Red Rag

I’ve just had a look at the Libertarian group’s preference flow in the Senate. Having read the blogs of various Australian libertarians — including the candidate, Tom Vogelsgang (better known as c8to) — I’m a bit shocked by their allocation:

1) libertarians (group w)
2) no gst
[...]
21) group a (ettridge independents)
22) australians against further immigration
23) new country party
24) progressive labour party
25) the great australians
26) christian democrat party
27) nsw one nation division
28) citizens electoral council
[...]

This strikes me as odd. The right-wing nutbars are all lumped near the bottom of the ticket, except the No GST Party. Sure, the name sounds harmless enough, but it definitely belongs with the other protofascists.

The No GST Party gained some notoriety because David Ettridge and David Oldfield — two of One Nation’s key players — were involved in its registration, which made clear that “it’s recognised that the need for intellectual involvement by members is limited”. Apparently the bizarre corporate structure that underpinned ON did not sufficiently limit the involvement of members, so this time they were taking no chances.

Tim Colebatch gives some further insight into the party’s origins:

[Mick Gallagher's] group used to be called the Abolish Child Support party before Gallagher renamed it No GST [in 2001], for obvious reasons.

That should be enough for most people to raise an eyebrow.

Generally, these groups are not benign, “men’s movement” support groups that help fathers cope after their marriage breaks up. They are often dangerous gangs of bitter thugs — who, in this case, take their inspiration from Mussolini’s fascists.

Do you remember a group called the Blackshirts, who would turn up on women’s front lawns in uniforms and masks, carrying fascist-style flags?

Well, they’re intimately involved in the No GST Party:

Blackshirts spokesman John Abbott … also wants to influence Canberra — under the name John Abbotto, he’s standing for election on the No GST Party ticket in Victoria’s Federal seat of Calwell. In 1998, the Dane Entertainment Centre owner stood for the Senate as a Family Law Reform Party candidate alongside activists called Prime Minister John Piss the Family Court and Legal Aid, and Justice Abolish Child Support and Family Court. “I was stunned to receive only 2,400 votes,” he says. “I thought the family was a major concern for the Australian people.”

These are Grade A nutbars. Check out what they have to say about marriage:

If marriage belongs to God then how can any Christian accept divorce without rendering unto Caesar what belongs to God?

[...]

[I]n the days of the Christ adultery meant the death penalty. It follows that divorce was unnecessary if the adulterer was put to death because the surviving spouse became a widow or widower and therefore free to, so to say, marry.

Alrighty, then.

I’m fairly sure the Libertarians support no-fault divorce. Did they realise the No GST Party’s origins, or have they been conned by the harmless-sounding name?

(An afterthought: Family First is a similar party, though not quite so extreme. It uses an inoffensive name to hide its links to aggressive right-wingers, and has a corporate structure to ensure there is no real input from members. Crikey’s email today suggested that there was no preselection for FFP candidates — they were annointed.)

Update: Look, the Blackshirts are in the news again. The leader — and former No GST Party candidate — is facing two charges of stalking mothers. He says he “did not believe the two women were frightened” when gangs of masked men in black uniforms turned up on their front lawns shouting and putting shit-sheets in their neighbours’ letterboxes.

Jobs for tomorrow: Sort out comment spam protection; tidy up code in imported posts; set up a blogroll.

That was quick! Within 3 minutes of shifting this thing to Wordpress, I’ve been hit by comment spam. Looks like that’s a job for tomorrow…

After I recently posted about Tony Abbott’s so-called safety net, which actually funnels public money into the pockets of the wealthy, Currency Lad offered this assessment:

Poor people live in wealthy ‘electorates’ Rob. Your graphs are meaningless without statistics on poverty – demarcated according to electoral district.

That particular post was actually about the electoral impact of the policy. Most of the money goes to Liberal seats, while hardly any goes to the marginals. I’m also unsure why there are scare quotes around the word electorates. Is CL suggesting that electorates don’t really exist? But that’s beside the point.

But Currency Lad is right to focus on the rich/poor divide, even if he’s unwilling to face reality. Thankfully, Charles Livingstone did the hard yards on the statistics:

If we plot the SEIFA [Socio-Economic Index for Areas] value for each federal electorate against the amount of money spent under the new safety net in each electorate, it becomes blindingly obvious that the most affluent parts of Australia have consumed most of the safety net payments.

