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September 30, 2004
Medicare Gold?
I saw most of Mark Latham's ALP campaign launch in Brisbane on ABC television last night. The visuals were very good: they were minimalist, mostly Conservative blue, with the emphasis clearly on the message of 'Taking the Pressure off Families.' Stunning and effective imagery.
It did the job for tipping the balance of the campaign towards the ALP. It now looks as if the question is: just how many seats will the Coalition lose? To what extent can Howard limit the damage? Can they hang on? Or has the rot set in?
The Canberra Press Galley are saying Medicare Gold is a part of an ALP strike into John Howard's heartland, and an admission that Latham must penetrate the grey vote to win. Will Medicare Gold shift the older Australians in the marginals who are rusted onto Howard towards the ALP? I don't think so. Neither does Ken Parish. Will the older Australians give up their private health insurance, leave the private health insurance pool, and cause a reduction private health insurance premiums? I reckon they will keep private their health insurance.
Though I was impressed with visuals I was not impressed with the rhetoric of Latham's speech around the "Howard is waging war on Medicare. I want to build a fortress around it" meme. Consider this part of the speech:
"When he first led the Liberal Party [John Howard] said that he wanted to "take a scalpel to Medicare"...Well, that's what this election is all about. It's a referendum on the future of Medicare.
Do we want the Coalition to take us further down the American road of privatised health - a two tier system? Do we want to give John Howard another chance to put his scalpel into Medicare? Or do we want a Labor Government with a plan to save Medicare? Just one tier. One world-class health care system for all Australians.
We set up this system, we're proud of it and we're going to bring it back to its full health. Labor believes in Medicare. It's good public policy. But it also says something special about who we are, about the things that make us uniquely Australian. It says that in our country, if you get sick then someone will care for you. It says that the Australian people look out for each other. That we help our mates and those in need."
John Howard is wandering around inside Medicare with buckets cash. That is hardly taking a scalpel to it. John Quiggin is not impressed by that. He says that Howard is:
"...hampered by the fact that, for all but the last six months or so of his 30 years in public life, he's opposed Medicare and done his best to destroy it. He was Treasurer in the Fraser government which actually did destroy the first version, introduced by Whitlam".
Historically accurate. But no credence is given to Howard judging that it is politically necessary for him to accept Medicare and not destroy it.
Latham's rhetoric is very misleading. He says that Medicare has been one of the great ding-dong battles of Australian public life---a battle of principle on health policy. Presumably he means public v private. Labor is investing in public health care whilst the Coalition pursues the privatisation of health - a system based on private insurance and private care.
Oh? does not the ALP supports the 30% rebate for private health insurance, private hospitals and private doctors who are not bulkbilling.
I realize that speeches are for the party faithful who want to celebrate, feel proud, adore their heroes, and get misty eyed about their future together. But what a conservative understanding of Medicare the ALP has: it is all about hospitals, tick and flick bulkbilling and doctors. Nothing about primary health care, or the services provided by allied health, or keeping people from needing to go to the hospitals in the first place.
What was innovative was the Commonwealth picking up the tab (hospital costs) of Australians over 75, plus guarantee them immediate access to hospital treatment. Historic healthcare reform says Chris Sheil over at Back Pages, without saying why. He goes onto predict an ALP victory, barring an unforseeen left of field event.
But Latham doesn't care whether the hospital is privately owned or state run. So he is providing support to private health care. Ssh. Don't let on that the party faithful has sold its principles on public health long ago.
But that doesn't matter cos it's the images on television that matter.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 07:55 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
September 29, 2004
Energy crisis & the media
I saw Peter Beattie, the Premier of Queensland, on the ABC's 7.30 Report last night. He was doing his usual upbeat spin on the energy crisis in Queensland, which is starting to make him appear in a colder and harsher light.
It was deja vu. I'd heard similar lines in South Australia about the energy crisis. The energy crisis was due to the naughty behaviour of the bad energy companies. It had nothing to do with the state government.
For Beattie the crisis had nothing to do with Energex, the state owned utility, being required by the government to pay a big dividend to the State Government; or that the power network was in a state of collapse because no money had gone into renewing the energy infrastructure.
Beattie knew this. His standard spin is that no one told him anything about the run down state of the energy network. Hell, even I knew about the decade of underspending on infrastructure by Energex.
Now the finger should be pointed at the state ALP. As Christian Kerr over at Crikey says:
"Energex's dividends policy - what it pays to the Government - was determined by the Government-appointed Board, not the CEO. The Government Owned Corporations Act spells this out clearly. The Government decided to milk Energex and was aided and abetted by a sympathetic Board."
However, Premier Beattie on the television was all about due process, doing the right thing and sorting things out quick and smart. I could hear echoes of the reform lines in the background: they had replaced the old-fashioned governance structures that had caused inefficiency and waste and the rational evolution of electricity systems was on track. They were the good guys.
Suprisingly, in the interview Kerry O'Brien raised nothing about the political culture in Brisbane. Yet the reality is that Brisbane, just like Adelaide, has a political culture of intimidation, which operates to prevent criticism of the state ALP governments being aired in public. Christian Kerr describes this political culture as a culture of intimidation from the government. He says:
"Public servants, academics, scientists and members of advocacy groups in Queensland do not just feel constrained in what they can say to the media - particularly if they receive any money from the state government. They complain of an active culture of threats and bullying that prevents them from producing any material that could be seen as critical of Premier Peter Beattie or his government."
The similarity is that Adelaide and Brisbane are one newspaper towns where the journalists are kept on a drip feed by the government of the day.There is little criticism. It is called media management. Christian Kerr again:
"The problem is not restricted to Queensland. Press secs across the country increasingly act as heavies and manipulators rather than conduits for information. This behaviour, however, is worst in one-newspaper towns like Brisbane. Pressies aim to set media agendas each morning with soft stories placed in The Courier-Mail and hope that talk and the teevs will feed of them for the rest of the day. When they don't, the press secs turn feral."
The ABC is not doing its job as watch dog. They too have been intimated and bullied.
Another similarity. Premier Beattie said the blackouts were due to nature --big storms-- not bad government policy or governance. Ministerial responsibility did not apply. The spin was about evading ministerial responsibility. The finger for the failure of the electricity reforms and the creation of a national electricity market could not be pointed at the state governments.
Who then is responsible for people consumers suffering? I read in the Australian Financial Review this morning that retail energy companies are disconnecting households because they cannot afford pay their energy bills--just like South Australia. Presumably there are increasing numbers of households are surviving on candle power, eating cold food and having cold showers. Who is responsible for that market failure?
The energy crisis is flickering across the nation. Energy is no longer seen as an essential service. The free marketeers have a simple solution. Roll back the drift back to regulation and privatise the remaining government utilities. That would lead to electricity price reductions.
Well, that 'reform process' didn't work in SA did it.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 05:02 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
September 28, 2004
federalism=centralism?
Today's editorial in the Australian Financial Review (subscription required) is about federalism: Howard's new federalism. It suggests that Howard has been converted to centralism with his proposal for federal technical colleges.
John Quiggin supports this interpretation of Howard's educational policies. He observes:
"One aspect of the govenment's spending spree that has attracted relatively little attention is its implications for Federal-State relations. In important respects, these policies are more centralist than anything seen since the Whitlam era. Throughout the health and education sectors in particular, Howard is seeking to get involved in policy areas that have previously been left to the state, and to do so with direct day-to-day control."
The AFR supports these proposed federal technical colleges, even if they look like a return to the past. It then critically assesses Howard's conversion:
"If Mr Howard has really converted to centralism, he should spell out his vision and lett he voters pass judgement. But he has not consistent view; he also argues it would undermine federation for the commonwealth to take over hospitals. While there is a strong case for rationalising our three layers of government, there is also a case for the commonwealth to set goals and funding terms but stay out of the micro-management of schools. Mr Howard needs to explain his approach to federalism rather than just lobby rocks in the water."
John Quiggin concurs. Howard's federal/state policies are a hodge podge. He says that whereas
"..... Whitlam was a consistent centralist, these policies are a logical mess. The general line is that the states should be kept on a tight financial leash, but not relieved of any of their basic responsibilities for schools, hospitals, the TAFE sector and so on. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth will provide lavishly funded frills for schools with a "made in Canberra" label, operate a parallel line of Rolls-Royce TAFEs and pick and choose priorities in the health sector."
I'm not sure that the proposed technical colleges will be Rolls-Royce TAFEs. They will be more like the old trade schools baseed on the old manual/ hands on versus mental/academic distinction. What is new is that these technical colleges will be private businesses charging full fees.
There is a lot of politics here, as Shaun Carney points out. He argues that the Howard Government knows that the Commonwealth and the states are seen by citizens to have not done all that much to address the weaknesses in vocational education. But the public and technical/trade education system is run by the states, currently under the control of the ALP. So Howard & Co are not going to offer money to the political enemy. They want the credit. Hence the embrace of centralism by those who were once state right advocate.
There is an old chestnut buried in all of this: federalism=centralism. This is a view that has history behind it. This history since Federation in 1901 has been one of the states in a decline trajectory and the commonwealth having a greater say because it has the money.
Those who equate federalism with centralism see the states as clients of the commonwealth, with the states as being suitable for the geographical delivery of health, education and transport services. Hence the recent support for the commonwealth to take over the state-run hospitals and TAFE.
What is rejected is this understanding of federalism. More on this conception of federalism by Chief Justice Murray Glesson here. That view of federalism implies that the states should be properly funded to carry out their educational responsibilities within the existing federal structure.
Like the universities, the TAFE sector has suffered from bad neo-liberal polices that saw the states transformed TAFE institutions into stand alone educational businesses that turned a profit. It has not worked. Unlike the universities, the commonwealth has not put a couple of billion dollars into TAFE.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 01:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 27, 2004
let the good times roll
I missed the Liberal campaign launch in Brisbane on Sunday. By all accounts it was a very staged managed affair with a warm-up act called The Nationals, who whipped up the crowd with their 'I can see the Green Devil everywhere' routine. From what I hear from the whisperings within the media flows the Nats need to lift their act.
John Howard's speech said he was everybody's friend (well tradespeople, home-makers, "micro-businesses" and parents) and here is $6b cash for my latest stick-on policies to prove it. And I will ensure stability, security and reassurance. Trust me.
Leak
My gosh. The man sure has reinvented himself. He is no more the 'I will destroy Medicare' ideologue of the past. The one we were told who poured over Hayek for bed time reading in the 1970s and hung out with those who took their bearings from the US Heritage Foundation. You know, the one who believed in small government, deregulation state rights, budget surpluses, supply side economics, prudent economic management and no middle class welfare. Howard now stands for big central government, middle class welfare, business sweetners and subsidies and social conservatism.
It all sounded like an ALP launch----the Big Spend, raiding future budget surpluses and being low on funds. What has happened to The Road To Serfdom and competition policy? Poor old Peter Costello.
Ours was to be a nation united by mateship and achievement. The political enemies were those caught up in class, were full of envy wanted to take away individual choice by trying to control people.
What sort of society is envisioned? An editorialist in the Australian Financial Review has a go. They says that it is:
"...one based on freedom of choice for families, workers and individual business people and reward for individual enterprise and effort, all within a secure and compassionate conmunity built around strong families and dynamic small business."
They have forgotten about the conservative conception of the sovereign nation-state. The nation is united by mateship and assimilation, whilst the state is big, centralized and not very democratic.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 02:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 26, 2004
Bush at the UN
I realize that the Iraq has a low presence in the current election campaign in Australia. Intervention in Iraq been a bad mistake, but we are not going to get that admission. The current spin from Senator Robert Hill is that there is no civil war, security forces are growing, infrastructure is being rebuilt, etc etc.
We should pay attention though to what is happening behind our backs. Iraq is being reinvented as the crucible for the big conflict between Islamic terror versus Western freedom. Iraq is the battleground between evil and good. And God is on our side.
President Bush's recent speech to the UN can be found here. The imperial president had returned to an institution, which embodies the rule of international law, and has said that the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein was illegal. It is worth reading as it has all the spin that will son start to come out of Canberra.
Remember Bush despises the UN, asserts that the US is above international law and has pushed the UN to one side in the Middle East. The neocon ideologues in Washington have consistently said the US does not need the United Nations, as the US can, and will, operate as a lone superpower. They have acted to cripple the UN.
Steve Bell
And there was Bush appealing to the UN to help rebuild democracy and freedom in Iraq. In doing so the imperial president made a big spin of Wilsonian idealism:
"Now we have the historic chance to widen the circle even further, to fight radicalism and terror with justice and dignity, to achieve a true peace, founded on human freedom. The United Nations and my country share the deepest commitments. Both the American Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaim the equal value and dignity of every human life. That dignity is honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice and religious tolerance. "
So what did the imperial president say, apart from a cynical appeal to the human dignity of Wilsonian idealism? He pretty much defended his Iraq policy by saying a ruthless dictator had been toppled and Iraq is now on the path to democracy and freedom:
"Not long ago, outlaw regimes in Baghdad and Kabul threatened the peace and sponsored terrorists. These regimes destabilized one of the world's most vital and most volatile regions. They brutalized their peoples in defiance of all civilized norms. Today the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they're fighting terrorist groups. And this progress is good for the long-term security of all of us."
Maureen Dowd reports that when he was in Washington last week the imperial president's puppet, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of Iraq, parroted, the stock claims: that the fighting in Iraq was an essential part of the U.S. battle against terrorists that started on 9/11; that the neocons' dream of turning Iraq into a modern democracy was going well: and that the worse things got in Iraq, the better they really were. And a big military push will end the insurgency by a few dead-enders and foreign terrorists. Allawi is just an advertisement for Bush.
Give me old Hegel anyday.
Bush's discourse really is the stuff of fantasy---grandiose visions and wishful thinking says Paul Krugman. However, it is fantasy that is being used to help Bush's re-election, by defining John Kerry as being soft on terrorism.
The Bush administration blew smoke about the "tremendous" threat posed by Saddam Hussein. He was supposedly dangerous to the US because, he was trying to develop an atomic bomb. But whatever nuclear program Saddam had it was so primitive as not to be worth mentioning. Nor was there any evidence that Saddam posed any threat at all to the United States' homeland.
Iraq had very little to do with terrorism, as John Kerry pointed out:
"The president claims it [Iraq] is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy. Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and from our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists.Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight."
Does not the U.S. treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad represent a flagrant abuse of human dignity?
And Iraq burns. See Juan Cole's map. And these photos indicate how the US sees terrorists. The insurgency in Iraq is getting worse and the U.S. occupation there has increased anti-American sentiment in Muslim countries.
Where freedom is promised chaos and carnage now reign. Iraq is a dystopia, not an utopia. The poor neo-cons have got things the wrong way up. They live in an inverted world.
27th September
The imperial president's Wilsonian platitudes are matched by the rhetoric of Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister. He has defended his stance against "terror and chaos" in Iraq and compared the situation in Iraq to the darkest days of World War II.
Huh? It is the British who invaded Iraq, not Iraqi's. It is their country. It is the US trying to turn Iraq into a docile client state. The reality of Iraq's insurgency is that Iraqis are killing Iraqis. The Iraqi resistance to the US/UK occupation is resulting in the insurgents killing those who collaborate with the Americans - the police officers, would-be police officers, translators, governors and government officials.The situation there is beginning to look and feel like civil war.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 09:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 25, 2004
family first
Leak has got the fear bit right.
That is the tactic employed by conservatives. Then they talk about the strong hand of the father ensuring stability and order. That is one form of Australian conservatism.
Leak
I'm not sure about the effects of the interest rate fear campaign. The claim is that only the Coalition will keep interest rates low. It is hard to accept given the election splurge, the unfunded promises and the spending placing upward pressure on interest rates given the strong economy. Most market economists have indicated that interest rates will be no different under either political party.
Has the fear worked? It sounds shrill now. With household debt ratios at record levels and housing prices falling the fear campaign may have already done the job,
and only needs a bit of reinforcing. Six of the last eight major published polls have shown movement towards the Government.
And that shadowy figure in the background? Clearly aliens (the Other) who hate us and want to destroy our way of life, kill our kids and bom our property.
What Leak has missed is the rise of Family First, the presence of a broadly-organised American-style religious right in politics that makes families the foundation stone of society. Family First has its base in Adelaide and appeared at the South Australia state election back in 2002, where it won a seat in the Legislative Council.
Then as now the media ignored them until the end of the campaign. Much is made of the Australian Greens preferencing the ALP,but little is being said about the equivalent deal for the Liberals with the Family First party, which is the political arm of the Assemblies of God church.
The pundits have been saying that Family First has little chance of winning seats.
Oh yeah? Some quick revisions are necessary. Family First is in a strong position to pick up a Senate seat in South Australia given its good preference deals.
Their family agenda is to oppose abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriages and stem-cell research and promote sexual abstinence before marriage. It dovertails nicely with the conservative views within the Liberal Party. They pick up where Brian Harradine left off.
While the preference flows of the socially conservative minor party may have limited effect in most states, they will be crucial in the three marginal South Australian seats held by the Liberals. The ALP counted on winning these. The Liberals are okay in Makin, whivch is strong Family First territory. But the Libs are looking shaky in both Hindmarsh and Adelaide.
However, it has been reported that internal Family First party polling has shown the primary vote has reached 4 per cent in Queensland and South Australia.
If right that enable the Liberals to hang onto their marginal seats in SA. 3 more the ALP has to find elsewhere? The Coalition will lose seats but how many?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:03 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 24, 2004
surfaces
Contrast Leak's account of what is important in an election campaign:
Leak
with this statement from Michael Costello in The Australian:
"But the No.1 underlying reality is that what in the end will win over many swinging voters is their overall impression of the two leaders. If Howard continues to campaign as bad-temperedly for the next two weeks as he has for the past two, Latham will be prime minister."
What we have is the hip pocket versuses personality.
