The Australian politics thread

[Ausage]

Originally Posted by Burgey

Good piece here on how the media works these days

Should be required reading for anyone who walks within 10 ft of any newspaper tbh.

[howardj]

Been several instances documented on Media Watch over the years, in State and Local Govt politics, of newspaper articles being taken almost in their entirety from press releases.

Such 'journalism' is not as rife in the Federal sphere despite the fact that during Federal campaigns, the HQs of both sides package up reports, snippets, stories and send them off to media outlets - hoping that they'll get a run.

Many of them do, but not in their entirety.

[James90]

Must say, Tasmania excites me greatly.

Socialist Left/Greens coalition.

[Spark]

After seeing Brown in the last few weeks I'm much less enthusiastic about that prospect.

[Redbacks]

Best I have read recently:

The death of labourism - Unleashed (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[James90]

Well it's true that with the Labor Party embracing the free market reforms of Keating, Government in this country has become about who can manage the services better, rather than being a real debate of ideas and economic principles. However, I think it's interesting that the two significant ideological debates of the naughties (AWAs and the response to the GFC) were electorally successful for the ALP. Labor won those debates so I certaintly don't underestimate the role of the union movement in mobilising the working class.

The article is a bit all over the place and I don't agree with the assessment of The Greens forcing the ALP to compete for the left vote. It would be nice to think so, but the reality is that if all members of The Greens were in the ALP, the ALP would be less right wing. Labor can also afford to pander to more conservative forces, safe in the knowledge of Greens preferences. And The Greens don't do anything to improve the policies of the country either. There's clear evidence that their strategy in 2004 was to target Labor voters in inner-city seats rather than try to remove Howard. They're just as cynical as any other political party and love it when the ALP shifts to the right.

Received "All That's Left" for my birthday. Haven't started reading it but will be interesting no doubt.

[Spark]

Even more so, too many Greens are genuine ideologues. That's not good.

[Burgey]

CPI for Q4 has come in at 0.4%, or 2.7% for year. Trimmed mean 0.3% and 2.2% and weighted median 0.5% & 2.3%. I just thought I'd quote those figures because stats don't tell the full story, they tell the only story. Lower than forecast.

More Labor waste and mismanagement of the economy.

[howardj]

People are terrified of the next Great Big New Monster Tax, and have reigned in their discretionary spending.

The inflation data is but a reflection of that.

[Spark]

Originally Posted by Burgey

CPI for Q4 has come in at 0.4%, or 2.7% for year. Trimmed mean 0.3% and 2.2% and weighted median 0.5% & 2.3%. I just thought I'd quote those figures because stats don't tell the full story, they tell the only story. Lower than forecast.

More Labor waste and mismanagement of the economy.

That'll go up a fair bit later on.

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by Spark

That'll go up a fair bit later on.

Well would you want it much lower tbf?

It will very likely go up owing to, if nothing else, food price increases I suppose from the floods.

[Spark]

That and large increases in consumer spending in Queensland as people rebuy all their belongings and what not.

[Burgey]

Indeed. It's hardly representative of an underlying inflationary problem though.

Just a very sad thing.

[Spark]

Of course not, just stating.

[Redbacks]

Shouldn't the loss in farm/export earnings and government revenue counter balance the increased spending?