Cyclone Alfred would have been called Anthony until the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) wisely changed the name.
It’s unlikely Albo would have been happy to have his name associated with so much destruction.
It’s easy to imagine how much mischief his opponents would have got up to.
No one really expected we would be battered like this so soon after the previous disastrous floods.
Communities now barely recover from one only to be hit by another catastrophe. Will this become the norm?
One-in-a-hundred-year disasters are no longer that. The old rules have gone out the window.
Climate crisis denialists, including Peter Dutton, his team and the Murdoch media, will completely deny this latest tragedy has anything to do with global heating. He can’t deny insurance premiums are rising though.
He says ‘consumers are being ripped off’ and his populist answer is to break up insurance companies.
It is clear that global heating has contributed. Hotter seas have brought cyclones further south and further north as the tropics expand to include us.
Scientists say there will be fewer cyclones as a result of global heating, but they’re getting very intense.
The last one of any significance around these parts was 1974, and the damage from that was heartbreaking.
Cyclone-prone
Until now, we weren’t considered to be in a cyclone-prone zone, so dwellings have not been constructed to withstand such powerful storms, and the consequential damage is much greater than it was previously.
The cost of reconstruction is phenomenal and will undoubtedly cause insurance companies to reconsider whether they will even insure properties subject to repeated climate-caused disasters.
If they do, premiums may be beyond the reach of most householders.
Many properties will be completely uninsurable by private insurers, whose duty to their shareholders is to make a profit not look after the interests of private citizens.
This in turn means banks won’t lend money to prospective buyers of such properties. Unless you have cash, you can forget it.
Anyway, who could afford to own a property they can’t insure?
The answer!
There is an answer to this.
Not so long ago, we had a Government Insurance Office in NSW. We had the publicly-owned Bank of NSW. Australia had the publicly-owned QANTAS and Commonwealth Bank too.
So, what happened? ‘Economic rationalists’ moved in. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were the arch proponents.
Suddenly, ‘private good, public bad’ became the mantra, and vast swathes of public properties and assets were privatised under the guise that private interests were more efficient than ‘government bureaucracy’.
Sadly, Australian governments of both political persuasions also adopted this neoliberalism and sold off public assets for no good reason.
The public good was set aside to further enrich the already wealthy. This attitude still prevails today both in Australia and overseas.
The absolute extreme example of this dogma is now being played out in America in the most brutal heartless way.
Elon Musk, who bought the election for Donald Trump, is now illegally slashing the jobs of hundreds of thousands of government employees in the name of reducing the American deficit, which currently stands at around $36 trillion.
Any savings will be more than offset by tax cuts for billionaires. It’s the same old story.
Peter Dutton is set to emulate harsh Trumponomics if he is given the chance. Right now, the polls indicate he has an even chance of taking the reins, albeit with the support of crossbenchers.
We’re due for an election within weeks, but Cyclone Alfred has wrecked Albo’s reported plans to call an election last weekend, and now he is in a real dilemma.
He could hardly announce an election when so many people are reeling in a state of shock.
Because of the new timing, he may be obliged to bring down a budget after all, which he seemed intent on avoiding. He would then have an opportunity to present a true Labor budget, with some significant reforms to be introduced in his next term, if he can get over the line with the help of Greens preferences.
Labor’s primary support is in the doldrums at between 24.1 per cent and 28.2 per cent. compared to the Coalition between 36.3 per cent and 40 per cent.
That’s a big gap, and it can only be closed with the help of the Greens, who are currently polling between 12.5 per cent and 14.2 per cent. ‘Others’, including teals, are between 20.3 per cent and 24.4 per cent.
It’s virtually guaranteed there will be a minority government.
Albo needs to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat to get over the line. He and his government would receive enormous public support if they were to announce in the budget the establishment of a federal Government Insurance Office, paid for by a wealth tax on billionaires.
Now that really would be a winner.
♦ Richard Jones is a former NSW MLC and is now a ceramist.
