Raising Hell: Issue 12: Say Hello To My Little Friend

If the political narrative of the pandemic was being written at the start of August, the last fortnight contained the earliest signs of something bigger. Without going into the weeds, political insiders have been quietly measuring the distance between now and 3 September 2022 — the last possible day on which a federal election can be called — before setting out to quietly to make preparations.

Though it seems a long way off, let’s not forget time has been moving quickly of late. It doesn’t help that between then and now we have a domino chain of state elections to run that will serve as a litmus test for the state of our politics. Then, in the very short term, our American cousins will be going to the polls (maybe) on 3 November in an electoral contest that will determine the future of Trump’s particular brand of nihilism (and the Democrat’s tepid centrism).

How those contests play out will be illustrative. Right now the federal Coalition is mostly hoping the memory of 2020 quickly fades into a blur as the nation collectively seeks to numb its brain by swimming in beer at the pub. Whether it will remains to be seen. With the Coalition (as an institution) approaching ten years in power, the question that needs to be asked is: what exactly have we got to show for it?

When I asked myself that question, the list I put together off the top of my head was mainly a long series of social institutions that were broken or collapsed:

• Car manufacturing is dead
• A lack of regulation has made Australia a dumping ground for gas guzzlers, for cars charged with gases thousands of times more potent than CO2, and we still have dirty petrol…
• Then there was that time the Coalition refused to expand the nation’s fire-fighting air tanker fleet
• The aged care system is a horror show
• The banking system systematically ripped off its clients
• Public schools are being starved of funding
• The ABC has been cut to pieces
• Universities are facing a funding crisis
• The recycling industry has been in crisis
• The CSIRO was starved of funding
• The social security system was shredded to the point Centrelink’s website was built to only handle 6000 simultaneous users
• The robodebt scheme turned out to be a costly, unlawful multi-million boondoggle
• The billion-dollar for-profit Jobactive network continues to operate
• Young people’s incomes have dramatically declined along with upward social mobility:

• The arts sector is shriveling up
• And our literacy rate has collapsed to the point where two out of five people can’t read
• Meanwhile: Sports Rorts

But hey, at least mining companies are no longer bound up in green tape, amiright?

Now it is entirely possible that I am a biased subject because I pay attention to these things for a living — well, that and I have a book out on 1 September, which means I keep trying to lose myself in big, impersonal events I have no control over in order to distract from gnawing sense of anticipation I’m feeling. From here on out though, the fun will be in watching the spin and seeing where everything lands. Will Trump have to be dragged out of the White House like Tony Montana? Can Scott Morrison live up to his (laughable) reputation as a Machiavellian political genius? Whatever happens, it’ll make for great viewing.

Reporting In

Where I recap what I’ve been doing this last fortnight so you know I’m not just using your money to stimulate the local economy …

• Interview with Max Castle (3CR Radio, 2020).A while back I spoke to Max from 3CR radio about the work I am doing on the COVIDSafe app. Our conversation was recorded in July but aired August 6. You can catch me at ~[00:35:20].
• The EPA Wants Your FeedbackIn a post-script to the saga that kicked off Raising Hell, the Environmental Protection Agency board has a report out about their handling of the chemical spill my work revealed at the Nyrstar refinery in Port Pirie. While the EPA insists that event was never a threat to public safety, they’ve updated their public engagement charter and are asking for public feedback by 11pm on 31 August 2020.As the guy who ran the initial FOI applications, what I would personally like to see is agency officials instructed to engage in “proactive disclosure”. If my original application for documents was lodged on or around 18 April, 2019 I took until 2 September 2020 to get a response — only after I made threats to go to the ombudsman.
• Avid Reader Author EventIf you’re around 16 September at 6.30pm (AEST), Asher Wolf will be hosting an Avid Reader author event with me to help launch Just Money. Asher is someone I interviewed for the book when I wrote about how robodebt was fought, which means she’ll be flipping the script by interviewing me. Register here.
• Save The Date!Given South Australia now seems in control of its Covid-19 cases, I am looking at organising an in-person event at Dymocks, Rundle Mall on 10 October or 17 October (to be decided). Due to venue limitations, it’ll be strictly RSVP so once the link goes live (from the 8th) it’ll be first come, first serve.In the meantime, if you want to get your hands on a copy, you know what to do.

You Hate To See It

A dyspeptic, snark-ridden and highly ironic round-up of the news from our shared hellscape…

• Better Spoken About, Than Spoken Too

  In something of a parable for contemporary society, things did not work out so well when local authorities in New York tried to contain the spread of Covid-19 by moving 283 homeless men into hotel rooms at the Lucerne on the Upper West Side. In a supposedly progressive neighbourhood where 90 percent of residents voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, the first reaction was an immediate series of complaints on social media at having to rub shoulders with a bunch of (according to them) drug addled, public-urinating, degenerates. Or words to that effect.

• Nightmare Fuel

  If the headlines about aged care haven’t been horrifying enough, an elderly woman in an aged care facility was found with ants crawling out of her wounds. The Prime Minister has, of course, apologised for the state of things and especially for those elderly who have been left to die as Covid-19 ripped through aged care facilities across Victoria, saying the situation was totally unforeseeable. On that point though, counsel assisting at the Aged Care Royal Commission tends to disagree.

• Another Day, Another Branch Stacking Story

  This time, however, it’s the Liberal party in trouble.

• The Ol’ Bait and Switch

  Way back when the Prime Minister was making a show of finally announcing emergency funding to prop up the collapsing arts sector, the Prime Minister toured a production company’s offices with a gaggle of photographers and camera operators in tow. Later, however, said company learned they were not — in point of fact — eligible for any of said funding.

• Loose Lips, Sink… $7235 Billion Housing Markets?

  Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of Australia has been weighing up the chances the country’s housing market may go down in a fiery blaze thanks to the pandemic. The official line might be, “it’s all good bro” but then it’s hard to know what to believe when the Commonwealth Bank is reporting thousands of Australian’s owe billions on their mortgages and are out of work.

• Optics, optics, optics

  What does the Australian Prime Minister do when his performance over the last week has once more exposed him as a dissembling mess? His media people photograph him cooking a curry as he sends thoughts and prayers to Melbourne for the socials, of course. Bon appetite!

  

Failing Upward

Where I recognise and celebrate the true stupidity of the rich, powerful and influential…

• There were many fine candidates for Failing Upward this last fortnight but ultimately our gaze was caught by a late entry: former Victorian Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett. Now it should be said that Kennett drew our attention less for anything he actually said, but more for what he was wearing during an interview with Sky News, as seen here (image credit to Katina Curtis):

  

  When it comes to matters of fashion, we here at Raising Hell prefer to think we are above judgement. Or at least that was until something clicked and we noticed that exact get-up matched the “soiree suit” from the iconic 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, worn by its gangster-hero Tommy Vercetti:

  

  For the record, that same outfit was itself inspired by this number worn by Omar Suarez — who was murdered for being a rat — in that classic of modern cinema Scarface:

  

  All of which is fitting for the old bandit. Unlike the gangsters of the Grand Theft Auto franchise — who hate trickle down economics — Kennett famously oversaw the looting of Victoria’s public assets by running a zealous privatisation program that sold of anything not nailed down.

Good Reads, Good Times

To share the love, here are some of the best or more interesting reads from the last fortnight…

• As the nation of Belarus marches in the streets of Minsk, a reporter from Russia and a reporter from the US have shared their frankly horrifying accounts of being detained by the Belarusian police and special forces.
• Ever heard about that time Australian fascist paramilitary groups were planning a coup in the lead up to WWII? No? Alex North has you covered.

Before You Go (Go)…

• Are you a public sector bureaucrat whose tyrannical boss is behaving badly? Have you recently come into possession of documents showing some rich guy is trying to move their ill-gotten-gains to Curacao? Did you take a low-paying job with an evil corporation registered in Delaware that turns out to be burying toxic waste beneath children’s playgrounds? If your conscience is keeping you up at night, or you’d just plain like to see some wrong-doers cast into the sea, we here at Raising Hell can suggest a course of action: leak! Download the encrypted message app Wickr Me onto your phone or laptop and contact us securely at my handle: rorok1990.

• If you’re lurking and like what you see, throw me a subscription to get my screeds straight to your inbox every second Tuesday — it’s free. If you like what I do and want to see me do more of it, throw me a paid subscription — it’s $5 a month or $50 a year. Are you skint? Or flush? Well, you can also pay what you feel I’m worth by setting your own yearly rate.

• And if you’ve come this far, consider supporting me further by picking up one of my books, or leaving a review or just tell a friend about Raising Hell!

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