Public Opinion

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March 31, 2004

Treasury: slipping up on the job?

I've been surfing Treasury's website looking for a strong policy statement of the economic drivers of a sustainable Australia in the context of this. To be honest I didn't expect to find it. Treasury is not that committed to sustainable development these days. It has retreated to the narrow policy horizon of competitive markets.

I found this speech by Martin Parkinson. It tells the standard Treasury story. Australia had spent much of the 20th century up to the 1980s in relative economic decline. Then along came the economic reforms driven by The Treasury. Australia has benefited with sustained economic growth. Treasury can pat itself on the back for driving this.

Let us grant Treasury that.

Parkinson's speech updates the story. The next chapter says that there are no guarantees that Australia's economic performance will continue to be as impressive as it has been over the past decade. The continuation of this performance can only be achieved through:

"... a continuing commitment to economic reform, to ensure not only that past reforms are maintained and built on, but also that future challenges are responded to in ways that enhance the competitive and flexible nature of the Australian economy."

Most of the speech is concerned with the consequences of an aging labour force. Prior to addressing that issue Martin Parkinson sketches the way strong economic growth can come from productivity growth through new technology.

He mentions information and communication technology as economic drivers that can put Australia on the international productivity frontier. He asks:

"How can we assist Australia to continue to approach that frontier? In brief, competition and flexibility in domestic product and labour markets, supported by good education and training in a stable macroeconomic environment seem to be crucial ingredients....Continued strong productivity growth...will require consistant striving for competitive, flexible markets----including resisting the pleas of special-interest groups, no matter who they are, stiving to reduce competition in markets important to them----as well as continuing policy reforms more broadly."

It is pretty much the standard Treasury line.

So where has Treasury been on the energy debate in the light of this commitment to competitive flexible markets. Where is Treasury enabling competition between the renewable energy generators in opposition to the energy-intensive industries using their lobbying to prevent competition and block the develeopment of flexible markets?

If politics is about strategy, policy making and nation building, then the MRET system is an infant industry mechanism designed to build the capacity of the Australian renewable energy industry to reduce greenhouse emissions. This mechanism is helping to create $16 billion renewable energy industry, and it is currently providing jobs and investment in regional Australia and is creating more jobs than coal-fired plants. In contrast, jobs in the conventional generation sector are declining due to deregulation, technological change and productivity gains.

Increasing the MRET target of electricity sourced from renewables (from 2% to 5% then 10%) would enable Australia to develop an internationally competitive manufacture base and exportable intellectual property.

So why is Treasury not consistently striving to create competitive, flexible energy markets? Why is Treasury staying silent in the tussle over the green energy plan? Why is Treasury not commited to ongoing reform to green the Australian economy through encouraging the emergence of flexible competitive energy market? Surely it knows about the MRET energy review. So why is Treasury not supporting David Kemp in his fight against the special interests of coal and aluminium interests seeking protection from green competition. Macfarlane, in contrast, is defending protection and subsidies to an energy industry that is unsustainable.

Surely Treasury hasn't slipped into a short-term, blinkered view of the world?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 30, 2004

He's an embarrasment

So what has been the reaction to the victory of Clover Moore in the Sydney Mayoral race and the success of the Greens by the conservative side of politics?

Varied I would guess. No doubt they would not enjoy the solid Labor performance in the suburbs. Presumably they would enjoy the electorate kick against the Carr Labor Government in NSW. I guess they would have reservation about Moore and the Greens having their hands on the levers of power.

That's a bit of a bland account I know. So we need to dig a bit beneath the surface.

But here is one reaction. It is something different. Padraic P McGuinness starts reasonably enough:

"... the Greens vote....represents the disaffected inner urban upper-middle classes, especially those who consider themselves on the political left, and not the electorate as a whole. These have become more and more significant in local government over the past 20 years, and practise a kind of populist activism which requires a good deal of leisure."

Fair enough. I can accept that description. It's a reasonable account, and it fits with Karen's analysis in the comments here.

Then P McGuinness starts to warm about the political significance of this new lefty populist activism:

"...like its accompanying obsessive opposition to globalisation or to "economic rationalism", it [lefty local activism] is not based on any proper analysis of what is actually going on, but on an overarching climate of fear, suspicion and inchoate anger....the increasing aggressiveness of middle-class protest is....is a kind of tantrum of the ageing....Any policy approach, any analysis which disagrees with the increasingly fusty prejudices formed in the 1960s and '70s is treated as prima facie evil."

My my. This local activism is driven by out-of-control emotion, not reason.

Is that so? Does the duality of the old Enlightenment's (Platonic) cliches hold up?

Let's have a look at Clover Moore's policies. Here is a sample:

"Merged council areas will be sensitively integrated. Proposals for discussion will include the creation of wards and/or precincts, and a plan for a linked city of villages that will celebrate and promote the diverse character of the expanded city, and help revitalise business precincts.... Services and facilities, including open space, will be planned for a balanced and comprehensive coverage across the city. Revised and more effective development controls will better protect resident amenity and give greater certainty to developers.The city's public land and foreshores need to be defended from indiscriminate sell-offs, with maximum access provided.....The CBD's commercial expansion needs to be planned, not developer-driven."

Sounds reasonble to me. Less the voice of out-of-control emotion and more of the voice of reason.

However, McGuinness' tone becomes quiet shrill:

".... the incursion of the activist middle classes into the elected bodies. That sounds the death knell for good local government. State governments which have to handle a much broader geographical and economic range of issues, especially population growth and the accompanying demand for ever better and bigger housing, find themselves attacked on all sides by screaming white-collar mobs motivated by ideology, anger and self-interest."

The Carr government is faced with screaming white collar mobs! The anti-democratic mob who have now gained control of local government.

It's McGuinness being emotional now, is it not?

So what does McGuinness advise the rational governors to do when faced with the irrational mob controlling local government? He says: "The only solution may eventually have to be the abolition of local government in its traditional form."

There must be a few conservative twitching in their seats at the emotionalism of the language and the exposure of their anti-democratic tendencies.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:40 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 29, 2004

Energy Policy: it's a tussle

There was a report in the Australian Financial Review last Friday (subscription required, 26 03 04, p. 18) highlighting the current vacuum in the federal government's energy policy. The report said that all the different sectors (coal, petroleum, electricity etc ) are united in criticising the Howard Government for its delay in releasing its long-dealed national energy policy.

Such a national energy policy should be concerned, with developing energy resources, investment security and enabling a move away from fossil-based primary energy resources to one based on the increasing use of renewable sources, such as wind and sun.

Currently, we do not have many renewables connected to the national electricity grid. Nor do we have much in the way of support to ensure this connection. Nor has there been much support to get the manufacturing of green technology going in Australia.

The problem that appears to exist is that the push for renewable energy through Mandatory Renewable Energy Targets (MRET) is seen to threaten not supplement the coal and aluminium industry. Is this the reason for the policy vacuum? The reason for the long over-due national energy policy?

Could there be a Mexican stand off between the different ministries within the Howard Government? A standoff instead of a joining up of policies and portfolios?

Strange isn't it. Energy underpins economic and social development and the shift to the sustainable use of this resource is crucial. Yet we have a stalemate in terms of the development of a national energy policy built on a sustainable energy future.

The implication? A lack of commitment to invest in innovation to drive a smart low carbon growth into the future other than geosequestration - the capturing and burying carbon dioxide underground. Does not this lack undermine Australia's future competitiveness in the global marketplace? Does it not undermine investment and jobs in rural and regional Australia?

This is not just fringe groups putting the pressure on the government. It's also the big end of town who sees the importance to green technologies, energy-saving production, and the competitive advantage offered by the development of resource-saving technology.

Update
Lenore Taylor in the Australia Financial Review (subscription required, 31 03 04, p. 3) identifies those Ministers involved in the Mexican standoff. On the one side we have Kemp, on the other side MacFarlane. It's environment versus the coal and aluminium (energy-intensive) industries: Kemp wants to extend the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target scheme whilst MacFarlane opposes any extension.

Lenore says that supporting Kemp's extension scheme are the sugar industry and the National MPs.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 3:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 28, 2004

Israel: any common ground?

This weblog is becoming the site of conflicting opinion about international affairs especially the Middle East. Iraq and Israel are the ground of conflict. Emotions are highly charged on the latter issue, and the conflicting voices more often than not speak past one another.

The accusation running through the comments box is that the extreme right and the left demonize the Jewish state, accuse it of practising genocide and equate the Jewish state with German fascism.

Maybe we can try and use the odd post here and there to sort things out a bit instead of yelling at one another.

For starters. Things are bad between Israel and Palestine. The Oslo Accords are history and the road map has gone nowhere:

unknown (anyone know the name of the cartoonist?)

Presumably we can all accept that. Now the next step.

I'm currently reading Alan Dershowitz's The Case For Israel. Let me state simply and clearly that public opinion accepts a two state solution---a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state---that was initially proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937 and then by the United Nations in 1948.

Public opinion accepts the idea of the two state solution though not the proposed detailed territorial partitions in the above proposals.

That should put to one side those who say that the criticism of Likud policies and actions on this weblog implies the elimination of Israel. It does not. Both people's have a right to their homelands.

Update

On the Palestinian side it would seem that the Palestinian Authority is an empty shell and that Hamas is the de facto effective government. That would mean a fundamentalist Palestinian state under shariah law that would be harsh on women, gays and Jews.

Yet the only way forward is to ensure that the occupied territories are transformed into independence of Palestine comprising Gaza and the West Bank. This implies acknowledging that the Palestinans can, and should be, a free people in a free country.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:06 PM | Comments (25) | TrackBack

March 27, 2004

standard operating procedure

I guess the map mostly refers to the colonialism practised by imperial powers.

Leunig

However, as it stands it is a spoof on a military conquest manual. The process used to be called pacification back in the days of Vietnam. It goes back to the Romans. They just lacked the technology of the tanks and guns to pacify the Jews in the first century. What they attempted to do was de-Judaize the independent kingdom; eg., they called it Palestine.

Leunig's satire ignores two things. First, the creation of a subservient adminstration in the conquered country is not mentioned. It is not just a case of barbed wire. Iraq, for instance, was cobbled together into a modern nation state through an odd hybrid of colony and monarchy in 1921 by the British Empire for its own purposes, with no attention to the desires of its inhabitants. It was founded on the violence of the British brutally putting down massive anti-British nationalistt revolt. As Juan Cole says

"The British brutally put it down from the air, slaughtering 9,000 Iraqis, both insurgents and civilians, and employing poison gas for the first time in Iraq. In the aftermath, London realized that it could not hope to rule the country by fiat, and that it needed a proxy government... the British installed [Faisal] as monarch in Baghdad in 1921....The British were faced then, as the Americans are now, with ruling a huge territory on the cheap .... To compensate for lack of troops, they relied on air power, conducting bombing raids from the sky against tribes that rebelled or refused to pay taxes."

The British Empire quickly discovered the limits to the use of high-tech weaponry and air power to effectively rule a conquered but insurgent population.

By the 1960s the Americans were calling the shots. Saddam Hussein was their proxy government in the Cold War: he was initially a block against Russian expansionism that was legitimised in terms of fighting the communists.

Secondly, Leunig ignores the role in legitimating the conquest that is played by the lapdog media, (or the subservient Fox News network), the hack commentary and the corrupt academics.

We have just lived through one of these legitimating events. Remember the peddling of the false spin that Saddam Hussein was the evil one behind 9/11; or that he was in cahoots with al-Qaeda? Remember the phoney case against Iraq----that Iraq was a significant threat to Australia? Remember those paranoid fantasies paraded as Truth (big T truth that cuts reality at its joints) by the national security state?

We are now living through a moment when the watchdog media are trying to find out what has happened. What they hit is a wall of secrecy. One the way to the wall they hear about, and often encounter, the use of state power to punish political enemies.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:09 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

March 26, 2004

it's not his role

I heard Tom Schieffer, the American Ambassador to Australia, on the radio yesterday morning in between the shrills from a rattled and edgy Howard Government laying it on about the ALP snuggling up to Osama bin Laden. Canberra rhetoric is often so politically simple-minded. Some Canberra politicians actually think that those of us living west of the capital are like little children who will swallow any tall tale fed to us by their glamourous media machine.

Did you catch the one by Ross Cameron about Osama bin Laden in the caves of Pakistan celebrating the advent of Mark Latham? Did you get the moral of the story? That the evil one's comments about bringing the troops home was an invitation to terrorists to belt Australia up?

The plan by Mark Latham to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq by Xmas is a reasonable decision. Australia is an occupying power in Iraq. The troops need to come home when Iraq forms its own government. And Australia is not an imperial power.

Tom Schieffer made a clear intervention into domestic Australian politics as an American Ambassador. He was commenting at length on Latham's decision. Here is part of the transcript from Radio National's AM programme:

"MATT BROWN: Just to be clear though, are you saying that Mark Latham's decision is a signal that could invite political bombings that target Australians specifically?

TOM SCHIEFFER: I'd hope that it wouldn't. What I'm saying is that a precipitous withdrawal of troops by the international community now could have very serious consequences and we have to be very careful in that, because that's not what we want… we don't want terrorists to get the wrong message here.

We don't want them to think the bombing in Madrid has paid some sort of political dividend, whether it is Spain or elsewhere and that's just something that we have to be very careful about and I hope that Mr Latham will take that into consideration before he makes a final decision.

....MATT BROWN: When the Prime Minister said those words last year – "I'm not talking about a period of twelve months or two years" – if he'd stuck to that, that would mean Australian troops would be coming out a few weeks from now?

TOM SCHIEFFER: I'm afraid that I just don't know what you're talking about, so you'd have to ask the Prime Minister about that.

MATT BROWN: It didn't register with you then?

TOM SCHIEFFER: I'm not familiar with that statement."

Criticize one side. Block on the other. Schieffer has directly challenged the ALP and supported the Coalition.

Schieffer has done this before. He was told to butt out then. He should butt out now.

It is partisanship and a public interference into domestic Australian politics.

Update
The shrills continue:

Bruce Petty

Petty captures the atmosphere of the House of Representatives on Thursday

And then there's the hysteria. Latham's troop's home by Xmas decision will brand Australia as a nation on the run thunders Paul Kelly It is hysteria because the Latham decision is based on a questioning of the Bush administration's claim that the US occupation in Iraq is central to its war against international terror.

