decision. Both the Unions & Labor hate scabs and labour rats because they betray both the collective and solidarity. May explain why both of you sook so much if Labour doesn’t do exactly what both of you in your omnipresent wisdom deems to be the proper course of action
‘Simon Henny Penny Katich says:
Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 5:53 pm
Boerwar @ #2160 Sunday, January 1st, 2023 – 5:15 pm
An
Lots of people are confused by the thought that Hill was our best ever environment minister.
You name your nomination for best environment minister ever and we can take it from there.
You’re just fishing now.
Garrett.’
———————–
Not fishing. I have stated my claim in relation to Hill. For a comparison of their achievements, please list Garret’s achievements.
Part 2
Fitzgerald criticises Australia for being, ’embedded and compromised with the US Defence establishment’. If my memory serves me correctly, at about the time this oration was given we had embarked on Defence exercises with the Chinese. I feel that this is what he would prefer, however, knowing how the Chinese have been exposed as taking knowledge from these exercises and using it to strategise attacks for their own forces on the countries they had been exercising with it’s probably better that Australia no longer engages with China in this way.
Fitzgerald then spitefully derides, ‘a majority of politicians on both sides of politics as having a chronic dependence on the US, in the health sense of the word’. When, as we all know, this is exactly the sort of dependence China would love Australia to have on it.
Fitzgerald then derides, ‘a chronic dependence on US views and assessments’. And, ‘a laziness about stirring themselves to think outside the American box.’ Then he adds, ‘about Syria’. What is he, a Putinist as well?
He derides American support for Freedom of Navigation as all about America’s warships being free to come up hard against Chinese waters’. As if Chinese warships and armed fishing boats haven’t, ‘come up hard against’ other nation’s territorial waters. Fitzgerald appears to lack a balanced perspective. Also, I actually believe that the Freedom of Navigation exercises are meant to to send a message to China that they should not consider upending the free movement of cargo ships at pinch points.
You’ve got to wonder at the vehemence of Fitzgerald’s Anti American polemic. I am hoping that it was simply a reflection of his attitude towards Trumpian America at that time. I would be interested to hear his opinion of America now, in the light of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and Xi’s designs on Taiwan. Hopefully he would have moderated his vehemence, as expressed in his opinion about Australia’s, ‘mental dependence (on the US) and pleading anxiety’.
Fitzgerald then proffers that, ‘there’s a dangerous failure of imagination here, if you can’t imagine the alternative (to support for America), you can’t prepare for it’. However, I suggest that Australia embedding itself with China isn’t that alternative. Possibly, and hopefully, he does not as well.
At least he is prepared to give Australia salience in how it reacts to China’s force projection and attempts at global dominance.
I guess it’s fair to say, as Fitzgerald does, that ‘we have to work out how to respond to China’s disruptions’ and ‘the growing influence of China in our domestic society through an offensive of Soft Power’. Sadly, I think he means we should figure out how to go along with it. He thinks that, ‘questions should only arise if it extends to interference, or infringes or challenges basic values and institutions’. Yes, it did, with China ‘Work Front Department’ attempts to install China-backed political candidates into our governments. . He says, ‘China does none of these things’, and, ‘most of China’s soft power does not cross this line’. I think bitter experience subsequent to this oration has proven otherwise.
Fitzgerald then complains that, ‘Australian media have engendered Anti China sentiment’.
I don’t know how he can say that with a straight face. Australian media have reported a China-Solomon Islands treaty, have reported a China-PNG hospital build, and China’s threat to withdraw their tourists from countries who criticise China’s moves in any way. Sure, some of the more extreme RW Australian media have gone over the top in their criticism and attacks on China. Everything else has simply been fair reporting and analysis.
To which I will add that Australia IS open to ‘Chinese immigration, ideas and influences’, we just don’t want them to achieve primacy.
Garrett’s achievements as environment minister are one fifth of bugger all.
I will not mention his role in P**k B*tts.
Red Clyde
The penny drop should happen any moment now…
To get the bull to buck vigorously a strap is tightened across the base of the pizzle.
It is shocking that the RSPCA does nothing about this.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/01/nsw-man-dies-after-being-hit-by-bull-at-new-years-eve-rodeo-in-southern-queensland
Boerwar @ #2164 Sunday, January 1st, 2023 – 5:31 pm
Blue Sky Mining.
Diesel and Dust.
