The Age/Herald brings the monthly Resolve Strategic poll of federal voting intention, which has Labor down two on the primary vote to 40%, the Coalition up two to 31%, the Greens down one to 10% and One Nation down one to 5%. No two-party preferred is reported, but this would pan out to around 58-42 based on preference flows from last year, in from around 60-40 last time. Anthony Albanese’s approval rating (very good plus good) is down four on last month to 56%, with disapproval (very poor plus poor) up five to 30%; Peter Dutton is up one to 29% and down one to 45%; and Anthony Albanese’s lead over Peter Dutton as preferred prime minister is 55-23, in from 55-20. The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday from a sample of 1604. Further results published today including a finding that 50% expect economic conditions to worsen over the coming year, compared with 18% for improvement and 24% for staying the same.
The fortnightly Essential Research poll, which does not exclude undecided from its voting intention numbers, has Labor at 33% and the Coalition at 30% on the primary vote, both unchanged on a fortnight ago. The Greens are down three from an anomalous peak last time to 14% and One Nation are steady on 6%, with undecided at 8%. The 2PP+ measure had Labor down four to 51%, the Coalition up two to 42% and undecided up three to 8%. As noted in the previous post, Anthony Albanese’s approval is down two on a month ago to 53%, and his disapproval is up three to 34%. The full report, featuring questions on economic issues and interest rate rises, is here.
The Victorian Liberal Party’s administrative committee has as expected endorsed barrister Roshena Campbell as its candidate for the April 1 Aston by-election. Paul Sakkal of The Age reports Campbell received 13 votes, with former state upper house MP Cathrine Burnett-Wake and oncologist Ranjana Srivastava on three each.
A direct metro link from Badgery’s Creek airport to St Mary’s is just what the good citizens of Western Sydney have been after. And a new spur to loop through the Hills back into the North Shore and Barangaroo.
Stuart Ayres and Dom wet dream.
Circumnavigate Sydney on driverless trains
‘WeWantPaul says:
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 5:33 pm
Insane and inane frothing at the mouth ignored like it should be:
The US has secured access to four additional military bases in the Philippines – a key bit of real estate which would offer a front seat to monitor the Chinese in the South China Sea and around Taiwan.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64479712‘
————————————
Uh huh.
China acting like an international thug against the Philippines:
1. When the Philippines National Assembly passed a motion calling their territorial waters ‘The West Philippines Sea’ China imposed an instant ban on banana imports from the Philippines. This caused untold misery for small growers. Classic bullying act.
2. China has harrassed Philippines small fishers out of subtantial areas of sea which they have fished for centuries. Classic bullying act.
3. China is thuggishly using superior force to militarily take over disputed territories. Classic bullying act.
That the Philippines behaves in an unpredictable fashion with respect to US basing and military presence.
This is based on the then expulsion of US forces from the PI and the closure of Clark and Subic. Clark was where the B52s were based during the Vietnam War. It is huge.
The election of Bong Bong following the unpredictable Duterte has swung the balance back to the US. There is no guarantee that this will not again be reversed in the future.
BK @ #241 Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023 – 5:48 pm
It’d be almost comedic, but such drips cause so much harm.
BK
Rick Morton has reported that Ryman and his boss Scott Britton are now working in compliance at the National Disability Insurance Agency.
On wonders what schemes they are involved in there.
Ryman’s main problem is that he has selective memory.
He agrees he is the person who removed references to using ATO data to average income from the draft policy proposal but doesn’t remember who told him to or why. There is no written record of that.
Says he didn’t know DSS had told DHS that was unlawful.
Doubt many watching find him credible.
Mr Scott wants another 20 minutes (it’s 5pm nearly). I’d put him out of his misery now.
WeWantPaul says:
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 5:36 pm
Can you imagine if China established 4 new military bases in Mexico.
Would this be the same China that promised not to militarize the South China Sea land grabs?
meher baba @ Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 5:56 pm
What seems to you may be you alone.
It seems to me like you are scaremongering 😉
Besides, always back the horse named self-interest.
Superannuation
if you have an average balance of $150,000 or a median balance of $50,000 you will be reliant on the aged pension,
About 20% of the population have sizeable super balances and are not eligible for aged pension although they might have access to a health care card
If you have a super balance of $1.7 million, you live to 100 and there is galloping inflation you might end up on the aged pension in your final years
If you are one of the 11,000 Australians with more than $10 million in super you have a tax free wealth transfer vehicle from one generation to the next
Historically we are at a high point of superannuation balances at retirement. This won’t change until workforce casualisation and ageism reduces
I would say that it’s happening a bloody long way from Australia and that it’s a matter for China and the Philippines. Marles playing battleship in another hemisphere is not how I want my taxes spent.
Rossmcg @ Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:00 pm
“BK
Rick Morton has reported that Ryman and his boss Scott Britton are now working in compliance at the National Disability Insurance Agency.
On wonders what schemes they are involved in there.
Ryman’s main problem is that he has selective memory.
He agrees he is the person who removed references to using ATO data to average income from the draft policy proposal but doesn’t remember who told him to or why. There is no written record of that.
Says he didn’t know DSS had told DHS that was unlawful.
Doubt many watching find him credible.
Mr Scott wants another 20 minutes (it’s 5pm nearly). I’d put him out of his misery now.”
My better half has been shouting “Liar!” more often than not over past couple of hours. Reminded me of a scene in The Princess Bride.
Cat at 7.11 am re quotes from Guardian opinion piece on Putin speech
The author, Samantha de Bendern, has limited expertise. She worked as a banker for nearly 20 years after leaving a junior job at NATO in 2002. Her article is a statement of one Western view of Putin’s war. She has linked via twitter a recent interview with Victoria Nuland.
Two statements in the article are dubious: 1) She claims “one thing is knowable: it is impossible to negotiate with someone who uses lies and blackmail to force his opponent’s hand, because nothing he says can be trusted.” The problem with this is that a clear parallel exists, namely with Milosevic, with whom the US did negotiate in 1995.
2) She claims “Putin has cemented Russia’s withdrawal from the international order – and the imprisonment of more than 140 million Russians in an empire built on lies and bloodshed.” The situation in Russian society is disastrous, but it is not like North Korea. If the EU borders were open, very many more young Russian men would flee.
Her main error is to conflate the international order with a Western order, based largely around NATO. The two are far from the same.
The interview with Victoria Nuland, the chief hawk in the US, is at:
https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast/%D1%8D%D1%85%D0%BE-%D0%BC%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B2%D1%8B/id300172145?i=1000600359974
It was broadcast on an independent Russian radio station on 19 Feb. The radio station, Echo of Moscow, now broadcasts from abroad. It would have been broadcast originally on some station in the US.
The questioner is fairly easy, and asks his most challenging questions in the last 10 minutes, including about Crimea. Nuland more or less dismisses the fact that 9 of the 10 most populous countries in the world (all except the US) have not imposed sanctions on Russia. She describes the US war aim as a “strategic defeat” for Putin, and is not at all concerned about the risk of escalation, unlike the questioner.
Fortunately, senior people in the Pentagon do worry about escalation.
Ryman is a junior woodchuck who came up with a cockamamie scheme – and nobody up the line, up to and including Scott Morrison, tweaked that it was illegal, immoral, and apt to trash reputations.
And it is always thus
Peter Beaumont in The Guardian offers this answer to the question loved by media pundits and loathed by military analysts the world over:
“WHO IS WINNING?
There are different ways to assess this. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is close to achieving its stated war aims, which in Ukraine’s case involves liberating all occupied territory.
However, during the past 12 months Moscow has had to repeatedly retreat from its maximalist ambitions – not least deposing the Ukrainian government and imposing a puppet regime – to focus on capturing all of the Donbas, in the east.
Moreover, Russian losses have been huge. A recent estimate by the IISS suggests it has lost 40-50% of its prewar tank fleet. Casualties have also been enormous, with claims last week that Russia was losing 2,000 soldiers for every 100 metres gained in the east. While these figures should be treated cautiously, anecdotal evidence does suggest Ukraine has a lower rate of attrition.
America’s top general, Mark Milley, recently said Russia had already lost tactically and strategically but suggested it was unlikely either side was close to achieving its stated objectives.
It is probably safe to say that the current trajectory of the conflict is going much better for Ukraine than for Russia – and that the continuing influx of new weapons from the west will maintain that trajectory.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/22/who-is-winning-in-ukraine-and-what-will-happen-next
Watermelon @ Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:06 pm
So you are back. Interesting to note the topics that prompt you to post.
Like seriously does Spratley bloody Island actually matter to Australia’s national security? A few bits of sand and pebbles? Why are we there? What the hell is this?
