Is Australia's hero Prime Minister saving all Tuvaluans from drowning? Or is he as dishonest as his worthless predecessor?
Australia's unmeritable undeserving authoritarian ex-Prime Minister is now a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC). He joins Andrew "Lethal humidity" Forrest AO in mockery of the Honours system.
Jack Miller
The media continues to promote the claim that Tuvalu is being engulfed by rising seas, but the scientific evidence shows otherwise. A recent 7NEWS headline titled “One in three Tuvaluans apply to relocate to Australia under climate visa scheme” has been used to reinforce the idea that Tuvalu is disappearing due to climate change. This narrative does not match reality.
A 2018 peer-reviewed study published in Nature Communications under the title “Patterns of island change and persistence offer alternate adaptation pathways for atoll nations” analysed four decades of satellite imagery. It found that seventy-three out of one hundred and one islands in Tuvalu had grown in size. The total land area increased by nearly three percent. Eight of Tuvalu’s nine atolls became larger. These reef islands are not static land masses. They evolve through natural processes, including sediment movement and coral debris accumulation, which allow them to expand even in the face of rising sea levels.
Data from the Funafuti tide gauge, monitored by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, shows sea level rise in the range of 1.2 to 3.7 millimetres per year. This is consistent with natural variability and historical trends. Satellite altimetry also shows regional fluctuations in sea level, with some nearby areas recording no rise or even a slight fall. These measured changes are nowhere near the catastrophic projections often cited in political rhetoric or media reports.
A critical factor that is almost always omitted is land subsidence. Much of Funafuti is experiencing ground sinking due to overdevelopment, groundwater extraction, and soil compression. A 2010 paper published in Global and Planetary Change titled “Sea-level change and variability in the southwest Pacific over the past 60 years” identified this localised subsidence as a major influence on relative sea level changes. In short, the land is sinking, which makes the sea appear to be rising faster than it actually is.
The recently implemented Falepili Union treaty between Australia and Tuvalu is being portrayed as the world’s first climate migration agreement. In reality, it is a geopolitical and economic arrangement. The scheme offers 280 Tuvaluans each year permanent residency in Australia. Applications cost just 25 dollars and are drawn by ballot. There is no skills test. Successful applicants are granted access to Medicare, the right to work, and the right to study. In the first ten days, more than 3,100 Tuvaluans applied. This is not a sign of panic over climate. It is a clear reflection of people seizing an opportunity for a better life abroad.
This arrangement benefits both governments. Australia gains strategic leverage in the Pacific. Tuvalu receives development support and income through remittances. The climate justification is more about public presentation than physical reality.
Even Tuvalu’s current and former leaders have admitted as much. Prime Minister Feleti Teo has publicly stated that many of those who leave will return with work experience. Former Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga has warned against allowing the world to declare Tuvalu uninhabitable. These are not the statements of people fleeing a sinking nation.
The truth is clear. Tuvalu’s islands are expanding. Sea level rise is modest and manageable. Localised land subsidence is the real structural issue. The so-called climate refugee scheme is more about economic migration and regional politics than climate disaster.
This narrative has been shaped for convenience, not accuracy. Tuvalu is not vanishing beneath the ocean. It is being misrepresented.
Thank you, Jack Miller
According to the History Archives, between 536 AD and 550 AD, climate crisis killed 50% of Scandinavians.
Peter Nordqvist (above) has helpfully supplied a photograph of the real Rök runestone, and writes: The Rök runestone is interesting with many kenningar that is a test of how much the reader knows of the history/sagas of that time. Runes also on the top side.
Back to the History Archives: In 9th-century Sweden, a grieving father named Varinn carved a monument that may hold secrets about ancient fears of climate disaster. This stone, known as the Rök runestone, was erected around 800 AD.
The Rök runestone is famous for its incredibly long inscription, containing over 700 runes. It stands as a memorial to Varinn's deceased son.
But scholars believe the intricate carvings tell a much deeper story, not just of personal loss, but of a community's terror.
The inscriptions seem to allude to a catastrophic climate event that had occurred centuries earlier, between 536 and 550 AD.
This earlier period, sometimes linked to the Fimbulwinter of Norse mythology, was marked by a severe and prolonged cold snap. This was likely caused by massive volcanic eruptions disrupting the global climate.
For the people of Scandinavia at that time, the consequences were devastating. Crops failed, leading to widespread famine and a drastic population decline.
It's estimated that Scandinavia's population may have dropped by at least 50% during this crisis. A stark memory passed down through generations.
So, Varinn's memorial might not only be for his son but also a profound reminder. It could express anxiety about the possibility of such a devastating climate disaster repeating.
The stone’s riddles and allusions could be interpreted as a way for the community to process these collective fears, reflecting their strength and the recall of past hardships.
The Rök runestone continues to be studied, offering insights into the Viking mindset and their relationship with the natural world.
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, Phys.org, University of Gothenburg, Artnet, Sustainability Times#ClimateHistory #VikingLegacy #AncientWisdom
WA’s admirable writer Rebekah Barnett: Australia's scandal-ridden Covid Prime Minister Scott Morrison awarded nation's top honour
When failing up is handsomely rewarded
As leader of the centre-right Coalition, Morrison, better known in Australia as ‘Scomo,’ was PM for just over three and a half years - between 2018 and 2022 - during which he oversaw Australia’s bonkers Covid response before losing the 2022 federal election to centre-left Labor in a thumping defeat.
Scomo is one of 14 Australians, along with film couple Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin, to receive the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) this year, with 830 Aussies being recognised on the King’s Birthday honours list on Monday.
Last year, the top honour went the the two worst Covid strongman premiers, Victoria’s Dan Andrews and Western Australia’s Mark McGowan, who between them took the cake for human rights abuses, corruption scandals, spending blow-outs and bullying.
This year, Scomo has been recognised for a revisionist version of his tenure as PM, which, beneath the glow-up, was marred by secrecy and serial scandals.
The award recognises Scomo’s “notable contributions to global engagement, to leadership of the national COVID-19 response, to economic initiatives, and to national security enhancements, especially through leadership of Australia's contribution to AUKUS.”
What Scomo is really notable for is failing up. That, and spin.
With a background in marketing and tourism, Scomo’s knack for PR-speak, coupled with a seeming lack of genuine convictions, soon had him branded ‘Scotty from marketing’ in national media. We see this instinct at work in his framing of his award in statements made the press overnight.
"From natural disasters to a global pandemic, once in a hundred years, and of course the threats we faced in our region, and a recession caused by that global pandemic," Scomo said.
"Through all of this Australians were just incredible and the one assumption I made is that that's how they would be — their character would pull them through and that's the basis on which we built the policies that helped us to achieve that."
On balance, Australians can’t stand the guy, so leading with flattery is a smart move.
However, one can’t read about natural disasters and Scomo in the same sentence without recalling his disappearance on a family holiday to Hawaii during the first great natural disaster of his Prime Ministership, the 2019 bushfires.
After his office initially lied about his whereabouts, pictures of Scomo in a Hawaiian shirt started doing the rounds online while the country burned. When he finally faced the press, Scomo characteristically passed the buck, telling Sydney’s 2GB radio, “look, I don’t hold a hose mate.”
This is the LINK to subscribe to Rebekah Barnett
Professor Ian Brighthope writes:
The Poison of Isms in a Fragile Democracy
In the marrow of a modern democracy, where the pulse of freedom beats with the fragile rhythm of human will, there is no room—no crevice, no shadow—for the toxic spectre of ideologies that have scarred the soul of history. Nazism, totalitarianism, socialism, fascism, communism: these are not mere words, not academic abstractions to be debated in sterile halls. They are cancers, and I know real cancers, each a grotesque mutation of human ambition that festers in the body politic, promising salvation while delivering chains. Their stench lingers in the air of our time, masked by new names, cloaked in modern rhetoric, but no less lethal. A democracy that tolerates even a whiff of these "isms" courts its own annihilation, for they are not ideas to be tamed but predators that devour the very liberty they claim to serve.
Let me not mince words and speak from a persona perspective: Nazism was a nightmare of industrialised hatred, a machine that ground millions into ash under the delusion of racial purity. Its legacy is not a cautionary tale but a screaming alarm, a reminder that humanity’s darkest impulses can don a uniform and march in lockstep. Fascism, its twisted sibling, draped itself in the flag of national pride, seducing nations with promises of glory while strangling dissent and worshipping power. Totalitarianism, the suffocating parent of both, stripped the individual of agency, reducing free souls to cogs in a merciless state. Communism, with its siren song of equality, built towers of ideology on the graves of the starved and silenced, proving that even noble dreams can birth monsters. And socialism, often peddled as a softer shade, too often slides into the same trap, trading personal freedom for the illusion of collective security, its advocates blind to the cliff’s edge where state control awaits.
These ideologies are not relics, not museum pieces to be studied with detached curiosity. They are shape-shifters, alive and insidious, slipping into the cracks of our discontent. They whisper in the angry posts on X, in the polarised screams of our fractured discourse, in the seductive calls for "order" or "justice" that mask a hunger for control. Every time a voice demands censorship to protect the "greater good," every time a leader promises utopia at the cost of dissent, every time a mob silences the individual for the sake of the collective, we smell their rot. Democracy, that delicate experiment in human trust, cannot survive their infection. It thrives on the messy, vibrant clash of free minds, not the sterile conformity of enforced ideals.
Consider the cost. History is a graveyard of democracies that flirted with these isms, mistaking their fervour for progress. Weimar Germany, seduced by the promise of strength, birthed a monster that set the world aflame. The Soviet Union, cloaked in the rhetoric of fairness, crushed millions under its iron dream. Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Castro’s Cuba—each a testament to the lie that any single ideology can perfect humanity’s chaos. These were not accidents but inevitabilities, the natural endpoint of systems that elevate dogma over people, that sacrifice the individual on the altar of the collective. Even today, we see their echoes: authoritarian regimes that mimic democratic trappings while strangling free speech, populist movements that flirt with fascist aesthetics, and intellectual fads that rebrand collectivism as compassion. The names change, but the poison remains.
A modern democracy must be a fortress against these ideologies, not a petri dish for their revival. It demands vigilance, not complacency; courage, not compromise. To allow even a trace of these isms is to invite termites into the foundation of liberty. Nazism’s hatred, fascism’s nationalism, communism’s collectivism, socialism’s creeping paternalism, totalitarianism’s obsession with control—these are not compatible with a system that exists to protect the individual’s right to think, speak, and live freely. They are not "options" to be debated but threats to be repelled. The moment we entertain them, we erode the very principles—pluralism, liberty, accountability—that keep democracy alive.
This is not hyperbole but a reckoning. We stand at a clifftop, where the allure of simple solutions tempts a weary world. Economic uncertainty, cultural division, the chaos of rapid change—these are the fertile soils where isms take root. On X, I see the seeds daily: posts calling for strongmen to "fix" society, demands for equality that morph into calls for conformity, nostalgic fantasies of ideologies that failed spectacularly. The web hums with manifestos, some blatant, others subtle, but all carrying the same old venom. A democracy that ignores these warnings is a patient ignoring a fever, mistaking discomfort for death throes.
Let me be clear: rejecting these isms does not mean silencing their advocates. That, too, would be a betrayal of democracy. The answer to bad ideas is better ones, fought in the arena of open discourse. But it does mean drawing a line—unapologetically, ferociously—at any attempt to impose them. No law should bend to their logic. No policy should carry their scent. No leader should wield their rhetoric without facing the full weight of scrutiny. Democracy is not a suicide pact; it need not tolerate the ideologies that seek its destruction.
The stakes are existential. A democracy infected by these isms becomes a hollow shell, a stage for tyrants to perform their masquerade. We have seen it before: the slow bleed of rights, the normalisation of control, the erasure of the individual. We cannot afford to see it again. The modern world, with its interconnected fragility, its technologies of surveillance and manipulation, offers these ideologies tools our ancestors never imagined. A single misstep could plunge us into a darkness from which recovery is not guaranteed.
So let us stand, resolute, in defence of our struggling Australian democracy that still breathes freedom. Let us reject the seductive lies of Nazism, fascism, communism, socialism, totalitarianism, and every ism that demands we kneel. Let us champion the individual, the dissenter, the dreamer, the skeptic—those who make democracy not just a system but a living, defiant act of hope. The alternative is not progress but collapse, not justice but shackles. We are not perfect, but we are free. And in that freedom lies our only salvation.
This is the LINK to subscribe to Prof Ian Brighthope
Hon David Littleproud and mates
On 20 May 2025, Nationals Leader Hon David Littleproud announced that the Nationals would leave the Coalition over the Liberals’ refusal to enshrine nuclear power and three other demands in a new agreement.
Quoting the Brisbane Times May 20, 2025 — 7.28pm:
The right-leaning Institute of Public Affairs said the split could strengthen both parties if it led to a considered rebuilding based on values of mainstream Australians. “It will fail if it descends into base political horse-trading,” said deputy executive director Daniel Wild.
“The intellectual cupboard has been bare on the centre-right for some time, as sheeted home by the 2025 election result. Now is the time to rebuild the centre-right’s intellectual horsepower.”
Michael Darby’s response of 25 May 2025, repeated on 4 June 2025:
There is no reason why the four conditions for continuing a “Coalition in Opposition”, unacceptable to the Liberals on 20 May 2025, should be considered appropriate grounds for creating a “Coalition in Opposition” a few days later.
Any Coalition in Opposition circumscribes the freedom of choice of Australian voters. This vital point is missed by soi-disant conservatives horrified by the concept of a Coalition exisiting only in government, because of their pathological fear that a future governing coalition might include representatives of the Freedom Movement, either as representatives of minor parties and or as independents.
That pathological fear is in part driven by the shortsighted-goal of denying representatives of minor parties and independents access to even a tiny share of the undeserved public funding cash bonanza.
To defeat in future elections the combined forces of Labor and Greens, backed by the enormous resources of faux charities and fake not-for-profits, the Liberals and Nationals emphatically require the preferential support of freedom-oriented minor parties and independents. That can be achieved only if the Nationals and/or Liberals acknowledge the imperative of allowing a pathway by which freedom-oriented minor parties and independents can win seats. The Teals, also with access to significant resources, are a further complication for the Liberals and Nationals. Those Teals who are open to negotiating reciprocal arrangements for reciprocal preferences ahead of Labor and the Greens should be treated with respect.
The simple answer for the Liberals and Nationals is to seek government by a Coalition based upon a collaboration. Membership of the collaboration would be open to those entities which agree to preference freedom candidates ahead of the Nationals and Liberals, ahead of the Teals, ahead of Labor, and ahead of the Greens, in that order.
For the second consecutive Federal Election, the Uniparty bunch have spouted the “Liberal Labor and the Greens are all the same” canard invented by the ALP in 2021, thereby guaranteeing failure in freedom candidate representation. This attitude must end.
For political participants opposed to government by the ALP relying for its Senate Majority on Greens allies, there is a path to electoral success in future State/Territory and Federal Elections. Electoral success will depend upon clear differentiation from Labor and the Greens.
Four vitally important and interconnected issues are:
mRNA “vaccines” which the Federal Government is still shamelessly promoting while ignoring the victims
The unobtainable and shockingly expensive goal of Net Zero
The evaporation of Australia’s capacity to defend its citizens and its sovereignty
The cost of living for the poor and disadvantaged, mirrored by cost pressures stifling and shutting down productive industry.
Relevant material follows:
Hidden Danger
Ally of Professor Ian Brighthope, and epidemiologist at the McCullough Foundation Nicolas Hulscher MPH reports that mRNA injections shed - violating the bodily autonomy of innocent bystanders:
Dr Stuart Ballantyne applauds nuclear energy: “Buy a nuclear boat that doesn’t need fuel.”
The amazing thing about a boat is that they can be moved easily with very little horsepower. I have a 1930 photo of one draft horse pulling 600 tonnes of coal on a barge that weighed 200 tonnes. Bringing that 800 tonne total weight ashore, and putting it on railway wheels or truck wheels, would take 30-40 horses to pull it.
Hence when US President Dwight D Eisenhower asked his clever people in the early 1950’s for nominating a project for his “Atoms for Peace Project”, to a world terrified by the word “atomic”, the clever people in his administration offered floating solutions.
At the same time the Soviet Union started considering nuclear energy to transportation in 1954 when the 5-megawatt nuclear power station went into operation at Obninskoye, near Moscow. Serious papers by senior Russian engineers at the time highlighted the attractiveness of nuclear power plants for ship propulsion where “great range and endurance with the least amount of fuel weight” were the most desirable features. 70 years later they still are !
The 1st US project was the nuclear submarine Nautilus, commissioned in 1954 that could stay underwater, even under the polar icecap, for extended periods
The first US nuclear cargo passenger ship 182m “Savannah” was on the drawing boards early, launched in 1959, enterring service in 1964, capable of circumnavigating the planet 14 times at 20 knots on just 22 kgs of uranium.
The Russians at the time were obviously peeking over the counter at the Americans, in designing a passenger cargo icebreaker, the 134m “Lenin” which they launched December 1957, pipping the Americans by getting her into service by 1959, and using a nuclear power plant similar to the Obninskoye unit.
These commercial nuclear vessels were setting significantly higher operational capabilities, particularly on the Russian Transarctic route known as the Northeast passage which is is one-third of the distance of the traditional route through the Suez Canal. This transarctic route also gave the Russians access to significant oil reserves, gas reserves and mineral resources.
In January 2022, multinational engineering and constructions company China Communications and Construction and Russian Titanium Resources agreed to co-operate on a mining project to develop a vertically-integrated mining and metallurgical complex for the processing of titanium ores and quartz sands from the Pizhemsky deposit in the Komi Republic, north Russia. The parties also discussed the supply of marketable goods to the Chinese market, including rutile, titanium dioxide, wollastonite, iron oxide, calcined quartz sands, and premium glass sands with low iron content. This project to create a national mining cluster is involving the construction of the Sosnogorsk-Indiga railway and the deep sea ports of Tiksi and Indiga, in the Arctic region of Russia. These developments have been boosted by the Ukraine war and sanctions against Russia where Chinese trade has increase by 35%. These developments need reliable waterways, which only icebreakers can provide.
Russia is boosting its 40 strong icebreaking fleet building with all of the new vessels being nuclear-powered as part of its aim to improve Arctic shipping.
Shipbuilder Rosatomflot is a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear company Rosatom and JSC Baltiysjiy Zavod, part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation. Recently, the company signed a contract for the construction of a unique, multifunctional nuclear service vessel that would operate from 2029. The vessel is designed to perform a full range of work on recharging nuclear icebreakers.
Successful Russian Floating nuclear power plants (FNPPs) have been working since 2018 in Vilyuchinsk in far easter Russia, and last month Russia agreed to supply the first FNPP to Guinea in Africa, with several others under contract with other African countries with power problems. These units will be leased by Russia and replacement of the reactors will also be done by the Russians.
China is building FNPPS for use in offshore mining and they are building another 23 reactors in China as of April 2024.
Ships powering shore grids has happened since 1929, but engineering advances with nuclear reactors has made power transfer much easier now with voltage transformers and the latest technologies.
The latest Micro Modular Reactors (MMRs) are being designed by several countries and focused on 5-10mW. For context, these MMRs can fit on the back of a 40’ semi-trailer, and can power merchant ships up to Panamax size (80,000 tonnes dwt) which are around 9mW. The largest production wind turbines are only around 7mW with a capital cost US$1.2m per megawatt, have a significant footprint and a limited lifespan of 20-30 years. Check for yourself !
The MMRs offer a combination of power for propulsion and shore powering, which for very remote nations is highly attractive. The highest national cost component of remote nations even with some hydro and renewables, is imported diesel, and averages $1bn per annum for a population of 1 million. With MMR manufacturers offering a cost of US$0.35/kWh on a leased basis, this is surely the future for low emissions power solutions?.
Again the marine industry is leading the nuclear industry and technological change with MMRs. Not having to carry fuel or do voyage deviations to pick up fuels, as mentioned earlier, are hugely desirable features.
An average bulk carrier powered with MMRs could carry an extra 1,500 tonnes of revenue cargo instead of carrying fuel. Allowing for ballast legs and assuming 60% of its 30 year life span carrying 13 cargoes per annum at $7/tonne will earn the shipowner around US$4 million extra and will eliminate emissions at the same time
A boat that doesn’t need refueling has a lot of appeal, especially if you can plug it into the power grid when alongside. Australian Minister for Energy Chris Bowen, should get with the program.
As an internationally-respected designer of unsinkable ships and a world authority on transhipment, Dr Stuart Ballantyne earns his living in a highly competitive marketplace, so his pro-nuclear wisdom expressed above should come as no surprise.
By contrast, some individuals whose source of income is immune from any kind of competition resort to lies and deception in their determination to inflict their cultish ideology on their victims. In the case of the Australian Government, the victims are the Australian people.
What Went Wrong in the Federal Election?
The invitation to all subscribers and followers is still open, to share with everyone your opinion on What Went Wrong. Make comment on this substack. Or email to me at mrmichaeldarby@hotmail.com. The sooner the better.
Early responses include:
ONE
Opposition parties should never describe themselves as a “coalition”. To do so is a recent and peculiarly Australian practice wholly bereft of merit. Every political party should campaign on its own merits. A coalition is what happens after an election when two or more politcal parties agree to work together as a government.
TWO
The Uniparty Bunch did immense damage prior to the 2022 Federal Election, by pushing the line invented by the Labor Party that the big parties National/Liberals, Labor and Greens are all the same. The Uniparty Bunch ensured that not one genuine freedom movement representative was elected in 2022. Consequently, there was no bloc of parliamentarians willing to fight for the abolition of the outrageous $2,000 nomination fee for independents or for the end of the 4% threshold for public funding. Some of the usual suspects did it again, once again guaranteeing that no genuine representative of the freedom movement would be elected in 2025.