10,9,8….3,2,1
Just giving a broken record player a nudge.
SHPK
So. We have established that Garrett was not within a bull’s roar of Hill as environment minister.
Boerwar at 5.23 pm and Simon Henny Penny Katich at 5.53 pm
Sundries might rival Robert Hill on the environment scorecard, but Moss Cass also.
‘He was appointed Minister for Environment and Conservation following the election of the Whitlam Government in 1972. He appointed marine biologist Don McMichael as his departmental secretary. Cass held the second-lowest rank in cabinet, above only science minister Bill Morrison. He was assisted in his environmental protection efforts by Rex Connor, the Minister for Minerals and Energy. Connor used his seniority in the party to overcome opposition to Cass’s proposals, notably helping secure the passage of the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974.
Cass was unsuccessful in seeking to prevent the flooding of Lake Pedder in Tasmania. Nonetheless he did lay the groundwork for the end of sandmining on Fraser Island and government protection of the Great Barrier Reef. In 1975 he led parliamentarians and ALP branch members in expressing concerns about the effects of uranium mining. A key concern was the adverse effect that uranium mining would have on the northern Aboriginal people. Cass said: “nuclear energy creates the most dangerous, insidious and persistent waste products, ever experienced on the planet”.’ (Wikipedia)
The fact that Environment Ministers haven’t done more might be down to Richo, who was, in policy terms, a past master at window-dressing while lining up the numbers.
Aaron’s point re Hill’s lack of numbers to become ensconced in Boothby actually works in his favour, since it confirms Boer’s point that he worked against much resistance.
However, a huge deficit for Hill is that he was Defence Minister during the invasion of Iraq. As a lawyer he knew the invasion was a breach of international law. He could have done the honourable thing, like Wilkie, and resigned. Instead, like Vanstone and J.W. Howard, he probably still pretends that the invasion was not a total disaster. Why? Because, in that context, he believed in ‘might is right’, while excusing huge hubris. What links the invasion of Iraq and the legacy of Bhopal in the public life of Robert Hill is that they show him as a lawyer who, in a certain political context, disowned the law.
If one believes, as most people do, that Putin is a war criminal not just for his many breaches of jus in bello (the requirement not to target civilians or use disproportionate force) but also for the original crime of aggression, then the same judgment applies to J.W. Howard and all his Cabinet, including Robert Hill, over the invasion of Iraq.
We can safely discard Frydenberg, Hunt, Price and Ley as potential candidates for the title.
Boer war wrote,”If it is fine to shut down the almond, grape, olive, rice, dairy and cotton industries because they are grown in hot areas using irrigation water then shutting down the elite’s playthings should be a doddle for the doctrinaire greens foot walking brigade.”
Yep, shut them all down, apart from dairy, particularly the cotton industry, which is about as unsustainable an industry as you can get.
Happy to discuss who might have been our best defence minister as a separate issue.
But we are discussing the proposition that Hill is the best ever environment minister.
You propose Cass.
Hill’s EPBC Act was far superior to Cass’ Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974.
Cass brought no large infusion of cash to environmental management.
Cass’s opposition to uranium mining failed.
Clearly, Hill was a better environment minister than Cass.
‘clem attlee says:
Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 6:22 pm
Boer war wrote,”If it is fine to shut down the almond, grape, olive, rice, dairy and cotton industries because they are grown in hot areas using irrigation water then shutting down the elite’s playthings should be a doddle for the doctrinaire greens foot walking brigade.”
Yep, shut them all down, apart from dairy, particularly the cotton industry, which is about as unsustainable an industry as you can get.’
—————————
But not the air industry which generates 5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Uh huh. Slaughter the whole economy of numerous regional towns but we wouldn’t want to upset the urban elites’ discretionary recreation preferences, would we?
Please pass me the almond milk…
Robert Hill came back from the Kyoto Protocol negotiations boasting of Australia’s generous emissions deal, whereby we would not have to reduce as much as other OECD countries. This was partly based on our growing population, and partly on a spurious base level of emissions that included reductions for land clearing in Qld outlawed after Joh got booted?
This then set us up for a decade of inaction under Howard, that could be presented as “success” in meeting weak targets. Ergo we have more work to do now.
Hill certainly didn’t come up with he idea of Kyoto. I would say Hill’s biggest impact as minister was a negative for environmental outcomes in Australia.
Soc
I believe we have pretty well established that in biodiversity matters Hill was very clearly the best environment minister Australia has ever had.