Has Rex Douglas complained long and loud about the candidate parachuted into the federal seat of Aston yet? Like he did about Kristina Keneally?
Yeah I’ve noticed Rex Douglas and Lars Von Trier have been both very quiet on this. They also overexaggerated this false narrative that Tu Le was somehow the popular rank and file’s choice in Fowler. Le received 6 out of the 61 votes in the state seat in Cabramatta hardly strong evidence she would have won the Fowler preselection. And no I didn’t support the Kristina Keneally parachute. But Le constantly complaining to the media and being handpicked by the former member doesn’t warrant entitlement for the seat.
RC
Leave him alone Scot. He is not even close to a clear thinker.
Is he now at NDIS? That explains a lot from my interaction with NDIS!
Dr Doolittle @ Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:06 pm:
“…
claims “one thing is knowable: it is impossible to negotiate with someone who uses lies and blackmail to force his opponent’s hand, because nothing he says can be trusted.” The problem with this is that a clear parallel exists, namely with Milosevic, with whom the US did negotiate in 1995.”
================
Dr D, interesting angle on the Guardian’s piece on Putin’s speech, but just to pull you up on this statement of yours. You forget to mention that Milosevic was not done with genocide after 1995 – just ask the Kosovars – and Milosevic ultimately was only adequately dealt with by the West through his appearance at The Hague. This is how the US finally dealt with him:
“Milošević was arrested by Yugoslav authorities on 1 April 2001, following a 36-hour armed standoff between police and Milošević’s bodyguards at his Belgrade villa. Although no official charges were made, Milošević was suspected of abuse of power and corruption.
Following his arrest, the United States pressured the Yugoslav government to extradite Milošević to the ICTY or lose financial aid from the IMF and World Bank. President Koštunica opposed extradition of Milošević, arguing that it would violate the Yugoslav constitution. Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić called a governmental meeting to issue a decree for extradition. Milošević’s lawyers appealed the extradition process to the Yugoslav constitutional court. The court requested two weeks to deliberate the appeal. Ignoring objections from the president and the constitutional court, Đinđić ordered the extradition of Milošević to the ICTY. On 28 June, Milošević was flown by helicopter from Belgrade to a US airbase in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina and from where he was then flown to The Hague, Netherlands.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milo%C5%A1evi%C4%87#Downfall
Now you mention it, this looks like a very attractive precedent for Vladimir Putin to me …
🙂
The Commish telling Scott SC to start winding up – he’s not listening
Sprocket
It’s a mystery to me why somebody like Ryman (and there have been others ) would seek to argue the point.
They cocked it up.
Admit it and plead for mercy might save them a lot an anguish.
Griff: “meher baba @ Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 5:56 pm
What seems to you may be you alone.
It seems to me like you are scaremongering
Besides, always back the horse named self-interest.”
It’s hard to say whether or not I am scaremongering. Albo was fumbling and stumbling around in his answers today, so perhaps he didn’t meant what he said to come across as being “if you’re super balance is around $150k don’t worry, but everybody else watch out.”
However, I get the impression they’ve got something planned for the Budget. It might be as simple as lowering the cap on total holdings to $2m (and presumably $4m for self-managed accounts for couples) and also freezing the tax-free salary sacrifice+employer contribution cap at $27.5k pa and the pension balance at $1.7m. I wouldn’t have any particular problem with any of those changes, as they wouldn’t be taking money away from people which they might have difficulty replacing (because they are retired, or about to retire). I guess that, if they want, they can also bring back Shorten’s old policy of taxing any withdrawals from super funds above $75 per annum, although that’s going to produce some sob stories.
Beyond a package of that sort, any other changes would be difficult both to implement and to explain to the public. All super accounts include contributions and earnings on which the holder has already paid 15 per cent tax. I suspect that a lot of the money in the larger accounts (of, say, $800k or more) was contributed as after-tax contributions. There would need to be a lot of unstitching to ensure that people aren’t going to end up paying more tax on some of their voluntary superannuation contributions than they would have done if they had simply taken the money as income (and, in fact, that problem also applies to Shorten’s proposal to tax withdrawals above a certain rate, but at least people would have some choices there).
I realise that quite a few posters on here would favour a sort of rough justice approach of “ending the rorts for the rich” and bad luck to anyone who ends up getting double-taxed. And, if that’s how you like your government run, then I doubt I’ll be able to dissuade you.