No policies. They are irrelevant. So the phenomenon of "doctors wives", concerned with issues such as the treatment of asylum seekers or the environment. As Judith Brett points out their political culture is one of putting moral values before self-interest is continuing a long tradition of women's political engagement.
But this is of little concern to those who accept that citizens do not step outside the sanitised and rehearsed world of modern political campaign marketing a brand. It's just hip pocket (self-interest), personality (identification); or stupid us being seduced by emotive images and persuaded by fear.
This kind of account means that citizens in the seat of Adelaide do not care about the moral issues of same sex marriage (the gay marriage ban) or the River Murray.
Or that people as citizens do not care what is happening to the country.
I don't buy these kind of accounts myself. They reduce politics and the political to the market.
We citizens may be concerned about what has happened to social democracy as a result of it modernizing itself through its embrace of a neo-liberal mode of governance.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 09:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 23, 2004
regional development
This article by Greg Barnes does capture one aspect of the politics of Tasmanian forests. They have become a political football, even if no plan has been tabled to buy the forestry industry out.
What has happened to the plan? Has the Coalition conceded seats in Tasmania to win preferences in the mainland marginal seats.
Pryor
We have meet Greg Barnes before on this issue. Previously, in an earlier round of this debate he had said that there needed to be less rhetoric and more consensus on the forest issue. This was in response to this and this and this. Then the criticism from public opinion was that Barnes downplayed the importance of wilderness and forest ecology. He has a thing about the Australian Greens.
This time around in the forest debate Greg Barnes has tried to show how consensus can be a way forward. He argues that there needs to be consensus between Canberra and Hobart to pull Tasmania out its impoverished status and economic decline. This is the key issue, not the one of just saving the forests. Barnes says:
"A survey of 812 low-income Tasmanians revealed that 59 per cent had gone without meals in the previous 12 months due to money shortages and 20 per cent had had their power cut off.
Over 35 per cent of Tasmanian households are dependent on government support - the highest figure in Australia. More disturbing for the state's future is the fact that only 27 per cent of Tasmanians have completed secondary school education.Tasmania has the oldest population in Australia with an average age of around 38. And, while the population decline of the early 1990s has been reversed, those moving to the island tend to be retirees or people close to retirement."
Tasmania is even worse than South Australia in terms of the extent of poverty, lack of power, poor education and the low employment prospects. These are depressed regions. What is required is a big investment in public infrastructure and human resources in Tasmania and South Australia.
The tragedy is that little has been, or is being done, by the State ALP governments in Hobart and Adelaide despite the inflow of GST revenue. What has gone wrong with our political culture? Has it gone neo-liberal?
John Quiggin makes an interesting remark about our political culture. He sees signs of the end of the neoliberal push to overturn the social-democratic settlement at the federal level.
Well, it is not so at a state level. The media-spin SA Rann Government, for instance, is still in the grip of neo-liberal orthodoxy. It continues to run down the public sector, build up ever increasing budget surpluses, apply user pays and allow the market to design our regional energy future. The effect is to starve public schools of the resources needed to address low education rates, prevent skills formation through TAFE through excessive fees, or avoid helping universities establish or develop new campuses in the regions.
Under a neo liberal mode of governance everything has to be run as a business whilst public institutions have to stand on its own two feet as corporations. Depressed regions need to become self-reliant and to find their own way out of their depressed economic situation.without handouts.
I would guess that in Tasmania the state ALP government is doing very little for its people, whilst allowing the state's natural heritage to be trashed.
Greg is right. There is a pressing need for the federal and state governments to look at regional development once again rather than allowing the market to decide by default.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 04:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2004
"campaign posters"
The campaign posters are everywhere these days. There is no escaping them. These are different kinds of posters, ones with far more bite and irony than those we adorning the electricity poles around our cities.
Leunig
What is envisioned is a relatively low-level incursion with a few troops, that may last longer than the interventionists expected, but would still be over fairly quickly. Something along the lines of the US invasion of Panama that led to the capture of Manuel Noriega? It is a "pre-emptive strike", which means that we attack our adversary, although he has not yet actually attacked us.
Whilst I've ben on the road the pre-emptive strike issue has been discussed by John Quiggin, Road to Surfdom and Back Pages
The re-affirmation of the pre-emptive strike doctrine in the name of anticipatory self-defence by the Coalition is a troubling one. In the world of international relations the principle that one state may attack another to defend itself is well established. The new principle or body of ideas assocaited with pre-emptive strike implies the limits of sovereignty. Sovereignty entails obligations. One is not to massacre your own people. Another is not to support terrorism in any way. If a Government fails to meet these obligations, then it forfeits some of the normal advantages of sovereignty, including the right to be left alone inside your own territory. Other Governments, including Australia, gain the right to intervene."
However, Howard's pre-emptive strike doctrine ignores the key principle that an intrusion into the territory of another state can be justified as an act of self-defense only in those "cases in which the necessity of that self-defense is instant, overwhelming and leaves no choice of means and no moment of deliberation."
If the rationale for pre-emptive strike is that an attack from the hostile nation or a terrorist is an imminent threat, then the only way that Canberra can justify its pre-emptive strike against Indonesia is to argue that JI is poised with weapons of mass destruction to attack Australia or one of its allies.
Is anyone--Howard or Downer---claiming this? No.
Yet they are prepared to suddenly abandon a set of foreign policy precepts that have carried Australia successfully through a fundamental and often dangerous changes in the distribution and the scale of world power in the Asia-Pacific Rim.
Hence the immediate backpeddling. And they need to because the doctrine of pre-emptive strike implies that Australia is not operating within a context of equally sovereign nations. Australia views itself as a regional-straddling power, whose mission is to keep lesser countries--–Indonesia---in line. A supercop acting to keep law and order.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 21, 2004
Fortress Australia
I'm on the road. I managed to catch a glimpse of the news yesterday. The ALP continues to go on to the front foot on national security, with Latham rightfully highlighting the importance of regional security, whilst insisting that Australia should act co-operatively with its regional neighbours.
The news grabs said that defence and security dominated the election debate yesterday. Both leaders have pledged to protect the nation-state from an insecure and anarchic world, and they dutifully warned of risks posed by their rival.
Both seem to tacitly accept the clash of civilization thesis.
What sort of sovereignty is this that is being protected? What has happened to all the talk of the lessening of sovereignty from globalization that we used to here?
One presumes that the right to resort to pre-emptive or preventive strikes is inherent in the sovereignty of a nation to protect itself. However, does not international law say that we should not act until the threat is imminent? Does not the rationale of self-defense justify one nation's invasion of another only if the necessity of that self-defense is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation?
At least Latham has the sense not to embrace Howard's application of the neo-con idea of a pre-emptive strike on Indonesia against JI; or more accurately, the hawkish doctrine that a pre-emptive strike against terrorist bases in another country is a justified response if Australia was at risk of an attack.
In the light of the clash of civilizations thesis this is a good article.
The pre-emptive strrike is stated publicly; privately ther government reassures our Asian neighbours that Australia has no plans to launch unilateral military strikes on terrorist networks across the region. See Road To Surfdom on this
September 22
Whilst on the road I managed to have a quick glance at The Australian and I came across this cartoon:
Leak
Now Howard is rattling the sabre with his re-affirmation of the doctrine of the pre-emptive strike. This gives Australia a severe image problem throughout the Asian Pacific Rim, and further isolates Australia in the region.
If I remember rightly, was not the doctrine of "anticipatory" self-defense also used by the Nazis to defend their aggression in World War II, and by the Japanese to justify their attack on Pearl Harbor?
Am I right about that or is my memory faulty?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 07:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 20, 2004
biff & forests
The second part of the federal election begins with Howard returning to the western suburbs of Sydney to reinforce his hold on the seats of that city with a bag of cash and some old fashioned political biff.
Rowe
Rowe does have the direction of the biff wrong though. It is far more likely that Howard and Latham's new Labour will compete in biffing the poor, the disabled, and single family mums. Both get their political rocks off in biffing those in poverty to make them shape up and become self-reliant. This is new (neo-liberal) Labor, is well described by Evan Jones over at Alert & Alarmed. New Labor is fully in tune with:
"...up to date, ‘get up and go’ age. Clean lines. Up tempo. Efficient; dynamic; etc. There is no room for stragglers."
Or malingerers. It is the aspirational, middle class suburbanites, who desire to go to elite private schools and make lots of money, who are in need all the breaks and incentives to ensure their self-reliance.
Outside of the global city the big issue of saving the old growth native forests in Tasmania is increasingly coming to the fore.
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has become even more intransigent in its opposition to any moves to end clear-felling of old-growth forests in Tasmania. No suprise there. They cannot see the forest for the trees and have no idea of forests as ecosystems.
As Tim Bonyhady points out in The Age Tasmania. It is the state with the crudest RFA, the one most biased in favour of wood production. It is also the state where the flaws in the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) are most evident. THE RFA in Tasmania has resulted in:
"...woodchipping on an unprecedented scale. Many of its most significant old forests including Australia's largest temperate rainforest in the Tarkine and Australia's tallest forest in the Styx, are being logged ... Tasmania's old forests are those worst served by the RFA process and most in need of protection."
The Tasmanian Labor Government has ignored the RFAs' environmental criteria, given precedence to wood production in large areas of old forest, ignored public opinion and made no attempt to facilitate the restructuring of the forest industry so that it becomes sustainable.
September 21
Back the land of the biff. This article by Louise Dodson takes a stab at showing why winning seats in Sydney is proving to be difficult for Latham.
With fat incomes, upwardly mobile attitudes and sky high mortgages in some of the most valuable real estate in the world Sydney is very different from the rest of Australia, especially Adelaide. The wealth and prosperity in seats such as Hughes, Lindsay, Macarthur and Parramatta were onece Labor strongholds a decade ago. They rebelled against Paul Keating and have remained with Howard since 1996.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 19, 2004
Iraq: going backwards
It would appear that President Bush lives in a delusional world when he says that the coalition of the willing is winning in Iraq, that freedom is spreading and peace will prevail. Canberra and Downing Street continue to echo Washington. We are involved in a world war involving democracy versus tyranny.
The place is a powder keg says Christopher Allbritton who has been covering Iraq for Time Magazine.
Steve Bell
This is what Christopher Allbritton says:
"I don’t know if I can really put into words just how bad it is here some days. Yesterday was horrible — just horrible. While most reports show Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra as “no-go” areas, practically the entire Western part of the country is controlled by insurgents, with pockets of U.S. power formed by the garrisons outside the towns. Insurgents move freely throughout the country and the violence continues to grow. I wish I could point to a solution, but I don’t see one...Baghdadis .... want electricity, clean water and, most of all, an end to the violence…What was once a hell wrought by Saddam is now one of America’s making."
The security situation is actually deteriorating as Iraq slides to civil war. The US is losing the war as Ayad Allawi's client government and its coalition backers continue to lose control of the country. Some conservatives are calling for an exit strategy, not so Victor Davis Hanson.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 18, 2004
3 puzzles
Some puzzles:
The sunny optimism shown by the Back Page crowd about the ALP on a winning run, when I reckon that Howard won the campaign in the 1st three weeks.
John Wanna in The Australian has a different tack. He says that:
"National polls have the Coalition frozen on 43-46 per cent of the primary vote and that hasn't moved since June this year. Labor is equally stuck on a primary vote of 40-42 per cent - again, not moving over the same period....the two-party-preferred outcome [is] a dead heat on 50-50 for the past two polls. An alternative explanation is that national trends hide substantial movements at a regional level. Tasmanian and South Australian polls have both shown much larger swings - up to 8 per cent - but they tend to cancel each other out. "
Wanna says that the polls indicate that no one is listening and no one is shifting their political opinion.
Oh yeah? How come the trend in the Adelaide marginals has shifted to the ALP? How come Tasmania is now going stir crazy from Howard on his white charger coming to save the old growth forests? It is now possible that Bass could shift to the Coalition.
My judgement is that Howard has clawed his way back from being behind on both the primary and the two party preferred votes. On the latter he has drawn level, if not inching ahead. That makes the green preferences flowing to the ALP crucial for the marginal seats it hopes to win, with the Greens now sitting on around 6% nationally. They need a big flow ---preferrably 80% or more in specific marginal seats.
The Age poll supports this reading, as does Hugh McKay's qualitative research. Is it that comfortable feeling coming from economic prosperity? Although Howard is not travelling well in SA (yesterday's Newspoll in The Australian), it appears that the ALP is not gaining enough seats to shift from the plus 3 in SA to the needed 12. The flow to the ALP is yet to happen in Queensland.
Can it? How will WA play out?
The second puzzle is the view that the election will be about social policy now that we have the Lib-Lab convergence on the economy and national security. That view recently stated by Peter Hartcher overlooks the environment:
Leak
It's the blinkers about the environment that is the puzzle not the Lib-Lab convergence.The environment means climate change (and energy) old-growth forests and rivers. The surfacing of these issues last week (rivers & forest) indicates Hartcher's blinkers. The writers at Back Pages and Road to Surfdom also downplay the environment as a central issue. By and large Sydney is pretty bored by Adelaide's obsessive concerns about the health of the River Murray.
The third puzzle. Why has the ALP taken the stick to both single mums in the tax policy and the Medicare safety net in health policy? Why make such a big deal about it being good to hit those on the bottom so hard? Is that negativity what is deemed necessay to win the aspirational vote in Sydney? Does that mean the poor in the regions will be sacrificed for the prosperity of Sydney suburbanites in the name of the rationality of the utilitarian calculus? It is a real puzzle that the ALP Labor is going to the election promising many single income families that they would be noticeably less well off, if the ALP is elected.
That is new Labor: it's ethos, in Evans Jones words, baked from "the free market, self-help and parsimonious charity by the well-heeled and sanctimonious."
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:46 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
September 17, 2004
Forests & cynicism?
It has taken a long time to surface but it has finally happened. The environment is back on the election agenda, and in a big way. This issue has bubbled away, but it has been both overshadowed by national security, health and family packages and ignored by the policy commentators. Now both the major parties are making a pitch for votes on saving the environment. Saving the Tasmanian forests not the Murray is the dividing issue.
The Coalition has upped the ante by flagging the possibility of stopping the logging in old-growth forests with a forest transition package worth "hundreds of millions of dollars" to compensate for lost jobs in the Tasmanian timber industry. The Tasmanian timber industry (Forest Industries Association of Tasmania) is claiming $9 billion in compensation. They are dreaming.
This shift is a realization that the proposal to end old-growth logging in Tasmania has strong support across the urban electorates in the capital cities. Those mentioned are Sydney's Wentworth, Adelaide and Kingston in South Australia, Brisbane, and Dobell in NSW. Presumably the aim is prevent some social Liberals (eg., Liberals for the environment ) from voting for the Greens or Labor on the environment.
The response to this flagging of the Tasmanian forest issue is cynical:
Leak
It is only a flagging by the Coalition at this stage. It may not happen, due to the sensitivity of logging in such marginal regional seats as Richmond (NSW) Eden-Monaro (NSW), Page (NSW) Corangamite (Victoria) and Gippsland in Victoria.
Yet flagging the issue is enough to box the ALP into a corner. As expected the state Labor government in Tasmania is opposed to any reform. It's emotive language about the green assault on timber workers, placing them on the scrap and the sacrifice of the interests of the state, means that the logging of old growth forests has become a national issue. This knee-jerk reaction ignores that Tasmania as a world-renowned tourist state is a better future than Tasmania as a plantation economy.
And it appears that federal Labor has been wrong footed. It has come out saying that this is little more than a spending spree, and that it will oppose any Coalition plan to spend hundreds of millions of the federal budget surplus to phase out old-growth logging in Tasmania's forests.
The ALP now appears to be pro-logging and anti-the environment. Its forest policy is currently being run out of Hobart. Turning its back on saving the forests is an odd situaton to be in for a party that professes to care for the environment.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 09:30 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 16, 2004
talking sense
One of the big gaps in reform and directing public expenditure has been our schools. It is one area where increased expenditure would have a significant benefit. The federal government is in a position to do this as it has much more money than it needs.
This cartoon strikes as a pretty reasonable critique of consumer choice as well as indicating the fairness of the ALP's education policy, which was announced yesterday. That begins to address the inequities built into our two-tier education system.
Tandberg.
The ALP policy puts the emphasis where it should be: on directing more of the flow of public money to public education, whilst giving a hand to the poorer low fee private schools. If the old 'Knowledge Nation' rhetoric is to have any substance, then public schools and the poorer private schools need to have the tools and resources to enable students to acquire an education that would enable them to work and live within a global economy.
This does not do away with choice. It is to ensure that consumer choice (for government or non-government schools) is linked to the public good, rather than being a stand alone value in the free market.
Let us not get too carried with the ALP rediscovering is social democratic heritage. As Kenneth Davidson points out:
"....Latham Labor is committed to pass in the Senate the Howard Government's inequitable funding scheme for schools in 2005 - and as a result, no matter who wins the election on October 9, the proportion of Commonwealth funding going to government schools will continue to contract until at least 2006."
Still it is a step anything towards re-establsihing equity in the operating resources between government and private schools in Australia.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 15, 2004
rings around Labor
I had always thought that NSW was the ALP state--the jewel in the Labor crown. I also thought that the federal ALP would hold its own there --unlike SA which is sliding away from the ALP. My understanding was NSW was the Labor heartland--hence all that talk about ladders of opportunity and suburban aspirationals. I also thought that those working within the global economy, with their ability to get good jobs and travel were cosmopolitan ALP professionals, were rusted on prosperous Keating types.
Then I read Jennifer Hewitt's piece in the Australian Financial Review (subscription required) entitled 'Labor's Albatross in Lathamland' and realised how out of touch I was. The albatross is the Carr Government, which is very much on the nose--and rightly so. I knew that. The Carr Government is even worse than the Rann Government.
It was what Jennifer said about federal ALP that suprised me. It challenged my image of the global city of Sydney and showed how out of date it was. I will outline her argument as it is not online. Jennifer says:
"The 1996 election that swept John Howard into power dislodged Labor's once form grip on Sydney's outer suburbs---and it shows little evidence of coming back in any one of the new housing estates pushing out Sydney's urban sprawl. Those particular Howard battlers are still battling with Howard in Sydney."
I was suprised to learn that federal Labor only holds 19 seats out of 50 in NSW, despite its history as a Labor heartland. And even more suprised to learn that Hewitt reckons that the common assessment is that ALP has given up any idea of making any big gains. So NSW will be basically a status quo state. It is about limiting the damage---and concentrating on Brisbane and Adelaide?
Jennifer then describes those 19 ALP seats. They appear to be in the middle arc of the inner west and south of Sydney: in the more traditional working class areas that include entrenched poverty, lower skilled migration, older housing stock, unemployment and welfare recepients.
This arch of seats is then contrasted with that of the outer suburban seats of the new housing estates from up on the central coast down through Penrith, Campbell town and Liverpool with their aspirational voters.That is increasingly Liberal territory. And there is a third arch of seats: those who have benefited from the dynamic global economy. This arc runs down the coast the north shore through the CBD and the eastern suburbs out to the airport ---is mainly Liberal territory.
Does that mean the ALP is being squeezed in Sydney town? That it is trying to break out of the squeeze? It would appear that the federal ALP has a Sydney problem. How is it going to fix it?
Is that why the ALP is now going strong on fighting terrorism smashing JI, finding Bin Laden, and doing it all in quicktime? It's their message to the outer suburban seats of the new housing estates?
Jennifer goes on to say that the ALP can make up 5 marginal seats in NSW, though only one is in Sydney town itself--Parramatta, which is held by Ross Cameron. What is crucial though is the Sydney problem: the ALP's defence of the middle arc the middle arc of the inner west and south of Sydney cuts into its appeal to the new outer sububan aspirational voter. It is not proving easy for the ALP to break out of the Liberal circle.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 09:18 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
September 14, 2004
water water water
I'll be on the road today showing some people from China Geographic around the river country of the Murray Mouth and Lower Lakes.
On the surface this looks to be okay--if it is tied to the National Water Initiative's objectives and timelines of reducing the over-allocation of water in the Murray-Darling Basin.
Then a project like the water proofing Adelaide, which will enable Adelaide to reduce its dependence on River Murray water, one can be funded. This reduction can be achieved by modernizing our water infrastructure to capture stormwater runoff from Adelaide's watershed in the western Mt Lofty Ranges; by recycling waste water in urban Adelaide and by increasing water efficiency in households and businesses.
This would be a significant step. Where is the ALP on this? What is it going to do? How is it going to achieve its goals of returning 1500 gigalitres to the River Murray? The ALP has gone very quite on the environment. Have you noticed? -- Since this is vital political issue in South Australia we can expect a counter ALP announcement in the next few days.
Wilcox
A discussion paper on the water proofing Adelaide project can be found here. The project has not progressed very far because the Rann Government has not put up the money. They talk the talk of Adelaide becoming a sustainable city, but they never put the money on the table.
It is the same with Adelaide as a solar city.
If the $2 billion is not linked into the objectives and timelines of the National Water Initiative, then the project's will be highjacked byboth the National Party and the recalictrant irrigators who see no reason why they should use technology to make their use of water more efficient.
Does this River Murray initiative mean that the marginal seat of Adelaide is looking a little bit safer for the Howard Government? Or will the state government counter it by banging away about the lost future competition policy payments?
Will more environmental policies be needed for those marginal inner urban seats. Or is a big ticket symbolic issue, such as saving Tasmania's old growth forests from destruction?
16 September
The ALP's River Murray rescue package has been announced It rightly concentrates on the core issue of restoring environmental flows, but makes no mention of the National Water Initiative, nor does it indicate how farmers will be compensated for reduced water allocations.
Though Howard appears to have outbidded Latham on the Murray the Howard package did not cut through in SA. It was blocked by Latham's proposal. Howard will have to do something more to cut through and stop the slow but steady drift to the ALP in Adelaide's marginal seats.
The Labor states have pulled out of the National Water Initiative because they have lost future competition payments. The Labor premiers have repudiated the $500million federal-state CoaG agreement and turned their backs on years of negotiations about the how risk from reduced water allocations is to be shared between federal and state governments and farmers.
How can they pull out of something they have already signed up to?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 07:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 13, 2004
too much about nothing much
I missed the headline event on Channel Nine apart from the last few questions on education, and the summing up by 60 Minutes crowd and Annabel Crabbe. So thankfully, I missed all the performance stuff about national security and economic management. I reckon that would have been rather boring with the absence of cross talk (arguments).
But then again the media event is all about how the performers present themselves despite the built-in stiffness stuctured into this show. It is about a look not about substance.
The little that I saw was enough. It was all too packaged, controlled and corporate. It was about spin and marketing the package for specific audiences within a media that stifles policy debate for sound grabs and appearance.
However, political surface is everything in television.
What I saw was a reality televison show with lookalikes. Latham looked good at the expense of Howard, he had better lines and more personality. But Howard looked safe and comforting. Different strokes for different folks. As for the audience you can have some laughs by reading the 'we wuz robbed, its all been rigged ' comments here.
Petty
Over a third of the show was devoted to the war on terror. We do have the worm's interpretation of what this meant in terms of its effects. But who knows what is going on with the worm, without us having an indication of the composition of the swinging voter audience. Is the worm an expression of our deepest fears and anxieties? How does it compare to this kind of survey? I do not know. What we have is surface, surface, surface.
So what does the spectacle mean in terms of reversing the ALP's drift of momentum? Who knows. That way of understanding what is happening is the interpretation of the Canberra Press Gallery. Yet more coded surfaces, images and desires that often bear little relation to the lived experiences and desires of the suburbs.I don't know much about either.
So how did the media event play in the diverse marginals around the nation? I haven't a clue. How would people in the marginals critically read the media spectacle? Few people really know.
But the ALP crowd just loved it. Their guy did well.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 01:58 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack
September 12, 2004
a long shadow
At least someone in the Australia government is beginning to acknowledge political realities, even if they still have to surround their talking sense with fog. One would also hope that the triumphal fantasies about nation building a unified nation-state, which were based on a blissful ignorance of Iraq's history and society, are also fading.
The Howard Government needs to become more realistic, because death casts a long shadow. It is a long way from Iraq and the shadow spreads from the Middle East across South East Asia to Australia.
Rowe
What will they do? How will they respond?
At least the muscled up ones are not currently saying that the greater the violence, the more evidence that their military policies are working. However, they do continue to always agree with the last utterance of the imperial presidency.
This question needs to be asked: How goes the war on terror then?
Not well you would have to say.
Currently in Iraq we have two intense military insurgencies of the Sunnis and Shia with the Kurds currently threatening a third insurgency.
The US occupation of Iraq has been bungled. The US has failed to meet the basic needs of ordinary people in postwar Iraq, and this is the major reason so many Iraqis feel so bitterly angry with the occupation. It continues to try to solve political problems with military solutions.
I have previusly advocated a federal Iraq based around a loose federation consisting of secular Kurdistan, a Sunni entity in the center, and an Islamist Shiite entity in the south, with Baghdad as a jointly administered federal capital. However, the consequence of the US occupation is the possibility of breakup of Iraq now seems more likely than a successful transition to centralized democracy.
As Peter Galbraith observes:
"The United States faces a near-impossible dilemma in Iraq. If it withdraws prematurely, it risks leaving behind a weak government unable to cope with the chaos that is the breeding ground of terrorism. By staying in Iraq, the United States undermines the legitimacy of the Iraqi government it wants to support, while US military action produces more recruits for its enemies."
A loose federation that recognizes the political realities of powerful regions may be the only way out of the dilemma.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 03:41 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 11, 2004
ugly Australians
The neo-con line on "international" terrorism is that we will stand firm against the evil ones. It's a simple and glib message. But we do need to put 'international' into question here. The neo-cons are now running together the school siege in the southern Russian city of Beslan and the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. The enemy is one and the same. It is a global battle that is being fought on the fronts of Jakarta, Beslen, Iraq and New York.
Remember Philip Ruddock's attempt last week to play the fear card by putting Labor on the side of people smugglers and the child murderers in Beslan? The neo-cons are about fanning the embers of fear.
Within the words "international" or "global" lies a problem. What the Chechens want in their fight with Russia is an independent Chechnya, which is quite different from what Jemaah Islamiah wants in Indonesia. Nor are the Chechens and Jemaah Islamiah working together as one organization. Iraq is different again, as is the now forgotten Afghanistan. The global war is a fiction constructed by a hegemonic US nation-state that seeks to knock off any possible threat to its global power.
Australia should give that a miss and focus on the realities in the region we are a part of, and belong to. As Hugh White observes "Australia faces its biggest risks, and can do most to combat the problem, in our own neighbourhood - which happens to be one of the epicentres the global phenomenon." That is a more sensible approach than launching off into paranoid hysterics.
For the muscled-up, neo-con Murdoch press the enemy is Islamic fundamentalism that must be hunted down and rooted out. There can be no quarter in the struggle against evil. The Australian thunders:
"Our enemies in the war on terror want a world where religion rules, and the only godly government they will accept is one of their own construction. "
So we must fight the terrorists to defend our democracy and values in order to stop the new tyranny of religious fascism everywhere.
It is hysterics.
The tragedy is that it is innocent Indonesians who were killed not Australian military personnel. Yet The Australian thunders away at what the Indonesians must do:
"The Indonesian Government has no choice other than to fight the war on terror with all its resources. To attempt to appease JI in any way serves no sensible purpose. It will not stop the terror attacks, and with every bombing the number of tourists and investors in Indonesia drops. This is exactly what JI wants. The prospect of a prosperous and democratic Indonesia, where ordinary people have a greater say in deciding their own destinies than clerics, horrifies the fundamentalists."
The Indonesian Government under President, Megawati Sukarnoputri has been too soft. It needs to muscle up and get tough. Us tough guys will have to sort them out quick and smart. Given them a bit of spine.
You could say there is a lack of sensitivity to the Indonesians shown here. The tone is an intimidating one. We should remember, it was Indonesians who were killed not Australians. It is they who are suffering from the effective strikes of terror not us Australians. It is they who have to live, deal with, a radical political Islam within their own society.
We have more hysterics from the Catallaxy mob. Consider this:
"Thirdly, we must consider the policy implications. It is clear that the terrorists are getting closer to our homes in their strikes. We must face facts that one day they will strike a devastating blow against us, probably in the near future. If we want to avoid the worst we will have to take more precautions. This means sacrificing some of our hard-won liberty and hard-earned property in order to strengthen our defences. We must bear in mind Jefferson's warning against the claims of terrorists and tyrants alike: Eternal VIGILANCE is the price of liberty."
It is Indonesians who have been killed not Australians. It is their liberties that have been placed at risk, not ours. It is drawing a long blow that bombing an Australian embassy in Jarkata means bombs going off in Sydney. This is the classic conservative tactic of fear mongering being deployed when Australians are being drawn into somebody else's civil war.
We should take a deep breath and look at the photos again. It's Indonesia not Australia. JI is killing Indonesians. Blowing up Australia's embassy is an instrument to further JI's own goals within Indonesia. JI is not seeking a war with Australia.
More photos here.
We should be concerned to help Indonesia defend its democracy from JI's terrorist attacks and forget about Iraq. Leave Iraq to the Americans. It's their mess. It is the US who wants a military presence in the Middle East (to switch their bases from Saudi Arabia to Iraq) not Australia. As Hugh White says we in Australia, who have such a huge stake in the success of building a stable, fair and democratic society in Indonesia, have done so little to help. We talk and do more about helping to build democracy in Iraq than in Indonesia.
That is lopsided. It is way off beam.
Our national security priorities have been set by Americans not Australians. It is time we changed them so they reflect our own national security interests. Let us bring troops home from Iraq and focus on our region. It is about time we gave due weight to what is happening in our region. It is an epicentre after all.
update
Chris Sheil agrees. He gives it an ALP inflexion--doing a Curtin. Tim Dunlop concurs. The ALP enclave in the bloggosphere has got it right. Curtin clearly understood where our national interests are. They need not, and often are not, the same as the global interests of imperial powers.
15 September
THe sentence in the above post that reads "The tragedy is that it is innocent Indonesians who were killed not Australian military personnel" has been interpretated by Tim Blair as implying that Gary Sauer-Thompson on his “web log” says that he wants Australian troops to die."
This has been expanded by others to say that my views are that "Australian citizens employed to defend their country are fair game for murderous terrorists and their death would be acceptable, and that it is only the death of Indonesias that are a tragedy."
Both statements are a misinterpretation of a poorly worded sentence; a misinterpretation that is based on taking that sentence out of the context of the post. As I wrote in the comments thread below the post does not advocate that the death of Australian personnel are acceptable or fair game for JI.
Any such interpretation is explicitly rejected by me as a grotesque distortion of what I wrote. My concern in that post was that the tragedy of the Jarkata bombing was that innocent Indonesians were killed by JI. All attempts to suggest a moral equivalence between Indonesian civilians and Australian military personnel is rejected.
The context of the post was its argument against was the tendency to create fear by overblowing what had actually happened. It was not a bomb attack in Australia that killed Australian civilians. I also offered an interpretation of that JI bomb: it was aimed at what was taking place in Indonesia.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 01:40 AM | Comments (29) | TrackBack
September 10, 2004
blowback & neocons
There are two myths created by the Australian neo-conservatives concerning the consequences of Australia's involvement in the Iraqi war. These are: that terrorist activity would be weakened as a result of the war in Iraq; and that Australia has not become a greater terrorist target because of our participation in the invasion of a sovereign country.
Both have been laid to rest by yesterday's events: Jemaah Islamiah's bomb attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta. This is a direct terrorist attack against Australian interests, and Jemaah Islamiah has warned of more spectacular bombing of soft targets, unless Australia withdraws its forces from Iraq. It is a very clear message.
Moir
Not for the neocons, such as Tony Parkinson, whose job it is to support the war by fostering myths. Parkinson's response is this:
"Yet still the concept of blowback clouds the debate about how best to respond...How soon will we hear that the Jakarta bomb is a vicious retort to the Howard Government's support for war in Iraq? This is a familiar refrain. After each atrocity, a similar pattern of argument emerges: that Spanish commuters paid for their government's folly in Iraq.... This business of attributing culpability to the targets of terror, directly or indirectly, is obnoxious. Worse, it leads into a metaphysical funk: paralysis via analysis."
The concept of blowback clouds the debate? It leads to metaphysical funk? This strikes me as incoherence. Parkinson's article is a covering up that dumps all terrorists into the one bag, and ignores the historical contexts of various conflicts. Parkinson points to, and supports, the neo-con view of an endless world war against terrorism and needing to do whatever it takes to prevail.
What Parkinson's neo-con "explanation" avoids is what Australia has done by intervening in Iraq. Parkinson says that the terrorists with malevolent intent are busy marking that milestone of the third anniversary of the September 11 attacks in blood and misery. The malevolent intent is spelt out by The Australian: the terrorists hate us and everything Australia stands for (ie., our democracy, the prosperity of our economy and our lifestyle). The neo-con explanation is the clash of civilizations. Their message is that we must stand strong and firm. No appeasement.
But why dismiss what Jemaah Islamiah says? What they say is rational: the decision to involve Australia in the invasion and occupation of Iraq has raised Australia's profile as a terrorist target. For them it is about what Australia has done, not what it is. Why fog that in Australia? Why pretend that account is nonsense, mad or irrational?
Why dismiss the idea of blowback as irrelevant? Isn't that kneejerk dismissal a flight from reality into myth by the neo-cons? Isn't saying that 'the terrorists hate us because we love freedom' less rational than saying JI bombed our embassy in Jakarta because we are supporting the Americans fighting and killing Muslims in Iraq? Have we not known since 2001 that Australia is a target of the global terrorism network? Osama bin Laden said as much. And we have known since 2002 that Jemaah Islamiah, which is the leading local affiliate of al-Qaeda, has Australia in its sights.
Iraq was a turn into a side alley since Al Quaeda and Jemaah Islamiah were not there in a military sense. Iraq was a bad call.
The consequences of blowback this time is that it is the Indonesians rather than Australians who have suffered the most. That is the tragedy. It is Indonesians, who opposed the military intervention in Iraqi, who are paying for Australia's involvement in the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq. Presumably, this will both renew the revulsion within the Islamic community to the terrorist bombing tactics of Jemaah Islamiah, and undermine JI's efforts to achieve its goal of moving towards an Islamic state for Indonesia. Does it not mean that the support base for the Jemaah Islamiah groups inside Indonesia will shrink?
Australia should leave Iraq. It has no business in that country.The US military strike in Iraq is part of an tough guy, no nonsense US imperial foreign policy to establish a bigger physical presence in the Middle East. Australia's strategic interests are within the Asia Pacific Rim region, not fighting Iraqi nationalists in the Middle East, or supporting the neo-cons global Pax Americana to maintain and extend America’s unrivaled global dominance.
Of course, the tragedy in Iraq now undercuts American Greatness: US forces cannot stay without provoking further hostility; but neither can they leave precipitately without risking more serious civil strife. However Australian forces can leave, as they play no significant military role.
I expect both political parties are going to muscle up on national security and war after these events.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:14 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
September 09, 2004
economic mismangement?
It is hard not to miss the Howard Government's profligate spending on political fixes in this election. It is buying its way back to power. It has spend pretty much all the budget surplus, with little being spent on education and infrastructure renewal. As Kenneth Davidson observes "The Coalition is spending money on its re-election campaign as if there is no tomorrow."
And with plenty of spare left in the budget surplus we can expect more spending directed at our pockets and purses. I guess we can expect little by way of substantive policies for the public good: eg., more money to buy back water licences to restore the flows sin the River Murray.
