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January 31, 2004
popping champagne corks
How sweet the victory for the Blair Government in its fight to the death with the BBC. Lord Hutton came up with goods. He delivered the BBC's head to them.
Steve Bell
Here is a defence of Hutton from the Daily Telegraph with some misgivings. Hutton's brief was a narrow one.
Blair is losing the public relations battle. It is not just lefty journalists calling the Hutton Report a whitewash. It is also public opinion.
The next step in the media politics is clip the wings of a public broadcaster. The free marketeers are eager to have a go at slashing the BBC's body---just as they do in Australia with the ABC. Only, in Britain, the conditions are more conducive for a dismembering since the BBC is preparing to renegotiate the renewal of its charter.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:33 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
January 30, 2004
ALP Conference
I see that Chris over at Back Pages is all emotional from the energy and froth and bubble of the 2004 ALP conference being held in Sydney town. Chris is a political junkie. But it makes a welcome break from the dreariness of lecturing.
For all the recent talk of internal democracy, the conference is more a ritual celebration by the party for the party: a party still controlled by the factions of machine politics run by machine men who think like machines. The Conference is a ritual celebration of how wonderful the ALP is; its activities are presented by publicists to seduce the Canberra Press gallery; and it fills the media flows with images of the brave new leader.
Most of what happens inside the Conference is closed to ordinary citizens.
(photo by Pat Scala)
What is public is Latham's opening speech, the attempts by the Howard Government to prevent a resurgent ALP from gaining too much traction, and Bob Brown's over-the-top enthusiasms for Latham. The political centre is Latham. The Press gallery has been hooked.
I read the speech yesterday, along with the Crikey's leaking of the draft (much ado about nothing) and Costello's interpretation of the draft to mean that the ALP's real agenda is to raise interest rates, hike taxes and increase the budget deficit (joke). Howard's punches keeping missing their target.
The buzz words of Latham's 'Opportunity for All' speech include big country, propersity with a purpose, rungs on the ladders of opportunity, rebuilding community, national security and grassroots democracy. The series of oneliners speech is looks thin on paper but it comes across well when delivered, and the oneliners look good on the grabs of television.
It looked like an election launch.
The theme and dream being sold is aspirational, suburban working class boy making good. Making good is the good life.
How does government enable this dream to be achieved?
Through social mobility from Australians climbing the ladder of opportunity. The opportunities are opened up a prosperous economy achieved through competition and productivity. The market-based economy is the engine of growth, and Labor is the champion of economic reform. The free market is what sits behind the speech to the party faithful.
Management of the economy is through tax cuts, small government and budget surpluses.
It is a policy that leaves the cracks in a welfare system that was designed to alleviate poverty and despair.
The holes in the welfare stem are to be covered by responsibility, rebuilding community, social capital and governments working with the voluntary sector. Latham's Third Way is highly critical of the heavy hand of the state.
Yet I detect a heavy hand behind the values community talk in dealing with the poor. They need to be coerced and disciplined with a big stick to reenter the market.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:03 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
January 29, 2004
Rather onesided
I heard a summary of the Hutton Report on Radio National Breakfast this morning. The BBC copped it. Not the Whitehall bureaucracy for effectively named Dr Kelly to journalists; nor the Blair Government for "sexing up" the dossier on Saddam Hussein's weapons; nor the role of Alastair Campbell the Blair Government's PR man. All were cleared.
Hutton's spotlight fell directly on the BBC: on Gilligan, its Today reporter, its editorial system and its failure to make a separate investigation into the affair. The law lord's case was good government, bad media.
Well, that simplifies a complex reality about an unpopular war does it not? A simplification that will call into question the legitimacy of the Hutton Report that says it was only the media that was out of line. It's an odd account of why liberal democracy is not working all that well.
Bill Leak
Law Lords rarely finger the state in judicial inquiries. Often the judiciary turns away from facing the truth of the matter. The classic examples are Lord Denning's inquiry into the Profumo affair; and Lord Widgery's inquiry into the shooting dead of 14 unarmed demonstrators in Northern Ireland in 1972, which exonerated the Army. So that bit of liberal democracy does not work very well.
The political context of the Hutton Inquiry is Prime Minister Tony Blair's case, that there were WMD in Iraq and this was based on the intelligence he received. However, that intelligence was exaggerated, given the failure to find any WMD. Hence the conclusion that the intelligence was exaggerated for political reasons by the US, Britain and in order to make the case for war.
That exaggeration bit is what Gilligan got right. The Government did not level with its citizens. So the trust bit between government and citizens is not working well.
The effect of the Hutton Report will be to fuel a politics of media that continues the shift of emphasis to the market, privileges commercial media and marginalizes public broadcasting. No doubt the Blair Government will have its revenge on the BBC and demand that heads roll. When this episode is placed in a historical context, what is eroded is the capacity of broadcast journalism to hold the government of the day to account, to question its spin and to prevent the executive from become too anti-democratic.
The ground upon which Blair stands continues to erode. His standing in the electorate is declining at a time when he is domestic reforms pushing for increasing private involvement in the delivery of public services.
Update
The conflict is still simmering. It is far more than the BBC (ie. Gilligan) getting it wrong with his ad-libbed comments to a small audience at 6.07 on the morning of 29 May 2003.
The BBC is
not happy at all with the Hutton Report. It argues that the Hutton Report isdeeply flawed. Deeper issues are involved here, but it is unclear what they are. Here is one attempt by Peter Preston:
"....once the BBC is covertly cowed, once the Ofcom sector pauses for breath and goes quiet in turn, then the press itself sees its own freedoms curtailed - not just in some courtroom drone about defective systems, but in a broadcast reluctance to pick up and follow through newspaper stories which, yet again, break news in the public interest. Anybody want to take on another Tory treasurer? Anybody give the Times a helping hand?"
Preston says that he does not belong to a fixed camp in this conflict. He adds:
"Hutton is pretty convincing on Downing Street's bumbling honesty over the naming of Kelly, the relative blamelessness of Geoff Hoon, the irrelevance of what the Prime Minister said in the Far East. But he is absolutely unconvincing when he seeks to champion the cause of free journalism. He seems to come from a different age and a different culture. If he is allowed, egged on by government triumphalism, to define the boundaries of proper investigation, then media freedoms - already shadowed by an unending war against terrorism - face an ice age."
This suggests it is a conflict over the nature of media's role in a democracy when the government of the day placed fast and loose with its intelligence reports on Iraq's WMD's.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 28, 2004
the way the cookie crumbles
Universities are once again in the news with the latest commonwealth distribution of just under 25,000 fully funded university places by 2008.
The distribution has caused a stir in some states. Victoria and Queensland are crying foul. Some South Australians are arguing that they have been short changed by the Commonwealth. They are saying that South Australia has taken a hit for the sake of the rest of the nation. SA is being thrown in the educational trash bin. That parochalism is what you hear on talk back radio.
The distribution of 25,000 fully funded university places across the nation is designed to replace the partially funded places, or the over enrolments by the universities. These are being phrased out. Despite all the smoke and mirrors from those crying foul, it would appear that South Australia gains more than in fully funded places than it loses in the over enrolment cutback.
