Blog

  • It happens every day (Guest blogger: Fr Michael Kelly S.J.)

    It happens every day. People in public life try to grab hold of and change the public narrative about themselves, those they represent or lead. For most of the second half of last year, the Prime Minister had charge of the public narrative, leaving the Opposition Leader flat footed as he tried to capitalize on the Coalition’s lead in the opinion polls.

    He failed. Julia Gillard made a policy announcement here, called a Royal Commission there, published a report on anything from disability insurance to the place of Australia in the Asian Century.

    The PM looked in command and to be driving the agenda. Tony Abbott was playing catch-up all the time as he weathered the storm of attacks on his alleged “misogyny” and said no with ever less effect to everything.

    In recent weeks I’ve been developing a media and communications strategy for the Catholic Church’s two national agencies dealing with sexual abuse – the Professional Standards Committee that engages with victims of abuse and the newly established Council set to interface on behalf of the Church with the Royal Commission on sex abuse.

    A desultory task you may say. I agree. I was asked to get involved by the bishop responsible for Professional Standards and on the newly established Council. Why. Simply because these agencies, one of which has been running for 15 years, has no media and communications strategy or protocols. Little wonder that the Church has been and been seen to be like Tony Abbott vis a vis Julia Gillard.

    And the Catholic Church has a special problem: the fact is the Church is a verbal metaphor with no legal or effective operational coherence. It is the antithesis of a “command and control”, centralized authority structure as it is often perceived to be. It’s in excess of 200 separately incorporated entities who choose to cooperate or don’t.

    Back to the public narrative. There’s really only one way the Catholic Church is going to get beyond the mess it’s in over sexual abuse – a particularly destructive own goal that has developed through a combination of ignorance and cowardice on the part of Church leadership and mendacity and diabolical cunning on the part of a criminal element incubated in the institution.

    That way is transparency, accountability and the confession of failure and the seeking of forgiveness.

    But only actions will have any effect in this public narrative of ecclesiastical failure. Anything in the way of actions that vindicate suspicions of cover-up will just send the narrative into a downward spiral.

    Actions like opening all records to access, welcoming an independent audit of current child protection procedures in the Church or providing visible evidence that Church institutions have amended their ways – such as offering a national 1800 number for victims to use or for the general public make complaints or offer suggestions – will not only display good faith but allow the public narrative to move beyond recriminations and mistrust.

    Guest blogger: Fr Michael Kelly S.J.

     

     

  • Nova Peris and the Captain’s pick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Rio Tinto – Corporate Governance and Asia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    John Menadue

  • Australian media and President Park Geun-Hye of ROK

    If we want to be serious about our future in the ‘Asian Century’ we will need to start with our media. The election of President Park Geun-Hye in ROK in December last year was a very significant event, but it passed in the Australian media with only the briefest of mentions. (The same could be said of the election of Prime Minister Abe in Japan in the same month.)

    Contrast that with the overwhelming coverage we had last year of the US Republican primary, the US Presidential election and now the inauguration of President Obama. The media coverage of the Chinese National People’s Congress last year also paled into insignificance compared with the morning sickness problems of a British royal. Looking at our media, an outside observer would conclude that Australia is a large island moored off London and New York.

    The new ROK President and her country are important for many reasons. The ROK is a great success story. It is a world leader in the digital economy. It is our fourth largest trading partner and our third largest export market in areas as diverse as minerals, energy, travel and education services. With ROK we have vital shared interests in resolving the tensions on the Korean peninsula. When the North Korean regime collapses there will be large numbers of refugees. We will be called on to cooperate particularly with the ROK. Like us, the ROK sent peacekeepers to Afghanistan, Iraq and Timor. Australian servicemen fought and died in Korea in the 1950s. We are fellow members of the G20.

    Against that background the election of President Park Geun-Hye was very newsworthy. Personally, she has a very interesting and colourful background.

    The election of a woman as President in a traditional patriarchal and Confusion society is a major breakthrough.  As the daughter of former strongman, Park Chung-Hee, she symbolises the ROK’s translation from a ruthless dictatorship to a maturing democracy. As the ‘daughter of a dictator’ she experienced the assassination of her father by his intelligence chief. Her mother was killed by a North Korean assassin.

    But all that significant and colourful history and more raised little interest in the Australian media. It was much easier to recycle UK and US material. Our media exert a stultifying cultural and information grip which is more about our past that our future – in Asia.

    John Menadue