Katter’s Australian Party was registered with the Australian Electoral Commission in Brisbane on Friday afternoon, promising to support small business and families.
That’s what greeted me with my muesli this morning.
In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Mail, Mr Katter revealed his plan to “control” state politics through the crossbenches after the next election and immediately hit the campaign trail against Premier Anna Bligh and Liberal National Party leader Campbell Newman.
He also unveiled the party’s first policies – including breaking the duopoly of Woolworths and Coles and stopping free trade, the carbon tax and privatisation.
It will also rally against “Big Brother” and restore personal freedoms, including fishing freely and boiling a billy without a permit.
Notably, the party will be based in Brisbane rather than in Mt Isa.
Anna Bligh faces the polls in March-April next year. There is some opinion that Katter’s move will cause more grief to Campbell Newman’s LNP than Bligh’s Labor. Certainly there has been significant unrest since the Campbell Newman putsch, with Jeff Seeney as deputy being one of the least popular politicians in the bush.
Katter’s move is a signal that he thinks that being an independent on the national scene is a bit of a dead end and lacks effectiveness to achieve real change for his constituency.
See also The Hat versus The Pineapple.
The party already has a website and T-shirts. Funding is going be a problem and will limit how many seats they can contest.
Gawd! How long before Pauline Hanson will sign up?
WTF do you have in the water in Queensland?
Stil, I suppose it will provide some interesting TV.
The ETU should fund the mad hatter’s party… That’d give us 4 more years of labor no problem at all.
How sad that none of the progressive parties, including the Greens, are so openly anti-privatisation as this quasi-fascist blackguard. Compare the Queensland Greens’ website.
Pauline Hanson is still waiting to find out if she’s won her seat in NSW isn’t she?
How does he propose to ‘end free trade’ from the cross benches of a state government?
At last, someone is willing to tackle the big issues!
It’s good to know with all their focus on personal freedoms and government not being involved in the family, they remain committed to making sure us lesbians and our kind are still second class people who can’t get married.
Dominic @ 5, the Qld elections are just the next cab off the rank. Katter will be attempting to gain the balance of power federally as well.
Trade issues would be a major part of his motivation.
So it’s…the Billy Tea Party!
The Jolly Swagmen?
(no doubt underwritten by the squatters)
@ 9 – Mercurius – gold!
On a more serious note, I wonder how successful he will be. The thing about Katter is, although I rarely agree with what he says, I find myself wanting to listen to him, as he actually says something.
‘fishing freely”
Like I said, its the Queensland water.
tssk, Re P. Hanson
I seem to recollect she was muttering something about a legal challenge.
A NSW Electoral Commission investigation, I think, found her claims about biased electoral officials was unfounded. Maybe she and Katter could go to Blighty and stand for the Mother of Parliaments. They sound like they need a couple of good old-fashioned Aussie ratbags in their ranks.
The Kattermites.
KEY POLICIES
Stop the stranglehold of Coles and Woolworths on groceries
Cut individual chains’ market share to 22.5 per cent each instead of current 80 per cent total share.
This would ensure greater competition and push down prices.
Supermarket fairness tribunal to prevent misuse of market share.
No privatisation
Prevent any further sell-offs of assets but also implement strategies to reverse some past and current assets.
No carbon tax
Stop the measure and focus on renewable energies such as ethanol.
Stop free trade
Protect Australian industries and jobs to revitalise industries such as agriculture and manufacturing.
New laws to make Parliament approve treaties, not just the Government.
All Government spending should be on Australian goods where practicable. eg cars
What are our thoughts on some of these?
I don’t know about his policies, but the jingoistic language of ‘diggers’ and ‘the Eureka’ and ‘freedom’ is nauseating.
I am not a Katter’s fan but it is about time there was a new political party in Australia who is prepare to stand up for the old Australian values
Right wing bogan populism, internally incoherent, chauvinist, ignorant of facts.
For example, which “Australian” cars should governments buy? The Austin Kimberley? The Holden Monaro? They are named after Australian regions.
The Corporate backed Labor,Greens and Coalition will go after Katter with a vengence since Bob may do the unthinkable; ie do things that are in the interest and well being of ordinary Australians.
The Latte sipping,Sauvignon,Chardonnay set have taken the bait of AGW and now are in the clutches of large corporate interests.
If Bob Katter announces the formation of a new Govt Bank, then I’ll vote for him.
Re Senexx @14: list of policies;
Correct me if I am wrong, excepting the policy on Carbon Tax, most or all of the policies on that list are ones that are in concert with the thinking on this site.
If Katter didn’t have form, I could see myself throwing a party with most of these policies a second or third preference ahead of Labor. Except the anti carbon tax shite would also be a deal-breaker.
Katter is more interesting than Hanson, and though I disagree with him on some issues (the need for climate action), his stance on manufacturing shows more support of Rudd’s call to be more than “China’s quarry and Japan’s beach”, and his understanding of the dangers of privatisation to budgets as well as service levels is obviously better than any of the major partiesl
The one thing you cannot call Katter is a hypocrite, you cannot say he participates in the race to the bottom so favored by the majors – and he refuses this even though being populist. That’s something the progressives can respect him for, and hope politicians of other parties would take a leaf from his book.
Hmmm…. Does anyone think he already has a Senator ready to jump to the Katters before the next election? Barnaby?
I too would be happy to join a rally against Big Brother, but I believe the last series was axed a few years back due to poor ratings…
For what it’s worth – and I know it’s hardly a universal opinion on this site – I’ll stand up and call Katter’s economic policies simplistic nonsense.
For one, the supposed evils of Coles and Woolies largely put money into the pockets of those who buy food – aka everybody, not the sharesholders of Wesfarmers and Woolies.
For another, Australia has done very well out of free trade the last couple of decades.
For another, Katter’s bleating about privatization is really bleating bleating about urban areas withdrawing a hidden subsidy from regional areas. I’d prefer to rich people to cross-subsidize the less well-off, whether they’re in the housing commission flats in Richmond or in an outstation in the Northern Territory.
Ethanol is a environmentally-destructive boondoggle.
Did I miss anything?
@Senexx – To me, their policy platform looks to be self-contradictory.
How do the Australia Party’s stated policies — intense market re-regulation, protectionism and re-nationalisation of previously sold-off assets — support their other stated intention to “rally against Big Brother”?
I wonder, does their commitment to personal freedom also extends to say, a man marrying the man he loves, a woman marrying the woman she loves — or is freedom defined only in terms of how many kilos of fish you can dynamite out of the river?
“They’ll have to do better than a radical grab-bag of single-issue measures.” Isn’t that what political opponents of the Greens have been saying for years? If it’s good for the goose…
As much as my left-wing gut instincts are attracted to the idea of breaking up Coles and Woolies and supporting native enterprise rather than building an economy based on ripping stuff out of the ground, I find most of the Australian Party’s policies rather dangerous.
Increasing tariffs is likely to drive up prices and cause untold damage to the hip pockets of the ‘battlers’ Katter is aiming to please. Attacks on free trade and the carbon tax will likely do vastly more harm to the economy than good and legislating how large a succesful company should be just seems like madness.
Mandatory ethanol seems like a great way to drive up food prices too.
Besides that, Australia already has two naval-gazing parties that like to pretend the world beyond our shores doesn’t actually exist. They’re called Labor and the Liberals.
All up, some nice sops thrown in the direction of civil liberties but the policies on show are economically illiterate, ill-considered and likely to have mass appeal with people who have no understanding of how the international economy actually functions.
I hope Katter and his ilk are looking forward to the high prices and poor working conditions that went hand in hand with a large domestic manufacturing sector.
@Mercurius
They specifically list ‘traditional Christian values’ and that marriage is ‘one man and one woman’ on their policies list, so no, personal freedom does not extend to them and they are explicitly anti-equality.
I bet if you dig around in their policies you’ll find other policies that are opposed to a competitive market because it’s bad for farmers, yet that’s what they want to do to supermarkets. You’ll probably also find somewhere Katter stating that Australia is better served by natural monopolies or duopolies (in e.g. airlines or telecoms) because of our geography and population density. Plans to break up coles and woollies don’t seem to fit well with populist agrarian socialism generally.
And is breaking up Coles their headline policy?
Surely this party is a bigger threat to the nationals than anyone else -potentially even a deadly threat?
Bob Katter has always represented, with gusto, the people that elected him. Isn’t that what democracy is all about?
@ 23
It seems you just pipped me to the post but I reckon you can never make the case against the insanity of economic nationalism too many times.
Out of interest what would Coles and Woolies do if they reached their legally mandated market-share? Would the government insist that they start acting in an inefficient and self-destructive manner until they shrink back within the guidelines set by Canberra?
If ever a policy was designed to tell investors that their cash would be better spent abroad this is it.
Well, he was against deregulation of the dairy industry under the Howard government as he saw this as the thin edge of the wedge and was akin to delivering our dairy industry into foreign hands; now National Foods of Japan control 80% of our milk market with Parmalat of Italy at 12% and Fonterra of New Zealand at 5%. The remaining 3% is owned by Australians.
That’s free trade Australian style isn’t it ?
Katter is that greatest of inventions: A Populist. Nothing more, nothing less. This kind of nonsense is what it takes to get elected in rural Australia (and not just in Queensland – Shooters and Fishers parties anyone? Sounds like NSW has something funny in THEIR water too).
I agree with sg @28. Katter’s greatest value is to the Greens and Labor – he’s going to split the Right-wing populist vote. That sound you can hear is Campbell Newman weeping into his beer.
@27 – Oh, that’s nice to know. I wonder which ‘traditional Christian values‘ they have in mind?
Michael.
The unions are off Bligh and backing Katter. A few tears for ALP perhaps.
And with the threat of becoming QLDs third party, the Greens may also be nervous.
Interesting times.
I’d love to here Ootz’s take on this, He’s closer to the action.
jumonmcar@34, maybe the unions are backing Katter – but the key thing is they arent backing Newman. Like I said, its going to split the right-wing vote. Bligh was always going to suffer a backlash over the electricity privatisation, (and just for having been there so long). The unions backing Katter is unlikely to make that any worse and wont help Newman and the LNP.
Steve at the Pub,
I got a bit bored with LP long ago, I don’t follow it as closely as I used to. So the short answer to your question is I do not know. I still have to trawl back through the archives to find out if someone answered a question I asked of them to which they said they would only answer if I gave an answer about it (or something else). I did. I suspect that they did not. I suspect they argued about something I said instead of giving their answer.
Robert Merkel,
I agree with you on Coles / Woollies and as ALDIs, IGAs and the greater US chains like CostCo coming, the duopoly is going to be reduced anyway.
Free Trade per se hasn’t existed, preferential trade has.
Things like Privatisation of Telstra, Electricity, Railways (ie. public utilities) should never have been done (at least done the way they were recently). Its easy for Coastal Australian’s (which I know you’re not) to bash Bush people like Katter, by relative comparison they get handed everything on a silver platter.
