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

We survived!

We managed to survive the first day of a woman PM and the world didn't collapse.

Everyone has had interesting conversations about the events of the last few days. I share some observations with you.

JG is being compared with Helen Clark who incidentally was not the first woman PM in New Zealand but the second (see here), but I for one had completely forgotten about Jenny Shipley.

Both women were tagged as frumps, and endless comments were passed about their hair. They have both been criticised for being "career women" [how many men are criticised for being 'career men'?] who chose not to have children. And bizarrely (as if this rubbish is not enough) eventually they are 'accused' of being lesbians!

It is interesting to note that Margaret Thatcher, who always seemed to me to be a formidable woman...was never tagged as lesbian...but there were the endless comments about her dress sense and her hair.

One conversation I had about why Gillard is preferable to Rudd (and early polling seems to suggest this...in a dramatic way) is that, although she was part of the Quattuorvirate ....is there such a word?... yet she is distinct from it.

My comment, though, is that at least she has (and is seen to have) a sense of humour. Rudd's humour always seemed forced.

This is a difference between Gillard and Clark, and I suspect Thatcher. She obviously has a wry sense of humour and enjoys people. She is affable, and seems to get along with almost anyone. Clark was often seen to be withdrawn and humourless, and Rudd...just totally self-contained. Thatcher ferocious and and almost a caricature of herself.

I do remember a story about Thatcher which Keith Rayner told after his return from the 1988 Lambeth Conference. But it was more of a joke at her expense rather than an indication of her sense of humour. It went something like this

Thatcher (also like Rudd something of a one-person band) and her Cabinet were in the middle of some pretty gruesome discussions and she was working them really hard. Finally they just had to break for dinner so she took them all to dinner to give them a break.

The waiter came and took orders naturally he came to her first and she said

"I'll have the rump steak, very rare, with the blood dripping out!".

Such waiters are meant to not skip a beat in the face of any extremity so simply said,

"And the vegetables?"

To which Thatcher replied,

"They'll have the same as me!"

It's over----Let's go for Malcolm

I think Ms Gillard is one of the best Prime Ministers we have had.
I do, however,  think that as a woman she has had to tolerate what no man would have ever had to tolerate. be that is it may...that is the way (sadly) the world is.

By the way...I also thought Gough was the greatest PM we have ever seen. but  I was wrong...Indeed Joyce Townend (saint that she was)  and I were quite wrong

Naive...well you have never seen naive like it.

What he didn't seem to understand was that politics is a dirty game!  It is not about idealism. It is about power...and although at the same time Sky Hooks suggested that "ego" was a dirty word,  b*7%%4r me he didn't understand that the bastards were out to get him at what ever cost.
I still remember the day the b&6@#4d sacked the Government..John Lyon, my headmaster of school ...was wandering around almost dazed...
I rather feel as though that is what is happening now.
A visionary is going to be gazumped by political crap!



So this is my plan!  There is now way that Julia is going to beat the political crap

And the worst possible outcome will be for the cynical opportunist Abbot to be her successor. At least we know that Malcolm Turnbull has a modicum of intelligence and a level of social of awareness that seems to transcend the merely political (well mostly)
So my plan is
Given that Gillard is dead in the water
Then let's go for Malcolm

Let's jettison political opportunism and hard-heatered arrogance (henceforth known as Abbotism!) and try and get politicians who actually want to do good, and get stuff done...instead of just feathering their own ambitions.
Julia could have done this
but the machine won't let her. So let's hope Malcolm can!

The point

Hugh Mackay's analysis of the election is that it is not so much a choice between Abbott and Gillard, as giving Gillard the chance to be PM.(see some of Mackay's wisdom here)

I think this is correct, and it perhaps explains some of the frustration in the electorate about being unable to discriminate between two parties.

I think this analysis holds water. Because of the manner by which she came into the leadership she has not really had the chance to put much of her stamp on anything. Unlike, for example, Abbott who was an ongoing and frequent performer in the Government of John Howard.

So I guess, in a way, we are judging them both on an equal footing...not as Prime Ministers...but on their performance as ministers in former governments. We shall see what it all means tomorrow.

Spreading rumours...or is it muck spreading?

It no doubt suits the Opposition to suggest that there are worries regarding the  Leadership of the Labor Party in the Federal Parliament.
But can we take it seriously?
You only get so many chances, and ultimately ( as any computer gamer will tell you) you run out of lives. When they replaced K Rudd with J Gillard, they didn't have no lives left!
But the rumours resurface (see here for example). 
Can't seriously think that this exists in the mind of anyone other than the former PM. I rather feel sorry for Kevin, but he had his chance.

The real problem for him is not to find another opportunity, but to come to grips with the fact that in reality (as one of my colleagues put it some years ago about an unfortunate Archbishop...he has bounced too many people...or more prosaically he has made enemies.)
I suspect that though J Gillard may be the current form of poison, no one wants to go back to the deathly potion  of yester year!

Just Julia

I am inclined to think that Julia Gillard is not the ambitious vixen that some would try to caricature as.

She seems to me to have been about as open as you can be about her desire to lead the nation, and also as reluctant as you must be to pursue this with the sort of ferocity that many of her male counterparts would only too happily indulge in.

The absolute and utter hypocrisy of much of what transpired as comment yesterday on all sides of politics, almost infuriating if not so utterly transparent and laughable.

I mean, who could fail to be aghast at the audacity of the mad monk standing up there lecturing the Labor Party about how no leader should be treated as Rudd was by the bovver boyz of his own party.

I mean if he wanted to be taken seriously he should at least have been made to look Malcolm Turnbull in the eye while he was saying this.

Having worked for over thirty years in an institution (the Anglican Church) which is even more male-dominated than the Parliament, I hope for our country what I believe is true also for the Church. And that is, that female leadership will be different in style from all-male leadership.

There are those who find this laughable, who tend to suggest that women are more ruthless than men and only get into power by being more power-driven than their male counterparts (some of those voices were heard yesterday).

In my experience the proponents of this are very often men who have been rolled by strong women who are not prepared to be patronised.

What seems to be truer, is that women rather value and encourage certain loyalties rather than others. They are not so driven by the need to 'win' so much as to 'succeed'. This might seem a subtle, even nuanced, difference. But it is rather important.

Winning is rather short-term, where success is a much more wholistic idea.

I think Ms Gillard's language indicated that she is aiming to succeed rather to win. Kev's problem (and I suspect Abbot's) is that they have to win

The real Ms Gillard & the real Mr Abbot

One has to laugh at Abbot';s cheek in standing up saying "Will the real Julia Gillard please stand up?" and then following up with "If you elect Tony Abbott then you will get Tony Abbott!"

Hugh Mackay rightly remarks that 'we haven't seen the real Tony Abbott'

Abbott has been so totally under control...he has curbed his loose lip, but this is not his usual modus operandi. he is usually a loose cannon who doesn't claim to speak the absolute truth on the run....to be fair which of us does?....but this lip-pursing Abbott never seems to me like 'the real Tony Abbott'!

Preferred leaders

Julie Bishop the Deputy Opposition Leader and Labor Senator Mark Arbib were asked an "objective" question on Lateline on Friday night (here)

When does a party know that it's time to change leader? What are the signs that are, "Look, you know, we really need to change courses now."

Arbib couldn't really bring himself to answer the question as Leigh Sales wanted it, and while Bishop got the point she didn't do much better. Though she did make the good point that it doesn't really make much difference changing the leader if they don't also bring about change in policy.

This is of course what happened when Abbot took over from Turnbull, there was an about face on emissions trading policy. But not when Nelson took over from Howard.

Present speculation that K Rudd is now so unpopular with the electorate that he may be a liability makes this sort of question interesting and is rife here in the press today and here.

While Ms Gillard, as the Deputy, is no doubt front-runner Labor seems to be in the fortunate position of having any number of candidates. This is partly because of the phenomenon of being in government, I would suspect, we see Lindsay Tanner, Julia Gillard, Craig Emerson, Chris Bowen, Nicola Roxon...perhaps not so much Mr Swann, and certainly not the hapless Peter Garrett ... but also the affable and feisty Mr Arbib.

So, all this begs the question....when do you know that you should change your leader?

Supping with the long spoon

It's oft times said that if you sup with the devil then you need a long spoon.
While Mr Abbott is clearly not the devil, Ms Gillard would do well to remember that in offering to cooperate with the Government he is serving no one's purposes other than his own.
I am sure they are well aware of this.
Mr Abbott would also do well to remember that in agreeing to cooperate the Government is also not serving his purpose.
Who will win this stand off remains to be seen. 
Clearly it will not be the majority of the electorate who apparently don't agree with Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott that refugees should be processed offshore but would prefer that we do the right, perhaps one should say, the Australian thing and process people on the mainland.

They're gone

Much as I hate to admit it I can't help but think that the Gillard government's days are numbered. It is difficult to imagine that the Labor party will be able to find another person to lead it to victory. The thought for example of a Rudd revitalization is just laughable.
To be sure Abbott's unremitting whining is being increasingly believed. The characterization of the PM as a 'liar' has been repeated so often that the electorate has begun to simply accept it.
The nail in the coffin? Nobody wants a tax. This encourages disbelief, people simply Want to believe all this because they don't want to pay.

Laurie Oakes in  a feature piece in the weekend's Herald Sun offers a long sought-after critique of the parlous state of politics  in this fair land. One sentence, perhaps, damns both sides

"the Opposition Leader is getting away with purveying trashy policy because the nation is mesmerised by the Government's woes. While Julia Gillard continues to stumble from one mess to another, Abbott largely escapes scrutiny."

It raises the question about whether we have the best sort of leaders or those who have been seduced by the myth of "pragmatism" versus "policy".
My feeling is that if for one moment our leaders/parties could grasp the nettle of creative policy and pursue it with vigour, whilst resisting the temptation to water down vision with some perverted notion of what is popular we would see a shift in political allegiance. distracted.
 Oh dear! So shallow! On all sides. From all parties.

Call for leadership

News that the House of Commons (UK) has passed draft legislation about same sex marriage will thrill some and chill others.
I am pleased, though I don't think it goes far enough, and lets the Churches off the hook. I am not suggesting that anyone in any religious position should be compelled  to perform ceremonies they cannot in all conscience perform...but it is my understanding that  even those Anglican clergy (like myself) who could happily, gladly and conscientiously officiate at such wedding will not be permitted to do so. That's a pity but there you go.
What is noteworthy is the role PM David Cameron has played in this debate.  Almost all commentators are suggesting that it is his moderate but definite leadership that has tipped the balance.
And some suggest that this will be at some personal political cost to himself.
I am personally disappointed that Prime Minister Gillard has not chosen to exercise any sort of leadership in this area. This is one of a number of issues that it would appear the Labor Party has become too politically conservative about. Presumably out of fear of political backlash.
This would also go for refugee  policy, inadequate resourcing of education, and patronising attitdes towards indigenous Australians.
 I for one regret that far from being "left of centre", the Labor Party is clearly right of centre and the conservatives just further right again.
No one is particularly surprised that Mr Abbott is declaring strong opposition. And I am more impressed by the Malcolm Turnbull's of this world who would seem to have some courage in their convictions

The hermeneutics of politics

(This article could be subtitled "If you aren't bored enough by the electioneering then here's another boring article")

It is disturbing to us all, I suspect, that there is more discussion about the hermeneutic (here) of the election campaigns, than the policy content.

That is, how the plans are structured, composed, written...and by whom...and to whom they are directed...is actually proving to be more interesting than the policy itself. (see this cartoon)

When you think about it this is not really surprising.

When 'opposing' parties actually seek to ensure they are keeping up with the other in the bidding war then we see (as is clearly observable) that policy looks remarkably similar. It gravitates to a centre of mediocrity.

It is differentiated not by substance, but by degree. It is not (if you like) 'this is my ideology' that drives policy but "anything you can do I can do better".

So we look rather at the (only slightly) more interesting campaign structure and hermeneutics.

"Who is making the decisions?", and "What is the process (eg focus groups) that is used?". "What role does media play in driving the campaign?"

But, in the end, we all realise that this is not what the real game is about.

So we will content ourselves with deciding on whether we think Abbott is more of a bastard than Gillard is a bitch!

God help us!

Belief and unbelief

As a believer in God I am bemused by the rudeness and lack of tolerance of those who gloat in the Prime Minister’s declaration of atheism.
Personally, I rejoice that we live in a land where the PM doesn’t have to pretend to believe when she does not. I, and other Christians, will continue to pray for her as St Paul encourages us so to do. We do this because we believe in God and it doesn’t matter that she does not.
I note that Prime Minister Gillard, respecting our religious tolerance, is not taking cheap shots like so many of those who want the freedom to not believe.

Being a ranga

In Harvey Norman's yesterday arvo this guy came up out of the blue and said "Power to the rangas!"

He was quite old and greying, but I could see he may once have had the same colour hair as our beloved PM.

I always think of myself as a redhead, though nowadays my hair is not the same orange as it was when this photo was taken.

All you poor fools who think that the great events of the last week are all about our first woman PM, have been sucked in.

We rangas know that yet a further bastion of inequality has been breached by Ms Gillard now that we have a redhead in the top job!

Counting the score

As amusing as it might be to score the government on its first year, it only serves to add to the general paranoia that ministers must feel. Is that a good thing? Probably not. It is rather, as I say, cruelly entertaining.
Governments need to be scrutinised rather than rated, but we see inevitably that Rudd is rated 8/10, Gillard 9/10, Garrett 6/10 (and dubbed the 'Minister for Nothing' )(The Weekend Oz). What does it mean? Nothing really, it is one person's impression and is akin to the 30 second grab, a not too sophisticated analysis of  complex issues; designed not so much to illuminate as to provoke discussion and not necessarily constructive discussion.
People will probably split along party lines (listen to Matt and Dave and the Two Chrises if you don't believe me...but I am sure you do), but this sort of stuff serves to seek short term results for what are obviously long term issues.
I personally think that there is much to be said for fixed governmental terms in a stable democracy like our own, so that although we can be amused by short term ratings we can actually appreciate that governments aren't going to have to pander to the need to amuse the fickle electorate when there is a long term job to be done.

Sick and tired -- of both sides

How sad am I ?
If I'm around at Question Time it is irresistible, I am almost always left feeling flat and depressed.
No real questions and certainly no genuine answers.
I have mentioned before the Canadian Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan began his seminal work Insight with this statement: “When a dog has nothing to do, it goes to sleep. When a man has nothing to do, he may ask a question.”
He suggests this is a dignified and edifying thing to do.

He obviously hasn't been to Question Time in Canberra.

The cost is mind boggling. Every MP present, the staff of the chamber. TV and radio broadcast.
This week's spectacle has been particularly bad. The Deputy Opposition Leader, the only Opposition member to ask questions of the Government...or should one say of the PM.
And that not about policy, or government, but about what after all is a grubby little scandal which PM Gillard has been tainted with, but of which she has said over and over again, in and out of the Parliament, she is not guilty of.
This is not (remembering back a long time ago) the claimed gross economic mismanagement of the Khemlani affair...loans of $4 billion. And was indeed a question about the way Whitlam et al wanted to govern.
But this is about a couple of grubby guys ...and, certainly, shady goings on. But nothing of major governmental order.
The Opposition still shrilly harp on and on that "This goes to the heart of  'her' character"...but how often does she have to deny for enough to be enough.
Apparently this is without end.
The Government strikes back now with accusations against Ms Bishop and her concosting of this affair.
In reality we need to move on. Rusted on Liberals will always think "she" (the PM) is guilty, and Welded on Labor supporters will always think "she" (the Dep Opp) is guilty.

The most embarrassing moment of Question Time comes when the Speaker alludes to guests in the gallery. Often politicians from other parts of the world. She did at least alert said guests, today that they were visiting on what was an unusual day. Sadly, not so unusual.

Let's move on!  There is no bombshell to be dropped tomorrow, or the day after....it is muckraking at its worst and most boring.

The Boys' Club

Acknowledging that the present divertissement in the Liberal Party is not about leadership in general but about Peter Costello in particular; it is interesting that no women are ever talked about as potential party leaders.
The other side are not particularly blameless in this regard either, but it is noteworthy that I could mention: Macklin, Wong, Gillard, Roxon off the top of my head. But I am hard pressed to mention any woman at all...other than Bronwyn...on the other side. No wonder the Liberals still present as a factional boys' club

Would that I were like her!!!!!

Katharine Jefferts-Schori will finish her term as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church  USA in a few weeks
She is adored by many (me included).  Hated by (probably) many more!
I think, when history tells its story, she will be seen as one of the great Anglican Bishops, not only of the 21st Century but of the whole Anglican era!
Here is a great reflection by Diana Butler Bass on her period of office.
I compare many of my reflections on Bishop Katharine  to the career of the first female Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard.  
We look back and we see that we got very tangled up  and found that we were dealing not only with the fact that this was a stunningly bright star on the horizon, but that SHE was also a woman!
The debates in the Church and in politics are so couched in masculine tradition that we are and were deeply confronted by soeone who led us in a different way.  
And, not only that, but was able to lead us with: energy, intelligence, justice, spirituality and joy!
 She was, I believe, treated appallingly  by the English Church when attending Southwark Cathedral, the Lambeth Mafia prevented her from wearing a mitre.
She may have been an Anglican Primate, but she was not allowed to be recognised as such! (This article may give you a sense of just HOW RIDICULOUS  this all is)
She has had to deal with churches which have thrown fits of pique and decided they would leave, even though they then have been told they couldn't "take the ball with them"....she has remained steadfast

Preached well and intelligently. (She is after all is not just a theologian but a scientific doctor too!)  But of course this didn't really matter...one could suggest that some gender bias was slipping in.

Anyway the Church has continued the "thorn in the side" tradition
They have elected a black guy to succeed her!.
All I can say is Hallelujah!

Bishop Michael Curry says " This the church in which I was baptised (and more importantly)  this is the Church where I learned about Jesus....Keep the faith!"

An interesting collection

An interesting collection of letters in the paper today about the refugee issue.

Consensus is brewing in a few areas. I would suggest that from both ends of the spectrum the view is forming that the refugee 'policy' is failing.

On the far right people would say we should send everyone back, and on the other extreme we should let everyone in.

Neither of these options is satisfactory in these troubled times.

But, I am inclined to think that offshore processing is a political game that in the end suits no one's interests. It is a ploy invented by the Howard Government and pursued by the Rudd & Gillard governments to give the impression that we are in control. The problem is that any offshore facilities are always going to be too small, too soon. This was the problem with Nauru and is the problem with Christmas Island.

It strikes me it would be better by far to transfer processing to the mainland where at least this problem would be manageable.

The letters in the paper inevitably contain the idiocies of those who believe it is possible to live in an Australia that is isolated from the world. I have noted elsewhere (here) that most Australians are accepting with varying degrees of enthusiasm of those who find themselves on our shores There is a very vocal, and often quite nasty group of people who trot out the usual charity begins at home and what about the kids who don't get no presents or what about the homeless I would rather help them.

There is no doubt that there are others in need, but my suspicion is that the most vocal of the "charity begins at home" lobby probably don't do much to help those at home either.

One thing I do know is that those who want to help refugees are also likely to be generous supporters of other charities too. It is, after all, not a competition!

Right and wrong

Teachers are both wrong and right about the standardised testing. (here and here for example).

Both sides of the present discussion no doubt agree that it is important that we focus on our children.

If you don't ask evaluation questions (And in reality teachers do this all the time) like "has Johnny's spelling improved?" or "Can she do long division?" then you are doomed to go round and round in circles. .and just guess at what is happening.

However nothing is more certain than the fact that this information also will be often only crudely analysed. It will be misunderstood and even abused by some with other axes to grind (this would seem to be the core of the teachers' objection).

Part of the reason for this conflict is that there does not seem to be any agreed purpose for the testing.

I mean "so that we can weed out dud teachers" is a fear-driven goal...and probably misplaced. (but it lurks there).

In reality we need to get rid of this fear & blame based stuff and state that the purpose of evaluation is to identify weakness and throw more resources at it.

If we don't do the evaluation then the identification of weakness is just intuition and guess work. Some may be good at this, but it is not the smart or prudent way to do it.

The solution should be to state the clear positive goals of evaluation and what responses might be made. I don't hear this at the moment. Even from Ms Gillard.

"The parents right to know" is not sufficient rationale. "To know what?" and "What is going to be done as a consequence?" are also consequent questions.

In theory, there can be nothing wrong with identifying areas of under-performance and making the connection that more resources need to go in that direction.

In theory there is nothing wrong with identifying areas of excellence (here for example) and suggesting that we promote that.

We can and should do both.

The perversity of our system is that often the connexion is made that we only see what areas are doing well and say "This is where our money is best spent".

So the rich get richer!!, and, The poor get poorer!!

Let's not do that