Showing posts with label National Party of Australia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label National Party of Australia. Show all posts

Monday 22 April 2019

Morrison & Co can’t guarantee delivery of promised tax cuts this year if they win May 18 federal election


The West Australian, 17 April 2019:

Scott Morrison has been forced to explain why his promise to deliver immediate $1080 tax cuts for low and middle-income earners from July 1 may not happen.

Treasury officials today confirmed a key plank of the Morrison Government’s re-election platform – immediate tax cuts for 10 million workers when they receive their 2019 tax returns – cannot occur without Federal Parliament’s support.

Treasury officials said the tax cuts had to be legislated before the end of this financial year – on June 30 – before workers could receive the rebates with their 2019 tax returns.

With the Federal Election on May 18, it means the Coalition has little time – if it wins the election - to pass the tax cuts through Parliament before June 30.

The Coalition has promised rebates of up to $1080 for low and middle-income earners, and up to $2160 for dual-income families, who lodge their tax returns from July 1.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, when he released the Budget weeks ago, claimed the timing of the Federal Election would be “no impediment” to the tax cuts being delivered quickly.

But Treasury officials appeared to contradict that claim today.

They said the tax rebates would require “the relevant legislation to be passed before the increase to the low and middle income tax offset (LMITO) can be provided for the 2018-19 financial year.”

They also warned if the tax cuts were not delivered by June 30 the revenue cost of the measure would “need to be reassessed.”

Monday 15 April 2019

Another federal Coalition Government ‘epic fail’



Seems whatever our neigbour to the west, the National Party’s Barnaby Joyce, touches turns to dross……


A phone tower that Barnaby Joyce fought for ended up on the northern NSW property of long-time friend and mining baron Gina Rinehart, who gets an annual fee to host the tower. Locals are baffled why the tower was put there over another location, as it's plagued with reception problems.

The Northern Daily Leader reports that Kingstown's community in Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce's New England electorate campaigned hard for the tower, switched on two weeks ago, to be co-located with a police and emergency services tower at the highest point in the district.

But it was built instead at Sundown Valley Pastoral Company, bought by Ms Rinehart's pastoral arm Hancock Prospecting in August last year. Landowners are paid a yearly fee by telecommunications companies to have towers placed on their property.

Kingstown resident Jeff Condren led the charge for a tower to be funded by the federal government's Mobile Blackspot Program and called it an "epic fail".

"Now that the tower has been in operation for several weeks it's evident the community concerns relating to the location and the service was well-justified," he said.

"Service levels drop to nothing just a couple of kilometres in any direction.....

Friday 12 April 2019

Morrison’s plan to use whatever is left in Coalition MPs and Senators electoral communications parliamentary allowance to fund his national election campaign has been scuttled



Australian Senate Hansard, 3 April 2019, excerpt:

REGULATIONS AND DETERMINATIONS Parliamentary Business Resources Amendment (2019 Measures No. 1) Regulations 2019 Disallowance Senator FARRELL (South Australia—Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (21:29): I move: That item 4 of the Parliamentary Business Resources Amendment (2019 Measures No. 1) Regulations 2019, made under the Parliamentary Business Resources Act 2017, be disallowed [F2019L00177]. The PRESIDENT: The question is that business of the Senate notice of motion No. 2, standing in the name of Senator Farrell, relating to the disallowance of item 4 of the Parliamentary Business Resources Amendment (2019 Measures No. 1) Regulations 2019, be agreed to. The Senate divided. [21:34] (The President—Senator Ryan)
Ayes ......................34 Noes ......................26 Majority.................8

The New Daily, 4 April 2019:

The Morrison government has lost a bid to allow MPs to use taxpayer-funded electoral allowances to pay for TV and radio advertisements during the looming federal election campaign.

Late on Wednesday night – in one of this parliament’s last votes before the election is called – the Senate dumped a government regulation allowing $22 million of public money to be used for political ads in the lead up to May’s federal poll.

MPs have a budget of about $137,000 for electorate communications, while senators have up to $109,000.

