And Donald Trump golfs on........

At the time this article below was published Donald J. Trump had been President of the United States of America for 62 days, his approval rating stood at 39 percent according to a Gallup Daily Poll, he had played golf at least 11 times since his inauguration, sent an est. 700 tweets from two verified accounts and was reported to be watching around 6 hours of television a day.

MSNBC, 23 March 2017:

Donald Trump told reporters yesterday he felt “somewhat” vindicated about his wiretap conspiracy theory following the bizarre press conferences yesterday from House Intelligence Committee Chairman David Nunes (R-Calif.). The president then turned to Twitter to promote messages saying how right he was.

This was an odd reaction. There’s more to this story than the specific details in the president’s tweets, but the fact remains that when he was making the case for his conspiracy theory, Trump said he was personally targeted, and Nunes said the opposite. He said the surveillance was illegal, and Nunes said the opposite. He said Obama was personally involved, and Nunes said the opposite. He said the surveillance was before the election, and Nunes said the opposite. He said this was all part of a campaign-related scheme, and Nunes said the opposite.

In other words, Trump was “vindicated” to the extent that the president got literally every detail wrong.

I mention all of this because it’s emblematic of a leader who continues to struggle, in alarming ways, to separate fact from fiction. If you haven’t read Trump’s newly published interview with Time magazine’s Michael Scherer, it’s well worth your time. The questions about the president’s awareness of reality and appreciation of objective truths are only going to grow louder as a result of some of his more ridiculous comments.

He started by arguing that Hillary Clinton’s emails were on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, the Democratic primary race was “rigged against Bernie Sanders,” and that he was “totally right” about Brexit. All three of these claims are plainly and demonstrably wrong.

Trump went on to say his conspiracy theory about Barack Obama conducting illegal surveillance of him has merit because, “I have articles saying it happened.” He does not actually have articles saying it happened.

This exchange soon followed:

TIME: One of my ideas here is that throughout the campaign and now as president, you have used disputed statements, this is one of them that is disputed, the claim that three million undocumented people voted in the election…

TRUMP: Well I think I will be proved right about that too.

TIME: The claim that Muslims celebrated on 9-11 in New Jersey…

TRUMP: Well if you look at the reporter, he wrote the story in the Washington Post.

When the conversation turned to Trump’s conspiracy theory about Ted Cruz’s father and the JFK assassination, the president said, “Well that was in a newspaper…. I didn’t say that. I was referring to a newspaper…. Why do you say that I have to apologize? I’m just quoting the newspaper.”

The “newspaper,” in this instance, was the National Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid with which Trump has an eerily friendly relationship.

It’d take hours to go point by point, fact-checking every error of fact and judgment, but Trump’s final comments stood as especially interesting: “I inherited a mess, I inherited a mess in so many ways… I mean we have many, you can go up and down the ladder. But that’s the story. Hey look, in the meantime, I guess, I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not.”…….

* Image of Donald Trump playing golf found at Google Images

Dear Malcolm, Barnaby, Scott, Peter, Julie, Alan and friends - before you put that federal budget to bed in May let me tell you about those living in relative poverty

As the Coalition Government approaches yet another cost cutting budget – the fourth since your political parties regained federal government – I’ve noticed how financially comfortable all six of you are in comparison to a great many of other Australians.

It must be satisfying to see your names listed against family homes, rural properties and investments:

8 March 2017	Turnbull, The Hon Malcolm, Member for Wentworth, NSW
13 January 2017	Bishop, The Hon Julie, Member for Curtin, WA
13 February 2017	Dutton, The Hon Peter, Member for Dickson, QLD
15 February 2017	Joyce, The Hon Barnaby, Member for New England, NSW
28 November 2016	Morrison, The Hon Scott, Member for Cook, NSW
16 December 2016	Tudge, The Hon Alan, Member for Aston, VIC

However, before your red pens slash across currently funded government programs covering health, education, training, community legal services and various forms of income support, you need to remove those ideological blinkers from your eyes and really look at the people you have been labelling welfare cheats, leaners, lazy bludgers and worse for the last four years.

