Cartoons of the Week

David Rowe

Alan Moir

In the Kalang River forests of New South Wales......

According to the NSW Office of Environment & Heritage the Milky Silkpod is found only within NSW, with scattered populations in the north coast region between Kendall and Woolgoolga.

This plant is currently listed as Vulnerable in NSW and has a Commonwealth conservation status of Endangered. Little is known of its reproductive biology.

However, this means little to the Forestry Corporation of NSW, its board of directors and workers or the Berejiklian Coalition Government.

The Belligen Shire Courier, 16 July 2019:

 OEH-Milky Silkpod profile. Photo Shane Ruming

A volunteer survey team that trekked through the Upper Kalang forests on the weekend found dozens of endangered plants damaged by Forestry Corporation's logging preparations.

The Milky Silkpod (Parsonia dorrigoensis) is listed as 'vulnerable' in NSW and is a nationally endangered plant.

As the name suggests, the forests of the Mid North Coast are a stronghold for it, with most records found between Kendall and Woolgoolga.

In 1999 it was estimated that there were less than 2000 individual plants and the main threat to the survival of this species is low numbers.

Official government advice on how to manage the plant says that "searches for the species should be conducted prior to any logging operations" and known habitat should be "protect[ed] from clearing, high levels of disturbance and development".

"Yet once again Forestry Corporation has shown its disregard for the the environment," survey team member Jonas Bellchambers said.

"Of the 110 confirmed new records identified on the weekend, 39 specimens were found that had already been damaged and are unlikely to recover.

"With more logging and roading imminent it is highly likely to wipe out a good part of this population.

"Like for most species, it's a death of 1000 cuts, and before we know it another plant has blinked out and has gone from our planet completely. We are in the midst of a major extinction event. Here we have a clear example of why. Because government and industry just don't care....

Exodus of senior NDIS officials over the last fifteen months

When well-paid senior management – some in the top percentile of Australia’s income earners – begins to abandon ship it’s time to consider if the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has finally sunk the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The Australian, 5 July 2019:

...The NDIA has confirmed deputy chief executive Michael Francis has resigned and will leave in September to take a role “closer to home”.

A spokeswoman also confirmed chief risk officer Anthony Vella has recently departed, along with Antonia Albanese, who was head of markets, provider and market relations.

Ms Albanese and Mr Vella both directly reported to the chief executive.

The Australian has also been told the general manager of critical services issue response, Stephanie Gunn, has quit.

Mr Shorten told The Australian Mr Robert was “either oblivious or delusional” for telling parliament the scheme was being run well.

“It is alarming that this group of senior executives lack such confidence in the way the NDIA is being run that they are choosing to leave,” he said. “This scheme is so important for the vulnerable but is being chaotically implemented.

“Yet the minister in parliament has told the nation it’s all going swimmingly. He must be either oblivious or delusional.”

The NDIA spokeswoman said: “The NDIA is grateful to our departing senior executives, who have made significant contributions to the NDIS.

“The NDIA has a strong and experienced leadership team, focused on continuing to guide the agency to deliver improved outcomes for NDIS participants. Interim arrangements with - experienced personnel have been put in place.”

The confirmation of executive departures came after Mr Shorten tweeted he was “hearing” that four senior staff resigned in the past seven days.

Former chief executive Robert De Luca suddenly resigned in May and is yet to be replaced. Former communications head Vicki Rundle is acting chief executive.

Mr Robert — a key numbers man for the Prime Minister in last August’s leadership contest — yesterday used question time to declare the NDIS was available to “all Australians on the continent”….. [my yellow highlighting]

Elwyn is spittin’ chips

Took a call from my mate Elwyn and he was, to put it super mildly, seething, red-hot furious.

Elwyn, who is a something of a quiz champion, leaves others at the Table of Knowledge at our local watering hole for dead. He watches any and all quiz shows on TV.

Elwyn credits his interest in quizzes to his mother who participated, with some success, on the radio program The Quiz Kids hosted by John Dease.

And why is Elwyn so stroppy? NBN TV has been showing repeats of Millionaire Hot Seat. 

Elwyn does have a good sense of humour. He was in stitches when he told me a contestant on Hot Seat this week said they hoped to go to France in June-July for FIFA’s Women’s World Cup of Football in France.

Elwyn took no comfort when I told him ABC TV did an “NBN” on Wednesday night and repeated last week's Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell.

Footnote: The contestant didn’t win and go to France for the WWC of Football despite having a second “attempt”.

Local conspiracy theorist is at it again

Age has not dimmed Fred 'The Red Herring' Perring......

The Daily Examiner, Letter to the Editor, 16 July 2019, p.15:

Plotters signed Australia up to new world order

EX-PM Turnbull and his acolyte Julie Bishop were in cahoots with many others to bring down Tony Abbott long before Turnbull finally wielded the knife.

Both Turnbull and Bishop were part of the far left of the Liberal party. Both were disciples of the principles of the United Nations, which encompassed a Sustainable Development Agenda 2030.

During a speech Bishop made at the United Nations she actually signed Australia on to become part of the new world order global government.

The Australian people were never consulted.

The Paris Agreement is a case in point – a United Nations piggy bank into which subservient, signed-up countries must tip a billion or so each and every year, ostensibly to help poorer countries.

It is the UN that is getting fatter, although for how long is the question – more and more European countries are wanting out.

In relation to the UN and its hold over various bodies controlling areas of the environment under heritage orders, the NSW Government proposes to raise the wall on Warragamba Dam to increase water storage and to alleviate flooding on the lower reaches.

This vital work cannot go ahead without the authority of the United Nations puppet on World Heritage, which recently held a meeting in Azerbaijan to discuss the proposal.

A report is out soon with UN members to come to Australia to view the effects on the Blue Mountains heritage area.

No thanks to Bishop and Turnbull.

Bob “World Government” Brown would be oh so pleased.

Fred Perring,

Halfway Creek

Yet more opinions that the 46th Australian Government - the Morrison Government - will not end well for the nation

The Australian: Morrison Government Ministry 2019

The Monthly, 9 July 2019:

As Australia’s economy falters, the government’s fiscal heart is hardening, not softening. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s determination to deliver his much-vaunted budget surplus for 2019–20 and retain Australia’s AAA credit rating – which is hardly in danger – is of a piece with junior minister Luke Howarth telling the homeless to look on the bright side. In prospect is more of the same punishing austerity towards anyone doing it tough; it’s the flipside of celebrating those who aspire and get ahead, and who are rewarded with taxpayer largesse through subsidies and tax loopholes. Last week’s $158 billion tax-cut package is going to accelerate the trend to an increasingly unequal Australia, which has resulted from the Coalition’s agenda since it was elected in 2013. As former treasurer Joe Hockey said when defending his first budget, the worst-received in living memory: “Governments have never been able to achieve equality of outcomes … It is not the role of government to use the taxation and welfare system as a tool to ‘level the playing field’”.

Flanked by his assistant minister, Michael Sukkar, and the tax commissioner, Chris Jordan, Frydenberg today announced [$] that more than 810,000 Australians had already filed their 2018–19 tax returns and could be receiving their rebates of up to $1080 by the weekend. But, resisting calls from the Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, he stressed that there would be no further stimulus, citing the “non-negotiable” imperative of reaching a budget surplus this year, and saying that the government would be focused on reducing debt….

Doing the same thing over and over while hoping for a different result is clearly not working. Today’s NAB business confidence survey showed that the post-election bounce has been short-lived, and the first of the RBA’s two recent rate cuts has failed to improve conditions. A small uptick in employment growth is positive, but NAB’s chief economist, Alan Oster, says the overall decrease in business conditions has been “relatively broad-based across states and industries – suggesting that there has been sector-wide loss of momentum over the past year”. The share market is jumpy, selling off sharply today as APRA, in a sign of nervousness, lowered its capital requirements for banks, and bond markets are reportedly “screaming economic downturn”…..

The Saturday Paper, editorial, 6 July 2019:

And so it passes, the greatest assault on the safety net from which Australian life is built. Scott Morrison’s tax cuts are through and the revenue base that provides for health and education and social welfare is shredded. The legacy of the 46th parliament is there in its very first week: the destruction of the social compact that made this country stable.

On analysis by the Grattan Institute, to pay for these cuts at least $40 billion a year will need to be trimmed from government spending by 2030. The Coalition argues it will not cut services. It says jobs growth will reduce spending on welfare. A surplus will mean less interest paid on debt.

The assumptions are heroic and unsustainable. They show an extraordinary indifference to reality. More than that, they are indifferent to need. People will be worse off under these cuts. They will face greater hardship, have less access to health and to quality education. The people worst affected did not vote for Scott Morrison. Half the country didn’t. The damage done is near irreversible. It is infinitely easier to cut taxes than to raise them. This is a triumph of greed and political cowardice. The Labor Party waved it through.

The principles of this policy were first written on a paper napkin in 1974, when the conservative economist Arthur Laffer sketched out his famous tax curve for Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. That serviette is one of the most pernicious documents in modern politics. It made the case for what became trickle-down economics. It became the lie through which governments gave money to the rich and pretended they were helping the poor.

The year Scott Morrison became treasurer, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry brought Laffer to Australia for a speaking tour. He met with Josh Frydenberg. His doctrine has its most explicit contemporary expression in the cuts passed this week…...

In his first major speech as prime minister, Morrison said he didn’t believe people should be taxed more to improve the lives of others. He said people had to work for it: they had to have a go. “I think that’s what fairness means in this country,” he said. “It’s not about everybody getting the same thing. If you put in, you get to take out, and you get to keep more of what you earn.”

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of taxation. You don’t pay tax in exchange for services. You pay tax for a society. Under Morrison, you pay less tax and you have less society. The obliterating self-interest of this week will be felt for generations. Morrison’s victory is a huge, huge loss.

No you weren't imagining it - wages are stagnating in Australia

Whenever the Fair Work Commission reviews the minimum wage, one of those making a submission* to keep any increase in the minimum wage a modest one will be the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government.

By way of example:

https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/sites/wagereview2014/submissions/ausgovt_sub_awr1314.pdf

First 5 points in a 12 point statement of Australian Government's position
https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/sites/wagereview2015/submissions/austgov_sub_awr1415.pdf

This is the result.......

The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 July, p.9:

As the asset-driven wealth gap has widened, incomes generated by employment have failed to keep up.

Average weekly disposable household incomes have grown just $44 over the past decade. In the four years to 2007-08, average weekly household incomes grew by $220. They dipped in the immediate wake of the global financial crisis before reaching $1067 in the 2013-14 survey. They fell in the next survey and rose $8 a week to $1062 in the 2017-18 survey.

In NSW, those in the lowest 20 per cent of income earners have seen their incomes go backwards in real terms since 2015-16, from $412 a week to $397 a week. They are only $6 a week higher than in 2011-12. The biggest increase has been for people in Tasmania, where disposable incomes jumped $83 to a record-high $922, with households across all income ranges boosted. The largest slump has been in Western Australia, where disposable incomes are $157 lower than their peak in 2013-14. [my yellow highlighting]

However, lest Australian voters seek to blame the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison or any employer lobby group for paltry wages growth, the Australian Treasury and participants at a recent conference organised by the rather esoteric Economic Society of Australia - est. in 1925 and delighting in producing articles such as "Community and Expert Wine Ratings and Prices" and "Non‐monotonic NPV Function Leads to Spurious NPVs and Multiple IRR Problems: A New Method that Resolves these Problems" - have rushed to the defence of both government and the business community.

With Treasury in particular pointing a finger at employees, who are reluctant to quit their current jobs and chance their arm in an uncertain labour market, as a possible cause of low wages growth.  
So there you have it. Despite both the federal government and employer groups constantly pushing to limit wages growth, it's really the fault of workers. 

Regardless of the fact that productivity growth mainly from workers' efforts has averaged 1.4 percent a year since the end of 2010 having risen at a relatively steady rate since 1991.

Note:
* See https://www.fwc.gov.au/awards-agreements/minimum-wages-conditions/annual-wage-reviews/annual-wage-review-2017-18-3. Go to right hand sidebar, open a wage review link, select Submissions &  then click on Initial Submissions.