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As recently as the 2007 poll, Labor members would touchingly talk about the Greens as “our fellow progressives”. They never saw them as a threat. At worse, the Greens were regarded as wayward children. A little bit of understanding and some gentle guidance, it was felt, and they would soon see the folly of their ways.
So much has changed in such a short time. The same conversations now include references to bloodshed and brutality of a kind seldom seen outside James Ellroy novels. As these new Jets and Sharks fight for their inner-city turf, no slight goes ignored — or unavenged. Little more than 24 hours after news broke of David Feeney’s “forgotten” $2.3 million house and, worse, a Greens sign appeared in its front yard, we were reading about how Richard Di Natale had failed to declare a 20 hectare property and – far worse from the Labor point of view – paid three au pairs a mere $150 a week after tax plus bed and board. A little bit of number crunching and we were told that this equated to a mere $3.75 an hour over a standard 40-hour week, well below the minimum wage at the time of $15.96 per hour.
But then the homemade shivs and knuckledusters came out as the Labor lads threw a few choice quotes into the mix. We were reminded of Di Natale’s outrage over Feeney’s forgetfulness: “I think he’s got some serious answers to give and so far the explanation he’s given falls well short … I can definitely say that I haven’t purchased a $2.3 million property – I reckon I would have remembered that.” And – particularly potent, given the Greens’ dalliance with some of the more extreme elements of the labour movement over the past few years – there were these lines on pay rates:
“Our view is that if you’re a young person looking for employment and there is going to be a focus on doing that and there is a job available, well let’s pay them a decent wage.”
Di Natale was lucky with all the talk of rural estates and the fancy French tags being thrown around that no one mentioned droit du seigneur. Or perhaps it was that both parties are just too busy trying to screw each other.
A pox on both their houses and let the minor parties triumph
The biggest unspoken issue in modern society and the politics involved is the divide between those who produce consumable wealth and those who don’t, and the divide of where people live. The media elite and their GREEN/LABOR followers mostly tend to haunt the ‘Inner City’, they rarely come from those areas that produce any consumable wealth such as rural areas or even outer suburbs. This ‘Inner City Elite’ largely tend to be wealth consumers or regulators/administrators/re-distributors, they are rarely wealth producers. Most of this ‘elite’ even decry the production of wealth and do as much as possible to prevent its production [witness any GREEN ‘environmental’ legislation] while still consuming it more avidly than the average citizen actually producing the wealth.
In days gone by the non-wealth producing ‘privileged elite’ were the aristocracy, other members of the court and the clergy, the very sort of people that the modern non-wealth producing elite decry viciously and relentlessly. The only constant with any sort of non-wealth producing elite [both now and historical] is their shameless hypocrisy. The modern ‘elite’ routinely preach ‘tolerance’ whilst being the most intolerant section of our population. They decry ‘censorship’ yet themselves censor any attempt at discussion of topics with which they have an almost religious devotion to such as ‘climate change/’catastrophic’ AGW/Global warming etc. etc. or ‘Gay marriage’/’marriage equality’ etc. etc. [there are too many examples to list here]. They ‘preach’ the value of science whilst simultaneously ‘politicising’ science to the extent that it has been devalued almost to the point of irrelevance in the case of AGW etc., and with regards to human nutrition [eg. the ‘harm’ of fats etc.], and in fields of psychiatry etc. Their absolute economic hypocrisy is outlined in what David Feeney and Di Natale have done as outlined in this article.
Paul Kelly writes today in “The Australian” that Labor is on the front foot with regard to all the election issues. He says Labor is offering a shift to the Left with the Greens, more progressivism, big spending, more refugees and a socially libertarian culture. Penny Wong has said Labor will appoint an LGBTI Commissioner if they get into government. The Coalition is letting them get away with it and one seldom hears from any of the Ministers. Where is the Treasurer? He’s MIA. As Kelly says, neither party is talking about debt and deficit and that Labor’s populist agenda is a hugely risky gambit. Meantime, Plibersek is offering more money for refugees, foreign Aid etc. Kelly says Labor’s costings are roughly equivalent to that of the government, according to the boffins.
All in all a terribly depressing outlook going forward. And again Daly and the Gratten Institute are in the media suggesting self-funded retirees can live comfortably on $58,000pa per couple on capital of about $500,000 because “they should be living on part pension and drawing down on their capital; that superannuation is not meant to grow and be left to children”.
This is outside the galaxy thinking. And they’re getting away with it, completely unopposed. And Daly laments that some SF retirees are living better than half those who are working and earning a living and paying tax. HOW DARE RETIREES have enough money to do this. How dare they?
Welcome to our nadir in public discourse and politics.
> … $58,000pa per couple on capital of about $500,000
And how to do that, one wonders – with interest rates on savings at less than 2%.
The truth is that the 203-2004 to 2013-2014 mining boom proceeds were piddled against a wall by Rudd and Gillard ($900 per capita, mostly spent on buying Apple iphonies, poof ! all gone in a month) so now the oldies are being pillaged as they are the only group left with any money … money they spent a working liftetime saving.
> HOW DARE RETIREES have enough money to do this ?
Not allowed in this country … it’s just so *unfair*. Unfair to whom and how is never addressed. Envy trumps all reason.