A reasonable questioning I would have thought, given this sort of testimony to the US Congress by Richard Clarke that the imperial presidency president had diverted the focus on hunting terrorists to fighting an unnecessary war with Iraq.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:03 AM | Comments (24) | TrackBack

March 25, 2004

Free trade and Media

The Howard Government is now under an obligation to shape its economy and mode of governance to fit in with the Americans. The Americans see the Free Trade Agreement as opening markets to the benefit American businesses. That increased access means a more open competitive economy, less barriers to American firms, greater business integration and removing state monopolies and state enterprises.

So what does that mean for the media? It means a more rigorous competition policy. What does that mean in this context?

It would mean dismantling the restrictive cross-media laws which stop companies owning newspapers and a television network in the one capital city.

We can gain some some further insight into this from a story in the Australian Financial Review by Jennifer Hewett and Toni O'Loughlin(subscription required, 25 03 04, p. 1) it means forcing Telstra to diverst itself of its 50% share of Foxtel and allowing Murdock (News Corp) and its PBL partner to acquire that share and gain control of a pay television monopoly in Australia. So there would be greater concentration of media ownership as the two main players get bigger and bigger and dominate the content side of the media.

Is not the alliance between News and PBL the antithesis of competition?

Labor has previously blocked these big moves by the Howard Government in the Senate. Australia has successfully blocked Murdoch's expansion into the electronic media with the exception of the 25% ownership of Foxtel.

But would Labor deliver on the big media moves when it is in Government? Will it allow the cross media laws to crumble?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:00 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 24, 2004

Dining with death

It is a dicey hand that Ariel Sharon is now playing:

David Rowe

The liquidation policy is a military solution for a political problem.

Here is a round up of the Arab media's reaction to Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin courtesy of Abu Aardvark.

Consider this argument from Senator Brett Mason under Matters of Public Importance in Federal Parliament on Monday(22nd March):

"It is not difficult to see why the Left has now picked up the mantle of anti-Semitism from the far Right. After all, the Left sees the free, liberal, capitalist United States as a source of evil and, conversely, lionises America's every enemy. The nation of Israel and the Jewish people represent all that too many on the Left despise: the unapologetic commitment to democracy, free market, nation-state and military strength. It is a miniature United States, a Western enclave on the sea of the developing world. Let me reiterate this point for it is an essential one: those who hate Jewish people and hate the state of Israel almost without exception also hate liberal Western democracies, such as Australia and the United States, hate all our values and hate all that we stand for and all that we cherish. Anti-Semitism is only the other side of the anti-American and anti-Western coin. Those who want to destroy Israel and vanquish Jews also want to bring the Western world to its knees. What this means in practice is that we—the Jews and liberal Gentiles—are all in it together."

This a lovely slide from being critical of the Likud Government to hating the nation of Israel and the Jewish people to hating democracy is it not? The left is non-liberal, totalitarian, racists, anti-American and anti-Western. The left is the same as the fascist right.

What is happening to liberalism? Why is it developing a fortress/seige mentality when it has been so triumphant over its enemies?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:49 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

March 23, 2004

Telstra: anti-competitive conduct

The return of the privatisation of Telstra bill to the Senate (to sell the government's 50.05 per cent stake). The Howard Government just seems to be going through the motions.

What is the point of re-introducing the bill? What are they doing this for? Selling Telstra is not popular in the electorate given the very low service levels. Does it have something to do with the Free Trade Agreement?

We do need to address the competition side of things. Telstra's new cheap broadband prices are lower than wholesale DSL prices. We do not have a competitive market at the moment. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has questioned Telstra's tactics in the broadband market. Telstra is using its market power to stifle competition---"engaging in anti-competitive conduct" says the ACCC.

The Howard Government (Senator Minchin) is running the line that more competition can be delivered with privatisation and that the telecommunications market is highly competitive. This is cloud cuckoo land when the ACCC issued a notice to Telstra alleging that it was engaged in anti-competive conduct on broadband wholesale pricing.

What is needed is to give the ACCC the powers it needs to deal with the misuse of market power, including the power to break-up large monopolies.

Surely privatisation would increase, not decrease, Telstra's market power. As Chris Anderson writes in todays Australian Financial Review (subscription required, p. 63), an "unchained Telstra might bite."

If privatisation of telecommunications is to be the order of the day, then the power of the regulator needs strengthening to ensure a far more competitive market.

Update

In today's Australian Financial Review (subscription required) Daryl Williams, the federal Minister of Communications and Information Technology, argues that we should allow Telstra to compete unhindered. He says that:

"Driving the development of a competitive market is central to the future of the Australian telecommunication industry.This, coupled with consumer protection, is the government's core responsibility. The role of government is not to run Telstra.... To suggest that [Government] ownership of Telstra is required to effectively regulate Telstra...suggests that there is no effective means to regulate the rest of the market. This is plainly wrong. The decision the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to issue a competition notice to Telstra last week is a perfect example of the regulatory framework at work."

Hardly. The argument is that the ACCC needs to be strengthened if we want the telecommunications market to grow and prosper. That's a different issue to the privatisation of Telstra.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:35 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 22, 2004

hope she wins

Sydneysider's vote for their Mayor next Saturday. Local government suddenly looks fashionable. Let us hope that the Independent Clover Moore MP becomes Lord Mayor.

That would help to create an independent power base to the Carr Government and the Sussex Street machine. That shift to a balance of power is a plus for democracy. Local Government in Australia has been too accommodating to state governments besotted with development at any price at the expense of the environment and resident's quality of life.

And Clover Moore might just regulate the property developers more than the rightwing ALP. The politics of development are going to get a lot tougher.

Plus she has an some interesting ideas about shaping a global city: turn it into a series of villages that would be based on the inner city suburbs with their own character and creative cultures.

It is a recognition that people identify with places. They also desire to protect the historical characteristics of each of these "villages."

It is an interesting response to globalization is it not? A different vision to that of the Carr ALP, which wants to turn Sydney into a regional financial hub a la Hong Kong. A financial hub controlled by a small political group.

It shows just how far local councils haved move away from rates, roads and rubbish. Maybe the Commonwealth will support local councils (fund them) to enable them to resist the power of state governments.

Update
I'm not convinced that forced amalgamations of local councils---as happened with Sydney and South Sydney---delivers all the cost benefits from efficiency gains that the bean counters and neo-liberals in state governments say. The efficiency bonus was only marginal under the merger mania in South Australia or Victoria according to Brian Dollery writing in today's Australian Financial Review (subscription required, p. 63). Merging into larger councils is not the panacea fro cash-strapped councils.

What is happening is that state governments are loading extra burdens and responsibilities onto local government without increasing their resources. Hence many face a financial crisis, since their only source of revenue is property rates.

We need to nurture our local councils because they are unrecognized in our constitution. They come under the legislative wing of our state governments who are often unwilling to recognize the autonomy of local government. After all, the forced amalgmation of South Sydney and Sydney Councils was undertaken by the Carr Government to assist Labor win control of the Town Hall through bringing more voters in. The state Government want a tame council that will go along with rubber-stamping development.

If we want independent local councils, then we need to change their source of income. They are too constrained by their only source of revenue being property rates.

Update
Clover Moore has done it. She wins. what was once taken away from her in 1987 by the then Unsworth Labor Government. The Labor Party machine in Sussex Street has been rolled back. Two cheers for local democracy.

It highlights the popular disenchantment with the Carr Government, its lack of momentum, its inability to fix infrastructure problems plus health and transport and obssession with power.

