The government should end over this. But I think it will stagger on a bit more. - ed
Here’s a letter to the Programming Director of Washington, DC’s, WTOP Radio:
Enough with reports (heard in today’s 1pm hour) that natural disasters can be good for the economy. The Keynesian economics upon which such reports are based is hopelessly confused on the issue.
According to Keynesians, recessions result from people feeling pessimistic about the future – a pessimism conjured by what Keynesians regard as wary “animal spirits.” This pessimism prompts people to save too much and spend too little.
But even if we accept these Keynesian notions, is it likely that the optimism necessary to improve the economy will be sparked by destroying people’s homes and businesses? How plausible is it that people – who before being hammered by the likes of a hurricane felt that their savings were too low – will go on sustained spending binges because natural disasters oblige them to dip into the very savings that they were previously trying to increase? By what logic are “animal spirits” buoyed with confidence by tragedies that make people poorer? On what theory do consumers become more hopeful about the future while standing in the rubble left by natural disasters?
Please, no more such absurd reports.
Donald J. Boudreaux
The Fraser Institute’s Mark Milke shares sensible thoughts on the unsustainability of the welfare state; here are some key ‘grafs:
For the record, the fault for the ramped-up public debt cannot be placed on “too low” taxes. A variety of countries with widely differing tax levels all continued to borrow massively over that period.
For example, since 1995, and as a percentage of its economy, Greece’s total tax take has been about one-eighth to one-fifth higher than the United States (depending on the year). But high-tax Greece put itself into more debt as did the (relatively) low-tax U.S. Or consider the UK; its tax rates rose steadily since 1995 but so too its red ink problem.
In other words, the assumption that higher tax revenues will save a country from its spending and borrowing addiction is mistaken. That’s not any more likely than a modest raise for a consumer maxed out on her credit cards whose real problem is overspending.
… is from page 99 of historian William Manchester’s 1992 book A World Lit Only by Fire; here, Manchester is writing about 16th-century Europe:
[T]he sons of merchants led the way in learning foreign languages. They were already among the most attentive pupils. The growth of industry gave education a new urgency. Literacy had been an expensive indulgence in an agrarian culture, but in an urban, merchant world it was mandatory.
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (02:52 pm)
We’ve already seen Julia Gillard threaten media organisations for running articles that threaten her grip on power.
Now she attacks the nation’s highest judge after he humilated her by declaring her people-swap with Malaysia unlawful:
“"Can I say, looking at yesterday’s High Court decision, I believe that it represents a missed opportunity in preventing us from transferring asylum-seekers to Malaysia at this time,” she said in Brisbane…
The current Chief Justice of the High Court, his Honour Justice French, considered comparable legal questions when he was a judge of the Federal Court and made different decisions to the one the High Court made yesterday.”
How is French to respond? By entering into a public slanging match with the Prime Minister? By keeping his silence as his integrity is attacked?
What won’t this Prime Minister trash in her desperation to stay in office?
Locked into a political corner, she’s decided to blame the referee in a high-stakes game designed to deflect criticism from herself and her government… In the end an attack on the High Court and the Chief Justice may make a dire situation even worse, if that’s possible.
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (01:09 pm)
Labor starts to split under the pressure of failure:
THE recriminations have begun over Labor’s botched Malaysian Solution, with Immigration Minister Chris Bowen under pressure to resign over the failed policy.
With Labor’s refugee policies in crisis, several of Mr Bowen’s colleagues have questioned his competence and suggested he consider his future after the High Court yesterday ruled the refugee swap deal invalid.
Western Australian backbencher Mark Bishop told The Australian Online the “very existence of the government itself” was threatened by Mr Bowen’s mishandling of the issue.
“There appears to be continuing lack of accountability, ministers don’t seem to take responsibility for their own decision-making and consequences,” Mr Bishop told The Australian Online…
“… the proper handling of the matter goes to the core competency of the government and the relevant minister.”
Another colleague told The Australian Online: “What the f*** has happened? He got up and told us this was alright.”
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (11:07 am)
Well, there will be a vacancy:
(Thanks to reader Lyndal.)
