Day 14 of the Federal election campaign
The big ticket policy item has been a promise by Labor to give Australia's 2.6 million casual workers an easier pathway to full time employment. Employers, who always prefer workers to have less power, are "wary" and even "nervous". As Shorten said: "Too often, long-term casual work is used as a mechanism to pay workers less, deprive them of leave, and make them easier to sack". I guess this is what employers are wary and nervous about.
https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/employers-wary-as-bill-shor...
Labor has also said it will set up an independent inquiry into the Melbourne-to-Brisbane freight rail project, which has currently been going ahead with scant consultation or regard of landholders. Well, except some; the Wagners, directly lobbied for the route change so that the line would link up with their privately-owned airport. You know about "unearned income", right?
Labor’s inquiry would examine the route selection process and financing arrangements, and the the New South Wales Farmers Association says that the proposed inquiry gives regional Australians "a clear difference between the major parties" in next month’s election (is that hint subtle enough?)
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/23/labor-inland-rail...
Meanwhile cabinet ministers could be put on the stand in a major judicial inquiry on #watergate, with Labor has accusing Prime Minister Scott Morrison of leading a "cover up".
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/labor-calls-for-major-inquiry-in...
The LNP can sure choose 'em. Queensland LNP Senate candidate Gerard Rennick has doubts over Russia's involvement in a deadly chemical attack in Britain, thinks that early childhood education is a Labor Party plot, and to halve company tax rate (and I also want a rainbow pony). He rather likes Russia because "they're Caucasian" (racist, much?), and claims that the weather bureau is tampering with temperature data in order to "perpetuate global warming hysteria".
How on earth did the Liberals end up with such a weirdo? Well, it couldn't possibly be that he donated $30k to LNP ahead of preselection, could it?
For their own part the Liberal-National Party rejected as "offensive and ridiculous" any suggestion the donations played a role in his preselection.
Of course, they would say that.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-22/gerard-rennick-liberal-party-quee...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-24/lnp-senate-candidate-donated-$30k-to-party-before-preselection/11040952
Another LNP candidate caught some attention. Kate Ashmor, the candidate for the Melbourne seat of Macnamara, had argued that teachers in private schools are far superior to those in public schools, that childless political leaders lack empathy (that's a very empathic comment, Kate), and once referred to Bill Shorten's wife as a pig. She has also questioned Josh Burns, the Labor candidate for Macnamara, about whether he was as proud of being Jewish as she was.
https://www.theage.com.au/federal-election-2019/private-schools-are-far-...
Further, "A private company co-owned by the Liberal Party’s federal treasurer donated $200,000 two weeks into a government tender process for an accommodation contract worth nearly $1 billion that another of his companies ultimately won."
https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/federal/helloworld-chief-made-200-00...
I'm sure the donation had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with winning the contract. Because if it did, well, it's a $200K bribe for being granted $1bn of public money.
And, as much as I can't be bothered commenting on the minor parties, Pauline Hanson has attracted some attention by claiming that human beings have nothing to do with climate change, because the dinosaurs died out before there were any humans. No, I'm not making that up. Hanson also claimed that there is no peer review of climate science, and also argued that the BoM has "fiddled with facts and figures".
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/hanson-denies-humans-behind-climate-change-b...