The government makes some quiet (non-) moves at the AAT, how the JobSeeker news cycle started, and Donald Trump just can’t catch a break. Plus other tips and murmurs from the Crikey bunker.
AAT watch While everyone’s attention is taken up with *all this*, a tipster has told us there is movement quietly afoot at the government’s favourite stackathon, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Or, more accurately, a lack of movement.
“The 16 Administrative Appeals Tribunal members up for reappointment by the end of June 2020 have been rolled over for 3 months,” the tipster told us. “No official announcement on the attorney-general’s website.”
We asked the Attorney-General’s Department what was happening, and apparently our tipster is way off: it’s actually 18 members.
A spokesperson confirmed that 18 AAT members’ appointments had expired on June 25 and 29, and the governor‑general had appointed all 18 for a further three months. Further, they argued that it is “not usual practice to announce short-term extensions of appointment”.
The circle of a story The government has long resisted calls to increase welfare — first in refusing to raise the Newstart rate, and then refusing to commit to keeping the higher JobSeeker payments which replaced it in the time of COVID-19.
Sometimes the media steps in to help an argument along. Over the weekend The West Australian published the story of Ric Torchia, a pub owner who claims “dole-bludging youngsters are refusing to return to their hospitality gigs” and calls JobSeeker a “designer drug” which keeps “rich kids” hooked on the welfare pipe.
This gives Prime Minister Scott Morrison the chance to go on 2GB and cite “anecdotal evidence” that businesses can’t find casual workers because the JobSeeker payment is so generous.
Which in turn gives the The Australian ($) a chance to jump aboard with a front page “exclusive” on the same subject:
Look out for more Coalition talking points today. On the cycle goes.
Trump watch It’s not just traditional media that appears to be turning away from Donald Trump. Following his fact-checking from Twitter, aggregator site and “unbelievably shitty spouse-chronicler” Reddit has banned pro-trump subreddit r/The_Donald under its new hate-speech policies.
Game streaming service Twitch has (albeit temporarily) followed suit with Trump’s official campaign account, citing Trump’s “hateful conduct”.
More Trump watch As if that weren’t enough, The Rolling Stones — famous guardians of copyright — have finally moved to stop Trump from using their music at his rallies. Trump’s playlist has been going round for years and relies heavily on Stones classics. Since it takes hours to fill the stadiums — or, ha ha, used to — early attendees could enjoy “Start Me Up” three or four times. Trump particularly loves to taunt his base with “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. Sans Stones, Trump’s in a little trouble.
There’s not much left but ugly demotivating music like Ted Nugent or Rudy Vallee. Traditionally, the Republican go-to crowdstarter — by a rare right-wing rocker — is “Smooth” (“give me your heart make it real or else forget about it!”), which Guy Rundle never wants to hear again, and is of course by one Carlos Santana…
Surveillance state Returning to Reddit, one user claims to have reverse engineered video sharing app TikTok and found that it is essentially surveillance malware posing as social media.
The user compares the level of data being collected by other social media behemoths (as well as the lengths they go to hide that collection) and concludes it’s like “comparing a cup of water to the ocean”.
Some good news As we mentioned in the Crikey Worm this morning, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has announced a last-minute reprieve for two community TV stations — Melbourne’s Channel 31 and Adelaide’s Channel 44.
This follows Crikey‘s impassioned defence of the format yesterday.
Hey, you’re welcome.
Reading Scott Morrison’s claim that the unemployed opt for the dole over work, 30/6, reminded me of my 25 years of working in the old Commonwealth Employment Service and before I was ‘managed out’ for whistle-blowing regarding the dodgy monthly unemployment figures, we often received frantic calls from senior management in Canberra. They had panicked when they heard of media and MPs reports of (very often anecdotal) unfilled vacancies in our area.
Out we’d go to check the mystery vacancy. Invariably we’d find that there was either no vacancy, or that there had been one but it had been filled weeks ago, or there ‘may’ be one in the future. We could never actually get out grasping paws on an actual, unfilled vacancy.
During the Fraser years and anxious to divert attention away from the then recession of the early 1980s, Malcolm Fraser was caught out urging a major company in Victoria to ‘raise the alarm’ about unfilled vacancies. There were none, of course. Of course there are a tiny number of unfilled vacancies at any particular time but you can bet your bottom dollar that they are so bad you wouldn’t even send your worst enemy to.
Step into the breech once more: another Liberal, one Scott Morrison, with his anecdotal vacancy/s and desperate to divert attention away from the real unemployment figures and his plans for JobSeeker / JobKeeper which are under wraps until after this weekends by election.
It’s usually the Liberals to whom the unemployed people are ‘scum of the earth’ and deserve nothing. This has been the Liberals mantra for the last 40 years or so although it was Clyde Cameron (Labor) who first used the term ‘dole bludger’ in the 1970s and Labor failed to increase the value of the dole when last in government in 2013, even though they knew the real unemployment figures.
The whole ‘lifters and leaners’ of Jo Hockey’s time comes to mind as he and the Liberals deliberately kept the dole at $40 a day (although now notably massively enhanced in the short term for electoral reasons), so that the ‘leaners’ get punished. Jo went on to a stunningly well paid job as Ambassador, with a free house and huge benefits in Washington, all paid for by the ‘leaners’ of course.
The fact that even the Business Council of Australia said that the dole of $40 a day was too low to actually allow the unemployed to transition to employment (can’t afford a bus fare to the job interview or good clothes) was ignored, due to the Liberals ideological hatred of the ‘it’s their fault’ unemployed.
Currently, if you are unwise or silly enough to believe the ABS monthly unemployment figures we have one vacancy for every 20 unemployed. If you understand the real unemployment figures we have around one vacancy for every 50 unemployed.
When are the Liberals and Labor going to level with ‘we are Australians’, ‘we’re all in this together’ nonsense, about the magnitude of the problem of the dramatic understatement of the unemployment and underemployment figures by the ABS which causes major distortions in handling COVID-19, economic planning and general policy-making?
Wasn’t Ric Torchia a member of some right wing groups?
Time for another rerun of Current Affair type attack – are the Paxtons available?