What are your opinions on the APEC Summit?
My thought are these: That the over indulgence of politicians, the enormous waste of tax payers dollars is immoral. That it would have been far better to keep politicians in Canberra, here the city is already set out for such events. It seems to me that the excesses are truly immoral, these are public servants, and yet countless innocent people are being effected, loosing money and possibly jobs, and suffering countless inconveniences so that George Bush, John Howard, and other politicians can indulge their whims and egos, having harbour cruises, BBQS and pat a Koala and other animals taken from the zoo for their inconvenience to Garden Island.
This event has shown how blown out the egos of these politicians actually are, that instead of coming to discuss important topics like the environment and equality of all nations, with a consideration for wastage of resources and manpower, there is an expectation they be treated like royalty and their every whim indulged. If there is truly an 'axis if evil', one must question whether this event as it is presented now by John Howard is coming from higher energies or simply ingratiate himself in Bushes' Shadow and coming from darker energy. To me evil is the immorality of abuse, any abuse of power and use of resources to empower the self.
My hope is that a voter backlash reminds John Howard that he is a public servant so too all politicians that are on very shaky ground, and that arrogance and self promotion do not serve the greater good.
Dragonfly
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The Danger of using Fear to generate votes.":
Great Myths of our time
Mark Twain famously remarked that there are: “lies, damned lies, and statistics”. We are getting large doses of each from the Federal government at the moment. One of the great myths of modern times is the propaganda put out by the Howard Government that they are great economic managers. Whenever there is any good economic news they claim responsibility for it, but when the economic news is bad then it is someone else’s fault. Hence they like to claim credit when the interest rates go down, but when they go up (like they have done several times since the last election), then it’s the State Governments fault. The State Governments (especially NSW and Vic) are not getting a fair share of GST revenue back from the Federal Government, this means that they cannot adequately fund necessary and urgently needed capital works, such as road, rail, hospital and school infrastructure. When the State Governments then have to borrow money to fund these essential services, which are demanded by the public (and contribute to the successful functioning of the economy), they are then attacked by Howard and his cronies for borrowing money. Lately they have been playing the fear card again by claiming that only they can keep interest rates low, or that if Labor gets elected there will be economic chaos, a collapse of the industrial relations system, mass unemployment etc. The Howard Government has (unfortunately) used fear tactics many times to influence gullible voters into voting for them. (invasions of boat people (xenophobia), children overboard, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, etc). They have used the “us and them” strategy to “divide and rule”, a principle mastered by the Roman Empire.
Similarly, Howard, Costello et al are trying to take credit for the mining boom, which is being driven by the rapidly growing Chinese economy, and its almost insatiable demand for raw materials (iron, aluminium, coal, natural gas, petrol). I did not know that Canberra was responsible for economic growth in China (or India), did you? The Federal Government also likes to take credit for “creating jobs”. The only jobs that the Federal government can claim to have created are those in the public service (e.g. the defense force, the beauraucracy, and the public service). The Defense Forces are having trouble retaining personnel, the public service has been shrinking in size for years. In reality, the only growth area in Federal employment under Howard has been in all the Spin Doctors and Advertising Consultants that work for the Ministry of Propaganda in Canberra. Watch your TV, or look at the taxpayer funded glossy Government adds in your letterbox to see what I mean. The reality of employment in Australia under Howard is that full time jobs are being replaced by part time or casual jobs. Skilled jobs are being replaced by unskilled and semi skilled jobs, as our manufacturing industries downsize or move overseas.
There are a number of TV adds put out in support of Work Choices by the Business Council of Australia and other management lobby groups. They are all in favour of the Work Choices legislation because it means lower wages, reduced working conditions and protections for workers. They are also in favour of Work Choices because it means bigger profits for themselves and dividends for shareholders, and a nice bonus payment and share options for the senior executives, who are the major beneficiaries of this legislation. The wages of working Australians have been almost static at the same time that the economy is supposedly booming. Most Australians are finding it harder and harder to survive on the wages that they are getting – strange sort of booming economy isn’t it? Obviously the vast wealth generated is going to a few, while the majority miss out. The Howard Government has also been very busy since getting elected in selling off all of the moneymaking publicly owned assets. Qantas was sold off, the airports and port facilities have been sold to private enterprise, Telstra was totally privatized. The public has never given the Government a mandate to sell off all of the publicly owned assets. The net result of selling of these assets has been a decline in quality and quantity of services. We cannot get a decent broadband service in Australia, there is a lack of competition in many essential service areas. They are now talking about spending taxpayer money to provide a modern broadband service. Why did they sell of Telstra in the first place?
Money is pouring into the Federal Treasury because of China’s rapid growth, and all of the revenue from GST, income tax, company tax and other taxes. The Howard Government is now sitting on a mountain of money from taxes. This is your money, but the Liberal / National Parties think that it is their personal re-election fund. A taxpayer funded project in this or that marginal seat, endless political advertisements paid for with your tax dollars. Instead of spending government revenues on essential infrastructure which will help the economy and jobs growth, they are scattering it around in pork barreling schemes. There will probably be another “income tax reduction” or “one-off family payment” announcement soon. This will just push up interest rates, making the majority of Australians worse off. This government has no vision for Australia, or any clue as to how to make it a fair and decent society, where all benefit, not just the rich. The Howard Government great economic managers – pigs might fly!
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