Australian Family Party

Family Matters

Australia's economic future

The Blame Game

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blame-gameOn 1 July 2014, my first day as a Senator, Adelaide’s Advertiser newspaper published an opinion piece I had submitted titled, Shedding the ‘Bludger State’ tag, in which I implored the SA State Government to stop bludging on the other states and start standing on its own two feet.

Then Premier Jay Weatherill responded by calling me ‘an enemy of the state’.

Many South Australians can probably remember the time when more than a dozen of Australia’s top 100 listed companies had their head offices in Adelaide – News Ltd, Fauldings, Southcorp, Elders, Normandy Mining, Adelaide Bank, Adelaide Brighton, Standard Chartered Finance to name just a few. Today there’s just one – Santos (and even Santos is only headquartered in Adelaide because of some vague arrangement).

At the time of Federation, South Australia led the constitutional debates and had an influential hand in shaping the new Commonwealth of Australia. For decades after, Adelaide was Australia’s Number 3 city – bigger and more prosperous than either Brisbane or Perth.

Led by Tom Playford, South Australia prospered under the principle of ‘cheap land, cheap power, cheap water, and cheap labour’. Wages were lower than in Sydney and Melbourne, but despite the lower pay packets, South Australians’ quality of life and standard of living were higher than their interstate counterparts.

It was an example of genuine competitive federalism – not the pseudo competitive federalism of today in which state governments try to outdo each other enticing companies to set up in their states.

Since those halcyon days, South Australia has lost each of the competitive edges that made it prosperous.

First to go was cheap land – thanks to urban planning controls – then water, then centralised wage fixing (waiters, nurses, and factory workers across Australia all had to get the same pay).

As for power prices, they are now not just the highest in Australia, but some of the highest in the world.

Last year, the South Australian premier folded like pack of cards over nuclear power. The idea that he and his Labor colleagues would take on the urban planners, water barons and unions to make SA competitive again is laughable.

SA is destined to be a mendicant State for a long time to come.

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke once said, “We’re all Australians, whether we’re from Melbourne or Sydney”.

Where those from the ‘outlying States’ (as Paul Keating called them) belonged, was anyone’s guess.

When Australia came together as a nation in 1901, Sir Samuel Griffith, nailed it by saying:

“We must not lose sight of the essential condition that this is to be a federation of states and not a single government of Australia. The separate states are to continue as autonomous bodies, surrendering only so much of their power as is necessary for the establishment of a general government to do for them collectively what they cannot do individually for themselves.”

Those who spend the money should raise the money

The powers given to the Federal Government by the states in 1901 included trade and commerce, corporations, currency, banking, pensions, taxation, foreign affairs, communications, copyright, marriage and family law, quarantine, and defence.

There was no mention of hospitals, schools, disability services, pink batts, carbon dioxide emissions or many of the other things that federal governments these days decide they want to spend our money on.

Not surprisingly, the first area where the boundaries between state and Federal governments were tested related to tax.

In 1942, all income taxing power was handed to the Federal government for the duration of World War II under the ‘defence’ power of the Constitution. This was intended to be temporary and was to last until the end of the war. But as predictable as the sunrise, when the war ended the Feds did not relinquish their income tax collector role (not that the states wanted to resume income tax collection, but that is not the point).

Since then, the tax revenue balance has continued to move away from the states and towards the Feds. The imbalance which now exists is known as ‘vertical fiscal imbalance’.

Australia has the highest level of vertical fiscal imbalance of any federal country in the world. The Federal government raises over 70% of all government revenues – much more than is required to fund its own operations – while the states don’t raise anywhere near enough to fund theirs. The Feds then make up the states’ shortfall through Commonwealth grants.

This creates a perpetual blame game. Failures at the state level are blamed on the Feds’ lack of funding, and failures at the federal level are blamed on the states’ poor service delivery.

Duplication of health and education bureaucracies alone costs taxpayers billions of dollars, yet the Feds do not run a single hospital or a single school.

This cannot go on. State and Federal governments should only collect taxes for their own purposes, and taxpayers and consumers should be fully informed as to what is a state tax and what is a Federal tax. Those who spend the money should bear the responsibility of raising it.

This confusing power structure between the states and the Federal government – and between individual states – was emphatically exposed during Covid with many calling for the abolition of state governments and the formation of one national government.

But as Covid revealed, the Federal government doesn’t have the power it thought it had. The Feds may have the money, but it’s the states that have the power.

No Laffing Matter

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LaffingAn Australian was on holidays in the south of France.

Strolling along outside his hotel, the Aussie was suddenly attracted by the screams of a young woman kneeling in front of a small child.

The Aussie knew enough French to determine that the child had swallowed a coin.

Seizing the little boy by the heels, the Aussie held him up and gave him a few good shakes and out popped the coin.

“Oh, thank you sir, thank you,” cried the woman.

“You seemed to know just how to get that coin out of him, are you a doctor?”

“No madam,” replied the man, “I’m with the Australian Tax Office.”

In a previous post, Prison Break, I spoke of rights and responsibilities.

Regulations that prevent people from working under terms and conditions which suited them was, I said, an infringement of liberty, freedom and dignity. It violated a person’s right to get a job and their responsibility to provide for their families.

I will now add a further hazard – it prevents them from paying tax to cover the many services the state provides to them.

Rights … responsibilities … and tax. They are all linked.

Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Finance Minister to King Louis XIV of France, famously declared that “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.”

A modern finance minister might rephrase this as, “The largest possible amount of revenue with the smallest possible amount of economic and political damage.”

Which brings me to a man called Arthur Laffer.

I had the privilege of meeting the famous US economist in Parliament House in 2015. Dr Laffer was in Australia on a speaking tour.

Arthur Laffer is of course most famous for his Laffer Curve.

Laffer

It is self-evident that tax revenue would be zero if tax rates are set at 0 per cent (bottom left corner of the graph).

Revenue would also, of course, be zero if rates were set at 100 per cent, as there would be no incentive to work! (bottom right corner).

Starting at 0 per cent, as tax rates rise, revenue rises until, at some point on the graph, revenue starts decreasing as it heads towards that 100 per cent point.

Eminent Australian and UK economist Colin Clark once said economic growth declines if taxation is more than 25 per cent of GDP.

It’s also been said, “When the taxes of a nation exceed 20% of the people’s income, there is a lack of respect of government. When it exceeds 25%, lawlessness.”

In Australia it is close to 30 per cent.

Take one example of this lawlessness – the black economy – currently estimated at 15 per cent of GDP, one of the largest in the developed world. An underground economy of that magnitude requires the involvement not only of a lot of businesses, but also of millions of consumers.

As we know, laws only work when people believe in them and, clearly, they have no respect for our tax laws.

Despite what many advocating tax increases would have us believe, the total tax take in Australia is quite high. They say that compared with other developed economies, Australia is a low tax country, and that workers and companies could comfortably pay more. Not so.

When it comes to taxing incomes, Australia is up there with the Europeans and is way ahead of most of our neighbours in the Asia­­­–Pacific region.

A paper published by the Adam Smith Institute stated, “If you look at the experience of those who have introduced a single-rate flat tax, and also the tax reforms of the 1980s which took place in Britain and America, reducing tax rates causes revenues to rise.”

As Arthur Laffer has found, and as has been demonstrated many times, when taxation rates are reduced, revenues do not fall. When the Australian company tax rate was cut from 39 to 30 per cent, revenues went up, not down. The famous Reagan tax cuts from 70 per cent to 30 per cent in the 1980s produced a $9 billion increase in revenue when a $1 billion shortfall had been forecast.

When Sweden halved its company tax rate from 60 per cent to 30 per cent, company tax revenue tripled.

Nobody enjoys paying taxes, but in the 1950s and 1960s, relatively low taxation and a comparatively simple set of tax rules meant that most people paid what was due without too much hissing, to quote Colbert.

Today, however, the Government and the ATO find themselves locked into a destructive relationship of repression and resistance with ordinary taxpayers.

Where people can avoid tax by exploiting loopholes, they will do so; where they can’t (eg, PAYG taxpayers), they become resentful at the unfairness of it all.

Prison Break

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libertyIn 1946, Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and renowned author of the book Man’s Search for Meaning, proposed that the Statue of Liberty on the east coast of America be complemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the country’s west coast. He was later joined in this endeavour by Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The dream was to ‘bookend’ the nation with two equally inspiring statues – one representing rights, the other responsibilities.

Both men have since passed on, but their dream is being kept alive by an organisation called Statue of Responsibility.

The dichotomy of rights and responsibilities is often raised during public policy debates.

Indigenous leader Noel Pearson, a key advocate for the Yes campaign, in discussing his work on rights and responsibilities in Cape York has said, “Until we take responsibility, there’ll be no turnaround in closing the gap.

“Do you think my mob like it when I talk about responsibilities?

“They love it when I talk about rights and how they’ve been victimised. They don’t like it, however, when I say take responsibility for your children – nobody’s going to save you until you get your family together.”

Can’t argue with that.

A core tenet of the Christian faith is that one day we all will stand before our Creator and give an account of our lives – and be judged accordingly.

It must follow, therefore, that if a person is going to be held responsible for their actions, that person should have the right to decide how they live their life. Rights – responsibilities.

The first question I asked as a newly elected Senator in 2014 went something like this:

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Eric Abetz.

I refer to the Prime Minister’s statement on 28 May this year when he said, “People are more than capable of making decisions based on what is best for them”, and also to the statement by the Minister for Social Services when he said, “The best form of welfare is a job”.

If both those statements are true, why then can an 18-year-old in my home State of South Australia

    • get married
    • have children
    • drive a motor vehicle
    • fly an aeroplane
    • buy a house
    • take out a mortgage
    • enter into a mobile phone contract
    • travel to some of the most dangerous places on earth
    • smoke cigarettes
    • drink alcohol
    • enlist in the armed forces and shoot enemy combatants
    • and, of course, vote

but NOT enter into an employment arrangement which, and I again quote the Prime Minister, “is best for them”?

It is customary for crossbenchers to send Ministers advance notice of questions they propose to ask during Question Time. I did so on this occasion. I also took the liberty of sending the Minister the preferred answer I would like to receive.

The Minister duly acknowledged my courtesy in sending him the question in advance and also informed the Senate that this was actually the first time he’d also received a suggested answer.

Humour aside, the answer I was looking for was, “Senator Day is quite right, this government is committed to putting in place employment arrangements which, as the Prime Minister has said, ‘is best for the people making those decisions’. Accordingly, this government will, forthwith, be tabling a simple, one sentence Act of Parliament to be called the ‘Free to Work Bill’. The Free to Work Bill will state the following:

‘Notwithstanding the provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009, any contract of employment between a corporation and a natural person shall be lawful’.

Needless to say, that’s not the answer I got.

But that is all that would be needed.

I have argued that a person could be unemployed, living at home rent-free, with no (or very low) cost of living and would be willing to work at a starting pay rate of say $20 an hour (which is a lot higher than they would be getting on Centrelink), but because penalty rates on weekends or public holidays are around $40 an hour, they are not allowed to take these jobs. They stay unemployed, the business stays shut, and customers don’t get what they want to buy.

prisonIt’s been said that any place you can’t leave is a prison. Australia’s present workplace regulation system is a prison, trapping a person in thousands of pages of regulations.  When I ask why we lock people up like this, I am told “Oh it’s for their own good – we don’t want them to be exploited.”

But where’s the outrage when these same young people end up on drugs or get involved in crime or suffer poor health or become pregnant or become recruits for bikie gangs or even commit suicide?

If those claiming to protect the unemployed from exploitation really cared as much as they say, then why do they do not stop them from doing 101 other things that have a far bigger and more permanent impact on their lives than getting a job – like smoking or drinking alcohol or getting covered in tattoos or getting married or having children or backpacking through South America. At least with a job you can quit at any time.

This is unquestionably an infringement on liberty, freedom and dignity. It violates a person’s right to earn a living and it violates their responsibility to provide for their families.

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As mentioned in our previous post, this month marks the three-year anniversary of the launch of the Party and the challenge ahead is as great now as it was when we launched.

Thank you to all those who have supported us thus far. It has been greatly appreciated. Every bit has helped. To enable us to continue this vital work, please continue to support us here.

The New Gulag

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new-gulagIn his famous three-volume masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described the frozen wastelands of Siberia where political prisoners and dissidents the Soviet state considered dangerous were held (for their speech, not their actions). A gulag was a Soviet prison; an archipelago is a string of islands; hence the term ‘gulag archipelago’ – a string of camps, prisons, transit centres, secret police, informers, spies and interrogators across Siberia.

Today, people are frozen out of society in more subtle ways. The authorities no longer bash down your door and haul you off to a gulag for espousing the ‘wrong views’; instead they silence you and freeze you out of existence in other ways.

No-one describes the current situation better than Scottish commentator Neil Oliver in his Essentials of Life video clip. More about that shortly.

Divide and conquer

As we know, the Left’s chief weapon is division. Unite the disaffected groups and those with grievances, and then ‘divide and conquer’ the rest of us. Divide along racial, generational, sexual, religious or economic lines. Any line will do.

What may have started as ‘the workers vs the bosses’ – ‘the proletariat vs the bourgeoisie’ – and ‘supporting the poor’, was just a ruse to gain power. Workers and the poor have long since been abandoned by the Left who now find other ways to divide and conquer.

In his excellent book, Democracy in a Divided Australia, Matthew Lesh writes:

‘Australia has a new political, cultural, and economic elite. The class divides of yesteryear have been replaced by new divisions between Inners and Outers. This divide is ripping apart our political parties, national debate, and social fabric.

Inners are highly educated inner-city progressive cosmopolitans who value change, diversity, and self-actualisation. Inners, despite being a minority, dominate politics on both sides, the bureaucracy, universities, civil society, corporates, and the media. They have created a society ruled by educated elites – that is, ruled by themselves.

Outers are the instinctive traditionalists who value stability, safety, and unity. Outers are politically, culturally, and economically marginalised in today’s graduate-dominated knowledge society era. Their voice is muzzled in public debate, driving disillusionment with the major parties, and record levels of frustration, disengagement, and pessimism.’

For over a hundred years, Australia fought to remove race from civic considerations. Yet now we are being asked to permanently divide the nation by entrenching an Indigenous Voice into our Constitution. By the ‘Inners’, of course.

In the workplace, politicians are still treating workplace behaviour like a game of football. Australia’s employers (‘the bosses’) are on one team, and Australia’s employees (‘the workers’) are on the other. The game is then overseen by a so-called ‘independent umpire’ called the Fair Work Commission. But of course, this is not how workplaces operate at all. The ‘game’, if you even want to call it that, is played not by two teams of employers and employees, but by hundreds, even thousands of different teams, competing against hundreds and thousands of other teams of employers and employees.

Mark Twain observed, “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example”.

Here’s one – the infamous Dollar Sweets dispute where unions were picketing Fred Stauder’s confectionery business. Other confectionery businesses were approached to support Fred but were rebuffed saying, “Why should we care if Dollar Sweets goes down? It will mean more business for us.”  So much for ‘bosses vs workers’.

While paying lip service to free markets, property rights, personal responsibility, self-reliance, free speech, lower taxes, the rule of law, and smaller government, the Liberal Party in Australia has all but abandoned these ideals in practice. As has big business, which, truth be known, was never on the side of free markets. Corporations have always wanted markets they can dominate, and to eliminate the competition. If that means aligning with the Left or doing the government’s bidding, so be it.

Which includes – and here we return to our ‘new gulags’ theme – closing a person’s bank account, destroying them on social media or excluding them from employment. Business is right on board with this.

The Left will keep pushing its woke agenda until it is stopped. And it will not be stopped with facts, figures, logic, evidence or reason. It doesn’t care about any of that. It will only be stopped with political power.

Holding conferences, writing opinion pieces, producing podcasts and YouTube interviews in the hope of persuading people have, I’m afraid, had their day. The ‘Inners’ now rule.

Stopping the relentless march of the Left will require political power. Seats in parliament. Which means like-minded people and parties forming alliances and working strategically and tactically together to win seats.

In Neil Oliver’s video clip, he says, “When it comes to the state, that which it can do, it certainly will do” and “What can happen to anyone, will soon happen to everyone”.

So, if you belong to a think-tank, lobby group or centre-right political party, and want to stop the woke Left further ruining our country, then please encourage your organisation to place less emphasis on winning arguments and more emphasis on winning seats – as previously outlined here and here.

Beam Me Up, Scotty

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beam-me-upIt is two years since we launched our ‘Family, Faith & Freedom’ campaign invoking that iconic TV series Star Trek.

Since that time, each of these three foundational principles of Western Civilisation has been relentlessly attacked by three destructive and sinister campaigns – Climate, Race & Gender.

Let’s start with Family.

Have you noticed how many childcare centres have sprung up lately?

As former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) used to say, “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”

If one wanted to indoctrinate the next generation, then getting to the children as early as possible is the key.

Applying the FDR principle, the more children into childcare – or ‘early learning centres’ – the better.

But why so many?

Could it be due to the entirely manufactured housing affordability crisis – or to be more accurate, the entirely manufactured ‘land affordability’ crisis – forcing both parents out to work?

As we have pointed out here before, Australia does not have a ‘housing’ affordability problem, it has a ‘land’ affordability problem. As most people know, over the past 20 years, the cost of building a new house in Australia has roughly kept pace with inflation. Land prices, however, have skyrocketed. By deliberately restricting the amount of land available on the urban fringes of our cities, governments have sent the price of land and thus housing through the roof. It is now virtually impossible to buy a house and service a mortgage on one wage. Hence, both parents out to work and young children into childcare.

And what, dare we ask, are the children being taught in these ‘early learning centres’?

First, there is the international ‘Climate Action Childhood Network’ which states on its website, “We believe a paradigm shift in early childhood education can provide a path to deeper societal changes that are required”.

Then there are the ‘Acknowledgement of Country’ mantras which are taught to children.

And of course, the ‘Rainbow Agenda’.

‘Climate, Race and Gender’, the leitmotifs of the Left sweeping the Western world. The long march through all our state institutions indeed.

Again, an entirely manufactured ‘climate emergency’ is set to destroy our economy. The collapse of the energy grid as a result of the manic shift to so-called ‘renewables’ is all but inevitable.

And ‘Race’ will divide society. For over a hundred years, Australia has fought to remove race from civic considerations. Yet now we are on track to permanently divide the nation by entrenching an Indigenous Voice into our Constitution.

As former Labor Minister and Commissioner for Charities and Not-For-Profits, Gary Johns said recently, “Are Aboriginal people really that different that we need a treaty to talk to each other? Do people who are neighbours and workmates need a treaty to get on? The very thought of heading down such a road would divide Australians and destroy reconciliation”.

And ‘Gender’ will undermine the family, society’s most fundamental building block.

One of the world’s most prestigious universities, Johns Hopkins, has just redefined lesbianism as ‘a non-man being attracted to a non-man’, and Sydney’s Royal Hospital for Women is countenancing the transplanting of wombs into ‘women assigned male at birth’.

LGBTIQA+ literature, an anti-Christian mindset and events such as ‘Gay Pride Month’ also brook no dissent, inflicting immense pressure to participate. There is no ‘opting out’. “Why are you not celebrating with us? Are you homophobic? Or a bigot?” Intimidation is the weapon of choice.

Our ‘Family, Faith & Freedom’ post has stood the test of time. I encourage you to re-visit it.

I would also encourage you to watch this magnificent clip about freedom by Scottish commentator Neil Oliver. It is breathtaking in its truthfulness: Neil Oliver ­– the pursuit of happiness.

Thank you for your support, it is greatly appreciated. Without it we cannot continue our fight for Family, Faith & Freedom. Please support us here.

It’s Time

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its-timeIn 1911, French physician and psychologist Édouard Claparède published his observations of a female amnesiac patient. The woman was suffering from a debilitating form of amnesia which left her incapable of forming new memories. She had suffered localized brain damage that preserved her basic mechanical and reasoning skills, along with most of her older memories, but beyond the duration of a few minutes, the recent past was lost to her.

Claparède’s patient would have seemed straight out of a slapstick farce had her condition not been so tragic. Each day the doctor would greet her and run through a series of introductions. If he then left for 15 minutes, she would forget who he was, and the same introductions would happen all over again.

One day, Claparède decided to vary the routine. He introduced himself to the woman as usual, but when he reached out to shake her hand for the first time, he concealed a pin in his palm.

It wasn’t friendly, but Claparède was on to something. When he arrived the next day, his patient greeted him with the usual blank welcome and with no memory of the previous day’s activities – until Claparède extended his hand. Without being able to explain why, the woman refused to shake his hand. She was incapable of forming new memories, yet she had nevertheless remembered something – a subconscious sense of danger, a remembrance of past trauma. She failed to recognize the face and the voice she’d encountered every day for months, but somehow, buried in her mind, she remembered a threat.

I’m indebted to Gerry from Rants, Raves, Reviews & Reflections for his excellent summary of Claparède’s famous experiment.

It’s been said that ‘Those who ignore history, are destined to repeat it.’

How then do we help people to remember?

Last week, we repeated the phrase, ‘Lest we forget’.

What pins can we plant into public discourse to ensure that we do not repeat the disasters of the past?

For example, in 1972, Labor leader Gough Whitlam was elected on the back of a great campaign song called It’s Time. Some of the lyrics went like this:

It’s time for freedom,
It’s time for moving, It’s time to begin,
Yes It’s time.

It’s time for children,
It’s time to show them, Time to look ahead,
Yes It’s time.

Time for better,
Come together, Time, Time, Time,
Yes It’s time.

It’s Time became the most memorable song and slogan in Australia’s political history. It did more than sell a political message, it captured a mood, a vibe.

As a 20-year-old public servant at the time, naturally I voted for it!

It didn’t take long however, for Whitlam’s real agenda to leap out of the song’s Trojan Horse.

Once elected, Whitlam made the not-so-modest statement, “There are moments in history when the whole fate and future of nations can be decided by a single decision. This is such a time.”

What followed was massive social and economic policy upheaval.

Unemployment, inflation and a total failure to manage the economy led to Labor suffering a massive defeat in 1975.

We voted Whitlam in on the ‘vibe’. When we realised what we’d done, however, we quickly voted him out again.

But imagine for a moment that Whitlam’s policies had been inserted into our Constitution and not just into legislation.

Whitlam was temporary. The Voice will be permanent.

The Whitlam disaster is our Claparède pin.

It’s Time …

…. to Vote No.

Keystone Kops

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Keystone-KopsA local police force was chasing a criminal who had fled into a large disused building. Their first thought was to surround the building, but they then realized that the building was so large and had so many doors and windows, they didn’t have enough police on the scene to cover all the exits. So instead, they surrounded the building next door which was smaller and had fewer exits.

Our nation is facing some serious economic problems – inflation, rising interest rates, high mortgages (forcing both parents out to work), high cost of living (educating and raising children, power prices, water prices) – and social ills caused by the rupturing of family relationships, addiction to alcohol, gambling, drugs and pornography, and suicide. Yet what does our government do? Like Keystone Kops, they surround other buildings – such as climate change, an indigenous voice, and distorting words and language. Denying one’s gender is now ‘gender-affirming’, free speech is now ‘hate speech’, abortion has become ‘reproductive health’, euthanasia or assisted suicide is now ‘dying with dignity’, and so on.

In the UK, they say everything is policed except crime. People are arrested for silently praying near an abortion clinic, while assaults and robberies go un-investigated.

How did it come to this?

In short, what we have now is a society and a culture that has banished God and the Bible and replaced it with a society which says, “We are now in charge. We will decide what is right and wrong. We will say what is good and bad.”

It goes right back to the beginning – “Eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and you will be like God.”

That is where Western culture is today.

Over the centuries, we’ve seen numerous tyrants, revolutionaries and despots take over whole societies. None more effective than Engels and Marx in the nineteenth century and Mao and Gramsci in the twentieth century with their ‘long march through all of society’s institutions’ – first and foremost being education and the indoctrination of the young. Then came the law, business, politics, health, the media, the military and finally, the church. Yes, the church.

It was once the case that the church sent its members into the world to convert the world to the church’s ways. What we’ve seen in recent times, however, is a reverse of that with the world sending its members into the church to convert the church to the world’s ways!

These corrupted institutions have shaped the culture. The culture then shapes politics, and politics shapes our laws.

It is world-wide and it is co-ordinated. It is a spiritual battle, and spiritual battles are fought with spiritual weapons.

In the famous story of David and Goliath, when David volunteered to fight Goliath, King Saul tried to put his armour on him, but David rejected it. You don’t fight spiritual battles with secular armour.

Like David compared to Goliath, we are also massively out-sized and out-numbered by our enemies.

But we are not to despair. God will choose who He wants to fight in this battle, and it will be those who put up their hand and say, “Here am I Lord, send me”.

Remembering Frederick Douglass

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Frederick-DouglassFrederick Douglass (1817–1895) is considered by many to be America’s greatest African American. Along with Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King, these make up their top three.

Born into slavery, Douglass became a free man and rose through the ranks to eventually become the first African American to receive a vote for nomination for President of the United States. His final years were spent as Consul-General to the Republic of Haiti.

Following the American Civil War and the emancipation of America’s slaves, Douglass was asked, “What should be done for these (former) slaves?”

“Nothing!” he replied. “Leave us alone. By freeing us, you’ve done enough already.”

“If you leave us alone, we’ll work our way up. We will create pathways for others to follow.”

The value of getting one’s foot onto that first rung of the ladder cannot be overstated.

I mention this because a number of years ago an application was made to amend the Australian Fast Food Industry Award and dramatically increase the wages of junior employees.

It was unarguable that junior employees’ wages were very low at that time, but this had the significant benefit that many young people from lower socio-economic areas were able to get jobs and, to paraphrase Frederick Douglass, “work their way up”.

Appeals to reject the application fell on deaf ears and a substantial increase in the Award wage occurred.

This had the perverse effect that middle-class college students started applying for the jobs – and getting them. One franchise-owner said to me, “Why wouldn’t I employ the college kids? They’re smart, articulate, reliable, and their parents drop them off and pick them up in a BMW!

“The lower socio-economic kids may not have been as good, but hey, they were cheaper.”

No-one was sacked and replaced, but over time the poorer kids were replaced by the wealthier ones.

Let’s face it, some young people don’t have a lot going for them. They’re not well-connected, may come from dysfunctional families, may not have particularly high IQs, and may have other problems as well. The one thing they do have going for them, however, is their ability to compete with the more fortunate ones on price.

In short, they were prepared to work for less in order to get a start.

Not anymore. We have taken away from them that one last remaining labour market advantage they had over the rich kids.

This form of price-fixing is at the heart of labour market regulation. It’s called ‘centralised wage fixing’. It is putting the power to dictate to someone what they can and cannot work for – regardless of what they want – into the hands of people completely remote from the circumstances of those whose lives they are about to ruin.

When people, young people in particular, are excluded from full participation in community and working life, the social costs can be enormous – drug and alcohol abuse, crime, domestic violence, poor health, depression, frustration, boredom, bikie gang recruitment, civil disorder, teenage pregnancy, even suicide. This is what can happen when young people don’t have a job. They are locked out of the labour market at exactly the time they are biologically ready to enter into relationships, get married and start a family.

No-one is arguing against a welfare safety net, but we have to allow people to get a foot on that first rung of the ladder.

The current political battle is not between Left and Right, rich and poor. It’s between freedom and authoritarianism. It’s between those who, like Douglass, want to help people become self-reliant by removing barriers to entry to things such as jobs and housing, and those who see those without jobs and houses as political opportunities to get themselves elected. “It’s not your fault”, political opportunists say. “You are a victim. The system did this to you. That rich kid took your job. Those baby-boomer investors took your house. Vote for me and the government will look after you. I’ll remake that cruel and nasty free-market capitalist system.”

Not only is this economically stupid, it is morally reprehensible.

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Postscript: Last month we were advised of a cost increase in sending out our Newsletter. Can you help? Even in a small way? Every bit helps. If so, please go to our Support page here. Thank you so much.

 

 

Remembering The Galatians Group

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Galatians-voice-gapIn 1994, Uniting Church minister, the late Rev. Dr Max Champion formed an organisation called The Galatians Group. Max adopted the name from the biblical text, ‘You are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:28).

According to Max, the ‘unity in Christ’ referred to did not imply an exclusive religious attachment but rather the humane ordering of human affairs through the exercise of personal freedom which is tolerant of other beliefs, does not demand acquiescence to its own claims, and recognises the mutual responsibility of all.

This was very much in keeping with the Jewish faith tradition when God said to Abraham ‘… all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants’ (Genesis 22:18).

The impetus for the formation of The Galatians Group was a Covenanting Statement published by the Uniting Church of Australia in July of that year. While supporting the goodwill towards Indigenous people and the commitment to reconciliation expressed in the Statement, Max and a number of like-minded colleagues were disturbed by its tone and substance.

Of particular concern, said Max, were its ‘ … failure to express the covenant within the framework of Christian unity; the dangerous separation of Australians into ‘Indigenous’ and ‘non-Indigenous’ races; a tendency to treat Indigenous Australians as a homogenous group; reference to the British settlement of Australia as an unmitigated disaster for Indigenous people; a flawed analysis of history – especially the failure to recognise the many benefits to native people that the new world brought; the unwarranted denigration of the work of Australia’s missionaries; and last but not least, a dangerous appeal to guilt which did not distinguish between empathy, blame and responsibility.’

Fast-forward 30 years and many of these sentiments have become even more entrenched.

How did this happen?

In the 1967 Referendum, Australians voted overwhelmingly (over 90 per cent) to eliminate racism from the Australian Constitution. Various state governments had enacted objectionable laws based on race and the new powers given to the Federal government at the referendum allowed them to override these state laws. The referendum also tidied up some anomalies in the census and the counting of the Indigenous population vis-à-vis the allocation of parliamentary seats. It is important to once again note that, prior to 1967, by virtue of the 1949 Citizens Act, all Indigenous people could vote and were full citizens, and were also counted in the census but not all were not included in the allocation of parliamentary seats. This was for purely practical reasons as some indigenous Australians lived in remote regions. The 1967 referendum tidied all this up.

The principle of ‘equality under the law’ – including the political equality of all citizens – ‘one person, one vote’ irrespective of ethnic background, was firmly entrenched in what was the most successful referendum in Australia’s history.

Which brings us to ‘The Voice’ – no, not the TV talent show or the ’80s hit song by John Farnham – but a proposal to insert into Australia’s Constitution an Indigenous body called ‘The Voice’. The Voice will have the power to influence legislation and, according to its proponents (including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese), draw up a Treaty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians – i.e., “implementing the Uluru Statement in full”. The Uluru Statement says, in part, ‘Aboriginal sovereignty (over Australia) was never ceded or extinguished’.

The Voice needs to be ‘feared and revered’ said one of Uluru’s delegates.

Not exactly what Max Champion had in mind, I suspect.

Mr Albanese also said recently that he wanted Australia to follow New Zealand’s lead on Indigenous recognition. This is somewhat disturbing given the power of veto some Maori groups have over legislation in New Zealand.

Dividing Australians based on their race cannot be the way forward. White privilege may have been an issue in the past, but introducing black privilege does not balance that out.

Nor does it help, before every event, making the statement, “We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we gather and acknowledge that they never ceded sovereignty.” Or having politicians like Lidia Thorpe out there pushing for black sovereignty, a treaty, and non-indigenous people paying rent to indigenous people for occupying land that ‘always was, always will be Aboriginal land.’ What next? A two-state solution?

‘Closing the gap’ (between indigenous and non-indigenous people) and improving the lives of Aboriginal people is a cause all Australians support.

The Voice, however, is starting to look like something very different.

The Shrinking Forest ­– Part 5

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thomas-sowell-shrinking-forest‘Eye on the Prize’

Noted US economist and philosopher Thomas Sowell once said, “It is difficult to imagine a more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions into the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

In our last post, we presented a solution to the nation’s current economic, social and political malaise.

We noted that facts and figures no longer mattered. That arithmetic, engineering, economics and, of course, common sense were now out the window. We also lamented that forums, podcasts and other intelligent conversations with world-leading authorities also no longer have any political effect.

But just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, along comes the nation’s Treasurer with a Whitlamesque plan to remake society and the economy using “Values-based capitalism involving public-private co-investment and collaboration and the renovation of key economic institutions and markets”.

“We will renovate the Reserve Bank and revitalise the Productivity Commission”, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

“It’s not just our economic institutions that need renewing and restructuring, but the way our markets allocate and arrange capital as well”, he added.

Mr Chalmers proposes to do this through the efforts of “business, labour and government”.

If that doesn’t send a chill up your spine, nothing will. As Thomas Sowell says, this is dangerous stuff.

Economist Dimitri Burshtein predicts the Treasurer’s version of values-based capitalism will leave the nation broke.

To stop this madness, the major parties’ hands need to be forced through the brutal reality of balance-of-power politics.

As discussed, at the last Federal election, the total centre-right (CR) vote would have been enough to get a senator elected in every state. That equates to 12 senators elected over the two-election Senate cycle.

Substantial political power could be achieved if the CR parties formed a single party bloc, namely a:

LIB-DEM ONE-NATION UNITED-AUST SF&F FAMILY PARTY Coalition

Note that I have since included the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (SF&F) who, it must be acknowledged, did well in at least two states at the last Federal election.

Such an alliance would see One Nation and UAP each having 4 of the 12 seats in the parliament, Lib Dems 2, a Christian Family Party 1 and the Shooters, Fishers & Farmers Party 1.

Encouragingly, the Liberal Democrats have responded positively.

As discussed, having even one Senate seat gives a party a platform, a status, and a portal into the Federal Parliament for its members.

Working together, a twelve-seat Senate bloc would be a formidable political force.

For any project to succeed it must work effectively on three levels – strategy, tactics and operations.

Strategy is the big picture. This is the primary aim. In our case it is to have twelve senators who can hold together for a minimum of twelve years.

Like anyone who has ever done a jigsaw puzzle, it is vitally important to have the picture on the box before you start. In other words, what the puzzle will look like when it’s finished.

In our case, we want twelve senators, representing the five political constituencies across all six States to hold together to save the nation from people like Jim Chalmers.

Tactics is about which Parties get to represent which States and at which election. Initially, agreement would be reached for both the 2025 and 2028 elections.

To have six senators elected in 2025 and six more in 2028, it will be vital that all parties, in all six States agree to work together and for each other, keeping an eye on the main prize.

Operations is the day-to-day administration, compliance and member servicing. A modestly sized Secretariat would be able to manage this.

Thank you for your support.