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.