Straya thread part 5 - scallops and slippery dips
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cobl04
45:33
Twitter and SEN.
Two extremely poor sources.
Two extremely poor sources.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
Interesting news today that if Campbell Newman loses his seat but the LNP retains power in Queensland, the office of Premier will be deemed vacant and Odoacer will rule in his stead as nominal vassal, but actually not, to the Emperor in Canberra.
Vlad n U 2
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Luke Mansillo thinks he's terribly clever, but in fact he's just a mildly annoying guy with a modicum of political knowledge who knows how to spam social media and get his name out there. Hell I'd do it if I could be bothered arguing with people about politics online for hours a day. I only followed his Facebook pages because he did post some useful links; his own writing is barely coherent and, without the Guardian's subeditors, littered with spelling and grammatical errors.
He's also flat-out wrong that the Greens don't defeat Tories. They just won the Victorian state seat of Prahran off the Libs. They take Senate seats from the Libs as well as from the ALP. Perhaps the biggest problem is not that there are ALP vs Green contests, but that we have single member electorates in our lower houses. That needs to be reformed, because very few local members represent the will of even half of their electorate.
His belief that the two party system is destined to remain ALP/Coalition forever is naive and ahistorical. The divide was not always ALP/Coalition, nor will it always be. Labour, as a progressive political force, is in retreat. I do not know if there is a generational shift on, but there might be, and it's naive to say that the Greens could never govern. At the very least the ALP may cease to be able to form government in its own right.
Anyway, given that the right has institutionalised greater power within the ALP, good luck reforming it from the inside. I think the whole idea of joining parties is becoming increasingly less appealling. Most younger politically active individuals prefer other forms of political gathering. Whether those forms are effective or not is another matter entirely...
He's also flat-out wrong that the Greens don't defeat Tories. They just won the Victorian state seat of Prahran off the Libs. They take Senate seats from the Libs as well as from the ALP. Perhaps the biggest problem is not that there are ALP vs Green contests, but that we have single member electorates in our lower houses. That needs to be reformed, because very few local members represent the will of even half of their electorate.
His belief that the two party system is destined to remain ALP/Coalition forever is naive and ahistorical. The divide was not always ALP/Coalition, nor will it always be. Labour, as a progressive political force, is in retreat. I do not know if there is a generational shift on, but there might be, and it's naive to say that the Greens could never govern. At the very least the ALP may cease to be able to form government in its own right.
Anyway, given that the right has institutionalised greater power within the ALP, good luck reforming it from the inside. I think the whole idea of joining parties is becoming increasingly less appealling. Most younger politically active individuals prefer other forms of political gathering. Whether those forms are effective or not is another matter entirely...
Vlad n U 2
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The article put me off, to no surprise, but even despite that I felt it had something to offer as a talking point. I was immediately reminded of Jim Cairns when I was reading that article, as a far left voice in the Labor party. Plus Mansillo's constant insistence that Labor are the 'worker's party' in the article and comments section pisses me off to no end.
I don't really care if the ALP are the worker's party, because I would hazard a guess that the majority of "workers" (whatever that may mean now) do not support progressive social or environmental change. Howard did an amazing job of picking up "battlers".
Vlad, you may be able to define what makes a "worker" now. Obviously it traditionally refers to blue collar workers, but that's an increasingly small percentage nowadays and many of those who remain are conservative, possessing more in common with the social agrarians in the Nationals than anybody else (i.e. they broadly support state ownership of services and a certain degree of welfare but are socially conservative and wary of green politics). So is it still blue collar employment? Is it any field earning a below average wage? Is it the bare fact of being employed rather than an employer, even if you're an urban professional earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? Whatever it is, what is the unifying quality that brings together shared interests? I just don't see it, which is why I am sceptical when people bang on about workers, party of workers, working families, etc.
Vlad, you may be able to define what makes a "worker" now. Obviously it traditionally refers to blue collar workers, but that's an increasingly small percentage nowadays and many of those who remain are conservative, possessing more in common with the social agrarians in the Nationals than anybody else (i.e. they broadly support state ownership of services and a certain degree of welfare but are socially conservative and wary of green politics). So is it still blue collar employment? Is it any field earning a below average wage? Is it the bare fact of being employed rather than an employer, even if you're an urban professional earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? Whatever it is, what is the unifying quality that brings together shared interests? I just don't see it, which is why I am sceptical when people bang on about workers, party of workers, working families, etc.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
The Greens can govern when they can capture rural seats and outer suburban seats. And I wouldn't say that can never happen; it is, however, a prerequisite.
In the short term, vote Labor, vote Green, vote anything vaguely centre-to-left that wants rid of this clown show. Labor's Right hardheads (who aren't really all that smart anymore, I don't think) would really turn down a coalition government if it came to it? If it came to x Labor MHRs and 3 or 4 or 7 Green MHRs? Not on your nelly!
In the short term, vote Labor, vote Green, vote anything vaguely centre-to-left that wants rid of this clown show. Labor's Right hardheads (who aren't really all that smart anymore, I don't think) would really turn down a coalition government if it came to it? If it came to x Labor MHRs and 3 or 4 or 7 Green MHRs? Not on your nelly!
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
As for the question of 'workers' I guess the term often gets used lazily, but I'd argue that economic interests ought to trump everything. I could go into my thoughts on that more, but suffice it to say they weren't 'Howard's Battlers' until he wooed them. Conservative, insufficiently progressive or whatever else, people can be persuaded if the effort is made. Everyone also cannot be expected to agree on everything. It just isn't going to happen. There are people you might never carry, on climate change, or cultural issues, but need they be enemies on public health or education? The right would say, 'yes', but that's the only way they can win elections anymore. And they're awfully practiced at it.
My personal take is that 'workers' is everyone who isn't the rentier class. Of course it's always been the problem that the worker-focus excludes those excluded entirely. Labor's never been great when it comes to the unemployed; it made sense in the days when it was a political arm of the union movement, and that focus on 'work' remains. And don't even get me started on 'working families'. But the fracturing of the workforce and the decline of those reliable armies of unionised factorymen does not mean that there isn't potentially some common interest there. There'd better be, because once you strip away all the bullshit, it really is most of 'us' vs. a few of 'them'.
Same as it ever was.
The Democratic coalition that ushered in America's New Deal and a lot more between the 1930s and the 1960s included a healthy contigent of southern racists. In the end, it imploded, but good was done, in the interim. I'd be inclined to say something similar about mid-century Labor before that crypto-fascist Santamaria planted an ideological car bomb under its Catholic flank (not in terms of racism, but in terms of social-conservative vs. social-progressive; it was Santamaria's dark victory to split the two, and look how that turned out)
Why can no major national figure persuade people that they are routinely tricked into voting against their own economic interests? Probably, on the whole, because the economic side is bipartisan (save the not-absolutely-insignificant rearguard stand that Labor is prepared to take on matters like Medicare, and, sometimes, education etc).
My personal take is that 'workers' is everyone who isn't the rentier class. Of course it's always been the problem that the worker-focus excludes those excluded entirely. Labor's never been great when it comes to the unemployed; it made sense in the days when it was a political arm of the union movement, and that focus on 'work' remains. And don't even get me started on 'working families'. But the fracturing of the workforce and the decline of those reliable armies of unionised factorymen does not mean that there isn't potentially some common interest there. There'd better be, because once you strip away all the bullshit, it really is most of 'us' vs. a few of 'them'.
Same as it ever was.
The Democratic coalition that ushered in America's New Deal and a lot more between the 1930s and the 1960s included a healthy contigent of southern racists. In the end, it imploded, but good was done, in the interim. I'd be inclined to say something similar about mid-century Labor before that crypto-fascist Santamaria planted an ideological car bomb under its Catholic flank (not in terms of racism, but in terms of social-conservative vs. social-progressive; it was Santamaria's dark victory to split the two, and look how that turned out)
Why can no major national figure persuade people that they are routinely tricked into voting against their own economic interests? Probably, on the whole, because the economic side is bipartisan (save the not-absolutely-insignificant rearguard stand that Labor is prepared to take on matters like Medicare, and, sometimes, education etc).
