Australian Bureau of Statistics – UNPD NOM Net Overseas Migration Formula – Inflating Immigration and Population Growth

One has written previously on the wilful confusion around immigration and population data used for demographic analysis in the Anglosphere, also to dog whistle refugees, immigrants and population growth.

However, requires the misrepresenting of data and research using climate science denial techniques used by entities linked to both Tanton Network and Koch Network, deflecting from carbon or fossil fuels and promoting eugenics; in Australia and US using proxies to replicate previous race based immigration restrictions.

Following is an addition to a previous post ‘NOM Net Overseas Migration – Immigration – Population Growth’ endeavouring to explain the data that is misrepresented in the mainstream by nativist influencers and NGOs, right wing media and political parties, informing above median age and low info voters; see Brexit, Trump and indigenous Voice Referendum in Australia.

The following analysis was done by the Quixotic Quant who disagreed with related analysis presented by a right wing finance blog, partly inspired by Zero Hedge, that did more to confuse subscribers than inform them.  

Strategy to dog whistle proxy white Australia policy, put a psychological floor on house values and FOMO ‘fear of missing out’; without any insight, research or data into housing types used by international students, and their housing behaviour, but let’s blame them anyway?

From The Quixotic Quant:

The Missing Million: Is Australia’s migration rate actually high?

It’s time that someone took a proper tilt at Australia’s high migration rate. No, I don’t mean like Dick Smith, splashing millions on an advertising campaign arguing that such a high rate is unsustainable and that we should return down to previous levels. I mean taking a few hours with the data source to figure out whether Australia’s migration rate actually is any higher than it was at previous levels.

The Population Ponzi story tells us that sometime in the mid-2000s the Howard government kicked the gate-open to mass migration to feed the mining boom, then an un-holy alliance between big retailers, property developers, and budget-stressed politicians allowed the gate to stay open ever-after. The sustained influx of immigrants post-boom can then explain most things weird and worrying about our economy, including per-capita real income falling, low wage growth, and high house prices.

The alternative story is that sometime in the mid-2000s the Australian Bureau of Statistics changed the definition of an official statistic called “Net Overseas Migration”. The arbitrary definition they had at the time was malfunctioning, and the next arbitrary one they changed to has been malfunctioning even worse. A blithely ignorant press didn’t even notice the change, let alone query the disfunction that inspired it, so the entire country has been putting their faith soaring population figure that has the integrity of custard. The harder alternative figure shows that our migration rate is actually flat. The confusion probably explains even more weird things, like low nominal GDP growth, low tax revenues, not to mention wage growth and per-capita everything. House prices are worrying, but not weird. Something else simple explains them, but that’s a tilt for another day.

Read this post if you’re not sure which to believe.

Why the NOM graph matters more than most

As far as graphs go, Net Overseas Migration, (NOM) would have to be one of the rising-stars in Australian economic policy debates. The significance of NOM to housing (hence banking, hence sharemarket) is pretty obvious. It also makes a crucial contribution to ‘Estimated Resident Population’, perhaps one of the most important statistics that’s relied on for imputing, scaling and basing a host of other crucial statistics.

But this particular graph’s influence has also risen the tide of confusion swamping the world’s economists, who are floundering to explain the new low-inflation, low-growth new-normal paradigm that has beset the Western World. Everyone’s casting around for a theory. With a slightly selective date-range (say from around 1991 onwards), this graph gives some Australian pundits and commentators exactly what they want: some substantial level-shift that occurs somewhere around the GFC, and hasn’t returned to old normal levels. (Use the zoom/selector tool to cut out the pre-1991 part to soak in the less-than-full picture.)

(Notice the spike pre 2010 that signifies new and 2006 expanded NOM starting to take effect)

You can see why people are arguing that someone kicked the gate open. Apparently in the 2000s Australia suddenly started letting over 200,000 people in every year, when previously we took about half that amount.

Overseas there is plenty of credible economic commentary, particularly in the US and Europe arguing that more migration would be a very good thing for their economies. It’s fair to say that social issues dominate the case against migration, which would probably be economically beneficial if it was legitimised, and very much so if you could select well-educated foreigners who weren’t refugees. Land-borders make that a non-trivial issue in the US and Europe.

Two things set us apart. Sea-borders are one, which means we take control of migration for granted. You don’t have to sound bombastic by proposing to build a wall when you’ve already got a moat. The second is this graph, which appears to show a such a dramatic level shift to a higher level than most other Western Countries. The shift appears so clear that it has sparked something of a dalliance between some respectable economic thinkers, and the ‘Population Ponzi’ theory, which makes out that Australia’s rapid population growth could be masking, or worse even causing, some real economic problems.

The devil’s in the detail. Or maybe just the definition.

I mightn’t have ever noticed the definition shift if I hadn’t attempted to reproduce two columns in an ABS Demographics spreadsheet called ‘Arrivals’ and ‘Departures’ from numbers in two other spreadsheets called ‘Arrivals’ and ‘Departures’. That’s right, the ABS keeps these series in separate places, with different catalogue numbers (310101, 340101 & 340102), with different date ranges, and different frequencies of data entries. One would think they’re keen fend off amateur analysts attempting to check their numbers.

I couldn’t get any of the series to add up together, even after creating a little package of code in R to manage the necessary wrangling to compare the periods. I wanted to assume that some simple addition of the Permanent and Long Term Arrivals would produce the 3101 Arrivals, and same with Departures, and the net of those would produce (or at least closely follow) the hallowed NOM. Please enjoy chuckling at my naivety. In fact the net Permanent and Long Term movements give a trend that’s far higher than Net Overseas Migration. The Net Short Term movements, on the other hand, used to be trivial, but had in recent decades had become quite large and negative.

