1. What are your thoughts on the Scott Morrison text message saga? 2. It’s Queen Elizabeth’s 70th year on the throne, should Australia become a republic? 3. What are your thoughts on the current ABC funding model whereby funding is renewed in three-year blocks?
LEFT SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE 1. Who doesn’t hate the Liberal party? They even hate each other! Of course, those of us on the left hate them for being neoliberal bigots who nakedly uphold the wants and needs of the Australian capitalist class. Under the big tent of the Liberal-National coalition they all agree that the profits of businesses must always overrule human lives, regardless of whatever personal power jockeying or assholishness goes on in private. If they lose the election it will be good to see them go. 2. The queen is an archaic and absurd relic from a feudal era where even the limited democracy we have today was unimaginable. Like all class societies, the ruling class of royals exploited the laboring class, the peasants. Just like capitalism today, inequality subjected the majority of human beings to the minority of the wealthy. It is not enough to be rid of some remnant of an old, exploitative ruling class if what remains is a ruling class as ruthless and exploitative as what came before. It’s easy to imagine being rid of the Queen, but far harder to imagine being rid of our bosses. Regardless, this is what socialists strive for. 3. The ABC can do some good journalistic work, such as bringing to light Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. But they are not card-carrying communists as the right and the Murdoch press accuse them of being, unless sometimes publishing mild criticism of the Coalition and not repeating Murdoch’s headlines counts as a far-left agenda. On the contrary, their defense of the status quo can be just as reactionary and right wing as the for-profit private media like Murdoch. But no matter how right wing they are, they will be under constant threat of funding cuts from the Coalition: the moral panic ridden Murdoch media that acts as a mouthpiece for the most foul ideas of the Australian capitalist class is the gold standard and anything less is socialist propaganda. We defend the ABC from these attacks, and demand greater funding for it to be able to deliver public journalism.This new funding agreement doesn’t change the fact that the Liberals and their mate Murdoch want to privatize and defund the ABC as much as possible, just that it’s not going to be a major issue going into this election.
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