Tag: australian politics

The ECB, QE and escaping stagnation (with an Australian perspective)

Who In Australia would trust the Abbott and Hockey (Liberal government) alliance with the Business Council of Australia to manage the economy in the next financial crisis?
Remember that when Rudd Labor came to office in 2007 it soon had to manage the impact on Australia of a global economic crisis, usually called the GFC. In a mild, Keynesian way they did a reasonable job.
Well, the Davos global ruling class gathering, frantically seaching for “inclusive capitalism”, and Mario Draghi are now talking and acting such that the handling of the 2007 crisis is now leading towards another global economic crisis, even before any real sign of recovery from the first one.
There is no chance that the Abbott government and the BCA will handle this “new” situation democratically, that is in the interests of the majority. Their current standards of competence suggest they wont even be able to handle it competently for their very own and precious 1%.
Well, that leaves the issue of the propect of a new Labor government, under its right wing led by Bill Shorten. What will they do? The next few months will tell us more.

Building Our Navy Ships in Australia: navy uniforms and patriotism

Yesterday, I joined with a bunch of metalworkers who work in Australia’s shipbuilding industry to hand out leaflets about building the next fleet of Australia’s navy ships in Australia, instead of spending taxpayers dollars to import from other countries.
Its pretty simple, you would have thought: Australia is an island nation and we have the capability to do the job. We have been campaigning for the past 9 months to get the federal government to commit to building the next fleet of 48 ships worth about $250b. over 25 years, and we are continuing our campaign just as vigorously with the new conservative government. (For more info CLICK HERE Continue reading “Building Our Navy Ships in Australia: navy uniforms and patriotism”