This demanded the question: how did the ABS decide just how many of those net movements that were classified in one series as ‘short-term’ to blend in with the ‘long-term’ ones to conclude what constituted ‘migration’? I expected somewhere deep inside the explanatory notes that I’d find some arbitrary rule that had to be followed. The explanatory notes had two, with the switch between them occurring just before the ‘level shift’. Here are the direct quotes:

‘22 The ABS developed and introduced an improved method, called the ‘12/16 month rule’ methodology, for estimating NOM. It has been used in calculating Australia’s official ERP since September quarter 2006. The ‘12/16 month rule’ methodology is a result of reviewing the treatment of temporary migrants (both long-term and short-term) who are away from or resident in Australia for a period of 12 months or more.

23 Estimates of NOM based on the previous methods and those based on the ‘12/16 month rule’ methodology are not comparable. The key change is the introduction of the ‘12/16 month rule’ for measuring a person’s residency in Australia, replacing the previous ‘12/12 month rule’.’

“Not comparable” is the correct (one would hope unavoidable) conclusion about such a substantial change in method. But overall I think my gratitude for the ABS spelling out the obvious is overwhelmed by my dismay at their burying this insight in paragraph 23 of the ‘Explanatory Notes’ tab, where only the most determined and tireless of data consumers are likely to encounter it.

Not the slightest mention, flag, warning, column change, name change, or label can be seen anywhere near the actual spreadsheets available for download. So with almost no exceptions users tend to string it together on one axis, in sequence, in one line, in one colour, blithely ignorant of the fact that they’re plotting two different bits of data which are “not comparable” according to the producer of the data.

It’s hard to overstate how bad that really is. It’s the kind of slop which hung-over first-year uni students cobble together on the bus on the way to a tutorial which requires attendance but doesn’t grade exercises. If they do it in assignments, they fail. Yet all of Australia’s leading economists are doing it relentlessly, if accidentally.

How one should, or should not present “not comparable” data

Let’s be geeky and consider how to properly present the data. (Feel free to borrow my code if you’ve been unwittingly guilty of the misdemeanor and would like to produce some better plots.)’

Post continues click through…..

For more related blogs and articles on Australian Politics, Demography, Immigration, International Student, Media, NOM Net Overseas Migration, Population Growth and Statistical Analysis click through:

NOM Net Overseas Migration – Immigration – Population Growth

Posted on February 26, 2018

Interesting article on immigration and NOM net overseas migration by former Australian Department of Immigration Deputy Secretary Abul Rizvi endeavouring to insert some understanding and clarity round the ‘immigration’ debate when most misunderstand, misinterpret or misrepresent immigration and population data.

Immigration Population Growth Decline NOM Net Overseas Migration

Posted on February 1, 2019

For the past 10+ years Australia, the Anglo and western worlds have been obsessing in the mainstream about ‘immigration’ and ‘population growth’ as negative factors for the environment, economy, quality of life, infrastructure, traffic congestion, ‘carrying capacity’ etc. based upon misrepresentation and/or misunderstanding of data, analysis and facts.

However, in Australia as opposed to most nations, pension reform, introduction of superannuation, skilled permanent immigration and net financial contributions from temporary resident ‘churn over’ should maintain a balance between social responsibilities of the government and financial management.

Australian Migration Review 2023 – For Immigrants and Nation or a Nativist Trap?

Posted on May 10, 2023

The Australian Migration Review Report has been published, based on narratives and submissions, but little meaningful grass roots feedback or data to support any grounded analysis for good future reforms?

This post will focus on NOM Net Overseas Migration and major source or factor i.e. international education and students, but for now, not the other main factors including WHV Working Holiday Visas (2nd year) and temporary workers.

Expert Analysis of Australia’s Populist Immigration and Population Growth Obsessions

Posted on July 9, 2021

Interesting article ‘Australia’s facile immigration policy debate’ by former former Immigration Department senior official Abul Rizvi in John Menadue’s Pearls and Swine, parsing through and commenting on Australia’s immigration policies, media and societal narratives that are not well supported by the literature nor demographic research. 

These positions are distilled into either for cliched ‘Big Australia’ on the side of the corporate sector or anti-immigrant through proxy issues such as ZPG like ‘population growth’ leading to environmental degradation.  However,  these are both corporate positions or tactics supported by the same and neither explain why Australia has modest permanent immigration and the more significant temporary churn over via the NOM Net Overseas Migration.

Meanwhile mainstream media and niche outlets obsess about (undefined) post 1970s ‘immigration’ always presenting as negative with few if any positives; although Australia promotes itself as an ‘immigration’ nation and the ‘world’s most successful multicultural society’.

Immigration Immigrants and Public Misconceptions

Posted on February 4, 2020

Harvard University study recently found that people in Western countries, including America, have succumbed to many restrictionist myths…… About 3 percent of the world’s population lived outside its birth country in 1900. And 3 percent does so now. By any objective metric, the modern age has experienced no historic flood of immigration.

Global Population Decline and Rebalance

Posted on January 17, 2024

The Anglosphere, especially right wing media and influencers, obsess about supposed immigrant-led population growth in the developed world, while claiming high fertility and exponential growth; not true it’s a reflection of better human health and increasing longevity.

However, these dynamics are still misrepresented or ignored in media, politics and public narratives based on the eugenics based ideology of Bob Malthus, Francis Galton, Madison Grant and John Tanton; the latter via ZPG Zero Population Growth supported by Rockefeller Bros. Fund.

There is an increasing body of research, knowledge and awareness of population and demography in nations and globally thanks to Jack Caldwell, Fred Pearce, Wolfgang Lutz, Hans Rosling, Sanjeev Sanyal, then recent years Bricker & Ibbitson (‘Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline’); outside of the UNPD, right wing and faux centrist media, think tanks, politics and influencers.