Going to climate, name one environment minister who has delivered better climate outcomes than Hill – except for Bowen and that is maybe too soon to tell.
(Please don’t mention the Greens chatterboxes.)
Red Clyde @ #2164 Sunday, January 1st, 2023 – 6:01 pm
I’m vigorously pro-union …except the ones whose bosses have been or still are in it for themselves at the expense of their members.
Borewar wrote, “but not the air industry which generates 5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Uh huh. Slaughter the whole economy of numerous regional towns but we wouldn’t want to upset the urban elites’ discretionary recreation preferences, would we?
Please pass me the almond milk…”
Don’t verbal me, you DLP loving dickhead! Where did I say anything about the ‘air industry’?
The Combet/Milne/Oakeshott/Windsor environmental legislation was all encompassing.
That’s what sets them apart from the rest of the bunch.
Fixing bits and pieces here and there means nought in the big scheme of things if emissions are still going up and the climate is warming and the catastrophic climate change is destroying the planet.
Robert Hill did put in some environmental architecture, agreed.
But within a ‘dig it up, ship it out, fuck the original owners’ Cabinet – he failed on most issues.
Richo’s brilliance was to harness the Australian public love of the natural environment. The 2nd preferences kept the Hawke/Keating government in power for 11 years – count ‘em.
Tony Burke did some good things, challenging things, with the Murray Darling Basin.
My thoughts on Peter Garrett await the 20 year lifting of Cabinet secrecy.
Nothing can be said about the dead years from 2013 to 2022. Cry the beloved koala.
So we now have TanyaP, and the energiser bunny Bowen in Climate Change. If they would learn anything from Robert Hill, and to some extent the RGR architecture of the Clean Energy Investment Fund Corporation https://www.cefc.com.au/where-we-invest/special-investment-programs/clean-energy-innovation-fund/ is that architecture is the enduring piece.
Not handouts to cause de jure.
Final observation, who is the Greens spokesperson on the Environment?
I feel sorry for Bowen and Plibersek, given the faceless men in the backrooms working for the fossil fuel cartel greenlight massive exports of our fossil fuels.
‘clem attlee says:
Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 6:39 pm
Borewar wrote, “but not the air industry which generates 5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Uh huh. Slaughter the whole economy of numerous regional towns but we wouldn’t want to upset the urban elites’ discretionary recreation preferences, would we?
Please pass me the almond milk…”
Don’t verbal me, you DLP loving dickhead! Where did I say anything about the ‘air industry’?’
——————————-
1. verbal abuse
2. you are fine with putting out of work tens of thousands of rural workers.
3. but you are silent on the air industry which generates 5% of the world’s greenhouse gases.
Hill’s achievements as environment minister far outstrip those of Richardson. The latter was basically a case by case transactionist. The difference is between the program manager Hill and project manager Richardson.
Air travel is an essential service. We can’t do without it.
Socialist leftie Albo should have his Govt by back control of QANTAS and put people before profits.
Alan Joyce, it’s time to go !
So, it comes down to:
Hill
Richardson
Bourke
Hunt
Garrett
Frydenberg
Ley
Price
The Greens chatterboxes simply do not rate. 30 years of wasted, useless and noisy efforts. Pathetic.
Re the DLP…. Santamaria’s vision of Australia was of an agrarian society. Small farms, small minds, big churches.
One of the worst features of the 2013-2022 dead years of environmental policy at the Federal level, was ‘boning’ the Environment Department by merging it with Agriculture and Water.
And giving it over to Nats – first Barnyard, and then LittleToBeProudOf. The only thing which saved our native heritage was things like the EPBC Act, and environmental litigants. Plus some state jurisdictions more attuned to the popular vote.
Boerwar has made a strong case against Same/Same. On the environment, it’s the Liberals by a stretch.
The Greens could advocate to raise the target to 48/30 by including the destruction of the air industry.
But they won’t.
Because that would affect them individually.
Toss tens of thousands of people out of work in the rural and regional areas?
Not a problem!
Give up air travel?
Silence.
Part 3
Fitzgerald is right to highlight PRC ownership and control of Australian Chinese media and censorship of its content. Also the heavy influence of the PRC in Australo-Chinese social media. Though at least Chinese-Australians are free to consume whatever media they want to, however that tends only to come when and if they learn English.
