The pond woke to news of a report offering irrefutable proof of an Israeli-government induced famine in Gaza, together with the usual defences, of the insidious and pathetic "blood libel" kind.
The pond wondered if it had been a fever dream, but no, there it was in the NY Times, with the usual both siderist "monitors say" spin ...
The Graudian followed the same line ... only this time they were UN-backed experts ...
Haaretz went all in, not relying on the report while offering their own detailed account of the unfolding disaster.. (*archive link)
So the pond turned to the lizard Oz this morning, and got exactly what it expected.
The sound of crickets, and the cornfields at work again, and here's the evidence ...
The pond checked back a little later in the morning, and there were still crickets...
Over on the extreme far right it was the same story ... enablers of ethnic cleansing and genocide at work ...
James Kirchick from the WSJ offered a particularly contemptible form of denialism, by denying the targeting of Gazan journalists on the pretext that they weren't journalists at all, so no matter, no never mind ...
Who is a ‘journalist’ in Gaza?, To put people who celebrated or participated in the October 7 attacks in the same category as journalists Daniel Pearl, Marie Colvin and James Foley is a disgrace.
Inter alia ...
Consider Ian Williams, president of the Foreign Press Association, who recently told CNN, “Frankly I don’t care whether Al-Sharif was in Hamas or not. We don’t kill journalists for being Republicans or Democrats … Hamas is a political organisation, as well as a terrorist organisation, perhaps.”
That last word— “perhaps” — explains everything. To Mr Williams and others of his ilk, a totalitarian Islamist movement that murders its opponents has the same democratic legitimacy as an American political party. As long its members put on a flak jacket with the word PRESS written on it, they qualify as intrepid war correspondents protected by international law.
Organisations like RSF and the CPJ rightly complain when governments falsely accuse reporters of being terrorists so they can surveil, prosecute, imprison and kill them. But by championing propagandists for jihad as members of the Fourth Estate, press freedom advocates are guilty of the same transgression: conflating terrorism and journalism.
The Wall St Journal
And yet the reptiles would consider themselves "journalists", when in reality they're propaganda hacks for a monstrous foreign invader.
Don't take the pond's word, celebrate the keen Keane's excoriation in Crikey ...
Netanyahu proves he’s a thin-skinned, genocidal man-child — and that News Corp is a foreign propaganda outlet, The Israeli prime minister poses as a tough guy, but criticism reduces him to a quivering jelly of rage. It’s no surprise he went to News Corp to vent. (*archive link)
Inter alia ... (and full disrespect to simpleton Sharri intended) ...
It’s as if Slobodan Milošević had rung in to Alan Jones to whinge about Gareth Evans during the siege of Sarajevo.
Is this the kind of guest Sky News now allows on, a man who encouraged payments to Hamas? A man who enabled Hamas to conduct its atrocities in October 2023? Is it now Sky News’ policy to platform people who not merely encourage but also enable the funding of monsters like Hamas? Truly Sky News is Australia’s own Genocide Network.
If a Chinese leader had demanded Australia “counteract” protesters against China in our streets, you can imagine the febrile reaction from News Corp and the Sinophobes scattered across Australian media. And Netanyahu persisted in denying that Israel was responsible for any starvation in Gaza despite Israeli human rights groups and Israeli media arguing — in some cases for well over a year — that Israel has been starving Gazans deliberately.
But most of all, Netanyahu was keen to hammer the trope that Israel was the bleeding edge of Western civilisation facing savage hordes: “We’re actually fighting the war of Western civilisation against these barbarians.”
“Fighting the war” means starving children to death, turning the provision of food aid into a bloodsport for foreign mercenaries, using drone strikes to kill aid workers, killing journalists to prevent coverage of atrocities, bombing and sniping civilians sheltering in tent encampments, and ethnically cleansing regions to accommodate colonies.
As it turns out, that’s exactly what “Western civilisation” has meant for so many non-white peoples for so long. The thin-skinned man-child was, however inadvertently, pointing to a historic truth far more resonant than his laboured comparisons with 1938.
Well scribbled keen Keane, and what a relief there's a forum for it, and a writer willing to say it.
The pond realised that offering any of the reptiles this day doing their best to present a genocidal government in a way pleasing to the hive mind would be deeply wrong, and so regrets to advise correspondents that the pond has decided not to enable any of the lizard Oz genocide-loving useless idiots enabling a genocide this weekend.
