Ute Mueller writes: We are in the last week of the election campaign, and throughout it has been shown how desperately we need legislation to prevent the parties disseminating so-called information that has nothing to do with the truth or facts but is solely used to discriminate against their opponents.
The Coalition appears to be united in making an art form out of being dishonest, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison leading the way. These are the same people who do most of the pork-barrelling in this country, wasting a lot of taxpayers’ money that could be used for real needs within the communities and strongly opposing a federal ICAC with teeth to stop the corruption.
Neil Ewart writes: The Coalition is at it again with its “efficiency dividend” aka sacking a few hundred public servants. Sadly Coalition supporters will see this as a good thing rather than questioning the proposed expenditure of $5.6 billion [in] bribe money to the Nationals for a dam in north Queensland that even dam-loving Bob Katter thinks is a waste of money. Scrapping that would easily cover the “efficiency dividend” of $4 billion saved.
Don Wormald writes: It seems Jason Falinski was suffering in two places last Saturday. Not only were the police called to the Nelson Heather Centre at Warriewood (Crikey Monday, May 16) but also to his electorate office at Narrabeen opposite Bunnings (where there was once a funeral home upstairs where they showed blue movies after hours). I drove past the Narrabeen office about 11.30am on Saturday to see a group of 15-20 climate change protesters demonstrating outside. There were two police “paddy wagons” and about six police officers, although the protesters didn’t seem to be doing anything to disturb the public peace except brandishing their banners and chanting about the need for change.
The previous Monday I had attended the debate at the Avalon theatre that Wendy Harmer wrote about. As someone who provided the material which grounded one of NSW ICAC’s first investigations I was incensed by Falinski’s comments toeing the Morrison bullshit about ICAC being a “kangaroo court” serving only to disparage otherwise innocent folk. His line about probity legislation criminalising behaviour that was previously not criminal conduct particularly got my dander up.
As I was leaving he asked me what I thought (I was on his media team when he challenged Bronny in 2016) and I told him I thought he had lost the audience with his arrogance. As he intimated, he has written off the northern end of his electorate expecting the lower socio-economic southern end to carry him over the line.
Jennifer Norton writes: Yes, the PM identifies strongly with his religion. Most of us would have no idea what that really means in terms of his values and worldview.
In short though, it means he believes “money makes right” i.e. if you are well off then you must have God’s favour and vice versa. It means he believes in the Rapture, or Armageddon (coming soon), where the faithful (Pentecostals) are lifted into heaven while everyone else is left behind to die and suffer in hell.
It means he believes that whatever happens on earth is God’s will and there’s no point in intervening (so no point in climate action). And anyway, the Rapture will happen before climate change becomes an issue so the only goal now is to 1) make more money and 2) convert more people to the faith.
It means he believes he is right in everything he does, because God has favoured him with the miracle of the prime ministership. And that is a clear sign that he belongs there, is a good person, and is doing God’s work.
I suspect Christians of other denominations would be pretty horrified to learn most of this, let alone atheists and members of other religions. Why this doesn’t even rate a mention in mainstream media is astonishing.
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Jennifer, no need to add “The Perfect Puppet Leader”.