Realty Reality

Realty Reality

It’s All Upside Down

(and we know it)

MC Escher understood the madness.
Up is down, inside out is outside in, right is left and 
theft is might and nothing is what it seems, though that is all we have, and we try to make sense of a world that is incomprehensible. 

And the people who build this rollercoaster whirligig house of mirrors world are as confused as the rest of us.

“I don’t know; it’s just the way we . . . it’s just how things are.”

Here’s the story that started it:

Someone we know was looking for a house to rent in a seaside town. He wanted to be able to go to sleep listening to the waves breaking.

He wasn’t working—kind of retired but working on the next adventure. The new business would do well when launched and he could do it remotely but there was no current business income (because ‘working on the next adventure ‘). But he had a stable rental history, regular payments from other sources, a solid bank account and his superannuation. 

He’s an upstanding, community-minded citizen. He’s intelligent, friendly and entertaining and well-liked by his acquaintances and friends. He’s done good work with people in need and helped to change many lives. And he has a dog.   It should be easy, right? Even with the dog. He’d be a welcome addition to the community.

None of this was of any value in finding a place to live. And as far as we know he’s still looking.  So is the dog.

None of it counted because these things aren’t in the Application Form. And so our friend was reduced to nothing more than a few data on a pdf document.

But surely we have a system that helps people who need shelter. We’re a society that looks after the people who make up the society.

Just joking.

No. Of course we don’t.

We have an economy. Our economy permits or causes (as of 2016) upwards of 116,000 homeless people in our ‘system’ .

We’re greedy. We’ve always been greedy. From long before capitalism was imagined. When it comes down to it, particularly in the face of uncertainty, we look after ourselves and our close families and we unashamedly massage the egos of those who can help us. And anyway the homeless are not our problem (and also it’s their fault for being poor/not working hard enough/being lunies).

Our economy is supposed to provide for the needs of the society through the magic of the Hidden Hand. But it doesn’t work like that. The hidden hand ultimately feeds the desires of the already rich and powerful.

The ‘purpose’ of the Economy isn’t even to serve humans, The purpose of the Economy is to serve … the Economy. If humans are inadvertently benefited that’s a happy coincidence.

What happens is that once a ‘society’, a group, a tribe, exceeds Dunbar’s Number—150 people—society becomes less and less personal until it’s not personal at all and simply generates cold statistics about people.

Because there are so many of us we can’t relate to everyone.

Even at the high end, the ‘power’ end, people with an unusually large frontal cortex, the human brain’s ability to forge real relationships collapses at about 600 people. So almost everyone else is a cardboard cutout for us, and we use our cardboard cutout ideas of what other people are like, so effectively that we think we already know what they’re like. It’so effective we think it’s real. 

Then, of course, those cardboard cutouts lose their humanity completely and morph to become mere data points.

The Game

The real estate game (to get back to that!) is a digital system which is entirely about money. 

A real estate company—like all other companies—is not human, or really about people, nor in a sense are they really operated by people. Like all other companies it is a document on a register with a number. It is a document of incorporation, a documented set of policies and procedures.  

There are no real people involved. Automatons (called Property Managers) go through the motions at the operational end; drones (called  ‘Lessors’, ‘Owners’, or  ‘Customers’) at the other end, and in between is the ‘Product’, also called the ‘Application’. We know this because our friend received an email from the Property Manager saying, “So sorry but the owner went with another Application.” This is even worse than ‘Applicant‘, which is already about as 2-dimensional as ink on a colourless cardboard cutout can get.

The idea is to siphon money (as data) from someone who has some to someone who wants it.

There is also a risk management document.

And it’s all about Risk Management:

  • Does the Application have enough money?
  • Has it had enough money before?
  • Will it keep having enough money?
  • Does it have a data history of handing over its money on a regular basis?
  • Is the Application willing to forego its right to privacy? 

the Opportunity, the Bribe, the Temptation

Some Applications are willing to hand over even more money than requested. When an Application is a bit desperate to defeat other Applications it can take the opportunity to divest itself of a bit more money by bribing the ‘Customer’ with an offer of a higher rent or a larger payment in advance.

