54. Everything

Hi. I am Greg and it has been 4 weeks since my last Grumble.

Please excuse the Catholic confessional introduction especially as it’s the Protestants now apologising because some of its Knox Grammarians took the motto of “doing the manly thing” the wrong way and were ignored or allowed to go on abusing children – probably for the same reasons that the music industry did not take Gary Glitter at his word when he asked if his pre-pubescent audience wanted to touch him there. We look forward to a nuanced government response which presumably will see the expansion of the state government Screening Unit to cover musicians and Presbyterians.

Meanwhile, there has been outrage from the anti-some-capital punishment campaigners over two Australians facing execution for drug smuggling in Indonesia. Now apart from the collusion of Australia’s police force in this debacle, I simply wonder why these two lives should mean so much more than the thousands each year whose judicial murder by our major trading partners and friends goes unremarked?

And on the subject of nationalism and dodgy analysis, we had the government’s Intergenerational Report trying to make us into the unlucky country which apparently will no longer be able to afford the health and welfare services of a decent society. And on that subject we’ve also had the McClure report into the future of welfare which either seemed to have forgotten about independent young people or contained a fairly radical proposal to cut off income support payments for any young person under 22 who is not residing in the family home (presumably surrounded by a white picket fence).

I’m still not sure about what is planned, but talking of government reports, there was also the state government review of South Australian taxes which led to a one-day media frenzy about one proposal while the rest of the thoughtful Discussion Paper got forgotten.

But of course it is a good time to forget things with Mad March’s Festival for the arty, Fringe for the hopefuls, cars that go brmmmm for the masses, and Womad for the self-righteous internationalists who can pretend to be African, Cuban, or Romanian for a day (or at least an hour).

And there, under introduced trees and over-abundant flying foxes we had a not very funny comedian ignoring structural power and vested interest and patronisingly telling us that we just need to talk to people differently about climate change.

But that was ok because if you live where I live, you might not have got to the famed parklands anyway because the government decided to repair the rail lines over the long weekend – because let’s face it our public transport system is only really for getting people to and from city offices on workdays? I mean, it is not like anyone would ride to Womad or anywhere else and want to catch a train home.

Much better to drive, particularly as the head of our Motor Accident Commission wants to make it safer for us by removing all trees within sight of any road because apparently these arboreal terrorists are leaping out in front of cars and adding to the road toll.

What was that about climate change?

I am Greg, I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 10 March 2015

51. Carbon Tax

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about the carbon tax – not yet rested in peace.

Now the politics of the carbon tax have always been odd. The political left that usually advocates regulation to fix market failures supports a market mechanism like carbon pricing to change behaviours and provide economic incentives to address climate change.

Conversely, the usually free-market right opposes the market mechanism of a price or tax on carbon and either prefers the otherwise hated government intervention of “direct action” – or simply thinks that all the science about climate change is wrong (while presumably all other science is right – although with budget cuts to the CSIRO, I could be wrong on that one).

But it appears there is more to carbon tax politics. Late last year Clive Palmer and Nick Xenophon seemed to be keeping a door open to an emissions trading scheme – which was where the carbon tax they voted out was supposed to lead us.

And then Tony Abbott weighed in with his now infamous answer as to what, as Minister responsible for the status of women, he has done for Australian women. What has he done for women – well he abolished the carbon tax.

Apparently it is a panacea for many ills, but on hearing this I was reminded of the famous Monty Python scene in the Life of Brian when the Jewish nationalists – who would no doubt now be called a terrorist organisation and we would be giving up our civil liberties to defeat them – were considering what the Romans had done for them. But unlike aqueducts, sanitation, roads, medicine, education, and law and order, the answer in modern Australia is simpler.

What has the government done for women: it abolished the carbon tax.

What’s it done for the economy: it abolished the carbon tax.

What’s it done to secure a sustainable revenue base for government: it abolished the carbon tax. Oops – own goal.

What has the government done for world peace: well, it abolished the carbon tax (and stopped the boats).

And what has the government done for vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians? Bugger the carbon tax - on the eve of Christmas, the government cut millions out of community support programs and gave us Scott Morrison as Minister!

Yeah, I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 20 January 2015 

27. Biases and lots of other things

Hi, I am Greg and I want to grumble about lots of things! As the political year ratchets up, there has been so much to grumble about in the last week or so. There was our PM attacking the ABC for reporting asylum seeker claims of abuse, followed by a litany of Coalition MPs complaining (again) about the Labor-Green bias of the ABC – in the same week that our national broadcaster aired serious corruption allegations against building unions. But why is it that the scandal is about dodgy people in the unions, but not also the dodgy builders who paid them the alleged bribes. Sounds like bias to me.

Then there was Andrew Bolt complaining (Advertiser, 30 January) about racism and claiming to be indigenous (he really doesn’t understand race or structural power does he?). And on Mr Bolt’s other favourite subject, what about the weather? Another record heatwave to follow the all-time hottest year in Australia last year. It’s unpleasant, but at what point do we move from a discussion of weather to one of climate change – or is that a biased question?

Apparently not biased however is the recent government appointment of another of the diaspora of the right-wing think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs. This time it was Ted Lapkin to assist in dismantling the national charity regulator that was set up just 18 months ago with support from the sector and on recommendation of about a dozen official inquiries.

And on the other side, what are we to make of the current state Labor Party TV adverts with the normally calm and thoughtful Jay Weatherill bouncing around unnaturally like a cross between Peter Garrett and a thunderbirds marionette. Given that he is trying to convey the achievements of his government, it’s a distraction which says again that the political image-masters are valuing impression over substance – and doing it badly at that. And then along came Don Farrell. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, across the border the WA government is sanctioning the slaughter of sharks and the NT government is shooting crocs in bloody retribution against innocent creatures. As we sprawl into their territory and tame or kill whatever confronts us, I am left yet again to wonder, how much room are we to leave for the other 99.999% of the planet’s species?

So much to grumble about, and so little time. I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 4 February 2014

15. Climate Changes and Taxes

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about climate change and taxes. Ok, this is a recurring grumble, but it is particularly topical this week as Tony Abbott’s legislation to scrap the carbon tax is introduced in the Federal Parliament. This was a flagship policy of the election campaign and we were promised that it would reduce electricity prices and ease cost of living pressures – his Bill to reduce our bills.

Except that now key business leaders are saying that we won’t see any big price reductions. Where were these voices during the election campaign I wonder? And where was the reporting of the current wave of economists who think that putting a pricing carbon is more effective and efficient than the proposed direct action approach to reducing carbon pollution. And that is without even questioning the manifestly inadequate pollution reduction targets of both schemes.

But the hip pocket question remains: will our power bills come down if we are without a carbon strategy – sorry, I mean a carbon tax? I don’t know, but I do know that carbon prices were always only a small proportion of the massive recent hikes in energy prices. Adelaide’s electricity prices went up 18.2% in the quarter immediately following the introduction of the carbon price, but only about a quarter of this increase was down to the carbon tax and the general inflation rate increased by only 1.5%. For most households, and particularly for the poorest households, this increase was more than covered for by the government’s compensation package.

The good news is that even if the carbon tax is scrapped, we will keep the compensation package. It is currently worth about $7 a week for pensioners, less for some other income support recipients. It’s not much, but it seems only reasonable to keep it after last week’s announcement that the Federal government would give the richest households a huge bonus by dropping the proposed tax on superannuation earnings over $100,000 a year (ie. for those whose super-pot is a couple of million dollars). And they announced that at the same time as announcing the dumping of the rebate support for low income earners’ contribution to super.

Who knows, after that bit of robbing from the poor to give to the rich, maybe the government figured it owed the poor one.

Shame about the planet though!

I am Greg, I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-15/

First Broadcast: 12 November 2013

12. Festival of Ideas

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about the Festival of Talking which was held in Adelaide on the weekend.

University halls were packed with people who clearly didn’t have to work, do the shopping, clean the house, take the kids to sport, or do any of things that people have to do on the weekend. There was discussion of science, of arts, of feminism and of politics, and there were interesting and occasionally provocative ideas being delivered from platforms on high.

But what made me grumble was the lack of analysis of power and material interest in the sessions I went to. For instance, we were told that we are going backwards on climate change because the narrative does not fit with the way our brains are hard-wired. Apparently as a species we have trouble grasping and acting on abstract concepts, so facts about a distant threat posed by an invisible gas just don’t cut it. And so with classical liberalism, we were implored to talk about climate change differently and to build bridges to each person’s individual experience.

Now apart from thinking that abstract concepts like nationalism, god and democracy have historically mobilised masses of people, I wondered where was the analysis of power in society? Where was the discussion of the power of transnational fossil fuel corporations who successfully lobbied to gut climate legislation in face of popular support for action on climate change, where was the querying of an economic model based on particular types of growth or an understanding of the self-interest of living a resource-intensive lifestyle?

Now I am happy to try to adapt messages to maximise their impact, but let’s not kid ourselves that the ultimate issue here is one of discourse – of the way ideas are explained. Liberal ideology might credit ideas with changing history, but feudalism, the divine right of kings and Soviet communism were all defeated not by the idea of democracy but by the wealth created by capitalism and the power of the capitalist class – albeit mitigated (and legitimised) by a social democratic state. And that is the order of magnitude change we may need.

These may be unpopular ideas in a festival based on the idea of ideas, but perhaps if we focussed more on power we would be discussing the organisation of politics rather than its language, equality rather than innovation, and poverty rather than “true crime” (Thanks John Saffron). Why was it that in a festival at the end of anti-poverty week, there was no session on ideas for addressing poverty and sharing wealth?

Don’t get me wrong, ideas are important – and better when entertaining and inspiring, but the key thing about ideas relates to who has power in our society, who benefits from which ideas and how ideas are mobilised in defence of (or in opposition to) that power and privilege.

So, call me an old-fashioned materialist, but I am Greg, I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-12/

First Broadcast: 22 October 2013