G’day. Isn’t it funny that Australians only got a chance to have a look in on the FTA debate because Labor was divided? Thank God for it. More Labor division on policy please, so that the people get a chance to work out what’s going on and whether they want what’s being slipped through or not. As Kusha Panta in Melbourne wrote:

 

“‘Who will blink first?’ was an article written by a prominent journalist yesterday about the FTA debate. It was one of many with similar subjects. I am not sure what to make of the media that is treating the politics as a sporting spectacle. Is Howard going to be wear down Latham or ….? Who is going to back down? Who is more consistent? Do we prefer to get to the good policy at the end or we only care about the being consistent. There is hardly any debate or opinion on whether FTA is in the national interest. Have we become so obsessed with sports (the game of winning and losing) that we treat politics as a contest that has no bearing on the long term future of the nation?”

In similar vein, Phil Ubegang in Townsville copied me an email he sent to the Townsville Bulletin:

The Hijacking of Townsville… by the Townsville Bulletin

Last Monday Townsville was visited by both the Prime Minister and the leader of the Labour Party. A great opportunity was at hand for the community to present pressing local issues for their consideration, such as the public hospital crisis, problems with the energy and transport infrastructure, the effect of the proposed FTA on the region and the future of the mining industry.

Instead we were copped a load of nonsense about veterinary school, and this red herring was served up to our national leaders. How utterly embarrassing it is, to be a resident of Townsville. Congratulations must go to News Ltd and the TB Editors for helping to shield the government from any public controversy in our region.

Steve Turbit asks:

“Could you tell your Press Gallery colleagues that the next time John Howard makes some broad sweeping statement such as the one he made about Latham’s amendment being “dangerous” or “damaging”, could they please ask him to explain how this is so? I am really sick of him getting off so lightly.

Tonight it’s over to you on the FTA – the politics, the merits, and the ideology of the FTA, although I got too many emails to publish them all. First though, another lift from the value-for-money Crikey sealed section:

Medicos sickened by FTA

This little item in the current Journal of Australia on the effect of the United States Trade Agreement on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme makes interesting reading. Here’s the abstract:

* The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) contains major concessions to the US pharmaceutical industry that may undermine the egalitarian principles and operation of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and substantially increase the costs of medicinal drugs to Australian consumers.

* AUSFTA’s approach to the PBS excessively emphasises the need to reward manufacturers of “innovative” new pharmaceuticals, instead of emphasising consumers’ need for equitable and affordable access to necessary medicines (the first principle of our National Medicines Policy).

* Several features of AUSFTA may bring pressure to bear on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) to list “innovative” drugs that the committee initially rejected because the evidence for cost-effectiveness was not compelling.

* Intellectual property provisions of AUSFTA are likely to delay the entry of PBS cost-reducing generic products when pharmaceutical patents expire.

* We support the many concerned health and consumer organisations who have asked the Senate either not to pass the enabling legislation or to delay its passage until a fairer deal in terms of public health can be obtained.

***

THE POLITICS

Damien Hogan

It appears the Liberal Party is now divided over the FTA. Indeed, John Howard seems ready to “flip-flop” at any moment. Oh, the delicious irony!

*

Nick King

Re Latham proves he’s still got guts, Margo hit the nail on the head. It’s wonderful to read a concise, down to earth, refreshing and critical look at the FTA debate & what many of us suspect are the real motives behind the Liberal Party’s rushed support of the FTA. We are tired of hearing the bias coming out of the Murdoch and Packer corporate entities. As swing voters we were relieved to hear that Latham and Labor are prepared to make a stand to ensure the value and security of the people’s PBS system and to protect local content rules. Sometimes it’s the little issues that make the big difference to us, the average citizens.

*

Adrian Janschek

Latham should make this PBS issue as big as possible, because the average Aussie punter has little interest in finding out the realities for themselves.

WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. National Institutes of Health on Wednesday rejected a nonprofit company’s challenge to Abbott Laboratories Inc.’s 400 percent price hike on a key AIDS medicine.

Washington-based Essential Inventions had asked the government for a license to produce cheaper, generic copies of the drug, Norvir, before the patent expires in 2014. The group argued Norvir was developed with support from taxpayer funds and was being sold at an unreasonable price.

NIH Director Elias Zerhouni said he felt using the “extraordinary remedy” sought by Essential Inventions “is not an appropriate means of controlling prices.”

“The issue of drug pricing has global implications and, thus, is appropriately left for Congress to address,” Zerhouni wrote in the decision.

Essential Inventions, which is run by consumer activists, said it will appeal to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

Abbott spokeswoman Jennifer Smoter welcomed the ruling as “good news for patients.” The company has defended the price hike as necessary to help fund future drug research. Smoter also said Federal Trade Commission staff told Abbott they were not planning to open an investigation into whether the Norvir price hike was anti-competitive, as some lawmakers and activists charge.

Norvir, known generically as ritonavir, is a protease inhibitor used to fight the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Norvir is a component of many AIDS-fighting drug regimens because it has the unique ability to make other protease inhibitors more effective.

Abbott in December raised the U.S. price of a 100-milligram Norvir capsule $8.57 from $1.71. Worldwide sales were $95 million in 2003.

Activists said it was unfair that the U.S. price was five to 10 times higher than in other developed countries. “Essential Inventions is asking the Bush administration to adopt a simple rule – U.S. consumers should not pay more for drugs invented on government grants,” President James Love said.

The activists had asked the NIH to for the first time invoke a 1980 law, the Bayh-Dole Act, to “march-in” and grant licenses to other companies to produce Norvir. The law requires government-funded inventions be made available “on reasonable terms.”

Abbott received a $3.47 million NIH grant in 1988 for early research on protease inhibitors. Abbott said that was less than 1 percent of the more than $300 million the company spent to develop Norvir.

***

Guido Tresoldi in Fitzroy, ALP member

Things are developing quite quickly and I must admit that Latham has been cleverer than I have given him credit for.

Let’s be blunt. The FTA (like anything that Howard has devised) is as much as a political tool to divide the Labor Party than policy.

I believe that at the end of the day the ALP was more interested on how to circumvent the minefield that Howard presented to them, rather than wanting to block the deal (the correct choice).

While we progressives are gnashing our teeth at the Parliamentary ALP decision, I wonder whether this is such an important issue to a couple living in Cranbourne with kids, mortgage and both working (one partner as a casual). I can’t see the FTA getting the ‘barbeque stopper’ status as yet. What would impact on voters is if Latham was seen as indecisive, or (and this was Howard’s ultimate aim) split the Party, draining it of spirit before the election.

I am not an expert in Australian history, but this ploy by the conservatives is nothing new: conscription during WW1? The Communist Party referendum in the 50s? The conservatives can see a mile away what would divide a party which contains a ‘progressive’ wing. Just aim for the issue and Bob’s your uncle.

Ultimately the ALP at this stage want to:

1) Keep the progressives/left in the Party united.

2) Stop primary vote drifts to the Greens/Democrats.

3) Try the ‘bring cake and eat it too’ strategy of saying that the ALP is not against the FTA, but thatAustralia needs these amendments (which according to many FTA critics are piss-weak anyway) to protect Australian interests. If the government does not play ball, they are the ones who are selling out totally to the Americans etc. etc.

On one hand Labor can say it is not anti FTA (or anti-American), they show themselves as the protector of Australian interests and more savvy about the Agreement than the Coalition. But if the Government knocks back the amendments then, it’s the Coalition which does not care about whether pharmaceuticals go up or whether we going to have only American voices on our TV. Now that’s a reverse wedgie.

*

James Woodcock, ALP member

Not a good week to give up drinking. I am pissed right off at this decision. It reeks of Me-tooism just like Tampa, but, as you correctly point out,Labor would have had a good chance to run a grassroots campaign on it. Many Australians are pissed off at the Americans about the Iraqi War and being lied to. This is just one more dose of economic reform that we are just supposed to swallow and not gag on.

What frustrates and angers me most is that just like the last election that there will be no decent public debate or discussion about the whole FTA now that both sides have “synchronised” their policies.

Unless Labor proposes amendments they know or hope the Coalition will not agree to, and refuse to not pass the bill without the amendments, this will be the future of the Labor in this country as well.

*

Margaret Morgan

On Tuesday I was thinking, Labor, you abject fools. You’ve lost the left. You’ve lost even the chance at preferences from many who were tempted to vote for you. But now I’m not so sure. I think this has been a masterpiece of politicking by Latham.

Howard is now in an impossible situation. If he agrees to the Labor Party’s demands in the enabling legislation, he loses all the high ground he has tried to claim by insisting that Labor has opposed the legislation because of anti-Americanism/indecision.

He obviously isn’t anti-American, because he broadly accepts the agreement. He hasn’t been indecisive; he’s been waiting for sufficient information before making a stance. Howard loses the big advantage of the wedge he’d hoped for.

The ball is now his. If he refuses to bat it, then the obvious question is why? He’s claimed that this agreement won’t harm our health care system or our local content regulation. If that’s so, how do the amendments cause any problems? He is pinning his electoral hopes on this issue. He sees it as the big issue of this term in government. So where can he go?

Labor’s position is one appealing directly to the concerns of the majority of Australians who are suspicious of the value of the agreement to Australia. It directly addresses their qualms. It neutralises the whining about failing to address the issue because it cuts to the quick. And it seems that if Howard refuses to accept the amendments (and I suspect he won’t, because of the political cost of doing so), Labor is going to hold fast. Latham has to, if he is to retain the pivotal loyalty of the left wing as the election approaches, and he knows it.

Watching Abbott debating Gillard on Lateline, I lost count of the number of times he bleated “anti-American”. Does he really think that’s a vote winner?

So it’s going to become an election issue. For Latham, I think, it’s a winner. This has the fingerprints of Faulkner all over it. There is no smarter politician in Australia.

*

David Redfearn in Brunswick, Melbourne

A friend’s comment (in verse) on Latham’s stand after I sent her ‘Latham proves he’s still got guts’:

The Libs charged Mark with “petty action”, When he talked food-and-drugs Yankeefaction, The words meant to cloak us, He brought to sharp focus, Mark’s acts not reduction, REDACTION!

Perhaps Mark Latham’s slogan could be: “It’s the kitchen table, stupid!!!” because that is clearly where he is pitching his message and you are so right in implying that the press gallery and other opinion makers still don’t get it regarding Latham’s small is big” approach.

A Labor politician of my acquaintance told me some time ago that Mark Latham should keep talking over these interests because he has a capacity to reach people that way and this latest stand over the PBS and the FTA really illustrates that if comments I am hearing are any indication. I don’t just talk to my rusted on fellow lefties in my local cafes in inner Melbourne; my recent visits to family and friends in rural NSW have been very revealing, especially in relation to the FTA and our relationship with the USA. I found deep concern about Howard among a number of rusted on National Party voters (and that’s without even mentioning Telstra!).

I personally still think the FTA is a dog of a deal but I am glad that Latham has taken the stand that he has. He is still the high roller in my view and the other mob still don’t know how to handle it.

On another note, here is a text message from my daughter, Joanne, who is travelling at present and to whom I sent a copy of “Not Happy, John”:

“I have almost read Part 1 of “Not Happy, John” and you can be sure that wherever I am in the world I will be voting against Australia’s no.1 tyrannical dictator. Margo Kingston makes me feel proud of my values and I shouldn’t be ashamed to be Australian, but allowed to be angry.”

***

THE MERITS

Kevin Morton, Citizen of Australia

Whilst I would sincerely like to believe your analysis of what Mark Latham has done (honed the argument over AUSFTA down to one issue that the majority of the people can understand); I find it an irresponsible gamble using the future of Australia as “Iron Mark’s” stake in the betting.

The four central problems AUSFTA poses Australia are Australian Quarantine, the PBS, the “Buy American” US Procurement legislation and Intellectual Property Rights. After only four hours of research I found enough evidence on these four Little-Johnny “barbeque stoppers” to convince a dimmer-than-average-rhesus-monkey that the free trade deal was anything but; yet Latham has only addressed one of these issues.

IF the government doesn’t back down and IF he wins the next election he can introduce amendments on the other issues; but what happens if Howard blinks before the election? Can Latham then say “I also want these amendments” without losing his credibility with the Australian people? I don’t think so.

He has gambled not just his political future but the future of Australia economically, ecologically, and intellectually.

*

Patricia Murphy

Ask the Canadians what it’s like dealing with the Americans. There the Canadian government found itself in Court for giving their citizens a decent postal rate which the Americans deemed anti-competitive against their FTA with the U.S. As well, the disgraceful position in America exists where its own (non affluent) citizens have to get reasonably priced medicine from Canada or Mexico.

It is a chilling thought that the Howard government is so keen to open our door to the predatory American drug companies. We must give Mark Latham all support and praise for standing in the way of this potential disaster for Australia.

*

John Dalton in West Ryde, Sydney

I don’t claim to be an expert on patent and copyright law. I’m an engineer and scientist who has spent over a decade working within the constraints of the patent and copyright system, so I have some understanding of how patents and copyrights affect engineering and science innovation “at the coal face”.

I ask myself what motivates the proponents of chapter 17 of the FTA, which extends the monopolies of patents and copyrights. By my understanding someone standing for free trade should be against increased regulation and monopoly and so against chapter 17. A paradox.

The best explanation I have come up with is that proponents of chapter 17 are not for free trade but are for private ownership. They are typically against public property and against increased regulation of property, as they believe those weaken private ownership. In the case of patents and copyright they are for increased regulation as they believe it strengthens private ownership.

Perhaps chapter 17 of the “Free Trade Agreement” is really a “Private Ownership Agreement”?

Chapter 17 of the FTA allows abstract ideas to be claimed as private property. We shouldn’t be talking about whether chapter 17 of the FTA is good for free trade but whether ideas are property to be privately owned.

No idea is formed in isolation. Instead all ideas draw from those around and those who have gone before. It is impossible to have a non-social idea in that having ideas *requires* interaction with and inspiration by other people.

Witness the emphasis the scientific research community places on publishing ideas and establishing networks of collaboration.

Thomas Edison once said: “Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.” The existing patent and copyright system allows the 99% perspiration to be protected. Chapter 17 of the FTA extends the monopoly to include the 1% inspiration, thus hampering innovation.

*

Graham Daniell in Greenwood, Western Australia

The proposed free trade agreement between the US and Australia threatens more than just Australia’s media content and pharmaceutical prices. It also requires Australia to closely conform to American intellectual property laws, in particular the draconian DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

Under the treaty, Aussies must block any party that “manufactures, imports, distributes, offers to the public, provides, or otherwise traffics in devices, products, or components, or offers to the public, or provides services that; are promoted, advertised, or marketed for the purpose of circumvention of any effective technological measure; have only a limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent any effective technological measure; or are primarily designed, produced, or performed for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of any effective technological measure.”

One effect of this will be to render impotent a previous decision by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that “region coding” of digital media (for example DVD movies) was anti-competitive and thus contrary to Australian Competition Law.

Under the treaty, Australians will not be allowed to buy “region-free” DVD players, and will be barred from converting existing players to be region free. This will mean that it will not be possible for Australians to buy DVD movies overseas while on holiday and bring them back, and will also stop the direct importing of overseas disks.

They will also be barred from other ways of circumventing anti-competitive practices, such as “mod-chipping” computer game consoles to enable them to play games from other than the manufacturer of the game unit.

This can only have the effect (as desired by the big media companies) of driving up prices of electronic entertainment media, which have dropped dramatically since the ACCC’s ruling a couple of years ago.

Unfortunately Australian legislators are only concerned only about the effects of the treaty on pharmaceutical prices. It would seem they are unaware of the treaty’s IP ramifications.

If the unfair provisions of the FTA are to be rectified then the IP issue must also be addressed.

*

“Col”

Re your question in Latham’s conditions for FTA support: the facts behind the politics about how Australia could be bound by the FTA treaty without parliamentary approval of legislation amending current laws, the key is chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

I hadn’t realised it tied in with our FTA before visiting Webdiary yesterday, as if I wasn’t already feeling sorry and sad enough. It’s been a long time coming but 3rd August 2004 was the day I was finally disgusted enough to becoming an activist.

From global exchange:

“NAFTA includes unprecedented ways for corporations to attack laws through so-called “investor-to-state” lawsuits. Such suits, established by NAFTA’s Chapter 11, allow corporations to sue governments for compensation if they feel that any government action, including the enforcement of public health and safety laws, cuts into their profits. Already, Chapter 11 lawsuits have been used to repeal a Canadian law banning a chemical linked to nervous system damage, and to challenge California’s phase-out of a gas additive, MTBE, that is poisoning the state’s ground water. Negotiators want to include these anti-democratic lawsuits in the FTAA.”

From citizen:

“Since the agreement’s enactment, corporate investors in all three NAFTA countries have used these new rights to challenge a variety of national, state and local environmental and public health policies, domestic judicial decisions, a federal procurement law and even a government s provision of parcel delivery services as NAFTA violations. While most cases are still pending, some corporations have already succeeded with these challenges. Remarkably, NAFTA also provides foreign investors the ability to privately enforce their new investor rights. Called “investor-to-state” dispute resolution, this extraordinary mechanism empowers private investors and corporations to sue NAFTA-signatory governments in special tribunals to obtain cash compensation for government policies or actions that investors believe violate their new rights under NAFTA. If a corporation wins its case, it can be awarded unlimited amounts of taxpayer dollars from the treasury of the offending nation even though it has gone around the country’s domestic court system and domestic laws to obtain such an award.”

From The Nation:

“Multinational investors can randomly second-guess the legitimacy of environmental laws or any other public-welfare or economic regulation, including agency decisions, even jury verdicts. The open-ended test for winning damages is whether the regulation illegitimately injured a company’s investments and can be construed as ‘tantamount to expropriation, though no assets were physically taken (as is the case when a government seizes an oil field or nationalises banks).

“NAFTA’s arbitrators cannot overturn domestic laws, but their huge damage awards may be nearly as crippling – chilling governments from acting once they realize they will be ‘paying to regulate’.”

This is what global competition is really about – local communities and workers competing against once another to absorb more of the production costs of the world’s most powerful and profitable corporations.

***

THE IDEOLOGY

Merrill Pye in Sydney

Though people are objecting to particular examples of how this “Free Trade Agreement” may affect us badly, I’d ask us to look at the ideology at its base. This Trojan horse provides a legal way to lock us into an extreme economic kind of fundamentalism, the same as in a world trade agreement rejected a year or two ago.

The neo-liberal ideology also affects any government or charitable (“non-profit”) regulation or involvement in almost any part of society, including public schools, hospitals, heritage, arts, the environment, natural resources, national parks, even parts of defence, and calls it “unfair” or “subsidies”.

Eventually things like the Trade Practices Act and many other legal protections for the land and the people (PBS, Occupational Health and Safety) are struck down as “anti-competitive”.

The ideology says that the basis of society and democracy, particularly the Australian version *, is wrong. That public good and public service should only ever be a by-product of the drive to private profit; that the “best and highest” use of human effort and intelligence is to serve that aim, not to improve the world, express humanity, or whatever.

Any improvement or service provided in order to make money is to be the least possible, produced as cheaply as possible – whatever this means for your staff, your providers or the natural resources you use – for the highest possible price (called “efficiency” and “productivity”). This, for example, drives farmers to poor long-term land management to meet short-term price and supply demands from a buyer with the whip-hand, a situation common in Third World countries.

Another example will be the future history of NRMA, originally set up as a community based, though private, non-profit service-provider. Most of its recent troubles have been conflict over changing from that to this other basis of operation.

The costs – human, social, environmental – may be dumped on whatever poorly-funded government services are left, or in an ironic twist, also used as a source of profit, say by setting up a services company to bid for tax money provided (because government responds to public pressure) to help with the damage, as government services are cut, corporatised or privatised to follow the managerial ideology.

Representative government and accountability are, like following the letter of the law, perhaps necessary evils, but to be used as sparingly as absolutely necessary. Law-makers should be lobbied and/or “donated” to make the laws, including tax laws, as favourable as possible.

It is better to pay political parties, lawyers, public relations firms and advertisers to give an impression of a “good company” than pay the same money on *being* a “good company”. The people pay because the companies deduct these expenses from their income.

Don’t let people tell you “it’s inevitable”. So was the Thousand Year Reich, so was the Divine Right of Kings, and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. They say that because they want you to believe it and give up. They say: “Don’t ask ‘Who moved my cheese, and who has it now?’ “; just accept it and adapt. But remember evil can only triumph when good people do nothing.

It’s taken between 500 and 1000 years of struggle to get a legally-bound and legally-removable ruler, representative government with voting rights for all adults, support for the mentally and physically ill, injured workers and their families, legal rights for women and ordinary people, and everything that distinguishes a decent human kind of society from the rule of “strongmen” and their enforcers – the human equivalent of a baboon troop, ruled by force, fear and furtiveness.

Why prepare to throw away all those blood-bought lessons? Why knowingly step back down that path when we’ve seen, over and over, how destructive and brutal it is?

* Australian version – A Tale of Three Prison Camps. During the Pacific war the Japanese army set up three camps for prisoners-of-war from British, Australian, and then American forces. They provided better supplies to the officers in each camp. The British camp kept its distinctions and privileges, with antipathy between officers and enlisted men; The American camp descended into ‘free trade’ of rations, medicine, etc, so that some ended up sick, poor, without help, and others became “King Rats”. In the Australian camp, the officers and men shared and each helped the other, so the survival rate at the end of the war was better than the others.

This is the legend, and I’m sure it’s simplified, but it points to the best purpose and moral foundation of Australian society as evolved from the mid-nineteenth century until about the 1980s, when the “Free Trade” push – so reviled for many years for things like exporting wheat from Ireland during the Great Famine, because English markets could pay for it and starving Irish couldn’t – made a comeback.)

Webdiary columnist Polly Bush is our expert on Howard’s gay marraige/gay adoption wedge play. Her previous pieces on the saga include Another Let’s-Attack-A-Minority-Group-Wheel of Fortune, by John Howard and Keeping it queer.

 

When the Prime Minister today announced yet another attempt at amending the Marriage Act to exclude gay couples, it was fitting for the PM to launch it at a conference for the National Marriage Coalition, a group set up by the Australian Family Association, the Australian Christian Lobby and the Fatherhood Foundation

Whenever there’s a contentious issue involving gay and lesbian Australians (or a not so contentious issue like Playschool’s two mums reference) the media love to run to the Australian Family Association’s Bill Muehlenberg for a good gay bashing quote. It’s extraordinarily predictable.

This new amendment, to be introduced in the next fortnight in parliament, will be a third time lucky attempt by the Government to ensure this issue gets a good run in time for the election. It will also again test the ALP’s position.

The Prime Minister, of course, said the opposite at today’s conference, stating his reintroduction of the Bill was to actually avoid it becoming an election issue!

“I think it would be a great pity if this issue were left hanging in an election campaign,” the PM said.

A great pity indeed. Howard’s reference to the issue being “left hanging” is about a Senate Committee’s examination of the Bill, which has a reporting date of October 7.

The Labor Party supported the initial Marriage Amendment, but referred it to the Senate’s legal Committee for community input and further examination.

Despite the Senate’s review, the Attorney-General tried to re-introduce the Bill shortly before parliament last finished sitting. Labor again supported it, but the Bill was defeated in the Senate in favour of the Committee process (see Another Let’s-Attack-A-Minority-Group-Wheel of Fortune, by John Howard).

The initial bill was tied to an amendment banning gay couples from overseas adoption rights, which the Labor Party did not support. The solution for the Howard Government? Separate the adoption amendment and try the Marriage wedge once again.

But like his Attorney-General in the House of Representatives June debate, the Prime Minister today denied that gay marriage was a “wedge” issue:

“In putting it into law in the next two weeks nobody can say it’s being used as a wedge, nobody can say it’s a diversion, everybody can say it’s a united expression of the national parliament and therefore of the will of the Australian people.”

According to ABC online, Labor’s Nicola Roxon has once again lent her party’s support to the amendment, indicating this time the ALP may pass the bill. Roxon reportedly told the forum:

“Labor’s position about gay marriage is clear and unequivocal and from the Prime Minister’s statements today it sounds like the major parties will be voting for this Bill some time in the next fortnight. I’m sure that you will all welcome that.”

