Australia’s democracy survived by 37 votes to 32 tonight, when the Senate insisted that Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer not be permitted to overwhelmingly control Australia’s media.

Not that you’d have known it by watching the debate. Just about everyone was careful not to name the names, or the fear. It was put in terms of ‘the public interest”, or, as Brian Harradine, the grand old man of the Senate, put it, “to the heart of diversity and indeed of democracy”.

Everyone who’s anyone is scared to state the stark facts. The Labor Party is scared that the combined media power of Packer and Murdoch could destroy their chances of winning an election. Media players either fear for their jobs if they speak out or are trying to position themselves to be given senior roles in the new media landscape. Despite the almost incalculable importance of the Senate debate this week for Australia, no mainstream print media except the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age has run an opinion piece stating the case against the bill.

Yet the Labor Party, the Democrats and the Greens opposed it outright. Three of the the four independent Senators whose votes the Government needed wanted to pass the bill, either to allow cash strapped regional media players to bulk up by letting them own newspapers and television in the same market, or to scrape together a few extra bucks for the ABC.

But in the end, despite enormous pressure, all four independents had the courage and integrity to stop the Howard government so obscenely extending the media dominance of Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch into almost complete control.

Harradine’s amendment was simple. No proprietor would be permitted to own a television station and a newspaper in a mainland capital city. Without that amendment, Rupert Murdoch could have bought a television network, adding to his dominance of our print media. Kerry Packer could have added Fairfax to his Nine Network. These men are the wealthiest, most powerful and most feared men in Australian life. Their power is so great that successive Prime Ministers have sought to curry favour with one or both of them in the hope that with their help they can retain government. It is very rare for either main party to reject their demands.

The cross media bill, if passed, would have seen these two men control our two national dailies, two of our three commercial television stations, virtually all our business magazines and our two preeminent news internet sites. All other media players would be reduced to picking up the crumbs from their table, and none – not even the ABC – would dare to scrutinise their business activities or their media performance. The two men would control the news cycle and the news slant (when they so wished). Cross promotion and cross packaging of advertising could crush any other player and tie up news exclusives as a matter of routine.

No government could dare offend them. No business group could dare take them on. One of the world’s most powerful media moguls and Australia’s richest, most powerful man would run Australia.

The independents strongly urged communications minister, Senator Alston, to accept the bill with the Harradine amendment. It would allow foreign money to flow into our media and it would allow regional players to get bigger and more financially secure. They reminded Alston that he’d said that it was the regional players who were desperate for the bill, not the big two, who were already “entrenched”.

Senator Harradine noted that without his amendment, a TV proprietor with a potential audience reach of 70 percent (Kerry Packer” could sell to a newspaper group with 70 percent of the audience (Murdoch). Such reach and power “is totally unacceptable to the public interest.” He noted that the Government’s own Productivity Commission reported in 2000 that it had a strong preference for more, not fewer, media players, because of “the likelihood that a proprietor will influence the content and opinion” of his publications. This was a matter of “major concern”, the Commission said.

Yet Alston replied that the Harradine amendment “goes to the heart of the legislation”, and that without it the bill was dead. His only response to the fear of total dominance was that “those not interested in change pretend that diversity of numbers are the be all and end all of the game”.

The government has lost the game, for now,. But Packer and Murdoch are now desperately close to their goal, and each time the battlelines are drawn between the interests of the big two and the public interest there are an ever-diminishing number of Australians with a public voice or with any power who are prepared to take the risk of taking them on.

Indeed, we are now in the position that very few ordinary Australians were even aware what fate could await them tonight if the Harradine amendment had not passed.

But the respite could be brief. The government may set up the bill as another double dissolution trigger, meaning it could pass it in a joint sitting upon the reelection of John Howard. Or some of the independents, already shaky, could go weak at the knees.

One can’t help feeling that the end game is very, very near.

Warning! Warning! Isn’t it interesting that Blair and Howard are trying to give Murdoch more power at the same time as they’re trying to destroy their public broadcasters, and that the Murdoch press in both countries is gleefully beating up on the same targets?

The BBC and the ABC are bodies largely independent of government by legislation, with legislated responsibilities, standards and review mechanisms. They are directly accountable to the people. Not to big business, not to big government, you understand, to the PEOPLE. They are bodies charged with acting in the public interest, not for private profit, to strive to make big business and big government accountable to the people. Their democratic role is to keep the powerful honest through fear that if they aren’t they’ll be caught out. Private media, by contrast, is virtually unaccountable to anyone except its owners.

Webdiarist James Woodcock found a sensational Guardian piece on what’s really going on here as we witness the rise of Anglofacism (thanks to Webdiarist Philip Gomes for the description).

Conrad Black’s right wing Telegraph newspaper in Britain is also onto the story of how Murdoch papers are beating Blair’s drum in his anti-BBC crusade. A taste of Murdoch papers step up war of words with BBC:

A concerted campaign by News International newspapers to castigate the BBC in its row with No 10 sparked accusations yesterday that Rupert Murdoch’s titles were being used to damage his biggest broadcasting rival.

Murdoch-owned newspapers such as The Times, Sun and News of the World have been significantly more zealous than other newspapers in backing No 10 over the BBC.

A source on The Times said yesterday there was “unease” among its journalists about the paper’s recent coverage of the dispute.

I again make the point: There are a large number of newspapers with different viewpoints and owners in the UK. There’s only Fairfax in capital city Australia to balance Murdoch’s dominance. Without an independent Fairfax, nothing like the Telegraph or Guardian pieces would ever be written in the mainstream press. As I keep repeating, the only real accountability is that different newspapers groups keep each other honest. With a partnership of Murdoch and Packer as owners, democracy is all over. Dismantling the ABC’s role as independent, dynamic, courageous scrutineers of government would be too easy. (See Closing the door on your right to know, written just before the Senate narrowly rejected the Howard cross media laws which he’ll send back to the Senate soon.)

By the way, the US Congress is set to say no to Bush’s attempt to give Murdoch more power over there (remember Murdoch is much more dominant here now than he would be in the United States AFTER the Bush changes became law). I’ve published today’s Australian Financial Review report on the US backlash to Murdoch power after the Guardian piece.

This BBC row is not about sources – it is about power

Downing Street and Rupert Murdoch want revenge on the corporation

by Jackie Ashley

Thursday July 24, 2003, The Guardian

What a difference a day makes. The daily skirmishes between the government and BBC have seen both sides at various points claiming victory. On Sunday, when the BBC confirmed Dr David Kelly had been “the source” for its claims about the mishandling of intelligence information, the government was bullish. Now, following reports that the Newsnight’s Susan Watts has a tape recording of her conversation with Dr Kelly, ministers are sounding less confident.

Yet the question now being asked is this: even if the BBC wins the battle (in other words is vindicated by the Hutton report), will it lose the war? Has the BBC, in defending Andrew Gilligan so robustly, brought about its own downfall?

For the word that recurs is “revenge”. Downing Street insiders, ministers and backbench MPs are saying privately that No 10 intends to wreak vengeance on the BBC, whatever Lord Hutton decides. Forget palm pilots or tape-recordings; the real agenda now is to humble and curb Britain’s public service broadcaster. This is not a row about journalistic standards. It is a fight about power.

No 10’s original excuse for its attack on the BBC was the Gilligan story. At first it looked as though Alastair Campbell had a genuine spasm of anger at a particular act of reporting; that this then bubbled through his irritation at the corporation’s handling of the war; and after that – well, things got out of hand. He lost it on Channel 4 News. To start with, the government seemed to have blundered into a fight and couldn’t find a way back. Now I am not so sure. I think it wanted this row all along. (Margo: As did Alston – he’s still running hard without a leg to stand on, and now Howard’s backed him all the way.)

There were so many moments in the story of the reporting of the government’s selling of the Iraq war when No 10 could have calmed things down. On every occasion, instead, they ratcheted it up again. Even now, in the gloomy pause after Dr Kelly’s death, while Blair is saying little in public, New Labour operators are charging around briefing in private, upping the odds. They want to get the governors. They want to get Greg Dyke. They want a new system of regulation. The licence fee is far too generous. Get the message, BBC? As Chris Smith pointed out in the Financial Times yesterday, any attempt to link recent events to the BBC’s future is little short of blackmail. (Margo: Just like Alston’s recent threat to defund the ABC after his ludicrous allegations of ABC bias on the Iraq war.)

The BBC prime crime has not been sloppy reporting or an anti-war agenda. Its crime is to have pointed the finger at gaping holes in the government’s case for going to war to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. If Gilligan had reported a single source to the effect that WMD were a threat, and that Campbell et al should have been more bellicose, would this row have happened? Don’t be absurd. It is not the detail of language the government objects to; it is the whole story.

The BBC has done what good journalism ought to do: probing and questioning insistently – things that the government would rather not discuss. During the war it reported and commented about what was happening in the sand and cities of Iraq. It did not do what some US broadcasters – notably Fox – did, and act as a patriotic national cheerleader.

Fox, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is what Blair must have fantasised about having on his side. The network was raucously pro-administration, delivering to George Bush the rightwing commentaries and inspiring pictures he needed to help him conduct the war. How convenient it would be for any centreright, interventionist British leader to have his own, Union Jack-branded Fox.

If you doubt the influence of the Murdoch agenda on all this, look at any newsstand. The Murdoch papers have acted as the most amazingly disciplined attack force on behalf of the government, savaging the BBC in identical terms, from the Sun, to the Times, to the News of the World, using columnists, editorials and front-page splashes to pursue the cause. The attack on the BBC, orchestrated by No 10, has animated News International like nothing since its move to Wapping.

The stakes are almost as high. This time, with the communications bill soon to become law – even as amended – Murdoch has a chance of getting into terrestrial British TV. If he was able to curb the BBC in its funding and its journalism, shoving it into a narrow little box, from which timid establishment- style reporting and dreary documentaries were all that trickled out, he would be in business. He hates the BBC not because of the licence fee or its alleged liberal bias, but because it is popular and trusted. Everything his papers are now doing is designed to attack that popularity and trust. (Margo: Just like the Murdoch papers are doing to the ABC in Australia.)

Those papers have been intertwined with New Labour ever since it became clear that Blair would be in Downing Street. Blair wooed them, and from the first Murdoch, sensing a winner, responded.

Sun and Times journalists were courted and favoured with leaks, which they could promote as scoops; Murdoch editors were treated as visiting royalty when they were entertained at No 10 and Chequers. It is shameless, unabashed, and was driven both by Blair and by that high-minded socialist and critic of journalistic standards, Alastair Campbell.

Why do they do it? Because the deal is frank, and even on its own terms, honest. Murdoch wants media power and Blair wants reliable media support. So long as nobody takes journalistic principle or the public interest too seriously, then there is a deal to be done. (Margo: This is precisely the same arrangement Howard would have forged with Murdoch when they met just before S11.) One day, if Murdoch gets his way, he will be in a position of terrifying influence over any future government.

So this is a dangerous time for the BBC. In some ways it has been here before. In the wake of the Falklands war, when Alasdair Milne was director general, Margaret Thatcher berated him about BBC funding and journalism in terms almost identical to those we hear from Labour now. John Birt had his rows too.

But this is worse. Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke have refused to play their allotted role as New Labour toadies. This is brave since they must know that they, and the BBC, have nowhere else to go. The Tories would privatise them like a shot. Now that the Conservative manifesto is likely to suggest slashing the licence fee, it is not hard to see a vengeful New Labour starting a Dutch auction, cutting and cutting. Then it will be curtains for the governors and the hunt will be on for a more reliable director general.

The excuse will be, no doubt, all those rubbishy game shows, pop quiz programmes and yoof channels. The assault will be muffled by high-minded essays by Peter Mandelson and Gerald Kaufman on the subject of journalistic standards – they both have PhDs in that – and numerous journalists who are miffed that they haven’t been given enough airtime will go along for the ride. But no one should be in any doubt that New Labour is now deliberately menacing the independence of one of the bastions of British pluralism. (Margo: Just like Howard’s media and think tank cheer squad is doing in Australia right now.) This is a moment when the BBC needs its friends. (Margo: Is Australian Labor game to go into bat for the ABC, and maybe even guarantee its independence and funding? They’d even have an unlikely ally in Howard’s good friend Don McDonald.)

***

Blow to Murdoch as Congress opposes TV change

by Luke Collins

24/07/2003, The Australian Financial Review

The US Congress appears likely to overturn at least some planned changes to US media ownership laws, particularly one that would help Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation by allowing the country’s biggest television networks to expand.

In a big reversal, top Republicans now concede they are unlikely to be able to stop the overturning of the Federal Communications Commission’s proposal to lift the national television audience cap from 35 per cent to 45 per cent. The Republican-controlled FCC approved that change 3 to 2 on party lines.

If the viewer limit is kept at 35 per cent, it would primarily affect News Corp and Viacom, which already breach the existing viewing limit and are banking on it being increased. They each hold waivers allowing their audience reach to be about 40 per cent pending a final decision.

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted to retain FCC changes that would ease cross-media restrictions. However, the issue of reversing the proposed change to the audience cap was not even challenged as Republican leaders knew they lacked the necessary support.

That raises the spectre of President George Bush using his legislative veto for the first time. The White House on Tuesday warned it was in favour of the FCC changes and some Republicans hope that threat will alone be enough to kill efforts to overturn the audience cap increase.

However, Mr Bush’s veto can be overridden by two-thirds of all voting members of the House and Senate and the broad bipartisan opposition to the FCC move indicates the veto could itself fail.

“If the White House is threatening a veto on this, they offer that at their own peril,” said Andy Davis, a spokesman for the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, Ernest Hollings. “This is an issue that has enormously broad bipartisan support. People are very passionate about this issue.”

Republicans have been surprised by the level of opposition, particularly from fellow Republicans. It has also surprised media companies, which last week sent a major delegation to Washington to lobby politicians about deregulation.

That rising opposition prompted the Bush administration to last week raise the veto threat. On Tuesday it sent politicians a written statement reiterating that possibility.

“The administration believes that the new FCC media ownership rules more accurately reflect the changing media landscape and the current state of network station ownership, while still guarding against undue concentration in the marketplace,” the statement said.

The White House warned a veto could occur if “this provision or a provision like it with respect to any one of the other FCC rules is contained in the final legislation presented to the President”, referring to the provision to set the television audience cap at 35 per cent.

 

Disclosure: The writer owns shares in Fairfax

If the Senate passes the cross-media ownership package this week, Australia’s richest and most powerful resident, Kerry Packer, could add the Fairfax papers and magazines to his television, gaming and investing empire. The most powerful Australian born man in the world, Rupert Murdoch, could add Network Ten or Seven to his global newspaper, film, and sporting empire and enlarge the already awesome power of his Australian newspapers.

What would follow from this?

1. Australian media would be so dominated by the two men that only the ABC could, if it dared, subject the empires of either to independent scrutiny. Murdoch and Packer are no longer arms-length competitors – they are partners of mutual convenience. Their media outlets do not investigate or independently report the activities of either man. They jointly own Foxtel, the only viable pay TV channel, and their sons got together to invest in One.Tel. You can be sure that they’ve already carved out the media between them, just as they did some years ago before the deal fell apart over Super League.

2. In Sydney and Melbourne a Packer takeover of Fairfax would destroy the sole remaining independent commercial mainstream media operator in the newspaper industry, and the only one with a charter of editorial independence which requires non-interference by executive management in the editorial decisions of the editors. All other media outlets, radio and television, feed off the scoops and investigations reported in newspapers, so the Packer and Murdoch empires would largely decide what news powerful people don’t want you to know will or won’t be revealed on radio and television as well as in their newspapers. A campaign on an issue by either the Packer or Murdoch media would be overwhelming, with virtually no possibility of a balancing media debate.

3. Kerry Packer would own Australia’s only business daily and just about every business magazine in the country. He is already feared by the business community because of his power, and has fingers in many business pies. There would thus be no effective scrutiny adverse to Packer’s business or political interests.

4. Packer and Murdoch would between them control all major internet-based Australian news, including this site. They would own Australia’s only two national newspapers.

5. Without Fairfax, the ABC could be left without a defender, and be further harassed by the Murdoch empire. Murdoch’s Australian has already called for the abolition of Radio National, Australia’s only quality ideas and documentary radio. The ABC could be targetted for massive attention by Packer and Murdoch to discourage any reporting adverse to their commercial or editorial interests.

6. In Sydney and Melbourne, the Murdoch/Packer control of the city’s newspapers and two of the three commercial stations would squeeze the other player so badly it might not survive. Cross promotions and cross packages would murder it on ad rates and public visibility. It would be even worse in Adelaide and Brisbane, which have only one daily paper, owned by Murdoch.

Australia already has the most concentrated media in the western world. The passage of this bill would end any semblance of a free and independent press. You choose – Packer, Murdoch, or a besieged ABC. Political parties would be at the mercy of the big two. Their power would decide the public discourse, and even what the news is and isn’t. The merger of big business and big media with no competitive counterpoint means the big business agenda will dominate the public agenda.

And remember, the commercial media industry is virtually unregulated. There’s no remedy if their coverage is biased, unbalanced, censors legitimate news, refuses to investigate legitimate news tips, or abuses its editorial power for commercial advantage. At a time when people are crying out for more power in the political process, and more say over their lives, this profoundly undemocratic bill would close them out of the loop even more completely.

Australia’s journalism union strongly opposes more concentration of media power. Just about every journalist in the country – including those working for the big two – agree wholeheartedly. There’s nothing worse for courageous journalism and journalist’s ability to insist on ethical standards than a further concentration in media ownership. The less scrutiny of the big two, the more they can get away with in their own newsrooms.

In the United States, where Murdoch has many competitors in the newspaper game, Republicans and Democrats have just combined to condemn the proposed lifting of cross-media rules. The extraordinary aspect of the debate here is that the government appears confident that the four independent Senators will ensure its passage. These four – Tasmanian independent Brian Harradine, ex-Labor Tasmanian independent Shayne Murphy, ex-Democrats leader Meg Lees, a South Australian, and Queensland One Nation Senator Len Harris – know better than most the dangers of too much power in too few media hands, because they know what it means to be frozen out of coverage on big media. Tiny players deliver more power to mega-players? What is going on? Is this naivety, or what?

The pathetic aspect of the dealings that communications minister Richard Alston has done with the four is how little they’ve got. It’s crumbs, that’s all, the odd gesture to ordinary people which a government which cared about them would deliver anyway, but sees the need only when they’ll further the interests of big media. Alston agreed to make it a condition of regional TV licences that they broadcast local news. Many have closed down their local news service, and the government should have imposed a condition long ago.

Then there’s the ABC. Meg Lees has got a commitment for cash to extend News Radio’s coverage in the regions. This is almost obscene – a taxpayer funded bribe to deliver more power and more profit to the big boys, after Alston refused point blank to increase ABC funding in the budget.

Let’s look at the mandate question. Shayne Murphy was elected as a Labor man, and Labor remains firmly opposed to more power for Packer and Murdoch. It’s taken enormous political courage to oppose this bill, and Labor fears the consequences if it gets through. Guess who’ll owe John Howard big time for the next little while?

Meg Lees was elected a Democrat, and the Democrats have always opposed cross-media reform which would deliver more media power to the big two. They too are showing enormous courage this time round in opposing the bill.

The really interesting one is Len Harris. As well as strongly opposing cross-media changes, One Nation is virulently opposed foreign ownership of Australian companies, yet Harris is supporting the removal of all media foreign ownership limits. This means Murdoch would be free to take over a television station and foreign companies would be free to buy media properties.

The first time I met Pauline Hanson was in the middle of the last big cross media debate, in Howard’s first term, when she asked me in a corridor encounter: “So how are you going with your work? I hope you’re still safe from Packer.” This was some time after I’d done an ABC panel discussion opposing a Packer takeover of Fairfax. (At that time, the government wasn’t proposing to abolish foreign ownership, so Murdoch could not have bought a TV station.) My book Off the rails: The Pauline Hanson trip records:

 

“Those remarks brought a flood of congratulatory letters from One Nation supporters and a call from the proudly redneck National Party member for the North Queensland seat of Kennedy, Bob Katter, praising my “courage’. One Nation’s internet propagandist Scott Balson called to say he was lobbying Hanson to speak out on behalf of Fairfax. Hanson’s adviser David Oldfield rang, the first time we had spoken, to run a draft press release by me.

Hanson’s 26 June press release on cross-media ownership aligned the free speech arguments for an independent Fairfax with the trouble at her public meetings. It was truly unnerving that the National Party and One Nation – whose constituencies would never see the small ‘l’ liberal Sydney and Melbourne-based Fairfax papers – joined the Democrats in their total opposition to Packer owning Fairfax and their support for a diversely owned free press.

With an unregulated industry, only competition between media groups keeps them honest. Yet despite the institutional democratic responsibilities of the media, both major parties in government had no qualms about a crunching of media ownership. Only the minor parties – the relatively powerless ones – gave a damn.”

Len Harris, it seems, has got a commitment to more community radio in exchange for his vote. How sad. This will be the most important vote he has cast since his election in 1998. The vote of a representative of Pauline Hanson’s ultra-nationalist little people to allow foreign takeovers of our media and a huge boost in the power of the powerful people Hansonites love to hate would be the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in federal politics.

Brian Harradine, however, has thrown a spanner in the works. He proposed an amendment last Friday which would ban anyone owning a newspaper and a TV station in the one capital city market. This clever amendment crystalises the terrible potential consequences of this bill, and the responses from the independents and the Government will be fascinating to hear. Today Alston avoided a question on Meet the Pressabout the possibility of Packer vastly increasing his media power by taking over Fairfax.

And guess what – neither Packer or Murdoch have said a word about their plans if the bill gets through. The Australian people have no idea what might befall them before our elected representatives deliver them this gift, and you can bet no journalist working for the big two is trying to uncover that information for us before the vote.

Stand by for frenzied last-minute lobbying on all sides. Debate is scheduled to begin on Tuesday.

PS: The Fairfax board supports the cross-media bill. Because of the Fairfax commitment to editorial independence, I am able to express these opinions. Would I be able to do so if Kerry Packer took over Fairfax?

Imagine you’re Simon Crean, captain of a depressed, fractious, unfocused rabble which knows it can’t win the big game. Some players think you’re the main obstacle to success. What would you do?

Those of you who are leaders, at work or at home, know how bloody hard it is to forge a united, enthusiastic team at the best of times. Indeed, the jostling for who is recognised as leader, and why, is a big part of the challenge.

I read a management book recently called “Managing transitions – making the most of change”, by American William Bridges (Perseus Books, 1991) on the recommendation of a friend who’s one of those organisational behaviour gurus. It’s about companies in transition – merging, downsizing, radical overhaul – and the psychology of transition for employees and how leaders can make it work or cause it to fail. I reckon it’s got lots to say about the Labor Party, and how it might, or might not, emerge from its crisis of identity and crisis of confidence.

It’s also got a lot to say to people like me, and to judge by your emails many of you, who are struggling to deal with the new realities in Australia and the world. What’s the point of engaging with what’s happening around us when truth doesn’t matter, might is right, and ethics hold you back and cost you money? Dunno about you, but lots of my friends are about to do the downshifting, chill out thing, or are considering leaving the rat race to do something useful. Maybe it’s just the mid-life crisis transition.

Anyway, here’s my analysis of where Labor’s at in the transition process, and what Simon Crean might consider doing to lead Labor through it to become a credible alternative government.

Bridges begins by distinguishing change from transition. CHANGE is external and situational – Labor losing government in 1996. TRANSITION is internal, “the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation”. Unless transition occurs, a new beginning is not possible. Leadership is about managing the transition to achieve the desired outcome, the return of a Labor government.

“Psychological transition depends on letting go of the old reality and the old identity you had before the change took place,” Bridges says. Once people in the group have let go, they and the organisation go into a NEUTRAL ZONE, “the no man’s land between the old reality and the new…a time when the old way is gone and the new doesn’t feel comfortable yet.”

When did Labor let go? I believe Kim Beazley’s leadership delayed Labor letting go of its fantasy that it was a government in waiting, not the opposition, for six years, and that the 2001 loss forced it out of denial.

Thirteen years of power convinced Labor that it, not the Conservatives, was the natural party of government in Australia. The leadership and the party believed that a sound technical job in opposition would see it back in power soon, as people quickly tired of yesterday’s man. The small target strategy is a natural one when you think you’ve got the right to run Australia. So MPs shut up, closed ranks, maintained discipline, and followed their leader, who followed his pollsters and his spinners. There was no concerted attempt to review its record in government, discuss its mistakes, adjust its philosophical framework and party structure, and rethink its policy agenda.

Denial nearly worked. Beazley got more votes than Howard in 1998, but lost the GST election. To lose an election fought on so controversial an issue should have woken Labor up. Howard might have played small target in 1996 to beat a deeply unpopular government voters were dying to kick out, but he fought and won a very big target election in 1998.

The second term was tragic for Labor and for Labor supporters. Having lost the GST election, it did a deal on business tax, under which it passed major concessions and the halving of the capital gains tax in exchange for a mere promise from Costello to clamp down on family trusts used by the wealthy to avoid tax, a promise predictably never fulfilled. It rolled over on Howard attempts to pump extra money into rich private schools and began the wrecking of Medicare by supporting the private health insurance rebate – thus ditching central tenets of Labor’s belief system to keep itself a small target. It decided to fight another GST election by promising “rollback” and refused to release any policies until the last minute, allowing Howard to spend spare funds to butter up his constituencies. It rushed to support Howard on the Tampa in fear of its hide and after September 11 got no fresh air when it released its minuscule new policy items during the campaign.

The damage done by Labor’s second term denial became clear on election night. After six years in opposition core supporters from the Left defected to the Greens and core supporters from the blue collar working class defected to Howard. Labor had cast aside a core belief – the universality of human rights – to win an election, and lost it anyway. Neither it or its supporters had any idea of what it stood for any more.

And who would lead these damaged, lost Labor souls? A former ACTU president and Keating government minister called Simon Crean, who as Beazley’s deputy was complicit in the small target strategy. Hard worker, decent bloke, cautious to the core, a mediator, a facilitator, without a scrap of charisma, a boring, grating speaker and bad orator. But let’s get the order right, please. Labor was in despair before Crean became leader. He got the shit sandwich, that’s all, at a time when Howard was in his element in a climate of international fear.

Crean had to pick up the pieces and try to manage the delayed grief of party members, MPs, Labor supporters who’d hung on, and those who’d defected, while working towards a new beginning. “When endings take place, people get angry, sad, frightened depressed, confused,” Bridges says. “They are the signs of grieving, the natural sequence of emotions people go through when they lose something that matters to them.You find them among families who have lost a member, and you find them in an organisation where an ending has taken place.”

We’ve seen all those emotions alright, in spades. We’ve seen the anger, white hot at times, from voters, party members, and MPs. The fall of Cunningham to the Greens last year epitomised the destruction that anger and frustration can wreak.

In some ways Crean did many of the right things to end the grieving and begin the transition. He forced fresh faces onto his frontbench. He started necessary structural reform in the party, against great odds. He released a reasoned, humanised alternative to Howard’s refugee policy, which satisfied no-one but got the issue off the frontburner. Then came Iraq, and despite his bumbling, he did a reasonable job in holding together a party which threatened to split on the issue.

But September 11 and the war debate had transformed politics, and Howard rode high on the short-term results. Crean faded to black in the polls. The war changed a lot of things. A triumphalist Howard vowed to stay on indefinitely. And Kim Beazley challenged for the leadership.

I see the Beazley challenge as the climactic finale to Labor’s grieving process. One aspect of grieving is to “bargain” away the pain of loss, which Bridges defines as “unrealistic attempts to get out of the situation or to make it go away; trying to strike a special deal; making big promises like they’ll ‘save you a bundle of money’ if you’ll only undo the damage”. Beazley, the man who’d told told Labor MPs to lay low and he’d win power back, no sweat – and failed twice – was now telling a despairing party that he was only he could slay the Howard dragon and that they’d just need to lie low again and it would be third time lucky.

Beazley and his supporters promised disaster if he wasn’t elected and salvation if he was. He became a snake oil salesman, promising to lead Labor to redemption without effort, shamelessly playing on the grief he’d delayed during his failed leadership. Bridges describes the anxiety of grief thus: “Silent or expressed; a realistic fear of an unknown and probably difficult future, or simply catastrophic fantasies.”

But caucus said no. Its decision is incredible to many, but I think it’s essential to Labor’s renewal. Simon Crean discovered plain speaking, and he named the problem – Labor’s crisis of identity and refusal to look the truth of that in the eye. And he named the solution – a bold, policy driven, reformist Labor agenda for the Australian people. He even wore a red tie to symbolise new pride in the “brand”. He buried the small target strategy. In short, he promised transformation. He promised to heal and renew Labor from within, asserting that it was self-belief through new policy and new solutions that would earn Labor the right to govern, not a popular leader and a good spin machine.

This is not an easy plan to sell. It needs 100 percent commitment from everyone on the team, and courage – lots of it – in a world dominated by Howard’s political correctness, with no guarantee of short term results. And he hasn’t sold it yet, not by a long shot. Still, he’s achieved one thing – Labor is now in the neutral zone.

“The neutral zone is both a dangerous and opportune place, and it is at the very core of the transition process. It’s the place and time when the old habits that are no longer adaptive to the situation are extinguished and new, better-adapted patterns of habit begin to take shape. It is the winter in which the old growth returns to the soil as decayed matter, while the next year’s growth begins to stir in the root underground. It is the night during which we are disengaged from yesterday’s concerns and prepared for tomorrow’s. It is the chaos from which the old form of things dissolves and from which the new form emerges. It is the seedbed of the new beginning that you seek … The gap between the old and the new is the time when innovation is most possible and when revitalisation begins”.’

Labor’s grief phase climaxed in full public glare, and this extraordinary catharsis, despite its downside in PR terms, is exactly what is needed to maximise the chances of renewal in the neutral zone. For a start, the factions disintegrated. The hard left voted for Beazley! Half the NSW Right voted for Crean! A caucus tradition of not saying publicly who you vote for was thrown out the window, with complete lists of who voted for whom published. Wives and mothers entered the fray, as did former leaders, party elders and union heavies. The scab’s been lifted and Labor, in all its frailty, in all its aspects, has exposed its despair to the Australian people.

On Monday and Tuesday at Aussies cafe in Parliament house Labor backbenchers, frontbenchers, and even failed challenger Beazley sat around pouring their hearts out to any journalist who wandered by. Crean supporters’ eyes shone, Beazley supporters looked sheepish or acted too friendly to Crean’s people. This party is very raw and very open.

It’s scary to be so open. American futurist Marilyn Ferguson describes the feeling like this: “It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it’s that place in between that we fear. It’s like being between trapezes. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to.”

Says Bridges: “It is natural to feel somewhat frightened and confused in this no-man’s land. As the old patterns die in their minds and the new ones begin to take shape, people are assailed by self-doubt and misgivings about their leaders. Ambiguity increases, and so does the longing for answers. This is why people in the neutral zone are so prone to follow anyone who seems to know where he or she is going – which unfortunately includes troublemakers and people who are heading toward the exit.”

Crean has a delicate management task to manage the neutral zone, otherwise sabotage, new hatreds, and old weaknesses could lead to terminal chaos. He’s probably the best man for this job. He’s an eternal optimist who enjoys working hard. He’s a negotiator. He’s straight with people mostly, and he’s a good listener. He’s not vindictive. He’s done the right thing by not purging Beazley’s backers. They did him a favour, after all, and he needs to settle the party down as quickly as possible.

I’m assuming, of course, that Crean means what he says. If his pitch of a policy driven, front foot, innovative Labor Party was a mere sales pitch, he’s a goner. I’m confident he’s for real, partly because of Mark Latham’s role in Crean’s leadership defence and his subsequent elevation to the crucial job of manager of opposition business in the House of Representatives. Latham, you’ll recall, blew the whistle on Beazley’s small target strategy after the 1998 election and retired to the backbench to write columns and speeches on the Third Way. Latham is a high voltage performer and radical reformer and his appointment means Crean means business, risky business.

Using Bridge’s suggestions as a guide, here’s a few things Crean might consider to help his party members through the neutral zone.

1. He needs to find a metaphor for the journey Labor is embarking on. Any ideas?

2. Since Labor’s factional hierarchy has all but broken down, Crean could create new teams across the backbench, frontbench and among staffers to make internal party decisions, organise events, or contribute to policy.

3. He could consider taking party members and families on a retreat, to, in the words of Bridges, “try to rebuild a sense of identification with the group and connectedness with one another”.

4. Here’s a weird one – Crean could set up a “transition monitoring team”, a group of 7 to 12 people from a wide cross section of the federal party. It could review plans or communications before Crean announces them, and pass up the feedback from those on the coal face on how things are going.

If Crean is serious about renewal, he needs to use this time in the neutral zone not only to calm , reassure and reconnect the troops, but to encourage creativity and innovation. As Bridges says, “It is during the gap between the old and the new that the organisation’s systems of immunity are weak enough to let truly creative solutions emerge unhampered. Only when the old way of seeing things disappears are habit patterns broken, and a new way will emerge.”

To do this, Crean needs to let it be known that he’s open to new ideas – on party processes, policy, whatever. Suggestion campaigns and surveys are one way. The party could send backbenchers of talent to seminars or short courses on the latest in policy ideas in an area of interest to them, or on office management, leadership, political philosophy, grass roots campaigning, whatever. He could also let people test out their ideas, as an experiment, without fear of failure. His door must always be open to his backbenchers. They’ve put their necks on the line to give him another ago.

***

Crean has promised his people nothing less than a path through the wilderness. To set the scene for the transition from opposition to government, he must explain to his party and the Australian people his plan to achieve this, and how they can play a part.

John Howard took over a party in terminal decline before the 1996 election. He then made a series of “headland speeches” in which he sought to describe his party’s history, traditions and enduring values, and how those values operate in the modern world.

Crean must urgently start this process. He needs to exploreg the values which underpinned the creation of the Party, and trace their development and adaptation as the world changed. He must examine Labor’s achievements in government, where he thinks it made mistakes and what the party has learned from them.

He must place himself within the Labor tradition and describe why he joined the Labor Party, what he learnt from his father, and how he operated as ACTU leader and now Labor leader. He needs to explain how he would see his role as Prime Minister and the style of government he would create. In particular, he needs to announce radical new policy to ensure he will preside over an ethical, trustworthy Labor government.

He needs to set out Labor’s view of the role of government – what government should and shouldn’t do, and why, and what the duties of government are to the people of Australia. He needs to describe what he sees as the great challenges facing Australia, and the priorities he would set himself in office to meet them.

Crean does not have much time to firmly establish himself as the man who will lead Labor at the next election, or to start planting in the public’s mind the basics of new Labor’s style and substance. He must settle his own party and convince them he is the right man to lead them, while at the same time convincing the Australian people that he is a worthy candidate for Prime Minister. I’d like to see him deliver his speeches at forums such as the Sydney Institute, where he can take questions from the audience.

To me, Crean’s task is to build solid, substantial foundations for a Labor win, if not at this election, then the one after. To do that, he needs to instil confidence among the party’s MPs that they’re moving towards the light at the end of the tunnel, pride that their cause is just, and energy to work hard, together, in the common cause. If he does that, he’ll have proved he’s a great leader.

Crean’s a dud, his supporters are lemmings, Labor is ruined and John Howard will rule forever. When political commentators – left, right, progressive, conservative, pragmatic – agree, change is in the air.

I’m unnaturally optimistic about Labor. I think it’s a good thing that the leadership battle so very publicly aired and resolved the polls-versus-policy debate which has drained the party of energy and purpose since it lost in 1996. I think it would have been disastrous for Beazley to have won on a platform of personal popularity – that’s really last shot in the locker time for a political party. It’s amazing that cautious old Crean – in the most sustained bout of plain speaking in politics I’ve ever heard – pledged bold, big-target policy to produce outcomes for Australians. As he said on the 7.30 Report Monday night: “This wasn’t just a vote for me, it was a vote for my agenda because that is what is going to win us government.”

Some people in Labor and among the commentariat believe his policy fervour will fade into the usual Labor tinkering. I think they’re wrong. Caucus members have overcome fears about electoral catastrophe under Crean to stick with him. He can’t afford not to deliver his core election promise.

And what on earth does Crean have to lose by going for it? No-one thinks can win the next election anyway. Why not take the high-risk option, and at least lose with honour and lay the foundations for Labor’s renaissance in the next term? And you never know – maybe Australians will be heartily sick of Howard and co by the next election and just need to feel comfortable enough with the Labor alternative to give it a go.

Crean – having now earned the right to lead Labor – has embarked on a high risk strategy which ensures maximum policy momentum. Mark Latham’s promotion to manager of opposition business guarantees it. Mark is an aggressive ideas man who sometimes goes too far, and I see an effective good cop/bad cop team developing after Crean settles the party down. (Icing on the cake for Crean, and new Labor, would be Beazley as defence spokesman, adding weight and grunt in the vital area of international security – c’mon Beazley, give Labor a hand!)

For now, it’s low-key, earnest policy and government accountability in Question Time since Crean won. We’ve seen the government’s credibility on its Iraq WMD claims tested strongly – at last – by Crean and a rejuvenated Kevin Rudd. We’ve seen Crean lead the charge on the Murray Darling, exposing the fact that the Government has done nothing, and budgeted nothing, for this essential investment in our nation’s future. Crean is getting a lucky break from the Coalition in Question Time so far – there’s been no taunts or cruel remarks about him or the mess his party is in. It seems Howard and co have decided Crean is unelectable and they’re jolly glad Labor has kept him on because he’s their ticket to victory. I reckon they’ll get nasty when they realise Crean is making good use use of the clean air to get Labor’s traction back.

I believe political debate will be transformed by the outcome of this leadership struggle. An alternative policy agenda means Australians get to here much more about policy disputes and the values behind them. It forces the government to justify its policies in comparison with Labor’s, and to make the case for why they’ve prioritised certain areas for spending.

Not only that – on urgent matters, it forces the government to lift its game. Already Labor’s Murray-Darling promise has the government floundering in question time. This is a huge issue for farmers, greenies, and all Australians, and all of a sudden making a start on fixing it has gone way up the government’s agenda. Labor is doing Australia – not just its own prospects – a favour, and that creates electoral goodwill.

I think this change in political debate could also expose cracks in John Howard’s internal support base. Many Liberals disagree with Howard’s decimation of universities since he came to power, his contempt for protecting human and civil rights in Australia and internationally, and his servile approach to US relations. A forthright debate on competing policies will trigger a more assertive internal policy debate within the Liberals as well as within Labor.

As for Crean, to my surprise I found him inspiring on Monday’s night’s Australian story. He came across as someone who knew who he was and was comfortable with himself – a strong, centred man of substance. He seemed solid, unflappable, disciplined and optimistic, a man who would get off the canvas quickly if felled and resume with a smile. He came across to me as a safe choice to lead our country.

He also came across as a man of his word – a quality attested to over the years from business and union leaders who’ve dealt with him.

Crean proved a direct, intelligent, relaxed campaigner – indeed he excelled in adversity. It brought out the best in him, his agenda was relentlessly positive – a rarity in post-1996 Labor – and it’s hard to see how the Australian people could dislike or disrespect what they saw. I think they’ll be more interested in Simon now and will tune in more often now they know he will have something substantial to say to them. That’s not to say the polls won’t take a long time to turn – swinging voters will want sustained unity before they consider Labor seriously.

Simon will need a hell of a lot of goodwill from his colleagues to have a shot, but it’s easier to get that if they’ve got policy to contribute to, absorb and sell. A leader can’t get a party over the line if its true believers have given up. Against all the odds, Crean has given Labor’s grassroots hope.

To convert grassroots hope to mainstream respect requires Crean to rebuild trust in the Labor Party, and that’s not just about policy. It’s about, as Beazley said during the campaign, relating a narrative to the Australian people about where we are and what we could be, and the foundation of that is a set of values Labor believes in and promises to govern in accordance with. I’d like to see Crean make several speeches setting out core Labor values in the context of today’s world and its imperatives and constraints. In particular, he needs to modernise Labor’s idea of the role of government.

In this context, there’s a growing consensus across the political divide that rebuilding and reempowering local communities is a must, for all sorts of reasons. But how? Bottom-up government requires decentralisation of power, and strict, independent accountability mechanisms to avoid petty corruption and a triumph of self-interest. I discussed one idea for doing this in Let’s find our elders and give them a go.

Rebuilding trust is also about ethics. Howard and his government are very weak on this – I’d go as far as to say Howard’s government is amoral. The children overboard scandal, Howard’s big lie that he had not committed Australian troops to war on Iraq for months before the war, growing questions over the genuineness of his claim that WMDs were the reason for war, dissembling on why travellers weren’t informed that Bali was a terrorist target before the bombings, and the daily deconstruction of Ruddock’s image over the cash for visas scandal will, in the end, make the Coalition vulnerable on the issue of trust.

Besides making the Coalition accountable for these matters, Labor must at the same time propose and promise a different way. People think most politicians are corrupt, so what’s the upside of destroying Ruddock’s credibility when people don’t think you’ll be any better? I’d like to see Julia Gillard put forward positive policy in tandem with her accountability crusade. We need to know what Labor would do to stop political mates and political donations helping applicants for visas. A policy announcement would increase the pressure on Howard to respond to the scandal and get a few more voters thinking about whether Labor might be a more trustworthy government.

More generally, I’d like to see Crean set out a covenant with the Australian people. I’d like him to promise that, if elected Prime Minister, he would be honest with the Australian people and would always ask, in the words of HIH Royal Commissioner Neville Owen, “What is right?” when addressing policy issues. In other words, that he would see his role as leading Australia in the public interest, not as a mere dealmaker or mediator between competing interest groups. He’d promise to do what he believed was right to the limit of what was possible, and explain why in clear, non-partisan terms.

John Howard’s ministerial code of conduct, a key promise in his 1996 election win, quickly collapsed, partly because most ministers didn’t read it, let alone take it seriously. Crean could learn that lesson by sending each shadow minister to ethics training from the St James Ethics Centre, where they could confidentially discuss their financial affairs, seek guidance on how to handle conflicts of interest, and get a grounding in the responsibilities and duties of a minister.

Howard’s code also suffered from being too “black letter” in its formulation, opening the way for a vulture-like media to force its first resignation – that of assistant treasurer Jim Short – over a technical breach lacking any substance. Ethics are ideals to aspire to. Mistakes can and are made without bad intent. It is honourable to admit them quickly and move on. Crean could promise that in government, an independent person of honour and experience would be appointed to act as confidential adviser and mentor to ministers, ministerial staffers and backbenchers on ethical questions. He could even – if he was very, very brave – delegate to the independent person the power to decide whether or not a minister in breach of his ethical duties should resign, be counselled, apologise to the Australian people, or have a stint in the sin bin.

Rebuilding ethics in government, business and the professions is fundamental to Australia’s future. Howard’s government has no credibility to demand ethical behaviour from business and the professions given its record. Australians believe virtually noone with power can be trusted with it. A radical ethical government policy would set the foundation for a Labor government to assert the moral authority to lift standards across the nation. And for a government, a little bit of community trust is a big help in getting acceptance for new policy and in creating energy in ordinary people to hop in and do their bit for their society.

I’d like to see Crean experiment with portfolio titles and responsibilities in his reshuffle, to emphasise issues of trust and bottom-up government. For example, he could appoint a shadow minister for ethical government, with responsibility for putting together a comprehensive plan to nurture an ethical Labor government.

A shadow minister for community empowerment could be charged with developing structures to deliver government funds to communities, perhaps focused on the question of water. I’d like to see local governments focused on conserving, recycling and managing water through local plans, with strong incentives for performance, and for experimental policies. For example, a community which delivered significant reductions in water use could be rewarded with a federal rates rebate. This idea encourages each individual to do his or her bit, and to come up with ideas for water management to be used by others. It also encourages communities to settle strategy and reconcile competing interests between themselves.

Maybe it’s dumb to hope for better from Labor, but the way Crean won the leadership creates a glimmer that things are on the turn. Since a glimmer of hope is all you’ve got, don’t shut your eyes. Crean needs all the positive energy he can get right now. His email address is S.Crean.MP@aph.gov.au.

Amongst the poor souls who are still detained in Australia’s detention centres are approximately a hundred Sabian Mandaeans, followers of the teachings of John the Baptist, who have fled from Iran. The Iranians are the largest group of asylum seekers still in detention.

Some have been held, brutalised and traumatised, for as long as four years, a situation which caused the United Nations Working Party on Arbitrary Detention to find the Australian government in breach of the Refugee Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The Government’s solution to this flagrant breach of out international obligations is to throw out these people who dared ask for asylum on our shores.

Together with several hundred other refugees from the repressive Iranian regime, there are between 17 and 22 Mandaean families now faced with the threat of forcible deportation as part of the Howard government’s secret agreement with the government of Iran. About 80 Iranians have already received notice that they could, at any moment, be sent back to Iran, if necessary, by force.

The government has persistently refused to make public the contents of the Memorandum of Understanding which details this agreement, telling the Senate and in answer to one of my questions that it was “not in the public interest” to make the document public.

At a time when our partners in the “coalition of the willing” are suggesting that they might support a popular uprising in Iran, already designated as one of the members of the “axis of evil”, the Howard government is busy making secret agreements and forging closer economic and political ties with the regime.

Recent trade talks with senior government ministers, the visit of an Iranian parliamentary delegation and raids by the AFP of the homes of Iranians associated with the opposition forces in Iran, all signify this closer relationship. The Iranian followers of John the Baptist – and their fellow country men and women – are part of the contra deal for increased trade with Iran.

The Howard government has also consistently refused to provide any guarantees for the safety of those deported to Iran. This, despite the fact that the head of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Justice Louis Joinet, said this week that, having recently visited Iran to inspect the human rights situation, he had come away deep concerns about the nature of Australia’s agreement with Iraq, particularly the fact that, “There are no guarantees as to what will happen when they (Australian detainees) are returned to Iran”. He also expressed some scepticism about whether so-called voluntary returns would actually be voluntary.

This scepticism is justified by the leaking of a Departmental memo which outlined the development of a strategy on the return of Iranian nationals. The minute, signed by John Okley, assistant secretary of international co-operation in the Department of Immigration, proposed two courses of action: the first, “encouraging voluntary departures” by inducements of $2000 per person; giving them the status of a returnee, rather than a deportee; supplying them with airfares and travel documents; and waiving the cost of their accommodation in detention!

And if this fails, “the creation of a credible threat of involuntary removal”, by telling detainees that the Iranian government would now accept their involuntary repatriation, something they had refused to do in the past. Priority for removal was to be given to “those who have attempted self-harm or committed acts of violence within the centres.”

There is no doubt that the Howard government does not regard itself as seriously bound by our international treaty obligations (except with the United States). But even by the degraded standards of the government, this represents a flagrant disregard of the obligations under the Refugee Convention not to return a refugee to “a place where his or her life or liberty is threatened” and of the Torture Convention not to send a person to “a place where there is a real prospect of torture.”

While the Federal Government has insisted that none of the 265 Iranians threatened with forcible deportation are owed protection under Australia’s migration laws, many of those facing deportation fear that, in providing information for their refugee applications, they have exposed themselves to greater danger if they are returned to Iran. This is especially true for those who are easily identified by religion, occupation or region, even if their names are withheld.

As Julie Macken pointed out in a recent article, the Refugee Review Tribunal, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Federal Court all publish their decisions and findings on the internet and while they do not publish names, “even with little information it is easy to work out to whom they are referring.” Louis Joinet told Radio National journalist, Tom Morton, “the very act of fleeing takes on a political complexion” and in certain cases, “this has given rise to persecution.” Ruddock’s response to this elevated risk to those forced to return is the implausible conclusion that if Australia’s refugee assessment process has found that they are not refugees, i.e. that they do not have a well-founded fear of persecution, then they will not be persecuted. By definition. Yes, Minister.

The Mandaeans, a tiny pre-Christian religious minority would, almost certainly, be readily identified from Tribunal and Court transcripts. Because their religion is not recognised by the government of Iran, they are subjected to discrimination and denied the normal protections of the law. The Federal Court, in an appeal against a decision of the Refugee Review Tribunal heard last year, gave the following measured assessment of religious persecution in Iran:

In Iran all religious minorities including Christians and of course Jews, suffer varying degrees of persecution, vis a vis the Shi’ite Muslim majority. The State, since the religiously inspired revolution, does not, for example, permit non-Muslims to engage in government employment or attend university and there are restrictions on the extent to which they can fully practise their religion, for example, by teaching it. If injured or killed, they or their dependants apparently receive less compensation than would the Muslim majority, and they may suffer in assessments of their credibility as witnesses before Iranian courts.

Religious persecution in Iran is a matter of public record and the subject of frequent comment from human rights observers and even from the U.S. State Department. The head of a UN working group on detention centres, Louis Joinet, recently told journalists that Iran was detaining dissidents and others without due process on a “large scale” and keeping them in solitary confinement. Human Rights Watch reported in February that:

“The arbitrary detention of students and the targeting of government critics have increased. Scholars and students who criticise the ruling clerical establishment have faced death sentences, teaching bans or long prison terms.”

There are many recorded cases of the execution of minority religious leaders for no other reason than that they practice their faith and organise their followers. Iran is almost as enthusiastic as the United States in its use of the death penalty, and for much less serious offences. Amnesty records that the death penalty and various brutal forms of torture were imposed “for issues concerning freedom of association and freedom of expression.” In 2002, 81 percent of all known executions worldwide took place in Iran, China and the USA. The Amnesty spokesman also drew attention to the fact that over the last year alone 113 prisoners, including long-term political prisoners, were executed in Iran. Many were also flogged, frequently in public.

Just this week I was sent photographs from Iran of people executed on “hanging trucks”, mobile cranes used to hang people in public, even for minor offences such as the possession of marijuana (the photos are atMDC Watch).Yet refugees from religious persecution by this vicious regime are held not to be “genuine” refugees.

Although there are only an estimated 20,000 Mandaeans, significant numbers have fled to Australia, claiming religious persecution much as the now well-settled families of the Bahai faith did in the 70s and 80s. Most of them have ended up in detention because the Howard government has consistently refused to accept that they have been subjected to persecution, insisting that they have merely suffered harassment, and has denied them refugee status. The Iranian government, until now, has refused to accept their return as part of a general policy of resisting involuntary repatriations. The result is that the Mendaeans have been stranded in the twilight zone of indefinite detention, many in the desert camps. Men, women and children alike exhibit the predictable psychological symptoms of such prolonged incarceration.

For the Mandaeans this is a double jeopardy, since they are also subjected to discrimination and mistreatment by some of the other detainees who regard them as unclean. Evidence given in a Federal Court hearing recounted events during 2001, in which Mandaean people were denied access to showers in the ablutions block because of the aggressive actions of a small group of hostile Muslims. The Mandaeans were warned to stay away because they were ‘dirty people’. These threats were apparently backed up with action, since the persecutors simply turned off the water supply when the Mendaeans attempted to use the facilities. This mistreatment escalated to the point that they had to be placed in a separate compound.

Although their plight has not excited much attention in the mainstream Australian media, they were the subject of a report by Amnesty International last year. Amnesty concluded that they, and other religious minorities in the camps, were suffering additional psychological trauma because of the constant discrimination they faced. Amnesty reported that as well as their dietary needs being ignored, they were not allowed to celebrate their religious festivals and had no access to their own clergy. Amnesty also recorded instances of violence or threats against them and concluded that intolerance and vilification were now serious problems within the camps. The small Mandaean community in the Port Hedland have been particularly badly treated, initially without much protection from the camp administration. Although the Government and DIMIA are responsible for ensuring the well-being of all detainees, they clearly abdicated this responsibility a long time ago.

One of the very generous Australians who provide support and succour for those in detention told me that deporting these people “would amount to murder” and that those he sees on his regular visits “are in a state of terror”. Another, who has been visiting a young Mandaean mother and her 2 children in the Baxter detention centre, holds grave fears for their survival if they are not allowed to settle here.

Although there are several Federal Court injunctions standing between these people and other Iranian detainees threatened with deportation, it is clear that the Howard Government is determined on a program of forced deportation, first of those whose claims for asylum have failed and then of those on Temporary Protection Visas whose countries of origin have been deemed to have improved sufficiently to allow their return. Even a cursory examination of the state of security and basic infrastructure in both Iraq and Afghanistan would lead to the inevitable conclusion that people returned would confront serious risks to their lives and health.

As Russell Skeleton reported in The Age this week some of the Iranians threatened with deportation have had a reprieve as a result of a recent Federal Court decision. (Russell’s article is republished below). Mr Justice Richard Cooper’s judgment included a scathing condemnation of the Refugee Review Tribunal’s failure to investigate the specific claims of persecution made by an Iranian family of the Mandaean faith.

As a result, Justice Cooper ordered a review of the family’s claims for asylum, noting that the tribunal had ignored vital evidence, including violence and threats of violence against Mandaean women by Muslim men. He also found that while the Tribunal had apparently accepted evidence that Mandaeans living in Iran could not attend university, were harassed in daily life, were not adequately treated in hospitals and did not have their complaints to police acted upon, the Tribunal had employed an overly narrow definition of “persecution” in reaching their decision to refuse refugee status.

This judgment potentially undermines more than 60 adverse decisions already made against Mandaean families and offers some hope that the Courts may achieve what the Howard Government has refused – the protection of asylum seekers from possible loss of liberty, torture and even death if they are returned to Iran.

But this is just the beginning, the experiment, ahead of the mass deportation of people from Iraq and Afghanistan who hold Temporary Protection Visas; people whose claims for refugee status have been confirmed. The Government wants to test the resistance of Australians to this indecency. I hope they are unpleasantly surprised and that Australians will draw the line at forcing people back to situations where their very lives are at risk.

***

Judge orders refugees review

by Russell Skelton

Dozens of Iranians may not now be deported from Australia after the Federal Court delivered a damning assessment of the Refugee Review Tribunal and its failure to investigate claims of persecution made by an Iranian family of the Sabian Mandaean faith.

Dozens of Iranians may not now be deported from Australia after the Federal Court delivered a damning assessment of the Refugee Review Tribunal and its failure to investigate claims of persecution made by an Iranian family of the Sabian Mandaean faith.

Justice Richard Cooper, who ordered the tribunal to review the family’s claims for asylum “afresh in their entirety”, found the tribunal ignored key evidence and failed to deal with claims of violence and threats of violence against Mandaean women by Muslim men.

Justice Cooper’s stinging judgement, which also questions the tribunal’s narrow definition of “persecution”, by implication calls into question more than 60 adverse decisions made by the Immigration Department and the tribunal against Mandaean families now awaiting forcible return to Iran under a secret agreement between Canberra and Tehran.

The judgement, handed down on May 30, will increase pressure on Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock to review the asylum claims of Mandaeans, followers of a tiny pre-Christian faith that adheres to the teachings of John the Baptist. Although there are only an estimated 20,000 Mandaeans, significant numbers fled to Australia from Iran and Iraq. The vast majority have ended up in detention because the Federal Government refuses to recognise that they are treated as “infidels” and persecuted by Shiite Muslims.

Justice Cooper’s judgement questions the Federal Government’s stand by canvassing a number of legal opinions asserting that any definition of persecution should include sustained discrimination against individuals and groups unable to protect themselves. The Government has informed the tribunal that Mandaeans are discriminated against but not persecuted.

Justice Cooper found the tribunal had accepted evidence that Mandaeans living in Iran could not attend university, were harassed in daily life, were not adequately treated in hospitals and that their complaints to police were often not acted on.

“The tribunal was required to ask itself why this conduct was engaged in, and if for a convention reason, whether or not it constituted persecutory treatment. This it did not do,” he said.

“The tribunal did not address all the claims of personal violence, and threats of violence to Mandaean women in their homes and in hospitals from Muslim men, nor the reasons for such violence and threat of violence. Nor did it address the claims that children were denied the right to be taught their religion at school, were denigrated for their beliefs and put under pressure to convert to Islam.”

In relation to the family’s specific claims, Justice Cooper said the tribunal did not deal with the wife’s claim that she was physically assaulted and threatened by Iranian police in front of her children and had not been treated appropriately in hospital because of her religious beliefs.

The president of the Sabian Mandaean Association in Australia, Khosrow Cholaili, yesterday called on Mr Ruddock to review the cases of 17 Mandaean families waiting to be deported to Iran under the terms of a memorandum of understanding between Iran and Australia.

“It is clear from this case and from other recent judgements that the plight of Sabian Mandaeans and the persecution they face in Iran because of their beliefs has not been properly taken into account by the tribunal,” he said.

Mr Cholaili said there was plenty of evidence that the high levels of discrimination in every facet of daily life amounted to persecution. “Because of our alleged ‘uncleanness’ it is difficult for us to obtain medical attention. Even our children are not to permitted to attend kindergartens. If a Mandaean handles food in the market, the whole lot will be thrown out and they will be made to pay.”

Meanwhile, the head of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Justice Louis Joinet, has called on the Government to explain plans to deport more than 100 Iranians by force.

“Experience has shown that even with the case of voluntary repatriations, as in the case of Afghanistan, you have to be sure that people are returning voluntarily,” he said.

Justice Joinet said he had recently visited Iran to inspect the human rights situation and had come away with deep concerns about the nature of Australia’s memorandum of understanding.

“There are no guarantees as to what will happen when they (Australian detainees) are returned to Iran,” he said on radio at the weekend.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said last night that the minister was unaware of Justice Cooper’s judgement and declined to comment on its implications for the tribunal and Sabian Mandaeans.

 

The cats and the dogs. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. www.daviesart.com

“What Labor supporters need is a dose of nerve. Labor has actually got a bloody good chance of winning the next election regardless of who is leader. The polls don’t disagree – Howard doesn’t disagree. The only bunch of fools who disagree are the commentators in the left. Seems to me they need to put Prozac in the water supply.” Stephen Blackwell

***

G’Day. The possible politics of Howard’s Senate referendum idea is still working itself out in my head and I’ll write about that tomorrow, with your comments. In the meantime, here are your thoughts on the Beazley-v-Crean contest. With one exception, they’re all so depressed and depressing I’m hoping this is rock bottom for Labor. No doubt reflecting Webdiary’s readership, not one contributor backs Beazley. You must be a bunch of lefties!

I’ll kick off with something positive from Stephen Blackwell, then Webdiary columnist Polly Bush finds famous political quotes in history to help us comprehend the Australian political craziness over the last week. Contributors are Terry O’Kane on debut, Luke Webber, Clement Girault, Meg Rayn, Wallace, Simon Gerathy, Russell Sherman and John Thornton.

The numbers look solid for Crean, so I predict a desperation strike by Beazley, either a mega-mea culpa for mistakes last time round or even a juicy policy proposal to convince the left – now solidly behind Simon – that he’s given his small target an indecent burial.

FYI, I’m on Late Night Live tonight talking about the Labor leadership.

***

Raise the Titanic

by Stephen Blackwell

Why is everyone so terrified by this leadership contest? The level of doom n’ gloom emanating from the ranks of the left over this is staggering. Labor supporters seem convinced that this is a disaster. Have things really gotten so low? If so, Howard has won.

But sorry – he has far from won. Beazley – Crean: Oh come on! Have we forgotten just how much buffoonery there is in politics? Do we need to care to the point of self destruction which buffoon is in charge? As the last elections showed – democracy is very unpredictable. It is utter vanity for one person – Howard, Beazley, Crean – to claim that it is or will be “himself” who will “win” an election.

What Labor supporters need is a dose of nerve. A bit of, dare I write, the positive.

Labor has actually got a bloody good chance of winning the next election regardless of who is leader. Does that statement really sound so ridiculous? If so – why?

The polls don’t disagree – Howard doesn’t disagree. The only bunch of fools who disagree are the commentators in the left.

Seems to me they need to put Prozac in the water supply.

***

No heart, only head

by Polly Bush

Warning to John Howard. As Lord Acton put it, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Dissatisfied with merely announcing he’ll remain on as Prime Minister until kingdom come, Howard seems on target to ensuring just that with this latest proposal.

What a week. Looking back over the last seven days, many federal politicians would be able to sympathise with Harold Wilson’s famous words: “A week is a long time in politics”. It was a week that saw the spotlight bounce from one major party’s leadership tensions to the other major party’s leadership woes. It was also a week that many saw political parallels in history.

Early last week, when Peter Costello was asked whether he would rule out challenging John Howard, the Deputy leader chose his words wisely to mirror that of Howard’s response to the question 19 years earlier. Both men spoke of their history of loyalty to the party.

It just goes to show that what goes around comes around. Foraging through some of the great quotes about power and politics, it can also be said that history repeats itself.

On the issue of loyalty, Costello could take the words of French philosopher Jean de La Bruyere to heart, who said “party loyalty brings the greatest of men down to the petty level of the masses”.

Perhaps Costello wasn’t the only main player last week to reflect on the past. Chasing Menzies in the history books, General Howard may have turned to his pin-up boy in making his decision to stay on.

Sir Bob once said, “A Prime Minister exercises his greatest public influence by creating a public impression of himself, hoping all the time that the people will be generous rather than just.”

In his private meeting with Costello to inform him of his decision, the Prime Miniature could have echoed the words of another little fella, Napoleon I. On divorcing Josephine, Napoleon was said to have said, “I still love you, but in politics there is no heart, only head.”

Jump to the party room meeting where Howard announced his decision to stay on, and the Prime Minister could have quoted assassinated US Senator Huey Long, with, “I looked around at the little fishes present and said, ‘I’m the Kingfish'”.

Costello would have found no relief in soaking in Jean Paul Sartre’s words, that “it is always easy to obey, if one dreams of being in command”. The tired looking 45-year-old Treasurer would also not appreciate Giulio “Mr Italy” Andreotti’s take, that “power wears down the man who doesn’t have it”.

With the Man of Steel looking invincible in the polls, Howard’s decision shouldn’t have been a great surprise. Still, he planted a seed of doubt a couple of years ago by saying he’d consider his future on his now pending 64th birthday.

Superman told the party room his tribute to the Beatle’s Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band song was a mere case of having “run off at the mouth”. Flying so high, the PM didn’t have to worry about former UK Chancellor Norman Lamont’s ‘politicians prayer’ of “may my words be soft and low, for I may have to eat them”.

In his already famous press conference, Costello also indicated he would be doing less swallowing of words by expanding the net of political comments when he said, “I think my colleagues will expect me to contribute on a wide range of issues, which I intend to do.”

In response to this, Howard said, “I think a deputy leader has a right to talk fairly broadly. We all have an obligation to – myself included – to talk consistent with government policy.”

This is polite speak for the words of Margaret Thatcher, who once said “I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk – as long as they do what I say.”

Howard also said he sympathised with Costello’s disappointment, remarking, “At no stage did I have any desire to visit any kind of humiliation or inflict any kind of pain on Peter.”

Advice for Costello can be sought from writer Thomas Love Peacock, who said, “A sympathiser would seem to imply a certain degree of benevolent feeling. Nothing of the kind. It signifies a ready-made accomplice in any species of political villainy.”

On the issue of political villainy, look no further than the Federal Labor Party. It demonstrates former MP and now London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s take, that “being an MP is not really a job for grown-ups – you are wandering around looking for and making trouble”.

Federal Opposition Leader (for now) Simon Crean would appreciate former Thatcher minister Alan Clark’s words, which state, “There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling and waiting for traces of blood to appear in the water.”

There seems to be an abundance of sharks circling the choppy waters of the ALP at the moment. But choppy waters subside, and the sharks and the little fishes and the roosters should be aware of this. As Harold Wilson said, “Hence the practised performances of latter day politicians in the game of musical daggers: never be left holding the dagger when the music stops.”

While Crean and Beazley both scramble to feed the sharks for next week’s showdown, they should both heed Lyndon Baines Johnson’s vocational expertise with his comment, “If you’re in politics and you can’t tell when you walk into a room who’s for you and who’s against you, then you’re in the wrong line of work.”

Crean could also take note from Les Murray, when working out how best to tackle the slightly leaner and definitely more meaner Beazley. As Murray put it, “Never wholly trust the fat man who lurks in the lean achiever and the defeated, yearning to get out.”

In announcing his challenge for the leadership, Beazley tried to pitch himself as the clearer communicator, which is funny considering as leader, he was often criticised for deflecting issues onto himself due to his choice of language.

The man that brought ‘boondoggle’ into the Australian vernacular had the country again checking their dictionaries when he said last week, “Simplicity is one of those things I need to carry around with me as a talisman”.

In response, Simpler Simon could find inspiration from two old feuding British PMs in Benjamin Disraeli’s depiction of William Gladstone, and describe the two-time loser as a “sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity”. Whatever.

Or alternatively Crean could take on Paul Keating’s words, swapping twice for thrice when he said of Andrew Peacock, “does a souffle rise twice?”

For many people, the choice between a Beazley led Opposition is much of a muchness to that of a Crean led Opposition. In the words of J.K. Galbraith, it demonstrates that “politics is not the art of the possible. It consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”

On Simon versus Kim, Peter Costello said he wouldn’t comment on “who’s better, or should I say, who’s least worst”. For the not so heir apparent, the problem for the Federal Labor Party is “they don’t know what they stand for”.

Costello could have continued down this path with some brilliance from Spike Milligan, when he queried, “One day the don’t-knows will get in, and then where will we be?”

As the battle of the don’t-knows nears, one thing is certain. From the words of actor Will Rogers, “The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other.”

***

Terry O’Kane

I am a latecomer to Webdiary and have just read yesterday’s Same old Beazley not worth another try, and your April piece backing him, Time for Labor’s Fightback!

I am a former ALP voter from a working class background, however I cannot in all conscience vote for the ALP at present because of my disgust at the pragmatism and lack of principle shown by the ALP leadership.

I would caution those in the ALP caucus pushing Beazley to consider not the perceived popularity of Beazley over Howard but exactly what distinguishes a man like Beazley, whose political beliefs as demonstrated by his pathetic efforts on education (in particular the funding of private schools), Medicare, and most deplorably the asylum seeker issue, show a singular lack of courage and a startling lack of belief in the supposed core principles of the Labor party.

Simon Crean must take a large portion of the blame as well, however I take great heart from his budget reply. Perhaps I am grasping at straws, but his distancing of the ALP front bench from the grip of the NSW right also showed some “ticker”. I for one cannot decide why the NSW ALP does not come clean and join the Liberals; it would be a merging of the small government “true believers” which could only delight the big end of town.

The left is under attack from many directions. The lack of true diversity of opinion in the mainstream media combined with the curious fascination that journalists have with the minutiae of the machinations in Canberra robs the people of real discussion of issues of importance.

The divestment of public institutions and the transfer of their assets and revenue earning capacity to the private sector have been pushed by both the Liberals and ALP. It is time that the ALP starts to recruit people with some diversity of background and not simply court law school graduates with ambition and flexible political beliefs.

Until the ALP starts to show a preparedness to lose an election on issues of principle I and many of my like will be voting Green.

My father is a former shearer and union organiser with a strong commitment to the ALP. He and many like him are heartbroken and infuriated by the actions of Labor under Beazley. I note that both leadership aspirants have fathers who were ministers in the Whitlam government. Surely the ideological divide between the Whitlam years and the current ALP is cause for concern to both these men.

For the future of the ALP I hope that Crean’s budget reply came from the heart and that Beazley fades into obscurity. As for me I’m voting Green till I see some commitment to social justice, compassion for the refugees and a willingness to fight Howard.

***

Luke Webber

I’m pleased to see that I’m not the only one frustrated with Beazley’s blank lack of understanding. I was stunned and dismayed when he commenced his challenge by claiming that he’d “won the campaigning” in 2001. If he intends to campaign in the same way for the next election, he can bloody well bugger off back to Bunbury as far as I’m concerned.

If Beazley could show us a Labor leader prepared to lead, and to espouse unpopular policy because it’s *right* he might win my vote, but a small-target Beazley prepared to sacrifice long-held Labor principles just to avoid alienating the bigots and rednecks isn’t going to impress anybody.

C’mon Beaze. Show us some ticker, or go home!

***

Clement Girault in Marrickville, Sydney

We’ve got a morally corrupt Labor Party and two highly unpopular characters fighting for its leadership. Would it be conceivable for Senator Bob Brown to challenge both Crean and Beazley? A fantasy, no doubt, but perhaps Labor, the Greens and even the Democrats could agree to a marriage of convenience?

A similar alliance of Ecologists, Socialists and Communists swept into power a few years ago in France. Granted, these parties divorced a couple of years later and were then swept out at the following elections (the right-wing Gaullist coalition played the immigration / insecurity card and won – sound familiar?). Before the divorce however, France was led by a Socialist prime minister and featured a government with, notably, a Communist transport minister and an Ecologist ecology minister. Would such arrangement be feasible here in Australia? Or am I just dreaming?

Margo: Yes.

***

Meg Rayn (nom de plume)

As a permanent resident in Australia I am expected to pay taxes and to otherwise behave myself according to the usual laws of the land, but I am unable to vote. This is probably a blessing in disguise.

I remember being astounded when I first came over here in the 80s that should I become a citizen, my ‘right’ to vote would then become the property of the Australian government and failing to exercise that ‘right’ would subject me to a fine. It’s a strange and personally abhorrent concept to have a mandatory vote as part of the democratic process. Luckily however, it would seem that I am not really missing out on anything significant, the days of any pretence at a civilised and democratic government seeming well and truly over.

I left Britain when it became obvious that the Tory government was continuing, after something like 11 years, to wreak absolute havoc on the country’s welfare and that if I were to continue to live in that country I would be expected to pay further for the privilege via the infamous “poll-tax”.

It seemed to me at the time that the country’s citizenry were perfectly prepared to roll over and play good dog to their Tory masters. Should the dogs get out of hand and decide to go and find a new owner the Tory masters could always redefine their territorial boundaries, as Mrs Thatcher demonstrated on more than one occasion. The dog would get to know, usually once it was too late to do anything about it, that in spite of changing addresses it was still controlled by the same old owner.

It seems to me that the equivalent Australian dog has no owner at all. Certainly no owner who will consistently admit to being responsible either for or to the dogs.

The present owner rules in the old steel (sic) hand in the velvet glove manner. Should the dogs protest they are told to get back into line and that they are being “un Australian”, whatever that means. They are required to be ‘dogs of war’ but are unable to protest freely against it. They are also lied to consistently but are still expected to play the good dog role at the end of the day.

And as for seeking another owner, one who will treat them better? Well, having found one brave soul prepared to stand up for them the dogs suddenly find themselves with ringside seats to a show guaranteed to damage the one brave soul even if he manages to stay in the ring.

And why? Has this other contender suddenly thrust himself back into the ring because he regrets having not looked after the dogs properly on previous occasions and wants to make amends? Nah. He wants the ownership. The limelight. And failing that he wants to make someone pay.

He offers nothing. He shows not the slightest interest in any of the dogs. He fails to articulate a single word which might lead to any dog believing that he has anything on his mind apart from pulling down the one owner showing an interest. He indulges in pack behaviour unworthy of any decent dog. He has, to use the Australian term, become a mongrel.

Simon Crean deserves to be given, again to use the Australian idiom, “a fair go”. The only energy Beazley has shown over the past six years is this sudden ability to indulge himself in the most destructive and divisive way conceivable. To dress this up in terms of this being the only possibility of resurrecting the Labor party is dishonest and insulting and assumes a lack of intelligence and a complete loss of memory on the part of the Australian electorate. (Also the non electorate!)

Every dog should have his day, however this particular dog has had several and peed on them all. He should not be given a third chance and shame on any caucus member who participates in allowing him to do so.

I read Web Diary regularly and I appreciate your dedication to the right of free speech. I particularly enjoyed Tony Kevin yesterday.

***

Col Wallace

Sooner or later, the grotty instincts of self-preservation will kick in, and the Australian Labor Party will re-emerge as a viable electoral force.

But what a sorry bunch are we who hope Monday’s ballot will be that watershed moment in recent ALP history, when leadership is reconciled with policy direction and those of us still awake to Australian politics might once again rest easy knowing the ALP is still the party of fairness and equity. Or whatever useless piece of party jingoism Simon or Kim attach to the hearse this time around.

It will take another loss before Labor fathoms the resentment felt towards Beazley for his five year crusade into waste, ruin and the slimy fingers of Howard, and the blood-thirsty goons who nailed him on an alien scare.

It will take annihilation under Crean before the ALP gets an inkling of the public’s distaste for the factionalism which produces such an obviously unsuitable candidate as he. Or dumps Barry Jones as party president for Greg Sword.

You get the feeling the ALP has gained a vigour for defeat. They are thick. Watching the ALP is, to paraphrase Lou Reed, like a dirty French novel: Combines the absurd with the vulgar.

They choose to hold a leadership challenge in the weeks when Howard and the Liberals are more vulnerable than in any time since 2001. The case for war against Iraq is collapsing amid scandalous headlines in the UK and the USA. Philip Ruddock is awarding visas in return for political donations. The PM has humiliated his deputy and his deputy is already working against him. He picked a protector of pedophiles as Governor General, and insisted for months there was nothing wrong with that.

It shouldn’t be so hard for Labor.

John Howard represents the dark side of the Australian character. You see Howard’s Australia in the cheap, racist jokes of cheap television contestants. It’s John Howard who represents the ugly, Anglo, born-to-rule mentality heard in every abusive rant by Lleyton Hewitt, and every racist or homophobic sledge by an Australian cricketer.

John Howard’s Australia is suspicious of Asians, Arabs, ragheads, and especially those Indonesians and the Malaysians, who could invade at any minute.

That lingering hatred in all those stifling suburbs. The sense of pervasive waste amid the fibro shacks and the asbestos. That someone else is to blame for the inequality in Australian life, be it the menacing fiction of Lebanese gangs, or the Aborigines making land claims. And what of those Golden Handshakes? How can I get one?

Lincoln said: God must have loved the common people – he made so many of them.

The country is twitching with the most grotesque displays of privilege and wealth, and yet Canberra can never cough up much more than mucus for the commoner. That’s John Howard.

Above all, it is John Howard who is the most disgusting and morbid example of the relentless political animal, working day and night to wipe out anyone in the political system concerned with fairness, accountability and compassion.

Labor what are you doing?

***

Simon Gerathy in Aotearoa, New Zealand

Surely this is about what kind of Australia we want. Yet Labor has for years now not enunciated that vision.

Governments lose elections, only as long as there is a viable alternative. Labor hasn’t provided it. Beazley is part of that legacy. The public has recognised this fact twice already. He has never demonstrated the characteristics of all true leaders – vision and guts. Howard must be gleeful at the thought of a visionless, gutless wonder coming back to ‘lead’ Labor.

If the caucus votes Beazley, they will go down in history as supporters of a proven loser. Crean is the only realistic hope of Labour winning the next election.

For Crean to win he must do the hard yards and get party policies back to core Labour principles, then paint the picture of the alternative vision for the country. He needs to demonstrate intestinal fortitude, and have the courage of his convictions to believe in the Australian people – most of whom think there is a more humane way, a better way. Labour needs to show what it means to be an Australian. At present only the Greens have any kind of alternative vision but it is too radical for most, so far.

***

Russell Sherman

I was inspired by your Webdiary yesterday, however you forgot to add to the equation the power of the commercial media, something which has seen the Labor Party compromise its values to get a fair go in the media. In short, if you have a leftist-type policy, the media is all over you like a rash or you don’t get heard.

That’s why it’s a joke that Alston is requiring the ABC to prove it is unbiased – compared to what I wonder? The bias in favour of the Liberals at Channel 9 and 7 etc is so obvious it’s scary; and they get away with it night after night.

The media and its backers have the real power in our society (and world) and Labor knows it and is being felled at the knees by it. As a result, it’s a difficult juggling act between holding onto your values and playing the media game. Hence, the friction between Left and Right in the Labor Party.

I believe not enough people in Australia try to educate themselves about politics, and most are reliant on the commercial media for their political knowledge. As for why people aren’t advocating Labor in the pub, I think it’s because they don’t want to be seen as going against the dominant ideology of the day or week – it’s a lonely position to go against the shock-jocks and other commercial media. People want to be winners or associated with them, it’s human nature.

If there was a free and unbiased media, if the commercial media was scrutinised like the ABC, then we may see some positive changes for this country. This is where our political leaders’ focus should be, for the health of our democracy, which under the current circumstances is a farce.

***

John Thornton

There was a time I thought Kim Beazley would make a fine PM. That view disappeared with him at the last election. The small target, the lack of ticker in not opposing the attacks on asylum seekers, medicare, education and health funding.

The problem is the ‘ticker’ is still a problem. He didn’t even have the guts to come out and publicly declare he wanted the leadership back. His supporters had to do the dirty work for him.

I’ve never felt that Crean has been given a fair go either by the media or members of the ALP since he was elected to the leadership. And let’s not forget, he was elected unopposed. If these people felt he didn’t have the goods, why didn’t they propose an alternative after the last election instead of white-anting him from day one.

The biggest criticism of Crean is that he’s not connecting with voters. Apart from Gough Whitlam, I cannot recall one opposition leader, Labor or Liberal, in the last 30 odd years who did connect with the voters. We are constantly reminded by media and politicians that governments get voted out not oppositions elected.

At the moment, the two party preferred voting intentions show 51% to 49% Liberal over Labor. Not a bad effort for someone who allegedly is not connecting with voters. For an opposition to win, however, the voters have to believe there is a viable alternative government. For voters to believe there is a viable alternative government they have to see good policy. Simon Crean’s budget reply was excellent. It outlined a series of policies that differentiated Labor from Liberal. And in spite of what Costello would have us believe, it outlined costings that would still leave the budget in surplus.

Voters also have to see a united party and that is obviously Labor’s biggest challenge at the moment. I find it interesting that among the backers of Beazley are a number of people who have aspirations for the leadership themselves.

Finally, what does Labor stand for? I agree Margo, that the party needs to revisit its past to rediscover what it stands for and how it can translate that into a vision for the future.

Re-establishing Medicare is a good start. The public have already twigged that John Howard is not telling the truth about Medicare.

You made an interesting point that whether people liked Howard or not, they’ve always known what he stands for. And everyone knows that he would like nothing more than to be rid of Medicare. The voting public are not stupid either, and it is interesting to note that even though Crean’s polls didn’t improve much, the gap between the Government and Opposition did and it happened AFTER Howard’s Medicare announcement and Crean’s Budget reply.

John Howard – that’s right, the self-styled most conservative leader in Australian politics – wants to wipe out more than a century of Senate checks and balances in the most dramatic shift in power from the people to the Prime Minister and Cabinet that Australia has ever seen.

The irony for Labor is exquisite. The conservative Parties have always defended the Senate and its powers, and used them to the limit when they blocked supply to the Labor Government in 1975.

It’s been Labor – the reforming Party, the party determined to progress the cause of the outsiders to power, the party determined to change the status quo – which has hated Senate power.

Now Howard wants to gut the Senate. His idea shows that he is now the policy and political system radical, and that progressives are reduced to fighting to defend what they’ve gained and are losing every day that Howard remains in power. Progressives have no choice but to defend to the death the Senate which once so frustrated them. Conservatives have no choice but to join them, as conservative legal academic Greg Craven did in the Australian this morning:

“One of the greatest contemporary problems of Australia’s constitutional system is that there are too few limits on government power. A popular prime minister with a supportive back bench is like an elephant in the jungle. What he likes, he takes, and what he dislikes he stamps to death … Ironically, such a proposal is deeply anti-conservative and anti-liberal.”

Howard’s idea also shows that he believes the neo-liberal, read corporatist model is now so entrenched that there is no need for a Senate to keep Labor on a leash. It’s the ultimate sign that he thinks he’s won, for once and for all, the battle of ideas and ideals raging in Australia since 1983, when Hawke and Keating began privatising, outsourcing, corporatising and deregulating. In other words, he believes his vision for Australia has nothing of substance to fear from Labor any more.

Politics is about power and power is about numbers and the consequences of having them. It is the power of consequential numbers that gives the Senate the clout to force debate on the merits of proposals, the power to compel government to justify what it’s doing. Government accommodates the Senate, participates in its inquiries and answers its questions only because the Senate has the power to block its legislation. There is no other reason. For proof, it is routine for the House of Representatives to pass complex legislation in a moment, on the promise that the Senate will looks at what it all means and seek community input. The government, in other words, outsources community consultation to the Senate.

Because of this, MPs within the government are empowered to dissent. Early last year, the government’s anti-terrorism bill proposed to crush political dissent by demonstrations and industrial pickete through an extraordinarily wide definition of “a terrorist act”, and to give the Attorney-General the power to ban any political organisation he wished. Through the Senate inquiry process, this disturbing, wholesale trahing of citizen’s rights and the trashing of democratic principles it entailed were exposed through detailed submissions from lawyers and human rights campaigners across the country.

Many Liberals – Senators and MPs – were convinced, to the extent that they defied the Prime Minister and forced significant changes.

Those dynamics would not have been possible if Howard’s constitutional changes were in place. Party discipline – ie the subjugation of the views of MPs elected by the people to the desires of the Cabinet – would have prevailed, and the government’s changes would have got through at a joint sitting after the bill was rejected twice.

Why? The power of numbers. With one constitutional change, a Prime Minister with the numbers in a joint sitting could roll over Senate scrutiny without qualm, refuse to answer the hard questions, and roll over internal dissenters with the charge of disloyalty.

Without the change, dissenters could argue that, given the Senate numbers, compromise was essential. The Senate’s power gives them – and us – power.

And without the power to reject legislation, the media would take no interest in Senate debates. Why bother, when after a couple of debates a joint sitting would force through exactly what the government wanted? Thus, the structural trigger for detailed public debate on contentious matters would be gone.

I’ve always been a supporter of the Senate, whether Labor or the Liberals are in power. I don’t trust either of them with unbridled power. Just as importantly, the Senate’s proportional system of election means the public’s diversity of views and priorities are more truly represented in the Parliament. It’s a safety valve. It is through the Senate that the great debates which divide our nation are argued and resolved, with the input of voices across the political spectrum.

Industries and lobby groups who’ve been forgotten in a big policy change or who haven’t got the clout to be heard by the big parties often get their views across by approaching Senators, particularly in minor parties. The rail industry, for example, lived in the Democrats offices during the GST debate, and thus made their point that the proposed big drops in diesel prices would advantage trucks as carriers of goods, and thus add to environmental damage. Meg Less reported at the time that Costello’s face went blank when she raised this issue – he hadn’t even realised that economic policy could affect the environment! So a Senate with power can force valid policy objections, and often more innovative policy responses, onto the table. Can you imagine Costello turning up, let alone listening to Lees, if he knew that a joint sitting would pass his legislation in any event?

Because of the power of numbers, the government is forced to justify what it’s doing with facts, not assertion, and to answer the criticisms of voices otherwise completely disempowered in the political system. It keeps the government is touch with, and accountable to, ALL the people, not just its donors and mates and pollsters.

Which brings me to the crucial point. John Howard has always argued that, alone among all the major democracies, Australia does not need a bill of rights. He justifies this on the basis that there are enough checks and balances in our system to protect the rights of citizens vis a vis the States without giving the Courts the power to uphold them against State trangressions.

Tearing away the Senate’s checks and balances would leave a gaping hole which only a bill of rights could fill. The Senate’s best continuous committee is its “scrutiny of bills committee”, which checks every bill that comes before it against a list of fundamental human and citizen rights and reports breaches – invariably in a bipartisan report – to the Senate. This committee is one of a myriad of ways in which the Senate acts as scrutineer of the government’s dealings with human and citizen’s rights, and is bedrock essential in a system with no protections of the citizen in its constitution. Without a Senate with real power, it would be open season for any government to transform our democracy and our rights within it without our permission.

Take electoral reform, the most fraught sort of all, as it can, unless carefully monitored, be used by a government to entrench itself in power by altering the rules to its advantage. For example, many in the government want voluntary voting because they believe that fewer Labor than Coalition voters would vote if voting was not compulsory. Under Howard’s system, this could be passed via a joint sitting without even the whiff of a mandate from the Australian people.

The fact that Howard is proposing this is a sign that he believes Liberal governments are likely to rule Australia in the medium term. No government would propose anything so radical unless it believed it had the time to put through such major changes to Australia that the opposition would be extremely hard pressed to reverse them.

Labor will flounder around trying to work out a position on this one – Paul Keating’s frustration with the the Senate saw him call Senators “unrepresentative swill”. Both major parties, in principle, want the least possible resistance to whatever they want to do, and both conveniently forget, while in government, that minor parties have no power unless the two major parties are at odds.

If Howard wants to castrate the Senate, he’d better propose a bill of rights to keep Australian citizens in the game. Better still, Labor could propose it. Nothing could be more guaranteed to kill off Howard’s power grab.

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I’d love your comments on Howard’s proposal. mkingston@smh.com.au

 

Minotaur head. Image by Webdiary artist Martin Davies. wwww.daviesart.com

“What is needed is not reform of parliament but reformation. The latter term connotes a reform which is designed to return an institution to its original purpose, from which it has fallen away. We do not have parliaments so that they can be rubber stamps. We have parliaments to represent the voters properly, so equipped that the holders of the executive power cannot legislate by decree like absolute monarchs and can be made to account for their actions between elections. Any changes to the institution of parliament should be designed to assist those ends.” Harry Evans, Clerk of the Senate

Here is a speech by the Clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, to the national press club on April 24 on the agenda behind most politician’s “reform” ideas for Parliament and the need for “reformation” instead. The speech deconstructs all the arguments now being put forward by Howard, Carr, Paul Kelly and others in support of Howard’s plan to end effective Senate power. All of them care nothing for democracy. They are all insiders to power who want more of it.

Harry is an independent man who sees his duty as loyalty to the institution of the Senate, not the parties who occupy it. As such, his advice is frank and fearless. He is a national treasure, and a great voice to have to help scuttle Howard’s blatant personal power grab. Thanks to Jozef Imrich for sending me this timely speech.

After Harry’s speech, a piece by Webdiarist Peter Kelly setting out the constitutional provision under attack by Howard and the three ways Howard’s change would adversely affect our democracy.

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The Australian Parliament: Time for reformation

by Harry Evans

The Australian Parliament, it appears, is perennially seen as an institution in need of reform.

Reform proposals are again being proclaimed. A reform is a change for the better. Are the changes usually proposed really reforms?

Before a major institution can be reformed, as distinct from simply changed, the following questions must be answered. What is the institution for? What functions is it meant to perform? Is it performing those functions well, and, if not, why not? Are there any changes which could make it perform its functions better?

So-called reform proposals are mostly put forward without answering, usually without even posing, these questions. The usual proposals, however, conform to an orthodoxy based on unstated answers to these questions. This orthodoxy always seems to appeal to governments in their second or third terms.

These orthodox proposals for changing parliament are based on what might be kindly called the electoral college theory of parliament. According to this view, the electors elect a party (or a party leader) to govern. The government governs with total power to change the law and virtually to do what it likes between elections. The purpose of parliament is to register the voter’s choice of a government, that is, to act as an electoral college. Parliament must not interfere with the government governing, as that would be a violation of the system. In particular, for an upper house with a different electoral basis and party composition to interfere with the government is a violation of democracy. In other words, to use a less kindly term, parliament should be a rubber stamp.

There are two major difficulties with this theory. First, if the electors are to choose a government and give it virtually absolute power, the electoral system should surely be designed to reflect accurately the electors choice. Unfortunately, the electoral system we have for lower houses results in parties winning government usually with only forty-odd percent of the vote and sometimes less. The electors get the government which most of them have not chosen. Preferential voting does not cure this defect. Frequently parties win government with fewer votes than their major rival even after the distribution of preferences.

This has occurred in five federal elections in the last 50 years. We cannot make fun of the 2000 American presidential election when two of our last five federal elections produced a similar result. One would think that people who follow the electoral college theory of parliament would be demanding reform of the electoral system as their first priority.

The other difficulty is that if we choose a government and give it absolute power, what is the purpose of having a parliament at all? It is a very expensive institution to keep, if it is only an electoral college. We could save a lot of money by dismissing all its members after the election, as with the American electoral college. Why keep a solid gold, Rolls Royce rubber stamp?

If pressed, the followers of this theory usually fall back on responsible government. Do we not have a system of responsible government, whereby the government is responsible to parliament? Responsible government was a system which existed from the mid 19 th century to the early 20th century, after which it disappeared. It involved a lower house of parliament with the ability to dismiss a government and appoint another between elections. This system has been replaced by one whereby the government of the day controls the lower house by a built-in, totally reliable and rusted-on majority. Not only is the government not responsible to, that is, removable by, the lower house, but it is also not accountable to it. The governments control of the parliamentary processes means that it is never effectively called to account in the lower house.

The system of a government with total power between elections exists only in a few jurisdictions, such as the state of Queensland. In Australia generally it is modified by upper houses which, because of different, and usually more representative, electoral systems, are not under the control of the government of the day. They are able to amend or reject the government’s legislative proposals, and inquire into government activities. The effect is that laws are not made unless there is broader public support than is reflected in the government’s forty-odd percent of votes, and that governments have to submit to more scrutiny than they permit in the house they control.

If we ever moved to the pure electoral college system, most people would find the consequences very surprising. For example, in recent days a procession of witnesses of divergent views has come before a Senate committee to express great apprehension about the government’s anti-terrorist legislation. They have called it the most dangerous and draconian legislation ever proposed.

According to the electoral college theory of parliament, this legislation should already be in effect. There should be no parliamentary meddling with it, because the government must govern, and certainly no delaying committee inquiries. But, says the moderate wing of the governments-must-govern faction, why cannot upper houses review and scrutinise without having the power to reject legislation?

Upper houses have only one hold over governments, their ability to withhold assent from government legislation. This is the only reason for governments complying with accountability measures of upper houses: as a last resort, an upper house with legislative powers could decline to pass government legislation until an accountability obligation is discharged. An upper house without legislative powers could simply be ignored by a government assured of the passage of its legislation. A reviewing house without power over legislation would be ineffective.

It is sometimes said that the traditional parliamentary activities of considering legislation and conducting inquiries do not constitute accountability of government to parliament, but simply exercises in partisan politics. The governments opponents use the parliamentary processes to delay and question its measures. To say that parliamentary accountability works through partisan politics, however, is not to deny the validity of the process. In free countries, accountability mechanisms ultimately depend on partisan politics and on giving a governments opponents the institutions and the powers to call it to account. Governments which are not checked by politics operating through parliamentary processes are governments which are not accountable.

Leaving aside the question of the functions of parliament, and proceeding to the second question: What is wrong with parliament that it needs reform? The implicit answer of the orthodox reformers is that it puts too many difficulties in the way of governments governing, too many limitations on the power of governments to do what they like between elections.

This naturally leads to a further question: Why should governments have absolute power between elections? What advantage would we gain by removing parliamentary limitations on government power? Usually the orthodox reformers have no answer. If pressed, they say it is because the country must have certain legislation.

Currently it appears that we must have certain media ownership legislation, which is self-evidently good for us. How we are to know that it is good for us without thorough examination through parliamentary processes is not explained.

The claim is also made that we must be economically efficient, and we will regress economically if the government does not have unfettered power to do what is economically good for us. The same people, however, tell us that at present, under the current parliamentary system, the economy is doing wonderfully well. Perhaps we could have an even more efficient economy if the government were all-powerful. If asked for an example of an efficient economy, these people usually cite the United States, the country which has the most rigorous institutional and political constraints on the power of the government.

In any event, the argument that powerful government equals economic efficiency has been blown out of the water. The American academic Arend Lijphart conducted a detailed study of stable modern democracies, rating them according to whether they have more majoritarian systems (in which one party wins power with few limitations) or proportional or consensual systems (in which parties are compelled to share power and compromise). He found that, on a range of economic and social indicators, including economic growth, inflation and employment, the proportional/consensual systems clearly outperformed the majoritarian systems. This finding has been supported by a recent comparison of Australias economic performance with that of the Netherlands, Lijpharts most proportional/consensual country.

In spite of their only argument having been decisively refuted, the proponents of orthodox “reform” press on. Every so-called reform of parliament turns into a proposal to reduce it to a rubber stamp. We have been provided with a perfect example in recent days. A proposal to change the parliamentary term to four years was floated, probably initially to fill in time between afternoon tea and the cocktails at a party conference.

This change is said to be self-evidently necessary for economic efficiency. We were not given time to consider whether, if politicians now are short-term thinkers, incorrigible pursuers of quick political advantage and pork-barrellers, adding a possible extra year to their term would turn them into statespersons and great forward planners.

The proposal immediately developed into schemes to nobble the Senate entirely, to allow the government, under various guises, such as joint sittings, to pass any legislation it liked and, as a necessary by-product, to avoid any parliamentary accountability. If these schemes appeared too drastic, perhaps we would buy the old chestnut of stopping the Senate blocking supply. As this usually involves allowing the government to call anything supply, the effect would be the same.

Unfortunately for our would-be reformers, the electors have not realised that paradise awaits them if only they would give governments longer terms and absolute powers. The electors appear to have an instinctive appreciation of the value of safeguards between elections. Some of them go so far as to vote for minor parties and to vote differently in the two Houses in order not to give governments total power. When asked to approve the reformers schemes in referendums, they have a stubborn scepticism. They also do not appreciate being told that they will be made to go on voting until they vote correctly.

One of the current proposals is simply a rerun of the so-called simultaneous elections proposal, whereby the government would be able to go to an early election at any time of its choosing and take out half or all of the Senate without the restraint of the fixed Senate term. This scheme has been put to referendum and rejected on four occasions.

This lack of enlightenment on the part of the electors naturally turns the minds of governments to nobbling the Senate without a referendum by ordinary legislation, for example, by abolishing or sabotaging the system of proportional representation so that the government could control both houses.

If the rubber stamp theory of parliament were ever put into effect, with or without the approval of the electors, those who were most eager for it would probably be the first to regret it. Media ownership legislation and anti-terrorist legislation may be passed today, but it may be repealed tomorrow and quite different legislation passed with the same lack of consideration and restraint.

Assuming that the electors remain unwilling to swallow all-powerful government, and they are not forced to accept it by other means, are there any reforms which would really improve parliament as the institution for representing all of the voters, filtering legislation and making governments accountable?

One such reform is fixed term parliaments, whereby both houses would serve for a fixed term, whether of three or four years, and the House of Representatives could be dissolved early only if the government lost its majority and another government could not be formed. This genuine reform would have many advantages:

* prime ministers would no longer have the power to call early elections at times of their choosing,

* every government would serve out its term, thereby achieving the stability so longed for by orthodox reformers,

* with no possibility of an early election, members of the House of Representatives might be inclined to be more effective in requiring accountability,

* the situation of the Senate refusing supply to force an early election would not recur, because there could be no early elections.

Fixed terms could be accompanied by other real reforms. In case of a real deadlock between the Houses over appropriation bills, the government could be allowed to draw on an amount equal to last years appropriations until the disagreement is settled. For other deadlocks, a government not willing to risk the double dissolution mechanism could have the option of putting the disputed legislation to a referendum at the next election.

A bill for a referendum for fixed term parliaments was passed by the Senate in 1982 on the initiative of the Labor Party, with the support of the Australian Democrats and a considerable number of coalition senators who voted against their own government to support the proposal. Public opinion polls showed that it had an excellent chance of success at a referendum. It awaited only a change of government in the 1983 election to be put to the popular vote. The incoming Labor government, however, decided that it was not a priority, and dropped it. That action tells us a great deal about the motives of governments in proposing changes to the Constitution.

What is needed is not reform of parliament but reformation. The latter term connotes a reform which is designed to return an institution to its original purpose, from which it has fallen away. We do not have parliaments so that they can be rubber stamps. We have parliaments to represent the voters properly, so equipped that the holders of the executive power cannot legislate by decree like absolute monarchs and can be made to account for their actions between elections. Any changes to the institution of parliament should be designed to assist those ends.

***

Peter Kelly

Section 57 of the Constitution sets out the process for resolving deadlock between the House of Representatives and the Senate:

(1) If the House of Representatives passes any proposed law, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the House of Representatives, in the same or the next session, again passes the proposed law with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously. But such dissolution shall not take place within six months before the date of the expiry of the House of Representatives by effluxion of time.

(2) If after such dissolution the House of Representatives again passes the proposed law, with or without any amendments which have been made, suggested, or agreed to by the Senate, and the Senate rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with amendments to which the House of Representatives will not agree, the Governor-General may convene a joint sitting of the members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives.

(3) The members present at the joint sitting may deliberate and shall vote together upon the proposed law as last proposed by the House of Representatives, and upon amendments, if any, which have been made therein by one House and not agreed to by the other, and any such amendments which are affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives shall be taken to have been carried, and if the proposed law, with the amendments, if any, so carried is affirmed by an absolute majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives, it shall be taken to have been duly passed by both Houses of the Parliament, and shall be presented to the Governor-General for the Queen’s assent.

There are 3 different conflicts which would be effected by Howard’s changeare affected by such a change: the House of Representatives-v-The Senate, the government executive (Cabinet) v legislative parliament, and small parties v the major parties.

For the first, a weakened Senate is a weakened legislative brake on the executive. The House of Reps and the Senate have different democratic features. The House of Reps has one vote one value but a “winner takes all” outcome. In theory a party with 51% of the vote can end up with 100% of the seats. The Senate has no equivalence of “one vote one value” with Tasmania returning as many senators as NSW and in that way is an unrepresentative house. But it is a proportional house returning a spread of senators across the political spectrum because each state is effectively a multi-member electorate. It has not represented states as was intended by the constitutional founders because the party system is so strong, but it has taken on the proportional representation role as a sort of house with multi member electorates instead.

For the second, I like it to be as difficult as possible for the executive to get legislation through. A powerful executive is a scary executive. The messier the business of government the more democratic. In striking a balance between efficiency and democracy it is best to err on the side of democracy. A more powerful executive would shift the balance of power between the executive, legislative and the judiciary arms of government.

For the third, the nature of the Senate makes it more friendly to smaller parties. It is no surprise that Labor has jumped on board the John Howard section 57 showboat with all the eagerness of a boy being offered candy. On this the 2 majors are as one. Once again it comes down to the efficiency/democracy mix.

I will be voting NO in any referendum to allow a joint sitting without a double dissolution election. Just as skeptics say “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” so too do extraordinary sittings, like a joint sitting, require extraordinary elections like a double dissolution.

A bill that can not be passed by the Senate is probably an extraordinary piece of legislation with much argument in the community, and an election would be the proof required by a government prosecuting its case.

 

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

Peter Costello has already made the point that Labor’s leadership tussle has become a series of Big Brother. It’s unprecedented – there’s no pretence at all that the party is not a clueless, rudderless mess, and it’s stripped off and bared its tired old body and excuse for a soul. The purpose? To ask a jaded public through Caucus to tell it who to pick to sell the sorry excuse for a great party to the public!

Did you see the Nine News of Friday night, in which Beazley is filmed lobbying a backbencher? He repeated the trick the next day for all the cameras. Today, it’s Bob Hawke at the races, backing Beazley. Every day it’s Crean and Beazley in endless TV and radio interviews.

It’s easy to be desperately depressed by all this, as many Webdiarists are. It looks like disintegration in the Democrats soap opera mould, except that all this public unravelling is about who is best as selling the message, with little or nothing about what the bloody message is! At least there was an ideological basis to the Democrats meltdown, whether they should be a centre-left or centre-right party.

Labor, it’s clear, doesn’t think it can win the next election. All passion spent, it’s given up, so a couple of old hands do the rounds before the Caucus decides who is most likely to minimise the damage.

But why has Labor given up? The polls, despite all Labor’s self-destructive behaviour, aren’t showing Howard’s a shoe-in. On the contrary, they’re showing the public is volatile, and ready to shift allegiances despite Howard’s popularity. And what’s his popularity about, anyway? Could it have something to do with his strength and commitment to his beliefs?

There’s a newish management theory around which says that sometimes a big, established company needs a crisis to trigger renewal. The buzz these days in management theory is about values – working out what they are and inspiring employees and managers to make their decisions using them.

The way to do that is to revisit, indeed relive, the beginnings of a company and the values which saw it grow from nothing, and then to put them at the centre of the company’s philosophy. Values, after all, are enduring – it’s only their application which needs to be adapted to changing circumstances. The exercise is urgent in times of intense change, so the company doesn’t lose it’s way through its bureaucracy, the latest fads, and the inevitable distortions and corruptions that develop over the decades.

AMP is a great case in point. As a not-for-profit mutual, its reputation for integrity, conservative money management and security was built over decades. It had its policy owners interests at heart. Yet upon its listing on the exchange after demutualisation, these values – and in the process the priceless brand name built upon them – were abandoned in favour of constant, risk-laden growth, spurred by high management incentives tied to the short term share price. The company has been devastated by that switch.

As you know, I’ve gone on and on about Labor’s need to take the plunge and do it’s own version of Fightback!, the detailed statement of philosophy, ideology and policy that the Liberals embraced in their darkest hour. That document united the party and inspired its followers. It gave them a mission, and a cause they believed worth fighting for.

Labor appears determined to do no such thing until it’s exhausted every other possible means of gaining power, including a public popularity contest between two old friends. I can think of no more humiliating admission that the Party is bankrupt.

On the other hand, this exercise in transparency may be to the good, in the end, if the Labor faithful and potential Labor voters make it crystal clear they want substance, not spin. They also need to make it clear that they’re not interested in defeatist parties which lack the guts to work out their core principles and fight for them. It looks like the people are Labor’s last chance to overcome its identity crisis.

I argued back in April that Beazley was Labor’s best shot, mainly because of the international climate of fear (Time for Labor’s Fightback!), but on the basis that he’d learned from his mistakes. On the evidence to date, he hasn’t.

Beazley came into the Herald’s Canberra office on Friday afternoon to chew the fat about what he’d done. He’d already seen the following memo penned by Steve Gibbons, the Labor member for Bendigo, which stated the policy case for backing Crean:

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5th June 2003

To members of the federal Parliamentary Labor Party

Some observations on our direction and leadership

The next time our opponents do something like pulling $100 million out of the Public Education Sector and giving it to the wealthiest Private Education Sector – we should oppose it – because if we don’t, we will lose the next federal election just like we lost the last election..

The next time our opponents do something like providing a 30% Medicare rebate just for those who are fortunate enough to have private health insurance – we should oppose it – because if we don’t, we will lose the next election just like we lost the last election.

The next time our opponents do something like sending a squad of fully kitted SAS out to board a vessel of helpless refugees – we should oppose it – because if we don’t we will lose the next election just like we lost the last election.

The next time our opponents do something like supporting a unilateral invasion from one nation on another – without United Nations approval – we should oppose it – because if we don’t we will lose the next election just as convincingly as we lost the last election.

If we return a leader and those around him who were responsible for losing the last two elections, then we will probably lose the next three.

Does anyone seriously think that the electorate will say ‘Good on you Labor, you’re just like John Howard, so we will vote for you?”

It’s been my experience that when those swinging voters who may be inclined to vote conservative are faced with a real conservative party and a pretend conservative party, they will go for the real thing every time.

We have to set ourselves apart from our opponents and provide a genuine alternative.

Any political party that allows the News Limited group to determine who leads it can’t reasonably expect to win the confidence of the electorate.

These are the reasons I strongly support Simon Crean’s leadership.

We should keep to that well established and timeless principle of putting in place policies that ensure that each and every Australian, no matter who they are or where they came from, are able to function at their full potential. If we allow this principle to guide our political judgment, then we will have maximised our chances of winning the next election.

***

This memo sets out the consequences of Beazley’s small target strategy. It was not simply, as our political commentators now claim, that Beazley put off announcing policy until the last minute. That was bad enough, as it allowed Howard to spend all the spare cash on things to help his political cause – and which Labor in small target mode always accepted to keep the target small, with the effect that there was nothing left to spend when the election came.

No, it was worse than that. Labor voted for legislation which began to destroy Medicare – its proudest achievement – and which advantaged elite schools at the expense of disadvantaged children.

When I put this to Beazley in the office, he explained his reasoning behind the schools decision. You’ll recall Labor spent a lot of time condemning this funding choice, yet when the time came voted for it. Beazley said the reason was “strategic” – to let the Coalition wear the odium, then take the money away from the elite schools if it got to power. He also said that Crean concurred in this course of action.

To seek to blame Crean for the failing shows Beazley still doesn’t know the meaning of leadership, that the buck stops with him. Crean appears to have learnt from Beazley’s failure, and adopted a front-foot approach.

But the real tragedy is that this Labor “strategy” forgot about what any political party is supposed to be in the game for – to effect outcomes. The outcome of this rollover was that schools with excellent facilities and teachers got money at the expense of chronically disadvantaged schools attended by disadvantaged children. (As expected, the price to attend an elite private school didn’t go down because of the extra cash, and instead went up, thus cutting out any argument that extra funding would give more people the chance to send their kids there. The same thing happened with the private health insurance rebate – far from stabilising, prices have skyrocketed, forcing people to opt out.)

Labor is supposed to believe in equal opportunity for all our children. Its strategy meant that it was prepared to betray that core principle for perceived political advantage, thus cruelling the chances of some of our most vulnerable children.

The strategy is also so naive as to beggar belief. Every politician knows that once a group or an individual gets something from government, its awfully difficult to take it back. This is part of the reason why Howard has so successfully implemented his agenda – Beazley’s small target strategy gave it to him on a plate, entrenching his supporter base.

A courageous opposition would have demanded that the $100 million go direct to the most disadvantaged schools in Australia – public and private. It would have trumpeted its belief that no matter who you are or where you come from, it is fundamental to the Australian ethos that each child gets a fair go. It could go further, proclaiming that this policy is a recipe for a stable, relaxed and comfortable Australia, and that it implements core Australian values.

Beazley’s small target strategy cost his Party more than a sellout of its basic principles. It also turned off solid Labor supporters, who stopped arguing the cause of their party in the pubs and clubs and lost all energy for the cause because it had disappeared. Modern Labor can’t inspire its true believers, let alone convince swinging voters. As Webdiarist Imi Bokor writes in his contribution today:

During election campaigns even ten years ago, tea-rooms, pubs, etc were abuzz with people arguing for the ALP’s cause, even if not uncritical of some of their policies or personnel. There was none of that during the last two elections. The best one could hear was that Howard had to go. But to the question “How would the ALP be significantly better, rather than just slower in implementing Howard’s policies?” the usual answer was an embarrassed silence, or a feeble “But anything is better than having to listen to Howard.” In other words, even the ALP’s supporters don’t believe in the ALP. So why should the uncommitted support the ALP when even the ALP supporters don’t believe in the ALP as it is?

I’m praying that before this appalling week is over for Labor, at least one of the two contenders will give a speech about what he believes Labor stands for, and make a commitment to run the opposition, then the government, according to those core beliefs.

As I wrote in Our yearning for a voice above politics, the day before Howard rubbed Costello’s nose in the dirt, the man and his vision are very vulnerable. Costello himself pointed to Howard’s core weakness when he quoted back Howard’s implicit lie after he was appointed deputy to Andrew Peacock – that he would not challenge for the leadership.

The children overboard scandal proved that Howard is willing to lie to win office. His lie that he was not committed to war is fresher, and the now compelling evidence that the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia lied about their intelligence on Saddam’s WMD’s further sullies Howard’s credibility. In my opinion. Howard’s idea to gut the Senate shows he is at a stage in his career where he’s over-reaching himself, in this case by blowing apart his solid reputation as a constitutional conservative.

Both Crean and Beazley need to drink a cup of courage, name Howard’s sins for what they are, and pledge to the Australian people that they will tell them the truth, and that when they can’t, for whatever reason, they will refuse to comment rather than lie. They need to prove the quality of this commitment with policies to clean up accountability in government big time, and to let the people into the political process, not lock them out of it.

They also need to drink the cup of faith in the justice of their cause and the overall judgement of the Australian people and tell them how they see it and why. Sure, opposing a rebate for private health insurance is a hard sell, but it’s a matter worthy of detailed public debate. The Australian people deserve to have the arguments put to them so they know the longer term implications of a short term benefit.

And most importantly, Crean and/or Beazley need to trust that even if the Australian people disagree with them, they’ll respect them for having the courage of unpopular convictions.

I don’t think Beazley has leant any of the lessons of his failures. The fact that he’s backed by two of the most cynical machine men in Labor politics – Stephen Smith and Wayne Swan, the same men who helped devise the small target strategy – tells its own story. The fact that he denies to this day that he had a small target strategy – a strategy admitted by everyone else in the Party, including its officials – is terrifying.

For mine, unless Beazley makes a very big speech this week containing very big admissions of error, very big statements of core principles and very big commitments to take Howard on where it really counts – on policy – he doesn’t deserve another chance.

A Crean win could be the making of the man. He showed he’s got it in him when he gave his breakthrough budget reply speech. If he wins this ballot, he’s got nothing to lose by going for it. True, he’s not a great “connector”, but then again, neither was Howard until he became Prime Minister.

C’mon Beazley, prove you’ve got what it takes. Please.

***

Today’s contributors to the leadership debate are Chris Zanek (a former Webdiary star making his comeback under cover of a nom de plume), John Carson, David Davis, Robert Nicoll, John Stickle, Imi Bokorand Peter Kelly. To end, a piece by SIEV-X whistleblower Tony Kevin on the contender’s records on the SIEV-X scandal.

Since Labor’s Big Brother is this week’s compulsory viewing, I’ll run as many of your contributions as possible for the rest of the week. I’d especially like your ideas on what core Labor values really are. It would be good if you could advise which party you support, so we all get a context.

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The Beazley Bubble

by Chris Zanek

As safe as houses they say. But recently I’ve been wondering just how safe houses are. How can a fragile fifty year old shell of asbestos cement and roofing tin three hours walk from the nearest train station really be worth thirty years of mortgage poverty? The Economist magazine says it’s a bubble and many domestic analysts agree.

I’ve been wondering about Kim Beazley too. Are those polling numbers just a bubble? All his talk about securing a future for the folks at their kitchen tables, the folks with their overstretched pay packets, their bills, and their fridge magnets makes him sound like a real estate agent. Crean’s public opinion numbers are as limp as the stock market the Beazley people say. By contrast Kim’s polling numbers look like bricks and mortar – a safe bet in an uncertain world.

But is the Beazley bubble about to burst? Maybe it’s time to short sell the big fella and buy up some Creanite loyalty while it’s going cheap. Or maybe there’s some asset class nobody’s bought into yet – something young with long term growth potential.

But then again, you shouldn’t listen to me. I’m the guy who said Howard was a dead cat bouncing… a rocket propelled cat with six lives to go was more like it.

So like everyone else without a stake in the market I’ll be sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how it all goes down. And down is where somebody’s headed. When the knives start to fall it’s time to watch your back.

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John Carson in Copacabana, NSW

My memories of the Beazley leadership are of a weak man who completely lost his way. His tactic on most issues was to criticise aspects of the policy of the Howard government and then, in order to avoid exposing himself to criticism from the government, to adopt the government’s policy as his own, perhaps with minor qualifications. This happened on the GST, on the capital gains tax, on the subsidy to private health funds, and on asylum seekers.

Regarding asylum seekers, I remember one incident in particular. In the sinking of the SIEV-X the mother from one family survived but her three daughters drowned. Her husband was the holder of a temporary protection visa in Australia, which meant he could not leave Australia to comfort his grieving wife without forfeiting his right to return. The Howard government refused to grant him special permission to visit his wife and Kim Beazley explicitly supported this decision. Even from the perspective of someone who felt strongly that illegal immigration needed to be deterred, this was an astonishingly inflexible and callous position to adopt. After all, by the granting of the temporary protection visa, the husband had been judged to be a genuine refugee.

In his concession speech after his second election loss, Beazley had the following to say:

“We have a nation with a capacity for a generosity of heart. Like any nation, there are dark angels in our nation but there are also good angels as well. And the task and challenge for those of us in politics is to bring out the generosity that resides in the soul of the ordinary Australian, that generosity of heart, so that we as a nation turn to each other and not against each other in the circumstances which [we] have.”

I can vividly recall my disgust at hearing these words. Did he not realise that he had done the exact opposite by supporting the Howard government’s refugee policy? Was he that lacking in self-awareness? Or did he believe that the expression of a few noble sentiments in defeat made up for the absence of such sentiments while he was leader?

Beazley has proved that he is not up to the job as leader. He should not be given a second chance. Simon Crean has shown some admirable strength on occasion and the ALP vote seems to be holding up, even if the voters don’t like Crean himself. He is certainly a better choice than Beazley. It is to be hoped, however, that some other candidates will present themselves.

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David Davis in Switzerland

The leadership situation in the Labor Party is a joke. Some of the stuff both Beazley and Crean have been saying has been truly laughable. Beazley carries on as if he was an enormous success when he was leader. The only time I ever saw him deliver in a convincing manner was when he made his concession speech on election night. That one seemed to have conviction.

I reckon that came about because the nightmare was over for him. He was exhilarated because it was over. Most of the time he simply can’t be bothered with it because he truly is lazy and complacent. For the rest of his leadership period he was the kind of guy who was difficult to dislike but he could never have been regarded as inspirational or particularly original. I suppose that made him the opposite of Keating and why for some he was a welcome change.

As for Crean, no one wanted him in the first place. No one in the electorate that is. Ever since he was elected leader he hasn’t said much of interest. I never particularly liked him but the situation is so pathetic now that I actually find myself feeling sorry for him!

Think of that first Hawke government and the talent they had back then. Now fast forward to now. What a mess they are in.

As for Costello, I can’t figure out his surprise. There simply isn’t a reason for John Howard to hand over. Howard is popular, he is healthy. The problem with Costello is that he only appeals to people like me. I think he’s terrific and I would love to see him as PM. The problem is I’m atypical and don’t fit that beloved “Howard Battler” category that is so important to winning the elections. Appealing to people like me is worthless (in an electoral sense). His smaller L Liberal values will not get people switching from Labor or the Greens and they can only serve to alienate the “Howard Battler” group.

There will continue to be no comfortable home for economic and social liberals. Labor is a “me too” party, the Greens are too “out there” and the Democrats died some time ago.

***

Robert Nicoll

From my position outside in the electorate, neither candidate for the Labor leadership ballot coming up is likely to appeal. Beazley had his chance, twice. Crean hasn’t come up with the goods. It’s time for someone who isn’t tainted with the past two elections and the current furore.

Coming up with good policy does not fit as fair dinkum for these two who avoided it for so long – it doesn’t appear real. Bring on a fresh face to implement the sound policies proposed in the budget-reply speech, and it will be taken as fair dinkum.

****

John Stickle in Daglish, WA

Kim Beazley as a Lazarus-like leader? A leader who curled up into a ball like a hibernating bear during the last election campaign and declined to annunciate clear, accountable policies. I’d strike him of my cadastre of potential leaders.

The Labor Party has a proud history of politicians and statesmen who had a real job amongst average Australian wage earners before entering politics. Where are they now? Today we get apparatchiks who start their working life with the intention to become a politician and work their way through the rarified environment of trade union offices, electorate offices or political think tanks.

But then we get the politicians we deserve, a very depressing thought.

***

Imi Bokor

You are right when you wrote in Labor’s least-unpopular election that the ALP “betrayed its followers” and that we need “a genuine, hard-fought alternative”.

The ALP needs to ask itself: If a voter is in favour of “economic rationalism” – an oxymoron par excellence – why would (s)he vote for Johnnie-come-lately wannabees rather than the established experts? If a voter is opposed to “economic rationalism” why would (s)he vote for self-confessed proponents of it? It’s a case of “Heads they win. Tails we lose.”

The statistics speak clearly. The last three Federal elections have seen the ALP’s support plummet to – and remain at – historic lows. It is NOT a question of who is the ALP’s candidate for the Prime Ministership.The problem does NOT lie with the PR facilities available. One simple observation gives the game away:

During election campaigns even ten years ago, tea-rooms, pubs, etc were abuzz with people arguing for the ALP’s cause, even if not uncritical of some of their policies or personnel. There was none of that during the last two elections. The best one could hear was that Howard had to go. But to the question “How would the ALP be significantly better, rather than just slower in implementing Howard’s policies?” the usual answer was an embarrassed silence, or a feeble “But anything is better than having to listen to Howard.”

In other words, even the ALP’s supporters don’t believe in the ALP. So why should the uncommitted support the ALP when even the ALP supporters don’t believe in the ALP as it is?

As to those with a commitment to the sorts of ideals and aims which were the basis of the ALP’s support until the Hawke-Keating years, the question the ALP needs to ask itself is: Why should any previous supporter of the ALP’s policies vote for the ALP when the enduring legacy of the Hawke-Keating years is to have made Malcolm Fraser look like a socialist?

These questions all have an obvious answer, and would not be needed to be asked if the ALP were serious.

I am confident that the coalition would have lost the last two elections if the number of “informal votes” could have been halved. I am confident that a large proportion of informal votes is from electors who refuse to choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and don’t wish to pay a fine.

No PR-company’s opinion poll will reflect these simple home truths. The Democrats also fell victim to such “market research”. Before the last election, I spoke with NSW Democrats Vicki Bourne about the danger she was in. Vicki explained that the “party strategists” had done the “market research” and were confident that it would be a close victory for the Democrats in the fight against the Greens for the last Senate seat. I replied that while having Natasha Stott-Despoja as leader would certainly help a great deal, she had too little time to regain the confidence of the Democrat supporters, and that her only effect would be to make the rout look like a mere defeat. I had listened to (by then former) Democrat voters and the overwhelming view was a sense of betrayal, specifically on the GST and Industrial Relations.

Well, you know what happened at the elections, and you see what has happened since the Democrats dumped Stott-Despoja. The ALP does to seem to realise that it is in an analogous situation, with NO potential leader to regain the lost ground.

Stott-Despoja’s appeal lay in her adhering to principles. Her principal handicaps were that she was young, an attractive woman, intelligent, vivacious and articulate. (This is a sad reflection on the Australian electorate!)

The ALP has no serious prospect until and unless it returns to what used to be the basic platform for its policies for about 100 years. Until then, it’ll continue to battle to maintain 30-33% of the primary vote, at best.

***

Peter Kelly

I am not surprised by Howard’s decision. In late 2001 I said that Howard will be PM for at least another 10 years and I still believe this is likely, as much as I abhor his politics and his vision of Australia. I think the Tampa affair will go down as the event that most replicates the Petrov affair in the 50s, an affair that was masterly manipulated to good effect by Menzies and denied Labor any chance of winning government for at least 10 years. In the event, Labor did not attain office for another 20 years.

Then, it was “reds under the bed” and the “yellow peril”; the fear of communism, based in part on xenophobia, that split the Labor vote and the party. In 2001, it was and still is, a fear of refugees, also based in part on xenophobia and it will keep Labor from office for at least a decade. The sight of a carcass floating down the river with smoking ruins lining the river bank describes the Labor Party today.

Labor is damned however it responds and though the issue may become a sleeper, world events which give rise to the refugee issue will not cease and it can always be rekindled in time for an election. Howard can do this better than anyone else in the Liberal Party.

The Liberal government may have a soft under belly on domestic issues but who cares about budget deficits when “reffos” are going to “rape your wives, dirty the neighborhood, and crowd you out of your own home”. And Labor is unable to articulate domestic issues because Labor has lost its nerve and its credibility to act as a cohesive opposition. In short it has no sense of purpose and responds to the glare of scrutiny like a deer caught in the head lights.

I believe Howard is vain enough, and history aware enough, to at least want to be the second longest serving PM in Australia’s history, and he is in a position where he can choose to do this and then add some, there being no effective opposition. The Liberal Party cannot lose with Howard but it can possibly lose with Peter Costello and any other possible Liberal leader.

I have to agree that Beazley is the best chance that Labor has of gaining office, but if Beasley is the best hope Labor has then this is a sad statement on the state of the party. Labor has little chance of winning office with Beazley and no chance without him.

But who will vote for Labor? As much as I despise the Howard government I could not ever bring myself to vote for Labor. And Beasley would be a much too conservative PM for my liking. I see no chance of Labor changing the type of organisation it is today – a poll nervous, image conscious, small target, form over substance, top down machine capable of anything, up to and including, selling out refugees for votes. It is no longer my party. I only care because the alternative is, and has been, truly horrendous. Back to the 50s style censorship, and xenophobia, combined with brutal corporate friendly economics, from which the public gaze has been diverted with the efficiency of Herman Goering towards those “those who will harm us”.

The refugee issue comes down to a shyster pointing out with one hand those people over there who will harm you, while dipping the other hand into the pocket of the xenophobicly distracted.

***

SIEV-X, Kim Beazley and Simon Crean

by Tony Kevin

For people who care about establishing truth and accountability for the deaths of 353 people on SIEV X, the current leadership challenge in Labor is of profound importance. It is also profoundly important to all Australians, whether ALP members or not (I am not), because it will define the political alternative to Howard that we are offered at the next election.

The SIEV-X story is a major litmus test in defining what Australia is now and what kind of Australia we will pass on to our children. If we as a nation and a political culture do not have the collective guts to face up to our national security authorities’ possible shared responsibility for the deaths of 353 innocent victims, mostly women and kids, whose only “crime” was to seek peacefully a safe refuge and new home in Australia, then there is little hope for our nation or for its much-vaunted “values”.

So let’s look at the current and past profiles on SIEV X of Kim Beazley and Simon Crean.

Beazley initially reacted strongly and humanely to the breaking news of the SIEV-X tragedy on 23 October 2001. He condemned it as a policy failure by the Howard government, in that they had not achieved effective arrangements with Indonesia to stop such asylum-seeker boats from leaving Indonesia. He said Labor’s regional diplomacy would have been more effective in stopping the problem at source.

When Howard reacted scathingly, claiming that Beazley was trying to score political points over a human tragedy, Beazley quickly went silent on the sinking . No doubt this was part of Labor’s prevailing “small target” electoral strategy. Since 18 September, when Labor agreed to pass all the anti-boat people immigration bills re-presented by Howard to Parliament, “the fight had gone out of Labor” (Dark Victory, Marr and Wilkinson, pages 155-156). In a comment to Marr and Wilkinson, Beazley recalls this phase of border protection:

“Nobody had been killed or beaten up or hurt in any way .. beyond a bit of jostling there hadn’t been anything of a particularly underworld character.”

This was 15 days into Operation Relex and three weeks after the tragic drama of the Palapas rescue by MV Tampa. The 400 people crowded onto the stricken “Palapa” had already narrowly escaped capsizing and drowning in an overnight storm, while Australia’s Coastwatch air surveillance had for 22 hours deliberately ignored their obvious distress signals. After MV Tampa’s rescue, their human rights had been grossly abused by Australian authorities, under the appalled gaze of a watching world. The first three SIEVs in Operation Relex had already been intercepted and the asylum-seekers on board treated cruelly and abusively by Australian Navy vessels at Ashmore Reef and on the troopship “Manoora” .

Of course most of this (except for Tampa) was still being kept secret from the public at the time. It dribbled out later, over a very long period. But we know from the “unthrown children inquiry” that from the time the election was called on October 5, Beazley as Leader of the Opposition in the caretaker election period was getting regular defence briefings from the Chief of the Defence Force, Admiral Chris Barrie. Operation Relex was the ADF’s top priority at the time, so one can assume that Beazley was being kept in the picture by Navy on how it saw Operation Relex as going. To judge by his comment quoted above, it was all pretty much OK by him.

Not only this: under normal arrangements for the election period, Beazley or his security-cleared staff would have been offered a selection of key national security and defence related cables each day. This means he almost certainly was briefed on the crucial 23 October 2001 cable from the Australian Embassy in Jakarta (released on 4 February 2003) reporting that SIEV X had sunk “up to 8 degrees south latitude” (which a glance at any map would show was far south of Sunda Strait, and well inside the announced Operation Relex area of operations), and “in the Indonesian search and rescue zone” (which extends to south of Christmas Island, ie covers the whole of the Operation Relex zone) .Yet at no stage did Beazley challenge Howards blatant public misrepresentations starting on 23 October that the boat had sunk “in Indonesian waters” and therefore “was not Australia’s responsibility”. Unless I am wrong on this, there seems a good chance that Beazley knew from the beginning these were lies.

According to Dark Victory (pages 242-243), Beazley kept silent when Neville Wran spoke passionately to a Party fundraiser in Sydney on 25 October on the tragedy of SIEV-X. Beazley declined to call on Howard to allow Sondos Ismail’s bereaved husband Ahmed Al-Zalimi to fly from Australia to Indonesia to comfort her over the loss of their three little daughters Zhra, Fatima and Eman. He did not want another front page lost to the drowned children. He said, “I was not going to give the government another days worth of debate on the subject.” (Dark Victory, page 243).

Dark Victory has many index references to Beazley, but perhaps these words on the final days of the election campaign best sum up M and W’s views, which concurs with my recollections of the period (pages 274-275):

“Beazley was convinced that every word he spoke about the asylum-seekers only helped John Howard’s election prospects. He was right because he had spent the whole campaign locked in step with Howards border protection policies.

“Beazley and his staff were angry that the press was once again dominated by stories from Operation Relex. They deeply resented church attacks on the party’s refugee policy and what they saw as the left-wing moralists in the party criticising their leader. Beazley’s rhetoric had often been as strident as Howard’s against queue jumpers and those “criminals who take advantage of our generosity”. He had tried to neutralise Howard on border protection while talking about the real issues .. jobs, health, education.”

Nineteen months later, it is clear that Beazley and his advisers still do not get it. The Labor Party knows now that Howard’s defence and other public service officials misled the unthrown children inquiry over many months, leading to a flawed exoneration of Australian authorities conduct over SIEV-X (see ALP Senator Cook, 5 February 2003, Senate Hansard pages 293-294).

ALP Senators Faulkner and Collins have pursued assiduously the subterfuges and deceptions in Government testimony since that inquiry report, and started to uncover what was happening in the AFP people smuggling disruption program. They know there are many very worrying “smoking guns” here. The Senate opposition parties and independents passed two major motions on SIEV-X on 10 and 11 December 2002.

Yet for 19 months, Beazley has not to my knowledge said a word on any of these matters. His office never replied to my repeated offers to brief him on SIEV-X. Now, when he again stands for Labor leadership, his June 6 press conference contains not a single word on such matters. His press conference strikes me as his 2001 campaign revisited. He played on the mantra word “security”, apparently assuming once again that he is talking to the same frightened and xenophobic Australian public as in October 2001. It is dog-whistle politics again, based on a strategy: “I can get us over the line into government, as long as I don’t have to talk about moral issues or refugees”.

The trouble is that Howard with his now corrupted and compliant national security apparatus, not to mention a cynically supportive Murdoch press, has the power to fine-tune the national security agenda to cook up whatever scare suits him, when it suits him. If Howard wants to frighten the electorate with another phoney border protection or terrorism scare campaign, he has the resources to bring this on. Beazley as a leader still clinging to his small-target strategy would face his 2001 agony all over again, trying desperately to get voters to focus on the “real” issues, while morally principled voters again deserted a silent Labor in disgust for the smaller opposition parties, and Howard again seduced confused voters with siren songs of national security.

Beazley would have no defence against such tactics, having again boxed himself in. In playing by Howard’s rules, Beazley would always be beaten by Howard. Beazley still naively imagines the next election may be a level playing field; but with Howard there, it will not be. It is now too late for Beazley to change course on this, even if he wanted to (and there is no sign from his June 6 media conference that he does).

Crean is very different. He is morally untainted by the refugee issue: he was not publicly prominent in this area up to October 2001. He dropped the unimpressive Con Sciacca and appointed Julia Gillard as a capable new migration shadow minister. She has proceeded cautiously, but she and Crean rightly went on the attack over children in detention. She brilliantly skewered Ruddock in Parliament last week over corrupted migration processes. Crean has given free rein to Labor Senators to pursue the truth on SIEV-X and to work with other parties for the crucial December 2002 Senate motions. He sustained with great courage a principled position on the unlawful Iraq invasion, and held off heavyhanded US Embassy pressure in a dignified way . His party has protested the cruel and unlawful detention without charge or trial of two Australian citizens by the US military in Cuba. He has in recent days sent a moving and appropriate message to the Jannah SIEV-X victims memorial website:

“The death of 353 people, mostly women and children, on the SIEV X was a shocking tragedy. The Labor Party joins with others in expressing our deepest sorrow and regret that this event occurred, particularly so close to Australia. It is a reminder that the evil trade in people smuggling is dangerous and unpredictable. Together we must work harder to put an end to people smuggling, and to hold those responsible for the SIEV X sinking accountable. This episode only strengthens our resolve to ensure that international human rights are respected and upheld.”

Simon Crean is thus laying the basis, albeit carefully, for a different kind of Labor politics that the electorate will see and appreciate.

Beazley has done none of these things. SIEV-X is off his screen. I don’t think he understands why it matters. I think that his view of Australia’s national security may be, at bottom, as limited and flawed as is Howards. It is all “boys with toys” stuff.

Neither Beazley nor Howard seems to understands that national security has to start with one basic idea – Australians should behave with decency towards our fellow human beings, whatever their race, religion, nationality, or present circumstances. Howard’s government violates that idea every day by its actions and rhetoric. Beazley violates it by his deafening silences. Crean is showing that this is an ideal he aspires to as Labor’s leader.

That is why I pray that Crean holds the Labor leadership, and that he will have a chance after this challenge to consolidate Labor’s alternative views on moral issues that matter, as well as on “the real issues” of jobs health and education. And I hope his parliamentary party as a whole will get down finally to supporting him.