Fake News: Their ABC Is Not Popular

Whenever anyone criticises the ABC a stock standard response is that Australians love the ABC.

Well do they?

It turns out that the ABC tell us that Australians love them.  But the ABC tells us so many things that we simply do not believe, why should this be any different?

Chris Berg and Sinclair Davidson wrote about this in their book on the ABC:  Against Public Broadcasting:  Why and how we should privatise the ABC.

McNair and Swift point our attention to the ABC Annual Reports that usually contain survey data demonstrating how Australians perceive the ABC.  The ABC's satisfaction indicators are very impressive.  A selection of those indicators are shown in Table 1.

Eighty-six per cent of Australians value the ABC.  Seventy-seven per cent think it is balanced and even-handed.  Seventy-eight per cent think ABC television provides quality programming.

This rosy picture is complicated by the fact that ABC television only had a 17.6 per cent share of the primetime five-city metro market in 2015-16.  Indeed, there is a huge gap between the number of people who claim to value the ABC, and those people who actually consume its services.  It is also noteworthy that more people in the metro areas consume ABC radio than primetime television and the percentage of people who believe that the ABC provides quality radio programming is much lower (63 per cent) than those who believe the ABC provides quality television programming (78 per cent).  It appears that the more people know about the ABC the less they value it.

This kind of result is not necessarily surprising ― it is very likely that Australians have been socialised into believing that the ABC provides a quality service as opposed to having actually experienced that quality through their own viewing or listening.

It is true that the ABC has higher market share in regional areas than it does in metropolitan areas ― yet even there the gap between what people say about the ABC and their actual consumption of ABC services is large.  Unfortunately the ABC does not appear to publish market share data for its regional radio services.  It is one thing to be assured by politicians that the ABC provides valuable services to the community but it would be even more reassuring to see the actual data supporting that claim.

Not even the Wikipedia reports the ABC as being popular.

The ABC has lower ratings than does subscription television.  To put the channel 2 10% rating share into perspective The Greens got about 10% of the vote at the 2019 general election.

The ABC is a channel of Greens, by Greens, and for Greens.

Paid for by the taxpayer.

Daniel Andrews Arrogantly Bungled Coronavirus ― And Is Doing The Same To Economic Recovery

Yesterday's Victorian budget was on-form for the Andrews' government:  it mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic and now it is mishandling the economic recovery from the deepest recession in 100 years.  And the contempt for democratic norms the Victorian government has shown throughout the coronavirus crisis has made its way into the budget.

It was the Andrews' government's incompetence in managing hotel quarantine, along with an inadequate contact tracing system, which kept Victorians under lockdown longer than almost any other place in the world.  The utopian elimination strategy, which has been pursued across Australia, has forced hundreds of thousands of employees out of work, with these job losses being concentrated in small businesses in the private sector.

An obsession with case numbers over and above all other economic, social, or medical indicators has meant that, since March, almost no consideration has been given to the humanitarian tragedy caused by keeping children out of school, forcing parents out of work, and driving young people to the brink with higher rates of depression and anxiety.  In the unforgiving words of Daniel Andrews on October 10:  "The only numbers I'm focused on is [COVID-19] case numbers."

But the 2020-21 Victorian budget provides a new set of numbers which reveal a striking similarity between the Andrews government's COVID management and its financial management ― suppress the numbers, be they coronavirus cases, employment figures, or economic growth, and suppress any mechanism for transparency, be it justifications for lockdown measures, or budget papers with key government spending information.

While the messaging in the budget is slick, it lacks policy substance.  For example, the new jobs tax credit, which will provide a payroll tax credit to businesses that hire new employees, will not restore the jobs destroyed by lockdown measures.

The budget provides an example of a company which hires two new employees and increases its overall taxable wages bill by $100,000.  As a result, it could reduce its payroll tax liability from $21,825 to $11,825.  This sounds good in theory, but there are two key issues.  Firstly, the government's virus elimination strategy creates uncertainty for business owners, many of whom will not hire new staff when they could be forced back into lockdown with the re-emergence of coronavirus.  Secondly, much more bold policy is required to re-create jobs and restore confidence.  If the Victorian government had abolished payroll tax the same business would save the total $21,825, allowing it to make up for income lost during lockdown.

Maintaining payroll tax is an elimination strategy for new cases of potential job creation.

Much like the Premier and Ministers' avoidance of transparency when asked who made the decision to implement the controversial and likely unlawful nightly curfew, the budget is another attempt to obfuscate the truth.  According to page 83 of Budget Paper 2, "In 2020-21 there is no separate budget paper on the state capital program."  The state capital program usually provides an overview of investments that departments and government-controlled entities will make in the coming year, along with updates to currently underway projects.  This allows for year-to-year comparisons to see how much various projects are costing taxpayers as they progress, an important way of holding the government accountable for cost-overruns.

For example, in the 2018-19 state capital program Victorian taxpayers were informed that the initial Level Crossings Removal Program would see $6.7 billion of their money spent on removing 50 level crossings.  In the 2019-20 state capital program, Victorians were informed that just under $4 billion had been spent on the project so far, and that the Andrews government would remove an additional 25 level crossings at an additional cost of $6.6 billion.

Victorians searching for an update on this project in the 2020-21 budget will find nothing other than the reassurance that "43 level crossings have been removed" on page 97 of Budget Paper 2.  There is no record of how much the government has spent on level crossings removals in the 2019-20 financial year, nor any indication of how much will be spent this financial year, or if the total cost of the project has increased.

The lack of a state capital program in this year's budget is undemocratic, but also unsurprising.  It is a continuation of the disdainful attitude the Andrews government has shown to mainstream Victorians throughout the coronavirus crisis.

Disregard for cabinet government and a lack of transparency led to the tragic death of almost 800 Victorians while millions more were placed under a harsh second lockdown.  The 2020-21 budget confirms that the Andrews government will not make up for its blunders — and that this anti-democratic approach to governing is the new normal.

Coronavirus: Shift To Virtual Courtrooms Leaves Justice System Ailing

The coronavirus restrictions passed in 2020 requiring courts to go virtual is an under-appreciated but serious threat to the traditions that have been built up over centuries to protect our freedoms and the rule of law.

The first and most striking change from ordinary court process came with the announcements, beginning in March, that jury trials in all states and territories will be suspended for various periods of time.

While for most states and territories waiving the right to a jury trial must be with the consent of the accused, the Australian Capital Territory passed legislation ― the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act 2020 to operate from March 16 to December 31 ― to allow courts to enforce judge-only trials irrespective of the wishes of the accused.

Last month, Victoria's parliament passed the COVID-19 Omnibus (Emergency Measures) Act 2020, briefly infamous for its planned powers to enforce virus containment measures and for giving designated authorised officers the ability to detain people upon suspicion they might break rules.  These were rejected.  But among more controversial provisions, it also amended the criminal court process to allow for judge-only trials if considered in the "interest of justice".

Currently, challenges to provisions allowing judges to order that a trial be conducted without a jury are yet to be considered by the High Court.  There has been, however, a number of cases before lower courts in various states and territories.  One of the most significant cases was R v Coleman, which came before the ACT Supreme Court in April.  In that case, Justice Michael Elkaim accepted a judge-only trial could be ordered despite the accused arguing that the order would not only be contrary to the Magna Carta, but also the ACT's own Human Rights Act.

The fact that emergency provisions to suspend jury trials have been accepted by the courts is a surprising violation of a pre-existing legal right captured in Article 39 of the Magna Carta that states "no freemen shall be taken or imprisoned except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land".

Jury trials have been a centuries-long practice to ensure the administration of justice is consistent with the expectations of the public or, as former High Court Justice Gerard Brennan put it, the jury trial is "the chief guardian of liberty under the law".  Even in 1215, Article 39 of the Magna Carta was merely a codification of an existing norm.  This norm was subsequently transported to Australia and restated in section 80 of the constitution, which guarantees a jury trial for indictable offences.

Suspension of the jury trial may be the most important change in court process, but is by no means the only one.  From March in-person court hearings that bring parties into the same room were replaced by the "virtual courtroom" in order to continue through the coronavirus restrictions.  This has serious consequences for the judiciary's capacity to achieve just outcomes.  Almost every aspect of the physical court and the processes have been developed over centuries with justice in mind.

Oral evidence gives a chance to test not just the facts but also the reliability of the witness.  The practice of bowing towards the coat of arms signals respect for the rule of law.  The garb anonymises and symbolises that the judge and lawyers are carrying out a function, rather than acting in a personal capacity.  But over video many of these practices have changed beyond recognition.  Facial expressions and gestures are low-resolution, delayed or out of shot.  The public listening in is not required to participate in customary shows of respect.  Lawyers are in chambers or home offices surrounded by personal paraphernalia.  The strength of traditions is that their value is not in their practicality ― it is in their symbolism.