Nigel Farage – Julian Assange – Wikileaks – Trump Campaign – Russian Influence

In the Anglosphere there is still much confusion around Assange, Wikileaks, stolen DNC emails, Russian influence, Russia Report, Mueller Report, Trump campaign, Murdoch’s Fox News, Nigel Farage, Roger Stone, Cambridge Analytica, Tufton St. think tanks linked to Atlas or Koch Network, Steve Bannon  and right wing grifters, out to defeat Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Presidential Campaign in 2016.

This continues on from another related post drawing upon Mother Jones’ article of David Corn’s in ‘Assange – Useful Idiot or Willing Dupe of the US Right and Putin’s Russia?

Recently there have been calls and pressure on the Biden Democratic administration, by supporters of Assange in Australia and the U.K., for him not to be deported and possibly pardoned (for charges brought by Trump administration), while many others contest his ‘journalism’ credentials, or at least how unhelpful his cause has been for journalism’

An earlier post based on a Peter Jukes article in ByLine Times ‘Russia Report – Anglo Conservatives Compromised by Russian Interference on EU and Brexit

Return to questions over the U.K. Russia Report, former PM Johnson, Brexit, Conservative government, Russian oligarchs, Trump’s GOP Presidential campaign and influence on elections including the EU referendum.

Written by Peter Jukes and originally published January 2023 by ByLine Times, asking questions that are not only unresolved, but actively avoided by the Tories, media and supporters for the advantage of Putin’s Russia and oligarchs, both east and west?’

From ByLine Times: ‘Zamaan Qureshi explores new revelations from the Mueller probe into the leaking of emails hacked by Russian intelligence services to Wikileaks during the 2016 US Presidential election’

‘GB News Presenter Nigel Farage Emerges in Unredacted FBI Files

Zamaan Qureshi 5 August 2021

Nigel Farage, former leader of UKIP, a close associate of former President Donald Trump and now the lead presenter for the new British TV channel GBNews is the subject of newly released documents from the Mueller probe.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller was tasked with investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and interviewed hundreds of witnesses to lift the veil behind a web of Trump campaign associates and employees who facilitated, aided, and welcomed foreign influence in the 2016 election. 

One of the leads Mueller investigated was the attempt to acquire and release the infamous “Hillary Clinton emails” (correspondence from an email address the former U.S. Secretary of State set up with on a private server) as well as the DNC emails hacked by Guccifer 2.0 – a Russian intelligence agency hacker – and subsequently passed on to Wikileaks.

The release of these emails was thought to benefit then-candidate Donald Trump politically. Though Clinton was cleared of wrongdoing by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2016, the Trump campaign sought access to these emails from Wikileaks…

….Most of the redactions that were removed Monday related to Roger Stone, the Trump associate and political consultant, and his attempts to gain access to Clinton’s emails via Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks. According to the revealed documents and the Mueller report, Stone believed Nigel Farage may have been able to connect him to Assange to acquire Clinton’s emails.

Nigel Farage’s name appears only once in the Special Counsel’s final report into Russian interference published two years ago. On page 55, the report outlines how Jerome Corsi, an American author and conspiracy theorist and associate of Roger Stone, approached fellow American author Ted Malloch to interview Julian Assange about the leaks.

The original report only outlines how the Special Counsel’s Office understood Corsi believed Malloch had connections or relationships with people in the “orbit” of Nigel Farage, who may have been able to contact Julian Assange….

Farage and Assange

Corsi and Malloch were right about one thing, despite their contradictory statements to federal prosecutors: Farage can get you to Assange. As was reported by Guardian and Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr, Farage has maintained close ties to Julian Assange. In March 2017, Farage was pictured visiting Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, who has been holed up there since 2012 until his recent arrest. Farage claimed he “didn’t remember” what was discussed in the meeting but within minutes following that meeting, Wikileaks published a new leak.

It’s unclear the extent to which that relationship has been maintained given Trump is now out of office and Assange was arrested and had his Ecuadorian citizenship revoked. Yet, Farage is a key connection between Stone, Corsi, Malloch, Trump and the former president’s Chief White House strategist Steve Bannon who both subscribe to similar populist and often racist theories for the way Britain and America should look. 

Farage’s name has been redacted from most 302’s mostly in connection to the now-pardoned Roger Stone. Speculations about the purpose of those redactions appear to fall under the category of protection of personal information or harm to ongoing criminal proceedings. Given that Stone is now pardoned, the information released about him will have no legal weight against him.

Assange, on the other hand, is a controversial figure. While some claim his work exposed government corruption and campaign mismanagement, others feel as though he improperly obtained documents that ended up swaying elections.

Zamaan Qureshi works for The Citizens and The Real Facebook Oversight Board’

For more related blogs and articles click through each topic Conservative, EU European Union, Koch Network, Political Strategy, Populist Politics, Russia and Tanton Network.

Anglosphere Nativist Libertarian Social Economic Policies or Return of Eugenics?

In the past decade we have witnessed a political shift to the nativist and libertarian right in the Anglosphere, but described as ‘conservative’, appealing to the important above median age voter, less educated, more socially conservative, obedient and monocultural, but e.g. in UK leading to austerity measures?

Most of these ideas come from the classical or liberal economists of the past including Calvin, Smith, Ricardo et al. and also includes old eugenics based ideas of dour Christian men like Malthus on population, Galton on social Darwinism or eugenics, and worse, Madison Grant in the US who influenced Hitler.

What we observe now are attempts to implement these restrictive and regressive policies by ‘conservative’ parties, but it’s very chaotic, and destructive to parties e.g. hollowing out with fewer informed members.  However, their policies are mostly unpalatable to thinking citizens e.g. Brexit, Trump, pro fossil fuels, anti climate science, demands for significant cuts to government spending with tax cuts for the 1-10%, ongoing attacks on ‘elites’, ‘wokeness’, women, minorities, education and science for a disempowered society.

