New Politics: Australian Politics, News, Analysis & Commentary

There’s been a major breakthrough in the diplomatic relationship between Australia and China, with the Australian Prime Minister and Chinese president holding a meeting at the G20 summit in Indonesia. And this is a process initiated by both Anthony Albanese and Xi Jinping – it follows years of hostility from the previous Coalition government directed towards China, and a great deal of commentary verging on racism from the mainstream media.

The low point in the relationship was when the former Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton accused China of deliberately causing the coronavirus outbreak in 2020, China retaliated by imposing trade sanctions on Australian goods and services to the tune of $20 billion. All it took was some sensible people on both sides to start the dialogue, sit down in a room, discuss the issues, look at common ground, and create a pathway towards shared interests. Anthony Albanese has shown what constructive international diplomacy looks like, and it’s a stark contrast from the actions of the previous government, who just wanted to rattle the sabre and shout at everyone from the rooftops.

And the mid-term elections in the United States are over – there was talk of the red wave coming through from the Republicans, but that never eventuated, and most of the candidates supported by former US President Donald Trump didn’t get up, and the Democrats will still hold the Senate, and the Republicans will control the US congress by a very small margin. So, this is in America, but it’s an important election result, not just for America, but for Australia and the rest of the world.

Many jurisdictions all over the world over the past few years have swung towards more liberal-minded or governments of a centre-left persuasion, and there was a feeling that after the election of a far-right Prime Minister in Italy, the world was going to start swinging the other way, and the US was going to continue the trend that started off in Italy. There was a feeling that the red-wave coming in the US was going to signal a return of Donald Trump to the Presidency – and he has announce his intention to run in 2024 – but if he does get to the final election race, he might be in for a surprise.

But we’ve got a more insidious problem in Australia and that’s sports betting – and it was revealed during the week that an AFL umpire was arrested for betting on the Brownlow Medal – but it’s not really a surprise, we almost get more betting time than game time, gambling on sports in Australia is around $8 billion per year, SportsBet spends $130 million on advertising each year as well, and also pays the AFL $2 million each year for advertising. And it’s everywhere – it’s at the game, it’s on during a broadcast – a sports panel will discuss a game, and then launch into a segment about the betting odds, and which bet will offer the best return – and there’s a lot of money involved here, but this has become a big problem in sport.

There’s a lot of issues that are starting to build up in federal politics and with just a few more weeks of sitting days before the end of the year, the Labor government is trying to fit in as much as possible before they all go home for Christmas. And major issue that they’re trying to push through as quickly as possible is their industrial relations bill, and the main agenda here is increase wages, especially for low-income workers, improve working conditions and create a better balance between the rights of business and the rights of workers.
The Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has come out to say that it will take industrial relations backwards and unions will hold businesses to ransom – this is the just the usual rhetoric that we get from business groups and the Liberal Party, who won’t be happy until workers are paid $2 a day, and can be sacked at whim – but the Labor Party was created through the unions and is the one that is supposed to support workers’ rights whenever it gets into government, so it can’t be a surprise that these changes to industrial relations were going to be made.
And COP27 is being held in Egypt this week – and that’s the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference – it is an important conference, but people who want global action on climate change are becoming impatient and now suggesting that it’s more of an annual greenwashing event but this is the 27th COP event, and global action is moving at a glacial pace.
Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, isn’t attending COP27 – we can argue that Albanese’s ministerial team when compared to Scott Morrison’s team is more than capable, but should Albanese be there as well? He can’t argue that the Prime Minister should have gone last year, and then this year argue that he can’t be in two places at the same time can he?
And the actions of the previous Morrison government are back in the spotlight again – the Robodebt Royal Commission is revealing more and more information about this scheme – and it’s quite damaging to the reputation of Scott Morrison, and to the Liberal Party – and it might lead to lead to more than just damage to reputation.
This Royal Commission will run its course, and will find out whatever it needs to find out, but one curious issue is the coverage of this Royal Commission in the media – this is illegality committed by a Liberal Government, over 2000 people committed suicide as a result, and it ultimately cost taxpayers $1.8 billion in compensation payments, but the homes pages of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, Herald Sun, Courier Mail have no material about the Royal Commission, their reporting has been scarce, the ABC has given some coverage, with most of the reporting coming from the Guardian.
In comparison to the Royal Commissions into Trade Unions, and the Pink Batts insulation schemes, which had blanket media coverage, there’s not much interest from the media into Robodebt.
And speaking of how inept the mainstream media is in Australia, the Herald Sun has excelled again in its attacks on the Victoria Premier, Daniel Andrews – and it’s still running with a story about a car accident with a cyclist from 9 years ago, but at least it’s gone to some more recent history, where it’s regurgitated a story from 12 months ago, when Andrews fell down a flight of stairs, and made it seem like something untowards was going on.
Kevin Rudd did call for a royal commission into media concentration, and while the Labor government might be busy with quite a few other matters at the moment – fixing up the economy, wages growth, industrial relations, climate change, corruption – it will have to do something about News Corporation, because it’s an out of control media organisation, and a menace to society.

