John Menadue

  • Evan Williams. Film review: ‘The Big Short’

    An opening title informs us that The Big Short is “based on a true story.” That usually means that the film we are about to see has only a tenuous connection with reality, that most of it is invented and the events depicted may not have happened at all. Is anyone suggesting that the Global Financial Crisis, the subject of this scarifying comedy from director Andy McKay, may not have happened, that the millions who lost their jobs, their homes or their businesses, or saw their families shattered by the crisis were victims of some strange delusion? Well, of course not. McKay’s film is a viciously funny and horrifically convincing account of how the GFC came into being, driven by the base instincts of crooked bankers and cynical financial go-getters.

    It’s based on a best-selling book by Michael Lewis, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, described by Reuters newsagency as “probably the best single piece of financial journalism ever written.” McKay’s film, already a winner of many awards and a nominee for best picture Oscar, I rank as the best single film on the subject – though there haven’t been many. The last big one was J.C. Chandor’s Margin Call, set in the (well-disguised) offices of the New York investment banker Lehman Brothers, whose collapse in 2008 triggered the global crisis. In one of the more poignant moments in The Big Short, McKay gives us a desolate recreation of Lehman Brothers’ abandoned offices, a wasteland of scattered paper, idle computer screens and overturned chairs.

    So it’s funny, it’s sad and it’s scary. I remember when it first occurred to me that stock exchanges were little more than glorified casinos. But compared with those dignified bastions of financial sobriety, with their long-established rules and venerable traditions, the Wall Street financial scene (at least in the years from 2005 to 2008) was closer to a certified mad-house. And as befits a film about an outbreak of collective insanity, McKay’s film is pretty mad itself – a bundle of cinematic tricks with scarcely a moment for reflection or calm analysis. We get it all – jump cuts, freeze frames, little touches of animation, odd mixes of colour and black and white, hand-held camera stuff, and characters speaking direct to the audience as if to vouchsafe some deeper truth. But it’s never overdone, and somehow, miraculously, it works.

    McKay has assembled a top-flight Hollywood cast and given them their heads, with the result that there is much shouting and ranting and a generous scattering of four-letter words from actors of both sexes. Among the standouts are Michael Burry (Christian Bale) a retired neurologist and former Deutche Bank guru who is the first to recognise mysterious trends in the US housing market; Mark Baum (Steve Carell), a hedge-fund manager with a troubled conscience; and a barely recognisable Brad Pitt as Ben Rickert, a retired banker and one of the film’s token good guys. The cast also includes plenty of “himselfs” and “herselfs”, though I don’t think I’d heard of any of them. Margot Robbie is a real-life glamour-puss who appears in a bubble bath quaffing champagne while explaining the intricacies of the sub-prime housing market.

    It’s not important – thank goodness – that we follow what’s going on or understand what anyone is talking about. The gobbledegook of the high-end finance industry has an inscrutable charm of its own – credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities, “ninjo” loans (mortgages issued to people with no job and no income), bespoke opportunity tranches, and my favourite, collateralised debt obligations (CDOs). There’s even something called a synthetic CDO, which I leave to your imagination. But we get the picture: when these guys talk about “shorting the AA-rated tranches of CDOs” we know they’re up to no good. Something has to give, and eventually, tragically, it does. We laugh and seethe with anger at the same time.

    It’s a compelling film – even when we have no idea what actually going on. I had the much same feeling reading Paddy Manning’s book Born to Rule, his excellent account of Malcolm Turnbull’s rise to power and prominence in the worlds of finance and politics. Of course, no one would dream of comparing our esteemed PM with the wicked wolves of Wall Street, but both in their time pursued similar intricate paths of financial wheeling and dealing, and I had little idea of what Turnbull was up to.

    In The Big Short McKay seems to be hinting at something deeper than mere financial skulduggery: his glancing references to cocaine addiction, strip joints, idiotic pop music, drug cheating in sport, and other contemporary foibles suggest that The Big Short is both a critique of market capitalism’s worst excesses and something closer to cultural decadence. Only one banker was charged in the wake of the GFC and nothing whatever was done by governments to tighten regulation in the finance industry. Yes, it could happen again. I read somewhere that Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed socialist candidate for the US presidency, has commended The Big Short as “excellent.” He would say that, wouldn’t he? But what does Malcolm think? Or Bill Shorten? I urge them to see it.

    The Big Short (M) is in national release in selected cinemas. Four and a half stars.

    Evan Williams has reviewed films in The Australian newspaper for 33 years. He is a Life Member of the Film Critics’ Circle of Australia for services to film criticism and the film industry.In 2015 he received the Geraldine Pascal Lifetime Achievement Award for critical writing.

     

     

     

  • John Menadue. Royal commissions – partisan politics or public interest.

    Australia has had a string of politically inspired and often useless royal commissions. The fiasco surrounding Dyson Heydon’s acceptance of an invitation to speak at a Liberal Party dinner made it even more likely that his enquiry into trade unions would be quickly discounted, except for those who wanted to pursue a political agenda against trade unions and by implication, their association with the ALP.

    In response to the Trade Union Royal Commission report, Malcolm Turnbull identified himself with business and the political ‘right’ rather than the public interest or the middle ground. He is consistently taking an ambivalent approach whether it is on climate change, coal mining, gay marriage the republic or the NBN. In response to Heydon’s report, he was not as hectoring as the Employment Minister Michaelia Cash. That is not his way with words, but in substance he followed along.. It was the same on his visit to the US. The tone was different but not the substance. We could do with ’more matter and less art’

    We have had a long list of royal commissions into trade unions. In 1976 the Fraser government had a Sweeney Royal Commission into the maritime unions. In 1982 the Fraser government received a report on bribery and corruption by the building unions. In 1984 the Costigan Royal Commission dealt with racketeering by the Ship Painters and Dockers Union. In 1989 Heydon and Meagher recommended that trade union officials should have the same fiduciary duties and responsibilities as company directors. In 2001 John Howard commissioned the Cole Royal Commission to investigate the conduct of industrial relations within the building industry.

    Despite this plethora of royal commissions, very little resulted.

    Perhaps aware of this record, Dyson Heydon in his final report decided that he had to call to his aid a former High Court Chief Justice, Sir Harry Gibbs. In his report, Heydon said

    ‘Sir Harry Gibbs was universally admired for probity. Near the end of his long life, much of which had been devoted to controversies about the meaning of the constitution, he concluded that it did not matter much for the health of the nation what the constitution meant, so long as one condition was satisfied. That was the inherent decency of the Australian people continued.’

    Mystified as anyone would be by this comment about Sir Harry Gibbs. Richard Ackland in the Australian Guardian commented

    ‘The relevance is mystifying as is the decision to propel Sir Harry (Bill) Gibbs onto the field of battle in this context. Gibbs, while a judge in Queensland, conducted a royal commission into allegations that the National Hotel in Brisbane was the centre of a call-girl operation sanctioned by the Queensland Police. After ruling heaps of available information as inadmissible and accepting an amount of perjured testimony, he could find no evidence of police corruption. This finding was so disastrous that it is credited with empowering the rotten apples in the Queensland police for another 23 years – until the Fitzgerald Royal Commission came along. Why on earth would Heydon launch his trade union report by citing a conservative judge whose name is the kiss of death in the pantheon of royal commissions?’

    Tony Abbott established a royal commission headed by Mr. Hanger on the Home Insulation Program, or pink batts as it was better known. In his report Hanger criticized the commonwealth government for having relied on the states to implement their own occupation and health laws, their own employment training programs and their own building regulations. He said

    ‘To rely on the states and territories to police their own respective workplace health and safety laws seems to have been misguided.’

    What a remarkable thing to say! As even the most ignorant would know, the states have clear responsibility in these areas which they jealously guard. To say nothing of the responsibility of employers. Yet Hanger decided to try and pin responsibility on the commonwealth government and let the states and employers go free. For a political beat-up that is hard to better. It is not surprising that we have heard little further about the first of Tony Abbott’s royal commissions into the previous Labor government’s administration. But it gave Tony Abbott and News Ltd an opportunity to attack.

    Then we had Dyson Heydon on Julia Gillard. In his interim report, Heydon said that Ms Gillard’s ‘intense degree of preparation, her familiarity with the materials, her acuteness [and] her powerful instinct for self preservation made it difficult to judge her credibility.’ In the same vein as Mr Hanger’s report on pink batts this was also an amazing thing to say. Was Heydon really saying that Julia Gillard was too smart for him? Would he have preferred her to be unprepared and ignorant about the material on which she was questioned?

    And despite the royal commission grilling over several days and the media frenzy, Bill Shorten got home free.

    The royal commission into trade unions and the Liberal Party favour corporate style regulation of the unions. They fail to acknowledge that corporations exist to advance the profits of shareholders and in this they get enormous advantages through ‘limited liability’. But trade unions are community organisations established to protect the rights of workers in a marketplace that is heavily biased against them. Union activity in Australia has been largely decriminalized since the 19th Century. Unionists should be penalized for taking action for personal gain but they should not be penalized for acting in the course of an industrial dispute to support their members.

    This royal commission into trade unions was designed to weaken trade unions. Yet trade unions have been a continuing feature of Australian political, economic and social life that protects vulnerable people in the workplace. When asked in 2014 what Australia had done right to defend the economy against chronic inequality that had occurred in the US, Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz said ‘unions’. Republican presidents and business interests have bitterly attacked the role of trade unions in the US. That is one reason why there is now so much alarming inequality in that country.

    It is not surprising that there are strong unions in our maritime, construction and mining industries. Dangerous workplaces will inevitably produce strong unions to ensure workplace safety. Tough work produces tough union leaders. Every ten days there is a workforce death in the construction industry. It is dangerous work. In his cossetted world does the royal commissioner really understand how dangerous construction work can be?

    The royal commissions on pink batts and trade unions have been politically partisan. There are other areas of major concern that would have been a more appropriate focus for royal commissions and transparency. Why did almost 600 of our major corporations pay no tax in 2013-14? That included such companies as Transfield, News Group and Exxon. People damaged by conflicted advice from financial planners in our banks were refused a royal commission. There has been systemic exploitation of workers by such companies as 7-Eleven and labor hire companies. But again, no royal commissions in these far more serious areas. And the one royal commission that we should have had above all others was a royal commission on the flimsy and manipulated information that led us into the Iraq War and tragedy for millions of people, a tragedy that is still unfolding.

    The HSU and the CFMEU are fair game, but the big end of town that funds the Liberal Party is left to run free.

    There is certainly no room in Australia for unionists that are ‘louts, thugs, bullies, thieves, perjurers …. ‘as the royal commissioner described some of them. Laws should be exercised or stronger laws introduced to address these problems. But why be so partisan and allow really big offenders to go scott free just because they are closely aligned to the Liberal Party.

    At the urging of the big end of town who want him to intervene on the side of capital to the detriment of labour, will Malcolm Turnbull over-reach on industrial relations as John Howard did on Work Choices?

  • Another face of the refugee crisis.

    What beautiful photos of refugees – our sisters and brothers, our children and grandchildren!

     

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/frederic-seguin-refugee-photos_us_56a1439ce4b0d8cc10993c79?ir=World§ion=australia

  • Niall McLaren. A case for ‘armed neutrality’

    In its short history, Australia has been among the most aggressive nations on earth, regularly engaging in wars that, on any objective basis, have nothing to do with us. These military adventures cost us dearly in men, material and credibility without ever showing the slightest evidence that they improve our security. Malcolm Fraser argued that we graft ourselves to foreign military powers in the hope that they will come to our aid in an emergency but that this has never benefited us. At present, our military is fully enmeshed with the American war machine at all levels, to the extent that Australian officers serve in command posts in US sectors. However, there is no reason to believe that the US would ever go against its interests in order to rush to our defence.

    Most scenarios envisage that, in future conflicts, our most likely enemies would be either Indonesia or China. Bearing in mind that, by its control of the Strait of Malacca, Indonesia has us and the huge economies of North Asia in a stranglehold, picking a fight with them seems the height of folly, especially as everything says the US would not endanger its relationship with Indonesia in order to help us. China is now our biggest market and supplier so squabbling with them would take especial folly. But there is another problem to bear in mind: with the looming Trans-Pacific Partnership, Australia’s industrial capacity will be further downgraded. Very soon, we will be unable to manufacture any of the most basic requirements for fighting any sort of war. That is, we will be rendered essentially defenceless. I don’t believe this is in our interest.

    My case is that we should immediately begin to move to the defence stance known as “armed neutrality,” meaning we would build our defence capacity to the point where we would be “too prickly” to attack but would have very limited offensive capacity. There is very little reason to believe our northern hemisphere “allies” would be happy with this, because at present, they have the best of all possible worlds. We don’t, and it could easily get very much worse, meaning we would be on our own.

    Niall (Jock) McLaren is a psychiatrist with extensive experience in remote area, military and post-traumatic psychiatry. His politics and interests are humanist, rationalist, socialist and poking fun at the self-righteous.

  • Bob Kinnaird. Turnbull Government buries the FTA bad news

    The Turnbull government has proved just as determined as the Abbott government to hide from the Australian community the truth about what their FTA deals mean for the 457 visa and other temporary work visa programs.

    Under the Turnbull administration, the conclusion of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations was announced on 6 October 2015 and the TPP text released on 5 November 2015. The China FTA (ChAFTA) entered into force on 20 December 2015.

    In both cases, the Turnbull government has treated the Australian community like the proverbial ‘Mushroom Club’.

    The TPP

    Three months after releasing the TPP text, no Turnbull government Minister has yet admitted publicly that it has once again negotiated away Australia’s sovereign right to regulate key temporary visa programs in crucial areas.

    Australia has committed not to apply labour market testing (LMT) or caps (quotas) in the entire 457 visa program to all citizens of Canada, Peru, Mexico, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam; or to all foreign nationals who are employees of businesses in Canada, Peru and Mexico who transfer to an Australian branch of that business (‘intra-corporate transferees’).

    On top of that, Australia has also made a standing offer to do the same for the three other TPP countries without a total 457 LMT exemption (the USA, Peru and Singapore) if they provide access to limited categories of ‘Australian business persons’ down the track.

    The ChAFTA concession not to apply LMT to ‘installers and servicers’ of machinery and equipment on 400 visas has also been extended to eight TPP countries – Brunei Darussalam , Chile, Japan, New Zealand, Peru, Canada, Malaysia and Mexico.

    The only public admission of Australia’s real TPP commitments on what FTA-jargon calls ‘the Movement of Natural Persons’ (or MNP) was extracted from an official of the Department of Trade in Senate Estimates by Labor Senator Penny Wong in October 2015.

    Ms Elizabeth Ward, First Assistant Secretary, Office of Trade Negotiations in DFAT had this exchange confirming LMT ‘waivers’ for various categories of persons from several TPP countries:

    Ms Ward: In this particular agreement what we have done is provide MNP on a category-by-category reciprocity basis. If parties offered to us, then we offered to them. Many of them already have had LMT waived as a result of previous FTAs. The additional LMT waivers, as a result of the TPP, are intra-corporate transferees for Canada, Peru and Mexico and contractual service suppliers for Canada, Peru, Mexico, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam.

    Senator WONG: We reserved policy space for LMT in the Malaysia free trade agreement. Has that been removed by the TPP?

    Ms Ward: That has.

    Ms Ward was not asked why the DFAT TPP ‘Fact Sheet’ failed to mention that Australia had committed to ‘waive’ LMT in 457 visa program and the 400 visa program for the various TPP countries.

    The best that DFAT could do was: ‘Australia’s TPP commitments are consistent with Australia’s existing immigration and workplace relations frameworks and the approach taken in other free trade agreements’.

    Apparently the drafting instruction was ‘Don’t mention we’re removing 457 labour market testing’ after the bruising ChAFTA experience.

    ChAFTA

    The main effect of Australia’s ChAFTA obligations on the 457 visa is that from 20 December 2015, Australia has given up the right to apply labour market testing or quotas in the standard 457 visa program to all Chinese citizens or nationals; and to all foreign nationals who are employees of businesses in China and transferring to an Australian branch of that business (‘intra-corporate transferees’).

    There was no official announcement of this important change by Trade Minister Robb, Immigration Minister Dutton or any Turnbull government Minister when ChAFTA entered into force.

    This was despite Trade Minister Robb putting out two media releases (on 9 and 20 December 2015) announcing that ChAFTA would enter into force on 20 December. Both neglected to mention the 457 visa program changes in the list of claimed ChAFTA ‘benefits’.

    On Friday 18 December 2015, the Immigration department quietly updated its 457 visa website to incorporate the ChAFTA 457 obligations described above, with a link to the relevant legislative instrument. Neither the Immigration Minister nor his department made any public announcement of the update.

    The Immigration Minister also had nothing to say publicly on 4 December 2015 when he signed the formal legislative instrument listing the categories of ‘natural persons’ for which ‘the imposition of labour market testing would be inconsistent with international trade obligations of Australia arising under the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement’. This ‘Determination’ is the only regulatory change needed to implement all of Australia’s temporary work visa obligations under ChAFTA.

    The instrument was simply posted on the Comlaw website along with all others made that day.

    The Turnbull government’s silence on ChAFTA and the 457 visa program follows the same pattern set by the Abbott administration. When the Korea and Japan FTAs entered into force in 2014, there was no public announcement that they removed 457 LMT for all ‘citizens/nationals/permanent residents of Korea’ and ‘citizens/nationals of Japan’; and for all foreign employees of businesses in Korea and Japan transferring to an Australian branch.

    The Immigration 457 website was simply updated, with a link to the relevant legislative instruments.

    In fact, the department’s email advice to Registered Migration Agents on the removal of 457 LMT in the Korea and Japan FTAs even warned that ‘this information is not for external distribution or publication’!

    Apparently the Immigration department wanted migration agents to play their part in keeping the Australian public in the dark about how these FTAs removed labour market testing from the 457 program – or, more likely, their Ministers did.

    The Department also told Senate Estimates in December 2015 that it would communicate any impact of ChAFTA to ‘relevant stakeholders’ – which apparently does not include the general Australian community.

    Conclusion

    The Federal Labor Opposition, having voted for ChAFTA in the Parliament, is not likely to draw attention to the Turnbull government’s efforts to hide the truth about ChAFTA, other FTAs and the 457 visa program either.

    The irony is that it is only because of Labor’s 457 reforms to the Migration Act in 2013 that the Australian community has faintest chance of knowing anything about the impact of FTA obligations on the 457 visa program.

    Labor’s June 2013 457 amendments provide for the Immigration Minister to make a publicly-available legislative instrument setting out the categories of persons in FTAs and other international trade agreements for which ‘the imposition of labour market testing would be inconsistent with international trade obligations of Australia’ (s.140GBA of the Migration Act 1958).

    As a result, the Immigration department must now also publish information on its website and elsewhere about the precise 457 LMT exemptions due to Australia’s international trade obligations, as determined by the government of the day.

    Before Labor’s 2013 amendments, Ministers and bureaucrats had no legal obligation to disclose this information, did not voluntarily disclose it and obfuscated when asked.

    Labor’s decision to support ChAFTA means it is now less likely to hold the Turnbull government to account when it fails in its duty to inform the Australian community about what proposed FTA obligations mean for the 457 and other temporary visa programs.

     

    Bob Kinnaird is Research Associate with The Australian Population Research Institute and was National Research Director CFMEU National Office 2009-14.

     

     

     

  • John Menadue. Australia Day doing well, but could do better.

    The following repost is from Australia Day 2014.

    I wonder what indigenous people thought when they saw Captain Phillip with his ships come uninvited and sail up Sydney Harbour in January 1788. There does not seem any doubt that despite their concerns they were less hostile than we are to boat people 226 years later.

    Succeeding generations came by boat in their millions, including my ancestors who came from agriculturally depressed Cornwall in SS Northumberland to desolate Port Willunga in SA in 1847. Migration has never stopped. It has dramatically changed Australia, mainly for the better.  I don’t think any country has done it as well. It has brought vibrancy and greater openness If I could be more precise, I think Australia has benefited most from refugees.  Whilst the first generation of refugees may often lack skills and education, they more than make up for it in enterprise, courage and risk-taking.  That enterprise and high aspirations are often expressed through their children who often outperform others in education.  Refugees are by definition risk-takers who will abandon all for a new life.  They select themselves much better than a migration officer can ever select them.

    We have seen the benefits of migration refugees and multiculturalism, but seem hesitant about new people.  But this hesitancy and sometimes hostility to newcomers, in time gives way to acceptance and pride in our common achievements.  This has been our experience with waves of newcomers.  Irish Catholics were initially depicted as different and perhaps disloyal.  We were prejudiced against Jewish newcomers.  German migrants, particularly in the Barossa Valley, were harassed for decades. We were sceptical of balts, reffos and dagos We were initially wary about the Indo-Chinese and what damage they might cause to the Australian way of life.  But over time, it changed.  Even the early Afghans who built the transport links in Central Australia now have a train, the Ghan, named in their honour.

    Whilst Australians are invariably hesitant about newcomers, what gives me confidence is our pragmatic acceptance.  That seeming contradictory response is shown consistently in opinion polling and over long periods.  We are favourably impressed with the personal experience we have of the neighbour or shopkeeper who is Italian, Chinese or Vietnamese.  Is there something in the casualness and our easy-going acceptance that overcomes ideological and philosophical opposition?  We eschew the extremes and don’t get too excited by ideologies at either end of the spectrum.  If November 11, 1975, couldn’t even provoke a general strike, what could?  Insurrection is rare.  There isn’t much blood on the wattle.  We bump into each other, but we don’t cause a great deal of hurt

    One important reason for our successful integration of newcomers has been our settlement programs, particularly English language training. Unfortunately the Abbott Government has now taken these settlement services out of the Department of Immigration which is now focussed on border protection rather than settlement and nation building.

    As the host, Australia has particular responsibility to provide opportunities for newcomers. But it is not a one way street. The leadership of the new communities also carries responsibilities. Most have provided that leadership. Some have obviously failed both their own communities but also the wider Australian community. There is a lesson to be learned here.

    I believe that we do not place sufficient emphasis on citizenship, not in the jingoistic way of the United States but as a symbol of our unity. There must be strong commitment to Australia and new comers must place that ahead of loyalties to former homelands. Australian residents or citizens who go to fight in wars in their former homelands must be dealt with very firmly.

    We welcome diversity but not for its own sake. Diversity must be of benefit to the common good. For example we fought too long and hard for the separation of church and state to be prepared to give way to sharia law. We have built a superstructure of enriching diversity. But that diversity has been built on a strong substructure of shared institutions and values…our constitution, the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, freedom of speech and religion, English as the national language and tolerance and equal opportunity.

    In addition to time healing differences, we have also had leaders who have inspired the best in each of us or ‘touched the better angels of our nature’ (Abraham Lincoln).  Ben Chifley overcame public opposition in allowing Jewish refugees after World War II.  Robert Menzies, on coming to office, continued the acceptance of the displaced people of Europe.  Harold Holt skilfully, but in defiance of public opinion, commenced the dismantling of White Australia.  John Gorton and Gough Whitlam continued the process.  When Malcolm Fraser responded to the anguish of the Indo-Chinese people, he knew that he was acting contrary to public opinion.  Bill Hayden and then Bob Hawke supported him.  Yet no-one today would argue that these leaders got it wrong.  We applaud their courage and leadership. John Howard and Tony Abbott were the first post war leaders to break from that bi partisan tradition and engender fear of newcomers.

    Border protection is clearly necessary to maintain public confidence in migration and refugee intakes.  But it is possible to do that, as Malcolm Fraser showed without dividing the country and punishing the most vulnerable people on earth.

    What gives me confidence, is the Australian people.  I know of a Jewish refugee boy who went to school in inner Melbourne after World War II.  He told me his story.  His sister and he were called before the headmaster. As they were leaving his office, the headmaster asked them whose photo it was on the wall.  They didn’t know, but surmised that it might be head of the police or the head of the military.  The headmaster told them who it was, but the name meant nothing to them.  They then asked their schoolmates and were told it was Don Bradman.  That Jewish man said to me recently ‘I knew then that we were safe’.  If the most important public figure for the headmaster was a famous sportsman, there was little to fear and a lot to be looked forward to in Australia.

    Our nation will always be dynamic .It will be work in progress. The Australia of today is vastly different to the Australia of my childhood with its widespread racism and sectarianism. It was socially suffocating. For those changes I am very grateful. There is a lot that we can be proud of.  No country has integrated newcomers as well as we have. But there have been failures and remedial action yet to be taken. We are yet to be reconciled to our indigenous brothers and sisters who watched the European boat arrivals in 1788. We are yet to take our share of responsibility for the displaced and persecuted people of the world.

    Fear holds us back from expressing the generosity we all possess.

  • Brad Chilcott. I donated a kidney to my son. Don’t tell me not to make it ‘political’.

    In early December, I went into surgery to give my eight-year-old son Harrison my left kidney. He heard me groaning in recovery as the anaesthetist put him to sleep a few hours later so that he could receive it. The operation was the first of my life and Harrison’s 13th. He’d experience his 14th general anaesthetic two weeks later when surgeons removed the vascular catheter that had been used to connect the dialysis machine into his heart three times a week for the five months leading up to the transplant.

    After a successful surgery, Harrison had a number of complications that meant an eight-day stay in the intensive care unit of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, followed by another six days in the surgical ward. Daily blood tests, a Christmas Day virus that precipitated an extra five days of hospital hospitality, and then on Sunday, 3 January, our family enjoyed our first hospital-free day in well over a month.

    As is my wont, I covered the process extensively via my social media outlets, interspersed with the occasional comment on the social and political issues of the period – a Myefo update committed to balancing the budget on the backs of the poor here and abroad; welcoming refugees and asylum seekers; supporting my brilliant friend Wawira Njiru’s work in Kenya making sure kids don’t have to go to school on an empty stomach; protecting penalty rates from being cut by people wealthy enough not to be forced to rely on them.

    On Christmas Day, before the infection set in that evening, I took Harrison into hospital for an 8am blood test wearing the full Santa suit I’d donned to give our three children their presents early that morning. I figured if we had to be in hospital on such a day, we should at least make it memorable. We handed out candy canes to taxi drivers waiting at the rank outside, orderlies cleaning the halls and other families having a similar experience to our own. Driving home, I filled the car with petrol in full costume while commuters took photos and small children gawked in confusion. Harrison loved every moment.

    On Christmas Day, before the infection set in that evening, I took Harrison into hospital for an 8am blood test wearing the full Santa suit. That afternoon, resting after a hearty Christmas lunch with the in-laws, I posted on social media: “Trip to hospital – saw Drs, nurses, cleaners, servo staff, RAA and more helping folks enjoy Christmas. Of course they deserve penalty rates” to which one person responded, “Enough politics for the day”.

    It’s easy to understand the sentiment – why sully the joy of Christmas with “politics” when there’s backyard cricket to play and pudding to consume? But if you’re any kind of activist or political advocate, it’s a familiar response.

    Children spending their third Christmas in immigration prisons; Australian Aid set at the lowest level in Australia’s history; health and education budgets being slashed by billions of dollars; one in three Australian pensioners living below the poverty line; climate change; sexism; racism; recognition of Australia’s Indigenous people … the easiest way to avoid thinking too deeply about any issue that arises around the barbecue on the beach is to dismiss it as “politics”.

    This is nothing new – people have always employed the word “politics” in the work of absolving themselves of personal responsibility for addressing inequality, injustice and the exploitation of the earth and its people.

    For our family, however, there’s no amount of using the word “politics” that can distance us from the truth that government-funded healthcare has not only kept Harrison alive for eight-and-a-half years but has also enabled him to thrive despite a range of other physical challenges.

    He’s required a huge volume of medical supplies and medication that have been provided free of charge or heavily subsidised; publicly-funded in-school support services have allowed him to keep up with his peers educationally; 14 operations and more-than-regular appointments with physicians since birth would’ve attracted a financial cost I can’t even comprehend, entirely borne by the public purse.

    So, while it might be easy to dismiss $15bn of cuts to the annual health budget as “politics” when you read it as a headline in the paper, the reality is that those are dollars that may have been spent on a child like Harrison. Forcing people to pay for pap smears and other preventative procedures is either “politics” or it’s a change that will mean some people won’t have their illness diagnosed early or accurately enough with huge impact on them and their families.

    Similarly, cuts to the education budget and the cancellation of the Gonski funding model are either an ideological minefield to be avoided in polite conversation – or it’s $196m that won’t be spent in my electorate alone on making sure that every Australia child receives a quality education . It’s either “politics” or it’s some children missing out on the opportunity to achieve their full potential because of the economic circumstance of the family they were born into.

    For the nurses, service station staff, cleaners and other workers that helped millions of Australians, including Harrison and I, have a good Christmas, penalty rates can’t be dismissed as mere “politics”. They’re students, single parents, new Australians and more who rely on every dollar to make ends meet.

    Children in immigration prisons, women enduring the violence of men, pensioners below the poverty line, parents who can’t afford child care, Muslim Australians being vilified by politicians and abused in our streets, Aboriginal people being forced from their communities – while others treat their experiences as abstract, impersonal political concepts, these people have no such convenience. That which is derided as a topic that should not interrupt the Christmas cheer invades their lives without their consent.

    Harrison and I went back in to hospital last week for blood tests. He’s on a huge amount of anti-rejection medication. We’re in the hands of the best medical practitioners in the field, the nursing and other support staff at the hospital are wonderful and Harrison has all the social scaffolding he needs to thrive. But this situation didn’t happen by chance – throughout Australia’s history progressive people fought for this outcome, so successfully that it would be culturally unacceptable for us to be paying for this level of care. Australians naturally assume it’s what sick children deserve.

    We are living, and grateful, beneficiaries of those who valued other people enough to make politics personal.

    Brad Chilcott is the Founder of Welcome to Australia. This article was first published in The Guardian on 16 January 2016.

  • The Frontier Wars

    The following extract ‘The Frontier War’ was part of an address I gave in September 2013 for the launch of the Catholic Social Justice Statement. It was carried on this blog at the time. It was one of many blogs I have posted concerning the Frontier War and also the Maori Wars. Our military association with New Zealand did not begin in 1915 at Gallipoli. It began when we sent ships and troops to fight against the Maori people in New Zealand in the mid 19th Century.

    The Frontier War

    We have still not properly acknowledged the great damage we have done to our indigenous people. Along with the Australian War Memorial, we still blot out the Frontier War that settlers and the settler parliaments conducted right across our country from 1790 to early last century to dispossess indigenous people. There are no monuments to this long war but even the AWM concedes that 2500 settlers and police died in the war alongside 20,000 aborigines who were “believed to have been killed chiefly by mounted police.”  Informed and engaged scholars like Henry Reynolds in The Forgotten War now believe that the number of indigenous men, women and children killed was probably over 30,000. This was an epic war. Its purpose was the occupation and sovereignty over one of the great land masses of the world. It was to wrest control from a people who had lived here for 40,000 years. This was a war which was much more central to our future than any other war in which we fought. In proportion to our population in the 19th Century which was about 2 to 2.5 million people, this Frontier War was the most destructive of human life in our history. The A W M applauds indigenous people when they fought for the empire, but refuses to suitably acknowledge the 30,000 indigenous people that were killed resisting the empire that was taking their land. The AWM remembers the Sudan War of 1885 in which no Australians were killed in combat but ignores the Frontier War. We easily call to mind “Lest we forget” but it is really “best we forget” the 30,000 Australians who were killed in our Frontier War.

    The “whispering in our hearts” will continue until we are honest about our history, both its glory and its shame. Political slogans about a “black armband view of our history” are designed to avoid the truth and encourage us to forget.

  • John Menadue. Supporting Adam Goodes.

    This blog is a repost from 1 August 2015.

    Adam Goodes has been bullied and vilified because he has reminded us of our dark history and the discrimination that continues against him and many others in Australia today. We don’t like being reminded of the dispossession, killing, poisoning and discrimination against our own indigenous people. We want to forget that 30,000 indigenous people were killed in the Frontier Wars by police and white settlers. Yet we have scarcely a memorial to the 30,000 who died defending their land. The Australian War Memorial turns its back on the Frontier Wars yet with the Australian Government is spending $700 million on the centenary of WW1.

    Why can’t indigenous people behave with respect and go quietly? Why don’t they appreciate what has been done for them? Why can’t they ‘behave well like white persons’ as the CEO of Collingwood Football club said some years ago?

    Adam Goodes is proud of his history and so he should be. But that confronts many people. Their power and prejudice is being challenged.

    He said “If you say nothing or do nothing, nothing changes”. That statement makes Adam Goodes different and the focus of attacks. So many of us don’t want to change and acknowledge our own history. Adam Goodes has clearly shown that he will not “cop shit”.

    He is criticised for what is seen as a war dance, although not carrying any weapons. But we almost all enjoy and respect the Haka and what it means for all New Zealanders, Maoris and non-Maoris. In the struggle between indigenous and non-indigenous people it was Captains Cook and Phillip who introduced guns. Our own society is becoming increasingly militarised and at numerous public occasions, including Anzac, weapons are always on display.

    Adam Goodes is confronting us all and it is good that he does so, even though he is paying a heavy price. In a 2008 essay, he spoke of “being the object of racism so many times that you lose count”. .

    We are all nervous to some degree about the foreigner, the outsider and the person who is different, whether it be on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or even gender. It is foolish to deny that there is racism in Australia – and indeed in each one of us. It is part of our DNA. But a part of us is also generous, open and tolerant. Theologian call it the struggle between good and evil.

    Differences can be unsettling but we can come to value them as they challenge us to think again about the way we are thinking and acting. Adam Goodes is challenging us to be more generous and accepting of difference in the human family.

    In the struggle between the darker and better angels of our nature as Abraham Lincoln called it, leadership is essential. Community and political leadership is critical to keep our prejudices under control and to encourage our better spirits of tolerance and generosity. The statement by over 150 community groups in the last couple of days focuses on just this issue. It calls on us all “to stop empowering the worst elements of human nature”. It features in the SMH poster for this weekend. We do respond to good ethical and moral leadership. And we have seen that in the last week from leaders such as Mike Baird and Jay Weatherill. That leadership has come from state capitals but not from Canberra.

    We badly need more leadership from our sporting leaders and fortunately we are seeing encouraging signs of it to push aside the comments of people like Shane Warne and Eddie McGuire. It is an old tactic to blame the victim.

    Many years ago, our footballers were working Monday to Friday in ‘other jobs’ with football on Saturday. Now many of them are well-paid professionals, like celebrities. They could stop the booing if they decided to stop work and stop playing like good unionists until the booing stops. That would show the solidarity we need from sports people today. The booers must be confronted and not allowed to hide in the crowd.

    I think that former Sydney Swans player Michael O’Loughlin, explained it all very well in the last week. ‘We won’t sit in silence, we will continue to fight for our mob. We will continue to be proud of who we are, what we stand for and what we are fighting for. We live in a great country and we want it to thrive and get better and better. In doing so you have to recognise what has happened in the past to indigenous people and what they continue to go through. For us to move forward as a great country those are the things we need to keep fighting for.’ I don’t think it could have been said better.

    Out of this current orgy of bullying, racism and prejudice we will hopefully become more honest with ourselves and build a more co-operative and tolerant society. The days look black at the moment but we may find in the years ahead that Adam Goodes has done this country another service, even at great cost to himself.

  • Stan Grant. The Australian Dream!

     

  • Anand Kulkarni, Travers McLeod. Battle of ideas on innovation.

    We’re now in a race to the top on innovation. Better late than never.

    Liberating ideas could reboot Australia’s economy, as we argued a year ago.

    Now it seems there are more ideas about how to generate ideas than ever before in Australian policymaking. Both the Liberal-National government (“Welcome to the Ideas Boom” and the National Innovation and Science Agenda) and Labor opposition (“Powering Innovation” and “Getting Australia Started”) have put down markers around innovation in the lead-up to this year’s federal election.

    The Coalition and Labor pronouncements have much in common:

    • growing awareness that our innovation future lies beyond national boundaries – for example, “launching” and “landing pads” linked to innovation hubs abroad, connecting the Aussie diaspora overseas, and new visas for entrepreneurs;
    • support for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) studies, which includes reducing gender disparities;
    • facilitating access to finance for start-ups and innovative enterprises through tax breaks and the like;
    • enhancing digital capabilities, which includes teaching kids to code;
    • fostering greater collaboration, especially between industry and research bodies;
    • new bodies to oversee innovation, science and technology: Innovate Australia (Labor) and Innovation and Science Australia (Coalition); and
    • action on government procurement.

    A common goal, but key policy differences

    Yet within this apparent new spirit of bipartisanship are some key differences. Some are subtle, others are not so. That is before one starts haggling over whose purse is bigger than the other’s.

    The Turnbull government’s package is pitched further down the value chain, notwithstanding measures to promote STEM studies. It presumes a core capability in the economy: the assumption is that what’s missing is the key to unlock and leverage this capability. Coalition policy includes, for example, reforming Australian Research Council linkage projects and connecting industry to innovation infrastructure.

    Labor seeks to build foundational capabilities from the ground up. It puts more emphasis on teaching computer coding in schools, preparing small to medium-sized enterprises to access government procurement, developing a national digital workforce plan and incentives for graduates to start businesses.

    Interestingly, in a political role reversal, the Coalition’s plan has more of a selective orientation by technology and institution. This is reflected in the Biomedical Translation Fund, the Cyber-security Growth Centre and the CSIRO Innovation Fund.

    Labor is more about generic capabilities across the board. This distinction, however, is not black and white.

    Labor emphasises the innovation ecosystems view of the world. It plans to create regional hubs, with university-based accelerators at the core of this approach, and a national entrepreneurship support network. It speaks of an Innovation Investment Partnership to bring together venture capital, superannuation funds and start-up stakeholders to promote new business.

    A distinguishing feature of the government’s package is its emphasis on an innovation culture. Reforming insolvency laws to reduce the stigma of failure is its centrepiece.

    Also noteworthy is a revised approach to measuring research impact. That includes engagement with industry metrics. This is in the spirit of breaking out of research silos.

    Both parties have a “challenges program”.

    The Coalition has nominated five national policy and service delivery challenges. Businesses are invited to submit proposals to address them, with winning ideas to receive grants. The most successful could be accelerated to prototype or proof of concept.

    Labor’s approach is more grassroots-oriented, like in the US. It proposes a portal for government agencies to propose challenges for the public to respond to.

    What more can be done?

    There is strength in diversity and much to commend in both plans. Yet more could be done in the following areas:

    • explicitly linking domestic challenges to corresponding global problems, thereby positioning Australia as a “solutions hub” and a leader in scaleable open-source projects and the internationalisation of ideas;
    • promoting community-driven innovation – greater intergovernmental co-ordination could scale up local solutions to local problems to a regional or national level where appropriate;
    • stronger emphasis on spreading knowledge through the economy, with university “impact” measurement expanded beyond excessive reliance on books and journals, or even commercialisation;
    • a “beyond STEM” approach to innovation, recognising the interdependencies of scientific research and non-research forms of innovation such as design and organisational systems, together with the social sciences’ pivotal role in driving prosperity within innovation ecosystems;
    • defining a stronger role for particular agents and locations – not least cities, women and girls – in the process and outcomes of innovation; and
    • a stronger ”lifecycle” view of innovation and entrepreneurship, going beyond the traditional emphasis on start-ups to include later growth stages in a seamless approach to innovation and wealth creation.

    We need a transforming, global vision

    Finally, to be credible, innovation policymaking must be located within a long-term vision of the structure of the Australian economy we should aspire to. It also demands honesty about the scale of the transformation required.

    So the glass is half-full and rising. There are international precedents more like pints than pots.

    China’s innovation hub, Chengdu, has partnered with European Union companies and organisations to share innovations among small and medium businesses and universities. The US has launched next-generation manufacturing hubs. Even one of the world’s oldest universities, Oxford, wants to be more agile in developing and translating ideas conceived in the dreaming spires.

    Ideas have started to travel the world over. Australia has barely reached base camp in the race to the top.

    Still, it’s encouraging to see Australian policy proposals breaking free of archaic and stifling debates about protectionism and picking winners. The world of ideas knows no boundaries.

    Anand Kulkarni is Senior Manager, Planning & Research, RMIT University. Travers McLeod is Honary Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne. This article first appeared in The Conversation on 18 January 2016.

  • Robin Room and Michael Livingston. Alcohol companies target the 20% of Australians who drink 75% of the alcohol.

    Researchers have known for a long time that alcohol consumption is quite concentrated in a small part of the population. They argue about the exact distribution, but there is substantial agreement that, so long as alcohol sales are not heavily restricted, consumption is distributed in a quite predictable way. That is, there are many light and moderate consumers, along with a long tail of those drinking at heavier levels.

    In Australia, the top 20% of the drinking-age population in 2013 consumed around three-quarters of all the alcohol consumed. The top 5% consumed more than a third.

    The concentration of alcohol consumption among the heaviest drinkers has actually increased in recent years. The top 10% of consumers accounted for 49% of the consumption in 2001, and this had increased to 53% in 2013.

    The heaviest-drinking 20% of the population reported consuming a daily average equivalent to 43 grams of pure alcohol – a bit over four standard drinks. This is a substantial underestimate of their actual drinking.

    The total amount of drinking reported in such surveys is calculated to be about 55% of the alcohol sold in Australia, so their actual daily average is likely to be about 7.8 drinks. This is nearly four times the low-risk limit of two standard drinks per day recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

    The dangers of alcohol

    If you drink enough alcohol, you get intoxicated, making you unfit for a lot of everyday activities. This includes, for instance, driving a car, most kinds of work or looking after children. Apart from these issues of injury and social functioning, alcohol also carries longer-term health risks.

    At an average of four drinks per day, the chances of dying of an alcohol-related cancer or other chronic disease are two in 100 for men and 2.5 in 100 for women. At 7.8 drinks a day, the chances are about five in 100 for men and eight in 100 for women.

    Adding in risks of dying from alcohol-related injuries more than doubles the risk for men, and increases the risk for women by more than 50%. Just considering the risks of health and injury harms, alcohol is by far the riskiest commodity that a majority of us regularly consume.

    The current guidelines “to reduce health risks from drinking alcohol” set upper limits calculated on lifetime death risks from drinking. These are around four times the rate National Road Safety Strategy aims for as an upper limit of lifetime rate of deaths from traffic collisions. They contrast, for instance, with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guidelines on water safety, which aim to keep the risk of death from contaminated drinking water below one in a million.

    Alcohol marketing

    Those in the business of selling alcohol have long known about the skewed distribution of alcohol consumption in the population. In meetings among people in the industry, those at the top end of the distribution are called the “super consumers“, and they are vital to maintaining or increasing sales.

    If all the “super consumers” reduced their drinking to the two-drinks-a-day average recommended by the NHMRC as an upper limit, it has been calculated, based on self-reported consumption, that alcohol sales would fall by 39%.

    In its public face, the alcohol industry takes the line that it is only seeking to protect and promote “responsible drinking”: how to “drink properly”, minimising risks of harm.

    But, in its internal discussions of the need for retailers to “identify and target super consumers”, the industry is acknowledging a large part of its sales are to drinkers who are taking substantial risks with their own lives and the lives of those around them. If all drinkers in Australia were to drink within the government guidelines for low-risk drinking, the alcohol market would shrink substantially.

    If governments want to reduce alcohol-related harms, they can’t rely on the industry’s commitment to responsible drinking. It’s directly against the industry’s interests for the heaviest drinkers (who make up the majority of their sales) to drink less.

    Given this inherent conflict, policymakers should focus on well-evaluated policies such as reduced late-night trading hours for pubs and nightclubs and smarter taxation of alcoholic products. Most importantly, governments should be sceptical of working in partnership with an industry whose interests are diametrically opposed to public health.

    Robin Room is Professor and Director, Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, Latrobe University.  Michael Livingston is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, Latrobe University. This article was first published in The Conversation on January 20,2016.

  • What do we owe each other?

    In this opinion piece from the New York Times, Aaron James Wendland draws on work by Emmanuel Levinas in response to the surge of refugees around the world and particularly into Europe. Levinas describes the allergic reaction to refugees. In response he suggests three things. First, an appeal to the ‘infinity’ in human beings, that other people are always more than our categories can capture.  Second, faces confront us directly and immediately. Thirdly, hospitality involves curtailing our enjoyment of the world when confronted with another’s wants.

    See link to article below:

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2016/01/18/what-do-we-owe-each-other/

  • Evan Williams. Film Review: Carol.

    I’m not alone in rating her the best actress in the world. Or as some would prefer to say, the best female actor in the world. Or more precisely, the best female English-speaking screen actor working in mainstream cinema. And yes, I’m talking about our Cate – up there with Garbo, Hepburn, Streep, destined for legendhood (if I may use that word) – and currently starring in Carol, an absorbing romantic drama directed by Todd Haynes.

    She’s in her usual impeccable form. A critic once said that Cate Blanchett has “the kind of beauty – svelte, ravaged, angular, irresistible on screen – that combines sternness with vulnerability … acutely sensitive, finely nuanced, every twitch and head toss perfectly judged.” Who wrote that? Well, I did, actually – reviewing Rowan Woods’ 2005 film Little Fish, in which Blanchett starred with Hugo Weaving. Her performance was the best thing in the film. Indeed, every one of her films seems to demonstrate some new aspect of her power and versatility. A couple of years after Little Fish, in which she played a reformed junkie in Sydney’s western suburbs, she turned up with a cultivated English accent to reprise her role as the first Queen Elizabeth and won an Oscar. And she’s won a string of Oscars, Globes and similar baubles since.

    But to say that she’s best thing going in Carol may be a little unfair to Rooney Mara, who plays Therese, Carol’s lesbian lover. Mara won an Oscar nomination for her performance, with Blanchett conspicuously passed over, probably on the grounds that she’d won more than her fair share already. And speaking of fairness, why is the film called Carol and not Carol and Therese? The characters have equal weight, the performances are comparably fine. It’s as if Thelma & Louise, Hollywood’s last great all-girl romantic escapade, had been called Thelma, or if someone had made a film of Romeo and Juliet and called it Romeo. I could go on, but it’s time to get serious.

    Haynes’s beautiful and sombre film is drawn from a novel by Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt, from which Phyllis Nagy has adapted the screenplay. By all accounts, Highsmith based the character of Therese Belivet on herself, after an affair she had with a woman in 1948 while working at Bloomingdale’s department store in New York. Carol is set in New York in 1952 (Eisenhower has just been elected) and, as in all the best period adaptations, no relevant background detail is forgotten or out of place. Gleaming Packards cruise the streets, gas stoves are lit with matches.Haynes’s last film, the excellent Far From Heaven, was another story of illicit love set in the 1950s, in which a middle-class suburban housewife has an affair with her African-American gardener. Carol is the better film, and the more daring. Lesbian love is still a no-no for the big studios, and I think I’m right in saying that this is Blanchett’s first venture into full-on sexual passion. Certain male admirers may also be interested to note that it’s the first film in which she gets her gear off, though unlike her great contemporary, Nicole Kidman, in Eyes Wide Shut,s he doesn’t give us the full Monty.(Sorry about that.)

    Carol has been through a difficult divorce from her thoroughly unlikeable husband (Kyle Chandler), and Therese, an aspiring photographer, is coping with a devoted boyfriend (Jake Lacy), whom she doesn’t much care for. The women meet by chance in the toy department of a store called Frankenberg’s (real name?), and are reunited when Therese discovers a pair of Carol’s gloves left (accidentally?) on the counter and mails them back to her. The progress of their doomed affair is chartered with a depth and sensitivity wholly in character with the social constraints and polite inhibitions of the time – routine courtesies become sympathetic gestures, then something more serious, the lightest touch of a hand on another’s shoulder conveying a lingering erotic charge.

    At just under two hours it’s a bit too long, considering that little actually happens and what does happen is largely predictable. There’s a violent twist about three-quarters of the way through which seems oddly jarring at the time but delivers some much-needed dramatic impetus. In its miserable way Carol is a wonderful and truthful work, superbly shot in the best Fifities tradition on 16mm stock by Edward Lachman. The ambience of the time is charmingly recaptured, though someone should have told Todd Haynes that respectable gentlemen never wore beards in those days, no one could take photographs in available light indoors without a flashlight, and that someone as rich as Carol could surely afford to have her piano tuned. According to my life’s companion, “It sounded terrible.” But I suppose that even the best pearls have some minor irritations.

    Carol, rated M, is showing in selected cinemas nationally. Three and a half stars.

    Evan Williams has reviewed films in The Australian newspaper for 33 years. He is a Life Member of the Film Critics’ Circle of Australia for services to film criticism and the film industry.In 2015 he received the Geraldine Pascal Lifetime Achievement Award for critical writing.

     

     

     

     

  • Steve Georgakis. The unholy trinity of sports advertising in Australia – betting agencies, junk food and alcohol.

    Why we shouldn’t be surprised that tennis is implicated in match-fixing.

    The first day of the Australian Open was marred by revelations alleging widespread match-fixing and cover-ups in men’s tennis stretching back more than a decade. World number one Novak Djokovic confirmed he was approached with a reported offer of US$200,000 in 2006 to throw a match.

    Hyper-commercialised sport in the 21st century has resulted in a number of benefits for athletes and spectators. Athletes are able to make significant amounts of money; spectators can enjoy excitement of the highest order without having to leave their lounge rooms. But it is naïve to think that all changes have been beneficial.

    In recent decades doping has consistently been the most-visible negative consequence of commercialised sport. So much pressure is now exerted on athletes that they are tempted, for whatever reason, to take performance-enhancing substances.

    While the Australian public demands a level playing field, Australian athletes and sports have been caught up in doping. For the most part, though, Australian sports are heavily regulated and proactive in addressing doping. But the same cannot be said about gambling.

    Gambling and sport are entwined

    Online and live sports betting has become much more prevalent in recent years.

    All major sports in Australia now have some kind of a relationship with sports betting agencies. Online bookmaker William Hill is the “official betting partner” of the Australian Open and – in a first for a Grand Slam tournament – it has been allowed to advertise inside stadiums.

    For television and pay-per-view providers, sports betting agencies provide significant advertising dollars. Betting agencies, alongside junk food and alcohol, form an unholy trinity of sports advertising in Australia.

    Gambling, particularly on poker machines, can be destructive. So too has sports betting been responsible for creating a new breed of problem gamblers. Sports gambling is accepted as a rite of passage for many Australian males.

    However, sporting authorities are cautious about upsetting their sponsors. Tennis officials largely dismissed the revelations of match-fixing as old news.

    Why tennis?

    Tennis is a sport very suitable for corruption in this hyper-commercialised era. Here’s why we shouldn’t surprised that match-fixers have targeted the sport:

    1. Tennis is a one-on-one sport. If you wanted to manipulate an outcome, you would avoid team sports such as rugby league or netball. Too much can go wrong. Individual sports are different; corruption is easier to organise.
    2. It is very difficult to prove a tennis match has been fixed: a player withdraws in the second set “injured”; a player double-faults on crucial points; a player makes a number of unforced errors.
    3. Tennis players are taught and coached from an early age that they are professional and that they have only a limited time in the game. Money is a considerable concern for players and a great motivator. Those outside the top-ranked players would make more money by match-fixing than by playing on the tour.
    4. Betting markets on tennis matches provide gamblers with an opportunity to wager on a host of “exotic” markets, not just head-to-head betting. This includes markets such as whether there will be a tiebreak set, who will win the next game, or the total number of games played.
    5. It would seem that the authorities are keen not to address the issue. Sporting bodies, for publicity issues, are always keen to deny – just look at the recent FIFA scandal and allegations of widespread doping in Russian athletics.
    6. The lifestyle of professional tennis athletes brings with it lots of down time and boring periods in hotel rooms in foreign countries.
    7. In the commercialised world of tennis, sport has a different meaning. Kids are told about sport’s educational benefits, but they notice in the real world that it is really about making money.
    8. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, sport is a commodity. People’s involvement largely revolves around financial remuneration.

    Steve Georgakis is senior Lecturer of Pedagogy and Sports Studies, University of Sydney.  This article was first published by The Conversation on January 19, 2016.

  • John Menadue. Media censorship and the NBN

    The ABC’s outgoing editor of its Technology and Games subsite, Nick Ross, has claimed that he has been ‘gagged’ by ABC management from publishing further articles about the NBN. He has now left the ABC.

    For link to an article on this latest gag on NBN coverage, see link at bottom to article by Renai LeMay of 14 January, in delimiter.com.

    There is a continuing pattern of failure by the mainstream media to expose the mess that Malcolm Turnbull has left us in the NBN. It has been almost entirely social media, including this blog, that has carried stories about Malcolm Turnbull’s failure in his administration of the NBN.

    There has been an unfortunate habit of successive governments blaming a previous government for its failures on the NBN. But Malcolm Turnbull cannot avoid his responsibility for his decision on the multi-technology mix (MTM) model which incorporates Telstra’s copper network and also for his failure to continue with fibre to the home/premises. The MTM and FTTN are his and only his to own.  The ALP got one important thing right – and that was the importance of rolling out fibre to the end-user.

    In September 2010 Abbott ordered Turnbull to ‘demolish the NBN’. Malcolm Turnbull seems to be doing his best to do just that..

    The same media failure to research and analyse what has been happening on the NBN has been apparent on many other issues. In particular there was a failure to report and analyse government spin on boat arrivals. The ABC, and Radio National in Canberra was one of the west offenders.

    We now know that boat arrivals had been reduced from 48 in July 2013 to 5 in October 2013 when Tony Abbott’s Operation Sovereign Borders came into effect.

    Just as with boats, the media, including the ABC, has failed to properly research and analyse where the NBN is now headed.

    The NBN failure is a major set-back. That is a major story in itself. But the failure of the media to professionally report on the issue is also a major story in itself. A compliant media pulled out all the stops concerning  pink batts and the school building program under the Labor Governments. But the problems with those programs were minor compared with the NBN mess which is now upon us.   The media prefers to turn a blind eye to what is happening with our most important infrastructure project.

    https://delimiter.com.au/2016/01/14/journo-claims-abc-gagged-his-nbn-coverage/

  • How ‘Crazy’ are the North Koreans?

    Joel S. Wit writes about how the North Koreans have played their cards extremely well despite the appalling nature of their regime.  See link to an article in the New York Times, by Joel S. Wit, who is a Senior Fellow of the US-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/opinion/sunday/how-crazy-are-the-north-koreans.html

  • Peter Day. Professional sport needs more ‘Pats’.

    Despite all the feel good talk, the rags to riches stories and wonderful qualities that people like to associate with professional sport, when all is said and done, what really shapes and drives it are these three things:

    1. Results 2. Results 3. Results.

    Winning is everything, and self-interest, the “jockey”. In such a hyper competitive environment, gaining an advantage, any advantage, becomes the Holy Grail. Even a one per cent edge can be the difference between winning and losing, between keeping your job and looking for another. No wonder clubs aggressively pursue all sorts of human expertise: corporate heavyweights, nutritionists, scientists, dieticians, psychologists, lawyers, motivators, and so on.

    It is a terribly costly exercise that demands a 24/7 focus and a whatever it takes mentality. Within this milieu, risk-taking becomes an essential requirement. The temptations are enormous as administrators and participants weigh-up the pros and cons of pushing boundaries to the limit, of ‘tasting that forbidden fruit’. For some, pushing boundaries means relegating athletes to the status of machines to be optimised. When this happens, all sorts of supplements – legal and illicit – are introduced in order to get the ‘best’ out of a player’s body and to enhance performance.

    Thus, sport is reduced to a kind of Machiavellian project where the ends justify the means.

    It is de-humanising. It is dangerous. It is likely to end in tears – just ask Essendon.

    But amidst this brutal, winner-take-all, corporate back-drop, there is another face of sport; a human face that needs to be seen and heard …

     

    You could barely see her amongst the thousands of other supporters, but she was there. She was always there, wearing her club beanie and scarf, waving the team flag and proudly donning her prized t-shirt graffiti-ed with player autographs.

    Pat had followed the club for 50+ years. She was a tiny lady, “Five foot one, dear.” The tape measure disagreed, “Four foot 11 … and that’s it!” There was no argument about her weight, though: fifty kilos ringing wet. But tiny Pat was a giant within the club. She stood like a beacon, shining forth unmatched spirit and loyalty. The players and training staff all knew her, and respected her. Over the years she’d been involved in a host of voluntary activities including organising sausage sizzles for the fans, helping make match day banners, and even washing the odd jersey for “that homesick youngster who still needed ‘mum’ around.”

    Not only that, Pat had been to every match they’d played since 1960; she even turned up without fail on Thursday evenings to watch the boys train. She did concede, however, that there was a little 18 months break when she nursed her husband, Bert, through cancer. “He was my first love,” she said. But other than that, Pat turned up every match day (and Thursday evenings) rain, hail, or shine.   “Just to encourage the boys, mind you; not to pester ‘em,” she’d insist. “I’m no football groupie. Sure, I love these boys, but I don’t want to go clubbing with them, and I certainly don’t want to marry them.”

    Now this day was special for the club. It was their last training session before the Grand Final. Supporters had come out of the woodwork – thousands of them from near and far. What a year it had been: “A miracle”, the papers were saying. A bunch of young upstarts, predicted to finish in the bottom three, now in the Grand Final. The experts were shaking their heads. Pat wasn’t. She didn’t have much time for the experts. As far as she was concerned “They were a bunch of well dressed, overpaid blokes who get it wrong half the time.” Not only was the club a match away from being premiers, but membership had topped 33,000 – the previous best was 25,000 in 1975. Happy times indeed.

    Well, that was two years ago. Today it won’t be so hard to pick-out tiny Pat amongst the crowd. They’ll be no crowd. It had been an awful year for the club. They’d won just six games; worst season in their history; wooden-spooners for the first time. The press had crucified them all year, while many of the supporters tore-up their memberships in disgust. Not only that, the coach was sacked and five players were asked to move-on. But amidst the misery and panic, there she was, tiny Pat, faithfully at the club’s last training session of the season. She was the only one at the ground, save for the players, support staff and the interim coach. It was a “bloody” cold day, too. Never mind, Pat had her thermos: four teaspoons of coffee, a tablespoon of sugar, and a nip of medicinal brandy. This was her thirty-second consecutive year of watching the boys’ Thursday evening training.   She always sat at the edge of the fence behind one of the goal posts. And from her faithful lips you could hear the familiar words of encouragement, words that had echoed around the ground for three decades: “Good mark, young fella; c’mon boys, keep runnin’, keep workin’. Make me proud!”

    A journalist got a surprise when he asked Pat why she continued to be so faithful in such miserable times. “Ya know,” she said, “that Jesus fella knew a thing or two. People loved it when he was workin’ those miracles. Even his best mate, Peter, only wanted the highlights package. But he made it pretty clear, didn’t he: ‘If ya wanna come for the ride, if ya gonna love me, you’ll have to accept that along with grand finals come wooden-spoons too.’   It’s a bit like marriage, isn’t it? My husband and me had a wonderful honeymoon, kinda like winning a grand final; wished it’d never end. But life ain’t like that. He also got sick, got cancer … and it killed him. That was like gettin’ the wooden-spoon; that was a heavy Cross to carry. But it was during that time that I really learned about love, about how to love and how to be a true supporter. I reckon ya need wooden-spoon moments to be a better person.

    “Son, this ain’t just a club; this is my family – it’s my community. I’ve mixed with all types since I’ve been here: rich and poor; VIPs and ordinary folk; and, ya know what, I hadn’t even met an aboriginal before I got involved in footy; what a blessing that’s been.

    “This club – along with Bert, of course – has taught me lots about being there in good times and bad. People need you most when they’re doing it tough, don’t they? When my Bert died, it was this club that paid for his funeral; even held a fundraiser to help with some of the bills.

    “I just love this place … It makes me feel like I belong. Not sure whether you’re too familiar with the Good Book, but there’s a passage I’m especially fond of; it’s the one where our Lord says, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’. I’m no scholar, but I think He was trying to teach us about the importance of staying close and connected. That’s how I feel here: close and connected, like a little branch clinging to its vine … my club.

    “Anyway, son, next year we’ll be a stronger club. We’ve learnt a lot about ourselves this season; can’t wait ‘til training starts again in a few months. Might see you there? Gotta go now, son. God-bless-ya.”

    Fr. Peter Day is a Catholic Priest in Canberra.

  • I stand at the door and knock.

    Pope’s Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees

    January 17, 2016

    Dear Brothers and Sisters,

    In the Bull of indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy I noted that “at times we are called to gaze even more attentively on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of the Father’s action in our lives” (Misericordiae Vultus, 3). God’s love is meant to reach out to each and every person. Those who welcome the Father’s embrace, for their part, become so many other open arms and embraces, enabling every person to feel loved like a child and “at home” as part of the one human family. God’s fatherly care extends to everyone, like the care of a shepherd for his flock, but it is particularly concerned for the needs of the sheep who are wounded, weary or ill. Jesus told us that the Father stoops to help those overcome by physical or moral poverty; the more serious their condition, the more powerfully is his divine mercy revealed.

    In our time, migration is growing worldwide. Refugees and people fleeing from their homes challenge individuals and communities, and their traditional ways of life; at times they upset the cultural and social horizons which they encounter. Increasingly, the victims of violence and poverty, leaving their homelands, are exploited by human traffickers during their journey towards the dream of a better future. If they survive the abuses and hardships of the journey, they then have to face latent suspicions and fear. In the end, they frequently encounter a lack of clear and practical policies regulating the acceptance of migrants and providing for short or long term programmes of integration respectful of the rights and duties of all. Today, more than in the past, the Gospel of mercy troubles our consciences, prevents us from taking the suffering of others for granted, and points out way of responding which, grounded in the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, find practical expression in works of spiritual and corporal mercy.

    In the light of these facts, I have chosen as the theme of the 2016 World Day of Migrants and Refugees: “Migrants and Refugees Challenge Us. The Response of the Gospel of Mercy.” Migration movements are now a structural reality, and our primary issue must be to deal with the present emergency phase by providing programmes which address the causes of migration and the changes it entails, including its effect on the makeup of societies and peoples. The tragic stories of millions of men and women daily confront the international community as a result of the outbreak of unacceptable humanitarian crises in different parts of the world. Indifference and silence lead to complicity whenever we stand by as people are dying of suffocation, starvation, violence and shipwreck. Whether large or small in scale, these are always tragedies, even when a single human life is lost.

    Migrants are our brothers and sisters in search of a better life, far away from poverty, hunger, exploitation and the unjust distribution of the planet’s resources which are meant to be equitably shared by all. Don’t we all want a better, more decent and prosperous life to share with our loved ones?
    At this moment in human history, marked by great movements of migration, identity is not a secondary issue. Those who migrate are forced to change some of their most distinctive characteristics and, whether they like or not, even those who welcome them are also forced to change. How can we experience these changes not as obstacles to genuine development, rather as opportunities for genuine human, social and spiritual growth, a growth which respects and promotes those values which make us ever more humane and help us to live a balanced relationship with God, others and creation?
    The presence of migrants and refugees seriously challenges the various societies which accept them. Those societies are faced with new situations which could create serious hardship unless they are suitably motivated, managed and regulated. How can we ensure that integration will become mutual enrichment, open up positive perspectives to communities, and prevent the danger of discrimination, racism, extreme nationalism or xenophobia?

    Biblical revelation urges us to welcome the stranger; it tells us that in so doing, we open our doors to God, and that in the faces of others we see the face of Christ himself. Many institutions, associations, movements and groups, diocesan, national and international organisations are experiencing the wonder and joy of the feast of encounter, sharing and solidarity. They have heard the voice of Jesus Christ: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev 3:20). Yet there continue to be debates about the conditions and limits to be set for the reception of migrants, not only on the level of national policies, but also in some parish communities whose traditional tranquillity seems to be threatened.

    Faced with these issues, how can the Church fail to be inspired by the example and words of Jesus Christ? The answer of the Gospel is mercy.
    In the first place, mercy is a gift of God the Father who is revealed in the Son. God’s mercy gives rise to joyful gratitude for the hope which opens up before us in the mystery of our redemption by Christ’s blood. Mercy nourishes and strengthens solidarity towards others as a necessary response to God’s gracious love, “which has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Rom 5:5). Each of us is responsible for his or her neighbour: we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they live. Concern for fostering good relationships with others and the ability to overcome prejudice and fear are essential ingredients for promoting the culture of encounter, in which we are not only prepared to give, but also to receive from others. Hospitality, in fact, grows from both giving and receiving.

    From this perspective, it is important to view migrants not only on the basis of their status as regular or irregular, but above all as people whose dignity is to be protected and who are capable of contributing to progress and the general welfare. This is especially the case when they responsibly assume their obligations towards those who receive them, gratefully respecting the material and spiritual heritage of the host country, obeying its laws and helping with its needs. Migrations cannot be reduced merely to their political and legislative aspects, their economic implications and the concrete coexistence of various cultures in one territory. All these complement the defence and promotion of the human person, the culture of encounter, and the unity of peoples, where the Gospel of mercy inspires and encourages ways of renewing and transforming the whole of humanity.

    The Church stands at the side of all who work to defend each person’s right to live with dignity, first and foremost by exercising the right not to emigrate and to contribute to the development of one’s country of origin. This process should include, from the outset, the need to assist the countries which migrants and refugees leave. This will demonstrate that solidarity, cooperation, international interdependence and the equitable distribution of the earth’s goods are essential for more decisive efforts, especially in areas where migration movements begin, to eliminate those imbalances which lead people, individually or collectively, to abandon their own natural and cultural environment. In any case, it is necessary to avert, if possible at the earliest stages, the flight of refugees and departures as a result of poverty, violence and persecution.

    Public opinion also needs to be correctly formed, not least to prevent unwarranted fears and speculations detrimental to migrants.
    No one can claim to be indifferent in the face of new forms of slavery imposed by criminal organizations which buy and sell men, women and children as forced labourers in construction, agriculture, fishing or in other markets. How many minors are still forced to fight in militias as child soldiers! How many people are victims of organ trafficking, forced begging and sexual exploitation! Today’s refugees are fleeing from these aberrant crimes, and they appeal to the Church and the human community to ensure that, in the outstretched hand of those who receive them, they can see the face of the Lord, “the Father of mercies and God of all consolation” (2 Cor 1:3).

    Dear brothers and sisters, migrants and refugees! At the heart of the Gospel of mercy the encounter and acceptance by others are intertwined with the encounter and acceptance of God himself. Welcoming others means welcoming God in person! Do not let yourselves be robbed of the hope and joy of life born of your experience of God’s mercy, as manifested in the people you meet on your journey! I entrust you to the Virgin Mary, Mother of migrants and refugees, and to Saint Joseph, who experienced the bitterness of emigration to Egypt. To their intercession I also commend those who invest so much energy, time and resources to the pastoral and social care of migrants.

    To all I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing.

     

  • The policy scandal of a $11b taxpayer subsidy to private health insurance.

    I don’t think that I can recall a domestic policy that is so outrageous as the $11 b. annual cost to the taxpayer of the subsidy to private health insurance (PHI) companies. The subsidy is paid to policy holders, but it really means that PHI companies receive the benefit of the subsidy. For further explanation of the $11b figure see link to submission below. Repost from 08/12/2013

    (more…)

  • John Duggan. Advice from expert clinicians or the AMA

    For those interested in the cost of health care the recently released interim report by the Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review “obsolete MBS items track one” demonstrates the dawning recognition that there are procedures and tests that do not justify their existence or federal funding.

    The story begins with the decision of Ms Sussan Ley, Minister for Health to form the Medical Benefits Schedule Review taskforce, with a mandate to review the schedule in its entirety. The Task Force is ‘an expert clinician led Medicare Benefit Schedule (MBS) review … established to lead an accelerated program of MBS reviews to align MBS funding services with contemporary clinical evidence and improve health outcomes for patients’.

    The taskforce, chaired by Professor Bruce Robinson, Dean of the Sydney University Medical School, is an expert clinician-led group whose main duty is to align MBS funded services with contemporary clinical evidence and improve outcomes.

    One role of the taskforce of 13 members is to appoint chairs and members of working groups to progress the work using evidence based reviews and data and assessment of literature. Priority areas will include safety, clinically unnecessary service provision and accepted clinical guidelines. It also has the power to recommend adding new services to the MBS.

    Of the host of clinical committees created several have already reported on obsolete items – an interesting group. The strictures about kidney x-rays (MBS item number 58705) illustrate the problem and variety of obsolete and useless procedures recommended for abolition. The gastroenterology group reviewed the practice of treating gastric bleeding by infusing refrigerant fluid into the stomach, discarded soon after its initiation about 60 years ago and which was only used eight times in the last 11 years.

    It is evident to any medical scientist that the review is overdue and can only benefit both patients and the budget.

    Whether the AMA feels happy about the review will be reflected in its attitude to the recommendations of the Task Force.

    John Duggan is Conjoint Professor, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle.

  • Dennis Hemphill. Essendon Football Club

    Their club failed them, but Essendon players can’t excape blame for doping ban.

    Fingers are pointing again at the Essendon Football Club for its failures in the long-running supplements fiasco. This follows the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) decision to ban 34 past and present players for one year for contravening the World Anti-Doping Code.

    A club’s coaches and other officials are supposed to have a duty of care to ensure a safe working environment and practices that are compliant with the anti-doping code. But the club’s failings in this area have already been dealt with. The AFL penalised Essendon heavily in 2013 for health and safety shortcomings that were judged to bring the game into disrepute.

    But what of the players’ liability?

    What does the code say?

    One might be forgiven for thinking that the players were unwitting victims in this saga. They claim to have questioned the supplements regime and believed they were administered thymosin and not the banned thymosin beta-4.

    The 2009 World Anti-Doping Code’s principle of strict liability makes athletes ultimately responsible for what goes into their bodies. It states:

    It is each athlete’s personal duty to ensure that no prohibited substance enters his or her body. Athletes are responsible for any prohibited substance or its metabolites or markers found to be present in their samples. Accordingly, it is not necessary that intent, fault, negligence or knowing use on the athlete’s part be demonstrated in order to establish an anti-doping violation …

    Whether the athletes believed they were receiving thymosin when they were actually receiving the banned thymosin beta-4 is not the question. The mere presence of banned doping agents in the athlete’s system is sufficient for the World Anti-Doping Agency to deem it an infraction.

    The code also makes it clear that in exceptional circumstances (for example, proven unintentional doping) the sanction for the rule violation may be reduced or eliminated, but the infraction stands.

    Some might think the principle of strict liability is too harsh. But the players unfortunately may be barking up the wrong tree if they think they are innocent victims.

    Players implicated

    The CAS decision disclosed material that further implicated the Essendon players. Despite having undergone anti-doping education programs, the players agreed to injections they knew little about, made no enquiries about them, kept the injections from the team doctor and failed to declare them during routine Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency (ASADA) testing sessions.

    Following the decision, ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt said:

    At best, the players did not ask the questions, or the people, they should have. At worst, they were complicit in a culture of secrecy and concealment.

    On this account, it is one thing for players to have trusted team officials and unwittingly taken a banned substance, but quite another not to have consulted the team doctor or disclosed the supplement use to ASADA. Taking this evidence into account, CAS would appear to have no reason to reduce or eliminate sanctions for the anti-doping rule violation.

    One of the take-away messages from the latest stage in the supplements saga is that players will need to be more confident and courageous to challenge the conditions under which they are expected to perform. This could involve collective agreements on the full disclosure of benefits and risks prior to the introduction of cutting-edge performance-enhancement measures and methods.

    At the same time, the bar will need to be raised about duty of care and informed consent. Clubs contemplating the implementation of innovative performance-enhancement methods will need to be especially diligent in understanding their performance, health and integrity implications and ensuring that athletes are made fully aware of them.

    Team officials and high-performance managers might also need to be aware of the power differential between them and players. This can sometimes compromise a player’s ability to question – let alone say no to – what might be considered dubious performance-enhancement regimes.

    All this needs to come in a sport culture where there are high expectations, as well as financial and social pressures and rewards, for playing well and winning.

    Dennis Hemphill is Associate Professor of Sports Ethics, Victoria University. This article was first published in The Conversation on 13 January 2103.

  • John Menadue. Preferential trade deals – gigantic foundation stones or pebbles?

    Malcolm Turnbull has described the TPP as a ‘gigantic foundation stone’ that will deliver ‘more jobs, absolutely’.

    The World Bank now tells us that the TPP will be more like a pebble than a foundation stone.  See following article by Peter Martin in SMH on January 12, 2016.

    http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/transpacific-partnership-will-barely-benefit-australia-says-world-bank-report-20160111-gm3g9w.html

    The following is a repost on the same subject, originally posted on 13/10/2015.

    John Menadue

    Repost from 13/10/2015. 

    After two wasted years in government, it is perhaps not surprising that Malcolm Turnbull would try and gild the lily by telling us that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) ‘was of enormous benefit to us. It is a gigantic foundation stone for our future prosperity.’ What in the world has he been digesting to talk like this? Perhaps he is really extending an olive branch to the Abbott supporters he has vanquished by crediting the Abbott Government with the TPP!

    I have posted many blogs on the exaggerated claims for preferential trade deals pointing out those corporate benefits have invariably been put ahead of the public interest. Informed commentators are also almost unanimous that the TPP, like earlier FTAs with Japan, Korea and China, have been over-hyped.

    Alan Mitchell, the Australian Financial Review Economics Editor describes the TPP as ‘more of a pebble than a gigantic foundation stone’.

    Ross Gittins the Economics Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, says that the TPP ‘is no big deal’.

    Leon Berkelmans, the Director of the Lowy Institute, says of the TPP ‘don’t believe the hype; TPP is stifling rather than sustaining … Don’t get sucked into the lofty rhetoric, it’s wrong’.

    Ian Verrender the ABC Business Editor said that the ‘TPP isn’t about trade and certainly not about free trade. It is about entrenching the interests of major corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens’.

    Joanna Howe, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Adelaide warned that the TPP and the China FTA could prejudice our ‘valuable labour standards’.

    Michael West in the SMH warns that the TPP is a ‘leg-up for vested interests’. Tongue-in-cheek he concludes ‘signing up to the TPP is a bit like buying a used car over the phone with no details as to the state of the vehicle or the clicks on the odometer, but with glowing assurances from the dealer that “she’s a beauty mate, really”.’

    Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics and Professor at Colombia University tells us with Adam Hersh, that the TPF ‘is an agreement to manage its member’s trade and investment and to do so on behalf of each country’s most powerful business lobbies. Make no mistake. It is not about … free-trade.’

    The Pew East-West Centre estimates that Australia will increase its GDP by 0.5% by 2025 as a result of the TPP. Yes, 0.5% by 2025!

    Our Productivity Commission is skeptical about the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) outcomes. It says in its 2015 report ‘That it is not clear ISDS provisions respond to a demonstrable market failure or has been associated with the fostering of foreign investment flows.’ These ISDS provisions in my view are a direct attack on national sovereignty in favor of multinational companies represented by organizations such as Big Pharma and Big Tobacco. Many of these multinational companies thumb their noses at democratically governments by finding legal devices to avoid paying tax.

    In this blog on 10 September this year, I reported that Professors Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer at Victoria University found that the Centre for International Economics estimated that the gain in economic welfare from the three FTAs with Japan, China and Korea, will be only 0.4% of GDP. The CIE study also found that as a result of the three FTAs, Australian jobs would increase by 5,434 by 2035. Yet Minister Robb said that they would increase by 178,000!

    In its 2010 report, the Productivity Commission said ‘The increase in national income from preferential agreements is likely to be modest.’

    We know for instance that the FTA signed with the US ten years ago actually resulted in a reduction of our total trade with the rest of the world by $US53 b. because of trade diversion with the US. It was because of such outcomes that the Productivity Commission has warned us many times that the benefits of FTAs are often exaggerated and the downsides are minimized. It commented ‘Preferential trading arrangements add to the complexity of international trade and investment, are costly and time-consuming to negotiate, and add to the compliance costs of firms and administrative costs of governments.’

    The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is like a babe in the woods in this area and focuses on relatively minor benefits for our farmers and ignores the wider and serious problems of preferential trade agreements. What sovereign rights has DFAT negotiated away under the veil of secrecy? Yet behind this veil of secrecy a host of US vested interests were consulted extensively. The Obama administration was keen to give them a leg up.

    The government has little to show after two years of confusion and lost opportunities.

    • The budget deficit and net government debt are in worse shape than when the Abbott Government took office.
    • Despite the rhetoric, the government did not stop the boats. Boat arrivals fell dramatically from July to Dec 2013, before the turn backs commenced.
    • Company tax was not reduced because our large companies in the Business Council of Australia threw their lot in with the multinational companies to torpedo a sensible resources rent tax package which included company tax reduction.
    • Taxes on middle income earners are increasing through ‘bracket creep’
    • The Abbott government abolished the carbon tax, but we know that a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme will have to be introduced in some form to address carbon pollution.
    • Domestic terrorism has increased, spurred in part by our foolish military incursions into Iraq, Afghanistan and now, Syria. The last Essential Report found that 45 percent of Australians felt less safe as a result of our joining the military campaign against ISIS in Syria. Only 13 percent felt safer.

    With the cupboard bare after two years, the government hypes up the success of trade deals. They attack their opponents as xenophobic and anti-Chinese.

    The government has got itself into a corner with these deals. It should concede its mistakes and negotiate sensible compromises in the national interest. I wonder if Andrew Robb really appreciates the predicament that he has got himself and Australia into.

    The position of the US on preferential trade deals, as on so many other issues, is problematic. The US effectively sabotaged the World Trade Organization’s attempt at Cancun in 2003 to promote multi-lateral free trade. The WTO process was sabotaged by wealthy countries such as the US which refused to reduce agricultural protection. US farmers won the day. So in response to agricultural protection and the power of US business lobbies, President Obama launched the TPP to protect and advance those US interests and in the process isolate China.

    As in so many other fields we are paying a very heavy price for our unthinking support for the US.

  • Evan Williams. Film Review: Paolo Sorrentino’s ‘Youth’

     

    Written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, Youth is a film for the young at heart – or at least for those aspiring to that happy condition. The main characters are a couple of blokes on the wrong side of 70, and it was noticeable at my screening that most of the audience weren’t too far behind. Youth may not have been the best title. For all its undoubted charms, this isn’t a film for the 18-to-24 demographic, much targeted these days by the major studios. That makes it something of a rarity – and a pleasure.

    Sorrentino is keen on the idea of oldies discovering their inner selves and coming to terms with the passing years. His best known film, The Great Beauty, winner of all sorts of awards a couple of years ago, gave us a 65-year-old who has spent most of his life revelling in the fleshpots of Rome before hearing some nasty news. Among other odd characters, the film featured a self-styled “dwarf” and a nun with two crooked teeth. Among other odd characters, Youth gives us a grossly obese sunbather, a naked Miss Universe, a faded Hollywood star (nicely played by a faded Jane Fonda), and an assortment of less than glamorous geriatrics rich enough to stay at a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. The shadow of Fellini looms large.

    Fred Ballinger (a morose and taciturn Michael Caine) and his old friend Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel) are among the hotel’s many disconsolate residents. Fred is a retired orchestral conductor and composer, famous for a one-hit wonder called “Simple Songs”, which he no longer performs in public because, as he somewhat enigmatically explains, it was written for his wife, who can no longer sing. Not even an emissary from Queen Elizabeth herself can persuade Fred to perform the piece for Prince Philip’s birthday. Mick is a film director working on what he believes will be the crowning masterpiece of his career – his “testament”, as he calls it – though judging from the assortment of actors and screenwriters assembled for the project, one doubts that the film will be the triumph Mick is hoping for. Perhaps Sorrentino will enlighten us in a future instalment.

    Youth is described in the blurbs as a “comedy-drama” – a term that always fills me with foreboding. You will have gathered that it is seriously weird – weird, but fascinating, not to say beautifully acted , and above all, quite ravishingly photographed and designed. Sorrentino’s cinematographer, Luca Bigazzi, who also shot The Great Beauty, has a wonderful eye for lush landscapes (or snowscapes) combined with a taste for bizarre, often surreal, compositions. He can find beguiling patterns and shapes wherever he points his camera – hotel corridors, symmetrical archways, rows of reclining sun-seekers.

    The “comedy-drama” consists of long passages of moody introspection relieved by occasional jokes, most of which are funny. There’s a delicious scene when Fred and Mick are relaxing in the hotel pool when a naked Miss Universe slips into the water beside them. Miss Universe is played by an actress called Madalina Diana Ghenea, who appears to have been well chosen for her wordless role. And I liked the scene when one of Mick’s actors (Paul Dano), sporting a little black moustache and an all-too-realistic Hitler uniform, takes a seat in the hotel dining room and proceeds to eat in solitary silence, much to the alarm and indignation of other guests.

    It is a film full of little puzzles and unanswered questions – I’m still not exactly sure what happened to Fred’s lost wife – but the total effect is strangely moving. There isn’t a great deal of cohesion and narrative drive, but Youth is never dull, and whenever things get a little vague or perplexing we are given a lovely piece of visual wizardry. The film is a beautiful affirmation of the power of pure cinema. Of course you won’t see it at multiplexes. Try the art houses instead and you should be lucky. But hurry.

    Youth, rated MA, is showing in selected cinemas.

    Evan Williams has reviewed films in The Australian newspaper for 33 years. He is a Life Member of the Film Critics Circle of Australia for services to film criticism and the film industry.

     

  • Eric Walsh. Tribute to Brian Johns.

    The death of Brian Francis Johns, 79, in the early hours of New Years Day marked the end of one of the most impressive Australian media careers of the last half century.

    During this period Johns engaged in and excelled at the top level of almost all aspects of media affecting the lives of everyday Australians.

    He distinguished himself as a political journalist on The Australian when he was that papers first political correspondent. He then filled similar roles on the now-defunct Weekly, The Bulletin and was later chief of the political office of The Sydney Morning Herald. He went on to fill executive news management positions on that newspaper.

    In 1975 he was recruited to a senior position in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet where he remained for some years under the Whitlam and Fraser Governments.

    Having made a significant mark in newspapers he was to enjoy a similar success in literature as Australian publisher for the overseas Penguin Group for seven years. He greatly increased the number of Australian titles produced locally by this well-known international publisher, becoming a widely respected figure in Australian publishing.

    He was next to impress in the field of broadcasting when he was somewhat surprisingly made Head of Australia’s SBS television and radio networks. He excelled here as an administrator, greatly strengthening SBS by first introducing limited advertising to boost its budget.

    From here his administration skills were recognized and he was appointed to head The Australian Broadcasting Authority. It now seemed inevitable that he would graduate to the top job in Government broadcasting, becoming General Manager of the ABC.

    Johns made his presence felt in all three of these non-newspaper appointments.

    He had had a surprising entry in the field of mainstream journalism.

    Two journalistic giants Maxwell Newton, who turned The Australian Financial Review into a highly successful daily newspaper and Tom Fitzgerald finance editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and founder of the influential political and cultural fortnightly, Nation, were jointly responsible for launching the career of a then largely unknown media star.

    Johns had come to Sydney from Queensland as a boy and won a scholarship to prestigious
    St Joseph’s College where he had a stellar career as a student. On leaving he spent more than two years studying for the Catholic priesthood. He left to become a journalist.

    His career, started quite unspectacularly on the bi-weekly country newspaper, The Queanbeyan Age. Through church contacts he escaped that boredom and gained a position with the Australian Government publicity unit, the Australian News and Information Bureau – by no means the home of Australia’s leading journalistic talent.

    He overcame his frustration and his employment’s limitations by making notable contributions on political and cultural issues – mainly political – for Tom Fitzgerald’s fortnightly Nation.

    In 1964, years later, when Max Newton was hand-picked by Rupert Murdoch to be Editor of his ambitious new National Daily, The Australian, he was aware that significant political journalists in existing media were comfortable and were unlikely to take a risk on the questionable new venture of the then unproven 32 year old Murdoch.

    In conversation with Fitzgerald who had gained a high opinion of Johns from his frequent contributions to Nation, Max was persuaded to take a chance on a young man virtually unknown outside the columns of Nation. He had no cause to regret his gamble.

    A highly successful media career began from here.

    Having later climbed the heights in journalism, literature, administration and broadcasting it was fitting that his career should begin its close by teaching.

    For more than two years he was engaged as Adjunct Professor of Journalism at Queensland University of Technology where he made many friendships and won admiration and gratitude from scores of students. His final days, cut short by his unexpected and ultimately fatal illness, was spent once again in organisation and administration.

    He was Chairman of the Australian Copyright Agency and also Chairman of that body’s cultural foundation, a role he particularly enjoyed as it involved the funding of young writers. He served on the Board of Melbourne University Press and The Southern Phone Company.

    His death marked the end of what was a very well-rounded era of accomplishment by Brian Francis Johns.

  • Commercialisation and the casualness of going to war

    Repost from 23/04/2015.

    If we feel overwhelmed by the crass commercialism of Gallipoli and Anzac, take a deep breath because there are three years to go.

    Target has sponsored ‘Camp Gallipoli’, Woolworths has asked us to ‘Keep Fresh in our Memories’ the losses of Gallipoli ; VB depicted for us actors on the steps of the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance who  tell us to bow our heads and raise a glass of VB in memory of the first Australians who charged and died at Gallipoli. There have been endless advertising and sales of Gallipoli kitsch. Even our Governor General a few years ago fronted at the hotel bar for VB to raise a glass and  money for veterans.

    But the slipping TV ratings suggest we are getting tired of the saturation media coverage and the $400 m spent by the Australian Government on a whole range of Anzac ‘educational’ programs.

    When the myth making all started in 1915 Charles Bean, the official military historian carefully burnished the Anzac myth. Soldiers were strong, adaptable, cheerful, laid-back, but faithfully serving the empire. Not for Bean the harsh realities of war unless they were laced with humour. He didn’t tell us much about the fear, desertion or boredom of soldiers far from home or the horror of it all. He was gilding the lily about the terrible nature of the war in which young Australians were killing and being killed.

    We are told endlessly about how Australians fought in WW!. We are never really asked the very important question of why we fought… in the interests of Britain’s colonial and economic interests,including access to oil in the Middle East for Britain’s navy.

    The last surviving Anzac, Alec Campbell said in 2002 ‘For God’s sake don’t glorify Gallipoli..it was a terrible fiasco, a total failure and best forgotten’. But the Anzac obsession continues.

    To burnish the conservative interpretation of our military history we, and particularly the Australian War Memorial, are very selective about the story we tell. We have selective amnesia. We ignore the Frontier Wars, a race war by white landowners in which over 30,000 indigenous people were killed defending their homeland. In proportion to our population it was the largest loss of life in war in our history. But there is scarcely a grave or a memorial to remember the people who died in the Frontier Wars. Our first military alliance with New Zealand was not at Gallipoli but in the Maori race wars in the 1850s and 1860s.

    Best we forget the Frontier and Maori Wars.

    We choose to make WWII almost a footnote to our military history, but it was far more important to our survival than any other foreign war.

    Old soldiers will scarcely ever tell us about their experiences. They were haunted for years with the horror of it all. But today we don’t seem able to stop talking about Anzac and Gallipoli. We have seen so often on TV a long-lost cousin or a great uncle that has been forgotten. It seems more like sentimentality than grief.

    The careful selection of people and events by Bean diverted attention from the enormous political, strategic and personal tragedy of Gallipoli. We do the same today. We are encouraged to forget the blunders we made as a nation, involving ourselves in wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Like Bean, we divert attention by focusing on the sacrifice and losses by ordinary servicemen and women. We seem to turn ourselves into a knot to avoid facing the history of our military blunders. The same process is now under way with our expanded commitment to Iraq. What we will not acknowledge is that there was no national interest in sending Australian troops to Gallipoli just as there is no national interest in sending troops again to Iraq.

    On Anzac Cove Tony Abbott has told us that our involvement at Gallipoli was ‘right and just’. Others talk of ‘defending freedom’. In my view none of these claims stand up to serious scrutiny.. We were there for the empire.

    The Bean myth-making was essential for conservatives to divert attention from the military, political and personal tragedies; the division at home over conscription; the sectarianism of Billy Hughes and the poverty and unemployment in the great depression. It was not a land fit for heroes. WWI sundered our nation and it wasn’t until 1945 that we really started to put it together again..

    There are two bookends in our celebration of our military history. They are out dependence on the UK and the USA. We try to invent reasons why we fought at Gallipoli, but I have yet to hear a believable account of what we fought for there, except serving the empire. At Gallipoli Australian soldiers flew the Union Jack.  Today we also try to invent reasons why we are fighting in Iraq, but the real reason is the call of the latter-day imperial power, the USA.

    How can we possibly believe that Gallipoli and Iraq is about nationhood? Our involvement in both was for quite opposite reasons – serving the empire. Unfortunately some people believe that nationhood, like manhood can only only be proven in war and violence.

    My main concern about the Gallipoli myth-making and our military history is because it is pushing us steadily further and further down the military path. Our foreign policy has become overwhelmingly militarised. Combatting asylum seekers in Operation Sovereign Borders is an example of how civil policies and programs are being turned over to the military. We are again appointing military generals as governors and governor generals.

    This militarisation of Australia has contributed to making our involvement in wars a quite casual event. The latest addition of 300 Australian service people to Iraq scarcely raised any attention at all.

    Taking a country to war used to be considered the most serious step that any government could ever take. But no more. The parliament doesn’t even debate a new overseas commitment. In an almost unthinking way we decide to go to war again. We commit to war after war and then refuse properly support returning service people.

    As Henry Reynolds put it

    ‘The threshold Australian governments need to cross in order to send forces overseas is perilously low. Because there has never been an assessment of why Australia has so often been involved in war, young people must get the impression that war is a natural and inescapable part of national life. It is what we do and we are good at it. We “punch above our weight”. War is treated as though it provides the venue and the occasion for Australian heroism and martial virtuosity. While there is much talk of dying, or more commonly of sacrifice, there is little mention of killing and never any assessment of the carnage visited on distant countries in our name.’

    In Australia today it is becoming much easier to go to war. War is becoming commonplace and the celebrations surrounding Gallipoli make it more so. Step by step we are moving into very dangerous territory, something that the diggers of Gallipoli or the Western Front would have warned us about. It was so horrible; they didn’t want to talk about it. But we talk about it endlessly.

    We should behave with restraint and put some of the drums and bugles away. Let’s pause and think what we are doing.

    The lesson of Gallipoli must surely be to avoid making the same mistake again…whether it be in Vietnam,Afghanistan or Iraq.

     

  • Peter Drysdale. Taiwan’s Political Choice.

    On Sunday, Taiwan will elect its next president, the successor to President Ma Ying-jeou from the Kuomintang (KMT) party who has been in power for the past eight years and is ineligible to run for another term. The vote will almost certainly record a decisive choice for political change.

    In the run up to the election, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate, Tsai Ing-wen, appears to be heading towards a runaway victory — with polls suggesting that she has about 45 per cent voter support. This puts her far ahead of the ruling KMT party candidate, Eric Chu, with around 20 per cent, and the smaller People First Party (PFP) candidate James Soong with 10 per cent. Around 25 per cent of voters remain undecided. With three-quarters of a million more voters this election than last time, the many young, first-time voters are likely to vote for non-mainstream parties or the DPP.

    A series of political stumbles — with the governing KMT forced to change presidential candidate midway through the election — and a steady trend towards independent-mindedness, especially among the younger generation in Taiwan, has left the KMT government struggling to mobilise its support base. The polls suggest that the KMT might also lose control of the Legislative Assembly for the first time in Taiwan’s history.

    The coming election result will be widely, if wrongly, read as a referendum on cross-Strait relations. President Ma has focused on improving relations with China and negotiated a succession of agreements with the mainland that have seen relations between Beijing and Taipei at their most cordial since the end of the Chinese civil war. The opening of cross-Strait economic relations was given a major fillip in 2008 after the election of Ma and the return of a KMT majority in the Taiwanese legislature. There followed a series of high-level exchanges between then Chinese and Taiwanese leaders that laid the foundations for steps that saw a major breakthrough in the relationship with the eventual signing of Cross-Straits Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) on 29 June 2010.

    But implementing follow-on arrangements to give effect to the agreement wasn’t all smooth sailing. The passage of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement through the Taiwanese legislature was disrupted by the emergence of the Sunflower Student Protest Movement in 2014. The movement gave vent to concerns about incomplete disclosure regarding the nature and potential costs of the agreement, as it related to telecommunications and other issues. And the backing it gained, from the opposition DPP and among students and young people, exposed the underbelly of anxiety about the deepening economic relationship with Beijing and its political implications. Taiwanese are glad to see tensions with Beijing reduced. But many also fear the Ma administration and the KMT might have made Taiwan too economically dependent on the mainland; that might lead to loss of independence and inability to fend off pressure one day to reunify with China on unfavourable terms.

    In fact, the profound political shift in Taiwan is more closely associated with the economy’s failing struggle to re-invent itself. With per capita income around US$22,000, Taiwan is above the middle income threshold, but it has been unable to emulate its neighbours like South Korea and Japan in Asia in climbing up the income scale. Its export-dependent manufacturing sector faces competition from South Korea from above and emerging economies, like China, from below. GDP grew a measly 1 per cent in 2014; wages are stagnating and unemployment, at 4 per cent, is considered high. The irony is that Taiwan’s tortured, ‘one-sided’ economic relationship with China — which Ma had been trying to correct — might well be a core element in Taiwan’s economic woes. While direct trade has opened up across the Strait, Taiwan has continued to restrict Chinese imports and investment, essential to enjoying the fruits of fuller integration into the regional and global economy. South Korea has imposed no similar burdens on its international competitiveness.

    This week’s lead essay from Mark Harrison points out that while the KMT government may have overstayed its welcome domestically, Taiwanese affairs have looked very different internationally. While the Ma–Xi meeting last November seemed merely to confirm the voters’ view that the KMT had lost sight of Taiwan’s democratic ideals and their everyday concerns, internationally it looked like an historic moment in cross-Strait relations and a step towards resolving one of modern history’s longest-standing ideological conflicts. Indeed, one conception of China’s diplomatic intention in agreeing to the meeting was that it was designed to lay down new benchmarks in cross-Strait relations in preparation for working with a DPP leadership.

    ‘Should Tsai be elected president, managing these two very different perspectives will be a key task for the incoming administration’, says Harrison. ‘As president, she will need to take heed of the international view of Taiwan and communicate the reasons why the electorate have voted for a more circumspect relationship with Beijing. Tsai’s task will be complicated by memories of the last DPP president, Chen Shui-bian, which still rankle foreign ministries around the world. At the same time, the United States and Japan have both become far warier of China’s assertive regional policies and a Taiwanese government that is less accommodating towards Beijing may suit their policy responses and leadership inclinations’.

    It’s true, as Harrison says, that from an international perspective, policymaking in Taipei by a government that will base its legitimacy on its openness to public debate and political activism may appear less reassuring than the policies of accommodation with Beijing under Ma. Certainly Washington was anxious to be reassured that Tsai was not going to disturb the status quo on that front. But this is the tide of Taiwan’s modern political history. Beijing has shown respect for the process and provided a bridge to Tsai and an incentive to meet in the middle. And the policy outcomes that open government can deliver on China and other issues will ultimately stand on stronger foundations of political legitimacy.

    Professor Peter Drysdale is Editor ANU East Asia Forum. This article was first published in the East Asia Forum on 11 January 2016.

  • Mark Gregory. Turnbull’s NBN Mess

    It has been an inauspicious beginning to 2016 for NBN Co and the year only promises to go from bad to worse as the rest of the world moves ahead with NG-PON2 Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) rollouts and Australians slowly realise that the spin from Turnbull about how his NBN was going to be fast, affordable and here sooner is nothing more than a bad joke.

    If you’re a critic of the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Multi-Technology Mix (MTM) National Broadband Network (NBN) then you’ll have to get in line to be heard as there is going to be a constant stream of criticism about how Turnbull’s MTM NBN provides slow connections that are fraught with technical problems, suffers from poor performance, does not have enough capacity and has hobbled Australians with nothing more than basic broadband at significantly higher prices than what is paid in other countries competing for the global digital economy dollar.

    And yes it is time that we acknowledge Turnbull’s ownership of the MTM NBN mess, and the broader malaise that beset the telecommunications industry during his tenure as Minister for Communications. Backhaul prices between 100 to 200 times higher than in competing countries, data retention fiasco, legislative and regulatory black holes including the perennial favourite that is mandatory data breach reporting.

    To make matters worse Turnbull appears to be listening to people that definitely had too much Kool Aid in 2015 and rather than fix the telecommunications market mess he appears to be pushing for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to be stripped of its monopoly infrastructure regulation role. Now if this gem actually appears in legislation it will akin to the silly idea to raise the Goods and Services Tax to 15 per cent rather than address the underlying problems with the taxation system, for example, getting the multi-nationals to pay a fair amount of tax on turnover in Australia would be a good start. And we can all remember the Coalition telling us at the 2013 election how they would have the budget back in the black in the blink of an eye.

    What is of immediate concern is the question why NBN Co, a government business enterprise, has adopted such a negative, defensive and at times openly adversarial position. NBN Co needs to look carefully at how its senior managers use social media and to ensure they do not appear to be taking a partisan position in the debate about the merits or otherwise of Turnbull’s MTM NBN.

    Yes, there is a debate and at this point the government is doing a sterling job of stonewalling the media, redacting where-ever possible anything that might provide information about what is actually occurring at NBN Co and using the get out of gaol card that is “commercial in confidence” at any whiff of a question about the NBN.

    It is expected that there will be some rough and tumble along the way. The NBN debate commenced in 2009 with the Labor government’s decision to intervene in the telecommunication industry and went into overdrive in 2013 with the Coalition government’s decision to vandalise the NBN by re-introducing obsolete copper technologies.

    Both sides of politics have sought to use the NBN for political advantage rather than seeing the NBN as a nation building project vital for the nation’s future as a leader in the global digital economy. Along the way politicians have been forthright in their public criticism of anyone that disagrees with their views or statements. It is not for a politician to worry about being technically accurate and you’ll be “foolish” if you call them out for reinventing established science.

    It is vital that NBN Co be a passive participant in the NBN debate and remain open to answering questions from the media and academia. Failure to be responsive to the media and academia will lead to more leaks from within NBN Co, an increase in the number of disgruntled employees and inevitably increased criticism in the public domain.

    2016 will be a tough year for NBN Co and it will be important to offset the growing realisation that over a ten-year period the copper access network technologies will cost far more than what the cost for an all-fibre access network would have been. Over the typical ten to fifteen-year life-time of a fixed access network technology the cost for the copper access network component of the NBN will be tens of billions more than the cost of overbuilding and operating an all-fibre access network.

    So we should expect an announcement in early February that the Connectivity Virtual Circuit (CVC) charge is to be reduced from $17.50 per Mbps per month to $15 per Mbps per month effective in from 1 June. This will give the embattled NBN Co something to spruik about in the lead-up to the Federal election and of course, the Minister for Communications and the Arts Mitch Fifield will be out and about telling all and sundry how the price reduction is a direct result of the government’s MTM NBN approach.

    And most of us would have thought it was because of the ongoing data usage explosion brought about by NetFlix entering the Australian market and opening the door to improved low cost media streaming services. And as we know the silly sausages at NetFlix were anticipating the Australian broadband network to progressively become all-fibre thereby making the delivery of high quality video possible. Oh well, the fuzz that we see around anything moving faster than a snail isn’t really so bad after all is it?

    But there will be no getting around the rollout problems for NBN Co and the need to push people living on the urban fringe that currently enjoy ADSL onto fixed wireless or in some cases onto satellite. It’s all about the science of why Fibre to the Node (FTTN) is a second rate obsolete technology that was never going to adequately cover the existing ADSL footprint.

    At least the genie is out of the bottle regarding the furphy that the MTM NBN would be completed sooner than the originally planned NBN. The NBN was always going to be completed, whether it is or not, by mid-2020 so that its future can be determined by whomever is in government at the time. NBN Co’s future appears to be either sale as a single entity or as a number of disaggregated networks.

    This year NBN Co will need to step-up the rollout significantly, if for no other reason than to head-off what would be very bad news for the government in the lead-up to the Federal election. And as more FTTN is rolled out there will be a slow but steady growth in the criticism of FTTN performance and a key facet of the public face of NBN Co in 2016 will be diverting attention onto more positive outcomes.

    What would throw a spanner in NBN Co’s wheel would be one of the many councils around Australia that own and operate telecommunications networks deciding to rollout FTTP in the high value business centres and inner urban areas within their municipal boundaries. As municipalities in the US have found, it is a good business decision to extend their existing telecommunication capability because not only will FTTP bring in much needed revenue but the council will be able to rollout machine to machine communications (see the Internet of Things) and offer free Wi-Fi without becoming beholden to a Telco.

    2016 promises to be a very big year for the NBN, especially with the first satellite coming online, and the management team at NBN Co will be well aware that any mis-steps will not be welcome news to a government that wants to wash its hands of the NBN as quickly as possible.

    Mark Gregory is Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering, RMIT University. He is Managing Editor, Australian Journal of Telecommunications in the Digital Economy, and Managing Editor, International Journal of Information, Communication, Technology and Applications.

  • John Menadue. Australians who fight in overseas wars.

    Repost from 02/03/2015

    The government has been concerned, as many of us are, about Australians fighting for IS in Syria and Iraq. The government is threatening to revoke the Australian citizenship of dual nationals who involve themselves in this war.

    Whether this will be successful is a very moot point. It is asserted by many that prosecution under our existing laws would be much more effective. But a government in trouble about its own security has to be seen to be ‘doing something’, e.g. revoking citizenship.

    There are an estimated 100 or so Australian citizens fighting with the IS in Syria and Iraq. That number looks to be increasing.

    Estimates suggest also that at least a similar number of dual Australian citizens are fighting with the Israeli Defence Forces. Australians have fought in all of Israel’s wars since 1948.

    The Muslim community in Australia has been very critical of Australians who go and fight under the IS flag but rightly asks why Australian citizens are able to fight with the IDF but not with IS. I would have thought that the policy on this matter would be quite clear – that no Australian citizen should be allowed to fight overseas without the approval of the Australian government and if they do they will be prosecuted and if found guilty severely punished.

    There are several reasons that our Prime Minister and ASIO have given for the apparent double-standard in treatment of Australian citizens fighting for IS and for IDF. The first is that IS has been described as a terrorist organisation, whereas the IDF has not. Second, fighting with an overseas army of a recognised national state is different. Thirdly, the Israeli’s are not under sanctions so the IDF is a ‘free port for Australian volunteers’ according to the former Director General of ASIO.

    If it is maintained that Israel has not been designated as a terrorist state or is under sanctions, it cannot be said that the IDF is not a lethal organisation. In its savage attack on Gaza last year, the IDF made over 5,000 air strikes in which 2,104 people were killed. According to the UN estimates, 69% of persons killed in Gaza were civilians. The Israeli’s lost 67 soldiers and six civilians.

    Where is the balance and logic in the way successive Australian governments have favoured Israel in so many ways? One thing stands out very much; the power of the Israeli lobby in so many countries including our own.

  • Vale Malcolm Fraser

    Repost from 21/03/2015

    I am sure that Malcolm Fraser’s concerns for human rights were always there. But as he grew and matured, that concern flourished and became obvious to all. He became our moral compass on human rights.

    I was first conscious of Malcolm’s concern for human rights when I listened to his speech in September 1975 at a luncheon in Parliament House Canberra to honour Helen Suzman. She was an anti-apartheid campaigner who for 13 years was the sole opponent of the apartheid regime in South Africa’s parliament. For the first time that I can recall, Malcolm Fraser spelled out his opposition to apartheid and white rule in Africa. It surprised me. But, I found it very encouraging. It was the beginning of my better understanding of Malcolm Fraser.

    Later he became a firm opponent of white rule, in Africa. Despite Maggie Thatcher he was determined to do what he could to end white rule in Southern Rhodesia.

    I next became aware of Malcolm Fraser’s concern for human rights in Africa in the first cabinet meeting of the Fraser government after the dismissal of the Whitlam government.

    There had been a lot of media reports in Australia that money raised by the World Council of Churches for humanitarian aid in Southern Rhodesia was being diverted to assist the underground political and military opposition to Ian Smith, the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia. In Cabinet the issue was raised by a senior NSW minister. I was really taken by surprise by Malcolm Fraser’s pungent response. He said that Ian Smith was not only politically culpable for racism in Southern Rhodesia, but that he was ‘mad’. To my knowledge this matter was never raised again in Cabinet, or at least while I was there. No Minister dared!

    In government from 1975 to 1983, Malcolm Fraser took up many of the human rights issues that Gough Whitlam had put on the agenda. Gough Whitlam started the process to establish land rights for indigenous Australians, but it was Malcolm Fraser who had the first legislation enacted.

    From his western Sydney electorate of Werriwa, with migrants from so many countries, Gough Whitlam laid the groundwork  for multiculturalism. The fundamental principle of multiculturalism was that all people deserve dignity and respect regardless of their background. In our white Anglo-Celtic community, that was something quite new. But it was Malcolm Fraser who expanded and entrenched multiculturalism. SBS was established and settlement programs for migrants and refugees were co-ordinated and then well-funded following the Galbally Report.

    Following piecemeal reform by Holt, Gorton and McMahon, Gough Whitlam ended White Australia by legislation. But under the Whitlam Government the abolition of White Australia was never put to the test in the community. Migrant and refugee intakes in the Whitlam period were the lowest since the Great Depression.

    Malcolm Fraser put the abolition of White Australia to the test by accepting tens of thousands of Indochinese refugees.  Through the policies and programs initiated by the Fraser Government, including later family reunion, we now have 250,000 persons of Indochinese background living in Australia. What a great credit they have been to Australia, to themselves and to Malcolm Fraser’s vision.

    He broke the back of White Australia and as an anti-White Australia activist since my university days in the 1950s it was wonderful to see what Malcolm Fraser had achieved. Racism and opposition to foreigners is often a dormant but potent factor in public life, but Malcolm Fraser determined that we had a humanitarian obligation to the people who had fled Indochina.

    He didn’t wait for opinion polling or focus groups to decide what we should do. He gave us leadership. It wasn’t easy given our history of White Australia and the knowledge that fear of the foreigner could be so easily exploited. But with leadership, Malcolm Fraser showed that we all have generous instincts and with his leadership we responded because we knew in our heart of hearts that he was right. If only we had that leadership today!.

    I am certain that my appointment as Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs in 1980 stemmed from Malcolm Fraser’s lively concern about racism. In my posting in Japan, I spoke to scores of community groups about Australia. On almost every occasion I would be asked about White Australia. It irritated me, particularly given Japan’s exclusivist policies on race and migration. As I came to the end of my posting Malcolm Fraser was visiting Japan and he asked me what I wanted to do when I returned.  I mentioned to him how White Australia had followed me all round Japan, so I told him I would like on return to Australia to do what I could to help bury White Australia. His response was instantaneous and to the point – ‘You’re on’!.  Within three months I was back in Canberra as Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs.

    In that role I was able to continue to help expand the Indochina program. But In the department I encountered programs, staff attitudes and a culture  that reflected the old days of White Australia. I set about changing it and was quite public in what I was doing. I know that Liberal Party backbenchers were concerned about my activities. But never did Ian Macphee, my minister, or Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, criticise or ask me to desist. We were all on the same page.

    Almost to the day of his death, Malcolm Fraser was in the front line to support asylum seekers and those whose human rights were being attacked. One of his latest projects was  how the community could be galvanised to support Gillian Triggs the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission who had been so unfairly attacked by our Prime Minister and the Attorney General.

    He took to twitter with enthusiasm to shed light on dark places in our public life.

    It turned out that he and Gough Whitlam had more in common than they knew in those turbulent days of 1975. They were both badly bruised but their personal relations mellowed and healed. The two political titans of our era came to terms.

    Gough Whitlam often said that he hadn’t disagreed with Malcolm Fraser for 20 years! Malcolm Fraser delivered the Whitlam Oration in 2012. He opened the oration with ‘Men and Women of Australia’.

    At the Sorry Day in Parliament House in 2008, most former Prime Ministers were photographed. together. With a walking stick, or ‘cane’ as Gough would have called it, in one hand – he put his other hand on Malcolm Fraser’s shoulder for support. It was quite moving to see the old combatants so close.

    About three months before Gough Whitlam died, Malcolm Fraser called to see him in his Sydney office. He presented Gough  with his latest book ‘Dangerous Allies’. He had inscribed in the book –

    “Dear Gough, with great respect and great affection, Malcolm.”

    It had been a long and colourful journey for both of them, but there was clear respect and affection at the end.

    We will miss Malcolm Fraser’s steadfastness on human rights.

    A light has gone out.