One real bone of contention is that South Australia will receive only 5.9% of the 25,000 fully funded university places. This is one of the lowest pieces of the cake. This is primarily due to its lower economic and population growth. The economic reality is that Western Australia and Queensland are growing faster than South Australia. So these states get proportionally more fully funded places than South Australia.
It's tough break. There is increasing demand for entry into SA universities and a need for new places. So SA slips into victim mode as the dream of Adelaide as an education city fades.
Another bone of contention is that it is becoming ever more difficult for school leavers to get into the prestige university courses. These courses are moving out of reach of all but the most exceptional students from a small group of elite schools. The 25, 000 fully funded places more or less replace the over enrolments and give a bit extra. That extra is not enough to cover the growing gap between demand and supply. The only option is pay full fees for the course.
Now education is important for South Australia. In the long term South Australia needs to address its decline in traditional manufacturing by nurturing a knowledge-based and globally competitive regional economy. It cannot continue to rely on wheat, wine, tourism, horticulture and aged care facilities. Nor can it afford its best and brightest to go to live and work interstate, as this would leave the state relatively impoverished and disadvantaged in relation to the other states.
Education is one circuit breaker of the vicious cycle of low growth, children moving to other states and South Australia going backwards relative to the other states.
But you hear very little from the Rann Government on fostering a university education. Few ideas come out of Nth Terrace these days now that Labor's old knowledge nation idea has been quietly dropped. All we seem to hear from the Rann Government is the need to raise school retention rates and all the nasty things the Libs are doing to make SA suffer. You hear very little about how higher education is linked to the new economy.
Update
Simon Marginson says that:
"....the intense scarcity of publicly funded places is a sign of things to come. Universities are heading in a very definite direction and it is not taxpayer-funded access - though exactly what the final outcome will be, and how it will affect students and families, depends on the outcome of the federal election expected this year....One suspects the Government's main motive in abolishing its over-enrolment device was to increase the scarcity of public places, and switch the arena of expansion from marginally funded public places to the new fee-paying market.
There is another issue here. One noted before on public opinion--the ndexation of public funding thathe Independentr Senators failed to secure. On this issue Marginson says:
"....Nelson's failure to index public funding is highly strategic. With the value of government funding continually being eroded, all universities are driven hard into the marketplace.
But the danger here is that not only will natural fee earners like Sydney and NSW charge higher prices that further close off access but universities with lesser status will cut costs and prices and battle it out in the bargain basement. This "race to the bottom" threatens to devalue the quality of Australian degrees, underlining just how crucial is grant indexation."
What has been quietly launched is the new full-fee-paying higher education market underpinned by low-cost government loans. That is what the Howard Government wanted all along. Nelson found the way to deliver it.
Welcome to the new world of university education in Australia.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 27, 2004
truth in politics
I've just rolled into Adelaide after 3 days at the beach. The endless summer may continue, but it's the end of the holidays for many. Opening the newspapers this morning I noticed this in response to this.
It's a big black hole we have here. (link courtesy of Juan Cole). A hole opened up by the way our politicians used intelligence as an ideological weapon, rather than to inform a full debate on vital public issues. Their trick is to filter the available intelligence to build a worst-case scenario. The result? A corrupted intelligence process is in place.
Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, calls the black hole an "open question" and immediately starts talking about intentions. First it was weapons, then it's programs (plans and offices) now it is intentions.
It's called back pedalling under pressure, as it becomes evident that Powell did his bit to help the Bush administration by building a bogus case before the U.N. However, in Britain Tony Blair still appears to be saying that 'this lad is not for turning.'
In Australia Alexander Downer, Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister, repeats the Powell line about intention, then drops in "truth" and time will tell. Honestly, it's a comedy routine:
Bill Leak
Why not admit the justification for the Iraq war was a matter of false pretences and mass deception. A noble lie if you want to put a Platonic spin on it.
What Howard does not do is confront the central issue: can international inspections provide for security against a regime intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction. John Howard's core argument, repeated that of US hawks such as Dick Cheney: preventive war was justified because UN inspections not only had failed, but could never be relied upon to succeed.
The hawks were plain wrong on Iraq. As David Kay,, who led the American effort to find banned weapons in Iraq, said after stepping down from his post: Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons at the start of the war last year. So the hawks duck and weave.
Howard continues to evade the core issue whilst laying all the responsibility on the [US, UK & Australian] intelligence services so as to protect his government.
It's called doing the Tampa.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:27 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
January 26, 2004
Australia Day: some puzzles
It is a public holiday in Australia today. Goodo.
I started off the day watering some trees (some Euc. Ficofolia flowering gums) in the public reserve opposite the holiday shack at Victor Harbor, whilst Suzanne walked the dogs around the Bluff. We had breakfast (fruit, museli and coffee) on the balcony, as we watched the clouds over the southern ocean slowly give way to the early morning sun. We plan to go the Raywood Nursery in the original stringbark forest in Deep Creek, Fleurieu Peninsula, have a picnic lunch there and buy some native plants for the garden.
Australia Day is about conservation for us.
But what are we celebrating today on Australia Day? Who is the 'we'? Australian citizens or Australian people?
Well, we are not celebrating the formation of the nation because that happened with through federation on January 1 1901.
Alan Moir has his own idea:
As an immigrant from New Zealand l have been reliably by those born here informed that on Australian day it is a celebration of Jame's Cook's discovery of the Australian continent.
Me? I thought the continent had been discovered well before that. By the people who have been existing here for around 30,00 to 50,000 years. Maybe that doesn't count. Only Europeans count. But were not the Dutch here (in Western Australia) well before the English?
I reckon it has to do with planting the British flag on the soil of the continent. An act that says 'this land belongs to us.' An act that signifies colonial conquest. An act that looks towards a bloody history of conflict to dispossess the indigenous people from their land whilst proclaiming that the continent was empty.
Is that what we are celebrating? The foundation of the British colonies in the great southern land?
If not, then what are we celebrating today?
Down at Victor Harbor its all about buying and selling property. It's cooking real estate down here. A frenzy in fact. The heat from the property boom burns the skin, if you get too close to the action. The BMW's are everywhere. Over in Melbourne they are celebrating sport---the Australian Open and flawed Australian heroes.
And Sydney? Hasn't the global city disconnected itself from Australia by going cosmopolitan? Back Pages reckons Australia Day is the anniversary of the day the first British convict fleet landed in Port Jackson to set up a penal colony. That means it's all about New South Wales. That's hardly Australia.
You know, I cannot shake off the feeling that we Australians are doing a two kick shuffle on what we are celebrating on Australia Day. It's a bit of an identity crisis.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:47 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
January 25, 2004
Sunday cartoon
Globalization is inevitable but it has big consequences inside nation states. That's the Howard position is it not?
M. Davidson
I wonder what lines are being cooked up and rehearsed in Canberra about the Free Trade Agreement with the US? When the Free Trade deal fails through, that is.