The Budget is all over, and just like many of the previous Budgets, it’s almost disappeared from the news cycle, although there’s still some remnants that are being discussed, and the two big issue s are inflation and tax cuts – the Reserve Bank did raise interest rates during the week, and that’s the seventh consecutive interest rate rise – and the Reserve Bank Governor Phillip Lowe said that the rates will keep rising, although we have to remember he also said interest rates wouldn’t rise until 2024, and that was just a few months before the last election – and these interest rates rises are primarily being used to curb inflation – the Labor government is facing many economic problems that have to be addressed, and it doesn’t really matter who caused these problems, they’re in government now, and it’s their job to repair the damage.

Some economists have suggested that the state of the economy now is very similar to the Depression era economy, with a combination of high national debt and inflation – and the Scullin government at that time, couldn’t resolve the issues they inherited and were thrown out of office in 1931.

It’s difficult to compare economies from different eras – the economy today is far more complex and sophisticated than what it was in 1931 – but there might be a few lessons for the Labor government – fix the economy, or face a very short period of time in office.

17 min 46 – Robodebt rears its ugly head again

Robodebt has also reared its ugly head again, and the Royal Commission into the previous government’s Robodebt scheme is hearing evidence at the moment – and there’s some pretty awful material that’s being presented there. And we’re hearing from public servants, lawyers, people affected by Robodebt, people who had family members who suicided after receiving Robodebt notices.

We can see why the Coalition just wants to deal with the here and the now, and don’t want to hear about the past – but past is coming back to bite them – the government did receive legal advice in 2014 that a Robodebt system was unlawful and unconstitutional – yet a year later, they implemented the scheme. They were also given legal advice during the operation Robodebt scheme that it was unlawful, yet they continued to run with it.

The former Prime Minister Scott Morrison is likely to appear at the Royal Commission to explain his actions as well, but whatever the outcome from the Royal Commission is, and whoever goes down with it well, we just have to make sure that governments can never ever introduce this type of system again.

20 min 50 – The Lurhmann mistrial

And there’s also a few legal cases in the national news – Bruce Lurhmann was accused of raping Brittany Higgins in 2019 at Parliament House – and the trial had to be aborted because of misconduct by one of the members of the jury, where the jury member brought in their own research into the jury room, we assume to influence other jury members – the jury hadn’t been able to reach a verdict after deliberating for five days and after these research papers were found in the jury room, the judge dismissed the case and there’ll be a retrial in February 2023.

It’s an unsatisfactory outcome, but as a result of this mis-trial, there have been calls for a different type of court system for dealing with serious crimes of sexual assault – only around 15% of rapes are reported to police, and ultimately only 3% of those result in convictions – and only 10% of all rape trials result in a guilty verdict, and that’s a really low statistic considering prosecution usually decides to go to trial if they think there’s a good chance of winning the case –

So obviously the system is not functioning well at all, and for different reasons, the Bruce Lurhmann trial was a more public example of this – and that was an issue with the jury, not with the case itself – but these types of cases are heard every day all around the country, with similar results, and it’s a system that needs to change.

26 min 28 – A racist attack in the West

And there was a recent incident in Perth where a 15-year-old Indigenous boy, was beaten by a 21 year old white man while he was walking home from school – Cassius Turvey died a few days later, and the WA police tried to play down the racial aspect to the attacks by suggesting that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time – just a bit odd, because Indigenous people always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time – and they were also asking the public not to draw conclusions –

And it’s the same story all around Australia, whether it’s Redfern, Darwin, Palm Island, Moree or Middle Swan in Perth, Police always try to downplay the racist influence in these attacks on Indigenous people – a 15 year old boy has just been killed, and they put so much effort into downplaying the racist element to it.

