Australian Policies -- from December 2023

A timely reminder of the up and coming publication of Kim Carr’s book on 1st November next. It’s a great title, A Long March. Where could he have got it from ?

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A couple of places come to mind!

He grew up in Carlton territory when his family came to Melbourne but is a Doggies supporter. Reckon he would have met Michael Long when he was Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs. Probably has a Little Red Book as well.

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Or maybe it was a long march for his family from the caravan park in Gladstone, QLD to Coburg, VIC ?

EDIT: @Bacchusfox - If Kim doesn’t have a Litle Red Book I’ll happily lend him mine. “Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.” (2nd ed., 1967, p.302.)

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Yeah, I will probably read it, maybe he might sign a copy for me.

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anyone got a dustpan and brush to clean up all the names dropped in here?

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Coombs died in 1997.

Yeah, but he was 91 then, so you must be really !!!

I saw him when I was in Darwin, I never had any dealings with him.
You must be much younger than you claim, as you posted that you didn’t get into politics until after his death!

I’m not sure whether this is a ‘credit where it’s due’ moment, or more of a ‘always do the right thing after trying every other possibility first’ thing, but the ALP have FINALLY announced that they’ll introduce tranche 2 of the anti-money laundering laws to parliament. This has been delayed for no less than 18 frigging years, through many governments, presumably because the property industry didn’t want it because it puts real estate agent, developers etc under anti-money laundering law, and no govt wants to see what’s creeping around under that particular rock. It’s ludicrously overdue, and has been a large part of why Australia’s been rocketing up the global corruption indices lately.

No idea yet whether the ALP are going to wimp out and water it down like they’ve been doing to everything else lately, or whether they’ll do something similar like phase the laws slooooowly in over a decade, or whatever.

If the laws actually bite, it could genuinely affect house prices. The big intended target of stuff like this is wealthy overseas investors from China or the Middle East who’ve bought up big on Australian property with dodgy money, and often never even see the need to rent it out. If they feel suddenly obliged to divest, we could hope to find a bit of easing on the supply side of the property market, which would be a relief.

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I didn’t join the ALP until he retired from Reserve Bank in 1968, is what I meant.

A simpler solution would be to limit property ownership to Australian citizens and Australian companies. Let the others pay rent to Australian owners.

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Permanent residents say hi. Some have not taken up citizenship because their country of origin doesn’t allow for dual citizenship. Then there are those with dual citizenship who don’t reside here.
The FIRB does have restrictions on foreign ownership of homes. They were tightened in Covid to forestall buy ups.
IDK whether cashed up foreigners have entered the market to any great extent to buy properties which have become unaffordable.
The current high rents could reflect the absolute shortage of houses not keeping up with population growth.

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Or it could just be that racists are bad with maths, given that in 2021 29% of our population was born overseas and a further 19% had at least one parent born overseas.

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Jim Chalmer’s RBA reforms look like they won’t pass unless a deal can be struck with the Greens. The government has the ability to overrule the RBA on rates (The Greens want this retained which I agree with). Given Jim has criticised the RBA for smashing the economy with high interest rates - the question is why doesn’t he just step in change interest rates himself? Or amend the target inflation figures (up slightly) which the RBA then needs to set their rates to manage to ? Jim can do this himself without attacking the RBA

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Or Jim could make the government reduce immigration intake and reduce government spending that would make the RBA’s job a lot easier.
But then we would be in recession and potentially at risk of losing election.

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id sat that whole notion is entire bs . so are they saying the entire games is in only 200 mill? BS!

Why is Labor bothering over social media minimum age requirements? Remember the online content filter, that was hacked on the same day?

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Last time around…

I don’t think social media was as prevalent or pervasive in 2008.

I don’t know if this is the right policy option or not. But it’s not the same as 2008.

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As a teenager i suffered horrific school bullying, In the early 2000s social media and online bullying wasn’t yet a huge presence so when I left the school gates it stopped for a while but if if I had social media/cyber bullying making that worse I probably wouldn’t be here today.

From that perspective I see some benefit.

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