Naturally, as required by the rules of the game, the Property Automaton will explain to the Application that such bribery is not encouraged. However, as the Automaton will also explain, the final selection of Application will be up to the Customer. 

We look forward to hearing of the first Customer in history to resist the temptation of more money than they expected: “Oh no, I don’t think it’s fair to the other Applications. I’m really not interested in the money, I just want to help people.” 

Renting out a house, a Unit, a townhouse, a “villa”, is not about helping people to find somewhere to live. It’s all about wealth and status and all those other things like comfort and reducing financial anxiety.

This is all normal. It’s the way we do things. We’re used to it, we understand it, we participate in it as one of the automatons. And it’s shit.

Gaslighting

The goal of gaslighting is to gradually undermine the victim’s confidence in their own ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or reality from delusion, thereby rendering the individual or group pathologically dependent on the gaslighter for their thinking and feelings.

Gaslighting induces cognitive dissonance in the victim . . . and may facilitate development of confusion, anxiety, depression, and in some extreme cases, even psychosis. After the victim loses confidence in their mental capacities and develops a sense of learned helplessness, they become more susceptible to the victimizer’s control.

The world has been gaslighted since forever. Not just, or mostly, about real estate. Obviously. But about the entire political/economic/social system. Many if not most politicians are and have been professional gaslighters since forever. They lie and twist and distort and misrepresent the facts to convince us that the reality is they are working incredibly hard for our welfare in everything they do. When they’re not. Not even slightly.

Priests are even worse. Indeed, they were probably the original inventers of gaslighting.

We’ve been taught to think the way things seem is the way things are. We’ve learnt to believe that the narrative we have bought into is reality. It’s not. It’s just not.

It’s not so much White Supremacy as Supremacy supremacy.

Amongst all this there are good people. Great people. Including good people who work in real estate.

My friend looks forward to meeting them.

 

Kevin Andrews: Farewell

Kevin Andrews: Farewell

& Good Riddance

So, great news this week in Australian politics!

 

At least and at last some of the scum has begun oozing out under the parliamentary doors. Important slime in this case.

But why is it that the “Father Of the House” is always the worst of the worst?

Before, it was Ruddock, the Nazgul, the nastiest, slimiest bastard who ever pissed and farted his way into the House pretending to be the friend of the People, as long as the “people” were white and/or wealthy. Oh, and straight. And didn’t arrive by boat. He was an abusive “Father” of the House as a Minister. He was malevolent and merciless as the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, particularly for his heartless treatment of desperate refugees escaping from wars that Australia’s arsonist “Liberal”/Nationalist politicians had gleefully and enthusiastically (and frankly cock-suckingly) helped to ignite. As Attorney General in 2003 he “introduced the Marriage Legislation Amendment Bill to prevent any possible court rulings allowing same-sex marriages or civil unions.” Nice guy—other crusading decisions on same-sex marriage suggest he was channeling god’s hatred of homos. Worst of all perhaps was his hypocritical wearing of the Amnesty International badge at the same time he was systematically and brutally denying aid to the very people Amnesty International was fighting to support.

But that was before.

The current Father of the House is not long for this political world, and in contrast to the abusive “Father” of the House Ruddock, this one has been a “Deadbeat Dad“; a useless, stupid—and therefore dangerous—piece of shit. They love him in the House because he’s perfect for the Libs—a Useful Idiot; a biddable dickhead; Australia’s version of America’s Lindsey Graham, or the UK’s Chris Grayling.

 

What happened?

 

Well . . . ‘Howard-era stalwart’ Kevin Andrews was (what they call in the US) primaried for the seat of Menzies by the barrister and former soldier Keith Wolahan. Everything is right about this, if more than a decade late. Values Australia has been calling for Andrews’ dishonorable discharge since 2007. He has lost the ultra-right seat honouring the crumbling horror that was Menzies.

