(We) can do better

Transcript

The Australian people, and most journalists, are being gaslighted by the Treasury budget papers’ superficial analysis of Australia’s immigration and population growth. That this is being let go to the keeper by virtually all media commentary is extraordinary, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

Dr Dorina Pojani is Associate in urban planning at the University of Queensland, Australia, with a degree in Urban Planning from Albania.

ABC again - interest rates now.  After multiple interest rate rises from the Reserve Bank, the effects are biting into the living standards of ordinary Australians trying to pay off their housing mortgages. The banks pass on the rises very rapidly to mortgage holders who are impelled to find the extra money. There is no mercy as far as I know .  Those with bank deposits gain a little as their interest earnings increase.

Click on the image to read Report No. 24. which is linked in pdf form

(See also RFK Junior Twitter posts (4/5/23) and US Action 4 Assange) In stark contrast to the Australian government and all but a handful of MPs and Senators, Robert F Kennedy Junior, son of Senator Robert F Kennedy (3/1/1925 - 6/6/1988), has, since he announced, on 19 April 2023, that he was seeking the nomination to be the Democratic Party's candidate for President of the United States, repeatedly condemned both current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump for their efforts to illegally extradite Julian Assange from London to the United States. In the US, Assange will almost certainly be made to face 175 years in prison in solitary confinement. This penalty is for Assange's supposed breach of the US 1917 Espionage Act when he is not even a US citizen!

Ozempic is the new "miracle" drug on the market, although it's not a new drug, it's just a successful drug used for diabetes control that has been re-purposed for weight loss.

This news is from Forbes News via  Redacted. The fact that it has taken so long for an investigation is shocking.

Rally to “Stop the Great Wall of Frankston,” Saturday 13th May at 10.30 AM, Corner Wells St. and Kananook Creek Frankston. Planning Applications are at Frankston City Council for 14, 15 and 16 storey apartment blocks of up to 60 metres height on the beachside of Nepean Hwy, and only 200 metres from Frankston’s scenic beach. The towers would overshadow Kananook Creek, the beach, nearby homes, exacerbate wind tunnel effects and change the face of Frankston forever. 

Workers in Australia took a 4.6% real term pay cut in 2022, losing on average AUD $4,163 and working almost 10 days effectively unpaid because wages did not keep up with inflation, reveals new analysis from Oxfam ahead of International Workers Day.  

The total losses for workers in Australia was AUD $58 billion, while the increase to the minimum wage was 1.3% below inflation. 

More terrific impromptu speeches by members of the public in defense of Julian Assange, and a slice of Sydney.

Why did the David Hicks case attract so much public support in Australia, when Julian Assange’s apparently does not? The establishment press was still a lot freer in Australia then. It still covered anti-war protests, protest against the introduction of new terrorism laws, and even Hicks’s scandalous treatment by the Australian government. It’s not doing that for Assange.

On this ANZAC Day we remember all Australians who were killed in war, those who were incarcerated and abused as prisoners of war and those who sustained physical and psychological injuries as a result of war. We remember the many millions of civilian victims of war who have been killed, injured, raped and tortured. We remember the tens of millions of people internally displaced and forced to flee their countries of origin and seek asylum elsewhere.

In the First World War, a total of 16 million died of which 62,149 were Australians. In addition, from March 1918 until February 1919, in the pandemic of the (misnamed) Spanish Flu, which was brought to Europe by American soldiers, 21 million died.

With the atrocious China-bashing going on in Australia at the moment, mirroring US policy, we decided to republish the concisely expressed views of an American living in China. The comments under the video indicate a general approval of his appraisal by people who are familiar with Chinese life. His main criticism of China is the media censorship, which commenters suggest has worsened along with US China-bashing.

Update 28 Apr: Follow RFK Junior's campaign on Twitter. Less than 3 days ago there was a surprising and welcome development in the unfolding contest for the Presidential election to be held on 5 November 2024. On the morning of Friday 21 April, less than three days ago, Robert F Kennedy Junior (RJK Junior) the nephew of President John F Kennedy (JFK), asked of Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump, why he "imprison[ed] Julian Assange" and of Democrat Supporters of sitting President Joe Biden why "your candidate persist[s] in Trump's prosecution of the most consequential journalist of the 21st century? " He did so in the tweet embedded below:

The consultation is tagging amendments which may:  impede or prevent public protest against war activity or contractors involved in production of war materials ;  result in greater integration of the ADF with foreign forces (U.S.) ; enable the U.S.

There is a new policy blog or political movement called Low Migration Australia.  It is very well written and explains the relevant concepts succinctly.  The movement was started by Edward Smith.  Well worth a look.

We have republished from the page entitled, "In a nutshell," from "Low Migration Australia" at https://lowmigrationaustralia.org/

Towns and regional centres with relatively small populations, existing workforce shortages and limited local housing will need to host hundreds and sometimes thousands of new workers to support alternative energy construction projects. Governments and industry don't really understand the difficult trade-offs for local communities with alternative energy projects. Without community support, chaos may well ensue.

Should we start indexing wages to property prices, since wages cannot keep up with property price inflation, and property is not included in the CPI? This is the subject of this logical and innovative article, republished from ABC Australia.

The 100 years from 1870 is described as the innovation century in which there more more inventions, starting coincidentally with the light bulb, than in the rest of mankind's history. For the most part their roll out into society was slow enough to dampen the impact of the invention, electricity wasn't connected fully in Australia until 1989. But for me there was one event that stood out and that occurred on on the 4th of October 1957 just before my birthday.

Below is an extract from The Economist whose editor bears the unlikely name of Zanny.   Yes, I know it is naughty of me to point out that Zany is often associated with the bizarre, weird, peculiar, odd, and perhaps avant-garde.  But its also a fitting description of her introductory comments on the US economy.  

A new report finds that Australia’s housing crisis cannot be solved without a major slowing of population growth.

I posted the following letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus at around 11:00am on Thursday 7 April during a protest for Julian Assange outside the electoral office of Mark Dreyfus in the Melbourne suburb of Mordialloc. I had hoped to hand a copy of this letter to Mark Dreyfus in person or, at least, to a member of his staff, but his office was unattended. For security reasons, as explained to me by a member of the Federal Police, there was no slot through which I could put the letter, so I had to send the letter through the mail. I expect that my letter would have been received in Mark Dreyfus' office the next day and that my letters to Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong will arrive at Parliament House on Tuesday 11 April following the Easter long Weekend. I have also e-mailed this letter, with the subject Please act humanely now to end the illegal imprisonment of Julian Assange, and sent CC copies to members of the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Support Group.

From 10am until 12pm tomorrow, on Thursday 6 April, outside the electoral office of the Attorney General Mark Dreyfus in the south-eastern Melbourne suburb of Mordialloc, supporters of Julian Assange will be protesting to demand that the Australian government act to end the British Government's imprisonment of Julian Assange.

One of the many, many signs that Australia is nothing more than a US military and intelligence asset is the way its government has consistently refused to intervene to protect Australian citizen Julian Assange from political persecution at the hands of the US empire.