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?

Slip Sliding Away

After arriving back in Australia this morning, Peter Slipper this afternoon stood aside from his position as Speaker of the House. It was the right thing to do.

Mr Slipper's self-imposed suspension is only in force until the conclusion of the criminal matter - the allegation that he misused government issued CabCharge vouchers. It's a journey Slipper is familiar with, having been there in 2010. That scandal resulted in Slipper repaying tens of thousands of dollars in illegitimate travel expenses to the Commonwealth. The current CabCharge allegations are a criminal matter and are being investigated by Federal Police.

In the matter of James Ashby's allegations of sexual harassment, Slipper is maintaining his innocence.

Much has been revealed since I wrote yesterday's blog post. Some of Mr Ashby's past has been revealed. Rather than being an idealistic young political operative with hopes of one day running for office, as I had pictured,  Mr Ashby is a former FM radio announcer, and most recently, worked in PR for a commercial strawberry farm on the Sunshine Coast. Ten years ago he was convicted of making threatening calls to a rival radio announcer. It's likely that his exposure to the political sphere has been minimal.

We've learned more about Mr Slipper's past too. Apparently, Canberra insiders close to the Liberal Party have been aware for years of a rumoured video featuring Mr Slipper and a youngish man. I'll leave you to fill in the blanks. To paraphrase an old school friend of mine, when Tony Abbott said to Julia Gillard after Slipper gained the Speakership "he's your problem now", he knew what he was talking about. 

And none of it makes any difference.

CabCharge notwithstanding, for Mr Slipper, charges of sexual harassment are just the start of what's to come. He's a married man in his early 60s with a high profile. He's an ordained priest. He has few friends in politics or media. Regardless of how the charges play out, this mud looks like sticking. Moreover, as Peter Beattie said today, he has no credibility left.

If the allegations are true, he's far from the first federal MP to indulge in some extra-curricular relating. Craig Emerson and Julia Gillard "hooked up" about ten years ago. Dr Emerson was married with three children at the time. Even now, there's at least one member of federal parliament who's making whoopee with someone he shouldn't. When these types of indiscretions become public, there's an appropriate amount of tsk-tsking, but as Julia Gillard has proven, it's not a career-limiting activity. 

The difference is "harassment". Prime Minister Gillard and Dr Emerson were "involved". The current MP who is enjoying himself with a member of his staff is doing so with her consent, as far as I know. No-one was bullied, pressured, abused or hurt in the making of those affairs. (The hurt comes later.)

The Australian Human Rights Commission website tells the story:

In 2009 – 2010, 21% of all complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission were under the Sex Discrimination Act, and 88% of those complaints related to sex discrimination in the workplace. The wide use of new technologies such as mobile phones, email and social networking websites creates new spaces where sexual harassment may occur.

I hope, for everyone's sake, that the allegations of sexual harassment against Mr Slipper are not true. If they are true, let's at least use this opportunity to drive the message that sexual harassment is not acceptable. Ever. 

The UnFairer Sex

This time a month ago, you could line up our Prime Minister, Queensland Premier, Tasmanian Premier, Governor General and the Governor of Queensland, and you'd have wall to wall women. In fact, every Australian state except South Australia has had at least one female Premier. These women are high achievers, role models, imperfect, but proof that women can make it to the top in public office.

Undoubtedly, the corporate glass ceiling becomes more just a little more fragile each year. Gail Kelly is CEO of Westpac. The top spot on Australia's rich list is held by Gina Rinehart.   The Spotless group includes three female General Managers.

So everything is good, then? Men and women have equal opportunity to achieve in both public and private sectors?

Er, no. Some extraordinary women do make it to the top. The overwhelming majority of women do not. There are as many reasons for that imbalance as there are women, and yet themes exist. Physically and culturally, the family demands of women are greater. Most corporations reward a culture which is subtly skewed to favour men. Equal opportunity initiatives don't extend to internal promotions. Old-fashioned prejudices and traditional expectations still exist.

Here's the result:

Only 8% of senior executives in Australia are women.
Women make up less than 15% of Australia's military.
The average wage for women is about 16% lower than the average wage for men, and the gap is increasing.
43% of women reported surviving violence by a previous partner*
23% of women reported enduring violence by their current partner*
76% of domestic homicides involved a male offender and female victim*
More than 4 in 5 single parents are mothers.

Women have opportunity, but it is not equal.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, son of Jocelyn Newman, who served Prime Minister John Howard twice as Minister assisting the Prime Minister on the Status of Women, has no Minister in his cabinet whose chief responsibility is women's issues. In fact, Premier Newman has rolled responsibility for women's issues into a crazy mishmash portfolio, best described as the Department of Touchy-Feely-Handle-With-Care Issues.

Tracy Davis MP is Queensland's new Minister for Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services, which includes such responsibilities as Homelessness, Youth Affairs, Women's Policy, Seniors, Adoption, Disability Services, Carers, and the Registration of Charitable Organisations.

In fairness, these portfolio areas are ones with which she is familiar, having covered many of them in her one previous parliamentary term when she served as Shadow Minister for Child Safety, Disability Services and Mental Health. 

She is also experienced at promoting women's causes. According to her own website,

"Tracy has an ongoing commitment to encouraging women’s political participation at organisational and parliamentary levels.  She has held the position of Vice-President of Liberal Women’s Council QLD, and until her election to Parliament was the Policy Chairman of LNP Women."

Well, Ms Davis, the Sisterhood wants to know why you let your boss get away with this? Only 3 members of Premier Newman's cabinet are women. Sixteen percent. Queensland's population is 50.4% female. 

Campbell Newman has effectively devalued the status of women in Queensland to that of a minority or special interest group. Perhaps as he looked at his predecessor, he assumed that all was well with the status of women.

I dream about that day; the day when we won't need a special ministry dedicated to making women less unequal. That day isn't here. It's not even close.

Helen Reddy - 'I Am Woman' (Live) 1975 on Fooooo

* For more terrifying stats on violence against Australian women, click here.


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Aspirational Joe

Joe Hockey reckons his income is meagre at just $230,000+. Well, yes. I suppose  if he's comparing himself with his mate, mining magnate, conspiracy-bullshitter and LNP sponsor Professor Clive Palmer, it is meagre. 

I think Joe will find that Clive Palmer's income is what his old boss John Howard would call "aspirational". Most of the rest of us think a $230,000 salary is aspirational, and Hockey's  comment was clumsy at best. I'd call it naive, and insulting to working Australians.


For Joe's benefit, here are some figures to help him get that meagre salary of his into perspective:

* Excludes allowances

It's fair to assume that Joe's perspective may be a little skewed by the fact that he represents the seat of North Sydney, which includes some of Sydney's most affluent communities: Neutral Bay, Milsons Point, Hunters Hill & Woolwich, which has a median household income more than double the national average. Good for them - but even at that level, they're still $100k behind their local member...who considers his own income modest.

And while Joe describes it as 'meagre', his own party's Paid Parental Leave policy has the PPL scheme means-tested and cutting out at $150,000. Both Labor and the Coalition seem to agree that $150K is the figure at which you are well enough off not to need middle class welfare. His meagre income is over $80k above his own definition of "well-off". All these numbers must get confusing for an Arts/Law graduate.

Confession time: I like Joe Hockey. I suspect he's one of the good guys, despite being a Liberal and not knowing how to work a calculator. (Don't Shadow Treasurers have to pass a basic Maths test before they get the gig?) My impression of Joe Hockey is that he is sincere in his beliefs and genuine in his efforts to help his electorate and his country. I can't say that about all of our politicians.


Unfortunately, Joe has just placed himself in the middle of nowhere. His comment today about his 'meagre' income, and news of a secret meeting with Clive Palmer are concepts that middle Australia can't relate to. There's no way to walk it back either; his twitter-mini-spat with Paul Howes this afternoon makes it hard to spin as an off-hand joke.

Aside from Clive representing Big Mining, at the moment he's as well known for his Greens / CIA Conspiracy theory (a blatant lie to draw media attention prior to the Queensland election), his disastrous experiment with a Gold Coast Soccer team, and his stoush with hotel chain Hyatt Regency over the resort at Coolum. 

The man most likely to be the next Treasurer of Australia is having secret meetings with this man. Free advice: if a politician has to meet with one of the Big Mining people, he should pick the least crazy one.

Now, I wonder if Joe can help me with my pay rise debacle...but perhaps I'm being too aspirational.

The Quarks of Ashgrove

This morning’s ReachTEL poll results in Ashgrove could mean many things in terms of the Queensland election, or it could mean nothing. There are two things guaranteed though: it’s incredible PR for ReachTEL, and we can't afford to think of Ashgrove as a single seat. A large chunk of the Queensland election is tied into that one small seat in Brisbane's inner-city.

Where just two months ago, there was almost no way that the ALP could find a victory in Queensland, even with a compass, a map and a team of Sherpas. What’s happened to move what was a slow motion LNP victory to a morning of momentum stories for the ALP’s Kate Jones in Ashgrove? Is the shift specific to Ashgrove, or is there a state-wide lean back towards the left? Does the result in this morning’s Ashgrove poll have the power to influence voters in other seats?

Almost a year ago, when Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell “CanDo” Newman resigned as Mayor to run for the ALP-held seat of Ashgrove, it looked a safe enough strategy. In fairness, back then, Ozzie Ostrich would have stood a fair chance of beating the incumbent, Kate Jones. The strategy was that Mr Newman would be the Leader of the LNP in Queensland, from outside the parliament, until election day, when they would win Ashgrove. The LNP would win the state, and voila: the former Lord Mayor would be the new Premier of Queensland.

Since then, and particularly since Christmas, the landscape has changed.

The extra media attention on Campbell Newman has had more downside than advantage for the LNP in Ashgrove. As former Lord Mayor, he didn’t need to work for name recognition, yet he doesn’t have the advantage of being the incumbent, and media scrutiny has been largely negative. 

Culturally, Ashgrove is an inner Brisbane city seat, and it’s somewhat at odds with the conservative policies of the LNP. Campbell Newman has been very visibly courting the votes of the Christian right, particularly the AFA [ read Madonna King’s story here ] and the ACL. Clearly that’s part of an agenda that has a larger catchment that Ashgrove. In fact, there’s been chatter this week around just how much power the LNP’s “Christian Soldiers” are wielding. The Queensland LNP President, and force behind the Newman campaign, is Bruce McIver, known for his one-track conservative Christian views. He opposes civil unions, gay equality, stem cell research, carbon tax, “socialism”, ethics classes in schools and multiculturalism. This conservative swag of beliefs may play well with traditional LNP voters, but in inner city Brisbane, in a seat held for over 20 years by the ALP, it may be pushing some voters further to the left.

The two big media problems for Newman in the last fortnight are his family finances and civil partnerships. Media has successfully kept a spotlight on the Newman family’s financial dealings, particularly when it involves his time as Lord Mayor, and his in-laws, the Mansours. There are so many suggestions of improper – or even just slightly dodgy – dealings, that Newman can’t outrun them. This week, he’s refused to answer any more questions on the subject, and shut down a media conference when media wouldn’t follow his rules. It begs the question: what’s he hiding? No, really: what’s he hiding? It’s entirely the wrong response. Even if he’s hiding nothing, and just wants media to focus on his policy agenda, refusing to play their games is not the way to win friends during an election campaign. Of course, the coverage has been increasingly suspicious.

Campbell’s comments on Civil Partnerships have been about as consistent as the LNP’s leadership over the past decade. We know that privately, he supports civil unions, but since aligning with the Australian Christian Lobby, and we assume, under the direction of Bruce McIver, Newman has publicly committed to unravelling the civil unions legislation, and potentially dissolving civil unions already entered into. As with the questions about his finances, Newman is becoming frustrated with the media’s attention to the issue, and on his reluctance to provide an answer that is unambiguous. Knowing the conflict between his own views, and those of his political masters casts doubt on what actions he will take, if he ultimately becomes Premier.

And then there are the polls themselves. Today’s Ashgrove ReachTEL poll, and the one before it, have shown the LNP losing ground in Ashgrove. Suddenly it’s not just an Ashgrove issue. If Newman fails to win Ashgrove, he cannot be Premier. The rest of the state now starts looking around at the bank of LNP talent, seeking out an alternate leader to take on the Premiership. Springborg, Flegg, Seeney, Langbroek…this is a new frontier in Australian politics. If the voters support the LNP with the expectation of a Newman-led government, and get an LNP government headed by someone else, someone they may have already rejected in previous elections - have they been betrayed? Crucially, is the fear of that scenario – let’s call it Plan B – enough to swing voters away from the LNP?

Plan C  is likely to make voters even more cautious. If Newman fails to win Ashgrove but the LNP wins Queensland, would the LNP ask a newly elected party member to stand aside immediately, forcing a by-election in which Newman would run? Insiders say yes, and have suggested candidates from Mount Coot-tha (Saxon Rice), Greenslopes (Ian Kaye), Stafford (Chris Davis), Everton (Tim Mander), Ferny Grove (Dale Shuttleworth) and Brisbane Central (Robert Cavallucci) would be first in line. Now, instead of one seat – Ashgrove – being in play, voters in six other seats have reason for concern.

Would the LNP risk the voter backlash caused by having to turn up at the polling booth for the third time in just a couple of months? (Don’t forget, there’s a local government election in April, too.) What if Newman didn’t win that one either…what if…what if…what if…

Bruce McIver’s low-risk strategy of parachuting a sure-thing leader is looking riskier by the minute. Ironically, each sniff of risk increases the risk, like quarks, whose behaviour appears stable when they are being observed, but who, in reality, are impossible to pin down.