New Politics: Australian Politics, News, Analysis & Commentary

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan instigated a brand of neoliberal economics and politics that affected the world for almost four decades. They left the political scene over 30 years ago, and whatever people think about their economic practices and policies – we think they were an absolute disaster for the world – they were major political figures of history steeped in the politics of the Cold War. But they were people of the 1980s and 1990s, and their policies are not the right policies to even remotely think about if we're looking at resolving all the economic issues of the 2020s. New thinking is required but is the Liberal–National Party the party that has the right ideas? Is Josh Frydenberg the right Treasurer for the times? We don’t think so.

And the politics of COVID-19 continues, and it seems to be business as usual. Whatever people might think about the Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, he turns up every single day of the week, delivering all the bad news about increasing numbers of coronavirus cases, facing the pressure forced upon him by the media and his many political opponents. And this is what the electoral expects from our leaders. Face the music. And lead.

But where is the Prime Minister? As far away as possible from the problems, campaigning in Queensland, inspecting tuna fish at a Liberal–National Party donor’s seafood company, and heaping more political pressure on Andrews from a far-away distance, and supporting Clive Palmer’s High Court case to re-open the Western Australian borders. This is not the right leadership for the times.

Just when we might think corruption might be over in government corporations, or directors might be more circumspect after all the focus on financial services and a Royal Commission into the sector, there's another large scale scandal occurring in iCare, the worker’s compensation scheme managed by the NSW Government. Or mismanaged. But whichever way, at least Eddie Obeid can longer be blamed for corruption: this is all on the heads of the NSW Liberal–National Government.

It's a by-election the Liberal Party should have won, but didn't. Eden-Monaro. Despite all the resources put into the campaign, the Government nudged the margin by just 0.45% – not much and certainly not the massive swing and "brutal lesson to Labor" the New Corporation reported with glowing headlines in their local versions of Pravda and The North Korea Times.

For all the glowing support provided to Scott Morrison by the mainstream media, there's an underbelly of electoral negativity that will come back to haunt this Government. The electorate is in a holding pattern to see how the Government responds in the long-term to COVID-19 and the downturn in the economy: if they mess this up, they can expect to be defeated at the next federal election in 2022. That's the main message from the Eden-Monaro by-election. And choosing strong local candidates is another key message.

The Palace Letters were always going to be controversial, irrespective of their content: did they reveal too much about the 1975 Dismissal? Or too little? Either way, the release of the Letters will bring up the inevitable debates about should Australia become a republic. The British Monarch had too much influence in 1975, but 45 years later, it's a constitutional appendix that has no need and is an irritant on our political system. And, like an appendix, it's an operation that needs to be performed sooner rather than later.

Hold the crisis: it's really time for the football. And for the Prime Minister, that really means going to the corporate box at Kogarah Oval to watch some grown men kick an oval-shaped pig-skin on grass, schmooze with business leaders and a former Liberal Party director, the one who somehow forgot he had donated $165,000 to the Liberal Party. That tends to happen to a political party that represents capital interests and big business. And that Liberal Party donor – also known as Scott Briggs – is someone who is keen to snatch the business of a privatised Australian visa processing system.

Anyway, who's got time for a national crime and corruption commission to look into something like this. Don’t interrupt: there is a football game to watch, schooners to sip from, sponsors and donors to meet and greet. The wife and daughters are away too, so, it's time to drink up. The national interest can wait.

McCarthyism was that awful US syndrome from the 1950s, where the mention of ‘communism’ was like a combination of the bubonic plague, 1918 virus and COVID-19. It was a virus we thought the world might have rid itself of, but it's alive and well in 2020. It's no longer the Soviet Union causing all the trouble, but the Chinese Government, and the conservatives have a problem with them.

And the politicised Australian Federal Police is always going to play its part, helping to stitch up a NSW Labor politician who mentioned a few nice words about the Chinese President. And, in case you missed, that's a NSW Labor politician, announced with a large megaphone.

Are the Barbarians at the gate, and do they raise their guns at the mention of culture? It seems they do, with their constant attacks on the ABC and a meagre $250 million rescue package for the arts, screen and entertainment industry that's likely to kill it off, rather than save it. $783 million of funding has been cut from the ABC since 2014 and the government keeps saying “there is no cut to the ABC”. But, as George Constanza loves to say: it's not a lie if you truly believe it.

And the politics of COVID-19 continues. Far from being the time where, as Scott Morrison said, “politics are to be left at the door”, this has been a time of more political ideology, more unhinged attacks, blame-shifting and targeting of the poor. One gets the feeling the government is getting a little bit inebriated on the Prime Minister’s high approval ratings and picking up that tried and tested attribute that accompanies political arrogance: tone-deafness.

Will there be a political price to pay? We'll find out after the Eden-Monaro byelection.

The Prime Minister supported radical anti-vaxer/5G/anti-lockdown/Bill Gates protests, saying people have a right to express themselves, but wanted to lockdown the Black Lives Matter and deaths in custody rallies. It’s an obvious duplicity but no one in the media pointed out this discrepancy. Perhaps it's a case where for the Prime Minister – and many in the media – black lives don't really matter that much. After all, Rio Tinto detonated Aboriginal heritage in the Juukan Gorge but police decided to set up a 24-hour guard on the statue of Captain James Cook. There's a history war that needs to be won.

