IMPORTANT UPDATE: ALP WINS! The Honourable Anthony Albanese is sworn in as Australia’s 31st Prime Minister.
Get your Democracy Sausage!
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The most important day of 2022 for Australia is almost here.
Tomorrow, Saturday 21st May 2022 is the day Australians decide how they are going to live in the next three years, and the decades influenced by that time.
We vote in the 2022 Federal Election.
It is a stark and clear choice. We either continue to live the same or worse lives under a nefarious, disingenuous Right Wing government driven by religious and political zealotry, partisanship and questionable ethics or we can choose the only other major party who can change the course of the nation towards a better future.
We can choose the incumbent Liberal Party Prime Minister who mixes his politics with his religion and who claims a divine message from an eagle in a painting inspired his ascent to the top job of leading this nation. Otherwise, we can choose Labor, the party whose leader will become the Prime Minister and whose solid experience includes living and working amongst some of the most disadvantaged in Australia, with the residents and workers in working-class suburbs.
The Labor Party has an extensive team of talented experienced and enthusiastic candidates. The Liberal Party and National Party have a team that appears to be dead-scared of a FICAC, going by the Prime Minister’s refusal to keep his election promise to set up a Federal Independent Commission Against Corruption.
I am hoping that Labor and good Independents win their seats tomorrow so we can escape this nightmare of a government at last and see off our inhumane, international embarrassment of a Prime Minister.
It is the people’s turn to have their say.
For all volunteers from all parties and independents who have and will be helping in this and every election, thank you for your commitment to our democracy.
A big thank you from a grateful nation goes to some of the most under-rated, hardworking, and dedicated people whom Australia has the privilege of employing; the staff of the Australian Electoral Commission. If anyone wants to dispute that Australia’s democracy stands on their shoulders and that the AEC should be the envy of the democratic world, just look over the street at elections in the USA.
There is even an AEC site where you can practise voting.
https://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/How_to_vote/practice/
Hopefully, AEC staff hand-counting every vote will see more thankyou messages scribbled in the margins of ballot papers than the usual drawings of penises and testicles, or the universal message to our politicians to Eff Off. I like to leave a kind message, in the margins away from the candidate’s boxes on my completed ballot. I feel very proud after I vote. It is both a right and a privilege in our uncertain world.
Please enjoy your Democracy Sausage!
A contrast between the two major parties:
Here is an interesting article that uses a different style of map that shows the distribution of federal electorates held by the major parties.
The Australian election map has been lying to you
By Colin Gourlay, Georgina Piper, Tim Leslie, Cristen Tilley and Matt Lidd
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-20/federal-election-map-lying/101076016
THE PUB 
Mark Warburton describes the unredacted content of a secret report from Boston Consulting Group commissioned by Department of Social Security in May 2020 that was hidden from Senate Estimates probing
The visible content is about working age income support payments, rates of those payments and changes made to those payments due to the COVID pandemic. Unredacted headings include ‘the likely recovery pathway for employment and the welfare system’ and ‘illustrative options’. In October 2020, officials denied that BCG had been asked to look at what impact the recession was going to have.
https://johnmenadue.com/mark-warburton-time-to-revisit-integrity-in-the-australian-public-service/
In Buying and Selling the Poor : inside Australia’s privatised welfare-to-work market the preface states
Although services can be useful, they are fundamentally limited to the extent that they offer largely behavioural solutions to structural problems. In effect, they aim to ‘fix’ the unemployed by making them ‘market ready’ but leave unchanged the labour market structures that create unemployment and economic precarity P xi
With Rishworth and Burke’s comments about free TAFE aged-care nursing places and review of casual work I am hopeful that they will be more nurses in aged care
20 years ago in wodonga the neighbour on Centrelink payments completed a nursing qualification. She could only afford registration in one state so she selected NSW because more aged care homes. She got 2 shifts a month at Lutheran Aged Care on Sunday afternoon as only person on duty. She wrecked her back lifting a patient so had to give up nursing and become a sex worker – better at it than I would be
Lessons
1. She had to pay for her course & registration, registration fees = 1 week unemployment pay
2. She was injured on the job by unsafe work practices
3. She was paid at lower rate than her qualifications
4. Rostered for 2 shifts a month earning under $450 a month so employer did not have to make superannuation contribution
5. I am sure this is a typical story for aged care workers
As predicted, lots of euphemisms for ‘we are going to make you poorer’ are appearing . A wee sample from today’s offerings
Real wages won’t rise for years as inflation bites: Chalmers
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Wages will continue to lag inflation until at least 2023-24.
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real wages won’t get back to pre-pandemic levels until at least 2026.
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Meanwhile profits for big companies keep on soaring, top executives’ salaries (and the absurdly generous salaries and perks we pay our politicians, state and federal) keep rising to astronomical levels while the peasants are repeatedly told they have to manage on less.
