OK, last entry for 2002.
After last year’s election, I wrote a piece called “What will you do?”
Lots of you kept the flame burning on refugees against great odds, including many ALP members and several Liberals who’ve had to work behind-the-scenes in secret. Great country, Australia. Love it.
Thanks for reading this year, and thanks a million to all those who contributed to Webdiary – you’ve inspired me and many readers who’ve emailed me privately. Special thanks to Brian Bahnisch for his wise counsel when I was down in the depths after the Carr thing.
To end the year a note from ALP member and Webdiarist James Woodcock, a note from Tom Andrews to Brett Harrison on why he cares about SIEV-X, and a Christmas letter to John Howard from Jack Robertson – who gave me a great Christmas present by returning to Webdiary and defending my honour over Carr.
I’ll begin with “What will you do?”, then my go at an-end-of-year review, which I wrote for the The Northern Rivers Echo (echonews) this week. Editor Simon Thomsen has backed my work for nearly two years now – thanks Simon. I hope you’ll let us know what’s happening in the seat of Lismore next year.
John Wojdylo’s first official column is a reply to David Makinson’s Never suspend your disbelief. Talk about showing no mercy! He reckons he’ll lighten up once he gets into the vodka with his Polish rellies. Click on John’s name in the right hand column for the latest round. How about you guys organise to be in Sydney at the same time and we’ll do a video debate to sort this out!
Happy Christmas. Back mid-Jan.
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What will you do?
Monday, November 12, 2001
The election result shows that the disaffected right has come back to the Coalition, while the disaffected left has defected to the Greens. A John Howard masterstroke – the Tampa and its aftermath has united his side and split the other.
Several people have remarked that Howard is “an evil genius”. I profoundly disagree. It doesn’t take genius to appeal to xenophobia, or to racism. It’s a winner, especially if there’s no opposition. And it doesn’t take genius to destroy an opponent, in this case One Nation, by adopting its key policy.
Since the Coalition dismantled the White Australia Policy in the 1960s, both sides of politics have chosen not to play those cards. Howard chose differently.
The error of the bipartisan approach was not to address people’s concerns about it. The climax of that error came when Paul Keating ran the country. Asked in Singapore to discuss the extent of racism in Australia, he said there was none. A policy of denial will always be counterproductive. I also think there has been a real need for a long time to articulate core Australian values to which all migrants need to subscribe. There’s been a bit too much once over lightly on multiculturalism, and the backlash has destroyed the ideal.
I was in a strange space on Saturday night. I’d cried every day since the Liberal and Labor launches, so the grieving was already done. For me, the result was expected and I had emotionally reconciled myself to it. So the night itself was calm. I called the result first on 2GB, at 7.15. Some consolation.
Unlike some, I was bitterly disappointed by Beazley’s concession speech. The same smile, the same bravado as he’d projected throughout the campaign. I felt he just continued to fail to reflect his supporters feelings. Beazley keeps getting it wrong. In the valedictories on the last sitting day of Parliament, he praised Howard as the most considerable conservative politician ever, and wished him well, then smiled his way through the campaign as if there was nothing at stake. And so, on the night, it was congratulations for a great Labor campaign and on we go.
Guess what, Kim – many of your supporters were in tears. They were mourning the loss of a vision they had believed in and fought for for decades. Bob Hawke captured the Labor mood on TV, when he shed a tear. “Very, very poor standards have been set in many respects, and the country is more divided now than in many respects it ever has been,” he said. To which Michael Wooldridge replied, quite rightly: “It’s divisiveness, of course, that had bipartisan support”.
Among my circle, most cried when Howard said in his victory speech that “Australia is the best country in the world”. The worst moment for me was when he said that “the things that unite us are more important than the things which divide us”. Not to me, John. The things that divide us are now more important. We’ll put up audio of the two ‘leaders’ on the Webdiary soon, for posterity.
Many of those whose vision for Australia finally died on Saturday night asked themselves the next day: “What will I do?” My fear is that the brain drain will escalate and that many progressive intellectuals will leave the country. We’ll return to the 50s and 60s, the cultural cringe days.
To win through, enough people who believe that a multicultural, internationalist Australia will give our nation the best economic, security and social outcomes must stay, and rethink. We started that discussion in Webdiary last week. Some will join a political party, others will join the refugee protest movement. What will you do?
* Many Webdiarists responded to this question in ‘Searching for answers’ (webdiary2001) and ‘Redrawing my map of home’ (webdiary2001).
***
A Tough Year, but you can Still Dance
At the end of a terrible year you look for hope and inspiration to survive the next one. My Australian of the year is Justice Michael Kirby, who eye-balled his government persecutors, mantained his dignity, saw off the bastards, and refused to be silenced.
Opening the Gay Games last month, he began: “Under different stars, at the beginning of a new millennium, in an old land and a young nation, we join together in the hope and conviction that the future will be kinder and more just than the past.”
The media story of the year was Cheryl Kernot, whose final humiliation – the disclosure of the affair with Gareth Evans – sparked a unique debate between and among journalists and the public on whether we wanted a line drawn between public and private lives. Happily, we proved that our culture is still different – unlike the Americans and the Brits we resoundingly voted yes to some privacy, and had – maybe for the only time this year – a quality debate on the merits about which side of the line the affair fell on.
As the former Democrats leader imploded one last time, the party which brought her to prominence died a long, painful public death, splintered by personality clashes and an addiction to public self-flagellation.
The Democrats demise added to the momentum of the Greens kick-started at last year’s federal election, and the Party went on to slay Goliath in Cunningham and finally seduce the state that had never been interested, Victoria.
But 2002 was a year defined by 2001, when the Tampa and September 11 blew away our domestic consensus on refugees and human rights and plunged the world into potential world war.
Many thought boat people had had their day in the epicentre of Australian politics after the federal election, but too many grassroots Australians, backed by too many rank-and-file members of the ALP, refused to give in and dug in for the long haul.
The federal ALP, until a week ago a sad shadow of the Liberal party on policy, a twisted wreck of a machine on process, staggered towards a split under the sad visage of Simon Crean, who helped destroy Kim Beazley through the infamous “small target strategy”. Carmen Lawrence pulled the plug, and her emergence as leader of the dishevelled, powerless left-wing of the party looked like it might prevent what looked like an inevitable formal split with the left defecting to the Greens.
But then, in a last gasp last Friday which transformed politics in a moment, Simon Crean eye-balled Howard on the ASIO bill and took him, with the inspired backing of Kim Beazley. Howard has threatened a double dissolution election, Labor has its pride back, and, in my view, Crean has saved his leadership and united his party and its supporters. The war over how many of our freedoms must be lost in the war on terror, and which man can be trusted to protect our safety and our way of life, will dominate 2003. Unfortunately, it’s Crean -v- Howard and Bob Carr on this epic battle for our values.
In NSW, Bob Carr exploited fear to ram through legislation creating a police state and a mesmerised opposition went along with it. It is well and truly time to say good-bye to Labor in NSW, but Bob Carr, actor, could well get a third term by playing strong man, directed with glee by Alan Jones. Being run by Tammany Hall in a time of national security crisis is a horrible thought.
The cataclysm of 2002 for Australia was Bali, a country we considered almost part of us. The slaughter, the agony, the shock – all brought home the reality of the war on terror. It also transformed the debate about whether we should join the United States in a first Strike on Iraq, which swirled through 2002 as the US dumped its key objective post September 11 – to catch Osama bin Laden – and abused the fear of its citizens to restart war against an old enemy.
John Howard’s me-tooism repelled too many Australians to last in its purest form, and he spent much of the year trying to appear independent while agreeing to back the US in a unilateral first strike. Now propaganda rains down on us to change our mind, despite the conviction of many that our troops belong in our region defending us against our real enemies rather than across the world creating another one.
Enough of despair. Michael Kirby ended his speech with a call to dance.
“Be sure that, in the end, inclusion will replace exclusion. For the sake of the planet and of humanity it must be so. Enjoy yourselves. And by our lives let us be an example of respect for human rights. Not just for gays. For everyone.”
***
James Woodcock in Sydney
Last week, at the last meeting of Harberfield Branch ALP for 2002, four of us individually brought along motions of Support for Carmen Lawrence’s principled resignation. Ir was passed unanimously ( with cc’s to Simon and John Murphy). I know it is early days yet, but Carmen’s stance and Simon’s recent discovery of his testicles (even for political reasons) are reasons for a little bit of hope.
You are right, this is a great country and what makes it good is that I can email you, a journalist at Australia’s best newspaper and I can get up in a Labor Party Forum and argue with the shadow Minister for Immigration and tell her to get her act together. In spite of all our imperfections I still feel have some input into democratic processes.
***
Tom Andrews
Brett Harrison wrote: “I think it’s amazing that Tony Kevin or anybody else can think that the rest of the world has even heard of SIEV-X, let alone care about it. So much for “gaining the respect of the world, including the Muslim world” by flogging this long-expired equine. Get some perspective, please. This is not world-shattering stuff. The only people in Australia who even think about SIEV-X are refugee advocates and political opponents of the current Government, both for obvious reasons.”
To Brett, I say these things knowing that you have written what you have in good faith. I know this because every person believes that it is impossible for anyone to be more decent or highly principled than him or herself. So if you don’t understand, the following, just believe me.
I am interested in SIEV-X. I am not a political opponent of the government. I should, though, be a supporter. By media definition, I should be an Aspirational Australian. I am not that, either.
I am interested in SIEV-X because just at the time of night I heard of the sinking, my one-year old son crawled up to me and gave me a hug for the first time.
Just that; complete chance.
This caused in me, in the following few microseconds, a wave of empathy for the surviving people who had just lost their children. It also brought on thoughts of those who died in darkness, out of sight of land, with their last hours spent in utter despair thinking of their own children they had seen disappear. Every day since, while we have continued our lives, the survivors have remembered the feeling of a hug from their wives or children, and felt the loss. Every day.
(This may seem mawkish to some, but I say it’s true. Maybe only parents will empathise with the fear of losing a child, or maybe even only parents who haven’t forgotten what it feels like when their children are still young.)
Brett, from his perspective, can’t understand why the hell anyone even remembers it any more. That is his call. I, from my perspective, can’t understand why it doesn’t bring people to tears just thinking about it. And it springs from one tiny event.
That’s only two perspectives, Brett. There are a few millions of others out there somewhere. They don’t all fall neatly into your two categories of “political opponents” and “refugee advocates”.
I say two things to Brett Harrison. Firstly, my interest in the deaths of 353 people is not political, just empathetic. You don’t mean to, of course, but you insult and devalue my love for my child by conveniently labelling me, simply so you can avoid having to discuss or acknowledge. Secondly, I have an interest in plain decency. I want to be able to at least say that I made an effort on behalf of what’s Good and Right. Let’s face it, a society that has at best no care (as you do), at worst contempt and gloating, for the suffering of parents and their children, is not taking the forward view.
***
14 December 2002
Jack Robertson
BALMAIN NSW 2041
*
The Honourable John Howard, MP
*
Dear Mr Howard,
I write to you as a former Army officer and Aide-de-Camp to Governor-General Bill Hayden, and also as the brother of a current serving member of the Australian SAS, to express my growing unease at international Human Rights organization accusations made against our serving personnel, in particular the ugly suggestions that your government’s ‘Border Protection’ policies of recent times may have placed them in difficult non-military situations which resulted in Human Rights violations on their parts.
Prime Minister, I am of course only making a shrewd guess, but I am fairly sure that my brother was a member of the SAS party your government ordered to board the Tampa in late 2001, and I certainly know that he was also among the first contingent of Australian troops who later fought so courageously to help liberate Afghanistan.
I of course have not spoken to him in detail about his unit’s activities in these two markedly different ‘operational’ environments, nor he to me – as is only right and proper from a unit and national security point of view.
I am, however, growing anxious at the apparent fact that your government, and in particular former Minister for Defence Peter Reith and current incumbent Robert Hill, seems at best ambivalent, and at worst wilfully dismissive, towards what I regard as an increasingly urgent need for it take a pro-active interest in protecting the reputation, morale and perhaps even exposure to future prosecution, of our armed services. This is especially so given the real possibility that your government may soon be asking those men and women to embark on dangerous military service in Iraq next year.
Prime Minister, I refer you in particular to the recent study of Australia by the internationally-respected organization ‘Human Rights Watch’, an independent Human Rights NGO whose reports the United States has often referred to in the past – for example, when seeking moral justification for military action in such countries as Afghanistan and Iraq.
The following frightening quote is taken from the Press Release advising of this Report’s release, on 10 December 2002, under the heading: “By Invitation Only: Australian Asylum Policy”:
“Human Rights Watch’s evidence shows that the Australian Defence Forces violated the rights of asylum seekers on board boats intercepted in October 2001. They detained the single men under inhumane conditions, beat several of them with batons and used other
unnecessary force against vulnerable refugee families. These findings contradict the report of the Australian Senate Select Committee on a Certain Maritime Incident [issued on October 23, 2002] that praised the humanitarian conduct of the naval operations. Unlike the Senate
Committee, which could not collect refugee testimony, Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of refugees present during the naval operations.”
Prime Minister, as I said, my brother has naturally never discussed in any detail what exactly your government’s policy and orders required him (and/or his colleagues) to do on the Tampa, as is only proper for matters of ‘national security’. However, it unsettles me deeply that such an influential organization feels it is justified in making such ugly and unambiguous public accusations, and yet your government apparently feels no need to respond publicly to them, in order to defend our soldiers’ honour.
I refer you also to your government’s repeated ‘ducking and weaving’ on similar related matters, like the ‘children overboard’ affair (especially your personal refusal to pressure Mr Reith to appear before Senate committees); the government’s failure (in my view) to adequately defend our senior RAN and Defence Department civilians there; and your government’s continued silence over the growing calls – from such people as former diplomat Tony Kevin – for full disclosure of your government’s and our navy’s knowledge, if any, of events leading up to the tragic sinking of SIEV-X.
Prime Minister, my family are strong supporters of Australia’s firm stance against international terrorism. I have admired your national leadership in the immediate aftermath of both the S11 attacks and the Bali bombings. Furthermore, it may well be that these HRW Report accusations, and others from such people as Mr Kevin, are ill-judged and unfounded. However, as an ordinary Australian with a family member who has been thrust by you onto the ‘front line’ of both this country’s approach to asylum seekers and the war on terror, I feel justified in asking that you personally, your Ministers, and your government extend the full and proper public support in these matters that my, and other ADF families, surely deserve.
To that end, I now respectfully request you to a) publicly respond on behalf of my brother and his ADF colleagues to the HR abuse accusations in the HRW Report, and do your best to ensure that the mainstream press gives that response the fullest coverage; b) publicly state for the record – ‘before the fact’, so to speak – that responsibility for any such accusations against any member of our ADF that are subsequently proven correct lies ultimately not with them, but with you, your Ministers and your government for placing them in such difficult, non-military situations in the first place; and c) re-affirm that all past, present and future activities relating to ‘border protection’, on the part of our soldiers, sailors and airman, along with our AFP and ASIO, have been, are, and will continue to be, carried out with your government’s full authorisation, support, supervision and acknowledgment.
Prime Minister, thank you.
Jack Robertson
Via email, hard copy to Electoral Office (Bennelong), and hand-delivery to Kirribilli House Information copies: all Federal MPs and Senators (via PH email); Canberra Press Gallery
PS: I tried to deliver my PM’s letter to the Security Office at Kiribilli on Sunday arv, but they won’t accept anything there at all. Sigh. I’m getting sick of humiliating myself like this!