Like walking back in time.

Last night I read Cian’s letter before lights out, I felt good. I woke the next morning to read Paul Kelly and thought I had been transported back in time.

The same old language and the same old discussion. 

1. Wages. Rex Connor was the first to say Australia has great wealth buried under the surface and it is our job to dig it up, so no Australian must work. That was 50 years ago and we are still going down that line. The gap between newstart and the minimum wage will be an element in our death as a self-reliant nation.
2. Protectionism is bad, it means we must pay more than we should. Then why are we protecting green energy sources? Are we for protectionism or against it?
3. Imports are far cheaper, but nobody has evaluated the whole supply chain.
4. Australia must have the highest standards in ESG and CSR, but it is OK to purchase cheap goods from countries and companies that don’t aspire to our values.

We need to put the level playing field back into play. When a project is evaluated in Australia we need to put it up against our competitors. Let’s get our competitors evaluated against our standards before we are so hypocritical as to yell protectionism.

Kelly seems to live in a different country to me.

1. “We will not revert to socialism.” We are a socialist country. Morrison made that clear when he went mad on retirees for wanting to build wealth in super. He has reinforced it since in the ever increasing percentage of GDP spent on government. There is no continuum between socialism and capitalism, once you start down the slope you are gone.
2. Australia’s adjustment to its new world of indebtedness will occur within the framework that has guided the country for two generations. He seems to think we were doing well.