Tomkinson’s Schooldays

Extract from the Australian values statement that immigrants must sign:

I understand

• Australian society values respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual, freedom of religion . . . equality of men and women and a spirit of egalitarianism that embraces mutual respect, tolerance, fair play and compassion for those in need and pursuit of the public good
• Australian society values equality of opportunity for individuals, regardless of their race, religion or ethnic background

Egalitarianism as a sentiment has a long-standing history in white Australia, although arguably it has been some time since it had a substantive meaning beyond just words, and it must be said, it was never applied equally to indigenous Australians. Nevertheless, even today most Australians in polls support the idea of Australia as egalitarian, which may of course just be the ingrained habit of an affectionless doffing of one’s hat.

I came to Brisbane in the late eighties from North Queensland to go to university, to the university that had the highest academic entry requirements in the state. This was long before degrees could be purchased.

I was one of only about 10% of students in my course who came from low-income families and state (government) schools, and not from private (fee-paying) schools and affluent families. This was when I first became aware of the entitlement mentality of the rich: the poorer (state school) students were expected to always defer to the requests and expectations of the richer (privately educated) students.

I remember saying to myself at the time: hang on, you’re no smarter than I, nor any better at sports,  not any better looking, you’ve never had to struggle, and you’re definitely not a better person, so what accounts for your superciliousness? The answer of course was money, they were from rich families, and their entitlement mentality is that it is right and proper that their money buys them superiority and privilege.

And then I met other students from similarly less affluent backgrounds, like Paul T Squires, and we’d smile and wink at the blasé crassness and oblivious stupidity of the rich kids, and how the joke never got the joke.  They would not then, and likely not now, understand that I would never give up the priceless experience of friendship with such as Squires for them.

The point of this story is that a Sydney Church of England Grammar  School (or Shore School) Grade 12 muck-up day challenge has been revealed after the entire manifesto was leaked on social media. Shore School is an exclusive (and very expensive) Australian private school.

Headmaster Dr Timothy Petterson has since written to parents to insist it was “not who we are as a school”.

“Unfortunately, the activities encouraged in the document … are illegal, harmful and, in many cases, disrespectful towards members of the public and portray an arrogant sense of entitlement and an underlying attitude that the school finds deeply offensive,” the letter reads.

Hmmm, I witnessed this 30 years ago!

Students were sworn to secrecy and urged to cover up the events of the night, and provide evidence of completed challenges via a private Instagram account.

“If anyone gets caught by a teacher/cops they will say that they were just having fun . . .  and won’t mention the tournament,” the document reads.

“What happens on the night stays within the night. No evidence is to be shared outside of the Year 12 2020 Shore community.”

“Remember the boys’ code: We protect each other at all costs,” the document stresses.

This is the truth. And so, for example,  the High Court acquitted Cardinal Pell of child sex abuse, despite a jury guilty verdict, despite a Court of Appeal guilty decision, despite Pell not giving evidence, and despite a strenuously cross-examined accuser being found by all independent observers to be a credible witness.

Whether as schoolboys or adults,  remember the boys’ code: We protect each other at all costs!

And they do.

A Day In The Life Of Madness: the writing is on the wall you know; some just choose not to read it.

Conservative and evangelical Australian PM Scott ‘SmugMo’ Morrison today said he would push through $30 billion in tax cuts that predominately benefit the highest income earners, aka tax cuts for the rich –the top 20% of taxpayers will get 91% of the benefit, and the top 10% will get 52% of the benefit.

“We’re always focused on how we can give it back to them {the taxpayer} and lower taxes,” he said.

However, “cutting taxes for already wealthy Australians will undermine the long-term strength of our public services, like healthcare and education, while doing very little to stimulate economic growth,” said Ben Oquist, executive director of The Australia Institute.

“Tax is an investment in our society. Those calling for tax cuts today will be calling for service cuts in the future,” said Oquist.

Interestingly, Dr Hewson, a former leader of Morrison’s political party, has released a statement to back the Australia Institute where he warns tax cuts alone won’t help the nation exit the recession.

“The Liberal National Party naively hope tax cuts are good politics, but they won’t be as they increase inequality and fail to ensure job security and increasing wages with our economy still struggling to exit recession,’’ he said.

The Australia Institute’s campaign against the fast-tracking of those tax cuts is also being backed by the Australian Council of Social Services that warned more tax cuts now means cuts to hospitals and schools later.

“More tax cuts today mean service cuts tomorrow,’’ Cassandra Goldie, CEO of ACOSS, said.

Former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank Stephen Grenville, said the answer was more government spending, not tax cuts.

“We’ll need substantial stimulus for an extended period. Cutting top-rate income tax would be a weak stimulus which undermines the equitable and progressive tax structure we‘ll need when the COVID crisis is over,’’ he warned.