Not only that, but he was vigorously supported in his reselection by the top conservative powerbrokers:

  • Health Minister Greer Kunt 
  • Education Minister Ellen Bludge
  • Assistant Treasurer Michail Sucks
  • Treasurer Jess Friedeggburger 
  • Scum from Marketing
  • and, best of all, John Hunt the Coward  

A really delectable and comprehensive FAIL.
 

Why did Values Australia call for Kevin Andrews’ removal/ departure/resignation/whatever it takes?

 

Because he was/(is) incompetent, inhumane in the way only self-righteous christians can be, and—because unintelligent, weak and biddable—dangerous as a loose cannon.

In a post on 2 November 2007 we reported on the ongoing Haneef scandal:

“They were ripping up the doctrine of the separation of powers,” Mr Barns said.

“What you are seeing here is the politicisation of an investigation …”

“It shows there was a pre-judgment by Minister Andrews and the Government, prior to the magistrate’s decision being taken, and this decision was politically stage-managed rather than being done according to law.”

Andrews was at the time Minister for Immigration under the soon to be unceremoniously jettisoned John Howard.

As Sir Roger said at the time, Andrews was “now reduced to being the bumboy for a frail, doomed old man.” 

He dog-whistled racist bullshit about Sudanese refugees to Pauline’s base in the run-up to the election. Unsuccessfully. 

But mostly he should have resigned 13 years ago (or earlier if possible) because for party political advantage, for religious and ideological reasons, contrary to the impartiality of the law, contrary to the interests of the country, you might think well and truly contrary to his oath, and solely in the interests of re-election (oops), he politicised a criminal investigation, prejudged a defendant, preempted a magistrate’s finding and in the process nearly destroyed and sacrificed an innocent man’s life to the racist, morally corrupt Liberal Party.

Sir Roger couldn’t be happier to see the last of Andrews and to see the power of the Power Elite of the government tumbling, crumbling, collapsing, decaying, decomposing, degenerating, deteriorating, disintegrating, dissolving, fragmenting, perishing, putrefying, going to pieces

 

 

Here are some of the Values Australia historical blog posts that are more or less relevant to Andrews:

 

Rude Britannia & Australian Values

Rude Britannia & Australian Values

How Very Dare You!

 

Yes, we know, the British are the world leaders in “la politesse”  and “cortesia” (ironically*). They will never be impolite to anyone. They would never call a black person a “nig-nog”. Not to their face.

They would never call an Australian a “colonial” or a ” convict”. Not these days at least. Except in private huddles amongst friends, or if they are frustrated that their inferiors refuse to do as they’re told.

To be fair, this is no longer the case in general. Only in the upper echelons of the well-bred, entitled and deluded.

One is required only to refrain from impoliteness. One is required to refrain from the appearance of disrespect, but not at all to actually respect those beneath one. The more politeness you can fake, the more superiority you display.

Politeness is so central to British authority that its absence in a social setting—seemingly, although anything but, an oversight—has become, as a diplomatic tool, a floating signifier. The story goes that if a foreign country was doing the wrong thing and the British were furious about it, MI5 would call in a representative of the offending country. To indicate the level of anger, the foreign official would not be offered a cup of tea.

Politeness as a mark of superiority is not limited to the increasingly Dis-United Kingdom of course [see, “No Longer Great Britain”  1,2,3 ]. The French are masters of a cold politeness.

Democrats in the US are politically hobbled and strangled by it.

Spain and Portugal are home (and motherland) to some of the most generous and polite people, their languages very courteous, por favor.  

The Dutch are not so much polite as “pleasant”. At least these days.

Not unrelatedly, the Italians long ago invented the concept of Sprezzatura“.  The inventor of the term, Baldassare Castiglione, Count of Casatico, wrote his most famous book, Il Cortegiano, The Book of the Courtier. , in which he described Sprezzatura as:

“a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it”. 

According to Wikipedia,

“It is the ability of the courtier to display “an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them”. Sprezzatura has also been described “as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance”   

. . . .