The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese has called out this racist attack, so if the Prime Minister can say it, why can’t the police – if a 15-year-old girl from MLC had been attacked in this way, this would be massive national news for the next couple of months, but an Indigenous kid in a working class suburb of Perth, it tends to get brushed away.

31 min 04 – The division of News Corporation

Despite everything that the Herald Sun, The Age, and the ABC have been able to throw at Daniel Andrews, Labor is still way ahead in the opinion polls – and Labor have been far from perfect, but they’re not incompetent – Daniel Andrews has made mistakes, but Matthew Guy has been a poor leader and the Victoria Liberal Party is in a complete mess.

Now having said all of that, we just have to remember what happened in 1999 – The Liberal Premier at the time, Jeff Kennett, he was widely expected to win – he was way ahead in the polls, although the polls did narrow dramatically in the final week or two before the election day – and Steve Bracks ended up winning the election, with the support of independents. In that election, the Liberal Party lost 15 seats – and the ABC’s Anthony Green said afterwards that it was the only election that he’s ever worked on where he thought there might be something wrong with his election computer –

so, that was a surprise election loss for the government in 1999 – it could always happen again in 2022, although the Coalition needs to win 18 seats to win the election – so it has to win more seats than Labor did in 1999, and it starts from further behind – so, it is unlikely, but you never know what might happen on election day.

The second Budget for 2022 has been released, and it’s Labor’s first budget in nine years – it’s a Budget that’s been prepared in very difficult circumstances – there’s a national government debt of almost a trillion dollars – inflation is now running at 7.3% – and there’s a whole lot of demands about what the government should be doing with taxpayer funds over the next few years.

But economics isn’t just about debt and inflation, there’s a wide range of issues to take into account – there’s revenue, how this money is spent, there’s productivity issues, there’s consumer behaviour issues – and, of course, there’s the politics.

Budgets are all about government trying to achieve their policy objectives, according to their ideological persuasions – but the Labor government is trying to balance a number of different factors, difficult economic circumstances, managing expectations, keeping their election promises – but this first Budget from Jim Chalmers seems to be about building trust with the electorate first up – and of course, there’s going to be people that aren’t happy with the Budget – and it is disappointing from a climate change perspective – and there’s still no additional support for people on Jobseeker – but it’s a Budget that’s getting back to that idea of people at the centre of the economy, and that’s an important first step.

And whenever there’s a Budget announcement – even if it is the second one of the year – there’s also the Budget right of reply for the leader of the opposition, and Peter Dutton hit all the predictable issues, such as cost of living issues, broken promises, cost of gas and electricity – and just like the media, he’s fixated on the $275 reduction in power prices that Labor promised during the election campaign.

That was a power reduction that was promised by 2025 – two years away, but it’s not stopping Dutton from making it seem like that’s a promise that has been broken right now – it’s hard work being in Opposition, trying to make yourselves seem relevant, when your not, and especially when a new government is trying to fix up all the severe budget problems that the Coalition has created over the past nine years – you have to hope that the electorate is going to forget all of these problems that were left behind – but at this stage, Dutton has to look for all the small issues to gain traction, not just for the Liberal and National Parties, but for his own position as well.

Where can Labor improve? This is a good start, but there’ll be another Budget in May 2023, and Labor could do six-monthly Budgets for the first two years of this term if they wanted to – but most economists agree that inflation is the biggest issue facing the federal Budget – and most economists agree that this is what Labor has done right.

But it will have to do more to address inflation – some of this is controllable, some is not – the first big step for Jim Chalmers has been to gain credibility with the Australian public, but they’ll also have to defy what they said they were going to do during the election campaign – address falling wages – but it can’t do that until inflation is under control.

So, that’s one of the first big issues they need to do more with, but they’ve got another Budget in May next year – but they can’t move on many other issues until they address this first.

The floods in eastern Australia have been the focus of political attention over the past week, with major flooding events in Victoria, southern New South Wales and the northern parts of Tasmania – there are parts of Australia that going through their third once-in-a-hundred year flooding event over the past two years, and some areas are getting their second major flooding event, just after the previous one is receding.

In total, that’s eight major floods over the past two years, and as predicted, these extreme events are being more frequent. The previous Coalition government turned a blind eye to climate change, since 2013, and were slow the act when events such as floods and bushfires occurred, and whatever support was given, was granted in a way that favoured them politically.

