Another fine post from Catalyst, which (and whom) I wish would be the catalyst for changing the hearts and minds of the rich and super-rich elites of this country. Thank you again, Catalyst.
(Image credit: State Library of Victoria H96.160/2603)
Bicycling along a tightrope was how Harold Macmillan( Britain’s Prime Minister 1957-1963) explained how demanding formulating economic policy was and is. After the war and the subsequent years of bleak austerity, Macmillan famously reminded Britons that You’ve never had it so good.
In Australia too, Prime Minister Robert Menzies (1949-1966) was in the fortunate position of presiding over a high growth period. And it was prosperity that reached almost all Australians.
As Andrew Leigh writes in Battlers and Billionaires: The Story of Inequality in Australia:
There was a fridge in 97 percent of Australian homes in the 1960s, an appliance that most Britons, Germans and Italians did not yet possess.
(Image credit: Attic Paper)
He adds that Australians also took for granted owning a washing machine, a vacuum cleaner, a radio, and a television.
When we arrived as migrants in the early 1970s I was overawed by the variety of small electrical appliances for sale and which were present in so many ordinary homes.
(Image credits: Hoover washing machine; Electrolux vacuum cleaner; radiogram; PYE TV receiver)
Working conditions in Australia were better, the pay was better, the flat we rented was superior to the one we had left. What’s more, people were friendly, quick to help and the weather was so good. If it wasn’t quite a land of milk and honey, it was certainly a very favourable place to be.
Dreams that had seemed impossible were realised here: a home of our own with a swimming pool. Four weeks paid holidays (introduced 1974), penalty rates, and a more relaxed lifestyle.
Life was good, and it began to change so slowly that at first it was hardly noticeable. Management in the 1980s suddenly became the preserve of the young, and American ideas flourished. Pie charts and motivational talks were the order of the day. Personnel departments – alarmingly – were now presumed to manage ‘human resources’ .As the terminology changed, people became just another disposable asset
No longer could people expect lifetime careers. The rich list flourished and flamboyant millionaires indulged their sporting and others passions, while they sold off their companies. Alan Bond, Christopher Skase, Rene Rivkin, and Laurie Connell bought and sold companies and spent money lavishly: polo ponies, racing yachts, Van Gogh paintings and extravagant parties. Businessmen suddenly became the corporate elite and excess became commonplace. Think of the gloss and glamour of the TV shows Dynasty and Dallas.
(Image credits: Alan Bond; Christopher Skase; Rene Rivkin; Laurie Connell)
(Image credits: Dynasty; Dallas)
As the 80s came to an end some of the tycoons were jailed, some exiled themselves, some died, and some just faded from the limelight. The gulf between them and us had widened, Australia had become less interested in being egalitarian.
Interest rates climbed: rising from 12% they spiralled to 18%. In the early 1990s we had “the recession we had to have”. The boom mentality had led to a spending cycle which could not last. Dreams collapsed, firms failed, and jobs were lost. Many people were retrenched, in some cases (like mine) more than once. Houses went up for sale, as people could no longer afford their Australian dream. Firms merged or closed, leaving staff afraid for their superannuation. People found their job “rationalised” or downsized and the job for life disappeared, to be replaced by increased part-time and casual work.
(Image credit: The Age)
Insecurity was in the air, and like a game of snakes and ladders the assets that had climbed so high tumbled in value. If the 80s had been one long high, the 90s were a much more sober affair. But for some the party never stopped – while those on the lower rungs of the ladder were reeling, those at the top just kept on making money.
In 1992 Lang Hancock died worth about $150 million – a sizable fortune. These days, though, his daughter Gina Rinehart’s “worth” is estimated as $29 billion. In Battlers and Billionaires, Andrew Leigh asks:
Is she really 190 times more ingenious than her father?
He concludes that the income boost is due mostly to a tenfold increase in the price of iron ore.
At the same time he estimates that half of Australian families have an annual pre-tax household income of $77,220 or less. Many people take home considerably less. Life at the lower income levels needs clever budgeting and an unenvious spirit. Ingenuity, not cash, is the order of the day: bulk buying, home cooking, op shopping and the ability to amuse yourself and seek out free events can make life better, even at this income level.
As someone commented to me,
I can always tell middle class kids – even in op shop clothes – they’ve got straight, white middle class teeth.
They may find it fun pretending to be poor. Many don’t realise that not everyone enjoys private schooling, with Foxtel and broadband on tap, an iPad, a job lined up by daddy or mummy, access to the latest books and films and their own car, not to mention annual holidays, often overseas. These kids have known nothing else, but older people have less excuse for ignoring the growing inequality in our society.
(Image Credit: Dental Implants Review)
Why should a TV personality – an ‘ordinary mum’ type – reportedly be paid $700,000 a year? How much should her opinions be allowed to influence the rest of us? How can these people speak for and represent the majority?
And if she is out of touch, what about those at the very top, the rich and super rich? Their share of economic prosperity has tripled in the period 1984-2012 from 0.8% to 2.8%, according to Andrew Leigh. At their income levels these percentages really add up. So does their lack of understanding of those who will never make the rich list, who are not members of what some have dubbed the lucky sperm club.
(Image credit: The Age)
PLEASE NOTE: This was the Australian Rich List for 2011
That’s why we need a Labor government: to encourage people, not exclude them. To keep the fair go alive, to represent the majority of people, the ones that the elites like to forget about, so that we don’t end up with a more divided society, the enclaves of privilege contrasted to the rest of us.
If we have been fortunate, whether by inheritance or education, by intelligence or health, don’t we have an obligation to the rest of society? Shouldn’t we use our gifts to help others? Or will we allow the user pays mentality to take hold and grow, forgetting that not everyone has the capacity to pay?
© Catalyst 2013
THE PUB 
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/news-ltd-apologises-to-barbara-ramjan-over-tony-abbott-punch-story-20130805-2r8si.html
News Ltd apologises to Barbara Ramjan over Tony Abbott punch story
August 5, 2013 – 1:44PM
Paul Bibby
Court Reporter
News Ltd has publicly apologised to a former student politician who was branded a serial liar by Liberal powerbroker Michael Kroger after she had accused Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of physically intimidating her.
In a remarkable twist that could reignite debate about Mr Abbott’s alleged punching of a wall after losing a student election in the late 1970s, News Ltd’s barrister read an extended apology in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday on behalf of The Australian to the alleged victim of the intimidation, Barbara Ramjan, as part of a settlement of a defamation action.
I am not expecting that Abbott story to go anywhere. The settlement has been made, it will disappear.
Interesting finding on the Morgan Reactor, Leroy. If reliable, it would tend to confirm the Andrew Elder hypothesis that Gillard’s work on policy would be enough to win the election.
Labor has a huge advantage there on almost any topic. I hope Rudd and his team are on to it – especially important with a couple of key players, Pyne and Dutton having done just about nothing. BishopJ and Morrison, despite all the noise on Boats!, have barely done more. A lot of big gaps there.
Bushfire Bill – Many thanks for your poignant words to me following the very distressing recent death in my arms of my best mate Bob ( the human Shih Tzu) following an 18 month battle with cancer.
You are a breath of fresh air even on the topic of canine animal behaviour!
Great that your Bob is now taking ‘small steps’!
Is everyone away this afternoon? I haven’t seen any new posts for an hour. Maybe something wrong with refresh. I hate going over the road for updates because Sean and Compact are hogging the thread at present – must be worried.
GD
I make generous use of Musrum’s STFU, over the road.
BB is spot on
No wonder a man who owns newspapers, Pay TV networks, book publishing businesses and movie studios doesn’t want the NBN
But that unwritten political rule that newspapers can be as vicious, misrepresentative and savage as they like, with politicians having to cop it sweet and make-believe they’re all mates, lest they be accused of “blaming the messenger” seems pretty straightforward to me. Julia Gillard even though she ‘copped it sweet’ was brought undone by Rudd using Murdoch’s media outlets to undermine her. Would she have been any worse off had she been able, or even tried, to legislate to limit Murdoch’s unreasonable seventy per cent control of our mainstream media?
Now, of course Rudd himself, not having used his brief window of opportunity to defy Murdoch, has to cop it ‘sweet’ at least until after this election. Then surely if he wins he has plans for real and early media reform? Freedom For The Press!, that simple slogan of freedom fighters of the past is just as, if not more important, in this struggle for control of the complexities of our media world and the NBN.
Aguirre, newspapers may go unread, but news and information are controlled by their powerful owners through their other media outlets and their opinons are certainly not left unsaid.
Remember! “True Liberty Is When Free-born Men Speak Free!”
John Milton’s Areopagitica,
Crying freedom for the press
Back in 17th century England,
Resisted monarchy’s excess.
His tract was a mighty weapon
In democracy’s progress.
We are the beneficiaries
Of his most eloquent address.
But we ‘free-born’ are complicit,
As we watch and acquiesce
While that freedom is abused
With a brazen shamelessness.
We encouraged one man’s ambition
To buy up, control, possess
As property our thoughts in print,
And we applauded his success.
We shared profits with this behemoth
Who now destroys our happiness,
Publishing news of all the world,
Writ as he commands it be expressed.
This threat of global tyranny,
Warns that it’s time to re-possess
What for him is now a licence
To break all rules and decency transgress.
Our precious freedom so perverted
Has caused democracy’s regress.
Let’s use our laws while we still can,
Redeem ourselves, and truly free the press.
Puff
Funnily enough the Reservation reference on my flight booking yesterday was **STFU.
It was an easy one to remember.
Rudd finishes the presser with a real dig at Gutless Abbott and debates. He sort of challenged the press mob to lay it on Abbott.
Hello everyone.
I was busy this morning (between the occasional comment here) putting out three loads of laundry, then having to dash out as showers approached to retrieve the driest items and put them into the airing cupboard.
Then I went out to stimulate the economy, and am just back, having negotiated ever-larger 4WDs “driven” by ever-more erratic people in the supermarket carpark, Then back through the school pick-up traffic, which is a serious challenge given we live opposite one large private school, with two others barely 500m east and west of that school, and there’s a Catholic primary school at the other end of our side street.
At least the side street is more navigable than it one was: only residents with parking permits are allowed to park on the western side, so it is theoretically possible for two vehicles going in opposite directions to pass safely. It has also had the unexpected benefit that, on those mornings when we are a bit late retrieving the wheelie bin, we no longer find it complete with the contents of someone’s car ashtray.
The way some people treat anywhere they do not live is mind-boggling.
(But then, it is the seat of Kooyong …)
Patricia,
It is really good to see you here. Care for a cuppa on the house?
?
Article & video
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-05/rudd-announces-450m-funding-for-out-of-school-care/4865854
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announces $450m funding for out-of-school care
Updated 5 minutes ago
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has targeted families in his first formal policy announcement of the federal election campaign, announcing a multi-million dollar boost for out-of-school hours care.
Earlyopener,
I am so sorry to learn of the death of your Bob.
gigi
[Even Lyndal Curtis is gradually turning her hair blonde from dark brown.]
When she was a uni student she had it bleached blond!
One for Aguirre:
twitter.com/NormanK4/statuses/364265993041768448
Try again:
Gigilene & CTar,
I vaguely remember that, when Ms Curtis was very young (I mean 2 or 3 years old) she was a blondie.
Fiona – Yes. I’d say so too – dad Lindsay was blond.
But at uni she was bleached – I’ve got to say her looks have improved.
In her early 20’s she always looked undernourished and with a red nose!
CTar,
I would have described Mr Curtis as mousy rather than blond.
ctar1 and fiona
It’s ok then,she’s allowed to be blonde now …
I do prefer the real Blondie though:
Fiona – He was an enigma to work with.
The only thing that was clear was that he was thinking something smart.
And could you keep up once he opened his mouth!
CTar,
I have a vague idea that when he retired from the CPS he became a senior consultant with Mallesons Stephen Jaques, as it then was. I will not tell you his nickname in this forum.
gigi – It’s a long while since I heard that.
Fiona – I know it.
The other thing I think he did then was finish off, as a C’wlth consultant, the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Bill.
Whatever people think of him he achieved – to the benefit of us all.
RRG would have approved of him.
Thanks Norman – appropriate.
BTW, it’s the first day of the election campaign, and Latika Bourke is right onto it. She wants to know what font the ALP are using.
Fiona – ‘Mallesons Stephen Jaques’
The Macphillamy, Cummins and Gibson clique! I think Mark does real estate these days.
C@tmomma, Rudd threw in his lot with the media, including News Ltd., and did a three year long termite job on Gillard.
That can’t be airbrushed from history.
And I guarantee it won’t be airbrushed by News Ltd., who are sure to have kept records of every occasion he contacted them, with names and dates ready for release at the appropriate moment.
Now they’re against him vociferously, and no doubt are intending to be as vicious as necessary to stop him and Labor from being re-elected.
Today’s front page of the DT showed that. It’s war.
There are literally billions of dollars at stake, with the demise of Murdoch’s most profitable cash cow in Australia, Foxtel, dependent on whether the NBN gets up and running before The Old Man can figure out a way to join it. Because, if it gets built, he can’t beat it.
Then we come to Rudd’s situation. He went out of his way to damage Gillard and, by association, Labor, in order to get back into the Big Chair. He used the media to do this, secretively and anonymously, denying all knowledge of these kinds of tactics with that innocent look he puts on his face. Then you know he’s lying.
Did he expect anyone to believe him? I know I didn’t. And I know that, until last month, you didn’t either.
It clearly took longer than expected… three years, not two. The damage he did to Labor by personally continually whingeing about Gillard, and by encouraging his acolytes to do the same, is a matter of record. The extra year made sure the damage done was commensurately greater after three years than it would have been in two.
Deny it if you like. Argue around the edges. Quibble on minor facts. Ask debating questions… but that’s what Rudd set out to do and what he did: a big fat deal with the Devil.
Now he has to manage it, with the Devil turning out not to be his best friend after all, and in fact, tyhing to hound him from office with editorial comment barely above the level of the lynch mob.
Every time I hear one of Rudd’s termites say, as Doug Cameron said to Annbel Crabbe on her cooking show, “Julia Gillard did some good things. But we were headed over a cliff,” I reflect to myself that one of the reasons that Gillard Labor was headed over a cliff was that deadbeats like Cameron and his ilk went out of their way to make sure of that.
They can’t hogtie someone, bundle them up and head for The Gap, and then say “We were heading for a cliff,” when it was them doing the heading.
Rudd has to now figure out a way to get the party out of the trouble he quite deliberately got it into.
With Labor’s record of achievement, the success of the Hung Parliament and the policy achievements of the government should have had us miles ahead of Abbott’s Coalition by now, had Gillard been allowed to play her own game.
But there was always Rudd there, beating her in personal polling, smiling coyly, denying he was anything but a Happy Little Vegemiter… all of which we now know was lies.
He could have resigned from Parliament at the 2010 election or, afterwards, in February 2012. Or if he stayed he could have pledged loyalty to the leader and proved it by acting decently, honourably and honestly.
He did none of this. He chose to pursue a political resurrection based on making others, and indeed his whole party, look bad compared to him.
He’s sown the wind, now he reaps the whirlwind of poor polling, a vehemently hostile (and still somewhat powerful) Murdoch media, and the real prospect of defeat. He’s been like one of those firemen who deliberately start a fire so that they can help put it out and have everyone say they’re a hero.
Good luck to him. I hope he wins. I’ll even vote Labor.
But he’ll only have himself to blame if he loses.
CTar,
I think he also did the FOI review back in the late 80s – early 90s.
It was Davies Bailey and Cater that became the Canberra branch of MSJ.
I don’t know what happened to MG&C – never really knew anyone there apart from Chris Macphillamy’s sister who was in my class at school and with whom I did not get on.
Fiona – Mark was a pain – The youngest, I think. His parents bought him an immaculate Red MGB when he graduated from school. ‘Entitled’.
M,C & G – John Haslam (‘Fringe Benefits’ restaurant), Manilow (sp) (Italian guy with long finger-nails).
Old stuff.
I am not saying anything negative about Rudd, no matter my private thoughts, now we are in campaign mode. I shall keep my own counsel.
I will say this, he had better be worth it.
Yep, BB, he did all of that and if he bloody loses the big losers will be the party, people like us and the whole nation. I’ll bet pounds to peanuts though that the happy little vegemite himself will simply buy himself some comforting lollipops and put the blame elsewhere.
I just had an idea, a silly one, I know …. KR should send JG to St Petersburg … Some sort of reconciliation gesture to please the Gillard supporters.
Abbott gets confused about carbon prices on his first stunt of the campaign. someone forgot to fill himin on a few details, thank goodness some alert journos mentioned them.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/05/tony-abbott-carbon-tax?CMP=twt_gu
gigi – She’d go across a lot better than he would.
puffy,
Whatever the result of the election it will be owned by Rudd.
This is what he wanted, this is what has driven him for three plus years.
It is now up to him.
Rudd v Abbott.
Those here who are fighting hard for the re election of the labor government I wish you well.
Work time – looks like rain.
Bushfire Bill,
Our new candidate is a Bob fan.
Abbott stuffs up at his first stunt today.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/tony-abbott-in-row-over-carbon-costs-at-meat-factory-20130805-2r8va.html
TA is happy. It’s a religious event. Religious words flow easily from his lizard tongue.
The abbott puts on his parson’s hat as he preaches from his pulpit.
foreverjanice A parson’s nose is what he is!
Just had a look at that article, Leone. It contains this gem:
How cute. He doesn’t know that if it wasn’t for carbon pricing he wouldn’t be receiving that gift of $4.8m. He thinks they deserve that handout just for being a great bunch of guys. He obviously hasn’t considered that his company is contributing to global warming, and that it’s incumbent on him to do something about it – or that the government have just helped him along the path to greener emissions to the tune of $4.8m. This is because John Berry of JBS Australia is an ungrateful sod.
He doesn’t like being given $4.8m to offset a tax increase of about $630,000. He’d rather continue to emit 80,000 tonnes of carbon a year and get nothing for it. What a stupid bastard.
Aguirre,
Well, he’d have to be a stupid bastard to let the abbott onto his premises to tell a raft of lies and show him up for the stupid bastard he happens to be.
Check out candidate Jaymes Diaz showing off the Liberal eye for detail and preparedness. With that style, he could be leader one day.
Have a look at the quality of Lib candidate
Aguirre, Snap
From George Bludger.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgebludger/9440346493/
Yes indeed, rnm1953. I’m also enjoying watching the contortions Abbott is putting himself through in order to avoid debating Rudd. He apparently won’t be at the Press Club next week because it’s all a stunt from Rudd seeing as the ALP has no policies. Yes that’s right, the ALP are offering to debate their policies for an hour in order to hide their lack of policies.
That would make sense to Abbott. After all, he’s always running away from pressers in order to prove he has nothing to hide. And he’s always weaseling out of debates in order to prove that he’s not scared of debating.
Apparently that guy is the candidate for Greenway, a seat he’s likely to win on current polling.
It’s really sad when you think about it.