G’day. I wonder how Webdiary will change this year. I’d like to alter its direction a little by shifting emphasis from micro analysing the behaviour of the political combatants to discussing the values being contested and the means being used to do so. And I’d like less anger, I think, and more observation and constructive ideas and action, especially at the grassroots. Today information, analysis, comment and critique from readers on matters raised in Webdiary since I’ve been back.
G�day. I wonder how Webdiary will change this year. I�d like to alter its direction a little by shifting emphasis from micro analysing the behaviour of the political combatants to discussing the values being contested and the means being used to do so. And I�d like less anger, I think, and more observation and constructive ideas and action, especially at the grassroots. Today information, analysis, comment and critique from readers on matters raised in Webdiary since I�ve been back. Please feel free to email your thoughts about Webdiary.
To begin, Joel Bateman volunteers to report the election campaign for the Brisbane federal seat of Ryan for Webdiary. In WEDGEWATCH, Rodney Croome fills us in on the buildup to the attempt to make gay adoptions a Howard vote winner, and David Eastwood, Rob Bruce, Mandy and Peter Funnell discuss Howard�s attempt to discriminate in favour of male student teachers. To end, Elayn James has a few choice comments on the Rugby League�s attitudes to women.
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NOTICEBOARD
1. Meg Lees has a blog. Is she the first serving Australian federal pollie to have a go? The next election is going to be wild, internet wise.
2. Allen Jay says he follows the American campaign partly through Steve Perry�s blog: �He is a committed Democrat with an insider�s view on the political process in Washington as well as in the Democrats. At the lower levels, the democratic process is alive and well in the US so long as it can survive the War on Terror and the US Patriot Act.�
3. I�ll be at the opening night of �CMI (a Certain Maritime Incident)� � a play inspired by the transcripts of the unthrown children inquiry – on Friday March 26 8pm at the Performance Arts Space in Sydney. I like this from the blurb:
�You told the truth; you stood by your desire to tell the truth. That is right, isn’t it?� (Labor Senator Faulkner, CMI inquiry transcript p1544)
�The TV news deadline has passed… You can turn away from your theatrics.� (Liberal Senator Brandis, p1582)
Producer David Williams said: �This is a story of six people wrestling with their wills, their vocabulary, their politics and each other. It�s an exploration of fundamental questions at the intersection between the personal and the political as much about Australia�s political process as about our response to asylum seekers.�
The performers and devisers of the play are Danielle Antaki, Stephen Klinder, Nikki Heywood, Deborah Pollard, Christopher Ryan and David Williams
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REPORTING RYAN
Joel Bateman
I’m a regular reader of your Webdiary and also Tim Dunlop’s Road to surfdom blog. I saw your announcement that you were looking for people to write about the election campaign in their electorate and thought I might have a shot at that.
I live in Ryan, an electorate that surely needs little introduction after the events of 2001 – after being a Liberal ‘blue ribbon’ seat for the entirety of its existence (26 years, from memory), it fell in a by-election after the resignation of John Moore a few months before the 2001 federal election. This swing to the ALP, only a month after Peter Beattie’s state ALP took 66 of the 89 seats, was widely perceived as indicating that John Howard would be in trouble. But after Labor’s Leonie Short held Ryan for six months, the seat went back to the Liberals, with new member Michael Johnson winning fairly comfortably (despite branch-stacking allegations and public infighting).
(Margo: For Webdiary�s coverage of Ryan, and how Howard responded the last time he was in big trouble, see Don’t kick me: I’m down, mate, Tax or vision, Ryan bears’ picnic, Tell me what to doand Ryan does Florida. See Webdiary�s 2001 archive to refresh your memory of Howard�s comeback back then.)
I’m a PhD research student at the University of Queensland, in the field (oddly enough) of political science. My particular focus is on political leadership, and my thesis is on four prime ministers and why they were or weren’t deposed by their party – Gorton, Fraser, Hawke and Keating will be my case studies. I am also the co-editor of a school-supported, student-initiated journal, Dialogue.
Whilst I’m not a member of any political party, I do consider myself of the left. I once had, for a semester (in 1999), Michael Johnson as a tutor for a subject here, and did not leave that class with a favourable impression of him (an opinion shared by much of the class, I should add).
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WEDGEWATCH
Rodney Croome in Tasmania, the bloke who helped end the criminalisation of male gay sex in Australia
Margo, there�s nothing “sudden” about Howard’s gay adoption wedge plans (Howard’s affirmative action for men). The issue’s been building for a couple of months now.
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13TH 2004
Friday morning: Rumours begin circulating in the ACT Legislative Assembly that the Federal Coalition is planning to over ride the ACT’s new adoption laws. The rumours are dismissed as absurd.
Friday lunch time: The Prime Minister makes it clear at a media conference in Launceston that he is opposed to adoption by same sex couples under any circumstances. Journalists are surprised that 1. Howard is expecting the question and is well briefed and prepared for it, and 2. He spends so much time talking about the issue.
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 14TH 2004
In an article in The Australian former Howard speech writer Christopher Pearson dismisses the idea that the Howard Government would use gay marriage as a potential electoral wedge issue, arguing instead that over riding the ACT’s recent relationship reforms would be higher on its agenda.
MONDAY FEBRUARY 16TH 2004
ACT Deputy Opposition Leader Bill Stefaniak reveals he has written to Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock with concerns Canberra’s new adoption laws may contravene federal laws and the constitution. Stefaniak makes it clear that if there is no inconsistency the ACT’s laws should stay.
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 17TH 2004
On ABC Radio John Howard declares that the ACT reforms reduce the status of marriage and are inconsistent with federal laws. ACT Opposition leader, Brendan Smyth, says the Prime Minister has the right to intervene: “If you are concerned about something and you cannot change the effect of the decision at one level, everyone in this country has the right to go to the higher level of parliament”. ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, condemns any intervention in the affairs of the ACT.
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 18TH 2004
It’s revealed that John Howard wrote to ACT Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, on January 30th this year expressing his concern that the, then proposed, ACT relationship laws devalue marriage and may be inconsistent with the Commonwealth Marriage Act.
Federal Labor leader, Mark Latham, and Shadow Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, issue statements condemning any Commonwealth interference with laws passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly.
Latham speaks in favour of adoption by same sex couples at the National Press Club.
MONDAY MARCH 8TH 2004
John Howard again speaks out against gay adoption, gay parenting in general (and gay marriage) on the John Laws program, adding that “the ACT is a different constituency than some other parts of Australia”.
Federal cabinet plans to consider a relevant submission from Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, but doesn’t.
The Melbourne Age asks whether gay adoption will make an effective electoral wedge if it has already been accepted in WA and Tasmania.
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David Eastwood in Elizabeth Bay, Sydney
Margo, in your piece on the discrimination issue you suggested that the shortage of male teachers in the Catholic system is because �It seemed they didn’t like the job, given the pay, conditions, status and stress.� That is, of course the obvious reason. It�s just not worth it to them, economics 101.
So, that must mean that the job IS worth the stress, conditions and status for the women who dominate the profession. It�s interesting to try to analyse this in the light of the �politically correct� view that tends to be implied in our anti-discrimination regime; that no profession is really inherently male or female. Is it possible that teaching really is �women�s work�? A grab-bag of hypotheses (and I mean hypotheses, I don�t necessarily subscribe to these views):
1) Teaching is an extension of the female nurturing/child-rearing role that exists in most societies, so, the reward of teaching is biologically or psychologically greater to most females. As such, the trade-off against the conditions, status and pay is more attractive to them.
2) The corollary: The trade-off between pay, status and conditions in many professions we may currently see as male-dominated is biologically (or psychologically) unattractive to most females.
3) Despite the progress made over the last few decades, most single-income families have a male breadwinner � of their own choice. As a result, the pay trade-off is more critical (and less attractive to) males as female teachers are less likely to be sole breadwinners.
4) Males may be �gun-shy� of the risk of being perceived to be inappropriately dealing with students in response to �knee-jerk� regulations or codes of behaviour introduced to combat teacher-pupil sexual abuse, introduced in response to systemic abuse uncovered in numerous school systems over recent years.
5) Males may be biologically inherently more likely to abuse than females � certainly the vast majority of reported cases involve males. As such they may increasingly avoid the profession as new, enhanced levels of scrutiny increase the risk of abusive behaviour.
6) Teaching offers females a better pay/status/conditions trade-off than they can get elsewhere in the workforce, so they flock to it. If this is true, our anti-discrimination regime is simply not working.
7) The notion that young male students need male role models is a furphy. It�s often mouthed that there is some inherent need, but I�ve rarely heard anyone explain why in any great depth. Why do male kids need male teachers?
I am open-minded on the need to discriminate positively in this profession, and indeed whether there�s a problem in the female dominance of teaching. But surely, until we test these (and any number of other hypotheses one could develop) we are flying blind in trying to decide whether this discrimination is a good thing or a bad thing.
MARGO: How do we explain the declining numbers of men in teaching?
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Rob Bruce in Potts Point, Sydney
You assert that “It is inconceivable that low percentages of women in other jobs would get such special treatment” in reference to the suggestion that there be some scholarships specifically allocated to male student teachers.
Margo, once again, you’re letting your automatic anti Howard reactions kick in to override reality. There are many such scholarships for women, most notably in the fields of engineering and IT. They were created specifically to help correct a gender imbalance. There are more examples but the point is made, hysterical reactions to suggestions are usually meaningless. I don’t overly care whether male only teaching scholarships are created, what I care about is our media keeping the bastards honest which cannot be achieved if persistent and extreme personal bias is allowed to overcome reason and logic.
If you don’t believe me about female only scholarships try the following test. Go to Google and enter “female engineering scholarships in Australia”. You will get back 10 pages of results directly relating to female only scholarships. Try the same test with “male engineering scholarships in Australia” and you will find only 1 such scholarship (and that apologises everywhere it is mentioned for the fact female students cannot apply) hidden amongst all the other results which emphasise that female candidates are encouraged to apply as well as male candidates.
Margo: Hi Rob. First let�s dispose of any argument that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is a politically correct relic from the Labor government. The Commission head and author of HREOC�s decision is Professor Alice Tay, appointed by Howard, as was the Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward, who has strongly defended Tay�s decision. Have you read the HREOC Judgement?
To get an exemption from the Sex Discrimination Act you need to show that your proposed �special measures� will help overcome PROVED gender-based discrimination. Tay said:
�This requires an analysis to determine whether, in the relevant area (service delivery, employment etc), there are practices which do, or tend to, exclude, disadvantage, restrict or result in an adverse effect upon people in those groups, or leave uncorrected the effects of past discrimination against them. The most important aspect of identifying substantive inequality is to look at the overall effect of current practices and to trace unequal outcomes to their source.�
There was no evidence that men were discriminated against in seeking education to become teachers. Indeed, one of the reasons for the shortage of male teachers is that there are many more men than women who are school principals!
Howard has decided that because the Catholic Church couldn�t prove its case, he would give carte blanch legislative permission for any group to discriminate in favour of men in teaching, from preschool to university. The government�s legislation doesn�t even define what an appropriate �gender balance� is, and what test must be met before gender discrimination is cool. It says simply that �gender imbalance in teaching means an imbalance in the ratio of male to female teachers�. See Howard’s affirmative action for men for details.
Any sex discrimination experts out there who�d like to comment?
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Mandy (surname supplied)
I read ‘Howard’s affirmative action for men’ today with interest, because research I�m doing on the politics of fathers and men’s rights activists shows that this debate pops up in several forms – education, fatherlessness, men’s health and family law.
For a long time, conservative politicians and commentators have been pushing the masculinist (crisis) discourse: too few male role models for boys (girls don’t rate a mention). Latham has joined in, egged on by organisations like the Fatherhood Foundation. Brendan Nelson�s SMH opinion piece “Masculinity’s unfashionable sons must be shown their worth” on February 20 this year is nothing more than a shortened version of a speech called “Educating Boys” which he made on 8/10/2000 at Holy Trinity School, Canberra.
It’s strange how few people test the validity of such claims. Doing a quick Google search I found at least 5 Australian studies and many more international studies that discredit such claims, or are highly critical of the masculinist discourse, which often tips into misogyny. See the Canadian study on gender and education, School Success by Gender: A Catalyst for the Masculinist Discourse released last year.
Personally I think Howard can make as many wedges as there are issues – why he’s a regular wedges, sour cream and sweet chili sauce short order cook!
For sure there’s bound to be more to drive a divide between the genders and between the classes. Could another Howard wedge will be around family?
While the focus of most people narrows onto the statements that form the basic issue/wedge, I’d be very interested to read what’s behind such agenda pushes and where the connections are, and how Howard gets others to do his bidding. Why are his political strategies so successful in diverting attention or moving the debate on before we get to examine things clearly?
I’m no political expert – just an interested observer, who sometimes comments on my own blog.
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Peter Funnell in Farrer, Canberra
The world’s gone bloody mad. I read �Howard�s affirmative action for women� and I have to say that I too have trouble getting my head around what Howard is doing and might do next. It could be anything. The bloke has totally lost the bloody plot.
I have always worried about what he would get up too next. He is really panicking this time round. Like some mad bugger throwing overboard everything he can get his hands on to lighten the load on a sinking vessel. And he is definitely going down.
I am amazed that his backbench hasn’t gone completely feral – he has them well house trained! They may think they have to ride with this bloke to the bitter end because its their best chance of success. I don’t agree. I listened to Hewson’s view that it would be suicide for them to ditch Howard (I like his style, but I don’t agree with him on this one). It only works if you reckon Howard can get them up again at the next election and he can�t.
I have never seen a bloke back track and back flip and make such a comprehensive goose of himself. He has lost his composure, and is fast becoming a parody of himself. The entire fabric of a miserable government with rotten policies and a preference for lies and deception is unraveling, like some force of nature taking over to reorder things.
The latest example is the Medicare Bill, which will get through because Howard has let Abbot up the anti three times over. A big surplus gives you spending options for a short while, and he spending our money like there is no tomorrow. He is not writing good public policy, just buying his way out of trouble. It’s madness all round.
I really never thought this would all happen with Latham’s arrival as Labour leader. I am stunned by the crumbling Howard edifice.
I was thunderstruck by the silly play ground poking out of his tongue by Howard over the male teacher issue. Here is another example of how much this bloke either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about families, schools or education. Probably has no idea they are interlocked. Howard sees a bit of floating ice and says chip it away, only to be told it’s an iceberg. I agree with you that this is a real loser for Howard. I wrote this letter to the Canberra Times:
Rather than putting in measures to establish “positive” discrimination in place to encourage men into teaching, it would help to understand why men do not make the choice more often. Similarly, why do women chose teaching? The Minister’s proposal is a “no cost”, “no effort” token gesture.
Teaching is dominated by women, but I doubt that senior management in teaching (public or private) reflects their numbers. All is not what it seems in either teaching, or the organisation of schools, families or careers and it is not solved by introducing discriminatory public policy.
In the era of the two income family, longer work hours to get ahead, HECS debt, cost of child care, the teaching profession is definitely a family friendly occupation. There should be more of it. Teaching is a good solution for a spouse to whom falls both the real primary care responsibilities and a need to earn an income.
When has any Government put in place similar measures in favor of women in the majority of professions, that have always been dominated by men? “Affirmative Action” policies were often, incorrectly characterised as discriminating in favor of women, when all that was said was that all things being equal, choose a women. It doesn’t work and doesn’t help anyone.
Once there were teachers’ scholarships offered by the Federal Government across every State and Territory. It was a terrific system, reflecting the importance of maintaining and encouraging people into teaching. In its place today is an ever increasing HECS debt.
Once, teaching was acknowledged as a highly respected occupation in the community. Those days are gone, but the importance of the work teachers do has never diminished. Sadly, the students they teach aspire to more glamorous and better paid occupations. Teaching does not pay well, not for the qualifications required and the debt they now incur to get them.
If the Minister wants to make a “positive” whole of nation contribution to the teaching profession, reintroduce the scholarship system. You can’t do much about the rest.
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Elayn James in Summer Hill, Sydney
The thing keeping me glued to the papers these days is not my usual fare of health, science, government and environment issues but the alleged Rugby League rape case. It’s disgusting that the players are providing minimal co-operation with police, and that there is so much talk about “damage to the game”. What about “damage to the alleged victim and her family and her other relationships” or “damage to women’s faith and respect for men”, or even “decent men’s disgust at other men’s appallingly animalistic and aggressive behaviour towards women as demonstrated by this example”?
As I see it, this issue is not about a nation of league fans struggling to face some brutal facts about their heroes, or about The Game (or the Bulldogs team) surviving the scandal. It�s about an entrenched, aggressive and unacceptable male culture that has no respect for women. I think it is cause for shame both within the code and Australia wide, house-to-house, school-to-school, workplace-to-workplace.
This occurred within the League culture but also within the Australian culture – what have we done (or not done) as a society to allow social standards and personal ethics to degenerate to this? What are we prepared to do to prevent something similar happening again?
Surely the mark of a civilised society is how it cares for its elderly, its women and its children. One young woman has been very badly treated. Within days it became apparent that she is not the only one to have had a nasty experience with league men. The media keeps us well informed that it’s not just some league men who behave badly towards women – women are raped by men from a cross-section of the community. But how many men have been speaking out demanding change? And how many innocent league men have we heard from? Not enough. It’s the feminist commentators making the call, the odd politician, and the judges. In my view, it’s time ordinary blokes found their voices: time to tell their brothers enough is enough and start to enforce acceptable standards of behaviour when they see wrong-doing, however big or small. Or perhaps we are a race of cowards who prefer to walk past in silence with their heads down pretending the nasty stuff will go away, with our men too scared to make a noise when their intervention could really make a big difference to one young woman.
Dear me. I’m just one voice in a crowd. Who’s listening?