Politics is a dirty word

  At least some Australians have the guts to stand up for freedom rather than meekly acquiesce to draconian regularions imposed at the whim of our political leaders. In Victoria, police arrested four men during a demonstration against the state’s coronavirus restrictions. Police clashed with around 100 demonstrators in Dandenong before the imposed curfew. Protesters wore masks, but many people were close by in suburban streets. Four men were arrested for antagonising and refusing to co-operate with police. Good on them for refusing to be intimidated!

  The case for banning political parties in Australia has been strengthened by cases of systematic corruption. It’s small comfort rthat things are not as bad here as many other countries. According to Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perseptiond zIndex. Auistralia is the world’s 12 th least corrupt country. Thee have been efforts to crack down on bribery and embezzlement but there are still examples of endemic corruption.

  The Covid 19 pandemic response has demonstrated that bureaucrats lead a very privileged life with secure employment and pay rises. It’s almost impossible for them to be sacked even when they demonstrate they can’t handle their jobs. Promotion depends opn how long they’ve been in the job rather than any ability to do it. No blame has been attached to the debacles over nursing homes and alowing Australia’s borders to be breached by infected passengers. Bungles have come to light about insane restrictions on farmers moving equipment, feed and livestock Now there is the spectre of possibly forcing people to be vaccinated. Will Governments provide an unconditional guarantee that participants will be fully protected from the virus and any side effects?

  Long-term repercussions of the COVID19 pandemic and the associated mountain of debt, demonstrate the need for changes to our system of Government. Our Federation model is not working, split responsibilities have resulted in chaos.Faced with the prospect of generational debt and a strong feeling that we are over-governed, drastic cuts need to be made to the cost of Government along with fundamental change to our constitution. A large part of the problem will be to abolish the extravagance of a Federal Parliament with all the costs associated with duplicating Ministers and Departments when each State already has working bureaucracies in place the States are responsible for education, health and a large part of the justice system. Let COAG run the country., The Council of Australian Governments has the expertise and the existing departmental bureaucracy to take on all roles – saving taxpayers billions of dollars every year.

 The Australian Government is introdicing a novel scheme to reduce  Hecs debts for students. Education Ministe Dan Tehan has announced that s tudents who fail more than half of their subjects would be cut from university loans and subsidies. It is part  of   the Government’s Job-Ready Graduates laws, which will hike fees for humanities subjects and cut them for science subjects. students who fail more than half of the subjects in a bachelor course will be unable to access a Commonwealth support fees HECS-HELP.

New Zealand has recorded 14 new cases of coronavirus, all but one linked to four members of an Auckland family who tested positive this week. Three workers at two Americold refrigerated warehouse facilities in Auckland, one at Mount Wellington and another at the city's airport, have confirmed cases of COVID-19. Mr. Richard Winnall, Americold's Australia and New Zealand managing director, said the company's positive cases worked alongside a man who had already tested positive to the virus. He also said there had been two positive cases of COVID-19 at Americold's Melbourne plant in Laverton North in recent weeks. However, he said there was no link between cases at the two facilities, as the Melbourne warehouse does not ship freight to the company's Auckland plant. He said the Auckland facility receives imported goods from 15 countries, including Australia, China and the United States.

 When will we see riots on Australian streets? Surely it’s only a matter of time. We’ve endured bungles by the Federal Government with slack border quarantine processes allowing the Covid19 virus into the counrtry. This  followed  a complete lack of hazzard  analysis for aged care homes. Then the Victorian Government doubled down with a mind-numbing process of hotel quarantine which spread the virus further.We have suffered various stages of lock down which has decimated many small businesses and destroyed jobs.When supermarkets run out of food, or there is a long term power outage, the public may be galvanised into action. Imagine being stuck at home witrh no comnputer, television or telephone and a freezer full of food slowly going rotten!

  Job creation may have been given a higher priority than preventing the spread of Covid19 in Victoria as finding jobs for marginalised Victorians seems to have been a driving force behind organising securtity guards for the quarantine of new arrivals in hotels. The Victorian Department of Jobs had a key role in selecting security procedures for hotels chosen to house travellers ordered to be quarantined. One of its functions is to meet the State Goverment’s social inclusion procurement policy to provide jobs for marginalised people in the State. But  it's better to fight the problem than allocate blame at this stagebecauew th hotel quaqrantine  fiasco is just one of a series of errors which has created thew wave of infections in Australia – starting with an ineffective Border Force which allowed infected travellers into the country. At the Melbourne Grand Prix, the Ferrari team was allowed to travel here directly from Milan – the epicentre of the Covid 19 pandemic in...

A collapsing US dollar will wreak even more havoc around the world which is facing economic mayhem as a result of Government spending to combat the effects of the Covid19 pandemic. the dollar's slump in value is likely to continue as U.S. interest rates are declining whilst the country is running a huge current account deficit. The US economy is in deep trouble and there seems little prospect of recovery.