Category: Politics

  • John Menadue. A graph on boat arrivals for lazy journalists.

    I have reposted below an article I wrote on 8 December last year pointing out that Tony Abbott did not stop the boats. But the debate proceeds, assisted by journalists who still claim that Tony Abbott stopped the boats. He didn’t. 

    So that my argument can be better understood, see the graph below which reveals quite clearly that there was a dramatic fall in boat arrivals from July 2013 when Kevin Rudd announced the policy that future boat arrivals would not be settled in Australia. We may argue about the wisdom of this policy, but it effectively stopped the boats. There is a current debate about turn-backs of boats, but they were only a marginal influence in stopping the flow of boat arrivals.

    Boat People Arrivals

    Not only did Tony Abbott not stop the boats, but he, together with the Greens was responsible for the dramatic increase in boat arrival numbers after the rejection of the Malaysian arrangement in August 2011. At that time, irregular maritime arrivals were running at less than 300 per month. That increased to over 4,000 in July 2013 when the Rudd Government acted. For further background see repost below,

    Repost from 8 December 2014.

    The data just does not support the never-ending claims by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison that they stopped the boats. The under-resourced and uncritical media accepts the Coalition’s line.

    I will come to the recent data, but first the evidence is clear that action by the Coalition along with the Greens in the Senate to prevent amendments to the Migration Act greatly assisted people-smugglers and boat arrivals from 2011 onwards.

    The rejection of the arrangement with Malaysia by the High Court started the rot. The High Court decision may have been sound in law, but it had powerful consequences for boat arrivals. The arrangement with Malaysia needed improvement but it did provide guarantees that Malaysia had never provided before. The UNHCR was prepared to actively cooperate. When the High Court rejected the Malaysian arrangement in August 2011, irregular maritime arrivals were running at less than 300 per month. That number increased to 1200 by May 2012, and kept on rising.

    The Labor  Government  attempted to amend the Migration Act to address the problems identified by the High Court but the Coalition together with the Greens blocked the amending legislation. They bashed Malaysia at every opportunity. The failure of the Malaysian arrangement sent a very clear message to people smugglers that boat arrivals would succeed. Boat arrivals were running at over 4,000 per month in July 2013.

    The action by Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison in association with the Greens triggered this dramatic increase in boat arrivals. Both Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison made it abundantly clear that they did not want to stop the boats with an arrangement such as that with Malaysia. They wanted to stop Labor stopping the boats. Their political intentions were revealed by WikiLeaks that reported that ‘a key Liberal Party strategist told the US embassy in 2009 that the more boats that come the better’. (SMH 10 December 2010). Scott Morrison became Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship in December 2009.

    Action by the Coalition in the Senate triggered a large increase in boat arrivals in 2012 and into 2013.

    But did Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison really stop the boats when they came to power?

    The data shows that the downward trend in boat arrivals occurred from July 2013, two months before the Coalition came to power. See data below.

    2013 Boat people arrivals(excluding crew) Boats
    January 2013 471 10
    February 925 16
    March 2455 37
    April 3396 47
    May 3315 47
    June 2715 41
    July 4145 47
    Aug 1591 25
    September 837 15
    October 339 5
    November 207 5
    December 355 7

    Source: Department of Immigration and Border Protection, and Australian Parliamentary Library.

    What largely stopped the boats, although not completely, was the announcement by Kevin Rudd on the 19th July 2013 that in future any persons coming by boat and found to be a  refugee would not be settled in Australia. We may argue about the wisdom of that policy, but it effectively crippled the business case of the people-smugglers.

    In the data above, there are undoubtedly some leads and lags and seasonal factors, but the data shows that the Rudd announcement of 19 July 2013 dramatically cut the number of boats and people arriving by boat. The major turnaround occurred between July and August, before the Coalition came to power.

    As the Abbott Government was not sworn in until 18 September 2013, its policy on boats would also have had only marginal effect on September arrivals.

    So between July and September, people arriving by boat fell from 4,145 to 837 and the number of boats fell from 47 to 15. The trend largely continued after that time.

    Peter Hughes a former deputy secretary in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship put it this way in an article in the Canberra Times in late 2013. ‘The arrival of 546 asylum seekers in October and November 2013 represents only 14% of the number of arrivals for the corresponding months in 2012. This is a dramatic reduction … The announcement of long-term resettlement of refugees in Papua New Guinea and Nauru by the previous government has likely been decisive in changing the decision to travel to Australia on the part of those asylum seekers who have not yet handed over their money to a smuggler. ‘

    The game-changer was Kevin Rudd’s announcement of 19 July 2013 on no resettlement in Australia for boat arrivals. It is also likely that tighter visa procedures on Indonesia’s part would have helped reduce the number of boat arrivals.  In effect the Rudd Government slammed the door although the boat turn a rounds pushed the final bolt home. In other words, if there was any doubt in the minds of people smugglers and asylum seekers trying to come by boat those doubts were removed.

    The Abbott Government capitalised on a trend which the Rudd Government clearly started in July 2013.

    Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have wrung every political advantage they could from boat arrivals. But the evidence is clear that they helped accelerate the numbers before they came to power and it was the action of the Rudd Government, before they came to power in September 2013 that put boat arrivals on a downward track

    Operation Sovereign Borders has really been quite marginal and would not have been ‘successful’ without the July 2013 decision. Navy and Customs were able to turn a few boats around. This would have been impossible if boats had continued to arrive at 47 a month as they were in July 2013. OSB has been very high profile and very expensive – and offensive to Indonesia. But OSB has not been the main game.

    The game-changer was Kevin Rudd’s announcement in July 2013.

  • John Dwyer. An increase in the GST or efficiency gains to fund our hospitals. Which would you prefer?

    Premier Baird has announced that he will require a 15% GST to fund our public hospital system in the coming years. It is certainly true that with present policies, revenue won’t match the cost of the anticipated future demand for hospital care. Hospital admissions climb steadily each year (average increase 3%) and the additional patients tend to be sicker and older. Our current health system puts pressure on our State and Territory governments to constantly find more beds and provide new hospital stock. Without financial restructuring his government will not be able to provide us with the quality service we need and expect. The better targeted suggestion from Victoria that we increase the Medicare levy won’t provide the money needed. The current levy only covers about 50% of the cost of Medicare.

    However financial restructuring can involve two, not necessarily mutually exclusive tactics. In the policy vacuum that has absorbed Australian politics like a black hole, the easy tactic is for government to ask Australians for more money. A far better approach would see us at last addressing the structural inefficiencies in our health system that would provide savings that at least for health care, would make this huge increase in a regressive tax unnecessary.

    Premier Baird’s problem is that the structural levers that need to be pulled to improve the health of the nation and its budget are in Canberra. It’s the Federal government that funds the majority of our primary (GP) and community care and it’s the inability of both, as currently structured, to reduce the demand for hospital care that so frustrates State and Territory governments. Any review of the benefits or otherwise of our federal system will reveal that it has created rather than solved many problems for cost-effective, equitable delivery of health care.

    Our taxpayer funded public health system spends more than 55 billion dollars a year on hospital care but only 19 billion dollars a year on primary care. However, wearing federal blinkers, the federal government looks at Medicare as if it was a stand-alone health system and State and Territory governments are forced to focus on hospital care. Health economics 101 and much reliable international evidence tells us that if we spend more money on a structurally reformed primary care system we would save far more than these reforms would cost by significantly reducing the demand for hospital services. This is the “win, win” path we should be taking, not an increase in the GST.

    Premier Baird and his fellow Premiers are looking at escalating fiscal problems for hospital funding over the next ten years. What we need is to take a reform journey through that decade that would see us still spending about 10% of our GDP on health but having a healthier population requiring far fewer trips to hospital. At least eight OECD countries are well advanced on that journey and many have evidence of reductions in hospital admission rates of 20-35%.

    Available evidence tells us that the most important change our health system needs would see us introduce a model of primary care known as “Integrated Primary Care”. This model places an emphasis on prevention of disease (only 2% of our current health budget is spent on prevention), early detection of changes that could develop into chronic conditions if not treated in time, in house “team management” of all the health needs of those who have an established illness and outreach services from the practice into the community to treat individuals who otherwise might need hospital care. Research reveals that more than 600,000 admissions to our public hospitals each year could have been avoided with an appropriate community intervention. Around the world the model is increasingly referred to as a “Medical Home”. One enrols in this entity wherein multidisciplinary teams of health professionals can provide the above services. International experience shows us that patients and health professionals enthusiastically embrace the model.

    As our federation is reviewed and our health care costs are wrestled with, consider the following inefficiencies that should also be addressed before considering an increase in the GST. We have nine departments of health for 23 million people. Duplication costs us 2-3 billion dollars a year. We spend over 6 billion dollars a year subsidising private health insurance using the false argument that such spending will see private hospital care reducing the demand for public hospital services. It doesn’t. The money would be much better spent on improving primary care and reducing admission to both public and private hospitals. My profession is steadily tackling the very unprofessional expenditure of up to 10 billion dollars a year on low value or no value procedures and tests. Australians spend 3 billion dollars a year buying vitamins and “supplements”, not needed by the vast majority of us, as they are led to believe you can neutralise an unhealthy lifestyle with something out of a bottle.

    Tackling these problems as we progress along our health reform journey will provide us with a health system for the future that is second to none, equitable and cost effective. Even if we could afford a massive increase in the GST it would be money poorly spent on a health system calling out for reform. Now where oh where is the political leadership to take us on this productive journey?

     

    John Dwyer is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at UNSW.

  • Richard Letts. George Brandis’ hobby.

    George Brandis’s day job is as Commonwealth Attorney-General. He is also Arts Minister, which on the evidence he treats as a sort of hobby. He has been responsible now for two annual arts budgets. In the 2014 budget, there was a cut to arts funding but he quarantined from the cut the 28 major performing arts organisations funded through the Australia Council; these are the main orchestras, opera companies, theatre companies, dance/ballet companies, Musica Viva and Circus Oz. They were quarantined again in 2015, not from an overall funding cut to the arts, but from a raid by Brandis himself on the funds of the Australia Council.

    Brandis took about $26 million a year for the next four years and transferred it to his own Ministry. The result over the two years is that about half of the funds available to all other grantees – the small to medium sized organisations and the individual artists – has been taken from the Australia Council. It could set Australian arts back decades.

    Under the Australia Council legislation, the Arts Minister can instruct the Council in matters of policy, just as he can his own Ministry. The Council must now prepare an annual Corporate Plan which must be approved by the Minister and has been so approved by Brandis. Given this high level of control, why would the Minister feel the need to transfer funds out of the Australia Council to his Ministry? The most obvious answer is that at the Ministry, he can decide, grant by grant, who will or will not be funded. He is prevented by legislation from instructing the Australia Council on individual grants – the “arm’s-length principle”. Perhaps a secondary advantage is that he can dictate policy at the Ministry without having to contend with informed argument as he might at the Australia Council.

    In the course of a Senate Estimates hearing on May 27, the Minister was asked whether he found the decisions coming from the Australia Council to be problematical. He implied that he did, that its interests were rather narrow, but was unable to give examples. In fact, he has made no considered, defensible policy statement about the purpose of the transfer of funds. Even if he had identified matters with which he is dissatisfied, the Australia Council, as he should know, is right now after years of planning introducing a new regime which is intended to widen its scope. A rational response would be to wait to see the outcomes and then seek to improve them further.

    However, there was one statement from Senator Brandis in that Estimates hearing that gives the game away, in part at least.  “We want to spend more on developing our arts companies, which is why we have created this new fund.” He means the 28 major companies. The statement is consistent with his actions. He has quarantined them from cuts. He has defined three directions for the use of the new Ministry funds, one of which is to support the major companies in additional touring, and the second is to support companies in seeking private support – and it is the large companies that have fund-raising staff that can best take advantage of that program. (The remaining funds, for “strategic projects”, can go to SMEs.) Of the $26 million available each year, only $20 million will be spent on the programs so far named. For the other $6 million, apart from funds needed for administration, we could conjecture that additional support will be provided to implement the recommendations of the Minister’s review of the major opera companies, to report later this year.

    Also on May 27, Senator Brandis said: “But let us not forget that the major performing arts companies are the heart and soul of the performing arts sector in this country. They are the big employers of artists and arts workers. They are the people who undertake most of the touring, including the regional touring, as well as the international touring.

    “They are the people who provide the performances that the great [?] audiences of Australia enjoy. As I have always said, one of my misgivings about the exclusive peer-to-peer funding model is: who represents the audience around the table? The minister, being the responsible officer in charge of taxpayers’ money, has to be the voice for audiences. What are the shows, what are the performances, what are the concerts that the audiences go to? Primarily, they go to the performances of the major performing arts companies, whether it be drama, music, opera, ballet, dance or whatever art form it may be. It is very important to remember that their interests, and therefore the interests of the great audiences and the arts public of Australia, have been protected…”

    I certainly agree that the orchestras and opera companies are the economic engine of the classical music sector. They are the major source of organised employment that gives some rationality to a young person’s decision to invest years of their lives in training as classical musicians. They account for a large if unknown percentage of paid attendances for classical music. But Live Performance Australia’s data show that including Musica Viva, they account for 7.7% of ticket sales, as against 42.5% for contemporary music, even though the latter probably omits attendances at small venues.

    But is not the Minister’s perception of himself as the hero-defender of the audience a little peculiar? It’s as though he has been musing one day on what possible useful role he might play in the arts portfolio and suddenly realised that among the Australia Council’s expert artist-peers there are no (inexpert) representative of the audience. Presto – Ministerial relevance! Does he think that the companies do not consider what is popular with audiences? Why then is there hardly an Opera Australia year without a long season of La Bohéme? The audience speaks softly but it carries a big stick – it buys tickets or it doesn’t.

    Minister Brandis to The Australian on June 21, 2014, when he first announced his crusade for the audience: “Frankly I’m more interested in funding arts companies that cater to the great audiences that want to see quality drama, or music or dance, than I am in subsidising individual artists responsible only to themselves.” * (Now he has announced that his new fund will not give grants to individual artists.)

    This is an astounding statement from an Arts Minister.  Of course, the individual artist must give him- or herself to their own process. But does the Minister think that individual artists have no concern for the views of the organisations that may put their work before the public, or the public reception?

    But this Minister seems to have no interest in the creation of art, no sense that we are in a time of great artistic flux and invention. He likes the safety of the heritage, culled over centuries. The transfer of funds seems to be about indulging the Minister’s personal artistic preferences and values.

    What we need the Minister to do is understand the entire ecology. We need to build audiences not only for the performing arts canon, but the arts of our time and place. The individual artists and small companies are the incubators, the risk-takers, the innovators, a training ground. Even the major companies acknowledge this. An informed arts minister finds ways to support audience building, perhaps for crowd-pleasers but especially for the art that finds the way forward.

    This is a summary of part of the following submission: http://musictrust.com.au/list-of-projects/senate-inquiry-into-the-impact-of-the-2014-and-2015-commonwealth-budget-decisions-on-the-arts/

    *When a playwright sits amongst an audience and shifts their eyes sideways to take in an expression of submission, when a playwright hears the laughter or feels the transition of reality from auditorium to stage, a transition that happens in a mutual seduction of artists and audiences – that is the moment when a playwright succumbs to the love-affair of a writing life – a love affair with that amorphous, sometimes frustrating, occasionally disappointing and often inspiring lover: the audience.

    We don’t talk about our lover very often. We think of ourselves as more interesting. The audience encourages this by fanning the flames of our self-importance. And in the full swing of our egocentric flourishes, we sometimes forget them – but we do so at our peril. Everything we are, everything we want, everything we need and everything we aspire to is in their hands.

    –           Playwright Joanna Murray-Smith, writing coincidentally in the Daily Review, July 24.

    Dr Richard Letts is Director of the Music Trust. In the 1980s he was Director of the Music Board of the Australia Council. He was founder and CEO of the Music Council of Australia (now Music Australia) and is a past President of the International Music Council.

  • John Menadue. The real problem is partisanship, not expenses.

    I have yet to hear anyone who supports the spending by Bronwyn Bishop of $5,000 in taxpayers’ money for a helicopter ride from Melbourne to Geelong for a Liberal Party fundraiser. It is surprising however that, as a member of parliament, she attracts so much attention for this relatively small misuse of public money, but little mention is made of large scale indulgences of companies that provide private travel, yachts, holidays and entertainment for senior executives at the expense of the taxpayer..

    But the real issue at the moment is the damage that Bronwyn Bishop has been doing to our parliament and the lack of trust we all have in our members of parliament. She is a biased and partisan class warrior and quite unsuited to uphold and advance the dignity of parliament. In the current parliament up to February this year she had ejected 309 MPs of whom 304 were from the Labor Party. That bias is intolerable.

    Tony Abbott speaks often of our constitutional roots in the UK parliamentary system. There are some practices in the House of Commons that we could consider. The first is that candidates for speaker must be nominated by at least twelve members of whom at least three be of a different party to the candidate. This ensures a degree of bipartisan support. Second, the speaker resigns from his or her party and does not attend party meetings. Thirdly, the speaker’s seat is not contested at the next election by a member of the opposition party.

    The speaker of the House of Commons clearly sees his or her role as the servant of the parliament and not of the government or the ruling party. There is a long tradition in the House of Commons that the speaker must protect the parliament against the encroachment and power of the king/the government. It is a hard won tradition. House of Common’s speakers have been executed for placing the interests of the parliament ahead of the government. That is why we still preserve the fiction that the speaker has to be ‘dragged unwillingly’ to the speaker’s chair. But that’s as far as the relevance goes these days. Unfortunately, in Australia on taking the speakership, the speaker becomes not a servant of the parliament but of the government and the ruling party.

    Our system has developed differently but there are still things that we could learn from the House of Commons. Most importantly, there are two things. The first is that a new speaker should have the support of both the government and opposition parties. Second, the speaker should never attend caucus meetings of the ruling party. If Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten could agree to such terms in a replacement for Bronwyn Bishop, I would be confident that we could begin to see a renewal of our parliament. Alternatively, if they could not agree, Bill Shorten could propose that he would adopt such an approach in the next parliament if he was able to win a majority. I am sure the public would respond very favourably.

    The real problem is not so much $5,000 for the helicopter ride, but the way parliament has been damaged by a biased speaker who cares little for the reputation of the parliament.

  • Bob Kinnaird. More government dishonesty on China FTA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

     

     

  • Richard Butler. The Iran Nuclear Agreement: Safe if Implemented.

    The Joint Cooperative Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed with Iran by the UN Security Council’s five Permanent members, plus Germany and the EU, (Vienna, July 14th), is unprecedented. No comparable arms control plan has been as detailed or thorough. Above all, it is vastly preferable to any of the proposed alternative approaches, the main one of which has been war.

    If the negotiation of this agreement had failed, there would have been further proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, in addition to whatever Iranian capability may have emerged. Israel already has them and Saudi Arabia has been contemplating them. Then, war with Iran, the preferred option in US Republican circles and Israel, would have almost certainly ensued with devastating and global effects, and, war would not have prevented Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability thereafter, for which it would have been given a massive incentive.

    The Plan and its technical annexes comprise some 150 pages. At root, it establishes four pillars:

    1. Cutting off Iran’s access to the weapons grade fissile material needed for a nuclear explosive device. 98% of the relevant material it now holds will be removed, 65% of the centrifuges it has employed to enrich uranium will be removed and the core of its reactor at Arak will be modified to remove its ability to make plutonium.
    2. The UN’s nuclear Agency (IAEA) will be given an unprecedented level and extent of access to all relevant materials and technologies within Iran to verify its compliance with the Plan. This access by the Agency exceeds the level given to the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) to disarm Iraq.
    3. Sanctions on Iran will be phased out.
    4. A review and dispute settlement process has been established comprised of the parties to the Plan and the role of the UN Security Council in seeking to enforce compliance with its decisions. The Council already exercises a similar role with respect to reports to it on compliance with the Treaty on the Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). It was such reports that triggered the existing sanctions on Iran.

    JCPOA states that Iran “ reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons”.

    On the face of it and in its text, JCPOA is very much an agreement on material and technical matters, but it is overwhelmingly a political agreement. It is for this reason that if it is to be correctly understood and its chances for success are to be usefully assessed, a little of the relevant history needs to be recalled.

    The discussion/negotiation on the subject of Iran’s possible attempts to develop nuclear weapons has been going on for 12 years. This originated in the IAEA reporting that it was having difficulty in verifying Iran’s compliance with its obligations as a non nuclear weapon state party to the NPT. The main such obligation is the one Iran has reaffirmed in JCPOA, quoted above: Never to acquire nuclear weapons.

    Iran’s conduct had been disturbing and uncooperative and when this was reported to the UN Security Council, sanctions were imposed upon it. The US and the EU also imposed severe sanctions. These significantly harmed the Iranian economy.

    On the other hand no unambiguous report that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons had been produced. Indeed, the CIA, in its last two major reports to the US government has stated that it has no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

    The motivations to find a negotiated solution to the Iranian problem have been various, but two concerns have been dominant: the wish of the Iranians to bring the sanctions to an end and, the wish of the Obama administration to avoid yet another war in the Middle East and to prevent Israel, from dragging it into a war with Iran.

    Back a little further, in 1953, the UK and US external intelligence Agencies staged a coup in Iran removing its democratically elected government. They did this to protect the interests of their oil companies in Iran. They then propped up the Shah of Iran as their preferred Iranian leader until the Iranian Revolution overthrew him in 1979, The revolution instituted an Islamic government and installed Ayatollah Khomenei as supreme leader. Later that year the US Embassy hostage crisis began, lasting 444 days.

    The Islamic Republic of Iran retains the system of government established by the Revolution, and continues to insist that the US is hostile to it and has a policy of seeking regime change in Tehran. It has also repeatedly expressed extreme, sometimes terminal hostility, towards Israel.

    The Obama Administration has attempted to reset US relations with Iran, but its attempts to do so have been strongly opposed by Republican, Congressional, pro-Israel, and media circles, mainly Murdoch outlets in the US. Their stated preference is clearly for war with Iran. It has been farcical and deceitful that, in such circles, the past role of the US within Iran is never mentioned.

    The negotiation of JCPOA also had at least surreal, if not farcical aspects. On one side of the table there were five nations, all nuclear armed. Two of them, the US and Russia possess tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, representing 90% of such weapons in existence globally, and as the negotiations proceeded they each announced plans to enhance their nuclear arsenals.

    The position of each of the five, with varying degrees of emphasis, was that it was of supreme importance that Iran not become anything remotely like them. While they insist that their national security demands retention of these weapons, it is inadmissible for Iran to think the same.

    Strictly excluded, not simply physically, but also as a subject for deliberation, was the only regional country possessing nuclear weapons – Israel. The staunchest defender of this abuse of the logic of proliferation is the US, which rejects any suggestion that Israel’s nuclear weapons status might encourage others in the region, including Iran, to obtain such weapons.

    For reasons such as these, the agreement of Vienna represented a triumph of pragmatism.

    The two main motivations, mentioned above, were satisfied, concessions were made all round, none proved to be deal breakers, and a basically sound set of behavioural conditions was established, designed to verify that Iran is not making nuclear weapons.

    But, within hours of the agreement being announced, but not yet published, the Prime Minister of Israel denounced it as a mistake of historic proportions, the Republican leadership in the US Congress pledged to reject it, President Obama stated that he would veto any legislation that sought to reject the agreement, and a few days later, in a statement made at the end of Ramadan, the Supreme Leader of Iran said Iran would honor the agreement but did not intend to change any of its other policies, particularly given US arrogance. There was dancing in the streets of Tehran at the prospect of the lifting of sanctions.

    It will be a rough ride in the US Congress, Iran will continue to support Shia causes in the region, including the Assad regime in Syria, and the P5+1 and the IAEA will try to make the agreement work in order to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, all the while continuing to refuse to address the elemental hypocrisy of their own possession of nuclear weapons.

    The central lesson of UNSCOM’s experience in Iraq was that the arms control system will work reliably if the subject country will let it work.

    So, the outcome for the Vienna Plan will largely be in Iran’s hands.

    It will work, if Iran wants to make it so and provided that some others are prepared to let that unfold, given the difficulty that they will clearly have at taking yes for an answer.

    Richard Butler AC, Former Head of the UN Special Commission to disarm Iraq, (UNSCOM) appointed by Prime Minister Keating, Convenor of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

  • Tony Smith. Wasting money on domestic violence?

    The implementation of most Government policies requires some kind of expenditure. One of the laziest approaches an Opposition can adopt is to cite slogans about cost. This sloganeering is at its most shallow when arguing that the Government is just ‘throwing money at the problem’. Needless to say, there are occasions when this criticism is true. Governments can decide that by giving an issue some funding, it can silence the demands of groups pressuring for action.

    There are times when Governments decide to fund a campaign, but then undermine the campaign by their actions in other areas. There is no doubt at all that domestic violence is a terrible problem for Australian society. The Abbott Government recently announced that it would spend millions of dollars on a publicity campaign alerting people to the problem and the unacceptability of domestic violence, particularly against women and children. Unfortunately, there are indications that the campaign might be undermined.

    While the Government is right to condemn physical violence in domestic relationships, it has not given enough credence to lower levels of abuse. Physical violence might erupt spontaneously but it seems much more likely that it will be preceded by other forms of disrespect. In particular, verbal abuse is likely to occur before physical assault. This means that a campaign which focuses exclusively on physical violence will not address the problem adequately. A holistic approach to domestic violence should make it clear that any behaviour which demeans people or removes their dignity is unacceptable.

    Perhaps one reason that governments might not be inclined to fund such a broad campaign is that verbal abuse and demeaning behaviour are endemic to politics. When members of the Government, particularly Ministers, attack women inside and outside parliament, they make such abusive attitudes seem legitimate. The Immigration Minister has recently attacked Human Rights Commissioner Professor Gillian Triggs in terms which were personal and insulting. Earlier this year when Prime Minister Abbott survived a challenge to his leadership, he emerged with a promise that he was about to start ‘listening’. Interestingly, Abbott responded to some criticisms of his leadership style with a suggestion that attacks on his protective Chief of Staff were worse because she was a woman.

    But within days of making his promise about listening, Abbott refused to hear what the Human Rights Commission had found in its inquiry into children in immigration detention. Not only did he refuse to listen but he did it in such a way that sought to undermine the credibility of Professor Triggs. He made statements about Professor Triggs which were demeaning, and precisely the kind of personal attack which is a likely forerunner of violence.

    The Immigration Minister also found it convenient to attack Greens Senator Hanson-Young. Hanson-Young was told by an insider at an asylum seeker detention camp that she had been under constant surveillance during a fact-finding trip to an ‘offshore’ centre. It might be argued that such surveillance is in itself a form of abuse but the Minister seems to believe that the Senator has no right to complain. This attitude is highly informative about the Government’s understanding of the importance of personal dignity and the ways in which it can easily be damaged.

    Anyone who watches Question Time in Parliament must also wonder about the Government’s understanding of the processes of domestic violence. Whether the question comes from a male or female member, Ministers use the opportunity to make personal criticisms of their opponents. This legitimates for those who look for such examples in our political leaders, sneering, ridicule and demeaning language.

    Politicians sometimes argue that in a representative democracy, parliament should reflect society in all its variety. They use this argument not to attempt to make parliament more inclusive, but in order to justify conflict. They argue that people actually expect their representatives to argue vigorously on their behalf, and that it is better to have such conflicts contained within the arena of parliament rather than outside in broader society where conflict can erupt into violence.

    This argument denies the possibility of leadership. It holds that parliament can only ever respond to social demands, and never lead social trends and individual behaviours. This argument is clearly incompatible with an expectation that parliament – and government particularly – should show some leadership in addressing domestic violence.

    Until the Prime Minister and other Ministers model some dignified behaviour in their comments both within and outside parliament, there will be little progress on any campaign that aims to address domestic violence. Unless the expenditure is backed up by personal changes, the money is likely to be wasted.

     

  • John Menadue. What a dreadful week.

    Last week an important public debate on key issues facing Australia was sabotaged by Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and News Corp. The old scare campaigns were back again. Bill Shorten’s timidity did not help. Paul Keating commented ‘We have a political culture that has the ambition of a gnat’. He is right.

    Instead of a sensible discussion on climate change and carbon pollution, News Corp, via The Australian and the Daily Telegraph picked up a draft options paper on climate change which was being prepared for the ALP Federal Conference. This options paper suggested that the ALP is considering an emissions trading scheme. The paper apparently did not propose a carbon tax and it should be quite clear that an emissions trading scheme is not the same thing as a carbon tax. But that didn’t concern the Daily Telegraph which attempted to derail any sensible public discussion by depicting Bill Shorten as a zombie crawling from the carbon tax grave.

    It is worth noting that The Australian, together with the Australian Financial Review, is sponsoring a summit next month on policy reform. But what hypocrisy it is for News Corp to be sponsoring a summit whilst it is a major contributor to debasing public debate on climate change in Australia as it does also consistently in the US and the UK.

    Of course Tony Abbott couldn’t help joining in the ‘debate’ on an emissions trading scheme and a carbon tax when News Corp, as is the usual practice, gave him the lead in he wanted. We saw again the one-liners. He said ‘We’ve always said … that if Labor came back the boats would be back, the mining tax would be back and now we find that if Labor came back the carbon tax would be back’. He didn’t rerun his old one-liners on Labor increasing the deficit and the debt because his own policies have done just that.

    It was John Howard who first proposed an emissions trading scheme in 2007. Malcolm Turnbull supported Kevin Rudd’s carbon pollution reduction scheme in 2009 and crossed the floor to do so. Almost every reputable economist believes that a market mechanism like an emissions trading scheme is the best way to reduce carbon pollution. It is the lowest cost and most efficient way and one would think that it would appeal to a government that espouses a belief in market mechanisms. Neither News Corp nor Tony Abbott can help themselves in their politics of demolition on climate change. Only the previous week Tony Abbott had stepped up his attacks on renewable energy.

    The public wants something better in public discussion on climate change. The Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Council of Social Services have established an Australian Climate Round Table. They called for a ‘civil and constructive’ discussion on the subject. Clearly Tony Abbott and News Corp are not interested in such a discussion.

    It is ironic that last week The Australian and Australian Financial Review also announced that they would be sponsoring a summit ‘to fix Australia’ The agenda includes ‘reforms to the federal and state taxation systems that taken as a whole are both efficient and fair’. Yet Neil Chenoweth reported in the AFR on May11 this year the ‘the Australian Tax Office has only one company in its highest risk category for tax avoidance- Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation’. On April 9 this year Michael West in the Sydney Morning Herald wrote ‘Rupert Murdoch’s US empire siphons $4.5b from Australian business virtually tax free’. That may be efficient for News Corp but it does not sound fair for other taxpayers.

    Last week Joe Hockey told us once again that we needed tax reform. But he has already ruled out key reform measures like changing superannuation deductions and payouts. He has also ruled out negative gearing that even the Reserve Bank now says we must consider. The ALP has made some timid proposals in both these areas, but instead of treating them as a useful contribution to a public debate on tax reform, both Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey seized on it an opportunity for attack and ruled out reform in both these areas.

    Joe Hockey said again last week that we needed to reform the GST, but then ruled it out unless all the states and territories agreed. Surely national leadership on tax reform must come from the Australian Treasurer and not run for cover as soon as the states disagree. Joe Hockey shirked his responsibility.

    The only tax change that is now in prospect is bracket-creep which is increasing government revenue.

    During the week the Business Council of Australia president, Catherine Livingstone said

    ‘Within hours of the Treasurer outlining a compelling case for the need for fundamental tax reform and balancing of the tax mix, both major parties began ruling out key elements of sensible tax reform, including changes in the GST. Our political representatives are elected and paid by the community to implement policies that will best serve the country. Their leadership responsibility is to ensure that there is a constructive, well informed debate, leading to implementable outcomes; it is not to undermine the debate in the cause of party-political posturing. Leadership requires being open and honest with the community about the challenges we are facing. It requires the energy and conviction to take on difficult and complex reform imperatives.’

    Catherine Livingstone spelled out very clearly that we have had a very bad week.

    See link to the policy articles that Mike Keating and I have edited on the need for policy reform in Australia. https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=3719.

    As Ken Henry said in the foreword to the series

    ‘I can’t recall a poorer quality of public debate on almost any issues, that we have had in recent times in Australia.’

    Perhaps it is always darkest before the dawn!

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

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

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

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

    John Menadue

  • John Menadue. Refugees- from toxic politics to a humanitarian policy.

    The ALP Federal conference which will be meeting in a week’s time, will be considering refugee policy along with other major issues.

    I have re-posted below a post from 22 June on refugees .  

    Media reports suggest that boat ‘turnbacks’ will be a contentious issue at the conference. There are several issues that I think should be kept in mind on this issue.

    The first is that the dramatic drop in boat arrivals has not been due to turnbacks, but the decision by the Rudd Government announced on 13 July 2013, that any people arriving by boat in future would never be settled in Australia. That was the game-changer. Tony Abbott’s actions were quite marginal, including some turnbacks. These turnbacks had a great deal of publicity but they were not significant in curbing the flow of boats. 

    Second, turnbacks should only be considered as part of a regional agreement that importantly involves Indonesia, Malaysia and the UNHCR. Unilateral turnbacks should be rejected. 

    Third, the issue of turnbacks reminds us again how important it is to build trust and arrangements with regional countries. This will require considerable diplomatic effort and resources. It will take time. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in the post below, we treat regional countries as fair-weather friends and go to them when we have a problem, but turn our backs when they have a problem.  John Menadue

    Refugees – from toxic politics to a humanitarian policy (repost from 22 June 2015.

    The old Irish story tells of the guide who spoke to a lost Irishman. If you want to get to Dublin I wouldn’t start from here.

    The same is true of refugee politics today. We are in a dreadful position at the moment but we need to be pragmatic and determined to get to a humane and generous policy.

    Before looking at practical ways to an improved future for refugees, there are several things that we need to keep in mind.

    First, the Australian public in my view will not support a generous refugee policy if arrivals are seen to be irregular and not under the control of the Australian government, particularly if the arrivals are being determined by people-smugglers.

    Second, the generous acceptance of Indochinese refugees in Australia thirty years ago would not have been possible if we had had the arrivals of boat people that we had in Australia in 2013. At one stage, boat arrivals that year were running at the rate of close to 50,000 p.a. At the height of the outflow of over a million people from Indochina in the late 1970s and 1980s, the largest number of people arriving in Australia by boat was 1423 in 1977-78. From my experience as Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs from 1980, I was very conscious that a large numbers of boat arrivals would have prejudiced the Indochina program. We put a great deal of effort into minimizing and downplaying boat arrivals.

    Third, the success of the Indochina program depended on two related features. The first was that countries of the region would hold asylum seekers for a period for processing on the understanding that, secondly, countries like Australia, the US, Canada and France would resettle large numbers of those refugees. It was called burden-sharing.

    Fourth, the collapse of the arrangement with Malaysia triggered the dramatic increase in boat arrivals in 2012 and 2013. People-smugglers realised that there was no effective Australian counter to their activities. The collapse of that arrangement with Malaysia was the result of the collaboration and joint action in the Senate by the Coalition, the Greens and supported by major refugee advocate organisations in Australia.

    Fifth, Tony Abbott did not stop the boats. As I set out in my blog of 8 December 2014 the decisive factor in stopping the boats was the decision by the Rudd Government on 13 July 2013 that no future boat arrivals would ever be settled in Australia. People arriving by boat fell from 4,145 in July 2013 to 1,591, 837, 339, 207 and 355 in subsequent months. The number had dramatically fallen by the time the Abbott government came to power. The new government attracted a lot of attention with turn-backs to Indonesia but these were really only minor operations with boat arrivals dramatically reduced by then. The decision of the Rudd Government on 13 July 2013 was the game-changer, not the Coalition rhetoric about ‘stopping the boats’. The media seems remarkably willing to accept Tony Abbott’s one-liner on the subject and refuses to examine the facts. The result of all this was Manus and Nauru. What a price we are now paying for the collapse of the arrangement with Malaysia with which the UNHCR was prepared to cooperate and which would have been an important building block in regional cooperation.

    Against that background, how should we now proceed? For further background see article by Peter Hughes,Arja Keski- Nummi and myself.

    The key to an acceptable future refugee arrangement is joint responsibility and burden-sharing with our regional neighbours. Countries of the region have severe problems with irregular people flows as we have seen recently in arrivals from Myanmar and Bangladesh. As co-chair with Indonesia on the Bali process, our foreign minister should have shown good faith by seeking to convene a meeting with affected regional countries to tackle people-smuggling and trafficking. But too often we are fair-weather friends with our neighbours, and show interest only when we have a problem. We say ‘nope, nope, nope’ when they have a problem We need to give high priority to building effective cooperation on refugees in the region, together with UNHCR.   It is in that context that turn-backs should be addressed and not through unilateral action.

    Regional cooperation is the only long-term arrangement that makes sense. But it will take a lot of time and trust. We are not really trying at the moment. We must accept that Manus and Nauru are not sustainable in the future.

    We should negotiate Orderly Departure Arrangements where possible to address problems at source. I would expect that Myanmar would be interested in Australia taking some Rohingya . Sri Lanka would also be likely to be cooperative in our taking of Tamils. In both cases the arrangements would be part of an orderly program.

    We should focus part of our aid and trade programs on regional countries that have persecuted or alienated minorities.

    We should increase our refugee increase to 20,000 plus. At the peak of the Indochina program we were taking about 35,000 refugees p.a., adjusted for our population increase since then.

    We should consider new migration pathways, e.g. 4-5-7 Visas, for vulnerable persons. There were over 800,000 temporary entrants, excluding tourists, in Australia at 30 September 2014.

    We should think again about blanket opposition to offshore processing. The important issue is not where the processing occurs, but is it fair and effective, and is it done in cooperation with UNHCR. Some years ago I was opposed to offshore processing, but I changed my mind in light of the dramatic increase in asylum numbers in 2012 and 2013 after the collapse of the Malaysian arrangement. A consequence of the collapse of that arrangement is that we are now faced with Manus and Nauru.

    We should formally end mandatory detention. It was introduced by the Keating government. It is very expensive, cruel and does not deter asylum seekers. With the near-end of boat arrivals, the numbers who are in Immigration detention has declined dramatically. We should formally end mandatory detention except for detention necessary for safety, security and health checks.

    We should set a time limit for the final processing of the 30,000 asylum seekers who arrived by boat and whose status has not yet been determined.

    The unfortunate souls on Manus and Nauru must be treated with dignity and respect and either repatriated if found not to be refugees or resettled as soon as possible in third countries with the cooperation of UNHCR.

    The key to resolving the political problem surrounding refugees is to insist that vulnerable people that we accept in future must be part of an orderly program. I see that as the best way to gain the support of the Australian community and develop refugee programs that we can again be proud of.

  • Stuart Whitman. Labor 2035

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

     

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

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

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

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

    This is her speech.

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

    I feel I have returned home.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    These reforms enabled us to become the party of participation.

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

     

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

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

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

  • Peter Blackrock. Germany in control.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

     

     

  • James Button. A Moment of Unexpected Hope

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    None of this is easy or without risk.

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

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

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

  • Race Mathews. ‘Let us now begin’

    A local Labor journal Grassroots, has been advocating reform of the ALP to ’empower members, branches and communities’. With the ALP Federal Conference on July 24-26 I will be posting three articles on party reform ‘past, present and future’. I will also be re-posting an article on refugee policy.  John Menadue.

    The philosopher George Santayana wrote famously ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

    A case in point is failure by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to remain mindful of the circumstances and shortcomings that denied it office from the middle -1950s federally until 1972 and until 1982 in Victoria.

    When I joined the ALP in 1956, it was in dire straits – reeling in the aftermath of the failed Santamaria Movement takeover of the Party and the subsequent splitting off of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), and in the grip already of yet another extremist and in this instance ostensibly Left external body, known variously as ‘The Trade Unionists’ Defence Committee’, ‘the Ticketing Committee’ or simply and succinctly, ‘the Junta’.

    As noted by Gough Whitlam in an historic address to the 1967 Victorian State Conference:

    The TUDC is not mentioned in the Constitution of the Party. There is no formal link between the TUDC and the handful which selects the Central Executive. It happens, however, that the membership of both bodies is predominantly the same. Thirteen years ago, few delegates at the Conference would have known of the Movement or Mr Santamaria. No one doubts the influence that they had on the Party’s affairs at the time. The Party’s controllers have swung from one extreme to another.

     

    The TUDC’s domination of the Party was achieved through a ’democratic centralism’ that enabled it to dictate the composition of the Victorian Central Executive and Victoria’s representation on the Federal Conference and the Federal Executive.

    Prior to each Victorian conference, an initial meeting of representatives from thirteen TUDC-dominated unions compiled an ‘Official Ticket’ for all Central Executive, Federal Conference and Federal Executive vacancies.

    Subsequently, the ‘Official Ticket’ was endorsed at a further meeting, where representatives of up to twenty-eight more unions were added to the original thirteen.

    With the conference delegations from up to fifty unions thus locked in under caucus rules to support the ‘Official Ticket’, the winner-take-all’ voting system of the day delivered all the available vacancies to the TUDC nominees.

    Domination of the Party by the TUDC cost it an otherwise certain victory at the 1961 elections, together with a further probable electoral victory two years later.

    At the very least, it is likely that if Labor had done less badly at the1958 elections the breakaway DLP would have taken root less successfully and been shorter-lived.

    A Labor government elected in 1961 or 1963 would not have involved Australia in the Vietnam war, or failed so dismally as the Liberals to harness up behind programmes and projects of lasting national worth the great economic prosperity which Australian enjoyed between the middle nineteen-sixties and the oil price shock engendered tougher times of the following decade.

    Nor was this all. As Whitlam’s 1967 Victorian Conference speech also emphasised, the need for Party reform and renewal was no less acute.

    We cannot convincingly oppose the conservatism of our political opponents with a conservatism of our own; we cannot stand as a Party of change when we fear change in our own structure. We cannot expect the people to trust us with the great decision-making processes of this nation, when we parade, by retaining an exclusive and unrepresentative Party structure, our manifest distrust of our own rank and file within the decision-making processes of the Party.

    And again:

    All organisations, including radical parties, have establishments which resist change; all have vested interests. All the arguments for and against for a national organisation, with a national conference directly representing Federal electorates and unions, boil down to this question: Is the Party to be organised in this last third of the 20th century on modern national lines representative of the whole membership of the Party, or is it to remain a committee or coterie composed chiefly of State Branch officers, a significant proportion of whom are paid servants of the Party?

     

    By the early nineteen-sixties, frustration within the Party over the incompetence and authoritarianism of the TUDC was acute.

    The flash point was reached with the decision by the TUDC in 1965 that the provision for the election of three Central Executive members by and from Branch delegates to the Conference as adopted the previous year should be rescinded.

    An official Party body of which I was secretary, the Scoresby State Electorate Council, established a ‘Committee of Inquiry into Representation and Decision-making in the ALP’, which addressed to Branches throughout the state a letter seeking information about their memberships and fund-raising, on which a case for the restoration of their representation might be made.

    The State Secretary, Bill Hartley, thereupon issued instructions to Branch secretaries requiring that the committee’s letters should be returned to him immediately, without providing the opportunity for members to hear them read. Hartley wrote:

    I have consulted on this matter with the state president, Mr W. Brown, and it is to be referred to the Executive Officers next week … Mr Brown has also suggested that all recipients of the correspondence should take no action on it other than endorsing it with the Branch, time and circumstances of receipt, and forwarding it to the Australian Labor Party as soon as possible.

    Concurrently with the Scoresby Affair – and perhaps prompted by it – disaffected Party activists including John Cain, John Button, Dick McGarvie, Xavier Connor, Barney Williams, Michael Duffy, and Barney Cooney established ‘The Participants’, as a group seeking Party reform and democratisation through untiring grassroots advocacy and agitation around the widely circulated ‘Labour Comment’ newsletter, as edited by Bob Murray.

    Their efforts in conjunction with those of Whitlam and other nationally prominent allies including the National Secretary Mick Young and the Shadow Minister for Industrial Affairs Clyde Cameron succeeded ultimately in bringing about the 1970 Federal Intervention and dismissal of the TUDC dominated Victorian Executive.

    The subsequent comprehensive re-writing of the Party Rules and adoption of proportional representation voting for Party office cleared the way for the election of the Whitlam, Hawke and Keating governments.

    Internally, the Victorian Party experienced what is remembered by many as ‘a golden age’ of creative policy development and debate, culminating in 1982 with the election of the Cain government.

    Even so, the hard-won gains have proved to be ephemeral, and a new hegemony indistinguishable for all practical purposes from that of the TUDC has emerged.

    What were in the immediate aftermath of the 1970 Intervention the ideologically differentiated Socialist Left and rightist Labour Unity factions have merged in all but name, through a so-called ‘Stability Pact’ which enables them to divide between themselves the pre-selections for ‘winnable’ parliamentary seats.

    Concurrently the need for strict adherence to secret ballot criteria in the selection process is routinely ignored. ‘Democratic centralism’ is again as endemic as under the TUDC. The effect is to all but wholly exclude from pre-selection or party office members other than those who have factional endorsement.Frustrated on rare occasions in the achievement of their preferred outcomes, the factions routinely refer them to the party’s National Executive where their dominance is all but complete and uncontested, and inconvenient decisions can be overturned.

    It remains for the current generation of ALP members to secure the reinstatement of democracy and the rule of law within the Party, and ensure that it is passed on unimpaired to those who come after us.

    As Whitlam reminds us:

    ‘Those of us who were there have a duty to educate those who were not’

    ‘Let us now begin’.

     

    Race Mathews is a former Principal Private Secretary to Labor Leaders including Gough Whitlam, local government councillor, Federal MP, Victorian MP and minister and academic. He joined the ALP in 1956, and is a life member of fifty-eight years standing.

     

     

     

     

  • Bruce Duncan. Pope Francis calls for a global economy with a conscience

    In his July trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, some of the poorest countries in Latin America, Pope Francis has voiced the anguish and concerns of millions of people struggling to rise out of severe poverty and marginalisation, yet are “exploited like slaves”.

    Speaking to a crowd of two million people in Santa Cruz on 9 July, Francis attacked a mentality that “has room only for a select few, while it discards all those who are ‘unproductive’, unsuitable or unworthy, since clearly those people don’t ‘add up’.”

    It is a world Francis knows well from his own extensive personal experience in Argentina but also from his role as one of the key figures coordinating the ten-yearly meeting of the bishops of Latin America at Aparecida in Brazil in 2007. Not only did he help Pope Benedict prepare his speeches to that conference, but as then Cardinal Bergoglio, Francis supervised the writing of the 160-page final document, reaffirming the role of the Church in confronting poverty and injustice as an essential part of its mission. This document is a forerunner for Pope Francis’s major statements and policies, including the new encyclical, Laudato Si’: on care for our common home.

    A high point of his visit to Bolivia was his hour-long speech to the two thousand delegates to the Second World meeting of Popular Movements in Santa Cruz on 9 July, when he demanded “real change, structural change” to reform “intolerable” conditions for farm-workers, labourers, communities and the earth itself.  He warned that time “seems to be running out” to save the planet from “perhaps irreversible harm” according to the scientific consensus. “Do we not realise that something is wrong in a world where there are so many farm-workers without land, so many families without a home, so many labourers without rights, so many persons whose dignity is not respected?”

    He condemned the “unfettered pursuit of money” as “the dung of the devil”. When “capital becomes an idol” and “greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system”, they ruin society and put “at risk our common home”.

    Francis said he had no “recipe” for a social program or a monopoly on truth, but everyone, governments, popular movements and other social forces had to find a way forward together.

    First he insisted on the moral principle that the economy be at the service of peoples, not people at the service of money. “Let us say NO to an economy of exclusion and inequality, where money rules, rather than service. That economy kills. That economy excludes. That economy destroys Mother Earth.”

    It was not enough to offer a “decent sustenance”, but people needed rights to land, lodging and labour, he said, along with access to education, health care, technologies, art and cultural activities, sports and recreation. “A just economy must create the conditions for everyone to be able to enjoy a childhood without want, to develop their talents when young, to work with full rights” and enjoy a dignified retirement. He insisted this was not utopian thinking, but was possible and ‘an extremely realistic prospect”.

    “Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy. It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: it is a commandment.” He urged the popular movements to strive for “the common good to be achieved in a full and participatory democracy”.

    Secondly, he called for peace and justice internationally, and attacked what he called the “new colonialism”. “At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain ‘free trade’ treaties, and the imposition of measures of ‘austerity’ which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor.” He criticised monopolistic media that “impose alienating forms of consumerism” as “ideological colonialism”.

    To a roar of approval from the crowd, Francis also said that “many sins were committed against the native peoples of America in the name of God.” He called on Catholics to beg forgiveness for these past crimes, and to commit themselves to supporting the struggles of the indigenous peoples of Latin America.

    Thirdly, he lamented that “Our common home is being pillaged, laid waste and harmed with impunity.”  “Cowardice in defending” our common home “is a grave sin.” He said they cannot allow certain global interests “to take over, to dominate states and international organisations, and to continue destroying creation.” “I ask you, in the name of God, to defend Mother Earth.”

    Many commentators have been critical of Pope Francis for these views, and the question is how will he manage when he arrives in New York to address the US Congress on 24 September and the United Nations General Assembly. On the flight back from Latin America, Francis said he would study what his critics had been saying to see what he could learn.

    He will certainly not resile from his call for global responsibility to address the threat of ‘catastrophic’ global warming, as well as urging a revolution of conscience about our moral obligations to the millions of impoverished and excluded people. He will not reject capitalism in principle, since he knows there are many forms of capitalism, some with strong social and communitarian features.

    Nor is the Pope opposed to a type of economic growth needed to lift people out of hunger and poverty, as long as this is done equitably, encourages more modest lifestyles and does not damage the environment for future generations.

    But he is strongly opposed to the neoliberal versions of capitalism, the dominance of financial capital, and the belief that free markets of themselves will resolve most problems of distribution and poverty.

    No one familiar with Catholic social teaching, going back to Pope Leo XIII’s social encyclical On the Condition of the Working Class (Rerum Novarum) of 1891, should be surprised at this. The Church has long taught that the earth is given by God for everyone; the right to private property is not absolute but conditional on benefiting the common good, by maintaining productivity in goods and services for the benefit of all. Since Leo, the Church has consistently urged that property be distributed as widely as possible, so everyone had a share sufficient to provide for their family and for security against sickness and old age.

    The neoliberal ideology, on the other hand, exalts the rights of wealthy individuals over and against the common good, and propagates the extreme inequality that has left millions destitute. Francis is calling for worldwide resistance against this ideology, and for reforms to economic systems and business practice to ensure far more equitable distribution of wealth and opportunity. He will undoubtedly appeal for business leaders and governments to help refashion the global economy so that everyone has a place at the table. He is highlighting the moral imperative to build a more just global economy, an economy with a conscience.

    Bruce Duncan is a Redemptorist priest who lectures in social ethics at Yarra Theological Union within Melbourne’s University of Divinity. He is one of the founders of the ecumenical advocacy network, Social Policy Connections.

  • John Menadue. Q&A – Why bother with Ministers?

    The ABC has tied itself into a knot in trying to appease the government and get ministers back on Q&A.  But why bother? If ministers aren’t allowed or don’t want to go on the program, so be it. They would not be missed and neither would most members of the shadow ministry.

    I must confess that I am only an occasional viewer of Q&A.  It is not for me. It unfortunately follows the adversarial and confrontational approach that is so debasing so much of public discussion in Australia on important issues.

    ABC viewers would be much better served in my view by hearing from experts in their own fields telling us the prospects on such important issues as climate change, infrastructure, regional relations, inequality, security and refugees. Unfortunately politicians now invariably obfuscate and confuse the issues, and dish out one-liners and clichés.

    For the ABC to suggest that it would shift Q&A from general programs to news and current affairs has been an invitation for editorial interference by the government. It should be resisted. Who is running the ABC, its board or the government? By suggesting that it would shift Q&A to another department it has given Tony Abbott an opportunity to get himself off the hook that he has impaled himself on.

    In the 1960s Gough Whitlam objected to the ABC insisting that on current affairs programs they would not allow an opposition leader to appear unless there was a minister to provide an alternate view. In the name of ‘balance’ the ABC in effect allowed the government, by refusing to have ministers appear effectively vetoed an opposition leader from appearing.  Fortunately, Talbot Duckmanton, the General Manager of the ABC, was persuaded that the government should not be allowed to veto appearances of opposition leaders.

    Neither should the ABC allow the government now to dictate to Q&A. If ministers don’t want to appear, that would be their loss. In most cases viewers would applaud.

    Tony Abbott said that heads would roll at the ABC over the Q&A spat. Where heads should be rolling is at ASIO for its incompetence over the handling of Man Haron Monis. He was a real danger compared with Zaky Mallah in the Q&A audience. Could there have been a series of more serious mistakes than we saw from ASIO, the AFP and other agencies over Man Haron Monis? Despite enormous increases in funding and powers, our security services escape effective responsibility and scrutiny.  Heads should roll at ASIO, but we needn’t hold our breath.

    There is one rule for the ABC and a different one for ASIO regardless of mistake after mistake.

  • Bob Debus. A breach of faith on renewable energy.

    Well, this is just getting stupid. We are entitled, after events last week, to ask if the Federal Government has the capacity any longer to act in good faith when the interest of the coal industry is at stake.

    Tony Windsor and Barnaby Joyce, whatever their manifest differences, reflected the opinion of local people, the normal application of the precautionary principle and everyday common sense when they protested last week’s approval of the giant Watermark coal mine immediately adjacent to the aquifers and rich farmland of the Liverpool Plains in northwest New South Wales. In any event, no conditions of approval can prevent the destruction on site of 800 hectares of highly endangered box-gum woodlands, their associated rare bird and animal life.

    Australian scientists were also correct last week to wearily dismiss the ‘embarrassing’ support offered by Dennis Jensen MP and other members of the Liberal Party for the establishment of yet another ‘review’ of climate science. It is certain that no country representative at the UN Climate Change Summit in Paris later this year will be questioning established climate science.

    Indeed international concern about the Australian Governments’ climate policies is increasing and condemnation has been coming from some unexpected quarters for a while now. Lord Deben, a former Thatcher Government Minister and head of the Committee on Climate Change in Britain, said last year that, “Mr Abbott is recklessly endangering our future as he is Australia’s”. A leading advisor to the conservative chancellor of Germany described Tony Abbott’s single-minded promotion of the coal industry as an ‘economic suicide strategy’.

    In the last fortnight an exceptionally broad coalition of Australia’s peak business and social groups have come together to support emissions reductions far deeper than anything proposed so far by the Government. They specifically pointed out that “delayed, unpredictable and piecemeal action will increase the costs and challenges of achieving goals and maximising the opportunities” for doing so.

    Unrepentant, Abbott Government Ministers last week moved to take unpredictable and piecemeal action to undermine an agreement reached only in May, which had the acknowledged purpose of returning some certainty for investment in the renewable energy sector. Here is the background.

    The Abbott Government came to office promising to abolish the demonised Emissions Trading Scheme, actually very similar in substance to the scheme previously proposed by John Howard and in principle advocated by Milton Friedman. Last July it became the only Government anywhere in the world to abolish a carbon-pricing scheme: emissions from electricity generation have begun in consequence to climb again.

    Over 60 countries have established renewable energy targets and the Abbott Opposition promised to maintain Australia’s already established, bipartisan 20% Renewable Energy Target (RET) when it came to office. However, in the event it moved quickly to establish a Review of the RET headed by a well-known climate sceptic, an initiative that caused large-scale investment in renewables to freeze almost entirely. Nevertheless, the Review found that the RET was succeeding in cutting emissions and that it would benefit electricity consumers into the future. That is to say, it was made clear that the only beneficiaries of a reduced RET are coal fired generators.

    The Government however, would not relent. Without coherent explanation it conducted protracted negotiation over 15 months before the Opposition reluctantly agree to legislate a reduction in the RET from 41,000 GWh to 33,000 GWh, held steady until at least 2018. Australia became the only country in the world to have reduced a renewable energy target but it seemed at least that an industry that already employs 20,000 people could at least resume growth in a more certain investment environment. But not so.

    The Gillard Government had established the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) in 2012 for the same purpose: to assist the application of capital ‘through a commercial filter to facilitate increased flows of finance into the clean energy sector, thus preparing and positioning the Australian economy and industry for a cleaner energy future”. The CEFC has typically contributed funds as part of a consortium, encouraging private banks into the field, across a range of technologies, while ensuring a solid return on its own investment. At any other time in Australia’s political history it would have been regarded as a welcome success.

    However, it too is a victim of the clumsy mash up of anti-regulation neoconservative political ideology, technical error, inconsistency and idiosyncratic prejudice with which the Abbott government approaches the world. The Government’s free market ideals have not caused it to curtail massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry but it did come to office promising to abolish the CEFC: at first making the demonstrably incorrect argument that its activity crowded out private finance. However, the Senate has frustrated its intention.

    Now, unable to delay investment by stalling the RET or abolishing the CEFC, the Treasurer and the Finance Minister are doing what they see, presumably, as the next best strategy to dampen investment in renewables.

    They have instructed the CEFC not to invest in small solar or wind technology, the two areas which are at present most easily rolled out on a large scale and therefore most likely to bring about rapid increase in actual renewable energy production. The government seeks to suggest that the CEFC should be used only for developing emerging technologies, but this is disingenuous.

    The essential point of the CEFC is to increase the amount of capital investment flowing into technology that increases the production and use of renewable energy. The action of the government is calculated to stop it and if anybody has an explanation that does not involve a breach of good faith I’d like to hear it.

    Bob Debus AM was an ALP member of the NSW Parliament and Attorney General, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment. He was also a member of the House of Representatives and Minister for Home Affairs in the Rudd Government.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • John Howard on political Royal Commissions.

    Last September John Howard said

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

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

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

  • Miriam Lyons. On inequality of opportunity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

  • John Menadue. London Postcard-some impressions.

    We have just spent three weeks in the UK in Bath and London. But I kept the blog going with the help of friends.

    For years I have largely avoided the UK. When I first visited London in 1963, I was very conscious of social and economic class. It seemed quite unhealthy. Most people knew their place, particularly working people. In 1963 I found it quite a relief to go to Ireland that did not show the same obsession with class. That initial impression in 1963 was followed by the harshness, in my view of the Thatcher years.

    I sensed in my recent holiday that things have changed, at least in the places I visited. There seemed a new social mobility and vibrancy, greater openness and certainly more multiculturalism. The black kids were lively and attractive. There were many East Europeans working in restaurants and shops and they were much more helpful than I recall my experiences of British customer service back in 1963. People on trains were much more courteous than I am used to in Sydney. In short, I have had to revise my views on the UK somewhat.

    I enjoyed the National Gallery more than the Louvre. It was not as overpowering. The art was well selected and the gallery much less crowded. The British Library had a superb Magna Carta exhibition. The impact at the time of the Magna Carta has been exaggerated but it has had a substantial long-term influence around the world.

    With the Greek crisis I was keen to see the Elgin marbles at the British Museum. I hadn’t realised that the British Library was formerly housed in the British Museum where Karl Marx had researched and studied in the Reading Room for years. But the Elgin marbles were my main interest. They were more remarkable and stunning than I expected. I stood in a vast hall with the Elgin or Parthenon marbles on every wall’. And in the next room there were Greek sculptures that I felt were even better than those in the Louvre. .

    Not surprisingly, Gough Whitlam was a campaigner for the return of the Elgin/Parthenon marbles to Greece. The British Museum presents a threadbare argument that the ‘marbles’ in the British Museum ensures even better public access to them than would have been possible had they stayed in Athens! And to add to this threadbare defence of the British, the Museum asserted that they were obtained legally. That might be technically true, but in the early 19th Century when the marbles were removed, Athens was occupied by the Ottoman Turks.

    The early 19th Century was a period of enormous art theft particularly by the British and the French. When considering Greek debt today perhaps the British and French might consider how much they really owe the countries of the Mediterranean that they plundered 200 years ago.

    I have always been an admirer of the National Health Service and in London I found it as good as I had always believed it to be. As a university student in the 1950s, Nye Bevan had been a political hero of mine. The NHS has outlived and outperformed its self-interested critics. It was no surprise that the NHS was the prime feature at the opening ceremony of the recent London Olympics

    In London the public transport system is in good shape and carries an enormous number of passengers each day. We could learn much from the London underground. But despite public transport, London still has major road traffic problems. It illustrated to me again that more and more express and toll roads will largely induce more traffic and will contribute little and at great cost to improving urban living. That is the experience of all major cities but the motor and construction lobbies want us to waste more and more money for their benefit. Good public transport must be associated with effective road-user charges that reflect the real cost, particularly in peak periods that we each impose on other users of the road system. Road tolls and road congestion taxes may be difficult politically but they are essential for urban living in big cities. More and more roads are not the answer.

    Our UK visit was just a few weeks after the general election with the return of the Conservative Party to government with a narrow majority in its own right. The Conservative Party gained 36% of the vote but with the vagaries of first-past-the-post polling, it won 51% of the seats in the House of Commons. The real wipe-out was the Liberal Democrats across the country and the Scottish National Party taking 56 of the 59 seats in Scotland with massive swings. Scotland, had always voted overwhelmingly Labour until this election. The UK Independence Party, which campaigned against continued UK participation in the European Union polled 12% of the vote but only won one seat.

    The Cameron Government may yet reap a bitter harvest from the last election. It has promised a referendum by the end of 2017 on whether the UK should exit the EU. This will give vent to the parochialism that I had hoped the UK had left behind. For the next two years, the issue of UK remaining or leaving the EU will be the focus of political attention and distract from many other key issues. If the UK decides to turn its back on Europe, I think the UK and Europe will be the losers.

    Additionally, if the UK decides to exit the EU, that is likely to trigger a new referendum in Scotland and encourage a Yes vote for Scotland to leave the UK.

    The Scots have little to thank David Cameron for. A major thrust of his recent election campaign, encouraged by his Australian advisers, was to warn the English that if they voted Labour, they could finish up with a Labour Party/Scottish coalition government. Cameron strongly played the anti-Scotland card in England. That deliberate and successful tactic meant that the Conservatives won well in England. The message was clear. Beware of the Scots.

    History may yet reveal that the significance of the UK election was that the UK left the EU and that was followed by a breakup of the UK itself. The Scottish Labour Party is committed to the United Kingdom but the Scottish National Party seeks separation from the United Kingdom. Gordon Brown, a Scot and former UK Prime Minister has warned that as a result of Conservative tactics the United Kingdom may be on ‘life support’

    In London there was understandable outrage over the deaths of over 30 UK tourists in Tunisia. In response and like Tony Abbott, David Cameron described IS as an ‘existential threat’. Clearly it is not. The existence of neither the UK nor Australia is threatened by IS. It is one thing for David Cameron and Tony Abbott to promote fear about the terrorism threat for political purposes. It is much harder to combat the causes of terrorism and IS in particular. Yet it is the policies of the UK, Australia, the US and others in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya that have mainly served to worsen the terrorism threat. The history of Western aggression, exploitation and colonisation over centuries in the Middle East has played into the hands of extremists. Our policies have created anarchy in the region. We side with the despots like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies. Australia and the UK recruits to IS are transiting through Turkey. But we don’t want to offend Turkey by insisting that it closes these transit routes.

    I was reminded again in the UK that we will not begin to contain IS unless we first accept that our policies in the region have been counter productive to our own security as well as the security of the people in the Middle East. We need to build strong partners in the region and that includes Iran.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Michael Keating. Greece’s Predicament

    The front page news story for weeks now has been what is happening to Greece and what will happen. The markets, the various authorities and the media all treat Greece’s predicament as if it were solely a matter of excessive debt. Therefore austerity is justified as being essential to bringing the debt back under control, and gradually paying it back.

    But this is very much a financier’s view of Greece’s problems and those Governments whose views are coloured by their involvement in arranging and/or guaranteeing the finance. What has so far escaped attention is how Greece, while locked into the Euro, has become completely uncompetitive.

    Competitiveness is best represented by what has been happening to Greece’s unit labour costs, and since 1990 unit labour costs have risen by almost 300 per cent in Greece compared to only 36 per cent in Germany. Even if we assume that Greece was fully competitive when it entered the Euro in 2001 – and it almost certainly wasn’t – then between 2001 and 2010 Greece’s unit labour costs rose by 48 per cent compared to only a 4 per cent rise in Germany. These are massive differences in the evolution of costs between the two countries, which have now made Greece completely uncompetitive.

    Furthermore it has been this loss of competitiveness that has mainly been responsible for driving Greece into debt. Thus as imports became less expensive relative to Greek products, the higher Euro denominated wages that Greeks were paying themselves allowed the Greeks to buy more than they were able to sell. And the sad fact is that this loss of competitiveness and markets not only led to increasing debt but also to rising unemployment as both Greek and foreign customers switched away from Greek products.

    So where to from here? One thing we can be certain about is that while Greek costs continue to be uncompetitive there is little hope that full employment and stability can be restored.

    Instead the present policy response with its focus on increased “austerity” is intended to reduce consumption by the Greek’s, and their living standards, and in that way reduce the Greek national debt. The burden of this strategy, however, falls almost entirely on those who don’t have jobs – be they pensioners or workers and their families who can no longer gain employment.

    Over time there is of course a chance that the rising unemployment may lead to lower costs and thus a slow improvement in Greek competitiveness. Indeed since 2010 unit labour costs have fallen a little in Greece and risen a little in Germany, thus reversing a small part of the previous loss of Greek competitiveness. But as Keynes pointed out in a similar situation in the Great Depression, in such a long run we will all be dead before full employment is restored.

    Frankly as was discovered a long time ago, the reality is that fixed exchange rates usually cannot be maintained indefinitely , and they have no hope of working unless there is much more policy coordination than has been apparent in the Euro Zone to date. Instead Greece would be much better off if it devalued and thus restored its competitiveness. The resulting reduction in Greek costs would enable Greece to sell as much as it can produce, while imports would become less affordable. The overall result would be lower debt and an increase in employment.

    This devaluation would, however, only work if it led to a genuine reduction in Greek labour costs, which implies a comparable reduction in living standards. The difference between this and continuing austerity is that the reduction in living standards following a devaluation would be widely shared instead of falling largely on the increasing number of Greeks who do not have a job.

    The sad thing is that the Greek Government having won a referendum against the austerity package, still seemed determined to avoid a Grexit, although that is the only strategy that will actually succeed. Nevertheless, a Grexit is not without its dangers, but these dangers multiply if preparations for it are postponed. The worst outcome would be for a Grexit to effectively be forced by markets after a disorderly capital flight, and the longer the delays the greater the risks.

    Finally for those who regard a major devaluation and a writing-down of a country’s debt obligations as akin to a disaster, it is worth remembering that this is what Argentina did not so long ago, and it was generally conceded to have worked then. But it only worked while the authorities maintained a strong discipline on costs and accepted the loss of borrowing capacity and the implications for living standards. This is the message that the Greek leadership should be delivering, and again the delays are not propitious.

     

     

  • John Menadue. Is the European Project finished?

    Perhaps the Greek crisis will force a fundamental rethink and Europe will find the way to rekindle again the idealism and hope that gave rise to the European Project in the aftermath of WWII.

    By any means ‘Europe’ has been a remarkable success in social development, human rights, economic growth, the mobility of people and capital – but most importantly of all, a seventy year period of peace. After centuries of war, mainly religious wars, followed by WW1, Hitler, the Holocaust and Stalin, Europe has been at peace.

    The founders of the European Project spoke with great idealism of ever-closer union in Europe.

    But the signs are not good today. This is highlighted particularly by the political and moral gap between the ‘hard-working’ Germans, the ‘lay-about’ Greeks, with France looking more insipid every day. The early success of Europe depended on France to balance the power, strength and even threat of Germany.

    Germany’s reputation and its development in almost every way have been remarkable since WWII. That success has been in part due to its own efforts, but also through the generosity of the US and others in forgiving Germany its sins and its debt. The allies learnt from Versailles after WWI that punishing a defeated Germany only produced more tragedy.

    Unfortunately today Germany shows all the signs of bullying Greece for its mistakes and repeating the mistakes of Versailles.

    In an interview a few days ago with German newspaper Die Zeit, Thomas Picketty called for a major conference on European debt and emphasized that Germany in particular should not withhold help from Greece. Picketty said

    ‘My book (Capital in the 21st Century) recounts the history of income and wealth, including that of nations. What struck me while I was writing is that Germany is really the single best example of a country that, throughout its history, has never repaid its external debt. Neither after the first nor the Second World War. However, it has frequently made other nations pay up such as after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 when it demanded massive reparations from France and indeed received them. The French state suffered for decades under this debt.’

    In the current fevered atmosphere the signs are not good with the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF, together with Germany, bullying Greece to comply with their austerity program.

    The European Project has been littered in recent years by serious mistakes and problems

    • The Euro is a major problem. It is very difficult to envisage how a monetary union can work effectively without a fiscal union. The result has been that Germany and Northern European countries have benefitted from a weak Euro at the expense of Greece and other Southern European countries.
    • There is widespread unemployment particularly in Southern Europe which has been foisted on the Greeks, Spanish and others in the name of budgetary reform and austerity. The message has been clear both explicitly and implicitly to the Greeks – change your policies or we will destroy your government.
    • In the last few days the European Central Bank has cut off Greek access to additional funds and helped precipitate the panic in Greece. The Greek Central Bank has worked in league with the European Central Bank.
    • It wasn’t just irresponsible borrowing by the Greeks that caused the problems. Ther was irresponsible lending by the banks and companies such as Goldman Sacks that helped Greek debt-managers manipulate the debt figures. The financial sector must be contained.
    • Political extremism on both the Left and the Right is today flourishing in Europe. It is no surprise.
    • Quite contrary to what Presidents Regan and Gorbachev agreed, NATO has extended itself eastwards to the Ukraine and the border with Russia with inevitable dangerous consequences. Have Europe and NATO forgotten WWII and the tragedy and losses on the Eastern Front?
    • The ‘Little Englanders’ in the UK are now reasserting themselves with David Cameron proposing a referendum in 2017 on possible UK exit from the European Union and with the UK Independence Party polling 12% at the last general election.
    • Hungary is planning to build a fence along its border with Serbia.

    The fraying of Europe is obvious. It shows not only in political but also has a moral dimension. The Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, recently commented on Europe’s failure to properly address the difficulties of thousands of refugees coming to Europe. He said ‘If this is your idea of Europe, keep it to yourself … You do not deserve to call yourself Europe. Either we have solidarity or we are wasting our time.’

    The Germans seem to have ignored the advice of former German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, three years ago when he said ‘If we Germans allow ourselves to be seduced into claiming a political leading role in Europe or at least playing first among equals, based on our economic strength, an increasing majority of our neighbours will effectively resist this. The concern of the periphery about an all too powerful European centre would soon come racing back. The possible consequences of such development would be crippling.’ That crippling is occurring today and Angela Merkel doesn’t seem to understand.

    Can we dare hope to see again the moral and political leadership that we saw from people like Helmut Kohl, Helmut Schmidt , Francois Mitterrand and many more. None of them had forgotten the horrors of WWII and set about with idealism and hope to build a new Europe. The current generation of leaders has never known the travail that these earlier leaders experienced.

    This is about much more than Greece and its debts and austerity. But hopefully this crisis will force European leaders to show the courage and foresight that its forbears showed decades ago. The European Project is in trouble, but it is worth renewing. Will the bankers and small-minded get out of the way? With no vision from their leaders, the people of Europe are suffering.

  • Greek Crisis

    See below links to two interesting articles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Pearls and Irritations Policy Series

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

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

  • John Menadue. The Greek crisis and regime change.

    Current Affairs

    A lot of the blame for the present crisis should be borne by many countries and institutions, but the one group that is least responsible is the present left-wing government of Greece, Syriza.

    The major blame must rest first with the previous Greek governments that mired the Greek people in corruption and cronyism. The second group that must bear immediate responsibility is the incompetence of the Troika – the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF, led very much by the German Government. The austerity campaign inflicted on Greece has resulted in the GDP shrinking by 25%, accompanied by unemployment of 25%, and youth unemployment of 50%. Such a situation is unacceptable and is likely to result in extreme outcomes. Something just has to give in Greece.

    In this situation there are now suggestions reported by the London Times that ‘Germany will demand the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras and Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, resign as a condition for a new Eurozone bailout.’ If this is correct it sounds very much as if regime change is being engineered. Is the object of such a plan to break the Greek Government so that the austerity plan of the northern European countries can continue? Such a plan is outrageous. These austerity plans have caused not only major social problems in Greece, but also in Spain where an election is due in December this year.

    In retrospect, the Euro looks a bad idea, particularly when it links such diverse economies as Germany and Greece. Germany has gained economically from a weak Euro caused largely by the weak economies of southern Europe. It may not be overstating it to describe the Euro as really the Deutsche Mark in disguise. The Euro has given considerable benefits to German business and exporters. In turn, it has made southern European countries less competitive.

    The austerity driven by the Troika with German leadership has resulted in political extremism of both the Left, as in Greece, and the Right, as in France.

    For over a decade sensible economic management in Greece has been frustrated by widespread corruption and cronyism. Tax avoidance on a wide scale became acceptable by previous Greek governments. Urging Greece today to raise taxes to meet its budget deficits does not make a great deal of sense when so much tax is avoided. The crony friends of previous governments have become rich at the expense of the Greek economy and society.

    The banks in Europe and in Greece have behaved irresponsibly with their loose lending. Just as it was incorrect to blame low paid Americans for accepting sub-prime mortgages, so the blame for borrowing by the Greek people cannot be sheeted home to poorly paid Greeks who needed credit to survive. It is noteworthy that in the present negotiations the banks have refused to include debt-relief as part of a settlement package.

    Escalating public debt has been made worse by the irresponsible behaviour of that doyen of international finance, Goldman Sacks. In 2002 Goldman Sacks helped Greece to mask its true debt. Goldman Sacks persuaded the Greek debt managers that they could avoid Maastricht rules on budget deficit limits. The result of the Goldman Sacks device was that $1 b. did not show up in the Greek debt statistics.

    The overbearing attitude of the victors after WWI imposed a severe burden on the defeated Germany which it never forgot, with appalling consequences. In the US, the US Treasury decided to let Lehmann Bros fail to teach the market a lesson. The Troika in northern Europe seems intent on teaching the Greeks a lesson.

    Instead of their resolve to crush the Greek upstart government, the Troika in Germany should look at their own failures and also the long-term future of Europe. What has happened to ‘European values and solidarity’ that inspired Europe in the past? The Troika has a lot to answer for in the current crisis. Hopefully a resolution can be found that respects the rights of the Greek people and places Europe on a continuing path of development.

    Surely in the cradle of democracy the Greeks will want more control over their own destiny!

    See link below for an account by Jeffrey Sachs. He describes the behaviour of the Troika and others as ‘petulant, naïve and fundamentally self-destructive’. He adds that many of Greeks citizens are hungry, with conditions reminiscent of those in Germany in 1933.

    Jeffrey Sachs is Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management, at Columbia University. He is also Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General on the Millennium Development Goals.

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greek-debt-crisis-how-goldman-sachs-helped-greece-to-mask-its-true-debt-a-676634.html

     

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

    Current Affairs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

  • John Tulloh. Why Eritreans are crossing the Mediterranean.

    Current Affairs.

    ERITREA: THE NORTH KOREA OF AFRICA 

    It is the seventh youngest nation in the world. It was born in 1993 after a 30-year war. Its flag was raised for the first time as an independent nation with high hopes for democracy in a continent dominated by too many despots. In its first years it set an example of frugality when its people were encouraged to ride bikes and, what vehicles there were, had to be modest small ones. Its original leader is still in charge 22 years later. Time for an election? ‘Never’, he said. Instead he has created a harsh dictatorship with thousands of desperate citizens deciding life must be better elsewhere. Hundreds have died in the process. Their country has been likened to North Korea.

    Such is life in Eritrea, the sun-baked former Italian colony on the African shore in the south of the Red Sea. Its people today cause nervousness in the capitals of Europe. They make up a considerable proportion of asylum-seekers risking their existence among the huddled masses crossing the Mediterranean to make a future in Europe.

    Recently, the UN took a look at how the fledgling nation was doing. Its report was damning. The initial sense of democracy, it said, ‘has been extinguished by the government under the pretext of national defence’. The UN investigators said the regime of President Isaias Afewerki was guilty of extra-judicial killings, widespread torture, sexual slavery, Orwellian mass surveillance and enforced labour. In short, it may have committed crimes against humanity.

    Eritrea has a system known as ‘national service’. The report says this really involves ‘arbitary detention, torture, sexual torture, forced labour and absence of leave’. Compulsory military service can be open-ended, continuing for years. Avoidance can lead to execution. Women recruits are rounded up to satisfy the lust of their commanders. Eritrea is a country ruled not by law, but by fear, said one of the UN investigators.

    No wonder five percent of Eritreans have fled, according to the UN. Even that can be dangerous. Abandoning the country is regarded as treachery and until last year soldiers at border crossings routinely shot anyone trying to escape. It is a similar story for North Koreans who’ve had enough of their country.

    It is a sad tale when the birth of Eritrea was greeted with such lofty expectations. A reporter for the Washington Post was moved to write:

         On a continent of millionaire dictators, where broken promises of democracy dovetail with collapsing living standards and unpayable debts, Eritrea’s revolutionaries hold out the possibility of an efficient, self-reliant African nation, run by Africans who have had 26 years to learn from the failures of independent Africa. 

         The trouble is that they didn’t learn or didn’t want to know. As a result, Eritrea has ended up like the Ethiopian regime – the Derg – which it fought for the three decades to get rid of. Its ratified constitution was suspended with no explanation and has now been abandoned altogether. Promised elections at the outset never took place and again without explanation. All private newspapers were closed and their journalists detained. Land was nationalised. Aid agencies were driven from the country. ‘Short of North Korea or an ISIS slave cave, there’s no more hopeless place on earth’, wrote Spectator columnist Mary Wakefield last month.

    Eritreans in exile are unanimous in saying the villain for all this is President Alwerki. He apparently regards himself as indispensable and clearly sees himself as president for life – just like the Kim dynasty trio of tyrants in  North Korea. In a strange twist of irony, Eritrea in its written response denouncing the UN report lifted lines word for word from a North Korean fulmination to the UN on another matter:

    “We are fully ready for any confrontation with the U.S. and will shatter the reckless “human rights” racket by the hostile forces through our toughest reaction. 

    “The moves of the hostile forces to dare provoke the socialist system of the DPRK which was chosen and has been consolidated by the Korean people will not be able to escape disgraceful doom.”

    The West pays little attention to Eritrea other than warning people travelling there. The EU in April approved an aid package of 122 million euros. ‘The more it gives, the faster the population decamps’, observed Wakefield.

    The country is of little strategic value despite the Soviet Union once having a naval base there before independence. While Eritrea has a majority Christian population, more than 40 per cent of its people are followers of Islam. But no doubt the West is content in the knowledge that Eritrea’s brutal president will keep any Islamic radicals in their place.

    Just as North Korean defectors have a tough time adjusting to life among even their own kith and kin in the south, for Eritreans it is an entirely new challenge in a new continent where they are far from wanted. ‘They were in Africa until yesterday and are fleeing like lost goats in Rome’, a social worker was quoted in The Times about newly-arrived Eritreans now trying to evade a different type of authority.

    The number of Eritreans who made it to Italy by the boat last year was 40,000 or 23 percent of all asylum-seekers. That compares with just 32,000 of all asylum-seekers who made it to Australia by the dreaded boat in the 18 months to June 2013. The Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, can only pale when this year’s likely record-breaking exodus across the Mediterranean is totted up.

    If there is a glimmer of hope for Eritreans, it may be it’s because gold has been discovered in their benighted country and other minerals could be there as well. That’s if President Alwerki doesn’t follow the example of other African dictators by pocketing the money for himself and keeping his country to remain among the 10 poorest in the world.

    FOOTNOTE: Australia has had a connection with Eritrea ever since 1987 when the late Fred Hollows began his work there to restore sight to thousands of people. Despite the crackdown on NGOs, the foundation in his name continues his work there today.

     

    John Tulloh had a 40-year career in foreign news.

  • Ian McAuley. The ABC and a second chance.

    Current Affairs

    Most reasonable people would be fully behind Mark Scott’s spirited defence of the ABC “as a public broadcaster, not a state broadcaster”, reminding us that “at times, free speech principles mean giving platforms to those with whom we fundamentally disagree.”

    Tony Abbott’s reaction to Zaky  Mallah’s remarks on Q&A is comparable to the religious fundamentalists’ hysterical reaction to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. When Abbott said “heads should roll”, he was undoubtedly speaking metaphorically, but such language spurs hotheads to extreme violence. It’s a chilling reminder that journalists have been beheaded for upsetting the delicate sensitivities of religious bigots.

    How could Abbott, so familiar with Catholicism and English history, forget the unintended violence King Henry incited when, in a similar offhand remark, he said “who will rid me of this meddlesome priest”?

    Of course Abbott and his loyal followers would be happy if all the media, particularly the highly-trusted ABC, were as uncritically supportive of the government as the Murdoch papers are. But the government doesn’t usually react so strongly as it has to the Q&A incident. Perhaps it touched a couple of raw nerves that other criticisms do not.

    The first raw nerve was touched when Mallah suggested that the intemperate language of government ministers (“dog whistling”) has encouraged people to go to Syria to join IS. His statement was hardly elegant, and if taken out of context could be interpreted as urging people to join IS, but if one listens to the full interchange that is certainly not what he was saying.

    It is quite plausible that government ministers and their strident supporters on talkback radio, have intentionally or otherwise contributed to a feeling of isolation and rejection among some young Muslim Australians, thus elevating the attraction of movements such as IS.  It’s a possibility worthy of serious consideration.

    An academic or professional journalist would not have put the question in the same way that Mallah did, but Mallah is not an academic or journalist. As Shakespeare reminds us fools often speak truths in ways that more respectable people tend to avoid.

    The other raw nerve touched by the incident was the audience reaction to Mallah’s suggestion that Steve Ciobo should leave the country. In one aspect it was simply a tit-for-tat return of Ciobo’s rudeness. But, asAnnabel Crabb  points out, what may have grated with the government was the applause from the audience.

    Maybe the applause was just a normal “goodonyermate” approval of someone giving as good as he gets when confronted with ill-mannered behaviour, particularly when that behaviour is from a politician of the governing party.

    But maybe it was more. A group of Australians, be they in a television studio or any other setting, carries the legacy of our convict history. That history is a rough one as Robert Hughes pointed out, but at its core is the story of redemption – the criminal whose death sentence was commuted to transportation and who made good in New South Wales, and whose genes so many of us now carry. Even though such successes were in the minority, the idea of redemption has helped shape our nation.

    Mallah presented himself as the ticket-of-leave redeemed criminal. The audience was in no position to know whether that was contrived or genuine. But the reaction to the story was a very Australian one, by people who are on the side of redemption.