Public Opinion

« October 2007 | Main | December 2007 »

November 30, 2007

pathway to reform

Whilst the shattered Liberals look modern with new Nelson Bishop facelift the Rudd cabinet places the focus on skills (Gillard's workplace and education) and a reform agenda embracing federalism, health care, climate change, education and infrastructure at a time when commentators are talking in terms of the perfect storm engulfing the world economy.

History suggests that the leadership challenges to Nelson will come, even before 2007, as they try to sort out what they believe in whilst in opposition for two terms--- or even a lot longer.

Dyson

It could well be a Team Rudd decade. Will it be a decade of reform to modernize Australia run by a centralized government with key policy making power located in the prime ministers domain?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:19 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

November 29, 2007

crash and burn

They spend months denying the obvious and spinning their myths. Now we rarely hear from them. Those who want to take the Liberal party stare at the wreckage they bought about. If the Liberals are divided over whether to abandon the policies that caused their defeat, they are engaged in shedding their skin and trying to become all warm and cuddly.

Leak

A new Labor government on Capital Hill doesn't mean that everything is going to change. Australia is still getting warmer, the land is drier, water is still scarce, GP's are in short supply, and we are still involved in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Australia should pull out of Afghanistan. The chances of success in winning insurgent and civilian Afghan hearts and minds are low, and we have little strategic reason to be there. Afghanistan is hardly the beachhead in the war on terrorism that many say. It's more a compensation for failures in Iraq for heroic leaders who modeled themselves on Winston Churchill.

The nature of the fight in Afghanistan is described as a counterinsurgency, the kind of conflict American soldiers have not faced since the war in Vietnam. Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side wants civilians to accept its governance or authority as legitimate

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:08 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

November 28, 2007

Bernie Banton: RIP

Bernie Banton, the asbestos campaigner died at 1am Monday morning. He became the representative of people ill and dying from asbestos-related diseases and affected by James Hardie's refusal to fund proper compensation. He lived long enough enough to settle a compensation suit against his old employer, a former subsidiary of James Hardie, and to learn the result of the election.

Alan Moir

Banton worked with Greg Combet and the ACTU to force James Hardie to make compensation for asbestos-related diseases caused by its building products. He helped to set up a $4 billion compensation fund and to help mesothelioma sufferers gain access to a drug to help ease their pain and possibly extend their lives.

The loss of Bernie Banton's life will be deeply mourned though out th nation.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:46 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

November 27, 2007

recession anyone?

Booms become busts. How long will the boom continue? Or will inflation, arising from infrastructure constraints, work force shortages, tax cuts and high debt, ensure that the Reserve Bank squeezes the economy with ever higher interest rates. How long before that kind of squeeze makes it hard to breathe? An interest rate increase is still likely in the new year, no matter which Government is in power.

In Poisoned chalice for 'economic neophytes' Ross Gittins gives a warming about Australia's economic future. He says that Rudd:

...inherits an economy that, to every outward sign, is in good shape but, after a record expansion phase of more than 16 years, is overdue for a cyclical correction.So the chances of a recession occurring sometime during his reign are high — almost guaranteed. Worse, the chances of a recession in the next three years are high.Do you see what that would mean? Mr Howard and his treasurer would go down in the electorate's mind as the exemplary economic managers they always assured us they were. But Labor's reputation as bad economic managers would be burnt into the brains of a generation. Let the Laborites near an economy and the first thing they do is stuff it up.

Gittens says that though federal governments invariably get a second term as a matter of course should the recession occur during Mr Rudd's first term, it's easy to see him being dispatched at the first opportunity.That would be through no fault of his own. He would simply be a victim of the vagaries of the business cycle.

Gittens is not predicting that a recession is imminent, just that, by the law of averages, the next one can't be too far away. He is arguing that the ALP has taken charge at a point where most of the nice aspects of the boom have passed and we're on to the nasty bit. The danger is that the mishandling of booms has often precipitated a recession. caused by the Reserve overdoing the rate rises that stop the economy rather than just slowing it.

Does that mean the ALP's economic conservatism should involve making deeper cuts in spending than it foreshadowed in the campaign, and possibly delaying the fulfillment of some of its electoral promises to ensure a strong and prosperous economy? How does the ALP juggle equity and efficiency in toughened times? What room do they have to use the economic strength to restoring and increasing the fair go so that Australia has a competitive economy and a good society?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:52 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

November 26, 2007

political ambiguity

David Burchell in an op-ed in The Australian strikes a cautionary note. He says:

Over 2007 Rudd has been very effective in distancing Labor from the politics of noisy minority interest groups. But in government Australians will expect positive policy directions as well, and Rudd has been hazy about these so far. Broadband internet access is not a substitute for schooling or innovation policies. Rescuing the lives of Australians in remote Aboriginal communities will require policy boldness, not the timidity Rudd evinced during the final days of the campaign. Labor has laid the ghosts of the recent past. It now faces the much bigger task of moving beyond the slogan of "New Leadership" to actual policy leadership. It's not yet clear whether it has Now sufficient political resources to do so.

By 'noisy minority interest' Burchell is referring to those inner city professionals who identify with a set of social and moral values that they take Labor to have embodied since the '70s; as opposed to the mainstream suburban battlers where people still own Hills hoists, and where they still mow their lawns on Saturday mornings, much as their parents did. The latter vote to protect the futures of themselves and their families.

Geoff Pryor

Burchell does say that at Labor has returned to the mainstream---western Sydney working families--- and that it's even more important that the party moves on. Though ordinary Australian families are concerned about their mortgages and their working conditions, they also expect the new government to take the lead on issues of national significance. He says that these issues are schooling, innovation policies and improving the lives of Australians in remote Aboriginal communities.

However, it is unclear that Burchell is now acknowledging the importance of shifting to a more sustainable economic life in the warmed up world of climate change? If he is now indicating that he understands that the market is about meaning, values and culture, as much as it is about utilitarian interests, then changing the way we understand the economy is crucially important. We live in a market society as well as a market economy.

Moreover, the urban and rural economy depends upon ecological life support systems (rivers and waters) and on energy efficiency. What we don't need are more coal-fired power stations being build to provide the power to run the McMansions in Sydney. If climate change has moved towards the top of the international political agenda, then in Australia the gap between evidence and policy still remains wide. Will the Rudd Government’s approach to climate change be too heavily influenced by the Garnaut report, expected in the middle of 2008?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:48 AM | Comments (26) | TrackBack

November 25, 2007

whither Australia

It's Howard's end. A chapter on our political history has just been closed. I see that Dame Leonie Kramer is pointing the finger at the press for closing the chapter. She says "The fourth estate has let us all down, The press, with noble exceptions, has been opposed to him." She noted the symbolism of a former journalist taking Bennelong to the brink of Labor control.

There is still denial about the policies: unpopular industrial relations reforms, climate change, welfare to work and a lack of vision of Australia's future amongst the hard edged Liberals. The Liberals had lost touch with public opinion. Apart from the economy they had little to offer in terms of the future and they couldn't see that it was time for political renewal.

Bruce Petty

So where to now? If the Rudd policy agenda is still a work in progress and me-tooism a campaign strategy, then we know that the states now have the obligation to work with the commonwealth government to fix the health system.That just means hospitals doesn't it?

We also know that Rudd's priorities will be federalism, a large part of which will involve sorting out the delivery of water services and education as well health plus the construction of the high speed national broadband network, and putting a computer in every school.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:55 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

November 24, 2007

and so it goes

So it is either an ALP landslide, or too close to call, or the Liberals sneak home by 1 or 2 seats. Does anyone actually know? Both Michael Kroger and John Howard are relying on an injected confidence for their precious but elusive 11th-hour momentum--the narrowing! Kroger can even feel the narrowing sweeping across the country! Talk about glimmers of hope. It's just a public face.

The people I asked at the Adelaide Central Market around 7.30 am this morning all said they found the election campaign to be long, uninspiring and boring. Nobody I spoke to had bet their house on Labor. The Liberals must know that they have gone. Nothing they have done during the last year has shifted the polls towards them:

Bill Leak

I voted ALP in the House of Representatives and Nick Xenophon in the Senate. It was an easygoing and relaxed mood outside the booth in the Adelaide electorate, which will be easily retained by the ALP There was little conversation though. Minds had been made up. People were happy

And how many bloggers are there blogging live from the Talley room tonight? None? Some? It looks to be the structured the same as every other election night, with the commentary dominated by the politicians on the phones do their party political spiel as the results dribble in for or against them. When it is going to be broadened out?

The polls, we should remember, were consistently against the the Liberal Party all year. They did not change.That is what is significant. It will depend on the swing in NSW and Queensland.

Geoff Pyror

I'm going to blog live from the wireless apartment in Adelaide whilst watching the ABC. Suzanne is going to a Stoppard play---The Real Thing-- put on by the State Theatre Company and I will be on my own. The election is the real thing.

Update: 7.30 pm
There's a swing on but it is small at this stage and so line ball. The ALP is on track. The swing is around 5.1% --5.5.4%. The seats gained are around 12-14 and the Coalition is behind in other seats. 5 terms is too much. Time for a change.

Two seats in Tasmania--- Bass and Braddon ---are gone, as expected.So what will happen to the Green vote in the Senate? Will Tasmanians decide to go for two Green senators and so male up for the possible loss in NSW?

There is small swing in Victoria:--5.1% ---two seats will be won by the ALP: Deakin and Corangamite. But La Trobe and McEwan are lagging. Mcmillanstays with Liberals. So there will be minimal change in Victoria as expected.

Geoff Pryor

Will Howard hang on. Was Kroger just spinning the line? Hoping for the great escape? Three seats have gone in SA--Kingston and Makin and Wakefield. Sturt is looking sticky, though not Boothby So SA sticks with seats to the ALP as expected.

It is unclear in NSW. There is movement. Eden Monaro is going ALP, as is Lindsay It looks as if Bennelong is looking sticky and may depend on postals Wentworth looks to be held by Turnbull. However, Parramatta, and Page and Robertson are going to the ALP. It's the northern coastal seats that are shifting to the ALP.

It all depends on Queensland. That state looks as if it is going to decide the outcome. Bonner and Dobell It looks as if Dawson has really gone.

The seats are shifting. Moreton is turning to ALP, as is Longman and Page and Leichardt and Blair. Even Petrie The list goes on. Some of the swings look to be huge--around 14%. What is going on? Seachange? Gillard is now upbeat and she is a political pessimist. What does the ALP stand for? Reform? Consensus?

Update: 8.30pm
So it is looking good for the ALP. It's twelve seats gained going to Queensland. It's a 53 % to 48% swing and growing. Anthony Green's prediction is a majority of 22 for the ALP. So Queensland is delivering in spades. Around 10-12 seats at this stage. The gains are needed to hold off the expected losses for the ALP in Swan, Stirling and Cowan but may have gained Hasluck. There is a swing to the Liberals in WA but it wont have much impact given the swing in NSW and Queensland.

The losses are happening in WA. The ALP can win without WA, and win easily. This is a big victory.

The Greens aren't doing all that well apart from Victoria despite Bob Brown's upbeat account of the ALP being elected on Green preferences. Yet the Rudd ALP is opposed to the stopping the pulp mil or conserving the old growth native forests. The Green spin is shard to take.

It's at least 10 seats, possibly 16 seats the ALP has gained in Queensland. But the ABC tally room is a bloody disaster. It should be dumped. What purpose does all the cheering serve? Where are the bloggers? Where is the analysis about which parts of the electorate have shifted?

Update: 10 pm
So the ALP has won. And won well. The Liberals are really done for. Burnt toast. It's a 22 plus seats majority. Champagne time! Howard is about to concede. Nick Minchin is talking about the heritage of Howard and he has finally conceded that it was Workchoices that did them over.

Geoff Pyror

Minchin says that we ought to pay tribute to Howard and his political career. I concur. He deserves our respect, even though I've deeply disagreed with his policies both foreign and domestic. What do the Liberals stand for now? They have no sense of the future>

So what's happened to the Senate? Minor changes? Liberals retain control until June 2008? They will block for sure. Will there be a swing to the Liberals in the Senate?

Howard is about to concede at the Wentworth Hotel. The scene there must be akin to a political wake. Jeanette is not happy. Howard has been repudiated, big time. But she must have known the Liberals would lose. How long before Howard resigns from the leadership of the Liberal Party? Will Costello take the poisoned chalice? Howard 's speech is a signing off on his political career. It's a bitter sweet moment -he's accepted that he has probably lost his seat in Bennelong (there's a 5.2% swing to Maxine McKew) along with losing Government.

Alan Moir

The Liberals--Nick Minchin-- are talking about being responsible in opposition. Oh yeah? They won't like this defeat. They will be bitter at being an oppositional rump. Do they have a vision of the future? Is Costello the main to break with the past and deliver a view of Australia in the 21st century?

Update: 11 pm
It's all over. The Liberals are history. The Nationals have lost 3 seats. It's one of the great Labor victories. Suzanne has returned from the play. The champagne is opened and it sure tastes great. A long black cloud has moved away. The conservative ascendancy has gone. It's a new political order that has come into being. I wonder what that means for Adelaide's future in the warmed up world of climate change?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:46 PM | Comments (37) | TrackBack

November 23, 2007

Labor on Social Inclusion

Amongst all the noise of a closing election campaign it would be easy, especially out in the boondoks, even with broadband, to miss yesterdays release of the Labor Party's policy document on Social Inclusion. Easy to find on the Party's web site.

It draws together so many social issues that in Australia result in the exclusion of many different groups. It proposes Ministerial level authority, with a Board and extensive consultative arrangements across portfolios and community groups. At this late stage of the campaign it is well worth a read. Only 12 pages, but a contribution to forming public opinion!

Julia Gillard's address to ACOSS's Annual General Conference on 22 Nov. is on the same subject.

Posted by Gratton Wilson at 10:43 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

mental health crisis

Larry Hermann, a psychiatrist has an op-ed in The Age entitled Mental health system in crisis, that goes behind the slogans, headlines and the focus group words:

It is well known that mental health services have been underfunded for many years; not only crisis community teams but the whole public mental health system. Community treatment teams are not the issue; their dilemmas are symptomatic of not only long-term underfunding, but an ever diminishing workforce of expert staff. There simply aren't enough expert providers in mental health, both public and private, and never have been.

That's the description. What to do? What can be done? What could be done? Hermann adds:

My colleagues and I lament at the dumbing down of mental health expertise, which is only becoming ever more tangible....Governments, but no more so the current one, have for some time been introducing methods and policies to allow lesser trained personnel take over what used to be the domain of expert providers. No one would argue that it is absurd to suggest that surgery should be performed by anyone other than a surgeon. Yet in mental health it is increasingly common to see complex patient treatments occurring at the hands of inadequately trained staff.

Hermann includes psychiatrists in this as he refers to the common perception of psychiatrists as prescribe medications and out sourcing a complex level of their own expertise, i.e. psychological therapies, to others.

Hermann's solution is limited---it is for highly skilled clinicians to reclaim holistic and direct treatments of patients. But there are so few psychiatrists or even psychologists. Workforce shortages hit access hard in mental health as well as physical health.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 22, 2007

stories for grown ups

Aeons ago when John Howard said kids should be able to leave school at year ten I figured we were in for another one of his devious, booger-headed plans to keep us all as stupid and pliable as possible. Why else would he suggest such a thing when we all know year 12 is an intrinsic good? But for reasons John wouldn't have a clue about I've come to agree with him.

Over the past few days I've learned that about a third of the kids who, on paper, are doing years 10, 11 and 12 aren't really doing it. Public or private. I know this because my 14 year old son is one of them. The eff word has had a bit of a workout around here lately, mostly in the 'you're effing joking' context. But no, they're not joking.

These kids have left school in real life, even though they're still technically at school. And since there's no such thing as starting in the mail room and working your way up any more, there's nothing else for them except passing time until they're old enough to have outgrown masses of useless regulation.

This is a longish story.

I knew my son hadn't been overjoyed about school since he realised early in the year that if he wanted to stay popular he was going to have to pick on kids he liked. Or at least stand by and watch other kids do it. He did the honourable thing and stuck by the chubby redhead who can't ride a skateboard, which was exceptionally brave, but ultimately pointless. No single kid is ever going to change playground culture.

This year I've had more meetings at the school than in the other nine years combined. He's still some kind of weird savant with maths, but everything else has gone to custard. At least he was still at school, right? Well, no, actually.

When your kid has been absent for 10 consecutive days you get a phone call which, oddly enough, isn't about where your kid has been, but whether the school has made some kind of administrative error. I stupidly went along with the error inference and forgot about it. No child of mine would contemplate wagging school for two solid weeks. We take education seriously in this house.

That phone call taught me nothing, but the next one taught me I'd been wrong the first time around. However the first one taught him that you have to turn up at least one day a fortnight to avoid trouble. He got away with it until, along with 10 other kids in his class, more than a third, he missed an exam and the teacher rang to explain he was going to fail.

That's part of the trouble though. The senior years are about education if you want to go to uni, which he doesn't. And what's the point of writing a four page detailed report on mythical creatures you've encountered on an imaginary island if you can fail and go up a grade anyway? School was like a holding pen and he resented being treated like a sheep. Especially when the flock mentality revolves around cruelty to your fellow sheep.

Critical thinking is a necessary skill if kids are to grow up being anything more than droids, but the downside is that they can always cast their critical eye over the system they're in, and it's not too difficult to see its inconsistencies and work your way around them. And it takes less imagination than mythical creatures.

Long story short, the mum network reports this is not unusual. What is unusual is for parents to refuse to go along with it. We're supposed to keep pretending, keep the right boxes ticked and the youth unemployment stats down. Go through the formalities.

There are not a lot of options for the rebellious parent. After two days of phone calls the 'earn or learn' mantra was demonstrably hollow. The 'learn' actually means attend school one day a fortnight and stay on the rolls. The 'earn' is also illusory. When it comes to employing kids in a job with a future, for every rule there is a contradictory regulation.

We appear to be stuffed. As Alice Cooper would say, school's out. I'm not prepared to pretend he's at school if he's probably not. And I can sympathise with him about the culture. Nor am I prepared to have him sitting around the house, unlike a lot of other parents in this situation who are black and blue from hitting dead ends. He can't start learning a trade unless it's linked to a school based traineeship, which requires us to pretend he's at school four days out of five. He can work full time as long as it's a dead end job of some kind.

For the time being we've settled for the work experience loophole. He's working with his dad, so we know where he is and he's doing something useful. Even though he's actually learning a trade, the experience won't count technically because it won't contribute to a qualification, which has to be earned through the appropriate channels. I secretly hope he hates it so much he'd rather write four page detailed reports on mythical creatures he's encountered on an imaginary island. Either that or being excellent at playing Final Fantasy turns out to be a career option.

Meanwhile, school retention rates continue to impress. We can reassure ourselves that an education revolution will make us the smartest country on earth. I wonder though, whether we'll ever be smart enough to outsmart the kids we've taught to recognise a con when they see one.

It reminds me of the kid who got around the government's family safe internet package in under 10 minutes, or whatever it was. We're being all earnest about preparing the next generation for the future, but we seem to have built a system designed first and last to preserve the myths grown ups are so fond of.

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 2:10 PM | Comments (20) | TrackBack

Life Beyond The Election

While our politicians have been debating the finer points of how to best influence other countries about their level of green house gas emissions the detail about the likely impact on Australia outlined in the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC has almost been bypast in public discussion.

The Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report gives a good indication of things to come. Impacts by sector on water, agriculture infrastructure/settlements [including coastal zones], human health, tourism, transport, energy, are given as examples of things to come. Actual changes in climate linked to some of these sectors are given. Then there is the impact on various geographic area. Australia will see a further loss in biodiversity, further water security problems and by 2030 production from agriculture and forestry is projected to decline over southern and eastern Australia. By 2050 coastal development and population growth will be at risk from sea level rises.

These projections give urgency to the need to educate the community of the seriousness of reducing greenhouse gases by all countries. Obviously all countries are not capable of making the same contribution and others have the conflict of bringing their communities up to the standard of living the developed world has enjoyed for several hundred years.

Apart from the views of scientists and specific groups in our community the level of knowledge and understanding of the likely impacts on Australia is in general very low. I have been listening to the views of people in the rural community as canvassed by an ABC rural reporter Ten of the twelve people interviewed did not see there was a real problem.Two recognised the problem but were unrealistic in terms of solutions.People discussing such things as paper mills, timber harvesting or production of fuel from various forms of vegetation all seem to think growing timber plantations will be their salvation.

The forecasts suggest that such enterprises will be problematic.At all levels of government in Australia there there are individuals who appear to be sceptical about the documentation available. I suspect not many of these people have made their own inquiries. They certainly have a responsibility to do so. We will need to have an informed bipartisan approach to develop our own way ahead and make the international contribution of which we are potentially capable. Change will happen irrespective of political views.

Posted by Gratton Wilson at 8:18 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

that sinking feeling

The recent release by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of its fourth assessment report summary, Risks and Rewards of Combating Climate Change, says that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level."

Bill Leak

The Howard Government's minimal response--- the world is not going to end tomorrow---indicates its short term thinking. We are thinking about more than tomorrow in terms of the risks to unique and threatened systems, such as polar or high mountain ecosystems, coral reefs and small islands, and the risks of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.

Howard and Co have done little to use the wide range of tools available - higher taxes on emissions, regulations, tradeable permits and research, an effective carbon price---to address these problems. Fear of upsetting the Republicans in Washington, the coal industry, and the high energy industries appears to be the reason.

The best it has come up with is "aspirational targets" and the five point plan for a are-elected government doesn't even mention climate change. It struggles to achieve credibility on the issue after years of ignoring it.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 21, 2007

Where's Costello when needed?

Howard is attempting to shore up his core constituency with his advertising blitz about the sky falling in. Suprisingly, I haven't seen one Liberal street image of Howard in Adelaide---nor any in Melbourne when I was there on Monday and Tuesday. The only images of Howard I've seen are on ALP billboards with their warning about not taking Workchoices further. Does that mean Howard is part of the problem?

Bill Leak

I understand that the Treasurer is working on advocacy messages to voters in target seats in support of specific candidates. Will the unfortunate targeted voters have to pay for their unsolicited massages when the phone bill comes in next month? I feel sorry for them.

Howard's political epitaph is currently being written. The presidential politics that focused on promoting Howard is now working against him. Are the women turning against Howard? Howard remains strong on being better able to handle the economy and as being decisive and strong. But he's gone too far on Workchoices and the Liberals know that the smell of WorkChoices is a key reason why they are now facing defeat.

Judging by the Liberal adverts I heard in the taxi's about union fanatics, environmental extremists and learners being in charge of our economy Howard's appealing to the doubters in his hard core constituency, by opposing change and creating fears about the knowns of an unknown future under the ALP. Yet the Liberals will change leaders if they win, and step into the unknowns with Costello. More IR change? Confusing, huh?

Costello's parrotting the line that "there will be no changes" ignores what we all know-- that he will become captain of the very rusty looking SS Liberal. Howard, after all is a Prime Minister, not a president issuing imperial edicts.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:29 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

November 20, 2007

who do you trust?

One thing Australian Idol and Big Brother have over elections is that voter choices have consequences they actually get to see happen. If Les gets his way Natalie will win Idol within his lifetime. There's no such guarantee with politics. We may or may not see greenhouse gases reduced, health clinics built or the buckets of promised funding actually distributed.

Over at PollieGraph, Jason Wilson mentioned Stephen Coleman whose research on democratic participation explores ways politics could make itself more engaging for those he calls BBs, the audience who take their democratic participation in Big Brother very seriously, but don't care much for politics.

Wilson argues that Rudd did the right thing turning up on Rove, partly because that's where the audience is and partly because different people engage with politics in different ways. If voters feel the need to 'know' the candidates then so be it.

We've reached a point of tension here when convention dictates that politics is debased when it flirts with the personal, yet we still want democracy. There's an unacknowledged inference that BBs have a duty to absorb endless and complex debate over policy and vote rationally based on the knowledge they accumulated having read Hansard. Not only is this not going to happen, but as BBs rightly point out, those elected won't necessarily implement promises anyway.

Coleman points out that

for many disengaged citizens, it is precisely the impersonal abstraction of most political talk that they find disingenuous and alienating

and who can blame them when so much of that talk is the linguistic equivalent of pretzels?

The successful candidates on Big Brother are the ones the audience feels are the most genuine and the most like themselves. Trust is as important to them here as it is in their political choices.

We treat the serious and the frivolous as though they're mutually exclusive, but they're not. Reducing emissions by xyz percent by the year abc is the stuff of serious policy, but it means nothing if you don't trust the politicians in question to do it. On that measure the BBs and political junkies are all looking for the same thing, if not on the same TV shows.

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 12:10 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

the poverty of Australian conservatism

One of the reasons it is difficult to take Australian conservatism seriously is because their arguments are so poor, especially in The Australian's op-ed pages. It's often little more than a tirade about the chardonnay-sipping, self-loathing liberal left who sneer sneer at patriotism etc etc whilst being ambiguous about classic liberalism.

Take the issue of the Bill of Rights which refers to the rights that are judicially enforceable and that cannot be overridden by Act of Parliament. It is a sensible option that rights-based liberals have proposed to protect the freedom of individuals from the power of the state. There is no Bill of Rights in the Australian Constitution and so the fundamental rights and freedoms of everyone living in Australia are not protected by the law. There are pros and cons to this proposal that deserve to be debated as it is a serious issue due to the inability of the inability of the common law to adequately protect the human rights and freedoms of individuals.

James Allan, a professor of law at the University of Queensland, has an op-ed in The Australian that criticizes the liberal's Bill of Rights. And its pretty poor in terms of an argument. It's more a soapbox rant.

Allan says:

The real threat to Australia comes not from the unionists but from the other main wing of the Labor Party, what I would describe as the chardonnay-sipping, ultra-PC, anti-traditionalist wing of the Labor Party. These are the people who worry me. Start with the legal revolutionaries among them. This Labor-voting crowd, well represented among lawyers, judges, teachers and academics, wants power taken away from elected MPs and given to unelected judges. They badly want a bill of rights. They know perfectly well that all bills of rights - be they British-style statutory ones or Canadian-style entrenched models - have precisely this increase-the-power-of-judges effect. Indeed, if they had no effect at all on the power balance, why would anyone push so hard to have one

Allan, a professor of law, would know that there is a long tradition of rights based political philosophy that is based on social contract theory. Is this' threat to Australia' tirade just the required house style of The Australian; one that requires the hysterics, mock outrage and abuse about the preening, smug, holier-than-thou PC brigade who like their moralising to come cheap and easy?

The argument is buried---it's a Bill of Rights would increase-the-power-of-judges. So what is wrong with that? Allan says that a bill of rights takes away from parliament and puts into the province of the judges:

It's not the ex-unionists who are the preening, puffed-up moralisers in the Labor Party. Far from it. But the crowd that doth vaunteth itself has calculated that the unelected judges are likelier to give it the moral outcomes it wants than are what it sees as the grubby politicians. And just to make sure of this, it tries to appoint to the bench people in its own image, people who are as much anti-traditionalists, parliamentary sovereignty-loathing activists as it is.

But parliament is not supreme or sovereign in an absolute sense, as it must work within the framework of the Australian constitution, as it is interpreted by the High Court. Allan would know that within the limits of its constitutional power parliament can change the law, given his research interests in legal philosophy and constitutional law, just as he know that the process of judges and courts developing, making and occasionally changing the common law has been going on for a very long time.

Allan avoids giving arguments to back his assertions, and mentions legal revolutionaries, the family as the bedrock unit of social life, gay marriage, national security, postmodernist, deconstructionist fads etc etc. The tacit argument is that rights based conception of the law is really just a disguise for a particular political agenda that seeks to use law as an instrument for social engineering, and would reduce political governance to disorder or anarchy.

Since Allan's appeal to prejudice and bigotry is not a serious argument against a Bill of Rights, we left with Allan's assertions. Consequently, we have little idea of what a conservative legal philosophy would look like, apart from concentrating power in the executive branch, eroding governmental checks and balances, and diminishing the rights of private citizens; and the view that law’s validity as the rule of law is tied directly to the authority of the promulgator--Parliament.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:28 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

November 19, 2007

troubles ahead for some

The ALP 's confidence is growing. It is now outlining an extensive reform agenda on health, business deregulation, climate change, and education. They are even talking about recalling parliament before Xmas. All the Liberal Party has at this stage, judging by the news I've heard on Sky News at the Qantas Club this morning, is the politics of fear--- the ALP is now determined to kill the mining boom!

Bill Leak

What Rudd is referring to is a new wave of reform called the National Reform Agenda (NRA) , which like the earlier National Competition Policy (NCP) under Keating, is premised on co-operative federalism. Howard and Costello decided to bash the states rather than be statesmen and cooperate with the national reform agenda proposed by the then Bracks Victorian Government and bought to the Council of Australian Government (CoAG) in 2005.

The dye was cast then. Costello and Howard were strategically locked into relying on past economic achievements and union bashing rather than pushing forward to finish the uncompleted business of the NCP in water, transport, energy and red tape, and extending it into health care, education, welfare tax work incentives and the human capital agenda. Costello and Howard stood for the past, thereby allowing Rudd to step in a fill the reform vacuum and stand for the future.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:57 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

November 18, 2007

politics viewed through television

Conflict is central to liberal democracy since the legitimacy of democratic outcomes requires that political and policy options be contested and evaluated. And yet liberal democracy also rests on the premise that each side in any given controversy perceives the opposition as having some reasonable foundation for its positions. This underpins the view that liberal democracy requires an informed citizenry who can make rational decisions on political issues.

Given that few people speak directly to political advocates of opposing views, then how do we come to perceive that reasonable people may disagree on any given political controversy? Many hold that mass media, and television in particular, serve this purpose. Many political pundits then hold that television has changed Australian politics in some fundamental way. How so? In what way?

The content of television is both image and words spoken. The effect is for viewers to develop a sense of intimacy with public figures whom they have never met, and with whom they may have emphatic disagreements, strong emotions. This changes the old way the public private distinction has been drawn.

Some more questions:

Does televised political discourse familiarize viewers with rationales for oppositional political perspectives? If so, does it thereby enhance the extent to which oppositional views are perceived as legitimate? What difference does it make that most of what people experience of public discourse in the political world reaches them through television? Does television have the capacity to educate viewers about oppositional positions and to increase the perceived legitimacy of oppositional views? If it has the capacity, then does television emphasis on in-your-face political disagreement ultimately undermine its ability to serve educate viewers about oppositional positions and to increase the perceived legitimacy of oppositional views?

This article in the American Political Science Review has a good go at answering these questions. What does it conclude?

Televised political discourse is undoubtedly serving an important purpose.People do appear to learn from political television, and this includes learning about why others hold the opinions that they do. The ABC's Lateline or Difference of Oinion would be an example of this. However,

...when uncivil discourse and close-up camera perspectives combine to produce the unique “in-your-face” perspective, then the high levels of arousal and attention come at the cost of lowering regard for the other side. The “in-your-face” intimacy of uncivil political discourse on television discourages the kind of mutual respect that might sustain perceptions of a legitimate opposition.

This, which is the house style of Fox News in the US, is unpacked as follows:

...close-up perspectives on uncivil discourse routinely damage perceptions of the candidates and issue arguments that subjects are already prone to dislike; that is, attitudes toward the least-liked candidate, and the perceived legitimacy of rationales for opposing issue positions. The same pattern of effects did not occur for attitudes toward the preferred candidate, nor for perceptions of the legitimacy of arguments for the preferred issue position.

That 's why Fox News does what it does---- aims to increase the magnitude of the difference that is perceived between their own conservative side and the liberal opposition.Thus one of the legacies of political television may be to damage the notion of a “worthy opposition.” To the extent that televised political discourse puts viewers unnaturally close to their political “enemies,” it intensifies negative feelings about the opposition, and does not serve the goals of consensus or compromise.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:51 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

November 17, 2007

a cautionary tale

It's going to go down to the wire in the local campaigns in the marginal seats and be determined by the swinging voter. It's old news, I know. But it does look as if there is a chance that Labor may get over the line, as the Liberals are not getting traction.

I do not think that Labor is going to romp home, as the polls imply, since about 25 per cent of people make up their minds in the last week and 10 per cent on the day as they go into the polling booth. I know, that too is old news.

Geoff Pryor

I've switched off listening to Labor. As John Hewson pointed out on Lateline:

Rudd is really from central casting. They've done all the focus group research, got the lines right and been very disciplined - I agree - in delivering the lines. They've got five dot points and it doesn't matter what you ask, you get the five dot points. And they keep doing it and they've been very disciplined.

What they have achieved is that Labor will get a dozen of the 16 seats it needs. It's the last 4 that will be difficult.

As Rod Cameron pointed out on Lateline:

Labor has to get a record preferred vote and has to get swings of 6, 7 or 8 per cent in either Queensland or Victoria or NSW to win this election and it's only just sitting there at the moment at that level....The polls are showing that Labor is sitting on the swing that it needs to win election, a bit above it. Labor's going to need 52 per cent of the preferred vote to win. It's a smidgin above that at the moment and, you know, one week can knock a per cent off easily.And there's a certain gravitational settling here. I mean, Labor to be polling at such stratospheric levels is just not going to happen. There will be just normal settling, even if Labor has a good week. There will be just people who will come back to the fold.

The numbers are very hard, particularly if Labor doesn't win the bottom 16 seats and has to go to higher margins to get them, or loses a seat or two as seems likely in WA. So how much is the drift back to the Liberals in the key margginal seats in percentage terms?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:47 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

November 16, 2007

Regional Partnership Program

The release today of the Auditor General's report on the Regional Partnership Program is very timely. This program, in its original form, was designed by the Keating Government to help drive unemployment down, particularly in regional areas. Following the change of Government in 1996 the program came under Minister Abbott in his Industrial Relations persona.

I recall as a member of a delegation to the Minister arguing that in appropriate circumstances grants should cover capital cost but the Minister was adamant that "if it is a viable proposal capital must be raised, perhaps by a bank loan." The purpose of the program had been to help the unemployed, people with little or no credit rating it. The program was then morphed and transferred across to Regional Development under a National Party Minister. I kept in touch with some aspects of the program in the marginal electorate in which I live.

From last night's [15/11/’07] ABC TV coverage, capital in large amounts has been made available with little accountability and little supervision or reporting. For the last 8 to 12 years these funds have been frittered away.

Posted by Gratton Wilson at 3:51 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

conundrum

Over at PollieGraph Ben Eltham has a summary of the Government Gazette versus Newhouse in Wentworth nonsense.

You'd have to expect a modicum of skullduggery over such a pivotal seat, where the only really plausible future leader of the Liberal Party is skating on thin ice. Galaxy has Newhouse and Turnbull at 50/50 two party preferred. But the whole thing is getting ridiculous.

Newhouse is suspected of being ineligible to run, so naturally Turnbull is going to make the most of it. The ABC website seems to have removed the report that Ecuyer has decided to preference Newhouse. Caroline Overington has tried to get the independent Ecuyer, running on the pulp mill issue, to preference Malcolm, while being aggressively flirtatious with Newhouse.

Gripping drama, and you couldn't find a more appropriate setting than the seat of Wentworth.

As far as the blogosphere is concerned the newspaper formerly known as The Australian has lurched from one catastrophe to another. Shanahan is a standing joke and Overington is well on the way to becoming one, preferably after the AEC and Uncle Rupert have given her a good talking to.

But thinking about it, Murdoch is likely to be pleased with the way this is working out. If you wanted to turn a highly reputable news outlet into a bawdy tabloid, Rupert's your man. If your circulation was falling and you wanted an online readership, you couldn't do better than Shanahan.

At the release of every Newspoll the collective weight of the blogosphere arrives at Shanahan's page, then scuttles back to its various burrows to indulge in a little airing of contempt. Fair enough. It's a lot of fun and you come across some clever one liners.

Meanwhile we're forever going on about the sorry state of the media and it's common for bloggers to see themselves as somehow holding the fourth estate to account. Rupert must be laughing his head off.

The perfectly reasonable George Megalogenis keeps pumping out the sort of columns we say we want, but Dennis and Caroline get all the attention. And in comments George is forever fending off accusations that the paper is garbage from people who apparently read it to reassure themselves that it is, in fact, garbage.

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 8:50 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

a personal impression

Bob Dylan once said--in Subterranean Homesick Blues ---that 'you don't need a weather man to tell you which way the wind blows'.

I thought of Dylan, the street poet, when I was in Canberra, as the mood on the Canberra streets last night was very different to, which had hung over the city for so long and depressed evereyone, had lifted.

A new political order is coming into being.

Spooner

The mood of the street was simple: the Coalition is history. Thank god. That public mood was very clear. The face of Kerrie Tucker, the Greens ACT Senate candidate, was everywhere. The mood was go Kerrie go.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:08 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

November 15, 2007

morale central

After the Labor launch yesterday Andrew Bolt conceded on behalf of John Howard. He live blogged the event and, for Bolt, was quite generous in his assessment. His fans are furious, which suggests they also suspect that "Howard can start packing now". Bolt concludes "Play it safe from here on, and Labor has won".

The symbolism was perfect, from Whitlam, Hawke and Keating burying their differences for the occasion to Kevin remembering his wedding anniversary. Nostalgia for the party faithful and suburban sentimentality for the masses.

A the end of the John Show an appropriate assortment of important people climbed up on stage to stand with Howard. We know they'd all rather bury forks in their own thighs than spend time with one another, but there they were, smiling, waving and trying to look comfortable. Janette was first up, although it's not as though it was a race.

At the end of the Kevin Show the man of the moment left the stage on his own and went to Therese, who hadn't moved. We were treated to footage of an empty stage and a room full of happy people, one of whom was Kevin. High symbolism, but the real question is how many gold ties will be sold over the coming days?

This whole election thing had been sliding into tedium with a daily grind of confusing and pointless to-ing and fro-ing over which mile of road was worth an upgrade and which school would get a new roof on the toilet block. It's been like watching a cockroach refuse to die for hours on end. But yesterday livened things up a bit.

Howard made a pitch to private school parents seeking to promote division (again) and did his level best to paint Labor as a risky proposition, without too much success. If the response in the blogosphere is any indication, Kevin has given the whole election an energy boost even Shanahan grudgingly acknowledges.

Tim Dunlop has a roundup of the usual media suspects who are all fired up but seem to be having problems spotting the negatives. Give them time. Of course, what the opinion columnists think doesn't tell us anything other than what the opinion columnists think. But they do have a small moon effect on the tide of morale.

Liberal HQ must be a depressing place to be at the moment. There'll be some frenzied polling going on and the bookies will be busy. Simon Jackman says the odds in the marginals have started to look more like the polls.

We're nearly there. Nine more sleeps. Then we can wake up on the 25th November and wonder what we've let ourselves in for.

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 12:08 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

a lighter moment

Rudd wins the high ground the commentators say. The ALP has gone for constraint and painted Howard as a reckless big spender, as well as providing funds for vocational education, computer access in schools, and funding to develop renewable energy. The election issue now seems to be who spent the most money.

Bill Leak

The pantomime can be partly explained by the parties living in fear of making a mistake, open up issue to a scare campaign, and not straying too far from public opinion. Hence the me-tooism--it's a strategy to minimize the risk of stumbling: it's Labor's election to lose etc.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:40 AM | Comments (23) | TrackBack

November 14, 2007

being other people

A young Honours student of my acquaintance has just finished an ethnographic study of the Supanova Pop Culture Expo. It's a big deal for fans of everything from Buffy to Japanese Manga. Shrek impersonator Joe Hockey would be right at home there. The real enthusiasts get to 'be' their favourite super hero for the duration and they'll go to extremes to get the details just right. They're not the only ones.

My daughter has a Titanic themed work Christmas party to attend and was agonising over which character to adopt for the evening. Her relentlessly hilarious father suggested she go as Kevin Rudder. It was funnier when he suggested she wear a frown and go as the stern, but she risked being mistaken for smiling Phil Ruddock. People pretend to be people they're not every day.

Jane Caro has a piece in New Matilda suggesting that if we really want to know who our political leaders are we should have a close look at their wives. She points out that in the process of playing the stay at home wallflower, Janette has caused some confusion over whether she's Carol Brady or Saruman, keen supporter of Sauron the Dark Lord.

Caro thinks Therese Rein resonates better with thoroughly modern Australia. She's a successful business woman who doesn't need her husband's name to know who she is. We won't be getting any prehistoric, white picket fence, Hyacinth Bucket pretensions from Therese. She's the political wife equivalent of Xena, Warrior Princess.

Maybe, maybe not. As the people at Supanova know very well, we read people on the basis of appearance and accessories as much as, if not more than, on the basis of their actions. Especially if we've got nothing else to work with.

Janette wears pastels, but the lines are militant. There's no give or freedom of movement and certainly no relaxed and comfortable. That's about all we get. She's entitled to her privacy, but suspicion is the price you pay for being mysterious.

Therese goes for the adjusted business look, where lengths and widths are variations on the traditionally straight business lines. Her hair is chaotic and the family china is a delicate floral pattern. She gives the impression that she's going to chuck off her shoes at the first opportunity and indulge in a bit of slouching, or maybe even an undignified sprawl.

John and Kevin have gone for the clone theme, although we have been treated to what could well be the most spectacular tie competition in Australian history. I know there's a science to this tie business, but I'm not sure we're supposed to be either mesmerised or blinded by shininess. Unfortunately, they draw the line at the novelty tie, which is a waste in my opinion.

John has recently been suspected of botox injections, fake tan, vitamin B injections if not steroids, and some pretty strong treatment for arthritis, whatever that entails. He'd be a walking cocktail of dubious substances. Sylvester Stallone?

Kevin is Tin Tin whether he is or not. His work experience, nerdy reputation, and appearance all dovetail into a nice, consistent package. He looks like, and has apparently lived the life of, a goody two shoes do gooder.

Observing the cosmetic dimensions of politicians is a shallow excercise, all things considered. But we're about to choose who is going to determine the shape of our country. It's reasonable to expect us to use whatever evidence we have at our disposal but they're as carefully constructed as the Supanova enthusiasts.

Who the hell are these people we're electing?

We're being asked to trust them to run things, and we're also going to have to live with them being beamed into our living rooms every night. Tin Tin and Xena, or Carol Brady and Rocky Balboa?

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 1:27 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Treatment of Australians and Refugees.

The case of Mr Tran, discussed on ABC Lateline this week, and the intransigence of the Federal Minister to make material available to the Opposition spokesman in accordance with the long accepted convention, raises some very serious issues on the eve of the Federal election. There are over 200 cases where the Immigration Minister or his Department has bungled the clarification of individual or family situations.

At a "Meet the Candidates " forum last night in a small rural town the candidates were asked a series of questions about integrity in Government. All except the Liberal candidate answered reasonably. The Liberal candidate expressed satisfaction of his own integrity but avoided specific issues such as illegal war, handling of refugees, immigration issues and so on.

It's strange that these issues, which go to the integrity of the country have been neglected during this election campaign. They have destroyed lives and caused much debate and anger in the community. There are well established public opinions on these injustices and they are being ignored.

Posted by Gratton Wilson at 7:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

QLD: indigenous development v wild river protection

A conflict is looming in Cape York between economic development for indigenous people and the protection of wild rivers. It is argued by Noel Pearson that the region's embrace of the fundamental reform in indigenous affairs with the commencement of welfare reform in Cape York is intertwined with economic development. He said early in the year:

At the very time we are seeking to rise out of welfare to grasp opportunities for economic development, the opportunities are being shot down by a combination of wild rivers and a radical prohibition on the limitations of vegetation clearing.Aboriginal people are paying the cost for election deals made by Peter Beattie over the past three terms. The state government Natural Resources bureaucrats who met in communities with traditional owners were even accompanied by Wilderness Society activists. The negotiations with traditional owners took place with Wilderness Society persons present ... it seems to me the state Government has delegated its public-service functions to a green organisation.

Conservation is seen as blocking economic development for indigenous people rather than the wild rivers, better land management and economic growth and employment opportunities working together as envisioned by The Cape York Peninsula Heritage Act 2007.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 6:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 13, 2007

RBA: inflationary pressures build

The Reserve Bank's November Statement on Monetary Policy says that:

The continued strength in demand and activity at this stage of a long expansion has brought the Australian economy to a position where productive capacity is stretched and labour market conditions are tight. While growth in labour costs has been contained at this stage, and high levels of investment are adding to productive capacity in some sectors, aggregate demand has been growing at a pace that has put upward pressure on underlying inflation...The Bank’s forecasts have for some time incorporated the view that there was likely to be upward pressure on inflation as a result of strong demand and tight capacity. The September quarter CPI provided some additional confirmation of that view, and it suggested that the trajectory of underlying inflation was a little higher than previously projected...it is also possible at this stage of a long economic expansion that inflation will be more difficult to contain, particularly if domestic demand does not moderate.

Despite changes caused by global financial market jitters, the real problem in the next parliamentary term is more likely to be inflationary domestic growth, a sit is likely that at both the CPI and underlying measures of inflation will be above 3 per cent on a year-ended basis by early next year.


Geoff Pryor

The Reserve's statement tipped inflation to rise to 3.25 per cent next year, above its 2-3 per cent target band, which meant the Reserve would continue to look to raise rates. Meanwhile Howard continues to throw money around like a drunken sailor.

Treasury projects an economy in which growth and inflation gently slow while commodity prices tumble, with the risk … that global growth is not as strong as expected. This scenario avoids examining Australia's most likely economic problem--- not the chance of global slowdown or a sudden fall in commodity prices---it is that we won't be able to handle the pressures of operating for a very long time at the very limit of our capacity.

So it is the very likely that there will be an interest rate rise in February in an attempt to depress or cool the growth in demand in the surging economy.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:27 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 12, 2007

another skill shortage

The skills shortage is one of those things we've accepted without thinking about it too much. We talk about shortages of health professionals, but they're in one of those areas where the economic and social converge to create a nice sense of public outrage in time for an election. However a society cannot thrive on politically convenient shortages alone.

According to Ashley Hay in The Monthly [subscription only] we're running out of taxonomists.

It's quite sensible to run out of taxonomists in a practical reconciliation kind of way. If you're planning to plunder the landscape the last thing you want is a bunch of extremist taxonomists discovering new and fascinating things living in it. Wentworth would be even more berzerk.

Hay quotes the director of the Australian Biological Resources Study, Cameron Slatyer:

Australia's flora and fauna are more poorly understood than some parts of the Amazon...Almost half the continent has never even been visited by scientists, and in some places the last scientist went through in the 1890s.

Banks and Solander would be mortified.

Some of the best stories of our early white history revolve around the discovery of new species. Wars broke out among European naturalists over the classification of our flora. The playtpus was thought to be a fake assembled from bits of other animals. We've built industries out of terrifying other people with tales of our reptiles, insects and spiders. Some of our most successful movies have relied on the frightening reputation of our natural environment.

Yet amidst all the kerfuffle over loving and honouring our glorious heritage, funding for understanding this particular bit of it has fallen to the point where taxonomists are themselves a threatened species. Where's the patriotism in that? What would Steve Irwin say?

Slatyer says:

Walk into any patch of our bushland and two-thirds of the organisms you see will not have been formally recognised by science.

Most of us have been bitten by things that don't even have names.

Taxonomists have formed a lobby group and they could do worse than try to recruit Bindi Irwin. They're figuring out how to use technology to encourage amateur contributions to the cause. Imagine - you could have a previously unknown fungus named after you. Maybe not as glamorous as a star, but with any luck it could turn out to shoot toxic barbs or something similarly typical of our Australian wildlife.

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 10:04 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

campaign launches

It's campaign launch time at the end of the election campaign that has been going on for a year or so. No doubt we will have lots promises and give aways at the spectacles, which will add to the inflationary pressures noted by the RBA. Both leaders will claim to be both conservative and deeply committed to being economically responsible. It's a topsy turvy surreal world is it not?

Alan Moir

For sure, we will not hear much about spending cuts advocated by the IMF, given that spending promises by both political parties are running at $100 billion. The only other solution is to increase productivity big time. That means increased investment in university as well as vocational education.

However, I don't see this investment happening. Education policy has a couple of decades of history now and there is little sign that either major party is approaching education from a more radical perspective. So the policy proposal announced in the campaign launches are going to be modest, marginal and smallscale. The resources boom indicates that you don't need an investment in lower education to dig minerals out of the ground and sell them to China. Only business leaders need an education.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:44 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

November 11, 2007

Victoria: the smell of police corruption

Something smells in the state of Victoria---it's the police yet again and there are more corruption allegations, this time about undermining the Office of Police Integrity hearings through breaching confidentiality around a criminal investigation. These new claims involve Assistant Commissioner Noel Ashby, the Chief Commissioner's media minder, Stephen Linnell, and police union chief Paul Mullett.

There have been more than 20 royal commissions and other inquiries into the Victorian Police, who are becoming more corrupt, secretive and unaccountable.

Peter Brookes

The Office of Police Integrity - an offshoot of the Ombudsman's office - has being investigating possible links between corrupt police and organised crime, including allegations that corrupt officers had protected underworld figures. The state Government, which has consistently rejected growing pressure for a royal commission in 2004, opted instead to set up the Office of Police Integrity.

The current scandal is part of the saga involving links between police and gangland criminals, the shutting down of the e Drug Squad amid widespread corruption and the Armed Offenders Squad over claims of improper behaviour. Ashby and Linnell now both face possible criminal charges, including perjury and perverting the course of justice.

What of Mullett? Is he politically untouchable? The transcripts.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:48 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

November 10, 2007

profiling swinging voters

Apparently one in four voters no longer aligns with the major parties and they represent the fastest growing category of voters. So you can see why the politicians focus on the apolitical swinging voter. They have to.

Who are the swinging voters? Andrew Clark in the AFR (subscription only) helps us out by turning to the work Rod Cameron, the former ALP pollster, which profiled the swinging voter around 1980. This profile makes interesting reading in the light of policy convergence addressed by Mark Latham in the AFR. Cameron says that for the swinging voter:

politics is dull, boring, and largely irrelevant to their lifestyle. Politicians are held in low esteem. Politics is 'out of touch' with their interests and lifestyles. Interest in political philosophy, ideology, is very low. There is far greater involvement and interest in matters concerning their personal and family's financial wellbeing, and their day-today interests (sport, family leisure) than in simple questions of ideology and government Their catchcry is non-involvement. They abhor political aggression, political rallies and anything which implies (irrelevant ) political involvement

.
It is the swinging voter that is shaping the style and content of the political campaigns.

Cameron goes on to develop his profile of the swinging voter:

They are essentially the products and (supporters) of mass market commercialism, gaining their political information from Mike Willesee (who?) or his equivalent, the tabloid newspapers and occasional commercial news bulletin. They want political stability, predictability, moderation....They are searching for a middle-ground party, a moderate leader who is strong...but can understand and represent their value system...the value ideology of the swinging voter is self-interest: interest in the maintenance of personal wellbeing.

Cameron then links this profile to the political campaign:

the party must concede that rhetoric is more important to the swinging voter than the details contained in policy outlooks. Sloganised epithets ---which reduce complex issues to oversimplified , often distorted, catchcry positions --represent eventually the real reasons why uncommitted, often apolitical swinging voters cast voted for a political party.

It's a paradox isn't it: the people with the least interest in politics generally are reputed to have the most significant impact on the result of a tightly fought election.

This profile ties in with one of Mark Latham's arguments. His central thesis is that middle-class greed has become so all-consuming that both major parties must design their policies to appeal to avarice at the expense of “social justice or redistributive strategies”. There is consequently, he says, no real choice. Latham is talking about the swinging voter.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:12 PM | Comments (25) | TrackBack

November 9, 2007

what ad campaign?

It goes without saying that the logistics of winning government are complex. And getting moreso as the technologies brought to bear multiply and change. It's an industry now not all that distinct from any other entertainment industry, and it mostly uses the same marketing techniques. Whether we like it or not, our new democracy owes more to Australian Idol than Ancient Greece.

We have somehow found ourselves in the permanent campaign without really noticing how we got here. Most of it is so blatant your average political consumer can spot the sales gimmick as easily as they can spot what's wrong with advertising a bag of sugar as fat-free.

My contribution to this blog was supposed to be on election strategy which should have been a doddle. Howard's has always been transparent and simple - basically whistle or wedge. I'd been watching Rudd since he became leader and there's been a clear strategy progession from his early repudiation of the right wing culture warriors to Kevin07 and working families. Tactics along the way have built a seamless strategy stream.

We know it's fatty and sugary, but we want it anyway. Consumers invariably reward superb marketing.

Beyond the whistle/wedge thing the Howard strategy has been a little harder to spot. Regardless of which tactic or issue you choose, it's hard to escape the conclusion that Howard and his marketing machine just didn't see Rudd coming. The word complacent has been thrown around a fair bit, but it's appropriate. By the time the Libs bothered manning the stations it was all too late and the script didn't fit any more.

Either that or the Liberal campaign strategy has been so tricky, clever and cunning that its sheer genius has escaped me, every analyst and commentator in the land, and the majority of the electorate as well.

Then there's the bit of the campaign I've ignored altogether which is the advertising. This is partly because I can't be bothered, partly because people are perfectly capable of deconstructing ads for themselves, and partly because political advertising is generally dull. With the exception of the ads showing Rudd showing Howard's ad, showing Rudd's ad showing Howard's ad, which threatened to launch us all into the twin mirrors of infinity, there hasn't been much to see.

Then last night I turned on the TV in the middle of Today Tonight and caught the end of an ad which seemed to be about the coalition government doing weird things to stop West Papuans getting their message to the United Nations. Did I imagine it? Did anyone else see it? Why run it in the middle of Today Tonight? Are there other groups apart from GetUp and the Exclusive Brethren doing this sort of thing?

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 12:35 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

How Sick My Country

First thing I do every day is to listen to the local and National news on the ABC. Every day I hear a litany of disasters; shootings, stabbings, violence to children, domestic violence, road rage, rapes, burglary, road deaths, white collar crime; the list goes on interspersed in the political and community chatter for law and order action, get tougher, put more in jail and so on.

Very occassionally an academic calls for us to look a little deeper, look at why people behave they way they do. Unfortunately little attention is given to such suggestions. In Europe there is a program sponsored by the World Health Organisation that has been running for several years which addresses many of the causes of our behaviour.

The healthy cities program is centred around ten social determinants of health.The details can be found in the booklet "Social Determinants of Health THE SOLID FACTS."
Ten different but interrelated aspects of the social determniants of health are dicussed. "They explain:
1. the need for policies to prevent people from falling into long term disadvantage;
2. how the social and phychological environment affects health;
3. the importance of ensuing a good environment in early childhood;
4. the impact of work on health;
5. the problem of unemployment and job insecurity;
6. the role of friendship and social cohesion;
7. the dangers of social exclusion;
8. the effects of alcohol and other drugs;
9. the need to ensure access to supplies of healthy food for everyone;
10 the need for healthier transport systems".
Number three embraces early childhood intervention. There are many, many studies throughout the world. One I have examined, followed groups through their development into young adults. Those who enjoyed the benefits of the program compared to those who did not, had jobs, were healthier, committed fewer crimes, etc. The author also said the cost benefits were positive.

The Labor party appears to be adopting this approach. Numbers 4,5 and 6 relate to the Government's Work Choice legislation. Studying these determinants leads me to conclude that when a society is driven only by economic imperatives and the social issues are largely ignored the problems we have today are the result .Things have become even more complicated when we address the community's concern about climate change. We need a change of direction.

The WHO document can be found here.

Posted by Gratton Wilson at 8:37 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

beyond economic election twitter

If we move behind the twitter of the election campaign and the political chatter about who won the weeks campaign to governance, then we have problems looming on the horizon, which will shape how things will change and the policies required to address them.

Nicholson

The unprecedented resources boom, which is currently dominating the Australian economy and shaping government revenue and polices, will continue due to the charging economies of China and India. So what happens when the boom ends? The campaign twitter and chatter is mostly about the past, a strange rewriting of history that ignores the then regulated economy, and a fetish about interest rates as the sign of economic competence and good governance.

Do not the signs point to adverse economic circumstances?

If rising interest rates do mean more pain for heavily mortgaged households, then those optimists at the Australian Financial Review who write the editorials, say that the interest rate increases do need to be kept in perspective:

a booming economy and a roaring jobs market will make it easier for households to afford them [increased interest rates] by taking on extra employment. Indeed bipartisan welfare to work and tax-cut policies are aimed at making it more attractive for welfare recipients and low and middle income earners to increase their hours of work. Work choices also boosted the supply of unskilled jobs, at least until the fairness test came along.

No worries. We just need some real spending cuts. And climate change? Or upskilling Australians so they can participate in a global information economy? Or developing new green manufacturing industries. Or poverty and social exclusion?

John Quiggin gives a different perspective in an op-ed in the AFR. He says that it seems likely that the long period of cheap money that has driven the Australia's housing boom is drawing to an end, thereby creating a situation where high levels of debt becoming unsustainable and consumer spending and demand is reduced. This tightening process, which is already happening in the twin deficit US, will be influenced by the tightening credit and instability in the US, due to the subprime mortgage fallout.

Nouriel Roubini paints a bleak picture with his argument that the credit crunch in the US is getting much worse and its financial and real fallout will be severe:

The amount of losses that financial institutions have already recognized - $20 billion – is just the very tip of the iceberg of much larger losses that will end up in the hundreds of billions of dollars. At stake – in subprime alone – is about a trillion of sub-prime related RMBS and hundreds of billions of mortgage related CDOs. But calling this crisis a sub-prime meltdown is ludicrous as by now the contagion has seriously spread to near prime and prime mortgages. And it is spreading to subprime and near prime credit cards and auto loans where deliquencies are rising and will sharply rise further in the year ahead. And it is spreading to every corner of the securitized financial system that is either frozen or on the way to freeze:

He adds that the reality is that most financial institutions – banks, commercial banks, pension funds, hedge funds – have barely started to recognize the lower “fair value” of their impaired securities.

Of course US optimists, such as Robert Samuelson, whose weekly Washington Post column regularly appears in the AFR, says the slowdown in the US is not all doom and gloom. There are lots of benefits to a mild recession in a self-adjusting market.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:46 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

November 8, 2007

crunch time approaches

It's close to crunch time isn't it. if Howard and Costello don't get traction soon, then the best they can do is stare just defiantly at defeat. Imagine what some of the Liberals are thinking now--what its going to be like in Opposition? Who wants to be leader of the Opposition? Which faction is going to be purged? Will it be a decade on the opposition benches? Why bother.

These are late night thoughts. The early daytime thoughts are much simpler--where is the lifeline going to come from?

Alan Moir

The swing is on---amongst the stars in Queensland and South Australia, but returned to earth in New South Wales and Victoria. Queensland looms as the key battleground for this year’s federal election, and that's why the Coalition is looking for a lifeline. They don't have much time to find one as the national polls are suggesting a comfortable win for Labor.

How will the Coalition defend its stronghold in Queensland? This is the state of bedrock conservatism, despite having a Labor state government.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:56 AM | Comments (23) | TrackBack

Coles: time for a change

I see that Coles has finally been taken over by Wesfarmers. Around 99% of Coles shareholders voted in favour of the $20 billion takeover. They hope that Wesfarmers' strategy to entice more people through the door and to buy more goods on each trip will work. They need to lift their game as the appearance of the store I shop at in Adelaide CBD is grubby, there are many out-of-stock items and the service is poor.

Coles has struggled after several years of declining service levels at its supermarkets, the bungling of the restructure of Myer, and the botched conversion of the Bi-Lo stores to the Coles brand. Not that the John Fletcher management team was willing to take responsibility for the fall in market share to Woolworths, and the destruction of shareholder value. He's too busy blaming others for the woes.

The maxim, bad boards equals bad business, doesn't apply to Fletcher apparently. He pointed the finger at the equity raider Kohlberg Kravis Roberts--they were the problem. They caused instability. Coles are being taken over six years after embarking on grand plans to lift the company's performance. They could no longer go it alone.

Woolworths, meanwhile, goes from strength to strength, as it moves to increase market share at the expense of Coles. They will try to persuade us to buy more fresh food from Woolworths. Well I won't be persuaded. Their fresh food is far from fresh, its expensive and its quality is poor.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:37 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 7, 2007

the other Marx

Jack Marx' style could be described, politely, as an acquired taste. Not everyone's cup of tea. Or tasteless, grotesque, totally unnecessary garbage. He's not for the easily offended.

Then again, some of us feel that way about Glenn Milne.

This is a bit late, given that we've moved on, but if you're broad minded and in the mood for a giggle you might care to take in Marx' version of the "Garrett's Gaffe" story. It's the blue version. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who considers Steve Price anywhere between vaguely credible and a close personal friend. Or anyone with and underdeveloped humour gland like some of the commenters on the site.

A sample paragraph from early in the piece, before he lets rip:

The Big Dick Lounge is the most exclusive den at the terminal, reserved for flyers whose penises are no less than one metre in length and several in diameter, so I was a little surprised to see Garrett and Wilkins loitering among the guild to which I have been a valued member since 2002.

If you're game the whole thing is here.

The Bullring is an interesting source of background and insider commentary. The last memorably colourful Labour environment minister Graham Richardson has a contribution, in which he writes he initially thought Rudd was a bad choice.

"If Kevin Rudd was the answer, it must have been a silly question".

Albrechtson and Overington would probably say the same thing of Garrett, if their feverish imaginations ran that way. For mine, if we're going to indulge the extraordinary fantasies of political commentators they could at least reward us with some gesture towards reader intelligence.

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 11:59 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

RBA increases interest rates

It is as expected. The Reserve Bank of Australia increased the cash rate by 25 basis points to 6.75 per cent. It's tone is hawkish:

Inflation in Australia has increased. Underlying inflation was 0.9 per cent in the September quarter and close to 3 per cent over the past year...The world economy is still expected to grow at an above-average pace, however, led by strong growth in China and other parts of Asia. High global commodity prices remain an important source of stimulus to Australian spending and activity.In Australia, the tightening in credit conditions resulting from the global turmoil has been less pronounced than elsewhere. Wholesale funding costs have risen a little compared with official rates, and some borrowers have experienced an increase in interest costs as a result, but the flow of credit to sound borrowers does not appear to have been impaired.

So much for those who argued that an increase was not needed because of a recession in the US, due to a fallout in the subprime mortgage market. If that does not mean big political pain for the Howard government, then it places them on the political back foot.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:01 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

bombing Iran?

Will the Bush administration use the US's military power to cripple Iran's nuclear programme? Though the new economic sanctions will not cause the Iranians to stop building their nuclear programme, will they deflect the Americans from military action, as the Europeans hope? It is plausible that Washington would endorse Israeli air strikes against Iranian nuclear plants? Does Israel possess the right ordnance to do the job?

Steve Bell

The Iranian defiance of US hegemony in the Middle East will continue as will Iran aspiration to become a regional superpower.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:07 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 6, 2007

Military Colleges

There has been very little public comment about the Coalition's policy of two of the thirty new technical colleges being designated special Australian Defence Technical Colleges. Details can be found in the Technical Colleges Policy paper.

I am concerned about this further Americanisation of Australia. We have seen in TV progams about high schools in the USA which are in effect run by branches of the military. Indoctrination of young people into a military culture is a further move towards a military oriented society. Perhaps if there were a deliberate move to make sure equal attention were given to international problem solving by diplomatic means and social development we might end up with a more balanced society.

Posted by Gratton Wilson at 7:54 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

Pakistan and the war on terror

Does General Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule in a tottering Pakistan indicate that Pakistan is not a mindless American proxy fighting for the US in its war on terrorism? Despite the strong urgings of the US and Britain about retaining democracy the generals were hell-bent on the imposition of emergency rule.

Steve Bell

Recall that President Bush's Bush key theme in his "war on terror" is that he waging a global war for democracy and freedom. He even compares Islamist "plans to build a totalitarian Islamist empire ... stretching from Europe to North Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia" to the Third Reich; and that US-led campaigns have "liberated 50 million people from the clutches of tyranny" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush even goes so far to say that the people in the Middle East are "looking to the United States to stand up for them".

Yet one of Bush's staunchest allies in his global war is squashing democracy and freedom--people have been arrested, fundamental rights have been suspended, television stations censored and stringent media regulations introduced. The US doublespeak becomes all too apparent in the mildly reproachful comment over Musharraf's move, bordering on resignation, by the US spokesmen.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:47 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 5, 2007

the week after last week

Assuming that the election campaign keeps trundling along its current course, the programme this week will include the Melbourne Cup tomorrow, which will give commentators lots of opportunities for corny horse racing analogies. Policy and pork barrell announcements will be treated as a side issue while the hot topic will be which horse Howard and Rudd back in the race.

Funding for South Australian roads is due to be announced tomorrow as well, but that could be held off until Wednesday to generate some noise over the interest rate rise. Howard is already in full spin mode on this, but it wouldn't be too surprising if that spin ends in time for Thursday's messages.

Alexander Downer has already been wheeled out this week, playing the heavy hitter role Tone the Abbott miffed last week. Pakistan, South Australia and whatever gems he's uncovered in his friendly chats with refugee and Muslim groups promise a heady mix. It seems logical that if one of the Liberals' two strengths, the economy, isn't working very well they'll go for the other one - national security. So it's likely we'll be blessed with Al's company on the evening news all week.

Saturday is pencilled in as the big campaign launch. This will be the last opportunity the Liberal Party has to access public funds for political purposes without violating any of the caretaker mode conventions, if I understand things right. We'll be going for growth until our senses bleed.

Working families everywhere will suddenly realise the error of their ways and start telling pollsters they were only kidding, or sleepwalking, or not paying attention. Badly educated postmodern youth will understand that this is about the future and, logically, vote for Howard. Environmentalists will understand that job creation can continue unabated in a global toxic swamp.

Perhaps.

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 5:54 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

me-too

One narrative---say the standard economist's view--- is that economic changes drive political changes. Thus, the Depression led to the welfare state of social democracy. Today, it is impersonal economic forces---eg., global competition, the IT revolution, and the demand for high skills--- that has led to higher inequality; which in turn has meant a shrinking constituency for a populist politics and a larger constituency, among the winners, for the kind of top-down, class-warfare politics that the Howard Government currently engages in.

Nicholson

Another narrative is that political changes drive economic changes---political change in the form of rising polarization has been a major cause of rising inequality. On this account the neo-liberal movement aimed to roll back the centralized welfare state and to give the deregulated market a greater role as an instrument of government.

This led to big business launching an all-out attack on the union movement, drastically reducing workers' bargaining power; freeing business executives from the political and social constraints that had previously placed limits on runaway executive paychecks; reducing tax rates on high incomes; using Work Choices to reduced work conditions and pay. This has resulted in rising inequality.

I used to hold to the first narrative, when a academic. I've swung over to the second, as a blogger who worked in the Senate. Politics rules. Like Paul Krugman I now see the world in political terms. So it was the political choices made by the Labor Party, and not impersonal economic forces, that lifted Australia out of depression and poverty in the 1930s.

Does Rudd signify the beginnings of a new politics of equality?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:29 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

TAFE by passed

It is strange isn't it. The policy emphasis being on investment in skills training and skills formation to address the current skill shortages to ensure ongoing economic growth and prosperity for all. Inadequate workforce skills, it is argued, have contributed to Australia’s declining productivity performance in recent years. CoAG's reform agenda is to improve the skill levels of the Australian population (and thus increase the level of human capital).

Yet both sides of politics continue to ignore the public TAFE sector. Despite the vocational education being traditionally based on the kinds of on-the- job training offered through TAFE, the TAFE sector has become "the great Cinderella" of Australian education.

What we are being offered is a vastly enlarged technical colleges program by the Coalition to address the declining skills formation capacity. So we have a duplication of infrastructure, planning, resources, processes and results that are already available and recognised regionally, nationally through TAFE institutes and colleges.

Why so? Why isn't TAFE being reformed? Isn't this a viable way to address the growing need for more highly developed cognitive and behavioural skills amongst all levels of the workforce?

Is it a case that old policy instruments are now not necessarily adequate for the current situation. The old training regime was structured primarily around trades training, assumed ongoing (i.e. permanent) employment. The ALP's response is Skills Australia, a new institution to advise the government on how to address skills shortages in the work force.

What has happened is the “education” part of vocational education and training has been narrowed into “key competencies”, and then has morphed into “employability skills”.The dichotomy of “vocational” versus “general” education has become entrenched. What has been pushed to one side is the contextual knowledge and information about the trade which enables the worker to become an autonomous learner.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:14 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack

November 4, 2007

missing in action

It's not just Abbott who is missing in action, is it. It is also the media groomed and savvy Costello. He's a good Parliamentary performer--the best in Parliament, but what has he done by way of reform as Treasurer? What is his reform heritage? I can think of the Intergeneration Report? The GST was mostly Howard.

Matt Golding

He hasn't done much for higher education has he? What has he done to enable Australia to transform into an information society? Or enabling Australia to address climate change in a sustainable way? After all, he is Australia's longest-serving treasurer who has brought down 12 federal budgets in succession, 10 of which have been in surplus. So where is the investment needed for more spending on infrastructure and skills formation to give the economy greater productive capacity?

I guess Costello's view is that Australians spend a few months tossing hamburgers, cleaning toilets, while they save up to launch their own digital company and that slow broadband will ensure that this happens. Isn't he an advocate of encouraging parents to spend more on education, with the consequence of public education system increasingly coming to resemble a safety net rather than the quality mainstream option?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:07 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 3, 2007

thinking about neo-liberalism, badly

Andrew Wear, writing in the Canberra Times, defines what he calls the 'essence of the neoliberal agenda, known in Australia as economic rationalism' as follows:

Economic rationalism dominated worldwide economic thought throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It was characterised by a faith in the power of markets and competition to deliver prosperity through the "trickle down" effect of economic growth. Implicit in this line of reasoning was that any form of cooperation, collaboration or government intervention is harmful as it inhibits competition.

Why agenda rather than mode of governance? We know that for the past 11 months, Rudd has been engaged in an act — announcing policies he doesn't believe in and has no plans to implement. Telling the public one thing while secretly planning to do another. Shouldn't we be concentrating on the governance of free subjects?

Wear says that though

some aspects of economic rationalism have clearly become normalised, such as budget surpluses and competitive exchange rates, for the most part, other pillars of economic rationalism such as free trade, privatisation, deregulation, union busting, an insistence on individual responsibility and cutting welfare, have been put on hold, abandoned or reversed.

That's odd. What about Workchoices and welfare to work? Welfare to work---designed to coerce single mothers, disability pensioners and others back into the workforce--- may have been forgotten, but Workchoices? Isn't it a core difference between the two major parties in a me-tooism election.

Wear goes to say that:

In contemporary Australia, the fundamental limit of economic rationalism is that because it is principally focused on the efficiency of markets and the minimisation of costs, it has very little to say on innovation or competitive advantage some of the core challenges facing the nation.In a global economy, competitive advantage increasingly derives not from low costs, but from the development of unique niches in the marketplace, often located in particular places. Thus, Silicon Valley specialises in computer technology and Hollywood specialises in movies. In this context, the things that matter are the education levels of its people, linkages between firms, and lifestyle.

I thought the neo-liberal mode of governance emphasized innovation and entrepreneurship--removing deregulation and government to create space for the market to enable innovation and entrepreneurship. If states are to compete successfully in the global economy of the information society, then they need to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. Isn't that the central narrative of our time?

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:05 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack

pork poverty

A Liberal voting friend recently observed that our local Gold Coast newspapers are full of complaints that the Coast never gets attention from the federal government. During federal elections some parliamentary lightweight might drop in to announce funding for a new bus shelter on the way to a more significant appearance somewhere else, but that's about it. Oh for the attention and barrells of pork lavished on Eden-Monaro.

According to the polls the four safe coalition seats that make up the bulk of the Gold Coast would probably remain safe if the entire coalition resigned. The swing towards Labor is verging on the ridiculous in Queensland, but the Coast remains resolutely devoted to the coalition. So we sit in front of our televisions every night hearing of gold-plated toilet seats and rose garden memorials for somebody's lost kitten being promised to the folk of more marginal electorates. We watch other people's children being hugged and kissed by important people. Are our babies inferior?

The Gold Coast doesn't do too badly out of the state government with major money-spinning attractions like Indy, Schoolies and a more than half full dam. We're a good resource of revenue, water and state Labor votes. But at the federal level we can safely be ignored as a Liberal inevitability.

It's unlikely that droves of worthy Gold Coast residents are wishing they'd voted Labor last time. They're unlikely to be watching the evening news wishing they were as undecided as the people they see rejoicing over all sorts of promised infrastructure improvements. Nevertheless, it's a fact of life that if pork barrell politics has become a permanent feature of our electoral landscape, the permanently marginal stand a better chance of enjoying better outcomes than pockets of loyalty to either side.

My Liberal voting friend comes from a long line of Liberal voters and in an ideal world could reasonably expect some reward for that loyalty. But politics is far from an ideal world. He's in his 50s, insecure in his employment, unhappy with his AWA, annoyed at the state of the roads around here and angry at the distribution of wealth that he still associates with the old white shoe brigade. We both think that climate change is a big problem and if government doesn't start taking it seriously we're on our way to hell with or without the handbasket.

We talk about education psychology and the election. He explains how people have difficulty accepting new information that doesn't fit with their pre-existing beliefs and the various strategies they use to discount, avoid or minimise the relevance of contradictory evidence. I tell him about the polls, the sad state of Liberal Party finances and how last week's tactics fit into the overall strategy. Labor strategy. The Liberals don't seem to have one.

He nods, smiles politely, says the Liberal Party deserves to be massacred but still thinks they're the better choice, then we trundle off our separate ways. I wonder how come somebody who knows so much about psychology doesn't occasionally examine their own, and he probably wonders why somebody who knows so much stuff doesn't do something more useful with their time.

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 4:00 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

November 2, 2007

health reform

Improved after-hours healthcare---ie., after-hours GP services--- is an important policy step and both parties have embraced it. It deals with an equity issue---proving after hours access for the working class who want to see doctors and so ease the burden on the hospitals.

Steve Bell

Larger problems face both parties' plans, in particular the medical workforce shortage, which means any new centres will inevitably struggle to find staff. So what is needed is a national strategic health plan. However, Abbott, and the Howard Government don't see the need for health reform, and are they content to merely increase the number of Medicare items. So the states are pushing ahead their strategic planning and reforms on their own and leaving the Commonwealth isolated.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:31 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 1, 2007

tax cuts v better health care

The Commonwealth Government appears unlikely to take full control of the Mersey hospital until after the federal election due to a medical registration bungle.Then we have a spat that played out on ABC Radio talkback on Tuesday morning between Tony Abbott, the commonwealth Minister of Health and Ageing and Lara Giddings, the Tasmanian Minister of Health over who is lying.

Todays Advocate editorial says:

..the Federal Government’s attitude was to seize the Mersey and worry about the detail later. It never consulted its own health department, bothered to find out how much it would cost, or tell the State Government about its plans … the ad hoc, often chaotic way this thing has been handled at times by the Feds smacks of political expediency of the worst kind.

This takeover was meant to a vote winner and the solution to the public hospital crisis, not just a means to hold the marginal seat of Braddon.

Sharpe

In the meantime we have the background debate between the budget surpluses being returned as tax cuts or invested in better health services. It's an odd debate since a substantial majority of Australians would prefer more goods and services from government, rather than personal tax cuts.

Jack Waterford, writing in the Canberra Times, points to ideology:
The cult of tax cuts, which began in the late 1980s, coincided with a general decline in public confidence in the capacity of the Government to change society for the better. It developed, reasonably enough, into a demand for greater choice in how services were taken up.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:51 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

old media

Regardless of the outcome this election has already had some impressive impacts for an event that hasn't even happened yet. Was it Paul Keating who said that when you change the leader you change the country? It looks very much as though we don't even need the formalities, just the likelihood is enough.

Liberal MPs, eminent conservative spokespersons and assorted media Howard marionettes are already squabbling over their own remnants. Who could have foreseen that the end of Howard would leave the Howard faithful at a loose end? Why did they allow their purpose to become so singular?

Rodney Tiffen suspects that some of our more notable opinion columnists have pro-Howarded themselves into irrelevance. I'd add Philip Adams to the list of used-to-be notables. What's the point of having a resident Howard hater without Howard?

It's probably asking for too much, but it would be appropriate if the casting changes in our political theatre were accompanied by similar arrangements in our media. Despite what our educational culture warriors would have us believe, 30 odd years of communist postmodernist teaching has served us rather well. Unlike the skills shortages we're suffering in other areas, we've managed to produce quite a few bright young things well equipped to replace the current crop.

Take a look at the offerings at the ABC's Unleashed or New Matilda's PollieGraph. The thing that strikes me about so much of it is that, unlike most of what passes for commentary at the moment, many of these people do their political analysis from a social perspective, as opposed to the politics/media bubble that bears no relation to real life.

Too bad the democratic process doesn't also apply to political journalism. Liberal MPs wouldn't be the only ones worrying about their seats.

Posted by Lyn Calcutt at 12:50 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack