The Gravy Train Express

  On Friday the 18th, the Morrison government rejected the recommendation of the bipartisan parliamentary committee enquiring into homelessness, that Australia should develop a 10-year national plan. The government's written response refused any new funding (including for provision of accommodation to women and children facing domestic violence), described homelessness as a matter for the states, and only agreed to fully support two of the 35 recommendations in the committee report. The following Monday, the government confirmed it would continue funding the hiring of private eyes by Services Australia, as part of its welfare "crackdown". (In 2019, with the post-election rush-of-blood-to-the-head, Services Australia was the agency created by Scott Morrison to replace and clean out the Department of Human Services.) Investigators are given the power to follow, photograph, film and bug recipients of social assistance, despite previous audits and department stats confirming ...

Extract from The Saturday Paper article by Rick Morton: "The centrepiece of the federal government’s “Living with Covid” program is a call centre outsourced to former robo-debt collectors and staffed by workers on casual contracts with no medical experience. A cache of documents and testimony obtained by The Saturday Paper reveals the inner workings of the National Coronavirus Helpline, which is being run by private-equity owned Probe Group and its subsidiaries, on contracts worth more than $270 million." Morton's article discloses that the national helpline - listed as the first point of contact by multiple government departments - has been staffed by Probe with a small, badly-paid band of random recruits, who're tasked with triaging, despite often having only 2 hours training and no background in health care. Morton reports that the highly-stressed workers are overwhelmed by the volume, complexity and variety of calls - and that when problems arise they're tol...

Scott Morrison, Saturday January 29, while clasping an unlucky koala in front of assembled cameras: "We love to throw our arms around koalas. And they love to throw their bear arms around us when we get to have a cuddle. What this is about is continuing to throw our arms around our koala population". Continuing? In the last 20 years, Koala numbers have halved in Queensland & dropped 60% in NSW. Land-clearing, drought, and fire mean koalas are currently on track for extinction by 2050. The $50 million announced by the Prime Minister yesterday - should it ever eventuate - is earmarked for monitoring, research, and habitat restoration. The latter is near-pointless without climate action, and the previous two will confirm we need climate action. There are no mysteries as to why koalas are dying. Australia's climate, farming, and "development" policies are killing them. Setting aside the accounting tricks, carbon emissions in Australia have risen 7% since 2005. S...

  Snipped from The Guardian Australia's excellent Weekly Beast column, by Amanda Meade: "Long-term Santos spinner Tom Baddeley has represented the oil and gas producer as the Manager of Government and Community Relations in WA & NT for 12 years. Before that he was WA’s director for the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, the peak national body representing the oil and gas industry. A former journalist who left the ABC in 2005, Baddeley starts on 7 February as ABC Radio Perth’s new Breakfast presenter, replacing Russell Woolf, who died suddenly last October. Some environmental campaigners are concerned about the appointment given Santos is a powerful player – it was the fossil fuel company which the government hosted at its pavilion at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow last year." (Or is it the other way 'round?) "Baddeley, who has appeared before the NT’s fracking inquiry, will now have to present an objective journalistic voice on ...

The Covid disaster in federally-managed aged care has been accelerating in recent weeks. 1100 aged care homes are now locked down due to Covid spread, with outbreaks reportedly affecting over 7000 residents and staff. Between January 7 & 14, the number of homes with Covid more than doubled. Last year's report from the Royal Commission into aged care confirmed that Australia's privately-run facilities were routinely mismanaged - leadership and training were slipshod and resident neglect common, usually stemming from prioritisation of profit over care. In response to the damning report, only a fraction of the recommended funding-increase was promised by the Morrison government (and most of it is yet to be allocated), already problematic providers were kept on, and no moves were made to improve the pay or conditions for nursing staff. At a time when the entire system urgently needed restructuring and a clean-out of shonks, a typically uninterested (some would say complicit) fe...

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...