It’s almost arrived: Big Brother is taking over the nanny state. From this morning’s Adelaide Advertiser:
Perversely helping. Those tabloid terrors the Sydney Telegraph and the Melbourne Herald Sun were doing their best this morning to frighten the mob with front-page leads about impending doom and gloom suggesting tens of thousands of working families are facing eviction from their houses as mortgage rates rise. Rather than being concerned, Treasurer Wayne Swan should be hoping that Australians take the stories seriously because a little bit of fear will assist the process of curbing demand that the Reserve Bank thinks is necessary.
Not that there are any signs of that process swinging into action immediately.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures out this morning show trend estimate for total dwelling units approved rising 1.5% in March 2010, having risen for 14 consecutive months. The seasonally adjusted estimate for total dwelling units approved rose 15.3%, to 16,383 following falls in the previous two months.
Item 3 removed due to production issues.
Please don’t judge Adelaide/SA by the Advertiser headlines. If you read the article, it’s clearly just a blow-up to sell newspapers. No government would be dumb enough to implement breath-testing pedestrians.
@Dave: At least the government no longer has Michael Atkinson as AG.
Further to previous, I note that The Advertiser’s website is now running a follow-up article about how unpopular the pedestrian breath-testing idea has proven. What outstanding journalism – seize on a half-baked academic study as if it’s about to become law, whip the public into responding, then write a follow-up about how unpopular the idea was. The same idea that would have been universally ignored but for the original article. It would be funny if Adelaide wasn’t a one-newspaper-town. And Meski is correct, but I doubt even Mad Mick would have backed this one.
Many many moons ago The Advertiser was a good newspaper – before You Know Who got his oily mitts on it.
I haven’t checked but I suspect the front page is currently in a lather about Corey Bernardi’s burqa comments – this is right up The Advertiser’s alley, manna from heaven.