Uncommon Decency

In my eternal quest to understand the workings of the conservative mind, I find the single area that baffles me most isn’t economics, or religious affiliation and “values issues” like abortion and same sex marriage, denial of climate change or even opposition to gun control. It’s the lack of what my Grandma Queenie would’ve called common decency.


There’s more than four months until the federal election, and Australia is floating is its own sea of semi-truths and outright lies, snide remarks and blatant insults, minor put-downs and major attempts to undermine the Government…and much of this gutter behaviour is treated as both factual and newsworthy by the media, and digested whole by the electorate.


We’re not just tolerating it; we have allowed it to become the dominant tone in our national dialogue.

We all know that my political preference is left of centre, so this may be biased: it looks as though the majority of bad behaviour is coming from the right. In the interests of fairness, please let me know if you have examples from the other side of the aisle to rival some of these and I'll happily post them.

I’d only been on Twitter a matter of weeks  in 2010 when I received some harsh threats from Sydney political hopeful, Mark Sharma, simply because challenged his beliefs and his stereotypes with facts. Mr Sharma has stood as a conservative independent in several state and federal elections, without success. I'm thankful for his failures though; he also failed to carry through on his threats to finish me off.

Twitter’s political enemy of choice at the moment is a particularly unpleasant chap who tweets under the name of @GregJessop1. His stream of hateful tweets were so offensive that his Twitter account has been suspended. He describes himself in his Twitter biography as being “Anti-refugee, anti-communist, and proud LNP supporter”. There’s no question of where his loyalties lie, and unfortunately, no sign of intervention from the LNP either.

It doesn’t have to be weeks and months of deeply offensive tweets, from the usual suspects at #auspol, or a rapid-fire barrage of threats such as I received from Mark Sharma. Common decency can exist in simply thinking about the words you’re using and how they could be taken.

Last night on twitter, Robert Simeon, a Liberal Party supporter and real estate agent, tweeted to Dr Craig Emerson:

“Australians have a plan for Gillard and Swan. It’s called extermination.”

Dr Emerson challenged Mr Simeon on the use of the word “extermination”. It’s a loaded word, associated with Nazis and Daleks, and Mr Simeon has since apologised for his poor choice of words. I’d like to know why he thought it was okay to use it in the first place. Apologies are rare on social media.
Dr Mark Roberts has also apologised. Dr Roberts, who was Tony Abbott’s senior policy director was overheard at a Qantas function making chilling threats against the head of an Indigenous NFP. Tony Abbott must’ve known what happened, but chose to deny it to media. Then, when he couldn’t deny it any further, he excused the behaviour as a “booze-fuelled rant” – as if that makes it any less deplorable. Finally, he had to act, so he slapped Doctor Roberts on the wrist and demoted him. That’s all – a demotion.

Someone needs to remind Mr Abbott that when a member of staff shouts and threatens someone – anyone – it is bullying. If it occurs at a function while the staffer is representing his boss or his department, it is workplace bullying. Every workplace that I can think of has a zero tolerance to workplace bullying. Had Dr Roberts been an employee at my workplace, he’d be experiencing now what it’s like to be a recipient of welfare.

Alan Jones should be in the Centrelink queue too. The way he speaks about the Prime Minister and her government is entirely inappropriate, and the existence of the Destroy the Joint movement proves it. It was Alan Jones who arranged convoys of buses to take his faithfully deluded listeners to Anti Carbon Tax rallies in Canberra to brandish signs with “Ditch the Bitch” written in childish letters. It was Alan Jones who popularised the insult “Ju-Liar”, and it was Alan Jones who suggested that our Prime Minister should be shoved in a chaff bag and dumped at sea. Fortunately for him, his status as an entertainer and commentator give him some protection from the expectation of decency. Commentators from the left simply don’t bring that same level of malice to their work.

Far far worse than Alan Jones is former Katter’s Australia Party serial pest Bernard Gaynor. He seems to believe that his righteous Catholicism gives him some kind of permission to belittle people who offend his beliefs. On April 30, after a string of anti-gay tweets, he offered this gem:

“The prancing pansy parade processing down Oxford Street for gay marriage can thank Henry VIII for starting their cause.”

His colleague in the KAP is Steve Smith, who tweeted his agreement:

“Yep. His liberal church was founded on divorce. Now they have gay bishops. Next they’ll be baptizing animals”

Disregarding the complete lack of both facts and sanity in these tweets, the tone is similar. They could have made their point without resorting to scorn, yet Mr Gaynor and Mr Smith chose the option most likely to cause offence. The conversation also caused a fair amount of laughing on Twitter, so it got what it deserved.

In Newcastle, former newsreader John Church will be standing as a Liberal in the seat of Shortland at this year’s election. I wonder what convinced him that it was a good idea to place a campaign sticker on his Anzac Day tribute this year? It’s months since he launched his campaign, he has the Liberal Party campaign office to maximise his already high name recognition and he doesn’t need stunts to get his head on the television. A campaign sticker at an Anzac Day ceremony is poor form.

Meanwhile at the conservative Menzies Institute, Toby Ralph challenges the notion that the rich should contribute more to society because they can, and because the impoverished have nothing to contribute.

“Is it fair that those who have underwritten our national prosperity should now stump up even more? I think not, and have a more equitable policy alternative that Government might consider. Kill the poor.”

Of course Mr Ralph is using the concept of killing off the poorer classes to illustrate that there might be other options, maybe eveb a better solution to this disastrous burden of being the strongest economy in the world under a flag few non-Australians could recognise. Lop off the last couple of paragraphs of his article and it reads like a genuine suggestion. Poor people – in fact the bottom 80% of earners - are a drain on the economy, and therefore, dispensable, worthless.
And there’s the continual parade of fuzzy half-truths and misleading slogans from the politicians on the right. Yesterday, for example, Queensland’s Premier Campbell Newman tweeted:

“the only cuts to health in qld are Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan’s”

In fact, the Premier Newman’s government cut 4,140 jobs out of Queensland health last year.
Few would believe that tweet from the Queensland Premier, but an alarming number of conservative voters still believe that seeking asylum and arriving without documentation by boat is a crime. The truth is that seeking asylum is not illegal, arriving by boat is not illegal and arriving by boat without documentation is not illegal if you are seeking asylum. The Liberal Party pollies must know this, yet they persist in using this untruth as a dog whistle, on advertisements, leaflets and billboards.



The other huge area of conflict is the state of the Australian economy. Listen to the Government and the ratings agencies and they’ll tell you that Australia is in great shape. Compare Australia to other developed countries across a range of measures, and we are indeed the lucky country. Listen to Tony Abbott, and we have the kind of economy that dominates the sunnier states in Europe.
In September 2011, Wayne Swan was named Treasurer of the year by Euromoney magazine, in large part because he steered the economy safely around the GFC. Of course, the Opposition had to poopoo the award because we have a small deficit. Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey even said that

“The real recipient of this award should be Peter Costello, who laid the groundwork for Wayne Swan”.

Mr Hockey needs reminding that Peter Costello AC had eleven years as treasurer in which to collect a swag of international awards and he won exactly none. He also had eleven years in which to steer Australia to a Triple A rating from all three ratings agencies. That didn’t happen either.
Right now, it’s easy to listen to the headlines and accept that the ALP Government has made a mess of the economy. The numbers that should be going up – revenue from the MRRT, for example – are failing to deliver, and the promised surplus is looking pretty silly.

Just this morning, Sydney Liberal MP Alex Hawke was pimping his IPA article in which he questions Australia's ability to afford PPL and suggests that we may be heading the same way as Cyprus, Greece, Spain and Italy. He tweeted

@JuliaGillard and @WayneSwan have so badly managed the budget, it is time to reconsider unnecessary and expensive proposals.

Mr Hawke, reconsidering unnecessary and expensive proposals should always be considered, and discarded, but the suggestion that Australia’s economy has been mismanaged is incorrect. As for the economy being poorly managed, I suggest Mr Hawke take that up with the ratings agencies, or any of the millions of unemployed people in Spain.

Even if the asylum seekers were illegal and the economy was in sinking like Gilligan in the quick-sand episode, we’d still be left as virtually the only place in the world where a climate change debate continues, despite the weight of science. Casting doubt on climate change allows space for doubt about the Carbon Tax. So apparently, it’s okay to allow a political agenda to determine whether science is to be believed.

In any case, just take a moment to imagine how different Australia might be in 2013 if Tony Abbott's suggestion of a 'gentler polity' had been part of his Gospel truth. Consider how different Australian politics might be if the Leader of the Opposition had only one kind of Truth. That would be the decent thing, wouldn't it?

Who Shot The Messenger

After almost two years of swings and roundabouts, last weekend's Newspoll has Opposition Leader Tony Abbott now dead-set equal with Prime Minister Julia Gillard as preferred PM. There's a reason though, and its not Abbott's fault, of course. Mr Abbott says his unpopularity is due to his solemn responsibility to deliver unpleasant news to the electorate. In other words, Mr Abbott has accused Australian voters of shooting the messenger.

That's a very creative way of looking at things, although not entirely true...which is pretty much how Tony Abbott handles facts. In his infamous 7:30 Report interview with Kerry O'Brien, he stated   

"Well, again Kerry, I know politicians are gonna be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark, which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is those carefully prepared scripted remarks."

Mr Abbott's job as Opposition Leader is largely about finding fault with the Government and communicating that to the electorate. Add to that his tendency to stray from the truth, to embellish, to "go a little bit further" to make a point, and we have an Opposition Leader who is focussing attention on the exaggerated negativity about the Government. 

"I'm here to hold the government to account and present a credible alternative," he told Macquarie Radio.

Tony Abbott is doing one of things fairly well. The other - presenting a credible alternative - seems to have been lost in an overflowing Too-Hard basket.

Last week was Good News Week for the Australian economy, which is reported as having the fastest growing economy in the developed world, increased workforce participation (38,900 new jobs were created last month) and an excellent report card from Dun & Bradstreet' Global Risk Register:

"Australia is one of the safest trade and foreign investment destinations globally, ranking alongside Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, according to an analysis of 131 countries.

"Australia's rating also makes it the best ranked country in the Asia-Pacific region, ahead of Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand."

The Government was peacock-proud, the economic commentariat was in agreement. Australia's economic fortune cookie held nothing but good news. The global financial wobbles mean that we must be watchful, everyone agreed, but all in all, Go Us! 

Enter Mr Abbott.  

"But a lot of Australians today are saying, 'Wayne Swan does not live in the same world that we inhabit','' the Opposition Leader said in Victoria this morning.

"He's running around patting himself on the back, calling himself the 'world's greatest treasurer'.

"What I see people are saying is: 'shops closing down, my job under pressure, my wages under pressure, my costs going up' _ and look we're all delighted to see that the mining industry is still strong and we're all thrilled that the mining industry is carrying the Australian economy.

"So look let's be grateful for small mercies and that's what I suppose those figures yesterday were. But economic management does not depend on the occasional good statistic. Economic management depends upon consistent good policy and that's what we haven't had from this government.''

And there it was: Tony Abbott delivering his sad truths to the nation - but is he? Or his he talking down the economy for political gain. His sustained attack on the  Australian government's economic management the hallmark of his period as Opposition leader, and it's likely the only weapon he has. 

This strategy cannot keep working for him. He simply can't respond to a story like Australia having the fastest economic growth in the developed world by referring to "small mercies." Similarly, it would be too awful to contemplate that Mr Abbott might want our economy to stumble, just for the political triumph of saying "I told you so." The irony would be Mr Abbott winning the next election and having to deal with whatever nasties the economy has produced.

Last week, in the midst of the good news, ABC's Lateline tackled the negativity, so much more obvious when contrasted with the series of economic data: Even a high school student at a community forum suggested that Mr Abbott need to offer something other than just wall-to-wall sad-talk.

High School Student: Don't you think it would be more helpful if you could more clearly outline an alternative positive vision for Australia?

Tony Abbott: I don't believe that that is a fair characterisation of the positions that my colleagues and I are putting forward. 

And the high school student nailed it. Mr Abbott and his economic team of Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb need to listen to themselves. The Liberal Party Spin Team might think they're communicating something substantial, but the Australian people are hearing nothing but negatives, and it's the same old negatives they've been hearing for almost two years. Do any of these sound familiar?

Great Big New Tax / Carbon Tax / Mining Tax
Stop the Boats / Lost control of our borders
Pay back the Debt / Poor Fiscal Management / Return to Surplus
End the Waste / Fully Costed 

They should sound familiar. They were the cornerstones of the Liberals 2010 campaign, and we're still hearing the same catchphrases.

Last week, Glenn Stevens, Governor of Reserve Bank, delivered an address entitled "The Glass Half Full", in which he explored the many upsides of our economic position. 

Even now on ABC 612 Brisbane, the Prime Minister has revealed that while the Opposition is talking down the economy and foretelling the end of the coal industry due to Big Bad Carbon Tax Wrecking Ball, members of the Opposition are buying shares in coal companies.

The problem for the Liberals team is that with such a solid primary and 2PP voting intention in the polls, they don't need to change the message. It's working for them. They don't even need to change the messenger, despite his 59% personal disapproval.

Having said that, the Coalition failed to win the last election with this campaign. The next election is the Coalition's to lose, and if they do, this relentless negativity will be a key reason. 

When you're running for office in the best performing economy in the developed world, and your contribution to the national dialogue is about how bad the economy is, you just look silly. We're not shooting the messenger; the messenger is shooting himself.

Parliamentary Hokey Pokey

About two weeks ago, I was so frustrated with the Federal Government that I let loose with a late night post entitled Short & Ranty, a pithy summary of why I think Federal Labor is unspooling.  An awful lot of awful politics has passed in those two weeks, and during this time, we have watched our parliament edge closer to part-soap-opera, part-farce theatre improv. Tears, secret deals, backflips, big money, tricks and a sprint for the door - and that's just the lower house.

The Craig Thomson Distraction is still just that; as more and more is revealed about the HSU, the dodgier the whole saga appears. Is Mr Thomson guilty? The weight of common opinion has him well and truly convicted. I can't get that spelling error out of my mind: the signature on some dockets has Mr Thomson misspelling his own name, by adding a 'p'. That feels significant, but probably isn't.

At some point, the next chapter of Craig Thomson's adventure-mystery series will be revealed, but it won't make a difference at the 2013 Election. The Coalition will probably win, and even if it doesn't, the Thomson Distraction won't be a major factor. The only people who think that Labor can win the next election are Bill Kelty and the Tooth Fairy...unless Tony Abbott unhinges completely, and I don't rule that out.

In other Thomson-related news, Labor MP Ed Husic suggested on Twitter the need for a parliamentary line judge - a reference to the Abbott versus Pyne run to exit the chamber yesterday to ensure that Craig Thomson's surprise vote with the Opposition would be cancelled out. Strange, that of all the issues of conduct around this minority government, the Opposition chose to take a stand on the tainted status of Mr Thomson's vote. 

At the same time, we learn that a record number - over 10% - of eligible Australians are not enrolled to vote. That's 1.5 million Australians that should be enrolled, but aren't.  900,000 of those have never been enrolled. Voting is compulsory - and yet individuals have to take the initiative to register to vote, or they aren't included.*

I'm surprised that number of unenrolled people isn't higher. Who would want any part in a democracy that plays out more like a tv game show than a solemn place where serious men and women decide the future of the nation? Politics - the process, the gravitas, and yes, the politicians - should inspire and lead us. 

Instead of inspiration, we have the parliamentary answer to the Hokey Pokey, for which Tony Abbott must accept responsibility. His bitter reaction to failing to form a government with the Independents has dragged us here.

Australia has sustained economic health despite the GFC, yet it is met with denial and derision by the Opposition, and near silence in the media. Australia is committed to act on Climate Change, yet we're still not sure of the Leader of the Opposition has accepted that Climate Change is real - despite it having been a scientific fact since 1987. There have been about sixty unsuccessful censure motions brought by Mr Abbott, three Speakers in under five years, a new party formed, a party expulsion, a leadership challenge, a former PM on the back benches, members being sin-binned almost daily...it's the most exciting game in town.

In the face of this apparent chaos, the Government keeps on governing. Is Bill Kelty right? Will enough Australians forgive Julia Gillard for knifing Kevin Rudd, then changing her mind on the Carbon Tax? This week's Newspoll had both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader with personal Disapproval ratings at a toxic 60%. Surely these numbers suggest an electorate which is disengaging.

And yet, how can you walk away from the privilege of voting? How can you simply allow others to elect your representatives? Does that not nullify your right to complain when the government makes decisions you don't support? Perhaps if those 1,500,000 eligible Aussies had made the effort to register and learn a bit about their candidates, and then - god forbid - actually vote, today's parliament might be something that does inspire us. 

Decisions are made by those who show up.

* In Process Improvement Land, that's a critical weakness, but also a subject for another day. 

Occupy Class Warfare

When the Federal Opposition responded to the Budget with calls of “Class Warfare”, many of us closed our eyes and hummed old Abba favourites very loudly to ourselves. Tony Abbott’s Budget Reply speech barely addressed the Budget, other than to suggest that the Opposition would fund more language classes and make vague promises about fairness, and mock Wayne Swan's attempt to deliver the Holy Grail of Budgets, the Capital-S-Surplus. As a response, it was entirely without guts.

“The last thing the Coalition wants to do is start a class war, a post code war”, declared Abbott, entirely without irony, as he set about trying to start a class war. Then he suggested that the Government should be governing for all Australians. Again, the lack of irony was delicious.

Protip: Next time you want to start a class war, take a look at the Occupy Movement. At least they can use numbers that add up.

It wasn’t only the Opposition that accused the Government of Class Warfare. Dennis Shanahan, Political Editor of the Australian was happy to take up arms against the imaginary war:

Mr Shanahan has completely avoided the awkward detail that the Labor movement itself is built on an ideological foundation of challenging the class structure. If the ALP is seen as playing a benevolent Robin Hood against a backdrop of ongoing economic uncertainty overseas, why is that bad for Labor?

"After Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan invoked class-war rhetoric to sell the budget, it was well received by families earning less than $90,000 a year, while more people than last year, 18 per cent, said they would be personally "better off" as a result of the payments.

"But the cash handouts to families on less than $150,000, some sole parents and the unemployed have damaged Labor's economic standing. Mr Swan's fifth budget was deemed the worst for the economy since John Dawkins' disastrous 1993 budget after the election of the Keating government."

The Government spin on the Budget was that everyone – not just the rich – should benefit from the resources boom, and this was a way of ensuring that we all get a share.  Surely this is the opposite of class warfare, in that it seeks to minimise the class structure that divides the well-off and obscenely rich from those who live from pay cheque to pay cheque, or worse. And isn’t that the ALP mantra? “A Fair Go For All Australians”?

If means-testing of government handouts in the middle class and McMansion mortgage belts is seen as starting a war with those who already have their five-bedroom Tuscan style family home in the outer suburbs, so be it.

Yet somewhere around the end of last week, conventional wisdom was that “the people” (which rarely seems to include me) would fall into line behind Mr Abbott’s team. Julia Gillard’s jibes at Abbott and Hockey’s North Shore insularity and Wayne Swan’s Malicious Budget would be rejected, class warfare proven, insults hurled and punishment dished out via a further drop in the ALP’s approval numbers.

It didn’t happen.

According to the Essential Poll released this week, just 28% of Aussies agreed with the Federal Opposition’s claim that the Gillard Government - and Treasurer Swan in particular – are conducting class warfare against Australia’s richest people and most successful companies. Even more remarkable is the finding that the income level of the respondents was not a particularly strong indicator of response. People with incomes over $1600/week were only slightly more likely to favour the Opposition’s position. So, does this mean that the electorate is chiefly happy with the budget, and that the Opposition’s class warfare spin was off the mark?

Yes and no.

The big surprise was probably Tony Abbott, but not directly because of his unsuccessful class warfare attack. That was just the latest in a long series of political assaults. Attacking, criticizing, belittling the government are all part of the role of an Opposition party.

But it’s not the whole kit and caboodle of being an effective Opposition. The electorate is starting to want more from this Opposition than just a never-ending parade of disapproving grunts and mathematical impossibilities. We don’t need Abbott’s team of ministerial goons to point out that the ALP Government is in trouble. We can see that. Now, we need the Opposition to prove to us that they are a credible alternative Government.

As was the case last year, Mr Abbott used his entire Budget Reply speech as free media time in which to kick the government from every possible angle, but this year, it failed. Australians wanted to hear what the Coalition had to offer as an alternative budget. We needed to feel confident that in the face of years of economic absurdity from Abbott, Hockey and Robb, the Coalition Treasury and Finance teams could produce a credible alternative budget, not just some vague promises about fairness and language classes.

Instead, when asked to explain why the Government’s Education handout is different to his own Baby Bonus handout, the answer was “They just are.”

Noted blogger Peter Brent said in his Mumble blog in the Australian

 Today voters want grownups in leadership positions.

With their undergraduate, one-dimensional “us against the toffs” rhetoric, Swan and Gillard present the opposite.

They’ve made Tony Abbott a statesman.

No-one has made Abbott a statesman, nor have they turned around the fortunes of the careworn government. The Opposition’s failure to mount a substantial response to what was a pretty average budget is not going to be the One Big Thing that turns around the fortunes of the Labor Government. I don’t believe such a political marvel exists.  

It might, however, force the Opposition to reassess their approach, and convince them to offer more than just a dogmatic black hole with nothing to offer beyond “we’re not them.”

Short and Ranty

I'm a private citizen working for a publicly listed company. We mine stuff. We manufacture stuff. We sell stuff. We distribute stuff. Somewhere in amongst all of that, we employ a lot of people, add a lot of value, and make a bit of money. We are not a monopoly. There are competitors, and they want what we have: a solid business model and the largest share of the domestic market. 

In order to remain in business, we have to do our jobs well. We simply cannot spend our days snarking our competitors, whinging and whining, trying to undermine them to feed the increasingly hungry 24 hour news cycle. The way to beat the competition isn't about ego or volume or tearing down the competitors. It's about consistent performance, getting results and (dare I say it?) building loyalty.

Why should politics be different? More to the point, why do politicians think that the rules that apply in life are different to the rules that apply in government? 

If this Government wants to win back the voters who have deserted them, they have to have products we want to buy. That's policy. They have to deliver results - that's legislation. They have to earn trust, rebuild relationships, deserve respect.

So here's my suggestion to Julia Gillard and her team: ignore the Opposition. Do not allow Mr Abbott to continue to control the agenda or the tone of politics in this country. Ignore the ongoing Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper scandals. They're not your problem. Stop feeding the tabloid media. 

Focus on your core business: making good decisions for Australia. There's no guarantee that it will get you re-elected, but the current shenanigans is more like a pair of toddlers fighting in the sandpit than a respectable government of a civilized country. The tantrums are not working, they're not even dignified, and we're sick of it. At least if you govern well and with dignity, you can hold your heads up.

I challenge the Gillard government to reverse the death spiral. Stand up, do your job well, build your reputation, earn loyalty and respect.

This is what my employer expects of me and my colleagues, and I expect no less from my government.

The Damage Done

One of my colleagues, Anne, asked me today if I’d blogged about Craig Thomson. No, I hadn't. I wondered why,  and I’ve narrowed it down to three possibilities:

1.      I don’t care about Craig Thomson or his credit card
2.      I don’t know enough to feel confident I know enough about the details
3.      I have nothing new to contribute to the conversation

It’s really a little bit of all three.  A sitting MP has been accused of serious wrong-doing in a job he held prior to being elected to parliament;  he has been investigated, has been expelled from his political party…but not convicted of a crime. Yet. 

If that’s not intrigue enough, the precarious state of our hung parliament means that any movement - by Thomson, Slipper or any other member of the lower house - could tip the balance and set up a chain reaction leading to the new election Tony Abbott wants so badly.

Overlay that with last night’s Newpoll figures, and Mr Thomson’s situation is simultaneously a Labor nightmare...and entirely irrelevant.

Why irrelevant? Because even though  Labor’s numbers showed some bounce last night, all that is left for the ALP is their rusted-on supporters. Just about everyone who's going to desert the ALP has already gone. Craig Thomson's slow motion political implosion probably won't do a lot more damage.

As for the Newspoll result, it's not easy to determine whether it was simply a correction after the horror story in the last poll, or whether it was a genuine ‘budget boost’. The next set of Newspoll numbers will give a clearer picture of how deep the ALP's hole is...but it won't tell them how to fix it, and might even stabilise Julia Gillard as Leader.

Right now, I can't think of anything that could convince voters to trust this Labor government for another term with Julia Gillard at the helm. 

In the 20 or so months since the last Federal election, the situation has only become more dire for Labor, and despite that, the Coalition has failed to offer a viable alternative. On current numbers, the Coalition would win an election held now, but not because they are liked, or trusted or respected, because they are disliked less, considered less untrustworthy and disrespected less than the ALP. Note that I haven't mentioned Coalition policy: they don't seem to think policies matter, and maybe, in the end, they won't.

Right now, if given a choice, many Australians wouldn’t vote for either of the major parties. In the past three months, the Labor primary has decreased from 35% to 30%...but while the Coalition primary has been above 50%, it's fallen back to 45%, exactly where it was three months ago. The Greens have picked up a whole percentage point, but “others” have picked up 4%.

And really, Craig Thomson's mess is not relevant. While the Coalition makes loud, monotonous and ultimately fruitless calls for Prime Minister Gillard to disregard Thomson’s vote, we know it won’t happen. Thomson is another convenient ALP failure that the Opposition can use to embarrass the Government. Thomson is still a member of the parliament, and his vote is valid. 

Of larger concern is the damage this disgraceful series of events within the HSU has done to the union movement, and to progressive, people-driven, policy in Australia. Organisations like GetUp! will continue to gain relevance and influence, long after Craig Thomson has lost both.

What Does It Mean To Be Australian

In the midst of all the Budget palaver, the rumours of Peter Costello wanting to return to politics, the Craig Thomson/HSU fiasco, and Barack Obama’s public support for same-sex marriage, it would be easy to lose track of a story in this week’s news media.

Here’s one that almost got away:

Bob Katter says in ten years, Aussies will be a vanishing race as baby boomers die off. To ensure this doesn’t happen, he wants the Government to pay $7000 for every child for every year they’re legally children. Apparently it’s important to ensure that Australian babies are really Australians, and not migrants.

If you’re talking purity of race, you probably mean the Aboriginals – but only the pure ones, with none of that dirty whitefella influence.

No, then perhaps you’re of the view that the ‘real’ Australians – all 859 of them -  that arrived on the First Fleet, and those that came later, from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales; convicts and free settlers who left the Mother Country to make a new life on the other side of the world. Some of my ancestors would be amongst the free settlers who arrived in the middle of the 19^th century.

That’s the ‘real’ Australian, the way it was taught in schools in for most of the twentieth century. Australians were of Anglo-Saxon descent, Christian, with a government based on the Westminster System. We adopted and continued their language, their values, their sports.

The fact that a population of First Nations with a rich cultural heritage blanketed the continent for 40 thousand years before the ‘real’ Australians arrived was barely mentioned.

That doesn’t seem likely though, as Katter himself is of mixed Irish and Lebanese descent. Either he is denying his own Lebanese heritage, or he includes some migrants in his definition of “Australian.”

On the other hand, if he is including Lebanese in his version of what makes an authentic Australian, it would be logical to include the rest of the nationalities that come from the Middle East as well.

So far, we have Anglo Saxon, and Middle Eastern in the mix. Left out: the rest of Europe, most of Africa, all of the Americas, both North and South, South East Asians, North Asians, Indians, Pacific Islanders Inuit, Scandinavian.

Perhaps Mr Katter thinks we should just exclude everyone who was born overseas. The most recent Census statistics available, from 2006, indicate that 24% of the population was born outside Australia. What does Mr Katter suggest we do with them to protect the ”Australian race”? Deport them? Lock them up in mandatory detention centres in the middle of the Great Sandy Desert? Sterilise them?

This isn’t funny. This is about as unfunny as you can be, in the midst of such multiculturalism. From my perspective*, it’s divisive and ignorant, and I invite Mr Katter to sit down with me and have a coffee and talk about what makes an Australian.

He may not like our multicultural Australia, but it’s here, and we couldn’t stop it now, even if the majority wanted to. Even a return to our murky past via the White Australia Policy is impossible, and thank for your deity of choice for that!

Luckily for us, Mr Katter has a solution.  Throw money at it: $7000 per child per year to encourage parents (racially acceptable parents, that is) to have more kids, and lower the rates of suicide and homelessness.

In today’s money, that’s $98,000 in handouts to raise a child from newborn to fourteen years old. Obviously the payments would be indexed. On the basis of the 2006 Census figures, we can project a population of about 4.42milliom in that age bracket (0-14) in 2012. If we were to roll out this proposal right now, for the approximately 4.5 million kids between newborn and fourteen, we’d need about $31 billion dollars for one year. Our budget surplus of $1.5b would over about 5% of this payment. Mr Katter has suggested $2.1b, which would barely cover the newborns for a calendar year. Financially, we could not consider such a payment, even if it was sane.

Finally, let’s just take a look at the Australian population as it stands. It is multicultural, with almost one in four Aussies being born overseas. While we tend of think in terms of stereotypical ethnic ghettos, that model isn’t absolute. Even if there was an Australian racial identity 200 years ago, and a completely different one prior to that, there isn’t now. The racial makeup of Australian society is so magnificently inclusive, there is simply no single racial signature that captures what we are.

Multiculturalism, by it’s very nature, places Katter’s call for a financial solution to what he sees as a ‘racial’ problem in the basket marked Crazy-Talk. I’m sure I’m not the only Australian who is both affronted by this overt xenophobia, and amused by the impractical solution he’s proposed.

*My perspective: My maternal family roots are deep in English and Scottish soil, and my paternal family is Pakistani (see photo above). I was born in Australia, but is that enough for Bob Katter? My partner is of Scottish descent, but his first wife is 5^th generation Australian of Thai descent. His children are beautiful Eurasian girls who were born here. Are they Australian?

Mr Katter, in terms of race, how do you define “Australian”?

Best Dressed Olympics

The Australian team uniform for the London Olympics was unveiled this morning, Dark green over crisp white, the Sportscraft-designed uniform looks clean, classy and even preppy. I can see a young Robert Redford and Mia Farrow off for a game of tennis – or cricket, or perhaps lawn bowls - in these uniforms, or something quite similar.

I can’t recall an Olympic year when there hasn’t been controversy about the uniforms for the Opening Ceremony – too colourful, not colourful enough, looks like a flight attendant’s uniform. It’s too relaxed or too corporate, or not Australian enough or too Australian. The uniforms revealed today aren’t the Opening Ceremony uniforms, though – they are secret squirrel business until we see the Aussies walking out into the arena during the ceremony.

The one objection I hear most often repeated it “what’s with the colours?”

Indeed. I’d hate to be choosing the colours and designing an Aussie Olympic uniform; it’s a no-win proposition. The Aussie flag is red, white and blue. The Aboriginal flag is red, yellow and black. Our sports colours are the colours of the wattle: silver-green leaves and canary yellow blossoms. The outback is ochre, the ocean is various moody blues, Oxford Street has a veritable rainbow of pinky shades at Mardi Gras time, sunset is apricot and mauve, and at night, in the bush, the sky is inkiest black.

In short, take your pick. In this wide brown land (did I forget brown?) you can choose any colour combination you can think of, and justify its inclusion in a national uniform.

In Beijing, the official uniforms were darkish grey and blue suits, probably more suited to a corporate office than a sporting team. That’s nothing new, though; traditionally, official Olympic uniforms have involved a coat and tie. It’s only been more recently that the fashion designers charged with designing the uniforms have broken away from the conservative traditions. The photo here of the 1980 Olympic Rowing Team could just about be a convention of Barber Shop Quartets from a century ago.

The pinnacle of non-traditional was the colourful cartoonish linings in the Reg Mombasa designed uniforms for the Sydney Olympics. They were magnificent – most things about the Sydney Olympics were.

Our uniforms in Beijing were about as far away from traditional as you can get, but failed spectacularly with the public: faux dip-dyed shiny blue tracksuits really don’t have much to do with anything Australian or Olympic, other than a desire to blend in with the Beijing Aquatic Centre.

This year, the return to traditional green-and-gold shouldn’t cause too many ructions, and with the athletes being involved in the design process, they should be happy too. Gone are the dress shoes and medium heels; in their place, white Volleys. Personally, I hate sports shoes with anything other than a sports uniform or a pair of jeans, but if I could get away with never wearing heels again, I would.

We're not the only country in the world with a sporting identity at odds with our official national flag, but you'd never see Canada out of the Red and White, or the USA or France out of their Red, White and Blue. China will always be red and yellow, but New Zealand is always identifiable by the black and white. Recently, Australia has been green and gold and blue and white and beige and ochre and brown.


On Friday 27^th July, we’ll get to see what the Aussies will be wearing into the Opening Ceremony. I have a feeling that Green and Gold is back. Or possibly purple and orange. How about black with multi-coloured starbursts…? Just hope that it's better than this pyjamas-in-da-hood design (above) from Canada.

By the way, I missed purple, but I believe our Ladies Gymnastics teams wore shiny purple leotards once...

The Clivening: Why Stop At Clive?

Most of us are unhappy with the goings on in Canberra, although to be fair, there are a handful of really exceptional members of the parliament. The risk is that, whenever the election is called, we will have to make a choice between our current Government, and our current Opposition. Look at any recent polling and you’ll find that dissatisfaction numbers are higher than satisfaction numbers. This indicates that we don’t much like either of these choices.

Bob Katter knew that, and registered Katter’s Australian Party with hopes aplenty for change. The KAP’s first test was the Queensland State Election, and Katter must be disappointed to have won only two seats: his son Robbie, who leads the Queensland chapter of the KAP, won his seat of Mount Isa, and incumbent Shane Knuth held his seat of Dalrymple.

In fairness, Bob Katter must realise that his brand of politics just won’t play well in the city, so chances of the KAP becoming a major force are low.

Equally, the Greens have a problem in the bush, and with traditional conservative voters in the city: they are perceived as Watermelons – green on the outside and socialist/communist red on the inside.

The rest of the minor parties have even less of a chance of making an impact: One Nation is past its use-by date, Family First and the other “values” parties are seen as too conservative by the middle.

But now that Clive Palmer has stepped up, there’s a new dynamic. The Coalition under Tony Abbott will win the next election, but what impact does Clive have? Clearly Wayne Swan isn’t too impressed, and Clive has been active on Twitter today, openly baiting the Treasurer. How do voters feel about him?

I’m still not entirely convinced it’s a bad idea to bring some fresh thinking into the picture. You can’t deny that Clive knows success and how to get it. He also knows how to work the media – his CIA  funding the Greens statement was both ridiculous and masterful. Mainly, it was successful.

I can’t help wondering who else might be interested in getting into parliament: who else has a successful track record in their chosen field, doesn’t need the money (and therefore it isn’t an incentive), is smart, innovative, energetic, selfless, and willing to donate a few years of their life in service of their country?

So let’s try this: I’ll pick up Parliament House, tip it upside-down, and shake. Most of the current crop of politicians fall out. Simple as that.

A few smart ones saw the writing on the wall, and strapped themselves into the basement with the miles and miles of red tape they keep down there. A quick roll call tells us who is left: Julie Bishop, Malcolm Turnbuil and Joe Hockey from the Coalition, Mike Kelly, Bill Shorten, Bob Carr, Penny Wong, Tanya Plibersek, and Ed Husic from the ALP, Sarah Hanson Young from the Greens and Rob Oakeshott. That’s it. Everyone else from both houses fell through the cracks.

We’ve got a lot of spaces to fill, and we want smart, successful, innovative people with drive and energy and vision, and we want lots of different perspectives. These people will represent us, and build Australia for the next generations. 

Here are a few suggestions:

• Arts and Media:  Philip Adams, John Farnham, Ita Buttrose, Latika Bourke, Geoffrey Rush
• Science: Dr Karl Kruzselnicki, Dr Ian Frazer, Dr Fiona Wood, Veena Sahjwalla, Prof Peter Doherty, Prof Tim Flannery
• Religion: Father Bob, Tim Costello, Jim Wallace
• Business: Clive Palmer, Lindsay Fox, Gail Kelly, Therese Rein, Frank Lowy
• Legal: Julian Burnside, Michael Kirby
• Activists: Germaine Greer, Waleed Aly, Gabi Hollows, Ian Kiernan
• Politicians: Kim Beazley, Natasha Stott-Despoja, Bob Brown, Peter Costello
• Military: Peter Cosgrove, Angus Houston
• Sport: Steve Waugh, Shane Gould, Cathy Freeman
• Agriculture: Jock Laurie, Chris Russell
• Smart People: Ross Garnaut, Mark Pesce, Benjamin Law, Clive James

Okay, so it resembles the guest list of QandA? I’m okay with that. Who have I missed out? Who would you want to have in parliament? Leave your comments below.