Tag: Politics

Housing Politics is Hurting All the Wrong People
December 16, 2023 10:08 am Comments Off on Housing Politics is Hurting All the Wrong People
Who owns your home?
Maybe it’s owned by your parents. Maybe a landlord. Maybe a super fund, or, if you’re one of the 6000 students living on ANU’s campus, perhaps it’s global investment firm AMP Capital. Maybe, just maybe, it’s you.

But most people reading this don’t own their place and won’t for years.
A third of Australia’s population is renting, and they’re pretty much stuck there. Growing numbers of Australians are becoming painfully aware that they’re locked out of the housing market as house prices hurtle upwards.
Any economics student can tell you price rises are produced by rising demand or falling supply. Australian housing demand has recently grown ridiculously fast, largely because immigration intakes have risen to record levels from the start of this century.
Supply growth, meanwhile, has been painfully low. New developments are hindered by a string of red tape restrictions and recent inflation has driven up the cost of construction labour and materials. Historically low numbers of properties are available to buy or rent.
All the demand growth and supply slowdowns are great news for the other two-thirds of the population that own property. Increased house prices make landlords and homeowners wealthier, so they want prices to keep rising.
But for renters and hopeful homebuyers, price increases translate to higher rents or bigger mortgages. Rents rose around 10 per cent on average nationwide over 2022, and have increased at a similar pace ever since.
As 2023 comes to a close, ANU students have once again ventured into the Canberra suburbs in the hope of renting a sharehouse. We hear the same horror stories every year: the searchers have found themselves stuck in lines of prospective tenants going down the block, alongside families, smartly-dressed APS grads, and way too many awkward classroom acquaintances.
Canberra, even more than the rest of the country, is crying out for change. But most of the national debate is stuck in Microeconomics 1.
The country’s governments are focused on the supply issues. They’re aiming to build 1.2 million new homes in the next five years. This includes direct spending on new houses, like the federal government’s $10 billion housing fund. But the shortage of tradies and building materials means every house a government builds is a house a private developer can’t build, so direct spending will have limited effect.
To get around shortages, governments are also encouraging supply by cutting building restrictions. The ACT has made cautious changes like letting landlords split large plots of land into two smaller plots. Victoria went full Dictator Dan and threatened to take planning powers from councils, and NSW followed suit by announcing it will force some councils to unwind development bans.
Big changes to restrictions could enable more new builds, but it will still take a few years for new houses to get built. Even worse, developers tend to release new builds slowly, rather than all at once, to keep local property prices high and maximise their profits. Supply moves slowly, by nature and by design.
So if we want instant results, perhaps we should turn to demand. We could shift demand quickly by cutting our immigration intake. Less population growth means less extra people who compete to buy or rent. 60 to 70 per cent of Australians want less immigration, including federal opposition leader Peter Dutton. However, cutting immigration would also do real damage. Australia’s migration system aims to bring in workers who have much-needed skills, so less immigration would worsen our labour shortages. Calls to reduce immigration also sound dangerously like xenophobic dog whistling and White Australia nostalgia, particularly in the current racially charged environment.
The federal government has decided to take a cautious middle ground by veering away from 2023’s record highs while keeping a strong immigration intake. We’ll see small cuts in housing demand growth, but nowhere near enough to solve the crisis.
If tinkering with demand and supply won’t give us better housing affordability, where do we turn? One alternative, championed by the Greens in Australia, is to slam a roof on top of demand and supply forces and simply freeze (or cap) rent levels. If the government says your landlord can’t raise the rent, you won’t have to pay more rent.
A rent freeze would by definition improve rental affordability. However, it would also necessarily make it impossible for landlords to increase their profits from rentals. No matter how many shiny new kitchens they put in or how much black mould they clean up, they wouldn’t be able to charge more rent. Rental properties would gradually get worse and worse.
The Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather led the campaign for a rent freeze this year, and told Woroni 2023 was “just the start,” but his proposal is fundamentally flawed. Even in Canberra, where we have strict rent caps, it takes countless applications and hundreds of dollars in rent bidding to be accepted for a rental.

This narrow focus on price limits, demand, and supply ignores the distribution of housing.
Who owns your home?
Around 70 per cent of Australia’s private housing stock is owner-occupied. The other 30 percent of houses are investment properties. That 30 percent is held by 2.2 million Australians or around 20 percent of Australia’s 11.4 million taxpayers. Investors hold more than their share.

Australia’s tax system encourages this skewed distribution
because we’ve rigged it to ensure landlord profit from investing in housing. We let investors take a 50 per cent discount on capital gains tax payments, plus extra tax deductions (AKA negative gearing) when their rent income doesn’t cover their property purchase and maintenance costs.
Investors get an easy ride regardless of how much we boost supply or cut immigration, so they’ll keep buying up every house that comes on the market. Every house an investor buys is a house a renter can’t buy, so the distribution will stay uneven.
ACT Senator David Pocock believes the solution lies in getting rid of these tax benefits. “If you start out from the point of view that housing is a human right, rather than an investment vehicle or wealth creation tool,” he tells Woroni, “then you change our tax system.”
The independent Senator says a rent freeze is “just kicking the can down the road for a couple of years.” He reckons the problem is not just demand or supply, but the “whole heap of people who have invested, just based on rules”.
Pocock wants the government to “turn the ship” – to cut the capital gains tax discount and “limit the number of properties that you can negatively gear and slowly phase [deductions] out over time”.
These tax benefits are supposed to keep up rental supply by encouraging people to become landlords. But, to bring Micro 1 back into frame, this also encourages demand for housing, which drives up prices and drives renters out of property markets.

Tax reform would make housing less profitable, pushing landlords out of the property market and into alternative investments.
Some renters could buy in, and those who keep renting won’t be facing as much competition.
We’d still face the same issues of supply shortages and demand growth, and we’d still only have a few homes making it to market. But those homes will go to the people who need a place to live, instead of those who already have one.
Who owns your home?
If we put renters and landlords back on an even footing, then, maybe, just maybe, it could be you.

Luca Ittimani
A Road to Nowhere Part II
November 12, 2022 12:33 pm Comments Off on A Road to Nowhere Part II
What is it about the current tertiary education system that makes it so unfit for purpose? Maybe I just picked the wrong degree, but if what I’ve described is the recipe for success, our definition of success is surely very, very wrong.

The Australian writer Judith Brett considers this very question in her book Doing Politics: Writing in Public Life. She writes that over the past few decades, during her time as both a student and a professor, she has watched the tertiary education system change for the worse. She writes that what was once a temple of imagination, creativity and ideas has become nothing more than a hollowed-out shopping mall, littered with bad cafés, flashy signs and price-gouging bookshops.

Reflecting on her own time as an undergraduate, she writes that today, “students are offered far less than we were, and they have to pay much more for it.” She laments a system which used to encourage the creation of ideas, rather than their codification into checklists and commercialisation into products. She summarises that today’s universities reward work that is “cautious and uninteresting, producing no new ideas.” She writes that students and academics alike are made to focus on what their superiors want and will be likely to reward rather than what is actually valuable.

The regrettable truth of tertiary education in Australia is that it is just another public good that has been corporatised by neoliberalism, an ideology that measures success according to concepts that have no meaning in a university setting. Words like ‘productivity’ and ‘efficiency’ and that old dreadful poisonous phrase ‘economic rationalism’ have corrupted how we value thought and have reduced our universities to nothing more than another JB HiFi, Target or Big W. The success and standing of a university are no longer measured by the value of the education it provides or the ideas it creates but by the money it makes, the useless theories it sells and how many students trade their souls for clerkships in a race to the bottom. No matter how useless the course, how great the disillusionment or how hopeless the search for employment becomes, the university will get its due. The debt many of us carry around our necks for decades will see to that. It is our souvenir of a road to nowhere.

So the question has to be asked, how do we change this? The answer must be to remove money from the question of tertiary education in its entirety. Only the creation of a universal and costless tertiary education system where money is not the primary motivator can foster the imaginative, creative and original thinking which the world requires. One of the many mistakes of neoliberalism is its defining assumption that everything can be monetised. By its very nature, thought is incapable of being accorded a monetary value. How can you measure essays in dollars? How can you rank ideas according to their financial value? It is simply ridiculous. Yet this is exactly what modern tertiary education does. The fees you pay represent your financial value to the university. Not the value of your ideas, your imagination or your intelligence, but the value of your simple attendance. There is no longer any incentive to engage or even to educate students, just a base motivation to attract them with flashy marketing and then keep them in the store for as long as possible as the fees roll on and on and on.

If cost-cutting, profit-making and corporatisation were no longer the foundations of tertiary education, checklists would be abandoned and soulless courses would be dropped. Universities would be free to reward careful, considerate and quality research which actually added something to the public debate. This would not only enrich the quality of tertiary education but also broaden its base, reducing the gap between rich and poor, young and old by offering students a more equal access to quality education. When universities become something more than callous superstores, they will no longer sell a simple product, but will be free to engage, to inspire and to truly educate.

Surely I can’t be the only one who feels like this. I can’t be the only one who has found tertiary education nothing more than the brutal education of an idealist. I can’t be the only one who feels like it’s all one giant waste of time and money. I know a return to free tertiary education is ambitious. I know it sounds impossible. I know that creative solutions are not easy. But we live in times that demand creativity. The day will come when our generation is called alone to solve the seemingly unsolvable problems of our time, passed down by mediocre and gutless politicians for decades. We will overcome the climate crisis. We will create a society free of crippling socio-economic inequality. We will arrest the slide into populism, oligarchy and autocracy. When that time comes, the world will need imagination more than ever. It will need leaders who are unafraid of the bold, the original and the unthinkable. It will be us who turn the impossible into the possible and broaden the horizons of humanity once more.

But we will not get there with a tertiary education system which rewards unearned characteristics, punishes creativity and turns the possible into the impossible. We will not one day be fit to lead if we allow our imaginations to be limited by a grading system which resembles nothing more than a glorified checklist. The only way to prepare our generation and future generations for the world to come is to create a system which inspires, which fosters imagination and most importantly, looks like the world which we want to build.
With Disraeli’s quote in mind I ask you all, students of ANU, do you feel full of light? Do you feel free? Are you really learning? Does your university look like the world you want to build?

Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 2 ‘To Be Confirmed’
Read Part I here.
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.

Another Disillusioned Millennial
Progressing Progressives: A Response
August 9, 2022 6:45 pm Comments Off on Progressing Progressives: A Response
In reading the latest edition of Woroni, Evolution, we were particularly interested in one article: “Why we need fewer progressive ACT Senate candidates” by Norm D Plum. The article argued that the existence of progressive independent candidates hijacked primary votes from Labor and Greens Senate candidates and claimed that such independents should instead run for positions in the House where they would have a greater chance of being elected. We believe that there is no issue with more progressive senate candidates in the ACT, and that it may even be preferable for prospective independent candidates to run for the upper house. As is typical in the discussion of politics, one can agree upon the ends but be conflicted on the means; though we ostensibly share a desire to oust Zed, we have some qualms with the arguments Plum presents.

We summarise Plum as having two main arguments. The first is the notion that independents adversely affect primary votes to major parties leading to an overall reduced chance of a progressive senator being elected. The second is that independents are unlikely to win in the Senate and thus should focus on the House.

To respond to the first, let us explain how the electoral system works for the Senate. In the proportional voting system, the state or territory votes as a whole, and candidates must secure a percentage of the votes, a third plus one in the ACT, to gain office. Voters get to rank their choices of candidates either ‘above the line’ or ‘below the line,’ and the candidate with the least votes gets eliminated and their votes redistributed. If a candidate secures more than the quota with first preference votes, the surplus is redistributed proportionately. This process repeats until all seats are secured.

For the prospective independent, this means it’s impossible that voting for an independent to harm the chances of major party candidates being elected. If the independent candidate is eliminated, their votes will flow on to other candidates. If a Liberal candidate was preferenced after said independent, then Labor would not have been that voter’s first preference anyway. Thus, there is no reason for any voter to avoid independents that they resonate with, in order to elect a major party candidate who is more likely to succeed.

