- Fri Mar 22, 2013 4:32 pm
#297944
Labour Party with fairly insignificant ideological divide tears itself apart.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/20 ... and-no-one" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;As he praised Murdoch in his IPA speech, itself weighty with Biblical references, the tradition of politics Tony Abbott has embraced was clear – that of obstinacy, demagoguery, and dogmatism.
Reforms promised by Abbott during the speech included privatizing Medibank; the state-owned private health insurer for over three million Australians, and repealing Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. This latter policy is justified ostensibly in the name of free speech and the recognition of Australia’s Western heritage; something Abbott called “the new Great Australian silence”, absurdly comparing it to the disregard with which Australia treats its history of violence against Aboriginal people. If Section 18C is repealed, racial hatred will effectively be sanctioned by law.
As well as this, Abbott wishes to cut back public spending, regressively reduce personal and corporate taxes, and strengthen Australia’s borders to create a country “where the boats are stopped – with tough and proven measures.”
It is worth noting that Australia rode out the global financial crisis relatively unscathed. Abbott voted against the AU$42bn stimulus that helped keep Australia out of recession, but despite his convictions, today the country’s government debt as a percentage of GDP is a mere 27 per cent – lower than that of Sweden, Norway, and Qatar – and it enjoys a triple-A credit rating from all three of the main ratings agencies. It is also experiencing a sustained mining boom along with steady GDP growth, fuelled largely by Chinese consumption. This has meant that the average household income in Australia has become much higher than the equivalent in the UK or the US – roughly AU$64,168 per year, equivalent to £43,590 in the UK or $66,765 in the US.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ia-failure" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;The ongoing march for privatisation does not stop here. Rightwing thinktanks in Australia, such as the Centre for Independent Studies and the Institute of Public Affairs (a group that refuses to release a list of its financial donors), regularly call for the mass privatisation of state services. This includes the ABC, despite consistent public polling finding huge support for the broadcaster.
Australia is the most tightly controlled media environment in the western world, with over 70% of print publication owned by US citizen Rupert Murdoch; in the words of John Pilger, “Australia is the world's first murdochracy”. Indeed, charges against the ABC mirror the comments by James Murdoch about the BBC in 2009: “The expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision.”
Imagining a different Australia is possible, but the challenges are great.
The corporate media deliberately conflates “privatisation” with “reform”, and neoliberal ideology is accepted as fact. Even the Greens have embraced a market mechanism to reduce climate change, despite vast evidence questioning for-profit companies being the most appropriate way to do so. Canadian writer Naomi Klein is currently working on a book that will argue that capitalism is inherently incapable of reforming itself to tackle catastrophic changes to our climate.
Excuse my possible stupidity, but does Australia have any borders?new puritan wrote:Crosby-style dog-whistle bollocks from the Liberals.
http://www.news.com.au/national-news/to ... 6625996801" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Well, yes. The entire perimeter of its coastline. A rather humungous natural border which to be fair to the Labor Party, must be fucking difficult to retain control of. But that won't stop Lynton Crosby.davidjay wrote:
Excuse my possible stupidity, but does Australia have any borders?
That's what I mean, sort of. Is an island's border its coastline?Abernathy wrote:Well, yes. The entire perimeter of its coastline. A rather humungous natural border which to be fair to the Labor Party, must be fucking difficult to retain control of. But that won't stop Lynton Crosby.davidjay wrote:
Excuse my possible stupidity, but does Australia have any borders?