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    Go Where You Are Treated Best

    By
    Damon Hayhow
    -
    2

    ‘Go where you are treated best’ is the tagline of entrepreneur, Andrew Henderson, founder of the business Nomad Capitalist. Andrew and his team help entrepreneurs, retirees and others move their lives out of countries like Australia to countries where they will be treated best. It is a business that has being growing exponentially in recent years.

    When I first heard Andrew speak those six words during the earliest days of the Covid sham, it hit me like a power-slap from Mike Tyson. What the hell was I still doing in Australia? For years I thought I had been fighting to build small businesses. But I had not; I could do business just fine. I had a bunch of great products and services in an interesting niche. I liked my customers, and my customers liked me. The fight was against the suffocating cancer of Australian government bureaucracy, and I was exhausted by it. The reality was Australia no longer treated me well, let alone best.

    The history of the human race is a story of people escaping horrible governments. 

    “We crush many a dream around [here]” was proudly proclaimed to me by an officer of Melbourne’s Stonnington Council when I applied for a permit to open a simple, small business. He also bragged how new laws rendered thousands of commercial properties “completely unlettable”. Sadly, the only thing shocking about his statements was his candor. His malicious and malignant attitude towards honest citizens, small business operators and the future success of the country was what I had come to expect from Australian bureaucrats.

    Being an unwilling participant in an abusive relationship with local government was only part of the problem. The bigger problem was the direction of the country as a whole.

    The absolutely disgusting and immoral human rights abuses orchestrated by the Victorian Government, media and law enforcement during the Covid sham was not an aberration. Nor was the Victorian public’s willing complicity. It was unequivocal proof of the direction society had been headed.

    So what is a patriotic Australian supposed to do? Vote? For whom? Protest? And get shot with rubber bullets or sprayed with mace for not supporting the Government-approved message? Exercise your free-speech online? And get arrested in your home, in front of your kids, even if you are pregnant? Or have your government-permission to practice your profession cancelled? Or have your bank accounts frozen? 

    Australia does not have a bill of rights. You have no legislated right to free speech or right to protest. The Government could not care less about having signed the international treaty for human rights. Their Covid shenanigans proved that unequivocally.

    When democracy has been hijacked, like it has been in much of the so-called “free world”, your most powerful option is to vote with your feet and go where you are treated best. If enough people leave, the people and government left behind will be forced to change, to stem further losses and attract good people back. If they do not change, the country will fail as their beliefs and policies were destined to anyway.

    The fight was against the suffocating cancer of Australian government bureaucracy, and I was exhausted by it.

    Unfortunately, for most people leaving is not an option. The nature of most people’s vocations, businesses, finances and/or families makes leaving all but impossible. There will always be people who have no option but to stay and fight against bad governments. But that does not mean staying and fighting is noble; in most cases throughout history, staying to fight your own government has been a terrible option.

    For the few people who can move their lives and business elsewhere in the world, they owe it to themselves and their country to go where they are treated best. It is not weak or cowardly, as many jealous people will say. Nothing is harder than leaving family and a lifetime of friends, to face the uncertainty of restarting life in a new country. But it can be the most patriotic thing you can do; not to mention cathartic, enlightening and positively life changing. 

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    A country is not its government. Being so disgusted and disillusioned with a government that you move says nothing about your feelings toward the country or its people. The history of the human race is a story of people escaping horrible governments. 

    Australians are lucky to be welcomed all over the world. Wherever you go, you will always be Australian (or whatever nationality you are). If you go where you really are treated best, you will almost certainly be more financially, emotionally and spiritually successful than you could have been under the current government in Australia. 

    Nomad Capitalist has a website. I recommend taking a look at it.

    Unions And Religion

    By
    Nicholas Samios
    -
    2

    Unions and libertarians disagree about almost everything. However, they do both share one core tenet – the right to “freedom of association”.  Well, maybe not so much anymore.

    Freedom of association is a fundamental right cherished by libertarians, as it supports the principle of voluntary cooperation and the right to form associations to pursue common goals. It also happens to be a right incorporated in international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).  Freedom of association stands as a cornerstone of a free society.

    Unions rely on freedom of association for their very existence. Unless workers are free to associate, there can be no unions. 

    Finally, there is the question of diversity – of thought and choice! Religious schools provide an option for parents who seek an education in line with their faith.

    However, a piece of recent news begs the question as to whether this right is still valued, or maybe even understood, by the union movement.  Or perhaps the left’s war on Christianity gets precedence over one of the union movement’s foundation principles.

    Unions are now lobbying the Federal government to legislate to prevent religious schools from hiring teachers on the basis of faith.

    For many Christians it is their faith that has led them to libertarianism – for reasons discussed elsewhere on Liberty Itch.  I won’t revisit here that any attack on Christianity is also an attack on our civil liberties.

    Not all libertarians are church goers of course (albeit they should seriously consider becoming so). Secular libertarians should be alarmed, nonetheless. The debate over proposed religious discrimination laws in Australia presents a significant point of contention, particularly concerning the principle of freedom of association.

    The union movement’s position on this is riddled with hypocrisy.

    Firstly, the right to freedom of association also extends to religious organizations, allowing them to maintain their faith-based hiring practices. By pushing to restrict these schools’ hiring autonomy, the trade unions risk undermining the very freedom of association they hold dear.

    Freedom of association is a fundamental right cherished by libertarians, as it supports the principle of voluntary cooperation and the right to form associations to pursue common goals.

    Second, trade unions, which typically advocate for workers’ rights, appear to disregard this idea when it comes to religious schools’ hiring practices. This raises concerns about the consistency of their stance and whether they are applying the same standards to themselves.

    Third, while the unions bemoan discrimination implicit (they say) in hiring based on faith, by limiting faith-based schools’ hiring autonomy, they may discriminate against religious individuals who want to work in environments aligned with their beliefs, thus contradicting their own principles of non-discrimination.

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    And finally, there is the question of diversity – of thought and choice! Religious schools provide an option for parents who seek an education in line with their faith. Limiting their ability to hire staff who share their beliefs homogenises the educational landscape and limits diversity of educational options, which is contrary to the principles of a free and open society.

    Let’s call it what it is: the trade union movement’s call to prevent faith-based hiring in religious schools is at best the “politics of envy”, and at worst an unprincipled and hypocritical attack on Christianity. Let’s see if state and federal governments have the courage and integrity to resist this push.

    Curse of The Planner

    By
    Bob Day
    -
    1

    In her excellent book The Siberian Curse, British-American author Fiona Hill describes how the settlement of Siberia in the twentieth century and the mass movement of people and industry into this vast region by central planners lie at the root of many of Russia’s contemporary problems.

    Central planning – whether geo-political, social, urban or economic – has caused many a disaster.

    Examples abound around the world, but allow me to cite a local one.

    Worst of all, it puts home ownership out of the reach of those on low and middle incomes. 

    A number of years ago, I bought a block of land on a very busy main road in one of Australia’s capital cities.  I submitted plans to the local council to build 12 semi-detached home units on the land and, as the zoning allowed for such a development, I didn’t expect any problems. That was of course until I came up against the Council Town Planner who said he’d recommend the development be approved “subject to the provision of noise attenuation devices” across the front of the property (noise attenuation is a fancy name for sound-proofing).  I tried to point out that there were thousands of kilometres of main roads with many thousands of dwellings fronting these main roads and it all seemed to work quite well without ‘sound attenuation’. I also told him that the project was actually geared towards older people, many of whom prefer the noise of traffic and pedestrians chatting as they said it made them feel safer than in some quiet back street or cul-de-sac.  But he was having none of it. He wanted his noise attenuation devices.  

    Naturally, I tried the commercial argument that people who didn’t like noise wouldn’t buy into the project and that the market would sort it out.  But for reasons known only to town planners but obscure to common sense, he rejected all my pleas, and I had an acoustic engineer design a front fence to assist with noise attenuation.  But no sooner had I finished the job than the Royal Society for the Deaf bought all the units – every single one of them.  I showed the planner the contract and he couldn’t even see the funny side of it. 

    Ludwig von Mises, one of the most notable economists and social philosophers of the 20th century, observed:

    Ludwig von Mises

    ‘The planner is a potential dictator who wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to their own plans.  Planners aim at one thing only:  the exclusive absolute pre-eminence of their own plans.’

    National, State and Local government planners now infiltrate our lives at every turn. 

    Take the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), for example, the nation’s main economic planner.

    The RBA has over 1,500 staff and as well as its headquarters in Sydney, has offices in London, New York and Beijing. 