This is the second batch of floods in short succession since the Labor government came into office – and we recognise that climate change issues are not going to resolved overnight – but what can the Labor government do that’s different to the previous Coalition government?

15 min 43 – Goodbye Jerusalem

And during the week, the Australian government quietly overturned the decision of the Morrison government to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and that decision was made in haste in the lead up to the Wentworth byelection in November 2018, and that’s a seat where 16 per cent of the electorate is Jewish.

That decision didn’t win the seat of Wentworth at that time – it was lost to the independent candidate, Kerryn Phelps – but it was cynical move for political advantage, and followed on from the decision of US President Donald Trump to not only recognise Jerusalem as the capital, but also move the US embassy from Tel Aviv as well.

Ever since Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed that Australia would revert to recognising Tel Aviv as the capital – and bearing in mind that the UN doesn’t recognise Jerusalem as the capital, and it’s only recognised by a few countries, including the US and Russia – we’ve mainly heard from the Israeli lobby group in Australia, and they think that it’s a terrible idea, and we’ve only just started hearing from the Palestinian groups in Australia, who welcome the announcement.

Israeli–Palestinian politics is a very difficult field to navigate – and it might not be as difficult as British politics at the moment – but Penny Wong’s decision brings Australian back into line with the international community, so it seems this is a positive move.

26 min 15 – The fraud of a Medicare fraud

Medicare has been in the spotlight this week, with allegations that doctors are scamming the system to the tune of $8 billion per year – it’s not clear how these figures are being calculated – the doctor whose reports are being used as the basis for these figures, Dr Margaret Faux, claimed the figure was possibly $3.6 billion – but she has not suggested it’s fraud and scamming, but honest mistakes by doctors – but the media was quick to label this as a major fraud.

We do have to be a bit skeptical about all of this – the overall cost of Medicare is $30 billion per year, and it’s hard to accept that more than 25% would be through fraud, and there might also be some vested interests involved here, with Dr Faux also the CEO of Synapse Medical Services, a provider of medical billing systems, and training services for doctors in these billing systems.

There is going to some fraud and some rorting of any system that involves $30 billion per year, and we have to remember all those cowboy doctors operating those liposuction procedures and charging it all on Medicare – but to suggest there’s $8 billion Medicare fraud going on: there might be something else going on here.

There have been calls for a parliamentary inquiry into media diversity in Australia, and generally, the behaviour of the mainstream media – and these calls have been made for about 20 years or so. The independent member for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel – and she used to work as a journalist before entering parliament – she currently has a motion in parliament, and that was introduced in early September, with secondary debates in the final week of the last parliamentary session about whether an inquiry should be held.

Australia does have one of the most concentrated media landscapes in the world, dominated by two companies – News Limited and Nine Media – there’s also issues with the Australian Press Council, and that’s funded by the mainstream media, and that’s the place where you can lodge a complaint about the media, and it’s pretty much close to useless, – and generally, the mainstream media in Australia tends to be supportive of conservative political interests. And if you’re not of a conservative persuasion, that’s not good news.

We’d highly recommend an inquiry into the media in Australia, and you’d expect that this is something that a Labor government would be supportive of, considering they’re usually on the end of most of the attacks from the media, whether they’re in government or Opposition – so what are they waiting for?

21 min 36 ¬– The Art of the Broken Promise

Politicians make a lot of promises, but it’s the broken promises that everyone tends to remember. Back in 1996, the former Prime Minister John Howard introduced the idea of core and non-core promises into the political vernacular, and that was after he broke some key election promises after finding out that he couldn’t keep them, and the media at that time seemed to accept this idea.

There’s been a lot of focus of Stage 3 tax cuts and broken promises – and the media has made it very clear to the public that this will be a big breach of public trust if Labor does repeal the tax cuts, while at the same time, it seems to be pushing them to break this promise well – but there are other areas where the Labor government is pushing the boundaries on what they promised or what they discussed in the last federal election campaign.

There are a few issues of broken trust up for debate – Labor promised to deliver an anti-corruption commission with teeth, but there’s now a few sticking points about transparency and public hearings; Labor also took the previous Coalition government to task about the secrecy of the National Cabinet – while they didn’t promise to release National Cabinet documents, they’ve closed down debate about making these documents public.

And they’ve also removed COVID isolation requirements, without releasing the medical evidence from the chief health officer to support this decision – and that’s one area that they also criticised the previous Coalition government on – and it seems that they’re now doing exactly the same.

All political leaders and all governments are going to caught out on these issues, so why do they keep making the promises they can’t keep, and sometimes keep the promises that they should be getting rid of, such as the Stage 3 tax cuts?

36 min 36 – The Return of the Ruby Princess

The class action trial against Carnival PLC has commenced in Sydney, and that’s over the Ruby Princess incident in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, where 663 Australia were infected with COVID, and 28 of those passengers died – and the arguments for the plaintiff are that the entire incident wasn’t an accident and the ship should never have sailed at all.

There was a special commission of inquiry into the Ruby Princess, and that report was completed in August 2020, but it was a whitewash of a report, and couldn’t hold anyone responsible for the incident, but hopefully this class action trial will shine some more light on these events.

41 min 40 – The Polls

And there was also a Resolve Poll that came out during the week – and again, not much difference in the polling from the previous month – Labor has 58% in two-party preferred voting, which means the Coalition is polling at 42% – Albanese is still preferred Prime Minister by 53% to Dutton’s 18%, and the net approval rating is 36 points for Albanese, and Dutton’s is minus 10 points.

And we have to remember that Albanese has similar figures to Dutton’s at the same point in his leadership against Scott Morrison – today, Albanese is the Prime Minister, and Morrison isn’t – so there is a little ray of hope for Peter Dutton.

But the interesting issue about this poll is that all key indicators – and that’s economic management, health care, aged care, and education – Labor is way ahead of the Coalition – and it’s even on national security and defence – and economic management and national security and defence are seen more as the issues that are owned by conservative parties – so even though there are issues for the Labor Party, and a lot of pressure piled on by the media and the Opposition, there’s a perception in the electorate that they’re actually doing well – and that of course can change quickly, and might change very quickly after the October Budget is released – but these polls are good for Anthony Albanese, and not so good for Peter Dutton, as they have been ever since he became the Leader of the Opposition.

The Conservative Political Action Conference rolled into Sydney last week, and it’s an extreme libertarian group who are maniacally angry, loud, abrasive, in-your-face, and filled with endless complaints about everything in their sights.

A culture of complaint but without any solutions and without any responsibilities. They’re anti-socialist, anti-woke, anti-republic, anti-cancel culture. What are they actually for? Is there anything positive in their agenda? No. It’s destructive, not constructive. These are cashed-up babies who never really grew and are suffering from arrested development. Sure, there are the fools on all sides of politics, but this chapter of CPAC is on a special level of its own.

Should the CPAC be left to its own devices and wither away? No, every argument they put forward can be easily rebutted, but they’re supported by the wealth class, who are only too happy to fund this level of unhinged stupidity to sway opinions in the electorate.

Just as special CPAC guest, Nigel Farage, managed to do with Brexit – he extracted Britain from the European Union, and left it teetering on the edge of disaster and obscurity. In the same way Australia conservatives embraced Lord Monckton in the early 2010s to manufacture anger against Labor’s carbon pricing mechanism, yet another failed British reject is sent off to antipodes to spread his own brand of lies, racism, classism and hate.

This nihilistic agenda has to be pushed back at every opportunity.

15 min 50 – The Frontier Wars

The Australian War Memorial has announced that it will expand the recognition of the different frontier wars that occurred in Australia – and they were the conflicts between white settlers and police on one side, and Indigenous people – and this is after sustained criticism over many years that the War Memorial mainly focussed its attention on overseas wars and totally ignored the wars against Indigenous people that commenced a few months after European settlement or invasion in 1788, and lasted until the 1930s.

And much of this has been documented – there were the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars, the Bathurst War, there was the Black Wars in Tasmania, Battle of Pinjarra, the battles in the Kimberley region – and there’s many more that have been documented as well – and at least 40,000 Indigenous people died, and around 3000 settlers.

And the effects of these frontiers wars and violence are still affecting Indigenous people, a treaty or a formal end to these wars had never been made – most people aren’t aware of the details of these frontier wars – there’s still more that needs to be done in this space, but the Australian War Memorial expanding this knowledge to the general public is a good start.

27 min 22 – Liz Truss and Tax Lessons for Labor

We don’t usually comment on British politics, but the new British Prime Minister, Liz Truss, may have just done the Australian Labor Party a huge favour, and that was when she announced that she was going to provide a tax cut for high income earners in the UK – abolishing the tax rate of 45% for incomes over £150,000.

It’s safe to say that not very many people were happy with this decision – the British pound dropped dramatically, there was a revolt within the Conservative Party, and there was a political backlash within the British electorate, which resulted in opinions polls showing 54% support for the British Labour Party, and just 21% support for the Tories.

Abolishing the top tax rate meant that people earning over £150K would be paying 40% in tax, so it’s not a major adjustment, but that’s the revolt that occurred by dropping the highest tax bracket by 5%.

The Stage 3 tax cuts, which are supposedly coming in at the beginning of the 2024/25 tax years, propose remove the 37% tax band, and just having the 32.5% tax band for incomes between $45K and $200K – so it’s a different type of tax cut, but it’s still significant, and actually worse than what the UK proposed – Anthony Albanese and the Labor government are starting to face a lot of pressure over the Stage 3 tax cuts, even though it’s not their policy – but should they looking at what’s happening in the UK to guide their decision making?

The anti-corruption commission is one step closer to reality – the Labor government tabled its Bill in Parliament this week, despite all the claims from conservative media that the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, was stonewalling the commission and using excuses, such as the death of the British monarch, to withhold the legislation and stymie the commission.

It can never be underestimated how far the mainstream media will go to de-legitimise this Labor government, with the Australian Financial Review fabricating a story where, supposedly, Albanese was solely negotiating with the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, on the anti-corruption commission, and sidelining the Australian Greens and the teal independents. And this was going to result in a watered-down anti-corruption commission, and cause trouble for the Labor government in trying to get its legislation passed by the Australian Greens in the Senate.

The only problem: it wasn’t true. The crossbench seems to be very satisfied with the legislation, although there are sticking points on public hearings, protections for whistle blowers and a guarantee of funding.

Legacy media has had a habit of supporting conservative parties, even when there’s an inept leader such as Dutton. He’s currently going through a makeover, and being rebranded into a leader who’s more palatable to the public. While we can never underestimate any political leader – John Howard was told he could never be Prime Minister, until he became Prime Minister. Tony Abbott too. And Scott Morrison. Donald Trump was an idiot who could never become President of the United States, until he became the President of the United States.

Any politician can become the leader of a country, given the right circumstances, and with the incessant support of the media. Which is currently happening with Peter Dutton. With any political issue; Dutton is the go-to for the media. Problems with an Optus hack? What does Peter Dutton think about this? Cost of living issues? Let’s speak to Dutton, he knows the answer. Petrol excises? Dutton, he’s out go-to man, he speaks the truth.

But polishing a turd has its limits – although the popular science show MythBusters once did show that it’s definitely possible to “polish the turd”, it’s different for Dutton. He’s been around for far too long and has accumulated such a negative public image, that it’s hard to see how this could change. But aside from this, where’s the gravitas? What’s the intellectual and political substance behind the man? Where’s the creative curiosity?

There isn’t any, and this is the failing of Dutton: it’s all anti-union; anti-immigration; anti-Labor; anti-intellectual, littered with the racist undertones. And it’s not a recipe for success in contemporary Australia, which discarded this type of thinking at the recent federal election in May 2022.

Senator Jacqui Lambie has issued an apology – of sorts – for voting for Stage 3 tax cuts all the way back in July 2019. She’s made the claim that the economy can’t support it – which is absolutely true – but why has she waited until now? The economy has been tanking and was in an incredible dire position in 2019 when she voted for these tax cuts – as it is in 2022.

Lambie is an opportunist – which is what you’d expect from a Senator, trying to get the best deal for their state; in this case, Tasmania. And Tasmania had a $157 million debt waived for her support for the Morrison’s government Stage 3 tax cuts legislation. But she’s never owned up to what the deal was for repealing the Medivac legislation – pushing that idea that people just had to trust her – even though she claimed in 2021 that there was no deal and nothing was negotiated.

Lambie can’t be trusted on these key issues but it’s also unclear what she is trying to achieve with these latest ramblings. It’s a mystery.

After a fortnight where most of Anglosphere was preoccupied with the death of a British monarch, life is getting back to normal and to the real things that matter: there’s a Budget coming up soon, and there’s been a hint from the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, of “substantial temporary taxes” to repair the national figures and start managing the trillion dollar government left behind by the Coalition.

Already, the media and the Opposition are pushing the idea that Labor is the party of big taxes and spending, and not to be trusted with managing finances. What they ignore is that the three biggest taxing governments in the post-war period are the Howard, Abbott and Morrison governments – and in the case of the Morrison government, not much of substance to show for all of their spending.

But, it’s not the amount of taxes that matters, it’s the quality of spending. And there’s not much evidence of quality over the past nine years. Of course, we’ll have to see what the Labor government will spend taxpayer’s money on in the Budget, but surely it won’t be as profligate as Morrison’s final term in office.

And how super is Albanese’s renewables superpower? It’s rhetoric that was pushed during the May election campaign, but it’s time for this to be matched with action. The Australian Greens have recommended the $1.9 billion the previous government had allocated to a “gas-led recovery” – a strange choice for a response to a pandemic – be re-allocated to renewable energy. And it makes sense: it fits perfectly into the Labor government’s agenda, and it needs to take this first step if Australia does want to become a renewables superpower. If the Labor government is actually serious about this…

The former Prime Minister – Tony Abbott – has been re-appointed to the board of the Australian War Memorial. Is this a lost opportunity for Labor and should they start putting in their “own people”? No, it should be the best and the most appropriate people for the position – it’s just that the Coalition always inserts its own conservative people and supporters into high-powered government boards, without any concern whether these are the right people. And it results in $500 million being allocated to a renovation at the War Memorial, without a question about whether this is value for money. Why not spend this money on the veterans of war, rather than an already overblown budget for a memorial that glorifies conflict?

It’s actually mind-boggling to see how many breaches of protocol Scott Morrison seemed to immerse himself in – a sole-person committee where he could decide whether an official Cabinet meeting had taken place – or not – and therefore, he could keep any details of a meeting a secret for 20 years. It’s almost like Alice In Wonderland. Except this was a real Prime Minister. There were 739 ‘meetings’ and 665 of these are actually unaccounted for. 665. It might not be so important to find out the details of these unaccountable meetings but it is important that someone of the calibre of Scott Morrison is never allowed anywhere near Parliament again.

And with a return to normal life after the insane and incessant media coverage of the British monarch, we can also start to have normal discussions about Australia’s transition to a republic. But as much as we’d like it to happen soon, it’s probably not going to be enacted for some time to come. In our estimation: with a benign and invisible King? Perhaps in 2026 or 2027. However, if there’s more scandals to come through (hint: Prince Andrew), perhaps 2024, at the earliest. There’s still a long road ahead.

Australia lost a head of state last week, and gained a new one, even though nobody voted for King Charles, and nobody was asked about it. And this will keep happening until Australia becomes a republic.

The Queen has died, and people can pay their respects if they wish to, but it’s time for Australia to move on with its own future and its own destiny – it can’t be hamstrung by some dysfunctional family in a faraway country that couldn’t really care about what happens in Australia.

And it needs to happen soon. Several years ago, the former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull proclaimed “we are all Elizabethans”, and suggested that the right time for Australia to move towards a republic was after the passing of the Queen. That time has now arrived: what are we waiting for? And to use the words of the current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese when he described the need for the Voice To Parliament, “if not now, when?”.

Australia is republican in nature, but there are tight strings holding us to the monarchy, and the mainstream media is a part of that system that keeps nailing these strings down. The media reportage after the Queen died was incessant, one dimensional and left no room to move for alternative perspectives or other voices to outline their reasons for why they might not be so enthused about the role of the British monarchy within Australian society, or the death of the Queen: Indigenous people; Irish Catholics living in Australia; Fijian Indians; Indians from the sub-continent; republicans.

And this is how soft power is exercised: dissenting voices are removed, and not even considered; unknown protocols are implemented; everyone is told what they need to think and feel about the Queen. But who are we trying to avoid offending? The Queen? The royal family? British sympathisers in Australia? Monarchists?

History needs to be an unvarnished truth: no one is perfect, not even the Queen of England, the Queen of Britain, the Queen of Australia. We should receive a clearer understanding and fuller picture of political figures: the colour and shades of grey, not the overloaded black and white clichés that we’ve been presented with through the non-stop and uncritical media transmission over the past week.

Where does this leave an Australian republic? Today is the day the path towards the republic commences: it can’t wait until after the Queen’s funeral, or wait until the new King settles in, just to “see what he’s like”.

And not just any kind of republic: the current Constitution is broken; it needs to be repaired. Today is the day to talk about the republic.