Progressive think tank Per Capita has analysed the composition of the Australian Parliament to ask how diverse it is. It repudiates the Liberal complaint that Labor MPs come from union backgrounds: “The proportion of MPs with union backgrounds has risen to 15% of Parliament in 2018, which squares neatly with the 16% of Australian workers who are union members.” The real problems are gate-keeping by the political machines (40% of MPs were political staffers) and the lack of women (67% men) and non-white MPs (87% Anglo).
archive: January 2019
19 January 2019
John Quiggin imagines a socialist utopia in 2050 Australia: “Ali’s partner, Sam, was one of the exceptions, finding school a bore and not having the aptitude for a skilled trade training. Instead of free education, Sam received a grant of $100,000 at age 20, to be used in starting up a small business, in Sam’s case, a coffee shop. (A society without coffee shops would be a pretty poor excuse for utopia.)”
Victoria’s biggest wind farm, with about 200 turbines, has been approved by the State Government. It is, of course, facing a NIMBY challenge, but most residents of nearby Rokewood support it. One explained, “Scientists are warning people that the first impacts of severe climate change will be felt by agriculture. We want a future for our grandkids, and I don’t think coal or fossil fuels is going to give us that future.”
Legal expert Cristy Clark explains dead fish in the Murray Darling: “The commodification of water has always been designed to enable the (economically) ‘deserving’ to accumulate water rights at the expense of everyone else — including the environment. And now we humans of late capitalism are reaping what our political masters have sown: a world without water.”
After last year spraying her party for being seen as “anti-women”, industrial relations minister Kelly O’Dwyer is quitting parliament at the next election. She says that women don’t need to “choose between family and public service… With the right support you can do both” — so presumably, like most working women, she is not getting the right support from the Liberal Government.