John Menadue

  • Mark Carney and climate change – an historic speech

    The following are extracts from a speech given by Mark Carney, The Governor of the Bank of England at a Lloyd’s of London dinner on 29 September 2015

    He outlines how climate change is a huge financial risk, particularly for investments in unburnable fossil fuel assets. He points out that  the vast majority of these assets could be ‘stranded ‘and that the window of opportunity to address climate change is ‘finite and shrinking’

    The media has described this as a ‘milestone speech’   See link  to full speech and references.

    Extracts follow   John Menadue

    The tragedy on the horizon

    There is a growing international consensus that climate change is unequivocal. 2

    Many of the changes in our world since the 1950s are without precedent: not merely over decades but over millennia.

    Research tells us with a high degree of confidence that:

    • In the Northern Hemisphere the last 30 years have been the warmest since Anglo-Saxon times; indeed, eight of the ten warmest years on record in the UK have occurred since 2002; 3
    • Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are at levels not seen in 800,000 years; and
    • The rate of sea level rise is quicker now than at any time over the last 2 millennia. 4

    Evidence is mounting of man’s role in climate change. Human drivers are judged extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of global warming since the mid-20th century. 5  While natural fluctuations may mask it temporarily, the underlying human-induced warming trend of two-tenths of a degree per decade has continued unabated since the 1970s. 6

    While there is always room for scientific disagreement about climate change (as there is with any scientific issue) I have found that insurers are amongst the most determined advocates for tackling it sooner rather than later.  And little wonder.  While others have been debating the theory, you have been dealing with the reality:

    Since the 1980s the number of registered weather-related loss events has tripled; and inflation-adjusted insurance losses from these events have increased from an annual average of around $10bn in the 1980s to around $50bn over the past decade. 7

    The challenges currently posed by climate change pale in significance compared with what might come.  The far-sighted amongst you are anticipating broader global impacts on property, migration and political stability, as well as food and water security.

    We don’t need an army of actuaries to tell us that the catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors – imposing a cost on future generations that the current generation has no direct incentive to fix.

    That means beyond:

    • the business cycle; 9
    • the political cycle; and
    • the horizon of technocratic authorities, like central banks, who are bound by their mandates.

    The horizon for monetary policy extends out to 2-3 years. For financial stability it is a bit longer, but typically only to the outer boundaries of the credit cycle – about a decade. 10

    In other words, once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late.

    This paradox is deeper, as Lord Stern and others have amply demonstrated. As risks are a function of cumulative emissions, earlier action will mean less costly adjustment. 11

    The desirability of restricting climate change to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels 12 leads to the notion of a carbon ‘budget’, an assessment of the amount of emissions the world can ‘afford’.

    Such a budget – like the one produced by the IPCC 13  – highlights the consequences of inaction today for the scale of reaction required tomorrow.

    These actions will be influenced by policy choices that are rightly the responsibility of elected governments, advised by scientific experts.  In ten weeks representatives of 196 countries will gather in Paris at the COP21 summit to consider the world’s response to climate change. It is governments who must choose whether, and how, to pursue that 2 degree world.

    Climate change and financial stability

    There are three broad channels through which climate change can affect financial stability:

    – First, physical risks: the impacts today on insurance liabilities and the value of financial assets that arise from climate- and weather-related events, such as floods and storms that damage property or disrupt trade;

    – Second, liability risks: the impacts that could arise tomorrow if parties who have suffered loss or damage from the effects of climate change seek compensation from those they hold responsible.  Such claims could come decades in the future, but have the potential to hit carbon extractors and emitters – and, if they have liability cover, their insurers – the hardest;

    – Finally, transition risks: the financial risks which could result from the process of adjustment towards a lower-carbon economy.  Changes in policy, technology and physical risks could prompt a reassessment of the value of a large range of assets as costs and opportunities become apparent.

    The speed at which such re-pricing occurs is uncertain and could be decisive for financial stability.  There have already been a few high profile examples of jump-to-distress pricing because of shifts in environmental policy or performance.

    Risks to financial stability will be minimised if the transition begins early and follows a predictable path, thereby helping the market anticipate the transition to a 2 degree world.

    Transition risks

    The UK insurance sector manages almost £2tn in assets to match liabilities that often span decades. While a given physical manifestation of climate change – a flood or storm – may not directly affect a corporate bond’s value, policy action to promote the transition towards a low-carbon economy could spark a fundamental reassessment.

    Take, for example, the IPCC’s estimate of a carbon budget that would likely limit global temperature rises to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

    That budget amounts to between 1/5th and 1/3rd world’s proven reserves of oil, gas and coal. 24

    If that estimate is even approximately correct it would render the vast majority of reserves “stranded” – oil, gas and coal that will be literally unburnable without expensive carbon capture technology, which itself alters fossil fuel economics. 25

    The exposure of UK investors, including insurance companies, to these shifts is potentially huge.

    Conclusion

    Our societies face a series of profound environmental and social challenges.

    The combination of the weight of scientific evidence and the dynamics of the financial system suggest that, in the fullness of time, climate change will threaten financial resilience and longer-term prosperity.

    While there is still time to act, the window of opportunity is finite and shrinking. 31

    Others will need to learn from Lloyd’s example in combining data, technology and expert judgment to measure and manage risks.

    The December meetings in Paris will work towards plans to curb carbon emissions and encourage the funding of new technologies.

    We will need the market to work alongside in order to maximise their impact.

    With better information as a foundation, we can build a virtuous circle of better understanding of tomorrow’s risks, better pricing for investors, better decisions by policymakers, and a smoother transition to a lower-carbon economy.

    By managing what gets measured, we can break the Tragedy of the Horizon.

  • Libby Lloyd. Coming to grips with our domestic war

    For many reasons there is currently a much greater interest in the issue of domestic and family violence. This derives from increased media attention, the significant increase in intimate partner homicides (64 so far this year), the vastly improved police and legal response, constant revision and improvement of state and federal laws, as well as the appointment of Rosie Batty as Australian of the year. There has been a recent enquiry in Queensland and there is currently a Royal Commission in Victoria. We’ve had plenty of enquiries. How much more discussion on the topic do we need? We can already be quite confident we know enough about the causes of this violence and we also know what needs to be done. We just need to get on and do it.

    Roughly speaking one in three Australian women report having experienced physical violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime. One in four children has witnessed domestic or family violence and one in five women report sexual assault (frequently within their relationship).

    Violence against women costs the Australian economy $13.6b a year! KPMG was commissioned in 2008 to cost violence against women and their calculations include: pain, suffering and premature mortality; costs for health (treating effects); protection related costs (eg absence from work); consumption related costs (damaged property, moving etc); second generation costs (ongoing costs related to the children); administrative costs (police, incarceration, courts, counselling, violence prevention); and transfer costs (payment of government benefits).

    For many reasons it is a challenge to quantify domestic and family violence and sexual assault – mainly because we can never be certain of the number of non-reports and different jurisdictions record the data differently. But we do know that women are becoming increasingly confident to report and this may explain the increased number of reports – or perhaps the prevalence is increasing – or both.

    The legal definition of domestic violence varies slightly within jurisdictions but by and large covers physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse. The term violence covers excessively controlling behaviours, such as stalking, refusing to allow external contacts, friendships or access to family, limiting access to money, denying liberty as well as physical violence. And we also know that women and children are overwhelmingly the victims of domestic violence, and men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of violence. We must also take account of the facts that men can be more physically violent and generally they are physically stronger.

    Many factors contribute to domestic and family violence and sexual assault such as the abuse of alcohol, use of drugs, mental health issues, pregnancy and separation may all increase the risk of domestic violence. Financial stress, personal stress and lack of social support are also strong correlates of violence against women. We are yet to fully understand whether these factors are primarily causes or consequences of violence against women.

    Many women in abusive relationships return to the perpetrator of the violence and try to reconcile, they just want the violence to stop. It is a major step for many women to extricate themselves from violent relationships – their children are linked to their local schools and community, there are emotional, financial and other inter-dependencies.

     

    Australia has increasingly developed better responses to domestic violence much of it built on the work and advocacy of feminists in the 1970s. The first women’s refuge in Australia (Elsie) opened in NSW in 1974 with funding support from the Whitlam government in 1975. Successive governments have built on this response with increasingly effective preventive programs, support for victims/survivors and their families and law enforcement. Each jurisdiction in Australia has in place a variety of laws, programs and policies responding to, and attempting to prevent domestic violence.  Each jurisdiction funds its own programs and systems, and there are also some Australian Government funded programs operating in the states and territories, particularly supported accommodation and safe houses.

    What is new and is a really important initiative is the 12 year National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (2010-2022). The National Plan demonstrates that violence against women is a complex issue and needs a wide range of targeted and properly funded responses.

    There has been a National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (2010-2022) in place already for 5 years. This Plan is based on the 2009 report ‘Time for Action’ presented by the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children which was established by Prime Minister Rudd in 2008. The National Action Plan clearly outlines a very broad range of actions that need to be undertaken. All States and territories have signed on to the Commonwealth’s National Action Plan and each has developed its own Action Plan that joins up with the Commonwealth’s Plan. This is landmark moment as now all States and Territories and the Commonwealth are working together in a coordinated long-term effort to address violence against women. Now we can keep building and improving on the initiatives that prove successful.

    It is a long-term Plan (4 sub-plans each of 3 years) each building on the previous plan(s). It is bi-partisan and was agreed by COAG in 2009 by the Prime-Minister and all First Ministers and it has continued strong support despite changes of governments. It has a strong focus on prevention. For the first time sexual assault is joined up with domestic and family violence. It aligns and joins up with other initiatives among which are: the National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children (2009-2020); the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness; the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing; the National Disability Strategy and more.

    What is different about this Plan is that it contemplates and identifies a wide range of interventions that need to be addressed

    1. Communities are safe
    2. Relationships are respectful
    3. indigenous communities are strengthened
    4. Services meet the needs
    5. Justice responses are effective
    6. Perpetrators stop their violence and are held to account

    The National Council also featured a major outcome to be ‘systems must work effectively together’. This remains one of the greatest challenges and one that is constantly mentioned.

    The Rudd Government response In 2009 was to immediately allocate funding to a number of Council recommended initiatives: establish a national helpline (1800 RESPECT); establish ‘Respectful Relationships’ programs in schools; set up ‘The Line’ social marketing campaign targeted at young people and parents; fund research into perpetrator treatment; establish an Australian National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS); allocate Community Action Grants; fund a new National Community Attitudes Survey and continue funding the Personal Safety Survey; provide additional support for front-line workers and services and establish a national AVO register. Additionally the Foundation for Prevention of Violence against Women and their Children has been established (Our WATCh) by the Commonwealth and the Victorian, NT and South Australian governments. Its role is to drive nation-wide change in the culture, behaviours and attitudes that lead to violence against women and children.

    The Abbott/Turnbull governments have continued with strong support for the National Plan and are working closely with all states and territories. The Turnbull government this week announced $100m additional funding for innovative technology including phones to keep women safe: increased support for the Safe at Home program where the perpetrator moves out and the victim and her children stay in the family home; increased funding for the national helpline 1800 RESPECT; increased support for police in indigenous communities; improved support and services for women including increased training for frontline staff and trials of integrated service models. They also provided funding for longer-term measure to change the attitudes of young people to violence. It is exciting that the national curriculum will now include Respectful Relationships education for all children.

    Work to establish the most effective responses to change men’s violent behaviour is well underway. Services are gaining a stronger voice and strong efforts are underway to join up services (wrap around services). Courts are constantly improving their responses. The media is becoming more interested to work to assist a solution. Schools are becoming more active and more engaged. Civil society is becoming involved and taking a role and responsibility to find solutions. Our responses and responsibilities to violence against women are increasingly widening.

    Until recently violence against women has been considered a ‘women’s issue. Excitingly this recent announcement by Prime Minister Turnbull was signed off by the Ministers for Women and Minister for Employment, the Attorney General, the Minister for Health, the Minister for Social Services, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, the Minister for Communications and the Minister for Education. This is a remarkable shift to recognise that all these ministries (and more) have a major part to play in combating and preventing violence against women.

    Now an increasingly wider response and significant support is being given to the issue of prevention of violence (and sexual assault) by sporting organisations (AFL and NRL as leading examples), faith-based organisations and by community based men-led organisations such as the White Ribbon Foundation. Schools and business, the private sector and the broad community understand that we all must play a part in stopping this violence. Violence against women is everyone’s issue; it is no longer ‘a private matter’ nor ‘just a domestic’. It can not be just a headline of horror in a newspaper, or 2 extreme minutes on the TV news.

    We must all come to understand that this is a complex issue that can not be solved quickly or easily. We know that we have made a good start in tackling it, but it will be a long slow road. We must raise our children to understand the importance of their relationships – they must be respectful – boys to girls, girls to boys and all to each other. We must parent our children carefully and responsibly. We must call out violence when we see it. We need to respond to violence as individuals as a family and as a community. It can’t be solved just by governments – we all have a part to play. It will take great effort but most of all it will take all of us to play a part to resolve it.

     

    Libby Lloyd AM was chair of the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, Chair of the Violence against Women Advisory Group and a co-founder of the White Ribbon Foundation.

  • Why the Rich are so much Richer in the US

    Nobel Prizewinner Joseph E. Stiglitz has been at the forefront of the debate in the US and elsewhere about growing inequality. In a recent review in the New York Review of Books, James Surowiecki comments on three recent books by Stiglitz. He says:

    “The numbers are, at this point, woefully familiar: the top 1% of earners take home more than 20% of the income and their share has more than doubled in the last 35 years. The gains for people in the top 0.1%, meanwhile, have been even greater. Yet over that same period, average wages and household incomes in the US have risen only slightly, and a number of demographic groups (like men with only a high school education) have actually seen their average wages decline.”

    See link to article below.       John Menadue

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/sep/24/stiglitz-why-rich-are-so-much-richer/?utm_medium=email

  • Why fighters are quitting ISIS.

    The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at Kings College London points to the ways that many thousands of recruits who journeyed to Iraq and Syria may now be regretting their decisions. The more defectors speak out, the more the ISIS cause will suffer. The ICSR Report Executive Summary follows.  John Menadue.

    Executive Summary

    • Defectors from the so-called Islamic State (IS) are a new and growing phenomenon. Since January 2014, at least 58 individuals have left the group and publicly spoken about their defection. They represent a small fraction of the many disillusioned fighters who have turned against IS.

    • The defectors provide unique insight into life in the Islamic State. But their stories can also be used as a potentially powerful tool in the fight against it. The defectors’ very existence shatters the image of unity and determination that IS seeks to convey. Their narratives highlight the group’s contradictions and hypocrisies. Their example encourages members to leave the group. And their experience and credibility can help deter others from joining.

    • The defectors’ reasons for leaving may be as complex as the reasons they joined. Not everyone has become a fervent supporter of liberal democracy. Some may have committed crimes. They joined the most violent and totalitarian organization of our age, yet they are now its worst enemies.

    • Among the stories of the 58 defectors, we identified four key narratives:
    1) ‘IS is more interested in fighting fellow (Sunni) Muslims than the Assad government
    2) ‘IS is involved in brutality and atrocities against (Sunni) Muslims.’
    3) ‘IS is corrupt and un-Islamic.’ 4) ‘Life under IS is harsh and disappointing.’

    • Defecting from IS is complex and dangerous. Wannabe defectors are faced with numerous obstacles. Their first challenge is to separate from IS and make their way into non-IS held territory. But even those who succeed are not necessarily safe. What prevents them from speaking out is the fear of reprisals and the worry that prosecutors may use their openness against them.

    • Our recommendations are for governments and activists to recognize the value and credibility of defector narratives; provide defectors with opportunities to speak out; assist them in resettlement and ensure their safety; and remove legal disincentives that prevent them from going public.

  • Climate Change and Refugees.

    We have had a wake-up call about how Western and particularly US policies have destabilised the Middle East with the resulting exodus of refugees. Half of the Syrian population has either fled or been displaced within their own country.

    Climate change in the Middle East is adding to the problem. This is examined in a report by Jaime de Melo for the Brookings Institute on August 24, 2015. He comments:

    The disintegration of states resulting from political, ethnic and religious conflicts are the proximate causes of this migration surge (from the Middle East), but evidence from the new climate-economy literature suggests that weather has also played a role and will certainly play a growing role as our planet warms. … While the ongoing Syrian civil war has many contributing factors … the exceptionally long five-year drought linked to rising mean temperatures in the Middle East has contributed to civil unrest. … Had the misguided agricultural policies been avoided, the supply of ground water would have provided a cushion during this exceptionally long drought and, according to accumulating evidence of the new climate-economy literature, social tensions would have been less. … Dealing with increasing migratory pressures from economic factors and rising temperatures will require countries to delegate national sovereignty and accommodate far greater migration flows than in recent history or face widespread conflicts.