When Howard is unable to get a good deal. Does he pull out? How is he going to sell that failure in an election year.
It's an election in both Australia and the US. So lines are going to be cooked up.
And as for Latham watching on the sidelines. He supports free trade----he's a free markets and ‘social capital’ man who thinks that globalisation is an unstoppable force and social democracy is a failure. So he will ensure that the upcoming Labor Conference will support free trade. I guess he does not need to make the public running on it. He can support free trade and dam Howard for a bad deal.
Latham on the sidelines? He is still on his political honeymoon. Fairfax's NSW and Victorian Sunday Life magazine is running him and his wife as the alternative First Couple.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 24, 2004
Tis a shame
It's tough. The state public services in the Australian federation have lost their way these days. The tradition of public service furthering the public good has been broken backed by neo-liberalism. It is now about career and sucking up to the minister.
The image is probably unfair. After all, it was the politicians who killed off the old public service thrrough politicizing the appointments; squeezing them financially in the name of smaller government; and blaming public servants for the consequences of embracing the market as a mode of governance, the constant restructuring of the public service andmanagerialism.
The current mode of operation of the public service is one of crisis management---staggering from one crisis to another whilst defending the Minister.
The justification? It is two fold. First, it is acknowledged that social democracy has normally tried to protect those citizens vulnerable to the changing nature of a market economy by boosting the level of public expenditure and a good public service. However, the publci services of welfare education and health have created a culture of ‘free riders’ and welfare state dependency.
Moreover, the exposure of national economies to internationalisation has meant that this approach is now limited by the fiscal carrying capacity of the state.
We cannot afford a big public service nor will the international markets allow it.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 23, 2004
Free trade: Deadlocked?
The Australian Financial Review (subscription required) reports that the free trade trade negotiations with the US have reached a dead lock, prrimarily due to US intransigence.
The US has only offered minor improvements in market access for Australian beef and dairy products. And the Bush administration has decided against offering Australia any extra market access at all for sugar.
Australia is a small economy with hardly any trade barriers that hurt the US. And we are asking the US to dismantle some of its most politically sensitive barriers on a range of farm goods.
Why would they? The US is a deeply protectionist nation state in relation to agriculture. It uses tarriffs, quotas and subsidies to support its farmers.
It does not look as if a deal will be cut easily.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 22, 2004
Conservative America: snake oil
It would seem that President Bush's latest State of the Union (SOU) speech was rather low on statesmanship and high on political partisanship. It launches his election campaign.
David Rowe
The messianism in Bush's SOU speech made me uncomfortable. I have in mind phrases such as "America is a nation with a mission – and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs"; that mission being underwritten by God who "planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom."
I'm also uncomfortable with the denial of US hegemony by an imperial presidency that is hollowing out the old republic behind the rhetoric of Bush as the rugged individualist taking on terrorists. I was dismayed by the illusions in the sentence that "We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace democratic peace – a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman." Hegemonic power and strategic interest has evaporated. There was no awareness that the US is seen as besotted with power and unnerved by terror and increasingly overbearing, jingoistic and rash.
And privatised American health care is the best in the world? Whose kidding who?
Then there was all the strong America valuing the sacred institution of marriage---- heterosexual only, none of that activist gay nonsense; and abstinence being the only solution for sexually transmitted diseases. No doubt we can see God's hand in this moral law, which teaches that each (non-gay) individual has dignity and value in God's sight.
All that God talk disappeared when it came to the economy. Of course it was pro-growth economic agenda coupled to spending more. There were promises about job growth, even through the US growth is based on shredding jobs. And lots of promises about spending on education and health. So where is the money coming from? Doessnoteh US run a hugh budget deficit? Oh, I forgot. There a Bush promise to cut the deficit in half over 5 years. No doubt Bush's taxcuts will play the role of dux ex machina as they are sold as the drivers of the strong American economy.
As I said it's about its all about election politics. Lots of hype that basically says Bush is a divider in its appeal to conservative and middle America. It's little more than political magic with is tax less and spend more trick.
And the free traders want us to integrate Australia with the US and embrace this snake oil from Washington?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 21, 2004
US Presidential elections
So the Presidential election has begun with the early pre-selection process for the Democrat candidate underway.
I cannot really understand the Democratic selections of the Presidential contender through the primary caucuses because I do not know what the candidates stand for. Who is Edwards? Who is Kerry? Democratic mainstream? I know about Wesley Clarke---he's an ex-military person. A former Vermont Governor Dean raised a lot of money on the Internet and firmly opposes Bush (eg., Iraq & tax cuts). Gephardt was a political machine man. Lieberman was pro-the Iraq war. As were Mr. Gephardt, Kerry & Edwards. I would have thought that a left liberal Dean was unelectable largely because of his anti-war stance.
Not much knowledge there, is there? And the Australian media has rather poor on informing us about the Democrat pre-selection process.
"Bush wins in Iowa" is some of the commentary I've come across. Honestly, I've no what that means. This?
Basically I'm too far away from the action to have much of a feel for what is going on or how the conflict over the issues raised play with the US mainstream. I saw of clip of Dean raging in a post-caucus press conference on television, and I was a bit taken back by the emotional intensity and stridency. But I had little context to make sense of the anger. Not presidential?
It is also difficult for me to understand the significance of the US press coverage of the Iowa caucus results, which saw Howard Dean relegated to third place behind John Kerry and Gephardt withdraw from the contest. Iowa seems to be minor league in the primaries, yet the US corporate media created an enormous fuss about Dean.
Why? Is it the US corporate machine (Fox News) trying to kill off Dean? Is its politics that naked?
What I do understand is that the Republican hegemony in the US is backed by the enormous financial resources and corporate patronage, which has helped make the conservative renaissance possible. They now control Congress. And the Democrats appear to be going through a prolonged, bitter contest that produces a financially weakened, exhausted victor who then has to face an armed Republican machine with a huge war chest.
What I also understand is that a lot of Social Democratic hopes seem to rest with Howard Dean to help roll back the hegemony of Republican America. Dean is the bearer of liberal progressive politics. Yet people say that he is on the ropes, severely damaged For instance, Tony Walker, writing for the Australian Financial Review (subscription required) says that the next stop--New Hampshire-- is Dean's last chance. Why is New Hampshire so critical?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 20, 2004
Free trade: its integration
The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US is back in the news as negotiations enter their final stages over the next 10 days. What is currently being addressed by Trade Minister Mark Vaile and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick is resolving the issues not agreed to by the negotiating teams. Then Howard and Bush step in at the last minute.
No doubt we will hear our free traders say that if Australia is to be a leading-edge economy, then we need more US investment in Australia. The FTA is the appropriate instrument to opening the door and providing the welcome mat. It is doing business with the US that will prevent Australia's inevitable decline down the global wealth table in a globalized world. Protection means economic decline; an open economy means economic growth. That's the line.
Tim Colebatch says in The Age any "agreement will be a compromise of interests, in which both sides trade off what they feel they can afford to give politically to protect what they cannot." He goes to say that:
"The political reality is that to get an agreement by Friday week, Australia will have to give up more than it wants and accept less than it wants. The deal will not be a balanced one...[America] is unlikely to give free access to Australia's far more competitive exporters, even over 10 years or more. It will not lift its ban on fast ferries and it is unclear whether it will agree to free trade in dairy and beef. To secure even that outcome, Howard and Vaile will have to make some politically painful calls. Few of the US demands are easy to meet, and some would hurt seriously."
Australia will give ground on restrictions on foreign investment, will reduce local content rules on digital TV and other new media forms, abolish farm export monopolies such as the AWB's control of wheat exports, and concessions on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to increase the returns to the US pharmaceutical manufacturers.
A key sticking point is the attempt by the Bush Administration to use the FTA to secure changes to Australia's PBS system to increase the price of drugs for the US pharmaceutical manufacturers. Is this the payback for the political donations pharmaceutical manufacturers to Bush's election to the imperial presidency?
Not much there for Australia, is there? The cards are stacked against Australia.
Will John Howard, the man of steel, crumble like a soft cookie? Will he sell out Australian consumers by siding with the US pharmaceutical manufacturers? That will not go down well with Australian public opinion.
So why the Australian push for an FTA with the US? The FTA is said to be about securing access to the US market for Australian agriculture, eg., dairy produce, sugar and beef. But there is more to it than this.
John Howard's politics are about locking Australia into the US axis. The free traders dream about a borderless world. Thus Alan Oxley in yesterday's Australian Financial Review (subscription required, 19 01 04, p. 47) says that Australia is an industrialized, democratic, and free market society with a greater focus on the market than the state. So Australia is just like the US. Hence integration with the US makes good sense. The inference? Australia should become an extension of the US market.
They rarely mention the power politics underneath all this. It is just free trade for them. Pure economics. Never political economy.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 19, 2004
Energy: policy vacuum
There is an article in today's Australian Financial Review (subscription required) on energy by Joel Fitzgibbon, the ALPs mining energy and forestry spokesperson.
He makes two points.
The first point is what the gas fire at South Australia's Moomba gas plant highlights. Australia can supply natural gas to China and the US west coast, but cannot guarantee supplies of competitively priced gas to its industrial and domestic customers.
The second point Fitzgibbon makes is that though Australian-owned gas shores up the future strategic reserves and energy needs of its trading partners, there is no long-term plan for Australia's own gas supply and transmission infrastructure.
Fitzgibbbon says the result is that Australia is facing a looming energy supply and infrastructure crisis. In a globalized world the private energy companies focus their gas marketing almost entirely on export opportunities to bolster the companies bottom line. Little is being done to use the wealth of the offshore gas reserves to fund the development of a national domestic gas grid.
I would add that Australia has an energy policy vacuum, given the failure to modernize the electricity grid, the shortage of electricity, using coal fired power stations to generate power and the unwillingness to shift to renewable energy. That vacuum has been filled by the market. It now shapes energy policy.
The most that politicians say these days is that is "we need more competition" to sort things out. The mantra indicates the poverty of ideas about energy beyond the protection of an old-fashioned industry. If there is anything beyond that it is about efficiency: ie., energy market reform measures that aim to lower the rate of growth of emissions by improving the economic efficiency of energy supply. The reality is that power campanies paid too much for the privatised energy infrastructure, are now debt laden and so do not have the money to fund the modernization of the energy infrastructure.
And consumers have to with live power cuts.
Smart management all round, don't you think?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 18, 2004
rolling into elections
Mark Latham, it seems, is in constant campaign mode even though he is on his political honeymoon. He visited Adelaide last week on the campaign trail, before shooting up to Queensland to join the Beattie election bandwagon currently rolling along with great fanfare.
David Rowe
In Adelaide Latham did not say much of substance, even though Federal Labor has all but lost South Australia to the Coalition. (It only holds 3 of the eleven seats from memory, even though there is a state Labor Government.) When in town Latham was strong on pressing the flesh, reading stories to kids at the beach and low on public policy. The visit was the time when the first Adelaide Darwin freight train rolled out of Adelaide to cross the continent with much hoopla about the steel Snowy, flag waving, celebrations and talk about federal history. It's real job is to transport goods.
Meanwhile, the economic rationalists in the eastern states muttered darkly into their expresso's about efficiency, financial return, shutting nowhere (South Australia and the Northern Territory) down and allowing the market to shift the lost populations to Sydney and Melbourne. They have no conception of place.
Latham's political message was that the ALP still stands for nation-building. (There was no sign of the former Latham as the foul-mouthed hothead and little sign of the man from the western suburbs of Sydney). This was the new measured Latham.
So what did the reinvented Latham say in Adelaide? He will protect the ailing River Murray; protect jobs in the car industry by reviewing the cuts to car tariffs; scrap the nuclear power dump; intervene to ensure more competition in the electricity market to reduce power bills in South Australia; and encourage migrants to settle in South Australia to boost the state's population and economic growth. This was specifically tailored to SA.
The visit got headlines in the local Murdoch rag (The Advertiser). There was nothing about higher education, public health sustainable and liveable cities or developing a renewable energy industry.
Oh, there was the usual national policy on slashing federal funding to rich private schools and urging state government to reduce stamp duty on homes and their reliance on poker machine taxes.
Hardly enough to win the three marginal seats up for grabs in SA. Nothing about how the Murray is going to get the 1500 gigalitres promised; or how competition will reduce power prices. It's still all tailored promises on the never never. Nothing in what Latham said shows that the ALP will be better at practically managing the instruments of governance.
Nor can I see the Rann Labor Government generating lots of positive spillover for Latham and so boost federal Labor's prospects through winning over the middle ground for the election expected in October. The state government does not show that the federal ALP is morally deserving of government--- it continues to fudge gvernance. And the Federal ALP is still vague on the policy ends to which the instruments of governance are orientated.
Maybe Queensland will play that crucial traction role that Latham needs through deploying its old strategy of 'blame Canberra for all our problems' game. The important political background is Queensland, not South Australia. The marginal seats in the south west of Queensland matter more than those in Adelaide, if the ALP is to win Government in its own right.
But I know little about the south east corner of Queensland apart from them being populated by retirees with conservative social values. Does conservative social values + economic development = the Beattie ALP?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 17, 2004
Democracy in Iraq
Despite the worthy objective of the U.S. occupation of Iraq ending by July 1 Moir is right.
It is a square peg in a round hole, given the attempts by the US occupation authority with its Iraqi face to impose limited democracy on Iraq, and the resistance by the Iraqi's to a guided democracy. The Bush Administration is even trying to get the United Nations to return to Iraq and play an advisory role in support of the U.S.-backed plan.
Ayatollah Ali Sistani is insisting on full democratic elections in opposition to the imperial American strategy of carefully managed caucuses for any new Iraqi government. The imperial presidency in Washington doesn't much like Sistani's resistance to a 'pro-American', Chalabi-dominated government that would lack legitimacy, popular support, or real independence.
The Washington Post reports the Bush Administration cannot accept Sistani's call for direct elections and are trying to pressure him to back off.
Juan Cole's take on this conflict which has given expression to demonstrations in the cities is insightful. He says:
"British troops estimated that 30,000 Shiites demonstrated in Basra on Thursday, with massive crowds beginning at two separate points and wending their way to the al-Abila mosque. Al-Hayat reported that they were demanding that the elections scheduled for late May be held on a one person, one vote basis. Mainly from the al-Da`wa Party and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the crowds shouted, "No to America! We're coming to you, Sistani!" "Colonialism is not liberty!" and "Yes, yes to Sistani, No, No to Appointment!" (i.e. they demanded free elections, not political appointments by hand-picked bodies).
The Bush administration rather cynically made providing democracy in Iraq its fallback justification for an Iraq war. First, the primary justification, of weapons of mass destruction, fell through. Now the fallback position is creating its own problems, since from an administration point of view the Iraqis are taking it 'way too seriously!"
The imperial presidency has a problem as its imperial interests and democracy in the Middle East come asunder.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 3:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 16, 2004
more of the same
I'm still very very busy painting and cleaning up the electronic cottage. In the meantime we have:
Leunig
It is the other side of the Menzies tradition in foreign policy, which Owen Harris has characterised as being:
"...sceptical of most international institutions, including the UN, which it believes should be seen not as an alternative to power politics, but as power politics with a different facade, a different way for sovereign states to play essentially the same game. The Security Council is in reality no more than a kind of permanent conference of the great powers, where important and contentious issues can be discussed. Every member votes according to how it sees its interests. It reflects the realities of international politics, but it does not and cannot change them significantly."
Conservative realism is all about power politics in a Hobbesian world and Australia striding across the world stage flexing its muscle and laying down the law and order.
More here. The changes are noted here. The two foreign policy traditions are noted here.
Owen Harris takes the debate further with his three different traditions of conservative realist, internationalist and regionalist.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 15, 2004
fantasy & reality
This cartoon captures the gap between fantasy and reality mentioned here.
hardliners (those I call the neocons) have won most of the foreign policy battles in Washington but they seem to have become sidetracked from the realities of the war on terror.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 14, 2004
Victoria leds the way
I see that the Bracks Labor Government in Victoria has set a target of 10% of Victoria's total power to come from renewable sources by 2010, with 75% (or 1000 megawatts) of that to come from wind.
At the moment Victoria's 3 wind farms produce just 81 megawatts. So they've a long way to go.
South Australia has not even bothered to set target figures for the power to come from renewable energy resources.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Iran: democratic turning point?
The media are carrying stories that the powerful conservatives in the Guardians Council in Iran are trying to bar reforming MP's from standing in next month's elections.
A standoff is forming as the barred MPs stage a sit-in, provincial governors are threatening to resign and Government ministers are writing their letters of resignation.
The Council of Guardians sounds something straight out of Plato's Republic does it not?
The Council is vested with the authority to interpret the constitution and determines if the laws passed by Parliament are in line with sharia (Islamic law). This means that the council has effective veto power over Parliament. If it deems that a law passed by Parliament is incompatible with the constitution or sharia, it is referred back to Parliament for revision. The council also examines presidential and parliamentary candidates to determine their fitness. It is a powerful unelected political body.
Abu Aardvark says that this conflict has:
"...all the earmarks of a direct, frontal challenge to the reformists, aimed at forcing them to admit their defeat and to capitulate. But it also shows the weakness of the conservatives, and their fear of free elections. Having to resort openly to such manipulations demonstrates clearly their recognition that they could not win a fair democratic competition. They can control the existing institutions, but only by stripping those institutions of their legitimacy."
The situation is still very fluid. The question is: will Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme religious leader, back the Council of Guardians bans? At the moment it appears the conflict appears to be a high-stakes game of chicken.
At this stage the effect of the conflict within Iran's political institutions will have on its nascent civil society is unclear. Will it facilitate the development of civil society? Will it hinder it?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:18 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 13, 2004
boys and their toys
I heard on the news this morning that Australia is going to spend billions on a missile defence system that would enable SM3 missiles to shoot down intercontinental missles in outer space. The tone of the voice of Robert Hill the Minister of Defence, was one of positively drooling over the capabilities of the SM3.
The clip sounded so much like boys raving about their toys. The Minister was carried away with excitement:
"It's got the capability to basically meet and intercept missiles outside of the atmosphere, long-range three stage missiles that can do what the Americans did, destroy an incoming missile 37 kilometres above the earth travelling at 3.7 kilometres a second."
Wow!.
The minister did not mention who would be firing these long-range ballistic missiles at Australia. But we all knew without being told. It was the Asian enemy in the north.
The reason for the enemy firing the missiles at Australia? They wanted to knock out Australia's old fossil fuel economy. We all know that.
Yeah, it's whacky reasoning I know.
But then so is the reasoning of Robert Hill on Australia's involvement in Star Wars Mark 11.
Update
Indonesians have voiced concerns about the missile plan. Indonesia's foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said the system dubbed Son of Star Wars would not contribute to regional security. It would destabilise the region.
This piece says that the ALP is opposed to Australia signing up to Star Wars. The ALP argues that one of the consequences of signing up is that it will lead to an arms race where nations build bigger and better missiles to beat the missile shield. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute says that:
"China is certainly concerned about being hemmed in by the US on missile defence. And with Australia and Japan both signing up, China would be very much concerned that this policy is about the containment of China."
The Institute was established to provide an alternative input into strategic decision-making processes and encourage public debate on strategic issues. We certainly need some new input into public debate given the way the opposition to the war on Iraq is seen as supporting the former Iraqi dictator and his brutal regime. All the stuff about weapons of mass destruction, Iraq's WMD posed a threat to Australia, and that a close nexus existing between Iraq and the al-Qa'ida terrorist network is quietly forgotten.
Whilst on this this topic have you noticed how much the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council supports the Bush Administration's foreign policy---in this case the US anti-ballistic programme. In Wednesday's Australian Financial Review (subscription requiredbut see here) Ted Lapkin, their senior policy analyst justifies Australia joining this programme on the grounds of the threat posed by North Korea:
" One of the most compelling dangers to international peace comes from North Korea, a reprobate nation that could also pose a direct military threat to mainland Australia...With a range of 6000 kilometres the Taepo-Dong-2 missile could easily hit Darwin...Moreover, intelligence indicates that the North Koreans are working on an extended-range missile that could reach as far as Melbourne."
Why would the North Koreans want to rain missiles down on Australia?
The reason given is the paranoid irrationality of the current North Korean regime driven into destitution by failed economic policies.
This is the old Red Scare reinvented as "rogue regime" by the conservative hawks playing off the old fears and anxieties about the enemy from the North.
Update:
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:14 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
climate change policy in Australia
The news is that Australia has abandoned working towards the international greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme of the Kyoto Protocol. As Matt McDonald says:
"The emissions trading scheme, which allows industry to offset production of greenhouse gas emissions by investing in projects such as carbon sinks, was designed to minimise the immediate burden of emissions reductions on industry and allow a gradual transition to sustainable industrial practices."
We need to remind ourselves of the history of Australia's climate change policy at this point to gain some perspective. Matt McDonald again:
"Australia pushed hard to ensure that the greenhouse emissions targets under Kyoto would be limited, but has pointed to the inadequacies of these targets and mechanisms to attain them. In 2002 the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, described the protocol as a "stunt", and not "a serious way of addressing the issue". That a government that had secured an increase in greenhouse emissions targets - and with the highest per capita production of greenhouse gas emissions in the world - could criticise the level of global reductions as inadequate is stunning in its hypocrisy."
What this shows is that Australia has little intention to help work towards creating an institutional mechanism through which international agreements on restricting greenhouse gases could be reached in the future. It also shows an indifference to the loss of Australia's plants and animals from the consequences of global warming.
And it shows that John Howard's Australia has little interest in making the switch from a fossil fuel economy to non-carbon one. This Government will probably not increase Australia's mandatory renewable energy target (from its current 2% to 10%) to facilitate the development of non-renewable energy industries in Australia.
Does the Howard Government actually have a Greenhouse policy?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 12, 2004
just a smokescreen
The cartoon relates to the recent WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications Report by the Carnegie Endowment that has just been released. The key findings of this Report were:
1. Iraq WMD Was Not An Immediate Threat
· Iraq's nuclear program had been suspended for many years; Iraq focused on preserving a latent, dual-use chemical and probably biological weapons capability, not weapons production.
· Iraqi nerve agents had lost most of their lethality as early as 1991.
· Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, and UN inspections and sanctions effectively destroyed Iraq's large-scale chemical weapon production capabilities.
2. Inspections Were Working
· Post-war searches suggest the UN inspections were on track to find what was there.
· International constraints, sanctions, procurement, investigations, and the export/import control mechanism appear to have been considerably more effective than was thought.
3.Intelligence Failed and Was Misrepresented
· Intelligence community overestimated the chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.
· Intelligence community appears to have been unduly influenced by policymakers' views.
· Officials misrepresented threat from Iraq's WMD and ballistic missiles programs over and above intelligence findings.
4.Terrorist Connection Missing
· No solid evidence of cooperative relationship between Saddam's government and Al Qaeda.
· No evidence that Iraq would have transferred WMD to terrorists-and much evidence to counter it.
· No evidence to suggest that deterrence was no longer operable.
5.War Was Not the Best-Or Only-Option
· There were at least two options preferable to a war undertaken without international support: allowing the UNMOVIC/IAEA inspections to continue until obstructed or completed, or imposing a tougher program of "coercive inspections."
Little more needs to be said.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:26 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 11, 2004
On holiday
John Wright
Aussies have four weeks annual leave and about 12 additional national public holidays. Aussie worker workers are rolling in clover apparently.
It would be nice to have a few days off to relax. I would not care if I were bored witless for a few days. Just watching the surf, sun and birds sounds just fine to me.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 10, 2004
Native Forests: more debate
These comments by Frank Strie were made in the comment box of the previous post. They address the opinions of Greg Barnes at Crikey.com.au in an insightful way as Frank widens the debate from trees to ecosystem. They are too important to be left buried in the comments as they point towards the idea of ecological integrity.
I have edited the comments so they flow more easily. This is what Frank said:
"For Greg Barns it, (the issue) continues to be still all about trees and trees again.
No matter how often one points this out to him, (see under letters on Tasmanian Times). Barns ignores to see the forests, the creeks and ecosystems. He also ignores the serious debate about good water quality and quantity, clean air and the great loss of opportunities due to resource destruction. Barnes simply will not recognise that forests (not only trees) are the issue.
In reality, the logging debate is much wider than just a fight about big old growth and tall trees, just between the Wilderness Society and Forestry Tasmania and it's Industry lobby. Greg Barns appears simple-minded, as he can only see two opposing sides, just as he uses the example of two countries at war.
What about the local community what about the world community? All around Tasmania there are communities confronted with destruction of landscape, water resource, 1080 poison, chemical spray etc. etc. Just have a look at Discover Tasmania or Tarkine or Doctors for Forests.
Is the broader population not involved in the debate? Are they not participating on talkback radio and letters to the editor and other forms of debate? Is the public community just outside observers for G. Barns? Is every critical voice a typical greenie? If so what a narrow view!
For me and my associates in the 'for forests movement' (Doctors for Forests) the debate is not simply about economic versus environmental arguments; it is actually about social, ethical and intergenerational issues too.
Typical negotiated 'compromises' and handshakes behind closed doors are just old fashioned ways, in contrast we are working on real solution with the community. The problem is that in the meantime the destruction continues:...( here and here.)
The Forest Practices System is self-regulated in Tasmania. Just as in other industries around Australia, self-regulation does not work; and in the case of forests,after its gone it takes hundreds of years to get back to what it was, if ever again!
Back to positive contributions.One example of committed work can be found here and ProSilva, or the quality management in our forests. Nearly 10 years ago this paper was first written and presented, however it was ignored and by some just dismissed outright.
The destruction continued, the problem has become more than just a "challenge" of our time. Isn't it time to work out the positive changes, not just with the traditionally two opposing sides? Together with the local community and to make really sure it will work we should not forget to involve the world community."
For a positive Tasmania
Frank Strie, FWM
Schwabenforest Pty. Ltd.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 9, 2004
Native Forests: The logging debate continues
Over at Crikey.com.au Greg Barnes has continued the recent round debate on logging Australia's old growth native forests. It is good to see Crikey offering its site for the debate, given the limited space devoted to the issue in the corporate media.
If you recall, the recent round of the debate was kicked off by Richard Flanagan writing on the rape of Tasmania in The Bulletin. Flanagan argued that woodchipping in the island-state has been likened to an ecological catastrophe. The article was mentioned at public opinion here. The argument was continued by Christopher Bantick in The Age mentioned here at public opinion.
Now Crikey has not been noted for its sympathy to environmental concerns. Wendy Wedge, one of Crikey's right wing columnists is hostile to the environmental movement. (More Wendy here.)To its credit Crikey was sympathetic to Flanagan's argument. Crikey said:
"Flanagan's story is the most comprehensive and compelling to be written on the Tasmanian forest industry in recent times, but gathering the information was not easy. The logging industry is surprisingly exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, making it difficult to find out things like how much the loggers actually pay for crown forest....The statistics Flanagan has on the clearfelling and logging of old growth forests, precious temperate rainforests, rare myrtle trees, leatherwoods and so on, are just devastating, enough to stun even the most hardened economic rationalist."
Crikey mentioned the lack of reporting of the forestry issue in Tasmania and the way the two major political parties are hopelessly compromised by their ties to the big forestry industry. Crikey also points out that the wealth creation from woodchipping is concentrated in Gunns Ltd and that the majority of Gunns shares are held by mainland institutions. So it is a national issue.
So what is Greg Barne's response to Flanagan and Bantich? Does he add anything to the debate? Alas, Barnes does not say very much. If we ignore his use of the war between the Israel government and the Palestinians to map the conflict between greenies and foresters in Tasmania, then Barnes is making two points. First, he is sick of the 'posturing', 'slogans' and 'emotion' in the debate:
"Geoff Law from the Wilderness Society, the Greens Bob Brown, Gunn’s CEO, John Gay and Forestry Tasmania’s Managing Director, Evan Rolley have all been running their campaigns for over a decade. There are no new voices on either side in Tasmania – people who can work with scientific and economic fact, not slogans and emotions, to create the conditions for an end to the conflict...Both the hard line greens and big business are now resorting to shallow marketing these days as a means of continuing the conflict...the Wilderness Society's marketing is no worse than the "infomercials'' run by Gunns...".
Fair enough. We do need more than political rhetoric.
This brings us to the second point that Barnes makes. Barnes says that we can move beyond the political rhetoric through compromise and consensus.
"It is time for the Wilderness Society and the Greens to accept some compromises on their ambit claims -- and it is time the Tasmanian government and timber companies to come to the negotiating table with goodwill. And it is time for the cultural crowd like Bantick and Flanagan to stop their public protesting through the media and become involved in helping the parties at the table to reach some consensus."
Fair enough. We should move away from the posturing to further political and commercial self-interest and acknowledge a complex ecological reality. The ecological reality of forests is more complex than political rhetoric has depicted.
So how do we figure out what compromise and consensus would mean in this situation? What would it look like if it went beyond the old Regional Forestry Agreements (RFA) that were struck in the name of achieving compromise and consensus. Do we need to move beyond the RFA's? Are the RFA's working? Should they be dropped? Should they be modified? If so in what way? Is the problem with the RFA's per se, or in its application by the Bacon Labor Government in Tasmania?
I do not know the answer to these questions. It would be helpful if they were addressed by people such as Greg Barnes. Unfortunately, Barnes does not address the RFA issue at all.
So all Barnes leaves us with is some political rhetoric---'posturing'--- from the political middle ground. Now it is fair enough for Barnes to speak as an Australian Democrats defending the middle ground of politics. Different voices help to keep the public debate going. And Barnes does have to offer something more than repeating the posturing he levels at his fellow debaters. He has to offer more, since his criticism is that it is the political posturing that is preventing the debate from moving forward. Political posturing achieves nothing in terms of public debate.
Barnes is judged wanting by his own argument.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:01 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
January 8, 2004
Siding with the animals too
I've always had a problem with zoos. The way they were historically constructed embodied a colonial gazing at the wild and the exotic, which ignored the maltreatment of the caged animals.
I came to hate Zoos as a child. I saw this representation of exhibiting nature as a site of cruelty for the lions, tigers, monkeys and polar bears.
The zoo has been reinvented. The Monarto Zoological Park near Murray Bridge in South Australia is a haven for endangered animals. It is primarily about animal welfare and conservation. Steve Urwin's Australia Zoo is quite different. It is primarily about selling an updated pioneer image of wilderness for the tourist market. The primary concern is to make money.
Good to see Leunig siding with the animals against the media-driven stuntman. Someone needs to highlight their moral status in the entertainment business.
Update
More on the inability of Steve Irwin and Australia Zoo here. It's a piece that says that Irwin, the khakis-clad showbiz personality, cannot take criticism even of his cornball wildlife programs. And those who have a different view of wildlife conservation (eg crocodile farming) are dismissed as the "Hitlers of wildlife".
When will we hear the old line of tall poppies being cut down by ratbags filled with envy and resentment?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:28 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack
January 7, 2004
its show biz
I've watched this story unfold over the last few days. It has depth.
Croc hunter Steve Irwin fed a four-metre crocodile with one hand while clutching his one-month-old son Bob during a show at his Australia Zoo reptile park on the Sunshine Coast.
Bill Leak
Australia Zoo is about tourism, entertainment and money. Irwin is the new face of the old bush hero--the new Crocodile Dundee who sells Australiana for international tourism. So he becomes an icon; a part of the interantional face of Australia.
He is also a part of the culture industry in the form of the Discovery Channel.
Irwin is part of the conservative face of Australia--the bush tradition plus the free market. That is why he was invited to the exclusive barbecue hosted by John Howard for President Bush, when the imperial presidency was here last year.
My suggestion? Let's go beyond Leak. Let's free the animals.
Update
Why not a fully mechanized and digitalized Australia Zoo as a showcase of Aussie ingenuity?
Why not Australia Zoo as a Disney-style theme park selling wilderness to tourists to showcase the Aussie entrepreneurial spirit? Or is that what it is now?
We could be even more adventeurous with the popular culture/show biz side of things. Why not attach a cultural studies course to Irwin's Australia Zoo that critiques the pioneer experience, and construction of, wildness? This course could be subsidised by the Australian tourism industry as a giving back to society (mutual obligation) for all the government handouts it currently receives.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:38 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
January 6, 2004
managing a "power crisis"
Public policy has taken a back seat to the endless summer and so there is not much happening in the media. The cricket test between India and Australia is what fills media flows at the moment. (I, along with many others, hope India wins).
Energy, however, is back in the news. This is because of the shortage of gas for NSW and SA due to the dramatic cut in the gas supply caused by an explosion at the Moomba plant in SA. The political response is all about crisis management in the name of the public interest.
Fair enough. The politicians needs to show that they are in control in a "power crisis" and that they are good managers with their hand on the wheel. But we should not be fooled by this we "have the 'crisis' under control" posture.
This crisis management means that the attention shifts away from the long-term thinking on energy that would integrate social, economic and environmental objectives into a comprehensive energy strategy for SA and NSW.
What drops out of sight is the need to develop a sustainable and socially responsible energy industry. The long-term thinking is done by those working within the self-correcting market and so it is concerned with competition, prices and profits.
That is what has happened in the electricity market with its fiction of a national grid, with SA only having a limited interconnection with the rest of national electricity market. And that resulted from the short term thinking of politicians---the Olsen Liberal Government. They maximised the financial return from the privatisation process by ensuring that private investors were not threatened by interstate competition. What drives the strategies of private investors in SA is servicing the debt incurred on buying the electricity infrastructure.
That is a good example of short-term thinking by state politicians on energy.
What the current shortage of gas shows is the small number of generators/producers in the gas energy market, and hence the lack of competition. It undercuts a central premise of a national gas market.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 5, 2004
Foreign policy: Howard's use by date
Stephen Fitzgerald had an article in Saturday's Australian Financial Review (subscription required) on Australia's foreign policy, or rather on John Howard's 'all the way with the USA.' Fitzgerald says that:
"John Howard certainly has a grip on foreign policy and has imposed a discipline on his party. DFAT appears to support him. The media, with honourable exceptions is largely unquestioning. Polls suggest popular support. There's also what Richard Woolcott recently called an unhealthy detachment by Australians about whether they are being told the truth about foreign policy."
Fitzgerald argues that this personality-driven foreign policy of locking Australia into the Bush administration and its global projects is not locked into the long-term. He gives several reasons.
First, there is widespread disagreement with Howard's policies amongst the elite foreign policy community( political, bureaucratic, business, academic) who have the power and influence to make foreign policy. There is widespread dissent on issues such as, seaborn refugess, Iraq, Indonesia, Asia, the US, internationalism etc. even if the dissent within government and the bureaucracy is not being publicly aired.
Secondly, some of the disagreements are substantive not those of emphasis. A key one has to do with how deeply Australia should integrate with Pacific Asian region in the sense of being a part of Asia. This has to do with being inside the Asian tent to take advantage of a multilateral Asia and an Asian regional economic and trade community. It has to do with a hegemonic China in a multilateral region of enormous economic and political power. It also has to do with expanding our knowledge horizons to manage this regional reality and vastly increasing investment in Asia education, research, and Asia-skilled people.
The dividing line is that in the 21st century Australia's relationship with China is as equally important, if not more so, as our relationship as the US. In making the US the exclusive focus the Howard policy appears as illogical, eccentric and old fashioned.
Update
I see that Mark Thirwell from the newly formed Lowy Institute supports the above line of argument: that the distribution of economic weight in the world economy is moving back towards Asia and that Australia woudl benefit from a policy of global re-orientation to China and Asia.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 4, 2004
Sunday Cartoon: Endless Highway
I know it is the New Year. I realize that we should all be happy and fully engaged in celebrating a future that is so pregnant with the promise of a better life for all.
But I'm depressed.
Here is some new year cheer:
Leunig
Tis the best I can do in the moment.
Life feels like an endless highway. The clip of the song on the radio endlessly repeats itself in between all the corporatisation and merchandising of emotion and sentiment in sport. Those inside the car rarely speak, as they are stunned by how the stretch of road seems to eternally recur no mattter how long they've been travelling.
The storm clouds just hang on the horizon, the heat is unbearable and the car has no airconditioner.
The small country towns along the way have a dilapidated feel, the petrol stations are closed and the deli's are waiting for the next delivery of cold drinks and icecream.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 3, 2004
suburban realities
Menzies' forgotten people. They were supposed to be feeling relaxed and comfortable now after the turmoil of the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s that created prosperity for some and unemployment for others.
Well, relaxed and comfortable was the promise made by John Howard's Liberals. The promise is turning out otherwise.
Nicolson
The increasing inequality caused by economic globalization has had the effect of squeezing the middle class who live outside the global economy. Thus homeownership is becoming less affordable in the major cities. They are in need of more than some stamp duty relief. People are having to leave the cities, shift to the coastal and downsize their aspirations.
Latham, a suburban boy at heart, replays the 'forgotten people' theme by talking about the new divide in Australian politics between ‘insiders’ who live in the inner city and ‘outsiders’ who live in the suburbs. He attacks the former: professionals who have become a new progressive elite engaged in a culture war with the established conservative elite. The war has focused on Rights, Reconciliation, Republic, and Refugees. His concern is with the aspirations of the suburban outsiders climbing the economic ladder.
In his book, From the Suburbs: Building a Nation from our Neighbourhoods Sydney, Latham outlines two polices to counter the squeezing of the suburban middle class. First, expanding asset ownership through expanding the superannuation across the life cycle so that everyone can be a small capitalist. Secondly, developing the responsibility agenda of the neighbourhood through social capital and social entrepreneurs. The excluded suburbanites now become included through owning a stake in the capitalist economy and acting as communities to solve their own problems.
Another name for suburbia is middle Australia. That is where John Howard is camped. Labor has had great difficulty in gaining in reclaiming this terrain. It is the political battleground in the next election.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 2, 2004
a new tourist spot
I've been hunting for photographs of the ecological devastation of Tasmania's old growth native forests without much luck. Few photographs of the recently clear-felled Tasmanian forest coupe exist.
Andrew Dyson
Large-scale woodchipping continues in Tasmania. The old growth native forests are regarded by the forest industry as a natural resource. The industry's only conception of value-adding is composting a greenie.
The current battle ground is the clear-felling by the corporatised Forestry Tasmania of the mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) that grow in the Styx valley. Some of Australia's, and the world's, oldest hardwood trees, are being clearfelled for the sake of woodchips, sold chiefly to Japan. No other state in Australia clear-fells old-growth forests the way Tasmania does: wholesale destruction for the expansion of the plantation estate.
As Christopher Bantick observes:
"Currently, old-growth logging in Tasmania employs fewer than 350 people. It is difficult to imagine that these people could not be absorbed into the harvesting of soft wood and related milling activities. It has not even been tried....Forestry Tasmania points to the loss of jobs if logging old-growth forests were to cease immediately. The Bacon State Government, under mounting community pressure, has asked Forestry Tasmania to phase out old-growth harvesting by 2010, but without job losses. Should the present logging rate continue it is unlikely there will be many old-growth coupes left by then.
Christopher suggests that tourists to Tasmania should visit the Styx and photograph and distribute widely images of the continuing destruction of old-growth areas.
Good idea. The self-regulating Forest Industry is so negligent in its responsibilites to the environment that it has been exempted from all environmental, planning and land management legislation by the Tasmanian Government. Even stream side reserves are clearfelled and planted with plantations. The forest industry's understanding of world's best practice is to maximize the area to be clearfelled and the volume of woodchips.
is all about
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:47 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 1, 2004
Media: the big lack
I've been digging around in the archives searching for accounts that make sense of why we citizens are disatisfied with the media. That dissatisfaction was very clear with the coverage of the Iraq war. I've been trying to link that dissatisfation to the decline of the public sphere, the rise of tabloid journalism the emergence of public journalism, the decline of the ABC as a strong national public broadcaster and the shift in reportage/journalism from the objective (the emphasis is placed on the fact) and the interpretive (the emphasis is placed on the story) in the early 1980s.
I came across this old interview on the ABC's World Today with Catherine Lumby, Associate Professor of Media Studies at Sydney University. She says that she was very disappointed by Australian newspaper coverage:
"....it's very clear that we get images on television live, we get a lot of factual information from television, and then secondarily from radio. And ...most of us would be, looking to our broadsheet newspapers in particular for some really good hard analysis of the political rhetoric, and certainly analysis of the options that America wants to pursue and its allies...I wouldn't call it analysis because I've, there's very little I think that I've detected which critiques the terms on which this response is being mounted.The very simplistic black and white good versus evil kind of rhetoric coming out of America has received I think very little hard analysis. I think Margot Kingston's been particularly good in the online section of The Herald."
Lumby says that we watched that spectacle of the war unfold on television and that we went to the newspapers for something different. But we're not really getting the something different. She then adds:
" ....But we must remember that in a new media era there are other sources of information. The Internet can be an invaluable tool here for getting alternative points of view and information out. And I think that the media, the mainstream media needs to use those sorts of tools more in this situation."
Maybe a new form of online media will develop to fill the lack that many citizens experience? One thing is for sure, filling the lack will not come from the tabloid media.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:34 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack