A cancer on democracy… or at least it used to be when someone else did it. Not now though….

Kevni Jong Ill has been pretty busy over the past few weeks, flitting here, there and everywhere trying to be everything to everyone.

It turns out that being everything to everyone is pretty hard, especially when most of your announcements are nothing more than poorly considered thought bubbles such as the PNG “solution” and changes to FBT governance.

The one thing that is clear as a pair of bollocks on a red kangaroo is that Kevin Rudd is a political chameleon like no other that we have seen.

A shockingly duplicitous individual who will say and do anything that will garner him support from whomever he is talking to at that moment, whether that support be timeless as the rising of the sun or as fleeting as a snowflake in hell.

Back in 2007 Kevin Rudd appeared on ABC’s 7:30 Report as Opposition Leader in the lead up to the election and made his position on Government advertising very clear, stating unequivocally that he considered it to be:

..a sick cancer within our system, It’s a cancer on democracy.

Fast forward to 2013,  Rudd is trying to con the Australian public, again, by saying one thing when it suits him and doing another later on, again when it suits his weathervane like persona.

Contrary to many years of bipartisan Parliamentary tradition, Labor has decided to ignore the Caretaker Conventions which came into affect on Monday when the election was formalised to continue its $30 million advertising campaign that promotes it’s PNG “solution” not only overseas but also, more importantly, here in Australia.

There is no concern over the international advertising for that is where the “asylum seekers” are coming from but there is concern that the domestic advertising cannot adequately be expected to be targeted solely at the families of potential asylum seekers already residing in Australia.

Instead many have argued that the key demographic that the ads are aiming at are low information swinging voters living in Australia’s marginal electorates, most notably in Western Sydney which is a key area of resettlement for refugees and immigrants alike.

In my opinion that is not an unrealistic assumption and plays a large part in Labor’s strategy on PNG.  They don’t really want to stop the boats, they just want to get the votes.

Once that pesky election is over then Labor most likely will flip 180 degrees again and do exactly the opposite to what it expressly promised, just as Peter Garrett infamously admitted prior to winning office.

Under the caretaker conventions, the Government is required to consult with the Opposition over taxpayer-funded advertising.

News.com.au reports that Tony Abbott on Monday wrote to the Prime Minister and urged him to “cease immediately” taxpayer funded advertising, but this has been ignored by the Government.

The Coalition’s shadow attorney-general George Brandis labelled the decision as a

..flagrant breach of the caretaker convention.  This is a scandal. The Government has openly trashed the caretaker conventions

Scott Morrison, the Coalition’s immigration spokesman, also echoed Brandis’ sentiments and said legal action was “under consideration“.

In meantime, the Liberals have launched a petition to try and force the Government to reconsider its decision by weight of public pressure.

In an obvious effort to cause Lefty heads to explode everywhere over another three word slogan, the Liberals have cheekily dubbed the petition Stop the Ads. Voice your concern by adding your name to the petition.

And lest you forget, every illegal boat that enters Australian waters has several impacts;

1. Displacing other refugees from accessing Australia’s substantial humanitarian immigration program
2. Risk to life and limb for people who come from lands where most have never seen the water let alone know how to swim
3. Sideline critical Defence resources from doing their real roles
4. Force people into mandatory detention here in Australia and overseas
5. Contribute to Australia’s continuing Budget blowouts, over $10.8 billion since 2007

Let her rip!

This one is from Andrew Bolt’s blog this morning and WOW, this is what we should be seeing more of from the Liberals.

Gutsy, passionate and right down the middle of the ALP’s and the Greens’ sanctimonious twaddle about the 457 visa debate.

Seriously, BANG!

Computer says…

Bill Leak stitches this farce up rather nicely..

Cost of losing control of our borders

I think nearly everyone will admit that Labor has totally lost control of Australia’s borders, with numerous boats chugging over the horizon from Indonesia on a daily basis.

The amount of traffic that is now enroute to Australia via the people smugglers is quite easily the highest ever recorded.

Don’t forget that under Howard the people smuggling trade had all but dried up with only FOUR people in detention in 2007.

While Australia should have a humanitarian program, illegal arrivals via the people smugglers in Indonesia is undermining our capacity to actually look after legitimate refugees by having an immense impact on our budget.

The fact that Labor has fundamentally lost control of our borders is one of the key reasons Labor has a $12 billion dollar black hole in its budget.

With boats seemingly lined up over the horizon to get into Australia before the election is held, it is worth analysing what Labor estimated in terms of numbers and the accompanying spend it would need to outlay to process the anticipated arrivals.

Labor budgeted $1.1 billion in the 2012/13 budget for processing asylum seekers.

This was based on the assumption we would get 450 arrivals per month.

That works out at a cost of $203,704 per person based on Labor’s own cost estimates.

Now the problem lies with the amount of people that are actually arriving because it has outstripped even the most horrendous estimates.

Just in April this year alone, 3,436 people arrived on illegal boats, most of whom identified as asylum seekers.

Not 450 a month but instead over 3,000!

So if we extrapolate this monthly figure out for the next 12 months we can expect to cater for 42,232 people arriving by boat in the next year.

So, how much can we be expected to pay to process these illegal entrants to Australia? Let’s go back to Labor’s own figures.

42,232 x $203,704 per person = $7.42 billion

That’s right kids, over SEVEN BILLION dollars just to process them.

This is not the final amount because many of these people will go into the community and be supported with free housing, free access to services and free money from the government to survive.

SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS of our money being used to look after people who decided unilaterally that Australia should be the place that should look after them.

Seven billion dollars is more than the required amount of funding for the full implementation of the NDIS or DisabilityCare as it is now known.

Don’t worry about slugging us taxpayers with yet another tax to pay for DisabilityCare, how about you just shut the doors to illegal boat people, save a boat load of money and put it to use looking after Australians first and foremost.

It’s not that hard surely to see the connection? At this rate we WILL fill the MCG quite quickly wont we Julian Burnside?

(H/T – Michael Smith News)

Come on, squeeze in… there’s plenty of room

Remember when in June 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard promised she would not pursue Kevin Rudd’s ”Big Australia” population target of 36 million by 2050?

I do, and so do many others I imagine.

Why did Gillard back away from Rudd’s grandiose idea in the first place?

In my opinion Gillard mainly stated her opposition Rudd’s unpopular idea because it quickly became a flashpoint on talkback radio and reflected poorly for Labor in the polls.

Additionally, Gillard wanted to appear more moderate than Rudd, which is exactly what Rudd did to convince voters to dump John Howard as PM. Hmmm.. seems we don’t learn very much do we.

As usual Gillard sensed the political expediency of backing away from one of Rudd’s more unpopular ideas and used her first major announcement as Prime Minister to reassure disenchanted voters she did not believe in a big Australia. Gillard unequivocally stated that

Australia should not hurtle down the track towards a big population.

William Bourke, president of the federally registered Stable Population Party outlines today in the Sydney Morning Herald the cold hard facts on how Gillard has broken yet another promise to the Australian people by pursuing policies that seemed to be diametrically opposed to the actual promise that she made to us all.

We are now on target for not 36 million but 40 million by 2050.

Under Gillard, the permanent immigration program stands at more than 200,000 a year – the highest level in Australian history.

On top of this we have more than 50,000 New Zealanders now freely crossing the ditch annually, without proper immigration management such as skills testing.

To add to the population explosion, a recent Gillard government decision grants foreign students automatic working rights for up to four years, irrespective of their field.

In short, Gillard has spectacularly broken her first promise as PM. She even recently admitted that Australia would continue to run ”a sizeable immigration program”.

Gillard? Broken promise?

Never.

Intentions are not results

The Law of Unintended Consequences is a classic school of thought from modern economics, but it is something that is directly transferrable to many other situations outside of strict economics.

Essentially, unintended consequences are the large outcomes that emerge from the actions made by many individuals.

These outcomes can be good or bad.

Intentions behind policy will not necessarily determine what the results actually are.

Another way to look at this seemingly commonsense, yet rarely followed approach to assessment is that we should only ever evaluate a policy, not on it’s stated goals or objectives, but rather by the incentives it provides its stakeholders.

The last bit of that sentence is the kicker.

…rather by the incentives it provides its stakeholders.

Every action that people take in life is driven by incentives of one type or another.

Be they the most base and intrinsic needs of life from Maslow’s hierarchy such as food, shelter, love, sex, or the higher, more philosophical needs such as morality, self esteem and creativity.  All decisions are driven by incentives that drive each of those needs, what they provide to us once we obtain them.

When we are assessing public policy, the only effective method of assessment is not what was the intention, but rather the actual result.

Like when we assess how Labor changed Australia’s border protection laws with the intention of being more compassionate, only for their short-sighted, politically motivated policy decision to actually result in:

• Over one thousand people known to have drowned on the high seas, plus many, many more that we have never heard about that have just disappeared
• Tens of thousands, including children for the first time in 10 years, in mandatory detention around the country
• Thousands being hurriedly released into the Australian community without adequate checks, exposing the Australian community to
  • Security and safety threats from criminals and terrorists potentially hiding amongst legitimate refugees
  • Diseases that had been previously eradicated through decades of careful immunisation
• Millions of man hours being pored into managing a system that is almost designed to fail
• Billions of dollars wasted every year that should be used to look after Australians first before we look after others

Unintended consequences, Labor’s two middle names.

Comfortably racist

A British comedian who works on an American comedy “news” show has described Australia as the most comfortably racist place he has been to.

Before we look at the possible veracity of his claim lets first look at the definition of racism.

rac·ism

/ˈrāˌsizəm/

Noun

1. The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, esp. so as to distinguish it as…
2. Prejudice or discrimination directed against someone of a different race based on such a belief.

So in my mind there is a certain sense of delicious irony in someone making a blanket statement about others (in this case Australians) based on their own limited interactions with said group to come to the conclusion that all of said group possess the characteristics that said person experienced in dealing with a small number of people from said group.

So John Oliver is basically saying that based on his limited interactions with some people in Australia that ALL Australians are racist.

Of course the article doesn’t state which Australians John believes are racist, but as we all know Australia is only populated by white people. Oh hang on, that’s not true.

In this regard, John seems blissfully unaware of the countless Australians that have happily migrated here from other countries and now proudly consider themselves to be Aussies too. Are they Aussies too, or arent they included in his catch-all cry of raaaaaacism?

Did he ask them what they thought of other ethnic groups in our society or would that not fit the tired narrative of white redneck bogans wearing aussie flags around their necks and thongs on their feet swilling XXXX as we light bonfires around the country?

There will always be some people who don’t like other people who are different to them, but that isn’t to say that all of their brethren think like they do. That’s kinda racist man.

If you deny or point out the ridiculousness of such a blanket statement, like I am here, then you are not only a racist but a racist in denial of actually being a racist.

I think based on an objective assessment of John Oliver’s statement, John Oliver is an idiot.

Not all Australian’s are racist, just as not all British are idiots like him.

The only way to defeat racism is to treat EVERYONE as INDIVIDUALS and not stereotype people, regardless of their racial or cultural background.

How’s your crowded train ride this morning?

If you’re a long suffering Melbournian or Sydney-sider who crams onto public transport or battles through the snarls of grid locked traffic everyday to get to work, then this mornings news about our immigration intake should shock you out of your early morning stupor.

Australia receives over 1000 new arrivals EVERY DAY.

While I will not decry the need for immigration for Australia to continue to grow, we seriously need to think about the rate and manner that we allow people to come to Australia.

Immigration needs to slow down until our bursting amenities and ageing infrastructure can catch up.  Crowded trains, gridlocked traffic, rising unemployment and a slowing economy are real problems for every Australian, new or old.

More importantly we need to think about who we allow into our great country; they need to be people who want to assimilate with the rest of us and live by the existing laws of this country.

This is not to say we dont or wont tolerate new and different cultures into Australia or not change laws as we need, but it does mean we need to seriously put the people who are here already first and be able to provide a safe and meaningful existence for all Australians, no matter their background.

Australia has been historically built by successive waves of migrants, but I think things need to slow down until we can satisfactorily look after ourselves and our own disadvantaged such as the homeless and unemployed first before we start to help others.