    See link below.        John Menadue

    http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2015/08/24-climate-change-migration-challenges-de-melo?utm_campaign=Brookings+Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=21546201&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-86GsrZ85KCP18SnH76p0QsbRPDAQ5bQPK3r1FlgIRf90ooVMG-4ZJGIR0Z3LuV9ZcVYHZU2521rlC90eQ3r-DpDUKULg&_hsmi=21546201

  • Saudi Arabia doesn’t ‘do’ refugees.

    Saudi Arabia has shown that it is possible to accommodate three million people for the Haj. See link below. But it is unwilling to provide any sanctuary for refugees from Syria. Syrians must apply for a visa or work permit to enter Saudi Arabia. Under this visa/permit system many Syrians have entered Saudi Arabia, but it is overwhelming for the benefit of obtaining cheap labour. None of the Gulf States have a domestic policy on refugees and none are signatories to the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees.

    The experience of almost all refugees is that if they have to flee, they prefer to stay in a neighbouring country. They do this in the hope that when the political or military situation improves they can return home.

    John Menadue.

    http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/08/mina-city-of-tents.html

  • David Charles. Innovation, Disruption, Growth and Jobs of the Future

    What a difference a day makes to so many things including innovation. Immediately prior to the replacement of Tony Abbott by Malcolm Turnbull the Commonwealth Government barely had innovation, to say nothing of digital disruption and start ups, on its radar. Its major achievements in the area of funding for innovation were mostly notable for cutting and rebranding existing programs.

    To be sure they had responded to worthy ideas from the Business Council of Australia to identify and support five industry growth centres but the level of support – $188.5 million over 4 years – is modest and expectations about their impact, outside government, is limited.

    The Labor Party had gradually been building up a series of initiatives aimed at strengthening Australia’s innovation capacity but these were gaining very limited traction in the broader economic debate.

    In one giant bound the new Prime Minister has put innovation, start ups and the great opportunities for both growth and jobs offered by technology disruption and the digital revolution in particular centre stage.

    He has matched his rhetoric by placing Christopher Pyne in the Ministry of Industry, Innovation and Science and making Wyatt Roy, who was not even born when the internet was let loose, Associate Minister for Innovation.

    The amazing thing about the change in the priority of innovation is not that it has happened at all but that it has happened so relatively late compared to other developed and emerging economies. We had better hope that there are advantages in being a fast-ish follower.

    There is rather a lot to digest in the brave new world that has been opened up. My purpose is to attempt to throw some light on the now fashionable term of disruption, whether digital, technological or innovative and the most important disruptive technologies. To briefly review what earlier adopters, including China, have been doing and to point to areas where Australia might focus in a bipartisan way.

    Disruptive Technology/Innovation

    The literature on innovation tends to identify three different kinds of innovation, all of which have somewhat different implications for competition, creative destruction and supporting policy instruments.

    The first two kinds which have until relatively recent times dominated discussion of innovation tend to be those which do not radically alter existing markets and value networks. The simplest kind might be considered to be evolutionary/continuous innovation which improves existing products and markets in broadly expected ways. They add value to customers and companies but don’t alter the nature of things.

    The next step up the innovation food chain is radical/discontinuous innovation which tends to come in unexpected ways and have a large impact on the value proposition for customers and companies. The introduction of the first automobiles can be seen as an example of such innovation, but initially the impact of the new technology was not large and far reaching.

    The third step in innovation is disruptive innovation, popularized by the management writer Clayton M Christensen, which creates a new market and value networks by replacing an existing market and value networks. The mass production system associated with Henry Ford is a powerful example. While new technology was involved in mass production as opposed to craft production, the radical change was the new business model introduced by Ford and the thoroughgoing change it made to transportation.

    An example of disruptive innovation which is in the news at the moment is that associated with the name of Uber. If the Uber model is allowed by regulators to proceed, it will radically alter the on demand transport market and force wide ranging and painful change in the traditional taxi business.

    Disruptive innovation will change both markets and value networks. For a country which is only a marginal player in some important manufacturing and services markets, it offers the opportunity to carve out serious positions in newly emerging value networks and create the jobs of the future. Perhaps it is this characteristic which has captured the imagination of policy makers.

    Where is technology disruption taking place?

    Three directors of the McKinsey Global Institute have recently published an important book on this subject with the title “No Ordinary Disruption: The Four Global Forces Breaking All The Trends “ by Richard Dobbs, James Manyika and Jonathon Woetzel. The four disruptive forces are:

    The age of urbanization.

    Accelerating technological change.

    Responding to the challenges of an ageing world.

    Greater global connections.

    The 12 disruptive technologies they identify which will drive acceleration technological change are:

    Changing the building blocks of everything (Next generation genomics and Advanced materials;

    Rethinking of energy comes of age (Energy storage, Advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery and Renewable energy);

    Machines working for us (Advanced robotics, Autonomous and near-autonomous vehicles and 3-D printing); and

    IT and how we use it (Mobile internet, Internet of things, Cloud technology and Automation of knowledge work).

    All these areas are likely to be important and offer opportunities for agile and capable Australian companies. At various times these technology disrupters have all received some attention in the media.

    But the reality is that in the field of start-ups a lot of the attention has been given to IT and how we use it. Seek is an often quoted example of Australian success and Uber is pointed to as a harbinger of the sharing economy. There is no doubt that IT in its various forms is important but it is not the only game in town and in developing policy responses to build Australia’s innovation system it is important a broad view is taken rather than putting all our eggs in one basket.

    Britain in its 8 great technologies program announced a couple of years ago has committed 600 million pounds to big data, space, robotics and autonomous systems, synthetic biology, regenerative medicine, agri-science , advanced materials and energy.

    The China Challenge

    China has already been a major source of disruption in global markets with its command of manufacturing production in a range of industries. Optimists in the west see the Chinese challenge stopping at the stage of labour intensive products and me-too products. However, the emergence of companies such as Haier in white goods, Geely Motors in automotive, Huawei in telecommunications and Hengan International in consumer products strongly suggest a different and more challenging reality. These companies are disrupting global markets and building new value networks.

    The Chinese government realizes that the future for China lies in innovation and in 2006 launched a 15 year plan to raise the share of R&D in GDP to 2.5 per cent.

    Reflecting the importance of STEM skills Edward Tse in his recent book China’s Disruptors makes the point that of 200,000 doctorates awarded around the world in science and engineering in 2010 China was second in the world with 31,000 compared to 33,000 in the USA.

    In IT and e-commerce a number of Chinese companies have already come on to the global radar and have the potential to rival the big name US companies. Companies like Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi are ultra entrepreneurial, large and growing quickly. They all have global aspirations and in time will look like and act like US and European multinationals with their own global value networks. Some of these companies are already significant investors in start-ups offshore in places like Israel and have R&D centres offshore.

    The next Chinese challenge is well and truly on the radar of governments and industry in the US, Asia and Europe. Innovation policies are being developed partly with an eye to the challenge.

    What are other countries doing to support innovation?

    Most developed countries have innovation policies of one kind or another but two small countries which have received a good deal of attention are Israel and Singapore.

    Israel which spends 4.5 per cent of its GDP on R&D has through its Office of the Chief Scientist pursued a range of policies aimed at boosting innovation. Special emphasis has been placed on creating a very positive environment for start ups. Notable in this regard is the Israeli Incubator Program which supports 20 incubators throughout Israel. Special early stage funding has been provided to support the development and growth of start ups. This can involve the provision of $7 for every $1 invested by private sector entities.

    In 2014 start up exists are estimated to have been valued at $15 billion. While a lot of venture capital has come from US sources, in recent years Chinese investors have become important.

    Singapore through its National Framework for Research, Innovation and Enterprise has learnt from the Israeli approach and amongst other things has put in place a Technology Incubation Scheme. Under this scheme the government co-invests up to 85 per cent of the costs of a start up.

    Special attention is being given to the digital economy. The Infocomm Development Authority which has a mission to support the development of the IT and telecommunications sector provides Sing$ 200 million to support start ups. They plan to support 500 start ups over the next five years.

    Apart from funding start ups, both Israel and Singapore are also focusing on building up their talent pools to support the digital economy.

    The Conservative Government in the UK and its immediate coalition predecessor have placed a high priority on policies to support innovation. A key agency is the Technology Strategy Board, now renamed Innovate UK, which has a portfolio of programs including Smart Grants, Catapult Centres and the Small Business Research Institute. The Catapult Centres launched in 2013 are designed to convert good ideas into commercial results. So far 9 have been established.

    The UK Treasurer in his 2015 Budget Speech argued that one of the aims of the British Government was to improve economic growth by making Britain:

    “The best place in the world to start, invest in and grow a business, including through a package of measures t help unlock the potential of the sharing economy.”

    As noted earlier, the UK government has identified 8 great technologies. These go well beyond the digital economy.

    Some pointers for Australia

    We now have a great opportunity to develop an effective and hopefully bipartisan innovation policy worthy of the name in comparison to what other developed countries are doing and Australia’s special needs and potential.

    We are not starting from ground zero. Some of the key elements of such a policy are in place:

    The importance of STEM skills has been recognized notably by the Chief Scientist and action aimed at building the talent pool has started. The Opposition has promised a series of STEM initiatives.

    Five industry innovation growth centres are being established and some funding has been provided albeit modest in comparison with the UK Catapult program which seems to have been the model for the centres.

    The CRC Program following the Miles Review is being continued.

    But a strong case can be made that given the challenge and the size of the opportunities available that a much more strategic and rather better funded set of integrated instruments are urgently needed.

    As we have seen, Israel, Singapore and the UK innovation policies are seen as playing a very significant role in future growth, business development and jobs. These policies all place a heavy emphasis on building the STEM talent pool. As well, they devote very substantial resources to the incubation of start ups and the financing of early stage businesses. Australia by comparison has hardly begun to move the needle. The Opposition’s promised $500 million Smart Investment Fund to co-invest in early stage companies is one way forward.

    Innovation and the incentives to create and build businesses ought to be essential elements of tax reform. Perhaps using the UK aim of being the best place in the world to start, invest in and grow a business as a starting point for Australia.

    In terms of scope, while the opportunities associated with digital disruption are no doubt large and perceived to be so in other jurisdictions putting great weight on innovation, innovation policy should not ignore the also large opportunities that will come from the technological disruptions identified by the McKinsey study noted earlier.

    A global perspective is needed to fit Australian companies into emerging global value networks. Given our location in Asia Pacific the opportunities offered by building connections to the leading Chinese IT and manufacturing companies are likely to be considerable. The Australia China Free Trade Agreement ought to be part of creating the right environment for these connections to be built.

    Finally, a community effort is required involving not just the Commonwealth and State Governments but also business, universities and the research entities such as the CSIRO and the medical research institutes. The conversation about innovation has just received a major injection of energy, the will is now needed to take advantage of this in a comprehensive, bipartisan and durable way.

    David Charles was the Chair of the Advanced Manufacturing CRC and will be a Director of the recently-announced Innovative Manufacturing CRC. He is a Director of Insight Economics Pty Ltd. From 1985-1990 he was Secretary of the Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce. He was a Founding Director of the Allen Consulting Group.

    See link below to an article by David Charles in the Policy Series which was published on 25 June 2015.

    https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=4143

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Refugee Diary.

    It is one thing to endure the terror of barrel-bombing by the Assad regime and the barbarism of ISIS in Syria. But this is only the beginning of a harrowing trek by Syrians in their journey to safety and freedom in Germany and elsewhere. Verica Jokic, an ABC  journalist gave a compelling account on Radio National on Thursday 24 September 2015,  of the trek from Syria to safety. Her eye for the small detail brings home the plight of asylum seekers much more effectively than all the statistics. John Menadue.

    See her story on the link below:

    http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/on-the-ground-following-syrian-refugee-crisis/6798898

  • Dean Ashenden. Could Turnbull give a Gonski?

    Until last week, Gonski’s last hope – and an increasingly promising one – was a Labor victory in 2016. Now, that hope has dimmed, but another has appeared. It would make political, ideological and policy sense for the Turnbull government and its new education minister, Simon Birmingham, to go back to Gonski.

    The story so far. Gonski’s inquiry was commissioned in 2010 and reported in 2012. It tackled three major problems in schooling: the dysfunctional arrangements for funding three sectors in three different ways by two levels of government; the consequently chronic antagonism between sectors and interest groups; and the failure of funding policies to address growingproblems in schooling, including social and cultural segregation, a widening gap between the best and worst schools, a “long tail” of students leaving school without even the bare minimum of skills, and stalled performance.

    Gonski’s plan was elegant in its simplicity: state and federal governments would agree on how much each would contribute to the cost of schools, and on how the total would be distributed to school systems and thence to schools. Each school would be guaranteed a minimum per student amount (the “schooling resource standard,” or SRS), plus loadings reflecting the school’s size, location and demographics. The same formula would apply across all schools and sectors on the advice of a “national schools resourcing body.” The new scheme would be national, sector-blind and, above all, needs-based.

    Gonski’s proposals were widely applauded as an educational, political and policy breakthrough. But there were problems in the plan too, most of them exacerbated by the bungled, drawn-out implementation process initiated by Julia Gillard and conducted by schools minister Peter Garrett.

    The national school resourcing body was dropped early in the process. That meant that there was no agency to carry the extensive research needed (as Gonski foresaw) to settle key questions such as the level of the SRS, ways of measuring each of five categories of “need” (socioeconomic status, language background, indigeneity, disability and school size/location), the proportion of total funds to go to basic resourcing as against the loadings, how many schools should receive loadings, and how extra resources could be most cost-effectively used. Nor was there an accountability mechanism.

    Critics on the right (and in cabinet, apparently) claimed that school funding increases over the decades had done little or nothing to improve outcomes, which meant that Gonski’s $6.5 billion increase on an annual spend of around $40 billion was a case of throwing good money after bad.

    Since most needy schools were government-run, that sector was Gonski’s main beneficiary. Some supporters of non-government schools were suspicious or hostile, and Gonski became identified in many minds with public schools and the teacher organisations that did so much to bring the review into being. As well, Gonski was often seen as a kind of consolation for schools doing the hardest educational yards rather than, as intended, the price paid for schools to deliver improved performance.

    All this was in addition to the handicap given to Gonski at the outset, the requirement that “no school will be worse off,” which greatly complicated the calculation of school entitlements and pushed up costs (accounting for up to half of the $6.5 billion by some estimates).

    But the resistance that really mattered came from Coalition-governed states, which stood on their constitutional dignity and refused to enter an agreement that would tell them how much to spend on schools and how to spend it. They were aided and abetted by the Abbott opposition, which attacked the scheme at every opportunity right up to the eve of the 2013 election, when it abruptly switched to a Gonski “unity ticket.” That, in turn, was abandoned as soon as the new government took office.

    The upshot was that some states had signed up before the election for Gonski and its conditions through to 2017, others were told by the incoming government that they could have the money without any strings attached, and all were informed that from then on things would revert to the unfair, educationally counter-productive and administratively chaotic arrangements that confronted Gonski back in 2010.

    Meanwhile, other arms of the Abbott government commissioned reviews – the Commission of Audit, the Competition Policy Review, and the Reform of the Federation process – that either directly tackled school funding or made recommendations bearing on it. None had Gonski’s breadth, and none linked resource distribution and use with national goals for schooling such as social cohesion and equality of opportunity.

    Ironically enough, though, they might be just the thing that would allow Turnbull to give a Gonski. Together, they suggest that the Gonski approach should rely less on a single, prescriptive formula and more on an agreed framework for local implementation. It would thus be made more workable, and more acceptable to Coalition governments at both state and federal levels.

    What might such an agreed framework for schools funding look like? It would need to include at least four components:

    • A statement of purposes, making clear (as Gonski put it) that differences in educational outcomes must not be the result of differences in wealth, income, power or possession
    • A statement of principles, specifying that funding should be, among other things, nationally consistent, sector-blind and needs-based
    • A provision that all school jurisdictions, government and non-government, will report allocations made to each of its schools, and the methods and data used to determine them, publicly, promptly and in detail, using a common reporting template
    • A provision that all jurisdictions should participate in an ongoing, national research effort to understand how best to allocate and use resources to achieve stated purposes.

    A framework along those lines would address most of the problems in the original plan, and those arising from its stormy, aborted implementation.

