Australian Politics General...

sptrawler said:

A letter from the directors of an Indigenous labour-hire firm, which was emailed to Allan in April 2022 when she was Victorian deputy premier, details serious threats of extreme violence, intimidation and unlawful union black bans on the federal and state-funded Monash Freeway upgrade project run by major contractor CPB

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Emphasis mine.

Now I vaguely recall something about looking after indigenous people, making sure their voice is heard and so on, so I'd have expected some really prompt action on this one.

2 years and 3 months later it's in the media. Hmm......

Smurf1976 said:

Emphasis mine.

Now I vaguely recall something about looking after indigenous people, making sure their voice is heard and so on, so I'd have expected some really prompt action on this one.

2 years and 3 months later it's in the media. Hmm......

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Well all the nickel mines in the Goldfields closing down, will certainly have some indigenous ramifications.
Why the hell the Govt couldn't have offered a tax deal to LG or Samsung, to build a giga battery plant in Kwinana is beyond belief.

There are lithium plants there, battery grade nickel processing plant there, so if there was a serious interest in a made in Australia battery plant it would already be announced.
But all that has been announced is closures WTF.

Meanwhile we are buying bulk Chinese CATYL grid batteries.

All that looks likely is that China will pick all the nickel mines, lithium mines and processing plants, in a fire sale.

Australia is a basket case led by FW's, who are more concerned about propping up Sydney property prices, than maintaining Australia's future.

Both sides are deplorable IMO.

My rant for a while, it is just a terrible state of affairs, Federal politicians should be fckn ashamed of themselves.
They may as well change half the universities over to hospitality training facilities, that's where the work will be, it wont be in engineering that's for sure.

sptrawler said:

Kwinana

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Terrifying place.

Can't recall if I've posted the story before but I've only been there once in my life.

In short, there was an almighty bang which shook the ground, giving me visions of some unfolding disaster be it chemical, electrical or mechanical.

Turned out to be thunder. And yes I ended up completely drenched.

It's a surprisingly long way back to the Perth CBD when you're soaking wet.

Smurf1976 said:

Terrifying place.

Can't recall if I've posted the story before but I've only been there once in my life.

In short, there was an almighty bang which shook the ground, giving me visions of some unfolding disaster be it chemical, electrical or mechanical.

Turned out to be thunder. And yes I ended up completely drenched.

It's a surprisingly long way back to the Perth CBD when you're soaking wet.

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It was an amazing place, I was on night shift at AIS blast furnace (long gone) when cyclone Alby came through, scary as hell as Kwinana is right on the coast.

Funny thing was SEC had a black out, we were the only place running (had our own power station) and there was an interconnector to the BP refinery.

So there was a negotiation between management on how much for us to power them up. Lol
The good old days when we processed and made $hit. Lol
How novel, now we are a country that have an endless want for $hit and make FA and have a million reasons for doing FA, appart from trying to sell properties to each other for ever increasing prices.
What a bunch of losers we have become. Lol
I think I've maxed out my rants.

In one of those "a pox on both your houses" moment, It seems that the Australian Voting public (or at least those selected by polling process) do not have much faith in incumbent or the incumbents potential successor.
The "I don't knows" were the highest grouping, which is hardly a ringing endorsement for either side.
FromEvil murdoch press

Australia is battling a drought of confidence in its political leadership, as less than a third of voters say Anthony Albanese is their preferred leader of the Labor Party and the odds of a minority government at the next election continue to increase.
Peter Dutton also struggles to get a majority of all voters to back him as their preferred leader of the Coalition and he still trails the Prime Minister in a head-to-head match up, despite making strength of leadership a central plank of his campaign against Labor.

An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian shows only 28 per cent of voters nominated both Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton as their preferred leaders of their respective parties, ahead of five other chosen candidates, with more voters unable to nominate anyone as their favoured leader.

Despite Labor maintaining a lead in the two-party-preferred stakes, Mr Albanese’s disapproval rating is now higher than Mr Dutton’s, and the preferred prime minister contest has narrowed to just seven points in Mr Albanese’s favour.

This is the closest margin between Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton since the 2022 election. In a special Newspoll question, Mr Albanese was clearly favoured as the preferred Labor leader among Labor voters at 59 per cent.

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mullokintyre said:

In one of those "a pox on both your houses" moment, It seems that the Australian Voting public (or at least those selected by polling process) do not have much faith in incumbent or the incumbents potential successor.
The "I don't knows" were the highest grouping, which is hardly a ringing endorsement for either side.
FromEvil murdoch press

View attachment 181266
View attachment 181267

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The I don't knows, will probably be the silent majority in the middle ground.

