We need a royal commission into the corruption and decay of Australian politics

The result of the British election should produce seismic change in Australian politics. But it almost certainly won’t.

Within hours of the bombing at Manchester Arena last month, police had identified the lone wolf suicide bomber they alleged was behind the attack.

The terrorist attack in Manchester where 22 people, including children, were killed and scores were injured, many critically, provoked an understandable sense of outrage into how and why this could happen. The answer to that question unfortunately has been to repeat the half-truths and stereotypes that have followed each of the terrorist attacks in western cities in recent years.  

The breathless hypocrisy of Donald Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia should leave us all reeling. The fact that the new president could make his first overseas journey to the very country he previously castigated, rightly, as the mother lode of 9/11 is bad enough. But the sycophancy he displayed to his hosts, especially King Salman, demonstrated just what a dangerous chameleon Trump is.  

He called it the best nine days of his Presidency.

“Just returned from Europe. Trip was a great success for America. Hard work but big results!”

Sadly once again, yet another suicide bomber has acted his revenge on innocent people in Manchester. The predictable Nazi sock puppets are out on behalf of their corporate backers, screaming for more surveillance, greater military, and an increasing attack on the Muslim community at large. Same old crap, same old conservative hatred and spin.

It is increasingly evident how pernicious the privatisation myth is. Two recent examples have underlined it: the failings in Australia’s privatised energy grid and the usurious pricing in airport car parks. Both examples demonstrated that it is folly to expect a public benefit to inevitably emerge from private profit seeking.  

Just consider the accusations that have been levelled at the President:

• He has betrayed the Constitution, which he swore to uphold.

Despite overly optimistic, but what should be called laughable forecasts in the budget, wage growth in Australia is now the lowest it has been since the mid-1990s. And it’s not hard to see why.

A burning question arises from Budget 2017. What drugs are Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his team on? There can be no other rational explanation for the inclusion of a total clanger in an otherwise mediocre and generally anticipated bunch of policies. On Tuesday, 9 May, Treasurer Scott Morrison announced money for health, education, and farmers, more taxes, a hit to the banks and a kick for anti-vaxxers. And right at the end, a surreptitiously adopted populist measure to piss-test the poor.