Wescott states that Sprezzatura was, in a way, “the art of acting deviously

So for centuries the royal courts and their dominions have been suffused with the studied nonchalance of Sprezzatura. To put this another way, most western countries remain suffused with a culture of social deception. Hiding, disguising, masking the truth.

  • An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country. (Henry Wotton)
  • All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means. (Zhou Enlai)
  • DIPLOMACY:  The patriotic art of lying for one’s country. [Ambrose Bierce]

You might think that the rude, impolite, professional liar, Trump, is worse than this dishonest politeness but, despite the ugliness and the stench, his malignancy, poisonousness, narcissism and subnormality, his mendacity and fraud, are palpable. Not hidden, not masked. There’s never been any pretence of politeness. (He doesn’t know how.) At least his vulgarity is honest in a way because it’s utterly transparent. At least as transparent, unapologetic and foul as a Giuliani fart.   

In Australia, we are still clutching at the last fine thread of spider’s silk blowing out of Mother’s spinneret. . .

. . . the last sticky piece of the (once Great) British web to leave her arse.   

You see . . .

There is a thing that is pretending that what is so is not so—that the fortune; the titles; the servants and land; the privilege and status you enjoy, were not stolen by you or your murderous, barbarian ancestors—and that what is not so is so—that the world is cucumber sandwiches for tea; silk dresses; that the forelock tugging minions admire and respect you; and the divine right of robber barons). 

The British don’t like you to disturb these pretensions. They will say you are “uncouth”. Uncouth literally means “unknown”, or unfamiliar, unfriendly, unkind, or to put that another way, ‘you do not, as we do, hide your malignity behind a mask of stinking courtesy, refinement and elegance’. 

The sons of the British landed nobility have a necessary limit to their ambitions. They must join the military (as an officer of course), parliament, the clergy, the bureaucracy, or the diplomatic corps. These are perfect vocations where politeness is required.

Yes, even the military.

“I say, you there. You. Fellow, How d’you do? Pleased to meet you. We have been admiring your very pleasant country. You and your peasants have done an wonderful job of looking after it, don’t you know. It’s very beautiful and very large and you’re to be congratulated on the hard work you’ve done. However, we note that you have not made the most use you could of all the oil and ores that sit below your magnificent cities and gardens. In fact. it’s so beautiful and full of financial opportunities that we’re going to relieve you of it. So if you would be so kind as to hand it over immediately. . .  I understand that this will have come as somewhat of a surprise. Unfortunately, if you choose to decline this generous offer we will have no alternative but to destroy it all. You are an intelligent fellow and I think you’ll agree that this is the last thing either of us wants. I don’t know if you can see those large machines over there. They’re very powerful, ah, thingamawhatsits that blow up things and will wipe your towns and gardens completely away. I’m sure you will agree that this would be a very sad ending for your people after all of their hard work. But before you decide . . .  cup of tea?”

The most polite countries are also, under the skin, the most violent, brutal, murderous, barbarous, merciless, savage and, frankly, rude cultures. They are historically empire builders, looters, sackers, pillagers and thieves. Their roots go back to the warmongering Picts, Romans, Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Etc., etc. 

The Spanish and Portuguese shredded and annihilated rich Central and Southern American cultures for gold and glory. 

The Romans came, saw and conquered England, as did the French, and as the English did to the French. 

Christian—and therefore of course loving, as Jesus commanded—Europe for centuries ran numerous religious crusades against the Islamic tribes of the Eastern Mediterranean with varied (to put it, you know, politely) success. For example, In the Fourth Crusade the western Christian countries, rather than defeating Islamic Egypt as per plan and as advertised, decided to sack the Greek Christian city of Constantinople instead. For which they were excommunicated by Pope Innocent III. Spectacular own goal.

Italy in the un-distant past summarily made a ruthless grab on Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935. It was Mussolini’s idea and you would surmise that he had, nonchalantly, made the decision with full-on sprezzatura. So what was the extent of this Italian politeness, this cortegia, raffinatezzaeleganza? 

The war was full of cruelty. Italian troops used mustard gas in aerial bombardments (in violation of the Geneva Conventions) against combatants and civilians in an attempt to discourage the Ethiopian people from supporting the resistance. Deliberate Italian attacks against ambulances and hospitals of the Red Cross were reported. By all estimates, hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian civilians died as a result of the Italian invasion, including during the reprisal Yekatit 12 massacre in Addis Ababa, in which as many as 30,000 civilians were killed.[    

 Not particularly polite, courteous, refined, or elegant then. 

In the US only the Democrats are truly “polite”. Only Democrats would rather lose an election than be rude. In the most recent election they have had to rely on the “uncouth” anti-Trump, disillusioned ‘Lincoln’ Republicans to do their dirty work. 

No Democratic First Lady would ever say, “Who gives a fuck about Christmas?” A Republican FLOTUS did.

But Democratic as much as Republican administrations have done horrific damage in the world and to indigenous and black Americans. They have razed countries on spurious grounds; Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. With a polite, have a nice day, botox smile they continue to deny all Americans the decency of universal healthcare which all other “civilised” countries have take for granted for decades.  

To the extent that Americans are polite it is astonishing how much they hate themselves.

The rate at which they kill each other is bewildering both in the streets and by judicial murders. 60% of states still have the Death Penalty. Americans have long loved to kill Americans by lynching, stabbing, shooting, dragging them behind a truck, and even more entertaining ways. They have basked in the joy of legally killing people by firing squad, hanging, electrocution and lethal injection.

As Texas Governor, George W. Bush executed a record 153 people. His successor (2000-2015), Rick Perry, was not to be beaten. He executed 279 people. In Texas (12% of its population black) 70% of the executions were of black people. 

Americans are masked barbarians, who smile the polite smile of moral certitude and white supremacy. 

The rate at which Americans imprison each other is, if anything, even more bewildering. With 4.3% of the world’s population it has almost 20% of the world’s prisoners at any time. About 5%, one in 20, of all Americans but 33%, one in three, of black Americans can expect to spend time in prison in their lifetime.     

Israel? [Note: this is not about any religion but about the State of Israel. Note 2: Sir Roger’s Great Great Grandmother was a French Jewess and he can trace this ancestry down through the maternal line to his mother, which makes him Jewish if he chooses to be (even if secular) so . . . ]
Not sure if Israelis are polite, although the ones Sir Roger has met have been both pleasant and interesting. Many Israelis are very refined and their social culture goes back centuries, millennia, steeped in the arts, science and humanities. However, despite many being interesting and pleasant some Israelis have been as cruel and inhumane as any. Several Israeli Prime Ministers and politicians—including Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon—honed their skills in “militant” groups like Haganah, Lehi (the ‘Stern Gang’), Irgun, and the IDF, which grew through the 20th Century in the period up to and after the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. 
So despite our understanding of the horrific conditions faced by Israelis and their forebears throughout their history, we might have thought that with their intellect and humanity they would be more, you know, humane when it came to the plight of those who also for millennia had called Palestine home and who now were, and are, themselves systematically displaced. But Israel has not hidden the single, central tenet that drives the Israeli state:

NEVER AGAIN
WHATEVER IT TAKES     

So really there’s no subterfuge here. They are ruthless like everyone else and they don’t pretend otherwise.

 

 

The great British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, Russian, German and Dutch empires were all created through brutal invasion. 

At the height of European civilisation, civility and enlightenment the wealth of many western countries was built on African slavery.

The polite British did their best to wipe out the Australian indigenous peoples and the polite Australians themselves tried to finish the job in the 20th Century under the disguise of “Aboriginal Protection”. Unsuccessfully.

The courteous Dutch and English fought the Boer War to win ownership of the South African people, their land and their resources.

The ‘Dutch’-speaking white supremacist (baasskap) Afrikaners held the non-white South African people down through ruthless and inhumane segregation and through Apartheid from 1948 to 1991. (We did say the Dutch were pleasant rather than polite.)   

 

Ah, France! Douce France, land of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du citoyen, country of surely the most refined, most elegant, most cultured. most diplomatically polite (well, if you pronounce French correctly). Chère France, sentimental home of the Guillotine, although the “display of severed heads had long been one of the most common ways European sovereigns exhibited their power to their subjects.” Cultured. Refined. Awfully polite sovereigns. 

But this was long ago. In fact the last beheading by guillotine in France was as long ago as 10 September 1977.

Nevertheless the French have worked hard to maintain their reputation for barbarism obscured by refinement.

Mon Bleu! Paris, city of Romance, as recently as 17 October 1961 hosted the intentional massacre of up to 300 peacefully demonstrating Algerians under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, formerly a Vichy Gestapo collaborator in WWII.  Many were murdered by brutal police beatings. Others died in mass drownings, when police threw demonstrators, who sometimes had been knocked unconscious, into the river Seine.

And Australia?

British patricians brought their politeness to Australia along with the convicts and free settlers. We wanted so much to be like the “real British”. 5th generation Australians used to call a trip to England on a P&O boat “going home“. We copied the British. We learnt how to pretend to be polite, even when we were angered when the Aborigines refused to understand that they no longer owned ‘their’ land, and that we couldn’t care less about their savage “culture”. We still offered them a cup of tea. 

But in the fullness of time Australians got sick of the English bullshit and dissimulation. On the upside it was useful to know that language at the same time we were becoming more and more pragmatic about language. We were busy working, creating a nation. That took all our effort. We didn’t have time for bullshit. The British thought we were uncouth because they didn’t understand this unfamiliar idea of truth. With all this we developed as a culture of openness, straightforwardness and a remarkable talent for bullshit detection. We have the British to thank for that.

Not that we don’t still have many polite liars in our midst but they are mostly limited to politics and religion (now worryingly closing in on each other), the law and bureaucracy, banks and finance, real estate and advertising, and other scams.  

It’s not that politeness is not one of Australians’ endearing qualities along with friendliness and openness.

It’s just that when we’re polite it’s because we’re actually polite. And when we’re polite it’s real.     

. . .

Post Script: 
Sir Roger has asked me to point out that he does know Australian values and culture are slightly more complex than your interlocutor has suggested above  

 

* (go for it)

Power

Power

The Bit Biden Got Wrong

(but not as wrong as @PsychoTrump)
and the importance for Australian Values

 

J oe Biden said—on 14 December when the Electoral College anointed him President Elect—what everyone would think. Makes sense yeah? 

“In America, politicians don’t take power – the people grant it to them.” 

You can understand why he said that and most of us would agree.

But it isn’t correct.

Western democracies, democratic republics (real democratic republics) and nations that are effectively republics (like Australia) have something significant in common. 

The “ownership” of the country is, and is always, in the hands of the People. And the People hold, and always hold, ALL the political power. 

We never abrogate that ownership even when we think we do, even when it feels as if we have.

We never revoke or renounce our responsibility as owners—even though sometimes we would like to—because we simply can’t.  

In Australia’s case, you might say, the Queen owns everything and we own nothing. But the Queen has no power over us, or any of her several “dominions”. She must, and can only, do what she is told to do by her various Prime Ministers. And those Prime Ministers must act on the Will of the People. 

The Queen is not our real head of state, she is our “statutory”, or “ceremonial” head of state. That is, she is a powerless symbol of power. She is like a lifeless statue that represents our power.  (To be sure, she does have dominion over all swans on the River Thames.) The British government has no power over Australia. By the Australia Act 1986 (Cth) and the Australia Act 1986 (UK) all power was devolved to Australia. Australia became “a sovereign, independent and federal nation”. This eliminated the power of the UK to legislate with effect in Australia, to be involved in Australian government, and terminated the ability to appeal from any Australian court to a British court. This formally separated all legal ties between Australia and the UK. 

Nevertheless, the Queen . . . . . .  This is a classic skyhook. Australia still (not being a republic) holds onto a skyhook attached to an idea called the monarch. And the monarch holds onto a sky hook that used to be called the “divine right of kings”. The British Monarch’s motto is still “Dieu et Mon Droit“, a straightforward (or a straight-up), hook to a god.