In response, the Equal Rights Network’s Rodney Croome has predicted Labor will be the big loser if it side-steps the Committee process. Croome said:

There’s only one consequence of this decision electorally – Labor will lose votes. The people who may have voted Labor who now won’t are gay and lesbian people in inner-city Melbourne and Sydney. They’ll be much more likely now to vote Democrat or Green and Labor will lose their primary votes.

Croome’s right – such a decision by Labor will upset the gay and lesbian community. In an email to Mark Latham and Nicola Roxon, JOYFM newsreader Doug Pollard today wrote that was time for the real Mark Latham to stand up:

Dear Mark and Nicola,

I hope the reports I’m reading – that you are displaying your yellow streak and cutting and running from the gay marriage issue – are wrong. The Senate Enquiry is in place and working and neither you nor the Prime Minister should pre-empt its conclusions at the behest of a few toxic self-styled pseudo-Christians and Bob Santamaria leftovers.

I thought the point of having you, Mark, as leader of the Labor Party, was to have someone with guts (not just A gut) in the job. First you poodle up to the free trade agreement and now this. It’s time you stopped listening to those insipid ‘advisors’, whoever they may be, as well as what the press are bleating on about, and reverted to your true fighting style. You’ll not win an election by trotting after wee Johnny wagging your tail and yapping “Me too! Me too!

Listen to your inner Paul Keating instead and go for his ankles!

And it’s no good saying you’ll fix it up after the election: you know damn well that if you get in having supported this, it’ll be well nigh impossible to change course. You’ve got to put your money on the table now.

Doug Pollard, Writer, Presenter & Producer, Breakfast News & Rainbow Reports online, Joy Melbourne 94.9FM – Australia’s first and only 24/7 GLBTI Community Radio Station”

Despite Howard’s denials this is a wedge issue, it’s just another wedge in the election mix.

Yesterday, by supporting the FTA, Labor leader Mark Latham threw Howard’s main American alliance wedge back at Howard by insisting on more protection for the PBS. Today, Howard threw the gay wedge back at Latham. Don’t you just love elections?

G’day. The complex politics of the FTA have just got seriously murky with Latham’s shock decision to make Labor’s – and therefore the Senate’s – support for the neccessary legislation conditional on legislation to protect our cheap drugs system and Australian content in our media. I’ll have a go at working through the politics tonight and publish some of your thoughts. But today, an update from Webdiary’s FTA analyst Brian Bahnisch on what Latham’s conditions are all about. His previous pieces include The U.S. Free Trade Agreement – always a silly idea, now a deadly trap for Australia and Latham to go for the FTA dud: big business, big media win again.

 

As is often the case, Michelle Grattan has the most information on Latham’s shock play, see Who will blink first? The transcript of Monday Night’s Four Corners program A bitter pill is also a must read. After Brian, I’ve lifted with permission a sensational Crikey item in today’s sealed section (worth subscribing to) which explains just how rich and powerful the big US drugs are, the ones Howard wants to let get their foot in the door on Australia’s best practice drugs subsidy scheme.

***

Saving our world-best cheap drugs scheme from US multinationals, if we can

by Brian Bahnisch

The die has now been cast and the news has now come through that President Bush has finally signed the FTA agreement. This may be premature, but it could present an interesting legal case.

The US has an agreement duly entered into by Australia’s government. The enabling legislation in this context is domestic housekeeping this end. Professor Peter Drahos made it quite clear on Radio National’s PM program that as a nation our obligations now lie in what we have undertaken as represented in the FTA text. Under challenge in a trade dispute, this is all that matters, not any laws that we may have passed in Australia at whatever level of government. (MARGO: Can this be true? I thought international treaties had no domestic operation without legislation enacting them into law. That’s certainly true of human rights treaties an Australian governmnet signs. In America, both houses of Parliament had to approve the FTA deal before Bush could sign it. Could a constitutional law expert buy in here?)

In a trade dispute, a panel of three trade lawyers, only one of whom is appointed by us, hears the case extrajudicially and in secret, without reference to our laws or our democratically derived policies and practices. That decision is then legally binding on the parties.

Our loss of sovereignty could not be more clearly illustrated.

I’m not sure whether Labor fully appreciates this point. Certainly some of the Government ministers don’t. When One Nation Senator Len Harris asked a question in the Senate yesterday about this procedure, Senator Robert Hill’s reply on behalf of the Minister for Trade demonstrated that he was totally unaware of the real situation.

Of the two laws required by Labor, the one designed to bring the control over TV content rules back under the control of the Parliament seems a no-brainer. But even here the Government seemed to be accepting government control, via government regulation, rather than parliamentary control via legislation. I’m sure Labor and the Government will work that one out.

On the matter of generic pharmaceuticals, it seems to be a case of who blinks first. On Latelinelast night one felt confident that Julia Gillard would stare them down if it was left to her. She put the Labor case with exemplary clarity.

There are many patents in a pharmaceutical product – the Drahos study says up to 100. Overseas there has been a practice of “ever-greening”, of effectively extending to life of the patent in the branded drug. This is done by changing one of the patents within the product, often on blatantly spurious grounds and then defending the inevitable challenge in the courts.

The patent holder expects to lose, but the purpose is really to extend the life of the patent, as the profits so gained dwarf the legal costs. Labor wants to attach a significant penalty to an unsuccessful defense of a spurious patent, as a disincentive for claims that are purely strategic and lack substance.

In the FTA it appears that our government authorities will be obliged to undertake patent checking work on behalf of the patent owners in a manner that is unprecedented internationally.

This is where it gets tricky. I don’t have the legal knowledge to assess whether Labor’s proposal has merit or is doable. Lawyers will no doubt disagree.

It is worth noting that Labor’s amendment was unanimously recommended by JSCOT (The Joint Senate Committee on Treaties) including all Government members.

And the stakes are high. The Drahos study believes the new procedures in the FTA, which involve a generic company supplying a notice of intent to develop a generic version and a certificate showing that no patents will be infringed, will slow the appearance of generics “by about three years or more”. On five existing drugs due to come off patent in 2006-2009 the extra cost to the PBS will be $1.1 billion. Over time, they say, “this amount would be multiplied many times as these delays applied to more and more drugs.”

Here are two more quotes from Drahos:

Australia’s concessions in the IPR [intellectual property rights] chapter come at a time when there is an emerging view within the US that IPR protection has gone too far.

Australia has signed onto a set of US standards in the FTA at a time when there is considerable doubt in the US about the suitability of those standards for a truly dynamic and effective knowledge economy.

It would be naïve in the extreme, as Tony Abbott seemed to imply on Lateline, that it was business as usual. Because there had never been a problem in the past, there would not be in the future.

The stakes involved on this one appear very significant in terms of the value of the benefits of the entire FTA. It is true that Labor’s proposed law may turn out to be unworkable and may be struck down in a trade dispute eventually. If we are going to have an FTA such a law seems the minimum any prudent government should enact to protect the public interest.

When this proposal from Labor hit the deck, Howard was apparently confused and uncertain at first, before coming out strongly against the proposal. Perhaps Howard needed time for his minions to contact his imperial masters for direction.

What significance should we read into the fact that two of the top American trade negotiators who worked on the FTA have recently landed plum jobs with big pharmaceutical companies?

***

Crikey: the power of Big Pharma

If John Howard toughs it out over Labor’s PBS amendment, the major risk for the Government is that this becomes an excuse to air all the dirty linen, connections, donations and practices of Big Pharma which critics argue represent the darkest side of globalisation.

For instance, does anyone fancy doing an analysis of which former Howard staffers are now working for Big Pharma. From Crikey’s list of former Howard staffers we have the following:

• Paul Cross: fromer Michael Wooldridge’s office, now at drug giant Merck Sharpe & Dohme.
• Mark Elliott: former John Howard adviser, now at Pfizer as Corporate Communications Manager.
• Catherine McGovern: former Nick Minchin staffer, now at Glaxo Smith Klein.
• Craig Regan: formerly worked in John Howard’s office, now works at Pfizer.
• Kieran Schneeman: former McGauran chief of staff, now the chief executive of Medicines Australia.
• Ken Smith: formerly worked in Michael Wooldridge’s office, now at Pfizer.

In July, Fortune magazine listed the world’s largest corporations revealing just how well Big Pharma rakes in the cash: names, $US profit in 2002, revenue:

Pfizer (US), $3.9b, $45.9b

GlaxoSmithKline (Brit), $7.45b, $35.0b

Bayer (Germ), $1.5b, $32.3b

Novartis (Switz), $5.0b, $24.9b

Roche Group (Switz), $2.3b, $23.2b

Merck (US), $6.8b, $22.5b

Bristol-Myers Squib (US), $3.1b, $20.9b

Aventis (France), $2.2b, $20.2b

Astrazeneca (Brit), $3.0b, $18.9b

It makes our tiny pharmaceutical companies look like a real joke. International pharmaceutical companies are no stranger to influencing the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (the people who decide what drugs make it on to Australia’s coveted Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme).

Several years ago Big Pharma used their clout with John Howard and Michael Wooldridge to remove key players in the PB Advisory Committee responsible for keeping down the prices of Australian drugs.

Jonathan Holmes reported, “that’s not mere paranoia. In January 2001, all but two of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee were either dismissed or resigned in protest. A few weeks earlier, the Prime Minister had met with major pharmaceutical companies. A background briefing paper for that meeting was leaked to 4 Corners reporter Liz Jackson”.

At the time Jackson was following the story for 4 Corners and put together this in 2001 in the must read program, Paying the Price. One victim of the boardroom sweep was Professor David Henry (PBAC 1991-2000) the man who pioneered Australia’s radical system for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of drugs in the early 1990s. Committee decisions based on Henry’s system can cost the pharmaceutical industry hundreds of millions of dollars and worse still for the industry, it is being copied around the world – another motivating force examined by Jonathan Holmes in his 4 Corners report on Monday.

According to Jackson, Australia’s PBS dates back to 1948 when the then-Labor government decided the new drug penicillin would be made available to all Australians free of charge, in a flush of national pride following Australian Howard Florey’s role in discovering the new wonder drug. Ever since Australians have been largely protected from the high cost of drugs.

Meanwhile a subscriber writes:

No doubt you are already onto this, but it may be worth an close look at which pharmaceutical companies are contrbutors to the Liberal Party. Does that explain the current reluctance of the Government to adopt Iron Mark’s protection mechanisms?

Lots of political commentators write that Mark Latham is concentrating on the “little things” and avoiding the big issues. Are they stupid, ignorant, or corrupt?

 

He’s promised to strengthen competition laws to protect small business against big business predators. Who does that piss off? Big business. What does that mean? More money in Liberal Party coffers.

He’s promised to stop easy credit at pubs with pokies and to limit withdrawals on debit accounts to $200. Who does that piss off? The powerful pubs and gambling lobbies. What does that mean? As above.

He’s promised to stop junk food advertising during children’s television time slots. Who does that piss off? The big junk food companies. What does that mean? As above.

He’s promised a 4th television network and to keep cross media laws. Who does that piss off? Murdoch and Packer. What does that mean? You know what.

Small is BIG. He’s fighting hard, our Mark, against powerful interests few would take on, for us, the people.

And now, the US Free Trade Agreement. I think he was wrong not to veto the dud just about every economist who hasn’t been bought off by big business said it was straight off. A bad tactical error, to say the least, to put off a decision and give Howard the chance to run the ridiculous anti-American line the entire press gallery seems to have bought hook line and sinker. (Would America have signed up if it wasn’t good for American business? Of course not. Never. Ever. Would that have been anti-Australian? No. Would Howard have looked like the fool he is? Yes.)

Still, what Latham has done, to everyone’s surprise given the incredible political and media pressure on him to cave in completely, is to avoid the Beazley small target disaster and pick a do or die issue of crucial importance to the Australian people which could show Howard up for what he is.

He’s said he won’t let the FTA through the Senate without legislative safeguards to stop the huge US drugs companies with bottomless pockets maintain their super-profits by gradually destroying our PBS drugs subsidy scheme, admired around the world, which keeps medicine within the price range of ordinary Australians like you and me. Unlike in America.

The issue is complex (for more on the detail see Latham’s conditions for FTA support: the facts behind the politics). But by bringing the seemingly esoteric topic of the FTA down to one basic point, he’s given the Australian people a chance to get their heads around the big picture. Yet Howard says no to the “micro issue”. Why? First take – “unnecessary”. If so, why not agree to Labor’s proposal? Second take – it’s “dangerous”. Why?

Howard and his minions promised us over and over there’d be nothing in the FTA to threaten our PBS scheme. So why did they agree to letting the Americans have a “review” process when our experts turned their latest drug down?

And why won’t he protect Australians, and Australia’s budget, against the possibility ” no certainty ” of US drugs companies playing dirty tricks to destroy our system?

You’ll find a possible answer in the Crikey piece I published in Latham’s conditions for FTA support: the facts behind the politics. It’s about political donations and Liberal Party hacks earning big money in the drugs companies. Self interest, in other words.

What Latham has done by shocking the right of his party which wanted the FTA buried as an issue is hone down the argument to something every Australian can understand. The “small picture”. The one that affects their lives. And each small picture tells a bloody big story.

The SMH news story today said that Cabinet rejected the drugs amendment because “of its earlier insistence that it would not sign the agreement in the first place if it diminished the (PBS) benefits scheme in any way. Giving in to Labor’s demand would undermine the deal and send the public the message that it adversely affected the scheme, senior government sources said.”

Crap. It would be a one day wonder for the government to say “Good idea – let’s go with it.” It’s already said yes, effectively, to Latham’s demand for legislative protection for local content on TV. There’s something much deeper and more sinister going on here.

Giving in, while demanding a concession, is sensational politics by Latham given the mess he’d got himself into and the forces ranged against him. He won’t back down, and Australians will at last get to know a lot more about this “deal”, the one Howard said he’d never sign unless it was unequivocally good for Australia but did anyway to be SEEN to be getting some payoff for taking Australia to war against the wishes of the Australian people.

And don’t believe the rubbish reported in one Australian newspaper that unless Parliament ratified the deal by October 1 it was off. The FTA deal takes effect 60 days after Bush and Howard exchange letters saying their respective Parliaments have endorsed it. Howard wants it signed by October 1 so it starts on January 1 next year. That’s all. If it’s delayed, then the start date is deferred. Unless, of course, the deal depends on the big US drugs companies getting their foot in the door, something Howard has denied.

Over to you, John Howard. Thank you, Mark Latham, for not caving in completely, and for giving the Australian people the chance to work out what’s really going on here.

PS: I haven’t published any reader emails on this issue yet because it’s moving so fast. For the latest world trade developments see FTA lessens our world power on trade: Brazil picks up our dropped ball

Artist Robert Bosler is Webdiary’s commentator on Mark Latham and the Australian psyche. His pieces include An Australian destiny?, Why is Latham alarming? and An artist’s blueprint for a Latham win

Margo, no doubt you will have received a flood of passionate messages in relation to the FTA.(Margo: Indeed!)I urge your readers to look beyond this immediate issue and ask why and how this political situation came about. Of course, it’s more than a political situation; it’s our whole damn future! But it’s played out politically, so let’s look to what’s going on.

Firstly, we need to understand the political climate we are in. Idealism is great for use as the overall measuring stick, and we must remain centred there. We have of course been removed, and in fact removed ourselves by allowing it, from a place anything near ideal. So, what is really going on?

There are four factors involved in creating a political climate. Let’s work from the grass roots up.

The mass mind

This is a loose term, because every individual thinks for him or herself and has their own individual view. But a mass mind is very real, in effect. If we were to step away from daily life and retreat to an overall position, looking upon our nation, we see a general result of all of those viewpoints. It’s the same for any nation. Our mass mind is a very interesting mix, it’s not at all a fully made or rounded Australian “oneness”. It is in fact extremely disjointed.

The mass mind is known also for the fact it is impressed upon. While individual viewpoints exist, these exist because of what is given to that mind, whereby that mind has its thoughts shaped by what is given to it. There is, if you like, no deeper or clearer insight made by that individual mind, and it enmeshes into the mass.

It is very politically impressionable. There are many reasons for this, most of which are due to a lack of time or inclination to want to look any further than what it is given.

Individual Influences

These can be individual thinkers providing input, or institutions and organisations and other parties doing the same. These can also be acts of a human or non-human nature, like droughts and terrorist attacks, dollar valuations and sporting fixtures. This category represents unique forces that bear upon the mass mind and therefore upon the political climate of the day. Political parties and the Opposition leader are in this category.

The Media

This is a such a strong force in its own right it deserves its own category. It is a powerful force providing continual input. Readers of Webdiary are well aware of how frightening it can be to have a media force representing a singular proprietor’s viewpoint, and to be threatened with a lessening of media outlets. This threat is not so well known out there in the mass mind, if at all.

However, we are less inclined to see the media also for what it is: as a reflection. This is why blaming the media is always so fruitless. The media is fully designed to give consumers product. It wants to give you what you want. We must always remember that. The real question, ever, in critically assessing our media is: “What do I want?”. If your readers want to change the media, they must make their wants known to the media. The media is in effect guessing what you want, otherwise; yet their guesses are professionally acute.

Further, make those wishes known to the legislators and lobbyists, including the Opposition. Send them a copy and educate them as to what you desire of your media in your country. Your readers actively providing input in this way will most certainly make a difference. They key point to remember is that the media is only ever guessing what we want, until we tell them.

Think of the media as a highly energised spinning wheel, sliding out product for daily consumption. Even though the concept of “the media” in Australia maybe a huge thing in a reader’s mind, that is, the spinning wheel is huge, it’s also finely balanced, and very, very sensitive. Individual Australians have the power to tip the wheel, and change the product. Of course, major changes will take time, but if the media outlet wants your consumption, they’ll give you exactly what you want, in bucketloads. Making a difference begins with something as small as sending an email.

The Leader of the Day

Here we have a very interesting factor. It stands alone. For some reason, the human being seeks to have a singular person as a point of reference for communal living. Obviously we need a structure in place in society so as to function together. But a singular leader is not a given, it’s a choice humankind has made. So what does it represent?

A leader is two things. It is a force in its own right. It is a determining factor. This is clear. What a leader says, goes, until and unless it’s challenged effectively. Think of the mass mind, and imagine all those forces coming to a point. That point is the leader of the day.

Therefore, the leader is also a direct reflection of the mass mind. Think of the leader of the day as both a pinnacle and a reflection of the mass mind in one human being.

Our current leader

Looking into the fact that a leader is a direct reflection of the mass mind, we begin to find how the current leader, John Howard, has been so interesting a phenomena in Australia.

Australia has never been as a peoples one nation. We’ve been terribly divided all along. Of course this division began with the European invasion of Aboriginal Australia. The division of Aboriginal and settled Australia continues to this day. But there is tremendous division within settled Australia. Ours is most definitely a nation divided by class, race, education and outlook. We have been deeply divided as a nation.

The advent of Pauline Hanson on the scene brought to light so many of these divisions. As a leader, she was a pinnacle and reflection of some strong aspects of that national division. As a political force she was born, created politically, by those very divisions, gelled into existence by an unresolved state of the nation.

John Howard, as political opportunist, has taken advantage of the nation’s division. To say he creates division is true; as we have seen, a leader is two things, a force of ‘input’ as well as ‘pinnacle-and-reflection’. But Howard is much more than Hanson; Howard represents divisions as in all she did, and then more, across the board, and right through into critical areas of education (our peoples’ future) and international relations (our place in the world). Howard’s input is widely regarded as divisive, and widely divisive.

Therefore to understand the political climate more accurately, we need to see John Howard as a singular reflection of the mass national division. All that division, grown for so many years, has been encapsulated in our current leader. He was the perfect man to do it. All aspects of his character have led him to this position in our national history, not the least of which is his all pervading trait of opportunism, as the pinnacle reflection of our national division.

The current political climate

What happens when a leader, reflecting our national division, provides input into our nation? He further divides it, obviously. We’ve had a decade of a nation not directed in any way forward, but one standing still, and separated apart. This is going to scare a few people: but the truth is that were such an effect to continue, over many decades the nation would in all probability end in civil war, as each faction is forced to find its own form of acceptance and validate its expression. While division remains, and while division is engendered, those divisions are forced ultimately to fend for themselves in the absence of a unifying leader.

The mass Australian mind was already deeply divided before Howard. Howard has deepened this division and created many more. This mass mind has been further divided by a divided media. We are hereby at an unheralded point of division in our national history.

This is the situation Mark Latham finds himself in.

It is very easy to criticise Latham for all the things we perceive him as failing in.

However, right now he has the most horrifying job in the country. He has to walk a tightrope, not just one, but many, strung between all the many factions of this deeply divided nation. He has to do it daily.

Where people wish for Latham to speak up in one particular way, and decry him for not doing so, “he’s failed us!” is the cry, but were he to fulfil all those particular needs, he would be decried in other quarters more so. Latham giving satisfaction in one quarter equals an horrific bushfire in another.

The question we must ask of Mark Latham in this current climate is not only “What have you done” but also “Who haven’t you upset!”. A more accurate assessment of Latham’s achievements at this point in time is reflected in the fact he has managed to upset far, far less people and factions than he otherwise could have. Sadly, this is the climate of our current reality. Equally, we must acknowledge the climate to understand Latham’s achievements.

Today’s political climate is not a situation of Government and Opposition. Analysts providing opinion on that basis have been dangerously misled.

To consider the current political climate as Government and Opposition is to assume that the government is one thing, and the opposition another. In fact, the government is representing the people, and the people are deeply divided. The Opposition, led by Mark Latham, and the minor parties, united in wanting greater unity of a government, are all fighting this political battle on many, many fronts at once.

Sadly, there are those analysts and commentators who see this achievement of John Howard as being politically clever and masterful. Long may they rue the day of that foolish and expedient belief, as they grow more clear in their role and their responsibility.

When does it change?

Right now, we are in no man’s land, politically. Politicians are electioneering, but there’s no election date. While ever Howard holds the key to that date and to power, in silence and in secrecy, Howard has the initiative. It is an achievement of no small measure that Latham has managed to set the agenda time and again while Howard holds the power initiative.

Latham is performing the task asked of him, straddling the great divisions, and doing so flying blind. Think of what this must be like. It’s a task requiring much forbearance and a grandeur of spirit. It must be extremely draining of energy to try to hold all the divisions together while flying blind. It must be heartbreaking, also, to know the damage that has been done in our divided nation, and to know that until that divisiveness goes, the game must be played in the current climate of horrible compromise.

Latham’s popularity and his energy must, by the nature of the current reality, be sapping. The smarter readers will know this, and be awaiting the time when the situation changes.

It changes when Howard calls the election date.

At that moment, Howard throws the key on the table. And at that moment, Mark Latham is more equally able pick it up.

And at that moment, the general public, the mass mind, starts to take an interest.

What happens then?

Mark Latham is then more of an equal contender. He is not now. He may be regarded as such, but in terms of power, he is not, not now. And then as the general public grows in interest, he breathes more energy. The more interest from the general public, the more energy. With energy, comes greater focus and power and forthrightness, for the one who is in contention, regardless of how much of those things he had before: the key has been thrown onto the table, and that gives energy naturally to the one who would pick it up.

The reverse is true for the one who is incumbent. John Howard has thrown the key on the table, he’s thrown away the initiative, he now has to expend more energy to get them both back.

At that time, each more equal contender stands to represent something of the mass mind, and the mass mind begins to decide.

There is great division in our nation, as we’ve had to horribly face, and yet there is also a tremendous oneness.

The oneness, the unity, is found in the values we hold. At the time of more equal contention, both Latham and Howard will have a track record that above all else matters. One will stand for unity and inclusion, the other for divisiveness and exclusion.

Deep down, we all know how tolerant and what the true Australian is. This will be reflected in our new leader. Let’s have patience and understanding in the meantime.

Margo: And giving away our economic sovereignty to the big boys in America, against our national interest, while collapsing the energy Latham has built up among citizens – how does that fit in, Robert? Please explain! Why didn’t Latham have the guts to take this issue on? He could win back the former Labor battlers on the FTA issue, for a start. He could argue the national interest, and that Howard has betrayed it. Why did he do this, Robert. Why? Who owns the Labor Party?

***

Robert replied to my questions just after publication of this entry:

 

Mark Latham has not collapsed the energy built up among citizens. He has collapsed the illusion he was anything but a politician. Of course he has made mistakes; we all knew he would. But the energy you speak of has not been collapsed. Further, what has been collapsed is the illusion that we would immediately and from this terribly divided national condition, exacerbated for nearly a decade by Howard, fight on the grounds of an ideal national way. That is not the playing field we are on.

The energy you are speaking of is a latent energy. You and your readers will find in him more of what you are seeking at that moment. How will this happen?

It has left Howard, for a start. He loses much, much more when he calls the date. Howard must fight to retain public enthusiasm. He’s thrown everything and more at doing so, and hasn’t succeeded. Howard is not far enough ahead to win from this position, given among that the mass mind is now more fully aware of his divisive ways. That energy is there for the taking. It will congeal on Latham through Latham representing, within and through the confines of what he has to work with, a more inclusive country with a a forward direction. I am not here to advocate ALP policy, so look to them to find the extent of that inclusivity, beyond what Latham himself represents.

After that, let’s work to make the system better ourselves. We all must learn from this reign of John Howard and become more aware and more active, lest how can we ask our politicians representing us to be more of the ideal of we want! I recommend your book “Not Happy, John!” for providing positive ways in which this can happen.

This FTA is an horrific compromise and one that hurts me deeply, I assure you. I do not support the decision, but I understand the climate in which it was made. Yet this issue had to be dealt with. My only hope is that in power, good sense will prevail and the thing can be tempered. If not, let it be clear it is Howard’s legacy.

In relation to Latham taking this issue on, he did so. His actions are actions of inclusivity. You must remember he cannot afford to set afire the national public mind. He was threatened with this by Howard’s artillery, fully lined up and waiting.

What happens if the public mind is set afire? Fear is generated, it catalyses on Latham, and fear is Howard’s win. That is what Howard was seeking.

Try to see it in that light. Your enlightened and passionate readers may feel that Latham has set the public afire, but as much as your readership is extensive and valued, this is not the mass mind. The mass mind is not jumping up and down one way or another on this issue. That, Margo, is the greater problem.

Further questions must be asked of Mark Latham. Let’s ask those questions, and let’s listen to the answers. While doing so, consider the climate and understand what he has to do.

Alistair Mant is the author of Intelligent Leadership (Allen & Unwin), a leadership consultant and chairman of the United Kingdom’s Socio-Technical Strategy Group, which studies system function and dysfunction. Mant spends a third of his time in Australia working with government and private sectors on leadership, government modernisation and organisational structure. I published his expose on the terrible downside of mixing the public and private sectors in Muddying the waters between guardians and traders. This piece was first published in the Sunday Age and is republished with the author’s permission.

 

In any survey of political psychology, John Howard and George Bush probably ought to be dealt with separately. One is the most powerful man on earth – the other the smallish prime minister of a smallish, fairly prosperous democracy tucked away somewhere near the South Pole. Yet, psychologically, they occupy the same corner of the classroom. They are best understood as chronically naughty boys.

You could call it the psychology of the smart alec or, in modern parlance, the smartarse. Most smart alecs learn to make others laugh because they have to. In a seriously tough school, it may be the only way to avoid being roughed up by thugs; that was Clive James’ route to celebrity. But not for Howard and Bush.

There are certain men who seem impelled to be naughty. They end up in sales, politics, big business, the law (as barristers) and crime – any field where excitement is to be got by bending or breaking rules. They delight in outfoxing people, or seducing them, and they love the riskiness of rule-breaking. Names such as Abbott, Keating, Costello and Rumsfeld spring to mind.

There is a respectable argument that some people who are drawn to police work have stronger than normal delinquent urges as a result of an over-strict upbringing (often in a police household). By submitting themselves to rigid discipline and by projecting guilt onto other people, they can keep at bay their own overwhelming need to be naughty.

Many people, especially Sydneysiders, have come to see John Howard as the standard, boring, conventional, suburban solicitor – but one who got lucky and rode a political wave all the way to the beach – until he was beached, perhaps.

But most people in Australia have not heard him on the 1955 radio broadcast of Jack Davey’s Give it a Go quiz show. It is mighty revealing. The Prime Minister (then 16) is exposed as a cocky kid with absolutely no clue about the answers, but a cheeky confidence in going for it, anyway. He walked away with 100 cakes of Velvet soap.

All schoolteachers are familiar with this kind of kid – basically ignorant but always open to negotiation when it comes to catching the teacher’s eye. It is an old plaint of feminists that the schoolgirl who happens not to know the answer won’t put up her hand; the boy with half an answer (or in young John’s case, none at all) will still have a crack at it in the hope that something will turn up. In the broadcast, it becomes evident that the audience (which probably doesn’t know the answer, either) begins to side with the kid, and the quizmaster, sensing this, encourages him – an early lesson in populism; perhaps a crucial one.

It now seems that Howard should have retired gracefully last year, and that the decision to stay on may cost the Coalition dear. Why did he stay? The naughty-boy thesis would be that he could not help himself – he was just having too much fun! Ten years ago, everybody wrote him off, but now he’s the king of the castle.

Peter Costello may have the Blairite brains and the stylishness, but Howard has the Bushite power, and it intoxicates him. It’s as if the teacher has left and he rules the classroom.

The psychological link with George Bush could not be clearer. At Yale, Bush was known as “lip” for his wisecracking persona and his self-imposed role as nicknamer of everybody else. Nothing has changed. Bush can be charming, but cruel. The English journalist Julie Burchill memorably described him as exhibiting all the sullen anger of the reformed drunk.

Where does this anger come from? Why did the privileged first son of a wealthy dynasty become a drunkard and hell-raiser in the first place? That question cannot be answered without an understanding of the Bush family project.

The cognoscenti in Washington will tell you that Team Bush has had but one aim over four generations – the getting hold of and hanging onto power. Business success feeds political advancement; political advantage feeds business success.

If you seem to have the right stuff for the dynastic project, you will be a favoured son. If you seem to lack presidential timbre, you will likely feel frozen out.

George W. went from sweet-natured and charming child to spoilt brat in just a few years; from then on, his three brothers looked like better bets for the family project. History had different ideas once George found God.

Here the similarities with John Howard end. Young John was as ambitious as many of the students at Canterbury Boys’ High School, but there was apparently no unusual burden of expectation from his service-station-owning parents and, anyway, he had an older brother to mop up those expectations. But Howard adopted his parents’ political heroes in pretty much the same way as the young Margaret Thatcher did – in a backward-looking embrace of an old and more settled political order.

None of that sentimental nonsense for George Bush – you either had the capacity to play for the team, or you didn’t. For years he seemed unworthy. Now the family waits patiently in the wings.

Bush and Howard resemble each other in another respect – their shared hatred of clever liberalism. Both are very skilful indeed at reaching out to other people who resent cleverness and learning.

Bush, as clever as a fox when it comes to political chicanery, presents himself as an amiable Texan cowpoke. Yet, it is clear that his resentment of East Coast intellectuals is quite genuine. It is why he became a smartarse at Yale in the first place, and why he loathes John Kerry. It is why he does the cowpoke thing so persuasively.

Howard’s identification with the battlers is just as authentic – it is how he reaches out so successfully to anyone with a sense of grievance or resentment. He has described talkback radio as the iron lung of political opposition – necessary because of the centre-left disposition of other media.

We live in interesting political times. The arrival of Mark Latham lends a drama to forthcoming events. Like him or not, Latham presents as an anointed man. The mantle (at Werriwa) was laid upon him by the great Gough himself, but that is not the point. Anyone who has met Latham knows that he carries with him a sense of historical destiny. It is why he writes interminable books on deep and meaningful subjects (imagine John Howard writing the 391-page Civilising Global Capital in his own words).

Members of the acting profession understand the meaning of the term presence – you cannot describe what it is, but you surely feel it when the dramatic hero enters. The best way to appreciate this may be to watch the body language at question time in the House of Representatives – but with the sound turned off. But that is another story.

John Howard is a skilful and lucky politician, but no one, not even in the Coalition ranks, feels him to be an anointed leader. Peter Costello, another younger brother, has the makings if he can shrug off the naughty boy persona more successfully than Bush has done.

If John Howard should now fall from power, he will take it in his stride – he has already far surpassed anybody’s expectation of him. The naughty boy got away with it. If Bush fails, the consequences may be catastrophic for him – this would be yet another life-consuming failure and a crippling blow for Team Bush.

He was a shining new hope. Now he’s proved what we all knew, deep down, that the big parties are slaves to America, salesmen for big business, frightened of big media, and scared of representing the Australian people, either through avarice (big donations) or a simple failure of courage.

 

Opposition to the FTA could have won Latham an election, if he’d had the guts to go for it at a grassroots level. What a shame. Instead, he wants to use taxpayers money to help the losers, and there will be many. That’s us paying for American profits. Cool.

Maybe both Latham and Howard figure the disasters to follow from the agreement won’t worry them because they’ll be medium term. That’s the lack of quality of our leaders today.

You only have to read John Garnaut’s piece in last Saturday’s SMH News Review to understand the extent of the capitulation to the mighty power of American multinationals and Howard’s pure self-interest in being SEEN to get something for taking us to war against Iraq against our will. Garnaut reported that Trade minister Mark Vaile went to the US after Saddam’s statue fell with five top priorities – including ending US protection on sugar, dairy and beef, which would “account for the majority of benefits Australia might hope to gain”.

The U.S. said no to all of them, AND demanded a loosening of Australian controls on drugs prices, local media content and quarantine, all previously ruled out by Howard.

Howard then gave in on just about everything to secure the deal. Canada and other nations exempted culture policy from their deals – we didn’t even do that! This from the man who blathers on about not giving away our sovereignty to foreigners on human rights, and has now stopped future governments from protecting local content in new media!

Latham didn’t have the guts to say no immediately – he would have been supported by Australia’s top economists had he done so – and begin fighting the case for Australia by communicating with Australians. Now, he’s doing a Beazley. Like Beazley after Tampa, he’ll tell Caucus today to fall into line or risk losing the election. Latham is ushering in an era of Australia as 51st state, except without voting rights. Hurrah.

Tonight, Webdiary’s trade expert Brian Bahnisch summarises the countdown to Latham’s capitulation and Bob Phelps of the GeneEthics Network goes to town on the deal. But first, ALP member and Webdiarist Guido Tresoldi predicts what is to come for Latham as the hope he inspired turns to dust.

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Guido Tresoldi

I am responding to your views about ‘Latham vs the FTA’. The deal is as good as signed, after the ALP Senators recommended that it should be passed.

I am not a fan of the FTA, and I hope that Latham will reject it. But I expect that the onslaught against Latham from yourself and many Webdiarists will be relentless if he passes it, as is likely. Again, disappointment from those on the left about how the ALP has ‘betrayed’ its principles.

But is that the case? What about if the ALP has looked at the FTA and came to the calm conclusion that while it is not great there are insufficient reasons to block it?

No, this will be seen as ‘spineless’ ‘lack of leadership’ ‘small target strategy’, ‘Latham has blown it’, same as the Liberals etc etc.

I thought that the commitment of withdrawing the troop from Iraq which caused an avalanche of criticism from the President of the United States down would show that Latham is not that spineless.

If Latham does knock the thing back expect an avalanche of obfuscation from Howard (and his supporters in the media) with a deadly mix linking the rejection of the FTA, with Latham ‘anti-Americanism’ and leaving us exposed to terrorism threats etc.

In the heat of an election campaign this could be a great ploy. After all he has done it before with the refugees (remember the subtle, but effective refugee=potential terrorist link?)

***

Margo: The FTA is no Tampa. Sold the right way, by bypassing the mainstream media and getting down to the grassroots, could inspire Austraians across the voting spectrum to support Latham and Labor. He’s not game. Why????

***

FTA update, by Brian Bahnisch, author of ‘Picking the low-hanging fruit first’ in The U.S. Free Trade Agreement – always a silly idea, now a deadly trap for Australia.

Weekend roundup

Over the weekend there was a range of articles about the FTA. Essential reading included Alan Ramsey and John Garnaut in the Sydney Morning Herald.

A new twist was that Peter Cook circulated all the chapters of the Senate Report, but wanted to hear from caucus before writing his recommendations. It seems clear that what the shadow ministry decides is what caucus decides. In this regard, the articles by Alan Ramsey and Mark Davis make clear that Latham is really the determining factor. Ramsey lined up the shadow ministry and identifies which way he reckons each will jump. He believed it to be fairly evenly divided.

Of particular interest, though, is the notion that the left is strongly against while the right is much more luke-warm in it’s support for the FTA, and many of the right and centre would be happy to support the “no” position if that is the way it goes. Ramsey’s Labor insider suggested that if the FTA was approved by Latham it will sap the enthusiasm of the foot soldiers in the election contest. They would be inclined to go home after three hours of door knocking, rather than putting in five.

Queensland Premier Beattie on Lateline was a huge disappointment. I agreed with his statements that we have to use our brains more and that to the Americans we are of miniscule importance. More so in terms of geostrategic matters and support for their military adventures than trade as such. Other than that he was off the mark and his examples were way off. Simplistic and wrong-headed in my opinion.

He spoke of Brazil taking a delegation of 400 to China. This had nothing to do with an FTA. He should have realised that Brazil is taking it up to the US on trade in the FTAA (free trade for the Americas), stuck it to them in the WTO and is trying to revive Mercosur, an EU type agreement with neighboring countries, much to the displeasure of the US.

He spoke of the need for US capital and gave the example of the AMC, the magnesium debacle near Rockhampton. This is what Beattie is referring to when he speaks of “light metals”. AMC ran out of money for sure, but I understand the real problem was bad management. A sick joke, in fact. Getting US capital 0.05% cheaper (the CIE guestimate) has zip to do with its current prospects.

John Garnaut’s piece is definitely worth a read. His story of how the deal was concluded is the first more detailed account of what actually happened, and roughly accords with what I had thought. In the end the negotiating team were divided over whether they should make the final concessions to clinch the deal. One phone call between John and George and the deal was done.

Consider the position Mark Vaile found himself in. As a National he could never have signed up to this thing. For Howard, then, it has the added advantage of separating the Nationals from their constituency. What better politics than two wedges in one!

Monday am roundup

Mark Latham was in North Queensland. Whatever meetings of caucus, shadow cabinet, the leadership group, the Senate Committee or subsets thereof occur, the important interaction was on the phone between Latham and Peter Cook as chair of the Senate Committee.

Laura Tingle in the Australian Financial Review suggests Latham’s leadership is on the line this week. It is make or break for him. Tingle is typically severe on Latham, but she could be right. The left will wear being rolled – they have had a lot of practice at it. But the enthusiasm of their foot soldiers in the actual campaign will be drained as Labor moves from a Party of restored hope to the least worst option. And that is unlikely to prevail against John Howard’s ruthless focus on the main game, ie. achieving power by any means available.

Michelle Grattan’s article Labor’s body corporate in The Age similarly sees Latham’s decision on the FTA as a test of his leadership credibility, this time with the business leadership. He must pass it or he’s got none.

I’m sorry, Michelle, but I think you’ve got this one wrong. Latham needs to introduce a few policies that the business leadership won’t like, and he needs to be seen by the Labor faithful as not getting too cosy with business, as some of his predecessors did. In a recent article in theBusiness Review Weekly we were told that Simon Crean has been having lots of discussions with individual business CEO’s, bypassing the predictable reflex positions of the peak groups. Simon has been deliberately keeping low profile to give the new leader clear air.

Ross Gittins at the SMH made another useful contribution in Trade deal a free kick for US software racketeers:

Competition is what drives the sector, the barriers to invention are very low, and any good computer science student should be able to toss off a dozen “patentable” ideas before breakfast. There is no massive intellectual investment to protect, and although in some cases the software itself that crystallises a set of ideas may take years to write, it is covered under copyright law.

Software patents are bad news for Australian companies who will be forced to play an expensive legal game against people who are ruthless professionals. They are bad news for Australian users, who will pay monopoly prices for software. And they are bad news for Australian software engineers, who will find lawyers designing their programs.

Existing copyright law is all the protection computer software needs. Anything else is a free kick for the US software patent racketeers.

The Australian’s Glen Milne had an anti-union rant. More seriously, he claimed that the AMWU has based its intellectual case on a study by the economist Peter Brain. These intellectual underpinnings of the Labor Left “have been cut and diced by Australia’s foremost trade doyen, Alan Oxley”, he wrote.

I’ll need to look into this a bit more, but on the surface I find it astonishing. Peter Brain is a respected economist, with a brain, who has a lot of credibility in regional and rural Australia. He thinks for himself, is not a camp follower, and famously predicted the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

On the other hand Alan Oxley we know has a mouth – we hear it all the time on the ABC. He will say anything to win an argument in favour of free trade in which he has a clear vested interest. Remember he was the one who assured us clearly, without any equivocation, and with derision towards those who suggested otherwise, that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme would NOT be included in the FTA. Had nothing whatsoever to do with it, he said; a completely separate issue, he said.

Re Tony Kevin’s article in A plague on both their houses on the FTA, overall, it was right on the nail! Herewith a few comments.

We are not short of capital in this country, but we are short of risk capital especially in some industries that are important to our future. One such is the biotech area in general. We are also almost totally dependent on overseas majors to exploit our significant intellectual capital in the discovery and development pharmaceutical drugs. We have a plethora of small companies with one or a handful of products launching themselves on the market. The successful ones are easy pickings for takeover.

We don’t seem to understand that the successful Asian globalisers did it by governments picking winners, protecting growing industries while they are established and then launching them on the world. Think Korean steel, for example.

Furthermore they did it by limiting foreign investment, insisting on local equity partners and technology transfer. Now that they have successful industry clusters they can afford to take a more relaxed approach.

Tony Kevin is spot on in pointing out that the foreigners will buy up our winners. The $800 million limit on an automatically granted takeover by an American company translates into a company about the size of the Bank of Adelaide. Such companies are well established and can have an after-tax profit of up to $60 million. The hard yards have been done. The Americans will simply be able to monitor the field and buy the best without conditions attached.

Kevin is right to be concerned about the car industry, as it is one of the few genuine industry clusters we have and the heart of our manufacturing industry. We are good at complex rather than simple parts, such as lightweight brakes and we supply the wheels for Harley Davidson’s, for example. We design new models with a fraction of the fuss and manpower the Americans would use and in less time.

GMH is well integrated into a global production system and Ford could become so too. Toyota is the problem initially as it does not make special models for Australia and you would think that at some time in the future they would consolidate their operations in Kentucky.

The other problem is American part makers making cheaper parts in Mexican factories, marking them “Made in the USA” and trucking them across the border to export duty free to us. We would lack the capacity to protect ourselves from that sort of cheating. It requires the will and the resources of a multinational to do the necessary leg-work.

The car industry is essential to Australia’s industrial future and should not be put at risk, as I believe it will be under this FTA.

Meanwhile at the WTO

Meanwhile at the WTO in Geneva it seems they have a deal which promises a wind-back of agricultural subsidies in the rich countries. Note the word ‘promises’. That has been done before. This time the G90 group of poor countries will have to hold them to it.

It’s important to realise though that in many of these countries there are elites who benefit from more trade, whereas the poor do not always benefit. At least not inevitably so as the World Bank and the denizens of capital would have you believe. Sometimes too the poor get screwed by their own governments in the process of ‘globalisation’.

There are too many angles to this deal to go into here. For our farmers there is little to cheer. The majors will use “special product provisions” to protect their domestic farm sectors from harm. This means in effect that you will have the right to sell into their markets as much as you like as long as you don’t actually do so – in any quantity, that is. Then they will stop you dead with tariffs and/or quotas.

This is no surprise as it is already a feature of the gradual opening of the US market to our farmers under our wonderful FTA.

In general, however, the WTO deal will not slow the impetus to bilateral and regional deals.

***

Bob Phelps, Executive Director, GeneEthics Network

Australia’s national interests and sovereign independence will be gravely damaged if the ALP votes with the Coalition to legalise Howard’s and Bush’s so-called Free Trade Agreement with the USA. The ALP’s prospects of winning the federal election will also be lost among voters who want an end to the government’s sycophantic pandering to US interests.

Many Australian’s see merit in free trade, but the US economy is run by corporate interests which flout free trade rules and do not accept a level playing field for their competitors. For instance, the US government’s Farm Bill continues to subsidise US farmers with US$333 billion over the next decade and the FTA would delay more Australian farm exports to the USA into the distant future.

This bilateral agreement is not free or fair and Australia would continue to be the Deputy Sheriff, up against an economy hundreds of times bigger than our own.

The WTO’s multilateral system offers protections, such as the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Rules and dispute resolution for all parties, but the bilateral proposal does not.

Genetically engineered (GE) crops and foods would be forced down our throats and onto our farms, ending our hopes of keeping Australia as the world’s GE-free food bowl, with free access to world markets.

The FTA would open the way for the USA to insist on:

* ending our labelling of GE foods (weak as our laws are);

* watering down our quarantine rules that help protect Australia’s clean, green, GE-free farms;

* weaker risk assessments of GE crops and foods coming into Australia than those provided under WTO rules;

* ending state bans on the commercial planting of GE canola;

* permanently refusing to sign and ratify the Biosafety Protocol, to help reduce contamination by GE organisms transferred internationally;

* free access for GE and other foods from the USA, even though these are subsidised with US$33 billion pa under the US Farm Bill.

Most Australians want fair trade and the right to choose local, fresh GE-free foods.

G�day. The substance of the US �Free� Trade Agreement seems to have got wholly lost in venal short term domestic politics, on both sides. Howard promised we wouldn�t do a deal if it wasn�t to our advantage, but did that very thing anyway to somehow prove that his obedience on Iraq actually had a payoff. Security and Trade never mix with the Yanks, but suddenly, if Labor says no, it�s anti-American. Mainstream media debate has been scant � I wonder why? – and from what I�ve read the majority of Latham�s shadow Cabinet wants to deal to avoid the anti-American tag from Howard. The national interest? Who cares?

 

See Alan Ramsey�s pieces yesterday Sovereignty lost in the trade-off and Political drama without a happy ending.

It�s sick.

Tonight, ex-Australian ambassador Tony Kevin’s stunning commentary:

Latham�s fateful choice, and Peter Beattie�s cargo cult economics

The irony is that Latham does not have to reject this FTA to meet Australian voter hopes that he will show backbone. He only has to say, ” We will look at this again after our two countries� elections are over. It has good and bad points for Australia. The fact that the US Congress voted so overwhelmingly in favour of Howard�s deal means that there is room for some rebalancing to level the playing field. We will look at it again after our election is over and I win government”.

To say this would not damage Australian-US relations. It is what Whitlam or Keating would be saying now.

There is a fine article by Brian Bahnisch, “Picking the low-hanging fruit first”, introduced with some cogent words from Margo Kingston, discussing Mark Latham�s current dilemma on the AUSFTA, on Webdiary 29 July 2004.

Labor is about to cripple its electoral chances, and our nation is about to be saddled nationally with a bad and dangerous agreement, unless Mark Latham has the sense and courage to defy the misguided siren-singers now circling around him. This is a big leadership test for him – I hope he will meet it.

After Queensland Premier Peter Beattie�s bizarre ABC AM interview last Wednesday with Catherine McGrath, more needs to be said on this vital national interest issue (Thankfully, Beattie qualified his na�ve cargo cult economics by noting that he was only “talking about it from Queensland’s point of view”).

Beattie argued Australia needed to sign this FTA to encourage US investment which we now need to generate more jobs in Australia. He recited this desperate mantra:

One thing I know � and this is where I disagree with the metal workers union � if we don’t sign up to the American free trade agreement and get investment in light metals, we’re going to lose jobs. And in the long-term, their approach on this will cost jobs. That’s what it will do. It’ll cost jobs. It won’t create jobs, it’ll cost jobs. It won’t protect jobs, it’ll cost jobs. We have to do what we can to create jobs and that’s the only way I can see us doing it.

In essence his position was that the agreement will bring US capital to Australia that will create more jobs. He said:

… to become competitive, we’ve got to have an injection of capital. I’d like to see American capital injected here to build up our industries so that we can compete in a realistic partnership way, with opportunities in China and elsewhere. I mean otherwise, we’re going to be swamped.

… jobs will be at risk unless we expand our own industry with the use of American capital, and try to take advantage of those investments.

But there is absolutely no economic evidence for this. What job-creating industries is US capital establishing in Australia? Where is there data for this? (Margo: See also Beattie�s Lateline interview on Friday night, where Maxine ran a disappointing interview by not challenging Beattie on the substance of his spin.)

This would be a laughable argument, except that it comes from a Labor state premier speaking on national radio and offering advice to Labor�s leader, so it has to be answered seriously. Here is why Beattie is wrong:

� US capital enters Australia freely now, up to very large limits. If the object of the FTA were to make it easier for larger US capital investments here, why not simply – as Ross Garnaut testified to the Senate Committee – abolish Australia�s Foreign Investment Review Board? Why not support open-slather foreign investment, forgetting about issues like national ownership of key resources and industrial assets? Let us become a branch office economy. We can do it simply by abolishing FIRB. We don�t need a bad-deal AUSFTA with all its other disadvantages for us as well.

� The Beattie idea that Australia is short of investment capital is nonsense too. We still have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. A lot of our locally-generated capital goes overseas (in recent years a lot has been wasted in ill-judged Australian corporate investments in the UK and US). Then our tax system encourages the misdirection of Australian capital into unproductive owner-occupied housing and tax-subsidised leased luxury business cars – the large McMansions springing up all around our cities, with their rows of fully imported 4WD wagons parked in front of their triple garages, finally exist because of distortions in our tax system that shelter this kind of “investment” over the investments Beattie pleads for.

Because no major party has yet had the guts to address our tax system, too much of our home-grown capital gets frittered away in such excess consumption. Not to mention the huge amount of money we siphon away in gambling. Our country has more than enough capital to employ our population and more � it�s just that we use most of it less productively than we should, in terms of generating jobs for our kids. (Whom we meanwhile impoverish under HEX loans � we stuff their chances both ways).

� American capital investment coming into Australia is not a free gift. It is a loan. It still has to be serviced in interest or dividends and eventually, at a time of the provider�s choosing, repaid to the US. Beattie�s cargo cult economics reminds me of credulous Melanesian islanders waiting vainly for their free “cargo” from US planes coming from the sky. Hey, it�s not like that, Peter. There is a price to be paid for foreign capital, in terms of loss of national economic autonomy, freedom of decision, and sovereignty. The more of our economy we allow to pass into foreign ownership, the less sovereignty we will have. It is that simple. (One way of dealing with it would be to diversify sources of foreign ownership � so that it is not all US and UK-based. But Howard would not hear of that heresy, would he?).

� Much foreign investment does not go into new jobs-creating green field�s investment in new plants. Much of it goes into buying existing winners � enterprises that canny foreign investors can see the value of, especially in terms of creative Australian talent and intellectual property and entrepreneurship. In other words, cherry-picking our best and our most potentially internationally competitive ideas and enterprises, industrial or agricultural. (Margo: On this point, seeSubsuming us into America – the economic aspect.)

� And once they have bought and own such enterprises, US owners can do what they wish with them � repatriate management and research capability back to US home base, and try to persuade the best and brightest Australian staff to go with it. Look at the history of Aspro (Nicholas), Berlei bras, Helena Rubinstein, the early Australian aviation industry � how did so many promising Australian companies in the end become American companies? Simple � the Americans bought them. That is what US investment really means. As often as not, it eventually means loss of Australian jobs, especially the most high-paying and creative ones, to the US – not new jobs. No wonder 1 million Australians are working overseas. No wonder so many are working in the US leaving lonely parents and grandparents back here wondering where their kids went. Think about it, Peter.

� But Peter Beattie doesn�t have to think about all that. It is not a state premier�s problem. But Mark Latham does have to think nationally. What happens to our thriving IT companies, our creative arts companies, our biotech companies, our garment design houses, under this agreement? Will the best of them be cherry-picked and sucked up by US capital in the new integrated commercial environment? Thanks, John, for bringing us this Trojan horse.

� Meanwhile, as US Ambassador Tom Schieffer has reassured us, we can all go back to making parts � simple low-value ones, I guess � for cars assembled in the US. Remember those low-wage assembly lines in the 1960s? The high value end of the car industry � the design, the marketing, the high technology and IT � can flow back to US parent companies. Goodbye, Holden, Falcon, Camry. Is this really where 60 years� effort to build a viable Australian car industry � that we now have finally achieved – ends? Thanks, John. Thanks, Ambassador.

Wake up, Beattie! This FTA isn�t about protecting Australian jobs or capital. This shonky deal is about John Howard trying to salvage something politically from the mess of his Iraq policy � to try to convince credulous voters that he has plucked some alleged economic benefit for Australia out of the tragic and shameful Iraq invasion imbroglio.

But he hasn�t. The Emperor has no clothes. There is not enough real benefit in this FTA for us. Even Vaile wanted no deal in the end � why are we all burying that recorded fact?

Ironically, the structure of this agreement � the small print – offers good prospect of benefits for US exporters and investors. Zoellick knew a good deal when he saw one. They are being offered preferential access to Australia�s national garage sale. Lots of good stuff to sell � but only one buyer, thank you � big, rich and white. You can see who will win there. No wonder the US Congress fell over itself to vote for this deal. As Zoellick murmured quietly, Australia offers “the low-hanging fruit”, The Canberra Times’ Jack Waterford reported the US diplomat as saying to him? “We like you Aussies, because you are such an easy lay”. Thanks again, John, for taking such good care of us. There is no net benefit to Australia in this FTA. There is only farmer disappointment, and unacceptable risk, and loss of sovereignty. We do not need this so-called Free Trade Agreement.

Webdiarist Alun Breward translated a piece from Der Spiegel before the US, Britain and Australia invaded Iraq called A think tank war: Why old Europe says no which is Webdiary’s most read entry. In this piece, he translates a weblog about a speech to the US Democrats Convention published by Germay’s national broadaster that will get no publicity here. The speech was by Steve Brozak, a registered Republican voter who served in Iraq last year and is now a Democrat candidate for Congress.

 

***

Conservative American values, that Brozak doesn’t see in Bush

by Rainer S�tfeld, 29 July 2004

John Edwards has had plenty of coverage from those who witnessed his performance at the Democrats Convention or at the Press Centre. But who witnessed Steve Brozak�s speech?

Brozak spoke too, sometime during the shutdown of TV coverage, after the evening news and before Wheel of Fortune. His speech won�t register in any transcript. But nonetheless he represents the great hope of the Kerry campaign, the essence of this four day stageshow, which aims to show an electorate which craves national unity that Democrats are just like them.

Steve Brozak is an ordinary American and Democrat, but only since the war on Iraq. One Friday afternoon, just after the attack on Baghdad, this ordinary, short man (a serving Lieutenant of the Reservist Marines) walked into the Westfield Town Hall. He had his name struck off the Republican voter roll and registered as a Democrat. One small step for mankind, but for this conservative businessman the greatest possible protest against his Commander in Chief, George W. Bush.

The forty-three year old is living proof that not every soldier is game to follow Bush; that the Republicans do not own the votes of the armed forces.

Bush began to lose the support of this firm patriot long before the Iraq adventure, when Brozak noted that Bush�s allies were treating Vietnam Vets like John McCain and Max Cleland like dirt.

His anger grew as he realised how the Bush administration treated armed forces Reserves. Seventy percent of Brozak�s New Jersey National Guard are on deployment – more than at any time since World War Two. Their tours of duty are constantly extended, with the result that they lose their jobs and their businesses fail. But in response there has been no sign of help from the top brass in Washington.

This made him increasingly angry. It drove him to change sides. The Republican Party under Bush had shifted ground, leaving Brozak, with his political convictions unchanged, firmly in the camp of the Democrats. That is why he stood at the lectern that Clinton, Carter and Edwards had used, and where Kerry will soon speak.

And Steve Brozak, the man you�re unlikely to hear of again, is not stopping there. He will be standing as a Democrat for Congress. He wants the USA to be strong and respected once again. He wants no-one to look askance at the US soldier again, on some future unilateral USA deployment. It�s not about political parties any more, it’s about the America that you learnt about in school.

G�day. As I noted in Webdiary’s ethics, my piece on the evolution of Webdiary, whenever its content tilts strongly to the �left�, whatever that means these days, readers self-balance the forum.

 

On July 26, Webdiarist Shaun O’Brien emailed me this complaint:

I sign off to Webdiary oblivion since really I have more fun watching my kids videos than I do trawling through Webdiary these days. I always understood that I would be in the conservative minority but now it has come to such a state that no longer does Webdiary stand for hearing alternative views. Fellow conservative and webdiary columnist Noel Hadjimichael hasn’t had an entry since April 23 and I have hardly read a dissenting view over the last couple of months – please point me to one. (Margo: Brian Harradine, man of honour.)

Maybe Webdiary no longer stands for different views as much as for scaring them away.

Margo, by all means press for “regime” change with the Federal Government, but it�s ironic that you have lost all sense of perspective in your pursuit of this goal.

Anyway I will continue to browse Webdiary on occasions to see if the tide has turned, but given the latest lot of articles I will next expecting to see that Howard/Bush were really the ones hiding behind the grassy knoll that fateful day or that Michael Moore is now your latest Webdiarist.

I still offer you my best for the future but you now have lost one dissenting voice in a roar of screaming anti-Howard vitriol.

The very next day, Noel sent me a column. The hiatus was due to a change of jobs, from solicitor to lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Western Sydney. I emailed Shaun with the good news, and got some strong views on current issues in reply. So, first Shaun, then Noel�s column, and a tidying up of the now-closed �Z� debate � a correction from Steve Sher, and what happened to the content of Rubenstein strikes again: Now Howard’s a champion of human rights!

***

Shaun O�Brien

Expecting me to stamp my foot and exclaim out my indignation to the horrible tree hugging leftie propaganda that has populated Webdiary over the last few months? You have certainly copped a pummelling over the Zionist article. I am strangely ambivalent over that topic since the whole Israel-v-the rest of the world is a very circular argument that will not be resolved without some sort of “big bang” event. Terrible thoughts I know, but having a pragmatic view of the world allows me to see what will probably happen versus what should happen. Israel and the Arabs act like the line out of the movie The Untouchables – “They pull a knife you pull a gun. They send one of yours to the hospital you send one of theirs to the morgue”.

Let�s get to some topics:

(1) The US

Its funny seeing everyone viewing the US through their own eyes rather than stepping back and really understanding the US psyche. I am amazed that so many think that the woes of the world have only come about because GWB is in power. How stupid are people?

Most people think that Reagan was a great president, but I see more of today�s events falling on his legacy more than any president after him, especially in the Middle East. Think about his support of the mujihadeen in Afghanistan against the Soviets that led to the installation of the Taliban, cosy relationships with Saddam during the Iran/Iraq war, backroom deals with Iran (Iran-Contra affair), poor strategic and tactical decisions made in the occupation of Lebanon and wasting so much energy on what was happening in Central America when it was never going to have an impact on the US/world anyway.

It would be ironic that in 10 or 20 years time we look back at the whole Iraq invasion and see that it led to an improvement in the Middle East. It my feeling that GWB and his invasion will ultimately be seen in this light, even though I think he is thick as two bricks.

(2) Intelligence Agency Failings

If the intelligence agencies of the world ever worked as well as the media believed they should have then we would not have had any of the two world wars, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the two Iraq wars, Sept 11 or Bali. The Pearl Harbour attack would have been stopped and the West would have not wasted so much energy in seeing the end of the Soviets, since their system of government was never ultimately going to work. The only time we have seen intelligence information working in the world was the Cuban affair, and that�s because the US had supposedly someone on the inside of the Soviets giving them info on the capabilities that allowed the US to stare them down.

But since Saddam had such tight control over his entire country, the chances of getting good intelligence from a source was near impossible, and if intelligence history tell us anything it is that the human element inside is the only way to have reliable intelligence – why do you think the Mossad is so good for Israel? – rather than the guesses we had on Iraq�s WMD.

(3) FTA

It�s good to see Latham sweat over the FTA, especially since it shows that the ALP is beholden to the unions still, and as such are the ultimate “special interest” lobby group in politics. After all the whinging about Hanson and her impact on the Liberal�s policies, it�s a pity the media don�t treat the ALP in the same vein with the unions (my favourite whipping horse).

I wonder how many of the ALP supporting music bands are complaining about the laws that are supposedly being offered in the FTA with copyright infringements. It�s my understanding that they would get much more protections from the law in stopping piracy from the internet, but not a word from them. Where are Garrett�s comments as a former musician?? I could be horribly wrong about this part of the FTA, but if so it�s the media�s fault, since that�s where I heard it from.

(4) Commonwealth-v- the States

Why is there so little comment in Webdiary over one of the most negative impacts on this country – the constant bickering and bureaucratic wastage with the responsibilities over the same areas between the Federal and States? And to have Latham and the Labor premiers all sit down for a love fest made me laugh. Just wait to the next split of GST revenues and see how long the togetherness lasts, or maybe when the southern states want Queensland to lose more water rights for the Murray. How much money is wasted in doubling up the bureaucracy? How much money for schools, unis and health benefits could be increased?

Shame on you Margo for not highlighting what REALLY is impacting on this country rather than some ideological rant about Iraq.

(5) The Media

Again this is crystal balling, but imagine if the Hawke/Keating government had as much scrutiny from the media, especially from the internet, as the Howard Government has and tell me if their standing would not have fallen just as much. I know you don�t have a good word to say about the Carr Labor government and I know that Beattie here in Queensland is a master manipulator, so it is just a change in politics that has to adapt to the greater and minute coverage offered by the media of everything it does.

The Hawke/ALP government would not have lasted as long as they did, and poor old Joh and the Nats in Queensland would not have had the chance to set up all their corrupt activities.

I see that the poor pollies have greater exposure from the media than ever before and the ridiculous standards (outside of corrupt practices of course) which the media judge them sometimes make me fear what sort of person will choose to be a politician in the years to come. If you journalists keep to a standard of reporting of the politicians that doesn�t allow some of the freedom the rest of us are afforded in our lives then the quality of people taking up the responsibilities of running our country will be bland bunch of Howard�s (see I am not a Howard lover!!!). Heaven help us!!!!!

Sorry if the above is a bit all over the place but I did have plenty on my chest to say. Till next time (maybe!!)

***

Conviction politics, please!

by Noel Hadjimichael

Give me conviction leadership over convenience pollies any day.

The last three months have seen Latham Labor take a few steps forward and a lot of steps back.

Latham has reinstated Kim Beazley to the ALP front bench to deflect worry about Mark Latham�s line on defence, security and all that scary stuff. Don�t expect the leader to allow Kim to speak to toddlers or even voters in outer suburban marginals in case they like him more than the boss.

We have seen Simon Crean achieve what only obscure backbenchers aim for: total and complete absence from the policy debate and the television screens of the nation. No cheerful visit to the Kerry Anne show or even the SBS news.

This new Labor crowd have done a great job on the hard issues. They have either sent them to committees (the Free Trade Agreement), left things up in the air (funding for private schools) or tried to please everyone (no tax policy until it is too late). But we have enjoyed a vision of things that matter: a return to the tired old Republic, the ambiguous offer of a better deal to East Timor on energy resources and humanitarian aid to Iraq (pity about the security situation).

What we need is to discover who the conviction politicians are – the people who actually believe in something, stand for something or even take unpopular decisions because they think them right, not expedient. Leadership is not a mastery of focus groups, it is more a reflection of strategic vision coupled with the courage to see things through. This is not a time for leadership that is untested or suspect.

This is no time for the crash through or crash politics of the trendy 1970s courtesy of Mr Latham�s apparent return to the good old days of Mr Whitlam.

Whether the progressive left like it or not, both John Howard and Bob Brown have carved out a very powerful status as conviction politicians. It is possible for voters to easily comprehend where these leaders are coming from in terms of values, heritage, policy framework and track record.

Labor must be very frightened about their prospects in seats like Banks and Greenway in Sydney�s suburbs. The appeal of generation X gimmicks will win precious few voters in the trendy cafes of Haberfield or Paddington. However, the priorities of sound economic management, security with the US alliance intact and a growing sense of mature nationalism will sway more voters in the key seats that Labor will have to keep.

A rushed spending spree from Labor funded from the black hole of waste reductions will rock interest rates. A union leadership endorsed industrial relations policy will defeat the very aspirational small business voters that Mr Latham was chosen to appeal to.

Reading books to kids will win applause from parents, jeopardising their access to affordable private schools will create distrust and a backlash.

Standing in front of an American flag will calm fears of diplomatic disasters; a lack of clarity on the war on terror will rob Labor of its right to a return to government.

Giving working families a helping hand with tax cuts would be welcome step, attacking relief for employees on about $55,000 a year is just old style class envy.

If I want a real left party with its commitment to big picture social justice, I can punt for the Greens any time soon. If I want a government that will offer a package to promote and prosper middle Australia I just can�t go past the Coalition.

Sadly, Labor has seen its star peak and must now be thinking about an exit strategy from the politics of young blood, Generation X stunts and keeping the frontbench away from the media.

***

CORRECTION

Steve Sher

With regard to the recent debate about alleged Zionist “Media Control” a link was posted supplied by Ronald H Tolkien in The post-apology debate . It was to media monitors.net and contained a report quoting the Israeli PM, Ariel Sharon allegedly saying to then Foreign Minister Peres in 2001: “Don’t worry about American pressure; we the Jewish people control America.”

Media Monitors’ website listed the source of this quote to “I.A.P. News”. Upon previously hearing that this quote had been fabricated, I endeavoured to contact “I.A.P. News” and get and answer. After all, surely this organisation could put the matter to rest once and for all. Alas, has anyone here actually done a search for an I.A.P. News Service?

I did, with interesting results. It appears there is no international media organisation by this name, as the web link implies.

I.A.P., where this quote originated, is the Islamic Association of Palestine. Here is a sample of their “news”. Hardly a neutral and unbiased organisation.

Upon undertaking an internet search following the alleged quote by Ariel Sharon, all reported mentions of his words alluded to it being reported by “I.A.P. News”. I.A.P. claimed the words were broadcast on Israel Radio (Kol Yisrael), in Hebrew. Israel radio denies this was ever broadcast. Interestingly, no other source has picked it up. I could not find reference to it being reported in any other media outlet. All trails appeared to lead back to I.A.P.

And I.A.P. itself is an interesting outfit. It would appear this “News Service” has been the subject of federal US investigations for possible links to terrorist groups, such as Hamas. Note the details of the FBI raid on their services as reported in The Guardian.

Margo, the alleged comments were reproduced by prominent American Universal Press Columnist Georgie Anne Geyer, in the May 10th edition of the Chicago Tribune.

Following complaints that the quote was false, Universal Press’s own research into the source of the comments led it to release a statement that the alleged words by Sharon were “widely reported in the Palestinian press but cannot be confirmed in independent sources. Geyer and Universal Press Syndicate regret not having attributed the quote more specifically”.

In fact, there was no quote by Ariel Sharon claiming “control” of America as alleged. I challenge any Webdiarist here to present its transcript, in full, as reported by any reputable news organisation.

It is a worrying sign of the times that such a blatant falsehood like this could even get a run. When false statements like this are fabricated and then propagated, they lead to further cementing of a mindset that promotes racial division.

How does it make Jews look? How did it impact upon people’s thoughts after opening the offending falsehood on Tuesday? And now, to discover that it is not true? Richard Tolkien has done himself a disservice by not investigating the links fully contained in Media Monitors.Net.

The quote contained a myth designed to sustain an even longer and more hate-filled canard, that being supposed Jewish/Israeli “control”. It would appear to me, by the amount of readers who readily swallowed this tripe, that the Palestinian PR campaign probably has the better oiled machine.

Thanks again for the opportunity to write in.

***

My ethics and Rubenstein strikes again: Now Howard’s a champion of human rights!

The Australian�s diary column yesterday included this item:

Fundamental foibles

AT Fairfax, after commenting in her online “Webdiary” last Thursday that “the fundamentalist Zionist lobby controls politics and the media in the US and Australia”, online journalist Margo Kingston went into damage control on Monday, apologising to those she’d offended. However, Diary understands Kingston posted the following even more incendiary remark on her website on Friday night: “Far from protecting Jewish people against future atrocities, the Fundamentalist Zionist lobby is actually promoting anti-Semitism by its actions and tactics. Neither major party in either country is game to protest, because the power of the lobby is such that careers can be ruined. It is becoming increasingly obvious that John Howard is the lobby’s strong choice to win the election, and that means big money and big power will be behind him.”

Mysteriously, as Kingston confronted claims of anti-Semitism over her earlier remark, the later comment disappeared from her website. We’re waiting to see how this squares with Webdiary’s own code of ethics, which states: “I will let you know when archives have been changed except when changes do not alter their substance, for example corrections to spelling or grammar.” Pretty rich from someone who frequently attacks the ethical standards of other media outlets.

Soon after publishing the item concerned on Friday night, I read an email from a work colleague who had found my comment in the previous day�s entry On the road again offensive. I then looked at the Rubenstein piece and cut out everything which I thought could conceivably offend anyone. I have no wish to personally offend people on Webdiary.

As often happens with ethics codes, a conflict can sometimes arise and a judgment must be made. Do I keep the lines I�d taken out in and cross them out? Or do I delete them and note that I�ve deleted unspecified material? Since the piece had not been published for long, and was published at night, when few if any people would have read it, I chose to leave it at that. So I breached one ethic to protect another. I explained this to The Australian when it called before publication of the item. I received no complaint about the Rubenstein piece in the subsequent deluge of emails about �On the road again�. It�s a bit strange, I reckon, that The Australianthen publishes a phrase it clearly finds offensive, but that�s the way it goes, I guess. In retrospect, I should have told you in my next Webdiary that I had deleted certain unspecified comments from the Rubenstein piece. My apologies for not doing so.

PS: I was about to press the ‘publish’ button on this entry when I read this email from Imre Salusinszky, the bloke from The Australian who rang me before publication of the diary entry I’ve been discusing. Here it is.

Imre Salusinszky

As you know, an item in The Australian on Thursday, July 29 claims that you wrote, and later silently removed, the following comment from your July 23 posting, “Rubenstein strikes again”:

“Far from protecting Jewish people against future atrocities, the Fundamentalist Zionist lobby is actually promoting anti-Semitism by its actions and tactics. Neither major party in either country is game to protest, because the power of the lobby is such that careers can be ruined. It is becoming increasingly obvious that John Howard is the lobby’s strong choice to win the election, and that means big money and big power will be behind him.”

Allow me to quote from your own code of ethics:

6. I will let you know when archives have been changed except when changes do not alter their substance, for example corrections to spelling or grammar. I will amend archived Webdiary entries to include corrections of fact and advise you accordingly.”

Surely you who have been so unrelentingly critical of the ethical standards of “big party” politicians and “big media” journalists are not going to try and ignore the “posting overboard” allegation?

So are you prepared now to check the electronic record and tell readers exactly when the comment was deleted? On what other occasions has the archive been silently altered? What made this case different to “On the road again?” where you eventually did insert a comment that material had been removed? And how does the secretly removed material affect your postings on Monday and Tuesday, in particular the claim that your earlier remark on the “fundamentalist Zionist lobby” was merely a “throwaway line”? To quote again from your own code of ethics:

“I want you to trust Webdiary. Trust is the ideal at the core of all professional ethics codes, which are guidelines for conduct which aim to achieve that ideal.”

Not happy, Margo!

Margo: I don’t know how to check the electronic record but I’ll ask someone who does on Monday. I amend the archive on occasions for spelling and grammar mistakes, often picked up by the army, it sometimes seems, of people scrutinising Webdiary. This situation has never before occurred. The difference with ‘On the road’ is that people had read it, and reacted, whereas the other comments were removed before – on the evidence of my email traffic – anyone who was offended had read it. The removed material, in my view, is not relevant to the debate over the comment which has generated the debate. I did not say the “fundamentalist Zionist lobby” part of the comment was throwaway, and have not retracted those words. I’ve retracted the word “controls” and explained what I meant in ‘The post apology debate’. I hope I’ve proved that Webdiary is trustworthy through my postings since this furore began.