The Gravy Train Express

Last Friday, the UK's Court of Appeal found the Conservative government's deeply nasty plan to dump asylum-seekers in Rwanda to be unlawful. PM/Head-Prefect Rishi Sunak is still lobbying for the European Court of Human Rights rules that protect asylum-seekers to be "reformed". If the "disincentive" strategy of sending people who have fled persecution into fresh danger sounds familiar, that's because yes, it was copied directly from Australia's repugnant playbook of the last 20 years. Sunak has even campaigned using the slogan "Stop The Boats". This is perhaps unsurprising, given the cutthroat-desperation of his party and close links between the Australian and UK Tories - despicable Howard-era strategist/former Director of the federal Liberal Party/consultant-for-hire Lynton Crosby worked directly on campaigns for Boris Johnson, David Cameron, and Theresa May. Crosby is notorious for his simple inflammatory slogans, smear campaigns, wedge-po...

(Written Wednesday, October 5.) On Friday September 30 , Australia reached an extraordinary new low in pandemic management. At the 'National Cabinet' meeting of Premiers, Chief Ministers and Prime Minister, mandatory 5-day Covid isolation for all but health & aged care workers was scrapped. Commencing October 14, any precautions will be left entirely to the individual - Covid-positive persons will be free to move about the community. Combined with Cabinet's previous decision to abandon mandated masking, this means the virus will deliberately be allowed to spread, unimpeded. The decision was unanimous - no leader at the table spoke in opposition. Bizarrely, the government has described dispensing with protections as "getting the balance right". In fact, five day isolation was already inadequate - as research published in The Lancet has highlighted, two-thirds of people are still infectious at that point. A quarter are still infectious at 7 days. Best medical pr...

On Thursday, April 14, the Fin Review ran both an opinion piece and an article based around Ipsos focus-group work which the Fin said showed undecided voters were leaning toward Scott Morrison. The paper described that voter-group's feeling as "better the devil you know". The Guardian's economics correspondent, Peter Hannam, noticed that no numbers were mentioned. When he contacted Ipsos to check, it turned out that two groups of voters had participated, with each group consisting of... five people. Yes - the work was indicative of the leanings of fully ten individuals. The journalist responsible for hyping this junk was Phil Coorey, who in recent years has been the AFR's contact-of-choice for leaks and briefings from the Prime Minister's Office, and who memorably penned the fawning "Woman Who Saved Australia" profile of Gladys Berejiklian just 5 months before her exit under a corruption cloud. The AFR was once a Fairfax publication. Then Malcolm T...

She declared school climate education "propaganda". Brought climate-deniers on speaking tours. Donated millions to the professional water-muddiers at the Institute of Public Affairs. Lamented that Australian workers cost too much while "Africans want to work & its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day". In December 2021 she complained that under-developed Australia didn't have enough large marinas for super-yachts. She said this while actually speaking from the deck of her own super-yacht. In 2018 she advised women who wanted executive positions to "work harder". In 2012, she declared Aust should cut corporate tax, and also lower the minimum wage. This from an individual currently valued at well over $30 billion. Now, mining magnate Gina Rinehart - Australia's richest person and largest landowner - has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia. The office of Governor Gen says the Order of Australia gongs are given “for disti...

Written Wednesday, January 12, 2022: On Monday, the government told Australia's ragged parents that there was no shortage of vaccines for kids. This, despite tight restrictions being placed on the number of child-doses allowed to GPs, and vax appointments being cancelled all over the country. The slippery fine print was that supply-chain failures arising from Covid-spread meant the shots existed - they just weren't being distributed. (Although another report said we were indeed still awaiting some overseas shipments - but either way, that's a shortage.) Over and over again in his Monday presser, the PM said the country just had to "push through" and "ride the wave", as though that meant something other than just getting used to the sick and the dead. He vowed to ensure small-to-medium business wouldn't have to test its staff, on the basis of there being "no exposure sites anymore". (This, he said, was thanks in part to his 4-hour redefiniti...