Wow and we all thought it was only big business into the skonky $hit, who would have thought.


A high-ranking CFMEU official is alleged to have boasted to corrupt building firms that he could secure them lucrative contracts on major construction projects financed by superannuation giant Cbus because of his influence with insiders at the super fund.

Cbus is the default super fund for the construction industry, managing $94 billion on behalf of more than 920,000 members. The CFMEU and other construction union-nominated directors sit on its board alongside employer representatives.

Separately, new evidence has emerged of “ghosting” on government sites in Victoria, with never-before-released excerpts of a covertly recorded discussion with a self-styled CFMEU fixer claiming he was working with firms getting paid for non-existent workers.

The recording, taken during an undercover sting earlier this year, captures fixer Harry Korras talking about how the union encourages subcontractors to invoice Victorian government projects for “ghost” shifts – shifts that are not filled despite workers being rostered.

sptrawler said:

Wow and we all thought it was only big business into the skonky $hit, who would have thought.

CFMEU boss allegedly bragged of corrupt contract connections at $94b super fund

Police allege the high-ranking official boasted to corrupt building firms that he could secure them lucrative jobs on construction projects financed by superannuation giant Cbus.

www.smh.com.au

A high-ranking CFMEU official is alleged to have boasted to corrupt building firms that he could secure them lucrative contracts on major construction projects financed by superannuation giant Cbus because of his influence with insiders at the super fund.

Cbus is the default super fund for the construction industry, managing $94 billion on behalf of more than 920,000 members. The CFMEU and other construction union-nominated directors sit on its board alongside employer representatives.

Separately, new evidence has emerged of “ghosting” on government sites in Victoria, with never-before-released excerpts of a covertly recorded discussion with a self-styled CFMEU fixer claiming he was working with firms getting paid for non-existent workers.

The recording, taken during an undercover sting earlier this year, captures fixer Harry Korras talking about how the union encourages subcontractors to invoice Victorian government projects for “ghost” shifts – shifts that are not filled despite workers being rostered.

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Where is the NACC ?

It seems the ideal job for them.

SirRumpole said:

Where is the NACC ?

It seems the ideal job for them.

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The govt spent the money earmarked for the NACC on " The Voice".
Mick

mullokintyre said:

The govt spent the money earmarked for the NACC on " The Voice".
Mick

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And where is made in Australia, when you need it? If we don't get some national infrastructure manufacturing industries going, we are up $hit creek and it was known before the last election as was promoted in the campaign.

If we are going to keep on the renewable path, it is critical that battery manufacturing happens here IMO, not only for job creation but also as a matter of national security.

Everyone saw what happened last week when a computer system went down, imagine if your whole electrical system is supplied and can be controlled by a foreign country, that's exactly where I would think ours is heading.

How much domestic battery manufacturing has started since the election? Meanwhile many battery material miners have closed and we are ordering more and more grid connected mega batteries from China.
Priceless.
It takes two years to build a battery Giga factory apparently and guess what everyone said we should have kept subsidising car manufacturing, but none of the same group say we should be subsidising something as important as their electrical renewable dream.

Go figure, it just shows that most don't actually think about the issue, as much as they just want to virtue signal IMO.

We will never compete with China, U.S or Europe with battery manufacturing on cost basis, but we should be producing our own, even if only for national security IMO.
Just dumb ar$e politics, spend $hit loads on social engineering and sod all on real nation building engineering, nothing changes.


While the jobless rate has been slowly creeping higher, alarm bells are ringing about the potential for a big surge in unemployment.

When Sydney-based account manager Michael (not his real name) lost his job in August last year, aged in his 40s, he began to look for work immediately.

"I was going through LinkedIn, Seek, looking for jobs," he told PM.

"I even hired a job consultant.

"I spent over $1,000 for them to put together my resume, give me a cover letter.

"I paid them a bit extra to give me tailored [material] for a very specific job I went for.

"I didn't get an interview for that job … in fact, I didn't even get a response from the recruiter."

Simon Moores, of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, succinctly drove the point home when he testified before our committee last year that, ‘We are in the midst of a global battery arms race, in which so far the U.S. is a bystander.’

“To produce more of these technologies, we will need a massive increase in supplies of lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite, to name just a few. Yet China has consolidated its power over their production and processing while America lags far behind.”

Since my second Senate testimony in February 2019, the US has fallen further behind in this global battery arms race.

Then, there were 70 battery megafactories in the pipeline of which 46 were in China and 5 in the USA.

Today, there are 136 of these super-sized electric vehicle battery plants in operation or being planned: 101 in China and 8 in the USA.

China is building a battery gigafactory (megafactory) at the rate of one every week; the USA at one every four months.

@sir Rumpole and @Smurf1976 , more people who have influence are starting to say, what we have been for a long time.
A lot of public services, need to be taken back in house by the Government and it will take a long time, so the sooner they start the better IMO.
It has taken a long time to make this mess, best get started fixing it up, before it becomes unrepairable.
Funnily enough Albo's first foray into political activism, was to fight for the State Government to keep State Housing, karmas a bitch.


Australia is experiencing a housing disaster. There are too few affordable dwellings to buy or rent. Housing affordability in 2024 is the worst on record. Social housing has been run down for decades. Over 120,000 people are living with homelessness. Particularly affected are First Peoples experiencing the continuing impact of colonisation, women with children fleeing domestic violence, people living with mental illness and low-income older people, especially older women. Over multiple generations, a large proportion of the population is anxious about their housing, especially the young and those on low-middle incomes who face insecure or poor housing for life. Housing anxiety is why the “Great Australian Dream” is now frequently called the “Great Australian Nightmare”.

The baby-boomer generation, including myself, grew up in a very different era. I was born in 1954 to young parents who had eight children. Hundreds of thousands of houses were built by government that low-middle income families like ours could afford to rent or buy. We rented a basic three-bedroom weatherboard house from the Victorian Housing Commission in Moorabbin. Fittingly, in the language of the Bunurong/Boon Wurrung, “Moorabbin” means “resting place” or “mother’s milk”. My mother’s parents joined us in a bungalow built for a song in the backyard. As I grew older, it was my job to take the rent to the commission office just down the road. When government policy changed to allow sitting tenants to buy their homes at concessional prices, my parents did so, although they still called the money I took to the same office rent. I owe my family upbringing to social housing which working people like my parents could not now possibly get.

Kevin Bell is a former justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria. This is an edited extract from Housing: The Great Australian Right published by Monash University Publishing as part of the In the National Interest series, available from August 1.

Anthony Albanese

(born 1963). Australian politician Anthony Albanese became prime minister of Australia in 2022. The leader of the Australian Labor Party, he was the head of the country’s…

kids.britannica.com

Anthony Norman Albanese was born on March 2, 1963, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was raised by his mother in public housing in Camperdown, a suburb of Sydney. His experiences growing up poor left him with a desire to help others. When Albanese was 12 years old, he participated in his first political action. He joined with fellow public housing residents to successfully block an attempt by the local government to sell their homes. Albanese joined the Labor Party in 1979, while he was still in his teens.

sptrawler said:

@sir Rumpole and @Smurf1976 , more people who have influence are starting to say, what we have been for a long time.
A lot of public services, need to be taken back in house by the Government and it will take a long time, so the sooner they start the better IMO.
It has taken a long time to make this mess, best get started fixing it up, before it becomes unrepairable.
Funnily enough Albo's first foray into political activism, was to fight for the State Government to keep State Housing, karmas a bitch.

How to solve Australia’s housing crisis

Governments have neglected their fundamental obligation to realise everyone’s human right to housing and home.

www.theage.com.au

Australia is experiencing a housing disaster. There are too few affordable dwellings to buy or rent. Housing affordability in 2024 is the worst on record. Social housing has been run down for decades. Over 120,000 people are living with homelessness. Particularly affected are First Peoples experiencing the continuing impact of colonisation, women with children fleeing domestic violence, people living with mental illness and low-income older people, especially older women. Over multiple generations, a large proportion of the population is anxious about their housing, especially the young and those on low-middle incomes who face insecure or poor housing for life. Housing anxiety is why the “Great Australian Dream” is now frequently called the “Great Australian Nightmare”.

The baby-boomer generation, including myself, grew up in a very different era. I was born in 1954 to young parents who had eight children. Hundreds of thousands of houses were built by government that low-middle income families like ours could afford to rent or buy. We rented a basic three-bedroom weatherboard house from the Victorian Housing Commission in Moorabbin. Fittingly, in the language of the Bunurong/Boon Wurrung, “Moorabbin” means “resting place” or “mother’s milk”. My mother’s parents joined us in a bungalow built for a song in the backyard. As I grew older, it was my job to take the rent to the commission office just down the road. When government policy changed to allow sitting tenants to buy their homes at concessional prices, my parents did so, although they still called the money I took to the same office rent. I owe my family upbringing to social housing which working people like my parents could not now possibly get.

Kevin Bell is a former justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria. This is an edited extract from Housing: The Great Australian Right published by Monash University Publishing as part of the In the National Interest series, available from August 1.

Anthony Albanese

(born 1963). Australian politician Anthony Albanese became prime minister of Australia in 2022. The leader of the Australian Labor Party, he was the head of the country’s…

kids.britannica.com

Anthony Norman Albanese was born on March 2, 1963, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was raised by his mother in public housing in Camperdown, a suburb of Sydney. His experiences growing up poor left him with a desire to help others. When Albanese was 12 years old, he participated in his first political action. He joined with fellow public housing residents to successfully block an attempt by the local government to sell their homes. Albanese joined the Labor Party in 1979, while he was still in his teens.

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I have seen a few articles such as these about the old Housing Commission Houses from the late 40's through to the 60's.
While on paper it seems reasonable to think that this era might be able to be reproduced today by the provision of social housing, the realities of actually doing it are significantly more difficulty.
Firstly, the expectations of people are magnitudes higher.
No one is going to want a three bedroom weatherboard home with minimal furnishings, casement single pane windows, no insulation, linoleum floors with perhaps a rug and a briquette or open fire or if your lucky , an oil heater.
Secondly, the building standards would preclude anything like these older houses. Local Government, state and even some federal laws would all impinge on what is allowed to be built.
Thirdly, the cost of everything associated with building has gone through the roof.
Not just the materials and labour, the insurance, the rates, but the costs of compliance with the above regulations.
Inspectors, licenses, certificates all add to the cost.
There is a social housing building project going on our town.
They are not McMansions, just basic one tow and three bedroom single story units, a total of 13 units.
It took over two years just to get from the application stage to the commencement of building.
Nothing is easy in this micro managed ceconomy.
Mick

mullokintyre said:

I have seen a few articles such as these about the old Housing Commission Houses from the late 40's through to the 60's.
While on paper it seems reasonable to think that this era might be able to be reproduced today by the provision of social housing, the realities of actually doing it are significantly more difficulty.
Firstly, the expectations of people are magnitudes higher.
No one is going to want a three bedroom weatherboard home with minimal furnishings, casement single pane windows, no insulation, linoleum floors with perhaps a rug and a briquette or open fire or if your lucky , an oil heater.
Secondly, the building standards would preclude anything like these older houses. Local Government, state and even some federal laws would all impinge on what is allowed to be built.
Thirdly, the cost of everything associated with building has gone through the roof.
Not just the materials and labour, the insurance, the rates, but the costs of compliance with the above regulations.
Inspectors, licenses, certificates all add to the cost.
There is a social housing building project going on our town.
They are not McMansions, just basic one tow and three bedroom single story units, a total of 13 units.
It took over two years just to get from the application stage to the commencement of building.
Nothing is easy in this micro managed ceconomy.
Mick

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A least if a lot of it is taken back inhouse by the Governments, the profit margin that the builder wants isn't added also neither is GST.

Plus you get the added benefit, of taking on more apprentices, rather than sending them all to Uni to become baristas while importing tradesmen.

Still I guess from a political perspective, the politician wouldn't be able to blame the building sector and also the kids wouldn't have a HECS bill and the imported tradesmen are sometimes taxpayers, that's if they are tradesmen.

sptrawler said:

A least if a lot of it is taken back inhouse by the Governments, the profit margin that the builder wants isn't added also neither is GST.

Plus you get the added benefit, of taking on more apprentices, rather than sending them all to Uni to become baristas while importing tradesmen.

Still I guess from a political perspective, the politician wouldn't be able to blame the building sector and also the kids wouldn't have a HECS bill and the imported tradesmen are sometimes taxpayers, that's if they are tradesmen.

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I guess it shows how much Labor gas shifted to the Right.

The Greens are the only ones Left of Centre and they are fruitcakes, more interested in solving problems in Gaza than worrying about the average Aussie battler.

We need an old style Labor leader like Chifley, someone with some guts and not afraid to upset the corporates if that's what it takes to get basic services and infrastructure going.

SirRumpole said:

I guess it shows how much Labor gas shifted to the Right.

The Greens are the only ones Left of Centre and they are fruitcakes, more interested in solving problems in Gaza than worrying about the average Aussie battler.

We need an old style Labor leader like Chifley, someone with some guts and not afraid to upset the corporates if that's what it takes to get basic services and infrastructure going.

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I have my challenges with old style Labor, but my God I would welcome that back in favour of the two mobs of apostates we have now.

wayneL said:

I have my challenges with old style Labor, but my God I would welcome that back in favour of the two mobs of apostates we have now.

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My biggest fear is the loons and Independant's if they gain the balance of power in any Government, then look out,
Most re just bum polishers waiting their time to reap that extremely generous pension that us peasants allow them to have, so when they do retire they can then go and get and another extremely well paid position.

SirRumpole said:

I guess it shows how much Labor gas shifted to the Right.

The Greens are the only ones Left of Centre and they are fruitcakes, more interested in solving problems in Gaza than worrying about the average Aussie battler.

We need an old style Labor leader like Chifley, someone with some guts and not afraid to upset the corporates if that's what it takes to get basic services and infrastructure going.

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I think a lot of the problem is that everything has become about the bottom line $, but our society wasn't built on the bottom line, it was built on everyone trying to do their best and the Government supporting that aspiration.

Now everything seems to be built on getting the most $ for the least effort and the Government trying to find where they can find the money to support it.

It's not going to end well IMO.

Most of the Aussie character that made Australia the amazing country it has become, have now been replaced by a culture that is milking that legacy, to fund a lifestyle that is fast running out of funding. Lol

sptrawler said:

I think a lot of the problem is that everything has become about the bottom line $, but our society wasn't built on the bottom line, it was built on everyone trying to do their best and the Government supporting that aspiration.

Now everything seems to be built on getting the most $ for the least effort and the Government trying to find where they can find the money to support it.

It's not going to end well IMO.

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I know that this is very proud American saying but it is just as relevant here also. "What can I do for my country, rather than what can my country do for me".
Too many outstretched hands with the begging bowl,
too many rorts going on,
too many on the dole rather than taking a paying job, any job etc etc

farmerge said:

I know that this is very proud American saying but it is just as relevant here also. "What can I do for my country, rather than what can my country do for me".
Too many outstretched hands with the begging bowl,
too many rorts going on,
too many on the dole rather than taking a paying job, any job etc etc

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And too many rich people explaining how everyone should be giving more, while still living in their McMansions.
Capital gains on PPR, would be a great leveler IMO.

mullokintyre said:

Thirdly, the cost of everything associated with building has gone through the roof.
Not just the materials and labour, the insurance, the rates, but the costs of compliance with the above regulations.
Inspectors, licenses, certificates all add to the cost.
There is a social housing building project going on our town.
They are not McMansions, just basic one tow and three bedroom single story units, a total of 13 units.
It took over two years just to get from the application stage to the commencement of building.
Nothing is easy in this micro managed ceconomy.

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The key is to get the right sort of people in charge and to do the lot.

So if there's a Housing Commission with its own tradies, surveyors and all the rest. If the utilities are in government hands also with their own workforce and doing it all in house, including inspection of electrical work etc. If the road authority is also government with its own workforce then that makes things happen.

Because if you get a bunch of tradies and engineers and leave then to it, they tend to come up with grand plans and do things. Not always perfectly but they'll make something happen and it comes down to being able to easily get the right people all in the one room and agreeing on how to proceed. Do it this way and the inspectors on site will give it the tick every time, because we've done the engineering and agreed that's a suitable method. Etc. And it's the job of councils and government to work with this not against it, the default is it's approved with just a few tweaks here and there because the council wants a consistent street appearance or whatever.

Then it's off to work we go and everyone works together. Excavation for example gets a lot cheaper when it's the Public Works Department (as it used to be called in Tas) doing it and nobody cares whether that's the road foundations, the house foundations or it's the trench for the sewer line or power. It's a hole so dig it. Same with the rest - concrete the footpaths and driveways as a single project, don't worry about who owns what since it's all government anyway.

Been there, seen that approach on other projects and it works. The workforce works as one, it being a technicality that they're employed by different departments. Just keep the accountants under control and remind them that it's better to save money overall than worry about who's doing what.

Also gets the materials cheaper when it's all in bulk. How many ovens did you say you wanted to buy Sir? Well that would be ten thousand of this model here, what's the price? A lot less than retail....

Same with everything else from pipe and cable to bricks to timber to plasterboard. All gets cheaper when you're buying huge amounts and the supplier knows that not only are you the biggest customer around but you're also backed by government. They can be certain the account will be paid, albeit probably a week after it was due but they can live with that.

The key is to keep the wrong sort of people out of it. I'll avoid offending anyone and just say the workforce should consist mostly of trades and other hands on people, and in charge will be people with technical competence to be overseeing their work.

All ultimately comes down to a desire to actually serve the people and fix things rather than risk averse administration watching the wheels fall off society. I've encountered such people and never did like or respect them in any way. They cover their own rear end but get nothing done.