Australia

Years back, when Labour and the Left had a half-way credible claim to represent the interest of workers, they were the people that supported a good family life; beer that wasn’t too expensive, an affordable smoke, and the right to have a bet at the TAB.

Today, the Left, be it the mad Green Taliban or the weak-kneed light-bulb-banning Labour mob, demand that everyone lives the righteous mung-bean eating life of a hemp-clad hippie.   Their way or no way.   What happened?

Australian commentator and University Professor Greg Melleuish identified the trend some time back in Australia:  the return of the Wowser, the obnoxious, controlling zealot who sees your pleasure and freedom as a sin.   And today they are not religious fanatics, they are Green and Left politicians:

WHEN we survey some of the more controversial incidents of recent times, from the attempts to place restrictions on poker machine players to the suspension of live cattle exports to Indonesia, there is a connecting thread that almost everyone has missed. This is the return of the wowser.

…

Wowsers want to improve people and make them better. To do so they have to prevent them from engaging in activities that they find immoral: be it gambling, eating meat, drinking alcohol, smoking or consuming junk food.

My father used to say that for such people if you were enjoying yourself there must be sin involved.  Read more »

No one knows better how to kill the goose that laid the golden egg than a union boss.

A union is demanding cooks at a gas plant off the West Australian coast be paid $230,000 a year, prompting federal government warnings that excessive wage claims could kill Australia’s resources “golden goose”.

A bargaining request from the Maritime Union of Australia wants cooks at the Ichthys gas field working on offshore oil and gas project support vessels to be paid a base salary of $131,050, reports revealed on Tuesday.

Penalty rates would potentially add another $100,000 per annum to their salary.

In response, federal Resources and Energy Minister Gary Gray urged caution from all unions, saying overseas investment in large resources projects could be scared off by rising costs.

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Politicians love using weasel words…these are the words that  they drop out all the time that can’t and won’t get them in trouble.

“No plans” is a classic weasel words statement by politicians.

“No plans” is nothing but a convenient way to avoid being straight with the public and heading off potential political attacks. It might serve the politicians well, but it insults the public and needs to be eradicated.

Which brings us to last week’s report by Infrastructure Australia into asset sales to funding public works.

The federal government’s infrastructure body published a $220 billion wish list of asset sales in the states and territories.

For NSW, the stand outs were the publicly-owned utility, Sydney Water, and the Snowy Hydro, which is jointly owned by the NSW and other governments.  Read more »

The left wing here likes to bag New Zealand, but how do the Aussies see us…well, a little differently than you would imagine.

Larry Pickering makes some astute observations as Australia heads into election season.

New Zealand was on the brink of recession prior to the Conservative government of John Key taking the reins in 2008. This small economy of 4.4 million people is now preparing for a series of record surpluses… and without the help of a mining industry.

Helen Clarke’s [sic] Labour Government left the country facing severe recession with a bloated Public Service sector and disastrous losses due to her takeover of the NZ rail system.

Abbott could do worse than take a look across the Tasman when attempting to repair the damage left by the union government of Julia Gillard and the incompetency of Kevin Rudd.

Are unions really the problem? They seem to be in Australia, having never really really dealt with them like we did in the 90s.  Read more »

Do-gooders campaigned to lower Northern Territory’s speed limit from unlimited to 130km/h…apparently to try to lower the road toll.

They dropped the speed limit and the road toll increased.

The Northern Territory could soon return to having open speed limits on remote sections of highway after its road toll failed to drop at the same pace as the rest of Australia.

Northern Territory chief minister Adam Giles is reviewing speed limits on the Stuart, Victoria and Barkly Highways as part of a pre-election promise. Giles has already flagged likely increases to the speed limit on selected sections of highway, and is expected to announce his decision shortly after delivering next week’s Territory budget.  Read more »

The Aussie and Kiwi unions have launched a campaign that will only try to hurt the economy of Fiji by targeting holiday-makers.

Trade unions in Australia and New Zealand have joined forces in a campaign to get tourists visiting Fiji to support workers rights.

The Liberals are on fire with their ads:

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Helen Clark’s government forecast a decade of deficits…National arrested that. In Australia Julia Gillard is similarly facing a decade of deficits despite promising many times to balance the books. Predictably the Liberals have attacked.

Australia faces a decade of budget deficits with the annual total set to pass $60 billion in 2023 unless governments take tough action to “share the pain”, an expert panel has warned.

The Grattan Institute’s assessment comes as Treasurer Wayne Swan confirms the budget has taken a $7.5 billion hit since the midyear update in October.

He told the ABC from Washington: “We have seen the terms of trade come down but the dollar didn’t move. That’s caused a hit, if you like a sledgehammer, to revenues in the budget since the midyear update of something like $7.5 billion. And of course the impact won’t just be in this financial year. It will also be across the forward estimates.”

The institute says that while notionally on track to surplus now, the combined state and federal budget deficits should reach 4 per cent of gross domestic product by 2023, which is about $60 billion in today’s dollars and would be about $100 billion in 10 years’ time.

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Life isn’t that sweet under Labor. No wonder blue collar Kiwi workers are coming home in droves.

The Liberal party is highlighting the disaster that Gillard is visiting upon Australia.

Labor’s carbon tax and anti-business practices are hurting Australia’s manufacturing industries.

Instead of delivering certainty and confidence for investment and jobs in manufacturing, Labor is becoming more chaotic and dysfunctional.

Read more »

The Labour party here is making as much as they can about what they call a crony appointment. The very next thing they will allege is corruption. They know what they are talking about.

Take a look at Australia and the ongoing revelation from the Independent Commission Against Corruption. The latest revelation shows just how corrupt the ALP and their affiliated unions became.

The managing director of NuCoal admitted in a private examination by the state’s corruption watchdog that John Maitland, a friend of the then mining minister Ian Macdonald, had done his job by “opening doors” and obtaining an exploration licence worth millions of dollars.

In a secret interrogation just last month, Glen Lewis said Mr Maitland was removed as chairman of Doyles Creek Mining – a company which was sold into NuCoal before being floated on the stock exchange – because he had already “helped facilitate the application” for an exploration licence, which Mr Macdonald directly issued to the company without a tender.

The circumstances of the allocation of the licence are under public investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Mr Macdonald announced he had approved a “training mine” for Doyles Creek in the Hunter Valley on Christmas Eve 2008, but he did so contrary to the advice of his department, the ICAC has heard.

The decision effectively turned an investment of $165,000 by Mr Maitland, a former mining union official and Labor Party figure, into shares worth as much as $14 million.  Read more »