Tag Archives: featured

Australian Politics

The Coalition seems to be full of disappointed grumps and fantasists

1 Comment

If you were exposed to the last conservative government in Australia you have just about seen it all. It was like a trip back in time, to a time when the communist scare had legs, when there was no such thing as ‘society’, and crony capitalism took over from the idea that Australia was the land of the ‘fair go’. And never forget the last prime minister really believed that he was chosen by God.

In the 1950s and 60s many in Australia were afraid that communism was going to sweep down from the Soviet Union, down through China, through South East Asia, with a short stopover in Indonesia, until it made its inevitable landfall on Australian soil.

Darwin would fall, and the absurdity of a new Brisbane Line was a part of the fever dream. We would abandon the country north of the Line, but our brave Aussies would rush to take up arms. It was hoped that we could push the communists back, preferably into the sea.

During Scott Morrison’s shambolic time in office, nothing reminded us of those dark days of fear and xenophobia like Dutton and his China bashing.

Of course he had a lot of Coalition confederates, happy to take China’s money in the good times, but still wanting to blame them for the Covid-19 virus, and attributing all sorts of evil to the Chinese Communist Party.

What was shocking was their willingness to re-visit those days, where the Communist word caused heartburn, and we stood behind LBJ. This time around it was Donald Trump providing us with a shield. Risky!

And we must remember Trump’s record of favouring white supremists. Was there a whiff of the White Australia Policy in our rush to condemn the Chinese? Is there a whiff of post-colonial racism in our demonisation of a document titled “Statement from the Heart”?

Dutton is a throwback to cold war thinking

Watching Peter Dutton as he struggles to find relevance is exhausting. There he is, wearing his scholarly glasses, using words like “history” and even referencing George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The quote he is using describes Soviet Russia in the 1930s and 40s, and is laughable in an Australian context.

In my opinion it better resembles the belief system of the born-again community, where it divides the world into the ‘saved’, and those not saved.

“At a time when we need to unite the country, this prime minister’s proposal will permanently divide us by race,” he said.

If Dutton had acted like any sort of aspiring leader, he would have embraced the Voice as being essential, and as a necessary first step toward reconciliation with our original inhabitants.

He would have welcomed the opportunity to lead the cranky and the disenchanted in his party toward their better selves, but he has instead handed them more to be grumpy about, and sowed seeds of doubt, where none existed. All it takes is a reasonable amount of goodwill.

Even the Coalition would be aware that we have built our estimable modern achievements on stolen land. The least we can do is to give First Nations folk some acknowledgement of past wrongs, and a heartfelt promise that we will consult them in the future.

Everything about the Coalition these days reeks of grim reaction, of rejecting every aspect of modernism. Who do they think they represent? Not even Uncle Arthur, who terrorises all of our Christmas dinners, could hold to all these regressive ideas.

They don’t believe in climate change, because they haven’t read any of the science for the last forty years. They also presumably think those images of melting glaciers were photo-shopped.

They are panicking because they think a shadowy crowd of transgender kids is plotting to flood into girls’ toilets, for some unspeakable reason.

Although they know that there is a tsunami of hunger and homelessness, they do not want to vote for a $40 a fortnight increase in the Jobseeker allowance.

We need a decent opposition. But what we have is a Dad’s Army of nay-sayers, spooked by issues of gender, equality, law and order, reparations for past wrongs to our Indigenous fellow citizens, immigration terrors, and absolute panic that an unemployed person, somewhere in Australia, is rorting the system. God help us!

Books and writers

Some of the books I recommend

3 Comments

Most people who read have an inbuilt system of prejudices and fears. They might dread the thought of feminist writing, or post-modernist experiments. Others are afraid of academic writing, with a footnote being akin to an incoming arrow. These are all reasonable opinions, if you really hold them. But why turn what is great fun into a chore?

I only read what I want to read. Here are some categories and some favourites.

Crime novels

My favourite writer of crime novels is Georges Simenon. I would not waste time on his so-called “hard novels”; hard to read is a fair description. Stick to the Inspector Maigret books. 75 novels and 28 short stories, from 1930 to 1972. Each one intense, exciting and in the place. You are in Paris, or a Dutch seaside village, and there is Maigret.

Maigret is monumental. He, along with his pipe, is immovable, and implacable in his search for understanding. He is not interested in law, but in justice.

He wants to know why, and his observation of time and place is intense. Maigret evolves over the 42 years, but his appeal remains. These books are hard to find these days, but op shops are a reliable source. There are some reprints available. Buy them if you can.

Origin stories

This year I read Growth of the Soil, by Knut Hamsun. “NO, I’m not reading a Norwegian from last century,” I hear you mutter. Read it anyway. Hamsun invented the modern novel.

In this story he follows a young man into the Norwegian wilderness, where he establishes a modest farm, finds a wife, has children, and sees a town established. But Hamsun makes the personal universal. His style is both formal, and insightful. It has a completely modern outlook, especially in its depiction of psychological turmoil. His treatment of human relationships is refreshingly candid. He is simple and direct in his depiction of sexual activity, which can surprise.

If you enjoy trying Hamsun, then there is his masterpiece, Hunger, a tale of a writer’s mad search for love, success and meaning. A forerunner to Hesse’s Steppenwolf, Hamsun introduced the internal monologue to literature. The only caveat is you should find the right translation. Sverre Lyngstad is streets ahead of any other.

History

History can be an acquired taste. Which is surprising, because history is so regulated by peer review that it is very hard to find a ‘bad’ history. Of course we need to be selective, and to choose history, and not PR hack efforts.

History is usually extremely well written, mainly because historians are highly educated, and they are writing as much for their rivals as for their audience. They also support their arguments with evidence, which can look like academic writing, but it is just ‘quality control’. Curiously open to debate, even from us.

I love to read anything by A.J.P. Taylor, who was something of a ‘rock-star’ historian, who popularised history in Britain with a series of successful television shows. His scholarship remained exceptional, and his “The Origins of the Second World War” is challenging in its ideas, and outstanding in its exposition.

Although not ‘pure history’ Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy is challenging, insightful, beautifully written, and a wonderful introduction to English history. Once you dip in, you can be inexorably drawn into many hours of ‘rabbit hole’ exploration.

Spy stories

I cannot separate John Le Carre from Len Deighton in the spy business. From George Smiley (Le Carre) to Bernard Samson (Len Deighton) they have each created a small pleasure-based industry based on larger than life characters, excellent plotting, and a light touch. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is out of favour because of its age, but for all that, high art.

Graham Greene’s The Quiet American and Our Man in Havana show his range, from realpolitik to somewhat lighter. “Greeneland” is his recurring landscape of disillusionment and despair, but when you finish one of his novels, you know a little more about life, and love.

Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden series is enjoyable, and based on his real life as an agent in post-revolutionary Russia. Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent has been described as “timeless”. Ian Fleming is surprisingly lean on talent. James Bond comes across as a misogynistic snob, and the holes in the plots are legendary. I would terminate 007.

Other great books worth a look

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler is a great, sparely written, adult book. Set against the background of the 1939 show trials in the Soviet Union, it is both frightening and inspiring. Not a fun read, but it will stay with you forever.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is a novel everyone should read, because it is firstly a decent, courageous, upstanding book, and because it is clear and unambiguous in its message of equality before the law, and the danger of all sorts of prejudice.

It was published in 1960, just before the reaction against the civil rights movement set in. It addresses race, class and the American South, and it is narrated in a visual style. The movie is great too.

So this is pretty much a good place to start, a personal list of books and writers, which I find interesting and well written. There are thousands of good books out there, and millions of bad ones. Choose with care.

Australian Politics, International Affairs

Is our alliance with Trump’s America worth it?

1 Comment

Over eighty years ago Prime Minister John Curtin prepared a New Year’s Eve message for the Australian people. It was written three weeks into the war with Japan. It was published in the Melbourne Herald on 27 December, 1941: 

‘Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.’

With this message he informed the world that Australia’s foreign policy direction must change, in response not only to the military situation with Japan, but to Australia’s location in the Pacific. From then on, he states, Australia will be proactive, the architect of her own interests. 

Australia disengaged from the ‘general war’ to concentrate on the Pacific conflict. Both Churchill and Roosevelt were surprised, and dismayed, but the die was cast. Australia survived the war, but only with massive assistance from the U.S. America has been the cornerstone of our foreign policy ever since.

Eighty years later, are Australia and the U.S. still a ‘perfect match’, or is it time to re-consider the partnership? Although America is still the pre-eminent power on earth, does Australia need its protection, and secondly, does America provide that protection, and if it does, at what price?

Is there a credible threat to us, or would we be more sensible to take a leaf out of New Zealand’s book, and be no-one’s enemy, and no-one’s target? It is important to look at our similarities, but also at the areas where we diverge.

Shared history, shared values?

For years, at least until President Trump was elected, there was a type of consensus that what we had in common far outweighed our differences. Recent events, particularly in America’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and then the Black Lives Matter protests, have thrown some doubt on that shared vision. 

Many have used the “shared history, and shared values” argument to justify our continued relationship. Others question the value for Australia, which has stood loyally by its mighty ally, through its many wars, with not much to show for the effort, except in terms of lost lives, and wasted military resources. We were never there as equal partners. 

We supported American wars whenever we were asked

Australia joined the U.S. in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the First Gulf War in Iraq, the Afghanistan War, the Second Gulf War in Iraq. We even joined the so-called War on Terror.

When push comes to shove, Australia is expected to step forward, no questions asked. Perhaps the debt from 1941 – 1945 has been repaid?

Democratic standards

Australia and the U.S. are both nominally democratic societies, and yet there is a tradition in the U.S. of actively trying to suppress the vote for minorities, and to rig elections by gerrymander. There are efforts to outlaw postal voting, begun when in the midst of a global pandemic. 

Australians are used to electoral matters being decided by independent umpires. We are not only encouraged to vote, but we are punished if we do not. So is America still a democracy, and is it worth defending?

Guns in America

Probably the most contentious right Americans possess is the right “to keep and to bear arms”. Covered by the Second Amendment, and intended to permit the personal use of arms as a defence against state tyranny, it has mutated into a violent and uncontrolled gun culture. 

In 2021, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according to the CDC. 

This was the highest number of gun deaths since 1968. see here  Another side of this tragedy is that suicide accounts for almost twice as many deaths as homicide. 

By comparison Australia’s gun deaths in 2019 were 229. It is incomprehensible to us living in Australia that Americans insist on their right to kill, and to be killed. 

This situation is exacerbated by the militarisation of the various state police forces, and the sheer number of mainly gun-fuelled deaths. Most of those deaths are of Black men, arguably by overzealous police. Do we share the values of a nation which practices officially sanctioned, racially based murder? 

Did Scott Morrison commit us to a war with China?

Our previous, unlamented Prime Minister ramped up the hysteria and the rhetoric concerning China. He committed a sum of $270 billion to defence, which included funding for long range missiles. These are presumably to warn China that we are deadly serious about defending ourselves, militarily, against our largest trading partner. 

This can be traced back to a slavish desire, on Morrison’s part, to please Donald Trump. The ex-President, in an attempt to divert attention away from his own criminal governance of the country, had sought to demonise China for somehow ‘inventing’ Covid19.

By jumping on Trump’s bandwagon, Australia is going to be ‘protected’ if China reacts badly to our belligerence. That must be why we are investing in nuclear powered submarines, to be ‘delivered’, in dribs and drabs, if at all, in the 2040s.

It is uncertain whether human civilisation will even survive until the 2040s. Already climate change is contributing to mass migrations; droughts and floods are affecting food and water security; the West is already fracturing under the political pressures of exploding refugee numbers, and political volatility is out of control. Russia is just the first rogue state to bust out of the bubble.

Labor has drunk the kool-aid

The logic behind following the United States anywhere is flawed. It is a nation which seemingly needs wars, in order to keep its over-sized military busy, and focussed outwards. How else to restrain its generals and admirals?

The American Century is over. The country is hopelessly divided, and its people are not only divided on political grounds, but also on economic, religious and racial lines. Inequality has morphed into something resembling the Middle Ages.

If America was once a trusted ally, the Trump presidency must have caused us to reconsider where we stand. A buddy this week, maybe not so much next week?

We need to tread carefully until the U.S. has a leader who can be trusted. Joe Biden is 80 years old. His main opponent will probably be Donald Trump, who is crazy, old and unstable.

This then is the horse we have hitched our wagon to. In Australian terms “have we backed the wrong horse?”

Books and writers

Book review: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Leave a comment

Wolf Hall is a work of historical fiction. It is meticulously researched, but Hilary Mantel has allowed herself ample space, in which she has thoroughly personalised the figure of Thomas Cromwell.

A divisive figure amongst historians, Mantel has created a personable, sophisticated ‘renaissance man’, humanistic and reflective. His ambition and his successes seem almost incidental to the story, and inevitable considering his intellectual attributes.

The book is set in the reign of Henry VIII, and Cromwell’s story is told from Cromwell’s point of view. It also incorporates a series of flashbacks, and tracks Cromwell’s rise from apprentice blacksmith to his brutish father, to being the King’s trusted Advisor and Counsellor.

Hilary Mantel has produced a narrative which allows us to get to know the great men and women of the time. Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas More, the Boleyn family, and that of the Duke of Norfolk are fleshed out credibly, if not totally accurately. Mantel’s Cromwell is an engaging man, and many of his exchanges are light-hearted, and his moments of reflection are self-aware, almost modern.

He moves further into King Henry’s orbit as his career progresses; from vagabond, to lowly soldier, then a banker, a canny lawyer; his skills bring him to the attention of powerful men, until he is recruited to serve Cardinal Wolsey as his trusted advisor, and confidante.

After Wolsey’s demise, the King ‘recruits’ him. He will spend the rest of his life in the King’s service. His musings are of matters as diverse as the King’s appetites, sexual and otherwise; the King’s desire for a son and heir; how to channel money to the treasury, from monasteries he closes in a search for efficiencies. How to keep England solvent.

He discovers that Henry’s great obsession is to find a way to divorce his current wife, and to replace her with a wife who will provide him with a son.

The book engages with the nature of power, and class, with King Henry’s journey from attractive and well-educated companion, to a cruel and tyrannous ruler, where many of his courtiers, and several of his wives, are cast aside, many of them executed.

The transformation is gradual, and the mastery of Mantel’s writing is in the command of the simultaneous strands of momentous change which Cromwell somehow navigates successfully.

As Henry ages Cromwell is tasked with, amongst other things, the break of the English Church from Rome, England’s relations with Spain, France, the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope. He is also tasked with managing the rise of protestant sentiment, especially after Martin Luther’s rebellion against the Church’s corrupt practices.

He becomes the instrument through whom Henry discards and finds wives, and the ‘fixer’ for courtiers, their wives and children; the closing of monasteries and the giving and taking of financial support; he even ensures that the King’s team prevails at jousting tournaments.

His growing knowledge of Henry’s power and of his nature terrifies him, but he is powerless to resist. He is shown as being familiar with Machiavelli’s master work, The Prince. It meshes with Henry’s reputation throughout Europe, as a ruthless tyrant. Nonetheless, Cromwell continues to accumulate property and riches.

Cromwell is portrayed as a basically decent man, who reflects on the often misguided motives of those he is forced to correct. To those who have wandered down the path of overt heresy, he attempts to provide a path to safety; he is disappointed when the help he offers is shrugged off.

His own beliefs are those he knows to be safe. He is not a man to risk his life for a theological dispute.

He is not in a position to defy the King, and so he carries out his orders, sometimes reluctantly. He likes Anne Boleyn for a time, but he does not hesitate to contrive a case against her. He is the ultimate pragmatist, and yet we are on-side with his struggles.

The rich texture of the times, and Cromwell’s place near the centre, is conveyed with power, humour, and a sense of gradually escalating doom.

The writing is powerful, precise and compelling. Mantel has total command of the time, the language, the theological disputes, the families in play against each other, the political realities, the pivotal roles and Cromwell’s progress to the highest positions in the Law, in parliamentary politics, and in the Church.

Her understanding of the relationships between the crowned heads of Europe is also outstanding, as is her depiction of the Tudor family, and Henry’s dealings with his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth.

If you have an interest in history, politics, or religion, then this book is for you. It is the first in a trilogy, and it is a fabulous read.

Australian Politics

Was Pell a decent man? No

2 Comments

George Pell’s funeral in Sydney has shown clearly the divisions within the Australian community at large, the Catholic Church itself, and the conservative side of politics. It all boils down to whether or not Pell was a decent human being.

Aside from the well known path from obscurity to eminence, there is the ongoing debate as to whether he was an innocent victim of ‘the mob’, pursued unfairly to his death, or was he, as Tony Abbott recently stated, “a saint for our times”?

The fact that the ribbons of remembrance were being cut and removed, as quickly as they were put up on the fence surrounding St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, was not a clear-cut battle between radicals and conservatives. The ribbons were placed there to remember the victims of child sexual abuse.

There are diametrically opposed views on Pell’s character, and his legacy, and they cannot both be right. We know a lot about Pell, and it is only fair to look at both sides. The central question is whether he was at the least a facilitator of pedophiles, or was he a spiritual leader for the Catholic Church?

In the matter of whether Pell was a child abuser, he has been ‘tried’ twice.

The first was in The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The second was more personal, in that he was the accused, rather than the church.

The findings of the Royal Commission

The Royal Commission found that: “by 1973, Pell was not only conscious of child sexual abuse by clergy” but that he had “considered measures of avoiding situations which might provoke gossip about it”.

In some cases, he actively moved the perpetrators on. Of course this only facilitated their actions in a whole new area, with no warnings given. He put the interests of the Church (his employer) above those of his charges.

When he later claimed to have been misled on the matter of moving dangerous priests from parish to parish, the Royal Commission found: “We are satisfied that Cardinal Pell’s evidence as to the reasons that the CEO deceived him was implausible. We do not accept that Bishop Pell was deceived, intentionally or otherwise.”

This conscious ‘looking away’ continued for at least two decades. Rogue priests Gerald Ridsdale and Peter Searson, and two Christian Brothers, Edward Dowlan and Leo Fitzgerald, were the subject of complaints and statements that they were abusing children in his region. Subsequent court cases established their guilt.

