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November 30, 2006

ALP--they've got problems

I've been watching Question Time this week and it has been less than an impressive performance from the ALP over and above the theatrics and overblown rhetoric around the AWB scandal. I've been patiently waiting for the searching questions on climate change that pin the Howard government to the floor. Nothing. Though the issue is tailor made for the ALP, given the economics of nuclear power and the unease in the government ranks about the need for some form of carbon pricing, they are not fostering a public debate on climate change and energy policy.

Moir

Nothing. Wayne Swan says nothing at all. Anthony Albanese had one question on environmental flows in the Murray-Darling Basin lifted from the website of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.There were no linkages to climate change at all. These guys are not impressive. They don't know their stuff in terms of developing strategic policy responses and they lack the courage to take Costello and Howard on. We just have a (nother) scare campaign about nuclear power instead of a proposal to scrap all payroll taxes and replace them with a levy on carbon.

I appreciate that Parliament is a hot house and what is seen of great significance there has little impact or meaning in the day to day lives of the broader electorate. Who really cares about Stephen Smith's bad Parlaimentary tactics? Or that he makes little headway with his questions on industrial relations? But people do care about climate change. The connection has been made between drought, climate change and energy, even if it has not been made between the melting of the Antarctica icecap and rising sea levels along Australia's coastline, or the threat this poses to our coastal cities. People are staring to realize they need to get used to the idea of living in a hotter world.

People are looking for some account about what can be done in Australia given the ALP's commitment to renewable energy. So why not embrace a comprehensive set of climate change measures? Nothing is forthcoming to help us install solar panels on our roofs to run airconditioners at peak periods. The ALP could be talking in terms of solar roof tiles tied into the existing grid. So when the sun is shining, our rooftop functions as a small power plant, sending power down the line. At night, we can buy electricity like everyone else; in the sunny months of the year, the power the house uses and the power it generates would be about the same.

It's depressingi sn't it. Very few ALP politicians have had anything genuinely interesting to say for a very long time. Little is being offered to lead them out of their wilderness.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:39 AM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

November 29, 2006

digital migration

I've just found time to read 2006 Andrew Olle Media Lecture given by Helen Coonan, the Federal Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Minister. A quick scan suggests that it states the obvious and reinforces some media prejudices whilst trying to reach to construct a picture of the new virtual world. She looks at the new through the eyes of the old and replays some old cliches.

In the lecture the Minister talks about digital migrants, those who are living in a world that did not exist when they were born. That is me. Coonan says:

Digital immigrants are, on the whole, outpaced by the hoards of digital natives who do not see technology as technology but as an appendage. It's not technology to the teens – it's routine, it's run-of-the-mill, it's life.They don't marvel about how their mobile or their computer has made their life easier or more convenient – they can barely remember a time when these essentials did not exist.These same 21 year olds are more likely to access their news and opinion online, do research online and shop online. They date online and can even pray online. For advertisers they are fast becoming the 'lost generation'.

Oh well, I am a digital migrant living in a world of digital natives. So what is the significance of my successful migration to the shores of this virtual world?

Coonan says that

The ramifications of this new digital world are particularly relevant for two sectors that have traditionally relied on a static audience that listens to radio, watches TV and reads newspapers – the media industry itself and the political class...We are all grappling with how to remain relevant in the fast paced world of new media.Perhaps none more so than politicians and journalists who are struggling to maintain the foothold into people's minds and homes they once had.I think this is a quandary that should be of keen interest to both your mob and my mob and so an integration plan for digital immigrants is the theme I have chosen tonight.

The minister tells us what we already know. Though the newspaper can still qualify as a cash-cow but the Internet is increasingly providing a more flexible, accessible and targeted platform for advertisers. And with advertisers, comes the resources to support quality journalism.Traditional news organisations have recognised this and are trading off their mastheads as a launchpad for their lucrative online versions.

Okay, as a blogger, I read the online versions and I rarely buy a newspaper apart for work. So what? it's no big deal. Coonan describes the implications:

This metamorphosis from newspapers to online, has of course had significant consequences for traditional journalism. For while many may question the credibility of blogs, citizen journalism is now forming its own newsrooms and editorial policies. And steadily newspapers are moving their best reporters to write for the web in the first instance and then freshen their copy for the print version later.

What does that mean for journalism. How is that connected to blogging? I don't do citizen journalism a la Jay Rosen. Coonan says that we are moving to a new world of journalism, in the traditional sense of the craft:

Journalism will no longer be, as I have heard it put by one, 'a sermon, it will be a conversation'....anyone with a fast broadband connection and a laptop can create a movie or a blog and share it with the world.It is true that credibility, authenticity and quality are important qualifications when it comes to a critical assessment of online material.This is why many of the most popular news and opinion sites are linked to influential and established sources such as newspapers and television stations. But it is equally true that the value of the unedited information on the web is in the eye of the beholder.But are we in danger here of being too dismissive and elitist? Are we, in essence, trying to kill the threat by characterising it as nothing more than a rant by an unknown? And who are we – even if by 'we' I mean established commentators – to do so?

Oh dear. Public opinion is just a rant by an unknown.There I was thinking that I was performing the wartchdog function evacuated by the corporate media. Coonan qualifies her position:

It is clear there may be a way to go for Internet journalism to have the level of authority and credibility that traditional media has, and the respect that experienced journalists rightly command. But provided that professional journalists are afforded opportunities to make serious and considered contributions on the Internet, probability favours the view that the quality of journalism will not be diminished and readership will likely increase.

We amateurs will only gain credibility if the professional journalists blog. What I do diminishes the quality, authority and credibility of journalism? Give me a break. Where does Fox Television fit into this? It's full of rants and partisanship? Moreover, the Minister ought to know that a large amount of what is called journalism these days is little more recycling of her media releases. She makes sure it does by feeding the chooks. How does that kind of media management help democracy?

Coonan concludes on an upbeat note:

As journalism moves to the Internet, democracy can only be enhanced. No longer is debate shaped and limited only by mainstream newsrooms. Surely this is a healthy trend?As the Economist puts it: “The usefulness of the press goes much wider than investigating abuses or even spreading general news; it lies in holding governments to account – trying them in the court of public opinion – the Internet has expanded this court”..

So the court of accountability has broadened. Coonan gets there in the end. But she fails short as she doesn't look at the politics she is part of through the eyes of the best political blogs. How do they see themselves in terms of her world?

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DFAT's negligence

So how are our journalists evaluating the implications of the Cole Inquiry? Unsuprisingly the focus is on AWB, the corrupt culture of AWB's corporate governance. In this they follow the Cole Report. They mention the fire wall of protection around the government, the politics of the agri-politicians and highlight the downside of AWB's single desk monopoly of the wheat trade.

Alan Moir

We dealing with the consequences of the Howard Government's simultaneously wanting war with Saddam Hussein and selling wheat to the regime. It's such a lovely contradiction, isn't it.

So what of the role of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in approving and submitting AWB's contracts to the UN under the oil-for-food program and, as delegates of the minister, signing export permissions for fraudulent contracts?

As we know assessing DFAT's incompetency or negligence was outside the terms of reference, even though it did next to nothing about the warnings, complaints and allegations froma multitude of sources. Is this not a failure of governance? Is there not a bureaucratic veil here?

Cole says that DFAT was not guilty of deliberfately turning a blind eye and that there was "no evidence" that any DFAT officer had knowledge that AWB paid fees to Iraq via the transport company Alia. He says nothing about what lies inbetween the 'bliind eye and knowledge ", even though we know that DFAT didn't have any systems or procedures in relation to how its staff should proceed in relation to the breach of UN sanctions.

As Paul Kelly observes in The Australian DFAT regarded AWB as a company of "utmost integrity" and that:

DFAT saw its role as being to support Australia's economic interests against allegations from competitors.Critically, DFAT did not see itself as an investigatory agency and it possessed neither the systems nor procedures to investigate alleged breaches of sanctions. It lacked the commercial and price expertise to make such judgments and it did not try. As Cole says, DFAT had "no way of determining whether the contracts reflected the true contractual arrangements between buyer and seller". It was hostage to AWB's deceptions.

That negligence is where a Senate inquiry should probe. Natasha Cica, writing in The Age outlines the questions that need to be asked:

Why didn't DFAT have any systems or procedures in relation to how its staff should proceed in relation to the breach of sanctions? Why was no specific officer given responsibility for responding to or investigating such matters? What were the chains of command - and their weakest links - in relation to any relevant decisions, including about departmental process? Exactly what were DFAT's relevant practices regarding liaison (or lack of it) with Australian intelligence organisations? And with relevant advisers in the offices of relevant ministers? Exactly who in all those offices was making the decisions about who saw and signed off on relevant pieces of the oil-for-food info-puzzle? According to exactly what criteria? Who or what was setting the tone and pace of this government business? How frank, and how fearless, can or should the mandarins and minions of Canberra be in their dealings with today's political masters?

Good questions. There is a protective wall around any such probe. It will not be breached without a Senate inquiry.

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November 28, 2006

whither Lebanon

While Washington fiddles about what it is going to do in Iraq, and London agonises over cut and run, it sure looks as if a lot of things are happening in the background--a civil war between Sunnis and Shiite raging in Baghdad that sidelines the US. A blackened landscape of a regional sectarian war means that national reconciliation is a no goer, whilst events are outside the control of the US. Reality dawns.

David Brookes

Meanwhile, most of the American policy community is eagerly awaiting the Baker-Hamilton Report, which will urge intense talks with Iraq's neighbors, including Syria and Iran. The strategy is to talk victory in Iraq whilst squirming towards an exit strategy. It's called realism--- desigend to provide cover for a failed and even catastrophic policy. Realism, Kissinger style, requires Syria and Iran to allow a decent interval for the US army to exit from Iraq. But there is not in Iraq a government that can defend, govern and sustain itself.

So what happens post exit? Are Iran and Syria determined to seize Lebanon and yank it into their axis? Is Lebanon resuming its historic role as a proxy war battleground for countries more powerful than itself? Recall that Dan Halutz, chief of the israeli General Staff, owed to set Lebanon back 20 years. Sure, Israel wears the stain of defeat in Lebanon, but it treated Lebanon as a battleground in a proxy war with Iran. Bush and Blair were quite prepared not to even seek a ceasefire in Lebanon when Israel was bombarding this country and killing more than 1,000 of its citizens, including Christians. As Robert Fisk, the Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper,observed
on Lateline:

I think you need to realise that one thing the Lebanese have learned is that they’re on their own. They can't trust the Americans, they can’t trust the Syrians, they can’t trust the Israelis; they trust nobody. That, in a sense, is a good thing because the more the Lebanese try to trust each other, the less the chance of a civil war.

Lebanon is distintegrating as the Shi'ite community becomes more and more divided from the rest, whether it be the Christians or the Sunni Muslims.

The media flows on Fox Television are about not talking to Iran about Iraq-- a la the Baker-Hamilton Report--or even the disintegration of Lebanon. According to the talking heads Iran is the enemy. It's run by a Hitler according to the Israeli ambassador in the US. He says that Iran is going to use nuclear weapons to destroy Israel. So the US needs to put Iran in its place. Israel cannot do it on its own. Only a super power can do that. The Republican talking heads on Fox says that action not talking is required.

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AWB: beyond spin

Are the journalists swallowing the Howard Government's line that it stands vindicated over the AWB scandal? That it has done nothing wrong and has nothing to hide. Yesterdays news reports lapped up the spin and recycled it. Do the commentators see beyond the spin? Do they link this negligence and lack of accountibility to the health of our liberal democracy? It is a good issue to judge the state of our free and critical press, don't you think?

Steve Lewis in The Australian does go beyond the spin to democracy. He says that yesterday's release of the Cole report also highlights the need for a more genuine parliamentary scrutiny of the executive:

This has never been more apparent, given the changed Senate dynamics and the incapacity of the opposition parties to force the Government to fully account for its actions. If the opposition parties still had the numbers, Howard and his senior ministers would have been subjected to a tougher examination over AWB. This would be no bad thing. Robust parliamentary accountability requires a Senate with the muscle and resolve to question properly the government of the day. Alas, the present Senate finds itself unable to meet this challenge.

He concludes that an executive with unchecked power is bad for democracy and that Australian voters would be better served if the Senate were able to deliver a more robust oversight of the executive.

Maybe, just maybe the ALP has learned to take the Senate seriously. After all, it handed Howard the Senate with its Victorian preference deals that gave a Senate seat to Family First and not the Greens. It also treats the Senate as second rate, as it with fills the Senate with union and party hacks.

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November 27, 2006

Victorian election

I'm continually suprised by The Greens. They talk up their prospects prior to the election, do less well than they expected in the election, and so they are seen as not doing well post election. What is the purpose of this boosting strategy? Showbiz? Naivety?

As in Tasmania, the Greens in Victoria said they were going to hold the balance of power in the Legislative Council as well as obtain some inner city House of Representative seats (eg. Melbourne). They even started talking about what they would do with the balance of power, as they did in Tasmania.

Well it hasn't happened. Sure the Liberals were devastated, are in disarray and remain a factionally divided state opposition until 2010 if not 2014. The geographically based National Party has surged, Family First keeps on making ground, the Greens won two seats in the Legislative Council, but Labor, unexpectedly according to the Greens, looks like keeping its majority in the Legislative Council. Brack's Labor rules supreme, even though it hasn't done all that much in government. That success was expected.

So it is more of the same kind of governance. Hopefully, the rejuvenated Bracks Government will continue to lead the national reform agenda on human capital reform, health and infrastructure. Bracks Labor, with its corrupt party machine will, in all probability, only be thrown out when it is on the nose from some sort of economic crisis.

And the Liberals? They have now lost 20 state elections in a row. That should be a cause of deep concern to them. The Liberal primary vote in Victoria had failed to improve, and that this is a serious problem for them. However, the embittered Victorian factions (the Kroger and Costello forces versus the Kennett forces) continue to tear themselves to pieces. Charles Richardson, writing in The Australian, says that there is something distinctively wrong with the Liberal Party, a failure to adapt to modern conditions that is partially masked by its federal success. It's a good judgement.

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'only a postbox'

The Cole Report into the Iraq kickbacks scandal involving AWB is due out today. It is expected that the Howard Government ministers, bureaucrats and officials will be cleared of illegal activity associated with AWB bribing Saddam Hussein's regime. It is an expected finding because the terms of reference of the Cole Inquiry excluded seeking findings against ministers and officials.

Alan Moir

Illegal activity is not the only critieria for judgement in this affair. Australia had responsibility to monitor AWB's compliance with the UN food for oil sanctions against Iraq. However, it never occurred to Government ministers, bureaucrats and officials to check on a wide variety of claims that AWB was breaching the terms of the UN's oil-for-food program in Iraq. After all, they added, there was no reason to doubt AWB's assertions that all was above board. And it was not their job to check the terms under which AWB sold wheat to Iraq. They acted only as a postbox for the UN.

That was the stonewall defence to protect their jobs. They were primarily interested in securing AWB's $3 billion wheat sales. They were negilgent and incompetent in their terms of policing the sanctions.

As David Marr points out in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Not a shipload of wheat could leave for Iraq in those years without a certificate from Downer or his delegate to say that "permitting the exportation will not infringe the international obligations of Australia". Nearly 300 of those certificates were signed to allow 12 million tonnes of wheat to be exported to Saddam Hussein's Iraq - and every one of those deals was loaded with kickbacks.No one in the department noticed.

The system of accountability failed, bigtime. The AWB kickbacks scandal went undetected, unchecked and without any real inquiry or investigation into allegations of UN sanctions-busting.

Since it is the last sitting fortnight of Parliament there will be a lot of political noise about 'the not knowing anything defence" because we were deceived by AWB. No doubt the Howard Government will announce it is exonerated by Cole and say the case is closed and point the finger at the ALP

Depressing. The AWB affair indicates that the Canberra bureaucrats avoid information they knew their ministers did not want to hear. And for years, ministers stayed surprisingly ignorant of what was increasingly common knowledge among intelligence experts and foreign grain traders - that AWB was bribing Saddam Hussein and breaking the UN sanctions. It's called incompetence and corruption but few speak its name. In the old days the Senate would have launched an inquiry, and rightly so.

All that we can hope for these days is that AWB's single desk monopoly will go. Once Australia's share of the Iraq wheat was 90%; now it is 10%.We can continue to hope that the ALP will continue to ask tough questions of the Government about its knowledge of the scandal.

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November 26, 2006

Living with the Holocaust

Sara Roy, a Senior Research Scholar at the Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies, gave the Second Annual Holocaust Remembrance Lecture at Baylor University on April 8, 2002. It was entitled Living With The Holocaust: The journey of a child of holocaust survivors. In it she makes a comment that is not widely acknowledged in the commentary spaces of the Australian corporate media. Roy says:

Israel's occupation of the Palestinians is the crux of the problem between the two peoples, and it will remain so until it ends. For the last thirty-five years, occupation has meant dislocation and dispersion; the separation of families; the denial of human, civil, legal, political, and economic rights imposed by a system of military rule; the torture of thousands; the confiscation of tens of thousands of acres of land and the uprooting of tens of thousands of trees; the destruction of more than 7,000 Palestinian homes; the building of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands and the doubling of the settler population over the last ten years; first the undermining of the Palestinian economy and now its destruction; closure; curfew; geographic fragmentation; demographic isolation; and collective punishment.

Roy comments on the significance of this damage-- the de-development of Palestine --by a colonial kind of occupation thus:

Israel's occupation of the Palestinians is not the moral equivalent of the Nazi genocide of the Jews. But it does not have to be. No, this is not genocide, but it is repression, and it is brutal. And it has become frighteningly natural. Occupation is about the domination and dispossession of one people by another. It is about the destruction of their property and the destruction of their soul. Occupation aims, at its core, to deny Palestinians their humanity by denying them the right to determine their existence, to live normal lives in their own homes. Occupation is humiliation. It is despair and desperation. And just as there is no moral equivalence or symmetry between the Holocaust and the occupation, so there is no moral equivalence or symmetry between the occupier and the occupied, no matter how much we as Jews regard ourselves as victims.

We do not often hear this kind of voice in Australia. When we do hear these voices, as with Hanan Ashrwai giving the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize, then we have political campaigns to silence them in the name of being anti-Israel, anti Zionist and anti-Semitic. The relationship between Israel's hardline supporters and the 'Arab professoriat' in Australia is very tense.

As Anthony Lowenstein argues there is a pressing need to open up the debate on the conflict so that Palestinian as well as Jewish voices can be heard in our liberal democracy.

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November 25, 2006

a neo-con maze

For the neocons the US and its allies are at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom. On the neo-con account the extremist views of the Koran (gives us Islamic), and the goal of seeing authoritarianism imposed at the state level by force (gives us fascism). The pairing of the two words conveys a precise message: The old fascism is back, but it is now driven by a radical fundamentalist creed of Islam in the form of a jihad against the West.

Things seem to have gone a little awry in the fight against "Islamic fascism" in Iraq where the freedom warriors have to make their stand amidst chaos for those who love freedom.

Alan Moir

The Coalition cannot even secure the Green Zone in Baghdad from the warring Suni and Shii'te factions with their shifting alliances that oten contest the authority of the Iraqi state.

Howard's foreign policy has meant that Australia is caught up in yet another "nightmare" of a "massive foreign intervention" in a country far from our shores.

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November 24, 2006

false choices in energy

The political message from the Howard Government Climate is that only nuclear power can save us from global warming. It looks as nuclear power will be over-subsidised and under-scrutinised while other more promising and more rapid responses to climate change will be neglected whilst the greenhouse gases that they could have averted continue to pollute the skies.

Ric Brazzale makes some good points in an op-ed in The Age. He makes the obvious point that, as the focus of the Government's nuclear taskforce was narrowly on nuclear power, so it excluded consideration of clean energy sources, such as renewable energy, gas-fired generation and energy efficiency. So we had a a false choice — between nuclear energy and coal — as if no other large-capacity power options were available. As we know this is a false choice as we have solar power, wind power, bioenergy, geothermal "hot rocks", energy efficiency, solar water heating and natural gas. That undercuts nuclear power being a magic bullet answer to climate change.

The Stern Report and the Government's nuclear taskforce a carbon price signal is essential for greenhouse gas reduction and for investment in the development and deployment of zero and low-emission technologies.Brazzale says that the flaw of the taskforce is:

We don't need to wait 15 to 20 years to build nuclear power stations.More importantly, we don't have 15 to 20 years to wait to build them.As Stern observed in his recent report: "There is a high price to delay. Weak action in the next 10 to 20 years would put stabilisation even at 550 ppm (parts per million) carbon dioxide beyond reach — and this level is already associated with significant risks."

And he adds that it is possible to address this lag because:

Australia already has an abundance of zero-emission renewable and low-emission energy technologies. They could be deployed en masse tomorrow and begin to cut our greenhouse gas emissions. This would be instead of our waiting 15 or 20 years for a nuclear power station to be built.

It can be done because South Australia will have 15 per cent of its power needs met from wind when only a few years ago it was zero.

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November 23, 2006

deconstructing the global war on terror

With the resignation of the Shiite ministers from the Lebanese Government of Hezbollah has shifted from supporting Fouad Siniora's government to opposition. Hezbollah is not an ordinary party that works in terms of peaceful political action, as it is an armed party, almost the militarily strongest player in Lebanon. Does this suggest that Hezbollah is moving toward toppling the government to set up another in its place? As Abdullah Iskandar states in Al-Hayat:

'When the opposition is armed, and it seeks change, and its backbone is one sect alone, there is no longer any use in talking about institutions, the Constitution, or the Charter.

This regional emphasis on Lebanon breaks with the neo-cons 'Global War on Terror' scenario of Washington, and its Israeli-centric Middle East policy; one in which the smashing of Iraq by the United States was an Israeli strategic goal. A war to degrade Hezbollah is a shared Israel-U.S. interest, which means that Israel can wage it without many constraints. The top regional issue for the neo-cons now is Iran's nuclear drive. They hold that Islamism has come to fill the space that used to be occupied by Arab nationalism in Nasser's time and that Israel's withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza have fed this Islamism with lore of sacrifice and victory.


Steve Bell

The flaw with Bush's global war on terror (with its implication that terrorism is a specifically Islamic phenomenon) is not just its duality of tyrannies versus freedom, good versus evil, or advocating widening the war in Iraq to encompass Syria and Iran so as to bring democracy to the Middle East through regime change.

It is the tendency to group together under the same terrorist label movements which are very different in nature, having in common only their resort to violence in pursuit of political goals. The different violent non-state actors in Afghanistan and Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Somalia are all lumped together.

However, global Jihad of Al-Qaida is quite different from a nationalist, legitimate, defensive jihad, which seeks primarily to liberate its home territory from foreign occupation--- eg., Hizbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine and the Mahdi army in Iraq.

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is neo-conservatism dead?

That's the title of an op-ed in The Australian by Joshua Muravchik, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His answer is that neoconservatism is now the only game in town. Unfortunately he has a narrow understanding of neo-cconservatism, as he does not see it as the adversaries of the adversary culture of the 1968ers New Left and social liberalism. On this broader understanding of neo-conservatism, neoconservatism is dead because it has won: Communism is dead, the left is in disarray, and the expansion of the welfare state has been blocked.

Muravchik defines neo-conservatism in terms of foreign policy. He says that 'even if the invasion of Iraq proves to have been a mistake, that would not mean that the neo-conservative belief in democracy as an antidote to troubles in the Middle East is wrong, nor would it confirm that neo-conservatism's combination of strength with idealism is misguided.' His argument is this:

As badly as things have gone in Iraq, the war has not disproved neo-conservative ideas. Iraq is a mess, and the US mission there may fail. If that happens, neo-cons deserve blame because we were key supporters of the war. But American woes in Iraq may be traced to the conduct of the war rather than the decision to undertake it.....Until someone comes up with better ideas than these, the neo-con strategy of trying to transform the Middle East, however blemished, remains without alternative. .... But neocon ideas are unlikely to be jettisoned – either by Bush or his successor – until a viable replacement is found. So far, there is none.

For Muravchik neo-conservatism isn't dead, as it

' can be renovated and returned to prominence, because, even today, it remains unrivalled as a guiding principle for US foreign policy in the Middle East and beyond.'

This overlooks the way that the neoconservatives were appalled by what had become of liberalism and how they adoped a combative stance to (social) liberalism without actually dumping liberalism.

I guess that Muravchik is addressing Francis Fukuyama's argument that neo-conservatism is dead. He wrote:

The so-called Bush doctrine is now in shambles. The doctrine…argued that, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, America would have to launch periodic preventive wars to defend itself against rouge states and terrorists with weapons of mass destruction; that it would do this alone, if necessary; and that it would work to democratize the greater Middle East as a long-term solution to the terrorist problem.

Fukuyama argued that the Bush administration is now in a full-scale retreat from these positions.

Muravchik response is to say that the neoconservative foreign-policy argument -- that democracy and freedom should be promoted as it is in America's interests---won the day. US foreign policy is now about the war on terror (Islamic fundamentalism) with Islamism now seen as the successor to Communism. What has been rejected is the liberal policy of humanitarian interventionism. It has been replaced with a Judeo-Christian remoralization of Anglo-American foreign policy that gives us a Manichaean division of the world into good and bad (terrorist and freedom-loving) coupled to a philosophy of pre-emptive wars.

The problem with this neo-conservatism is that the Israeli–Palestinian issue is much more than a battle against Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism by a freedom-loving, democratic Israel. It also has to do with the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land; the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory (Gaza and the West Bank) and the ongoing colonial oppression of the Palestinian people.

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November 22, 2006

going nuclear

At the National Press Club yesterday Ziggy Switkowski, the chairman of the Prime Minister's Nuclear Task Force, stated that Australia's energy future could well be based on a network of 25 nuclear reactors along the east coast meeting 30% of baseload power. Coal would continue to generate 50%. The nuclear power stations would have to be built near the sea or rivers that could supply the water they would need for cooling and would have to be built reasonably close to Australian cities and major electricity transmission lines. "Reasonably close" means tens of kilometres.

Geoff Pryor

This Report was not a serious study of energy options for Australia as the terms of reference set by the federal government restricted the panel to a study of nuclear power. Switkowski said that given Australia's large reserves, and an expected increase in global demand for uranium, there is a case for having a domestic nuclear industry, that Australia had the capacity to add value to exports by enrichment and fuel fabrication. But it is sceptical of the latter because of cost reasons (subsidies are required) and it indicates the political difficulties of siting nuclear waste management facilities in Australia.

However, Switkowski said that it would take at least 10 years and probably 15 to get a plant up and running and the nuclear scheme would only be economic if the Commonwealth Government introduced a system of charging existing power stations for their carbon dioxide emissions. That charge (in the range of $10-$40 per tonne) would have to push up the price of coal or gas-fired electricity by between 20 and 50 per cent. This is what the Howard government has ruled out. Yet Howard says the nuclear case is obvious and compelling.

Therein lies a major contradiction. The Howard Government has run into a wall in terms of its defence of the coal industry's pollution. The nuclear industry has no chance without government subsidy and the Report's estimates (of that the carbon price range envisaged in the report ( $15 to $40 per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted) - is probably far too low to make nuclear power competitive with dirty (conventional) coal-fired power stations. Advocating subsidies for nuclear, when subsidies for renewables is continually ruled out, is political dynamite.

Presumably, 25 nuclear reactors along the east coast near the nation's major coastal cities would required the consent of the state governments, and the proposal is not welcomed by the states such as South Australia, Queensland and Victoria. Victoria and NS\W have legislation banning nuclear power and enrichment in their states. However, the Commonwealth can use its corporations and interstate and commerce powers to overide state legislation and render them impotent.

Peter Hartcher in the Sydney Morning Herald offers an explanation for Howard's contradictory responses. He asks:

Why this befuddling series of thrusts and parries? Because Howard faces two imperatives. One is the need to address a growing community concern about global warming, and the other is the need to win an election in about a year from now.So his overriding concern is to find way of appearing to have a positive action plan, without appearing to threaten voters with unpalatable costs. This means being as vague as possible about such hard choices as carbon taxes and conservation until after the election.And to defend this position, he chooses, as ever, to go on the attack. Nuclear power gives him the tool of attack...

If the interests and political power of the big greenhouse gas emitters continue to rule energy policy, then Howard is using nuclear as a wedge issue that places the ALP in another anti-Howard scare campaign to save Australia.

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November 21, 2006

Labor woes again

What in heavens name is happening to the ALP? They were getting their act together, looking united, buildng on opposition to the Work Choices by taking it to the Government on the economy, ahead in the polls and now they are caught up in growing internal tensions and talking about the leadership.

Bill Leak

Sure, they are thin on policy ---Beazley's National Press club speech confirmed that. But that is small target Beazley, even if he longer talks about education. Sure Beazley made some gaffes and the front bench is carrying lead in its saddle. But heck, the pressure--and there was a lot of it-- on the Howard Government over Iraq and climate change was working in Labor's favor. Even though Howard is at sixes and sevens on climate change and sounds like a worn out record on Iraq it is Beazley that is in the spotlight.

The initial report from the Government's nuclear inquiry led by Ziggy Switkowski will be made public this week and a new debate about the viability of nuclear power will begin. This will represent a great opportunity for the ALP as Howard will promote the nuclear option as key solutions to global warming---the economics of nuclear power and storing nuclear waste provide the opportunites.

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November 20, 2006

victory is no longer an option

It is well known that the US has an Israel-centric foreign policy in the Middle East. I presume that the current refashioning of US strategy in light of current international realities means that any notion of emerging triumphant from Iraq will now be abandoned. Victory is no longer the only way out of Iraq. So the search will be on for a strategy that would allow the US to extricate itself from the Iraqi quagmire while retaining its dominant position in the greater Persian Gulf region. I presume that the overarching objective of the (James) Baker-Baker-Hamilton study group is to create the possibilities or suggestions for a new strategic consensus for the US.

Simon Tisdall in The Guardian quotes a former senior administration official saying that:

The Iraq Study Group buys time for the president to have one last go. If the Democrats are smart, they'll play along, and I think they will. But forget about bipartisanship. It's all about who's going to be in best shape to win the White House. The official added: "Bush has said 'no' to withdrawal, so what else do you have? The Baker report will be a set of ideas, more realistic than in the past, that can be used as political tools. What they're going to say is: lower the goals, forget about the democracy crap, put more resources in, do it."

However, a withdrawal from Iraq whilst retaining US hegemony in the greater Persian Gulf region will require the tacit acquiescence of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran and Syria, as both have a stake in the outcome of the Iraqi mess and possess an ability to frustrate any US plans that run counter to their fundamental interests.

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November 19, 2006

Milton Friedman

A belated post on Milton Friedman who passed away a couple of days. Many in the economics profession will laud him as a giant, indicate his contribution to the profession; or highlight his influence on their life.

Don Arthur at Clubb Troppo has interesting post on the reception of Friedman's ideas in Australia in the 1970s. Based on his texts, such as Capitalism and Freedom and Free To Choose, I understand him as a liberal political economist; one who understood that there is an intimate connection between economics and politics.

My memory of Friedman is that he was a naive positivist, a champion of the virtues of unfettered markets; an advocate for monetarism, the idea, that the inflation can be regulated by the Federal Reserve's control of the money supply, and a defender of negative freedom. I've always interpreted Friedman as a classical (19th century one) who argued that economic freedom is both a necessary freedom in itself and also as a vital means for political freedom; advocated limited government in a liberal society a liberal society (should enforce law and order and property rights, as well as take action on certain technical monopolies and diminish negative effects); had little time for the idea of social responsibility of corporations and the welfare state.

Friedman basically reckons that as markets do things better than governments, so the government should get out of the way. Thus we have the privatization of state assets.The fundamental difference between liberalism and social democracy is disagreement over the role of the state in the economy, and that difference is premised on the priority or weight given to individual freedom and equality.

Friedman's criticism of social democracy are well known and pretty standard: interventionist government policies have a big cost in personal freedom and economic efficiency. Such interventions would include government taxation on gas and tobacco, government regulation of the public school systems, and social welfare since welfare practices create wards of the state as opposed to self-reliant individuals. The main argument was that government involvement in the economy was a slippery slope, that any would lead to more, and that more was difficult to remove.

Friedman's dualist thinking around economics and politics meant that he did not understand is that the governing through the market is just that --a mode of governance by the liberal state designed to shap the conduct of liberal subjects for certain ends. Todays' classical liberals (now called libertarians) are still entrapped in, and repeat, that heritage.

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November 18, 2006

The Australian's junk commentary #2

Another example of the poverty of the op-ed in The Australian which prides itself on informed public debate. This time it is Christopher Pearson on climate change in a piece entitled 'Hotheads warned, cool it'. This time we have some form of reasoning, but it is pretty implausible.

He says there is something terribly galling about the federal Government deciding to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on controlling emissions of what will turn out to be, in all probability, a perfectly harmless gas. So though greenhouse emissions are linked to climate change they are not causally linked to global warming. Pearson stands for strong leadership on this issue, for:

...we know that strong leadership can change public opinion through time. I think the Prime Minister could and should have taken a bolder stand right from the start of the debate. He should have sacked ministers, especially in the environment portfolio, who falsely asserted an incontrovertible link between global warming and carbon dioxide. He ought to have promoted more of the informed debate we have seen in the pages of The Australian from the likes of Bjorn Lomborg and Bob Carter. No doubt we are a more credulous people than our grandparents were, but he might have tried appealing to the scepticism that was once such a prominent feature of the national character.

Gee, I'm beginning to feel sorry for these conservatives. They are beginning to understand the poverty of their conservatism and the lack of strong leadership.

No worries though. Pearson turns for comfort and intellectual and moral leadership to lecture given by Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the Centre for Policy Studies, a free market think tank in the UK. Lawson dismisses the Stern Report as scaremongering relying 'on a battery of essentially spurious statistics based on theoretical models and conjectural worst cases'. With that out of the way Pearson says that the next leg of Lawson's argument relies on two irreducible truths. He quotes Lawson:

First, there is no way the growth in atmospheric carbon dioxide can be arrested without a very substantial rise in the cost of carbon, presumably via the imposition of a swingeing carbon tax, which would require, at least in the short to medium term, a radical change of lifestyle in the developed world. Are we seriously prepared to do this? (A tax would at least be preferable to the capricious and corrupt rationing system (that) half-heartedly exists today under Kyoto).

Pearson says that Lawson's other unavoidable fact is that, even if the developed world were prepared to forgo its accustomed reliance on fossil fuels:

It would still be useless unless the major developing nations, notably China, India and Brazil, were prepared to do the same, which they are manifestly and understandably not." No amount of jaw-boning by Howard and Peter Costello is going to persuade the two Asian giants to curb their energy consumption and the economic activity that is delivering, often for the first time, a measure of prosperity to their people. It is utterly hubristic of them to imagine otherwise.

Therefore, Lawson infers 'we are driven back to the need to adapt to a warmer world and the moral obligation of the richer countries to help the poorer countries to do so.' So what does 'adapt' mean for the Murray-Darling Basin or Adelaide where Pearson lives? Oh dear, Pearson hasn't thought that through, even though the autumn rains have failed for seven years in a row in the Basin, the Darling River is more or less dead, and its stopped raining where we have built our cities and irrigation infrastucture.

Pearson is more interested in following Lawson to warn us about the twin dangers of the new religion of eco-funadamentalism apart from the needless havoc it may wreak on some developed nations' economies. He says:

The first is that "the global salvationist movement is profoundly hostile to capitalism and the market economy ...Given the fact that the only way in which the world's poor will ever be able to escape from their poverty is by embracing capitalism and the global market economy, this is not good news."

Gee I thought one of the options to address the problem of emissions was to deploy the market mechanism of emissions trading. Aren't economists talking in terms of the National Water Initiative, water trading, users paying the full cost of water and water recycling? Pearson is way of beam. He's not even reading the policy options.

Pearson says that the second danger is even more disturbing. He quotes Lawson:

It could not be a worse time to abandon our own traditions of reason and tolerance, and to embrace instead the irrationality and intolerance of eco-fundamentalism, where reasoned questioning of its mantras is regarded as a form of blasphemy. There is no greater threat to the people of this planet than the retreat from reason we see all around us today."

Who is Pearson trying to kid. He's off beam again. He simply ignores the way that it is the Right that is in flight from reason and embracing irrationality.

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Al Jazeera

It is unlikely that we will see Al Jazeera in Australia, as we do CNN or the BBC. The live feed has to come through Foxtel, and guess what?

Geoff Pryor

Apart from TransAct in Canberra (you need to have cable) we can only watch Al AJazeera through a video feed via broadband. I watched some yesterday on the internet on the free option for around 15 minutes and I was very impressed. As a 24 hours news and current affairs channel Aljazerera looked to be very good--much better than Sky News I'm considering subscribing.

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November 17, 2006

The Australian's junk commentary

Some of the commentary in the op-ed columns of the corporate media in Australia is bad, very bad. It is often far worse than what you would find on the best political blogs. The corporate media understand themselves to be promoting an informed debate. The Australian, for instance, says that this is what it does through the op-eds from people such as Bjorn Lomborg and Bob Carter. "Informed debate' gives us the criteria to to evaluate the op.-eds.

One example of the junk commentary is the recent op-ed entitled 'A bigger storm is brewing' by John Stone, an ex-Secretary of the Treasury in today's Australian newspaper. The op-ed is on 'Australia's Muslim problem and the climate change non-problem'. This is what Stone says on the latter issue to defend his claim that climate change is a 'non-problem' for Australia:

...discussion of climate change has degenerated from mild inanity into quasi-religious hysteria, with assorted opinion-formers demanding that we "get serious" in undermining Australia's main energy-producing and energy-using industries.

The phrase 'quasi-religious hysteria' is written a couple of weeks after the Stern Report mind you. Stone goes on to say:

In short, we should remain officially complacent about the most serious threat to our future, namely the fundamental incompatibility of Islam with Western society, while adopting anti-economic growth policies to address a problem that exists chiefly in the fevered minds of its [sic] UN and Green proponents. Corporate rent seekers also are angling for governmental subsidies for their economically hopeless wind farms, solar power toys and carbon sequestration follies. The kindest explanation for these people's views is that they are (as I think) merely another bunch of would-be corporate welfare dependants, much like the manufacturers before the Hawke government (chiefly) got rid of their protective tariff rackets.

Dwell on that for a moment and let it sink in: climate change and global warming is not real---as a problem it exists in the fevered minds of the UN and Green proponents. It's an illusion. There is no need for technical fixes because there is nothing to fix.

This nonsense is the response by an ex-Secretary of the Australian Treasury to an economic report produced by the British Treasury that talks about climate change in terms of market failure and externalities.

What is the significant about this political moment is that the Australian prints the junk, even though the editors cannot expect us to take Stone's rant seriously. We can treat it a paid piece on behalf of the fossil fuel lobby, or we can take it seriously as the violent expression of the political unconscious of the irrational Right. Or both.

Stone's pose as a rational neo-liberal is deceitful as he fails to mention all the subsidies handed out to the big corporations in the fossil fuel lobby by the state.

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soapbox oratory

The next sentence would be 'what about the costs to our coal industry.' Then it would be followed by a paragraph on national energy security which means making sure that Australia keeps its export markets for coal. The phrase 'global commons' would be tossed in to show a certain finesse in this bitterly-fought rearguard action.

Allan Moir

The dog would ask: what level of economic growth is compatible with preventing runaway climate change? Only the dog is able to ask a question about the limits to growth because it is still economic heresy to question economic growth.

What will be avoided by the speaker is mentioning any policies to ensure the development of the replacement industries on an appropriate scale; or incentives to ensure that innovators develop new thinking and technologies for a low carbon world and market mechanisms to ensure that entrepreneurs turn those ideas and tools into new ventures.

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November 16, 2006

media woes

I see from Crikey Daily that the circulation of the main newspapers are down, even with the giveaways. Crikey understands that of the 35 major newspapers surveyed, 26 have a lower circulation than a year ago. That means less revenue from advertising. So we have staff cuts and that a reduction in the quality of the material produced.

That surely means more Paris Hilton and Piers Ackerman.

The accelerating decline of newspapers increasingly means producing product for news "consumers" rather than citizens.That means the turn to entertainment and to fake news, rumor, speculation and gossip. That, in turn, signifies the decay of the implicit role of journalism as a "calling" rather than just a job; one that has been defined as being the "guardian or watchdog of democracy" and as an "intermediary and an interpreter between society and knowledge."

That means more Tim Blairs.

As Eric Alterman points out in The Nation in relation to a similar situation in the US:

What is staring everybody in the face is the evaporation of journalism's financial foundation into Internet air, where information is supposed to be "free" and ad rates are a fraction of those in print. Young people don't buy newspapers or watch the evening news--even, or perhaps especially, with cute Katie Couric reading it to them. Blogs are more fun to read and sometimes more reliable. Traditional revenue streams have been diverted by craigslist, eBay, Yahoo! and, of course, Google.

I would presume that there is panic over what the future holds in store, especially at Fairfax. Is this why we have the recent turn to news blogs on newspapers or at news.com.au? I presume they--talkback blogs--- generate readers through offering a space for consumers to express their opinions on a topical issue and so generate a bit of controversy.

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contrasts

This image captures the reality of power in the world of nations. The US is the hegemonic imperial power and the UK, a former imperial power, is the subordinate power, which tailors its national interest to that of the US. In this case it was the neo-con strategy in favour of the Iraq war. The logic was that the road to Jerusalem led through Baghdad: an invasion would install an Iraqi democracy that would force the Palestinians to submit to the Israelis.

Steve Bell

This is a fairly standard interpretation of Tony Blair in the UK and it is argued that a little more independence is required. It is held that the British Prime Minister should have taken a firm stand against US policy in Iraq and Lebanon. Tony Blair now finds himself begging President Bush to make a serious effort to broker an Israel-Palestine deal. Bush continues to maintain a stony silence. Neither dares to talk about Israeli state terrorism.

This cartoon depicts the conservative mythmaking constructed around the subordinate power relationships to disguise the subservience that is expressed in John Howard merely echoing President Bush in foreign policy:

Bill Leak

It is the neo-cons' warrior-heroes last stand amidst the wreckage. It's just a question of political will. The neo-conservatives see things thus:

We face a stark choice now. We can either maintain bases and large forces in Iraq, or we can withdraw. If we withdraw, the Iraqi Army will collapse, and we will not be able to help it except by re-entering the country in large numbers and in a much worse situation. Attempts to mask this reality with militarily nonsensical solutions are dangerous. They will lead to higher U.S. casualties or to defeat-and quite possibly to both.

These hawkish conservatives are right when they say that a U.S. pullout would be a disaster for Iraq. However, their option of "One Last Push" ---more troops to get things sorted-- won't make that much of difference. Most of Iraq's trouble is homegrown, caused by the occupation and its gross recklessness, carelessness, and indifference to the range of possible consequences.

Any questioning of the power relationships, the myths, or the Canberra-Washington relationship is still routinely denounced as anti-Americanism by the spinners for the ideologically driven US imperialists in Washington. What cannot be questioned is American nationalism - a blind belief in America's right and ability to spread its values in combination with the expansion of American power. What is endlessly reproduced is the reproduction of vicarious hatred of the "other".

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November 15, 2006

21st century federalism

The High Court this week gasve a legal victory to the Commonwealth with its decision in the Work Choices case. As Ian Callinan observed in his minority judgement:

This is one of the most important cases with respect to the relationship between the Commonwealth and the States to come before the Court in all of the years of its existence. If the legislation is to be upheld the consequences for the future integrity of the federation as a federation, and the existence and powers of the States will be far-reaching. The Act in its present form is well beyond, and in contradiction of what was intended and expressed in the Constitution by the founders.

The decision confirmed that a gradual shift of political power to the centre of our federation during the 20th century will now be permanent. The commonwealth has become all powerful, as Canberra can now make any laws under the corporations power as long as they are directed to what companies and its employees, agents or customers can or cannot do. The commonwealth now has the power to micro-manage any corporation that engages in trade.

Bullseye!

That is a very expansive reading of the Constitution when all that was required was the need to establish a national industrial relations system. The High Court has given the Commonwealth the authority to take over traditional state areas such as universities, health, water, energy.

The reality is that Australia is no longer a federation of colonies or autonomous states, but a national economy in which the mainplayers are companies that trade. That is an economic reality. But Australia is not just a national economy: it may no longer be a co-ordinate federalism with its seperate state and commonwealth spheres, but it is a political division of powers between state and federal governments. That is the political reality.

What has been delivered is the marginalisation of the states with little check on the authority of the power of the minister (the executive). There was nothing about ministerial power reducing democratic scrutiny and public debate on important public questions about workplace bargaining. So we rely on the Senate to protect us from the ceding of parliamentary power to the executive.

So much for the High Court being the guardian of a democratic constitutional federalism based around checks and balances. And the conservatives, who once defended state rights, are now diehard centralists whilst the old ALP centralists are the defenders of the states.

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Who is listening to Australia on Kyoto?

Though the Howard Government trumpets its world leadership in addressing climate change, Australia only has observer status at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi. Australia's big move is to host a cocktail party for the AP6 group in Nairobi. The strategy of this group has no targets, no plans other than geosequestration technology, and no incentives to deploy the techology when it come on stream in a decadwes time. That is how it is going to minimise the risk of a 2C rise in temperatures - seen as the threshold for dangerous climate change -

Geoff Pryor

This is a government, which defends the polluting actions of the minerals, aluminium, power, paper and chemicals companies, has blocked any all attempts to introducing emissions trading in Australia, and closed down research in renewable energy. It has done little to encourage the take-up of readily available energy-efficient technologies and know-how to produces less pollution, less warming, more electricity and more output and continually runs the line that low emissions need low growth and stifling Australia's economic growth. As Andrew MacIntosh says:

The Government's strategy on climate change has been simple. Deny it and muddy the waters on the science for as long as possible, while providing large subsidies to the fossil fuel industry under the guise of greenhouse programs. his dual approach is intended to stifle the impetus for change...The Government will deserve accolades if it introduces a comprehensive carbon trading scheme. Anything less is just window-dressing designed to put off the inevitable.

Even though it has done nothing for a decade, the Howard Government now spinning a major new climate change strategy called post-Kyoto. Even though the Kyoto Protocol is now fully operational, a global emissions market already exists now and it's worth $30 billion, and Kyoto includes a Clean Development Mechanism which could generate $100 billion for developing countries.

Kyoto is dismissed as a slogan by the Howard Government. The Australian business round table on climate change, which is set up by a number of leading Australian business people is currently running the line that the Kyoto Protocol was obsolete and the Howard Government must move on.

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November 14, 2006

The Reserve Bank's case

The Reserve Bank of Australia's quarterly statement on monetary policy spells out its case for it needing to be alert for inflation and the need to tighten interest rates. It says:

Australia’s economic expansion has now reached a mature stage in which previously unused productive resources have been substantially re-employed. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that the economy’s growth rate in recent years has tended to be a little lower than was typical earlier in the expansion. Even so, employment has been increasing at a rate well above trend over the past year and the unemployment rate has reached 30-year lows. The strong demand for labour has also been evident from liaison reports and other indicators such as the high level of job vacancies and the high proportion of firms in surveys reporting difficulty obtaining suitable labour.

The Howard Government may talk in terms of record unemployment but the Reserve Bank looks at the tight labour market that creates inflationary presssure. The statement goes on to say that:

What does seem clear, however, from several sources of information, is that the economy is operating with very limited spare capacity. In addition to the evidence of strong labour market conditions and shortages of suitable labour, business surveys and liaison reports continue to indicate that capacity utilisation in the non-farm economy is at cyclically high levels.

You can see the interest rate warning light starting to come on, and to remain on. The Bank is on a 'tightening bias', and that does not bode well for the Howard Government in the run up to the next federal election.

Then the following is added to the mix:

The combination of strong global conditions, rising commodity prices and tight capacity domestically has contributed to a pick-up in inflationary pressures since the start of the year. Producer price indices showed further strong increases in prices at all stages of production in the September quarter, with pressures evident across most industries. Measures of aggregate wages, though not accelerating further, have continued to grow at a pace that is higher than the average of recent years. Reports of significant increases in non-wage labour costs have continued over recent months.

Consequently, given the evidence of stronger inflation pressures since the start of this year, it was considered that 'a somewhat more restrictive stance of monetary policy would be required in order to achieve average inflation outcomes of between 2 and 3 per cent over time. Hence it decided to raise the cash rate to 6.25 per cent at the November meeting.'
And it does not look good for the future:

Recent information suggests little reason to change the Bank’s earlier assessment that in the near term, underlying inflation will continue to run at about 3 per cent. Longer term, prospects for some moderation in underlying inflation have been improved by the policy actions taken this year. The Board will continue, over the months ahead, to assess whether these actions will prove sufficient to achieve the objective of 2–3 per cent inflation over time.

There is nothing there about the Reserve Bank thinking that interest rates are finished. That is not very upbeat for the Howard Government, especially for the way it has used its budget surpluses from the commodity boom to give tax cuts.

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November 13, 2006

a sobering moment

I understand from the New York Times that some Democrats are putting pressure on the Bush administration for a change of course in Iraq in that they calling for a phased withdrawal of US troops to begin in four to six months. If Iraq is in a civil war situation, and is rapidly disintegrating into warring ethnic regions, then ensuring stability is a key concern.

Martin Rowson

That means some sort of timetabled military withdrawal linked to political and security stability in Iraq with a minimum of casualties and a maximum of salvageable dignity.This would need to be sold as cleaning up the Republican mess and a purging of political elites in Washington over who lost Iraq

How can this new direction be done by the new Democrat-led Congress? I would have thought that they would have some popular support after the Congressional elections as there is little desire in America's body politic to continuing to fight the insurgency in order to bring stability to the country. Who does the US support in this situation? The Sunnis, Shiites or Kurds?

So what happens next? Will there be congressional oversight and investigations into defense procurement scandals and corruption in contracts in Iraq. Will the Democrats commitment to multilateralism lead to a regional settlement of the outstanding issues between Iran and the United States?

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social democracy brings about banana republic

Here's an interesting argument from Keith Windshuttle in The Australian. His position is that social democracy eventually gives you the banana republic. His argument to support this position is that the causes of family breakdown originated mostly on the left of the political spectrum. By this he means:

The '60s sexual revolution, which promoted promiscuity as the key to happiness; The radical feminist movement, which told women to throw out their husbands because all men were beasts; the revolution in the divorce laws made by leftist divorcee Lionel Murphy and administered by the Family Court of feminist divorcee Elizabeth Evatt; the Whitlam government's introduction of welfare for single mothers, which made the state a substitute for the father as family provider; and the rapid rise of unemployment in the late '70s and early '80s, which devastated many Australian families and for which the much-maligned neo-liberalism has proven itself the only cure.

It's a strange argument, given that Paul Keating had stated in the 1980s that the banana republic was due to a protectionist Australia, rather than the rejection of conservative values around the family, gender and sexuality.

Windshuttle is argung against the view 'that family relations and community institutions are being laid waste by the unforgiving forces of neo-liberalism, materialism and consumerism', which is what is argued by Kevin Rudd in the latest edition of The Monthly magazine. Rudd says:

Howard's culture war ...masks a deeper unsettling reality: that the socially conservative values at the core of Howard's cultural attack on the Left are in fact under siege from the forces of economic neo-liberalism that he himself has unleashed from the Right. Whether it is "family values", the notion of "community service" or the emphasis on "tradition" in the history wars, "traditional conservative values" are being demolished by an restrained market capitalism that sweeps all before it.

Windshuttle is contesting the argument that there is a contradiction within the political Right ----between its market liberal and socially conservative strands. As Rudd states it, this contradication is one of 'the ruthless logic of the market rubbing up against a tradition which holds that those with economic power have a moral obligation to protect those without it.'

The flaw with Windshuttle's argument is that negative consequences of an unfettered market capitalism and its ethos of economic self-interest cannot be effectively quarantined from its effect on the nuclear family and the reciprocal relations within communities and the associations of civil society. Though Windshuttle states the economic growth provided by the shift to a free market has resulted in women's employment increasing (more in part-time than full-time work) he overlooks that more time working means less time for family life.

What has been pushed into the background by Windshuttle is the view that the key aim of social democratic parties is to civilise capitalism by addressing the inequities it creates in power and income, and by trying to control the impact of free markets in society in the name of social justice. Windshuttle's talk about family values rather than social justice implies that are two orders (free market and traditional families) and that the ethical norms (social obligation, solidarity and altruism) belong to the family.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:03 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

November 11, 2006

stuff happens

So the old neo-con policy of spreading democracy at the point of a gun, defining foreign policy in terms of the 'axis of evil' and not talking to Syria or Iran, is coming to an end. Complete victories is no longer an option. However, , most of the Democrat legislators voted for the invasion of Iraq and, more often than not, they complain about the conduct of the war rather than the invasion itself.

Alan Moir

Does 'stuff happens' that mean the old neocon policy of supporting Israel uncritically is going to be jettisioned? What needs to happen is a re-examination of US foreign policy to revive a bipartisanship that recognizes the simple truth that terrorism cannot be fought with state terror.

The Weekly Standard crowd are saying that Bush is not finished yet. You can't govern from Capitol Hill. The president, even weakened as Bush is, still remains the central figure in Washington. So what does the lame duck President do? Robert Kagan and William Kristol, writing the Weekly Standard, are very clear:

The president has two years to turn things around and leave a viable Iraq to the next president. It should be obvious that "staying the course" is a recipe for failure. So are politically driven exit strategies. The president is left with the choice: quit, or do what is necessary to succeed. We trust the president understands that the task before him in Iraq is to find a strategy for success.

Such a strategy would do what previous strategies have not done: provide the number of American forces necessary to achieve even minimal political objectives in Iraq. Such an effort would begin by increasing American force levels in Iraq by at least 50,000.

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November 10, 2006

Iraq: a change in direction

We bloggers live in a reality based community. We have to. Not so the Bush White House. Their ethos is different. It is one of "When we act, we create our own reality." Well they sure created their own reality in Iraq--an unmitigated disaster with no easy options.

Pryor

It is best for the US to pull its troops out from Baghdad to secure bases, let the Iraqi's fight it out in Iraq and begin discussions with Syria and Iran. Can you see Bush doing that after Rumsfeld has fallen? He might just have to.

Steven Clemons, from the Washington Note has an op -ed in The Australian entitled Return of the realists. In it he says:

American voters are proclaiming loud and clear their lack of interest in "staying the course" with Bush's war team. The high-fear tactics that Bush and Dick Cheney used to milk American insecurity about the so-called global war on terror reached a point of diminishing returns some time ago. In recent years, Americans gave their commander-in-chief extraordinary powers and support to confront the world's thugs and terrorists and to make the nation safer.But the verdict of the 2006 elections is simply that the President and his team have made matters worse.The US, for the first time since Vietnam, is looking at a big military and political loss in the Middle East as well as a world of allies and foes who count on US support less than they once did or who are moving forward their aggressive and potentially harmful agendas.

He then adds:

Although it is still highly doubtful that the Democrats have a serious plan for Iraq that its factionalised party supports, it is clear that the President can't continue in the direction in which he has been heading on Iraq. If neo-conservatives have jumped ship, and if the Dems are wanting change, the most logical course for Bush is to get logical: to revive the realist wing of US foreign policy and re-establish some of his bona fides with a besieged and overwhelmed military.

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November 9, 2006

economic troubles

The political debate about the economy is heating up with the latest increase in interest rates by the Reserve Bank of Australia ---the eighth such increase since 2002. Justifying the decision to put up rates, RBA governor Glenn Stevens said the risks of inflation exceeding the central bank's 2-3per cent target range "remained significant". Mortgage payments are now at a 10-year, the pace of credit growth is still strong , the shortages in skilled labour continue, increased foreign debt and the effects of increased interest rates are starting to bite on family budgets in Sydney and Melbourne.

This places the Howard government on the backfoot. It says that an election-year tax cut is off the agenda as it would "over-stimulate" the economy and trigger a further interest rate rise. The government's defence is looking ragged---it just harks back to the Hawke/Keating years in the early 1990s; or says that Australians never had it so good and can afford to carry debt. The Government is starting to sound shrill and unconvincing in its defence of its economic credibility because people are hurting now.

It gives the ALP another hook into the economic debate. And they have been plugging away in the Senate arguing that the real economic story of the past year or is the deteriorating fortunes of the working and middle classes.

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Water Summit

Last Tuesday's Water Summit between the federal government and the eastern premiers (plus SA's Mike Rann) was a bit of a fizzle wasn't it. There was lots of talk about co-operation, a further commitment of $200 million for drought assistance (bringing total spending on the current crisis to $2.3 billion) and the speeding up of the timetable for water trading between states, and a commitment to the projects under the National Water initiative. It was mostly about more subsidies for people (irrigators) and little for the environment. Talk of draining the wetlands to help irrigators kept on surfacing. in the context of a water crisis.

NSW Premier Iemma thought that water trading would reduce the over allocation of water licences even though it just shifts water from one space to another; Anna Bligh from Queensland said Queensland was part of the Murray- Darling Basin; Victoria Premier Bracks was strong on co-operation and silent on overallocation and buying back licences. The SA Premier, Mike Rann, let the cat out of the bag----the drought is more typical of a one in a thousand rather than a one in a hundred year event, and it was an indication of the future under global warming. So the original water allocations were based on assessments of delivery to catchments were no longer climatically realistic.

Spin, appearing to do something, managing short term electoral poiltics and the National Party's business as usual are not going to solve this one.

The Wentworth Group agrees with Rann's assesment though not the 'thousand year drought' headline. It says:

This change in climate may be part of a natural cycle or it might be caused by climate change orit might be a combination of both. Whatever the cause, Australia has a problem, because it's stopped raining where we built our cities and where we developed our irrigation infrastructure. We built our modern Australian economy in a period of much higher rainfall and we assumed that it would keep on raining. But it hasn't. Our coastal cities are now running out of water, irrigators are staring upstream at empty dams and we’re trying to farm where there’s less rain. Many of our iconic wetlands have not had a drink for over a decade.

It's serious. Yet irrigators, such as John Cox, a critus grower at Waikerie in South Australia, can say in an op-ed in the Australian Financial Review that:

Irrigators have no problem with some of this 500GL [for environmental flows under the Living Murray initiative] being used for renewal of floodplains, but the question they ask is why this water must come from efficiency saving from irrigators than from the senseless water of water flowing out to sea to keep the Murray Mouth open.

Cox has no understanding that this flow of water keeps the Coorong healthy, or that there is not enough water flowing down the river to keep the mouth open. Hence the dredging. The River Murray for irrigators like Cox is just an irrigation channel, not a river.

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November 8, 2006

Bush hobbled or Bush unbound?

Will the midterm Congressional results help the Bush Whitehouse find a consensual way out of the mess he has created? Or will Bush be a defiant president who spends his final two years in office in conflict with the Democratic legislature that Americans have chosen to represent them ? I fear that it is going to be the latter. The Republicans are just not that interested in the fact that large numbers of Americans passionately disagreed with their policies.

Martin Rowson

Does the Democrats post election talk of new directions imply that they have the answers on Iraq? Simon Tisdall, writing in the Guardian, suggests not:

...the Democrats have no coherent view of the matter.Hillary Clinton, the 2008 presidential hopeful, opposes an Iraq withdrawal timetable. John Kerry, beaten by Mr Bush in 2004, wants a firm deadline. John Murtha, who will control the committee that appropriates cash for the Iraq war, is demanding an immediate withdrawal. Joe Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, advocates a tripartite division of Iraq into semi-autonomous federal zones. All that unifies them is criticism of Mr Bush's performance.

Does the change in the balance of power in Washington mean Bush hobbled or Bush unbound?

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US mid-term elections: Rove frizzles

I've been watching Fox News on the US mid-term Congressional elections on satellite cable television. The Fox Report is pretty high energy, partisan and aggressive channel, strongly visual and very in your face. What is expressed is that part of the US that is gungho on Iraq, is fundamentally religious, anti-immigration, sees secular humanism as the political Left (liberal), reckons a great economy is for the richest 10% of the country and holds that the top 10% should have yet more tax cuts.

The Republican talking heads on Fox cable television talk in terms of local politics, step around the national issue of the Iraq war or corruption, hold fast to a late Republican surge, and deeply fear the liberal Democrats. Their policy coherence is being anti-Democrat: they hate liberalism ---the Democrat leadership is deemed to be liberal (eg., Rep Nancy Pelosi is routinely dismissed as a San Francisco liberal). Their line is that if you vote for the Democrats they'll raise your taxes and let terrorists threaten your family. If the Democrats win America loses etc etc. The Republicans talk about conservative Democrats as one of their own, and when they mention Iraq, as distinct from national security, they talk about more troops for Iraq. No surrender. They just love to unleash the dogs of war.

The Republicans look suprisingly confident----overconfident, arrogant even, given the way the electoral tide is flowing away from them. Are they already in denial? The most plausible picture of power is that the swing is against the modern GOP and Washington as a one party town. That swing implies the Rove machine will frizzle rather than sizzle. This picture has the Democrats winning 20-30 seats and taking a narrow control of the House, while failing to win the Senate. So we have a divided Congress. Gridlock?

I will keep an eye on the Senate rather than the House. My focus is on the breaches in the Republican firewall that has been erected against the electorate's repudiation of both the Bush Whitehouse and the way the Republican majority has run Congress. Will the firewall hold? The Democrats need to pick up 6 Senate seats as well as hold their own marginal seats.
Update 1
CNN projects (very early, so I presume its computer modelling based on exit polling and early returns) that the Democrats have picked up 3 Senate seats: in Ohio (Sherrod Brown), Pennsylvania (Bob Casey Jr) and Rhode Island (Sheldon Whitehouse). The moderate Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffey, who voted against the war, is pro choice etc) lost in Rhode Island, so it is a rejection of the Republican label, not conservatism. So its 3 Senate seats to go.

The Republican Senators do talk about doing the will of God a lot. It's as if they have a hotline to the Lord. The new Democrat Representatives are young, socially conservative and southern and they speak about faith and family values. Will they pull the Democrat party to the centre? So what happens when the Democrats win the House? Will the party move to the centre? There is lots of Democrat talk about the center and being moderate etc etc. This is a deeply religious country.

It does not look good for the fiscally irresponsible Republicans as the sphere of Republican power has contracted because of Bush and Iraq. That is bad news for the GOP. What happens to Bush's imperial Presidency? Will Bush remain locked into the Republican base? Will Bush move to the centre if the balance of power shifts to the Democrats? Who will be purged? Rumsfeld as secretary of defense? Scapegoats are needed to ease the pain.

Update 2
The Democrats are likely to make gains in the state governorships. They have won the House. The investigations and testimony -- under oath -- about Iraq will now begin. This oversight role is the main weapon of a Democrat House of Representatives under Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Democrats are talking in terms of the politics of change and a new direction. The Republican talking heads new talking point is that Democratic victories are the result of Democrats “running as conservatives.” The old talking point--- that the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses'---has been dropped. Not even the talking heads on cable television can say that the American people voted for the terrorists.

Misssouri (McCaskill) has gone to the Democrats. The Democrats still need another 2 Senate seats to breach the Republican firewalll. Virginia and Montana are the competitive Senate seats, and they are still in play, with Virginia and Montana looking promising for the Democrats. Will the firewall be breached? It may well be.

Update 3
The Democrats have won Montana (Joe Tester) Though there will definitely be a recount in Virginia, Virginia looks to be in Democrat (Jm Webb) hands. It is now looking as if the Democrat's are over the Senate line, and they have gained control of the Senate as well as the House. Rove frizzled. The White House stuck to its "stay the course" guns for way too long.

A Democratic-controlled Congress means that there is a balance of power shift in Washington and so there will be some checks and balances. Bush is looking isolated in the Whitehouse. The Republicans sound angry and bitter and they look as if they will turn on themselves. So what happens to the Democrats promise of new directions in minimium wage, healthcare, education, prescription drugs and broken budgets? Will this legislation face a Bush veteo? Or will the Democrat Congress become bogged down in investigations and testimony under oath?

Update 4
The American nation continues to split sharply along North-South lines. Chuck Todd, in a commentary over at National Journal says that:

A Category 5 political storm hit the shores of the Northeast on Tuesday, realigning the region from a moderately competitive terrain between the two parties to solidly Democrat. The Northeast for congressional Democrats is now the mirror image of the South for congressional Republicans. Like any strong storm, the force weakened away from its epicenter. The farther away from the Northeast, the more competitive the GOP performed. But despite hanging tough in other regions around the country, Republicans suffered their worst midterm defeat in a generation.

The moderates have gone. The base stands strong. Todd says that 'the GOP will only isolate itself even more if it takes a turn to the right. Republicans will not regain the majority if they continue to grow away from the inner-suburban voter. Missouri and Virginia, for instance, sent that message loud and clear.'
Over at Tapped Tom Schaller says that:

The regional realignment over the past 40 years, which slowly converted Dixiecrats into Republicans, has now entered its final stage, as voters north of the Mason-Dixon line and west of the Mississippi provide a countervailing response to the southern-led Republican majority.This transformation is occurring at the Senate, House, and gubernatorial levels. Indeed, because Rust Belt Republicans will be replaced by progressive Democrats, regardless of the final 2006 results, both chambers of the 110th Congress will become more progressive among the growing shares of Democrats and more conservative among the shrinking ranks of Republicans.

The GOP moderates are paying for their party’s rightward shift.

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November 7, 2006

Desperate Republicans

It's the last day of campaigning in the mid term US congressional elections. The judgement is that the Democrats will gain control of the House but not the Senate as there has been a late surge towards the 'last-stand ' Republicans. From what I can gather the strategy of the Democratic leaders has been to "lie low" and let anger toward Bush sweep them into office.

Peter Brookes

The local squabbles in Jersey, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia are crucial and the gerrymandering Republicans have been much better in getting their supporters to the polls. I presume that Republican state officials in a number of states will make use of the legal system to exclude otherwise eligible voters; or ensure that there aren't enough voting machines to accommodate all the voters in Democrat districts.

Will the Republicans be pushed back to the South? It does seem that the Democrats are not all that interested in developing policies to lead Americans in a new direction from Republican America. The election is still a referendum on Bush administration policies in Iraq.

As Paul Krugman says in the New York Times:

Pesident Bush isn’t on the ballot tomorrow. But this election is, nonetheless, all about him. The question is whether voters will pry his fingers loose from at least some of the levers of power, thereby limiting the damage he can inflict in his two remaining years in office...But here’s the thing: no matter how hard the Bush administration may try to ignore the constitutional division of power, Mr. Bush’s ability to make deadly mistakes has rested in part on G.O.P. control of Congress. That’s why many Americans, myself included, will breathe a lot easier if one-party rule ends tomorrow.

We should remind ourselves that Bush is the media face whilst Cheney & Rummy are the dirty engine of this conservative Republican administration.

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November 6, 2006

a water crisis

There is going to be a Water Summit in Canberra tomorrow morning. There needs to be. Things are serious.
The major storages of the Murray Darling Basin are running dry---the Snowy's storages are now at just 18 per cent of capacity. The inflows into the Murray River system during July through to Octocber were very low, and the October inflow was 50% lower (74 gigalitres) than the previous low (139 gigalites). The inflow into the Murray this year is a record low at only 550 gigalitres (billion litres) compared with a long-term average of 11,200gl It is looking as if the River Murray will be empty by the end of the current irrigation season, if next years autumn rains fails.

Howard is talking about protecting the farmers over the next six months. However, an empty River Murray means Adelaide faces no water. It will have to shift to desalinisation plants, just like Perth, and increase water recycling.

The assumption that it would keep on raining has proved to be erronous and our coastal cites are running out of water. Australia's climate is changing and it increasingly looks as if southern Australia is going to have get by with a lot less water as our water resources shrink. The National Water Initiative has stalled. There is still no national system of water trading and the promised to give the Murray River 500gigalitres within five years under the Living Murray First Step program has not been kept. Not a single drop has actually been returned to the river.

So what is going to be done at the Summit that will d be over in time for the Melbourne Cup? The talk from Howard is about considering emergency measures.

We could begin by buying out the Cubbie Station cotton farm in Queensland and so make a start on reducing the over-allocation of water in the Murray-Darling Basin. The Nationals are opposed to an kind of buy back of licences. The say that the commonwealth buying up water allocations in the near term, would be a matter of complete and utter last resort. What's the 3 storage dams for the Murray River running dry by May then? It's just a drought for the Nationals. It has nothing to do with climate change. It will rain next autumn and all will be well.

So the Howard Government is divided on the water issue.

We could do something about rice and cotton farming or dairy farms. A million litres of water is needed to produce one ton of rice, 450,000 litres of water are needed to make on tonne of cotton and 1000 litres is needed to produce on litre of dairy produce. Their allocations ccould be cut drastically. However, I cannot see the Nationals agreeing to that can you?

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governing the boom

George Megalogenis in an op-ed in The Australian about the Howard style of governance makes a good point. He says:

Reciting Howard's policy record reaffirms that this year, his 11th in power, has been devoted to completing the agenda of the 1980s. As it goes, this may not be an entirely bad thing. Treasury secretary Ken Henry, in his keynote address to the Making the Boom Pay conference on Thursday night, reminded governments that there are some policies on the nation's to-do list "stretching back over generations". He nominated indigenous disadvantage and "the fragmented, uncommercial arrangements for the supply of water and energy".

Megalogenis then adds:

The latter, of course, is the sharp edge of the climate change debate. Yet Howard is wary of market-based solutions to secure the nation's water supply and to wean the economy off the dirty teat of coal. This is the strangest part of the story. On water and global warming, Howard, the supposed economic rationalist, is siding with the forces of protection, namely irrigators and state electricity authorities.

Climate change takes us beyond the 1980s agenda. It's the shift over point. Howard is increasingly being locked in to defend the irrigators and the coal lobby, who talk about the Green religion and see the environment in opposition to the economy. That refusal to rationally address market externality limits his room to move, doesn't it.

Update:
Ross Gittens, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, addresses the flaw of the econcrats---namely, their partial analysis that focuses on the economy as though it can be managed and mended in isolation from the environment. He says:

It can't, of course. The economy exists within the natural environment and there's much feedback between the two, so that things happening in the economy affect the environment and things happening in the environment affect the economy.We ignore those linkages at our peril. And yet it's the easiest thing to do. Economists focus on markets and the prices they generate, which reflect the private costs and benefits of buyers and sellers, consumers and producers.The trouble is that most environmental costs and benefits are public rather than private (they affect all of us in general, rather than just the specific individuals engaged in particular economic transactions) and so aren't reflected in market prices.Environmental factors are thus "external" to the market. And this gives us "market failure" - we can't just leave market forces alone and expect them to solve environmental problems for us.

Giddens adds that economists are always yielding to the temptation to ignore externalities. And if the econocrats can't see the hidden environmental implications of policy decisions, don't expect their political masters to see them.

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November 5, 2006

Victorian state election

It is hard for me to be enthusiastic over, or be deeply interested in, the Victorian election. Yawn. The Bracks Government has a massive majority--62 seats compared with the Liberals' 17. Victoria is now a Labor State, no longer the "jewel" in the postwar Menzian Liberal "crown". Guy Rundle, in an op-ed in The Sunday Age expresses my sentiments:

As Victoria staggers across the finish line in an election so boring, so fore-ordained - with the exception of the competition for a few seats between the Greens and the not-at-all-loopy People Power - that seasoned political correspondents have been eating their own heads rather than cover another photo opportunity,

The divided Victorian Liberals are in no position to be an effective opposition, as their factions are too busy fighting one another, the party is in a chronically poor condition, and it is struggling with social conservatism and market fundamentalism. The socially reformist Brack's Government will be returned. Of that there is no doubt.

It's just like the earlier SA state election with a difference. The Victorian Liberals have steadily been improving, with some simple, digestible policies on free public transport for students, reducing the cost burden of kindergartens and reducing the number of poker machines. Unlike the SA Liberals, the Victorian Liberals have rediscovered thier roots in social liberalism. Alas, it is the ALP that best exemplifies the social liberal (Deakinite) tradition in Victorian politics.

The Brack's Government, though it poses as a progressive reforming one, it has done little about delivering water savings to the River Murray, to the Yarra or water recycling in Melbourne and the country towns. It has a high stamp duty regime, is addicted to regressive gambling taxes and has long waiting lists for elective surgery. :Like the other states Victoria has a huge infrastructure deficit in transport and communications, water, environment, schools, hospitals and other social infrastructure

The strategy is incremental change that does not move outside the voters comfort zone around service delivery, runs a tight fiscal ship and keeps the economy ticking over. So my main interest in the election is whether the Greens can capture the balance of power in the reformed upper house. I hope Labor loses control of the Legislative Council and Family First is denied a look in as they attempt to block the Greens from gaining power. The Greens holding the balance of power would result in a bit of opposition for a technocratic, socially conservative Bracks government. Some stormy times are needed.

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November 4, 2006

behind the times

What is at stake in these next few days in the US isn't the war in Iraq, it's control of the House and Senate. The Republicans are bound to lose House and Senate seats and next week's election is likely to give the Democrats the edge. Yet the elections are also about Iraq. As the American body count nears 3000, and the situation especially in and around Baghdad worsens, the poll ratings for Bush and for the Republicans have fallen. Iraq is a voter loser whilst the Republican blend of right-wing politics with extremist religion - no longer looks to be America's future.

Peter Brookes

It's different in Australia Even though Bush has dumped his "stay the course" language and redefined his goal in Iraq from democracy to stability, Howard and Downer are continuing to talk to the old script they learned in 2003. They speak the 'good news in Iraq' language as a brutal civil war rages. Even the Washington neo-cons are singing a different tune.

This week could mark the end of their long political wilderness and the beginning of blue-state America's fightback. Iraq now dominates the American public psyche - more specifically, how to get out as quickly as possible. The Republicans continue to play the old cards: gay marriage and abortion and painting Democrats as tax-and-spend liberals. Lets hope the Republican base is so disgusted with Bush and the ccorrupt moral conservative leaders that they stay home.

Will this election mark the beginning of the end of the Republican Party ascendancy in American politics?

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November 3, 2006

Treasury: managing prosperity

This speech, which Dr Ken Henry, Secretary to the Treasury, gave to the 2006 Economic and Social Outlook Conference is worth a read. The section on CoAG is to the point:

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has accepted that there is a strong case for addressing long standing policy failures in pricing, competition and competitive neutrality that have prevented the development of national markets in water, energy and other areas of economic infrastructure.

The COAG goals are ambitious and well targeted. But COAG agreements are not the same thing as reform outcomes. To date, progress against commitments has been slow.

The COAG agreements are a product of cooperative federalism. Advocates of cooperative federalism – more numerous among the states than in the Commonwealth, of course – should have a strong interest in the implementation of the COAG agreements since that experience is writing a judgement on the quality of our federal arrangements, and on the strength of the cooperative federalism model. So far, the judgement is not particularly favourable.

Even so, the inadequacy of present market arrangements for water and energy is so apparent today that we can be confident of these areas occupying a position in the mainstream of policy development for some time.

Water has been a disaster. It highlights the flaws in co-operative federalism. We have a boom and our state and federal governments cannot even buy some of the overallocated water licences in the middle of a drought that both reflects, and is superimposed upon, an underlying pattern of climate change.

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climate sceptics: pathetic responses

I went to the National Press Club on Wednesday to listen to Bob Brown. His speech was mostly about the wasted opportunities to apply innovative Australian research on solar energy to create an renewables manufacturing industry. It's all gone offshore because the Howard Government over the last decade has withdrawn support as it has sought to protect the coal industy from competition. Brown's speech developed his key theme that green manufacturing is the upside of global warming that is increasing temperatures across the nation.

In contrast we have Greg Hunt, the parliamentary secretary for the environment,saying that addressing climate change other than Howard's way of appeasing the coal industry is pleasing the cafe latte set! That leaves the Secretary's credibility looking a little ragged.

Bob Carter, The Australian's inhouse climate rationalist, goes even further with his talk about morality taxes. He then says:

The Stern review is not about climate change but about economic, technological and trade advantage. Its perpetrators seek power through climate scaremongering... Though it will be lionised for a while yet, the Stern review is destined to join Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb and think tank the Club of Rome's manifesto, Limits to Growth, in the pantheon of big banana scares that proved to be unfounded. It is part of the last hurrah for those warmaholics who inhabit a world of virtual climate reality that exists only inside flawed computer models. Meanwhile, the empirical data stressed by climate rationalists will ultimately prevail over the predictions of the unvalidated computer models. Perhaps then we will be able to attend to the real climate policy problem, which is to prepare response plans for extreme weather events, and for climate warmings as well as coolings, in the same way we prepare to cope with all other natural hazards.

I presume Carter, who doesn't sound very rational here, is pro-biotechnology, pro-nuclear power, pro-modern farming, pro-economic growth, pro-business but not pro-environment.

Then we have the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry saying that the Greens' anti-business policies could discourage investment and strangle economic growth because putting a tax on energy failed to "acknowledge the link between economic growth, jobs and trade on the one hand, and rising living standards of the vast majority of people on the other". As Alastair Davidson observes in The Age that:

the industry rump that controls VECCI thinks of economic growth as more factories and more smokestacks. It can't conceive that sustainable economic growth can mean more investment in more energy-efficient ways of doing things and meeting needs, that the necessary precondition for a healthy economy is a healthy environment.

The VECCI sounds economically and environmentally ignorant in the light of Bob Brown's speech.

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November 2, 2006

waiting for Bush to turn

At the end of an important article in The Guardian on the failure of the British Parliament to challenge the executive Simon Jenkins comments:

Parliament at present regards Iraq much as does the cabinet, as an American problem which America must solve before Britain can do so. Blair has merely supplied an army to cover George Bush's diplomatic flank. If the present congressional inquiry can help get Bush off the hook, parliament hopes that it will do the same for Britain. This appears to be its strategy. I repeat, this is humiliating.

Gee, that is the case in Australia to isn't it.

Steve Bell

It's humilating that the Australian Parliament has not had a high-level inquiry into the war in Iraq. Are we are waiting for Washington to give us permission to hold Howard accountable for his Iraqi failure? What happens to our cheerleading for the Bush Adminsitration when the Republicans lose control of Congress? Howard is not exactly friends with the Democrats is he?

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Stern on Stern

This paragraph is from Sir Nicholas Stern's presentation and it challenges those neo-liberals who want to let market forces work on their own.

The science has been our starting point. It shapes the economics.The science tells us that GHG emissions are an externality; in otherwords, our emissions affect the lives of others. When people do not pay for the consequences of their actions we have market failure. This is the greatest market failure the world has seen. It is an externality that goes beyond those of ordinary congestion or pollution, although many of the same economic principles apply for its analysis. This externality is different in 4 key ways that shape the whole policy story of a rational response. It is: global; long term; involves risks and uncertainties; and potentially involves major and irreversible change.

Thosse who argue the market economy can adapt to shocks, so that we don’t need to worry about a changing climate because the adaptation by thge market will be efficient and painless, overlook the problem of the externality of greenhouse gas emissions. That needs to be priced before industry will invest in low emission technology, as this investment will increase the price of power.

Without a pricing the externality it is economically rational for industry not to invest in low emission technology.

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energy efficiency

I see that William Kininmonth is still arguing in The Age that a cut in human-caused carbon dioxide emissions will have little impact on the future climate as the effect of carbon dioxide increase is relatively small in the context of the internal variability of the natural climate system. That is a justification for the do nothing option.

Tandberg

As Stuart White and Chris Riedy argue in the Sydney Morning Herald:

The largest, cheapest and quickest component of that sustainable energy future will be improving the energy efficiency of existing and new households, businesses and industries.Improving energy efficiency simply means doing better with less energy, through the use of improved or "smarter" design, appliances, equipment and energy-using practices. This will be the unsung hero of the future, despite the attention being paid to high-profile, high-cost options such as "clean coal".

We don't hear much from energy efficiency from the Howard Government do we? It's defence is all about future technology for the coal industry.

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November 1, 2006

Jeffrey Sachs on the Stern Review

Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs comments on the Stern Review on the economics of climate change:

The Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change is a vital step forward in securing an effective global policy on climate change. Led by one of the world's top economists, the Stern Review shows convincingly that the benefits of early global action to mitigate climate change will be far lower than the costs. The report establishes realistic guidelines for action (based on long-term stabilization ceilings for greenhouse gases), core elements of an effective global policy (carbon pricing, technology policy, and removing barriers to change), and a framework for international cooperation that must include all regions of the world, both developed and developing. The Stern Review will play an important role in helping the world to agree on a sensible post-Kyoto policy.”

In contrast, Allan Wood in The Australian tells us not to heed the Stern Review: its alarmist, utilizes scare tactics and it has suspect modelling. The implication is that Stern Review can therefore be dismissed as alarmist and incompetent. Presumably Wood's next op-ed will follow the Cato Institute's line and say that the study exaggerates the economic costs and extent of global warming.

The inference is that Wood can see no reason for any government intervention to reduce Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions. There is no need for market-based solutions to 'fix' the problem. It's business as usual. Australia just has to get used to warmer temperatures, changed rainfall patterns or higher sea levels. We just adapt. Technology is the key to this. etc etc.

Its the coal industry line as the solar techology is already here. But it is going offshore to be commercialised. Australia could have developed a vibrant solar energy industry. But it has continued to defund the research over the last decade.

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market failure

Greenhouse gas emissions are a classic example of market failure. The polluters are not paying for the cost of the effects of global warming. That is the cost of cheap power. So we need government intervention. That is what is rejected by the Howard Government except for some money for research for low emission technology. All that we have in Australia are studies about is the costs of a tax on firms emitting gases (eg., a fossil fuel industry funded study by ABARE) and nothing about the costs of doing nothing, or the benefits of mitigating climate change. The Stern Review changes that.

Bill Leak

Tim Colebatch in The Age makes a good point about the Costello and Bracks pledge $80 million for a demonstration project to dry the coal in one of Hazelwood power station's eight units before it is burnt, cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent. He says it's an:

... essential step, but down a very long road. It covers just one unit in one power station. It brings its emissions down only to the level of Loy Yang's emissions, which in turn are far worse than the black coal stations of NSW and Queensland, which in turn are unacceptable by world standards.If we are to rely on taxpayer subsidies as the core of our greenhouse gas policy, the federal and state governments would have to pay billions of dollars of subsidies so that all four Latrobe Valley plants could dry their coal before use, and many billions more to get them to adopt the other technologies that could one day make coal clean: combined cycle generation with gas, capturing carbon emissions and storing them underground, and so on.

He adds that if governments are prepared to raise income tax high enough, we could do it that way, but makes more sense to impose a tax on firms emitting gases, to spur innovation. When we have a situation of market failure then there needs to be built-in incentives to cap and reduce greenhouse emissions.

So is there a net benefit to Australia to take this path of reduction in carbon emissions? Presumably. But no studies have been done.

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