Vlad n U 2
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I just see it as anyone who is employed by an employer (and yes, that would include those who earn over a hundred grand a year, but due to their income they're more likely to associate themselves on the level of their employers based on their income). My particular view is broad (and it's the sort of view held by many of my ilk), the title of 'worker' is not limited to those working on construction sites or in factories.
Well said Kieran.
My main personal problem with the fixation on "workers", beyond anything else, is something to which I think you alluded, i.e. that it glorifies work, or more to the point a particular conceptualisation of paid employment, as a desirable norm. I suppose this leads into broader ideas of the Protestant work ethic tradition bla bla bla. However the glorification of "work" has been undermined on two fronts, one by technological advances and the other by an unlikely culprit, neoliberalism, which demands a mobile rather than stable workforce. The entire "work" tradition focuses on an individual possessing certain skills that they pursue through a stable career in a fixed location, while now the idea of the lifelong job is ridiculed and people are expected to move, both geographically and between employment fields, multiple times in their life.
Broadly relevant to our discussion is this review, announced early thanks to a little slip-up: Massive review into workplace laws to examine penalty rates and the minimum wage
I wonder if this might be just enough to mobilise a wide grouping of people. You just know Tone et al. are frothing at the bit to reduce penalty rates, minimum wages, and workplace conditions in service of whatever irrational agenda, and that will provoke a massive kick back.
My main personal problem with the fixation on "workers", beyond anything else, is something to which I think you alluded, i.e. that it glorifies work, or more to the point a particular conceptualisation of paid employment, as a desirable norm. I suppose this leads into broader ideas of the Protestant work ethic tradition bla bla bla. However the glorification of "work" has been undermined on two fronts, one by technological advances and the other by an unlikely culprit, neoliberalism, which demands a mobile rather than stable workforce. The entire "work" tradition focuses on an individual possessing certain skills that they pursue through a stable career in a fixed location, while now the idea of the lifelong job is ridiculed and people are expected to move, both geographically and between employment fields, multiple times in their life.
Broadly relevant to our discussion is this review, announced early thanks to a little slip-up: Massive review into workplace laws to examine penalty rates and the minimum wage
I wonder if this might be just enough to mobilise a wide grouping of people. You just know Tone et al. are frothing at the bit to reduce penalty rates, minimum wages, and workplace conditions in service of whatever irrational agenda, and that will provoke a massive kick back.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
Touching briefly on the first part of your post, I don't think any political party in the western world, including the Greens, has even the inkling of a clue about a possible future of mass technology-driven unemployment, and what a worthwhile life might look like in that future, and what happens when the protestant work ethic is mugged by reality.
What to do about a society that produces everything it needs and more, and requires only a small minority of citizens to work in paid jobs to accomplish such. At present the answer is to demand that people work to justify their existence, and if they cannot or will not, they must be either sustained in the most bare, humiliating subsistence, and/or pilloried by the public culture. That won't fly when you're talking 30, 40 or 50 per cent of the population as permanently surplus. I could stand to be very wrong, but I think we might be not-noticing the early stages of this already, as actual unemployment rates slowly creep up even as economic growth continues, year by year.
Though in my darker moods I wonder if the governing class do have the inkling of a clue, and that's part of what the tightening clamps on freedom of movement, the militarisation of policing and so forth, are about. I actually don't think there is strong evidence for such farsightedness. I think it is mostly driven by terrorism security theatre, at this stage. In other words, reactive, not proactive.