The Royal Commission’s conclusion was that he was aware of child abuse, particularly within the Victorian diocese of Ballarat, and that he failed to take the required actions to protect children from predatory priests, and other religious staff.

As I have written elsewhere, Pell’s negligence was not about minor infractions. Whatever Pell thought, being raped is not like grazing your knee. You do not ‘get over it’. You suffer, and your family suffers. Your life often spirals out of control, and it often ends in suicide or premature death.

So, if we follow the Royal Commission’s reasoning, Pell was at least guilty of gross negligence, in that he was aware of criminal behaviour, he was in a position whereby he could have stopped the behaviour, and instead he re-located it.

Later on he concocted systems to either deny responsibility, or to lessen liability for the Church. He acted in the best interests of the Church, at the inevitable cost to the victims.

The victims lost their right to be heard, they were ignored or marginalised by the very organisation that their parents had entrusted with their care. Their physical and mental health was often ruined, and one can only speculate about their spiritual journey after their abuse.

It has been argued that Pell’s ‘solutions’ to the Church’s legal woes re-traumatised the victims. The removal of ribbons around the cathedral in Sydney merely reminded many of the disregard the Church has shown, for so long, for victims.

He was acquitted of sexual offences after two trials and two appeals

His other trial was in the courts. He was found guilty, then again at appeal, but the decision was reversed by the High Court.

This sequence of events appears to be the only part of George Pell’s journey that Pell’s supporters remember.

The outcome then is that his supporters ignore the findings of a Royal Commission, but are prepared to accept the findings of the High Court. To suggest that this is ‘cherry-picking’ verdicts is as true as it is bizarre.

He abandoned the children in his ‘care’, although he likened his actions to a trucking magnate whose employee rapes a hitch-hiker. This is a very poor analogy, and it completely ignores the pastoral side of his calling, which roughly translates to a duty of care.

Melissa Davey, writing in the Guardian, quotes Pell’s barrister, Robert Richter as stating that the reason Pell was convicted was “three years of royal commission shit”. He at least acknowledges that there had been a Royal Commission.

The verdict on Pell

George Pell has divided the country, and he will continue to do so. He was found to have facilitated the actions of known pedophiles, by consciously ignoring criminal behaviour, and by moving them on to fresh pastures.

He was charged with sexual offences against children, and eventually acquitted. This does not mean he was innocent. It means that the case was not proved beyond reasonable doubt.

On a moral basis, he spoke of having “not much interest” in hearing accusations against what were his ‘staff’. He seems to have had no understanding of what it takes to manage people, and to protect children. He appears to have had no insight into victims’ suffering, nor that of their family and friends.

For the conservative politicians who are swarming to support Pell, take a look at your own, contradictory position. Abbott, Howard, even Dutton are singing Pell’s praises, while apparently totally ignoring the findings of a Royal Commission.

As politicians they are aware of the legal and moral power of a Royal Commission, and yet two prime ministers and someone wishing to become one, dismiss the institution. I would call that contempt for Parliament, or contempt for logic.

A saint for our times? I would describe Pell as a rather shabby individual who failed on every measure. The fact that the conservative side of politics is now rallying around such a man, proves there is something rotten in our fair land. Children are our most precious resource, and look how they were treated.

Australian Politics

Peter Dutton – a man on a mission, or just a wrecker?

1 Comment

The Liberal Party of Australia continues to present its worst face to the electorate. One would have assumed that Peter Dutton, one of the most unpopular politicians in Australia’s parliamentary history, could not possibly have been elected to lead an already discredited party.

But to the party which selected Tony Abbott in 2009 to the same position, one bad decision is never enough. After disposing of Abbott, who to his credit did actually win an election, they eventually woke up and replaced him with Malcolm Turnbull.

Of course, Turnbull was far too clever to be left in power, so the party chose Scott Morrison to lead them. He was meant to present a more likeable leader than his opponent, Peter Dutton. So far, there is very little to choose between the two. If you are a Liberal voter, you appear to be stuck between a rock, and a hard place.

Dutton’s public pronouncements do not help his cause

Over the years Peter Dutton has sought to present himself as a no-nonsense ‘straight talker’. It is hard to reconcile his public statements with the pleasant, personable man that some of his supporters attest to.

He described the belongings brought to Australia by refugees as, “the world’s biggest collection of Armani jeans and handbags up on Nauru waiting for people to collect it when they depart.”

When commenting on past immigration under Malcolm Fraser, he stated, “The advice I have is that out of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 of those people are from second and third generation Lebanese-Muslim background.”

He decided that “the reality is people (in Melbourne) are scared to go out at restaurants of a night time because they’re followed home by these gangs, home invasions, and cars are stolen and we just need to call it for what it is. Of course, it is African gang violence.”

He was much more sympathetic towards white South African farmers, however. “I do think on the information that I’ve seen, people do need help, and they need help from a civilized country like ours.”

Heaven help them if they should become pregnant, though. “Some people are trying it on. Let’s be serious about this. There are people who have claimed that they’ve been raped and came to Australia to seek an abortion because they couldn’t get an abortion on Nauru. They arrived in Australia and then decided they were not going to have an abortion. They have the baby here and the moment they step off the plane their lawyers lodge papers in the federal court which injuncts us from sending them back.”

This statement was a factor in Shane Bazzi’s tweeting that Dutton was a “rape apologist”. Dutton then sued, and won, only for the original verdict to be overturned on appeal.

Adding to his sense of frustration with migrants, or refugees, or both classes of people not from South Africa, he elaborated on the theme of “anchor babies”, an anti-immigration term popularised in Trump’s America.

This was in relation to two specific children, and their parents of course; Sri Lankan couple Priya and Nadesalingam and their Australian-born daughters Kopika, and Tharunicaa. “It’s been very clear to them at every turn that they were not going to stay in Australia, and they still had children. We see that overseas in other countries, anchor babies…the emotion of trying to leverage a migration outcome based on the children,” he told Macquarie Radio.

Dutton has been accused of being racist

We can only really list his mis-statements, and allow readers to draw their own conclusions.

Dutton walked out on the apology to the Stolen Generation, and proffered the following apology for his boycott, “I didn’t appreciate the symbolism of it, and the importance to Indigenous people.”

He was caught making a joke about the rising sense of doom amongst Pacific Island nations, as they face possible extinction of their homelands, due to climate change: “Time doesn’t mean anything when you’re about to have water lapping at your door.”

Is Dutton just another naysayer?

His grandstanding about the Voice to Parliament is grating, because it seems to be playing a non-existent tune. The Voice has been explained, ad nauseum, as an advisory body, only.

It will not be a third chamber to the Parliament; it will not legislate. It will advise the mostly non-indigenous parliamentarians about purported effects of legislation affecting indigenous Australians. It will not advise on national security, nor will it advise on defence matters.

And yet, ignoring his seeming irrelevance in modern Australian political life, Dutton continues to be treated as if his concerns are real. As the Prime Minister bends further backward to appease Dutton, the rest of us are forced to watch, and listen, as he inches towards understanding.

The remaining two Liberal premiers have now joined the Federal Government, and the other state premiers, in supporting the Voice to Parliament.

Dutton is isolated on policies, and on attitude

So now Dutton is marooned with the likes of the crew at Sky News, and David Littleproud’s strange fringe party. He then made the effort to attend George Pell’s funeral, and he was outraged by the decision to leave King Charles off the $5 note.

These are the current issues which marginalise him even more from mainstream Australia, or at least those voters who are under seventy years of age, and not conspiracy theorists.

Add it to his climate skepticism, and the Liberal Party of Australia is doomed to spend a very long time out on the fringes. It begs the question of how long he can be allowed to make the party not only irrelevant, but one which seems to delight in choosing unpopular causes to champion.

He seems to be channelling Tony Abbott, and we know where that leads.



Australian Politics

Scott Morrison has destroyed the LNP, possibly for generations

5 Comments

Even typing those words leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Will he attempt a come-back? Will his poisonous personality rear up out of the darkness? Or will he pull the pin on his parliamentary career, and move to the U.S., where nobody will know him, and he can make lots of money preaching to the terminally lost souls of the Trumpian world?

It is hard to put into words the dread that Morrison caused in many vulnerable Australians. There was something missing, something which suggested a break in the human connection between Morrison and the rest of us.

The single worst prime minister in our history, aided and abetted by the most aimless, and spineless collection of chancers and rent-seekers ever gathered. And yet he went close to setting up a government which was almost impossible to remove.

The power of the Murdoch press pack is still very much in evidence in Australia, but the rise of the independent media, and the very powerful effect of the twitter sphere, undermined what looked like a forever government.

Anthony Albanese’s day 1 failure to name the unemployment figure also gave rise to fears that Labor’s run would be sabotaged. The performance of the ABC and its political commentators was woeful, probably fuelled by the constant threats of funding cuts, and the intimidation by the Morrison ministry.

But failures in disaster management, naked vote-buying which favoured, as always, LNP electorates; the performance of electoral liabilities like Matt Canavan and George Christensen was a reminder of how low our democracy had fallen.

On any measure now the opposition will continue to be made up of the remnants of the shattered Liberal Party, and also by those in the National Party who escaped annihilation by the skin of their teeth, but are too stupid to know that their time must be nearly up.

Peter Dutton is so spectacularly unsuitable as a leader of anything, that it immediately forces one to cast around for something, anyone, to present an alternative government. Of course looking at Dutton’s performance since rising to the leadership could fill one with despair.

Instead of looking contrite and accepting the crushing verdict of the voters, his first words as opposition leader were to suggest that he would be ‘on hand’ to clean up Labor’s “inevitable mess” in 2025.

No sense of looking for redemption. No shame regarding his own failures, from his first days as a minister. No embarrassment regarding Australia’s fall from grace within the international community. No regrets about the fate of refugees, stranded and victimised by a series of contracted bullies, as Morrison allowed his cabinet to participate in some group cruelty.

Appointing Angus Taylor as the Treasury shadow serves to highlight the lack of able members to choose from. He has a proven difficulty with numbers, a la Clover Moore. He struggled to even pretend that he was committed to reducing carbon emissions.

He is vulnerable on questions of integrity. He has shown a chronic inability to meet deadlines when releasing data and commissioned reports. This all means that possibly the most important role in opposition is being filled by someone who will struggle, especially against such a polished performer as Jim Chalmers.

There was never any acknowledgement that the election was fought on climate action, fixing corruption and a demand for accountable and humane government. Every action the LNP took, from the botched pre-selections in New South Wales, to the last minute weaponisation of prejudice against trans-gender kids, to the excesses and cruelty of Robodebt, added up to a tone-deaf government which people did not just want gone, but one that many actually feared.

The only possible excuse for the conscious bastardry shown by the LNP through nine long years is that they were all struck with a group hysteria, in which they lost their minds, and their moral compasses, in the naked arrogance of never-ending power.

That is why so many in the community, with little or no interest in politics, finally woke up to the nasty excesses, the blame shifting and the outright theft, and mis-use of taxpayers’ funds.

How can we be expected to accept members of parliament with the obvious character flaws of some of the casualties of ‘the reckoning’? For such it was.

We woke up that the leader was from a religious cult, who only this year admitted, through a ‘sermon’ he gave at Margaret Court’s very own church, that he doesn’t believe in government, and thus does not believe in democracy.

As seems the case with the whole of the Pentecostal movement, it is their inability to understand the message of the New Testament which confuses us most.

Was Christ’s movement elitist, obsessed with money and material success, and a ‘closed door’ society? Could you be guaranteed a place in heaven, as long as you were baptised twice? The question must be asked: Do any of them actually read, and understand, the written word?

His beliefs are central to who he is, and they are incomprehensible. They have no connection to the Christianity most of us recognise, whether we believe or not.

The Prosperity Gospel is similarly impossible to reconcile with the ideas of Christ, who was apparently at pains to protect the meek from the powerful, and who espoused the virtue of spiritual grace above material wealth.

Morrison’s depiction of welfare as wrong-headed and immoral is further proof that he was always unsuitable for any position in government. He was, at the end of the day, unable to leave his self-affirming beliefs behind.

