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Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

This is getting scary. I agree with Carmen Lawrence!

As she writes in A fair go education system: the advantages for all of us, education is the passport to equality. If we want justice for all, we have to educate all. Equally.

It really does seem that core Australian values are egalitarianism and the so-called “fair-go”. This sounds a lot like social justice to me, and if we are to live up to our Australian “creed” then we need to satisfy ourselves that we are not designing systems that magnify inequality.

This is not about punishing excellence. It is about raising the target for ALL.

We excel on a global basis at sport but we don’t say our broad-based sporting programs punish excellence. Not for a second. Excellence is encouraged at every turn and opportunity begs for excellence at every second turn.

Perhaps elitist schools based on religion should go back to their creed. I seem to remember something in the Bible that went along these lines: “Whatsoever you do to the least of your brothers, that you do unto me”. This is a very clear instruction that everyone, no matter what their circumstances, needs to be raised up by their fellow human being.

That’s raised up, not pushed down. Earlier religious figures, at least in the Catholic Church, realised that in geographies where they were discriminated against (eg early Australia) one of the most powerful ways to overcome sectarian disadvantage was by a focus on EDUCATION. Catholics then systematically set about to educate their young.

Paul Keating left a Marist Brothers school at 15 but he could certainly read and write. Some of these poorer schools did exceptionally well.

This is 2003 however, and we’re a secular state. At least I hope we are. We should be proud of that fact. We don’t need to resort to a religious creed to find our collective feeling. The secular spiritual roots of Australia (now there is a potential contradiction in terms) are most certainly toward egalitarianism. It goes much further than convicts and 1788.

It is why the Prime Minister sits in the front seat with his driver. It is why he wanted “mateship” in a preamble to the Constitution.

My fear is that these empty gestures will become the last remaining symbols of our shared belief in egalitarianism. Yes, we pull together in disasters. We put out fires together. We have much to be proud of. When times are good though, do we look out for each other?

Beyond the heroics and the undoubted strength of the national character, there needs to be a daily dedication to the original creed. Do we live it or do we just say it?

It’s time to decide. We are at the cross roads and now we can decide whether the original creed was crap or whether we should stick with it.

We were more civilised than our colonial masters because we were ultimately better at finding ways to “tame the savage beast of man”. We need to hold onto our roots. The good parts that said beneath our distinctive accent was a deep enlightenment that we had found a better way. We had turned our backs on class and the Old World. The Aborigines were excluded, but if you were white you would be judged in our new society not on who your father was, what your religion was or what school you went to. It became more about what you did. A kind of enlightened egalitarian meritocracy. Really. That is what it was (or is).

Advance Australia Fair.

This spirit is still there and the people who can nurture it will be the heroes of generations to come. Our society is human and as flawed as any other, but if we can energise those special original feelings we can become something even more special. We just need to turn our backs on despair and become what we always were.

In his own way, Slim Dusty reminded us of that last week. We can’t meet our impossible creed, but let’s shoot for it again.

One hundred years ago, Australia was one of the richest, most socially progressive societies on the planet. Let’s not stuff it up 100 years later.

PS: I might add that any decent rational economist not appealing to sentiment as I often do would tell you that high quality education delivered to the broadest range of citizens is a feature of successful economies. Tie it in with Knowledge Nation. We will fall behind if we don’t focus on it. There is a VERY practical need to raise the educational bar.

And another thought. The PM talks about “practical reconciliation” – we should consider “practical egalitarianism”, something beyond using the word mate a lot and sitting in the front seat.

 

Twilight hour. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

After scrambling her brain on joint custody, Webdiary columnist Polly Bush has plunged into the maelstrom of superannuation rights for same sex couples. The government won’t pass its super reforms for anyone if gay couples get equity on super, and this tortured debate is scheduled to resume in the Senate next week.

Valuing love

by Polly Bush

It must be an extraordinarily proud moment to walk your only daughter down the aisle. It must be rewarding to witness the exchange of vows in a house of worship, the bride glowing in a traditional white gown, the groom beaming with anticipation.

It must be an honour to give the young couple your blessing, and ultimately, it must be particularly satisfying to hand down the baton to ensure the sacred survival of the species.

Better yet, marriage doesn’t just mean a blank cheque encouraging a few young tackers on the way, but it also means you can get the best deals on offer in federal legislation.

Not that you need God’s nod of approval for that. Heck no, just a bloke and a sheila residing together in a relationship will crack that.

But dare you find yourself in the “disappointing” dilemma of not being attracted to the opposite sex, and dare you “choose” to adopt an “alternative lifestyle” (whatever that means), well then you can just kiss these same rights normal good bonking hetero folk are entitled to goodbye.

A couple of weeks ago, the Senate threw back the Federal Government’s superannuation package to the House of Representatives with an amendment that would give gay couples the same super rights as heterosexual couples.

The Labor Party finally joined the Democrats and the Greens in a move to allow the partners of gays and lesbians the automatic inheritance of their partner’s superannuation in the event of death.

Crazy stuff indeed. Superannuation rights for gay and lesbian couples have long been a sticking point for both major parties. In opposition, they both talk the talk, but when in government, the issue of equal rights suddenly gets tossed out the window.

It’s also a particular sticking point for the current Government, as the Democrats have continually blocked any reforms to superannuation by adding amendments to acknowledge same sex relationships. This is the twelfth attempt made to end discrimination against same sex couples.

While some states have legislated to recognise same sex relationships, federal amendments are needed because “the majority of lesbians and gay men will continue to be treated unequally as most super schemes come under federal law” (Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, 2002).

The Lobby group also calls for changes to taxation law, so that “when same sex partners do receive benefits they are not taxed at a much higher rate than heterosexuals”.

According to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissions report into ‘Superannuation Entitlements of Same-Sex Couples’ (April, 1999), the issue at hand is:

The definition of ‘spouse’ in these enactments has been held to be gender-specific, recognising only heterosexual relationships where a man and woman are legally married or in a de facto relationship. The use of the term ‘spouse’ in these enactments has the effect of excluding a surviving member of a same-sex couple from receiving the benefits provided.

The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby argues that “all that is needed is a simple definitional change to bring super law into line with many state laws”.

Indeed, definitions are at the crux of the matter. As Treasurer Peter Costello recently noted in response to Howard’s survival of the species comments:

Obviously, people have relationships and they might be long-term relationships between people of the same sex but to have a marriage, it has to be people of the opposite sex. I think that’s the right legal definition.

But ‘marriage’ is not necessarily defined as frocking up in a white puffy gown and waltzing down the aisle.

In 1992, amendments were made to the Superannuation Act to “remove exemptions for funds which operated to discriminate on the grounds of sex and marital status” (HREOC ‘Superannuation Entitlements of Same-Sex Couples’ 1999).

‘Marital Relationship’ was defined as when “the person ordinarily lived with that other person as that other person’s husband or wife on a permanent and bona fide domestic basis” (1992 Amendments, Section 8A). A ‘Marital Relationship’ was also defined as not having to be legally binding.

In 1993, the definitions of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ were tested after the death of Robert Corva, a clerk in the Defence Department. His partner of ten years, Greg Brown took the case to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal arguing they had lived together in a marriage like relationship.

The AAT ruled:

There is no doubt that the applicant and Mr Corva had a close marriage like relationship and that they conformed to the requirements of [the Act] in all respects except for their gender. Yet the 1992 amendments, which were designed to remove discrimination on the ground of marital status, provide no redress in relation to the form of discrimination which is illustrated by this case.

If Brown had been a woman, he would be entitled to a yearly pension. Following a rejected appeal, the judges who upheld the ruling conceded that “it gives us no joy to do so”.

Like the sentiments expressed by the judges, the law gives the superannuation industry and many other groups no joy either.

In 2000, the peak industry body, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, argued in a Senate submission that “recognition of a same sex relationships within superannuation legislation would address an area where currently a clear and difficult anomaly exists”.

So what’s holding the Government back?

When Tony Abbott was asked by Barrie Cassidy on the Insiders (ABC Television, September 21, 2003), whether he was opposed to long term gay couples having the same entitlements as heterosexual couples, he said:

I’m in favour of human rights but I’m not in favour of putting gay relationships on the same pedestal that you put traditional Christian marriage.

Mental note: be wary of any sentence that begins, “I’m in favour of human rights BUT-” And note to Tony Abbott: Should heterosexual de facto couples be put on the “same pedestal that you put traditional Christian marriage”?

When quizzed further, particularly about previously supporting equal rights for same sex couples, Abbott threw off a line about how it had been a long time since he’d thought about the issue, and “it’s not my portfolio – I’ll just leave what’s said as said”.

So much for the longevity of human rights. And just who is the Minister for Same Sex relationships – Bill Heffernan?

The portfolio Abbott was most likely referring to is Revenue, held by Senator Helen Coonan. Like Abbott, it appears Coonan has also had a change of heart when it comes to superannuation rights.

The Age political correspondent Annabel Crabb reported on September 19 this year:

Twenty-seven years ago, Helen Coonan was a fiery young solicitor, shoulder to shoulder with the gay rights movement demanding equal superannuation treatment for same-sex couples.

Coonan had worked alongside activist Peter de Waal on the ‘Tribunal on Homosexuals and Discrimination’ in 1976. De Waal told The Age:

We were very glad to have the assistance of Helen Coonan at the time, and we thought she was extremely progressive but more recently, we have revised our opinions of her.

A spokesperson for Senator Coonan said that “she was acting as a family lawyer – this is vastly different from amendments to this piece of legislation.” (Margo: After becoming a Senator Coonan, an activist moderate Liberal of many years standing, ditched her values and her “faction” for the right-wing and John Howard’s support in a Senate pre-selection battle. She was such a good girl Howard gave her a ministry, and she’s mouthed his lines ever since.)

In response, Democrats Senator Brian Greig labelled the Minister, “Coonan the Contrarian”. But alas, Coonan’s not the lone ranger when it comes to being oh au contraire.

In 1995, in Opposition, Conservative Tasmanian Liberal Senator John Watson led the Coalition’s push to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples.

In the late 1990s with the Liberals back in power, Labor member for Grayndler Anthony Albanese introduced a private members bill pushing to give same sex couples the same rights (Albanese reintroduced the bill for a third time in 1999 after it had lapsed twice without Government debate).

In 2000, responding to Albanese’s bill, Senator Watson wrote the Government’s report rejecting the bill.

The bill was knocked back, according to Watson, because of the oh-so-crazy argument that it would put “same-sex relationships on the same basis as heterosexual relationships”.

Worse still, the report argued the Bill would lead to the “gradual devaluation of the traditional family structure in the eyes of the law and society in general”.

Although he denied it, as Toni O’Loughlin reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 7, 2000, the timing of Watson’s turnaround coincided with “a preselection contest in which the stridently anti-gay Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz is understood to have substantial influence”.

The “devaluation of the traditional family structure” as an excuse ties in nicely with Abbott’s remarks on “traditional Christian marriage”, as it does with Howard’s comments on marriage as being “about children, having children, raising them, providing for the survival of the species.”

God strike you down if you are a Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or Moslem couple who can’t have children, or God forbid, choose not to.

The party that has never shied away from Christian family values is the National Party.

Responding to Anthony Albanese’s bill, Senator Ron Boswell sent a warning to all the young regional and rural kiddies grappling with their sexuality, when he said:

If we pass this motion today, it will send a message to all Australians young and old that mainstream society sees no essential difference between a homosexual and a heterosexual lifestyle, that society not only condones it but is indifferent to the bonds which make the typical family the fundamental unit of our society. While we in the National Party do not persecute those who freely enter into a minority lifestyle, we do not want to promote it to our children as an equally valid or acceptable way of life.

Like the ol’ traditional family excuse, God also gets a mention in this debate.

In 1999, One Nation Senator Len Harris wheeled out the Bible banter:

“Gods words clearly say to us that the acts of lesbianism and homosexuality are an abomination.” (reported by Margo Kingston, The Sydney Morning Herald, December 10, 1999).

When people (and indeed members of various churches) use the Bible to justify their homophobia, big bastard cathedral alarm bells should go off.

The main book that addresses homosexuality in the Bible is Leviticus, which says:

No man is to have sexual relations with another man; God hates that. (18: 22).

Further, it says:

If a man has sex with another man, both shall be put to death (20:13).

This old testament statement can hardly be held up as gospel for today’s world when a fair chunk of the other content in Leviticus is largely ignored and at best ridiculous. Leviticus also says it is a sin to eat pig and shellfish, to have mildew in your house, to wear two different types of cloth (hmmm, does Senator Harris wear cotton blend?), plant two different types of seed in one field, cut the hair off the sides of your head, and have tattoos.

And if you’re a woman you may as well banish yourself from society because of your period and the time it takes to be “clean” again. But hey, it’s not all bad. According to Leviticus you can buy slaves as long as they are from “the nations around you” or “the children of the foreigners who are living around you”.

Another champion of the church in the Upper House is Senator Brian Harradine.

In Mungo MacCallum’s memoirs Mungo: the Man who Laughs, he refers to Harradine as the “so-called” independent Senator, “because it has long been apparent that Harradine sees his primary role in politics as representing the views of the more conservative wing of the Catholic church”.

Harradine has been arguing that if the current amendments are passed, this would discriminate against people in dependent relationships who are not having sex:

Take two women for example. You’ve got two women living in one household, one of whom is a dependent and in another household you’ve got two lesbians. What is being proposed by those that are putting this forward is to discriminate against the two women who aren’t lesbians. Now how do you get over that? What you’re proposing for us to do is to discriminate against those two women because they’re not having sex. I think that that’s disgraceful if we’re going to be asked to do that.

While the Senator remains staunchly opposed to giving same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples, the argument does present another can of worms.

Many single people in “interdependent” relationships would argue these relationships are just as important and just as relevant as people in sexual relationships.

The Australian Democrats, who, like the Greens, have openly gay members of parliament (yes, as opposed to closeted), have long supported reforms to give same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. The Democrats are also proposing an “interdependency” category in superannuation.

Senator John Cherry recently said that “the Democrat amendments will also remove the cruel taxation on superannuation benefits paid following the death of a spouse, de-facto, same-sex partner or anyone else who is emotionally and financially connected”.

Democrats Senator Brian Greig who has himself been in a long-term same sex relationship has been barracking for equal rights on superannuation for some time. Prior to the recent amendment, and only a few months ago, Greig blasted the Australian Labor Party for their lack of support on the issue:

You are no different to the Coalition. I expect anti-gay, homophobic vitriol from the Coalition – that’s where they sit. But I expect more from the Opposition.

Greig has also been campaigning on the wider issue of discrimination against gays. In 2002, he asked Senator Robert Hill:

Given that the Howard Government discriminates against gay and lesbian people and their relationships in and with superannuation, taxation, family law, the Commonwealth Public Service, the Australian Federal Police, the defence forces, immigration, veterans affairs, industrial relations, social security and parliamentary entitlements, and given that the Government and the Opposition have blocked or stymied every attempt by the Australian Democrats to remedy this situation with legislative reform, how does the minister explain the Prime Minister’s recent assertion that the Government is not homophobic?

Senator Hill’s reply was that he had “missed the last few words” of the question, but that laws were made by parliament and not government, and that Greig was part of the process.

The timing of the question coincided with Bill Heffernan’s attack on Justice Michael Kirby.

Despite Howard’s denials, the Kirby farce contributes to a healthy history of homophobia in the Howard Government years.

In the ‘Word is Out’ paper, The Howard Government: gays lesbians and homophobia (June 2002), University of Adelaide Associate Professor Carol Johnson said the main difference between the two major parties is that “while they were electorally cautious, the Labor governments were not openly hostile to gay and lesbian arguments”.

Elected on Mardi Gras night in 1996, John Howard has continually refused to endorse the festival or at least give a message of support to the gay and lesbian community.

Early in his first term, Howard said he’d be “disappointed, even upset” if one of his sons were gay. Reiterating these sentiments, he was quizzed further on his stance on homosexuality by a student on ABC youth radio station Triple J:

STUDENT: So if we had a scale with total acceptance of homosexuality on one end and total rejection and abuse of homosexuality on the other, where would you place yourself?

PRIME MINISTER: Oh I’d place myself somewhere in the middle. I certainly don’t think you should give the same status to homosexual liaisons as you give to marriage, I don’t.

“Total rejection and abuse of homosexuality” easily equates to homophobia. So while Howard denies he or his government is homophobic, these comments suggest he is partially homophobic by being “somewhere in the middle”. Is this what “conservatively tolerant” means?

And notice too how if you are in a gay relationship or partnership, it gets called something other like a “liaison”? As Catharine Lumby so brilliantly put it in the Bulletin last year, “Most of us have a life. But if you’re a gay man, you get a lifestyle.”

Also added to Howard’s list is his intervention following a Federal Court ruling finding the Victorian Government’s restrictions to fertility treatments discriminatory against single women and lesbians.

And more recently, there are Howard’s comments rejecting gay marriages. To allow gay people to marry, you would also be allowing them to have, shock horror, the same superannuation rights.

Like any phobia, homophobia is driven by fear.

In her article “Why gay marriage is a bad idea”, Janet Albrechtsen wrote in The Australian of the evils of divorce, arguing children do better when biological mum and biological dad stay together. “This is why marriage must remain special and why discrimination is not always a dirty word,” Albrechtsen wrote.

Despite Albrechtsen’s amusing musings, there is no evidence that children are worse off when brought up by people in same sex relationships.

The same day, in the Herald Sun, also owned by Murdoch, radio presenter Neil Mitchell went hard on the issue in “OK to be straight, too”, (a headline that surely must be made into a t-shirt).

Mitchell argued that “there are enough examples to make any heterosexual feel persecuted, the Prime Minister included,” citing lesbian mothers groups, the debate within the church over gay clergy and television personalities as examples.

For a gay person reading the article, it was offensive to say the least and actually made Albrechtsen’s piece look like a relatively tame walk down Oxford Street. After his spray, Mitchell ended it with “Persecution of homosexuality has finished. Now let’s understand that straight is acceptable, too.”

Uh-huh. Obviously Mitchell wasn’t aware of discrimination against homosexuals in terms of superannuation, age of consent laws, compensation entitlements, leave and other workplace entitlements, legal recognition of relationships (including marriage), and that lil ol’ issue of vilification and violence because of your sexuality.

He might have also missed the United Nation’s recent ruling that Australia had breached its international obligations after federal law had discriminated against the long time partner of a deceased WW2 veteran by denying him a pension.

The push for equal rights, whether it be regarding defence entitlements or superannuation rights, is not asking for much – just equality, simple as that.

The fear that gay marriage or gay parenting or superannuation rights for gay couples is suddenly going to rip apart John Howard’s “bedrock” that is the family is a load of rubbish. Some heterosexual couples make a mess of marriage all on their own.

What this issue comes down to is how you value people. It’s about how you value people’s relationships, and ultimately it’s about how you value love.

Sincere best wishes to Melanie Howard and Rowan McDonald in their partnership.

Speech to the Annual Business Symposium, Economics Society of Australia, Canberra, 2 October 2003

 

In an open dynamic economy, reform is not an optional extra. It is a necessity. In a world of economic change, reform should be the natural order of things.

Unfortunately, this is no longer the case in Australia. Our national debate has developed a reform blind-spot. The Howard Government is no longer interested in economic reform. It sees national security as a political winner and has lost interest in other issues and ideas.

The Australian economy faces a number of important challenges: the housing bubble, falling housing affordability, low national savings, a record Current Account Deficit, declining productivity and high marginal tax rates. Yet the Government is in a state of denial and inaction.

Can anyone remember the last time Peter Costello gave a serious speech on economic reform? It is only a matter of time before this policy complacency catches up with the Government and the Australian economy.

The reform blind-spot, however, goes beyond the Howard Government. It is a regular part of political commentary in this country. One of the good things about being in the Labor Party is that we get attacked from both ends of the political spectrum – the far Right and the far Left. This usually confirms that we are on the right track.

In practice, the far Right and the far Left are on a unity ticket. They are both very good at saying why something should not happen, why things should stay the same. They are on a unity ticket against reform.

For Right-wing conservatives, of course, this is hardly surprising. Arguing against change is their stock-in-trade. Tory elites like Tony Abbott and David Flint are more interested in the past – winning the history wars and preserving the English monarchy – than the future of the Australian economy.

But what I find really puzzling is Left conservatism: knee-jerk opposition to new proposals and new ideas. These commentators are good at outlining the things they oppose but never the things they favour. I can never understand how they expect to create a better and fairer society by supporting the status quo.

I can assure you this is not the Labor way. We believe in economic reform. We built the modern Australian economy during the Hawke and Keating years and we want it to adapt to changed circumstances. We want to implement a new reform agenda, to give the Australian economy a second round of productivity gains and competitive advantages.

This is unashamedly an interventionist strategy. When markets fail, governments must intervene with policy reforms. This is why we need industry policy, to correct the market’s failure to invest adequately in research and development. This is why we need labour market programs, to correct the market’s failure to invest in the skills of low-paid workers and the unemployed. This is why we need competition policy, to overcome the market’s tendency towards collusion and industry concentration.

Competition Policy

Private sector competition has always been central to Labor’s economic agenda. Trade practices law, lower tariffs, financial reform, new markets in energy and telecommunications – these are all Labor legacies. The Tories talk about markets but they never reform them. They talk about competition but they never implement it.

This is the big difference in Australian economic policy. Labor believes in competition and productivity. Our political opponents believe in business deals and preferment – a system of crony capitalism, in which selected companies receive government subsidies and favouritism.

This has always been the Coalition way. It was the basis of McEwenism in the 1960s. It was the way in which Malcolm Fraser and John Howard ran the Australian economy in the 1970s and early 80s. It is now a feature of the Howard Government’s industry policy – its shameful record of preferment in the alternative fuels sector.

When markets are distorted in this fashion, investment flows into inefficient uses, damaging economic growth and employment. We all suffer because of rorted public policy and government favouritism. The growing damage to the Australian ethanol industry confirms the folly of this approach.

When they work properly, the good thing about markets is that they aggregate all our interests. You don’t have to be someone’s mate to market a product or sell a service. Of course, inequality – inequality of income and especially of wealth – determines the level of participation in the market. The rich can buy and sell more than the poor.

But when I look at the economy and compare it to society, the inequality of income and wealth is dwarfed by the inequality of power and political influence. Many can get access to the market, but very few people can get access to a Liberal Prime Minister.

This is why the public sector needs to be above preferment and dealism. If governments, elected by the will of the people, do not treat people fairly in the market then nobody else will. This is the real tragedy of crony capitalism: it takes the inequality of the market system and magnifies it many times over through the corruption of the state.

Governments do not need to mould the market economy. They need to open it up to competition. This involves the dispersal of economic power and privilege – one of the basic principles of the ALP. We believe that those with limited resources should not have to pay higher prices in concentrated markets. We believe that the nation’s consumers should not be limited in their choices. We believe that economic investment should be allocated in a way that maximises the national economic interest.

And we believe that the executives at the top-end-of-town who insist on change for others, should not be immune from it themselves. Through competition policy, we want opportunity for all and special privileges for none. This is where the efficiency and equity arguments come together.

The obscene growth of executive salaries and payout packages in recent years has had a negative impact on staff morale and incentive. It is one of the factors holding back productivity in the Australian workplace. Why should workers put in long hours and extra effort when the financial benefits of their labour are captured by just a handful of senior executives? Greater economic equality, with a genuine system of gain-sharing and reward for effort, can help boost labour productivity.

Take the example of the Commonwealth Bank’s CEO, David Murray, who last week received a $200,000 pay rise, taking his annual salary to $2.5 million. This coincided with his announcement of the abolition of 3,700 jobs. This double standard sends a jaundiced message to the bank’s staff: an obscene amount of money for the CEO; job insecurity and inadequate pay for the people who do most of the work.

Indulgences of this kind are a product of greed and anti-competitive markets. Anyone who has met Mr Murray would know that, while a dogged and strong person, he is not worth $2.5 million. Anyone who understands the Australian banking system would know it is not that hard to turn a profit. The level of competition is so low that Australia’s banks have the highest margins in the Western world. With compliant boards and disempowered shareholders, the top executives have been given a blank salary cheque.

Competition policy is the best way of cleaning out the rorts and featherbedding of concentrated markets. Economic efficiency and fairness can co-exist. Competitive pressures help companies to upgrade their technology, expand their markets and lower their prices. They also help to level the playing field, exposing the indulgences of big business and giving smaller players the chance of market entry. This is why I am unequivocally pro-competition.

Private Sector Competition

Since 1995 the competition debate in Australia has concentrated on the public sector. This was an important reform process, with a major boost to growth and living standards. According to the Productivity Commission, the Hilmer reforms have increased GDP by 2.5 percent and household incomes by an average of $7000.

Post-Hilmer, Australia needs a new competition agenda. Over the past eight years, the focus has gone off the private sector, with a loss of competition in many parts of the economy. Under the Howard Government, market competition is in decline, with the private sector trending towards duopoly and oligopoly. This can be seen in the retail, banking, airline, media and telecommunications industries and, of course, ethanol. The purpose of Labor’s competition policy is to put the spotlight back on the private sector and the need for trade practices reform.

In terms of market concentration, the evidence is damning. In the grocery sector, Australia has a near-duopoly, with Coles Myer and Woolworths enjoying 76 percent of the market. By comparison, in the United States, the top five grocery retailers have one-third of the market. Wal Mart, a huge company by international standards, has a market share of just 15 percent. In the United Kingdom, the top three retailers occupy no more than 55 percent of the market.

The trend to duopoly is widespread. Beer manufacturing in Australia is restricted to two brewers, with 90 percent of the market between them. In domestic aviation, the situation is now worse than the bad old days of the two-airline policy, with Qantas taking a dominant 70 percent market share. In the expanding area of health care, the top two pathology services have 80 percent of the market. Even in the relatively dispersed pharmaceutical sector, the top three retailers have a market share of 45 percent.

To make things worse, the Howard Government wants to abolish Australia’s cross-media ownership laws and entrench Telstra as a near-monopoly in the telecommunications market. Bit by bit, the market reforms and competition of the 1980s and 90s are being unravelled. The Coalition is pro-business and pro-preferment. Only Labor is pro-market and pro-competition.

This is the essence of our economic record. Labor’s first wave of change was to open up the economy to international competition. In the second wave, Labor introduced Hilmer and national competition policy. The next Labor Government will embark on a third wave of change, equally robust, increasing competition in the private sector, increasing Australia’s productivity and living standards.

We will strengthen the Trade Practices Act and increase the powers of the ACCC. Our approach is competition where possible, regulation where necessary. Our goal is to shift the balance of economic power away from big business and towards small- to medium-sized enterprises. In practice, I want the Trade Practices Act to be a Small Business and Consumer Protection Act.

Labor’s first task is to repair Section 46 (abuse of market power), especially given the High Court’s decision in the Boral case earlier this year. Even though the ACCC showed that Boral was pricing below avoidable cost in order to eliminate a competitor (that is, predatory pricing), it was unable to demonstrate that Boral had substantial market power (under the terms of Section 46). The court indicated that financial strength did not equate to market power.

Post-Boral, small business in Australia has next to no protection against anti-competitive conduct. Section 46 is an empty shell. The ACCC has won just two cases on abuse of market power in 13 years. As Allan Fels has said:

It defies belief that there have been only [two instances] since 1990 where big business has used its market power to harm competition If Section 46 does not work then one of the most important protections of competition is missing from the Australian economy.

Labor’s policy is to outlaw predatory pricing, irrespective of the market power of the companies involved. We will amend Section 46 to prohibit anti-competitive predatory behaviour. We will also strengthen the current ‘purpose test’ to allow the ACCC to infer an anti-competitive purpose from the conduct of the corporation or the circumstances of the case.

Another important reform is to crackdown on hard-core cartels. This is a growing problem in the global economy. Collusion is not just a matter of bad corporate behaviour. It is a characteristic of industries where concentrated ownership encourages collusion to take place. This is why Labor will introduce criminal sanctions for cartels that engage in bid rigging, market sharing, output restrictions and price fixing. Amid the public demand for governments to get tough on law and order, it is time to apply the full weight of the law to the corporate sector.

Labor also supports the collective bargaining recommendations of the Dawson Review, the only provision from the review process to assist small business. We believe in rebalancing the Trade Practices Act – giving small business a level playing field on which to bargain with big business.

This is our first instalment of trade practices reform. A number of other issues are also being considered as part of Labor’s policy review. These include:

* The introduction of cease-and-desist orders to give immediate relief to small business and consumers from the abuse of market power. This is an international standard among competition regimes.

* Stronger provisions to deal with the underlying causes of collusion and anti-competitive behaviour – that is, markets with a high degree of concentration and control. In 1991, for instance, the Senate minority report on Monopolies and Acquisitions recommended that: “in cases of serious and persistent misuse of market power, the courts should have the power to order divestiture of the assets or component parts of the offending corporation”.

* New powers to deal with the problem of creeping concentration: allowing the ACCC to treat a series of acquisitions as one event. This is a big issue in the retail sector, where Coles Myer and Woolworths have acquired up to 90 independent grocers since 1995.

* Reviewing the provisions of Section 51AC, which deals with unconscionable conduct in relation to small business. The High Court’s Berbatis decision in April has raised doubts about the scope and effectiveness of this provision.

* Improving the coverage and success of the ACCC’s prices surveillance role, which has fallen away in recent years.

* Providing better protection for franchisees in disputes with the parent franchise company. Too many franchisors are able to abuse their market power and contractual obligations without any effective sanction under the current law.

* Improving the transparency and accountability of the ACCC, especially with regard to undertakings and authorisations. Markets rely on quality information and disclosure from government regulators.

This is a long list of issues for trade practices reform. It demonstrates the difference between Labor and Liberal. While the Government is yet to enact any of the recommendations of the Dawson Review (as limited as they were), the Opposition is working on its second instalment of competition policy. An economic reformer’s work is never done.

Conclusion

If Labor wins the next Federal election, we will not be ‘returning’ to office. We will come to power as a renewed Party to form a new Government. We will not be turning the clock back to 1996. Our agenda is about the future: giving Australia its next wave of productivity gains and competitiveness.

Competition policy is crucial to Australia’s future. Domestic rivalry helps to create a more efficient and dynamic economy. If we are to keep pace with other nations we must continually upgrade our skills and inventiveness. Competition policy is also about justice. It gives people the freedom of market entry and the opportunity to grow their business without the threat of anti-competitive behaviour.

The Howard Government talks a lot about the rights of small business but it has done nothing to improve these rights under the Trade Practices Act. Given a choice between the demands of big business and the needs of small business, the Liberals always go for the big-end-of-town. Even its Coalition partner is blowing the whistle. As the Federal Director of the National Party said recently:

The Liberal Party is seen as very good at representing the large end of town but it struggles to relate to the challenges of the average family and the average small business.

Labor has always put the interests of consumers and small business first. That’s why the Whitlam Government established the Trade Practices Act in 1974. That’s why the Keating Government strengthened the Act in 1995. That’s why the next Labor Government will implement a third wave of private sector competition policy. From where we sit, too much competition is never enough.

 

Twilight hour. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

It must be an extraordinarily proud moment to walk your only daughter down the aisle. It must be rewarding to witness the exchange of vows in a house of worship, the bride glowing in a traditional white gown, the groom beaming with anticipation.

It must be an honour to give the young couple your blessing, and ultimately, it must be particularly satisfying to hand down the baton to ensure the sacred survival of the species.

Better yet, marriage doesn’t just mean a blank cheque encouraging a few young tackers on the way, but it also means you can get the best deals on offer in federal legislation.

Not that you need God’s nod of approval for that. Heck no, just a bloke and a sheila residing together in a relationship will crack that.

But dare you find yourself in the “disappointing” dilemma of not being attracted to the opposite sex, and dare you “choose” to adopt an “alternative lifestyle” (whatever that means), well then you can just kiss these same rights normal good bonking hetero folk are entitled to goodbye.

A couple of weeks ago, the Senate threw back the Federal Government’s superannuation package to the House of Representatives with an amendment that would give gay couples the same super rights as heterosexual couples.

The Labor Party finally joined the Democrats and the Greens in a move to allow the partners of gays and lesbians the automatic inheritance of their partner’s superannuation in the event of death.

Crazy stuff indeed. Superannuation rights for gay and lesbian couples have long been a sticking point for both major parties. In opposition, they both talk the talk, but when in government, the issue of equal rights suddenly gets tossed out the window.

It’s also a particular sticking point for the current Government, as the Democrats have continually blocked any reforms to superannuation by adding amendments to acknowledge same sex relationships. This is the twelfth attempt made to end discrimination against same sex couples.

While some states have legislated to recognise same sex relationships, federal amendments are needed because “the majority of lesbians and gay men will continue to be treated unequally as most super schemes come under federal law” (Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, 2002).

The Lobby group also calls for changes to taxation law, so that “when same sex partners do receive benefits they are not taxed at a much higher rate than heterosexuals”.

According to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissions report into ‘Superannuation Entitlements of Same-Sex Couples’ (April, 1999), the issue at hand is:

The definition of ‘spouse’ in these enactments has been held to be gender-specific, recognising only heterosexual relationships where a man and woman are legally married or in a de facto relationship. The use of the term ‘spouse’ in these enactments has the effect of excluding a surviving member of a same-sex couple from receiving the benefits provided.

The Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby argues that “all that is needed is a simple definitional change to bring super law into line with many state laws”.

Indeed, definitions are at the crux of the matter. As Treasurer Peter Costello recently noted in response to Howard’s survival of the species comments:

Obviously, people have relationships and they might be long-term relationships between people of the same sex but to have a marriage, it has to be people of the opposite sex. I think that’s the right legal definition.

But ‘marriage’ is not necessarily defined as frocking up in a white puffy gown and waltzing down the aisle.

In 1992, amendments were made to the Superannuation Act to “remove exemptions for funds which operated to discriminate on the grounds of sex and marital status” (HREOC ‘Superannuation Entitlements of Same-Sex Couples’ 1999).

‘Marital Relationship’ was defined as when “the person ordinarily lived with that other person as that other person’s husband or wife on a permanent and bona fide domestic basis” (1992 Amendments, Section 8A). A ‘Marital Relationship’ was also defined as not having to be legally binding.

In 1993, the definitions of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ were tested after the death of Robert Corva, a clerk in the Defence Department. His partner of ten years, Greg Brown took the case to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal arguing they had lived together in a marriage like relationship.

The AAT ruled:

There is no doubt that the applicant and Mr Corva had a close marriage like relationship and that they conformed to the requirements of [the Act] in all respects except for their gender. Yet the 1992 amendments, which were designed to remove discrimination on the ground of marital status, provide no redress in relation to the form of discrimination which is illustrated by this case.

If Brown had been a woman, he would be entitled to a yearly pension. Following a rejected appeal, the judges who upheld the ruling conceded that “it gives us no joy to do so”.

Like the sentiments expressed by the judges, the law gives the superannuation industry and many other groups no joy either.

In 2000, the peak industry body, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia, argued in a Senate submission that “recognition of a same sex relationships within superannuation legislation would address an area where currently a clear and difficult anomaly exists”.

So what’s holding the Government back?

When Tony Abbott was asked by Barrie Cassidy on the Insiders (ABC Television, September 21, 2003), whether he was opposed to long term gay couples having the same entitlements as heterosexual couples, he said:

I’m in favour of human rights but I’m not in favour of putting gay relationships on the same pedestal that you put traditional Christian marriage.

Mental note: be wary of any sentence that begins, “I’m in favour of human rights BUT-” And note to Tony Abbott: Should heterosexual de facto couples be put on the “same pedestal that you put traditional Christian marriage”?

When quizzed further, particularly about previously supporting equal rights for same sex couples, Abbott threw off a line about how it had been a long time since he’d thought about the issue, and “it’s not my portfolio – I’ll just leave what’s said as said”.

So much for the longevity of human rights. And just who is the Minister for Same Sex relationships – Bill Heffernan?

The portfolio Abbott was most likely referring to is Revenue, held by Senator Helen Coonan. Like Abbott, it appears Coonan has also had a change of heart when it comes to superannuation rights.

The Age political correspondent Annabel Crabb reported on September 19 this year:

Twenty-seven years ago, Helen Coonan was a fiery young solicitor, shoulder to shoulder with the gay rights movement demanding equal superannuation treatment for same-sex couples.

Coonan had worked alongside activist Peter de Waal on the ‘Tribunal on Homosexuals and Discrimination’ in 1976. De Waal told The Age:

We were very glad to have the assistance of Helen Coonan at the time, and we thought she was extremely progressive but more recently, we have revised our opinions of her.

A spokesperson for Senator Coonan said that “she was acting as a family lawyer – this is vastly different from amendments to this piece of legislation.” (Margo: After becoming a Senator Coonan, an activist moderate Liberal of many years standing, ditched her values and her “faction” for the right-wing and John Howard’s support in a Senate pre-selection battle. She was such a good girl Howard gave her a ministry, and she’s mouthed his lines ever since.)

In response, Democrats Senator Brian Greig labelled the Minister, “Coonan the Contrarian”. But alas, Coonan’s not the lone ranger when it comes to being oh au contraire.

In 1995, in Opposition, Conservative Tasmanian Liberal Senator John Watson led the Coalition’s push to give same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples.

In the late 1990s with the Liberals back in power, Labor member for Grayndler Anthony Albanese introduced a private members bill pushing to give same sex couples the same rights (Albanese reintroduced the bill for a third time in 1999 after it had lapsed twice without Government debate).

In 2000, responding to Albanese’s bill, Senator Watson wrote the Government’s report rejecting the bill.

The bill was knocked back, according to Watson, because of the oh-so-crazy argument that it would put “same-sex relationships on the same basis as heterosexual relationships”.

Worse still, the report argued the Bill would lead to the “gradual devaluation of the traditional family structure in the eyes of the law and society in general”.

Although he denied it, as Toni O’Loughlin reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 7, 2000, the timing of Watson’s turnaround coincided with “a preselection contest in which the stridently anti-gay Tasmanian Senator Eric Abetz is understood to have substantial influence”.

The “devaluation of the traditional family structure” as an excuse ties in nicely with Abbott’s remarks on “traditional Christian marriage”, as it does with Howard’s comments on marriage as being “about children, having children, raising them, providing for the survival of the species.”

God strike you down if you are a Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist or Moslem couple who can’t have children, or God forbid, choose not to.

The party that has never shied away from Christian family values is the National Party.

Responding to Anthony Albanese’s bill, Senator Ron Boswell sent a warning to all the young regional and rural kiddies grappling with their sexuality, when he said:

If we pass this motion today, it will send a message to all Australians young and old that mainstream society sees no essential difference between a homosexual and a heterosexual lifestyle, that society not only condones it but is indifferent to the bonds which make the typical family the fundamental unit of our society. While we in the National Party do not persecute those who freely enter into a minority lifestyle, we do not want to promote it to our children as an equally valid or acceptable way of life.

Like the ol’ traditional family excuse, God also gets a mention in this debate.

In 1999, One Nation Senator Len Harris wheeled out the Bible banter:

“Gods words clearly say to us that the acts of lesbianism and homosexuality are an abomination.” (reported by Margo Kingston, The Sydney Morning Herald, December 10, 1999).

When people (and indeed members of various churches) use the Bible to justify their homophobia, big bastard cathedral alarm bells should go off.

The main book that addresses homosexuality in the Bible is Leviticus, which says:

No man is to have sexual relations with another man; God hates that. (18: 22).

Further, it says:

If a man has sex with another man, both shall be put to death (20:13).

This old testament statement can hardly be held up as gospel for today’s world when a fair chunk of the other content in Leviticus is largely ignored and at best ridiculous. Leviticus also says it is a sin to eat pig and shellfish, to have mildew in your house, to wear two different types of cloth (hmmm, does Senator Harris wear cotton blend?), plant two different types of seed in one field, cut the hair off the sides of your head, and have tattoos.

And if you’re a woman you may as well banish yourself from society because of your period and the time it takes to be “clean” again. But hey, it’s not all bad. According to Leviticus you can buy slaves as long as they are from “the nations around you” or “the children of the foreigners who are living around you”.

Another champion of the church in the Upper House is Senator Brian Harradine.

In Mungo MacCallum’s memoirs Mungo: the Man who Laughs, he refers to Harradine as the “so-called” independent Senator, “because it has long been apparent that Harradine sees his primary role in politics as representing the views of the more conservative wing of the Catholic church”.

Harradine has been arguing that if the current amendments are passed, this would discriminate against people in dependent relationships who are not having sex:

Take two women for example. You’ve got two women living in one household, one of whom is a dependent and in another household you’ve got two lesbians. What is being proposed by those that are putting this forward is to discriminate against the two women who aren’t lesbians. Now how do you get over that? What you’re proposing for us to do is to discriminate against those two women because they’re not having sex. I think that that’s disgraceful if we’re going to be asked to do that.

While the Senator remains staunchly opposed to giving same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples, the argument does present another can of worms.

Many single people in “interdependent” relationships would argue these relationships are just as important and just as relevant as people in sexual relationships.

The Australian Democrats, who, like the Greens, have openly gay members of parliament (yes, as opposed to closeted), have long supported reforms to give same sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples. The Democrats are also proposing an “interdependency” category in superannuation.

Senator John Cherry recently said that “the Democrat amendments will also remove the cruel taxation on superannuation benefits paid following the death of a spouse, de-facto, same-sex partner or anyone else who is emotionally and financially connected”.

Democrats Senator Brian Greig who has himself been in a long-term same sex relationship has been barracking for equal rights on superannuation for some time. Prior to the recent amendment, and only a few months ago, Greig blasted the Australian Labor Party for their lack of support on the issue:

You are no different to the Coalition. I expect anti-gay, homophobic vitriol from the Coalition – that’s where they sit. But I expect more from the Opposition.

Greig has also been campaigning on the wider issue of discrimination against gays. In 2002, he asked Senator Robert Hill:

Given that the Howard Government discriminates against gay and lesbian people and their relationships in and with superannuation, taxation, family law, the Commonwealth Public Service, the Australian Federal Police, the defence forces, immigration, veterans affairs, industrial relations, social security and parliamentary entitlements, and given that the Government and the Opposition have blocked or stymied every attempt by the Australian Democrats to remedy this situation with legislative reform, how does the minister explain the Prime Minister’s recent assertion that the Government is not homophobic?

Senator Hill’s reply was that he had “missed the last few words” of the question, but that laws were made by parliament and not government, and that Greig was part of the process.

The timing of the question coincided with Bill Heffernan’s attack on Justice Michael Kirby.

Despite Howard’s denials, the Kirby farce contributes to a healthy history of homophobia in the Howard Government years.

In the ‘Word is Out’ paper, The Howard Government: gays lesbians and homophobia (June 2002), University of Adelaide Associate Professor Carol Johnson said the main difference between the two major parties is that “while they were electorally cautious, the Labor governments were not openly hostile to gay and lesbian arguments”.

Elected on Mardi Gras night in 1996, John Howard has continually refused to endorse the festival or at least give a message of support to the gay and lesbian community.

Early in his first term, Howard said he’d be “disappointed, even upset” if one of his sons were gay. Reiterating these sentiments, he was quizzed further on his stance on homosexuality by a student on ABC youth radio station Triple J:

STUDENT: So if we had a scale with total acceptance of homosexuality on one end and total rejection and abuse of homosexuality on the other, where would you place yourself?

PRIME MINISTER: Oh I’d place myself somewhere in the middle. I certainly don’t think you should give the same status to homosexual liaisons as you give to marriage, I don’t.

“Total rejection and abuse of homosexuality” easily equates to homophobia. So while Howard denies he or his government is homophobic, these comments suggest he is partially homophobic by being “somewhere in the middle”. Is this what “conservatively tolerant” means?

And notice too how if you are in a gay relationship or partnership, it gets called a “liaison”? As Catharine Lumby so brilliantly put it in the Bulletin last year, “Most of us have a life. But if you’re a gay man, you get a lifestyle.”

Also added to Howard’s list is his intervention following a Federal Court ruling finding the Victorian Government’s restrictions to fertility treatments discriminatory against single women and lesbians.

And more recently, there are Howard’s comments rejecting gay marriages. To allow gay people to marry, you would also be allowing them to have, shock horror, the same superannuation rights.

Like any phobia, homophobia is driven by fear.

In her article “Why gay marriage is a bad idea”, Janet Albrechtsen wrote in The Australian of the evils of divorce, arguing children do better when biological mum and biological dad stay together. “This is why marriage must remain special and why discrimination is not always a dirty word,” Albrechtsen wrote.

Despite Albrechtsen’s amusing musings, there is no evidence that children are worse off when brought up by people in same sex relationships.

The same day, in the Herald Sun, also owned by Murdoch, radio presenter Neil Mitchell went hard on the issue in “OK to be straight, too”, (a headline that surely must be made into a t-shirt).

Mitchell argued that “there are enough examples to make any heterosexual feel persecuted, the Prime Minister included,” citing lesbian mothers groups, the debate within the church over gay clergy and television personalities as examples.

For a gay person reading the article, it was offensive to say the least and actually made Albrechtsen’s piece look like a relatively tame walk down Oxford Street. After his spray, Mitchell ended it with “Persecution of homosexuality has finished. Now let’s understand that straight is acceptable, too.”

Uh-huh. Obviously Mitchell wasn’t aware of discrimination against homosexuals in terms of superannuation, age of consent laws, compensation entitlements, leave and other workplace entitlements, legal recognition of relationships (including marriage), and that lil ol’ issue of vilification and violence because of your sexuality.

He might have also missed the United Nation’s recent ruling that Australia had breached its international obligations after federal law had discriminated against the long time partner of a deceased WW2 veteran by denying him a pension.

The push for equal rights, whether it be regarding defence entitlements or superannuation rights, is not asking for much – just equality, simple as that.

The fear that gay marriage or gay parenting or superannuation rights for gay couples is suddenly going to rip apart John Howard’s “bedrock” that is the family is a load of rubbish. Some heterosexual couples make a mess of marriage all on their own.

What this issue comes down to is how you value people. It’s about how you value people’s relationships, and ultimately it’s about how you value love.

Sincere best wishes to Melanie Howard and Rowan McDonald in their partnership.

Claudia Tazreiter is a designer at the Sydney Morning Herald. She has just completed her PhD, a comparison of asylum seeker policy in Germany and Australia. She volunteered her services to the Edmund Rice Centre free of charge to research the fate of asylum seekers deported from Australia

In July this year I was part of an Australian research team commissioned to gather information on asylum seekers who had been deported from Australia. We knew that many of these people had voluntarily left Australia after their claims for protection had been turned down. Some were deported against their will. That’s all we knew.

We travelled to Syria, a country to which people had been deported from Australia for at least two years. We knew that several nationalities were represented in this group of deportees: Iraqis, Kuwaiti Bedoons, Palestinians and Iranians. We knew little else of the lives these people lived after they had been deported to Syria from one of Australia’s detention centres.

We filled in some of these gaps in the next ten days, heard some disturbing allegations about the conduct of Australian officials and learned of the everyday lives that deportees live.

All the people we met and interviewed had spent considerable time in immigration detention in Australia. They spoke of loneliness and isolation, of the desperation they felt at not knowing their fate, and of the futility they felt at passing their lives behind razor wire.

One man, a member of the Kuwaiti minority Bedoons, had spent two years in detention in Port Hedland, told me he had never met an Australian woman until he met me in Damascus. Bedoons are a persecuted minority, unable to gain citizenship, or the right to work, education, or even to be married. After asking Australia for protection for two years, this man was deported from Australia on a temporary travel document which allowed him to stay in Damascus for three months. He has been there for over a year, living a half-life in the shadows, “illegal”, just as he was for the two years he spent at Port Hedland. He has no right to return to Kuwait and is stateless. He feels in constant danger, venturing outside only to buy food and to keep in touch with other deportees who are his only support system.

This man, along with another deportee, an Iraqi man, invited us for a meal. Despite their evident poverty the generosity of these men was breathtaking. I felt a little uneasy at first, thinking they must surely bear a grudge against Australians. But this was not the case.

They told me they understood that not all Australians agreed with what the government was doing. The Iraqi man surprised me with his conciliatory tone. He was thinking of the future and had hopes of one day working in the media when real peace was established in Iraq. He imagined a dialogue between like-minded people from his world and from the parts of Australia he imagined were sympathetic to his people. After all, Australia had been part of the coalition that went to war to defeat a dictator he hated, who had caused him to flee his homeland and seek safety elsewhere.

He was a living example of the inter-cultural dialogue between East and West, between the Christian world and the Muslim world which might effect a real and lasting peace. In his situation I imagined I would feel angry at lost years and frustrated dreams. This man had not seen his children for some years as the Australian government deliberated over his protection claim, while they kept him in detention and finally decided he did not engage Australia’s protection obligations.

In the past few weeks the research team returned to Damascus to conduct more interviews. Some of the findings of this research have been released this week in Sydney and in Geneva, where the Executive Committee of the UNHCR is meeting.

No doubt over the next weeks and months the politics of the people smuggling and false passport allegations against DIMIA will play out in the corridors of power. But I think instead of the everyday lives of the people I met in Damascus. People with very ordinary aspirations, for a job, for education, to be able to live their lives without constantly glancing over a shoulder, without having to speak in hushed tones in public places, without having to wonder about the fate of their loved ones.

I left them on my Australian passport, the document that allows me unhindered passage.

Sister Carmel Leavey’s personal story of making a difference is at Desperate and stateless – plight of the deported.

 

Part of the audience. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

Tim Predmore is a US soldier with the 101st Airborne Division near Mosul in Iraq. He recently wrote of the current situation in the ‘liberated’ country:

 

This looks like a modern-day crusade not to free an oppressed people or to rid the world of a demonic dictator relentless in his pursuit of conquest and domination but a crusade to control another nation’s natural resource. There is only one truth: Americans are dying. There are 10 to 14 attacks on our servicemen and women daily in Iraq. I once believed that I served for a cause: To uphold and defend the constitution of the United States.” Now I no longer believe that; I have lost my conviction. I can no longer justify my service for what I believe to be half-truths and bold lies. (This is an unjust war of hypocrisy)

It is a devastating piece, not written by a columnist in Sydney or a commentator or general in a Washington studio, but by a person seeing the original justification for war unravelling before his eyes. One can only imagine his anger, perhaps only matched by the immortal words of a fellow soldier during the recent visit of Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq. Asked if he wanted to ask anything of the Defence Secretary, he replied, “His resignation”.

There is a growing sense of betrayal within the general public, especially in America and England. Information is emerging of a concerted campaign by the coalition of the unwilling to oust Saddam Hussein, no matter what the evidence against him.

Gerard Henderson suggested on ABC’s Compass program that the Australian public are not dissatisfied with the current political situation in our country:

Well I mean you measure democracy by the number of people who support it or who oppose it. And basically all I’m saying is as far as I can see according to all the evidence there’s general acceptance, otherwise there would be different outcomes. And my office is opposite the Prime Minister’s office in Sydney and I don’t see many people marching. There were many more marching five years ago than there are today. I’m not saying everyone in the country is happy, but I think basically people accept the system. And I don’t see the alienation that other’s see. And nor do I see any evidence of this in the polls. I mean if people weren’t happy with the government they’d vote it out. (Power, politics and the media)

Perhaps Henderson was away from his office the day the massive anti-war protest filled the streets of Sydney earlier this year, one of the biggest of its kind in history. Does it not bother Henderson that a recent poll here suggested that up to 70% of people thought Howard misled them about Iraq? Howard’s popularity may well be still sky-high, with a carping opposition barely laying a finger on the Liberal Government, but the fact still remains: honesty and transparency are no longer the core beliefs the voting public looks for in their elected leaders. A sign of a faltering democracy could not be stronger

The Howard Government has latched onto the Neo-Conservative bandwagon, unaware that public opinion would start stirring and begin asking some fundamental questions:

1) Where is the evidence proving Saddam had active WMDs before the invasion? (Pilger claims White House knew Saddam was no threat)

2) Where is the evidence proving a pre-war link of any kind between Saddam and al-Qaeda?

3) Where is the evidence proving that sites containing any remnants or materials of WMDs were secured after invasion?

4) Where is the evidence proving that multinationals, now able to own all Iraq’s infrastructure, except oil, will give Iraq a more prosperous future? Should the Iraqi people not have a say in this profound policy decision? (US-backed Iraqi leadership to sell-off state assets and newbridgestrategies for the payoffs for Bush’s best corporate friends)

The decision by the US to allow privatisation of Iraq’s resources was reported very differently on both sides of the Atlantic. The major American press saw the decision as a victory for US companies, while the UK papers viewed the sell-off as a fire sale. (Heroes of the 9/11 era)

5) Where is the evidence that the invasion of Iraq has not caused the death of thousands of innocent Iraqis, due primarily to the lack of security by the occupying forces? (Another day in the bloody death of Iraq)

With just over a year until the US presidential elections there are moves by both Democrats and Republicans to unseat Bush from his throne. Webdiarist Brian McKinley recommends conservativesagainstbush:

Conservatives Against Bush was founded to propound the conservative principles that this administration has forsaken. This President has expanded the welfare state, saddled future generations with debt, eroded some of our basic freedoms, and waged a spurious war in Iraq that in the end did not make the U.S. any safer. We seek to reenergize conservatives, so they will press for change in this administration.

The site’s editor-in-chief, Daniel J.Cragg, wrote an impassioned report which could have been written by any member of the leftist movement around the world:

But we had to go in and get Saddam because he would have given WMD to al Qaeda, right? Hardly. “The often postulated scenario of a state sponsor providing unconventional weapons to a terrorist group is unlikely to materialize,” former deputy chief of the Counter terrorist Center at the CIA Paul Pillar asserts in his book, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy. “The state would lose control over the material, an uncontrolled use of it by a group would serve no plausible purpose of the state, and sophisticated unconventional agents might be more traceable to their origin than the more mundane forms of assistance that sponsors usually provide to client groups.” It is likely that because of the U.S. invasion, Iraqi WMD were perhaps shipped to Syria, or even Libya.

If you were only reading the Murdoch press in Australia, however, you would rarely get an understanding of the real situation in Iraq on the ground for the average citizen. On September 22, The Australian’s editorial proclaimed:

Those in the West who want to talk down the advances that have been made in Iraq should consider all that, along with the fact that 150 free newspapers now flourish in what was, until six months ago, a totalitarian dictatorship. These developments can be a model and inspiration for democratic movements elsewhere in the region, including in Iran and Saudi Arabia – neighbouring countries that, fearful of just such an outcome, are doing their worst to destabilise Iraq. Since none of the Australian media have any permanent journalists based in Iraq anymore (an appalling fact only a few months after official conflict ceased), Salam Pax, better known as the Baghdad Blogger, is in a much better position to judge these supposed new freedoms. In a recent Guardian online debate, a reader asked:

What’s the media like in Iraq now? Do you feel you get a good service from the TV and print news? Salam Pax: “It is like being in a very noisy zoo actually, we need more sensible Iraqi voices and the only ones I really like are the people behind Iraq Today.The rest will sink in a couple of months I am sure. Did you know that we also have censorship [AGAIN]? It is Mullah Bremer’s fatwa about inflaming hatred, can’t remember the actual wording. It got a couple of newspapers shut. And they keep talking about “information control”. We just got rid of a regime which was practicing too much information control.

Salam suggests US administrators have “really no idea what is happening outside, they get their views thru ‘advisors’ – involving more Iraqis is essential not only to help the Americans run the show but also to train Iraqis to take over the responsibilities later on.” (A friend of Salam’s in Baghdad, Riverbend, has also been writing a blog for many months. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the life of an average Iraqi.)

Back in June, Robert Fisk of The Independent reported:

Paul Bremer now asked the legal side of the coalition provisional authority to set up the machinery of Iraqi press censorship. In other words, Iraqi newspapers are going to be censored. Controlled I think is the official word they use, but that means censorship. That is the kind of language that Saddam used. Iraqis are used to a censored press; after all, they lived with it for more than 20 years under Saddam Hussein. Now when you question the Americans about it, first of all they deny it. Then the British half accept it; then other people involved in the coalition say well it’s probably true, yes, it is true. )

A discouraging sign that the occupiers are less than pleased with the explosion of media and its challenge to the views of many pro-war supporters, arrived with a recent report that al-Jazeera, amongst others, has received a short-term ban from reporting inside the country. The Iraqi Governing Council said “the ban was a warning to the stations and other broadcasters for inciting anti-United States violence.” (Baghdad bans Arab TV for broadcasting ‘poison’).

Readers may remember similar lines by the US administration during the war itself, and the bombing of the al-Jazeera office in downtown Baghdad (and in late 2001, the bombing of al-Jazeera in Kabul). al-Jazeera provides an alternative viewpoint to the gung-ho mentality of much US media. Washington will not tolerate this kind of attitude and a reasonable explanation has never been given for the bombing of their company offices.

Back in February, Phillip Knightley, in a speech to the Evatt Foundation in Sydney, made some prescient points regarding investigative journalism not conforming to the establishment line:

If we can so successfully manage the media in wartime, why can’t we do the same in peace time? There’s no trouble doing so in autocratic regimes. The media tells the public what the government wants it to know. End of story. Newspapers and broadcasting stations that don’t toe the line, lose their licences, or their Editors or owners go to jail. Or in extreme cases, are imprisoned or shot. This doesn’t happen in democratic countries, but there are nevertheless ways open to governments to exercise some control of the media. The first and most often used is an appeal to ‘the national interest’. So those in power, especially in the United States, have used the events of 11 September as an argument to deter journalists who dare to criticise or question their home country. (Reflections of a Warhorse)

An alternative viewpoint on al-Jazeera comes from Salam Pax in a recent interview I conducted with the Baghdad Blogger:

Al-Jazeera has an agenda and they’re decided Iraq is the place they can play out whatever fantasies they have about occupation and resistance. But it’s not like that at all. I don’t want Iraq to turn into another Palestine/Israel situation, but the way they’re portraying it, they’re looking for trouble. Their reporting is a bit too inflammatory. It makes people think about things that never really happened. When you have al-Jazeera people moving around Iraq, they get attacked very seriously and rocks thrown at them. They push the War on Islam angle, which is not happening. They’re pushing that there is Shiite and Sunni trouble, which is just not happening.

John Burns of the New York Times, in There is corruption in our business, suggests the Iraq war offered a woeful representation of what journalists and editors are (in)capable of. In a fascinating interview for a book titled Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq, An Oral History, Burns explains how many journalists during the recent conflicts were derelict in their duty by not highlighting the barbarity of Saddam’s regime, for fear of being thrown out of the country:

There were correspondents who thought it appropriate to seek the approbation of the people who governed their lives. This was the ministry of information, and particularly the director of the ministry. By taking him out for long candlelit dinners, plying him with sweet cakes, plying him with mobile phones at $600 each for members of his family, and giving bribes of thousands of dollars. Senior members of the information ministry took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from these television correspondents who then behaved as if they were in Belgium. They never mentioned the function of minders. Never mentioned terror.

In one case, a correspondent actually went to the Internet Center at the Al-Rashid Hotel and printed out copies of his and other people’s stories – mine included – specifically in order to be able to show the difference between himself and the others. He wanted to show what a good boy he was compared to this enemy of the state. He was with a major American newspaper. (Investigations are continuing to reveal the identity of this senior journalist.)

The Washington Post doesn’t escape criticism either, frequently taking government claims as fact, or burying dissenting voices deep in the news pages, according to Ari Berman in The Nation:

Walter Pincus, 70, who honed his skills and scepticism during his years reporting on Watergate and Iran/contra, blames a pack mentality and desire to please for the decision to bury his stories before the war began. ‘The Post was scared,’ Pincus says. ‘I believe papers ought to crusade when we’re on to something.’ Later, he says, when things started going badly, editors were more willing to print pieces critical of the Administration. ‘This is a country in which it doesn’t matter what you say if you succeed,’ he says. ‘But if you fail, people go back and look at why.’ (The Postwar Post)

Investigative journalist Greg Palast recently took NYT’s supremo Thomas Friedman to task for suggesting in a recent column that “It’s time we Americans came to terms with something: France is not just our annoying ally. It is not just our jealous rival. France is becoming our enemy.” (Tragedy in New York: French Fried Friedman)

The US press largely ignored even the recent admission by Bush that Saddam and 9/11 were completely unrelated, therefore shooting down one of the central planks of pre-war propaganda. As reported in the Niagara Falls Reporter, much of the North American media conveniently forgot to mention this startling Bush acknowledgement. (Media ignores Bush admission that Saddam not involved in 9/11)

In early April, The New Yorker analysed war coverage in the US and featured a telling quote from journalist Michael Arlen during the Vietnam War. It could easily have applied to the war in Iraq:

The cumulative effect of all these three and five minute film clips, with their almost unvarying implicit deference to the importance of purely military solutionsand with their catering (in part unavoidably) to a popular democracy’s insistent desire to view an unbelievably complicated a war as this one in emotional terms (our guys against their guys), is surely wide of the mark, and is bound to provide these millions of people with an excessively simple, emotional, and military-oriented view of what is, at best, a mighty unsimple solution.

Medialens provided essential coverage of the UK press before, during and after the invasion. In an email alert on August 15, the authors posited the following:

Prior to the war, for example, the key UK government claim was that the Iraqi regime had always foiled attempts to achieve peaceful disarmament so that military intervention was a tragic necessity. What was so astonishing was that in all the thousands of articles and news reports on Iraq, there were almost literally no attempts to verify the truth of this claim. How successful had the earlier inspections regimes actually been? What level of success was achieved? To what extent did the Iraqis cooperate? Why did inspections break down after so many years? Was peaceful disarmament feasible? These questions were almost never asked.

The Observer ran Brian Eno’s Lessons in how to lie about Iraq in August:

In the West the calculated manipulation of public opinion to serve political and ideological interests is much more covert and therefore much more effective. Its greatest triumph is that we generally don’t notice it – or laugh at the notion it even exists. We watch the democratic process taking place – heated debates in which we feel we could have a voice – and think that, because we have ‘free’ media, it would be hard for the Government to get away with anything very devious without someone calling them on it.

Have Australians viewed the war in a similar way and asked the hard questions? And what effects, if any, will this distortion have? Shaun Carney wrote in The Age that the Howard Government might well still suffer over its handling and involvement in the Iraq invasion. Despite numerous polls indicating that people feel mislead and even lied to, the Labor opposition appear to not be gaining ground on their rivals. This does not mean, however, that Howard could lose an election, rather than Crean winning it. Media coverage has been essential in shaping public opinion on this issue, and Carney argues the long term political effect is highly unpredictable:

Their argument [the Howard Government] is that Iraq is a dead issue, that Australia has only a limited, and diminishing, involvement in the occupation force and that it is not part of the nation-building effort. The public’s sense of investment and connection in the issue is, as a consequence, small. This could well be true but the fact is that Australia does not exist in a vacuum. The news continues to flow in from London and Washington about the domestic political problems for Australia’s coalition partners caused by the war. The news also continues to flow in, more sporadically but often quite horrific, from Baghdad. (Howard may yet rue this war) Also see Margo Kingston’s Who will lead us out of the wilderness?

Webdiarist Scott Burchill recommends a recent article from the Wall Street Journal, talking about the current crisis within neo-conservative ranks in the US. Joshua Muravchik is a prominent thinker amongst the group, and only six months ago was heralding Bush’s pre-emptive doctrine as “sentence after sentence that I agreed with and couldn’t have said better myself”.

Mr. Muravchik concedes that for himself and his fellow neocons, ‘there’s a tremendous amount on the line,’ in Iraq. ‘If this goes wrong, of course, we will be, to some degree, discredited. Justifiably so. We put forward these ideas and they’re really being put to the test.’

At what point will leaks begin emerging from the Howard camp about this doctrine? According to Foreign Minister Downer on Lateline, Australia is still 100% behind this unilateral philosophy.

The last month has seen an explosion of new information regarding the current situation on the ground in Iraq, primarily from overseas sources. This from The London Times on September 21, by Nick Fielding:

Saddam Hussein secretly recruited a resistance army to fight a guerrilla war five years before the invasion of Iraq by British and US forces, a trusted confidant has revealed, writes Nick Fielding.

Ali Ballout, a Lebanese writer who was close to the Iraqi president for 30 years, said that Saddam realised during the late 1990s that America would never negotiate a deal that would leave him in charge. After the allied Desert Fox bombing campaign in 1998, Saddam began recruiting leaders for a network of guerrilla units who would continue to fight any occupation force and would form the nucleus of a new regime.

Less than a year before the invasion, Ballout said Saddam liquidated some of the huge financial assets he had stashed abroad through illegal sales of oil, hiding the cash throughout Iraq for use in any guerrilla war.

And this from Buzzflash on September 21′:

If King George’s poll numbers dip any lower, watch for “Godfather” Bush (the Father of the King) to send in Bush Cartel consiglieri, James Baker, to advise Junior that he has to push Rumsfeld or Cheney off the plank to push his poll numbers up. Ashcroft is also vulnerable, but for less immediate reasons.

BuzzFlash figures Rumsfeld will exit before Cheney, but Cheney could always be “persuaded” to resign for health reasons. (Under this scenario, Colin Powell would replace him.) The logical caveat to the Cheney resignation scenario is that since Cheney is ACTUALLY functioning as the President, it might be challenging to persuade him to step down from the Vice Presidency.

But James Baker, in true “Godfather” consiglieri fashion, may make Cheney an offer that he can’t refuse. How about a guarantee of continued no-bid contracts for Halliburton and a promise to shred all the energy advisory committee documents? Well, that might be the starting point for negotiations, anyway. Dick’s got bigger things in mind.

Through all this, though, it’s important to remember the views of Iraqis themselves. A recent Gallop Poll offers evidence that a majority of Iraqis “say that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth the hardships they have since endured”.

We in the West have the luxury to debate the lies and deceptions told us by our leaders to justify war, but let us never forget the day-to-day lives of Iraqis. Salam Pax told me, in relation to the Gallop Poll:

There’s something I tell anyone who starts whining. There is something very important which has just happened, so just keep that in your mind. An era has ended and something new is starting, it’s just the difficult birth phase. We have to go through this, learn from the mistakes we’re making now. In four, five years, I’m sure things will be much better. I just read today a Gallop poll today that said that two thirds of people asked in Iraq thought that things will be very much better in five years from now. This was so good.

And what about Afghanistan? John Pilger recently returned from a tour of Afghanistan and Iraq and his message is despairing. Writing in The Guardian on 20 September, Pilger said:

In May last year, the Guardian published the result of an investigation by Jonathan Steele. He concluded that, in addition to up to 8,000 Afghans killed by American bombs, as many as 20,000 more may have died as an indirect consequence of Bush’s invasion, including those who fled their homes and were denied emergency relief in the middle of a drought. Of all the great humanitarian crises of recent years, no country has been helped less than Afghanistan. Bosnia, with a quarter of the population, received $356 per person; Afghanistan gets $42 per person. Only 3% of all international aid spent in Afghanistan has been for reconstruction; the US-led military “coalition” accounts for 84%, the rest is emergency aid. Last March, Karzai flew to Washington to beg for more money. He was promised extra money from private US investors. Of this, $35m will finance a proposed five-star hotel. As Bush said, “The Afghan people will know the generosity of America and its allies.”

As citizens of a so-called democracy, we are entitled to ask some provocative questions. What did ‘we’ really achieve in Afghanistan and Iraq? (Certainly Indonesia must be wondering what benefits come from being ‘partners’ with the US in the ‘War on Terror’, with the US recently refusing their requests for access to Hambali; see US Denies Indonesia Access to Hambali).

The relatively high support for the Howard Government could partly be explained by the lack of real coverage of events in recent theatres of action, such as the Middle East and Central Asia. How many people really know the real reason for invading Iraq? How many people really know the current situation in Afghanistan? How many people are aware of the role of US troops in Central Asia? How many people would still support either or both wars if they knew, as reported by Pilger last weekend, the following:

In a series of extraordinary reports, the latest published in July, Human Rights Watch has documented atrocities “committed by gunmen and warlords who were propelled into power by the United States and its coalition partners after the Taliban fell in 2001” and who have “essentially hijacked the country”. The report describes army and police troops controlled by the warlords kidnapping villagers with impunity and holding them for ransom in unofficial prisons; the widespread rape of women, girls and boys; routine extortion, robbery and arbitrary murder. Girls’ schools are burned down. “Because the soldiers are targeting women and girls,” the report says, “many are staying indoors, making it impossible for them to attend school [or] go to work. (What Good Friends Left Behind).

Back in Iraq, even Ahmed Chalabi is starting to grumble. In an interview with the New York Times recently, Chalabi suggested the need for more control of key institutions by Iraqis, and therefore less by occupation forces. He was, however, still keen to please his Washington saviours:

“I am fighting to keep Americans in Iraq,” Mr. Chalabi said before leaving Baghdad. “We are afraid that they will lose their resolve and go home if the current situation continues.”

Perhaps it takes a man like Michael Meacher, former UK Environment Minister, to express what no Australian Liberal Party member has dared utter, whether out of fear, internal or external pressure, or total agreement with the Party line (This war on terror is bogus)

Webdiarest Eric Howell, however, is not one to be bluffed over suspect intelligence claims:

I picked up a book titled “Veil – The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987” written by Bob Woodward. It contains a lot of information about the US involvement in Nicaragua and Libya. At p.166 Woodward describes the methods employed to justify engagement with Gadaffi’s regime and the following appears:

“Other reports showed that yellowcake was coming in [to Libya] from Niger, the other Central African to the south of Libya”

It seems old intelligence ideas never go away.

Scott Burchill has been conducting some telling analysis of pre-war and post-war spin:

* In US won’t allow quick Iraq handover Condoleezza Rice was openly critical of plans to rush the transfer of power, saying it must come in “an orderly process”. “The French plan, which would somehow transfer sovereignty to an unelected group of people, just isn’t workable,” she told reporters. (Burchill: Funny, this wasn’t a problem in Afghanistan.)

* Question to Howard at the national press club on the eve of war, March 14:

Michelle Grattan, The Age: Mr Howard, if as you advocate, countries in the Security Council got behind the resolution and a miracle happened and Iraq said yes it would say the game was up and disarmed, but Saddam Hussein was still there, would this be enough for peace given the strong case you have made today for regime change in the name of the Iraqi people?

PM John Howard: Well I would have to accept that if Iraq had genuinely disarmed, I couldn’t justify on its own a military invasion of Iraq to change the regime. I’ve never advocated that.

*

PM John Howard, The World Today, ABC Radio, 24 September, 2003:

Those who advocated another course have to accept that if their advice had been followed, Saddam Hussein would still be in power in Iraq with all of the torture and the human rights abuses that is involved in that. You can’t have it both ways, because if America and her allies had not acted then Iraq would still be run by Saddam Hussein.

Burchill: So military action to change the Government of Iraq which he couldn’t justify on humanitarian grounds in March, has by September retrospectively legitimated what earlier he wouldn’t defend? And if Saddam had produced his WMD (which he couldn’t presumably because he didn’t have any), Howard would be one of those people he now accuses of wanting to keep Saddam in power. So much for his humanitarian commitment to the people of Iraq. What did Howard say about Halabja in the Parliament? How many times did he condemn Iraq’s use of chemical weapons in its war with Iran? Ditto for Downer? Now that’s opportunistic!

Webdiarist Brian McKinley found an intriguing story by Al Kamen in The Washington Post on September 19 called ‘Colonialism rekindled?’:

“The Rashid Hotel, the favored hotel for U.S. contractors, consultants and reporters, is looking like a classic “colonial outpost,” with “GIs lunching on corn dogs and Southern fried chicken, defense contractors putting golf balls on the lawn, [and] women dressed in shorts that would raise eyebrows across the river,” according to a Reuters wire report.

The Iraqis also play their appropriate role at the hotel on the Tigris River, working in lesser jobs as waiters, clerks, translators and such.

Iraqi security personnel are suspect,” the wire said, so the U.S. company that runs the hotel, “a subsidiary of [Vice President] Cheney’s old company Halliburton, prefers Ghurkas from Nepal.”

Ghurkas? The legendary fighters who carry kukris, those short, curved knives that are especially useful in decapitating enemies?

Yes indeed, the very same, though they are relying on rifles these days, said Rajiv Chandrasekaran, our colleague in Baghdad. They have been spotted guarding other places, including the presidential palace that’s home to viceroy L. Paul Bremer.

The Ghurkas guard each of the hotel’s 12 floors ’round the clock “at an estimated cost to the U.S taxpayer of more than $120,000 a month,” Reuters reported.

With Bush’s underwhelming recent performance at the UN, demanding more international help while dogmatically asserting his government’s rightness in taking on Saddam, there must be some alternative remedies to the current serious predicament. Bruce Grant, former ambassador and academic, wrote in The Age on September 23:

The US stands head and shoulders above all other powers. The UN is not a rival state. It is not even an organisation or institution. It is a global system, still evolving, with a half century of valuable experience. It is the driving force behind the development recently of international criminal and humanitarian law.

No nation, even the most powerful, can run a rapidly globalising world. The UN, slow and cumbersome as it can be, nevertheless confers legitimacy on efforts to establish international law and order. (US has lost the lesson of history)

Sydney Morning Herald political correspondent Geoff Kitney issued a bold challenge to the Howard Government on September 26, suggesting that only greater engagement with our region will ultimately reduce terrorism:

Australia can pursue its interests without being anti-American. In fact, by focusing on the need to build greater trust and understanding with Indonesia, Australia will be making a much more important contribution to the war on terrorism than it did by sending troops to the war in Iraq.

To prevent this becoming a disaster, Australia needs to redouble the effort it puts into regional diplomacy. It needs to build bridges of understanding. Howard should give priority to travelling to the regional capitals, but especially to Jakarta.

As part of this, Howard must be prepared to be more critical of US policy, or at least less kneejerk in his pro-Americanism, as he was with his attack on France. It’s now in Australia’s interest to be a bit less pro-American and a bit more pro-Indonesian. By acting more independently we would be helping the US. (Forget France, the neighbours are restless)

The biggest story of this whole debate so far could be the upcoming report by David Kay, the weapons inspector charged to search for Iraq’s supposed WMDs. Reports emerged last week that “a much-anticipated interim report by the Bush administration’swill offer no firm conclusions about the former Iraqi government’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, senior officials said yesterday.” It was a startling admission, and one leaving John Howard in a decidedly defensive position (Howard in retreat on Iraq arsenal). It remains to be seen how the PM engages in these potentially explosive revelations.

On September 22 at the UN, Conzoleeza Rice more than implied that the full and final report might never be made public:

Q: When will Kay’s report be public?

DR. RICE: David Kay is not going to be done with this for quite some time. And I would not count on reports. I suppose there may be interim reports. I don’t know when those will be, and I don’t know what the public nature of them will be. (Dr Rice Briefing on President’s Visit to UN General Assembly). The White House has denied the implication, with Colin Powell attempting damage control, but the fact remains that an increasingly questioning public will want nothing less than full disclosure.

The more facts that emerge, the more it appears Bush had a domestic political agenda, while Blair and Howard felt they had little choice but to follow for supposed rewards still forthcoming.

Scott Burchill discovered this telling press conference given by Colin Powell in 2001. His future remarks, along with members of his government, fly completely in the face of his ‘facts’ in early 2001. The arrival of 9/11 signalled the beginnings of a belief that a fearful public would capitulate to warnings of future terrorist attacks, sly connections between Saddam and Bin Laden and imminent attack on Western cities by the Iraqi Government:

Press Remarks with Foreign Minister of Egypt Amre Moussa

Secretary Colin L. Powell

Cairo, Egypt (Ittihadiya Palace)

February 24, 2001

I received a very warm welcome from the leaders and I know there is some unhappiness as expressed in the Egyptian press. I understand that, but at the same time, with respect to the no-fly zones and the air strikes that we from time to time must conduct to defend our pilots, I just want to remind everybody that the purpose of those no-fly zones and the purpose of those occasional strikes to protect our pilots, is not to pursue an aggressive stance toward Iraq, but to defend the people that the no-fly zones are put in to defend. The people in the southern part of Iraq and the people in the northern part of

Iraq, and these zones have a purpose, and their purpose is to protect people — protect Arabs — not to affect anything else in the region. And we have to defend ourselves.

We will always try to consult with our friends in the region so that they are not surprised and do everything we can to explain the purpose of our responses. We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions — the fact that the sanctions exist — not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein’s ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose.

That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq, and these are policies that we are going to keep in place, but we are always willing to review them to make sure that they are being carried out in a way that does not affect the Iraqi people but does affect the Iraqi regime’s ambitions and the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we had a good conversation on this issue.

We live in a parallel universe. Pro-war supporters, like Howard, shout down opposers of the occupation as friends of Saddam. The Hutton Inquiry gave Blair the chance to avoid answering the real reasons behind his rush to war, instead focusing on the tragic surroundings around the death of Dr David Kelly. The media’s role in all this mess is far from glorious, and for that reason I’ve included below a Medialens alert from September 25 outlining the ways in which much of the corporate media in the UK merely echo the lines of the great powers of the day.

It’s time to reclaim our right for answers because Howard deserves to be challenged at every opportunity. In our rush to war, the facts were conveniently thrown out the window, and our democratic principles are grossly damaged because of it. We should demand answers. No matter what our leaders now say, human rights was NEVER the main reason behind the recent war. Saddam’s crimes went unchecked in the West for over two decades. It is for these reasons that our leaders should pay the ultimate political price.

MEDIA ALERT: THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING NUANCED

A Tragicomedy Of Media Manners

Primary Colours

Andrew Gilligan, it is reported, is on his way out of Radio 4’s Today programme. The BBC’s director of news, Richard Sambrook, told the Hutton inquiry last week that Gilligan had failed to appreciate the “nuances and subtleties” of broadcast journalism, casting his reports in “primary colours” rather than shades of grey. (‘Gilligan left out in cold by BBC’, Matt Wells, Richard Norton-Taylor and Vikram Dodd, The Guardian, September 18, 2003)

Gilligan has fallen foul of one of the unwritten rules of media reporting: journalism that supports established power is waved through as obviously ‘balanced’ and ‘impartial’. Journalism that challenges established power is subject to minute examination in search of the tiniest sign of ‘bias’.

No one blinked an eye when Andrew Marr announced on the day that Baghdad fell that Blair “stands as a larger man and a stronger prime minister as a result”. (Marr, BBC 1, News At Ten, April 9, 2003)

This was the same Marr who, during NATO’s assault on Serbia, had made some similarly nuanced suggestions in the Observer:

“I want to put the Macbeth option: which is that we’re so steeped in blood we should go further. If we really believe Milosevic is this bad, dangerous and destabilising figure we must ratchet this up much further. We should now be saying that we intend to put in ground troops.” (‘Do We Give war a chance?’, The Observer, April 18, 1999)

A week later, Marr contrasted Western nations, which he claimed had been “feminised” by the Cold War, with: “The war-hardened people of Serbia, far more callous, seemingly readier to die” who were “like an alien race”. (Marr, ‘War is hell – but not being ready to go to war is undignified and embarrassing’, The Observer, April 25, 1999)

A year after some 500 civilians had been killed by 11 weeks of NATO “surgical strikes”, Marr underwent some surgery of his own prior to becoming the BBC’s political editor:

“When I joined the BBC, my Organs of Opinion were formally removed.” (‘Andrew Marr, the BBC’s political editor’, The Independent, January 13, 2000)

No inquiries were launched when the Guardian’s David Leigh and James Wilson described the evidence of mass death of Iraqi children under sanctions as a “statistical construct” and “atrocity propaganda”. (‘Counting Iraq’s victims’, The Guardian, October 10, 2001)

No issues of ‘nuance’ were raised when Thomas Friedman of the New York Times spoke last week of an Arab “bubble of terrorism”, and of how, “We need to go into the heart of their world and beat their brains out, frankly, in order to burst this bubble.” (Tim Russert Show, CNBC, September 13, 2003)

The BBC, of course, has a long history of using “primary colours” in its reporting. During the Falklands War, BBC executives directed that news coverage should be concerned “primarily with government statements of policy”. Achieving an impartial style was deemed “an unnecessary irritation”. (Quoted, John Pilger, New Statesman, August 2, 1996)

In 1997, the BBC’s Newsnight editor, Peter Horrocks, told staff: “Our job should not be to quarrel with the purpose of policy, but to question its implementation.” (Quoted, Robert Newman, ‘Performers of the world unite’, The Guardian, August 7, 2000)

More recently, a Cardiff University report found that during the latest attack on Iraq the BBC displayed the most pro-war agenda of any broadcaster.

Lack of nuance nevertheless remains strictly a dissident problem. In reviewing one of Noam Chomsky’s books, the Independent’s Steve Crawshaw expressed his bewilderment at the fact that, “Chomsky knows so much but seems impervious to any idea of nuance.” (‘Furious ideas with no room for nuance’, Steve Crawshaw, The Independent, February 21, 2001)

Likewise, Joe Joseph lamented in the Times: “The world, according to Pilger, is pretty much black and white: his journalistic retina doesn’t recognise shades of grey”. (Joseph, The Times, March 7, 2000) Jon Snow added in the Guardian: “Some argue the ends justify [Pilger’s] means, others that the world is a more subtle place than he allows.” (Snow, ‘Still angry after all these years’, The Guardian, February 25, 2001)

In Parliamentary Brief magazine, Philip Towle judged author Mark Curtis’ work “useful”, but added, “a more balanced and less paranoid analysis would be more convincing”.(Towle, Parliamentary Brief, November 1995)

Alas, Media Lens is cursed by the same monomania. Last year, Bill Hayton, a BBC World Service editor, advised us: “If your language was more nuanced it would get a better reception.” (Email to Editors, November 16, 2002)

Of Hopeless Hacks And Horrible Hypocrisies

Reality, for much of the media, is defined by the needs of the powerful. Thus, “The BBC must sack the hopeless hack Gilligan”, the Sun raged. (Editorial, September 18, 2003) The Scotsman regretted the BBC’s errors: “Successful investigative journalism demands the highest standards of accuracy and precise reporting of what can be proved.” (Editorial, September 18, 2003) “Gilligan’s first report on the dodgy dossier … was wrong”, opined the Mirror, “And he will probably pay a heavy price for that.” (Editorial, September 18, 2003)

Using familiar code words, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger wrote of Gilligan and the BBC: “How much damage and tragedy could have been avoided if the organisation had swiftly published a nuanced and careful clarification.” (‘If only we were as tough on ourselves as on the BBC’, Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian, September 20, 2003)

And how much damage and tragedy could have been avoided in Iraq if the media had ditched red herrings of this kind and instead raised even the most elementary objections to government propaganda. If the “hopeless hack” failed “the highest standards of accuracy”, what can we say of the rest of the media, which, for over a year, failed to challenge a government that was engaged in a systematic campaign of deception?

The challenges that could have been made are childishly obvious: Why attack when Unscom inspectors achieved 90-95% success in disarming Iraq peacefully? Why attack when inspectors were withdrawn from, not thrown out of, Iraq? Why attack when any retained Iraqi WMD would have long since become “harmless sludge”, according to Unscom inspectors, the CIA and others? Why attack when there was no evidence whatever of links between the Iraqi regime and its mortal enemy, al-Qaeda? Why attack when Tony Blair had said almost nothing about a dire threat from Iraqi WMD between 1997-2001? Why attack when Blair had stood alongside French President Jacques Chirac in November 2001 insisting that “incontrovertible evidence” of Iraqi complicity in the September 11 attacks would be required before military action would even be considered? Why attack when in 2001, months before the September 11 attacks, Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice both stated that Iraq had not rearmed and posed no threat?

Gilligan’s ‘offence’ was to report that senior intelligence officials thought the 45-minute claim on Iraqi deployment of WMD “risible”. Gilligan also dared to suggest that the government must have known that the claim was “wrong”. And indeed in a taped conversation with a BBC journalist, weapons expert David Kelly had described how “lots of people” in the intelligence community were concerned, that “people at the top of the ladder didn’t want to hear some of the things”. (‘Beyond doubt: facts amid the fiction’, Vikram Dodd, Richard Norton-Taylor and Nicholas Watt, The Guardian, August 16, 2003)

Dimitris Perricos, a Greek-born nuclear expert who replaced Hans Blix in June as the top UN weapons inspector in Iraq has said:

“There is no doubt that the phrase of ‘within 45 minutes’ that was included in the British report did not correspond to reality. No one, of course, should go to war for a (weapons) programme if they do not know if the weapons have been created. From the inspections, no evidence was found that would justify a war.” (ap September 1, 2003)

But the focus on the 45-minute claim is itself a red herring intended to draw attention away from a far bigger deception. Senator Edward Kennedy last week indicated the complete irrelevance of the discussion on the rights and wrongs of Gilligan’s report:

“There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud.” (Steve LeBlanc, ‘Kennedy says war case a “fraud”‘, Associated Press, September 18, 2003)

And this whole fraud could have been exposed and possibly even stopped, but the media were busy echoing and channelling government propaganda without subtlety and without nuance.

 

Marat’s dream. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

Rising inequality presents a real threat to our collective well being, not just to the well being of those who are missing out. Rising inequality, especially in a society accustomed to seeing itself as fair, creates a nagging sense of unfairness and threatens social solidarity and stability. It undermines the perception that we are all equal. It can lead to bitter divisions and increase the psychological and social distance between the haves and the have nots. As James K. Galbraith pointed out, it can cause “the comfortable to disavow the needy” and it becomes easier to persuade people – as this government is trying to do – that defects of character or culture rather than economic history cause the gap.

As a member of the Labor Party, I have always been passionately committed to egalitarianism – the idea that each person has equal worth; that any limitations on their achievement and their ability to share in society’s goods should be systematically broken down. And that this requires public action and investment.

The conservatives embrace – if they do at all – a pallid version of equal opportunity. They think it is enough to let people step up to the mark and do as well as they can no matter what handicaps they start with. They speak from the vantage point of privilege, blind to their own advantages. They fail to understand that promoting equal opportunity actually requires active intervention to minimise disadvantage and ensure that people’s life chances are more equal, so that the accident of your birth does not cripple your future.

Most Australians still hold firm to the view that ours is an egalitarian society. Indeed, some who argue that egalitarianism is the value that defines us. While more of us are uneasy about the widening income and wealth gaps we see, many still appear to accept the boast made by our leaders that ours is a nation of equals where the ethic of a “fair go” is the norm governing our private and public relations. But is this really so?

There is now a great deal of evidence which challenges this comfortable assertion. While researchers may disagree about the extent of the problem, they generally agree that inequality amongst Australians is increasing and that egalitarianism itself may be under threat as a defining social objective. And they all agree that it matters.

I was recently asked to review three new books on the subject of inequality and poverty and was struck by the fact that, although they use different data sources and levels of analysis, all three reached the same conclusion. We are a less equal society than we have ever been. (See Fred Argy, Where to From Here? Australian Egalitarianism Under Threat, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2003, Mark Peel, The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty, Cambridge University Press, 2003, Michael Pusey, The Experience of Middle Australia: The Dark Side of Economic Reform, Cambridge University Press, 2003.)

Fred Argy points out that Australia’s distinctive form of egalitarianism evolved over 70 years, and was defined by its advocacy of a strong role for government in advancing human wellbeing.

The historic roots of our egalitarian ethic lie in a pragmatic commitment to sharing the wealth of the country and the benefits of productivity, particularly through the award and wage fixing system – the “wage earners welfare state.” One of the features of this “settlement” was a recognition that government could be – and should be- a major player in achieving equality. Argy details “seven pillars” which were deliberately created by government action:

* the virtual guarantee of full-time employment,

* the protection of wages and conditions of workers,

* an unconditional needs-based welfare safely net,

* a strongly progressive tax system,

* generous government provision of non-cash benefits such as education, health and housing,

* a balanced distribution of regional economic opportunities and

* the capacity for workers to be involved in workplace decisions affecting their wellbeing.

Argy’s systematic analysis of the extent of erosion of these pillars and the reasons for the decline he identifies makes sobering reading.

Various data on Australian incomes show a widening gap between citizens. Stephen Long observed in 1998 that a map of Australia depicting the distribution of income and employment would show “a nation fracturing along class, residential and ethnic lines” (Australian Financial Review, October 24-25). The gap is not just between the rich and the poor, but between the rich and the rest of us.

The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling calculated that in 1990 the richest 10% of Australian families received 23% of the national income (up 1.7% from 1982) while the poorest 10% received less than 3% (down 0.2%).

Income movements are reinforcing these differences. Between 1993-4 and 1998-9 the 2.2 million Australians in the lowest 20% received an average weekly increase of $9 (5%) while the top 20% received $343 ( 23.4%). Similarly, Natsem has reported that the number of low-wage earners doubled between the mid-1980s and the mid 1990s and that over the last decade, especially since the mid-90s, income inequality has been increasing.

Despite our myth-making, Australia also has relatively high levels of inequality by international standards. Incomes after taxes and transfers (benefits, rebates etc) are more unequal in Australia than in all but a few of the OECD countries (OECD, 2001), pointing to a tax/transfer system which is less effective than other developed nations. As Argy points out, while Australia has a relatively progressive tax system, it actually spendsless on redistribution than other countries.

Australia has even greater disparities in wealth, with the top 10% owning 52% of the nation’s wealth. Since 1993, the share of the nation’s wealth held by the richest 10 per cent has increased by almost five percent. The increase since 1996 has been even more concentrated. The richest 1 per cent increased their share of wealth from 12-15% and this has been made at the expense of those on middle incomes.

Inequality has many different faces apart from those captured by aggregate figures on income and wealth distribution. There are substantial inequities in Australians’ working lives, reflected in lengthening working hours for some and too little work for others, fewer full time jobs, unequal job opportunities, greater job insecurity and increasing numbers of long-term unemployed and marginal and discouraged job seekers.

As well, Australian workers have not received their fair share of the rapid productivity growth of the 1990s and the dispersion of income has become more unequal. Earnings have grown much faster for managers and those in professions and trades than for labourers, clerical and service workers. It is an affront to our egalitarian values that CEO and senior management earnings have grown at ten times the rate of award pay rates over the last decade producing a current ratio of 20:1, a figure exceeded only by the United States.

Egalitarian values are also under threat in the welfare system, in the declining progressivity of the tax system and in reduced non-cash benefits which flow from expenditure on health, education and housing.

And it is not simply a matter of inequality, but also of rank poverty. While it might be unfashionable to draw attention to poverty in Australia, it exists and causes great distress to those affected. While poverty in an affluent society such as ours does not have the same meaning as it does in many parts of the world, some Australians have so little that they cannot afford the basic goods and services the rest of us take for granted.

Accounts from people living on low incomes given to the Brotherhood of St Laurence reveal recurring themes of difficulties in meeting essential costs such as rent, food and electricity, stress in family relationships and a sense of social isolation. Social and recreation needs are rarely accommodated.

This month, Uniting Care Australia urged us to accept that all Australians are entitled to a decent life, in which they have access to work, education, housing, food and recreation. They also reminded us that a significant minority of Australians lack such a decent life.

Does Inequality Matter?

All this is doubly important because societies which have the greatest differentials in wealth and income are also the most unequal in access to other resources, including power and influence.

Societies with greatest income inequality are also the most likely to discriminate against minorities and to limit universal access to public goods, such as education and health services. The greater the inequality in wealth, the greater the social distance between citizens.

It is also typically more difficult for the least well off to move up the ladder and “elites” are more likely to exercise control and to dominate key positions of power. Inequality undermines social cohesion and weakens the bonds of co-operation. It makes democratic citizenship more difficult because some people are denied the resources – education, money and time, in particular – which are essential to exercise our democratic rights.

Rising inequality presents a real threat to our collective well being, not just to the well being of those who are missing out. Rising inequality, especially in a society accustomed to seeing itself as fair, creates a nagging sense of unfairness and threatens social solidarity and stability. It undermines the perception that we are all equal.

It can lead to bitter divisions and increase the psychological and social distance between the haves and the have nots. As James K. Galbraith pointed out, it can cause “the comfortable to disavow the needy” and it becomes easier to persuade people – as this government is trying to do – that defects of character or culture rather than economic history cause the gap. (Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay, New York: The Free Press, 1998)

Conversely, economic equality makes people feel similar to others and more likely to identify with them. The more inequality there is, the greater the awareness of one’s position and the more acute the knowledge about whether one is a loser or a winner; while the rich may feel more secure, the poor become less hopeful.

There is also a clear danger that increasing gaps may weaken the willingness of those who have to share by concentrating more and more resources into hands less inclined to be willing. This tendency threatens the ability of the society to provide for the weak, the poor and the old and sparks bitter debate about welfare payments and other benefits which go to the most disadvantaged. Inequality is accompanied by increasing pressure to withdraw resources from the public to the private domain – a deliberate policy drive under the current government.

Many have argued that growing inequality is likely to lead to a two tiered society where the wealthy live lives which are fundamentally different from those on low and middle incomes – an “apartheid economy”. Even Alan Greenspan sees unequal incomes as “a major threat to security”, a pretty miserable reason for addressing the problem. Work on “social exclusion” and “the culture of poverty” illustrates how readily people can be trapped in a cycle of disadvantage and poverty across generations, attracting further scapegoating and marginalisation.

More broadly, there is burgeoning evidence that unequal communities have poorer health, poorer education outcomes and rising crime rates compared with more equal communities. A joint Adelaide University – Commonwealth Government publication, The Social Health Atlas of Australia, reports a growing divide between the wellbeing of the richest and poorest Australians which mirrors the growing income divide.

Simultaneously with the “loosening up” of economic controls and the resultant growth in inequality, social control has intensified. The parallel development of laissez-faire policies in the market place and increasing social control have been noted by a number of commentators and is increasingly evident in the rhetoric and policies of the current government.

Education and Equality

There is little dispute that the universal provision of quality education is one of the keys to reducing inequality and enhancing people’s opportunities to participate in the economy and the society.

In the first instance, public expenditure on education operates as a so-called non-cash benefit, like services in health and housing, and has an equalising effect on after-tax income distribution. Assistance to families in the form of government-subsidised services increases the income families have to devote to other consumption.

These benefits are particularly important for Australians in the bottom thirty per cent, increasing their after-housing final income by at least 30%. Recent social policy changes have wound back some of these benefits with a resultant reduction in these redistributional effects. During the 1990s, the distribution of such non-cash benefits became more skewed towards higher income households. This can be attributed in part to reduced spending, relatively speaking, on public goods.

While there are few current data available, the most recent UN Human Development Index, a composite measure of GDP per capita and health care and education indicators, reveals that we have dropped from 7th to 15th place on the league table.

Education is also vital in improving life chances and reducing inequality in the long term, particularly by improving access to employment and conferring higher income earning capacity. It also opens people’s lives to enriching and enjoyable experiences.

Over the last 50 years, Australia has had a strong commitment to a high quality public education system. Under this government, that commitment is being undermined.

By international standards, Australia still has average to high standards of education (OECD 2002) but there is substantial educational inequality. And at least part of this inequality can be attributed to the education levels, occupation and income of students’ parents. Indigenous students and those from rural areas are particularly disadvantaged. Gifted students from poorer families are less likely to achieve their full potential.

It is clear that students from poorer families start behind the eight ball and are not given enough extra assistance to overcome things such as:

* poor study conditions at home;

* less encouragement by parents whose own experience of schooling has been marred by low achievement;

* language and cultural barriers;

* absence of books and other educational resources at home;

* attendance at schools with poorer facilities, a more diverse school population including more children with behavioural and social problems and teachers working under pressure; and

* lower expectations of their capacity.

International comparisons show bigger gaps between the best and the worst performers in Australia than in other developed counties. OECD data confirm that on measures of literacy, the poorest performing students here do worse than the poorest performing students in high ranking countries, including most of Europe. And the relationship between reading ability and social background is also more marked in Australia. We are one of the least equitable countries in the developed world. This points to inequalities in the functioning of our education system and a failure to compensate for pre-existing disadvantage.

Investment in public education rose impressively during the 1970s and 1980s. There are signs that this effort is stalling. For example, in the 70s 5.6% of GDP was spent on education, a figure which had been reduced to 4.5% by the end of the 90s, despite significant increases in education participation. Our spending on the all important pre-school years is low by world standards and there are too few early intervention programs for at-risk families.

Until recently the participation rate of lower socio-economic groups in post-compulsory schooling, including universities, was increasing. School retention and completion rates, after growing rapidly, stalled in the 90s and our levels are now well below those of the U.S. and Canada.

Of more concern is the failure to close the socio-economic gap in performance and retention, especially for males. The gap may, indeed, be widening. A similar trend to lower participation is evident in vocational education and training for the most disadvantaged.

As many commentators have argued, one reason for this gap is the increasing advantage enjoyed by non-government schools which educate the better off. In the thrall of narrow fiscal ideology and reduced grants from the Commonwealth, successive State governments have restricted funding to their schools. Simultaneously, the Howard Government has poured money into the wealthiest private schools at the expense of the government school sector.

Between 1995-6 and 2001 the Commonwealth cut the Government school sector’s share of funding from 42.2% to 34.7%, although the enrolment share declined only 1.9%. As a proportion of GDP, expenditure on the government sector was static while it increased by 21.6% in the non-government sector. Federal Government funding for non-government schools ballooned from $3.36 billion last year to an estimated $4.74 billion in 2004-05.

Ken Davidson has estimated that “total public and private expenditure on state school students will be $2000 a year per capita less than for non-government school students s by 2005,” a figure which other analysts describe as conservative (The Truth about Dr Nelson’s Uni Reform, The Age, 25 May 2003). Some have estimated average gaps as wide as $4000. When Catholic schools are excluded, the National Report on Schooling reports that the ‘independent’ schools are about 26% higher than the average for non-government schools – a difference of between $5,500 and $7,500 per student.

Some of the wealthiest schools operate with 200% of the resources available in government schools. The Government’s funding policies and the SES funding formula are major contributors to this reverse discrimination. Give most to those who have most; take from those who have little.

Such disparity in resources will almost certainly lead to even greater inequalities in performance. Instead of front-end loading the schools who deal with the most disadvantaged and systematically assisting those most likely to benefit from extra expenditure, the government provides derisory amounts to support literacy and numeracy programs. Last year, for example, they spent $115 million on advertising, while the current budget commits just $7 million for grants to foster literacy and numeracy.

In June last year, Ken Boston former head of Education in NSW, argued passionately that Australia urgently needs to debate and resolve some fundamental questions about the future of school education, particularly its inherent unfairness to the less well off:

Do we want to educate our children mainly in government-assisted fee-paying private schools, based on an exclusive clientele identified by socio-economic status, religion, ethnicity or some other dimension? Or do we want them mainly to be in inclusive government-funded public schools, mixing with children from a wider range of backgrounds and experiences?

We need to debate whether education should be something we purchase, like soap powder or a public good, for which we all take responsibility through our governments.

Boston makes a compelling case that “choice”, an ideology which the Howard government gives precedence over equality, should never be based on the fact that government schools are underfunded. In his view, and mine, the “overriding priority of national and state governments should be to provide universal access to first-class public education while respecting the right of parents to choose non-government schools and supporting them on the basis of need.”

John Ralston Saul argued that education is the “single most important element in the maintenance of a democratic system”.

The better the citizenry as a whole are educated, the wider and more sensible public participation, debate and social mobility will be. Highly sophisticated elites are the easiest and least original thing a society can produce. The most difficult and the most valuable is a well-educated populace.

As a former Education Minister and university lecturer, I am convinced he is right. Mass public education is costly, but citizens of modern societies have been willing to pay these costs because they have been convinced it is in the public interest; that there are public as well as private goods.

Surveys over the last few years show that whereas 20 years ago a high rate of economic growth, a stable economy and strong defence forces were considered the most important priorities for the country, today’s top priorities are:

(a) ensuring everyone has access to a good education,

(b) providing a quality life for our children, and

(c) providing quality health care for everyone

The same research reveals that preventing the gap widening between rich and poor was more important to the citizens of the 90s than increasing their own standard of living. They seemed willing to share.

Investment in public education is now under challenge and resources are stretched to the limit. Australian public education has been affected by the systematic attempts to undermine the “welfare state” – “the revolt of the rich”, as Galbraith called it.

Schools can either perpetuate or redress disadvantage. They work daily with young people who are disadvantaged in various ways and they are also a crucial means of reducing such disadvantage. Schools must work with disadvantaged students to offset the practical, psychological, cultural and economic impediments to their education. They must also seek to confront the complex social causes of inequality. They need resources for both of these tasks and the necessary commitment. The entire nation’s well-being is in jeopardy when young people are not able to participate fully in education or when their schooling is narrow and unsatisfying.

Inequalities in education persist: inequalities in retention, access, performance and subject choice. Most of these are linked to socio-economic status, gender and race. There are signs of a regeneration of income-based inequalities in education. And there are trends in current education policies which may exacerbate rather than alleviate the problems: higher funding levels for private schools at the expense of government schools, mainstreaming of “disadvantaged schools” programs, privatisation and commercialisation of public education, more standardised testing, more rigid and formal curricula and a narrow view of academic standards and basic skills.

In the past our inclusive public school system helped reduce inequality; now education appears to be reinforcing privilege and making it even harder for the kids of poorer Australians.

Conclusions

The trends toward inequality in our schools and our society are not inevitable and can be modified by sound public policy. Measures which improve the economic status of the least well off, increase employment, reduce inequality and “civilise” the workplace are likely to produce significant improvements in community outcomes. Conversely, passivity in the face of the “inevitable” consequences of market liberalisation is certain to lead to unnecessary and significant social dislocation.

It’s all a question of what we are prepared to do.

G’Day. Webdiary legal contributor and electoral law expert Joo-Cheong Tham argues in this piece that the Australian Electoral Commission should require Tony Abbott to disclose the donors to his Honest Politics Trust as a matter of law. The AEC still refuses to release its legal advice to date or the HPT trust deed, but is seeking new legal advice after revelations that it conducted no investigation into the trust, asked no questions of Tony Abbott, and did not take legal advice before it reversed its demand that Abbott disclose its donors. The backdown followed a letter from Abbott in 1998 claiming he could keep his donors secret. Mr Abbott did not enclose the legal advice he claimed backed his wish to keep his donors secret, and later admitted the advice was given orally and never reduced to writing. Mr Abbott will not disclose the name of his lawyer, or say whether the lawyer saw the HPT trust deed before giving his or her opinion.

Abbott’s Honest Politics Trust a Liberal Party front: Donor disclosure required

by Joo-Cheong Tham

Joo-Cheong Tham is associate lecturer in law at La Trobe University. He has written a chapter on campaign finance reform in Graeme Orr, Bryan Mercurio and George Williams (eds), Realising Democracy: Electoral Law in Australia (2003), Federation Press, forthcoming.

The continuing controversy surrounding the Abbott-controlled ‘Australian for Honest Politics’ Trust (AHP Trust) has pushed to forefront the legal question whether AHP Trust is an ‘associated entity’ under the federal disclosure laws and, therefore, obliged to disclose the identities of its financiers.

The ‘associated entities’ provisions are a relatively recent addition to the disclosure laws. Prior to these provisions being enacted, only registered political parties were subject to annual disclosure obligations. The ‘associated entities’ provisions, in essence, extended these obligations to entities which were seen to have a sufficient connection with one or more registered political party.

When passed in 1995, the ‘associated entities’ provisions defined an associated entity to mean an entity:

– controlled by one or more registered political parties; or

– which operated wholly or mainly for the benefit of one or more registered political party.

In 1999, prompted by ALP concerns over the Liberal Party’s Greenfields Foundation, this definition was enlarged to include entities which operated to a significant extent for the benefit of one or more registered political parties.

How then do these provisions apply to the AHP Trust’ The key question is whether the AHP Trust is an entity that ‘operates to a significant extent for the benefit’ of the Liberal Party.

The conjugate phrase, ‘operates to a significant extent for the benefit’, directs attention to certain features of the AHP Trust:

– ‘operates’: who controls or directs its activities’

– ‘for the benefit’:

– what is the motivation driving such activities’

– what is the objective effect of such activities and, in particular, does any advantage accrue to the Liberal Party’

On all three counts, the evidence disclosed by newspaper accounts strongly suggests that AHP Trust is an ‘associated entity’. These accounts suggest that a senior Liberal Party figure, Tony Abbott, was a trustee. More importantly, while Abbott was only one of the three trustees, he controlled the activities of the fund. Further, while the stated purpose of the trust was to ‘support legal actions to test the extent to which political entities comply with Australian law’, (see letter by Tony Abbott to the Australian Electoral Commission in Margo Kingston, ‘AEC pulls up its socks, starts serving the people’, Web Diary, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 2003), its activities were more narrowly focussed at funding anti-One Nation litigation. Such litigation, in turn, was directed at advancing the Liberal Party’s interests. Finally, the adverse impact of the litigation on a political competitor of the Liberal Party clearly conferred an electoral advantage on this party.

Various arguments, however, have been made against the view that AHP Trust is an ‘associated entity’.

Firstly, there are arguments that go beyond the letter of the law. For instance, it has been contended that ascribing a broad meaning to the definition of ‘associated entity’ would be undesirable as it would mean that numerous other bodies especially those which have a looser connection to the political parties would be caught by the disclosure laws.

This concern is misplaced as the relevant provisions still require that an ‘associated entity’ have a sufficient connection with one or more registered political parties. More fundamentally, it is, in fact, desirable that bodies that engage in significant political activity whether or not they have a sufficient connection with a political party be required to disclose the identities of their financiers. Such activity, whether it be by ad-hoc political campaigns, businesses or unions, clearly affect the political debate and voters’ choices. There is then a need for voters to know who is financing such activity.

Indeed, these principles are clearly recognised by the present disclosure laws. As it stands, entities that have engaged in certain forms of political activity, regardless of their connection to a political party, are subject to disclosure obligations.

There is also a cluster of textually based arguments against the view that AHP Trust is an ‘associated entity’.

It is said that the purpose of the trust was to fund litigation against other parties, in particular, One Nation and not to benefit Liberal Party. This argument is simply fallacious as both purposes can simultaneously apply. If this argument is accepted, anti-Liberal Party litigation could not be characterised as operating for the benefit of the ALP.

It has also been argued that the purpose of the AHP Trust should be fixed objectively and, in this case, by reference to the purpose set out in the trust deed, and not by the motivations brought to bear by the main protagonists.

There is, however, no good reason for narrowing the pool of evidence in this manner. When determining the purpose/s of the trust and its activities, the objective set out in the trust deed and the motivations of its controllers are both relevant. Moreover, it is dangerous to confine the evidence to the former as it will allow parties to camouflage the true nature of their activities through the veil of the trust deed.

Finally, it has been argued that the advantage flowing from the AHP Trust’s activities is too diffuse and intangible to be ‘for the benefit’ of the Liberal Party. In one form, the argument is that ‘benefit’ should be read to mean monetary benefit.

This argument is far from convincing. While it is true that the ‘associated entity’ amendments were originally aimed at fund-raising vehicles like the Liberal Party’s Free Enterprise Foundation, the terms of the definition are not so confined. The plain meaning of ‘benefit’ extends to monetary as well as non-monetary advantages. Moreover, the term should be read in the context of an Act dealing with elections. In elections, benefit to political parties can obviously take non-monetary form. For instance, a campaign attacking the Liberal Party clearly benefits the ALP regardless of the fact whether the body coordinating the campaign channels funds to the ALP.

These objections against the view that the AHP Trust is an ‘associated entity’, in fact, reveal what is at stake in this flurry of legal arguments. On one hand, there is a position that ascribes a narrow meaning to the definition of ‘associated entity’ often through strained interpretation and flawed logic. If accepted, this narrow meaning will provide ample scope to evade disclosure obligations through non-monetary political activity and legal devices like trusts. On the other hand, there is a test based on control, motivation and effect that is more firmly based on the text of the definition and truer to the reality of electoral politics. If transparency, the overriding objective of the disclosure laws, is to be advanced, the choice is clear.

J.Tham@latrobe.edu.au

 

Andy Becker, Australian Electoral Commissioner. Photo by Paul Harris.

Related:  AEC reply to Sue McDonald

G’Day. Webdiary’s intrepid Honest Politics Trust investigator Sue McDonald has received a reply to her please explain letter to the Australian Electoral Commission. The head of ‘disclosure’, Ms Kathy Mitchell, is somewhat more expansive than she was in her letter to Webdiarist Michael Hessenthaler published in Abbott slush: your ideas. Ms Mitchell’s letter to Sue is attached.

Meanwhile, law lecturer Ken Parish has endorsed the legal opinion of Webdiary’s electoral law expert Joo-Cheong Tham in Abbott’s Honest Politics Trust a Liberal Party front: Donor disclosure required that the AEC should order Abbott to disclose his donors. Surely the AEC will finally do so? After all, Abbott has said over and over that he’s “happy” to disclose if the AEC tells him too. Ken’s piece and reader comments, including a couple from me, are at Ken’s weblog troppoarmadillo.

Whether it’s structural corruption or systemic incompetence, the buck stops at the top and the top man at the AEC is the Australian Electoral Commissioner, Andy Becker.

It’s worth remembering that the AEC is not just another public service department. It is an independent statutory authority with strong investigative powers to help it enforce the law on disclosure of political donations. It’s like the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or the Human Rights Commission – it has statutory functions to perform, laws to enforce, and an obligation to act without fear or favour. It is not subject to political direction on the performance of its enforcement obligations. Its duties are not to our political masters, but to the voters – us.

I asked Fairfax journalism trainee Bonnie Malkin for a profile of Mr Becker. Be warned – it’s not pretty.

***

Andy Becker

Andy Becker, embattled commissioner of the AEC, said years ago that he “fell into” the role of managing elections. For someone so lacking in motivation, he has done quite well for himself.

Since starting out as a returning officer in South Australia in 1967 Becker rose though the ranks to take the reigns of Australia’s most important democratic watchdog and become one of the country’s most controversial bureaucrats.

Becker first stumbled into the media spotlight in 1997 when he was backed for the job of AEC deputy commissioner by Liberal Senator and SA state director Nick Minchin, now Finance Minister and a close political ally of John Howard. It was a case of Howard finding jobs for the boys, wrote former NSW Auditor-General Tony Harris:

In 1997, Senator Nick Minchin supported the head of the State Electoral Office in South Australia, Andy Becker, for appointment as Deputy Commissioner of the AEC. Minchin got on well with Becker, whom he had known since his term as head of the Liberal Party directorate in the 1980s. The selection committee for the job, however, advised that Becker was unsuitable.

The selection committee was overruled and Becker got the job. In February 2000, with the retirement of Bill Gray, Becker was promoted to Commissioner of the AEC. His swift rise through the ranks did not go unnoticed in Parliament. In June 2000 Alan Ramsey wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald:

And on March 16, Bob McMullan, a member of Kim Beazley’s Opposition frontbench, asked the Prime Minister in Parliament: “Can the Prime Minister explain why Cabinet appointed a new head of the Australian Electoral Commission [AEC] when the evaluation panel assessed him as ‘not recommended for the position’? Can the Prime Minister confirm this applicant was evaluated at an earlier time as ‘not recommended for the position of deputy commissioner of the AEC’, yet despite this he still got the job?

In appointing this individual to the vital position of Australian Electoral Commissioner, what extra insights did Cabinet have available to it that were not available to the evaluation panel that is, the secretary of the Department of Finance and Administration, Dr Peter Boxall, the Public Service Commissioner, Ms Helen Williams, and Mr Ian Dixon, the former electoral commissioner for NSW?

Howard’s reply: “I can inform the manager of Opposition business that appropriate procedures are always followed with Cabinet appointments under my Government.”

Just two months after gaining the top job, on May 24, Becker hit some seriously stormy weather. It emerged at Senate estimates committee hearings, after persistent questioning by Labor Senator Robert Ray, that Becker had agreed to hand over to the government an electronic electoral role to be used to send more than eight million personalised letters to voters about the new GST system. Alan Ramsey wrote in June 2000:

What set the hearing alight was when, 15 minutes into the questions, Ray asked if any government agency had asked the electoral office for an electronic version of the electoral roll and its 12 million names, along with birth dates and gender of every voter in the country, and Becker replied: “In the last few weeks? The Australian Taxation Office is one.” One of his officers added that the Tax Office had made its first request in March, and then, about April 20, asked for an “updated” version.

Did the Electoral Commission know what the Tax Office wanted to do with the roll? Yes, said one of Becker’s officers. And that was? “For a one-off mailing of ATO material to electors”, the officer read from a “safeguard agreement” between the Electoral Commission and the Tax Office.

Faulkner, startled: “A mailing of ATO material to electors?”

Officer: “Yes.”

From there the heat accelerated.

 

At the time Becker told the Senate he had no idea what kind of material was to be included in the mail out. One week later he sought to correct the record of Hansard saying he had become aware in mid-April that the mail out would include a letter from the Prime Minister and a booklet. Wrote Tony Harris:

On May 31, Becker wrote to the Senate correcting some of his evidence. “Since last week’s hearing,” he wrote, “I have become aware that in Mr Carmody’s letter of 19 April he indicated that the mailout would include an information booklet ‘along with a letter from the Prime Minister’. Although the letter was addressed to me, I was not in Canberra when the letter was received … and I have no recollection of having seen Mr Carmody’s letter before last week’s hearing.”

Becker’s memory later improved, and by June evidence that he twice misled parliament on the mail out issue had come to light. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Mike Seccombe wrote:

It emerged yesterday that Mr Becker had not only seen the letter, but replied to it, mentioning Mr Howard’s covering letter.

The following month the affair turned nasty. The Privacy Commissioner, Malcolm Crompton, found that Becker breached privacy laws handing over voter’s details to the government, and his independence was in question. In Electoral roll used to help peddle new tax , the Sydney Morning Herald’s Toni O’Loughlin reported some key concerns:

Democrat Senator Andrew Murray was also concerned about the use of the electoral roll by the Tax Office to advertise the GST. “I think you would accede … that some people may perceive that the use of a mailout for a particularly contentious area of Government policy could be partisan or political,” Senator Murray said.

Becker was not prosecuted for breaking privacy laws however, as the letter had not been sent and the electronic copy of the electoral roll had been handed back to the Commission. He was found to have acted unwisely and improperly by the Senate committee hearing, quite an achievement for the reluctant leader.

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This is Mr Becker’s press statement of September 1 on the Honest Politics Trust. Since this statement he has not communicated further with Australian voters – the people he calls his ‘customers’ and AEC returning officers call their ‘clients’.

Electoral Disclosure Obligations

Electoral Commissioner Andy Becker today clarified a number of matters related to the role of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and recent media coverage of the Australians for Honest Politics Trust.

When this matter was first raised five years ago, the AEC determined at that time that the group Australians for Honest Politics was not an associated entity as specified by the Commonwealth Electoral Act, Mr Becker said.

The Electoral Act stipulates that an associated entity is an organisation set up to benefit a registered political party.

Mr Becker said that when any new information came to light, it was given careful consideration, but a knee-jerk reaction to a complex issue was inappropriate.

The Commissioner emphasised the AEC’s role as an independent statutory authority and said it will consider all the issues in a measured and deliberate way.

We are charged with ensuring that the disclosure requirements of the Electoral Act are met, even when this involves seemingly knowledgeable and articulate groups.

The AEC is a politically neutral organisation charged with monitoring the disclosure obligations of all players in the political process and will do so without fear or favour, Mr Becker said.

Further Information: Brien Hallett, Assistant Commissioner Information Education & Research, Telephone: 02 6271 4477. Mobile: 0413 274 798

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For more information on Mr Becker’s idea of doing his job, see:

1. Australian Electoral Commission in the dock: Why won’t it come clean?

2. AEC claims secret political donations no business of voters

3. AEC took Abbott’s word for it to keep honest politics’ donors secret

4. AEC chief intervenes in Abbott slush fund secrets

5. Enforcing disclosure: AEC can make Abbott give sworn evidence on slush fund