What's there to crow about?

What’s there to crow about?

By Kaye Lee on March 31, 2014 • 

Tony
Abbott is gleefully crowing about “100+ days without a boat”. What Mr
Abbott seems oblivious to is that he has closed yet another door on
people fleeing persecution and human rights abuses in places like Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
The Taliban just fired rockets at the Electoral Office in Afghanistan
so the upcoming election doesn’t look like it will make everything
tickety poo over there either. Things don’t seem to be getting any
better in Syria though the government haven’t done any mass gassings
lately, not in the open anyway.


And it isn’t as if we have increased our humanitarian intake or
processed any of the people already being illegally held in detention.
This has cost us a fortune, subjected our navy to allegations of abuse,
seen us internationally condemned, caused enormous mental and physical
harm to vulnerable people, and Australian guards are now implicated in
the death of a man who was under their protection. Yet this is supposed
to be a success?


Tony’s team are also pushing very hard for the repeal of the carbon
tax but it is becoming harder and harder to drown out the chorus of
condemnation for such an act from world leaders, the UN, climate change
bodies, scientists, economists and the citizens of the world. He accused
the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change, Christiana Figueres, of “talking through her hat”, and said he
doesn’t want to “clutter up” the G20 agenda with talk about climate
change. Can you imagine how that was received?


Blatantly sacking scientists and advisory bodies to appoint climate
change deniers to every position might allow you to fool people in
Australia in the very short term. It will not change the science. This
headless chicken (Prince Charles) flat earth (Barak Obama) denial is
wasting precious time and shows us globally as unwilling to do our bit –
something Australians have always been respected for in the past.


The Senate inquiry into the Direct Action Plan has released its
findings and they are damning. If this process is to have any
credibility, the Coalition must drop this idea and agree to move to an
ETS with higher targets for emission reduction and renewable energy. It
is what every expert recommends, especially the economists.


Greg Hunt must be the only Minister for the Environment who would be
bragging about approving billions of dollars of new coal mining and port
expansion which will unquestionably lead to the degradation of one of
the world’s greatest natural wonders. He has also advocated the removal
of marine park legislation to allow for commercial fishing, removal of
world heritage listing to allow for logging, and the building of dams in
our ecologically sensitive pristine North. With an Environment Minister
like that, who needs natural disasters?


And then there is the mining tax. On the 7:30 report, Abbott claimed
that the mining and carbon taxes were partly to blame for BHP Billiton’s
decision to delay the expansion of its huge Olympic Dam mine despite
the fact that Marius Kloppers said it had nothing to do with the mining
tax which doesn’t even apply to the copper, uranium or gold extracted
from the site.


Mining profits worldwide have slumped by half since 2011 as the
mining boom comes off its highs according to a report by
PriceWaterhouseCoopers which says that higher costs, more writedowns and
fluctuating commodity prices have hit the fortunes of the top 40 mining
companies including BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.


PwC Australia’s head of energy and mining, Jock O’Callaghan, says the possible repeal of the mining tax in Australia is unlikely to have much impact on Australia’s appeal to investors. Not surprisingly, the government has failed to take note of this advice.


Mr O’Callaghan says he expects more mines to close, including in
Australia. “Certainly if we see a further downturn in commodity prices
that is going to put more pressure on marginal mines,” he said. “There
is no denying that and again that is not just an Australian phenomena.”


As Ross Gittins explains,

“For the income earned by an industry to generate jobs in
Australia, it has to be spent in Australia. And our mining industry is
about 80 per cent foreign-owned. For our economy and our workers to
benefit adequately from the exploitation of our natural endowment by
mainly foreign companies, our government has to ensure it gets a fair
whack of the economic rents those foreigners generate.


Because Labor so foolishly allowed the big three foreign miners to
redesign the tax, they chose to get all their deductions up-front. Once
those deductions are used up, the tax will become a big earner. Long
before then, however, Tony Abbott will have rewarded the Liberal Party’s
foreign donors by abolishing the tax.


This will be an act of major fiscal vandalism, of little or no benefit to the economy and at great cost to job creation.”

Mining currently employs about 2.4% of our workforce but this is set
to drop as they move into the less labour-intensive production phase. As
we saw during the GFC, they are not altruistic benefactors and have
little loyalty to their employees. According to Richard Denniss

“When commodity prices fell during the global financial
crisis the first thing the mining industry did was sack thousands of
their workers. Indeed, according to Treasury, if all industries had been
as quick to punt their employees as the mining industry the
unemployment rate would have hit 19 per cent rather than its peak of 5.9
per cent.”

Penny Wong described Abbott’s rhetoric regarding the mining tax as
“one of the most dishonest, self-interested fear campaigns that we have
seen in Australian politics” and I can only agree.


After saying there was no difference between Liberal and Labor on
education, we have seen billions cut with a backing away from the bulk
of the Gonski funding, the abolition of trades training centres, and
cuts to the before and after school care program despite childcare being
identified as far more important in improving productivity and
workforce participation than paid parental leave.


We have also seen the Coalition attempt to repeal Section 18c of the
Racial Discrimination Act in a bizarre attempt to “protect the rights of
bigots”. Countless journalists have said they have not felt constrained
in any way by this section of the act and do not see the need for its
repeal. This is purely and simply a pander to Andrew Bolt and Rupert
Murdoch. Promoting hatred under the name of free speech is a truly
cynical exercise which has left many Australians feeling very uneasy
about what is happening to our country.


According to the Coalition, our debt and deficit are a real problem
and spending must be reined in. While listening to a relentless barrage
softening us up for the cuts that are to come, we watch Tony Abbott
spend money hand over fist on his Paid Parental Leave scheme, orange
life rafts, unmanned drones, planes both for the Air Force and himself,
grants to polluters, gambling on the foreign exchange market, tax
concessions for the wealthy, subsidies to profitable mining companies,
marriage guidance counselling vouchers, and gifts to pollie pedal
sponsors.


With the rollout of the NBN in limbo, Malcolm Turnbull has admitted
that he cannot keep his pre-election promises. His inferior offering
will take much longer and cost much more than he led us to believe and
will be outdated before it is even completed.


Abbott’s rush to sign free trade agreements which include ISDS
clauses with all and sundry (No. 87 on the IPA’s wish list), has put our
nation at sovereign risk where we will risk being sued if we introduce
laws to protect our health and environment. It will almost certainly
lead to a huge increase in the cost of medicine as pharmaceutical
companies block the release of generic medicines, and a host of other
repercussions that we can only anticipate with dread.


We have the Social Services Minister, Kevin Andrews, winding back
gambling reforms and disbanding the oversight of charitable bodies. We
have the Environment Minister disbanding climate change advisory bodies
and removing environmental protection laws. We have the Health Minister
disbanding bodies like the Australian National Preventative Health
Agency, the Advisory Panel on Positive Ageing, the Alcohol and Other
Drugs Council of Australia, and attacking Medicare with offices closed
on Saturdays and co-payments likely. We have the Assistant Health
Minister blocking a healthy eating website and the Assistant Education
Minister asking childcare workers to give back their pay rise. In fact, I
cannot think of one act or one piece of proposed legislation that has
been in the best interest of the people of Australia.


With cuts to foreign aid, indigenous affairs, charities, and asylum
seeker advocacy groups, it is increasingly obvious that the vulnerable
can expect no protection or assistance from this government. They have
made their agenda patently clear. Buy a ticket on the Good Ship Rinehart
and lift with the rising tide, or be left to drown as the wealthy stand
on the shoulders of the poor to board the corporate gravy train.


Read Sally McManus’ list and weep.