Ghosts of inflation, Lehrmann mistrial, a racist attack in the West, and the divisive News Corp

The Budget is all over, and just like many of the previous Budgets, it’s almost disappeared from the news cycle, although there’s still some remnants that are being discussed, and the two big issue s are inflation and tax cuts – the Reserve Bank did raise interest rates during the week, and that’s the seventh consecutive interest rate rise – and the Reserve Bank Governor Phillip Lowe said that the rates will keep rising, although we have to remember he also said interest rates wouldn’t rise until 2024, and that was just a few months before the last election – and these interest rates rises are primarily being used to curb inflation – the Labor government is facing many economic problems that have to be addressed, and it doesn’t really matter who caused these problems, they’re in government now, and it’s their job to repair the damage.<br /><br />Some economists have suggested that the state of the economy now is very similar to the Depression era economy, with a combination of high national debt and inflation – and the Scullin government at that time, couldn’t resolve the issues they inherited and were thrown out of office in 1931. <br /><br />It’s difficult to compare economies from different eras – the economy today is far more complex and sophisticated than what it was in 1931 – but there might be a few lessons for the Labor government – fix the economy, or face a very short period of time in office.<br /><br />17 min 46 – Robodebt rears its ugly head again<br /><br />Robodebt has also reared its ugly head again, and the Royal Commission into the previous government’s Robodebt scheme is hearing evidence at the moment – and there’s some pretty awful material that’s being presented there. And we’re hearing from public servants, lawyers, people affected by Robodebt, people who had family members who suicided after receiving Robodebt notices.<br /><br />We can see why the Coalition just wants to deal with the here and the now, and don’t want to hear about the past – but past is coming back to bite them – the gover