Nor will it be enabling Pembo from the deep croweater south ... who has suddenly gone full JK and discovered TG bashing is the reptile jihad of the day ...
Occasionally stories come along which make you do a double-take and rub your eyes to make sure you haven’t been pranked. But no, this actually happened.
By David Penberthy
Columnist
Instead of all that, the pond will offer some mild sport, starting with the Ughmann...
The pond could almost stop at the get go, at the low comedy offered by that AI-looking image, but will press on ...
The header: Why are the Liberals so bad at telling their own success story? In the history wars, the Liberals are scarcely in the ring. Howard and Abbott tried, but as the 50th anniversary of Gough Whitlam’s dismissal, it’s time for modern MPs to rebalance the books and reclaim the narrative.
The caption for the execrable illustration, featuring that ding dong onion muncher, and never mind that he was one of the country's worst PMs in recent years, contending with other Libs such as Billy McMahon for the honour: Australia owes its existence to liberal thinking and was built on the firm foundations of its creed: individual freedom, the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, the family as the bedrock of society, equality of opportunity, enterprise, liberty and a fair go. Pictures: News Corp
Strange that the former seminarian should have decided that "liberal thinking"was the way forward, and not the hocus pocus of a trip to heaven ...
If the pond wanted to discuss the notion it might head off here for starters ...
“Let me put it this way,” he says. “If you ask a religious person where they get their values and moral sensibility from, they’ll have an answer right away: a church, faith, or religious text. No fuss, no muss.”
“But it’s tricky for those of us, like me, without religion—the 40 percent of us in Australia who select ‘no religion’. What can we point to?”
The answer he puts forward is liberalism. Liberalism is an ideology born in the 19th century and its core values, Lefebvre states, are “personal freedom, fairness, tolerance, reciprocity, self-reflection, and irony. In the way that Christianity, for example, has a recognisable package of moral commitments and excellences (such as love, fellowship, charity, and devotion), so does liberalism.”
From television and movies to stand-up comedy and social media, he says liberalism profoundly shapes our cultural landscape:
“Netflix, not civics lessons, is where we imbibe liberalism nowadays.” Professor Alexandre Lefebvre
He says the influence of liberalism in pop culture is pervasive, whether it be TV (Parks and Recreation and The Good Place), stand-up comedy (Hannah Gadsby and Dave Chappelle – whose humour is all about probing the limits of tolerance and identity), swear words (and how slurs have become our taboo words), or pornography (the mainstream of which trades on toying with the notion of consent).
The pond might get picky, a mention of the Renaissance and early Enlightenment days, and Netflix is where idle streamers imbibe a never ending stream of crap, but it was good to have a mention of irony and atheism ... (and the bush religion of mateship can be saved for a Russell Ward day) ...
Meanwhile, the Ughmann makes the classic mistake the reptiles make on a daily basis: confusing and conflating Liberals and the Liberal party with "liberalism".
Egad sir, the onion muncher is no liberal, not in the proper sense of the word, nor for that matter the lying rodent ...
Stories and mythologies matter. They are the scaffolding of identity and meaning. We live in the stories we inherit, and for the better part of the past half-century the Liberals have allowed their opponents to shape the national tale. Labor casts itself as the party of progress and ideas, the architect of every great reform, while painting the Liberals as dull, reactionary administrators. That frame has become the shorthand of our history.
But history shows that when it came to shaping the nation itself, it was the liberals who laid the foundations. Australia was born of liberal ideals, yet the party that bears that name has rarely claimed its inheritance.
This is not to deny Labor its achievements. It has much to be proud of. But re-reading its history in the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of the dismissal of Gough Whitlam underscores that Whitlam’s enduring achievement was not in reshaping the nation so much as remaking an ossified Labor Party.
For his next trick, the Ughmannn passes off David Kemp as a fair-minded, balanced observer of matters ...
Whitlam prevailed, liberalising Labor and recasting it as a party of the middle class.
With his 1972 triumph Whitlam began shaping the tale that progressivism consigned the Liberals to history’s margins. That myth, burnished over time, became a powerful weapon in Labor’s political armoury.