The largest aggregate payment up to July 31 under the safety net was $911,828, in the nation’s most affluent electorate, Bradfield in Sydney. The smallest payment ($22,222) was in Australia’s third most disadvantaged electorate, Lingiari in the Northern Territory. Between these two poles, there is an unambiguous and statistically significant relationship between relative advantage and greater access to safety net dollars.

Further, the 25 electorates with the lowest SEIFA scores (the most disadvantaged) have averaged payments so far of about $148,000. The 25 electorates with the highest scores have averaged payments of about $448,000. Rural electorates have received an average of less than $150,000; inner metropolitan electorates, $326,000.

I guess this is because of all the poor people living in the wealthy electorates.

It’s sad to see a usually intelligent blogger try so desperately to ignore the fact that the safety net is an expensive joke.

In my previous post, I mentioned the latest Reuters Poll of market economists which rejected Howard’s interest rates scare campaign.

The Age correctly reported that “all 14 financial institutions prepared to forecast future interest rates” thought that the Coalition and Labor would see the same rates.

The Australian wrongly claimed that “each of the 19 economists said that there would be no difference between the two parties.” Five economists did not answer that question, including Westpac, who the Australian mentions first in a list of participants.

Even Simon Crean didn’t claim that all 19 economists participated.

I though this exchange on ABC radio was pretty funny:

ALEXANDRA KIRK: So can Mr Howard name one economist or independent commentator who predicts higher interest rates under Labor?

JOHN HOWARD: Look, you don’t need independent commentators. You just look at facts.

There are some people who look at the facts about interest rates every day. It’s their job to weigh up the various factors that might affect the economy, and make predictions about interest rates.

Reuters polled those people, asking them what they thought the peak cash would be between now and the end of 2006, under Labor or under the Coalition. This is what they said:

The striking feature of this table is that Australia’s leading market economists unanimously predicted no difference between Labor and the Coalition on interest rates.

Howard’s scare campaign is slowly unravelling. To continuously argue against all the evidence is to be deliberately misleading. Journos will probably continue to report his outrageous claims. They should call him what he really is — a liar.

Tony Abbott simply can’t defend the Government’s safety net for the rich and Liberal, as this Julia Gillard media release demonstrates:

Speaking on radio today Tony Abbott gave two excuses for the fact that the vast majority of sham safety net payments go to wealthy Liberal held seats.

Excuse 1

“The other points I make is that it may well be that my electorate has a low bulk billing rate.” (Tony Abbott ABC Perth 23-9-04)

Fact

Indi is the electorate with the lowest bulk billing rate (29.8%) Indi received $203,077 in payments, less than 1/3 of what Tony Abbott’s blue ribbon Sydney electorate received.

Excuse 2

“It may well be that my electorate has an older population.” (Tony Abbott ABC Perth 23-9-04)

Fact

Hindmarsh is the electorate with the highest percentage of people over 65 years (20.6%). Hindmarsh received $86,738 in payments, less than 1/7 of what Tony Abbott’s blue ribbon Sydney electorate received.

The simple fact is that the sham safety net is a users pays system where how much you earn determines how much access you have to quality health care.

When John Howard announced his toolkit gimmick, everyone was all “Aw, isn’t that nice, he’s giving $800 to the young fellers (and maybe a few lasses).” But never fear! It’s still the same old bastard — Howard wants to take $200 off apprentices every year.

Frank Devine begins his column with this:

Does it matter if you can’t afford to send your son to Scots or your daughter to Frensham?

Not a damn.

And ends it by bagging the public school system:

Parents won’t risk their children’s future on a lucky dip.

Along the way, he flaunts his lawn fetish, suggesting that only parents with beautiful gardens care about their children’s education.

Arse.

The more the Government talks about its sham safety net, the better for Labor. As I’ve pointed out before, the majority of the money goes to the wealthy — mostly in Liberal seats.

But that’s just one part of the equation. Who misses out? Who’s getting least from the safety net?

It’s not necessarily Labor seats. It’s even better: marginal seats.

People in the important seats aren’t benefiting from the safety net. That can only work in Labor’s favour.

Peter Costello decided that a couple of Liberal hacks in his office are smarter than both the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, and the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.

Not surprisingly, he’s come off worse for wear:

Mr Costello’s office last night confirmed it had assumed that because the cost of Labor’s policy was lower in the first year than in subsequent years, it had failed to include the double counting of the low-income tax offset. However, NATSEM’s modelling suggested that between 10 and 15per cent of the recipients of Labor’s new tax bonus would take it annually, either because they were outside the PAYE system or because they were retired.

