Many People Have Nothing To Celebrate On The Economic Front In 2021

One might think animal spirits had gripped the Australian economy as a flurry of better-than-expected economic figures hit the newsstands before Christmas.

But Australians cannot let the political and bureaucratic class off scot-free for the devastation they have caused in 2020, or for their unwillingness to engage in serious reform which will underpin our future prosperity.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics' November labour force numbers showed that 90,000 Australians had secured work in the previous month, bringing the number of employed people one step closer to the pre-lockdown level Australians are desperate to return to.

And the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook brought further good news.

Australia's economic recovery is going much better than expected only two months prior when the 2020-21 budget was released, and the federal budget deficit will be around $16 billion smaller than first thought.

The MYEFO is like a mini budget, usually released halfway between the annual federal ­budget, and provides an update on government revenue and ­expenditure.

It also contained improved outlooks for the unemployment rate and economic growth going forward.

For Australia's political elites, Christmas had come early.

After plunging the country into its first recession in almost 30 years, negatively impacting six million jobs, forcing children to stay home from school and away from friends, and keeping families separated by inane hard border policies, they're hoping that mainstream Australians will be content with the good news and reward them politically for "keeping us safe".

But don't be fooled. Australia has a long and tedious path back to economic prosperity, and current policy settings and an unwillingness to ­engage in necessary reform will only hold Australians back. For the 942,100 Australians still out of work, and the additional 1.3 million who cannot get enough hours, premature financial fanfare is insensitive.

And for the business owners who have been crippled by lockdowns, there's nothing to celebrate.

Australia's premiers have engaged in a reckless and devastating act of economic, cultural, and social self-harm.

While major lockdown measures have finally been lifted for the most part, they are likely to be reimposed if a few cases of coronavirus emerge, as in South Australia last month, presenting a real threat to the economic recovery.

Quite simply, businesses can't make plans to invest in new equipment or hire and train new staff if they might be forced to close shop at any moment.

That's why new private sector business investment is now at the second lowest level ever recorded at 10.3 per cent of GDP, according to the ABS.

But to Australia's political and bureaucratic rulers, this doesn't matter.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted that we were “all in this together”, a phrase that became the unofficial slogan for those insisting that Australia should lock down. But as Institute of Public Affairs research shows, between March and September 607,000 private sector workers lost their job while almost 20,000 new bureaucrats were hired.

Politicians and bureaucrats are completely detached from the real economy which their edicts effect.

When they forced businesses to close back in March, they immediately put hundreds of thousands of Australians out of work, and forced millions more to take pay cuts.

But they refused to demonstrate any shared sacrifice, ignoring an IPA poll which showed 74 per cent of Australians wanted politicians and senior public servants earning more than $150,000 a year to take a 20 per cent pay cut.

There is little hope for an economic recovery based on structural reform that will turbocharge the economy because political and bureaucratic elites have no skin in the game.

The private business investment statistic quoted above is dire for working Australians. Business investment is the key to productivity gains, which ultimately underpin wage growth.

Without making Australia a more attractive place to do business, it will be impossible to arrest the decline in private sector business investment, which is in the longest-running structural decline on record.

Australia's corporate tax rate is the equal second highest among the 37 countries in the OECD, and the minimum wage is the highest in the world.

According to the World Economic Forum's 2019 Global Competitiveness Report, Australia ranks 80th out of 141 countries for the burden of red tape and 111th for hiring and firing practices.

These issues can only be addressed through structural reform, which was necessary before coronavirus came but is now vital considering the ­carnage lockdowns inflicted on ­Australians.

Good news found in the MYEFO and labour force numbers must not overwhelm the effort to hold politicians and bureaucrats accountable for the damage they have done.

And it should especially not let politicians off the hook for engaging in the structural reforms needed to ensure that all Australians can experience the dignity of work and the prosperity they deserve.

Wishing ''Happy Holidays'' Part Of A Weird Controlling Desire

You may have noticed in the days leading up to Christmas that many businesses are now wishing you a very politically correct "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas".

This import from the USA has become ubiquitous, and is emblazoned all over our banks, supermarkets and even our Christmas cards.

"Happy Holidays" is both meaningless and completely out of touch with what the majority of Australian want.

In a poll recently undertaken by marketing research firm Dynata, 79 per cent of Australians believe that "Merry Christmas" is an inclusive phrase which all Australian can relate to, with only 7 per cent disagreeing.

What is more, 69 per cent of Australians feel that Australia has become too politically correct, with just 11 peer cent believing that it is not.

Yet, every year, like clockwork, a noisy minority of Australian tells us that we are no longer able to wish each other "Merry Christmas".  Instead, we must use a non-specific "Happy Holidays" which could, quite frankly, refer to any period where people are taking a break from work.

This ongoing war on Christmas is being waged on the majority of Australians by a radical minority who promote the false idea that saying "Merry Christmas" causes offence to non-Christians.

Last year, the Diversity Council of Australia told workplaces that when December rolls around, bosses should refrain from mentioning Christmas and use the flaccid "holiday greetings" instead.

The problem the Diversity Council has with Christmas is clearly the "Christ" part.  Those who enforce the use of the term "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" seek to censor a Christian holiday in a way that they would not attempt with any other religious holiday.

This is not the first time in the history of the West that a group of elites have waged war on Christmas.

When England was in the middle of tearing itself apart during the English Civil War in the 17th Century, Oliver Cromwell and his fellow puritans who were running England, were so offended by people daring to sing Christmas carols that they passed an act of Parliament to ban the practice.

Three years later, they decided to abolish Christmas altogether.

But despite Cromwell's best efforts, the people ignored him, and continued to hold clandestine religious services, as well as to sing their favourite Christmas carols.

So it was earlier this year when a Twitter activist tried to close down the family-owned Colonial Brewing Co, claiming that the name caused harm to Indigenous Australians because of its associations with colonisation.

A liquor chain, Blackhearts & Sparrows, jumped on the bandwagon and boycotted the produce.

The truth is that the colonisation part of the name refers to the colonisation of the wine region of Margaret River with the first craft breweries, not the colonisation of Australia by the British in 1788.

This is exactly the kind of nonsense which mainstream Australians thoroughly reject.  While corporate affairs teams and the media like to wallow around in Twitter, thousands of mainstream Australians posted photographs of themselves on Facebook with bottles of Colonial Brewing Co. beer and completely rubbished Blackhearts & Sparrows.

Political correctness is being foisted on mainstream Australians against their will, whether it be from governments, councils or sporting codes.  In the middle of the pandemic, staff working at the NSW Treasury were told that they were to avoid using words like "wife" and "husband" so that non-heterosexual people were not offended

Instead of using "ladies and gentlemen" they were to greet everyone in the room with "welcome folks".

Another poll undertaken by marketing research firm Dynata earlier this year found that the majority of Australians believe that the sporting codes of AFL and NRL have become too politically correct.  They don't want every round to be devoted to a particular level of the identity politics pyramid each time they sit down to watch a match.

When the outrage mob came after Israel Folau for expressing his religious beliefs, he received broad support from Australians who donated towards his legal fees to a GoFundMe fundraiser.

The website, however, buckled to the outcry of activists in media outlets and on Twitter, and it shut down the account.

Australians are sick and tired of being told what they can and can't say by a noisy elite.  In a poll conducted by social demographer Mark McCrindle and Mainstreet Insights, 65 per cent of Australians said they believe that cancel culture has affected when and with whom they can share honest opinions.

Australians no longer think that they have the freedom to say what they truly think.  This is a sad state of affairs.

If you really want to wish someone Merry Christmas in 2020, don't let the politically correct Christmas Grinches stop you.

Time To Tell The Truth About 2020

In his book The Fear and the Freedom ― Why the Second World War Still Matters, the historian Keith Lowe writes about how the nations and individuals who survived through war coped with the emotional consequences of their trauma.

They did two things.  First, they tried to forget what had happened.  Then, what they couldn't forget they created myths about.  The myths and stories they told themselves might have an element of truth, but they were just as likely to be a consequence of individuals wishing for something to have occurred, when in fact it didn't.

The "Spirit of the Blitz" is one such myth.  As is now well-known, in 1940 there was no coming together in the face of shared hardship, rich and poor alike, of the British people in the face of the Luftwaffe's bombs.  The wealthy fled to the countryside or sought refuge in their private bomb shelters while vast sections of the population, particularly in London, were left unprotected.

When King George VI visited the East End in September 1940 he was booed.  An intelligence report of the time from the Ministry of Information recounted the widespread sentiment of East End residents ― "it is always the poor that gets it".

As 2020 draws to a close, many Australians have indulged in their own forgetting and myth-making about how the nation responded to the crisis of COVID-19.

To begin with, the claim "we're all in this together" is not true ― and never was.  The loudest supporters of community lockdowns and business closures weren't affected by any of the policies they were demanding be implemented.  At the same time as Australians working in the private sector were losing their jobs at the rate of 3500 positions a day, the government was employing the equivalent of an additional 100 public servants daily, while ABC employees were voting themselves a pay rise.

During 2020 there wasn't much notion of equality of sacrifice.  The soon-to-be $1 trillion of federal government debt, most of it incurred to pay for the costs of shutting down the economy, won't be paid for by the current generation of taxpayers.

In 2020 many Australians revealed themselves to be willingly obedient to the arbitrary and draconian actions and decisions of politicians and public servants.

In Victoria, Parliament was suspended, basic democratic rights such as freedom of speech were abolished, and the police force was politicised.

The suggestion from much of the Melbourne media that what occurred in the state is somehow a triumph of the collective spirit of Victorians is laughable.  The Victorian government presided over the biggest public policy failure in peacetime in Australian history and then required Melburnians to be locked in their homes for 23 hours a day.  The mental health toll of what happened in the state will not be known for a decade.

This week the Victorian Ombudsman came to the blindingly obvious conclusion that at 4pm on July 4, when 3000 Victorians living in public housing towers were told without any notice or warning whatsoever that from that moment they were forbidden to leave their apartment, that those residents' human rights were violated.  Some of those residents were confined to their apartment for two weeks.

The cruelty of the border closures imposed by the Queensland and West Australian governments was a price voters in those states have seemingly been willing to pay.

When Queensland's Chief Health Officer, who after all is nothing more than a public servant, admitted she ordered schools to be closed to make a political point, even though as she said "evidence showed schools were not a high-risk environment for the spread of the virus", her remark passed largely unnoticed.

In 2020 Australians discovered that when governments sacrifice children's education for the sake of "messaging", to use the term the Chief Health Officer used herself, they will be rewarded with electoral success.

Not everything governments did in 2020 to manage the COVID-19 crisis was wrong and unnecessary ― but the reality is that there is a lot more to regret, if not to be ashamed of, than to be proud of.  When the story of 2020 is told Australians deserve the truth ― not myths.

Who Is Compulsory Super Benefitting: Ordinary Australians Or The Top End Of Town?

Mainstream Australians are being failed by the political class as the gap between two Australias continues to widen.  This failure is exemplified by a superannuation system that siphons money to the financial sector and political class and actively prevents mainstream Australians from achieving the Australian way of life.

The legislated increase of forced super contributions from the current rate of 9.5% to 12% of wages will in many cases work against the financial interests of Australians, both now and in retirement.  Forced super contributions come directly at the expense of savings outside of super that can be put towards a house deposit or used to reduce debt.  Increasing the compulsory rate will only put the aspiration of homeownership and financial security further out of reach of an increasing proportion of the population.

Homeownership fell from 71% to 66% of households between 1995 and 2018, and is set to get worse if trends among younger generations continue.  In the 1980s, 68% of Australians owned their own home in their early 30s.  Of those currently in their early 30s, the rate is just 50%.

A 2019 survey by Core Data found that nearly 70% of first home buyers did not fund 100% of their deposit from their personal savings, with a majority relying on family assistance in the form of gifts, guarantees, and loans.  Further diminishing the ability to save outside of super will remove the aspiration of homeownership from those unable to rely on family wealth.

As made clear by the recently released Retirement Income Review, those retiring without owning their own home are significantly disadvantaged with retirement income having to cover rental housing and without the option of drawing additional income from their home asset.

Not only is the current system damaging mainstream Australians, but it also fails to make sense from a public finance perspective.  According to the review, by 2047 the revenue forgone through superannuation tax concessions will exceed the total cost of the age pension.

Despite the significant failures of superannuation, the current system along with the legislated increase of compulsory contributions to 12% of workers' wages continues to be pushed by special interests.  An artificially inflated financial sector and the political class benefit from the gravy train created by $30 billion of annual superannuation fees.  As my research released last week shows, the financial sector's share of national income has continued to grow following a rapid expansion that coincided with the introduction of superannuation in 1992.  Before superannuation the financial sector was 2.4% of national income and has since increased to 6.5%.

The wealth transfer from hard-working Australians to the financial sector and political class generated by the superannuation system is part of a broader divide across Australian society.  Australia is increasingly being divided into two Australias.

One Australia tends to be employed in the public sector or in white-collar jobs offered by big corporations that find fertile soil in a bloated financial sector.  The other Australia is made up of mainstream Australians who own their own businesses or are employed in the private productive economy by small and medium-sized businesses.

It is mainstream Australians that are under stress due to a plethora of failed public policy that undermines the businesses they own and work in and creates barriers to obtaining key parts of the Australian way of life such as homeownership.

Public sector wages continue to rise, funded by taxes from workers with stagnating real wages.  Big business continues its takeover of the Australian economy, while small businesses are strangled by red tape, onerous labour laws, and now lockdown and social distancing restrictions that disproportionately harm small business.  And those who own their home enjoy increased equity with rising house prices, while an increasing proportion of Australians are priced out of the market due to a failure of public policy on development, taxation, superannuation, and immigration.

If trends continue, the gap between the two Australias will only widened.  Public policy must be made to benefit the broader country and not become a tool of the political class that is tightly organised to promote their special interests at the expense of mainstream Australia.

Reforming superannuation towards a system of voluntary contributions would return control to Australians to make financial decisions in their own best interest given their individual circumstances and block off the siphoning that is enriching the political class at the expense of mainstream Australia.

Hurry Up And Then Stop

Australia is not following the science.  The decision to dither on the Covid-19 vaccines will not delay the economic recovery but could risk lives and undermine faith in immunisation.

Last week the United Kingdom became the first country on the planet to approve the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine.  This week rollout began.  The United States is expected to do the same in the coming days.

This is a momentous occasion for humanity ― from new disease to safe and effective vaccine in less than a year.  Millions of lives will be saved.

The Australian government has responded by painting our friends in Old Blighty as reckless.  Australia's Therapeutic Goods Agency (TGA) will wait until at least late January, if not February, for approval.

Distribution will begin in March.  "Well, I wouldn't want to use the word guinea pigs with the UK," John Skerritt, the head of the TGA said last week.

Skerritt did, nevertheless, talk up waiting for "the real world experience of several hundred thousand people having had the vaccine".

Australia's vaccine urgency is obviously not the same as elsewhere.  The border-first strategy and effective testing and tracing has kept cases extremely low.

Nevertheless, a slow vaccination rollout has real consequences.

On the health front, the government announced in September that Australia would have early access to 3.8 million doses of the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine available in January and February.

This would have allowed for the potentially life-saving immunisation of aged care residents and healthcare workers before the risk of spread grows again in winter.  These doses now appear to have fallen out of the equation.

On the economic front, Australia is a small, outward-looking trading nation that depends on people.  University and tourism sectors are already on their knees.

Australia's unemployment rate is now higher than many countries hit harder by the virus, including the US and the UK.  Meanwhile, as relations with China sour, building new links is paramount — and it takes face-to-face meetings to build trust for those multi-billion dollar deals.

The sooner we begin vaccinating, the sooner the risk to human life decreases, borders can reopen and the economy can fully recover.  Manufacturing, distributing and vaccinating millions of people, across two appointments, will take many, many months.  The quicker Australia begins this process the faster it will be over.

Trust must also be built.  The government has rightly said the vaccine will be voluntary.  People will therefore have to be persuaded it is safe and effective.

The insinuation that the UK has rushed approval risks sowing the seeds of doubt.  But Britain's regulators have not cut corners.

Their speed is explained by undertaking the usual rigorous steps in parallel, as new information was received, rather than at the end.

The vaccine itself was developed so quickly because scientists adapted existing technologies, designed to tackle other diseases, including coronaviruses like SARS and MERS.

Sarah Gilbert from Oxford has explained that "it's not breakthroughs.  We know what to do and we do it, and everything has worked out as expected."

There was also a singular global focus on developing a vaccine and big investments in trials, manufacturing, and distribution.  Never in human history have so many scientists, companies and governments been so focused on a single goal.

Also, the pharmaceutical multinationals, many of which are household names, have an extraordinary incentive to provide a safe vaccine.

The vaccines did not cause any serious side effects in tens of thousands of people after many months.  This is very reassuring.  Side effects typically appear straight away.

We won't know anything about longer term effects before Australian regulators look next month.  If we are waiting for that unknowable and unlikely long term side effect to suddenly materialise the vaccine will never be approved.

The clearest excuse for Australia's tardiness is the lack of emergency approval mechanism like the US and the UK.  This is worrying.

If Australia did have a large outbreak there would be no legal way to immediately start providing vaccination.  The same applies to other breakthrough medicines.

The Covid-19 vaccines represent a revolutionary shift in medicine.  The mRNA technology behind the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines can also be used to beat cancer, influenza, malaria, HIV, and much more.  There are also many other medical innovations on the horizon.

If Australians are to benefit sooner rather than later, it will take a new patient-centric approach to medicines regulation.

Australia should recognise approvals by the European Union, United Kingdom and United States.  Their regulators are robust and are stuffed full of the top global experts.

Australia's forthcoming trade deal with the United Kingdom should also use the idea of mutual recognition of product standards to facilitate much easier trade.

Australia also needs Right to Try legislation:  those with terminal diseases should be free to use any experimental drug from anywhere in the world.  There will be immense risks, but between death and potential survival the choice is obvious.

Approval delays are a deadly business.  Australia can do better.

Warts And All Memorial

As its name makes clear, the Australian War Memorial exists to memorialise the service and sacrifice of Australians in war, as a reflection of our shared commitment to our country and each other.  It does not exist to denigrate our national character nor to pander to the worst kinds of elite self-hatred so lamentably prominent across our national institutions.  Yet there is a danger now that this place of honour might be turned to these subversive ends.

In the wake of the Brereton report on alleged war crimes committed by Australian SAS troops in Afghanistan, there have been calls for the War Memorial to immediately reflect the allegations in its exhibitions.  Memorial director Matt Anderson has suggested that curators will indeed do just that.  Similarly, former Chief of the Defence Force, Admiral Chris Barrie has suggested that the SAS exhibit be removed altogether.  The prime minister has responded meekly, saying only that all such changes will need to be approved by the War Memorial's board.

But it should be clear that it would not fit the purpose of the War Memorial to foreground the bad acts of a few soldiers.  Of course, wherever criminality is proved, it should be punished to the fullest extent, and if this comes to pass, no one would suggest that it be whitewashed from the history of Australia's war in Afghanistan.  Yet it would not be, and should not be presented as, the sum total, or even the most important part, of that history.  Nor should the war in Afghanistan, despite its unprecedented length, be allowed to overshadow Australia's larger military history.

The War Memorial's curators are charged with telling the full story of Australians at war.  That story is overwhelmingly a story of courage, discipline, loyalty and other virtues, demonstrated in defence of our home, our values and our traditional liberties.  Australians have fought honourably from the Sommes to Kokoda to Long Tan and beyond, including in Afghanistan.

This is the truth to which the War Memorial is dedicated.  Undue emphasis on the bad acts of a few at the expense of this larger story would not be truthful.  It would, in fact, be deeply misleading.

Getting this larger story wrong is unfair to service members and veterans and their families.  Tens of thousands of Australians have served in Afghanistan.  Hundreds of thousands have served our country.  They should not be tarred with guilt by association.

Moreover, allowing these allegations to overshadow the true story of Australia's military history is unfair to civilians as well.  The story that the War Memorial and its curators exist to tell, they hold in trust for the Australian people, as a source of strength and meaning for all of us.  The pride and fellow feeling engendered by contemplating the sacrifices of men and women down the generations is integral to our identity and democracy.

It has been claimed that notice can be given to these allegations in a way that avoids denigrating the longer tradition.  Perhaps.  But Admiral Barrie's suggestion that a significant piece of Australia's military history simply be erased does not inspire confidence.  More broadly, we should be suspicious given the turn taken by so many of our other cultural bodies.  Because just as the War Memorial is now implying that in the telling of our military history, "warts and all" means mostly warts, the truth about our country is now regularly and widely misrepresented

Australia's cultural bodies now routinely see it as their mission to subject our nation, history and traditions to relentless critique.  The ABC, the universities and the bureaucracy all now insist that Australia must atone for its various sins, which together constitute, we are told, historic and systemic injustice.  The institutions of Australia, and the customs that support them, are held in contempt and this contempt has been forcefully injected into mainstream culture.

This is why every national event, from Australia Day to sporting matches, is accompanied by some attempt to demoralise us.  Not even the national anthem is safe.  The point is to wear us down and prepare us for revolution.

Meanwhile, the real story of Australia is left untold or is actively suppressed.

The truth is this:  Australia is a great democracy that has provided peace and prosperity for people from all over the world.  More so than perhaps any other nation, Australia was founded on the idea that our rules and institutions should be dedicated to improving the lives of the common people, not to shoring up the fortunes of a few or implementing some grand ideological project.  In this task, we have been astonishingly successful and Australians have generally enjoyed a standard of living unimaginable to our various ancestors.  Our history is not, of course, an unbroken string of successes.  But our failures are recognisable only as exceptions, and the proper way to think about resolving them is by drawing on our past, not by abandoning it.

Instead of celebrating our way of life, a small, self-appointed, unaccountable and heavily-subsidised cultural elite is making a concerted effort to disestablish Australian values ― to separate our every institution, ranging from the smallest custom to the apparatus of state itself, from our traditional notions of the good, the true and the right and to rebuild them in the image of an ideology that is foreign to our nation and its history.  The central question is which values should rule;  those of this social justice ideology or those of mainstream Australians?  The values that make us weak or those that have made us strong?

For a long time, the Australian military has managed to avoid being dragged into this culture war.  Given the importance of Anzac and our military history to the nation, it would be an unthinkable loss were the War Memorial to become just another Australian institution alienated from mainstream values and undermining its own mission.  To put it bluntly, it must not be allowed to happen.

Modern Labor's Forgotten Workers

What ACTU boss Sally McManus said about blue-collar workers at the National Press Club a few days ago doesn't quite compare with Hillary Clinton describing Donald Trump's supporters as a "basket of deplorables".

But the comments from McManus, nonetheless, provide an insight into the priorities of the ACTU and show how far removed from the opinion of mainstream Australians the union movement has become.

The ACTU used to help Labor get elected to government.  In 2007 the ACTU's campaign against WorkChoices was pivotal to Kevin Rudd's electoral success.  Today unions might still provide Labor with the money and the arms and legs for election campaigns, but the policy preoccupations of the unions' leadership increasingly reflect the concerns of a far-from-representative cohort of the Australian population.

To be fair, McManus was not talking about blue-collar workers as such, for in the context of the debate about the Labor Party's policy on climate change, McManus described the focus of the as-yet-undeclared Labor leadership aspirant, Joel Fitzgibbon on the employment of blue-collar workers as "narrow" and "old-fashioned".

McManus said "Climate change is not an issue that affects just one group of workers ... In many different ways, a whole lot of industries like our tourism industry and others, are going to be affected by climate change.  So whenever we narrow our thinking and we have some idea, old-fashioned idea actually, of blue-collar workers, we are really narrowing who are talking about because climate change affects everyone."

McManus might think the idea of "blue-collar workers" is old-fashioned, but there's at least one million Australians employed in blue-collar jobs.

It's difficult to imagine Scott Morrison talking of blue-collar work as "old-fashioned", which goes some way to explaining the extraordinary result of an opinion survey reported in these pages on Monday.

In a poll in eight Labor-held seats in suburban and inner-regional areas in Queensland, NSW, Tasmania and Western Australia when voters were asked which party was represents "working Australians" 46 per cent of voters said the ALP and 38 per cent the Liberal Party.  That's not an overwhelming outcome for Labor, given it regards itself as the party of the workers.

There was another interesting survey reported this week.  A poll of 1000 Australians conducted by JWS Research showed that Labor's climate change wars are fascinating to party insiders but not very relevant to anyone else.

When people were asked to name three issues that personally interested them and that the Australian government should focus on only 19 per cent of those surveyed replied "the environment-climate change".  Or put another way, climate change is not one of the three most important issues to 81 per cent of Australians.  That is hardly the sort of finding one would expect given the media attention devoted to the topic.

Hospitals, health care and ageing, the economy and finances, and employment and wages are the issues Australians are focused on and will be for sometime yet.

The Morrison government is not one for enacting sweeping philosophical ambitions or developing grand narratives of political economy.  However survey results such as these demonstrate the scope for the Coalition next year and beyond to reshape the country's political and policy landscape.

The development of an agenda for industrial relations reform that's presented, not as a productivity-enhancing measure as was WorkChoices, but as a way to get more Australians into work should not be beyond the capacity of the Coalition.

Similarly, if the Coalition does decide, as it should, to try to repeal the legislated increases in the superannuation guarantee, it will face a ferocious onslaught from the Labor Party, the ACTU and the superannuation industry ― but it's a fight the Coalition can win if it is presented as a necessary response in a post-COVID world.

While Labor spends its time talking to itself about climate change and to the 19 per cent of Australians concerned about the issue, the Coalition is talking about jobs.

In all likelihood if Australians were surveyed and asked to name one economic policy of the ALP they would say opposition to tax cuts.  The reality is that at the moment, as Labor MPs such as Fitzgibbon, and Chris Bowen have basically acknowledged, Labor has nothing much to say to the workers of Australia, whether they're blue collar or not.

Why Is The Coalition Planning To Give More Money To The ABC?

Given the spite and the scorn with which many at the national broadcaster view the Coalition and mainstream Australians, one would think that the last thing that a Coalition government worth its salt would want to do is give more money to the ABC.

But this is exactly what they've done.  Last week the Guardian ran an exclusive that Treasurer Josh Frydenberg plans to add public broadcasters the ABC and SBS to the revenue sharing arrangements as part of the proposed mandatory news code, which means they will receive payments from Google and Facebook for using their content.

It is frankly bizarre that a Coalition government is considering a new financial windfall for the ABC, on top of its annual $1.2 billion in public funding.

While the commercial media has been smashed as a result of the COVID pandemic, the ABC has remained untouched.

Last month, ABC staff rejected a plea from the Federal Government to freeze their pay for six months, to show some shared sacrifice with their colleagues in the commercial media.  Instead, they voted overwhelmingly to give themselves a pay rise.

In doing so, the employees of our national broadcaster considered themselves morally superior and more worthy of a 2% pay rise than staff at Services Australia, Centrelink, the Department of Health and the Department of Social Services, who have all been on the front line of the response to this pandemic and have all taken a six-month pay freeze. 

The ABC has continued to show its hostility towards the Coalition throughout the pandemic and its distain for commercial media.

The ABC has been a loud cheerleader for former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's petition for a "Murdoch Royal Commission".

In just over one month since the petition was launched, the ABC across all its platforms has mentioned "Murdoch" and the petition over 3,000 times, highlighting its ideological obsession with its perceived enemies.

Defenders of the ABC constantly gloat that the ABC is "free from commercial influence or interests", making its news editorial stances fiercely independent.

They will not be able to use that defence anymore now that a key revenue stream for the ABC will be dependent on the commercial success of Google and Facebook.

Indeed one of the ABC's key editorial standards is to "Ensure that editorial decisions are not improperly influenced by political, sectional, commercial or personal interests".  The ABC grovelling for this new source of funding puts it at conflict with its own editorial standards.

The idea that the ABC, which is entirely funded by the government, would be a beneficiary of this scheme puts a lie to the idea that the mandatory media code is about levelling the playing field between news media businesses and digital platforms due to a loss in advertising revenue.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was correct in pointing this out only a few months ago in the Australian:

Importantly, the bargaining arrangements relating to the payment of remuneration will not be available to public broadcasters as they are principally funded by the government and not through advertising revenue.  Public broadcasters will, however, benefit for the minimum standards for non-remuneration matters set out in the draft mandatory code.

The ABC is a taxpayer-funded behemoth with guaranteed funding of over $1.1 billion per year.  Therefore, it has not lost any money through the existence of Google or Facebook eating up advertising revenue.

Indeed, it is the other way around.  The ABC's 2019-2020 annual report reveals an advertising spend of $5.5 million, which is a significant increase from a $2.7 million advertising spend reported from 2018-19.

Much of this is buying up Google advertising to increase ABC websites' positions in news searches.

So, the ABC will be giving money to Google with your tax dollars, only to receive it in return.  The relationship between big tech and big public broadcaster will inch that bit closer in a cosy deal that puts mainstream Australians last.

Surely a better outcome both for the ABC, and taxpayers, would be to reform the ABC into a subscription service like is being proposed for the BBC in the UK, privatise it completely, or at the very least, allow the ABC to air commercials since they are so keen on a slice of advertising revenue in the first place.

The ABC wants the perception of being independent from commercial interests while cashing in on revenue from commercial organisations like a seagull to a chip.

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.