Category: Politics

  • Handle with Care. Guest blogger: Greg from Cottesloe

     
    When I was a kid, the pictures on Saturday afternoons were a highlight of the week. Before the main feature, the cartoons and even the Pathe newsreel would come one of the top favourites, a government warning on the danger of keeping unexploded ammunition in homes. Mortar bombs often featured; unlike bullets and other aimed projectiles, they don’t miss and they wound anyone that’s exposed. These films had names like Not Worth Dying for and started with a picture of a mortar bomb on the mantelpiece, went to pipe smoking Dad accidentally knocking it over, the house going up with a roar, just the thing to put kids in the right frame of mind for the next episode of Gunsmoke.
    Germain Greer has long been an icon on the mantelpiece of the Left and of Feminism but they might need to have a look at those old government films. Her article in last weekend’s AFR tackles Australia’s alleged love of plain speaking and inflicts casualties on all sides. Greer is non denominational; everyone gets a serve regardless of gender, age, education, ethnicity, etc. And this on the One Day of the Year set aside for mass smugness and feeling mightily pleased that we are not anyone else.
    But it’s when we go dipping into the Rozella biscuit tin of history looking for precedents of our general fabulousness that we come up against some problems. Australians seem to have been more collectivist, more taciturn and instinctively aware of the limits on individual expression in the past and this hasn’t travelled so well to the present  A former Malaysian Trade Minister once commented that Australians often told her how much they liked plain speaking but how they seemed to lose their enthusiasm for it quickly enough when they were on the receiving end.
    And then there are the comparisons with the Americans. One of the staple cliches is how quietly spoken and unobtrusive we are as travellers compared with loud and pushy Americans but any time spent flying around Asia these days is going to make that notion questionable at least. A recent online article on doing business with the US advised Australians to be less aggressive and boastful, to “get the tickets off themselves”. If we’ve got the Americans telling us to tone it down, something is amiss in the self image department.
    So let’s keep that mortar bomb on the mantelpiece – even if it’s a bit fat and old – and give it a good toss around every now and then. It might go off but then that’s what it’s designed to do.
     Greg from Cottesloe

  • Federal Election bits and pieces

    There was nothing new in the timing of the next election announced by Julia Gillard. There wasn’t much doubt that it would be some time in August or September. There may be a marginal benefit for the government in the early announcement. It has some major policy issues to outline – Gonski reforms, national disability and how they are to be funded. Having the resources of the bureaucracy in outlining these issues will be a considerable advantage. Furthermore, oppositions have been inclined to make themselves small targets and hide policy until late in the day. That will now be much harder for the Coalition.

    I suspect that one issue in Julia Gillard’s mind is the timing of the interim report by the ICAC in NSW on mining leases and Eddie Obeid. The ICAC evidence is extremely damaging to the ALP although it’s hard to imagine that the ALP vote can fall much further after it was almost wiped out at the last state election. The best way to make a new start in NSW would be for the federal executive to dismiss the NSW ALP state office.

    The Liberal Party has obviously been trying to remake and reposition Tony Abbott. At the moment he doesn’t seem to know if he is coming or going as he struggles with his new image.

    In the lead up to the election, Sportsbet in the SMH and perhaps other papers, carried a full page advertisement of Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard. There was the thought bubble from Tony Abbott ‘I am going to win big on election day’. The thought bubble over Julia Gillard said ‘only if you back me at sportsbet.com.au’. I wonder if Sportsbet had permission from either Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard to use them in this advertisement? If they gave their approval I would be disappointed. I recall many years ago that a major car manufacturer used Arthur Calwell’s face and name to advertise its product. He took his hat around and got some major financial settlements.

    Whoever wins the election, many must hope for a rejuvenation of the Canberra Press Gallery. It is badly out of touch with the Australian community as Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech indicated. In its group-think, it is all about politics and personality. Policy comes a sad last.

    John Menadue

  • Nova Peris and the Captain’s pick

    Julia Gillard’s action in parachuting Nova Peris into the Northern Territory senate seat  is understandable. The ALP machinery is so decrepit and undemocratic that occasional use of power by the  parliamentary leader  is necessary.

    Party members have left the ALP in droves over the years. It is a ramshackle organisation that is so easy to manipulate by faction heavies. With so few party members it is remarkable that there isn’t more branch stacking and manipulation in preselections. Apparently only about 230 party members voted in the preselection for Senator Crossin for the Northern Territory Senate. But there are over 30,000 ALP first preference voters in the subsequent senate election. So a small group of party members foisted Senator Crossin on ALP supporters.

    But Julia Gillard’s intervention is only a bandaid. She had a great opportunity at last  year’s ALP Federal Conference to put her weight behind substantial  reform. The party was considering the report of John Faulkner, Bob Carr and Steve Bracks to start the process of reform of the ALP. Prime Minister Gillard did not provide the leadership necessary. Almost a decade earlier Bob Hawke and Neville Wran also proposed reform of the ALP machinery, but little was done.

    Gough Whitlam showed that with a party machine controlled by factions and state secretaries it is only the parliamentary leader who has the heft to break through the vested interests who are more concerned about retaining power in the machine than in advancing good policy to enthuse its rank and file and win elections.

    If Julia Gillard had used her ‘captain’s pick’ 12 months ago to lead the reform of the ALP, the organisation would be in much better shape today and the parachuting in of Nova Peris would be much less necessary.

    An exercise of the captain’s power at that time would have included the sacking of Sussex Street. If that had been done there would have been a dramatic lift in the party’s standing in NSW, particularly in western Sydney.

    Nova Peris’ selection will help but it is really small beer compared with the wider reforms that are necessary. Only the parliamentary leader can do it.

  • Rio Tinto – Corporate Governance and Asia

    Since 2007 Rio Tinto has written off $US 35 billion in failed investments. It must be a world record. There are probably more write-downs to come with its investments in Mozambique coal and in aluminium in North America.

    Tom Albanese has been sacrificed but the remainder of the Rio Tinto board are apparently unscathed. They have been too lax with shareholders money that they have washed so comprehensively down the drain. The boards of some of our mining companies in the mining boom must think that they are playing with monopoly money. Booming commodity prices and demand lulled them into being careless on major investment decisions. They became very gullible. Not only have they been lax in investment decisions but they have been careless in allowing costs to balloon.

    The board of Rio Tinto oversaw the company’s operations in China when the iron ore price quadrupled. But in the business euphoria, Rio Tinto took its eyes off the ball and left local staff in charge. Four of Rio’s staff in China admitted to bribery in a Chinese court. They are now languishing in Chinese jails for up to 14 years. This sorry performance was described by our former Ambassador in Beijing, Geoff Raby, as a ‘management failure’. He was being polite. It was a debacle. So far it is not clear that any senior executives or board members have been held accountable.

    Sam Walsh was on the board of Rio at the time he headed Rio’s iron ore division, with its substantial trade with China. He is now the CEO of the whole organisation replacing TomAlbanese.

    It is also suggested that the problems in Mozambique related in part to Rio’s management style, including its relations with the Mozambique government. Rio did not appoint Portuguese speaking executives in Mozambique to manage the business.

    Our large mining companies have an excellent record as geologists, explorers and people skilled at digging up and transporting minerals but they are yet to demonstrate business skills particularly in countries that are culturally and linguistically different. I do not know of any major Australian mining company that has a board member or CEO who can fluently speak at least one of the languages of our major customers – China, Japan and Korea. Few would have even a cultural understanding of how business is conducted in these countries.

    These large companies pontificate about sovereign risk when the Australian government attempts to introduce reasonable tax regimes. These companies also tell us that we should all be raising our productivity with upskilling and improved work practices. But they don’t practice wheat they preach.

    The disasters which Rio Tinto has brought upon itself were predictable.

    John Menadue