The plight of the Mandaeans in Oz: A new Iran contra deal

Amongst the poor souls who are still detained in Australia’s detention centres are approximately a hundred Sabian Mandaeans, followers of the teachings of John the Baptist, who have fled from Iran. The Iranians are the largest group of asylum seekers still in detention.

Some have been held, brutalised and traumatised, for as long as four years, a situation which caused the United Nations Working Party on Arbitrary Detention to find the Australian government in breach of the Refugee Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Government’s solution to this flagrant breach of out international obligations is to throw out these people who dared ask for asylum on our shores.

Together with several hundred other refugees from the repressive Iranian regime, there are between 17 and 22 Mandaean families now faced with the threat of forcible deportation as part of the Howard government’s secret agreement with the government of Iran. About 80 Iranians have already received notice that they could, at any moment, be sent back to Iran, if necessary, by force.

The government has persistently refused to make public the contents of the Memorandum of Understanding which details this agreement, telling the Senate and in answer to one of my questions that it was “not in the public interest” to make the document public.

At a time when our partners in the “coalition of the willing” are suggesting that they might support a popular uprising in Iran, already designated as one of the members of the “axis of evil”, the Howard government is busy making secret agreements and forging closer economic and political ties with the regime.

Recent trade talks with senior government ministers, the visit of an Iranian parliamentary delegation and raids by the AFP of the homes of Iranians associated with the opposition forces in Iran, all signify this closer relationship. The Iranian followers of John the Baptist – and their fellow country men and women – are part of the contra deal for increased trade with Iran.

The Howard government has also consistently refused to provide any guarantees for the safety of those deported to Iran. This, despite the fact that the head of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Justice Louis Joinet, said this week that, having recently visited Iran to inspect the human rights situation, he had come away deep concerns about the nature of Australia’s agreement with Iraq, particularly the fact that, “There are no guarantees as to what will happen when they (Australian detainees) are returned to Iran”. He also expressed some scepticism about whether so-called voluntary returns would actually be voluntary.

This scepticism is justified by the leaking of a Departmental memo which outlined the development of a strategy on the return of Iranian nationals. The minute, signed by John Okley, assistant secretary of international co-operation in the Department of Immigration, proposed two courses of action: the first, “encouraging voluntary departures” by inducements of $2000 per person; giving them the status of a returnee, rather than a deportee; supplying them with airfares and travel documents; and waiving the cost of their accommodation in detention!

And if this fails, “the creation of a credible threat of involuntary removal”, by telling detainees that the Iranian government would now accept their involuntary repatriation, something they had refused to do in the past. Priority for removal was to be given to “those who have attempted self-harm or committed acts of violence within the centres.”

There is no doubt that the Howard government does not regard itself as seriously bound by our international treaty obligations (except with the United States). But even by the degraded standards of the government, this represents a flagrant disregard of the obligations under the Refugee Convention not to return a refugee to “a place where his or her life or liberty is threatened” and of the Torture Convention not to send a person to “a place where there is a real prospect of torture.”

While the Federal Government has insisted that none of the 265 Iranians threatened with forcible deportation are owed protection under Australia’s migration laws, many of those facing deportation fear that, in providing information for their refugee applications, they have exposed themselves to greater danger if they are returned to Iran. This is especially true for those who are easily identified by religion, occupation or region, even if their names are withheld.

As Julie Macken pointed out in a recent article, the Refugee Review Tribunal, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Federal Court all publish their decisions and findings on the internet and while they do not publish names, “even with little information it is easy to work out to whom they are referring.” Louis Joinet told Radio National journalist, Tom Morton, “the very act of fleeing takes on a political complexion” and in certain cases, “this has given rise to persecution.” Ruddock’s response to this elevated risk to those forced to return is the implausible conclusion that if Australia’s refugee assessment process has found that they are not refugees, i.e. that they do not have a well-founded fear of persecution, then they will not be persecuted. By definition. Yes, Minister.

The Mandaeans, a tiny pre-Christian religious minority would, almost certainly, be readily identified from Tribunal and Court transcripts. Because their religion is not recognised by the government of Iran, they are subjected to discrimination and denied the normal protections of the law. The Federal Court, in an appeal against a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal heard last year, gave the following measured assessment of religious persecution in Iran:

In Iran all religious minorities including Christians and of course Jews, suffer varying degrees of persecution, vis a vis the Shi’ite Muslim majority. The State, since the religiously inspired revolution, does not, for example, permit non-Muslims to engage in government employment or attend university and there are restrictions on the extent to which they can fully practise their religion, for example, by teaching it. If injured or killed, they or their dependants apparently receive less compensation than would the Muslim majority, and they may suffer in assessments of their credibility as witnesses before Iranian courts.

Religious persecution in Iran is a matter of public record and the subject of frequent comment from human rights observers and even from the U.S. State Department. The head of a UN working group on detention centres, Louis Joinet, recently told journalists that Iran was detaining dissidents and others without due process on a “large scale” and keeping them in solitary confinement. Human Rights Watch reported in February that:

“The arbitrary detention of students and the targeting of government critics have increased. Scholars and students who criticise the ruling clerical establishment have faced death sentences, teaching bans or long prison terms.”

There are many recorded cases of the execution of minority religious leaders for no other reason than that they practice their faith and organise their followers. Iran is almost as enthusiastic as the United States in its use of the death penalty, and for much less serious offences. Amnesty records that the death penalty and various brutal forms of torture were imposed “for issues concerning freedom of association and freedom of expression.” In 2002, 81 percent of all known executions worldwide took place in Iran, China and the USA. The Amnesty spokesman also drew attention to the fact that over the last year alone 113 prisoners, including long-term political prisoners, were executed in Iran. Many were also flogged, frequently in public.

Just this week I was sent photographs from Iran of people executed on “hanging trucks”, mobile cranes used to hang people in public, even for minor offences such as the possession of marijuana (the photos are atMDC Watch).Yet refugees from religious persecution by this vicious regime are held not to be “genuine” refugees.

Although there are only an estimated 20,000 Mandaeans, significant numbers have fled to Australia, claiming religious persecution much as the now well-settled families of the Bahai faith did in the 70s and 80s. Most of them have ended up in detention because the Howard government has consistently refused to accept that they have been subjected to persecution, insisting that they have merely suffered harassment, and has denied them refugee status. The Iranian government, until now, has refused to accept their return as part of a general policy of resisting involuntary repatriations. The result is that the Mendaeans have been stranded in the twilight zone of indefinite detention, many in the desert camps. Men, women and children alike exhibit the predictable psychological symptoms of such prolonged incarceration.

For the Mandaeans this is a double jeopardy, since they are also subjected to discrimination and mistreatment by some of the other detainees who regard them as unclean. Evidence given in a Federal Court hearing recounted events during 2001, in which Mandaean people were denied access to showers in the ablutions block because of the aggressive actions of a small group of hostile Muslims. The Mandaeans were warned to stay away because they were ‘dirty people’. These threats were apparently backed up with action, since the persecutors simply turned off the water supply when the Mendaeans attempted to use the facilities. This mistreatment escalated to the point that they had to be placed in a separate compound.

Although their plight has not excited much attention in the mainstream Australian media, they were the subject of a report by Amnesty International last year. Amnesty concluded that they, and other religious minorities in the camps, were suffering additional psychological trauma because of the constant discrimination they faced. Amnesty reported that as well as their dietary needs being ignored, they were not allowed to celebrate their religious festivals and had no access to their own clergy. Amnesty also recorded instances of violence or threats against them and concluded that intolerance and vilification were now serious problems within the camps. The small Mandaean community in the Port Hedland have been particularly badly treated, initially without much protection from the camp administration. Although the Government and DIMIA are responsible for ensuring the well-being of all detainees, they clearly abdicated this responsibility a long time ago.

One of the very generous Australians who provide support and succour for those in detention told me that deporting these people “would amount to murder” and that those he sees on his regular visits “are in a state of terror”. Another, who has been visiting a young Mandaean mother and her 2 children in the Baxter detention centre, holds grave fears for their survival if they are not allowed to settle here.

Although there are several Federal Court injunctions standing between these people and other Iranian detainees threatened with deportation, it is clear that the Howard Government is determined on a program of forced deportation, first of those whose claims for asylum have failed and then of those on Temporary Protection Visas whose countries of origin have been deemed to have improved sufficiently to allow their return. Even a cursory examination of the state of security and basic infrastructure in both Iraq and Afghanistan would lead to the inevitable conclusion that people returned would confront serious risks to their lives and health.

As Russell Skeleton reported in The Age this week some of the Iranians threatened with deportation have had a reprieve as a result of a recent Federal Court decision. (Russell’s article is republished below). Mr Justice Richard Cooper’s judgment included a scathing condemnation of the Refugee Review Tribunal’s failure to investigate the specific claims of persecution made by an Iranian family of the Mandaean faith.

As a result, Justice Cooper ordered a review of the family’s claims for asylum, noting that the tribunal had ignored vital evidence, including violence and threats of violence against Mandaean women by Muslim men. He also found that while the Tribunal had apparently accepted evidence that Mandaeans living in Iran could not attend university, were harassed in daily life, were not adequately treated in hospitals and did not have their complaints to police acted upon, the Tribunal had employed an overly narrow definition of “persecution” in reaching their decision to refuse refugee status.

This judgment potentially undermines more than 60 adverse decisions already made against Mandaean families and offers some hope that the Courts may achieve what the Howard Government has refused – the protection of asylum seekers from possible loss of liberty, torture and even death if they are returned to Iran.

But this is just the beginning, the experiment, ahead of the mass deportation of people from Iraq and Afghanistan who hold Temporary Protection Visas; people whose claims for refugee status have been confirmed. The Government wants to test the resistance of Australians to this indecency. I hope they are unpleasantly surprised and that Australians will draw the line at forcing people back to situations where their very lives are at risk.

***

Judge orders refugees review

by Russell Skelton

Dozens of Iranians may not now be deported from Australia after the Federal Court delivered a damning assessment of the Refugee Review Tribunal and its failure to investigate claims of persecution made by an Iranian family of the Sabian Mandaean faith.

Dozens of Iranians may not now be deported from Australia after the Federal Court delivered a damning assessment of the Refugee Review Tribunal and its failure to investigate claims of persecution made by an Iranian family of the Sabian Mandaean faith.

Justice Richard Cooper, who ordered the tribunal to review the family’s claims for asylum “afresh in their entirety”, found the tribunal ignored key evidence and failed to deal with claims of violence and threats of violence against Mandaean women by Muslim men.

Justice Cooper’s stinging judgement, which also questions the tribunal’s narrow definition of “persecution”, by implication calls into question more than 60 adverse decisions made by the Immigration Department and the tribunal against Mandaean families now awaiting forcible return to Iran under a secret agreement between Canberra and Tehran.

The judgement, handed down on May 30, will increase pressure on Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock to review the asylum claims of Mandaeans, followers of a tiny pre-Christian faith that adheres to the teachings of John the Baptist. Although there are only an estimated 20,000 Mandaeans, significant numbers fled to Australia from Iran and Iraq. The vast majority have ended up in detention because the Federal Government refuses to recognise that they are treated as “infidels” and persecuted by Shiite Muslims.

Justice Cooper’s judgement questions the Federal Government’s stand by canvassing a number of legal opinions asserting that any definition of persecution should include sustained discrimination against individuals and groups unable to protect themselves. The Government has informed the tribunal that Mandaeans are discriminated against but not persecuted.

Justice Cooper found the tribunal had accepted evidence that Mandaeans living in Iran could not attend university, were harassed in daily life, were not adequately treated in hospitals and that their complaints to police were often not acted on.

“The tribunal was required to ask itself why this conduct was engaged in, and if for a convention reason, whether or not it constituted persecutory treatment. This it did not do,” he said.

“The tribunal did not address all the claims of personal violence, and threats of violence to Mandaean women in their homes and in hospitals from Muslim men, nor the reasons for such violence and threat of violence. Nor did it address the claims that children were denied the right to be taught their religion at school, were denigrated for their beliefs and put under pressure to convert to Islam.”

In relation to the family’s specific claims, Justice Cooper said the tribunal did not deal with the wife’s claim that she was physically assaulted and threatened by Iranian police in front of her children and had not been treated appropriately in hospital because of her religious beliefs.

The president of the Sabian Mandaean Association in Australia, Khosrow Cholaili, yesterday called on Mr Ruddock to review the cases of 17 Mandaean families waiting to be deported to Iran under the terms of a memorandum of understanding between Iran and Australia.

“It is clear from this case and from other recent judgements that the plight of Sabian Mandaeans and the persecution they face in Iran because of their beliefs has not been properly taken into account by the tribunal,” he said.

Mr Cholaili said there was plenty of evidence that the high levels of discrimination in every facet of daily life amounted to persecution. “Because of our alleged ‘uncleanness’ it is difficult for us to obtain medical attention. Even our children are not to permitted to attend kindergartens. If a Mandaean handles food in the market, the whole lot will be thrown out and they will be made to pay.”

Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Justice Louis Joinet, has called on the Government to explain plans to deport more than 100 Iranians by force.

“Experience has shown that even with the case of voluntary repatriations, as in the case of Afghanistan, you have to be sure that people are returning voluntarily,” he said.

Justice Joinet said he had recently visited Iran to inspect the human rights situation and had come away with deep concerns about the nature of Australia’s memorandum of understanding.

“There are no guarantees as to what will happen when they (Australian detainees) are returned to Iran,” he said on radio at the weekend.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said last night that the minister was unaware of Justice Cooper’s judgement and declined to comment on its implications for the tribunal and Sabian Mandaeans.

What the Left needs now is Prozac

 

The cats and the dogs. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

“What Labor supporters need is a dose of nerve. Labor has actually got a bloody good chance of winning the next election regardless of who is leader. The polls don’t disagree – Howard doesn’t disagree. The only bunch of fools who disagree are the commentators in the left. Seems to me they need to put Prozac in the water supply.” Stephen Blackwell

***

G’Day. The possible politics of Howard’s Senate referendum idea is still working itself out in my head and I’ll write about that tomorrow, with your comments. In the meantime, here are your thoughts on the Beazley-v-Crean contest. With one exception, they’re all so depressed and depressing I’m hoping this is rock bottom for Labor. No doubt reflecting Webdiary’s readership, not one contributor backs Beazley. You must be a bunch of lefties!

I’ll kick off with something positive from Stephen Blackwell, then Webdiary columnist Polly Bush finds famous political quotes in history to help us comprehend the Australian political craziness over the last week. Contributors are Terry O’Kane on debut, Luke Webber, Clement Girault, Meg Rayn, Wallace, Simon Gerathy, Russell Sherman and John Thornton.

The numbers look solid for Crean, so I predict a desperation strike by Beazley, either a mega-mea culpa for mistakes last time round or even a juicy policy proposal to convince the left – now solidly behind Simon – that he’s given his small target an indecent burial.

FYI, I’m on Late Night Live tonight talking about the Labor leadership.

***

Raise the Titanic

by Stephen Blackwell

Why is everyone so terrified by this leadership contest? The level of doom n’ gloom emanating from the ranks of the left over this is staggering. Labor supporters seem convinced that this is a disaster. Have things really gotten so low? If so, Howard has won.

But sorry – he has far from won. Beazley – Crean: Oh come on! Have we forgotten just how much buffoonery there is in politics? Do we need to care to the point of self destruction which buffoon is in charge? As the last elections showed – democracy is very unpredictable. It is utter vanity for one person – Howard, Beazley, Crean – to claim that it is or will be “himself” who will “win” an election.

What Labor supporters need is a dose of nerve. A bit of, dare I write, the positive.

Labor has actually got a bloody good chance of winning the next election regardless of who is leader. Does that statement really sound so ridiculous? If so – why?

The polls don’t disagree – Howard doesn’t disagree. The only bunch of fools who disagree are the commentators in the left.

Seems to me they need to put Prozac in the water supply.

***

No heart, only head

by Polly Bush

Warning to John Howard. As Lord Acton put it, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Dissatisfied with merely announcing he’ll remain on as Prime Minister until kingdom come, Howard seems on target to ensuring just that with this latest proposal.

What a week. Looking back over the last seven days, many federal politicians would be able to sympathise with Harold Wilson’s famous words: “A week is a long time in politics”. It was a week that saw the spotlight bounce from one major party’s leadership tensions to the other major party’s leadership woes. It was also a week that many saw political parallels in history.

Early last week, when Peter Costello was asked whether he would rule out challenging John Howard, the Deputy leader chose his words wisely to mirror that of Howard’s response to the question 19 years earlier. Both men spoke of their history of loyalty to the party.

It just goes to show that what goes around comes around. Foraging through some of the great quotes about power and politics, it can also be said that history repeats itself.

On the issue of loyalty, Costello could take the words of French philosopher Jean de La Bruyere to heart, who said “party loyalty brings the greatest of men down to the petty level of the masses”.

Perhaps Costello wasn’t the only main player last week to reflect on the past. Chasing Menzies in the history books, General Howard may have turned to his pin-up boy in making his decision to stay on.

Sir Bob once said, “A Prime Minister exercises his greatest public influence by creating a public impression of himself, hoping all the time that the people will be generous rather than just.”

In his private meeting with Costello to inform him of his decision, the Prime Miniature could have echoed the words of another little fella, Napoleon I. On divorcing Josephine, Napoleon was said to have said, “I still love you, but in politics there is no heart, only head.”

Jump to the party room meeting where Howard announced his decision to stay on, and the Prime Minister could have quoted assassinated US Senator Huey Long, with, “I looked around at the little fishes present and said, ‘I’m the Kingfish'”.

Costello would have found no relief in soaking in Jean Paul Sartre’s words, that “it is always easy to obey, if one dreams of being in command”. The tired looking 45-year-old Treasurer would also not appreciate Giulio “Mr Italy” Andreotti’s take, that “power wears down the man who doesn’t have it”.

With the Man of Steel looking invincible in the polls, Howard’s decision shouldn’t have been a great surprise. Still, he planted a seed of doubt a couple of years ago by saying he’d consider his future on his now pending 64th birthday.

Superman told the party room his tribute to the Beatle’s Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band song was a mere case of having “run off at the mouth”. Flying so high, the PM didn’t have to worry about former UK Chancellor Norman Lamont’s ‘politicians prayer’ of “may my words be soft and low, for I may have to eat them”.

In his already famous press conference, Costello also indicated he would be doing less swallowing of words by expanding the net of political comments when he said, “I think my colleagues will expect me to contribute on a wide range of issues, which I intend to do.”

In response to this, Howard said, “I think a deputy leader has a right to talk fairly broadly. We all have an obligation to – myself included – to talk consistent with government policy.”

This is polite speak for the words of Margaret Thatcher, who once said “I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk – as long as they do what I say.”

Howard also said he sympathised with Costello’s disappointment, remarking, “At no stage did I have any desire to visit any kind of humiliation or inflict any kind of pain on Peter.”

Advice for Costello can be sought from writer Thomas Love Peacock, who said, “A sympathiser would seem to imply a certain degree of benevolent feeling. Nothing of the kind. It signifies a ready-made accomplice in any species of political villainy.”

On the issue of political villainy, look no further than the Federal Labor Party. It demonstrates former MP and now London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s take, that “being an MP is not really a job for grown-ups – you are wandering around looking for and making trouble”.

Federal Opposition Leader (for now) Simon Crean would appreciate former Thatcher minister Alan Clark’s words, which state, “There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling and waiting for traces of blood to appear in the water.”

There seems to be an abundance of sharks circling the choppy waters of the ALP at the moment. But choppy waters subside, and the sharks and the little fishes and the roosters should be aware of this. As Harold Wilson said, “Hence the practised performances of latter day politicians in the game of musical daggers: never be left holding the dagger when the music stops.”

While Crean and Beazley both scramble to feed the sharks for next week’s showdown, they should both heed Lyndon Baines Johnson’s vocational expertise with his comment, “If you’re in politics and you can’t tell when you walk into a room who’s for you and who’s against you, then you’re in the wrong line of work.”

Crean could also take note from Les Murray, when working out how best to tackle the slightly leaner and definitely more meaner Beazley. As Murray put it, “Never wholly trust the fat man who lurks in the lean achiever and the defeated, yearning to get out.”

In announcing his challenge for the leadership, Beazley tried to pitch himself as the clearer communicator, which is funny considering as leader, he was often criticised for deflecting issues onto himself due to his choice of language.

The man that brought ‘boondoggle’ into the Australian vernacular had the country again checking their dictionaries when he said last week, “Simplicity is one of those things I need to carry around with me as a talisman”.

In response, Simpler Simon could find inspiration from two old feuding British PMs in Benjamin Disraeli’s depiction of William Gladstone, and describe the two-time loser as a “sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity”. Whatever.

Or alternatively Crean could take on Paul Keating’s words, swapping twice for thrice when he said of Andrew Peacock, “does a souffle rise twice?”

For many people, the choice between a Beazley led Opposition is much of a muchness to that of a Crean led Opposition. In the words of J.K. Galbraith, it demonstrates that “politics is not the art of the possible. It consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”

On Simon versus Kim, Peter Costello said he wouldn’t comment on “who’s better, or should I say, who’s least worst”. For the not so heir apparent, the problem for the Federal Labor Party is “they don’t know what they stand for”.

Costello could have continued down this path with some brilliance from Spike Milligan, when he queried, “One day the don’t-knows will get in, and then where will we be?”

As the battle of the don’t-knows nears, one thing is certain. From the words of actor Will Rogers, “The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other.”

***

Terry O’Kane

I am a latecomer to Webdiary and have just read yesterday’s Same old Beazley not worth another try, and your April piece backing him, Time for Labor’s Fightback!

I am a former ALP voter from a working class background, however I cannot in all conscience vote for the ALP at present because of my disgust at the pragmatism and lack of principle shown by the ALP leadership.

I would caution those in the ALP caucus pushing Beazley to consider not the perceived popularity of Beazley over Howard but exactly what distinguishes a man like Beazley, whose political beliefs as demonstrated by his pathetic efforts on education (in particular the funding of private schools), Medicare, and most deplorably the asylum seeker issue, show a singular lack of courage and a startling lack of belief in the supposed core principles of the Labor party.

Simon Crean must take a large portion of the blame as well, however I take great heart from his budget reply. Perhaps I am grasping at straws, but his distancing of the ALP front bench from the grip of the NSW right also showed some “ticker”. I for one cannot decide why the NSW ALP does not come clean and join the Liberals; it would be a merging of the small government “true believers” which could only delight the big end of town.

The left is under attack from many directions. The lack of true diversity of opinion in the mainstream media combined with the curious fascination that journalists have with the minutiae of the machinations in Canberra robs the people of real discussion of issues of importance.

The divestment of public institutions and the transfer of their assets and revenue earning capacity to the private sector have been pushed by both the Liberals and ALP. It is time that the ALP starts to recruit people with some diversity of background and not simply court law school graduates with ambition and flexible political beliefs.

Until the ALP starts to show a preparedness to lose an election on issues of principle I and many of my like will be voting Green.

My father is a former shearer and union organiser with a strong commitment to the ALP. He and many like him are heartbroken and infuriated by the actions of Labor under Beazley. I note that both leadership aspirants have fathers who were ministers in the Whitlam government. Surely the ideological divide between the Whitlam years and the current ALP is cause for concern to both these men.

For the future of the ALP I hope that Crean’s budget reply came from the heart and that Beazley fades into obscurity. As for me I’m voting Green till I see some commitment to social justice, compassion for the refugees and a willingness to fight Howard.

***

Luke Webber

I’m pleased to see that I’m not the only one frustrated with Beazley’s blank lack of understanding. I was stunned and dismayed when he commenced his challenge by claiming that he’d “won the campaigning” in 2001. If he intends to campaign in the same way for the next election, he can bloody well bugger off back to Bunbury as far as I’m concerned.

If Beazley could show us a Labor leader prepared to lead, and to espouse unpopular policy because it’s *right* he might win my vote, but a small-target Beazley prepared to sacrifice long-held Labor principles just to avoid alienating the bigots and rednecks isn’t going to impress anybody.

C’mon Beaze. Show us some ticker, or go home!

***

Clement Girault in Marrickville, Sydney

We’ve got a morally corrupt Labor Party and two highly unpopular characters fighting for its leadership. Would it be conceivable for Senator Bob Brown to challenge both Crean and Beazley? A fantasy, no doubt, but perhaps Labor, the Greens and even the Democrats could agree to a marriage of convenience?

A similar alliance of Ecologists, Socialists and Communists swept into power a few years ago in France. Granted, these parties divorced a couple of years later and were then swept out at the following elections (the right-wing Gaullist coalition played the immigration / insecurity card and won – sound familiar?). Before the divorce however, France was led by a Socialist prime minister and featured a government with, notably, a Communist transport minister and an Ecologist ecology minister. Would such arrangement be feasible here in Australia? Or am I just dreaming?

Margo: Yes.

***

Meg Rayn (nom de plume)

As a permanent resident in Australia I am expected to pay taxes and to otherwise behave myself according to the usual laws of the land, but I am unable to vote. This is probably a blessing in disguise.

I remember being astounded when I first came over here in the 80s that should I become a citizen, my ‘right’ to vote would then become the property of the Australian government and failing to exercise that ‘right’ would subject me to a fine. It’s a strange and personally abhorrent concept to have a mandatory vote as part of the democratic process. Luckily however, it would seem that I am not really missing out on anything significant, the days of any pretence at a civilised and democratic government seeming well and truly over.

I left Britain when it became obvious that the Tory government was continuing, after something like 11 years, to wreak absolute havoc on the country’s welfare and that if I were to continue to live in that country I would be expected to pay further for the privilege via the infamous “poll-tax”.

It seemed to me at the time that the country’s citizenry were perfectly prepared to roll over and play good dog to their Tory masters. Should the dogs get out of hand and decide to go and find a new owner the Tory masters could always redefine their territorial boundaries, as Mrs Thatcher demonstrated on more than one occasion. The dog would get to know, usually once it was too late to do anything about it, that in spite of changing addresses it was still controlled by the same old owner.

It seems to me that the equivalent Australian dog has no owner at all. Certainly no owner who will consistently admit to being responsible either for or to the dogs.

The present owner rules in the old steel (sic) hand in the velvet glove manner. Should the dogs protest they are told to get back into line and that they are being “un Australian”, whatever that means. They are required to be ‘dogs of war’ but are unable to protest freely against it. They are also lied to consistently but are still expected to play the good dog role at the end of the day.

And as for seeking another owner, one who will treat them better? Well, having found one brave soul prepared to stand up for them the dogs suddenly find themselves with ringside seats to a show guaranteed to damage the one brave soul even if he manages to stay in the ring.

And why? Has this other contender suddenly thrust himself back into the ring because he regrets having not looked after the dogs properly on previous occasions and wants to make amends? Nah. He wants the ownership. The limelight. And failing that he wants to make someone pay.

He offers nothing. He shows not the slightest interest in any of the dogs. He fails to articulate a single word which might lead to any dog believing that he has anything on his mind apart from pulling down the one owner showing an interest. He indulges in pack behaviour unworthy of any decent dog. He has, to use the Australian term, become a mongrel.

Simon Crean deserves to be given, again to use the Australian idiom, “a fair go”. The only energy Beazley has shown over the past six years is this sudden ability to indulge himself in the most destructive and divisive way conceivable. To dress this up in terms of this being the only possibility of resurrecting the Labor party is dishonest and insulting and assumes a lack of intelligence and a complete loss of memory on the part of the Australian electorate. (Also the non electorate!)

Every dog should have his day, however this particular dog has had several and peed on them all. He should not be given a third chance and shame on any caucus member who participates in allowing him to do so.

I read Web Diary regularly and I appreciate your dedication to the right of free speech. I particularly enjoyed Tony Kevin yesterday.

***

Col Wallace

Sooner or later, the grotty instincts of self-preservation will kick in, and the Australian Labor Party will re-emerge as a viable electoral force.

But what a sorry bunch are we who hope Monday’s ballot will be that watershed moment in recent ALP history, when leadership is reconciled with policy direction and those of us still awake to Australian politics might once again rest easy knowing the ALP is still the party of fairness and equity. Or whatever useless piece of party jingoism Simon or Kim attach to the hearse this time around.

It will take another loss before Labor fathoms the resentment felt towards Beazley for his five year crusade into waste, ruin and the slimy fingers of Howard, and the blood-thirsty goons who nailed him on an alien scare.

It will take annihilation under Crean before the ALP gets an inkling of the public’s distaste for the factionalism which produces such an obviously unsuitable candidate as he. Or dumps Barry Jones as party president for Greg Sword.

You get the feeling the ALP has gained a vigour for defeat. They are thick. Watching the ALP is, to paraphrase Lou Reed, like a dirty French novel: Combines the absurd with the vulgar.

They choose to hold a leadership challenge in the weeks when Howard and the Liberals are more vulnerable than in any time since 2001. The case for war against Iraq is collapsing amid scandalous headlines in the UK and the USA. Philip Ruddock is awarding visas in return for political donations. The PM has humiliated his deputy and his deputy is already working against him. He picked a protector of pedophiles as Governor General, and insisted for months there was nothing wrong with that.

It shouldn’t be so hard for Labor.

John Howard represents the dark side of the Australian character. You see Howard’s Australia in the cheap, racist jokes of cheap television contestants. It’s John Howard who represents the ugly, Anglo, born-to-rule mentality heard in every abusive rant by Lleyton Hewitt, and every racist or homophobic sledge by an Australian cricketer.

John Howard’s Australia is suspicious of Asians, Arabs, ragheads, and especially those Indonesians and the Malaysians, who could invade at any minute.

That lingering hatred in all those stifling suburbs. The sense of pervasive waste amid the fibro shacks and the asbestos. That someone else is to blame for the inequality in Australian life, be it the menacing fiction of Lebanese gangs, or the Aborigines making land claims. And what of those Golden Handshakes? How can I get one?

Lincoln said: God must have loved the common people – he made so many of them.

The country is twitching with the most grotesque displays of privilege and wealth, and yet Canberra can never cough up much more than mucus for the commoner. That’s John Howard.

Above all, it is John Howard who is the most disgusting and morbid example of the relentless political animal, working day and night to wipe out anyone in the political system concerned with fairness, accountability and compassion.

Labor what are you doing?

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Simon Gerathy in Aotearoa, New Zealand

Surely this is about what kind of Australia we want. Yet Labor has for years now not enunciated that vision.

Governments lose elections, only as long as there is a viable alternative. Labor hasn’t provided it. Beazley is part of that legacy. The public has recognised this fact twice already. He has never demonstrated the characteristics of all true leaders – vision and guts. Howard must be gleeful at the thought of a visionless, gutless wonder coming back to ‘lead’ Labor.

If the caucus votes Beazley, they will go down in history as supporters of a proven loser. Crean is the only realistic hope of Labour winning the next election.

For Crean to win he must do the hard yards and get party policies back to core Labour principles, then paint the picture of the alternative vision for the country. He needs to demonstrate intestinal fortitude, and have the courage of his convictions to believe in the Australian people – most of whom think there is a more humane way, a better way. Labour needs to show what it means to be an Australian. At present only the Greens have any kind of alternative vision but it is too radical for most, so far.

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Russell Sherman

I was inspired by your Webdiary yesterday, however you forgot to add to the equation the power of the commercial media, something which has seen the Labor Party compromise its values to get a fair go in the media. In short, if you have a leftist-type policy, the media is all over you like a rash or you don’t get heard.

That’s why it’s a joke that Alston is requiring the ABC to prove it is unbiased – compared to what I wonder? The bias in favour of the Liberals at Channel 9 and 7 etc is so obvious it’s scary; and they get away with it night after night.

The media and its backers have the real power in our society (and world) and Labor knows it and is being felled at the knees by it. As a result, it’s a difficult juggling act between holding onto your values and playing the media game. Hence, the friction between Left and Right in the Labor Party.

I believe not enough people in Australia try to educate themselves about politics, and most are reliant on the commercial media for their political knowledge. As for why people aren’t advocating Labor in the pub, I think it’s because they don’t want to be seen as going against the dominant ideology of the day or week – it’s a lonely position to go against the shock-jocks and other commercial media. People want to be winners or associated with them, it’s human nature.

If there was a free and unbiased media, if the commercial media was scrutinised like the ABC, then we may see some positive changes for this country. This is where our political leaders’ focus should be, for the health of our democracy, which under the current circumstances is a farce.

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John Thornton

There was a time I thought Kim Beazley would make a fine PM. That view disappeared with him at the last election. The small target, the lack of ticker in not opposing the attacks on asylum seekers, medicare, education and health funding.

The problem is the ‘ticker’ is still a problem. He didn’t even have the guts to come out and publicly declare he wanted the leadership back. His supporters had to do the dirty work for him.

I’ve never felt that Crean has been given a fair go either by the media or members of the ALP since he was elected to the leadership. And let’s not forget, he was elected unopposed. If these people felt he didn’t have the goods, why didn’t they propose an alternative after the last election instead of white-anting him from day one.

The biggest criticism of Crean is that he’s not connecting with voters. Apart from Gough Whitlam, I cannot recall one opposition leader, Labor or Liberal, in the last 30 odd years who did connect with the voters. We are constantly reminded by media and politicians that governments get voted out not oppositions elected.

At the moment, the two party preferred voting intentions show 51% to 49% Liberal over Labor. Not a bad effort for someone who allegedly is not connecting with voters. For an opposition to win, however, the voters have to believe there is a viable alternative government. For voters to believe there is a viable alternative government they have to see good policy. Simon Crean’s budget reply was excellent. It outlined a series of policies that differentiated Labor from Liberal. And in spite of what Costello would have us believe, it outlined costings that would still leave the budget in surplus.

Voters also have to see a united party and that is obviously Labor’s biggest challenge at the moment. I find it interesting that among the backers of Beazley are a number of people who have aspirations for the leadership themselves.

Finally, what does Labor stand for? I agree Margo, that the party needs to revisit its past to rediscover what it stands for and how it can translate that into a vision for the future.

Re-establishing Medicare is a good start. The public have already twigged that John Howard is not telling the truth about Medicare.

You made an interesting point that whether people liked Howard or not, they’ve always known what he stands for. And everyone knows that he would like nothing more than to be rid of Medicare. The voting public are not stupid either, and it is interesting to note that even though Crean’s polls didn’t improve much, the gap between the Government and Opposition did and it happened AFTER Howard’s Medicare announcement and Crean’s Budget reply.

Howard’s Senate strip: All power to him

John Howard – that’s right, the self-styled most conservative leader in Australian politics – wants to wipe out more than a century of Senate checks and balances in the most dramatic shift in power from the people to the Prime Minister and Cabinet that Australia has ever seen.

The irony for Labor is exquisite. The conservative Parties have always defended the Senate and its powers, and used them to the limit when they blocked supply to the Labor Government in 1975.

It’s been Labor – the reforming Party, the party determined to progress the cause of the outsiders to power, the party determined to change the status quo – which has hated Senate power.

Now Howard wants to gut the Senate. His idea shows that he is now the policy and political system radical, and that progressives are reduced to fighting to defend what they’ve gained and are losing every day that Howard remains in power. Progressives have no choice but to defend to the death the Senate which once so frustrated them. Conservatives have no choice but to join them, as conservative legal academic Greg Craven did in the Australian this morning:

“One of the greatest contemporary problems of Australia’s constitutional system is that there are too few limits on government power. A popular prime minister with a supportive back bench is like an elephant in the jungle. What he likes, he takes, and what he dislikes he stamps to death … Ironically, such a proposal is deeply anti-conservative and anti-liberal.”

Howard’s idea also shows that he believes the neo-liberal, read corporatist model is now so entrenched that there is no need for a Senate to keep Labor on a leash. It’s the ultimate sign that he thinks he’s won, for once and for all, the battle of ideas and ideals raging in Australia since 1983, when Hawke and Keating began privatising, outsourcing, corporatising and deregulating. In other words, he believes his vision for Australia has nothing of substance to fear from Labor any more.

Politics is about power and power is about numbers and the consequences of having them. It is the power of consequential numbers that gives the Senate the clout to force debate on the merits of proposals, the power to compel government to justify what it’s doing. Government accommodates the Senate, participates in its inquiries and answers its questions only because the Senate has the power to block its legislation. There is no other reason. For proof, it is routine for the House of Representatives to pass complex legislation in a moment, on the promise that the Senate will looks at what it all means and seek community input. The government, in other words, outsources community consultation to the Senate.

Because of this, MPs within the government are empowered to dissent. Early last year, the government’s anti-terrorism bill proposed to crush political dissent by demonstrations and industrial pickete through an extraordinarily wide definition of “a terrorist act”, and to give the Attorney-General the power to ban any political organisation he wished. Through the Senate inquiry process, this disturbing, wholesale trahing of citizen’s rights and the trashing of democratic principles it entailed were exposed through detailed submissions from lawyers and human rights campaigners across the country.

Many Liberals – Senators and MPs – were convinced, to the extent that they defied the Prime Minister and forced significant changes.

Those dynamics would not have been possible if Howard’s constitutional changes were in place. Party discipline – ie the subjugation of the views of MPs elected by the people to the desires of the Cabinet – would have prevailed, and the government’s changes would have got through at a joint sitting after the bill was rejected twice.

Why? The power of numbers. With one constitutional change, a Prime Minister with the numbers in a joint sitting could roll over Senate scrutiny without qualm, refuse to answer the hard questions, and roll over internal dissenters with the charge of disloyalty.

Without the change, dissenters could argue that, given the Senate numbers, compromise was essential. The Senate’s power gives them – and us – power.

And without the power to reject legislation, the media would take no interest in Senate debates. Why bother, when after a couple of debates a joint sitting would force through exactly what the government wanted? Thus, the structural trigger for detailed public debate on contentious matters would be gone.

I’ve always been a supporter of the Senate, whether Labor or the Liberals are in power. I don’t trust either of them with unbridled power. Just as importantly, the Senate’s proportional system of election means the public’s diversity of views and priorities are more truly represented in the Parliament. It’s a safety valve. It is through the Senate that the great debates which divide our nation are argued and resolved, with the input of voices across the political spectrum.

Industries and lobby groups who’ve been forgotten in a big policy change or who haven’t got the clout to be heard by the big parties often get their views across by approaching Senators, particularly in minor parties. The rail industry, for example, lived in the Democrats offices during the GST debate, and thus made their point that the proposed big drops in diesel prices would advantage trucks as carriers of goods, and thus add to environmental damage. Meg Less reported at the time that Costello’s face went blank when she raised this issue – he hadn’t even realised that economic policy could affect the environment! So a Senate with power can force valid policy objections, and often more innovative policy responses, onto the table. Can you imagine Costello turning up, let alone listening to Lees, if he knew that a joint sitting would pass his legislation in any event?

Because of the power of numbers, the government is forced to justify what it’s doing with facts, not assertion, and to answer the criticisms of voices otherwise completely disempowered in the political system. It keeps the government is touch with, and accountable to, ALL the people, not just its donors and mates and pollsters.

Which brings me to the crucial point. John Howard has always argued that, alone among all the major democracies, Australia does not need a bill of rights. He justifies this on the basis that there are enough checks and balances in our system to protect the rights of citizens vis a vis the States without giving the Courts the power to uphold them against State trangressions.

Tearing away the Senate’s checks and balances would leave a gaping hole which only a bill of rights could fill. The Senate’s best continuous committee is its “scrutiny of bills committee”, which checks every bill that comes before it against a list of fundamental human and citizen rights and reports breaches – invariably in a bipartisan report – to the Senate. This committee is one of a myriad of ways in which the Senate acts as scrutineer of the government’s dealings with human and citizen’s rights, and is bedrock essential in a system with no protections of the citizen in its constitution. Without a Senate with real power, it would be open season for any government to transform our democracy and our rights within it without our permission.

Take electoral reform, the most fraught sort of all, as it can, unless carefully monitored, be used by a government to entrench itself in power by altering the rules to its advantage. For example, many in the government want voluntary voting because they believe that fewer Labor than Coalition voters would vote if voting was not compulsory. Under Howard’s system, this could be passed via a joint sitting without even the whiff of a mandate from the Australian people.

The fact that Howard is proposing this is a sign that he believes Liberal governments are likely to rule Australia in the medium term. No government would propose anything so radical unless it believed it had the time to put through such major changes to Australia that the opposition would be extremely hard pressed to reverse them.

Labor will flounder around trying to work out a position on this one – Paul Keating’s frustration with the the Senate saw him call Senators “unrepresentative swill”. Both major parties, in principle, want the least possible resistance to whatever they want to do, and both conveniently forget, while in government, that minor parties have no power unless the two major parties are at odds.

If Howard wants to castrate the Senate, he’d better propose a bill of rights to keep Australian citizens in the game. Better still, Labor could propose it. Nothing could be more guaranteed to kill off Howard’s power grab.

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I’d love your comments on Howard’s proposal. mkingston@smh.com.au

Howard’s rubber-stamp democracy

 

Minotaur head. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. wwww.daviesart.com

“What is needed is not reform of parliament but reformation. The latter term connotes a reform which is designed to return an institution to its original purpose, from which it has fallen away. We do not have parliaments so that they can be rubber stamps. We have parliaments to represent the voters properly, so equipped that the holders of the executive power cannot legislate by decree like absolute monarchs and can be made to account for their actions between elections. Any changes to the institution of parliament should be designed to assist those ends.” Harry Evans, Clerk of the Senate

Here is a speech by the Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, to the national press club on April 24 on the agenda behind most politician’s “reform” ideas for Parliament and the need for “reformation” instead. The speech deconstructs all the arguments now being put forward by Howard, Carr, Paul Kelly and others in support of Howard’s plan to end effective Senate power. All of them care nothing for democracy. They are all insiders to power who want more of it.

Harry is an independent man who sees his duty as loyalty to the institution of the Senate, not the parties who occupy it. As such, his advice is frank and fearless. He is a national treasure, and a great voice to have to help scuttle Howard’s blatant personal power grab. Thanks to Jozef Imrich for sending me this timely speech.

After Harry’s speech, a piece by Webdiarist Peter Kelly setting out the constitutional provision under attack by Howard and the three ways Howard’s change would adversely affect our democracy.

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The Australian Parliament: Time for reformation

by Harry Evans

The Australian Parliament, it appears, is perennially seen as an institution in need of reform.

Reform proposals are again being proclaimed. A reform is a change for the better. Are the changes usually proposed really reforms?

Before a major institution can be reformed, as distinct from simply changed, the following questions must be answered. What is the institution for? What functions is it meant to perform? Is it performing those functions well, and, if not, why not? Are there any changes which could make it perform its functions better?

So-called reform proposals are mostly put forward without answering, usually without even posing, these questions. The usual proposals, however, conform to an orthodoxy based on unstated answers to these questions. This orthodoxy always seems to appeal to governments in their second or third terms.

These orthodox proposals for changing parliament are based on what might be kindly called the electoral college theory of parliament. According to this view, the electors elect a party (or a party leader) to govern. The government governs with total power to change the law and virtually to do what it likes between elections. The purpose of parliament is to register the voter’s choice of a government, that is, to act as an electoral college. Parliament must not interfere with the government governing, as that would be a violation of the system. In particular, for an upper house with a different electoral basis and party composition to interfere with the government is a violation of democracy. In other words, to use a less kindly term, parliament should be a rubber stamp.

There are two major difficulties with this theory. First, if the electors are to choose a government and give it virtually absolute power, the electoral system should surely be designed to reflect accurately the electors choice. Unfortunately, the electoral system we have for lower houses results in parties winning government usually with only forty-odd percent of the vote and sometimes less. The electors get the government which most of them have not chosen. Preferential voting does not cure this defect. Frequently parties win government with fewer votes than their major rival even after the distribution of preferences.

This has occurred in five federal elections in the last 50 years. We cannot make fun of the 2000 American presidential election when two of our last five federal elections produced a similar result. One would think that people who follow the electoral college theory of parliament would be demanding reform of the electoral system as their first priority.

The other difficulty is that if we choose a government and give it absolute power, what is the purpose of having a parliament at all? It is a very expensive institution to keep, if it is only an electoral college. We could save a lot of money by dismissing all its members after the election, as with the American electoral college. Why keep a solid gold, Rolls Royce rubber stamp?

If pressed, the followers of this theory usually fall back on responsible government. Do we not have a system of responsible government, whereby the government is responsible to parliament? Responsible government was a system which existed from the mid 19 th century to the early 20th century, after which it disappeared. It involved a lower house of parliament with the ability to dismiss a government and appoint another between elections. This system has been replaced by one whereby the government of the day controls the lower house by a built-in, totally reliable and rusted-on majority. Not only is the government not responsible to, that is, removable by, the lower house, but it is also not accountable to it. The governments control of the parliamentary processes means that it is never effectively called to account in the lower house.

The system of a government with total power between elections exists only in a few jurisdictions, such as the state of Queensland. In Australia generally it is modified by upper houses which, because of different, and usually more representative, electoral systems, are not under the control of the government of the day. They are able to amend or reject the government’s legislative proposals, and inquire into government activities. The effect is that laws are not made unless there is broader public support than is reflected in the government’s forty-odd percent of votes, and that governments have to submit to more scrutiny than they permit in the house they control.

If we ever moved to the pure electoral college system, most people would find the consequences very surprising. For example, in recent days a procession of witnesses of divergent views has come before a Senate committee to express great apprehension about the government’s anti-terrorist legislation. They have called it the most dangerous and draconian legislation ever proposed.

According to the electoral college theory of parliament, this legislation should already be in effect. There should be no parliamentary meddling with it, because the government must govern, and certainly no delaying committee inquiries. But, says the moderate wing of the governments-must-govern faction, why cannot upper houses review and scrutinise without having the power to reject legislation?

Upper houses have only one hold over governments, their ability to withhold assent from government legislation. This is the only reason for governments complying with accountability measures of upper houses: as a last resort, an upper house with legislative powers could decline to pass government legislation until an accountability obligation is discharged. An upper house without legislative powers could simply be ignored by a government assured of the passage of its legislation. A reviewing house without power over legislation would be ineffective.

It is sometimes said that the traditional parliamentary activities of considering legislation and conducting inquiries do not constitute accountability of government to parliament, but simply exercises in partisan politics. The governments opponents use the parliamentary processes to delay and question its measures. To say that parliamentary accountability works through partisan politics, however, is not to deny the validity of the process. In free countries, accountability mechanisms ultimately depend on partisan politics and on giving a governments opponents the institutions and the powers to call it to account. Governments which are not checked by politics operating through parliamentary processes are governments which are not accountable.

Leaving aside the question of the functions of parliament, and proceeding to the second question: What is wrong with parliament that it needs reform? The implicit answer of the orthodox reformers is that it puts too many difficulties in the way of governments governing, too many limitations on the power of governments to do what they like between elections.

This naturally leads to a further question: Why should governments have absolute power between elections? What advantage would we gain by removing parliamentary limitations on government power? Usually the orthodox reformers have no answer. If pressed, they say it is because the country must have certain legislation.

Currently it appears that we must have certain media ownership legislation, which is self-evidently good for us. How we are to know that it is good for us without thorough examination through parliamentary processes is not explained.

The claim is also made that we must be economically efficient, and we will regress economically if the government does not have unfettered power to do what is economically good for us. The same people, however, tell us that at present, under the current parliamentary system, the economy is doing wonderfully well. Perhaps we could have an even more efficient economy if the government were all-powerful. If asked for an example of an efficient economy, these people usually cite the United States, the country which has the most rigorous institutional and political constraints on the power of the government.

In any event, the argument that powerful government equals economic efficiency has been blown out of the water. The American academic Arend Lijphart conducted a detailed study of stable modern democracies, rating them according to whether they have more majoritarian systems (in which one party wins power with few limitations) or proportional or consensual systems (in which parties are compelled to share power and compromise). He found that, on a range of economic and social indicators, including economic growth, inflation and employment, the proportional/consensual systems clearly outperformed the majoritarian systems. This finding has been supported by a recent comparison of Australias economic performance with that of the Netherlands, Lijpharts most proportional/consensual country.

In spite of their only argument having been decisively refuted, the proponents of orthodox “reform” press on. Every so-called reform of parliament turns into a proposal to reduce it to a rubber stamp. We have been provided with a perfect example in recent days. A proposal to change the parliamentary term to four years was floated, probably initially to fill in time between afternoon tea and the cocktails at a party conference.

This change is said to be self-evidently necessary for economic efficiency. We were not given time to consider whether, if politicians now are short-term thinkers, incorrigible pursuers of quick political advantage and pork-barrellers, adding a possible extra year to their term would turn them into statespersons and great forward planners.

The proposal immediately developed into schemes to nobble the Senate entirely, to allow the government, under various guises, such as joint sittings, to pass any legislation it liked and, as a necessary by-product, to avoid any parliamentary accountability. If these schemes appeared too drastic, perhaps we would buy the old chestnut of stopping the Senate blocking supply. As this usually involves allowing the government to call anything supply, the effect would be the same.

Unfortunately for our would-be reformers, the electors have not realised that paradise awaits them if only they would give governments longer terms and absolute powers. The electors appear to have an instinctive appreciation of the value of safeguards between elections. Some of them go so far as to vote for minor parties and to vote differently in the two Houses in order not to give governments total power. When asked to approve the reformers schemes in referendums, they have a stubborn scepticism. They also do not appreciate being told that they will be made to go on voting until they vote correctly.

One of the current proposals is simply a rerun of the so-called simultaneous elections proposal, whereby the government would be able to go to an early election at any time of its choosing and take out half or all of the Senate without the restraint of the fixed Senate term. This scheme has been put to referendum and rejected on four occasions.

This lack of enlightenment on the part of the electors naturally turns the minds of governments to nobbling the Senate without a referendum by ordinary legislation, for example, by abolishing or sabotaging the system of proportional representation so that the government could control both houses.

If the rubber stamp theory of parliament were ever put into effect, with or without the approval of the electors, those who were most eager for it would probably be the first to regret it. Media ownership legislation and anti-terrorist legislation may be passed today, but it may be repealed tomorrow and quite different legislation passed with the same lack of consideration and restraint.

Assuming that the electors remain unwilling to swallow all-powerful government, and they are not forced to accept it by other means, are there any reforms which would really improve parliament as the institution for representing all of the voters, filtering legislation and making governments accountable?

One such reform is fixed term parliaments, whereby both houses would serve for a fixed term, whether of three or four years, and the House of Representatives could be dissolved early only if the government lost its majority and another government could not be formed. This genuine reform would have many advantages:

* prime ministers would no longer have the power to call early elections at times of their choosing,

* every government would serve out its term, thereby achieving the stability so longed for by orthodox reformers,

* with no possibility of an early election, members of the House of Representatives might be inclined to be more effective in requiring accountability,

* the situation of the Senate refusing supply to force an early election would not recur, because there could be no early elections.

Fixed terms could be accompanied by other real reforms. In case of a real deadlock between the Houses over appropriation bills, the government could be allowed to draw on an amount equal to last years appropriations until the disagreement is settled. For other deadlocks, a government not willing to risk the double dissolution mechanism could have the option of putting the disputed legislation to a referendum at the next election.

A bill for a referendum for fixed term parliaments was passed by the Senate in 1982 on the initiative of the Labor Party, with the support of the Australian Democrats and a considerable number of coalition senators who voted against their own government to support the proposal. Public opinion polls showed that it had an excellent chance of success at a referendum. It awaited only a change of government in the 1983 election to be put to the popular vote. The incoming Labor government, however, decided that it was not a priority, and dropped it. That action tells us a great deal about the motives of governments in proposing changes to the Constitution.

What is needed is not reform of parliament but reformation. The latter term connotes a reform which is designed to return an institution to its original purpose, from which it has fallen away. We do not have parliaments so that they can be rubber stamps. We have parliaments to represent the voters properly, so equipped that the holders of the executive power cannot legislate by decree like absolute monarchs and can be made to account for their actions between elections. Any changes to the institution of parliament should be designed to assist those ends.

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Peter Kelly

Section 57 of the Constitution sets out the process for resolving deadlock between the House of Representatives and the Senate:

(1) If the House of Representatives passes any proposed law, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the House of Representatives, in the same or the next session, again passes the proposed law with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously. But such dissolution shall not take place within six months before the date of the expiry of the House of Representatives by effluxion of time.

(2) If after such dissolution the House of Representatives again passes the proposed law, with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may convene a joint sitting of the members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives.

(3) The members present at the joint sitting may deliberate and shall vote together upon the proposed law as last proposed by the House of Representatives, and upon amendments, if any, which have been made therein by one House and not agreed to by the other, and any such amendments which are affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives shall be taken to have been carried, and if the proposed law, with the amendments, if any, so carried is affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives, it shall be taken to have been duly passed by both Houses of the Parliament, and shall be presented to the Governor-General for the Queen’s assent.

There are 3 different conflicts which would be effected by Howard’s changeare affected by such a change: the House of Representatives-v-The Senate, the government executive (Cabinet) v legislative parliament, and small parties v the major parties.

For the first, a weakened Senate is a weakened legislative brake on the executive. The House of Reps and the Senate have different democratic features. The House of Reps has one vote one value but a “winner takes all” outcome. In theory a party with 51% of the vote can end up with 100% of the seats. The Senate has no equivalence of “one vote one value” with Tasmania returning as many senators as NSW and in that way is an unrepresentative house. But it is a proportional house returning a spread of senators across the political spectrum because each state is effectively a multi-member electorate. It has not represented states as was intended by the constitutional founders because the party system is so strong, but it has taken on the proportional representation role as a sort of house with multi member electorates instead.

For the second, I like it to be as difficult as possible for the executive to get legislation through. A powerful executive is a scary executive. The messier the business of government the more democratic. In striking a balance between efficiency and democracy it is best to err on the side of democracy. A more powerful executive would shift the balance of power between the executive, legislative and the judiciary arms of government.

For the third, the nature of the Senate makes it more friendly to smaller parties. It is no surprise that Labor has jumped on board the John Howard section 57 showboat with all the eagerness of a boy being offered candy. On this the 2 majors are as one. Once again it comes down to the efficiency/democracy mix.

I will be voting NO in any referendum to allow a joint sitting without a double dissolution election. Just as skeptics say “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” so too do extraordinary sittings, like a joint sitting, require extraordinary elections like a double dissolution.

A bill that can not be passed by the Senate is probably an extraordinary piece of legislation with much argument in the community, and an election would be the proof required by a government prosecuting its case.

Same old Beazley not worth another try

 

Old goat. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

Peter Costello has already made the point that Labor’s leadership tussle has become a series of Big Brother. It’s unprecedented – there’s no pretence at all that the party is not a clueless, rudderless mess, and it’s stripped off and bared its tired old body and excuse for a soul. The purpose? To ask a jaded public through Caucus to tell it who to pick to sell the sorry excuse for a great party to the public!

Did you see the Nine News of Friday night, in which Beazley is filmed lobbying a backbencher? He repeated the trick the next day for all the cameras. Today, it’s Bob Hawke at the races, backing Beazley. Every day it’s Crean and Beazley in endless TV and radio interviews.

It’s easy to be desperately depressed by all this, as many Webdiarists are. It looks like disintegration in the Democrats soap opera mould, except that all this public unravelling is about who is best as selling the message, with little or nothing about what the bloody message is! At least there was an ideological basis to the Democrats meltdown, whether they should be a centre-left or centre-right party.

Labor, it’s clear, doesn’t think it can win the next election. All passion spent, it’s given up, so a couple of old hands do the rounds before the Caucus decides who is most likely to minimise the damage.

But why has Labor given up? The polls, despite all Labor’s self-destructive behaviour, aren’t showing Howard’s a shoe-in. On the contrary, they’re showing the public is volatile, and ready to shift allegiances despite Howard’s popularity. And what’s his popularity about, anyway? Could it have something to do with his strength and commitment to his beliefs?

There’s a newish management theory around which says that sometimes a big, established company needs a crisis to trigger renewal. The buzz these days in management theory is about values – working out what they are and inspiring employees and managers to make their decisions using them.

The way to do that is to revisit, indeed relive, the beginnings of a company and the values which saw it grow from nothing, and then to put them at the centre of the company’s philosophy. Values, after all, are enduring – it’s only their application which needs to be adapted to changing circumstances. The exercise is urgent in times of intense change, so the company doesn’t lose it’s way through its bureaucracy, the latest fads, and the inevitable distortions and corruptions that develop over the decades.

AMP is a great case in point. As a not-for-profit mutual, its reputation for integrity, conservative money management and security was built over decades. It had its policy owners interests at heart. Yet upon its listing on the exchange after demutualisation, these values – and in the process the priceless brand name built upon them – were abandoned in favour of constant, risk-laden growth, spurred by high management incentives tied to the short term share price. The company has been devastated by that switch.

As you know, I’ve gone on and on about Labor’s need to take the plunge and do it’s own version of Fightback!, the detailed statement of philosophy, ideology and policy that the Liberals embraced in their darkest hour. That document united the party and inspired its followers. It gave them a mission, and a cause they believed worth fighting for.

Labor appears determined to do no such thing until it’s exhausted every other possible means of gaining power, including a public popularity contest between two old friends. I can think of no more humiliating admission that the Party is bankrupt.

On the other hand, this exercise in transparency may be to the good, in the end, if the Labor faithful and potential Labor voters make it crystal clear they want substance, not spin. They also need to make it clear that they’re not interested in defeatist parties which lack the guts to work out their core principles and fight for them. It looks like the people are Labor’s last chance to overcome its identity crisis.

I argued back in April that Beazley was Labor’s best shot, mainly because of the international climate of fear (Time for Labor’s Fightback!), but on the basis that he’d learned from his mistakes. On the evidence to date, he hasn’t.

Beazley came into the Herald’s Canberra office on Friday afternoon to chew the fat about what he’d done. He’d already seen the following memo penned by Steve Gibbons, the Labor member for Bendigo, which stated the policy case for backing Crean:

***

5th June 2003

To members of the federal Parliamentary Labor Party

Some observations on our direction and leadership

The next time our opponents do something like pulling $100 million out of the Public Education Sector and giving it to the wealthiest Private Education Sector – we should oppose it – because if we don’t, we will lose the next federal election just like we lost the last election..

The next time our opponents do something like providing a 30% Medicare rebate just for those who are fortunate enough to have private health insurance – we should oppose it – because if we don’t, we will lose the next election just like we lost the last election.

The next time our opponents do something like sending a squad of fully kitted SAS out to board a vessel of helpless refugees – we should oppose it – because if we don’t we will lose the next election just like we lost the last election.

The next time our opponents do something like supporting a unilateral invasion from one nation on another – without United Nations approval – we should oppose it – because if we don’t we will lose the next election just as convincingly as we lost the last election.

If we return a leader and those around him who were responsible for losing the last two elections, then we will probably lose the next three.

Does anyone seriously think that the electorate will say ‘Good on you Labor, you’re just like John Howard, so we will vote for you?”

It’s been my experience that when those swinging voters who may be inclined to vote conservative are faced with a real conservative party and a pretend conservative party, they will go for the real thing every time.

We have to set ourselves apart from our opponents and provide a genuine alternative.

Any political party that allows the News Limited group to determine who leads it can’t reasonably expect to win the confidence of the electorate.

These are the reasons I strongly support Simon Crean’s leadership.

We should keep to that well established and timeless principle of putting in place policies that ensure that each and every Australian, no matter who they are or where they came from, are able to function at their full potential. If we allow this principle to guide our political judgment, then we will have maximised our chances of winning the next election.

***

This memo sets out the consequences of Beazley’s small target strategy. It was not simply, as our political commentators now claim, that Beazley put off announcing policy until the last minute. That was bad enough, as it allowed Howard to spend all the spare cash on things to help his political cause – and which Labor in small target mode always accepted to keep the target small, with the effect that there was nothing left to spend when the election came.

No, it was worse than that. Labor voted for legislation which began to destroy Medicare – its proudest achievement – and which advantaged elite schools at the expense of disadvantaged children.

When I put this to Beazley in the office, he explained his reasoning behind the schools decision. You’ll recall Labor spent a lot of time condemning this funding choice, yet when the time came voted for it. Beazley said the reason was “strategic” – to let the Coalition wear the odium, then take the money away from the elite schools if it got to power. He also said that Crean concurred in this course of action.

To seek to blame Crean for the failing shows Beazley still doesn’t know the meaning of leadership, that the buck stops with him. Crean appears to have learnt from Beazley’s failure, and adopted a front-foot approach.

But the real tragedy is that this Labor “strategy” forgot about what any political party is supposed to be in the game for – to effect outcomes. The outcome of this rollover was that schools with excellent facilities and teachers got money at the expense of chronically disadvantaged schools attended by disadvantaged children. (As expected, the price to attend an elite private school didn’t go down because of the extra cash, and instead went up, thus cutting out any argument that extra funding would give more people the chance to send their kids there. The same thing happened with the private health insurance rebate – far from stabilising, prices have skyrocketed, forcing people to opt out.)

Labor is supposed to believe in equal opportunity for all our children. Its strategy meant that it was prepared to betray that core principle for perceived political advantage, thus cruelling the chances of some of our most vulnerable children.

The strategy is also so naive as to beggar belief. Every politician knows that once a group or an individual gets something from government, its awfully difficult to take it back. This is part of the reason why Howard has so successfully implemented his agenda – Beazley’s small target strategy gave it to him on a plate, entrenching his supporter base.

A courageous opposition would have demanded that the $100 million go direct to the most disadvantaged schools in Australia – public and private. It would have trumpeted its belief that no matter who you are or where you come from, it is fundamental to the Australian ethos that each child gets a fair go. It could go further, proclaiming that this policy is a recipe for a stable, relaxed and comfortable Australia, and that it implements core Australian values.

Beazley’s small target strategy cost his Party more than a sellout of its basic principles. It also turned off solid Labor supporters, who stopped arguing the cause of their party in the pubs and clubs and lost all energy for the cause because it had disappeared. Modern Labor can’t inspire its true believers, let alone convince swinging voters. As Webdiarist Imi Bokor writes in his contribution today:

During election campaigns even ten years ago, tea-rooms, pubs, etc were abuzz with people arguing for the ALP’s cause, even if not uncritical of some of their policies or personnel. There was none of that during the last two elections. The best one could hear was that Howard had to go. But to the question “How would the ALP be significantly better, rather than just slower in implementing Howard’s policies?” the usual answer was an embarrassed silence, or a feeble “But anything is better than having to listen to Howard.” In other words, even the ALP’s supporters don’t believe in the ALP. So why should the uncommitted support the ALP when even the ALP supporters don’t believe in the ALP as it is?

I’m praying that before this appalling week is over for Labor, at least one of the two contenders will give a speech about what he believes Labor stands for, and make a commitment to run the opposition, then the government, according to those core beliefs.

As I wrote in Our yearning for a voice above politics, the day before Howard rubbed Costello’s nose in the dirt, the man and his vision are very vulnerable. Costello himself pointed to Howard’s core weakness when he quoted back Howard’s implicit lie after he was appointed deputy to Andrew Peacock – that he would not challenge for the leadership.

The children overboard scandal proved that Howard is willing to lie to win office. His lie that he was not committed to war is fresher, and the now compelling evidence that the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia lied about their intelligence on Saddam’s WMD’s further sullies Howard’s credibility. In my opinion. Howard’s idea to gut the Senate shows he is at a stage in his career where he’s over-reaching himself, in this case by blowing apart his solid reputation as a constitutional conservative.

Both Crean and Beazley need to drink a cup of courage, name Howard’s sins for what they are, and pledge to the Australian people that they will tell them the truth, and that when they can’t, for whatever reason, they will refuse to comment rather than lie. They need to prove the quality of this commitment with policies to clean up accountability in government big time, and to let the people into the political process, not lock them out of it.

They also need to drink the cup of faith in the justice of their cause and the overall judgement of the Australian people and tell them how they see it and why. Sure, opposing a rebate for private health insurance is a hard sell, but it’s a matter worthy of detailed public debate. The Australian people deserve to have the arguments put to them so they know the longer term implications of a short term benefit.

And most importantly, Crean and/or Beazley need to trust that even if the Australian people disagree with them, they’ll respect them for having the courage of unpopular convictions.

I don’t think Beazley has leant any of the lessons of his failures. The fact that he’s backed by two of the most cynical machine men in Labor politics – Stephen Smith and Wayne Swan, the same men who helped devise the small target strategy – tells its own story. The fact that he denies to this day that he had a small target strategy – a strategy admitted by everyone else in the Party, including its officials – is terrifying.

For mine, unless Beazley makes a very big speech this week containing very big admissions of error, very big statements of core principles and very big commitments to take Howard on where it really counts – on policy – he doesn’t deserve another chance.

A Crean win could be the making of the man. He showed he’s got it in him when he gave his breakthrough budget reply speech. If he wins this ballot, he’s got nothing to lose by going for it. True, he’s not a great “connector”, but then again, neither was Howard until he became Prime Minister.

C’mon Beazley, prove you’ve got what it takes. Please.

***

Today’s contributors to the leadership debate are Chris Zanek (a former Webdiary star making his comeback under cover of a nom de plume), John Carson, David Davis, Robert Nicoll, John Stickle, Imi Bokorand Peter Kelly. To end, a piece by SIEV-X whistleblower Tony Kevin on the contender’s records on the SIEV-X scandal.

Since Labor’s Big Brother is this week’s compulsory viewing, I’ll run as many of your contributions as possible for the rest of the week. I’d especially like your ideas on what core Labor values really are. It would be good if you could advise which party you support, so we all get a context.

**

The Beazley Bubble

by Chris Zanek

As safe as houses they say. But recently I’ve been wondering just how safe houses are. How can a fragile fifty year old shell of asbestos cement and roofing tin three hours walk from the nearest train station really be worth thirty years of mortgage poverty? The Economist magazine says it’s a bubble and many domestic analysts agree.

I’ve been wondering about Kim Beazley too. Are those polling numbers just a bubble? All his talk about securing a future for the folks at their kitchen tables, the folks with their overstretched pay packets, their bills, and their fridge magnets makes him sound like a real estate agent. Crean’s public opinion numbers are as limp as the stock market the Beazley people say. By contrast Kim’s polling numbers look like bricks and mortar – a safe bet in an uncertain world.

But is the Beazley bubble about to burst? Maybe it’s time to short sell the big fella and buy up some Creanite loyalty while it’s going cheap. Or maybe there’s some asset class nobody’s bought into yet – something young with long term growth potential.

But then again, you shouldn’t listen to me. I’m the guy who said Howard was a dead cat bouncing… a rocket propelled cat with six lives to go was more like it.

So like everyone else without a stake in the market I’ll be sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how it all goes down. And down is where somebody’s headed. When the knives start to fall it’s time to watch your back.

***

John Carson in Copacabana, NSW

My memories of the Beazley leadership are of a weak man who completely lost his way. His tactic on most issues was to criticise aspects of the policy of the Howard government and then, in order to avoid exposing himself to criticism from the government, to adopt the government’s policy as his own, perhaps with minor qualifications. This happened on the GST, on the capital gains tax, on the subsidy to private health funds, and on asylum seekers.

Regarding asylum seekers, I remember one incident in particular. In the sinking of the SIEV-X the mother from one family survived but her three daughters drowned. Her husband was the holder of a temporary protection visa in Australia, which meant he could not leave Australia to comfort his grieving wife without forfeiting his right to return. The Howard government refused to grant him special permission to visit his wife and Kim Beazley explicitly supported this decision. Even from the perspective of someone who felt strongly that illegal immigration needed to be deterred, this was an astonishingly inflexible and callous position to adopt. After all, by the granting of the temporary protection visa, the husband had been judged to be a genuine refugee.

In his concession speech after his second election loss, Beazley had the following to say:

“We have a nation with a capacity for a generosity of heart. Like any nation, there are dark angels in our nation but there are also good angels as well. And the task and challenge for those of us in politics is to bring out the generosity that resides in the soul of the ordinary Australian, that generosity of heart, so that we as a nation turn to each other and not against each other in the circumstances which [we] have.”

I can vividly recall my disgust at hearing these words. Did he not realise that he had done the exact opposite by supporting the Howard government’s refugee policy? Was he that lacking in self-awareness? Or did he believe that the expression of a few noble sentiments in defeat made up for the absence of such sentiments while he was leader?

Beazley has proved that he is not up to the job as leader. He should not be given a second chance. Simon Crean has shown some admirable strength on occasion and the ALP vote seems to be holding up, even if the voters don’t like Crean himself. He is certainly a better choice than Beazley. It is to be hoped, however, that some other candidates will present themselves.

***

David Davis in Switzerland

The leadership situation in the Labor Party is a joke. Some of the stuff both Beazley and Crean have been saying has been truly laughable. Beazley carries on as if he was an enormous success when he was leader. The only time I ever saw him deliver in a convincing manner was when he made his concession speech on election night. That one seemed to have conviction.

I reckon that came about because the nightmare was over for him. He was exhilarated because it was over. Most of the time he simply can’t be bothered with it because he truly is lazy and complacent. For the rest of his leadership period he was the kind of guy who was difficult to dislike but he could never have been regarded as inspirational or particularly original. I suppose that made him the opposite of Keating and why for some he was a welcome change.

As for Crean, no one wanted him in the first place. No one in the electorate that is. Ever since he was elected leader he hasn’t said much of interest. I never particularly liked him but the situation is so pathetic now that I actually find myself feeling sorry for him!

Think of that first Hawke government and the talent they had back then. Now fast forward to now. What a mess they are in.

As for Costello, I can’t figure out his surprise. There simply isn’t a reason for John Howard to hand over. Howard is popular, he is healthy. The problem with Costello is that he only appeals to people like me. I think he’s terrific and I would love to see him as PM. The problem is I’m atypical and don’t fit that beloved “Howard Battler” category that is so important to winning the elections. Appealing to people like me is worthless (in an electoral sense). His smaller L Liberal values will not get people switching from Labor or the Greens and they can only serve to alienate the “Howard Battler” group.

There will continue to be no comfortable home for economic and social liberals. Labor is a “me too” party, the Greens are too “out there” and the Democrats died some time ago.

***

Robert Nicoll

From my position outside in the electorate, neither candidate for the Labor leadership ballot coming up is likely to appeal. Beazley had his chance, twice. Crean hasn’t come up with the goods. It’s time for someone who isn’t tainted with the past two elections and the current furore.

Coming up with good policy does not fit as fair dinkum for these two who avoided it for so long – it doesn’t appear real. Bring on a fresh face to implement the sound policies proposed in the budget-reply speech, and it will be taken as fair dinkum.

****

John Stickle in Daglish, WA

Kim Beazley as a Lazarus-like leader? A leader who curled up into a ball like a hibernating bear during the last election campaign and declined to annunciate clear, accountable policies. I’d strike him of my cadastre of potential leaders.

The Labor Party has a proud history of politicians and statesmen who had a real job amongst average Australian wage earners before entering politics. Where are they now? Today we get apparatchiks who start their working life with the intention to become a politician and work their way through the rarified environment of trade union offices, electorate offices or political think tanks.

But then we get the politicians we deserve, a very depressing thought.

***

Imi Bokor

You are right when you wrote in Labor’s least-unpopular election that the ALP “betrayed its followers” and that we need “a genuine, hard-fought alternative”.

The ALP needs to ask itself: If a voter is in favour of “economic rationalism” – an oxymoron par excellence – why would (s)he vote for Johnnie-come-lately wannabees rather than the established experts? If a voter is opposed to “economic rationalism” why would (s)he vote for self-confessed proponents of it? It’s a case of “Heads they win. Tails we lose.”

The statistics speak clearly. The last three Federal elections have seen the ALP’s support plummet to – and remain at – historic lows. It is NOT a question of who is the ALP’s candidate for the Prime Ministership.The problem does NOT lie with the PR facilities available. One simple observation gives the game away:

During election campaigns even ten years ago, tea-rooms, pubs, etc were abuzz with people arguing for the ALP’s cause, even if not uncritical of some of their policies or personnel. There was none of that during the last two elections. The best one could hear was that Howard had to go. But to the question “How would the ALP be significantly better, rather than just slower in implementing Howard’s policies?” the usual answer was an embarrassed silence, or a feeble “But anything is better than having to listen to Howard.”

In other words, even the ALP’s supporters don’t believe in the ALP. So why should the uncommitted support the ALP when even the ALP supporters don’t believe in the ALP as it is?

As to those with a commitment to the sorts of ideals and aims which were the basis of the ALP’s support until the Hawke-Keating years, the question the ALP needs to ask itself is: Why should any previous supporter of the ALP’s policies vote for the ALP when the enduring legacy of the Hawke-Keating years is to have made Malcolm Fraser look like a socialist?

These questions all have an obvious answer, and would not be needed to be asked if the ALP were serious.

I am confident that the coalition would have lost the last two elections if the number of “informal votes” could have been halved. I am confident that a large proportion of informal votes is from electors who refuse to choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and don’t wish to pay a fine.

No PR-company’s opinion poll will reflect these simple home truths. The Democrats also fell victim to such “market research”. Before the last election, I spoke with NSW Democrats Vicki Bourne about the danger she was in. Vicki explained that the “party strategists” had done the “market research” and were confident that it would be a close victory for the Democrats in the fight against the Greens for the last Senate seat. I replied that while having Natasha Stott-Despoja as leader would certainly help a great deal, she had too little time to regain the confidence of the Democrat supporters, and that her only effect would be to make the rout look like a mere defeat. I had listened to (by then former) Democrat voters and the overwhelming view was a sense of betrayal, specifically on the GST and Industrial Relations.

Well, you know what happened at the elections, and you see what has happened since the Democrats dumped Stott-Despoja. The ALP does to seem to realise that it is in an analogous situation, with NO potential leader to regain the lost ground.

Stott-Despoja’s appeal lay in her adhering to principles. Her principal handicaps were that she was young, an attractive woman, intelligent, vivacious and articulate. (This is a sad reflection on the Australian electorate!)

The ALP has no serious prospect until and unless it returns to what used to be the basic platform for its policies for about 100 years. Until then, it’ll continue to battle to maintain 30-33% of the primary vote, at best.

***

Peter Kelly

I am not surprised by Howard’s decision. In late 2001 I said that Howard will be PM for at least another 10 years and I still believe this is likely, as much as I abhor his politics and his vision of Australia. I think the Tampa affair will go down as the event that most replicates the Petrov affair in the 50s, an affair that was masterly manipulated to good effect by Menzies and denied Labor any chance of winning government for at least 10 years. In the event, Labor did not attain office for another 20 years.

Then, it was “reds under the bed” and the “yellow peril”; the fear of communism, based in part on xenophobia, that split the Labor vote and the party. In 2001, it was and still is, a fear of refugees, also based in part on xenophobia and it will keep Labor from office for at least a decade. The sight of a carcass floating down the river with smoking ruins lining the river bank describes the Labor Party today.

Labor is damned however it responds and though the issue may become a sleeper, world events which give rise to the refugee issue will not cease and it can always be rekindled in time for an election. Howard can do this better than anyone else in the Liberal Party.

The Liberal government may have a soft under belly on domestic issues but who cares about budget deficits when “reffos” are going to “rape your wives, dirty the neighborhood, and crowd you out of your own home”. And Labor is unable to articulate domestic issues because Labor has lost its nerve and its credibility to act as a cohesive opposition. In short it has no sense of purpose and responds to the glare of scrutiny like a deer caught in the head lights.

I believe Howard is vain enough, and history aware enough, to at least want to be the second longest serving PM in Australia’s history, and he is in a position where he can choose to do this and then add some, there being no effective opposition. The Liberal Party cannot lose with Howard but it can possibly lose with Peter Costello and any other possible Liberal leader.

I have to agree that Beazley is the best chance that Labor has of gaining office, but if Beasley is the best hope Labor has then this is a sad statement on the state of the party. Labor has little chance of winning office with Beazley and no chance without him.

But who will vote for Labor? As much as I despise the Howard government I could not ever bring myself to vote for Labor. And Beasley would be a much too conservative PM for my liking. I see no chance of Labor changing the type of organisation it is today – a poll nervous, image conscious, small target, form over substance, top down machine capable of anything, up to and including, selling out refugees for votes. It is no longer my party. I only care because the alternative is, and has been, truly horrendous. Back to the 50s style censorship, and xenophobia, combined with brutal corporate friendly economics, from which the public gaze has been diverted with the efficiency of Herman Goering towards those “those who will harm us”.

The refugee issue comes down to a shyster pointing out with one hand those people over there who will harm you, while dipping the other hand into the pocket of the xenophobicly distracted.

***

SIEV-X, Kim Beazley and Simon Crean

by Tony Kevin

For people who care about establishing truth and accountability for the deaths of 353 people on SIEV X, the current leadership challenge in Labor is of profound importance. It is also profoundly important to all Australians, whether ALP members or not (I am not), because it will define the political alternative to Howard that we are offered at the next election.

The SIEV-X story is a major litmus test in defining what Australia is now and what kind of Australia we will pass on to our children. If we as a nation and a political culture do not have the collective guts to face up to our national security authorities’ possible shared responsibility for the deaths of 353 innocent victims, mostly women and kids, whose only “crime” was to seek peacefully a safe refuge and new home in Australia, then there is little hope for our nation or for its much-vaunted “values”.

So let’s look at the current and past profiles on SIEV X of Kim Beazley and Simon Crean.

Beazley initially reacted strongly and humanely to the breaking news of the SIEV-X tragedy on 23 October 2001. He condemned it as a policy failure by the Howard government, in that they had not achieved effective arrangements with Indonesia to stop such asylum-seeker boats from leaving Indonesia. He said Labor’s regional diplomacy would have been more effective in stopping the problem at source.

When Howard reacted scathingly, claiming that Beazley was trying to score political points over a human tragedy, Beazley quickly went silent on the sinking . No doubt this was part of Labor’s prevailing “small target” electoral strategy. Since 18 September, when Labor agreed to pass all the anti-boat people immigration bills re-presented by Howard to Parliament, “the fight had gone out of Labor” (Dark Victory, Marr and Wilkinson, pages 155-156). In a comment to Marr and Wilkinson, Beazley recalls this phase of border protection:

“Nobody had been killed or beaten up or hurt in any way .. beyond a bit of jostling there hadn’t been anything of a particularly underworld character.”

This was 15 days into Operation Relex and three weeks after the tragic drama of the Palapas rescue by MV Tampa. The 400 people crowded onto the stricken “Palapa” had already narrowly escaped capsizing and drowning in an overnight storm, while Australia’s Coastwatch air surveillance had for 22 hours deliberately ignored their obvious distress signals. After MV Tampa’s rescue, their human rights had been grossly abused by Australian authorities, under the appalled gaze of a watching world. The first three SIEVs in Operation Relex had already been intercepted and the asylum-seekers on board treated cruelly and abusively by Australian Navy vessels at Ashmore Reef and on the troopship “Manoora” .

Of course most of this (except for Tampa) was still being kept secret from the public at the time. It dribbled out later, over a very long period. But we know from the “unthrown children inquiry” that from the time the election was called on October 5, Beazley as Leader of the Opposition in the caretaker election period was getting regular defence briefings from the Chief of the Defence Force, Admiral Chris Barrie. Operation Relex was the ADF’s top priority at the time, so one can assume that Beazley was being kept in the picture by Navy on how it saw Operation Relex as going. To judge by his comment quoted above, it was all pretty much OK by him.

Not only this: under normal arrangements for the election period, Beazley or his security-cleared staff would have been offered a selection of key national security and defence related cables each day. This means he almost certainly was briefed on the crucial 23 October 2001 cable from the Australian Embassy in Jakarta (released on 4 February 2003) reporting that SIEV X had sunk “up to 8 degrees south latitude” (which a glance at any map would show was far south of Sunda Strait, and well inside the announced Operation Relex area of operations), and “in the Indonesian search and rescue zone” (which extends to south of Christmas Island, ie covers the whole of the Operation Relex zone) .Yet at no stage did Beazley challenge Howards blatant public misrepresentations starting on 23 October that the boat had sunk “in Indonesian waters” and therefore “was not Australia’s responsibility”. Unless I am wrong on this, there seems a good chance that Beazley knew from the beginning these were lies.

According to Dark Victory (pages 242-243), Beazley kept silent when Neville Wran spoke passionately to a Party fundraiser in Sydney on 25 October on the tragedy of SIEV-X. Beazley declined to call on Howard to allow Sondos Ismail’s bereaved husband Ahmed Al-Zalimi to fly from Australia to Indonesia to comfort her over the loss of their three little daughters Zhra, Fatima and Eman. He did not want another front page lost to the drowned children. He said, “I was not going to give the government another days worth of debate on the subject.” (Dark Victory, page 243).

Dark Victory has many index references to Beazley, but perhaps these words on the final days of the election campaign best sum up M and W’s views, which concurs with my recollections of the period (pages 274-275):

“Beazley was convinced that every word he spoke about the asylum-seekers only helped John Howard’s election prospects. He was right because he had spent the whole campaign locked in step with Howards border protection policies.

“Beazley and his staff were angry that the press was once again dominated by stories from Operation Relex. They deeply resented church attacks on the party’s refugee policy and what they saw as the left-wing moralists in the party criticising their leader. Beazley’s rhetoric had often been as strident as Howard’s against queue jumpers and those “criminals who take advantage of our generosity”. He had tried to neutralise Howard on border protection while talking about the real issues .. jobs, health, education.”

Nineteen months later, it is clear that Beazley and his advisers still do not get it. The Labor Party knows now that Howard’s defence and other public service officials misled the unthrown children inquiry over many months, leading to a flawed exoneration of Australian authorities conduct over SIEV-X (see ALP Senator Cook, 5 February 2003, Senate Hansard pages 293-294).

ALP Senators Faulkner and Collins have pursued assiduously the subterfuges and deceptions in Government testimony since that inquiry report, and started to uncover what was happening in the AFP people smuggling disruption program. They know there are many very worrying “smoking guns” here. The Senate opposition parties and independents passed two major motions on SIEV-X on 10 and 11 December 2002.

Yet for 19 months, Beazley has not to my knowledge said a word on any of these matters. His office never replied to my repeated offers to brief him on SIEV-X. Now, when he again stands for Labor leadership, his June 6 press conference contains not a single word on such matters. His press conference strikes me as his 2001 campaign revisited. He played on the mantra word “security”, apparently assuming once again that he is talking to the same frightened and xenophobic Australian public as in October 2001. It is dog-whistle politics again, based on a strategy: “I can get us over the line into government, as long as I don’t have to talk about moral issues or refugees”.

The trouble is that Howard with his now corrupted and compliant national security apparatus, not to mention a cynically supportive Murdoch press, has the power to fine-tune the national security agenda to cook up whatever scare suits him, when it suits him. If Howard wants to frighten the electorate with another phoney border protection or terrorism scare campaign, he has the resources to bring this on. Beazley as a leader still clinging to his small-target strategy would face his 2001 agony all over again, trying desperately to get voters to focus on the “real” issues, while morally principled voters again deserted a silent Labor in disgust for the smaller opposition parties, and Howard again seduced confused voters with siren songs of national security.

Beazley would have no defence against such tactics, having again boxed himself in. In playing by Howard’s rules, Beazley would always be beaten by Howard. Beazley still naively imagines the next election may be a level playing field; but with Howard there, it will not be. It is now too late for Beazley to change course on this, even if he wanted to (and there is no sign from his June 6 media conference that he does).

Crean is very different. He is morally untainted by the refugee issue: he was not publicly prominent in this area up to October 2001. He dropped the unimpressive Con Sciacca and appointed Julia Gillard as a capable new migration shadow minister. She has proceeded cautiously, but she and Crean rightly went on the attack over children in detention. She brilliantly skewered Ruddock in Parliament last week over corrupted migration processes. Crean has given free rein to Labor Senators to pursue the truth on SIEV-X and to work with other parties for the crucial December 2002 Senate motions. He sustained with great courage a principled position on the unlawful Iraq invasion, and held off heavyhanded US Embassy pressure in a dignified way . His party has protested the cruel and unlawful detention without charge or trial of two Australian citizens by the US military in Cuba. He has in recent days sent a moving and appropriate message to the Jannah SIEV-X victims memorial website:

“The death of 353 people, mostly women and children, on the SIEV X was a shocking tragedy. The Labor Party joins with others in expressing our deepest sorrow and regret that this event occurred, particularly so close to Australia. It is a reminder that the evil trade in people smuggling is dangerous and unpredictable. Together we must work harder to put an end to people smuggling, and to hold those responsible for the SIEV X sinking accountable. This episode only strengthens our resolve to ensure that international human rights are respected and upheld.”

Simon Crean is thus laying the basis, albeit carefully, for a different kind of Labor politics that the electorate will see and appreciate.

Beazley has done none of these things. SIEV-X is off his screen. I don’t think he understands why it matters. I think that his view of Australia’s national security may be, at bottom, as limited and flawed as is Howards. It is all “boys with toys” stuff.

Neither Beazley nor Howard seems to understands that national security has to start with one basic idea – Australians should behave with decency towards our fellow human beings, whatever their race, religion, nationality, or present circumstances. Howard’s government violates that idea every day by its actions and rhetoric. Beazley violates it by his deafening silences. Crean is showing that this is an ideal he aspires to as Labor’s leader.

That is why I pray that Crean holds the Labor leadership, and that he will have a chance after this challenge to consolidate Labor’s alternative views on moral issues that matter, as well as on “the real issues” of jobs health and education. And I hope his parliamentary party as a whole will get down finally to supporting him.

Muddying the waters between guardians and traders

“There is indeed a case to be made that the water has been muddied somewhere between the realms of the public and the private and that the central problem is the confusion of value sets. The businessman who aggrandises public responsibility to himself is likely to offend the ordinary person eventually, as will the public servant who wishes to play businessman. Perhaps the core problem is that all the developments described above have been driven by self-serving top dogs – those who have ascended to the commanding heights of both the public and the private sectors and who may now enjoy an unconsciously collusive relationship. In the end, it is always the ordinary person, and that includes the taxpayer, who foots the bill – and smells a rat.” Alistair Mant

G’Day. Here is a sensational paper on the changing role of government by leadership consultant Alistair Mant, the author of ‘Intelligent Leadership (Allen and Unwin) and chairman of the United Kingdom’s Socio-Technical Strategy Group, which studies system function and dysfunction. Mr Mant spends a third of his time in Australia working with government and private sectors on leadership, government modernisation and organisational structure. Sounds heavy, I know, but the speech is super accessible and extremely thought provoking.

“Muddying the waters?” was distributed at this year’s annual conference of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and is the best analysis I’ve read on the different roles of the government and corporate sectors, and the terrible dangers we face with the adoption of corporate values by Government and the emergence of private-public ‘partnerships’ for public infrastructure. As you know, I believe that redefining the role of government – national and global – is a pressing issue in our neo-liberal world, and that the key to Labor’s present policy paralysis is its unwillingness to properly address this matter. The Liberals have enthusiastically adopted the private sector model for the public sector with sometimes disastrous results, such as as its now halted attempt to outsource all its information technology to the private sector (see HIH: Will Costello be nailed?)

After I recently decided that the role of government would be the Webdiary’s theme for a while, Webdiarist Richard Moss detailed the recent wholesale government sell-offs of its building to the private sector, with the result that quite soon, it will be captive to landlords charging monopoly rents (see Sacrificing humanity on the altar of cheap ideology). Richard calls the rush to privatisation and outsourcing “a national scandal that the media have somehow missed”.

He wrote: “In many instances, the government agency becomes virtually the captive of the provider, especially if it is a large multinational, because after a few years the agency has no basis on which to judge the relative quality, effectiveness or price competitiveness of the services it is getting. Game over.”

Richard’s comments followed my piece wondering how on earth it came to be that a private company manages our detention centres ( Woomera: Reducing Australian values to private profit.)

Thank you to Sue Jackson of the Australian Institute of Company Directors for finding a copy of the paper and sending it to me in electronic form. I’d love to receive your comments and recommendations of other cutting edge work in this area. I’m hoping that Simon Crean, or whoever leads the ALP, will pick up the ball and give a detailed speech on the role of government under “new” Labor sometime soon.

The private/public boundary: Muddying the water?

by Alistair Mant

This is a paper supporting the forum of the same name at the Australian Institute of Company Directors conference; Canberra 14-16th May, 2003.

The best business people and the best public servants are very like each other – public-spirited entrepreneurs and businesslike public servants – but their roles are fundamentally different.

In the Beginning…

There was a time when the distinction between public service and private business was much clearer than it is now. For example, just at the level of vocational choice, persons of a cautious or dutiful disposition could always hope to find some kind of long-term career in the public sector. The presumption was that the pay would not be enormous but the risks would be minimal – probably a job for life and a relatively generous pension in return for loyalty and discretion. In the British civil service, given a following wind, there might even be a gong at the end. The other, less tangible, satisfaction was the sense of having contributed directly to the common good.

By contrast, entrants to the private sector have always walked in through two quite separate doors. The “workers” expected to earn a bit more than lowly public servants and tended to rely on organised unions to fight for any security of employment. They traded absolute security of employment for the chance of better money, often earned spasmodically from shift-work, overtime and occasional bonuses. In the smaller private firms it could be a relatively hand-to-mouth existence but at least you probably knew the owners personally and could hope for some kind of reciprocal loyalty.

The other door was for middle-class and probably graduate entrants to the ranks of “management”, most of whom looked forward to a long-term “career” in one of the main banks, or a pastoral house – rising eventually to the senior echelons. Although in more recent years those managerial types have been increasingly exposed to occupational uncertainty, it has never occurred to them to unionise themselves. They just didn’t see themselves as “workers” – more as members of the owner “family”.

After the second world war, nobody much questioned an enhanced role for the State in the citizen’s private affairs – it was pervasive and paternalistic – after all, everybody needed a bit of looking after at the end of a long hard war. That was an understandable development but it certainly wasn’t “natural” for members of our human species. After all, it is only in relatively recent time that our ancestors emerged from Africa to eke out an existence in the “fertile crescent” in the middle east. We survived then, if we survived at all, in smallish family or tribal bands and our personal “welfare” was much less important than the collective needs of the group. Really large employment organisations, within which people anticipated orderly “careers”, were a very recent creation of the 19th and 20th centuries.

After the second world war, the biggest private businesses were still almost as paternalistic as the public sector. They expected not only to provide lifelong “careers” for the better workers but also to continue to provide traditional goods and services to their long-standing customers in time-honoured ways. They expected continuity in their relationships with both employees and customers and they assumed that government would ensure a level commercial playing field. Big firms such as banks and oil companies, riding the wave of post-war prosperity, actually behaved quite like major government departments-until the oil price shocks of the 1970s. From then on, it was 19th century tooth-and-claw business as usual.

The Guardians and the Traders

The distinguished American scholar Jane Jacobs (1) reminds us that the distinction between our public and our private selves is deeply rooted in our human nature. She points out that those early human beings had really only two ways of surviving and of apprehending their world. The hunter-gatherer existence meant foraging for whatever sustenance the locality provided. Most lives were brutish and short. But once we began to cluster in towns and to domesticate grains for agriculture – just a few thousand years ago – that more stable and predictable mode of life lent itself to the emergence of guardians -natural leaders who took it upon themselves to protect territory and look after people – an early instance of “government”.

The other mode of existence she called the commercial or trader mode which provided the means for exchange and trading across more-or-less stable geographical boundaries. Traders emerged as soon as there were predictable surpluses. Traders are good at trading but you ought not to rely on them for guardianship of traditional beliefs and standards. Jacobs makes the crucial point that the trader modality relies just as much on trust between human beings as the guardian or governing modality. Business grinds to a halt without mutual trust. That is why the financial engineers at Enron in the USA, Equitable in the UK and One.Tel and HIH in Australia were so damaging for mainstream business.

So for Jacobs, the guardian’s precepts are all about continuity, discipline, rules, hierarchy, loyalty, patronage, civic pride, social cohesion, mature dependence on authority and. in the best sense of the word, conservatism. That, traditionally, has been the realm of government and, by extension of public service.

The trader’s precepts, on the other hand, are all about creative discontinuity, initiative, competition, innovation, co-operation across boundaries, risk, negotiation, thriftiness and a freedom from immediate or narrow loyalties – the realm of business.

The important point is that both modes are deeply embedded in our human nature and both are necessary for our collective welfare. We need good strong government for the protection of our possessions and for the disciplined regulation of our personal and commercial behaviour. We also need to survive in a fiercely-competitive world of international markets. What’s more, Jacobs argues, our repertoire is limited to these two modes – our choice as a species has always been to take from nature what we can, peacefully or otherwise, (so long as nature’s bounty lasts) or to trade what we can glean or manufacture.

Our best hope is that our guardians and our traders can work in parallel for the common good without demonising each other or fudging the natural boundary between them. All too often, business nowadays sees government as a sea of anti-progress “Sir Humphreys” who generate red tape, obfuscate at every turn and aggrandise unaccountable power to themselves behind closed doors. Government, on the other hand, is now beginning to see much of the business world as in the grip of greedy, inefficient (and equally unaccountable) fraudsters, charlatans and the occasional megalomaniac.

Russia in the 1930s fell totally to its guardians. The result was an almost complete disappearance of true markets and of legitimate entrepreneurial activity. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, all that bottled-up illegitimate entrepreneurship is in danger of swamping the body politic. Our traders need to be strong but so too do our guardians. As in most things, it’s a matter of balance.

The Need for Global Guardians

As some have argued, the guardian/trader relationship has been much complicated by the phenomenon of globalisation. There was a time when the separate governments of major countries could regulate the behaviour of major multinational firms, especially as to the movement of money across geographical boundaries. No longer. If we wish for a workable international relationship between the guardians and the traders then the guardians are going to have to go global as well as the corporations. Such global guardians as we have (including the UN) can hardly be said to have fulfilled our needs.

The World Bank, currently under Australian leadership, is doing its best to redress the balance between rich country global firms and poor country village economies.

In a seminal HBR paper in 1996, Henry Mintzberg (2) drew attention to what he referred to as the newly fashionable idea of “virtual government” which contains the belief that the best government is no government at all. This model, he argued “represents the great experiment of economists who have never had to manage anything”. It is certainly true to say that underlying the fashion for public service outsourcing was a defensible belief that government had traditionally taken on too much and that a better public/private balance had to be struck. The question always is: what should that balance be?

Keeping an eye on the Future

At the practical level, many of our present discontents about public service and private profit come down to the issue of time-scales. If we rely on our guardians for anything, it is the long-term view. As we live longer and longer, it is reasonable that we expect government to ensure that we are looked after in a civilised way in our declining years. That means carefully-planned long-term financial provision. If that personal provision is underwritten by a private supplier such as AMP or (in the UK) Equitable Life, then we must hope that some guardian ensures that prudence and the long view dictate strategy in that firm.

What happened at Equitable was that energetic youngish people, in the endeavour to compete successfully in a short-term marketplace, took a punt on likely interest rates thirty or more years into the future. Nobody can see that far head and intelligent people know that nobody can do so. The punt on the markets broke the firm when another set of guardians (the judiciary) forced the company to honour its fixed-rate return products as interest rates fell. What were the senior management up to? Well, they too were being “incentivised” by very short-term targets designed to impress other young men in and around stock markets. They were trading but their time-scales were all wrong. Australian readers don’t need reminding about the AMP case.

HIH and Enron were similar stories, with the same mix of executive short-sightedness and optimism that everything will be all right (please God) at some time in the future. In theory, there are regulators to keep an eye on corporate mischief – in practice, no regulator or guardian can hope to penetrate the complexity of modern financial accounts. Enron used to be a modestly-sized pipeline company. Pipes are useful objects but the marketplace for shifting fluids and gases from one place to another is a mature one and the profits no more than steady, though reliable. So an inflated Enron invented a new “market” whose principal virtue was that no guardian could hope to understand it.

Enron also demonstrated the weaknesses of internal regulation by non-executive company directors. The non-execs are meant to be “guardians” of a sort but the sensible reforms to corporate governance proposed by Sir Adrian Cadbury (3) and his imitators were meant to be taken up by consensus and collegiality amongst business people – a form of self-interested trading. Enron reminded us that there is still a role for the external guardians – those guardians with the authority to put people in jail if need be.

Jim Collins did us all a favour by pointing out in Built to Last and Good to Great (4) that long-term profitability in the private sector always flows from the energies of low- key, uncharismatic (but clever) executives who spend years and years building up the steady momentum of market domination. These are the kinds of traders who are older and wiser and dedicated to creating admirable firms as the vehicle for successful trading way into the future. As one corporate head put it – “my aim is indeed shareholder value -but shareholder value in perpetuity!”

At one time, the West Australian Treasury had a good guardian’s rule – a principle of “intergenerational equity”. The idea was that no government would be allowed to buy popularity today by mortgaging the next generation’s prospects. Does that rule still hold?

Valuing the Sir Humphreys

If we can’t rely on more than a handful of private companies to keep an eye on long-term viability, can we trust government to keep its head? Well, a number of things have changed in public service in recent years. Firstly, the terms and conditions of public service employment have changed markedly in many countries. Almost gone in Australia is the old principle of tenure – the idea that a “permanent” head of department, trained over thirty years to be a reliable guardian, could and should stand up to short-termist government ministers so as to offer “frank and fearless” policy advice in the national interest without risk of summary removal or marginalisation.

This means that public servants have become much more like private sector managers -subject to “performance management” (whatever that means in a policy role) and to a private sector-like risk/reward package. Government ministers too have become more like businessmen in the maintenance of their private offices, staffed by non-elected and non-accountable (to the public service) policy wonks, spin doctors and business and special interest representatives. The creation of semi-autonomous government departments, modelled on mini-corporations, may improve management control and responsiveness but it fatally ties public servants to particular departments and therefore dilutes their loyalty to a broad public service ethos. Once isolated, they can be bullied.

As a frequent visitor to Australia during the first run of “Yes Minister” on local TV, I found myself worried by the unholy glee with which Australian public servants were tarred with the “Sir Humphrey” brush. Nobody in Whitehall or Westminster talks about the “Westminster system” because it is taken for granted. Of course the Sir Humphreys can be smug and devious but most people in the UK understand that they still represent the least worst way of ensuring the separation of powers upon which democracy depends. In Australia, it looked to me as though public service itself was being demonised and scapegoated, and a humble TV series was being misused to that end.

If we think we need guardians to preserve thoughtful long-term strategy, then we have to ask what kinds of rules and safeguards those guardians require in order to do that work on our behalf. If we turn them into businessmen then in due course they will begin to behave like businessmen (Throughout this paper, whenever I use the term businessman it is used deliberately and pejoratively to indicate behaviour which, thankfully, one is much less likely to find amongst businesswomen.). Is that really what we want? Of course, we need to reform public service continuously but we dare not emasculate our guardians. We need them more than ever in a world dominated by business short-termism.

The Third Way

In the 1990s, a significant new idea emerged in the UK with great importance for the private/public boundary – the “third way”. This is a Blairite “new Labour” idea, though it appears to have originated in Clintonian think tanks. The “third way” played some part in the overwhelming electoral success of the rebadged Labour Party in the late 1990s. The idea helped Labour to throw off its image as a union-dominated and fundamentally Luddite party of opposition to big business and old privilege. “New” Labour would be ideologically neutral- neither pro-business nor slavishly statist. The guardians (government) would work flexibly with the traders (private business) in a new kind of “partnership”. “Partnership” quickly became the buzz-word of this new world.

Superficially, this was an attractive idea. It meant accepting finally that central states cannot control complex modern societies from the seat of government. The guardians can establish the correct boundary conditions for the operation of institutions but they cannot run everything in the way that the Soviet Union attempted in the 20th century. On the other hand, it also meant an acceptance that the “hidden hand” of the market could not be relied upon to regulate the affairs of men – the guardians still have a duty to regulate and when necessary to intervene directly when imbalances and inequities occur.

It is not really a new idea. Something like this animated the great Sir William Hudson (5) in his stewardship of the Snowy Mountains Scheme over nearly half a century. The Snowy Mountains Authority (a public institution) sat at the heart of the enterprise and preserved the corporate intelligence, but whenever the unions became especially cantankerous Hudson was happy to farm out major works to an array of private sector contractors with whom he maintained good relations. He was always happy to threaten to call in the private sector – a tactic that the unions understood and respected. Hudson really was a “third way” operator.

Fudging the Boundary – “PFIs and PPPs”

The idea of public/private “partnership” enshrined in the “third way” spawned a new kind of relationship between the public and private sectors, mainly in the outsourcing of public

sector services. In fact, it assisted the successful export of a new product from the UK -the private/public partnership (“PPP”) or the private finance initiative (“PFI”) business model. (It is a British export in the sense that a large proportion of the public sector work outsourced has gone to British companies around the world). This is an idea which is as popular with parts of the public sector as it with the private – a true “win/win”. Politicians and businessmen love it. Does this mean that it serves our interests in the long-term? Read on.

At the simplest level, a PFI scheme is a device for accelerating necessary public expenditure by entering into a partnership relationship with the private sector. The idea is that short-term public expenditure will diminish because the private sector is bearing a substantial burden of short-term cost – and assuming some of the burden of risk. The payoff to the private sector lies in the long-term revenue stream (up to and beyond thirty years) written into the contract. Government likes this because present expenditures are shifted “off the books” and there has been a notional transfer of financial risk to the private sector. As a general rule, government ministers also love to open shiny new facilities now – even if the costs are borne by others, later on.

But we have noted already that nobody can see thirty years into the future. The cautious citizen may wonder whether a revenue stream of public (taxpayers’) money really ought to be based on an inflexible and binding, legal contract. If the deal turns out to be profitable to the private sector, well and good – the issue is how profitable? It takes a mighty clever government procurement department to devise a contract capable of clawing back a reasonable return on the public contribution as circumstances change over time – over thirty years maybe – and private companies are showing an alarming tendency to disappear overnight. Some of them use “special purpose vehicles” to finance PFI projects – a means of separating PFI money from the main accounts – not a practice calculated to instil confidence post-Enron.

More to the point, if something goes wrong, that transfer of risk to the private sector may turn out to be illusory. If the deregulated supplier of an essential public service goes broke, which government is going to sanction a closedown of the railways or the electricity generators or the jails? The good citizens of California discovered that private firms given control of the upstream electricity generation market may abuse that power. If that, in turn, breaks the distributors then capitalist theory says those distributors should go to the wall. The Governor of California, as anybody could have predicted, stepped in to bailout the private sector distributors with public funds. No politician likes blackouts.

So the PPP or PFI idea represents a hugely important development in the private/public relationship. Government has embraced the idea of “fly now pay later” on a massive scale. The government of the day can reduce present public expenditure and thus reduce present taxes. In the short term, that is a win/win for everybody. The problem is that all the private contractors must take their cut from every deal struck – after all, they have private shareholders to satisfy. That cut has to reflect the generally higher costs of borrowing by the private sector.

In the end, it all has to be paid for by the next generation, by which time the power of the guardians to regulate anything at all may have diminished to the point of powerlessness. All this is happening at a time when government is advising citizens to start saving seriously for their retirement in their twenties because they may well live for another seventy years. Effectively, government is saying “pay now fly later” to the individual citizen whilst doing exactly the opposite in the public policy sphere. Until we are clearer about long term costs and benefits of the PFI experiment, the risk is that the citizen will pay both now and later.

Whatever happened to Capitalism?

The economic historian Nathan Rosenberg argued that capitalism in its purest sense is an experimental, risk-taking system within which learning is inevitable:

” … one of the most distinctive features of capitalist economies has been the practice of decentralizing authority over investments to substantial numbers of individuals who stand to make large personal gains if their decisions are right, who stand to lose heavily if their decisions are wrong, and who lack the economic or political power to prevent at least some others from proving them wrong. Indeed, this particular cluster of features constitutes an excellent candidate for the definition of capitalism”. (6)

Consider this in the light of the PFI experiment, for it is an experiment. In the PFI case, government and the private sector come together to share costs and (notionally) risks. If the private/public “partnership” concerns an essential service (the kind that cannot be allowed to cease as a result of temporary financial embarrassment on the part of the provider) then both the costs and the risks (the traditional preserve of capitalist enterprise) are likely to end up in the public domain – but not the profits. Jane Jacobs’ “traders” were true entrepreneurs – running real risks in the hope of great reward – and learning all the time. When we fudge the private/public boundary, we run the risk of creating a monstrous public/private hybrid – neither risk-taking nor accountable. It certainly isn’t capitalism.

None of this means that partnerships between the private and the public are necessarily wrong. There are well-proven examples of such partnerships working just as they are supposed to. Also, the contract-making skills of public servants are, perforce, improving by the day. The point is that it would be quite wrong to blame business – the traders – for filling a yawning gap left by government’s decision to hand over to others some of its key powers. J. K. Galbraith pointed out a long time ago that the smartest businesspeople abhor true competition – it’s much too expensive and chancy – far better to monopolise the market for public services and pocket all the profits. One clever politician put it well – that privatisation can be a marvellous means of privatising profit and socialising loss.

Values, “Marketisation” and God

It won’t have escaped the reader’s attention that any reference to long-term outcomes takes us into the realm of values. “Marketised solutions” may deliver short-term gains to society but if their cumulative effect is to destroy the planet, our children will not have gained (a point made as long ago as 1973 by the great E. F. Schumacher (7) in the seminal book Small is Beautiful). If we save money now on prisons by sub-contracting to cynical experts in the low-level warehousing of human beings, then we may cut costs now but we will certainly ensure a high level of recidivism and greater danger and cost downstream. But more important, we will also eventually offend ourselves by the inhumanity of our actions.

During the Prime Ministership of John Major in the UK, government published what it called a “Citizen’s Charter”. This was designed to ensure that people should not be ripped-off by avaricious traders or arrogant public sector service suppliers. In truth, it was a customers’ charter. We can interpret this in two ways – either government was cynically over-selling the idea in order to deflect attention from real market abuses – or (more worrying still) government no longer understood the difference between the rights of consumers and the rights of citizens.

Mintzberg (2) points out that this over-simple view of the world neglects the many forms of hybridised ownership to be found in western society – including co-operatives and not–for-profit organisations. Even in the USA, the not-for-profit sector is growing fast. He reminds us that we are not merely “customers” of government; we are also subjects (with obligations), citizens (with rights) and clients (with much more complex needs than straightforward commercial customers). We have to remember that in the temple of greedy capitalism – the USA – there has always been a good deal of formal regulation (look at the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890), as well as many implicit rules governing corporate reputation and community collaboration.

The guardians used to reflect and embody some of our deepest human values. Those values evolved in the context of local community life, reciprocal trust and the generational continuity of extended families. Government existed, above all, to preserve that “natural” order. Once the public sector begins to be “marketised” we have to look elsewhere for the sustenance of those deeper values. It may be no coincidence that as government retreats, religions of all kinds advance. Religion at least offers a view of humankind beyond the market trader.

Where to from Here?

There is indeed a case to be made that the water has been muddied somewhere between the realms of the public and the private and that the central problem is the confusion of value sets. The businessman who aggrandises public responsibility to himself is likely to offend the ordinary person eventually, as will the public servant who wishes to play businessman. Perhaps the core problem is that all the developments described above have been driven by self-serving top dogs – those who have ascended to the commanding heights of both the public and the private sectors and who may now enjoy an unconsciously collusive relationship. In the end, it is always the ordinary person, and that includes the taxpayer, who foots the bill – and smells a rat.

That is why the most exciting developments in both public and private spheres now centre on local community – local business – local administration – and shared local values. The new buzz-phrase is “joined-up solutions to joined-up problems” Of, simply, ‘joined-up government”. The Australian Social Entrepreneurs’ Network (8) – seeking out and connecting local enterprise and local social responsibility – is more likely to show the way forward in the public/private debate than any “partnership” between the Sir Humphreys and the big money men. The same applies to “place management” (9) – an Australian idea with the potential to reinvigorate local government through focussed delivery effectiveness and greater transparency. The job of central government is to listen and learn from these natural developments on the ground.

At the personal level, the best business people and the best public servants are very like each other – public-spirited business people and entrepreneurial public servants. But that only works well when their different roles are clearly distinguished. We need our guardians and we need our traders and we need to be clear about the difference.

Key Institutions

There are a number of Australian institutions which might play a part in rethinking the proper balance between the public and the private sphere. To offer just two examples, the Australian Institute of Company Directors itself has devoted a great deal of attention to issues of corporate governance -especially in relation to the guardian role of non-executive business directors. So long as the public/private water is muddied, AICD is well-positioned to offer some guidance as to public sector governance too. It is certainly in a position to investigate in a frank and fearless way the self-serving part played by the big international management consultancies in both driving the PFI experiment and picking up the proceeds from it.

We can assume that the new Australia/New Zealand School of Government (based in the University of Melbourne) will adopt an equally uncompromising approach to studying the impact of the new and emerging public/private balance. The School will certainly be in a position to examine the long term costs and benefits of existing public/private “partnerships” in a systematic and critical way. It could also help to provide hard empirical evidence about those core activities which must be the prerogative of government and those less central activities which may, with appropriate safeguards, be placed in the private domain. All over Australia, centres for the study and promotion of good corporate governance are now focussing on the public domain. The new, internationally-networked Centre for Corporate Governance at UTS is a good example.

There is no reason at all why Australian and New Zealand scholarship and scepticism should not lead the world in the understanding of what has become a problematic global issue. Nobody else has cracked the problems.

alistairmant@hotmail.com

Footnotes

1. Jacobs, Jane; Systems of Survival, Vintage (NY) 1994

2. Mintzberg, Henry; Managing Government, Governing Management, HBR May 1996

3. Cadbury, Sir Adrian; The Cadbury Committee – Report of the Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance, Gee (London) 1992; see ccg

4. Collins, Jim; Built to Last (with J. Porras), HarperBusiness 1997 and Good to Great, HarperCollins 2001 Mant, Alistair; Intelligent Leadership. Allen & Unwin 1999 (chapter 4)

5. Rosenberg, Nathan; Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics & History, CUP 1994, p 98 Schumacher, E. F; Small is Beautiful. Abacus (UK) 1974

6. Social Entrepreneurs’ Network; see social entrepreneur’s network

7. Mant, John H; Place Management as an Inherent Part of Change: a Rejoinder to Walsh, Australian Journal of Public Administration 61 (3) September 2002; pp 111-116

Save our democracy, but how?

 

The John Howard years. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

Today more of your many comments on Howard’s road to absolute power. Don’t get depressed, get motivated!

For a run down on Bush’s attempt to concentrate media ownership in the United States, Webdiarist Sue Bushell recommends makethemaccountable for a piece called ‘Kickback’. David Podvin writes:

Democracy is dependent on having a well-informed electorate, but the American people will now have even less contact with a diversity of information. The vast majority of citizens get their news from television. Their access to the data on which they form their views will be controlled by an ever-smaller number of media executives, all of whom are allied with the Republican Party. This concentration of power will further skew the political debate on all major issues in the direction of the corporate bottom line, and in favor of those candidates who are corporate functionaries. The interests of common people will be further marginalized. The inevitable result will be a diminished standard of living and inferior quality of life for the average American.

The debasement of journalism is a perversion of the very essence of the United States. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the American system could not survive without an independent press. He knew that the influence of the economic elite had to be counterbalanced by journalists who were free to expose the truth about even the wealthiest predators. Throughout this nation’s history, the independence of the press has been protected as a necessity for a free republic. With the advent of the electronic media, the executive branch of the federal government assumed responsibility for preventing powerful interests from effectively monopolizing public access to information.

Now, the executive branch is controlled by someone who is in league with those seeking to attain such a monopoly. By granting to his media allies the ability to eliminate competition in the marketplace of ideas, Bush is furthering his own career at the expense of the country he has sworn to protect and defend. His endless series of corporate tax cuts is creating huge budget deficits that will ultimately be repaid by the middle class. The flood of red ink that flows from this larceny is being used as justification for slashing spending on health care, child abuse clinics, and other safety net programs that have existed to protect the most vulnerable citizens. With the active support of the journalistic establishment, Bush is bankrupting America in order to enrich his campaign contributors, including the companies that own the mainstream media. In return, the mainstream media protects Bush and marginalizes his critics. It is a win-win situation, with the only losers being the American people.

See any parallels with John Howard’s attempt to hand control of our mainstream media to Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer, or to Murdoch and one of the mega-US media companies? As I’ve written over the last week, this issue isn’t about whether you vote Liberal, Labor, Green, Democrats or One Nation. It’s about your right to know, and your right to have the people you vote for represent YOU.

Jozef Imrich sent me Media Monopolies Still Can’t Unearth the Truth by Edward Wasserman, first published in the Miami Herald. Remember, there are many newspaper owners in the USA, so this sort of thing can still be published in the mainstream press over there. And it wouldn’t be written if the paper was part of a big TV network, now would it? It begins:

The affair of Jessica Lynch, the U.S. Army private who was injured in Iraq and rescued in a commando raid, seems unrelated to monopoly control of the media. But the handling of her story offers good reason to cheer Senate elders for moving to reverse the ideologically besotted Federal Communications Commission decision to trash safeguards against deepening concentration of media ownership.

I’ll begin your remarks with a favourite webdiarist, Peter Gellatly in Canada.

Peter Gellatly

It’s admittedly difficult to keep the emotions cool during the present increasingly vicious struggle over values, but keep cool we must if we are to turn the tide.

First, many on the left (among whom I am bemused to find myself in contemporary consort) need to recognise that the neoconservative agenda is EARNESTLY held by many of its proponents. They fervently believe they are correct and that dissenters are nitwits, thus they are not amenable to our arguments. And the more strident we become, the greater the degree to which our arguments shall be buried beneath our rhetoric in public debate.

Margo, assuming – for I simply don’t know – that your assessment of Howard’s larger purpose is insightful, opponents of that purpose need to recognise that remaking Australia either as a neocon US carbon copy, or even as the actual 51st state, is a legitimate aspiration within our democracy, with the latter alternative promising additional economic and defence dividends.

Those determined to move Australia in an alternative direction – ie towards a more independent, more liberal and plural democracy – need to supplement their anti-neocon putdowns by cogent arguments in favour of their own goals.

Moreover, talk alone is cheap. The bull needs to be taken by the horns. There is only one way to halt the present trend towards outright nastiness: that is by throwing the Coalition out at the first opportunity. To achieve this, Greens, Democrats, disaffected Coalition supporters (like me) and sundry others need to hold our noses and support and advocate for Labor (I never thought I’d say this – I’ve always championed voting for the best local member, but the times call for cohesive action.) In doing so, we shall hopefully also beneficially impact and broaden that parity’s policy outlook, thereby improving its subsequent competence in government.

Rather than being merely negatively vocal towards “the man WHO ALLOWS… to write … without being hurled in jail” (…!?!?!????) – see Tom Shanahan in Reaction to Howard’s roads to absolute power – we must ACT, positively. The next election campaign has already begun.

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George Hirst, editor of The Magnetic Times newspaper in North Queensland

Thanks so much for your work on keeping democracy alive. As one of the tiny independents the issues are particularly relevant.

Even on our modest scale we are under a constant gag from our own Townsville City Council, which has refused us press releases for about 2 years now. They know all to well how to avoid an independent minded press, and either don’t get back when we seek a comment on any issue at all or take so long, ie weeks, that any deadline is well and truly gone. Great stuff – and our rates pay for it too!

It’s all part of the same game, just down to the micro level, and reading your columns of late I would like to do whatever we can to give them a push. We have already linked to your page but I’d like to go further if possible and run some of your stuff straight off the front page. (MARGO: Yes, please!!)

We no longer print our hard copy Magnetic Times anymore. It just got too expensive so we are now a totally on-line paper. We average around 220 visits a day and I’m sure your stuff would be very welcome by our readers. Keep up the great work.

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Noel Hadjimichael in Camden

Disclosure: small town conservative with liberal leanings on some issues

I was surprised and somewhat alarmed that you should fall into the trap of hyperbole and propaganda with your piece on Howard’s road to absolute power. The Webdiary has generally achieved its objective of ensuring lively and informed debate on often neglected public policy issues.

Your analysis about the personalities and the hidden agendas is as always spot on. However, I must question whether the doomsday scenario painted by you and some fellow diarists is at all credible.

Certain facts get in the way of a good story on “power gone mad”:

1. The rule of law is still entrenched,

2. The Senate is powerful because, not despite, its majority of non-government Senators,

3. This year’s rooster is invariably next year’s featherduster,

4. The policy dominance you recognise may well be the emergence of a new majority opinion (on border protection, security, taxes or even Telstra) rather than some evil conspiracy,

5. Leadership is always conditional upon success and perceptions of success,

6. Our pollies are operating in a post-ideological era when most big-picture issues are common ground (remember the petty drama between Labor’s desire for a UN mandate for war versus the Coalition’s preparedness to back bilateral interests),

7. Media diversity exists due to technology more so than ownership of traditional media,

8. Australians have happily accepted the ascendancy of Labor at State and Territory level with the preservation of a strong focused non-Labor Commonwealth government,

9. The saga of Dr Peter Hollingworth is an example of where the jackals of public opinion have hunted and removed someone at the very pinnacle of the traditional power elite,

10. When Labor want to do something radical it is often termed “progressive”, when Liberals wish to promote substantive change to current policy settings it is termed “nightmare or bombshell” right wing thuggery.

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Rod Owens

Congratulations on an prescient article, and one which engenders feelings of impotence and anger. I think that it is about time the alarm bells where rung before they can be rung no more!

I have been reading Arthur MacEwan’s Neo-Liberalism or Democracy and Rifkin’s The End of Work, and have been alarmed by the speed with which Howard is achieving the goals of the neo-liberal agenda.

Perhaps one hopeful outcome is the creation of a ‘virtual organisation’ where the agenda can be thwarted!

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Brian Long

I found your recent article on Howard terribly frightening. I then read in Tom Engelhardt’s daily dispatch in the USA a somewhat similar but more extreme version of the same reality in the United States (seenationinstitutetomdispatch, and scroll down to ‘It’s a wonderful life’).

At the heart of both pieces is a media unwilling to confront issues of truth. This is not to say that no journalists are taking up the issues – I wouldn’t be writing this if that were the case. Keep up the good work. Both Howard and Bush are creating and trading on people’s fears and insecurities. Both are slamming the poorest and blaming international terrorism.

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Kate Cherry in Tamworth

Margo, I hope so much that many more Australians are hearing what you are saying regarding this issue. Go girl! I for one don’t want Murdoch and Packer to run Australia, which I believe would be the case. The influence they could exert with more media concentration is unthinkable. You have another supporter here.

I don’t want to imagine Australians influenced by the likes of media moguls with such bias and prejudice that the truth goes begging. I feel I want to go tell it on the mountain…..Please Australians, speak out/write letters against increased media concentration.

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Andy Gray

The possibility that we are on the road to the creation of a fascist state ruled by both state and corporate with the public agenda set by the media that they control scares me to my soul.

Back in April you took a few weeks off and said that you were going to have a think about where the Webdiary might go from here. I doubt whether you were considering the removal of cross-media ownership and the ramifications for the free press in Australia when you made these comments, but the consequences of what you discuss certainly will have an impact upon the medium to long term future of Webdiary.

It has often been said that a person should hope for the best, but plan for the worst. I hope that you already have contingency plans to continue an independent voice of the press in Australia should all our worst fears be realised in the next year or two.

It may be that you simply get the infrastructure and domain names set up now. It may also mean that you have to take that extra step, setting up the charter for the new Australian Independent Press website and starting to get contributions to the site. I hope that I am simply being paranoid, but I would hate to think that the new owners of Fairfax would be able to silence your voice a year from now without you having already provided a forwarding address.

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Aaron Dibdin

It’s amazing, someone who works for a major media player with a dissenting voice. It’s nice to see, particularly given the current climate. but there’s a little bit of a problem. We are already seeing that there is no ‘freedom of speech’ and your writing proves it. Whereas Piers “the hutt” Akerman gets column inches every second day in a mass circulation advertisement with smatterings of propaganda in which he simply quotes vast tracts of liberal press releases, you are stuck in a (practically) hidden page in the smh website. The voices of dissent are hidden.

It’s like nobody wants to know. People, as John Howard very astutely said, want to feel ‘relaxed and comfortable’. They don’t want to have to agitate for something better, they want to think this is better. Hence the proliferation of mindless TV like the block, the rush to buy investment properties … People like to think they’re in control, they don’t have to worry, and maybe soon they won’t have to vote…

The world is a far scarier place than people want to believe. It’s funny to think that in ‘The Matrix’, the illusion is provided by computers. People are suffering but they’ve been tricked by a cartesian ‘evil demon’ to believe that they’re ok. Perhaps this is what the Wachowski brothers initially based their ideas upon – but $300 million later, maybe not.

Margo: I’m proud to write for the SMH online. It’s a privilege for which I’m very grateful to my employer. In my view, Fairfax stands for a diversity of voices and a thirst for breaking stories. The Fairfax journalism culture is to be skeptical of all governments and other sites of power and to strive to keep them accountable. This is a major reason why both Labor and Liberal governments have despised our work and sought to reduce our influence. Our culture is also based on ethical reporting, accountability to our readers, and editorial independence. As a company owning only media assets, there are few conflicts of interest to worry about when deciding what the news is. Fairfax is worth saving.

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Andrew Halliday in St Lucia, Brisbane

I found your article very interesting and I am sad to say I am completely in agreement with you. First and foremost, democracy in this country has failed us, whereas in the UK it still appears to be working. Apart from the ALP remaining completely unable to make any impact, the real art of democracy has failed because the people INSIDE the Liberal party are unable to stop him.

Where are all the leaders from within? Why isn’t Costello standing up and stopping Howard’s bizarre and worrying agenda? Can’t the “faithful” see the wood for the trees?

And the Media! Why is Howard allowed to get away with lying to us? Why is this government allowed to do as it wishes? Are Rupert and Kerry’s so powerful that only Fairfax can say anything negative about the government? How did this happen? (By the way why doesn’t Fairfax have a paper in Brisbane where I live?)

I feel completely powerless to do anything about where our formerly great country is heading. I read people like you and Peter Fitzsimon’s provocative articles in the paper and watch the ABC try their hardest. And yet nothing happens.

Howard didn’t even turn a hair when a million people marched against the war, and yet the majority of Australians still support him. What can we do?

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Martin Williams

It seems to me that one element not highlighted here thus far is the thorough neutering of the church as a moral authority in Australian public life. There may be significant implications resulting from this.

Hollingworth’s downfall might have irked Howard in one way, yet it must have been very convenient to have yet another high-profile champion of the poor and the marginalised removed so disgracefully from a pedestal of credibility. Forget about weekend Christians and the secular remainder; even your average Australian of active faith is probably rather cynical and exhausted

from the relentless discrediting of various denominational structures and cultures (primarily over child sexual abuse but there are other reasons). Being the local minister of religion just doesn’t have the halo of pastoral entitlement and ethical command that it used to.

There was a time perhaps when criticism by politicians of senior church leaders for issuing manifestly non-partisan but rigorously moral opinion was considered impolite. Now, along with anyone else who dares speak out, it is perfectly acceptable to attack religious figures for intervening on moral issues – Howard and Ruddock rip in to meddling priests regularly – but only if they disagree with you.

More conservative groups such as the Salvation Army have of course been silenced by accepting government money (the amount was roughly thirty pieces of silver as I recall) and being appointed to various positions of prestige and repute, and so naturally they barely object when misanthropic policy and rhetoric emerge.

When you look back and consider all of the things that have happened under Howard, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that the churches in this country have buckled. Buckled under the weight of both their own corporate and legal obsessions as well as under the weight of knowing that any attempt at mobilisation might result in rejection by their rather listless, self-absorbed and – dare I say it? – well-to-do flocks.

It is a truly mystifying thing – as a public voice the church has rendered itself quite ineffectual on championing things that really mattered to Jesus Christ – poverty, the sick, social justice. Whenever there is a sustained effort to change something, where is the most concentrated promotional energy directed?

Judging by the press at least, superficial squabbles on gay communion or consecration, opening or closing injection rooms, banning films that nobody watches, setting up factions in ugly power plays (the Jensen clique, anyone?). The usual tedious list.

The point of all this? If, as you fear, Australia and other Western countries are heading anywhere near a new structure of cryptofascist (there’s that word again), populist right wing government, you can be reasonably sure that on current form it is unlikely you will receive much comfort from a coalition of churches.

You might get some sexy copy from a few Uniting Church ratbags and Peter Costello’s evil other half Tim, but largely the motivation will be limp, the campaign impotent and the end result best not thought about.

In this respect, interestingly, the US differs in that a dominant coalition of churches wields enormous power and that power usually translates into hard line Republican votes.

Effective counter-measures, you ask? How about this: if you’re a journalist, go straight to the top. Start by targeting those holier-than-thou MPs who form cross-party faith caucuses. Get them on the record on any issue of import, then ask the local minister of religion for each individual for a response on their celebrity parishioners’ Christian values. Then compare. Then publish.

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Jaan Ranniko in Newtown, Sydney

What to do in a situation where not only does it appear that the Liberal party would be delighted to concentrate power amongst obvious cronies and sneer at criticism, but where the alterative Labor party is so shallow it’s only “credible alternative” has been Kim Beazley, an incoherent bedwetter with the vision of a used car salesman? (If you think that sounds harsh then ask the Tampa detainees for their opinion.)

When we see both ends of the political spectrum fragmenting into Greens and One Nation parties while the preferential system of vote counting still leads to an unrepresentative choice between two “centrist” corporate-fed of career politicians out of touch with and indifferent to the wishes of their constituents, should we call the ACCC?

Maybe we could look across the Tasman at the proportional representation arrangements established there. Maybe such an arrangement would better represent what is happening in Australia amongst the body politic? If most of us can only be thankful for the existence of the Senate for providing a check against the will of the government elected by the preferential system, we should consider extending such an influence into the lower house.

I am no expert on the machinations of proportional representation, but from what I can see they now have a stronger voice for their smaller parties, that kind of result here could go a long way towards forcing the major parties away from the bidding of their corporate pay masters and towards the will of the people.

The energies that have to date been devoted to a republic would be better channelled into improving the brass tacks of how our system of democratic representation functions. Someone needs to get our Jefferson off the beach, off the spliff and in front of a desk.

What would be required? A petition to force a referendum? How could the people force a referendum on such an issue? I’m game, what should we do?

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Meagan Phillipson

In the midst of chastising you for an opinion expressed about Australia’s relationship with the U.N, Tom Shanahan admonished that you should be “a little positive about the man who allows you to write this rubbish without being hurled in jail”.

Neither you nor I, Margo, have anything to be grateful to Howard for. He does not wave a magic wand and grant the public the privilege to speak without being thrown into gaol. Rather, it is Howard who should be grateful to the citizens of Australia for giving him the power he has.

That power, thank goodness, is a transitory power lasting only until the next government is entrusted to lead this country through the process of democratic election.

As for Howard wanting to withdraw from the United Nations, while he has not said so in such explicit terms, it would be fair to say the actions of the Howard government have spoken on many occasions louder than words. Even though it would be foolhardy in the extreme to divorce the United Nations and a move Howard would never consider, there is a observable shift away from the kind of multilateral action the U.N represents and towards the kind of unilateralism championed by the Bush administration.

This is clear from the reticent attitude towards the UNHCR and its report into mandatory detention, the alliance with America in the War on Terror, the more recent decision to send peacekeepers to the Solomon Islands and last week’s Alexander Downer speech, where he waxed lyrical about coalitions of the willing to deal with regional issues quickly rather going through the UN.

And I don’t think the U.N failed over Iraq. Indeed, the organisation’s darkest hour in terms of diplomacy was paradoxically also its finest. The U.N acted as a truly multilateral entity. It did not bend to the demands of two of the biggest member states, but stood firmly by the position that the inspectors needed more time before any decisions were made on military intervention. Many, including myself, have criticised the U.N in the past for being overly influenced by the passing interests of U.S foreign policy. Not so much anymore.

Considering the continued ascendancy of sovereignty, the decision to intervene militarily is not one to be taken lightly or without the full facts. The Security Council sensed this and acted accordingly. History, as they say, has thus far proven the best judge of the rightness of this tactic. Questions about the accuracy of intelligence used to justify the Iraqi war, a continued abject failure to find any WMDs and the realisation that rebuilding Iraq will be a long and more arduous task than first anticipated, all continue to condemn the actions of the coalition of the willing.

Our yearning for a voice above politics

 

Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.davies.com

At what moment does a citizenry get sick of a leader and want him out? I’m out on a limb here, especially on the eve of the latest opinion poll results, but I reckon that moment might have come for John Howard.

I took holidays last week to be with a sick friend, so I read the papers and watched the TV news during a momentous week in federal politics without the need to form a snap judgement. For mine, the Hollingworth matter has put John Howard in a tight spot. Very tight.

Remember, it was Howard and Tony Abbott who elevated the status of the Governor General in the leadup to the Republic referendum. They cut down the Republican’s catchcry – that Australia should have its own head of state – by saying we already had one, the GG. This argument was run while the GG was Sir William Deane, a man of firm convictions who ran the dual themes of care for the poor and reconciliation with indigenous Australians throughout his tenure. He spoke at an abstract, general level of these matters while being photographed with the poor and Aborigines. In addition, he rose to the occasion in moving ways, in Switzerland and after the Childers fires, finding ways to express the essence of the feelings of most Australians as Australians.

Howard’s rhetorical ploy and Deane’s performance have combined to produce high expectations among Australians of their Governor-General, a person who, through Howard’s own arguments, has come to represent Australians at a symbolic level. The potential of this expectation was shown before the Olympics, when public opinion forced Howard to comply with the imperatives of his own rhetoric by reversing his decision to open the games when the games charter required the host nation’s head of state to do so.

Lurking behind this development are the reasons for the failure of the Republic referendum. I was opposed to the Republic as offered, on the grounds that if we were to simply change our head of state from the Queen to the Governor-General, without more, it was a waste of time, mere empty symbolism. More importantly, I couldn’t see how we could present ourselves to ourselves and the world as a Republic when we had no idea what we stood for as a nation. The culture wars have proved that Australians are still deeply divided about our core values and ideals, and the Hanson phenomenon showed we had grave difficulty understanding each other, yet alone agreeing on the basics of our identity. I thought that when we could agree on a bill of rights, or a statement of ideals to strive for, we’d be ready to proclaim ourselves a Republic, and that when that happened, a Republic would merely reflect where we’d got to, not vault us to where some of us wanted to be. The abject failure of both the Republic question and Howard’s preamble proved the point.

The republic debate strangely united traditionalists who wanted to preserve the monarchy and those who wanted a directly elected president. I think traditionalists are attracted to the idea of a person in politics who is “above” politics, who can look at and verbalise deeper national themes and concerns. I don’t think it’s correct to argue that they are happy with politics as it is, and therefore wanted no change. Rather, they had reservations about the state of politics, and wanted to keep a potential check on it.

In this, they were as one with the direct electionists. Being unhappy with the state of politics and their powerlessness under the current system, they saw no purpose in a mere symbolic changeover of power. They wanted a direct say in how the president was elected to give them another chance to influence politics.

In other words, the argument run by the republican movement – that nothing would change bar the symbols – was deeply unattractive to both traditionalists and radicals. It was the insider’s republic, the Republic for those who were happy they ways things were because the present system suited their interests, as distinct from their conceits, very well.

As fate would have it, Howard’s choice to replace the man his party detested blew up in his face. He wanted to appeal to the conservatism of his constituency, so who better than an authority figure in the Anglican Church? It was at once a slap in the face to a multicultural Australia, and an assertion that traditional values were well and truly back in style.

Yet post Deane, he also wanted the role downgraded to a merely ceremonial one. Hollingworth said absolutely nothing of interest during his tenure. He had no theme but to walk tall and behave politely until scandal broke, when he spoke often and loudly, proving himself utterly insensitive to the issue of child sexual abuse which finally engulfed him. Funnily enough, he saw no issue of moral integrity in his actions as Archbishop on a matter supposedly at the core of Christianity – protection of the weak from exploitation by the powerful. His tenure served not to entrench and enhance traditional values, but to focus attention on the collapse of those values within traditional institutions.

And in proving that he lacked grace, the public were reinforced in their preference for a Governor General who exhibited that rare quality.

Commentators now opine that Howard will opt for a super-safe appointment of someone worthy but without profile who will walk and talk with dignity and say nothing of substance.

Perhaps Howard agrees, but I think such an appointment would damage the monarchist cause. The appointment of someone like Tim Fischer, who wouldn’t be able to help himself in speaking publicly on matters of moment, would greatly assist Howard’s cause because it would meet public expectations of a wise elder as GG. Tim Fischer, respected across the political and geographic divide, would be, despite his Republican sentiments, an asset to the monarchist cause.

I also think it’s self-defeating for Howard to refuse any change to the procedure for appointment. The Republican model put to the people had only one change of substance – that the GG would be selected by a two thirds majority of a joint sitting of Parliament. This was minor indeed – in practice, the Prime Minister would decide on a person the opposition could accept, and the vote would be a formality. Tim Fischer would be readily accepted by Simon Crean, both on merit and to set a precedent for a Labor government to get acceptance for the appointment of a Labor politician like Bill Hayden.

If Howard agreed to change the procedure, he would establish the basis for a convention (a common political understanding) to develop that this procedure would be followed by future governments. In that case, the only matter of substance in the Republican model would be redundant. What chance then of a successful Republic referendum, given that the establishment forces supporting a Republic do so on the basis that they want no rupture in the status quo? Howard could even suggest a constitutional amendment to reflect the changed practice to be put to the people at the next election, thus proving that he was sensitive to the public’s desires, and forcing the republican movement to back his proposal.

Such a decision by Howard would therefore paralyse the republican movement for the forseeable future.

Sure, this move would give the GG some sort of mandate from the people through the Parliament, and the appointee could cause flutters among the political power elite if he or she was outspoken on sensitive issues. But so what? What on earth is John Howard afraid of? Another Deane? It’s his appointment now.

I think a dull appointment would be considered cowardly by the Australian people. Not only that, they would resent the lack of a voice above politics. The yearning for the voice of an institutional elder which flowered under William Deane would not be quieted. Instead, the lack of that elder, by Howard’s choice, would be keenly felt, and resented.

As if on cue, late last week Deane made a speech which, for the first time, directly criticised John Howard’s approach to governance.

“There is one challenge for the future leaders of our nation which I would particularly emphasise,” he told graduating students at the University of Queensland, ” the challenge of justice and truth, the challenge never to be indifferent in the face of injustice or falsehood.”

“It encompasses the challenge to advance truth and human dignity rather than to seek advantage by inflaming ugly prejudice and intolerance.

“Who of us will easily forget the untruth about children overboard? Or the abuse of the basic rights of innocent children by incarceration behind Woomera’s razor wire? Or the denial of the fundamental responsibility of a democratic government to seek to safeguard the human rights of all its citizens, including the unpopular and the alleged wrongdoer, in the case of the two Australians indefinitely caged, without legal charge or process, in a Guantanamo Bay jail?”

“Some may think that these and other similar unpleasant things should be left unmentioned. But if our coming generation of leaders refuses to honestly confront the denial of truth or responsibility which they reflect, our nation will surely be in peril of losing its way in the years ahead.”

Now most Australians professed not to care about the children overboard lie. They approve of the razor wire, and they don’t give a damn about the Guantanamo Bay detentions without charge. But they do like and respect Bill Deane, and I can’t imagine them agreeing with John Anderson that as a former Governor General he should button his lip. Bill Hayden certainly didn’t, and an 83 year old Sir Zelman Cowan expressed his support for appointment reform last week. I can also imagine some Australians not of Deane’s mind on the matters he raised giving at least a passing thought to his views.

It took two years for Bill Deane to wade into partisan controversy after he left the GG’s job, and his timing was spectacular. I think it’s an omen for Howard, a sign that he’d be wise to get out before the tide turns against him for good.

In the end, Hollingworth was Howard’s choice alone. He made a bad one, then backed him throughout his travails to the detriment of Hollingworth and himself. His insistence that Hollingworth’s decision to protect a pedophile priest was an “error of judgment” rather than a betrayal of his church and his duty as head of that church in Brisbane has left a sour taste in many mouths. His insistence that “community standards” in 1993 explained Hollingworth’s behaviour was an insult to many. The parroting by his media mates of the idea that the campaign against Hollingworth was really aimed at Howard, not Hollingworth, cemented a feeling among many that Howard has no real feel for the decent thing, but is merely paranoid.

And the vicious response to his humiliation last week – Government pressure on and encouragement of colleagues in Queensland and NSW to smear State Labor governments – could tarnish Howard’s reputation among his new true believers. To use this tactic to take pressure off Howard trivialises an issue of great concern to Australians at a time when they need their trust restored that governments take the matter seriously. The last thing they need is the Federal Government convincing them by foul means that everyone in politics is as bad as the other when it comes to covering up child abuse instead of trying to protect children from it.

I think Howard has come to believe, as Paul Keating did by 1996, that HIS is the voice above politics, and that the Australian people think he’s right. I think he’s wrong. I think people are starting to realise that he is a weak man, not a strong one, who cannot engage with dissent and instead seeks to muzzle it. I think his star is on the wane. I think Australians are on the verge of wanting to see the back of him, if they could only be even a little inspired by the alternative.

Simon Crean’s budget reply speech gave them a glimpse of an acceptable alternative. Stand by for tomorrow’s opinion poll.

Reaction to Howard’s roads to absolute power

 

The media predator. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

My piece yesterday, Howard’s roads to absolute power, has struck a chord, and some have pointed to overseas musings on whether the western world might be heading towards a form of fascism.

 

I’ll put off my piece on the risks of Howard’s game plan and how it might be countered for a couple of days until we’ve digested your comments. Please feel free to send me your thoughts on the risks of Howard’s grand plan, and the possible counter-strategies. And have a think about this thought from Peter Burton in Tamworth: “Murdoch, following the complete privatisation of Telstra takes a controlling interest. This isn’t a bad dream is it?”

There are two articles on the media ownership debate at onlineopinion. They are Let’s not throw in the towel on media diversity – it’s too important by Jock Given andProposed media ownership changes are out of step with world experience by Democrats Senator John Cherry.

To begin, a reader sent me this June 27 piece by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, which reflects on a similar game plan for total power by Howard’s Republican soulmate George Bush.

Toward One-Party Rule

by Paul Krugman

June 27, 2003, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/opinion/27KRUG.html

In principle, Mexico’s 1917 Constitution established a democratic political system. In practice, until very recently Mexico was a one-party state. While the ruling party employed intimidation and electoral fraud when necessary, mainly it kept control through patronage, cronyism and corruption. All powerful interest groups, including the media, were effectively part of the party’s political machine.

Such systems aren’t unknown here – think of Richard J. Daley’s Chicago. But can it happen to the United States as a whole? A forthcoming article in The Washington Monthly (Welcome to the Machine) shows that the foundations for one-party rule are being laid right now.

In “Welcome to the Machine,” Nicholas Confessore draws together stories usually reported in isolation – from the drive to privatize Medicare, to the pro-tax-cut fliers General Motors and Verizon recently included with the dividend checks mailed to shareholders, to the pro-war rallies organized by Clear Channel radio stations. As he points out, these are symptoms of the emergence of an unprecedented national political machine, one that is well on track to establishing one-party rule in America.

Mr. Confessore starts by describing the weekly meetings in which Senator Rick Santorum vets the hiring decisions of major lobbyists. These meetings are the culmination of Grover Norquist’s “K Street Project,” which places Republican activists in high-level corporate and industry lobbyist jobs – and excludes Democrats. According to yesterday’s Washington Post, a Republican National Committee official recently boasted that “33 of 36 top-level Washington positions he is monitoring went to Republicans.”

Of course, interest groups want to curry favor with the party that controls Congress and the White House; but as The Washington Post explains, Mr. Santorum’s colleagues have also used “intimidation and private threats” to bully lobbyists who try to maintain good relations with both

parties. “If you want to play in our revolution,” Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, once declared, “you have to live by our rules”.

Lobbying jobs are a major source of patronage – a reward for the loyal. More important, however, many lobbyists now owe their primary loyalty to the party, rather than to the industries they represent. So corporate cash, once split more or less evenly between the parties, increasingly flows in only one direction.

And corporations themselves are also increasingly part of the party machine. They are rewarded with policies that increase their profits: deregulation, privatization of government services, elimination of environmental rules. In return, like G.M. and Verizon, they use their influence to support the ruling party’s agenda.

As a result, campaign finance is only the tip of the iceberg. Next year, George W. Bush will spend two or three times as much money as his opponent; but he will also benefit hugely from the indirect support that corporate interests – very much including media companies – will provide for his political message.

Naturally, Republican politicians deny the existence of their burgeoning machine. “It never ceases to amaze me that people are so cynical they want to tie money to issues, money to bills, money to amendments,” says Mr. DeLay. And Ari Fleischer says that “I think that the amount of money that candidates raise in our democracy is a reflection of the amount of support they have around the country.” Enough said.

Mr. Confessore suggests that we may be heading for a replay of the McKinley era, in which the nation was governed by and for big business. I think he’s actually understating his case: like Mr. DeLay, Republican leaders often talk of “revolution,” and we should take them at their word.

Why isn’t the ongoing transformation of U.S. politics – which may well put an end to serious two-party competition – getting more attention? Most pundits, to the extent they acknowledge that anything is happening, downplay its importance. For example, last year an article in Business Week titled “The GOP’s Wacky War on Dem Lobbyists” dismissed the K Street Project as “silly – and downright futile.” In fact, the project is well on the way to achieving its goals.

Whatever the reason, there’s a strange disconnect between most political commentary and the reality of the 2004 election. As in 2000, pundits focus mainly on images – John Kerry’s furrowed brow, Mr. Bush in a flight suit – or on supposed personality traits. But it’s the nexus of money and patronage that may well make the election a foregone conclusion.

***

Caroline Thomas, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, Sydney

Following ‘Howard’s roads to absolute power’, I thought you’d be interested in this talk by George Monbiot. George is a UK columnist for The Guardian, and a fervent writer on life, democracy and society. He’s in Australia to launch his new book as part of the “Adelaide Festival of Ideas” and has agreed to talk to supporters of Oxfam Community Aid Abroad. This is an excellent opportunity to pull together those who are concerned with recent events. We’d be delighted if you can come, and please send this invite to those you think should be there too.

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS OF WORLD DEMOCRACY

The existing global system is in trouble. Increased prosperity for some goes hand in hand with increased poverty for others. The UN has been bypassed by the war with Iraq. Global institutions such as the WTO and World Bank are undemocratic and unaccountable. Everywhere, people are asking what comes next.

If Naomi Klein’s No Logo tells us what’s wrong, George Monbiot’s The Age of Consent shows us how to put it right. We’re delighted that controversial Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, has agreed to talk to supporters of Oxfam Community Aid Abroad and the Make Trade Fair campaign about his views on the future of world democracy.

“Our task is not to overthrow globalisation but to capture it and to use it as a vehicle for humanity’s first global democratic revolution,” he says.

“All over our planet, the rich get richer while the poor are overtaken by debt and disaster. The world is run not by its people but by a handful of unelected or underelected executives who make the decisions on which everyone else depends: concerning war, peace, debt, development and the balance of trade. Without democracy at the global level, the rest of us are left with no means of influencing these men but to shout abuse and hurl ourselves at the lines of police defending their gatherings and decisions. Does it have to be this way?

When: Tuesday 15th July, 6:30pm sharp

Where: The Valhalla – 166 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe

Price: $8 / $5 conc & gleeclub

RSVP: Contact GleeBooks on Tel: 02 9660 2333 or email books@gleebooks.com.au

***

Daniel Maurice

Wow Margo, the ol’ conspiracy paranoia is running hot today!! Rupert, Kerry and John Howard’s secret agenda to rule Australia unchallenged via a change to media laws. Who would have thought? I’m surprised you forget to include that they also intend to legislate to force everyone to consume genetically modified food, thereby ending bio-diversity and generally life as we know it on Earth. Maybe that’s for tomorrow’s article.

By the way does it occur to you that it’s just a little strange that your otherwise ideological foes One Nation is happily on board with the Greens, Dems etc on this issue? When it comes to blind and unthinking prejudice masquerading as nationalism you can always rely on the lunar right to see eye to eye with the loopy left.

MARGO: Regarding GM food, Jozef Imrich sent me Power comes to those who own our media in the New Zealand Herald. Academic Paul Norris wrote:

Consider this example. Two reporters for an American television station were working on a story critical of the giant chemical firm Monsanto. They were asked by their bosses to soften their report. They refused and were fired. The station had recently been bought by a company owned by Rupert Murdoch. Defending their firing of the reporters, the station executives explained: “We paid $3 billion for these stations. We will decide what the news is. The news is what we tell you it is.”

This example is unusual only in that the incident was so transparent and the justification so candid. It is certainly not atypical of Murdoch’s style. When the BBC’s reporting offended the Chinese, Murdoch promptly removed the BBC service from his Star satellite beaming into China because the issue threatened his delicate negotiations to break into the vast Chinese media market.

Thus the free flow of information falls victim to the commercial priorities of a media mogul. Indeed, governments have been made or broken by the deliberate actions of media owners.

Regarding One Nation, it’s not strange at all. This is issue about all voices being heard in the mainstream media.

***

Greg Weilo in Adelaide, One Nation member

I am still a One Nation member, and I have already started some agitating regarding the cross media laws. I have emailed Len Harris myself, as well as encouraging other members to make their views known.

Although I agree with your opposition to the proposed changes to media ownership laws, I have to say that not all ON members are as interested in this issue, and many of them need to be persuaded to take an interest.

You might find it difficult to believe, but I can honestly say that I have never heard any “hateful” comments at ON meetings against Aborigines, Asians, Jews, Muslims or any other racial group. When “hatred” does arise, it is inevitably targetted against journalists and the Big Media. The fact is that Bob Brown, Natasha Stott-Despoja, John Howard & Simon Crean would be more welcome than most journalists at ON meetings.

The feeling is that the politicians mentioned above are “honest” about their opposition to us in that they have declared their colours, whilst journalists pretend to be impartial but are usually even more biased than the other political players.

One Nation members never expected any favouritism from the media, just a fair go. We received undiluted hatred, and it didn’t take long before the hatred became mutual.

The point of all this is that there is a widespread opinion amongst ON members of: “Who cares about Big Media ownership laws – how can the Big Media treatment of ON get any worse, and anyway why should we try to help all those journalists who hate us?”.

Personally, I think that it can get worse. Maybe not One Nation related reporting, but certainly with other issues such as Middle Eastern politics, globalisation, environmental issues and the developing police state. There are issues where ON policy is much closer to Democrats & Greens rather than Liberal & Labor.

Murdoch & Packer want to marginalise all the political parties that they can’t control, and they certainly don’t want any allegiance (even temporary) between the “loose cannons”. They just want the best “democracy” that (their) money can buy.

Anyway, even if we can build a temporary alliance on media ownership, there is still a good chance that the ALP will fold. They are already underdogs, and having Murdoch & Packer offside might write them off altogether. In both major parties, pragmatism will win out over principle every time.

I will do my best to oppose the cross media ownership proposals amongst my part of the political spectrum, but I can’t say that it will be smooth sailing.

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Tom Shanahan in Fairlight, NSW

I’m so glad you’re restricted to the web. To print your views would be outrageous. Have you gone completely mad???

You say: “And he wants Australia to divorce itself from the multilateral system of international relations AND become part of the American world…But Australia would be a different place from America. We do not have a bill of rights, which in the United States keeps the Government and its powers in check. Howard would be much freer than the American president to trample our human and civil rights.”

Where oh where has PM Howard EVER made any minute possible iota of a sound that we would divorce ourselves from the UN??

Yes, the UN failed this time. Do you walk away from a problem when you’ve failed once? Or do you stick around and try to fix it. Howard is committed to international relations, which is a school of thought I feel you may know little about.

Formed in Wales, The School of International Relations (IR) has a primary aim being to avoid conflict. In Bougainville, we sent PEACE keeping troops. In East Timor we went in to restore PEACE. Only in Iraq have we invaded, and even then it was both legal and justified. (Oh, and I have a clear conscience about Iraq. There is no blood on my hands, nor will there be, because we freed a people from subjugation by an armed minority).

I am but a 20 year old Arts student, but for goodness sake, have some sense please and be at least a little positive about the man who allows you to write this rubbish without being hurled in jail. Please recognise the excellent state of the economy and the intensely positive view of Australia around the Globe. (Given I just worked a year in England, along with stints with Elected Representatives in the UK and Brussels don’t try to tell me the world thinks bad things of Australia. Left wing think tanks don’t count.)

You are an excellent writer, but I feel a person lacking in journalistic ethics.

***

Patricia Murphy in Sydney

Thanks must go to Brian Harradine for putting up the amendment to the proposed cross media bill and thereby stopping what would have been the total media dominance of Packer and Murdoch. May they never succeed – John Howard’s Australia is a scary enough place as it is.

***

Sue McDonald in Concord West, NSW

What is the best course of action? Can you organise an action group to get supporters to send e-mails to all Senators? I have seen my uncle influenced by the power of the “shock jocks”. He believes everything he is told and does not question anything that is said. Most people just accept what is said or printed and do not question the news reports.

***

Andrew Armstrong in Melbourne

I have just read your series of articles regarding changes to media ownership law and am rather perturbed (to say the least) by the implications, particularly in light of recent government undermining of the ABC. Thank you for informing me! I have sent copies to all persons on my email list, but what next? The common response from my friends is, “What can I do to voice my opposition?” What do you suggest, Margo? How can I stay in control of the future of my nation? How can I keep my right to know and my right to be heard? I’m feeling frustrated and powerless.

Margo: Me too. I’m thinking about it. Webdiarist David Hannaford sent me the link to this petitiononline (for US citizens only), demanding that Bush provide the evidence for Iraqi WMDs. Maybe that’s a way to go?

***

Denise Parkinson

The father of Fascism, Benito Mussolini once said: “Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate.”

Great piece yesterday, though I’m still reeling from it. A lot of people I know who can see what’s going on are switching off as they can’t take anymore. As I see it this could be our last stand. I have been screaming since 98 that we have to get rid of Howard – as an artist I had been on the front line of what was coming down. Of course nobody took any notice and people just write you off as being over the top. People don’t see things until their little island of freedom is completely sunk and then they are willing to swap their “bit part in the war for a lead role in a cage”.

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Sandy Johnson

Please, please, please keep the media “reform” issue as alive as you can. I despair for my children when this legislation gets passed, as they will never know democracy, and it will eventually lead to violence, either revolution, war or social breakdown, sometime in the next 30 – 150 years.

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Andrew Byrne in Chiswick, Sydney

It is a daring action for any mainstream journalist to write words such as “Australia’s democracy is in grave danger and the people of Australia have three months to save it” (Governing for the big two: Can people power stop them?)

Due to the psychology and mechanics of our society (i.e. a pair of horses blinkers and a nose bag of Received Opinion) your statement is open to heavy howls and catch-cries from the majority of government, media, academia and society in general.

Yet the mere rarity in the media of such a view as you expressed speaks volumes about the state of democracy here and in general. Consider this: It is a rare you will see the view expressed in mainstream press that democracy is in a very bad state. Try being a journalist and actually stating how it really is.

So who are the owners? Corporations run by people who like running corporations and want to stay running corporations. This is not leftist dribble, this is economic fact. Even a United States founding father Benjamin Franklin wrote a warning about these corporations vying for control of the government for their own desires, which in his view were the antithesis of the nations.

So how do the corporations ensure increased power and profit? The Media Moguls want control of the market (and the money would be handy too). The government want the public’s flag-waving, rabid ANZAC-digger-true-blue-mateship support. Failing that, beige ambivalence will do nicely thank you.

In general, the media has behaved exceptionally well. The government is happy and now the media is waiting for its back-scratching. As you correctly reminded us such media change is also going on in the US and the UK right now. (Well, what a coincidence!) The big winner will be Murdoch and AOL Time Warner.

Then we’ll be in a world of mono view – a one world view. It will be doled out by Murdoch and his fellow Media Deities of the same theology. The crowds will watch as the government answers the pleas of salivating corporations eyeing public assets. The government will then be very busy putting price tags on everything while the media gush about how wonderful life will be once your water costs 300% more than yesterday.

Could this happen to this democracy? It’s already started with the invasion of Iraq.

Yet, heads shakes and brows frown at all this nasty cynicism still. This could never happen in Australia – we love freedom, we care, we’re friendly, we don’t invade or attack, we have free press, we can argue and disagree.

On February 28 1933, Hitler was assigned Emergency Powers by the Reichstag (German Parliament) following the burning-down of the Reichstag building. Within months, the Gestapo were given freedom from the law. The press was mauled until the only real national media remained in the form of the Der V*lkischer Beobachter (The People’s Observer). Puppeteered by Propaganda Minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Der V*lkischer became the mouthpiece for the Nazi Party and the government.

And what of the government? The parliamentarians became, as the American journalist Bill Shirer said at the time, the robots of Reichstag. Hitler had control.

As for Hitler, there’s a little understood aspect to his rise. People forget that he was a clever operator of the German industrialists who were at the time screaming for the repayments from WWI to be ended. Hitler needed their power and support.

Corporate donations, arm twisting and promises played a hugely vital role in Hitler’s path to 1933. It certainly helped the rise of a mentally unstable, broke and failed artists rise to running a major world power.

Hitler also scratched the industrialists back by re-arming the Ruhr industrial zone, abolishing independent labour unions and controlling the market. With his increased powers and media silence new laws allowed for the arrest of suspicious persons.

Although it’s never simple using an example to demonstrate such a complex point, the fact remains that the Nazi/Industrial model shares similar methodological characteristics with the current issues (eg Media Ownership, ASIO’s free hands, pre-emptive invasion, bald excuses for war being accepted by most of the people).

If you can fool the people via the media you can get away with anything. Orwell knew it. Goebbels used it. Murdoch wants it and so does the government. If we lose the slim media diversity we have we will find you correct. Democracy in this nation was in grave danger.

But we’re still here in the present and they don’t control that enough yet to control our past so we’ve still got a chance to control our future.

But what do we do? Pound the government with pleas? They only sneer at the camera and say they’re acting in the public interest. Protest in marches bigger than before the war? Refuse to pay taxes? Civil disobedience? Civil disturbance? Riot? Phone John Laws?

I think whatever we do, it has to be big and loud enough to get past the kaleidoscope of big media editorial censorship and outgun the guffaws from Howard. We need those in the media that actually care enough and can see the truth enough to take a stand.

What happens if we get more Wilkie characters willing to stand out of the crowd and say what they know? If the government and their corporate friends are exposed from as many angles by as many people as possible would that tip the scales? If we could get the people interested again in having a say in their nation’s future, how would the government handle that?

Your warning will seem luridly out of place to many out there. Some will blink from behind heavily medicated views. Some of their fellow-patients will react with shrugs. Some will react violently, as if they’d been personally insulted by such a concept. Others will nod sadly, long since worn down by shouting compassion at a wall of ignorance.

The question is will this medicated hospital ward of a society fall quiet once the hubbub is over and democracy is smothered in its bed? Will the patients slip into the haze, into the numb glow of TV hiss? I can say for myself at least – I’m not going to sit back quietly and watch. Time to pull the plug, folks CLICK!

***

Mark Carey in Sydney

I think you are right on target with what Howard is about. It’s particularly galling how far a society appears to allow itself to be mesmerised by the “leaders” with a strange personal psychology, often one dominated by a sense of personal inadequacy or just plain fear. History show how this is particularly so on the radical authoritarian side of politics like Howard, Bush, Thatcher, Reagan, Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon …

Howard is just so driven by his own need to take all power unto himself, just like these people. While of course I don’t suggest that Howard is as bad as the latter, I can’t help but find the similarities. The connection is of course the desire for accumulating power. And no-one who feels good in themselves needs to accumulate power like Howard does – yet people seem naturally follow people like him rather than follow someone who is driven by values of participation, democracy and genuine service – like maybe Crean is?

The mesmerising power of “evil” and authoritarianism never ceases to amaze me. They are evil, these people; they do not really believe in democracy and freedom and do not act consistently with such a belief, even though they dress it up in language that seems to suggest that they do. In the short term, their evil always seems stronger than the power of honesty, of participation, of inclusion, and human values. For some current popular insight into this, try the apparent power of Voldemort in Harry Potter or Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. I’ve been reading these with my kids and I can’t help but see the reflections.

You are right about the power of the media. Education is also on his agenda, as he struggles to take ideological control of the society. Militarisation too. Go back to the marxists of the 70s for insight into Howard’s blueprint for accumulating power.

***

Nick Smith

Have you and Alan Ramsey and a few others considered that your voices may not be heard in the near future through the usual press, and that it will be hard to find your voices unless the source has your name for the search engine? Maybe I am being pessimistic, but I’ve just finished reading Martin Gilbert’s “Descent into Barbarism” 1933-1951, and it is uncanny how the laws passed on early Nazi Germany are similar to those being passed now.

I now empathise with the German people who had no idea because of media control what their government was really doing. How long will we have the net? This little loop-hole of information must be plugged for Goebbel’s like propaganda to control.

I confess, as a professional and well paid, I have travelled from being a capital L Liberal party person – because I believed in what they were doing – to a questioning person disillusioned with them as their corruption has become more apparent and their aims clearer.

Australia desperately needs a statesman/woman to get through the very difficult times ahead, someone with integrity and spine. It is time we moved form the dirty ethics of economics as our guiding principles and back to truer Australian principles of justice and equality and fairness for all. No more favours for corporate buddies, no more stacking committees, no more “self-regulation” of the self interested, no more refusing to attend senate enquiries, no more gagging debates, no more corrupting our Intelligence via the PM office, no more appointees who are already compromised.

***

Trudy Bray

What you have also done in Howard’s roads to absolute power is give an almost text-book description of a sociopath (socialised psychopath). Of course, sociopaths are very common in the higher echelons of business and politics, but Howard stands above them all.

Howard is a conman of the highest order. He has no conscience and will say whatever it takes to convince people to think and do what he wants, e.g. ‘I am working in the interests of the country’, ‘I have to do what is best for the Australian people’. Of course, if you then look at his actions, he does no such thing.

His appeal to patriotism puts people in his pocket because they have no way out.

People point to his ‘support’ of people in Bali and in Tasmania. He has the role of playing a caring human being down pat. He knows all the moves to elicit maximum admiration. When you look at his policies however, there is no caring human being there. I believe Brian Deegan has seen through the ruse.

Peter Foster could only dream to be this good! Howard has conned at least half the Australian people, most of the media and all of his own party. One cannot blame apathy for this. All people respond to an accomplished conman and feel they have been done a favour by giving him what he wants.

Our country is in extreme danger.

***

Martin Whetton in the UK

That is a very scary assessment of the new landscape for Australia. I left for the UK because I couldn’t stand the way things were turning out under John Howard and I am saddened whenever I am back how the country has become. The materialistic culture has overtaken Australia and I don’t see it as somewhere that is as kind and thoughtful as I feel it once was.

I think you are completely correct in suggesting Howard will dismantle the Senate’s power- I see Blair doing a similar thing in stripping the Lords of meaning. The destruction of Lord Chancellor’s office 2 weeks ago- being one example of absolute power (I do however agree on some watering down of hereditary peers).

What I find amazing with Howard, is that the electorate- and the press at large due to concentration and strong media relationships at PBL/NCP – don’t attack the Government more over its failures. The Peter Reith affair/Tampa/Bali/Iraq (and soldiers operating there pre-war) are examples that come to mind, where I see no public lynch mobs.

I hope it doesn’t turn out as you suggest, but at this stage I can’t see a change!

***

Gary Ralph

Thank you for your regularly informative and balanced observations in SMH. They deserve even wider reading by the sadly mis and uninformed Australian community at large.

It is suggested that the American public can in no way bring themselves to confront the thought that they may have been misled by their illustrious leaders (described by musician Jackson Browne as a semi-literate unelected pretender surrounded by a band of his father’s cronies and established corporate criminals, heavily financially supported by the oil and arms industries).

[You’ve probably come across it, but if not, the first 20 pages of Michael Moore’s book Stupid White Men could be interesting].

I share your concern for the direction matters are moving in this country – the massive over-reaction to the dreaded illegal immigrant terrorist threat at the last election was horrifying – as was the under-response to the subsequent exposure of the manufactured framework of lies and duplicity. Modern-day lotus eaters?

Remember the good old days? Remember ‘Honest John’?

Recent criticism of the failure to more widely publicise the intelligence regarding potential dangers of travel in Indonesia up to 12 months before the Bali bombings has frequently resulted in John Howard asserting the folly of rushing to action based on ‘speculation’. Yet no-one appears to have questioned that basically he alone determined (months before acknowledgement and certainly without the counsel of the electorate) that this country would be thrown into some other megalomaniac’s war in which thousands of people, mostly innocent civilians, have been killed, and the country thrown into total chaos, based essentially on speculation and little else. Maybe it’s different.

Then we saw all the exploit-the-media pantomime of welcome-home and thanks-to-heroes parades. To treat the people as such morons is little short of contempt, but appears not to be resented. It seems that the dumbing-down is well on the way to being a fait accompli. The real brain drain?