Capitalism denies the systemic basis of mental health problems

 Written by: Nick G. on 23 October 2026

 

(The system needs treatment.  Supplied,  AI generated)

Dr Helen Haines, the Independent MP for the federal seat of Indi, is a victim of the broken system of rural healthcare which she had fought to improve.

It has been revealed that Haines privately lobbied the prime minister for urgent rural health funding just five days before she is alleged to have been mowed down outside her electorate office by a man whose lawyer says is suffering from mental and chronic health conditions.

According to the ABC, “Ms Haines handed Anthony Albanese an annotated copy of the Forgotten Health Spend: A Report on the Expenditure Deficit in Rural Australia 2026 in a special crossbench catch-up with the prime minister last Wednesday to highlight a growing $2.7 billion expenditure gap between metropolitan and regional areas.”

Wangaratta local council health data shows 23.7 registered mental health clients per 1,000 residents, almost double the Victorian average of 11.9.

The gutting of mental health services

Federal Labor, which has embraced Liberal PM Scott Morrison’s scheme to bankrupt the nation by playing big boys with a handful of nuclear-powered submarines, has overseen cutbacks in rural mental health services.

Scientist Dr Ian Corbell told this morning’s AM radio program that has seen funding for mobile mental health treatment teams hollowed out since he worked in them in the 1990s.

He had warned in 2023 of a mental health crisis and further distressing incidents like the one in which two police officers had assaulted a naked and mentally disturbed woman in a street during daylight hours, spraying capsicum spray into her face and on her genitals, later boasting that they had emptied two canisters of spray on her.

Corbel expressed concern that police are not properly equipped to handle mental health crises and that their reactive, punitive approach would only exacerbate matters.

The situation in Australia has been allowed by government neglect and privatised services to mimic the US situation where the National Alliance on Mental Illness states that about “2 million times each year, people with mental illness are booked in our nation’s jails, often because communities rely on law enforcement to respond to mental health crises — and they lack the needed resources to truly support someone in crisis. It should not be the job of law enforcement to respond to health care crises, and people experiencing a mental health emergency deserve quick access to effective mental health care — just as people expect when experiencing physical health emergencies.”

McGorry denounces cutbacks

2010 Australian of the Year Professor Pat McGorry has been speaking out about the deliberate neglect of mental health services in Australia predicting the type of disasters such as the Bondi shopping centre and now the attack on Independent MP Helen Haines.

McGorry holds a highly critical view of the neglect of mental health services in Australia, characterizing the situation as a long-standing systemic failure that has been met with political complacency and, at times, deliberate misrepresentation of progress.

McGorry has argued that Australia's mental health system operates on a reactive "ambulance at the bottom of the cliff" model, where investment is disproportionately directed toward crisis support rather than early intervention. He has described the system as "Third World" and a "scandal," noting that the neglect is so severe that many mentally ill individuals end up in the prison system simply because there is nowhere else for them to go. 

He points out the stark funding mismatch: the federal government invests roughly $4 billion to $4.8 billion annually in mental health care, compared to the massive $12.2 billion allocated over the next 30 years for the AUKUS subs. In the wider defence context, in the 2026-27 Budget, the Department of Defence was allocated $44.2 billion, with an additional $15.3 billion for capability investment.

McGorry's most scathing recent criticism targets the Victorian government's handling of mental health reform following the landmark Royal Commission. In a prominent op-ed, he accused the government of "mass gaslighting" by claiming progress while the system deteriorates.

In summary, McGorry views the neglect as a persistent policy choice characterized by chronic underfunding, a failure to implement early intervention, and a lack of political will to follow through on systemic reform, resulting in avoidable human suffering and social costs.

Some have suggested Australia's spending on mental health is relatively low compared to other high-income, OECD nations. A 2026 news release cites a Murdoch University study stating that "Australia spends substantially less per person on mental-health care compared with other high-income nations".

A German comparative report (citing OECD data accessed in 2023) lists Australia's direct per capita spending on mental health at US$288.30 for the 2020-21 period, compared to US$2,231.20 for the Netherlands.