On the second argument, the idea that running in the lower house is ‘a comparatively easier pathway into Parliament’ is incorrect. In the Senate, there are 14 bonafide independents (people who are elected on their own or with a minor party, not including major party defectors). As there are 76 Senators in total; independents make up close to 20 percent of the chamber. In the House, however, there are only five bona fide independents out of 151 total MPs; the percentage is significantly lower at about four percent. An immediate takeaway from this examination should be that it is easier for an independent to be elected to the Senate.

This analysis can be taken deeper. Take the political melting pot of Queensland – the kingmaker state in elections. In the 2019 election, one third of Senators elected were independent, compared to one thirtieth in the House of Representatives – ostensibly 10 times more difficult to be elected. This should immediately cast doubt on the claim that getting elected to the House as an independent is easier than getting elected to the Senate.

One should also analyse the viability of running as an independent in lower house elections for the ACT. The Division of Bean, Fenner and Canberra are the ACT’scurrent federal divisions. In each of them, Labor has a two-party preferred vote of 57.5 percent, 60.6 percent and 67.1 percent – a strong lead considered not marginal. For the scheming independent wishing to throw their hat into the ring, the odds of success do not look particularly high when faced with this statistic.

The second issue with the argument that independents should try their luck in the House rather than the Senate is that it does not recognise the huge loss of bargaining power associated with being an independent in the House. The only times when an independent member of the House is effective at advancing their own policy is during times of minority government. For example, during the 2010 Gillard minority government, the Greens were able to negotiate the creation of a carbon tax. Similarly, during the 2019 Morrison minority government, independent members of Parliament were even able to pass the MedeVac bill, contrary to official LNP government policy.

Whilst in these situations an independent has monumental bargaining power, minority governments are atypical. Instead, an independent has much more bargaining power in the Senate, where the governing party hasn’t had a majority since the 2000s and times of Howard. In this capacity, an independent Senator typically has much more control over all facets of policy due to how essential their vote is. To demonstrate the amount of power an independent senator has, one only has to look at Jacqui Lambie. In 2019, in exchange for voting for the government’s $158 billion dollar election flagship tax cut, she negotiated for the government to scrap all of Tasmania’s – her home state – public housing debt. This couldn’t be done by an independent in the House where the government almost always has a majority.

All in all, whilst Plum’s and our objectives overlap, we disagree on a number of points. We hope this article has convinced them and the readership of two things. One, that a preponderance of independents running for the Senate is not at all an electoral negative. And secondly, independents – especially in the ACT – should attempt to win the Senate ballot rather than the House.

“Why we need fewer progressive ACT Senate candidates” by Norm D Plum can be found on page 55 of Woroni Vol. 72 issue 1”

Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 2 ‘To Be Confirmed’
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.

Will Haldane
Why we need fewer progressive ACT senate candidates
April 11, 2022 3:45 pm Comments Off on Why we need fewer progressive ACT senate candidates
With the usual flurry of policy announcements from both the government and opposition, preparation for the 2022 federal election is well underway. This year’s preparations extend beyond the major and minor parties, with increased numbers of independent candidates declaring they will run for both house and senate seats.
These independents aim to draw on previous successes by the Voices campaigns, running socially-progressive and pro-climate campaigns in what are traditionally safe liberal seats. While the likely successes of these candidates are mixed (in the last election only Zali Steggall and Helen Haines were elected) it is clear that there is a growing trend of high-profile independent candidates who want their voices heard. The ACT is no exception.
In recent weeks rugby hero turned climate activist David Pocock has announced that he will run for a senate seat in the ACT, joining an already crowded independent field which includes Professor Kim Rubenstein and her campaign: Kim4CBR. Professor Rubenstein, an Honorary Professor at the ANU College of Law and Director of the 50/50 Foundation at the University of Canberra, has expressly stated that her aim is to “topple” long-standing ACT-Senator Zed Seseljja. Pocock has similarly targeted Seselja, noting his long-standing opposition to permitting the ACT to debate (and vote on) laws on voluntary assisted dying.
While both independent candidates have publicly stated they believe they can win, does past electoral data support these claims? And would it be better to have fewer progressive candidates running for the ACT Senate?
To be elected to the senate a candidate needs to secure a quota, which, in the ACT, reflects 1/3 of the formal votes plus one vote. At the 2019 election the quota was 90,078 votes.
As Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) data shows, at the last federal election the Liberal Party secured 87,492 first preference votes (or 0.97 quotas). In contrast, the Greens received 0.53 quotas, and the Labor Party 1.18 quotas. This elected Senator Katy Gallagher on first preferences, before a flurry of counting occurred with Gallagher’s remainder doled out to its next preference and the candidate on the lowest votes eliminated (with their vote then being redistributed and the process repeating).
To get the rest of the story, we have to turn to the full AEC preference distribution data. As the data reveals, after 25 counts Seselja was elected with 92,278 votes after the first United Australia Party candidate’s preferences were distributed. At the time of that last count the remaining candidates (by order of count at that time) were:

Zed Seselja (Liberal) – 92,278 votes.
Penny Kyburz (Greens) – 51,780 votes.
Nancy Waites (Labor) – 19,780 votes.
Anthony Pesec – 15,999 votes.

Anthony Pesec (who claimed to be the best chance to challenge Seselja) campaigned on a pro-territory rights and pro-climate change platform and seems the most likely indication of how Professor Rubenstein and Pocock would (collectively) poll. As is apparent, it seems unlikely that they can topple Seselja.
One key difference between Professor Rubenstein’s and Pocock’s campaigns and previously successful independent candidates is that they are running for one of two ACT Senate spots, rather than a lower house seat. This means that rather than dropping the liberal party vote below 50%, they will need to drop it below 33% and secure a very heavy preference flow.
For an independent in the ACT, this seems an unenviable task – and one that would be more likely to be achieved by a strong Greens candidate (in cohort with a centre-right independent member). While both Professor Rubenstein and Pocock have existing platforms to draw on, it does not seem that either candidate will be attracting many traditionally conservative voters.
The more likely scenario is that they will pull votes that would have otherwise flowed to Labor or the Greens, dividing the primary vote and increasing the likelihood of Seselja’s re-election. While time will tell, on a preliminary view, those that wish for a new second ACT Senator (one perhaps more in favour of supporting territory rights and climate change action) may well be better served by fewer candidates.
In the case of Professor Rubenstein and Pocock, one might also fairly ask that if they genuinely wished to be elected, why are they not running for a lower house seat with a comparatively easier pathway into Parliament?