This reflects influence of Koch Network ‘radical right libertarian’ Atlas think tanks which are now global but especially influential in the US, Tufton Street UK e.g. IEA Institute of Economic Affairs and equivalents IPA (founding partner was Murdoch’s father) and CIS in Australia, with opaque funding sources and donors. These think tanks actually do more PR or lobbying of policies versus informed research and seem to run protection for media oligopolies themselves, right wing governments, fossil fuels and big (global) business; with a clear crossover to John Tanton Network white nativism or eugenics, masquerading as environmental ‘hygiene’ round refugees, immigrants, population growth, minorities and the ‘great replacement’.

Now pro bono UK trade advisor and former Australian LNP conservative PM Tony Abbott, was given suggestions by the Koch linked think tank IPA in Melbourne, for a potential new government in 2012.  In fact seventy five suggestions, below the article excerpts, give a clear indication of antipathy towards government, taxes, budgets, public spending, social security, health care, climate measures, environmental management etc.

Any informed media and journalists need to be aware as they may challenge MPs, think tankers etc. but with neither deep insight nor analysis of causes, does not inform anyone? 

If one uses an Australianism, that’s just ‘too easy’ and comfortable while retaining access to decision makers, with the latter given too much unearned respect for old ideas masquerading as moden policies.

Be Like Gough: 75 Radical Ideas To Transform Australia

Written by John Roskam, Chris Berg and James Paterson

5 August 2012

If Tony Abbott wants to leave a lasting impact – and secure his place in history – he needs to take his inspiration from Australia’s most left-wing prime minister.

No prime minister changed Australia more than Gough Whitlam. The key is that he did it in less than three years. In a flurry of frantic activity, Whitlam established universal healthcare, effectively nationalised higher education with free tuition, and massively increased public sector salaries. He more than doubled the size of cabinet from 12 ministers to 27.

He enacted an ambitious cultural agenda that continues to shape Australia to this day. In just three years, Australia was given a new national anthem, ditched the British honours system, and abolished the death penalty and national service. He was the first Australian prime minister to visit communist China and he granted independence to Papua New Guinea. Whitlam also passed the Racial Discrimination Act. He introduced no-fault divorce.

Perhaps his most lasting legacy has been the increase in the size of government he bequeathed to Australia. When Whitlam took office in 1972, government spending as a percentage of GDP was just 19 per cent. When he left office it had soared to almost 24 per cent.

Virtually none of Whitlam’s signature reforms were repealed by the Fraser government. The size of the federal government never fell back to what it was before Whitlam. Medicare remains. The Racial Discrimination Act – rightly described by the Liberal Senator Ivor Greenwood in 1975 as ‘repugnant to the rule of law and to freedom of speech’ – remains.

It wasn’t as if this was because they were uncontroversial. The Liberal opposition bitterly fought many of Whitlam’s proposals. And it wasn’t as if the Fraser government lacked a mandate or a majority to repeal them. After the 1975 election, in which he earned a 7.4 per cent two-party preferred swing, Fraser held 91 seats out of 127 in the House of Representatives and a Senate majority.

When Mark Steyn visited Australia recently he described political culture as a pendulum. Left-wing governments swing the pendulum to the left. Right of centre governments swing the pendulum to the right. But left-wing governments do so with greater force. The pendulum always pushes further left.

And the public’s bias towards the status quo has a habit of making even the most radical policy (like Medicare, or restrictions on freedom of speech) seem normal over time. Despite the many obvious problems of socialised health care, no government now would challenge the foundations of Medicare as the Coalition did before it was implemented.

Every single opinion poll says that Tony Abbott will be Australia’s next prime minister. He might not even have to wait until the current term of parliament expires in late 2013. The Gillard government threatens to collapse at any moment. Abbott could well be in the Lodge before Christmas this year.

Abbott could also have a Fraser-esque majority after the next election. Even if he doesn’t control the Senate, the new prime minister is likely to have an intimidating mandate from the Australian people. The conditions will suit a reformer: although Australia’s economy has proven remarkably resilient, global events demonstrate how fragile it is. The global financial crisis, far from proving to be a crisis of capitalism, has instead demonstrated the limits of the state. Europe’s bloated and debt-ridden governments provide ample evidence of the dangers of big government.

Australia’s ageing population means the generous welfare safety net provided to current generations will be simply unsustainable in the future. As the Intergenerational Report produced by the federal Treasury shows, there were 7.5 workers in the economy for every non-worker aged over 65 in 1970. In 2010 that figure was 5. In 2050 it will be 2.7. Government spending that might have made sense in 1970 would cripple the economy in 2050. Change is inevitable.

But if Abbott is going to lead that change he only has a tiny window of opportunity to do so. If he hasn’t changed Australia in his first year as prime minister, he probably never will.

Why just one year? Whitlam’s vigour in government came as a shock to Australian politics. The Coalition was adjusting to the opposition benches. Outside of parliament, the potential opponents of Whitlam reforms had yet to get organised. The general goodwill voters offer new governments gives more than enough cover for radical action. But that cover is only temporary. The support of voters drains. Oppositions organise. Scandals accumulate. The clear air for major reform becomes smoggy.

Worse, governments acclimatise to being in government. A government is full of energy in its first year. By the second year, even very promising ministers can get lazy. The business of government overtakes. MPs start thinking of the next election. But for the Coalition, the purpose of winning office cannot be merely to attain the status of being ‘in government’. It must be to make Australians freer and more prosperous. From his social democratic perspective, Whitlam understood this point well. Labor in the 1970s knew that it wanted to reshape the country and it began doing so immediately.

The time pressure on a new government – if it is to successfully implant its vision – is immense. The vast Commonwealth bureaucracies and the polished and politically-savvy senior public servants have their own agendas, their own list of priorities, and the skill to ensure those priorities become their ministers’ priorities. The recent experience of the state Coalition governments is instructive. Fresh-faced ministers who do not have a fixed idea of what they want to do with their new power are invariably captured by their departments.

Take, for instance, the Gillard government’s National Curriculum. Opposing this policy ought to be a matter of faith for state Liberals. The National Curriculum centralises education power in Canberra, and will push a distinctly left-wing view of the world onto all Australian students. But it has been met with acceptance – even support – by the Coalition’s state education ministers. This is because a single National Curriculum has been an article of faith within the education bureaucracy for decades; an obsession of education unions and academics, who want education to ‘shape’ Australia’s future. (No prize for guessing what that shape might look like.) A small-target election strategy has the unfortunate side-effect of allowing ministerial aspirants to avoid thinking too deeply about major areas in their portfolio.

So when, in the first week as minister, they are presented with a list of policy priorities by their department, it is easier to accept what the bureaucracy considers important, rather than what is right. The only way to avoid such departmental capture is to have a clear idea of what to do with government once you have it.

Only radical change that shifts the entire political spectrum, like Gough Whitlam did, has any chance of effecting lasting change. Of course, you don’t have to be from the left of politics to leave lasting change on the political spectrum.

Both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan proved conservatives can leave a paradigm-shifting legacy. Though Thatcher’s own party strayed from her strongly free-market philosophy, one of the major reasons the British Labour Party finally removed socialism from their party platform under Tony Blair was because of Margaret Thatcher.

Ronald Reagan not only presided over pro-market deregulation and tax cuts during eight years in the White House, but also provided the ideological fuel for the 1994 Republican revolution in the House of Representatives, led by Newt Gingrich, which enacted far-reaching welfare reform.

Here we provide a list of 75 policies that would make Australia richer and more free. It’s a deliberately radical list. There’s no way Tony Abbott could implement all of them, or even a majority. But he doesn’t have to implement them all to dramatically change Australia. If he was able to implement just a handful of these recommendations, Abbott would be a transformative figure in Australian political history. He would do more to shift the political spectrum than any prime minister since Whitlam.

We do not mean for this list to be exhaustive, and in many ways no list could do justice to the challenges the Abbott government would face. Whitlam changed the political culture. We are still feeling the consequences of that change today. So the policies we suggest adopting, the bureaucracies we suggest abolishing, the laws we suggest revoking should be seen as symptoms, rather than the source, of the problem.

Conservative governments have a very narrow idea of what the ‘culture wars’ consists of.  The culture of government that threatens our liberty is not just ensconced in the ABC studios, or among a group of well-connected and publicly funded academics. ABC bias is not the only problem. It is the spiralling expansion of bureaucracies and regulators that is the real problem.

We should be more concerned about the Australian National Preventive Health Agency – a new Commonwealth bureaucracy dedicated to lobbying other arms of government to introduce Nanny State measures – than about bias at the ABC. We should be more concerned about the cottage industry of consultancies and grants handed out by the public service to environmental groups. We should be more concerned that senior public servants shape policy more than elected politicians do. And conservative governments should be more concerned than they are at the growth of the state’s interest in every aspect of society.

If he wins government, Abbott faces a clear choice. He could simply overturn one or two symbolic Gillard-era policies like the carbon tax, and govern moderately. He would not offend any interest groups. In doing so, he’d probably secure a couple of terms in office for himself and the Liberal Party. But would this be a successful government? We don’t believe so. The remorseless drift to bigger government and less freedom would not halt, and it would resume with vigour when the Coalition eventually loses office. We hope he grasps the opportunity to fundamentally reshape the political culture and stem the assault on individual liberty.

1 Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.

2 Abolish the Department of Climate Change

3 Abolish the Clean Energy Fund

4 Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act

5 Abandon Australia’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council

6 Repeal the renewable energy target

7 Return income taxing powers to the states

8 Abolish the Commonwealth Grants Commission

9 Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

10 Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol

11 Introduce fee competition to Australian universities

12 Repeal the National Curriculum

13 Introduce competing private secondary school curriculums

14 Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)

15 Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be ‘balanced’

16 Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law

17 End local content requirements for Australian television stations

18 Eliminate family tax benefits

19 Abandon the paid parental leave scheme

20 Means-test Medicare

21 End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education

22 Introduce voluntary voting

23 End mandatory disclosures on political donations

24 End media blackout in final days of election campaigns

25 End public funding to political parties

26 Remove anti-dumping laws

27 Eliminate media ownership restrictions

28 Abolish the Foreign Investment Review Board

29 Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency

30 Cease subsidising the car industry

31 Formalise a one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction

32 Rule out federal funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games

33 Deregulate the parallel importation of books

34 End preferences for Industry Super Funds in workplace relations laws

35 Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a percentage of GDP

36 Legislate a balanced budget amendment which strictly limits the size of budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in deficit

37 Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database

38 Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food

39 Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities

40 Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools

41 Repeal the alcopops tax

42 Introduce a special economic zone in the north of Australia including:

a) Lower personal income tax for residents

b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers

c) Encourage the construction of dams

43 Repeal the mining tax

44 Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states

45 Introduce a single rate of income tax with a generous tax-free threshold

46 Cut company tax to an internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent

47 Cease funding the Australia Network

48 Privatise Australia Post

49 Privatise Medibank

50 Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function

51 Privatise SBS

52 Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784

53 Repeal the Fair Work Act

54 Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them

55 Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors

56 Abolish the Baby Bonus

57 Abolish the First Home Owners’ Grant

58 Allow the Northern Territory to become a state

59 Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16

60 Remove all remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade

61 Slash top public servant salaries to much lower international standards, like in the United States

62 End all public subsidies to sport and the arts

63 Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport

64 End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering

65 Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification

66 Rule out any government-supported or mandated internet censorship

67 Means test tertiary student loans

68 Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement

69 Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built

70 End all government funded Nanny State advertising

71 Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling

72 Privatise the CSIRO

73 Defund Harmony Day

74 Close the Office for Youth

75 Privatise the Snowy-Hydro Scheme

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Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

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SLAPP Cases – Constraining Media Freedom and Freedom of Speech in Balkans, EU, UK, Australia

SLAPP: Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, is another tactic used by wealthy oligarchs and the powerful to avoid being held to account, stymying freedom of speech, burying inconvenient truths and bankrupting defendants. 

