Is Morrison’s well running dry?

Crikey readers have found some similarities between the Morrison government’s economic fortunes and the current state of the environment — not a drop in sight. Meanwhile, readers pondered how Bernie Sanders‘ politics would go over in Australia, and turned over the fine details of Scott Morrison’s “boycott ban”.

On disappearing tax returns

Richard Shortt writes: It’s the drought, mate. Trickle-down has dried up. How’s about some “not-welfare-cash” for those of us doing it tough? Don’t forget, we wage- and salary-earning townies are the “salt of the earth” too, because without us our “salt of the earth” country cousins wouldn’t have a market, or someone to pay taxes to fund their “not-welfare-cash” payments.

On Bernie Sanders

David Edmunds writes: Bernie Sanders has proposed a policy suite that looks very like the Greens here, and not that different from Angela Merkel who is considered conservative in Europe. He appears extraordinary only because of the contrast with the status quo in the US. I doubt that many Australians would be surprised at a leader who espoused the Sanders policy suite, mostly because we have a good deal of it already — for example, universal health care and reasonable minimum wages. What Australia lacks is a political leader who is capable of selling a policy suite such as a green new deal, even though it is likely that a substantial majority of Australians already believe in it.

On the boycott boycott

Steven Westbrook writes: He’s buying into Canavan’s fantasy that its only cowardice that is stopping new investment in coal. Damn those easily intimidated insurance companies.

Humphrey Bower writes: Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the freedom to boycott are three different forms of freedom. The first two can legitimately be restricted in the name of non-violence, irrespective of political orientation (apart from fascism, which is inherently violent and hence intolerable either in public speech or as a form of public assembly, at least in a democratic society). To legislate against boycotts however either in the context of labour or investment is a form of state violence which is fundamentally undemocratic, except arguably in times of war or national emergency.