What to do about a society that produces everything it needs and more, and requires only a small minority of citizens to work in paid jobs to accomplish such. At present the answer is to demand that people work to justify their existence, and if they cannot or will not, they must be either sustained in the most bare, humiliating subsistence, and/or pilloried by the public culture. That won't fly when you're talking 30, 40 or 50 per cent of the population as permanently surplus. I could stand to be very wrong, but I think we might be not-noticing the early stages of this already, as actual unemployment rates slowly creep up even as economic growth continues, year by year.
Though in my darker moods I wonder if the governing class do have the inkling of a clue, and that's part of what the tightening clamps on freedom of movement, the militarisation of policing and so forth, are about. I actually don't think there is strong evidence for such farsightedness. I think it is mostly driven by terrorism security theatre, at this stage. In other words, reactive, not proactive.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
They will never, ever, give up on this one. I suppose it ought to be slightly heartening that they could be so stupid. Because even insufficiently-progressive conservatives in the suburbs know the value of their paycheque. Just truly astounding own goals there, if the 'review' does go the way one might expect.
intedomine
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
Those who earn over $100,000 (25%) pay higher income tax than someone who earns $50,000 (17%), so I suppose their grievances with Labor govts can be understandable for people when they move into higher thresholds. They feel that they work longer, are more accountable and manage more people, but don't feel that the fruits of their promotion/higher position are necessarily reflected in their pay check.
I recently moved up a threshold with a substantial promotion and was quite shocked to see how mild my fortnightly pay increase was. What looked like it might have been a good half-grand more money a fortnight worked out to be only about $200, despite far higher duties and responsibilities. So I suppose you can see where the conservative vote comes from from "corporate climbers" - self interest and a feeling that they aren't compensated accordingly for their ambitions to move into higher roles.
While I don't have a problem with the increased tax that I pay - it fuels in me a desire to have a more direct input in how that money is distributed, as it feels very abstract as to where that money actually goes, especially when the current government doesn't represent my interests on pretty much any level
Sent from a barge floating through the docks of Dublin
Fantastic article by Greg Jericho on tax. Seriously, this should be mandatory reading regardless of political opinion: Joe Hockey either doesn't understand how tax works or he is deliberately misleading the public | Australia news | The Guardian
Hell, I must confess even I was essentially ignorant that you only pay the higher tax rate on earnings above the amount required to enter that bracket, and pay the lower tax rate on earnings up to that point. It rang a bell when I read Jericho's piece, but if you'd asked me yesterday morning I wouldn't have identified it.
It seems no political party even wants to discuss the possibility, let alone come out and say that it accepts the possibility a majority of the population may not need to work. The entire discourse of work frames it as desirable, and until somebody questions that in a way that cuts through and engages a significant amount of the population then nothing will change. I have to wonder if a large part of this comes from the fact many people dislike their work and actively resent anybody not working - even if they have a perfectly good reason to not work, even if the jobs do not exist, even if the person actually contributes more to society outside of conventional employment - so this resentment encourages an insistence that everybody work. "If I'm unhappy then damn it everybody else will be too."
I wonder if we are already seeing this in Europe? I realise that's in countries not experiencing growth, but then that's the other underlying assumption that needs to be debated: should economies always strive for growth? Is growth necessary for a good standard of living? We are so accustomed to growth providing increased standards that it's very hard to conceive of an alternative.
As for your last paragraph, it would make a good plot for a dystopian novel! But yes, I'd say reactive rather than proactive. There is little evidence to suggest most of these people are competent or organised enough to be so farsighted. Individuals may be, but there is an obvious inability for some of these ideological warriors to stick together for long enough to achieve grand ambitions at present.
Hell, I must confess even I was essentially ignorant that you only pay the higher tax rate on earnings above the amount required to enter that bracket, and pay the lower tax rate on earnings up to that point. It rang a bell when I read Jericho's piece, but if you'd asked me yesterday morning I wouldn't have identified it.
It seems no political party even wants to discuss the possibility, let alone come out and say that it accepts the possibility a majority of the population may not need to work. The entire discourse of work frames it as desirable, and until somebody questions that in a way that cuts through and engages a significant amount of the population then nothing will change. I have to wonder if a large part of this comes from the fact many people dislike their work and actively resent anybody not working - even if they have a perfectly good reason to not work, even if the jobs do not exist, even if the person actually contributes more to society outside of conventional employment - so this resentment encourages an insistence that everybody work. "If I'm unhappy then damn it everybody else will be too."
I wonder if we are already seeing this in Europe? I realise that's in countries not experiencing growth, but then that's the other underlying assumption that needs to be debated: should economies always strive for growth? Is growth necessary for a good standard of living? We are so accustomed to growth providing increased standards that it's very hard to conceive of an alternative.
As for your last paragraph, it would make a good plot for a dystopian novel! But yes, I'd say reactive rather than proactive. There is little evidence to suggest most of these people are competent or organised enough to be so farsighted. Individuals may be, but there is an obvious inability for some of these ideological warriors to stick together for long enough to achieve grand ambitions at present.
Vlad n U 2
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It's generally a positive when Liberals take their anger out on each other and not everyone else.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
Indeed the 'I have to be miserable so why should anyone get out of this' sentiment reigns strong. Similar sentiments animate the US Tea Partiers. This is why we can't have nice things.
I'd tend to agree most people hate their jobs, and rightly so. Because most jobs are bullshit and unnecessary. This idea that one ought to be career-obsessed is ludicrous to me, unless you're an artist or something. A doctor or politician or philosopher or some kinds of lawyer. A paramedic. Sure. But office jobs? Fruit picking? Manning the warehouses at Amazon?
As for Europe's sluggish to non existent growth: I can't tell. I just don't know enough about these things to know how much is technology-driven, how much is austerity driven, how much is down to myriads of factors. I do suspect that outside of the late bloomers or whatever in India, China, parts of Africa, very low growth is probably what the future holds, whether people like it or not.
Which brings me to... of course economic growth is a fraught idea. Its feasibility, indefinitely. Its desirability as the basis for a society or economy. That's not even getting into the environmental limits. If I'm not mistaken, even Adam Smith (hardly my personal bible) anticipated an eventual plateau.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
Greg Jericho is usually good value even if I don't really have time to deal with the graphs that infest some of his columns (not utterly innumerate, just find things easier to grasp expressed in prose).
This piece: I must admit I too was pretty shaky on the exact mechanics of what it means to, for instance, say that someone on $180,000 pays a top marginal rate of 47% (or whatever). Now I get it, and Joe Hockey certainly does too - he is simply a salesman, a spruiker for hire.
Oh bugger I meant to respond to the above the other day. Tomorrow! For now, can I just share my horror that this country has descended to what's described in the following: Asylum seekers forcibly removed from Darwin detention in middle of the night | Australia news | The Guardian
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
A minister or two is going to stand trial over this shit one day... you'd hope. Or - what is more likely - the boss of some outsourced contractor is going to stand trial and a former minister is going to solemnly shake his head and say how terrible it all was.
In the meantime, whaddaya gonna do. Except take note and vote. Except. Except. Except it's broadly bipartisan.
Of course there are lawyers and activists of whatever stripe who do put themselves at personal risk of some degree to take it head on, but suffice to say they are not me. I got nothin'. Sorry. Nothing but disgust. And a vote.
In the meantime, whaddaya gonna do. Except take note and vote. Except. Except. Except it's broadly bipartisan.
Of course there are lawyers and activists of whatever stripe who do put themselves at personal risk of some degree to take it head on, but suffice to say they are not me. I got nothin'. Sorry. Nothing but disgust. And a vote.
Yeah I feel pretty fucking outraged and take pleasure in voting against these immoral pricks but I'm not exactly doing much else. I once taught a student who worked at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and I really respected her. I just wish I had the time for that. Or really the ability to do something useful other than posting angry and/or dejected rants to the e-choir. Uuggghhh.
Oh well, history's verdict will be brutal, that much I can tell already and I can be a part of that. It's not much but it's something.
Oh OH and holy shit what about those journos who, at the government's request, are being investigated by the federal police because they dared to tell the public about what's being done in our name to asylum seekers. I mean seriously HOLY FUCKING SHIT that's actually happening.
Oh well, history's verdict will be brutal, that much I can tell already and I can be a part of that. It's not much but it's something.
Oh OH and holy shit what about those journos who, at the government's request, are being investigated by the federal police because they dared to tell the public about what's being done in our name to asylum seekers. I mean seriously HOLY FUCKING SHIT that's actually happening.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
History Licking Its Chops Over Bush Administration
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
I'm really glad I don't do anything very important or work in close connection to anything very important. Otherwise, I'd be seriously worried every time the cops pulled up. Yep, that's freedom folks.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
In one respect at least, I fear we've gone backward. In the ancient world, even Emperors did not always survive the opprobrium of Byzantium's mob. Kings, great ministers and generals, could and did go to prison or worse. A fate rarely seen in the 'civilised' world nowadays, but I gather not unheard of in China.
It takes a hell of a break to put that kind of conversation on the table. Post-Fitzgerald-Inquiry Queensland, briefly (the window closed around 1991-92, and yes Joh was very, very lucky), for instance.
It takes a hell of a break to put that kind of conversation on the table. Post-Fitzgerald-Inquiry Queensland, briefly (the window closed around 1991-92, and yes Joh was very, very lucky), for instance.
Now here's a fucking joke: Prince Philip awarded Knight of the Order of Australia by Prime Minister Tony Abbott
Where to even start...!
I'm not sure what's more unsettling - if Hockey doesn't get it and is therefore grossly unqualified, or if Hockey does get it and is telling straight up lies. There's a world of difference between lying on the one hand, and on the other using spin, vague language, and half-truths. Even Scott Morrison understood that and chose silence over lying.
I suppose it's suited both sides of politics to ensure there are no prosecutions for gross misdeeds while in office. On the other hand, the Libs have been throwing convention out the window right now, such as with providing cabinet papers of their predecessor to inquiries, and it seems they were really hoping for the possibility of laying charges against ALP ministers over the pink batts scandal or union corruption. They better be careful with that, because - even though the asylum seeker disgrace has been bipartisan - you know the ALP would be very swift in seeking revenge. No party does bitter revenge quite like the ALP, as we've seen from enough of their in-fighting.
Where to even start...!
I'm not sure what's more unsettling - if Hockey doesn't get it and is therefore grossly unqualified, or if Hockey does get it and is telling straight up lies. There's a world of difference between lying on the one hand, and on the other using spin, vague language, and half-truths. Even Scott Morrison understood that and chose silence over lying.
I suppose it's suited both sides of politics to ensure there are no prosecutions for gross misdeeds while in office. On the other hand, the Libs have been throwing convention out the window right now, such as with providing cabinet papers of their predecessor to inquiries, and it seems they were really hoping for the possibility of laying charges against ALP ministers over the pink batts scandal or union corruption. They better be careful with that, because - even though the asylum seeker disgrace has been bipartisan - you know the ALP would be very swift in seeking revenge. No party does bitter revenge quite like the ALP, as we've seen from enough of their in-fighting.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
Where to even start...!
File under dementia pugilistica.
Even if he (Hockey) somehow slipped into high ministerial office without grasping it, he surely is well advised.
Well it's true that the nuclear option is not usually the done thing, same way US presidential administrations don't generally air the dirty laundry of their precedessors. Basically why Dick Cheney isn't in jail.
But the Coalition have been (whether at arms' length or not) pretty cute in their neverending effort to dig up something, anything, over 'pink batts' and what Julia Gillard might or might not have done in 1994.
cobl04
45:33
Seems like this might be the stupidest of all Tone's decisions... a lot of nameless furious Lib MPs being quoted in News...
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
I really hope Tony's party room doesn't blink (actually I doubt they would, after the hay made during the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd years. On the other hand, precedents are like thoughts; they can't be unthought.). He needs to go down at an election. I want to see the whites of his eyes.
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