Cruel To Be Kind
The old newspapers, where he had worked so much of his life, retreated into irrelevance.
There were giants in those days, each a wall of silence and each a million voices. There were ultra-intelligent machines on the horizon and tiny creatures who had conquered time. There were the ancient trees and the ancient spirits and the staggering beauty of it all. And now the humans were here. For their brief span.
As if all the civilisations, all the staggering achievements, were just a blink in God's eye, and gone.
As for Australia. There had been a from what he could tell a poorly received budget from Treasurer Jim Chalmers. So audacious had been their lies, so dramatic the fall in standards of living, that nobody believed then anymore.
The Opposition Leader Peter Dutton's reply speech was tonight.
The faux Prime Minister, regurgitating tedious talking points in his nasal accent, a man who had clearly never done a day's hard work in his life, was staring petrified and embarrassed into a wall of cameras who even they, the personnel of Australia's hopelessly left hopeless woke media, could no longer stomach.
The streets were far more silent than they should be. The so-called "cost of living crisis", a term as if imposed from somewhere else, and not a home grown crisis, although it was most certainly was.
And still, to this day, in this pre-election charade, in those Places In Between, the disconnect grew wider, the cynicism greater, and the country both sleep-walked and careened into a negative future. A future which could have offered pride, independence, sovereignty, wealth. And offered instead a homegrown idiocy.
THE BIGGER STORY
SKY NEWS
‘You’ve got to be kidding’: Peta Credlin on Labor’s ‘insulting’ budget
It is no surprise the budget Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered on Tuesday night was “badly received”, according to Sky News host Peta Credlin.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton will respond to the government's tax cuts in his budget reply as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pushes wedge on the issue.
“It had no good story to tell and no credible plan for Australia’s future,” Ms Credlin said.
“The derisory, insulting offer of five dollars a week in terms of a tax cut, sometime next year – 70 cents a day.
“You've got to be kidding.”
GUARDIAN AUSTRALIA
What are the major stressors for you right now?
The cost of living stuff and all that. Yeah, we’ve noticed the prices at the supermarket and all that go up. But you just have to adjust for it. Takeaway food, that’s hitting everyone hard, especially for the people that live on that sort of thing. It must be costing them a fortune. We stay away from those fast-food joints because it’s getting really pricey and it’s crap. It’s no good.
What are your hopes for the next year?
We want to go overseas in the next year or two – Indonesia – so we’re saving every penny we can.
ABC
Convicted forger's paintings record Indigenous life in NSW
Fishing by torchlight(Joseph Lycett/ courtesy National Library of Australia)
SBS
Influencers respond after revelations Labor paid for federal budget travel for some
For the first time, social media content creators were given a preview of the budget papers, an opportunity usually reserved for traditional media outlets.
NEWS
‘REAL DIFFERENCE’: Shock move to slash the price of petrol
In a major announcement, the Liberals have revealed for the first time the centrepiece of their cost-of-living measures, throwing down the gauntlet to the Labor Party to match it.
THE NEW DAILY
Labor rushes tax cuts into parliament in pre-election wedge
Labor has rushed its budget plans for tax cuts for Australian workers into federal parliament, as the window for calling the election narrows.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers introduced the legislation to the house on Wednesday, saying it will give a “top-up” to every taxpayer up and down the income scale.
“To stand in the way of this legislation is to vote for higher taxes on Australian workers,” he said.
“To vote against this legislation would be to stand in the way of more hard-earned money staying in the pockets of every hard-working Australian.
Hundreds of jobs to go as big Aussie retailer collapses
Hundreds of workers are likely to lose their jobs as the company behind fashion retailer Jeanswest collapses, with more than 90 stores to close.
Administrators were called into Harbour Guidance Pty Ltd on Wednesday, about five years after it rescued the ailing 53-year-old brand in 2020.
MACRO BUSINESS
Bowen blows billions on green hydrogen fantasy
Last week, the Albanese government pledged over $800 million in production subsidies to a green hydrogen development in remote Western Australia. This is part of an $8.7 billion federal government war chest to create incentives for green hydrogen.
Labor’s Future Made in Australia (FMIA) plan, announced in 2024, provided a budget allocation of $6.7 billion to provide a $2 incentive for every kilogram of green hydrogen produced from 2027-28. FMIA also committed $2 billion for new projects under the Hydrogen Headstart program.
SPECTATOR AUSTRALIA
Regional Australians are the biggest budget losers
From the Canberra Press Gallery: Regional Australia is the engine room of private sector activity in Australia. With the Budget set to see a reversal of the public sector’s growth that has hidden the real cost of living pressures experienced by most Australians, it is difficult to see how the Budget’s public sector and Net Zero focus will help the regions. To put it another way, regional Australians are the biggest losers in this Budget, with no relief in sight.
Almost every aspect of funding that will impact the regions has an ideological and climate change focus to it. Regional university hubs will be increased, but there is no tangible reform to the ideological agenda pursued by the education sector. Staffing increases in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet are focused on the Net Zero Economy Agency, the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, and the National Indigenous Australians Agency. The staffing increases here pale in comparison to the modest increase in Office of National Intelligence staff.\
CRIKEY
There’s a giant story lurking in the government’s budget papers. A criminal mystery that makes me think of The Sopranos and The Great Gatsby. And it is costing the budget an absolutely staggering amount: billions a year.
This is a story that goes back beyond the current government and the government before that. It’s a story of a government leaning harder and harder on tobacco taxes, until the support for those taxes collapsed.
Australia has not quite gone full prohibition. But just like America in the 1920s, we are discovering there is a very high cost to trying to save people from themselves.
In just the last few months, it has cost the federal budget a whopping $1.35 billion. That’s how much tobacco excise revenues have fallen, comparing the best estimate at MYEFO — four months ago — to budget day in March.
The big bribe budget: Labor throws billions of dollars at your kitchen table
14
I don’t smoke. I think smoking is stupid. We should deter it. But I also think failing to learn the lessons of history is stupid. Taxing or banning addictive products will always create black markets. And that is what has happened with smoking. Taxes on tobacco were so high that they were raising much more than just the cost of treating tobacco-related illness, and they were rising so fast that they were leaving addicted smokers looking for cost-effective alternatives. Some went to vapes, and many went to illegal cigarettes.
By using taxes to try to deter smoking, we put up the price of legal smokes. That made illegal cigarettes more attractive for smokers and more lucrative for suppliers. If the price of a pack of cigarettes was still around $25, an illegal pack for $20 would be only marginally attractive. Small saving, modest volumes sold. But with the price of a legal pack more like $50, there’s a huge amount of benefit for buyers and sellers in the illegal market. Every pack you buy illegally for $20 saves you $30. And so it is that illegal cigarette vendors are doing huge business.