Even the Romans knew that at the least the people must be fed. Otherwise they will rise up, and the state will be consumed by revolution and turmoil. Morrison’s appearance at the Robodebt Royal Commission paid lip service to the notion of welfare, but he then had to be the ‘cop on the welfare beat’.

His playbook was spectacularly unsuited to Australian conditions. We are not a nation of religious bigots. We are not a nation of patriarchal misogynists. We are a nation which has always honoured the principles of fairness and justice before the law.

We have always believed that our representatives must act in a manner befitting their high status, and the rewards which accrue to politicians.

Morrison and his ‘vandals’ trashed the conventions, laying bare the lack of regulation and accountability, which had never been so nakedly exposed as it was by the behaviour of the LNP government.

If you are confronted by visions of Barnaby Joyce, apparently the worse for wear railing about whatever the issue of the day was, then Australia’s voters decided to disempower this collection of misfits, and to give the other team a go.

Anthony Albanese is not much of a speaker, and he can stumble on a simple answer, but he appears to be decent, caring, and competent. These qualities are in short supply, and especially on the opposition front bench.

Simon Birmingham is what I would call an old fashioned Liberal. He appears to be decent, caring, and competent. I expect that in the not too distant future, the LNP rump, following a couple more disastrous polls on Dutton and Ley, will decide the neo-liberal far right experiment has failed, and will attempt to reset the coalition.

Sadly the coalition parties have been stripped of talent, and so we could see a Labor government for years to come. That poses a series of future problems. A good government needs a good opposition. Morrison has pretty much made that impossible.

This article has been updated, to better reflect the writer’s current opinion.

Australian Politics

What can the hold-up be?

1 Comment

Considering that the Morrison Government was arguably the worst in Australian history, (apologies to Tony Abbott & Joe Hockey) it is unbelievable that the Albanese Government, seen by so many as the adults come to the rescue of our fair land, should be as paralysed in the face of deadly peril as it is.

Catastrophic Floods

Look at the country in all its distress, and note the lack of urgency. People are being flooded out of their homes almost weekly, and yet the federal government has left the heavy lifting to Dominic Perrottet, a mere slip of a lad who is so far out of his depth that sometimes I feel the need to rescue him. But it is the good folk of the Northern Rivers who need rescuing.

Many of them are homeless, facing more flooding rains, and we dither. The ugly truth in Australia is that politics gets in the way of basic humanity, every single day of the week.

You can almost hear their creaking brains as they weigh up the political costs of doing something, or hoping the approaching summer will make irrelevant the cold hard facts of homelessness, and the total lack of any sort of housing.

Announce (again) a grant of (our) money to an ice cream factory in Lismore; but where is the logic in a decision to look after future employment before we look after the current safety and welfare of the actual residents?

Lift the Basic Welfare Payment, or look after the children!

How many children are going to bed hungry every day, while we agonise over the Stage 3 tax cuts? Who cares about whether wealthy wage earners get a tax cut, when the least well off in the country are starving, or their children are?

And that is if they are blessed to have a roof over their heads. Imagine, as you sweat on your next mortgage interest rise, trying to make the car comfortable enough to sleep in, for yourself, but more importantly, your children.

Argue for a rise, Amanda Rishworth. These children are Australian, and I don’t want them to be hungry, or cold. She trained as a clinical psychologist, and she should know the damage that extreme poverty and homelessness can do to a child’s self-esteem. Life long shame.

Ask Peter Dutton, who seems to have appointed himself as the country’s pre-eminent protector of women and children, how he feels about the situation. Would he be prepared to give up a tax break, for the kiddies?

He certainly wouldn’t help bring home those unfortunate kids living in Syrian refugee camps; of course they are a real threat to our national security. And they are Muslim. They did not choose to live there, and they are entitled to the same protections as Dutton’s own children.

The Pandemic – oh, it’s over!

But of course we cannot ignore the Labor Party deciding that the Chief Medical Officers, at all levels of government, are surplus to requirements. So let Covid-19 rip, it is only killing our parents and grandparents. Talk about a compassion and empathy shortage; there it is, writ large.

Defence spending? Really?

We better get on board the AUKUS submarine deal, which might deliver submarines we don’t need in thirty years. Not to mention the wonderful fighter jets we have ordered, but haven’t been lucky enough to see yet. Oh, and don’t forget the tanks and armoured personnel carriers. So handy, when you consider we live on an island, a long way away from anywhere else.

Let’s give the rich a leg up. They need cheap education

In February 2022 it was reported that funding for private students rose by $3338 per student vs $703 for public schools, in the years between 2010 and 2020. That pretty well covers that topic.

Go and have a look at MLC in Melbourne, and compare its facilities with Hawthorn Secondary College. Why do we persist with this? If you don’t want your little darlings mixing with those of the great unwashed, then you should pay for them to be educated. Fully.

If you can’t afford it, try the state system. You might even be pleasantly surprised. Give all children an even start. We might even be able to rid ourselves of the entitled twits who clog up the education system.

Why do we continue to encourage inequality in the one area where all children should be given equal opportunity. Let’s go for a level playing field, and divert the funds from the uber-wealthy to the needy. That way we all win.

Labor needs to act, and act now. The promise is that if you change the government, you change the country. I see cosmetic changes, and a more likeable group of leaders. But we need to focus more on function, over form.

Australian Politics

Why do we bother electing governments, if they don’t actually care for their citizens?

Leave a comment

This statement sets out Australia’s mission, its task. I found it on the website of the Parliamentary Education Office:

“The Australian Government is responsible for making decisions about how the country is run, including setting a policy agenda, proposing new laws and putting laws into action. The government plays an important role in shaping our society and making sure that Australians have the services and safeguards we need.“

Do we share common aims with other countries?

That is how the Australian Parliament sees government, in a nutshell. It is interesting to note that many commentators in the United States, for example, emphasise the need for governments to ensure a safe society, by maintaining law and order. Some concentrate on defending their borders.

Others around the world, depending on their ideological position, will favour militarism, perhaps nationalistic fervour, or they will look after the better off.

Others, like the Scandinavian countries, are thought to follow democratic socialism principles. Of course in a state where the majority have the vote, the state should ideally reflect the wishes of the people.