Branch stacking hasn't got anything to do with trees, but it's also not the sole domain of the Labor Party. The past two Liberal Party Prime Ministers have entered parliament on the back of “industrial-scale branch stacking”: Malcolm Turnbull in the seat of Wentworth; Scott Morrison in the seat of Cook. Branch stacking isn't illegal, but it corrupts the democratic process. Labor has acted to remove the stackers in Victoria. Will the Liberal Party also clean out their substantial mess?

Are the economy and society opening up too quickly? Or too slowly? There's a second wave of coronavirus developing in northern China – Australia is managing the infection rate very well but the maniacal calls to open up the borders are falling along political lines. These calls are becoming quite predictable and quite boring, but it's best to show ‘abundance of caution’, as the Prime Minister keeps saying.

The ABC’s Insiders program has been broadcasting since 2001 and screened almost 800 episodes. That's 20 years, and they’ve never invited an Indigenous journalist as a panelist until last weekend. 20 years. What is important now is how long it will be before the second Indigenous journalist appears, and whether they'll be asked to discuss general political issues, not just Indigenous issues.

The government wants to end the JobKeeper support as soon as possible but will wait until after the 4 July byelection in Eden-Monaro. Why? Because ending JobKeeper will be unpopular and they want to win the seat. Cynical, yes. But if JobKeeper is removed, it will create an economic calamity. Watch this space. It's going to be fun.

There have been many comparisons made between Scott Morrison and Bob Hawke recently, but Morrison is no Bob Hawke. The Accord was totally different from Morrison’s plans, dubbed "Accord 2.0" by the friendly media. But media management is what the Liberal–National Government does best and at the onset of a recession, what do we get? A HomeBuilder plan that virtually no-one can access, and does very little to stimulate the economy. But the plan did keep the media attention away from talking about the recession, which is what the intention was all along.

The Government’s Robodebt system has been a disaster: governments should never be involved in this type of program causing so much harm to the public. It cost $600 million to recoup $721 million, and after a High Court case adjudicated that Robodebt is illegal, all of that money will need to be paid back. Plus interest, damages and costs.

News Corporation is closing down 112 newspapers: is this a blow to regional news, democracy and local businesses? Or will it be good to see the end of papers that are poor in quality, and do little more than promote news favourable to Liberal–National Party interests?

There are protests and riots in the US. And racism. But the Australian media looks to the events in America with the belief that systematic and institutional racism only exists in faraway places. Time for Australian media to wake up: racism is rife in Australia and just thinking it always happens somewhere else won't make it go away.

The Australian economy is falling into a heap, and what better way to provide a cushion to the economy than to start a fruitless diplomatic stoush with China, our largest trading partner.

Fresh from celebrating Scott Morrison’s unlikely election victory anniversary, the media championed Australia’s push for a ‘weapons inspectors’ inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 (well, that's not correct, it was actually pushed by the European Union). And if we can remember the last time ‘weapons inspectors’ were used on the international stage in 2003, it didn't end up too well.

What followed was an unnecessary humiliation of China, and it has retaliated with an 80 per cent tariff slapped onto Australian barley for the next five years. That's effectively saying goodbye to a $1.5 billion per year export market. Will those barley producers who usually vote for the Coalition, remember this act of diplomatic ineptitude at the 2022 election? They are the ones who will be paying for it…

It's difficult being an Opposition Leader at the best of times, but especially during a national crisis. During these times, the Opposition is usually reduced to irrelevancy, but it's the job of a political party to overcome this and ensure it remains relevant. And with a federal government performing ineptly and corruptly, there is so much material to work with. But Anthony Albanese and Labor need to start working on this material (and its own), because time is slipping away.

Schools in NSW will be fully opened soon but the day after the announcement, a COVID-19 case was recorded at St Ignatius in Riverview, the alma mater of Tony Abbott. We don't need to say too much more about this but is the NSW Government throwing caution to the wind? In the choice between money and public health, the government has not chosen wisely.

Schools have become the new battleground for the Morrison Government and they've started a huge brawl with the Victoria Premier, Daniel Andrews. Morrison and his entourage of Chief Medical Officers are using flimsy evidence to push schools to fully reopen, even though there's international evidence that suggests it's best to go slow and show the abundance of caution that has, so far, been lacking from the Australian Government. Patience is a virtue, but how can we expect patience from a government lacking in virtue? The Education Minister, Dan Tehan, did go on the attack, but withdrew from the playground after he realised he'd come to a gun fight armed with a pop stick.

And in their quest to open up the economy, the government has also released the COVIDSafe app – some people think it may actually stop the coronavirus, but the Prime Minister will just be happy if they're fooled enough to think downloading the app will allow them to go the footy, or go to the pub for a quick drink. For a government so lacking in trust, it's surprising so many people are following their instructions. But there's one major problem with the COVIDSafe app: it doesn't actually work. But perhaps that was never the intention.

