Ahead of Anzac Day a reminder of the arbitrary horror of the Vietnam National Service conscription ballot.

This was the ballot that my dad was in. His birthday came up (and coincidentally so does mine)

(all the ballots at the bottom of the page)
awm.gov.au/articles/encyc… It's a hell of a thing to go with my Dad to the Aus War Memorial and hear him talk about some of the names on the Vietnam War Roll of Honour - what they were doing the day before etc.

"Even in Hitler’s Germany you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.”"

What. The. Utter. F**k.

https://twitter.com/TennantRob/status/1650218292492001285

Just realised this is an old story.

So not new news, but still

What. The. Utter. F**k

Raising Jobseeker will be inflationary?? Oh please

A little 🧵

First, it won't directly affect prices because Jobseeker is not wages (duh)

So any concerns would be on the demand side

How big a concern?
Currently Jobseeker etc are worth about $14bn p/a (or $3.5bn a qtr) 1/11 Increasing Jobseeker from $693.10 to $1,064 (the $76 a day target by ACOSS' Raise the Rate campaign) is a 53.5% increase.

So let's use some very (very) basic assumptions and increase the total Jobseeker bill by 53.5%. That gets us to $21.5bn or around $5.375bn a quarter 2/11

Senators who got voted in on a group ticket really have no right to stay when they leave their party IMO. Before *every* election the fight to get the top 1-2-3 spots on the Senate ticket is extremely tough. Why?
Because they all know getting elected is *dependent* upon getting those spots.

cf Kristina Kenneally

Let's not now pretend it is not a thing.

Any discussion of mortgages taken out when interest rate were 19% needs to also note that interest rates fell in the 1990s and 2000s - ie the period where they were paying it off.

https://twitter.com/abcnews/status/1622312828689612800

I did a thing on this a few years back
theguardian.com/business/grogo…

The reasons given in this article by the managing director of Universal Picture Australasia are, quite frankly, bullshit.

https://twitter.com/glennhampson/status/1588077989614567425

The condescending crud about Tar needing to get some excitement/buzz around it was maybe fine in the 1980s but we now get to read and hear all the news/podcasts etc about it at the same time the USA does

The latest figures just out by the ABS show Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up 30% of the adult prison population.

And across every state the level is higher than it was in the early/mid 1990s around 3.8% of the total population... 30% of the prison population...

President of the BCA: If you look over the last three decades at the split between profits and wages, it's been pretty consistent across Australia.
#abc730
🤔 Oh we shouldn't count mining?

OK
#abc730

Labor supporters should look at the budget with clear eyes.
You want better policies? Keep pushing.
You want JobSeeker raised? Keep pushing.
You want Stage 3 dumped/changed? Keep pushing.
Keep demanding better Do not say "whatabout the LNP?". They are not the bar. The bar that needs to be cleared is good progressive policies. Don't settle.

Earlier this month the Productivity Commission put out a report that included this graph that made it look like productivity and real wages are growing in line (sort of) and that real wages are actually doing better (yes, I know!!)
Business groups loved it (shock!)
1/10 The good thing is the PC said where they got the data from we can reproduce it here... 2/10

Enjoying the argument from the BCA that we should exclude around 20% of the economy when looking at profits and wages.

Mining and finance profits are too big so let's not count them! I mean ok then...

You might be shocked to discover that employer groups really hate seeing this graph Apparently it encourages an “Us versus Them” view of the economy

Here's the thing about politcians

They're all nice (with exceptions) to people they meet (especially journalists)

They're mostly all loyal to their friends & staff & love their family

They mostly all have good senses of humour, like movies, sport & books

This is not news Unlike the rest of us however, politicians get to show their personality in what legislation they support and push for. They get to show us their humanity (or lack thereof) in how they act in the running of their portfolios

Decided to watch Red Notice for some reason and OH MY GOD, Gal Gadot is a terrible at acting Am now just watching to see if it can get any more stupid

"artist's impression of a small modular nuclear reactor"

lulz @evcricket RTYI

Gianpietro Mazzoleni's "Media Logic and Party Logic in Campaign Coverage: The Italian General Election of 1983" truly remains the key text of campaign coverage He noted that campaigns are about doing things that conform to the "media logic" - ie appearances at schools, building sites; having a key message of the day/week/campaign; avoiding "gaffes"; knowing the answers to things that don't matter but which the media decides does matter

"People know my team, that know Peter Dutton's the Defence Minister. They know Karen Andrews is the Home Affairs Minister, that Josh Frydenberg is the Treasurer, Simon Birmingham is the Finance Minister. "

lulz at best 1% know that Whenever he brings up "his team" and people knowing them, he always mentions Karen Andrews and truly I could not pick her out of a line up.

My one meagre hope is for most media not to cover the election like they are quasi campaign directors “Morrison focussing on Queensland this week so he can shore up support means that …” “Morrison’s campaign has been very focussed on capturing the ________ vote”

Ok great, are the policies any good???

Anyway today I learned that some poeple don't know what >>>>> means but do think I believe Maggie Beer is the same as Scott Cam.

https://twitter.com/GrogsGamut/status/1512298591284461570

anyway, find someone in your life who looks at you and says "Oh [your name]" like Simon Bryant said "Oh Maggie" in every episode of The Cook and the Chef

Werid thing about this article is nowhere does it actually have a quote saying he will be like Howard.

Only "“If Labor is successful in the coming federal election, I will take my lead from Bob Hawke and his successor Paul Keating,” Mr Albanese will say. It might be in the speech, but weird not to gives us the quote .

Eg @PhillipCoorey doesn't use it he only refers to Hawke and Keating

climate-change deniers: your models are just made up numbers

also climate-change deniers: this is a 1 in 3,500 year event!

https://twitter.com/SquizzSTK/status/1500605990156500993

not 1 in 4,000. No, not 1 in 3,000, but 1 in 3,500. You gotta be exact about these things.