There is no doubt about the City of Port Phillip – just when you think they are incapable of doing anything as inept or laugh out loud ridiculous as they have in the past they come up with a new effort.
The latest relates to a proposed policy on what organisations getting grants from the Council can do and say.
Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away there was a concept called the Westminster principle of Ministerial responsibility – if you failed in your responsibility you resigned or got sacked.
It no longer applies much in Westminster and almost never ever applies in Scott Morrison’s Australia.
While Whitlam, Fraser and Howard all sacked Ministers (Howard regretted it after an initial deluge) Morrison is a different sort of creature.
While fundamentalist Christians are busy infiltrating the Liberal Party the Rationalist Society of Australia (RSA) and other groups have launched a campaign – the Census 21 Campaign – to encourage people to tick the no religion box in the August 10 2021 Australian Census.
The ABS says that: “The 2016 Census of Population and Housing found that three-fifths of the Australian population (61 per cent, or 14 million people) are affiliated with a religion or spiritual belief. Christianity is once again the dominant religion in Australia, with 12 million people, and 86 per cent of religious Australians, identifying as Christians.”
These days there are frequent apologies, non-apologies, refusals to apologise and extended qualifications of apologies with weasel phrases such as “this is not who we are” – despite the behaviour of the organisation uttering the words obviously being exactly who and what they are.
It’s instructive to view these faux and sincere variations of apologies within the context of the work of two Canadian-American sociologists, the late Nicholas Tavuchis and the late Erving Goffman.
The British pride themselves on the abolition of the slave trade.
Yet the 1807 decision banned the Atlantic slave trade but did not abolish colonial slavery and more than 700,000 men, women and children continued to suffer pain, cruelty and violence in the British Caribbean until 1833. It was not until 1823 that the British Anti-slavery Society was formed.
The Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) doesn’t immediately spring to mind as one of the major progressive voices – except perhaps in contrast with Scott Morrison.
The June issue of their magazine, Company Director, is a good example.
Start with the magazine cover which has a red background; a few pointers to articles inside; some identifying stuff; and a stark headline, ENOUGH, centred in the design.
The Victorian Liberal Opposition is inept – witness their landslide loss at the last election – but now they are sinking into desperate and despicable measures.
Premier Daniel Andrews has, as everyone knows, been off work after damaging his spine in an accident at a holiday home.
As with much politics these days the accident has unleashed a barrage of grossly defamatory conspiracy theories and rumours disseminated by word of mouth and social media.
It is ironic that the most successful film – in box office terms – about climate change and dramatic changes to the earth was made by Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox.
It was called The Day after Tomorrow; took about half a billion dollars at the box office; and featured events loosely based on some Mayan prophecies.
There are two significant barriers to Australian electric vehicle (EV) take up in Australia – publicly accessible charging infrastructure suitable for a large country and Scott Morrison.
Back in 2019 when the Labor Opposition pledged to a target of 50% EVs by 2030 Scott Morrison scoffed, reprising one of his parliamentary over-the-top rants (remember his “this is coal” moment) saying Labor wanted to abolish the weekend and tradies and families wouldn’t be able to get to work or go on holidays.
While Federal Labor, in contrast to Joe Biden, is disappearing into a fearful huddle desperate to avoid any suggestion it would ever try to make Australia a more equitable place the rich are getting richer and richer.
It’s abandoned getting rid of negative gearing; preparing to let through tax cuts which disproportionately favour the well-off; and, dropped the plan to remove dividend imputation.