We love elections and there's a by-election coming up in the seat of Eden-Monaro, following the resignation of Mike Kelly. The date hasn't been set yet but, already, the preselected candidate, Kristy McBain, has already seen off three opponents: John Barilaro, Andrew Constance and Jim Molan. Not bad after just five days and a campaign that hasn't even started yet.

Just because there's a coronavirus crisis, we can't assume a government will act in the best interests of its people. Trust in governments and authority is at a low level, so why would the public have trust in a Tracing App, when all it's going to do is soak up personal data the government can then on-sell to third parties? No thanks. And especially after the debacles of the 2016 Census, the Centrelink crash and MyHealth. This is not a government that can be trusted to do the right thing. For its donors and support base, yes. But not for the general public.

And the LNP Government will have to work towards a new type of economy: the old one stopped working. But are they up to it? We think not. Time to buy up essential services and accepting an economy isn't just all about GDP, it's also about love and relationships, just like in the happy countries of Bhutan and New Zealand.

Malcolm Turnbull has released his memoirs and has announced he wants to do all the things he didn't do while he was the Prime Minister of Australia. Well, that is very good news, but it might be wise to let Turnbull know the time to do all these things is when you are the Prime Minister, not when you are not the Prime Minister. And a big announcement about the symbiotic relationship between News Corporation and the Liberal Party – tell us something we didn't already know. Yes, Murdoch is a cancer on the Australian political landscape, but standing up to Rupert Murdoch means actually standing up to him, not giving him more of Australia's media, installing an inferior NBN that protects News Corporation assets, and gifting a lazy $30 million to Foxtel: no questions asked. That's not standing up, that's being ‘owned’ by Rupert Murdoch.

And the Ruby Princess incident: a cover-up or standard police work? We'll just have to bide our time but the truth has to come out, if trust in governments and institutions is to be restored.

Forget The Dismissal, forget Fine Cotton, the Hilton Bombing and even the Offset Alpine fire. The Ruby Princess is shaping up to be one of the biggest scandals in Australian history. And all under the noses of the NSW and Australian Governments. Sports games are not being played at the moment, but gosh, politicians are fantastic at playing the blame game. And it's an ugly spectacle seeing NSW Health and Australian Border Force blaming each other. We do want to see the blame games continue but only if we end up finding out who made the decision to allow the Ruby Princess to dock in Sydney Harbour with so many infected people on board. And why. We think there's a great deal of corruption involved.

Governments can rarely be trusted. Even when the public has offered them so much goodwill to solve the health and economic caused by the coronavirus virus, they are so keen to play their political games and mislead the public. Coal mines in Sydney? Yes, the NSW Government just approved a coal mine extension under a major Sydney drinking water basin. Losing working rights? Yes, the Australian Government wants to undermine the Fair Work Act. And it's all happening because the electorate is busy watching the coronavirus. That's why scrutiny needs to be maintained.

George Pell has been released from jail after the High Court quashed his conviction of historical child sexual abuses. Whatever happened to the notion of juries sitting at the apex of the legal system? Well, it gets thrown to the bottom of the scrapheap with unlimited finances and legal resources available to help win your case. And that's what the Catholic church managed to do. We agree with Mr Bumble, the character from Oliver Twist: The law really is an ass.

The coronavirus crisis is likely to be with us for some time to come and governments have been doing their best to manage the crisis, but it seems some countries are doing better than others.

The Morrison government has been dragging its feet, on the economic and health fronts, and it seems that it’s directing its actions based on ideological pursuits, rather than putting that all aside, and working out what is the best outcome for the entire community.

Economic action has been slow – there are two stimulus packages, but not a cent has actually been received by anyone yet, and government messaging on health outcomes have been contradictory and confusing.

Governments of all persuasions need to rise to the occasion in a time of crisis but it seems that this government is going to exhaust all other options before embarking on the correct course of action. Is this the right government for the times, or do we need something different?

Whether we have the right government at this time is questionable, but neoliberalism as an economic philosophy has had its day and needs to answer some questions of its own. Modern history has shown in times of crisis, the world does have the ability to stop, reassess the direction it’s heading in and develop strategies for a better future. In 1919, the Paris Peace Conference resulted in the creation of the League of Nations – that failed in its primary purpose, which was to prevent further war – and after the Second World War ended in 1945, we saw the creation of the United Nations, instigation of the Bretton Woods agreement which set up news terms of monetary relations between North America, Western Europe, Australia and Japan, resulted in the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund.

The mode of thinking at that stage was there needed to be a control over speculative financial capital, a need to consolidate Keynesian economic thinking, and stabilise world economies – that was economic thinking that existed until the onset of neoliberalism in the early 1980s, and there have been calls for a new mode of economic thinking to guide us through this current economic crisis.

In 1945, the world has Churchill, Roosevelt and Curtin – among others – great national figures in their respective countries. Now we have Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Scott Morrison – we asked the question before if Australia has the right leadership right now – but internationally, do we have the right leadership to create a new financial and economic structure to guide the world through this crisis?