So here’s a lesson in how parts of the Murdoch media machine work. For those outside South Australia, some context. For decades Adelaide’s major north-south transport corridor, South Road, has been a bottleneck. Successive governments talked about fixing it. The current Labor government is finally building the final section: a 10.5km tunnel system under the city. To avoid demolishing heritage-listed buildings, schools, churches, pubs and thousands of homes, the project is being built underground. From day one, the government said it would be the most expensive infrastructure project in South Australian history. Naturally, state debt has increased as construction ramps up. That’s what happens when you build a once-in-a-generation piece of infrastructure. The government has also repeatedly stated that debt levels are expected to stabilise once the project is completed. Cue the predictable headlines: “Debt out of control”, “Labor spending spree”, “Burden on future generations”. The usual suspects piled in. Then came the next angle. The paper started floating the idea that the tunnel should be a toll road. Never mind that South Australia hasn’t had a toll road since the 1850s. Never mind that the Premier has repeatedly ruled it out. Never mind that the Treasurer has repeatedly ruled it out. A Facebook poll was launched asking whether the tunnel should be tolled to help deal with Labor’s spending. Predictably, the comments exploded. “Labor planned this all along.” “Users should pay.” “Vote One Nation and this wouldn’t happen.” The poll scraped out a narrow majority in favour of tolls. The government responded exactly as it had before: there will be no toll. There was never going to be a toll. The road will be free to use. The project is on schedule. So after running stories about debt, then stories about spending, then stories suggesting a toll road was needed, the paper found a new headline: “Government out of touch with voters.” Apparently the same toll road that the government never proposed, never planned and repeatedly rejected is now something the government is being criticised for not delivering. Create the problem. Amplify the outrage. Poll the outrage. Then report the outrage as news. And people wonder why trust in media keeps falling.

I really don't think enough people fully comprehend the worlds that are about to collide here. You already have people in geopolitical circles warning about the threat of famine based on surging prices / availability of fertilizer components, and you also have long-term weather modeling all converging on a worst case scenario for a building El Nino event, which will peak near the end of the year. These are two slow moving but entirely predictable disasters that when coupled together will each make the other orders of magnitude worse. (This will take months to fully unfold, but at this point, the die is cast.) There's no event in our history books that combines the current global population with the impending fertilizer shortage and the strength of the El Nino that's coming. We are about to witness an unprecedented event that will push crops around the globe to their limit.

#auspol #taxes #Labor #OECD