    The RBA basically has one main task – to control inflation. As we know, inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods and services. When governments contribute to this by running deficits, the RBA is there to put up interest rates and make the government feel the pain of their spending. In recent years, however, the RBA did not do this. In fact, in spite of record deficit-spending, former RBA Governor Philip Lowe said in 2021 the bank would be keeping interest rates low until at least 2024! 

    Central planning – whether geo-political, social, urban or economic – has caused many a disaster.

    Since then it has raised interest rates 14 times in an attempt to bring inflation under control, in effect shifting the inflation burden to consumers – particularly low-income consumers – through price rises. 

    One can also trace the current housing affordability crisis back to the RBA when it similarly refused to admit it made a mistake with its submission to the 2003 Productivity Commission Inquiry into First Home Ownership. The Bank’s focus on demand stimulators (capital gains tax, negative gearing, low interest rates, etc. – all Federal matters) and not supply factors had a huge influence in shaping the Productivity Commission’s findings. 

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    As we now know, the RBA overlooked the real source of the affordability problem – the unwillingness by State governments to release more land for new housing and urban planners’ obsession with urban densification, an idea that has failed all over the world. Whether it’s traffic congestion, air pollution, the destruction of bio-diversity or the unsustainable pressure on electricity, water, sewage, or stormwater infrastructure, urban densification has been a disaster. Worst of all, it puts home ownership out of the reach of those on low and middle incomes. 

    As von Mises observed, the step between planner and dictator is not as big as some might think. When their plans are rejected, planners become indignant, and instead of adjusting their plans to suit the people who have rejected their ideas, they seek ways to enforce their will on the people. The inner authoritarian is revealed.

    China’s Dystopia II: The Digital Panopticon

    By
    Warren Wang
    -
    2

    During my recent one-month stay in China’s bustling metropolises, the omnipresence of technology, particularly WeChat (a “Super App” Elon Musk wants X to be for the West), was starkly evident. QR codes adorned nearly every surface, from restaurant menus to market stalls, making WeChat an indispensable part of daily life. The ‘everything app’ seamlessly integrates functions akin to WhatsApp, Facebook, eBay, Uber and many others into one platform. 

    The convenience it offers is undeniable: messaging, social networking, making payments, ordering food and hailing rides are all accomplished with a few taps on a smartphone. However, beneath this veneer of ultra-convenience lies a more ominous reality.

    The Illusion of Convenience Over Privacy

    In Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”, a superficially perfect society masks deep underlying issues. This theme resonates profoundly with my experience in China. On the surface, life is streamlined and digitised. In cities like Shanghai, cash is almost obsolete (I used no cash at all for the one-month trip), and every need or whim is catered to with astonishing efficiency, with technology not just an enabler but a dominant force shaping society. Yet, this convenience comes at a steep cost – privacy is virtually non-existent.

     The convenience of digital transactions allows the government to track and control the financial activities of its citizens.

    Surveillance: Beyond the Physical Realm

    The extensive surveillance network I described in “China’s Dystopia I: Security to Slavery” is not limited to physical spaces. Every transaction, interaction or movement facilitated by WeChat and other digital platforms is tracked, recorded, and scrutinised whenever the government deems necessary. The app, while a marvel of modern technology, doubles as a tool for surveillance, with the Chinese government having unfettered access to the data collected.

    Digital Dystopia: A Double-Edged Sword

    This digital ecosystem, on one hand, epitomises technological advancement and consumer convenience. On the other, it represents a dystopian reality where personal details, preferences, and even thoughts are no longer private. Every digital footprint is monitored, contributing to a profile that the government can access and analyse at will. The notion of ”Big Brother” in George Orwell’s “1984” finds a parallel here, though it is perhaps more aptly described by Huxley’s vision where citizens are placated with pleasures and conveniences, unaware of or indifferent to the loss of their freedoms.

    The Perils of a Cashless Society and Social Credit

    The move towards a cashless society in China brings its own set of risks. The convenience of digital transactions allows the government to track and control the financial activities of its citizens. Coupled with the social credit system, this creates a scenario where individuals can be rewarded or punished not just for their actions, but also for their associations.

    This system has become a tool for cracking down on dissent. Individuals or groups who interact with or support entities disfavoured by the government can find themselves facing financial restrictions or worse. Being locked out of WeChat, for example, effectively prevents participation in daily life. 

    This level of control over personal and financial interactions adds another layer to the surveillance state, where not just actions, but also associations, are monitored and controlled.

    This digital ecosystem, on one hand, epitomises technological advancement and consumer convenience.