Originally published in Woroni Vol.72 Issue 1 ‘Evolution’

Norm D Plum
Some Personal Reflections on the Uyghur Situation
April 9, 2021 2:31 pm Comments Off on Some Personal Reflections on the Uyghur Situation
As a politics student, I’m fully aware that one day I would encounter this issue, but I never thought it would be so soon.
Growing up in Urumqi and holding Uyghur heritage as well as Chinese heritage, I feel I’m quite knowledgeable when it comes to this topic: Uyghurs. Many of the more politically inclined readers may already be familiar with this topic, but a brief and proper introduction is important nonetheless.
The conflicts between the Uyghur community and the vast majority of the combined Chinese community is actually a controversy between states (nation-states) and nations (ethnic minorities). China contains nations like the majority Han, Mongolian, Tibetan, Kazakhs, Uyghur etc. In other words, the inconsistency between the nation and the state it belongs to, is possibly the main cause of the issues.
I have never been a patriotic person, quite unfortunately. I don’t like China one bit. I am never proud of my nationality and instead, I often see it as a motive that constantly drives me to work hard and leave as soon as possible (thanks to ScoMO’s harsh migration policies, that may be some time away). I hate almost every policy implemented by my government, except for the COVID-19 policies — it saved my life and got me vaccinated in the very first round. Growing up in a multicultural environment and attending an international high school, I have been very much exposed to different cultures, not just the Western world. Frankly, everything I believe in is the exact opposite of the so-called standard moral beliefs in China nowadays. I always feel like an outsider in my own country, a girl without a nationality. I don’t know what is true and what is not, so I am here to share some of my beliefs. Whether you agree is up to you.
I have to stress that there is a huge difference in the ideologies between the West and the East. Western ideology often identifies conflicts between a nation and a state that is striving for independence. Chinese ideology, on the other hand, chooses to ignore their differences no matter how trivial or significant, and aims to achieve a peaceful position in between. For example, Scotland and Catalonia have been fighting for their respective independence for decades. However, in China you rarely see ethnic groups seeking independence. To put it more simply, people in the East tend to surrender to their governments or authorities. They seek peace and quiet instead of freedom and so-called democracy. That’s probably the reason why countries in Asia are more successful during this pandemic. Even though some people (i.e. me) have their doubts about government policy, when it’s a matter of life and death, they end up reluctantly following government directives. Nonetheless, there were some Uyghur and Tibetan people who tried to gain independence from China, but undoubtedly failed and ended up escaping to the USA.
The 90’s are referred to as ‘the Golden Times’. Almost everywhere in the world people were experiencing an all-time high in prosperity in every aspect of life. Uyghur people at that time were also experiencing freedom, especially in the form of artistic expression. People of different nationalities (ethnic groups) in China created magnificent art during the 90s, because they were free back then. Nowadays everything is under a strict censorship.
In the 21st-century, the Uyghur community continued to grow. Before President Xi took office in 2013, we were living like a little kingdom inside a super country. People inside this little kingdom had achieved autonomy to the level of independence. When Xi was in charge, he came to realise that this little kingdom must come to an end or it would no longer be HIS little kingdom. Consequently, he did something that all of us considered cruel. He knew that when you want to erase a nation you must forbid its people to speak their own language. So he gradually closed all bilingual schools and forced ethnic children to learn only Mandarin Chinese. This lasted for some years. When I was young I saw some bilingual schools but from 2019 onwards, they ceased to exist.
Meanwhile, President Xi forced all television and radio shows to be broadcasted only in Mandarin Chinese. He sent a group of our great leaders, thinkers, authors to be ‘re-educated’, some of whom were never seen again. I have seen my people in great pain during the first few years of Xi’s movement. I have once been to the prison where those great minds were re-educated — it is too painful to describe what I’ve seen. Many Uyghur people escaped overseas to countries like Australia and Canada, but their relatives left in China remain under strict censorship. Passports have been taken away by the government, and hotels in other cities of China won’t accept Uyghur guests. Local shops were closed, everything written in Mandarin — ethnic languages were forbidden to be spoken even occasionally.
But in late 2018, Xi stopped and gave freedom back to those tragic people. Uyghur languages were seen again in the street. Radios and televisions could speak Uyghur or other ethnic languages as well. Passports were given back, some re-educated people released from prison and people were able to contact their relatives overseas. Everything seemed to back the way it used to be. But it wasn’t. It may have seemed okay, but the impacts of Xi’s political strategy were devastating, especially towards my generation. An increasing number of youth are claiming Mandarin as their mother tongue. Only approximately 25 percent of them can write in Uyghur. Cultural prosperity will never be seen again, we don’t have famous poets or philosophers or even artists. Our most famous works are now in Mandarin.
Even though Uyghur people have regained their freedom, their culture has been harshly damaged. As for the damage to the Islamic culture itself, sadly the last two generations in my family identify with their heritage before their religion. We don’t combine them together, and tend to explain our habits associated with Islamic culture as more of a ‘tradition’. For example, I don’t eat pork simply because ‘I just don’t’. Many people won’t follow a strict rule of ‘halal’, they’ll eat anything as long as there is no pork. They even get red packets resembling those from the Lunar New Year at Eid al-Adha.
There are also rumours about genocide and inhumane actions administered by the Chinese government. I personally don’t believe in that. It is brutal, but I have decided to keep an open mind about this until I find evidence of my own.
Last but not least, despite so many unfortunate things that have happened in the past, my generation are more and more accepted by the general Chinese public. Uyghur students are given a 50 points bonus in the most fiercely competitive Chinese gaokao (National College Entrance Exam) which enables us to more easily access the top universities in China. People now recognise us as a beautiful and mysterious ethnic group and you can see outstanding Uyghur people in every field within China. It’s true that we are under a lot of censorship here, but who isn’t? It’s China. I can’t even log onto Facebook without the help of a VPN.
We are living in a peaceful and free environment now, and all those fears are gone. This new generation is doing everything possible to spread our unique culture. It isn’t lost, and it never will be! I do not want my generation to be filled with hatred towards our country, all we ever wanted was peace and love. Like I said, I don’t like China one bit but I LOVE the cities and associated cultures I am living in, or have lived in – specifically Nanjing and Urumqi.
I hope this is the last time I talk about this issue. We should always have our own judgement and choose our own path.

Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.

Anonymous
Liar, Liar
March 15, 2021 4:52 pm Comments Off on Liar, Liar
On January 6th 2021, the world looked at America in awe, confusion and distaste. We saw the supposed leader of freedom and democracy, promoting chaos and the world’s most powerful nation in turmoil. As angry hordes of Trump supporters scaled the Capitol walls and ran wildly through the corridors screaming, we wondered, how had it come to this?
Former President Donald Trump has always been a loud voice on Twitter, spouting false news, lies and derogatory language to his followers who willingly soak it up like sponges. Twitter attempted to counter his influence by implementing a fact-checking system and later banning him altogether, but it was too late. Trump’s followers sit comfortably in their echo chambers, locked in and unwilling to believe anyone but their oracle and his followers.
Was the storming of the capitol a surprise? Doubtful. A line can be drawn from Trump’s win of the 2016 election right up to the storming of the capitol and the deceit behind Trump himself is to blame. Throughout his 2016 campaign, Trump undermined traditional news media. Trump claimed he was being treated ‘unfairly’ for not being a career politician. By presenting himself as a powerful businessman instead of a politician, he distanced himself from the distrust Americans direct at politicians. Through this, Trump was able to use the fact that only 10 percent of Republicans trusted traditional media to convince them that he knew all. . Once the campaigning began, he called climate change a hoax, claimed Hillary Clinton was an unsuitable candidate due to illness and stated that the traditional media was ‘corrupt.’. By the time Trump had won, he’d already consolidated a scepticism of the media among his followers. In 2016, as Trump was sworn in, his followers’ belief was reinforced, because if Trump had lied, how was he then President?
A 2017 journal article by Hunt Allcott and Mathew Gentzkow found that social media’s capability to spread unreliable news fuelled a rumour mill crucial to Trump’s win. Twitter and Facebook gave Trump a platform to preach to his adoring fans every day, hour and minute. Both platforms also provided an audience prepared for information isolation. Allcott and Gentzkow determined that only 20 percent of our Facebook friends have alternate political beliefs to us . This is natural human behaviour, we surround ourselves with like-minded people. By eliminating opposing views, we start to believe that everyone has the same opinion, which makes perfect sense. If you don’t see any contradictory opinions, you’ll assume that yours is the only one.
So what caused the storming of the Capitol? It was the change of tact in Trump’s tweets. Previously his tweets would claim the Democrats threaten the economy or fuel violence. But then Trump stated that the Democrats were destroying something far worse to white middle-class Americans. Their freedom. Months before the election in August 2020, Trump would tout that mail-in ballots could and would be easily rigged. In April, he tweeted that mail-in ballots had “Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans…” Trump had begun to sow the seed of conspiracy among his supporters. He stated this in August, “Make sure because the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged”.
Trump continued to cast doubt into the population but upped the ante following Election Day while votes were still being counted. Before taking the stage to claim that “frankly we did win this election”, Trump tweeted that “WE are up big, but THEY are trying to STEAL the election… Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed” . Trump insinuated that ballot counting was taking longer because ballots were being falsely counted. Following this, Trump began to threaten court cases against states, all of which were thrown out.
Trump predicted his loss, at no fault of his own, and that he was the victim of a rigged election that undercut the two key pillars of American society, Democracy and Freedom. On January 6th, Trump spoke at the Capitol protests; “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore…So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue… and we’re going to the Capitol”.
Their fates were sealed.
Whilst there can be no justification or excuse for the events of January 6 2021, true Trump supporters believed that their democracy was under threat because that’s what they were fed. We need only look at the right-wing media’s response to see this. Tucker Carlson of FoxNews brought into the narrative that the election had been undemocratic, stating that “as long as people sincerely believe they can change things by voting they stay calm, they don’t storm the bastille…”. The truth is the 2020 election was, statistically, the most democratic American election ever, with 66 percent voter turnout (the largest since 1900) and greater minority representation. . Regardless of who they voted for, the US citizens took part in their democracy to the fullest extent possible. The right’s attempt to blow off the election as fraudulent only served to show us how little of the truth they can see.
In the end, the Capitol storming was a long time coming. The combination of Trump and social media created a form of poison that we’re lucky to have a cure for – his banishment from these sites. This doesn’t mean that the danger is all gone though. While Trump no longer lingers on social media, we’re not immune to his sickness. It is not just the far-right that can find itself in echo chambers. It can happen to anyone. We should all strive to question more, research more, learn more. This article is not an attempt to ban all social media, but to serve as a warning for what happens when we fail to see the truth. When someone yells from their soapbox, should you always listen?

Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.