Mercurius,
I neither endorse the policies or disendorse them, whilst I haven’t read beyond what I wrote earlier which is a direct copy from the Courier-Mail I haven’t inferred a re-nationalisation of anything, just no more privatisation. For e.g. if Telstra was privatised appropriately, the NBN would be unnecessary. (I just read what I copy/pasted earlier & I stand corrected, I think he would fail at re-nationalising as well)
With the protection of industry, I don’t think that necessarily implies reintroducing tariffs either, just no further deregulation unlike our overseas competitors who constantly re-regulate and hike tariffs (thinking of the US)
As for the theory of cross subsidy (I’m going to get a little complicated), that only applies to Horizontal Fiscal Equity which really means parity of service when it comes to the urban/rural divide and since Horizontal transactions net to zero which are generally the province of the States & private sector but the parity of service is funded by the Federal Government (eg. Telstra), that is actually a vertical transaction (unless $x are given to States or private sector to do it)
“Regional and Rural folk insist they subsidise the cities by providing cheap and high-quality food and wealth from mining. But city people resent paying the same price for services like broadband and other infrastructure that gets more expensive to provide the more sparse the population gets. Delivering the same outcomes in regional areas requires a bigger per capita spend than in the city. So who cross-subsidises who?” – From a column by Jessica Irvine, Nick O’Malley and David Humphries
There’s a lot of commentary about country bumpkin Katter but behind all that weird bluster of his there is a savvy operator. It is similar tothe demonisation of One Nation because of Pauline Hanson’s own personal naivety. A lot of One Nation’s policies at the time were very similar to the Australian Democrats. However in Ms. Hanson’s case it just seemed she repeated what the last person she spoke to said. Hence Katter’s fear.
From a personal POV, I’ve been ambivalent about a Carbon Tax forever (too much talk and not enough detail) but if it is tied to the 25k TFT as suggested by Garnaut & other compo, I’m sold. Without that I have my doubts. There are 3 effective ways to reduce Carbon, set price, set quantity or regulations (I’m assuming this is what Direct Action is but I’ve never been able to make any sense of Direct Action). The first two are the most common and popular.
I’ve probably said more than necessary and probably plenty to disagree about to. The only party I would support is a Job creating party and since none exist I don’t support any. Vote Independent, Democracy always needs and requires a Balance of Power.
Naming your party the Australia Party – by implication other parties are unAustralian and perhaps that if you are not a Queenslander you are not Australian, or something like that.
More seriously where will he get his support financially and institutionally?
to the extent that he has any success he may make mischief for the LNP by splitting the vote with the risk that with OPV they will lose votes that go to Bob and then exhaust.
When the registered name is Katter’s Australian Party, who is it representing, exactly?
I agree with breaking market share of coles & woolies for the same reasons no other western society allows the market dominance these to enjoy in Australia. All that has happened is they have become so large & wealthy they can enter any market sector & sweat out the competition ( have a look at what they own already ) This is a tranfer of wealth from local areas/communities to CEO pockets & if you think the majority of that profit is going back to shareholders you are kidding yourself unlike small business where 100% stays in the area.
From what I have read on this site I would be surprised if there were many comments from small business owners or rural people but there are a lot of us out there.
Even if Bob gets rosted, like Pauline some of these policies are in touch with the people weather you like it or not.
@38
Anyone who can vote for him ,and their children, who else?
If that doesn’t include you, don’t worry about it.
Does that include you?
What Katz said @17.
Not dissimilar to the Greens really.
These populist efforts rarely come to much on a national perspective and generally wash out over a couple of electoral cycles. What happens when Bob moves on?
What Robert Merkel said @23.
Completely OT – Robert, Daupine starts tonight. I fear this is Cadel’s last roll of the dice for the TdF.
@39 – almost any Australian with a superannuation fund will own Woolworths and Wesfarmers. The CEO’s remuneration is insignificant when compared to the capital value and dividends going to shareholders.
If I still had my Austen 1800 I’d simply have to put the sticker next to my Joh for PM sticker.
Robert @23,
“the supposed evils of Coles and Woolies largely put money into the pockets of those who buy food”
I don’t understand what you mean. I have bought plenty of food at Coles and, as far as I am aware, Coles has never put money into my pocket.
I can’t see any difference between the policies of the Mad Katter’s Tea Party and those of One Nation.
Just what we need, our very own Mad Katter’s Tea Party!
Silkworm @ 47:
Snap!
And it seems reasonably tech savvy, as I seem to have a facebook feed about it from “bob katters hat’ that I neither asked to follow or ‘liked’ My facebook required me to log in again, even though I was logged in already, and then Bob’s hat was in my feed. Didn’t appreciate that at all.
Part of the solution to the duopoly of Coles/Woollies is simple. It lies directly in the hands of local government – all they have to do is relax parking requirements and ALDI will pop up everywhere faster than a self righteous middle class professional at a public meeting.
Katter would probably pick up some Green votes with his similar populist policies.
Good on Bob for having the guts to stand up and have a go. Regional Qld hase long been neglected by the George Sreet politicians and public servants. Money and taxes generated in regional Qld are disproportionally spent in the big smoke. Our roads are rubbish, infrastructure sadly lacking in keeping up with population and business activity increases.
The selling off of “public assets” to fund George street pork barreling has to stop. Once they are sold, they are no longer public assets. QR is one such example, the sale of QR was a disgrace. The average City persons jaw would drop on first sighting a coal train in the Bowen Basin, all of these now sold. A serious money making concern gone out of public hands.
The aim of breaking the strangle hold of woolies and coles is a no brainer, lower prices through competition. Economics 101.
The halting of the Nanny state that we are now becomming at the hands of minority interest groups needs to be stopped. Our basic freedoms are being erroded.
Looking after Australian industry another no brainer.
If Bob Katter can put a rat up em, wake the big boys up, they may actually listen to what societies needs and concerns are and all power to him and his new Political party if he manages to do so.
Good heavens Mercurius @ 27, thanks for that, I think I’ll convert.
It is interesting though, how the perceived interests of many who consider themselves to be middle class now have an air of desperation if not a touch of radicalism about them.
Why are the interests of the two major parties in conflict with many in the middle class? And why aren’t the major parties reacting? Why does everyone need to own stocks and have investment portfolios these days?
Interesting thought from 38. “Katters” is a bit like, “Hansons”, or “Palin’s People”, like a brand of tomatoe sauce. Is it thus regarded as “coded” for Hansonists?
I don’t think country folk are that different from urban people actually. They look for a rep who will oppose corporatism and politicians like Katter turn up masquerading as caped crusaders for truth, justice and the American way.
But country people are like people in the city who have long voted Labor in to try and control the galloping nexus between politics and big business, then see parks, amenities, services and infrastructure etc privatised or run down, they will find that the new hero no better than the last.
As folk tackling the current mouse plague, with measures for control no better than twenty years ago and still nothing from the underfunded CSIRO in the way of some thing more efficacious in the controlof these slippery cheese eating four-legged pissing-on-wheat mammalbots.
I&U: my point is that the grocery duopolists have squeezed the margins of some Australian farmers (those whose products aren’t determined by global commodity markets), and most Australian food processors.
However, neither Coles nor Woolies seem to be making outrageously high profits, either. And, as much as upper management salaries might offend our sensibilities, they’re generally a pimple on the bum of earnings.
As such, I can only conclude that the benefits of Coles and Woolies playing hardball with suppliers are flowing through to customers.
Razor: it’d be a shame if Cadel goes through his career without winning a grand tour, but I think a podium is probably the best he can hope for if Andy Schleck is on form (and/or Contador rides and isn’t stuffed from the Giro).
My understanding is that Katter isn’t concerned about whether consumers are getting the cheapest food. He’s concerned that Coles and Woolies are playing hardball with suppliers.
I’m sure he’s smart enough to know that if farmers are to get a better deal, consumers will pay more.
My understanding is that Coles and Woolies make their money on turnover. Clearly if an item on the shelf makes 1 to 2% and turns over on average once a month, the result is a tidy profit.
You have to take Katter seriously. He has held on to his seat for some time and comes up with gems like
and
He is anything but Hanson with a big hat and is respected by Aborigines such as Noel Pearson. He may also fill the need for a regional party now that the Nationals have been taken over by a Tasmanian Liberal with no sense of humor.
In some ways it would be better for the party to be called Katter’s Regional Australia Party but the acronym would be a bit unfortunate unless the Katter part was dropped.
“the result is a tidy profit”
Their profit is a matter of public record – it’s quite small, and on par with supermarket chains internationally. It certainly isn’t anything like a monopolistic profit.
So, fishing freely and boiling a billy without a permit. Crucial stuff for addressing the issues of the C21st. :-/
Macho men issues, macho men swagger.
Boiling the billy: some years ago we went and stayed at the Undara Lava Tubes near Mt Surprise in the Qld Gulf country ; highlight of the day was walking through these amazing lava tubes and then having our guide boil a billy for morning smoko. We went back again recently and enjoyed the same experience but smoko was delivered via a thermos. I quizzed the guide about boiling the billy and he told me that ‘National Parks had banned all fires’.
I think Bob is illustrating how far the nanny state has penetrated our daily lives.
No. Representative democracy is about representing ALL the people in your electorate. Not just the ones who voted for you.
Some of my Yr 10 students have a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of what “democracy is all about” than certain commenters here.
I wonder what the “Boil the billy” crowd would be saying if someone boiled their billy in a national park and started a bushfire that killed 120 people? Can’t allow the nanny state to interfere in our lives, I suppose.
How can Katter be opposed to deregulation of the dairy industry, but propose the break up of Coles and Woollies? Is the extent of his economic plan “if it hurts farmers I’ll ban it”? Maybe he should just pass a law requiring all Australians to shop at a farmer’s market once a week.
Does anyone know of an agrarian socialist with a coherent economic model to explain why these contradictions work?
What wantok said. These fire and fish issues might be trivial to the ‘cultivated citizenry’ just as doggy poo in parks and gardens are to us country bumkins. However, it may become relevant again to the broader public post carbon-apocalypse.
Just remember this while you are sipping on that $1 carton of milk, courtesy of the big two. After the dairy industry was deregulated, the Evelyn Tableland area had the highest suicide rate in the nation. Who cared? Now, our cattle gets mistreated in Indonesia, the nation cries and stops a major industry up here dead in its track over night!
How much of Woolworths and Coles profits are buried in expansion and aquisitions? There are also a lot of foreigners reaping the profits of Woolworths and Coles who continue to send Australian producers broke let alone squeezing them.
There are something like 1.8million looking for jobs, wanting more work or available for work and only about 260,000 jobs. This is because Australian producers have been sent out of business or overseas due to free trade ideology and tariff reductions, as well as deregulation which takes what little power the producers had in the markets and gives it to the already too powerful.
Go bob Katter (except for your carbon tax policy), and create jobs for Australians. Local jobs= local wealth. Buy local=local wealth.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. I’m sure “post-apocalypse” fining people for boiling a billy will be the least of the government’s concerns. Is this really what keeps you up at night? And the fish from our waterways won’t feed the entire population, either. We’ll just lose the fight to save species.
Furthermore, as humans we have a duty of care to sentient beings which we ship off to slaughter, as well as humans. I’m so sick of the “but what about that much more important issue over there every time any issue is raised. The outcome, of course, is analysis paralysis. The awakening of the Australian population to atrocities visited on sentient animals can only feed the empathy part of the brain which, in the long run, will I hope work in favour of marginalised humans, too.
Salient Green I suspect that someone who knows more about economics and job markets than me will be along shortly to explain how, even though unemployment is at around 5%, we are nearly at full employment capacity.
Bob Katter said some nice things, which I don’t think are really possible in the real world. But they make good sound bites.
Mindy, my economics is limited to HSC (Victoria – so you can tell how long ago that was), but I believe “full employment” in the economic sense means a low percentage of people, rather than zero people, out of work at any one time, to allow for various unavoidable circumstances (the details of which are hazy now!)
Amirite, younger edumacated ppl?
I thought boiling a billy was about making a good cup of tea.
Saw Katter on ABC Breakfast this morning. The guy is truly as mad as a cut snake. I’m all in favour of stopping privatisation and rolling it back, but even to an economically unlettered mind like mine, I could see he was mostly talking economic nonsense. (Or have I been unknowingly brainwashed by laissez-faire economic doctrine after having it thrown in my face for years by the media?
