John Menadue

  • Australia’s Foreign Policy Trailing a Leaky Boat. Guest Blogger: Arja Keski-Nummi

    Our foreign policy is more than boats or asylum seekers but that is what the Abbott government has reduced it to.

    We should all be concerned because what is at stake is much greater than stopping boats – it jeopardizes our ability to influence and be taken seriously on issues of greater importance to our long term future and well-being such as cooperation in security related issues, trade and in the longer term building genuine regional cooperation on asylum seekers and displaced people.

    Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop have much to learn if we are to have a credible stand in the region. The sycophancy of Tony Abbott’s comments in Indonesia and Sri Lanka fooled no one and least of all his hosts but it belittled us.

    In Bali on 7 October he said this of West Papua “… The situation in West Papua is getting better, not worse, and I want to acknowledge the work that President Yudhoyono has done to provide greater autonomy, to provide a better level of government services and ultimately a better life for the people of West Papua. ….[and then]…. and while I acknowledge the right of people to free expression, I acknowledge the right of people to fair treatment under the law, I should also make the point that the people of West Papua are much better off as part of a strong, dynamic and increasingly prosperous Indonesia.”  And last week in in Sri Lanka – where he virtually justified the use of torture by saying that. “We accept that sometimes, in difficult circumstances, difficult things happen,”

    Unbelievable and contradictory comments that fly in the face of the evidence. Tony Abbott and his government must be living in a parallel universe!

    Australia is a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture. Our long held position has been that we do not condone torture in any form anywhere. Has our policy on this changed? Are we now to “turn a blind eye” to inconvenient truths if it means we can stop the boats?  The import of the Prime Minister’s speeches in Indonesia and Sri Lanka would suggest that he will ditch any ethical positions or long held conventions to “stop the boats”. He will debase our foreign policy to get a domestic issue, largely whipped up by him in Opposition, off his back.

    Equally disturbing is the fact that no conditions have been placed on how the patrol boats gifted to Sri Lanka will be used. One can speculate how they will be used. The cynic in me can see them being a convenient vehicle to facilitate the movement of people out of Sri Lanka via corrupt navy personnel. The other extreme where they become the vehicle for greater human rights abuses by preventing people being able to seek asylum and so potentially we will be putting ourselves in breach of our Refugee Convention obligations. A breach we should take seriously but I suspect under this government will not register as a transgression worth worrying about.

    How we work and cooperate with countries in the region across many issues is important. However, it does not mean that we should or need to go overboard and explicitly endorse what should be for us as Australians fundamental universal freedoms and rights.

    The latest soap opera being played out on the spying allegations against the President of Indonesia, his wife and senior colleagues betray just how fragile the relationship is with Indonesia. Despite his speech currying favour with Indonesia just a few short weeks ago it was not enough. This, together with the government’s seeming disregard of Indonesia’s sovereignty with its own Operation Sovereign Borders policy and Abbott’s his appalling lack of judgment in not even being able to pick up a phone and talk to the President, has meant that his Jakarta not Geneva policy is in tatters for the time being.  It will turn a corner at some point but I suspect the Indonesian government is in no hurry to forgive him; first for how he spoke of the region while in Opposition and now how he has handled the spying fiasco. They know they hold in their hands the success of his domestic policy on boats and will play it for as much as it is worth.

    The tragedy of such games is that it plays with the lives of desperate people – boats will come, tragedies will occur and it need not be so.

    What we need is an approach on asylum seekers that is rooted in reality and underpinned by ethical considerations:

    • It should not be a military operation – how can we be at war with asylum seekers, people often fleeing real wars?
    • We should not turn asylum seekers into criminals but understand that even if they are not refugees they are doing what we all do – aspire to a better life for us and our families.
    • We should accept that we cannot be a “fortress Australia” but what we can be is a country that can help in finding durable solutions for refugees and asylum seekers; this does not always mean that the only outcome is to come or remain in Australia.

    What this episode shows is that we cannot manage these issues on our own. The only way we can do this is working in the region with our partners in governments and civil society and that requires trust and being there for the long haul, not merely until the “problem” is fixed. At the moment we are displaying very little of that in the ham-fisted way this government is pursuing its policy on “stopping the boats”

     

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

     

     

  • A mega industry subsidy to private health insurance companies. John Menadue

     

    Many business economists continue to criticise the previous government and possibly the current one over the government subsidy of $10 billion over seven years for the auto industry. But that subsidy is small beer.

    The government subsidy to the private health insurance industry (PHI) has been $30 billion plus, over seven years. This year the government will provide $7 billion for the private health insurance industry. $5.6 billion will be in a direct subsidy to the industry. There will be another $1.4 billion in income tax foregone by the Commonwealth Government.

    That $30 billion is a mega-subsidy which the rent-seekers in the PHI industry defend against all comers. Unlike the auto industry PHI does not provide any product at all. PHI is made up of financial intermediaries that shuffle money from one place to another.

    Australia is paying an enormous price for these high cost financial intermediaries whose major attraction is to help provide wealthier people an opportunity to jump the hospital queue.

    PHI is inefficient with administrative costs about three times higher than Medicare. The subsidy has not taken pressure off public hospitals. Private gap insurance has facilitated enormous increases in specialist fees. Most importantly, the expansion of PHI progressively weakens the ability of Medicare to control costs. The evidence world-wide is clear that countries with significant PHI have high costs. The stand-out example is the US.  President Obama may have substantially achieved universal coverage, but private health insurance in the US with its lack of cost control will ultimately cripple and finally destroy his reforms. Warren Buffett has described private health insurance companies as the “tape worm” in the US health sector. Yet the Australian Government generously subsidises this industry in Australia.

    The Commonwealth already has a sound model of a single payer operated through the Department of Veterans Affairs – a model which retains the strong control of a single payer accountable to the community whilst allowing private practise involvement in service delivery.

    These enormous subsidies to PHI escape real examination. If the Australian Government wants to subsidise private hospitals it would be much more efficient to provide money directly to private hospitals as occurred in the past rather than churning the money through these high-cost financial intermediaries.

    At least the auto industry does provide broad benefits to the general manufacturing sector and the community. That could not be said of the subsidy to PHI in the health field. Worse still this subsidy undermines Medicare in the same graphic way that Warren Buffett describes.

    The subsidy to the private health insurance companies also has the same pernicious effects as government subsidies to wealthy private schools. Middle-class and articulate professional people opt out of the public school system and as a result we lose key supporters of a comprehensive public education system of high quality and available to all. The mega-subsidy to PHI not only distorts the health system but it is the wedge to divide the public from the private health systems.

    But this mega subsidy to PHI is largely ignored. Our business economists reveal their true agenda by attacking the much smaller subsidies to the auto industry.

  • Tony Abbott in Sri Lanka. John Menadue

    Tony Abbott  has continued his ‘stop the boats campaign” in Sri Lanka regardless of growing concerns about human rights abuses in that country.

    He offered two patrol boats as part of a ‘foreign aid package’. His justification for this is that it would help save the lives of people drowning at sea. Please spare us this hypocracy. The real reason is that with the cooperation of the Sri Lankan Navy he hopes he stop asylum seekers leaving Sri Lanka and possibly landing in Australia. The previous government used the same phoney excuse that it wanted to stop the boats to stop the drownings.

    But the drownings were really only a secondary part of the story. The main story was attempts to stop the boats carrying asylum seekers who were seeking refuge in Australia. It was politically embarrassing for them to come by boat.

    As asylum seekers in direct flight from persecution, Sri Lankans were unlike many other boat people who were in transit through Malaysia and Indonesia to Australia. Those in transit were not in direct flight from persecution. Because Sri Lankans landing in Australia are in direct flight, they have a particularly strong claim to our protection as the first country of asylum.

    Tony Abbott last week  said that he would not comment on human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. But when it suited him he had no hesitation in criticising human rights policies in Malaysia. He criticised ‘judicial canings’ and many other alleged abuses in order to discredit the Gillard Government’s attempt to stem the boats by negotiating an agreement with Malaysia in cooperation with UNHCR.

    Last week the UK Prime Minister went out of his way to visit the Tamil areas in northern Sri Lanka. He expressed concern about human rights abuses. Canada refused to attend CHOGM at all because of  concerns over human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. The Indian Prime Minister did not attend.

    So as with the naval boats, Tony Abbott is quite misleading when he refuses to comment on human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.

    Successive Australian governments have badly treated Sri Lankans seeking asylum in Australia. Some have been ‘voluntarily’ repatriated to Sri Lanka. Very few people know how much pressure was applied by government officials to persuade them to leave Australia.

    Some Sri Lankans coming to Australia have been found to be genuine refugees but have been refused permanent residence status because of dubious and secret ASIO assessments. These assessments would in part have relied on information supplied by Sri Lankan intelligence agencies who are not known to be friendly to Tamils. The fact also that a person has been a member of the Tamil Tigers should not  automatically rule that person out from our protection. Given the ruthlessness of the Sri Lankan military it is not surprising that young Tamils would join the Tamil Tigers. For the same reason, Irish nationalists would have joined the IRA decades ago. Some are now members of parliament and ministers.

    To break the impasse over the persecution of Tamils and persons fleeing Sri Lanka, the Australian Government should negotiate an Orderly Departure Agreement with the Sri Lankan Government which would enable persons facing discrimination in Sri Lanka to leave that country in a safe and orderly way – perhaps 2,000 to 3,000 p.a.  It would provide an alternate migration pathway. It would not be a refugee pathway as those covered under such an ODA would still be resident within Sri Lanka. It is possible that the Sri Lankan Government would cooperate, at least quietly, as it would probably be pleased to rid itself of Tamil dissidents.

    When I was Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship in the early 1980s, Australia negotiated such ODAs with the Communist government in Vietnam and the military regimes in Chile and El Salvador. Over 100,000 came from Vietnam under such an arrangement. Thousands came from Chile and hundreds from El Salvador.

    We should seriously consider an alternative migration pathway for Tamils and others facing human rights abuses and discrimination in Sri Lanka.

  • Cooking the books. John Menadue

    Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey have decided that there wasn’t really a budget emergency or a debt crisis that they have warned us about for many years. Perhaps they may have also privately conceded, as they should, that the Australian economy was one of the best performing and best managed economies in the world during the years of the Rudd and Gillard Governments particularly through the Global Financial Crisis.

    Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey however have now decided on another tack – cooking the books by announcing budget changes in the current year that hopefully can be attributed to the Labor Government. They hope that in the confusion the electorate will forget who is responsible for what.  In this attempt to change the subject Joe Hockey is now suggesting that this year’s final outcome for the budget will be a deficit of $45 billion to $50 billion compared with the $30 billion announced by the Labor Government in August this year.

    Let’s look at some of this sleight of hand that so far the government is taking to deliberately blow out the budget deficit that can be blamed on the previous governments.

    • An extra $8.8 billion is to be provided to the Reserve Bank to top up its reserve fund. The Reserve Bank never asked for it, but who knows, they might need it! It is better to be safe, particularly if you can blame the previous government. On bank reserves, the four big banks might have done more to top up their reserve funds for the future given their large profits, generous dividends and high executive salaries.
    • The Government will not proceed with Labor’s change in the fringe benefits tax treatment of executive cars at a cost of $1.8 billion over four years.
    •  Joe Hockey will ditch the tax on superannuants who earn over $100,000 a year from their super funds, at a cost of $313 million over four years.
    • He will dump the cap on self-education expenses at a cost of $266 million over four years.
    • The government will review loans that permitted global companies shifting their profits from Australia to lower tax-paying countries abroad.

    These changes are just the beginning. There will be more of this in the future – the object being to worsen the budget deficit this year so that it can be attributed to the previous government.

    This is the same well-tried policy of almost all new CEOs – fix the books to attribute as much opprobrium as possible to your predecessor.

    Joe Hockey is in for a lot more long nights with his desk lamp and eye shades, to get the best political results he can from this year’s budget.

  • Surely the Indonesians wouldn’t play politics over boat people! John Menadue

    Well – yes they would. They have learnt it from Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison. The blokey Australians are no match for the subtle and sophisticated Indonesians.

    In Opposition, the Coalition took every opportunity to exploit boat arrivals. They were not genuinely interested in stopping the boats then. Their main objective was to stop the Labor Government stopping the boats. That was clearly spelt out in what a ‘key Liberal strategist’ told the US embassy in November 2009, as revealed by Wikileaks, that ‘the more boats that come the better’. It is not hard to speculate who the key Liberal strategist was.

    The best and most humane opportunity that the previous government had to reduce boat arrivals was the agreement with Malaysia. But Tony Abbott and the Coalition sided with the pious Greens and refugee advocates to defeat the amending legislation to the Migration Act in the Senate which was necessary after the High Court decision. The failure of the Malaysian Agreement had predictable consequences. Boat arrivals increased three-fold in the following six months and continued escalating month after month. This was only changed by the draconian arrangement which the Rudd Government made with PNG.

    Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison keep telling us that their policies have slowed or stopped the boats, but they will not produce the relevant information. Only time will tell but it is certain that boat arrivals decline dramatically after the announcement of the PNG Agreement with the newly installed Rudd Government.

    Not only did the Coalition play hard to stop the Labor Government stopping the boats, they insulted the Indonesians by assuming that they could infringe their sovereignty by turning boats back to Indonesia. Despite the grovelling apologies that Tony Abbott gave to the Indonesian President recently, the Indonesians at many levels are clearly not happy with the way the Australian Government has behaved.

    When news broke that the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and elsewhere was collecting intelligence information, it was really no surprise. It would not have surprised the Indonesians. But it provided the Indonesians with an opportunity to settle some scores with Australia. As a result, they have refused to accept the return of two or three asylum vessels that had been intercepted by Australian vessels.

    With a Presidential election in Indonesia next year we are likely to see more party politics from Indonesia. Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison are due for some pay back.

    Managing boat people in transit in Indonesia depends on close cooperation between Australia and Indonesia. Exchanging intelligence information is essential. But the heavy-handed politicking over boat arrivals by the Abbott Government has put that cooperation at risk. Scott Morrison is showing himself no more adept about turning questions around than turning boats around.

    The Coalition, for party political reasons has grossly exaggerated the boat issue but as a developing country with numerous challenges, Indonesia must get very impatient with Australia’s overbearing attitude over what to them must seem a small problem. The Australian Government seems incapable of understanding that.

    By the way the human rights problems in Sri Lanka are coming into even sharper focus in the run up to  the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which is due to commence this Friday in Sri Lanka. Canada has said that it will not participate because of human rights abuses. The Indian Prime Minister will not attend. The UK Prime Minister has urged a thorough investigation into the disappearance of thousands of people in Sri Lanka. The UN has recorded 5676 cases of missing persons in Sri Lanka-more than anywhere else in the wold except Iraq. Yet Australia continues to deport asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka. They are called ‘voluntary returnees’. I am very doubtful. There are an increasing number of reports that indicate that whilst the civil war may be over, peace and human rights have not been restored in Sri Lanka.

  • Lagging the field on climate change. John Menadue

    Across the world there are clear signs that the tide is turning with acceptance of the reality of climate change, that humans are the cause and that we need to address the problem.

    But not in Australia.  We keep acting like King Canute against the tide.

