What's Good for the Goose...

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a piece on Tony Abbott's segue into welfare bashing; a bashing that was particularly focused on the long term unemployed and those on disability payments. Abbott's sudden topic change has been put in context today, as Julia Gillard is set to release what sounds like a similar policy. Abbott was clearly in the know, and thought it best to pre-empt Gillard so that everyone will think that kicking the unemployed and the disabled was all his idea. Because you wouldn't want to miss out that title would you? You know, Nation's Biggest Bastard.

It would be remiss of me if I didn't give the same pasting to Gillard that I gave to Abbott for what I believe is a cynical attempt to smooth over other cuts to the Budget with the general populace. Obviously the Government believes that it cannot make the big cuts it needs to make to achieve next year's promised surplus without throwing a bone to those morons who think people on welfare are living it up playboy style. You know the guy they're thinking of; he's fat, he has a beard, smokes weed, plays Xbox all day, goes for a swim in his Olympic size swimming pool at his beach house AND IS FICTIONAL. He is fictional. He doesn't exist. The real guy on welfare may have a beard, but he's probably eating dog food and swimming in a puddle outside his sharehouse. It's not that ritzy stuff like My Dog he's eating either, I'm talking about that stuff that stays can-shaped when you tip it into the bowl. He lives off $250 a week, how is that even possible? That guy is MacGyver.

Anyway, as was stated in the previous piece, the long term unemployed are hardly a budget drag. They account for roughly 15% of the unemployed population and there has been a steady reduction over the past ten years. The supposedly ubiquitous 'Welfare Cheats' are another piece of misdirection. Focusing on fraud is not going to balance your budget, forcing people on disability pensions 'who can work, but don't want to' out into the workforce won't do it either. It will however, smooth it over for people who will be affected by the 'real' cuts.

Services will be cut. Funding for research will be cut. There is surely to be cuts to middle-class benefits (maybe that's hoping too much), and perhaps to education. People will be mad, but not as mad as they would be if you didn't also go after that 'bong-smoking hippie in a wheelchair living next-door watching his big screen TV all day.'

This is all for nothing as well. This is so the Budget can be in surplus next year. Why does it need to be in surplus next year? The answer is this: it doesn't. It 'needs' to be because the Government said it would be. It has no material affect on anyone, but for some reason people cannot stand the Government being in debt. They would prefer they cut everything rather than spend another day in the red.

I've tried to understand it, but I can't. Personal debt is through the roof, people live well beyond their means. Why do you care if the Government has to borrow more money? I certainly don't.

Mind you, I'm caring about less and less these days.

Hot Slots

Poker machine reform has been talked about on and off for years now, but it has never seemed to get off the ground. With sports gambling, on the internet in particular, becoming more and more pervasive, it looked as if the pokies would take a back seat when it came to gambling reform. The intrusion of betting into people's homes, with odds constantly thrown at them as they watch their Saturday football, where they don't even have to move to make a bet, seemed a more likely target. However, it's back on the table and it's all because of Andrew Wilkie.

Being from Perth, pokies are essentially alien to me. They are banned here, even the ones at our casino take a bit longer to play and involve an actual game of poker. Our pubs are free of them, there's no dingy back room populated with one aged pensioner and the local masturbator. We don't have them in our RSL or Leagues Clubs, because we don't have any RSL or Leagues Clubs, well we have RSLs, but nothing happens there. In fact we never leave our houses. If you've got mineral wealth we'll take you for all you've got, we'll even disenfranchise large communities just to get it, but we haven't based our economy on ripping off people who can't afford it.

From my position poker machine reform is a no-brainer. I find the large scale defence of poker machines to be utterly staggering. I cannot believe that anyone, particularly MPs, can be in favour of the current situation. I find the Liberal's position absolutely ridiculous. They are in favour of full welfare quarantining for Aboriginal People in the Territory, where people are registered, given cards and forced to shop at Woolworths, but try to make someone do something far less onerous so they can throw a pre-determined amount of money away in Sydney and they scream nanny state. Bull. Shit.

Clubs Australia, the association of clubs that rely on pokies for revenue, has launched a multi-million dollar campaign to sink the reforms. Obviously, they believe that allowing people to pre-determine their potential losses will lose them money, enough money to blow $20million on advertising without blinking. This is as clear as an admission that they primarily make their coin off people losing more than they intended. Claiming that the money goes back into the community is not a defence, you could argue the same thing for a community run heroin dealer, it doesn't make it right. Feeding off misery is feeding off misery.

Andrew Wilkie has come out this morning and stated that he has received death threats and attempts at blackmail over this issue. The response from Clubs Australia almost immediately was to essentially call him a liar, ask him for proof and feign outrage at an accusation he hasn't made. Their CEO Anthony Ball stated that there is no way this came from one of their members. Really? No way at all? I mean, Clubs Australia is probably a pretty tight ship, there's absolutely no possibility at all that one of their 4000 members didn't read the 'No Death Threats or Blackmail' memo in the bimonthly newsletter. There's no way that someone might take the law into their own hands. That never happens.

This is a passion project for Andrew Wilkie. He made it part of his deal to support the Government, so I suppose it's a passion project for them too now. It will be a hard road. Certain State Governments make millions in taxes from these machines, and Tony Abbott's position has more than a whiff of hoping that cultivating opposition to this may get him into the Lodge.

An opportunist to the end.

The Question

When an issue gets done to death and everyone's sick of it; there's always the leadership question. When there's column that's nearing deadline and the thought of talking to Wayne Swan about the Budget makes you want to crack skulls and feast on the goo inside; there's always the leadership question. When someone goes on Q and A, performs well and the audience's shoes stay on; there's always the leadership question. Whenever there's nothing to ask or if the answer would be so boring that it amounts to the same thing; ask about the leadership.

When you've got to write something, but can't think of anything, play the leadership card – but you can only use it as much as you like.

Not only does it get you out of jail for one story, it creates heaps of other stories as well. There's the follow-up article where you get some shifty looking guy to say 'That's ridiculous, I fully support someone'. If you can wait long enough for a new poll to come out – so, you know, 24 hours, you can get another story like "Leadership Tensions Reflected/Not Reflected in Latest Whatever". Even if the poll's main numbers don't say what you want them to say you'll be able to find some obscure question or interesting dichotomy that you can again throw at that shifty looking guy from earlier.

By now some friends have probably jumped on the band wagon and your away; you'll now have some filler next time you've got half a story – You: "Does the issue with the Budget/refugees/angry senate/carbon tax/NBN/something have anything to do with the ongoing leadership tensions? Shifty guy: 'That's ridiculous'. You: 'Do you fully support…?" Shift guy: '…Someone, yes." His darting eyes and innate sweatiness will take care of the rest.

This fundamental practice of political journalism was on show yet again this past week. Kevin Rudd goes on Q and A, and all of a sudden he's popular again. "Hey, remember that guy we really hated a year ago? He's pretty awesome." So of course, some wise arse asked the question everyone loves to ask politicians: "Do you want the leadership?" The reason this is everyone's favourite question is because no matter what the situation, no matter what side of politics they're on, whether they're in government or opposition, the answer is always yes. Watching a politician answer it while trying not to sound like some destabilising rabble-rouser seems to be some people's idea of a good time.

Getting an honest answer is not the intent of the question. Shit stirring is the intent of the question. Think about it; divorced from politics the question is: "Do you want a promotion that could possibly/will lead you to the very pinnacle of your profession, and provide you with a place in history forever?"

How much thinking time would you need? The answer is obvious, the questioner just wants to see him squirm and try to hide his pants bulge of ambition.

Does want to be Prime Minister again? Hells yeah. Will he do anything about it is the question that is important. He probably won't, but if he was gifted the opportunity it would be wacko the diddli-yo and sucking sauce bottles all over again, I guarantee it.

The Lament of an Armchair Commentator

Somehow I ended up watching Q and A last night. Something which I usually avoid because screaming at the TV is apparently only acceptable during the final moments of vaguely consequential football matches. Every time Tony Jones said that it was time to move on and another subject was raised, I audibly groaned and writhed in my chair, like a depressed toddler with irritable bowel syndrome. There was not one topic that I could bear to listen to without flying into a rage. I commented to a friend that I couldn’t decide what crushingly depressing issue to write about today. I still can't, so I think I'll just be crushingly depressed.

I have expressed my dislike of Q and A in past pieces; the smug questioners, the applause for the obviously flawed populist statement from someone who only half knows what they're talking about, the questions that turn in statements, the increasing frequent party plants reading their questions scrawled on their inner forearms. It is consistently infuriating.

But recently I've found everything infuriating. The constantly polled electorate, consistently inconsistent with everything: We hate Julia and like Tony, we hate them both, kinda middling on Julia but starting to dislike Tony, like Rudd again, hate Julia middling on Tony, love Turnbull, we want Turnbull and Rudd at the same time because 2009 was kick-arse, the carbon tax is good but it sucks and will destroy us. Do people really change their minds like this constantly? Has everyone just become pure id?

Mark Latham has done away with the pretence of being a conniving, manipulative bastard and has just become pure bastard. Julia Gillard has obviously received some polling that she's seen as too close to the Greens so has therefore decided to call them names; because, well because…they're smelly and dobb on her all the time, I don't know…maybe 5 year olds will buy it and vote for her in 13 years.

I don't think I like anyone in politics anymore. The week before last I watched the full coverage of the NSW Election, just to feel something. I ended up sitting on my couch in the dark giggling softly at some Labor guy saying "It's a big loss, I'm not going to lie." He should have lied; it would have made for better TV. Only the ridiculous claims that the entire result was due to the carbon tax could get me going and yelling 'Bullshit' to no one in particular, but it was fleeting.

The media is too obsessed with the political soap opera for there to be any real debate about policy. No wonder no one knows anything. The public just seem to have vague notions of things, like they fell asleep in front of the TV and it made them dream about something Ross Garnaut said. I know 'the media never talks about policy' complaint is an old chestnut spouted by wankers like myself when no one agrees with me, BUT IT'S TRUE.

I know this blog usually attempts to be funny, and maybe Steve Fielding will say something ridiculous on the weekend and we'll get past this. But until then please take a moment to consider just how well and truly fucked we all are.

Poll Bludger

Yesterday, Tony Abbott took a mid-carbon tax argument segue to the issue of welfare reform/total destruction. Many took it as a welcome break from the current climate focussed vague-a-thon, but at a time when the cost of living is at the forefront of people’s minds, this was actually all about the carbon tax. Once again Tony Abbott is wetting his dog whistle and is off to the park with his shit scooper.

Welfare resentment is one of those things that seems to be higher at the lower end of the economic spectrum, and all that’s required to get it going is a little push with some cynical political footwork. Tony Abbott is well trained at this sort of manoeuvre, learned through his years of boxing and stomping on cute things. As those in the working and lower-middle-classes struggle with increased costs, there’s nothing that gets the hackles up than being told that THEY are paying someone to ‘slack off’. It gets even worse when they’re told that welfare fraud in particular is a major drag on the public purse.

Now of course, that is bullshit. While the complexities of unemployment and why people some people stay unemployed is probably something that should have a lot of money thrown at it, in terms of the budget it’s small potatoes. The long-term unemployed represent a small proportion of total unemployment, and in recent years there numbers have dropped dramatically, from 3.7 percent in 1993 to 0.9 percent in 2005. Which is perhaps a suggestion the welfare system is working just fine.

Of the billions spent per year on social security and welfare the vast majority goes towards the baby bonus, childcare rebates and the family tax benefit, which the most of those up in arms about ‘dole bludgers’ accept without irony. Of course that’s not what Abbott wants to draw attention to, because lots of those lovely swinging voters get those benefits and those guys are sensitive. Best to have a crack at the mythical, bong-smoking, couch laying arse picker living it up on $250 a week and that arrogant prick on disability. Those bastards are the real problem.

The current pressures on personal finances bring the need for political scapegoats and the long-term unemployed are an easy target for Abbott. They receive little sympathy or defence, have no lobby groups, and the myths surrounding them frustrate working people struggling with the current financial climate. Without mentioning it, Abbott has indirectly made people think of the financial effects of the carbon tax. All while pushing an ideological barrow and being a populist turd sock. This is the sort of evil genius reserved for James Hardie board meetings and Nick Minchin bathroom mirror monologues.

I’d like to say the electorate will see through this and call Abbott on his shit, but I’m not on crack and neither are you.

Demolition Unspinable

This Saturday past, the State of New South Wales took out the trash. It removed a government so decrepit, so past its use-by date that it spent most of the election campaign apologising for even having an election. It had been coming for a very long time. The NSW public decided to kick them out about 10 minutes after Morris Iemma completed his victory speech on election night 2007.

The 2007 poll was a victory for hopelessness and ennui. No one liked Iemma and no one liked his government. They had been on the nose basically since Iemma took over from Bob Carr, because Morris Iemma is the very definition of mediocre, he is a glass of tepid water. The reason people voted for him is, well…there was no other option. Peter Debnam had to work hard just to be called mediocre, his standard response to questioning was to shuffle some papers in front of him, look nervous, apologise and promise to have the figures next time. During the election campaign his costings were hours late to a press conference “because of the photocopiers.” Morris Iemma was incredibly lucky. You only get one Peter Debnam in politics, that’s because most of them sell insurance or Amway.

Then came the scandals varying in content from corruption to paedophilia, Iemma’s resignation after being rolled at the ALP State Conference, a new Premier who had only been an MP for two years and would have struggled to inspire water to flow downhill, resignation after resignation after resignation, a Labor run council linked to property development sex favours, another new Premier, and the sale of a state asset at nearly 25% of the price that was offered a few years before. This government was not only an embarrassment; it was an ultra slow motion car crash on national TV. The polls have been rancid for years and there was not one person in existence who did not see Saturday’s massacre coming.

Surely then, this is an election that needs no real analysis. A party does not lose 31 seats because of one issue, or even from a bad campaign. People were just over it. Everyone. How can you spin this? Either side. Barry O’Farrell didn’t need to say anything. He could have changed his party name to the Hitler Youth and started habitually urinating in an old lady’s dog purse at Circular Quay, people would have voted for him. He didn’t need to have policy; he just needed to attend.

Yet the Federal Coalition has the temerity to suggest that the result was due to dissatisfaction with the Carbon Tax, something that has been thrown up in the last two months. Put down the crack pipe please. For God’s sake, THEY HAD TWO UNELECTED PREMIERS, A MINISTER WAS A CONVICTED PAEDOPHILE, PEOPLE LIED TO THE CORRUPTION WATCHDOG, THEY SOLD THE ELECTRICY NETWORK FOR SOME MAGIC BEANS AND A WRISTY BEHIND THE BIKE SHED. This wasn’t a government, it was one of those late era Benny Hill specials were most of the jokes were stolen from Italian TV.

But no, Tony Abbott thinks his ‘Big New Tax’ line and some bullshit about ‘real action on shit we don’t believe in’ had enough traction to deliver the biggest electoral landslide in Australian History. Get your hand off it.

Carbon Poll Polution

So apparently Julia Gillard should just give up; should in fact resign in disgrace because according to the latest Newspoll and analysis of said Newspoll she is: "Prime Minister in name only.” Which is an interesting observation; because it seems to me that it is the name that counts. Power doesn't just disappear because Newspoll says it has. Newspolls do not elect governments, and the day they do is the day I'll be living in a tin shack south west of nowhere, muttering to myself and reading old newspapers. Polls can however, control Governments if they let them.

The poll also stated that 53% of people are opposed to the Carbon Tax, which given the fact that no one knows what that actually is yet, what it will affect, and to what extent it will affect it, that should probably say 53% of people guess that they will be opposed to the Carbon Tax when they find out what it is. It seems that it is never too early to have a poll about something the people are yet to be properly informed about.

Q. "How to you feel about a carbon tax that: may cause a rise in grocery prices, may make fuel unaffordable and may ultimately cause modern civilisation to crumble; leading to the establishment of a series of shanty towns warring with each other over the use of the last iPad, or may not, we're not sure yet. What do you think?"

A. "Strongly opposed."

Useless, but this is what you get when you announce a policy where a large amount of the detail is still unknown, and this is what the Government have done. In August last year I said that Gillard would struggle with the conservative independents on one side and Greens on the other, and while she has avoided a lot of confrontation in the first 6 months, we're beginning to see fissures. The Government largely went too early on this policy because of a combination pressure from the Greens for a carbon tax and pressure from everyone else for an environmental policy of some kind. The result is the announcement of impending environmental policy, but with no detail and no nuance. There is a title, and a vague framework, but nothing else because the work is still to be done. Meanwhile, the Opposition can say whatever they want to demonise the policy, because there is an information vacuum to fill. Tony Windsor came out last night and said that the Government has made a mistake. No shit.

I'm not saying the policy is wrong (how could I anyway?), but the strategy certainly is. The Government cannot not ditch this tax now; if they do, they're finished. There is nothing the public hate more than a Government that cannot make up its mind, and this one has already spent a lot of time dithering. They've gone too early, and they'll just have to eat the bad polls until they have something concrete, which needs to be soon.
In the meantime, we'll just have to put up with more polls on how people think they will think about things they haven't yet thought about.

Probably forever.