THREE
Angus Taylor permanently disqualified himself from leadership of any organisation which repects sanity and honesty, by granting Major Project Status on 29 July 2020 to the Sun Cable extension cord to Singapore scam. Full details may be seen at the thoroughly indexed link https://michaeldarby.net/unchain, including at page 323. At page 325 I wrote:
Major-project status was wrongly granted for a doomed project with a falsely claimed capital cost of $22bn. The true cost of the project is more like A$76 billion with only 10 hours’ backup battery storage and A$165bn with the minimum feasible 60 hours’ backup. Thus, the true cost exceeds the propaganda cost of $22bn by 250% for a project which cannot work, and by 650% for a project which might work but could never be afforded and could never repay the capital cost. End the scam! Two factors add irony to the financial impossibility of this scam. First, there is no reason to believe that Indonesia will ever permit the laying of the cable through the Archipelago, and even less reason to believe that the Australian Foreign Minister has bothered to ask permission before the granting of major-project status. This is a diplomatic disgrace. A further point is that the cable is strategically indefensible. Why would Singapore want 20% of its electrical energy helplessly vulnerable to the simplest sabotage?
Nobody has challenged the numbers quoted above, which were earlier published (August 2020) by the prestigious and authoritative WUWT, as a collaboration with one of the world’s truly great mathematicians, the Viscount Brenchley. Otherwise known as Lord Christopher Monckton, God bless him.
Here is the link to the relevant substack: https://substack.com/home/post/p-148004708?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
In the table above, columns two and three show a genuine CAPEX for the touted claims of AAPL, which despite the unacceptably high cost cannot ever deliver reliable energy, because a mere ten hours of backup for solar panels is risible. Columns four and five show a genuine CAPEX for what might work cannot be contemplated because of frightening cost. Since then, the cost of copper has soared so the fictional budget is even more ridiculous.
FOUR
The simplest way to be different from Labor and the Greens is to tell the truth. Here are some examples:
The great centralised bureaucracies, childcare and NDIS are scandal-ridden disasters, cruelly ignoring the needs of the members of society least able to speak for themselves, while enriching opportunists and criminals. Nationals and Liberals should commit to the principle that all control of all humanitarian activity must be as close as possible to the beneficiaries. As an illustration, let’s have local hospitals run by local boards, with staff representation
Education is much the same, with grossly inappropriate standardised curricula and major scandals of fraud and opportunism. If the Federal Government insists on shovelling taxpayers’ money into childcare, aged care and education, let it do so in the form of vouchers.
There is no climate crisis nor any imperative to use weather fluctuations as an excuse for expanding the power of the Federal Government.
Thousands of victims of mRNA vaccine harm have been callously ignored. All such victims, or their surviving loved ones, deserve care, compassion and compensation.
Banning live export of animals is irrational, and is seen by the opponents of all animal husbandry as merely a step towards the achievement of their malign goal to deny hungry people access to animal protein. Sussan Ley already scores well on this important issue.
The Dutton campaign was doomed from the moment the Opposition Leader decided to decorate his policy speech with former Liberal prime ministers. Most Australians, and indeed most Liberals, have reason to dislike at least one of the ex-PMs, hence a motive to vote against Dutton or at least to minimize support for him. Especially galling was Peter Dutton’s gratuitous praise for Morrison.
Winning votes in key electorates is not the purpose of the Defence Force. Saving the world from changing weather is not the purpose of Defence Force. Promoting gender diversity or any other kind of diversity is not the purpose of the Defence Force. Boosting the massive profits of Thales or Boeing or Dassault is not the purpose of the Defence Force. The Defence Force exists so that Australia is demonstrably capable of inflicting on any potential invader far more harm than could be justified by the perceived benefits to the prospective invader.
The attempted electoral bribe of a temporary 50% reduction in fuel excise was a sloppy excuse for policy from a lazy shadow treasurer. The bribe offered nothing to miners, graingrowers and fishers who rightly pay no fuel excise. To be refreshingly different from Labor and the Greens, the Liberals should have offered a major permanent transfer of revenue from the Federal Government to the States and Territories. and a major permanent transfer of revenue (purchasing power) from the Federal Government to taxpayers, not forgetting small business proprietors who as a genre have suffered painfully from governmental harm.
The sole justification for the abolition of cash is the advancement of the surveillance society. The Liberals surely should commit to the permanent continuation of cash transactions.
mRNA Shots are Crippling Humanity’s Ability to Reproduce. Nicolas Hulscher MPH interviews by Stew Peters. Text and video. This is the LINK.
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