They are not an anonymous horde harbouring a vile intent to drain money from the pockets of your family, friends and business acquaintances.

These ordinary people are not your enemy.

They are two parents with three young children but only one low-paying casual job bringing in a weekly wage.

The single mother at the bus stop who has to scrimp and save for months to buy her children new school shoes because her rent is too high and her part-time wage too small to allow her to buy all necessities easily.

The old man living alone in a rented flat who goes without meals to pay the veterinary bill for his only companion – his faithful old dog.

It is the grandmother with arthritis who gets up at 5am every weekday so she can travel to her son’s house to babysit her grandchildren so both he and his wife can work to cover the normal bills of a growing family.

A 23 year-old permanently confined to a wheelchair who is determined to live a full life and is out there job hunting every week.

Or the 17 year-old on the street selling The Big Issue to get extra money towards a boarding house bed and meals, because growing up in care left him without a support network.

It’s every middle aged person holding down three separate 8 hour-jobs each week to make ends meet in the face of widespread employer age discrimination and not enough job vacancies.

And so many volunteers in every town or village who spend their few spare pension dollars getting back and forth to the unpaid jobs that keep community alive.

These are people who deserve the certainty of an adequate universal welfare safety net – they are also the voters you will have to face in 2018.

Where to make donations to support people affected by Cyclone Debbie

GIVIT is managing all donations to support people affected by #CycloneDebbie. Donate: https://t.co/QSe2ldyL21 or SMS DEBBIE to 0437 371 371. pic.twitter.com/Xb4GaD39h3

— GIVIT (@GIVIT_AUS) March 27, 2017

Australian Red Cross:

Australian Red Cross is on the ground, working alongside the communities affected by ex Tropical Cyclone Debbie in Queensland......

Anyone wanting to know if their loved ones are safe and well, can register at register.redcross.org.au  or call 1800 100 188.

How to donate

To help Red Cross provide valuable assistance to those affected by Cyclone Debbie and other disasters here and overseas, donate to our Disaster Relief and Recovery work. 

Donations can be made online or by calling 1800 811 700.  

Tony Abbott playing the media and electorate for fools once again

The political spin……

Sacked former prime minister and current Liberal backbench MP for Warringah, Tony Abbott on 3AW Radio opining about closure of the aging Hazelwood coal-fired power plant, 24 March 2017:

It's due to shut next week…..

"Obviously there's a risk to power because the lights went out in South Australia for 24 hours," Mr Abbott said on 3AW Mornings.

"There's been further damaging blackouts in South Australia and there was a very damaging blackout in Victoria which has badly damaged the Portland aluminium smelter and led to tens of millions of dollars of subsidy being needed.

"We've got a very serious situation."

Mr Abbott said the government could not become complacent.

"The first task of a government is to keep the lights on," he said.

"It's the sign of a third world economy that the lights do not stay on 24-7."

The truth of the matter……

No Australia Card? Yes, Assistant Minister. Of course you are 100% believable

Hoping against hope I don’t have to eventually file this one under “How can you tell when Government is lying".

However, I suspect that the Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation is actually lying like the proverbial trooper, given the bare bones of the federated identity service and its attendent privacy & safety risks are on display at the Digital Transformation Agency.

The Register, 19 March 2017:

Australia's federal government is sticking with its plans for a federated identity service, but disruption minister Angus Taylor has moved to quell fears of a revived “Australia Card”*.

What first emerged last year looking like a “single identity” for all citizens across all Australian governments – before being dumped – isn't coming back.

Speaking at the Teach Leaders conference in the Blue Mountains on Sunday, Taylor – full title Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation – said the Digital Transformation Agency's (DTA's) identity project is now about setting standards rather than creating a single whole-of-government identity provider.

He also said the government considers it a citizen's right to have multiple digital identities for their interactions with government, if that's what they want.

Considering that last year, the then-DTA was trying to recruit state governments to its “federated identity” alpha (only getting the NSW government's support), the new direction looks like a considerable departure from the project's original ambitions.

