Australian News headlines Monday 18 September 2017, AusPol Headlines

 Campaign for Same Sex Marriage kicks into overdrive

 There was skywriting in inner Western Sydney on Sunday morning splashing the words 'vote No' across the sky signalling that the the campaigns for and against same sex marriage kicks into overdrive this week as the deadline for voting approaches. The debate has been far from respectful and Turnbull must take the sole blame for not taking this issue to a vote instead embarking on this disastrous unbinding postal survey-fuelled hatefest. Tennis personality Margaret Court was removed as patron from a club because she stands for the no case. John Howard quietly changed the law in 2004 and it is time that it is changed now to a more inclusive definition of marriage. Having equal marriage doesn't hurt anyone, it simply allows two people that love each other, to be married. Please vote Yes in the upcoming survey. 

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Onya Nick Xenophon!

Media reform deals will reduce diversity and amount to little more than window dressing. The legislation the Broadcasting Legislation Amendment (Broadcasting Reform) 2017 Bill has been passed thanks to the support of three crossbenchers and four One Nation senators as well as the Nick Xenophon deal. The main features of the bill are:  

1. repeal of the 'two-out-of-three' rule 
2. and the 75% reach rule and the creation of a $50 million innovation fund for smaller and regional publishers 
3. as well as the creation of 200 cadetships and 60 scholarships.    

 The ACCC will conduct an inquiry into the advertising practices of Google and Facebook and their impact on journalism. The NXT wins in the context of high industry concentration and the dominance of US-based hegemons is really only a window dressing, an attempt at payback for critical coverage.

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Revealed: Stopping the boats costs $9.6 billion.

The cost of stopping the boats since 2013 has totalled more than $9.6 billion and will be another $5.7 billion over the next four years according to a study by UNICEF and Save The Children. The study estimates the cost of keeping the approximately 2000 asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island and Nauru at $400,000 per person. In contrast it costs just $33,000 for those on bridging visas in the Australian community. Peter Dutton, Immigration Minister has ruled out any softening of Australia's policy, telling Parliament recently that: “We will not deviate because the people smugglers are still there in Indonesia, and in Sri Lanka and Vietnam and elsewhere trying to put syndicates together to put people on boats.”   

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Living standards are going up but are lower than 6 years ago.

Employment continues to grow, but until wages increase, the Treasurer will have a hard time convincing people that their standard of living has gone up. The Treasurer tweeted on Thursday that living standards rose by 3.8%. The figure Morrison is using to justify this claim is the “real net national income per capita”. Using that measure you could argue that living standards fell 1.4% in the June quarter alone which is the biggest quarterly fall since the GFC. The ABS estimates that in June this year real net national disposable income per capita was $13,942, lower than the $13,971 measured six years ago in June 2011. Living standards are going up but they are lower than they were six years ago, being a mere 0.8% better than they were when the LNP took office. 

Over the past 4 years wages have been flat, since March 2013 the Reserve Bank's underlying measure of inflation has risen 9.4%, while in that time private sector wages have risen just 9.3%. Figures out this week showed that median and average household incomes fell from 2013-14 to 2015-16. Since Turnbull took over as PM, household disposable income has grown less than half that of national disposable income, and on a real per capita basis, has gone backwards and is mostly flat since 2011.       

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Photocredits: 

Image 1 energy.fm.net

Image 2 theaustralian.com.au

Image 3 theshovel.com.au

Image 4 junkee.com