Why won’t John Howard admit that our participation in the invasion of Iraq increased the risk that Australia will be targetted for a terrorist attack?

Pretty simple really. If he admits the obvious, as the AFP chief Mick Keelty did, then he’s back to square one in explaining his decision to go to war (see Terrorist attack on Australia inevitable, warns FBI expert).

We know that intelligence agencies advised that invading Iraq would INCREASE the risk of terrorism in general. We know that there were no WMDs, so Howard’s stated reason for war – that it would reduce the terrorist risk – is wrong, and we also know that Howard was not relying on the intelligence service’s objective assessment of the Iraq risk, but, like Bush and Blair, decided to invade then looked for evidence to convince the UN it was justified (see the Parliamentary Committee WMD report) .

We also know that the Iraq invasion and occupation split the world and damaged co-operation in controlling terrorism, and that the war could drag on indefinitely, sucking energy from the United States defence force and adding people to terrorist ranks.

Surely, we’re reaching endgame on Howard’s credibility on security. Surely few of us trust him to tell us the truth any more.

That’s how I explain the sudden rush for even more terrorism laws – now to include socialising with suspected terrorists – crushing even more civil liberties. The idea is to force Labor to oppose some of the more extreme measures, and thus blame Labor if an attack occurs. Basic stuff.

The NSW government’s announcement that it would extend its already draconian terror laws is based on a different calculation. The Carr government is now so discredited and rancid that any way to divert attention from its disgraceful management of our hospitals, schools and public transport is a relief. On past performance the State Liberals will back any extension of anti-terror laws. Carr’s justification – that existing laws weren’t designed to deal with “murder planned on such a vast scale” as Madrid – is ludicrous. He passed his laws after Bali!

Overlaying the decisions by the NSW and federal governments is the calculation that they want to be SEEN to be responding to Spain, and this way there’s no real financial investment required. If you wanted to defend us against terrorism at home, you’d be training drivers of chemical trucks how to react to a hijacking, you’d be securing ALL our airports, and you’d be widely encouraging participation by the public. But that requires money and it also requires TRUST.

Do we trust the federal and state governments? No.

I set out the premium on trust between citizens and government in today’s world in reporting Carr’s new anti-terror laws in 2002, and suggested that the use of Carr’s extraordinary new police powers be overseen by an Australian trusted by all of us, like Sir William Deane. But no, the police minister oversees everything, and he doesn’t even need to report to Parliament. My reports included Costa: Police watchdog, Protecting our safety AND our liberty and Democracy’s watchdogs blind to the danger

On the federal front trust is even more important, so people feel safe in coming forward to give information about their suspicions, particularly people from minority communities. Locking people up for ‘consorting’ will REDUCE trust and REDUCE cooperation.

From what I’ve read a big factor in the rejection of the Spanish conservatives by the Spanish people was disgust that they ware again being lied to, with the government blaming ETA without evidence. I hope the people also sack Howard, Bush and Blair to cleanse all their democracies and allow their successors to rebuild the trust in government so vital to defeat terrorism (see the Financial Times report Blair more isolated over Iraq policy).

Today, a piece by Webdiary debutant Sam Guthrie on Keelty, Damien Hogan rounds up progress on the war on terror, and some seriously wild reports claiming the US is importing WMDs into Iraq. Noam Chomsky’s latest on Iraq is at The Guardian.

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Sam Guthrie

In response to The American elections, the future of alliances and the lessons of Spain, and the article I am sure you are about to write regarding the Government’s reaction to Commissioner Keelty’s analysis of the terror threat to Australia post Iraq, please find the attached torrent.

As a PhD student in politics and international relations I am wading through security related analysis every day. I find the Howard Government’s attack on Commissioner Keelty and every academic and analyst who correctly assert the view that our membership of the Coalition of the Willing has made us a more prominent terrorist target, absolutely appalling. It is a new low in political expediency.

The Abstract Reality Express rumbles back into town

What is the latest political dumb show our Prime Minister is performing? Are we in for more of the rhetorical hop scotch we saw during the recent WMD inquiry? Hands up if you’re sick of being treated like an imbecile by a Government whose grasp on the concept of honesty extends only as far as the sound bite of a few cautious, well chosen words from a suburban lawyer “based on the information available to us at the time”.

Yes the Abstract Reality Express has rumbled back into town as the Prime Minister and Attorney General attempt to sell the idea that whilst the security of the country is at constant risk from Islamic terrorism, such risks are in no way connected to or increased by Australia’s role in the invasion of Iraq. This despite claims to the contrary yesterday by such authorities as the Federal Police Commissioner, the NSW Police Commissioner, internationally acclaimed Al-Qaeda analyst Rohan Guna Ratna and a videotape, purportedly from Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, saying it carried out the attacks in Spain due to that country’s support for the US-led war on Iraq.

Is there a better example of a Government wanting to have its cake and eat it too? On one hand they jump on the events in Madrid knowing it facilitates the opportunity to trot out the national security credentials which since 2001 have inspired enough fear to translate into electoral support for the Coalition. On the other, the Government furiously seeks to avoid any responsibility for a rise in the level of potential terrorist threat which may be due to their strategically naive involvement in Iraq.

What is more disturbing is the fact that the Prime Minister, the Attorney General and today the Foreign Minister and Defence Minister are willing to compromise the vital experience and expertise of the Federal Police Commissioner to defend themselves.

This is the blame shifting tradition that saw the anonymous bureaucrats and members of the Defence Force blamed for the children overboard claim, and ONA blamed for Howard’s false WMD claims. In the face of ailing support and descending polls it seems the Government has become even more brazen in placing its own political success above the security of the nation.

Today as FBI executive assistant director (counter-terrorism) John Pistole, goes on record stating Australia’s alliance with the US has made it more of a terrorist target, we discover that moments after making a similar claim on Channel Nine’s Sunday program Federal Police Commissioner Keelty was rebuked by Arthur Sinodinis, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, for contradicting the Government’s message.

Whilst such a contempt for truth may be permissible when used merely to manipulate the trauma of drowning refugees to win an election or to justify sending the sons and daughters of Australia into an unjust war, when it directly effects the security of the nation surely the Government must, at last, be called to account.

The Howard Coalition is fast losing its credibility on the last policy front upon which it thought it could hold its ground: National Security. Rather than providing the country with a single streamlined department specifically dealing with security issues the Governments anti-terrorism apparatus has been exposed as fractured, de-centralised and at the whim of a blinkered political agenda.

The treatment of Commissioner Keelty is despicable considering the remarkable role he has played in furthering the security of the country since 9/11. During the Bali investigations he worked not only as the operational chief of the AFP but as a fine diplomat for Australian security, developing a level of regional cooperation which the erratic diplomacy of our Foreign Minister had failed to achieve. The regional networks on security that he continues to spearhead, the experience he has garnered working on the ground in terrorist related investigations and his exposure to vast intelligence sources (including that of ASIO) makes him one of the most well informed commentators in the country on matters of security. By rebuking him the Government has not only shown its contempt f or Keelty but the role of the AFP and the vital work it has achieved since 2001.

It is widely acknowledged that the war against terror is an untraditional conflict, a war that will not be won on a battlefield but rather through the effective analysis of intelligence. The treatment of Keelty underlines the reoccurring crisis in Australian intelligence and indeed the wider Public Service. He has been rebuked for not initiating the self censorship that the Parliamentary Joint Committee Inquiry into Intelligence on Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction found rife in ONA’s analysis of the WMD threat.

In short, Keelty has been attacked for not telling the Government what it wanted to hear. This, during a time where our intelligence should be our strongest weapon against the terrorist threat, is further evidence of the Governments inability to priorities the security of the country over the security of its’ own opinion polls.

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Damien Hogan

With the dust yet to settle in Madrid and our own Prime Minister claiming “security” as one of his pre-election strengths, I thought a quick roundup of the War on Terror might be in order.

Obviously this is not a war in the traditional sense. Al Qaeda have no plans to occupy and hold the western half of Utah or embark on a Lend-Lease agreement. So what are their plans and how has the war been going for them? By a stroke of luck Osama’s “secret” plans were left on the bus seat next to me today:

Our Secret Plan – August, 2001

* Create fear

Fear is the backbone of any terrorist organisation. Lacking the resources to mount any large scale invasions or military occupations, the anticipation of horror is our greatest weapon. The acts themselves will probably generate their own publicity, but ideally local politicians should never let the concept slip from the public’s mind for more than a few days – some kind of “terror indicator” (colours would be good) that can be placed on the front pages of newspapers or in TV bulletins would be useful. Obviously, it is mere fantasy to think of it, but an expensive television advertising campaign promoting the concept of “being terrified” would be great. To make it more palatable we might have to substitute the word “alert” for “terrified”, but the message should still be clear.

* Alienate US from her allies

The combined forces of The West are enormous. With a unified approach they would be almost unbeatable. We must divide and conquer. The UK is touch and go (and Australia is simply untouchable) but 150+ or more of the remaining countries should be easily separated. The mere appearance of the US (or even a small handful of minor powers) as “rogue states” will be an enormously powerful propaganda tool in recruiting new members.

* Massively increase US military spending

This should weaken one of America’s great strengths (their economy) and may directly lead to pain in the American community (via reduced services and/or higher taxes). A massive military build up in conventional weapons (and high tech weapons in particular) would be largely ineffectual in fighting us and so should be encouraged. In a perfect world a focus on space-based weapons or even a missile shield would be excellent as these are simultaneously astronomically expensive and entirely useless. As an additional benefit, military spending also consumes resources that might otherwise be used to woo our power-base of poverty stricken, powerless, despotically ruled zealots.

* Unite the Arab world

There is no need to spell out that fighting amongst ourselves is the road to ruin. Whilst our differences are large, we can surely draw together around a common enemy. If we can somehow get the US president to use terms like “crusade” when discussing various conflicts we will be doing very well indeed. I can’t see how this is possible as it would play completely into our hands… but Allah willing.

* Disperse US forces

The more countries the US attacks the better. Occupation will generate thousands of new supporters. Standard military theory teaches that the concentration of force is vital for any victory. Arab countries are preferred targets but beggars can’t be choosers. There will be real dangers for us if America remains focussed on Afghanistan for any length of time. An attack on Iran or Syria would be excellent – North Korea would be OK, but would take the spotlight of us and is not preferred. I was joking the other day with Omar about how funny it would be if the US attacked that infidel Hussein!

* Training facilities

If I may briefly continue the joke and presume that somehow all sense had left our enemy’ minds and that they DID invade Iraq – well that would be a great service. A fundamentalist Islamic government would almost certainly eventually take power and prior to that event many of the techniques of terrorism would be best taught in the kind of arena that Baghdad would offer. I think we could say with great confidence that Baghdad would become to us what Fort Bragg is to the Americans.

* USA out of Saudi

We must remove American military forces from the holy land.

* Weaken moderate leaders

We should hope for US arrogance towards unstable regimes. If possible open threats and/or blatant bribes by the US should be encouraged. We must separate the people from their governments. This should create either a shift to policies more favourable to our position or alternatively more repression from those regimes. Either helps us.

* Increase recruitment

Any US action which leads to increased recruitment or support from the countries in which we operate should be supported. It goes without saying that the American’s only real chance of final victory is to turn the locals against us. We must prevent this. Racism is our friend.

* Attack American legal institutions

Whilst there is already plenty of material to work with, anything which increases global the perception of hypocrisy by the Americans will be propaganda gold. This is a very tough one as many of the American’s rights are enshrined in the constitution. But since we are making wish lists, it would be great to get the US to hold without trial (or even deport) thousands of innocent middle eastern looking citizens. The rights of the 1st and 4th and 5th amendments should be gutted. Gulags would be good. In addition, multilateral treaties (eg Chemical, Nuclear or Biological treaties) should be ignored for the US and Israel but rigorously applied to others.

* Ignore Palestine

Any peace in Palestine would be a terrible blow and rob us of a great deal of “righteousness”. Luckily the US seems to determined to let the Israelis solve this one on their own! So that pot should be boiling for a couple of decades yet.

* Discourage non-military solutions

Military solutions inevitably lead to collateral damage no matter how carefully they are carried out. Collateral damage is the life blood of “radical” recruitment. Occupation is equally useful. If possible every problem should be viewed by the US as a military problem.

* Finally – avoid capture of important leaders (eg Me)

Whilst I technically play a very small role in the actual organisation, my capture would be a significant propaganda defeat. America will probably recognise this and would show themselves as complete fools if they were to become distracted by other less important targets e.g. Hussein. If however I am captured alive then under no circumstance must I be tried fairly for my crimes or kept alive to rot in a cell. My trial must appear to be manifestly biased (or even illegal if possible) and martyrdom would greatly increase the movement’s power and legitimacy.

*

Two things occurred to me as I sat on the bus and read this document.

1) Even blind Freddy could guess Al Qaeda’s plan, and

2) There appeared to be not a single significant setback in the last 4 years.

***

The following reports were compiled by Scott Burchill, who warns they have not been verified to date

U.S. Unloading WMD in Iraq

Tehran Times | March 13 2004 – TEHRAN: Over the past few days, in the wake of the bombings in Karbala and the ideological disputes that delayed the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution, there have been reports that U.S. forces have unloaded a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq.

A reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that U.S. forces, with the help of British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive efforts to conceal their actions.

He added that the cargo was unloaded during the night as attention was still focused on the aftermath of the deadly bombings in Karbala and the signing of Iraq’s interim constitution.

The source said that in order to avoid suspicion, ordinary cargo ships were used to download the cargo, which consisted of weapons produced in the 1980s and 1990s.

He mentioned the fact that the United States had facilitated Iraq’s WMD program during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq and said that some of the weapons being downloaded are similar to those weapons, although international inspectors had announced Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime had destroyed all its WMD.

The source went on to say that the rest of the weapons were probably transferred in vans to an unknown location somewhere in the vicinity of Basra overnight.

“Most of these weapons are of Eastern European origin and some parts are from the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. The U.S. obtained them through confiscations during sales of banned arms over the past two decades,” he said.

This action comes as certain U.S. and Western officials have been pointing out the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been discovered in Iraq and the issue of Saddam’s trial begins to take center stage.

In addition, former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has emphasized that the U.S. and British intelligence agencies issued false reports on Iraq leading to the U.S. attack.

Meanwhile, the suspicious death of weapons inspector David Kelly is also an unresolved issue in Britain.

*

Occupation Forces Official Claims to Have No Information About Transfer of WMD to Iraq

A security official for the coalition forces in Iraq said that he has not received any information about the unloading of weapons of mass destruction in ports in southern Iraq.

Shane Wolf told the Mehr News Agency that the occupation forces have received no reports on such events, but said he hoped that the coalition forces would find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction one day.

Coalition forces and inspectors have so far been unable to find any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. invaded Iraq under the pretext that Iraq possessed a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

*

US tried to plant WMDs, failed: whistleblower, see http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/?page=story_12-8-2003_pg1_9

Daily Times Monitor – Lehore, Pakistan – 15 March: According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department (DoD), the Bush administration’s assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) plan to “plant” WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by “friendly fire”, the Environmentalists Against War report.

Nelda Rogers is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the DoD. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq. According to Al Martin Raw.com: “Ms Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense.”

The information that is being leaked out is information “obtained while she was in Germany heading up the debriefing of returning service personnel, involved in intelligence work in Iraq for the DoD and/or the CIA. “According to Ms Rogers, there was a covert military operation that took place both preceding and during the hostilities in Iraq,” reports Al Martin Raw.com, an online subscriber-based news/analysis service which provides “Political, Economic and Financial Intelligence”.

Al Martin is a retired Lt Commander (US Navy), the author of a memoir called “The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider,” and is considered one of America’s foremost experts on corporate and government fraud. Ms Rogers reports that this particular covert operation team was manned by former military personnel and “the unit was paid through the Department of Agriculture in order to hide it, which is also very commonplace”.

According to Al Martin Raw.com, “the Agriculture Department has often been used as a paymaster on behalf of the CIA, DIA, NSA and others”. According to the Al Martin Raw.com story, another aspect of Ms Rogers’ report concerns a covert operation which was to locate the assets of Saddam Hussein and his family, including cash, gold bullion, jewelry and assorted valuable antiquities. The problem became evident when “the operation in Iraq involved 100 people, all of whom apparently are now dead, having succumbed to so-called ‘friendly fire’. The scope of this operation included the penetration of the Central Bank of Iraq, other large commercial banks in Baghdad, the Iraqi National Museum and certain presidential palaces where monies and bullion were secreted.”

“They identified about $2 billion in cash, another $150 million in Euros, in physical banknotes, and about another $100 million in sundry foreign currencies ranging from Yen to British Pounds,” reports Al Martin.

“These people died, mostly in the same place in Baghdad, supposedly from a stray cruise missile or a combination of missiles and bombs that went astray,” Martin continues. “There were supposedly 76 who died there and the other 24 died through a variety of ‘friendly fire’, ‘mistaken identity’ and some of them?their whereabouts are simply unknown.” Ms Rogers’ story sounds like an updated 21st-century version of Treasure Island meets Ali Baba and the Bush Cabal Thieves, writes Martin.

“This was a contingent of CIA/ DoD operatives, but it was really the CIA that bungled it,” Ms Rogers said. “They were relying on the CIA’s ability to organise an effort to seize these assets and to be able to extract these assets because the CIA claimed it had resources on the ground within the Iraqi army and the Iraqi government who had been paid. That turned out to be completely bogus. As usual.”

“CIA people were supposed to be handling it,” Martin continues. “They had a special ‘black’ aircraft to fly it out. But none of that happened because the regular US Army showed up, stumbled onto it and everyone involved had to scramble. These new Iraqi “asset seizures” go directly to the New US Ruling Junta. The US Viceroy in Iraq Paul Bremer is reportedly drinking Saddam’s $2000 a bottle Napoleon-era brandy, smoking his expensive Davidoff cigars and he has even furnished his office with Saddam’s Napoleon-era furniture.

Webdiary columnist Polly Bush explains the decision by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission not to allow the Catholic Church to discriminate in favour of men in teaching education. She also answers queries by Webdiarist Rob Bruce in Wedgewatch.

Poor Jim was being discriminated against and was suffering a ‘crisis in masculinity’. As a Christian white male, he had terrible trouble coping with his ambition to be a primary school teacher, subject to the brutal qualities of what was heralded a “feminine” occupation. The girls at uni picked on him all the time, relentlessly taunting and teasing him and making sexist jokes. Plus, he couldn’t keep up with the intrinsic drinking culture the female students embraced. Some, drunkenly made moves on him, reducing him to feeling like an objectified piece of meat. Others talked over the top of him in class, ignoring his ideas, and praising other women when they echoed his ideas moments later. Jim just couldn’t win in this cruel female dominated world. He would just have to take the first job he could nail following graduation, and safely assume the male passage out of the lower paid classroom and into the higher paid assistant principals office and assume his dreaded role in life. And gawd help the male kiddies who missed out on a male “role model” and were subject to the teachings of all those women, no doubt teaching them no good.

Since when did the Howard Government become a champion of addressing gender inequity in the workplace? Did I miss something? If Howard truly is the champion of gender equity, will he override the Sex Discrimination Act to ensure an increase in the pathetic figure of 8% of women who are directors in Australia’s top 200 companies? Will he suddenly embrace Joan Kirner and Emily’s List in seeking more female representation in Australian parliaments? Will he address the issue of women earning 66% of mens total average weekly earnings? Will he address the lack of visibility of female role models in sport, sports people who are arguably better role models than rugby league players? Will he sort out the bloke near my work who regularly greets me with the phrase “nice tits”? Will he accept female applications to join the frontline of our Defence force? And if he’s still around for another term or so (sorry Pete), will he search Australia high and low for a woman good enough to be governor-general or a High Court judge, cos gawd knows there’s gotta be one or the other out there?

The Howard Government’s latest proposal to override the Sex Discrimination Act after the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s rejection of an application by the Catholic Education Office to provide male-only teaching scholarships has similarities with the last time the Government tried to fiddle with the Act.

Like the initiative to ban single women and lesbians from accessing fertility treatments, the Government has hidden behind the agenda of addressing the so-called lack of male role models and this crazy concept labelled a ‘crisis in masculinity’.

The male teaching push not only gives the Government another reason to bemoan the so-called lack of male-role models, but also shows up Howard’s complete disregard of human rights and his misunderstanding of discrimination and the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) itself.

It also demonstrates the Government’s naivety in introducing real long-term policies to address the number of male teachers in primary schools. The reality is twelve teaching scholarships for men are hardly going to balance up the numbers. (MARGO: But Howard’s planned law will give blanket authority ‘to discriminate against another person, on the ground of the other persons sex, by offering scholarships to persons of the opposite sex in respect of their participation as students in a teaching course…’.)

It’s the twenty year anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act, an Act the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) says has “played a crucial role in promoting a greater acceptance of the need for equality between women and men”.

Under the Act, sex discrimination is unlawful. The HREOC identify the major objectives of the Act as being to:

* promote equality between men and women;

* eliminate discrimination on the basis of sex, marital status or pregnancy and, with respect to dismissals, family responsibilities; and

* eliminate sexual harassment at work, in educational institutions, in the provision of goods and service, in the provision of accommodation and the administration of federal programs.

Under Section 44 of the Act, the HREOC has the power to grant temporary exemptions. The Act also provides a range of permanent exemptions (the HREOC uses the example of “where the sex of the employee is a genuine occupational qualification”). In such instances, there is no need to apply for a temporary exemption.

On top of the permanent exemptions granted, Section 7D of the Act provides the allowance of “special measures” exemptions. Under this provision, the HREOC states:

“It is not discriminatory to take an action (for example an act, practice, policy, plan, arrangement etc) for the purpose of achieving substantive equality between men and women, people of different marital status or women who are pregnant/potentially pregnant and those who are not. For example, an action that has the purpose of addressing disadvantages experienced by pregnant/potentially pregnant employees in areas where they have been and continue to be unequal may be a special measure.”

While there are certain criteria that need to be met in order to be eligible to use the special measure provision, if the action meets the criteria, again, there is no need to apply for a temporary exemption.

