Mark David cartoon: Liberal leader Peter Dutton at left, Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at right. Courtesy Independent Australia.
Australia’s economy is currently booming. Jobs and wages are setting records. GDP growth remains positive. Anthony Albanese’s Labor Government reduced net debt in its first 21 months by $20.5 billion. Inflation is down to 3.4%.
Exports of manufactured goods hit a surprising all-time high of $44.9 billion last year. Total exports over the 21 months since the May 2022 election have averaged $48.2 billion per month. That compares with $38.8 billion over the same period before the change of government. Impressive.
Australia leading the world again
Right now, only one country in the entire world enjoys top credit ratings, wealth per person above US$450,000, has jobless and inflation rates below 4% and GDP growth above 1.5%. That is Albo’s Australia.
Employment booming since Labor took office. Graph courtesy Independent Australia.
Clearly, Labor is vastly better at economic management than the conservative Coalition. All independent journalists who report factually agree on this – both of us.
Labor is also generating far better outcomes in housing, climate change, foreign affairs and just about everything else.
Meanwhile, the Coalition — comprising the so-called Liberal Party and the Nationals — has done nothing to restore its tattered reputation for corruption and incompetence. It has the least qualified front bench in living memory; it is floating harebrained schemes like nuclear reactors; it wants to jail more young Australians; and is embroiled in a senior staffer’s tawdry rape trials.
Australia’s conservative Coalition lurches from one scandal to another.
Two party preferred polling
Based on all objective data, voter support must surely show Labor now leading the Coalition by around 65% to 35%.
It doesn’t. Roy Morgan’s survey last Monday found Labor would lose an election held this month, with 50.5% preferring the Coalition.
How do we explain this? How do we address this?
Systemic mood manipulation
Two long-term factors are in play. First, voters are not given the facts which prove emphatically better outcomes. The mainstream media lie routinely.
Second, media messaging during Labor periods is continually morose and pessimistic, which drives a pervasive despondency.
Take Australia’s current extraordinary export success, for example. The Australian Financial Review last Tuesday ran an editorial titled, “What comes after the China boom for Australia?”
It was all darkness and despair:
“Inbound investment from China has collapsed since 2016, and only half the number of Chinese tourists are now coming. Everything, from flights to university research projects, is declining.”
Consultancy firm Deloitte issued a circular email last Wednesday, headlined “Uncertainty clouds the outlook for exports”.
More doom and gloom, claiming that “global goods and services trade declined by 3% to $31 trillion last year’ and ‘a range of global supply issues put significant pressure on agricultural exports ...” blah, blah, blah.
Oh, woe is me! Abandon all hope!
This column emailed Deloitte with the observation that “economic outcomes invariably improve dramatically when Labor governments run the show, but reportage is always far more negative” and asked if they had “published anything since the May 2022 election which reflects the substantial change of fortunes for the better?”
Senior Economist Hamish Burrell replied that,
“We don’t provide commentary on the economic performance of political terms. We don’t have any reports that isolate Australia’s economic performance since the change of government in May 2022.”
Precisely.
Now for something positive – from the USA
The media landscape worldwide is changing as freelance reporters are using YouTube and other social media to erode the influence of these pro-conservative manipulators.
Prominent in the USA is independent broadcaster Brian Tyler Cohen whose YouTube channel has gained more than 2.6 million subscribers and 2.1 billion views since 2018. In February 2022 he became the first YouTuber to interview President Joe Biden.
Pioneering YouTuber Brian Cohen
Cohen told this column he now publishes about 25 videos per week, and his most rewarding guests, besides Biden, were Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Maddow and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The Meidas Touch Network covers ‘the intersection of law and politics’ with multiple ‘hot takes’ aired through the day in rapid response to unfolding events. It now has 2.3 million subscribers.
Other YouTubers building audiences include the long-running Young Turks which has an impressive 5.8 million subscribers, law professor Devin Stone’s LegalEagle series and Pod Save America by Crooked Media, a collective of former Barack Obama staffers.
Australia’s leader is Friendly Jordies, featuring comedian Jordan Shanks, whose YouTube clips often gain more than a million views. Shanks copped a setback when his house was firebombed in late 2022 prompting his lawyers to insist he take a break for a few months. He was back last week with an incisive look at union elections in NSW.
Brilliant but controversial Australian Youtuber Jordan Shanks
Honest Government Ads produced by Juice Media is another excellent long-running series which hilariously skewers both sides of Australian politics in highly polished clips of between two and five minutes.
Independent Australia (IA) has also entered the field with regular videos on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok gaining an expanding audience.
We could say much more about the style and content of these emerging media, most of it positive. So, one day soon, we will.
Meanwhile, Australians must understand their economy is in good hands, whatever the vested interests say. They should cancel their newspapers, subscribe to IA and the other innovative online outlets – and cheer up.
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This is an edited version of an article published today in Independent Australia, available in full here for free:
Deceitful media attacks on Labor under challenge by independent news sources (independentaustralia.net)
