Australian Politics General...

[IFocus]

Hey @IFocus, this is the guy who supported the mantra, "There are too many leaners and not enough lifters", he isn't as silly as he is cabbage looking IMO.

US economy will suffer regardless of a Trump or Harris win, former treasurer Hockey warns

The former Australian treasurer and ambassador to the United States, Joe Hockey, says the US dollar will grow weaker under either of the platforms of US presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. He also warned the Republican that he had made "absurd" spending commitments.

www.abc.net.au

Hmm then photographed smoking cigars being a leaner

Hockey was a B grade minister in Howards government but promoted because of his communication skills.

Got done over by Abbott in the leadership stakes and became a failed treasure or at least failing to get his 1st budget passed.

Then to move him out of the way took the learners option and became ambassador to the US.

By all accounts was actually a very good ambassador gaining access to all the right people including Trump.

I thought he had some interesting comments... but

 

[IFocus]

There's something strange happening across the western world. There's an authoritarian model being laid over multiple countries. All similar and involve:
Internet censorship.

Yep read up on Italy...

 

[Smurf1976]

All similar and involve:

The undermining of technical skills and standards.

Eg trades, engineering, even medical the "bar" is being lowered and things that would've been totally unacceptable a generation ago are getting through today.

Boeing shows where that leads and we're going to see a lot more like that. That's the inevitable consequence of lowering technical standards and competence.

 

[Smurf1976]

Another is a movement, not seemingly from government but within the population, that's unwilling to hear anything that conflicts with their world view.

That applies even to trivial subjects eg the arts. It seems we've rather a lot who can't accept even factually based criticism, let alone anything that's a purely subjective issue of personal taste etc.

 

[sptrawler]

Hmm then photographed smoking cigars being a leaner

Hockey was a B grade minister in Howards government but promoted because of his communication skills.

Got done over by Abbott in the leadership stakes and became a failed treasure or at least failing to get his 1st budget passed.

Then to move him out of the way took the learners option and became ambassador to the US.

By all accounts was actually a very good ambassador gaining access to all the right people including Trump.

I thought he had some interesting comments... but

Yes it's all about optics, Swanny is still riding the wave of being "the Worlds best treasurer and still wondering how he caught the wave in the first place". Lol
It's just about catching the left break when it's pumping. Lol

 

[PZ99]

So, with sheet going down in the Middle East what are the odds of Albo raising the terror threat level here to max to get a poll boost ?

 

[Ferret]

Does anyone really care what the terror threat level is?

 

[mullokintyre]

Ex Labour elected Senator, Fatima Payman is finding that its not that easy to set up your own politcal party.
Firstly, she managed to pi$$ off a lot of the most voiferous frist nation activists by using the word Voice in the new party's name.
It seems that they regard that word as now belonging to them, and comes at a most sad time for them as it approaches the anniversary of the stolen referendum.

Uluru Dialogue co-chair Megan Davis, a Cobble Cobble woman and constitutional expert who worked on the voice process for 12 years, described Senator Payman’s announcement as “curious timing given it’s the anniversary of the referendum and many of our people are still grieving”.

Secondly, she has taken the opposite road to the teals, who make gender issues their main priority by having only one gender, the right gender.
Ms Payman was photographed with the members of her team, are unfortunately represented by far too many of the wrong gender.
Mick

 

[sptrawler]

It looks like a perfect fit, for Australia ATM.

Let's be honest, at least they aren't lifelong Canberra hacks and could they do any worse than the current crop of muppets.

 

[wayneL]

It looks like a perfect fit, for Australia ATM.

Let's be honest, at least they aren't lifelong Canberra hacks and could they do any worse than the current crop of muppets.

Oh they could do much worse, as extremely difficult that is to imagine. Just look at the sh1tholes they come from.

 

[sptrawler]

Oh they could do much worse, as extremely difficult that is to imagine. Just look at the sh1tholes they come from.

Maybe that gives them the understanding and drive to try and stop Australia becoming the same style sh1thole as they left, which appears more and more likely to happen ATM.

Of course I'm being tongue in cheek, but there appears to be a complete lack of direction at the moment, neither party is looking further ahead than the next election and the general public are more aware of the ramifications these days.

 

[wayneL]

Maybe that gives them the understanding and drive to try and stop Australia becoming the same style sh1thole as they left, which appears more and more likely to happen ATM.

Of course I'm being tongue in cheek, but there appears to be a complete lack of direction at the moment, neither party is looking further ahead than the next election and the general public are more aware of the ramifications these days.

Well we could do something absolutely radical like examining the underlying causes of places either becoming sh1tholes or not. When was the vanguard, the pinnacle of Western society and what were the conditions which brought that about... Economic, ideological, social, military, religious(or not as the case may be), educational.

What made England the greatest nation on Earth at one point. When was the US the absolute envy of the world. At what point was Australia the wealthiest country per capita on the planet and why?

Why is it that each of these countries I've mentioned, the seem to be in terminal decline? What changed, why did it change, and who changed it?

Each of my questions can have reasonably objective and fairly obvious answers to the objective enquirer.

Indeed a great deal of the malaise can be placed squarely at the fault of the short-term election cycle, but my belief is that it is symptomatic rather than causative. The issues are far deeper than that and may be less obvious.

 

[sptrawler]

Well we could do something absolutely radical like examining the underlying causes of places either becoming sh1tholes or not. When was the vanguard, the pinnacle of Western society and what were the conditions which brought that about... Economic, ideological, social, military, religious(or not as the case may be), educational.

What made England the greatest nation on Earth at one point. When was the US the absolute envy of the world. At what point was Australia the wealthiest country per capita on the planet and why?

Why is it that each of these countries I've mentioned, the seem to be in terminal decline? What changed, why did it change, and who changed it?

Each of my questions can have reasonably objective and fairly obvious answers to the objective enquirer.

Indeed a great deal of the malaise can be placed squarely at the fault of the short-term election cycle, but my belief is that it is symptomatic rather than causative. The issues are far deeper than that and may be less obvious.

The only saving grace IMO, is some of the Western countries have recognised the underlying issue and still lead the world in many things, the problem with Australia is the Sydney centric ruling class is way invested in its own smugness.
As you alluded and I agree 100%, the constant decline in educational standards and the lack of honestly when laying the blame for the decline, is causing the spiral.

 

[wayneL]

The only saving grace IMO, is some of the Western countries have recognised the underlying issue and still lead the world in many things, the problem with Australia is the Sydney centric ruling class is way invested in its own smugness.
As you alluded and I agree 100%, the constant decline in educational standards and the lack of honestly when laying the blame for the decline, is causing the spiral.

Absent of critical and unselfish thinking, I believe they are cycles at play. I have to mentioned the book called The Fourth Turning here several times which I think is extremely insightful.

It seems to be encapsulated by the Maxim:
Hard times create strong men
Strong men create good times
Good times to create weak men
Weak men create hard times.

 

[macca]

Having a vent but plenty of people agree with him.......................

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www.news.com.au

“You would think that a country with 1200 years of coal supply would be an energy superpower,” he said.

“You would think a country with 28 per cent of the world’s uranium reserves would be an energy superpower. You would think a country with 20 per cent of the world’s gas exports would be an energy superpower. You would think a country with 3.46 people per square kilometre would have cheap land and cheap housing.”

He added Australia was third in the world for production of cobalt, fifth in the world for the production of nickel, sixth in the world for production of copper and has 47 per cent of the world’s lithium production.

“[We should be] an energy and electronic and mechanical engineering superpower,” he said.

“We control 56 per cent of the world’s iron or exports. You would think that we would be a steel superpower. We have cheap energy, we have abundant iron ore, and we [should] elaborately transform that to become an export powerhouse. We should be the richest country in the world, full stop. We have everything.”

 

[IFocus]

Having a vent but plenty of people agree with him.......................

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www.news.com.au

“You would think that a country with 1200 years of coal supply would be an energy superpower,” he said.

“You would think a country with 28 per cent of the world’s uranium reserves would be an energy superpower. You would think a country with 20 per cent of the world’s gas exports would be an energy superpower. You would think a country with 3.46 people per square kilometre would have cheap land and cheap housing.”

He added Australia was third in the world for production of cobalt, fifth in the world for the production of nickel, sixth in the world for production of copper and has 47 per cent of the world’s lithium production.

“[We should be] an energy and electronic and mechanical engineering superpower,” he said.

“We control 56 per cent of the world’s iron or exports. You would think that we would be a steel superpower. We have cheap energy, we have abundant iron ore, and we [should] elaborately transform that to become an export powerhouse. We should be the richest country in the world, full stop. We have everything.”

Yep and given we have been governed in the main by conservative parties.... what's the excuse?

 

[sptrawler]

Yep and given we have been governed in the main by conservative parties.... what's the excuse?

Too busy spending more than we earn, funding ideological and social agendas, rather than funding growth.
Which started in the 1970's and isn't showing any indication of changing.

 

[Smurf1976]

The issues are far deeper than that and may be less obvious.

My observation is governments and society at large have slowly but surely purged out the capable.

There's an awful lot of things these days where those in charge know basically nothing about what they're in charge of. Technical competency has been massively devalued in favour of an attitude that legal or business skills are what counts and technical knowledge can be simply "bought in" as required.

End result is we now see very generic approaches and a loss of technical leadership. Bearing in mind it was technical leadership that was key to Western success in the first place, so losing that is one hell of a big deal.

End result is everything from the situation with Boeing to the energy saga here in Australia. There's a place for accounting and law certainly but it's the geeks and entrepreneurs that make things happen, that's who needs to be calling the shots. Once the business administrator types get hold of it with their short term targets, the writing's on the wall for the inevitable result.

 

[Smurf1976]

Yep and given we have been governed in the main by conservative parties.... what's the excuse?

In an economic sense I'll argue that Labor and Liberal have both implemented the progressive agenda over the past half century.

Shutting down manufacturing. Dig and ship. Outsourcing and privatisation. Financialisation. The dismantling of technical institutions and competence. Dysfunction in critical industries. Etc.

To separate the two would be akin to arguing about flying with one airline versus another or arguing the difference between Coles and Woolworths. Some differences yes but only in the detail, fundamentally they're the same thing.

It's not like either can say they seriously opposed the present circumstances. Same with the Greens, they might've opposed the odd random detail but overall they supported it and in some cases were the actual cheerleaders that convinced Labor or Liberal.

 

[sptrawler]

In an economic sense I'll argue that Labor and Liberal have both implemented the progressive agenda over the past half century.

Shutting down manufacturing. Dig and ship. Outsourcing and privatisation. Financialisation. The dismantling of technical institutions and competence. Dysfunction in critical industries. Etc.

To separate the two would be akin to arguing about flying with one airline versus another or arguing the difference between Coles and Woolworths. Some differences yes but only in the detail, fundamentally they're the same thing.

It's not like either can say they seriously opposed the present circumstances. Same with the Greens, they might've opposed the odd random detail but overall they supported it and in some cases were the actual cheerleaders that convinced Labor or Liberal.

Absolutely spot on, what politicians have to realise is, unless we are exceptional at something technical, we are just another country that digs and ships $hit.

The only advantage we have, is a small population, relative to the amount of raw materials we have to dig and ship.

That relative advantage slips as we dig and ship more and we have to share the spoils with an increasing population.

Even the dumbest of the dumb must be able to work out that is a case of diminishing returns.

The "Made in Australia" chant where we would value add to critical materials in Australia, to manufacture batteries etc here and end the dig and ship cycle, sounded great, but the chorus has gone extremely quiet as we buy more and more Chinese CATYL grid batteries.

Meanwhile we are pizzing on ourselves in excitement that they finally agree to buy our crayfish again.

Maybe throw a few politicians in as free crayfish, they have meat in the tail and a different substance in the head also.

This situation will end badly IMO, that is a given, only the timing will change not the outcome.