Under existing rules, they cannot use office expenses money to pay for content on television or radio. The government’s changes would have allowed them to use printing entitlements to buy TV and radio ads for the first time.

The Coalition had argued lifting the ban on TV and radio promotions would have put Australian media on a level playing field by ensuring all communities had the same access to information from their federal MP.

But Labor frontbencher Don Farrell, who moved the disallowance motion in the Senate, accused Prime Minister Scott Morrison of wasting taxpayers’ money in a bid to save his job.

“Publicly funded office budgets are for members and senators to communicate with their constituents – not for spamming voters with hollow election slogans from the ad man, Scott Morrison,” he said.

With the support of the Greens and a handful of crossbench senators, Labor won the disallowance vote.... 

The heroes of the hour who saved us all from what was clearly an attempt to create a lasting rort at taxpayer’s expense were:

Bilyk, CL. Carr, KJ. Chisholm, A. Ciccone, R. Di Natale, R. Dodson, P. Farrell, D. Faruqi, M. Gallacher, AM. Griff, S. Hanson-Young, SC. Hinch, D. Ketter, CR.  (teller) Kitching, K. Lines, S. Marshall, GM. McAllister, J. McCarthy, M. McKim, NJ. O'Neill, DM. Patrick, RL. Polley, H. Pratt, LC. Rice, J. Siewert, R. Smith, DPB. Steele-John, J. Sterle, G. Storer, TR. Urquhart, AE. Waters, LJ. Watt, M. Whish-Wilson, PS. Wong, P.

Well done one and all!

Friday 5 April 2019

Nationals MP for New England Barnaby Joyce throws a tantrum….


Barnaby in full throttle in Australian House of Representatives
Image: AIMN Network

News.com.au, 1 April 2019:

Barnaby Joyce has been forced to issue a grovelling apology to Channel 7 staff who copped his wrath during an expletive-laden backstage tantrum.

It has been revealed the former deputy prime minister was in a foul mood on the night of the New South Wales election, during which he sat on the network’s broadcast panel.

Viewers criticised his aggressive attitude on screen, including his treatment of a female Labor senator, but it paled in comparison to his antics in the green room.

The Australian newspaper today reports Mr Joyce has apologised for his “behaviour and demeanour” off screen after details were leaked by insiders.

It’s understood the former leader of the National Party — who resigned his position last year after it was revealed his mistress and staffer Vicki Campion was pregnant with his child — was furious about how brief his appearance was scheduled to be.

“There were four-letter words aplenty when Joyce first arrived on set and saw his schedule for the night,” The Australian reported.
An unnamed insider told the newspaper: “He had the sh*ts supreme about whether he should even be there.”

A network source told news.com.au word of Mr Joyce’s behaviour had begun to spread last week, and it was only a matter of time before it leaked.

The firebrand politician’s beef was that he was due to appear on screen for just 10 minutes, despite having flown from his home in Armidale.

He was accompanied by his partner, Ms Campion — he broke off his marriage just prior to the scandal erupting — and their toddler.

“I saw the schedule on the (green room) wall,” Mr Joyce told the newspaper. “Then I saw the closest human being, and I told them what I thought.”

He apologised for his conduct and said he was tired. After the tantrum, Mr Joyce was used for the live coverage broadcast for more than two hours.

On election night, he was criticised by viewers for his rude treatment of Labor Senator Jenny McAllister, including talking over her.

“I am surprised that you’d not put water on the list of concerns,” Ms McAllister said about the National Party’s poor electoral performance in the state’s west.

“You’ve got these western NSW seats with massive fish kill and a very active conversation …” she continued before being cut off.
“That was because of the Greens … you can’t take water to the south, not have it come to the north and not expect something to die in the middle. It’s the bleeding obvious,” Mr Joyce said as his fellow panellist tried to get her point across.

“I think the proposition that’s been put is that there’s been complete mismanagement of the water system”, she said, before being again interrupted.

“May I finish my remarks?” Senator McAllister said — a comment met by a shrug from Mr Joyce.

She did continue, barely finishing her sentence before Mr Joyce had his say.

“Finished? You’re wrong,” he said.

Wednesday 3 April 2019

It is likely to be tears before bedtime for many regional communities as Berejiklian Government restructures government departments



Government News, 2 April 2019:   
 
The NSW government will abolish key agencies including the Office of Local Government, the RMS and Jobs NSW under sweeping changes to the structure of the NSW public service.

A memo from the Department of  Premier and Cabinet obtained by Government News says the Office of Local Government, along with the Office of Environment and Heritage, will cease to be independent entities and their functions will be absorbed by a Planning and Industry Cluster.

The cluster will cover areas such as long term planning, precincts, infrastructure, open space, the environment and natural resources.

The RMS, coming under the Transport Cluster, will also be scrapped as a separate agency and as will Jobs NSW, which will be merged into the Treasury Cluster…..

Local Government NSW President Linda Scott said the peak would be seeking assurances from the new local government minister, Shelley Hancock, and the Premier, that local governments would be appropriately resourced within the new cluster.

“We’d hope, for example, that the inclusion into a larger cluster will facilitate real analysis of the massive amounts of data collected by Government, which should be shared with the sector to help them deliver great outcomes for the public good,” she told Government News.

“Local governments welcome a new opportunity to work with the State Government to set housing targets with local governments, not for them – to rebalance planning powers by working in partnership with councils and their neighbourhoods on planning decisions that affect them.”

However she said the appointment of Ms Hancock was a stand-alone Local Government Minister was welcomed and had long been advocated for by LGNSW.....

The memo says the structure of the public service will also incorporate the following clusters: Stronger Communities, Customer Service, Health; Premier and Cabinet, Transport, Treasury  and Education.

The following clusters will cease to exist by July 1:  Finance, Services & Innovation; Industry; Planning & Environment; Family and Communities; and Justice.

The Secretaries Board will be expanded in members to accommodate more senior public servants to “effectively drive implementation of the Government’s priorities”.

New appointments under the restructure:
Michael Coutts-Trotter – Secretary, Families & Community Services & Justice
Jim Betts – Secretary, Planning and Industry
Glenn King – Secretary, Customer Service
Simon Draper – Chief Executive, Infrastructure Australia

NOTE:
The Grafton Loop of the Knitting Nannas Against Gas and Greed will be holding a knit-in on Thursday 4 April 2019 at 1pm to peacefully protest the abolition of the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage. It will be held outside the electoral office of Nationals MP for Clarence Chris Gulaptis at 11 Prince Street, Grafton and interested people are welcome to attend.


Tuesday 2 April 2019

Morrison Government still refusing to tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions



The Guardian, 31 March 2019:

Cuts to carbon emissions from vehicle efficiency standards have been left out of government projections for meeting Australia’s Paris climate commitments, indicating the policy has been shelved.

The office of the transport minister, Michael McCormack, said the government had not made a decision on “how or when” standards to cut carbon pollution from vehicles might be implemented.

After almost five years of submissions a spokesman said the government “is not going to rush into a regulatory solution” with regards to vehicle emissions.

New data shows Australia’s emissions from transport are soaring and projected to be 82% higher in 2030 than they were in 1990.

Australia lags behind the rest of the world in setting vehicle efficiency standards, with most countries in the OECD adopting policies to reduce emissions and improve the efficiency of cars.

The ministerial forum on vehicle emissions was set up under the Turnbull government in 2015, and stakeholders are frustrated at the lack of progress.

Fact sheets produced by the government that set out how it intends to reach Australia’s emissions reduction targets under the Paris agreement suggest any policy on vehicle emissions standards has been abandoned.

In 2015, the government produced a graph indicating it expected to achieve cuts of about 100m tonnes between 2020 and 2030 through vehicle emissions standards.

The government’s latest climate package contains no mention of this, and projects only about 10m tonnes of abatement through an electric vehicle strategy, with no reference to vehicle emissions standards....


Monday 1 April 2019

PROPAGANDA: When Murdoch media asset joins with a hard right lobby group & inhouse commentator to run a line from the Liberal-Nationals election campaign playbook


“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.” [Attributed to Joseph Goebbels, German Third Reich Minister for Propaganda 1933-1945]


Thursday 28 March 2019

“Every year, the world's five largest publicly owned oil and gas companies spend approximately $200 million on lobbying designed to control, delay or block binding climate-motivated policy”


Forbes, 25 March 2019:

Every year, the world's five largest publicly owned oil and gas companies spend approximately $200 million on lobbying designed to control, delay or block binding climate-motivated policy. This has caused problems for governments seeking to implement policies in the wake of the Paris Agreement which are vital in meeting climate change targets. Companies are generally reluctant to disclose such lobbying expenditure and late last week, a report from InfluenceMap used a methodology focusing on the best available records along with intensive research of corporate messaging to gauge their level of influence on initiatives to halt climate change.…..

The research also found that the five companies listed support their lobbying expenditures with a financial outlay of $195 million annually for focused branding activities which suggest they support action against climate change. The most common tactics employed are drawing attention to low carbon, positioning the company as a climate expert and acknowledging climate concern while ignoring solutions. The report said that the campaigns are misleading the public given that the companies listed continue to expand their oil and gas extraction activities with only 3% of spending directed to low carbon projects. Both Shell and Chevron rejected the report's findings and reinforced their commitment to reducing greenhouse gases and addressing climate change.



Since 2013 these tactics appear to have been quite successful in shaping the political debate within the Liberal and National parties in Australia.

One again the Liberal-Nationals Coalition goes into a federal election campaign without a genuine climate change policy or a viable energy policy.

The fact that the fossil fuel industry made political donations to the Coalition of an est. $270,717 in 2016-17 and the top 10 fossil fuel donors gave a further est. $512,261 in 2017-18 can not be ruled out as a factor in the continuing absence of genuine climate change policies on the conservative side of politics, 

Thursday 21 March 2019

Will Australian voters swallow Scott Morrison’s hypocritical volte-face?


In opposition or in government it didn't matter to Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison, he happily hammered home the message that boat people, asylum seekers and Muslims migrants were or could be a threat to the nation and to every Australian. 

This self-confessed admirer of Donald Trump began his faux election campaign the day he took office shortly after the palace coup removed then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and, almost from the start there has been speculation that he was hoping that his rhetoric would goad someone into committing a violent act of terrorism.

These snapshots below are taken from 15 March 2019 televised remarks by Morrison barely hiding his glee that he finally had the pre-federal election terrorist attack he had been dog whistling for - even if the fact that this muderous attack was made on people at prayer in two New Zealand mosques allegedly at the hands of an Australian meant he had to do a 360 turn on who he could blame.


Snapshots by @sarah_jade_ 
 Mainstream media has noted the change the change of campaign tactics .......

The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 March 2019:

Something the Prime Minister said on Friday has been gnawing at me. For the most part, his statements in the immediate aftermath of the obscenity in New Zealand were admirably clear. He identified the victims: those of Islamic faith. He also clearly labelled the attack for what it was, a “vicious and callous right-wing extremist attack”…..

But another of the Prime Minister’s comments warrants attention. Speaking of the Australian gunman, he said: “These people don't deserve names. Names imply some sort of humanity and I struggle to find how anyone who would engage in this sort of behaviour and violence … He’s not human. He doesn't deserve a name."

I can well understand Morrison’s reaction. Watching him respond, it was clear he was moved, and disgusted. And of course I share that disgust.

But think for a moment about the implications of such rhetoric. This man is not even human, the Prime Minister tells us. He is alien, almost literally another species, and therefore illegible to us, the humans. He is not like us.

Perhaps, at the moment he fired the gun, that became true. But what about just before that moment - was he human then, and inhuman afterwards? Did he go from being comprehensible to incomprehensible in the blink of an eye? Of course the implication of Morrison’s words is that he was always different: never one of us, always already separate.

But this is a fairytale – and like most fairytales, it is there to comfort, with its suggestion that such violence must have nothing to do with the rest of us. The Prime Minister meant well. But what he said was absolute rot.

The point has been made elsewhere that anti-Islamic sentiment is rife in our politics, and that violence is its logical endpoint. It is a crucial point, it can’t be made enough,…. But right now I want to briefly examine another dominant strand of Australian politics.

A few weeks ago, the political world was aflutter with a single question: was this Scott Morrison’s Tampa moment? And we know, because Morrison told us, that he wanted it to be: “Australians will be deciding once again - as they did in 2013, as they did in 2001 - about whether they want the stronger border protection policies of…” and you can guess the rest.

The phrase "strong borders" is heard often in our political debate, but much of the time, especially when you live on an island, borders are abstractions – imaginary lines drawn on literally shifting seas. The vague and nonsense phrase is of course a euphemism, meaning "we are very good at keeping people out". And when is this an important skill? When the people to be kept out pose some threat. The beauty of "strong borders" is that it says all of that in two words.

The same goes for "Tampa moment", which in fact includes three separate events: Tampa, then September 11, then children overboard. Howard’s election campaign blended these events into one overarching narrative. The demonisation of refugees as ruthless people who would kill their own children and who might kill you was not a side-effect of the strategy, it was the strategy.

Howard argues that he would have won without Tampa. But it doesn’t really matter, because the real damage was not done at that election. As people like Peter Brent have argued, the real damage is the lingering belief that this is how elections are won. Emphasise strong borders, emphasise the threat.

Morrison’s absorption of that lesson is there for anyone to see. It was there in his comments in 2012 that asylum seekers might cause a typhoid outbreak. It was there last week when he warned that asylum seekers might be paedophiles or murderers or rapists, and when he backed Peter Dutton’s assertion that they would take housing and hospital spots from Australians. And it was there in his recent security speech, when he introduced the section on terrorism with reference to just one, specific type: “radical extremist Islamist terrorism.”

If our political leaders remain intent on depicting a world in which people from other countries bring disease, hatred, and violence to our shores, can they really be so shocked when it turns out that is precisely the world some people believe in?
[my yellow highlighting]

The Guardian, 17 March 2019:

There’s been less reflection on the fact that any 28-year-old in Australia has grown up in a period when racism, xenophobia and a hostility to Muslims in particular, were quickly ratcheting up in the country’s public culture. 

In the period of the country’s enthusiastic participation in the War on Terror, Islam and Muslims have frequently been treated as public enemies, and hate speech against them has inexorably been normalised.

Australian racism did not of course begin in 2001. The country was settled by means of a genocidal frontier war, and commenced its independent existence with the exclusion of non-white migrants. White nationalism was practically Australia’s founding doctrine.

But a succession of events in the first year of the millennium led to Islamophobia being practically enshrined as public policy.

First, the so-called Tampa Affair saw a conservative government refuse to admit refugees who had been rescued at sea. It was a naked bid to win an election by whipping up xenophobia and border panic. It worked.

In the years since, despite its obvious brutality, and despite repeated condemnations from international bodies, the mandatory offshore detention of boat-borne refugees in third countries has become bipartisan policy. (The centre-left Labor party sacrificed principle in order to neutralise an issue that they thought was costing them elections.)

The majority of the refugees thus imprisoned have been Muslim. It has often been suggested by politicians that detaining them is a matter of safety – some of them might be terrorists.

Second, the 9/11 attacks drew Australia into the War on Terror in support of its closest ally, and geopolitical sponsor, the United States.

Australian troops spent long periods in Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting and killing Muslims in their own countries. The consequences of this endless war have included the targeting of Australians in Jihadi terror attacks and plots, both at home and abroad.

The wars began with a deluge of propaganda. Later, the terror threat was leveraged to massively enhance surveillance by Australia’s national security state. Muslim Australians have frequently been defined by arms of their own government as a source of danger.

Two years after the war in Iraq commenced, the campaign of Islamophobia culminated in the country’s most serious modern race riots, on Cronulla Beach in December 2005, when young white men spent a summer afternoon beating and throwing bottles at whichever brown people they could find.

Cronulla was a milestone in the development of a more forthright, ugly public nationalism in Australia. Now young men wear flags as capes on Australia Day, a date which is seen as a calculated insult by many Indigenous people. Anzac Day, which commemorates a failed invasion of Turkey, was once a far more ambivalent occasion. In recent years it has moved closer to becoming an open celebration of militarism and imperialism.

Every step of the way, this process has not been hindered by outlets owned by News Corp, which dominates Australia’s media market in a way which citizens of other Anglophone democracies can find difficult to comprehend.

News Corp has the biggest-selling newspapers in the majority of metropolitan media markets, monopolies in many regional markets, the only general-readership national daily, and the only cable news channel. Its influence on the national news agenda remains decisive. And too often it has used this influence to demonise Muslims.

[my yellow highlighting]

BACKGROUND

The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 February 2011:

SCOTT Morrison, the Liberal frontbencher who this week distinguished himself as the greatest grub in the federal Parliament, is the classic case of the politician who is so immersed in the game of politics that he has lost touch with the real world outside it…..

The point of this story? Morrison is a cheap populist, with form. On that occasion, he was being irresponsible with the national economy. For him it's just about clever lines.

Morrison was powerless to influence the bank, of course. John Howard and Peter Costello gave the Reserve Bank independence to free it from people like Morrison. 

The bank raised rates three days after Morrison's comment.

This week it was race. Morrison decided to see if he could win some political points by inflaming racism and resentment. More specifically, he zeroed in on some of the most vulnerable people in the country for political advantage. Indeed, is there anyone more vulnerable than a traumatised, orphaned child unable to speak English, held in detention on a remote island?

Morrison publicly raised objections to the government's decision to pay for air fares for some of the survivors of the Christmas Island boat wreck to travel to Sydney for the funerals of their relatives.

Some were Christian funerals, others were Muslim. But all of them were foreigners, all of them were boat people, all of them were dark-skinned, and to Morrison that made them all fair game. Unable to tell the difference between the Coalition mantra of "we will stop the boats" and his emerging position that "we will vindictively pursue boat people suffering tragedy" he went on radio.

As the survivors were gathering to mourn their dead, Morrison said that with the government paying for the 22 air fares, "I don't think it is reasonable. The government had the option of having these services on Christmas Island. If relatives of those who were involved wanted to go to Christmas Island, like any other Australian who wanted to attend a funeral service in another part of the country, they would have made their own arrangements to be there."
All of them were dark-skinned, and to Morrison that made them all fair game
Again, for Morrison it's just a tricky game of politics and clever lines. A former director of the NSW Liberal Party, he inhabits a world where consequences for himself and his political party are all that matter. There is no other reality. He didn't care about the boat people, and - being as charitable to him as possible - he mightn't even have stopped to think about the consequences.

And again, there is a national interest at stake. Forty-four per cent of Australians were born overseas or have at least one parent who was born overseas. Australia is an immigrant society. Australia is a multicultural country. That is a simple fact. To foment ethnic, racial or religious frictions or resentments is deeply harmful to the national interest.

Kevin Dunn, professor of geography and urban studies at the University of Western Sydney, who next week is to publish a study on racism in Australia, says: "Research has shown convincingly that geopolitical events, political events and political statements don't affect Australian attitudes on race very quickly, but they do affect behaviour. People with a grudge feel more empowered to act on it." Racist abuse and discrimination follow. So again, Morrison was toying with a deep national interest, but this time, his remarks could carry real force. The Reserve Bank governor knows his business and ignores Morrison, but the vindictive and the vicious may feel emboldened to act on their hurtful urges. Who does this help?....

Morrison next day conceded that his timing was insensitive, but didn't retract his complaint. He denied that he had been influenced by One Nation, even though One Nation had been busily emailing and lobbying politicians on the matter.
[my yellow highlighting]

Sunday 17 March 2019

An increasingly desperate Australian Liberal Prime Minister on the faux election campaign trail in March 2017


Shorter version of most of the dire warnings Australian Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison has been yelling at Australian voters as he faces the prospect of a 51st negative Newspoll in April.


Meme supplied


Wednesday 13 March 2019

Nine weeks out from the Australian federal election and the Nationals appear to be panicking


News.com/au, 8 March 2019:

The federal Nationals Party could potentially face a leadership spill following reports Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has lost the confidence of the majority of his party.

The Courier Mail reports several MPs are calling on the Party leader to resign or face a spill. Several MPs reportedly expressed fears that waiting until after the election would be too late, particularly for Queensland representatives.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce appears to be frontrunner for the Nationals leadership.

The Guardian, 8 March 2019:

Barnaby Joyce has declared he will be a candidate if the deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, spills the Nationals leadership, but the current Nationals leader insists he is going nowhere.

The declaration of intent by Joyce to the Northern Daily Leader on Friday will keep the spotlight trained on internal party tensions after the former Nationals leader suggested in October he would retake the leadership if drafted but denied doing the numbers.

“If it was called open, of course I would stand,” Joyce reportedly told his local paper on Friday, adding he was not “driving” the instability. “I’ve maintained the same line; I have never asked one of my colleagues for a vote, I don’t intend to.”……

A sense of despair has gripped the National party, with MPs critical of McCormack’s performance as leader, and frustrated that he won’t stand up to the Liberal party on issues like energy prices, and taxpayer-backed investment in new coal plants.
But Nationals remain divided about whether or not dumping McCormack this side of the election is a good idea.

Joyce, despite the travails that forced his resignation as leader, has rusted-on support in the Nationals party room, with estimates he commands between six and seven fixed votes in a party room of 22.

But some MPs are vehemently opposed to Joyce returning to the leadership, viewing that eventuality as the only thing worse than the status quo. Nationals sources predict if the leadership was spilled there would likely be a field of several MPs that would split the vote.

Joyce resigned as Nationals leader in February 2018 after a sexual harassment complaint by rural advocate Catherine Marriott compounded weeks of bad headlines caused by his affair with a former staffer and now partner, Vikki Campion.

With New South Wales due to vote in a state election in ten days time and the NSW Nationals with at least four state seats at risk - Tweed, Lismore, Coffs Harbour and Barwon, this recent state poll cannot have settled federal nerves.


Financial Review, 12 March 2019:

A state-wide survey of 1003 voters in The Australian conducted from Friday to Monday [9-11 March] put support for the Coalition and Labor Party at 50 per cent each, a similar result to a Sun-Heald poll on Sunday that had Labor ahead 51 per cent to 49 per cent.

The latest poll would cost the government six seats - it has a six-seat majority - and would lead to a hung Parliament if replicated across the state, illustrating the closeness of the election, which will be held on March 23.

Monday 11 March 2019

If as an ordinary worker you feel like you have been financially marching backwards for the last five and a half years then you probably have


“Backing business generates higher wages, jobs & growth.”  [Australian Treasurer & Liberal MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg, Twitter, 8 March 2019]

Such a confident quote from a Coalition Treasurer in campaign mode - but is it true?

According to the Dept. of Prime Minister & Cabinet/ASIC at the end of the period 30 July 2013 to 31 June 2014, there were est.2.6 million actively trading businesses in Australia and, according to the ABS by the end of  2017-18 there were 2.3 million actively trading businesses in the market sector in Australia.

Despite the Morrison Government alleging that by November 2018 it had created 1.2 million more jobs since September 2013, it's easy enough to see that in January 2019 the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was only 0.6% lower than it was when the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Coalition Government came to power in September 2013.

Additionally, it would appear that the ratio of unemployed persons to job vacancies in late 2013 was est. 20 unemployed individuals for very 1 job vacancy and by December 2018 this stood at an est. 15.57 unemployed individuals for every 1 job vacancy.

So what about wages growth?

The Global Financial Crisis ran from 2007 to 2008 and Australia came through this crisis relatively unscathed.

So with little structural damage to our financial institutions or the industry & business sectors, the national economy should be chugging along nicely.

By now ordinary workers should be reaping the rewards for their productivity - as labour input to market sector multifactor productivity increased by 3.0% overall on quality adjusted hours worked basis in 2017-18 (while capital input only grew by 2.0%).

The biggest labor input increases occurred in Administrative and Support Services (8.2%), Manufacturing (3.8%), Accommodation and Food Services (3.7%), and Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (3.7%).

However, this is what each Australian's nominal slice of the economic pie looked like by December 2018......




According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in the December Quarter 2018; Compensation of employees increased by 0.9% nationally. 

In the Australian Capital Territory  the compensation increase was 2.1%, in Tasmania 1.6%, Queensland 1.5%, Victoria 1.4%, New South Wales 0.7%, and South Australia 0.1%. However compensation growth went backwards in Western Australia at -0.2% and Northern Territory -0.7%.

Also according to the ABS; The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.5 per cent in the December quarter 2018 This followed a rise of 0.4 per cent in the September quarter, a rise of 0.4% in the June quarter and a 0.4% rise in the March quarter 2018.

It doesn't take a genius to see that nationally the effect of that December national compensation increase was actually 0.9% minus 0.5% CPI equalling 0.4% when it came to how far those few dollars in wage increase would stretch the weekly pay packet.

Why is low wages growth occurring? Well according to the Minister for Finance and the Public Service & Liberal Senator for Western Australia Mathias Cormann it is deliberate Morrison Government policy to suppress wages growth.
The result of this ongoing wages suppression? A continuation of the downward progression of disposable income and rising household debt, as illustrated in this graph from 2015 onwards.
ABC News, 9 September 2018



BACKGROUND

 Business Insider, 4 March 2019:

The ABS on Monday (4 March) released its Business Indicators results for December 2018, which showed trend growth in company gross operating profits at a healthy 9.6 per cent over the year to the December quarter.

Seasonally adjusted, that figure was even higher, hitting double digits at 10.5 per cent.

The figures were boosted by a strong performance that quarter, with trend growth up by 0.9 of a percentage point on the September quarter, or by 0.8 of a percentage point when seasonally adjusted.

The New Daily, 7 March 2019:

Chief executives and chief financial officers don’t get bonuses for increasing their companies’ labour costs – so they try not to.

Chairpersons and boards are not clapped on their collective back by institutional investors for devoting a greater share of revenue to wages – so they don’t.

And the cumulative effect of those simple realities is now unavoidable: Years of real, take-home wages going backwards while corporate profits increased, have meant household consumption is stalling and taking the economy with it.

Yet such is the myopic nature of corporate focus, business leaders react with horror to the idea that employees need a bigger share of the pie.

The business lobby claims wage increases aren’t possible without productivity trade-offs – but that’s after the productivity increases of recent years going overwhelmingly to higher profits.

Quite simply, the key business lobby groups have little credibility. They claimed reducing penalty rates would increase employment – it didn’t. They claimed cutting company tax would increase wages: It hasn’t and it won’t.

Household consumption accounts for more than half of the economy. According to the ABS, and nicely reported by Greg Jericho with helpful graphs, real household disposable income per capita has fallen back to where it was in 2010.

“Average compensation per employee” grew by only 1.5 per cent in 2018 – an even worse result than the better-publicised ABS wages index.

It’s only population growth that’s providing what little retail sales and GDP growth we have….

The Fair Work Commission (FWC) increased the minimum wage by 3.5 per cent last July – against the arguments of the business lobby – and by 3.3 per cent in July 2017. 

That increase of 6.8 per cent barely registered on the various measures of wages growth.

The conundrum of business needing consumers to have income growth, but 
not wanting to pay workers more, is a little like the “Paradox of Thrift” – it makes sense for an individual in uncertain times to save and not spend as much, but if everyone does it, uncertain times turn into bad times.

As argued here previously, business is holding a very determined wages strike. 

Corporate leaders don’t need FWC permission to do it, they just have to hang together to keep a lid on wage rises. In the process, they’re shooting themselves in the foot.

For the Coalition government, the result is a record of economic failure.