Probably about the only good thing that will come out of his nonsense is that state governments might stop approving outrageous power bill increases. If Gillard can’t solve this one, before the carbon tax is introduxed, its politically doomed.
The most shocking thing about the Katter interview on ABC TV this morning was his declaration he wasn’t interested in the refugee issue. His inhumanity was astounding.
Ahhh yes, full employment, people washing statues of ANZACs and farmers, in the rain, that sort of thing?
Paul Burns @ 69:
Ever since I first encountered Katter in Townsville in the 1980s I’ve thought the guy’s a raving lunatic. What I truly don’t understand is how anybody can bring themselves to vote for him, even if they share his 19th century economics. Still, this is the state that gave us Joh and Pauline, I suppose.
Mind you, you can’t just ignore him either, or cross to the other side of the street. Sufficient electors repeatedly vote for these deranged clowns that they have to be factored in to political analysis, at least in Queensland.
Having said that, Katter’s loopy even by Qld standards. Is there anybody who doesn’t</i
Erk… damned iPad…
What I meant to say was ‘is there anybody out there who doesn’t think that Katter’s a raving lunatic?’
CJ Morgan @ 72,
Pauline Hanson?
Eric Sykes @ 71,
Painting stones that border public gardens etc, white? (I actually knew some-one who had to do that years ago.)
Salient Green, this:
is just economic nationalism. Would it be okay if locals were sending producers broke? No, I presume. So what does it matter that it’s foreigners doing it?
Mindy, we can’t have 0 unemployment, because a flexible labour market depends on some people being available for employment at any time. We also, I would like to hope, have a little bit of space in there for people choosing to take a bit of time out of work to do interesting things, like surfing, or community work.
CJ Morgan @72
At least 38,170 voters in the Kennedy electorate.
Katter voters
There are something like 1.8million looking for jobs, wanting more work or available for work and only about 260,000 jobs. This is because Australian producers have been sent out of business or overseas due to free trade ideology and tariff reductions, as well as deregulation which takes what little power the producers had in the markets and gives it to the already too powerful.
I agree with you salient green, if what you’re saying is our currently historically low unemployment and a huge leap in living standards and real income across the board are largely a result of free trade, tariff reductions, and to some extent deregulation.
Honestly, the level of ignorance, nostalgia and literal rewriting of history here is breath-taking. Australia’s manufacturing has never power our economy. A high school history student should be able to tell that. .
Australian producers have largely not been sent overseas, because most primary produce can’t be imported cheaply enough, and those that have, have done so because their shit was expensive and the australian public wanted cheaper shit, or shit that wasn’t available except seasonally and were happy to buy it from the Chinese etc.
These weird fantasies about some kind of Halycon days of local producers and manufacturers are just nonsense. Oh yes, off-shoring to China = bad, except no one wants to talk about how TVs in the seventies cost the real equivalent of several thousand dollars, and how low paycheques were back then, and how high unemployment was, and how hardly anyone went to university, and few people finished high school. And definitely no one wants to talk about what living standards in China, Korea, and all the other nations we currently import from were like back then, also. Because they were shit. And Australians are more important or something.
I am not a blind champion of free-trade but you have to read the writing on the wall at some point.
As an aside, painting rocks white was always a useful way to employ otherwise idle soldiers.
Patrickg @76: You say
When I left school in 1960 unemployment was below 2%. I didn’t know any school leaver who didn’t get a job, nor anyone else who was unemployed.
That was the bad old days before Gough started the move towards free trade. Bad old days when the economy was growing at a healthy rate, the workers could afford to buy houses, the basic wage was much closer to average income and technology was advancing in much the same way as it is now.
Tragedy is that Katter is dismissed as a nutter for having the hide to challenge our precious free markets.
One of the things I see happening in politics is that a lot of groups have been abandoned. Labor has abandoned the workers, middle class progressives and anyone who is not a rusted on coalition supporter. The Liberal party has abandoned the educated middle class and anyone else who thinks rationally. The National party has abandoned the regions to support the Liberals.
The North of Australia was abandoned by mainstream politicians before federation. The only way they can get support is to elect larger than life politicians like Katter.
Now explain to me why Katter has done very well despite part of his electorate being made up of state Labor seats.
You assume, Grigory that voting for a complete lunatic would be a bad thing. It’s a reasonable assumption, but in the case of his parts of the country, a little questionable.
If you think the world’s gone mad, only the insane makes sense.
It’s not just what Katter says that makes him a raving loonie; it’s how he says it. I heard him last night on the news, and he was very loud and angry. If he carries on this way, he’s headed for a heart attack.
patrickg @ 76, your nasty tone has set you up to look an even bigger fool after JohnD’s employment revelations at 78. Graph on page five supports that:
http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/wp/wp97n24.pdf
Also, that was an honest 2% back then, not the BS figure we have now which takes no account of the massive underemployment.
You appear to think that we would ‘not’ be enjoying a better standard of living without neoliberal policies, that pay packets would still be low, that TV’s would still be thousands of dollars, that very few would be attending Uni and almost no-one would finish high school.
This kind of thinking is off with the fairies IMHO.
And I don’t believe Australians did want cheaper shit, at least not the avalanche we have now. Most of it was foisted on us by large retailers greedy for profits. And still is.
Finally, if you think that the avalanche of resource depleting, short-lived shit is in any way a good thing for the Australian economy or the environment or our future prosperity you are sadly mistaken.
Second finally, large numbers of Australian producers of manufactured goods have gone overseas. Where the hell have you been man? Where’s Mitsubishi FFS, and didn’t Heinz just announce a withdrawal last week.? Toolmaking is all but dead in SA, Ford is barely holding on, to name just a fraction.
The Mad Katter Party perhaps
“Second finally, large numbers of Australian producers of manufactured goods have gone overseas. Where the hell have you been man? Where’s Mitsubishi FFS, and didn’t Heinz just announce a withdrawal last week.? Toolmaking is all but dead in SA, Ford is barely holding on, to name just a fraction.”
Indeed. As a child of the fifties/sixties growing up in Adelaide half the population was involved in building cars and making white goods. The cheap T.V.’s etc we all enjoy will soon be gone, just like the mining boom. Our kids who have mortgaged themselves up to the hilt, will soon know about the depression our parents have always waxed lyrical about.
Fran, I don’t assume any of the the things you have said @80.
It is CJ Morgan who has expressed derogatory views about Bob Katter’s state of mind.
My comment @75 simply points out that at least 38,170 voters in the Kennedy electorate seem not to share CJ Morgan’s views.
Agree with 81. silkworm – Bob is headed for a heart attack. He’s as mad as hell an’ he’s not going to take it anymore – particularly as his decision to go with the Coalition dealt him out of the chance to influence the priorities for government spending and to directly push several of his policy barrows with Tony Abbott.
Part of the anger I put down to media deprivation syndrome and policy irrelevance. He now has got the media paying attention to him and it will now continue to do so at least until the first round of election returns from the Queensland state election in March next year.
Salient Green:
If we didn’t buy it, they wouldn’t sell it…
Salient,
a) John D’s employment figures were the result of a post-war boom – nothing to do with manufacturing/producing. Also, 2% unemployment looks just frigging peachy until you realise most of the women in the country weren’t working at all (underemployment, much?), and everyone was dead by about 65.
b) Regarding university and schooling vs manufacturing. How many university graduates do you think would have taken the kind of minimum wage manufacturing jobs that abounded in the sixties? How many take them now? How do you think Australian manufacturing was competitive? It was because we were cheap.
c) Australian s manifestly do want cheaper shit. That’s why we keep buying it. No one has a gun to our heads. Geez, so condescending, the public just doesn’t know what it wants, it’s up for rent-seeking elites to tell them.
d) Resource depleting, short-lived shit has actually been an (albeit somewhat squandered) immense boon to Australian standards of living. The local manufacturing practices you’re so keen to champion weren’t so crash hot for the environment, either. Go swimming or catch a fish west of Sydney Harbour bridge some time, if you can handle the dioxins and heavy metals in the water. Or check out the erosion, salinity, and depleted water table from the farming of that era, too.
e) Mitsubishi? Ford? Heinz? Are you f**king kidding me? Those companies are not Australian in any way at all! The auto-industry only held on because we pumped full of so much damned money it would have been crazy to close shop. And you know who pays for that kind of subsidy? Everyone.
Re true unemployment figures. I have kept this link from 2004 as it does well to explain how “rubbery figures hide the real jobless tragedy”:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Opinion/Rubbery-figures-hide-the-real-jobless-tragedy/2004/12/16/1102787209516.html
If TVs were made in Australia they probably would cost thousands of dollars.
And given how many people are willing to go out of their way to buy stuff cheaper on the internet I think its pretty obvious that a lot of Australians do want cheap stuff.
Salient Green, are mitsubishi destroying local producers or making local jobs? They’re a foreign company – the profits go offshore, the only thing that stays onshore is the jobs. So do you care if the company producing those jobs is manufacturing shit or selling a service?
Your complaints are contradictory, which is what happens when you go down the economic nationalist route.
The days of convenience buying being dominated by the mega stores and their cheaply bought, tho’ not so cheaply on sold crap, should come under pressure from online purchasing. Pity that farmers markets can’t seem to get a similar pressure against the cheaply bought crap we are offered as food in the major supermarkets.
Anyway, people should just go on-line and start trading forex.
Why bother even becoming a graduate? Anyway, what do you think all those Arts students are doing? (The ones that graduated, I mean.)
And as for farmers, why can’t farmers just start subdividing their land and selling it to investors. Then all the farmer would have to do would drive he’s leetle tractor ’round all day and if there was a bad season, he wouldn’t care, ’cause he’s got a shed for the tractor anyway!
CAN ANYONE TRANSLATE THIS POST FOR ME? I’ve read it several
times, but Im still not sure what Bob is trying to say. Situation normal then…
QUOTED DIRECTLY FROM BOB KATTER’S HAT ON FB
“I mean, if you could imagine 20 or 30 crocodiles up there on the roof, and if all that roof was illumination, and saying that we wouldn’t see anything in this room because of a few croco-roaches up there, are you telling me seriously that the world is going to warm because there’s 400 parts per million of CO2 up there?”
As a CONSTITUTIONALIST my main concern is if what is proposed in constitutionally permissible. So far I am not aware that Bob Katter seeks to undermine our constitutional rights rather seeks to enforce them.
Let us not be too hasty to judge this man as he might just become the greatest assest in our political arena.
Zorronsky @ 92 – I think we’re already seeing the beginning of the online food selling networks which will challenge at least the fresh food component of coles/woolworths. Just look at the number of online sites selling bread/milk/vegetables/fruit/meat who deliver direct. There are some pretty much direct farmer to house places too though you need to buy a bit in a bulk.
@95: Sorry, he may not be trying to undermine your constitutional rights, but he explicitly wants to make sure I don’t get any. While many of his ideas may be interesting, it is overshadowed by the hypocrisy of saying on one hand they don’t want a nanny state, but on the other, we need to make sure that non Christian white men don’t get any more than we have to let them have, and certainly not equality with the ‘real’ Australians.
@96: We get a weekly fruit and veg box of Random Stuff once a fortnight. We pay far less than we would at Woolies or Coles, and the quality of what we get is amazing. Plus, since it’s local, we get a lot of fruit and veg strains that are actually grown for flavor and not shelf life and durability.
sg@91, Mitsubishi, the manufacturer, has long gone fella, why talk about it in the present sense if you want to be hones?
And if you want to be honest, you have to acknowledge that jobs was exactly what I was on about. So they took their profits offshore, such as they were which can’t have been much if they needed to be propped up as you said. So what?
When they closed down all those directly involved lost their jobs, along with the 6 times as many other jobs in the component industry the profits of which mostly stayed in Australia.
