Category: Uncategorized

Just a reminder that the State of Victoria, Australia, is not only technically broke, but is really now trading while insolvent. The deficit (ie the budget shortfall) looks like topping 10 billion dollars, and its only getting worse. The virus is not the main cause of this. It is the collapse of the population ponzi, (where the govt took 50k upfront in stamp duty but took on a long term liability of much more than that in required infrastructure), which was making us far poorer in the long term anyway.

Things are hopelessly unsustainable, with an army of useless, grossly overpaid public servants (particularly those at the top), while Dan Andrews has privatized pretty much everything that’s left (the port privatization, the titles office), and we’re still broke. So at the same time we’re going down the tubes financially, we’re also getting gouged by private monopolies. Quite an achievement. There’s not much left to sell, except for the water companies and VicRoads (and they’ve started getting ready to sell that).

A few press gallery members have (predictably) gone on about how we’re all poorer now there’s no immigrants, but of course haven’t factored in that the immigration was making us poorer anyway (just more slowly and not on the surface).

The situation is far far worse than Kirner/Cain in the early 1990s, but oddly, nobody seems to want to write about it. Its coming, ready or not.

Just to remind you: About 10% of the price you pay for the cost of fruit and vegetables is the cost of the fruitpicker. So if you pay $3.00 per kilo for tomatoes, 30c is going to the picker. A huge rise in picker payments of 40% would barely raise the price to $3.12. Payments to fruitpickers are a minuscule part of the price of fruit and vegetables.

So please, can we have an end to the endless nonsense carping from farmers and their media mates (including the gullible ABC) about how we have to import eight trillion visa slaves (sorry, ‘workers’) by tomorrow, or fruit and vegetable prices will go through the roof, or ‘we’ll have to plough it back into the ground’ ‘everyone has to adjust to much higher prices’ etc etc?. 

The pathetic prices paid to pickers have virtually no effect on the retail price of fruit and veg, so stop pretending it does.

Well, lo and behold. The vacancy in State Parliament caused by Health minister Jenny Mikakos’ resignation is to be filled, drumroll please, by an indigenous female!

The virtue signalling and pandering is obvious, as well as the clear reverse sexism and racism of the decision. Anyway, congrats to the candidate who’s now got a cushy job for life! (Just like all the other overpaid state govt. appointed Judges, Magistrates, ‘Commissioners’ etc etc).

(Can I just take a moment here to point out that while its perfectly acceptable to shower positions and benefits upon people who identify as indigenous, it is most certainly not permitted, in any way, to ask how much indigenous heritage they have. That would be racist. Thank you.)

But more interestingly, is the way this gesture will be completely misunderstood by Dan Andrew’s friends and enemies.

To his friends (all Fairfax and ABC/SBS journalists and commenters and most Fairfax subscribers) naturally this is a great triumph, as the only people that should be permitted to be in parliament are females, preferably non anglo ones. Nothing sexist or racist about that!

To his enemies (Herald Sun and their commentators etc), they’ll all start spouting off about ‘Socialist Dan’.

But in fact; they are both wrong;; Dan Andrews is a massive fraud. The last thing he is is a ‘socialist’ – he is well to the right of Jeff Kennett, and has privatized things Kennett would never have touched- the port, the land titles office (goodbye land security!), set up PEXA as a (current) monopoly settlement provider.

You are now forced to buy from a private provider for govt services- (ie buying/selling land or importing anything); African level corruption now present in Australia for the first time. The recent hospital quarantine disaster, where, naturally the hopeless Labor govt ‘outsourced’ it to a donor ‘mate’ private contractor (also, interestingly, said to be ‘indigenous owned’), shows just how obsessed they are with private providers over ever doing something properly in house.

Also the ludicrous spin that Dan Andrews is a ‘building Premier’ when his ‘developments’ consist of dodgy private operators like Transurban being invited to build massive projects (which they’ll own and charge tolls for) while their ownership of citylink is extended is also nonsense. And the fact of course that really he (ran) a population ponzi, where the 50k of stamp duty he grabbed off new immigrants is lucky to result in 10k each of new infrastructure actually being built. On a per capita basis, he is, in fact, dramatically underinvesting in new infrastructure.

But both sides will continue to delude themselves based on Dan’s clever snow job indigenous-female-ABC-approved-identity virtue signalling, and continue to miss the true nature of his government: a little club (that you can’t join, by the way); who privatize everything to their mates for personal benefit while walking around with a trembling lip pretending to be ‘progressive’.

But then again, the media aren’t really interested in writing about actual real policies in the real world to begin with; just a load of virtue signalling crap and being emotive and focusing on personalities, trivia and nonsense.

Another day, another whinge piece about how our wonderful universities are dying, evil conservative govts etc etc. Perhaps the author of this piece could talk about how many of her journalism graduates are unemployed (and what the employment rate of her course has been over the past 10 years?)

The universities have long ago forfeited their right to be considered places of education. They are in it for the green. And no, its not just that they are chasing overseas (really visa) dollars (although they absolutely are), its the general hunger for cash, so they can bloat their administrations with useless admin workers on vastly inflated salaries (and of course their grossly overpaid Vice Chancellors).

And no, its not because ‘government cut their funding so they had to look for other revenues’ it was always greed, full stop. Let them die. Good riddance.

Intervention orders- also called Family Violence Orders or Apprehended Violence Orders, are a well known joke.   Developed originally for genuine cases of family violence, they are now given out like water, automatically to whoever applies.

Consequently, people in business disputes now get them as a matter of course, as do feuding neighbors. Don’t get me started about how local councilors take them out on each other based on trivial disputes. And of course they are a prime weapon by fraudsters seeking protection from people making allegations against them; your first defence is to apply for an Intervention order to shut people up.  They are a major force against free speech.

They are also a standard tactic in virtually all Family Law litigation, as a way to increase the amount of settlement money awarded.

Laughably, the feminists who pushed for them (and to make them virtually automatic), are now up in arms that abusive husbands and partners can now automatically obtain them against their female partners. This is what happens when you make the order as a matter of course (regardless of evidence).

There is now a huge infrastructure of people involved in this pointless ritual- the police who hand them out automatically, the court clerks who list the pointless cases- everyone of which results in an order- the magistrates who then make them- the limitless staff involved in the circus. Our court system is useless at getting virtually anything else done or moving- except when it comes to intervention orders.

Which is where we could make a real efficiency here. Simply grant every Australian an intervention order at birth against every other Australian. This would make no difference to the law, because the things that are prevented by intervention orders- not approaching, harassing etc, are things already covered by our ridiculous over-governed (for the little people) state anyway.

The savings in salaries and time would be enormous, and all for the same result!

The Andrews government has caved in to the public sector unions and granted state ‘workers’ a 3% payrise.  Great.  One of the most bloated, useless lazy body of public servants, in a state which is basically bankrupt, now going up in pay while the real workers, in the private sector, lose their jobs and go broke.

The Victorian public service is bloated beyond belief with overpaid ‘commissioners’, ’senior executives’ etc all pumping out a vast array of worthless regulations which basically make it impossible for anyone to earn a living in the private sector.  

This is also in a state where there is absolute enforcement of the most pettifogging rules, while the real crooks at the top get away with it. Drive 3km above the speed limit and be fined $300 with drastic enforcement. File a pointless, unread, document two days late and be hit with a $1,000 surcharge.  But, steal 14m from the government while working as a bureaucrat and nothing will happen except a smile and a wave and a golden handshake.  Ordinary taxpayers can see the double standards and they are incensed.

There are incredible stories of waste. The public servant who posted on reddit that his only job for three days was to send one, three line, email. The senior housing ‘bureaucrat’ who enthused about how much money she got from the federal Rudd govt in 2009 but then admitted it was all spent on writing reports, they built nothing and she hadn’t visited a public housing site in all her years in the job.

The other irony is that the public sector in Victoria is a total and utter closed shop. Virtually all jobs in it are reserved for mates and relatives of those already working there, and the ‘interviews’ they conduct for jobs are just for show before they give it to the internal candidate, every time.  So we’re being forced to pay for an exclusive little club that we ourselves can’t join.

Is anyone else sick of hearing this for the past 35 years?:

Retraining. Our economy is full of skill shortages. The baby boomers are due to retire (any day now!) and we’ll need an army of people to replace them.  In the interim we need some visa workers to fill the gaps while we retrain.

They’re even doing it now, with the covid crisis and skyrocketing unemployment.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the labor market in the past 35 years, is that there are no labor shortages.  There haven’t even looked like being any labor shortages since the second world war.  And yet, over and over again, the same old myth gets trotted out. Why?

I think for three reasons:

Its usually a scam to push more visas and immigration.  Wages (very slowly) do occasionally rise, and employers really really hate wage rises. Thus they kick up a stink about fictitious skill shortages; and lazy, gullible journalists (ie all of them) write about it, then governments panic shove through an increase in visas to ‘fix’ the ‘skill shortage’ problem.  The employers get addicted to the cheap labor, gear up to whine next time, and on and on the story goes.