    Rethinking Freedom in a Digitally Connected World

    As we progress further into the digital era, the Chinese model serves as a crucial case study for the rest of the world. It poses a fundamental question: what is the true cost of convenience? In a society where every digital interaction is monitored, can freedom truly exist? The allure of a frictionless, digital life is powerful, but it should not blind us to the importance of safeguarding our privacy and freedom.

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    As Australia observes the unfolding digital dystopia in China, it becomes imperative to reflect upon our own relationship with technology and surveillance. While enjoying a more open and democratic society, Australia is not immune to the risks posed by the unchecked expansion of surveillance technologies. The use of such technologies for contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic signalled clear privacy erosion and government overreach. 

    As Australia strides forward in its technological journey, it must tread cautiously to avoid the pitfalls seen in China. As Huxley’s “Brave New World” warns, a society enamoured with comfort and entertainment may be blind to the erosion of its essential liberties. The challenge for us is to ensure that technological advancements serve humanity, not government.

    The Lure of Government Benevolence

    By
    David Leyonhjelm
    -
    3

    Why is it that in many countries, including Australia, governments consistently spend more than they collect in taxes, thus increasing the national debt? 

    Most governments understand that budgets should be balanced. They have seen what happens in countries that accumulate too much debt and cannot service it. And yet, the debt keeps growing. 

    The explanation is rather uncomfortable for many of us. It is, broadly speaking, our own fault. We keep electing governments that reflect our thinking.

    There was a time when we largely provided for ourselves. Prior to 1909, for example, there was no age pension; everyone was expected to save for their retirement, directly or via a mutual society. 

    The reality of socialism is universal poverty, but the illusion of unlimited, universal care remains powerful.

    Similarly, prior to 1910 there was no disability support pension. Privately funded charities and philanthropic organisations provided assistance for the disabled. 

    It was the same with health care; Medibank, the precursor to Medicare, did not exist until 1976. 

    University fees were a private cost until 1974. There were many scholarships on offer but those who failed to obtain one and whose family was unable to pay the fees would often delay or forego tertiary studies. 

    For women returning to work, childcare was typically provided by families, friends and neighbours, or by community organisations such as churches. Government subsidised childcare only began in 2000. 

    Most people would probably be disinclined to wind back the clock. And yet, most people also believe that they already pay too much tax and do not wish to pay more. And therein lies the problem. 

    In the five years in which I was a senator, I wrote hundreds of articles for newspapers and magazines. The subject on which I received the most hostile feedback was the suggestion that eligibility for pensions should take into account all assets, including the family home. It was inequitable, I argued, that the taxes of those who could not even afford to buy a home were funding the pensions of those living in multi-million-dollar houses. 

    I lost count of the number of people who claimed they were entitled to a pension because they had paid taxes during their working life. Many also argued that age pensions were justified because there were parliamentary pensions (although these were abolished in 2004). 

    It made me realise that Australians want to have their cake and to eat it too. That is, they want the government to pay for all sorts of services, but do not associate this with taxes. Money from the government is somehow different.  

    We keep electing governments that reflect our thinking.

    The outcome is that governments implement generous schemes such as the NDIS, age and disability pensions, Medicare, childcare subsidies and HECS, generally to public acclaim, without mentioning where the money is to come from. There are far more votes in spending money than collecting it. 

    This presents a problem for libertarians, who advocate low taxes and small government. How can they persuade Australians that the hugely expensive government-run schemes they consider to be a right are either not necessary or could be replaced by something that is cheaper and more effective, if approached differently. 

    This same problem is now facing Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei. Although Argentinians elected him with his libertarian agenda, he did not receive a majority of votes and his party does not have a majority in parliament. Argentinians, like Australians, have been told for decades that the government will provide. Like most Australians, most are yet to accept that their expectations are unrealistic. 

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    Unless voters can be persuaded that there is no such thing as free government money, and that personal responsibility yields better results at lower cost, there is little chance governments will implement policies based on that. Even in Argentina, which has defaulted on its national debt no less than eight times, the appetite for economic reality is low. Milei will require the wisdom of Solomon to implement his policies. 

    We must hope that he succeeds. The reality of socialism is universal poverty, but the illusion of unlimited, universal care remains powerful. 

    Digital Incompetence

    By
    Jaimie Stevenson
    -
    2

    The Identity Verification Services Bill 2023 (the Digital ID Bill) was passed by the Senate this month. 

    According to the government the Digital ID System will address the need for a “secure, voluntary, and inclusive method” to verify Australians online, because “recent cyber incidents” have proven the need for identification to be “reliable”. Somehow, this is all said without the slightest hint of irony. 

    Just last year the story emerged that the government’s flagship Digital Identification system, ‘myGov’, had been ‘hacked’ to the tune of over half a billion dollars. Fraudsters claimed $557 million from the Australian Tax Office (ATO) by creating false myGov accounts and linking them to the tax files of 8100 genuine taxpayers. They replaced the bank details of real people and businesses with their own.

    This ‘recent cyber incident’ did indeed prove the need for identification to be secure and reliable. It also proved that government is not the organisation to make it so. 

    But this example of the government’s profound lack of competence with information technology is not isolated or rare. The government’s track record of implementing reliable and secure digital infrastructure projects could only be described as appalling. 

    How can the government claim that its digital identification system will be voluntary and inclusive when it has been knowingly acting unlawfully with identification for years?

    Who can forget when Queensland Health tried to implement a new payroll system? They blew their budget by 20,000%, costing Queensland taxpayers an astonishing $1.2 billion and requiring 1,000 new staff to manually manage the payroll. The independent inquiry described the debacle as “the worst failure in public administration in Australian history”.

    Then there was the disastrous Robo debt scheme. The Australian government tried to build a system to detect welfare fraud and overpayments. 443,000 Australians were abused and wrongly accused of fraud or Centrelink debts. Some were so distressed by the abuse they took their own lives. There was a class action lawsuit resulting in a $1.8billion pay-out from the government. The debacle led to a Royal Commission which described Robo debt as a “human tragedy”. 

    Then there is the $1.5 billion My Health Record project. The former head of the project, Paul Shelter, famously said he would opt-out of the My Health Record system that he himself was responsible for building because of the poor security model. He disliked that your private and personal data can be accessed for reasons of public revenue. He said that the poor security, along with the way people were being signed up (without their express consent) was “symptomatic of the way government handles IT”. The National Audit Office confirmed recently that My Health Record still fails to appropriately manage cybersecurity risks. 

    With a resume of disasters like these, how can we be expected to trust the government to build a secure and reliable digital identification system? The centrepiece of the system – myGov – has already been hacked successfully.

    But the demonstrable lack of trustworthiness of the government with regard to digital identification extends beyond incompetence. The Government has for years been unlawfully using identity verification services without any legislative basis in breach of their own privacy laws. A Senate inquiry heard that the Document Verification Service has been used over 140 million times by approximately 2,700 government agencies and industry organisations. That was just in the past year alone. 

    443,000 Australians were abused and wrongly accused of fraud or Centrelink debts.

    In addition, the Face Verification Service was used 2.6 million times. Senator Shoebridge stated that “The conclusion that pretty much every stakeholder has drawn is that the current identity verification services procedure is unlawful and, in the absence of any statutory underpinning, is open to legal challenge”.

    He warned that the government was facing “potentially significant civil damages” that could be “aggravated by the fact that they continue to operate a service knowing full well that it is unlawful, and in breach of the privacy laws”. 

    The newly passed legislation is clearly a case of the Government giving itself legal permission to do what it has been doing unlawfully. Digital Rights Watch told Senators that the government was now retrofitting a legislative foundation to an existing set of practices and rushing the Bill through to protect itself from liability. The Law Council of Australia also criticised the use of these services without any laws underpinning it.

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    How can the government claim that its digital identification system will be voluntary and inclusive when it has been knowingly acting unlawfully with identification for years? The long history of catastrophically botched digital infrastructure projects prove that we absolutely cannot trust in the government’s competence. But its equally appalling record of disregarding privacy and identity – to the point of ignoring its own laws – prove that it cannot be trusted with our privacy or personal information at all.

    Polite Inquiries

    By
    Max Payne
    -
    2

    Nothing short of a full Royal Commission into the nationwide pandemic response will be satisfactory given the scale of government intervention, the hurt caused, and the economic and social legacy it has left on Australia.

    One of the many well-known rules of politics is that one only calls an inquiry when one is already sure of what it will find. Such was the case in Victoria, when retired judge Jennifer Coate headed the inquiry into Victoria’s bungled Covid hotel quarantine system, a vulnerability which led to months of lockdown across the state. She found that ultimately ‘no one’ was responsible for initiating the conditions under which breaches occurred, which largely revolved around contracted private security being compromised by lack of supervision and infection control training. 

