Month: October 2022

JIM CHALMERS BUDGET – WHAT IS YOUR JUDGEMENT?

On By Everald ComptonIn Community and Values, Constitution, Good Books, Government, History

The first time I took an interest in a Federal Government Budget was 77 years ago when I had to write an essay about it at High School in Toowoomba. I knew so little about Budgets of any kind that I barely scraped a pass.

Since then, I must report that I have never ever seen a Government Budget that everyone thought was the right one. Indeed, voters are usually split somewhere around 50/50 in their opinions of its worthiness, no matter what type of government is in power.

This year has been no different.

I have known Jim Chalmers for 15 years having first met him when he was the key economic adviser to Wayne Swan and played a considerable role in deciding Australia’s response to the Great Financial Crisis. We have kept in regular contact down the years and I was greatly honoured when he launched my book DINNER WITH THE FOUNDING FATHERS at a function in Brisbane two years ago.

He has put an enormous amount of work into this current Budget Update and I know that he firmly believes in its capacity to work for Australia. I also know that he a person of honesty and integrity who will readily admit to any errors of judgement that he may have made and do something about fixing them if he believes that criticisms are valid.

The main criticism in the public arena has been that there is little of obvious significance in the Budget to directly help pensioners, people on fixed incomes, and those who have not had a wage rise, to handle the widespread ravages of inflation and huge rises in energy bills. I feel for them mightily but I can’t see a way to solve that problem until inflation comes under control. The key issue for us to understand is that inflation is not a domestic issue for Australia alone. Every nation in the world has been hit with it and it already has caused some political casualties, eg, former British Prime Minister, Liz Truss, who totally misjudged it.

My view is that, while the Ukraine War initially created some inflation, it has been grossly fuelled by far too many businesses using inflation as an excuse to unjustifiably put up prices and lie to us that inflation was the cause. It is one of the purest examples of greed I have ever seen. Quite disgusting.

Nevertheless, there were many good things in the Chalmers Budget such as in the area of child care and paid parental leave, flood relief etc.

This brings us to an important point for debate.

Must governments do everything for us. Do they need to control and dictate our lives and how much should we determine for ourselves? And in what ways are we personally responsible for our neighbours. If there are struggling pensioners in my street, should I take them some food as often as I can? The answer is YES.

I remember the dark days of the Great Depression of the 1930’s when my mother took meals to friends who were unemployed and there was no dole to sustain them. I was her helper in cooking and delivering, even though I am certain she would have done much better without my amateur efforts.

So it is that Australia’s most urgent need is to have strong caring communities and it is our calling to create them wherever we live. And to ask Jim Chalmers to back us in every way that he can when the next Budget arises in May 2023. State and Local Governments must do likewise. They share responsibility with the Feds and ourselves.

I hope you will find time to enjoy reading my book DINNER WITH THE FOUNDING FATHERS. It tells the story of how the Australian Constitution was written in the 1890’s and implemented in 1901. It forecasts that we now need many changes to it that will enable us to adapt to a totally different world 120 years later. For example, if we had only two levels of government instead of 3, Australia would have much more money to provide for the needs of pensioners. If we had a UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME embedded in the Constitution, then no one would ever be in need or left behind.

We face a challenge right now. We know that we live in a world of huge change and I reckon that Jim Chalmers has the ability and humility and decency to help us face those changes and lead us to a better quality of life that gives us the opportunity to shine as good citizens. Let’s keep him on his toes while he walks with us towards the light on the hill.

And keep smiling.

Everald

COVID, UKRAINE, INFLATION, FLOODS

On By Everald ComptonIn Community and Values, Environment, Good Books, Government, History, Natural Disasters, Nuclear

Life is tougher at this point in time than it usually is.

There are many reasons for this, but four stand out as cornerstones of perils that impact our lives.

First of all, we have COVID.

It hit us without warning and dominated our lives for two years. We had no previous experience upon which to base our response. After all, the last great killer virus was the Spanish Flu of 1920. That’s a century ago and there are no survivors to tell us of their experience. So we battled valiantly to curb it, made some mistakes, suffered prolonged isolation & economic hardship and watched it foster divisions in our society, particularly when State Governments severely criticised one another while all had a bad relationship with the Federal Government. But, in the end, we won and we express gratitude to all who led us to a place of general safety as we now plan how to better handle the next virus that will inevitably hit us soon and for which we are not adequately prepared.

Our second crisis is the war in UKRAINE.

The most pointless conflict in the history of humanity. Created by Putin, a psychopath, who hugely underestimated Ukraine’s Zelensky, the world’s most revered leader. We mourn for the people of Ukraine who are suffering enormously. We share their pain as the war has severely diminished the world’s food and energy supplies and contributed to the curse of inflation. It has also revealed to us the weakness of world leaders who sit gutlessly on the sidelines, pointlessly wringing their hands, because they tremble in fear of a nuclear World War 3. That’s a carbon copy of the scenario that caused World War 2.

Number 3 is INFLATION.