This phenomenon has become especially apparent in the UK with both local and/or non resident plaintiffs using libel actions for public criticism, Australia by conservative Ministers also & the Balkans against NGOs and civil society.

Following are three articles of past year explaining the impact and solutions in Balkan Insight’s ‘SLAPP Cases Targeting Many Public Actors Besides Journalist – Report’, ByLine Times ‘ON TRIAL Freedom of the Press’ and Open Democracy UK in ‘The UK’s reputation management industry is destroying journalism. It must be stopped’.

Very clear that the powers that be in many constituencies or nations have a strong interest in avoiding transparency and empowered media to inform society?

From Balkan Insight: ‘SLAPP Cases Targeting Many Public Actors Besides Journalists – Report

Matea Grgurinovic Zagreb BIRN March 17, 2022

New report by Coalition against SLAPPs in Europe shows that these lawsuits are being used to silence not only journalists but activists, civil society organizations and academics.

A new report by the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe, CASE, “Shutting Out Criticism: How SLAPPs Threaten European Democracy”, published on Wednesday, says although journalists are most likely targets, these lawsuits also target activists, human rights defenders and academics.

“Journalists are targeted with SLAPPs because they bring information to light while activists, civil society organisations, and academics are confronted with SLAPPs because they challenge the status quo,” the report says.

Its data also show that the number of so-called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation in Europe is growing, and that claimants are “becoming increasingly creative”.

The report recalls the example of Elitech against Friends of the Earth, FoE, Croatia and the civic initiative, Srdj je nas (“Srdj is ours”).

In 2013, the citizens’ initiative, together with the Croatian Architects Association, requested the Constitutional Court to assess the legality of the construction of a luxury resort and golf course on Srđ hill by the multinational manufacturing company Elitech. FoE Croatia placed a billboard criticising the project in a public place.

“FoE Croatia subsequently faced two different lawsuits: civil defamation against the organisation, with a request for a gagging order; and the president and two vice-presidents of FoE Croatia were criminally prosecuted for libel,” the report recalls, adding that this case “shows how SLAPPs are used as a means of silencing those speaking out about a shared concern”.

The report stresses the “chilling effect” that SLAPPs have, meaning the financial burden, the time defendants have to take to prepare their legal defence, the effort to remember details of events that often took place years previously, as well as the mental and emotional toll.

“Many described the process of dealing with the SLAPP as more taxing and intimidating than actually receiving the legal threat,” the report adds……

…..Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation are civil claims filed against individuals or organisations. Businesses and government officials often file them against those that oppose them on issues of public concern, with a view to silencing them. They are widely seen as a tool of “modern censorship”.

A SLAPP can be based on a range of legal theories, including defamation, data protection, privacy, business torts and data protection, and often exploit gaps in procedural protections that are often highly specific to the jurisdiction in question.’

From ByLine Times: ‘ON TRIAL Freedom of the Press 

Manasa Narayanan and Daisy Steinhardt

14 February 2022

Focusing on the current cases against journalists Carole Cadwalladr and Tom Burgis, Manasa Narayanan and Daisy Steinhardt explore how libel laws allow the rich and powerful to silence journalism.

Journalism and the justice system are currently intertwined, with two major defamation cases in progress – one against investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr; and another against Tom Burgis, investigations correspondent for the Financial Times. There is also the extradition case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The two defamation claims are particularly significant because of their implications for ‘SLAPP’ (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) cases and public interest journalism in the UK.

SLAPP are essentially a form of legal harassment, whereby certain laws and judicial frameworks are exploited by rich and/or politically well-connected individuals and organisations to the detriment of their critics – usually journalists, activists and NGO workers.

One of the main vehicles of SLAPP is defamation – also called libel – which is a charge accusing someone of writing something false in a way that harms a person’s public image and causes ‘serious harm’ to their reputation. In effect, political and economic elites can use highly expensive and time-consuming defamation suits against their critics – effectively silencing them. 

Cadwalladr was slapped with a libel case by the millionaire businessman Arron Banks in 2019. As of 2018, estimates of his wealth ranged from £100 million to £250 million. Aside from being wealthy, Banks has also been involved in British politics in recent years. As one of the founders of the Leave.EU referendum campaign, he played a pivotal role in the 2016 leave vote and is known for his close links to Nigel Farage.

While Cadwalladr has, over the years, written several pieces about Banks and the Brexit Referendum – with a particular focus on the Leave campaigns – it was a TED talk, during which she made a passing remark about Banks’ “covert relationship with the Russian Government” and an accompanying tweet about the talk that has been the subject of this costly legal suit.

Meanwhile, Burgis faces two lawsuits brought by the Kazakh mining company, Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC). In both his reporting and his book, Kleptopia, Burgis talks about kleptocracy – a term used to describe a system in which autocratic states, such as Kazakhstan, use their power and links in places such as London to safeguard their wealth. This is the context in which Burgis reported on the ENRC and now faces libel charges – one against him and his book publisher HarperCollins, and another against him and the Financial Times. 

Both of these cases have raised serious concerns about press freedom. 

