Blog

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

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

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

    Not from his God—from his government.

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

    “There has been no sign of reconciliation.” 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Such feelings of disillusion run deep in the North.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

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

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

    So who really knows and who is telling the truth?

     

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

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

     

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

     

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

     

     

     

     

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

     

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

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

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

    Metaphors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    ……

  • Frontier War and asylum seekers. John Menadue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The Frontier War

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

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

    Refugees

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

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

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

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

    Pablo Casals puts that appeal in different words.

    ‘Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness.

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

    It is not complicated, but it takes courage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    It is my honour to launch this statement

     

     

     

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

     

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

     

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

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

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

  • Commodifying and dehumanising asylum seekers. Guest blogger Michael Kelly SJ

    The rejection by the Indonesian foreign minister of Tony Abbott’s suggested ways of “stopping the boats” is only the latest assertion of how the Coalition’s policy on asylum seekers was never going to work. It might have made political sense at election time, allegedly in marginal seats though the results in western Sydney throw some doubt on that.

    But now a factious Senate that will be difficult for a Coalition government to woo, a High Court to appeal to about the implementation of a policy that has all to many features similar to the one struck down when the “Malaysian Solution” failed and the unparalleled damage done by the policy to Australia’s standing in the region all indicate that, however loudly proclaimed and possibly significant at the polls, it was never a goer.

    Its absurdity as policy is now clear to anyone wanting to look at how unworkable it is. And Labor didn’t help. Already, despite promises during the campaign from such people as Penny Wong that Labor would never send children, especially unaccompanied ones, to Nauru, it’s happened. And as PM, Kevin Rudd’s dealings with PNG and Nauru only intensified the issue with which the Coalition joined the ALP with glee.

    But there’s something deeper at work in what is, in the medium and long term, just bad policy. It surfaces in people wondering how committed Christians like Rudd, Abbott and Morrison can so politically exploit and instrumentalise vulnerable people and see any coherence with the faith they profess.

    Karl Marx was wrong about a lot of things in his moralizing pseudoscientific economics. But one thing he did get right was the way capitalist economies can commodify and dehumanize people as “units” in a production process. He called it “reification” which, for those not familiar with Latin, means making “things” of people.

    And that’s what happens when an absence of proper legal process, attentive listening to actual personal stories and a readiness to accept a civilized approach worked out over the last 70 years to dealing with asylum seeker claims are replaced by punishing the claimant before the case has been heard.

    We are all familiar, or should be, with what a relatively insignificant share, by international comparisons with the numbers of asylum seekers in the world, those coming to our country are. But a national category mistake seems to be the order of the day in Australia: we hear politicians waxing ferocious about an “emergency” whose context they don’t get or refuse to acknowledge.

    And in that context, people can be dehumanized and “reified”. Don’t ask me how those doing it can square such an attitude and approach with their claimed “deepest beliefs”. I thought central to being a Christian was what’s celebrated at Christmas through which believers mark that every human is dignified as a carrier of God’s presence.

    As with so many people who propose or enact inhuman solutions to apparent problems and challenges, Tony Abbott is also widely discovered to be not the demon alleged but a very approachable, sensitive and humane individual. Ask some Aborigines in northern Australia.

    Those who know him attest to his gracious and compassionate warmth as a person. His use of site visits and shopping center walk throughs have always been a winner for him because he is an engaging person who is the antithesis of the cartoon ideologue his enemies paint him to be.

    Characterizations of him as a misogynist and a blue tie wearing cardboard cut out are how Labor sought to dehumanize hi

    But characterizing asylum seekers as “illegals” and targeted as people whose story is never to be heard – dehumanizing them – is what he’s done. And why has this happened with someone whose Christian faith is sincere and whose human qualities are well attested to?

    The simple answer given by many is it’s all about politics. And if that’s so, what well deserved reputations politicians have.

    But perhaps it’s also because, for the last 500 years, Christians have so trivialized their understanding of sin – reducing it to the commission of acts that violate a rulebook someone has made – that the fundamental sin of human beings is missed. That sin is the depersonalization of human beings, allowing them to be reduced to figures on a page.

    Marx reviled the process; Jesus decried it; and we all do it. Any time we advance an argument against an actual or perceived enemy and neglect to acknowledge the humanity of our opponent, we are into reification. Any time we propose a process that neglects engagement with the people affected, we are into reification.

    Marx was in the great tradition of Jewish Prophets who decried injustice as not only destructive of human community but an ultimate offence against humanity. He didn’t believe in God. But he got the consequences that his Jewish heritage specified for the way we live for or off each other.

    And now that the black comedy of the election campaign is over, and no matter how many worthy warriors Tony Abbott can muster from the ranks of the retired military to manage “stopping the boats”, there’s a real problem: it won’t work.

    One way or another, Australia is going to have to return to finding a regional solution to the challenge, engage with the real people in the mix of both our regional neighbors and the asylum seekers wanting to come our way or face even greater failures in foreign affairs and the health and quality of Australia’s public culture.

  • Tony Abbott’s debt to Rupert Murdoch. John Menadue

     

    Media Watch of 9 September gave us a snap shot of what Rupert Murdoch did for Tony Abbott. It said “the final tally of (the Daily Telegraph’s) coverage in the election campaign stacks up like this.Out of a total of 293 political stories we scored only six as pro Labor. While 43 were pro coalition. On the negative side there were just five articles that we judged to be anti coalition.While a remarkable 134 were anti Labor” That summary takes no account of the front page splashes that ridiculed Labor day after day. or the coverage by Murdoch’s other papers outside Sydney.

    It would be naïve to think that Rupert Murdoch doesn’t expect a lot in return for his bullying of the electorate in support of Tony Abbott. Rupert Murdoch will want a lot more than he asked for from Gough Whitlam after the 1972 election – an appointment as Australian High Commissioner to the UK.  I was the intermediary but Murdoch denies asking!!

    Not content with ownership of over 70% of metropolitan readership in Australia, he will expect much more from Tony Abbott and not just running to the telephone whenever he calls.

    Crikey and others have highlighted Murdoch’s likely calls .

    • Control of Foxtel. News Ltd now owns 50% of Foxtel and wants the other 50% owned by Telstra. Watch this play out.
    • News Ltd regards the ABC as a privileged competitor and a real pain in the neck. It doesn’t like public broadcasters and has made this clear in both the UK and Australia. News Ltd could pursue its campaign against the ABC by urging funding cuts to the ABC in the name of reducing unfair competition and providing value for money for the Australian taxpayer. This is despite the fact that the ABC happens to be the second most trusted institution in Australia, just behind the High Court, whilst the News Ltd outlets are the least trusted media in the country. This is not to say that the Canberra TV and Radio Bureau of the ABC are serving us well but that is another question.
    • Open up tendering to enable Sky News to compete with the ABC for the International Television Service.
    • New anti-syphoning laws to protect Foxtel and limit major sporting groups broadcasting their own content.
    • Reduction in television licensing fees for free-to-air TV companies to help Lachlan Murdoch’s bumbling Channel 10.
    • Federal government recruitment advertising to be shifted from online to print media to help assist The Australian.

    After John Major’s surprising victory in the 1992 UK general election, the London Sun boasted ‘It ‘s the Sun wot won it’.

    This time the Daily Telegraph, Courier Mail, Herald Sun, Adelaide Advertiser and The Australian won’t be as garrulous. But together with Rupert Murdoch they will expect from Tony Abbott big time.

    And what about the journalist code of conduct that hopefully Murdoch’s  employees signed on to..There is a deathly silence from them.

  • Julie Bishop fails Economics I. Guest blogger Ian McAuley

    ​In justifying the Coalition’s cuts in foreign aid, Julie Bishop said that borrowing from overseas only to hand it back overseas was unsustainable in light of our mounting debt.

    That statement has glib appeal, but it’s a serious misrepresentation.

    For a start the Government does not borrow from overseas. Rather, almost all the Commonwealth’s revenue is sourced from taxation and other charges. The balance, used to finance counter-cyclical deficit spending or to make funds available for capital projects, is funded by Commonwealth bonds issued on the domestic market.

    Second, much of what Australia spends on foreign aid is spent on domestically-produced goods and services, particularly consultancy services.  That part stays here.

    The Coalition may have a point in that while the Budget is in deficit, any cut which reduces the deficit reduces Commonwealth borrowing. It could also validly point out that while that borrowing is on the domestic market, many Government bonds will be taken up by foreigners, in recognition of Australia’s low sovereign risk, and some of those bonds taken up by financial institutions will ultimately be financed by borrowing from overseas. That’s the benefit of having a well-earned AAA credit rating, a point which the Coalition is reluctant to acknowledge because it does not align with their story about the situation they inherited from a fiscally irresponsible Labor Government.

    That is really a stretch. It can no more be called “borrowing from overseas” than my use of a credit card to buy a meal or an airline ticket. Let’s concede this to the Coalition, however, so we can take the money trail all the way through.

    Australian financial institutions are net borrowers from overseas. That’s been so for a long time, because we almost always run a deficit on our current account. That is the difference between our exports and imports, and as a mathematical reality that deficit has to be financed. (It’s the private deficit we don’t hear much about, but it’s many times bigger than our small government deficit.)

    When our financial institutions borrow from overseas they do so at very favourable interest rates – much more favourable than those at which governments and private investors in poor countries can borrow. Most aid-recipient countries are lucky if they get a BB credit rating. Their own borrowing has to be for projects with short-term returns, a constraint which does not hinder some commercial projects and government projects with a strong early revenue streams, but which is highly unfavourable for longer-term investments in areas such as health and education, where the benefits are slow to be realized and are diffused through the economy.

    And, of course, there is a financial market at work to ration our borrowing. When we borrow $100 000 to finance foreign aid, ultimately that is $100 000 that isn’t available to finance domestic purchases. It may mean a few Australians decide to downgrade from a BMW to a Volkswagen, or to make their next overseas trip in four star rather than five star accommodation.

     

    It all comes down to simple economics.  Whichever way we fund foreign aid, we’re putting aside a little of our consumption in order to finance investment for those who are far less fortunate.  Does Julie Bishop really not understand this?

     

  • What does Labor stand for? Principles to drive policies and programs. John Menadue

    Late last year I was approached by a friend who is very politically active about what I thought the ALP could do to renovate its policy platform.

    I discussed this request with an old friend, Ian McAuley.  Together we prepared a paper ‘Principles to drive policies and programs – or – What does Labor stand for?’ It is dated 18 December 2012. Quite deliberately, this paper was not widely distributed. It can now be found on my website .  It is on the home page and also in the folder ‘democratic renewal’. It is also reproduced at the end of this blog.

    The paper can also be found on Ian McAuley’s web site ianmcauley.com/academic/othpubs/laborprinciples.pdf.

    Ian and I believe that this paper is still relevant to the reform process that the ALP must undergo in light of the defeat on 7 September 2013.

    One concern expressed to me by many ALP voters was that the ALP campaign at the last election lacked an over-riding narrative or framework.

    In the political process, I think there is general agreement that political compromises have to be made but they should only be made against a framework of generally agreed values. We like to know what our party and our leaders stand for, even if a few corners have to be cut.

    We open our paper by drawing attention to the decline of the ALP primary vote from 45% to 50% fifty years ago to 35% to 40% today. In fact in the September 7 election, the ALP primary vote fell disastrously to 34%. In Queensland it was 30% and in WA 29%.  Tony Abbott on election night gloatingly described this primary vote for the ALP as the lowest for 100 years.

    The current debate on the carbon tax illustrates how an approach based on principles can overcome a political problem. It is important that Labor is firm on principles but not positions. Unfortunately, politicians keep getting sucked into positions. Tony Abbott’s position is to ‘scrap the tax’. Labor’s is either ‘keep the tax’ or ‘move now to a European emissions trading system’. It would be better for Labor to stand for a more general principle such as ‘a strong market-based mechanism to reduce emissions’. It gives Labor more room to move. It reveals a flexibility in contrast to Abbott’s ‘position’.

    In addition to the policy renewal, there must of course be major renovation of the ALP organisation and structure. Major issues in this area which need reform are.

    • Building a national party from the long established confederation of six state-based parties.
    • Widespread participation by ALP members from federal electorates in policy formation, selection of the parliamentary leader and selection of federal candidates.
    • A reduced but fraternal link between trade unions and the ALP.

    I hope you find the paper (below) ‘What does Labor stand for’ challenging.

     

    Principles to Drive Policies and Programs, or

    What does Labor stand for?

    1. Labor’s constituency

    The Labor primary vote has declined from about 45-50% fifty years ago to 35-40% today. The Coalition vote is virtually unchanged. Labor has lost its clear identity with the ‘working class’ and what it stands for. Its natural constituency and membership has declined. To contain the loss, Labor has increasingly committed itself to focus groups, marginal seat strategies and ‘whatever it takes’. Values, principles and ideas have given way to marketing of products .Money has replaced membership as the driving force of campaigns. The trade unions remain the most important institutional Labor supporter but trade union influence is out of proportion to its role in the community and the ‘Labor constituency’.

    1. Principles as the basis for policy
      If Labor is to differentiate itself from conservative parties, it needs to express that difference in a clear set of principles which accord with the best of Australians’ values. Otherwise the political contest is reduced to satisfying short-term materialist ‘aspirations’, appeasing vested interests and managing the media cycle. In such a contest, Labor is engaged in a futile struggle, for the Coalition is adept at conveying the misleading impression that it is the ‘natural party of government’, particularly because of its supposed competence in economic management.

      From community values a set of principles of public policy can be developed – principles which define Labor in contrast to other parties. Those principles can underpin a coherent set of policies and programs which implement those policies.
      Values > principles > policies > programs.

      Moving to the ‘right’ on issues such as refugee policy and health care simply legitimises the conservative position – a position from where exploitation of people’s fear is likely to drive out sensible and reasonable political debate. Selectively compromising – a little socialism here, a little free market there – as was the strategy of Britain’s New Labour – only confuses Labor supporters and the electorate because it presents inconsistent values.

      Social democrat parties, including Labor, were founded on an optimistic view of human nature and on recognition of the public sphere where people realise their full capabilities. These ideas can be expressed in consistent and coherent principles such as stewardship, the common wealth, including enhancement of social, environmental and institutional capital and protection of natural resources.

      In his emphasis on the ‘social question’, John Curtin gave effect to these principles, acknowledging that only a strong society, including a strong and respected government, can support a strong economy. And of course there is no point in an economy that does not serve social ends.

    2. Curtin’s vision – ‘the social question’
      Curtin’s social democratic vision contrasts sharply with the Liberal Party platform ‘that only businesses and individuals are the creators of wealth and employment’, a view that reduces government to a burden rather than a contributor to the common wealth. Curtin’s vision contrasts with the notion that ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’, which legitimises destructive social divisions, which encourages people to separate themselves from society in physical or metaphorical gated communities (private schools, private health insurance), which allows the connection between contribution and reward to be severed, which encourages rent-seeking, speculation and protection of privilege rather than productive investment and which compensates the ‘losers’ with social security handouts.
    3. Labor – the Party of strong leadership and values
      Just as Labor governments provided leadership to face greater challenges in the 1980s, so too today Australia faces even greater challenges – climate change, population ageing, dilapidated infrastructure, commodity based exports, deficits in human capital and a weak base for public revenue. The politics of ‘what’s in it for me’ discourages us from facing these challenges, for there will have to be trade-offs: some will have to pay more than others and some will have to forego benefits now for the sake of longer term benefits. Such transitions can be painful, but are more likely to gain support when people understand the principles underpinning public policy.

      When the Party is unified around a set of principles it can still have a robust debate about how to give effect to those principles. But it would be in  control of its message because its parliamentary representatives can engage with the electorate in a consistent and sincere voice, with less reliance on ‘talking points’ and spin and with less concern with the immediate reaction of focus groups. Labor supporters would be much more prepared to accept political compromise if they know that there is strong leadership and there is broad agreement on key values and principles. Labor leadership has to be patient and consistent around these values and principles – and never go backwards.  Authenticity and sincerity are then easily recognised.

    4. Democratic Renewal
      At the same time as addressing overarching ‘Labor’ principles that could guide Labor policies and programs, there are two immediate issues which must be given high priority.

      The first is democratic renewal in our public institutions, including the ALP. We are increasingly alienated from our institutions. This suits the conservatives who implicitly seek to protect private corporate interests from public intervention. Loss of faith in parliament inevitably leads on to denigration and a loss of faith in government. Those that Labor has traditionally represented and the wider community are the losers. The Coalition has deliberately set out to destroy faith in our public institutions, public policy and politics. The government is ‘corrupt’. It is ‘illegitimate’. Mayhem is promoted in the parliament. The signs of democratic decay and lack of respect for politicians are everywhere. For example:

      1. Through domination of parliament, executive governments monopolise information flows and policy advice. Policy advice is increasingly given by ministerial advisers while the public service is co-opted  into providing political support to government.
      2. Governments are overly-influenced by powerful lobby groups and donors, e.g. miners, developers, licensed clubs and hotels
      3. The health ‘debate’ is not with the public, but between insiders – the Minister and the AMA/pharmacists/private health insurance companies.
      4. Because Labor does not have a consistent principle-based set of policies – some would say a ‘narrative’ – it has little capacity for defence or explanation when its policies are misrepresented or misinterpreted in the media.
      5. Labor is no longer representative of those that vote for it or have empathy with it.

    The concentrated media does not properly expose abuse of power and directly skews the public debate towards personalities, the whims of proprietors, conflict and celebrities, rather than serious policies. We had an enquiry about the failure of our intelligence agencies over Iraq, but the greater failure was in the media.

    Democratic renewal is urgent – reform of the parliament, political parties, party factions, lobbyists, donors and the media.

    1. The economic role of government
      The second immediate issue is the economic role of government. Those who would benefit from weak and distrusted government have undermined the legitimacy of the public sector.
      Australians have been encouraged to forget that their prosperity is based on both public and private goods. To many people government has become ‘invisible’, except as a vehicle for distributive welfare. Australians have lost sight of the contribution of the mixed economy, not only in providing public goods, but also in ensuring that the forces of greed and short-sightedness don’t lead to economic and social collapse. It is noteworthy that despite the continued denigration of government and the public sector, the three most trusted institutions in Australia are public institutions – the High Court, the ABC and the Reserve Bank. In this survey by Essential Research (22.10.2012) there was not a private group in the top eight most trusted groups and institutions in Australia. The three least trusted groups were business, trade unions and political parties.

      Even conservatives acknowledge that only the public sector can provide some services such as national defence and management of the money supply. In addition, however there are economic functions where private funding or provision is possible but only at high economic cost, with distorted incentives and with serious consequences for equity. These include education, health insurance, energy and water utilities and communication and transport infrastructure. In these and other areas there are market failures for which prudent economic principles require a strong government role in funding or provision. Unless Labor articulates and defends the proper economic role of government – a pre-requisite to improving Australia’s weak taxation base – economic growth will be restrained by inadequate public spending and investment.

      Of these investments, the most important is human capital to ensure that people can develop their capabilities so that they can contribute to their full potential through employment, business or unpaid work. In the competitive global economy of this century, human capital is a nation’s only secure asset. Scandinavian countries demonstrate this. A population with skills and with incentives which match rewards to contribution will draw less on distributive welfare, preserving public revenue for needed social insurance and public goods. The best antidote to disadvantage and low self esteem is not welfare but well paid and meaningful employment.

      Labor will find it hard to make these investments if it allows itself to be depicted as the party of big welfare spending. In fact conservative governments, because of under-investment in human capital and physical infrastructure, and neglect of economic adjustment, have spent strongly on distributive welfare to compensate for inequalities rising from a weakened economic structure. Over the last 50 years, social security assistance has risen from 5% of Australians’ household disposable income to 12%. Examples of this expanded social security assistance are baby-bonuses, family allowances and superannuation concessions for the wealthy. The government is moving to wind back some middle class welfare – subsidies to private health insurance and the second baby bonus – but the justification is more about immediate budgetary management rather than an expression of principles. Rather, Labor should be the party which ensures that Australia becomes less reliant on distributive welfare. Instead of referring to ‘the education revolution’ in isolation, it should present its human capital policies in the context of a unified set of principles in infrastructure, education, health, environmental and protection, underpinned by principles of investing in capabilities, nurturing individual freedom and autonomy and supporting social inclusion.

      There is an opportunity to differentiate Labor from what has emerged as continuity between Howard and Abbott in that both are strong on distributive welfare while ready to sacrifice other aspects of government which would strengthen the economy’s capacity to provide well-paid and productive employment with less need for social transfers.

    A reframing of policy in terms of strengthening the economy in order to reduce the need for distributive welfare would not only neutralise the ‘right’s’ attack on Labor as the party of the welfare state but would also give a unifying theme to many policies. It would link policies in industry adjustment, infrastructure, education, health and social inclusion. It would overcome the false framing of a trade-off between equity and efficiency. It would give Labor parliamentarians an opportunity to engage more openly with the public without the need for spin and carefully prepared texts.

    1. From values to principles
      The purpose and role of a Labor Government could be to give expression to the values set out below – to achieve as far as possible the ‘common good’.

      Values such as freedom, citizenship, ethical responsibility, fairness and stewardship would be generally accepted by most people. As the values are translated into practices Labor makes a choice that can be further defined as principles that then lead to policies, e.g. the value of fairness can be expressed in the principle of a stronger link between contribution and reward- a link which has become severed by hugely disproportionate executive pay, high returns to rent seekers and financial speculators and the long head-start of inherited wealth.

     

    The following is indicative of a set of values and their expressions in principles which could underpin a Labor platform/policy statement.

    Fairness/equity

    1. A ‘fair go’ is primarily about economic opportunity.
    2. People should be provided with a good education and those who put it to socially useful ends should be rewarded. Governor Lachlan Macquarie was no socialist but his ‘tickets of leave’ gave the outcasts and underprivileged of this country another chance. We built a nation from the underclass. We must give a chance for newcomers and all people to have another opportunity.
    3. Fairness promotes social mobility and limits division and resentment.
    4. Fairness should not be restricted to education.
    5. The path to prosperity with fairness is through productivity and well-paid employment rather than government handouts. The Scandinavians have demonstrated that education and incentives for participation do produce fairness and economic prosperity.
    6. Fairness implies that we are tough towards ‘bludgers’, whether they be tax-dodgers, the vulgarity and indulgence of  those with inherited wealth, protection from competition, government hand-outs and favouritism or cheating on social services.
    7. Fairness implies full employment as a macro-economic goal to ensure human capabilities are not wasted.

    Areas where we fall short in fairness include neglect of early childhood education, treatment of the needs of indigenous people and refugees, diversion of education funding to wealthy schools, neglect of public infrastructure and inadequate ODA.

    Stewardship

    1. We have inherited a stock of assets or capital; environmental (forests/water), public and private physical capital (roads/ports), human capital (education), family capital (family and friendship bonds), social capital (trust), cultural capital and institutional capital (government and non-government institutions). That stock of assets must be retained and where possible enhanced.
    2. We must use our resources as efficiently and productively as possible.

    Areas where we fall short in stewardship include placing a heavy strain on the planet which prejudices our future. Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change we are still influenced by the sceptics who ignore the facts and cling instead to ideology.  Many super funds and fund managers ignore climate change risk. We waste water and degrade the land. We are not skilling ourselves for Asia.
    Freedom

    1. We all have rights to the extent that they do not lessen the rights of others.
    2. Except where the rights of the vulnerable are at stake, the government should not intrude into the private realm.
    3. The potential abuse of power should be minimized by the separation of powers and the separation of church and state.

    Areas where we fall short in freedom include the growing power of cabinet and executive which is not adequately balanced by parliament and the judiciary. We have an ‘elected monarchy’. We have no Human Rights Act. We have reduced freedom as a result of counter-terrorism legislation. The media increasingly fails to protect our freedoms and often facilitates abuse of power by lobbyists e.g. miners.

    Citizenship

    1. We are more than individuals linked by market transactions.
    2. Our life in the public sphere is no less necessary than our private lives. As citizens we enjoy and contribute to the public good. It is where we show and learn respect for others, particularly people who are different. It is where we abide by shared rules of civic conduct. It is where we build social capital – networks of trust. We need to behave in ways that make each of us trusted members of the community. ‘Do no harm’ is not sufficient.
    3. Citizenship brings responsibilities – political participation, vigilance against abuse of power and paying taxes.

    Areas where we fall short in citizenship include our withdrawal into the private realm –There are growing gated communities, private entertainment, private rather than public transport, disregard of neighbours, opting out of community through ‘vouchers’, government subsidies, private health insurance and private schools that discourage the coalescence of socially mixed communities around shared public schools.. The discussion about health is reduced to managing the system rather than the principles which should drive a health service. There is a lack of respect in the language of denigration – ‘bogans’ and ‘losers’.

    Ethical responsibility

    1. Those in prominent office should promote those qualities which draw on the best of our traditions and the noblest of our instincts.
    2. The duty of those with public influence is to encourage hope and redemption rather than despair and condemnation, confidence rather than fear. It is to promote the common good – to encourage us to use our talents. It is to respect truth and strengthen learning to withstand the powers of populism and vested or sectional interests. This would set a tone of public discourse which nurtures public institutions

    Areas where we fall short in ethical responsibility include leaders who appeal to our worst instincts, e.g. dog whistling on refugees, ‘media-drenched commercialism’, executive salaries, undue influence of vested interests and corporate lobbyists. Those in public office should help the community to deal with difficult problems which may require painful adaptive change, such as climate change, rather than provide the false comfort of ignoring or downplaying them.

     

    John Menadue (former Secretary, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet)

    Ian McAuley (Adjunct Lecturer, University of Canberra)

    December 18, 2012

  • Let’s hope Albo runs and wins. John Menadue

    The ALP needs a ballot for its parliamentary leadership even if it takes a month or so to do so. It will be time well spent. It needs to find the right leader and continue the process of democratisation that the ALP badly needs.

    Those who want to rush to a quick decision on the leadership are the faction heavies and union bosses that want to continue to control the ALP and for it to continue on its disastrous course. They want control rather than power on behalf of ordinary working people.

    Kevin Rudd set in motion a new arrangement whereby the parliamentary leader must be selected jointly by the ALP membership across the country and by the parliamentary caucus, with each given equal weighting. That change and many others are necessary to reform the organisation and structure of the ALP which is controlled by an elite which is unrepresentative of ALP members and supporters.

    After the 2010 election, the ALP commissioned Carr, Bracks and Fawkner to report on ALP reform. That reform was almost entirely ignored. It is important that the Rudd reforms don’t suffer a similar fate.

    If there is only one nominee for the leadership of the parliamentary party there will be no ballot for the leadership and no participation by the 50,000 plus ALP membership across the country. So Anthony Albanese please put up your hand. Labor supporters need your type of leadership as well as the process of rank and file participation that your nomination as leader would trigger.

    After the disaster last Saturday, the ALP needs to take a clear democratic path, starting with the election of the parliamentary leader. If there is no ballot for the leadership the back-room fixes and deals will continue. We have already seen this with the appointment of Sam Dastyari to the Senate. He was the General Secretary of the NSW Branch who said that he was committed to reform of that branch! But it didn’t last long.

    Now Paul Howes, the General Secretary of the AWU who did so much with Bill Shorten to tear down Kevin Rudd in 2010 and Julia Gillard in 2013 is now being touted as a likely replacement for Bob Carr in the Senate. Some people don’t ever seem to learn.

    The failed Canberra bureau of the ABC which became a participant in the political processes in the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd era is now pushing for the status quo and highlighting that the ALP could be without a parliamentary leader for a month or more. Senator Stephen Conroy, a right wing faction leader in Victoria, and who failed so dismally to put even modest restraints on the Murdoch media is now urging a quick outcome in choosing a leader which will exclude the rank and file of the ALP.

    Let’s hope that the ALP learnt something from the results last Saturday and stays on the path of reform which Kevin Rudd set out for the leadership of the parliamentary ALP. But that must be only the first step. A lot else remains to be done.

  • US complicity in chemical weapons. Guest blogger; Richard Broinowski

    In recent days, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have made much of their moral repugnance at alleged chemical warfare attacks by the Syrian regime against rebel groups. Their retaliatory  missile strikes, if made, would demonstrate that the use of chemical weapons by any force against any foe, is completely unacceptable to the world’s community. It was a moral line that, if crossed, would bring condign punishment to the perpetrators.

    These US threats lose their moral authority in three respects.

    The first is that it is not at all clear (despite claims to the contrary) that the weapons were used by the Syrian armed forces. Persuasive evidence, with photographic back-up, suggests the strikes were made by one rebel group against another.

    Second, it is entirely unclear whether a limited US missile strike would punish or deter any of those responsible. But it would surely result in more civilian loss of life, exacerbate the already confusing military situation and lead to a widening of the conflict through threatened retaliatory attacks by Syria against Israel and other neighbouring states.

    Third, it starkly exposes United States’ double standards. The United States used chemical weapons in the form of mutagenic and carcinogenic defoliants in at least one war – Vietnam. It also supplied chemical weapons for use by others, notably Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. To retrace the rather murky history of US involvement in that war, one has to go back to the Pentagon’s master plan of 1984-88, which ranked defence of the Middle East as second only to the defence of North America and Western Europe. In pursuit of this priority, President Reagan inserted the United States into the Iran–Iraq War, first on the side of Iran, then on the side of Iraq. In November 1982, a senior Department of State official, Jonathan Howe, informed Secretary of State Schultz that Iraq was resorting to almost daily use of chemical weapons against Iran. In December 1983, US special envoy Donald Rumsfeld visited Baghdad to inform Saddam Hussein that the United States was doing all it could to cut off arms sales to Iran. In March 1984, Rumsfeld again visited Baghdad to tell Saddam that the United States priority was to defeat Iran, not to punish Iraq for using chemical weapons. Meanwhile, Washington was sending Baghdad military intelligence and advice, and US, German and British companies were supplying Iraq with a wide range of munitions, including cluster bombs. With the full knowledge of officials in Washington, US companies were also sending to Iraq several strains of anthrax for Iraqi biological weapons and insecticides for germ warfare.

    In 1984, Iran asked the UN Security Council to investigate the trade. Washington remained silent on the issue for several months, before finally, and reluctantly, criticising Iraq for using chemical weapons. Nevertheless, United States companies, notably Dow Chemicals, continued to supply Iraq with components for chemical weapons right through until the end of the war in 1988. One of Dow’s last shipments was a shipment of insecticides worth $1.5 million in December 1988.

    Source: Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick’s 2012 book The Untold Story of the United States, Ebury Press, 2012.

    Richard Broinowski

  • The aftermath of Saturday’s election. Guest Blogger: David Combe

    David Combe was ALP National Secretary from 1973 until 1981

    Just over a month ago, I received an email from an old friend – an ALP Life Member who belongs to the ‘my party right or wrong’ school of loyalists – asking my thoughts on the likely outcome of the election which Prime Minister Rudd had just called. In my reply to her, I said in part:

     “I have not been optimistic for some time…..  Unless the way things happen has changed dramatically, I still believe that once the electorate ‘takes out the baseball bats’, there is nothing which is going to change the outcome. And they took them out a long while ago.

    “I may of course be terribly wrong, but I have been expecting the polls to decline quite dramatically once the election was called. I shall never forget 1975, and the ephemeral lift we got during the constitutional crisis which disappeared as soon as there was a chance to vote the government out. We, of course, knew that the lift was only ephemeral, but the faithful did not and somehow expected a miracle. The electoral mood for the duration of Julia’s Government has been eerily reminiscent for me of 1974/75 in many ways. I am looking forward to reading Kerry-Anne Walsh’s book on the subject, but I must say that I found the events of June 26th. (and its aftermath) quite depressing. I would never buy shares in a company where a former CEO sacked by the Board for incompetence spent three years undermining both his successor and that Board until bringing the company to the edge of bankruptcy, only to be reappointed CEO as a last ditch measure to save the company! Why should Australia? And I expect that when the Libs start spending their money in earnest, that message will come across……the cause of the original problem cannot be sold as the solution. “

    I have now read “The Stalking of Julia Gillard’, and recommend it to anyone who wants to better understand how derelict many of Ms Walsh’s  journalistic colleagues became in not disclosing what they knew and telling us what  they saw. Instead, they themselves became ‘spear carriers’ for the ambitions of one of the great exponents of “rat-fucking” and “plausible deniability” – practices made famous by disgraced former US President, Richard Milhous Nixon.

    Since Saturday night, I have marvelled to read and hear so much analysis of the results which an untrusting simpleton such as myself suspects comes from a continuing symbiotic relationship between these lazy or incompetent Press Gallery journalists and the court of Australia’s very own Kardashian Klan – Kev, Kherese, Kjessica, Knickerless and so on – communicating to an insatiable public their every deed, thought, and selfie….. We have been reassured that fortunately, and like Bazza McKenzie, Kev and the Kardashians saved the world on Saturday. The result for Labor was much better than anyone expected; NSW’s Sussex Street faction from whom Kev gained so much support both times  he became Leader is proud of its campaign to save seats; in fact it seems one can take comfort that like Billie Snedden  in 1974, Labor didn’t actually lose at all….they just didn’t win!  Quite heroic, really…

    But consider this:

    • The ALP’s primary vote on Saturday was by a long way the lowest it has received since the Second World War (which is as far back as I have had time to check), and a massive 9% below that achieved in 2007.
    • Antony Green, the ABC’s latter-day Malcolm Mackerras tells us that the party’s primary vote in NSW was the lowest in a Federal election for 100 years.
    • He tells us ditto Victoria.
    • Ditto Queensland, except there it didn’t even reach 30%. However, some may take heart from the fact that it was slightly ahead of the 26% achieved in the 2012 State election debacle.
    • And in South Australia, Nick Xenophon tells us that in the Senate poll, on primaries; his group outpolled the ALP which will be reduced to one seat.

    The truth is that as Bob Hawke said on Saturday night, this was a disastrous result for the ALP, and no amount of spin about saving individual seats, or two-part preferred vote (2PP) can change that fact. Even in the dark days of the post-Dismissal election of 1975, after which it held only 29% of the seats in the House of Representatives, the ALP under Gough Whitlam received 42.8% of first preferences – or 9% more than at this election. It was in 1990 that the party opportunistically met the rising threat of a minor party (the Australian Democrats) by focussing on chasing preferences and the 2PP vote rather than primary votes, and its first preference vote performance has eroded ever since. As Paul Keating once observed, you cannot win government without a first preference vote percentage which starts with a 4! Saturday’s result leaves the party a long way short of that.

    But Labor’s task is not without hope….  When Bill Hayden took the leadership following the 1977 defeat,  and at a time when the ALP was wallowing in despair – but at least recognised the dimensions of its plight – he was able to bring it to the brink of victory again in just three years. However, as history will record, Hayden was an exceptional Leader of the ALP, and arguably its unluckiest in not reaping the fruits of his endeavours by becoming Prime Minister.

    In a future blog, I shall share my thoughts on what I believe the ALP must now do. In the meantime, I hope that it can find within its ranks a Bill Hayden to unite its Parliamentary Party and begin the process of rediscovering the values which once enabled it to set the national agenda – even from opposition.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Dodging a bullet. Guest blogger: John Young

    It was going to be as bad as 1996 (when Labor lost 31 seats), a sombre Stephen Smith gravely warned us at the beginning of the ABC election night coverage.

    Smith ignored that a few months earlier Labor was facing its worst election defeat, at least as bad as the 2011 NSW State election.

    How had this occurred when the Government was competent and economy was going well? The 2010 hung Parliament does not of itself provide the answer.   The answer lies in the elusive concept of trust.

    The 2010 coup against Rudd destroyed the public benefit Gillard should have enjoyed as the first female Prime Minister. In the 2010 negotiations to form Government, the breaking by Gillard of an explicit campaign promise not to introduce a carbon tax caused the electorate to feel it had been betrayed by Labor.  Gillard never regained that trust.

    Gillard and Swan lacked communications skills to sell Labor’s positive economic record. They exacerbated the trust deficit by absurd promises such as committing to an early return to surplus. This was as stupid as it was dishonest and the mining tax was redesigned in a way that raised miniscule revenue.

    Because Gillard lacked credibility, Abbott was able to perpetuate the lie that Labor was saddling future generations with massive debt.

    The position of minority Government was always less than ideal but the Bracks, Beattie and Rann governments had successfully managed the transition to majority government.

    Gillard deserves credit for her legislative achievements. That said, Abbott persuaded the public the Parliament was in chaos – the Thomson and Slipper imbroglios leant credence to these claims.

    The risk inherent in Rudd’s return to the leadership in June was that it exacerbated the perception the government was hopelessly divided and chaotic.   The fiasco in March when Rudd had refused to run and the impression that he was not a team player and everything was “always about Kevin” fuelled further public frustration and anger with Labor.

    The government had become a soap opera. The impression of instability and chaos was too embedded in the electorate’s mind for a restored Rudd to do more than save some furniture.

    Upon resuming the Prime Ministership, Rudd governed with a deft touch and the capacity to outflank his opponents.

    He neutralised issues such as refugee boat arrivals and Labor’s refusal to reform under Gillard.   The harshness of the asylum seeker policy likely cost Labor some primary support and possibly the seat of Melbourne.  However, “stopping the boats” was virtually unheard during the campaign. Rudd also neutralised the broken promise about the carbon tax.

    If Rudd the Prime Minister matched best expectations, Rudd the campaigner disappointed.

    In contrast to 2007, Rudd’s campaign was patchy. The Labor slogan “A New Way” was absurd for a Government in power for six years amid such acrimony.

    From day one of the campaign, Rudd faced vitriolic attack from the Murdoch media. The tabloids were simply offensive propaganda sheets openly campaigning against the Labor government and slanting coverage to that end.

    This made Rudd’s task of selling Labor’s complicated message that “we have done a great job even though we have been at war” all the more difficult. The most repeated and challenging question he was asked was why should voters support you when your own party sacked you?

    Rudd, who had showcased his campaigning cred for many grateful MPs, did not hit the ground running.

    He was damaged by media criticism that he cheated by taking notes in the first debate with Abbott.  It was a mistake that should not have happened in a professionally run campaign.

    Another mistake was Rudd’s poor judgement posting on social media a photo (selfie) of a shaving cut. This action struck the wrong note and fed into media accusations of narcissism.

    The Northern Territory taxation” thought bubble” damaged Rudd and there was not one vote in it. The criticism that he was making policy on the run for media grabs had validity.

    Critically in the second last week of the campaign Rudd was admonished by officials for over-reaching in his description of costings. The media treated this as a far more serious criticism than it was but with Labor trailing in the polls and struggling for traction, it could not afford setbacks.

    There are legitimate criticisms of Rudd’s campaign performance but he still had the capacity to connect and to inspire. He was unrelenting in his efforts to differentiate Labor from the ideological attacks which the LNP would make on services while they enacted their unaffordable PPL scheme and foolish policies including buying Indonesian fishing boats.

    On occasions, Rudd showed his magic.   Perhaps his finest performance was on QandA where he displayed vision and passionately spoke to the issue of marriage equality.

    Abbott’s campaign was disciplined but far from brilliant.  He made a number of foolish comments which could have derailed his campaign if the media wasn’t pre-disposed to his perceived inevitable victory. Abbott prevailed because of the damage which Labor had inflicted on itself and the leg-up of the Murdoch press.

    Despite the difficulties in selling his message, Rudd was indefatigable defending Labor economic credentials and attacking the fitness of Abbott and the LNP to govern.  The result of the election is proof that he was effective doing this and the dire predictions of a Labor wipe out were wrong.

    In June before the return of Rudd to the leadership, Labor was looking at about an 8% swing and a devastating loss of 40 or even more seats.   It is no exaggeration to say that such electoral decimation would have imperilled Labor’s very survival

    Labor will lose around 15 seats on a swing of about 3%. Importantly every Labor Minister has held their seat. This result confirms Labor made entirely the right decision to return to Rudd. On this occasion, saving some furniture was enough. It can now face the future confident of its history and determined not to repeat the faults of its recent past.

     

     

  • Facing the future. Guest blogger: Prof. Stephen Leeder

    Facing the future in a world where black swan events change everything.

    When considering what we may be facing with a new federal government in Australia, a wise starting point would be a conversation with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, he of the Black Swan theory.

    Taleb has written extensively, using the discovery of black swans in a world that did not believe they existed as his metaphor, about the impact of unpredictable game-changing events. Such events (9/11, the tsunami that led to the Fukushima catastrophe, the internet) change the course of history but we do not see them coming.

    According to Wikipedia, Black Swan events have the following characteristics:

    1. The event is a surprise (to the observer).
    2. The event has a major effect.
    3. After the first recorded instance of the event, it is rationalized by hindsight, as if it could have been expected; that is, the relevant data were available but [not processed in a way that enabled us to prevent it].

    So perhaps the best that we can do in thinking about what we are facing is to acknowledge that the big things that will shape our history over the next 3-6 years are not predictable.  An epidemic, an earthquake, a nuclear war, a tipping point in climate change that kills all the fish, a crazy person on a rampage with a gun, the discovery of a cure for cancer or dementia – no-one can say.

    In the meantime of course there is a high measure of predictability about our daily lives.  Tony Abbott will continue to conduct his business with intelligence, discipline, an ascetic athleticism, a trenchant debater’s criticism of opponents and a demand for loyalty in his ranks.  He may well manifest a religious concern for the plight of the poor. Think three years in a seminary and then think three years as prime minister.  The differences are unlikely to be profound.  None of us really change much over time.

    Tony Abbott is on record as having little sympathy for those with mental illness, questioning whether what is commonly called mental illness is not a cute name for weakness of character.  He may have moved beyond this caricature: we shall see.

    Stopping the boats and abolishing the carbon tax are core promises.  The first will only be achieved by a more sophisticated and nuanced approach than having the Australian navy intervene.  Settling the xenophobic paranoia whipped up over this matter will take time.  Carbon has a bad history in Australia.  Maybe a Black Swan event is necessary for our nation to address climate change seriously.

    In relation to health care, little has been said to indicate what the new national policies will be.  The challenges – older people, more chronic disease, more technology, more need for national prevention programs, and more resources for general practice – are mainly managerial and only secondarily political, though of course the capacity for faulty politics to stuff things up in health care is substantial.

    The previous government embarked upon a program of change to the health care system as described recently in a blog by John Dwyer.  As he argued, however, much remains to be done to better align the provision of care with the health needs of Australians.  This is especially so in relation to the care of those who have serious and continuing illness who require care from hospitals, general practitioners, community health staff, specialists in the community and home care.  The joining up of these care modalities is best done from a community base and while progress has been made, we lag far behind international best practice.

    The preventive agenda, never enthusiastically endorsed by the conservative side of politics, has much work to do with the disastrous epidemic of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.  To address this effectively will require the engagement of the food industry, curbs on our alcohol consumption, revised plans for urban design and much more.  A retreat into assigning responsibility entirely to the individual for lifestyle behaviour and food and beverage choices is unacceptable and silly.  We have done well with a long struggle over tobacco, especially during the past six years, and much more needs to be done across portfolios to address the huge health problems associated with over- and inappropriate consumption of processed foods. Tony, are you listening please?

    We can only wait and see what Mr. Abbott et al. have in mind.  Black Swan events can change everything in a trice.

    In summary, the predictable aspects of the future can be discerned in the character of the principal players and the political context in which they are operating.  But it is the big, unpredictable events that will shape our history. Let’s hope they are good ones that create new opportunities!

     

  • Deconstructing the election result. Guest Blogger: Walter Hamilton

    1. Labor lost the election before the Coalition won it.

    2. There was a narrowing in the state-by-state differences in the two-party preferred voting ratios of Labor and the Coalition, which partly accounts for the bigger swings against the ALP in Victoria, SA and Tasmania. That is, where Labor did well in 2010 to hold ground it was more vulnerable this time around.

    3. The ALP’s primary vote has fallen to the low 30s, its worst result in a century. In the past six years it has hopped from one side to the opposite on key issues such as climate change and border protection. It has failed to respond effectively to the further hollowing out of manufacturing jobs on which its traditional union base relies. It has talked about itself in the third person, with a regal presumption to rule, and talked down to the electorate. It has talked too much altogether. It has treated policies like play things – to be spruiked one day and cast off the next.

    4. Victoria is the only state that will return a (small) plurality of Labor MHRs.

    5. In SA and Tasmania, that have Labor state governments, the swings against Labor were greater than the national swing, whereas in Victoria and NSW, with incumbent Coalition state governments, the swing to the federal Coalition exceeded the national swing. This suggests that Labor’s attempt to link an Abbott government to a backlash against state conservative governments did not succeed.

    6. The Palmer United Party, with around 10% of the vote in Queensland, exceeded expectations, although it is worth remembering that when One Nation first came on the scene its Queensland result was much better than had showed up in pre-election polls. The PUP result must be set against the fact that there was little or no scope for a rise in the Coalition’s primary vote in Queensland. The 3.4% fall in the ALP vote, down to 30.2%, means Labor will return just 7 seats to the LNP’s 22 in that state. (Labor’s vote in the 2012 state election was as low as 26.7%, but the last time Queenslanders were voting on Kevin Rudd for prime minister, in 2007, the ALP received more than 50% of votes in his state. How the mighty have fallen.)

    7. Tasmania recorded a huge swing to the Coalition. This is being attributed to economic conditions in the state and the failure of the Labor-Greens state alliance. The Greens vote is down more than 3% nationally, but in Tasmania it has halved (down by 8.7%).

    8. In standing down as Labor leader on Saturday night Kevin Rudd advanced the narrative that he had sacrificed himself to stem a Labor rout and that he had achieved his aim of preserving Labor. Nobody will know whether Labor would have done worse under Julia Gillard, just as nobody will know whether, without the events of 2010, Rudd might have been a three-term prime minister. But any objective observer would not consider Labor well positioned to bounce back into government after a 4.1% swing against it in this election and the legacy of division left behind by Mr. Rudd.

    9. The electorate has been more discerning than some pundits gave it credit for. A poor Liberal candidate in Greenway (western Sydney) failed to unseat a Labor member on a very slim majority. In the seat of Banks, on the other hand, the sitting Labor member, Daryl Melham, who had listed among his ‘top priorities’ improving commuter parking (state or local government responsibilities), lost to the Liberal candidate – the first time since the seat’s creation in 1949 that it has gone away from the ALP.

    10. The total national vote for ‘Others’ (Katter’s Australia, Palmer United, Family First and various minor parties and independents) in the House of Representatives exceeded 12%. This suggests many disaffected voters were unwilling to side with an Abbott government. Labor’s American-style scare campaign against Abbott probably trimmed the Coalition’s vote below what it might have been in NSW in particular. For its part, the ALP was battling against a hostile Murdoch press. In assessing the impact of the Murdoch factor on the overall result, however, we should remember that Clive Palmer also claimed Murdoch’s ex-wife was a Chinese spy and that seems to have done his cause no harm. The public these days have much more to go on than newspaper headlines.

    11. The Senate from July next year will be less predictable than ever, with the arrival of Palmer’s people and whoever else emerges from the metre-long ballot paper fiasco. The size of the vote for the Liberal Democratic Party, for instance, suggests that some electors struggled to fill in the ballot along the lines they intended. Electoral reform in this area (such as a move to optional preferential voting) is overdue. Similarly, the Australian Electoral Commission might need to take a look at the rules governing acceptable conduct in and around polling booths following the noisy demonstrations against both Rudd and Abbott on Saturday. Let these be places for marking ballots, not barking and mallets.

    Walter Hamilton is a journalist of 40 years’ experience. This analysis is based on returns as of midnight Saturday.

     

  • The election – punishing bad behaviour. John Menadue

    One thing the election did was to explode the perceived wisdom that if the economy was doing well, governments are seldom voted out. But the Rudd Government was.

    As I have written in earlier blogs.

    • The Australian economy, by almost any measure is one of the best performing and managed in the world.
    • Our material stand of living is continuing to rise at a rate of about 2.5% p.a.
    • Only two days ago, The Herald – Lateral Economics Wellbeing Index showed that our ‘wellbeing’ rose by 7% last financial year. The index measures not only changes in income but also knowhow, environment, health, inequality and job-satisfaction.

    But there were other factors at work in the election.

    • The public clearly chose to punish bad political and personal behaviour by the ALP – the ousting of Kevin Rudd by Julia Gillard, his undermining of her and then her overthrow. Division is political death.
    • There were obviously concerns about the flakiness of Kevin Rudd.
    • The ALP campaign was ad hoc and chaotic. There was one thought bubble after another. It lacked a consistent theme based on the values and principles that most people thought the ALP stood for – like fairness, decency and equal opportunity.
    • Kevin Rudd and Chris Bowen were no more successful than Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan in persuading the public of the government’s good record on the economy. Chris Bowen now has two consecutive ministerial failures in his c.v. – Immigration and Treasury.
    • The swing against the ALP in NSW showed that the public did not accept that the ALP in that state had been cleaned up. It could only have been achieved by sacking the whole branch.
    • The easy-ride by the media of Tony Abbott’s policies and the bullying campaign by Murdoch seems to have had an effect. The ALP mistakes, and there were many, were highlighted particularly by the Murdoch media and the coalition was given an easy ride.

    The coalition waged a very successful political campaign with very little substantial policy. Tony Abbott’s campaign over four years has been attack dog style- brutal, dishonest, but effective.

    • We were told that we had a debt crisis and a budget emergency, but it now turns out that that was all phoney talk. Tony Abbott has pledged instead a reduction in taxes, e.g. carbon tax, and increases in spending, e.g. parental leave. There is a fundamental inconsistency in what Tony Abbott has been telling us for years and in what he now proposes to do.
    • Tony Abbott offers us stability after the apparent chaos of the hung parliament. But in terms of legislation and participation by independents, the last parliament was probably one of the most successful for a long time. In the last few days of the campaign Tony Abbott has told us that if his carbon tax legislation repeal is not passed by the Senate, there will be another election. That doesn’t sound like stability!
    • Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have quite deliberately whipped up xenophobic, racist and anti-Muslim sentiment.

    My concern is that on two key issues, climate change and asylum seekers, the election has taken us backwards.

    In his first term, Kevin Rudd said that climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our generation. He was correct. He introduced the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme but it was defeated in the Senate by the coalition and the sanctimonious Greens. Then Kevin Rudd dropped the ball and Tony Abbott has kicked it into touch ever since.

    In the hung parliament, a deal with the Greens and other independents was necessary. The carbon tax was the result. That tax has delivered valuable results, despite the pain inflicted on Julia Gillard. In his brief second period as Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd announced that a future Labor government would move to a market-based carbon emissions scheme – the same type of scheme that was proposed by John Howard many years ago.

    Tony Abbott has opposed any meaningful program to reduce global warming. In an off-guard moment he said that global warming is ‘crap’. He then adopted his absurd ‘Direct Action’ scheme to reduce carbon pollution. This was a smoke-screen to divert attention whilst he relentlessly attacked the carbon tax. Malcolm Turnbull has described Direct Action as nonsense, a fig-leaf to provide cover when you don’t have a credible policy. But now it seems that Tony Abbot is even retreating from Direct Action.  He said that the coalition would be spending ‘no more and no less’ than it has committed to Direct Action, even if it doesn’t achieve the 5% emission reduction target by 2020 as promised. Almost every expert says that direct action will not work and it will be extremely expensive.

    Our grandchildren are going to pay a heavy price for our generation’s failure to address the issue of climate change. Month by month the scientific evidence is overwhelming that global warming is occurring and that humans are the cause. The experience of almost all of us, whether in record August temperatures, storms, droughts or cyclones  points in the same direction as the scientific evidence. Climate change is occurring. This is a great moral and environment challenge for which our generation is avoiding its stewardship responsibilities.

    We have also now reached the nadir on boat arrivals. Our slippery slide on this issue started in 2001 with Tampa and children-overboard. Since then the Liberals have been unscrupulously but successfully setting traps for the ALP. The Liberal Party in Opposition did not want boats to stop. The more boats that came the better the politics for them. That is why the Liberals sided with the Greens to block the amending of the Migration Act in the Senate which would have enabled implementation of the agreement with Malaysia. Boat arrivals have increased dramatically since that time. In world terms the numbers are not large, but it became a political plaything for the Liberal party.

    It won’t be easy and it will take time, but we must find a way to change the conversation on asylum seekers and refugees. It is not just an Australian problem. It is a major and serious global problem. Unfortunately John Howard, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have successfully drawn the ALP into the quagmire they have created.

    Lord Acton said that power corrupts. Power also reveals. It revealed a lot about Kevin Rudd. What will it reveal about Tony Abbott?

  • Asylum seekers are blocking the M4 freeway and clogging up our hospitals! John Menadue

    On Monday night on 4 Corners, the Liberal candidate for Lindsay, Fiona Scott, said that asylum seekers’ cars were blocking the M4 highway. For readers outside Sydney, the M4 is a 40 km expressway connecting Concord and Penrith.

    I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that such ignorance could be expressed by a candidate who could very well be a member of parliament after next Saturday, if the opinion polls are correct.

    The M4 carries over 50,000 cars in the morning peak per day in both directions. I have met many asylum seekers but I cannot recall ever meeting one who has a car.

    Fiona Scott went on to say that asylum seekers were worsening hospital waiting times. It was another beat up. Asylum seekers can access Emergency Departments but very few have Medicare. However the Refugee Council says that the area surrounding the Nepean Hospital-Blacktown.the Hawkesbury, Penrith and the Blue Mountains-took in only 161 asylum seekers in the last year. The total population is 618, 000. My experience is that almost all asylum seekers have to rely on generous doctors and nurses who give their time freely as volunteers.

    Her outburst is the most manipulative and appalling I have seen for a long time. Traffic congestion and hospital waiting times are two sensitive issues in Western Sydney. Fiona Scott chooses ignorantly and deliberately to target and scapegoat asylum seekers for both problems.

    In other circumstances one would expect the leader of the Liberal Party to intervene to sack Fiona Scott, but that is unlikely because Tony Abbott has been the cheer leader in the demonization of asylum seekers for years.  Even in the press reports of Fiona Scott’s comments, Tony Abbott continued to talk, as he has done for years, about ‘illegal’ asylum seekers. They are not illegal. From the time that Robert Menzies ratified the Refugee Convention in 1954, asylum seekers are entitled to our legal protection. They may be ‘irregular’ entrants but they are not ‘illegal’. Tony Abbott’s dog-whistling is designed to convey the impression that somehow these ‘other’ people are not entitled to our protection and are akin to criminals. It is disgraceful the way he behaves. “Caring for the stranger” is not part of his lexicon.

    Fiona Scott is showing all the signs of being a soul mate of Scott Morrison who demonises asylum seekers for “bringing disease” and ‘wads of cash’.

    Lebanon with a population of just over 4 m people has taken in almost one million Syrian refugees. Sweden has just announced that the 8,000 Syrian asylum seekers in its country will all get permanent residence. Pakistan is host to 2 million refugees.

    What a selfish and sorry country we have become.

    History is full of the stories of unscrupulous people who scapegoat the foreigner and the outsider. The Liberal Party is making the demonization of outsiders an art form. And the problem starts at the top.

  • Chemical warfare and Syria. Guest blogger: Marcus Einfeld

    I never thought I would ever agree with Glenn Beck, the US shock jock from the extreme right of the political spectrum. I think he is right about the US not intervening in the Middle East again. Difficult as it is to say, President Putin is also right even if his reasons are not pure.

    The Americans [Administrations, not the very many brilliant and informed Americans who know better] never seem to understand the “enemy”, invariably miscalculate the consequences of their actions and never have an exit strategy. This time they do not even have an entry strategy. The US military top brass do not have the best record in assessing outcomes of their escapades. The jingoisms that punctuated the evidence given this week to the Senate Foreign Relations and Defence Committee by the Secretaries of State and Defence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff must have horrified US thinkers and intelligentsia, not to mention the public at large.

    Imagine arguing, as the Obama Administration seems to be doing, that North Korea and Iran will be dissuaded from using chemical weapons if we punish the Syrian regime by bombing the hell out of its country. It is arrogant to believe that these countries, including the Syrians themselves, will just accept western scolding and decide to behave themselves as we dictate. The Iranians will just be emboldened to do the job better than the Syrians. For its part, the North Korean leadership will hardly know where Syria is and will care even less.

    Bombing, indeed any type of aerial or missile intervention will inevitably hit innocent people and not destroy the regime, or even its chemical weaponry. Even if the regime does fall, who on earth will replace it? Vide Egypt and Libya. Israel is in real danger from this proposed attack on Syria, possibly from the same chemical weapons. And if Israel is threatened, fighting as it would be for its very survival, its response can be expected to be deadly and devastating. With Russia and China actively resisting in the wings, the real possibility of a World War or at least a major conflagration will be at hand from the proposed intervention. It has already been proved over and over that despite its powerful armoury and presumably best intentions, the US is simply unable to contain the effects of what it is pleased to call “limited” intervention.

    The hypocrisy of western horror at the Syrian use of chemical weapons is nothing short of breath-taking. In principle, this wickedness must of course be resisted if possible. But horrendous as the Syrians have been, they at least are using them on their own people, as did the notorious Saddam Hussein who killed and maimed thousands of Iraqi Kurds and other citizens with chemical weapons while the international community simply looked on silently. Moreover, the Americans, with Australia and others at their side, used endless chemical weapons on thousands of innocent foreigners in Vietnam and Cambodia.

    The dilemma is awful and I am glad it is not me who has to resolve it, but it seems to me that if the choice has to be made, it is better to let the Syrians carry on as they have been doing unhindered by the international community for the last two years [with disastrous effects on their population] rather than we western democrats do it for them. I am afraid that the British Parliament and the governments of the other refusing countries like Canada are right.

  • No vision for the health system we need. Guest blogger Prof. John Dwyer

    In this election the Coalition has provided dollar promises for worthy projects but no new health policy initiatives while only two of note have been forthcoming from the government; a long-term investment in stem cell research and the threat to remove family tax benefits from parents who put their children and the community at risk by not immunising them. Both are laudable but of greater interest to Australians would be our politician’s plans for solving the many problems that compromise the delivery of sustainable quality health care in our country. In a   recent survey “Research Australia” found that funding for health and medical research is a higher priority for Australians than immigration policy and border control.

    The current government has not focused on health system reform but rather reform of hospital financial arrangements with the States reinforcing the inappropriate hospital centric priorities of our health system. In reality financially sustainable quality hospital services are dependent on policies that will reduce the demand for those services. This will require real system reform. The National Press Club debate with Tanya Plibersek and Peter Dutton found them in furious agreement on most issues such as hospital funding, the importance of medical research and the need to emphasise prevention.  One was left with the impression that whoever wins the election it will be “business as usual” for our health system. That’s disappointing.

    Healthcare in Australia is beset with structural inefficiencies, inappropriate models of care for our times and cost increases that are producing major inequities that deny many the care they need and are promised by Medicare. This is particularly obvious in rural communities. Their problems did not get a mention in the debate. The major barriers to real change remain the opposition from those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo and the lack of political leadership to take us on a necessarily long (ten years or more) reform journey that doesn’t sit comfortably within current short election cycles.  If we take that journey its important to have a clear vision of what an appropriately reformed healthcare system should look like?

    Australia 2023. The Commonwealth has become the single funder of our public health system. An independent statutory authority has been established to fund a number of “Regional Health Authorities” (RHAs) charged with delivering the model of care the Commonwealth (Australian people) have embraced. It is described thus; Our health care system should be characterised by its resourcing of strategies to prevent avoidable illness and provide in a timely manner to those who are ill, cost effective quality care based on an individuals need not personal financial well being.

    These RHAs are funded on a per capita and local needs basis. No longer are state boarders a barrier to efficient health care. RHAs contract with a series of providers in their region to supply patient focused integrated hospital, community and primary care services. Quality and safety data are collected and published.

    A new model of primary care has been established with a strong focus on disease prevention. Australians are encouraged to enrol in a primary health care practice. Enrolment is significant in that it signals the creation of a partnership and shared responsibilities between patient and the practice’s health professionals.

    In the new model, primary care practices work under the umbrella of Primary Health Care Organisations (PHO). These support local GP led services wherein teams of RHA funded health professionals from a variety of disciplines work collaboratively to deliver a range of services to enrolled patients. (“Integrated Primary Care”) No longer do people only visit a medical practice when they are ill, they attend to work with appropriate health professionals to help themselves and their families stay well.  There is no more efficient use of health care dollars that ensuring that children get a healthy start to life. An obese 4-year-old child is very likely to be an obese adult. Continuity of care provides us with the best chance to detect early signs of mental illness when serious problems can still be avoided. Such team-based practices are not doctor centric. Nurses and allied health professionals deliver much of the prevention program. Most doctors dissatisfied with the “turnstile medicine” approach fostered by “fee for service” payments have accepted the opportunity for payment by contract with an RHA. GPs who, after all, are highly trained specialists but were not previously paid as such, are financially much better rewarded in this system. This, plus the attractiveness of working in the team environment, is attracting more medical graduates to primary care, in 2013 very few medical graduates were interested in such careers.

    Unlike the “old fashioned” Medicare Locals of 2013, PHO’s act as central service providers for linked, local and clinically autonomous practices. They themselves offer clinical services including acute services that do not require the facilities of a hospital sparing local emergency departments from inappropriate attendances and provide associated practices with business skills, bulk purchasing, continuing education, the collection of outcome data (now a mandatory requirement), and IT services including help with the further development of now popular patient controlled electronic health records. Primary, community and hospital care provided to an individual is seamlessly integrated.

    Also important has been the major revision of clinical training in the nation’s universities. “Inter-professional learning” wherein students of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry and the Allied Health professions spend time learning together has produced a mutual appreciation of the specific skills of each group and how combining these skills in the “Team Medicine” approach can be so much more satisfying for professionals and patients alike. How different from the professional “silo” mentality of a decade ago. Medical schools in rural based universities with programs focussed on educating students with a strong rural affiliation and a desire for a rural based career are seeing significant numbers of graduates helping rural Australians. We are, at last, becoming less dependent on overseas trained doctors, many of whom are badly needed “back home”. Medical education has been shortened without any damage to required learning and is much less focussed on hospital-based rotations with more student time spent in community settings. The old mandatory Internship program has been abandoned in favour of immediate post graduation entry into vocational training programs.

    State governments are no longer receiving Commonwealth funds to run their hospitals but they do continue to own and operate them.  Funding required is supplied through a contract with a Regional Health Authority. The services to be offered by a particular hospital will be negotiated with emphasis on the quality rather than the number of services on offer. “Role delineation” for all hospitals within a given region will avoid duplication and avoid the old system where individual hospitals tended to be islands in an ocean of health care doing there own thing. Many private hospitals offer services to RHAs

    Back to August 2013.

    Given health care is one of the top three issues of concern for Australian voters, it’s disappointing that health system reform has so far received so little attention in the election campaign.

    We could reasonably expect our politicians in the last week of the election campaign to be seriously challenged to provide a detailed and clear vision of the health reforms they would pursue to create a more equitable and cost-effective health system that will met our future needs.

    But we will almost certainly not get this. And perhaps that says as much about the demise of decent journalism as it does about our politicians.

    This article was first published in The Conversation on August 30, 2013.

     

  • Boat arrivals are down. John Menadue

    You would hardly know it if you read the Murdoch papers or listened to the Canberra bureau of the ABC but boat arrivals are dramatically down in recent weeks.

    How ironic it would be if even before Tony Abbott becomes Prime Minister, that asylum seekers arriving by boat have been reduced to a trickle. It is early days, but the figures point to a significant decline.

    A Department of Immigration official has been reported in one newspaper that I saw yesterday as advising that ‘After 4236 asylum seekers arrived on 48 boats in July, the number for August dropped to 1585 on 25 boats. The number of arrivals in the last week of August was 71, the lowest weekly figure since February.’

    The Minister for Immigration, Tony Burke, said ‘I have absolutely no doubt now that the policy is having the effect that we hoped’.

    Perhaps the new figures might take some heat out of the absurd political debate, but I am not that confident. The decline in numbers should reduce significantly those asylum seekers who could be transferred to PNG or held in detention on Christmas Island and elsewhere.

    If the new policy is working as the Minister suggests, could the government please consider an increase in the humanitarian intake to 27,000 as Kevin Rudd earlier suggested could occur if the policies to curb boat arrivals worked. This would reassure many people, although only in a small way, who have watched with horror the race to the bottom on asylum seekers.

    Maybe there is a glimmer of hope in all this darkness!

  • From one Catholic to another. Guest blogger: Bishop Hurley, Darwin.

    ​The Catholic Bishop of Darwin has expressed concern to Tony Abbott about the Coalition’s policies towards asylum-seekers and people in detention.  His letter to Tony Abbott follows:

     

    Bishop Hurley letter to Tony Abbott

    The Leader of the Opposition
    The Hon. Tony Abbott MHR
    Parliament House
    RG109
    CANBERRA ACT 2600
    16 August 2013

    Dear Mr. Abbott,

    I have just returned to my office from the Wickham Point and the Blaydin detention centres here in Darwin.

    Sadly, I have been involved with detention centres since the creation of the Woomera centre, followed by Baxter and now, over the last six years, with the various and expanding centres here in Darwin.

    I experienced once again today, the suffocating frustration of the unnecessary pain we inflict on one another. I celebrated Holy Mass with a large number of Vietnamese families, made up of men, women, children and women waiting to give birth. The celebration was prayerful and wonderful, until the moment of parting.

    I was reminded of something a young man said to me during one of my visits to Woomera, all those years ago. I was saying something about freedom.

    He replied, “Father, if freedom is all you have known, then you have never known freedom.”

    I sensed the horrible truth of that statement again today.

    I was also conscious of that beautiful speech made when the UNHCR accepted the Nobel Prize in 1981. In part it states,

    “Throughout the history of mankind people have been uprooted against their will. Time and time again, lives and values built from generation to generation have been shattered without warning. But throughout history mankind has also reacted to such upheavals and brought succour to the uprooted. Be it through individual gestures or concerted action and solidarity, those people have been offered help and shelter and a chance to become dignified, free citizens again. Through the ages, the giving of sanctuary had become one of the noblest traditions of human nature.

    Communities, institutions, cities and nations have generously opened their doors to refugees.”

    I sit here at my desk with a heavy heart and a deep and abiding sadness, that the leaders of the nation that my father, as an immigrant, taught me to love with a passion, have adopted such a brutal, uncompassionate and immoral stance towards refugees.

    I imagine he would be embarrassed and saddened by what has occurred.

    It occurred to me today that neither the Prime Minister or yourself know the story of any one of these people.

    Neither do the great Australian community.

    I find that it is quite impossible to dismiss these people with all the mindless, well-crafted slogans, when you actually look into their eyes, hold their babies and feel their grief.

    There has been a concerted campaign to demonise these people and keep them isolated from the great Australian public. It has been successful in appealing to the less noble aspects of our nation’s soul and that saddens me. I feel no pride in this attitude that leads to such reprehensible policies, on both sides of our political spectrum.

    I cringe when people draw my attention to elements of our history like The White Australia Policy and the fact that we didn’t even count our Indigenous sisters and brothers until the mid 1900’s. I cringe and wish those things were not true. It is hard to imagine that we as a nation could have done those things.

    I judge the attitude of our political leaders to refugees and asylum seekers to be in the same shameful category as the above mentioned. In years to come, Australians who love this country will be in disbelief that we as a nation could have been so uncharacteristically cruel for short term political advantage.

    It seems that nothing will influence your policy in this matter, other than the political imperative, but I could not sit idly by without feeling complicit in a sad and shameful chapter of this country which I have always believed to be better than that.

    Sometime I would love to share with you some of the stories I have had the privilege of being part of over the years. I am sure you would be greatly moved. Sadly, for so many, such a moment will be all too late.

    Yours Sincerely,

    Bishop E. Hurley.

    Most Rev Daniel Eugene Hurley DD
    The Chancery of the Diocese

     

  • Excluding the ABC. John Menadue

    It is disappointing, at least to me that the ABC has not been the host of the election debates between Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott.

    Instead it is has been left to Fox News, 50% owned by Rupert Murdoch, who is keen to buy the other 50% from Telstra. When will the Murdoch monopoly end?

    The ABC is the most trusted media organisation in the country. It used to be the logical host for major political events. It has been out manoeuvred by the Liberal Party.

    In a survey by Essential Media late last year, the ABC was ranked second in the country as our most trusted institution. It was trusted by 59% of Australians. It was only bettered by the High Court which was trusted by 63 % of Australians. The Reserve Bank ranked third and was trusted by 53% of Australians. Interestingly, all are public institutions.

    Other media groups were well down the list in terms of public trust – newspapers 31%, online news media e.g. Fox at 28%, and TV news media at 26%. If we further break out Murdoch’s media we find that his publications are the least trusted in the country, particularly the Herald Sun, the Courier Mail and least of all, the Daily Telegraph. This lack of trust was even before the recent Murdoch bullying and abuse of power in this election.

    How has the ABC, the most trusted media organisation by far in the country, been out-manoeuvred in favour of Fox! I can only assume that the Liberal Party refused to participate in debates hosted by the ABC. Faced with this veto of the ABC, the ALP agreed to the alternative of Fox News and with all superficial floss that followed.

    I recall many years ago when I worked for Gough Whitlam that the ABC always insisted that for the sake of ‘balance’ it would not interview him unless there was a Liberal minister who agreed to participate. Not many ministers were keen to debate Gough Whitlam so the proposed interview was inevitably dropped by the ABC. The Liberal Party veto had worked.

    Fortunately Gough Whitlam persuaded the reluctant ABC management that the Liberal Party should not be allowed to have its programing determined by a Liberal Party veto. The ABC agreed that if a Liberal Party participant could not be found, the interview, although with a different format would proceed.

    Consistent with its role as the pre-eminent and most trusted media organisation in the country, the ABC should insist that if either major party will not participate in a properly structured debate then an alternative with only one political leader will proceed. The ABC must stop being bluffed. It must assert its leadership role.

    The ABC is the last, perhaps the only hope, to stem the downward spiral of media abuse in this country.

  • We have never had it so good. John Menadue

    The election campaign by the Murdoch media and the Coalition suggests that the Australian economy is in a mess. But almost all the facts suggest that we have one of the best performing economies in the world whether we measure it by economic growth, debt, inflation or employment.

    Now a survey just released by the University of Canberra’s highly regarded National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) tells us that Australian households have never been better off. The NATSEM report tells us:

    • Australian households are 15% better off since 2008 when the Rudd Government was elected.
    • ‘The gain in the last five years is a remarkable outcome, given the weakness of the global economy through the global financial crisis.’
    • ‘The strongest contributor to the cost of living increases in the last year were utilities (+14%), health (+6.2%) and education (+5.5%) whilst costs were eased by mortgage interest (-14.5%) and audio-visual (-5.1%).
    • The standard of living (disposable income less cost of living) has risen by 2.6% p.a. under both the Rudd and Gillard Governments, the same as under the Howard Government.

    Whilst the ‘average’ household has been a lot better off, economic prosperity has favoured high income households. NATSEM said ‘The strong gains in the standard of living have not been equally spread across income levels.’ A particular reason for this is that the cost of living changes for the lowest quintile level over five years was 2.4% because of relatively high expenditures on rent and utilities. The highest quintile income group had cost of living increases of only 1.5% because it was particularly assisted by low mortgage payments.

    This story of quite ‘remarkable’ increases in the standard of living of Australian households over the last five years is in stark contrast to the campaign of the Murdoch media, the Coalition and business interests.

    Our economy is very strong. Our standard of living is rising steadily. But the government seems unable to make the case about its performance.

    Its failure is overwhelmingly political.

     

  • Japan’s war memory. Guest blogger: Walter Hamilton

    Japan’s struggle with the issue of war memory has been brought into sharp relief again amid a controversy over what children should be taught about the past. Last week the Matsue city board of education confirmed a ban placed on a famous comic book (manga) series called Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen). The board’s decision allegedly was based on the fact the series contains scenes considered too violent for school children. Behind this explanation, however, lies a different story. 

    Barefoot Gen was first serialised in 1973-1976. Set in and around Hiroshima, it tells the story of a six-year-old boy during the final months of the war and is loosely based on the experiences of the serial’s creator, the late Keiji Nakazawa. Barefoot Gen has been translated into several languages and spawned action films and anime adaptations. Wikipedia describes the story’s underlying themes: 

    Gen’s family suffers as all families do in war. They must conduct themselves as proper members of society, as all Japanese are instructed in paying tribute  to the Emperor. But because of a belief that their involvement in the war is due to the greed of the rich ruling class, Gen’s father rejects the military propaganda and the family comes to be treated as traitors. Gen’s family struggles with their bond of loyalty to each other and to a government that is willing to send teenagers on suicide missions in battle. This push and pull   relationship is seen many times as Gen is ridiculed in school, mimicking his            father’s [critical] views on Japan’s role in the war, and then is subsequently               punished by his father for spouting [patriotic] things he learned through rote    brainwashing in school. 

    Many of these themes are put into a much harsher perspective when portrayed             alongside themes of the struggle between war and peace.

    As suggested here, Barefoot Gencriticises the Japanese blind loyalty to the emperor and the Japanese flag, hinomaru, during the war. These aspects of the story – not its violence – formed the basis for the original citizen’s complaint to the Matsue board of education last year. Though the complaint was not upheld, in considering the matter the board’s secretariat conveniently found another, less blatantly political, reason for taking action. In December it instructed the 49 public schools in the city to remove the manga from the open shelves of their libraries and restrict access to teacher-supervised usage.

    I say the reason for the decision was ‘convenient’ not because of any public explanation offered by the secretariat at the time ­– there was none – but because of certain suggestive aspects of the case. The violent content singled out for mention was, on closer inspection, hardly apolitical. One consisted of a scene of the beheading of a Chinese prisoner by a Japanese soldier; another showed a naked woman being sexually assaulted and bayoneted. There is a great deal of horror depicted in the manga, mainly to do with the effects and aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and including a reference to American researchers harvesting the internal organs of bomb victims. No objection apparently was raised to these elements. In other words, the sole aim was to keep away from young eyes the depiction of wartime atrocities committed by Japanese. Another telling aspect is that when the board members met last week and decided to ratify the ban, they acted without consulting school principals or taking professional advice whether reading the manga series would cause children psychological harm.

    Educational authorities at several other places in Japan followed Matsue’s lead and also had Barefoot Gen removed from their school library shelves.

    This week, in response to adverse publicity and feedback from the affected schools – many of which opposed the ban – Matsue reversed its stand. At an ad-hoc meeting on Monday, board members agreed that the manga ‘conveys the tragedy of war very well and has educational value in teaching about peace’. The board, however, did not instruct schools to return the books to the open shelves; it left the matter at the discretion of each school. Although, according to media reports, only 10% of principals supported the ban, other information suggests a higher proportion of primary and junior high schools could ultimately place a limit on free access to the manga series.

    The episode illustrates a change in the Japanese approach to war memory that has occurred since Barefoot Gen first appeared. In the 1970s the generation born during or immediately after the Pacific War ­– with actual memories of the devastation and cruelty of war – engaged in a comparatively vigorous public discussion of Japanese misdeeds, particularly those committed in China. A period of introspection occurred at the time Japan and China normalised diplomatic relations. Sadly, in recent decades, conservative forces have gained the ascendancy in the ‘history wars’ – not only in Japan but also in South Korea and China. Separate, highly selective and incompatible accounts of the same events are being taught in schools of these neighbouring countries, poisoning people-to-people relations.

    Barefoot Gen is not perfect history, but what surely recommends it to a new generation of young Japanese – who I can confirm from personal experience know almost nothing about what their country did between 1931 and 1945 – are the very qualities which led, albeit briefly, to its removal from library shelves: its unflinching depictions of what war really involves and its preparedness to record some of the worst excesses of Japanese militarism.

     

    Walter Hamilton reported from Japan for 11 years and recently published ‘Children of the Occupation: Japan’s Untold Story’ (New South Books).

  • The phoney war over deficits and debt. John Menadue

    For almost five years, Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey, Andrew Robb and Barnaby Joyce, have been giving us dire warnings about deficits and debt. You would think the Australian economy was a smoking ruin.

    But the politicking over deficits and debt has changed remarkably in the last few weeks. Early this year Tony Abbott told us that he would provide a budget surplus in ‘year 1’ of an Abbott Government. Earlier this month, he said that his government would return the budget to surplus within his first three year term. Then he said that he would return the budget to surplus ‘some time over the next four years’.

    He has now pushed it back even further by telling us at the Liberal Party launch in Brisbane on Sunday  that ‘we will deliver a surplus as soon as soon as we humanly can’ but he refused to give a  guarantee. But there is even more. .Joe Hockey has now told us that he will not commit to any deadline on delivering a surplus.

    All the signs are that a Coalition Government will not deliver a budget surplus any earlier than the Labor Government promised for 2016-17. If anything, it is likely, on the basis of Tony Abbott’s and Joe Hockey’s comments, that the coalition would return the budget to surplus later than the Labor Government has promised. That is because we must take into account the increased expenditures that he has recently announced.

    • A $5.5 billion a year parental leave scheme to be introduced in July 2015.
    • An increase in defence spending from $24 billion p.a. currently, to $50 billion p.a. within ten years.
    • Abolish the means test on private health insurance which would cost about $1 billion p.a.
    • Additional funding for self-funded retirees via the Commonwealth Senior Health Card and more and more on roads on bridges for the National Party.

    The consequences of all this is that he will not only be pushing back the time to realise his budget surplus pledge but he will be increasing public debt in the meantime which he told us was ruining the country.

    The Coalition has been telling us for years that there is a deficit and debt crisis. The attacks never stopped. The language was reckless, inflammatory and fraudulent There was a budget “emergency” that had to be urgently addressed. Barnaby Joyce, who may be our next Deputy Prime Minister, suggested that the gnomes of Zurich would soon be arriving in Australia to take over our financial management because of the debt that we could not repay. The Coalition effectively frightened the community about the state of the economy. If we listened to the Coalition and the Murdoch media, one would think that the Australian economy was a basket case. Yet it is one of the best performing economies in the world and admired by well-informed commentators across the globe, including the International Monetary Fund. We have had steady growth even through the global financial crisis, low unemployment, low inflation, rising productivity, very low debt and an AAA credit rating.

    Yet despite the quite remarkable performance by the Australian economy, the coalition has succeeded in persuading many that the economy is in a mess. The reverse is true.

    The government facilitated this absurd focus on deficit and debt.  The government has been unable to successfully make the case that the economy is sound.

    The Government has performed well on the economy. But it has two glaring problems .The first is its failure to project a compelling narrative grounded in values such as equity and fairness, freedom, citizenship and stewardship. Second it has shown political incompetence and division

    All this about the phoney war on deficits and debts is not to say that we don’t need to address our long-term structural t problems. This should be addressed by taking action on middle-class welfare like the subsidies to the wealthy in superannuation and private health insurance and increasing some taxes.

    But it is very clear that the coalition’s phoney war over deficits and debts was political nonsense. It is now asking us to forget that nonsense. By pushing back resolution of the deficit/ debt problem the Coalition is telling us that it was never regarded as a serious problem in the first place.

  • Japanese amnesia and the contrast with Germany. Guest blogger: Susan Menadue Chun

    Our four Australian/Korean children were educated in Japanese primary schools.

    Every summer holiday we struggled through the prescribed homework text- Natsu no Tomo (Summer’s friend). In the early August segment, there were assignments regarding WWII. They stated, “talk to your parents about WWII and write a composition about the importance of peace”. So, we talked to our children about their Korean grandfather, how he was conscripted from Korea into the Japanese army, how he fought in the savage battles on the Truk Island, was injured and was badly treated because he was not Japanese. In retrospect, writing about a Korean grandfather was probably off-limits as all Japanese children were expected to write the customary composition regarding how the Japanese had suffered as a result of the nuclear bomb and the importance of peace. Every following year in the Natsu no Tomo　the topic never progressed past the nuclear bomb and a peace discussion. There was no mention of Japan’s hostile war of aggression. Because the nuclear bomb transformed Japan into a victim, education played the key role in creating what many Japan critics call collective amnesia.

    Our homework chronicle was 25 years ago. Not a great deal has changed, Japanese textbooks still barely mention Japan’s war of aggression and the ultra-right nationalists have been successful in making war crimes such as the Comfort Women and the Rape of Nanking a taboo topic.

    I have just returned from Germany. In comparison to, Japan, where the insensitive gaffes of Japanese politicians are relentless denial and whitewashing of history, Germany is coming to terms with its horrific past. All over Germany I found monuments displaying remorse for the carnage and the terror Germany caused. As I looked out over the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, (that covers the area equivalent of a housing estate) I couldn’t help thinking about the Japanese diplomatic outrage triggered by the monuments erected for Comfort Women outside of Japan in places such as Seoul, New Jersey and Los Angles.  The stepping stones, in Berlin with real names, memorializing the deportation of Jews to concentration camps, made me think about the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 and the massacre of thousands of Koreans that followed. However, collective amnesia again conveniently helps the Japanese public pretend the massacre never happened.

    Public monuments help to reinforce historical facts. But most importantly, monuments can demonstrate contrition. In the 37 years I have lived in Japan, on occasion I have stumbled across privately erected monuments for Japan’s WWII victims- particularly the Koreans and the Chinese. But sadly they have invariably been desecrated by Japanese ultra-nationalists.

    If Germany can come to terms with its horrific past, so can Japan, Collective amnesia denigrates victims and is extremely unfair to Japan’s next generation.

    Nothing you can do can change the past, but everything we can do changes the future (Ashleigh Brilliant).

  • Returning home can be the hard part. John Menadue

    In my August 1 blog I referred to the failure of many Australian companies to integrate their business and human resource strategies. Too many send executives overseas on an ad hoc basis without planning how that experience gained overseas can be used when they return as a catalyst to change the business culture of the Australian organisation.

    Every individual has personality. Every organisation has a culture. The grip of that culture – the way we do things without thinking – is remarkably powerful. It entrenches status, power, attitudes and values. It is hard to change.

    My experience is that overseas experience is the best way to challenge and change individuals and organisational culture. Cultural difference needs to be experienced rather than learned. It is visceral rather than cerebral. That is why overseas experience, living and working in a different culture, can be the best catalyst for change in individuals and organisations. It can’t really be learned in a classroom.

    Yet few Australian organisations are really serious about overseas experience being the catalyst for changing the organisational culture at home. The Business Alliance for Asian Literacy, representing over 400,000 businesses in Australia, recently found that ‘More than half of Australian businesses operating in Asia had little board and senior management experience of Asia and/or Asian skills or languages’. It is proving very hard to changes insular cultures. Asia is an ad hoc add on and little more.

    My contention is that sending promising staff to overseas appointments is the best way to drive cultural change provided the process is well organised, including the return home. That wise planning also involves support for spouse/partner and children. If they are unsuited or unhappy it will greatly impair the success of the overseas posting.

    But too often those executives returning from overseas are not supported and they often leave the organisation. They have changed their outlook and world view but on return, they find the organisation is still as insular as ever.

    I have seen figures from the US suggesting   that 70% of executives returning from overseas assignments leave their organisations within 3 years. The Ernst & Young survey of 2012 that I mentioned in my earlier blog of August 1 pointed to the very high cost to organisations of executives sent overseas and then leaving soon after return to the organisation at home.

    It is eight years old, but the Senate’s Legal and Constitutional Reform Committee report, ‘Enquiry into Australian Expatriates’ said

    ‘The committee is surprised at the level of disappointment of many repatriates concerning the job opportunities available to them on their return to Australia. Many of them left Australia precisely because of the greater employment opportunities on the world stage, the higher incomes, the greater job satisfaction or the enhanced career opportunities. Even if they have returned to Australia, as many undoubtedly have, with more experience, enhanced skills, better contacts and greater cross-cultural understanding, this does not necessarily mean that openings will have developed in Australia in their absence.’

    That Senate report, and my own reading and experience, confirms in my mind the difficulties of expatriates returning from an overseas assignment. Many have told me that they feel unwelcome and their organisation quite unsympathetic. There was often resentment that they had had the benefit of an overseas trip whilst executives at home really kept the business going and did the hard work!.

    So many Australian companies do not understand that if they want to change their organisational culture to make it more sensitive and understanding of the countries in our region, they must take greater care on the returning home process. It is just as important as the selection of executives to go overseas and supports them when they are overseas.

    If we want to adapt and change organisational culture in Australia to fit better with our Asian geography, we need to effectively integrate business and human resource strategy at every stage. So often we waste the opportunity .Business strategy and human resource management so often work in parallel and not together.

    Overseas experience in Asia can be the catalyst for organisational change in Australia provided it is done carefully and over a long period. If developed well, overseas experience can progressively build a change team. At the moment we are just not building those change teams.