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Malcolm hastily builds a scaffold, er, platform
Volume 30 #41
March 23, 2016
Viva la Nannalution One of the most effective social, political and environmental movements of the last decade must be the Knitting Nannas Against Gas (knitting-nannas.com). Armed with sharp, pointy needles and soft wool, the Nannas are a formidable force ranged against the madness of fracking in a renewables age and against the frackers’ donation-fed political allies. ‘From two women in a paddock in the middle of nowhere’ in the northern rivers in May 2012, the Nannas have become an international movement with over 40 groups (‘loops’) in Australia, the UK and the USA. They are part of an uprising of strong women such as Mothers Out Front (mothersoutfront. org), all of whom want positive action to lessen the impact of climate change for a very heartfelt reason – they’re doing it for the kiddies. In their distinctive yellow-and-black beanies the Nannas provide the frontline of protest with humour, solace, cardigans and baked goods. By the very fact they are nannas they disarm any MPs who might wish to speak against them – it’s not good PR, is it? They have given sub-editors and journalists carte blanche to use every textile-related pun in the book, for which we are deeply grateful. But do not be lulled by their twinkling nanna eyes into thinking they will buckle under pressure. They publicly acknowledge their link to the knitting women frontline at the French Revolution (Dickens’s notorious Madame Defarge) and will face down naughty Mikey Baird’s noxious anti-protest laws with vigour. The Nannalution will be televised. – Michael McDonald Q Disclaimer: I was not offered scones to write this piece.
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t last, a decision – three decisions, in fact. Parliament will be called back on April 18 to debate the Building and Construction Commission Bill; the budget will be brought forward to May 3; and a double dissolution will take place, inevitably, it would seem, on July 2. But there is still something missing: an election platform. Of course there will be much sturm und drang over the ABCC industrial relations generally, the unions and in particular the CMFEU and the ALP and Bill Shorten. And while this will undoubtedly resonate with the conservatives columnists, there is no real indication that the public is wildly interested. And even if they can be geed up by a fierce and wellfunded media blitz, the rage cannot be sustained for a long, overlong, campaign. Negativity, a la Tony Abbott, will not win: you just might get away with it in opposition, but not in government. Turnbull will have to find something positive to say, and while he will certainly find plenty of words, the record to date suggests that the substance will be, at best, flimsy. Almost everything, it seems, is off the table, including what was to have been the centrepiece – the treasurer’s raison d’etre: tax cuts to repair bracket creep for the middle income earners. There is no money, because to find any is regarded as too difficult, too risky. Even the minor changes envisaged for superannuation are now being questioned: Tony Abbott has started his own campaign against what he calls a seniors tax, to go with the so-called housing tax, which might have been used to kerb the excesses on negative gearing. Indeed any tax, except
possibly a rise in tobacco exercise (which Abbott designates the workers’ tax) and a trim to superannuation concessions (the seniors tax) are, it seems, out of the question. And spending cuts, given the recent history of the 2014 budget, are going to have to be modest to the point of invisibility. Something can no doubt be scrambled together by May 3, but it is unlikely to be impressive. So what is our maestro of suspense, our ringmaster of uncertainty, going to do to inspire and excite the jaded voters? And make no mistake, they are thoroughly pissed off
was simply being Nick Xenophon. And the Labor Party was unabashedly shameful – and simultaneously, shameless. Whatever the reasons for the political mud fight that developed, the arguments for changing the voting system to reject greater transparency and democracy are irrefutable, and until recently the ALP did not attempt to refute them – in fact, it championed them. There was no real attempt to take the high ground; it was all about the supposed threat that the coalition might gain enough seats to win the Senate in its own right, if not at
The jaded voters are thoroughly pissed off with last week’s drawn-out shenanigans. by Mungo MacCallum with the drawn out shenanigans that culminated in the last, unedifying, week. The senate reforms were finally passed, which is a good thing; but the cost to all concerned was considerable, and are yet to be counted. The coalition was engaged in a headlong rush to get through its senate reforms with the aim of securing a double dissolution – more than a whiff of opportunism, not to mention the hope of a short- to medium-term gain in seats for pure electoral advantage. The Greens were willing to truckle to their old adversary; as so often their motives were muddled, but they obviously thought that in taking that strange, almost perverse stand, it would do them no electoral harm. The microparties on the cross bench were fighting for survival – the rest was hollow justification. Nick Xenophon, of course,
the next election, then in the one after. Well, it might, although real psephologists (of which the unreconstructed apparatchik Sam Dastyari and his numbers men are in very short supply) regard that outcome as unlikely. But if that turned out to be the case, it would be because the electors – the people – wanted it to be that way, and if a fairer and more honest electoral system made it easier for them to do so, then so it goes. The changes will not make the senate perfect – there are those who argue that the only way to do that is to abolish it altogether. But they will make it more honest, fairer and more democratic, which is a considerable improvement. But the crossbenchers have sworn a terrible vengeance on his government if it gets even the ghost of a chance and if there are any survivors – and there well may be – the
whole exercise could prove not merely counterproductive, but at best a trifle Pyrrhic, especially given the likelihood that Turnbull will lose more than handful of seats and still face the Abottistas and their conservative rump. So to solve the coming campaign will require more than mere agility – it will require conviction. And that, it would seem, is a commodity severely lacking within the current cabinet, and most particularly, and disappointingly, within the bowels of our pusillanimous prime minister. Turnbull’s abject surrender to the zealots of the hard right and the bed-wetters spooked by the febrile Murdoch press last week against the Safe Schools program was so craven it must raise doubts about whether he can manage even the slightest pressure. And the prime minister, having initially backed the program, gave in without a whimper. The program was not, as the review initiated by Turnbull’s education minister Simon Birmingham had suggested, tweaked, modified: it was, as the rabid George Christensen gloated, gutted – substantially destroyed. And the signal that has been sent to the voters who will soon have to concentrate their minds on the long election campaign will be that demagoguery, naked populism, rules. So having at last crossed his Rubicon as prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull will have to find his mojo and his moxie. The retreats, the dithering, the confusion and above all the timorousness cannot continue. Good government – or at the very least credible leadership – starts now. And it will have to continue through the next 103 (count them) gruelling days, and that’s just the election campaign. Good luck.
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12 March 23, 2016 The Byron Shire Echo
A collection of images of Blues and Roots Festival musicians photographed over the past twenty years, and of the buskers who have performed on the streets and public spaces of the Byron Shire.
Pioneering Holistic Dentistry in the Byron Shire for over 20 years • Dr Marcus O’Meara – BDS, Principal • Dr Roy Gamma – BDS • Dr Anthony Bansil – BDS. LFHOM (DENTAL) • Dr Paschal Grenquist – BDS. BAPPSC (MRS) • Dr Benjamin Gooden – BDSc • Dr Demetrio Pina Neto – BDS • Mrs Rachel Andersson – BORALH (OHT) • Ms Cathy Elliott – OHT
The festival performers provide the annual musical and visual highlights, but it is the buskers who enterain all year round and contribute to making ‘The Bay’ a special and unique musical scene.
Byron Shire Echo archives: www.echo.net.au/byron-echo