When Cadwalladr’s case went to court last month, 19 organisations, including Reporters Without Borders, declared their support for her – publicly calling Banks’ legal pursuit a SLAPP suit, and reiterating that it was “aimed at intimidating and silencing Cadwalladr” for her journalism. 

In Burgis’ case, 15 such organisations released a joint statement to “condemn lawsuits brought by ENRC” against him, HarperCollins and the Financial Times.

Cadwalladr’s case is particularly striking given that, despite writing extensively about Banks and the leave campaign for years for major newspapers, and having made the supposedly defamatory claim in a TED talk, she has been targeted as an individual – leaving her with no institutional support.

Indeed, even though Cadwalladr made claims similar to those made in the TED talk in the Observer newspaper in 2018, Banks did not sue her on that basis. The Observer article had undergone a vetting process by an editorial team, while the production of the TED talk saw the involvement of its own team. Yet, Cadwalladr has been singled out and pursued relentlessly as an individual.

Other organisations, including Channel 4 and the BBC, have conducted extensive investigations into Arron Banks, but do not figure in his fight against disrepute. 

One of the defining characteristics of a SLAPP is the stark disparity between the economic and political capital of the claimant and the defendant. This can be seen when comparing Banks to Cadwalladr. While Banks has vast resources to launch a defamation suit, Cadwalladr has been forced to crowdfund her legal costs and is likely to have to declare bankruptcy if she loses.

While the powerful do not have much to lose, for journalists like Carole Cadwalladr and Tom Burgis this is not just about money – their careers and livelihoods are on the line.

Even if they win their respective cases, the innumerable court trips and legal meetings will have drained them both financially and emotionally, preventing them from carrying out their work as they otherwise would.

The ENRC has launched a total of 18 legal proceedings against journalists, lawyers and other critics since 2013, including one against the Serious Fraud Office.’ 

From Open Democracy UK: ‘The UK’s reputation management industry is destroying journalism. It must be stopped

Protecting media freedom and tackling corruption are intrinsically linked. The UK needs to address both to achieve either effectively

Susan Coughtrie 19 July 2021, 7.33am

This month, British newspapers reported that an Azerbaijani millionaire DJ, Mikaela Jav, and her husband, Suleyman Javadov, had been forced to forfeit £4 million to the National Crime Agency, after admitting the funds had entered the UK illegally through a complex money laundering system known as the ‘Azerbaijan Laundromat’.

Pictures of the Javadovs’ lavish lifestyle, including four multi-million pound properties in London, ran alongside commentary pointing out that the NCA actually reclaimed £10 million less than was originally under question…..

…..However, the fact that a media outlet had to pursue an expensive, two-year legal battle in order to prevent what the judge in the case ruled would have been a “disproportionate interference with the principle of open justice” should spark some alarming questions for those involved in media freedom, transparency and anti-corruption efforts in the UK.

Indeed, this case intersects with a much larger, more troubling story – how the UK’s financial and legal systems not only service at best ‘questionable’ money flows originating from countries with less-than-stellar democratic records, but that the country is also home to legal and reputation laundering services that can be utilised to suppress public scrutiny into, or whitewash over, potential wrongdoing…..

…..If the UK government wants to deliver on its commitments to protect media freedom – both at an international level, through its leadership of the Global Media Freedom Coalition, and domestically, having established the National Committee on the Safety of Journalists – then it must also fully examine how illicit finance and corruption feeds into violations against media freedom, both here and abroad.

Despite the UK parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee’s damning findings in its July 2020 Russia Report, regarding the existence of a ‘London Laundromat’, supported by a “growth industry of enablers”, the UK appears to be backsliding on anti-corruption commitments. This is in contrast to the US, where President Biden’s administration has made a pointed shift to address corruption as a core national security interest….

This type of ‘positive’ reputation management comes alongside a far more insidious issue: attempts to remove ‘uncomfortable information’ from the public domain or prevent it from getting there in the first place. The case against Radu is part of a growing body of evidence pointing to the use of legal intimidation and SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation). A term originally devised in the US, SLAPPs are legal actions taken against journalists, as well as whistleblowers, activists or others speaking out in the public interest.

Thus, lawyers can easily threaten legal action on behalf of super-wealthy clients. But journalists, especially freelancers or small media outlets, find it difficult to mount the financial resources and legal expertise to respond. The reputation managers’ goal is not necessarily to win in court, but rather to intimidate, to consume the financial and psychological resources of the target, so they simply give up. If successful, they can create an information vacuum about the initial subject matter as well as the fact a legal challenge took place.

In a survey of 63 investigative journalists reporting on financial crime and corruption in 41 countries, conducted by the UK’s Foreign Policy Centre last year, three quarters of respondents reported receiving communications threatening legal action as a result of their work. Moreover, the UK was the leading international source of these threats, with almost as many originating from there as from EU countries and the US combined……

….More than 20 organisations, part of an informal UK anti-SLAPP coalition, have now launched a policy paper on countering legal intimidation and SLAPPs. The paper calls for a formal parliamentary inquiry to examine this issue in the UK, including the impact on those subjected to these tactics as well as the knock-on effect on public scrutiny, including investigations into corruption.

There is a need for legislative and regulatory reform, potentially in the shape of a UK Anti-SLAPP law. This would follow similar initiatives that have been advanced in the US and Canada, and in the European Union, which is examining proposals for an Anti-SLAPP Directive.

Stronger leadership is needed in the UK to tackle both the safety of journalists and the fight against corruption. A first step would be to recognise the symbiotic nature between the two. You cannot effectively protect and promote media freedom without first addressing the financial and legal systems that support attacks against it.’

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EU European Union Model for Future Global Standards and Regulation

EU European Union Model for Future Global Standards and Regulation

The EU European Union has attracted much criticism and pessimism on its future, mostly by outsiders and e.g. the Anglosphere with Brexit, being encouraged by ideologues and selected corporate entities plus donors, in the US, with libertarian economic interests trying to avoid constraints of trade blocs like the EU.