    Premier Daniel Andrews took the opportunity to roll his then Health Minister Jenny Mikakos, and the report was able to pinpoint the decision to use contracted private security as a key failing. In the end, two departments blamed each other (a fine was paid from one to another), Andrews apologised and claimed ‘accountability’, and we never quite found out why the police force or ADF were shunned while expensive security contracts were whipped up and tendered with lightning speed. 

    Daniel Andrews

    So as the Federal Government launches its own inquiry into the Federal response to the Covid 19 pandemic, libertarians, and indeed anyone interested in the truth of these matters, could be forgiven for remaining cynical.  

    But it is a disgrace that we may never be able to hold the states accountable for the most egregious government interventions during the pandemic.

    For one, this inquiry ought to be a Royal Commission – one that can obtain key documents and communications, and compel witnesses to appear and truthfully answer questions. In Victoria, phone records and key communications were redacted, the inquiry and media focussed solely on only one key decision (or ‘creeping assumption’), and the political damage was very limited.    

    As mentioned, an inquiry operates within the confines of what the current government is prepared to expose. In the case of Andrews in Victoria, a few carefully selected heads rolled. With this upcoming Federal inquiry, the goal will undoubtedly be to inflict further damage on former Coalition ministers. 

    The terms of reference focus solely on the federal pandemic response, and specifically rules out the ‘unilateral actions of state and territory governments’. Thus, many of the most harmful government interventions and gross acts of bureaucratic inflexibility cannot be examined. 

    The language of the terms of reference also fails to mention human rights, and seems fixated on systems, rather than the human cost of the pandemic. I daresay the findings of this inquiry will focus on how government can be improved during a pandemic or emergency, not how it can be minimised.    

    One of the many well-known rules of politics is that one only calls an inquiry when one is already sure of what it will find.

    We will however have a chance to ruminate on the two years of international border closures and inflexibility on that front. We can shine a light on the secrecy of National Cabinet meetings, the role of the Home Affairs department in suppressing online information, and the role of the ADF at supporting the enforcement of State restrictions. We can also reflect on the Federal Government’s role in communicating to Australians about Covid-19, vaccines, safety assessments and initial restrictions. Finally, perhaps we will have a chance to inspect the economic damage inflicted by the dramatic fiscal response, perform a cost-benefit analysis and review the economic legacy of programs such as JobKeeper, JobSeeker and HomeBuilder. 

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    But it is a disgrace that we may never be able to hold the states accountable for the most egregious government interventions during the pandemic. What of the bureaucratic inflexibility at state borders, which kept families and loved ones apart and even resulted in the deaths of infants? What of the vaccine mandates that drove a wedge between those who ‘consented’ and those who didn’t, inflicting untold social and economic damage in many cases? What of the state-imposed lockdowns which persisted well beyond the initial period of uncertainty and panic in 2020? 

    We deserve to have these questions picked over with the finest of combs, and those responsible for unnecessary harm must be held accountable.  

    A Hungry Christmas

    By
    Meaghan Whyte
    -
    0

    Christmas is characterised by the ubiquitous plentiful Christmas lunch. However, many Australian families will struggle to afford to put food on the table, as they face food insecurity troubles.

    Defining Food Insecurity
    According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the UN, food insecurity is defined as “whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or the ability to acquire acceptable food in socially acceptable ways, is limited or uncertain.”

    Food insecurity is ascertained by one simple question: “In the past 12 months, were there any times that you ran out of food and couldn’t afford to buy any more?”

    Reasons for food insecurity in Australia
    Cost of living is most often cited as the main reason for food insecurity. Cost of living pressures have been exacerbated by a number of factors.

    • Above average inflation: In January this year, the CPI headline reading of 7.8% was the highest since 1990. This figure has remained around this mark all year. Recently, the RBA stated that inflation won’t return to target range (2% to 3%) until the end of 2025.
    • Elevated food inflation: Data indicate that food prices will continue increasing by up to 10% each year. This will increase the average household’s annual grocery bill of $13,000 by ~$108 per month. 

    Industry levies are insidious. Just like a tax, the cost filters through supply chains, affecting the end consumer.

    • Elevated interest rates:Mortgage payments increased 71% YOY this year, as people came off fixed-rate mortgages and on to higher variable rates. By the end of this year, 48.5% of total borrowers will require 30%+ of their income to service their mortgage, according to Australian National University’s Australian tax and welfare system model.

    • Declining household savings: Increasing mortgage repayments and inflation have seen the average household savings ratio drop to 1.1% – the lowest level since 2007.
    • Wages unable to keep up: The Australian Bureau of Statistics says the wage price index increased 1.3% in Q3, the biggest quarterly rise in the 26-year history of the report. Simultaneously, the RBA raised interest rates to a 12-year high of 4.35% in order to combat a CPI increase of 5.4% over the 12 months to September 2023 quarter.

    Libertarian solutions
    As Adlai Stevenson said, “A hungry man is not a free man”. Addressing food insecurity from a libertarian perspective requires furthering freedom and voluntary cooperation. In practice, this includes minimising government intervention to maximise efficient allocation of resources and productive output.

    Adlai Stevenson

    Australian farmers are essential for our food production and security. According to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), most of the food sold within this country is supplied by Australian producers. 

    National Farmers Federation’s (NFF) recent campaign made a stand against expanding government intervention, claiming “food production is not a central priority for the current Federal government”. NFF went on to add that Labor is running a “niche ideological agenda” and “wilfully ignorant of the plight of farmers”. To support these claims, NFF cited a recent survey finding a majority of farmers think the Labor government’s policies are harming the agricultural industry. 

    Contributing to this sentiment is the federal government’s proposition to introduce a new Biosecurity Protection Levy from the 1st of July 2024. According to the DAFF, “taxpayers, importers, international travellers and producers” would be subjected to this cost. 

    Cost of living is most often cited as the main reason for food insecurity.

    In their research paper ‘Towards Levyathan? Industry levies in Australia’, the Productivity Commission included a case study on the Biosecurity Protection Levy. This report is unerring in its analysis of government motivation for opting for the levy structure. The report:

    • Suggests that targeted industry “levies” may encounter less community resistance compared to broad tax increases.
    • Highlights the public’s immediate concern with direct costs of taxation, emphasising the potential favourability of perceived indirect costs of an efficient tax system.
    • Notes that people may view levies more positively, assuming they are not directly impacted, creating a phenomenon termed “fiscal illusion.”

    Industry levies are insidious. Just like a tax, the cost filters through supply chains, affecting the end consumer. In this case, further increasing grocery bills for families across Australia. The report asks and answers two important questions:

    • Will levy payers be in a position to monitor and influence how levy proceeds are used?
    • How will primary producers know whether levy proceeds are going to activities that they value?
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    The answer: unclear, but unlikely. Levy proceeds will only fund a proportion of overall biosecurity activities, and it is not proposed that those revenues will be allocated to particular activities.

    As libertarians, we stand in opposition to the appropriation of funds for opaque causes. It is essential we “watch the watchmen”, and advocate fiscal responsibility and austerity. This is an important part of our work to spread a singular life-giving, flourishing freedom throughout our country, including affordable food.

    The Libertarian ACT Party’s Influence On The New Coalition Government

    By
    Simon Anderson
    -
    1

    Strange Mixture of Ethno-Nationalism And Soviet-Style Authoritarianism Is A Very Real Risk.

    The proportional representation electoral system in New Zealand encourages the formation of coalition governments. The usual outcome is a coalition featuring one of the traditional major parties, the leftist Labour party or the centrist National party, with another party, perhaps plus other sympathetic parties providing confidence and supply from outside government. 

    Only twice in the 27 years of proportional representation has this scenario not occurred. In 2020, where an electorate inexplicably grateful for the Covid response handed Jacinda Ardern’s Labour party an unprecedented absolute majority, and 2023 when the centrist National party, the populist NZ First and libertarian Act parties formed a three-way coalition. Members of all three parties will hold ministerial warrants inside and outside cabinet, and a comprehensive policy platform has been agreed amongst them.

    The libertarian influence over the new government is a lot less than it could have been

    The essential objective of the policy platform is recovery from the devastation wrought over the last six years by the Labour-led government. Every key economic and social metric is in the red, core Crown debt has tripled, infrastructure is crumbling, cost of living and inflation are crises, Stalinesque centralisation of devolved services such as health and tertiary education have been eye-wateringly expensive failures, and democracy at all levels of government has largely been supplanted by the euphemistically named “co-governance” of public services: Maori prima inter pares Apartheid.

    In six short years the far-left ideologues of the Labour party, cheered on by their fellow travellers in the corrupted media, have taken NZ’s “Rockstar Economy” to the point where the country is teetering on the verge of middle-income instead of first world nationhood, and a society where civil unrest between a coalition government seeking to reassert democratic norms and a significant proportion of the populace dedicated to replacing democracy with a strange mixture of ethno-nationalism and Soviet-style authoritarianism is a very real risk.

    The proportional representation electoral system in New Zealand encourages the
    formation of coalition governments.

    The hope of the Act and NZ First constituencies (and to a lesser extent, their National party peers) is that the two minor coalition partners can provide National with some much needed backbone. Traditionally a centre-right party representative of rural interests, business and exporters, National today has devolved into the blandest of beige centrist parties, pitching themselves as more fiscally prudent and better at delivery than their Labour party counterparts. Whilst accurate, these are not the radical characteristics needed by the incoming coalition to reverse the calamity of six years of unrestrained wokeism.

    A lack of unity amongst the parties might be the coalition’s greatest weakness, embodied by the leader of NZ First Winston Peters, whose reputation for capriciousness and venality is well-earned. Since 1996 he has entered into coalition four times, twice each with Labour and National, an experience both parties came to regret on all four occasions.

    Winston Peters

    The fear of Act and National voters is he will blow up this coalition as he has done to coalitions in the past. And much to the dismay of libertarians, that risk is largely the fault of David Seymour, leader of the Act party. As early as 2022 Act were polling around 15% and an all-time high of 20% seemed achievable, which would almost certainly propel a National/Act coalition to the treasury benches.

    Much to the chagrin of party rank and file, and grandees such as previous leader Rodney Hide, David Seymour took the inexplicable decision to broadly back Jacinda Ardern’s autocratic approach to pandemic lock-downs, vaccine mandates and the protests against them.

    Going so far as repeating Labour party agitprop against anti-mandate demonstrators in a very public refusal to meet with them, Seymour singularly alienated a large section of Act’s constituency. A constituency Winston Peters was only too glad for the opportunity to champion.

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    Embracing the disaffected constituency that Seymour repudiated was enough for Peters to re-enter parliament and coalition government. Conversely for David Seymour, abandoning Act’s libertarian principles consigned the party to a paltry 8.6% of the popular vote, and the ignominy of coalition with NZ First. Act supporters can only hope David Seymour has been suitable chastened by the experience to refrain from such a damaging strategic mistake again, and that Act and National can survive the impact of NZ First upon the coalition government.

    The libertarian influence over the new government is a lot less than it could have been, at least in its first three-year term of office.

    The ABS Just Found 188,000 Public Servants Hiding Behind The Lounge Cushions.

    By
    Dimitri Burshtein
    -
    1

    The Numbers Grow Ever More Staggering Every Year.

    Around early November of every year, the ABS publishes statistics on the number of public sector employees in Australia.  The numbers grow ever more staggering every year.

    The ABS says there were 2,430,400 public sector employees in Australia as at 30 June 2023.  That is across Commonwealth, State, Territory, and Local Government.  By way of context, this is:

    • more than the entire population of Perth;
    • a centimetre away from the entire population of Brisbane;
    • five times the entire population of the ACT; and
    • four times the entire population of Tasmania.

    How bad would the shortages be if the public sector did not hoover up all the skills and resources which are in short supply.

    The salary costs for all these employees for the 12 months to 30 June 2023 was a humble $215 billion.  Again by way of context, Australia could pay for the multi-year AUKUS nuclear submarine program with one and one third years of Australian public sector employee salaries.

    In November 2022, the ABS said there were 2,160,000 public sector employees at June 2022.  Twelve months later, in November 2023, the ABS said there were 2,348,400 at the very same date.  That is, the ABS somehow found an extra 188,000 extra public sector employees hiding behind the lounge cushions.  Just a small 9% variation.

    The ABS says there were 2,430,400 public sector employees in Australia as at 30 June 2023

    This is not a suggestion that there should be no public sector employees.  But 2.4 million?  Is it any wonder that Australia is experiencing economic pain and inflation with ever more resources being transferred from production to the public sector.  Plus all the reported skills shortages … in engineering, ICT, legal, accounting, and trades … how bad would the shortages be if the public sector did not hoover up all the skills and resources which are in short supply.

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    These numbers are staggering but are sadly par for the course in Australia, where our political leaders seem to believe that any problem can be solved by taking money and property by means of legal force from taxpayers to give to people who pay no price when their schemes and solutions don’t work.

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