This helped offset the double cost of the low-income offset in the first year.

Mr Costello’s office also did not take account of the fact that Labor’s decision to raise the top tax threshold in 2006-07 increased the total cost of the policy from that year on.

But wait, there’s more:

Mr Costello said that Labor had incorrectly claimed as savings in 2005-06 the reversal of a government concession for small business GST payments that would in fact be paid in 2004-05. Labor says that in accrual terms, the benefit would flow in 2005-06.

Mr Costello also criticised Labor’s claim that a $25million investment in improved tax compliance could yield a $225million return, saying this ratio was not achievable.

Mr Crean, however, said that the Government’s 2002-03 budget had assumed that a $1 investment in large business compliance increased revenues by $14, a much larger return than Labor is modelling.

Only one aspect of Costello’s criticism might be borne out — a claimed behavioural dividend as people move from welfare to work. I find it hard to believe that there are 140 000 jobs just waiting for bludgers to walk into, but then again I’m no expert. The SMH notes that “Treasury has accepted some similar assumptions in the past but rejected others.”

Of course, should Treasury decide that Labor’s behavioural divident is not valid, when it has accepted similar claims from the Government in the past (notably when the GST was introduced), Labor has an obvious shield:

The costings saga has also put Treasury and Finance officials in a difficult position.

If Labor submits its policies soon, the secretaries of Treasury and Finance may be required to release this politically charged material days before a close election. This could influence the result and may leave the bureaucrats vulnerable to accusations of political bias.

For that reason, I suspect Treasury will err on the side of accepting Labor’s (and NATSEM’s) predicted outcomes.

And then Costello will look like a right goose.

Meanwhile, David Murray puts the whole thing in perspective:

Is this a case of pot kettle black, considering Costello’s budget surplus turned out to be $3.5 billion off his predictions, or that $3 billion in GST revenue had “unexpectedly” appeared? That’s like $6.5 billion out of whack, yet he’s claiming Labor can’t add?

Advice for marginal seat MPs: if you want to retain your seat, don’t let your dog go around mauling constituents.

Full marks to Mark Metherell for this comment about Labor’s hospitals policy:

Mark Latham has signalled – as he did with private schools – that Labor will shift spending from those who can afford choice to those who cannot.

The Coalition has captured the word “choice” in recent years, and applies it to user-pays policies that actually diminish choice. Labor’s schools and health policies are designed to give all Australians real choice by moderating the effect of the market on essential services. It’s time to end the doublespeak take back the word “choice” for the forces of good.

The strongest criticism Health Minister Tony Abbott had of the plan was this:

Mr Latham talks about making this election a referendum on health. Let the 650,000 Australians who have already reached the protection of the safety net tell him what they think about that.

Hmm. Remember what Julia Gillard said the other day?

The 11 seats held by Liberal Party Cabinet Ministers received more in safety net payments than the total amount received by Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory, the ACT and Tasmania.

The richest electorates (and the safest Liberal seats) are the ones using the sham safety net. They’re the same people that send their kids to elite private schools. I don’t think Latham’s too worried about losing their support.

You’ve got two choices on 9 October.

You can vote for the party that thinks a safety net should deliver most benefits to the wealthiest people.

Or you can vote for the party that considers decent healthcare a basic human right, and will make sure that there’s no need for a safety net.

Weird. I clicked on the media link on this Poll Vault entry today, and watched the Simpsons. I tried it again now and got Channel 10’s late news. Why is the ABC streaming 10 on its website?

My new Wordpress blog is slowly taking shape. There’s a new design, but you’ll be able to choose the old one if you’re nostalgic. I’ve just got to make a few more minor alterations, and implement Raena’s search changes, and I’ll be just about ready.

I found a backup CD with all my posts from June 2001 until April 2002. Mentalspace runs from December 2002 until January 2004, when this blog started. So I’m missing the first month or so of my blogging career, and then another seven months in the middle. Hopefully I can piece most of it together with help from the Wayback Machine.

Once I fix up a few aspects of the new design, and work out how I’m going to tackle the archive reconstruction, I’ll make the switch.

Question: What resolution is your desktop? 640×480? 800×600? 1024×768? Bigger?

Ta.