John Menadue

  • Jane Tolman. Facing up to dementia.

    As I reflect on the ongoing complaints at federal and state level about our ailing health system, widespread community concerns and a medical culture which is still often hospital- and doctor- centric, I wonder how we will be able to sort it all out.

    In the 20th Century, when average life expectancies were in the 60s and 70s, we died from a range of illnesses, but often from vascular diseases (heart attacks and strokes) and cancers. With our increasing longevity, the 20th Century diseases are being replaced by the neurodegenerative diseases of the 21st Century. These include Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease, the dementias (Alzheimer’s being the most common one in Australia) and many more less well known. They involve physical and very often cognitive elements, marked by increasing frailty and dependence. Impairment of mobility, balance and all the senses (hearing, vision, taste, smell and touch) are common features.   They are all progressive.

    In what ways is this world of neurodegeneration different?

    Our hospitals are no longer full of acutely unwell younger people, as they were even during the period of my training. Many hospitalised patients now are older people who have had a fall, become delirious with a trivial infection, become confused after some “relatively” minor event, or are just not coping. The old rules simply no longer work.

    First, our patients very often lack adequate cognition to give us a good history so that an appropriate diagnosis might be made, or lose their cognition over time. This means that a collaboration with family or care-givers is required to provide satisfactory management.

    Second, the notion of confidentiality and privacy must be reconsidered. Those patients with failing cognition are vulnerable to their own lack of understanding, judgement and decision-making, abuse by others, bureaucracies, and a community health system which is still the poor cousin of hospital care. Families and care-givers frequently complain that doctors will not hear their concerns, and feel demeaned or angry when their stories are not heard or believed.

    Third, neurodegeneration is not “curable”. There might be exacerbations of ongoing problems, or superimposed illnesses (often due to falls or infections) which can be treated. But in the main, these conditions are palliative. That means that there should be an early diagnosis, a plan generated, and families and care-givers as well as health professionals all party to it. Care-givers must know what’s ahead. It is essential that there is recognition of the palliative focus, and that each of these conditions is relentlessly progressive. Just how much do we put a frail elderly person through so that the same thing can occur within days or weeks of hospital discharge? How often do we ask our patients (and their families or care-givers) what they want? It’s OK to die. We will all do it, and we have no control over that. But we do, or should, have control over the manner of our death.

    Fourth, admitting to hospital these frail elderly people is often bad medicine and it’s bad for the health system. The effect will be to “decondition” the patient so that an admission of a week with the presenting problem my well require a month or longer in rehabilitation in an effort to restore to function.

    Solutions to the myriad problems of our ailing health system are complex. But talk of more beds and more doctors in hospitals misses the point. We need to understand our patients, and their needs and preferences. We need to stop pouring our precious health dollars into the seemingly bottomless pit of our hospital system and concentrate on prevention of these precipitants of admission, and to re-direct the resources into the community. Dementia alone is threatening to cripple the health system. Carers are carrying a huge and increasing burden with little recognition or meaningful support. When things go wrong, the fall-back position seems to be to admit to hospital, a choice which just happens to be the worst for everyone. Having a proper, well-resourced and comprehensive system of community care for those with dementia, backed by well-informed health professionals, supporting families and carers, is essential.

    Reading Death Rules: how death shapes life on Earth and what it means to us by Queensland Palliative Care physician Dr Will Cairns (Vivid Publishing, 2015), and Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (2014) by American writer and surgeon, Dr Atul Gawande should be mandatory for health bureaucrats and clinicians.

    As we learn to appreciate the impact of neurodegeneration, we should constantly reflect on this question: what are we really trying to achieve? It’s all about people, and about how to give each of us the best time possible. It is not now about prolonging life at all costs.

    Improving care for those with neurodegenerative conditions and supporting their carers, will also serendipitously aid the health care system. It might be more expensive in the short term. And certainly there will be considerable system reconfiguration, with substantial emphasis on education for both health professionals at all levels, and the community. The biggest challenge, though, might be the required culture change.

    Advertisement: a good start for education on dementia might be to enrol in our Understanding Dementia MOOC (Massive Open On-Line Course) which can be found at www.utas.au/wicking/wca/mooc

    Jane Tolman

    (Associate Professor in Aged Care at the Wicking Dementia Centre at the University of Tasmania, previously Director of Aged Care in the Tasmanian health system)

     

  • Focus on tax avoidance, not GST hike.

    Michael West, in the SMH continues his many articles on tax avoidance by major international companies who operate in Australia. He mentions many of them, including Big Pharma, Google, Paypal, Newscorp. He comments ‘How long can [these companies] continue to treat Australians as fools. While multinational tax avoidance remains so rife, how can governments possibly claim a democratic licence to his ordinary Australians with a hike in the GST.’  See link to article below:

     

    http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/focus-on-tax-avoidance-not-gst-hikes-20150802-gipm9k.html

  • Arja Keski-Nummi. “Half a Step Forward” – ALP Policy on Refugees and Asylum

     

    There is more to the ALP policy on refugees and asylum than what we heard from the media, focused as it is on factional battles and the language of “back- flips” on contestable pieces of public policy such as boat turn backs.

    As always in such a highly charged area of public policy the “devil is in the detail”. Labor however gets it about right in focusing on the priority for international engagement and the development of regional and bilateral responses to population displacement. But this policy also hardens the shift in asylum and refugee policy begun when Labor was last in office by maintaining the Offshore Processing Centres (OPCs) , regional resettlement and adopting a policy of boat turn backs.

    It will be several weeks before we see the final endorsed platform but putting together the draft platform and the amendments voted during the conference Labor appears to have crafted a policy strong on border protection but mixed on responses regarding asylum seekers.

    For instance, detention will be as a last resort, community processing will be the norm, the refugee status determination will be improved, the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) reestablished and there will be better oversight of the offshore processing centres. These are all welcome policy aspirations. The track record with implementation has not been as good so if Labor wants to avoid another policy mess it would be smart to start working on such implementation plans now.

    On the most controversial pieces of policy, the maintenance of the Offshore Processing Centres, regional resettlement and boat turnbacks Labor has lost an opportunity to articulate why these are important planks of their platform – beyond the deaths at sea argument and having an independent oversight of OPCs.

    For this reason parts of the platform read more like a tactical and political response than a comprehensive policy on asylum and refugees. This policy is tactical because it gives a little to those people opposed to OPCs and boat turnbacks – an increase in the program, removal of Temporary Protection Visas, reinstatement of the RRT , insertion of critical Convention obligations into domestic law and more funding to UNHCR – in exchange for a reluctant acceptance of the offshore processing arrangements and boat turn backs.

    The fact is that turning back boats is an ethically contentious policy. While the argument of deaths at sea is compelling – the reality is any on water operation, including transfers to lifeboats or navy vessels is risky. Moreover such a policy is not a sustainable long-term approach – cost wise or through the deployment of additional vessels. It is a last resort policy, reflecting the failure of our regional engagement strategies.

    Australia’s approach in the region has been selfish – it is all about our domestic problems and us – we do not hear what the regional issues are or how we could help. The most recent example of this is Australia’s refusal to assist in search and rescue of boats carrying displaced Rohingya from Burma in the Andaman Sea, when even the USA deployed flights to search for vessels.

    What Labor needs to now do is strengthen its policies on regional and international engagement. It needs to set in context these controversial pieces of policy. It needs to say they are there only for so long as we get the regional architecture right and we have an agreed regional approach to displacement and asylum – where burden sharing is genuine and people are treated with dignity and humanity.

    For instance, a regional response needs to be more than increased funding to UNHCR or a statement that they will work on a regional cooperation framework. It should clearly articulate the regional partnerships and bilateral arrangements that are needed to support displaced people.

    It could for example articulate a regional response strategy that highlights:

    • Partnerships with regional governments and international agencies and NGOs to put in place alternative protection arrangements which could include – access to a fair and transparent assessment of claims, security of stay  and access to education and work as well as health services and shelter.
    • Development of agreements that allow for transfer of asylum seekers to regional processing centres,
    • The place of readmission agreements in certain circumstances,
    • Explore alternative migration pathways such as orderly departure arrangements  that ease the pressures on regional asylum systems
    • Work with regional governments and international agencies in the development of a complementary regional protection system that would support early resolution of peoples claims and a system of burden sharing in finding durable solutions for refugees as well as other displaced people.
    • Develop a new displaced person program (axed in this years budget by the government) that would support the ability of displaced people to stay in a country of displacement in safety and security. Such arrangements are more than increased funding to UNHCR but building partnerships across government and non government sectors that mean people do not need to use people smugglers because they are in a place of safety.
    • Respond to the regions concerns about trafficking .

    It is in this context then that an increased humanitarian resettlement program makes sense, as well as the maintenance of hard-nosed policies such as turn backs and the OPCs.

    But if such cooperation is to be sustainable it needs to be a long-term project not easily achieved in electoral cycle and in reality should be bipartisan in approach. If Labor is serious about regional engagement then it needs to be working now on its implementation strategies.

    As with any policy response to a complex issue and one involving desperate and vulnerable people displaced from their homes and countries this is a curate’s egg of a policy. There are good elements to the policy and some that will challenge our sense of fairness and well-being. Labor has a chance to articulate that this is a humane response by moving away from the language of military operations, singularly inappropriate for dealing with asylum issues, and acknowledging that as a package it does make us confront very difficult policy choices concerning our fellow human beings.

    Arja Keski-Nummi is a former First Assistant Secretary in the Refugee Division of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. She is a fellow of the Centre for Policy Development.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Wilful blindness over climate change.

    The former head of NAB, Cameron Clyne, has published an opinion piece in the SMH about the failure of political and business leaders to address the issue of climate change. He said that business leaders overwhelmingly support the need for a market based carbon trading system. In respect of Maurice Newman, he said that he had never encountered such thinking in the Australian business community. For a full report of Cameron Clyne’s article, see link below:

     

    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/cameron-clyne-former-head-of-nab-criticises-canberras-wilful-blindness-over-climate-change-20150802-gion1o.html

  • Warwick Elsche. Bronwyn, the captain’s pick.

    The loss of Bronwyn Bishop from the role of Speaker in the Federal Parliament is a blow to the Abbott Government.

    Bishop was not the least talented in a Government which – despite the supposed neutrality of the office – she seemed never to cease to be a part.

    In her chaotic 22 month reign as Speaker of the House of Representatives she was, in the eyes of long-time parliamentary watchers, the least competent, least impartial and most disruptive person ever to hold that office.

    Yet, given the ministerial performance of some from Tony Abbott’s front line, Abbetz, Brandis, Dutton, Andrews, Hockey and the PM himself come to mind, Bishop’s inadequacies hardly made her singular. Some actually made her performance look normal. Tony at least seemed to think so.

    Bishop’s departure is a personal loss for the PM whose judgement on her future was once again letting himself and his Government down.

    It was in fact a double failure in the political judgement of the PM who had already attracted notice for his seeming lack of familiarity with even the most basic tenets of Australian politics.

    Bishop’s appointment in the first place was an Abbott’s Captain’s pick – there was no chance she could ever be elected to the post – and when, what was widely foreseen from the start eventually happened, it took him nearly three weeks to appreciate what was apparent to most of his backbench in a matter of days – to the Australian public Bishop and her outrageous excesses were electoral poison.

    Abbott has a deep personal commitment to Bishop whom he once described as his political mother. This supposed relationship perhaps explains his own repeated hopeless lapses in political judgement – lapses which almost cost his job back in February.

    Like a real Mum Bishop returned the favour of her ‘off the wall’ appointment, day after day in parliament setting out to protect her boy from the buffeting of awkward questions and criticisms, often at the cost of abandoning any semblance of independence or impartiality. Isn’t that what good mums do?

    Anyway, the loss of an independent or impartial facade hardly mattered. Statistics alone demonstrate that these qualities, the hallmarks of competent occupancy of the Speaker’s Chair, had long since been abandoned. 400 dismissals – a   record for barely half a term with more than 390 Opposition victims and barely a half dozen from her own side quite adequately told that story.

    Way back, Labor’s then Senate Leader Gareth Evans remarked of Bishop, then a relatively new Liberal Senator, that the reason people often took an instant dislike to her was that it saved them time.

    The Australian Electorate was only slightly more tardy than the prescient Evans.

    However, they needed only minimal exposure to the egregious manner to which she approached an exalted office to make Gareth look prophetic.

    But Tony’s latest misjudgement was that together they could successfully ride out the crisis, keeping his protector in the Chair.

    Even as the rising heat forced him out of the public eye, where, to his considerable discomfort, there was only one question his interrogators wanted answered, he judged that time would provide a cure. Repeated statements from him and the Speaker herself that she had done nothing wrong, hardly surprisingly, did not assist in making what was a major scandal vanish.

    In fact, the passage of time only revealed more serious lapses by the beleaguered speaker.

    Finally, backbench protests and warnings, threats from his own side to abstain in any no confidence vote and the refusal of a succession of senior Ministers – some of them Abbott supporters – to defend her publicly led to what from the outside had seemed an inevitable end. Tony alone had not seen this.

    In her very last act as Speaker, her resignation, she continued to demonstrate her appalling lack of independence.

    Most Speakers are aware that they are Officers of, and therefore responsible to, the Federal Parliament – not to the political party from which they come. Bishop failed here too. As an Officer of the Federal Parliament the resignation should have been made to the Parliament not through the Party of which she was supposedly independent. But it was in fact made not by Bishop to the Parliament as would have been proper but by Abbott as Leader of the political party which she had never ceased to serve.

    Bishop came to the office of Speaker promising to be exceptional – she was – not in the way she foreshadowed. She would, she said, on taking office,” restore dignity and order to the Parliament”.

    She has in fact left behind some benchmarks.

    Inside the Parliament she is widely seen as the most obviously biassed and disruptive occupant of the Chair in memory. Outside the Parliament her arrogant extravagances are also on a scale not seen before.

    In two theatres therefore her activities have registered extremely poorly. For pure paucity of performance in both areas she has indeed set a very high bar.

    Half a mile from Parliament House senior officers of the Foreign Affairs Department are nervously waiting on what they believe – probably correctly – an instruction to find a diplomatic post for this political failure. They fear – again correctly – that with her girlish charm and coquettish smile she might have the same effect diplomatically as she has had on the Australia electorate – in three dramatic weeks becoming the single biggest issue in her nation’s politics.

    Tony who has once again demonstrated that he is at best a meagre politician has said that no plum job is planned for Bishop post-resignation.

    But Tony also said there would be no cuts to Health or Education – there were. He said there would be no cuts to the ABC or SBS – there were. He said a referendum recognizing Aborigines in the Constitution would take place in the first twelve months of his Government – it did not.

    Foreign Affairs, therefore, remains on red alert.

  • Andrew Pridham. Adam Goodes and Rosa Parks.

    Before last weekend’s match between the Sydney Swans and the Adelaide Crows, the Chairman of the Sydney Swans, Andrew Pridham, gave a very challenging speech about Adam Goodes and racism in Australia.  He said that recent events are a seminal moment in our history. He commented that Adam Goodes ‘has shaken the nation’s conscience‘.

    He added ‘Change only occurs when someone takes a stand.  Rosa Parks, who in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to stand for a white person in the coloured section of a bus. She was arrested. She was later to become the face of the civil rights movement and heralded for her actions. Despite this, she faced massive discrimination – she was fired from her job, she regularly received threats … media of the day claimed it was her own fault, she was divisive. She was uppity and she was refusing to conform to the good ways of society. Does that sound familiar?It does to me.’

    For full text of speech see link below.

    https://shar.es/1tartl

  • Mack Madahar. Nurse Practitioners: Challenges and Opportunities.

    Nurse Practitioners were provided access to the MBS in November 2010. Besides limited access to pathology/radiology, nurse practitioners were provided with four time-tiered MBS item numbers for professional attendances. While most nurse practitioners have established themselves in public hospitals, primarily because of the relative financial certainty it provides, there are a handful of NPs trying to establish a niche in primary care.

    There is tremendous amount of debate in primary care about burgeoning Medicare costs and the ability to offer fully subsidised primary care. Whilst GPs are well placed in primary care, primary health care nurse practitioners have demonstrated to be an excellent resource in providing care that is safe, effective and affordable. Besides improving patient satisfaction, primary health care nurse practitioners facilitate a focus on complex and chronic care needs, which may increase patient throughput and productivity. Such services provide excellent examples of nurse practitioners offering value-added service at little cost. Nevertheless, primary health care nurse practitioners face daily challenges, some of which are worth mentioning. This in order to gain better understanding of these problem/s and convert such challenges into possibilities for change into the future.

    Challenges:

    • Access to only four MBS item numbers out of 5,500 items is limiting growth of nurse practitioners in primary care at a time when there is an increase in ageing, chronic disease and mental health populations. Limited ability to earn a living is turning nurse practitioners away from collaborating with GPs in the provision of primary care.
    • Primary health care nurse practitioners are unable to make MBS-reimbursable referrals to allied health professionals and have limited access to MBS diagnostic imaging items. This contributes to duplication of care and practice inefficiencies.
    • There are no after-hour MBS item numbers for nurse practitioners working in primary care. This means that running such services from an administrative standpoint make it financially unviable.
    • Lack of incentive payments for bulk-billing children, elderly and health care cardholders prevents primary health care nurse practitioners from focusing on the marginalized populations they were designed to serve.
    • Primary health care nurse practitioners can independently perform simple procedures such as insertion of contraceptive implants, as well as spirometry and ECG interpretation. Unlike GPs, primary health care nurse practitioners have no access to procedural MBS item numbers. This means the full costs of performing such procedures are passed on to patients and/or GP practices, which provides a financial barrier to essential screening and diagnostic services. This also means that GPs have to foot the bill for consumables when nurse practitioners have performed such services. The cost must not be passed on to practices as part of a collaborative system.
    • There is a lack of knowledge of the primary health care nurse practitioner role. The AMA has done an excellent job in muddying the waters by confusing the nurse practitioner role with that of the practice nurse. Nurse practitioners are independent practitioners who work beyond the contemporary registered nurse scope of practice. They are able to prescribe medicines, order and interpret diagnostic tests, and make referrals to medical specialists. They perform their functions above and beyond the practice nurse role.

    Opportunities:

    Minister of Health Hon Sussan Ley recently announced a new payment model that encourages General Practices to provide after-hours services. Though specific eligibility has not been announced, it is hoped that nurse practitioners working in collaboration with GPs are included in this arrangement.

    At the same time an MBS Review Task Force has been announced. This taskforce will examine the relevancy of 5500 MBS item numbers and align them with clinical evidence. While this is encouraging there are no nurse practitioners on the review panel. This presents a missed opportunity to provide informed financial consideration of the nurse practitioner role in general practice.

    The Primary Health Care Advisory Group (PHCAG) is another excellent announcement and shows the Minister’s commitment to support patients with chronic and complex health conditions. Except for the inclusion of the chair from the Australian Practice Nurse’s Association, nurse practitioners are missing from the advisory group. Perhaps it is time for a change of heart.

    Nurse practitioners are underutilized in primary care due to financial constraints. This missed opportunity places added burden on GPs, and contributes to strain on the public health system. Small increases in government spending to improve access to existing MBS item numbers (at a reduced rate, e.g. 85%) will encourage nurse practitioner numbers in primary care and provide an impetus for practice nurses to enroll in nurse practitioner programs. While practice nurses work tirelessly, nurse practitioners provide an advanced level of expertise that can support general practices in a greater cost-effective manner.

    Conclusion:

    The current government is committed to cost savings in health and primary care is proving to be one of their toughest challenges. Primary health care nurse practitioners working together with GPs offer real support to all aspects of chronic and complex health problems, with the potential to contribute to real health systems savings. New payment initiatives and advisory committees demonstrate the government’s commitment to cost savings and evidenced-based care. Greater consideration of the primary health care nurse practitioners role can help support this Government’s aspirations. This valuable resource should be allowed to work to its full potential to demonstrate the potential of a cost saving alternative in the long term.

    Mack Madahar is a PHC and MH nurse practitioner. He acknowledges the valuable input of Chris Helms, RN, NP, MSN, ANP-BC, FACNP, in writing this paper.

  • Marcus Woolombi Waters. We all know and admire the Haka … so why not one of our own?

    The first I heard of the Adam Goodes Bumala-y Yuurrama-y (war dance) I was in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I had been watching my son play rugby. It was a carnival (under 12s) and they had just lost the grand final. After leading for the entire game, players and parents alike watched helplessly as the opposing team swept down the field from sideline to sideline, much like the legendary Mark Coyne try in State of Origin.

    Every tackle was made but players kept offloading the ball and passes were sticking until a boy went over the try line, taking the corner post with him. We all paused, waiting, before the referee blew the whistle and raised his hand – the try had been scored.

    Our players slumped to the ground as whānau (family) and teachers alike from the opposition ran onto the field to celebrate.

    An inclusive cultural identity

    A young man then screamed a war cry in Māori. That was the signal for parents and teachers to separate in preparation for the children to perform a Haka. As the winners approached our boys, slapping their chests and screaming to their ancestors, our boys raised to take on this second challenge.

    The game was over; now it was about “Te Reo Māori”, each school’s representation of the local Iwi (tribe).

    Each school has its own Haka and our boys rose to the occasion. Supported by our whānau and teachers as mobile phones immediately uploaded images to Instagram and Facebook, I watched with mana (pride) as my Kamilaroi First Nation Aboriginal Australian boy participated in a celebration of Indigenous culture denied back in his homeland.

    These were Pākehā (European), Samoan, Tongan, Cook Island, Indian, Chinese and Māori expressing the culture of Aotearoa as one inclusive cultural identity. It was inspiring and heartbreaking. As a Kamilaroi Aboriginal father, I was left wondering if we will ever see such inclusive cultural practice back in my own traditional homelands.

    We drove home and I jumped on Facebook to discover the reaction to Adam Goodes’ Bumala-y Yuurrama-y. That was almost two months ago … but it’s still making headlines around Australia while the celebration of Te Reo Māori by 12-year-old schoolchildren has faded into the cultural landscape of Aotearoa.

    Richer for embracing Indigenous culture

    Māori culture is embedded in the cultural fabric of New Zealand – it is in evidence everywhere you look, 24 hours a day. Yet, in Australia, no matter what side of the political or culture divide you sit, we all have to admit one thing – ours is a divided nation.

    In Aotearoa, presenters, no matter what colour, continually introduce and close shows in the Māori language. My Aboriginal boys think they are in an Indigenous Heaven … or should I say an Indigenous Dreaming. The school handbooks are written in both English and Māori and “Te Reo Māori” is taught in both schools my boys attend.

    In Australia, we often hear that Māori speak only one language and that it would be too difficult to implement Aboriginal languages throughout Australia. That is simply not true – Māori has a number of dialects associated with various regions. The differences are overcome with the introduction of a pan-Māori that is spoken and understood throughout the country.

    As Aboriginal children, we are taught that when on other people’s land you respect the local culture. Therefore, the fact that many Aboriginal languages are spoken is not problematic; you teach the local language of the region. And with language comes history and place – not just for Aboriginal people but for non-Aboriginal too. Rather than divide the culture, you all become richer.

    It’s this easy … having returned from Aotearoa, I have made a conscious decision to speak an Indigenous language as often as I could. I end emails with many Kamilaroi terms and begin with Yammaa, which in my language means welcome. I do this with a translation after these words in English.

    Work colleagues return in kind. I now have a collection of phrases in German, Greek, Italian and many other languages from colleagues. This builds solidarity and respect, thereby furthering understanding in the workplace.

    Rather than Brisbane I now say Meanjin and instead of Sydney I say Warrang. Melbourne isNarrm and Perth is Boorloo. How and why is becoming educated within the local Indigenous culture so threatening?

    Ancient culture can find new expressions

    To return to Adam Goodes and that contentious dance of pride and defiance, there is a final important point to be made. Some argue that a major difference between the Haka and the Bumala-y Yuurrama-y is that the Haka has a long history and that the Bumala-y Yuurrama-y is a recent invention.

    It was only ten years ago that senior All Blacks voiced serious reservations about whether the Haka was a tradition worth preserving. The issue was that some felt the Haka had become divorced from its original significance and meaning in the 21st century as Aotearoa had so many cultures represented within the All Blacks.

    All Blacks management and the senior leaders, led by team captain Tana Umaga, held a series of discussions on how the Haka could be maintained and kept relevant. Consultations were held with the Ngāti Toa tribe to whom Ka Mate Ka Mate, the older Haka, belongs. It was decided to commission Derek Lardelli, an expert in Māori customs, to compose a new Haka tailored specifically for the All Blacks.

    And so Kapa o Pango was born. This was less than ten years ago.

    The Aboriginal Bumala-y Yuurrama-y went through this exact some process, so why is it being dismissed as not having the same cultural standing? The bottom line is that when the All Blacks do the Haka it is as an entire country: Black, White, Polynesian, Māori and Asian all standing together as one. The one time we do our Bumala-y Yuurrama-y, it is in the Aboriginal All Star games of AFL and NRL and it’s our mob against the rest.

    Cultures, no matter how ancient, are allowed to adapt and evolve, but that will not happen in Australia while we remain so divided and our Aboriginal culture excluded from mainstream education and popular culture. All Australians have a right to engage in informed discussion, but this opportunity is denied to people when the 60,000-plus years of Aboriginal occupation and culture was excluded from their formal education.

    In finishing, I just received a phone call informing me that NRL stars Johnathan Thurston and Greg Inglis will perform a traditional Aboriginal Bumala-y Yuurrama-y at matches this weekend in a rally cry of support for Adam Goodes. Now that is culture!

    Marcus Woolombi Waters, Lecturer, School of Humanities at Griffith University. This article first appeared in The Conversation on 31 July 2015.

  • Tim Soutphommasane. Adam Goodes has made some people feel uncomfortable.

    Racism comes in many forms: overt and covert, crude and subtle. The harms of racism also come in many forms. We know from a large body of research that racism can lead to stress, negative emotions, psychological damage, even physiological effects.

    We don’t always focus, however, on racism’s impact on our civic health. What I mean by this is the impact racism can have on the civility and cohesion of our society. Because when someone is subjected to racism, it can have the effect of undermining their standing as a fellow member of our community, and can have a fundamental impact on their freedom.

    Racism can make people feel that they are not able to speak out in a way that they otherwise might. It can inhibit their ability to go out, or feel safe in public places.

    In other words, the experience of racism undermines the assurance of security to which every member of a good society is entitled; the sense of confidence that everyone will be treated fairly and justly; that everyone can walk down the street and conduct their business without fear of abuse or assault, or without feeling that they have to keep their heads down.

    This dimension of racism should remind us of its connection to power. Racism is something that is used to reduce, diminish and humiliate its victims. And when it does exist, some people benefit from it. The beneficiaries of racism may be direct: often, the perpetrators of racism do what they do because it can make them feel more powerful.

    Then there are those who are the passive or indirect beneficiaries of racial power. Some may benefit from the status quo without even realizing it. Some may enjoy the benefits of a social privilege bound up in race.

    There is more than one way, of course, that power manifests in conversations about race. Often, race can be brought to the fore when people seek to challenge power.

    We have seen this through the example of footballer Adam Goodes, who for much of this year has been subjected to constant booing from opposition supporters at AFL matches. The booing has been a recent phenomenon. It appears only to have begun after Goodes took exception to being called an ape by a young spectator at the MCG in 2013 – and to have grown after Goodes was named Australian of the Year for 2014. The booing has further intensified since May, after Goodes performed an Aboriginal war dance during a match in the AFL’s Indigenous Round.

    The booing of Adam Goodes has involved an element of racism, even if some say it occurs because spectators disapprove of Goodes’s playing style. Clearly, the booing has coincided with the public stand that he has taken on matters of racism and Indigenous affairs. If the booing was to do with Goodes’s playing style, why was there not booing for the first decade or so of his career? If Goodes has such an objectionable style, how is that he won the AFL’s Brownlow Medal – the decoration for the league’s best player – on two occasions? How is it that such a champion and statesman of the game is being treated like a pantomime villain?

    It is strange, too, that the denial of racism has been typically accompanied by such intense feeling. Some have expressed deep hostility to any accusation that race and racial prejudice could be at play.

    Let me be clear. There is no question that the booing is of an ugly and unedifying nature. It has everything to do with Goodes standing up against racism and speaking out about Indigenous issues. Goodes has been a public figure not afraid of challenging prejudice; not afraid of asking questions about Australian history and society. He has done it in ways that have made some people feel uncomfortable.

    And it beggars belief to think that those booing somehow don’t know what they are doing. Not when there has been so much debate about it being tied to racial malice (last weekend, for instance, the booing in Perth was accompanied by some spectators being ejected for racial abuse aimed at Goodes). As others have noted, many may be joining in with the booing because they are seeking to put a proud Aboriginal man ‘in his place’ – because he has dared to speak out on issues touching on race.

    Whatever the motivations, the booing has gone too far. The vilification has got to stop. Because it is doing damage – not just to the game of AFL but also to our society. With each match, each week, that this booing is tolerated, more and more people are being given licence to degrade, humiliate and intimidate; to believe that they can hound someone who speaks out about racism into silence. It is an unfortunate sign of the times that this has been allowed to go on for too long, to the point where there is now even the prospect that one of the greats of the sport may be booed into retirement.

    It was welcome that the AFL has issued a statement making clear that racism had no place in the game, and that the league’s 18 club captains have taken a united stand in calling for an end to the bullying. If things do not improve (and assuming Goodes plays on), it may result in the players having to take matters into their own hands. In Europe, there have been occasions in football when teams have walked off the pitch in protest against racist abuse. What an indictment on our society it would be were things to reach such a point.

    We should not forget as well the toll all this is having on the man in question. During the past two years I have had the opportunity to do some work with Adam Goodes. We are proud to have him as an ambassador of our ‘Racism. It Stops with Me’ campaign. His impact has been significant. In taking a stand against racism, he has inspired many, empowering others to do the same. And, partly because of that, he is now the target of despicable behaviour.

    Adam Goodes is a champion of football, an advocate for human rights and a man of integrity. He deserves our respect. It is not him, but those targeting him, who deserve our contempt.

    Tim Soutphommasane is Race Discrimination Commissioner. This is an edited extract from a speech delivered at the ANU on 29 July.

     

  • Cathy Alexander. On climate change, the states may yet save the day.

    Climate campaigner Al Gore has been in Australia again – but this time he didn’t share a stage with a beaming Clive Palmer. He didn’t go anywhere near Canberra. And he had good reason.

    Gore, the former US vice-president who travels the world spruiking action on climate change, wanted to meet with state governments and city councils instead. He has jumped on an emerging trend: a broadening of responsibility for addressing climate change.

    Under the United Nations system it is national governments that are supposed to make emissions pledges and enact policies. Some are doing so.

    But the reality is it’s often provincial governments or city councils who are the most ambitious, especially where national governments leave a policy void.

    From the ground up

    A global patchwork of thousands of provinces and councils enacting separate climate policies may sound messy, and it’s very much Plan B for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. But this bottom-up mish-mash might just prove efficient at reducing greenhouse gas emissions – while some national politicians grandstand and dither on the sidelines.

    Gore, a Nobel laureate who gave his trademark slideshow to 1,000 staff and students at the University of Melbourne on Monday, talked about states that are “moving” on climate change: California, Washington and Oregon in the United States, and Canada’s British Columbia.

    “I have a feeling that some parts of Australia are thinking of moving,” he added in his breezy Tennessee accent. “I’m stoked about that.”

    Earlier in the day Gore met with ministers from the Labor states of Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, plus senior public servants from New South Wales and the ACT.

    Later he told the university event, organised by the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, that those state governments “understand this crisis and the nature of the opportunity” (such as renewable energy).

    It’s a different approach to Gore’s memorable joint press conference with federal MP Clive Palmer in Parliament House a year ago. The pair announced that Palmer would vote to scrap the carbon price, while saving the furniture (the Renewable Energy Target, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation etc).

    This time around, Gore didn’t target federal politicians – he could hardly show his slide of a Hawaiian wind farm surrounded by flowers to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who finds them “ugly”. (Gore did have a quick lunch with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.)

    Instead, Gore looked to the states to ginger up Australians ahead of the major UN climate summit in Paris in December.

    Top of his mind was California, the example he cited frequently on this trip. Former Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger got an emissions trading scheme through state parliament and it started under the Democrats in 2012. (The design is fairly similar to Australia’s first emissions trading scheme under Kevin Rudd.)

    California now has bills on the table to cut transport emissions and increase renewable energy, as well as a legislated emissions target. The Victorian government is particularly interested in the Californian example.

    Gore also name-checked the Canadian province of British Columbia, which has had a carbon tax since 2008, introduced by the centre-Right Liberal Party. Petrol pumps in Vancouver now show the carbon tax ticking over.

    British Columbia has relatively strict energy-efficiency regulations on buildings and their contents, a requirement that 93% of new electricity supply be renewable, and all government agencies offset emissions.

    Gore didn’t mention Chinese provinces but there are seven state or city-based carbon trading schemes in China; the Beijing ETS covers everyone from Microsoft to news agency Xinhua.

    The climate see-saw

    So can Australian states follow suit? They already have. NSW had an ETS, which was scrapped in 2012 to avoid duplication with the (now defunct) federal carbon tax.

    Victoria’s Labor government passed a bill in 2009 to cut emissions by 20% by 2020 and had a plan for the staged closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired power plant. The Liberals won government in 2010 and reversed those plans.

    So there’s an Australian policy pattern best described as messy, regardless of one’s view on climate change. Sometimes the states act, sometimes the federal government does, but governments keep changing. Climate change has been caught in a federal-state see-saw which has left little policy intact.

    That’s why Gore’s list of frontrunner states doesn’t include any Australian examples.

    That’s also perhaps why no premiers met Gore on Monday. They face a tough choice – are they really ready to ramp up climate ambition, and cope with the risks of a hostile media campaign and a possible voter backlash?

    Climate policy has helped see off three Australian prime ministers and two opposition leaders since 2007. The temptation to back away quietly is real.

    South Australia and Queensland are talking up their climate ambition, while Victoria is formally reviewing its climate options, including an energy efficiency campaign, new emissions targets, and more renewable energy. (They’re all Labor states.)

    Meanwhile, insiders are closely watching the Liberal NSW government, which is a different beast ideologically to the federal Abbott government. Watch to see if ministers from any state go to the UN Paris summit.

    So it was perhaps the state premiers, and not the Melbourne University students present, that Gore had in mind when he called for “moral courage” on climate change, as he stood in front of a huge slide of the planet.

    Cathy Alexander is Research Fellow. Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at University of Melbourne. This article was first published in The Conversation on 28 July 2015.

  • David Holmes. Tony Abbott, Rupert Murdoch and coal.

    As the latest State of the Climate report reaffirms 2014 to be “the hottest on record”, the NSW Liberal Party is pressing ahead with plans for a “Carnival of Coal” in August. The party’s upper house whip, Peter Phelps, has appealed to members to download a sticker for MP office doors in support of the upcoming carbon love-in. It says:

    I loved carbon before it was coal.

    The Liberal paleo-love for coal, which Tony Abbott has declared “good for humanity”, is at least a point of differentiation with Labor. Labor does not promote such slogans at all – even if, in Victoria, the Andrews Labor government is still issuing coal exploration licences.

    Both parties are capable of romancing the coal industry. But Liberal parties around the country have had much more success in convincing voters that either coal is more important than climate, or have decided that – with a population drip-fed on attention-deficit-consumerism and its reality television advertorials – their connection can be comfortably sublimated.

    Whatever its form, the love for coal in Australia is going to end badly, like all relationships based on fantasy. To slightly misquote a 19th-century philosopher: the demand to give up the illusion that coal is good for humanity is the demand to give up a condition which needs such an illusion.

    The condition I am referring to is the way our half-formed social democracy has become so captive to the ugliest form of corporate-servicing statism. It is not that the state has completely merged with corporate interests. Australia still has incredibly strong and progressive civic institutions such as its public broadcaster, its schools, universities, bureaus, museums and aspects of the legal system that do not serve capital’s interests.

    It is that our governments have become servile – not to voters, but to a conjunction of multinational mining, energy and media interests, who have as their dating agencies the far-right silos of the capitalist class, such as the Institute for Public Affairs, which do not disclose their corporate donors.

    Many believe, including perhaps Abbott himself, that he retains his power base at the pleasure of an ageing octogenarian who is well known for obtaining amusement from playing the Freudian Fort-Da game with entire democracies – the power to give and take away power – as long as he has also received something in return.

    The same newspaper group that managed to squeeze a “toxic” “carbon tax” through the consciousness of millions of tabloid readers by means of slogan and cartoon did so when it was threatened by the Australian Tax Office (ATO) with having to repay almost A$900 million it had received on the eve of the last federal election.

    The infamous “Kick this Mob Out” election blitzkrieg on Labor that started on August 5, 2013, was launched precisely at decision time for the ATO to appeal the Federal Court ruling on the windfall payout News Corp reportedly received by titanic-scale profit-shifting.

    Global profit-shifting activities are routine for multinational empires such as Murdoch’s. But, not all have the ability to pressure governments at election times. And it is clear that at least the two major political parties believe they need a media mogul to gain office.

    But political parties also need big donors. The largest to the Coalition are the energy and mining companies, who receive the greatest benefits in corporate welfare.

    The examples are quite grotesque. Fuel rebate subsidies that mining companies receive run at A$2.2 billion per year. Meanwhile, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) is asked to cancel its A$2.1 billion in subsidies directed exclusively to windfarms – which have the ability to hurt coal.

    Before it moved to neuter the CEFC, the Coalition has proposed what has been dubbed the ”Dirty Energy Finance Corporation” for Northern Australia. It will bewilderingly make up to A$5 billion available to subsidise infrastructure projects in northern Australia and Queensland in particular.

    A source has suggested to me that the fund is actually an elaborate financial smokescreen to helping out the coal mines in the Galilee basin – particularly the Adani Enterprises mine, but also the GVK Alpha Coalmine. GVK Alpha, the largest coal mine in Australia, was approved 2 months after the Coalition assumed power, is part-owned by Gina Rinehart – and also stands to benefit from billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies. Ms Rhinehart attracted satire in 2011 for flying liberal MPs to India to attend the wedding of the granddaughter of mine co-owner GV Krishna.

    With the coal price diving worldwide, the mines – are unlikely to be economically viable without a huge subsidy. They might also surpass the viability threshold if they were able to sell the coal to a nearby newly proposed coal-fired power station that has been endorsed by Abbott personally.

    However, competition from renewable energy company Windlab for an adjacent 1.2 gigawatt combined solar and wind farm would be an enormous threat to Alpha and Adani. It is pledging to undercut the price of the coal station by $30 per megawatt hour.

    Time for my readers to draw a diagram to figure out which proposal will get funded. A diagram might picture the coincidence that the CEFC was directed to cease subsidising windfarms – for which it actually returns a profit to Australian taxpayers – just as it was realised the Windlab proposal posed a threat to the coal-fired power station.

    It is worth considering that, according to Bill McKibben from 350.org, the Galilee basin alone has so much coal that if it is all burnt, it would take the world 30% of the way to getting to 2 degrees. You couldn’t invent a more tragic case study on how destructive the Abbott government is on climate.

    But then there is Direct Action. This is a government marketing exercise that disguises a further A$2.5 billion giveaway to corporate Australia that works with targets so small as to guarantee Australia’s status as having fallen off the climate action map.

    Detailed analysis shows that Direct Action won’t even meet its miniscule targets. It has led to a demonstrable increase in Australias Co2 emissions since the carbon tax was repealed, according to the government’s own figures.

    Given the Abbott government’s ongoing love affair with coal, it is little wonder that Australia was publicly scrutinised at climate talks held in Bonn last month about the impact of its domestic policies. The UN talks, attended by representatives of 190 countries, were an important stepping stone to the much-anticipated Paris summit to be held in December.

    While the Coalition’s reckless disregard for addressing climate change may not get scrutiny by the tabloid media in Australia, it certainly will in Paris.

    David Holmes is Senior Lecturer, Communications and Media Studies at Monash University.  This article was first published in The Conversation on 18 July 2015.

  • Shiro Armstrong. A risky Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.

    The largest hurdle for the 12-member Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement — the US president’s ability to get Trade Promotion Authority, or fast track — has been cleared. Many people think that the TPP can be wrapped up in a few months.

    There are still difficult issues to resolve, but they are trivial compared to the ability to get a straight up-or-down vote in the US Congress, without which the deal would be a non-starter. The remaining issues can easily be horse-traded at the political level and compromises can be made in order to complete the deal.

    The temptation will be strong to rush across the finish line for what will be a major political trophy — but the risk is that the TPP will be an agreement that does more harm than good for economic and political relations in the Asia Pacific.

    A completed TPP will be accompanied by grandiose statements about the deal covering 60 per cent of global GDP and half the world’s trade. This sounds much less impressive when you compare it to groupings like APEC, which includes China and Indonesia, that have even higher global GDP and trade coverage. But the numbers like these don’t tell us anything about what kind of deal it will be or what gains and costs it will bring. The most optimistic estimates suggest trivial increases in GDP.

    The TPP aims to write rules for international commerce in the 21st century and includes a large number of chapters that go beyond 20th century trade issues.

    There are three major flaws, though, that will likely overwhelm any positives the deal may deliver.

    The first is that the core of the new rules involves aspects that further private interests (read: large multinationals) at the expense of general welfare in member countries. The most egregious of these is stronger intellectual property (IP) rights protections, which are anti-development and simply transfer wealth to US pharmaceutical companies and Hollywood. Stronger intellectual property protections stymy innovation. This means a net reduction in trade and a loss in global welfare. If ! countries like Australia think stronger IP protections are in their national interest, they do not need an international treaty to introduce them.

    The second flaw is who the TPP leaves out. China, India and Indonesia, among others, are not party to the TPP nor will they be able to join anytime soon. The hurdles to membership are unreasonably high for non-advanced countries, who will pay a cost from being left out with strict rules designed to divert trade from them.

    The third major flaw is that even in the win-win trade enhancing areas, the TPP will either entrench protection in some areas — chiefly agriculture — or, where it succeeds in liberalising, will do so at the expense of non-members. Inefficient and unproductive sectors are a drag on economies, and liberalising them would produce real gains. But many countries in the TPP are bringing an overly defensive stance — think Japan and its rice and other ‘sacred’ produce — or are starting with that sector off the negotiating table altogether, as is the case with US sugar.

    More egregiously, the TPP will complicate trade and impose serious costs on non-members.

    Vietnam is a case in point. The country is paying a high price for entry by adopting standards and rules inappropriate to its stage of development, but it will benefit from increased market access in the United States for its garments exports. Yet Vietnamese exporters will only enjoy that preferential treatment if it procures raw materials from another TPP member instead of from cheaper, more efficient suppliers like China. These and similar provisions that derive from the way TPP has been negotiated bilaterally make it a particularly complex and costly agreement. The trade diversion that will result imposes economic costs on members and non-members alike — and some of the latter are even poorer than Vietnam.

    To make matters worse, the trade- and welfare-reducing IP rights provisions are being traded off against and bundled with market access provisions. And some provisions could be disruptive and costly when onerous standards, institutions and reforms — to state-owned enterprises, for example — are imposed and countries are expected to leapfrog stages of development.

    As TPP members sprint towards the finish line, they will need to introduce measures to enhance the positives of the agreement — the genuine trade and investment liberalisation that occurs — and over time minimise the negatives. A first step is to limit the scope and reach of the welfare reducing IP protections.

    The agreement needs to be expansionary on the win-win trade and investment liberalisation aspects. That involves limiting the complicated preferential deals within the TPP and making it easy to expand membership. That is no easy task given the design of the agreement is to punish non-members into compliance on terms set by the advanced economies. A more productive way forward would be to help build capacity in lower income countries so that they can reach those standards. That is how to further productive economic interdependence and win friends.

    If progress can be made in reform and liberalisation unilaterally or through the help of other regional initiatives — and if the WTO and multilateral system can be strengthened — then the benefits of the TPP can be accentuated and some of its more pernicious costs averted.

    Shiro Armstrong is co-director of the Australia-Japan Research Centre and co-Editor of East Asia Forum at the Australian National University.

    This article was first posted on the East Asia Forum website on 26 July 2015.

     

  • Bob Kinnaird. More government dishonesty on China FTA

    Now that Federal Labor Leader Bill Shorten has publicly stated his opposition to the China FTA labour mobility provisions, the Coalition is ramping up its attack on union and political critics of the deal.

    Trade Minister Robb lead the charge this week, with allegations of union ‘falsehoods’ and a ‘racist scare campaign’ over the China FTA that do not stack up (‘Don’t give credence to union scare campaign’, AFR, Letters, 21 July 2015).

    The main alleged union ‘falsehood’ is ‘that Chinese companies will be allowed to bring in their own workforces at the expense of Australian jobs’.

    The fact is that Chinese companies will be able to do exactly this under the FTA package that Mr Robb negotiated. Under the terms of the China FTA, any China-based enterprise with ‘a contract for the supply of a service within Australia and which does not have a commercial presence within Australia’ can bring in an unlimited number of its own Chinese employees as skilled workers on non-concessional 457 visas, without ‘labour market testing or any economic needs test’ (ChAFTA, Chapter 10, Annexe 10-A, Clause 10(a)).

    This includes Chinese companies with contracts on ‘significant infrastructure projects’ of $150 million or more under the Investment Facilitation Arrangement (IFAs) in the China FTA package.

    This means a China-based enterprise contracted to perform say all the engineering and design work on a project in Australia, or all the welding work, can bring in unlimited numbers of Chinese engineers or welders to Australia on non-concessional 457 visas, with no obligation to even look for skilled Australian engineers or welders, let alone prove that none are available.

    Chinese companies with these contracts can access unlimited numbers of 457 visas for their Chinese employees in all ‘skilled’ occupations – meaning all 651 occupations currently on the non-concessional 457-eligible list (known as the Consolidated Sponsored Occupation List or CSOL), and any added to the list over time. ‘Non-concessional’ means the Chinese workers must meet all the standard minimum requirements for a 457 visa, including minimum English language skills (which the Coalition has reduced), qualifications and salary.

    The FTA also grants the exact same 457 visa privileges to China-based companies transferring their staff to Australia as ‘intra-corporate transferees’ moving ‘to fill a position in the branch, subsidiary or affiliate of the enterprise in Australia’. These include Chinese and other foreign nationals ‘with advanced trade, technical or professional skills’, who can be moved to Australia in unlimited numbers with no 457 LMT, for any reason including to perform work associated with ‘significant infrastructure projects’.

    Mr Robb’s China FTA also permits unlimited numbers of Chinese workers as ‘installers and servicers’ of machinery and equipment where installation or servicing by the supplying Chinese company ‘is a condition of purchase of the machinery or equipment’. These Chinese workers enter on shorter-term 400 visas also with no labour market testing, like the non-concessional Chinese 457 visa workers mentioned above. Chinese project investors in Australia will preference suppliers of cheaper Chinese machinery and equipment, so we should expect many Chinese 400 visa workers under the FTA.

    Coalition Ministers say nothing about these outrageous FTA concessions but instead deflect attention solely to the Memorandum of Understanding on Investment Facilitation Arrangement (IFAs), alongside the formal China FTA treaty.

    Chinese companies can also bring in their own workforces of concessional 457 visa workers under these IFAs. ‘Concessional’ 457 visas mean Chinese and other foreign workers in semi-skilled occupations, and those in skilled occupations who do not meet the standard minimum requirements for a 457 visa, such as minimum English language skills. The government tries to conceal the fact these are concessional arrangements for lower-skill workers, with Ministers like Mr Robb saying IFAs are for ‘skilled’ overseas workers.

    The arrangements for concessional 457 visa workers under IFAs are different to those for the non-concessional 457 workers covered by the FTA itself. The government has surrounded these IFAs with the fog of obfuscation since they were first announced back in November 2014 and has done little in nine months to clear that fog and persuade Australians that these are in the national interest.

    Unlike the non-concessional 457 visas for Chinese workers, there will be negotiated limits on the numbers of concessional 457 visa workers on IFA projects. The number of concessional 457 visa workers and ‘guaranteed occupations’ on an IFA project will be set in an umbrella IFA project agreement, from which individual direct employers on the project will then draw down under concessional 457 ‘labour agreements’. The MOU expressly rules out any requirement for labour market testing for a project company ‘to enter into an IFA’, which will be valid for at least 4 years.

    It now seems that the total number of concessional 457 visas approved for an IFA project will be determined based on consultants reports and similar speculative data as to projected future ‘shortages’ of Australian workers in up to 4 years time, provided to the Immigration Department (DIBP) by the project owner. On this basis, the IFA project owner will get approval for say 1,000 concessional 457 visa workers over the life of the project. IFA project employers can then ‘bid’ for a share of the 1,000 concessional 457 workers.

    To access these 457 workers, there is no legal obligation for these IFA project employers to undertake 457 labour market testing (LMT) as legislated in the Migration Act 1958. The legislated LMT obligation does not apply to sponsors of concessional 457 visa workers under labour agreements, only to sponsors of non-concessional 457 visa workers. Labor must surely regret this oversight in its 2013 legislative amendments on 457 LMT which the Coalition will not remedy. Its policy is the abolition of legislated 457 LMT entirely.

    The MOU says that direct employers on IFA projects may be required to undertake some form of labour market testing (LMT) before accessing concessional 457 visa workers. The MOU also states that ‘where labour market testing is required, employers may satisfy this requirement by demonstrating that they have first tested the Australian labour market and not found sufficient suitable workers. DIBP will make publicly available information on how any labour market testing requirements could be met’ (MOU on IFA, clause 8 and footnote 6 – emphasis added).

    On 22 July, Assistant Immigration Minister Cash said DIBP Project Agreement guidelines for companies seeking to recruit overseas workers will give effect to IFAs. These guidelines, dated May 2015 but strangely not mentioned in DFAT’s ‘Myth-busting’ Fact Sheet on the FTA issued in mid-July, state that employers: “must provide a comprehensive written statement of the labour market need for the requested occupation(s), demonstrating ongoing shortages …. as well as evidence that you have made significant efforts to recruit workers from the Australian labour market within the previous six months.” Furthermore: “The department will only enter into a project labour agreement where it has been satisfied that Australians have been provided first opportunity for jobs.”

    This is a much lower standard than the legislated 457 LMT obligation where sponsors must prove to DIBP that no suitably qualified Australian is available to do the job, at the time of each 457 visa nomination, where the LMT condition applies. Like most obligations and provisions in concessional 457 labour agreements, it also is embedded only in Departmental ‘guidelines’ and policy, not legislation or regulations.

    The Minister’s attempt to assure that these ‘guidelines’ offer adequate protection for Australian workers also conveniently ignores the fact that these applications for concessional 457 visa workers by individual IFA project employers will be made in a context where the project owner has already secured approval for large numbers of these workers, in the umbrella IFA agreement.

    This places undue and unfair pressure on DIBP officers to approve 457 visa applications from individual IFA employers, especially operating in a high-profile visa program area with no legislative framework and far too much room for Ministerial and political intervention.

    The Coalition government will not admit that these IFA arrangements are unprecedented. Australia has never before in an FTA package deal permitted concessional 457 visas for even skilled workers, let alone for semi-skilled workers (like concreters, scaffolders, truck drivers, even office workers). It is also unprecedented for any Australian government to allow foreign companies access to concessional 457 visa workers under labour agreements. Until the China FTA package, only Australian businesses could access these concessional 457 visa workers because these arrangements are too high risk for abuse and exploitation.

    Time for government honesty about the China FTA labour mobility package.

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

     

     

     

  • Patty Fawkner. Mary Magdalene: friend, icon, model

    We have yet to balance spirituality and sexuality in the Church especially in regard to women. Women’s leadership and spiritual influence will be compromised until we do, writes Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner.

    I thank my father for my friendship with Mary Magdalene.

    I was a young woman when, after a brief illness, my father died of cancer. It was the first time I’d lost a loved one. I was devastated.

    My gnawing grief for my darling Dad made me interpret well-meaning words of sympathy as hollow pious platitudes. God seemed nowhere to be found. I felt nothing of God’s comfort. Unbelievably naïve, I had expected God to shield me from normal human grief because I was a person of faith – I was a nun for heaven’s sake!

    Many months after Dad’s death I went on a weekend retreat and the wise old monk who guided me suggested I read Chapter 20 of John’s Gospel and spend time with Mary Magdalene in the garden on the morning of Jesus’ resurrection.

    The story is well-known and well-loved. A grieving Mary goes to the tomb. The body of Jesus is not there. Still weeping, she encounters a mysterious figure whom she mistakes for the gardener. He calls her by name. She re-discovers her Beloved. He tells her not to cling onto him but to go and tell the good news of his resurrection to his disciples. “I have seen the Lord,” she rejoices.

    Something shifted in me as I spent time with Mary. Somehow, inchoately, I felt God calling me by name. Somehow God was present in my emptiness. Like Mary, I couldn’t cling onto a former idea of God. I had to, in Anthony de Mello’s words, “empty out my teacup God”. I had to find a new, more adult image of God. Instead of a Mr Fix-it God who did not honour my grieving humanity, I found a more mysterious God, a presence in emptiness, a bright darkness, a God who grieved with me.

    I was grateful to Mary Magdalene but still didn’t really know her.

    Years earlier I had seen Cecil B. DeMille’s movie, The King of Kings, where Mary Magdalene first appears as a bejewelled, breast-plated courtesan driving a chariot drawn by – what else but (?) – five plumed zebras! She is hurrying to meet her lover, Judas Iscariot, who she hears has become ‘distracted’ by some carpenter turned preacher.

    I laughed at Cecil B. DeMille’s fertile imagination but still accepted uncritically the Christian tradition’s stereotype of Mary as the infamous scarlet woman who turned her life around upon meeting Jesus.

    Scripture study over the years has led me to discover who Mary Magdalene is and who she is not. The more the real Mary Magdalene is allowed to ‘stand up’, the more significance she has for me, not only as a friend, but also as an icon of what women’s role in the Church is and could be.

    Scripture scholars agree that there is not a shred of evidence that Mary was a prostitute. There are at least six or seven different Marys in the Scriptures and they get marvellously muddled.

    Each Gospel writer portrays Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the resurrection and the first to announce this publicly. The definition of an apostle is one who has encountered the risen Lord and proclaims that Good News. In the earliest Christian tradition, Mary is therefore rightly celebrated, not as prostitute but as “Apostle to the Apostles”.

    Mary was chosen for this special role because, I believe, she stood with Jesus in his suffering. Unlike the male disciples who, apart from the Beloved Disciple, fled or drew a weapon in the garden or denied Jesus, Mary endured the brutal horror of Jesus’ crucifixion.

    She does not flee. She does not fight. She does not flinch. Like so many women after her, she gives practical expression to her faith in Jesus. She sits opposite the tomb till dark and then early the next morning comes to the tomb with spices to anoint the body.

    We know that female community leaders and spiritual guides were not uncommon in the early Church. But as soon as the Christian community became part of the establishment, women became more marginalised. Patriarchy minimalized them.

    Within a few centuries, Mary the “Apostle to the Apostles” was forgotten and Mary the former prostitute became entrenched in official Church teaching and in popular imagination.

    As Mary Magdalene’s star waned, the other Mary, Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus, shone. The two Marys demonstrate the Church’s tendency to either put women on a pedestal or relegate them and discount the legacy of their spiritual leadership.

    Mary of Nazareth is firmly on the pedestal. Dressed in virginal blue, she retains her spirituality but is stripped of her sexuality.

    Mary of Magdala, the relegated one, retains her sexuality but has been stripped of her spiritual influence. Her name, Magdalene, continues to be mythically associated with female sinfulness. She continues to be ignored as “Apostle to the Apostles”.

    The institutional Church has an abject record of recognising women’s spiritual leadership. In the Catholic liturgical calendar there are about 200 feast days for holy men and women, and only one in five – 20 per cent – are women, and a quarter of those 20 per cent belong to Mary, the mother of God. The greater majority of the remaining women are either virgins or religious – hardly the profile of the majority of women in the Church!

    We have yet to balance spirituality and sexuality in the Church especially in regard to women. Women’s leadership and spiritual influence will be compromised until we do.

    Pope John Paul II loved putting women on a pedestal. He spoke often about women’s “feminine genius”, but preferred that they remain in the private sphere of kitchen or cloister.

    However, there are positive signs with Pope Francis, who said in an address for International Women’s Day, that “a world where women are marginalised is a sterile world”.

    “Women have the capacity to see otherwise,” he said. They “ask questions that men never think of”. Of course they do! Their experience is different. Their perspective and insight is different.

    Women have tended to start from their own experience of God, rather than theory about God. This is what Mary Magdalene does. “I have seen the Lord”, she says, and tells the other disciples what her Beloved said to her.

    Repeatedly Pope Francis has said that the Church needs women’s wisdom and contribution in all spheres of Church life including decision-making. The critical issue, however, is how to break the nexus between decision-making and ordination. Pope Francis acknowledged this in his first major document Evangelii Gaudium, but worryingly, has not as yet made any significant structural moves to rectify the situation.

    For me, Mary Magdalene represents all the unrecognised but spiritually significant women and men in the Church. She invites me to enter Jesus’ suffering and not shirk. She calls me to encounter the Risen One in my prayer. She challenges me to be a Good News person who proclaims fiercely and boldly not herself, but the One whom she has seen, the One who sends her. She has much to teach us about God’s inclusive, incredible love for the relegated, the disparaged and dispossessed.

    Mary Magdalene proclaims Jesus as Good News. She is Good News. She certainly is good news in my life. As we celebrate her feast on July 22, may she be so in yours.

    * Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner is an adult educator, writer and facilitator. Patty is interested in exploring what wisdom the Christian tradition has for contemporary issues. She has an abiding interest in questions of justice and spirituality. Her formal tertiary qualifications are in arts, education, theology and spirituality.

    This article was first published in The Good Oil, the e-magazine of the Good Samaritan Sisters http://www.goodsams.org.au/good-oil/mary-magdalene-friend-icon-model

     

  • Brian Johnstone. Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ and Cardinal Pell.

    Cardinal George Pell has criticized Pope Francis’ ground-breaking environmental encyclical. As Pell told the Financial Times on Thursday, July 14, “It’s got many, many interesting elements. There are parts of it which are beautiful,” he said. “But the Church has no particular expertise in science … the Church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters. We believe in the autonomy of science.”

    In the encyclical Laudato Si’ Pope Francis engages his readers on three levels; the first is that of science, the second is that of faith and theology the third is that of reasoned ethics.

    The first level is represented by chapter One of the document, (pars, 17-52). It has been generally acknowledged that the document presents the consensus of the majority of competent scientists. There are some scientists who hold differing views, but they are clearly in the minority. It is reasonable and responsible on the part of the Pope and his advisors to provide an account of the interpretation of the facts on which they base their further reflections. It is perfectly clear that that Pope, in this section, is not appealing to his religious authority to support the description of the contemporary ecological situation. He is reporting the consensus of scientists, who competence he acknowledges. If someone has different views, then a reasonable and responsible reply would be to present the scientific evidence for that view.

    It is quite misplaced to insist that the Church has no authority on scientific questions. The Cardinal, however, asserts, “We believe in the autonomy of science.” Well, who are “we” in this matter? Pell and his fellow climate change deniers? Does he think that the Pope needs to be corrected on this point? The pope well understands what “the autonomy of science” means. The Pope, in contrast to His Eminence, was educated in science and had the assistance of internationally recognized scientists in composing this encyclical.

    Pell states that the Catholic Church has “no particular expertise in science.” Pope Francis nowhere claims that the Church has such competence. What he does offer is a responsible account of his interpretation of the contemporary scientific consensus. If someone wishes to offer a differing view they ought to provide supporting evidence to support that view.

    At a second level, the encyclical engages in reflection on faith and so enters the sphere of theology. (pars. 55-100) It is in this section that Pope Francis introduces what Professor Joseph Camilleri describes as a seismic shift in mainstream Christian thought: human life is essentially defined in its relationship to God, to others and to the earth. There is a clear move beyond an earlier anthropocentric view; the relation between nature and humanity is a crucial dimension of the encyclical. This important theme has entirely escaped Pell.

    The third level is that of ethics. Reasonable ethical argument presupposes a responsible account of the relevant facts. This is provided by Pope Francis in the first section of the encyclical. In the following sections the Pope develops a critical, culturally informed ethical response which Pell ignores.   John Allen reports that despite the cardinal’s criticism of the pope’s environmental stance, Pell noted the encyclical had been “very well received” and said Francis had “beautifully set out our obligations to future generations and our obligations to the environment.” These final animadversions can sound quite patronizing. Cardinal Pell is prepared to grant that the views of the Pope are indeed “beautiful,”—even if without a secure basis in scientific reasoning. But Cardinal Pell himself provides no reasoned argument in support is his assertions.

    In the sphere of climate science, Cardinal Pell is himself no authority, but is rather at the mercy of his own bias. Perhaps he needs to re-read the Pope’s document, and update his previous views on climate change and the broader issues of ecology.

     

    Brian Johnstone. C.SS.R. is a Redemptorist priest.

     

  • Robert Manne. Laudato Si’ : A political reading.

    Robert Manne describes the Papal Encyclical as the first work that has risen to the full challenge of climate change. Robert Manne ads:

    There can be little doubt that the Papal Encyclical is the most consequential intervention in the discussion of climate change since Al Gore’s film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.  … Like Al Gore, indeed, like all rational people, Pope Francis accepts the consensual conclusions of the climate scientists.  … For Pope Francis the climate crisis is the most extreme expression of a destructive tendency that has become increasingly dominant through the course of industrialisation. … The Encyclical argues that we have become slaves both to what is called the technological paradigm and the theory of market fundamentalism. … In the Encyclical, the analysis of the condition of contemporary culture in turn provides the explanation for the most troubling puzzle of the modern era, our abject failure thus far to rise to the challenge of global warming. … Climate change denialism is the most obvious self-interest of the economically powerful voices of society who, in the words of the Encyclical “mask the problems … and conceal the symptoms”.

    This article by Robert Manne was published in The Monthly on 1 July 2015. For link to the article see https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/robert-manne/2015/01/2015/1435708320/laudato-si-political-reading .

    John Menadue

  • Christopher Kennedy and Malcolm Fitzgerald. From sound bite to web bite.

    We are so used to pointing our fingers at the Chinese for their pathetic attempts to control the web we do not see the fundamental change in Western society and the relationship between the governed and the governing. For example; in the Victorian election internet, as defined by the term ‘social media’, was given credit for the amount of damage it did to the Liberal campaign; with the out-going premier blaming his loss on the social media.
    Another example is the prime minister recently degrading the net as electronic graffiti after it was pointed out that the Liberals had no social presence there and consequently was losing votes by the bucket-load.

    It is not only communist (or socialist ) societies that are finding it to govern with the net – many Western politicians have been unable to grasp the significant change in power structures; specifically being held responsible for the governments actions and the opportunity the web allows to ‘vote’ immediately on issues that effect us.
    We’re on the crest of a wave. At the moment the web is largely open to anyone with enough money to live next to reliable power supply. That obstacle to entry is being ameliorated by the number of mobile phones capable of interacting via web services, like twitter, instagram, etc. The number of mobile phones in all areas of the world is phenomenal. Very poor people have mobile phones. What we saw in Sri Lanka was that people who were too poor to own a phone had their own SIM. They would borrow your phone, pop your SIM out and push theirs in, make the call, switch SIMs back and return the phone.
    The interesting thing about that is that the access to the infrastructure is provided by companies who are usually profit driven. By that I mean that there is a point of difference between their agenda and the government agenda. We have already seen that large companies, keen to have access to markets, will allow the government to set the rules. SkyTV and Google did so in China. In some markets, the government still have effective control of the infrastructure. During the Arab Spring some countries were able to “turn off” the internet. It was more pragmatic than trying to stop individual access.
    What I think we’ll see is organisation around these platforms by groups attempting to sway opinion. The voice of the people is, according to the mood of the times, lauded or pilloried. Presently it’s tearing Syria apart. In Australia, at present the attitude is ambivalent. The Libs, and I’m sure Labor was doing this too, were producing a lot of material for youtube and trying to get it trending on twitter. The bits that I saw were too ham-fisted to be broadly attractive, they were preaching to the converted.
    The internet provides a focus for people to gather “outside space”. That is a part of its phenomenal power. We don’t have a physical boundary. There is a small amount of time shifting too, but it remains temporal in it’s most important aspects. A lot of the concern about the internet has been directed at the idea that things will be lost. People of the future will not have access to our writing. It is more apparent now that this concern is misplaced. However, it is triggered by a very noticeable phenomenon – the sheer quantity of information available. Yesterdays twitter is an ancient relic. This isn’t because it has lost relevance. It is because the quantity of material that is aggregated is so vast that we are constantly looking at the surface. Yesterday’s post are buried by today’s posts.
    There is a wait-and-see game being played. This happened with financial activity in the early days. The potential for micro-payments was envisaged as revolution in our behaviour. Transaction costs were essentially zero, so that meant that digital objects could be transacted for nominal values, eg, 1 cent. I saw a number of systems that were being developed and trialled. They were successful, except for one thing. The existing powers in the financial markets would not participate. Why would they? Transaction costs reduced to zero? Millions of transactions being performed without profit? Lunacy. The systems I saw were put in place but the revolution never occurred. The companies that delivered the systems take huge service fees. They charge content developers for access to the systems. They charge consumers for access to the system. The system is not really very expensive to setup or to maintain. However, they control all the gates and operate within an profitable oligopoly.
    The present threats to social activity on the web in Australia are the data retention laws (Are they being discussed) and the copyright laws. The data retention laws force the ISPs to record and retain all user activity for two years. Have they effectively outsourced the expensive work of the spy agencies? These censorship laws are used to dampen social behaviour. Are you looking at rude pictures? We’ll find out! Not today, we’re busy, but in a couple of years we might drag up the links and make an issue of it.
    The copyright laws are a part of the spectrum of censorship. There are certainly good arguments for fair-pay for fair-use. However, the content is distributed to markets segmented by geography and politics. There is no reason why the US market get to see a movie before the rest of the world. It can be distributed to the entire world simultaneously. The refusal to allow some markets to access the product is the issue. Why can “they” have it when “we” can’t? And why is there a cost difference? The home market (if we think about Hollywood) pays much lower costs than the rest of the world. Yet there are no distribution costs on the internet. So, we have to wonder at this. It raises two flags: censorship (refusal of access) and discriminatory practices ( foreigners enter through this door only. foreigners pay more ).
    These two things are blunt instruments but they have the ability to play carrot and stick. Copyright laws are the stick. You download a movie and we will allow the production company to sue you. Has a production company ever tried to sue someone who snuck into a theatre without paying or who recorded to VCR? No. However, our governments are standing beside the content producers. They should be telling them to get their shop in order. Make your product available (no censorship). Don’t discriminate. Learn to charge a fair price.
    The carrot is safety. Give up all your rights for safety’s sake. Terrorist lurk in the bushes, we must cut down all bushes. We must retain all your data and pass it to all governments ( except the baddies ). We must know what you are doing for your sake.
    And in the need will all this monitoring of the internet work? No, because the freedom of the internet allows the user to increase their productivity; their ability to understand issues and concepts. Knowledge is the true drug of the mind. A country that places sovereign borders around it’s internet will find itself falling backwoods in the long term as other countries increase their productivity.
    The mainstream media did not get up and fight for their rights in the recent change to the the metadata laws and they are going to pay for it. Part of the problem is the mainstream media’s slow loss of influence to the internet borne traffic as well as it’s desire to control copyright. As well as public opinion.
    Unfortunately you can’t champion free speech on one hand and not protect it with the other. As the net increases it’s power over politics the content providers who work within the system are going to find it harder and harder to justify their attacks on the freedom of the net.

     

    Malcolm Fitzgerald completed a BA with Hons first class in Literature and Communication, Murdoch University, 1989. Forced to learn to use a computer, he discovered the internet, taught himself to code and has been working as a web programmer since 1995.

    Christopher Kennedy completed a Bachelor of Asian Studies (Chinese major) at Murdoch University in 1989. He went on to become a journalist and moderated Australia Asia Internet for five years. Since then he has concentrated on fiction.

     

  • Stuart Whitman. Labor 2035

    This article is posted from Grassroots, The Local Labor Journal – Party Reform: Past Present and Future.

     

    It’s 2035, and Labor members from an inner suburb of Australia’s largest city are gathering in their local community centre to welcome the new Labor Prime Minister on her first official visit to the electorate. 

    The recently elected Prime Minister is returning to her childhood community to congratulate its Labor branch on their Community Action Programs and to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ALP National Conference that changed everything.

    Since the party reforms were passed at the 2015 ALP National ALP Conference, the Australian ‘Labor Party has been transformed into Australia’s largest grassroots activist and political movement of nearly 200,000 members with Labor branches overseeing sustainable neighbourhood projects coordinating everything from community gardens, to small cooperative businesses and neighbourhood literacy programs across the country, as well as being engaged in community dialogue and participation in the development of Labor policies and the election of Labor candidates.

    Tonight is an important opportunity for the Prime Minister to reflect on how her own life was changed by joining her local Labor branch, and how that experience might serve as a lesson to her party and her country about engagement and participation.

    This is her speech.

    “Men and women of the Australian Labor Party, my friends, comrades and Labor supporters.

    I feel I have returned home.

    You know, I grew up just a few streets away in government housing not long after my family arrived as refugees from South Sudan. I went to the state school just around the corner from this community centre.

    This is where it all started for me. This is where I found my sense of belonging in this strange new country that gave my family safety. This is where I was inspired to give back by serving my community and my fellow Australians in public life and this is where I was provided the opportunities to realise that dream.

    I am pleased that so many of my Labor friends and mentors from that time are here physically and virtually tonight to share this celebration.

    I am grateful that we are also joined by some veteran delegates of the 2015 ALP National Conference who were able to put their factional and personal differences aside long enough to embrace a new way of thinking for Labor, a higher standard for the way we conduct ourselves as a party and as a result breathed new life into our Labor cause for our times, changing politics forever in Australia.

    Who would have thought back in 2015, when Australia’s  prospects looked so bleak under the short-lived but destructive Abbott Government that we could have come so far as a nation. In those years we saw rapidly rising unemployment as our manufacturing sector crumbled under a Government that didn’t care while jobs flowed offshore. And just as the numbers of jobless were soaring they were removing the foundations of our world-renowned social safety net and increasing the burden on the most vulnerable of our citizens, while closing off     future job and education opportunities to our youth. And when the world’s scientists were warning us Australia would be the nation most impacted by climate change, our Government was doing everything possible to place obstacles in the way of our transition to a low carbon economy.

    Australia was at the cross-roads. We were faced by the dual challenges of being left behind by the third industrial revolution as countries that invested in digital infrastructure, education and innovation overtook us, and with a declining capacity to mitigate and adapt to the ravages of climate change. We needed an alternative government  that not   only understood the difficult choices to be made by our country at that cross-roads but that it would take the full engagement and participation of our people and their collective talent to chart a better way ahead. 

    The reforms that were passed at the 2015 National Conference unleashed the great, untapped potential of Labor members that for too long had been taken for granted by power blocs that sought only to sustain their own power. As a result, many other Australians were drawn to join the ALP because they saw it as an organisation that really acted on our commitment to social democracy and the empowerment of the powerless.

    You see the key to the success of any organisation or community is the extent to which members feel they belong. If the community embraces the individual, and values and empowers him or her to share their knowledge and experience, then the whole community thrives. It was the same for my family arriving in Australia at time when Australia did not have a good record on the treatment of refugees. But by being welcomed by my local community, and finding a home in my local Labor branch, I discovered my voice and my potential.

    At the 2015 conference we embraced the participation of our rank and file members across the country in selecting our federal and state leaders and key party officers, a greater say for local members in choosing their lower and upper house candidates over the will of the central machine, the resourcing of sustained community organising campaigns for local branches and supporters between elections, multiple ways of engaging with the party’s policy development, the engagement of our local communities in Labor pre-selection contests, and training programs for branch office holders and branch rebuilding initiatives.

    These reforms enabled us to become the party that we are today.

    In the age where technology allows participatory democracy on a scale unmatched in human history, we became the Labor Party for our times. The Australian people in all of their diversity responded in kind, many more voted for us and many more saw the value in joining us in our Labor cause.

    These reforms enabled us to become the party of participation.

    In the age where technology allows participatory democracy on a scale unmatched in human history, we became the Labor Party for our times. The Australian people in all of their diversity responded in kind, many more voted for us and many more saw the value in joining us in our Labor cause.

     

    The transformation of the Labor Party into a 21st century political movement and organisation has also transformed Australia into a proud republic with flourishing social capital that has overcome its fears and toxic politics and that is adapting to the great economic and environmental upheavals of the past two decades and has healed past divisions, not least the treaty we have signed with Australia’s indigenous people. The rest of the world now looks to Australia as an example of what can be achieved by a progressive and fair society that seeks to empower its citizens to solve problems for their common good.

    We look back with gratitude to the foresight of the delegates to the 2015 ALP National Conference, because their courage made possible a Labor Party that fully lives our values of democracy, fairness and empowerment, and as a result we have built an Australia where all of our citizens can politically, socially and economically participate in our local communities and national life. And we are the better for it.

    Stuart Whitman has been National Convener of Local Labor since 2011 and is a former Secretary of the Malvern branch. Stuart has worked as an electorate officer to Mark Dreyfus, Federal Member for Isaacs and he is currently assisting Senator Jacinta Collins in her work as Deputy Chair of   the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee.

  • Peter Blackrock. Germany in control.

    What is happening in the European Union and Eurozone? Clearly, there is a seismic shift underway. Here is one interpretation of what is happening.

    The key driving force behind the shift is the German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble. He is the number two in the right-wing Christian Democratic Union, behind Chancellor Angela Merkel, although many say he really calls the shots. He is 72.  He’s a nationalist. He is a fiscal conservative. He doesn’t believe Germans should keep paying for the sins of their fathers by prostrating themselves before the European Ideal. He wants to leave behind a legacy.  Time is short.  He must move fast.

    His plan is to winnow out the dead-beat nations in the Eurozone (e.g. Greece) and create a Northern European Co-prosperity Sphere with close political integration and one fiscal czar. This will be a taut and terrific team under the control of a German coach and German captain.

    Indeed, the main reason why Germany refuses to give Greece (or other struggling Euro-nations) serious debt relief is because debt gives Germany tremendous political control.  It can squeeze out any nation it doesn’t want on the team (e.g. Greece) and force other states to agree to greater political integration (under the German coach and captain).

    In the recent negotiations over Greece’s debt, Schaeuble made it very clear that he wanted Greece to exit from the Eurozone. He was not bluffing or posturing. Indeed, he must be very surprised that the Greek Government (full of lefty types who believe much more strongly in Europe than Schaeuble does) were so desperate to accept the Carthaginian Peace on the table.

    However, Schaeuble will not be denied. He knows that, if he keeps squeezing, Grexit is inevitable, sooner rather than later. Then Germany will move on to expel any other weaklings in the Eurozone. Then those nations will be off the Eurozone’s books and there will be no more bail-outs or whining about diktats from Brussels.

    The French and Italians, of course, are desperate to join the first team that Schaeuble is building. That’s why, in the last few days, the French President, Francois Hollande, has started talking about greater political integration in Europe.  He can see the writing on the wall and wants to look like he led the charge to closer integration rather followed it.

    The United Kingdom is a separate case. It won’t be on the new team because it has an unruly democracy and isn’t a team player. It will soon drop out of the European Union all together.

    Greece should accept it will never be invited to join the first team and accept its inevitable demotion to the second division.  However, if it plays smart (and uses a pegged currency to maintain discipline) it might do rather well, eventually.

    Thus ironically the Eurozone, which was originally designed to control Germany, has become an instrument of Germany control.

     

     

     

  • James Button. A Moment of Unexpected Hope

    From the local Labor journal, Grassroots – Party Reform, Past, Present and Future.

    This should be a moment of unexpected hope for the ALP. Remarkable election wins in Victoria and Queensland, theopinion polls tracking well, another Liberal Government exposed as mean, tricky and out of touch…it all suggests that after the debacle of the last federal election Labor might be back in power far sooner than anyone could ever have hoped for. The climate of ideas should be on Labor’s side, too. The great policy challenge of the day – how to sustain economic and jobs growth while expanding opportunity and protecting the environment – is going to require smart, interventionist government; laissez-faire won’t do it. 

    “The world is waiting for the Labor Party,” said former Western Australian Premier Geoff Gallop when launching an Open Labor group in Sydney last year.Why, then, do ALP members an supporters  feel  so uninspired?

    Perhaps it is because the party’s recovery seems fragile, even a mirage. Eighteen months after our lowest federal vote in more than 100 years, the ALP is still in trouble. What we stand for, and whether we have the capacity for renewal on the basis of big ideas and a compelling platform, remains unclear. Even if disenchantment with Tony Abbott or his successor gifts Labor the next election, what then? What’s the long-term plan for changing Australia? Winning for its own sake is not enough.

    Bill Shorten has said he wants to rebuild the party and grow the membership to 100,000. He has set the scene for the July National Conference to enact reforms to make party structures and the preselection of parliamentary candidates more democratic.

    Shorten’s focus on party reform is admirable, and if he has a real shot it could place him with Labor leaders like Ben Chifley, Gough Whitlam and Bill Hayden, all of whom renewed the party from opposition, but will this Bill be bold? And if so, can he bring the factions with him?

    Based on the ideas of his reform speech in April last year, Shorten is likely to push for increased rank- and-file say in selecting candidates and delegates to National Conference, consideration of trials of primary-style preselections that involve Labor supporters as well as members, and lower fees and a one-click sign-up model to supersede the absurd obstacles that confront many people trying to join the party today. These are all worthy ideas, but unless Shorten’s ambition is greater than he has revealed to date, they fall well short of a substantial reform package.

    Reform matters for many reasons; for one, it might break down the mistrust that runs deep between the leadership and ordinary members, and renew hopes that there is still a place for ordinary people in politics beyond working the phones and handing out cards in election campaigns.

    The members mistrust the party professionals, whom they see, with important exceptions, as focused on personal advancement over principle and unwilling to share power with the rank-and-file. The leadership, for its part, mistrusts the members – they are too few, too old, too prone to fighting lost causes and too out of touch with the realities of Australian life to be entrusted with a real say in candidate selection or party policy. The mistrust is partly a predictable consequence of professionalised politics, yet it must end if the party is to flourish again. How?

    The onus is on the leadership to take a risk and to commit itself to internal democracy in the faith that a party in which ordinary people have a say will   be a larger, stronger and more representative party.

    Opening up preselections to members is a good place to start. For the Senate and state upper houses, which should be forums for Labor’s best policy thinkers not retirement homes for party functionaries, members should get 50 per cent of the vote now, and a commitment for the proportion to increase as party membership grows. Imagine the democratic potential of a statewide campaign for Senate places, candidates having to sell their platform to the people. Similarly, in lower house seats, the proportion of the local vote should gradually increase in line with membership increases in the electorate.

    A growing proportion of delegates to state and national conferences should also be directly elected from the membership.

    At the same time, the leadership needs to retain the capacity to intervene in local votes to ensure the selection of a particularly high quality candidate or when a vote looks like it will be compromised by low numbers or by mischief. But these should be the exception and when the leadership does intervene, it needs to be honest about why it has done so. At present it rarely is. Major decisions, such as central intervention in the Victorian Upper       House preselections in late 2013, or last year’s bringing forward of the Senate preselections of Kim Carr and Steve Conroy to ensure they are exempted from the party’s own unanimously endorsed affirmative action rules, are made behind closed doors and never explained to the membership.

    The party should be able to explain everything it does with a clear, honest statement on its website. If it can’t, the action is almost certainly something it shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

    Secondly, the ALP must begin the long and difficult conversation about reforming its relationship with the union movement. This should be an opportunity for democratic renewal on both sides. Unions affiliated to the party have a million members; another million belong to unaffiliated unions. Most of these people are natural Labor supporters; if Labor is to expand its franchise for selecting candidates for office, this would seem a good place to start. But it must be on the basis of one vote, one value, in elections conducted by secret ballot. The bloc votes wielded by a small number of union secretaries on behalf of their factions is indefensible in a party that professes to be democratic.

    A democratic party that respects its own people can’t run this way.

    Giving ordinary unionists a direct say in party processes could go a long way towards renewing not only the ALP but the union movement as well, as senior party figures John Faulkner and Greg Combet have written.

    Open Labor and Local Labor have also jointly proposed reforms that would enfranchise ordinary union members while removing the power of bloc union secretary votes.

    Among the four million Australians who voted Labor at the last federal election are many of the country’s smartest and most engaged people. Many of them, even after years of disillusionment, would welcome the opportunity to contribute to Labor policy. Imagine a party that engaged the country’s best minds to help it develop policy through an open process that included not only private advice but public meetings, online forums and wikis.

    Such a process could help Labor embed itself back in the community. While a growing membership is vital, at a time when most people aren’t joiners, the party must find other ways to draw on the ideas and energies of its supporters.

    None of this is easy or without risk.

    But the alternative – doing nothing – is a recipe for slow decline as the leadership and membership grow further apart, and the party becomes ever more closed off from the main currents of Australian life.

    There is a great opportunity for brave, democratic reform. The people who see the need for it – in the party, unions and the electorate – are dispersed but their number is growing. The time to act, though, is now. The world is waiting for the Labor Party. It won’t wait forever..

    James Button is a member of the operating group of Open Labor, a movement created in late 2014 to work toward a more democratic and open ALP and a braver, more principled politics in Australia. New supporters welcome: sign up to our mailing list at www.openlabor.net.au

  • Kerry Breen. The Australian Medical Association vs. The Medical Journal of Australia.

    Troubles at the Medical Journal of Australia and the birth of ‘Friends of the MJA’

    The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) has been in existence for over 100 years and has become the most important national publication for every aspect of the health and health care of Australians. It is owned by the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and is published by the Australasian Medical Publishing Company (AMPCo), a wholly owned subsidiary of the AMA. AMPCo makes a profit on its Medical Directory* but, like other journals of medical associations around the world, makes a loss with the MJA. The loss is subsidised by the annual membership fees of AMA members and the current subsidy per member is believed to be approximately $80 per member. Annual membership of the AMA costs up to $1446. [*The Medical Directory is the only available comprehensive listing of all doctors, with information about qualifications, special interests, practice addresses, publications etc.]

    In early May, 2015, AMA members, and the medical profession generally, learnt via the media that the AMPCo Board had sacked its Editor-in-Chief, Professor Stephen Leeder without warning and had contracted with international publishing conglomerate, Elsevier, to publish and subedit the MJA(see (http://www.smh.com.au/national/medical-journal-editor-sacked-and-editorial-committee-resigns-20150503-1myr8q.html). The reason for sacking Professor Leeder was stated to be his unwillingness to work with the AMPCo Board in the outsourcing move to Elsevier. The justification given for outsourcing was to reduce costs. No information has been provided about the terms of the Elsevier contract. The future of the entire editing and subediting staff of the MJA remains unclear. In response to the news, eighteen*of the 22 members of the Editorial Advisory Committee of the MJA resigned, along with two full-time deputy editors. [* A nineteenth has since resigned.]

    Senior members of the medical profession were astonished at these events and extensive media coverage resulted. Adverse coverage also appeared in Canada, USA, UK, India and France. In response to widespread concern within the medical profession, a group known as Friends of the MJA established a web site http://www.friendsofmja.net.au/ with the purposes of providing interested parties with all the available background information on this matter and of assessing the level of support for the actions of AMPCo.

    To date, over 350 people, including many senior members* of the medical profession and of allied professions who rely on the MJA, have used the website to sign on as ‘Friends of the MJA. These people are listed on the website. Not one has supported the AMPCo actions. [The group includes 124 full professors and 65 doctors who have been awarded Australian honours for services to medicine.]

    Initially, the dismay and distress over the actions of AMPCo centred on two aspects: (a) how such an effective and highly respected Editor-in-Chief could be not listened to by the Board of AMPCo and be summarily sacked and (b) the selection of Elsevier as a publishing partner. AMPCo responded by claiming that “due diligence” had been undertaken with regard to Elsevier but declined to comment on whether the four AMPCo Board members were fully aware of Elsevier’s track record (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier).

    While these two aspects are still of deep concern, a much more important issue has emerged, namely the effect of a working relationship with Elsevier on access to the research findings of publicly (taxpayer) funded research. Internationally, boycotts of Elsevier have been sponsored by researchers and even government in reaction to Elsevier’s pricing and related policies. (see http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/academic-publishers-murdoch-socialist and https://unlockingresearch.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=192). This issue, together with the lack of any reassurance that a future editor of the MJA will have editorial independence from the AMPCo Board, and that the AMPCo Board itself will be free of interference by the AMA leadership of the day, make many in the medical profession fearful for the future of the MJA.

    The Steering Committee of Friends of the MJA have asked that the AMPCo Board decisions be reversed, that a new Board be appointed and that an independent expert be commissioned to advise the new AMPCo Board on the best way forward from here. In the absence of any willingness of the AMA leadership to revisit these ill-judged decisions, the AMPCo Board must, at the very least, be restructured to bring in additional members with experience in medical publishing and a charter of independence for the Editor must be agreed upon. Without these latter two minimal steps, it is highly unlikely that a new editor* of standing will be recruited, making the future of the MJA bleak. [*Note: The MJA was expelled from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors after the previous editor was sacked in 2012. It has not been readmitted.]

    As at 10 July 2015, the leadership of the AMA and the AMPCo Board have been unmoved by these protests and instead have responded by criticising the Friends as being “mates” of Professor Leeder and being intent on harming the MJA.

    Dr Kerry Breen (convenor of the Steering Committee of Friends of the MJA) may be contacted via friendsofmja@friendsofmja.net.au . He is a Specialist Physician who has been a member of the AMA for fifty years and a regular contributor to and reviewer for the MJA. He currently holds a post of Adjunct Professor in the Department of Forensic Medicine at Monash University. He is a Past President of the Medical Council of Australia, a Past President of the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria and a Past Chair of the Australian Health Ethics Committee of the NHMRC.

    More information, including material issued on behalf of the AMA and AMPCo can be found at http://www.friendsofmja.net.au/ where readers can also register their view and sign on as Friends of the MJA.

     

     

  • John Howard on political Royal Commissions.

    Last September John Howard said

    ‘I am uneasy about the idea of having Royal Commissions or enquiries into essentially a political decision. … I don’t think you should ever begin to go down the American path of using the law for narrow targeted political purposes. I think the special prosecutions in the US are appalling.’

    See link below to John Howard’s comments.   John Menadue

    http://gu.com/p/4xhj7/sbl

  • Peter Day. Warning: role models may shrink

    Role models: We love them. We look up to them. We say we need them. We want to know them. We want to live through them. But who are they, and what purpose do they serve?

    In Australia they tend to be sportsmen and celebrities of note: young people who can kick a footy, smash a tennis ball, and generally do things much faster and better than the rest of us – and look good while doing so.

    And while there is something noble and edifying in admiring another’s feats, the cultural propensity to place another human being on a pedestal is both fraught and superficial. After all, when we do so aren’t we, in effect, saying: ‘You’re better than me; therefore you should behave differently, and be held to a higher standard?’

    Thus, not only must Nick Kyrgios – barely out of his teens- be a fine athlete, but also an exemplary citizen: morally upright and mature beyond his years ‘because my kids and I look up to you; we need you to be better than us’.

    There is something deeply unhealthy and oppressive in all this; not only do we sell ourselves short, but we place unreal expectations on others. It’s a form of escapism in which we project our unfulfilled hopes and dreams onto others and, on the way, manage to relinquish personal responsibility. Oh, and when things turn pear-shaped, when the poster boy gets caught-out, we have a ready-made scapegoat.

    Indeed, to impose upon anybody, especially young, inexperienced sporting celebrities, the epithet, ‘role model’, is unrealistic, unfair, and almost always guaranteed to end in tears.

    As a society, we have a collective appetite for moral leadership, for someone to look up to and inspire us. This is a laudable thing, but needs to be tempered by common sense and fairness. After all, sporting fame not only affords our champions great privileges and opportunities, it also imposes upon them a significant burden because, along with highlighting their abilities and successes, fame spotlights their frailties and failures as well – and very publicly. So when the one we looked-up to, the one in whom we invested our hopes and dreams stuffs-up; don’t we let them know it. Quickly the celebrity giant, the model-of-virtue, is headlined as a moral midget who has let us all down.

    The main difference between the likes of Nick Kyrgios and the rest of us is that whatever he does in his workplace is seen by millions: the dummy spits, the obscenities, the failures, the glories – all of it! Perhaps the rest of us should be thankful that we’re not being filmed when we’re having an off day or acting the goat at work.

    To hover in the shadows of others just because they happen to run very fast, or look beautiful, or enjoy a ‘good reputation’, is just another way of investing in the cult-of-the-celebrity. And, like all cults, membership entails handing over responsibility, embracing a false god, and living ‘my’ life through someone else’s.

    Indeed, by making ‘role model’ so overwhelmingly synonymous with someone else’s achievements, with someone else’s virtues, with someone else’s fame, we risk losing contact with our very selves, with our own unique beauty and capacity. Gosh, we risk making ourselves small.

    Surely, each of us can strive to lead, to be virtuous, to inspire: to be a good, decent, admirable citizen. Surely, by attending to the ‘good citizen’ within, we are much less likely to be conned into handing over our gifts to others, especially so called famous others.

    In the end, it behoves us all – athletes and spectators alike – to cherish the capacity of sport to change us, to make where we live a better place: to model goodness and decency and fairness. But to do so, not only must the champions be humble and grounded, so must the spectators as well.

    Being a role model is not just someone else’s responsibility.

     

     

     

  • Miriam Lyons. On inequality of opportunity

    The myth of meritocracy is today’s version of the divine right of kings, and it is playing much the same political function. Call it the divine right of King’s School alumni.

    Another week, another report on the growing gap between rich and poor. The latest, from ACOSS, reminds us that the top 10% of households has been racing ahead of the rest, with the result that almost half of Australia’s wealth is now in their hands.[1] Housing wealth is particularly skewed, a finding unlikely to surprise any first-time buyer who has tried to find a house in Sydney or Melbourne without bankrupting themselves. If Charles Dickens were to reincarnate in Australia, he’d probably make Ebenezer Scrooge a small-time property magnate from Mosman or Toorak, with a penchant for penning angry letters to The Australian in defence of negative gearing.

    The Coalition has made its position on this situation quite clear. Hockey’s latest advice[2] to those locked out of the housing market – “get a good job that pays good money” – is only the latest in a string of pearlers. It follows the same logic as last year’s helpful explanation of how he expected out-of-work young people to survive without an income: “I would expect you’d be in a job”.[3]

    Welcome to the world of lifters and leaners, where the haves and have-nots are all equally deserving of their fate. In this world it is pointless to mention that there are five people out of work[4] for every available vacancy[5]: when one of them does find a job they are to be congratulated for ‘lifting’ and the remaining four condemned for ‘leaning’.

    What does it mean when Hockey and others say that “governments must pursue equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome”[6] while vigorously pursuing greater inequality on both fronts? Last year NATSEM modelling[7] showed that the federal budget would significantly worsen income inequality, with the disposable income of the bottom fifth of households down 6.6% (for couples with kids) or 10.8% (for single parents) by 2017/18, while the top fifth would barely be touched.

    But the government backed down[8] this year right? Ahem. As of this year’s budget, NATSEM’s modelling[9] finds that Coalition policies would hit the disposable income of the bottom fifth of households by…wait for it… 7.1% (for couples with kids) or 8% (for single parents) by 2018/19, while the top fifth will still be pretty much unscathed. Our political conversation is so stunted[10] that a slight slowdown in the rate at which we’re screwing over single parents has been welcomed as progress.

    In this context, the real appeal of equality of opportunity as an idea lies not in its implementation but the aura of moral legitimacy it confers upon inequality of outcomes. As Bill Garner put it in his response[11] to the lifters and leaners speech, it is “the version of equality you claim to believe in when you do not believe in equality at all.”

    As a thought experiment, imagine the likely response of the Coalition (or most other parties for that matter) to the following proposals:
    *100% inheritance taxes (any leaner can be lucky enough to be born to rich parents – unequally distributed windfalls are a clear example of unequal opportunity)
    *Mandating anonymous shortlisting of job applications (one study found that candidates with a Middle Eastern name, for example, have to submit 64% more applications to get the same number of interviews as candidates with an ‘Anglo’ name,[12] while another found that a female fellowship applicant had to be 2.5 times more productive than a male applicant to be deemed equally competent.)[13]
    *Switching to 100% needs-based schools funding, with punitively high luxury taxes on fee-charging schools (surely equality of access to education from birth is ground zero for equality of opportunity?)

    Perhaps Milton and Rose Friedman had policies such as these in mind when they wrote “No arbitrary obstacles should prevent people from achieving those positions for which their talents fit them and which their values lead them to seek. Not birth, nationality, colour, religion, sex, nor any other irrelevant characteristic should determine the opportunities that are open to a person…”[14]

    If we genuinely believe that every human has equal worth at birth, then paying lip-service to social mobility is not enough. There is more than enough evidence to show that we live in a decidedly unmeritocratic world. In fact, this evidence is so strong that it justifies a shift in the burden of moral proof. Rather than assuming that an unequal world is fair unless proven otherwise, let us assume that an unequal world is unfair unless proven otherwise.

    Miriam Lyons is the former Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Development. With Ian McAuley, she has just co-authored ‘Governomics’ which has been published by Melbourne University Press. 

    
    [1] http://www.acoss.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Inequality_in_Australia_FINAL.pdf
    [2] http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/joe-hockeys-advice-to-first-homebuyers–get-a-good-job-that-pays-good-money-20150609-ghjqyw.html
    [3] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/joe-hockey-tells-australians-doctor-fee-cheaper-beer
    [4] http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/latestProducts/6202.0Media%20Release1May%202015
    [5] http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6354.0
    [6] http://www.joehockey.com/media/speeches/details.aspx?s=133
    [7] http://www.natsem.canberra.edu.au/storage/2014-15%20Budget%20Research%20Note.pdf
    [8] http://www.afr.com/news/policy/tax/joe-hockeys-budget-backdown-20150204-136ebw
    [9] https://theconversation.com/worst-off-hit-hardest-by-coalition-policies-natsem-modelling-42300
    [10] http://www.canberratimes.com.au/business/the-economy/how-the-abbott-government-stopped-us-talking-about-natsems-modelling-of-their-budget-20150611-ghjm1u.html
    [11] http://www.theage.com.au/comment/lifters-and-leaners-why-the-idea-of-equality-of-opportunity-is-a-big-con-20140617-zsa6d.html
    [12] http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/job-hunt-success-is-all-in-a-name-20130303-2feci.html
    [13] http://www.albany.edu/~scifraud/data/sci_fraud_3943.html
    [14] Friedman & Friedman (1980), Free To Choose, p. 145

     

  • Warwick Elsche. Heads must roll at ABC, but not at ASIO

    “Heads must roll;” words from the Prime Minister Tony Abbott. And in case you missed them he said them twice – on national TV.

    He was talking of the ABC and presumably some executives who failed to detect the “threatening” presence of a convicted Islamist sympathizer Zaky Mallah in the audience of popular current affairs program “Q&A”.

    Tony dislikes the ABC because it is not as imaginatively sycophantic as the Murdoch Press. He has branded it on this and other occasions as cruelly politically biased – despite the fact that the Head of his own media office was recently recruited from this source.

    For those unfamiliar with the now accepted dictum in politics that for Tony “things are not what they are, they are what Tony says that are” – he actually believes this – such public anger from the Prime Minister on a virtual non-event could indeed be puzzling.

    The ABC, after all, is not a security organization. It is merely a major national media outlet and the man whose appearance on the program so outraged the Prime Minister, has appeared more than a dozen times in other media, including Abbott’s favoured Murdoch newspapers and the most hopelessly pro-Government Sydney Radio Station 2GB without a murmur of protest from the zealous Tony. Indeed some of those reports had indicated a significant change of heart by the man in question.

    But despite the fact the ABC has no role in security detection or prevention, weeks later Tony remains righteously outraged and continues to rattle on about the ABC’s failure and the threat which Tony thinks was posed by Zaky’s appearance for the first time in one of its studio audiences.

    Consequently, according to Abbott, “heads have got to roll.”

    The Australian Security Intelligence Organization – unlike the ABC – is a security body; Australia’s most senior where internal intelligence and subversion are concerned. It is much-loved by Prime Minister Abbott.

    ASIO had dealings with an Iranian refugee from whom they hoped to gain intelligence on the running of a country which seems to be an implacable enemy of the United State and therefore of Australia under Tony. Contact continued with this Iranian for a good long time. Like the man who slipped under the ABC radar, this individual had two convictions for offences which might indicate profound terrorists sympathies. He sent abusive mail to parents of Australian soldiers who had died fighting terrorism in Afghanistan. He was also on bail as an accused accessory in the stabbing and burning murder of his wife. He was also on bail on no fewer than 40 serious sex charges. He had landed in Australia fraudulently, and over the period of a fortnight ASIO, Federal Police and other so called security bodies had received more than a dozen individual calls warning of threats this man might pose. Yet no action was taken.

    The ASIO contact was Man Haron Monis. At the end of that two week period of warnings the contact held up some 20 hostages in the Lindt Coffee Shop in Sydney’s Martin Place in a 17 hour siege which resulted in three deaths including his own.

    When asked how this murderer escaped the special attention which might have prevented the Martin Place tragedy, the Chief of ASIO explained simply “he did not come up on our radar.” It was later also learnt that Man Haron Monis had written to Australia’s most senior law officer, Federal Attorney General George Brandis, virtually seeking permission to contact the leader of ISIS, the terrorist organistion in the Levant to which Australian Air Force and Army forces are opposed. He seems to have slipped under this law officer’s radar also. Brandis later explained the letter seeking the ruling on contact with ISIS leaders indicated no support for either side despite the background of the author. And it seems he slipped under the radar of Senator Brandis’ office and departmental staff again, because despite misleading statements to Parliament, information about his desire for a contact with the terrorists was not even provided to the joint Federal-State enquiry into Man Haron Monis and the Martin Place siege. Once the Parliamentary deception was uncovered it took a full three days until Parliament was informed on the misinformation – and then only after the possibility of revelation by one of the principals in the enquiry became a threat.

    Extraordinarily, Abbott has had nothing to say about these spectacular failures by security and supposedly legally responsible organizations while continuing to berate the ABC – as if it matters.

    The game now is to cover up, despite demands from the New South Wales Coroner probing the Martin Place deaths as to how the killer with his background and convictions and his string of pending charges remained on bail. The Feds seem desperate to keep it covered up – they went so far as to pressure the New South Wales DPP to keep concealed the reasons that a man facing such charges could be bailed. Who are they saving from embarrassment? Tony doesn’t seem to care or want to know – not while the ABC is there to be attacked.

    One wonders at the competence, the political judgement and maybe even the honesty of a Prime Minister whose values seem so hopelessly skewed. Far more serious failures which led to the raid and deaths seem to have attracted no comment at all from the man who spends a good part of his public time rattling on about threats and security.

    Not a word about rolling craniums in ASIO, not one either about George Brandis, his office or his department.

    The real threat, to Tony, remains the ABC. They must be punished.

    Remember! Tony really believes that in politics ‘Things are not what they are. They are what Tony says they are’.

    It might also be worth asking what one might have to do, given Man Haron Monis’ record, to actually come to the attention of the super sleuths of ASIO.

  • Greek Crisis

    See below links to two interesting articles.

    The first is by Paul Krugman, ‘Ending Greece’s Bleeding’ in the New York Times.

    The second is by Thomas Picketty ‘Germany has never repaid’ from the German newspaper Die Zeit.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/opinion/paul-krugman-ending-greeces-bleeding.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman

    https://medium.com/@gavinschalliol/thomas-piketty-germany-has-never-repaid-7b5e7add6fff

  • Failure in Afghanistan. We don’t want to talk about it.

    On the 24th June, I posted a link to a review from the London Review of Books.  (See  https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=3957) In referring to the UK involvement in Afghanistan, it was headed ‘Worse than a defeat: shamed in Afghanistan’. The review by James Meek said

    ‘The extent of the military and political catastrophe [in Afghanistan] it represents is hard to overstate. It was doomed to fail before it began and fail it did, at a terrible cost in lives and money. How bad was it? In a way it was worse than a defeat because to be defeated an army and its masters must understand the nature of the conflict they are fighting. Britain never did understand and now we would rather not think about it.’

    We have had few independent examinations of the Australian failure in Afghanistan in which 40 Australian soldiers were killed, 261 wounded and with untold tragedy for the Afghan people. Operation Slipper was our longest war in history and cost $7 b. to $8 b.

    Few and certainly not our major political parties want to talk about this failure for which they were responsible. In particular, the Coalition parades its credibility on security matters and prefers that we forget its military disasters from Vietnam to Iraq, to Afghanistan, and now to Iraq again. Ministers and a succession of Generals and ‘advisers kept telling us nonsense about the progress we were making in Afghanistan. Honesty would have been helpful then and now.

    The SMH on 4 July sheds some light on our failure in Afghanistan. Sune Engel Rasmussen reports that ‘Despite an eight year mission costing billions of dollars, unrest and instability remain.’ (See http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/all-that-remains-our-questionable-legacy-in-afghanistan-20150702-ghpley.html)

    Rasmussen is a freelance journalist based in Kabul. He writes for the SMH, The Guardian, The Economist and other media organisations.

  • Pearls and Irritations Policy Series

    Link to Fairness, Opportunity and Security.
    Policy Series edited by Michael Keating and John Menadue. 

    https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=3719

  • Bob Kinnaird. China FTA ‘labour mobility’ fight looms

    Current Affairs

    The ALP National Conference at end-July will likely have before it an urgency motion demanding changes to the foreign worker provisions in the China FTA as a condition for supporting the agreement, according to The Australian (‘Change or block unjust trade deals, MPs told’, 26 June 2015).

    Driving the move is a cross-factional group of eight unions concerned about the impact on Australian workers of FTA provisions mandating easier access to Chinese 457 visa workers, in some cases unrestricted access.

    On top of that, it has now emerged that an FTA side-letter removes mandatory skills assessments for Chinese 457 workers in ten trades including electricians and the main construction trades. This directly contradicts Abbott government assurances in November 2014 that Australia had committed only to ‘improving access to skills assessments” in the China FTA.

    Opposition Leader Bill Shorten wants Parliament to scrutinise the FTA and “the government to come clean on potential downside for Australian jobs and Australian safety and labour standards” (‘Union trying to cause a diversion: Robb’, The Daily Telegraph 29 June 2015).

    Trade Minister Andrew Robb has said the government would not change the provisions in the deal “one wit” (sic) – presumably The Daily Telegraph meant ‘whit’. He was sure that unions opposing the deal ‘don’t understand’ the China agreement.

    The unions increasingly understand what the China FTA labour mobility provisions actually mean for Australian workers, blue-collar and white-collar alike, but no thanks to Mr Robb. Instead of explaining and justifying these momentous provisions, Mr Robb and other Coalition Ministers have done everything to conceal the truth from the Australian community.

    Immigration Minister Dutton or Assistant Immigration Minister Cash issued three media releases on the China FTA between 17 June when the deal was signed and 26 June – ‘New pilot visa to boost Australian tourism’, ‘New visa measures generate international buzz’ and ‘Minister Cash to visit China’.

    In none of these statements do the Immigration Ministers even mention the momentous immigration concessions by Australia in the China FTA or their broader implications. The 457 visa program does not rate a mention, let alone that the China FTA removes the ability of all future Australian governments and Parliaments to apply labour market testing to all Chinese citizens in the standard 457 program.

    Nor do the Ministers bother to even mention two other unprecedented immigration concessions by Australia in an FTA, or even outside an FTA: the ‘Infrastructure Facilitation Arrangements’ (IFAs) agreement with China allowing concessional 457 visas for skilled and semi-skilled Chinese workers, and the non- reciprocal ‘Work and Holiday’ visa agreement that provides ‘up to 5,000’ 462 visas each year for young Chinese to live and work in Australia for a year (extendable) with no reciprocal visa arrangement allowing any young Australians to visit and work in China, let alone 5,000.

    These releases instead are mostly puff-pieces about the benefits for the tourism industry of changes to visitor visa rules for Chinese people, making it easier for Chinese tourists to visit and stay in Australia.

    Minister Cash’s latest release informed us that in China this week she ‘will undertake meetings with Chinese government counterparts, industry stakeholders, and China-based Australian businesses’. This ‘is particularly timely given the historic China Australia Free Trade Agreement’ (among other things), her release said.

    No further information was given about the Minister’s agenda for these China discussions. It may be that Australia’s Assistant Immigration Minister is, cap in hand, seeking Chinese approval for how the Australian government proposes to implement its FTA commitments on the IFAs in favour of Chinese 457 workers. The Australian Parliament will surely have a view about governments making Australian immigration laws in this way if it is presented with a fait accompli by the Minister when she returns.

    Hopefully before the ALP National Conference the government does ‘come clean about the potential downside for Australian jobs’ in the China FTA, as the Opposition Leader has called for. If this was an honest government, it would admit two more downsides to its China FTA concessions that are fatal to its claims to be in Australia’s national interest.

    First, the FTA 457 concessions give China increased scope to export some of its unemployment to Australia if things go bad in the Chinese economy, eg by pressuring Australian firms wanting Chinese market access or investment to take on Chinese workers over qualified Australians. By removing any legal obligation on employers to even look for Australian workers, the Abbott government is opening the door wide to this abuse of the 457 visa program.

    Second, removing the ability of all future Australian governments to legislate in favour of Australian citizens and residents over Chinese citizens in the standard 457 visa program greatly increases the risk of future Australian job losses. It removes a vital policy tool Australia will need to manage future economic shocks including those arising from our increased exposure to China. On this ground alone it is reckless and irresponsible.

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

     

  • Europe’s attack on Greek democracy.

    See below link to article by Joseph Stiglitz in Project Syndicate. Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Laureate in Economics and University Professor at Columbia University. He was also Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank.  John Menadue.

     

    http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/greece-referendum-troika-eurozone-by-joseph-e–stiglitz-2015-06