Well, the spruikers of the Indigenous Voice referendum just keep on handing us more reasons to vote No. Whether it’s Marcia Langton’s “threat” that we’ll never hear another Welcome to Country, or Noel Pearson’s promise that he’ll “fall silent”, if the referendum is voted down, Australians are left wondering, “OK, and what’s the downside?”
Now, our gormless PM has handed us yet another inducement to a No vote.
Anthony Albanese has ruled out legislating a voice to parliament if the referendum is defeated this year, pledging that he will honour a No vote and the decision of the Australian people.
The Australian
There’s two things to take away, here.
Firstly, this is the clearest hint yet that Albanese knows the referendum is heading for a bollicking at the ballot box. Albo is subtly laying the groundwork for a desperate scramble to save when the referendum he brought on without any consultation fails. Just as David Cameron in the UK hung his leadership on Brexit, Albanese’s political fortunes are hitched to the Voice. Whatever he may say, it was his decision alone to push the referendum, let alone announce it as his “number one priority”, after never once mentioning it during the election campaign. Albanese may not be as fatally wounded, at least in the immediate term, as Cameron was, but it will be a blow to his leadership that he may not recover from.
The second takeaway from this is that Albanese is just putting on more of the same emotional blackmail that’s been almost the only campaign tactic of Yes proponents. “If you don’t vote Yes, the poor Aborigines won’t get a voice.” Australians are not buying this cheap garbage, any more than they’ll tolerate being screeched at as “racists”. Australians are well aware that Aborigines already have a plethora of powerful lobby groups, and are disproportionately represented in Parliament. They have voices aplenty.
The only problem, indeed, is getting some of them to shut up for just one damn minute.
Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe says she refuses to “subscribe to colonial institutions” and therefore won’t back the voice to parliament […]
“The central message is basically simplifying what I’ve been saying since I entered this parliamentary domain,” she told ABC Radio National.
The Australian
She subscribed to a “colonial institution” by entering parliament and trousering a five-figure, taxpayer-funded income.
Sounds like she’s only too prepared to participate in “colonial institutions” if the price is right.
Prices that are very much not right, right now, are housing prices in Australia. Although nowhere near as relatively costly as New Zealand, house prices in Australia show no sign of stopping their upward spiral. The situation has got to the point that even the Albanese government dimly realises that something has to be done.
Unfortunately, socialists that they are, they’re going about it doing all the wrong things.
Removing investment barriers for super funds, streamlining planning restrictions, providing incentives for projects and strengthening renters’ rights will underpin national cabinet’s housing strategy, amid grim new building forecasts and a surge in construction firms going bust.
Federal, state and local governments on Wednesday will commit to turbocharging the national housing accord to help reverse soaring building costs and spiralling rents that threaten more rate pain unless supply is urgently brought forward.
A two-hour national cabinet meeting in Brisbane will consider new rent controls.
The Australian
Somebody hand these idiots a copy of Thomas Sowell’s Basic Ecomonics — please. It has a whole chapter on why rent controls only ever drive up prices and reduce supply. It even uses some Australian policies as dire examples.
But, then, if these clowns had an inkling of Basic Economics, we might not be in this mess.
At least one politician has a grasp of the essential problem: demand outstripping supply. We can’t increase supply — never in Australia’s history have we been able to build houses at the rate now demanded — so the only other option is to cut demand.
This means dialling back on the demented scheme to import a million people in just three years.
Nationals MP Matt Canavan has called on the federal government to slow migration and build new cities to create more housing opportunities for Australians […]
Senator Canavan said the simplest option for Australians to gain greater access to permanent housing was to stop others coming into the country.
“We should slow down migration,” he told Channel 9’s Today on Wednesday morning. “We’re bringing in way too many people right now. Surely Australians deserve a home before we start bringing in other people and adding to this problem.”
The Australian
But will no one think of big business and its desperate need for cheap, foreign labour?