History also highlights another truth: Labor has been uneasy with the Constitution since 1901 because it had no hand in writing it. As former minister and historian David Kemp notes in A Free Country, the ideas that governed Australia at the turn of the previous century “were principally those of Britain’s liberal intellectual culture”.
The authors of the Constitution were classical liberals who valued the rule of law, parliamentary government, property rights and liberty.
Nice try, but when you head off to the wiki on classical liberalism, there's some odd company for them to be keeping ...
Classical liberalism gained full flowering in the early 18th century, building on ideas dating at least as far back as the 16th century, within the Iberian, French, British, and Central European contexts, and it was foundational to the American Revolution and "American Project" more broadly. Notable liberal individuals whose ideas contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke, François Quesnay, Jean-Baptiste Say, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Marquis de Condorcet, Thomas Paine, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo. It drew on classical economics, especially the economic ideas espoused by Adam Smith in Book One of The Wealth of Nations, and on a belief in natural law.
Ah so liberalism is a Humpty Dumpty philosophy and will say what you want it to mean ...
On with the Ughmann ...
The defining moment in our history was the birth of a nation, and it was an entirely liberal project.
And here is something you won’t hear in Labor speeches: much of the labour movement opposed Federation.
In NSW those who supported it were expelled, while in Queensland some feared it might weaken the campaign against “coloured labour”.
In 1901 all parties supported the White Australia policy, but none more enthusiastically than Labor.
In his book I Remember, former NSW premier Jack Lang called it “Australia’s Magna Carta”, proudly noting that the “total exclusion of coloured and other undesirable races” was etched into Labor’s first federal platform in 1900.
He admitted it was about race, but also about wages: “From the start it was a simple bread-and-butter issue.
Australian workers were simply trying to defend their own living standards.”
That Labor would want to bury this history is understandable. That it continues to recast the past to accuse others of racism is unforgivable.
Yet when Foreign Minister Penny Wong delivered the 2022 Whitlam Oration she ignored Labor’s record and declared: “Gough described racism as the ‘common denominator’ of a whole range of Menzies-era foreign policies.”
The White Australia policy remained in Labor’s platform until 1967, and its old guard fought Whitlam and Don Dunstan to keep it.
And the Liberal and Country parties were also fully racist, and that staining strain continues to this day, so your point is?
The point perhaps is to stay stuck in the 1950s, and so Ming the Merciless was rolled out yet again, Former Liberal PM Sir Robert Menzies was instrumental in the progressive dismantling of the White Australia policy. Picture: News Corp
Just to celebrate Ming ...
Lamb: "For these years of course in the past Sir Robert you have been described as a racist."
Menzies: "Have I?"
Lamb: "I have read this, yes."
Menzies: "Well if I were not described as a racist I'd be the only public man who hasn't been."
It was the fashion at the time, and it took an effort on both sides to get rid of it, and yet it still lurks, more so in the great replacement theory fearing, Voice bashing, white nationalist devoted, Western Civilisation celebrating lizard Oz, but do go on ...
Wong’s charge of Menzies’ foreign policy racism also jars with a remarkable wartime radio address by Menzies.
He condemned Curtin government propaganda that sought to stir racial hatred of the Japanese, calling it “fantastically foolish and dangerous”.
He said “hatred is the mark of a small man” and warned that if war bred only bitterness, then peace would be “merely the prelude to disaster and not an end of it”.
Wong also claimed Whitlam shifted Australia’s perspective of Asia.
Menzies made his mark
Yet it was Menzies who set about rebuilding relations with Japan in the shadow of the war. He backed the 1952 peace treaty and the reopening of embassies in Canberra and Tokyo, and in 1953 told Australians it was time to move on from the conflict.
Former Labor industry minister John Button had the grace to acknowledge the significance of this in his book Flying the Kite: “In the early 1950s prime minister Menzies invited a small delegation of Japanese industrialists to Australia. It was, in the post-war climate, a courageous and prescient invitation.”
Nippon Steel’s Eishiro Saito later described the visit as a seminal moment in the relationship. From that point, Australia’s exports of coal and iron ore to Japan began a steady climb until Japan became our largest trading partner.
It was Menzies who signed the 1957 Commerce Agreement in Tokyo, and who later hosted prime minister Nobusuke Kishi in Canberra. Australians knew Kishi’s past. He had been imprisoned as a suspected Class A war criminal until 1948 because of his role in Japan’s wartime government.