Did you see how well the Greens did? Doubled their representation. The ALP polled badly in the CBD and the inner-western suburbs. Maybe it will encourage the ALP to accept the need for green modernization instead of following the knee-jerk Labor Right strategy of attack attack attack whilst harvesting political donations from big property developers.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:48 AM | Comments (13) | TrackBack

March 21, 2004

Sunday Cartoon

I'm on the road again. I have to catch a plane in a few hours. All the streets will be jammed from the crazy car race that turns petrol heads into a lethal missiles on the roads. The circus also brings out the desire of racegoers to see carnage on the track. The spectacle makes for good television.

Stavro

I do not speak Arabic. So I'm not sure what the words say. Tears for innocent lives lost?

You could say that the unity of Coalition of the Willing is fraying at the edges as tensions increase between"old and valued friends" due to them being taken for a ride. Iraq posed no significant threat.

The legitimacy of the occupation of Iraq is also fraying. It's good that Saddam has gone, but the Iraqi's want their country back. Hence the civil disorder within Iraq.

When will the United Nations be bought in to fix things up?

What is clear is that the war on terrorism is different from the invasion of Iraq. The latter was a turning into another pathway, but it now has the consequence of fueling international terrorism.

Update
Two quick comments. One by Robert Manne writing in The Age on the Keelty affair:

"The political purpose of Howard's silencing of Keelty is clear. By dragging the Police Commissioner into line, Coalition party members, senior public servants, members of the defence forces and the intelligence services were all taught a salutary lesson. Talk of Iraq and domestic terrorism is now forbidden. The attack on Keelty was, then, not so much an uncharacteristic stumble as a hastily improvised pre-emptive strike."

And the other comment is by Paul McGeough writing in The Sydney Morning Herald about Iraq:

".....something....fundamental is happening, something very democratic: leaders are being held to account, because the Bush case for war in Iraq has been proved to be a lie that was supported by Blair and Howard.

We were told the war was to get rid of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction - they did not exist. It was to save us from the link between Saddam and al-Qaeda - there was none. This was to be a quick war - the soldiers were to be welcomed with songs and flowers, but they will be stuck here for years to come and it might be a civil war that gives birth to the new Iraq - not Bush's liberation."

Paul says that the brutalised people of Iraq are indeed grateful to be rid of Saddam. But they loathe this occupation, are deeply resent the security crisis it has visited on them, and they feel humiliated by it. And they openly mock the superpower that said: "It'll all come right."

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:35 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 20, 2004

Madrid bombings

Steve Bell

The Spanish people have just elected a left-of-centre party to power. The Spanish elections were a victory for Spanish democracy not a “resounding victory” for al-Qaida.

It was not an act of surrender, dishonour and shame as the war party maintains. A large majority of the Spanish people (around 90%) had always opposed the conservative Anzar Government's participation in the war in Iraq. The election was a triumph of democracy, a revulsion against the political manipulation of terror by the Anzar government.

The Spanish people have every right to bring their troops home from Iraq. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the new Socialist prime minister, said they saw this to be a war that was based on deception and lies.

Will the fallout from this democratic decision result in a more independent, collective European position in opposition to a hegemonic US?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:39 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

March 19, 2004

no blank cheques

I've been watching the general conservative reaction to the Madrid bombings and the Spanish elections with interest. The issue for then is the global conflict between free states and fundamentalist terrorists.

This conservative discourse overlooks the domestic context in Spain. The conservative Partido Popular (PP) government had the economy humming along but turned a blind eye to corruption and administrative dysfunction. Economic growth has been viewed in the context of European Union (EU) enlargement and EU subsidies. The Spanish people were overwhelmingly against the Iraq war and the Aznar government’s support of it even though they oppose the threats posed by terrorism.

However, there is a also the international context. The bombings look to be the largest terrorist attack on European soil in the continent's modern history.Something has just shifted in the international relations, though I'm not quite sure what the fallout is. The tides are starting to flow differently? The chickens coming home to roost in Spain? A tectonic plate has shifted? A watershed?

Peter Hartcher over at the Sydney Morning Herald suggests that the occupation of Iraq is seen as something diferent from the war on terror. The war was not fought as a counter measure to 9/11. Does this mean a more isolated Washington?

Behind the conservative's “al-Qaida victory” interpretation of the Madrid bombingsthat has shaped responses here in Australia, we can see the new conservative discourse more easily. It is a combination template of a watered down "free market"+ a strong security state at home and empire abroad. The social conservative culture is one of patriotism, the flag, suburbia and the nation united. As the recent election commercials of President Bush illustrate, this conservatism creates fear about hostile external threats:

"The ad claimed (falsely) that Kerry had a plan to raise taxes by $900m. Then came a triptych of rapid images: a US soldier - was he patrolling in Iraq? - a young man looking over his shoulder as he runs down a city street at night - was he a mugger or escaping an attack? - and a close-up of the darting eyes of a swarthy man - was he a terrorist? The voiceover: Kerry would "weaken America". The images were racial and subliminal, intended to play upon irrational fear."

The empire acknowledges no limits on its global ambitions, has a preference for unilateralist initiatives, discounts consultations with its friends, is hostile to the United Nations and talks in terms of the "war of civilisations". The empire's allies- those who act as a proxy for the U.S. such as Britain, Australia, and Canada--are compelled to give Washington a blank cheque.

Washington allows a loyal Australia to do the onerous chores of policing the vast South Pacific, and even taking some initiative on Indonesia. Policing is another name for deputy sheriff.

The Spanish people said no to the blank cheque. They said no to the uncritical faith in fictions and to a flamboyant unilateralism premised on false promises and information.

The upshot for Australia? We need to cut through the extensive media manipulation and conceptual confusions around the war with Iraq has made the fight against terrorism synonymous with a project of empire, territorial occupation and unnecessary violence.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:35 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

March 18, 2004

The campaign trail: looks like veneer to me

Whilst John Howard's re-election strategy is centred on 'the economy and national security', Mark Latham is currently walking a tightrop between economic growth jobs and environment in Tasmania. Latham's ALP is trying to neutralize national security as an issue with a quick stir of human concern about children in detention centres.

We have been experiencing 3 days of John Howard here in South Australia. The PM is basically trying to shore up the marginal Liberal seats in Adelaide (eg., Makin, Hindmarsh, Adelaide) with some smoke and mirrors. This involves federal funding for a high tech hub for manufacturing in Elizabeth; more funding to improve the economic and environmental future of the Murray River in South Australia; and funding stormwater retention and new production methods for viticulture in the Adelaide Plains).

There is also a strong attack on the Rann Government's proposed workplace laws; and the standard 'Labor does not understand how to manage the economy' script at a SA business lunchen.

Meanwhile, Latham is trying to keep Tasmania for the ALP whilst trying to win the inner urban seats of Melbourne and Sydney with some green veneer. So far he has endorsed clear felling of old growth native forests, job protection, no changes to the regional forestry agreement, and an unwillingness to retrain forestry workers.

That poses a problem. The ALP strategy is an old one: to influence preferences in key seats in Melbourne and Sydney is going to need more than reassuring the timber industry and unions in Tasmania. Still, Latham has another day to learn the green talk, send the right messages to get those crucial green preferences and put together a coherent, sustained case for reform.

I do not expect much to come out of this Tasmanian visit. It's about political expediency. Latham's writings are neo-liberal in tone (roll back the bureaucracy, open up the market, foster social entrepreneurship) etc etc; and they show little understanding of the way that the economy is dependent on ecology. Latham sees resources not ecology. So he will miss the way the Gunn's veneer mill uses a miniscule fraction of forest destroyed by the unprecedented levels of woodchip destruction of the wild forests.

Oh, I've also heard about little about liberal corporatism in Tasmania from the federal ALP. Then, they always were corporatist, were they not? Hence their historical resistance to the democratic project. Today they serious about political power and willing to sacrifice substantive social and environmental reform.

Update
So Bob Brown endorses Mark Latham even though Latham endorsed the Tasmanian government position on logging. Latham did not concede an inch on forest policy.

Bill Leak

Leak is a bit tough. After all, Bob Browm has raised the profile of the issue from a state to a national issue. Good for him.

So what does Brown's endorsement of Latham mean?

A deal: Green preferences to go to the ALP in the House of Representatives; ALP preferences to go to the Greens in the Senate. That means the Democrats have been cut out. That means more Green Senators in the Senate.

Here's a question. If the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senate (as I suspect they might do) then will they work with the government of the day? Or will they say no as they have been doing throughout this term of Parliament?

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March 17, 2004

blowback?

I've been puzzling over the recent comments on the Madrid bombings by the senior members of the Howard Government. More than a defensive denial mode is operating here.

These comments say that the international terrorists are opposed to us because of our values. They are at war with us because we are a western, Christian and liberal nation. We are a target because we are who we are and not for what we have done.

We can infer from these remarks that Australia's conservatives and neo-conservatives believe in the "war of civilisations".

Their political pressure on Mick Keelty, the federal Commissioner of Police, to change his views on the blowback from the Iraqi war. Keelty said about the Madrid bombings: "If this turns out to be Islamic extremists responsible for this bombing in Spain, it's more likely to be linked to the position that Spain and other allies took on issues such as Iraq."

The Government attack reinforces, and makes explicit the notion that Islam and the West are in conflict. An interpretration of Alexander Downer's remarks, "I think (Mr Keelty) is just expressing ... a view which reflects a lot of the propaganda we're getting from al-Qaeda", is that his view of the world of nations is based on the absolutes of Good and Evil.

What surfaces form the political unconscious of these conservatives is that blowback from our role in Iraq is irrelevant. Why so? Because the war on terror is a war of civilization based on good (West) versus evil (Islam.) Or the benevolent West versus the cruel East. There is no ambiguity here. It is just black and white. Behind that surface lie the moral Absolutes.

The spinners of the national security state then roll into action. They thunder out the old emotional subtext of appeasement. Ignore the seductive siren call of the appeasers they say. The struggle is eternal. Constant vigilance is required. The enemy is everywhere. Those who are not with us are against us. Treason needs to be flushed out.

Update

You can see the Manichean view in Miranda Devine's terrorism vs appeasers piece in the Sydney Morning Herald. She says:

'The alternative is to turn our backs on the world's only superpower, base our foreign policy on the whims of Osama bin Laden and still be on the terrorist hit list, for the simple fact we are a nation of "infidels".....So those who want to follow Spain's path of appeasement should also be ready to follow Ridley's example and convert to Islam.'

The problem with this Manichean view of the world is that it collapses liberal Islam into a fundamenalist Islamist one. There is no recognition of the diversity within Islam. It results in hostile American actions towards towards the Arab media, such as Al Jazeera. It ignores views of a critical Islam, such as Tariq Ramadan, who endorses the principle of rational argument and public contestation and rejects the closed minded literalism of the Islamic fundamentalists.

What is ignored is the possibilities of the Arabs people building a modernist Islam. According to the neo-con's Manichean view of the world, a modernist Islam can only introduced from the outside by an imperial power.

Update 2
Over at the Sydney Morning Herald Alan Ramsay has a good blow by blow account of the politics of Howard muffling the Federal Commissioner of police.

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March 16, 2004

at the pub: the politics of security

Whilst Spain suffers dreadfully and changes its government the conversation in the Australian pub goes like this:

Wilcox.

That's an educated guess of what a conversation would go like.

Over in the States they see things differently. Something strange is forming, as Tim Dunlop notes. The Spanish people have acceded to terrorism. Or terrorists have succeeded in toppling the Spanish Government as expressed here. Even Billmon sees it as "an unqualified success for Al Qaeda, and an unqualified defeat for the United States".

What happened to Spanish democracy on that account?

Meanwhile The Australian thunders away against appeasement. And "Munich" is never far away. Tim Blair runs appeasement whilst Mark Steyn plays around with the politics of fear.

'Appeasement'---it is such tired cliched public language. Spanish citizens can make a judgement that the conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar was wrong to join the US invasion of Iraq. Not everybody swallows Fox News whole. Maybe the Iraq war was unpopular in Spain and it become an unconscious emotional template in the election.

Do you remember all that stuff about moral clarity.

As Don Watson observes "Words are bullets. They are also good for smothering, strangling and poisoning..."

That kind of politics sinks deep, causes lots of resentment and becomes part of our political unconscious. Things twist around in the unconscious--look at the odd reaction by Howard and Ruddock to Keelty's truth telling that Australia could be at greater risk of terrorist attack as a result of its role in Iraq.

Update
Michelle Grattan addreses the argument that the Iraq war didn't make Australia more of a terrorist target and that Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty wasn't worth listening to when it came to threat assessments.

Alexander Downer's remarks, "I think (Mr Keelty) is just expressing ... a view which reflects a lot of the propaganda we're getting from al-Qaeda", are shocking in their baseness.

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March 15, 2004

Tasmania: liberal corporatism

Writing in today's Sydney Morning Herald Richard Flanagan says that, just like the old days of hydro-industrialisation, the Tasmanian government, the unions, big business and an acquiescent local media are in agreement. They agree that the clear-felling of old-growth forests for woodchip is the path of development in the state of Tasmania in a global world.

Flanagan then makes an interesting observation. He says:

"Three years ago, a report based on consultations with the Tasmanian community and initially sponsored by the state government found that Tasmanians were overwhelmingly against further logging of the island's old-growth forests. But neither of the major parties reflect their beliefs."

The politicians (the Lib/Lab ones) have re-organized liberal democracy to marginalize any democratic opposition to their mode of governance. They have instituted corporatism as a political system.

Its form is not a fascist corporatism. It is a system of liberal corporatism, consisting of governance by Big Business, Big Labor and Big Government. In this system, the State functions to balance the interests of large economic power blocs while maintaining their common ascendancy or dominance in the face of potential democratic and green threats from below.

Corporatism is favoured when the goal is to ensure rapid economic development, guided and spurred by a government that is simultaneously dedicated to enforcing political and social stability within its borders. Democracy is sacrificed in the process.

I do not see Mark Latham challenging this corporatism when he visits Tasmania? I'd say he'd go along with this liberal corporatism. He will quietly forget to talk about his old theme of needing more democracy will he not?

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March 14, 2004

Sunday cartoon

This cartoon captures an ethical ambiguity:

Leunig

Of course, you can have the mirror opposite. Someone who thinks that everything the Palestinian and Iraqi bombers do is ethically okay and everything that the Israeli's and US do is wrong.

We have a kind of closed group think here that has lost its connection to a critical public reason. The Press is a good example of this. It has been very critical of the claims made by the US, Uk and Australia to justify the war in Iraq--- after the end of the war. Prior to the war the press was notable for its negligence of its watchdog role.

Michael Massing in this piece in the Review section of the Australian Financial Review asks:

"Watching and reading all this, one is tempted to ask, where were you all before the war? Why didn't we learn more about these deceptions and concealments in the months when the administration was pressing its case for regime change - when, in short, it might have made a difference?

Some maintain that the many analysts who've spoken out since the end of the war were mute before it. But that's not true. Beginning in the middle of 2002, the US "intelligence community" was rent by bitter disputes over how Bush officials were using the data on Iraq. Many US journalists knew about this, yet few chose to write about it."

Massing's article is a thorough working through of why few journalists choose to write critically about the justifications for invading Iraq. Massing concludes:

"The contrast between the press's feistiness since the end of the war and its meekness before it highlights one of the most entrenched and disturbing features of American journalism: its pack mentality. Editors and reporters don't like to diverge too sharply from what everyone else is writing. When a president is popular and a consensus prevails, journalists shrink from challenging him. Even now, papers like the Times and the Post seem loath to give prominent play to stories that make the administration look too bad. Thus, stories about the increasing numbers of dead and wounded in Iraq - both US and Iraqi - are usually consigned to page 10 or 12, where they won't cause readers too much discomfort."

The pack mentality is very prevalent amongst the Australian media. Many are lapdogs. The closed horizon of the lapdogs is particularly noticeable in the reporting on the Palestinian/Israel conflict.

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March 13, 2004

Iraq: Interim Basic Law

Many continue to see the resistance to the US occupation in Iraq as simply consisting of Saddam Hussein's remnants. That is pretty much the US line as they continue to defend the military occupation of Iraq. This military interpretation of the situation is repeated by those lazy Australian journalists who do little research.

The on-the-ground situation is more complex than these simplicities. John Pilger said on Lateline that the resistance to the US occupation of Iraq consists of "12 groups, they're all very different, there are groups within the Shia, but what they're all united about, quite clearly, is getting rid of a foreign invader and occupier from Iraq."

Pilger made these remarks when he was arguing that Iraq could be seen to be similar to Algeria or in Vietnam, or France during the Second World War.

Let us to open things up by introducing something political, which has hardly been discussed in the Australian press. The bloggers have though---Quiggin, Alan at Southerly Buster and Ken Parish.

The Iraqi Governing Council (IRG) have managed to pull together an Interim Basic Law. This Iraqi Interim Constitution is a transitional constitution for a unified democratic Iraq. It is transitional constitution because it will only be in force until a democratically constituted Iraqi political body----a constitutional assembly not a constitutional convention--can design a more permanent constitutional document Iraq.

This step to an assembly is necessary because the IRG has little democratic credibility (or recognition in international law) since it is only an administrative arm of the US occupying power. The future of a democratic Iraq depends upon elections for a new and much more legitimate and credible, governing political body----a new assembly or Parliament. The elections for such a Parliament are expected to take place around the end of the year. Presumably, the Parliament would come up with a proposal for a new Constitution for a unified democratic Iraq.

The main pathway to a democratic, sovereign Iraq is put the infrastructure for the democratic project: the important election-preparation stuff such as voter roll, rules for the holding of the election and the scope of the election.

The interim constitution has been hailed as progressive. It guarantees individual freedoms and the rights of women. It provides for a federal state with two official languages, where Islam will be a source of legislation but not the basis for it.

And the resistance to the interim constitution? The opposition is from both radical and moderate Islamists and misplaced optimism amongst the Kurds. These political reactions indicate the sources of discord. First, what kind of guarantees of religious freedom will be incorporated into the constitution and what role will Islam be given in the system of government?

Equally pressing is the distribution of power between the centre and the regions: whether Iraq should be a unitary or a federal republic. If it is the latter, (the view of public opinion), then what would the boundaries of the different regions be? Would the Kurdish region defined ethnically or territorially? Will the region include Kirkuk?

So we have a tricky transition period between the current US foreign rule in Iraq, the proposed abdication of US rule, and the possibilities of the emergence of a legitimate, democratically-elected Iraqi government. This transition process involves a conflict between the US occupiers trying to control the process and outcome and those Iraqi's calling for general elections to constitute a democratic Parliament.

So resistance in Iraq is far more complex than Saddam Hussein's remnants resisting the US military occupation in Iraq. The military account ignores the liberal politics.

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March 12, 2004

Tasmania: senseless economics

Roger Lovell

In a global world Tasmania sells itself as "the natural state". The gap between the clean and green rhetoric and reality of the logging of old-growth forests continues has been mentioned in the ecological vandalism post. This highlighted the effects of the logging of Tasmania's old growth forests through the practice of clearfelling. Logging is at odds with the state’s wilderness destination marketing.

In this story in The Bulletin Bob Brown outlines the economics of woodchipping. He says that Tasmanians are the poorest Australians and that much of the profits made from woodchipping go elsewhere. Brown says the numbers are like this:

"Tasmania, after growing the trees for ­centuries, gets $10 per tonne royalty, Gunns gets about $100 and the Japanese papermakers get $1200 per tonne. Tasmania, , gets less than 1% of the end price and is losing the nation's grandest forests in the process. "The export industry should be getting the leftovers but at the moment it gets the core and it's Tasmania that gets the leftovers."

This is Third World economics. Not much future there for a Tasmania ruled by rednecks, with little conception of sustainability and who cannot see beyond the clearfelling of old growth forests.

Bob Brown has an alternative:

" Many more enduring jobs could be created by adding value to the timber before it is exported and by supporting more specialty timber products – such as furniture, boats and crafts – and small sawmills. [Forestry] would remain an important high-value-added industry without exports of woodchips."

That makes sense, doesn't it. It undercuts the redneck claim that the Australian Greens are about destroying jobs.

Update 1
This article by Melissa Fyfe and Andrew Darby in The Age undercuts the forestry=jobs argument run by the Tasmanian Labour Government. The article says:

"In terms of economic worth, the two industries [tourism and forestry] are neck and neck, both claiming turnovers of about $1.3 billion. However, in an economy that has been sluggish for some time, the argument in favour of Tasmania’s timber industry is often about jobs. But employment growth is coming from the tourism sector, not logging. Once the dominant local employer in many small Tasmanian towns, forestry now yields fewer than half the jobs provided by tourism."

The deepseated view in the state government, that real jobs come from heavy industry such as forestry--Tasmania’s "smoke stack" future option--is flawed. Jobs are being downsized in a forestry industry dominated by Gunns. Future job growth will come from the "attractive industries" such as tourism.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:24 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

March 11, 2004

John Pilger on Iraq

I"m back in Adelaide after being on the road since Sunday. I'm dog tired and I'm fighting off a headache that I've had all day.

I caught John Pilger on Lateline last night. He clearly outlined his position:--- that the US in Iraq is similar to the French in Algeria or Vietnam and that the current Iraqi resistance to the US occupation force is a nationalist response to a foreign invader.

In Australia you don't often hear that view being put in public debate. Pilger's position is a reasonable view, is it not? One worthy of discussion and engagement?

There has been little response so far. Tim Blair has responded. Tim says that Pilger's interview illustrates his "moral illness." Tim does not say what "moral illness' is. Let say that the killing of the European Jews through gas chambers by the Nazi's would an example that we could agree on. Presumably genocide would be another. The assimmilation of aborigines in Australia would be contestable example of moral illness.

So why is Pilger morally ill? Tim does not say. What he does say is strange. Consider this:

"Pilger would support the same outcome -- Saddam’s removal -- if only it had been achieved by different means. Means that involved people unable to achieve it, on account of them all being murdered."

..."all being murdered"? So how come there is still an Iraqi resistance to the US occupation of Iraq?

Now Tim does not engage with Pilger's argument. He titles his post 'Bring back Saddam.' Yet Pilger is not saying this at all. He says that there is a moral case made for deposing the dictator who was killing hundreds and thousands of his opponents by the Iraqi people. So where is the 'bringing Saddam Hussein' in that?

Blair implies that Pilger supports a Saddam Hussein who is is guilty of the most terrible human rights abuses. Alas, Pilger says no such thing. What Pilger is talking about is the local resistance in relation to foreign occupation:

".... any foreign occupier of a country, military occupier, be they Germans in France, Americans in Vietnam, the French in Algeria, wherever, the Americans in Latin America, I would have thought, from the point of view of the local people - and as I mentioned, be they Australians in Australia - if Australia had been invaded and occupied by the Japanese, then the occupying forces, from the point of view of the people of that country, are legitimate targets."

Pilger describes Saddam Hussein's old security apparatus as Gestapo-like and then points out that the US is re-employing them.

Pilger then goes on to say that "you can't approve, under any circumstances, in my opinion, the killing of innocent people....[but].. you have to understand why it happens"?

Hardly an illustration of moral illness is it? Tim Blair does not engage.

Upgrade
More nonsense, as usual, from Gerard Henderson on the issue. It's all simple back and white. He does not canvas the possibility of an Iraqi resistance fighting for a sovereign democratic Iraq. The resistance to US occupation is the work of mass murders. Acording to Henderson the push for democracy and freedom in Iraq is being driven by the US military, not the Shiites under Grand Ayotolla Sistani.

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March 10, 2004

bad blood

Politics should be about policies not leadership atmospherics. yet is often about leadership--eg., Simon Crean last year and now John Howard. Behind that shift lies the anti-government trend evident in the opinion polls since Mark Latham's replaced Simon Crean as the leader of the ALP.

The media froths and bubbles about leadership tensions in the Liberal Party from chance remarks, the story is off and running, the commentators have their say the story has legs and the Government takes a hit.

Interesting how it works, isn't it. At one level it is a nothing story since Costello just does not have the numbers. At another level it's about the bad blood sitting behind the surface. One moment it's lying beneath the surface hidden from view; the next minute it is the surface, though only for a moment or so.

Bad blood. It's one of the poisons of politics. It destroyed the political credibility of the Australian Democrats.

The leadership tussle is a little example that shows just how much politics is still about people, power and relationships:ie. who is to be top dog.

So politics is not just not about manipulating the media to market the message that the (whatever) party is on the job, on course, and going in the right direction. It's also about bad blood.

Nor should we forget that poisons just keep on working away. Eventually radical surgery is required to repair the dysfunctionality. The question is :'How do you prevent the dysfunctionality'?

Update
Laurie Oaks in The Bulletin says that the latest media round of leadership excitement has little to do with anything Costello said or did not say and everything to do with Howard's changed situation. There is a sense of drift. He puts it this way: "Liberal MPs want Howard to pick up the ball and run with it but he seems to have forgotten how."

One way to prevent the political horrors is aggressive strikes at the enemy. Peter Hartcher decribes the strategy thus:

"Howard has given us a demonstration of his emerging strategy for holding power. The dominant behaviour is aggression - aggression in policy and in politics.
Howard and his Government have taken the initiative on two of the biggest areas of national policy, education and health, and challenged Latham's sincerity on values, specifically his concern over the so-called crisis of masculinity. Howard has launched these initiatives in a staccato that put the Government on the attack on three fronts and put the Opposition onto the defensive.
Within the dominant impulse to aggression is a more subtle plan. Howard's emerging plan is this: to accentuate the policy areas where the Government is perceived as strong, and to neutralise the areas where Labor is perceived to be strong."

The response by the ALP? Julia Gillard's immediate reply to the MedicarePlus package played with the politics of fear. Despite around $2.9 billion being spent on public health familes are going to be worse off. Most of the extra money will be taken you in administration costs. The subtext was that the public health system, which the working class had build for the last 50 years, will be destroyed. That is the politics of fear.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:52 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 9, 2004

a small step

This story by Mark Metherell in the Sydney Morning Herald breaks new ground in the saga of Medicare.

Metherell's story refers to the broadening of Medicare to include dentists among the allied health professionals who will be incorporated in Medicare. Metherell says that Medicare benefits would be offered for needy patients with serious oral disease. He says that the dental scheme could operate as part of a extended health care program.

That is a significant move. Yet it is a small step in recovering the national dental scheme that was dumped by the Howard Government in 1996. As Mark Schifter writes:

" An oral health national strategy would entail that money is not simply flung at repairing and replacing teeth, but addresses the major cause of oral health dysfunction - tooth loss. In children and young adults tooth loss is primarily due to dental decay, but in adults, it is due to gum and periodontal disease, and the lack of a workforce to provide oral health care."

Incorporating dental health into Medicare is a good equity step since access to oral health services distinquishes the haves from the have-nots. A first step is an immediate injection of money.This step is needed for the disastrously long waiting lists (some more than five years) for basic dental services, for the relief of pain and the repair and replacement of teeth.

On Occam's Razor Patrick Shanhan said that the States are responsible for dental services and they had received an extra $2.5-billion from the Commonwealth. But that was spent propping up the health system, public dental services were cut back. Patrick says:

"The real issue here is not public dental services, but flawed national health policy, and its legacy....Dentally, more older people are keeping their teeth now, but they go to the dentist less often. The resulting dental neglect increases the medical risk and the likelihood of having to use more health resources. Despite this, oral health is excluded from healthy ageing programs.When you include oral health in health care you are not practicing dentistry, but preventive medicine."

The Commonwealth Dental Scheme introduced by Labor, was commendable, but it only addressed those on public dental waiting lists. It had no preventive component, and the high risk groups were excluded.

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March 8, 2004

a summing up

Too tired to write a post.

This captures my position why Australia went to war with Iraq.

Allan Moir

That's the past.

The present is a unipolar world. Coral Bell says that:

"US paramountcy rests on three main pillars. First, the intrinsic economic strength of the US and its willingness to spend enormous funds on military goods and services. Second, the geostrategic advantages of the US: wide oceans to east and west, non-threatening neighbours to north and south. Third, US capacity to induce bandwagoning by other powers: that is to recruit formal and informal alliances. All three of those pillars are solid, but subject to slow erosion over the decades. "

It gives rise to a world out of balance. A world out of balance gives rise to attempts to right the balance of power.

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March 7, 2004

ours is better than theirs

I'm back on the road again.

Martin Rawson,Lords in the ring,

The cartoon relates to this article.

I would rather have our Senate than their House of Lords.

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March 6, 2004

Is Israel a theocracy?

The politics of the Middle East in Australia is played out within a very narrow band. Australia, as one of America's loyal allies, must support America in the Middle East and stand behind America's position on Israel. The American position is that Israel is one of America's vital allies, and that the US must support Israel to help it fight terror and achieve peace. Australia must support America support Israel, since this US support will ensure peace in the Mid-East and to secure America against "terrorism". Israel, like America, battles and fights the same "terrorists."

To argue otherwise is to be anti-Semetic. Criticism of Israel cannot be tolerated in Australia. It is not really possible to acknowledge the pain and suffering of the people of Israel and the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people. Nope it's a simple case of good and evil that blocks out recogniton that Israel was created in 1948 by the British Empire and sustained by its American successor.

It was a European settler-state that was founded on driving 700,000 Palestinians out of their villages by the Zionist army in 1948. This process can be called 'ethnic cleansing'. Ethnic cleansing is usually defended on the grounds that it is okay (morally right) if carried out by a superior civilization. We can compare this to the killing of indigenous Aborigines by the European settlers in Australia. That policy by a British settler-state is also justified as morally right.

Zionism holds that a Jewish state could never have been established without force, coercion and ethnic cleansing; that its survival depends on superior power to crush all Arabic opposition; the creation of the Israeli state was fired by a conviction of its moral rightness which accorded Jews a special place over others; and because of this, everything is instrumental to its goal.

The background assumption in Australia is that Israel is assumed to be a modern, western liberal-democracy fighting for its very existence in a sea of pre-modern, totalitarian Arab regimes.

Is this the case?

Not really. Take Israel. We can interpret it as a religious state not a secular one. William A. Cook outlines the argument:

"....its system of laws is determined by the Torah, a religious document not a secular one; it denies recognition of the Palestinian minority despite UN Resolution 181 calling for such recognition; it defies UN Resolutions requiring it to accept return of the indigenous Palestinians from the refugee camps to their rightful homes taken from them in 1948 or 1967 but allows Jews from Russia and other lands to immigrate and become citizens solely because of their religion, making Israel a de facto theocracy (similar, ironically, to an Islamic democracy!); and it keeps on the books more than 20 laws that discriminate against the Palestinian minority (Adalah: Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel)."

Good grounds for considering Israel a theocracy, don't you think? Jewishness resides in the bosom of the state of Israel. Hence the idea of a democratic milticultural state that would give equal rights to all its citizens, Muslims, Christians and Jews is a direct challenge to the idea of an exclusive Jewish state.

That raises another question. What if Israel is a prime cause of instability in the Mid-East?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

March 5, 2004

Media & public policy

This article by Catherine Lumby on the way the media shapes politics is pretty good. She says:

"Politicians simply aren't rewarded [by journalists] for posing questions that they don't have an answer to. Indeed, there's a long history of mocking anyone in politics who brings anything that smacks of book learning into parliament......In conventional journalistic terms, proper politics is about economics, foreign affairs, defence and factional power struggles. Before it can be taken seriously an issue has to be crunched down into facts, figures, graphs and stats."

This is a problem because politics cannot be squeezed into such narrow categories. Lumby says:

"......many of the political issues that confront Australia today - issues such as how we balance work and kids, how we give young people the best chance in life, how universal we want our education to be - can't be rendered so starkly."

She adds that the depth and vision to make broad changes is never going to happen whilst public debate is structured by the conflict-driven, left versus right, hard news versus soft news culture that currently dominates the media agenda.

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March 4, 2004

So true

Still on the road.

This article by Carmen Lawrence on political lobbyists is good. So many spend the day knocking on the doors of our federal parliamentarians seeking to persuade our legislators.

It's what I noticed when I recently visited Canberra:---Parliament House was crawling with lobbyist bearing the tag 'unaccompanied visitors'. I saw a number of politicians walking the corridors whose faces I recognized from the television. But they were far out numbered by the lobbyists.

They were everywhere in the corridors.

I chatted with a couple of lobbyists in the corridors----well as stood waiting in the queue for a coffee at Aussies. They said they were basically in Canberra for the day doing the rounds of the pollies. It was a whole day devoted to persuasion.

As Carmen says, they are the hidden persuadors.

Many have deep pockets. Just look at what they were able to achieve around renewable energy and ethanol: large sums of taxpayer money were given to prop up domestic producers, such as Manildra. The alternative fuels regime puts the interests of Manildra - Australia's near-monopoly ethanol producer and major Liberal Party donor - ahead of other ethanol producers and the interests of a sustainable biofuels sector.

What we have is crony capitalism, Australian style.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:11 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 3, 2004

Federal election

Still on the road.

I heard from the news that the economy is booming. Record profitability and strong economic growth due to prudent economic management, says Peter Costello, the Federal Treasurer.

And the pressures on the sound economic management and budget surpluses?National security and Senate obstructionism says Costello. How about spending up big?

This article highlights the Howard Government's election strategy. A war chest that will be used to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on aged care, defence and health in an election-year spending blitz. The recent recepients of governmental largesse were the catholic schools, veterans and the sugar industry.

Then we have MedicarePlus. That will cost.

And are they spending the surplus. I heard a figure of around $3.5 billion having been spent so far. But I cannot confirm it.

What it means is that there will not be much surplus left over to spend and that Peter Costello does not control the purse strings.

On another note:

Alan Moir

It is back to normal politics. The Howard Government spending big to neutralize political problems.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 2, 2004

....it is possible that...

I was too busy yesterday to follow the debate on the parliamentary inquiry into Australia's handling of the pre-war intelligence. From what I gather the report (s 5.16) says that around late 2002 the Government had built a case that Iraq possessed WMD in large quantities and posed a "grave and unacceptable threat to the region and the world, particularly as there was a danger Iraq's WMD might be passed to terrorist organisations".

It comments that "This is not the picture that emerges from an examination of all the assessments provided to the committee by Australia's two analytical agencies."

That makes it pretty clear that the government's pro-war rhetoric was not driven by Australian intelligence. It was driven by the politicians. It says that Howard overstated the threat posed by Iraq and that he was wrong on this.

There is more.

Australian intelligence was largely a feed from the US and the UK, which in turn were based on untested or uncertain sources. They had no way of testing the feed. The Office of National Assessments (ONA) became increasingly more political in its judgements. It beefed up its language as it embraced the policy of the Howard Government.

Of course, it is possible that the WMD' will be found. And the Howard Government was claiming that it had been exonerated on the charge of "sexing up" the case for Australia joining last year's invasion of Iraq and the Labour Party's claims refuted.

It ain't that simple.

Update
I love this quote from Machiavelli's The Prince---- Chapter XVIII - How Rulers Should Keep Their Promises:

"Everyone knows how praiseworthy it is for a ruler to keep his promises, and live uprightly and not by trickery. Nevertheless, experience shows that in our times the rulers who have done great things are those who have set little store by keeping their word, being skilful rather in cunningly confusing men; they have got the better of those who have relied on being trustworthy ... "

As Alan Ramsay observes, our Prime Minister knows this chapter quite well.

And this cartoon:

Bill Leak

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Broadband

I'm on the road so blogging will be light.

I see from a quick glance at the newspapers that the competition over broadband is hotting up. Optus is now matching Telstra's price cutting to entice Australians to connect to high speed internet services with new entry level services.

Yet the speeds are not that great (256k), the download limit is severe with high excess fees for going over the low limit. The tech support is poor -at best -(50 minutes wait is standard) to deal with the frequent log on difficulties and the DSL cutouts. Basicallly, you are forced to pay more than the $30 per month to obtain a decent service to access music files and images. Even then, because customer failure is built into the system, to keep costs down, you are not going to get reliable customer service.

So the telecommunication industry is signing people up to broadband without providing them with a decent service. It's called fleecing the customer.

Does competition=better service? Competition is supposed to do that, is it not? Competion and shoddy service is what the market delivers. If you want something more you pay more.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:16 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack