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29/03/2025

2025 March Budget Response

27 March 2025

Warning. This is a long post, with my opinion followed by a more detailed analysis from Zali Steggall.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has now brought down his March pre-election budget.

All the noise is about the few sweeteners, the $150 electricity rebate (paid to the companies that are maintaining the prices), and a very modest tax cut, coming in the future, and perhaps not even enough to overcome bracket creep.

In the nine and half page analyses in the SM Herald the next day, not one got down to any sort of real discussion of the details. Ross Gittins summed up the situation best with his closing comment, ‘This government is timid, uninspired and uninspiring. This budget fits it perfectly’.

To look in more detail, I got an email from Zali Seggall, the Teal from Warringah, a barrister and ex-Olympic skiing medallist who defeated Tony Abbott, the then Prime Minister to win the seat. She at least had done her homework, though she skirts some of the bigger issues that might be politically sensitive for her, as she also faces her conservative electorate in a few weeks.

If the standard to measure budget is what needs to be done, it is quite a poor budget, mostly just business as usual with only little tinkering, but that has been the whole approach of the Albanese government, and why the Greens are rising on the Left of the Labor Party, and the Teals are rising on the left of the Liberal Party.

There is minimal for Climate Change, dwarfed by the subsidies for diesel fuel and the fossil fuel lobby.

There is no discussion of tax reform, though negative gearing and the capital gains tax concession is responsible for the huge amount of ‘investment’ in property speculation, which also raises rents and means that poorer people cannot get Housing. This also affects domestic violence as women have nowhere to go, crime and kids unable to start a family. Research gets little, and the National Anti-Corruption Commission and Australian Electoral Reform Commission to stop electoral disinformation is similarly neglected. Defence has a tiny increase presumably to please Trump, or try to remedy the fact that the US cannot be relied upon, but the huge issue of the AUKUS submarines is not addressed in the Budget, nor by Zali. Aged Care needs a lot of policing as do many privatised industries. Medicare will supposedly be revived, but they are still having trouble recruiting GPs and nurses. No prizes for guessing why. The government has had control of the wages and rebates and has simply let them fall against inflation. There has been some tinkering with Medicare, but the GPs and nurses remain unconvinced.

But if you think that Labor was poor on policy, you need to think about the Liberal’s effort in reply on 27th. Dutton wants to lower the petrol temporarily. This will naturally favour commuters with big cars in outer suburban marginal electorates. It will also be bad for Climate Change and delay electrification of the car fleet. He wants to solve the energy crisis by producing more gas by fracking NSW (sorry environment again), sack 40,000 public servants (about half of Canberra’s public servants, who will presumably be replaced by private consultants at twice the price), and of course his nuclear policy for expensive electricity in never-never time. (We need not mention that the coming large-scale renewables need supplementation that can be turned on and off, and nuclear does better at producing a constant flow).

But since the new politics seems to be that you criticise your way into power, perhaps he has a chance. One observer looking out for Liberal policy says the best guide is Gina Reinhardt’s Twitter (X) feed, but I have not researched the veracity of this.

Here is the article from Zali Steggall:

Budget
With $17 billion in tax cuts, this budget will benefit working Australians, but the government has again avoided meaningful tax reform. Of note, there is a downgrade to revenue from weak Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT) with forecast revenue slashed from $10 billion to $6.3 billion by 2026-27. Australia is collecting more tax from beer drinkers than fossil fuel companies. The government has again failed to scale back support through the diesel fuel tax credits for mining companies, now predicted to increase to $46 billion.

The extension of the energy bill relief ($150) is welcome but not means tested so includes an element of spending waste. Continued investment in community batteries and social housing electrification are steps in the right direction. However, there remains an urgent need for the government to prioritise renewable household energy through rooftop solar and battery programs which offer lasting cost-of-living reductions and emissions cuts.

The budget includes a number of positive measures in health and education, particularly for women’s health and affordable childcare, and continues some investment in future-facing industries like green metals.

One of the most promising developments in the budget is the government’s adoption of the Productivity Commission’s recommendation to eliminate non-compete clauses for low and mid-income workers—a measure that while not a headline grabber, will provide a much need boost to productivity and labour mobility.

It was also good to see a modest increase in foreign aid, in line with calls for Australia to strengthen its leadership in the region.

However, this budget fails to respond adequately to the climate and nature crises. Alarmingly, fossil fuels continue to receive six times the funding allocated to nature. There is no meaningful investment in environmental protection, or additional funding for an EPA despite the enormous and growing fiscal impact of natural disasters.

It’s a false premise to think we can prioritise a cost-of-living budget over climate measures as climate change is already costing us, and the longer we wait to mitigate and adapt, the more expensive it will be.

It is disappointing that the government announced a mere $28.8m over two years to ‘improve Australians resilience to natural hazards and preparedness to response to disasters’ in the same section it notes that Cyclone Alfred is estimated to cost $13.5b in disaster support and recovery. Piecemeal upgrades to roads in marginal electorates do not constitute a genuine resilience strategy.

Defence spending is accelerating, but national security isn’t just about weapons and wars – it’s about regional stability. Defence spending alone isn’t enough. When disasters strike, fragile infrastructure turns climate shocks into prolonged crises, fuelling unrest and displacement. True security means helping our neighbours build resilience before disaster strikes.

JobSeeker and Youth Allowance remain unchanged, so our most vulnerable are falling further below the poverty line. There is also a glaring gap in support for women and children escaping domestic violence, with only a $2.5 million increase for crisis accommodation—far below what is needed to address the scale of the crisis.

Climate and Environment
• No significant funding uplift for climate resilience and adaptation.
• Over $46 billion on fuel tax credits. This is six times more than funding for environmental protection.
• Downgrade in revenue forecast of the government’s weak petroleum resource rent tax.
Commentary:
• The government has acknowledged that climate change is expected to have a significant impact on the Budget, both in terms of risks and opportunities. However, there has been no new funding for climate adaptation and resilience, simply $28 million of targeted funding, including $17.7 million for the Bushfire Community Recovery and Resilience Program.
• The aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred has been felt throughout this Budget. With $1.2 billion allocated for disaster relief, the full cost is anticipated to rise to $13.5 billion.
• In terms of funding for disaster resilience, there has been little foresight to keep our communities safe with only $200 million expected to be provided over the forward estimates from the Disaster Ready Fund. Disappointingly, we also see a decrease of funding to the National Emergency Management Agency to assist with planning and preparing of future disasters from $27 million in 2025-26 to $12 million in 2028-29.
• We are still waiting for the government’s National Climate Risk Assessment and National Adaptation Plan to understand the full extent of climate risk for our communities. Unfortunately, the extent of new climate resilience investment is limited to flood proofing three roads with $354 million over the forward estimates.
• Despite the Government committing to better monitoring and reporting of methane emissions, there was nothing in the budget. It is disappointing that this funding was not prioritised given how critical it is that our emissions inventory has integrity to achieve the government’s 43% emissions reduction target and commitments under the Paris Agreement.
• In terms of nature, I welcome the government’s announcement of $250 million to fund Australia’s obligation to protect 30% of Australia’s bushland by 2030, but this is a far cry from the $5 billion estimated by the conservation sector. In addition to this, there is great hypocrisy in the $2 million in additional funding for protection of the Maugean Skate captive breeding program, when the government today rammed through legislation that puts the endangered species at risk.
Financial Relief for Individuals and Small Business
Progress
• Reforming Help to Buy Program to increase income threshold and house price limit
• Tax cuts for all Australians.
• $150 energy bill relief for every household and some small businesses.
• HELP changes come into effect – a 20% debt reduction, fairer indexation, and raising the minimum repayment threshold to an annual income of $67,000.
Falls Short
• Commonwealth Rent Assistance indexed but not increased.
• No ongoing funding for instant asset write-off, and no meaningful support for small businesses.
Commentary:
• It’s great to finally see the reforming of the Help to Buy scheme to start to match house prices in Warringah. Warringah has around 1% vacancy rate for rental properties and the average dwelling is more than $1 million. First home buyers are struggling to get their foot in the housing market, and this will help – but more needs to be done to reduce the cost of buying a home. However, there is still nothing to assist or support renters.
• I welcome the government’s investment into household electrification, including the continued funding of the Community Solar Banks Program and the Household Energy Upgrades Fund for supporting public and community social housing with electrification. This not only drives down emissions but also helps to bring energy bills down.
• For small business, there is limited financial relief in this Budget. The end of 2024 saw the highest number of insolvencies for small business over the past four years – our small businesses are struggling. We need to legislate a permanent instant asset write off for at least $50,000. It is vital that the Government legislates and makes this available to small businesses without delay.
• With cost-of-living pressures, it is concerning that there is no substantive uplift in Jobseeker, Youth Allowance, Austudy and Commonwealth Rent Assistance. I continue to advocate for the government to increase income support payments, such as JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and Parenting Payment, to at least $82 a day.
Economy and Industry
Progress
• $1 billion over 7 years for the Green Iron Investment Fund.
• $750 million for green metals.
• $2 billion for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
• $20 million to support trade diversification with India.
• $54 million to increase supply and adoption of pre-fabrication and modular homes to help increase Australia’s housing supply.
Falls Short
• Budget deficit.
• No new funding for circular economy initiatives.
Commentary:
• There’s been talk on both sides of the growing deficit however, there is limited announcements on how we are going to grow the economy through increased productivity. The Government’s already announced $900 million National Productivity Fund provides an avenue to grow a skilled workforce and push out productivity measures, including the $54 million for prefabricated and modular homes and to prohibit non-compete clauses for low- and mid- income earners. However, meaningful, long-term policies and spending are still needed to continue to grow our productivity.
• There is some movement by the Government to decarbonise key industries, with $250 million for manufacturing low carbon fuels for sustainable aviation and diesel-reliant sectors, including transport, agriculture and construction. I also welcome the New Energy Apprenticeships Program and national electrician licensing program to support Australia’s energy transition.
• The $20 million for a Buy Australian campaign, which appears to be the only measure the Government has included to address growing tariff and trade war tensions, feels a bit misplaced. In the face of increased uncertainty, the government has foregone any new funding to push for greater research and innovation programs.
Defence and National Security
Progress
• Funding for building Australia’s domestic defence industry and capabilities.
• Additional $135 million in funding for foreign aid.
Falls Short
• No new funding for the Defence Net Zero and Defence Future Energy Strategies.
Commentary:
• Increased global tensions has meant that Australia’s previous heavy reliance on the US as our security backstop can’t be relied on anymore. As a result, there has been additional $1 billion dollars provided to defence in the Budget. This has been bundled with the $9.6 billion in defence funding that was already planned to be spent over the next four years.
• It’s going to be vital to have clear KPIs and deliverables from such an increase in defence spending to ensure that Australia gets value for money and necessary capabilities.
• I welcome the $5.1 billion allocated in Australia’s aid program. This announcement is a timely and much needed signal of our regional commitment and reversing the long-term decline in funding.

Safety at Home, Work and Online
Progress
• $6 million for ACCC’s National Anti-Scam Centre.
• $21.4 million for the implementation of the Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry into the justice responses to sexual violence in Australia.
• $175 million for NDIS integrity and cracking down on fraud.

Falls Short
• No funding for gambling advertising reform.
• No commitment to implementing an online duty of care or holding big tech to account.
• No new funding for Indigenous legal services, despite calls from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services for $1.15 billion.

Commentary:
• Aside from the funding to the ACCC’s National Anti-Scam Centre, there has been limited funding to online safety with no new funding for the e-Safety Commissioner’s work on keep young people safe online.
• Australia continues to face a crisis of women’s safety, yet while the investment of $21.8 million over 2 years for First Nations early intervention and prevention, only a mere $2.5 million has been allocated to crisis accommodation for women and children, which will make little to no difference at a national scale.
• It’s a strong start to see the allocation of $21.4 million in funding to over 3 years to implement the recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s Inquiry into the Justice System’s Response to sexual violence.

Education
Progress
• Full funding to government schools.
• $1 billion to establish the Building Early Education Fund to increase the supply of high-quality early childhood education.
• Three Day childcare Guarantee funded with $426.6 million.

Falls Short
• No measures to implement real time processing of HECS debt repayment to address indexation timing inequity of HECS.

Commentary:
• An additional $407.5 million will see that government schools receive full funding under the School Resource Standard.
• Investment into the early childhood education fund, paired with the 3-day childcare guarantee, is an important and necessary measure to support young families and assist young parents in returning to the workforce.
• A modest investment of $4.8 million is welcome to ensure the continuation of education programs to encourage update of STEM.
• The current Fee-Free TAFE agreement between the Commonwealth and state governments expires in 2027. I welcome the commitment to continue funding the Fee-Free TAFE program, as VAT.

Health and Wellbeing
Progress
• $7.9 billion for Medicare to increase bulk billing services and incentivise GPs to bulk bill patients.
• $793 million funding for women’s health initiatives, such as additional contraceptive pills on the PBS, menopausal hormone therapies added to PBS and 11 more endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics.
• $43.6 million over 4 years for treatment of neuroendocrine tumours.

Commentary:
• A number of promises have been made during the course of the election campaign that are now reflected in the budget but there are no significant new measures.
• I welcome the focus on women’s health with $793 million funding for initiatives, such as oral contraceptive pills on the PBS, and efforts to lift support and care provided by GP’s for women experiencing menopause.
• With just over 50% of all medical appointments bulk billed in Warringah, the cost of healthcare is a concern within our electorate. The government announced a lofty goal of 9 out of 10 doctor visits, however, I question whether this is realistic.
• Further, the capping of PBS prescription medication at $25 dollars is welcome, but more needs to be done to ensure that the cost of the PBS medicines doesn’t blow out the budget.
• An announcement of $291.6 million over 5 years to implement aged care reforms is welcome although will do little to address the significantly long wait times to access aged care services in the short term.
• Funding of $1.8 billion for public hospitals is welcome to assist state governments deal with strained emergency services in public hospitals.
• Efforts to address GP shortage with $663 million in funding to create more pathways for GPs and nurses. This is necessary measure in making healthcare more accessible.
• The investment into medical research and particularly rare cancers is important in promoting the health of everyone in our community. This includes $158.6 million over 5 years for the Zero Childhood Cancer Precision Oncology Medicine Program and the Australian Rare Cancers Portal.
• There are also some minor investments in sport that promote inclusion. I welcome the $3.2 million for the Australian Sports Commission to support women’s participation in sport.

Conclusion
On balance, I give this budget a C+ as it represent cautious fiscal management in challenging geopolitical and economic circumstances but it lacks the ambition and reform required to address climate risks, close equity gaps and secure a strong, fir economy for future generations.
Disappointingly, we see noi new funding for the Australian Electoral Reform to assist with tackling disinformation during the election campaign.
There are no new measures positioned to strengthen the existing National Anti-Corruption Commission.

07/03/2025

Anti-Semitism- a perspective

6 March 2025

There is currently a rush towards the banning of hate speech and a demand for action on antisemitism, but far less emphasis on Islamophobia.

In Australia, we have been a relatively wealthy country where everyone has had a fair go. With a large number of migrants relative to most counties we have been seen as a relatively tolerant society by world standards.

When I grew up, there were large numbers of ‘displaced persons’ (refugees) who had come from Europe after the war. They were from Greece, Italy, Turkey, the Baltic states, the Balkans and Eastern Europe, as well as ‘ten pound Poms’. Anglo-Australians called them ‘wogs’, ‘wops’, ‘Eyties’, Poms or various other names. There were no anti-discrimination laws, so the migrants mainly copped the abuse and worked hard in their new land so that their children would have all the opportunities.

Australia was welcoming in the sense that behind our tariff barriers everyone had jobs at the level that mostly only the father had to work, though women mostly could if they wanted to. There were few private schools, so most kids went to public schools and grew up together and prejudice mostly died out amongst them because of their common experiences. The government Housing department built whole suburbs of houses and leased them at reasonable rents and later they could buy the houses that they had lived in for years. Some migrants set up ethnic clubs based on their homelands and soccer teams were initially racially based as Australia played cricket or rugby. There was some trouble between Serbs and Croats with a shop in Western Sydney memorably burned down, and Sydney Water knew not to have Serb and Croat gangs in the same depots, but mostly things were peaceful.

Other notable migrant groups have been Vietnamese after the Vietnam war and Chinese after Tiananmen Square, but these were on a lesser scale.

Jews were mostly not noticed, but they set up their own Schools, which sang the national anthem of Israel and hoisted an Israeli flag. They were also quietly active in politics, working against any politician who took a pro-Palestinian line.

I can tell my own story here. I spoke at a refugee rally in Hornsby when I was an Australian Democrat in NSW Parliament and pointed out that terrorism was a political and military technique used generally by the weaker side against the stronger, and who was the terrorist depended on the time and your perspective. The political Zionist movement had grown up in the 1890s and managed to get the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which promised a “national home for the Jewish people” in what was then Ottoman-controlled Palestine. After WW2 there were many displaced Jews and the Zionists did terror raids against the British who had inherited control of Palestine. Famously, they bombed the King David Hotel, killing the British general there and destroying all the records of the Zionists terrorists that were stored there. The war-weary British, having nowhere else to put the Jewish refugees, gave up and let them go to Palestine in 1946, despite the objections of the Palestinians, who did not actually have their own government, having been a colony ceded from Turkey to Britain. The Zionists then organised, and ‘Declared the State of Israel’ in 1948, even though Jews were still only 36% of the population. The surrounding nations declared war on the new state and the UN did not recognise it, but they were well organised, bought some leftover tanks from Romania and repelled their attackers. They also killed some Palestinians causing many others (about 750,000) to flee. This was termed the Nakba in the Arab world and is considered ethnic cleansing and equivalent to the Holocaust. The Israeli government then declared that any unoccupied land belonged to the State and could be given to whomever the State wanted. Palestinian land title was not recognised and land was given for ‘settlements’ to Jews who came to Israel and who were willing to take this land and fight the Palestinians who might resist the loss of land that was formerly theirs. The Palestinians were then termed terrorists, and this nomenclature has persisted in Western political definitions and media ever since, as Israel has progressively taken over land formerly owned by Palestinians.

The Jewish lobby in Australia has been very pro-Zionist. After my speech in Hornsby, at which I said some of the above, I was approached by a person who still posts pro-Israel messages on my FB page. He told me that I was quite wrong, but did not elaborate why.

Some time later, a State by-election was held in Tamworth, a safe National party seat, (rendered even safer by optional preferential voting). A couple of rival local councillors stood as Independents, but without preferences flowing were unlikely to knock off the National. The Democrats had a local candidate, so it was an opportunity to get our name out, so we put her up. We discussed our ‘How to Vote’ card preferences and decided we would put the more favoured of the local rival counsellors, then the other Independents, then the National last. We decided to contact the other 3 independents to decide what order to put them in.

Our ‘How to Votes’ were not going to make much difference, the National was going to get in. We contacted 2 of the independents, but despite our best efforts could not find the third, so we gave up, put him second last and went ahead. The National got in, we got a few percent and the Independent in question got 7 votes.

I was then flabbergasted to see a headline in the Jewish Times, ‘Democrats Support Neo Nazis’. The uncontactable independent had apparently attended an Neo-Nazi rally in Melbourne 20 years before and had not been seen since, and we had put him ahead of the Nationals. But the Jewish lobby had kept track of him as well as my speeches and it was pay-back time.

Another example of their power was in 2003. Both the Sydney Peace Foundation and the Dept of Peace and Conflict studies at the University of Sydney advocated the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israel. The Sydney Peace Foundation awarded the Sydney Peace Prize to Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian who had worked for peace in Israel. The head of the Foundation, Prof Stuart Rees contacted all his sponsoring companies to tell them that he intended to do this to be sure that they did not pull their sponsorship. They all assured him it was up to him to award the prize, they would not interfere. When it was announced the Jewish lobby was very upset and said that he had to withdraw the prize and give it to someone else. Rees refused, saying that Foundation would have no credibility at all if he did this. Bob Carr, the Premier, awarded the Prize, but all the sponsoring companies left. Some apologised, some did not. When Rees stepped down, new Board members ended the BDS campaign. The Dept of Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University was degraded from a Department to a course within the Arts faculty after it also supported Palestine.

The Greens have been relatively pro-Palestine and ran a BDS campaign associated with the local Council elections in Marrickville. The Green candidate for mayor had done quite well and was tipped as quite likely to beat the Labor candidate. They had enough money for a billboard campaign. Zionists defaced all their posters. The vandal was caught, but had a clever lawyer who found some previously unnoticed problem with the billboard and got off on a technicality. Vandalism not terrorism? Labor won narrowly.

The IDF, Israeli ‘Defence Force’ has flattened Gaza to a demolition site and killed an estimated 49,000 Palestinans, and now have been attacking Palestinans on the West Bank. Most recently they are stopping food aid getting into Gaza because the Palestinans want a lasting peace, rather than just a ceasefire extension, which would give the Israeli hostages back, but without a guarantee that the one-sided fighting would not resume.

Hamas fighters are always referred to as Hamas militants; even on the ABC because the Americans have classified Hamas as a terrorist organisation and our government has followed. I wonder if our major political parties would have dared not to. Hamas is the legitimately elected government of Gaza because the Palestinian Authority was justly seen as corrupt and unwilling to stand up to Israel. It seems that the kickbacks from property development in Ramallah were too great a temptation.

Recently we have seen some examples to the Jewish lobby pulling Australian society into line:

Antoinette Lattouf was taken off the air by the ABC 2 days into a 5 day contract because she had done a pro-Palestinian social media post. It seems that there was a tsunami of complaints that went right to the top of the ABC within 2 days! I wonder who coordinated that? The case continues in Court- she will probably win her unjust dismissal case. (ABC News 27/2/25)

The artist selected by Creative Australia for the 2026 Venice Biennale, Khaled Sabsabi was dropped because he had made an artwork in 2006 about the Sept 11 attacks in New York and in 2007 a video about a Hezbollah leader. Artists like to think that they can make political statements as part of their work, rather than Art having a purely decorative function. It seems not. (ABC News 14/2/25)

The Australian Research Council (ARC) has suspended an $870,00 grant to pro-Palestinian academic, Randa Abdel-Fatteh, who was given the money for her study, ’Arab/Muslim Australian Social Movements since 1970’. She had made recent anti-Israel comments. No lesser person than Federal Arts Minister, Jason Clare, contacted the ARC. (SMH 1/2/25)

Two nurses, Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdehon were stood down and charged for allegedly ‘wanting to kill Israeli patients’. It is, of course, not at all in keeping with the medical tradition, which is to treat your enemies the same as you treat your own side. Their social media video came to light and was given publicity by an Israeli ‘social media influencer’, Max Veifer. (SBS News 26/2/25)

The National Gallery of Australia had a display of indigenous art and part of the display including suppressed indigenous peoples had a Palestinian flag. The Palestinian flag was covered after complaints. Some in the arts community were offended by this official censorship. (www.pedestrian.tv/news/nga-covers-palestinian-flags-in-artwork/).

You might ask who kept track of the Independent candidate for theTamworth by-election for 10 years and arranged the story about the Democrats, who pressured the companies to stop sponsoring the Sydney Peace Foundation, who made the phone calls to high places to complain about journalist Lattouf, artist Sabsabi and researcher Abdel-Fatteh, who found the social media post of the nurses and amplified it, and who complained about the Palestinian flag in an indigenous art exhibition at the National Gallery?

Clearly there is a lot of money and effort going into pressuring politicians and civil organisations that dare to take an anti-Israeli perspective, no matter how Israel behaves. There has been not a word from the Jewish establishment in Australia in favour of the Palestinians. Some of my Jewish friends who have urged reconciliation with the Palestinians have been quite outcast from mainstream Jewish society in Australia, and called names like ‘self-hating Jews’. Being a long way from the action, Australian Jewry seems to echo the most militant elements of Zionism, and are quick to play the ‘anti-semitism’ card with politicians, without acknowledging why anti-Israel sentiment might be rising. The Palestinian death toll in Gaza and now the West bank and the International Criminal Court talking of war crimes and genocide seems to make no difference. The Holocaust ended 80 years ago, the Nakba was 77 years ago, but has continued to a lesser extent until this Gaza war which is a real and ongoing problem. Australia’s politicians are very afraid of the Jewish lobby, and as in the US, it may be the case that no party can win without its support. One does not have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that systematic funded interference in the way Australia is governed is likely. Will I be safe after writing this piece? Is a fatal car accident more likely?

Australia’s neoliberalism, which seems determined to keep government interference to a minimum, makes us a relatively low taxing country. So there is not enough money for realistic welfare, unemployment benefits, Gonski’s plan for equality of educational opportunity, universal health care, or building public housing. Yet we subsidise negative gearing for middle class property speculators, private health insurance and private education for those who can afford it, in the land of the supposed ‘fair go for all’. We give tax breaks to religious institutions. Jewish schools raise the Israeli flag and sing the national anthem of Israel. I wonder how a Muslim school would fare if it raised a Palestinian flag? Is there a Palestinian national anthem?

The reason I make the point about our welfare system is because Australia managed to absorb huge numbers of post WW2 migrants because everyone had a job and housing, and nearly all the children went to public schools and had similar early life experiences. There were no anti discrimination laws or commissioners but minimal problems. This assimilation was not merely because we are all nice people and have a nice climate. Social policies promoted inclusion. We have now moved away from inclusive policies to ones that cheerfully tolerate disadvantage and the segregation of society into advantaged and disadvantaged groups, which are likely to be divided by race and religion as well as by economic factors.

There is increasing ghettoisation in western Sydney and pro-Islamic groups are looking at standing Federal election candidates to counteract what they see as pro-Israeli views in the Australian political system. There seems that there is a lot more concern about anti-Semitism than Islamophobia, though this is rising similarly.

It is all very well to pass anti-hate laws and ban Nazi salutes to control extremist political rallies, but to get a harmonious egalitarian society we need to stop subsidising things that divide us, and start paying for things that will lessen division and give equal opportunities for all in a secular society.

27/01/2025

NDIS and Health System in Crisis- what is the answer?

27 January 2025

The health system has been in crisis for years and now NDIS is the same.
State and Federal governments are locked in crisis talks, and now the NDIS is over budget and looking to ‘transfer services’ to other parts of the health system.
Why does all this go on, and what is the solution?
The short answer is that there are many sources of health funding and the main policy objective of all of them is to transfer the cost to someone else, and if they are a private source, to maximise the profit.
This ‘transfer costs’ imperative means that no one is concerned about the overall cost, merely their bit of it.
The major players are still the State and Federal government. In simple terms the States look after the hospitals and the Federal government looks after non-hospital services.
Medicare is being starved and pays less and less to doctors relative to inflation. The private health funds pay what they have to, the CTP (Motor Accidents) and Workers comp systems are either private or use a private model and pay as little as they can get away with and the patient pays the gap, unless they decide that private health insurance is not worth the money, which in most cases is true, and get a bit of Medicare and pay the rest.

Examples of cost shifting are easy to find. The Federal government has let Medicare rebates to GP fall to 46% of the AMA fee. It was 85% when Medicare started, so many doctors simply don’t bulk bill and charge a fee. So people go to the Emergency Departments that are free, but funded by the States. A visit to the ED is 6x more expensive than a GP visit, but the Federal government has shifted the cost to the States, so they don’t care. When you go to the ED and get a script, the hospital used to give you all the drug course. Now they give you a few tablets and a script for a pharmacy outside. The script was needless, and generates the costs of the trip to the pharmacy, the pharmacists fee, the PBS Federal government contribution and the patients script fee. A lot of wasted time and money, but the State saved a bit. When you went to the ED, you used to be followed up in a hospital outpatient clinic where the consultant was paid a sessional fee and oversaw registrars checking the cases and learning. You could also just book and go to a specialist clinic. These have largely been stopped to save the State money. Now you go to the specialists’ rooms and the State saves money, but the total cost per visit is much more.

If you look at the overall efficiency of health systems, Medicare as a universal system has overheads of about 5% counting the cost of collecting tax generally. Private health insurance overheads in Australia are about 12%, Workers comp 30% and CTP over 40%. These figures are approximate and very hard to get, because the dogma is that competition drives down prices, when clearly the system is more efficient if there is a single paying entity. Interestingly, the Productivity Commission made no attempt to quantify these overheads when it looked at the cost of the health system- you may ask why. The point is if you take out profits, which are the same as overheads from the patients’ point of view, and make everyone eligible, you do not have to have armies of insurance doctors, investigators, lawyers and tribunals to see if the insurer has to pay or if it can be dumped on Medicare and the patient.
As far as foreign people using the system are concerned, universal Medicare for people living in Australia is administratively simple, and the cost of treating tourists who have accidents is cheaper than policing the whole system. Enforcement has quite high costs.

In terms of the cost of insurance, US schemes vary from 12-35%R, with the high costs ones being most profitable as they police payouts more thoroughly and naturally refuse more treatments. Note that the CEO of Unitedhealthcare in the US was recently shot, with the words ‘deny’ and ‘delay’ on the cartridges used. Surveys have shown that 36% of people in the US have had a claim denied. Claims are accepted here, but in a survey of my patients 60% of my scans and referrals of CTP patients were denied by NRMA. i.e, We accept the claim, but deny the treatment.

What Is needed is a universal system, free at the point of delivery.
What about over-servicing? The current system makes trivial problems of people with money more important than major problems of people without money. Underservicing is the major problem with ambulance ramping at EDs and long waiting lists.
In a universal system, which doctor is doing what is immediately accessible, with comparisons to every other doctor doing similar work. It is just a matter of checking up on the statistical outliers.

The problem is simple. The major political parties are given donations by private health interests to let Medicare die. Combine this with the Federal/State rivalry that makes cooperation very difficult and a reluctance to collect tax and you have the recipe for an ongoing mess.

The NDIS is an even bigger mess. It is a privatised unsupervised welfare system that arbitrarily gives out money and is subject to massive rorting.

The welfare system that looked after people with disabilities, both congenital and acquired by age or circumstance had grown up historically in institutions that were fossilised in their activities and underfunded to prevent expansion or innovation. People with disabled children looked after them with whatever support they could find. As these disabled cohorts reached middle age, their parents, who were old, were worried about what would happen when they died and wanted to lock in funding for their adult children before they died. They were an articulate lobby group with real problems and were quick to point out the flaws in the existing systems. They visited institutions that had no vacancies and thought that they had put their names on waiting lists. But no central list existed, and the institutions tended to give their beds to whoever came first when a death created a vacancy. ‘Just give us a package, and we will decide how to spend it’ was the parents’ cry. But then NDIS experts came in and interviewed people and gave away ‘packages’ based on an interview. A new layer of experts was created. District nurses or others who might have been able to think of more innovative or flexible options, or who could judge who in their area needed more than someone else had no input. People with real disabilities were given money, but did not know how to assess providers, so dodgy operators snapped up the packages, delivering dubious benefits. The government had no serious regulation or control system. Now the cost of NDIS has blown out, so the solution is to narrow eligibility and force people off the NDIS and onto other parts of the health system. Sound familiar? People with disabilities and their relatives are naturally worried; and rightly so. The lack of these services was why the NDIS was created. The answer is to have universal services. Set a standard, make it available and police quality in the system. Private interests may have a place, but there is no need for profits, non-profit organisations have been the mainstay of providers for years. For profit providers tend to cut costs, which in practical terms means either services or wages or both to concentrate on shareholder returns. The best way to allocate resources optimally is to empower the people actually doing the job, who also have the advantage of being able to see relative needs as they go about their routine work.

An interesting tome on the subject is ‘The Political Economy of Health Care’ by Julian Tudor-Hart, which looked at the changes in the British National Health System from when it started as an idealist post-war initiative run by those working in it with management overheads of about 0.5%, to when it was fully bureaucratised with overheads of about 36%. He was also responsible for the ‘’Inverse care law’ which is the principle that the availability of good medical or social care tends to vary inversely with the need of the population served. This inverse care law operates more completely where medical care is most exposed to market forces, and less so where such exposure is reduced.

The key point of that people have been taught that governments are hopeless and that you should pay as little tax as possible, so instead of good universal services being developed, a market has developed which is on its way to an American system.. People all agree that the US has the worst system in the developed world at delivering health care. But they overlook the fact that the US health system is the world’s best at turning sickness into money. That is what it was designed to do and that is why it is sustained and maintained. The same drivers are all here.

Note the Federal/State bickering in the article below (and weep).

My recipe for change is to have a Swiss style of government where the people can initiate binding referenda on governments and could simply answer a question like ‘Do you want to pay 5% more tax to have a universal health and welfare system?’ If a question like this got up against the doomsayers, we might have a chance. But of course the change to the constitution to get the referenda in the Swiss model is almost impossible to achieve, the Swiss having been discarded when the Australian Constitution was written in about 1900.

www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2025/01/25/exclusive-albanese-shut-down-hospital-talks-pressure-states?utm_campaign=SharedArticle&utm_source=share&utm_medium=link&utm_term=VT5jI6Zo&token=Z3cA3Py

15/12/2024

Banks Charging $3 a withdrawal- the logical end of capitalist thinking?

11 December 2024
Once upon a time banks functioned to store your money safely giving you some interest for the use of it or lending it to you for a bit more interest.
Then the government made a quick buck by selling the bank to people who had the money to buy shares.
Then the concentration of wealth changed so that most of the money was held by fewer people. And technology changed and the people with the most money used the new higher tech ways of banking.
And then there was less profit in the little people.
And the accounting changed, the CEO salaries went from several tens of multiples of the normal people’s salaries to hundreds of times. But they had to show results to the shareholders to justify this.
So they closed most of the branches and replaced them by Automatic Teller Machines to save all those rents and staff salaries.
And they decided that even to stock the ATMs was too expensive so they put fees on them to use them, but they got criticised for that, so they lessened the number of ATMs, which saved even more.
A few people actually still wanted to go to the few branches left and wait until they could get to the reduced service, but the accountants said that the return on capital to the shareholders from this aspect of operations was not as much as the returns on internet transactions. Clearly the shareholders wanted ‘user pays’ in every aspect of the business so the banks decided to make these little folk pay a fee to get their own money, as had been so successful with the ATMs.
And no one even commented that the function of banks was to provide a service of looking after people’s money, the question was really how to ensure that the shareholders’ returns could be maintained.
And they all lived happily ever after.
THE END

15/12/2024

Nuclear Power

13 December 2024
In the Nuclear power ‘debate’ Dutton is using the exact words of a nuclear power lobbyist who I heard at a Royal Society meeting last year. He says in essence that all the other countries have nuclear, so we need it too, which is silly in that we have far more renewable energy than they do.

So the message is the that Liberals have given in to the nuclear lobby, because of course a couple of nuclear power plants are necessary for the AUKUS submarines, though both Liberal and Labor have been carefully avoiding this fact, as they know that the Australian people currently do not support either nuclear power or AUKUS submarines and they want to get us to accept it all in two bites rather than one.

The hasty inquiry into nuclear energy, which I flagged last month conspicuously did not have the AUKUS submarines mentioned in the their terms of reference despite the fact that in discussions about the AUKUS submarines it was mentioned that Australia will need two nuclear reactors larger than the Lucas Heights one, and a lot more trained nuclear scientists and technicians. Labor just wants the Committee to find nuclear electricity unnecessary and criticise the Liberals.

The sad reality of our two party duopoly is that when one side is voted out, the other comes in with all the policies it wants to bring in. So if you dump Albanese because he did not do much and you think Dutton can help (not a view I support), you get nuclear whether you wanted it or not.

In countries such as Germany , where Winston Churchill wrote the constitution so that no single party could ever get a majority, they have to get coalitions so that each issue has to get considered on its merits. It is not a winner takes all and gives all the policies of whichever lobby group has been successful lately. It seems that the Teals are the only hope; the thin Teal line holding democracy

26/11/2024

Social Media Ban misses the point- it’s about Algorithms

25 November 2024

Social media is not a fixed thing to be either accepted or banned.

I was surprised to find my son in favour of a ban, thinking it would stop communications between kids. He assured me that with groups able to be formed easily on WhatsApp, kids could still exchange whatever social relationships or information they liked.

It got me thinking about why social media might be harmful. Presumably kids can gang up more easily as they can all see what others write, just as minority groups can find and reinforce each other for good or ill. But this would also be a problem on WhatsApp.

The key point was one that I made a few posts ago. The object of social media is to keep people online so that they will see the advertising and make money for the social media owner. The way that this is done is to put people in touch with people like them or who believe things like them, particularly if their views are unusual. It is also helpful to upset or disturb people as while they are stimulated they will stay online.

The converse of this is that calming people down, or giving them sensible information has no financial advantage.

What viewers get in their feed is determined by algorithms, which are AI (Artificial Intelligence). These algorithms could be set to give good o]knowledge to anyone who asked for it or was open to it. Google searches often give a series of ads where someone paid to be the first thing found in the search, followed by a ‘top pops’ of replies or hits. It could rate the academic reliability of knowledge sources and give greater weight to more credible sources.

The same principles apply to social media. It is about what the object of the algorithm is, and thus what content it favours and directs.

Algorithms are of course ‘commercial in confidence’ which is code for ‘making money and therefore unable to be accessed or interfered with’. In other words, making money is more important than any social distortions or effects are merely tough luck for those affected.
But it seems to me that a more intelligent approach is needed to social media.

It’s about algorithms stupid!

www.change.org/p/oppose-australia-s-proposed-social-media-ban-for-under-16s

31/10/2024

Why Trump May Win

31 October 2024

The situation is the logical consequence of turning the world into a ‘market’. This was always favoured by big business, but it got turbocharged by the idea that competition for markets caused the two World Wars. Thus the object of world political policy was to turn the world into a market, so that the rich could get richer without wars over markets and virtue would be rewarded.

The US had a huge percentage of world markets and a huge say over it all- what could possibly go wrong?

In a hierarchical system, those at the top set the prices and the wages, whereas those at the bottom are in a perfect market of labour, so take whatever prices and wages they can get. Money therefore movies upwards as in a Monopoly game.

The whole situation was turbocharged by a number of factors. As trade became cheaper, goods travelled and workers competed with workers from other countries, so workers in more developed countries were not able to compete on price and the owners of capital moved their industries to cheaper countries, which gave these countries something of a leg-up, but most of the profit went to the owners of capital. Technology also advanced, so fewer workers were needed to produce anything- mechanisation was here. We could produce much more than we could ever consume. Business developed built-in obsolescence, so goods would wear out or become unfashionable, so they needed to be bought again. Marketing became immensely significant, so we were no longer to consider what we needed, but what we wanted.

Increasingly most of the goods being manufactured needed to be sold, but did not need to be bought. Western consumers were actually in the box seat with all their needs met, so needed to be persuaded to consume for status or whim. Marketing was largely up to the challenge. As Dave Ramsay famously put it, ‘We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like’.

Meanwhile the gap between rich and poor continued to grow between countries and within countries, a general recipe for social and international malaise. The residue of colonialism remains. Nigeria is oil rich, yet its resources are foreign-owned and its main employment industry is scamming. South America has had its governments frequently act on behalf of foreign companies. The result of the problem is seen as ‘illegal migration.’

So just as the inexplicable ‘Brexit’ vote was a longing for an earlier time and a rejection of the Establishment and the status quo, so Trump is seen as a disruptor. He wil tell them all to ‘get fu..ed’ That is enough. He speaks to the pain of rust belt Americans who saw their jobs in steel, cars or manufacturing disappearing through no fault of their own and their standard of living falling. He is a demagogue who tells them what they want to hear. The migrants caused the drug problem, and every other problem. If it is not consistent or even coherent, it does not matter; they listen to the shock jock. Again, technology is relevant. Policy is no longer broadcast, it is selectively narrowcast with truth an early casualty. Trump ads tell Jewish voters that Harris is pro-Palestine while other Trump ads tell Muslim voters that she is pro-Israel. Whatever it takes. The country is very polarised and there is even talk of civil war. Marx believed that revolution would happen in an advanced capitalist system because the logical end point of unfettered capitalism was that a few people would end up with all the money and the majority would be unhappy. (We had better not mention who said this).

The American voting system is as bad as its health and welfare systems. The politicians set the electoral boundaries in a huge gerrymander, and the electoral college gives each state the same voting rights, whether they have large or small populations. The Constitution is fossilised, with 36 Tasmanias, states that are declining relatively or cannot pay their way. These are the States that will determine the election.

The polls are neck and neck in these ‘swing states’, but the betting favours Trump, and the betting has been generally more correct than the polls. A financial friend of mine told me that the bond market is behaving in anticipation of a Trump victory.

Things are not always pleasant, but there is usually an explanation.

20/10/2024

An Explanation of Corruption in the Building Industry

20 October 2024

The key enabler is the privatisation of both the project and the inspectorate.

https://michaelwest.com.au/cfmeu-whistleblower-on-gangsters-unions-and-workers-entitlements/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-10-20&utm_campaign=Today+s+news+from+Michael+West+Media

21/07/2024

Israeli Parliament votes down Two-State Solution 68-9

21 July 2024

Israel has been settling people, largely poorer folk from Eastern Europe on hilltops on former Palestinian occupied land since 1948. Because they did recognise land title before the declaration of the State of Israel, they can claim that no one owns this land, which is of course nonsense, as the Palestinians had been occupying and farming it.

They have continued to pretend that a peace could be negotiated as they gradually took more and more land, and built roads to all the settlements so that the army could come and help the occupiers if the Palestinians resisted. They called the Palestinians terrorists, basically to undermine their legitimacy.

Now there is no land that could be a Palestinian state- there are about 750,000 Jewish settlers in the West bank in fortified villages, and they are educated in Hebrew only, so they cannot go anywhere even if they agreed to.

Israel has pretended for years that there could be a two-state solution because it has been playing for time to make it impossible. Now, because the world is calling out for a peace solution, the Knesset has said that it will not have a two state solution. The Palestinians obviously have nowhere to go. Gaza is rubble and the land on the West Bank is largely Jewish-owned.

Jeff Halper in his book ‘An Israeli in Palestine’ recognised this problem more than a decade ago and said that there would have to be a one-state solution with and post-Apartheid type of reconciliation similar to South Africa’s. Good luck with that now!

It is hard not to believe that the hard right who control the Israeli Knesset wanted the Gazans either to die or to flee to the Sinai, but Egypt did not allow the latter, as they knew that they would be refugees there forever. The Gazans knew it too, though we might wonder what they would choose now as Israel bombs them and blockades them till their children starve.

This is colonialism and genocide more obvious than it has been in public memory, and the Knesset has just shut the door on the peace process that Australia and many other governments have been vainly clinging to.

https://johnmenadue.com/israeli-lawmakers-vote-against-palestinian-statehoodpic-zeev-elkin/

02/06/2024

Religious Update: 2 items from Secular Australia

2 June 2024

Wording of the Census

A battle is brewing between Catholic Church leaders and secular groups over the religion question in the Australian census. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is currently testing whether it would be better to ask “Does the person have a religion?” rather than “What is the person’s religion?”, after 9.8 million people (approximately 40% of responses) indicated in the 2021 count that they had no faith. The new question would have a mark box for both “No” and “Yes (specify religion)”. The bureau is also testing the use of a write-in box for respondents who wish to indicate more detail on their faith, rather than simply picking from a small list of common religions.

The Lord’s Prayer in Parliament House, Victoria

Liberal upper house member Evan Mulholland has placed a motion on the Notice Paper in support of faith leaders who wrote to all members of parliament earlier this month demanding that the parliament continue to observe prayers, including the Lord’s Prayer, at the opening of each sitting day.

It has been 1034 days since the state Labor government promised to replace prayers with something more reflective and appropriate for Victoria’s diverse community.

Victorian Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes has acknowledged the government’s “unmet commitment”.

The flurry of activity – the letter from faith leaders and motions on the Notice Paper – may be a sign that the government is ready to deal with the matter.

Earlier in the year, Mr Mulholland declared that the Liberal Party would “fiercely oppose” any attempt to remove prayer.

Census data show that Christianity has plummeted from 85 per cent of the Victorian population in the 1970s to 41 per cent in 2021. The percentage of people who identified as having no religion at the 2021 Census was 39 per cent.

https://secularism.au/