Why The Liberals Need A Better Labor Than The One They've Got

It was 13 years ago last week Kevin Rudd as the then-Labor opposition leader announced ‘This sort of reckless spending must stop'.  He said it at the launch of the ALP campaign for the 2007 federal election in response to the claims the Coalition's election promises were extravagant "middle-class welfare".

Unkind critics of Rudd might say that was one of his few positive contributions to Australian public policy.  Rudd succeeded in changing the narrative of the economic debate in the country ― at least until the onset of the GFC.  Whether he actually ever was the "fiscal conservative" he made himself out to be will be is one of the mysteries of Rudd's prime ministership.  As a "fiscal conservative" Rudd won an easy election victory a fortnight later, and after a few months in The Lodge had a 71 percent approval rating.

It's a measure of how much Australia has changed in 13 years that today it's impossible to conceive of any opposition leader, or for that matter any prime minister or premier winning the popular vote by criticising, to use Rudd's words, their opponent's "irresponsible spending spree".

"Irresponsible spending sprees" aren't affordable at the best of times, but they were a lot more affordable in 2007 than they are now.  Then, Australian government gross debt to GDP was 9.7 percent ― now it is 45.1 percent.

The point is that opposition leaders can sometimes be useful.  And sometimes they can influence the terms of the debate.  Occasionally opposition leaders can be too successful in shaping the policy conversation.  John Hewson in 1993, and Bill Shorten in 2019 made themselves and their policies seemingly the central issues of the elections they were fighting.

If Albanese's performance is judged solely against the two-party preferred polls he's not doing poorly, for Labor is within a few percentage points of the Coalition.  But while the Coalition has to guard against arrogance, there's not a Liberal or National MP who doesn't believe, all things being equal, that when Albanese is confronted on the election trail by as formidable a campaigner as the Prime Minister, Labor's chances will wither and die.

The problem for Labor, and the problem for good policy-making in Australia is that at the moment Albanese is the wrong person for the job.  It's understandable why he does it, and it's because he thinks his constituency wants him to do it, but on nearly every major policy issue Albanese equates the government spending more money with "reform".

"Childcare" now appears to have become Labor's signature policy area and Albanese's "reform" amount to the area amounts to removing the $10,560 annual subsidy cap.

On Wednesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe gave a speech urging the Morrison government to undertake "big-signature moves" to boost productivity.

What Lowe said is not entirely wrong ― even if there's nothing easier than telling someone else what to do.  In this case though the Coalition is the wrong target.  It's the Labor Party that's the problem.  The sort of "big-signature moves" Lowe is talking about, and in particular industrial relations reform that Lowe singled out would most likely be completely opposed by Labor.

The Coalition hasn't yet recovered from the ALP/ACTU WorkChoices campaign against John Howard in 2007.  The paradox is that neither has Labor.  The ALP seems to be forever looking for that WorkChoices magic elixir to deliver it into government again.  That elixir is elusive, which explains why the ALP has lost the last three federal elections.

Albanese was a minister for six years and been in Parliament for nearly 25 years.  From time to time he's had some not-uninteresting ideas but it would be a stretch to describe him as a policy "reformer".  Albanese is best known for his remark:  "I like fighting Tories.  That's what I do".

It might be that what Labor needs, and indeed what Australia needs is a leader who likes fighting Tories a bit less and who likes policy a bit more.

After all, a few months after becoming prime minister, the last Labor leader to win government from opposition was described in The Sydney Morning Herald as proving "you can be a policy geek, and win".

Quarantine Diary

I am now halfway into my 14-day internment in the Howard Springs Quarantine Facility, located in the Top End, a mere 25km from Darwin.  The complex, complete with pool, theatre, tavern, and tennis courts, was built by a Japanese energy company in 2012.  After it completed the $55 billion gas plant on Darwin Harbour in 2018, it simply shut the gates, handed the keys to the NT government, and disappeared back to Japan with not so much as a sayonara.  Since then, the compound has become a very costly millstone around the government's neck.  That is, until the arrival of Coronavirus and the ensuing border closures.  Someone sitting at a desk in Darwin twigged that the mining camp could be reborn as a quarantine facility for displaced Australians.  Fifteen minutes into the journey from Darwin Airport to Howard Springs aboard a rustic bus which brought back happy memories of school excursions, we received the following text message:  "Dear Resident.  Please be aware that there has been an increase of snake sightings.  Take note of your surroundings."  Since having arrived here, I have heeded this warning, taking great note of my surroundings at all times.  Rather disappointingly, I am yet to sight a snake.  I have however, sighted a number of skinks, a pair of biblically-proportioned grasshoppers getting up to no good on the hot footpath and a large, screeching owl, which just after dusk, swooped down the middle of the road on the other side of the fence.  I am interned in the Orange Zone, cellblock L5 with my mother and two friends.  We each have our own room with a single bed, air-conditioning which cuts through the 40-degree heat and bright orange cupboards in which to store our few possessions.  The showers are extremely powerful, presumably designed to remove the grease from very dirty miners after a long day on the job.  Police patrol the area a few times a day with a hello and a friendly wave.  What a contrast to Victoria that is.  The law here dictates that as long as you are on your veranda, you can be gloriously muzzle free.  All other times require the wearing of mask, otherwise you are slapped with a whopping $5,000 fine.  We are officially permitted 40 minutes of "yard" time per day, but this is not altogether adhered to.  If you complete a full circuit of the Orange Zone's footpaths which loop around the cabins, you can cover a good 2kms.

Time "inside" is turning out to be considerably easier than expected.  Having spent the last nine months in Melbourne, I am used to a complete loss of freedom, mandatory mask wearing and oppressive police enforcement, neatly topped off with disproportionate fines.  I suppose that this conditioning is one thing I can thank Dan Andrews for.  Mealtimes are sometimes a highlight, but most often a lowlight.  A furtive knock on the door, or sound of a large trolley rumbling by, indicates that our food has arrived, and we emerge from our rooms to snatch up the morning's offerings.  The same routine for lunch, which usually arrives while we are still recovering from the assaults of the breakfast baked beans, omelette, and sausage.  Dinner is anybody's guess, and we are becoming very adept at keeping edible lunch salads for when the kitchen staff have decided to resort to inedible meat loaf or grey slices of lamb for the evening meal.  We have been so very fortunate with our neighbours.  On Day Two, we discovered that the cabins next to ours are inhabited by musicians Joe Camilleri and Claude Carranza.  They are members of the Australian band The Black Sorrows and are on their way to tour New South Wales and South Australiaa.  It took a while to coax them out of their rooms to practise on their veranda within earshot of others, but after a few nights, they came alive again after months of being isolated from each other.  Soon, practice turned into a full show complete with banter for a highly appreciative, and in the truest sense of the word, captive audience.  Their music filled the camp with joy.  Gradually, the nightly concerts began to attract more and more residents of the Orange Zone, until one night, the set went on just a little bit too long and the crowd became just a little bit too big.  The police shut the whole thing down.  Joe told us afterwards that they had not really wanted to, but that they had a job to do.  Such is life.

Unsurprisingly, most people here are refugees from Victoria.  After swapping stories, I realised to my horror that we had only just made it out.  At Tullamarine airport, the government had recruited a number of officious-looking women, given them hi-vis jackets, clipboards, pens and seemingly untrammelled power.  They were waiting for us at airport security, doing their utmost to prevent anyone from leaving.  Some passengers were given formal cautions but allowed through, trembling at the treatment they had received on the way.  Others were unable to produce the correct documentation and were summarily sent back home.  One or two made it onto the plane, only to be exposed as non-compliant, and were forcibly disembarked, along with their luggage.  Thankfully we managed to talk our way through without having to show any paperwork.  We didn't even know that it would be required.  Everyone I have chatted with could not stand another minute of Dan Andrews' dictatorship, the police state he has created and the economic and social devastation he has wrought on the place.  The distrust and loathing are palpable.  A great many families have packed up their belongings and are seeking a new life in other states.  The atmosphere, however, is one of relief offset by cheerfulness and optimism because we are once again masters of our own destiny.  Everyone has decided to take back control of their lives from unelected bureaucrats, "experts" and government overreach.  Many say that they will only return once Andrews is no longer in power because they have no faith that he will not hesitate to lock them up again as soon as there is a resurgence of the virus.  It will be very interesting to see the migration statistics when they are released in December.  I suspect that this is just the beginning of the exodus from Victoria.

Sorry, ABC, We Can See Your Bias

It is revealing that in attempting to demonstrate that the ABC is not biased against the views of mainstream Australians, ABC board member Joseph Gersh, writing in The Australian on Tuesday, used as proof the composition of the panel on the ABC's premiere discussion and current affairs program, Q&A.

He described Paul Kelly and Malcolm Turnbull as conservative, which is false.  They would not describe themselves as such.  They would be more accurately termed small-l liberal.

What Gersh did not mention was that the other three panel members were former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr, left-wing activist Jan Fran and left-wing academic Jenny Hocking, not to mention left-wing host Hamish Macdonald.  Not a single conservative among them.  (At most maybe one of those six might be an occasional Coalition voter.)  The point of mentioning this is that last week's display is representative of the bias the ABC presents daily.

This, after seven years of Coalition government, reveals the truth of Gersh's comment that many on the right side of politics are realising the ABC cannot be reformed.

Throughout history I have always supported more freedom of speech and more diversity in the media.  A media organisation owned and operated by the government that every taxpayer is forced to fund is incompatible with a free society.  I support the continued existence of the ABC, but not one that is controlled by government and funded by taxpayers.

If the ABC is as necessary, popular and trusted as Gersh makes it out to be, then ABC staff have nothing to fear in operating a successful media business in the private media market.  A subscription service, as is being proposed for the BBC in Britain, is a sensible policy the government should adopt.

His assertion that "calls for the abolition or privatisation of the ABC (essentially the same thing) are a thought bubble for which there is no constituency on either side of politics" ignores the fact ABC privatisation motions have succeeded at many Liberal Party branches, including at federal council as recently as 2018.  With Labor appearing as out of touch with mainstream Australia as the ABC, it is an entirely reasonable proposition that the Coalition could achieve a workable Senate after the next federal election.  Perhaps this reality is why the ABC has been so quick to describe an entirely achievable mainstream policy of ABC reform as lacking support.

However, Gersh's assertion that "the ABC remains Australia's most trusted source of news and current affairs" is inconsistent with the views of mainstream Australians, with recent polling commissioned finding less than one-third of Australians believe the ABC reflects the views of ordinary Australians.

As commentator Gerard Henderson has noted, the ABC is "a conservative-free zone" without one conservative presenter, producer or editor on any of its prominent television, radio, or online outlets.

There is perhaps no better example of the bias of the ABC than the uncritical platform given to former prime minister Kevin Rudd's revenge petition for a "Murdoch royal commission" to examine Australia's media market.

In just over one month since the petition was launched, the ABC across all of its platforms has mentioned "Murdoch" and the petition 3595 times.  That is not the ABC providing news coverage;  it is the ABC proving its obsession with its own ideological agenda.

The ABC's preoccupation with its left-wing progressive world view is revealed in its coverage of almost every policy issue.  A 2014 analysis by iSentia of the ABC's news coverage found that 52 per cent of coverage of renewable energy was favourable, in comparison to 12.1 per cent for coal-seam gas and 15.9 per cent for coalmining.  The systemic nature of bias at the ABC demonstrates that only structural change will resolve the problems.

It is revealing that the most passionate defenders of the ABC are the Greens because it uncritically presents their world view while mainstream Australians pay for it.  While Rudd's petition has attracted more than 500,000 signatures, that is still only one-third of the Greens' Senate vote in Australia.

Rudd's petition has achieved some success though.  The Greens were successful is launching a Senate inquiry into "the state of media diversity, independence and reliability in Australia and the impact that this has on public interest journalism and democracy".

Calls for a royal commission come from an elitist mindset resident in many of our institutions, universities and among ABC staff, that the left-wing world view is so moral and so perfect that everyone who holds a different opinion must be ill informed.  A healthy democracy is one in which the media makes life difficult for the government.  A society in which the government makes life difficult for the media is inherently dangerous.

The ABC says it wants diversity, but the most important diversity is diversity of opinion.  This is the diversity chairwoman Ita Buttrose refuses to accept.  She told the ABC last year, "I certainly hadn't thought that Andrew Bolt would be a great fit for the ABC."  That is a strange admission given Bolt is Australia's most read journalist.

The debate on ABC reform and privatisation is one worth having.  Except Australia's elite has lost the ability to debate, seeking only to censor and control viewpoints such as those you'll find in this newspaper.

Their ABC Must Be Worried

Joe Gersh ― ABC board member ― has an op-ed in The Australian this morning.

Chris Kenny has been a vigorous critic of the ABC while previously "resisting calls for its privatisation or abolition", but after last week's Four Corners, Media Watch and Q&A he has asserted that it now "is beyond redemption".

True ― Chris Kenny has long been a critic of the ABC.  But his argument ― as is many journalists ― has been that the ABC needs to have conservative voices.  To my mind that criticism is that the ABC should employ him.

This follows similar calls from Richard J. Wood and other respected commentators.

To be clear, my recommendation for the ABC is:  Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function.  Moving along.

I cannot agree.  I declare my centre-right bias;  a long-time reader of The Australian, I was appointed to the ABC board by Turnbull government communications minister Mitch Fifield.

Ah Mitch.  Lovely guy.

The ABC is frequently criticised and sometimes for good reason.  Even the most passionate friend of the ABC could not argue that Aunty is beyond criticism.

… and yet.  Here we are.

Calls for the abolition or privatisation of the ABC (essentially the same thing) are a thought bubble for which there is no constituency on either side of politics.

Fake news!  The Liberal Party adopted a platform of privatising the ABC after the publication of Chris Berg and Sinclair Davidson's book.  Mitch Fifield ― yes that same Mitch ― immediately stated that privatisation of the ABC was not government policy.  This demonstrates the extent of Liberal politician capture ― they simply refuse to implement the policies of their own party.

Each time it is repeated, it damages the ABC's quest for the long-term, stable funding it needs and that underpins its independence.

More fake news!  The ABC has stable funding of about $900 million each year for operational expenses.  Then about another $120 million or so for transmission.  That funding is paid upfront by the government irrespective of whether anyone actually consumes ABC content.  Unlike every other media organisation, the ABC does not have to work for a living;  the food is on the table when they get there.

It may irritate the critics, but the ABC remains Australia's most trusted source of news and current affairs.

Some polling company told them that.  Their viewer numbers suggest otherwise.

Who but the ABC can we rely on for emergency broadcasting, which attracted universal appreciation yet again in the most recent bushfires?  Likewise with coronavirus.

There is no reason why taxpayers should pay $900 million for emergency broadcasting ― that function could be tendered out for a lot less.

Add to the list rural and regional Australia, Australian drama, comedy, children's shows, women's sport, music, Indigenous issues and the arts.

Ah yes.  Comedy.  The only contribution the ABC makes is to rebroadcast quality BBC shows.

Unsurprisingly, the ABC's political coverage attracts the most controversy.  But how can it be consistent with liberal values to call for the ABC to be defunded every time a controversial story is aired?

We need to get away from this notion of judging the ABC by small-l liberal values.  The ABC does not practice small-l liberalism.  The ABC is infested by extremist left-wing progressives who use small-l liberalism as camouflage to destroy our way of life and civilisation.  All their "controversial" stories are one-sided.

Cancel culture, which conservative columnists abhor, is just as absurd when applied to the ABC.

We don't want to cancel the ABC, we just don't want to pay for it.

I do not share in the hysteria about Rupert Murdoch.  News Corp, in my view, plays a valuable role, and if more media diversity is sought (and it should be) it can be achieved by encouraging as broad a range of competing voices as possible, including those that may require some taxpayer support.

Good to hear ― yet some many individuals who work for an organisation where Gersh is on the board use organisation time and resources to bag Rupert Murdoch.  Has he told them that News Corp plays a valuable role?

But I do find it hypocritical when journalists and commentators conflate issues of competi­tion with issues of bias.  News Corp is well able to deal with its commercial interests.

True ― News Corp is not above rent-seeking.  Their campaign against FaceBook and Google has been disgraceful.

Concerns about balance at the ABC, on the other hand, are an entirely legitimate issue for debate and the views expressed in the columns of this newspaper should be heard;  as should the views of others that may robustly differ.

Excellent advice ― yet the ABC doesn't seem to adopt that sort of approach.

The ABC is taxpayer funded, it does not accept advertising, and therefore it is not a commercial rival.  Nonetheless, it competes for eyeballs and clicks.  Some resent this.

A tad disingenuous.  Media companies are platforms ― they have to compete on two fronts;  for paying customers (advertisers) and consumer attention (eyeballs).  The ABC competes on neither front.

Freed of the obligation to satisfy advertisers or a proprietor, the ABC is able to do things others cannot do;  things that may not have a commercial return but that have profound civic benefit.

I'm going to have to break up that sentence into three parts.

Freed of the obligation to satisfy advertisers or a proprietor

As I said, the ABC does not compete on any margin.  This is the first problem.

the ABC is able to do things others cannot do

That is the second problem.

things that may not have a commercial return but that have profound civic benefit.

For example?

The case for public broadcasting in today's disrupted media environment and the era of "fake news" is stronger than ever.

Well?  Let's hear it then.  That is simply an unsubstantiated comment.  A large proportion of the Australian population thinks the ABC is a source of fake news.

I accept that some people were uncomfortable with Four Corners on Monday night last week.

So what is he doing about it?

Four Corners often does that.

So, um, nothing.

By its nature, long-form investigative journalism can make those under investigation feel exposed.

I can only imagine the horror George Pell must have felt.  A tad more than "exposed".

That goes with the territory.  To demand intervention by the ABC board is misconceived.

Yep.  Doing nothing.  I suspect being an ABC board member comes with a salary and they put on a nice lunch.  Actual corporate governance?  Not so much.

The role of the board is to ensure that the ABC conforms to its charter, and it does so via its editorial policies as explained clearly by ABC managing director David Anderson at Senate estimates last week in an extraordinary exchange in which he was asked to justify a program that had not yet gone to air.

Here is another sentence I'm going to have break up.

The role of the board is to ensure that the ABC conforms to its charter

Any time you're ready …

and it does so via its editorial policies as explained clearly by ABC managing director David Anderson

Perhaps an example could clarify our understanding …

at Senate estimates last week in an extraordinary exchange in which he was asked to justify a program that had not yet gone to air.

How dare those pesky politicians ask questions?  Was David Anderson feeling exposed?  Estimates often does that.

Critics often portray the ABC as a "conservative-free zone".

Fact Check:  True.

Yet Kenny's greatest criticism of Q&A was the heated exchange between Malcolm Turnbull and Paul Kelly, two leading, respected men I would describe as conservatives.

Two guests on a show?  That covers that particular criticism?  Anyway, nobody serious would describe either Paul Kelly or Malcolm Turnbull as being "conservative".  They are both small-l liberals.

Agree with either, or neither, but what sin has the ABC committed in putting these important issues — climate change and media diversity — to air?

"Media diversity" is ABC code for that evil monopolist Rupert Murdoch and how they ― the ABC ― need even more money for nothing from the taxpayer.

Kenny's throwaway line, "Sorry Ita, we had high hopes for you", apart from being inappropriate and patronising, fails to appreciate some of the bold and strategic thinking adopted under the leadership of Ita Buttrose and Anderson during a time of financial challenge.

Chris Kenny is a nice guy.  I had no expectation that Ita Buttrose would make any impression on the ABC.  Nobody else ever has.

This board has adopted a five-year plan to decentralise the ABC.  Three-quarters of content-makers will be outside Ultimo headquarters by 2025 and enhanced recruiting guidance will encourage greater diversity on and off air.

Oh dear god.  There will be even less managerial oversight than there currently is.  Define "diversity".

These are not "woke" words.

"I am not a racist, but … ".  Seriously?

They represent a fundamental shift to make the ABC more representative of today's Australia.

Like actual Liberal voters?  Or net taxpayers?  Patriots?  You know, people who actually love Australia.  Who take pride in the nation.  Is the ABC going to employ those people?  They sure as hell can't seem to find any for the Q&A audience, how are they going to find any to employ?

People in different parts of the country and from different cultures and backgrounds see issues differently.

Ah yes.  Post-modernism.  There are no facts, only social constructs.

In a measured and thoughtful way, this plan addresses the "unconscious bias" at the ABC that Buttrose identified early in her tenure.

Ha!  The bias is "unconscious".  Hmmmmm, no.

The ABC does not require redemption;  it accepts constructive criticism but needs support and stable funding.

Here is the thing:  The ABC cannot be redeemed.  It does not take on, or even ever recognise, constructive criticism.  It has stable funding already.  That is the problem.

Believers in a robust media would benefit from dial­ling down threats to its funding and continuity.

ABC Delenda Est.

Will The Australian Way Of Life Be A Long-Term Coronavirus Victim?

COVID-19 has consumed the public's attention for almost six months, but the economic crisis caused by devastating lockdowns has started to shed light on a nefarious threat to the Australian way of life.

Across a number of measures, from home ownership to employment, young Australians have seen a decline to their economic and social wellbeing in recent decades.  These declines have been compounded by the government-imposed lockdowns introduced in response to the coronavirus, which have disproportionately impacted young Australians.

As we look towards the economic recovery, there is a risk that a generation of young people will be the propertyless serfs of our feudal future.

This threat has been gaining traction for decades and addressing it must be a priority of policymakers.  There are several deep economic, social, and moral issues posed by the emergence of a class of propertyless serfs.  From a moral perspective, there is a growing number of Australians who have been excluded from the way of life that has made this country so great, namely access to the dignity of work, reward for effort, homeownership, and the ability to start and run a business.  From a practical economic perspective, a gaping hole in employment opportunities, upwards mobility, and wealth creation will emerge from the simple fact that it is near impossible for the small businesses of the future to be started when their potential owners do not own any assets.

Asset ownership is central to the Australian way of life and to the economic prosperity and stable democracy that Australians have traditionally enjoyed.  Business ownership provides an egalitarian ladder to economic prosperity;  regardless of education or wealth, Australians can start a small café or become a carpenter.  Additionally, small businesses provide owners and employees with a tangible stake in the economy and their local community, which in turn lead to an interest in seeing that community and economy governed in a sensible, democratic manner.  The same is true of homeownership, which in addition to providing a place to live and financial security throughout life and into retirement provides a sense of community and place.

Australia has historically been a nation of homeowners.  Homeownership underpins the Australian way of life by providing a stake in our system of capitalist, liberal democracy.  By giving people a tangible interest in that system, homeownership provides stability and prosperity.  As former prime minister Robert Menzies explained in his 'Forgotten People' speech, "the home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety;  it is the indispensable condition of continuity;  its health determines the health of society as a whole."

Similarly, Sir Albert Arthur Dunstan, the 33rd premier of Victoria, explained in 1943 that homeownership is a "symbol of achievement, purpose, industry and thrift", and that the homeowner "has a stake in the country, and that he has something worth working for, living for, fighting for".

However, while a full 54% of Australians born in 1947-51 were homeowners by between the ages of 25 and 29 years old, today only 37% of those born between 1987 and 1991 became homeowners upon reaching the same age bracket.

And within the portion of households that own a household, a concerning divide is emerging.  In 2013-14, 67% of households owned the home they lived in.  This was comprised of 53% who owned only the house they lived in, and 13% who owned multiple houses.  By 2017-18, these figures were 50% and 16%, respectively, meaning that while the portion of households that owns one house is declining, the portion that owns multiple houses is increasing.

This is a dangerous trend which gets to the heart of how the structure of the Australian economy has changed over the past 40 years or so.  While mainstream Australians of old could afford to buy a house, start a family, and start a business, the chances that young Australians today will ever have these opportunities are growing slim.

The political class that has overseen this structural shift must pay attention.  A generation of propertyless serfs who do not own anything will not support a system based on property rights and ownership.  This can be understood as a lack of 'skin in the game', to use Nassim Nicholas Taleb's thesis:  young Australians are being denied the opportunity to develop some 'skin' in the 'game' of our robust, capitalist liberal democracy.

This poses a serious moral issue in that we are at risk of having a generation of disenfranchised renters that undermine the health of society.  Additionally, it risks entrenching intergenerational wealth inequality and creating a structurally inegalitarian economy, as this generation will have no equity to draw on when starting the businesses of the future.  Small business ownership is another institution central to the Australian way of life which provides a means for upwards mobility.

Some may argue that businesses of the future will be less capital-intensive and that a generation of renters will still be able to establish businesses and move up the income and wealth ladders.  Following the thesis set out by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake in Capitalism without Capital, they may argue that the costs of establishing a technology start-up are often miniscule, requiring only the ingenuity of the founder and a laptop.

While appealing, this will not be the case.  Australia rode the sheep's back and now rides in the bed of a Caterpillar 797F.  It will always be essential that entrepreneurial Australians can draw on a stock of assets to start a new business, and if recent history is anything to go by, capital intensive businesses in the resources industry, along with those that support it, will be essential.

Besides, the alternative is a return to the feudalism of the past where only an entrenched oligarchy has the means to start businesses.  Ensuring widespread asset ownership is essential to preventing the reordering of Australian society along the highly structured order of the feudal pyramid, where there is no room for a prosperous middle class, but plenty for destitute serfs.

A generation of Australians are at risk of never obtaining this stake in their country, of never obtaining this culmination of achievement, purpose, industry and thrift.  Without the home to live, to work and to fight for, what will this generation of serfs have?

Labor Would Keep Us Handcuffed To The Paris Climate Deal

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus's comment yesterday that Joel Fitzgibbon's opinions on climate change represented the views of "only a handful" of people within the Labor Party is precisely what someone representing the bayside suburbs of Melbourne would say.

And Anthony Albanese's recommitment to Labor's net-zero emissions by 2050 mandate is exactly the type of policy someone from inner-city Sydney would think Australia needs in the middle of a recession.

But rather than seizing on the opportunity to develop an energy and climate policy focused on reliability, affordability and jobs, Coalition governments at the federal and state level continue with their own shortsighted policies.

The federal government remains committed to handcuffing Australian industry and workers to the Paris Agreement, which has imposed on Australia the deepest cuts to emissions on a per capita basis anywhere in the world.

This is despite the fact the agreement permits the single largest emitter, China, to increase its emissions without constraint.

Modelling I prepared in 2018 estimated that the Paris Agreement would cause the cost of generating electricity in Australia to increase by $52bn from 2018 to 2030, which is the equivalent to the cost of building 22 new hospitals.

As foolish as this is, NSW Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean's proposed energy electricity infrastructure roadmap is promising to go further by handing out billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidise the generation of 12 gigawatts of renewable energy and 2GW of storage.

Even Kean acknowledges the plan will create only about 900 jobs a year on average across the next decade.  That compares to the 315,000 workers in NSW employed in the mining and manufacturing sectors whose jobs would be put at terminal risk by the proposal.  Kean's argument that his plan will put downward pressure on electricity prices is unscientific and inconsistent with the best available evidence.

Since 2000, residential electricity prices across Australia have risen 220 per cent as the share of renewables on the national energy grid have increased from 8 per cent to 20 per cent.  This means that for every one percentage point increase to renewables on the grid, electricity prices have increased by 18 per cent.

Kean also said NSW needed to replace four of the state's five coal-fired power stations during the next 15 years.  But the best thing to replace coal with is more coal because it is cheaper, reliable and creates more jobs than wind, solar, and hydro.

The left and its cheerleaders at the ABC, the universities and big corporations have seized on Joe Biden's yet to be officially confirmed accession to the White House to reignite decades' old climate wars.  Yet in doing so they have misread the key result of the US presidential election, which is that the future is Florida, not California.

President Donald Trump easily won Florida with its large Hispanic and Latino population by about four percentage points, despite the sunshine state usually being a toss-up.

To take another example, Trump won Zapata County, which sits on the Texas-Mexico border and has 85 per cent Hispanic or Latino population, by more than five percentage points.  In 2016, Zapata went for Hillary Clinton by a 33-point margin.

On a national basis the only demographic Trump went backwards on was white men;  he made gains with African-Americans, Latinos, women and Hispanics.

The US election shows that the trajectory of Western democracies, including Australia, is towards the aspirations of multiracial, multiethnic, working and middle-class voters who reject divisive identity politics, celebrate their nation, along with its values and history and freedom, and believe all work — whether in a coalmine or as hairdresser — has dignity and meaning.

This is why Fitzgibbon is so right when he said "We (Labor) also need to talk to aspiration — those coalminers on $150,000, $200,000 a year, who have big mortgages but have worked hard, and made big decisions on behalf of their family, who can't afford to have politicians specifically close down their industries."

But it has been years since Labor has spoken to workers and the Australian heartland.  Instead, the result of Labor's policies, such as mass migration, emissions reduction, internationalism, higher taxes, more regulation and mandatory superannuation have undermined the jobs, wages and opportunities of working and middle-class Australians.

Labor's propagation of identity politics, support for an Indigenous-only body to advise parliament and attacks on freedom of speech and religion have divided Australians at a time we should unite around our shared values.

Australia might not be Florida — yet — but a realignment is coming, whether the major parties are ready for it or not.

How Leftists Are Gaslighting Australia With Their Murdoch Madness

Kevin Rudd's claim that the Murdoch media is a "cancer on democracy" is gaslighting the Australian people.

Last week a Rudd-initiated petition was submitted to the House of Representatives calling for a Royal Commission into "the strength and diversity of Australian news media".  In case anyone was in any doubt over what that meant, Rudd called the Murdoch media a "cancer on democracy" when announcing the petition on Twitter last month.  The petition had over 500,000 signatures including Malcolm Turnbull's.

Rupert Murdoch owns a lot of real estate in the real world, but surely not as much as he occupies in the heads of the Australian left.  In keeping with many on the left's preference for character smear over debate, anyone straying remotely from the orthodoxy on climate change, the economy, or COVID-19 policy is accused of being an agent of the #Murdochcracy.

Of course, Rudd's beef with Murdoch isn't about democracy at all.  Rudd's toys have come out of the cot because large swathes of the Australian population still stubbornly refuse to sign up to many of the modern left's ideological mutations.

Many don't seem to think climate change warrants impoverishing their children.  Or they quite like the idea that people be judged on their merits rather than their gender or race.  It seems to not have occurred to Rudd and Turnbull that people may have legitimate reasons for these positions that have nothing to do with a New York almost-nonagenarian playing underwater 8D backgammon with our democracy.

But having seen the city I love destroyed by the Andrews government in the last eight months, what stands out about Rudd's claim is its stunning audacity.  Because we may never know the full depths of the corruption, incompetence and lies of the Andrews government in 2020, but we wouldn't have got within a bull's roar without the News Corp journalists.

Maybe it's just my Murdoch-addled brain speaking here, but as the Andrews government catastrophically mishandled almost every aspect of the pandemic ― and attempted to victim-blame the Victorian people ― it's been the likes of Rachel Baxendale, Gabriella Power, and Andrea Crothers that have held them to account.

And of course, in about five minutes the peerless Peta Credlin uncovered more malfeasance than the Coate Inquiry into hotel quarantine was able to over a period of months.

At a time when simultaneously the government was making possibly the worst public policy mistakes in Australian history, wielding unprecedented power, and parliament was greatly restricted, a handful of journalists in Andrews' press conferences provided one of the few accountability checks the Victorian government faced.

The fact that even this was characterised by many as a Murdoch plot is extraordinary ― as if a political leader having to answer questions they'd rather not is some kind of assault on democracy (as opposed to being the opposite).

Besides, if Andrews was that worried about the News Corp journalists being mean to him, perhaps he could've reconsidered the necessity of daily Castro-length press conferences throughout a crisis that for all its horror has at this point, fortunately, claimed fewer lives than Australia's annual road toll.

The performance of the News Corp journalists in these press conferences meant something.  Politics is not a spectator sport for Victorians anymore.  In the dark winter months as despair settled over Melbourne, it meant something that some journalists were able to extract a measure of accountability over what the government was doing to us.

I say "some journalists" because of the government-funded elephant in the room.  Too often the ABC shamefully ran interference for the government as the bodies piled up, businesses were sent to the wall and families were stretched to breaking point.

Victorians should never forget their betrayal.

And to make the most painfully obvious of points, Rudd and Turnbull may not like the Murdoch media, but they don't have to pay for it.  A poll commissioned in February found that only 32% of people thought the ABC represented the views of ordinary Australians.  The rest of us have to pay for the ABC so that they can tell us how terrible we are.

In short, Rudd thinks an independent media organisation that people can decide for themselves if they wish to consume is "a cancer on democracy".  But the state media organisation that we are forced to pay for, covered for a tyrannical government in Victoria, and uses the power of the state to tell us how wrong most of us are, is hailed as independent, objective, and balanced.

I think this is what the signatories of the anti-Murdoch petition would call gaslighting.

America Is Losing Its Wall Against The Authoritarians

A few days ago Alexander Downer wrote on these pages that if he were American he would have voted for Donald Trump ― but through gritted teeth.

My view is different from Downer.  I would have voted for Trump eagerly and enthusiastically.  You could argue that in 2016 there were arguments for both Clinton and Trump.  Not this time.  In 2020, the case for Trump was overwhelming ― although based on the likely election result, it looks like a majority of the American electorate didn't have quite the same assessment.

Usually when people complain about Trump's personality it's because they refuse to acknowledge the success of his policies.  In October last year, unemployment in the United States was at its lowest level in 50 years.  Trump did more for the job opportunities and economic empowerment of minorities in America than any president since Reagan.  At this election, it appears Trump won a greater share of the minority vote than any previous Republican.

Critics complain about Trump's rhetoric on China but they never explain what they would do differently in the face of an authoritarian and imperialist power.

The suggestion that Trump is some sort of vandal of constitutional propriety is a meme of a media that refuses to countenance that the Democrats might mean what they say and attempt to stack the US Supreme Court.

However, the main reason why I'd have voted for Trump was not because of economics, it was because of cultural values.  Trump offered an alternative to the ideology that started on college campuses and is now engulfing the country that defines individuals according to their race, that regards the democratic political process as a tool of oppression, and uses violence to shut down freedom of speech.

American historian Anne Applebaum in a thoughtful article a week ago in The Atlantic titled 'The Answer to Extremism Isn't More Extremism' asked why 'educated conservatives', who knew Trump's faults would still vote for him.  As she correctly noted, many conservatives, 'educated' or not, are deeply concerned by intellectual trends such as 'an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty'.

Many conservatives believed that re-electing Trump while not a complete answer to all of this, would have been a start.

According to Applebaum:  "Anyone who actually cares about academic freedom, or the future of objective reporting, or the ideas behind the statues built to honor American democrats in the country's public squares, must hope that Trump loses.  If he win a second term, extremism on the left will not be stopped."

As one of the world's leading historians of authoritarianism and communism, it's perplexing that Applebaum would advocate a form of cultural appeasement.

"I hope that educated conservatives think hard about what will happen if Biden's moderate-left campaign fails:  It is extremely unlike that its adherents and spokespeople will shrug their shoulders and decide that, yes, Trump is right after all.  They are much more likely to move further to the extremes.  Americans will witness the radicalization of the Democratic Party, as well as the radicalization of the powerful and influential intellectual, academic, and cultural left, in a manner that we have never before seen."

It's interesting to speculate whether before the election there was anyone in America urging 'educated progressives' to vote for Trump to avoid the radicalisation of the Republican Party and the intellectual, academic, and cultural right.  Probably not.

Yet for all the potential consequences Applebaum describes of a Trump victory, 68 million Americans nevertheless voted for him;  72 million Americans voted for Biden.

Many commentators before and now after the election have spoken about how deeply divided is America.  That's true.

But many 'educated conservatives' would respond that a country or a community or a family is only as divided as it wants to be.

An 'educated conservative' who voted for Donald Trump would ask what side of politics it was sowing the seeds of division.

The interest of an Australian in the culture wars of America's universities, sports fields, and boardrooms is that inevitably what begins in Berkeley, California ends up in Ultimo, Sydney.

Bloated Super Sector Sucking Up Workers' Wealth

The Morrison government has a key decision to make before the end of this financial year:  does it stand with mainstream Australians who have suffered through the lockdown-induced recession, or with the financial sector and industry super elites that are seeking to line their pockets further at the expense of working people?

The compulsory superannuation contribution rate is legislated to rise from 9.5 per cent to 10 per cent next July and steadily increase to 12 per cent five years later.  In the wake of the largest economic shock in decades, and the sharpest spike in unemployment and underemployment, increasing the super rate will come at the expense of working people who are already struggling with a rising cost of living.

By scrapping the legislated increase in the super contribution rate, the Morrison government will demonstrate that it prioritises the interests of mainstream Australians above those in the bloated superannuation industry.

There is a misconception that employers pay superannuation contributions.  The legal incidence of contributions falls on employers, but it is workers who must pay them through lower wages.

This used to be an uncontested point.  Compulsory super was first introduced after Paul Keating as treasurer agreed with the ACTU that it would allow for wage increases without creating inflationary pressures.  In a speech in 2007 Keating reaffirmed the point that super was paid by employees:  "The cost of superannuation was never borne by employers.  It was absorbed into the overall wage cost … In other words, had employers not paid nine percentage points of wages, as superannuation contributions, they would have paid it in cash as wages."

In 2010, in a speech after the Labor government legislated to increase the contribution rate, Bill Shorten as assistant treasurer said:  "It's wages, not profits, that will fund super increases in the next few years.  Wages are the seedbed of the whole operation."

Keating and Shorten have since sung from different song sheets, arguing that increasing the contribution rate will not come at the expense of wages.

But their change of tune does not alter the fact super is paid by workers through lower wages, which is the agreed wisdom of the Parliamentary Budget Office, the Grattan Institute, a range of academic studies and the Rudd government-commissioned Henry tax review.

Compulsory super was designed to ensure that Australians could retire in comfort without putting too much strain on government pensions.  In reality, it prevents a decent working-life standard of living and often diminishes the ability of Australians to buy a home and raise a family.  The home ownership rate declined from 71 per cent in 1994-95 to 66 per cent in 2017-18.

In the meantime, things could not be better for the financial services industry with a guaranteed and growing revenue source from super fees.  Before compulsory super was introduced, the financial services industry represented 2.4 per cent of the economy.  Now it's 6.5 per cent.

The forced savings scheme has allowed the financial services sector to flourish as it enjoys a never-ending transfer of wealth from working Australians.  Meanwhile, working people struggle as private sector wage growth has been below its long-run average for the past decade as the cost of living increases.

The government should provide a message of hope and aspiration for Australians as they emerge from the lockdown recession.  This means making the case for individuals and families keeping more of their wages, rather than seeing more siphoned off into the accounts of the elites running super funds.  It also means making the case for liberal values rather than ac­qui­escing to the technocratic mantra that the government must force people to save for their own good.  Australians should be able to make their own decisions about how they spend or save;  they are best placed to make the right decision.

According to statistics from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, more than 3.3 million Australians have withdrawn an average of $7400 from their super under the COVID-19 early release scheme.  This indicates that young people are withdrawing their entire super balance and are voting with their feet;  they believe that they are better placed to manage this money than the super funds to which it was previously sacrificed.

The budget contained some sensible reforms of the super system, but there is still a long way to go in ensuring that it works in favour of mainstream Australians.  For example, the $450 a month earnings threshold after which contributions must be made has not increased since compulsory super was introduced in 1992, meaning people earning about half as much in real terms today are forced to make contributions to their retirement fund.

For most working Australians, the super system does not serve them well.  Forcing them to throw more money at it will do more harm than good.

A Warning From Australia: Boris Johnson's Cure Is Worse Than The Disease

Victoria has become famous for using lockdowns to 'defeat coronavirus'.  Dr Anthony Fauci mentioned Australia as a country that did “quite well”.  We haven't defeated the virus.  The virus is at bay but the only thing truly defeated is Victoria and Victorians.

The state last week got out of its second lockdown of the year.  Just like you were told yours will only last one month, we were told it would last six weeks.  It lasted 112 days.

Like Brits are about to re-experience, all non-essential retail and hospitality have been closed, businesses have been shuttered and we have been cut off from friends and family.  At the lockdown's peak we were only allowed out of our homes for one hour a day between 5am and 9pm.

Cases have come down, but what has exploded is a mental health and economic crisis that will take this state decades to recover from.

Melbourne has been declared the world's most liveable city six out of the last seven years by the Economist Intelligence Unit.  Now look at what 112 days of lockdown has done to this city and the state.

Victoria lost more than 1,000 jobs a day through this second lockdown.  Since lockdown strategies began in March, 696,000 jobs have been destroyed in Victoria, according to my research.  Given that 3.3 million Victorians are employed, those job losses are equivalent to 21% of the Victorian workforce.

Streets that once boasted the country's best culture and nightlife are empty.  Shops that displayed cutting-edge fashion, antique goods or any matter of personality now simply hang 'For Lease' signs.

The mental health figures are just as concerning.  Victorians have been cut off from so many things that make life worth living these 112 days.  We have been banned from seeing friends who live further than five kilometres away from us (it's now 'only' 25 kilometres), we could not visit family or friends in their homes, or walk in groups of more than two ― and even then only once per day.  The effects have been devastating.

In the last two months calls to the mental health support hotline Beyond Blue are 77% higher in Victoria than in the rest of the country.  Most disturbing, hospitalisations for attempted suicides are up 6% from last year ― and for those aged 17 and under the increase is 31.3%.

Now that the state is finally starting to take steps towards opening up, a new fear has come forward:  the deep fear that we will return to lockdown again.

This is a fear we share.  Boris Johnson promised that Britain would never return to lockdown ― that promise is now broken.  He has promised this new lockdown is only for a month, but how can Britons believe that now?

Victoria's freedom relies on our state's contract tracing team, whose incompetence meant the government did not feel it was safe to ease restrictions even when daily new cases was as low as seven per day.  There will be another outbreak in the state, it is inevitable.  If the team fails, we go back to lockdown.

Our two countries are destined to spiral in and out of lockdown until a vaccine arrives, always fearful that at any time the government can take away our livelihoods.

This is the warning from Victoria.  This state is a shell of the vibrant place it was, and its people live in constant fear.  Britain is about to follow the same path.

Johnson is following this path as he believes that lockdown is the only remaining weapon he has against this virus.  But it isn't.

It's not even the best one.  Dr David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation's Special Envoy on Covid-19, said to Andrew Neil last month:  “We really do appeal to all world leaders:  stop using lockdown as your primary control method.”

Why?  Because “lockdowns have one consequence that you can never belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.”

Lockdowns destroy livelihoods, throw people out of work, spark mental health crises and make poor people poorer.  Meanwhile, treatment of coronavirus is improving.

A new paper accepted for publication in the journal Critical Care Medicine tracked mortality rates from Covid-19 in the UK.  “In late March, four in 10 people in intensive care were dying.  By the end of June, survival was over 80 percent,” said the paper's author John M. Dennis, a University of Exeter Medical School researcher.  It is now November, so Britain's medical experts have spent another four full months learning more about this virus.

Sending Britain into another lockdown means Johnson is ignoring the steps Britain's medical community has made in limiting the virus's threat.  He has chosen to send all of Britain into another lockdown rather than isolate and support those for whom the virus is still life-threatening.

And Britons will have their way of life destroyed.  Let's hope Johnson keeps to his word just once and only locks down for a brief period of time, and not 112 days.  But that's what we were told too.

We Need To Put Corruption Watchdogs On Short Leash

Labor's push for a so-called federal anti-corruption body would be an undemocratic and illiberal forum for legalised defamation to be weaponised against political opponents.

The most recent call for a federal Independent Commission Against Corruption comes on the heels of last week's revelations that the CEO of Australia Post and the chairman of the Australian Securities & Investments Commission had both been stood aside pending investigations.

The first related to the awarding of luxury watches to Australia Post senior managers in late 2018, and the second to payments made by the corporate regulator for the ASIC chairman's tax advice.

These events have been exposed and are being investigated within the existing regulatory framework.  The enthusiasm for a special-purpose anti-corruption body to deal with these kinds of issues deserves greater scrutiny.

The risks of wide-ranging anti-corruption agencies are not insignificant.  Tackling corruption is a virtuous mission but agencies committed to this are prone to becoming kangaroo courts running show trials where the rule of law and respecting the legal rights of individuals caught up in their investigations are ignored.

In NSW, the Independent Commission Against Corruption has left a trail of destruction in its wake since its establishment in 1988.  It has proved more effective at destroying lives and careers than it has at tackling genuine wrongdoing.

ICAC also has shown a tendency to exceed its legislated authority, as the NSW Court of Appeal found in the commission's pursuits of former NSW premier Nick Greiner in 1994, and the High Court found in its pursuit of former crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen in 2015.

An explanation for why the political class would be so enthusiastic to take a chance on a federal ICAC is the opportunity to weaponise it to target political enemies.

A federal ICAC would operate as a forum for legalised defamation.  As the NSW ICAC has demonstrated over three decades, being referred to ICAC carries a high political cost that can be enough to end careers.

The fact that these bodies are protected from defamation law is deeply concerning.  Once they have these powers, defamatory and slanderous claims can be stated as fact, with no legal recourse for the accused.

Federal Labor is an enthusiastic supporter of replicating the NSW ICAC at the commonwealth level.  Labor and shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus have overseen no fewer than 10 referrals of Coalition MPs to law enforcement bodies since 2015.  None has resulted in any charges.

Although in opposition, in 2019 my freedom-of-information request revealed that Dreyfus personally directed the bureaucrats in the Attorney-General's department administering the Foreign Interference and Transparency Scheme to target conservative activists speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Sydney.  Conference organiser Andrew Cooper received a letter from the department to produce information and correspondence related to the conference within 14 days or risk being jailed for six months.

One proposal has been introduced to parliament this week.  Known as the Australian Federal Integrity Commission and introduced by federal independent MP Helen Haines on Monday, it would allow public hearings to take place when it is in the public interest and allow any member of the public to make complaints.

Public interest is an ambiguous concept that would ultimately only be determined by the commission itself.  In other words, it would have the power to run inquiries and hearings at any time and into any matter it chooses at its discretion.  Allowing any member of the public to make complaints will be used most of all by the political class.

Like the NSW ICAC, the body proposed by Haines would be empowered to make findings of fact.  In a court of law, allegations of facts are fiercely tested and proceedings are governed by the rules of evidence and the presumption of innocence.  This is not the case at ICAC.

Over centuries the institution of parliament has developed the traditions and practices, based on intense partisanship and its adversarial structure, to scrutinise its members and hold members of the government to account.

Many modern politicians would prefer to outsource this and have anti-corruption agencies do their work as parliamentary opposition for them.

The federal government is in a no-win position.  Since it committed to introducing some kind of anti-corruption body in 2018, it has tried to thread the needle on a proposal that would avoid the excesses of NSW ICAC.  Every instance of delay opens it to criticism that it is weak on corruption.

Government wrongdoing and shortcomings in integrity are inevitable consequences when bureaucrats and politicians have vast powers and opportunities to squander taxpayer money.  The fact that the preferred solution of so many is to grant more powers to more bureaucrats is indicative that improved governance and management of taxpayer money is not on the agenda.

If Our Restaurants Can Open Safely, So Can Our Churches

The Victorian Premier reassures the public that strict lockdowns are merely a reflection of him putting lives before the economy, but his plan to reopen has made it clear that that non-material goods have little place in the roadmap back to "COVID normal".

Lockdowns have undermined almost every civil society institution in this country.  They mandated the emptying of places of worship and that volunteers cease to perform work in many instances.  The financial hardship that resulted from this policy drained the pockets of donors and the charities they support.

Relief cannot come soon enough for civil society groups.  But in the road map laid out by the Premier, preference has been given to material and metropolitan values over non-material and community ones.

Since 16 September, regional Victoria has been under step 3 of the road map which means services such as beauty therapy, tanning, waxing, nail salons, spas, tattoo parlours and massage parlours can reopen if they adhere to hygiene practices such as the 4m² rule, cleaning, signage and record keeping.  Community activities however, such as book clubs or craft groups, were limited to ten people and only in outdoor venues.

Last Sunday, the Premier announced further opening to allow Libraries and toy libraries to open up to 20 people indoors, but there was no mention of non-government community spaces.

Even more concerning is the treatment of places of worship.  Step three restrictions, allow restaurants, bars, cafes and pubs to open for indoor dining of up to 10 people (or even 40 for some venues) and up to 70 people for outdoor dining.  Compare this with the restrictions put on religious organisations, which are restricted to private worship only.  Private worship is defined as a household or a household bubble (up to five people from that household) plus a faith leader.  Public worship can only be conducted outside and with a maximum of 20 people.

There appears to be little public health justification for the inequitable treatment.  If anything, the hospitality industry is a more likely vector of this virus given that no one can eat or drink with a mask on and waiters go between groups to deliver food.  Conversely, most religious services can be conducted without contact and with a mask.

This is not to say that commercial activities shouldn't open up, but that religious and community groups should be treated the same way.

If there has been anything positive to come from the COVID-19 experience, it is that there has been a reassertion of federalism and state-based experiments in public policy.  If Victoria wants to know how to manage an opening up of both the private economy and civil society (and particularly places of worship) it should look across the border to New South Wales.

When NSW started to ease the lockdown restrictions, everything from cafes to churches were to open provided they had a COVIDSafe plan.  These are online forms that take 30 minutes to fill out and demonstrate how basic practices such as the 4m² rule and face masks are going to be enforced on the premises to prevent the spread of the disease.  There is no reason why Victoria can't provide this kind of instruction.

Civil society needs to be granted the freedom to be a separate and distinct entity from the state.

People need meaning and connection as much as they need material comfort.  A road back to "COVID normal" that does not include religious observance and other civil society organisations is not a return to normal at all.

What The ACT Election Results Tell Us About Our Rulers In The Bubble

Last weekend's ACT election results have again revealed how out of touch our nation's capital city is with mainstream Australians.  While it is tempting to write off the ACT Legislative Assembly as little more than a glorified city council, ACT elections are one of the clearest indicators of elite opinion that we have ― and the results are alarming.

ACT Labor will continue to govern, as it has done since 2001, but the big winners were the Greens, who have more than doubled there representation.  The 25 seat ACT Assembly will have ten Labor members (down from 12), nine Liberals (down from 11), and six Greens (up from two).  The Greens already have a seat in cabinet, in exchange for propping up the minority Labor government, and will now be even more influential.  The radical Greens are a party of government in the ACT.

Overall, the ACT electorate is markedly out of step with the country.  Labor, the Greens, and minor left-wing parties received more than 58 per cent of the first preference vote ― a tally even exceeding the left's primary lower house vote in Victoria's landslide 2018 election (approximately 56 per cent).

Of course, this pattern diverges wildly from that seen in more conservative states.  At the 2019 New South Wales election, left-wing parties received only 44 per cent of the first preference vote (in the lower house), and at the 2017 Queensland election, the figure was 45 per cent.

Many Canberrans are transplants who have moved to the city to work in the federal bureaucracy, so the political differences are quite striking.  Canberra, it seems, both attracts a certain type of person and instils in people a certain set of beliefs and attitudes.  These sorting mechanisms have gradually separated the capital from the country over which it rules, encasing it in a bubble of ideology.

The left's stranglehold on Canberra poses two big problems for the rest of the country.

The first is that the residents of the Canberra bubble make policy for all of us.  Their detachment from the preferences and values of mainstream Australia has led to a range of policy disasters.

Perhaps most seriously, economic policy in this country increasingly favours the public sector and the corporate bureaucracies that oversee the enforcement of government regulation.

As my research has demonstrated, the COVID recession has made this trend worse.  Our country increasingly has a K-shaped economy, in which bureaucrats thrive even as the productive economy that sustains them is hobbled.

At the height of the recession, public sector wages in the ACT increased by 6.5 per cent.  The average wage in the ACT is $102,000, far exceeding other states and territories.  While the country has seen 600,000 private sector jobs lost this year, the ACT has largely been insulated from the fallout.

We also seem to be developing a K-shaped culture.  Consider, for example, the obscene and embarrassing fiasco that is national arts funding.  The ruling class amuses itself with deranged art, obscure research projects, and the self-flattery of the ABC, while traditional and elevating cultural pursuits are shunned and shuttered.

The second problem emerges from the unavoidable fact that the ACT electorate is highly educated.  The Canberra bubble represents, to a worrying extent, the best that our systems of education and moral instruction can produce, and they are turning against the values of the rest of the country.

This is one way that Canberra is similar to the rest of Australia: educated people are radicalising.  Just as we have seen in some wealthy parts of Sydney and Melbourne, the Greens in Canberra picked up votes mostly from the Liberal Party.  Our inner suburbs are filled with spiritual Canberrans.

Somehow, we have created a system that selects for these kinds of beliefs, or that fills the heads of many of our brightest people with bad ideas.  Maybe both.

The elite, the attitudes of which are made plain at ACT polling booths, is the main reason that elections in this country never seem to change anything ― a reminder that democracy means more than just elections.  If we want a democratic country in which policy aligns with mainstream values, our highest priority should be ending the miseducation of our ruling class.

Scientists All At Sea With Alarmist Barrier Reef Warning

A new scientific paper, received with great fanfare among inter­national media and Australia's public broadcaster, the ABC, claims half the corals of the Great Barrier Reef are dead.

The paper is by academics at James Cook University's ARC Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.  It is a scary headline.  But is it true?

This finding is not based on any tried and proven method.  Rather, the researchers from James Cook University have come up with a new method of statistical analysis based on a complicated "proxy" to estimate "colony size".

The study itself was undertaken in 2016 and 2017, just after a coral bleaching event at cyclone-damaged reefs.  If they had used traditional methods and longer time frames, it would likely be found that there is actually nothing wrong with the Great Barrier Reef.

Great Barrier Reef photographer Julia Summerling wrote recently about how a section known as North Direction Island, saying that the island's corals were "savaged beyond recognition" due to Cyclone Ita in 2014, cyclone Nathan in 2015, and a coral bleaching event in the summer of 2016.  So it was probably not the most representative time to be sampling.  But the headlines are based on proxy measures from just a few reefs at that time.

She now says those areas have since recovered.  "What I saw — and photographed — I could hardly believe.  Young dinner-plate-sized corals were crammed into every available space on the limestone plateau as far as I could see, bristling with iconic fish life, from maori wrasse and coral trout to bumphead parrotfish and sweetlips.  I swam a long way on the dive, checking to see how far the coral shelf stretched.  The further I swam, the denser the coral fields became".

For a new film, in January this year I visited the Ribbon reefs with Emmy award-winning photographer Clint Hempshall to follow the edge of Australia's continental shelf to find and film coral bleaching.  It was meant to be one of the worst-affected regions — 60 per cent dead from bleaching, which the same scientists say is caused by climate change.  But we could not find any significant bleaching.  We mostly found jewelled curtains of coral, appearing to cascade down underwater cliff faces.  So colourful, so beautiful, all in crystal clear and warm waters.

The problem for Professor Terry Hughes, who co-authored the research, is that his study was undertaken in 2016 and 2017 then extrapolated out to cover other years.  All of the research and subsequent media attention points to a narrative that the Great Barrier Reef is at risk of imminent collapse from climate change.

It was for questioning this claim, and the quality of science behind it, that Dr Peter Ridd was eventually sacked from James Cook University.  Part of those claims by Ridd were that a lot of the science coming out of JCU's ARC Centre for Excellent in Coral Reef Studies "is not properly checked, tested or replicated, and that is a great shame because we really need to be able to trust our scientific institutions, and the fact is I do not think we can anymore".

Neither James Cook University, nor Hughes, have ever rebutted Ridd's criticisms of the research.

This is what objective observers need to put into context when examining Hughes's most recent claims.  Ridd also said:  "I think that most of the scientists who are pushing out this stuff, I think that they genuinely believe that there are problems with the reef, I just don't think they are very objective about the science they do.  I think they're emotionally attached to their subject and you can't blame them the reef is a beautiful thing".

One quick glance at Hughes's Twitter account and you will find he is critical of the Morrison government's gas-led recovery, cheerleading for a royal commission into the Murdoch media and constantly criticises the Adani Coal mine.

The new paper by James Cook University scientists claims both the incidence of coral bleaching and cyclones is increasing, but there is no evidence to support ­either contention.  The available data from 1971 to 2017 indicated there has actually been a decrease in both the number and severity of cyclones in the Australian region.

Coral-bleaching events tend to be cyclical and coincide with periods of exceptionally low sea levels.  As discussed in a new book, Climate Change: The Facts 2020, there were dramatic falls in sea levels across the western Pacific Ocean in 2016.  These were associated with an El Nino event.

Until recently, coral calcification rates were calculated based on coring of the large Porites corals.  There are well-established techniques for coring the Porites corals and then measuring growth rates.  So why do Hughes and his colleagues stray from these tried and tested methods?

Since 2005, the Australian Institute of Marine Science has stopped using this technique to measure how well corals are growing at the Great Barrier Reef.  The few studies still using the old technique suggest that, as would be expected, as water temperatures have increased marginally, coral growth rates have also increased.

But rather than admit this, key Great Barrier Reef research institutions have moved from such ­direct measures to new and complicated "proxies".  They thus have more flexibility in what they find because the measurement is no longer one that represents coral growth rates or coral cover.

As proxy votes are something delegated, this gives the researchers at JCU the potential to generate what might be considered policy-based evidence.  And yet without question, the media reporting of the most recent research is that "there is no time to lose, we must sharply decrease greenhouse gas emissions”.

Far too frequently, climate science has demonstrated noble cause corruption — where the ends justify the means.  We will only know exact coral calcification rates, and changing trends in coral cover, when our once esteemed research institutions return to more traditional methods of measuring such important indicators of coral health and growth.

We need a return to real science that is based on real observations and real measurements and then we may find written in journals what we see in the real world when we jump off boats and go under the sea.

Premier Dan Andrews Divides Victorians Down The Middle

Maybe a majority of Victorians once supported Premier Daniel Andrews and his management of COVID-19 ― not any more.

Victorians are now divided exactly down the middle.  Any sense of community unity and "we're all in this together" has long since disappeared.

Victorians have witnessed first-hand what arbitrary and naked power looks like.  They've seen how a government that rewards its friends and punishes its enemies operates.  In Melbourne, if your job was mowing lawns and you belonged to a trade union the government allowed you to work.  If, however, you did exactly the same job but were self-employed you weren't allowed to work.

When Kevin Rudd attempted to introduce his mining tax there was a lot of discussion about "country sovereign risk".  After what's happened in Victoria "state sovereign risk" is now a real issue.  The Victorian government's contempt for the private sector is demonstrated by the fact Andrews has said he hasn't even read the letter from the chief executives of seven of the country's largest employers urging the state to be reopened.

Earlier this month I commissioned an opinion poll of 1000 Victorians.  When asked to respond to the statement "Daniel Andrews has mismanaged the government's response to COVID-19 and should resign", 41 per cent agreed, 41 per cent disagreed, and the rest were undecided.  Responding to the statement "Daniel Andrews does not understand the impact of his restrictions on ordinary Victorians", 42 per cent agreed, 42 per cent disagreed, with the rest undecided.

Clearly the Andrews government still has support, but it's not overwhelming.  The mystery to Andrews' polling numbers is not why are they now starting to turn, but why they had been so strong for so long.  The much-discussed Melbourne version of "Stockholm syndrome" might be one explanation.  Another might be that, quite understandably, Victorians have not wanted to admit to themselves they've been duped.

In April, Andrews spoke about the need to impose lockdowns to "flatten the curve" of infection to avoid a "pandemic peak" and have Victoria's hospitals overwhelmed, and the number of intensive care unit beds in the state was increased from about 450 to 4500.  He said, "Everything we do now gives us vital time to prepare our health system for what is to come."

DEEP GENERATIONAL DIVIDE

According to the federal Department of Health, two days ago 10 Victorians were in hospital with COVID-19, and none of them were in intensive care.  In fact in the entire country, 16 people were in hospital because of the virus, with one of those being in intensive care in New South Wales.

The response of Victorians to the statement "The lockdowns were necessary and justified early on, but now they have gone too far" reveals a deep generational divide:  48 per cent of respondents agreed, 35 per cent disagreed, and 17 per cent didn't have a view.

But across the age groups of 25-34, 35-44 and 45-54, those who agreed with the statement were a clear majority.  A result that closely corresponds to what we know about the economic and mental health effects of the lockdown.  Fifty-seven per cent of those aged between 25 and 34 thought the lockdowns had now gone too far, while only 26 per cent disagreed.  In comparison, for those aged between 55 and 64, only 38 per cent agreed and 46 per cent disagreed.

When he was re-elected Premier in November 2018, Andrews declared he led "the most progressive government" in "the most progressive state in the nation".

The numbers released this week by federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on unemployment in Victoria provide a devastating commentary on the success or otherwise of "progressivism".  Victoria's effective unemployment rate is 14 per cent, compared with 7.5 per cent in New South Wales and the national average of 9.4 per cent.  Victorians are 26 per cent of the country's population, but 40 per cent of the country's effectively unemployed.

When Frydenberg called on the Andrews government to reopen Victoria he wasn't "playing politics" ― he was speaking for every Victorian who doesn't enjoy the luxury of a taxpayer-funded guaranteed income.

Maybe Victoria is an advertisement for "progressivism" like Venezuela is an advertisement for "socialism".