Fitzgerald then makes the observation that Chinese students in Australia pretty much exclusively consume their media from the Sinosphere and thus get an unbalanced view of Australia. ‘A filtered view’. He then observes that ‘Chinese student associations in Australia, through Chinese consular officials, that the PRC control most of them, conducts surveillance and coercion’. That Xi’s message to every person of Chinese ancestry, no matter how far back in other countries, is ‘to unite and work in the cause of China’. That looks like a red flag to China’s designs to my way of thinking.
I’m glad that Fitzgerald acknowledges that ‘Chinese black money has become a significant factor and a worrying influence on Australian society and in the Australian economy. This is a direct challenge to the fundamentals of our society, including freedom of speech, the media and inquiry. In this it has crossed the line.’ Yep. ‘We have to manage it, looking to the interests and cohesion of Australian society.’ Yep. ‘It can only be done if we have a voice in China’.
He’s wrong to say, however, that ANZUS, and by extension AUKUS, are ‘useless’. They are just the only sort of projection of hard, united power that China respects.
Fitzgerald then lauds various deals that South East Asian nations have done with China. He speaks about the fishing deal President Duterte of the Philippines did with China. Which subsequent events have shown that China completely ignored when they ordered their armed fishing fleet into Philippine territorial waters. Also, he is viewing infrastructure deals done between China and other Asian countries through the prism of the Trump Administration’s strategic withdrawal from the region. President Biden has confirmed the Indo-Pacific pivot and is again opening the American purse strings to supply its own investment capitol to Asian, Pacific and African countries. Not to mention Singapore’s deal with Australia to supply energy to it. This will counter China’s attempts to dominate Renewable Energy infrastructure supply and control of this emerging market.
Next Fitzgerald directs his analysis to China’s, ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative, which he sees as a genius move that will redirect global trade flows to China. All belt and roads lead to China? Not if the new supply paradigm of ‘Just In Case’ supply and manufacturing chains take over from the world being overly dependent on China for their trade and supply of goods.
Fitzgerald informs us that China, ‘seeks not to overturn but reform the existing world order’. I suggest this is semantic obscurity/obscurantism on China’s part meant to disguise their true intentions.
He speaks approvingly of a situation where, ‘China has decisively moved into rules making, which is challenging the world order’. So certain. So wrong.
He derides, ‘the formulaic comfort of Australia never having to choose between China and America’, as if that’s a weakness, not a strength. Well, I think China has finally come to realise, and I hope Stephen Fitzgerald has too, that that’s not going to change any time soon. We can have the best of both worlds.
Fitzgerald thinks that it was a victory for China that Australia chose to join its Investment Bank, the AAIB. But wasn’t that simply due to the fact that it gave us a seat at the decision-making table for Asian infrastructure investment? Not that it showed Australia bending in China’s direction and to its strategic will.
nath says:
Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 6:58 pm
Boerwar has made a strong case against Same/Same. On the environment, it’s the Liberals by a stretch.
This has to rank as your stupidest post ever, though your one about eliminating all eucalyptus in Australia still ranks on most objective criteria..
Tom Jones, like my late father, was born in the same welsh town, in the same year.
They new each other.
Have always loved this Delilah rendition from HM’s diamond jubilee.
https://youtu.be/zo2O5E9Ea9Y
How long before we’re flying large capacity zero-emission powered commercial aircraft …?
sprocket_ says:
Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 7:01 pm
nath says:
Sunday, January 1, 2023 at 6:58 pm
Boerwar has made a strong case against Same/Same. On the environment, it’s the Liberals by a stretch.
This has to rank as your stupidest post ever, though your one about eliminating all eucalyptus in Australia still ranks on most objective criteria..
______
Hey, I’m not the one arguing that the Liberals have beaten Labor on the environment hands down.
As for Eucalypts, it wasn’t all of them. Although biodiversity was far greater in Australia before the Eucalypts destroyed almost every other tree species. Anyway, haven’t you got some photos of fat people to load up?
A smorgasbord of 1 January 2023 changes come into effect:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/01/australias-new-laws-taking-effect-on-1-january-from-super-top-ups-to-pcr-tests-and-home-care-fees
The iron fist in the iron glove. What you do when you are desperate to distract and deflect: do a bit of international bullying:
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202212/1282890.shtml
nath reminds me of the Young Liberal conference in Tasmania – which even Eric Abetz walked out on…
And also just for nath, avert your eyes others…
National silly hat day.