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Ask no questions, get told no lies

So it turns out there is no $2billion bushfire recovery fund. Under questioning in the Senate, the federal public servants whose job it was to provide answers to the parliamentary representatives of taxpayers and voters admitted the fund was “notional”. It’s a “notion”, an idea. It exists in theory, but not in practice. There is no allocation of money in the budget. Parliament has not set aside $2billion to help in bushfire recovery. The much-vaunted fund does not exist. This doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s more or less what I expect from Australian governments these…

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Bring back Parliament, and democracy

On the face of it, the proposition that the COVID-19 pandemic makes it too dangerous for the Australian Parliament to sit might seem to have some almost reasonable basis. When Parliament sits, lots of politicians and their staff descend on Canberra, circulating around the city and potentially creating opportunities for the spread of the virus. Many would come from virus-stricken Victoria, it is argued, and the risks are too great to contemplate. Like I said, it almost sounds a bit reasonable, and yet I don’t buy the story. This is a democracy – so we are…

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