Australia: Heading for the gurgler?

 Is disaster looming?

I believe that ‘heading for the gurgler‘ is a unique Australian expression, meaning ‘down the drain‘ and a damned sight more expressive to boot.

I have lived in Australia for more than 60 years, all my adult life in fact; and I recently tried to recall and/or remember some legislation that has improved the lot of Australians by the Liberal Country Party Coalition Governments ( I must admit that for many years I supported these people) and do you know I could think of absolutely nothing that they have done.

Our Medicare/Medibank system second to none in the world, our education and higher/university programs were instituted by the Australian Labor Party ( I must point out here that for the first 20 plus years of my time here, the country was governed by the Liberal Coalition and I never saw a Labor Govt ’til Gough Whitlam became leader of the government in 1972

Australia at the moment is going along very well thank you very much. Our dollar is strong against the ‘greenback’ and has been for some time; as at the time of writing our dollar is worth $(US)1-052. It wasn’t all that long ago that our dollar was worth 0.95c US.

We have weathered the  “International financial storm” better than most and our current Government net debt is to be envied as the graph below illustrates. And it looks like we are going to blow it all away come September.

(Unfortunately this wouldn’t reblog; indeed it has disappeared from the original post site)

And who’s doing the blowing?

Big business, the mining industry and the media with their seemingly bottomless pit of money and eager and hungry for more are doing everything in their power to bring down Julia Gillard and the Australian Labor Party. And what is the catch phrase these hypocrites are using? Stop the Canberra’s greed!  The unmitigated gall of these people.

We have Rupert Murdock who in my humble opinion is the vilest creature ever to have beenspawned   in Australia, he calls himself Australian, American or whatever else suits the moment;  The raised right hand reminds me of another dictator who’s name slips my mind at the moment.

then there is the richest woman in Australia, Gina Rhinehart;  a mining magnate, (the mining industry is the organization running the GREED campaign, take a close look at her, and she talks of greed).This is Gina Rinehart: (Worth reading )

This is Tony Abbott,

their dupe and the leader of the Liberals and the next Prime Minster of Australia if Murdock Rhinehart and Company have their way, and they are doing everything in their power to make sure he is. Rhinehart now has control of the Ten TV Network in Australia and has been made the CEO so we can imagine the direction that network will take in the lead up to the election.

What an unholy trinity are these three; they recently were the prime speakers at an unholy $500.00 a plate dinner; and what was discussed? I quote

“It was the most exclusive of events: a glittering $500 minimum per head gala fundraising dinner last week for a right-wing think tank. Tony Abbott, Gina Rinehart and Rupert Mudoch took turns sharing the stage. Andrew Bolt was MC. Tony praised his fellow key-note speakers, especially Rupert, and promised the crowd a “big yes” to many of the think tank’s list of 75 policies to radically transform Australia.

So what, exactly, is on this think tank’s wish list?

• Public broadcasting – gone. The ABC to be broken up and sold off, SBS to be fully privatised.
• Corporations to be allowed to make secret payments to political parties.
• Medicare gone for most Australians.
• A return to WorkChoices, just by another name.
• The clean energy fund and the renewable energy target – scrapped.
• Funding for sport and arts – including the Australian Institute of Sport – axed. Same for science, with the CSIRO to be privatised.

It goes on. Never before has the extreme conservative agenda been laid out so clearly:”

So, are we going down the gurgler or not?

At the moment there is a good chance that Abbott will succeed, The media Barons (and I suppose with Rhinehart now involved it’s the baroness too), the mining groups all spending big bucks and aiming at the most vulnerable are doing their damnedest to make sure he gains control.

Over the coming weeks I will endeavour to write more on the situation, hopefully next time some sense will start to prevail and things will be looking less gloomy.

Too I shall write my thoughts regarding Julia Gillard our Prime Minister.