Dr Doolittle @ Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:06 pm:
“Her main error is to conflate the international order with a Western order, based largely around NATO. The two are far from the same.”
=================
Dr D, this is a correct and highly relevant point. China, India, and Iran are hardly treating Russia like a pariah state, and they are states which matter, geopolitically and economically.
Ryman agreed that Robodebt planned to recoup debts from 866,857 individual income support payment recipients in period 2010 to 2013
That population of people on income support payments is about 5.2% of a workforce of 12 million ie 600,000 people
==> they planned to dun each recipient 1.25 times
either
my arithmetic is wrong
their planning figures are fanciful
unemployment figures are a fantasy
‘Watermelon says:
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:10 pm
Like seriously does Spratley bloody Island actually matter to Australia’s national security? A few bits of sand and pebbles? Why are we there? What the hell is this?’
———————————————————–
Quite right.
The Greens spokesperson for defence has quite rightly pointed out that anyone who is concerned about, say, the Chinese wanting to grab a 99% year lease on Tulagi will no constraint on its development rights… well, anyone who is concerned about that is, gasp, ‘racist’.
That is the official word from the Greens. It has never been resiled from. It has not been apologized for.
As a follow up, the Greens should 100% refuse to pass anything in the Senate until the ADF if halved and turned into a Light Mobile Farce and the JSFs, tanks, heavy artillery and missiles are thrown into the sea.
Interesting comment by Commissioner to Ryman re fact he had been subject to threats. ….by whom?
Russians KIA Feb 21: 620
Total Russians KIA: 145,060
Daily average Russians KIA: 399.6
Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/02/22/7390416/
Who will say “Enough is Enough” first: Vladimir Putin, the elites which surround him, the Russian people, or the Russian border (ie, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine face the Russian military along its whole length again)?
The Guardian’s uncritical reporting is less than stellar in this article.
The sums being talked about are barely noise for the $3.1 trillion invested in Australia’s super funds.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/22/adani-stock-rout-leaves-tens-of-millions-in-australian-retirement-savings-exposed
Why would it be? Pretty clear there’s a serious case of White Man’s Burden going on in the presumption that we have any right or reason to be involved.
‘Bennelong Lurker says:
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:27 pm
Interesting comment by Commissioner to Ryman re fact he had been subject to threats. ….by whom?’
——————————————-
I thought she did that well. She pointed out that she was sorry that it had happened and that it was illegal and ‘stupid’.
The Commissioner apologizes to Mr. Ryman in respect of threats made against him by reason of his giving evidence to the Commission.
I wonder what that is all about?
“Why would it be? Pretty clear there’s a serious case of White Man’s Burden going on the presumption that we have any right or reason to be involved.”
Yeah through our vassal state relationship with USA. The USA don’t want / resent the possibility that China might be a competitor, they are bad at completions they can’t have their own special rules in (ie cheat). So they started picking fights with China and got the stupider vassal states, and the stupider leaders, and the stupidest citizens all fired about about evil China. It is such a lame play, it is such a repeat, it is so moronic I can’t believe anyone was stupid enough to fall for it. But there are queues of morons lapping the play up.
BW
Agree. Wonder if more might come to light in later evidence.
edit: substituted “might” for “will”.
‘Watermelon says:
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:29 pm
That is the official word from the Greens. It has never been resiled from. It has not been apologized for.
Why would it be? Pretty clear there’s a serious case of White Man’s Burden going on in the presumption that we have any right or reason to be involved.’
——————————————
Haha. You do have it bad, don’t you?
Only the Greens could come up with the notion that anyone concerned that China controlling Tulagi, which sits across our main trade connections with the US couldbe of strategic concern is ‘racist’.
This is the sort of street kiddy stuff at which the Greens excel. I note that you don’t resile from this vile sort of rubbish. You double up on it.
Anyway. The Greens should put their BOP where their noisy gabs are and block any progress in the Senate until the ADF is halved and turned into a Light Mobile Farce, as per the Greens’s specifications.
If they are not will to show some grit on their principles, they should STFU.
meher baba @ Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:18 pm
What comes across to you may be you alone.
The expectation of the amount in one’s super upon retirement differs according to generation. There are Gen X parliamentarians that would be expecting a million plus in their super on retirement. And that is leaving aside the Millennials that preferentially vote for them.
Definitely not the sums you are bandying about 🙂
Enough Already: “Who will say “Enough is Enough” first: Vladimir Putin, the elites which surround him, the Russian people, or the Russian border (ie, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine face the Russian military along its whole length again)?”
We’ll have to see how the spring and summer fighting plays out. If it goes really badly for Russia, and the Ukraine is getting close to recovering all of the eastern areas and is turning its attention towards Crimea, then I think several scenarios will emerge in Russia including, unfortunately, the possibility of Putin nuking Kiev and then saying “job’s done, Nazis are neutralised.” A more positive scenario is a Putin or his successor who is prepared to negotiate on the basis of getting to retain Crimea, which I think would be an unpalatable but ultimately acceptable deal to Ukraine.
I think Ukraine will continue to go well on the ground, but Putin and his gang are ruthless criminals and it’s sensible only to expect the worst from them.
billie
600,000 x 3
Although obviously there’d be overlap.
And, of course, job seekers are not the only recipients of Centrelink payments.
If the Philippines wants some help with its China problem the Xibots will instantly turn that into ‘White Man’s Burden’.
Bong Bong must be looking for a bwana, right?
Such is the depth of the Greens when they do strategic analysis.
They take themselves seriously. That is the main thing.
The Greens should put their votes where their mouths are and block any progress in the Senate until our navy is sunk, our planes are tipped into the sea, our tanks, ditto, our artillery ditto and the ADF is turned into suicide bait: A ‘Light Mobile Force’.
Talk is cheap. The Greens now have the power to block ALL progress in the Senate.
Australia’s defence and security depend on the Greens implementing their agenda.
Do it now!
The Teal Gazette is at it again – hagiography:
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/22/ballots-are-yet-to-open-in-the-nsw-election-but-have-the-teals-already-won
Free speech, yes, but dishonest propaganda, no!
“Three Ukrainian authors who had been scheduled to appear at Adelaide Writers’ Week have withdrawn from the festival amid ongoing controversy over public comments made by another guest on the line-up.
The event’s director, Louise Adler, confirmed Kateryna Babkina and Olesya Khromeychuk, who were scheduled to speak at a session on the impact of Russia’s invasion on Ukrainian civilians, had decided not to appear.
She said the move was prompted by comments of another guest, Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa, who has described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “Nazi-promoting Zionist” and accused him of dragging “the whole world into the inferno of WWIII”.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-22/ukrainian-authors-quit-adelaide-literary-festival/102007912
First … WTF even is a “Nazi-promoting Zionist”???
Secondly, it is not the case that these comments are merely ‘offensive’, though they are that. They are false and defamatory, and worse still, calculated to discourage Western support for the defence of an innocent people against completely unjustified aggression, which has descended into genocide. This decision of Louise Adler exhibits a sad unmooring of her moral compass.
Griff: “The expectation of the amount in one’s super upon retirement differs according to generation. There are Gen X parliamentarians that would be expecting a million plus in their super on retirement. And that is leaving aside the Millennials that preferentially vote for them.”
That’s about all anyone of any age can reasonably expect in future: the possibility of sums of $10m or more into your super ended with the reforms of 2017. The maximum amount of contributions/salary sacrifice contributable at a concessional tax rate is $27.5ks per annum: over, say 25 years, and assuming an average return of 5 per cent per annum (taxed at 15c in the dollar), that’s not going to get you much over $1.2m. And most workers won’t be able to contribute $27.5ks per annum in the early part of their careers, and many will never be able to do so.
On top of that, you can contribute up to $100k per year of after-tax money but, again, how many people are going to be able to do that?
Boerwar has a point when he says that Keating’s glorious superannuation system hasn’t really delivered the results that most workers were looking for. I think a far better and cheaper idea – which rumour has it was put to him at the time – was to pay the age pension to everyone and then let them save whatever they like to supplement it in retirement, without receiving any tax concessions to help them. There could also have been an age pension supplement which was targeted towards needier people who hadn’t been able to save anything.
The idea didn’t appeal to Keating and Labor at the time because there would have been no place in it for the union-run super funds.
billie
We also know that they chased historical cases – people who had been on Jobseeker years before.
I think you’ve misunderstood what ‘between’ referred to – those were the years they chased the debts, not that the debts were solely confined to recipients in those years.
BW I was talking about the South China Sea but if you’re talking about the Solomon Islands, either it’s a sovereign country with sovereign citizens that can enter into their own voluntary arrangements, or it isn’t. How dare they go putting their islands in the way of two White countries’ trade routes!!
Enough Already: ““Three Ukrainian authors who had been scheduled to appear at Adelaide Writers’ Week have withdrawn from the festival amid ongoing controversy over public comments made by another guest on the line-up.
The event’s director, Louise Adler, confirmed Kateryna Babkina and Olesya Khromeychuk, who were scheduled to speak at a session on the impact of Russia’s invasion on Ukrainian civilians, had decided not to appear.
She said the move was prompted by comments of another guest, Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa, who has described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “Nazi-promoting Zionist” and accused him of dragging “the whole world into the inferno of WWIII”.”
There were two Palestinian authors invited to the festival, both of whom have made controversial statements. The criticisms of one them seemed to me to be a bit unfair, but this Abulhawa woman – who has lived most of her life in America – sounds like a major ratbag.
But I think it’s wrong for protestors or other invitees to try to cancel artists and writers from participating in events like this. I felt the same about the Israeli dancer in Sydney who lots of people were trying to cancel a while back (and possibly succeeded, I can’t remember).
Absolutely nobody is compelled to attend these sorts of performances.
meher baba @ Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:36 pm:
“If it goes really badly for Russia, and the Ukraine is getting close to recovering all of the eastern areas and is turning its attention towards Crimea, then I think several scenarios will emerge in Russia including, unfortunately, the possibility of Putin nuking Kiev and then saying “job’s done, Nazis are neutralised.”
=====================
Meher Baba, that is one thing I don’t see happening. The US has made it crystal clear to Moscow that if they deploy a nuke (or any other WMD), the US will take the gloves right off and respond very swiftly with overwhelming conventional force, using missiles and bombers. They will essentially destroy all Russian military assets and personnel within the confines of Ukrainian territory (including Crimea), and take out long-range offensive assets within Russia itself, as well as the whole Black Sea Fleet (and probably the Baltic Fleet as well). There is no chance Putin will risk this, nor will Russia’s military hierarchy permit it to proceed.
meher baba @ Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:45 pm
Phew! “It seems to me” that we dodged a bullet 😉
billie @ #274 Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023 – 6:20 pm
What has amazed me from the first time that number was quoted is that nobody seems to have pointed out that the number is ludicrous, from several points of view. Firstly, the number is an estimate, presumably generated by a statistician within the department. No statistician worthy of such a title would ever produce an estimate to the to a precision of a single integer, when the estimate is in the hundreds of thousands. Nearest 10,000, maybe. Single integer = obvious bullshit. “What idiot came up with this crap!!” No person with any mathematical sense should have ever accepted that figure as being anything other than a sick joke.
The fact that the inane number was repeated over and over, all the way up to a cabinet submission and approval, is a clear indication that those involved had no idea of the real nature of the ‘problem’ that they claimed to be addressing, and no idea of how to assess the so-called ‘information’ that they were being fed.
Presumably the joke number was arrived at by applying some percentage, snatched out of somebody’s ‘faith’, to the total number of income payment recipients whose payments were ‘other’ income dependent. The idea that a more-or-less random percentage, applied to an originally highly inaccurate number (how many of them were already dead when they added them up?) can produce a ‘firm estimate’ of PRECISELY 866,857 (definitely not 866,858) is a very sick joke indeed, but the joke was played on us, and the lawyers still do not seem to have noticed.
Thanks Zoomster
The initial planning for Robodebt excluded aged pensions, targeted Austudy and JobSeeker payments and caught some child support payments
I was highlighting the wide sweep of Robodebt
In Sociology if 5% have a problem it’s an individual failing, when numbers approach 25% or 50% it’s a systemic problem.
In this case the system problem was caused by
widespread demonising of welfare recipients,
pentecostal minister for social services who
lacked respect for public service advice & code of conduct,
poorly integrated ricketty old computer systems
So, it’s revealed today that Lidia Thorpe was done over by Labor through dodgy donations
Rex Douglas @ Wednesday, February 22, 2023 at 6:55 pm
“So, it’s revealed today that Lidia Thorpe was done over by Labor through dodgy donations”
Vrooooom!
Where’s Wally? Or rather this bunch of Wallies?
Of course the other approach was one national super fund like in Denmark.
Basically industry super funds take 1% of income above what a common govt fund would.
That’s worth billions in economic rent to the funds. There is a reason they blocked disclosure of whom they donate to.