In these posts I’ve made remarks that the Liberal Party takes backhanders from the big companies, the big miners and banks and so on. I didn’t have any particular facts to go on, just many, many articles and inferences in the news.

Well, I’m not the only one who thinks this way. See http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-26/frijters-foster-battlers-and-plutocrats/6725118

A few select quotes:

• … 65 per cent of the richest people in Australia had amassed their wealth via political connections rather than via innovative businesses.
• Over 80 per cent of the wealthiest Australians have made their fortunes in property, mining, banking, superannuation and finance generally – all heavily regulated industries in which fortunes can be made by getting favourable property rezonings, planning law exemptions, mining concessions, labour law exemptions, money creation powers and mandated markets of many stripes.
• … the list abounded with mining magnates who enjoyed favourable government concessions; CEOs of superannuation funds who personally benefited from government guarantees locking hundreds of thousands of people into doing business with them; banking and finance CEOs who received government guarantees and favourable legislation; and the largest group of all – property developers who rely on rezoning and other favourable political decisions.
• The last budget could have been written by the super-rich and the Treasurer is already making noises about more income tax cuts that will predominantly favour the rich.

Why is the Liberal government so favourable to the big companies and the super rich? Follow the money trail. I’m not suggesting that the politicians are taking bribes. I am saying that their friends are the big guys in big companies and they look after friends with an eye to the future, setting themselves up to have a very comfortable time after they leave parliament by way of directorships and consultancies and such like. Politicians, from local government up, don’t do favours for businessmen without expecting some kind of favour in return, even if later in life. Follow the money.

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It’s been two years since Mr Abbott became top dog, and in this time we’ve lost so much. Massive cuts to our ABC and the SBS, thousands of experts forced out of the CSIRO, attacks on clean energy, pensions and social welfare – not to mention efforts to dismantle our world-class Australian healthcare and education systems. No generation has been spared, no working family left unscathed.

And despite widespread public consensus they’ve overstepped their mark, Mr Abbott’s Government continues to ram through his radically conservative agenda. He’s now becoming isolated even from his own cabinet colleagues.

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I’ve just received the replacement Yamaha TD-500 DAB+/FM/AM tuner, the replacement for the faulty one that I had to return last week.

This time it’s working. Mostly. But the damn remote control is not! Is there no end to the faulty goods I’m getting? On top of the faulty supermarket bills, always in the supermarkets’ favour, almost never in my favour. The system is weighted against us, the individual.

Add to that the rotten TV and radio reception at this location. It’s only the ABC I’m concerned about. But with the budget attacks from this evil Liberal government, designed to damage the ABC simply because the politicians think they are being excessively criticised, I think the chances of getting any improvement are zero.

Grrrr grrrr grrrr.

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No sleep at all last night, not one minute. I felt sleepy when I went to bed, but gave up after two hours of trying. I got up, had a hot milk drink and some computer time, felt groggy and tried again from 4.30am to 7.30am, but no luck. I’ve just had three hours from 11am to 2pm, but this is getting to be a problem.

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Torrential rains and floods on the NSW south coast. If I’d bought a car in Melbourne last month and hit the road as I thought I would, I’d be in that area now. Crumbs, with all the snow as well, it might have been a washout.

It drives home (pardon the pun) how WA’s climate is so different from the east coast. It’s 24C today, and we’re heading for another record low rainfall for the month and the winter. Yet on the east coast they’re drenched. WA is another country. We’re different.