As the effects of climate change worsen it is delusional to think that private companies, governments, whoever can just pick up endless tabs and we all live happily ever after. We have all been aware of climate change since the 70’s and somehow we’ve all got to face the fact that it’s going to hurt! How many of us have just been living the dream, moving into houses by the Pacific Ocean while we knew sea levels were rising and adverse coastal weather events increasing. How many people insist on the tree change dream and build in idyllic wooded locations where fire is a when not an if proposition?
Sure, tax the polluters but according to minerals.org.au “ The latest ATO Corporate Tax Transparency Report shows that Australia’s mining industry continues to be the nation’s biggest taxpayer, paying $43.1 billion in company tax for 2022-23 …” fossil fuel companies In Australia, are subject to taxes including company income tax, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), state royalties, and excise on fuel production and import, but face scrutiny for potential tax avoidance and low effective tax rates.
The thing is these taxes, and any super profits taxes we might want to impose, should surely go into general revenue where they are distributed according to a vast range of priorities. I’m all for safety nets but this policy seems particularly aimed at taking from badly needed service areas to be unequivocally allocated to privileged real estate owners in the most prime locations in the country regardless of privilege and decisions made.
These things are never as simple as the Greens political party like to pretend with their magic pudding economics and the fantasy that they can promise everybody the world. And the trouble is, in balance of power situations they’re not any better!
The Greens are the conscience of the Labor Party. In actual fact there should be no need for a Greens party if the Labor Party acted like a Whitlamesque party and didn’t continually kowtow to corporate interests over the interests of ordinary Australians struggling to survive.
The low jobseeker allowance is just plain cruel, for example.
If the capital gains tax were reformed, negative gearing phased out for multiple properties , taxation rates lifted for high income individuals and other reforms, there would be funds available to ensure not one person in Australia was homeless.
There would be funds available to subsidise a much more rapid switch to renewables and assist local industries during this vicious American trade war.
Labor simply cannot get elected without Greens preferences and Greens-bashing Labor apparatchiks need to remember this.
The Greens are to Labor what the Nationals are to the Liberals.
If Labor wins one or two fewer seats than the Liberals in the upcoming election, Dutton will be invited to form government.
Anthony Albanese would be well advised to form a coalition with the Greens in that eventuality to gain sufficient numbers to be invited to form government instead .
Labor really shouldn’t waste time money and effort bashing the Greens, their natural partners.
Spoken like a true Greens apparatchik, avoiding any effort to answer questions about the Greens’ fairy-god-mother insurance policy while trotting out the same old party lines.
I’m surprised that you raised the issues of negative gearing and CGT reform. Did you forget that it was Labor who introduced a CGT? It was Labor who took reform of its winding back by the Coalition to two separate elections – one supposedly unloseable – and lost. Labor has long opposed negative gearing. Keating tried to get rid of it, Labor took it to those same two elections and … lost! What’s the definition of insanity again?
The Greens should definitely stop wasting the nation’s time playing politics with obstructionism. Your relevance as moderators of policy is rapidly disappearing with the number of less grandstanding and virtue signalling independents on the rise.
Enough of this talk about what you’ll make Labor do – you’re just ensuring we’ll see what Dutton will do.
Liz, face the truth, Dutton / LibNat best asset is Albo / Lab themselves. When Albo/ Lab isn’t busy being less then Transparent about Aldo’s own fund raising adventure and at the same time hypocritically blasting Dutton for his fund raisng activity, it is very easy to see why Lab’s primary vote tanks along with Ablo’s personal approvals.
Lab has only it self to blame for PM-in waiting Dutton taking over after Election’25.
How come you Greens find it so difficult to actually address the topic?
Actually Liz, I’m not a green apparatchik. I’m independent and have been since 1996 when I left the Australian Democrats.
I can see from the terminology you use that you I need are a Labor person. It’s a dead giveaway,
Yes of course I knew Labor introduced a capital gains tax and that John Howard gutted it. It’s beyond time to repair his damage.
Clive Palmer stopped you winning in 2019 and he’ll try again.
I hope he fails badly.
There should be no need for a Greens party if Labor really did the right thing on the ever growing climate crisis and homelessness crisis plus ensuring those who are unemployed or unemployable have enough income to pay rent and buy food.
Richard, just who do you think you are fooling? you may claim to be an “independent” but are as Green as grass, and just as politically naive as the Greens, and I can assure you that I am definitely from the Labor Party. Your narrative about the Labor party “not doing the right thing on the ever-growing climate crisis” is simply Greens propaganda; Kevon Rudd tried desperately in 2009 to pass the world’s first price on carbon legislation only to be scuttled in the Senate by the Greens. After that debacle that ultimately led to the election of Tony Abbott it took a decade for Labor to get re-elected and re-commence serious climate action. Richard, the ALP knows just what has to be done to effectively deal with climate change, but the trick is staying in Govt long enough to effect those changes and keep voters on side. If you think that applying the extremist policies of the Greens is both magically going achieve all of the really hard changes needed, and keep the vast majority of voters who would not support the Greens in a fit, on side, you are naive. Do you not see just how much trouble Chris Bowen is having just building transmission lines and getting approval for wind and solar farms in regional areas?, just how would the Greens handle these problems when they can only manage to hold a few affluent inner-city seats and only attract around roughly 12 % if the national vote? Richard I’ll do the maths for you, to get elected and stay in Govt a party needs OVER 50% of the vote, not that easy when rich and powerful anti-renewable vested interests are wanting to get you out of Govt. So, Richard please don’t lecture us in the Labor Party about being “more Green” we have tried that in the past and suffered some truly disastrous results.
Keithy, you are ignoring facts and attempting again to re-write history. So sad😞.
Rudd’s proposed CPRS was not the world’s first price on carbon legislation, NOT even close Keithy. Regurging talking points copied to you by ALP HQ doesn’t wipe away the facts, so do try looking up SBS.com, ‘Factbox: Carbon tax around the world’ Published 16 July 2013 3:11pm Updated 24 February 2015 5:11pm, By SBS Staff. Perhaps you can also send it through to your handlers at ALP HQ just so they know for future reference as well.
The history of Rudd’s proposed CPRS and then Rudd’s own scuttling of his CPRS is well documented, its all on the public record, Rudd and only Rudd killed off his CPRS.
As for Labor and re-commencing serious climate action, you are kidding yourself. Labor Political Party approving 30 new coal and gas projects; the continuation of Chevron’s Gorgon Gas Project despite its ongoing failure to meet a key environment condition of approval with respect to CO2 sequestration; embedding Big Gas for decades with a Future Gas Strategy 2050 and Beyond; allocating 💲’sbillionstaxpayer to build new fossil fuel infrastructure; passing special legislation ‘The Sea Dumping Bill’; waiting until post Election’25 to announce ‘Approved’ for Woodside2070; tearing up the EPA Agreement; EPBC Reform kicked off into the long grass; watered down EV Policy; All of which is hardly the stuff of being serious on climate action and our GHG emissions sadly reflects.
So Keith don’t kid yourself about Labor being 💚, they nowhere near it.
Thanks Keith, I replied too but was censored. I’ll try again with this little bit
Yes I support Labor – I don’t try to hide it. It’s the insult you like to throw at any challenge to your commentary. It’s that unspeakable is it?
I’m not ready to desert the Party that gave us free compulsory and secular education, universal health care, the PBS, equal pay, anti-discrimination legislation, no fault divorce, national parks, Land Rights, Mabo, universal compulsory superannuation, the NBN (the original good plan), the NDIS, that opposed the VietNam and Iraq wars and probably lots more that I’ve forgotten. I’m not ready to desert them because, while even the Greens probably couldn’t solve all the burning issues to everyone’s satisfaction, I see the principles driving the many sound initiatives of this government as totally in line with the principles that drove the above.
Richard, spot on, the Labor Political Party apologists just don’t like hearing it.