It’s that time of the year again. Friday Hut Road from The Buttery has been renamed Santa Claus Lane and dozens of colourful Santas, gnomes and sleighs – one pulled by six white kangaroos – have appeared by the roadside.
We cling on to old traditions like comfortable security blankets in this wildly-changing world. It helps numb the uncertainties and turbulence we all face. It’s hard to believe 2025 is just around the corner. What can we expect? We can forecast that the new Trump administration will create global chaos if they fulfil their promises.
The atmosphere is already at fever pitch, exacerbated by the assassination of UnitedHealthcare (UHC) CEO, Brian Thompson.
Alleged killer, Luigi Mangioni, wrote a manifesto detailing how he and his mother had suffered from being denied health care by their insurers UHC.
Suddenly he is a national folk hero and a lightning rod for millions who are suffering under the American health care disaster.
Over half a million Americans go bankrupt each year unable to pay medical bills.
Luigi Mangioni now has more than four hundred thousand followers on X, his sole remaining social media account that was reinstated personally by Elon Musk.
The billionaire told Tucker Carlson on Murdoch’s Fox News that the word ‘homeless’ is a ‘lie’ and ‘propaganda’.
He said, ‘Homeless is a misnomer. It implies that someone got a little bit behind on their mortgage, and if you just gave them a job, they’d be back on their feet. What you actually have are violent, drug zombies with dead eyes and needles and human faeces on the street’.
This awful man will undoubtedly attempt to influence Australia’s election. He helped install Trump, assisted by Aussie billionaires Gina Rinehart, Rupert Murdoch and Anthony Pratt.
The same team will work to elect Peter Dutton in a ‘Billionaires vs The People’ contest.
Ann Lipton wrote the paper Every Billionaire is a Policy Failure and it’s becoming increasingly obvious.
The battle today is between billionaires who have an iron grip on governments, and people like you and me.
When poorer Americans discover they were lied to by the billionaires and start suffering even more, as prices of imported goods and health costs rise, it will set the stage for a revolution.
In a sense, the first shot has been fired with the assassination of Brian Thompson.
As President Kennedy said in 1962: ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable’.
So, will billionaires win the upcoming Australian election?
Will they help convince the majority of Australians to vote against their own interests as they did in the American election? They will try. They want their man, Peter Dutton and his climate-crisis-denying mob at the helm.
More tax cuts
They don’t give a damn that the Coalition’s mad taxpayer-funded nuclear power plan will increase Australia’s emissions by a reported one billion tonnes and increase power prices. They want more tax cuts and no hindrance to exporting fossil fuels.
They want to retain their wealth and power at the expense of people and the planet.
It’s not impossible they will succeed, as current polls indicate.
Most people are not engaged in the day-to-day cut and thrust of politics. They have enough going on in their lives just trying to pay bills.
Inequality is at an all-time high and not being addressed with obvious reforms, like restoring capital gains tax to where it was before John Howard wrecked it.
The government is tinkering tentatively around the edges, perhaps not wishing to give Murdoch yet another excuse to attack them.
Hopefully Murdoch’s failure in his legal battle to ensure his right-wing legacy is retained solely by son Lachlan will mean the dismemberment of his empire when he dies, liberating timid governments to deal with inequality, finally.
The lack of meaningful action by the Albanese government is in breach of our obligations under Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), to which we are a signatory.
Article 25 states in part: ‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family…’ This includes housing and unemployment.
Australia has the lowest unemployment payments in the OECD.
Half of those unemployed are unable to work. Homelessness is increasing and there are many families living in cars with children, right here in Byron Shire.
These UDHR breaches are a national disgrace and need dealing with as number one priority.
There is one way the Albanese government can virtually guarantee reelection – enact legislation to reduce the voting age to 16.
That will give them the vital extra two per cent they need, half via Greens’ preferences. Sixteen countries have reduced the voting age to 16 including Germany, Scotland, Wales and Indonesia.
Surely if they’re old enough to use social media and pay taxes, they’re old enough to vote.
Happy Christmas to you, your family and friends and a peaceful Chinese Year of the Wood Snake!
♦ Richard Jones is a former NSW MLC and is now a ceramist.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