Davidson is not the only commentator to notice the big spending spree that will increase in interest rates after the federal election.
Gregory Hywood also notices the spending spree. He says that Howard is reshaping modern conservatism:
Hywood says that Howard is spending big to deny to the ALP the chance to capture the middle class through government hand-outs ie., middle-class welfare."The conservative model of a decade ago would have regarded such an approach with alarm. The focus would have been on seriously reducing expenditure as a proportion of the economy and delivering sustained tax reform. The Government has not even followed a more traditional conservative approach of chasing greater efficiency by investing heavily in education and infrastructure.Of course, this transformation of....Howard into big-government conservatives is quite deliberate. The small-government ethos was never a successful political approach except at the time of crisis before the 1980s reforms. John Hewson in Australia.....failed to deliver popular support behind the movement."
The classic example of middle class welfare is the subsidising of private health insurance further. As Davidson argues the money should be used to reduce elective surgery waiting lists in public hospitals. Davidson says:
"According to The Australian Financial Review, the Coalition has put forward a $5.1 billion heath package compared with a much more modest $3.5 billion package from the ALP. The Coalition package will largely benefit the health insurance funds and supplement doctor incomes. The ALP package is directed at increasing bulkbilling rates and boosting the number of doctors and nurses, so it is politically more effective because the spending flows through to patients rather than health providers."
Davidson does not acknowledge the attempts to ligfe bulkbilling rates by the Coalition or introduce allied health professionals into Medicare to address workforce shortages.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 07:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 08, 2004
reversals
The media flows are full of the ALP's big agenda setting item designed to give them the economic creditibility they crave--it is the $11 billion tax and family package partly financed by increased taxes and changes to superannuation.
To all intents and purposes the "ease the squeeze" tax policy is the centrepiece of the Opposition's campaign pitch. According to the Canberra Press Gallery, the job of the tax and family package is to reignite the Labor campaign after polls showed the ALP lost the first week of the election campaign. Will it do the trick of stopping the slow drift back to the Coalition? Or will the package be gunned down?
Rowe
The three strands of the ALP's complex tax and family package are:
* giving a tax cut of up to $8 a week to everyone earning less than $52,000 - thus plugging the gap the Howard Government's tax package;
*overhauling and enhancing the family benefits system into a single new payment. It does away with Family Tax Benefit Part B, combining this money with Family Tax Benefit Part A and the Coalition's $600 supplement to form a new and simpler payment;
*reducing tax-free threshold from $6000 to $8500 to ease poverty traps by allowing people to earn more money before they start losing welfare benefits.
It is both tax and welfare to work. It is a carefully targeted, modest and responsible package, which avoids the sordid bidding contest for votes that neglects the long-term problems to which the spare cash in the budget surpluses ought to be spent on. The tax side extends the Costello tax cuts to the people that Costello ignored, whilst the welfare-to-work is a reform program that provides recognition of women as workers and helps mothers wanting to return to the workforce.
Politically, it will neutralize tax as a negative issue for Labor.
The ALP package is very neo-liberal. The "ease the squeze" rhetoric is about providing incentives for people to get into the workforce, and rewarding battlers for their hard work as they climb the "ladder of opportunity". It is an appeal to the suburban moral middle class, whose core moral values are still centred around the protestant work ethic.
It's central thrust is that a life of welfare is not acceptable and that work is the best solution to poverty. Since quality and affordable child care is not easily available, nor part of Labor's package, - who then cares for the children?
Secondly, what about those families in regional Australia where opportunities to work are scarce, or the educational institutions (eg., TAFE) are badly undersourced? There are plenty of jobless families with two or more children living in that situation.
Note how the ALP's spending emphasis is on tax cuts. In contrast, very little is being spent by them on health and education, or on quality and affordable child care. It is the Coalition who is spending big on health and education. Is this not a reversal of the usual positions?
9 September
Maybe I'm misreading the ALP package. Could this be a first step in a major tax and welfare-to work reform? One that the Coalition was unable to do?
Or are we seeing what I've argued before: that this is a very rightwing ALP and, if it gains power, it will work with the Coaliton in the Senate to pass legislation. When was the last tine you heard the ALP attack ACOSS when that ngo points out that low-income families with two or more children and some private income would lose under the ALP's tax and family package?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:04 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 07, 2004
Health: negating ALP advantage
This captures the pressure the ALP is under:
Petty
The missing page is the underfunding of Medicare and the public health system.
Hence this. The Coalition will extend the Medicare rebate for visits to general practitioners from 85 per cent to 100 per cent of the scheduled fee. This will play well in those marginal electorates with a shortage of doctors, where health is one of the top two issues, and doctors already charge $15 to $20 above the bulk-billing rate.
Labor owns the health issue and it should be able to win a debate on health, given that the Coalition once promised to dismantle Medicare. Yet what we see is the continual chipping away of the ALP advantage by spending big money on health. Howard is determined to own health as a political issue for the Coalition by tightly squeezing the ALP.
So it comes as no suprise to me that the Coalition has come from behind in the polls and is now in a dead heat with Labor on a two-party preferred basis.
The ALP is currently talking about restructuring the federal compact with a pooled funding arrangement between the states and commonwealth. It is a limited redesign with a technocratic focus on change management and big system expertise.
Neither political party is addressing GP shortage (more university places) or competition to GP's and specialists from a variety of alllied health professionals. There is a huge workforce shortage. As the Australian Medical Association president, Bill Glasson, says:
".... unless we can get more doctors into the system, particularly general practitioners, there are not going to be the doctors there to see the patients of tomorrow...We have got to make general practice more attractive - it is the cornerstone of the medical system in this country."
As Glasson points out, there are limitations to the ALP's concern with bulk billing (eg., getting the bulk-billing rates in Australia back up to 80 per cent):
"Bulk-billing is not a measure of the health of the medical system in this country. Bulk-billing is just a means by which doctors can bill the government for the service that they provide."
But it is good cash flow for the GP and specialists all the same.
However, Glasson is right about the need to focus on workforce issues. There is a big doctor shortage, especially in the regions outside the capital cities.
What Glasson does not do is to talk about general practice in terms of a diversity of health professionals. If the ALP is obsessed with bulk billing rates of 80%, then the AMA is obsessed with doctors running the health system.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 03:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 06, 2004
Tasmanian forests
What has continually suprised me is the failure of the two main parties to develop good policies to protect old growth forests in Tasmania. Both the ALP and the Coalition shy away from this, even though these policies would help their chances in the inner city electorates of our major cities. Both parties need to establish their environmental creditionals.
There were mutterings from both sides about conserving Tasmania's forests carried by the wind a few days ago; but these were little more than mutterings about possible future policies. They are only beginning to talk the talk.
The ALP does have a state of principles about what constitutes a sustainable environment. However, the ALP's environment policy has nothing to say about conserving old growth native forests.
They see it as falling under resources and jobs. These resource policies are driven by State ALP Governments, since the federal ALP does not have a greened up resources policy. Presumably the economy and wealth creation comes first, then the environment bit is tacked on by the neo-liberal technocrats to appease the left wing base of the party.
The Coalition has no specific election policies on conserving Tasmania's old growth forests. It's party platform does not mention old growth forests, preferring to talk about balancing our immediate economic needs with a need to conserve and nurture our environment and resources for future generations.
Balance means that a good economy is a prerequisite to have good environmental policies because you can't run a good environmenal policy if you don't have the money to pay for it.
So says Ian Campbell, the new Environment Minister in the Australian Financial Review (subscription, 2 09 04, p. 60). He says that environmental change will be driven by the market, not a comand and control approach. The minister adds that good economic outcomes willl lead to even better environmental outcomes.
That is not the case with Gunns in Tasmania. The good economic outcomes for Gunns and Tasmania are premised on bad environmental outcomes. And the Minister knows that.
Both major parties are unwilling to gain the electoral advantage over the other in the marginal inner city seats by saving Tasmanian forests. Strange isn't it?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 02:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 05, 2004
US Republican Convention
I only caught bits and pieces of the slick and nasty Republican Convention on the soundbites on national television last week. What I saw when the public mask of a smiling compassionate conservatism slipped was a mean-spirted, religious conservative party whose chief theme is embattlement. The body-language was about force and the central message was endless war.
The convention was a carefully choreographed marketing for a party’s nominee; they are rubber-stamps in the form of spectacles. The religious right had come Madison Square Garden to both acclaim Bush as the de facto leader of the religious right, and to launch vicious attacks on John Kerry's war record. Their's is a world of good and evil, white and black.
Sidney Blumenthal in The Guardian offers a good description of Bush's arrival at the Convention:
"George W Bush emerged between two gigantic American flags, walked down a runway to the centre of a stage emblazoned with the seal of the presidency. The proscenium behind him resembled a Roman temple, engraved with large gold letters: "The United States of America."The overpowering evidence of his authority did not foster distance between him and the crowd; instead his elevation excited charismatic deference. Standing alone on the image of the American eagle, he was thrust on his podium physically both amid and above the rapturous delegates at the Republican convention. His solitary presence brought him closer to them in fulfilling their dream of leadership - the president as lone ranger."
The level of venom that I saw did not endear me to the Republicans. This comment in the Washington Post captures my feelings:
"The GOP convention was successful because it was part of the overall Republican campaign. It was a loathsome affair, suffused with lies and anger, but also beautiful to watch, like a nature show about some wild animal, amoral and intent only on survival. Speaker after speaker stomped on Kerry because, really, he had made himself the entirety of the Democratic campaign."
The Republicans are holding onto power by throwing dirt at John Kerry and the Democrats in the name of a muscular foreign policy backing an unapologetic nationalism. Their political expression of the power of the military-industrial complex indicates that the Republicans want exclusive ownership of the politics of US defence, security and war. In doing so they are reworking the old strategies of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Can you imagine how vengeful and vindictive the Republicans would be if John Kerry won the Presidency for the Democrats?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 01:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 04, 2004
political contrasts
This cartoon takes us behind the endless polls that are regarded as news by the Canberra media:
Leunig
Of course, the house stands in a particular kind of suburbia:
Moir
The reality of the conservative suburban vision of urban life is otherwise.
Both political parties also share the free market conception of civil society, which we step into when we leave home each morning to work to pay the huge mortgage on the house; a mortgage on a badly-designed,and energy inefficient box surrounded by a water hungry lawn.
We need some critical analysis to help push all the political spin to one side. That is where the media comes in, does it not?
Max Suich makes an interesting observation about the Canberra press gallery. He says:
".... the Canberra press gallery, the object of the media's major investment in reporting national affairs, has been cut out of much of the basic political reporting we read, see and hear.....The media, as I have noted, have now largely accepted the role of spectators in the electoral contest and the obligation to report the serve-and-volley, charge-and-counter-charge of each side as if it were serious information."
He's dead right. The media is no longer a watchdog for us citizens.
Suich says that it would be interesting to see one of the major newspapers attempt downgrade the tennis match and turn the reporters loose to find out more than the obvious.
Suich is not the only one pointing the finger at the Canberra Press Gallery.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:50 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 03, 2004
barren years ahead?
The debate about the economy, interest rates and good economic management bubbles along. It currently circulates around interest rates, even though interest rates are primarily determined by world events, events largely outside of the control of the federal government.
Inflation and unemployment sit in the background. Interest rates will go up after the election no matter which political party wins the election. Isn't that what the Reserve Bank is saying?
Rowe
The political reality is that most economic policy is determined by Treasury not the Minister. The Minister--whoever that is--mostly follows the standard Treasury line. They rarely direct the Treasury.
The election campaign is about fear of rising interest rates (the Coalition) and hope offered by the ladder of opportunuity (the ALP).
If you recall the fear message is that the ALP is fiscally irresponsible, will run up large budget deficits and push up interest rates soon after the election. Hence a vote for Mark Latham is a vote for a crippling increase in your mortgage repayment. What's more interest rates were always higher under Labor than under the Coalition. The figure bandied about was an additional $960 a month to the average mortgage of the average Australian family.
Latham's response to fear campaign was lame and flatfooted. He signed a pledge. That was political theatre ---a stunt? Note that there was no attack on Costello. It was all defense, defense, defense.
Why isn't the ALP saying that the budget will go into deficit because of the Coalition's pre-budget spending spree? Why not attack the current account being in deficit under the Coalition's economic management?
I do not understand the defensiveness. The ALP is a actually a party of punishers and straightners not enlargers. As Hatcher points out Latham's trilogy involves: Labor running a surplus budget for each of the three years of its parliamentary term and cutting net Commonwealth debt; Labor cutting federal tax collections as a proportion of the total economy as conventionally measured, by GDP; and Labor cutting public spending as a proportion of GDP.
That is a neo-liberal policy agenda is it not? So why not argue along the lines that grwoth is unbalanced in that it is being fuelled by strong debt-funded domestic spending that is sucking in imports whilst exports are faltering?
Why not argue that our current account deficit is at historically record levels?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 08:58 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
September 02, 2004
Murdoch's Green-bashing
If you still have any doubts that the conservative, anti-democratic Murdoch Press has an explicit strategy of Green-bashing, then you can read a variety of attacks.
Andrew Bolt in the Melbourne Herald Sun does not disappoint. He talks in terms of the Greens increasingly rejecting civilisation and freedom and embracing the tyranny of tribalism -- the purity of the noble savage. The Greens are actually like the Nazi's--ecofacists!---says Bolt. That hostility reminds me of this. George Brandis' original speech can be found here.
Then there is this from tirade from Greg Sheridan in The Australian. A sample:
"The Greens are essentially left-wing Hansonites, simultaneously reactionaries and revolutionaries, who combine a hatred of modern society as it actually exists with a conspiracy-laden, fantastical view of how the world works. They offer nothing positive beyond dreamlike cliches and slogans, but their negative power is quite great. They can build nothing, they can damage much. But they may hold the balance of power in the Senate...The Greens' policies on the party's website are a mishmash of contradictory and incoherent generalised statements. Brown is smart enough to know that the Greens can only suffer from having intelligible or specific policies on the record. They seek to embody a sentiment of rage and frustration rather than to advance real policies."
The Greens have no reason. They are violently emotional, driven by nasty out-of-control passion. They should not be allowed to have a say in ruling the country. This is the standard conservative attack on democracy, which has its roots in Plato.
It always suprises me how the conservative voice of reason in politics is so violently emotional. I should not be suprised, since conservatism in politics is about fostering fear and threats to justify its demand for order.
Well, the conservatives are going to have to get used to a Green Senate.
The Australian's editorial strikes a more reasonable tone. It says that:
"The Greens are now too powerful and popular to be dismissed as eccentrics.... Which means their platform should be subject to serious scrutiny, like those of any other major political party. The party's policies demonstrate an utter absence of coherent thinking on the issues that matter most for a safe, fair and prosperous Australia....But the prospect of any government having to negotiate with [Bob Brown] to pass its program is alarming. There is no need to call Senator Brown and his supporters unnecessary names to demonstrate that his party presents a threat to the prosperity and well-being of all Australians. The Australian Greens' program does the job very well."
I guess that we can expect the Murdoch Press to stay on message throughout the next six week. So we will witness more violent eruptions from the conservative political unconscious.
The Green-bashing isrepeated by Howard and co. So what we have is the conservative's third front of the scare campaign (the others are the economy and terrorism).
More on the issue over at Road to Surfdom.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 08:41 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
September 01, 2004
shift in power
Some journalists are fascinated by the Liberal heartland being in revolt and the possibility of Wentworth being won by the ALP.
However, I found a specific media conference more fascinating. It happened the day after the ALP once again decided that it will not subpoena ministerial aides to appear before a new inquiry into the children overboard affair.
Now I did not attend the press conference yesterday, nor did I see it televised.
But did I hear it on the radio whilst in Canberra writing a speech. The news report does not capture what actually happened: the shift in the power dynamics in the Senate from the Democrats to the Greens.
What had started as a joint media conference between two parties to get some oxygen in the election campaign ended up with the Democrats sidelined and silenced whilst the Greens were in the centre debating their polices on drugs with a Herald Sun journalist and the media.
The Democrats, to all intents and purposes, were a political prop for the Greens. Or you could say that the Democrats had a brief ride on the Green's comet.
Welcome to the new balance of power in the Senate arising from the Greens picking up seats at the expense of the Democrats. It is a Green Senate we will be looking at.
So you can see why the Murdoch Press is on the attack. Yesterday it was an attack on the Green's policy to investigate alternatives to the current drugs policy of criminalisation, which results in soaring crime rates, rampant corruption and family tragedy. At the conference the Greens were advocating harm-minimisation.
The Coalition Government is trying to damage Bob Brown by rolling out its negative campaign. The Green-bashing (the Greens are out to destroy our social fabric etc etc) will give the Greens ever more airplay.
That media conference was more informative than The Advertiser's insights into the marginal seat of Adelaide. The insight is at a street talk level and it says that there is a big flight from politics in the seat of Adelaide.
Apparently people are living in their own rave bubbles in Adelaide. They have no problems. They have litttle concern about bettering the lives of others. Apparently, we are quite content living in our rave bubbles. We are cool. We watch Australian Idol and aspire to own digital television with 56 channels on a 128-centimetre flat-screen TV.
Adelaide has been creating national waves lately.
Suprisingly, in one of the most marginal seats in Australia, the ALP has a low presence. Little money has been put into the campaign in Adelaide by the national campaign office. The local campaign has the appearance of being run on a shoestring, with little attention being devoted to local issues. Perhaps the ALP candidate (a political staffer for our neo-liberal state Treasurer who is obsessed with credit ratings) is too busy trying to raise money from chook raffles.
Adelaide is obviously not a priority for the ALP. Is SA a priority for the ALP? Apparently all the campaigns in the marginal Liberal seats are being run on a shoe string.
Alas the Greens have a low presence in the inner city seat of Adelaide, unlike here. What a pity. Democracy requires that we break up the two horse race as much as possible.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 01:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack