Which side are you on?

Since the Election - despite this blog post - I have been literally dumb-struck by the audacity and hubris of the Abbott Government. I say dumb-struck because I fully intended to maintain a watchful vigil via my blog on the expected outrages of the new Liberal Government (and the word "liberal" really sticks in my throat - it should be the  "Libertarian" Party).  But with the exception of this one outing, I have been unable to find the words.  I haven't known where to begin. There is so much to say, it is impossible to know where to start.

I'm not sure if this has been the Liberal strategy - some sort of Tory Shock-and-Awe type effort, but the list of outrages is too long to note here. Fortunately, these guys have kept an excellent tally.

I think where I have been going wrong is trying to itemise the crimes of this new government - and so in the interest of actually getting something written, I'm not going to do that. In the areas of the environment, industrial relations, refugees, regulation, foreign aid as Tanya Plibersek said at a party BBQ I attended yesterday, "Day after day we are seeing Tony Abbott attack the things we care so deeply about."

So while my blogging ambitions failed, I had no other way to vent spleen about the horror of these last 6 months but to shout abuse at the TV news like a madman and rant and rave on Twitter. I soon realised this was not a healthy way forward and was getting me no where, but at the same time I don't want to disconnect from the debate. It is at times like this that protest and dissent are at their most important.

But in the last week I have found tremendous solace in immersing myself in among brethren. On Sunday I attended the March in March, which while somewhat futile (particularly because of its somewhat misguided demand for the Governor General to sack the Government - which is never going to happen) did serve to be quite cathartic. Marching amid 12,000 others all equally as outraged just made me feel like I wasn't alone. Even the sign pictured above seemed to perfectly articulate my dumb-struckness.

But the cathartic effect of "being with your own" was later perfectly articulated by Billy Bragg on the Tuesday at a small gig he did in the Student Bar of Sydney University. "The most important part of my job," he said, "is to make you feel that you're not the only one who gives a shit about this stuff."

The similarities between Abbott and Billy Bragg's nemesis in chief are stark and being in the same room with him brought back so many memories. Thatcher was put on the agenda for Bragg the very day he arrived when Gina Rinehart went to press with the idea that "Australia needs a good dose of Thatcherism".  This struck a chord with Billy naturally - "when your Government vilifies those drawing welfare, that's Thatcherism right there," he told the March in March crowd, pointing out that he was already noticing plenty of parallels with the dark days of 80s Britain.  

Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek at the Supporters BBQ put it well - "what I love about the Labor Party is that we all share the same values" and as I chatted with those who had turned out the value that came through most strongly was "social justice" and I realised that Abbott's assault on that was what was giving me so much irritation, and causing so much anger.  So many of his initiatives seek to erode social justice in favour of Liberal Party cronies looking to make easy bucks.  (I think the imminent repeal of financial reforms thought neccessary after the Storm and Opus Prime scandals are the best example of this.) 

Bragg talked about how divisive Thatcher was, and I wished he had drawn the parallel more strongly that Tony Abbott is also incredibly divisive.  He doesn't govern for Australia, he doesn't even govern for those that elected him. He governs for his party and the vested interests that got him into government.  He has no interest in social justice, he has no concern for the vulnerable in society, he doesn't even have any regard for the future Australia beyond his tenure.  As the cuts and austerity and the demonising of the vulnerable rain down, said Billy, you have to "make sure there's a reckoning" as he broke into the old Woody Guthrie number, "All you fascists are bound to lose".   

Question is: as Tony Abbott divides us, which side are you on?

Finally, his most helpful advice - from a veteran protester and Socialist - was "to organise".  In between a rendition of "Which side are you on?" and "There is power in a Union" he stressed the importance of organising.  "The absolute key to protest and change is: you have to organise," he said. Whinging and complaining is not going to achieve anything. Democratically removing a party from power is the only way to channel that energy.  I might blog as I go, but ultimately, attending branch meetings, protesting the issues and getting out the vote at elections is what it will take.  All this to the March in March chant:

"Hey hey, ho ho; One-Term-Tony has got to go!"


Australysium: is that what we want?

E·ly·si·um  (-lz-m, -lzh-)

n.
1. Greek Mythology i.e: The Elysian Fields.
2. A place or condition of ideal happiness.
3. A 2013 American dystopian science fiction action thriller film 


I was of course aware of the comparisons made between the movie Elysium and the Australian Immigration issue before I finally sat down to watch it.  Not least because of Matt Damon's own effective "issue-jacking" efforts here in Sydney last year.  But the comparison was made all the more more pertinent by the circumstances of my viewing: the final stages of a long flight to Australia.  The film itself is not strong - with Jodie Foster's disappointing performance a stark low point.  But it does do an excellent job of abstracting the issue and thereby very effectively driving home the ugly reality in which we live - a reality the political debate clouds and disrupts on a daily basis.

Without spoiling it for anyone, the plot basically envisages a derelict planet earth ruined by disease, over population and abject poverty.  The wealthy have escaped this harsh environment to recreate their affluent lifestyles on a manufactured planet orbiting the earth.  Very early in the movie, the extremes to which the Elysians are willing to go to protect this privileged existence are illustrated by a scene where desperate earth dwellers, transported unofficially on spaceships by futuristic human traffickers, are brutally shot down in outer space.   

While a couple of events on the plane as we neared closer to Australia brought into clear focus the similarities between Australia and Elysium; I was struck just today by a story where asylum-seekers on a boat to Australia have been turned back by the Australian Navy and subsequently run aground off the Indonesian coast.  In a quite bizarre life-imitates-art irony, the language used in the film to describe the dichotomy of existences (e.g: a "caravan of illegal immigrants from Earth") has been echoed unknowingly by the new Abbott Government (the script pre-dates the policy).  Soon after taking power, in a distastefully cynical piece of semantics, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison ordained that what had previously been called "clients" now be referred to as "illegals".

As we came into land in Sydney, our screens all started playing what purported to be a "Welcome to Australia" message but was in fact a long list of strict prohibitions and regulations with which the Australian Government protects this far-flung idyll.  But more pertinently still, our plane was required to sit on the tarmac for half an hour while an unwell passenger was appraised for mandatory quarantine by Immigration officials.  While this has happened often on my arrivals in Australia; the Elysium message still resonating around my mind meant the Ivory-Tower security we have built, and seldom think twice about, seemed writ-large to me.

Like satire, Science Fiction is very good at abstracting an issue by removing it from the day-to-day and place it in new light.  Elysium's director had already achieved this very well with his most famous success: District 9.  What sat most awkwardly with me was my own reaction to the citizens of Elysium.  Their obvious contempt and rejection of their fellow human beings back on Earth was repulsive.  Meanwhile the oblivious nature of their luxurious existences in light of the mayhem down below seemed as offensive as it was soulless.  But they are - of course - us. However, the Abbott Government which has shrouded the execution of its immigration policy in secrecy and mis-information - will justify its anti-democratic and Kremlinesque clandestineness by telling itself that this is what we want, while telling us that it is protecting us from what we prefer to live in denial of.  Is this how we want the issue to be treated?

I don't want to be an Elysian.  I've always been uncomfortable with the stark contrast between the circumstances of my own emigration to Australia and those from other - dare I say it, non-Anglo-Saxon cultures - who would have arrived at the same time (as missives from those early years will attest).  While I was welcomed with open arms (a welcome I remain nevertheless grateful for, I stress); the fact that other arrivals who didn't arrive by plane, or from the West, and in desperate situations languished in detention centres.  Their claims for asylum were processed lethargically and ultimately they would only secure Temporary Protection Visas and not the 1st class citizenship I was quickly and easily granted.

I hope and urge that in 2014, the Opposition and Greens are able to use Parliament to legislate for more transparency in the Government's handling of this issue so we are all exposed fully to just how cruel and inhumane it is.  I hope also that a great deal more compassion is injected into the debate than currently exists - compassion the current Government, and particularly the Minister, seems bereft of.

While so much of the plot of the film is laughable, many of the performances woeful and reliance on special effects fails to obscure its undeniable B-movie character; its denouement certainly does remind us that we should regard refugees and asylum seekers as one-of-us and that in a parallel universe or distant future we could easily find ourselves in their shoes - there but for the grace of God go we.  I am sure were we to do so, we would find our Elysian behaviour quite abhorrent and enraging. 



Pride Comes Before a Fall

On a weekend where the England cricket team yet again encountered spectacular and humiliating disaster in Australia, I had the opportunity to visit the scenes of two other spectacular disasters where supposedly superior attacking sides allowed complacency and hubris to let defending sides unpick them with calamitous results.  Obviously though, the price to pay at Agincourt and The Somme was far more grave than a loss of pride and the possible concession of a small urn of burnt wood.

When it comes to military disasters, there are few more spectacular than the Somme.  Marshall Haig's plan was as audacious as it was flawed. On paper the plan to shell the Germans out of existence and then calmly saunter across No Man's Land and occupy their corpse-ridden trenches was compelling but failed to take account of the fact that the Germans had had months to dig themselves so deeply and safely into the ground that they could have probably survived a nuclear attack.  Furthermore, it also failed to appreciate the shoddy production of the shells the British planned to throw at the Germans, meaning that all the barbed wire that would be supposedly obliterated was still there as so many shells failed to explode.  Finally, while the attack was postponed by two days because of bad weather, there weren't enough shells to sustain the barrage.  But apart from that it was a brilliant plan, and was certain to succeed.  Therein lay the problem.

So on July the 1st, 1916, as the barrage moved west, the whistles blew and thousands of Allied troops went over the top on a hot summer's day expecting to find empty trenches and spoils.  They didn't, they got slaughtered.  In the time it took them to stroll across No Man's Land the Germans had time to emerge from their deeply dug-in positions, dust themselves off and load up their machine guns to mow them down.  Along the front on that first day alone were 60,000 casualties and some 20,000 dead. July 1 1916 was the single worst day in British Military History.   

Among the many dead were, like those in the Ypres Salient (which I visited 3 years ago), were thousands whose bodies were never found or identified and whose names are recorded on the walls of the Thiepval Memorial.  Among them were Percy Jeeves, the accomplished Country Cricket Player after whom PG Woodhouse based his famous butler character.  Also William Mcfadzean who won the Victoria Cross for throwing himself on a box of explosives that would have blown up his mates, absorbing their fate.  Also two of the tragic five Souls Brothers who all died in the war to end all wars.

The map in the Visitor's Centre has two kinds of arrows denoting British activity.  Those representing successful attacks and those representing failures.  There weren't many of the former, but I'm proud to say that some of the objectives that were achieved were by the Welsh in the centre.  The 38th Welsh Division - comprising the South Wales Borderers (of Rorke's Drift fame), Welsh Fusiliers and the Welsh Regiments recruited from the Rhondda Valley (where my family harks from) took Mametz Village on day 1 and by the time they were relieved on the 12th July they had cleared Mametz Wood of the enemy as they were required to do.  The triumphant memorial (pictured) is one of the more uplifting sites on the Somme front, although more than 4,000 casualties were sustained in those two weeks.  Later we visited the cemetery where contemporaries of my Great Grand Father, a gunner, were buried who had died shelling the Germans in support of their countrymen down in the valley, however Morgan Llewellyn survived the action and lived into the 1960s.

It was Welshmen again who, 500 years earlier and not far from the bloody fields of the Somme, played an important role in the other case of hubris being an army's undoing.  When 30,000 French knights and foot soldiers arrived on a muddy field in Agincourt on St Crispin's Day in October 1415, they understood themselves to outnumber their English and Welsh enemy by 4-to-1.  They were right, Henry V's army had dwindled from the 12,000 that had landed at Calais to a meagre 8,000.  Among the French were the bulk of France's entire nobility including several Royal Princes.  This would be the day when this brilliant assembly of France's most impressive knights would avenge the defeats at Crecy and Poitiers by putting their sick and weak English foe to the sword.  But their complacency allowed them to be invited into a narrow and muddy field flanked on both sides by dense woodland - as it still is today - and the Welsh bowmen showered 10 arrows a minute each down upon them as they advanced towards the English knights.  Packed into this small area no larger than a football field, the French were too cramped to even properly defend themselves.  Eye witness accounts talk of heavily armoured French knights having to crawl over piles of their dead countrymen towards their own slaughter by Henry's forces.  It is quite a staggering disaster of proportions perhaps only matched by that July day 500 years later.

"And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks, That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day." Henry V, William Shakespeare

I spent the rest of the weekend in my parent's cottage in Normandy, in the centre of what is known as the Falaise pocket - the scene in August 1944 of a quite different kind of disaster as 150,000 Germans were encircled and decimated by the advancing allies.  But that really is a quite different story.

So there's some precedent for the disaster that Alistair Cook and his men face as they head to Perth for the third and possibly deciding Test - but a source of some hope for him perhaps is that ultimately the French won the Hundred Year's War and The British won the First World War!  


Abbott et al: Contempt Inc?

It's all coming back to me now, three months into an Abbott Government.  The fact that Howard Old Hand Alexander Downer is suddenly in the media every other day again hammers home the inescapable fact that the Abbott Government is "Howard 2.0".  

In my first year in Australia - in 2001-2001 - I was led to believe that Howard was not long for this world.  Then the Tampa and 9/11 happened and we were saddled with another three years.  Then Mark Latham happened and yet another!  Finally he was evicted and the way I felt about living in Australia changed.  It was no longer in denial of a shameful Government.  Despite all of the leadership tom-foolery, I was always happy living under a left-of-centre Government that was at least always steered by compassion and a mission of equity, even if it wasn't always able to execute effectively on it.

Yet in only three months I find myself back in the Howard years.  An air of contempt, arrogance and hubris.  Lets have a quick round up:

  1. Contempt for the Planet - Environment Minister Greg Hunt (although that's not his real title, there isn't even an environment or climate change minister, he's responsible for "development") demonstrated spectacular contempt for international efforts to solve the world's most pressing existential problem.  He snubbed the International Climate Talks this month in Poland, sending a minion instead.  As if that weren't bad enough, his excuse?  "Too busy legislating to remove a price from Carbon" - i.e. going backwards on the issue.
  2. Contempt for the Media - The silence over the boats policy is shocking, and frankly close to undemocratic.  I don't hold out much hope for its long term success however as they will find themselves having to review their weekly statements policy when something terrible ala Christmas Island disaster in 2010 will force them out of that cadence.  Only now, 10 weeks later, has the Government granted proper interviews to the ABC (Tony Abbott fronted the ABC - on 730 report - and Scott Morrison fronted RN Breakfast, just in the last fortnight).  But he fronted 2GB with Alan Jones within days of being elected!  Furthermore, no Coalition member can speak to the media without Abbott's office clearance - demonstrating an astonishing contempt for transparency.
  3. Contempt for the Parliament - I found the fact that Abbott waited two months before recalling parliament after being elected pretty disappointing, and he attempted to avoid as much scrutiny as possible before he was forced to front up to Question Time. Between Question Time and Senate Estimates, this is all we have left in terms of scrutiny and accountability as the Media have been flatly excluded from the process (with the exception of the compliant and complicit News Ltd publications). In fact to prove that point, when asked in Parliament how many boats he had "bought back", Scott Morrison stalled and demurred.  When asked by The Australian Newspaper, he was happy to oblige them with the details.
  4. Contempt for the People - But having based an entire election campaign around "stopping the boats", Abbott shows utter contempt for the Australian people to only report on that once a week; and even within that to hide almost all the details under "operational matters" or "on water issue" smokescreens.  The Coalition Government fails to realise that while there are a large number of bigots whose xenophobia led them to vote for a "stop the boats" policy and don't care how it's done, the rest of us take great interest in how our Navy and Immigration Department are mis-treating the world's most vulnerable people.
  5. Contempt for Process - Despite hounding Craig Thompson and Peter Slipper for expenses fraud, Tony Abbott saw no reason for his own expenses or those of his colleagues to come under any scrutiny.  The hypocrisy was in and of itself quite breathtaking.
  6. Contempt for Indonesia - Tony Abbott's disdain for Indonesia and in particular its President SBY is an international embarrassment. Paraphrased as "everyone does it, get over it", his arrogant dismissal of SBY's palpable offence is amateur and an international embarrassment.  When you compare his reaction to that of Obama in the same position, the gulf in the quality of leadership is transparent.  In fact, SBY himself has dwarfed Abbott in terms of demonstrating maturity.  
  7. Contempt for The States - Christopher Pyne's welch on the Better Schools/Gonski promise is reprehensible.  Even Liberal Premier Barry O'Farrell was offended by the way he had been insulted by Pyne's refusal to negotiate or consult: "this is no way for a Government to behave" he said.
  8. Contempt for Expertise - Furthermore, amid this controversy, Pyne had no interest in meeting with the actual experts behind the Gonski report so he could better understand it, despite describing the report itself as "incomprehensible".  The arrogance oozes at every turn.
  9. Contempt for Citizens in need - I remember this being a particular facet of the Howard Government - zero interest in defending the rights of citizens in trouble overseas.  The way Howard and Downer treated David Hicks was an appalling neglect of their responsibilities.  Now, the ailing Colin Russell is more or less abandoned by Julie Bishop as he languishes unjustly in a Russian prison.
  10. Contempt for Refugees - Let's not forget Scott Morrison's edict that asylum seekers be referred to - insultingly and derogatively - as "illegals".  This really made me angry.

Before being elected, Tony Abbott said he wanted his Administration to be compared to that of Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan (which was disturbing in itself for anyone left-of-centre).  I fear that it is more likely to be compared to that of George W Bush, whose disastrous reign was also characterised by spectacular hubris and arrogance.  As such, I worry that such aloofness will bring its own demise - at our expense - and this quote seems to quite elegantly sum up this dynamic:

“Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started.” Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live by


JFK: Mystery Solved?

I for one thought it was the most ridiculous and far-fetched theory when I first heard it on the radio, but in the few weeks since then, I have come to the conclusion that it might in fact be the truth.  I certainly feel a lot more satisfied with it than with either of the alternatives - the lone gunman or the complex conspiracy.  The kill shot was in fact a terrible, tragic accident and the cover up was not part of a sophisticated coup d'etat...but desperate and frantic  damage control driven by embarrassment and shame.  But it is a proposition that most suits humanity's MO - one of stupidity, incompetence and scandal.

"It's not sexy. It's not rife with intrigue," said Bonar Menninger, a Kansas City journalist and a leading proponent of the theory. "But for that reason, in my mind, it's extremely compelling — because it's the only theory that hews tightly to the available evidence."

So 50 years to the day of JFK's controversial assassination, and in fact longer since then than he actually lived 9he died aged 46), obviously we are all agreed that it is far from clean-cut.  The stench of conspiracy and cover-up is everywhere to be found.  Something is clearly amiss, and was from the very start.  But at the same time, I've often felt the ornate, over-sophisticated conspiracy involving the CIA, the Mafia and Cuban exiles put forward by Oliver Stone et al is a bit sketchy too.  Not because their arguments are not convincing - they are; as convincing as they are intriguing.  But more because it I have come to the conclusion that on balance, when it comes to people: clumsiness, incompetence, shame and deceit tend to be more at the forefront of major events than the kind of precision-organisation, diligence and, above all, discretion required to pull off such an ambitious plot - for these are not humanity's strong suits.

So if you can read about or watch "JFK: The Smoking Gun" you will get a very surprising view of the events, through the eyes of a very clinical forensic investigator - Australian Colin McLaren.  The outcome is likely to be a story that will initially seem quite ridiculous and unsatisfying to you, but as it begins to settle into your brain you realise that it is far more than plausible and I now think the most likely scenario. After all, history is all about fallibility is more the norm than clinical execution ('scuse the pun) .

So the potted theory is this: the secret service guys had all been "bar-hopping" around Dallas the night before 'till the very early hours and were feeling very delicate.  So Agent George Hickey - ordinarily a driver, lacking rifle training but who hadn't been out the night before - was given the task of manning the high-powered rifle in the Secret Service car immediately behind the President's car.  When the second shot cracked through the Dallas air he grabbed the cocked rifle and stood up looking up towards the Book Depository where the shot came from.  As he did so, the car he was in accelerated off behind the President's car - already carrying an injured President and Governor.  As the car took off, the half-standing Hickey was thrown back into his seat and as he did so he accidentally blew his President's brains apart with his rifle.

It sounds crazy, but as you review the evidence it falls into place.  The cover up was managed by the Secret Service, desperate to keep their scandalous incompetence from the public.  Ultimately, the Government was complicit in the Warren Commission, which pursued the line that Oswald got off all three shots.

But some key bits of evidence do it for me.  

  1. The way the President's head reacts to the final shot is not actually consistent with the Grassy Knol theory.  the special - typically secret-service-employed - bullet explodes on impact unlike the orthodox bullets fired by Oswald.  The way the president reacts to the shot is more consistent with his being shot from behind, and by a different rifle from that of Oswald.
  2. The witness statements of gunsmoke at street level is very compelling, as obviously this isn't consistent with either a shot from Oswald or the "second shooter" on the Grassy Knoll.
  3. They have proved that the initially laughable "magic bullet" theory does actually stand up as the Governor's seat was actually lower and to the left of the President - meaning Oswald's second shot inflicted all those injuries.
  4. Agent George Hickey never contested the theory.  

It is a bit disappointing, but the shame of it - the sheer human ineptitude and tragedy of it - is a much better explanation for how everyone has kept silent about the truth all these years.  The Mafia-CIA-Cuba nexus theory always baffled me because I just couldn't see all of the hundreds of people supposedly involved keeping their mouths shut.

Oswald could still be part of that conspiracy though, and his assassination by Jack Ruby could also be part of that.  But it is just as likely that he is part of a Secret Service conspiracy to cover up the fact that Oswald only got off two shots - the first shot went stray - and that they executed the leader of the free world, by accident...50 years ago today. 

"Maintain the Rage"

As Tony Abbott is sworn in this morning, more will change than the residency of Kirribilli House - despite my regular proclamations during the campaign that was all that the man stood for.  Some of the change has already begun - although more than a week since the election it must be said: not very much.  But enough of a change in atmosphere had developed by last night that I realised I was already "livid" and despaired at how I might cope for the next three years - and I realised that hoping that it is *only* three years is a good start.  But as many have said, "hope" suggests you have no control over events.  This post is to say "yes we do".

As I tweeted out my despair, a fellow left-leaner tweeted back "as a great man once said: maintain your rage".  

That great man was Gough Whitlam and he said those words on the steps of the old Parliament House after The Dismissal (I now understand after furious Wiki-searching I must confess).  It echoes something said to me on election night at Tanya Plibersek's party for volunteers where my attention was drawn to a "fire in your belly".  I have come to realise that channeling the rage that is already fuelled by conservative outrages is the secret to weathering this storm on social, environmental and political reason.

So what else changes today?

  • The Department of Immigration has already been ordered today to stop issuing Permanent Protection Visas and now to issue only Temporary ones, re-birthing that outrage of the Howard era
  • Not only has work begun on the repeal of The Carbon Tax* but also the Clean Energy Fund has been ordered to stop work - permanently
  • The least gender diverse Cabinet in 20 years is also sworn in

Who knows what else is brewing in the background as a Government focussed more on administrative and financial efficiency than social welfare or equity takes the reigns.  My ire rose up like bile most when I heard last night that the Chairman of Abbott's Business Advisory Council said that anthropological climate change is a "myth", echoing the PM-elect's own famous words: "climate change is crap".  

So with rage already at potentially unbearable levels, what to do?  It heartened me greatly to hear that far from being Kevin Rudd who "saved the furniture", ordinary Labor members were responsible for the surprisingly Parliamentary position Labor achieved 10 days ago in the face of a pundit-promised wipe-out.  Volunteer sign-up and activism was at all-time high despite the leadership malaise, as was online micro-donations, in a curious mirror of a hitherto American Democrat phenomenon.  ALP National President Jenny McAlistair reported that Labor's ground game was at its height with a quarter of a million homes door-knocked (I letter-boxed more than 1,000 homes myself).  It is this that "saved the furniture", not Kevin Rudd's chaotic campaign.

Taking a lead from Tony Abbott's own aggressive opposition, Labor can limit him to only one term as Anthony Albanese promised to do with an incessant critique of his failures and policy dysfunction.  As the first Labor leader to be in part elected by the rank-and-file he or Bill Shorten will be genuinely able to campaign on behalf of grass roots party members - and not the Unions.  This can be the basis of a Labor renewal after a wasted mandate and a legacy all-but-destroyed by petty factional disputes and personality warfare.  

So I will maintain the rage - here on this blog - and I will tend to the "fire in my belly".  It is a common analysis that The Coalition didn't *win* the election, but rather Labor lost it.  Labor didn't deserve to be in government.  But Tony Abbott - a policy-free zone - should be on notice that he is only borrowing government while Labor re-organises.  We want it back in three years' time!


Australia - We only have 24 hours to save the earth!

As the hours tick down to the polls closing tomorrow evening, and this god-awful election farce comes to a merciful end, it's "make-your-mind-up" time.  Many will have done already, but as Kevin Rudd desperately insists, three per cent are still thinking and many of those won't decide until they're in the booth.  Thats about 350,000 people.  If you're one of them, here's maybe something to think about.

There is of course no end of issues to wrestle with, not least the question about whether or not the Government deserve another term.  Very few people can deny that the Labor party have made a right royal pig's ear out of the mandate they were given in 2007, have stuffed-up a lot of things up and their leadership shenanigans have been an embarrassing circus.

However, their stimulus spending through the GFC was inspired; and Disability Care is an historic reform.

On many of the issues the parties converged somewhat hypocritically in the last few weeks.  Labor adopted a Coalition position on Refugees they railed against in opposition; while the Coalition adopted Labor's Education funding reforms - albeit half-heartedly - despite opposing them rabidly most of the year.  The NBN - albeit important - is a fairly nuanced argument.

But on one issue there is clear blue water between the two parties, and it is very, very important.  It is the future of the very planet we live on.

Tony Abbott has made this a "referendum on the Carbon Tax" but in many ways it is actually a referendum on Climate Change itself.  As we all know, Mr Abbott believes Climate Change science is "crap".  His "Direct Action" plan is laughable - a few boy scouts planting trees is not going to save the earth.  Even if it stood a chance of doing so, the meagre funding of it is capped.  Direct Action should be called "Lip Service".  As Bernard Keane writes, 

"Direct Action won’t meet that 5 per cent target – it won’t come close, not by the normal maths used by most of us, and certainly not according to any independent analysts who have vetted the policy. Indeed, Direct Action will make a negligible impact on reducing emissions."

He has of course repeated ad nauseam that he will "scrap the Carbon Tax" - described by the International Energy Agency as "template Legislation" and which evolves into an Emission Trading Scheme next year under Labor.  In so doing he removes a price on Carbon which the consensus of experts agree is the only mechanism for effectively reducing emissions.  In addition, he has announced he will scrap the Clean Energy Fund - essentially a Government funded Venture Capitalist body designed to incubate Clean Energy innovation and entrepreneurs.  Under this scheme Australia could have become a world leader in Green Technology.  Both of these essential policies will be history within the year if The Liberals win office tomorrow.

(I'm not talking about the Greens because I'm still angry about their blocking of the ETS in 2010 and the trouble that caused.)

Anyone living in Sydney knows this has been the warmest winter since records began and the summer head of us will be a scorcher.  Those who are parents must fear for the future of their children, and their children's children.  If these policies are implemented, in 80 years' time - after the ice caps have melted and the sea levels have risen - many will look back at the Election of 2013 as the moment Australia went fatally backwards.

If you can't give Labor the House of Representatives, then at least for the sake of the planet - don't give the Liberals the Senate. 


Aussie Lefties - be careful not to protest too much!

In a moment of panic I put my hand up and was recruited. So it was I found myself knocking on doors in Glebe in what seems now a depressingly vain attempt get Labor re-elected.  So I found myself thrown together with a quite impressive crew of some 15 political die-hards, all of whom more dedicated, more knowledgeable, more passionate about Labor than I could ever be.

While I found this state of affairs in itself very surprising, much of what i heard from people did not surprise me at all.  Of course at either extreme were the die-hards. Several people, as soon as they understood the point of the visit, simply shook their head and with a categoric "no thanks" announced their position as Liberal voters.  Fair enough. Some others - actually probably as many - either nodded reassuringly or pointed at the Labor poster on their front gate.  These two sets of people are what either side calls their "base". They won't be moved whatever the circumstances. They can be relied upon.  Elections are not about these people. 

Then there were a surprising number who confessed they had not yet made up their mind.  I find these people at once perplexing and intriguing.  I don't think there's ever been an election where I've found myself in this position.  That isn't to say I've always voted the same way.  In the 1992 election (in England) I must confess I voted Liberal Democrat ( probably the equivalent of Australian Green today). But the idea of having to sit down and figure out who to vote for and not be already decided, at this late stage, in my gut...seems strange.  I respect these people though, the ones I met.  They are going to think about it.  It's a serious decision and they will consider it.  They didn't want to discuss it but they were willing to take literature.  Good on them.

The people I want to talk about, on the off chance that readers of this post are the same, are Labor supporters considering a protest vote.  In a strongly safe Labor seat, there were a lot of these.  And these were the only people who wanted to discuss it.  They wanted us to know how they felt.  They wanted the message to get back.  And I couldn't argue with them because, deep down, I totally saw their point.  Between the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd shenanigans, the PNG solution, the spin and the stuff-ups, the disillusionment was palpable - and what do you say? What DO you say?  There's very little you can say.

But what gave this disposition curious perspective was the woman I had been "buddied" with, my co-door-knocker.    A teacher who taught English to migrants, this died-in-the-wool Labor supporter quickly confessed as we set off on our mission that she had registered an anti-Labor protest vote for the Liberal Party in the 2011 New South Wales State Election ...and still felt guilty.  She saw door-knocking in this election as some form of penance for her betrayal.

Now many felt the same way then, including myself.  The State Labor Government in 2011 was about as corrupt and degraded as a government could become I think. (We know even more about that now with the ICAC inquiry.)  They deserved getting thrown out.  But I figured that would happen anyway and voted for my local Labor member anyway.  

What has Barry O'Farrell done? Nothing.  Is Sydney Transport any better? No.  The most important thing BOF has done in 2 years is say yes to Federal hand-outs for schools as part of Julia Gillard's Gonski reforms - a Labor agenda.

My point is - what is the point of a protest vote if it helps yield a stronger government you vehemently oppose?

You see it is about values.  Who aligns with your values?  if you are a Labor supporter, if you look beyond the politics and the personalities, the in-fighting and the incompetence, the last three years in particular have been about a solid Labor agenda. Disability Care, Better Schools, Plain Packaging, a price on Carbon, tremendous health investments like Medicare Locals.  The list goes on.  If you are a rusted-on Labor type, these have been constructive years greatly advancing a Leftist agenda.  Even the three years before: the Apology, Kyoto and at least attempting to tax the miners. Most historically, that Labor Government heroically put people first in the way it fought around the clock to keep the GFC wolves from our doors.  We simply don't know how much the Liberals' would have prioritised budget integrity over working class jobs and public services. But we can guess.  

Six years ago, Labor people delighted at the eviction of an extreme conservative government that cut public services and suppressed workers' rights.  That government accumulated a massive surplus while investment in schools and hospitals ground to a halt.  This was the government that willingly joined the Coalition of the Willing at the behest of a Republican President bent on nothing but his own Oil protection.  The next Liberal Government will be the same.

So I emplore all Labor supporters: look beyond the frustrations and annoyances of the last few years.  Yes they were stupid.  Yes they squabbled.  Yes, at times they are their own worst enemy and yes, they may have squandered an historic opportunity.  But remember what being a Labor supporter is about.  Remember what you want done.  The choice now is the same as I described in 2010 - do you want an incompetent Government attempting to achieve what you believe in, or a consistently efficient Government executing the very opposite?  In the final analysis, you have to vote for the former.

Because 1 - there's losing one house and there's losing both.  And you only have to recall the words "Work Choices" to understand what that means. I say again: these are the same Liberals.  And 2 - if the kind of wipe happens to Federal Labor that happened to NSW labor, it'll be at least a decade before Labor is returned to power.  

For anyone left-of-centre, listening to Tony Abbott talk about emulating Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan should have been reason enough to vote against him.  

"They all left their countries, including Australia, stronger and prouder for their work in government. John Howard left our country stronger and more confident. Margaret Thatcher left Britain stronger and more confident. And Ronald Reagan, he won the cold war, helped to make the world much safer for democracy and for the universal decencies of humanity."

Why The Armenian Genocide is Important

A long forgotten chapter from history was thrust into the news agenda this week when a delegation from the New South Wales Parliament was threatened with being banned from the 2015 Gallipoli Centenary celebrations by the Turkish Government.  

Usually, the relations between the Turkish and Australian governments are surprisingly cordial for two nations once locked in deadly combat. With the exception of occasional spats over monument preservation, the two nations seem brothers-in-arms, victims of a proxy war between Britain and Germany.  Equally in fact both nations derived considerable national pride from the battle despite the horrendous slaughter.  While Australia's very character seems in many ways founded by "diggers" on those beaches and trenches on a small peninsular in the Dardanelles; modern Turkish Nationalism under Mustafa Ataturk can also be traced to that battlefield.  

But a quite prickly and uncomfortable stand-off has already begun as a number of Armenian descendants now living in Australia are seeking recognition of a very dark - and mostly forgotten - chapter of World War One history.  But it is one that I feel quite strongly about as well as State parliaments all over Australia are tabling official Genocide recognition motions.

One of the most disturbing, moving and profound hours of my life was walking around a tiny museum in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem*. The museum itself is proof that content overshadows environment as the quite modest and rudimentary display tells a story I had never heard of until then.  But it has stayed with me as a memory just as starkly as my tour of the Yad Vashem museum commemorating the Jewish Holocaust did in that same city.

The events - the murder of 1.5 million people and deportation of many more - actually generated the word "Genocide" and is recognised as the first systematic attempt to erase an entire people.  The link with Gallipoli stems from the fact that the battle and the genocide share the same birthday - April 25th, 1915.  In fact, Australian POWs were among the only witnesses - a fact the Turkish Governments denies.

Many historians believe that Hitler pointed to the Armenian genocide as the model for the Jewish Holocaust - not only for its systematic nature, but also for the fact that, some 25 years later, no one could remember those events.  This gave the Nazis confidence they'd get away with their gruesome plan.  "Who speaks today of the extermination of the Armenians?" asked Hitler himself in 1939.

And thats the point.  People often wonder why remembrance is so important.  Why do we cling to the horrors of war from long ago when all those involved are dead.  Why - as we approach the 100 years since the 1914-18 war - must we spend so much emotional energy commemorating these depressing events?  Why - basically - is history so important?

If the Turks had not been so successful erasing their shocking crime from the consciousness of Europe after the First World War, perhaps the Holocaust might not have happened!  As an Armenian neighbour - Syria - even today tortures its own people in barbaric ways, this lesson seems poignantly important. 

So I applaud these petitions to Turkey and I hope they succeed in raising awareness of an awful innovation in cruelty.  

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* - I wouldn't have found out about the little-known museum had not my sister, who was living in Jerusalem at the time, pointed it out to me.

A Tale of Two Mailers

Well, the election has arrived in my letterbox, and I couldn't have a better illustration of the choice we have to make.  Naturally I'm looking at these two pieces of Direct Mail through the prism of my own political leanings.  Nevertheless, there's something quite stark about the two contrasting messages.

First, from Labor, a relatively pithy cardboard flier - about the size of a airline boarding pass - briefing me on the progress and benefits of the Disability Care Scheme.  The piece is actually very understated.  Four bullet-points on the back outlining how the scheme benefits families for whom the scheme is relevant.  My local member is the Health Minister Tanya Plibersek and so this is relevant because as well as voting for my local seat of Sydney the decision has consequences for the Health portfolio.  The flier tells me of the timeline to national roll-out - July 2019 - and that pilot sites are operational now.  While obviously there's a partisan point being made, the flier is actually fairly to-the-point and fact-based.

Now it does need to be said that like most people I have a "no junk mail" sticker above my letterbox.  While of course this request is broadly ignored, it does lead me to tend to foilter my mail in terms of those who have abused this and those that have not.

So, on the topic of abuse, lets turn to the Liberal Party collateral...

At the point of opening it, I didn't even know it was a Liberal Party mailer - a white envelope with "IMPORTANT ELECTORAL INFORMATION" emblazoned across it.  With no logo or anything else, I assumed it was from the Australian Electoral Commission.  Wrong.  It was a letter from Tony Abbott.  His pitch to me is - paraphrased - along these lines:

1. A stronger economy. No detail on how, I've to take his word for it.  There is the promise of 2 million jobs but as yet, in nothing they've said, I cannot find any actual policy action that will create these jobs.  One answer I've heard him say is that the number is "based on the record of the Howard Government".

2. Repeal the Carbon Tax. I'm still to actually feel the impact of this terrible scourge of our fiscal framework, and know that by July next year - the same timescale the Coalition plan to finish it - the ALP will commute it to a floating emission scheme.  But, I must recognise, this is actually a concrete policy.

3. "Keep income tax cuts, pension and benefit increases".  So this represents maintaining this government's compensation framework for a tax they plan to repeal.  This is nonsensical and to me signifies a lack of political will to maintain the compensation for a tax that won't exist merely because they don't want to invite negative perception.

4. Build more roads.  OK, this is a policy too.  Way to go.

5. Yes, you guessed it - "stop the boats".  I don't actually want them to do this, but lets not go there now.

But all that aside, the real outrage of the mailer is the fact that it actually invites the recipient to fill in what appears to be a postal vote application form.  But is it the AEC's logo on the form?  No, the Liberal Party's.  Yes thats right, after inputting your details in their database, they will submit your details for the postal vote for you - because you haven't got the intelligence to do that for yourself?

Worse still is the illustrated instructions contained on the form to help you understand what to do:

1. Read the application form and fill in the details

2. Sign and date the application form

3. Put the form in the envelope

4. Yes, you guessed it...post it!

Really? 

Being patronised and treated like an idiot doesn't win my heart, mind or vote Mr Abbott!  This is all very reminiscent of the Howard years, which I had partly forgotten.   It reminded me that the Liberal Party is essentially an elitist organisation.  

Sketchy doesn't begin to describe the awfully long bows the Coalition draws in its policies.  There really is too much of "we will improve productivity by repealing the Carbon Tax."  "The Economy will improve because we will repeal the mining tax".  It has the feel of someone doing their Economics homework at the last minute, with the strongest argument being "just because".  

This gross insult to my intelligence that this consistent with the other event this week that sent my blood to boiling point.  When asked what the Coalition's policies would cost the bottom line, Shadow Treasurer invited the electorate to figure out themselves, and "get out a calculator"!!!!  (This blog post on this is well worth the read.)  

So what conclusion do I draw.  One party has policies that go the very heart of what government is about - improving the lot of those less fortunate.  The other?  I get a sense of entitlement.  "Trust us, we've done it before.  Don't trouble yourself with the complicated details, you're not clever enough to understand them."  I don't want a government that