Think about that in context: many Australians still loathed Japan, and some in Menzies’ own government, such as Alexander Downer’s father, were former prisoners of war.
To invite Kishi and forge this partnership, at this time, required remarkable political courage. Union protests greeted the trade deal and Kishi’s 1957 visit, the ACTU warned of lost jobs and ex-servicemen’s groups condemned any reconciliation with Japan.
Yet it is Labor’s caricature of Menzies that endures, and the blame for that lies with the Liberal Party’s failure to tell its own story.
Wong’s speech also repeated the line that Whitlam “withdrew our troops from Vietnam”. But by the time he came to power in December 1972, all combat troops had already returned and only some advisers remained.
Here's one thing that's certain. Ming the Merciless embarked on a useless war on the basis of lies, and introduced conscription, and by whim of a birthday ballot, sent young Australian men off to die in a meaningless cause ... and no amount of Ughmann re-writing will erase that shame.
Nor the reality that as defeat loomed the rats realised they'd better scuttle and run from a futile folly ...
The reptiles tried to trick the pond by introducing a Liberal who actually knew about the pain of war, but undercut it by accompanying him with a quavering failure, best known for having a wife with an affection for a split skirt ... Liberal PM John Gorton (left) with Treasurer William (Bill) McMahon in 1969. Picture: News Corp
Oh come on reptiles, why so solemn?
Now there's a reason to remember a Liberal ... he had a wife inclined to liberal legginess ...
And so to the wrap up ...
The Liberals cannot win a battle they do not fight. And in the history wars, they are scarcely in the ring. Some, such as Kemp, John Howard and Tony Abbott, have tried to rebalance the books. But it should be the work of every Liberal MP and senator to reclaim their heritage in our national story.
Since its birth this nation has had two great political traditions, and for 124 years they have served us well. Labor’s story is well told. The Liberal story must be retold, beginning with its intellectual roots. Australia owes its existence to liberal thinking and was built on the firm foundations of its creed: individual freedom, the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, the family as the bedrock of society, equality of opportunity, enterprise, liberty and a fair go.
This tradition is timeless, and as vital now as ever. Unless the Liberal Party can tell that story to a new generation, it risks being written out of history.
If the lizard Oz and the likes of the Ughmann keep on living in the 1950s and provoking the pond to remember those ancient days, good luck appealing of vulgar youff.
Even King Donald can manage to be on Tik Tok while banning it - a singular feat- and a little of that Schrödinger's cat might help the Ughmann in his search for young 'uns ...
And so to the "Ned" Everest climb for the day ... and a warning, this is clocked by the reptiles at a hearty 11 minutes, and so is only suitable for those wanting a lack of oxygen, a slumping in the chair, a feeling of ennui and existential tedium, while doing the productivity rag yet again ...
The header: Ambition v reality: Labor at crossroads, With this week’s economic roundtable, productivity becomes a permanent test and measuring stick for the Albanese government, but can it deliver?
The caption for the uncredited collage which looks like only AI could have assembled it in a nanosecond of mindlessness: The economic roundtable convened by Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers was a meeting of our best and brightest, including (clockwise, third from left) Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock, Productivity chairwoman Danielle Wood and Treasury secretary Jenny Wilkinson, but it failed to produce any bold new policies because it was never designed to produce them.
Remember, this is only for compleatists, and in order to get through it, the pond will perforce will avoid offering too many notes. "Ned" is not nearly as much fun as the Ughmann ...
Jim Chalmers hails his roundtable as delivering “lasting and enduring” economic progress. Yet there is a chasm between the 900 ambitious briefs fed into the roundtable and the worthy yet incremental outcomes.
The Albanese government seems hooked on process but process is a double-edged instrument; it can enhance through consensus or suffocate by delay.
Yet there were distinct gains. Productivity is put up in lights at the start of Anthony Albanese’s second term. It now becomes a permanent test and measuring stick for this government. It needs to permeate Labor’s entire project – but this is a daunting task.
Chalmers foreshadowed a tax agenda for this term, conceding the tax system was “imperfect” and saying the roundtable had agreed on three goals – tax to deliver a fair go for working people based on an intergenerational lens; tax to incentivise business investment; and a more sustainable tax system to fund the services people need.