As the HREOC’s exemption guidelines explain, “Because the SD Act already provides for both permanent exemptions and special measures, the circumstances in which temporary exemptions need to be sought are therefore very limited. As a result, temporary exemptions are rarely granted.”

In 2002, the Archdiocese of Sydney’s Catholic Education Office applied to the HREOC for a temporary exemption to offer male-only teaching scholarships. The Commission’s first response was to seek public submissions on the matter, and as such, eleven were received.

According to the Commission’s Notice Of Rejection Of Application For Exemption, submissions supporting the Catholic Education Office argued, “male teachers are necessary for the sound development of boys, that male and female teachers teach differently, and that boys need male role models.”

On the other hand, submissions against the Catholic Education Office application argued, “the contention that the exemption sought would subvert the fundamental purpose of sex discrimination legislation to ensure equitable opportunities and economic parity between the sexes. A number of the submissions opposing the grant of the exemption pointed to what was said to be a lack of evidence showing that financial hardship is the barrier preventing a higher number of males from enrolling in primary teacher training.”

The Catholic Education Office also provided material which included statistics highlighting the difference in male and female teaching ratios in NSW, and a 1999 Catholic Church study titled, ‘Men in Primary Schools: An Endangered Species?’. According to the Commission, the study concluded, “the decline in males enrolling and completing teaching training is a ’cause of concern to educational administrators and systemic policy makers and [has] wide-ranging educational and social ramifications’.” (All documents are at HREOC.)

The House of Representatives 2002 report ‘Boys: Getting It Right’ was also examined by the Commission.

Based on the material, the Commission found that (a) there are more female primary school teachers, (b) reasons for the imbalance included the “status of teachers in the community, child protection issues and the pay and conditions of primary school teachers relative to other occupations”, (c) there is “insufficient evidence” the proposed scholarship scheme would address the imbalance, and (d) there is “insufficient evidence” the imbalance will “detrimentally affect school culture or the education of boys enrolled as students in primary schools”.

The Catholic Education Office’s application also cited Section 7D of the Act, the special measures provision, arguing the male only scholarships were an attempt to achieve substantive equality. As the Commission noted in its rejection ruling, “If this is correct, then it would be unnecessary for the Commission to grant a temporary exemption.”

The Commission inferred the Catholic Education Office had failed in sufficiently proving the scholarships would achieve substantive equality:

“Although not entirely clear, it does not appear to be suggested by the Catholic Education Office that the scholarship scheme is aimed at addressing alleged substantive inequality between male and female teachers. If such a suggestion is advanced, the Commission notes that the Catholic Education Office has not sought to identify any “practices said to exclude, disadvantage, restrict or result in an adverse effect” upon male primary teachers or “leave uncorrected the effects of past discrimination against them.”

To utilise the special measures provision, the Commission notes the most important element in addressing substantive inequality, is the examination of the “overall effect of current practices and to trace unequal outcomes to their source.”

In the rejection of the Catholic Education Office’s application, the Commission cited the ratio of female to male principals in primary schools, and the occurrence of men more likely being promoted in the teaching profession:

“In those circumstances, it is not at all clear that the Catholic Education Office would be able to identify an “overall effect” that amounts to substantive inequality favouring female teachers.”

The Commission also found that the Catholic Education Office had not established a link between the gender of teachers and improvements in boys’ performances. It cited the House of Representatives Standing Committee report ‘Boys: Getting it Right’, which states:

“In supporting the presence of more men in schools, the Committee is not suggesting that female teachers should be displaced in favour of men or that women are not equally good teachers. The Committee agrees that the quality of the teacher is more important than the gender of the teacher.”

Interestingly, the same Standing Committee Report recommended the introduction of teaching scholarships but not male only scholarships the Committee recommended HECS free scholarships for equal numbers of males and females, based on merit.

The Catholic Education Office is appealing the Commission’s rejection and the case is to be heard next month.

Despite this pending review, the Federal Government still pushed ahead with their proposal to override the SDA to allow the Catholic Education Office to offer male-only scholarships.

In response, Labor’s Shadow Attorney-General and Minister Assisting the Leader on the Status of Women Nicola Roxon accused the Prime Minister of failing to “understand the operation of existing laws” within the SDA.

Like Opposition Leader Mark Latham, Roxon argued that “The Catholic Education Office, in seeking to attract more male students to take up primary teaching courses, could have put their proposal forward as a ‘special measure’.”

Again, this would not have required the Catholic Education Office to submit a temporary exemption application.

In Bettina Arndt’s article, ‘Jobs for the boys’ (The Sydney Morning Herald, March 20 2003), Arndt reported on the rejection of the Catholic Education Offices application, and the alternative avenue of the special measures provision:

“All over Australia, there are universities being bold and getting away with it. Four years ago, HREOC told the Australian National University that it was not willing to grant an exemption to enable the university to offer women-only academic positions to address gender imbalances in earth sciences. However Susan Halliday, the then sex discrimination commissioner, advised the university that if they could show “barriers exist in relation to the appointment of women staff”, then advertising for women-only could qualify as a “special measure”. (She noted there were risks associated with this approach.) The university advertised the positions and got away with it.”

Arndt also addressed what Webdiary contributor Rob Bruce argued in ‘Wedgewatch’. Bruce challenged Margo Kingston to a Google challenge of sorts, and, using examples of scholarships offered to women in engineering and IT, queried her statement that “it is inconceivable that low percentages of women in other jobs would get such special treatment”.

Personally, I interpreted Margo’s description of special treatment as the Federal Government intervening to override the Act not the functions or exemptions of the Act itself.

Interpretations aside, Bettina Arndt raised the same comparison in her piece:

“It’s interesting to note that similar arguments could be made about scholarships to attract women into fields such as engineering – with the reasons women avoid engineering having more to do with the tough male-dominated work conditions than the costs of training. Yet here universities get away with offering women financial incentives.”

Similarly, Miranda Devine in her piece ‘Labor has a list for Emily … but not for Edward’ (The Sun-Herald, March 14, 2004), cited areas where women are being encouraged into professions, arguing the Labor Party was practicing “positive discrimination”:

“There’s Emily’s List, Joan Kirner’s instrument for enforcing targets of female representation in Parliament. And the Victorian Labor Government warning to law firms of dire consequences if female barristers didn’t get more government work. Women comprise 18 per cent of the Victorian bar, which happens to be almost exactly the percentage of males (18.8 per cent) among trainee primary school teachers in Australia.”

Is there any validity in comparing legal and engineering initiatives to the latest teaching decision? In Wedgewatch, and in response to Bruce’s engineering comparison, Margo asked if there were “any sex discrimination experts out there who’d like to comment?”

Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Dr Jocelynne Scutt has provided Webdiary with this answer:

“The attempt at comparing engineering scholarships for women and teaching scholarships for men is misguided. Exemptions are not to be given lightly. Every application must be considered on its merits, in light of the facts of the particular application. Attempting to argue by analogy isn’t productive, and particularly in this area, because the principle is, as stated, that each case must be considered on its own merits, and exemptions should not be given lightly. Hence, if there is no valid or substantive argument on the basis of the application itself, there can be no grant of an exemption. What has or has not occurred in relation to a different set of facts, in a different area, trade or profession, cannot ‘shore up’ an entirely different application. An extraneous matter, such as the grant of another exemption which is based on its own terms, in relation to its own facts and circumstances, cannot bolster an argument or application dealing with a particular problem or issue in another area.”

Unproductive analogies aside, by taking up Bruce’s Google challenge, there is a lot of literature available tracking the barriers faced by women in engineering. The same cannot necessarily be said for men in the teaching profession.

In 1996, researchers Christopher McLean, Sue Lewis, Jane Copeland, Brian O’Neill, and Sue Lintern examined the Masculinity and the Culture of Engineering (Australasian Journal of Engineering Education, Vol 7, No. 2, 1997).

The researchers surveyed male students in engineering faculties at two Australian universities, as well as interviewing academics and looking at previous research with female engineering students. What they found was a masculine dominant culture in engineering, and resistance to those who attempted to change this culture:

“A number of students recognised that, to belong to the engineering group, there are certain rules of behaviour that need to be followed, and that pressure would be brought to bear on anyone who transgressed. Attempts to change the nature of engineering – such as special assistance for women – was often interpreted as an attack on the ‘group’ to be resisted strenuously. Similarly, unacceptable views or behaviours by students – such as feminism or homosexuality – were seen as warranting exclusion. Engineering was also quite clearly seen as ‘white’, with ‘Asians’ viewed as outsiders.”

Many of the male survey participants identified with the stereotypes normally associated with studying engineering like binge drinking and joking around. The researchers of the study also identified an underlying theme of sexism in the embrace of joking around:

“There was also a tendency to dismiss the issue of sexual harassment by saying ‘it’s just a joke’:

‘I think some females can be a little bit sensitive to comments whereas it’s not aimed to be sexual harassment or anything like that. I’m probably guilty of it myself. At one time in one of our subjects we were talking about setting up an office at a company. I said, ‘Oh, we need a secretary as long as she’s wearing a short skirt and topless’ as a joke, and I know I offended one person. I apologised afterwards, but it wasn’t meant to degrade anyone. It’s just an offhand joke.'”

Male respondents also spoke of the survival mechanism for women, suggesting women were more likely to fit in to the course if they were “one of the boys”:

“Several male students pointed out that female students who act like this are seen as ‘chicks with dicks’. As one noted:

‘I think that would make it one hundred per cent easier to do engineering if you were the sort of girl, you know … sort of act like one of the guys. Very strong-willed and not shy sort of pretty little girl sort of image that is portrayed. I think they would struggle to come to grips with all the guys. So if you act like one of the guys I’d say it would be a lot easier to cope, yes’.”

On the other hand, women who identified as feminists faced ridicule:

“It is clear that comfortable survival in an engineering faculty necessitates an open, even aggressive rejection of feminism. We argue that the sanctions contained in the dominant discourse act to ensure that females in engineering do not openly call themselves feminist or appear to be following a feminist political agenda. Some of the sanctions applied against those seen as feminist were laughter, exclusion from social and study groups, cruelty, rudeness, and labels of ‘lesbian’ and ‘masculine’.”

Far better to be a chick with a dick than lesbian or masculine. The research also referred to a letter to a student paper by a second year engineering student who wrote of the dominant male culture in the course:

“Being supportive of women’s issues and drawing attention to them, even referring to the fact that you are female and surrounded by men, gets you virtually nothing but hostility in engineering. Male students seem to think that you are trying to make them feel insecure, or gain some sort of advantage. They tend to become extremely defensive and obnoxious, or increasingly fearful and maintain a blank silence, neither of which are much help when you need their help or co-operation… There are no long-term advocates of any form of feminism in engineering.”

The report directly addressed the issue of female scholarships, and other such measures to encourage female participation in the face of the dominant male culture:

“We believe that strategies developed to increase women’s participation in engineering must take account of the culture of engineering faculties and should focus on changing this culture. Given the negative responses of female and male students towards special measures for women such as women’s officers, scholarships and extra support, it would seem that many of these measures are destined to provoke a backlash and in doing so, to essentially fail. In a sense, these measures are band aid measures because they are about enabling girls to cope in the existing culture of engineering rather than about challenging and changing that culture. Such measures still focus on the girls, rather than on males or on engineering itself. Having said this, we also recognise the importance of continuing these strategies, perhaps in low key ways – to continue to support the women who currently take advantage of these programs and support systems. Our experience is that some female students covertly participate in these events and have learnt to not mention their participation to the male students.”

Indeed, women or male only scholarships are a contentious issue, and it is valid to question the long-term solutions they provide. Former Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Sue Walpole addressed the issue of special measure provisions in an International Womens Day address in 1997. Walpole said:

“Another reason for history being so difficult is that it leads us directly to the question of special measures. Recent amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act make it explicitly clear that special measures are not reverse discrimination. Rather, they are positive steps to achieve equality of outcomes for men and women. Despite this attempt to clarify the law, special measures remain controversial. We only have to reflect on recent debates around the so-called ‘race issue’ to understand this.

“In my view the main reason for the misunderstanding of special measures is that it is difficult for people to see positive steps in any other framework than a current zero-sum game: to give to one is to take from another. What this ignores is the question of historical discrimination and the reality of difference. Men and women are not the same. If we only treat them as the same we will not achieve equality of outcomes. Achieving equality is not merely a matter of applying a formal equation. It requires analysis, discussion, protest and a consistent focus on measuring the outcomes of what we put in place-rather than simply assuming that because we have policies, because we have procedures, then we will automatically get the right outcomes. If history teaches us anything, then it is clear that it teaches us this.”

History, has not been on women’s side, and if the Masculinity and the Culture of Engineering study is anything to go by, there are many barriers women still face. So where does that leave Poor Jim in the teaching profession? Well, in ten years time, my bet is Poor Jim will be taking up a more senior, higher paid position, perhaps in the Catholic Education Office.

This piece was first published in yesterday’s Sun Herald.

 

G’day. Last week, John Howard’s game plan to retain office was revealed, and what a wild ride it will be. It’s a carbon copy of his triumph in 2001, also after being written off early in the election year.

The wildcard is that the nation’s mood seems to have changed, so it’s a moot point whether the same plan can work twice.

There are three components to Howard’s war game:

1. Clear the decks

In 2001, Howard’s backbenchers said voters thought the Government “mean, tricky and out of touch”. Howard quickly apologised to voters for slugging them with an extra petrol levy in breach of his GST promise, and to prove his contrition abolished automatic indexation of the levy, costing billions.

In 2004, after he couldn’t budge voters in their determination to stop him from winding back Medicare, he found hundreds of millions more to beef it up. He even extended Medicare to health professionals who aren’t doctors and nicked a slice of Labor’s plan to resurrect the dental health program Howard abolished when he came to office.

2. Garner a key constituency

In 2001, Howard’s budget threw money, services, and tax cuts at our elderly, thus introducing age-based discrimination into our progressive tax system. There was no mention of the Government’s dire warnings of the increasing financial burden of our ageing population. At the election, over 55s flocked to Howard, the only age group which preferred him as Prime Minister.

In 2003, he is aggressively wooing the Catholic vote. He announced this year he would deliver lots more money to Catholic schools, and now proposes an amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act to exempt the church from its obligation not to discriminate against women by giving financial subsidies only to male students.

Howard’s also made it clear he’ll run strongly on his generous funding to independent schools, thus encouraging more religious schools at the expense of secular state schools.

3. Find a wedge

In 2001, Howard’s exploitation of Tampa broke Labor’s back. The teacher discrimination issue is a potential wedge this year, although his ditching of the Liberal’s long-held opposition to reverse discrimination is a sleeper.

Howard threw this up not only to woo the church, but to put Latham back in his box.

But now the teachers’ problem is out there for debate, and most people don’t seem to buy the line that teaching discriminates against men, especially since there are more male than female school principals!

Web diarist Peter Funnell wrote: “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. 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.”

David Eastwood suggested the preponderance of female teachers might be due to the discrimination against them in other jobs, especially on working hours: “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.”

Another wedge Howard is playing with is homosexual rights. He’s copycatting a wedge George Bush is trying in the US presidential election. Unfortunately for Howard, there’s no public outcry at the ACT’s recent law giving homosexual couples the right to seek to adopt a child. But he’s working on it – talking up the issue on radio in the expectation that his attack dogs in the media will stir the pot, and gaining the support of his ACT Liberal colleagues to overturn the law.

So let’s sit back and watch John Howard do whatever it takes to stay in power “for all of us”. And let’s see if Mark Latham can not only avoid Howard’s traps and set a few for Howard, but put policy muscle on his vision for a kinder, more ethical and more egalitarian Australia.

The horror and undeniable cruelty of the Madrid bombings are taking time to sink in. Is it because we have become immune since 9/11 to scenes of chaos associated with hate-driven political terrorism? I don’t want to know whether we are becoming immune to the television images.

What may be the lessons from the latest outrage?

Is it that governments and peoples should fear the wrath of so-called theocrats who would enslave women, stone gays and render ineffectual any semblance of liberal democracy? Should we shape our international policies, our defence stance or alter our values to take into account the hatred and unbridled violence of a few?

Spain is in mourning. Yet it is the very picture of a progressive liberal democratic society, re-fashioned after decades of fascist rule by anti-communist Franco and his cronies. No massive human rights problems, a successful war against separatist regional terrorists, a society that promotes the social values of the united Europe so many of the Left applaud.

Yet is was a target for hate.

A Socialist government is in the making.

What does modern socialism mean to those that recognise the sterility of the Stalin excesses and the abject failure of planned economies in this globalised world? It should mean a social democratic regime prepared to do what is needed to fight the medieval intolerance of those prepared to make everyday citizens pay for alleged crimes.

This is not, I hope and pray, a war based on a clash of civilisations or creeds or race. This should be a struggle between modern international liberalism, with its focus on human rights, and despotic fanaticism of the most extreme kind.

Playing a role in the war against terror is no different to merely being a liberal democratic society. The fanatics appear to hate us for who we are not what we do.

The real question for the Left is not how we destroy the Bush/Howard/Blair neo-cons. This is a convenient smokescreen for those seeking power or a change of policy. The more troubling and challenging question is how do we in the West, from left to right on the old spectrum, respond to a threat to our very existence?

Do we kowtow to terrorism from this source, fuelled by poorly structured religious arguments, or do we make a concerted effort to defeat a threat to liberalism. If the Left make common cause with the Right on this campaign, they will no doubt have ample opportunity of winning the peace afterwards.

Conservatives like myself, liberals, progressive environmentalists and old style social democrats have one thing in common: a belief in a secular liberal democratic state underpinned by emerging global human rights standards. This is too precious a modern achievement to be lost by infighting or appeasement of aggressors.

The war on Terror is just too important to lose whilst we debate the high moral ground.

Spain is the first nation to sack a pro-war leader. Professor Gabriel Kolko gave me permission to publish this analysis.

The American elections, the future of alliances and the lessons of Spain

by Gabriel Kolko

The author is a leading historian of modern warfare. He wrote ‘Century of War: Politics, Conflicts and Society Since 1914″ and, in 2002, ‘Another Century of War?’

We are now experiencing fundamental changes in the international system whose implications and consequences may ultimately be as far-reaching as the dissolution of the Soviet bloc.

The United States’ strength, to a crucial extent, has rested on its ability to convince other nations that it was to their vital interests to see America prevail in its global role. But the scope and ultimate consequences of its world mission, including its extraordinarily vague doctrine of “preemptive wars,” is today far more dangerous and open-ended than when Communism existed. Enemies have disappeared and new ones – many once former allies and even congenial friends – have taken their places. The United States, to a degree to which it is itself uncertain, needs alliances, but these allies will be bound into uncritical “coalitions of the willing.”

But the events in Spain over the past days, from the massive deadly explosions in Madrid to the defeat of the ruling party because it supported the Iraq war despite overwhelming public opposition to doing so, have greatly raised the costs to its allies of following Washington’s lead.

So long as the future is to a large degree – to paraphrase Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld – “unknowable,” it is not to the national interest of its traditional allies to perpetuate the relationships created from 1945 to 1990. The Bush Administration, through ineptness and a vague ideology of American power that acknowledges no limits on its global ambitions, and a preference for unilateralist initiatives which discounts consultations with its friends much less the United Nations, has seriously eroded the alliance system upon which U. S. foreign policy from 1947 onwards was based. With the proliferation of all sorts of destructive weaponry, the world will become increasingly dangerous.

If Bush is reelected then the international order may be very different in 2008 than it is today, much less in 1999, but there is no reason to believe that objective assessments of the costs and consequences of its actions will significantly alter American foreign policy priorities over the next four years.

If the Democrats win they will attempt in the name of internationalism to reconstruct the alliance system as it existed before the Yugoslav war of 1999, when even the Clinton Administration turned against the veto powers built into the NATO system. America’s power to act on the world scene would therefore be greater. Kerry voted for many of Bush’s key foreign and domestic measures and he is, at best, an indifferent candidate. His statements and interviews over the past weeks dealing with foreign affairs have been both vague and incoherent. Kerry is neither articulate nor impressive as a candidate or as someone who is likely to formulate an alternative to Bush’s foreign and defense policies, which have much more in common with Clinton’s than they have differences. To be critical of Bush is scarcely justification for wishful thinking about Kerry. Since 1947, the foreign policies of the Democrats and Republicans have been essentially consensual on crucial issues – “bipartisan” as both parties phrase it – but they often utilise quite different rhetoric.

Critics of the existing foreign or domestic order will not take over Washington this November. As dangerous as it is, Bush’s reelection may be a lesser evil because he is much more likely to continue the destruction of the alliance system that is so crucial to American power. One does not have to believe that the worse the better but we have to consider candidly the foreign policy consequences of a renewal of Bush’s mandate.

Bush’s policies have managed to alienate, in varying degrees, innumerable nations, and even its firmest allies – such as Britain, Australia, and Canada – are being required to ask if giving Washington a blank check is to their national interest or if it undermines the tenure of parties in power. Foreign affairs, as the terrorism in Madrid has so dramatically shown, are too important to simply endorse American policies. Not only the parties in power can pay dearly for it; more important are the innumerable victims among the people.

Germany has already called for European Union action to prevent repetitions of the Madrid catastrophe but nations that have supported the Iraq war enthusiastically, particularly Great Britain, Italy, and the Netherlands, have made their populations especially vulnerable to terrorism, and they now have the expensive responsibility of protecting them – if they can.

The way the war in Iraq was justified compelled France and Germany to become far more independent, much earlier, than they had intended, and NATO’s future role is now questioned in a way that was inconceivable two years ago. Europe’s future defense arrangements are today an open question but there will be some sort of European military force independent of NATO and American control.

Germany, with French support, strongly opposes the Bush doctrine of preemption. Tony Blair, however much he intends acting as a proxy for the U.S. on military questions, must return Britain to the European project, and his willingness since late 2003 to emphasise his nation’s role in Europe reflects political necessities. To do otherwise is to alienate his increasingly powerful neighbors and risk losing elections. His domestic credibility is already at its nadir due to his slavish support for the war in Iraq.

In a word, politicians who place America’s imperious demands over national interest have less future than those who are responsive to domestic opinion and needs. The tragedy in Madrid and the defeat of the ruling party in last Sunday’s Spanish election is a warning that no politician in or out of power will ignore.

This process of alienating traditional close friends is best seen in Australia, but in different ways and for quite distinctive reasons it is also true elsewhere – especially Canada and Mexico, the U.S.’ two neighbors. In the case of Australia, Washington is willing to allow it to do the onerous chores of policing the vast South Pacific and even take greater initiatives, at least to a point, on Indonesia.

But the Bush Administration passed along to it false intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, which many of Australia’s own experts disputed, and Bush even telephoned Prime Minister John Howard to convince him to support America’s efforts in innumerable ways. As Alexander Downer, the foreign minister, admitted earlier this month, “it wasn’t a time in our history to have a great and historic breach with the United States,” and the desire to preserve the alliance became paramount. But true alliances are based on consultation and an element of reciprocity is possible, and the Bush Administration prefers “coalitions of the willing” that raise no substantive questions about American actions – in effect, a blank check. Giving it produced strong criticism of the Howard government’s reliance on Washington’s false information on WMD and it has been compelled to endorse a joint parliamentary committee to investigate the intelligence system – sure to play into opposition hands this election year.

Even more dangerous, the Bush Administration has managed to turn what was in the mid-1990s a blossoming cordial friendship with the former Soviet Union into an increasingly tense relationship. Despite a 1997 non-binding American pledge not to station substantial numbers of combat troops in the territories of new members, Washington plans to extend NATO to Russia’s very borders–Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania especially concern Moscow – and it is in the process of establishing a vague number of bases in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Russia has stated that the U.S. encircling it warrants its retaining and modernizing its nuclear arsenal – to remain a military superpower – that will be more than a match for the increasingly expensive and ambitious missile defense system the Pentagon is now building. It has over 4,600 strategic nuclear warheads and over 1,000 ballistic missiles to deliver them. Last month Russia threatened to pull out of the crucial Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which has yet to enter into force, because it regards America’s ambitions in the former Soviet bloc as provocation.

“I would like to remind the representatives of [NATO],” Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told a security conference in Munich last February, “that with its expansion they are beginning to operate in the zone of vitally important interests of our country.”

The question Washington’s allies will ask themselves is whether their traditional alliances have far more risks than benefits – and if they are necessary.

In the case of China, Bush’s key advisers were publicly committed to constraining its burgeoning military and geopolitical power the moment they took office. But China’s military budget is growing rapidly – 12 percent this coming year – and the European Union wants to lift its 15-year old arms embargo and get a share of the enticingly large market. The Bush Administration, of course, is strongly resisting any relaxation of the export ban. Establishing bases on China’s western borders is the logic of its ambitions.

The United States is not so much engaged in “power projection” against an amorphously defined terrorism by installing bases in small or weak Eastern European and Central Asian nations as again confronting Russia and China in an open-ended context which may have profound and protracted consequences neither America’s allies nor its own people have any interest or inclination to support. Even some Pentagon analysts have warned against this strategy because any American attempt to save failed states in the Caucasus or Central Asia, implicit in its new obligations, will risk exhausting what are ultimately its finite military resources.

There is no way to predict what emergencies will arise or what these commitments entail, either for the U. S. or its allies, not the least because – as Iraq proved last year and Vietnam long before it – its intelligence on the capabilities and intentions of possible enemies against which it is ready to preempt is so completely faulty.

Without accurate information a state can believe and do anything, and this is the predicament the Bush Administration’s allies are in. It is simply not to their national interest, much less to their political interests or the security of their people, to pursue foreign policies based on a blind, uncritical acceptance of fictions or flamboyant adventurism premised on false premises and information. It is far too open-ended both in terms of time and political costs.

If Bush is reelected, America’s allies and friends will have to confront such stark choices, a painful process that will redefine and perhaps shatter existing alliances. Independent, realistic foreign policies are likely to be the outcome, and the dramatic events in Spain over the past days have reinforced this probability.

But America will be more prudent and the world will be far safer only if the Bush Administration is constrained by a lack of allies and isolated.

***

Scott Burchill recommends the Washington Post’s Al Qaeda Implicated In Madrid Bombings. Antony Loewenstein recommends MEMRI for a translation of and commentary on the Al Qaeda statement of responsibility. Webdiary’s conservative columnist Noel Hadjimichael comments in Appeasement or action: the lessons from Madrid.

The British people just released from Guantanamo Bay tell their stories to The Guardian at Revealed: the full story of the Guantanamo Britons.

Antony also recommends Robert Fisk on the anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq at Happy first birthday, war on Iraq. In case you’ve missed it, the expose by former American defence analyst Karen Kwiatkowski on the dirty ‘intelligence’ tricks used to convince the American people to invade Iraq is a must read. See The New Pentagon Papers.

American actor and anti-war campaigner Tim Robbins (star of the movie Bob Roberts, well worth a viewing before the American presidential campaign gets really down and dirty) is involved in a new play calledEmbedded.

Education is big this year, very big, with John Howard seeking to resurrect the old chestnut of state funding for religious schools. The big issue, though, is whether all Australian kids have the right to a good education regardless of their means, and what the consequences might be for Australia if this principle is abandoned in favour of user pays.

 

Carmen Lawrence rolled the ball last year in A fair go education system: the advantages for all of us. Late last year I asked a new Webdiarist, Mark Notaras, to pen a piece on what�s happening in education, but I lost his essay in the end of year rush. Here it is, if anything more timely now.

***

The Myth of choice

by Mark Notaras

The �Myth of Choice� in education is perpetuated by the John Howard and his merry team, now thrice elected by the Australian public. While Homeric scripts endure in captivating readers through tales of triumph and tragedy, this Government seeks to hoodwink the Australian public with fanciful reasoning confined to tragedy. The folkloric diatribes of the prejudiced policy playwrights pretend that increased funding to the private school system at the expense of public school system is a rational and even-handed method of securing Australia�s educational future.

Our Prime Minister continually claims that we Australians live in an egalitarian society, yet his Enrolment Benchmark Adjustment (EBA) for schools funding is yet another piece of the purist policy puzzle reflecting a blatant lack of parity in society.

In December 2000 the Federal Government�s controversial Education Bill was whisked through the Senate with the tacit support of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). The net results of the EBA are frighteningly prejudiced against the greater goals of public education. Briefly, Commonwealth education funding is directed from the needy public school system to the private system, in particular to the 58 wealthy category 1 schools that house a fraction of Australia�s school children.

Under the guise of providing �choice for Australian parents�, this tight-fisted policy defies reason and aids the Liberal Party in appealing to key constituencies. In monetary terms, the EBA allocates $25 billion to all schools over 4 years. $16b is directed to private schools and $9b is reserved for government schools who educate 70% of Australian school children. State government grants go some way to addressing this growing imbalance but an additional $4b per annum is required to create equal opportunity in Australian schools.

It is well known that in 1996 the Commonwealth cut $2.2b from University funding and introduced inequitable full fee-paying arrangements enabling those with more money to qualify for courses where they were below entry level standard. Such an inspiring idea has parallels with the present school funding structure. In both situations, the wealthy can buy their way into premium education to the detriment of those without such a choice.

Previous studies conclude that high investment levels in education in the short term will facilitate improvements in many social indicators in the long term including higher literacy rates, lower crime rates and increased high school completion rates. The EBA funding arrangements will undoubtedly have community ramifications for years to come and dispel another myth, that of the �Clever Country�.

When the Australian States became a Federation a century ago, the constitution stipulated that our elected �leaders� should be committed to their societal obligation to achieve equality of educational opportunity for all children. Wretchedly, it is now commonplace for public or government schools to rely on small change from the latest Parents & Citizens lamington drive to assist in financing school luxuries such as electricity, tables, chairs, textbooks and toilet paper. Parental contributions are increasingly filling in the funding gap that has been created by governments of all persuasions in recent years. At present, it is estimated that up to 7% of total expenditure on public schools comes from locally raised private funds.

Private schools receive the majority of their funding (approximately 60%) from fees paid by parents, as they should do. Nonetheless, an increasing proportion of funding comes from the taxpayer who in 1997 provided 29% of total funding, rising to 40% by 2004. It is no secret that the elite private schools do not cater for a broad cross-section of the Australian community, Elite private schools are readily accessible to the proportion of the population who can afford the $10,000 odd required per year per child for non-boarding fees. Alternatively, one needs to be a genius to attain one of the few academic scholarships that exist.

Demographics indicate unquestionably that the independent (non-Catholic) private schools cater primarily to Anglo-Celtic children, predominantly those residing in areas of affluence. Coincidently, an extremely disproportionate number of these schools operate within the leafy hamlets of the North Shore and the Eastern Suburbs. Merely by chance, no doubt, prosperous schools are situated in Liberal party strongholds. Also by fluke, Vaucluse High School (located near Cranbrook) has ceased trading independently and Hunters Hill High School (up the road from Saint Joseph�s College) had to fight a bitter battle to survive, no thanks to the NSW state government. In another twist of fate, these doomed public education institutions are located on prime land. Doesn�t one get the impression that current policies are a direct reward for continuing voter and corporate loyalty?

OK, maybe I�m a tad cynical.

Private schools, though unaccountable for the manner in which they spend public money, do have a right to exist. Their charter is to provide an alternative system resourced by private income (hence the name), for those who can afford the fees without disadvantaging those who can�t. In the meantime, the Federal Minister for education, Dr. Brendan Nelson, wants to continue his government�s savage attack on the powerless and disadvantaged in society by forcing the �worst� performing schools to shape up (with ever-diminishing funds) or shut down.

Dr. David Kemp, who has since been expelled from the crucial education portfolio, was the mouthpiece of the EBA scheme. A scheme that assists The King�s School, one of the most exclusive in Australia, to install a new pool, but fails to assist the poorest high schools to purchase up to date maths textbooks. Shameful! I do not have a problem with private schools or private school students despite some of their archaic practices. A free market economy (which in the eyes of the Kemps, Nelsons and Howards of this world solves everything) allows such schools to operate freely and independently in our democratic capitalist structure. Why, therefore, is there a need for taxpayers to fund opulent sectarian schools? Has the universal remedy known as �the market� failed?

Many before me have challenged the government�s policies to demonstrate that current education funding measures are extremely problematic and unscrupulous. To facilitate debate with people devoid of concern for the greater social good, perhaps one has to argue at their level and in their language. For the Liberals, this limits us to discourse in the language of economics; such are the confines of their philosophical and social mindset.

The word �choice�, repeated ad nauseam by the government, implies by definition that a person has �the opportunity or power of choosing� (Collins Paperback English Dictionary, 1986). This power to choose, with respect to schooling, is achieved through financial means. If you have money, then you have a CHOICE. If you don�t have money you have NO CHOICE but to enter the under-funded, under-resourced environment of a government school. Evidently so simple, yet surprisingly unfamiliar logic for the Coalition�s conscience deficient “eco-crats”. �We don�t need no education� to unearth the preposterous disparities that exist with such a funding arrangement. All we require is a sense of classlessness, of integrity and a bit of long-term economic sense.

I invite you to examine the following figures:

* In 1996, the Commonwealth provided $2b to private schools and $1.4b to public schools.

* In 2004, the Commonwealth estimates that it will provide $3.7b to private schools and $1.9b to public schools.

* This represents a funding increase of 84% to private schools and 31% for public schools over the period 1996-2004.

* These figures represent a real increase of $3669 per student in the private sector and $966 per student in the public sector.

* $5282 is spent per student per year in NSW public schools.

* $5038 is spent per student per year in NSW Catholic schools.

* $8117 is spent per student per year in NSW Independent Private Schools.

* By 2004, Trinity Grammar and the Kings School will be receiving an annual increase per student of $1707 and $1351 respectively from the Commonwealth.

* 7% of the school population will shift from private to public schools in the next decade.

* 15% of Australians aged 15-19 are not enrolled in and will not complete upper secondary education. This compares to 9% in Canada and 5% in France and Sweden in 1998.

* Australia ranks 20th of 28 OECD countries in public education expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Products (GDP).

* In the current financial year, 2003-04, private schools receive more funds from the Commonwealth than all of Australia�s publicly funded universities.

The size of the gap between funding invested into the public and private school systems is as great as the gaping hole that waits for a competent political force willing to eradicate this mismatch and restore equilibrium. At the last federal election, Kim Beazley lacked the necessary �ticker� to present a decent alternative education policy to the Australian electorate. According to forecast data, the ALP, if elected to government, would have diverted (wait for it) 0.03% of funding from private schools back to public schools. That�s right customers! (We are �customers� nowadays, by the way.) A mere 0.03% is better than nothing right? I won�t even bother calculating how much that is because it�s offensive for Labor to pretend that they have any more credibility on education that the Liberals.

The most lamentable detail often lost in the education debate, which in itself has been lost for some time, is the role of the Australian people. Are we a naive and ignorant people, concerned about our backyards and our renovations but not the schoolyards or our education? Perhaps. A 2001 poll by the Australian Scholarships Group surveyed 300 000 people, 94% of whom believed that future government funding should be in the public and not the private school system. So why is there not a propensity for little Aussie battlers to vote on such an issue, in the interest of their most valuable assets, their children?

Protests attended by relatively few stereotyped �lefties�, occasional Sydney Morning Herald investigations and the odd nine minute anecdote on the ABC�s 7:30 Report bring these issues to the fore.

Politically, our limited hope lies with the Democrats, the Greens and/or Labor under its new leadership.

If democracy itself is the surface on which John Howard constructs his political puzzle, then it is us, the susceptible voters, who are the pieces that he puts together. With a federal election fast approaching, a generation of concerned and informed voters carry the responsibility of protecting the most important cornerstone of an egalitarian society. Will you as an individual fight to protect every Australian child�s future?

We can walk, we can talk, but more often than not we should baulk at the absolute ineptitude, the blatant elitism and the profound lack of intelligence and vision that exists among the democratically elected policy-makers. Just don�t ever be deceived by those who seek to maintain the pretence that is the �Myth of Choice�. After all, how many politicians send their children to public schools? None in the Federal Cabinet – that�s right, none, and a minority in the parliament overall. This therefore sends a message to the rest of the community that the public school system is not good enough for the children of those who govern and claim to endorse it.

Personally I am extremely grateful for the pre-tertiary education I have received at public institutions over a period of 13 years. It is sad to think that right now, economic polarisation will lead more and more people to the private system further justifying funding increases there. Meanwhile, the majority of parents, devoid of choice, can�well�they don�t have the luxury of an option. The cancerous cycle has begun.

Cliched as it may sound, children are our future and unfortunately their future symbolises an educational schism. Many Australian children will have their chance to realise their full potential diminished. Will that child be one of yours? That, ladies and gentleman, is the truth. I can�t handle the truth! Can you?

The statistics used in this article are freely available government data that has recently been published by �Priority Public�, a non-party-political coalition of citizens.

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.

***

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

***

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).

***

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.

***

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?

***

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?

***

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.

***

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.

***

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?

Ah, the Zeitgeist! Everywhere you look the rules change before your eyes as new patterns seem to emerge then mutate. I’m still getting my head around John Howard ditching a long and entrenched Liberal tradition against affirmative action – quotas if you will – to allow discrimination in favour of men to go to teachers college.

Opposition to quotas – reverse discrimination – is embedded in the US Republican and Australian Liberal-Conservative core principles. Equal rights, it’s called. When I get a chance I’ll have a look at the affirmative action debates at the time the Sex Discrimination act was introduced to STOP discrimination in the workplace, in education, and in the provision of services on the basis of gender.

Howard’s planned overthrow of the Act also flies in the face of the One Nation catchcry so gleefully appropriated by Howard – treat everyone the same, no special benefits. In effect, the government is allowing the Church to pay men more than women for the same job, instead of lifting pay for everyone or improving conditions for all. Howard is taking us back to pre-sex discrimination laws, when marriage meant the woman involved was sacked and advertisements were divided into ‘men and boys’ and ‘women and girls’. Howard did not support the Sex Discrimination act back in 1983, and nothing’s changed.

The issue is simple. The Catholic Church was concerned a the falling proportion of male teachers in its classrooms. It seemed they didn’t like the job, given the pay, conditions, status and stress. So the Church wanted to give male-only scholarships to train as a teacher in the Catholic system. This is unlawful, unless the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which administers the Sex Discrimination Act, grants a special exemption. HREOC turned down the application for an exemption. You’ll find the decision and details of the case at HREOC.

There it ended, until the government introduced legislation this week to roll back the Sex Discrimination Act and legalise the Catholic scholarship plan.

Is this another wedge? Another sign of panic? Did Howard think he could turn the tables on Latham’s pitch for more male role models by throwing up this policy? (See today’s AM transcript and Sky News transcript.)

If so, I think he’s mistaken. This policy is indefensible. Even ten years ago, several Liberals would have crossed the floor rather than accept such a law. The fact that they’re now silent and compliant says it all about the collapse of liberalism in the parliamentary party, and any commitment to fight for principle.

It is inconceivable that low percentages of women in other jobs would get such special treatment. A subsidy for female train driver trainees, perhaps? Women are already suspicious of Howard’s commitment to equal rights when it comes to them. The last time he sought to overturn the Sex Discrimination Act was to stop defacto couples, single women and lesbians accessing IVF. The Senate knocked him back. For details, seeRandom thoughts about the IVF debate, Progressive lefties and libertarian liberals unite!, More on IVF, genetics, parties and pictures and The tangled web of sex, rights and IVF.

Here’s the the government’s legislation on teachers presented to Parliament by good old Philip Ruddock, our intrepid human rights defender – have a think at about how this template might be used for affirmative action elsewhere:

Sex Discrimination Amendment (Teaching Profession) Bill 2004

The Parliament of Australia enacts…

After section 38 (of the Sex Discrimination act banning discrimination in education on the basis of gender) insert:

38A Preference to address gender imbalance in school teaching

(1) Nothing in Division 1 or 2 renders it unlawful for a person to discriminate against another person, on the ground of the other persons sex, by offering scholarships to persons of the opposite sex in respect of their participation as students in a teaching course, if the scholarships are offered in order to redress a gender imbalance in teaching.

(2) In this section:

gender imbalance in teaching means an imbalance in the ratio of male to female teachers:

(a) in schools in Australia generally; or

(b) in a particular category or categories of schools in Australia; or

(c) in a particular school or schools in Australia.

scholarship includes assistance or support that is similar to a scholarship.

school includes a pre-school.

teaching course means a course of study that leads to a qualification for teaching students at schools in Australia.

The Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Howard appointee and friend Pru Goward, made her position clear in the Commission’s dissenting statement on the legislation:

“If the government wants more male teachers, there are many programs that could encourage male teacher students without requiring amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act or introducing a discriminatory scholarship scheme.”

“Successful programs that have worked to allow more women into traditionally male dominated professions can all be adapted to encourage young men into teaching. For example, sending young male teacher students to schools to encourage young men to consider the career, or supporting career counsellors to promote the benefits of a teaching career could be useful beginnings.”

“One of the problems is that male teachers either leave the profession mid-career because of poor remuneration, or they are promoted out of the school room to become Principals or Assistant Principals. Programs to stop this exodus and programs to encourage the promotion of a representative number of women teachers into senior administrative positions in schools would both result in more male teachers in the classroom.”

“There are any number of alternative programs that are not discriminatory and which do not need a legislative amendment, such as paying teachers more.”

“The simple fact is that young men are not attracted to teaching because they can earn better money elsewhere. As ‘women’s work’ it has never been remunerated properly.”

“Front loading the pay of male teacher students through a scholarship, effectively relieving them of the HECS burden their female counterparts will carry into their professional careers, entrenches this inequity and has not been demonstrated to address the disparity in numbers of male and female teachers long term.”

Commissioner Goward said Australia’s efforts to overcome historical and continuing inequalities against women have never been based on enforceable quotas.

“Australia has long recognised that assisting women to achieve positions based on anything apart from merit may well hinder rather than help in achieving equality. It’s about giving everyone a fair go. Removing the requirement for merit in the award of teaching scholarships for young men is a big change from that.”

“The government, and surely the community, needs to be sure the proposed amendment can achieve its purpose before even considering support for any deviation from the merit principle.”

“However, if that is the way forward, then the government should immediately introduce programs that pay a premium to women who enter parliament or seek positions as executive board members, university professors, surgeons, engineers, senior military officers or judges, where women are still disadvantaged and are seriously underrepresented. Women and girls need role models too.”

It’s clear Howard is seeking to woo the Catholic constituency this year. First, we saw the church move into the mainstream school funding system for schools and get big bucks as a result. Now this. On the day Latham was elected leader, a disgruntled Beazley supporter told me Latham would explode on any an issue due to his vitriolic tongue. He singled out Catholic voters, saying that Latham had bitterly attacked the Pope during the parliamentary debate on embryo research.

Even so, I think Howard’s on a loser with this one.

My favoured Howard wedge is gay rights. Bush is running big on ‘gay marriages’ in the United States, promising a constitutional amendment to ban States legalising them. He’s had a huge and vocal support group for this among conservative and fundamentalist Christians. American writer and commentator Andrew Sullivan gives detailed daily coverage of the issue from a right wing libertarian perspective on his blog Andrew Sullivan.

In Australia, Howard is setting up the ACT’s new laws allowing homosexual couples to adopt children as his trigger for the big wedge. This week he suddenly attacked the law, while not saying whether he’d do anything about it, like overturn it as he did to to the Northern Territory’s euthanasia legislation. He can’t afford to blow up the matter from nothing – it would look cynical, which of course it is. What he needs is for his media attack dogs and several strong community groups to build the issue up and demand that he take action. Watch this space. Here’s the transcript extract from John Laws interview on March 8:

A new ACT law wants to allow gay couples to adopt children. How do you feel about that?

Well I’m against gay adoption, just as I’m against gay marriage. I’m a social conservative. I think there are certain benchmark institutions and arrangements in our society that you don’t muck around with, and children should be brought up ideally by a mother and a father who are married. That’s the ideal. I mean I’m not saying people who are unmarried are incapable of being loving parents. Of course they are. I mean I believe in the maximum conditions of stability for people who have children.

Okay. Well if you believe that people who arent married can bring up children satisfactorily, that doesn’t include gay couples?

No I don’t because the notion is of having you need a male role model and a female role model. I think it is incredibly important that people have role models of both sexes because that’s the kind of society that they’re born into, and the way you do that is to preserve the notion of a mother and a father.

He’s casting around for the killer wedge all right, our John. I like Latham’s tactic of preemption – to warn his party room that another Tampa could be round the corner and name the gay issue as a candidate. Now we all know how Howard does politics, he is at risk of losing both the element of surprise and the perception that he’s just interested in doing the right thing. Latham seems to be following the advice of Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson in November to get on the front foot pre-wedge play (Wedge watch)

Any other ideas for Howard wedges?

Webdiary’s conservative columnist Noel Hadjimichael also writes on wedges today. Before his piece, a wedge email from ‘Tony’:

Populist Howard is in full fright! Here he is flying a kite on nationalising public hospitals – not endorsing it and not dismissing it either! He just wants to see where the wind blows with 51% of the population and then make it his own, something that he always believed in and something urgently needed to rescue the country from those Laborites that have never believed in Health and Education.

And another little wedgie on the Male Teacher brainwave. Interesting that Howard suddenly sees the need for the rescue of masculinity and male role models. Is Howard becoming a Whitlamite with his high spending, high taxing government focused on big social policy? The Chameleon is trying to remake himself into a pathetic imitation of Latham, the real thing.

All Howard’s actions are nothing but tools for survival. Forget about the national interest. After all, what national interest could be greater than Howard staying on as PM?

***

Wedge Politics and Crocodile Tears

by Noel Hadjimichael

Whilst not wishing to sound too cynical or jaded, I must remind readers that any statement that includes the phrase “wedge politics” should be treated with great care. The same type of care whenever one visits a Soviet built nuclear facility, stays at a Motel at the same time as the local footie club has its end of season dinner or passes by Old Parliament House when a ratbag demonstration is being held.

Webdiary readers have seen a lot of wedge politics complained about: that horrible Tampa incident which actually switched votes, any suggestion that any issue that divides the Left must be unAustralian or impolite or maybe the time progressive trendies walked softly around the failure of indigenous leadership to bring cohesion or efficiency to the huge task of relieving poverty and mismanagement.

In our type of democracy, the party that wins the majority of seats by a majority vote gets the job of government, This is tempered by a Senate which is unlikely to be controlled by any party in its own right.

In theory about 26% of the voting population can control our destiny. In practice, each major party seeks to capture a very broad coalition of interests to win a sizeable vote.

In simple language, the Labor spectrum in the old days went from hard right social conservatives comfortable with anti-communism, America and home-owning respectability to long haired flower-power advocates of liberalism, Soviet-ear benevolent social democracy and more jobs paid by other peoples taxes.

The old Liberal team would include pro-enterprise social liberals, old-time one nation tories, new money supply side economists and fiercely nationalist regional voters.

Each party always tried to break down the other side’s team by wooing voters with policies (like Menzies’ education grants for Catholic Schools), new directions (Whitlam’s stand on outer suburban services), threats of loss (Liberal anti-union scare campaigns) or nirvana promises (the original deals on Medibank, partial privatisation or human rights in East Timor).

There is no issue that should be off the political table. To hide uncomfortable issues or unpleasant issues is only to marginalise the victims.

Labor makes great noises about its education and health credentials. Great news for working mums, battler families and the yuppie professionals.

Liberals parade their credentials on defence, the economy and the security questions. This has made inroads in regional Australia, the elderly and the small business sector.

Putting issues in the cupboard only allow them to fester into diseased debates over injustice or elite arrogance. Let debate happen on everything. But let it be constructive.

Beware of any politician that mentions the wedge terminology. He or she is only wanting the other side to get off their turf. No party has a mortgage over any voter block. Particularly when they may be ignoring the priorities or concerns of bedrock supporters.

Maybe more swinging or minor party voters is a good thing. It reduces the arrogance factor amongst the party power brokers.

Ah, the Zeitgeist! Everywhere you look the rules change before your eyes as new patterns seem to emerge then mutate. I’m still getting my head around John Howard ditching a long and entrenched Liberal tradition against affirmative action – quotas if you will – to allow discrimination in favour of men to go to teachers college.

Opposition to quotas – reverse discrimination – is embedded in the US Republican and Australian Liberal-Conservative core principles. Equal rights, it’s called. When I get a chance I’ll have a look at the affirmative action debates at the time the Sex Discrimination act was introduced to STOP discrimination in the workplace, in education, and in the provision of services on the basis of gender.

Howard’s planned overthrow of the Act also flies in the face of the One Nation catchcry so gleefully appropriated by Howard – treat everyone the same, no special benefits. In effect, the government is allowing the Church to pay men more than women for the same job, instead of lifting pay for everyone or improving conditions for all. Howard is taking us back to pre-sex discrimination laws, when marriage meant the woman involved was sacked and advertisements were divided into ‘men and boys’ and ‘women and girls’. Howard did not support the Sex Discrimination act back in 1983, and nothing’s changed.

The issue is simple. The Catholic Church was concerned a the falling proportion of male teachers in its classrooms. It seemed they didn’t like the job, given the pay, conditions, status and stress. So the Church wanted to give male-only scholarships to train as a teacher in the Catholic system. This is unlawful, unless the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which administers the Sex Discrimination Act, grants a special exemption. HREOC turned down the application for an exemption. You’ll find the decision and details of the case at HREOC.

There it ended, until the government introduced legislation this week to roll back the Sex Discrimination Act and legalise the Catholic scholarship plan.

Is this another wedge? Another sign of panic? Did Howard think he could turn the tables on Latham’s pitch for more male role models by throwing up this policy? (See today’s AM transcript and Sky News transcript.)

If so, I think he’s mistaken. This policy is indefensible. Even ten years ago, several Liberals would have crossed the floor rather than accept such a law. The fact that they’re now silent and compliant says it all about the collapse of liberalism in the parliamentary party, and any commitment to fight for principle.

It is inconceivable that low percentages of women in other jobs would get such special treatment. A subsidy for female train driver trainees, perhaps? Women are already suspicious of Howard’s commitment to equal rights when it comes to them. The last time he sought to overturn the Sex Discrimination Act was to stop defacto couples, single women and lesbians accessing IVF. The Senate knocked him back. For details, seeRandom thoughts about the IVF debate, Progressive lefties and libertarian liberals unite!, More on IVF, genetics, parties and pictures and The tangled web of sex, rights and IVF.

Here’s the the government’s legislation on teachers presented to Parliament by good old Philip Ruddock, our intrepid human rights defender – have a think at about how this template might be used for affirmative action elsewhere:

Sex Discrimination Amendment (Teaching Profession) Bill 2004

The Parliament of Australia enacts…

After section 38 (of the Sex Discrimination act banning discrimination in education on the basis of gender) insert:

38A Preference to address gender imbalance in school teaching

(1) Nothing in Division 1 or 2 renders it unlawful for a person to discriminate against another person, on the ground of the other persons sex, by offering scholarships to persons of the opposite sex in respect of their participation as students in a teaching course, if the scholarships are offered in order to redress a gender imbalance in teaching.

(2) In this section:

gender imbalance in teaching means an imbalance in the ratio of male to female teachers:

(a) in schools in Australia generally; or

(b) in a particular category or categories of schools in Australia; or

(c) in a particular school or schools in Australia.

scholarship includes assistance or support that is similar to a scholarship.

school includes a pre-school.

teaching course means a course of study that leads to a qualification for teaching students at schools in Australia.

The Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Howard appointee and friend Pru Goward, made her position clear in the Commission’s dissenting statement on the legislation:

“If the government wants more male teachers, there are many programs that could encourage male teacher students without requiring amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act or introducing a discriminatory scholarship scheme.”

“Successful programs that have worked to allow more women into traditionally male dominated professions can all be adapted to encourage young men into teaching. For example, sending young male teacher students to schools to encourage young men to consider the career, or supporting career counsellors to promote the benefits of a teaching career could be useful beginnings.”

“One of the problems is that male teachers either leave the profession mid-career because of poor remuneration, or they are promoted out of the school room to become Principals or Assistant Principals. Programs to stop this exodus and programs to encourage the promotion of a representative number of women teachers into senior administrative positions in schools would both result in more male teachers in the classroom.”

“There are any number of alternative programs that are not discriminatory and which do not need a legislative amendment, such as paying teachers more.”

“The simple fact is that young men are not attracted to teaching because they can earn better money elsewhere. As ‘women’s work’ it has never been remunerated properly.”

“Front loading the pay of male teacher students through a scholarship, effectively relieving them of the HECS burden their female counterparts will carry into their professional careers, entrenches this inequity and has not been demonstrated to address the disparity in numbers of male and female teachers long term.”

Commissioner Goward said Australia’s efforts to overcome historical and continuing inequalities against women have never been based on enforceable quotas.

“Australia has long recognised that assisting women to achieve positions based on anything apart from merit may well hinder rather than help in achieving equality. It’s about giving everyone a fair go. Removing the requirement for merit in the award of teaching scholarships for young men is a big change from that.”

“The government, and surely the community, needs to be sure the proposed amendment can achieve its purpose before even considering support for any deviation from the merit principle.”

“However, if that is the way forward, then the government should immediately introduce programs that pay a premium to women who enter parliament or seek positions as executive board members, university professors, surgeons, engineers, senior military officers or judges, where women are still disadvantaged and are seriously underrepresented. Women and girls need role models too.”

It’s clear Howard is seeking to woo the Catholic constituency this year. First, we saw the church move into the mainstream school funding system for schools and get big bucks as a result. Now this. On the day Latham was elected leader, a disgruntled Beazley supporter told me Latham would explode on any an issue due to his vitriolic tongue. He singled out Catholic voters, saying that Latham had bitterly attacked the Pope during the parliamentary debate on embryo research.

Even so, I think Howard’s on a loser with this one.

My favoured Howard wedge is gay rights. Bush is running big on ‘gay marriages’ in the United States, promising a constitutional amendment to ban States legalising them. He’s had a huge and vocal support group for this among conservative and fundamentalist Christians. American writer and commentator Andrew Sullivan gives detailed daily coverage of the issue from a right wing libertarian perspective on his blog Andrew Sullivan.

In Australia, Howard is setting up the ACT’s new laws allowing homosexual couples to adopt children as his trigger for the big wedge. This week he suddenly attacked the law, while not saying whether he’d do anything about it, like overturn it as he did to to the Northern Territory’s euthanasia legislation. He can’t afford to blow up the matter from nothing – it would look cynical, which of course it is. What he needs is for his media attack dogs and several strong community groups to build the issue up and demand that he take action. Watch this space. Here’s the transcript extract from John Laws interview on March 8:

A new ACT law wants to allow gay couples to adopt children. How do you feel about that?

Well I’m against gay adoption, just as I’m against gay marriage. I’m a social conservative. I think there are certain benchmark institutions and arrangements in our society that you don’t muck around with, and children should be brought up ideally by a mother and a father who are married. That’s the ideal. I mean I’m not saying people who are unmarried are incapable of being loving parents. Of course they are. I mean I believe in the maximum conditions of stability for people who have children.

Okay. Well if you believe that people who arent married can bring up children satisfactorily, that doesn’t include gay couples?

No I don’t because the notion is of having you need a male role model and a female role model. I think it is incredibly important that people have role models of both sexes because that’s the kind of society that they’re born into, and the way you do that is to preserve the notion of a mother and a father.

He’s casting around for the killer wedge all right, our John. I like Latham’s tactic of preemption – to warn his party room that another Tampa could be round the corner and name the gay issue as a candidate. Now we all know how Howard does politics, he is at risk of losing both the element of surprise and the perception that he’s just interested in doing the right thing. Latham seems to be following the advice of Labor frontbencher Craig Emerson in November to get on the front foot pre-wedge play (Wedge watch)

Any other ideas for Howard wedges?

Webdiary’s conservative columnist Noel Hadjimichael also writes on wedges today. Before his piece, a wedge email from ‘Tony’:

Populist Howard is in full fright! Here he is flying a kite on nationalising public hospitals – not endorsing it and not dismissing it either! He just wants to see where the wind blows with 51% of the population and then make it his own, something that he always believed in and something urgently needed to rescue the country from those Laborites that have never believed in Health and Education.

And another little wedgie on the Male Teacher brainwave. Interesting that Howard suddenly sees the need for the rescue of masculinity and male role models. Is Howard becoming a Whitlamite with his high spending, high taxing government focused on big social policy? The Chameleon is trying to remake himself into a pathetic imitation of Latham, the real thing.

All Howard’s actions are nothing but tools for survival. Forget about the national interest. After all, what national interest could be greater than Howard staying on as PM?

***

Wedge Politics and Crocodile Tears

by Noel Hadjimichael

Whilst not wishing to sound too cynical or jaded, I must remind readers that any statement that includes the phrase “wedge politics” should be treated with great care. The same type of care whenever one visits a Soviet built nuclear facility, stays at a Motel at the same time as the local footie club has its end of season dinner or passes by Old Parliament House when a ratbag demonstration is being held.

Webdiary readers have seen a lot of wedge politics complained about: that horrible Tampa incident which actually switched votes, any suggestion that any issue that divides the Left must be unAustralian or impolite or maybe the time progressive trendies walked softly around the failure of indigenous leadership to bring cohesion or efficiency to the huge task of relieving poverty and mismanagement.

In our type of democracy, the party that wins the majority of seats by a majority vote gets the job of government, This is tempered by a Senate which is unlikely to be controlled by any party in its own right.

In theory about 26% of the voting population can control our destiny. In practice, each major party seeks to capture a very broad coalition of interests to win a sizeable vote.

In simple language, the Labor spectrum in the old days went from hard right social conservatives comfortable with anti-communism, America and home-owning respectability to long haired flower-power advocates of liberalism, Soviet-ear benevolent social democracy and more jobs paid by other peoples taxes.

The old Liberal team would include pro-enterprise social liberals, old-time one nation tories, new money supply side economists and fiercely nationalist regional voters.

Each party always tried to break down the other side’s team by wooing voters with policies (like Menzies’ education grants for Catholic Schools), new directions (Whitlam’s stand on outer suburban services), threats of loss (Liberal anti-union scare campaigns) or nirvana promises (the original deals on Medibank, partial privatisation or human rights in East Timor).

There is no issue that should be off the political table. To hide uncomfortable issues or unpleasant issues is only to marginalise the victims.

Labor makes great noises about its education and health credentials. Great news for working mums, battler families and the yuppie professionals.

Liberals parade their credentials on defence, the economy and the security questions. This has made inroads in regional Australia, the elderly and the small business sector.

Putting issues in the cupboard only allow them to fester into diseased debates over injustice or elite arrogance. Let debate happen on everything. But let it be constructive.

Beware of any politician that mentions the wedge terminology. He or she is only wanting the other side to get off their turf. No party has a mortgage over any voter block. Particularly when they may be ignoring the priorities or concerns of bedrock supporters.

Maybe more swinging or minor party voters is a good thing. It reduces the arrogance factor amongst the party power brokers.

G’day. Artist Robert Bosler was the first Webdiarist to pick the zeitgeist switch – just before Latham’s election – in some great pieces: Time for Labor to play to win, not just play safe, An artist’s blueprint for a Latham win, A Webdiarist’s speech for a Mark Latham address to the nation.

 

Today, Robert’s questions the relevance of the liberal philosophy in today’s world. I’ve been thinking about that a fair bit myself while writing my book. Before Robert, some Webdiary titbits.

TITBITS

Liberal leadership: Sensational interview with John Hewson on Lateline last night. But Tony Jones, you should have asked Hewie whether he’d stand as an independent Liberal against Malcolm Turnbull. Go for it, John! True Liberals unite!

Football sex scandals: Brian McKinlay recommends Football and Sex at Colorado: The Real Scandal, which has lots of insight into the whys and wherefores of the Bulldogs rugby league abomination.

Colin Rubenstein: The following email completes my email correspondence with Mr Rubenstein (see Mel, Colin, George and Miranda).

Margo to Colin

OK, one last attempt. Was George Brandis correct in his statement that after his Greens and Nazis speech Mr Rubenstein contacted him to say “he supported it and he was pleased it had been given”.

Colin to Margo, March 04, 2004

One more time. Your failure to want to comprehend my previous email leaves me with my initial impression that you are out to create mischief and misrepresent the truth. I reserve my rights.

Colin Rubenstein

*

March 26: Email from Dr Doron Samuell removed after he stated it was not for publication.

***

Death of the Liberal’s liberalism?

by Robert Bosler

What do people really know and understand of the Liberal Philosophy that has been governing us?

For instance, we hear from the Liberal Party a description of their philosophy as one structured on a belief in the individual. Clearly it is important for one to have a belief in oneself, and that we each find the way to doing that individually. However, isn’t it equally important that this belief in the individual be found through means provided in only a small measure by the state, and that we find instead this belief in the rich areas of life as provided through offerings from spiritual, sporting, cultural and parenting guidance?

Isn’t it more propitious for a political party to accept the belief in the individual as a matter for that individual and to provide, instead, the secure framework by which each and every individual can prosper?

It’s a subtle point, but one which bears serious scrutiny in the modern age.

It’s a matter of focus. The Liberal Party as it currently stands has a philosophy that is based on a focus, and that focus is proclaimed and in effect ‘the individual’. It may well be that the Australian society has outgrown a philosophy with that focus.

Originally, the focus on ‘the individual’ in the Liberal Party philosophy was born of a need to provide the individual with more freedom and choice during the political climate of 1944. There is a serious argument to be made that a philosophical focus on ‘the individual’ by a modern political party could possibly be very dangerous and detrimental.

We have to remember that the Australian Liberal Party is not that old. We have to remember that its philosophy was one that was created to solve a social and political problem of the time. What has changed?

We have changed, enormously. The whole social fabric and thrust has changed. The changes since the birth of the Liberal Party in 1944 have placed us in a different social planet entirely.

One example that bears scrutiny is our understanding of the human relationship. Were there books and tv programs and school programs discussing the human relationship during the 1940s and 1950s? Was there an abundance of social discussion and awareness on the workings and the importance of human relationships in that time?

No. Wasn’t it so that during those times the man had set roles and the woman had set roles and those roles formed the measure of the relationship? Isn’t it because of the lack of understanding of the workings of the human relationship that relationships bound by those times ended so much in disaster?

But the human spirit cannot be bound up in set roles. It wants to be free; it wants to express and create. No wonder the world of Australia was bursting for individuality and personal and social freedom during the forties and fifties. Bring on the sixties! Bring on the forces that threw the human spirit free. Bring on free love, bring on pot, bring on Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, bring on the pill. Let’s be free, they said, that is our individual right.

And so the bursted embers came settling back to earth in the seventies. But what could sustain itself during those times? As the embers settled, ideas that looked brilliant as people ran with them fizzled and died in their hands. People looked at each other in askance.

But free we were. Now settled in the eighties we had true individualism. The human spirit was free beyond its wildest dreams, in the social fabric of the western world. A man could now happily have a beer in the pub with his bricklayer mates and be taken by them to have had just a hard day’s work being a house husband looking after the kids. A woman could choose and relish in a career instead of a family. We had, for the first and utterly significant time in western history: a black woman judge.

The individual had arrived.

What then? Is not the sky the limit for the individual? The western human being had achieved its spiritual exultation, by fully realising The Individual. Or had it?

What good is the fully realised individual if it cannot be sustained by its natural environment. What good is a fully realised individual of the future, dead, extinct?

Is there anything, anything, on the planet that does not rely on something else for its existence?

And so again we come to relationship.

In this short but seemingly long road since the fifties, haven’t we learned that the human being is most comfortable and happy and, indeed, feels loved and fulfilled when addressing and satisfying his or her inclusion in some form of group?

Is it possible that the human condition has evolved, that is, that our understanding of the human condition has evolved, to a point where the need for the focus on the individual has been superceded by the knowledge of the need for quality relationships.. knowledgeable quality relationships…. not only with each other closely at hand, but outwards through community, state and nation, on to quality relationships eventually and happily with all other countries – and all of us with the environment ??

If so, does that not place the individual within a framework of other individuals and environment such that it’s that framework that is the thing of importance??

Therefore, isn’t the framework the thing our political parties should be philosophically focused on?

Have we grown up from that individual focus, and moved on??

Where not so long ago we relished the focus on our individuality, do we now find a blind and dangerous sense of “If I am ok, the world is ok” in the Liberal belief ??

Is John Howard the embodiment of that strident me-please individual from yesteryear, thrown up by its party’s 1944 philosophy, so that, if his Prime Ministership is ok, the world is ok?

And as we’ve moved on, and he hasn’t, is Howard blindly taking the Liberal movement down with him?

Is that much change afoot, that the arc of the Liberal Party philosophy has come, peaked and is going ??

Do we need this perspective to see more clearly what Howard has done to Australia’s development?

Surely, to look at humanity in these times of massive change since the fifties and hold the individual as the central core of communal prosperity is as ridiculous as thinking the world is the centre of the universe.

Surely we have come to understand that the philosophical focus must be on relationship.

Surely we have come to understand that there is ultimately pain and destruction in the focus on self?

Has Howard, with his full intensity of commitment sunk his own party ship through his self determined efforts, where such clinging and urgent intensity, like rigid unforgiving steel in fast-motion rusted disintegration, self destructs?

Is Howard captain of his beloved Liberal Titanic?

Is Malcolm Turnbull to bring a new Liberal philosophy, to modernise it? Or is he the embodiment of individualism personified as a mirror catalyst to set off towards the party’s swift decline – with every man for himself – should it be that, yes, we have moved on from the investment of focus in the individual as the philosophical core of humanity’s prosperity?

And while we’re at it, what can the Labor Party do to throw off ideals of yesteryear now become shackles holding it back? Mark Latham is leading now, and there is a very real feeling this can happen.

We are hungry as a society. We are not complacent, though it sometimes appears so. We want relevance and we want results and when we want them we want them now. The parties must listen. Are we talking loudly enough just yet, or has the modern request just begun? I’m excited.