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (10:51 am)
Margaret Kelly, who teaches constitutional law at Macquarie University, says the High Court should have left the politics to the politicians:
THE High Court yesterday decided by six to one Immigration Minister Chris Bowen’s declaration enabling asylum seekers on Christmas Island to be sent to Malaysia for UNHCR processing was unlawful, thus ensuring a permanent injunction preventing him from sending those asylum seekers there.
The court purported to deny making any conclusions about Malaysia’s human rights standards. It said: “Nothing in these reasons should be understood as expressing any view about whether Malaysia in fact ‘meets relevant human rights standards’, let alone whether asylum seekers in that country are treated ‘fairly’ or ‘appropriately’.”
This is disingenuousness at best and doublespeak at worst. After conclusion of the arrangement between Australia and Malaysia, the Minister made a declaration under the Act that appropriate human rights protection would exist for the transferees in Malaysia. But the court interpreted the Act’s provisions to mean that access and protection for asylum seekers and refugees in Malaysia must be such that Malaysia is legally bound to provide, but they “are not”.
Not only does this effectively spit in the face of the good faith between the Malaysian and Australian governments and put the court’s opinion of what is required in place of that of the Minister, it amounts to the court making policy. The former government policy as reflected in the Migration Act is in ruins as a result.
Let it be clear: this is a result of six judges taking a view. This is not because the policy was wrong - the Government had acted on the policy the elected representatives had passed into law. The intention of the Parliament has yet again been scorned by the court majority.
(Thanks to reader John.)
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (08:28 am)
This won’t just be about Thomson:
BESIEGED Labor MP Craig Thomson now faces a possible third inquiry - with the NSW Commissioner of Fair Trading to investigate claims he misused unions funds to help his election to Parliament.
It comes amid claims the Health Services Union has yet to give information on Mr Thomson to police, as the fraud squad decides whether to launch an investigation.
Despite the union’s national executive referring the matter to police last week, it gave Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione only a letter from its lawyers and an audit of the HSU national office - but not credit card receipts and other information related to Mr Thomson, police sources say.
HSU national president Mike Williamson’s spokesman defended the decision not to send further evidence to police, saying a letter from legal firm Slater and Gordon had offered Mr Scipione “full co-operation with any investigation”.
The state government is today expected to announce plans to examine the finances of Coastal Voice, established by Mr Thomson in the lead-up to the 2007 poll. It is understood the Fair Trading Commissioner will trigger the inquiry into the association, which has not lodged returns since its 2006 incorporation.
So much for Thomson’s excuse. Last month he claimed “another gentleman” paid back his union for the escort agency payments that appeared on Thomson’s union credit card:
When questioned on radio earlier this month over the use of prostitute services on his union credit, Mr Thomson told 2UE: “The union reached a settlement with another gentleman who paid back $15,000 in relation to the use of credit cards at an escort agency. I don’t know whether he forged my signature or who did.”
There’s a problem with that excuse:
CRAIG Thomson’s explanation that “another gentleman” paid back $15,000 worth of credit card bills has been shot down by an audit that confirms the money was returned for disallowed wage increases.
The 2009 audit of the Health Services Union by Pitcher Partners revealed blank cheques and unauthorised wage payments.
Mr Thomson, now a Labor MP, had said he never used his union credit card to hire prostitutes while he was HSU national secretary, and that someone else had reached an agreement with the union.
The audit confirmed ex-state secretary Jeff Jackson paid back $15,000 for unauthorised salary increases.
Among the revelations was that Mr Jackson authorised a payment of $5000 for a colleague, Alex Hicks, to allow her to work on Barack Obama’s election campaign in the US. ...
Mr Jackson paid back the money.
Mr Jackson did not return calls.
Allegations that Mr Jackson used his credit card to hire prostitutes were referred to police but no charges were laid.
Mr Jackson has denied using union funds to pay for prostitutes.
On MTR 1377 with Steve Price today, Sports Minister Mark Arbib confirms he was consulted on NSW Labor’s payment of between $90,000 and $150,000 to Thomson:
He says he did not make the decision himself to pay Thomson and says he does not know if the payment came with conditions - as in, that in exchange for the payment Thomson had to serve out his term.
(Thanks to readers CA and the Great Waisuli.)