    No response to complex political and policy problems will be perfect, of course. In this case, there seems little prospect of removing the “no school worse off” provisions, for example. And there would be much devil in the detail of a devolved approach, including how much variation between jurisdictions should be permitted, and by whom. But that is detail. And after all, there’s not much to beat.

    That’s the first reason why Turnbull should consider Gonski. The second is that – Abbott and Pyne rhetoric notwithstanding – there is nothing intrinsically Labor in Gonski. Indeed, its first and still most enthusiastic supporter is NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli, a National Party member in a government led by Liberal premiers. Piccoli is by no means a lone Coalition voice for Gonski, and has promised to lobby the new government in support.

    The third reason might seem trivial to the point of irrelevance, but history sometimes turns on small things. Malcolm Turnbull and David Gonski are old friends. They went to school together (Sydney Grammar) and Turnbull recently launched Gonski’s book, I Gave a Gonski. They belong to very similar ideological and social worlds. What Gonski proposes is consistent with – and perhaps even essential to – the kind of forward-looking Australia Turnbull says he wants. It would be surprising if Gonski did not use his undoubted access to Turnbull to make out the case.

    There are two further reasons why Turnbull might listen, both of them political.

    Among the many areas in which the Abbott administration was gratuitously adversarial, and blatantly deceitful, was schools funding. It opposed Gonski, then supported it, then ditched it, the stance on each occasion dictated by party-political advantage seen in the shortest of terms. What better way for the new minister to distance himself from his predecessor, or for the new government to demonstrate that it is not the old one in drag, than to reverse the ill-judged and petty decision to dump Gonski?

    Last, and perhaps the best reason of all from a Turnbull point of view: why go to the next election, less than a year away, with the electorally popular Gonski in Labor’s hands?

    Labor still owns the Gonski brand, and despite its bungling of the implementation process, it deserves to. Gonski is, as shadow treasurer Chris Bowen has put it, “in our DNA.” But if Labor tries to run again on Plan A, vulnerable both states’ opposition and to sharp criticisms of design, it could find that it has handed one of its biggest political assets to its new opponent. •

  • Tom and Rosie support the Syrian Refugees.

    Two young students from “Prouille” Dominican School at Wahroonga have raised nearly $4,500 for Syrian refugees. It started as a street stall in front of their house. It led to community support. It is a lovely story – worth reading.  See link below.  John Menadue

    https://unhcrpersonalchallenge.everydayhero.com/au/help-the-syrian-refugees-with-tom-and-rosie

  • Bob Kinnaird. China FTA and a diplomatic appointment.

    As the government’s exaggerated claims of economic benefit and job creation from ChAFTA are increasingly exposed, the lead DFAT negotiator on the China FTA is set to be appointed the next Australian Ambassador to China.

    According to reports in the Australian Financial Review and Crikey, Ms Jan Adams DFAT Deputy Secretary was nominated before the ousting of Mr Abbott to take up the Beijing position this December. The reports say the new Prime Minister Mr Turnbull is likely to endorse the appointment of Ms Adams, who apparently has the backing of Foreign Minister Bishop and Trade Minister Robb.

    Ms Adams, who was also lead Australian negotiator on the FTAs with Korea and Japan as well as China, recently appeared before the Treaties Committee on ChAFTA. In her evidence, she lamented the ‘circulation of misinformation about particular aspects of the Agreement’ including the contentious labour mobility provisions.

    However, at the committee hearing on 7 September it was not Ms Adams but an Immigration official who cleared up one of the key pieces of ‘misinformation’ about ChAFTA that DFAT and the government have been happy to let run.

    After persistent questioning from Labor MP Kelvin Thomson, DIBP’s Mr David Wilden conceded that at present labour market testing (LMT) applies to 457 sponsors nominating all Chinese nationals in Skill level 3 (mainly trades), engineering and nursing occupations; and that once ChAFTA enters into force, they will not be subject to LMT in these occupations.

    The officials should have added (but did not) that once ChAFTA enters into force, the Australian government will permanently give up the right to apply labour market testing to Chinese nationals in all other occupations in the standard 457 visa program as well.

    Currently these other 457 occupations are LMT-exempt simply by Coalition government policy written into a legislative instrument providing LMT exemptions on occupational grounds. Before ChAFTA, these ‘occupational’ LMT exemptions could be changed by any Australian government at any time. But after ChAFTA, the 457 LMT exemptions for Chinese nationals become exemptions due to Australia’s ‘international trade obligations’ and are effectively irreversible.

    The Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade will shortly have a second opportunity to question officials including Ms Adams on ChAFTA when it examines the China FTA after the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties reports.

    Hopefully that exercise can shed even more light on how Australia’s immigration policy is being made subordinate to trade policy and binding trade agreements, and Australia’s capacity to make migration laws is being eroded and ultimately surrendered.

     

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

     

  • Harold Levien. Solving our Housing Problem.

    The new Turnbull Coalition has the opportunity to rewrite the economic policy, or lack of it, of the previous Abbott-Hockey Government. This greatly exacerbated Australia’s housing problem and was pushing Australia into recession. The Reserve Bank’s Governor Stevens recently explained that repeated interest rate reductions were attempting to stimulate the depressed economy. He suggested the Government could take advantage of record low interest rates to borrow for infrastructure spending to provide the much needed economic stimulus without further interest rate cuts. (Statistics show infrastructure spending had dramatically fallen since the Abbott Government came to Office.) There was no response.

    These low interest rates concerned the new Head of Treasury who feared they were setting the stage for a housing bubble. Presumably he had memories of the 2008 US housing collapse following an immense “bubble” funded by irresponsible lending—albeit much worse than Australia’s possible situation. Surprisingly his concern over interest rates dismayed Abbott who expressed his support for rising house prices. Ironically it was Abbott, against all precedents, who appointed the new Treasury Head from outside the public service.

    The low interest rates attracted a multitude of housing investors, from both within Australia and overseas, seeking capital gain from purchasing housing primarily in Sydney and Melbourne. The inevitable escalation in housing prices made housing increasingly unaffordable for first home buyers in those cities.

    Incongruously, despite the almost continuous increases in productivity and per capita income over the past 70 years, housing in these cities is now less affordable than in the 1950’s! Since 1985 the ratio of median housing price to median income has increased from 3.4 to 11.4; and with virtually static wages and rising house prices this ratio will worsen. Since housing is the largest and most important material component in the living standards of the vast majority of Australians its affordability for first-home buyers should surely be a high priority for Government.

    There are three obvious steps to solving the housing problem. Firstly, to reduce housing demand from local and foreign investors seeking capital gain (resulting from the demand-supply discrepancy) and from local investors also seeking to reduce their taxable income. Secondly, to reduce the rate of population increase which at 330,000 last year–of which net migration was 184,000—this was close to adding the population of another Canberra. The third step is to increase the annual addition to housing supply.

    Examining these steps

    The Government could readily block the sale of housing to overseas residents, now accounting for over 20% of purchases in Sydney and Melbourne, to protect the interests of Australia’s first-home buyers over non-residents seeking capital gain. Hockey’s recent concern with overseas housing investors was confined to their limited purchase of established housing rather than with their much greater investment in new housing.

    The Government could also phase-out tax advantages given to local investors through both negative gearing (permitting interest on housing investment as a tax deduction from total taxable income), and discounted tax on capital gains. These tax perks, going primarily to higher income earners, not only increase housing demand and therefore housing prices but substantially cut Commonwealth revenue. The Australia Institute estimates this year’s negative gearing will cost revenue $4.2 billion. This could fund around 17,000 homes for low income earners—enough to house the current estimated 100,000 homeless in six years. Despite Hockey’s past claims that negative gearing increases housing supply, statistics show the great majority of such investment is in established housing.

    The previous Government therefore not only permitted, but played a crucial role in the manipulation of a market which made housing increasingly less affordable for first-home buyers and at their time of greatest need.

    On the supply side the Australian Government could, at no expense to the budget, establish a National Housing Corporation (NHC) to construct additional housing for sale and rent to overcome the market’s shortage of affordable housing. The National Housing Supply Council, within the Department of Treasury until abolished by the Abbott Government shortly after coming to Office, estimated the shortage of affordable housing was 599,000 in 2010-11. Considering the steep rise in housing prices and the very small increase in average earnings over recent years this figure would now be much larger.

    The proposed NHC could borrow at current record low interest rates. Since Government can borrow significantly below the rate to the private sector and because the Corporation could be established as a community service, rather than as a profit-making enterprise, it could sell or rent housing well below current market prices. Moreover, the increased supply would significantly reduce market prices. Because interest and administrative costs could be built into both sale prices and rental charges the NHC could operate without cost to the budget. Of course the Government could use the budget to subsidise a proportion of these houses to assist low income earners and those dependent on social services.

    These policies would lead to a considerable reduction in current housing stress– defined as mortgage repayment or rental cost exceeding 30% of gross household income–which has been steadily increasing over recent decades. With unchanged policies this will further increase.

    As a major social bonus the NHC could be subject to statutory requirements for quality architecture and town planning. Furthermore, it could be required to take account of location concerning both public transport and employment opportunities usually ignored by private developers. Such policy, perhaps complemented with the establishment of an Urban Development Authority, could eventually help save State Governments many billions of dollars in transport costs for both new roads and expanded public transport designed primarily to move workers from their housing to place of work!

    The NHC could make the single largest contribution to reducing poverty since mortgage repayments and rent represent by far the largest item in the vast majority of low to middle income family budgets.

    Harold Levien is a freelance writer on political and economic issues. After graduating in economics he founded and edited a monthly review of current affairs, Voice, The Australian Independent Monthly. It lasted five years. After its demise he lectured in economics. He has written many articles on current political and economic issues for a variety of journals. He is now retired.

     

     

     

  • Lynne Strong. Climate change and farming.

    Farming in partnership with nature.

    I live in a very special part of the world. The view from my front verandah has rolling green hills to the left, the ocean to the right and in front of me – the ocean. You can understand why I call it paradise. Our family has been farming in this region for over 180 years.  Our family dairy farm is located in steep rainforest country at Jamberoo in NSW.

    Every three weeks for 6 hours of the day – the view gets even more special when these magnificent cows graze in the front paddock. These cows are part of our family – and perhaps they are part of yours – they supply up to 50,000 Australians with milk for their breakfast every day.

    I see my role as a food and fibre producer and custodian of the land is to ensure the people I employ, the people I feed and Mother Nature and the cows have a voice.

    Australia is the hottest and driest continent. No-one can deny our farmers have done phenomenal things over the last 60 years. Even I am amazed that in 1950 one Australian farmer fed 20 people and today one Australian farmer feeds 700 people. This is becoming more challenging everyday with increasing extreme weather events.

    Our family business and our cows are in the frontline of climate change. Equally there is no denying that all food production has an environmental impact.

    I am very proud that our cows and our business are both part of the solution with our commitment being to produce nature’s perfect nutrient cocktail whilst lowering our carbon footprint on this beautiful planet.

    We are adapting to our highly variable climate and the challenging farming landscape we are finding ourselves in by using the latest research and development and tools as well as accessing the scientists and bright minds who can mentor us and support our journey.

    Our farm is in a very high rainfall pocket and our average rainfall is 2000mm or 80 inches.  Over the past thirty years we have noticed a significant increase in extreme weather events.  These days it is not unusual to get an extreme rainfall event that brings 10 inches of rain in 10 hours.

    Each drought is hotter and drier than the last. In December 2012 – the hottest year on record in Australia – we had five days where the temperature was over 40 degrees. Dairy cows are like me. They like a temperate climate with averages around 25 degree. Cows hate the heat and humidity and they hate mud.

    On our farm it’s all about the cows and reducing our impact on the landscape to allow us to continue to deliver the high quality product we are so proud of to Australian families.

    A number of ways we are doing this include managing heat stress effect both on our cows and our pastures.

    Often during extreme heat events cows start absorbing more heat from the environment than they can emit and they start to pant.

    When it gets really out of balance they effectively start to melt and we have to ensure they have access to plenty of shade and water.

    They love the sprinklers in the dairy. We also watch them as they exit the dairy. If they are still panting we will take them aside and hose them down until they stop panting.

    In the paddocks it’s about balancing the needs of the productive landscape and the native landscape. We do this by making wise choices like growing water and fertiliser efficient grasses.

    As I mentioned earlier we lay claim to living in paradise and our farm is 50% pristine rainforest.

    Part of our team is a cohort of professional bush regenerators.  We have planted thousands of trees, created native vegetation buffer zones between the pasture and the rainforest.

    We have built what we call cow super highways to ensure the cows go backwards and forwards to the dairy as efficiently as they can.  This means the manure is deposited on the paddock where is can do good and not on the laneways where it can wash into Mother Nature’s streams.

    All of this comes at a cost – thousands of dollars in fact. We do this because we know our actions will determine the future. Humanity can walk hand in hand with Mother Nature. We have to support her and she will support us.

    The farm is now in the excellent hands of the next generation and I am focusing my energy on taking the conversation beyond the farm gate. Conversations that I hope it will create an impetus for the community and farmers to work together to map out a brighter future.

    Because I believe, right now, there’s not enough recognition of the challenges modern farmers face. Farmers have traditionally been quiet achievers. More than ever we need to share our journey with the community.

    We need to get out there and grow our support networks and forge powerful partnerships.

    I am involved in a number of exciting watershed initiatives that are providing opportunities for the broader community to meet some of our wonderful Australian farmers, share their stories and start thinking about food and how they value it in a different way.

    Programs like the Climate Champions program which is both a former Eureka Prize and Banksia Award finalists.

    The Climate Champion program aims to help farmers manage climate risk by giving farmers

    • the best climate tools and an understanding of how we might use these in our farm business
    • and climate researchers access to each other so we can ensure the research they are doing is relevant and help them get the research out of the lab and onto the farm.

    Along with 48 other Australian farmers I teamed up with Earth Hour Australia as an ambassador and shared my story as part of the Planet to Plate Earth Hour Cook book.

    This beautiful compilation of recipes from 50 of the nation’s top celebrity chefs using the best of Aussie produce, showcased alongside the real climate stories of Aussie farmers.

    I am also one 4 farmers in the Earth Hour Documentary that screened on Channel Ten and Google live-stream on March 28, broadcasting stories of the farmers on the front-line of climate change straight into the homes of all Australians.

    I also founded Picture You in Agriculture. This is the initiative that really lights my fire. We roll out the Art4Agrciutlure suite of programs including The Archibull Prize and the Young Farming Champions.This program sees primary and secondary school students transforming the life-size fibreglass cows into agriculture themed artworks.

    The students are paired with our exciting young champions who have careers in the food and fibre sector and complete a variety of activities that give them fun hands-on experiences exploring food and fibre and farming.

    This year’s Archibull Prize theme ‘Agriculture – an endangered species’.

    Students and teachers will have the courageous conversations we all need to have and investigate the greatest challenges to Australian agriculture: Climate change, declining natural resources (our land, our water, and our non-renewable energy resources), food waste and biosecurity.

    We want students to be part of the solution, sharing their ideas on how to tackle these challenges as individuals, as a community, and as the future mums and dads of the next generation,”

    If we are going to ensure a healthy and vibrant future for Australian families and Mother Nature – agriculture must be a partnership between government, farmers and the whole community.

    I look forward to you all helping me start the courageous conversations we all need to have about food and natural fibres and how we value them.

    I look forward to hearing your ideas and solutions on how we can work together to create a healthy and a vibrant and a happy future.

     

    Lynne Strong Founder Picture You in Agriculture

    Lynne Strong, National Program Director, Art4Agriculture

     

  • Ian Marsh. Revolving Prime Ministers.

    As has been widely noted, Malcolm Turnbull is our fifth prime minister in as many years. You have to go back to the 1901-1909 pre two-party period for a roughly similar record. Then it was six leaders in seven years. But the analogy is only superficial. The protagonists – Barton (briefly), Watson (briefly), Deakin, Reid (briefly) and finally Fisher – rose and fell based on their ability to create parliamentary majorities for particular measures. The parties – Free Traders, Protectionists and Labor – differed fiercely. They represented the two variants of nineteenth century liberalism and twentieth century collectivism – fault-lines that persist to this day.

    The results constituted some of the most creative in Australian political history. The measures then introduced, mainly under Deakin’s leadership, guided Australian socio-economic development to 1983. By the time of the Hawke-Keating government, the world had moved on. Change was overdue.

    But over the previous 75 years, the basic framework was maintained by all governments. Save for White Australia, policy developments took place within it. By such means, Australia’s distinctive version of the welfare state and managed economy was created.

    Malcolm Turnbull promises to advance economic reform by taking the public into his confidence. Frank speeches not slogans. Constructive argument not hollow rhetoric. He cited New Zealand’s very successful Prime Minister John Key as an example of what can be accomplished.

    True as far as it goes. But this glosses over the structural foundations of Key’s success. These parallel Australia’s 1901-1909 experience. Since 1996, New Zealand has had a multi-party political system. Opportunistic adversarialism has been muted. Key’s Government lacks a majority in the single chamber parliament. It survives very successfully thanks not to coalition but to confidence and supply agreements with three minor parties. But particular measures still need to be negotiated.

    Key has adopted the same approach as his Labor predecessor Helen Clark. On social issues, he typically gains support from the left. On economic issues he looks to the right. The whole New Zealand political system has taken a consensual turn.

    This accords with contemporary circumstances. As in Australia, the main parties no longer differ on the basic direction of development. The market system has won. But they do differ on the detail of particular measures. Contemporary publics are also more pluralised and differentiated. The political structure in New Zealand aligns its more pluralised society with the formal political system. Australia in contrast remains stuck in the adversarial mould, the residue of a two-class era.

    Yet Australia’s political system is almost purpose-built for a more consensual turn. The procedures that would be associated with such a transformation are evident in our own historic experience. Look again at the 1901 to 1909 period.

    Governing required at least two of the three parties to reach an accommodation with each other on particular measures. Deakin, the leading political architect of the period, led minority governments. To create sufficient parliamentary support to enact contested measures, he needed to initiate a parliamentary (and hence public) conversation before the government’s own approach was determined.

    To achieve this outcome, he turned to the tried and tested vehicle, committees of the legislature. Indeed the Australian constitution provided him with an ideal structure. The Senate had been conceived as an independent House on the American model. In its initial years most members acted in this spirit.

    More recently, the (late) Liberal Senator, David Hamer, recommended converting the Senate to a Committee House. Ministers would cease to be drawn from this Chamber. Committee chairs would enjoy enhanced standing (as is occurring now in the UK). Senate committees could then become important agenda entry points for new and emerging issues. The adversarial culture, which is now often overcome in committee enquiries, could be equally qualified in broader Senate proceedings.

    With an especial focus on emerging and strategic issues, committees could be agents of the legislature rather than the executive. They could recommend action – and the legislature would debate their recommendations. Ideally this would be free of the whips. But even with whipped or partially whipped votes, majority, cross-party support in the Senate would provide important guidance for the executive.

    A more diverse expression of views in the legislature prior to executive decisions would give it more flexibility. Following debate, it would be up to the government to decide what to do.

    Malcolm Turnbull believes speeches alone can carry the day. But his reference to John Key should give pause. The leadership that Key exercises so effectively is the product of a political system that is more closely aligned with its publics. The New Zealand parliament focuses on the desirability and detail of individual measures. Media reporting is less poll and personality driven. Of course it’s still robust. But the public experiences a wholly different political debate.

    Circumstances are unpredictable. Malcolm Turnbull may outclass his opponent. Through craft and guile and compromise he may manage internal Liberal and National schisms. He may win the next election. But he will almost surely not win the Senate.

    That outcome is one expression of the contemporary diversity of Australian society. Internal party tensions are another. Constructive speech making by party leaders can go so far. It is the primary battle line. But like this military analogy, the front line can only carry the day if its support systems are aligned.

    In his citation of John Key, Malcolm Turnbull illustrates his own potential weakness and vulnerability. John Key deploys the persuasive power of effective speech in a wholly different conversational context. Would Turnbull be willing to change the way issues enter the public conversation here? Challenging though it may be to adversarial ways, it is also within his power.

    Ian Marsh is a Visiting Professor at the UTS Management School. His study Democratic Decline and Democratic Renewal: Political Change in Britain, Australia and New Zealand (with Raymond Miller) was published in 2012 by Cambridge University Press.

  • Kenneth Roth. The European refugee crisis is on of politics not capacity.

    European leaders may differ about how to respond to the asylum-seekers and migrants surging their way, but they seem to agree they face a crisis of enormous proportions. Germany’s Angela Merkel has called it “the biggest challenge I have seen in European affairs in my time as chancellor.” Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni has warned that the migrant crisis could pose a major threat to the “soul” of Europe. But before we get carried away by such apocalyptic rhetoric, we should recognize that if there is a crisis, it is one of politics, not capacity.

    There is no shortage of drama in thousands of desperate people risking life and limb to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean in rickety boats or enduring the hazards of land journeys through the Balkans. The available numbers suggest that most of these people are refugees from deadly conflict in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. Eritreans — another large group — fled a brutally repressive government. The largest group — the Syrians — fled the dreadful combination of their government’s indiscriminate attacks, including by barrel bombs and suffocating sieges, and atrocities by ISIS and other extremist groups. Only a minority of migrants arriving in Europe, these numbers suggest, were motivated solely by economic betterment.

    This “wave of people” is more like a trickle when considered against the pool that must absorb it. The European Union’s population is roughly 500 million. The latest estimate of the numbers of people using irregular means to enter Europe this year via the Mediterranean or the Balkans is approximately 340,000. In other words, the influx this year is only 0.068 percent of the EU’s population. Considering the EU’s wealth and advanced economy, it is hard to argue that Europe lacks the means to absorb these newcomers.

    This ‘wave of people’ is more like a trickle when considered against the pool that must absorb it…. The influx this year is only 0.068 percent of the EU’s population.

    To put this in perspective, the U.S., with a population of 320 million, has some 11 million undocumented immigrants. They make up about 3.5 percent of the U.S. population. The EU, by contrast, had between 1.9 and 3.8 million undocumented immigrants in 2008 (the latest available figures), or less than one percent of its population, according to a study sponsored by the European Commission. Put another way, nearly 13 percent of the U.S. population (some 41 million residents) are foreign-born — twice the proportion of non-EU foreign-born people living in Europe.

    The U.S. government is hardly exemplary in its treatment of asylum seekers, and the country has had its share of Donald Trumps who float wild ideas about expelling America’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, but polls show nearly three quarters of Americans think that undocumented immigrants who reside in the U.S. should be given a way to stay legally. Indeed, the U.S. has arguably built its economy around these migrants doing work that most Americans won’t.

    So why the European panic? As in the U.S., an influx of foreigners provides plenty of material for demagogues. Some contend the new arrivals will steal jobs or lower wages. With rapidly diminishing unemployment in the U.S., that doesn’t seem to have been true, but European unemployment remains stubbornly high. Yet many European countries also face a worsening demographic problem, with too few young workers increasingly asked to support too many pensioners. An influx of people with the proven perseverance and wit to escape war and repression back home and navigate the deadly hazards along the route to Europe would seem to provide an injection of energy and drive that Europe arguably needs.

    There are concerns about terrorism. Many of the refugees are fleeing the likes of ISIS in Syria or al-Shabab in Somalia, but no one can preclude the possibility that terrorists have secreted themselves in the flow of humanity. Yet terrorist groups have already shown themselves quite capable of sending agents to Europe — or recruiting them there — through more conventional means. Just as no refugee would brave crossing the Mediterranean or negotiating the land route through the Balkans if easier options were available, so these routes would hardly seem to be major avenues for well-financed terrorist groups. There is no evidence that any has used it.

    The biggest concern among the hawkers of crisis seems to be fears about culture. The U.S. has always been a nation of immigrants. The U.S. has many more undocumented immigrants than the EU. America’s vitality is in large part due to the energy and ideas that waves of immigrants have brought to its shores. While anti-immigrant policies occasionally flare up in the U.S. — including Chinese exclusion in the 1880s, Japanese-American internment in the 1940s, Haitian interdiction in the 1990s and detention of mothers and small children fleeing harm in Central America today — many Americans recognize that their life is enriched by diversity.

    But most European countries do not think of themselves as immigrant nations. Many Europeans fear that an influx of foreigners will undermine their comfortable cultures.Research suggests this concern is a major factor in support for populist extremist parties in many EU countries. That fear is accentuated in largely Christian Europe by the Muslim religion of most of the new arrivals. Some governments — Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia — have expressed a strong preference for only Christian refugees.

    This disquiet has been building for decades as Europe’s population has slowly changed. Predictably, some politicians such as Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Matteo Salvini of Italy, Milos Zeman in the Czech Republic, or the UKIP party in Britain, are now using the refugee surge to accentuate these fears.

    This is a political challenge, requiring political leadership in response — not a question of capacity to absorb the recent immigrants. Some politicians have risen to the occasion. Merkel, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, among others, have spoken out against the demagogues and affirmed the European values that they jeopardize. Yet there is more to be said, and more leaders who need to say it.

    Europeans leaders should publicly recall how others responded generously during World War II, when Europeans were the ones facing persecution and even becoming refugees. After the war, European nations embraced international law requiring them to welcome any asylum-seekers who could demonstrate they fled persecution. True to that principle, Germany and Sweden have already said they would accept all Syrian refugees who arrive within their borders and not send them back to the first EU country they entered under the bloc’s problematic “Dublin” asylum rules. Other European nations should follow suit, and the EU should recognize a larger list of refugee-producing countries and revise the Dublin rules, which can trap asylum seekers in EU countries that lack capacity to protect them and compel asylum-seekers to pay smugglers to escape those countries.

    As for those not yet in Europe, it is unconscionable to use the risk of drowning at sea or mistreatment by a smuggler as a mechanism to deter further asylum-seekers. Not providing safe and legal routes empowers illegal smugglers who are making money as children drown fleeing conflict. Asylum-seekers who arrive in Greece — an EU member — should be given organized transportation to northern parts of the EU that are more capable of processing their claims under humane conditions rather than be forced to endure the risks of smuggling networks just to cross the Balkans.

    Europeans leaders should publicly recall how others responded generously during World War II, when Europeans were the ones facing persecution and even becoming refugees.

    More needs to be done to address the causes of refugee flows at the source. European and other leaders need to exert more pressure to stop the Syrian military’s barrel bombing of civilians. Because barrel bombs are used to target civilians throughout opposition-held territory, they render ineffective the usual survival strategy of moving away from the front lines and thus encourage more Syrians to flee the country altogether. These leaders need to do more for Syria’s neighbors, such as Lebanon, whose population is now a whopping 20 percent Syrian refugees — vastly greater than in any European country.

    Political leaders should not let the demagogues change the subject by fear mongering about asylum-seekers and migrants. Those moving toward Europe, though numerous, are manageable. The real question confronting Europe’s political leadership is what Europe stands for. What are the values that will guide Europe in a world whose people are not standing still? The more European leaders who answer this question by reaffirming European values — such as those enshrined in the treaty protecting refugees, the safer European culture will be, even in this period of migration and turmoil.

    Kenneth Roth is Executive Director, Human Rights Watch. The article was first published by Human Rights Watch in early September.

  • Arja Keski-Nummi and Libby Lloyd. Resettling Syrian and Iraqi Refugees: A Program for Government-Community Action

    Australia has one of the best refugee resettlement systems in the world. So said United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres some years back. We have achieved this reputation not by good luck but because successive Australian governments have understood that early intervention and support in the settlement process are fundamental to long term successful integration.

    Australians have welcomed the announcement from our government that Australia will accept 12,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees with a focus on resettling women, children and families who have sought refuge and are in camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. This means that this coming year Australia will resettle 25,750 refugees, including these 12,000 additional refugees from Iraq and Syria.

    This is a good start and similar to the figures during the height of the Indo Chinese resettlement programs in the 1980s. We have done it before we can do it again.

    Now, the hard work begins.

    As well as the extensive good will that has been extended we must put extensive thought and expertise into making this movement of people a success.

    We know that a well structured and inclusive resettlement service must harnesses the expertise of professional service providers and the goodwill of the community – this is vital to the future well being of new arrivals. It has always been so. The building blocks are the immediate support available to people on arrival – access to housing, health services particularly for people traumatised by war, access to emergency assistance for the basic needs of food, clothing and medical supplies.

    While the world is different and the way we organise settlement services for new arrivals has changed significantly since the 1980s some things never change – every person’s basic human needs for shelter, food, good health, education for their children and a better life for all, whether we are Australians or people fleeing a brutal civil war.

    The reality is that for most refugees arriving in Australia the first few years will be tough. While our settlement services are equipped to respond to those immediate needs, after the euphoria of being in a place of safety wears off, the hard rebuilding of interrupted lives begin.

    Moving to a new country is a complex and many layered process. One of the reasons Australia has been so good at immigration and delivered such good outcomes for many refugees is that we have always recognized that the migration experience does not end with a visa or entry to Australia. Its success has been in how we assist in the difficult first months and years of resettlement. Refugees need the opportunity and space to learn English early and to be assisted in understanding how to negotiate a different and sometimes culturally incomprehensible system.

    Equally important is the desire of people to have their dignity restored. Learning English, getting a job, having qualifications recognised and their children able to go to school and resume a childhood in safety are the start of that journey.

    But it is a journey with many obstacles: not recognising or understanding the linguistic and cultural cues; missteps that can be humiliating to a sense of self esteem; bad news from home; guilt at being safe; the loss of a job, or illness are just some of the many challenges to be faced and overcome.

    Almost certainly some of the people who will arrive over the coming months are professionals – doctors, lawyers, teachers, entrepreneurs, engineers, skilled tradesmen. However like generations of arrivals before them they will face a lengthy and uphill battle for recognition of previous qualifications and skills. Many will never be able to return to their chosen occupations.

    We need to learn from the past to do better in the present and into the future.

    The groundswell of community sentiment for Australia to do more has been heartening.   Many people in the Australian community have not only asked the Government to do more, they have also shown that they want to be part of the solution.

    There are currently government and community sponsored programs that we should be bringing together to look systemically at how, as a community, we can collaboratively assist and get the most effective programs running across the whole gamut of needs .

    For example, the current Community Proposal Pilot (CPP), already oversubscribed with only 500 places set aside for this program year should be expanded and made into a permanent program. While it will not be available for all and the costs are prohibitive for many it needs to be part of the mix of options available.

    The government could for example reconsider the use of the Special Assistance Category as a visa option to quickly identify people in need of resettlement. The reality is that with the chaos of war and displacement many people with strong links to Australia may not be in UNHCR camps or registered with them. For many even the ability to get to where UNHCR may be operating is an impossibility. This could be one way of identifying people and if linked for example to the current CPP as the authorised processing organisation could ensure integrity and transparency in the nomination process. Allocating a proportion of the 12,000 places to this visa category would be a start.

    Without a doubt the Humanitarian Settlement Services Providers are gearing up to expect a greater number of people to utilise their services over the coming few years. This will place added demands on already overstretched arrangements particularly for accommodation and early entry into ESL programs as well as their volunteer support programs.

    We could for example examine how underlying principles of the previous Community Refugee Settlement Scheme (CRSS) that operated so well for over 20 years could be adapted to this new inflow of refugees. When first put into place for Indo-Chinese refugees it arose precisely because communities, like today, wished to be part of the solution – to welcome refugees into our communities and assist them with the path to integration. CRSS provided direct links between families – a host family or groups of families attached to an agency and a refugee family or individual. Many of these links remain in place 30 and more years after the initial arrival of a refugee family.

    We can also learn from the way organisations have come together in the past few years to support people being released from detention. This required a large effort in finding accommodation, creating community based ESL programs for people not eligible to attend funded ESL classes, linking volunteers to assist with orientation into new communities after, in some cases, years in detention, dealing mostly with men, who had left their families behind, and who had become disoriented and damaged by the detention experience.

    These arrangements were a catalyst for imaginative and new approaches, for example harnessing the enthusiasm of retired ESL teachers in the delivery of community based ESL classes, working strategically with different housing providers for emergency and medium term housing arrangements, encouraging training providers to provide free of charge places for some to undertake basic entry level training such as in the cleaning and construction industries.

    While the circumstances may be different the needs still remain universal.

    Now is the time for government and communities to come together in a unique way to make sure that we do the best we can in assisting people to resettle away from the ravages of war. In reality governments and communities are in a symbiotic relationship – no amount of professional services funded by government can provide the span of services and support that are needed and no community based organisation can do it alone. But now we can perhaps look for increased opportunities for new groups and individuals to become more directly engaged in close assistance to these new arrivals.

    We could for example encourage businesses and unions, not traditionally active in this area to come together with service delivery agencies to be part of a strategic response. We could examine how the use of Social Investment Bonds could support a more holistic approach. Governments with business, unions and peak welfare bodies could for example agree to the creation of a Refugee Resettlement Fund – with a dollar for dollar matching scheme.

    Such a fund could for instance assist with:

    • emergency housing on arrival,
    • support for regional resettlement initiatives by funding access to programs such as ESL classes, community orientation and other services which are harder to get in regional Australia (housing in regional Australia can be more available and cheaper),
    • encourage regional communities and support groups in the resettleement of greater numbers of refugees in regional centres where housing availability and employment opportunities exist such as in centres with abbatoirs and agricultural industries
    • support trades and skills recognition (currently a prohibitively expensive process for many),
    • develop a skills matching database that would assist people in their search for jobs and matching jobseekers to employers,
    • support access to workplace training programs that assist people to become job ready quickly,
    • create small business hubs that facilitate the pathway for the creation of new enterprises. (What is most evident from previous refugee intakes is that many who will arrive in Australia were small business owners and what is clear for Australia is we need to harness that new talent pool).

    This could for example be done by the creation of a multipartite resettlement council comprising state and commonwealth government agencies together with key business, union, and advocacy and welfare/resettlement bodies. Such a body could for instance work with regional and local service providers in assisting in the design, delivery and funding of local services for people resettling in their communities.

    The challenge that now faces us is to make the path to resettlement as smooth as possible, that means building new partnerships with new players, looking more broadly at opportunities for resettlement away from the big cities and building the capacities of regional and rural communities in supporting refugees integration into their communities.

    By involving and linking new arrivals with direct assistance from their local community we additionally harness direct and positive goodwill to people who can in some cases become isolated and detached from our broader multicultural society that at this moment is teeming with good will.

    What is certain is that a one size model does not fit all. What is needed are flexible and imaginative approaches that are responsive to the unique needs of individuals and families while operating within an overall framework that seeks to assist people as quickly as possible renew their independence. That way lies success for both people coming to Australia and for Australia.

     

    Arja Keski-Nummi was formerly First Assistant Secretary of the Refugee, Humanitarian and International Division in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2007-2010.

    Libby has worked with refugees for more than 30 years – with UNHCR in Indonesia and Iraq, with the Department of Immigration in Canberra, in the community with NGOs and on ministerial advisory councils.   Libby was made a Member of the Order of Australia through her work in international relations and with refugees in Iraq.

     

  • Walter Hamilton. Japanese Sleepwalking

    Defying public protests and opinion polls that show most Japanese oppose the move, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party and Shin-Komeito ruling coalition are pressing ahead with legislation to nullify the nation’s constitutional ban on overseas military action.

    The so-called ‘right of collective defense’ law is being voted out of the committee stage of the Diet––thus ending formal debate––and will soon go to the full parliament where Abe has the numbers to push it through. There have been rowdy scenes in the corridors and chambers of parliament as angry Opposition members have tried to prevent the gag being applied.

    Outside, in the streets of central Tokyo, thousands of demonstrators, defying cyclonic rain, have kept up a protest vigil. In Yokoyama, protestors clashed with police. There is a mood of crisis not seen probably since the anti-U.S.-Japan Treaty demonstrations of the 1960s, although that earlier protest movement was far bigger and more determined.

    There is every indication that Japan will take the historic step to free up its military options in a way not seen since the end of the Second World War. The Abe Government will have spent a considerable amount of political capital, but even so its approval rating in the latest survey by NHK (the public broadcaster) showed an improvement to above 40%, which is comparatively good for a Cabinet this far into its term of office.

    On what will the new Japanese posture be built? In terms of historical memory, I would suggest that the foundations are dangerously weak. Unlike Germany––as has often been observed­­­­­­­––Japan has never adequately faced up to its past. In a real sense, Abe’s conservatives are starting again where his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi (a high official in the wartime state and the postwar Prime Minister who forced through the unpopular treaty with the U.S.) left off. In their world-view, Japan was not the aggressor in the 1930s but the victim (of the European powers) and its mission in China and Korea was noble.

    I remember visiting Berlin a few years ago and taking a tram to the Philharmonie. In the tram shelter there I noticed a sign bearing a photograph and some bilingual text. It turned out to be one of a series of historical markers related to the Second World War. To my great surprise, it named and described a German Nazi who had perpetrated crimes against humanity: it was a very public and unalloyed reminder of Germany’s dark past. Places like the Holocaust Monument in Berlin and the museum erected at the site where the Nuremberg Rallies were held are further examples of the clear-sighted German approach to their historical legacy.

    Contrast this with Japan, where places like the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo perpetuate the nationalists’ apologia for decades of aggression in China and Korea and the brutal military occupation of Southeast Asia.

    Whether on a large scale or small, the Japanese are unprepared emotionally and intellectually for a remilitarized future.

    I give as a small example of the unreconstructed attitude to the past one encounters almost every day. I happen, at present, to be doing some translation work connected with art history. In a Japanese commentary I am working on, concerning an artist who painted in Manchukuo (the puppet state set up by Japan) and occupied China, the writer persists in using anachronistic place names dating from the time when the Japanese were master. Instead of describing Japan as attacking China in 1937, she refers to the Sino-Japanese Incident. The involvement of the particular artist in wartime propaganda is also silently passed over. Nothing like this would be tolerated in a German publication of any status.

    I do not for a moment suggest that the writer of this commentary is a right-wing zealot or even politically aware. Indeed, her approach and language are typical of the way these events are written about in Japan. It runs right through the so-called educated classes. Either people do not know or do not care to know what really happened in the past. The education system has failed to prepare the present generation to deal in a different, safer way with the pressures emerging from the Right for a renewal of national pride and self-assertiveness.

    Television coverage of the anti-security legislation protests suggests that a majority of those demonstrating are middle to older-aged Japanese. Perhaps the news programs may be distorting the truth (friends of mine who have attended say around a third are younger people), but what is different about these protests, compared with those in the 1960s, is that they are not being led or joined by mainly student-age Japanese. This is a worrying aspect: the rising generation is either complacent or so badly informed about their nation’s past, the inherent dangers of a society that hides or obfuscates what it should, like Germany, confront every day––whether at a tram-stop or in the classroom or in an art book––are just not appreciated.

    Japan does not seem to know how unready it is.

    Walter Hamilton reported for the ABC from Japan for 11 years.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Bruce Kaye. Refugees in Australia and the Good Samaritan.

     

    When I was a teenager a famous preacher of the day, Dr Gordon Powell, was the minister at St Stephens Presbyterian Church Macquarie Street Sydney. I recall hearing some of his sermons and in particular a sermon from a series of sermons he preached on the “Hard Sayings of Jesus”. He remarked at the beginning of the series that the really hard sayings of Jesus were not those that were complex or oblique. Rather the hardest sayings of Jesus were those whose meaning was all too clear. The difficulty was in how to work out those sayings in everyday life.

    Similarly the Prime Minister’s statement on Thursday (10 September) that Australia will take in 12,000 extra refugees who are fleeing the conflict in Syria and Iraq. Christians in this country should warmly applaud this surprising but very welcome change of policy by the government.

    There are many complexities and concerns in the implications of the Prime Minister’s statement. Already there are questions about priorities in selection of refugees and whether Christians should be given some priority.   It is abundantly clear that Christians in eastern Mediterranean countries have been severely persecuted for several decades. There used to be a large Palestinian Christian community but it has been practically obliterated in the last 40 years.

    This language about the selection of refugees brought immediate reactions in the media and some declared that if this was to be the pattern then that would be the end of social unity in Australia. This kind of reaction is understandable but the government in its policy statements has not endorsed this kind of selection. Indeed the source of refugees is quite specific. They will come from those fleeing the conflict in Syria and Iraq. ‘Our focus will be on those most in need – the women, children and families of persecuted minorities who have sought refuge from the conflict in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey’.

    But the war in Syria is complicated   Ross Burns Australian Ambassador to Syria (1984-87) points out that the

    ‘Syrian conflict is an increasingly multi-layered scene where violence on all sides has risen to catastrophic proportions. It began as a citizens’ revolt against a brutally repressive government but has since become a multilayered civil war in which a bewildering range of Islamist forces have competed to lead the fight against an oppressive regime. All parties to the conflict have their backers outside Syria with some contributing military resupply, others turning a blind eye to movements into Syria of fighters and arms.’

    The first few years of the conflict saw fighting extend principally into Muslim majority areas of the country while many minority groups (among them Christians, Druze and Alawis) found shelter in areas under government control. Many Christians, in particular, became apologists for the regime in its efforts to project abroad its case that it was fighting the threat of ‘Islamic extremists’—a threat which was largely awakened as a result of the regime’s appetite right from the start for violence and repression as the answer to any form of dissent.

    However the most important complications in this matter are likely to arise here in Australia in the reception and settling of these refugees. This is not a straightforward matter.

    1. Not all in Australia support it or will not like some aspect of the way it works out.
    2. for good practical reasons not all can directly help.
    3. Some simply don’t want to be involved because they don’t approve of the government decision
    4. Some are fearful of the effects on their local community. The member for parliament for the seat of Dawson in Queensland, George Christensen, has expressed strong concern on the affect such an influx would have on his electorate where there is already significant unemployment.
    5. Some point to the many disadvantaged in our community already – will they be neglected? Tony Abbot said these issues will be dealt with in the way the project is handled. That will not be easy.
    6. There will be some prejudice against Muslim people and opposition to more coming – no doubt we will see religious and ethnic stereotyping as this programme goes forward.

    All of these concerns have to be confronted and dealt with both sympathetically and constructively. These concerns cannot be simply brushed aside. They must be recognised and addressed.

    How we as a society do this will be vital for the good of those who come and also for those who are the existing Australians.

    There is an underlying moral question in all this. Why should we be doing all this anyway? Ought we to not be protecting our way of life as a model to other nations?

    For us as Christians and as a Christian community there is however a simple and unavoidable challenge.

    Our Archbishop put his finger on it in his excellent article in the SMH last Thursday.

    The parable of the Good Samaritan is an incendiary critique of discrimination based on race, ethnicity and religion. Listening to the story for the first time, many would have been incensed that Jesus had used the word “good” to describe a despised Samaritan. Yet it never crosses the Samaritan’s mind in the story to ask about the religion or background of the man he finds beaten and dying on the side of the road. His response is immediate, generous and unquestioning.

    Our ability to show love and mercy and provide a warm welcome to anyone in distress, regardless of their faith, must serve as a counterpoint to the brutality of IS. Our response needs to be immediate, generous and unquestioning regardless of race, ethnicity or religion.

    Three elements collide in the story.

    1. The context of complacent religion of the lawyer. He keeps the form but lacks the moral substance.
    1. The ordered complacency of the Levite and the Priest who place observance of religious practices before the moral challenge of their faith.
    1. The indiscriminate compassion of the despised ethnically offensive half foreigner was indeed the true neighbour:
      1. Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

    Extending mercy and compassion to the stranger is clearly central to Jesus’ understanding of how to conduct our lives.

    SO WHAT TO DO IN THE PESENT CHALLENGE

    Don’t panic – this is going to be a long haul both in Syria and Iraq and in Australia

    1. We have a record in Australia of adaptation and continuity in our basic values
    2. Those values are clearly embedded in our constitution, laws, institutions and habits – but we need to be constantly strengthening them, especially when we are confronted with a challenge such as this.
    3. The meeting with faith community leaders and settlements service providers with the Prime Minister is a good start in coordinating appropriate systems for settlement.
    4. Our Anglican Church has been on the front foot in this crisis .We should run with our fellow Christians
    5. The Primate, Archbishop Freier and service organisations of our church have declared their support
    6. The Archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies, has made public comment and in a letter sent to all parishes given an unprecedented challenge to parishes and organisations in the diocese to be actively involved.

    So what about us and our parish?

    For the parish as a whole

    I believe the Parish Council should lead the way in developing a strategy we can all be involved in according to our circumstances.

    For each of us as a base line we could

    1. Keep informed
    2. Pray – keep our response to this consciously before God
    3. Think what you can offer directly or indirectly e.g. help someone else, or some organisation like Anglicare
    4. Support the Parish Council to keep up to the challenge for the parish as a whole
    5. Speak up for generosity with your friends. It may well be that generosity will be at a discount in public and private conversation in the months ahead.
    6. Support our political representatives so that this task stays at the forefront of their attention.

    This challenge lies clearly before us. Millions of people are refugees. Our government has laid it open for us as citizens to be involved in a national contribution. Whatever we do we cannot avoid the challenge of compassion that lies before us. We can discuss and debate the means and the details, but as Christian people we have a clear choice in this matter.

    We must choose whether we will be complacent religious or Samaritans,

    A Sermon preached at St Michael’s Anglican Church, Vaucluse. 13 September 2015 by The Revd. Dr Bruce Kaye AM. He is Adjunct Research Professor, Centre for Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University.

     

     

     

     

    [1] Media Statement by Prime Minister 14 September 2015 http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2015-09-09/syrian-and-iraqi-humanitarian-crisis

     

    [2] John Menadue – Pearls and Irritations. publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog. Posted on 11/09/2015 by John Menadue

     

    [3] Article in Sydney Morning Herald, September 9, 2015. http://www.smh.com.au/comment/open-the-door-widely-to-syrian-refugees-20150909-gjij0h.html

  • The Exaggeration over Free Trade Agreements.

    I have posted many blogs in the last couple of years concerning the Free Trade Agreements with the Republic of Korea, Japan and China. I have pointed out that the years of negotiation of these agreements occurred under the Rudd and Gillard governments. The Abbott government gave the agreements the final touch. The other issues that I have raised is that the Abbott government has seriously exaggerated the benefits of the FTAs. Andrew Robb has referred to them as ‘turbo-charging’ the Australian economy.  That is nonsense but unfortunately the exaggerated nonsense continues even with the new Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull. The FTAs are useful but we need to keep them in proportion.

    Over a decade ago, we had a great deal of exaggeration about the FTA that John Howard negotiated with President Bush. It turns out that there was a negative effect on Australia of this FTA.

    In this blog on 10 September 2015 I drew attention to an article by Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer ‘What’s really at stake if the China FTA falls through’. Dixon and Rimmer wrote that ‘Economic modelling for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade by the Centre for International Economics (CIE) demonstrates the gains of the agreement (with China) will be modest. The CIE estimates the gain in economic welfare from the three North Asian FTAs … will be 0.4%.’

    In the SMH on September 15, the Economic Editor of the Age, Peter Martin, wrote about the impact of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. The article was headed ‘How many jobs? The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement will create hardly any’. Peter Martin commented ‘[the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement] will create only a few thousand jobs, according to the government’s own modelling, conducted by the Canberra-based Centre for International Economics. But you wouldn’t know it from the way the modelling has been mangled and butchered by the government.’  For Peter Martin’s article, see link below.  The government’s exaggerations about FTAs have become a scandal. John Menadue

    http://www.smh.com.au/comment/how-many-jobs-the-chinaaustralia-free-trade-agreement-will-create-hardly-any-20150914-gjlv06.html

  • Rod Tiffen Lord Leveson, your country needs you, again.

    Two events in the past week show the importance of the Leveson Inquiry reconvening to complete its second report. The Leveson inquiry was set up by British Prime Minister David Cameron in July 2011 at the height of the phone hacking scandal centered on Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World newspaper.

    Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry became, as he said in his report, ‘the most public and the most concentrated look at the press that this country has seen’. The proceedings provided many riveting moments as in nine months of oral hearings 337 witnesses gave evidence, including victims of phone hacking. Four prime ministers and a variety of politicians and media figures, including Rupert and James Murdoch also testified and were cross-examined.

    In November 2012, Leveson published a four volume, almost 2000 page report. It recommended a system of press accountability with a statutory basis. Cameron, having earlier promised to implement the reforms, immediately surrendered to the press proprietors’ lobbying and there have been only very partial moves since towards reform.

    Leveson’s report was part one. The second part – looking in detail at News and its web of contacts – was indefinitely delayed because of the necessity to refrain from any publication which would prejudice criminal proceedings. It has been widely assumed that the second part would never be done.

    Now, however, almost three years later, all the major criminal prosecutions are completed, and there is still a need for an authoritative and comprehensive report.

    The legal record over the last few years has yielded some convictions and some important revelations, but also a series of unanswered questions. The most famous trial, the longest completed criminal trial in British history, involved eight defendants, including Rebekah Brooks, on a total of 15 charges. It was also the best funded defence in British history, with some estimates that Murdoch spent more than £30 million pounds, so that the defence was much more lavishly resourced than the prosecution. This eight month trial produced only one guilty verdict, with former News of the World editor and staff member for Prime Minister Cameron, Andy Coulson, sent to jail. It is important to recall however that after those proceedings, there were eight guilty verdicts or guilty pleas to do with phone hacking, and two acquittals (Rebekah Brooks and Stuart Kuttner).

    On charges to do with newspapers bribing officials, codenamed Operation Elveden by the police, dozens of journalists were arrested, but as of now, I think, only one has been convicted – two others were convicted but those convictions were overturned on appeal. The toll among public servants has been greater, and they are subject to much greater legal hazard than journalists. The case of Bettina Jordan-Barber illustrates the difference.

    Jordan-Barber, a Ministry of Defence official, received around £100,000 over nine years from the Sun newspaper. She was sentenced to 12 months jail. Rebekah Brooks, when she was editor of the Sun from 2003 to 2006, authorized eleven payments totaling £38,000. Brooks testified that it never occurred to her that the person, whom her reporter referred to in his emails as my ‘number one military contact’ and ‘ace military source’ might actually be a public official. She was found not guilty.

    Later, that reporter, John Kay, 71, and two of his editors were also found not guilty. Kay had arranged 35 payments to Jordan-Barber for tips linked to 69 stories. The jury members were convinced that the leaks were in the public interest. It is not clear whether the jury looked at all 69 stories, but it seems they must have taken a very broad view of what constitutes public interest.

    One of the two events of the past week which indicate that the Leveson inquiry should be reconvened is the dropping of charges against former News of the World executive Alex Marunchak and private detective Jonathan Rees for hacking into computers between 2005 and 2007. The charges had to be dropped because they were brought later than the three year limit on computer hacking crimes. So, again because of a legal restriction, the substance of the charges will not be resolved.

    There are other remarkable aspects of the relationship between Rees and the paper, which paid him up to £150,000 a year for his services. These included using his extensive contacts among corrupt police to buy information for the paper. He was jailed once for planting cocaine on the wife of a client in a divorce case. The day he was released from jail, the paper’s editor Andy Coulson immediately re-hired him. Rees was also charged in 2002 with murdering his former partner Daniel Morgan, who was killed in 1987 allegedly when he was threatening to reveal corruption among Rees and some police. Some of those police were initially in charge of the investigation. When charges were brought 15 years later, obviously many questions surrounded the evidence presented in court.

    In 2002 the BBC’s Crimewatch program had presenter Jacqui Hames and her husband police officer David Cook appealing for information about the crime. An associate of Rees contacted News International editors who agreed to ‘sort Cook out’, and placed surveillance vans outside the couple’s house. Out of all the misdeeds revealed by Murdoch’s News staff in London, this – seeking to inhibit police investigation of a murder – is, in my view, one of the most revealing about the corporation’s misuse of power and its immorality. As of this week, Rees’s involvement in computer hacking for the company will not be legally punished.

    The other major event of this week, one that has attracted much more attention, is the reinstatement of Rebekah Brooks as head of News UK. In July 2011, at the height of the scandal, she resigned as head of Murdoch’s UK operations with a severance payout of £10.8 million. In addition, she received full payment of her legal fees plus some ongoing support for office expenses. She remained a Murdoch favourite, sometimes holidaying with the family and for some months now being a consultant in the US.

    Now that the British election is safely over, Murdoch has brought her back to her old job, with a rumoured salary of £3 million a year. When Murdoch appeared before a House of Commons committee about the scandal, he called it the most humble day of my life. As Margaret Simons aptly commented, perhaps the reappointment of Brooks is the most arrogant day of his life – although there are many more days competing for this title than for most humble. Murdoch appears to be taking the criminal not guilty verdict as a much more open-ended view that Brooks did nothing wrong.

    Labour’s shadow culture secretary Chris Bryant, who was one of the phone tapping victims, colourfully and courageously called the move ‘two fingers up to the British public’. He said that Brooks’s defence in her criminal trial was ‘that she was incompetent and had no idea what was going on and the end results was that company lost £300 million. It mystifies me that Rupert Murdoch would want to reappoint her’.

    It is also though two fingers up to two other groups. One is Murdoch’s shareholders, who watch on helpless to stop this commercially perverse move, which shows yet again how feeble are the mechanisms of corporate governance to tame the octogenarian’s power, and must wonder how Brooks’s reinstatement will add to shareholder value.

    The second group is more interesting. There is a ghost army of former Murdoch employees whose careers have been ruined by the scandals. The two leading company executives who oversaw the company during its misdeeds and then its defence, are now sitting pretty: James Murdoch has been promoted to head of Twenty First Century Fox and now Rebekah Brooks has come out of her lucrative retirement into a lucrative executive position.

    Most of the others involved in the scandal are not doing so well. For example the former head of security for the company, Mark Hanna, who was found not guilty at the same trial in which Brooks was a defendant, is complaining that he is damaged goods and cannot since the end of the trial find suitable employment. Soon afterwards the company made him redundant with a payout of £45,000. He is now suggesting that he might participate in a project that would reveal the company’s ‘underhand’ activity which will ‘shock everybody’. Similarly many of the journalists charged are now unemployed, and there are reports of health and marriage problems. Indeed their plight might make good fodder for a tabloid exposé. Like Hanna, the one saleable commodity many of them have is to sell revelations of their previous nefarious activities.

    No-one can guess whether this will happen, and if so their stories may give more salacious details but would not comprise a comprehensive and authoritative account.

    Lord Leveson, your country needs you, again.

    Rod Tiffen is Emeritus Professor of political Science at the University of Sydney. He is the author of ‘Rupert Murdoch: A Reassessment’ (NewSouth 2014).

     

     

  • “U.S. should bear blame for European refugee, humanitarian crisis”

    Disastrous intervention by the US has been the cause of many major refugee flows including the current flows out of the Middle East. The people’s Daily published an interesting article on this subject on 7 September.  The article refers to refugees from Syria, Lybia, Iraq and Afghanistan. It could have added that one of the major refugee flows since WWII was triggered by the disastrous intervention in Vietnam.  See article from People’s Daily below.  John Menadue

     

    Xinhua Commentary: U.S. should bear blame for European refugee, humanitarian crisis

    By Hu Yao (Xinhua)    09:10, September 07, 2015

    BEIJING, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) — When millions of people around the world were taken aghast by the pictures of drowned three-year  old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi lying washed up on a Turkish beach and the massive refugee crisis engulfing Europe, they should see through the fact that the United States is mainly responsible for all the mess.

    The main sources of today’s refugees — Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan –are targets of U.S. intervention, which led to devastation,chaos, deteriorating domestic security and extensive displacements. People in those countries could no longer enjoy even basic human rights. Many of them had no choice but to flee for life, not only to neighboring countries, but to Europe.

    According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, more than 300,000 refugees and migrants have ventured to cross the Mediterranean into Europe so far this year, and over 2,600 didn’t survive the dangerous journey.

    While the European countries are accused of indifference and incapabilities to cope with the refugee crisis, the Unites States, their closest ally and the major cause of the crisis,seems not to have realized its moral obligation to help clean up the mess and work to address the root cause of the problem.

    Syria is the latest country following Iraq and Libya to become the victim of U.S.intervention in the Middle East. Having been mired in a fullblown civil war for four years due to persistent U.S.led Western intervention, the country was the largest source of refugees bound for Europe in 2013, 2014 and the first half of this year. The militants of the so-called Islamic State (IS), emerging from the Syrian oppositions which were supported by the U.S. to topple the Syrian government, have launched numerous attacks against Syrian civilians, who have become targets of kidnappings, suicide and car bombings, among others. Their lives are at peril if they hang on in their own country.

    On other fronts, although the United States has pulled out its troops from some countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, it should be still held accountable for having destabilized these countries in the first place and then leaving them in a hopeless mess.

    As a self-styled leader of the world, it is a shame for the United States to stir up chaos,anarchism and the emergence of extremist and terrorist groups in those countries by its selfish foreign policies.

    Now as Europe struggles to cope with a daily influx of thousands of refugees, the U.S.should act immediately and do more to help solve the refugee crisis and work out long-term measures to help troubled countries and regions restore calm, stability and normal life as soon as possible.

  • Josef Szwarc. Resettling an additional 12,000 refugees.

    The Government has announced that “Australia will resettle an additional 12,000 refugees who are fleeing the conflict in Syria and Iraq.”

    http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2015-09-09/syrian-and-iraqi-humanitarian-crisis

    This note publishes the statement with some comments about various aspects.

    “Our focus will be on those most in need – the women, children and families of persecuted minorities who have sought refuge from the conflict in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.”

    Comment: There were reports of political and other commentators suggesting that people of Muslim faith should not be selected. At a press conference about the decision to take in the additional refugees, the Prime Minister stated that there would not be discrimination against Muslims and said: “if you look at the persecuted minorities of the region there are Muslim minorities, Druze, Turkmen, Kurds, there are non-Muslim minorities, Christians…Jews, Yazidis, Armenians, so there are persecuted minorities that are Muslim, there are persecuted minorities that are non-Muslim….” The explicit rejection of faith-based discrimination is welcome: to act otherwise would be unconscionable.

    “A team of Government officials will depart for the region as soon as possible to begin identifying and processing potential candidates for resettlement.”

    Comment: The commitment to implementation expeditiously is very welcome – the level of immediate need is great.

    “In addition, Australia will provide humanitarian support to more than 240,000 Syrian and Iraqi people who have been forced to flee their homes or seek refuge in neighbouring countries. This is expected to cost $44 million. “

    Comment: The boost in assistance for people in the region is important – international financial support for UNHCR is well short of what the agency urgently requires.

    “This funding will deliver much needed food, water, healthcare, education, emergency supplies and protection, including support for women and girls.”

    “With this additional commitment, Australia’s contribution to help address the humanitarian crisis in Syria and Iraq will be around $230 million since 2011.”

    “Today’s announcement represents a significant contribution to the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East.  It is a generous, prudent and proportionate response by a decent and compassionate nation.

    It follows consultations with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other humanitarian agencies in Geneva.

    Our officials will work with the UNHCR to resettle the refugees as soon as possible.

    They will undergo normal security, health and character checks before coming to Australia and receiving permanent protection.”

    Comment: It is to be hoped that the aim of resettlement ‘as soon as possible’ is not hampered by the pace of conducting ‘normal security, health and character checks’ which can be very prolonged and in the order of 12 months and longer. However, there are media reports of the first arrivals by Christmas. Significant additional resources will be required for both the Department of Immigration and ASIO which may mean reallocation of current staff from other tasks or recruitment, but new staff will take some time to be able to do the complex work involved. Other sources will have to be tapped – The Australian reports that “the load on the Australian immigration system could see retired officials and contractors brought into departments to help handle the load….” 

    The commitment to permanent protection is welcome: the refugees have endured traumatic events, so this is a critical measure of security to allow them to rebuild their lives.

    “The 12,000 places will be in addition to the existing humanitarian programme of 13,750, which rises to 18,750 in 2018-19.

    This decision represents a significant increase in Australia’s humanitarian intake.

    We are able to make this contribution because the Coalition Government has stopped the flow of illegal boats to Australia, easing the pressure on our humanitarian programme.

    It will require the support of all Australian governments and community organisations.

    We will engage State and Territory leaders and community organisations in coming days to discuss how the nation can contribute to this effort.”

    Comment: A number of State governments and community organisations have indicated their willingness to support the settlement of an increased intake of refugees, building on the important roles already played by State, territory and local governments and civil society over many years. New models of collaboration and engagement are needed and we can draw on a history of effective responses to the intake of large numbers of immigrants and refugees.

    Josef Szwarc is Manager, Research and Policy, Victorian Foundation for survivors of Torture.

     

  • Ross Burns. Syria and Persecuted Minorities.

    The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the international legal instrument to which Australia was an original signatory, contains a clause making clear that ‘The Contracting States shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin’.

    It therefore seems curious that at least three Ministers, most notably the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, have made statements that echo the wording that Australia’s new program to take 12,000 Syrian refugees under UNHCR auspices announced on 9 September would give preference to ‘persecuted minorities’.

    While on the surface this wording may sound consistent with the convention it has rightly raised a few eyebrows in the Australian Muslim community. In the Syrian context, does this reference indicate that Australia only considers ‘minorities’ as persecuted? Must members of the majority community in Syria have their claims under the convention downgraded?

    The Syrian conflict is an increasingly multi-layered scene where violence on all sides has risen to catastrophic proportions. It began as a citizens’ revolt against a brutally repressive government but has since become a multi-layered civil war in which a bewildering range of Islamist forces have competed to lead the fight against an oppressive regime. All parties to the conflict have their backers outside Syria with some contributing military resupply, others turning a blind eye to movements into Syria of fighters and arms.

    The first few years of the conflict saw fighting extend principally into Muslim majority areas of the country while many minority groups (among them Christians, Druze and Alawis) found shelter in areas under government control. Many Christians, in particular, became apologists for the regime in its efforts to project abroad its case that it was fighting the threat of ‘Islamic extremists’—a threat which was largely awakened as a result of the regime’s appetite right from the start for violence and repression as the answer to any form of dissent.

    The latest dimension to the conflict in the past year is the rise of ‘Islamic State’ or ISIS—a spillover from the Sunni vs Shi`a conflict in Iraq and thus another product of the Allied contributors’ failure to appreciate the consequences of the Malaki government’s marginalisation of the Sunnis. It is in this phase that many Christians in the eastern provinces of Syria—mainly poor agricultural communities not affiliated to the main Orthodox or Catholic streams that had congregated in the regime-held centres to the west— found themselves trapped by ISIS’ lightening rise. In the early years of the conflict, however, undoubtedly the Muslim suburbs of the major cities bore the brunt of the regime’s violent onslaught which brought the major waves of refugee outflows still trapped in the camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. In this situation, only a strictly needs-based selection process would be warranted. Part of that assessment process needs to take into account whether communities could ever safely return but that is a question that hangs over virtually every community that once comprised Syria’s mosaic of cultures and faiths.

    Picking favourites in this maze of tragic complexity is not a good idea. There is no Syrian community, ethnic or religious, which has avoided exposure to the violence that has washed across Syria. The pattern does not discriminate by race or creed. Even those who have found refuge in regime-held areas can suddenly find the lines have changed.

    The Abbott government’s new program is an admirably generous development. It is regrettable, though, that it has to be ‘sold’ to one element of the Australian public (the Coalition’s right wing) by code-worded rhetoric suggesting that the UN convention can be manipulated in a way that would minimise Muslim participation. Everyone will need to be on board to make this program a success. There is every reason to believe that Syrians have the background, particularly educational, and motivation to make their new lives a success. It would be tragic to spoil the program’s chances by allowing it to be labeled as an exercise in selective compassion, thus alienating parts of the community whose cooperation is essential to making it a success.

    Ross Burns was Australian Ambassador in Syria from 1984 to 1987.

     

  • Ian Marsh. What wrong with Australia’s political system?

    Most readers of this piece will not need lessons about the power of economic incentives. They know that efficient price signals can channel investment into productive assets and these same signals will drain funds from unconstructive pursuits. The same process more or less works at individual levels. Both good and bad performance is demonstrated by similar calculations. In turn these calculations draw on a variety of other metrics – prices, volumes, demand, supply, growth estimates and so forth.

    Readers also know these numbers are reasonably reliable because they come from credible institutions. Thus markets are reasonably ‘free’ and undistorted. The Bureau and Census and Statistics is honest. The Stock Exchange is not manipulated. The judicial system acts according to the rule of law.

    At a tertiary level, a variety of other institutions – the Productivity Commission, APRA, the Reserve Bank – police these secondary systems and reframe them when necessary to ensure that they continue to support wider public interests. This in essence is the familiar economic system.

    Why do so many people then approach the political system with naïve or simplistic assumptions? Why do they not recognise that the political world is also a complex interdependent system where immediate incentives depend on the effective working of more embedded institutions?

    If they did, the reasons for the current impasse in public policy in Australia might be more apparent – perhaps along with the profound nature of the present political challenge.

    But let’s start with a fact. Since 1983, only one major piece of economic reform requiring legislative endorsement has passed in this country without bipartisan support. That was the GST which John Howard successfully navigated into law after winning the 1998 election. But he won that election and lost the popular vote. Hardly an auspicious signal to his successors.

    Every other major measure in Australia since 1983 has required bipartisan support.

    Why, short of a palpable crisis, is bipartisanship so elusive? Look first at immediate incentives. Politicians live in a two party, winner-takes-all world. Conceding common ground can spell disaster for a leader. Look no further than Malcolm Turnbull.

    This adversarial system was conceived to highlight the choice between major parties that differed in their basic policy orientation. In the process, common ground, which was essential to sustain continuity in governance, was deliberately disguised or concealed. The parliamentary theatre was deliberately designed to highlight programmatic differences. The forms and procedures of parliament – question time, the allocation of time, executive prerogatives etc. – work to sustain this divide. The late Bernard Crick captured this perfectly in his depiction of parliamentary routines as ‘tantamount to a continuing election campaign.’

    This political architecture was indeed appropriate and relevant for much of the period from the birth of this system in 1909 until the adoption of a softened neo-liberal programme by the Hawke-Keating government after 1983. Now party differences do not turn on the basic longer term agenda. The market system has more or less won.

    But political leaders still live in a world in which immediate incentives dictate sharp product differentiation. How to respond? Is it surprising that from Tampa on we have seen a turn to populism and worse?

    But you might say – OK, the major parties have converged in their fundamental approach. So why not share this agreement with the public and fight over the detail of measures. Why not make clear we agree that the states need more tax revenue – but we disagree about where this should come from. The blue side says a GST of 15% and the red side says the Medicare levy. Why not play the game that way.

    The old problem of incentives recurs. Earlier we noted the political incentives that, on controversial issues, discourage disclosure of even partial common ground. These are reinforced by executive arrangements. Our present political system makes it impossible to separate debate into longer term and more immediate streams. The political system as it operates in parliament is governed by three basic conventions – ministerial responsibility, collective cabinet responsibility and confidence. Note these are conventions. They are not enshrined in the constitution. They have no wider legal base. They can be changed by votes on the floor of parliament. But they do determine the structure of executive power. They are long established. They distribute many privileges. And these rules of the game are sustained by the power and force of inertia. These conventions make it impossible to separate debate into longer term and more immediate components.

    Then there are the distorting incentives that are associated with the media cycle. This reinforces populism and a short term orientation. Why does this incentive structure now exercise so much power?

    The media cycle exercises its power because it now provides the primary link between political leaders and their publics. Earlier more complex tissue has largely dissolved. Once around 50% of the community had strong or very strong affiliation to one or other of the major parties. Party organisations enrolled activists. Party brands cued public opinion. Party programmes signalled longer term values and ambitions. Each party stood for a clear and distinctive position in the eyes of its supporters.

    Political loyalty then turned primarily on class identification. This was the dominant social fault line. Class remains an important marker. But it no longer predominates. The women’s, gay, environment, consumer, animal rights, Indigenous, ethnic and other movements of the 1970s have busted that simple binary divide. And they have stimulated conservative reactions which have further compounded differentiation. Australian society is now pluralised in a way that would be unrecognisable to Alfred Deakin or Billy Hughes much less to John Curtin and Robert Menzies.

    The major parties try to contain these internal pressures, not surprisingly often not very effectively.

    So if you want to understand why the Australia political system is in trouble look no farther than this catalogue of distorting incentives and hollowed out systems. My personal view is that the two party system has past its use-by date. But this is a large judgment that is likely to be hotly contested – not least by those who in one form or another are advantaged by the present structure of power. Or by those whose political imaginations cannot extend beyond the existing architecture.

    Were we to move beyond it, what should count as the central challenge? Surely the primary concern must be to renew the tissue that links the system to the people? In our more fluid and more pluralised society we need capacities for a more informed public conversation. We need to be able to debate single issues and we need capacities to do this initially at the level of strategy – is this an important issue for our country? What are some options in responding?

    In other words we need an institutional design that can separate the longer term strategic conversation from a more immediate one about responses. Ideally the main parties would campaign fiercely over the latter issue – but bipartisanship would reinforce public support for the former. By such means, majority coalitions that can underwrite (or prevent) policy action could be constructed.

    How to do this? We do not need wild schemes. This is how the Senate worked from 1901 to 1909. Ministers were drawn largely from the House. The Senate and its committees were custodians of longer term issues.

    But this is a bigger story. We may need new political architecture for a more pluralised twenty-first century. But before there is even a remote possibility of that happening, the distorting incentives and dysfunctional institutions that are causing our present political discontents need to be frankly acknowledged.

    Ian Marsh is a Visiting Professor at the UTS Management School. His study, Democratic Decline and Democratic Renewal:  Political Change in Britain, Australia and New Zealand (with Raymond Miller) was published in 2012 by Cambridge University Press.

  • Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer. What’s really at stake if the China FTA falls through.

    Earlier this month Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott sounded a warning on the impact to Australia’s economy if the recently signed China-Australia Free Trade Agreement were to fail.

    In a statement, Abbott said:

    “If Bill Shorten and the Labor Party try to reject the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement they will be sabotaging our economic future and they will be turning their back on one of the greatest opportunities our country has ever been offered.”

    Economic modelling for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade by the Centre for International Economics (CIE) demonstrates the gains of the agreement will be modest. The CIE estimates the gain in economic welfare from the three North Asian FTAs (the recently activated agreements with Japan and Korea and the agreement with China awaiting parliamentary ratification) will be 0.4%.

    We could call this an annual boost in welfare of A$3 billion or A$300 per household or A$130 per person. If we want an impressive number we could work out the present value of a A$3 billion annuity, and call the gain A$50 billion. All of these numbers are being quoted by proponents of the agreements. But whatever way we dress it up the gain is still 0.4%.

    The FTAs will give Australia a welfare gain because they will enable Australian firms to receive higher prices for their products in the three North Asian countries. The main reason is that these countries already have agreements with some of Australia’s competitors, including New Zealand.

    If the Chinese tariff on beef is 15% for non-FTA partners, then, in the absence of the China-Australia FTA, for Australia to compete with New Zealand in the Chinese beef market the Australian pre-tariff price (the price received by Australian producers) must be 15% less than the New Zealand price. When Australia becomes an FTA partner with China, it can edge up its pre-tariff price towards that of New Zealand.

    The FTA tariff reductions by the North Asian countries that will significantly benefit Australia are confined to a few agricultural products. For example, in the China-Australia agreement, Chinese tariffs on imports of Australian dairy, beef, lamb and wine all fall by more than 10 percentage points.

    In total, the CIE estimates that the FTAs will give Australia an increase in the prices it receives for its exports of about 1.2%. With exports being only a fraction of GDP, this translates into a welfare gain of 0.4%.

    Proponents of the FTAs claim they will create jobs. Trade Minister Andrew Robb has said Australian jobs would grow by 9,000 per year to be 178,000 higher in 2035.

    This is incorrect. The CIE study says the agreements will cause jobs to be 5,434 higher in 2035. It seems that Robb erroneously derived his figure by adding the employment effects in each of the 20 years and assigning the grand total (178,000) to 2035.

    More than jobs

    Despite assertions to the contrary by our political leaders, FTAs are not primarily about jobs. Aggregate employment depends on macroeconomic conditions, particularly the balance between real wages and productivity. The path of employment over any period longer than a couple of years will be determined independently of whether or not Australia completes the trifecta of North Asian FTAs by ratifying the agreement with China.

    As with other favourable microeconomic policies, the FTAs with the North Asian countries are about improving wage rates by increasing the value of what Australian workers can produce. The CIE projects a long-run real wage increase in Australia from the agreements of 0.3%.

    As well as goods and services trade, the three FTAs deal with foreign direct investment (FDI). CIE’s view is that there will be no discernible effect on inbound FDI for Australia. The China-Australia FTA may encourage Australian outbound FDI in the Chinese service sector, but it is doubtful this will have a noticeable effect on the welfare of Australian households.

    Why are FTAs such hot political issues?

    Lack of community understanding often creates controversy over trade policies. These policies are often blamed for structural adjustment problems that arise from other factors such as appreciation associated with the success of our mineral industries.

    But even when they are understood, trade policies are contentious because they are approximately zero-sum games. There are domestic winners and losers, and although the national welfare gain is not zero, it is usually small. Unlike a good health or social policy, which can make everyone a winner, a trade policy tends to pit the interests of one part of the community against those of another.

    Australian winners from the North Asian FTAs are industries producing agricultural and related downstream products subject to substantial reductions in Japanese, Korean and Chinese tariffs. This is illustrated in the right-hand panel of the chart below.

    Percentage impact on Australian output of FTAs with North Asian countries

    Agriculture and downstream product sectors stand to gain disproportionately. Centre for International Economics

    The losers are mainly in manufacturing (left-hand panel). For them, the main negative impact is via the exchange rate, which appreciates in response to increases in agricultural exports and the terms of trade. Appreciation hurts import-competing manufacturing industries by lowering the $A price of imports. Appreciation also explains why the CIE projects negative effects for some Australian mining industries.

    Spinning the benefits

    In the debate about the China-Australia FTA, the Abbott government is exaggerating the potential benefits. By not engaging in an evidence-based truthful discussion, the government runs the risk of creating unrealistic expectations and eventual disillusionment. This has the potential to inhibit Australia’s participation in future FTAs, which will be necessary to safeguard our competitive position as FTAs between other countries proliferate.

    The opposition, led by Bill Shorten, has focused attention on the labour-market aspects of the China-Australia FTA. The proposed agreement largely eliminates the requirement for businesses operating in Australia to look for Australian residents to fill vacancies before bringing in workers from China under the 457 visa program. There are many other requirements under this program that Chinese workers would still need to meet.

    Expert opinion suggests the liberalisation of entry requirements under the China-Australia FTA will have a negligible effect on job opportunities for Australian workers. Whether this opinion is right or wrong is not the main point here. Eliciting and testing information and analysis relevant to policies proposed by the government is a vital role of the opposition.

    Rather than branding Shorten as an economic saboteur, Tony Abbott would serve the community better by laying out the evidence on how the China-Australia FTA will affect the Australian economy, including the labour market.

    Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer are both Professors, Centre of Policy Studies at Victoria University. This article was first published in The Conversation on September 8, 2015.

  • Rod Tucker. The NBN: why it’s slow, expensive and obsolete.

    The Abbott Coalition government came to power two years ago this week with a promise to change Labor’s fibre to the premises (FTTP) National Broadband Network (NBN) to one using less-expensive fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) technologies, spruiking its network with the three-word slogan: “Fast. Affordable. Sooner.”

    But with the release in August of the 2016 NBN corporate plan and in the light of overseas developments, it is clear that the Coalition’s broadband network will not provide adequate bandwidth, will be no more affordable than Labor’s FTTP network and will take almost as long to roll out.

    With the benefits of two years’ hindsight since 2013, let’s look at the Coalition’s performance against each of the three assertions in their 2013 slogan.

    Affordable

    The graph (below) shows funding estimates for the NBN from December 2010 to August 2015. Labor’s funding estimates for its FTTP NBN rose from A$40.9 billion in December 2010 to A$44.9 billion in September 2013, an increase of 10%. By comparison, the Coalition’s funding estimates, both for FTTP and the so-called multi-technology mix (MTM), have fluctuated wildly.

    Labor and Coalition peak funding estimates from December 2010 to August 2015. *December 2013 data adjusted to account for different contingency. Rod Tucker, Author provided

    The estimated funding required for the Coalition’s NBN has almost doubled from A$28.5 billion before the 2013 election to between A$46 billion and A$56 billion in August. Before the 2013 election, the Coalition claimed that its proposed multi-technology-mix network would cost less than one-third (30%) of Labor’s FTTP-based NBN.

    But in new estimates released in the 2016 corporate plan, the cost of the multi-technology mix favoured by the Coalition blew out and rose to two-thirds (66%) of the cost of a FTTP-based network.

    Also, the cost of repairing and maintaining Telstra’s ageing copper network was likely underestimated, as was the cost of retraining and maintaining a workforce with the wider range of skills needed to install and maintain the multi-technology-mix network – costs that are unique to the MTM.

    In the space of two years, the lower-cost deal the Coalition spruiked to Australian voters has turned out to be not so affordable after all.

    Sooner

    The Coalition probably underestimated the predictably lengthy delays in re-negotiating the agreement with Telstra as well as delays in re-designing the network the new IT systems needed to manage a more complicated network with multiple technologies.

    The graph (below) shows the actual and planned number of premises passed (or in today’s parlance – ready for service) for the original FTTP network and the Coalition’s network.

    Premises ready for service, plans and actual, as published by Labor and the Coalition. Rod Tucker, Author provided

    The Coalition’s original target was to bring at least 25 Mbps to all 13 million Australian premises by 2016. That target has now been quietly dropped and replaced with a target of more than 50 Mbps to 90% of premises by 2020.

    At the end of July 2015, almost two years after the 2013 election, only 67 premises had been served by multi-technology-mix technologies. In the meantime, as shown (in the graph above), the roll-out of FTTP has continued, albeit at a lower rate than Labor originally intended.

    This lower roll-out rate has led to fewer connected customers and lower revenue. It will be interesting to see if the newly released targets for premises ready for service will be achieved (blue broken line in the graph above).

    Labor certainly had its problems when it was in charge. For example, slow negotiations with Telstra and asbestos in Telstra’s infrastructure caused delays of around one year. The funding requirements for Labor’s FTTP network crept up by about 10% from 2010 to 2013.

    But the delays and cost blowouts have been very much worse under the Coalition than under Labor.

    Fast

    Australia’s broadband capabilities are falling behind its international peers. According to internet companies Ookla and Akami, Australia’s broadband speed lags well behind other advanced and even emerging economies.

    In 2009, Ookla ranked Australia’s average broadband download speed as 39th in the world. Since then, our international ranking has steadily declined and slipped to 59th place earlier this year.

    What’s worse, my studies of trends in internet speed in Australia and in a range of developed and developing countries show that FTTN technology – a key part of the Coalition’s MTM – will not be enough to meet the needs of Australian broadband customers.

    In short, FTTN technology will cement Australia’s place as an internet backwater. Our world ranking could fall as low as 100th by 2020.

    In many forward-looking nations, fibre-to-the-node technology has never been entertained as an option. In some countries where it has been installed, network operators are planning to move away from FTTN in favour of more advanced broadband technologies like FTTP. In doing the opposite, Australia is moving backwards.

    If FTTN magically appeared on our doorsteps by 2016, as originally promised by the Coalition, there would certainly be a short-term advantage. But the 2016 target has been missed and the FTTN component of the network will be obsolete by the time the roll-out is completed.

    Of course, there is no point in speed just for speed’s sake. Studies in Europe and the United States have shown a strong correlation between GDP growth and internet speed.

    In the US and elsewhere, increasing numbers of homes and businesses are receiving services at 1 Gbps and higher. A recent study presents evidence that communities served by 1 Gbps and more are faring better economically than communities with slow-speed broadband.

    If in 2013 the Coalition had simply allowed NBN Co to get on with the job of rolling out its fibre-to-the-premises NBN, rather than changing it to an inferior multi-technology mix, it may well have ended up spending less money and delivered Australia a much better network.

    The Coalition sold the Australian public a product that was supposed to be fast, one-third the cost and arrive sooner than what Labor was offering us. Instead the Coalition’s NBN will be so slow that it is obsolete by the time it’s in place, it will cost about the same as Labor’s fibre-to-the-premises NBN, and it won’t arrive on our doorsteps much sooner.

    By my reckoning, we didn’t get a good deal.

    Rod Tucker is Laureate Emeritus Professor at University of Melbourne. This article was first published in The Conversation on September 8, 2015.

     

  • Peter McNamara. Are all Australians just ‘Bad Samaritans’, or is it just the media?

    I always thought Australians were good Samaritans, welcoming people from all backgrounds, all races, all religions, to their rich and prosperous nation.

    It belies belief to see the media reporting that Australian Christians, including Catholic Archbishop Fisher, say that preference should be given to Christian refugees from war-torn Syria. The Australian does not ring true with its leader: “Fleeing Christians should go to front of queue – archbishop” above Archbishop Fisher’s photo (The Australian online, Sept 8 2015, Tess Livingstone)

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/europes-migrant-crisis/fleeing-christians-should-go-to-front-of-queue-archbishop/story-fnws9k7b-1227516995573

    This reported urging is ignorant of the fundamental principles of refugee resettlement under the International Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees; and it is ignorant of the fundamental principles of the Christian faith.

    First, the International Refugee Convention, to which Australia is the first named signatory, (as is the Holy See) and to which Christian and Catholic lay and religious organisations were observers, provides at the very outset in Article 3:

    Non-discrimination: The Contracting States shall apply the provisions of this Convention to refugees without discrimination as to race, religion or country of origin.

    Second, if this were not enough for Christians to pause for thought, for even a minute, before calling for discriminatory refugee selection, then they should consider the principles of their own religion.

    How can Australians, and Australian Christians in particular, be such bad neighbours?

    Of course, the story is that the Samaritans were a minority, and unwelcome. Today’s Samaritans are the Australian Muslims that seem so hated by a noisy minority of Australians.

    Jesus, according to Luke, urged his listeners to follow the law that required Jews like Jesus to love “your neighbour as yourself”. The lawyers asked Jesus to define “neighbour” and Jesus in return asked the lawyers:

    “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 

    The expert in the law replied: The one who had mercy on him”. 

