lev.lafayette's blog

I recently encountered an individual, who is deserving of remaining unnamed, who claimed that in the later years of his life that CLR James shifted from support of Trotsky to Stalin in his with his interest in the Pan-African movement and association of WEB DeBois and Paul Robeson. This irked me somewhat because CLR James was, in my opinion, never sympathetic to Stalinism.

After all the rubbish during the election about "retiree taxes" and "death taxes", neither of which existed, we're now looking at "reforms" to industry superfunds. Why? Because of union influence in such funds.

Push to curb industry super power
https://www.afr.com/news/policy/tax/push-to-curb-industry-super-power-20...

Well, it seems my seat predictions were a little off. In my defense I simply followed what both the bookmakers and opinion polls were saying, which was Labor to win c85 seats. As it turns out, the polls over-estimated the Labor vote by about 4% and under-estimated the LNP vote by about 3%, the sum of which is quite significant. I did express concerns about Queensland and, grimly, they turned out to be correct and worse. The 11% vote for One Nation and Palmer, who directed preferences to the LNP, now means that the ALP holds 5 of the 29 seats there, and with no change seen in WA.

Day 36 and 37 of the campaign, and I thought it was all going to be over. But then the Liberals provide their costings just before the electronic media blackout (hilarious on the days of the Internet, right) and announce $1.5bn public service cuts to fund election promises. Surprise! Also, the last quarter's unemployment figures were announced an they came with a spike to 5.2% unemployment, 8.5% underemployment, and the dollar's down. Move along, nothing to see here, right?

A real-estate lobby group has just blocked me from commenting and deleted my posts on Facebook. Apparently, they didn't like the fact that my comments on negative gearing were getting so many "likes", and that they didn't like that they were coming from a landlord.

Because the reality is the real-estate lobby is lying through their teeth and squealing like stuck pigs. I am quite happy to argue against my own interests and even *lose* money if it means that more people have a less expensive roof over the heads.

Australia's negative gearing system is absolutely terrible.

Day 34 and 35 of the campaign and, unsurprisingly, this close to the finish line there are no more big announcements from anybody, although Shorten's announcement that Labor will scrap the federal government's current submission on the minimum wage and submit a new one is of note. This may have particular resonance in W.A. and Qld where real wages have declined (for the rest of the country they've flatlined). RBA comments on wages from November last year added for context.

Day 32 and 33 of the Federal election campaign and the big ticket item of the past two days was the announcement by the Labor Party that they would put up $10bn to help fund the suburban rail loop in Victoria, which would be the largest federal funding injection in public transport history. For their own part the Coalition had kind-off splashed some money as well with $4bn offered for the East West Link - although it must be said that's now been rejected by two state elections and the Feds have been withholding $3bn in transport infrastructure spending since.

When this government came to power in 2013, Australia was ranked 24th out of 133 nations for gender equality. Today we are ranked 39th.

WEF Global Gender Gap report, 2018
https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-gender-gap-report-2018

But don't fear women of Australia, on Mother's Day Scottie said he respects you!

Day 30 and 31 of the Federal election campaign, and without a doubt the biggest possible news item was Labor's costings which project the largest budget surplus in history, and double the size of the Coalition's. Note that these values are verified by the Parliamentary Budget Office, an indepedent statutory office, which uses the same numbers and models as the Treasury and are required to do so. I guess it helps a *lot* when you're not giving $77bn in tax-cuts to those earning $180K or more per annum.

Day 28 and 29 and Liberal candidate Gurpal Singh, who previously made headlines for his past attempts to link marriage equality with pedophilia (a little awkward in the context with John Howard offering support to Dutton and Abbott, after his support of Pell, who would want that?). "The standard you walk by is the standard you accept," Mr Morrison said while attacking then-Labor candidate for Melbourne Luke Creasey - but apparently this didn't apply to one of his own. So Labor is making a point of this by advertising Gurpal's views on Grindr...