28 posts tagged “australian politics”

Caught a little bit of this on Insiders this morning, a Hollowmen clip about funding for the ABC prepared for their annual funding submission:

In other news, aaargh, my eyes, my eyes!!!

As a bit of a geek about such things, I have been finding this issue about the constitutionality of the Urgent Relief for Single Aged Pensioners Bill 2008 (link takes you to the Bill's Parliamentary Library homepage) an interesting one.

Section 53 of the Constitution states

Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing taxation, shall not originate in the Senate.

On the face of it, and certainly in the opinion of the Government and, yesterday, the Clerk of the House of Representatives, it seems pretty clear - the Bill appropriates the amount of $30 per week to be added to the pension rate of single pensioners and aged veteran pensioners.

But... Harry Evans, Clerk of the Senate has a point when he says -

HARRY EVANS: Well, what the Constitution says is that a bill appropriating money can't be initiated in the Senate. This Bill doesn't appropriate any money, the Social Security Administration Act appropriates an unlimited amount of money of indefinite duration for all future pension increases, so the money is already appropriated by that provision in the Act.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: So if the Government maintains its unconstitutional and the Bill won't make it to be debated in the House of Representatives, you don't think that is right?

HARRY EVANS: Well, I mean obviously the claim that it's unconstitutional is not the real reason why it won't be debated in the House of Representatives. The real reason is that the Government has the control of the House of Representatives and will stop it from being debated there because it doesn't approve of the Bill.

But unfortunately in these sort of situations, bizarre new constitutional doctrines are always being invented to cover what is really a political decision and, you know, they should be openly represented as political decisions rather than seeking some pseudo legal argument for them.

The key point is that the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 provides for the appropriation of public revenues for providing payments under the social security law.  You can amend the Social Security Act 1991 to increase payments, get rid of payments etc etc etc.  So the Opposition's Bill isn't a problem - if it was creating a new payment then yeah, it probably would be unconstitutional as it would be appropriating money not currently provided for under the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999.  Hope that makes sense.

The Bill itself is pretty straightforward, maybe a little bit clumsily worded, though as a nerd I'll note that the title isn't right (strictly speaking it should be the Social Security and Veterans' Entitlements (Urgent Relief [etc]) Amendment Bill 2008). 

As Harry Evans notes above, this really is simply a political issue.  Plain old cynical politics on the part of an Opposition who showed a marked disinclination to substantially increase fortnightly payment rates while they were in office, preferring instead to use election-timed one-off payments to pensioners in the form of Utilities Allowance and Telephone Allowance lump sum increases. 

And the move by the Government to kill it off through a technicality is, of course, an example of the same kind of hollow thinking.  Better to try getting rid of the issue through procedure than actually knocking it out using the House of Representatives majority, which simply isn't a good look for the government from any angle bar "responsible and reasoned government" - and how many punters find that works for them?

Update Wednesday arvo:  Mere moments after writing this up I read Bernard Keane's piece over at Crikey about this where he provides a link to the advice of Ian Harris, Clerk of the House of Representatives.  It appears that I may be mistaken given Parliamentary standing orders about Bills of this nature - I've been meaning to pick up a copy (seriously) and might do so next time I go to Parliament House.  Should maybe cut the monster-moo loose through the place just for a laugh.

I guess that really, this episode is also another example of the tensions that exist between the two parts of our Parliament about the functions and powers of each house.  A tension that, recalling my reading of the Constitutional debates of the 1890s, could well be considered to have been deliberately created as it contributes towards overall accountability and, hopefully, better governance for all of us.  There are good reasons why Australian democracy has been so comparatively stable over the past 107 years, and the design of our system of government is a key one.

I was listening to ABC Radio National's Australia Talks programme last night and they were covering this recent issue about the current rates of pensions.  It was interesting, not least because I found myself agreeing with a lot of the comments made by Jeremy Sammut from the notable right-wing'ish thinktank the Centre for Independent Studies.  Worth downloading and listening to for the comments by the experts, though the talkback itself was unfortunately a bit predictable (i.e. "I'm on a pension and I'm doing it tough").

Tony Nicholson from the Brotherhood of St Lawrence has an article in today's Age newspaper which I think makes a few good points, here's a brief extract -

Few begrudge older Australians the right to retire on very comfortable terms. It's something we all aspire to and is a laudable goal of public policy. But the highly favourable treatment given to such people is in stark contrast to the parsimony shown to those who don't own their home, have virtually no superannuation, possess no assets and have no other sources of income. Paying rising rents has simply reduced many of them to poverty.

The Pension Review will investigate measures to strengthen the financial security of seniors, carers, and people with disability by considering the:

Before I go on, just a brief word about all these reviews - by announcing them early and getting them working away it means they'll be reporting back just in time for Rudd to start thinking about the next election.  So he'll have this whole message about "look Australia, I haven't really been dicking around all this time, re-elect us if you want us to be able to implement all of these fabulous ideas that the reviews have come up with using the surplus me and Swannie put together over the past couple of years (Senate obstructionism allowing)".

But back on topic - the pensions review is A Good Idea, not least because it will link in with the review of the tax system.  In a way, it's a shame they're not including the rates of allowances and other social security payments as well.  I think that the taxation review will be considering family assistance given that Family Tax Benefits part A and B are linked into the current tax system (see the terms of reference at item 3.2), but the thing is you've got to look at the way the effective marginal tax rates operate and I'm not entirely sure either review will be doing so.  What I mean by the EMTRs is the disincentive effects that can work for people when they're in receipt of assistance and, at certain levels of income, they lose more through the taxation and welfare systems than they gain by earning extra money.  Big problem when you're looking at this stuff.

A few more points about pension rates -

• Pensions are currently linked in with Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (the wonderfully african-sounding acronym of MTAWE).  So, thanks to the commodities boom pushing up average incomes over the past decade or so, pensions have been increasing at a much higher rate than other payments.  Note that there's a "safety net" operating too, in that if the CPI is rising at a rate higher than MTAWE then that kicks in instead for payment indexation purposes. 
• Pensions also have some pretty generous income and asset testing arrangements, as the article linked to above notes.  The family home isn't included in the calculations and you can have a shiteload in assets and income before getting knocked out.  In fact, Centrelink even helps potential applicants to reorganise their financial affairs to be able to access payments through the Financial Information Service.
• Contrast this with arrangements for those on the dole or parenting payments - indexed twice per year at CPI only, and with much tougher income and asset testing arrangements as well.  And it's even worse if you're a young person or a full-time student - your payment's only indexed annually and off a much lower base.

So here's the thing - I've got no problem with increasing pension rates, all for it.  I appreciate it's going to be a massive cost impost on me, as a taxpayer, as more and more older Australians apply and before superannuation arrangements really start kicking in for those who were able to contribute from the get-go.  That's just the way it's going to be. 

But...

• the means testing needs to be tweaked to ensure that pension assistance is going to those who are genuinely in need, and not those who are able to contribute to their own support through things like investment income and asset realisation;
• it's easy to ignore the allowances as recipients generally aren't on there for as long as pensioners, but any increase to pension payments will only serve to throw current allowance payment rates into stark contrast;
• what will come out of the Henry taxation review in working out some of the disincentive issues around effective marginal tax rates -  will there be changes to family assistance for working Australians, for example?  Should be interesting.

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.