John Menadue

  • No Room at the Inn – Asylum Seekers in Australia, Christmas 2013. Guest blogger: Kerry Murphy

    In the time approaching Christmas, asylum seekers in Australia have been the target for increasingly harsh and punitive policies from the new Government.  None of this is really surprising as the Coalition policy documents stated the broad outline of their intentions.   It may help to outline the recent major events and to put them in context.

    No one is illegal

    Mr Abbott has often stated ‘‘This government will never allow people who come here illegally by boat to gain permanent residency in Australia.’’ [1].  This is an example of the incorrect use of the word ‘illegal’.  Under the Migration Act, people are either lawful non-citizens (s 13) or unlawful non-citizens (s14) – illegal is not mentioned.  There is no punishment for being unlawful, but you face detention and removal from Australia unless you have a visa application in process.  Until September 1994, it was an offence to be ‘íllegal’ but the offence was repealed in September 1994.

    The use of the word ‘illegal’ creates a negative connotation mainly against asylum seekers and this is reinforced by linking asylum seekers with people smugglers.  People smuggling is an offence in Australian law and also in several overseas jurisdictions.  Asylum seekers are fleeing persecution and using smugglers is a common way of escaping persecution.  However by linking the two, and then incorrectly calling the asylum seekers ‘illegal’ – they are stigmatised and seen as undesirable to the general public.

    Temporary Protection Visas

    There are several recent changes in the law which also target asylum seekers.  The first was the reintroduction of Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) on 18 October for those arriving without a visa.  The TPV is only for 3 years, and does not allow the refugee to apply for any other visa nor to sponsor their immediate family.  It was documented as causing psychological harm in the Howard era, and the return to such a punitive visa for people found to be refugees and in need of protection is seriously disturbing.[2]

    The TPV regulations were disallowed by the Senate on 1 December but the same day, the Minister retaliated by capping the number of protection visas to be granted until 1 July 2014 at 1650.[3]  Last year there were 7504 protection visas granted, including 2555 to those arriving on visas and subsequently being granted a protection visa.  Already 1650 was met so it meant no-one could be granted a protection visa until the new Immigration Year.  This affected those refugees who had not come without a visa, but had a visa on arrival and subsequently applied for a protection visa.  Then on 19 December this was revoked after a High Court challenge was commenced.[4]

     

    Abolishing Complementary Protection

    Then the Migration Amendment (Regaining Control Over Australia’s Protection Obligations) Bill was introduced.[5]   The Bill will abolish Complementary Protection.   How control over “Australia’s Protection Obligations” was ever lost was not explained by the explanatory memorandum.  Complementary Protection (CP) was introduced under Labor and took effect from 24 March 2012.  CP introduced a mechanism for people to access protection under the non-refoulement (not be sent back) obligations under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and other international Human Rights Instruments.

    This long overdue reform brought into Australian law provisions which already existed in other similar countries such as Canada, UK, New Zealand and the EU.  The only way of accessing such protection in Australia, when it could not be shown it was for a Convention Refugee reason, was to seek the personal unreviewable and non-transparent discretionary intervention of the Minister.   This is only possible after you lose at Immigration and at the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT).  Whilst such a power is needed for the complicated and hard cases, administratively and legally it made sense to reduce the need to access the Minister by establishing administrative procedures at an earlier stage in the assessment process.[6]

    So far only 57 cases were found to meet the Complementary Protection provisions, but that is 57 people who otherwise would have had to try their luck with the Minister.  The Complementary Protection law was reviewed by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee back in 2009.[7]  The same Committee is now reviewing its proposed abolition.  Abolition of Complementary Protection would be a serious retrograde step and just make a complex system less reviewable and not transparent.[8]

    Code of Behaviour

    13th December was also unlucky for asylum seekers because they learned of yet further changes to commence the next day.  A Code of Behaviour was introduced. This required asylum seekers on a bridging visa E to sign the Code to state they would comply with all Australian laws and comply with reasonable requests to attend interviews.  Curiously, road laws were specifically mentioned, along with sexual offences, violent offences and ‘anti-social or disruptive activities’.   Whilst this may seem innocuous, it is nothing of the sort.  All visa applicants must sign a statement they will comply with Australian laws and values, but only asylum seekers must sign this extra Code of Behaviour.

    Failure to comply with the Code can lean to a cancellation of the Bridging Visa and a return to mandatory detention. So a breach of driving laws which would normally only lead to a fine means the putative refugee will have their visa cancelled before the Local Court even considers the matter.  Once cancelled, they must remain in detention until they are removed or are granted a protection visa.  However another change makes the grant of a protection visa no longer possible.

    Since 14 December it is impossible to get the permanent protection visa if you arrived in Australia without a visa.  This means that a person can be found to meet the refugee or Complementary Protection criteria (a complex process) but not be able to get any visa apart from a bridging visa.

    Another new regulation which authorises the disclosure of information to the State or Federal Police regarding the address details for applicants on bridging visas.  Why do the police need to know where asylum seekers are living?  Only applicants for protection face this demeaning provision – the thousands of others who apply for partner, skilled, student, business or employer sponsored visas are not caught by this odious regulation.   This is yet further vilification.

    Since Labor re-established offshore processing in Nauru and Papua New Guinea on 19 July 2013, all arrivals by boat are excluded from the Australia process entirely, so the changes announced in the last few months by the Coalition Government are designed for around 30,000 asylum seekers who arrived before that date and are still in the process.  Vilifying and targeting a group in the community is a poisonous way of dealing with people, as it makes other forms of discrimination and ill-treatment seem acceptable to the wider public.

    The overall impact of these policies is to deliberately demean and punish a group of vulnerable people, because of how they arrived in Australia.   This is punishment of refugees. At a time when many are expressing hope and peace for Christmas and the New Year, these policies do not promote Australia and Australians in the region as supporters and advocates of human rights.   Maybe we need to change the second verse of our national anthem – where it states’ for those who’ve come across the seas we’ve boundless plains to share’- not anymore we don’t.

    Reflection

    “Hostility comes from ignorance, hospitality from openness. Hostility towards strangers is born in a heart with barriers, hardened and incapable of seeing richness in diversity. The collective hostility of the western world can be healed by learning from hospitality in other cultures. The shift from hostility to hospitality happens when one experiences welcome, this gift of opening oneself to the reality of an individual or a family of refugees.”

    (Luis Magrina sj, In the footsteps of Pedro Arrupe p41)

     

    Kerry Murphy is a solicitor who works in the asylum and refugee area.

     


    [2] Zachary STEEL, Derrick SILOVE, Robert BROOKS, Shakeh MOMARTIN, Bushra ALZUHAIRI and Ina SUSLJIK, “Impact of immigration detention and temporary protection on the mental health of refugees.’  BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY (2006) 188, 58 – 64,  http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/188/1/58.full.pdf

  • Election aftermath – where to now on asylum seekers and refugees? John Menadue

    Yesterday Sir William Deane launched a book ‘Refugees and asylum seekers – a better way’. A link to the book can be found at

    http://gallery.mailchimp.com/d2331cf87fedd353f6dada8de/files/Refugee_and_asylum_seeker_policy_Finding_a_better_way.pdf

    The book includes a chapter I wrote ‘Election aftermath – where to now on asylum seekers and refugees’. This chapter follows

    Election aftermath- where to now on asylum seekers and refugees?

    Since Tampa in 2001 asylum-seekers and refugees have become a divisive public issue. In that debate, boat arrivals have been the most contentious issue of all.

    Just before the September election the Rudd Government announced that no asylum seeker coming to Australia by boat would ever receive refugee status and permanent residence in Australia, but would be transferred to PNG or Nauru. This hard-line policy with some additional punitive measures in Operation Sovereign Borders has been adopted by the Abbott Government.

    The number of asylum seekers coming by boat fell dramatically in the last weeks of the Rudd Government. That trend has continued. The net result is that the gate has been very nearly closed for boat arrivals for the foreseeable future. But it will never be shut completely.

    Asylum seekers will continue to come by air. Presently about 7,000 to 8,000 asylum seekers come to Australia by air each year. Invariably they state their intention to come as a student, visitor or working holiday maker. They then get issued with a visa, enter Australia and apply for refugee status. Desperate people do desperate things. The chief source country for air arrivals is China and with about 40% of all air arrivals gaining refugee status. This situation is likely to continue. The toxic political debate is only about the mode of arrival. Arriving by aeroplane is OK but not by boat! What a lot of nonsense this is. We are obsessed only by boats.

    But as the gate for asylum seekers coming by boat closes more will seek to come by air.

    Against this unfortunate background where should we now try to focus the debate? Can we find some ground where effective and humanitarian policies can still be pursued? How can we blunt the edges of cruel policies?

    Despite the setbacks of recent years, I still think that there is quite a lot that we can try and do, as difficult as it will be in the present political climate.

