My concern today has nothing to do with the Leader of the opposition personally, though normally I am not a fan, I have declared openly, on hundreds of occasions, that I feel Tony Abbott is perhaps the greatest danger Australia has faced in modern Politics. That I neither like nor trust him, I have been loud and aggressive about it, and I have, and will continue to do that without apology. However, I have been thinking of something, that until now has been primarily ignored, the implications of an incoming Liberal Government in a legislative damage sense. It really has the potential to be very unattractive based on the promises made by Tony Abbott to the Institute for Public Affairs or “I.P.A”. Barry Tucker, a man with over 45 years in journalism and publishing accurately described the IPA in his article “IPA agenda to re-shape Australia” on the 2 March 2013 when he said; The Institute for Public Affairs (IPA) claims to be an independent think tank. It is funded by corporate and philanthropic donations and individual subscriptions. It is one of the bodies that came together in 1943 to form the Liberal Party of Australia and is rightly seen as an arm of the Liberal party. Barry’s article can be found in full here; IPAm Agenda to re-shape Australia My reasons for dislike and distrust are simple, but not policy based, my reasons are ramification based. The IPA held its 70th anniversary dinner in Melbourne on Thursday, 4 April, 2013. The guests included; Rupert Murdoch, Gina Reinhardt, Tony Abbott, about half the LNP front bench, Cardinal George Pell. The MC was Andrew Bolt, the infamous presenter of Channel 10′s The Bolt Report. To my mind Mr Abbott’s speech forebode of things to come, due not only to the very powerful guest list, but the promises Mr Abbott made on the night with absolutely nobody denying it was possible. One particular paragraph from Mr Abbott’s speech froze my blood, and its this; John, there is one campaign where you will not prevail – namely your urgent advice to me in the IPA Review last August to be more like Gough Whitlam. You had a great deal of advice for me in that particular issue and I want to assure you that the Coalition will indeed repeal the carbon tax, abolish the Department of Climate Change, abolish the Clean Energy Fund. We will repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, at least in its current form. We will abolish new health and environmental bureaucracies. We will deliver $1 billion in red tape savings every year. We will develop northern Australia. We will repeal the mining tax. We will create a one stop shop for environmental approvals. We will privatise Medibank Private. We will trim the public service and we will stop throwing good money after bad on the NBN. As I watched I thought, “Bloody hell this doesn’t sound good, hes just promised to remove Departments that protect and regulate the majority of Environmental controls, That stop wholesale mining, logging and numerous other industries ripping the guts out of our resources and pristine areas”. But I also felt there has to be allowances for the fact that Mr Abbott had said the IPA had only urged the 75 changes, it seemed no promise was made that Mr Abbott would act on them. Politicians do it all the time don’t they, pander then retract, we all know they do. Then the truth slammed home with Mr Abbott’s following words; So, ladies and gentlemen, that is a big “yes” to many of the 75 specific policies you urged upon me in that particular issue of the magazine….but Gough Whitlam I will never be! A big YES, oh my god, and to which “Many“! Providing many of those 75 policy wants would completely gut the controls on business and mining while removing the avenues of redress against their actions by us workers, against the whims of the greedy rich and mongrel bosses and bullies. BUT the even bigger issue is that the policies Mr Abbott has potentially said yes to also do one other very important thing, they remove entire departments in Environment, Government, workplace rights and conditions, Industry oversight, pricing control, and of course big business approval regulations. The official IPA wish list is here, provided by Penny Wong via her Ministers page; IPA Cuts and Commonwealth-reform-negative-value-adding-components Lets look at a few of the items the IPA want abolished that raised my hair right up; Industry development and investment Industry subsidies Attorney-Generals Abolish Australian Commission for Law enforcement Integrity, the Human Rights Commission the law reform commission and one of the divisions (“Social Inclusion”). These bodies have a track record of excessive and counterproductive meddling Recreation and culture Privatise ABC, SBS Broadcasting and digital abort NBN Broadband, Communications and Digital Privatise the ABC and SBS which should be able to finance themselves alongside other media businesses. Abolish the unnecessary universal service management and the NBN Education Employment and Workplace Abolish the Curriculum Assessment Authority, the Institute for Teaching and Leadership, Fair Work Australia, Safe Work Australia. All of these add nothing and in the case of the “Fair Work” agencies clearly contribute to lower productivity. Housing and community amenities Abolish entire program involving housing ($3b) Urban and regional ($0.7b); Env. Protection ($5.2 b) Families Housing Community Affairs and Indigenous The Aboriginal Land Councils are a clear “make work activity that distracts some of the better minds from productive work. The Institute of Family Studies is one of the many failed agencies and the Equal Opportunities for Women in the Workplace if it ever had a function is now redundant. Housing policy is little to do with the Commonwealth and gambling and parts of indigenous program support should be downsized. Sustainability, Environment Water An agency that has been created to support fashionable notions that without a body ensuring that the law is doubly protected severe damage will follow. Mainly the department needlessly duplicates state agencies and in doing so adds needless costs. Its activities include the Murray Darling authority and the National Water Commission, both of which should be abolished. Okay so in short, if these are included in the 75 policies Tony Abbott is so keen on what does it mean in plain English; FIRST; Abbott and Hockey have promised they intend removing 20,000 Public Servants, Public Servants work in Government agencies right? Okay, so why is it the IPA wish list of Government Departments to go has a total of 23,518 sackings. That’s only 3,518 more than Abbott and Hockey said will get the chop. So whats the chances the majority of the IPA wish list is coming our way? Removing controlling agencies like Fair Work Australia, Safe Work Australia are self explanatory, its a wedge for work-choices by another name. More frightening is the stated desire to abolish the Fair Work Ombudsman buried in the fine print, its there, go look. If the workplace protectors are gone what can we safely assume will begin to happen under money hungry bosses, same thing that did with Howard. Individual no minimum wage or conditions contracts. Then there’s the agencies for Climate, Water, Fisheries, R&D not to mention industry subsidies. These are the “red tape” Abbott talks about when he discusses freeing up approvals and reducing approval times. Yes it will be much faster if no-one stops mining and industry from adhering to Environmental protections or safety standards. Tony Abbott gave his IPA speech in March, promising to adhere to “many” of their wishes. In June he stated to Parliament the LNP will remove 1/2 Billion dollars in subsidies the ALP made available to Holden, coincidence, I think not. He promised to abolish the NBN and still does. He promised to destroy the Media inquiry and we know its was completely shredded both in Parliament and Murdoch media by relentless attacks that far too often had nothing to do with the truth. Sorry but there’s nothing coming our way under Mr Abbott that I cant help but think is designed to release big business from controls and liability, while pulling the majority of protections from workers, including their rights and safety nets regarding unfair workplace activities. Finally, think of this. If all, no, lets say “Any” of the workplace, Environment and Human Rights agencies the IPA wants gone actually go, so do the laws they use to protect and control. Nobody can enforce a law, cannot have a law if the agency that was created to utilize it doesn’t exist, it gets repealed, plus if there’s no officers authorised to regulate it, any attempt by another person becomes illegal. Trying to enforce a law if you are not duly authorised under said law is illegal, its called fraud, its called impersonating an officer, its issuing an unlawful command, its just illegal. In QLD this type action carries a 5 year jail sentence under the Crimes Act 1899. So do you think anyone will do it to protect a worker, or a tree in QLD, a forest in Tasmania, or biggies like the Barrier Reef? Im the first to admit I’m no journalist, no Political analyst and I’m certainly no economist. But I am a guy who looked at the IPA 23,513 sacking wish list, the 20,000 sackings promised by Abbott, seen what Abbott has done since that night regarding the demands by the IPA, seen the Murdoch wind up against Labor. I considered the incredible efforts taken by Hockey and Abbott to avoid naming where these cuts and sackings are coming from, which agencies will go except clean energy. Then I put all those occurrences and previous actions together in my mind, considered the pattern I was seeing, and right then I began to sweat at what could easily be under a majority Liberal Government. So should you. Brooksy.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 23:19:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015