There were any number of attempts at visual relief, but how can snaps of politicians help, save to make "Ned" sound even duller? As Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers made clear, the roundtable has little authority. All issues now reside with the government and cabinet. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire
And so a member of the hive mind expounds on consensus in the hive mind:
As the Prime Minister and Treasurer made clear, the roundtable has little authority. All issues now reside with the government and cabinet. The roundtable was a meeting of our best and brightest but failed to produce any bold new policies because it was never designed to produce them. The roundtable was strictly reform foreplay, without any promise for the big event.
The risk is the Albanese government is in danger of admiring itself too much and running gun-shy on old-fashioned Labor conviction. The coming year will bring a decisive judgment on that conundrum. While talk of reform has rekindled memories of Paul Keating, let’s be clear: Keating would never have spent three days running this roundtable without producing a fanfare of eye-catching results that would monopolise the media.
These meetings always exaggerate the consensus. It’s a function of human nature in a small room. The enduring lesson cannot be forgotten: this is a time for leadership. The Albanese government has the majority; it has the political command; its opponent, the Coalition, is broken in the country and internally compromised. And every scrap of analysis from the Treasury, the Reserve Bank and the Productivity Commission tells the same story – unless there is a new age of productivity-based economic reform, Australia will slip into decline, become an increasingly unhappy place and repudiate the finest instincts of its democratic mission.
At this point the reptiles attempted an EXPLAINER distraction, In a week when the government’s much-anticipated economic reform roundtable delivered more caution than conviction, the real shock came from Health Minister Mark Butler’s bombshell overhaul of the NDIS. While the roundtable produced little beyond consensus on tariffs and road charges, Butler announced sweeping changes that will tighten access for children with mild autism and cut scheme growth, saving billions. Sarah Ison is the senior political reporter at The Australian.
"Ned" rambled on in his dreary way:
The big picture cannot be missed. The historic challenge is up to Labor: to Albanese, Chalmers and the cabinet. They need to think outside the circle of intellectual Labor orthodoxy. That’s what all great Labor governments do. They need to take calculated risks, that’s what their huge parliamentary majority enables them to do.
The roundtable is an insight into this government. It wants to prepare the ground, test the waters, summon the stakeholders, judge the political risk against the economic gain. It desperately wants its motives and credentials to be lauded. But it leaves everyone puzzled about the ultimate test: can Labor deliver the goods? Can Labor rise to the challenge and lead Australia, again, into the sunlit uplands?
Chalmers made clear there was no single silver bullet for reform. It’s lots of things done at once. Road-user charges are coming. That’s confirmed, the model yet to be sorted. Labor wants to cut red tape and compliance – but that’s easier said than done. The tax reform emphasis is on intergenerational fairness – but that means tax redistribution. It’s tough politics. There was a good discussion on artificial intelligence, the impression being Labor won’t legislate a separate AI act, but no decision is taken. Chalmers told Inquirer that his goal in the roundtable had been to “enliven some more reform”.
The reptiles tried on a double bunger visual distraction, Former Reserve Bank governor Phil Lowe lamented the failure to impose proper fiscal rules. Reform talk rekindled memories of Paul Keating but the event lacked his flair for fanfare.
It didn't work for the pond, because after the pictures came more "Ned" words ... promising not to get fooled again, as if writing Who lyrics ...
Lowe lamented the failure to impose proper fiscal rules, penetrating to the issue of government spending; Banks delivered the devastating analysis that Labor’s first-term agenda was actually anti-productivity despite the endless spin about reform.
Outlining his central theme, Banks said of productivity: “The challenge we face is that the conditions for sustained improvement don’t exist, despite the government’s narrative to the contrary. A lot of public policy, and much so-called reform, is working against the productivity objective.”
However, there was an impressive, exceptional event this week.
Labor, finally, displayed the ruthless compassion to reform the out-of-control National Disability Insurance Scheme, cut its eligibility and remove children with mild autism from the program. This is a vital decision taken by the Albanese government early in its second term.
Health Minister Mark Butler, announcing the change, said the 2023 Labor cabinet decision to reduce NDIS growth to 8 per cent annually – still a huge increase – was a target “simply unsustainable in the medium to long term”.
The next snap fired a shot across the pond's bow ... Gary Banks delivered a devastating analysis that Labor’s first-term agenda was actually anti-productivity. Mark Butler announced the cut to NDIS eligibility and decision to remove children with mild autism from the program.
That mention and snap of Banks was a warning.
With the NDIS projected cost at $105bn compared with $46bn today, Butler flagged a more reduced target of around 5 or 6 per cent and warned that bringing growth under control was not just a budget issue but necessary to preserve “social licence” for the scheme.
The purpose is to return the NDIS to its original mission. The need for this is obvious given that one out of every six boys in grade two is on the scheme. In reality, it is public policy malfunction on a massive scale that should have been confronted far earlier with drastic action. Butler said of more than 260,000 NDIS service providers only 16,000 were registered, leaving the way for poor quality and sharp practice.
There will be a degree of political backlash but the financial and health imperatives made this decision essential. Just under half of NDIS participants are children under 15, meaning, as Butler said, that “tens of thousands of young children with mild to moderate developmental delay or autism are on a scheme set up for permanent disability”.
For many parents the NDIS was “the only port in the storm” and Butler said he didn’t blame parents. In truth, “the NDIS model doesn’t suit their needs”. The extent of therapy provided to children in the NDIS is “extremely high” compared with the health system. Kids with developmental delay and mild autism needed to be supported by mainstream services and diverted from the NDIS. This will be an extremely sensitive task.
Labor’s 2023 decision provided for a joint federal-state funding scheme for lightly affected children but the states never signed up.
Butler envisaged a new scheme called A Program for Thriving Kids with the federal and state governments working together. But the basis for such co-operation is yet to be finalised.
The July 2026 timetable for starting the new kids program is highly ambitious and the government will face intense pressure. Yet it is doing the right thing – belatedly. The new policy will bring into play the entire autism debate – the rate of detection and how it is best treated.
Still no Banks, just a snap of Jimob? Jim Chalmers and Innes Willox at the second day of the roundtable. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
Don't despair, the pond promises that the Canavan caravan, and Banks with it, will in due course roll into "Ned" town ... but first more endless quoting of others ...
This commitment typifies the second-term resolution required from Albanese Labor. Is the NDIS reform an example of a systemic outlook or is it conspicuous in its isolation? In reality, much more is needed given Australia’s numerous problems – a productivity crisis, weak private investment, a decade of budget deficits, excessive reliance on state power and equivocation on tax reform.
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox captured the post-roundtable mood, saying there was an “intent” to tackle our problems, leaving him “very hopeful, if not confident”. Productivity Commission chairwoman Danielle Wood said of the meeting: “It was at least pro-growth, which is a good thing”, and agreed that the outcomes wouldn’t suffice to repair the productivity trend. Chalmers said the “opportunities and our risks are finely balanced in the economy”.
Chalmers said there were 10 reform directions identified: a single national market to improve the federation; reducing tariffs; better regulation; faster approvals in national priority areas; building more homes more quickly; making AI a national priority; attracting more investment capital; building a skilled workforce; a better tax system; and modernising government services.
Identifying such directions is worthy. It is not rocket science. Much of this list reflects work already being done. But any extra momentum helps. The reality is that each area is loaded with difficult policy decisions that demand leadership.
Another distraction by way of yet another EXPLAINER, It might sound like a dry legal report, copyright laws, fair use rules, Productivity Commission jargon, but at its core, this fight is about something far more human: creativity and the world we want to live in. The Australian’s Editorial Director Claire Harvey and Media Editor James Madden unpack how a new proposal could let big tech scrape and repackage the work of journalists, musicians, and artists, without paying a cent.
And soon the Canavan caravan will arrive ...
The Treasurer said there was a “sense of urgency” on these fronts. One area discussed but with little apparent output was government spending and fiscal accountability. The regulatory, tax and productivity initiatives announced by the Treasurer as broad agreements are important in their own right. But they are significant only if they constitute the launch of a distinct new reform agenda.
At the end of this meeting Chalmers issued his rallying call: “A lot of the hard work begins now.” This raises the question: Does Chalmers have the cabinet clout to prosecute the necessary agenda to fruition?
Albanese loves calling his government inclusive, optimistic and consultative. He says it has “an appetite for ideas” and it thrives on “recognising challenges”. It’s focused on delivery, on getting the job done. This sounds too good because it is too good to be true. The government in the end will be judged only by results.
The week saw two competing debates about productivity, both valuable. The government roundtable with 29 hours of discussion and 327 different contributions ran in parallel with a shorter, smaller, rival event, hosted by Nationals senator Matt Canavan, a former economist with the Productivity Commission.
Here it comes, an attempt to take the Canavan caravan seriously, but did the reptiles have to dig up a snap of him looking weirdly sinister, ‘Allow all types of energy to flourish,’ says Nationals senator Matt Canavan who hosted a shorter rival event. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman
The pond had promised minimal interruptions, but that mention of "allow all types of energy to flourish", code for "bring back coal" reminded the pond of a Paul Krugman outing that recently dropped into the pond's in box ... Kilowatt Madness ...
Inter alia ...
The pond doesn't regret the interruption. Perhaps some will decide to abandon "Ned" and head off to watch Krugman at work.
That way they could avoid the Canavan caravan, but speaking of the MAusGA brain ...
Asked about his view of the productivity priorities, Canavan said: “Cut government spending, free up our energy markets – allow all types of energy to flourish – and slash red tape. Energy affects every aspect of the economy. The cheaper the energy, the more wealthy and country will be.”
“First, by not just neglecting reforms that would support productivity growth, but taking actions that will undermine it. Second, by repeatedly presenting its anti-productivity initiatives as solutions to the country’s productivity problem.
“To hear political leaders speak of productivity gains from policies directed at ‘cleaner, cheaper, more reliable renewable energy’ or expanding the ‘care economy’ or re-regulating workplaces, for example, is to be transported to a world with little connection to the one with which most economists would be familiar. It is a world where alliterative sloganeering takes precedence over explanation; where policy problems are misrepresented and solutions oversold – or not really solutions at all.”
In his speech to the Canavan meeting, Banks said the two most conspicuous policies where anti-productivity steps were dressed in “reformism garb” were those covering energy and industrial relations. He said Australia was in a “virtually unique position internationally” – no other government signing up to net zero had exclusively committed to a “wind and solar with storage” future for electricity since most had domestic hydro or nuclear or interconnections to other countries’ energy grids that might be firmed by coal or gas.
The rant was only interrupted by a final snap, a reptile favourite, endlessly repeated in recent times whenever "childcare" turns up, Productivity Commission recommendations raise serious questions about the value for money of the Albanese government's proposed expansion of childcare. Picture: Bianca De Marchi/AAP
Then "Ned" went on a final gallop ... doing his best to lather it all up as yet another renewables disaster ...
Banks said: “In a nutshell a ‘wind and solar with storage’ future would require more capital to produce less reliable electricity – or very much more capital to achieve anything like comparable reliability – the antithesis of a pro-productivity outcome.”
On tax, Banks called for indexing income tax rates and widening the GST’s coverage, vital reforms, with still no obvious constituency in this country. He said less spending and less tax would deliver productivity gains – but this isn’t Labor policy. On the “care” economy and the non-market sector, Banks said they accounted for three-quarters of the million jobs created last year; the rate of employment in the non-market sector where productivity was weak was “staggering”.
More dangers loomed ahead, since Albanese had foreshadowed universal childcare at a projected spending increase of more than $8bn annually with “little difference to work participation and almost none to productivity”. On industrial relations reforms, Banks said the majority of the first-term changes would reduce “the ability of enterprises to be adaptable and innovative while weakening their competitiveness”.
In an e61 Institute and University of NSW video released this week, former governor Lowe criticised the lack of disciplined rules for Albanese government fiscal policy. Lowe said: “After Covid, we haven’t really got back to a clearly articulated framework for decision-making with fiscal policy. These frameworks are really important in disciplining the political process. It seems to be where there is a need, we’ll spend.”
This reflects a defining feature of the Albanese government – government spending as a proportion of GDP is expected to reach 27 per cent in 2025-26 compared with the long-run past average of 24.5 per cent. In his remarks to the roundtable Chalmers said the government took “great pride” in its budget progress while opposition Treasury spokesman Ted O’Brien said spending today was running $160bn higher than in the final year of the Coalition government.
Good old Ted, still nuking the country to save the planet ...
That was a lot of suffering to get to a closing 'toon, but on the sunny side, it's a bright and cheerful tale of a world without solar or windmills ...
