one Nation's immigration 'policy'

 One nation released their immigration policy yesterday. It was a joke.

Let us go back to what I wrote about not long ago.

It appears ( this is guesswork as we only have a press release. no costings, no press conference no nuttin).

They love back packers as they help the agricultural sector so no reduction there.

They sat they like skilled labour BUT only what they determine and no family is allowed into the country whilst they are working. No country imposes this so why would anyone wish to come to australia to work.

There are no family reunions. No surprises there.

There is a HUGE reduction in overseas students. We have no idea of what course this will involve. This would involve large decreases in revenue for Universities but there is no increase in government spending to offset this.

They do not even mention the effect their policy would have on the budget. Perhaps they do not understand!

Abul Rizvi makes the valid point of the HUGE increase in compliance costs this policy would cost. He would know as he was  previously the deputy secretary of the department!

I see a number of people have made the prediction of a recession if this policy was implemented. Joyce has said he won't take any advice from economists on this matter. I very much doubt he would understand their advice anyway and this showed one nation is going full anti-intellectualism now. It is policy made on vibes.

In essence this policy is a joke. It is not thought out at all.

Has One Nation gone too far

 I wrote previously about the disgraceful campaign one nation has exploded against Andrew Hastie.

They seem to think Ben Roberts-Smith , a person a judge found him guilty of war  crimes on the basis of probability but not beyond a reasonable doubt. He found Hastie a witness who had credibility whereas Roberts-Smith had little credibility. Thus One Nation is at odds with the judge of the case.

Also and this is very important. war crimes are against our national interest. In Afghanistan it set Afghanis against us and for the Taliban. If anyone thinks that was patriotic then they are a moron!

Now Hanson has had a go at Albos mother. She was on a disability pension and so was in social housing or housing commision as it is in NSW. If a  person on a disability pension is not entitled to be in social housing then who is. This is the best evidence that hanson is an idiot of the highest order.

Will all this mean that One Nation's vote goes downhill now? Viewing overseas then it is unlikely.

Around the Traps 11/9/26

 It is time again for Around the Traps.

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Kevin Bonham on the-flat-field-another-polls-are-wrong
• Antony Green on preference-flows-at-the-secret-harbour-by-election
• Mark the Graph on the-australian-economy-right-now, r-star-as-international-price
• Cameron Murray on upper-class-welfare-costs
• Lyndall Bryant and Amanda Bull on australia-has-a-housing-shortage-so-why-are-bathla-and-other-home-builders-collapsing
• Isabel Mecair et al on cutting-the-tobacco-excise-wont-stop-the-illegal-trade-this-is-how-other-countries-solved-the-problem
• Gabrielle Appleby on government-must-be-more-transparent-about-who-gets-community-grants-and-why
• Md Hossain and Shahbaz Mustaq on farmers-can-now-produce-more-of-their-own-energy-than-ever-but-will-they
• Beth Webster on reform-wasnt-meant-to-be-easy-heres-how-the-battles-for-medicare-and-child-support-defeated-vested-interests 
• Frank Bongiorno on paul-keatings-aukus-hostility-reflects-his-passion-for-hard-nosed-realism-over-subservience 
• Rob Nicholls on australians-may-soon-be-able-to-switch-off-social-media-algorithms-is-that-censorship
• Patrick Commins on the-rba-hoped-this-years-three-interest-rate-rises-would-tame-inflation
• Greg Jericho on why-the-horror-warnings-about-australias-collapsing-housing-market-are-absurd-and-very-much-in-bad-faith 
• Yuting Zhang on why-health-insurance-cuts-for-the-over-65s-wont-swamp-public-hospitals-after-all
• Michelle Grattan on chalmers-says-intergenerational-report-shows-super-puts-australia-head-of-the-pack-in-containing-pension-spending, its-taken-hansons-overreach-on-hastie-to-put-some-spine-into-liberals
• Therese Hopfenbeck on australias-reading-and-maths-results-are-at-an-all-time-low-but-theres-more-to-the-story
• Millie Muroi on early-access-to-super-benefits-one-group-you-re-probably-not-a-part-of-it

OZ Climate

• second-wave-of-big-batteries-will-eat-the-dinner-for-fossil-fuels-forcing-some-coal-generators-to-close
  
• climate-authoritys-misinformation-report-hit-a-nerve-at-news-corp-for-a-reason
  
• renewables-lobby-says-coal-generators-should-pay-carbon-price-to-stay-open-beyond-stated-closure-dates
  
• what-could-be-australias-biggest-battery-project-seeks-federal-and-state-planning-approvals
  
• outback-australia-has-desperate-need-for-rooftop-pv-and-batteries-to-cut-crippling-dependence-on-imported-diesel
  
• its-an-ideology-queensland-lnp-accused-of-deliberate-strategy-to-kill-large-scale-renewables 
  
• extraordinary-difference-report-finds-market-offers-consistently-beat-solar-sharer-on-bill-savings 
  
• retailers-are-taking-the-piss-why-cheaper-power-isnt-reaching-consumers
  
• anti-wind-group-sues-planning-minister-and-wind-project-owners-threatens-public-servants
  
• proposed-gas-network-revenue-reforms-leave-consumers-to-pay-for-investors-bad-bets
  
• all-200172-panels-in-place-as-one-of-australias-first-solar-battery-hybrids-hits-construction-milestone
  
• portable-battery-barrier-why-some-of-the-biggest-winners-of-solar-sharer-cant-plug-in-to-free-power
  
• Mingming Chen and Peta Ashworth on australia-needs-renewable-energy-fast-but-building-it-is-only-half-the-battle
• Donna Lu on peters-farm-is-on-flood-country-as-australias-sea-levels-rise-safe-land-is-vanishing-and-costs-are-huge
• Hamish McKenzie on did-the-government-back-down-on-its-gas-reservation-policy-no-most-changes-make-sense

Northern America

• Brad De Long on looking-askance-yet-again-at-muskworld, elon-musk-and-his-doge-and-dogecoin-adventure, the-fed-chairman-who-would-prefer-not-to-say, crosspost-dan-drezner-the-trump-administration-strategy-fail, crosspost-roy-edroso-tubby-hero-and-victim-of-9/11
• Ruth Marcus on how-donald-trump-outmaneuvers-the-supreme-court
• noahpinion on america-is-still-beating-china-in-the-AI-race
• John Quiggin on the-us-navy-loses-another-war
• Kruggers on weaponized-interdependence, neo-nazis-and-the-impotence-of-trumponomics, wheres-the-beef-coming-from, adding-injury-to-insult-canada-edition, bessent-and-the-bonds, the-long-decline-of-america
• Greg Barton on the-failure-to-stop-9-11-was-a-catastrophe-but-even-bigger-mistakes-were-made-in-its-aftermath
• Christian Paz on trump-maga-white-evangelical-christian-protestant-conservative-bonnie-kristian-politics-monster-caricature
• Ariana Aspuru and Noel King on data-center-backlash-republicans-texas-greg-abbott
• Caitlin Dewey on trump-trade-war-canada 
• Fred Kaplan on trump-russia-ukraine-jared-kushner-steve-witkoff, trump-iran-war-nuclear-weapons-republican-convention
• Ian Millhiser on supreme-court-brett-kavanaugh-missouri-gerrrymander-hoskins-glahn-onder
• Jeet Heer on corey-lewandowski-corruption-report,fox-news-maria-bartiromo-lawsuits
• Cameron Peters on trump-midterm-convention-dallas-trumpapalooza
• Nancy Yousef and jonathan Lemire on trump-iran-war-navy

Europe

• Deborah Cole on why-far-right-afd-state-victory-significant-german-politics-germany-explainer
• Matt Fitzpatrick on even-if-it-doesnt-form-government-the-far-right-afd-has-shaken-germanys-political-establishment-to-the-core
• Lisa Martin on europe-borrows-australia-s-asylum-script-outsourcing-rights
• mainly macro on understanding-long-term-interest-rates-over-the-austerity-period-and-beyond
• Chris Dillow on good-policies-bad-politics
• Marcus Colla on afd-the-far-right-earthquake-in-saxony-anhalt

Asia

• Amin Saikal on sanctions-and-bombs-wont-end-the-war-in-iran-trump-is-running-out-of-options-against-an-intractable-foe
• William Maley on 9-11-anniversary-democracy-was-not-doomed-to-fail-in-afghanistan-the-us-did-not-live-up-to-its-promises
• Robert Walker on thailand-s-semiconductor-plan-has-a-washington-problem
• Ruth Margalit on the-warning-benjamin-netanyahu-ignored
• David Sanderson on the-rebuilding-in-nepal-needs-to-start-now-this-is-what-worked-after-an-earthquake-a-decade-ago-and-what-to-avoid