    • The Abbott Government is proposing to abolish the carbon tax which is the most credible measure we have in place in Australia to reduce CO2 emissions. The OECD has just released a report ‘Effective Carbon Prices’. The report concludes that ‘carbon taxes and emissions trading systems are the most effective way to reduce emissions and should be at the centre of government efforts to tackle climate change’.
    • Years ago Tony Abbott told us that the science of global warming is ‘crap’. His mentor, John Howard, continued in the same vein when he told a London group of climate change sceptics only last week that those expressing concern about climate change were ‘alarmist’ and ‘zealots’. He added that ‘one religion is enough’. In a remarkable admission he went on to say his “dalliance with an emissions trading system (in 2007) was purely political.” What!!
    • Those other political soul mates of Tony Abbott, Rupert Murdoch and Maurice Newman were reported in the AFR of 7 November 2013 as follows: “Maurice, Tony Abbott’s favourite businessman said that the 17-year stasis on climate change – it’s like a religion.  Rupert replied that it’s more than a religion, it’s become a cult. Maurice Newman responded that the science is clearly wrong”.
    • In my blog of 6 November, I pointed out that independent research shows that News Limited papers were giving heavily slanted reportage in favour of the climate sceptics.
    • The UN climate change chief, Christiana Figueres, highlighted a couple of weeks ago the link between climate change and bush fires. Tony Abbott told us that she was ‘talking through her hat’.
    • The government has before it a fig-leaf of a “policy” called Direct Action, but Tony Abbott has told us that even if the policy does not achieve the 5% emissions reduction in emissions by 2020 that no more money will be forthcoming.
    • The Campbell Government in Queensland has flagged reductions in coal royalties in the Galilee Basin which could double Australia’s coal production and dramatically increase global carbon pollution.
    • The Australian Government has refused to send a minister to the Warsaw Climate Summit this week. This is the first opportunity for the Abbott Government to attend a UN climate change negotiation.

    The evidence of climate change scepticism by the Abbott Government and key supporters could not be clearer. But Australia is acting against the overwhelming tide of scientific evidence and action by countries that are now beginning to take seriously the threat of climate change.

    • The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has expressed even stronger support to the science consensus that carbon emissions are the cause of climate change and that human beings are responsible.
    • China, the world’s largest emitter has pledged to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by 40% to 45% by 2020. Japan, ROK and the UK have all committed to emission reductions of at least 25% by 2020. Both the federal and state governments in the US are taking determined action.
    • Pope Francis is planning a major encyclical on the environment which is expected to focus on climate change.
    • A group of 70 global investors with more than $3 trillion of assets has asked fuel and power companies to critically examine the major pollution problems that coal-fired plants present.
    • The letters editor of the Los Angeles Times has decided not to publish letters from climate sceptics. He said on 8 October last month that ‘Scientists have provided ample evidence that human activity is indeed linked to climate change. Just last month the IPCC, a body made up of the world’s top climate scientists, said it was 95% certain that fossil fuel burning humans are driving global warming. The debate right now isn’t whether this evidence exists (clearly it does) but what this evidence means for us. Simply put, I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is published. Saying “There is no sign humans have caused climate change” is not stating an opinion. It’s asserting a factual inaccuracy.’ I wonder when News Ltd editors will follow suit!!

    In my blog of 6 November I drew attention to the study by the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at UTS. It said that ‘Nearly all the sceptic articles [on climate change] in this study were published by News Corp. … The Australian press is a world leader in the promotion of [climate change] scepticism. … Andrew Bolt is a major contributor to advancing climate scepticism in Australia.’

    Rupert Murdoch’s independent and courageous editors would tell us that they make their own decisions about coverage in their newspapers. But they have an uncanny ability to reflect what Rupert Murdoch says on climate change and almost every other subject.

    What principled and professional leadership we have on climate change – Rupert Murdoch, Tony Abbott and Maurice Newman!

  • Yes we can – zero carbon emissions within 10 years in Australia. Guest blogger: Ann Long

    On Wednesday 6th November Kiama’s Ss Peter and Paul Social Justice Group, together with Transition Towns Kiama, hosted a presentation by Gillian King from Beyond Zero Emissions, which explained a fully costed blue-print for Australia’s transition to 100% renewable energy.

    Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE), a not-for-profit research and education organisation, together with the University of Melbourne’s Energy Research Institute, developed the Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan. 

    The Plan was launched in 2010 and was fully costed, at $8.00 per household per week, with implementation over 10 years. The plan details the commercially available renewable energy technology plus the infrastructure that would be needed to replace all fossil fuel generated electricity in Australia within 10 years.  The plan depends on 3 components: – 12 Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Stations, Wind Turbine sources and improved infrastructure using High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) to transport current over long distances.

    With the publication of the most recent Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concern about our carbon emissions has increased and action is urgent.

    The latest policy report from the World Wildlife Fund – Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, defines Australia’s “carbon budget”.  WWF – Australia commissioned “Ecofys” to assess what would be a reasonable and credible contribution from Australia towards the international goal of limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. Expressed as a “carbon budget” Australia has “spent” two thirds of its carbon emission allocation for the period 2013 to 2100.  With business as usual Australia will have spent the lot within a decade.

    Australia’s existing unconditional goal of reducing emissions by 5% below 2000 levels by 2020 falls far short of a credible contribution.  Contrary to often stated opinion that “Australia must not do anything until big polluting countries move” China, the world’s largest emitter, and Australia’s largest trading partner, has agreed to reduce the emissions intensity of its economy by 40-45% by 2020.  Other countries, Japan, South Korea and the UK have all committed to emission reduction targets of 25% or more below 2000 levels by 2020.  Germany has set a target of 45% reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by 2020 and 95% by 2050.  Germany is not famous for its long bouts of solar exposure!  The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan provides a way forward for Australia to reduce its carbon emissions by at least 25% by 2020.  The Plan also details job provision, essential as our trading partners reduce their demand for and importation of fossil fuels.

    Australia has a natural advantage in sources of renewable energy and can position itself as a global renewable energy power for future prosperity, at the same time ensuring national energy security.  Abundant solar energy falling on Australia’s centre could prove to be Australia’s greatest resource.

    Once again nuclear power is being raised.  It is not renewable, more expensive, and would take longer to implement than the proposed The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan

    There is increasing anxiety within the local community about Coal Seam Gas Extraction (CSG).  The 100% renewable energy plan provides a constructive way forward for the community to support alternative policies, avoiding CSG.

    The plan is clear, affordable and doable.  It needs commitment from our policy makers with community backing.

    The Kiama Social Justice Group and Transition Towns’ goal was to provide accurate information for the community and a knowledge base for the community to argue the case with the policy makers for a carbon emission free Australia.

    The Kiama meeting was advertised widely – in local newspapers, through ecumenical groups, Landcare groups, the small farms network and in the local businesses of Kiama, Gerringong and Berry.  The Federal MP Ann Sudmalis, and the state MP Gareth Ward were invited but were unable to attend.  The Mayor of Kiama was away and 2 Kiama Councillors did attend.

    Agnotology is the study of the cultural production of ignorance and doubt.  The outcomes of deliberate cultivation of ignorance and doubt are alive and well in our community.  “The Merchants of Doubt” (Oreskes and Conway) details the powerful vested interests at work in attempting to ensure that little action is taken about climate change.  They have described how some of the same organisations and people, who were part of the tobacco companies’ campaign, are around again in this campaign of creating doubt about the science of climate change.  The Illawarra is home to coal mining and the steel works, so change is threatening to both companies and employees.

    Still, 72 people turned up to the meeting.  The group was surprising for its enthusiasm and engagement.  The formal presentation was followed by another hour of questions and discussion and finally a short summary of some local power generation initiatives.

    There was lamentation that there were few “young” persons present and a general despair about what to do next.  Many in the group will turn out for CLIMATE CATCH UP on 17th November.

    There seems to still be reluctance for some to write or visit their local state and federal representatives.

    Is the next move a series of deputations?

     

     

     

  • When “… language itself becomes a weapon” Guest blogger: Professor Ian Webster.

    When “..language itself becomes a weapon.”[1]

    “I know they’re rorting the system; I’ve seen it in the source countries; and I’ve seen it in my own electorate.” It was a party stopper from a Member of Parliament speaking informally with a group attending a meeting about preventing suicide.

    The two words “refugee” and “asylum seeker” provoke private and public dissonance. The criminalisation, the “otherness”, in the way we speak about refugees and asylum seekers stands in stark contrast to our attempts to prevent discrimination against ‘others’ in Australia – people with disabilities, those with mental disorders, suicides and attempted suicides, and others outside the mainstream, and their families. Governments legislate to prevent discrimination and they aim to reduce the stigma of mental illness.

    But refugees and asylum seekers are another matter; they’re fair game. The contrast in these public stances – one of kindness and the other of rejection could not be more extreme.

    To suffer is to be harmed or to fear harm. The health and social systems are expected to assess a person’s risks and harms and to respond to their needs; actions endorsed overwhelmingly by society. Refugees and asylum seekers fear harm and seek protection.

    In the emergency departments of our public hospitals, in our public health services and at the front-line of primary care, treatment is provided according to a person’s needs without moral judgement. It is expected. It is a proud tradition which can’t be reconciled with the way Australia responds to the suffering of those who seek sanctuary.

    Imagine arriving at an emergency department with distressing chest pain and having to demonstrate that you were in genuine need of help, being sent elsewhere to check your credentials and to wait.

    It is an irreconcilable paradox. We expect humane and moral responses from human services and our professions, but we adopt an inhumane and immoral stance to the frightened people who arrive from distant lands on our shores.

    The misguided focus on criminalisation, mandatory detention and the tricks of excising parts of Australia to circumvent our international obligations are a subterfuge for long-term strategies.

    The language and rhetoric of the ‘war on drugs’ has become the driving idiom of the ‘war on people smugglers’.

    The former Secretary of the Departments of Defence and Primary Industries and Energy, Paul Barratt, said on Radio National’s Outsiders on 21st July, “It is a failure to reframe the political discussion, to look more broadly at the refugee issue. It is the same as we have seen in the failed war on drugs – instead of dealing with that as a social and medical problem we focus on the people who are smuggling illicit drugs and say that this is a criminal …a game politicians of both parties are assiduously trying to focus on. The problem is that there are people in desperate need who need to be resettled and there are millions of them around the world.”

    The same point was made in 1959 by William S Burroughs in the Naked Lunch, “If you want to alter or annihilate a pyramid of numbers in a serial relation, you alter or remove the bottom number. If we wish to annihilate the junk pyramid, we must start at the bottom of the pyramid: the addict in the street, and stop tilting quixotically for the higher-ups so-called, all of whom are immediately replaceable. The addict in the street who must have junk to live is the one irreplaceable factor in the junk equation. When there are no more addicts to buy junk there will be no junk traffic. As long as junk need exists, someone will service at.”

    Fiddling with the idea of criminality and imprisoning people smugglers is doomed to failure. Just as the war on ‘drug smugglers’ has failed because it does not deal with the people problems which drive the demand for substances.

    It is an unchallengeable fact that problems of population have to be dealt with at source, at the root causes. In public health it is the fence at the top of cliff compared with the ambulance at the bottom

    Put simply, the problem of refugees and asylum seekers is not the making of people smugglers but of the oppression and violence against already marginalised people in their countries of origin.

    As John Menadue and others have argued, Australia should engage with countries in our region to establish pathways which have predictable outcomes and protection rather than  policies which will escalate even more desperate attempts for asylum.

     

    Professor Ian Webster, Physician and Emeritus Professor Public Health and Community Medicine, University of NSW.

     

     


    [1] Anderson Scott, Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Doubleday, Random House, New York, 2013, p xi.

  • Climate change as portrayed in ten major Australian newspapers. John Menadue

    Last week the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at the University of Technology, Sydney released a report on the above subject. It highlighted, amongst other things the unprofessional performance and influence of News Ltd publications in shaping the public debate in favour of the sceptics of climate change.

    This is despite the overwhelming consensus by eminent world scientists as expressed particularly in the UN’s 5th  Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change report just released, The panel said that it was increasingly confident that climate change was occurring and that it was now 95% confident that this was due to human activity.

    The campaign by News Ltd publications stands oddly with what Rupert Murdoch boasted to the Lowy Institute last week “that you can’t have free democracy if you don’t have a free media that can provide vital and independent information to the people and that we believe in providing the public with access to quality content”

    Some would say that he is “talking through his hat”. But see the following extracts from the ACIJ report and make up your own mind about “quality content” The full report can be found on the website of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, University of Technology, Sydney.

    The findings of this report should be of concern to all those who accept the findings of climate scientists. …this study establishes that a large number of Australians received very little information through their mainstream print/online media of any kind about the findings of climate scientists over the sample period. There was an overall decline in coverage between 2011 and 2012. The West Australian and Northern Territory newspapers carried particularly low levels of coverage. Levels of coverage were higher in Fairfax publications The Age and Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian …

    The most significant finding is that nearly a third of all articles referencing climate science published by ten Australian newspapers during three months in 2011 and 2012 did not accept the consensus scientific evidence that human beings are the main contributors to global warming. Given the extremely strong consensus about this evidence, this finding presents a major challenge for media accountability in Australia. This conclusion fits with recent research by the Reuters Institute for Journalism which showed that in a six country comparison Australia had both the most articles in absolute terms and the highest percentage of articles with sceptic sources in them, ahead of the United States, the United Kingdom, France. The other two countries Norway and India had almost no sceptic sources in their media coverage.

    The high levels of scepticism in Australia in part reflect our status as the country with the most concentrated newspaper industry in the developed world. News Corp controls 65% of daily and national newspaper circulation. In the state capitals of Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin and Hobart, it controls the only newspaper. While the influence of newspapers is waning, online versions of the same publications publish content similar to the print versions, although presented differently. This content continues to play a strong role is setting the news agenda for broadcast media.

    Nearly all of the sceptic articles in this study were published by News Corp. So it seems safe to argue that News Corps’ dominance is a major reason why the Australian press is a world leader in the promotion of scepticism.

    According to this study, Andrew Bolt, who recommends the sacking of journalists who consistently report the consensus position, is a major contributor to advancing climate scepticism in Australia. His individual role and that of other sceptic columnists should not distract from the decisions of corporate managers and editors who hire and heavily promote these columnists. While some of these editors claim to accept the consensus position they accord him the power to promote scathing critiques of climate scientists and other media that accept the consensus position. Scepticism is not only the product of opinion writers, however: as this study shows news selection, editing and reporting practices and the use of sources also embed sceptical positions.

    While media ownership plays an important role, not all News Corp publications are equal in their promotion of climate science scepticism. During the period of this study, Hobart’s The Mercury and Brisbane’s The Courier Mail did not promote scepticism. Since Brisbane editorial director David Fagan left News Corp in June 2013, The Courier Mail has begun to publish Andrew Bolt’s columns including a number of sceptic ones about climate change.

    The sample periods of part one and two of this research overlap but are not the same. This means that a synchronised comparative analysis of the coverage of carbon policy and of climate science cannot be made. It is clear, however, that news crop coverage of climate science is consistent with the dominant editorial stance of its publications towards political policy and action on climate change.

    … Fairfax media publications The Age and SMH were fairly even-handed or ‘balanced’ in their coverage of the Gillard government’s carbon policy with 57% positive articles outweighing 43% negative articles. As this study shows the Fairfax media reports climate science from the perspective of the consensus position. Their journalistic approach reflects the weight of scientific opinion as it would normally apply to scientific subjects.

    News Corp on the other hand was very negative towards the policy. Negative articles (82%) across News Ltd publications far outweighed positive (18%) article. This indicated a very strong stance against the carbon policy adopted by the government. The News Corp publications that were the most negative towards the policy also reflect the highest levels of scepticism. Their approach to climate science appears to reflect their political position in relation to calls for government intervention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

    Some blame scientists for their failures to communicate their findings in accessible ways. But this can, at best, be only part of the reason why climate science is covered so poorly. Journalism is about finding the story, not expecting it always to be packaged in advance.

    This is not to suggest that a serious lack of resources is not interfering in the capacity of journalists to report adequately on climate change. The failure of old paper-based models of print journalism, the concentration of the print media in the hands of two main companies which share resources and reporters across mastheads, and the economic and political goals of the owners of corporate media are all relevant. These factors contribute to a situation in which science news-breaking stories are used to fill gaps as they arise, but in which longer term follow-up of issues is less likely. In this under-resourced situation, journalists are also more likely to edit a press release or a wire story generated elsewhere than to generate the news story themselves.

    There were plenty of examples in our study of strong, high quality climate science journalism in 2011 and 2012.

    But none of these worthwhile approaches solve one of the most worrying conclusions of this research, which is that an information gulf between different audiences and regions is widening in Australia. The resolution of that problem will have to address the concentration of media ownership in this country, a concentration that is largely responsible for the active production of ignorance and confusion on one of the most important issues confronting Australia.

    With  Rupert Murdoch  abusing the power that goes with the concentration of newspaper ownership in Australia it is not surprising ,according to Essential Research that 36% of Australians and 51% of Liberal/National voters do not believe that global warming is occurring and that it is due to human activity.

    We are witnessing an abuse of media power on an issue vital to Australia’s and the world’s future. It could hardly be more serious.

     

  • A back-flip on the carbon tax. John Menadue

    A number of my friends were impressed with the recent public debate between Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese. They told me that they had expressed an interest online to join or rejoin the ALP after many years absence. Without exception they now say that they will not pursue their membership enquiry until the parliamentary wing of the Labor Party decides to stick with the carbon tax. In short, they were all asking the same old question ‘what does Labor stand for?’

    At the last election the ALP promised that it would move quickly from the carbon tax to an emissions trading scheme. That was understandable and commendable. But if Labor cooperates in the repeal of the carbon tax, all that will remain in the public domain on climate change is Direct Action. This so-called carbon pollution policy is flimsy. It is really a pretext for a policy.

    The ALP should cling to the policy it presented at the last election, end the carbon tax but only if it is replaced by an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

    It was not that the policy on the carbon tax was wrong. All the problems surrounding the carbon tax for the previous government were political – a broken promise, gross political exaggeration by Tony Abbott and a compliant Murdoch media.

    In my blog of 24 October “The Carbon Tax- policy and politics” I pointed out that the carbon tax is working to reduce carbon pollution and clearly the wild exaggerations of Tony Abbott have not come to pass. As Peter Martin in the SMH has put it, the carbon tax has become part of the furniture. We should leave it alone unless there is something better. And certainly Direct Action is not something better; it is far worse.

    At the same time we are hearing about the possibility of the ALP doing a back-flip on the carbon tax, the Fairfax media has surveyed 35 of Australia’s most eminent economists on the subject. Thirty out of the 35 favoured the carbon tax evolving into an ETS.

    BT Financial’s Chris Caton said that any economist who did not opt for an ETS should hand his degree back. The renowned Australian economist Justin Wolfers said that ‘Direct Action” would involve more economic disruption but have a lesser environmental payoff than a trading scheme under which big emitters have to pay for their emissions.’ Professor John Freebairn of the Melbourne University said ‘Placing a price on greenhouse gas emissions pollution, either by a tax or by an emissions trading scheme, is the least cost way to reduce pollution.’ Rob Henderson, the senior economist at NAB, said ‘If I had to make a choice between pricing carbon and having bureaucrats allocating permits, then I’m going to go for the market mechanism every time.’

    Until the business sector went politically partisan in the lead-up to the last election, numerous business leaders supported a carbon tax and/or an ETS. Marius Kloppers then the CEO of BHP Billiton, called for a ‘mosaic of initiatives’ to tackle global warming, including a combination of a carbon tax and a limited ETS. He was backed by the then Business Council of Australia President, Graham Bradley.

    In its 2011 submission to the Clean Energy Future legislation, Westpac said that it welcomed legislation ‘to introduce a price on carbon within a market framework’. AGL supported the introduction of a ‘least-cost market mechanism’. Grant King of Origin Energy was asked ‘are you in favour of having a carbon price or not?’ King responded ‘Well, the short answer to that question is yes’.

    At the same time that the ALP is thinking of doing a back-flip on the carbon tax, Tony Abbott made another sophisticated and intellectual contribution to the climate-change debate. He told the readers of the Washington Post that the carbon tax is ‘socialism masquerading as environmentalism’. But some of his conservative heroes are strong supporters of market means to reduce carbon pollution. Angela Merkel, probably the most prominent conservative leader in the world, believes that polluters should pay for the damage they create. She favours putting a price or tax on greenhouse gas pollution. Another favourite of Tony Abbott’s, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has told us ‘The market is an effective way to [get control of global emissions]’.

    Those other key international institutions, the World Bank, the IMF and the OECD, have all endorsed putting a price on pollution.

    Where does Tony Abbott get his learning on climate change? Greg Hunt gets it from Wikipedia. Tony Abbott seems to get it from Lord Monkton and Cardinal George Pell. He must also rely heavily on his Kirribilli think tank-Miranda Devine, Piers Akerman, Gerard Henderson, Paul Kelly, Denis Shanahan, Janet Albrechtson and Andrew Bolt.

    Out of all this, let’s hope that the ALP doesn’t do another back-flip on the reduction of carbon pollution. It should hold to the carbon tax until a better option can be put in place – an ETS. If the carbon tax is repealed and we only have Direct Action in the field, we would not have a credible national policy to reduce carbon pollution.

    Will Labor abandon yet again its convictions on climate change!

     

  • A Click of the Fingers. John Menadue

    We badly need someone close to Tony Abbot to click their fingers and break him out of the hypnotic trance that he has been in for a long time. He has been hypnotised into campaigning mode and has yet to be released.

    Many had hoped that as Prime Minister, Tony Abbott would successfully make the transition from an aggressive critic to a more constructive, sober and positive prime minister. But he doesn’t seem able to help himself. He continues in attack mode.

    The Washington Post has just carried an interview with him. He describes his Labor predecessors as ‘wacko’ and ‘embarrassing’. He added for the Washington Post readers that the Labor Government had been a ‘circus’.

    What gouache behaviour. We don’t want our Prime Minister airing our domestic linen when he represents us overseas.

    Words can be bullets and one would have hoped that Tony Abbott’s grovelling apologies to two prime ministers and a president at the recent APEC meeting would have encouraged him to be more moderate in his language.

    Last week he dismissed the Executive Secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, as ‘talking through her hat’ on bushfires and climate change. Ms Figueres knows more about the science of climate change than Tony Abbott who dismissed the science a few years ago as ‘crap’. She politely and professionally explained that Tony Abbott had got it wrong. She was not talking through her hat.

    For the good of Australia it is desirable that our prime minister speaks temperately and respectfully in public debate. Will someone please try to help break him out of his aggressive and intemperate opposition mode?

    There is also media speculation that the Abbott Government in considering a judicial enquiry into the pink batts installations. Putting aside the responsibility of state governments to regulate such installations, it does portray the vindictiveness of the Abbott government. It should forget settling political scores and get on with governing for us all.

    After the loans crisis, the dismissal and the 1975 election many Liberal ministers urged Malcolm Fraser to hold a Royal Commission over the loans affair. Malcolm Fraser refused. He decided that governing and unifying the country was more important than carrying on an old political battle.

    Tony Abbott does not yet seem to understand that different behaviour is expected of a Prime Minister.

  • Mideast Road to Nowhere. Guest blogger Marcus Einfeld

    This blog by Marcus Einfeld is in response to the blog by John Tulloh of 16 October on the above subject.

    John Tulloh’s 40 year career in international news gathering should have taught him that jumping into Israeli-Palestinian issues with instant judgements and simplistic solutions is unwise and simply assists to continue the conflict. The concept, promoted in Tulloh’s piece posted on this blog on October 16, that the only or principal cause of the ongoing problems in this long dispute is Israeli settlements is at best naïve. More importantly it demonstrates a seriously imperfect knowledge of the facts and of the problems that have defied solution at the hands of the world’s best diplomats for almost 70 years, during most of which there were no settlements at all.

    Tulloh’s strange one-sidedness comfortably ignores the overwhelming majority desire in Israel for a peace treaty with the Palestinians based on the two state solution and the resultant evacuation of practically all the occupied territories including the settlements. It also conveniently fails to acknowledge the impossibility of negotiating with enemies holding the unashamed goal of Israeli destruction in preference to compromise and negotiation as equals. They seek, not the removal of the settlements, but the very removal of Israel itself.

    It was also rather blind of an experienced journalist to overlook that even a potential peace partner like Fatah is more worried about what will happen to its leadership at the hands of Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad if it reaches an accommodation with Israel than anything Israel might or might not do or where some of its people might live. The hateful militancy of these terrorist organizations manifests itself not merely in their regular random killing of innocent civilians but in their frequent and regular pledges to their people and the world never to negotiate or allow peace with Israel. Mind you, they are just as vicious with their own fellow countrymen and women who aspire to peace as well.

    To say the least, Prime Minister Netanyahu is and has always been much more a lucky opportunist than an inspiring leader and an enthusiastic peace maker, even more so than Prime Minister Sharon before him. Lucky because as in Australia a few weeks ago, recent election results in Israel owe more to the shenanigans of opposition parties than to Netanyahu’s personal popularity or acceptability to his constituents. Lucky because the terrorist organisations have given him no real choice but to take the populist if practical line of shoring up Israel’s defences waiting for the Arab parties to get their act together, which they never seem to show any signs of doing, and for the Muslim world to disavow terrorism and murder as mechanisms of progress. Lucky because the Israeli people have for some unknown reason apparently forgiven Netanyahu for his shameless role in the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

    I agree with Tulloh that the peace process has not been worth its name in desert sand, basically ever since the Rabin assassination but I am surprised that he does not seem to realise that if a genuine peace were to be in prospect, still more if it were to break out with all borders secure and people safe, most of the settlements would be no more than a passing phase of history, whatever some might shortsightedly try to argue.

    In the course of leading an Australian, World Bank and multinationally funded program, in the wake of the Oslo Agreements, to assist the Palestinians to build a legal system based on democratic justice and the rule of law in the 1980s and 90s, I met and spoke at length to virtually all the Palestinian Authority leaders and many others of their people. I have continued some of these contacts since. These leaders know full well that the settlements are in truth irrelevant because in substance they will largely go away in a peace treaty. They know that the so-called “right of return” of Palestinians to Israeli coastal areas is a hoax and a cruel play on words used to save Holocaust survivors, with no chance of fulfilment. They very well know that Israel could be, and in peace would be, a massive source of aid and support to a Palestinian State in almost every area of human and developmental activity, from music to irrigation and beyond.

    But their extremists have for decades vetoed all efforts to make peace, ensuring the election of the Netanyahus, Sharons and the religious extremists, and taking the pressure off them to protect their people by pursuing peace with vigour, instead preferring a form of protection by building and expanding wherever they want. Many of these activities have certainly not helped the so-called “peace process” but they merely demonstrate the supreme irony that as Palestinian attitudes have sent the Israelis lurching to the right, more in fear and exasperation than aggression, Israeli activities have sent the moderate but disunited Palestinian leaders into shutdown mode.

    Australians can do little to assist these parties to reach a compromise settlement of the issues which divide them. Rather than criticise one party alone, it would, in my view, be more helpful if those who wish to contribute to the public debate were to lend their talents to actions designed to show Palestinians what democratic statehood really means by contributing to the viability and peacefulness of a future Palestinian state and to challenge the Israelis to search for common ground based on mutual respect, understanding and constructive co-operation.

     

     

     

  • Honest Joe Hockey. John Menadue

    At the G20 Summit in Washington a week ago Joe Hockey said ‘People find it refreshing to hear that Aussie honesty’. It is nice to think that other people see us that way but I wonder what Treasurers at the G20 would make of it if they had been listening to what Joe Hockey had been saying about the Australian economy over the last six years.

    For years Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott have been warning us in quite shrill terms about our deficit and debts. We faced a budget ‘emergency’. It turned out to be phoney. Together with Tony Abbott, one could be excused for believing that the Australian economy was a smoking ruin.

    We were told for a long time that the Coalition would provide a budget surplus in year one and get the deficit down from day one. Then as the election rolled on the retreat began and the Coalition finished its election campaign by telling us that the Coalition Government would ‘deliver a surplus as soon as we can’.

    Actions speak louder than words  but the windy words continue.  If there was a real emergency we would be well on the way to a mini budget. We would have been told that nothing else would save the day. We can now see that the rhetoric of the Coalition has been reckless, inflammatory and fraudulent. There is a lot of huffing and puffing but no real action. Is that Aussie honesty?

    Unfortunately it seems that the Reserve Bank of Australia has now been drawn in to the political games of the Coalition. Joe Hockey has agreed to an $8.8 billion taxpayer capital injection into the bank. That is amazing. It helps serve Joe Hockey’s political agenda in highlighting a possible emergency. It is also an old trick in politics as in business to load as many problems as possible onto the previous regime. Saul Eslake has described it as “a ridiculous piece of theatre”  According to both  former Labor Treasurers, Wayne Swann and Chris Bowen the Reserve Bank never approached the Labor Government for such a capital injection.  Wayne Swann said yesterday that if he had been approached he would have agreed. But he was not approached. Furthermore on 10th April this year Treasury advised  the Treasurer against  boosting the Reserve Bank’s reserve fund. Very strange! Why is it happening now? And why does it have to be in one hit? Surely it could have been over two to three years. But by providing the injection in one hit this year it can all be attributed to the failures of the previous government. This looks a dodgy exercise? It is claimed that the Reserve was reluctant to pay large dividends to the government and so deplete its funds. But it is not at all surprising for the government to maximize dividends from the Reserve Bank. Governments do it all the time with statutory authorities.

    Some facts keep getting in the way of Joe Hockey’s bluster.

    • Australia has one of the lowest levels of government debt to GDP in the world. The major money manager, Blackrock, measures sovereign risk. It reports that Australia is amongst the ten lowest sovereign risk countries in the world along with Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Canada and New Zealand.
    • The Australian Parliamentary Library has just released a report comparing the performance of Australian governments since the 1980s. The Commonwealth net debt fell from 5.6% of GDP under Howard to 2.4% under Rudd/Gillard Governments.
    • The IMF has told us that most of our structural deficit problem in Australia can be traced to the profligate policies of the Howard/Costello period- lowering the personal tax scales as the mining tax boom filled the tax coffers
    • Credit agencies continue to issue triple AAA credit ratings for Australian Government finance.
    • In 2012-13, we had the largest year to year fall in the Commonwealth budget deficit ever recorded. Government spending fell a record 3.2% in real terms.

    With the help of the China boom, The Rudd/Gillard Governments managed one of the best performing economies in the world, even through the Global Financial Crisis. But a failure of the Rudd/Gillard Governments was that they did not take up seriously the taxation review by Treasury – the Henry Review. This review carried a large number of recommendations to make our tax system more sustainable, more efficient, more equitable and simpler.

    Will Joe Hockey’s Commission of Audit really deliver on government finances? I hope it will succeed and that the Coalition will not dodge real tax reform as the Rudd/Gillard Governments did. It is particularly important that the Commission does not fall for the siren voices of big business. .

    It is concerning however that the Chair of the Commission of Audit, Mr Tony Shepherd, is also the Chair of the Business Council of Australia. The BCA is one of the most highly influential special interest groups in the country. It wants to roll back the Fair Work Act, amongst many other things, not to ensure that the market works better but to advantage capital. The Head of the Commission of Audit Secretariat is Peter Crone from the BCA. Just imagine if a Labor Government had appointed the President and Secretary of the ACTU to head a review of government finances.   The Murdoch media would have had a fit.

    There is no doubt that Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott succeeded in persuading the Australian electorate that the economy was in a mess and that the debt and deficit was out of control. None of it was true. My concern is that they are now reverting to their political ways that were so successful over the last six years.

    Tony Abbott and his colleagues are addicted to criticism and attack, attack and more attack. Can they transition to responsible and inclusive leaders concerned about good policy rather than aggressive politics and photo opportunities? We have not seen it yet from Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey, Scott Morrison and Greg Hunt. Some honesty would be a good start.

     

  • The Carbon Tax – Policy and Politics. John Menadue

    There are good policy and political reasons why the ALP should oppose the repeal of the carbon tax.

    The carbon tax is designed to reduce carbon pollution. That fact is continually ignored by those who talk wildly about the tax rather than what it is designed to do. In any event, the tax is working and is not producing the ‘almost unimaginable’ destruction that Tony Abbott predicted. Gladstone has not been closed down and Whyalla has not been wiped off the map. The tax had a relatively small impact on prices when it was introduced but it is now accepted as very much part of our everyday life.

    The September CPI figures released yesterday show an overall increase in prices of 1.2% for the September quarter and 2.2% for the year. It was all relatively benign. Water and sewerage costs rose by 9.9% in the quarter, fuel by 7.5%, council rates and charges by 7.9%, international holidays by 6.1% and gas prices by 4.8%. Electricity costs trailed near the back of the field for increases at 4.4%. That doesn’t sound like ‘almost unimaginable” destruction and chaos. Furthermore, even the relatively small increases in electricity charges have been due, not to the carbon tax, but much more to the ‘gold plating’ of poles and wires by the electricity utilities.

    As Peter Martin in the SMH has pointed out, the Coalition has maintained that repeal of the carbon tax would save households $550 a year. This Coalition estimate is based on the scaling up of Treasury estimates for increases in prices due to the tax. Insofar as the increase in prices will be much less than expected, the savings to households will also be less.

    It is also clear that the carbon tax is achieving what it set out to do – curbing electricity and gas consumption. Household spending on electricity and gas is now down 3%.

    The carbon tax is designed to change the pattern of investments. A move to renewable energy and  less polluting power generation  depends on the carbon tax to discourage polluting industries..It is highly unlikely that the Government will be able to achieve the Renewable Energy Target of 41,000GwH by 2020 without the carbon tax.

    So leaving the tax in place would be good policy. It is causing minimal problems despite Tony Abbott’s extravagance. Furthermore the unravelling of the carbon tax would be onerous for business which has written the tax into its energy supply contracts. It is also possible that in the repeal of the tax, the Government might have to pay $4 billion in assistance to industry with the wind back of the free permits.

    On the political front there is a clear lesson that chopping and changing on carbon reduction schemes can be fatal for political leaders. Malcolm Turnbull attempted to hold the Coalition to putting a price on carbon. He failed. And Tony Abbott became the leader because Joe Hockey, the Liberal Party’s first choice to replace Malcolm Turnbull, refused to abandon his support for a carbon price.

    Then the Greens sided with the Coalition to defeat the Rudd Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in the Senate. If the Greens had supported this legislation, Australia would be well on the way to sensible carbon reduction policies and programs. It would have been “all over red rover.” Instead, the sanctimonious Greens helped provoke a divisive and destructive debate on carbon which has been at the expense of good policy. The Greens have a lot to answer for on this issue as well as for their “policy purity” on asylum seekers.

    With the failure of Rudd’s CPRS, and the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Kevin Rudd lost his way and his confidence. He was dumped.

    Then in February 2011, and in order to lock in the Greens to her minority government, Julia Gillard announced that she would put a price on carbon. She never politically  recovered, not that the policy was wrong but she had clearly gone back on a promise and did not effectively explain why.

    My sense is that Labor supporters would be appalled if Bill Shorten retreated now on the ALP policy to retain the carbon tax and then move to an emissions trading scheme. There has been too much chopping and changing. Surely he sees the price that both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard paid for walking away from well established and well considered policies.

    Global warming is real and a market-based mechanism is superior to the inept ‘direct action’ policy which will be introduced by the Coalition. To achieve a 5% reduction in carbon pollution, it will cost far more than the carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme. Direct action is a confected and inefficient program designed to pretend that the Coalition is serious about global warming. It is very hard to understand how the Liberal Party which says it believes in markets could propose such a non-market scheme. It has much more to do with politics than good policy. The Coalition would serve Australia better if it spent a proportion of the ‘direct action’ funds to buy carbon credits from developing countries. Carbon pollution is a global problem. It has no respect for national boundaries.

    With an early summer in parts of eastern Australia, we are seeing the extreme weather and the bushfires which we have been warned about as a direct consequence of global warming. The need for us to seriously address global warming is with us every day. Scientific reports, one after another, warn us of the consequences of global warming unless we all take action to reduce carbon pollution.

    But what about the ‘mandate’ which Tony Abbott claims for the abolition of the carbon tax? What the election confirmed was the right of the Coalition to form a government. It was not a referendum on a whole clutch of policies.  On September 7, we had a general election. We did not have a referendum on the carbon tax or a double dissolution election on the carbon tax.

    Let’s try and hold to the carbon tax and then move to an emissions trading scheme. That would be the best policy.  I suggest it would also be good politics for the ALP, that despite all of its political mistakes, does take more seriously than the Coalition, the threat of global warming .Its supporters would feel let down if Bill Shorten turned tail on climate change.

     

  • Japan and the denial over comfort women. Guest blogger: Susan Menadue Chun

    In a speech at the United Nations in September 2013, Prime Minister Abe conveyed Japan’s willingness to be involved in U.N security actions. He also emphasized Japan’s commitment to oppose sexual violence against women in war zones. Strangely, he didn’t mention comfort women, also known as sexual slaves, women who were forced to provide sex to the Japanese Imperial Army in WWII.  How many lies must be told to cover up the truth?

    The sex slave issue has become an international gender issue of grave and continuing concern. This issue needs to be confronted.

    In the past month there have been three incidents concerning Japan’s attempts to cover up the comfort woman issue.

    The first incident was the erection of a memorial for comfort women in Glendale, California. According to the Japanese press, there has been considerable opposition from sections of the Japanese community in California to the memorial. This may be so. However, in a conversation with Dr. Edward Chang (Professor of Ethnic Studies at University of California, Riverside) I was informed that the NCRR- Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress is endorsing the movement to remember comfort women. It seems that the Japanese press however does not want the Japanese public or the world to recognize that the issue is gaining worldwide support. In addition, perhaps naively the mayors of Glendale and Buena Park (another area marked for a possible memorial) have been embroiled in a scandal created by Japan’s ultra-rightist internet channel – Channel Sakura. This channel seeks to repudiate Japan’s past aggressions and opposes any form of reasonable reconciliation with Korea or China. Mayor Weaver of Glendale informed Channel Sakura that he had regrets about supporting the memorial, saying “we opened a beehive, a hornet’s nest; we just shouldn’t have done it.”(Chosun Ilbo – a Korean news source). Now, the Glendale Council is demanding his resignation for his comments. Channel Sakura then went on to interview Mayor Elizabeth Swift of Buena Park. Her attempt to be impartial failed. I have reviewed the translations on Channel Sukura (85% correct and 15% incorrect). This was in order to establish whether the Channel had manipulated her viewpoint. Unfortunately, the interviewer nudged her into appearing to be taking a very sympathetic conservative stand with Japan on the comfort woman issue. I then found that protest emails sometimes pay off! I informed Mayor Swift on how Channel Sakura manipulated the interview. She now has regrets. Hopefully she won’t be granting any more interviews to Channel Sakura.

    The second incident was the agreement of the Nagoya Education Centre to accommodate an ultra-right group, the Zaitokukai, and allow an exhibition maintaining that the comfort women issue is a fabrication. Objections were to no avail. The Nagoya Education Centre then informed activists in support of comfort women that it did not want a law suit for refusing to permit the exhibition. Flyers for the event were handed out in tissue packages.

    The third incident was another cover up to try and preserve Japan’s international reputation. On the 14th October, 2013 the Asahi newspaper reported a declassified official document, about Japan’s diplomatic attempts in 1993 to cover up the comfort woman issue in Indonesia. It seems that Japan wanted to snuff out any anti-Japanese sentiment linked to the comfort women issue akin to what was happening in Korea. During the Suharto regime, the Japanese Embassy was successful in obstructing the publication of a book on comfort women, by a famous Indonesian author (name blacked out in declassified document); The Japanese Embassy advised that the publication could “hurt bilateral relations”.

    All of these incidents have occurred within the last month, Japan’s long term and continuing offensive to cover up the truth about comfort women is intense. Japanese politicians seem to lack consistency in any issue to do with Japan’s militarist past. They waste our precious time. Sadly time is something the aging former comfort women do not have.

  • Bushfires and climate change. John Menadue

    Last week, the Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, was really trying to tell us that black is white.  He attacked Adam Brandt who had said that the bushfires in NSW were part of a pattern of more extreme weather caused by climate change.  Brandt added that the government should not embark on dismantling sensible policies to limit global warming. What Brandt said was entirely consistent with the very strong advice that we have been receiving for many years from the best climate scientists in the world about weather changes.

    Having an indefensible policy called ‘Direct Action’ on climate change; Minister Hunt turned to political invective and attacked Adam Brandt for ‘politicising’ the bushfire tragedy. The Minister obviously decided that his “direct action” couldn’t sensibly be defended so he turned to filling the news cycle with political spin and nonsense by attacking Adam Brandt. Incidentally, Malcolm Turnbull, who lost his position as leader of the Liberal Party for espousing sensible marked based emission policies has told us quite clearly that he regards ‘direct action’ as a fig leaf when you don’t really have a policy.

    What Adam Brandt was saying is, I believe, at the top of the mind for a very large number of Australians. Is our weather becoming much more extreme? The evidence is increasingly pointing in that direction. Commenting on Minister Hunt’s political invective, the CEO of the Climate Institute, John Connor, said that it was time to face up to the growing risks of severe events such as bushfires owing to climate change. He said ‘Now is the time for a sensible debate’. But nothing sensible came from Greg Hunt.

    The Australian Climate Commission report ‘The Critical Decade 2013’ has just reported on the very worrying trends. It said

    • 70% of Australia experienced severe heatwaves across late December 2012 and January 2013. Temperature records were set in every state and territory. January 7, 2013 was the hottest ever average Australian maximum temperature.
    • Between 1973 and 2000, 16 out of 38 weather stations across Australia showed a significant increase in the Forest Fire Danger Index.
    • One quarter of the way through the Critical Decade, many consequences of climate change are already evident and the risks of further climate change are better understood.
    • 2000 to 2009 was the hottest decade since records began.
    • Global changes in rainfall have been observed, including in Australia.
    • The longer term regional drying trends over the south-west and south-east (of Australia) continued.
    • Increased heat is also causing significant global changes in snow and ice.
    • As expected, with the warming ocean and loss of land-based ice, the sea level is rising.
    • Climate change is likely to continue to affect Australians in a number of ways including: rising temperatures and more hot days; GREATER RISK OF BUSHFIRES; increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events including heavy rainfall and drought; and sea-level rise leading to more coastal flooding and erosion.

    The science on climate change is not conclusive but all the evidence and information points to the fact that we are embarking on a much more carbon intensive world and that that problem is mounting year by year.  This has been confirmed yet again last month by the fifth United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. More than 600 of the world’s top scientists contributed to the report.  There were 50,000 contributors to the report and exhaustive peer review. The IPCC report concluded that there was now a 95% probability that humans are responsible for global warning. It pointed to rising sea levels, rising temperatures and greater variability in weather patterns. Minister Hunt says he accepts the IPCC findings but then does a complete about face and resumes his police war.

    The greatest risk that we could take would be to ignore the possible calamity for the planet and our children. These serious prospects deserve a much more serious response than we have had from Greg Hunt and his leader, Tony Abbott, who have been playing politics hard and fast and successfully on climate change for years.  They are leading us down a dangerous cull ds sac.

    My concern is not just the abdication of responsibility by Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt but they have misled so many people and particularly their own supporters. In polling on October 1 this month, Essential Research found that 51 % of Liberal/ National voters did not believe in climate change. They believed that we were just witnessing normal fluctuations in the wold’s climate.

    I am stunned and alarmed by such poll findings. Surely so many Liberal/National voters can’t be such slow learners. Are they such party loyalists that they have allowed Tont Abbott to close their minds? Are they that partisan? Is it that they won’t allow any facts to threaten their comfortable life style?

    History will not judge kindly the way that Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt are playing politics with a looming danger. Our wondrous and delicate planet is on a dangerous trajectory and humans are the cause of the problem. We also have solutions in our hands. But ethical and wise leadership is essential. We have not got it at the moment.

    Hopefully, the ALP will not give way on the carbon tax unless it is satisfied that there is a better policy in place to combat the clear signs of climate change.

    On the particular issue of bushfires, let us not get distracted by the relatively minor issue of hazard reduction. That should be addressed, but we are facing a much more significant and possibly catastrophic problem, global climate change.

  • Why Iranians join the refugee queue. Guest Iranian correspondent Nadia S Fosoul

    In my country Iran, many dads take two jobs. They work hard so that their kids can check more items off their wish list. Moms like other moms in the world sacrifice their comforts for the sake of their children. Despite this, according to UNHCR data (immigrationinformation.org) the number of Iranian youth seeking asylum around the world has more than doubled since 2007. In 2012 nearly 20,000 Iranian sought asylum. Iran has thus, laid claim to producing one of the highest rates of brain drain in the world. Simultaneously Iran is one of the world’s largest refugee havens, mainly for Afghans and Iraqis.

    Why do young Iranians leave Iran?

    Sixty percent of Iran’s population is under 30, and are facing major difficulties in getting jobs. In Iranian families, the value of education is an important cultural element. Almost everyone believes that university education is essential for success. Thus, despite the highly competitive University entrance exams, the percentage of high school graduates who are admitted to universities is high. However, unemployment is one of the thorniest problems. This is because educational planners have focused most of their energy on expanding the universities’ admission rate. This has resulted in graduates having high expectations for their careers but with poor job prospects.

    Over the period 1970 to 2000, Iran experienced a revolution in many ways. The Iraq-Iran war lasted from 1980 to 1989. There was a regime change from conservatives to liberals after the election in 1996. The revolution impeded economic growth and the Iraq-Iran war exhausted resources in the economy and hindered economic growth. Conservatives took over power again in 2005 by electing Ahmadinejad and re-electing him in a fraudulent 2009 presidential election, resulting in a series of protests. According to Anna Johnson and Brian Murphy in June 2009, the Iranian government disputed these allegations, and confirmed the deaths of only 36 people during the protests. Unconfirmed reports allege that there were 72 deaths in the three months following the disputed election. However, the death toll was possibly higher because relatives of the deceased were forced to sign documents claiming their family members had died of heart attack or meningitis. During this period Iranian authorities closed universities in Tehran, blocked web sites, blocked cell phone transmissions and text messaging, and banned rallies.

    To make it worse the U.S. government tightened sanctions on Iran.  These sanctions were directed at ordinary people who bore the brunt in medicine and food shortages. There were also money problems.

    As I mentioned earlier, Iranians put education as their priority, so they try hard despite all the financial and political pressures. However they like to speak out peacefully for their rights and they want to freely write their opinions without fear of interrogation and prison. They look for their legitimate rights in Iran. When they can’t find it in Iran they seek it elsewhere.

    Their choice is immigrant friendly countries such as Australia that value freedom. The International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), states, “That every human being has a right to life, and to personal security, inviolability and freedom.” Countries that have ratified this agreement have taken concrete steps to promote and protect the economic, social and cultural rights of their people. Rights such as the right to work, the right to social security and the right to an adequate standard of living.

     Why opt for immigration?

    For these reasons many Iranians under economic or political pressure decide to leave their home and migrate to a friendly country. However obtaining a visa is not easy. The immigration process now takes more than 3-4 years with no guarantee. So many just give up and look for an alternative way.

    To make matters worse, immigrant friendly countries like Australia have toughened their immigration policies towards Iranians. This is particularly when there are political tensions in migrant friendly countries. However, it should be understood that Iran’s people face political persecution at the hands of the Iranian government. These people have difficulty obtaining legal visas while ironically, members of the regime can easily relocate to other countries on special visas. As a result innocent Iranians are being caught in the crossfire instead of getting support from refugee host countries like Australia.

    Between 1994 and 2000 Australia admitted a large number of Iranian postgraduate students and their dependents. Virtually none returned home. Contrary to common preconceptions, Iran’s education system has been world class – notably in maths and sciences. Australians of Iranian heritage now work as leaders in law, politics, science and the arts in Australia and they have been acknowledged for the contribution they have made to Australian society. (Crock and Ghezelbash –ABC.net.au 25 July 2013)

    There is a need for us to care for each other to make the world a better place to live in. The Persian poet, Saadi, says;

    Human beings are members of a whole,

    In creation of one essence and soul.

    If one member is afflicted with pain,

    Other members uneasy will remain.

     If you have no sympathy for human pain,

    The name of human you cannot retain.

    *******

     In my blog of July 28, I referred to the special problems of Iranians, ‘Refugees or Migrants’. I suggested the need for other migration pathways, perhaps a 4-5-7 visa or sponsored migration.

     In the last 12 months, the proportion of boat arrivals in Australia from Iran has doubled from 16% to 33% of all boat arrivals. At 31 August there were 2,786 Iranians (32%) in immigration detention. Iranians were the largest group by far. A particular difficulty for Iranians who are refused refugee status is that the Iranian Government will not accept any returnees to Iran who have sought refugee status elsewhere. So unless Iranian asylum seekers can find residence in another country they face long detention in Australia.

     John Menadue

  • What’s in it for me? John Menadue

    Last year in London Joe Hockey said that we had to break free of our culture of entitlement. He said. “The problem arises…when there is a belief that one person has a right to a good or service that someone else will pay for. It is this sense of entitlement that affects not just individuals but also entire societies. And governments are to blame for portraying taxpayer’s money as something removed from the labour of another person” He repeated much the same last week in his first visit as Treasurer to Washington. He made it clear that all Australians had to make hard choices and that we couldn’t have everything that we wanted.

    This is a problem for all of us but Joe Hockey should start with his own leader. Tony Abbott has been leading the peloton in dodgy claims at the expense of the taxpayer.

    Aside from politicians some of the worst examples of this culture of entitlement are in the business sector. Professor Ross Garnaut has commented that the long period of prosperity has provided a congenial environment for the entrenchment of a new political culture that elevates private demands over the public interest. This is reflected in the lobbying by many business people for special privileges. The Secretary of the Treasury has warned us that we will not be able to maintain our health and education services unless we pay more in taxes. In the public debate it is assumed that we can all have benefits of public spending without cost. The previous Secretary of Treasury, Ken Henry, has said that he has never seen such a poor standard of public debate about the need for hard choices in Australia.

    The fact is that any significant and worthwhile changes in the economy and society will mean that there will be losses by some. We need to face that fact.

    There are many examples of ‘what’s in it for me?’ in public discussion.

    In the reform of education, we have been consistently told that Commonwealth Government funding will ensure that no schools will be worse off. That implies that many wealthy private schools will continue to be funded at high levels at the expense of facilities for the disadvantaged in public schools- indigenous, non-English-speaking, and socially impoverished students. The fact is if we are going to have serious reform in education, that promotes equality of opportunity, there will have to be some schools that will be worse off. That may be politically difficult but we see particularly in the Nordic countries, that increased education spending which is directed to areas of greatest need provides enormous economic as well as social benefits. Maintaining existing levels of funding for many wealthy private schools will be at the cost of the disadvantaged.

    Kevin Rudd told us that climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our generation. He was right. But the ‘debate ‘quickly became mired in issues of compensation. Making sure that no-one was worth off, including the polluters, meant that we lost focus on the objective of the policy – reducing carbon pollution.

    The Business Council of Australia wants to increase the productivity of our economy, but is silent about the rent-seekers amongst its membership who want to retain their privileges whether they be in the hospitality, gambling or mining sectors. The BCA wants labour market flexibility for most of the workforce, but says nothing about the rigged system of executive remuneration.

    In reporting of Commonwealth and State budgets, the media almost always reduces the debate to tables showing who would be better off or who will be worse off regardless of the policy objective of the reform.

    The health ‘debate’ is invariably dominated by ‘what is in it for me?’ for the private health insurance funds, the pharmacists or medical specialists. Very quickly their public demands and self-interest dominate what should be a debate about necessary reform.

    In a global and changing world, we are indulging ourselves. As a community our individual expectations cannot all be fulfilled. We can’t have everything we want. The culture of ‘what is in it for me?’ will inevitably bring us undone. In any worthwhile reform, there will be inevitable losers. Those who need to loose most are the rent seekers for example in the mining and private schools sectors who work so desperately to maintain their privileged positions. Joe Hockey should start by talking to these sectors about their ingrained sense of entitlement.. and of course Tony Abbott

  • The eye of the needle, politicians, and Confucius. Guest blogger: Milton Moon

    Milton Moon is an eminent Australian potter.  A Master of Australian Craft.

    My current reading is dominated by the superb collected essays of Simon Leys, under the title The Hall of Uselessness.  (An indication of just how small the world has become it was recommended to me by a Jewish friend, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst living in New York who also uses Zen meditation as part of his therapy.)

    For those who don’t know, Simon Leys is the pen-name of Belgium-born Pierre Ryckmans, a sinologist and long-time resident of Australia. In the 1970‘s he taught Chinese literature at the Australian National University, and later was Professor of Chinese Studies at Sydney University. He lives in Canberra.)

    In this collection of essays the one on China was of most interest to me, and in particular, the one on Chinese calligraphy.  Also, unexpected as it was, of added and surprising value was the essay on Confucius. I must confess I have never fully valued the teachings of Confucius  responding more to the teachings of Lao-Tzu, readily available in the many translations of the Tao-Te Ching  (also more recently the Te-Tao-Ching).

    On reading the essay on him I readily admit to being remiss in undervaluing the teachings of Confucius and I was pleased to note that Simon Leys has added his own translation to the many other translations of the Confucian Analects. In the hope I can rectify my ill-judgement this is a book I must both own and study.

    The point of this introduction: In his essay on Confucius is the observation ‘Politics is an extension of ethics, Government is synonymous with righteousness. If the King is righteous, how could anyone dare to be crooked? ‘  To paraphrase this; if politicians are not righteous how can they appeal to the righteous in those they wish to lead?

    (I do not necessarily mean ‘righteous‘in its usual religious sense, but by what we understand as ‘common moral decency. ‘ )

    Appealing to either ignorance of the true facts, or the basest aspects of human nature, might get one elected, but at what cost?  Even Pontius Pilate’s washing of his hands, whilst giving in to the demands of a primitive-thinking mob insisting on the crucifixion of an innocent man, didn’t help him avoid the judgement of history.  And one wonders whether he would be happy to be remembered this way.  One wonders too  what history will say about our present-day politicians who are equally responsive to the loud baying of some elements of the voting public (and even some elected members in their own Party) in their treatment of the refugee problem.  I wonder also whether they measure their decisions against their own personal claims of religious-observance.  Substituting ‘politician’ for ‘rich man’ the well-known Biblical parable might be salutary: ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.’  (Matt.19.24)   Continuing the Chinese theme, one might also add the lines taken from the

    Hsin-hsin-ming (Inscribed on the Believing Mind) attributed to the third Ch’an patriarch  Seng-ts’an in the 6th Century; ‘a tenth of an inch’s difference and Heaven and Earth are set apart.’

    Not all politicians claim to be ‘religious. If they do claim to have a moral basis for their decisions, some of these elected law-makers have done things which history might view with a degree of pride, but other decisions they have made might be viewed with understandable doubt, disappointment, or even contempt.

    Those who put little value in morality may think they can escape the immediate judgement of history but they might cringe a little if they spared a thought to the possible judgement of a future generation when their decision-making faces a clearer scrutiny.  Or do they hope they may not have to face any judgement at all,  because with a bit of luck, and time on their side, morality will have no voting value whatsoever.

    We live in strange times; an age, where to use a local jargon, ‘everything hangs out; it’s there for show.’ People espouse causes, or personal states unheard of when I was younger, (and this goes as far back as the mid-twenties.)  In my childhood an aircraft passing overhead was cause for great excitement. Now just about everything is on show.  Declaration to the world at large that one is atheist, agnostic, republican or monarchist, or whatever, is there for public consumption. Also at the time of this writing politicians can raid the public purse seemingly on any flimsy pretext and they can excuse their indulgences as ‘blurred edges’ of the stated conditions. And  it is quite acceptable that many will have ‘blurred vision.’

    Returning to Simon Leys and his writings on Confucius, the following lines are a beacon of some sort, in these times of ‘anything goes.’  ‘Political authority should pertain exclusively to those who can demonstrate moral and intellectual qualifications.’

    The other line that jumped out (and many many others did). ‘Confucius: he distrusted eloquence: he despised glib talkers, he hated clever word games. For him, it would seem an agile tongue must reflect a shallow mind….’

    It would do any politician some good, if they are able, to reflect on these concerns when dealing with Asian neighbours, both near and far.  It is not usual for any of these to let ‘everything hang out,’ nor to say outright what they see and feel, but rest assured they miss very little and make judgements accordingly. Many too have been educated in the West and know us very well.

    Australian good nature, familiarly rough on the edges, might charm some, and our seemingly good-hearted hail-fellow-well-met introductions, coupled with nimble double-talk, might get a seeming warm response, but the falsity and clumsiness doesn’t fool anyone: it would be unwise to take our neighbours too lightly.

    The Hall of Uselessness, Collected Essays by Simon Leys.

    Published by Black Inc. an imprint of Schwartz Media Pty Ltd, 2011

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The apathy and hostility of South Koreans to their Northern cousins. Guest bloggers: Markus Bell and Sarah Chee

    In every way, Yu Woo-seong was a model defector. In his early 30s, he was smart, friendly, ambitious and well-liked. Despite the fact that he had been in South Korea for less than six years, Yu managed to work through his university studies while adapting remarkably well to his new environment, finishing his bachelor’s degree in 2011.

    While taking on organizing roles in a number of Seoul-based clubs and organizations created by North Korean defectors to help new arrivals, Yu gained entry into a master’s degree program, majoring in education in social welfare. Less than one year into his graduate studies he was hired by Seoul City Hall as a special attaché for North Korean defector projects. In every way, he was a model assimilation case – until early this year, when he was arrested as a North Korean spy.

    The evidence against him was based on testimony from his sister, who attempted to defect in October 2012. During an intense and highly secretive interrogation by the National Information Service (NIS) that all defectors are subject to upon entering the country, Yu’s sister, Yu Ga-ryeo, “confessed” her brother was a spy. The plot took a further twist when, on March 5, after 179 days in detention, his sister retracted her accusations against her brother, claiming that she had been subject to physical and psychological abuse at the hands of NIS agents and deceived into making the confession. A number of facts continue to be shrouded in secrecy; one detail, however, emerged as incontrovertible fact – Yu and his family are Chinese nationals who were born in North Korea.

    Further to the ambiguity regarding the significance of Yu’s ethnic background and the difficulties of potentially unravelling the twine of blood and nationhood that marks the socio-political fabric of both Koreas, are basic questions of human rights.

    In the modern, robust democracy that is South Korea, is it right – both morally and in the eyes of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) – that a person arriving and claiming asylum can be detained for up to 180 days? During this time an individual is subject to round-the-clock interrogation without legal representation. Questions including but not limited to place of origin, their motivation and method of escape, their political sympathies, their family networks, their day-to-day life in North Korea, their movements and activities since they were born, their medical history and much more are asked at all times of day and night.

    The question is not one of whether or not the government should be permitted to take the means necessary to defend its borders and citizens. Rather, it is of accountability. The period of time during which agents of the state interrogate asylum seekers continues to be cloistered from the gaze of the public in every way possible – a mysterious process through which it is ascertained – to some vague degree – that an individual is, or is not, an enemy agent and a genuine asylum-seeking North Korean.

    The general public seems at best oblivious to this process that is carried out in its name, and to some degree the absence of public discussion on this subject approaches the tacit condoning of these practices. It must be asked, given the potential physical and psychological harm a process like this can cause, whether it is any surprise that thousands of North Koreans are re-migrating to third countries as soon as they can muster enough funds.

    This is all possible because, on many levels, aspects of the Cold War linger on in Northeast Asia and cries of “spy” and “communist” still bring to attention (and to heel) the general public in passions which are only matched by their complete apathy towards matters pertaining to North Korean new arrivals, the much romanticised idea of reunification, and human rights.

    Yu’s case has underlined the apathy that is endemic in South Korean society, towards human rights and towards issues pertaining to that whose name cannot be spoken – North Korea. This disheartening fact is only compounded when we are faced with a North Korean defector community incapable or ill-prepared to fight for the human rights of defectors in South Korea (that is saying nothing about the human rights of North Koreans in North Korea), a divided leftist activist community, and questions about what constitutes a defector.

    On August 22, after eight months in solitary confinement, during which the highlight of each day was a one-hour exercise period – time also passed alone – Yu Woo-seong walked out of the In-deok detention center in south Seoul a free man. In his verdict reading earlier that day, the judge ruled Yu innocent of all charges.

    As the dust settles and the media loses interest in the latest spy scandal to capture its interest it is worth considering that perhaps Yu’s greatest crime was simply that he was more successful than other North Koreans at being a model defector. This case further highlights the need for media reporting that questions, rather than parrots the government announcements and that still values the old legal maxim “innocent until proven guilty.”

    Markus Bell is a PhD candidate at the ANU. Sarah Chee is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

  • Even-handed Tony Abbott. John Menadue

    In his toxic language over asylum seekers in the last three years, Tony Abbott has been not only derogatory about vulnerable people fleeing persecution, he has also gone out of his way to insult our neighbours in their handling of asylum seekers. He has shown no favouritism. He has insulted them all.

    Within the last two weeks he has offered ‘contrition’ to three regional leaders for his insulting language about their policies and performance. He has described his insults as really only part of a ‘rather intense party-political discussion in Australia’. That is sheer evasion. It has been Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison who have directly and personally led the attack on asylum seekers and our neighbours.

    What must regional leaders think of the intemperate behaviour of our new Prime Minister? In their minds it would not suggest strong and stable leadership on which they can rely. They would reasonably conclude that he will slip into a domestic political mood if that is necessary and ignore relations in the region.

    In Jakarta on his first visit, he had to apologise for his challenge to Indonesian sovereignty. He had earlier said that unilaterally his government would tow boats back to Indonesian waters and would intervene in Indonesia to purchase Indonesian vessels. This was clearly blatant intervention in Indonesian affairs. The Indonesian President was polite, but the real annoyance is best judged by statements by the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Members of Parliament, officials and the Indonesian media.

    Then in Bali this week at the APEC meeting he apologised to a succession of regional leaders.

    He insulted Malaysia in June 2011 when he said ‘Imagine taking boat people from Australia to Malaysia where they will be exposed almost inevitably to the prospect of caning … they will be detained, they will be tagged, they will be let out into the community and in the Malaysian community, people of uncertain immigration status are treated very, very harshly indeed.  … What is supposed to protect people in Malaysia from caning and other very harsh treatment? …. What [the Australian] government is proposing is to take people from Christmas Island, detain them, tag them and then expect that they are not going to be caned.’  Scott Morrison chimed in at the time that ‘Malaysia could not guarantee the human rights of people sent to that country’. For Scott Morrison to espouse the human rights of asylum seekers was surely breath-taking. One would not be surprised that in Bali the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Tun Razak, was left wondering about the behaviour of our new Prime Minister with his belated apology.

    After the meeting with the Malaysian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott then had to apologise to PNG Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill. During the election campaign Tony Abbott said that to buy the cooperation of PNG the Rudd Government had surrendered control of half a billion dollars annually in overseas aid to PNG. The accident-prone Julie Bishop at the same time attempted to put words into the mouth of Peter O’Neill to the same effect. Peter O’Neill responded at the time that the Opposition claims were ‘completely untrue … we are not going to put up with this nonsense’. At the same time, the PNG High Commissioner in Canberra ‘warned Australian politicians to observe international protocols and courtesies when discussing relations with other friendly sovereign nations and not impugn the dignity of our leaders who are attempting to assist Australia in this very complex regional and international issue of asylum-seekers’.

    What enormous damage Tony Abbott has done, not just to asylum seekers who seek our protection, but in relations with our key regional neighbours. The ‘rancorous’ debate we have had in Australia didn’t come out of the air. It was provoked and led by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison. It has been at great cost. Loose lips do cause damage. They can even sink ships.

    More importantly Tony Abbott should apologies to the Australian public for misleading us about his boat “policy” and suggesting that he could pull regional countries into line to do his will.

     

  • A somersault – back to business as usual. Guest blogger: Arja Keski-Nummi

    While in opposition Tony Abbot conducted a robust and aggressive policy on boats that effected Indonesia. But now he has done a somersault in order to put the Australian-Indonesian relationship back on a more even footing. As his speech at the official dinner portrays he has gone to the other extreme and engaged in rather sycophantic toadying.

    Tony Abbott’s robust approach to people smuggling and asylum issues in opposition reflected his focus on domestic politics where he was using this issue opportunistically in a volatile political environment and with one eye on the elections. As a result the foreign policy implications of his approach were held at a discount. In government this is no longer possible.

    Lets look at what he said in Opposition – “Operation Sovereign Borders” was his signature policy on how in Government the matter of boat arrivals would be handled. From the outset the discomfort of Indonesia was obvious, particularly returning boats to Indonesia, the use of transit facilities in Indonesia for the transfer of asylum seekers as well as the idea of buying boats and paying for information.  Operation Sovereign Borders seemed to rely on ignoring the sovereignty of another country.

    It was inevitable then that this first visit by Tony Abbott to Indonesia was going to put boats in the spotlight.

    So, what’s new with the Prime Minister’s visit to Jakarta? If the reporting is to be believed nothing has changed.  His speech makes it clear that what he has had to do was adapt his rhetoric to fit into a pre-existing relationship and eat his own words on what he said in Opposition.

    President Yudhoyono threw a bone in Tony Abbott’s direction and he grabbed it.

    The Australian media have likewise breathlessly reported that Jakarta has agreed to bilateral cooperation over the Bali Process and multilateral action.

    The fact is the bilateral cooperation on boats has been strong for some time.  The Report of the Expert Panel on Asylum Seekers identified that some $101 million was allocated to combatting people smuggling in the 2010-11 budget. Some $10million was specifically earmarked towards the care and maintenance of people intercepted in Indonesia. The Australian Federal Police had a budget of $12.3 million for capability and capacity building activities for law enforcement agencies in source and transit countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.   Based on these figures a conservative estimate of how much of this was for bilateral cooperation and operations in Indonesia would suggest that it would be close to $30 million across the customs, AFP and Immigration agencies. This does not include development assistance through AUSAID or defence and intelligence operations.

    So, if you were to actually analyse what has been said and agreed to regarding the government’s policy Operation Sovereign Borders by Indonesia it really amounts to much of the same. In 2010 Australia and Indonesia signed the Australia-Indonesia Implementation Framework for Cooperation on People Smuggling and Trafficking in Person which has been the main vehicle for strengthening the bilateral partnership on issues relating to people trafficking, protection claims, people smuggling and asylum seekers in ways that address the particular interests of both countries.  It is through this framework, established under the Labor Government, that practical bilateral cooperation is and will be channeled.

    The AFP will continue to pay for information through its established channels. Maybe just a little more money will flow in that direction. Boats will be intercepted and people intercepted in Indonesia will be referred to UNHCR and IOM for registration, processing and support in housing and welfare.  Protocols and practical cooperation around maritime interceptions, emergency rescues and Safety of Life at Sea will continue to be developed. The bilateral operational working groups will continue to meet and thrash out knotty issues on visas, border management and people smuggling laws.  There will be the usual give and take as assessments are made on how far a particular matter can be pushed before it backfires.

    At the same time the multilateral processes such as the Bali Process will continue to grow as Indonesia knows all too well that they are the “endpoint” of the transit movement and nothing can be achieved unless the countries en route are engaged and supported. They will continue to talk to Geneva even if we don’t because they know that UNHCR is a key to ensuring that any arrangements put in place are sound and has the imprimatur of the international community.

    In short, Tony Abbott’s visit to Indonesia was unremarkable. A few tidbits were thrown his way but when all is said and done it will be more of the same.  But the rhetoric about boats has served its domestic political purpose

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

     

     

  • Sri Lanka – the civil war may be over but peace has not returned.

    The Australian government in cooperation with the Sri Lankan government and its security services has been returning asylum seekers to Sri Lanka. They are called ‘voluntary returnees’. Increasingly however, doubts are being expressed by many commentators about the continuing plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka. In the following article, published in Catholic News on September 12, Father Regno, Director of the Catholic church’s social work in the Jaffna community, and other commentators describe the plight of many Tamils. John Menadue.

    Like many ethnic Tamils in northern Sri Lanka, for the last four years Reverend Father Regno Bernard has been waiting patiently for a sign.

    Not from his God—from his government.

    “After the war people expected a lot from the government, that there would be reconciliation, peace. But the people have been deceived,” says Father Regno, director of HUDEC Jaffna, the social arm of the Catholic Church of Jaffna.

    “There has been no sign of reconciliation.” 

    For decades the Sri Lankan government was embroiled in a brutal civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an insurgent group that fought to carve out a separate Tamil homeland in the country’s North and East until it was defeated militarily by government forces in May of 2009.

    Both sides stand accused of a range of human rights violations committed during the war, which claimed the lives of 40,000 civilians in its final days alone, according to the United Nations.

    Sri Lanka, which is poised to host the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November and serve as CHOGM’s chair for the next two years, is keen to whitewash its rights record and simply relegate past offences to the past. 

    But international rights monitors and Western governments have repeatedly called on President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government to take steps toward allowing a credible, independent investigation into war crimes alleged to have been committed by the country’s security forces during the final stages of the conflict.

    Its failure to do so has left a huge rift between Tamils and the ethnic Sinhalese-dominated security forces. This has been exacerbated by the fact that the government continues to push stubbornly forward with a policy aimed at achieving reconciliation in former conflict areas through economic development alone. 

    Critics contend that Colombo has interpreted the phrase “road to reconciliation” rather too literally in this case, focusing solely on improving infrastructure such as highways while neglecting Tamils’ calls for a degree of autonomy and accountability for war crimes.

    Driving through the Vanni, the sparsely populated swath of land that formerly served as the stronghold of the LTTE, recent cosmetic upgrades are readily apparent. A proliferation of newly opened banks, military-run shops, and billboards advertising everything from telecoms to fizzy drinks to construction materials now line an ever expanding network of freshly sealed roads.

    “The development is a façade,” says Father Regno. The government is busy “carpeting the road” when what is needed is a “lasting political solution.”

    Such feelings of disillusion run deep in the North.

    Northern Tamils resent that the government has not scaled back its military presence, that Sinhalese are imported from the South for the vast majority of skilled jobs in infrastructure development, that Tamils cannot file complaints at the police station in their own language, that lands seized during the war for security purposes have not been returned, that more has not been done to encourage investment and the creation of jobs, and that harassment and rights violations committed by the security forces continue unchecked.

    “It’s not only about [having enough] rice and curry,” says Eran Wickramartne, a Sinhalese Member of Parliament with the opposition United National Party.

    It’s also about “a feeling of ‘I belong’, that ‘I am respected’, that ‘I have dignity’, that ‘my ideas and proposals count’. ‘Respect for my language, respect for my culture’. Reconciliation is about that. There has to be a holistic approach. I think that is where the government has fallen short,” says Wickramartne. 

    The problem with the government’s approach is that “development is not inclusive” and Tamils are not being consulted in decision making processes, says Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Center for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo-based research group.

    “The population still feels it is being treated with suspicion,” he says. 

    Civilians have to inform the military if they want to hold a school program or sporting event – any kind of gathering that could “arouse suspicion” – and then invite the local commander as guest of honor, says Saravanamuttu. In practice, this means any unsanctioned gathering of more than five people is banned.

    It is “such an outrageous and unacceptable rule,” says Jehan Perera, Executive Director of the National Peace Council.

    The omnipresent feeling of being watched by Big Brother pervades almost every aspect of life for Tamils in the North. But the most glaring manifestation of this is that individuals even suspected of having prior links to the LTTE are closely monitored, subjected to frequent questioning, forced to act as informants and—in some cases—subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of the security forces.

    Amitha (a pseudonym) joined the LTTE in 1995, but returned to civilian life in 2005 when she married. After the war she was ordered to check in with the military twice a week at a civil affairs office in Jaffna.

    “On these visits I was sexually abused,” she says. “One guy would put me up against a wall and touch me from behind. He tried to kiss me, but I would not allow it. So he would put his hands on my skirt and pull it up and touch me inappropriately.”

    When she started missing appointments, they came looking for her.

    “One day when I was alone at my parent’s house a soldier came. He tried to grab me. He said, ‘You have to go inside your room and take off all your clothes. I have permission to examine your scars.”

    Amitha refused and pointed out that the civil affairs office would have sent a female officer to conduct this kind of examination if it were legitimate.

    “Finally, he said, ‘If you are not going to do this, I am going to use your thighs’,” she says.

    Amitha ran away, and has been in hiding ever since. 

    Her story, while not uncommon, is one of the more blatant examples of how the government is failing to win Tamil hearts and minds.

    Indeed, the government’s policy has been to categorically deny there is a prevailing culture of silence and impunity for sexual violence in the North.

    Such reports of torture and gender-based violence are “based on hearsay,” says military spokesman Ruwan Wanigasooriya. 

    Many independent observers agree that a lasting political solution can only be achieved once a measure of autonomy is granted to the Tamil-dominated areas in the North and East. To this end, the Sri Lankan government has faced significant international pressure to hold Northern Council elections, which have been slated for September 21.

    “The fact that the government has decided to go along with the Northern Council election is a positive step forward,” says Wickramartne. “It is long overdue.”

    But questions have arisen about just how much power Colombo is actually willing to share. Most discussions on this topic tend to gravitate toward the 13th amendment, which in theory grants police and land powers to the provincial councils. But the government has threatened to dilute these powers, while some observers claim that in practice the 13th amendment already lacks teeth.

    The notion that the amendment would guarantee the Northern Council some level of autonomy is flawed because “everything has to be approved by the central government,” says Thevanayagam Premanand, executive editor of the Jaffna-based Tamil language newspaper Udthayan. “Without the approval of the governor, [the council] cannot pass any law.” 

    “The 13th amendment, as it is today, is not being implemented as it should be,” says Wickramartne. The central government needs to come to terms with the idea of “sharing power with the periphery,” he says.

    The issue of which body controls state land is the key to the discussion, says Kumaravadivel Guruparan, a lecturer in the Department of Law at the University of Jaffna.

    Sri Lanka’s military appears to have been given carte blanche in terms of seizing land, and in the aftermath of the civil war has used lands originally acquired for security purposes to set up hotels, plantations, tour operations and more. This, of course, has aroused the ire of local Tamils.

    “How do these amount to public security?” says Guruparan.

    In the most high profile land-grabbing case, over 1,000 complaints have been filed by property owners demanding compensation or the return of their lands in an approximately 2,430-hectare area, which the government has announced it will retain possession of on the Jaffna peninsula. This area includes the large Palay military cantonment as well as the military-operated Thalsevana Holiday Resort.

    “Those lands cannot be released due to development plans for [an] airport and harbor,” says Wanigasooriya, adding that military bases such as Palay are “essential” for national security.

    The central government, which is primarily concerned with maintaining stability in the former conflict areas as well as pandering to its Sinhalese voting base, is unlikely to budge on the issue of control over state land. 

    “There is a belief that if you give the north land and police powers they will run away with it,” says Saravanamuttu. The primary fear, he says, is that Tamils will once again try to set up an independent state, using land powers acquired through the 13th amendment as a legal means to unify provinces in the North and East.

    These fears are largely exaggerated, says Saravanamuttu, but the current government is willing to do “whatever necessary to hold the support of the Sinhala-Buddhist constituency.”

    When asked about these fears, the government is quick to point the finger at the Tamil diaspora.

    “There are many groups based in other countries propagating the ideology of separatism,” says Wanigasooriya. “We cannot afford to let our guard down, not yet.” 

    The decision to host CHOGM in Sri Lanka is a huge feather in the cap for the Rajapaksa government, despite the fact that the upcoming summit has served as a talking point for critics to refocus attention on Sri Lanka’s reluctance to be held accountable for rights abuses.

    “Certainly Sri Lanka has to make good on its human rights record,” says Wickramartne. “By our own standards we have fallen short.”

    “We are hopeful [that] it is possible for all communities to live together,” says Wanigasooriya. 

    But for people like Amitha, who is desperately trying to secure asylum in a European country, the notion of reconciliation is a hard sell.

    “I can never go back home because I know what happens to female ex-cadres,” she says. “I would rather commit suicide.”

    Father Regno, too, is not optimistic. Over a cup of milky sweet tea he offers one last musing.

    “Without a political solution, we have no future.”

  • One-liners won’t work in Jakarta. John Menadue

    In his meeting with President Yudohono tomorrow, Tony Abbott will find that his one-liners that have been so successful in Australian politics will not have traction in Jakarta. It will require a lot more subtlety than ‘stop the boats’ and ‘axe the tax’.

    Our Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop has already been shown how Indonesian society and politics work. She was outflanked by the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Marty Natalegawa, who completed a doctorate at the Australian National University in Canberra. He understands Australia and Australian politics very well. At her meeting with Marty Natalegawa in New York, Julie Bishop failed to appreciate that the rhetoric of the coalition about border protection will not work in the complex environment of Indonesia.

    In opposition, Julie Bishop kept repeating the mantra that the coalition ‘wasn’t seeking Indonesian permission, we are seeking their understanding’ on border protection and the turn-back of boats.The Indonesian Foreign Minister clearly  rejected unilateral action on border protection and turn-backs at sea. But Julie Bishop didn’t get the message. She again attempted to put an Australian domestic gloss on the meeting with Marty Natalegawa. We now find that the Indonesian record of the meeting that was made public spells  out the Indonesian position very clearly. Marty Natalegawa emphasised that “unilateral steps” such as “tow back the boats” would risk “cooperation and trust” between the two countries. He said that if Australia and Indonesia were to address these problems we should do it as joint chairpersons of the Bali Process.

    The first serious encounter between the two foreign ministers was not promising.

    In his meeting with President Yudohono it is to be hoped that Tony Abbott can undo some of the damage that Julie Bishop has caused and build a trusting relationship with Indonesia. I suggest there are three things that Tony Abbott will need to keep in mind.

    The first is that President Yudohono is a good friend of Australia and he will be very polite. But he is criticised in Jakarta by many as being too friendly and accommodating towards us. His term expires next year and the next president, possibly Joko Widodo, may not be as accommodating. His reputation is that he is more nationalistic and protectionist. The real readings about Indonesian attitudes to Australia will not come from polite discussions with President Yudohono but will come from ministers like Marty Natalegawa, Indonesian members of parliament and officials. We have already seen that in the text of conversation between Marty Natalegawa and Julie Bishop. Only last week, Tantowi Yahya, a prominent member of the Indonesian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Commission, said that ‘Operation Sovereign Borders was offensive and [we] won’t accept it’.

    The second is that countries like Indonesia and Malaysia don’t take the same legalistic approach to international relations that Australia often does. Has Tony Abbott the subtlety to understand this? Trust is so important as the basis for developing good relations. For example, the Jakarta Declaration of 20 August 2013 on Irregular Movements of People has been criticised in Australia because it was not legally binding. But with Indonesia and other countries in our region, most progress is made on the basis of trusting one another. With Indonesia, the political and moral leader within ASEAN, the way we build trust with Indonesia will be crucial.

    Thirdly, Indonesia is no longer a highly-centralised political country as it was under President Suharto where word from the top carried the day. Indonesia has over 500 local government administrations with widely varying autonomy. It is a lesson which our politicians, business people and our media will have to learn.

    The rhetoric of Australian domestic politics that Tony Abbott has so successfully used will not work in Jakarta. This meeting with President Yudohono will be a defining meting for him.

     

  • Reflections on the Senate Election. Guest blogger: David Combe

    David Combe was National Secretary of the ALP, 1973 to 1981

    As the composition of the new Senate which will sit from July 1, 2014, becomes clearer, my mind goes back to two earlier Senates which took office 40 and 30 years earlier, and which were elected in double dissolutions of the Parliament.

    The election of May 18, 1974 is mainly remembered because it made Gough Whitlam the first Federal Labor Leader to take the party to victory at successive elections. At the time, our joy was tempered by the narrowness of the majority achieved in the House of Representatives (just 5), but in reality there had been very little slippage in the vote for the Government. (It is seldom remembered that despite everything which the party had going for it when it won its first Government in 23 years at the election of December 2, 1972, the House of Representatives majority – only 9 – was much smaller than might have been expected).

    Few people, however, recall that at that election for all Members and Senators, the Whitlam-led ALP completely wiped out the scourge of the DLP which lost all of its 5 Senate seats, and which had kept Labor from office at so many elections in the ’50s and ’60s. In doing so, Whitlam had ended the profound power of the man Tony Abbott acknowledges as one of the two major political influences upon him – B.A. Santamaria.  (The other, of course, is John Howard of whom Abbott once said “My greatest wish is that I could be half the man John Howard is; then I would be twice the man I am”).   Without the presence of the DLP, the composition of that 1974 Senate was ALP 29, Coalition 29, and Others 2. In the joint sitting of both Houses which followed the election, PM Whitlam was able to pass the legislation, including that for Medibank, which the previous Senate had twice rejected. With a Senate such as that elected a few weeks ago, a Government clearly elected, but with a small majority, might be unable to gain passage at a Joint Sitting for legislation endorsed by the voters at a double dissolution.

    Fast forward 10 years.  The double dissolution called by Bob Hawke at the height of his popularity was the first held under reforms of the electoral system which included public funding, an enlarged House of Representatives and Senate and, most significantly as it has turned out, the above-the-line Senate ballot paper allowing voters to complete just one box and thereby leaving the distribution of his/her preferences to the Party (or Group) which had received the first preference vote. The claimed rationale was to reduce informal votes for the Senate, but I am sure that those who negotiated the changes between the major parties had not overlooked the lure of more primary votes, and therefore more public funding, going their way.

    Since 1984 I have always remembered how appalled I was to find that ALP preferences in New South Wales where I voted had put into the Senate a Liberal instead of Peter Garrett at a time when he was a widely recognised advocate and articulate voice for environmental, privacy and other leftist causes, and who narrowly missed out on election as a Nuclear Disarmament Party candidate. As a consequence, I resolved never again to allow anybody from “Sussex Street” or any other party to choose my preferences. So I have become one of those annoying folk who hold up other voters on Election Day by assiduously filling out all boxes below the line, and then checking that no mistake has been made. Accordingly, on September 7, I numbered 110 boxes backwards eliminating in rough order those I most did NOT want to accidentally benefit from my vote.

    As we now look at what has proven to be a disastrous system giving us in our Senate a procession of accidental ‘oncers’ elected through deals allowing them to win election with a minuscule percentage of the primary vote, we need to ask some serious questions……

    1. What were the true motives of those who negotiated the original changes back in 1984? A cynic could be forgiven for thinking that one was the prospect of dividing up the Senate between both sides of politics, and providing a repository (or should I make that ‘depositary’?) for officials and others whom the factions controlling the parties need to ‘reward’ or want to move out. Certainly I do not see equivalents of Gareth Evans or Lionel Murphy emerging through the system on the Labor side, and it was a joke to realise that the obviously very talented and worthy Arthur Sinodinos was so low on the Coalition ticket in NSW as to be at serious risk of missing out.

    2. Was another incentive the extra public funding which was expected to flow from the carve-up between the major parties referred to above? If so, it has clearly failed. The system has become a potential lottery win for small groups. In NSW, the Liberal Democrats (whoever they are) by drawing first place on the NSW Senate ballot paper, and registering a name which apparently confused Liberal voters who did not bother to follow the how to vote card of the party they intended to support, will receive almost $2.50 for each of the almost 500,000 primary votes they recorded. No doubt this will more than adequately compensate them for the invisible campaign they had to fund. Most of this, presumably, should be going to the Liberal Party. And in my old state, South Australia, the ALP will have less funding from the Senate result than Nick Xenophon’s Anti-Pokies crusade.

    3. Will the Abbott (or some future) Government face the prospect of having to make a choice between giving up on legislation for which it has a very clear mandate because it cannot get it through the Senate, or running the very risky gamble of a double dissolution (and lower Senate quotas) at which it might face an even more unpredictable Senate which makes a joint sitting perilous?

    4. Can we really say that a ‘preferential’ system which allows genuinely “faceless” men and women to determine where preferences flow is any more a democratic expression of the people’s will than the so-called elections we so readily criticise in autocracies?

    Everybody except, probably, the direct beneficiaries of the present system, advocate change. Minds better-informed and sharper than mine will address what that change should be. However, at least two necessary components to a simplification of the system occur to me.

    First, our funding system sets a minimum first preference vote requirement of 4% as the basis for ANY payment of the current $2.488 per Senate vote. Surely that same 4% is a fair minimum requirement for a group to remain in the count. For example, the German elections of a few days ago resulted in Chancellor Angela Merkel a doing so well that her traditional coalition partner, the Free Democrats, failed to secure 5% of the vote and were therefore denied any representation. The German lower house, too, is elected on a Proportional Representation system.  A 4% minimum requirement would eliminate many minor groups from running without denying the rights of genuine minor parties and independents offer themselves for election. After all, serious one state only candidate such as Nick Xenophon in South Australia will always poll well north of that 4% – as did Brian Harradine in Tasmania for many years

    Secondly, as a minimum to ensuring that voters express a genuine preference, surely it is reasonable that all boxes above the line be numbered in order of preference. After all, a 4% minimum threshold for survival should significantly reduce the size of Senate ballot papers. Of course most voters will follow the preferences shown on the how to vote cards of the parties they support, but at least the parties themselves would have to be transparent about their preference recommendations and publicly accountable for justifying  those recommendations.

     

  • Is it class warfare or an appeal for fairness? John Menadue

    It depends on your point of view. Conservatives and the wealthy often see attacks on their privileged position as class war. Others see it as the pursuit of justice and fairness.

    Let’s look at some who have recently spoken about class warfare.

    • Andrew Forrest said that the Mining Super Profits Tax was class warfare.
    • Christopher Pyne said that asking privately funded schools to reveal financial details was class warfare.
    • The education activist, Kevin Donnelly said that the Gonski Report was class warfare.
    • Some business representatives have described the new Fair Work Act as class warfare.
    • Both Mathias Cormann,  and journalist Robert Gottliebsen, described government reforms to reduce tax concessions for high income earners as class warfare.
    • Peter Dutton, the new Minister for Health said that reducing the tax concessions for high income earners in private health insurance was class warfare.
    • Piers Akerman said that the government’s attempt to reduce abuse under the Medicare Chronic Disease Dental Scheme was class warfare.

    But some senior ALP members have also joined in the fray.

    • Martin Ferguson warned his colleagues that ‘the class warfare rhetoric that started with the mining dispute of 2010 must cease’. The mining industry admited Martin Ferguson.
    • Simon Crean said that the Gillard Government’s continual amendments to superannuation were class war.

    I have no doubt that the slogan ‘class warfare’ is designed to divert attention from privilege, particularly inherited privilege and middle-class welfare in Australia.

    • The tax concessions for superannuation contributions and tax-free payouts for those over 60 massively favours the wealthy. It is estimated that the cost to revenue is about $5 billion p.a. At every step attempts to chip away at these benefits for high income groups has been greeted with shrillness by the banking and superannuation industry. Tony Abbott has said that he will not change superannuation arrangements for three years. Chris Bowen from the western suburbs  topped this by proposing not to do anything about this middle-class welfare for the next five years.
    • Tony Abbott’s paid maternity leave scheme will massively benefit high income mothers.
    • Tony Abbott has promised to remove the means testing on the private health insurance rebate which will again overwhelmingly benefit high income earners.
    • The CEO of Telstra has a salary of $8 million p.a. The CEO of the Commonwealth Bank gets $7.8 million. The US citizen with disproportionate media power in Australia Rupert Murdoch gets $30 million p.a. plus dividends. A high school principal receives $150,000 p.a., a senior nurse $72,500 and a receptionist $47,000 p.a.
    • Andrew Leigh has pointed out that since 1980 Australian inequality has risen. The income share of the richest 1% (those today with incomes over $200,000) has doubled while the share of the top 0.1% (incomes above $700,000) has tripled. The ratio of CEO pay to the pay of an average worker has quadrupled. Ten people on the latest BRW rich list would qualify for the all-time Australian rich list.
    • Yet income support for people who can’t find work, Newstart, has fallen from 54% to 40% of the minimum wage since 1996. Australia has the fifth lowest unemployment benefit rate among OECD countries.

    Whilst the economy has been growing strongly and most Australians have improved their standard of living, there is not much doubt who has been winning the class warfare. Warren Buffett, the mega-rich US investor, put it recently ‘There’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war and we’re winning’. It’s not as bad in Australia as the US but the trend is the same.

    The rich and the powerful are winning the class warfare in Australia, but they do their level best to divert attention and suggest that their critics are jealous.

    We should not be diverted by the defenders of wealth and privilege attacking those who criticize them. What is important is the common good – that fairness and equal opportunities are important for economic, social and personal reasons.

     

  • Fukushima – the trouble when regulators and operators are too close. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

    Speaking in support of Tokyo’s bid for the 2020 Olympics, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on 7 September that the situation at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power station was ‘under control’. Recent disclosures, however, about leaks of radioactive water from storage tanks at the site and the contamination of ground water flowing into the ocean make his claim appear brave at best and dishonest at worst. The ‘everything is fine’ stance means the government is still relying primarily on the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., to see through the clean up and decommissioning process. Though TEPCO might be expected to know more than anyone else about the situation at Fukushima, its performance so far does not inspire confidence.

     

    The problems associated with making safe a large and severely damaged nuclear power station, containing six reactors, are obviously highly technical in nature as well as being unprecedented in scale. I am no expert on the nuclear physics or the engineering involved, but given what has happened so far it seems prudent to pay attention to warnings that are emanating from those who prudently opposed ever allowing a nuclear power industry in such an earthquake-prone country. I do have some knowledge of the way regulators and corporations interact in Japan ­– often so cozily it is hard to tell them apart – and this is another reason for listening to critics who say TEPCO must not be left to its own devices.

     

    When the earthquake and giant tsunami struck two years ago, three of Fukushima’s six nuclear reactors were on line. The fuel rods in all three subsequently melted down releasing high-level radiation that contaminated a vast area of land around the plant. Two other reactors, units 5 and 6, were in cold shutdown for maintenance. That left unit 4, which was offline, with all its fuel rods transferred to the spent fuel pool. The building housing this unit was badly damaged and still lacks a roof. In order to make it safe the fuel rods inside must be removed – an operation that itself poses serious risks.

     

    TEPCO all along has maintained a sanguine commentary about the situation at unit 4. On 14 February it reported that the temperature of the spent fuel pool was stable at 25-30 degrees Celsius and that the fuel rods were ‘secured inside the rack’ and well covered by water. The building, it said, was standing upright and not on a lean. On 26 April TEPCO reported that a structural analysis had confirmed that the building, including the spent fuel pool, which is raised above the ground, would not collapse even if struck by another earthquake of seismic intensity 6. It restated this opinion on 29 June.

     

    But if TEPCO is the government’s main source of information, there is evidence that even members of the government are struggling to achieve an understanding of the real situation. Doubts about Abe’s grasp of the facts have been aired in various quarters, including in the Asahi Shimbun of 20 September. It noted that, after a visit to the Fukushima plant, Abe told reporters: ‘The effects of contaminated water have been completely blocked within a range of 0.3 square kilometres within the harbor’. The newspaper commented that ‘although Abe used the term “blocked”, the silt fences in the harbour cannot prevent all water from flowing out into the ocean. Radioactive materials pass through the silt fences and mix with the ocean, becoming so diluted that they are difficult to detect. Even Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the top government spokesman, said the measures at the Fukushima site were not stopping all of the water within the harbour.’ Experts also criticized the outdated sampling methods being used, which can result in a tenfold variation in measures of radiation.

     

    So who really knows and who is telling the truth?

     

    Various anti-nuclear blog sites are sounding the alarm. Harvey Wasserman, a journalist-activist writing at www.globalresearch.ca claims the world is ‘within two months of what could be human kind’s most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis’. He goes on: ‘Fukushima’s owner, Tokyo Electric (Tepco), says that within as few as 60 days it may begin trying to remove more than 1300 spent fuel rods from a badly damaged pool perched 100 feet in the air. The pool rests on a badly damaged building that is tilting, sinking and could easily come down in the next earthquake, if not on its own. Some 400 tons of fuel in that pool could spew out more than 15,000 times as much radiation as was released at Hiroshima’. Wasserman’s claims, as we have seen, directly contradict TEPCO’S public statements, but he is not the only voice questioning the operator’s credibility. The website www.fukuleaks.org cites concerns about the rods having shifted out of alignment, and thus being difficult to grasp and remove, and corrosion of their protective casings. The greatest danger would arise if the fuel rods came into contact with each other or were exposed to the air. Some activists are calling for an international task force of experts to take over control, though there are no concrete moves in that direction. In the latest English-language update on the status of the power station provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency by Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority none of these specific concerns are addressed. It mere states that the removal of spent fuel from unit 4 will start in November and concentrates instead on the leaking water issue – in a sense, yesterday’s problem.

    (The update is at www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2013/fukushimaupdate160913.pdf)

     

    With so much conflicting information and so many compromising factors involved (the Japanese government now locked in to Abe’s ‘under control’ mantra and TEPCO keen to deflect further criticism and keep a lid on the spiraling costs of decommissioning) it would be foolhardy not to consider the situation at Fukushima both serious and unresolved. Insufficient progress has not been made towards building trust to justify any other conclusion.

     

    Walter Hamilton, a former ABC Tokyo correspondent, is the author of Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story (NewSouth Books).

     

     

     

     

  • How the Australian media frames North Korea and impedes constructive relations. Guest blogger: Dr Bronwen Dalton

     

    An analysis of the last three years of coverage of North Korea in the Australian media shows a tendency in Australian coverage to uncritically reproduce certain metaphors that linguistically frame North Korea in ways that imply North Korea is dangerous and provocative; irrational; secretive; impoverished and totalitarian. This frame acts to delegitimize, marginalise and demonise North Korea and close off possibilities for more constructive engagement. In the event of tensions, such a widespread group think around North Korea could mean such tensions could quickly and dramatically escalate.

    This analysis of media coverage about North Korea appearing in three major Australian media outlets, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and transcripts of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) over the 3-year period from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2012 shows that North Korea is rarely referred to as a country or its rulers as a government.. The analysis also reveals a number of dominant metaphors: ‘North Korea as a military threat’ (conflict metaphor); ‘North Korea as unpredictable, irrational and ruthless’ (psychopathology metaphor); ‘North Korea as isolated and secretive’ (pariah metaphor); ‘North Korea as a cruel dystopia’ (Orwellian metaphor); ‘North Korea as impoverished’ (basket case metaphor).

    Such metaphors play an influential role in shaping public perceptions. In their largely uncritical reproduction of metaphors that linguistically frame North Korea, the Australian media reinforces a negative, often adversarial orientation towards North Korea. Without a change to the North Korean frame, resourced and evidence-based intervention is more likely to fail due to donor disengagement. We also run the risk of dehumanising the North Korean people and, in the event of conflict, humanitarian imperatives are more easily pushed aside in favour of the option to send in the drones with civilian deaths recast as collateral damage.

    Metaphors

    Conflict metaphor: By far, the most common conflict metaphor across the three news outlets used was ‘nuclear’, which appeared more than any other conflict metaphor

    Psychology metaphor: A common theme in the media is that North Korea suffers from some sort of pathological narcissistic disorder, with portrayals of North Korea as seeking attention or as exploiting the threat of nuclear retaliation to extricate more aid. While the extent of North Korea’s nuclear capability is not categorically known, its nuclear capacity is consistently assumed, with references to a possible ‘nuclear holocaust’ with some reports making the claim (which is highly unlikely) that a North Korean nuclear warhead carrying a rocket could reach Australia.

    Pariah metaphor: Numerous references to the pariah metaphor were found in the sample. The word secret or secretive was the most common, other common words included hermit, dark and closed.

    Economic basket case metaphor: The sample also contained a number of root metaphors relating to ‘North Korea as a basket case’. Food—or lack of—was most commonly discussed.

    Orwellian metaphor: A common theme was that North Korea is some kind of dystopia. The most commonly found term was ‘dictator.

    So North Korea is depicted as an isolated and backward country run by a tyrant with comically eccentric, excessive tastes. His regime consistently lies and cheats and is driven by a childish narcissism that North Korea suffers from some sort of pathological narcissistic disorder, with portrayals of North Korea as seeking attention or as exploiting the threat of nuclear retaliation to extricate more aid. This is not a balanced consideration of North Korean motives and instead serves to make us more oblivious to that country’s point of view.  A failure to understand North Korea’s interests has serious implications for how Australia (and her allies) responds to North Korea.

    The theoretical and empirical evidence is that interest-based approaches to international conflict management are the most effective.  The ample body of international relations literature on conflict resolution also supports the propition that integrative or collaborative approaches to conflict management have better outcomes than competitive approaches. The literature proposes that the key to long-term conflict transformation is recognizing others’ interests and concerns as valid. But by reinforcing a negative, often adversarial orientation towards North Korea, the media effectively demonises all of North Korea’s interests, closes off the possibility of engagement- It effectively obscures our ability to see more creative, positive conflict management possibilities.

    Despite the importance of presenting informed coverage, due to a widespread lack of knowledge on North Korea, the Australian news media continues to offer fragments of (mis)understanding to the general public. It is from discourse in the media that the wider public picks up vital cues about how their individual interests and the groups they are concerned with might be affected by North Korea, and what the national interest might be.  The text and images on North Korea emphasize the Otherness of the enemy which is fundamental to wartime discourses because it can create the preconditions necessary for military action. The effect is to lock North Korea and the civilised West into a mutually antagonistic relationship that precludes any solution other than the enemy being eliminated either through conversion or destruction

    The Australian media would be substantially enlivened by more stories illustrating actual individual and community life to give a human face to North Korea and offer the Australian public a less singular, monotonous depiction of a country so often written about, with such a limited lexicon. Such journalism would alter the way we view North Korea and ameliorate the tendency to see it as an adversarial, irrational, rogue state populated by brainwashed citizens devoted to the cult of the Kims.It also should seek to better capture some of the complexities, and differences of opinion that make the North Korean problem so difficult to resolve, rather than making it still harder to solve by demonising coverage which effectively rules North Korea out as a legitimate negotiating partner.

    Without a timely change to the North Korean frame, resourced and evidence-based intervention is more likely to fail due to donor disengagement. We also run the risk of dehumanising the North Korean people and, in the event of conflict, human shields could easily be recast as collateral damage. In such a scenario, humanitarian imperatives are more easily cast aside in favour of the option to send in the drones.

    Dr Bronwen Dalton is the Coordinator of the Not-For Profit and Community Management Program at the University of Technology, Sydney

    ……

  • Frontier War and asylum seekers. John Menadue

    Launch of the 2013-14 Catholic Social Justice Statement by John Menadue 11 September 2013

    This statement follows the proud tradition of the Catholic Church in Australia since 1940 of calling Catholics and all Australians to act for social justice. The 65  statements  issued over the years cover a great range of social justice issues – poverty, violence, peace, environment, indigenous people, ageing and inequality. Many years ago GK Chesterton referred with admiration to the practice of Australian Catholics in their Justice Sundays and annual statements.

    This year is no exception with the call to fight global poverty. The famous parable of Lazarus and the rich man calls all Christians to a commitment to work for the poor and the marginalised. As the statement says, whilst progress against world poverty has been made, major problems still remain.

    • By 2015 almost a billion people will be living on an income of less than $1.25 per day.
    • Over a quarter of a million women in our time die in child birth.
    • Eight million children die every year from malnutrition and preventable disease.

    As the statement so eloquently puts it, with 20% of the world’s poor living in our region ‘Australia is the rich man and Lazarus is at our gate”. Unfortunately our politicians keep slashing our ODA budget.

    It is an honour for me to launch this statement. Let me congratulate the authors and designers who have drafted this excellent and timely statement. We are in your debt.

    The Catholic Church remains for me the greatest influence for good in the world.

    That influence is part of what Cardinal John Henry Newman described as the great beauty of the Catholic Church and not just in the lives of its saints or in its art.

    No single institution in the world is doing more than the Catholic Church about poverty, social and economic self-enhancement of deprived people, especially through education and particularly for women, in societies where they have little place. It is also shown in the care of refugees, people with AIDS, lepers and outcasts of many kinds, and carrying out what is a fully developed understanding of total human development.

    But unfortunately that wonderful story is often  lost and as we are ashamed of the revelations out of the Melbourne parliamentary enquiry and the Newcastle royal commission about grievously failed leadership of our church on sexual abuse. The way the Church sees itself is not the same as that perceived by many in the public square.

    But despite that, I think we are getting a spring back in our steps and the reason is Pope Francis as he speaks of the poor, refugees, prisoners, the oppression of women, the marginalised and people of different faiths.

    There is a lot we can do to build on the church’s remarkable record in works of justice, mercy and charity. I suggest that we can do two things now – clear up our amnesia about our past treatment of indigenous people and lead the way on refugees.

    The Frontier War

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

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

    Refugees

    A major world problem we all face is what Pope Francis called the ‘globalisation of indifference’ to refugees. There are 45 million refugees and displaced people in the world. And the number is increasing daily. Just think of Syria. So often refugees and boat people are seen as an Australian problem when it is a major global problem.

    The Torah which is a key part of our Jewish/Christian tradition, places great store on welcoming the stranger. The Torah repeats its exhortation more than 36 times ‘remember the stranger for you were strangers in Egypt’. This caring for the stranger is repeated more than any of the other biblical laws, including observance of the Sabbath and dietary requirements. As Leviticus 19 puts it ‘When an alien resides with you in your land, do not molest him. You should treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the native-born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself, for you too were aliens in the land of Egypt.’ The gospel of Luke asks ‘Who is my neighbour?’ and tells us the story of the Good Samaritan. Matthew’s Gospel tells us what may be an apocryphal story about the holy family’s flight from the ‘slaughter of the innocents’ to safety in Egypt. Perhaps flight by donkey is OK but not by boat!

    Australia has a proud record of accepting 750,000 refugees since WWII. They have been marvellous settlers. But today in our political debate we have plumbed to a depth most of us would have thought impossible. This poisoning of our generous and humanitarian instincts has not happened overnight. It started with Tampa in 2001 and “children overboard”. We have been on a slippery slide ever since. There has been a failure of moral leadership, and not just by politicians.

    We must change the present conversation. We cannot indulge our parochial stupor when we face a world where people are being killed and persecuted.  This critical issue of how public opinion can become more generous and thoughtful will take time and a lot of effort. But it must be done. The Catholic Church and others must play a vital role. Our political leaders keep appealing to our darker angels. But we all have better angels that Abraham Lincoln referred to which will respond to strong and generous leadership.

    Pablo Casals puts that appeal in different words.

    ‘Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness.

    If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most.

    It is not complicated, but it takes courage.

    It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.

    In the present toxic environment, governments are determined to curb boat arrivals. But I suggest there are still many things that we could do with strong leadership, courage and with good management.

    • Negotiate orderly departure arrangements with refugee source countries like Sri Lanka, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to provide alternate pathways.
    • Negotiate upstream processing in cooperation with UNHCR with Malaysia and Indonesia.
    • Increase our refugee intake to over 30,000 p.a. which would still be short of the Indochina intake of the early 1980s when adjusted for our population increase.
    • Abolish mandatory detention which is cruel, expensive and does not deter.
    • Permit asylum seekers on bridging visas to work in the community.

    Our supposed land of the fair go and the second chance is punishing some of the most vulnerable people on this earth. With good leadership across the community, including the churches, we must change the conversation. Pope Francis is showing us that leadership.

    Lebanon with a population of just over 4 million people is providing protection for one million Syrians. Pakistan, one of the poorest countries in the world has 2 million refugees within its borders. Their generosity shames us.

    Importantly we need to do and show that the Church is not preoccupied with sex and gender and concerned to protect its own name at the expense of those that we have harmed.

    Also we need to remind ourselves that despite our concern about current social and political trends, we do have a record of improvement in many areas. In my youth sectarianism and racism was rife. We have broken the back of those two vices although not completely free of them.

    This social justice statement can be part of a process to change the narrative and our own behaviour, and highlight again what John Henry Newman called the beauty of the Catholic Church in the fields as justice, mercy and charity.

    The Catholic Church, although wounded, remains for me the greatest influence for good in the world. I see and learn of it every day.  We must never take that record for granted. It is always work in progress.

    It is my honour to launch this statement

     

     

     

  • Where ignorance is bliss … (’tis foolish to be wise) Guest blogger Arja Keski-Nummi

     

    The Abbott government appears to have signaled that they do not believe in  nation building.

     

    They have created a Department of Immigration and Border Protection and moved the vital settlement support services from this portfolio to be lost in a larger  welfare-oriented agency.  The fact is that migration and settlement are two sides of the same coin and it is this symbiotic relationship that has been fundamental to making sure that Australia’s migration programs have been the envy of the rest of the world.

    We now risk losing that competitive edge at a time when most countries recognize that what they need more than anything else is to attract young, skilled migrants.

     

    To some, it may appear that the new arrangements make sense.  But we would do well to remember history a little bit. The last time Immigration was split and settlement moved into a social service portfolio was under Gough Whitlam when migration reached historically low levels in Australia.  It was not a good move then and it is not a good move now. We again risk jeopardising the very success of our migration programs.

     

    Symbolism matters and what Tony Abbott has done also says to us that migration is no longer about nation building but  it is something to fear, which is why we need our borders protected!

     

    From what? Growth? Wealth generation?  Because that is what a successful immigration program has delivered to Australia for close to seventy years.

     

    He has also shown how shallow his understanding of migration and its role in Australia’s wealth is. He has been hijacked by his own mantra on boats to ignore the more important part of the portfolio – the migration program.

     

    By the creation of a Department  of Immigration and Border Protection he has effectively reversed the underlying philosophy of immigration as a nation building program (remember the old adage populate or perish – it is as true today for different reason as it was immediately after the second world war nearly 70 years ago) into a an essentially militarised border security portfolio.

     

    One of the reasons Australia has been so good at immigration is that we have always recognized that the migration experience does not end with a visa or entry to Australia. Its success has been how we assist in the difficult first months and years of resettlement. Having the space to learn English early and to be assisted in understanding how to negotiate a different and sometimes culturally incomprehensible social services and employment landscape are fundamental to this adjustment.

     

    For the modest amount of outlays allocated to the programs we get a big bang for the buck. These are not welfare services – they are about making the immigration program a success. We have the evidence after thirty years of  a structured settlement support program that the earlier new arrivals have settled and the earlier they are able to move into jobs and into education the faster will they and their families be contributing to the Australian community.

     

    Malcolm Fraser over thirty years ago understood this when he commissioned the Galbally report – the foundation for many of the programs now being moved to the new social services portfolio or to education.

     

    He also knew of the hardships of migrants who arrived in the immediate post war years with limited assistance and support struggling to learn English or to adapt to the new society they had come to. His vision was for an integrated Australian society – not ghettoes and that is what we have managed to achieve. It has not been good luck it has been holding the course and making sure that we have had well managed settlement programs. Even John Howard was not so regressive despite the push from the Pauline Hanson’s of this world at the time.

     

    The risk we now face is that we will undo a migration program that creates wealth .In its place we have the cheap politics of boats.

    Arja Keski-Nummi was formerly First Assistant Secretary in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. She was responsible for refugee policy and programs.