Parliamentarians will, instinctively, look to systems, or methods which look after their own constituents. This will allow them to be popular, and incidentally, to look after their own interests.

Often, they do this under the cover of darkness. This is because, at least in democracies, such preferential treatment of selected groups will be seen as anti-democratic, or even corrupt.

Whatever the purpose of government is, it is generally agreed, within democracies at least, that the people’s welfare is paramount.

How are the ‘democracies’ faring?

One would have to question where most democracies are headed. In Europe the rise of right wing populist parties is alarming, and it is clearly targeted at the the less educated, and to those who are older. Many seniors are attracted by nostalgia for old attitudes.

These voters all seem to share a fear of the unknown, the arrival of large numbers of immigrants, who very conveniently are usually of different races, and who profess different religions.

The United States has a large dose of the same, although it can be argued that in Donald Trump they unearthed a brilliant communicator, if you are looking to bridge the gap between the rulers and the ruled. He was able to capture a large proportion of the disaffected, and to take the country to the brink of civil war.

Did neo-liberalism contribute to this malaise?

If neo-liberalism can be said to have ‘taken off’ with the advent of Reagan and Thatcher, then the undermining of the welfare state has progressed significantly.

The aim of “levelling up” has been cast aside, with inequality out of control. The belief in markets has replaced any sense of morality in governing. The people’s good is now down to their ability to compete for basics, such as food and shelter. The reality of ‘society’ as a state of being is now openly questioned.

What about ‘the people’?

There has been a vulgarisation of public discourse, such that the principles of liberty, equality, fraternity have become devalued, even mocked, by the followers of a small school of economists, based at the University of Chicago. It is a debased philosophy, because it places the market above the welfare of the people.

This is the tail truly wagging the dog. It is stupid, and it is without care or compassion, and so, it is inhuman.

Do we want to follow Britain down the plug-hole?

Britain has been useful as an experiment in just how debased neo-liberal economics, taken to its ridiculous limits, can be.

It has effectively dismantled its welfare system; it has hobbled its national health service, during the worst pandemic in a century; withdrawn from the single market in Europe, sent home hundreds of thousands of migrants from Europe, incidentally losing the cultural diversity and intellectual and academic contribution of those migrants, and generally increasing inequality.

The country was already burdened by a rigid class structure, with an hereditary upper house in its parliament, and an hereditary royal family still leeching off the tax system.

Liz Truss has earned universal disrespect and mockery for her laughable assertions regarding tax cuts for the rich. Even that monolith the IMF has seen fit to admonish her, and her witless treasurer, for sabotaging Britain’s fiscal and monetary plans to defeat cost of living rises.

Her decision to borrow to pay for citizens’ energy bills beggars belief. She has consciously chosen to allow the energy companies, which are shamelessly enjoying windfall profits, to continue on their merry way, while she is stealing from taxpayers.

What about Australia?

Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison have similarly ransacked our national wealth for nine years. They have weakened Medicare, lowered taxes on the rich, stolen taxpayers’ funds to fund obscenely rich private schools at the expense of public schools, and gutted our universities.

They also spent billions adding to the fossil fuel companies’ ill-gotten gains, hamstrung climate change mitigation for a decade, and attacked our national cohesion with deliberate trashing of our international treaty obligations, especially regarding refugees, dog-whistling attacks on minorities, started an unnecessary war of words with China, and essentially destroyed our biodiversity so that land clearing can proceed.

But, I hear you say, we threw them out on their ear. We elected a reformist government, in whose DNA flows liberty, equality and fraternity.

We did change governments, but we are still on track to lower taxes to our richest minority. We still subsidise fossil fuel companies. We will not tax them for their ill-gotten gains, and we won’t even consider increasing the welfare payments of the poor.

Even though we know that it causes Australian children to go to bed hungry, and a recent finding that the average rent increase for the last year was $3000. That is, on average, $60 a week in rent alone. Then factor in energy cost rises, higher food costs due to shortages caused by floods, and you have a perfect recipe for a human disaster.

So there have been changes for the better, but this government is seemingly intent on ‘doing a Truss’, and going ahead with stage 3 tax cuts. Spare me from inhumane governments. They need to wake up as to why they exist, at all.

Australian Politics, History essays

Indigenous Australians knew how to look after the land

2 Comments

If we attempt to compare Aboriginal land use with those of the early settlers, we should broaden the meaning of ‘land use’. We should move away from the narrow European notion of agriculture and horticulture, to one which includes religious and cultural associations with the land, and one which allows the skills and the bounty of hunting and gathering to enter the picture.

Another difficulty is that the indigenous Australians, although sharing the same continent, and some cultural traditions, were not all alike. Regional differences in a land so large were bound to be great, though identification with, and care for, the land seems to have been practically universal. With that in mind, Aboriginal attitudes to their land will be treated as roughly uniform.

The common misconception about life in Australia prior to the arrival of the whites, and one which dates back to the time of Captain Cook, is of a race of hungry nomads, constantly ranging over an inhospitable land in search of game, victims of their own lack of industry, and incidentally unfit to lay claim to the land.

This view is now under constant attack, as evidence mounts to show the active participation of the Aboriginal Australians, not only in the management of their own survival, but as agents for change in the greater environment.

As the white arrivals would eventually do, the original inhabitants had built up an economic system which delivered regular surpluses, and allowed the population to grow, albeit at a sustainable rate. ‘They exploited the resources available to them, making the continent into a gigantic farm, but a farm which they worked with an eye to the future.’ (Bolton 1981, p. 8)

Using fire

Fire is the most versatile and important tool that a society of hunter gatherers can use. The original Australians used fire extensively, and as well as flushing out game which sought shelter in scrub, the fire served the purpose of thinning the bush, burning off the old feed, and promoting new growth. This new growth attracted more game next season. Different fire regimes were used throughout the country, with adaptations made for the needs of each locality. (Flood 1983)

Fire was not only used for flushing and attracting game, however. It transformed the landscape, though there is debate as to how much forethought went into that transformation. Major Mitchell, an early explorer, suggested that the Aborigines worked on their ‘runs’, which happened to carry kangaroos and other native species, in much the same way that the later pastoralists would clear ground, and improve pasture for their stock. (Bolton 1981)

The Aborigines actively used fire to promote the growth of ‘crops’ for their own consumption. (Kirk 1981) They also used it to extend the range of, for instance, cycad nuts, by clearing competing vegetation. (Flood 1983)

What did they live on?

The Aborigines did not depend on meat alone to feed them. In a normal year the population in most regions obtained at least half of its energy needs from plant foods. (Blainey 1982)

The methods they used to sustain life were adapted to the ecology of the region in which they lived. These ranged from hunting fat moths in the mountains to catching seals on the coast, from trapping eels in Victoria to cycad harvesting in the north.

They were gifted hunter gatherers. They manipulated their environment so ingeniously that they were able to lead a semi-sedentary life, with regular tribal gatherings and religious festivals. (Flood 1983) It is a long way from the picture of starving wretches stalking kangaroos, for their very survival.

They knew their land intimately, and all that it produced. Their knowledge had been accumulated over sixty thousand years, and their knowledge of botany was arguably their most refined. This may explain how they were able to survive in such a seemingly hostile environment with such aplomb. (Blainey 1982)

A common criticism of their culture decries the ‘fact’ that they never developed formal agriculture. A counter to that criticism is that they were so well-off that they had no need to increase the yield of their foods; nor did they need to store it.

This goes some way toward explaining the feelings that Aborigines have toward their land. They were provided with bounty, as long as they did their duty to the land. For the great unifying theme in Aboriginal Australian life was religion, and the core of that religion was man’s close, symbiotic relationship with the land. As Blainey so eloquently states,

‘Their knowledge of the land and all which it grew was supplemented by a spiritual belief that the earth would not continue to be productive unless they obeyed its rules and its deities. One aim of their religious ceremonies and many of their taboos was to maintain the fertility of the land and its creatures.’ (Blainey 1983, p. 202)

What did white land use look like?

The members of the First Fleet and those who followed them had no such tenderness for the land, or indeed for its original inhabitants. As the Aborigines followed the dictates of their religion, so could the Europeans be seen to be following theirs. As the Bible exhorted them to go forth and multiply, it also provided them with an attitude which separated them from nature, and made them masters of the natural world.

They were the products of a society which held the belief that it was man’s duty to enhance the productivity of the soil. In fact, the notion of the right to own property was inextricably linked to the end use to which that property was put. (Butcher & Turnbull 1988) This served a dual purpose-it legitimised their own exploitation of the land, and it robbed the Aborigines of any claim they might have made to the land, because the imprint of a black hand on the landscape was so subtle.

With legal and moral matters of ownership of the land apparently sorted out, the white invaders then proceeded to ‘farm’ the continent. They were not conspicuously successful to begin with. The Administration at Sydney Cove was sorely pressed to feed all the mouths in the colony. The problem was exacerbated by the urban background of most of the convicts, and of the guards.

They were poor overseers of the land, often because they lacked adequate financial resources and more importantly, they lacked even the most rudimentary rural skills. They had no prospect of learning them either, except by trial and error. Happily the destruction of the environment was limited by their technology. If they did possess any farming experience, it was mostly irrelevant or misleading under local conditions.

They did not realise that the Aborigines’ knowledge and exploitative methods were geared precisely to local conditions, and were the result of thousands of years of study. The land, though seeming to conform to their vision of benign nature, tamed for man’s use, appeared so by virtue of careful husbandry and sustainable use. (Bolton 1981)

The profit motive was present from the beginning, and once mere survival was assured, the principles of capitalist farming were applied. Though they were not ecologically disastrous when used in Britain, Australia’s older soils and specialised flora were no match for the rapacious appetites of 19th century capitalists.

The introduction of cattle and sheep was the beginning of catastrophe for the Australian environment. The first and most significant change was in the texture of the soil. The cloven hooves of the whites’ livestock destroyed the mulch of aeons in a decade. (Rolls 1981)

The vegetation changed, with the native grasses, used to the gentler feeding of the macropods, being destroyed by the different feeding habits of the sheep, especially. Men responded with ‘pasture improvement’, ploughing out the native grasses, using fertiliser and sowing inappropriate exotics. (Rolls 1981)

The trees were the next to go. They were seen as a nuisance by the first settlers, fit only to be cleared, and used for building or farming. Until the gold rushes of the 1850s the destruction was confined to the coastal valleys of New South Wales, but demand for building timbers increased greatly. Improving transport opened up the export for hardwoods, but from the 1860s pastoralists began ring-barking on an unprecedented scale. By 1892 clearance for farms and ring-barking for grazing were the major causes of deforestation. The bush was re-shaped irrevocably to accommodate the interests of graziers and their stock.

The native fauna was also profoundly affected. A quarter of a century after the arrival of the white man, many species faced extinction. Others prospered unnaturally – the balance was upset. The introduction of the domestic dog and cat was calamitous, as was the introduction of goats, pigs, brumbies, foxes and last, but not least, the ubiquitous rabbit.

It is unnecessary to describe the degradation of the environment around towns and cities, but it was at least as complete as that affected by the pastoralists. The gold-fields were even worse, creating waste-lands for miles around. All in all, the impact of the whites on the environment was catastrophic, with most of the damage still with us.

19th century white settlers were not wilful or wanton destroyers of the land. Most of the ecological damage occurred as a result of ignorance, and as a by-product of unthinking agrarian capitalism. There was a mistaken belief that the land was so bountiful as to be inexhaustible.

By contrast the original inhabitants had known all along that the ecology was a delicate thing, which had finite limits. They were not perfect custodians, but their reign of sixty thousand plus years was solicitous and successful. In just over two centuries we have undone much of that good work, and we appear not to be learning anything.

Recent reports of the state of the environment are alarming. Messages are often contradictory. On the one hand lots of hand – wringing from governments intent on demonstrating their environmental bona-fides, clash with draconian laws which criminalise protesters who dare to question logging and land clearing.

It is getting close to midnight when we look at how degraded our country has become, and both sides of politics appear to be in the thrall of the fossil fuel industry. It is an excellent time to actually recognise the need for action, and to end the hypocrisy. Again, “poor fellow our country” needs our collective help.

This article has been updated, as of August 11, 2022