Patrickg, but those companies were here, providing jobs, using Australian products from the wider community.
And you are obviously the sort of person who thinks having a garage and a house full of cheap chinese gadgets has improved your standard of living and probably even think maccas has improved your standard of living. We have opposing opinions and that’s all there is to it.
Paul Burns @ 73:
One and the same.
silkworm @ 81:
Yes, it’s his demeanour that distinguishes him from your run-of-the-mill Qld laughing stock. On TV last night he was positively apoplectic, and was unintelligible as a holy roller talking in tongues.
I wasn’t trying to be nasty – indeed I harbour a certain affection for the old frootloop – rather, I’m seriously at a loss as to why people vote for someone who comes across as such a raving lunatic. Is it a perpetual protest vote, or does his sustained incumbency reflect something else?
They can’t all be related to him
Go BOB!!!!!!
Katter is mostly angry and loud. He seems to do it quite effortlessly. I’m not too concerned about his blood pressure or heart.
In my perception Katter is concerned about the production of food rather than manufacturing sector. In trade terms the food sector is notoriously f*cked and is known as the most distorted of all markets. In fact, amongst the developed countries I think you can say that economic nationalism is the prevailing orthodoxy if you judge by actions rather than words. Outside Australia and NZ, who are the only about the only countries that try to implement ‘free’ trade.
Canada is a special case in that they got suckered into NAFTA with the US and Mexico.
But farming seems to be highly stressed everywhere, outside some niche players and some of the large players, who can diversify across climatic conditions.
I don’t know the answers; Katter thinks he does, and what he says seems to have considerable appeal.
@100
I think people vote on trust.
Mad or not, he is trusted.
A rare commodity in politics.
CJ Morgan @100
Sure you were. And you were fishing for others to be the same … and a few have been. And you still are @100.
Says more about you than it does about him.
Grigory M @ 103:
So I take it you don’t share my perception of Katter? Good – I think we’ve established that there are sufficient voters in his electorate who are willing to overlook his odd behaviour to elect him, and I’m genuinely interested in how that happens. Do you vote for him, and if so don’t you think he’s just a tad embarrassing? Personally, even if I agreed with what I think he’s saying I couldn’t bring myself to be represented in parliament by someone as obviously crackers as he presents himself to be.
I can understand the motivation of a protest vote, but that doesn’t explain Katter. Mind you, I’ve been trying to work out how he does it for about 25 years now… And you’re right, it probably does say something about me…
Well someone needs to stop the big 2 parties cas they don’t really care about the Australian people only there own pockets. I can’t vote and don’t want too. I have lived in this great country since 1989 and now i am getting concerned about the rising cost of living. I can see the middle class of Australia being wipedout within the next 10 years, as the rich get rich and well the poor stay poor. Australians need to speak up now to make sure this does not happen.
As for the for the veracity of 76′s comments, just now Alan Kohler has issued a gloomy report on unemployment, deteriorating here and said to the worst (un)employment recession for sixty years, off shore.
Salient Green, you’re the person who said “where is Mitsubishi,” not me.
If your concern is jobs in Australia, not the economic nationalism you were spouting before (foreigners “sending producers broke”), then you shouldn’t care if the jobs are in manufacturing or services. All that should matter is that they’re jobs, right? So why are you worried about mitsubishi and Heinz closing in an environment of low unemployment?
You seem to be stumbling into the same weird trap that Katter is in, of inconsistent rhetoric based around some vague sense that the economy’s not working right and it must all be competition’s fault – until you find a non-competitive market is working against farmers, at which point you want it forced to be competitive. Or when you find that foreigners who were previously “sending producers broke” and offshoring jobs are actually the source of jobs, in which case you want them to be encouraged to continue investing in Australian workplaces.
What exactly do you want?
CJ Morgan @105
I don’t live in the Kennedy electorate.
Bon soir
How to explain the Mad Katters continual re-election? Easy, his old man held the seat before him and consider what his opponents must have been like. The gene pool is a little shallow in some parts of Australia.
@110
“”"The gene pool is a little shallow in some parts of Australia.”"
Heh. Like Tasmanian Greens voting for Mad Bob Brown?
“you shouldn’t care if the jobs are in manufacturing or services. All that should matter is that they’re jobs, right?”
SG – I’m sure you know that not all jobs are alike and that most of the service jobs that have been created are low skilled, at the lower end of pay scale, are not unionised, often casual ……
And Paul Burns, please don’t complain about rising electricity prices – they are due to the rising costs of inputs, catching up on neglected maintenance of the system, and a massive upgrading of the system to cope with a population-wide turning on of air-conditioners during heat waves. Where I work, people complain constantly of electricity prices yet continue to guzzle an enormous amount of power.
I agree with Salient Green, and particularly with his/her remark that “We have opposing opinions and that’s all there is to it.” Sometimes, it’s just like that: we don’t all want the same kind of life. If I had the power I would eradicate Coles, Woolworths, large shopping malls and other similar abominations on aesthetic grounds alone – to visit such places is to degrade your soul, and we don’t want that.
jumpnmcar @111- True, but Browns competition is better than Katter’s.
What Russell, all those jobs in the finance and education sectors are low skilled and at the lower end of the pay scale?
As opposed to the jobs in smelting, meat-packing and on the factory floor … definitely better than working in the financial services sector, right?
Your penchant for wanting to destroy everything you don’t like is a tad scary and judgmental, as well.
Patrickg @88: All the girls I knew got jobs in 1960. Women who wanted to work were able to get work as well. University graduates got well paid professional jobs, not general laboring jobs.
A significant part of the manufacturing industry depended on tariff protection to remain competitive in 1960. Some of our prices were high by international standards but society was far more equal than it is now and it was easy to get a job if you wanted one.
Helen @60: My wife hadn’t realized that she was being macho when lit fires to boil the billy so she could drink tea with her lady friends. suspect a lot of outback women would be equally surprised.
Any other gems to intrigue the women of Northern/outback Australia?
Michael@113
Katter was born in Cloncurry,QLD( Lebanese decent)
Brown was born in Oberon NSW (a twin)
No idea where they were conceived.
Lets call it a draw on the ” gene pool ” thing
@JohnD
My mother had to resign from her civil service job when she got married in 1960. Those were the rules.
oh yes John D, that far more equal 60s society where Aborigines couldn’t vote and women had to fight for the right to enter the workplace. And where they were most heavily discriminated against? Working class manufacturing jobs, protected from international competition by tariffs and the white Australia policy, and from domestic competition by sexist laws and powerfully misogynist workplace practices.
SG – I could be wrong when I said MOST of the jobs created in the service sector were not unionised, were low-paid etc. That was my impression from what I’ve read – but then, I read a lot more left-wing stuff than the other. Do you think it’s the opposite? That most of the new service industry jobs are high-skilled and well-paid?
Yes, most of us are a bit judgmental. My opinions, after years of experiences, and a lot of reading, do change, slowly, but the principles underneath are becoming a bit clearer to me, and I become more confident of stating them, even if they aren’t fashionable. I’m guessing most of Katter’s fans are over 50.
When will the states boofheads wake up to themselves, Katter stands for restoring justice, restoring your civil rights, restoring your freedoms that have been progressively eroded away by communistic dictator major parties, do you all like being marshelled into yards like sheep and ba bared at as though you are idiots, if you are a law abiding citizen you are dictated too and government controlled (Commo stile), take a good look around you, can you do anything without government approval papers or government council approval or permits and attached hefty fees, wake up to yourselves you are not free you are dominated by unaccountable corrupt governments, common sense and your rights account for nothing under their justice system, only money buys you justice these days, criminals roam free to re-offend again and again, pedofiles are protected and roam free unknown to you amongst your children, so much for justice. your hard earnt tax money get squandered left right and center and finances your crooked polyies lavish life styles. your hospital system has been turned into a killing field, manufacturing has been driven offshore, your food bowl will not be filled with safe australian grown tucker for much longer, Australia is fast becoming unable to feed itsself with safe Australian produced foods because of crooked polies and free world trade, Katter aims to do his best to fix all that bullshit, If you have half a brain you’ll make sure Katter gets into power, it is in your interests that he does.
I am not trying to say that the 1960′s were some mythical paradise where light and justice prevailed. I was active in ABSCOL and have never forgot talking to my widowed mother about how much easier it would have been for us if she would have been able to get the male basic wage.
However, unlike now, it was a society where human rights and social justice was on the up and up and it was a society where almost everyone who wanted a job was able to get one. This included people who would now be classified as too disabled to work.
The point I was really trying to make that there were advantages in living in a society that hadn’t been conned into thinking that free markets are the answer to everything.
This thread is a bit snarky here and there. Please take care.
antidickhead @ 121, within that rant there is one statement that accurately reflects Katter’s policy:
Katter is one of the few politicians that thinks food security is an issue.
Katter also repeatedly mentions farmer suicides as a direct result of rural policy, eg. what Ootz said @ 64. Also go here:
Economic change does cause genuine trauma which tends to go a bit under the radar.
John D @122,
I’m not familiar with Australian history, but with UK history. I suspect they are fairly similar, perhaps with some dates changed.
Unemployment was very low in the booming 50s and 60s, but increased dramatically during the “stagflation” era of the 70s. Deregulation and privatisation was first introduced in the 80s, as an attempted solution to that stagnation.
After initial pain (ie still higher unemployment) in the 80s, the economy revived and (until the GFC) unemployment was much reduced from the 70s, albeit still higher than the golden era of the 50-60s.
So, I think it is incorrect to say that “free markets” are part of the problem. Rather they are a part of the – admittedly imperfect – solution. If they had not been introduced, unemployment would now, IMHO, more likely be at 70s levels than 60s level.
Bob Katter frequently has a problem with explaining his concerns; he is not eloquent. But he has very real concerne about food and resource security probably because he comes from an agricultural and resource rich region.
Apart from the transfer of the dairy industry ownership to offshore conglomerates (see my @31) he has noted that both Coles and Woolies are expanding their reach by becoming, not just retailers but product originators and manufacturers, generally sourcing their produce offshore (have a look at the country of origin of homebrand canned food).
He has also noted that the Queensland sugar industry is going the same way as the dairy industry; in the last few day we have seen the the Proserpine mill going to Singapore interests and the Tully mill going to the Chinese.
Xstrata, the owners of Mt Isa Mines have recently announced that they will no longer carry out copper smelting operations in Australia; they will still dig up the ore here (hurray!) but will not add value here, which used to be a criterion for foreign ownership of our resourses.
If this is the natural spread of globalistaion in a free trade world, just you try and buy or start a business in Indonesia or Malaysia or indeed China; regulation and red tape and the need for local shareholders will beat you.
Nope.
Capital flight would have proceeded apace and today Britain would look something like Burma.
Britain’s days as a leader in mass-produced consumer durables ended in the 1920s. Depression and war and post-war state-financed feather-bedding simply delayed the inevitable.
John D, human rights and social justice were on the up in the 60s because previously they were very bad. Aborigines were given the vote in 1962; previously they had been paid in tea and sugar. We had no regional competitors in manufacturing outside of Japan, and much of the region remained incapable of exporting finished goods, so we had natural markets. That has all changed since the yoke of imperialism was lifted and nations like Indonesia and India were able to develop.
Our 60s prosperity depended on holding people down. And once again, “almost everyone who wanted a job was able to get one” was not true. Married women, single mothers, Aborigines and migrants had limited or non-existent work opportunities, and opening up work opportunities to those people often resulted in serious backlash from industrial workers.
Russell, service jobs don’t have to be low-paid and non-unionized. It’s not the case that manufacturing jobs are hte opposite (lots of my friends in uni in Adelaide did summer jobs in the car factories).
“Capital flight would have proceeded apace and today Britain would look something like Burma.”
Having been to both places recently, I’d say in parts of Britain that would have to be an improvement.
Some ranter ironically self-describing as “antidickhead” said:
I’d say this is another portion of the ranter’s remarks that Brian might have cited as useful. The Mad Katter’s Tea Party is exactly suited to the perceived cultural needs of those with, metaphorically speaking, half a brain. Why governance should be organised around this admittedly somewhat socially and educationally disadvantaged group’s apprehensions isn’t clear from the rant.
For the record, I see no claim peculiar to Katter that when passed through the mill of contemporary usage, would serve any enduring legitimate collective interest of humans. As to the right to boil one’s billy for free, I’ve no problem with that. Fill your boots Bob.
This needs to be more nuanced.
Certainly, the closed shop labourism of the era ensured that the labour aristocracy continued to be Anglo-Celt and male. Moreover, award wages discriminated against women. And still other awards prevented women from being employed at all. However, if these out-groups had been admitted to the upper echelons of the workforce, it is unlikely that Australia as a whole, measured by an increase in per capita GDP, would have been very much more prosperous.
All of this patriarchal, ethnocentric, labourist featherbedding, very much a central plank of the Menzian consensus, relied on closed markets and import substitution. The folks who were being “held down” under this regime were Australian industrial sectors competing on the world market — farmers, graziers, miners, and consumers who were forced to pay high prices for domestically manufactured products of inferior quality. Local capital markets were also kept in a state of underdevelopment and dependence on government.
This featherbedding was one of the root causes of Australia’s sub-optimal economic performance in the 1960s and before.
Whether he knows it or not, Katter is singing a few bars from the Menzian hymn sheet.
“Russell, service jobs don’t have to be low-paid and non-unionized”
Which of course I never said or implied.
SG – I take it you are now ready to stop trying to defend your original statement that “you shouldn’t care if the jobs are in manufacturing or services. All that should matter is that they’re jobs, right?”
Well Russell, I assumed that on a leftist blog, the “jobs” word would be assumed to contain certain ideas about labour rights.
And in fact many of the sectors that have grown over the last 20 years at the expense of manufacturing do have a reasonable labour rights record. Education, health and social care, and financial services have been or are well unionized (relative to other sectors), well paid and with reasonable conditions. When people criticize the service sector they’re falling for an old fashioned image of “services” as maids and bar staff, serving a sub-national market. But it isn’t and doesn’t have to be this way.
As a member of the ALP and former Federal Candidate and Trade Unionist I for one am in full support of Bob Katter-no matter how mad he appears to be.
Bob is daring to do what the ‘Left Wing’ or the remnants of can only dream of and spruik during local branch meetings. Katter is not only a threat to the National bloc vote but also to the ALP-a party that has evidently desertedits working class base.
Katter will get my vote in the Senate next election, in fact I may even join them.
“Well Russell, I assumed that on a leftist blog, the “jobs” word would be assumed to contain certain ideas about labour rights.”
And you assumed that all jobs are the same …. perhaps in some sort of ideal world they could be, but I was talking about the real world.
Globalisation is a great way of making workers in developed countries compete for wages and conditions with huge populations in under-developed countries. I think more and more people in Australia are becoming fearful of being exposed to that competition, and well they should be.
Katz,
“Capital flight would have proceeded apace and today Britain would look something like Burma.”
I’m not sure I understand your point. Are you saying it would be a military dictatorship or that it would grow a lot of rice?
Or are you, perhaps, saying it would be an economic basket case? In which case you are simply agreeing with me.
Katter’s worried about being able to get Aussie grown food. Yet, so much of our agricultural produce is for the export market. What does he ( and those who obsess about ‘food security’) think of those who buy our stuff?
“What does he ( and those who obsess about ‘food security’) think of those who buy our stuff?”
That they are much more vulnerable than populations that produce sufficient food for themselves?
As someone that has voted for Bob Katter in the last election, albeit by preference after the green candidate, I have followed this thread with interest. Thanks for the entertainment folks, I hope you have put as much thought into your comments as I did for my vote! Let’s look at some of them and I’ll see how I can justify my alien behaviour.
“The guy is truly as mad as a cut snake.” @69
“Katter’s loopy even by Qld standards. Is there anybody who doesn’t”@71
“What I meant to say was ‘is there anybody out there who doesn’t think that Katter’s a raving lunatic?”@72
“It’s not just what Katter says that makes him a raving loonie; it’s how he says it. I heard him last night on the news, and he was very loud and angry.”@81
“Bob is headed for a heart attack. He’s as mad as hell an’ he’s not going to take it anymore” @86
“The Mad Katter Party perhaps”@83
People could you please be a bit more specific, as the DSM IV does not list those terms as a clinical mental illness. However, I shared your bafflement the first time I have heard Bob in a public speech on a cultural festival of all things. Knowing a little more about him as a person, I would place his emotional and verbal quirks akin to a Tourettes sufferer, he just can’t help himself. Does that make him a lesser person or ineffective politician for that matter?
“Right wing bogan populism, internally incoherent, chauvinist, ignorant of facts.”@17
“Macho men issues, macho men swagger.”@60
“I can’t see any difference between the policies of the Mad Katter’s Tea Party and those of One Nation.”@47
“Katter is singing a few bars from the Menzian hymn sheet” @130
“..maybe the unions are backing Katter.”@35
“Katter’s greatest value is to the Greens and Labor “@32
“You’ll probably also find somewhere Katter stating that Australia is better served by natural monopolies or duopolies (in e.g. airlines or telecoms) because of our geography and population density. “@28
“For another, Katter’s bleating about privatization is really bleating bleating about urban areas withdrawing a hidden subsidy from regional areas.”@23
“Maybe he should just pass a law requiring all Australians to shop at a farmer’s market once a week.”@63
“Just what we need, our very own Mad Katter’s Tea Party!”@48
If you have a look at the electorate of Kennedy, it is more than double the size of Victoria with an extreme mix of population, economies and interests to deal with. BTW here in Mareeba you probably get as far with Southern European lingo as with English. We do have one of the oldest Mosque on the continent as well as several Murri mobs from the area have made their home here.
“WTF do you have in the water in Queensland?”@1
Somewhat related to the above, in geographical terms Queensland is the most regionalised State in this Nation. What that means in political terms, look at Europe. Having grown up in one of the most regionalised countries (4 National Languages), many of Queensland’s idiosyncrasies are familiar to me. In summary, that is what the new party is about in my estimation, a platform for regional interests.
“……voting for a complete lunatic would be a bad thing. It’s a reasonable assumption, but in the case of his parts of the country, a little questionable.”@80
“The Mad Katter’s Tea Party is exactly suited to the perceived cultural needs of those with, metaphorically speaking, half a brain.” @129
“I hope Katter and his ilk are looking forward to the high prices and poor working conditions that went hand in hand with a large domestic manufacturing sector.”@26
“I wasn’t trying to be nasty – indeed I harbour a certain affection for the old frootloop – rather, I’m seriously at a loss as to why people vote for someone who comes across as such a raving lunatic. Is it a perpetual protest vote, or does his sustained incumbency reflect something else?”@100
“Personally, even if I agreed with what I think he’s saying I couldn’t bring myself to be represented in parliament by someone as obviously crackers as he presents himself to be.” @105
Ahem, I preferenced Bob, because the real race here was always going to be between the lib/nat candidate and Bob. Trust me, we are all much better off with Bob’s ‘madness’ and big hat.
@31
And BHP et al own vast piles of resources in countries other than Australia. Do you think the Australian shareholders would be keen on the Big Australian handing back these assets and staying within the Australia?
Re, food security
http://www.greenpeace.org.au/blog/?p=2512
See if you can spot Bob in there somewhere.
BTW could we have the html commands back in the reply section, please.
Valid points, Ootz.
I should probably vote exactly the same way as you, were I resident in Kennedy.
I increasingly think “food security” is a cover for nationalism. Our country is a massive exporter of food, and we have a long, long way to go before we suffer food insecurity. But if farmers are worried about that issue they’re welcome to stop trading on the international market.
Russell, “workers in developed countries compete for wages and conditions with huge populations in under-developed countries” because those under-developed countries are developing. You can either a) try to stop those countries from developing or b) help them develop faster and better. It seems like the industrial left is always focused on a), which just makes it clear how dependent the old industrial left were on the colonialist international order.
I’ve noticed a lot of sentiment on LP lately that seems to be opposed to development for the poorer countries of the world, on environmental grounds especially. I find this profoundly disturbing from the left, and I would prefer to see a left-wing vision which enables workers rights and environmentalism to co-exist with development and wealth. The alternative is Katter-style isolationism and tariff barriers and we will never, ever win that game.
“Our country is a massive exporter of food”
…. and how has our environment fared from that?
“You can either a) try to stop those countries from developing or b) help them develop faster and better”
Develop into what? Do you think the planet has no limits? Our whole consumption model is wrong. We’re all going to have to live with limits or face catastrophe. Working out a new way to live in this country will be hard enough without coping with pitting our wages and conditions against those in the third world.
I hope we can pioneer new sustainable ways of flourishing and pass on the knowledge to the rest of the world – that’s the globalisation I would like to see.
… thus making my point quite nicely …
Fran,
I can’t say that you and I have agreed on too much over the years we have been commenting here, but that last one was absolutely correct. The possession of “…half a brain…” would probably be a prerequisite of such a decision to vote.
.
The nonsense on Coles and Woolworths is a clear example. While their annual profit is a big number, as a proportion of sales it is tiny. From Woolworth’s last annual report, or example, for every $100 you spend on a shopping trip they made less than $4 in profit – with the rest going to suppliers (74%), employees, rent, interest and other expenses.
The reason they get the sales is simple – they are efficient and cheap. Restricting them to some arbitrary amount of sales is just likely to make everything we buy more expensive.
Ootz,
Thanks for that. Good find.
I got as far as this line from your link “[t]hey know we can’t guarantee food security to a growing population if we sell off our fertile soil to overseas companies…” and almost burst out laughing.
How are the nasty foreigners moving the soil out out of the country?
I will have to keep that one bookmarked to use as exhibit “A” if anyone tries to claim that Greenpeace can make sense on food security issues or if anyone tries to claim they are not xenophobic at all.
*snicker*
Andrew Reynolds @145
“How are the nasty foreigners moving the soil out out of the country?”
I would imagine the thesis is that the nasty foreigners will sell the food (not the soil) overseas, rather than to Australians.
Slightly more plausible – although still unlikely, I agree.
Try nutrients and water Andrew. Ecology 101.
Btw, thanks for to you and Fran’s craniological assessment. Last time I came across it was in the mid 70′s in the wilds of Southern Africa. I thought S J Gould did a good job debunking it.
Andrew, doesn’t that mean they’re selling local farms to overseas companies, that then “own” the “soil”? I think then it’s just xenophobic.
FTR Ootz, understanding as I do the structures of our voting system, I wasn’t implying that all those who gave an effective preference to Katter were metaphorically half-brained. I merely made the point that this was the market most likely to find his schtick appealing. Freedom to boil a billy? Good grief.
I chose to vote informal rather than preference the ALP — which meant that I gave up the right to cast an effective vote for The Greens last election. I do understand though that it’s hard to resist voting for the party you want just because you’re forced to vote for someone else to make it count.
Hate to rain on the parade, but populism has a strong history in QLD, and the Big Kat can mix it up both right and left, while standing on his head.
He will get a good vote, particularly up north, and with QLD’s OPV system he will cause considerable mayhem in the state election, and, of course, there’s at least one Federal seat in the bag for the Australian party. Which will do him nicely – and dont rule out a senate spot either. Nor the former One Nation seats of Nanago and Maryborough.
He’s not nearly as whacko as Hanson, he’s a mile shrewder politically, and she bagged 25% in 1998.
Anyone who thinks this is going nowhere wants to read some QLD political history.
Now, someone Beattie would win a state poll with the Kat factor messing the coalition up. Bligh on the other hand…
Ootz,
You don’t mean you actually believe that stuff, do you? Oh, dear. My apologies, I thought you had to be joking. I should have read your comment at #138 and thanked you for the entertainment.
If you read on it looks like they are also stealing our water (possibly shipping that overseas as well) and trying to contaminate Australia with some nasty, evil foreign muck that will forever make Australian food lethal to humans.
(Yes, I am overstating – but not by much).
.
sg,
If you are correct, then the piece is implying that the companies (nasty foreign ones of course – real Australian ones would not do this) would willingly destroy the value of their investment in Australia for some supposed nefarious purpose. Perhaps they would, but I would suspect that their shareholders would strongly object.
The piece seems to be just the usual silly hyperbole that some campaigners brought up in an echo chamber expect to get a free pass. The comments all seem to be of that sort of nature – with one exception.
“I think then it’s just xenophobic”
I don’t think it’s xenophobic to be apprehensive that more and more of the decisions that affect your community will be made by people who aren’t part of your community. Their interests may be in promoting a benefit to their community rather than yours.
“The nonsense on Coles and Woolworths is a clear example. While their annual profit is ….”
I don’t think the objection is to their profit, but the way they treat suppliers because of their buying power, and the influence they have on decision makers because of their corporate power. They’re part of an unsustainable system – vast amounts of ‘food’ moved around the country (it’s not efficient and cheap to deal with small, local suppliers) of which at least a third is then thrown out. It’s unsustainable.
Just a few hours ago on your ……
“CRIBB: Well some people would say that Australia is not short of land, although we are definitely short of good soil. Worldwide the issue is that we’re losing one per cent of our farm land every single year due to a combination of degradation, urban sprawl, mining, sea-level rise etc., etc. So the world is running out of farm land quite rapidly and farm land is going to be a very, very precious commodity in time to come. Yes Queensland has taken steps to protect their most valuable farm land, but that’s only two per cent of Queensland, and we recently saw some attempts in South Australia to protect some of their better grape growing country. So people are starting to wake up to this one, but again awareness is pretty low, Australians are pretty dozy and comfortable on the issue of scarcity of land.”
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/201106/s3237770.htm
And again a few hours ago ….
http://www.thenational.ae/business/economy/uae-ponders-australias-wheat
Andrew, I think the water export thing makes sense. If you drain water tables to support a particular water-intensive crop that you send overseas, then some of the water goes with it, and you end up with a net loss of water from the country. I think this is a big complaint about farming in Australia. I’ve heard it said about NZ too – that the drier Western half is growing water-intensive plantations and sending the wood overseas, which leads to a net drain of water from the East (through irrigation?) that then gets exported.
Whether this is true in its particulars I don’t know, but it’s a reasonable model. Exporting food is cool, but exporting water is a very bad idea.
(there might be some way you could apply this to soil too, e.g. nitrates get sent overseas in food products and then we have to replace them artificially, which in turn reduces the quality of the remaining soil).
I&U @124: The UK and Australian experience were similar. My take on stagflation was that the workers had got used to the idea that any gains that they made would be permanent no matter what happened to the economy. The unions were powerful enough to successfully back this idea.
Things became unstuck when OPEC forced up oil prices in the mid 70′s. The unions fought to maintain the purchasing power of wages and companies followed the union success with increases in profits which prompted the unions to……. The result was stagflation. In Australia stagflation was defeated when Bob Hawke convinced the unions that the welfare of their members was linked to the health of their employers business.
The economic policies of the sixties were driven by a population that had been through a depression and a world war that was partly a result of the economic failings of the Wiemar republic. It was also driven by a fear that that communism would exploit economic failure and high unemployment. Because of this full employment (of BREAD WINNERS) was considered to be far more important than economic efficiency. The Breton Woods agreement for currency stability, the Marshal plan, protectionism etc were all responses to these concerns.
By the end of the sixties the form of protection we used in Australia has having a growing effect on efficiency because it was too easy for business to get more protection rather than make changes or stand up to unreasonable union demands. There was no mechanism to force protected industries to compete for protection and to ease out industries that were failing to compete. Part of the problem is that tariff based protection tends to be an all or nothing sort of thing. It is a matter of speculation what would have been achieved by reforming protection instead of moving towards unrestrained free markets.
sg @155,
“Exporting food is cool, but exporting water is a very bad idea.”
Exporting water is cool too, so long as it is at the right price. I have been assured on another thread that farming is not subsidised, so it seems that the right (market) price is paid for water.
Soil ditto. As you have argued in other comments, it makes no economic sense to distinguish between local and export markets.
It’s not cool if you’re exporting beyond replacement levels, I&U, because water is not fungible (?). i.e. we can’t drink anything else, and we can’t use anything else to grow crops. I suppose we could import water from somewhere that is selling it cheaper and then irrigate using that, but this hardly seems possible. So in practical terms it’s a bad idea.
Andrew: extracting the value out of an investment by running down its assets is a perfectly acceptable strategy – just ask the people who ran Melbourne’s rail system.
Less snarkily, I agree with Ootz that exporting water out of a country which doesn’t have a lot of its own is a bit of a problem. We need to view water as a resource and be careful about what we charge for it. I’m not sure that the owners are purposefully ‘trashing their investment’ in this case, but short-sighted strategies to maximise profit will trash farms and the environment in the long term.
Just as another example, the last time I was in the Mackenzie Basin in NZ I was shocked at the number of dairy farms which are springing up around Omarama, which is traditionally good sheep farming country. This is a region of NZ which doesn’t have a large rainfall (being in the shadow of the Southern Alps).
The local farmers told me that the owners* of the properties (i.e. not the farmers) wanted to cash in on the ‘dairy boom’ going on in NZ at the moment, without any consideration of whether such a change from sheep to cattle is viable, or what damage it might do to the environment up there. That seems like a good way to lose money to me, but if all you’re looking at is the milk price then it might seem like a good idea if you want to make a quick return.
Sorry, there was going to be a footnote to the asterisk in my last post along the lines that actually plenty of these owners were Kiwis, so just being from the same country doesn’t automatically grant any kind of ecological sense.
sg @158,
In an economically rational world, if we are running short of water then the price should rise to encourage us to use less of it: whether for producing local or export goods.
Water pricing is not always rational, I agree, so it might be necessary to step in with regulatory restrictions on water use. But, again, those restrictions should apply equally to local and export use.
For example, I don’t think that anyone has suggested regarding the Murray-Darling that we should buy back water only from exporting farmers and use the scarce water only to produce local food.
Jess, I don’t know much about the diary industry, but I think you’ll find there is a massive Chinese ownership through Fonterra in NZ. There was also some issue with melanin tainted milk in powder form emerging in NZ in the 2008 Chinese Milk Scandal.
sg @127: You say:
I haven’t got the links, but Mega George in the Australian has run a number of comparisons between the sixties and now. His figures showed that in the sixties the proportion of GDP going to wages was much higher than it is now and the basic male wage:average wage was much smaller. I remember running calcs on his figures that indicated that a person on the minimum wage now would be about 40% better off if the 60′s ratios had been maintained.
Companies like BHP were importing large numbers of immigrants to help man the steelworks and other manufacturing activity so I wonder what figures the claim that “migrants had limited or non-existent work opportunities” are based on.
It is true that women were blocked from some jobs or had to leave some jobs when they were married. However, this does not mean that women could not get work when they needed it. Keep in mind that men in full time employment actually worked fewer hours than they do now, housework took much longer than it does now and many “male only” jobs required a lot more muscle than they do now. Also keep in mind that ordinary workers earned enough to buy a house without needing the wife to work to pay for it.
Hard to comment on Aborigines since most of my contact has been on Groote Eylandt. On Groote the Aboriginal men had the same wages as the Europeans (starting when BHP arrived in the early 60′s) and we would have been happy to employ more Aboriginal men if they had not preferred to work elsewhere. Elsewhere things were often quite different but I simply lack details.
While it is true that some Aborigines and some women were paid less than they would have been white males later moves to wage equality made no detectable difference to our prosperity.
Thanks to Ootz for providing a rational reason for, if not actually voting for Katter, preferencing him above the majors. Mind you, if I was in a similar quandary I’d probably vote informal.
Thanks to those who responded to my query regarding Katter’s apparent sanity or otherwise in the spirit that I’d intended. My own view is that it’s a persona he’s cultivated over his years in public life, underneath which is a rat-cunning political animal, rather than being indicative of any major psychopathology.
However, it still doesn’t explain to me how that spittle-flecked, bellicose and raving persona is actually attractive to some people. If the guy achieves good outcomes for his rather atypical electorate, I can imagine people voting for him despite the raving looney act, but has he actually achieved much beyond bluster and self-aggrandisement?
I find him about as politically attractive as a bull camel in rut, but one thing I’ve learned from this thread is that there are some intelligent folks out there who give him far more credit than I do
The economic rationalists are slippery, have more positions than the Kama Sutra and will argue their zombie economics til there are no more cows to come home.
I’m not going to argue the point with them any longer but will leave this link to a senate lecture by Michael Pusey titled, The Troubling Experience of Economic Reform.
http://www.michaelpusey.com.au/Michael%20Pusey%20-%20Senate%20Lecture.pdf
I&U, absolutely I agree, but we’re a long way from pricing water in a way that reflects its environmental value. Until that day I think concerns about “exporting water” are valid, whoever’s doing it.
Ootz, AFAIK Fonterra is a cooperative, so is owned by the relevant farmers, so there’s still a lot of NZ ownership there. I also thought the milk issue was more about the fact that Fonterra supplied the melanin-doping factory concerned.
FWIW, the government in NZ recently knocked back a Chinese buyer over the Crafer farms deal (a NZ-family owned string of a large number of large farms). I think similar arguments about foreign ownership came up over that.
sg @166,
OK, fair enough. But my central point still stands. The environmental destruction from overuse of water is the same whether the water is used for exports or local goods. It is not the exporting, per se, that is damaging. But I would concede that, since the export market will be typically much larger, the damage will be commensurate.
Here’s a link to the Herald bit on why the Crafer deal was turned down.
CJ Morgan and Fran, having lived in countries where the population has no democratic rights and opportunities to vote, I celebrate the my good fortune by giving my vote to someone.
Far from being apologetic about my vote for ‘mad’ Bob, I am actually glad that our region gets a look in and our concerns are noticed through this mad character that ‘we’ in Kennedy voted into Parliament. One more ‘mad’ politician in Canberra does not make it an mental institution. Second, in the current setup, I’d rather have a ‘maverick’ representing us, than a faceless apparatchik with a lawyers degree in pinstripes toeing the party line. Mad or not, you can’t ignore Bob. However, personally I’d swap for Tony Windsor any day.
Fran, if you can’t read where he is coming from with the rhetorical ‘boiling the billie’ issue, well then you have a problem, not me. I quickly googled ‘sydney nanny state’.
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mp3s/lala-land-law-call-to-ban-ipods-and-phones-while-crossing-roads-20110131-1aa8g.html
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/fire-and-water-we-face-together-20110111-19mks.html
It may help!
As such, I am happy to report that a month ago I spent 7 days communing with nature, swimming with Freshwater Crocs and fishing Black Breams as well as having a ‘one match fire’ (24hrs, 7 days) for cooking, warming the shower water and general entertainment.
Why so defensive Ootz? I get it. For you, Katter is the lesser evil. You may be right in practice, though were he and the Liberal the options, again, I’d be voting informal. YMMV of course.
The ‘billie’ thing is emblematic. It’s tea party parochialism, manifest oddly enough in an ironically suitable symbol. There’s nothing in principle wrong with a nanny state, providing of course, that the nanny is more like Mary Poppins than Frau Krebbs.
In practice, we can’t tell which we are going to get, and history suggests the latter is rather more likely than the former, so we are entitled to hasten slowly in embracing the nanny, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no need for one. One doesn’t need to think too hard to see situations where the risk of Frau Krebbs is still the lesser evil.
(Hope you had a beaut day, Fran)
It’s a weird thing to find yourself looking on benignly at someone like Katter, when, for most of your life, he seemed the antithesis of your own ideals. Yet …. he speaks of the nanny state and I respond from my Abbie Hoffman phase, he attacks the giant supermarket chains and I’m hearing E F Schumacher, he talks of the value of country life and I recall Wendell Berry – there are so many points where we nearly agree, but from very different positions. If Katter could just work in a bit of Alan Watts and Wilhelm Reich he could get all the boomer vote.
Incurious and unread, I was assuming that locally produced and consumed products release their water back into the local ecosystem, so in some sense probably end up not depleting the water supply. Obviously for something like cotton this isn’t true, but I presume for e.g. rice it will be. And I agree, if this were not the case then it’s not the export of the water that’s the issue. But my understanding of the concern about “exporting” water is that it is a fundamentally different thing (except in a few special cases) to using water locally.
e.g. if I drink a VB I piss the water back into a river system eventually. But if I export it to Japan the water involved in its production will never come back here. Something along those lines.
Not that I would drink a VB, or export it. Obviously.
sg,
So, essentially, it’s not taking the water that you are concerned about, but taking the piss.
Ootz
My comment @34
“”"Interesting times.
I’d love to here Ootz’s take on this, He’s closer to the action.”"”
I wasn’t disappointed.
It will be interesting to see how the ABC covers this party, and how the coverage sits with its coverage of the LNP.
sg: Even for locally produced products, you have irrigation –> evaporation for the most part. There’s very little which returns to environment.
Who was the idiot who decided it would be a good idea to let Cubby Station build giant evaporation pans in one of the driest area of the country?
they can take the piss from my cold, dead …
LoL Russell. Somehow I can’t picture Bob going the Bolivian way,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/10/bolivia-enshrines-natural-worlds-rights
Perhaps if we could free up his orgone somehow he might settle down a bit emotionally.
Katter’s opinions about climate change are strongly delusional and his dissing of leading climate scientists and economists is indicative of Dunning-Kruger syndrome. So yes, he is mad.
On food security, this from Ootz’s link spells out what’s happening:
and
Other Middle east countries are acting in a similar manner to the UAE. China is securing future supplies of food and biofuels.
From memory, we’ve reached the stage where we import about 40% of what we eat and export about 60% of what we grow. The latter is mainly in a few commodity crops like wheat and beef.
Katter I think is suggesting that we are approaching the point where we will be a net food importer. He is suggesting the trend is in that direction. He would have the figures at his fingertips, as he is an inveterate user of the Parliamentary Library Service. Don’t ever underestimate him in a debate.
“From memory, we’ve reached the stage where we import about 40% of what we eat and export about 60% of what we grow.”
The 40% doesn’t matter too much if it’s unnecessary junk (chocolate might be about 40% of my diet) – we just need to be able to healthily feed ourselves, which we can do without most of the imports.
I imagine that no matter what a foreign owner was producing in Australia they couldn’t export it without a licence, which is one more safeguard against us starving in our own country.
Russell, you might be surprised by the stats in particular areas. From memory we now import more than 50% of our pork, for example.
Coles and Woolies are expanding their private label groceries, much of which I understand to be sourced overseas. These were 9% of sales in 2005. Now they are 24% and rising, according to an AFR article I have in front of me. My memory is that this strategy started as a defence against Aldi. So much for competition.
BTW, the article is mainly about Heinz, who recently announced the closure of a couple of food processing factories here, to be relocated to NZ where they will source their product. Do you know that Australia accounts for 7% of Heinz’ sales worldwide (and falling), so you can imagine how much time they spend thinking about this part of the operation at head office.
There was a time when much food processing was done by firms which were farmers’ co-operatives, but they haven’t survived in the modern corporatised global system.
Jess: Who was the idiot who wants to run good qld water down the Murray river evaporation pond to evaporate in the lower Murray lakes so these lakes don’t have to be returned to their natural tidal state?
Have you any figures comparing loss to evaporation as a result of harvesting water at Cubby vs sending it to the Murray lakes?
Brian – you’re probably right. I don’t eat meat and won’t go to Coles or Woolworths. God knows where their home brands come from or what’s in them, but in most cases people would be better off eating something else. Re the pork: no doubt the Australian population would be healthier if pork consumption had to drop by 50%!
but in our case Brian those imports are often due to market forces not inability to grow food here. Given our environment’s fragility is that a bad thing?
Japan is also not food self-sufficient – in basic calories – and has a heavily controlled farming sector. So free market or controlled market is not the answer, I think.
Brian, good point re the race to the bottom by the big two with pork. Unfortunately, it is the theme with many other staples and the unsuspecting ‘battlers’ have been conditioned to take the bait. Shortly the issue with food is not going to be whether we can feed ourself. Cheap food will always be available, inadvertently though we won’t be able to produce it nutritionally and health wise safe as well as ethically on a sustainable basis. Production corners and wages will have to be cut, here as overseas, hence nutrition and food safety aspects will reach scary levels, never mind ethics. Factor in rising transport costs, diminishing resources and skills to grow nutritious and safe staples, my prediction is in two to five years it will blow up major one way or another. Unfortunately communication is not Bob’s strength, so the supermarket issue is not well understood by the public in the hullabaloo of the political circus surrounding his madness and hat. The independent producers do, they are wedged between a rock and a hard place. Increasingly many are put out of business or swallowed up by the vertically integrated agindustry.
I suggest, sustainable, safe and good quality food does not grow cheap. If you don’t believe it, try growing it yourself, you may have to soon anyway.
“those imports are often due to market forces not inability to grow food here”
Market forces which have led to my local fruit shop selling asparagus from Peru and snow peas from India etc etc. Market forces are killing the planet – which should we change?
Actually Russell I’ve read criticism of the “food miles” argument because while we use a lot of energy getting food from Peru to here, it’s often the case that the farmers in the country the food came from use much less carbon than farmers in developed nations. So it’s better for the environment to produce food in, say, low-carbon North Africa and ship it to Europe than to grow it in Europe. Not to mention that farmers in North Africa often need the jobs much more than we do.
I don’t know if that applies in Australia because we’re further away from everywhere but, e.g., it’s much better if we ship in rice than grow it here, from a water saving perspective.
SG – I’ve read those arguments, but don’t believe they apply except in a small proportion of cases. The Peruvian asparagus, Californian/Israeli oranges etc are imported just because they’re out of season. Well, other things are in season and local, and that’s what should form the bulk of your diet.
It amazes me how nearly everyone is doing this: they hear and understand that science tells us we have to alter our polluting habits, urgently, but can’t even make the smallest changes to their lives. Fortified with their own plans to eventually add a few solar panels to their roof they go on buying vast amounts of stuff, flying off on holidays, upgrading kitchens, bathrooms, entertainment appliances…
now if Bob goes about this the rite way he will get so many supporters it will be embarrassing for the so called major parties , its time the government of the day was made accountable for the selling off of so much of our industry , farming land and pastoral country its no wonder we are importing so much and Australia’s unemployment is rising, oh ‘ and by the way , these unemployment numbers do NOT include all the illegal males arriving on boats , i note comments that this party may never govern but look what the independents and dare i say the greens are in control of this country now , Gillard has become the mouth piece for a coalition labor party , Australia needs leadership not a populist government
John D. I don’t have the figures to hand but I believe that the evaporation rate from the Cubbie Station ponds is of the order of 2 m a year. And most of their water is in ponds only a few meters deep (because of the way the tax law works in Queensland IIRC).
And I’m not suggesting that all the water even makes it to the Murray Lakes. Most of it should be held up in the rest of the basin, without making it all the way down. It’s the assumption that natural evaporation and runoff into natural ecosystems is water wasted that gets us into the problems we have already. Anyway, what’s the point in storing all the water up there where it does no good? It clearly hasn’t stopped Cubbie from going broke and wanting to sell up.
Crikey’s done a few bits on Cubbie before: here’s a piece from BK in 2008.
…and here’s another from 2009. They get away with a loophole in the regulation of overland flows (i.e. they’re not regulated) so that they can claim to ‘only take 5% of their water out of the Murray-Darling’.
Ok, and I just found the Bureau’s evaporation map: http://www.bom.gov.au/watl/evaporation/. Two meters wasn’t too far off the mark, although bear in mind that this is an evaporation pan study and not the evaporation off a lake surface.
The point is that storing all that water in large and very shallow lakes (only a few meters deep but I think cubby has a total storage volume of over 500 GL IIRC) reduces the amount that actually (a) can flow back via the channel country to the MDB, and (b) could be used for irrigation anyway, since a fair chunk of it will evaporate in these ponds simply because they are so shallow. I put it to you that surely there can be a better use of that water.
Jess: The best way to store water is by recharging aquifers. (Which is what we did at Newman.) Problem is the pollies dont like this because they get much better photo opportunities if they build dams and use canals to transport water. I have no feel for the practicalities of recharging aquifers in the MDB or where these rechargeable aquifers are.
My recollection of water losses between Qld and SA are extremely high.
I am not in a position to comment on the merits of moving Cubbie water to grow something other than cotton. My understanding is that they are using it for a variety of crops. Have also heard of people using stored water for opportunistic fish farming by I haven’t the details.
I would still maintain that using water at Cubbie has got to be smarter than using it to avoid returning tidal lakes to their natural state.
Cubby looks like making good money for the next few years, with the finance from the banks.
Anyway, back to Bob Katter.
If the bill proposed by the greens to ” ban ALL live exports” gets up, we will see the end of the live exports of Coral trout to China ( to prevent cruelty?).Another Primary industry in the north goes bust. Bob talks of suicides in the farming sector, I heard a lady on ABC radio today say the suicide rate in the fishing sector is far worse.
I think its Adam Bandt from Melbourne’s bill.
I hope he can sleep well.
JohnD, I posted on this before including links. The Lower lakes were freshwater 99% of the time with small incursions of saltwater around the mouth during autumn.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2011/06/03/quick-link-quiggin-on-the-murray-darling-parliamentary-committee-report/
Posts 38 and 41.
Groundwater/aquifers are badly in need of more study. Many are seriously depleted and interconnect different watersheds. Many wetlands have been drained for agricultural production where they may have been vital for replenishment of aquifers.
Aquifers have a vital role in maintaining river flows between rain events, as do wetlands which periodically flood and drain water back into the river as it subsides.
John, well removing the huge storage at Cubbie and allowing the water to travel across the channel county, replenishing upper aquifers would be a good start. Although once you start brine movement within an aquifer due to excessive extraction, it’s a bit hard to replenish from there.
As far as I know, the geochemical evidence (oxygen isotopes etc) suggests that the Great Artesian Basin is replenished from the east, just east of the dividing ranges, although I think the actual goundwater velocity works out at something like a couple of meters per year.
It’s going to take a long time for the aquifers to recover if Katter gets his way with things that he thinks
jumpncar,
you cannot honestly be laying the blame on a politician for some people (potentially) committing suicide because they can’t go fishing?
Even Katter never actually says that politicians are directly to blame for people committing suicide. I think it you stop and think about it for a moment, you’ll realise that we’re discussing public policy on this thread and not personal issues.
Joe
When making making public policy, one must consider personal outcomes. Yes?
@ jumpnmcar:
Before you work yourself up into too much of a lather about your coral trout/suicide nexus furphy, a couple of clicks on Google would inform you that coral trout aren’t covered by the proposed legislation, since they are not “cattle, calves, sheep, lambs, goats or other animals prescribed for the purposes of this definition” (of “live-stock”).
Sweet dreams
It’s regrettable indeed though CJ Morgan, if some people’s sense of self really is so tied in with destroying the environment and brutalising animals. If so, this is powerful witness that life in rural Australia can indeed be antithetic to one’s mental health and social development. It helps explain the boiling rage we saw during the Draft MDBA plan consultations.
It’s not universal, obviously. I heard Tony Windsor today, again talking something like sense on the matter. Animals Australia were saying this morning that many producers were indeed scandalised by what they’d seen. Yet every time I hear one of these accounts, it’s hard to resist the urge that there is indeed something dreadfully baleful and deforming about rural life, that only the strongest of minds can combat.
One always feels horror when one is witness to pain and loss. One wishes that those who feel it can draw solace and achieve resilience and a renewed sense of purpose. Yet one suspects that furnishing such people with new opportunities to live at the margins of ethical conduct and beyond them is not a defensible solution, even in purely pragmatic terms. They must confront their humanity and establish a sound and ethically enduring connection to community if their existential angst is to be overcome.
Quite so, Fran – but such alienation is neither inevitable nor universal, as you note. After living in regional cities for many years, we did the ‘tree change’ thing about a decade ago and moved to a tiny little township west of the Great Divide.
I’m pleased to report that, while there are still plenty of quintessential rednecks who match your description out here, they’re outnumbered by people who genuinely care for the environment and their livestock. Unfortunately, they tend to hate ‘greenies’ and Brisbane bureaucrats almost universally – mind you, there is certainly some justification for at least the latter antipathy.
While there’s been some interesting nascent alliances developing around such issues as water and CSG, traditional enmities have prevented more effective collaboration at the political level. I think that Katter’s party will pick up some initial support from those who are dissatisfied with their current Parliamentary representation on those grounds, but it will ultimately go the way of One Nation – largely because shared antipathies aren’t enough to sustain a political party beyond an election or two.
For an example of what I’m talking about, the ‘Just Grounds’ site that Brian mentions is instructive. It’ll be interesting to see the way it pans out in the end.
CJ Morgan
@202
A couple of clicks on Google got me this http://greensmps.org.au/content/media-release/complete-live-export-ban-needed-bandt
No mention of “live stock” only “live animals”
Your googling skills are far better that mine, could you please show a link to the full proposed Bill that Bandt is going to introduce to parliament that Bob Katter and others are going to debate, please.
I feel a need to quote these two paragraphs from a Guardian story:
Burn those billies, baby!
Since a few days Mareeba under a light blanket of smoke. As NAFI (click >NE Qld >Tablelands) informs me, there are no current wild fires in the area. Further, Wind speed low (11kmh/SE) humidity high (rh 91%) and after a heavy wet season fuel load is up but not yet tinder dry. Burn off season has arrived. My breaks and water supply are in place, fire rake and beater dusted off and ready at hand. Will wait another 2-3 weeks before apply for burn off permit as the fuel is still too green along the boundary. However, on the neighbouring vacant rural property the grass is high and dry and the last fire has gone through more than 10 years ago!
Gosh sg, for a hot-shot researcher, you are making far too many unqualified assumptions and not just on this thread it appears.
I didn’t assume anything, Ootz. Just pointing out that there are reasons for fire restrictions.
You are assuming it is us billie boiling country bumkins causing the wild fires while camping ,as well as that the issue is about boiling billies and fire restrictions. Further, you (as well as die liebe Frau Fran@171) are assuming that I am advocating AGAINST the Nanny State. I am merely pointing out to you that this is a major issue in the electorate of Kennedy!
First, most of those that rise this issue up here are familiar with burning off and have done mileage fighting bush fires and thus do have some clue what started those, but you are the researcher so I’ll let you do the leg work.
Second, the ridiculousness of the ‘billie’ label for the underlying issue and the lack of ‘main stream’ comprehension of what really is behind it, illustrates Bobs point. It may has escaped your attention, while washing down your sushi with VB at the Ginza
, Kennedy is a rural electorate, where as federal and state policies, laws and regulation are made to harness votes via ‘main stream’ urban biased focus groups. Well, it has not escaped Katter’s attention, thus his clever use of the ‘billie’ issue, as we out here in the sticks know exactly what he is talking about (agreeing or not). I doubt he’ll give a rats arse whether you’ll get it in the big smoke, most probably he is banking for the rural support to firm up by the demonstrated urban ignorance thereof.
Jess, I think you need to brush up on your geography of SW QLD a bit. The channel country is further to the west. Streams like the Georgina, the Diamentina and Cooper’s Creek drain the channel county into Lake Eyre.
Have a look at this post. There’s a heap of rivers flowing south, but I think you’ll find that the whole QLD section of the MDB only accounts for about 5% of the runoff. The largest portion comes from the SE corner. People concerned about Adelaide and the lower lake should be looking at what the Victorians do. Cubbie doesn’t even interrupt all the water from Qld. I suspect it has relevance mainly to wetlands and NSW farmers about as far south as Bourke.
My understanding is that most of the above-ground storage has banks of 4.95m because planning laws allow people to build banks below 5m without approval.
Re evaporation, the people who built Cubbie were quite sophisticated and would have calculated what the evaporation meant. I think the idea was to have enough water to irrigate for two years after a good rain, so you turn one good season into three. I believe they came unstuck because of debt and an unprecedented drought.
What does this have to do with Katter?
He’d have an opinion, but his big thing is the Bradfield Scheme. Katter’s not concerned about water for the MDB. I think he mentioned a population of 40 million on the black soil plains around Cloncurry, if only they had water.
Katter’s kingdom, maybe.
Thanks Brian, good to know somebody is familiar with our region and Katter’s ambitions.. As much as I despise The Australian but here you go
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/katters-country/story-e6frg8h6-1225990935013
BTW Thanks for the post and opportunity for us up North to highlight what our concerns are, warranted and well put or not. My fear is that people like Katter indicate how far the rural/urban divide has entrenched it self in our Nation. I don’t think Katter himself is the problem, it is the lack of broader recognition of that entrenched divide and that people in the cities and on the land both rely on each other, particularly in view of the looming large challenges. We need more opportunities, such as this thread, to facilitate better understanding of each other.
Fair enough Brian, I can’t really claim to be a geographical whizz in Qld. The 4.95 m dams still seems a pretty stupid way to store water in a high evaporation environment though. That’s the sort of crap legislation I agree with changing.
I guess my question is around how one values things like aquifers more generally when the rampant anti-nanny-state-ism Katter is proposing gets its way.
He might have a point about excessive legislation but previous experience suggests that these sorts of efforts end up trying to take things too far the other way.
Jess and Brian,
sure seems like something which can be done. 5m is still a hell of a dam. Maybe a planning process, while being initially more expensive, might have long term benefits and not only to water evaporation?
But I don’t really know what regulations effect large ag developments — is engineering and planning only used to maximise output or are environmental concerns also considered?
Ootz, growing up on a farm and having rellies who see me as the socialist from the big smoke helps to keep me a bit in touch. If you want to see the divide not being bridged, go to the ‘live cattle’ thread.
Jess, there may have been recent changes to planning requirements that I’m not up with.
Above ground storage is not so silly when the land is as flat as a table.
While there may be people who dislike Katter from what I heard about him he seems to be a decent fellow. While I do not belong to any political party (INDEPENDENT) I recognise how difficult it is to get people waking up to reality of life. For example the state land Taxes are unconstitutional since the Commonwealth legislated since 11 November 1910 and yet since 1956 when NSW started State land Taxes no one seemed to care and those who did ended up loosing their cases in court because their lawyers didn’t know head from tail.
The same with the CPI (Consumer Price Index) relating to pensions and other welfare recipients since 2009, the States and so also municipal/shire councils unconstitutionally disregard this and still increased their charges above CPI. Now, before anyone start having a go at Katter and while he doesn’t address the CPI and State Land Taxes issues it would nevertheless be better to respect this man what he seeks to achieve, and then you all can fight against the CPI and State Land Taxes I am on about and perhaps we may all benefit in the end.
I couldn’t resist this.
Noel Pearson on Katter:
Pearson gives a detailed account of Katter’s work as minister for Aboriginal affairs in the Bjelke-Petersen government. It’s worth reading.
I was told by someone who should know that Katter grew up in Cloncurry playing with Aboriginal kids. It was given as the reason why he doesn’t follow clocks very well and is a nightmare to program.
I was going to mention that article at the beginning of this thread but resisted over concerns that I would be ridiculed for using The Australian as a source and the fear Noel Pearson would branded some sort of “uncle Tom”.
I glad you couldn’t resist posting it Brain, it puts a fairer perspective on the sort of “character” Bob Katter has or is.
@184: “There was a time when much food processing was done by firms which were farmers’ co-operatives, but they haven’t survived in the modern corporatised global system.”
Some have survived. Others have indeed been demutualised. Note that the financial giant, AMP, was only demutualised in 1998. One of the biggest supermarket chains in the UK is still a co-operative. The concept can still work.
from 20 June 2011 Time Magazine, p19
“Nobel Laureate Michael spence, author of The Next Convergence, has looked at which American companies created jobs at home from 1990 to 2008, a period of extreme globalization. The results are startling. The companies that did business in global markets, including manufacturers, banks, exporters, energy firms and financial services, contributed almost nothing to overall American job growth. The firms that did contribute were those operating mostly in the U.S. market, immune to global competition – health care companies, government agencies, retailers and hotels. Sadly, jobs in these sectors are lower paid and lower skilled than those that were outsourced. “When I first looked at the data, I was kind of stunned”, says Spence, who now advocates a German-style industrial policy to keep jobs in some high-value sectors at home.
Bob Katter wants dumb down Queensland,if it isn’t already trying Queensland clean energy future, protect wildlife and there is nothing that can done about outside competition. Hasn’t this Katter heard of World Trade Organization. We’ve tride in the past to stop this organisation but the countries who flood this country with cheaper imports just sued us.
Mark @39
Oh how we like to make stuff up. Read the Lazy Sunday threads to see how many LPers post from the bush.
Sorry, didn’t realise it was an old thread!
Just to clarify, in case of confusion, that wasn’t our Mark B @ 39.
There was a posting about Parliament having to approve all treaties. As a CONSTITUTIONALIST I will explain that treaties are not binding upon anyone but the moment the Parliament approves of it by legislation then it becomes law, then it is the legislation and not the treaty that is legally enforceable, but only for so far it is within it’s legislative powers to do so. Say, a treaty about having to eat rice every morning would be unconstitutional and remain to be so regardless of any legislation because it is outside the Commonwealths legislative powers, this as the trade and commerce powers cannot interfere with a persons civil rights. The proposed Carbon Tax is not intended to be as a tax as such, and neither can be validated as such and is unconstitutional as my blog at http://www.scribd.com/InspectorRikati extensively canvasses. As such argue the case upon constitutional basis and we all will be a lot better for it. I view no political party should exist within both Houses of the same Parliament as it is a conflict of interest!
The MLAs representing the ALP and LNP are allowed to speak against , but not in favour of Daylight Saving . Mr Katter will allow his MLAs to speak in favour of Daylight Saving even though he would never allow it’s introduction . So it’s free speech but otherwise Status Quo on Daylight Saving . A State Government E survey of 60,000 Queenslanders last year showed 64% in favour . Queensland will never be a democracy until DLS is introduced .