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (06:51 am)
Even in Tasmania, the Labor brand is toxic, with the party’s vote almost eclipsed by the Greens’:
When undecided voters are excluded, the ALP vote lifts to 22 per cent, the Liberals to 55 per cent and the Greens 18 -- indicating the Liberals could likely have formed majority government if an election was held earlier this month.
Lara Giddings’ support as preferred premier has dropped to 19 per cent, down three points, while Liberal leader Will Hodgman is up 10 to 52.
(Thanks to reader CA.)
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (06:41 am)
It’s perhaps Julia Gillard’s most complete disaster. But the Sydney Morning Herald’s Phil Coorey takes only three paragraphs to kick the Opposition:
IT is hard to imagine how things could possibly get worse for this government.
Battered over the Craig Thomson affair, its primary vote mired below 30 per cent, and selling a carbon tax as popular as an infestation of carp, the High Court, out of left field, kills its Malaysia solution by six votes to one.
This decision was not expected. Even the opposition spokesman for immigration, Scott Morrison, didn’t think the court would intervene so heavily and so he started spinning a face-saving response before the judgment was handed down.
(Maybe I’m being too hard on Coorey. So I’ve taken off a link while I think about it.)
If these were the grounds then for concluding (wrongly) that Julia Gillard was still in the race, then the conclusion now must be general that she’s finished:
“[Abbott] as placed so much faith on the two big government negatives - the carbon tax and the boats. There are already signs that the sting has gone out of the asylum seekers debate with the Malaysian solution sending a clear and unambiguous message to both people smugglers and those contemplating the dangerous journey by boat. If the carbon tax loses its potency as well, Abbott will be suddenly threadbare.” If the twin planks of 2011 collapse underneath him in the next 18 months, then the killing season could deliver yet again.” (Barry Cassidy, The Drum, 5/6/2011)
“… the signing of the refugee swap deal with Malaysia does not draw a line under the problem but it is a significant step … At the end of last year, Gillard designated 2011 as a year of “decision and delivery”. It hasn’t been pretty, and loose ends abound, but bit by bit she is making good on that commitment.” (Phillip Coorey, ‘A significant step towards keeping a commitment’, SMH, 26/7/2011)
“IN 2011 there will be nowhere to hide. Julia Gillard made this forecast last November as she declared 2011 as her year of “decision” and “delivery” … The Prime Minister has ticked some major items off her to-do list during the lengthy mid-year winter break. She’s revealed the details of her carbon tax and emissions trading scheme. She’s sealed an audacious deal with Malaysia to turn asylum seekers away from Australia. And she’s convinced all state and territory governments to sign up to national health reforms … the PM is increasingly presenting her Government as decisive and determined, not worried about sweating the small stuff if it gets the same end results. It’s a theme she looks likely to pursue in all the big political debates as her year of decision and delivery continues.” (Steven Scott, Courier Mail, 4/8/2011)
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (06:36 am)
Tony Abbott leaves himself open to a scare campaign, but has little choice but to offer reformist policies:
In his strongest indication yet about how a Coalition government would seek to wind back Labor’s workplace laws, the Opposition Leader said his approach to industrial relations would be about “freedom” and trusting businesses and workers to strike agreements “which suit themselves”.
But I suspect the electorate may not be quite so reistant to arguments about the need to become more competitive, given the signs of economic stress. And they might be a little more suspicious of unions and their claims.
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (06:33 am)
Indeed, says Thiess, the Government paid it money for an employee training program at a $58 million Thiess construction project and it then paid the AWU. But once in union hands, it seems, the funds went walkabout when the AWU branch in WA was crying poor and running up a debt with head office approaching $1 million.
It is now known that nearly $220,000 was withdrawn using about 40 cash cheques, ranging from $4,000 to $50,000.
Exactly where all the money ended up is far from clear. The man who should know, a former top official, Mr Bruce Wilson, says it is all “old hat stuff” and he has “nothing to say”.
However, two of the so-called “WA Inc” accounts were finally emptied in April last year, when about $46,000 was paid into an even more mysterious Perth-based account called the Construction Industry Fund. It, too, is understood to have been closed this year and may have no legal connection to the union.
Several other cheques totalling about $35,000 were made out in 1993 to a now ex-AWU official, Mr Ralph Blewitt, and, once, about $67,000 went to the trust account of the high-profile Melbourne law firm Slater and Gordon. The timing of this payment has caught the eye of AWU bosses. It coincides with the purchase of a house in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in Mr Blewitt’s name.
A cheque made out to the “Slater and Gordon Trust Account” was dated five days before the firm arranged settlement on the $230,000 property.
The “Transfer of Land” document was signed by Mr Blewitt’s “attorney” for the purchase, his then boss, Mr Wilson, whose signature also appears to be on the dozens of cheques from the “WA Inc” accounts.
Other records show Mr Wilson later lived in the Fitzroy house while serving first as AWU State secretary for both Victoria and Western Australia, then last year as head of the new, strife-torn National Construction Branch.
About a year ago, the discovery of another unauthorised bank account sparked what is now known as the “Victorian affair”.
This account, also unknown to the national office in Sydney until it was exposed by internal union feuding, was operated through the Commonwealth Bank in Melbourne under the name “AWU Members Welfare Association No 1 Account”.
No one was ever charged. The money is still missing. No real answers have ever been supplied.
This puts into context a column by Grace Collier, among others.
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (06:31 am)
“Racist” is a word more usually used these days to obtain advantage:
A SACKED Sudanese worker who alleged widespread abuse of migrant workers at a free-range chicken factory, fuelling a fierce union campaign and a report by ABC1’s Lateline program, fabricated evidence to support his claims of racism.
In a pair of scathing decisions over the past week, Fair Work Australia banned three National Union of Workers officials from accessing Baiada Group’s Adelaide processing plant and dismissed an unfair dismissal claim brought by union member Anyuon Mabior.
Mr Mabior was the only current or former employee willing to appear on the ABC1 program’s October 21 report.
The tribunal heard the Lateline coverage became part of a broader union campaign, including protests, harassment of workers, radio campaigns, a Facebook group and organised action to embarrass the company in front of customers and clients.
The tribunal found no evidence Mr Mabior was subjected to racism at the plant and dismissed claims he had been sent to a carbon monoxide gas chamber after complaining about workplace safety.
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (05:50 am)
THE High Court has taken Immigration Minister Chris Bowen and his department to task, saying he went ahead with the swap deal despite receiving warnings from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade about Malaysia’s lack of legal protection for refugees.
The 6-1 decision of the full bench of the court found that Mr Bowen and his department wrongly construed the Migration Act when he declared Malaysia a safe country to send asylum-seekers as part of the arrangement signed in July.
Section 198A of the act says a country is deemed to be “safe” only when it “meets relevant human rights standards in providing . . . protection” to asylum-seekers…
“It is clear that (Bowen|) did not look to, and did not find, any basis for his declaration in Malaysia’s international obligations or relevant domestic laws,” Chief Justice Robert French wrote in his judgment.
“There is no indication that the apparent legal fragility . . . and the associated risks to transferees were drawn to his attention.”
So why did the Government go ahead?
And why did it sign a deal that committed it to take 4000 refugees from Malaysia regardless of whether we could send in exchange the 800 boat people?
Mr Bowen said Australia might rethink its pledge to increase its annual humanitarian intake of 13,750 refugees by 1000.
Under the Malaysia plan, Australia would have sent 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia and accepted 4000 refugees in the next four years. Yesterday Mr Bowen said Australia would still take the 4000 from Malaysia but they would no longer be additional to the annual intake, meaning 1000 fewer refugees waiting in camps elsewhere would be accepted.
Now the only real option is the one that Labor demonised and so stupidly scrapped:
TOM IGGULDEN: The minister’s keeping an open mind about re-opening the Nauru detention centre and reintroducing temporary protection visas, hallmarks of the Howard Government’s Pacific Solution.
CHRIS BOWEN: I’m not ruling anything in or out in terms of our response.
AUSTRALIA should expect a stream of asylum-seekers to arrive by boat, following the demise of the Malaysia deal, refugee advocates warn. Zabiullah Ahmadi, an Afghan who lives in Kuala Lumpur, predicted: ”Within weeks, there will be lots of boats.”
Let’s count the cost:
- 12,000 people lured to Australia since the Rudd Government relaxed the boat people laws.
- More than 4000 still in detention.
- More than 300 boat people reportedly lured to their deaths at sea.
- Billions of dollars in costs.
- Our international reputation trashed by repeated bungles.
One, the Gillard government has shown a complete inability, quite staggering in its comprehensiveness, to manage this issue or pursue coherent or effective policy. Our government’s incompetence is notorious.
And two, we will now continue the policies that attract the boatpeople into Southeast Asia in the first place. The Rudd government caused the problem for Southeast Asia by softening the Howard government’s previously successful Pacific Solution…
This is Dame Edna Everage diplomacy as taught by Les Patterson in the Barry McKenzie school of self-regard.
You couldn’t get much worse.
The government will look like a joke because frankly at the moment it is.
THE High Court has given the Gillard government a massive kick in the guts when it is already writhing on the political floor… This is another example of apparent Labor incompetence.
...the most egregious aspect of today’s decision by the High Court is that it provides a new and crushing chapter in what has become a tale of rambling incompetence.
Across both Rudd and Gillard governments, this policy area has played host to a most dispiriting display of opportunism, mendacity and half-arsedness.
... if anyone in the Government is still wondering why voters don’t believe Julia Gillard when she says she has things under control, today should provide a devastating answer.
(Thanks for reader Marg.)
Andrew Bolt – Thursday, September 01, 11 (12:01 am)
Julia Gillard’s Government has become a laughing stock.
This is a government whose latest boat people policy has just collapsed completely, ruled unlawful by the High Court.
Before that, it nearly killed off our live beef export trade through sheer panic. It has proposed all kinds of wild plans that were scrapped before they even started - including a Citizens’ Assembly, Cash for Clunkers and an East Timor Detention Centre that East Timor didn’t want. With an unblemished record of failure, it now proposes a revolutionary tax to stop us from using cheap power, and promises no jobs will be lost.
With this record, we should believe it?
I’m sorry to sound strident. But this is without doubt the most dangerously inept and untrustworthy government in our history.
To see how completely it’s failed, check Gillard’s announcement in July 2010 of the election date, and note her three core promises:
I’ve moved to strengthen border protection with a real plan for the region and for a regional processing centre. Of course, I moved to resolve the issues around the mining tax to make sure that the nation, our mining industry and our mining communities could move forward with confidence....And can I say again we will make sure, in making commitments, that we protect the Budget coming back to surplus in 2013 – three years earlier than originally anticipated.
The regional processing idea is dead. The mining tax is still not finalised. The Budget looks increasingly unlikely to be in surplus in 2013.
Julia Gillard will be almost certainly replaced by the end of September, for reasons I will more fully explain on Saturday. Humiliating people on Tuesday who helped put her in power was just one of the final straws:
Ms Gillard met with (steel) industry and union leaders on Monday.
Australian Workers Union boss Paul Howes and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) national secretary Dave Oliver both walked away from the talks thinking Ms Gillard was considering an inquiry.
‘It’s possible for people to take some different takes out of a conversation,’ Ms Gillard told reporters in Wollongong.
Telling experienced negotiators they were all somehow “mistaken” when they left a meeting with a collective understanding that an offer had been made? Embarrassing them by leading them to assure their members they’d won a concession, only to hear the Prime Minister say they just goofed?
I’ve been tipping Simon Crean, as experienced and safe. Others put up a reasonable case for Bill Shorten, despite the unfortunate patrician hauteur he’s developed. An outsider is Stephen Smith.
The change could be triggered by anything. In Rudd’s case, it was something as trivial as getting a staffer to ring backbenchers to see if they were still loyal, or been wooed by Gillard.
Watch closely. And listen, too. There may be some more bad news today, which Gillard may (probably wrongly) suspect has been encouraged by Shorten.
A senior government frontbencher, Anthony Albanese, also joined the fray by calling for news outlets to lift standards and stop publishing ‘’nonsense’’, arguing that press freedom did not mean the freedom to ‘’write lies’’.
Mr Albanese also provoked influential Melbourne columnist Andrew Bolt, declaring he was ‘’today, a much more humiliated man’’, having pointed to allegations against Prime Minister Julia Gillard that were now acknowledged to be ‘’false’’.