Wonk

• institutional economics on official-reserve-asset-capital-flight
• Felix Martin on ai-agent-hack-tests-solvency-more-than-sentience Thanks Nick
• Christian Catalini et al on the economics of AI Thanks Nick
• Mark Neyer on large-language-models-are-evidence-against-the-fact-value-distinction Thanks Nick
• Michael Williams on jason-arday-and-me Thanks Nick
• Paul Graham on how universities should protect founders Thanks Nick
• Daan Silver on why-do-philosophers-think-that-they-know-everything Thanks Nick
• Mark the Graph on the-new-keynesian-synthesis-explained
• noahpinion on ai-keeps-stubbornly-refusing-to-take-our-jobs , liberalism-needs-a-new-philosophy-of-immigration
• Tyler Cowen on capital-gains-vs-wealth-taxes, the-allocative-cost-of-war
• Omer Bartov on where-hatred-lies-on-antisemitism-mark-mazower
• Ramon Spaaij et al on can-people-truly-walk-away-from-terrorism-inside-the-slow-work-of-rehabilitation

General

• Dave Barry on the-odyssey Thanks Nick

Climate

• skeptical science on fixing-worst-climate-plot
• Jed Rakoff on and-yet-it-warms-federal-judges-and-climate-change

Andrew Gelman (mainly stats)

• update-on-u-s-governments-push-for-gold-standard-science 
  
• ok-heres-a-statistics-problem-for-you-directly-ripped-from-the-headlines 
  
• does-anyone-have-lower-jordan3-number-than-evans-boney 
  
• hey-heres-an-r-package-for-imputing-census-data-using-iterative-proportional-fitting-on-available-margins
  
• survey-statistics-pew-research-finds-no-easy-fix-for-bogus-respondents-in-online-opt-in-polls 
  
• living-on-the-edge-aggressive-mediocrity-at-the-summit-of-americas-intellectual-culture
  
• why-i-still-like-orwells-politics-and-the-english-language-essay-even-though-he-gets-some-of-the-linguistics-wrong
  
• when-journals-are-slow-to-implement-or-enforce-policies-to-manage-sloppy-majority-ai-authored-papers-reviewers-can-and-should-push-back
  
• belief-is-not-something-you-have-rather-its-a-relationship-between-thought-and-action
  
• why-i-dont-like-highest-posterior-density-hpd-intervals
  
• freakometrics on criminal records, vibe coding and the next silent cyber risk
• Kaiser Fung on conceptual-diagrams-that-look-like-dataviz, its-not-about-the-bias-per-se

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• Christopher Owen on leo-strauss-islamic-philosophy-and-the-crisis-in-modernity Thanks Nick
• David Appell on tribe-by-sebastian-junger
• stoat on book-review-evolution-of-morality

Vox Wonk

• multinational-restructuring-friendshoring-and-home-country-activity 
  
• government-support-religion-strengthened-religiosity-and-divided-america 
  
• world-agricultural-prices-and-outbreak-civil-war
  
• monetary-policys-last-mile-problem-and-what-can-be-done-about-it 
  
• automatic-stabilisers-multi-country-issuance-stablecoins
  
• tariff-confusion 
  
• immigration-innovation-and-geography-growth-lessons-age-mass-migration 
  
• plus-ca-change-ai-and-future-economic-research-galileo-back-socrates 
  
• inflexibility-and-stalled-progress-american-women-labour-market 
  
• fools-gold-how-geopolitical-risk-taking-some-shine-us-dollar
  

Andrew Hastie

 One Nation does not like Andrew Hastie.

He and a lot of others testified against Ben Roberts Smith is his failed libel suit. The Judge remember found against Roberts-Smith because of the basis of profanities ( not beyond a reasonable doubt) he committed war crimes. Just remember we were trying to get the Afghani population behind the new government and allied forces. His behaviour and similar behaviour made this impossible.

Why do one nation put their trust in a man a judge found to be a war criminal and thus a liar. It does show their profound lack of judgement and it also shows how stupid and gullible they are! It goes further they allege Hastie is a traitor. This is unbelievable. The Traitor is the person who committed war crimes in our name!

A few things

 Israel

The UK and other european nations have announced sanctions on goods and services coming from illegal israeli settlements in the west bank. Why haven't we joined them? I also see the USA has issued a warning about this. 

I am now saying if you cannot recognise a palestinian state then you surely cannot recognise an Israeli state. Just remember the Israeli government has been stealing palestinian land since the nakba!

Superannuation

I am old enough to understand why Paul Keating introduced superannuation. It was because very few people made any effort to prepare for retirement. The only people who did were public servants and some white collar workers ( like me) whose companies had superannuation and quite wealthy people. This is why the OECD, World Bank and the IMF thought this was ground breaking which every country should copy.

Both one nation and the LNP had advocated in recent days that people should have access to their super money BEFORE retirement. Typically Joyce in a train wreck interview on 7.30 could not  answer basic questions on this like how much money would the average worker lose in retirement by doing this.

A few things. most people who go for a home loan can already access super if they have made voluntary deposits. My two boys did. It is not a lot of money. They both had large deposits to assist in getting loans.Thus allowing every person access to their supper would only have a limited effect. I see some people want this access to pay for rent. Surely it would help more in retirement than right at the moment.

Lastly people's behaviour toward super before Keating acted and during covid shows people make irrational choices. Superannuation is for retirement!

USA/Canada relations

Surely the biggest lessons from the 'trade war' between Canada and the USA is that the USA can no longer be trusted on anything. If they can do this to Canada then they will do it to anything. The USA has  lost all soft power and it will take a long time to regain it.

It is unbelievable how ignorant and incompetent people in the current administration are.

Russia/Ukraine

Talking about ignorance and incompetence Fred Kaplan is on the money.

There is nothing like being a negotiator without using any experts from the State department and accepting all of Putin's propaganda because you didn't prepare!

Gerard Henderson watch

 I am both bored and busy. Yeah I know that is contradictory but there you go.

Our old mate Gerry is at it again.

He claimed that Anthony Fauci and Steve Bannon did the same thing with congress yet only Bannon went to gaol. This is complete shite. Both people were served subpoenas by congress. Fauci turned up whereas Bannon refused to comply hence his arrest, conviction and gaoling. Our Gerry has a law degree so he knows that so why the crap? Also he said Trump was the victim of lawfare or words to that effect by the Biden DOJ. Hang on he was  indicted on his January 6 conduct in lieu of the attempted insurrection and of course the stealing of documents and obstruction of justice . Both indictments were many pages in length and highly specific in their charges. So again Gerry is having a lend of us.

He claims Ian Dunt is left wing. Our Gerry has produced no proof of this however dunt has written at least three books. If he is left wing then so is the economist magazine. They share the same philosophy!

He also claims David Speers wants people to call him Speersy on Insiders. Our Gerry has provided no evidence of this and i have never heard this at all on Insiders.

He also has a juvenile habit of calling people he clearly ddoes not like comrade. gosh I wonder why he does that?

Our Gerry is well over 80 and that must be the reason why he did not get the pun by Mark Kenny about counsel culture.Don't worry he still says Kenny said cancel. Our Gerry has a credlin problem although she admitted she was wrong but went on with her wortles rant about the census

He also does not like the minefield on radio national. Perhaps his clear declining cognitive powers has something to do with that.

He also never watches sky after dark. ( yes I know there is a name change but I like the name). They have soft interviews after soft interviews. They aslo get a lot of things wrong and indulge in misinformation.

Can you bear it!

A pot pouri of things

 Tobaccy

One nation has proposed a cut in tobacco excise of 75% and the LNP wants 80%. This will reduce the market share of illegal tobacco. Sorry I do not get it. Illegal tobacco will still be lower than legal tobacco. Why would any consumer then buy more expensive tobacco when they are not doing it now. how do consumers go from being unpatriotic to patriotic? It doesn't make sense to me. Even if you do not tax tobacco at all illegal tobacco is still much cheaper!! One should also realise illegal tobacco can still reduce their prices and make money.

'woke 'education.

According to the National party leader teaching boys to respect girls' is woke education. Apart from being unable to define 'woke' when it is bad to teach boys to respect girls. Parents should be doing this so this is reinforcement.

burning the flag

The LNP want to make this a crime. Surely this is interfering with a persons freedom of speech. Flags are not monuments. If I want to burn the flag for any reason then I should be able to. I find it ironic that the very people who want to make this a crime are saying regulating social media is against free speech!

Germany

The far right almost won a state election.It is interesting that the racist attack on immigrants is a world wide phenoma.however these burkes want to support russia against ukraine amongst other wacky policies.That well-known fascist elon musk supports them. ( he is the right kind of immigrant, white)