25 posts tagged “australian politics”

A week ago I noted Peter Hartcher's piece on Alexander Downer in the SMH, and today it appears as though Lord Downer has been granted the right of reply -

The tragedy of much public commentary in Australia is that it is blatantly anti-conservative, fascinated with trivia and, when it comes to conservatives, rich with personal abuse.

Peter Hartcher's retrospective last week of my 12 years as foreign minister was a case in point. For any commentator who is a self-styled serious analyst of Australian foreign policy to reduce a dozen years of diplomacy to a tirade of personal abuse is to reveal a stark and embarrassing anti-intellectual bigotry.

Fairly standard sort of stuff follows, "I wasn't that bad, I didn't neglect asian relationships at all, typical small minded nobody picking on conservatives" etc etc etc.  Must be a little sensitive given the fawning plaudits he received from Janet Albrechtsen and Greg Sheridan in The Australian last week, I can imagine him stewing about it late at night sitting in the chesterfield with a glass of cognac. 

Predictably, and as I sort of touched upon last week, Downer says -

...I often cite East Timor as my greatest achievement. I commissioned the 1998 survey of East Timorese opinion which led to the Howard letter, which was initiated by me and drafted in my department. The intensity of the subsequent diplomacy led, eventually and untidily, to a free and independent East Timor.

Fact is, East Timor is not stable.  East Timor's in trouble, and Australia could have done and could be doing more to help. 

Take a look at the news about the report from the Commission for Truth and Friendship (CTF) obtained by The Age -

The [CTF report] finds that Indonesian police, army and civilian government officials funded, armed and co-ordinated anti-independence militias that carried out crimes against humanity.

It says the Indonesian state bears "institutional responsibility" for atrocities including murder, rape, torture, illegal detention and forced mass deportations.

 This is a big story.  Tom Hyland, the Sunday Age's international editor says today that -

THE report of the Commission of Truth and Friendship is a bitter pill for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a slap in the face to the Indonesian military and a challenge to the UN to act on the crimes of 1999, for which no one in authority has been held to account. So many crimes, so few criminals.

It confirms the findings of UN investigations - that Indonesian officials organised, funded and directed militias which carried out atrocities before and after the independence referendum. In some cases, they had a direct role in mass killings.

...while Lindsay Murdoch looks at just one of the atrocity stories investigated by the Commission.

As Hyland notes, what action is taken by East Timor and Indonesia in response to the report is now critically important, and I think Australia needs to be involved to alleviate any problems that arise.  We also need to seriously start engaging with East Timor to get on with encouraging Australian business to invest in the country, be it in tourism, infrastructure and other industries. 

East Timor doesn't need platitudes about how grateful they should be to us for their hard-won independence.  East Timor needs better schools, better population health, better governance and jobs, jobs, jobs.  Why keep dicking around?   

Absolutely scathing piece by Peter Hartcher on Alexander Downer in today's Sydney Morning Herald, here are a couple of highlights -

...Downer can be petty and puerile. He plays a mean-spirited, personal, scratchy game of partisan politics. He can be breathtakingly immature.

He was always ready to be flippant and frivolous. He was something of an Inspector Clouseau of foreign ministers: pompous, slightly ridiculous, self-important, hard to take seriously, though ultimately getting through most of his assignments with some bare seat-of-the-pants competence.

...

Rudd came to win the respect and confidence of the voting public in the years he was facing off against Downer. The foreign minister was unable to derail or discredit Rudd. Instead, he was the perfect foil.

It was while Rudd was prosecuting the attack on the AWB scandal, the Iraq war, the "Pacific solution" and the failure to sign the Kyoto Protocol that he demonstrated his competence and soundness. It was this performance that persuaded the voting public, and then the Labor caucus, that Rudd was leadership material. In this sense, Downer helped create the leader who destroyed the Howard government [emphasis added].

Worth reading in full.  Doing some research last year on the Australian/East Timor oil and gas negotiations I was struck by how inept, cavalier and prattish Downer came across in his public statements on what was happening, frequently using the idea that "the East Timorese owe us for their independence" in order to justify taking earnings away from one of the poorest nations in the world (and who happens to be strategically important to Australian interests in the longer term).  I can't imagine he'll ever be welcome in Dili - not that it's his sort of destination anyway.  Good riddance to him.

There are a few things I'd like to say about recent developments in the relationship between the PM and the Australian Public Service.  Here's the context of what I'm considering here taken from a "week in review" article  published online last Friday by the ABC -

...

The second leak made public the disquiet in the public service about the Government's - and Mr Rudd's - management style, with complaints bureaucrats are called in at all hours to provide urgent advice which is then ignored, and the Prime Minister's office is chaotic.

Some are sheeting home the blame for the leak to the pressure being placed on the public service.

Mr Rudd says those criticisms have not been made to him, but his response to the suggestion an aggrieved bureaucrat was the leaker is not likely to win him any friends.

"I understand that there has been some criticism around the edges that some public servants are finding the hours a bit much," he told the bureaucracy.

"I suppose I've simply got news for the public service - there'll be more."

First, the leak.  Leaking confidential government information like a cabinet document is possibly one of the dumbest things a public servant can do.  It undermines trust between the Government and the APS.  It may make the Government more inclined to seek its advice elsewhere - "contestability" of advice and services has been a buzzword for several years now, and for good reason.  With the proliferation of thinktanks, policy institutes and cannier and cannier lobbyists the APS has to ensure it retains the ear of government.  It cannot do so if it fails to retain the trust of ministers.

The thing that really pisses me off about leaks though is the attitude that often goes with it.  There are determined little pockets of public sector employees out there who still manage to cling to the idea that they are somehow imbued with a better idea of what the "public interest" is than the government which has been duly elected by the people.  This point of view posits that somehow they know better, even though every few years they don't have to go and face the citizens and seek reelection based on previous performance.  It is, quite simply, arrogance of the highest order and warrants no place in the modern APS environment, and is likely engaged in by those who think that the old tv series Yes, Minister, with its scheming Sir Humphrey Appleby, is a desirable model of the manipulating mandarin.   

Secondly, the leak probably came from some idiot who retains a degree of affection (for wont of a better word) for the previous government.  As Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner recently noted on Sunday morning's Insiders programme, there was no "Night of the Long Knives" for senior public servants upon the ALP's election as there was when Howard came to power in 1996.  There were, certainly, a few people shuffled around (though not, strictly speaking, demoted), but those who were especially close to the former government weren't suddenly pressured to find work elsewhere.  Will be interesting to see what happens now, particularly in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Thirdly, the PM's public statement that if the APS doesn't like the current pace then tough, is essentially a form of dog-whistling politics akin to that employed by our former Prime Minister Mr Howard.  He knows that there's a public perception out in the community that somehow all public servants are shiny-arsed bludgers and that he scores bonus points with the Sunrise-watching crew for giving them a bit of a whack. 

So the politics of it are pretty obvious.  But it ain't the best way of backing those who are backing you.  Why, just a little over a month ago the PM gave a speech to senior APS staff where he acknowledged the pressures he'd put them under -

It’s a credit to the APS that the transition to the new Government has been so seamless.  So let me say on behalf of the whole ministry, we do appreciate the enormous amount of work that has been done to date.  You are public policy professionals.  You have chosen your career because you believe public policy counts.  You have chosen a good career path because it is about the public good.  It is about something bigger than yourselves.

Naturally, the PM's criticisms have gotten a bit of a run in Canberra, with a number of callers to local ABC radio last Friday expressing disappointment in the PM's own ideas about the work/life balance for APS employees.  Which I reckon is fair enough.  This is not to say that the same thing didn't happen under the previous government, that it was all beer and skittles in comparison - a brief word to anyone in a central agency about the Budget process or pre-election work will disabuse you of that notion quite quickly.  There's just a little bit of feeling out there that it's a bit hypocritical.

Just a couple of final points to conclude.  Part of the problem is, I expect, due to inexperienced staff populating the Ministerial offices of Parliament House.  No doubt there are a number of Young Labor apparatchiks who are still finding their way through the corridors and learning how the departments actually work.  Would be interesting to be a departmental liaison officer for one of the key portfolios at this point in time. 

I also believe that this sort of sustained pressure, on everyone, greatly increases the risk of serious mistakes occurring which will then snowball into bigger problems for the government's policy agenda(s).  Better to get it right than to make errors in the name of speed. 

Enough from me for now.  Here are a few links with further opinions and info:

• Professor Anne Tiernan gave an interesting public presentation up at Parliament House last Friday about the transition of the Rudd Labor government into power, particularly regarding the relationship with the APS.  Here's the transcript of her presentation and go here to download an mp3.  She also appeared on ABC's PM programme last Friday evening, here's the story.
• ABC Radio National's Life Matters programme this morning (audio available at the link), which had some local radio excerpts;
• Discussion at the RiotACT where it's been a featured post for the past few days - varied opinions in there, including this shining insight (though it is balanced by a few other more nuanced points of view) -

As a former PS all I can say to the news that the shinybums now have to work is bravo. When I was there in the 1980s and early ’90s all they did was file trivial, petty complaints about me - “he spoke to me with a derogatory tone in his voice”, “he refused to copy my documents” even though they were top secret and I only had confidential clearance. No work to do so they amused themselves by stabbing me in the back. I just hope Kevin grinds them into the ground because they deserve it.

• Another thing mentioned by the Insiders panel was the PM's worth ethic and expectations - see Michelle Grattan's article in The Age about the PM's current workload.

Must admit I was not surprised to read of possible plans to cut the lump sum payments to carers and age pensioners as mooted in a leak to The Australian last week.

This sort of thing is standard operating political procedure.  Get the idea of cutbacks out there first, let the outcry come, start testing out the Budget messages in response, and then the actual Budget is that little bit easier to sell to the public.

Here's what I think will happen.  The lump sum payments get cut but they're offset - either marginally lower or higher - by a slight increase in fortnightly rates of benefit.  Maybe even change the indexation setup for the payments and sell it as a simplification exercise too.  Note the language used by Rudd and Gillard these past few days - no direct repudiation of the plan, instead stating that "carers and pensioners will not be left in the lurch". 

What's the lurch?  Whatever the Government decides it is come Budget night.  It'll be interesting to see if the Rudd government follows the atypical three year Budget cycle, with no.1 being all about the cutbacks, well away from any election, no.2 being a so-so and "balanced" budget where they keep the "good economic managers" line running, then no. 3 has the surprise surplus with lots of goodies to give away prior to an election being called. 

I wonder also if the leak itself is the sign of something, coming as it does a week after the exclusive interview with Rudd.  Could be that the PM's office is seeking to maintain good relations with News Ltd's national flagship paper.

From yesterday's letters page of The Australian, Paul Keating responding to a column by Janet Albrechtsen on Wednesday about... oh I don't know, how leftist elites will eat your children or something -

Albrechtsen’s beef is with that group which forms the cosmopolitan core of the country. The Oxford dictionary describes cosmopolitan as of or from or knowing many parts of the world; free from national limitations or prejudices. In other words, people of the world, unprejudicial of others, appreciating cultural differences and attitudes. In general, being tolerant, understanding and respectful of other people, including their origins and beliefs.

These are the people Albrechtsen and her bigot mates brand as elites. People not of the mono-culture; of the old Australia; of the Howard world of Sunday schools and scout jamborees and Menzian regard. The people who knew their place. An objection to the very same people who Hitler, as party leader of the national socialists, described in his 1929 editorial in the Volkischer Beobachter as the cosmopolitan 10,000. The very same lot. The natural enemies of jingoism.

Albrechtsen, rather than writing an opinion column on something of any substance, takes the easy route of responding in today's edition with gems like -

His disdain for the ordinary man who did not care for French Empire clocks or Mahler was as evident then as it is now. He simply cannot help himself. In his letter he dumps on what he quaintly calls the "mono-culture..of the Howard world of Sunday schools and scout jamborees". For Keating, such suburban pleasures are dull. Indeed, he has long channelled his disdain of ordinary Australians through John Howard, as he launched, with increasing predictability, into Howard’s apparent dullness. Keating never accepted what the voters understood: that, as George Will once said, in a well-functioning society some things are supposed to be dull. How could voters have rejected him, so urbane, so cosmopolitan, so very Big Picture, in favour of a man who was so dull? How dare they.

There was a much more considered view of Keating's comments by Jack Waterford in today's Canberra Times, which I'd love to link to and share, but it appears that the "Crimes" has possibly the worst newspaper website in this fair nation of ours...     

The transcript of last night's interesting - though predictable - Four Corners program can be found here, with further references and reading here.

Why predictable?  Well, it was to be expected that Costello would disavow any blame for how things turned out.  If he'd had any ticker he would have challenged in 2006, gone to the backbench and waited for the polls to go bad for Howard, then have gone for the leadership.  Might not have worked, but the way things turned out makes him a great Australian political sulker.  A big sook, in other words, forever condemned to tell all and sundry that "things woulda been different if only the party had picked me like I thought". 

What was interesting, however, was the very careful and considered way that Joe Hockey presented his version of events.  I thought his responses were crafted with one eye on the future - see what he said about Workchoices, for example:

LIZ JACKSON: A new Minister for Workplace Relations was appointed to repair some of the damage done. Joe Hockey’s problem was that under the new laws, some people would be losers.

JOE HOCKEY: Quite frankly when I took over the job I don’t think many ministers in Cabinet were aware that you could be worse off under WorkChoices and that you could actually have certain conditions taken away without compensation. And once I started to raise those issues with colleagues and they became more informed of the impact of WorkChoices we introduced the fairness test.

LIZ JACKSON (To Joe Hockey): You’re saying to me that Cabinet colleagues were unaware that you could be worse off?

JOE HOCKEY: Some were, yeah, yep.

LIZ JACKSON (To Joe Hockey): Care to name them?

JOE HOCKEY: No, not really! (Laughs) Not really!

...as well as his later statements about loyalty and being upfront with Howard about the need for him to move on for the good of the Government.

At the end of the program I was speaking to K about how 2007 was such a politically interesting year.  After the election I sort of felt as though I'd gotten it all out of my system, with the compulsive reading of all political blogs and analysis I was undertaking every single day.  The seat by seat analysis and commentary I quickly wrote up one afternoon and posted here must have been the saturation point.  Saturday night was the first time I'd sat down and drifted through places like Blogocracy, Club Troppo and Larvatus Prodeo for months, and since the election I think I've sort of started to trust my own views and analysis of political moves just a little more as time goes on. 

As promised yesterday -

Rudd's speech here in html and here as a pdf doc; and

Nelson's speech here in html and here as a pdf doc.

Favourite bits of Rudd's:

...These stories cry out to be heard; they cry out for an apology. Instead, from the nation’s parliament there has been a stony and stubborn and deafening silence for more than a decade; a view that somehow we, the parliament, should suspend our most basic instincts of what is right and what is wrong; a view that, instead, we should look for any pretext to push this great wrong to one side, to leave it languishing with the historians, the academics and the cultural warriors, as if the stolen generations are little more than an interesting sociological phenomenon. But the stolen generations are not intellectual curiosities. They are human beings; human beings who have been damaged deeply by the decisions of parliaments and governments. But, as of today, the time for denial, the time for delay, has at last come to an end.

That's already been called a "shot in the culture wars".  See last night's Lateline for a debate between Gerard "I still can't believe I wasn't asked to run the ABC" Henderson and Henry "historian for the chattering classes" Reynolds about it.

And I'll never forget the cheers and tears that greeted these words -

To the stolen generations, I say the following: as Prime Minister of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the government of Australia, I am sorry. On behalf of the parliament of Australia, I am sorry. I offer you this apology without qualification. We apologise for the hurt, the pain and suffering that we, the parliament, have caused you by the laws that previous parliaments have enacted. We apologise for the indignity, the degradation and the humiliation these laws embodied. We offer this apology to the mothers, the fathers, the brothers, the sisters, the families and the communities whose lives were ripped apart by the actions of successive governments under successive parliaments.

Now then, Nelson's speech.  I think one of the problems with his speech was that it was probably largely drafted by Tom Switzer.  Who's he?  Tom is Brendan Nelson's new chief of staff and the former editor of the opinion pages of The Australian.  That would be the same newspaper that was loudly derided across the blogosphere last year as The Government Gazette for its completely biased opinion pieces.  The defence of "but we get Phillip Adams writing for us" simply wasn't enough to cut it.  So Tom's the kind of guy who knows how his bread his buttered.  Nelson got the leadership thanks to tools like Alby Schultz, Don Randall and Wilson Tuckey (who were all absent for yesterday's apology) and thus he had to walk a fine line.  Unsuccessfully, as it turns out.

So.  Here's when the jeers started -

...Our generation does not own these actions, nor should it feel guilt for what was done in many, but certainly not all, cases with the best of intentions. But in saying we are sorry, and deeply so, we remind ourselves that each generation lives in ignorance of the long-term consequences of its decisions and actions. Even when motivated by inherent humanity and decency to reach out to the dispossessed in extreme adversity, our actions can have unintended outcomes. As such, many decent Australians are hurt by accusations of theft in relation to their good intentions.

Then there's our first WTF? moment, where after saying no compo the speech sort of meanders nowhere...

...There is no compensation fund for this—nor should there be. How can any sum of money replace a life deprived of knowing your family? Separation was then, and remains today, a painful but necessary part of public policy in the protection of children. Our restitution for this lies in our determination to address today’s injustices, learning from what was done and doing everything we can to heal those who suffered. The period within which these events occurred was one that defined and shaped Australia. The governments that oversaw this and those who elected them emerged from federating the nation to a century characterised for Australia as triumph in the face of extraordinary adversities unknown to our generation.

...and here's our second WTF? moment -

Let no-one forget that they sent their sons to war, shaping our identity and place in the world. One hundred thousand Australians in two wars alone gave their lives in our name and our uniform, lying forever in distant lands, silent witnesses to the future that they have given us. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians lie alongside one another. These generations considered their responsibilities to their country and one another more important than their rights. They did not buy something until they had saved up for it, and values were far more important than value. Living in considerably more difficult times, they had dreams for our nation but little money. Theirs was a mesh of values enshrined in God, King and country and the belief in something greater than yourself. Neglectful indifference to all that they have achieved while seeing their actions in the separations only, through the values of our comfortable, modern Australia, will be to diminish ourselves.

Guh?  Whuh?  It didn't work.  So that's Nelson's moment in history.  One of the most important days in modern political times and we get a speech that sounds like it's been vetted by every Liberal and National faction with the result that it ultimately ends up sounding like it was drafted by committee. 

There's simply no comparison to Rudd's.  And if it's true that Rudd wrote it himself then well-deserved kudos should go his way.  While, after reading it, I still think it's largely functional without great rhetorical sweeps (though maybe that's just a personal preference of mine), it's a fitting marker for the step we've now taken. 

So we managed to make it to the apology this morning, with plenty of time thanks to a bit of parking-fu and managing to get both the boy and I organised in time.

We went to the Parliamentary forecourt first, to see the big queue of people wanting to get in.

Parliamentary forecourt queue

Parliamentary forecourt queue 2

I always knew that wasn't going to be possible in time given how long it can take to get through security, so headed down to where the big screens were between Old Parliament House and the new one.  There was sort of an expectant feeling about the place, almost tense.  It filled up pretty quickly, with families, indigenous people who'd travelled here for it, and a number of public servants from the local buildings.

Once things got underway a feeling of relief and joy was pretty evident, with a wonderful bit of spontaneous laughter from the crowd when, as Rudd announced a joint commission between the Government and the Opposition, the camera cut away to a clearly uncomfortable Brendan Nelson.  Long and prolonged applause, plus a few tears about the place, came at the end of Rudd's speech. 

As speeches go it wasn't quite one of the best pieces of Australian political oratory we've heard, but, suiting Rudd's style, it struck me as functional and covering all the bases it needed to without any overtly rhetorical flourishes.  He's no Paul Keating working with Don Watson, put it that way.  The occasion, however, will put it down in history.  There should be a full copy of the Parliamentary speech available soon, I haven't been able to locate a copy yet (will update this with a direct Hansard link tomorrow).

Then Brendan Nelson started speaking.  I'm not exactly sure at what point people started turning their backs to the screen (it may have been around the bit about compensation seguing into the clumsy ANZAC link), but it sort of seemed to sweep across the gathering - independent of the same thing occurring in the Great Hall at the same time.

Nelson finished speaking and, as the Speaker received a gift from the indigenous elders present and Anthony Albanese took care of the adjournment machinations, the crowd started breaking up and going their separate ways, with the boy and I again walking up to the forecourt before heading home. 

I'm tremendously glad I went, and that I took my son with me (noting that he spent most of the time charming those around us).  There's something to be said for the collective experience of warmth, gratitude and relief that was there.  But now the hard work begins - Rudd made a number of commitments which his Government now will be under deserved pressure to achieve.  The apology wasn't really ever going to be the end of the issue.  As he noted, it's more of a beginning.  This is a good day.

Further to the wedge issue post, looks like today is an interesting one for the Liberals as they decide whether or not to support the apology.  There have been a couple of good cartoons about the situation that Nelson finds himself in over the past few days, here's Moir at the SMH and Kudelka's from Saturday's edition of The Australian:

They're really into his haircut aren't they?  Not as much as First Dog on the Moon is though judging by this cartoon from a little while ago (and see here for the Crikey gallery) -

Nelson's problem partly arises from his election as leader.  He needed the Western Australian votes brought over by Julie Bishop and the one sure way he could get them (and note that we're talking about the likes of Wilson "Ironbar" Tuckey here) was by saying that - in direct contrast to Malcolm Turnbull - he wouldn't be supportive of an apology to indigenous Australians.  So he's basically made a rod for his own back, and you'd have to think that while he, personally, would support an apology, the tenuous nature of his leadership has meant that he hasn't been able to come out and say it, and that today's party room meeting will spend a significant amount of time working out how to support it without sounding like dickheads.  Phew.

Anyway, ABC online article here, one from today's Australian here plus comment by Dennis Shanahan who, now that the election is over, I'm prepared to occasionally read again.  Boy's just woken up from his lunchtime nap so gotta go and cannae really comment on it all further for now...

Interesting.  Just a couple of months after being elected the ALP is using the planned apology to the Stolen Generations as a bit of a wedge issue against the Liberal/National coalition opposition.  See this statement by Minister Jenny Macklin at the very end of her press release and an article over at the ABC -

Ms Macklin says the apology deserves the support of every member of Parliament.

"This really is a matter of principle, it's a matter that all parliamentarians should now be able to make a decision about," she said.

The opposition leadership of Nelson and Bishop effectively tried to fudge the issue by saying that they'd like to see the wording first, while others such as Sharman Stone have said they back the idea.  Then this morning I hear about this on the radio -

The divisions in the federal Opposition over the planned formal apology to the Stolen Generations are intensifying.

When treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull was vying for the Liberal leadership last November, he was asked on ABC's Radio National his thoughts on apologising.

Mr Turnbull confirmed that he would support Labor in saying sorry and made his views clear about former prime minister John Howard's refusal to apologise.

...

But Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson disagrees with him and is still refusing to support an apology, at least until he sees it in writing.

So the ALP pushes ahead with the apology knowing it has majority public support - and note that they continually emphasise that the apology is from the government, not on behalf of the Australian people per se - and then calls on cross-parliamentary support knowing that it'll cause divisions within an already fractured coalition partyroom.  Straight out of the Howard playbook, really.