    We must change the political narrative with a positive message about persons facing persecution and their contribution to Australia rather than the demonization and fear that has been engendered since John Howard’s days. It comes down to leadership across our community and not just politicians. Polls suggest that boat arrivals do not rate highly against such issues as health and education but it is a hot button issue on its own that produces a very strong and hostile response. It is so easy for unscrupulous politicians and some media people to engender fear of the outsider, the foreigner and the person who is different.  History is littered with such unscrupulous people. We must keep trying to change the debate and appeal to Australians more generous instincts that we all know are there.

    The dialogue between the Government, including the Department of Immigration and refugee advocates has been broken for a long time. We need a “second-track dialogue” – involving government officials, civil society, NGOs and refugee advocates in the dialogue process. A more constructive role by refugee advocates is essential and with a government prepared to listen.

    Progressively we should increase the refugee and humanitarian intake. If we took the same number of refugees today that we took during the Indo Chinese program of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s adjusted for our population increase since then we would now have an intake of about 35,000.  The Gillard Government increased the intake to 20,000 pa but the Abbott Government plans to reduce it to 13,750.  Having been frightened over border security Australians may now feel more secure with the new government in charge! As a result they may now be more supportive of refugees that have been processed in a more orderly way offshore, particularly by the UNHCR.

    Reluctantly, I have come to the view that the blanket opposition to offshore processing of asylum seekers has politically failed and with dire consequences for asylum seekers. A couple of years ago I welcomed with some reservations the agreement with Malaysia on transfers and processing. Unlike the Rudd Government’s agreement with PNG, the agreement with Malaysia was supported by UNHCR. On the contentious issue of offshore processing, the UNHCR in May this year issued a ‘Guidance Note’ on bilateral and/or multilateral arrangements on the transfer of asylum seekers. It emphasised that in any arrangement there must be effective protection. This encompasses (a) people given a legal status while they are in a transit country, (b) the principle of non-refoulement (c) people have access to refugee determination processes either within the legal jurisdiction of the state or by UNHCR and (d) treated with dignity. What is important is not where the processing occurs, but whether it is fair, humane and efficient and consistent with the Refugee Convention.

    The Malaysian Agreement was opposed by the Coalition, the Greens and almost all refugee advocate groups. It was an odd alliance! The failure of this agreement saw a threefold increase in boat arrivals within a few months. These arrivals rose to 14,000 in the six months to June 2013. The result of that large increase and with an election looming was the draconian agreement with PNG.

    In opposing the Malaysian Agreement many refugee advocates sided with Tony Abbott on “canings” in Malaysia. It was quite novel to see Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison defending the human rights of asylum seekers. Tony Abbott gave the impression that he was not interested in stopping the boats but stopping the Government stopping the boats. This was consistent with what a “key Liberal strategist” told the US Embassy in November 2009  that the boats  issue was “fantastic” for the Coalition  and “ the more boats that come the better”( SMH 10 December 2010).

    The agreement with Malaysia was also criticised because of the treatment of children. But children could never have been excluded from the arrangement or the boats would have filled up with children. They are called “anchors” to haul in the rest of the family. Children do need protection through a guardian arrangement but the Minister cannot be both gaoler and guardian.

    We should also pursue alternative migration pathways to discourage asylum seekers taking dangerous boat or other “irregular” Journeys.

    The first alternate pathway is through orderly departure arrangements with “source countries” such as we had with Vietnam from 1983. Over 100,000 Vietnamese came to Australia under this arrangement. We must pursue ODA’s with Sri Lanka, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In both Iraq and Afghanistan we will have to bear particular responsibilities for our involvement in the wars in those countries just as we did after the Vietnam War. An orderly departure arrangement with Pakistan would probably have to be managed by UNHCR.  Importantly DIAC must anticipate future refugee flows.eg Syria and Egypt. I just cannot understand why the previous government did not actively pursue ODA’s.

    Secondly we should consider permanent or temporary migration in particular situations. e.g. Iranians on 457 visas. Recent Iranian boat arrivals are mainly single males, well-educated and resourceful. With a population explosion in Iran and the sanctions biting hard many want to leave. In the last 12 months the proportion of boat arrivals from Iran has doubled from 16% to 33%.Iranians are by far the largest national group in immigration detention in Australia. We need alternative pathways to address the special needs of nationals like the Iranians.

    Many asylum seekers in the community on bridging visas are not allowed to work. This is absurd. Work rights for all such visa holders are essential for reasons of human dignity and taxpayer cost. We should also review the ad hoc and confusing support arrangements for all asylum seekers living in the community.

    We should progressively abolish mandatory detention. At the end of August this year there were over 11,000 people in immigration detention. 96% were asylum seekers. At that time there were 1700 children in immigration detention of some form. It is all cruel and expensive. There is no evidence that it deters but politicians believe that it makes them look tough. If we should have learned anything from successive governments it is that punitive policies in immigration detention centres will result in riots, burnings, suicides and other self-harm. We will bear the human, social and financial costs of mandatory detention for decades

    Despite the heavy handed crackdown on boat arrivals there are still some important areas that we could address to help asylum seekers and refugees in their desperate plight. We have a duty to do what we can despite the toxic political environment.

    But we cannot manage these problems on our own.  Regional cooperation is essential, not to shift the burden but to share it. That is why we need to work particularly with both Indonesia and Malaysia in cooperation with UNHCR in the processing and then the resettlement of refugees. Those arrangements will problem not be” legally binding”. They will depend on trust.

    But whatever we do there is no “solution”.  Refugee flows will always be messy. Desperate people will try and cut corners. They will not play according to our rules. But we can do a lot better as we have shown in the past by successfully settling 750,000 refugees in Australia since 1945.

    John Menadue is a Fellow of the Centre for Policy Development. He was Secretary Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs 1980-3. He was also Secretary, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan and CEO of Qantas.

     

    Postscript:

    Only a few days ago, Tony Abbott released a pamphlet on the government’s achievements since the election. The first subject mentioned was ‘Stop the boats’. At this very time, the UNHCR was been drawing attention to the growing refugee crisis around the world and particularly the outflow of 4 million people from Syria. Yet Tony Abbott took pride in the fact that 33,000 refugees already living in Australia will ‘all be denied permanent residence’.

     

  • Is trench warfare the answer? John Menadue

    Sensing concern about the government’s performance in the first 100 days, Tony Abbott reportedly told the Liberal Party caucus to ‘prepare for trench warfare’ when parliament resumes in 2014.

    I would have thought that the last thing that Australia needs is for the government to embark on trench warfare. I sense that the public is looking for considered and conciliatory leadership.

    Defenders of Tony Abbott’s 100 day performance point out that John Howard had a rocky start, but that he then recovered. That is true, but Tony Abbott needs to learn quickly or the pattern set in the first 100 days will become entrenched. And the polls are certainly showing an early disquiet with the government. I suggest that the disquiet about Tony Abbott was always there, but the divisions with the ALP leadership took focus away from that concern. The last election showed that oppositions don’t win election. Governments lose them.

    There are several reasons for the disquiet.

    The first is that the  lack of a considered policy agenda was disguised by one-line media grabs – ‘stop the boats’, ‘axe the tax’, ‘pay down the debt’ and ‘eliminate the deficit’. Not surprisingly in almost every respect the government’s performance in these areas falls a long way short of what the one-liners suggested. The care and consideration which goes into good policy development was just not there.

    Secondly, it is clear that there is no clear ideological framework. Conservatives traditionally believe in markets, choice and enterprise. But it was clear in the GrainCorp decision for example, that the government had retreated from its traditional free-market approach. Tony Abbott says that private health insurance is part of the Liberal Party’s DNA, yet he supports continued massive government subsidies to PHI. I have also drawn attention to Tony Abbott’s policy of Direct Action to reduce carbon pollution. This policy is the antithesis of a market approach. Malcolm Turnbull described Direct Action as a fig leaf when you don’t have a coherent market-based policy.

    A third problem is the failure of the government to manage the transition from opposition to government. I wrote about this in my post of December 6 ‘Being in government is different to being in opposition’. The NSW Premier put the problem succinctly when education policy was being emasculated by Christopher Pyne. The Premier said that the Abbott Government should start governing and stop acting as if it were still in opposition.

    Another issue which the government must address is the competence of its cabinet and ministry. I drew attention to this problem when the Coalition was in Opposition. See my blog of July 3 ‘The C team versus the Shadow Cabinet’.  The former NSW Liberal Premier and Commonwealth Finance Minister, John Fahey, commented only last week ‘Tony has picked the team that got him over the line as Opposition leader. A number of them were never going to make him look good in Government.’

    A former Conservative Prime Minister in the UK, Harold Macmillan, when asked what he feared most as Prime Minister, allegedly said ‘it is events, my dear boy, events!’. Tony Abbott is not showing that he has the policy or ideological framework – or perhaps temperament – to handle ‘events”

    Instead of facing up to these glaring problems, Tony Abbott says that there is more trench warfare ahead. A good example of this is the decision to appoint a royal commission on pink batts. It will be to attack and settle old scores with the Rudd Government. Should a victorious Prime Minister really be doing that? Where does it stop?

    But the government has 1,000 days to prove itself. It may yet do that but the first 100 days have not been promising. The last thing we want is more trench warfare.

    A vision for the future would be much more appealing.

  • Budget deficits – how did they happen and what can be done. John Menadue

    The government is announcing today an update of this year’s budget. This is the government’s first major economic statement since the election. It will focus particularly on the budget deficit. It will attempt to blame the previous government as much as possible. I addressed this issue of the budget deficit and how it has come about. 

    What is important is the performance of the economy. The budget is a means to that end. The budget deficit is important, but it is important not to over-react. The Europeans did this with very serious consequences for slower economic growth and large increases in unemployment particularly in southern Europe. 

    Consumer and business confidence is fragile. The government’s performance and exaggeration of our economic and financial problems will not help.,

    The following was posted on 29 November 2013.  Repost below.

    I have written extensively in this blog about the phoney outrage of Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey about the budget deficit and the debt. How ironic it is now that the government wants to lift the debt ceiling when only a few months ago it said that it would better manage the economy and quickly lower the level of debt.

    Our deficit is not a cause for panic. We have a well-performing economy. And our deficits and debt are in far better shape than most countries in the world. But we do have a longer term budget deficit problem that we need to address.  Economists call this our structural deficit problem, the long-term deficit that we have in government accounts regardless of the fluctuations in revenue and expenditure over the ups and downs of the business cycle.

    It is estimated that with existing federal and state policies at the present time, we face a structural budget deficit of about $60 billion in today’s currency.

    How did this happen?

    The primary and major cause was the way the Howard Government wasted the tax returns from the mining boom. The parliamentary budget office put this problem in the following terms.

    ‘Over two thirds of the five percentage points of GDP decline in structural receipts over the period 2002/3 to 2011/12, was due to the cumulative effects of the successive personal income tax cuts granted between 2003/4 and 2008/9. A further quarter was the result of a decline in excise and customs duties as a proportion of GDP. Significant factors driving this trend included the abolition of petroleum fuels excise indexation in the 2001/2 Budget and the decline in the consumption of cigarettes and tobacco over the period.’

    The IMF came to much the same conclusion. It identified two periods of Australian ‘fiscal profligacy’ in recent years, both during the Howard turn in office – in 2003 at the start of the mining boom and during his final years in office between 2005 and 2007. (SMH Jan 11, 2013)

    In short, our structural budget deficit is due in substantial part to the Howard Government’s laxity with government spending and tax reductions during the mining boom. We blew the benefits of the mining boom when we should have been doing more to improve the budget surplus.

    The second cause of the structural deficit is that the Rudd Government spent heavily to counter the global financial crisis. It was more successful than almost any other government in the world in avoiding a major recession and unemployment, but when the recovery took hold, the Rudd and Gillard Governments did not focus on the structural deficit problem particularly as identified by the Henry tax review. Some improvements were made to reduce middle-class welfare like the subsidy to private health insurance and the over-generous concessions that Peter Costello had given to superannuants. But the improvements were nowhere near enough.

    The Abbott Government has established a Commission of Audit to address this structural deficit and other problems. But I am doubtful if it will address the big ticket items and the hard political decisions that will be required.

    Despite the public perception that we are highly taxed, the fact is that Australia has one of the lowest ratios of tax to GDP amongst the 34 OECD countries. In 2010, Australian taxes were about 26% of our GDP. This compared with the OECD average of 34%.

    A major contributor to our lower taxes is the large number of ‘tax expenditures’. These are tax breaks, rebates and other loop-holes which reduce tax revenue. Australia has a much higher level of these ‘tax expenditures’ than countries such as Canada, US, Korea, Netherlands and Germany.

    Some examples of these ‘tax expenditures’ that reduce tax revenue are as follows:

    • Ian McAuley and I have estimated that the subsidies to the private health insurance industry via policy holders cost about $7 billion per annum.
    • According to Treasury, tax revenue is reduced by about $30 billion per annum as a result of the superannuation tax concessions.
    • According to the Grattan Institute, governments provide benefits of about $36 billion per annum to home-owners through exemptions from land and capital gains taxes, and age pension entitlements. These very large tax expenditures work to disadvantage many young people who are unable to enter the housing market or people who prefer or are forced to rent accommodation.
    • The Grattan Institute also estimates that property investors get a benefit of about $7 billion per annum through negative gearing and the capital gains discount.

    The Grattan Institute also suggests that Australian government budgets could be improved by about $37 billion per annum through broadening the GST to include food and private spending on health and education, as well as lifting the pension and superannuation at retirement age to 70.

    To the above possible reform measures, could be added a reformed mining tax that really raises money. If the Minerals Resources Rent Tax was raised to 40% as proposed by the Henry Review, it would raise an additional $5 billion per annum.

    All the above are big ticket items that cost the budget large sums of money. These benefits and tax expenditures also heavily favour high income earners. Vested interests and rent-seekers will fight doggedly to maintain their privileged positions.

    These are hard political issues, but if we are to address our structural budget deficit problem, they will need to be examined carefully and introduced progressively, or at least partially-like limiting negative gearing to new homes.

    Worthwhile reform is likely to antagonise strong vested interests. That is why I am afraid that the Abbott Government is likely to direct our attention onto quite secondary issues such as ‘government waste’ which are really chicken-feed alongside the big ticket items mentioned above.

    The Hawke/Keating governments showed that bold reform is possible. John Howard showed it with the GST

    We can achieve necessary reform if we all stopped talking exclusively about politics and engaged in sensible policy debates.

  • Well-paid jobs or welfare? John Menadue

    The Abbott Government’s confusion over Holden’s withdrawal from Australia reflects a much deeper hostility to the car industry. The main reason for this is that the car industry is highly unionised, pays good wages and has a high degree of alignment of interests between labour and capital. The right-wing finds that all quite offensive.

    Yet the right-wing supports subsidies in other industries that have little merit. The subsidies to these other industries put the support of the car industry in the shade.

    As I mentioned in a recent blog on 12 December, the government provides enormous subsidies to parts of the services sector.

    • We provide $7 billion p.a. for the private health insurance industry – a very high cost and parasitic industry which Labor failed to properly tackle. Warren Buffett described PHI as the tape worm in the US health system. It is the same in Australia and we subsidize it!!
    • We will provide $1.8 billion over four years to the tax-avoidance industry with salary packages for executive cars. The coalition reversed a Labor Government decision to stop this rort.
    • We provide over $30 billion p.a. in subsidies to the superannuation sector. The wealthy receive highly subsidised tax treatment of their superannuation contributions? On top of that they do not pay tax on superannuation repayments from the time they reach 60 years of age.  This subsidy for superannuation holders is in addition to the enormous $20b annual fees that financial advisers extract from policy holders. Both major parties are culpable on this but Labor marginally less so.

    What is the sense or decency in decrying the car industry which has a well-paid and efficient workforce but we provide enormous individual and corporate welfare for the rent-seekers in the three areas mentioned above? Holden claim that they were seeking an additional subsidy of $80 m per year for 7 years.

    Conservatives decry welfare spending but have supported a major shift in welfare payments over the years. Because of under-investment in human capital like education and physical infrastructure and neglect of steady economic adjustment, conservative governments have spent very strongly on distributive welfare to compensate for inequalities rising from our weakened economic structure. Over the last 50 years, social security assistance has risen from 5% of Australians’ household disposable income to 12%. Examples of this expanded social security assistance are baby bonuses, family allowances and superannuation concessions for the wealthy. The previous Labor governments did move to some degree to wind back some of this middle-class welfare – subsidies to private health insurance and the second baby-bonus – but the justification was more about immediate budgetary management than an expression of the principle that it is better to have a strong and productive economy with good wages. We need to become less reliant on distributive welfare both for individuals and corporations.

    The path to growing incomes and fairness is through productivity and well-paid employment rather than government welfare handouts that have risen dramatically because of a failure of all governments in human capital and physical infrastructure development.

    As the Scandinavians have shown, well-paid jobs with high levels of skill rather than welfare are the way to long-term prosperity. We need to be more productive and in the process of adjustment our attention should be directed first to the rent-seekers in industries such as private health insurance and superannuation. The motor vehicle industry should be a much lower priority.

    The right-wing commentators show their political colours in supporting subsidies to the superannuation sector but are beside themselves in hostility to the well-paid and highly-unionised workers in the car industry. Australia needs more productivity and well-paid jobs and less individual and corporate welfare. We need a well-paid and productive workforce for good economic reasons but more importantly for the dignity that goes with meaningful work.

  • The Holden mess gets worse. John Menadue

    Yesterday I posted a blog ‘Taunting Holden to Leave’.

    Let me add to the continuing story of this major stuff-up.

    The Abbott Government, through Industry Minister Macfarlane asked the Productivity Commission to advise on assistance to the car industry. He asked for a report by March next year. On Monday this week, Minister Macfarlane was asked if he supported Holden remaining in Australia. He replied ‘Absolutely! Are we doing something about it? Absolutely!’ But this attempt by the Minister for due process and proper consideration was saboutaged by Joe Hockey. Holden was put to the sword by the Abbott Government long before the Productivity Commission could report.

    In acting ahead of the Productivity Commission report, Joe Hockey bullied, taunted and threatened Holden. Leaks poured out from ministers to make Holden’s position almost intolerable. The leaking was supported by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal that said that General Motors had already decided to stop manufacturing in Australia. With all this hectoring, Holden decided that it had had enough and would exit manufacturing in Australia. If Holden was looking for an exit strategy the Abbott Government gave it one. It is hard to recall such a mess in decision-making.

    Another important factor is that the Abbott Government decided to retain the Fringe Benefit Tax salary packaging rorts for executive cars. The Labor Government said it would abolish these rorts and save $1.8 billion over four years. But the Abbott Government decided to reverse this decision. That $1.8b is almost the same amount as the cost of additional assistance that Joe Hockey said the car industry needed – $2 billion over four years.

    Furthermore, the Fringe Benefit rort had been used in executive salary packaging to buy almost exclusively foreign-made cars, whereas the $2 billion in industry assistance that was necessary would go directly to help Australian manufacturing of cars. So the Abbott Government was prepared to turn a blind eye to tax avoidance over executive cars. But it refused very nearly the same amount over four years to keep companies such as Holden manufacturing. In Australia. The Abbott Government decided that it would give preference to the tax avoidance industry rather than the auto manufacturing industry.

    What a disgrace. What a shambles.

  • Japan’s secret agenda. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

    Using its dominance of both houses of the Diet, Japan’s ruling party has pushed through a new anti-terrorism and secrecy law. The strong-arm parliamentary methods used to secure its passage have added to public concerns about the way the law may be employed by the Abe Government to stifle dissent, curb public access to information and intimidate political opponents. The LDP mustered its numbers during a late-night session on Friday, noisy public protests and extensive media criticism notwithstanding.

    The State Secrecy Protection Law is the legislative accompaniment for Japan’s newly created National Security Council (modeled on America’s NSC), both required, says the government, for effective crisis management. What crisis? Many observers believe Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has moved swiftly to exploit the sense of crisis affecting Sino-Japanese relations as a result of their territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.

    Critics of the law say it is vague and all encompassing and lacks a clearly defined process of review. The law defines “terrorism” as any activity that forces “political and other principles or opinions on the state or other people.” Concern that this could be used to control dissent took on more substance after LDP secretary-general and senior government member Shigeru Ishiba likened public demonstrations against the law to “terrorism” (he later “corrected” his statement). The law puts into the hands of bureaucrats the power to determine what is and what isn’t a state secret. While this is not unusual by international standards, the political culture in Japan is already conservative and opaque, and freedom-of-information laws have proven less effective than in some other countries. The threat of prison terms for journalists who seek or handle classified information is another provision that has drawn fire.

    The government’s lame response to these complaints has been to say that officials would be required to “take into consideration” human rights and freedom of the press. Abe also promised to set up an agency to monitor what information was being made secret, but the powers and scope of such an agency were not incorporated into the legislation. One of the weakest aspects of governance in Japan, most political scientists agree, is oversight of the bureaucracy and public accountability for its decisions. There is no reason to believe this is about to improve––more likely, it will get worse.

    Since the war Japan has not had a law directed specifically at protecting state secrets. This situation complemented the country’s constitutional restraint against belligerency as a means of settling international disputes: Japanese pacifism. “If Japan can never make war, what secrets does it need to protect?” or so the argument went. In some quarters, the country was regarded as a poor keeper of secrets. (It was always thus, if one looks back at the Allies’ success in breaking Japanese codes before and during the war and the activities of the Soviet spy Richard Sorge.) The United States, Japan’s ally, is a supporter of the new law, which its backers say is needed to facilitate intelligence sharing. Once upon a time, much critical intelligence did not need to leave the American “defense community” responsible for guarding Japan; increasingly, however, military burdens are being shared or taken over by Japanese agencies. The new law’s larger significance is how it fits into the LDP’s plans for constitutional change and the trend towards a more self-reliant or self-directed Japanese military posture.

    Abe has used up a considerable amount of his political capital in getting the secrecy law through the Diet. Commentators have likened his methods to the “bad old days” of LDP hegemony in the 1960s and 1970s. Though Japanese voters may from time to time hand one party (or a coalition) a strong mandate, they prefer governments to approach controversial issues with delicacy, allow a full airing of opinions and strive for consensus, rather than muscle through. Abe’s approval rating recently slipped below 50% for the first time since he took office. The scars of this latest battle are unlikely to heal quickly. It will be difficult to assess the operation of the new law because of its very nature, but when it is breached and a whistleblower is brought to book, as inevitably will happen, the government may find it harder to deal with the consequences than it was to corral the Diet.

    Walter Hamilton reported from Japan for eleven years. He is the author of “Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story”.

  • Taunting Holden to leave. John Menadue

    It has been quite remarkable to see Joe Hockey daring and taunting Holden to close. He apparently chose to take advantage of Tony Abbott’s absence in South Africa to show off his “dry” credentials and burnish his leadership aspirations. Having lost the argument over Graincorp, Joe Hockey talked tough on Holden. He dared Holden to either put up or shut up. He then escalated the rhetoric against Holden by shouting in parliament ‘There is a hell of a lot of industries in Australia that would love to get the assistance that the motor vehicle industry is getting’.

    In fact there are a lot of industries that do get a level of assistance and protection that far exceeds the $500 million p.a. which Joe Hockey tells us the motor industry receives.

    Who are some of these beneficiaries of this corporate welfare?

    My first exhibit is the $7 billion p.a. taxpayer subsidy to the private health insurance industry. That corporate welfare alone is about 14 times more p.a. than goes to the motor vehicle industry. PHI has operating costs about three times higher than Medicare. Through gap insurance PHI has facilitated the largest increase in specialist fees in 25 years. PHI weakens Medicare’s ability to control costs. It favours the wealthy. It offers look-alike policies with very little real choice. It churns money rather than making things. Yet companies like BUPA, Medibank Pte and others attract a $7b pa subsidy

    Through restricted competition and political lobbying power our chemists impose excessive prices of over $1b per annum.

    Taxpayer provide a $30 billion p.a. subsidy to the superannuation sector.

    And there is a lot more in such areas as subsidies to fund negative gearing and capital gains discounts.  (See my blog of November 29).

    By contrast the motor vehicle industry does provide substantial benefits to the Australian economy and community. It is at the core of our manufacturing industry.

    The motor vehicle industry is far more important to our future than the industries that receive the enormous subsidies that I mentioned. We have got the issue seriously out of proportion.

    Why is it that our corporate economists have an ideological set against the manufacturing sector but ignore the enormous corporate welfare that goes to the rent seekers in our services sector?

  • Facts on boat arrivals. John Menadue

    There have been a number of claims by Scott Morrison that Operation Sovereign Borders has resulted in a significant reduction in boat arrivals. The ALP has asserted that the reduction in boat arrivals follows the trend set by the Rudd Government.

    It has been difficult to check Scott Morrison’s claims as there has been quite deliberate policy to make it difficult for the public to ascertain what is really happening.

    The ABC Fact Check has reviewed the facts that are available. The Fact Check Report can Facts on boat abe found at

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-10/scott-morrison-not-telling-full-story-asylum-seeker-arrivals/5119380

    The report concludes ‘There has been an 80% reduction in asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat in the comparison period outlined by Mr Morrison. However, the data shows the number of arrivals began to slow significantly under Labor, soon after Mr Rudd’s regional resettlement arrangement was announced’. Fact Check asked specialists in data analysis to comment. Dr. Higginson said ‘… the data shows that … there is no evidence to suggest that the new government’s policies have had any additional impact on arrivals over and above the trend already in place’.

    What a barren media landscape we would have without the ABC!

     

  • In defence of compulsory voting. Guest blogger: Graham Freudenberg

    One of the best features of Australian elections is the high voter turnout. This has been achieved by compulsory voting. The LNP in Queensland is now moving to abolish it in the state in which it was first established, by a Tory government, in 1914. This must not be allowed to go uncontested, like so much else that is happening in Queensland.

    Compulsory voting has been a distinctive, positive and successful feature of Australian democracy for the best part of a century (1924 in Federal elections).  It is deeply embedded in our political culture and custom. It makes elections by far the most majestic of all our national events – the only occasion on which every Australian adult participates in exactly the same way, on equal terms, for the highest common purpose – the election of a democratic government. It is a unique affirmation of the equality of every Australian citizen and of the inclusiveness of our society, immensely important in a nation of immigrants.  It embodies the civic obligation as well as the entitlement that comes with the right to vote.

    For more than two hundred years, the struggle for parliamentary democracy has been about enlarging the franchise. The Holy Grail of democracy has always been ‘one person, one vote;  one vote, one value’. Anti-democrats have sought to restrict the franchise, usually through property, educational, gender or racial qualifications. The move against compulsory voting is a disguised form of voter restriction. The argument that compulsory voting pulls in the apathetic, the ill-informed, the uneducated, the unintelligent, has been used to resist every extension of the franchise, including votes for women.

    A high participation rate in genuinely contested elections is the universally recognised sign of a healthy democracy.  Low turnouts are causing anxiety in democracies world-wide. Low turnouts undermine the legitimacy of the result. The polarisation of the American electorate along special interest and race lines is leading to a denial that the Presidential result represents the ‘real’ people or the true Americans. But the real problem in the United States is not the comparatively high turnout of blacks or Latinos in support of Obama but the low turnout of voters generally.

    Compulsory voting reduces the possibility of voter fraud and impersonation. It is a cruel irony that some states in the United States are invoking ‘fraud’ as a reason for tougher identification laws when the real purpose is to make voting more difficult for disadvantaged groups, specifically blacks.

    The low and declining turnout now occurring in all countries without compulsory voting makes it easier to disguise fraud. It can be used to mask discrepancies between the declared vote and pre-election opinion polls. It can be used to explain away otherwise inexplicable variations in the turnout between regimes. It can be used to cover the destruction or theft of ballot papers. This electoral corruption occurs on a massive scale in Russian presidential elections, facilitated by low voter turnout. The high level of public confidence in the integrity of the ballot in Australia is a direct result of compulsory voting and the high voter turnout which it produces.

    The low turnouts now endemic in the Western democracies increase the influence of pressure groups, lobbies, single-issue parties and special interests. In the US, the power of the gun lobby rests almost entirely on its ability to mobilise, or threaten to mobilise, its supporters against sitting members of Congress. That is why gun control measures with overwhelming popular support fail to pass Congress. The Tea Party’s power over the Republican Party derives from its threat to knock off main-stream Republicans in low turnout (and gerrymandered) elections.

    In the Australian context, the abolition of compulsory voting would increase the power of the party machines.  If ‘getting out to vote’ were to become the overriding function of election campaigns, the parliamentary leadership would become even more dependent upon the central machines.

    In the final analysis, my case for compulsory voting rests on the assertion that the highest possible voter turnout is a great public good in itself and for itself. The custom of a century has made the compulsion almost nominal. But Australia’s high voting performance would not survive its abolition by ten years.

    Graham Freudenberg, December 2013

  • Does Tony Abbott believe in markets? John Menadue

    We are already seeing a division opening up in the Abbott Government between ‘wets’ and ‘dries’ and a lot of confusion.

    The Liberal Party and conservatives generally espouse the value of markets – that governments should not interfere unless there is clear market failure or overwhelming reasons of public interest. This belief in markets is at the core of conservative philosophy The Liberal Party platform speaks expansively of “enterprise” and “consumer choice”. Ministers such as Joe Hockey, Andrew Robb and Malcolm Turnbull seem to hold to that belief.  But Tony Abbott, along with Barnaby Joyce and the National Party, seem opposed to markets when key decisions have to be made. Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane seems to be having an arm wrestle with Cabinet over support for Holdens. Then what about support for Qantas?

    This division clearly showed itself over the government decision to refuse foreign investment in Graincorp. Tony Abbott apparently sided against Joe Hockey and those in the Liberal party who espouse markets. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Peter Reith, a leading Liberal party member and former Howard defence minister said that the Graincorp decision “had Tony Abbott’s fingerprints all over it”. Barnaby Joyce and the National party successfully carried out a covert campaign against foreign investment in Graincorp. Interestingly, after being criticised for his protection of Graincorp, Tony Abbott now wants to be seen as hairy chested” on both Qantas and Holden

    Peter Costello has also criticised the government for its Graincorp decision. Several years ago he reportedly told Michael Kroger that in the Howard Government, Tony Abbott had no interest in economics and that he was ‘economically illiterate’. Tony Abbott shows the same distributionist approach as one of his earlier heroes B.A. Santamaria.

    But the most striking example of Tony Abbott’s scepticism about markets is his policy of Direct Action on carbon pollution rather than a market mechanism like a carbon tax or an Emissions Trading Scheme. Tony Abbott’s denial of a market approach has clearly paid political dividends with his attack on the carbon tax. But good policy is sacrificed.

    In the latter days of the Howard Government, John Howard proposed a market mechanism to address carbon pollution. He proposed an Emissions Trading Scheme. He believed in a market approach. When the new Liberal party leader, Malcolm Turnbull supported an ETS, Tony Abbott and the climate sceptics in the Liberal party tore him down.

    The result is a highly bureaucratic and interventionist approach in Direct Action to combat carbon pollution. Direct Action with its subsidies and interventions is the very antithesis of a market mechanism. Malcolm Turnbull has described Direct Action as a fig leaf when you don’t have an effective and efficient mechanism to reduce carbon pollution.

    Almost every respectable economist in the world will side with the IMF and OECD that a market-based approach to carbon pollution reduction – such as a carbon tax or ETS – is the most efficient and effective mechanism. But Tony Abbott has sided with the ‘wets’ to give us Direct Action.

    Another important test of Tony Abbott’s attitude to markets is likely to be his response to the States and particularly the retailers who want more protection from on- line imports.

    I can understand the concern of the States about their loss of GST revenue but do the likes of Harvey Norman need protection The retailers keep bleating about unfair competition but an increase of 10% on imports is not likely to make much difference, given that the price on many imports is substantially below Australian retail prices.

    The Productivity Commission reported in 2011 that the “intensified competition from imports is good for consumers but is challenging for the retail industry which as a whole does not compare favourably in terms of productivity with many overseas countries” The Productivity Report   further found  high occupancy costs of retailers in payments to landlords as a major problem for retailers.. The report also found that out of 17 industry sectors only the mining sector was more profitable than retailing in Australia. That does not suggest the need for more protection.

    A survey by Choice said that the attraction of on line shopping was convenience rather than price. Yet retailers have been slow to develop on line shopping.

    The Abbott Government has shown its screpticism about markets in both the environment and foreign investment. Will it now protect the retail sector at the expense of consumers?

    The division between wets and dries will continue to play out in the Abbott Government. Tony Abbott is more at home with the vested interests that the Nationals and Barnaby Joyce side with. On the two critical issues to date, he has sided against the “dries”. What will its attitude be to on line shopping? Or Qantas? Or Holden?

    Tony Abbott’s scepticism about markets could be the same impediment to economic reform that the Fraser Government experienced…a continuous disagreement between “wet” and “dries”.

    In short the Abbott Government is showing that it lacks an ideological  and policy framework. Confusion is inevitable.

     

    PS A remarkable feature about subsidies to industry is that there is no mention at all in the media about the $7.5b annual subsidy which the Australian taxpayer provides to the high cost private health insurance industry. No wonder BUPA can waste public money in television advertising at the cricket.

  • Being in Government is different to being in Opposition. John Menadue

    Tony Abbott is being mugged by the reality of Government and how he manages day to day events. He has very little of a developed policy framework on which to draw.

    In Opposition, Tony Abbott was  adept at the political one-liners – ‘stop the boats’, ‘axe the tax’,’ reduce the deficit’ and ‘pay back the debt’. There was not a great deal of policy to back up this political rhetoric. We are now seeing that day after day with one blunder after another.

    The NSW Premier O’Farrell put it succinctly over education policy that the Abbott Government should start governing and stop acting as if it was still in opposition.

    Power may be abused, but power also reveals character. In one event after another, we are seeing the character of the Abbott Government.

    • In Opposition, Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and Julie Bishop said that they didn’t seek Indonesian agreement but understanding on turn-back of boats at sea and the buying up of Indonesian fishing vessels. In Opposition, they didn’t hear or chose not to hear Indonesian objections to this clear infringement of Indonesian sovereignty. So when the telephone interceptions of discussions by President Yudhoyono and his wife were made public, it was an ideal opportunity for Indonesia to push back on Operation Sovereign Borders. Tony Abbott and his government then clumsily mis-managed the whole episode. In opposition you can take risks with other countries that you can’t take in government.  Would his close associates also tell him that many people and particularly Asians don’t like their personal space being invaded by aggressive hand-shaking?
    • The Abbott Government is clearly finding that abolishing the carbon tax is not as easy as it thought. Blind Freddy would know that the Senate would present difficulties. Furthermore Tony Abbott should know that unscrambling the carbon tax will present major problems for business.
    • Tony Abbott told us that his government would be “open for business”. Then he vetoed the bid for Graincorp. Peter Reith, a leading figure in the Liberal Party, and a former defence minister said that the government decision on Graincorp was ‘the latest in a series of botched decisions’. He added that the Graincorp decision ‘had Tony Abbott’s fingerprints all over it’.
    • Then there was the massive climb-down on budget deficits and debt. Both Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are running as fast as they can from their election undertakings.
    • In Opposition, the Liberal Party said that it would abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation which was set up to assist investment in clean energy. The Chairman of the Corporation and a highly respected businesswoman, Jillian Broadbent has said that ‘it is disappointing that a tool that is fiscally responsible and effective is being abandoned’.
    • Then there was the fiasco of Christopher Pyne over school funding with three different positions in one week. The SMH in its editorial of December 3, carried the headline ‘Electorate, Students, betrayed by cynicism of PM and Pyne’. For sheer incompetence Christopher Pyne gets top marks. We thought we had a consensus or a “unity ticket” on school funding but the Abbott  Government has blown that away ,in the same way that Tony Abbott blew away the consensus we used to have on climate change when Malcolm Turnbull led the Liberal Party
    • The Chinese Government announced new rules for airspace in the dispute over islands in the South China Sea. The Australian Government attacked the Chinese announcement, but then allowed Qantas to abide by the new Chinese rules.
    • Scott Morrison continues to hide information about boat arrivals. The Canberra Press Gallery veteran, Laurie Oakes, says that ‘The Abbott Government is thumbing its nose at voters through a lack of transparency and communication’.
    • Then came the keystone cops activities of George Brandis and ASIO in raids on a whistle blower and an attorney over bugging of the East Timor Cabinet. There will be a lot more to come on this one.
    • Then there were the attacks on the ABC and an agreement with the Greens to abolish the debt ceiling. What’s next!
    • And all this began with the parliamentary entitlements scandal with Tony Abbott leading the peloton.

    Surely this muddle and confusion must end soon. But a Cabinet that includes Christopher Pyne, George Brandis, Barnaby Joyce, Greg Hunt, Eric Abetz, Scott Morrison, Kevin Andrews and Peter Dutton, is a cause for worry.

    I don’t recall a government that has had such a short honeymoon as this one. The first 100 days have been memorable for the wrong reasons. It has yet to successfully make the transition from Opposition to Government.

  • Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. John Menadue

    On December 9 the Royal Commission will commence public hearings into the role of the Catholic Church in Australia on this issue. Francis Sullivan the Executive Director of the Truth Justice and Healing Council of the Catholic Church said on 3 December that “Catholics and non-Catholics will be shocked and disillusioned when they hear the details of the four Queensland based case studies and how the Catholic Church handled the cases and treated the victims”.

    Together with friends, I have made a submission to the Royal Commission. You can find it by clicking on my website which can be found at the top left-hand side of the home page of this blog. The submission can also be found on the Royal Commission website under the item ‘Towards healing issues paper’.

    In our submission we highlight the problems of governance and a clerical culture which have contributed to the current problems.

    Our concerns were identified earlier by the Murphy Commission which was concerned with the Archdiocese of Dublin. That Commission found that the “structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated the cover up”. Pope Benedict wrote a pastoral to the people of Ireland and blamed the bishops for not following the “long established norms of Canon Law”. The problem however was Canon Law itself.

    The Maitland/Newcastle enquiry is continuing and is expected to  report on 28 February next year.

    The Victorian Parliamentary Enquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organisations handed down its report ‘Betrayal of Trust’ on 13 November 2013. This report stated starkly ‘No representative of the Catholic Church directly reported the crimes committed  by its members to the police’(p170). The Committee found ‘That there is simply no justification for this position’. It said that in not one instance of the 307 cases involving the diocese of Ballarat, Sale and Sandhurst, did the Bishops report directly to the police.  That is extraordinary, even though  the Church cooperated once police enquiries were afoot.

    What the Victorian enquiry did not elaborate on, was that any public reporting of information by the Catholic Church about sexual abuse of minors, (that a bishop was required to investigate internally under Canon 1717) was strictly forbidden by Canon law.  See guest blog on this issue by Kieran Tapsell on November 17.

    In addition to our submission to the Royal Commission referred to above you might find the following blogs relevant. They are posted on this site

    Bella Figura. Not admitting mistakes, Kieran Tapsell 4 December

    What a good effort.   Chis Geraghty, November 30

    Sexual abuse, two Popes late on the scene. Michael Kelly, November 26

    Sexual abuse, don’t mention Canon Law. Kieran Tapsell, November 25

    Victorian Parliament’s “Betrayal of Trust “ report. Kieran Tapsell, November 17

    I have also posted earlier blogs on this issue, February 20, February 22, February 28, March 25 and April 3, 2013.

  • The Japanese and Chinese provocations. Guest blogger: William Grimm

    China has expanded its air defense zone, ramping up a dispute with Japan that goes from bad to worse and shows no sign of abating. Observers are even thinking about the unthinkable – armed conflict between the two countries. And such conflict would not be limited to them. As was demonstrated by their sending two B-52 bombers through the area newly claimed by China, the Americans are bound to honor their alliance with Japan in the event of conflict.

    How did things reach this point? Though the issues that underlie the crisis have existed since at least the end of the Pacific War, until lately it has not been a cause of friction. China claimed some islets as theirs and Japan did likewise. In fact, the islands were privately owned by some Japanese. Rather than make an issue of it, each country simply ignored the other’s claims. However, the recent finding that there may be undersea gas fields near the islands made both countries more interested in sovereignty.

    Then, one of Japan’s most divisive figures entered the picture. Shintaro Ishihara is a far-right politician who was governor of Tokyo for nearly 13 years. He has made a career of making statements that demonstrate a hyper-nationalistic attitude against foreigners both in and outside of Japan. He seems to take delight in upsetting people.

    Last year, he declared that he would arrange for Tokyo to purchase the islands from their owners in order to secure Japanese sovereignty over them. What had been a situation of “you say they’re yours, we say they’re ours, but they’re not worth arguing over” may, contrary to anyone’s wishes, become a casus belli.

    The Chinese government has fostered a patriotism of resentment, emphasizing insults to the country by European and Japanese colonialists and by American “hegemony.” It can be a useful way to give a common ethos to people who are ethnically diverse, who have their own mini-nationalistic tendencies and who are increasingly disillusioned with the official ideology and practice of the ruling party. Foreign insults and injustices, ancient or modern, real or imagined, are handy ways to distract people from current domestic ones.

    So, it was impossible for the Chinese government to ignore Ishihara’s move without losing face among the people of China. (I doubt anyone outside China and a few Japanese hyper-nationalists care in the least.) Whether the Chinese leadership cares about the islets or not, it cannot appear to acquiesce in an insult from Japan, a historic enemy. Acquiescence could provoke an unmanageable domestic reaction.

    Japan, too, is faced with the problem of loss of face. The country has slipped from the time when “Japan as Number One” was the world’s mantra. But, just as Japan seemed poised to rival the U.S. at least economically, the bubble burst. Japanese have been humiliated to see their country become a has-been on the world stage. Especially galling is that their place has been taken by China, a country that has always been seen as a backward neighbor. The Japanese government is forced to put up a show of opposition to China in order to head off domestic accusations of weakness on the world stage.

    So, we have two countries that probably wish the islands would just sink into the sea and end the dispute, but which until that day are forced to save face by escalating their mutual blustering. It may all be a game.

    The worrying point, though, is that though the chief players may know they are playing a game while trying to find some way to minimize the loss of face on either side, their pawns might not be aware that it’s a game.

    In the 1930s, Japanese troops intoxicated by hyper-nationalistic claims and against the wishes of their government provoked incidents that eventuated in war throughout Asia. This time, it is more likely to be some Chinese pilot raised on the patriotism of resentment who will fire an air-to-air missile and launch disaster for the world.

    I hope that when Chinese leaders scramble their fighter jets because some Japanese (or American) aircraft has “violated” their air defense zone, they remember to remove the missiles from under the wings.

    Bill Grimm is a Maryknoll priest who has lived and worked on and off in Japan for 40 years. He is the publisher of UCA News.

     

  • The cost of healthcare in Australia and remuneration of doctors. Guest blogger: Professor Kerry Goulston

    The cost of healthcare is unsustainable here and in many other countries.  In Australia it is 9.5% of GDP, estimated to rise to 16-25% by 2025.  There are obvious reasons for this—population ageing, end of life heroics, increased technology and increased use of procedures.  A rapidly increasing contributor to the cost of healthcare in Australia comes from “out-of-pocket expenses”-estimated by Yusef and Leeder in a seminal paper –Oct 2013-in the Medical Journal of Australia to be $28 billion per annum.  For older households this represents an annual cost of $3,585.  Yusef and Leeder point out that the decline in adequacy of coverage of Medicare rebates for medical services has increased the need for co-payments .  This means that some people in lower socio-economic groups are not seeking medical care and are not getting their prescriptions filled. This needs review.

    Whilst there is considerable distress and indeed anger expressed anecdotally by patients at the increasing ‘gap’, it is remarkable that the Australian media has barely featured this.  Out-of pocket expenses now account for almost a quarter of the total healthcare costs in Australia.

    An excellent book Making Medicare: the politics of universal health care in Australia (2003) pointed out that the Medicare system was not designed to support integrated care and management; that fee-for-service fragmented patient care and increased doctors’ incomes.  The authors, Anne-Marie Boxall and James Gillespie from the University of Sydney called for genuine policy innovation.  This is echoed by The Commonwealth Funds “International Profiles of Health Care Systems “released in Nov 2013 which shows that 75% of Australians said they wanted fundamental change or a complete rebuilding of the health system—more than any other country surveyed.

    In the USA the Society of General Internal Medicine published a report on their national Commission on Physician Payment Reform in May 2013 with 12 recommendations.  These were aimed at containing costs, improving patient care and reducing expenditures on unnecessary care.  They suggested a “blended” system over a 5 year transition period with some payments based on the fee-for-service model and other payments based on capitation or salary.

    In October 2013 two US senators (a Democrat and a Republican) proposed a gradual change to a new system with incentives for doctors to forgo fee-for-service billing.  However a 2013 survey by the AMA of US doctors showed that while 85% agreed that trying to contain costs is the responsibility of every doctor, 70% were not enthusiastic about eliminating fee-for-service re-imbursement.

    In New Zealand, a blended system (universal capitated funding, patient co-payments and targeted fee-for-service) has an emphasis on an inter-disciplinary approach particularly for patients with chronic and complex problems.  From this side of the Tasman it appears to be working well.  It shows that remuneration change can be achieved over time.  We should learn from our New Zealand colleagues.

    Fee-for-service does not provide encouragement for preventive health and wellness care. It is not appropriate in addressing new or undiagnosed problems or managing chronic illness.  In fact there are dis-incentives embedded in fee-for-service which is skewed to episodic patient care and does not encourage doctors to spend time with patients who have chronic and complex conditions.

    A significant minority of recent medical graduates want a better work–life balance and many, not only women, are opting for non-fee-for-service employment.

    A move away from fee-for-service will improve the quality of care and reduce our steadily rising total healthcare costs, including the increasing out of pocket costs.  Such a change would need to be gradual, made optional-and introduced over a number of years.  It would require the support of leaders of all healthcare professionals, politicians and the community.  As yet Australian political parties lack any real vision for meaningful health reform and a serious commitment to reduce the rising costs without compromising quality.

    Professor Kerry Goulston, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of Sydney

     

  • Funding withdrawal forces the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia into Administration. Guest blogger: Ian Webster AO

    The Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia (ADCA) has served Australia for 50 years. It has worked collaboratively – but honestly – with all governments from Menzies to Rudd. But last week the Abbott government cut off funding.

    Compared with the costs of alcohol and drugs, alcohol alone costing $36 billion per year (Foundation for Alcohol Research and Evaluation commissioned study), the annual costs of $1.5 million to run ADCA is peanuts. Despite this it has a nation-wide constituency of 350 organisational, association and individual members – almost all being front-line agencies.

    When questioned about his daughter’s drug problem on TV Prime Minister, Bob Hawke was very distressed. The drug problem of the 80s had truly struck home in a most dramatic way. He then called the Premiers and Chief Ministers to the Drug Summit. It was the first time a social crisis, other than war-time, had galvanised such action.

    The Commonwealth Minister responsible, Dr Neal Blewett, turned to ADCA to organise a week-long national meeting to set the directions for the Summit. Thus was born Australia’s multi-sector campaign to reduce the harms of all drugs – alcohol, tobacco, prescribed and illicit drugs. It set the stage for pharmacotherapy treatment, clean needle and needle-exchange programs and other measures which shaped our response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

    ADCA started in 1967 when parents, clergy, judges, health professionals, researchers, journalists, union leaders and those directly affected by substance abuse came together to create a national voice, to promote research, education and training on alcohol problems and the emerging illicit drug problem. Around the planning table were people such as – “Weary Dunlop” of POW fame, Sir William Refshauge – Director General of Health and formerly of Army Medical Services, Dr Nan Waddy a community psychiatrist, (later Justice) Michael Kirby and others. The current president of the Board is former Liberal MP Mal Washer.

    When the Howard Government took the hardline stance, “Tough on Drugs”, it was ADCA which led that Government into new directions: programs to divert young people from courts and prison to education and treatment; persuaded the Government to have an alternative pathway of advice in the PM’s office through the Australian National Council on Drugs; and, pushed for grants to NGOs for diversion and treatment of illicit drug users.

    When no-one took up the devastating impact of alcohol and other drug use on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, ADCA was there. It is still there. From the very beginning Aboriginal leaders have been integral to the leadership of ADCA and to the research, education, training and resource provision for Aboriginal communities.

    As the peak body, ADCA has advised governments on policy and directions, run programs for government and done what governments have not been prepared to do – confront the commercial interests of tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceutical and illicit drug industries. ADCA’s stand has always been based on rigorous analysis, feedback from its member front-line agencies, the research it has sponsored, the data collated in its world-class resource centre and on input from professional bodies.

    Its training programs and resources have led to a viable drug and alcohol workforce. It has stimulated research from when there was none at all to now with Australia being recognised at the top end of international league tables for drug and alcohol research. ADCA’s Drug Information Service is accessed from around the world and is integrated into the research centres of excellence in addiction and drugs and alcohol in the major Australian universities. No other country has such a network of information sharing.

    More significantly ADCA is a broad church encompassing and reconciling competing views about the nature of alcohol and drug problems and how they should be dealt with.

    I am proud of its achievements and contribution to our society and I am especially proud of the ADCA Board which said to me, “We are NGO people, we know how to survive, and we can change the world!” I am sure they can with the active support and engagement of all in civil society.

     

    Emeritus Professor Ian W Webster AO

    Patron of the Alcohol and other Drug Council of Australia and Emeritus Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of NSW

     

     

     

  • Pope Francis’s Synod. Guest blogger: Eric Hodgens

    The new Pope Francis has caught the eye of the world. Many people with Catholic friends know that there are two Catholic Churches in the world today – one of the popes and the Pells, the other of the rank and file Catholics and their priests. The first is doctrinaire. The second makes adjustments to doctrine and rules as required.

    The Church’s central vision is one of life, forgiveness and hope. But in recent years this has been smothered by its pope and bishops’ preoccupation with today’s hot ethical issues – abortion, sexuality (including homosexuality), medical technology, divorce and gender. This has undermined the church’s credibility because all of these issues are in play – except within the ranks of a hierarchy. Then Pope Francis came along. He is aware that these issues are personal and pressing – and all under debate. He has changed the focus of the discussion from ideology to pastoral practice. We know the rules and doctrine, he says, but how do you handle the pastoral question in the lives of real people?

    The pope’s practical answer is to call a synod (a representative group) of the world’s bishops to discuss the matter. The subject is to be The Church and The Family. In a new departure for such synods he wants the whole membership of the church to discuss the matter and report back before the synod convenes. The synod’s organizing committee has sent out a questionnaire for discussion. Its four major topics are:

    • The teaching of the Church on the Family – and its reception;
    • The place of Natural Law in the Church’s teachings – and its reception;
    • The family’s place in evangelization;
    • New cultural issues re marriage. These include:
      • Extra-marital co-habitation and de facto marriages;
      • Divorce and its implications;
      • Marriage annulment;
      • Same sex unions;
      • Education of children of irregular unions.

    The questionnaire is surprising. Public consultation is a new thing. Issues hitherto discussed at your peril are now open for review, seemingly at the Pope’s initiative. Furthermore, all these issues are regularly discussed within the Church – but not openly. Many issues have already been operationally resolved by concerned pastors ignoring restrictions or defying them.

    Now to the points:

    Firstly, there is no single “Teaching of the Church” on marriage. Over the two millennia of the Christian Church’s existence we have had a variety of approaches. The Church had little to do with marriage till the 13th century when it took legal control of marriage. Church registration followed. Since then control of the legalities of marriage was in Church hands until the secular state took over in the 19th century. All this applies only to Europe and the West. Other cultures have their own customs which have been problems for Christianity as it became more universal.

    The 20th century teachings of the Catholic Church on Marriage can be summed up as restrictions on sex justified by Natural Law philosophy. Pope Paul VI’s decree “Humanae Vitae”, with its banning of contraception, is the poster child of this approach. He argued that contraception was against the “natural law”. His argument runs: if you study the nature of the human being you will deduce that sex is for procreation. To interfere with that is to violate the natural law.

    Both aspects of this teaching are now culturally irrelevant due to cultural changes in attitudes to sex and the obsolescence of the Natural Law philosophy. These are facts. The dogged opposition of Church officials is a lost ideological cause.

    Evangelization (spreading the gospel to newcomers) has never been a high priority of the Christian family. The passing of Christian affiliation from generation to generation has been a cultural phenomenon. The family might have indoctrinated, but evangelization was bypassed. Each new generation was inculturated into Catholicism – up till now. Evangelization has never been a serious issue even in the New Evangelization called for by Pope John Paul II. What he wanted was a return to the old mind set – an exercise in nostalgia.

    The values that matter are justice in relationships and stability in partnerships – especially while children are involved. Taking restrictive stances on varieties of partnership and recreational sex and is moralistic ideology. The hierarchy may have missed the opportunity to deal realistically with today’s Western approach to sexuality, marriage and family by canonising a dull, wowserish past. They have alienated two generations.

    Divorce is a punishing experience rendered double punishment by effectively excommunicating the remarried. Divorce in the West increased after World War II. Now at around 50%, it alone explains much of the post-War loss of affiliation.

    Forget annulment. Fewer Catholics are using it because the Church’s rules are a mess and less and less socially relevant.

    Contraception is a fairly reliable component of today’s living. So, either help people plan a family – or better – let them do it themselves and leave them alone.

    Support all stable partnerships. Argue about what you call them if that is your thing.

    Finally, give any support you can to partners doing their best to educate a new generation.

    There is movement at the station but there is still a long way to go. How widely will bishops consult on the questionnaire? Will the responses to the questionnaire be filtered by conservative local bureaucracies? Will burning issues be addressed by the Synod Preparatory Committee? Will the conservative officials still pervading the Roman administration win this one as they won after Vatican II? What political colour will the Synod be when it convenes? Will it reflect the mind of the Church at large or just the hierarchy? If it does, will the resulting report be true or doctored? And will the result be consensus or division?

    Past synods have been rubber stamps. How this one goes remains to be seen.

    Eric Hodgens is a retired Melbourne Catholic priest who ‘writes a bit’.  

  • There goes the neighbourhood. John Menadue

    It used to be thought that the intrusion of new ethnic communities into established Anglo-areas was destroying the neighbourhood.

    Now it is increasingly the excesses of wealth that are doing the damage.

    James Packer spent millions to buy and then bulldoze three houses to make room for his Sydney fortress. In the three year process, he inflicted noise, congestion and dust over the local residents whilst he lived quietly elsewhere.

    But it didn’t make for happiness and wellbeing. The marriage lasted only three months in the new $50 million pile which Erica Packer described as ‘like living in a shopping centre’. Family relations are not helped if one has to communicate by intercom.

    But in varying degrees this opulence and excess is destroying many neighbourhoods. Data commissioned by the Australian Bureau of Statistics by CommSec shows that the average floor area of new homes stood at 214.1 m2. in the 9 months to March 2011. The average floor area of new freestanding houses stood at 243.6 m2.

    The US has traditionally had the biggest homes in the world. But new homes in Australia are now around 10% bigger than in the US.

    Not just in James Packer’s area has it become increasingly common for two or more houses to be flattened to make room for a mega-pile. Even on these larger blocks, major excavation is necessary to accommodate 3 or 4 cars. A home theatre, sauna room, cabana gymnasium and lifts are musts. And of course – nanny rooms. A private swimming pool, sometimes underground, is desirable, even if there is one of the best beaches in the world within a few minutes walk.  Roller doors are essential to avoid eye-contact with other residents. Will draw bridges be next! The result is sterile streets where human contact is the exception.  In waterfront mansions the attractive front faces the water. The ugly rear is reserved for the neighbours.Any problem with pesky neighbours is handled by a member of staff or a lawyer.

    Wealthy newcomers are attracted to the neighborliness and village nature of many areas but then proceed to methodically destroy what initially attracted them.

    Some councils try to oppose this grandiosity but they don’t have the resources to combat a phalanx of celebrity architects, lawyers and “public relations” people. Some are also obviously concerned that if they reject gross over development it will lead to expensive legal appeals.

    Why is it that people indulge themselves in such fantasy at the expense of others? As Elizabeth Farrelly in the SMH put it ‘no-one can make excess look good’. Boris Pasternak hit the nail on the head when he commented in respect of pre-Soviet Russia that ‘only the superfluous is vulgar’.

    A great deal of what we are building is destroying human relationships. The more ostentatious and vulgar the built environment, the more it destroys neighborhoods.

    And one in two hundred people in Australia are homeless every night.

    Wealth doesn’t necessarily bring vulgarity and bad taste, but we are getting more and more of it.  Perhaps an inheritance and wealth tax would help curb this excess. I am not confident that an improvement in taste is likely.

     

     

  • China’s new rules. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

    China’s unilateral declaration of an “air defense identification zone” in the East China Sea is the most serious escalation of its territorial dispute with Japan since the large-scale mob attacks on Japanese property in China just over a year ago.

    China’s Ministry of National Defense has declared that as of two days ago new rules govern the entry of aircraft into the vast zone that encompasses the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, with all over-flights now requiring prior notification.

    To back up this measure, the PLA Air Force has begun enforcement patrols.

    Both Japan and the United States have condemned what they call Beijing’s “destabilizing” move and indicated they would not recognize the restrictions.

    China says that aircraft flying into the “air defense identification zone” should report their flight plans to its government agencies and respond in a “timely and accurate manner” to identification inquiries. “China’s armed forces will adopt defensive emergency measures to respond to aircraft that do not cooperate in the identification or refuse to follow the instructions,” it added.

    In September last year there were nationwide protests in China against Japan’s decision to nationalize several of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, off Taiwan, over which both it and China (and Taiwan) claim sovereignty. Since then Chinese and Japanese patrol boats have been shadowing each other in the disputed area, known to contain undersea oil and gas reserves.

    As recently as a week ago Japanese government officials were reported as saying they had begun to see signs of improvement in the severely strained Sino-Japanese relations. That assessment now seems premature. China’s latest move makes clear that it will not allow the dispute to slip back into the background where it had sat for decades, until last year.

    In stating Japan’s opposition to the “identification zone”, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida did not say whether the country would take direct counter-measures. Tokyo has mostly tried to contain the dispute but is being hemmed in by Beijing’s every new assertion of control.

    Japanese Defense Ministry analysts have been concerned for some time about the aerial dimension of the territorial dispute. On regular occasions Japanese military aircraft are being scrambled to intercept Chinese patrol planes flying near the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Though no exchanges of fire have occurred, it is thought to be a more dangerous theatre of confrontation than the standoff on the water. China’s declaration of its “air defense identification zone”, in the first instance, may be intended to establish a more formal basis for resisting these Japanese Air Self-Defense Force operations.

    The official Xinhua news agency quotes “military experts” as saying the zone “accords with international common practices…if the move does not violate international laws, breach other countries’ territorial sovereignty or affect the freedom of flight”. Even this predictably supportive commentary suggests that disputed sovereignty and curtailment of freedom of the air would constitute valid grounds for objection.

    The Japanese and US military must now calculate the risks of testing China’s resolve to enforce its East China Sea “identification zone”. The recent relative calm in this strategic flashpoint may now be over.

    Walter Hamilton reported from Japan for eleven years for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He is the author of “Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story” (NewSouth Books).

  • Tony Abbott and his very close confidante, Mark Textor. John Menadue

    To refuse to apologise to President Yudhoyono would be entirely consistent with the type of advice that Mark Textor has given to a succession of Liberal leaders in Australia, including Tony Abbott.

    In his texting Mark Textor has made the point, according to Laurie Tingle in the AFR today “that (Australian) voters don’t give rats if Indonesia was offended by the revelation of eavesdropping.” This is consistent with the view of Textor that the media and the blogger sphere are filled with elite opinion which is not held in the community in general.

    Dextor then went on in his texting to speak more colourfully of ‘an apology demanded from Australia by a bloke who looks like a 1970s Pilipino (sic) pornstar with the ethics to match’. Textor declined to say if he was referring to President Yudhoyono or Foreign Minister Natalegawa.  Textor has subsequently withdrawn the twitter messages, but the damage has been done and the message conveyed. He is in effect telling the media that Australians don’t think much of Indonesians, so why should we apologise.

    The Crosby/Textor web site tells us that their firm is “Australia’s most successful pollster and strategist. Mark Textor is acknowledged as the most astute judge of political sentiment in Australia” In 2007 the Australian Financial Review described Textor as one of the ten most powerful people in Australia because of the valuable advice he was able to offer to clients. Amongst many Conservative leaders, Mark Textor is regarded as a guru.

    Textor has form in advising Tony Abbott. In the 2010 election he is widely credited with giving Tony Abbott the infamous lines that Abbott repeated time and time again – ‘we will stop the boats’, ‘stop the big new taxes’, ‘end the waste’ and ‘pay back the debt’. Tony Abbott now seems to be adding another one liner, “don’t apologise”.

    Textor has been politically invaluable to Tony Abbott  and the Liberal Party. Few people are as politically close to Tony Abbott as Mark Textor.

    If Tony Abbott wants to repair relations with Indonesia, he must distance himself from Mark Textor. Malcolm Fraser called on the Liberal Party to sack Textor. The fact is that Textor is too valuable for the Liberal Party to sack him.

    And what of the 21 firms that have now employed Crosby Textor Research Strategies Results to lobby on their behalf in Canberra. These firms include the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, the leading lobby group for the oil and gas industry. The APPEA is particularly campaigning for government support for the coal-seam gas industry.

    The Crosby/Textor web site also tells us that Textor’s direct clients include the Australian Bankers’ Association and the Business Council of Australia. I wonder how their businesses with Indonesia will fare now!

     

  • 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!