Skip to main content

Costello Caught Out - Again!

The revelation in today's Australian newspaper [see the article here] that Treasury warned the Government, in particular Peter Costello, that lower-paid workers would be "hit", certainly in the short-term, by the new IR laws will hardly come as a surprise. Nor, the fact that Costello appears, yet again, to have misled the House when he replied in the negative to a question whether such a Treasury Report on the IR laws existed.

The fall-out of the now passed IR laws is, interestingly, analysed by, by Glenn Milne in an opinion-piece in today's Australian. If Milne is correct, and in particular the survey-figures he cites, the Government is in trouble at the next election. His statement that it will only take 28,609 voters in key seats to see a change in Government is interesting when one reflects on the fact that the present Government holds such a clear majority.

No doubt coincidentally, but in an interview with Dr. John Falzon, Social Policy National Director of the St. Vincent de Paul Society on ABC Radio Breakfast this morning, Falzon graphically details the results from a Report issued by the St. Society on the extent of inequalities in Australia - and how it is getting worse. Many people not even being able to pay for what most would regard as very basic day-to-day things. Listen to the interview here and ponder the question how it can be said that this is a lucky country. For how many exactly?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-de...

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?