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I now understand through the budget, rather than any formal road map from the government (heaven forbid!) that this is likely to be extended for another year.

This is not something I am willing to endure, and am currently in the process of moving my young family out of Australia indefinitely.

My point put simply is that no one in their right mind with any remaining interests overseas would move to Australia in the knowledge that the government can deny them the ability to see loved ones. This goes for both skilled migrants and students.

She added that she was by no means alone in her plans to leave. One other colleague had already left and others were contemplating doing the same.

This country faces an enormous brain drain as a result of the current draconian travel restrictions and seemingly zero appetite from the federal government to provide an exit strategy from the COVID-free corner it has painted itself into.

Stinging stuff and not an isolated view, coming after the budget assumptions pushed back until mid-2022 any meaningful reopening of the international borders.

The airlines and international tourism sectors are once more despairing. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, whose stewardship throughout the crisis left her state well poised to cash in on the recovery, is frustrated.

Closed international borders are costing NSW $1.5 billion a month and opportunities to capitalise are slipping away, she says.

Despite all the promising ideas to speed up travel, many of which emanated from the recently decommissioned COVID-19 Commission led by Nev Power, nothing so far has come to pass.

There was no mention in the budget about business- or university-sponsored travel and quarantine, the potential for rapid testing and truncated quarantine periods, or expanded quarantine facilities.

As it stands, the joint will stay pretty much locked up until mid-next year, unless the vaccine rollout gets a rattle on.

While there are clear health reasons behind the assumptions the virus is far from being contained in many nations the political imperative cannot be ignored.

As we noted last week, after watching the political rewards heaped on populist state leaders, the federal government, too, has decided to err on the side of an abundance of caution until the election, due by early next year.

For every Sally out there, there are dozens of punters content with living like a hermit kingdom for another 12 months.

Tuesdays budget was very much in that vein. As has been written a hundred times, the government shifted the fiscal rules two weeks out and set a new unemployment target of below 5 per cent. This gave it licence to keep spending on job-creation measures rather than shift to budget repair.

Consequently, Josh Frydenberg unveiled a pandemic budget which put off the heavy lifting in terms of debt and deficit repair until after the election. It did spend big, but it was not all about the pandemic.

The $17.7 billion for aged care would have been necessary regardless of whether there was a pandemic. Morrison called the royal commission and would have been crucified had he ignored it.

Overall, it was a Labor-style budget, which has made the Oppositions task trickier.

This was evident two days before the budget when Labor reached peak Opposition. In the age-old tradition that every silver lining must have a cloud, treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers played down what was evidently a much faster economic recovery than had been forecast in December when the budget was last updated.

The point were making is that even if the recession wasnt as bad as many economists feared, it doesnt mean that the recovery cant be better, he said.

Anthony Albaneses big housing response on Thursday night showed Labor was not going to be pushed to the right.

Morrison took some heat from the fiscal conservatives in his ranks who were uttering such foul oaths as Whitlamesque on Tuesday night.

The PM reiterated how when the pandemic struck and the economy was forcibly closed down, economic ideology had to be suspended so billions could be shovelled out. Even John Howard said so, he pointed out defensively.

All the government did this week extend the ideological suspension for another 12 months or so, he contended.

This is a pandemic budget to address the times that we have, and it is true, as the Reserve Bank Governor and others have said, borrowing costs are low at the moment and so Australians need their government to lean in at this time. Monetary policy is basically spent, he said.

He also reminded the true believers that Labor was still the gold standard in terms of spending, by pointing out how he had ceased JobKeeper at the end of March despite complaints from the Opposition.

Just remember what we did with JobKeeper we knew when to bring it in, and we knew when to take it off. That was a responsible economic decision. Others wanted just to see it run on forever.

He noted the Coalition eschewed a recommendation of the royal commission to fund aged care with a new tax. Labor has yet to discount the idea.

These nuggets, Morrison trusts, will keep any insurrection at bay until the next election, by which time the government will be banking on the belief that the voters will trust the debt to the party that created it.

Still, this week, both sides promised to spend plenty. Amid the cacophony of reaction from interest groups, rent seekers and all else who festoon the Parliament in budget week, just one party raised concerns about how it was all going to be paid for.

It was the Greens, with a proposition to tax the nations 122 pandemic profiteers the 122 billionaires whose wealth expanded between March last year and this year.

Slightly batty, but that was it.

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Federal budget 2021: The government's cash splash was not socialism, it was ideology on pause - The Australian Financial Review

Keir Starmers failures as Labour leader have been much of his own making. Expending precious political capital removing the whip from Corbyn, suspending hundreds of members who issued motions in support of the ex-Labour leader and glibly repeating the slogan under new management until blue in the face has left a policy and vision vacuum that has pushed the party backwards.

Why then, when a Labour Party that is led from the right does poorly in a set of elections, is it the fault of hard left factions attached to trade unions? Ask Peter Mandelson. In a set of interviews in the wake of Labours dire council election results, the Blairite spin doctor has sought to put his own curious twist on proceedings. For Mandelson, last Thursdays failure is only evidence that the Labour leaderships crackdown on the socialist left hasnt gone far enough. You know that strategy youre trying out that is demonstrably failing? Do that but with even more vigour, he demands.

By now, its almost become a reflex for Labour right politicians. Just this morning in an ITV interview, Tony Blair sternly warned Starmer to distance himself from the far-left agenda. Lose more than 300 Labour councillors while offering no transformative vision of what the party could do in local government? Blame the left. Get thrashed in a Hartlepool seat that Corbyn had won in 2017 and 2019? Blame the left. Cant find your car keys? Blame the left. Its pathological.

The ironic thing about it all is that the charge that Mandelson and the Labour right often direct towards socialists in the Labour Party is that we need to face out to the country, and stop playing to a narrow sect within the party. But its pure projection.

When faced with an election defeat that they have authored, their reflex is to immediately attack left-wing Labour members and strengthen their own position within the party, as if thats what voters were clamouring for, rather than, you know, facing out to the country and actually providing a compelling vision for the future.

What would it look like for the party to truly face the electorate? Well lets look at the polling on policy in Hartlepool a seat Labour must win back at the next election. According to a Survation poll conducted in early April, 69 per cent of voters in the area support universal broadband by 2030, 59 per cent want Royal Mail returned into public hands and 67 per cent want to prioritise investment in public services. The country that Mandelson loves to ventriloquise wants nothing to do with a failed Thatcherite economic model that he championed back in the 1990s, and now offers no alternative to.

Meanwhile, there are Labour administrations around the country showing what a modern, socialist Labour Party can achieve. In Preston, council leader Matthew Browns revolutionary approach to local government insourcing, support for cooperatives, living wage for council workers has led to the Labour council bucking the national trend and holding all of their 30 seats. In Salford, mayor Paul Dennett is kickstarting the biggest council house-building programme seen in the city since the 1960s, investing in local infrastructure and bringing thousands of jobs to the city. The local authority has been named the greenest council in the North West. In Thursdays election, the Salford Labour council increased its vote share, even picking up seats from the Tories. And just down the road in Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham won on an increased vote share promising to bring back the buses into municipal ownership.

What these results show is that offering a vision of a better society built on strong socialist principles can win elections. With a by-election in Batley and Spen looming, the leadership needs to change course as a matter of urgency. To see the kind of swing that will show us the party stands a chance of winning in 2024, Starmer must ignore the has-been Labour grandees and learn the lessons from last Thursday. Attacking the party left is a path to electoral oblivion; bold and exciting policy offers are popular and win you votes.

Callum Bell is a vice-chair of Momentums National Coordinating Group

Link:
Peter Mandelson is wrong about Labours hard left socialism can win elections - The Independent

John McDonnell: 2019 manifesto not radical enough for today

The Labour Party is currently embroiled in an identity crisis following its drubbing at England's local elections. Hartlepool was the party's biggest blow, one of the last remaining parts of its once unbreakable Red Wall. Many noted it had already been lost in the 2019 general election, however, with the Brexit Party having split the Conservative Party vote.

Regardless of this, those who rose through the ranks of Labour before Sir Keir Starmer claimed that the loss in Hartlepool - as well as councils across England - proved that the electorate wanted the radical policies of former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Most notably, John McDonnell, former Shadow Chancellor, in the aftermath of the election results demanded Sir Keir reevaluate his centrist position.

He and Richard Burgon, the Leeds MP, along with Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Ian Mearns and Pauline Bryan - all Corbynites - set out a radical "alternative Queen's Speech" on Labour List, outlining their plans to implement a socialist agenda in Westminster and the country at large.

They spoke of how the coronavirus had exposed "inequality and insecurity" and that a "socialist government will build a fairer, healthier, and greener Britain, and a more just and peaceful world" was needed in order to counter this.

Their declaration went on to promise NHS workers a 15 percent pay rise, as well as "ensuring all public service workers get an increase well-above inflation, after a decade of pay freezes and pay caps".

A "real living wage bill" would be brought in to "end the indignity of poverty pay in all sectors of the economy" because "for too long there has been abundance for those in the boardroom, but only scraps for the rest".

Mr McDonnell and Mr Burgon's plans, they claim, would also eradicate poverty by 2030.

Most controversially given Sir Keir's opposition to the Government's corporation tax hike in its March Budget, the group says they will introduce a "finance bill [that] will ensure that those companies that profited during the pandemic pay a windfall tax on any excess profits".

JUST IN:Eurostar: Britons furious as France piles pressure on UK to save firm

They will also take aim at Britain's highest earners with increases in income tax, as well as working with the US President Joe Biden to push a "global minimum rate of corporation tax and clamp down on tax havens and avoidance more widely".

Interestingly, they say they will secure reductions in the working week over time and consult on four new bank holidays.

Many other bills concerning society and the economy are floated.

It is unclear how Mr McDonnell and his allies plan on paying for it other than tax hikes.

Emblematic of Mr Corbyn's years, the group's vision comes to a close on plans to reinvigorate and empower Britain's trade unions.

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While Mr McDonnell said Sir Keir should be given a chance, he condemned his move to sack Angela Rayner as party chair.

On this, Diane Abbott, former Shadow Home Secretary, accused the leader of trying to make Ms Rayner "carry for the can" for the results.

Paul Embery, a trade unionist and Labour member, told Express.co.uk that the actions of Labour's Corbynite left amounted to "betrayal".

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown, the former Labour Prime Minister, recently told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the party could not return to Mr Corbyn's policies if it wanted to deal with the "seismic changes" facing society, including widening social inequalities and nationalism.

He said: "Keir Starmer and his leadership have got to deal with all these changes.

"So, the Labour Party has got to change, we can never have the same policies as 1997 they cant be the same policies as 2019.

"He has got to be given the space and the power and the leaders working with him to change the Labour Party, so that it can deal with these fundamental challenges that have been aggravated by Covid."

Yet after this, Mr McDonnell suggested Mr Burgon and the sacked Rebecca Long-Bailey should be promoted to Sir Keir's frontbench, telling LBC radio: "Becky Long-Bailey was in my team and she was one of the sharpest I'd ever met."

On Mr Burgon, he added: "If you look at what he did on the justice brief he was excellent.

"I think he was one of the sharpest Shadow Cabinet ministers that we had and he was good on his feet on the floor of the house.

"I know there's been denigration in the media but they're not necessarily our best friends.

"People underestimate him - a good, young lawyer, knows his stuff. I think held the Government to account."

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John McDonnell and Corbynite allies outline plan to force socialism on UK - Express

Peel away the rubble of Labours Hartlepool by-election defeat and crushing local election losses. Tune out the leaderships kneejerk, factional-driven meltdown. Beyond the dismay and disunity, a series of Labour success stories are emerging as beacons of hope and possibility.

First, the mayoral victories, 11 of the 13 posts contested. In the Welsh Senedd, Labour first minister Mark Drakeford piled 10,000 votes onto his own majority with the party holding power against expectations. And across the country, Labour councils have bucked the downward national trend: holding seats, even increasing vote shares. Each win has its own story. But one clear pattern is that Labour gained when it pitched left and championed people-driven, community wealth-building policies.

This style of politics has many labels: guerrilla localism, municipal socialism or economic democracy. Matthew Brown, Prestons Labour city council leader who helmed this pioneering grassroots model in the region (and held all 10 council seats last week), calls it extreme common sense. Paul Dennett, Labour city mayor of Salford where the party gained seats last week, describes such a policy path assensible socialism.

Whatever you call it, the approach has meant that, in the face of severe government-imposed austerity cuts piled upon decades of regional neglect, local politicians can pull on power levers they do still control like procurement budgets or property assets to redirect wealth back into local communities, secure jobs and services and build financial resilience. And it works.

In Preston, the council engaged the hospital, university and colleges, and the city council itself, to shift procurement funding to local suppliers, which has redirected 700m back into the local economy since 2013. Contracts cover anything from lunches to legal services and construction projects. Add to that the flourishing worker co-operatives and push for real living wages and Preston was by 2017 the most improved city in a Demos survey, and in 2020 had its highest employment rate in 15 years.

In Salford, left-led Labour has gone strong on social and council housing as a foil to rip-off rents and unattainable private ownership. Welsh Labour is pushing a radical policy platform anchored in real living wages for care workers and thousands of jobs in low-carbon housebuilding. Across Preston, Liverpool and the Wirral, plans for a joint regional community bank have popular support. And metro-mayor Andy Burnham, having promised to re-regulate Manchesters decimated bus service, is now posting about plans for aregion-wide living wageand an NHS-stylesocial care service.

Those engaged in community wealth-building projects will tell you its a long, slow process. But as one Labour organiser in Salford told me: Weve taken the time to explain ourselves with intellectual honesty and vigour. It is hard work, but it pays off because people can tell when its real.

This style of politics runs in contrast to what several Labour organisers across the country described as the phoney, robotic, patronising flag-waving vibes coming off the current Labour leadership. Where Labour is making local electoral gains, local leaders focus on building an inclusive sense of community anchored in shared values, tackling shared hardships and reviving places in a way that makes people feel proud to live in them.

This style of left politics is currently picking up steam. The Democracy Collaborative think tank, which developed the community wealth-building concept, is fielding calls from Labour councillors and party members nationwide. Prestons Mathew Brown has just co-authored Paint Your Town Red with writer and historian Rhian E Jones, explaining how the Preston model works and providing a toolkit for towns that want to reproduce its successes.

With its genesis in Cleveland, Ohio, the model is gaining international traction: proposals pop up in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US where New York City deputy mayor, J Phillip Thompson, speaks of community wealth building asessential to tackling the economic anxietiesthat fuelled the rise of Donald Trump. The model is finding salience in a pandemic that awakened an appetite for collectivism and community purpose, while the Covid relief efforts of local authorities fostered human relationships where there had previously been a faceless town hall.

All of which makes it perplexing that the Labour leadership is so silent on the subject. There is scant curiosity in the mechanisms of community wealth building or its successes. The message coming from Labours helm is that the party wants to listen and learn, but it displays little interest in hearing this language.

As Prestons Matthew Brown notes in Paint Your Town Red: Imagine if every Labour city were setting up its own banks, supporting worker-owned businesses and credit unions? Imagine it. That would be our way of taking back control. What a shame the Labour leadership lacks the imagination to grasp the significance of this story, or make it a cornerstone of its politics.

Originally posted here:
Municipal socialism is winning what a shame the Labour leadership isnt shouting about these success stories - The Independent

In a fundraiser letter, Second-District Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks repeatedly referred to Democrats as Socialists. Miller-Meeks is either very confused or is giving her constituents a bum steer.

Historically, Republicans have used the scary word Socialism, referring to programs that benefit people, dating back to Jim Crow days. They said laws that helped black people vote would cost the taxpayers money because black people would then vote for their own economic interests and they called this a transfer of wealth and Socialism. They also said it about Medicare, Social Security, unemployment compensation programs and the Affordable Care Act, calling the ACA socialized medicine and government takeover of health care.

In the modern era, Republicans use focus groups and professional propagandists to arrive at just the right degrading phrase to make people think programs that will benefit them are scary and will ruin the country.

Other examples of publicly funded programs and institutions that benefit people include the U.S. Post Office, public schools, the G.I. Bill, our military, roads and bridges, and yes, our elected government officials including Ms. Miller-Meeks, whose salary is paid by our taxes. Ms. Miller-Meeks, do you believe you are the recipient of a Socialist system?

All of us no doubt are benefiting from one or more people-oriented programs put in place over the course of our history. We need those programs to improve our lives.

Miller-Meeks is using scare tactics to raise money and spread disinformation. That is unacceptable for a representative of the second district of Iowa.

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Letter to the editor: Miller-Meeks is using scare tactics to raise money - Little Village