But. Australia is legally a secular state (even though they do the lord’s prayer in parliament at the start of business). In any case,  the Glorious Revolution of 1688 put a end to the divine right of kings being real (which of course it never was) or meaningful

So the skyhook, which had once drawn power from the people to the monarch, has crashed to the ground like a flaming meteor when it realised it didn’t exist.   

 

So as Sir Roger has noted recently:

In a democracy the power is always, and remains, in the people – the citizens – not in the politicians.

Power does not emanate from the politicians, despite their frequent attempts to steal it.

The People’s power does not go TO the politicians.

The People’s power goes THROUGH the politicians. 

Their job is to steer the power we have, to do what the Citizens say they must.

Politicians (and bureaucrats) are, flatly, our employees, not our employers.

We can never forget this.

If we do, our democracy is ready to be stolen, as democracies have been stolen by so many despots, tyrants, dictators, “strong men”, and “Presidents for Life” (like She Ping Pong and Voldermort the Poisoner. And like Trump longed to be).  

Porter Loo Too

Porter Loo Too

Drip Drip Drip

Update 

Well. How spot-on is Sir Roger?
He’s yet again demonstrated how appropriate it is that he was granted the OGPC (Order of the Grater Praesagium Conspiciens) as the World’s First and Only Genuine Political Clairvoyant. 

In the previous post he noted that ‘Christian’ Porter was less the Minister for Industrial Relations and more the Minister for Industrialists .

“WorkPac” sounds like an American right wing Political Action Committee, doesn’t it, and frankly that wouldn’t appear to be far from the reality (except for the american bit).

WorkPac, (CIMIC Group trading as WorkPac) which was previously Leighton Holdings (there’s a story there) is helmed by CEO Hamish Griffin. It’s one of Australia’s largest labour hire companies.

WorkPac was upset that the unions won a case in the Federal Court [WorkPac v Rossato about the rights of casual labourers—mostly in the mining industry which is WorkPac’s main territory—to things like sick leave. They’d already been upset before, in 2018 [WorkPac Pty Ltd v Skene ]. 

So now to their delight they’ve been granted special leave by the High Court to appeal WorkPac v Rossato.

And guess who is supporting them? As Sir Roger (OGPC)  foretold.

Both the Attorney General and the Minister for Industrial Relations: ‘Christian’ Porter.

Truly the actual Minister for Industrialists.

Porter cries that the cost of decency and fairness is too many billion dollars. Which seems to suggest that for the rich, important and self-congratulatory to stay rich someone has to be poor.

WorkPac cries that the children will be worried by the uncertainty in a strange and unknown new future.

If this pandemic has done anything it’s shown that as a country we can definitely handle uncertainty, strangeness and an unknown future.

 

 

Nothing is what it seems.

 

Here’s the thing.

McDonalds is not a restaurant chain. It is in the real estate business. It leases out space to restaurateurs.

Coles and Woollies are not retailers. They are in the real estate business. They sell shelf space.

Your phone company is not a telecommunication company. They are a billing system.

When you use your smart phone or your PC you are not the customer. You are the product.

When you rent a house or a unit from a real estate agent you are not their customer. Their customer is the landlord. You are the product and you produce your money.

 

And when you are a casual worker who got your job through WorkPac your employer is not the mining company.

It’s WorkPac. You are not WorkPac’s customer. WorkPac’s customer is the mining company.

You are WorkPac’s product. You and your work are sold to the employer. 

When another company is the customer that’s where a supplier’s responsibility, and interest, is focused.

The lower the cost to a customer, the happier the customer will be, the more customers will be attracted and the more customers will be retained. 

And, of course, not to forget that the real customers, and the real bosses of a company’s board, are the shareholders who will tend to be either massive superannuation companies or the already very rich. And they have no responsibility for the actual employees. 

So the system is skewed towards industry and away from the workers.

How do we know this? Just a guess? Maybe because CEO salaries and politicians’ salaries keep going (as Tony Abbott liked to say “arpa-narpa-narp, prizes a rarp“), higher and juicily higher, while middle class incomes have been stagnant for years.

According to the ABS (via ABC, 12 July 2019):

” It’s official: the rich are getting richer.

Well-off Australians are pulling away from the rest of the nation, with inequality of wealth rising in recent years, new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show. . . .

The figures show income growth has been virtually non-existent for many — average household incomes have stagnated, with virtually no growth since 2013,  

So it’s good to be able to see real commercial Australian values in operation, to see the ancient engines working, to look behind the painted curtains, to shatter the hall of mirrors and realise they’re taking the piss.

Porter Loo

Porter Loo

The Guardian

When Christian Is a Dirty Word

 

This won’t take long.
The Department of Home Affairs (“the Potatocracy”)  stirringly asserts that people love to come to Australia because: 

” ​​​​​​​​Australian values are based on freedom, respect, fairness and equality of opportunity are central to our community remaining a secure, prosperous and peaceful place to live . . .

Australian values include:

  • equality of opportunity . . .
  • a ‘fair go’ for all . . .

And that’s all good. We like that.

If only these were actual values held and supported and practised by actual politicians.

You might hope that a guy with a “christian” name like Christian might have been infected by nominative determinism, that ‘Christian’ had been an aptonym that suited Christian Porter, because he might have felt at least some moral pressure to consider the needs of the meek and struggling.

But sadly, it seems it is an inaptonym.

 ____________________

Do you know what casuals dread the most?

Christmas.

Because most don’t work at Christmas/New Year and they can’t afford a proper Christmas, or gifts for their children or whoever. Or a holiday. And they still have to pay the rent. It’s demeaning and embarrassing. 

 

A Third of Workers in Australia Don’t Get Sick Leave

 

Victoria is looking at a scheme which would provide five days of paid sick leave and carers’ pay to some casual workers and people with insecure employment.

Five days a year.

Without holiday pay.

You would think this was the very least they could do, except that throughout Australia the standard government support for such people is:

the very least they can get away with. 

Aside:

In our social system all people are of equal value.  

In our political system all voters are of equal power.

The power is in the people, not in the politicians.

The power IS the People.

All the people.

Importantly:

Power does not emanate from the politicians. 

The People’s power does not go to the politicians.

The People’s power goes through the politicians.

  Keeping this in mind 

when a politician is managing the needs of all of the electors of whatever status. . . 

Christian Porter is, apart from Attorney General, the minister for Industrial Relations.

This apparently means that he is effectively the minister for industrialists.

We know this is who he is because he sees a tiny attempt to help people who need help as “a massive tax”, as “killing business”.

Casual work is inherently insecure.

Casual work tends to be poorly paid, without penalty rates and sometimes they’re not eligible for a trickle of Super.

If they’re Job Seekers any income reduces their Centrelink payments. Sometimes casual work is the only work they can get. Yes, they get paid more to ‘compensate’ for the uncertainty and the lack of benefits, but on the pay grade of most it’s an insult and not enough to assure against the unforeseen. They can be easily trashed when they’re not needed.  

And yet the economy depends on them and the low cost of their work. 

But forget about their problems. They’ve only got themselves to blame, They’re a nuisance and they can’t complain because they could lose their shitty job.

And let’s be blunt; they’re the peons of industry. They’re not nearly as valuable as the rich and powerful. If casuals cost a little bit more, business owners might have to spend hours less on the ski slopes.

Businesses would collapse—Collapse!—if casual workers were treated fairly.

And, according to ‘Christian’ Porter, employment would collapse—Collapse!—if workers were treated fairly and with equality as Australians (a core Australian value).

And yet business depends on casual workers and the low cost of their work. 

Christian Porter’s base salary is $357,247.50His superannuation rate is 15.4% (while everyone else gets 9.5%), or a minimum of roughly $55,000 per year.

What is it about the far right (and the Christians) that they fight against help for those who struggle while supporting, and courting the favour of, those who need no help at all?