Coquohalla J Connor
BREAKING (the) NEWS
11:33 am Comments Off on BREAKING (the) NEWS
There is a new drug out on the market which is causing “a misperception of risk, anxiety, lower mood levels, learned helplessness, contempt and hostility towards others, [and] desensitisation”. This drug is consumed on average by 80 percent of adults in western countries each day and is more popular than alcohol or even caffeine. This drug is subsidised and legally protected by many governments, and can be tailor-made and delivered on a massive scale to anyone with a social media account. This drug is the news. Although many of us may be aware of the dangers of fake or false news, new research suggests that even true news can be dangerous, especially for our mental health. The vast majority of news seen online or on TV focuses on negative, sensational, and attention-grabbing stories. This focus distorts our view of humanity and causes us to believe the world is a far worse place than what most statistics would suggest. Mainstream news is suffering from a deficit of perspective. The truth matters, but the truth can be harmful if we are not given the full picture.
There is a growing literature which suggests the news is a mental health hazard. One study by Wendy Johnston and Graham Davey in 1997 found that people who were shown negative news stories displayed increases in anxiety, a lower overall general mood, and were more likely to catastrophise a personal worry. Additionally, Florian Arendt found in 2010 that people who regularly follow the news are more likely to have an overly negative view of society and overestimated the occurrence of harmful events such as physical assault. Some would say that this is, of course, a natural reaction when one escapes their own bubble and faces the facts. The news is simply revealing the truth: that the world is a terrible place, and society is on the brink of collapse.
To measure people’s overall sentiment with this gloomy view of the world, YouGov asked in 2015 “all things considered, do you think the world is getting better or worse, or neither getting better nor worse?”. Amongst Australians, only 3 percent reported that things were getting better. Those living in developed countries also appeared to have a far more negative view of the world than those in developing countries. In the same survey, when asked about indicators of quality of life such as child mortality and absolute poverty, the vast majority of people around the globe believed these variables to be increasing or staying the same.
Astonishingly, this could not be further from the truth. Hans Rosling outlines in his book Factfulness (2018) how, globally, over the past few decades, absolute poverty, child mortality, hunger, deaths from disease, and deaths from conflict have all decreased. Meanwhile, education, hours of leisure, income, life expectancy, and security have all increased. The average middle-class person in a developing country today enjoys a quality of life that would put the luxurious enjoyed by John D. Rockefeller (the richest man in the U.S.A 100 years ago) to shame, mostly thanks to advances in technology. We are living in the healthiest, wealthiest, and safest time in human history and the majority of people do not realise it. As Max Rosser from Our World in Data says “we think more poorly than we should about the time we are living in, and we think more poorly than we should about what people around the world are achieving right now”.
The evidence suggests that the media has a large role to play in building this pessimistic view that humanity has of itself. In 2018 a team of Dutch sociologists analysed how aeroplane crashes are reported in the media. Between 1991 and 2005, when the number of crashes steadily decreased, they found that the media attention for such accidents steadily increased. In another study from 2018, a team of media researchers similarly found that in times when immigration or violence declines, newspapers give them more coverage. Leaving them to conclude that “there seems to be none or even a negative relationship between news and reality” (p. 492). Although these events did happen and can be considered the truth, the way they lack perspective distorts reality for the average viewer. Further evident in how Florian Arendt found in 2010 that that many avid news followers in the EU (European Union) overestimated the occurrence of violent crime committed by foreigners and believed it to be increasing at a time when it was decreasing.
The reason we are so susceptible to these doom and gloom stories is due to two psychological biases: the negativity and availability bias. The negativity bias describes how negative experiences of equal intensity to positive ones leave a far greater psychological impact on how we think and behave. For example, one study found that the negative traits of an individual impact our impression of them more than the positive traits of that individual. Availability bias describes how we believe events that can be easily recalled as occurring more frequently. Such as news viewers in the EU overestimating the frequency of violence committed by foreigners, since these events were memorable and frequently reported in the news.
By exploiting these biases, the news becomes about what is exceptional. You are far more likely to read a headline reporting on a recent homicide in a town which has not had a murder in the past five years than to hear the same report in a city with the highest murder rate per capita. As Charles Bukowski once said in Ham on Rye (1982) “News travels fastest in places where nothing much ever happens”.
Social media may be exacerbating the mental health issues related to news consumption. In a growingly competitive attention economy, more and more news outlets turn to sensational, ‘breaking’ and ‘urgent’ headlines. Headlines which are distracting, agitating, and more accessible than ever. Of course, much news today is still highly informative and useful. We live in an age when accurate information on any topic can be acquired in a matter of seconds. This can be and has been a great force for good. However, we must be more mindful of our news consumption and realise that the reality of the world lies beyond a few exceptional breaking news events. The truth matters, but the truth is nothing without perspective.
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.

Angus Padley
Who Tells Our Stories?
March 14, 2021 5:22 pm Comments Off on Who Tells Our Stories?
Underground, over Parkes Way, lies one of the largest archives in Australia. Unknown to most students who walk over or drive under it, the Noel Butlin Archives houses an extensive collection of Australian archival material ranging back to the 1820s. Alongside the archive’s rich collection of Australian trade union records, Pacific Island materials, and National AIDs epidemic collection lies the official archives of the ANU. Yet, among these records of committee meetings and key ANU documents, one set of documents are missing from the ANU archives: proof of student life.
Stephen Foster and Margaret Varghese’s The Making of the Australian National University: 1946-1996, details in-depth accounts of the development of the ANU. But they only dedicate two of its chapters to students, with one relying mostly on official ANU records and statistics. While such omission has its reasons, what is a University and its heritage without its students? With its (relatively) small numbers and tradition of residential halls, ANU has a rich student life on campus. Much, however, is ephemeral and undocumented, with many memories graduating away with each new cohort of students. If we are to remember our stories and our life on campus, where better to start than the archives?
It is 1966 and Canberra needs more roads to accommodate its growing population. One plan was to expand Parkes Way west, through ANU, so to funnel traffic to Woden. Rather than cut ANU in half, Acton Tunnel was proposed to cover Parkes Way and house 300 underground parking spaces on top of the tunnel. Following the opening of the tunnel in 1979, ANU repurposed the proposed lots to house its archival collection (then based in Coombs). During the conversion of the new archives, known then as the ‘cataCoombs’, the ANU found that the weight of the archival materials exceeded the expected loads of parked cars, limiting the total space available. Despite the weight limit, the archives hold over twenty-two kilometres of archival material, with more held off-site.
A search of the ANU Archives for student material reveals disappointing results. While not devoid of records, the archives primarily hold documents created by the ANU, either administrative or for marketing, as well as organisations like ANUSA, the ANU Union, and the ANU Labor Club. The only consistent ‘student’ engagement, bar some minor exceptions, has been various alumni depositing their personal papers, decades after their graduation. While existing archives materials, including Woroni newspaper copies, give us a glimpse of student life back then, it does not fully capture the beating heart of what it once was.
Why does our history matter? Because it reminds us that we are not alone. Most of our university life and struggles have happened before, in one way or another. Reading Woroni articles written in the 60s, familiar dramas in student politics, student opinions about university administration, and stresses of study and life, all rhyme with our present dilemmas. Poring through documents on the establishment of various university organisations all reveal the hidden meanings and intentions behind many of the symbols and structures that surround us. Discovering stories behind decades of student activism all illuminate the progress and arena of which many of our existing fights with the university battle within. By remembering that we are not alone, we can learn from the past and situate ourselves among generations of students.
We are not the first to think about archiving student life at the ANU. Various others have tried, whether through journals, alumni groups, or by depositing records at the archives, to honour student life. These efforts, despite their limited reach, allow us to understand a world that otherwise would be unknown to us. But for archiving to be truly effective it must be more than a one-time deposit – it should be systemic and renewing. Systemic meaning a constant and organised effort to ensure that groups and organisations archive what they believe is important. Renewing meaning that these groups and organisations then make archives part of their operation. Whether a resource consulted or a historical memory project conducted, the aim is to foster a relationship with the archives, remember the history and structures that surround us and to reassure ourselves for the path forward.
While lofty in ambition, a student historical project is not unique. In the United States, various universities and student organisations have pushed for students to donate materials to university archives and to encourage them to use archival materials. These projects have also sought to recover lost or destroyed documents that record key moments of student life and activism. For us, it is important that such an effort centres student voices. Student organizations, whether residents’ committees, clubs, or informal groups, should all ensure someone takes on a responsibility of archiving what matters. Whether meeting minutes, flyers, photos, newsletters, Facebook group posts, or webpages, any record is worth preserving. Some organisations, like rescoms and ANUSA, even hold documents ranging back over the decades, in deep need of preservation.
By archiving our stories and retelling them, we take control of our history and place at the ANU. Already projects like the wall of student activism in Marie Reay and the history of ANUSA, available inside of its offices, allow us to truly understand our place and heritage. Even academic papers like Tim Breidis’ 2019 article in the Journal of Australian Studies provide a unique, detailed account of the 1994 Chancellery occupation and the power of student activism. But we must do more, throughout campus, outside of the strict realm of student activism, to tell our own stories.

The author thanks the Noel Butlin Archives for taking the time to give a presentation on archival work and a tour of the archives. Students and staff can arrange a lecture and tour by contacting the Noel Butlin Archives.

Kai Clark
Scotty’s 2021 Diary- Leaked
March 7, 2021 7:17 pm Comments Off on Scotty’s 2021 Diary- Leaked
Dear Diary,
Today was NOT a good day ::((((
I got made fun of because I said assaulting women was bad. Wtf???????? Do the haters think it is good??????????
Apparently some people think I should have known that assault was bad without asking Jenny or thinking about my daughters…. What do they know? Isn’t it good to learn new things? To challenge yourself? #keepmovingforward
Anyway, I think this might be a big issue – the whole gendered violence and harassment thing. I’ve decided to put it on my “to fix” list for next week. I’m not sure how yet but we can probably get to the bottom of it if we work hard, pray harder.
That’s it for now I think. Bed time!
Love from Scotty.
P.S – Someone suggested raising Centrelink by a whole $3? Sounds a bit outlandish but I might sleep on it…
P.P.S- I must remember to tell my EA to schedule a meeting with Christian’s office too….

Katie Sproule
The 2020 US Election Wrap-Up, What Happened?
November 30, 2020 8:41 pm Comments Off on The 2020 US Election Wrap-Up, What Happened?
The US election is the most publicised election worldwide. Being a global superpower and a bastion for Western democracy, the implications for the entire world, even Australian folks, are tangible. Whether you missed it because you were studying for exams or whether you were biting your nails the entire time, here’s a quick wrap-up of the US election, how the results unfolded and what this means for the US going forward.
Before the Election
Multiple pollsters, pundits and psephologists predicted a landslide victory for Biden. The Economist predicted that he had a 92% chance of winning the electoral college with clear landslide victories in the Rust Belt states (especially Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania). Gallup polls put Trump’s approval rating nationwide before the election at only 46%. Early victories were predicted to be possible in the traditional Republican heartlands of Texas and Florida, despite Texas having last supported a Democrat nominee in 1976. The polls put Biden on track to the White House in what would have been a national repudiation of Trumpism.
What were the key issues before Election Day? Pew Research Centre polls listed the following ‘most important’ issues from their surveyed sample: 79% of respondents cited the economy, while health care trailed not too far behind (68%) and of course management of COVID-19 (62%) featured high on the list. Whether you’re a white working class man, suburban professional woman or African-American university student, the pandemic was an especially contentious issue given that over two-thirds of Americans know someone who was diagnosed with COVID-19. These were the issues set to define the election and how Republicans and Democrats could engage with voters nation-wide.
What unravelled on election day, however, showed that despite Biden’s win, Trumpism and its causes cannot be underestimated or seen as a mere aberration. Trumpism has created a lasting impact on the American political landscape.
Election Day: 3rd November 2020
When polling booths opened across the nation, it was widely expected to be a landslide victory for Biden. Biden campaigned heavily in the Rust Belt, Barack Obama campaigned in Florida, and Cindy McCain – wife of former Republican presidential candidate John McCain – disparaged Trump in Arizona. Record low approval ratings, poor polls, and mismanagement of COVID-19 set an unfavourable stage for Trump. However, it became quickly apparent that Trump’s voters were not to be underestimated and that the election was going to unfold in unexpected ways.
Contrary to the polls, Trump and Biden were neck and neck in Florida and Texas on election day. Early ballots favoured Biden, yet the red mirage of the Lone Star State and the Lighting Capital turned into a red curtain. Biden’s potential early victory and clear pathway to the White House was crushed. As Trump made unfounded, early declarations of victory, it quickly became apparent that this was going to be an election fought to the last ballot, tooth and nail. As safe states such as Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Ohio, Hawaii and Indiana were called, all eyes were focused on Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada, and days later, on Georgia and Pennsylvania. The red mirage prevailed and election day votes heavily favoured Trump. Biden was trailing by wide margins in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Trump also seemed to have a comfortable lead in Georgia, a Republican stronghold for decades.
Multiple pathways to winning the electoral college meant that at this point, both candidates still had options available, but Biden could afford more losses. Trump had to win Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Alaska, Michigan and Wisconsin. Biden, being bolstered by safe Democrat states such as California (with 55 electoral college votes), only needed Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona. As mail-in ballots, (which heavily favoured Biden) were delivered, Trump’s lead narrowed and Arizona flipped blue. Trump began to run out of options and his chances of re-election were slimming as millions of mail-in ballots were counted in favour of the Democrats. Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia (a miracle since the state was last won by a Democrat nominee in 1992) delivered Biden the presidency with a solid 306 electoral college votes. Trump scored a total of 232 electoral college votes, 72 votes shy of his 2016 performance. It was an incredibly tight race, one that the world watched, increasingly on edge as it progressed. Biden won Arizona by only 10,000 votes, Pennsylvania by 63,000 and Wisconsin by 20,000.
As protests, allegations of voter fraud, attempted entries into vote counting centres and Trump campaign lawsuits mired results sporadically, we have to ask one question. What’s the enduring political narrative that led to one of the most divisive elections in US history?
Polling, What Happened?
What do the results mean for US politics going forward? Firstly, the polls got it wrong, awfully wrong. Even though Biden won, it wasn’t by the wide margins pundits predicted, not at all. Predictions had Florida flipping blue and Biden making a victory speech soon after election day. Multiple reasons have been suggested as to why the polls missed the mark yet again. The main reason: white working class voters refused to talk to pollsters, or they lied about their voting preferences. Commercial polls like Rasmussen and Gallup only reported results where 6% of canvassed voters responded meaning heavily skewed and unrepresentative results. These are challenges the polling industry will have to address in the coming years in order regain trust in the country, and more importantly regain accuracy for future elections, lest we hear more exclamations of “the polls got it wrong again.”
Mail-in Ballots and Changing Demographics
Why did early results favour Trump and how did Biden eventually pull ahead in so many states? Trump’s urging of voters to vote in-person on election day may have played a part in forming the red mirage we saw in those key battleground states. But mail-in ballots played a larger role. Millions of Republicans flocked to polling booths while many Democrats opted to vote by mail instead. The United States Postal Service, despite being a 600,000 strong employee service, was stretched incredibly thin as millions of mail-in ballots across the nation had to be delivered to counting stations. Trump’s early leads, mainly from rural conservative counties, were diminished because mail-in ballots (from metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia and Atlanta) heavily favoured Biden and contributed to states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia flipping well after election day. Flips in traditionally red states also represent a shifting demographic change in the US driven by young people moving south and growing minority populations. Georgia tells this story rather neatly where white voters made up 61% of registered voters in 2010. In 2020, they made up just 53% of registered voters, while Asian, African-American, and Latino voter registration, which generally favoured the Democrats, skyrocketed.
Trumpism is Here to Remain
Although this was an election which was proposed to be a historical and unified rejection of Trumpism and Trumpian antics, this was hardly a repudiation. Trump received 72 million votes (at the time of writing). This represents the second highest total of the popular vote for any presidential nominee (behind Biden who received 78 million votes at the time of writing). This is a staggering 10 million vote increase from 2016, when Trump received 62 million votes in total. Droves of educated people, university students, suburban women and African-American voters were predicted to turn the tide for Biden. Had the votes been distributed differently, and due to the democratic quirk that is the electoral college system, Biden might have lost by the slimmest of margins. Why didn’t the zeal and fervour of this demographic create larger margins in those key battleground states? Trump’s voter base diversified, especially amongst Latino voters. This rang true in Florida, where Trump’s campaign played a clever tactic in smearing Biden as a socialist delivering a crucial blow to his early pathway to the White House. Latino voters, especially those who fled socialist countries such as Cuba and Venezuela, voted for Trump in droves. Starr County in Texas also reveals some interesting truths. In a county that is 96% Hispanic, where 18.5% of people are unemployed, 50% completed high school and where the average annual income is $14,000 USD, issues such as racism, climate change and national division were unimportant. More critical issues were the economy and jobs. The Black Lives Matter Movement never resonated in Starr County, as joining the police force was seen as a pathway to economic security. The only Climate change-related concern was the potential closure of oil fields suggested by some Democrats, which could mean unemployment. Trump’s pro-life stance was also viewed positively by the largely Catholic county. Latino voters here believed that Trump would provide food on the table, while Democrats were seen as out of touch and a world away in Washington DC.
A Divided Nation Going Forward
The US election was monumental with several historical firsts which are incredibly progressive achievements for a nation that has grappled with a history of slavery and racism. Kamala Harris is the first woman and second person of colour to be elected as Vice President. Sarah McBride was elected as the first transgender state senator representing Delaware’s 1st Senate District in the Delaware State Legislature. New York elected Ritchie Torres as the country’s first gay African-American man to Congress. However, the enduring narrative which defined the election is that the US is a divided nation where politics is fractured by partisanship and that the American people are polarised. Biden has an incredibly difficult path ahead sewing national division and dealing with a slew of economic and health disasters that he has inherited. Mending the COVID-19 situation will be a monumental task. Controlling case numbers, which are increasing by 100,000 a day (at the time of writing), will not be easy. Restoring the economy and recovering from a recession will require a Herculean effort. Millions of Trump voters, of whom 65% wouldn’t accept Biden becoming President, feel disenfranchised by this election and many have lost faith in American democracy. Restoring their trust would be a miracle feat.
Note: the electoral college votes for each candidate may change over time. Biden’s 306 electoral college votes takes into account his 14,000 vote lead in Georgia, which has since gone to an official recount.

Julian Brazier