THE DISINTEGRATION OF POLITICS IN AUSTRALIA REPLACED BY IDEOLOGICAL TOTALITARIANISM WHERE GREED AND UNBRIDLED CORPORATE POWER AIM TO MANIPULATE THE MASSES
There have been five polls taken in the last ten days,
following the shooting down of MH17 on Friday 18 July. Prior to MH17,
polls showed Labor leading by about a 54-46 margin. In the immediate
aftermath, Kevin Bonham reports
that the one-week Essential (18-21 July) had a Labor Two Party
Preferred (2PP) of 51%, and ReachTEL was 51.5% 2PP to Labor when
calculating the 2PP from the decimal primaries. However, results from
polls taken later last week, such as Galaxy and Newspoll, show a better
picture for Labor, with only a small movement in Galaxy and none at all
in Newspoll. It thus seems that the MH17 effect may already be wearing
off. Below is the poll table.
polls July
Click to enlarge
A fortnight ago, Kevin Bonham’s poll aggregate was at 53.9% 2PP to
Labor, and it has now dropped to 52.8%. There has been some modest
movement to the Coalition after MH17, but that movement is far less than
what the Coalition would have liked.
Update: The Poll Bludger’s BludgerTrack has Labor’s
2PP at 52.1%, down from 54.1% a fortnight ago. Primary votes are 39.5%
for the Coalition, 37.5% for Labor, 10.4% for the Greens and 6.7% for
Palmer United Party. Abbott’s approval has bounced up from a low base.
Even worse for the Coalition is the polling on economic questions. An August 2013 post from Peter Brent
has graphs of Newspoll’s “Best party to handle economy” question going
back to 2005. The graphs show that the Coalition is generally perceived
as better on the economy, particularly under an incumbent Coalition
government. Even in 2007, with Labor usually in front by massive
margins on voting intentions, the Coalition still led Labor by over 20%
on economic management.
While comparing other polls directly with Newspoll is generally not
good practice, Newspoll has not asked an economy question since the
budget, while three other polls have asked economy-related questions in
the last fortnight. Here are the results of those questions.
A Nielsen better Treasurer question had Joe Hockey only leading Chris Bowen 43-42, down from a 51-34 Hockey advantage in March.
A ReachTEL “best party to manage economy” question had the
Coalition only leading Labor by 43-42, with 5% for the Greens and 10%
for Palmer United Party (PUP). This poll did not have a “don’t know”
option, which may have forced weakly committed voters to choose Labor.
A Galaxy “best leader to manage economy” question had Shorten leading Abbott by a 43-36 margin.
The economy is one of the Coalition’s traditional strengths in
electoral politics. Since Labor tends to be better regarded on health,
education and social policy, the Coalition needs to retain a large lead
on economic management to be competitive.
Notes on These Polls
Galaxy had a silly question comparing Abbott’s MH17 performance
with US President Barack Obama and UK PM David Cameron. Since the focus
of the Australian media has been almost entirely on Abbott’s response
to MH17, most voters would have no clue what either Obama or Cameron
were doing. Unsurprisingly, 48% picked Abbott as having shown most
leadership after MH17, 17% Obama and 7% Cameron. However, on best
leader to represent Australia overseas, Shorten led Abbott 41-39. By a
45-36 margin, voters would support Abbott banning Russian President
Vladimir Putin from the G20 summit at Brisbane in November.
Morgan had Labor leading 54.5-45.5 on respondent allocated
preferences, a slightly better result than the 54-46 lead on previous
election preferences. Relative to other polls, Morgan is leaning to
Labor by about 1.5%.
Despite the lack of movement in voting intentions, Newspoll had
Abbott’s satisfied rating up 5% to 36%, and his dissatisfied rating down
7% to 53% for a net approval of -17, up from -29 last fortnight.
However, Abbott is still unpopular, and voting intentions are more
important than approval ratings. Shorten also had a small boost, going
from a net approval of -9 to -3.
In Essential, 49% thought Putin should not be allowed to attend
the G20, with 29% saying he should be allowed to attend. By a 67-13
margin, voters approved of Abbott’s handling of the MH17 disaster. 43%
say that, following the carbon tax repeal, electricity prices will stay
much the same, while 33% think they will decrease and 16% say they will
increase.
I discussed the ReachTEL poll in my previous post. That post was updated on Thursday 24 July to also include some discussion of recent Queensland and Victorian state polling.
The Abbott Government is leading
Australia down America’s path on a range of social and economic issues,
and holding the reigns is Rupert Murdoch. American writer Vegasjessie
gives us an international perspective on the social damage of Murdoch’s
influence, and the ramifications this could have for Australia.
Denying the climate-change crisis and taking away people’s health
care is not what most Americans want, but the “Murdochracy” is very
persuasive to the contrary.
Pro-war, anti-humanity, pro-pollution is precisely the objective of
the conservatives who are merely puppets of Rupert Murdoch. In addition
to the undying support for the merciless bombing of Gaza by most
American media outlets, Australia’s conservative government is mirroring the sentiments of the GOP and their war-mongering media with its deferential view of the far-right Israeli government.
The impending doom the Affordable Care Act faces in its next Supreme Court battle is
extremely depressing for American Progressives who think health care is
a right, not a privilege. Funny thing, universal health care in
Australia, thanks to the Abbott government, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Rupert Murdoch, is facing a similar battle.
Murdoch argued that true morality lies in the free-market
rather than socialism because “it gives people incentives to put their
own wants and needs aside to address the wants and needs of others.”
(Abbott) praised Murdoch in his IPA speech,
itself weighty with Biblical references, the tradition of politics Tony
Abbott has embraced was clear – that of obstinacy, demagoguery, and
dogmatism. Reforms promised by Abbott during the speech included
privatizing Medibank; the state-owned private health insurer for over
three million Australians, and repealing Section 18C of the Racial
Discrimination Act.
Sound depressingly familiar?
Crazy Murdoch disciples will burn this planet alive (image via crooksandliars.com)
The idea that Americans reject equality, health care for all, or any
restraints on emissions is parroted by our media, which is very much in
danger of monopolization by Murdoch. The efforts to purchase Time-Warner will continue. To create more capital, Rupert is selling his lesser assets:
Britain’s BSkyB agreed to pay $9 billion to buy Murdoch’s pay-TV
companies in Germany and Italy. Fox is expected to use the proceeds to
fuel its pursuit of Time Warner.
The abolition of the carbon tax by Australia last week was the first
industrialized nation to take a giant step backward in the efforts to
curtail man-made climate change. As Rupert owns 70% of
the Australian media, this was easily accomplished, much to the horror
of every scientist not in the employ of the Fox empire. In America,
According to USA Today/Stanford University polling,
73 percent of Americans believe in climate change and 52 percent of
Americans say that it will be a “very serious” problem if we don’t
implement policies to reduce it (as opposed to 10 percent who say that
climate change will be “not serious at all”).
When anti-climate change legislation is presented by the Murdochracy
as an essential component to protect people’s delicate finances,
America, like Australia, is going down a dark path, all thanks to a
megalomaniacal 83 year old who won’t be around to live in the awful
world he is helping to destroy. With the track record of our Supreme
Court, it wouldn’t be surprising if “clean coal” wins a massive law suit
against those damned scientists who report on facts in the
not-too-distant future.
Work for dole schemes no help in finding jobs, says expert
Date
8 reading now
Gareth Hutchens Anna Patty Dan Harrison
One of Australia's most respected workplace economists says
there is no evidence that ''work for the dole'' schemes actually work,
accusing the federal government of expanding the program for political,
rather than economic, reasons.
The Abbott government will force job seekers to look for 40 jobs a month
and perform up to 25 hours of community service as part of a new job
placement program, set to begin on July 1, 2015.
Details of the three-year, $5.1 billion program were released on Monday,
along with an overhaul of the country's work for the dole program.
Assistant Employment Minister Luke Hartsuyker said taxpayers expected
the unemployed to be looking for work, and that it was ''not
unreasonable to expect job seekers to be out there looking for work,
every working day''.
But Professor Jeff Borland from the University of Melbourne - who
conducted the only empirical study of the Howard government's work for
the dole scheme - says years of research show such schemes are unlikely
to help people find jobs.
''The international evidence is overwhelming,'' he said. ''It's hard to
believe that the government couldn't understand that this isn't the best
way to improve people's employability.
''I guess you have to conclude that there are other reasons for wanting
to expand the program, and the title of the scheme [work for the dole]
suggests it's being done for political reasons.''
Under the government's proposed overhaul, job seekers younger than 30
will be ineligible for welfare payments for six months after applying
for benefits, and they will have to work 25 hours a week for six months
of the year. Those between 30 and 49 will be asked to do 15 hours' work a
week for six months a year, while those aged 50-60 will undertake 15
hours a week of an approved activity, such as training. But young job
seekers will also be required to apply for 40 jobs a month and meet
other activity requirements for unemployment benefits.
The Business Council of Australia said it welcomed parts of the
government's new model, such as the clearer targeting of assistance for
people most in need, and the focus on rewarding job outcomes, but more
action would be needed to find the right balance in connecting job
seekers with employers.
''We are concerned about the practicality of asking people to apply for
40 jobs each month in the current softening labour market,'' BCA chief
executive Jennifer Westacott said.
NSW Business Chamber chief executive officer Stephen Cartwright said the
government was right to espouse the principle of mutual obligation,
saying there was no doubt some welfare recipients did not want to work,
but added: ''I am not convinced that firing off 40 random job
applications each month, regardless of the suitability of those jobs or
the likelihood of success, is sound policy.''
David Thompson, the chief executive of Jobs Australia, which represents
non-profit employment service providers, said he could not see how some
young job seekers would be able to survive under the regime.
The Abbott government is using money and law to close down criticism and gag the community’s most trusted voices.
AAPIMAGE
Attorney-General George Brandis.
There was something missing from the revised
service agreements under which the federal government provides funding
to community legal centres around Australia, recently sent out to
140-odd such organisations.
The old clause five was gone. That was the one that began: “The
Commonwealth is committed to ensuring that its agreements do not contain
provisions that could be used to stifle legitimate debate or prevent
organisations engaging in advocacy activities.”
The old clause five went on to stress that: “[N]o right or obligation
arising under this Agreement will be read or understood by the
Commonwealth as limiting the Organisation’s right to enter into public
debate or criticism of the Commonwealth, its agencies, employees,
servants or agents.”
It also stipulated that there was no obligation to obtain any advance
approval from the government before going public with any criticism.
But when the Abbott government’s revised agreements went to the
organisations in mid-June, all of that was gone. Instead, the new
conditions, which came into force on July 1, specifically state that
organisations cannot use Commonwealth money for any activity directed
towards law reform or advocacy.
Not surprisingly, the sector sees this as a retrograde step. So do
the Labor Party, which inserted clause five into the agreements, the
Greens and the majority of state governments.
The Productivity Commission, in its recent interim Access to Justice
report, found advocacy was actually an efficient use of resources.
That’s because it addressed systemic issues rather than just individual
cases. Thus “by clarifying the law it can also benefit the community
more broadly”.
Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, QC, agrees. “CLCs and legal aid
commissions are best placed, from their work, to observe when reform
might aid not just their immediate clients, but thousands of others in
the community.”
Indeed, over the years a long list of worthwhile reforms, from
tenancy laws to laws relating to domestic violence, have been driven by
community legal organisations.
Even Attorney-General George Brandis, QC, under sharp questioning
from Greens senator Penny Wright in a senate estimates committee in May,
said he “did not dispute” that advocacy “may be a useful thing … may be
a desirable thing”.
Given the tight budgetary circumstances, however, the “frontline
services” of representing clients had to take priority, he said. And
that’s why the government was moving to ensure its money was not used
for advocacy.
Few people close to the issue believe Brandis was giving a straight answer.
“The government was saying they would not be cutting frontline
services, only policy and advocacy work,” says Michael Smith, convenor
of the National Association of Community Legal Centres.
“They then cut about $8 million, or about 20 per cent, out of
community legal services, and most of that comes out of frontline
services. They are using the policy and advocacy line as a way of
justifying these cuts.”
The Abbott government is following the course set by the Howard
government, which was dogged in its efforts to ensure the non-profit
sector was prevented from voicing unwelcome opinions. Contracts with
community sector organisations routinely included gag clauses and
reserved the right to censor public statements before they were
released.
After Howard lost the 2007 election, the incoming Labor government
immediately began rewriting thousands of contracts with the non-profit
sector, removing the gag. But it was only in its dying months, in May
2013, that the previous government managed to put this independence into
legislation, through the non-profit sector freedom to advocate bill.
Nonetheless, the gags are coming back, if in somewhat modified form.
While the government cannot – because of that legislation – completely
prevent advocacy by community law centres, it can insist that no money
it provides is used for the purpose. If these groups want to advocate,
they can fund it with money from other sources, or do it, as Brandis
suggested in estimates, in their spare time.
Gag clauses, though, are just one means by which the government can seek to stifle advocacy.
“There is any number of ways, if the activities of a charity are
inconvenient to the government of the day, that they can make it
difficult for those charities,” says Elizabeth McKinnon, a lawyer for
the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Using the tax authorities to go after them, for example. She and
others in the non-profit sector look worriedly to the situation in
Canada, where Tony Abbott’s ideological soul mate, Prime Minister
Stephen Harper, in 2012 ordered the Canada Revenue Agency to audit a
large number of charities, with the threat of action including the
removal of the charitable status of those deemed to be diverting too
much of their resources to “political” activity.
Environment groups appear to have been the main target, although a
wide range of other organisations, working in the areas of animal
welfare, education, health, human rights and even poverty alleviation,
have been subject to audit. The process has had a predictably chilling
effect on charitable advocacy.
Back in the latter days of the Howard government, the tax office
moved to revoke the charitable status of AidWatch, an organisation that
researches, monitors and, importantly, campaigns to generate public
debate about the effectiveness of foreign aid.
The commissioner’s reasons for going after AidWatch were essentially
that it did not itself distribute aid and thus was not charitable, and,
second, its objective of generating public debate amounted to a
political purpose.
It went all the way to the High Court, where the tax office lost.
AidWatch’s activities were deemed legitimately charitable in that it was
acting in pursuit of a public good.
Subsequently the Labor government put up legislation defining
charities and the purposes of non-profits that could be deemed
charitable.
“When we worked on the new definition of charity, we actually had the
AidWatch case written into the explanatory memorandum of the bill,
because if it was ever legally questioned, there was a listed example
from the court,” says David Crosbie, the Community Council for
Australia’s chief executive. “So the new definition of charity, which
came into force January 1 this year, was that if you were involved in
advocacy, provided you were not a political organisation, and the
advocacy benefited your purpose, you were fully entitled to engage.”
That has not stopped the tax office trying again.
“The most recent case was in the [Federal] court a couple of weeks ago, relating to the Hunger Project,” says Crosbie.
“They said it wasn’t a charity because it didn’t provide direct
services. The Hunger Project raises money to support other charitable
projects aimed at reducing hunger overseas. The ATO lost that case, just
as they lost the AidWatch case.”
The most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics data show that at the
end of last year, there were about 58,000 active non-profit
organisations around the country, employing about 1.1 million people,
turning over more than $107 billion, and growing at a rate of about
8 per cent a year.
Of those, the majority – about 45,000 – have “deductible gift
recipient” status, meaning people can claim donations against their
taxes. And these organisations also get exemption from other taxes, such
as fringe benefits tax.
So it’s not hard to see why the tax office would be gunning for
charities: they represent a very large and very fast-growing leakage of
revenue. Nor is it hard to see why a cash-strapped government would be
concerned, even absent ideological considerations.
But, of course, there are ideological considerations.
Only a couple of weeks ago, at a meeting of the Liberal Party’s
federal council, MP Andrew Nikolic moved that “eco charities be treated
as corporations under consumer and competition law” and “should not be
eligible for deductible gift recipient status when advocating political
issues”.
The motion passed unanimously.
And while Nikolic’s resolution targeted green charities in
particular, there is no doubt the government is working assiduously to
shut down inconvenient advocacy wherever possible.
Just a couple of weeks after this year’s budget, Immigration Minister
Scott Morrison cut off funds to the Refugee Council of Australia,
saying the government did not think “taxpayer funding should be there to
support what is effectively an advocacy group”.
A number of other outspoken organisations in a range of areas also lost funding in the budget.
At least the community legal centres still have some money, albeit
reduced and with strings attached. The state Environmental Defenders
Offices don’t.
“Environmental Defenders have generally lost all of their federal
money and some have also in some cases lost state money,” says Smith,
whose organisation also covers EDOs.
Some have found other ways of getting resources, essentially by
crowdfunding. “Some of the smaller ones may struggle for resources,”
Smith says. “But I don’t think it will shut them up. The government may
yet find them to be stronger advocates against elements of government
policy than they used to be.”
The Coalition parties never supported the charities act, and
initially wanted to repeal it, as well as abolish the new body set up to
administer it, the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission.
“They seem to have gone very quiet about repealing the act,” says Ann
O’Connell, a tax expert from the Not-for-Profit Project at Melbourne
Law School. She suggests that is because the government has now “become
aware” that the court decisions on charitable status would hold up, even
if the act was gone.
But the government remains committed to getting rid of the
commission, even though the commission is overwhelmingly supported by
the sector. In its place, the Abbott government would give
responsibility to the tax office.
“What we are seeing,” says David Ritter, the chief executive of
Greenpeace Australia, “is a government pursuing everything it can think
of in an agenda to control and silence civil society. And that should be
of concern to all Australians.”
Defunding it, gag-clausing it, threatening its tax-deductibility. And potentially, says Ritter, criminalising it.
He refers to the Competition Policy Review, now being headed by
former businessman Maurice Newman, not a noted friend of the
environment.
A number of members want to change the secondary boycott provisions
of the competition and consumer act, which currently exempt actions by
consumer and environment groups.
If that were to happen, organisations would be breaking the law if
they advocated that consumers avoid using certain products. They could
not advocate boycotts, for example, of unsustainable fisheries, palm oil
products from plantations where rainforest had been knocked down, or
paper products produced from old-growth forests.
The review is due to be complete before the end of the year.
Would the government go so far as to actually criminalise advocacy? A
broad coalition of environment, welfare and other groups is taking the
threat very seriously and is now lobbying furiously.
Yet not only are these organisations – community legal centres,
environmental defenders and other non-profits – often the most publicly
trusted critics of government policy, they are frequently sought out by
government for their expertise.
“I can’t tell you how often governments have come to us over the
years seeking our involvement in policy work, or advice on improving
their practices,” says Michael Smith. “Now, we’re not supposed to be
having those conversations.”
For most of my working life I worked in marketing and advertising
so I know how people are influenced, persuaded or swayed by such things
as branding and repetitive advertising or recurring bullshit.
Companies spend millions of dollars to subtly brainwash you. To align
you with a certain brand or product. They will use all manner of
persuasive techniques including sex and deceptive packaging to solicit
your good will and loyalty. They even measure the eye blink rate of
women from hidden cameras in supermarkets to test color reaction. Yes
it’s that sophisticated. And brand loyalty is what they want. There are
more psychologists employed in advertising in America than in the health
industry. It is all calculated to take power over your decision-making.
Likewise, political parties want your loyalty, or at least they want
to convince you that they are working in your best interests. They use
the same repetitive techniques.
If you tell a lie often enough people will believe you. Asylum seekers are “illegal” and “she told a lie”, are but two examples.
The Abbott Government has taken persuasion to another level employing
37 communication and social media specialists to monitor social media
and offer strategic communications advice costing taxpayers almost $4.3
million a year. In addition Scott Morrison’s departments employ more
than 95 communications staff and spin doctors, costing at least
$8million a year. In Morrison’s case it’s about protecting a slogan.
Nothing else.
That’s a lot of people to sell the brand, spin lies, omissions,
monitoring social media and telling deliberate falsities. It’s about
creating or promoting perceptions (rather than realities) about your
political brand as opposed to that of your competitor. There are a
number of ingredients in “successful” political
branding. The product needs a positive image, and a leader with
character who is surrounded by positive motivated people. A fair dose of
charisma is helpful but not entirely essential. What is essential is a
well thought out narrative that the electorate can relate too and
policies that are explainable. Even if they involve some pain. It
doesn’t require popularism so long as it has credibility. John Howard
was never popular but he had the perception of creditability.
Unfortunately the Abbott government and its ministers are nothing
more than a compliment to mediocrity and intellectual barrenness. The
brand has its genesis in contemptuous negativity and has failed to apply
a label to any policy.
Its front bench is full of colorless dour depressive uninspiring
type’s intent on implementing a budget representative of their
collective pessimism and unfairness. The collective personalities of
Abbott, (a self-confessed and proven liar and a PM for undoing) Pyne,
(Arguably the most hated politician in Australia.) Brandis, (An Attorney
General who believes bigotry is fine) Abetz, (Needs a personality
transplant) Hockey, (A serial blamer of everyone else) Joyce,
(Potentially our next deputy PM. OMG.)Dutton, (Cannot shake of his
copper image) Hunt, (No credibility on Climate Change after writing a
thesis supporting a tax.)Morrison (The un Christian Christian. Don’t say
I said that. It’s a secret.) Robb (Still wanting Joes Job) Truss (soon
to retire) and Cormann (Can’t throw off the accent) reads like a list of
appointments from a Psychiatrist who specialises in personality
disorder.
In terms of image they all come across as, indignant angry men with
chips on their shoulders. Make that logs. Haters of science and
progressive policies. And some like Bernardi downright extreme.
In Abbott’s case you have to wonder if Australia has ever elected a
Prime Minister so ignorant of technology, the environment and science.
So oblivious of the needs of women and so out of touch with a modern
pluralist society.
In the latest Fairfax polling
the Labor Party leads the LNP by 8 percentage points. More alarming
though is the Prime Ministers popularity. Or more accurately his lack of
it. And Mr Abbott’s trustworthiness stands at a record low 35 per cent
Of course they have two women but one could endlessly debate who
comes across as the bitchiest. At least they have two female ornaments
if nothing else. The best public relations company in Australia couldn’t
do much with the individual images of that lot.
“Australian political history is filled with the incompetence of unexceptional conservative men with born to rule mentalities.”
It’s hard to promote a political brand that blames everyone else,
lies continuously, won’t listen to advice, is secretive, won’t
compromise and is full of its own self-importance. Never in Australian
political history has a budget been so motivated by ideology. The result
has been a public backlash of monumental proportion which is reflected
in the polls. So blind is Abbott to his own shortcomings as a leader
that he cannot see how badly he and his cabinet are governing.
Despite ongoing support from the right wing media, Murdoch publications
and the shock jocks who have been intent on selling brand Tony, nothing
is working for them. Social Media is leading the criticism. With the
young in particular seeming to hate the Abbott brand with a vengeance.
Former Conservative UK Environment Minister Lord Deben had this to say.
“I think the Australian Government must be one of the
most ignorant governments I’ve ever seen in the sense, right across the
board, on immigration or about anything else, they’re totality unwilling
to listen to science or logic”.
From an advertising agencies
point of view you would have to sell an awful lot of bullshit to bring
the Abbott brand up to scratch and at the same time risk your
reputation. But for the right price I’m sure one would have a go.
With an unprecedented fervour, the government is filling boards and commissions with old cronies.
REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte
Prime Minister Tony Abbott
It was nothing personal. New attorney-general
George Brandis made that quite clear on October 25, announcing the
forced resignation of ABC journalist Barrie Cassidy from his new job as
chairman of the Old Parliament House Advisory Council.
It was a matter of principle. Cassidy understood that, Brandis said
in his media release, and “accepted the importance of the Museum of
Australia [sic] Democracy [in Old Parliament House] maintaining its
apolitical and nonpartisan character”.
To have someone in the job currently engaged in politics, even if
only as a political journalist, was “not consistent with that
character”, Brandis said. The Insiders host, appointed to the non-paying gig just a couple of months earlier, was out. Sacrificed to high principles.
So it was portrayed. Then, on December 12, Brandis put out another media release, announcing Cassidy’s replacement: David Kemp.
Not only is Kemp a long-time spear-carrier for the Liberal Party’s
dominant right wing, he’s a former Liberal minister and continues to
practise politics through his work with the right-wing think tank the
Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).
Even at the time of the announcement, he was working for the
Liberals, putting together a report on the party’s senate performance in
the 2013 election.
Along with Kemp, two others were appointed: Heather Henderson, the
only daughter of Liberal Party founder Sir Robert Menzies; and Sir David
Smith, whose place in history was assured on November 11, 1975, on the
steps of Old Parliament House, when as official secretary to
governor-general Sir John Kerr he was required to read out the
proclamation sacking the Whitlam government. Smith is a crusty old
conservative, monarchist and stalwart defender, over the subsequent
decades, of Kerr.
The appointments made a mockery of Brandis’s excuse for dumping
Cassidy. They also served as one of many examples of the pettiness of
the new government in its rush to install its own people.
Of course, the make-up of the advisory board for Old Parliament House
is hardly a big deal, except as an iconic – and ironic – indicator of
the Abbott government’s narrowness. The Museum of Australian Democracy,
set up to document and celebrate a vigorous, diverse young democracy, is
now overseen by three insular, Anglo partisans whose average age is 80.
Indeed, the board is atypical in only one way: it includes a woman.
And that’s the real point here. Not so much that the new government
rushed to find jobs for the boys, but that the boys were selected from
such a small and homogenous pool of people. Overwhelmingly they were
older, male, heavily ideological, and closely affiliated with either the
Coalition parties, right-wing think tanks or vested interests in
industry. Or all three.
Donnelly, the IPA-aligned former chief-of-staff to Kevin Andrews, is a
cultural warrior. In a slew of books, opinion pieces and other writings
over the years, he has argued that the Australian school system is
failing. And the reason: schools have been taken over by radical
educators who see their role as being to “liberate students by turning
them into new-age warriors of the Cultural Left.”
He was just the man, in the view of Education Minister Christopher
Pyne, to co-chair – along with another conservative, Ken Wiltshire – a
review of the Australian school curriculum.
We haven’t seen the results of that review yet, but it’s probably
fair to say most reputable educators are dreading it. In the meantime,
Donnelly made news on Tuesday by opining to the Fairfax media that
corporal punishment, properly used, was a very effective way of
disciplining kids. Even Pyne had to walk away from that one: Donnelly’s
were personal views, not endorsed by him “in any form”.
Consider also the National Commission of Audit, chaired by the former
head of the Business Council of Australia (BCA), Tony Shepherd, aged
69.
Such commissions have become something of a tradition for incoming
governments, a tool used to portray their predecessors as fiscally
unsound and to lay the groundwork for unpopular cuts. They are mostly
bogus exercises, although the original template, conducted in 1992 by
the Kennett government in Victoria, was a genuine – if tough – response
to a genuine crisis.
The Shepherd audit commission was not like the Kennett one, though.
It came out like a wish list of BCA/IPA policy prescriptions, neatly cut
and pasted, but not very well backed by facts.
To cite just one example: there was a recommendation for a $15
co-payment for patients visiting GPs, justified on the basis that the
average person went to the doctor 11 times a year. Shepherd notably said
he couldn’t believe Australians were “that crook”.
And Australians are not, in fact, that crook. On average they go to the doctor about half that often.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the government’s intent in
appointing its heavily ideological commission was to soften us up, so
when the budget included a Medicare co-pay of $7, rather than $15, we
would be relieved. Former Liberal senator Amanda Vanstone and Liberal
staffer and Chicago-school economist Peter Boxall were on the
commission’s panel. Peter Crone, director of policy at the BCA, was head
of the secretariat.
But if the purpose was to scare the populace into accepting tough
budget medicine, it didn’t work. The Australian public was still
appalled by the budget’s cuts.
The commission report quickly disappeared from view, at least until
this week, when Treasurer Joe Hockey, miffed at the senate’s refusal to
pass large parts of the budget, suggested he would be forced to look for
other cuts. The Labor opposition immediately dusted off the more
extreme suggestions of the audit commission and challenged Hockey to
endorse them. The whole exercise was a spectacular misfire.
The audit report was also a sloppy piece of work in the assessment of
one of Australia’s better-respected economists – a former Liberal and
one of the architects of the Kennett audit commission – Saul Eslake.
“I didn’t think it was particularly impressive, in a number of ways,”
says Eslake, chief economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Australia. “First, there were no costings. It’s extraordinary that they
could make a report like that without numbers. Second, while some
recommendations, such as lifting the aged pension, were thoroughly
argued, there were a lot that were simply assertions.”
Referring to his time doing a similar job for Kennett, Eslake says:
“We were very careful to argue the case on the facts. But a lot of the
things that were in the [Shepherd] audit commission report were just
ideology, taken as givens.”
You could sum up the attitudes of many of the Abbott government’s
appointees with the old joke: “My mind’s made up, don’t confuse me with
facts.”
And in no area is this truer than in the matter of climate change.
Shepherd is a climate sceptic. So is the head of Tony Abbott’s
12-member Business Advisory Council, Maurice Newman, aged 76, a former
head of the stock exchange and the ABC and a founder of another of the
right-wing think tanks, the Centre for Independent Studies.
David Murray, 65, the former CEO the of Commonwealth Bank, and the
head of the government’s Financial System Inquiry, is another outspoken
non-believer in human-caused global warming, though his inquiry’s first
report has shown rare independence of thought.
Of course, these people, being agents of the government but not
actually part of it, can freely express their denialist views.
Scientific reality and public opinion dictate that those in the ministry
can no longer dismiss climate change as “crap”, as Abbott once did. But
that does not prevent sly action to try to ensure nothing much is done
about it.
Which brings us to the panel announced in mid-February by environment
minister Greg Hunt and energy minister Ian Macfarlane to review
Australia’s 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target (RET). It is being led
by another outspoken climate change denier, Dick Warburton, 72, the
former chairman of the petrochemical company Caltex, among other
corporate affiliations.
Of the remaining three members on the review panel, none was from the
alternative energy sector. Apart from Warburton, Brian Fisher is the
most interesting. Under his leadership, the efforts of the Australian
Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) at
climate modelling were heavily funded by industry. Since leaving that
job, he has furthered his connections with the oil and gas industry.
Renewable energy advocates have called for his removal from the
review panel on the basis that he is hopelessly conflicted. Modelling
done by his firm has been presented to the panel by the oil and gas
sector, as part of its campaign against the RET.
Such apparent conflicts are commonplace among Abbott government appointees.
Perhaps the most glaring is another Brandis appointment. In his
previous employment with the IPA, Tim Wilson called for the abolition of
the Human Rights Commission. Now he’s Human Rights Commissioner,
pulling a salary of some $400,000 inclusive of perks.
There are a couple of other Brandis specials. As discussed in The Saturday Paper
in more detail a couple of weeks ago, he appointed Gerard Henderson,
68, founder of the Sydney Institute, former chief-of-staff to John
Howard and indefatigable culture warrior, as chairman of the judging
panel for the nonfiction and history category of the Prime Minister’s
Literary Awards, Australia’s richest book prize.
Brandis was apparently untroubled by Henderson’s long, deep and
public animosity towards many of Australia’s foremost practitioners in
the field. Also appointed was another former Liberal MP, Peter Coleman,
85.
The latest manoeuvres in the long right-wing campaign to nobble the national broadcaster further illustrate the point.
The ABC is particularly problematic for Coalition governments. While
they and their supporters in the Murdoch media hate it, the public
overwhelmingly supports it. The ABC is by far the most trusted media
organisation in the country.
John Howard tried effecting change from the top, appointing a Liberal
chairman, Donald McDonald. But McDonald turned out to be a fair-minded
defender of the organisation. In 2006 he was replaced by the
aforementioned Maurice Newman. Still, the right was dissatisfied. Indeed
the godfather of climate change denialism, Lord Christopher Monckton,
publicly decried Newman in 2011 as “a shrimp-like wet little
individual”. A badge of pride, perhaps.
The previous Labor government, in an effort to entrench the ABC’s
independence, set up what was supposed to be a new, arm’s-length system
for appointing board members, under which a four-member nomination
panel, appointed by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, would
present a shortlist of recommendations to the government for ABC and SBS
board positions.
But if you can no longer directly stack the board, you can do so
indirectly. Thus a couple of weeks ago, two new members were added to
the nomination panel. One was Janet Albrechtsen, News Corp columnist and
strident critic of the ABC’s alleged left-wing bias – she thinks it a
“Soviet-style workers’ collective”. A woman, and only 47. The other was
former Liberal federal minister Neil Brown, QC, 74, who has previously
declared that the only way to finally fix the public broadcaster is to
sell it off.
The secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Ian Watt, reportedly decided the appointments himself.
Says Saul Eslake: “The people who run this government, as you will
have noticed, like picking fights. In a sense they’re like the old NSW
[Labor] right. They have long memories and they’re good haters.”
Even compared with the Howard government, he says, they are “very tribal”.
Indeed. An old, rich, white, blokey tribe of culture and class warriors. And they look after their own.
(Clockwise from top
left) Japanese P.O.W. execution, American prisoners of the Japanese, and
Abe and Abbott pose crotch out together in the Pilbara. Tony Abbott caused outrage by lauding the war honour of the Japanese military when Shinzō Abe was in Australia last week.Noel Wauchope takes a close look at Abe's honour.
While in Canberra, Australia’s Senate was in turmoil last Wednesday
over Tony Abbott’s second attempt to carry out his central policy of
“axing the carbon tax”, where was Tony Abbott?
"You can indeed see that Japan and Australia is in a mutually idealistic, complementary relationship."
I had already been feeling more than a little nauseated by the
reception given by the Abbott government, with Abe starring at a joint
sitting of Parliament, being feted by both sides of politics. That
couldn’t have happened in America, nor in South Korea — nor, of course,
in China, or in several Asian nations.
Tony Abbott and the Australian parliament seem to be oblivious of
this. Is there some kind of collective amnesia in Australia? Though it
is a long time ago, the facts remain about Japanese atrocities in World War 2
and of Japan's inadequate or non-existent apologies for these, as well
as lack of reparations. What has made this situation worse, has been the
record of Shinzō Abe's attempts to minimise or deny these atrocities.
In 2007, Abe provoked fury when he publicly questioned whether the Comfort Women were, in fact, coerced. Japan did make a partial apology in 1993, but Abe has been re-examining the study
that was the basis of the apology. He is continuing his efforts to deny
Japan's wartime government and military established and ran the brothel
system, and that the women were forced into the system against their
will.
From 1932 until 1945, up to 200,000 women, from Korea, Japan and the Dutch East Indies, were enslaved by the The Japanese Imperial Army.
These women and girls, some only 12 years old, were abducted – in some
cases, bought from their impoverished parents – and taken to ‘comfort
stations’ throughout the Pacific and kept for months on end as sex
slaves.
The war crimes of the Japanese Imperial Army occurred in many Asian countries during the 1930s and 1940s, but
predominantly in China. The Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million
Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at
least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese.
"The crimes include killing, arresting, enslaving and poisoning
the Chinese people, raping Chinese women, manufacturing biological
weapons, releasing poison gas, destroying towns and villages and
expelling peaceful inhabitants."
Since the 1950s, the Japanese Government has made a number of apologies.
'... comments and actions on controversial historical issues by
Prime Minister Abe and his Cabinet have raised concern that Tokyo could
upset regional relations in ways that hurt U.S. interests.'
The largest and worst treated group was the Chinese. Their soldiers
were killed literally by the thousands — by shooting, buried alive
bayonetting, beheading, medical experimentation and other ways. Chinese
civilians were murdered in even greater numbers.
And, of course, American, Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch, Indian and Filipino POWs were starved, brutalized and used for forced labour.
It is, therefore, understandable that Shinzō Abe is not welcomed,
like he was by the Australian Parliament last week, by the U.S.
Congress or the National Assembly of South Korea.
But what of the 20,000 Australian soldiers taken prisoner by the Japanese in 1942?
Many were taken from Singapore and Java to various locations in Burma and Thailand.
More than 12,000 slaved on the Burma Railway, in horrendous conditions — close to 3,000 of them to their deaths.
Australian soldiers were forced to move two cubic metres of
earth, regardless of their level of health, size, or physical
capabilities. They were given no tools and were usually without shoes or
clothes, other than underpants, swimming trunks or handmade loin
cloths.
As well as enduring the dreadful living conditions, poor food,
diseases, tropical ulcers, and the relentless 24 hour work shifts, they
were cruelly treated ....
[They] were hit anywhere and everywhere - in the groin, on ulcers and wounds, broken bones, faces, necks, backs ....
The Japanese guards often punished the sick and injured as a deterrent to falling ill in the first place....
2,646 died of starvation, disease, exhaustion, and brutality.
Many Australians are not happy with Tony Abbott's government's sycophantic attitude towards Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe.
Addressing the Parliament on the visit of Abe, Tony Abbott admired the skill, and the "sense of honour" of Japanese submariners.
I am appalled that the Abbott Government is apparently oblivious to
the international reputation of Shinzō Abe, as one who would
conveniently sweep history under the carpet.
"We have an everlasting responsibility for the crimes of
national-socialism, for the victims of World War II, and above all, for
the Holocaust."
Australia's international relations are not well served by the way that Abbott has cosied up to Shinzo Abe.
For a start, we might consider Australia's largest trading partner, China.
Trade Minister Andrew Robb, speaking on Sky News’s Australian Agenda
on July 14, assured viewers that Australia's new special relationship
with Japan is not affecting our relationship with China. This whitewash
was definitely sullied on 9 July by China's official newsagency, which described Abbott's praise of Japanese forces in World War 2 as 'appalling' and 'insensible' and 'under a moral bottom line'.
After signing a Free Trade Agreement with Japan, the address to our Parliament about a strategic defence alliance, and
with Australia gearing up to buy Japanese defence equipment and
technology, we might just wonder not only about the wisdom of aligning
Australia militarily with a newly non-pacifist Japan, but also with a historical revisionist, far rightwing firebrand such as Shinzō Abe.