    Jesus told him: “Go and do likewise”. 

    It would be a horrible thing for Australian Christians to be seen as priests and Levites that pass by the injured because they are not Christian.

    Of course, one should not take the media on face value. The media has cynically taken Archbishop Fisher’s press release, and given it the emphasis it did not have: Fisher’s press release did not say, as quoted by The Australian “Fleeing Christians should go to front of queue”. To the contrary, Archbishop Fisher pleaded for religious minorities – he urged that “particular preference be given to persecuted Christians from Syria and Iraq and other religious minorities who have nowhere else to go…. We should also keep in mind the minorities within the Muslim community in these countries who are persecuted by Islamists and other Muslims”.

    Now the media, of course, would like to exploit divisions between religions. Heaven knows why? Surely not from some bigoted zealotry, that moreover fans the flames of debate, circulation, sales and advertising revenue? Have our editors become the priests and Levites in our own Australian parable of the Good Samaritan?

    Christians generally and Catholics in particular should decry this misrepresentation of their religion and ethics. Christian and Catholic organisations stand ready to welcome refugees of all, any and no religion, race or country, to help them resettle in a place safe from war and religious and racial discrimination. 

    Peter McNamara is a Sydney lawyer.

  • Klaus Neumann. Stepping up to the plate.

    Angela Merkel said last week ‘There will be no tolerance towards those who question the dignity of others.’

    Prime minister Tony Abbott is in favour of increasing the number of Syrian and Iraqi refugees allowed to resettle permanently in Australia. But when he announced on Sunday that Australia would “step up to the plate,” he didn’t have in mind an increase of the overall number of visas for refugees, who currently make up just 3 per cent of migrants accepted into Australia each year. More Syrian refugees would simply mean fewer refugees from other countries, including those in our region. (Under pressure from NSW premier Mike Baird and other influential members of his own party, he is now likely to increase the overall intake.)

    Contrast this with Germany. Last weekend alone, around 15,500 displaced people crossed the border from Hungary. The German immigration service expects a total of 800,000 new asylum applications this year, and many of the new arrivals will be allowed to stay.

    Those figures don’t put Germany in the same league as Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan, which are accommodating close to four million displaced Syrians between them. But 800,000 is a frighteningly large number, and taking in that many people will stretch the capacity of Germany’s local governments and welfare organisations. In comparison to other affluent countries, Germany can claim with some justice to be doing more than its fair share.

    What explains the willingness of the German government, and also of the majority of Germans, to welcome such a large number of displaced people? The reception is all the more remarkable because it’s not too long since the arrival of a smaller number of asylum seekers triggered a public outpouring of hatred and eventually prompted the German parliament to water down the right to asylum enshrined in the national constitution, the so-called Basic Law.

    This was during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s, when hundreds of thousands of people fled to Germany from the former Yugoslavia. Refugees were frequently referred to as Scheinasylanten – “pseudo asylum seekers” – and told to go back where they came from. On at least two occasions, angry mobs tried to burn down hostels in which asylum seekers had been housed.

    We shouldn’t idealise Germany’s reaction to the latest surge in numbers. Arson attacks and xenophobic demonstrations have occurred this time, too, particularly in the southeastern state of Saxony, and there has been much racist chatter online. But these responses have been dwarfed by an overwhelmingly welcoming attitude.

    Germany has good reason to welcome refugees – particularly those who are young and have transferrable skills. It has an ageing population, and there are real concerns that the age pension system will become unsustainable. It also has a perennial image problem. Most recently, it has made itself unpopular among some of its European neighbours by vetoing Greek requests for debt relief. Opening its doors to refugees highlights Germany’s credentials as a good global citizen.

    But pragmatic reasons alone can’t explain why most Germans seem relatively relaxed about the large number of non-German-speaking foreigners being allowed across the border. Nor do they explain why Germany’s response contrasts so sharply with Australia’s: after all, Australia, too, has the opportunity to make its neighbours forget, once and for all, about the White Australia policy by leading the way in providing security to forcibly displaced people in the Asia-Pacific region.

    Anyone looking for the reasons for the differences – between then and now, and between Germany and Australia – could do worse than have a close look at a recent statement by chancellor Angela Merkel.

    For months, while a small minority of xenophobes had become increasingly vocal and violent, Merkel did what she does best: she adopted a policy of wait-and-see. Or – to use a term that is likely to be voted the 2015Jugendwort (youth slang word) – she merkelte, appearing to dither about an appropriate response both to the refugee crisis and to the racist reaction among some Germans.

    Last week, she finally spoke up. And when she did, she didn’t mince words: “Es gibt keine Toleranz gegenüber denen, die die Würde anderer Menschen infrage stellen.” (There will be no tolerance towards those who question the dignity of others.)

    The key word here is Würde, or dignity. It had also been used by interior minister Thomas de Maizière, who said that three principles ought to guide the approach to refugees: dignity, security for those seeking Germany’s protection, and decency.

    Würde resonates powerfully in Germany. Article 1(1) of the Basic Law of 1949 begins with the words, “Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar” (“Human dignity shall be inviolable”). This and the next eighteen articles of the Basic Law constitute a German bill of rights; for West Germans, in particular, the rights enshrined in the Basic Law have been an important part of what it means to be German.

    Merkel’s and de Maizière’s emphasis on Würde signals that any debate about how to respond to the thousands of migrants arriving every day in Germany will not just be about Germans’ compassion or anger or fear but will also be about the rights of the new arrivals.

    This is the vital difference between the current discussions in Germany and Australia, where an outpouring of public support for Syrian refugees didn’t happen until viewers and readers were shown the heart-wrenching image of a drowned boy on a Turkish beach.

    The second sentence of the Basic Law’s Article 1(1) is also relevant: “To respect and protect [human dignity] shall be the duty of all state authority.” Merkel – as well as just about every other mainstream political leader in Germany – has been unambiguous: the government will come down hard on anybody who does not respect the human dignity of those seeking Germany’s protection.

    German political leaders agree that in dealing with xenophobes there is no alternative to the zero tolerance approach. Not least, this consensus is the lesson drawn from the racist rhetoric and violence of the early 1990s. The genie of a populist xenophobia was briefly let out of the bottle when mainstream politicians empathised with Germans who said they were afraid of being swamped by foreigners. It took many years and the concerted efforts of the political establishment and civil society groups to put it back in.

    Merkel is afraid the genie could be unleashed once more. She knows the importance of not kowtowing to the populist far right. She was asked how to respond to xenophobes, racist thugs and people regurgitating the ideologies of right-wing extremists. Did she think it was important to establish a dialogue with people on the far right? She replied:

    We need to clearly distance ourselves. There can be no apologies… The key is not to show even the slightest bit of understanding. No biographical experience, nothing that happened in the past, nothing, absolutely nothing justifies [their] stance.

    In the second half of the 1990s, Pauline Hanson claimed to speak for millions of disaffected Australians when she railed against asylum seekers and Indigenous people. Australia’s mainstream leaders tried to accommodate some of the views of her followers, and publicly empathised with those who feared that “boat people” would take their jobs or that their front gardens would become subject to native title claims.

    Unlike in Germany, racist innuendo and the demonisation of asylum seekers arriving by boat still have a place in mainstream political debate in Australia. Politicians are still suggesting that seeking Australia’s protection is illegal. Shock jocks still have licence to make inflammatory statements directed at people on account of their religion or ethnicity.

    As long as the Australian conversation about refugees and asylum seekers is guided by feelings rather than by a human rights framework, and as long as mainstream political leaders try to gain electoral mileage by condoning views and policies that don’t respect the dignity of all human beings, citizens and non-citizens, Australia’s response will differ starkly from that currently on show in Western Europe. •

    Klaus Neumann is the author of Across the Seas: Australia’s Response to Refugees: A History, which was published by Black Inc. in June. He is Professor of History in the Swinburne Institute for Social Research.

    This article was first published in Inside Story on 7 September 2015.

  • David Isaacs, Alanna Maycock, The Senate Report on Nauru.

    On 31st August 2015, the Senate finally tabled its lengthy report on conditions at what is euphemistically called the Regional Processing Centre in Nauru (http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Regional_processing_Nauru/Regional_processing_Nauru/Final_Report). The RPC is in reality a prison camp where people live indefinitely in tents, their applications are not processed for over a year, and they are kept in ignorance of when if ever the applications will be processed. It is possible to appeal against a rejected application, but not against one which sits in limbo.

    Will the report make any difference? We know the Government will ignore its recommendations because the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection dismissed the enquiry before the report was published as “a political witch-hunt by an opposition-dominated committee.” He would know, because Liberal Governments have spent millions of tax-payer dollars on political witch-hunts called Royal Commissions.

    Will the public pay attention? We know from recent opinion polls that over half the Australian population believe we are not being harsh enough on asylum seekers. Little wonder when they are demonised by both major political parties and the Murdoch press, talked about as if they are terrorists and deemed unworthy of our compassion or even of being treated like human beings.

    The Abbott Government’s mantra when asked about detention centres, “we have turned back the boats and saved lives at sea” is dishonest on three counts. Firstly, refusing to reveal the truth about turn-backs because they are “operational matters” (another attempt to confuse asylum seekers with invading terrorists) means we have no idea whether the people turned back survive and one estimate suggests as many as 10% may be killed when returned to the country they fled. Such estimates cannot be confirmed or refuted because information is suppressed. Secondly, turning back boats contravenes International Law. The Europeans, who face a problem immeasurably worse than Australia, do not turn back boats; they try to prevent them leaving and they imprison captured people smugglers. The reason for not turning back boats is that in 1939, the SS St Louis sailed out of Hamburg carrying 907 Jewish refugees and was turned away from Cuba, the USA and Canada. The “Voyage of the Damned” retuned to Europe and over a quarter of the asylum seekers are thought to have perished in concentration camps. The UN Refugee Convention in 1951, to which Australia is a co-signatory, deemed turning back boats as unlawful. The third dishonesty is that turning back boats and mandatory detention are different and independent things. Whether or not turning back boats is effective or ethical, imprisoning innocent people fleeing persecution and making conditions so unbearable that they will opt to return to their country of origin is torture. The United Nations has said so, although Tony Abbott “will not be lectured to by the UN on our moral responsibilities.”

    The international media have been scathing about Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers. Extreme right wing politicians have toyed with Australia’s policies but been shouted down in their own countries. Outrage characterised reports from New Zealand (http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/283029/australia’s-senate-report-on-nauru-defended), the UK (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-34111019), Canada (http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.3211233) and the USA. The Editors of the New York Times wrote: “Some European officials may be tempted to adopt the hard-line approach Australia has used to stem a similar tide of migrants. That would be unconscionable. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has overseen a ruthlessly effective effort to stop boats packed with migrants, many of them refugees, from reaching Australia’s shores. His policies have been inhumane, of dubious legality and strikingly at odds with the country’s tradition of welcoming people fleeing persecution and war.” (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/03/opinion/australias-brutal-treatment-of-migrants.html?_r=0).

    The Senate enquiry found increasing numbers of whistle-blowers willing to tell the truth, doctors, nurses, social workers, carers and even security personnel. The Border Control Act 2015, which the Labor Party supported, is designed to deter any more whistle-blowers and suppress freedom of speech. The Australian Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Triggs has warned how the creeping powers of government infringe civil liberties, citing many new laws, including meta-data retention laws, mandatory detention of asylum seekers, paperless arrests, and the Border Force Act ((http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/04/gillian-triggs-powers-for-australian-border-force-disrespect-human-dignity). Triggs said it was “particularly troubling” that the major political parties in a “complicit and compliant parliament” passed laws threatening civil and human rights, compounded by the militarisation of the government.

    What can we do? Protest to politicians, in person and in writing. Write to newspapers. Use social media. Persuade people to meet asylum seekers and volunteer their help. Joan Baez said: “As long as we can get shocked…there is something healthy about it.”

    Perhaps we can be optimistic. The photo of the body of three year old Syrian boy Aylan has affected many Australians. Thousands of men, women and children have taken to the streets all over Australia in “light the dark” candle vigils. Aylan’s image has touched the hearts of many Australians who seem now to favour welcoming refugees and are putting pressure on the Government to be more generous to those fleeing the war in Syria.

    David Isaacs is a consultant paediatrician and Alanna Maycock is a a paediatric nurse. They have both worked with children who are refugees or seeking asylum for over 10 years and run a Refugee Clinic at a tertiary children’s hospital in Sydney. They visited Nauru in December 2014 to consult on children in detention. They defied a restrictive contract to reveal the horrific conditions to the media and gave evidence to the Senate Committee.

     

  • Josef Szwarc. Measuring our response to the refugee crisis of Syria and Iraq

    “PM RESCUE MISSION” shouts the headline of the morning newspaper. My heart races with expectation that is immediately deflated by the first sentence: “Australian will open its doors to more Syrian refugees fleeing the troubled nation but won’t increase the overall humanitarian intake.”

    The prospect of an increase was hinted at by a press release from the PM, Foreign Minister and Immigration Minister yesterday as the latter prepared to travel to Geneva for “urgent discussions with the UNHCR and other partners” to inform the government’s consideration of “what further significant contribution we can make through our Humanitarian Programme to resettle those affected by the conflict in Syria and Iraq.” It went on: “as a result of the Government’s success in stopping illegal boat arrivals to Australia, we are now in a position to take more refugees from offshore refugee camps.”

    During the last week, particularly following the tragic deaths of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi and his mother and brother, a rapidly expanding body of federal and state politicians, non-governmental organisations (including my own) and members of the general public has been calling on the government to increase the number of refugees we accept who have fled and continue to flee the wars in the Middle East and elsewhere.

    Various models are being suggested, in particular:

    • expanding the general resettlement program  – this was about 10,000 places in last financial year’s Humanitarian Program, with around 4,400 people from Syria and Iraq – the program is currently scheduled to be increased to 18,750 by 2018/19;
    • implementing a ‘safe haven program’ as was used to bring people from Kosovo (around 4000) and Timor (around 2000) when there were crises there;
    • expanding a model of community sponsored refugees, which is presently on a small scale (500 per year) pilot basis.

    The calls have been for additional refugees from Syria to be permitted to settle here as part of an expended humanitarian program.  In rejecting this plea, the government states that “Australia, on a per capita basis, is the UNHCR’s leading nation for the permanent resettlement of refugees.” The PM has further claimed that Australia was “ahead of the curve” in allocating places specifically for people from Iraq and Syria last year.

    The claims may be accurate but are also misleading as to the proportion of the world’s refugees Australia hosts and our relative ‘generosity.’  They might cause noses to twitch when tested on customers at the very tiny pub frequented by a fairly small number of people familiar with the complexities and mass of refugee data.

    The government’s statements relate to the “resettlement” of refugees, a term that refers to the transfer of refugees from an asylum country to another country that has agreed to admit them and ultimately grant them permanent settlement.  There are only around 30 countries which offer resettlement in conjunction with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), and in total the program places less than 100,000 people annually i.e.  a very small proportion of the 19.5 million refugees in the world at the end of 2014 (up from 16.7 million in 2013).

    A number of countries have quite small resettlement programs but host large number of people recognised as refugees and asylum seekers who have applied to be recognised as refugees. For example:

    • Germany resettled around 4000 refugees in 2009-13 yet at the end of 2014 had over 200,000 refugees and 200,000 asylum seekers; as widely reported, it is anticipated that over 800,000 people will register for protection there this year;
    • Finland (population 5.4 million) resettled around 3000 during the same period and prepares to accept perhaps 25000- 30,000 asylum seekers this year – Finnish Prime Minister Sipila has said he will offer  a home he owns (not the one in which he usually lives) to house refugees.

    Almost nine out of every 10 refugees (86 per cent) are in regions and countries considered economically less developed.  Of the 4 million Syrians who have been forced to flee, 1.8 million are in Turkey, 1.1 million are in Lebanon, 250,000 in Iraq, and 630,000 in Jordan. Refugees from other countries also generally reside in neighboring states such as Pakistan (2.6 million) and Kenya (650,000).

    Australia’s contribution to assisting refugees by allowing them to settle here has not matched the increase in need. Over the last 20 years, government has planned to accept around 12,000 – 13,750 people each year (with the exception of 2012-13, when it was 20,000). In terms of our population and economic growth, this form of critical assistance has shrunk.

    In the face of the highest level of global displacement since World War II, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Gutteres has stated that “for an unprecedented mass displacement, we need an unprecedented humanitarian response.” That provides a meaningful measure of Australia’s response.

    Josef Szwarc is Manager, Research and Policy, Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture.