Albo was the only person who thought coffee would get cheaper

Labor banned card surcharges so your coffee would be cheaper. Ooops!!!

In a classic case of not having a clue, Anthony Albanese has made himself out to be the goose we always knew him to be. Not only did he think that hiding the merchant fee applied to card transactions at the point of sale would reduce the price of a cup of coffee, but his own revenue collection department refused to foot the bill. In my opinion, this is what happens when people who have never been in business or worked a day in their lives get to be in government.

The ban on card surcharges came into effect on October 1. Albanese posted that the surcharge ban would save money ‘every time you tap’ and that ‘from tomorrow, your morning coffee could be cheaper’.

Angus Taylor called it a lie. (More of this, please, Mr Taylor.)

One Sydney roaster said about 98 per cent of her customers paid by card at a 1.3 per cent surcharge and that she would have to raise prices. A café in Perth increased the price of a coffee from $6 to $6.50. Including the old 1.8 per cent surcharge, a card customer had previously been paying about $6.11.

The banks still charge the café a fee every time someone taps. The ban only stops the café adding that fee as a separate line on the docket.

Pauline Hanson: The problem woman (for the left)

One Nation is the only major federal party in Australia with a female leader.

This week, David Shoebridge defeated Mehreen Faruqi and Sarah Hanson-Young to become the new leader of the radical Greens party. Pauline Hanson is now the only woman leading a federal party with more than one sitting member. Why does that not count as diversity?

Jacqui Lambie and Fatima Payman lead one-senator outfits, and the Greens now have a woman as deputy. That is not the same thing. The biggest issue is the double standard. Pauline Hanson is a woman, but the wrong kind of woman.

If we were to celebrate women in politics, as some universities do (and actively promote), why is Pauline Hanson not their shining light?

They’re not Menzies’ forgotten people, they’re One Nation’s fed-up people

They're not forgotten, they're fed up!

 

When Menzies spoke of the ‘forgotten people’, he meant the middle class – the engine room of the economy, neither rich enough to live off capital nor poor enough to live off the state.

Under Albanese, that class has been crowded out by a client class of grant recipients, public-sector dependants, and subsidised NGOs for whom government is not a last resort but a business model. To Menzies’ forgotten people that idea was sacrilege. To Labor’s clients it is an entitlement.

Somebody always has to pay.

The people paying, in money and in culture, are ordinary Australians.

When I read Barnaby Joyce’s statements, I cringe a little at the language and the repetition. His message is right, but the delivery is rough. Polish it and you would only sound like the Coalition. And people have stopped trusting the polish.