Fair comment?

It is right that we should be reminded, by none other than Alexander Downer, (the Advertiser today) that it is appropriate to have 'zero-tolerance' for people smugglers. No one would disagree with that.

I must admit that I always feel a little uncomfortable being lectured by any former Howard government minister about the rights and wrongs of immigration policy.

What is important is that the true mark of a civilised society is not that it stomps on those who exploit the vulnerable, but that it is generous and compassionate towards those who are so exploited. This does not always appear to be the case either under this government, and certainly not under the former government of which Downer was a part.

H is for

HOWARD, like Gough, was hated and adored . I have written too much about him in the last two years so follow the Tag and here if you want to see it through.
Unlike Gough, I think he lacked imagination, was a political opportunist who saw his role as to stay in power and therefore was poll driven rather than ideal driven. History will give us a better perspective, but I am interested how he seems to have fallen almost completely out of public view. One cannot see him having the same sort of humanitarian profile as a Malcolm Fraser, for example; I just think he could (and should) have been so much better.

Satire: alive and well

K and I were pleased to go and see keating the musical tonight.
Fantastically well done performance. Reminding one of the power of satire, as well as of certain insights which maybe we have forgotten.
Particularly the one where Keating was defeated by the little chimp...the echo of the song being what chumps Australians are to prefer to'just go back to the way things were before'.
I was also deeply moved by the skittish Mabo song, so full of life and which reminded us of how wonderfully life-giving that was.
It is unremittingly cruel to Howard who seems more like Brezhnev than an Australian PM, and the fact that Hawke and Howard are played by the same person is telling us something about Hawke too.
It is a little but not totally unfair to both of them.
On the side we were standing in front of Bob Ling former CEO of Hill's industries who I knew from a long time ago. He must have been bemusedto see the range of new flags that Keating was allegedly promoting. One of which had a Hill's hoist on it. More importantly I spotted Lowitja from afar, she must have been cheered by the spirit with which the move forward in aboriginal issues was presented.
K struggled (being only 24) to keep upwith the history, and she wryly observed that was why the audience was mainly made up of people my age rather than hers.
I made sure to introduce her to Archdeacon C as my daughter, lest he think I was out with this gorgeous younger woman (which I suppose I was!)

Apology

It is interesting to note how many commentators are picking up on the PM saying  "Sorry" for the interest rate rises.

Though both the PM and Abbott yesterday said that saying "Sorry" is not to be taken as an apology. (see some commentary from Julia Gillard here). Gillard rightly accuses them of playing with words.

But we shouldn't be surprised, after years of it,  to find that Howard is confused about what sorry means. He almost seems to wet himself at the possibility of mouthing these words, so you could have bowled me over with a mushy orange when I heard the taboo words pass his lips.

It is such a stubborn, narrow and old-fashioned, old-man thing. It looks like never being able to admit that you have been involved in something that didn't quite work out.

It is this I think the electorate hates. In the end it reflects a failure to receive criticsm, which is a recipe for disaster. well electoral disaster any way.

By way of an aside if we look back a dozen or so decades when writers were in the habit of writing what were styled  apologias. As indeed the pictured handsome academic J H Newman did, they were not apologising at all for their lives. They were explaining. I think that apology needs to be understand as a key dynamic in explaining what is going on, and politicians should explain.  

I don't think Howard does this. He excuses himself...it's the former Labor Government, it's the generations before us, it's the world economy.... and the electorate is fobbed off not with explanation but buck-passing.

What we want, or I do any way, is not buck passing but accountability.  Vision not opportunism, and apologia not excuse.E

Hearing yourself

Did the PM hear himself on TV this morning say (of Abbott)

At least he is a big enough man to apologise!

Yes, John, you need to be a big man to apologise!

furious furore

It is difficult to imagine that John Howard expects to be taken seriously about his latest promises (here) to be more open to the process of reconciliation. Would that it were true! Even if it is, the electorate will have difficulty reconciling this (pun intended) with the image of the ever more furious Howard thumping the lectern at the Melbourne Reconciliation convention as senior aboriginal leaders turned their backs on him in defiance.
Would, indeed, that it were true that there has been a change of heart. But it looks rather like the latest in opportunistic backflips.

Appointing successors

One of the (perhaps few) things I have learnt in my fifty odd years is to be cautious about appointing one's successor. [a lesson to be learnt in a neighbouring diocese]

Not, might I add, being cautious about who one might appoint. But to be careful to not enter into the process of influencing those whose responsibility it is to actually do the choosing.

This is advice I feel should be offered to Prime Minister Howard. In fact, should have  been offered long ago. It no doubt was, but it should have been adhered to.

Now forgive me, but we live in a democracy don't we? And a democracy does not require a line of succession, or nepotism, or even favouritism...it requires that those designated to elect should elect who they see fit.

So it has always been inappropriate for the Liberal Party to say that Peter Costello is the next leader, and if they are in government then the next PM. While this may (for some) have expressed a factional reality/deal/arrangement or whatsoe'er...ancient advice would suggest that you should not count your votes before they are cast.

So it is not surprising that the ambitious Mr Turnbull is coy about whether Costello will succeed, even if he is a little more reticent today (here). 

Personally were I Treasurer Pete I wouldn't trust anyone to guarantee the succession, least of all Malcolm, Tony or Alexander. Perhaps wee Johnny knew this all along and is chirruping in his glee

Loyal Citizenry

I was interested to catch a story on the ABC's Landline yesterday (coming here soon)about helping Zimbabwean farmers to come to Australia. It was a good story about positive immigration, and did not pretend to be easy.
At the conclusion of the story one of the English, (I think) commentators made the observation about receiving Australian citizenship that "An Australian born here will never understand how wonderful it is to have a piece of paper that says "Australian Citizenship". I know this feeling well, and have sometimes voiced similar sentiments to all the members of my family who (unlike me) happen to have had the good fortune to have been born here. Mrs C being a fourth generation Australian, and the little Cs therefore being fifth.
We take so much for granted. Our recent jaunt overseas, as enjoyable and wonderful as it was , did not diminish our delight at coming back to Australia. And I have no doubt that I am an Australian, and I am pleased to be able to say it is not just an accident of my birth.
It was interesting to read a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald by Richard Ackland (here) about the Haniff affair. Interesting because, in a way, everything has quieted down.
But he notes (amongst other things) how protagonists of tighter immigration laws, indeed the present Minister, wear the paraphernalia of citizenship...lapel badges and the like, almost in inverse proportion to their proclivity to breach values like the rule of law, freedom, and the right to a fair go. He has a point. Even if it is a little far-fetched to blame the lowly lapel badge for so much.
But at a time when we are talking about what sort of statements new citizens will have to sign up to...we should perhaps be prepared to seriously address the issues of what words and expressions like "the rule of law", "fair go", and "mateship" mean.
Personally if I was a Digger of the First War I would laugh every time the PM declares mateship to be one key value. While one can see how the filth of the trenches and the camraderie of war may indeed breed something so powerful called "mateship" that it can almost not be defined, but what suffering have Howard and Andrews endured that is anything like that supreme bonding experience.
From the comfort of the Parliament, and the bastion of power it is easy to call everyone your mate; and bear none of the consequences.
My piece of paper is worth more to me than that!

Trouble posting

I have tried to be considerate this week and have known that if I posted either about the current round of Jungian analysis (which appears to be going well), or the debacles of the Federal Parliament (which have just been beeezaaaar) that I would have carped on and on and on.
So suffice to just make a couple of observations (without much comment) about things that have hit me this week:

• I have been interested that looking at dreams doesn't just appear to have been a fruitcake type of activity, but (as predicted by reputable authority) it does indeed begin to shed constructive light on the unconscious
• I have noted that the Treasurer said he didn't make comments to three journalists, and then admitted he did; but he declined to name the former comment as alie.
• I have noted that senior ministers, Abbott and Downer, and even the Prime Minister have made the observation that what you say doesn't matter as long as you deliver results.

As you can see there is plenty of opportunity for carping!

What's all this then?

I had a conversation yesterday with an older friend who has identified herself to me before as a Liberal voter, she simply said....I hear all this talk about how good the economy is, I just don't know who gets the benefit of it. It's certainly not me.

She is a person of very modest income, whose husband died a few years ago after quite a long period of sickness. She has not lived a lavish lifestyle, and has a nice but modest house. She drives a car. I imagine that is what kills her!

I am (just) old enough to remember the foolishness of British PM, Harold Macmillan, who in the 60s insisted on telling the public in that pompous accent of the old Etonian"Let's face it most people have never had it so good!"

The public however didn't believe him and voted him out at the next possible opportunity.

I think wee Johnny would do better to look at that example rather than to his idol Mr Bush.

Waste of Question Time

Yesterday, as I quite often do, I sat down with my sandwich and watched the beginning of Question Time. A couple of things of interest... I will not say interesting things....happened.
First, the broadcast began about thirty seconds after the first question had been asked. (This didn't actually matter as it turned out that the same question was to be asked over and over again).
This caused the PM about three or four minutes in to actually deliberately recap on his opening remarks...ie. let's not talk about what our government has done but about what the Hawke-Keating did.
This interested me because the recap was obviously done because somehow the PM must have found out his introductory remarks had not been broadcast, and he actually said something like ...For the benefit of those who may have missed it and for the broader audience...and then repeated his opening statement.
I didn't see anyone giving him any note to tell him that his opening marks had been missed. And I wondered whether he was wired so that someone was speaking into an earpiece (this would be the most satisfactory explanation of his seamless segue (pron: sɛgweɪ), but if it was so then it is a little sinister. To be fair I couldn't detect any such device. But it does make you wonder who this 'broader audience' is and why this was necessary.
Any way the second thing of interest, or disinterest really, was that Rudd just kept asking the same question about Howard's promises about not allowing interest rates to rise. Howard just refused to admit that he had made such a promise and deflected everything to talk about the Hawke-Keating government.
Rudd kept asking the same question. Howard gave the same answer.
It does make you ask: what is the point?
I know there is an argument that asking government questions is a democratic freedom we should treasure, but it has become so stylistic and predictable that a pretty good argument can also be made for the fact that it is simply a waste of time. Even if you add the paid time of Rudd and Howard together it seems something of a waste. Pity really!

Don't expect me just to roll over!

If we had thought that Howard was just going to fatalistically accept polls and roll over and over and then acquiesce to the will of a disgruntled electorate, resign and force Costello to become a leader of the Opposition (surely he would resign rather than do this?) then signs are that this is not going to happen.
Let us not forget that this man, whether we agree with his policies or not, is one of the finest political animals that we have ever seen. He will play his cards like the champion he is and not go out without a fight.
As I watched crowds in Devonport yesterday enthusiastically cheer him (here) there could be little doubt that they appreciated the fact that he was going to intervene to ensure that they would not lose medical facilities. In a marginal seat it will make a difference.
Prediction: We will see the most strategically placed 'cherry picking ' (as Rudd so aptly named it) of projects in marginal electorates that we have ever seen. Will it work?...well we shall see. The voice of opposition in the Cabinet, Costello, to this sort of pre-election-spending has been effectively silenced in the last fortnight.
You can just hear his protestations. This is inflationary. And little Johnny's response...I know we can't afford it but if we don't buy it then we will be out of government, and if we are out of government then we won't be buying anything.

More sinister I fear is the fact that we actually may be about to witness something far more exploitative and cynical than the Tampa with regard to Dr Haniff. The trickle of dubious information that Andrews blessed us with yesterday, may just be the beginning of the political round to end all rounds.
Already (if talk radio is anything to go by) the public voices are changing...Well we have to err on the side of caution, so the PM was right. A News Poll yesterday firmly agreed with the way the Government had dealt with the issue...Yikes!!
There is now a slow flow of information from India which is, I suggest, exactly where the Government wants him to be...Haniff must have known about Terrorist Organizations...and of course he does have a beard and dark skin. And being on the subcontinent he is far away and unable to effectively access any real media presence. But then it's not really about him.

Amidst all this, I suspect Rudd has just to keep his cool; which will be easier said than done.
But let's not just expect fatalistic acquiescence from the PM

Field of Argent

Today is our twenty fifth wedding anniversary which gives cause for thought. I remember when I thought that 25 years was an impossibly long time and that only old people could possibly get there. The first time I was chastened by that was when my parents had theirs. They didn't seem that old. I suppose my mother was slightly older than I am now and my father slightly younger.
Indeed one of the things I note (is this a feature of growing old?) is that anything less than forty years is almost passé and Golden wedding anniversaries are quite common, so that I could happily write in the card I got for S that I hope we would have another 25 better years.
I am not so pedestrian as to suggest that the last two and a half decades have been so fantastic that we would want the next twenty five years to be just like it. God forbid! I just hope I am better at it than I have been.
Highlights? Well of course our three children have been the chief fruit of this period. We have managed to cope with three lots of school, and two lots of university so far. We haven't quite managed to liberate them from the nest. I look forward to that day!
But not only do we have children and nephews and nieces its been a great thing to marry some of them off, and bso there are also great nephews and nieces and. I am ready to be a grandfather. These are words I had never envisaged saying.
Our parents taught us how important family holidays were and we have been able to have good family holidays at least once every year. Not always far away, though we have enjoyed some pretty quality times in the last few years.
Lowlights? Can you imagine living with me for 25 years? Even my parents didn't have to cope with that! So it has not been without its trials. We had a period of separation about ten years ago, which was awful but necessary. My best man deserted us in our hour of need, apparently we used up all our quota of neediness and he had nothing more to give.
We have lived in 6 different places in that period. Both my parents died. The world has changed and John Howard has been PM for more than a third of that time! It would be remiss of me not to say that being a minister of the church has taken its toll on all of us.
Here's to the next 25!

Why I will never be PM or I just don't get it

The worst thing about Peter Costello is that smirk. You know the one that says "Well I have said just about the smartest thing that could ever be said, and everyone else is stupid."
This is only tempered by the fact that usually when he does it he has just shot himself in the foot and not realised.
Bang! Such an incident occurred on the 7.30 report last night. You can watch the podcast on their website under the title "Government ridicules Labor's Grocery Plan".
Totally missing the point that Rudd was (rightly or wrongly) tapping into community Angst about skyrocketing grocery costs, their fluctuation, and their ever-upward moving direction.
Bang!"Rudd is wrong the Bureau of Statistics has been giving this information for a decade".
The interviewer, Ali Moore, gives him a way out "But those statistics don't tell you which shop or chain is more expensive."
Bang! "What Mr Rudd wants is to know the price of Bread, biscuits and baked beans.Well I've been on to the Bureau of Stats today and the average price of bread is $3.21 in Sydney and $3.20" he also reeled off the obviously staffer-researched figures for biscuits (dry and sweet) and baked beans.
She gave him a way out again..."But that's not the point Treasurer, people want to know which chains are more expensive."
But so fixated was he on making a point ...."But that is the point....no no let me finiish."
Bang! He had already done it . His audience was saying but that IS the point you smirking fool.
Bang! We had already watched him declare that he didn't understand that people with limited money will actually try to not pay $3.21 for bread. Even at the relatively expensive BD bakery with the lovely fresh bread, ordinary bread is only $2.90
In the supermarket next door you can get it for $1.90
Bang! Now this doesn't matter if you earn over $200,000...and that is rather the point, he has, at the very least, given the impression that he does not understand what low and middle average income people deal with every day.

This is why he will never be PM. While Howard may be as unaware, he is not so naive. While Rudd may be in actually the same financial circumstances, he is not so smug.
The Liberal party would at any stage be foolish to commit their leadership to such a one. But starnger things have happened.

A different inclination

I am not entirely inclined to believe that everything about governmental response to problems in remote communities is just cynical politicking.
Though I was bemused to watch Minister Brough touring the Territory this week. I imagine that he would regard it as a (media) success.
At one point where he was trying to make the point about the denuding of the landscape that had gone on because of people congregating at the boundaries just outside where the dry zones are. Here the people sit, drinking booze, they chop down the trees and make fires.
Brough observed that this had denuded the landscape. It made marvellous TV.
The Minister in the bush totally exasperated, throwing his hands up in total despair.
Yes but....his aboriginal supporter was trying to say...
Helluva price to pay, the Minister declaimed.
Yes but ....the young guy tried to get his word in
But the Minister was having none of it. It was his moment.
As they all left the scene of this desolation. You could hear the young man still trying
Yes, but this didn't happen overnight. It's happened over thirty years.
But the Minister wasn't paying any heed at all.

It is not easy stuff. But let's not play the self-righteous game and assume that we have suddenly seen how awful this is.
Someone (us) needs to ask the question...If this has gone on for decades why has nothing been done about it before now.
I am not entirely cynical, just a little bit.

Playing it straight

On the face of it, Rudd's declamations this week that Pacific aid should be constructively targeted to improve the lot of our neighbours, is reasonable. (here) His point being that it is better to foster strong community than to mop up the mess afterwards.
The PMs point that there is a great weakness in this system needs also to be taken into account. He, supported by such luminaries as the ANU's Hugh White, makes the point that governance structures in the South Pacific are weak and just throwing more money at the system won't work unless there is corresponding improvement in these structures.
But how you do this beats me/Perhaps we need to listen more carefully to what the South Pacific wants from Australia and not simply use our aid budget to further our own influence. It is this latter attitude that our neighbours find so patronising.
I am not suggesting that we should just become a sort of political Santa Claus and address the self-interest of the powerful with gay abandon, but we should also recognise (and this I think is Rudd's point) that it is to our advantage to have strong, independent neighbours. Every parent has to learn this about their children. We need to learn it about the South Pacific

Black children overboard?

I have resisted the temptation to leap (overboard?) on this awful issue of disarray (too weak?) or anarchy( too strong?) in remote aboriginal communities.
I don't know that I have formulated clear ideas about this issue so much as a series of dilemmas which I can't easily get my mind around. I suspect in this regard I am like many people.

• There is no doubt that these problems exist and need immediate attention
• We are so city focussed in this country that we have a huge problem in this country taking issues in remote and rural communities. It is easy for these issues to slip out of any effective focus and to get anything done. This is not just an issue about abuse, it is also about the inadequate resources that are made available for health, education and human services in general
• This problem has been with us for decades and I am suspicious of why there is now such a strong focus. The electorate is (in my mind) rightly suspicious fo what the political motivation for this might be; and the phrase Black Tampa, perhaps a highly emotive one, is worth keeping in my mind
• It would seem to me that everyone should be trying to keep our political masters (for masters they mainly are) out of the controversial process decision making. This seems unlikely since we are talking big bucks, and the current political mood is not so much about the community good as about getting value for the dollar.
• I also have tucked at the back of my mind the question of why the focus is on aboriginal communities alone. This is not to understate the importance and the community's particular responsibility for the ruin of aboriginal people. But what of other socially depressed and oppressed groups
• The nature of these sorts of issues is difficult to discuss and uncover, but let us not pretend that the issue sof child abuse is in aboriginal communities alone or exclusively
• This stuff is not good!
  

Tibetan confluence

In one of those rare moments of agreement both Rudd and Howard are now falling over each other to meet HH The Dalai Lama (here).
One can only imagine that their discernment machines have some how revealed to them that the popular mood is that the electorate wiull not take kindly to Australian leaders submitting to Chinese bullying.
The man himself said today....To me it is not a very big issue but you (referring to the media at the National Press Club) seem to think it is very important. hahaha....with that insane cackle that he has

Death wish

What is most disturbing about the PM's reported comments that 'broadcaster' Alan Jones would never voice prejudice, is the sense of "death wish" about it.
Howards comments are all the more extraordinary in the face of a finding of The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) that Jones had promoted violence by encouraging a biker gang to go to Cronulla and deal with "Lebanese thugs" and "scum" as a prelude to the Cronulla riots.
The PM says that Jones says what a lot of Australians think, and offeres this as a justification. It is no doubt true. But hardly a justification in a temperate society.
Aah, I forgot, we put the language of temperance aside as we tend towards the infinity of an election.
So, maybe it is not Johnnie's death wish we are witnessing but my own.
I think I am saying what a lot of people are thinking.!

Prescience

Even I am surprised by the accuracy of my earlier-rather-later than prediction of the local Liberal party spill (see the entry for March 30). We await the result with interest.
In the meantime the PM looks increasingly worried, not that he is given to smiling, but he always looks sullen and projects a most dismal image. One can only imagine that the prospect (which seems unremitting with every new report) that they will not be able to pull the cat out of the electoral bag must way heavily upon him. Be that as it may, he was oft warned that he would be better to leave at his peak rather than after things started to go down.
Costello must seethe at the thought of the fact that his nemesis will leave only when he is defeated, and he (Costello) will simply not be able to generate enough support to get himself back as PM.
Maybe these are only very short-term projections and don't warrant much thought, but I am on such an high at having been soooooo accurate about Marty's leadership challenge that I am presuming to cast my net wider.
To put my money where my mouth is...it is 8.25 and I am putting my money that Iain Evans will not be the State Liberal leader at midday.