Something isn’t right here.
friendlyjordies –
Stephen Colbert –
Chris Hayes –
Brian Tyler Cohen –
From my inbox –
Well, I’ve decided I like this job better. We’re back in Parliament and, as you know, the Prime Minister is Anthony Albanese. I always used to give you an update as Manager of Opposition Business. But I’m a lot happier now giving you an update at the end of the Parliamentary week as Leader of the House. So once again, here’s the 5&5:
BEST
Government benches
The Prime Minister’s first answer
Uluru Statement from the heart
Welcome to country
First Speeches
WORST
Having to clean up a decade of mess
Peter Dutton’s scare campaign
Paul Fletcher hit with neuralyzer
Pauline Hanson walk-out
Morrison no-show
1. We didn’t waste a minute. We introduced legislation to take real action on climate change; reform the broken aged care system; abolish the cashless debit card; and set up Jobs and Skills Australia to tackle our skills shortages. I also had the incredible privilege of introducing legislation to give 11 million Australians access to paid family and domestic violence leave. These are all things that should have been done years ago – but it’s taken a Labor Government to start getting it done.
2. “I thank very much the Leader of the Opposition for the question, and I congratulate him on his election as Leader of the Liberal Party. I wish him well as Leader of the Opposition and I hope he stays there for a very, very long time!” That’s how Anthony Albanese began his first answer as Prime Minister to Peter Dutton’s first question as Liberal leader. Generous. Or at least generous-ish.
3. “Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Indigenous Australians: How is the Australian Government delivering the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and in particular, progressing an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the Constitution?” With that question Marion Scrymgour became the first ever First Nations backbencher to ask a question of a First Nations minister.
4. “Respect is taking responsibility for the now, the past, the present and the future”. The Welcome to Country before the opening of parliament, introduced by Dr Aunty Matilda House-Williams and delivered by her son Paul Girrawah House, was incredibly moving. His words outlining the struggle of First Nations people for rights and respect was a reminder of how far we’ve come but how far we still have to go. He ended with a passionate call to implement the Uluru Statement of the Heart and begin the process for a referendum to enshrine a First Peoples Voice to Parliament in the Constitution. We intend to do both!
5. One of the best parts of any new Parliament – particularly when you win government – is hearing from new colleagues for the first time. And what an incredible series of first speeches from Labor members this week! Sally Sitou … Zaneta Mascarenhas … Louise-Miller Frost … Marion Scrymgour … Tracey Roberts … and Tania Lawrence in the House, as well as Jana Stewart in the Senate. I’m so happy to be a part of a government that looks and sounds more like Australia.
1. The Government has been left with a huge mess to clean up after the wilful neglect of the previous decade. The economic challenges are particularly acute – and that was reinforced this week with the inflation figures and an economic statement to Parliament by Treasurer Jim Chalmers. It was a powerful speech that was brutally honest with the Australian people: things are going to get worse before they get better. We didn’t make this mess – but we are taking responsibility for cleaning it up.
2. So surely the economy was Peter Dutton’s focus in his first Question Time as Opposition Leader right? Nope. Instead he fell back on a weak, tired old anti-union scare campaign. Seriously? He’s had two months to prepare for this and that’s all he’s got? This does not bode well for the next three years.
3. I think over the years you’ve worked out that I really like the Parliament. You may also have a sneaking suspicion that the Libs and the Nats wish it wasn’t there. Who needs democracy when you think you’re born to rule? So it was pretty funny watching the antics of the new Manager of Opposition Business Paul Fletcher this week. First he tried to blame us for the fact Parliament isn’t sitting very much this year – conveniently forgetting that’s because his government only scheduled 10 sitting days in the first half of the year. Then when I made changes to Standing Orders to allow more debate on urgent bills he attacked us for shutting down debate. Ummm. I think Agent J from Men in Black has hit Mr Fletcher with his neuralyzer – because he seems to have forgotten the last decade ever happened.
4. Pauline Hanson has sat through dozens of Acknowledgements of Country during her time in the Senate because it’s a routine thing that’s been happening for more than a decade. This week she decided to storm out and make a scene as if it was a new thing. Pointless, divisive culture wars are still a thing then.
5. I bet you wish you’d heard the last of this guy 👆 But I can’t let this through to the keeper without comment. Scott Morrison was a no-show in Parliament this week because he was in Japan getting paid to make a speech. If he’s off being paid to do another job – why does he expect taxpayers to keep paying him to do this one?
But let me finish with the first thing that happened after we were sworn in. My friend Milton Dick was dragged to the Speaker’s chair. It was a real highlight in an incredible week. I know that he’ll bring fairness and decency to the role.
Parliament’s back again next week and I’ll write to you straight after that.
‘til then,
Tony.
Donate
PS. After 20 years Joni Mitchell finally performed again this week and I’ve been wanting to find an excuse to have ‘Both Sides Now’ as song of the week. When there’s a change of government the song means something slightly different to every one of us. But I’m pretty happy with the side of the room where we’ve landed. Here is Dave Le’aupepe – yes I know, lead singer of Gang of Youths – singing Joni’s ‘Both Sides Now’.
Australian Labor Party
Authorised by P. Erickson, ALP, Canberra.
Morrison not being present in parliament deserves No.1 spot on The Good list.
The way famine and disease had this effect is not the way you probably think…………… well not how I thought it did any way 😆
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How Humans’ Ability to Digest Milk Evolved from Famine and Disease
A landmark study is the first major effort to quantify how lactose tolerance developed
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-humans-ability-to-digest-milk-evolved-from-famine-and-disease/
NEW THREAD – with sincere thanks to Billie and CK Watt: