Last week, I set out a scenario under which John Howard would oversee a seismic shift in Australia’s democracy. We would become a corporatist state almost fully integrated into the United States economically and militarily, in partnership with a mainstream media tightly controlled by Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer (Howard’s roads to absolute power).

Howard’s dominant political position and his success in coopting traditional institutions which operate as checks on power – the public service and much of the mass media – and in suppressing dissent by defunding public interest groups, stifling free speech in universities and terrorising the ABC – makes this neo-liberal, neo-conservative dream plausible. But what are the weak points, and can it be countered?

There are several faultlines I can think of, apart from the unpredictable outcomes in Iraq and the possibility of a world recession. They are:

* a backlash from traditional Liberal voters,

* the politics of Telstra,

* the risks of Howard’s idea to gut the Senate blowing up in his face and

* the chance that non-Coalition parties, independents and our public interest groups could band together to defend Australian values and Australian democracy against the Howard onslaught.

Howard has many things going for him. The world is now so complicated and frightening that many people want to trust Howard – almost a ‘father figure’ – with their fate and get on with their lives to meet the increasing obligations he imposes on them, including funding their basic health care and education for their kids. They’re working longer, harder, and less securely – their lives are tightly managed and they want to relax with sport, entertainment and home renovation. Many have disconnected from their society as communities disintegrate, partly because few have the time to contribute to their local community and build local support systems. Many people, perhaps most, have lost faith in their democratic institutions – the law, media, the public service and business. Many salve their alienations and insecurities through downward envy and prejudice, a tendency happily exploited by Howard.

Faultline 1: Will true Liberals revolt?

As we saw from reader reaction last week, some of Howard’s traditional constituency, particularly small l Liberals, are uncomfortable with Howard’s agenda. As natural opponents of big government, they didn’t like his grab for state power and control with his original ASIO and anti-terrorism bills. They prefer a more independent foreign policy, and they’re growing increasingly concerned at the excesses of Howard’s refugee policy. They understand that his cross media proposals threaten our democratic right to know what’s going on. To true Liberals, Howard’s combination of small government in the economic sphere and extra large, highly intrusive government in the private, social sphere, is untenable. It’s also grating, because at the international level, where big business makes the big money and wields enormous power, Howard is a fan of international agreements to grease big business wheels. Yet on human and civil rights and environmental protection he walks away from our international obligations and slams them as a breach of national sovereignty. In other words, the place of the citizen in the state and the world is downgraded, even ignored, as we are told we exist to serve “the economy” and Howard busily dismantles our civil “society”.

I believe that some in the business world will also grow increasingly concerned. After all, if Packer and Murdoch control the mainstream media we’re talking an effective oligopoly. That means the pair could set advertising rates at high levels, hurting big and small business alike. The pair could also veto advertising which is not in their interests. Already in Sydney, professionals like lawyers and accountants have to decide whether they’re Packer or Murdoch people. An increase in their power compromises them further. (My analysis of the consequences for Australia if Howard’s cross media revolution gets up is at Closing the door on your right to know.)

An interesting piece in last week’s media supplement in The Australian revealed that stockbroker Roger Colman, of CCZ Equities, had advised independent Senator Shayne Murphy and One Nation’s Len Harris on Howard’s cross media revolution:

“In his role as a broker, Colman had previously advised financial institutions which media share prices would benefit from media reform. “I was arguing against the research I put out, and I was arguing in my capacity as a private citizen,” he says. “I did not want to be swamped by Kerry Packer.”

There’s now a gaping hole in our political market place – small l Liberals (and middle class Labor voters with similar values) have nowhere to go. Last year, the Democrats imploded after Meg Lees and her supporters sought to move the Democrats into the centre, with a policy of cooperating with the Coalition agenda in exchange for side deals on things like the environment and the ABC, while standing firm on core small l principles of a non-intrusive state and human and civil rights.

That cause was lost, but Lees now has a new party, the Australian Progressive Alliance, which is seeking to fill the gap. It’s a hopeless cause, one would think, without the attraction of a big name to get momentum and perhaps even a few breakaway Liberals from what’s left of the moderate strand of the Liberal Party.

There’s a wild interview with former opposition leader John Hewson in last week’s Bulletin magazine in which he strongly criticises John Howard’s agenda. Hewson is an economic dry with progressive views on foreign policy, the environment and human rights. He supports us signing the Kyoto protocol, opposed us invading Iraq without UN sanction and is a critic of our refugee policy. Maxine McKew, after hearing his rave over lunch, wrote:

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Is this the sound of a resurgent political ambition? Is John Hewson making another run? He doesn’t back away from the question. “I’ve had dozens of offers to go back. Wealthy people offering to fund me, either to go back or set up a new party. Every time there is a preselection in Wentworth (Hewson’s old seat in Sydney) there are people who want to know if I’ll run. But my view in life is you never go back.”

But to paraphrase what Al Gore’s mate Bill Clinton would say, it may depend on what ‘going back’ means.”

I’ve had quite a few conversations with Liberal moderate staffers and pollies over the years where the question a new, true Liberal Party came up. It’s probably not possible, for now at least, but Hewson’s musings indicate some alternatives.

Liberal aligned independents have the potential to do well in safe Liberal seats, as Ted Mack showed when he held North Sydney for years. Peter McDonald gave Tony Abbott a run for his money in his Sydney North Shore seat at the last election.

The vast majority of Liberal voters in safe Liberal seats would not dream of voting Labor, although a few of them are voting Green. I’d see promise in a well-funded, high powered group funding strong, respected, people in safe Liberal seats to stand as Liberal independents. They’d promise to support a Liberal government on supply, but to act in accordance with their conscience otherwise. They’d be loosely aligned, run joint advertising campaigns, and pool their supporter base. Someone like John Hewson or the renegade former NSW party president John Valder could endorse the group and campaign for them.

FAULTLINE 2: The Senate focus

But the real action would be in the Senate. Howard will publish his discussion paper on dumping the Senate’s veto power over the winter break (see Howard’s rubber-stamp democracy). Howard’s ploy is to trap Labor into supporting the idea because he’s nicked one of their traditional cornerstone issues. Labor won’t do it – can’t do it – though, because now Labor is the Party trying to preserve the status quo and the social contract, while Howard is the radical reformer.

The concerns of some Liberal voters about Howard’s direction could help mobilise a centre-right team in Senate races and an unprecedented focus on the Senate campaign at the next election on the theme of keeping John Howard accountable. A prominent person to head the ticket in each state and a well funded campaign could spell danger for Howard.

Faultline 3: Telstra danger (Disclosure: I own Telstra shares.)

Then there’s the Nationals. Webdiarist Denis Berrell is sanguine about my Howard scenario. “How is John Howard going to manage a majority in the House of Representatives after the National Party get wiped out at the next election after supporting the sale of Telstra?” he asks.

Let me tell you, some cynical political observers in Canberra think Howard’s Telstra play is actually designed to destroy the Nats, thus freeing him from the economic and cultural constraints they place on his agenda.

The Liberals still insist that the proceeds of a sale would retire debt, and won’t yet answer the obvious rejoinder – that Peter Costello announced after the last budget that our debt was now low enough, and that’s why he could give a tax cut. My guess is that Howard will attempt a 1996 type tactic at the next election. Back then, he announced that a Liberal government would sell one third of Telstra, with much of the proceeds to go to a Natural Heritage Trust. But it’s likely that Telstra shares won’t be anywhere near the right price to sell by the next election, so any such promises would be a bit never-never.

I reckon the Nationals are in appalling trouble over this issue. There are already two country independents in the Parliament – Bob Katter in North Queensland and Tony Windsor in country NSW, both of whom are strong opponents of Howard’s cross media laws and the sale of Telstra. Both have threatened to start a new Country Party or country alliance to capitalise on the National’s troubles. Like the small l liberal apprehension, country Australia is very suspicious of Howard’s big business agenda, and there’s no guarantee One Nation leaners will stick with him because of his hardline refugee policy. A new Country Party or country alliance would be well placed to tap into disaffection. Again, they could promise to back the Coalition on supply but keep them honest on other matters.

More broadly, the public’s attitude to selling Telstra could be a referendum on how it judges the success of privatisations so far, particularly in areas where very Australian believes he or she has a basic right to services. It’s called fairness. Tony Windsor’s line is potent – that government ownership means our elected representatives are truly accountable for performance, and that once Telstra is off the leash, anything goes. Little people, as always, will suffer, as they have post the Commonwealth bank and electricity privatisations. Why has the bush got a good deal on telecommunications services for the past few years? Because the government wants to sell. Why would ordinary citizens vote to lose cede yet more of their power in a democracy to private, unaccountable business in the game for money alone?

Faultline 4: Unholy alliances

Last night’s Four Corners program on the operation of the Tweed Shire council in northern NSW, Ocean views, is a classic micro view of the big picture, and of the emerging formation of unlikely alliances against the new values of money talks and only making money for big business matters. Big developers effectively bought the last council election, and it’s been let her rip ever since, with processes subverted, transparency in retreat, and a pristine coastline razed to the ground to prepare for million dollar views for the wealthy.

The “opposition” comprises Liberal/Green/Labor and National Party councillors. A new newspaper detailing the dirty tricks and developer misdeeds has just started in the Tweed, and the four opposition councillors proudly appear in the same full page advertisement as representatives of the local community insisting on having a say in determining what happens to their community. What do you want to preserve of your way of life? Do you have a right to help decide what your children will enjoy, or lose the enjoyment of? Local unholy alliances are made up of local people normally at loggerheads who realise that only they care about the public interest, and that the public interest requires them to work together to keep the playing field fair and the community in the game.

Could this local trend move up to the federal sphere? Mobilisation of disaffection across the political spectrum would upset Howard’s presently unassailable constituency mix. Medicare, education, Telstra, the Senate, and foreign policy – all have the potential to splinter the mix by creating unlikely partners in opposition. Just one example. Who would have thought that small l Liberal and Labor internationalism could align with One Nation nationalism against Howard? Yet they do when it comes to Howard’s planned free trade agreement and his subservience to US foreign policy demands. Neither constituency is at all happy that Howard is happy to see a secretive US military tribunal try David Hicks while US citizens captured in Afghanistan in the same circumstances enjoy the full protection of US law and its constitutional bill of rights. This is straight out double standards and Australian acquiescence to Australian citizens being second class world citizens. Many Liberals are also determined to protect and enhance our local culture, and not see it buried in foreign material if the Americans get their way in the free trade talks.

Often it’s about issues of process, of the means to the end. In the end, people under pressure – and they include Labor, Democrats, Greens, Liberal and One Nation voters – want a fair process and transparency in decision making. The key moment is when all of them realise that there’s an enormous force out there which threatens to swamp them all, and that their only chance to protect their right to have a say is to band together against the common enemy. For instance, the far right, the left and small l Liberals were as one on the evils of Howard’s ASIO and anti-terrorist bills. Imagine the power of that coalition if they worked together, rather than separately, on such campaigns. Similarly, all parties except the Coalition opposed Howard’s cross media bill, and his decision to follow the US into Iraq without UN sanction.

These sorts of issue or values specific alliances on particular issues would require a major mindshift from the players based on the recognition that fighting amongst each other while the Howard machine rolls over all of them is counterproductive. They might even need to agree to disagree on some fundamental issues while agreeing that the big political picture required the election of a Labor government in the short term, when they could resume battling it out between themselves.

This would be provided, of course, that Labor listened and learned, articulated the values which united opponents of Howard’s agenda, guaranteed to raise ethical standards in the public service, politics and business and to improve the accountability of all three.

Labor would also have to defend the Senate. If it did, an anti-Howard coalition might even work together on an intensive Senate election campaign, deciding preferences with a view to getting anyone BUT Coalition candidates up. As we know from Malcolm Mackerras in ‘Howard’s roads to absolute power’, Howard can expect a vote of 42 percent in the Senate at the next election, which would deliver him half the Senate seats, and the delightful prospect of needing to woo only one non-Coalition Senator to ram through its policy agenda.

To counter this, a disparate groups of political parties and interest groups would need to focus the public’s mind on the dangers of such dominance and convince Australians they need to curb Howard’s excesses with their Senate vote.

All this, of course, would require enormous effort and commitment from many Australians on the ground, who’d have to be willing to dedicate some of their precious spare time to establishing local networks and action groups. All the non-Coalition parties and movements would need to bulk up their grassroots membership and bypass the mainstream media in favour of traditional and direct information and grassroots political campaigns. The return of the town meeting, perhaps? Letter box drops, routinely. Local fundraising events. Guest speakers. Social events. All of it. The internet is the building block for such an ambitious undertaking. Websites would aim to attract activists across Australia who would then do the grassroots work.

These things can work, you know. There’s a bloke called Howard Dean who was considered a rank outsider in the US Democrats presidential race. He’s the only Democrats contender who’s been against the Iraqi war from the beginning, and through the internet he’s garnered more money for his campaign than any other candidate. He’s now a frontrunner! (See Salon).

During Hanson’s 1998 election campaign, I realised that Australia was divided by the fact that we couldn’t understand each other. The urge to preserve our democracy would require disparate Australians to drop their certainties and their prejudices against the prejudices of others and really talk to each other directly again in plain terms, taking joint responsibility for our legacy to future generations.

They’d need to look for what they had in common, rather than what divides them (Howard’s motto in reverse!) And they’d need to realise that whatever their differences, they had one thing in common – the determination to save and enhance our democracy against the forces which seek to diminish it and disempower the people.

In the late Labor government years, when the media was at its beck and call and many issues affecting ordinary Australians were not discussed or discussed in dehumanised terms, a red head from Ipswich broke through and a grassroots movement exploded into the public arena. Hansonites didn’t trust anything they read in the newspapers and began an internet site to spread their own information and reinforce their own beliefs. In a strange way, most of us who fear Howard’s agenda are now outsiders. We fear losing our voice, our say, in what our society is to be and what values it is to live by.

Howard’s media are even more dominant than were the Keating media elite. If the One Nation experience is anything to go by, disaffected Australians may again be ready to again bypass it to look elsewhere for their information and their world view.

If this is true, that old Australian trait of backing the underdog could come into play. Australians could become uncomfortable with John Howard’s rush to absolute power and, if Labor gets its act together, vote Labor to keep Howard on some sort of leash, or even toss him out.

Politics today is an exercise in feeling the earth move under your feet.

A speech at Parliament House, Victoria on World Refugee Day 2003, first published at Scatt

The universal declaration of human rights is the most widely accepted international convention in human history. Most countries in the world are parties to it. Article 14 of the universal declaration of human rights provides that every person has a right to seek asylum in any territory to which they can gain access. Despite that almost universally accepted norm, when a person arrives in Australia and seeks asylum, we lock them up. We lock them up indefinitely and in conditions of the utmost harshness.

The Migration Act provides for the detention of such people until they are either given a visa or removed from Australia. In practice, this means that human beings men, women and children innocent of any crime are locked up for months, and in many cases years.

They are held in conditions of shocking harshness. The United Nations Human Rights Commission has described conditions in Australia’s detention centres as “offensive to human dignity”. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has described Australia’s detention centres as “worse than prisons” and observed “alarming levels of self-harm”. Furthermore, they have found that the detention of asylum seekers in Australia contravenes Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which bans arbitrary detention.

The Delegate of the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner who visited Woomera in 2002 described it as “a great human tragedy”. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly criticised Australia’s policy of mandatory detention and the conditions in which people are held in detention.

In short, every responsible human rights organisation in the world has condemned Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. Only the Australian government and the Australian public are untroubled by our treatment of innocent, traumatised people who seek our help.

The matter reached an extreme during the Tampa “crisis”. The rhetoric of the Federal Government at that time came to this: that Australia had a sovereign right to protect its borders; that it had a right to decide who came into Australia and the circumstances in which they would come; that the Captain of the Tampa was threatening to infringe Australia’s sovereign rights, and that the civilised nations of the world supported Australia’s firm but principled stand. That was the rhetoric which helped the Howard Government win the November 2001 election.

The truth, of course, was very different. The Captain of the Tampa followed the written and unwritten law of the sea: he rescued people in distress and took them to the nearest place of safety, Christmas Island. For his efforts, Captain Arne Rinnan received the highest civil honour in Norway; his ship received commendations from mercantile and shipping organisations around the world; all the companies who had cargo on Tampa congratulated Captain Rinnan for the stand he took, even though their cargo was delayed 10 days by the episode. Australia, for its part, threatened to prosecute Captain Rinnan as a people smuggler. The disparity between Australia’s self-perception and the view of others from outside could hardly have been greater.

As a sidenote, I was recently in London and was introduced by Geoffrey Robertson, Q.C. to a number of European lawyers. He introduced me as “the barrister who acted for the Tampa asylum seekers”. It took me a couple of minutes to recognise the significance of the fact that his introduction was immediately comprehensible to them: they all knew about the Tampa episode and the stain it made on Australia’s national image. In recent months, Australia’s human rights’ record has been criticised by the South African judiciary. Less than 30 years ago, most Australians would have been ashamed to think that South Africa would criticise our human rights’ record.

It is hard to understand how Australia has got itself to this position. Part of the difficulty is, I think, that we lack the imagination to understand the realities of our policy of mandatory detention; and we fail to understand why it is the people seek asylum in the first place. The prevailing view in Australia seems to be that asylum seekers come here to improve their economic circumstances, and that we put them in holiday camps for a short time whilst their claims are processed. Let us consider the reality.

In late 2000 a family fled Iran. They were members of a small quasi-Christian sect which has traditionally been regarded as “unclean” by the religious majority. Their lives have traditionally been marked by persecution in every conceivable aspect. The recent history of Jews in Germany and Poland is a sufficient reminder of what happens to groups who are regarded by the majority as “unclean”. The family’s flight was triggered by a terrible event, the details of which are too terrible to relate at a luncheon like this. They arrived in Australia after a terrifying voyage across the sea and were locked up in Woomera. The family comprised mother and father in their thirties, and two daughters aged 7 and 10.

In Woomera, month after month, their condition deteriorated. In particular, the 10 year old girl who ceased eating, stopped engaging in self-care activities, had trouble sleeping and began scratching herself constantly. The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service of South Australia learnt of the family’s plight and went to examine them. They wrote a report which included the following passages:

“(She) does not eat her breakfast or other meals and throws her food in the bin. She was preoccupied constantly with death, saying ‘don’t bury me here in the camp, bury me back in Iran with grandfather and grandmother’.

(She) carried a cloth doll, the face of which she had coloured in blue pencil. When asked in the interview if she would like to draw a picture, she drew a picture of a bird in a cage with tears falling and a padlock on the door. She said she was the bird.

It is my professional opinion that to delay action on this matter will only result in further harm to (this child) and her family. The trauma and personal suffering already endured by them has been beyond the capacity of any human being and I foresee that this family will require intensive and ongoing therapy for some time to enable them to conciliate and recover.”

Despite the urgent recommendations in that report, the family were left where they were. A further report was sent and, after weeks of delay, the family was finally sent to the Maribyrnong Immigration Detention Centre: Melbourne’s own concentration camp. When the family was moved, the South Australian authorities urged that the 10 year old daughter needed daily clinical attention. Nevertheless, for another three weeks nothing happened: no-one saw the family, no-one paid attention to the obvious psychological and medical needs of the 10 year old. Not long afterwards, on a Sunday night whilst her parents and her sister were at dinner, she hanged herself.

She did not die. When she was taken down, she tried to swallow shampoo because she had seen adults kill themselves that way in Woomera.

The family remained in immigration detention for another year. At last, after they had appealed to the full Federal Court, they were finally granted protection visas. In the meantime, they had suffered under Australia’s detention system for more than two years, the entire family has been traumatised to an extent which is inconceivable for ordinary members of the Australian community and a 10 year old girl very nearly succeeded in ending her own life.

That is the reality of mandatory indefinite detention in Australia in the 21st Century. It is passing strange that a government which prides itself in family values still implements policies so harsh that they drive children to attempt suicide. Suicide amongst pre-pubescent children is almost unheard of except in Australia’s detention centres.

* * *

Just as we do not really understand what mandatory detention entails, neither do we understand fully why people come here in the first place. If we had even a glimmer of understanding of the conditions which drive people out of their homeland, we might be inclined to treat them more compassionately.

Let a single instance serve the purpose. Currently in Australia’s detention centres there are several hundred Iranians who desperately fear being returned to Iran. They have so far failed to make the Immigration Department understand the fate which awaits them should they be returned to Iran. One of them sent me a video tape which had been smuggled out of Iran. It is the most disturbing video tape I have ever seen or ever wish to see.

The tape is apparently an official recording: it contains an Iranian watermark in the bottom right-hand corner. Notwithstanding that, it is fairly poor quality handheld and a bit blurry at times. The scene is a largish room. On one side of the room stand two people who might be officials: they are holding sheets of paper from which they are reading out loud in a flat, bureaucratic manner. In the centre of the room stands a group of five or six people, huddled together, looking distressed. They may be members of a family, or possibly friends. On the opposite side of the room is a table. On the table lies a man, face up. He is being held by the shoulders.

Most of the time the camera is focussed on the officials: they are reading and reading and reading.

The camera swings to the family group who look very distressed and upset. Then it swings to the man on the table who attempts to sit up but is restrained and held down again, he looks increasingly disturbed and terrified.

The camera focuses again on the officials who continue reading at great length but flatly, bureaucratically, without interest. Just as the viewer begins to wonder where all this is leading, the camera swings around to the man on the table and then they remove his eyes with forceps.

* * *

In 2002 Australia, along with more than 80 other nations, acceded to the Rome statute by which the International Criminal Court was created. The court is the first permanent court every established with jurisdiction to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide regardless of the nationality of the perpetrators and regardless of the place where the offences occurred.

As part of the process of implementing the International Criminal Court regime, Australia has introduced into its own domestic law a series of offences which mirror precisely the offences over which the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction. So, for the first time since Federation, the Commonwealth of Australia now recognised genocide as a crime and now recognises various war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Australian Criminal Code now recognises various acts as constituting crimes against humanity. Two of them are of particular significance in the present context. They are as follows:

268.12 Crime Against Humanity Imprisonment Or Other Severe Deprivation Of Physical Liberty

A person (the perpetrator) commits an offence if:

the perpetrator imprisons one or more persons or otherwise severely deprives one or more persons of physical liberty; and

the perpetrator’s conduct violates article 9, 14 or 15 of the Covenant; and

the perpetrator’s conduct is committed intentionally or knowingly as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.

Penalty: Imprisonment for 17 years.

Strict liability applies to paragraph (1)(b).

268.13 Crime against humanity torture

A person (the perpetrator) commits an offence if:

the perpetrator inflicts severe physical or mental pain or suffering upon one or more persons who are in the custody or under the control of the perpetrator; and

the pain or suffering does not arise only from, and is not inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions; and

the perpetrator’s conduct is committed intentionally or knowingly as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.

Penalty: Imprisonment for 25 years.”

(The Covenant referred to is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the ICCPR.)

The elements of these offences are relatively simple. For the first, the elements are as follows:

The perpetrator imprisons one or more persons;

That conduct violates Article 9 of the ICCPR;

The conduct is committed knowingly as part of a systematic attack directed against a civilian population.

Australia’s system of mandatory, indefinite detention appears to satisfy each of the elements of that crime. Mr Ruddock and Mr Howard imprison asylum seekers. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found that the system violates Article 9 of the ICCPR. Their conduct is intentional, and is part of a systematic attack directed against those who arrive in Australia without papers and seek asylum. A representative of the International Criminal Court has expressed privately the view that asylum seekers as a group can readily be regarded as “a civilian population”.

The second of the offences begins with imprisonment in violation of 268.12 and has an added element that the perpetrator inflicts severe mental pain or suffering upon one or more of the persons in the custody of the perpetrator, and the pain or suffering doesn’t arise only from lawful sanctions.

There is abundant evidence of overwhelming mental suffering in Australia’s detention centres. Neither Mr Ruddock nor Mr Howard could rationally deny that they are aware of the suffering of the people they lock up.

A careful analysis of the criminal code therefore suggests that Mr Ruddock and Mr Howard are guilty of crimes against humanity by virtue of their imprisonment of asylum seekers. The prospect of their being prosecuted is remote, because the Federal Attorney-General has an effective veto on the laying of charges under these provisions. But whether they are charged with these offences or not may not matter. The important point is this: an increasing number of people are raising their voices against Australia’s system of mandatory indefinite detention of asylum seekers. They assert that the system is morally wrong. Unfortunately, the debate generally stalls when the protagonists are unable to agree about moral norms.

The argument against mandatory detention takes on a new complexion when it is seen that the system very likely amounts to a crime against humanity. Those who support mandatory detention on whatever grounds appeal to them may find it harder to justify the fact that our Government is engaged in crimes against humanity judged not only by the standards of the international community but by the standards of our own legislation.

 

Image by George Hirst, editor of the Magnetic Times newspaper in North Queensland.

As a supporter of J. Howard on many issues, in particular his U.S. alliance in foreign policy and a free, deregulated Australian economy, I thought you might find it interesting that not all conservative voters support his proposed changes to the Senate, ASIO legislation and Cross Media Laws.

It is true that Australians are more vulnerable than U.S. citizens because of our lack of a Bill of Rights. I would certainly feel much more comfortable if we had our own Bill of Rights with respect to ASIO’s new powers, not because of your fears with regards to Mr. Howard’s government, but any future government of radical persuasions.

With regards to his proposed changes to the Senate and Cross media Laws, I firmly believe that the best traditions of our democracy support the rule of the majority but also that minority voices are heard and have influence. The sustainability of our democracy and its principle strength is that it allows many voices to be heard and represented. Whilst the Senate can be obstructionist and frustrating, it is through the Senate and its diverse representative powers that our federated democracy exists.

Similiarly, an informed debate through a diverse media base provides the lifeblood of civil society and although many of the views expressed by the ‘left’ in the media, in my humble opinion, are ill-informed and misdirected it is necessary that they are heard.

Whilst it will be a difficult decision, if our Prime Minister persisted with more of these changes, in particular to the Senate, I might have to change my vote.

Margo: Hi Daniel. You know, I consider myself a small l liberal – it’s a shock to feel so far left! I wonder, though, how many voters like you there are in marginal seats? Perhaps most small ls are in safe Liberal or inner city safe Labor seats?

Daniel: Thank you for taking the time to respond. I would not not know if I fit any political category, being in step with Howard on foreign policy yet opposed on many domestic policies. Having voted for Howard consistently since 1996, for many Australians like me leadership is a key basis for choice of parties. Without going into the intricacies of why Labor does not resonate with me, let me put it this way. Howard vs. Crean – Howard. Howard vs Beazley – Howard. Howard vs Latham – Latham would be a strong chance of changing my mind, Howard vs. a woman – 50/50 – as I would like to see Australia with a female PM.

Mark Latham’s biggest strength is that you have a fair idea where he stands on most things – and whilst I do not agree with many things he says, he does make me feel that the job would not overwhelm him.

Any woman would stand a chance against Howard merely because it would highlight the differences between the two parties, if only symbolically. Labor’s key problem is highlighting the difference between the two parties – Latham would do it by force of personality and a female leader would symbolise going forward in a compelling way.

All that being said – it does require Howard to be too radical in his changes coupled with a strong alternative to get a naturally conservative voter like myself and many other ‘joes’ out there to change their mind.

Keep up the controversy because I love reading views that are well thought out even though I strongly disagree with them.

I’m in Bradfield, a very safe Liberal seat.

Margo: Bradfield, eh? As I recall Brendan Nelson fought long and hard against Howard’s proposal to abolish cross media laws in 1997 (keeping foreign limits) so Packer could get Fairfax. Jamie said on A Current Affairhe “wants Fairfax for Christmas”. Not a word from Brendan now, though.

 

Image by George Hirst, editor of the Magnetic Times newspaper in North Queensland.

G’Day. Thanks for all your contributions on media ownership and Howard’s agenda this week – they’ve got me thinking about where to from here. I’ll write on Monday about the risks Howard faces with his plan to entrench the neo-liberal global vision in Australia with the help of a media controlled by Australia’s two most powerful men.

Then there’s the question of how Labor and all Australians determined to save our democracy could counter it. I’ve got a few thoughts on that too. Fingers crossed for Mark Latham. Please don’t blow it Mark – Australia needs you.

The Murdoch push for media domination is facing strong bipartisan opposition in the United States and has just been held back in the United Kingdom, too. I’ve published the latest Guardian article on Tony Blair’s partial backdown at the end of this entry. Thanks to Webdiarist David Goldstein for the link. A comparison of the public debate on this matter in the US and the UK with the almost complete lack of it in Australia shows how dangerously concentrated our media ownership already is.

I’m off tomorrow. Here’s your latest comments on our topic this week – I’ll start with an exchange between Daniel Moye and I today.

Daniel Moye in Roseville, NSW

As a supporter of J. Howard on many issues, in particular his U.S. alliance in foreign policy and a free, deregulated Australian economy, I thought you might find it interesting that not all conservative voters support his proposed changes to the Senate, ASIO legislation and Cross Media Laws.

It is true that Australians are more vulnerable than U.S. citizens because of our lack of a Bill of Rights. I would certainly feel much more comfortable if we had our own Bill of Rights with respect to ASIO’s new powers, not because of your fears with regards to Mr. Howard’s government, but any future government of radical persuasions.

With regards to his proposed changes to the Senate and Cross media Laws, I firmly believe that the best traditions of our democracy support the rule of the majority but also that minority voices are heard and have influence. The sustainability of our democracy and its principle strength is that it allows many voices to be heard and represented. Whilst the Senate can be obstructionist and frustrating, it is through the Senate and its diverse representative powers that our federated democracy exists.

Similiarly, an informed debate through a diverse media base provides the lifeblood of civil society and although many of the views expressed by the ‘left’ in the media, in my humble opinion, are ill-informed and misdirected it is necessary that they are heard.

Whilst it will be a difficult decision, if our Prime Minister persisted with more of these changes, in particular to the Senate, I might have to change my vote.

I replied:

Hi Daniel. You know, I consider myself a small l liberal – it’s a shock to feel so far left! I wonder, though, how many voters like you there are in marginal seats? Perhaps most small ls are in safe Liberal or inner city safe Labor seats?

Daniel replied:

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I would not not know if I fit any political category, being in step with Howard on foreign policy yet opposed on many domestic policies. Having voted for Howard consistently since 1996, for many Australians like me leadership is a key basis for choice of parties. Without going into the intricacies of why Labor does not resonate with me, let me put it this way. Howard vs. Crean – Howard. Howard vs Beazley – Howard. Howard vs Latham – Latham would be a strong chance of changing my mind, Howard vs. a woman – 50/50 – as I would like to see Australia with a female PM.

Mark Latham’s biggest strength is that you have a fair idea where he stands on most things – and whilst I do not agree with many things he says, he does make me feel that the job would not overwhelm him.

Any woman would stand a chance against Howard merely because it would highlight the differences between the two parties, if only symbolically. Labor’s key problem is highlighting the difference between the two parties – Latham would do it by force of personality and a female leader would symbolise going forward in a compelling way.

All that being said – it does require Howard to be too radical in his changes coupled with a strong alternative to get a naturally conservative voter like myself and many other ‘joes’ out there to change their mind.

Keep up the controversy because I love reading views that are well thought out even though I strongly disagree with them.

I’m in Bradfield, a very safe Liberal seat.

I replied:

Bradfield, eh? As I recall Brendan Nelson fought long and hard against Howard’s proposal to abolish cross media laws in 1997 (keeping foreign limits) so Packer could get Fairfax. Jamie said on A Current Affair he “wants Fairfax for Christmas”. Not a word from Brendan now, though.

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Andrea Hamann in the United Arab Emirates

I am living in a country where government is divided up amongst wealthy ruling families. Democracy is slowly developing in its own strange way, but it is not the democracy we have celebrated in Australia. Not by a long shot.

As my colleagues keep reminding me, this isn’t my country and I don’t have any rights, even as a resident. I have the right to leave and that is about it. There is no right to protest, to question what the government is doing and certainly not to vote, even if you’ve lived here with your family for 20 years. By the same token, the leader of this country in his wisdom is transitioning this country from a nomadic bedouin culture to the brave new world of the 21st century in a time frame of 50 years, and more or less peacefully.

In Germany there are still archaic laws left over from wartime about always carrying your I.D around with you, an officially issued ‘PASS’ and you have to ‘anmeld’ – register where you live, and should you move house you have to ‘abmeld’ (deregister). And yet Germany is one of the most democratic countries in existence, next to France that is.

And then I hear about Australia and recent threats to our till now reasonably healthy democracy – where you can walk down Swanston St in a demo’ if you don’t want Jabiluka to be mined, and you don’t have a form of I.D until you get your drivers licence. Even then you are not obliged to carry it with you.

I don’t want to begin to imagine an Australia that looks like an American, or even German version of democracy, and certainly not a one party or family rule. Here’s to our Democracy and lets hope like hell it doesn’t get threatened any further.

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Marcus Faulstone

While it may be all to easy to dismiss the concerns you have raised in Howard’s roads to absolute power and the succeeding Webdiary entries as being alarmist, if not paranoiac, you have made some very serious points which should not be so easily brushed aside.

The concatenation you describe – of government policy, neoconservative ideology and a concentration of media ownership – should be of concern to all Australians who value accountable and responsible governance and openess of public discourse. We have before us the very real possibility of an indefinate ‘mediocracy’, and even those who find this an unlikely scenario must concede that it is one to be avoided at any cost.

Interestingly, much of the debate in Webdiary has focused at the point of corporations and media production. What of media consumption? On one hand, it is insulting to suggest that the vast majority of Australians simply consume media output, almost as the passive recipients of an injection. But public discourse can’t but be deformed any time an issue of public relevance is glossed over, is absent from, or simply delivered as per press release, by our media outlets. The ‘children overboard’ saga is a case in point.

Your Webdiary provides an interesting example of an alternative, more discursive form of media consumption to those provided by the mass media heavyweights of concern in your article. Weblogs abound online, encouraging a plurality of opinion and a domain for even the most impotent to express themselves. It is all too easy to leap from this observation to the hyperbolic enthusiasm of some cybertheorists for a utopian digital democracy, but this does highlight the possibilty of a more decentralised pattern of media production and consumption in the distant future.

It is interesting then that the Howard government has already put a cap on how much data a consumer may download, such that after this limit the transmission is defined as constituting broadcasting. I can’t recollect whether that occured through an act or regulation, or even the details, but it still certainly evidences a fear that the internet could encroach upon the traditional consumption of broadcasting.

Further, it could again be seen as another instance of the Howard governent acting in the interests of media players, and doing so against the interests of Australians and the development of our own digital literacy and culture. To compare, this act is as patently ridiculous as a renaissance monarch forbidding the printing of any book longer than 100 pages at the request of a great engraving house. Perhaps we’ll just have to use a digital equivalent of really small writing.

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Ann Butcher in Thornlie, Western Australia

Firstly, many thanks for your column. It’s a breath of fresh air on a regular basis, mainly because it makes me realise that other people feel the same way I do. It’s so nice not to feel isolated.

With reference to reactions to ‘Howard’s road to absolute power’, whilst reading many of the correspondents I wondered whether they watched Monday night’s Cutting Edge on SBS, ‘The Cartel – Oil And The US Government’.

The program was an eye-opener for the many links between George W Bush and companies like Enron, Reliant and El Paso. (Some of this had been documented in Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men but not to the extent of this program.) Dick Cheney and his relationship with Halliburton was also heavily featured. The program fitted beautifully with your description “(of) the US model of a corporatist state run by government in partnership with big business, where politicians and business people swap roles routinely and big business finances the conservative party.”

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Brendon Leeder

One of the things I am not sure you have mentioned in the whole media debate and John Howard’s road to absolute power is the manipulation of the public’s opinion (attitude) away from the ‘lucky country’, the free-to-do-as-you-please attitude of the Australian people. We have been led to believe (I believe misled) that we are under threat from terrorist groups and their cells in our own homes in Australia.

When the former Lord Mayor of Brisbane Jim Soorley was asked about whether there was an imminent or any future threat of terrorism in/aimed at Brisbane – or more specifically the Story Bridge, – he said something along the lines of “The terrorists haven’t heard of Brisbane, let along the Story Bridge”. I am not afraid of what might happen if I travel, I am not afraid to walk around the city, or for that matter the countryside.

If we hadn’t blindly backed the United States in everything in the past couple of years (sorry, our work to ease tariffs on our exports to the US has been commendable, though I believe military support should not be our primary negotiating factor) we would be under no threat from terrorism. Australia was not even on the radar – there would have been as close to zero threat on our nation as ever.

You will also note that after the Bali bombings, the fact that Australians were killed was originally a regret of the bombers (at least our people were not the target). However, since the war on Islam begun in earnest with the attack on Iraq and with the promise of further attacks should any non-Western nation not kow tow to the US foreign oil policies the Bali bombers have been glad Australians died in the attack.

Since Bali and the war on Iraq, terrorism has dominated the newpapers and television, coinciding with our increasing support for John Howard as our nation gets progressively more fearful of a threat that is NOT HIGH, and is only increasing because of our blind support for the United States.

Conspiracy theorists could argue that the nation has put itself at risk for the ultimate power of one person, John Howard, whose government and police will have control over everything people say, do and think in public. Hang on, didn’t we take out Saddam Hussein for those reasons?

On the side, I admire John Howard for what he has done to keep the Australian economy up there with the best in the world, if not the best, and also his leadership qualities. Also, I am a capitalist, not a socialist.

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Steve Wallace

Great work on the media issue. I read your first piece and was sick in the pit of my stomach. To say the proposition is frightening is major understatement. It is horrifying to look out on a future crafted by Howard. I am trenchantly opposed, and will remain so. No room for depression.

Those who sell contentious products and encounter social or regulatory opposition, say for example pornography (I choose the example intentionally as I find Howard World quite so), often quote the maxim “If you don’t like my product, your don’t HAVE to buy it”. The proposition seems fair, and is difficult to oppose. Well, perhaps rather than oppose it we can embrace it. I won’t buy Murdoch or Packer products.

By way of anecdote; I haven’t had a TV for more than five years. Sounds surprising I guess, but I only had one for three years. A friend was sharing with me, and was addicted, so I relented. Prior to that I didn’t have a TV for about ten years, but have lost track of the length of time. That’s most of the eighties and early nineties I’d say.

Think for a moment about the prospect. Can you imagine how that clears your head? I find that, in comparison to many people I interact with, my mind belongs to me. I start my thinking at a different point of departure and generally proceed to a different destination. I am not available for manipulation. Sure, I have little to talk about to the people at work on a Monday morning, but while they are great folks they have been generally compromised by their TV habit. And, I have a lot more time.

Perhaps in the ASIO torture chambers of Howard World the spooks will force me to watch commercial TV for days at a time (there was nothing in the legislation to stop them exposing me to this mind-altering material). Before that happens I intend to have nothing to do with TV, and only a little radio and some selected print.

I encourage all your readers to abandon their TVs and embrace freedom. Imagine the impact on the media barons if they couldn’t sell advertising. Just say NO. They are very exposed.

Oh, and I encourage you to find a large number of alternate web sites for your work before you are terminated

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Antonia Feitz in Rocky River, NSW

It isn’t just John Howard that’s the problem. The Australian body politic has been rotten for about twenty five years. How did this lamentable state happen? Someone at The Age summed it up pretty well: “For almost two decades, during the age of globalisation, the two major parties have conducted a democratic experiment in elite bipartisanship, largely excluding from the policies and considerations, signs of deep popular resistance to sweeping economic reform and change.” (20/7/98).

Read it again and get angry: “a democratic experiment in elite bipartisanship.” That, Margo, is a poly-syllabled euphemism for a defacto one party state. THAT’S why Australia is in the mess it is. And that’s why voting in a Labor government will change nothing. Way back in 1984 (appropriate!), Hawke said Labor’s task was to establish permanent acceptance of the “naturalness and inevitablity of change and reform as the authentic way of life” for the Australian people.

Since then both sides of politics have ignored the Australian people’s expressed preference for maintaining a decent society as an authentic way of life. In his book, Paul Keating admitted that the reforms had not been ‘inevitable’. Yet anybody who protested against them was routinely vilified by the media as a luddite, an economic troglodyte, a nostagia freak and, most insultingly, as envious. Ah yes, “the politics of envy”. What a catchy little phrase for the editorialists as they lecture us that reform fatigue is not an option. In a truly democratic nation, why not?

Pauline Hanson was the canary that should have warned people something was seriously wrong in Australia. Back then it was only the riff-raff that suffered, but they were inarticulate and had no voice until she accidently burst upon the scene. After she was safely neutralised The Australian commented that the One Nation phenomenon had really been about globalisation, not race. Indeed. It wasn’t Hanson but the media that disgracefully played the race card.

These days it’s not just blue-collar workers, seamstresses and dairy farmers who are being burnt by globalisation. Australian legal firms are sending their dictaphone messages to the Philippines to be processed and emailed back at a fraction of the cost of Australian workers. Call centre jobs are going to India for the same reason. The ‘Australian’ government even advises companies to follow this path and so IT and other professional jobs are being exported too. There are artificially created teacher and nurse ‘shortages’ – instead of educating our own young we import these professionals trained in third world countries because it’s cheaper. Obscene.

It’s not as if the savings in labour costs are being passed on to consumers. Brand name bras made in the Philippines or Vietnam retail for $50+ in the shops. Doona sets made in China cost $200. A stainless steel whisk made in China retails for $17. It’s the greatest consumer rip-off in history.

This is wake-up time. Do we really want to participate in the race to the bottom? Do we agree that the government’s sole aim in managing the abstraction called ‘the economy’ should be to maximise shareholders’ profits and to hell with everybody else? That’s not a society; that’s a jungle.

Back in 1998 Michael Costello said: “The very existence of the nation state will be challenged by globalisation as never before. After all, a global corporation’s patriotism is for company, not country. … globalisation reinforces the tendency of free markets unfettered to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. We are only in the foothills of globalisation and already this is happening.” (The Australian, 5/5/98). At least he was honest when he warned, “We ain’t seen nothing yet”.

Who’s really running the country? Who said the federal government should focus on “strengthening enterprise bargaining further and reducing the role of awards and third parties in wage determination.” And “while it is necessary to maintain an adequate social safety net it is also necessary to limit the duration of unemployment benefits to encourage employment search.”

Howard? Costello? Abbott? Give up? Actually it was the IMF. No, I don’t recall the IMF Party on the ballot paper either.

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Puttnam forces block on predatory media barons

Matt Wells, media correspondent

Thursday July 3, 2003

The Guardian

A heavy block was placed in the path of powerful press barons last night when the House of Lords forced the government to rein in its plans to loosen Britain’s tough cross-media ownership restrictions.

In the face of significant opposition, marshalled by the former film maker Lord Puttnam, the government agreed to impose a public interest test on any media merger that threatened to concentrate power in too few hands.

Lord Puttnam said the measure would prevent Rupert Murdoch from ever being able to take over Channel Five – a scenario that would be permitted under the communications bill, which is nearing its final stages in the Lords.

But sceptics said the power of the public interest test could only be measured when the government publishes the wording of its proposal next week.

The government dropped its long-standing refusal to give ground on the bill – first published in May last year – when it became clear that it would suffer a heavy defeat if the issue was put to the vote.

With the authority of the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, the broadcasting minister Lord McIntosh accepted the principle of Lord Puttnam’s public interest plan. Lord McIntosh said the government would publish a public interest test – in return for Lord Puttnam’s agreement to drop his own wording – when the bill receives its third reading in the Lords on Tuesday.

He said: “We are supportive of the principle behind Lord Puttnam’s amendment that we safeguard plurality and diversity of the public voice.

“Media plurality is important for a healthy and informed democratic society. The underlying principle is that it would be dangerous for any one person to control too much of the media because of their ability to influence opinions and set the political agenda. It is therefore essential to set limits on concentration of ownership.”

He said the test would be applied to a wide range of media mergers, not just any takeover of Five.

Lord Puttnam said that he wanted to prevent the “Berlusconi-isation” of Britain, warning of the situation in Italy where Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, owns or controls large sections of the country’s media.

The Tories were critical of the climbdown. John Whittingdale, the shadow culture secretary, said it was a “humiliating surrender” that added needless regulation. He pointed out that when the test was first proposed, the government’s then broadcasting minister, Kim Howells, rejected the idea saying the bill was intended to “remove regulations, not impose new and unnecessary ones”.

Lord McNally, the Liberal Democrats’ media spokesman in the Lords, said the public interest test would give a measure of protection, but urged the new media regulator Ofcom to have the courage to wield its new power.

But Lord McNally said he wished the legislation had never been framed in its present form. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “For all the denials that this is a Murdoch bill, this bill was authorised in No 10, where Mr Murdoch has had worrying influence. The bill should be redrafted to rule out an American takeover of the third channel or a purchase of Five by Mr Murdoch. Believe me, these forces are out there; in the words of the Terminator, they’ll be back.”

What a huge ten days in politics! To end a week dominated by the aftershocks of Pauline Hanson’s jailing, contributions from Webdiarists who support the verdict and/or the sentence. As with everything concerning Hanson and her clashes with ‘the system’, the story is complicated, many layered, and utterly fascinating, particularly in what it says about where Australians are at in their conversations about our nation and its values.

Webdiarists’ Hanson reaction pattern is like the Tampa one – first a flood of emails outraged at the sentence, then defenders start to trickle in and gradually build in numbers. The strange thing is that many of the same people outraged by Howard’s Tampa sting are also outraged by Hanson’s jail term. Like the Tampa, many Australians are keen to get their views on this matter recorded for posterity. I’ll do my best, but there’s no way I’m going to be able publish everyone. So the usual request – if you’ve written a corker that hasn’t got a run, please re-send.

I’m debuting as a columnist for the Sun Herald on Sunday. It’s on Hanson, of course.

Geoff Kitney, our bureau chief in Canberra, in his brilliant column today, Cue the PM: ‘No one told me about that’, concluded:

For all their unseemly manoeuvring to try to protect themselves from any political backlash from Hanson’s imprisonment, both sides will be hoping the appeal court confirms her crime and her punishment.

Unusually, I disagreed. I reckon the major parties – if they’re intelligent – hope her jail term is dropped. What do you think?

I’ve just watched Lateline’s Friday debate before publishing. Mark Latham -v- Queensland Liberal backbencher, brilliant barrister, and strong civil rights defender George Brandeis on Abbott’s Hanson sting and his lies about it. In the middle, Tony Jones, the bloke who asked Abbott the question in 1998 on Four Corners, the bloke Abbott looked in the eye and lied to.

The last time I saw Latham on Lateline he debated opposite number Abbott on Howard misleading Parliament about his meeting with Manildra’s Dick Honan. It couldn’t be Abbott now, could it? Betcha Abbott is moved as manager of opposition business real quick, just like Peter Reith was after the Telecard scandal. Abbott can’t do outrage about the other side’s sins any more. George did his best, but the brief was so shocking even he didn’t sound convincing, poor bastard. Talk about getting the job from hell!

I’m debuting as a columnist for the Sun Herald on Sunday. It’s on Hanson, of course. Have a good weekend.

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Jason Hall in Newcastle emailed a complaint about Webdiary’s content and direction at the moment:

Margo, I used to like the Webdiary for its quirkiness, however it now has a sameness which is stale. Please, there is more to write about than the Government. Have a look at the headlines of the last 20 entries – what they tell you, and ultimately your readers, is that the Webdiary has become one dimensional and a comment guided by your politics. Let’s cover more than the government – it’s become boring!

Is it time for another navel gaze about Webdiary’s content? What do other readers think about Jason’s point?

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Anne Ryan

Oh please, Margo, “…let Pauline Hanson walk free”???! You can’t deny that she broke the law, cynically and with clear intent. Don’t replace hypocrisy with more hypocrisy – you do yourself, and us, a disservice.(Margo: Hi Anne. Have a read of Anthony Green’s piece Perils of Pauline: her breach of ‘club’ rules was technical rather than deceit.)

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Diana Lyons

I sort of agree with your comments in Mother of the nation in jail, its father in charge, but really, Pauline Hanson does deserve her sentence and I do not feel sorry for her.

This ignorant woman seemed to believe that becoming a politician was in some way the equivalent of becoming a film star – a gaudy wardrobe, lots of attention from fawning media and instant ‘celebrity’ status, all without actually having to work at anything. Apart from that maiden speech, which was written for her, not by her, she spent precious little time in the house during her term, instead preferring to party in Canberra’s night spots. She did not vote on legislation, again because she failed to attend. She spent buckets of money – party funds, election allowances etc on cars for her kids, extensions to her home, overseas trips to meet her American boyfriend and a truly horrendous wardrobe.

She knew exactly what she was doing in setting up One Nation as a company with three directors who had full control and a bunch of ‘supporters’ who had no rights apart from supplying cash. Apart from her appalling beliefs, the division she stirred up and the legacy she left John Howard, please, someone, tell me just what her achievements as a political leader were? I can’t think of any.

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Con Vaitsas in Sydney

Margo, Mother of the nation in jail, its father in charge was spot on except for the 2nd last line “…let Pauline Hanson walk free”.

No way does she deserve to get off scott free. She is lucky she got only 3 years – many ordinary Australians have had to endure 7 years of abuse since she came to prominence and gave Aussies the OK to release their racism in public on anyone they thought did not match their view of a typical Aussie.

Sure she may not have spat on, verbally or physically abused anyone, but she gave succour to those intolerant ratbags who lurk in the community to go out and do such things in public – in the street, a car park or a shopping centre. I myself came close to blows on several occasions because I made it my business to interfere with passengers being abused because of their ethnicity.

What was so depressing about some of those train incidents was that the carriages were full of people but no-one made any attempt to say anything to stop the abuse, It was a case of minding their own business, which annoys me even more.

And sure, I know that if Howard had come out at the start of Hansonism and told Australia that he strongly disagreed with her views on people from certain ethnic backgrounds and Aborigines a lot of people might have been saved from harassment and abuse.

So you see, Margo, I feel she got what she deserved. Speaking to a couple of people today, they felt relieved she was sent to prison because of her views against their cultural background. They used to feel unsafe when she was at her peak with popular support. (Margo: Do they feel safer under post-Hanson Howard?)

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Mary Jones (nom de plume)

Having read much of the outrage in Webdiary and elsewhere in the media since Hanson was jailed, and taken time to think about it, I can’t believe what you and some of your fellow lefties are saying. I agree with everything Richard Ackland said in today’s SMH (Hanson’s fraud had major political consequences, as did her bigotry).

Don’t for a minute think I’m saying that Abbott and Howard’s comments re slush funds, who did what and what they said and when etc etc have been totally believable. They haven’t!! Their continued tendency to deceive, twist the truth and play with words is outrageous.

But for God’s sake, can’t some journalists, just for once, calm down and realise that what Hanson and Ettridge did was illegal and they deserved to be punished. Maybe three years does seem a bit long, but Karen Erhmann here in Queensland has also been jailed for electoral fraud. Matt Price is right in The Oz when he points to the incredible hypocrisy of Labor and as for Bronwyn Bishop, well…what would you expect from her. (Margo: I fail to see Labor’s hypocrisy. It was up front from the beginning opposing Hanson’s policies, strongly. Of course they urged Howard to argue the case too, but he didn’t. Where’s the hypocrisy? I was surprised by Matt’s piece. I love his work, but maybe he’s been in the gallery too long. I recommend a fabulous piece in this morning’s Australian Financial Review by the paper’s bureau chief Tony Walker. An extract:

Surely the bigger issue in all of this, in light of Pauline Hanson’s sentencing and associated static, is what it reminds us about the sort of duplicitous game being played by the Liberal Party back in 1997-98 in dealing with the One Nation insurgency on its conservative flank., and what it reveals now about lingering fallout from that period. Back to Mary Jones…)

I have voted for a range of political parties in my life. I support some of Howard’s decisions and there are many I disagree with. I have worked as a journalist and now teach at a university (a grossly underfunded one mind you!!). I’m preparing to do my PhD on an aspect of journalism relating to media coverage of the environment, the influence of the Internet and how this all sits in a globalised world. I’m just sick and tired of reading and listening to the “Howard haters” within Australia’s media reacting to every story and nuance coming out of Canberra, as if they’ve finally ‘got him’.

By all means report the facts in a truthful and fair manner, but don’t let your hatred for Howard and co so distort your reporting and commentary that it begins to sound totally ‘off the planet’.

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Greg Abbott

Margo, let’s not over intellectualise this. Pauline Hanson is not exempt from the legal process just because she brandishes (divisive, ignorant and hurtful) political views. (Margo: Agreed in spades!)

Ms Hanson appears to have thought she was above the law and that she did not have to go through due process to establish her party and have access to “ordinary Australians'” money.

How are you really able to argue that the “elite” have conspired to achieve this result. (Margo: I did not argue that.) Should enforcement agencies not have investigated? (I didn’t argue that either.) Should the public prosecutor not have prosecuted? (Or that.) Was the judge biased or politically motivated in her sentencing (a very serious charge)? (Definitely not – in fact I castigated Bronwyn Bishop for doing just that – see Now Abbott lies about lying, copies Howard’s Manildra)

No, this is not some attack by the “elite”. “Ordinary Australians” have with little apparent hesitation found her guilty of intentionally committing a serious crime, one that involved both fraud and interference with our system of democracy.

Some of the words you have written today seems to support the “martyr” role her few remaining supporters are trying to conjure. Why don’t you go and leave a message of support on her website then … (Because I don’t support her.)

Yours, with tongue partly in cheek. (Thank God for that!)

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Tom Chesson

A member of the right wing of politics taking on the extremes of the far right and wins – how dare Mr Abbott have the courage to do something like that? He’s not even a fully fledged Member of the latte set. Hanson and her cohort are in jail for RORTING the Australian public out of half a million dollars. She has been found guilty not by any political party but by a jury of 12 of her fellow Queenslanders.

No matter how much money Abbott raised, not even he could rort the Queensland criminal justice system. Far from being ridiculed for ridding Australia of an extremely dangerous group of conspiracy freaks, the Labor Party should be taking a leaf out of Mr Abbott’s book and take on the dangerous fringe groups gaining some respectability on the left wing spectrum of politics.

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Marcus Vernon

Margo, I haven’t checked in with Webdiary for some time, for various reasons, but felt I had to after the Hanson verdict. I was shocked to see dreadful picture of you at the top of the page. How long has that been there??! (Margo: Since I published Webdiary’s ethics last month) Who on earth decided that was a good idea? (My news editor) Please lose it asap. We don’t need or want any personality cults in the media.

As to Hanson, the three-year sentence was appalling, way way over the top. I’m no fan of Hanson, and knew she had neither the intelligence or organisational kills to develop a genuine, long-lasting presence in politics. But I supported her right to say what she thought (which has since been picked up by other pollies and community groups) and stand for election if she felt that was the way to go.

I liked your piece on the verdict, Mother of the nation in jail, its father in charge, although I think Howard has done nothing more than what other opportunistic pollies, including Hawke, would have done.

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Gary Fallon in Noble Park, Victoria

I have been under the misapprehension that the term ‘right wing bleeding heart’ was an oxymoron – until I read the newspapers! The One Nation Onanists are up in arms because Pauline Hanson, in accordance with the laws that prevail in the state of Queensland, has been found guilty of fraud. There are disingenuous claims that the crime was ‘victimless’, a novel concept to say the least. Even under good old Joh, the laws of Queensland needed to have this test applied. Somehow these individuals feel that ignorance of the law should be a reason for it not to apply. Although ‘ignorance’ is certainly a hallmark of Hanson, I note that they are unwilling to extend this defence to anyone else in the criminal justice system.

I wonder what the reactions of the One Nation Onanists would be to a situation where an Aborigine falsely completes an employment application for a position in a bank. Through this she obtains employment and then proceeds to defraud the bank of $500,000 to help her local community fight alcoholism and domestic violence. She is charged, tried in a court of law, and despite having arranged repayment of the money to the bank, is found guilty by a jury and sentenced to three years imprisonment by the judge.

Would One Nation Onanists be claiming the sentence is ‘racially based’? Would they be claiming that the sentence is ‘too severe’? Or would they demand that the maximum sentence (I believe this is 10 years) be applied and decry the fact the courts are too lenient on criminals?

Somehow, I think we all know the answer to this; our poor Aborigine would not receive the One Nation sympathy that Precious Pauline has! Ah, the hypocrisy of the ignorant right!

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Andrew Stapleton in Sydney

In an effort to show that they can be magnanimous in victory the ‘left elite’ are tripping over themselves and the facts of the case.

In Too severe on stupidity Mike Carlton said: “On reflection, I think her sentence is too much. Her crime was not deliberate, more a stupid administrative error” (SMH August 23, 2003)

Richard Glover in At least the Sunshine State is safe from angry pen wielders said: “This week it was the turn of Pauline Hanson, who’d made a hash of her party paperwork. There were all sorts of forms that were filled out incorrectly.” (SMH August 23, 2003)

Margo Kingston feels ‘sorry’ for Hanson and says: “Australia’s political, police and legal establishment has put Pauline Hanson – fish and chip shop heroine to the poor, the ignorant and the disenfranchised, the woman who created a party out of nothing in an instant and mobilised Australians never before involved in politics – behind bars.” (SMH online, August 21, 2003)

Politicians from B. Carr to B. Bishop feel that prison was inappropriate.

A fundamental element of the platform on which Pauline Hanson ran was that Australia had become an oligarchy, in so far as the major parties had been captured by an elite and no longer responded to the concerns of ordinary Australians. Her One Nation party was intended as a grass roots party that would represent the interests of the forgotten Australians.

There are differing levels of democracy in political parties. At the most democratic end are the Australian Democrats who may have come unstuck because they were too democratic. The membership of the Democrats can all vote to elect the parliamentary leader of the party which is fine if the membership is similar to the people who vote for the party but when the party became dominated by Uni students attracted to Natasha and chose her as its leader it alienated a significant proportion of its voter base, middle aged housewives from the North Shore. A significant portion of the damage to the Democrats was caused by Natasha framing her speeches and policies so that they appealed to her electoral base within the party

rather the electoral base of the party.

The Liberal, Labor and National parties have a more stable model of internal democracy. Any Australian elector can join the local branch of their preferred party (membership of political parties has dwindled over the past couple of decades and these parties would be delighted to get new members) and then vote in the preselection for the local candidate.

Occasionally a party’s head office will overrule that preselection, as the Liberals did with Hanson in 1997, but generally they will accept the branch’s choice. The party’s parliamentary membership then elects a leader of the party.

When Hanson, Ettridge and Oldfield and were setting up Pauline Hanson’s One Nation political party they decided they didn’t want to allow members any democratic vote in running the party. They created a separate skin, the Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Members Inc., for the membership that could be shed if it raised its voice against the leadership. This membership organisation had no control over the allocation of party funding, the selection of candidates or who would lead (the Party) Pauline Hanson’s One Nation political party.

Hanson and Ettridge fell foul of the law when they went to register the political party in Queensland. The Queensland Electoral Act 1992 Sect 70 (e) requires that if the party does not have one member of the party who is a member of the Legislative Assembly they needed to ‘set out the names and addresses of 500 members of the party who are electors’.

Although they had at least 18,000 supporters they did not have 500 members because they had chosen to allow only themselves, the leadership, membership of the party, kind of like an oligarchy. In her sentencing statement Judge Wolfe said:

In finding you guilty the jury has accepted that you, David Ettridge, as the person who was one of the National Management Committee of the party, one of the three, and you, Ms Hanson, as another member of that Management Committee, as well as being the president and vice president respectfully of the support movement knew, Ms Hanson, when you caused to be handed in a list of members, and which Mr Ettridge had obtained for the purpose of providing to the Electoral Commission, that it was not a list of members of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, the political party. The jury, in their verdicts, has found that both of you knew that it was a list of members of the support movement.

It is absurd for Hanson and Ettridge to claim that they didn’t realise the list of people submitted were not members having intentionally structured the party to exclude those people from membership.

It is a red herring to suggest that Hanson and Ettridge didn’t personally benefit and so the fraud can be forgiven – they were effectively the One Nation party and its success was their success. Judge Wolfe pointed out that registration of One Nation in Queensland conferred a couple of benefits on the party. Registration allowed the party to make a claim for electoral funding and it meant that Pauline Hanson’s One Nation appeared on the ballot paper easily identifying its candidates. Further more, if the One Nation candidates had stood as independents under a One Nation banner those that garnered more than 4% of the vote would themselves have been entitled to the electoral funding.

The greatest fraud was perpetrated on the supporters of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation who thought that they were joining a democratic party and would have some measure of influence.

***

Tim Gillin in Randwick, Sydney

Your discussion of the harsh treatment dished out to Pauline Hanson puts all the blame on Howard. Politicians really do deserve our contempt but it needs to be spread around more. (Margo: Not true! I also gave a big blast to Keating.)

You have left the whole left wing and “Big M” Multiculturalist hate campaign against Hanson off the hook. These self described opponents of racism and “friends of diversity” showed zero tolerance for opinions other than their own monologue. (I made this very point in my book.)

That some less optimistic souls wish to apply the Greens’ “precautionary principle” when massive state managed social engineering is foist on the only country we have, was frankly beyond these dogma addicts.

You rightfully pointed out that Howard’s refugee detention policies are actually tougher than the

position publicly advocated by Hanson. But somehow you managed to completely miss what Howard’s immigration policies really are.

Although the left accuse Howard’s tough line against mass maritime illegal immigrants as racist /xenophobic, his total policy seems quite different, at least according to Ross Gittins.(He’s kept it bloody quiet though – and he’s safe, because Labor won’t argue. And he’s skewed the intake away from humanitarian in a big way.)

If Gittins is right Howard may be playing a magician’s trick. Gittins seems to be saying that, despite Woomera, Howard has actually run the ‘least European’ immigration policy in our history. Future generations of multiculturalist pundits will no doubt rehabilitate his reputation a la Fraser. The two card trick was up until now Keating’s specialty. The “vision thing” on one hand, economic rationalism up the sleeve.

What does the average Australian think about all this? The last figures I saw come from this old 1996 article that show low interest in immigration as a ‘hot button’ issue. The public really has more important things to think about, but when pressed for their views, the majority position is one neither the government or white collar left would support. In fact these two apparent foes are solidly allied against public opinion.

This (admittedly old) poll explains Howard’s machiavellian tactics. It also explains the extreme paranoid (indeed “McCarthyist” in the worst sense) insecurity of the multicultural lobby. Pundits may accuse the Australian people for being scared about maritime hordes, but the anxiety in Moonee Ponds is nothing compared to the multiculturalists fear over an unplanned outbreak of public opinion.

I don’t believe there was a conspiracy to put Hanson in prison, but it is hard to believe she received a fair go when Hawke hero Alan Bond misplaces a billion dollars and serves three years. Anyone concerned with justice needs to examine whether the establishment and left’s joint campaign hasn’t steamrolled a mutually inconvenient and pesky nonconformist.

German poet Rev. Martin Niemoller once wrote: “First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Could it be that in cosmopolitan, globaloney, multicultural Australia, they are coming for the xenophobes first?

Imagine you are John Howard sitting at your political chess board. Your dominance is almost complete. Your backbenchers don’t speak out on anything any more – your popularity and political control is such that dissenters feel they have no choice but to fall in behind you and enjoy the spoils. Your opposition is punch drunk. It is divided over what to do, where to go and how to play to match you. The media is largely compliant – being so popular, and now in your third term, no-one is game to take you on or push you to answer questions, so you get away with dissembling, even lies. Your handpicked elite has now fully replaced that of the other lot, and the losers are dispirited and exhausted from constantly fighting to save some of what they gained before you came to office. Most Australians seem to trust that whatever you do it’ll be OK and they don’t need to know much about why. What next?

I got an inkling of what might be next in Canberra last week. Wave after wave of new policy spat forth – intervention in the Solomons, selling Telstra, getting ASIO through, pushing for cross media abolition, passing another detention law through the lower house which would keep some people in detention forever. Labor people tended to get drunk early and party, frenetically, all night. I even saw tears in the eyes of one of them. They have no time to get their balance or to regroup or to plan strategy. John Howard is rolling all over them. And the Senate? I’ll get to that beleaguered, frightened institution soon.

When Howard decided to stay on on June 3, many people thought he’d missed his “Menzies moment”, that magic phenomenon of leaving while you’re on top and handing your organisation to the next generation in good shape and untouched by leadership blood. Peter Costello certainly thought so, and told Howard to his face when Howard deigned to kill his hopes the day before the announcement. It can’t get better for you than this, Costello told him. You’ve won the war without a casualty, you’re loved by the people, your luck will run out, people will tire of you. Now is the time to hand me the prize.

But Howard is no Hawke, the old bloke addicted to the glamour but with nothing much more to contribute. Hawke got to the top the easy way. Howard did it very hard, and got very bruised and battered along the way. In a position as good as his, he wants more. Howard has a big agenda. A very big one.

Howard wants to go out on a high alright, but he wants the high to be higher than the one he’s already on. He wants to transform Australia so completely that the old Australia can never be revived. His vision is so radical that only a man in complete charge of the political agenda could even dream of it. And the cross media legislation – the one I’ve been writing about in such despair for a week now – is central to his plans.

Just days after he announced he’d stay leader for as long as the party wanted him Howard dropped a bombshell. He wanted a referendum to strip the Senate of its power to reject legislation, because it “has become a house of obstruction”. It had to be a joke, surely. Labor, the party of reform, had always wanted just such a thing, by tradition. It was conservatives, protectors of the status quo, which honoured the Senate. Now, the roles are reversed. Howard is the radical. Labor are the conservatives.

It is conventional wisdom that such a referendum would never succeed. You only have to look at the nightmare legislation Howard has tried to get through this term – including defining political protests as “terrorist acts” and imposing a virtual police state with his original ASIO laws – to know that the Senate has acted as a bulwark of our human and civil rights. It is a place for genuine debate on the merits and real community input because the government does not have the numbers to force everything through.

Howard, leading a party traditionally suspicious of big brother government, has become the champion of it. It is now Labor, not the Liberals, who champion privacy laws. It is now Labor which defends civil rights, since Howard and his followers successfully swept small ‘l’ liberalism from the federal party over the last two decades. It’s worth noting that the big media has, almost without exception, embraced Howard’s idea, arguing that in a fast moving world of global economics, a government must move swiftly. In other words, democracy must be subservient to economic growth, and unchecked government power is good for us.

Howard will decide later whether to put the proposal to a referendum at the next election. It’s a card in his hand, one of many he’s playing to put almost intolerable pressure on vulnerable Senators.

The next card is the escalating threat of a double dissolution. In a dd, the Democrats would be all but wiped out. As it is, Andrew Murray, Natasha, Lynette Allison and Andrew Bartlett are in for another five years, while only John Cherry and Aden Ridgeway would be up for reelection, along with ex Democrat Meg Lees. So you can see why the Party is in crisis, apparently threatening to split and cross the floor last week over cross media.

The Democrats are in no-man’s land. At a time when values are imperative, they drift between the Greens on the left and the centrist Labor party with no articulated difference from either except that they’re prepared to do deals, sometimes, and except that it’s their ex-leader Meg who’s doing all the dealings and getting all the publicity.

As I wrote last year during the Democrats leadership debacle, the missing market segment is now a small l liberal type party, espousing small business economic values and progressive social values ( The Democrats: Split on survival). A decent breakaway from the Liberal Party would have helped, but the liberal moderate Greg Barnes moved across just before the party disintegrated and it came to nought.

How can the Democrats hang on? I think Howard means to split them off as soon as possible, setting up a group of three – Lees, Murray and Ridgeway – which will amenable to deals on his legislative agenda. With them on board, he’d need only one of Shayne Murphy, Brian Harradine and Len Harris to win through, and that sounds pretty easy to me.

What could he offer the three ex-Dems? Lees seems to be already on board, and she’s got a party up and running called the Australian Progressive Alliance and managed by ex-Democrats. Howard would offer Liberal preferences, and more.

But would he really go to a double dissolution if the Senate stood firm? It doesn’t make sense to, on the numbers. Political analyst Malcolm Mackerras wrote in a recent AFR piece republished below that the Coalition, with a Senate vote of about 42 percent, would get 33 of the 76 seats. But it could conceivably win half the seats up for grabs at a normal half senate election, which would give the liberals half of the 76 Senate seats. He’d then need only one Senator to get his agenda through. Murray is the obvious candidate.

And what is his agenda? In my view he wants to smash the “social contract” in Australia to smithereens. He wants to establish Australia as a US style democracy where people fend for themselves and save for their needs, including health and education. He also wants the US model of a corporatist state run by government in partnership with big business, where politicians and businesspeople swap roles routinely and big business finances the conservative party. And he wants Australia to divorce itself from the multilateral system of international relations AND become part of the American world.

But Australia would be a different place from America. We do not have a bill of rights, which in the United States keeps the Government and its powers in check. Howard would be much freer than the American president to trample our human and civil rights. He’s already walked away from our multilateral human rights obligations, and stacked the High Court with judges antagonistic to incorporating our international human rights commitments into our constitution.

What he also has that President Bush doesn’t is a concentrated media, the most concentrated in the Western world. If he gets his cross media bill through in three months, as planned, Australia’s media will be under the effective control of Rupert Murdoch, who will own most of our newspapers, a TV network, our pay TV network, and, in cities where he cannot own both a newspaper and a TV station due to his already great share of the advertising market, the key news talk station. Kerry Packer could take Fairfax and keep the Nine Network if he wished, as well as keep his stake in Foxtel and his large stable of magazines. By coincidence (?) both men already effectively control three of our major sports – AFL, Rugby League and Cricket, and would now control the reporting of those sports, ensuring news coverage only in their commercial interest.

Thus two immensely wealthy, powerful businessmen, would set the news agenda in this country, and control much of Australia’s forms of MASS entertainment. Unlike the United States president, who faces a vast and diverse independent media, Howard could, in large measure, rule effectively free from media scrutiny or dissenting analysis on crucial issues. The big two and Howard want Australia run by big business to compete in a globalised world – with favoured treatment for them, of course. Murdoch, reaching a position of immense media power even in the US, wants a free trade agreement with the United States to enmesh the two countries militarily and economically. Faierfax, the only remaining skeptical commercial media voice, one without commercial conflicts of interest, would be gone. The ABC, bruised and battered by concerted government attack enthusiastically backed by the Murdoch press, would be cowed into acquiescence. It is no accident, in my view, that The Australian recently called for the abolition of Radio National, the only mainstream avenue for big ideas and intelligent dissent in Australia.

These ambitions would be very controversial – perhaps too controversial – if we had a free independent media, and if voices of dissent could be heard. In Howard’s ideal world, they would be heard hardly at all. It would be government by big business for big business, with a powerful state apparatus to watch the public and crush radical dissent.

I wouldn’t put it past Howard to achieve these goals. When Labor reigned supreme after many years of power, with its elites firmly in place, it ran out of puff. Why? Because it disconnected from the needs and aspirations of the Australian people, and became arrogant and complacent. Howard will not make the same mistake.

As he screws the batters economically he caters to their nationalistic desires for an Australia safe from boat people and other undesirable immigrants. He gets them on strident nationalism in this way, while making us a client state to the United States in other, much more important, ways. He runs a strong anti-drugs line and socially conservative social policy to ease their fears of a society too complex to comprehend. His proposal on joint custody appeals to many conservative voters, and is a core platform of One Nation. He is keeping the battlers happy with social policy, while hurting them economically.

Howard’s new media elite is also different from Keating’s. For all its faults, the Keating media elite remained critical of Labor, its double standards, and its various betrays of principle. It kept Labor accountable. In contrast, some of Howard’s most powerful media elite act as unabashed propagandists.

So Howard has all the cards. The Democrats are fighting for their survival and Labor is a headless chook. He can now sit back and decide, when the time is right, which of his many possible roads to Australia’s transformation and his absolute power in partnership with big business is most likely to succeed.

There are risks in all this, which I’ll write about tomorrow.

***

Howard flies constitutional kite

by Malcolm Mackerras, June 10, 2003, AFR

Over the past 30 years John Howard has always been the Liberal Party’s candidate for Bennelong at federal general elections. So what? Not much, except this. Over that same period of 30 years there have been 15 proposed constitutional reforms unsuccessfully placed before the Australian people.

For 15 questions, in which the people voted yes zero times and no 15 times, how did Howard vote? Answer: yes twice and no 13 times.

So Howard’s record is a smidgin more reformist than that of the Australian people but markedly more conservative than his fellow politicians. Suddenly this conservative politician takes the road to Damascus (sorry, a flight to Adelaide) and we witness a Alpine conversion with Howard proposing radical constitutional reform.

The proposal he outlined is a real stinker, so much so that I refuse to believe in his conversion. This proposal will get nowhere. It is a political stunt.

In his Adelaide speech Howard referred to the fact this very reform was recommended by an all-party committee of federal parliament in a 1959 report. True. However, he should have also pointed out that the report of that committee was republished by Robert Menzies and Garfield Barwick, speaking for the government of the day.

Why would the attitude of Menzies differ so markedly from that of Howard? I suggest a simple answer. The Menzies coalition Senate vote was 50.4 per cent in 1949, 49.7 per cent in 1951, 44.4 per cent in 1953 and 48.7 per cent in 1955. The Howard coalition Senate vote was 44 per cent in 1996, 37.7 per cent in 1998 and 41.8 per cent in 2001. I predict the vote will be 42 per cent in 2004. Consequently Menzies, with his high percentages, knew he could win a Senate majority at a double dissolution election. Indeed he did, in 1951. By contrast, Howard, with his much lower percentages, knows he can never win a Senate majority. Never believe his line that he cannot get such a win because the Hawke government rigged the system. That is rubbish. Howard cannot get a majority because his Senate vote is so low.

However, the coalition can win half the Senate places at a half-Senate election. Indeed the coalition did win half the Senate places both in 1996 and in 2001. The government’s weak situation at present is the consequence of its abysmal vote in 1998 when Alpine Hanson and its own GST promise were the cause of the decline. I confidently predict there will be a House of Representatives plus half-Senate election in November 2004 as a consequence of which 38 of the 76 senators will be coalition from July 2005. In other words, the coalition will have 50 per cent of the Senate seats for a 42 per cent vote twice occurring. Thereafter all it will need is to do a bit of bargaining and exercise patience and its economic reforms will all become reality.

In a double dissolution election a 42 per cent vote would give the coalition only 33 senators – five fewer. What, then, is the point of the double-dissolution talk and this constitutional reform stunt? Simple really. The purpose is to talk up the government’s Senate vote at the next half-Senate election.

Clearly there will never be a referendum on this outlandish proposal. The proposal would makes joint sittings such a regular feature that a bicameral parliament would become, in effect, a unicameral parliament. The government’s House of Representatives majority would always overwhelm the Senate.

Most constitutional reformers these days think there should be more limits on government power. This proposal moves the system is the opposite direction.

Meanwhile, while I am not as strongly opposed to Labor’s fixed-term proposal as I am to the Howard plan for Senate reform, I think Labor’s reform moves the system too much the other way. The present arrangements, in my opinion, strike exactly the right balance between the executive and the legislature, between the two houses of federal parliament and between the politicians and the people. It is extraordinary that our present arrangements, drawn up more than a century ago, can be quite so contemporary in the way they actually work.

Malcolm Mackerras teaches in the school of politics at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.

According to the British historian Eric Hobsbawm, “the policies that have recently prevailed in Washington seem to all outsiders so mad that it is difficult to understand what is really intended”.

Not so, at least in Australia.

Governments in continental Europe led by Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac may be examining the consequences of the Iraq war for future trans-Atlantic ties. German and French philosophers such as Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida might be calling for a counterweight to US strategic preponderance. However, no such debate or reflection on the war has erupted in this country. Why not?

One explanation is that according to ideological vigilantes on the political right, it is not possible to criticise the policies of the Bush Administration without being “anti-American.” For commissars who make no distinction between the American state and American society – an old Stalinist convention – it isn’t possible to love Americans and despise the foreign policy that is enacted in their names. This is a replay of the racist slur that one could not criticise Jakarta’s behaviour in East Timor without being “anti-Indonesian”.

However, there is another more compelling reason why US foreign policy has not evoked the same concerns in Australia that are being expressed elsewhere in the West. The current state of the relationship between Canberra and Washington has produced a very different intellectual and policy climate to the one which prevails in much of Europe.

For dependent allies of the United States such as Australia, a misguided belief that “everything has changed” after 9/11 has led to a steady departure from strategic self-reliance, diplomatic independence and regional engagement. Instead, the closest possible partnership with Washington has been sought by Canberra in the belief that only trans-Pacific ties can provide a modicum of security in volatile and uncertain times. Prime Minister Howard argued that Australia’s participation in the war against Iraq was, in part, out of a duty to our alliance partner.

Little thought appears to have been given to the consequences of such an approach. And yet the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) fiasco is an early demonstration of the dangers of an increasingly vicarious foreign policy. Australian diplomacy is now firmly tied to a stridently unilateralist US Administration which, despite multilateral pretences, does not believe in an alliance system that involves genuine consultation.

Current Australian attitudes towards the United Nations, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty, strategic pre-emption and even France, to take only five recent examples, are indistinguishable from their American source. It may be good for alliance solidarity, but there are a number of dangers in this approach for Australia.

The first is Australia’s moral complicity in actions it can do little to influence, but for which there are significant consequences. The ethical value of Australia’s behaviour in Afghanistan and Iraq will be measured by the anticipated and predictable consequences of our actions. This extends well beyond the removal of two repressive and unpopular regimes, to include protecting individuals from avoidable harm and the welfare of people we have deprived of government, law and order, as well as basic services such as public health. Seemingly ambivalent about our role as an occupying power in Iraq, Australia has not fully discharged either its moral or legal responsibilities for nation re-building.

A second risk is guilt by association. As Australia’s foreign policy becomes indistinguishable from America’s, we should expect Washington’s enemies, especially in the Arab and Muslim worlds, to see matters in a similar light. But is it in our national interest to hitch our wagon so closely to the US if it means getting caught up in Washington’s blowback?

It is still unclear whether Australians were specifically targeted in Bali, whether they were mistaken for Americans or victims of a generic anti-Western attack. Policy convergence will ensure that in the future such distinctions will become superfluous. A more independent stance may not buy us immunity from anti-Western terrorist assaults, but we don’t need to consciously increase our vulnerability either.

A third problem arising from such a pro-US position is that we will be taken for granted in Washington. Countries which regularly express their fidelity to the United States lose leverage because concurrence can be assumed. Allies which play a little harder to get often win significant concessions, as Pakistan and a number of Central Asian states did after September 11. Canada, Turkey and Japan have remained close allies with the US even though they refused to join the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq.

Despite Canberra’s assiduous support for Washington over the last two years, the US will not deviate from pursuing its national interests just to reward a junior partner. Even in the current amicable climate there won’t be a free trade agreement between the two countries which requires US farmers to compete on a level playing field with their Australian counterparts.

Australia is earning a reputation as Washington’s stalking horse, even in countries such as Iran where it is far from clear that our interests and Washington’s coincide. It’s not only trade policies which diverge. Australia’s more sensible approach to the North Korea problem is having little if any effect on Pentagon planners. Elsewhere in North Asia Canberra never wants to be forced to choose sides in a dispute between the US and China over Taiwan. But can it avoid the issue?

Do we actually share America’s values, as Prime Minister Howard claims in his explanation of why Australia is targeted by Islamic militants? We are certainly the only ally in East Asia which publicly identifies culturally with the US. However, it is not clear that Australians would generally embrace the neo-conservatism and Christian fundamentalism which permeates the Bush Administration – even if John Howard, Peter Costello and Michael Jeffery do.

Nor are expressions of cultural affinity especially helpful to a policy of regional engagement. Australia’s intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq put us at odds with our closest neighbours in South East Asia (Indonesia and Malaysia) just as it did during the Gulf War in 1991, reinforcing a belief that we default strategically to the US in times of global crises. These days, regional engagement looks skin deep. We habitually notify the region of decisions we have taken after they have been cleared with Washington. We don’t consult them beforehand.

Has Australia’s closer relationship with the US since 2001 actually enhanced our security? At a time when the US itself has never been more militarily powerful, it has never felt less secure. This paradox brings little comfort to Australia.

Recent legislative responses to alleged terrorist threats which peel away long-established legal protections and civil liberties, do not suggest Australians are seeing the benefits of Washington’s security umbrella. Public opinion, particularly after the Bali attack in October 2002, seems divided on the virtues of the US alliance and periodically concerned by Washington’s aggressive behaviour. There are fears that the invasion of Iraq will encourage other ‘rogues’ such as Iran and North Korea to acquire or develop the only military technology likely to deter a US strike – nuclear weapons. Encouraging the proliferation of WMD is hardly in Australia’s interests.

President Clinton’s tardy response to the East Timor crisis in 1999 tapped into subliminal doubts within the Australian psyche that, despite regular down payments on insurance premiums since the 1950s, the US may be reluctant to pay out when we ultimately make a claim under ANZUS.

Washington disregarded institutions of global order and world common good such as the United Nations and international law, once they failed to legitimate an attack on Iraq. This is a regrettable but available option for states which can use their raw military power to achieve foreign policy objectives. Why not-so-powerful states such as Australia, which are disproportionately more dependent on the stabilising features of international society, should emulate such behaviour is not obvious. Small and medium powers have a greater interest in the protections afforded by national sovereignty and international law.

Whether Mr Downer is following the neo-conservative agenda in Washington with his emphasis on “outcomes” rather than “process” and his rejection of a “blind faith in principles of non-intervention, sovereignty and multilateralism,” remains to be seen. The ends rarely justify the means. It is to be hoped, therefore, that he hasn’t sacrificed strategic perceptions for ideological solidarity. The temptations of unipolarity are not for us.

“Sovereignty in our view is not absolute,” claims the foreign minister. “Acting for the benefit of humanity is more important,” unless the country in question is Indonesia and the humans are Acehnese or Papuans. Then there is no reluctance to “hide behind” a sovereignty which is absolutely more important.

Finally, an over-reliance on the personal chemistry between leaders can be intoxicating but is almost always a short-term benefit. As the Keating-Suharto friendship showed, jointly crafted institutional structures have greater longevity than transient political leaders. If President Bush loses in 2004 or Prime Minister Howard retires from political life some time soon, the current level of goodwill between the political elites of both countries may suddenly pass and relationships will need to be made anew.

Scott Burchill is a lecturer in international relations at Deakin University in Victoria

Australia’s democracy is in grave danger and the people of Australia have three months to save it.

Last week the Senate agreed to allow small and regional media companies to own two of the three media types – newspapers, television and radio – in a city or region. At present, a company can own only one type, to ensure none has a monopoly on news and views and that media groups keep each other honest.

The idea is to have enough different media voices to ensure that owners do not abuse the enormous power of the media for their commercial or political purposes. It is also to give you, the people, a better chance to have your voices heard.

Labor, The Greens and the Democrats opposed the legislation outright, arguing there were already too few media outlets in Australia, which already has the most concentrated media ownership in the western world. But One Nation and three independent Senators agreed to pass it with one caveat – that media moguls not be allowed to own a newspaper and a TV station in a mainland capital city. This caveat, known as the “Harradine amendment” was designed to stop Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer controlling Australia’s media and exercising inordinate influence over news and debate, and therefore business, politics and sport in Australia.

Senator Harradine said: “Those who own or run media organisations are in a position of privilege and influence. They are members of an unelected elite which is not effectively accountable to the Australian people. It is our job as elected legislators to ensure not only that there are reasonable parameters set for the running of successful media businesses but, much more importantly, that these parameters serve the Australian people…The people do not want further concentration of power in the major players in the media.”

The government rejected this amendment, despite arguing that its reform plans were driven by the needs of regional players, not by Murdoch and Packer. It sent the legislation back to the House of Representatives, told the Senate to think again. When the Senate stood its ground, the government said that in three months it would again tell the Senate to back down.

Without public pressure, the Senate is almost certain to cave in. The government is putting overwhelming pressure on the Senate through calls to abolish its power of veto and threats to hold a double dissolution election. The Democrats are in crisis, as all bar one Democrats Senator would be wiped out at a double dissolution election on current figures. It is likely the Democrats will split on the legislation when it returns. The Government could also force some of the independents to change their vote by threatening that unless they pass the legislation without the Harradine amendment, it will put its original legislation – which has fewer safeguards for media diversity and no protection of local content on regional stations – to the people at a double dissolution election.

Do you want Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer to run Australia? That is the likely result if the Senate caves in. Murdoch – the world’s most powerful media mogul – already decides what’s fit to print in Adelaide, Brisbane and many regional cities, where he owns the only newspaper. In Melbourne and Sydney he dominates the newspaper market and he owns the only national daily, The Australian. Even with the Harradine amendment, he could add news talk radio stations to his assets; with it he could add a TV network, delivering him total almost control of the national news agenda.

Kerry Packer is Australia’s richest, most powerful businessman, and owns the dominant Nine TV network. The legislation would allow Packer to take over the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Australian Financial Review – newspapers owned by the Fairfax group. Fairfax is independently owned, and provides the only scrutiny of Murdoch and Packer apart from the ABC. Unlike the Murdoch and Packer outlets, which allow no adverse scrutiny of either of the big two and whose editors always bow to Murdoch’s line, Fairfax has a editorial charter of independence which stops the Fairfax board dictating to the editors what stories to run and what political line to take. Unlike the Murdoch and Packer media groups, Fairfax also has a code of ethics to which journalists and editors are bound, and a strict policy of immediately correcting all errors.

Without Fairfax and with competitors like Network Seven crushed by the Packer/Murdoch dominance, the ABC would be on its own, extremely vulnerable to concerted pressure from Murdoch, Packer and the Government to tow the line, or else. While the Packer and Murdoch media would be immune from scrutiny, the ABC would be scrutinised to death.

Murdoch and Packer behave as partners, not competitors. They share ownership of the Foxtel Pay TV network, and have previously done a deal to divide Australia’s media between them. There is little doubt a deal has been done now, but neither media mogul will tell the Australian people what they plan to do if the Senate passes the legislation.

Telstra is the wild card. The government wants to privatise Telstra, which is the other partner in Foxtel. A privatised Telstra could buy up the new Packer empire, leaving two global players – Murdoch and Telstra, as controllers of Australia’s media.

A Murdoch/Packer controlled media would see the pair run Australia in partnership with John Howard without media scrutiny. You would never know what’s going on between the three. The global big business agenda would be virtually unquestioned in the mainstream media.

For example, people concerned about the pending Free Trade Agreement with the United States, which could abolish foreign limitations on ownership of our assets, abolish Australian content rules for TV , and abolish quarantine laws to protect our agriculture industry from disease, could find they would not have their voice heard.

When the government tried in 1997 to deliver Fairfax to Packer a public and backbencher outcry and virulent opposition from the Murdoch press (which could not expand under the proposed new laws) , forced a backdown.

But this time, all media companies support the changes because there is something in it for everyone, including high takeover prices. This means that there has not been a vigorous debate in our media, and the public has been kept in the dark. Radio and the commercial networks have hardly touched the issue. Murdoch’s newspapers have become propaganda machines for the changes, and have not run pieces stating the case against. As a result, few Australians know what is going on.

For its part, the Government has avoided addressing the key question: Is it in the public interest, and the interests of our democracy, for Murdoch and Packer to gain even more media power. Instead, the government talks of “safeguards” in the legislation negotiated with the independents to gain their support. None of these safeguards prevent Murdoch buying a TV network and Packer buying Fairfax.

Do you want to decide who runs Australia, or do you want Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer to decide? The vast majority of Australians get their news from TV and newspapers. With the big two controlling both mediums, THEY will decide what is news, and THEY will decide what advertising to run and not run. No-one will be in a position to investigate their activities – across sport, entertainment, gaming, investing, and business. As we saw during the Iraq war debate, Rupert Murdoch’s papers around the world all ran a strong pro-war line, regardless of the individual interests of each country concerned. And now, in the United States, The United Kingdom and Australia, all three governments are trying to deregulate media laws to allow Rupert Murdoch to own even more media.

What rights would you have if you were wronged by the Murdoch or Packer media empires? None. Last week, the government rejected Senate amendments which would have required owners wishing to own both newspapers and TV to make apologies or offer a right of reply if they got something wrong, like the ABC and SBS already have to do.

How can you stay in control of the future of your nation? How can you keep your right to know and your right to be heard? The problem is that the message will not get through in our mainstream media, and many people in the media and in business fear standing up for democracy because they want to keep their jobs and get work with the big two.

This issue is of importance to all of us. All Australians need information and open, free, debate on issues that effect us all. That’s what democracy is all about.

***

Please send your comments and questions to mkingston@smh.com.au. Margo Kingston owns shares in Fairfax.

For more details on the consequences of the legislation passing the Senate, see The debate that dare not speak its name and Closing the door on your right to know.

For the closing speech on the legislation by Brian Harradine, the man who proposed the amendment to stop Packer and Murdoch owning newspapers and TV stations, see Brian Harradine: The voice of reason on media laws.

Here are Brian Harradine’s remarks on the cross-media legislation on the last day of debate. Brian, who has been in the Senate longer than anyone else, is a wise man. He is also incorruptible. He has a deep and abiding commitment to the public interest on matters of core principle.

I have often disagreed with Brian, especially on family planning matters, as he does not believe in family planning on religious grounds. He is a strong Catholic, and besides family planning, he has a deep commitment to the welfare of indigenous Australians and refugees.

I came to respect and admire Brian during the Wik debate, where he was willing to compromise on many matters with the government to avoid a race election, which he knew would be disastrous for Australia and for Aboriginal Australians, while standing firm on the four “sticking points”. When the success of One Nation at the 1998 Queensland election forced Howard ro reconsider his threat to take Australia to a race election on Wik, he met Brian and an extraordinary agreement was reached.

Howard would claim that Brian blinked, and Brian would not demur. This made it easier for Howard to ease his backdown through his hard core constituencies. History has shown that through a complex web of technicalities, Brian saved the right to negotiate and the other three core rights for Aborigines. To have the capacity to avoid claiming victory after a great victory is the sign of a great man.

On issues he considers non-core, Brian will trade for the benefit of the people of Tasmania. On core issues, he stands firm.

I was in Canberra last week for the cross media debate, which had looked to be in a bag for the government and the big two – Murdoch and Packer. I wondered whether Brian would consider media diversity to be core to our democracy. To my relief, he did. Thank you, Brian. Australia owes you an enormous debt of gratitude.

BROADCASTING SERVICES AMENDMENT (MEDIA OWNERSHIP) BILL 2002

26 June 2003

Senator HARRADINE (Tasmania) (11.23 p.m.)

The time is very late. I will seek leave to incorporate my speech in Hansard. It is really an appeal to the government, when this matter goes back to the House of Representatives, to reconsider and not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2002 has some very substantial reforms in it, and in itself it deserves to be supported with the amendments that I and other Senators have moved. The decision was overwhelming tonight – I think it was 36 to 29 – and that is a message that the people of Australia are giving the government in this matter. The people do not want further concentration of power in the major players in the media.

The speech reads as follows:

I am disappointed that the Government has not accepted the amended Broadcasting Services Amendment (Media Ownership) Bill 2002.

It seems that the Government is willing to risk sacrificing the whole bill and all the benefits the bill provides, just because it doesn’t like one or two of the amendments the Senate has made.

The Government has the chance to facilitate substantial reform of the Australian media industry by accepting this bill as amended.

I am aware of course that the amendments I moved last night have caused the Government some concern. My amendments, as senators would recall, prevent a media owner from owning a television station and a newspaper in the same mainland state capital city.

The Government has argued that because it cannot accept my amendment and therefore will reject the bill in the current form, and that we are playing into the hands of the big media players who will continue to do well under the current laws. It has argued that the losers will be the small to medium size media owners who will continue to be restricted by the current law.

Well the obvious answer to the Government is to support the amended bill. The bill will allow the small to medium sized media owners room to move and grow. The restrictions of my amendment only really impact on the big media owners. The big media moguls wouldn’t have won and the Government could rest easy.

So why doesn’t the Government pass the amended bill? Possibly because it is a bit more concerned about the effect it would have on the big media owners than they care to admit. Perhaps the real aim of this bill was to allow the big owners to get even bigger?

But let’s look at the large number of benefits this amended bill offers to reform the Australian media market place. These are the benefits that the Government wants to throw away. These are the benefits that the Government wants to reject rather than threaten the growth of the media moguls.

Benefits of the amended bill include:

* It allows newspapers to merge with radio;

* It allows television to merge with radio;

* It allows a media proprietor to own a newspaper in one city and a television licence in another city;

* It allows a media proprietor to own a number of television licences and a number of newspaper licences-as long as they are not in the same city;

* It allows regional media owners to own a television station and two radio stations in the same market, or a television station and a newspaper, or a newspaper and two radio stations;

* It protects the public by a ‘minimum voices’ rule so that cross-media mergers can only be approved if there are a minimum of five independently owned commercial media outlets in cities and a minimum of four in regional markets;

* It protects the public by ensuring that someone can only own one TV licence in a licence area;

* It establishes a requirement for an independent editorial board in a cross-media company, to protect editorial independence;

* It extends the two out of three rule to include small regional newspapers;

* It requires commercial TV operators to provide a minimum level of local news and information.

These are just some of the provisions of the amended bill – and the Government wants to throw them all away.

That’s not to say that I like all the provisions of this bill. But I was prepared to work with my colleagues and the Government to come to a compromise position. For example, I have voted to reduce foreign ownership restrictions – something I was not entirely comfortable with, but I think on balance is the correct decision.

But I have come to the decision that it is overwhelmingly in the public interest to ensure some basic restrictions on the ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same city.

I urge the Government not to reject this amended bill just because it does not allow for media moguls to create a cross-media company which could dominate a particular city’s media or which could be a dominant national force.

***

Brian Harradine also made these remarks on the night:

In Committee

Senator HARRADINE (Tasmania) (6.32 p.m.)

I will be very brief because I do not want to take up the time of the Senate; I know we are under a great deal of pressure. Senator Cherry asked me why I did not include the regionals in this area. The answer is simple: the major challenge is by the major media moguls and their being able to capture the television market and the newspaper market. I thought that was the key area in this debate on diversity.

I remind Senator Alston that 16 years ago I made a speech about the then broadcasting legislation. The minister will remember that, because he came in as a senator the year before, from memory. On that occasion I referred to a statement made by Mr Davidson in 1956, when he was the Postmaster-General, in which he talked about television licences. He said:

Television stations are in a position to exercise a constant and cumulative effect on public taste and standards of conduct, and, because of the influence they can bring to bear on the community, the business interests of licensees must at all times be subordinated to the overriding principle that the possession of a licence is, indeed, as the Royal Commission said, a public trust for the benefit of all members of our society.

And I said in my contribution to the second reading debate on 25 March 2003:

Those who own or run media organisations are in a position of privilege and influence. They are members of an unelected elite which is not effectively accountable to the Australian people. It is our job as elected legislators to ensure not only that there are reasonable parameters set for the running of successful media businesses but, much more importantly, that these parameters serve the Australian people.

That has been my view over a period of time, and Mr Davidson’s comments about the public trust issue have been seared into my mind ever since. I say to the minister that it is not me who is talking about this need to ensure diversity and to ensure that there is not less diversity; it is the Productivity Commission. I remind the Senate of what the Productivity Commission said – I have said it before and I will not say it again. Whether the major media moguls being able, under the bill, to buy the major newspapers, particularly in capital cities – and radio stations, as far as that is concerned – is in the public interest is a matter for prudential consideration.

I have looked at this issue and studied the reach of both the television industry organisations and the major newspapers, and I came to the decision that this bill needed amendment to ensure that there was no attack on the diversity that was mentioned as being absolutely essential by the Productivity Commission.

Disclosure: Margo Kingston owns shares in Fairfax.

G’Day. It’s been spin, anger, the ABC and media ethics this week, and you’ve swamped me with so many emails I haven’t dealt with them all. So if I’ve missed a ripper please resend.

To end the week, your say on the big topics. I’ll start with a brilliant essay on the Howard/ABC power struggle from media professional Daniel Wright on Webdiary debut and yet another conservative masterpiece byDaniel Moye, this time on WMDs.

Daniel Wright, on debut

Disclosure: I am an Australian citizen currently a senior operational member of staff at a regional television station in New Zealand.

When I was in year seven at school I remember distinctly one day our teacher telling us how important it was to develop an interest in the news. He said the world was ours, in potential, and that one day it really would be ours. He told us that when that time came it was important for us to know where it had come from, so that we could know where we wanted it to go. He said that an interest in the news was vital to that knowledge, that it was important to understand what was happening in the world and what effects these events had. He then set a task for us to watch the news each night and read at least one newspaper each day and to note a minimum of three stories that mattered to us.

I hadn’t really thought of it before, but a lot of who I am today has probably come out of that assignment.

When I got to university I had to repeat very similar assignments for a couple of different classes. And so I entered the world of information choice. I could select which sources of information appealed to me and restrict my diet to those. I could devour everything and hope to make some sense of it. I could look to certain organisations and trust them to tell me the uncomfortable truths that I didn’t really want to know but needed to know about nonetheless.

For me trust is central to the issue. The more I limit my sources of information the more I am displaying trust in the information that they supply.

Of course as I grow older I realise how little there really is that can be trusted. This, in turn, means that I need to be able to secure information on the same events/topics from as many sources as possible in order that I need not trust any of them very much. Unfortunately, in the modern media world it is increasingly difficult to distinguish the number of “brands” from the number of “sources”.

And this is where independence becomes critical.

For many years the Democrats played a vital role in Australian politics. From the “Keep The Bastards Honest” days through to recent times, they exploited and campaigned on their independence from the major political parties and the opportunity this afforded to influence how far any government could go.

In a similar fashion, a genuine independent media source is vital to the Australian media at large. An independent media source can go about the business of journalism directly, without fear of business relationships or agendas getting in the way.

An independent media source is able to be the voice of the cynic in all of us, and to ask the questions we’d all like to have answered. Best of all, an independent media source is able to push for the answers to those questions without fear and without threat. An independent media source is essential to maintaining our lack of trust in general media and in the establishment.

Trust, as we all know, is a two sided coin, so here are the sides as I see them:

1) Mr Howard DOES NOT trust the ABC to give him unchecked support. Mr Howard DOES NOT trust the ABC to avoid the tough issues and questions. Mr Howard DOES NOT trust the ABC to knuckle down, make nice and leave him alone. Therefore Mr Howard chooses to do his best to cripple an organisation that he DOES NOT trust.

Mr Howard DOES trust big business to take care of him. Mr Howard DOES trust non-independent media to “fairly and without bias” present exclusively his view of the issues.

Mr Howard DOES trust free market economics to ensure that those he needs help from benefit from him being in office. Therefore Mr Howard does his best to make life easy for himself and his allies.

2) I DO NOT TRUST A MAN WHO DOES NOT TRUST ME TO KNOW THE TRUTH!

I would dearly love to see a revamped and re-funded ABC with the slogan “Keeping ALL The Bastards Honest!”.

Of course, the as yet unmentioned part of the issue is that of laziness. That’s right, laziness. See there are only two reasons that a person could not be up in arms over this issue; either they trust Mr Howard to resolve it for them, or they’re too lazy to do anything about it.

The biggest failing in representative democracy over the last ten years or so has possibly not been a failing of government, but rather a failing of the governed. You see, representative democracy only works if we’re represented and representation doesn’t take place on election day.

Representation is what happens on every other day. Election day is just the day that you pick the person you want to badger for the duration of the term of office.

The truth is that it makes no difference if you voted for your elected representative or not – They are still your representative. Make them represent you. Until we accept responsibility for our part in the day to day running of a democratic society, we’ll reap the rewards of misplaced trust and sheer bloody minded laziness.

If you’d like to have a shot at discerning some truth on a regular basis, I’d strongly recommend that you do your bit and make sure your elected representative knows that their job is on the line.

Margo: I love this one liner from Daniel Gardiner: “When will Alston complain about the pro-American bias shown by News Ltd?”. Frederick Prins writes:

Something smells badly when we have a Prime Minister who took us to “war” (read illegal invasion) on the basis of false claims about weapons of mass destruction then has the gall to suggest that the ABC’s AM program reported it in an unbalanced way. We as a nation are “unbalanced” if we entertain this sort of crap, but looking back at our recent history we seem to enjoy the deceit this Government dishes out. The ABC belongs to us the taxpayers John, so call off your bully boy tactics and let them do their job! At least they tell the truth – something you and your Government wouldn’t know the meaning of.

***

Daniel Moye in Roseville, Sydney – official Webdiary conservative commentator

Given the ongoing debate about the intelligence presented to justify the War on Iraq, I thought I would provide a perspective that supports the War whilst at the same time supports inquiries into the pre-war rhetoric. I can relate to the furious attacks on the credibility of Bush, Blair and Howard and I am angry and disappointed too but for very different reasons.

The attempts by the Coalition of the Willing to bolster its case for War has done significant damage to the credibility of the case for an active confrontation and control of terrorist regimes and networks. By presenting faulty intelligence to justify their position it quite rightly begs questions about the whole approach to the War on Terror.

It is my opinion that by focusing on a very poll conscious strategy to convince a doubtful public, the Coalition of the Willing has created more hurdles for itself in what will be long-term struggle against oppressive regimes and terrorist networks. Conservative policy-makers throughout America, Australia and Britain ( and doubtlessly other democratic countries)

were quite rightly “woken up” by the September 11 attacks. The ideological challenge presented to pluralist democracies could know longer be ignored as the threat of an escalation of continued domestic attacks was starkly highlighted by those terrible planes and prompted questions like “if they can do that, can they do much worse?”

Leading Republican Congressman Christopher Shays, in an interview on BBC World program HardTalk ( a program I highly recommend), argued that the intelligence presented by Colin Powell at the UN and George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address were not the key reasons for his voting for going to War in Iraq.

What then are the reasons that shaped (and will continue to shape) conservative policy-makers in Washington, London and Canberra in going to War In Iraq?

Before going into the specifics, I will first present the broad challenge that shapes their thinking. The long-term national security of Western democracies is clearly in jeopardy if a confluence of events occur in the non-democratic world. If either failed states or totalitarian regimes hostile to the West either gain WMDs or proliferate them to terrorist networks then the risk of a far more devastating warfare will unfold.

They argue that containment policies that characterised much of the approach by the West in the Cold War are ineffective against this asymmetric challenge. It is ineffective because the battleground is literally everywhere and so unlike the Cold War where War game strategising against the Soviet Union or proxy warfare in third party countries is not an appropriate response.

As such, Conservative policy-makers have taken the view that rather than letting either oppressive regimes or terrorist networks choose the battleground that they will go after them whereever they are. The criteria they appear to be using is that any nation that either actively sponsors, gives shelter to or ‘turns a blind eye’ to terrorist activities effectively surrenders its sovereign rights. Obviously, they have prioritised where the threats are most dangerous – totalitarian countries that have access to or are actively seeking WMD or who are actively sponsoring terrorist activities.

After Afghanistan, why Iraq? If viewed through a post 9/11 prism what was previously a tolerable containment of Iraq had become intolerable. The Iraqi regime that invaded Quwait less than two years after a long war with Iran, that had already used WMDs and that had sought to launch a nuclear program was clearly a threat.

It is true that an on/off UN Inspection program coupled with active No-Fly zones over Southern and Northern Iraq had been moderately successful. It is also true that the link between AL-Qaeda and Iraq was unsubstantiated, but it is also true that Iraq was a prominent sponsor of Palestinian suicide bombers and their organisations.

Christopher Shays argued that the ‘old’ intelligence on Iraq was in fact the reason why he voted for war in Iraq.

This is very different to the emphasis placed by the leaders in the run up to war. By giving prominence to the intelligence highlighting the immediacy of the threat, Blair, Bush and Howard were arguing that the situation had changed. They should have argued that their standards had changed because of September 11. Clearly this argument is a far more complex argument to make and perhaps less politically saleable than the argument they presented.

I support the war and see the ongoing challenges facing the West, yet I also support a vigorous inquiry into the misleading intelligence presented to justify the War. Furthermore, the leaders should be accountable for their actions, and if their governments fall so be it – even though it might cause irreparable damage to the cause of fighting terrorism. And that is what makes me angry.

I appreciate the high standards that the Australian media (in particular Fairfax and the ABC) have demanded of our leaders. Furthermore, I believe that the cheerleading of the Murdoch press in fact helps reduce the merits of the conservative policy-makers and paradoxically helps the anti- war arguments by reducing the debates to a passionate brawl.

In further contributions I would like to provide some historical perspective on U.S. foreign policy and ask whether what Bush is doing is really new and radical. I’d also like to discuss the domestic challenges the War on Terror has for Australians.

PS: I have some thoughts about helping the poor old Labor party find some winning strategies but am still deciding if I really want to help them. I hope the negativity expressed in your articles does not pervade the rest of your life.

Margo: The rest of my life is great at the moment – touch wood – so much so that I did a tongue in cheeker on the latest Howard ABC outrage. See Good one John, but why stop at the ABC?

***

SPIN

Recommendations

Shaun Cronin recommends US anti-spin site spincity. He writes:

“It’s time for an Australian version – it would need to be bi-partisan as politicians all over the spectrum are prone to telling lies. I’ve had a gutful of how passively most seem to accept being mislead by our leaders. My qualifications for a collaboration are simply a desire to see some accountability brought back into the political process.”

A reader recommends US site PRwatch. The blurb: “PR Watch offers investigative reporting on the public relations industry. We help the public recognize manipulative and misleading PR practices by exposing the activities of secretive, little known propaganda-for-hire firms that work to control political debates and public opinion.” The blokes who started this site, Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, wrote the book Weapons of mass deception, available in Australian bookstores now.

He also recommends Medialens, which “looks at the so-called liberal press in the UK – Guardian, Independent, BBC et al, and how they may not be as unbiased/free of spin as they think”.

My secret cross media news hound recommends Media Giants Get Slapped, an analysis of the US House of Representatives’ great big NO (400 votes to 21!) to Bush’s plans to deliver more media power to Rupert Murdoch. An extract:

While the Bush White House continues to promote the big-media agenda as part of an overall strategy of reworking regulations to favor large corporate campaign givers — raising the prospect that the president might veto Congressional moves to prevent the FCC from implementing this rule change — veteran Capitol Hill observers say public opposition to the FCC rule changes has grown so powerful that even the president could change his tune. “If the White House is threatening a veto on this, they offer that at their own peril,” explained Andy Davis, an aide to US Sen. Ernest Hollings, the powerful South Carolina Democrat who is a key player behind the Senate effort to reverse the FCC’s June 2 decision to raise the television ownership cap from 35 percent to 45 percent. “This is an issue that has enormously broad bipartisan support. People are very passionate about this issue.

***

Harry Heidelberg – he’s back!

Last weekend I was in Berlin. On Saturday night I was riding the U-bahn (underground) approaching Postdamer Platz when my friend pointed to a video screen in the train and said, “That’s Rupert Murdoch, he’s also an Aussie”.

Technically he isn’t an Aussie but it did remind me that whereever you go Rupert Murdoch goes with you, even deep beneath the streets of Berlin. The birth of Murdoch’s sixth child was important enough to be flashed around the Berlin subway system. It’s quite extraordinary if you think about it all.

Loud groaning noises. We all know that from time immemorial the Murdoch press has been an agenda kind of outfit. They take a line and push it to the max. We know that Murdoch was in favour of the war in Iraq and we know the approach he has adopted to it. The macro picture is clear.

I’d like to know how all this works at the micro level. Not so much on Iraq but more generally when Murdoch strongly supports this policy or that. Surely it is more than nudges and winks. In parts of the world do public officials meet and actually have discussions with his people? Not only obviously on media policy but on other stuff. I’m not suggesting outright corruption but I’d be interested to know how it works at the micro level.

Margo: Any ex-Murdoch journos or deep-throat current employees want to have a go at that one? Confidentiality guaranteed.

***

Grant Long

Dizzy with spin was enlightening. It reminded me of an article by Jamie Peck I read whilst studying Tax/Welfare law, called “Workfare: a geopolitical etymology” (Environment and Planning; Society and Space, 1998, Vol 16 pp 133-161.)

Peck includes a document credited to Newt Gingrich called Language: A Key Mechanism of Control. Note the lack of subtlety in that title! Gingrich circulated it to state candidates, and it includes the following gems:

As you know, one of the key points in the GOPAC (a Republican Party political training arm) tapes is that ‘language matters’… As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates we have heard the plaintive plea: “I wish I could speak like Newt”. That takes years of practice, but we believe that you could have a significant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases…

Read them. Memorize as many as possible. . .

Optimistic Positive Governing Words – these words can help give extra power to your message

opportunity, workfare, moral, dream, courage, freedom, crusade, pioneer, family, building, compete, pro-(issue), active, empower, duty, strength, care, hard work, tough, incentive, vision, passionate

Contrasting Words – apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and their party

decay, welfare, failure, ideological, collapse, anti-(issue), patronage, stagnation, destroy, greed, sick, corrupt, liberal, status quo, bureaucracy, taxes, unionized, spend, devour, permissive, attitude, waste, red tape

As noted by Peck, the benefit if hindsight reveals the Gingrich was anticipating both the tenor and the terrain of political debate in the 1990s. I would only add that the notion of political debate in the current institutionalised democracy is laughable.

When have we ever seen two or more political opponents truly debate any issue? Any of our senior politicians would run a mile from any such forum as, spin spin spin, it is then out of their CONTROL and like John Safran’s altercation with Ray Martin, in the heat of battle they may reveal a persona to the public that is not likeable.

I am personally disgusted by the spin, but we need only look to this Gingrich to understand its popularity with our politicians.

Western democracy is at a nasty point at the moment. It is now the politics of winning,. Of holding the trophy high whilst your opponents lie in ruins all around. It is the politics of destruction not construction. Of division not vision.

It is this latter point that cuts more than any other. Where does this country want to be in 5, 10 or 50 years? I honestly believe that few politicians at present would care about such a question. To them it is a game. A win or lose game and every day that they win is a good day.

A uni lecturer (read – threatened species) once commented that conservative politics is characterised by intolerance. They are intolerant of dole bludgers (read – people who were retrenched last week as a result of macroeconomic reform), immigrants (read – queue jumpers), Indigenous people (read ungrateful alcoholics and petrol sniffers who can’t see the benefits bestowed upon them by our great culture), greenies (read – dole bludgers preventing Australia’s economic growth). We could now add to this list losers (read – any group, despite their size, that gets in the way of the dominant party’s ability to retain control).

***

Don Wigan

Ethics and integrity go to the heart of the matter of tackling the spin doctors and their slippery political bosses, but there is another issue – thoroughness. Sometimes just a little more research may take an issue that much further.

Recently Nine’s A Current Affair ran an excellent series on the failures of the public dentistry system in recent years. For low-income people and pensioners the average wait for dental surgery is three years. In my area (Warrnambool) the delay time average is 52 months (my wife’s still not near the top of the list after 3 years).

ACA finally got federal Minister of Health Kay Patterson on the program. Although they threw a lot of evidence at her about the problems and suffering and pointed out the uncaring government attitude, they allowed her to get away with obfuscating about it being ‘a matter for the States’. A bit more research could have put her over the barrel.

FACT: It was Commonwealth-funded until 1996. The Howard Government withdrew funding using the rationalisation that such cuts were needed to help cover the so-called ‘Beazley Black Hole’.

FACT: Ever since then Howard and Costello have boasted about how well they’ve managed the budget and the economy.

QUESTION: If both of these assertions are true, why cannot the Commonwealth commitment to public dental health be restored?

I’m not experienced in these TV interviews, but I’d have thought that this follow-up wouldn’t have allowed Patterson any escape and might have kept interest in the issue simmering to the point where maybe the shock jocks could have taken it up.

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Margot Humphreys in Ontario, Canada

I read the Sydney Morning Herald online almost every work day (on coffee break!) and thanks to your explanation of ethics in Webdiary’s ethics now understand why I can read information on your site that never sees the light of day in North American media.

I live in Canada, which at least has public radio – CBC’s As It Happens workday program from 6:30 to 8:00 pm gets right to the issue by interviewing real people on site. The print media is another matter.

Most newspapers are now owned by Big Media, which tend to put the “proper” slant on news. The Ottawa Citizen lost its editor due to his refusal to submit to senior management’s take on news. I have passed on your newspaper’s online address to many, many people who wish to see a wider perspective on world events.

I read a quote from a major US media conglomerate executive yesterday that “The line between news and entertainment is blurring”.

Not in my world. And, I hope, not in yours or that of the Sydney Morning Herald.

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Colin James in Wellington, New Zealand

Webdiary’s ethics echoes in one respect the value I have found since I persuaded the New Zealand Herald to run my email address at the bottom of my weekly political column. With very few exceptions, I have had reasoned emails and they have been valuable in opening perspectives I had not thought about or not thought adequately about, challenging my conclusions and introducing factual material I was unaware of.

I always reply and in formulating the replies I have to think again about, develop or defend my original analysis. All of that takes time but the time is worth the effort. This, of course, is not weblog – just an add-on to print, the equivalent of letters or faxes, though easier.

I always also take people seriously, though I do suggest to the few intemperate and angry emailers that I could respond more usefully if they couched their comments less aggressively. In all those cases so far I have had a surprised and moderate response to my response. I think that underlines the disconnect you write of between insiders like myself with ready access on first-name terms to all the top politicians, bureaucrats and chief executives and mistrustful citizens.

It will be interesting to see how the internet changes that disconnect. What I have found, which seems to come through in your work, is that there are a lot of intelligent people in the most unlikely of places with useful ideas that, because of the disconnect, have been no more than ideas.

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REACTION TO Anger as an energy

Mike Lyvers

Luke Stegemann wrote: “It’s time to stop believing in the bullshit, whether it be political spin or the notion that harmony must be preserved at all costs.”

Okay, what about multicultural harmony? Must we preserve that at all costs too, or do we have the right to call bullshit on, say, cultural practices such as clitoridectomy, forced marriages, stonings of women who engage in premarital sex, execution of homosexuals, honor killings and the like? I say we certainly do have that right, but does Luke? I suspect he would reflexively label any such criticism as “racism.”

“It’s time to get angry, and use that anger as an energy. If the left (Howard’s opponents) are to be designated as feral why are we not deploying language in the same way, publicly designating the right (the Howard government and its supporters) as blood-sucking, voracious, criminal, myopic and irredeemably racist?”

Luke, your fellow travellers have been calling them those things for years now. Such ridiculous hyperbole only leads to a loss of credibility, and Howard wins again.

Margo: Luke clarifies: “I hope people will understand that I’m not advocating physical violence of any kind, but simply that the crude violence of language used against us be turned back upon those who use language to lie to us, belittle us, treat us with contempt. Language is a powerful weapon, and as Jack suggested, it can and should be thrown back in the faces of those who exploit it to entrench their power, their privilege, or to cover up their own evil.”

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James Greaves in Eagle Vale, NSW

You introduced the responses from Luke Stegemann and Jack Robertson with the following preamble which I quote in part:

” I disagree with their calls to be angry, partly because when I get angry I lose effectiveness and tend to self-immolate…”

The two contributors were concerned more with the wider socio-political implications of public anger or the absence thereof. The anger you describe (which I can identify with) describes UNCONTROLLED anger: anger that you have temporarily allowed to take control of your being.

Such anger is indeed self-immobilising – especially if you bottle it up unexpressed and allow it to accumulate. However, there is another way to experience anger. You feel the sensation and give vent to it – but in a manner that is positively constructive – this is to say in a way calculated to bring about change.

It is called righteous indignation – the sort of anger you feel and express when someone tramples over your rights and sensitivities. Without it nobody would acknowledge your dignity as a person or that of people generally. Anger is “God’s fire for change”.

The difference between the two types of anger is that in the case of the latter you remain in control at all times. You choose how to express it and are empowered both by the expression and the consequences.

You also stated: “I prefer the energy of optimism, of working with other people, and of dispassionate strategising.” Nice work if you can get it, Margo. The trouble is that not all individuals (or groups) are open to gentle persuasion: not all situations amenable to resolution conflict by way of compromise.

There are times when it pays you to do your block. There are situations when to compromise means only to sacrifice the principles you hold dear, becoming nothing but a moral lump of quivering jelly and suffering the low self-esteem that invariably follows.

I agree with Luke. The wider socio-political implications of the apparent public passivity is an absence of widespread indignation against the lies and trespasses of government that only encourages such behaviour among members of our political elite.

Anger? Let us have more of it!

Margo: Webdiarist Sean Richardson recommends tompaine for an interview with Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity – it refers to St Thomas and the idea that it’s a sin not to be angry when you should be.

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Roselyne Tight

Like you I don’t like getting angry, but it felt good reading Jack Robertson and Luke Stegemann’s angry statements. It felt good knowing others feel the same outrage and deep sense of resentment against this government. Perhaps writing about it, all of us, putting it down on paper or in print or on the internet and to send the lot to Canberra might help us release our anger and let them know how we feel.

I do write already about the refugees – specific cases to specific ministers – but to write a complete rejection and letting go like Jack Robertson’s shooting straight from the hip or mouth or pen would be a blessing!!!