The system needs treatment

Even if the tooth fairy could wave a magic wand over the empty heads in government and opposition benches and see a release of needed funding, the fundamental approach to mental health under capitalism will not improve.

The ethics of bourgeois psychology upon which mental health services rest, treats patients at the crisis stage. As McGorry said, it is the “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff” approach which has been allowed to develop through the absence of preventative approaches which could have prevented the reaching of the critical stages.  

It deals with crises as the failings of the individual and as the personal problem of the individual, rather than as the failings of capitalist society and the social problems of the system as a whole.

We wish Dr Haines well in her recovery, but we do not wish the same for capitalism.

A system of socialist ethics guiding mental health services is one more reason for advancing to socialism.

Can the credit bubble be stopped from bursting?

Written by: Nick G. on 20 October 2026

 

(Above: Larry Ellison at an Exadata 2 launch in 2009.  Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)

 

 

Wouldn’t it be nice to be so rich that you could lose $6 billion in a single day, but still remain a billionaire?

According to a report in the Times of India, “Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison saw his fortune shrink by more than $6 billion in a single day as investors continued to dump Oracle shares amid growing concerns over the company’s artificial intelligence investments, rising debt burden and challenges facing key data centre projects.”

More than any other AI company, Oracle is pouring huge investments into AI projects including data centres, but funding this through mega loads of debt.

According to a report last year in the New York Times, Oracle’s debt-to-equity ratio “stood at 500 percent - meaning that it had $5 of debt for every $1 of shareholder equity.” By comparison, it said, Amazon’s was around 50 percent and Alphabet’s was even lower still.

The staggering sums involved, whether investor’s share capital or borrowings from banks, financial institutions or other AI corporates, remain entirely fictitious until future surplus value created by Oracle’s workers is realised as profits from sales of its products and services. 

Oracle’s share prices have plunged by 62 percent from their peak, destroying nearly $550 billion of the company’s fictitious capital. Approximately $875 billion of Oracle’s market capitalisation late last year has been reduced to $387 billion today as the gamblers in the share market casino lose their nerve.

In Australia, we have just seen what was promised to be Australia’s biggest IPO (initial sale of shares to the public) since Telstra collapse when investors failed to cough up $A7 billion for data factory company Firmus. 

News Corporation journalist Heath Parkes-Hupton correctly assessed the significance of the Firmus failure, writing that “The spectacular failure of neocloud start-up Firmus, previously the darling of Australia’s AI scene, has exposed the “cracks” in a trillion-dollar industry largely built on imagination.”

Capitalism is inherently unstable and the tendency for credit bubbles to burst is always present.

As the NYT said, “The A.l. boom has been a global phenomenon; an A.I. collapse would be as well.”

 

Manufacturing industry does not need AUKUS nuclear subs - independence for Australia

Written by: Ned K. on 18 October 2026

 

Workers in Australia have manufactured a vast range of products across many different industries for over 100 years. Since the destruction of the car and car component industries in Australia culminating in the closure of Mitsubishi, GMH, Ford and Toyota manufacturing plants since 2000, the major parliamentary parties at federal and state levels have embraced AUKUS and nuclear-powered submarine manufacturing and servicing in Australia as the saviour of manufacturing industries in Australia.

Prime Ministers Morrison and then Albanese and their Ministries have adopted the Margaret Thatcher approach of TINA (There Is No Alternative) to justify the millions of taxpayer dollars their governments have committed to the nuclear submarines manufacture and servicing in Australia. Supporting the US war machine has been prioritised at the expense of the interests and well-being of the Australian people.

Federal governments have found enthusiastic supporters at the State political level, especially in South Australia where the nuclear submarines are planned to be manufactured. 

They ridicule opponents of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines being built in South Australia as being not only "against the national interest" but also sabotaging the development of a skilled manufacturing workforce in Australia (and SA in particular) that the building of nuclear-powered submarines will deliver.

At the State and Federal levels, the ALP annual conferences pass resolutions to this effect, despite a growing number of ALP sub-branches passing resolutions opposing AUKUS and the whole nuclear submarine project at the Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia.

Former ALP leaders like Paul Keating are marginalised and ignored for speaking out against AUKUS and the nuclear submarine project.

THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE

Some of the ALP pro-AUKUS leaders say that people even within their own ranks have no manufacturing alternative for Australia, that building AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines is the only way for Australia to have a manufacturing base.

What are the facts?

There is a great variety of manufacturing industries in Australia that are not connected or dependent on nuclear powered submarines. Below are just a sample of these industries

Biotechnology and Biopharmaceutical
Industrial and Engineering Manufacturing
Consumer Products and home Automation Systems
Transport Engineering
Metal Fabrication Services
Electrical Equipment
Housing Construction 
Rail and Bus Transport
Steel Works
Mining Equipment
Food Processing Manufacture

All these industries provide employment opportunities and develop transferable skills for workers.

According to government and industry web sites, in 2026 there are approximately 930,000 workers employed by manufacturing companies in Australia.

Out of these 930,000 workers, 112,918 are employed in defence-related manufacturing.

In South Australia, the central part of the AUKUS nuclear submarine project, there are 66,716 workers employed by manufacturing employers.

Of these 66,716, 11,000 are employed in defence-related manufacturing.

Of the 112,918 defence -related workers nationally and the 11,000 defence-related workers in SA, all of them could and should be employed on projects that effectively defend Australia as an island continent and country. They have skills that can manufacture land, air and sea-based defences of the country. They also have transferable skills to manufacture for example, Australian-made public transport, hospital equipment, renewable energy systems, more aged care facilities and much more.

In the period 1939 to 1945, large manufacturing plants such as GMH and Ford were converted to produce different products due to the war. This was done very quickly, and it was Australian workers who had the transferable skills to meet the new demanded products. 

That historical example shows how false is the claim by political leaders who say "there is no alternative" other than AUKUS and its nuclear-powered submarine project.

 

Report on Boorloo/Perth’s Anti-War Week

 Written by: Sand G. on 15 October 2026

 

(Photo supplied)

On Tuesday 6 October, thousands of Perth workers took to the streets to protest the city hosting a conference for the buyers and sellers o

f tools used to kill workers overseas, known as the Land Forces Defence Exposition. 

The workers on the street were furious that the city would spend millions of dollars to provide a ‘safe space’ for arms dealers that are profiting from ongoing genocide and imperialist conflict. From its outset, this protest was always marketed as a peaceful demonstration aimed at disrupting the dealings of war profiteers and showcasing to the world that WA workers won’t be complicit in fuelling the death of their comrades overseas. 

However, this didn’t stop the WA Government and WA Police from boasting of their heavy-handed response to ‘show their force’ against the people. In the weeks leading up to the protest, the WA Government bragged of passing draconian anti-protest laws, allowing the police to utilise AI facial recognition on citizens with no privacy restraints, excluding Western Australians from parts of their own city, and a massive expansion of police detention powers. The WA Police loudly boasted of the $11.5 million spent on their ‘largest police operation in WA history’. 

This ‘largest police operation in WA history’ was targeted against peaceful protesters marching in their own streets, allowing lazy cops to sit in their trucks just to make merchants of death feel safe. $11.5 million was spent on a show of force against the people, all while more WA workers are going homeless, more WA kids are living in cars, and regional WA towns are sinking further and further into crises. 

On Wednesday 7 October, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle held a ‘Peoples’ Expo’ alongside other organisations including Stop AUKUS WA and the Anti-War Collective. At this event, the host discussed how the same weapons that were being bought and sold at Land Forces in Perth were used against people in the Philippines, while other speakers talked to Australian workers becoming caught up in genocidal wars of U.S imperialism without our consent. 

In response to the blatant oppressive measures the WA Government used against the people, and their willingness to spend millions of dollars against a peaceful protest while kids go hungry, participants at the Peoples’ Expo discussed expanding the fight against the capitalist class across a number of organisations. 

The WA Government and international imperialists were ready to dish it out, but workers are ready to give it back. WA workers that want to join the fight against capitalists profiting from genocide are encouraged to contact the WA branch of the CPA (M-L) or the International Leage of Peoples’ Struggle. 

The following Sunday, a crowd numbering in the thousands gathered in Boorloo to unify their voices in calling for support of the Palestinian people, an end to diplomatic relations with the Zionist regime of “Israel”, and an end to a horrific genocide that has been perpetrated for 78 years. 

Unionists and students, teachers and mothers, workers of many stripes all across WA came together once again to protest the brutal crimes of the state of “Israel” and the support of the Albanese Labor government. 

The CPA (M-L) continues to support the Palestinian struggle — we cannot and will not rest until the people of Palestine and all those oppressed and toiling masses across the world are free from the yoke of imperialism-capitalism. 

Free free Palestine, from the river to the sea.

The U.S. government, the Pentagon and big tech: key components of U.S. imperialism. Part 3

Written by: Alex M. on 12 October 2026

 

Not content with selling out Australia’s defence and foreign policy to U.S. imperialism, federal and state governments are only too willing to sign us up to U.S. big tech. So much for sovereignty. In this third and final part we will examine how Australia’s so-called political leaders have continued their abject subservience to U.S. imperialist interests in their handling of AI, datacentres and big tech.

Marles and Charlton meet with big tech

 

In a piece by The Age’s chief political reporter Paul Sakkal, published on 3 September, it was stated that after meeting with Deputy PM Richard Marles and junior tech minister Andrew Charlton, key players from Anthropic, Open AI, Amazon, Google and Microsoft were keen to make big investments in Australia. Furthermore, they were happy to locate datacentres in remote areas of Australia. According to the report, the meeting with tech executives, Marles and Charlton which took place in San Francisco, helped smooth the way for U.S. big tech investment in this country. (1)

 

The spin on this piece is clear. Australian government ministers and officials allegedly have leverage over U.S. big tech because of the public backlash against the data centre rollout in North America. So concerned are the big tech figures about the pushback from the U.S. public that they are willing to accommodate some small conditions on data centre and other AI related investments in various parts of the globe, in order to continue their hyper-scaling AI and AGI projects. Hence the reported agreements given to Marles and Charlton which; will locate datacentres in remote parts of Australia; will add renewables to the grid to help power the datacentres and; gives in-principle agreement to Labor’s AI standards. Such agreements open up the possibility for Anthropic to invest $21 billion in a Large Language Model (AI) training facility located somewhere in Australia.

 

A sticking point with Anthropic’s proposed investment is the vexed issue of allowing access to copyrighted material. The federal government has to allay concerned Australian citizens’ fears that the unhindered scraping of copyrighted Australian material by Anthropic will not go ahead, yet that is what Anthropic wants. A proposed way out of the conundrum is a compensation package for ‘creatives’, yet even this appears to be too much for Anthropic to contemplate. Bear in mind that the scraping of material from the internet, a process that has been going on for quite a while now, is the plundering of humanity’s patrimony for the primary benefit of private tech corporations. As others have said about the training of LLMs, it is akin to ‘the wholesale theft of intellectual property rights.’

 

The leverage spoken about in this article is largely delusional. Marles and Charlton met with figures from big tech in San Francisco, sometime in August. Prior to the trip Marles made it clear that the key driver for meeting with big tech representatives is to ensure that Australia does not miss out on the AI boom, which ‘is the biggest hinge point in Australia’s self-reliance since World War II as AI models become pivotal in running services such as telecommunications, banking and even national security.’ (2) The self-reliance that Marles spruiks is the exact opposite of what is actually happening; for self-reliance read becoming abjectly dependent on U.S. big tech. Marles is part of a cabal of Labor (and other) politicians that actively seek to make Australia a mere vassal of U.S. imperialist interests. 

 

Pax Silica

 

As we have seen in Part 1 of this series, the U.S. ruling class is trying to maintain the United States’ hegemonic position by way of Pax Silica a part of which is what Edward Ongwese Jr calls the ‘Compute Axis’. (3) The ‘Compute Axis’ refers specifically to the oil rich Gulf states choosing to pivot away from oil and into a big tech future, making deals with Silicon Valley tech bros, while Trump and his family rake off some of the cream as deal enablers. Ongwese Jr argued that the ‘Compute Axis’ may have foundered on the rocks after Iran bombed Amazon Web Services data centres in Bahrain and the UAE. Putting that to one side, Pax Silica is succinctly described by Ongwese Jr as ‘an American-led project that would secure control over supply chains for artificial intelligence and the chips to run it, at the same time creating a new dependency regime and tech stack that could be backed up with the threat of violence (economic or otherwise).’ (4)

 

It is important to note that the AI boom that Marles and others are so keen for Australia to be a part of has a strong geopolitical element associated with it. Marles is not unaware of this when in the same Age article he is reported as saying that it was critical for Australia to work closely with the U.S. in its battles for tech supremacy with China. Not for Australia to access the cheaper open source AI from China; that would be opening up Australia to Chinese intelligence gathering! (5)

 

Australian government ministers and officials appear to be falling over themselves to be part of the latest U.S. imperial project that is Pax Silica, which is spun as self-reliance and the meek conditions proposed by Albanese indicative of leverage. The tech bros are not renowned for their integrity nor their honesty and Australian ‘leaders’ have already shown their hand in their eagerness to not miss the AI boom. The U.S. tech oligarchy know that they have the upper hand in these negotiations and will agree to some not very onerous conditions in order to get what they want.

 

Australian dependence on U.S. big tech

 

In a submission to the public inquiry into AUKUS, Adjunct Professor Warwick Powell detailed the issues arising from not having tech sovereignty: 

 

Modern national sovereignty is inextricably tied to technological sovereignty. A nation that does not control its digital infrastructure, cloud architecture, data pipelines and core algorithmic platforms operates at the discretion of those who do. American willingness to weaponise its dominance in information technology systems has been ably demonstrated by Farrell and Newman’s 2023 book Underground Empire.

 

Australia’s reliance on foreign proprietary "technology stacks" — specifically US-dominated cloud systems, enterprise software, and emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) models —creates deep operational dependencies: 

 

• Loss of Digital Autonomy: Key government services, critical infrastructure, and defence systems rely on proprietary architectures subject to foreign jurisdiction, regulatory shifts or export control regimes (such as ITAR and US cloud regulations).

• Complicity in Immoral and Unethical Warfare: The rapid deployment of automated foreign AI platforms in military intelligence and target selection directly links Australia to the operational ethics and legal violations of foreign technology developers —including documented strikes causing mass civilian casualties and deaths that directly breach international law.  (6)

 

Australia’s craven dependence on U.S. big tech not only surrenders our sovereignty but also allows for unprecedented levels of surveillance and data gathering by U.S. corporations. Palantir being the prime example. (7)

 

Palantir again

 

It comes as no surprise that Palantir has managed to insert itself into various federal government departments, Police forces and big Australian corporations. A quick glance reveals three government departments that have contracts with Palantir; the Department of Defence, AUSTRAC., and the NDIS.  AUSTRAC being the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre which acts as a regulator and financial intelligence unit. The Australian Defence Force (ADF) also has contracts with Palantir as does the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), and some state police and corrections systems. In the corporate field, Rio Tinto and Westpac have Palantir contracts. Coles also had a contact with Palantir but a concerted public campaign forced Coles to cut its ties with the tech giant. 

 

The public pushback against Palantir has gone global and for good reason; Palantir is an unapologetic supporter of U.S. imperialism and Israeli genocide. It is a company that mines data on an industrial scale and its software has been used in the killing of hundreds, if not thousands of innocent civilians. There are no guarantees that it is not using data gathered from various entities that it has contracts with in Australia, with federal and state governments placing little or no constraints on Palantir. In fact, Palantir has used the good old revolving door to further its interests in this country with a former Labor MP Mike Kelly recruited by the company in April this year. (8)

 

The unseemly haste of the datacentre roll out

 

According to Ben Eltham of Crikey, federal and state politicians have drunk the AI boom Kool Aid. That is, there has been the uncritical acceptance of the hyper-scaling and urgency narrative promoted by big tech oligarchs, by our elected representatives. Eltham argues that for federal and state politicians and high-level bureaucrats, the so-called AI boom with its attendant rapid roll out of datacentres is the latest version of the mining boom and it will boost the economy, increase productivity and enhance national security. Gripping Canberra and other capital cities is a techno-optimism helping create an environment that waives regulations and community consultation in order to ease the building of the AI infrastructure. (9)

 

The rush to build the datacentres has created resistance from concerned citizens worried about energy and water consumption, noise and air pollution associated with massive datacentres built in suburban areas. Hence the move by Marles, Charlton, Albanese and others to get U.S. big tech to agree to locate said centres in remote locations.

 

Underpinning the global datacentre build and the U.S. based AI project as a whole is a financial bubble, the size of which dwarfs the dot.com bubble and is possibly bigger than the sub-prime mortgage bubble, whose collapse led to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. No thought has been given to what happens with the datacentres when the bubble finally bursts. It is not even on our ‘leaders’ radar, so infused with techno-optimism are they. 

 

In conclusion, the above shows that Australian bourgeois politicians are only too happy to sell out Australian sovereignty to U.S. big tech and to continue our vassalage to U.S. imperialism. We need to bring about an independent and socialist country that puts peoples’ needs first.

 

 

(1) ‘AI tech giants pledge remote infrastructure’, The Age, 3 September, 2026, p.6. 

(2) ‘AI tech giants…’ The Age, p.6.

(3) For more on Pax Silica see the insightful contributed article here: https://www.cpaml.org/post4.php?id=1789343340&catitem1=Fighting%20Imperialism%20around%20the%20world&catid1=15

For Part 1 of this series go here: https://www.cpaml.org/post4.php?id=1786514106&catitem1=Fighting%20Imperialism%20around%20the%20world&catid1=15

(4) https://www.thetechbubble.info/p/how-much-a-dollar-cost 

For the official U.S. State Department website go here: https://www.state.gov/pax-silica/ 

(5) This is not to say that China would not or does not use technology to gather data either domestically or in other countries; it does. However, the anti-Chinese hysteria demonstrated in a recent 4 Corners ‘investigation’ regarding the possibility of hacking into a BYD Shark EV, which went to air on Monday 21 September, conveniently overlooks the massive elephant in the room that is U.S. surveillance and data gathering in this country.

(6) Submission to the AUKUS public inquiry, 13 August 2026, https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/#view-submissions p. 5.

(7) For more on Palantir see Part 2 of this series: https://www.cpaml.org/post4.php?id=1788761502&catitem1=Independence%20From%20Imperialism,%20People%27s%20Rights%20&%20Liberties&catid1=14

(8) See here for Mike Kelly’s recruitment and his rationale for joining the company: https://www.palantir.com/kelly-explains-his-decision-to-join-palantir/

(9) https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/10/08/ai-policy-australia-artificial-intelligence-openai-anthropic-amodei-altman/

 

 

Supermarket Wolves

Written by: Duncan B. on 6 October 2026

 

(Photo supplied)

Australian dairy farmers are unhappy with Australian supermarkets, and with good reason.

In April, Coles raised the price of its one, two and three litre bottles of own-brand milk, with the extra money to go to dairy farmers to help with the extra costs of fuel and fertiliser thanks to Trump’s war on Iran. One-litre bottles went from $1.65 to $1.85, two-litre bottles went from $3.20 to $3.55 and three-litre bottles went from $4.65 to $5.15.

In September, Coles announced that the subsidy payments would cease on September 8th. However, while the farmers have lost the extra money, Coles is also slugging consumers because the price of Coles milk has not returned to the former level. One- litre bottles are now $1.75, two-litre bottles are $3.40 and three-litre bottles are now $4.95.

In May, French-owned dairy processor Lactalis also gave farmers a 5 cents per litre increase, but has ended this subsidy at the end of September.

Australian Dairy Farmer president Ben Bennett did not mince his words in describing the supermarkets. He said they had made “a big song and dance” about how much of the temporary increase was flowing through to farmers and processors, but said only about 5 cents of a 20 cent increase actually flowed through to suppliers. “The supermarkets continually masquerade as lambs, but they’re wolves. They’re quite frankly opportunists, and that’s not healthy for a sustainable industry. That hubris character they’ve got is because they’ve got too much power."

Another reason that dairy farmers are unhappy is the increasing amount of cheese being imported into Australia, mainly from New Zealand, the US and the European Union. In 2025-26, 115,825 tonnes of cheese were imported into Australia. This was about 10,000 tonnes more than the previous year. 37,842 tonnes came from New Zealand, 46,456 tonnes from the US and 29,263 tonnes from the European Union.

Australian dairy farmers and processors are angry that Australian dairy imports into the US face a tariff of 12.5%, while the US has open access to our market landing cheese at prices Australians cannot compete with.

The cheese imported from the US is going into cheese sold under house brands in supermarkets, such as Woolworth’s Hillview Tasty Cheese. US cheese is also being used by fast food chains such as Guzman Y Gomez in its 255 stores selling Mexican-style food. Guzman Y Gomez has also stopped using Australian pork in its restaurants. Instead, they will be importing 25 tonnes per week of frozen pork from Denmark, at a saving of $1.50 per kilo over the local product.

Governments Budgets and Competing Class Interests -MAKE THE RICH PAY

Written by: Ned K. on 11 October 2026

 

Every year Federal, State and Territory Governments announce their Budget expenditure for the coming financial year. Budget announcements by governments are preceded by lobbying from competing sectional interests of the capitalist class. The biggest corporations, many of them foreign owned, usually engage the most expensive lobbyists to present their case to governments. Small businesses which may influence voting patterns in marginal electorates, especially in an election year, still come a distant second behind the large corporations.

Regional corporate interests are taken into account more so if the commodities they produce are mainly for exports. An example of this is iron ore mining in the north-west of Western Australia.

Government budgets are attempts to manage capitalism as a whole for the coming year and to minimise corporate campaigns against the governments of the day.

The other factor determining the allocation of government money in the yearly budget is the voice and actions of the working class.

The major parliamentary political parties and the large corporate sector of the capitalist class keep an eye on the voice and actions of the working class. That is why Prime Minister Albanese and State Government Premiers attend conferences by big business 'think tanks' such as SEC Newgate Australia which surveys thousands of Australian people each year to get a sense of what are the issues that the majority of Australians are most concerned about.

In SEC Newgate's 2026 Survey, they asked what issues were either extremely concerned about or quite concerned about. The results were not all that surprising with the percentages of people for each issue answering extremely concerned or quite concerned listed below.

Cost of living 86%
Crime/safety 72%
Housing Affordability 66%
Health Care Services 65%
Interest Rates 60%
Political Uncertainty 60%
Housing Availability 60%
Rental Availability 54%
Rental Affordability 59%
Education 54%
Immigration 54%

Under capitalism, it is impossible for governments to address all the issues that are most widely and deeply felt by the working class (which includes a broad range of income levels) and the interests of big business in particular. So many large corporations pay minimal or no tax at all that State Governments, fearful of increasing more tax burdens on to workers and losing the next election they face, borrow more and more from big banks, including foreign owned banks. 

For example, the South Australian Government debt level in 2026 is $26 billion and predicted to be $37.6 billion in a couple of years' time.

The Gross State Product (GSP) in South Australia in 2026 is $115 billion which means the debt level is 22.6%. In its 2026 budget it announced that it will spend $45.4 billion over the next four years on Health Services, while still throwing money to Santos who pays little or no tax and even more money to AUKUS's nuclear submarine base in South Australia. 

The SA Government Budget papers included plans for A "Red Tape Reduction" review by an SA Productivity Commission with the aim of "lower costs for business".

In South Australia as in other States and Territories, the main sections of their economies are in the control of big corporations, many of these foreign owned.

Nowhere in the Budgets at any level of government are there even moderate TAX increases on the profits of large corporations with huge profits going overseas.

Even the most well intentioned of governments at any level to hand down budgets to solve the people's major concerns such as cost of living will fail unless they are budgets whose underlying aim is "MAKE THE RICH PAY"