The second are our old frauds, the universities. Long past being real places of learning, they have become a combination of pre-dole young adult minding services, combined with dodgy overseas visa selling citizenship factories. They love hyping the limitless potential of you, provided there’s an upfront payment for them (and, cough, a large unpaid student loan), involved. And don’t listen to the nonsense they peddle about how they ‘have’ to enrol overseas students ‘to make up for state funding cuts’. Firstly, the quote openly outs them as being totally in it for the money (which they are), secondly, its nonsense; there have been no great cuts to speak of.

But the last, and most curious, reason, are people themselves.  Since 1973, our economies haven’t really worked, and we’ve had a larger and larger pool of unemployed. Some recoveries reduce this pool, but every recession pushes it higher. There is no question that my standard of living is much lower now than it was in the 1980s; as likely yours has been. This is before we get to the almost complete ongoing destruction of the natural environment. And yet nobody can really accept this, they think its just temporary, that they can ‘skill up’ and finally get what they think is their full, fair value.

So the ‘reskilling’ scam goes on, benefitting employers, greedy universities, and their deluded customers: us.

(Note these policies apply uniformly to both Fairfax and the ABC).

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the big time, with the opportunity to have your very own by-lined opinion piece in the ABC or Fairfax website or newspapers concerning indigenous issues.  However, there are strict rules and protocols in place that must be respected at all times. If you want to be a trusted Fairfax/ABC insider, you must follow them:

Start with an emotive frame

Always hammer home rich uncaring whites with the reality of aboriginal deprivation. Something like this “It is only 1000km as the crow flies from the lattes at Pyrmont’s Café Ready to the outback humpy of Dungerin, but the differences couldn’t be more stark.  As the local women wipe flies from their outback cakes, they seem so far away from the quinoa biscuits that you can get at Paddy’s market on Sundays, across from ABC headquarters at Ultimo.”

While you are doing this, remember to omit any confounding factors. Do not mention that the aboriginal women have been to Sydney, and don’t like it; and in fact don’t agree with whites that inner city living is the ultimate aspiration. That they are in fact about to meet a busload of whites who want to learn about local culture (and the “outback cakes” have been made up to please them). Do not mention anything practical, just frame the disadvantage in the worst possible way.

Remember, at all times, that your readers don’t really want the problems fixed. They like reading horror stories about disadvantage, so they can feel disgust at the racism of others, with a warm pleasant glow of moral superiority, all at the same time.  This is why SBS made up fake racist ‘official’ certificates a few years ago to titillate (and secretly please-through-disgust) its virtue signalling audience.  Get into it/exploit it! Dredge up the worst issues of the past (don’t mention many whites were mistreated then too) and imply they are still occurring today.  Project a evil white landowner, noble black scenario! The readers will lap it up!  They also really like exoticism, so set up pictures of things they don’t actually do anymore, like wear traditional costumes or eat native food.

On this topic, never, ever, point out the contradiction of people living in hyper-remote traditional lands, yet demanding working modern infrastructure like airconditioning, despite the exponential cost of delivering it in these locations. Or the awkward fact that most indigenous Australians live in the big cities (these stories don’t have good enough visuals to make the weekend supplements, unfortunately).

Accept the demands of aboriginal bureaucrats unconditionally.  Whenever they demand more self determination, don’t mention ATSIC or its endemic corruption problems.  Never point out there may be financial motives to various apologies demanded, then given, then a further demand for constitutional recognition, along with assorted commissioners, board positions and funding. Also never point out the 1967 referendum actually involved the expansion of a racist power. 

And never mention, of course, that the endless cycle of demanded apologies, more funding etc etc has no practical end to it, nor will it ever have.  The concessions never lead to any sort of thank you or end point, they are soon forgotten waymarkers on the race to expand the complaint industry and aboriginal bureaucracy.

If you must focus on practical solutions, make sure to focus on simplistic feelgood ideas that chime with your readers obsessions.  Talk about how aboriginals are being trained to fix bicycles in the desert (despite the fact this a completely impractical and largely useless scheme that involves flying mechanics and parts in an out for no real sustainable benefit), as many of your readers ride their bikes in the inner city and see them as a panacea to most modern industrial problems.  Definitely don’t talk about how aboriginals truly value their four wheel drives, (you’ll annoy all your readers then).

It is also completely and utterly racist to point out that many people who benefit from aboriginal positions or graduate positions are, (awkwardly), white. Apparently when money or positions are given out on the basis of race, there must be no discussion of race. This is an entirely consistent and logical position and must not be questioned.

Anyway, congratulations! You are well on the way to writing an affecting, guilt-inducing-but-also-pleasing-at-the-same-time piece for your readers.  Maybe you are ready now for your next challenge- writing about the romantic frustrations of young wealthy attractive women (and how its all men’s fault (for not being in the top 20% of attractiveness!)).   A career of ABC/Fairfax smugness awaits you!