All this in a month where the government flagged billing the dead aged poor for their time in care, and the ongoing royal commission into the aged care sector which hears almost daily evidence of abuse and neglect.

What is fucking wrong with politics??

What is the madness of these people making the decisions??

Also today it was revealed that more than 3000 Australian millionaires have been receiving the JobSeeker payment (the dole, the unemployment benefit).

The bizarre situation is the result of the decision to suspend the assets test six months ago as thousands of Australians were forced onto the dole queue.

But the act of generosity also allowed thousands of millionaires with substantial cash and assets to legally claim the $1115 fortnightly payment.

New figures reveal that a stunning 3,600 millionaires did just that, rushing to claim unemployment benefits after the asset test was waived.

Because the family home is not included in the asset test, that means 3600 people with cash or assets including cars, boats and holiday houses exceeding $1 million were on welfare.

Also today, new research by Oxfam reveals the richest one per cent of people in the world are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest half of the world’s population.

Highlighting an ever-widening “carbon inequality”, the analysis said the growth rate of the one percent’s emissions was three times that of the poorest half of humanity. 

“It’s not just that extreme economic inequality is divisive in our societies, it’s not just that it slows the rate of poverty reduction,” said Tim Gore, head of Oxfam policy, advocacy and research. 

“But there is also a third cost which is that it depletes the carbon budget solely for the purpose of the already affluent growing their consumption.”

Mr Gore said governments must put the twin challenges of climate change and inequality at the heart of any Covid-19 recovery plan.

There is no chance of that.

The rich have an entitlement mentality, and you are under attack.

The system is broken.

It can’t be fixed.

We need a new plan, now.

This week in Covid

I wish to make a couple of points about the handling of Covid.

I have looked at how some countries have handled it: some countries, like America and Britain, have been almost-incomprehensibly incompetent, most have dithered and blundered and been racked by internal division, and only one democracy, New Zealand, seems to have acted with reasonableness, decisiveness, and genuine concern for the health outcome. In general, compared to authoritarian and Asian countries, the western-style democracies have failed in their covid response. This need not be so, but it is indicative of a problem in some/most democracies.

1. Why people come to distrust experts.

The state border of Queensland is closed to some other countries/Australian states/territories/hotspots –persons from there may not enter Queensland. Persons from other areas may enter Queensland, but must immediately undertake a 14 day quarantine. Here in Queensland, the chief health officer Jeannette Young, is able to grant exemptions for entry/quarantine.

“We need every dollar in our state,” Dr Young has said. Young has belatedly admitted that money was the basis of granting exemptions, that where the person could be of a substantial enough economic benefit for the state, they would be granted an exemption.

However, Dr Young is the chief health officer, and needs to act only and entirely on health imperatives; she is not the chief health officer and assistant treasurer, she is not the chief health officer and acting finance minister.

All she has done is undermine her own position and our trust in her. It is reasonable to ask now if when she makes a statement on health matters, is it solely health considerations that justify that statement?

2.  The crocodile tears of SmugMo, Australian Prime Minister Scotty from Marketing.

SmugMo was nearly in tears when he phoned a conservative radio commentator, lamenting that a daughter in another state couldn’t visit her dying father in Queensland without undertaking a compulsory 14-day quarantine.

Alexandra Prendergast’s father, Bernard Prendergast, died last week and the family was brought into the national spotlight when Ms Prendergast’s step-sister, Sarah Caisip,  was unable to attend the funeral because of coronavirus restrictions.

“I think these stories, they’re so personal, they’re so private, and I think that’s part of the reason they’re used as a political tool — because they really do pull at the heartstrings — but it’s so unfair to put somebody who’s going through such a hard time already through the public eye,” said Ms Prendergast.

The near-distraught SmugMo was playing a cynical political game, and in a real democracy, with standards for debate and of acceptable behaviour, SmugMo would have been admonished.

Remember, even though his department received incontrovertible proof of the ongoing sexual abuse of children in detention centres, then Immigration Minister SmugMo denied it, and did nothing. Even the Australian Medical Association said at the time his inaction was tantamount to facilitating child sex abuse.

Remember, even though the government had incontrovertible proof of neglect and abuse in aged care homes, then Treasurer SmugMo slashed the federal funding to the aged care homes. In what universe, with no other action but cutting funding, would this address the issue of neglect and abuse?

So even though SmugMo has a history of less than decent behaviour, this evangelical christian puts himself on some kind of moral high-ground?

The view from his moral high-ground is him atop a stinking pile of shit, and this week he is awarded the Golden Turd award.

Former Australian PM Keating proposes billing the aged poor for their care when they die!

Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating says the cost of aged care should be met by a loan model, where the aged are extended a loan to pay for their care and the costs are recovered from each individual’s estate.

The scheme, which Mr Keating put to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Assurance on Monday morning, departs from his previous advocacy for a national insurance model funded by an employer directed levy, similar to the superannuation scheme that he designed as treasurer.

When superannuation was first conceived in the late 1980s, there were 6.5 people between the ages of 15 and 65 supporting every one person above 65. There are now 3.7 people supporting every person over the age of 65 and the figure is predicted to fall to three by 2040.

The Royal Commission is examining the funding, financing and prudential regulation of the sector.

Counsel assisting Peter Gray QC said in his opening remarks there were some “surprising features” in the existing arrangements, including that home-care packages were not required to report what goods and services they were providing with government subsidies, which amount to $2.5 billion per year.

Meanwhile, residential care providers, which receive about $7.5 billion in care subsidies, do not adequately report how that money is used and what profit or loss is made. They are not required to disclose what proportion is spent on management fees or rent or to maintain a particular level of staffing.

In the spirit of Mr Keating’s neoliberal plan, I further propose that all children in orphanages and foster care also be subject to the loan model, and that when the child turns 15, or leaves care, they are presented a bill for that cost, which they can pay off over the following 20 years.

The points of Mr Keating’s argument perfectly fit this proposed model extension, and indeed in sentiment, it is wholly consistent.

The obvious question is: while you may not be aged, while you may not be an orphan or in foster care, do you recognize his pig-people thinking?

200 of the richest Australians pay NO income tax. Corporations with millions and hundreds of millions of dollars in profit pay less tax than I do.

In the neoliberal society,  of feudal capitalism and increasing wealth inequality, of tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for corporations, justified by lies, it rejects the idea that all should pay according to their capacity, and it takes away our ability to pay for aged care, to pay for orphanages.

The new Social Contract is devoid of compassion and fairness, and a clear threat to the future.

Take me home to Aunt Em! screamed Dorothy.

From Wikipedia:

QAnon^[a] (/kjuːəˈnɒn/) is a far-right conspiracy theory^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} alleging that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles running a global child sex-trafficking ring is plotting against President Donald Trump, who is battling them,^[8] leading to a ‘day of reckoning’ involving the mass arrest of journalists and politicians.^[9] No part of the theory is based on fact.^{[10][11][12][13]} The theory began with an October 2017 post on the anonymous imageboard 4chan by “Q“, who was presumably an American individual,^[14] but probably became a group of people.^[15][16] Q claimed to have access to classified information involving the Trump administration and its opponents in the United States. NBC News found that three people took the original Q post and expanded it across multiple media platforms to build internet followings for profit. QAnon was preceded by several similar anonymous 4chan posters, such as FBIAnon, HLIAnon (High-Level Insider), CIAAnon, and WH Insider Anon.

​Numerous credible women have accused Trump of predatory and intimidatory sexual behavior, and of criminal sexual assault –and he himself actually boasts of it!– and he has a long-standing friendship with an accused sex trafficker of under-age girls, and with an associated madam, yet he is some kind of Sir Galahad figure? Really??

Given the evidence, it makes more sense to believe that Trump was a member of the ‘cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles’, rather than any opponent of or threat to them! And to me, that is reasonably a fatal flaw to this conspiracy theory.

Trump is both manipulating the situation, and being manipulated by the conspiracy theorists.

He seeks a political advantage, and conspiracy theorists seek legitimacy.

I am middle-aged now, and never in my life have I seen such an extreme proliferation of conspiracy theories. Some conspiracy theories historically have of course been proved to be correct, but never any that contained an inherent argumentative or experiential flaw. And where that disavowment exists, to maintain a belief in the conspiracy theory is clearly delusional.

What has changed over my life is the relentless churn and lazy global scope of the new social media, and the hapless ranting –without even a pretence of objectivity or independence– of Fox News, OAN and the like. Semantics –the words we use, and the meaning ascribed to them– has become a battlefield of toxic prejudice, ideology, and wilful individualism, of stupefying hypocrisy, laughable incompetence, and preposterous lies. Widespread examples have lead to a conviction by the citizen of an entrenched untrustworthiness and unaccountability in conventional authorities, a resolute failure by those conventional authorities –due largely to graft, corruption, and ideology– to fairly and honestly address problems, issues and concerns. The disillusionment and frustration leads some to strike out in anger, and to enthusiastically embrace empty gestures and idiotic so-called solutions; they blame and threaten –not the privileged, but the powerless, the voiceless, the defenceless– and so they violently assert their ignorance.

In this barren place blooms the conspiracy theories.

We live in a very dangerous time.

Reason, common-sense, evidence, and fairness, have become wholly irrelevant.

But with courage and in good faith, the world can be re-made.