In fact, according to the following essay by Ullrich Fichtner with excerpts and overview from Der Spiegel magazine, and keeping in mind the local, regional, national and global positives, often via the ‘Brussels Effect’, the EU should have a both an economically and socially productive future; this essay should be compulsory reading for decision makers in the Anglo world.

‘From Brussels to the Rest of the World – How Europe Became a Model for the 21st Century

An Essay by Ullrich Fichtner

Despite its long list of crises in recent years – including the most recent vaccine snafu – the European Union has become a global pacesetter. Its laws and regulations have established global norms. This has made the bloc a 21st century model.

I. Dog Whistling the EU, Europe and the Continent

………The Continent has been portrayed as a barren mountain range of EU summits, as a garbage dump of files, as a befouled land of plenty with lakes of milk and wine. Europe in caricature is a house of cards, a ramshackle home, a burning hut, a crumbling temple. It is always in ruins……

……the EU often looks as broken as its worst enemies describe it. Cyprus single-handedly blocking European sanctions against the Belarusian dictatorship. The governments of Hungary and Poland ruthlessly undermining the rule of law. Agonizing negotiations on a common refugee policy for the Continent repeatedly concluding in shabby nothingness. A common agricultural policy – one that has been wrong for decades – cemented once again. The procurement of coronavirus vaccines descending into acrimonious, backbiting chaos, fueled by the national interests of 27 member states. In our imaginations, that is truly not what a global power looks like.

II.  The EU Continues

There have been several times in the past 10 or 12 years that the EU has been so close to the abyss that the fall seemed inevitable. The great financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 became the Greek crisis and a European sovereign debt crisis. Significant doubts were raised about the basic structures of the federation of nations – and they weren’t just coming from the right-wing populists emerging across the Continent. Financial crises became identity crises and refugee crises spiraled into existential crises. In 2016, the decision by the British to leave the EU seemed like the final nail in the coffin of a historic experiment that the peoples of Europe never learned to love.

That the situation has since become less fraught is not least due to the fact that Brexit, by not destroying it, has actually saved the EU for the time being…..

III.  Top Three Global Market

……. In terms of the EU and its 27 members, it doesn’t really matter which metric you apply: It always ranks among the top three in the world by all criteria. It is even ahead of the United States in many fields and will be able to outperform China in many respects for decades to come.

The EU is the most important export market for the U.S., India, South Africa and Russia. It is the second-largest market for China and Brazil and the third largest for Japan and South Korea.

IV.  Brussels Effect on Global Standards

Every day, miraculous things are happening around the globe of which most Europeans take no notice. Technology companies in California build their devices according to EU regulations….. ……. Regional blocs of countries in South America are organizing themselves along the lines of the EU. Laws drafted in Europe are adopted almost verbatim into national law in countries around the world…..

…..Europe’s view of data protection, as laid out in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has quickly become a global standard that no company and no country can ignore….. America’s 500 largest companies are continually spending billions of dollars to implement EU rules, and the situation is no different for the largest Asian, African and South American companies. The smartest among them are already working to reduce their carbon emissions, with an eye on the “carbon tax,” that the EU has been working on for years.

These examples lead to the equally unbelievable and correct conclusion that globalization today is actually a “Europeanization”………

V. Good EU and Global Standards and Regulations

A global player like today’s Europe has never existed in this form in the history of the world. By regulating the affairs of its internal market step by step, the EU is formulating globally effective standards along the way. Whether it’s chemicals, hazardous waste, hormone-treated meat, electronic waste, emissions standards, animal testing, antitrust, privacy, crop protection, competition or air pollution control – the EU is always somehow already there.

It sets standards and criteria worldwide based on scientific findings and equipped with recognized scientific, legal and also moral competence – even in areas where, by law, it would actually have no say. It’s not a stretch to say that the European Union makes the world a little bit better every day, a little bit cleaner, a little bit healthier, safer and more sustainable…..

VI. Smart Power

The distinction between a “soft” and “hard” power originates from Joseph Nye, the Harvard professor  ………  hard power is an absolute necessity, but adds that military power is a blunt instrument. For today’s powers, he wrote, the point is to combine soft and hard power to create “smart” power.

Nye argues that missiles and warships don’t help fight global warming, protect privacy or regulate banking……

VII. Foreign Policies

The current EU high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell of Spain, has compared today’s EU foreign policy with the introduction of the euro, when – for a time – the old national currencies existed side-by-side with the new European currency. For the moment, Borrell told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper shortly before taking office a little over a year ago, EU foreign policy must coexist with national foreign policies. The point, though, is that the intersections will grow over time….

VIII. Future of the EU

Around 20 years ago, professors from Germany and elsewhere issued incessant criticism of the euro and the appalling consequences it would have for the prosperity of everyone in Europe. Now that the euro has established itself as the world’s second-most reliable hard currency, it is a position that has been essentially abandoned today.

Nor has the eternal fear of a Brussels kraken sucking all the democracy out of the member states borne out. And despite myriad predictions of the EU’s demise, that hasn’t happened either….

…..But the European Union – and in this sense it is a lot like the United Nations – is often only scrutinized for its shortcomings. The EU is frequently judged solely on its ability to act quickly and too rarely on its ability to pursue a goal step by step, with calm and perseverance. And people also often forget that the EU is a federation of 27 countries. When they are united, Europe is strong. When they disagree, even the best EU is of little help.

In the long term – meaning years and decades – the EU will be judged by whether it achieves its objectives, and it only ever sets grand goals for itself. Preserving peace, saving the world’s climate, ending the destruction of nature, protecting people, increasing prosperity, improving lives, seeking happiness.….’

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