Another depressing day in Canberra watching public servants under questioning by Senate estimates Committees – the people’s chance to ask questions. A new boat and thousands of new islands excised from Australia, the Crocodile Man – ‘I love John Howard’ – paid $175,000 to do a government commercial, outsourced Prime Minister and Cabinet department’s information technology sees its entire email back up tape thrown in the rubbish bin and lost, the same department and the PM fail to send Kylie Russell a video or photos of the wreath laying ceremony for her husband they forgot to invite her to.
Horrible days. The good news? The West Australian’s political correspondent Karen Middleton got a tape of the ceremony from the ABC and gave it to Kylie’s MP Graham Edwards to give her.
So tonight, expats (and an Australian resident) talk back, sparked by the Anna Greenup piece Our destiny: an expat’s perspective and the Brandis attack on the Greens. To end, a detailed and informative piece fromRod Sewell in Munich on the truth behind the Brandis/Bolt claims. I asked Anna for a bio, and she replied:
Are you ready for a laugh? I caught up with my cousin’s husband who is in town and he told me that the article was on the front page of smh.com.au. He’d been sent a copy by my cousin (who emailed it to the whole family). I nearly died, as I thought it would be included in web diary but not so prominently.
I’m 36 and currently living and working in Singapore within the software industry as a marketing/communication specialist. I’m single, so I have time to worry about these things that person with a family sometimes doesn’t have the time too. I’ve lived overseas for the past 4 years – 2 in London in the Banking Industry and coming up for 2 in Singapore. I’m not a member of any political groups/associations. I aspire to continue educating myself on all fronts; business, social, cultural, current affairs and personal growth. I hope see a world were people accept differences, rejoice in those differences and see the opportunities these differences bring rather than seeing them as threatening. Yes, I’m an idealist, which is why I could never go into politics.
John Carson in Copacabana, NSW picked up an error in Anna’s piece:
Anna Greenup writes with regard to the Federal government overruling the Northern Territory on euthanasia laws:
“For those who are unaware, the Australian Constitution allows the states to create their own laws, but if a state and federal law are either the same or in contradiction of each other, the Constitution dictates that the federal law will preside [sic].”
In fact, there are basically three categories of legislative authority. 1) those that the Constitution assigns exclusively to the Commonwealth, 2) those that the Constitution grants to the Commonwealth as a shared power with the states, 3) the remainder, which are exclusively state powers (state powers are the “default”, if you will). It is only in category 2) that Commonwealth legislation overrules state legislation to the extent that the two are inconsistent.
The criminal law largely falls under category 3). Had NSW, say, passed the same euthanasia laws as the Northern Territory, then there is nothing that the Federal Government could have done about it (unless it could have argued that the legislation breached some international convention that the Federal Government had signed using its external affairs power). The reason it was able to override the Northern Territory laws is because the Northern Territory is not a state. It is, as the name implies, a Commonwealth territory. The government of the Northern Territory, like that of the ACT, has its authority courtesy of the good graces of the Federal government, and any law it makes can be overturned by the Federal government – indeed the Federal government could abolish the Northern Territory government entirely if it so chose.
Webdiary got the most visitors in October since the height of the Iraq war debate – readers came in a rush to read about Bush, Hu and the aftermath. The ten most read stories were:
1. Parliament greets Bush: A day in the life of our faltering democracy
2. Howard cancels democracy for Bush and beyond: Can we stop him?
4. Charge of the Lightfoot brigade doesn’t stop Green protest
5. Howard’s elite – the official list
6. Who we gunna turn to now we’re the sheriff, John?
8. The truth tramplers: Media war spin on trial
10. War widow’s long wait for PM’s apology
The top five referring websites were:
1. michaelmoore
2. worldnews
4. spleenville
***
Jackie Hartley in Canada
I thought I would join the brigade of people who “never thought they would write in to a newspaper” but have been compelled to do so because of where Australia is heading. I am a final year Australian law student and I’ve come to Canada for my final semester to study First Nations law. After only two months away I have started having similar thoughts to Anna Greenup. In my first time overseas I am receiving a completely different reaction to my nationality than my seasoned traveller friends told me to expect. When Canadians realise where I’m from, the first question is, “So why did Australia support GWB on Iraq?” The icing on the cake came yesterday when I was speaking to a First Nations woman who is considering studying overseas but has never travelled before. When I suggested Australia she replied: “I don’t want to go to Australia because it’s just like America.”
***
Bruce Blackshaw in Morden, Surrey
Like Anna Greenup, I too am an expatriate, having lived and worked in London for the last six years. I retain a keen interest in what is going on in Australia, and read the SMH online, including Webdiary, daily.
I must protest, however, at Anna’s personal attack on John Howard.
It is one thing to disagree with someone’s politics. I have disagreed strongly with some recent Howard government decisions, particularly those to do with immigration and the Iraq war. And it is my democratic right to do so, and to vote against the government if I wish (well, if expats were allowed to vote!). It is even my right to criticise the government in print.
It is another thing altogether to disparage someone’s character.
Anna starts with a ridiculous shifty eyes comment about John Howard, and goes on to call him a hypocrite. Apparently, he expounds virtues and morals yet he has little to none. This are serious personal accusations, and without a long personal knowledge of John Howard the human being, Anna is ill-equipped to levy them.
I don’t know John Howard personally. I do, however, have some small knowledge of one of his sons, having worked in the same area with him in an investment bank. As a worker and a person, I could not have a higher regard for him, and I believe that is at least partially a reflection of his parents. At least, let’s give John Howard the benefit of the doubt.
Can we lay off the personal attacks, and get back to the politics please?
***
Linda Moctezuma, an Aussie in Abu Dhabi
I like your idea of the diary, but everything I read in it seems to have the same tone – one of moaning about the government. Sure, it may need to be moaned about, but it gets a bit one-sided, and therefore not very credible. That last one from the Greenup lady….not very well written, long-winded, and why does being an ex-pat give her such a crystal-clear view of Australia? I found her, like a lot of your contributors, overly smug.
***
Leigh Bentley in Muswell Hill, London
I too live outside Australia, and I know exactly what your correspondent Anna Greenup is saying. She expresses a dismay for the politician Australians have chosen as their leader which I whole-heartedly share.
I am a great believer in democracy – the electorate gets the politicians that it deserves. We (Australians) went close to getting Pauline Hanson, and we would have deserved her had we voted in large enough numbers for her. Fortunately we’re not that bad – but Australians still deserve John Howard, and Labor voters deserve Simon Crean. Americans deserve George W Bush, even if they deserved Al Gore more.
I feel that until we abandon them completely, today’s ‘opposition’ will continue to believe that it’s time will eventually come as long as they don’t ‘rock the boat’ too much. If we vote for viable alternatives – maybe it’s the Greens, maybe the Democrats and maybe a new political force yet to emerge – sooner or later the opposition will realise that genuinely new ideas and policies are the only things that really turn an electoral tide.
Please thank Anna Greenup for writing her article. It gives me great hope that Australians like her are out there. Maybe she will inspire me to add to your diary.
***
Mark Payne in London
I love your Webdiary and as an Australian living overseas it is great to see such lively debate in our country.
I felt compelled to give a different perspective to Anna Greenup’s well written piece. I have been living in London for a few years now and appreciate the view from the outside.
My first comment is that you do not need to live abroad to understand that Australia is insignificant in terms of economy and politics. It is our lot in life. Further, I agree that despite our size that we have a lot to offer the world. I think Australia and our political system and freedoms are very rare in this world and need to be appreciated.
What annoys me though is the consistent theme that anyone who votes for Howard or the Liberals is deceived by “propaganda” or somehow “complacent”.
We are a liberal society and to suggest that we are approaching dictatorship is laughable not far fetched. If people are concerned about the direction of Australian politics than I think there is a need to moderate the language or else noone will listen!
What we have in Australia is fantastic and worth preserving and I welcome intelligent debate on the subject. But how can you take anyone seriously when they dislike a Prime Minister because he has “shifty” eyes!!!
My main complaint is the constant view that somehow anyone can have an idea of what 20 million odd people think (more like 11 million voting age), this notion of “popular opinion”. Popular opinion (or some unrepresentative poll) can never be a basis for decisions in a democracy. As long as the Government adheres to the constitution and the rule of law then the only way to clearly say whether people approve or disapprove of what they are doing is by voting for them or not at the next Federal election.
I like to bet and I would be more than happy to bet on Howard retaining office in the next election. What does that say about popular opinion about the Gulf War mark II, euthanasia, the children overboard revelations, or any other issue arising in this term of the Government? Either people don’t care anymore about these issues or popular opinion cannot be gauged by a Morgan Gallop poll or how many people turn up to a street march.
Could it be that people keep voting for Howard and his policies not because they are stupid or mislead or complacent but because they have made an intelligent choice based on the alternatives put before them? Am I the only person who gives credit to the Australian voter? Could it just be that people vote for Howard and the Liberals because they approve of what they are doing?
It may be too much for some people to accept but I think a democracy deserves to have the choice of the people recognised no matter how much some people may dislike it.
Finally, I too would like to thank you Margo for Webdiary, but I must say the view expressed is not balanced, as people who are happy with the current system/status quo are always less inclined to write in, that being human nature I suppose. I hope to address that imbalance. I enjoy reading everyone’s views all the same.
PS: Go the Wallabies, because if England win the World Cup there will be a lot of ex-pats coming home!!)
***
Ned Roche in Inverell NW Slopes and Plains NSW
I have come back to reading Webdiary of late because the paid journos are giving us a whole of boring crap on the opinion page of the Herald lately. My summary of Anna Greenup’s article:
* “Australia really is the arse end of the world, thanks Mr Keating.”
* “I’m writing from a high point of legitimacy, a successful Aussie who worked for one of the worlds biggest banks – IN LONDON, not some hideous Asian sub-branch.”
* “Australia is becoming a terrible place controlled by terrible mean-spirited pollies.”
* “I have hope that Australia will be saved when pollies wake up and take my advice.”
Frankly, I have found this obsession with democracy lately in Webdiary a tad amusing. Is Anna going to tell us as an expat what a rich and vibrant political dialogue is happening somewhere else in the world? No, she is happy to tell us how crap we have become, but not really willing to put some other model of nationhood up on a pedestal by comparison.
Why has Anna not been able to find that elusive democratic utopia which she recommends that Australia become? The answer was given by none other than Edina Monsoon: “We’re living in a global shopping mall and you’re the only one that still thinks there’s an exit darling.”
One of the core beliefs of Margaret Thatcher in her fight against the communist bloc in the Cold War was that the people behind the iron curtain should be made to realise that Westerners lived at a higher standard of living and had more and nicer things. It’s not about democracy, it’s about any system that will deliver greater economic benefits.
In 1996 less than half the people able to voted for the office of President in the “World’s greatest Democracy”, America. In 2000 with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on campaigning, no incumbent, and one of the closest races in history up to polling day, they lifted the turnout to 50%.
America is not a democracy, it is a well functioning oligarchy that allows a democratic check on the oligarchy’s power should they not provide benevolent government (benevolent = more and nicer things). Wait and see how many people turn up to vote when there is a bad recession or depression!
Recently the Oligarchy that controls America and the Oligarchy that controls China have leapt into co-operation on the central issue that will keep their populations happy, Trade. Does anyone seriously expect the West to make a song and dance about China being ruled by one political party if that political party can deliver a economic model to 1.3bn people modelled on our own?
More importantly, does anyone really want to deal with the potential chaos of transforming China into a “democracy”? Do we know what the Chinese people would then demand of their leaders, seeing they are the burgeoning power of the world? As long as the Chinese continue to supply fireworks for our New Years Eve Celebrations the vast majority of people (who don’t read this column) don’t care.
In conclusion I would like to explain to Anna why Australia is not a crap place and that in fact it is pretty wonderful.
I was born in 1976 and am therefore a member of Generation Y. I was born onto a farm where living was precarious and my parents could not afford many of the things that other people took for granted back then. Since then, through some wise moves and hard work, they have been able to deliver a good education and stability to our family.
I am a 27 year old gay man running a Pub in a town of 10,000 people West of the Great Dividing Range, I face next to no discrimination and have some really good mates. I have been able to afford to travel widely, meet people from all over the world, and spend my income how I choose. When I was stupid enough to go in a amateur Rodeo event in my small town the taxpayers spent a fortune sending me in air ambulances between hospitals and keeping me alive. I am now receiving a heavily subsidised education in Law at University which I hope will allow me to earn a good income for a long time.
So cheer up Anna. We might not be a great democracy, but future generations might look back on us and not deplore us for that, they might look back at us and jealously think to themselves: “Gee, they had more fun than us.”
***
Rodney Sewell in Munich
From a distance, it must be easy to slander people as Nazis. From a distance it may even make sense. But here in Munich when you pass the places where it began, the homes from which Jews were rounded up and taken to death or slavery, the street block where the Gestapo had its headquarters and its torture chambers, the square where boys and young men were choreographed into de-individualised but oh-so-impressive masses, the court house where those who were luckless, stupid or courageous enough to resist were harangued and insulted in a alegala trial before they were guillotined; when you start to look back into the origins of those who caused all that, of their motivations, of their careers, you begin to wonder if those in comfortable Melbourne or Canberra who sling their slanderous lies about the Greens have any inkling of what they are talking about.
I shall leave the big picture analyses of the “Green=Nazi” campaign to others. My interest is in the detail of some of Andrew Bolt’s and Senator Brandis’s statements.
Three of Mr Bolt’s arguments and two of Senator Brandis’s references are at the very least, misleading. I have limited my research to the specifically German (or German-sounding) references by the two men, assuming that SMH readers can research the English-language references themselves.
I quote from Andrew Bolt’s two articles in the Herald-Sun:
“And the green movement has been this way before. In pre-war Germany, nature-worship was as strong as it is now… Members of Germany’s main nature clubs thrilled to (Hitleras) message, more than 60 per cent of them joining the Nazis by 1939, against just 10 per cent of all men.”
In fact in 1933 independent, social democratic, Christian, trade union and communist-aligned nature clubs were banned. In 1936 the remaining underground nature clubs were mopped up, their leaders landing in prison or concentration camps. By 1939 only nature clubs aligned to the aims of the Nazi Party were allowed. A 60 percent membership crossover between the Nazi party and nature clubs would thus be expected. One could even argue that 60 percent is a bit low.
The Nazis also absorbed the German Youth Movement, the Wandervogel, which talked of our mystical relationship with the earth.
The Wandervogel were founded in 1901 by a group of Berlin high school kids looking for something to do on weekends. Like other German youth groups, it aimed to bring youth closer to nature through camping and hiking. In the 1920s it was brilliantly successful, organising trips to many different parts of the world. In 1933 the Nazis banned the group (some members did join the Hitler Youth (HJ), and from 1933 the HJ had a state monopoly on official campsites and hiking trails).
Other Wandervogel members like Robert Oelbermann objected to the dictatorship controlling all aspects of life and continued to organise and hike in secret. In 1936 he was arrested in the wide-ranging “Operation Destruction of Remaining Youth Groups” and died in 1941 in Dachau concentration camp.
The Wandervogel Group was refounded after the war and exists today. It is (and was) basically a scout group. Its ‘mystical relationship to the earth’ is about as sinister as the feeling most Sydneysiders get when they look at a beach.
One of the three key founders of the German Greens, Herbert Gruhl, said the environmental crisis was so acute the state needed perhaps ‘dictatorial powers’.
I couldn’t find that particular quote on the net, but I don’t doubt that Mr Gruhl was capable of it. Herbert Gruhl was a conservative member of the Bundestag from 1969 to 1980 and for several years the ecology expert of the CDU/CSU federal parliamentary party (the equivalent of the Liberal/National Parties).
Mr Gruhl was involved with the Greens in the late 70s but left the party in 1981, citing its “disturbing drift to the left”. Shortly after he founded the ‘Ecological-Democratic Party’ (OeDP). His extreme right-wing politics caused a showdown in the OeDP in 1990 and Mr Gruhl left that party (the OeDP still exists and has a number of members of local councils in Bavaria).
As well as his interest in ecology, Mr Gruhl was also a passionate opponent of a ‘multicultural’ society. His biography suggests that when there are authoritarian or nationalist tendencies in the modern German green movements, they are strongly and successfully opposed by the rank and file. The German Greens are proponents of Basisdemokratie (‘rank and file democracy’) and diametrically opposed to the Nazi Fuehrer-concept (the idea that one man can knows intuitively what is best for a nation).
In his attack on the Australian Greens, Senator Brandis quoted extensively from a ‘Professor Staudenmaier’:
“Even more illuminating is a work by a person who is known to be on the far left of green politics in Europe, Professor Peter Staudenmaier, who wrote a book four years ago called Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience.”
Peter Staudenmaier is not a professor and does not claim the title. But he is available as a public speaker, and his booking agents have posted the following biography:
“Peter Staudenmaier is a social ecologist and left green activist who has been involved with the Institute for Social Ecology since 1989 (Note, the ISE is not a university, it is a private institute ‘offering year-round, interdisciplinary studies to guide social change, including intensive summer programs in theory and practice, year-round B.A. degree in affiliation with Burlington College, fall, winter, and spring workshops and lectures and other educational resources.’)”
The booking agent continues:
“Currently a faculty member at ISE, Peter lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where he works at a collectively run bookstore co-op. He is also part of a network of housing cooperatives. Peter works with grassroots development organizations in Nicaragua as well as with the German radical green group Ecological Left. He devotes much of his time to independent scholarship and antifascist research. He is co-author, with Janet Biehl, of the book Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience, and has published many articles on anarchism, ecological politics, and the history of right-wing thought.”
Not the sort of person with whom Senator Brandis would often come in intellectual contact, I expect.
And finally a revealing quote from Senator Brandis, part of a claim that the Australian Greens are willing to subvert democracy in order to pursue their agenda:
Let it never be forgotten that the Nazis came to power in 1932 when they won a majority in the Reichstag in free elections.
Senator Robert Ray: They didn’t win a majority.
When they won control of the Reichstag – thank you, Senator Robert Ray – in free elections.
Yes indeed, let it never be forgotten. The first Hitler government was a coalition of right wing and centre-right parties. The ‘Enabling Law’ which then suspended the Constitution and established the dictatorship was opposed only by the centre-left Social Democrats. By the time of the vote, the Communist members of parliament were on the run, dead or in ‘protective custody’ in police cells or labour camps. The Communist Party’s parliamentary seats were annulled. Thus had Hitler his two-thirds majority and could change the Constitution, a sort of Nazi variation on the concept of “joint sitting”.
Mr Bolt and Senator Brandis display a breathtaking ignorance of history and/or a wilful manipulation of the truth. If this is the basis of Senator Brandis’s planned major speech, I look forward to analysing it with a fine-tooth-comb.
Fans of blood sports may appreciate a debate between Brandis, Bolt and Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Green Foreign Minister and still the country’s most popular politician, the next time he visits Australia. Even with the slight handicap of having to speak in English, Mr Fischer would have these intellectual pygmies for breakfast.