Taylor said: “We don't see ourselves as creating a centralised solution that we'll roll out and everybody else has to come and play – that's not the answer. But we do need to agree on standards, and we do need to agree on principles as to how this will work.”

He also emphasised that the system had to be user-driven rather than top-down, and that citizens' consent is crucial to the model.

“I must be user-driven. If I want to have 45 identities across the Internet and across my applications, it should be my choice. If I want to have one, that's my choice too.”

He added that the “user-driven approach” has to extend to the citizen having a “genuine consent” about how they interact with a digital identity.

“That, to me, is essential to any solution, and the federal government won't endorse or be part of any solution that doesn't do exactly that.”

A formal announcement about the future of the federated identity project is coming “in the very, very near future.”......

*Comment: For readers unfamiliar with 1980s Australian politics – the “Australia Card” was proposed as a single ID for citizens in 1985.

Offered as an efficiency measure, it landed when “ID cards” in Nazi Germany and the Eastern Bloc were still fresh in many citizens' minds, especially for those who had arrived in Australia's first inrush of non-British immigration.

The uproar killed off the Australia Card after a two-year political battle, but not the concept: public service managers have never lost their love of tracking and identifying citizens.

From that point of view, Paul Shetler's DTO nearly achieved a huge social change by disguising it as “technological disruption”.

The Turnbull Government may strike a pose each and every day - that won't change the mood in the electorate

Right now the political colour of Australian government is Liberal-Nationals 3 (Federal, NSW, Tas) to Labor 6 (ACT, NT, Qld, SA, Vic, WA).

The Turnbull Government next goes to the polls at a federal general election sometime between 4 August 2018 and 18 May 2019.

Before then Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania face the voters again at state elections.

Between August 2018 and May 2019 News South Wales and Victoria also have elections.

While the Northern Territory doesn’t have to think about a state election again until 2020. [Australian Parliament website, States and territories: next election dates]

The Liberal and Nationals political fight for voters hearts and minds is going to be fierce and is likely to be nasty given they have so few allies at state government level.

This is what they have to overcome to regain the electorates confidence in both tiers of government - their own entitlement culture, a predilection for budgetary cost cutting at the expense of the poor and vulnerable which smacks of class warfare, an ideological straightjacket hampering vital national policies and open hostility to ordinary wage earners.

Social media is beginning to draw all these strands together………….

The AIM Network, 18 March 2017:

Sally McManus is the hero of workers. Turnbull is welcome to try to villainise her, but in doing so, he’s only making himself the enemy.

In her first television interview as head representative of people who work, McManus was involved in what media-insiders call a ‘gotcha moment’. Courtesy of the get-me-a-gotcha-moment-in-place-of-any-useful-political-analysis-queen, Leigh Sales. In their version of events, McManus was in hot water for backing the safety of workers at any cost, even if that cost is breaking laws designed to help employers shirk any responsibility for protecting people who work for them.

Right wingers squealed in delight when Sales drew supposably controversial comments out of McManus so early in the piece. The attacks came thick and fast from all the obvious places, including many journalists, who tut-tutted about law-breaking as if the law-breaking in question was home invasion or carjacking. Even those from Fairfax, who were more than happy to illegally strike in protest at their own colleagues being sacked, apparently can’t see the irony of criticising workers who do the same thing when a colleague is killed. Christopher Pyne, jumping on McManus like a seagull on a chip, called on her to resign. Turnbull, grasping for something to divert from his own failures, said he couldn’t work with her.

A year ago, this whole episode would have been yet another predictable, not worth mentioning, union bashing media-beat-up. But things have changed in the past few months. People have woken up to wealth inequality. Australia saw this wake up contribute to Brexit and the election of Trump. Closer to home, we’ve had One Nation pop up in Turnbull’s double dissolution, only to be over-egged and come crashing back down in the WA election, where, lo and behold, Labor achieved an 8% swing in their primary vote without any help from minors.

Throughout this time, Turnbull’s government continues to be a mixture of insipid do-nothing indecision, scandal and destruction, infighting and chaos, ideological bastardy and economic incompetence while they sidestep from one policy disaster to the next. Amongst the attacks to Medicare, the undermining of welfare through the Centrelink debacle, the failure on energy policy, the distractions from fringe fundamentalists such as anti-marriage-equality and repealing hate-speech laws, there is one policy which stands shiny and red as the most detestable, a pimple on a bum of failure: an attack to wages through a cut to penalty rates. This decision was the nail in Turnbull’s coffin. Commentators and Federal Liberals can claim all they like that the electoral result in WA was a result of local issues. But there is absolutely no doubting that a cut to wages saw voters melting off Liberals like sweat from Turnbull’s, and Hanson’s brow.

Let’s get something clear. Wages are the central concern of the electorate. Yes, most of us have other concerns, including climate change, education, healthcare, infrastructure, housing affordability, energy policy, immigration, just to name a few. But first on Maslow’s Hierarchy of political needs for left-wing and right-wing voters alike is an economic indicator which is being felt personally in homes from Broome to Launceston, from Townsville to Bankstown: record low wage growth. To put it bluntly, workers aren’t paid enough for the productive labour they contribute to the economy. There is plenty of money being made. It’s just not reaching those who create it….

Read the full article here.

And polls are showing a level of unhappiness that is hard to miss........

Essential Report, 21 March 2017:

The Liberal Party’s main attributes were – too close to the big corporate and financial interest (71%), will promise anything to win votes (71%), out of touch with ordinary people (68%) and divided (68%).

 Main changes since June last year were – divided (up 16%) and has a good team of leaders (down 9%).

The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 March 2017:

New campaign warns industry super members and consumers of bank attempts to dismantle successful superannuation model

Medianet Release

  MEDIA RELEASE

20 March 2017

Keep bank ‘foxes’ out of the super henhouse, new campaign warns

A powerful new campaign warns industry super members and consumers of bank attempts to dismantle the model used by the most successful part of the superannuation system, and put at risk the retirement savings of millions of Australians.

At the centre of the Industry Super Australia campaign is a 30-second television segment which depicts the hand of a federal politician opening a hen house to waiting foxes. The tagline is “Banks aren’t super”.

The commercial responds to bank attempts to secure unfettered access to Australia’s default superannuation system for those who don’t choose their own super fund.

To achieve this, government would be required to dismantle the Fair Work Commission’s merit-based process of shortlisting workplace default funds for employees who are otherwise disengaged from the super system. 

These mostly not-for-profit default funds consistently outperform the retail super products sold by banks and others, ultimately leaving their members in a stronger financial position at retirement.

Industry Super chief executive, David Whiteley, said: “The banks are quietly pressuring federal politicians to remove the laws that protect Australians who save through workplace default funds”.

“Not-for-profit industry super funds have consistently outperformed bank-owned retail funds by almost 2 per cent per year over the past twenty years[1][1]”.

“If the banks succeed in bringing the default system down, the super savings of millions of Australians could be at risk,” he said.

Research conducted ahead of the campaign shows strong public distrust for banks             when it comes to super.

“The 5 million Australians who entrust their savings to an Industry Super fund expect us to call out exactly what the banks are up to - and our politicians to stare them down,” said Whiteley.

The advertisement broadcasts from Monday 20 March, 2017. View it here

In 2016, the federal government tasked the Productivity Commission with exploring alternative ways of allocating default super fund products. The Commission’s baseline is for a system with no defaults. A draft report is expected in the coming fortnight.

The government has also vowed to reintroduce a bill, defeated by the senate in 2015, that will change the way not-for-profit super funds are governed so they are more like the banks.

Industry Super Australia Pty Ltd ABN 72 158 563 270, Corporate Authorised Representative No. 426006 of Industry Fund Services Ltd ABN 54 007 016 195 AFSL 232514. Consider a fund’s Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) and your personal financial situation, needs or objectives, which are not accounted for in this information, before making an investment decision.) Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

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Distributed by AAP Medianet

[1][1] Source: ISA analysis of APRA Superannuation Statistics

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