New Politics: Australian Politics, News, Analysis & Commentary

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?

Everyone is talking about the coronavirus but, unlike most of the media and most of the government, we'll leave the medical debate to the medical fraternity and discuss the politics and economics of the crisis instead. And it is going to cause a recession in Australia and a wide range of problems for the Liberal–National Government. But stimulus is also occupying a great amount of space and, at long last, the LNP is implementing measures to save the economy. Is it a case of too little, too late? Should have gone hard, gone fast, and gone households instead, and the economy is going to suffer. Yes, it's too late.

Who’s got time for caretaker conventions when there's an election to be won? Conservative governments are very keen to break conventions and protocols and perhaps it's time for laws rather than protocols. There are no repercussions for breaking conventions and we're applying 19th century rules to 21st century politics. It's time for a rethink.

And has the media started a slow turning of the tide against Scott Morrison? We think so, and after giving Morrison so much support when he became Prime Minister in 2018 and in the lead-up to the 2019 election, the media is going harder and asking tougher questions. It's about 18 months too late, but better late than never.

Another year, another round of political corruption to deal with. Scott Morrison claimed "a miracle" caused him to win the 2019 election but, as with most claims of divine intervention, that old human frailty of vice and corruption proved to be the real answer. The Liberal–National Government had a cash splash fund of almost $500 million dollars to throw at marginal and Coalition-held seats – funding programs that had no guidelines, no application forms, little oversight, and a rorting scheme that Vladimir Putin could be proud of.

And if that wasn't enough, the Australian Federal Police dropped the forgery case against Angus Taylor: nothing to see here, please move along. It's obvious the Liberal–National Government is too close to the AFP – the AFP investigates the issues that are favourable to the government, but ignores the issues that are unfavourable to the government. It's not the way an open and democratic system should operate, and trust in government is plummeting even further.

So what can be done about this? We commence our series on solutions to a sick democracy, and make suggestions for how to improve accountability in the parliament: an independent speaker and ditching the Dorothy Dix questions. That would be a good start.

The climate change debate is heating up to a temperature even hotter than the NSW bushfires. Just as the Prime Minister has decided to take a holiday somewhere in the Pacific and instructing the media not to report that he was actually on leave. To their shame, many in media acceded to the Prime Minister's wish: so much for the Your Right To Know campaign. What a facade.

People are angry about climate change, but it's not just the conservative side of politics that is suffering the opprobrium: the biggest howls of abuse at the recent climate change rally in the centre of Sydney was reserved for the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, even though Labor isn't the government. This is a problem for Labor, but how will they deal with this issue?

The year began with a lie, and ended with a lie. Angus Taylor, the Minister who is the gift to the Opposition that just keeps on giving, decided to just keep lying about seeing Naomi Wolf at Oxford in 1991, even though she left three years before. Even when faced with irrefutable evidence, the government doubles down and keeps up with the fabrication. They're worse than troublesome kindergarten kids that can just never give up the lie.

And did someone mention new books? Yes, we have a new book coming out: Divided Opinions, coming out in January 2020. It's a review of the 2019 year in politics. It's must. have material. Keep a look out for on our website.