This continues to rise and have a huge impact on our cost of living, particularly for those on fixed incomes. It seems to be out of control internationally and this is only partially attributable to Ukraine. Its major cause is unrestrained capitalism where far too many in the arena of business are raising prices for no reason other than to make huge profits and take the heaven sent opportunity to blame it on inflation. It is as huge a fraud as I have ever seen and it has been made even worse by wealthy people and their political clones implementing policies that claim it can be fixed by tax cuts for the rich which will ‘trickle down’ to the poor. Never in history has wealth ever trickled down to help the needy. It is simply a myth that is intended to make its greedy proponents look like good citizens. Tax cuts are undeniably a welfare hand out to the upper crust. Corrupt in the very extreme.

Last, but by no means least, are FLOODS.

They are frequent and more severe than we have usually experienced. And they are again hitting us hard right at this moment. Climate Change is a contributing factor but necessary action on it is not the complete answer as it will take decades of world wide cooperation before it will reduce the impact of climate on our weather. Our immediate aim must be for our entire community to be better prepared in every possible way. Very important must be to have decisive action taken by governments to financially help people have their homes demolished or moved from flood plains to higher places. Right now, it is almost impossible to insure a home that has been flooded and this, cruelly, makes the home unsaleable. The same applies to farmers and their herds and crops. It is a task we cannot avoid.

So, what is our overall challenge in finding solutions to all four challenges.

Firstly, we must be rid of the ancient and stupid ideologies that plague the closed political minds of both Right and Left. We need to foster an open minded implementation of a belief in THE SHARED GOOD. It is quite simple really as it is based solely on commonsense.

Secondly, let us never ever lose HOPE.

Lastly, let’s rejoice that, whenever there is a crisis, many good people get together to help one another. This is shown by the wonderful community spirit that is prevailing in the current floods. It is heart warming to witness the generosity and goodwill that is being shown all over Australia right now.

May it continue in better times as the future of the world is in the hands of those who turn up.

And please help me to remain solvent by buying all 3 of my books on nation building that you will find right here on my website. They make wonderful Christmas gifts.

THE MAN ON THE TWENTY DOLLAR NOTES is about the life of Australia’s greatest nation builder, Flynn of the Inland.

DINNER WITH THE FOUNDING FATHERS tells the compelling history of the giants who founded Australia in 1901 by leading 6 very independent States into Federation.

A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET which is a challenging novel about a Christian who handles terminal illness positively, a very topical subject now that all States have passed legislation to make Voluntary Assisted Dying legally available to all who choose to use it.

Half of the royalties of my books go to ACTS, the community service arm of the Aspley Uniting Church, of which I am Chairman. We send cash gifts to needy people who usually are not members of our congregation and are hit by floods, droughts, fires, domestic violence and elder abuse, all of which are huge national challenges in which we can all participate.

Grace and Peace.

Everald Compton.

JULIA’S MISOGYNY SPEECH, 10 YEARS ON.

On By Everald ComptonIn Community and Values, Good Books, Government, History, Misogyny

It is the finest speech I have ever heard in an Australian Parliament.

Julia Gillard is not a naturally gifted public speaker, mainly because she is formal and responsible in her manner of making a speech. But on this day of 9 October, 2012 she was on fire as she let loose on Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, who had constantly demeaned and offended her with sexist language which was appalling crude.

He, and many other males in Parliament, Media and society could not cope with the reality of a woman holding more power than them.

Julia had reached the point where she had a gutful of it and rightly decided it was time for her to put a stop to it. So she lashed out and the Parliament was spellbound.

Here are a few of her more compelling lines.

‘I say to the Leader of the Opposition: I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not. Not now, not ever.’

‘I hope the Leader of the Opposition has a piece of paper and is writing out his resignation., because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he does not need a motion in the House of Representatives, he needs a mirror.’

‘The Leader of the Opposition should be ashamed of his performance in this Parliament and the sexism he brings with it.’

‘The Leader of the Opposition should think seriously about the role of women in public life and in Australian society, because we are entitled to a better standard than this.’

Earlier in her speech, she quoted words from an Abbott speech in which he said,

‘What the housewives of Australia must understand as they do the ironing is…’

Some will instinctively attempt to write off Gillard as a ‘leftie feminist’ who cant cope with men but this would be yet another insult that is utterly wrong. I met her several times for important meetings about issues relating to seniors. I found her to be a superb negotiator who always gave an answer to my requests. A couple of times I didn’t like her answers, but I was grateful that I had not been left in any doubt. I also found her to be an attractive person. She never ever looked like a wild radical.

Nevertheless, she now acknowledges that she did make a number of significant political errors that eventually cost her the loss of her job as Prime Minister. But note that she was not beaten by Abbott. It was Rudd who removed her.

It should be noted that the feminist movement was not founded by people like Julia Gillard and Germaine Greer. Its first high profile advocate in Australia was Dame Enid Lyons, wife of former Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Lyons.

After her husband died, she entered Parliament in her own right as a Liberal 80 years ago. It was 99% male. She wrote a book about it called AMONG THE CARRION CROWS. A Carrion Crow acts as though it is superior to other birds and practices manipulation and mischief.

I met her several times in her senior years in the 1970’s and found her to be a very gracious and intelligent person who was solidly conservative and regularly determined. She told me that she was offended by the way the males in parliament had always ben overly respectful and courteous to her, but usually dispensed her comments as ‘girl talk’. She found it to be insulting to her as a person with rights but she kept quiet about it until she wrote her book. I read it and highly regard it. She taught me a lot of wise commonsense.

Julia Gillard’s book is well worth reading as she has involved 10 other extraordinarily talented women who write essays that she has included. Women like distinguished journalist, Katharine Murphy, whose work I read regularly and essentially. The book covers the history of misogyny, its status today and what will happen tomorrow,

Misogyny is an issue that will not go away. People like Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins get many headlines but they are not the core of the revolution. In every profession, institution, walk of life and social circle there are highly talented women who are not extremists but break the glass ceiling and create the equality that is their right. They are irrevocably changing the world and I am cheering.

Let me close by saying that I am hugely moved by the bravery of the many thousands of women in Iran who every day put their lives at risk by publicly demanding that male rules which dictate what they will wear must change significantly. One person of their gender was murdered by religious zealots who said she wore her clothes ‘loosely’.

(This gives me a chance to invite you to read my novel “A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET’. A leading character is a female Muslim doctor who takes on the zealots in the Christian and Islamic faiths).

May it be that we soon say farewell to MISOGYNY throughout the world.

It is disgusting.

Your local male feminist.

Everald

TAX CUTS ARE A WELFARE HANDOUT TO THE NEEDY WEALTHY.

On By Everald ComptonIn Business and Enterprise, Community and Values, Government, History, Law

I have never become a member of a political party and never will as this could have the capacity to lead me to life as a one eyed citizen locked in to an ideology that requires a closed mind.

This confirms that I have been a swinging voter all my life during which I have voted for the best leader or candidate, but never the ‘best’ Party.

So it is that I have at times voted for Robert Menzies, John McEwan and John Howard while on other occasions I cast my vote for Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Julia Gillard. On one occasion, I voted for Greens leader, Bob Brown, as he helped me with legislation regarding needs of pensioners. Now I make it my business to back quality independents as we need many more of them to raise the stature of our Parliaments.

My purpose in relating my background is to set the scene for this article.

As I am neither a capitalist nor a socialist and believe that both are equally decadent ideologies, I want to add that I especially vote against anyone who advocates tax cuts and believes in the very false theory of trickle down economics. I fight them both with a burning passion as never in my life have I ever seen either of them do anything meaningful for humanity.

It has been proven over and over again that tax cuts make a few favoured people more wealthy than they already are or need to be and enormously blow out the national budget deficit while in no way doing anything to stimulate the economy.

Most importantly, none of their newly created wealth has ever trickled down to the poor. Not ever. Not even remotely. And it never will.

The lie on which ‘trickle down’ is based and promoted is because the wealthy recipients of tax cuts need to have a moral excuse to justify their greed. They want everyone to understand that only seek wealth so they can pass it on to the poor. Unless they can help the needy, they really don’t want to have one cent of their wealth.

From an early age in my 90 years, I regularly have been making speeches spelling out the sheer hypocrisy of tax cuts and trickle down economics. My critics always declare with venom that I have not got a clue about either economics or good government and should therefore shut up permanently.

So I ask them to give me just one instance where it has been proved that tax cuts have worked, but no one has ever given me a single one that is valid.

They trot out the high profile ones like those legislated in USA by Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Donald Trump or the recent one here in Australia by Scott Morrison, yet none have ever proved that they actually worked for the common good. They are unable to deny that budget deficits blew out and have never been repaid. The poor remained poor and often became poorer. The entire theory is a blatant lie of huge proportions.

THE INDISPUTABLE FACT IS THAT TAX CUTS ARE A BLATANT AND CORRUPT WELFARE HANDOUT TO THE WEALTHY, THE VERY GUYS WHO CONSTANTLY DENIGRATE THE POOR FOR SEEKING WELFARE. THEY ARE ALSO THE SAME GUYS WHO PAY THE LEAST POSSIBLE TAX THAT THEY CAN SO THAT EVERYONE ELSE PAYS THE COSTS OF NATIONAL LIFE.

The proven way to stimulate any economy is for government to create jobs by going into debt to build infrastructure & constantly enhance our essential food, health, education, housing, energy, and transport systems. This generates an army of taxpayers to fund the nation and creates spenders who fire up the market place.

Let me emphatically say in closing that I encourage and hugely admire people who begin life with nothing but work hard and wisely and honestly to gain a position of genuine wealth while paying a responsible amount of tax while they do it. We need many more of them, but no wheelers and dealers and plunderers who are also tax avoiders.

I also work to create a world in which everyone has a fair chance to become financially independent which is the status I have managed to achieve in life and is all that most humans really need to enjoy a good life of positive and creative achievement.

Yours for a good life.

Everald